A Touch of Malice (22 page)

The Americans’ bodies had jerked from side to side as the bullets pounded their torsos. With all the noise, Vargas couldn’t tell if the enemy had even fired back. Finally, after a full sixty-second assault, Vargas raised his hand and the firing halted.

There was complete silence. Vargas’s ears were ringing. The Camenos began to approach the nest, weapons forward, heads on a swivel. Vargas fought through drooping branches and over fallen logs until he reached the American graveyard. With the muzzle of his rifle, he brushed aside a long branch to expose the carnage.

Vargas had to blink a couple of times to be certain his vision hadn’t failed him. There were six men crumpled in all different angles from the barrage of bullets their bodies had absorbed. Blood saturated their camouflage clothes. But something was very wrong. The men had their hands tied behind their backs and socks stuffed in their mouths which were wrapped with tape. Their faces were so mangled it was hard to distinguish their features. His men stood frozen as he rolled over one of the bodies and examined the man’s face. It was his second-in-command. The man who had just fired countless bullets into the nest.

Vargas searched the rest of their faces and realized they were all his men tied up and gagged. His blood pressure dropped to nothing, while his throat tightened. He could feel the stares of the soldiers around him. He had to force himself to look to his right and see the stranger pull off his ski mask.

“I don’t . . .” Vargas mumbled. “Who are—”

“Nick Bracco,” the man said. “You must be the first wave of morons who were sent to ambush us.”

Vargas felt lightheaded. First he searched the faces of the other men he thought were his soldiers only to discover they were just as foreign to him as the first one. Then he looked down at the corpses wondering how he could’ve heard them speaking.

Bracco bent over and picked up a small box. He held it up to reveal an open side with a funnel-shaped cone. Then he showed Vargas a remote control that he carried in his other hand. He pushed a button on the remote and a recorded voice yelled, “No!”

“Courtesy of FBI Agent Stevie Gilpin,” Bracco said.

Vargas’s knees were wobbly. A man to his left snatched the rifle from his hand and examined it.

“Pretty old,” the man said. “And the sight is crooked.”

“Every sight is crooked to you,” Bracco said.

“Nevertheless.”

Vargas had a million questions. “What the—”

“Shut up,” Bracco said. “Be grateful you’re alive.”

Vargas said nothing

“How far to the camp?” Bracco said.

Vargas half-turned toward camp, then recovered. “You will never make it there alive.”

Bracco nodded. “We know. We have to try anyway.”

“Why? The president’s brother is certainly dead by now.”

“Because we have a job to do. Now point us in the proper direction and we’ll keep you alive. Otherwise, my partner here . . .”

The man next to Vargas held up his rifle and winked.

Vargas knew this crew of six would never make it past the type of security protecting the camp. Between the motion-activated cameras and the sentries, Padilla would be waiting for them with enough manpower to destroy a team three times this size. Vargas pointed in the exact direction of the camp.

“That’s all I needed,” Bracco said. He nodded to someone behind Vargas.

A moment later everything in Vargas’s world went black.

Chapter 27

Pablo Moreno couldn’t take his eyes from the monitor. For some reason he was mesmerized by this stranger who was brash enough to come to his office and offer him protection from his own soldiers. President Merrick was already in Bogota and yet Moreno was compelled to find out more about this man.

Tommy stood in the lobby of Moreno’s office and spoke with one of his men with a grin on his face, as if he was catching up with an old friend. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder and had the soldier nodding in agreement with whatever he was saying.

Moreno’s elevator chimed. A moment later the doors opened and his two security guards aimed their guns at Anthony as he greeted his fellow Camenos.

Moreno wasn’t sure what Anthony had brought him, but for some reason he felt better hearing it alone. He waved his guards toward the door. “Go ahead and take a coffee break.”

The men didn’t argue. They promptly left the room, leaving just Anthony and Moreno.

“What do you have for me?” Moreno asked as his soldier approached the desk.

Anthony handed Moreno three sheets of paper which were stapled together. “Here you go, El Patron.”

Moreno snatched the papers from Anthony and read the report from his contact at the United States embassy. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He glanced up and saw a sly grin of excitement on Anthony’s face.

“You did good,” Moreno said, as he delved deeper into the file. Tommy’s full name was Thomas Bracco. He was a member of the Capelli crime family in Baltimore, Maryland, until Mr. Capelli’s house was destroyed by a Kurdish terrorist who was bombing random homes throughout the United States a few years back. After that, Tommy had spent time in Nairobi, Kenya, assisting with an orphanage for kids with AIDS. He also helped raise money for psychological counseling for returning soldiers from the Middle East.

The hobby which Moreno found most interesting was Tommy’s assistance with his cousin, FBI agent Nick Bracco. Apparently, Agent Bracco was the top counterterrorist agent for the FBI and Tommy helped track down terrorists using his contacts within the underground. It did not stretch the imagination to assume Agent Bracco was currently heading the rescue team now in the Amazon searching for the president’s brother.

Moreno looked up at Anthony. He flicked the sheets of paper with the tip of his index finger. “This is incredible.”

“Truly, it is.”

Moreno scanned the file once more finding it overwhelmingly detailed. His bribes with the embassy had gone to good use. “Well, Anthony. I think it’s time we put an end to this charade.”

“Mr. Moreno,” Anthony said. “May I be the one who takes care of this?”

Moreno smiled at the enthusiasm. “Of course.” He pointed to the door. “You go get him right now and we’ll have a quick chat before you dispose of him.”

Anthony left and Moreno motioned to his two security guards who peeked their heads in. “Make sure he doesn’t need help.” As the guards were leaving, he added, “Don’t let him know you’re checking up on him. Let him do it on his own if he can.”

Moreno returned to the report about Tommy’s past. He found himself smiling at the guy’s acumen. Tommy seemed to have a noble streak in him, very much like Moreno himself. The guy operated on the wrong side of the law, but the law still sought him out for this operation.

The door opened and Tommy walked in, his eyes going to the briefcase still on Moreno’s desk.

“I see you’re ready to pay up,” Tommy said, the toothpick moving up and down from the corner of his mouth.

As Anthony followed Tommy in the doorway, Moreno pointed to the seat in front of his desk. “Sit down, Mr. Bracco.”

Tommy glanced over his shoulder and saw the two security guards with their hands on their guns and Anthony with a knife in his hand. The man’s shoulders slumped with resignation as he took his seat and crossed his legs with a sense of dignity.

“That was fast,” Tommy said.

“Indeed,” Moreno said. “You know, I admire you. Really.”

“That’s very nice of you.”

“Just one thing. What were you hoping to accomplish?”

Tommy half-shrugged. “I don’t know. Try to find out as much about your operation as possible, I guess.”

“So all that stuff you knew about me . . . that came from a government file?”

Tommy nodded.

Moreno leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “So did you discover anything interesting?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.”

“I bet I would.” Moreno wished there could be a way to rehabilitate such a gutsy soul, but he knew that was an impractical scenario. “We both know you have to die, right?”

There was a sense of acceptance in the man’s eyes, as if he knew this was coming and was relieved to be finally getting there. “Sure,” he said. “And I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Pablo, but my cousin will be down here to kill you soon afterward.”

Moreno smiled. “He won’t be the first to try.”

“But he’ll be the last.”

Moreno looked past Tommy to the bar in the back of the room. “Before you go, however, what can I offer you to drink?”

Tommy looked up to the ceiling, as if in deep thought. “How about a shot of Tequila?”

Moreno gestured to Anthony who poured tequila into a shot glass, then brought it over to Tommy. The gangster held it up high in a mock salute. “It’s been a great ride. I have no regrets.” As he tossed the shot down his throat, Anthony came up from behind and stabbed him in the chest, plunging the knife deep into his torso. The shot glass fell to the floor and bounced a couple of times before coming to rest.

Tommy was obviously stunned by the attack and immediately looked down at the front of his white shirt. The blood spread outward quickly. It was a shot to his heart. Tommy made a vain attempt to pull the knife from his chest, but it was too late. Even as he groped at the knife handle, his body had lost all its fight. It was only seconds. Anthony pulled him from the chair, his right hand still forcing the knife into Tommy’s chest as he dragged him backward into the open elevator.

Tommy’s body was literally dead weight in Anthony’s arms. Moreno looked at his security guards. “Are you going to help him?”

But Anthony had already pushed the button and the doors closed.

“Do not get any blood in my elevator,” Moreno shouted, then he looked over at his security guards who watched the entire scene as if watching a boxing match. “Next time show a little ambition, please.”

The two men began to move around toward the elevator.

“Not now,” Moreno barked. He was fortunate to have a few sharp men in his fold, but it was obvious he needed more. Moreno shook his head and said, “Get the men together. We leave in ten minutes. I have another victim waiting for me.”

* * *

Nick wiped the moisture from his forehead not knowing where the rain began and the sweat ended. They were heading in the right direction, but needed to shred through limbs and branches and step through soft ground which sometimes swallowed their legs up to their knees. They’d only gone a hundred yards in the past thirty minutes and Nick felt they needed to pick up the pace.

Matt was next to him trudging through the same terrain, a rifle in his arms. They all wore their headsets, but kept the communication to a minimum.

“I don’t see the SEALs,” Matt said.

“That’s probably a good thing,” Nick said.

“You think Trent’s alive?”

“No,” Nick said. “But we owe it to the president to bring his body back. That’s probably what he wanted from the beginning. Have some closure.”

They plodded further into the darkness. Even though it was almost noon, the rainforest canopy had closed over them like a permanent structure.

“I don’t like it,” Matt said. “We’re too low.”

Nick saw a mild rise in the landscape to the right. He pointed. Kalinikov was already ahead of them, going that direction.

Matt headed toward the Russian. Nick followed.

“This isn’t Baltimore, is it?” Matt said.

“No.”

“I mean, you and me, we have a set rhythm. But it takes concrete to make that work.” Matt lifted his foot from the sludge, mud dripping from his boots. “Really?”

They moved together, their eyes darting every direction at once.

“How many do you think we’re facing?” Matt asked. “Twenty? Thirty?”

“Fifty.”

“Man, you’re a real downer sometimes, you know that?”

Nick’s facial tremor began to pulsate. He touched his cheek to settle it down, but it didn’t help. He focused on his breathing. One step. A breath. One step. A breath.

“They know we’re here,” Nick said. “Why haven’t they engaged us yet?”

“Because they’re digging in.” Matt pointed to a rise in the terrain. “Up in that high ground.”

In his ear, Lieutenant Bret Olson, said, “Get down.”

Nick and Matt dropped to their knees, then crouched behind a large tree.

“Three o’clock from your position, Matt,” Olson said. “I can’t get a clear shot. It’s too dense.”

Matt army-crawled to his right. Nick watched him set up on his stomach. His left eye shut. His right eye pressed against his scope.

“Two hundred yards,” Matt whispered. “I’ve got him.”

“Wait until we have better position,” Olson said to the team. “We’re going to be exposed for the next ninety seconds. You got us?”

“Yes,” both Kalinikov and Matt spoke together.

Nick poked his head out from the tree and examined the landscape through his field glasses. There was movement to his left, away from him. He couldn’t focus on the movement too well because it was so close.

He pulled down the glasses and saw the animal just thirty yards away. A puma. The creature was crouched forward, head low, prowling through the jungle. Its sleek frame in attack mode.

“We have a problem,” Nick said.

“I see it,” Kalinikov said. “Stay still. Matt, you stay trained on your three o’clock.”

Matt was perfectly quiet. The sniper at work. His target in the crosshairs.

The puma had sniffed something and was inching toward them.

“Guys,” Nick said, his rifle trained on the animal.

“Getting there,” Olson said. “Do not shoot until we’re ready.”

The puma had his nose in the air now. Nick couldn’t tell if they were downwind. There was no wind. Just a mild mist and tree limbs bending from the weight of the rainfall.

The puma’s piercing yellow eyes locked onto Nick, like he was assessing his next meal. Nick couldn’t afford to fire a shot and give away their position, so he placed the rifle down and groped for his knife.

“Steady,” Kalinikov said in his ear.

The animal’s prowl quickening.

Twenty yards.

Nick’s hand trembled as he found the handle of his knife without ever taking his eyes from the puma.