War to the Knife (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 9) Read online

  Flanagan knew what kind of men the likes of Clemente would surround himself with. Some of them might be naïve idealists, but those were actually very rare in real guerrilla movements. Most of them were unrepentant, vicious thugs, and from what he could see, these three definitely fit that description.

  Not that it mattered that much in the long run. The naïve idealists quickly became the most bloodthirsty killers.

  He didn’t let himself slip into a dangerous contempt that would make him underestimate the threat they posed, even given their unprofessional behavior in the bush. They thought they were secure, believed that they had no enemies close enough to worry about. He was sure that if they’d believed there was a threat nearby, they would have been much more watchful.

  Flanagan had learned a long time ago never to underestimate how dangerous an undertrained but cunning enemy could be. They might not be good, but a spray of automatic weapons fire can still kill you just as dead if you get sloppy through contempt.

  They waited, still and silent, until the Green Shirt patrol had passed and was out of sight and out of earshot. Only then did the pair of them get to their feet and continue on toward their objective.

  The farm’s position and the lack of commanding terrain around it meant they had to move right up to the treeline. The sun was already behind the mountains to the west, but between the dying light of early evening and the spotlights set up around the farmhouse, they could see well enough.

  There were a lot more Green Shirts here. Flanagan counted easily twice the numbers that had been at the Fuentes farm in the first few minutes. And instead of lounging around in a central location, they were spread out across the farm.

  Several of the Green Shirts were posted up on hastily-erected guard towers, overlooking the laborers who were planting coca plants in place of whatever crops had previously been grown here. Several of them were armed with PKMs or M60s. The rest carried the same polyglot mix of M16s, AKs, and Galils that he’d seen at Fuentes’s place.

  The farmhouse itself was similarly surrounded by technicals and guards. But something else drew his gaze after a moment.

  A spike had been driven into a tree just in front of the farmhouse. A man hung from the spike by his shackled wrists, his head bowed to his chest, dressed in only shorts and a white t-shirt. At least, it had been a white t-shirt. It was drenched in blood. The man wasn’t moving.

  Bright lights shone from a hastily erected shelter off to one side of the farmhouse. More laborers worked in there, unloading chemicals from a truck parked just outside. The coca crop wasn’t remotely ready for harvest yet, but it appeared that they were preparing the processing facility already. More armed Green Shirts watched the unloading, hands on their weapons.

  The coca farms were going to be tougher nuts to crack. But Flanagan didn’t think that they’d be the first targets. Or even actionable targets at all. If they could break the Green Shirts, this might go away in the aftermath.

  But there was a lot of work to be done before that could happen.

  He watched as one of the laborers—little more than a kid—dropped one of the bags of chemicals as he tried to carry it from the back of the truck. The bag looked like it weighed more than half what he did. But the nearest Green Shirt guard stepped in and hit the kid in the kidney with his rifle butt as he bent over the fallen sack. When he didn’t get the reaction he wanted, he hit the kid again. The boy crumpled, and the Green Shirt started kicking him.

  Flanagan was aimed in, gritting his teeth, his finger hovering near the trigger, but he forced himself to lower his weapon. Engaging now meant compromise, and they couldn’t afford that. As much as he wanted to save the kid, he wouldn’t do any of the enslaved citizens of San Tabal and its environs any good if he got them all killed.

  He’d seen enough. Together, he and Cruz faded back into the jungle.

  Chapter 10

  Galvez didn’t usually carry a cell phone with him. He had a radio if any of his Green Shirts—he already thought of them as his Green Shirts; they answered to him before Clemente, anyway—needed to contact him. But he had this particular phone for certain special purposes. He only powered it up once every few days.

  This time, there was a text message waiting once the old phone finished booting up and found the weak cell signal in San Tabal. Several of the local cell companies had cut off their service to the area after the Green Shirts’ revolution.

  He’d find a way to make them pay for that. Once the revolution was established and impregnable.

  The message was short and succinct. There’s a problem. Contact me ASAP.

  Galvez’s English was better than he liked most people to believe. It seemed somehow to clash with his image as a revolucionario to speak the language of the hated Estados Unidos. He played up that image deliberately, even as he held those who thought it important in contempt. Power and the ultimate triumph of the revolution were his goals. The little ideological purity tests that most revolutionaries got wrapped up in only infuriated him.

  There was only one phone number programmed into the little Nokia. It took a couple seconds before it was ringing.

  “You need to take some extra security steps.” The American didn’t bother with pleasantries. He never had. Galvez didn’t especially care, though he still bristled slightly at this gringo’s arrogance. “I’ve received indicators that my instructions might not have been followed to the letter.”

  “How so?” Galvez kept his own voice flat, even as his mind raced. Had Clemente’s suspicions been right? The arrangement had been that the American would send a small, deniable team that would play its part in the plan and ask no questions. The American’s cousin would then receive a greater cut of the cocaine profits, while the American himself would be able to play up his reputation as being tough on terrorism, at least behind closed doors. Galvez and Ballesteros would still rule San Tabal with an iron fist, all the while pretending to be more reasonable than Clemente.

  But if the Americans were digging…

  “The team might have left early. They were given a strict timeline, but one of the coordinator’s assets went south only a few days ago. It’s possible that they’re sniffing around instead of just doing what they’re told.” The annoyance in the American’s voice was obvious. Killers were supposed to do what he told them to, not think for themselves.

  “And how do I know that you didn’t send them ahead, and are warning me only to put my mind at ease, to assure me that you have not decided to go back on our arrangement?” Galvez was thinking hard. If the gringo had double-crossed them, he might have to take drastic steps, more quickly than he’d anticipated. “How do I know that this call is not simply intended to make me think that your subordinates disobeyed you when we find evidence of American special forces moving on San Tabal?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We have an arrangement.”

  “Which might be inconvenient for you in the future. But I warn you, American, that the revolution is not easily betrayed. We will find these Americans, if they are here. And when we interrogate them, and find out that you sent them to undermine us, then we will make sure that you pay the price. That might only require a release of information. Or it might cost you much, much more.” He hung up.

  Frowning, he stared at the phone for a moment. He would have to proceed carefully. Clemente still had a certain hold over many of the Green Shirts, and he was already paranoid. Admitting that the Americans had, in fact, infiltrated their territory, after assuring the disgraced general that he was jumping at shadows, might easily backfire. At best, Clemente would accuse him—him—of incompetence. At worst, he would see a betrayal.

  The fact that betrayal was, in fact, in motion only made his situation that much more dangerous.

  He returned the phone to its hiding place and picked up his radio. “Avispa, this is Galvez. Come to my quarters.” He didn’t wait for an acknowledgement, but put the radio back on his desk and paced the room, tapping his fingers against the butt of the
Jericho on his hip.

  The small man known as Avispa, or “Wasp,” knocked on his door a few minutes later. “You wanted to see me, Compadre?” The gimlet-eyed little man had been by Galvez’s side through battles across Central and South America for the last decade. He’d killed more men—and women—than Galvez, though he held that lead by only a few.

  “We might have some trouble coming.” Galvez stopped his pacing and moved to the map he’d pinned up on the wall. “We’ll have to step up our patrols in the hinterlands around the city.”

  Avispa’s eyes narrowed. “We only have so many men, and we haven’t gotten as many recruits from the slums as we’d hoped. Increasing the patrols will cut down on the forces we have available to maintain our hold on the city.”

  “I know.” Galvez’s eyes were hard as flint. “So, before we send them out, we will have to make some examples.” He smiled, the expression as dead and predatory as a shark’s. “Terror has a quantitative quality all its own.”

  ***

  “If they’re holding hostages, we’re going to have to move fast, once this starts.” Brannigan frowned down at the map that Flanagan had marked up following their reconnaissance. The black-bearded man still had camouflage facepaint on, and looked exhausted. He and Cruz had just gotten back to Pacheco’s farm less than an hour before. It was well past midnight.

  “There’s only so fast we’ll be able to move without overextending ourselves.” Wade stood at the other side of the table, his icy blue eyes fixed on the same markings. “I think that taking one farm at a time might be our best bet.”

  “The people in the city will suffer for it.” Pacheco wasn’t arguing from where he stood, his arms crossed. He was simply stating facts. “The Green Shirts will not let such a challenge go unanswered.”

  “I didn’t figure they would, but we don’t have a lot of options, at least not until we can recruit and equip more of a local force. Unless the National Army wants to step in, but if they’re more worried about the Venezuelans intervening…” Brannigan glowered at the map as if the entire situation offended him. That was another problem. He was worried about the Colombians. They hadn’t interfered with Clemente’s seizure of the city, but that kind of indecision could only last so long. A shooting war in their own backyard might just stir some Colombian politicians to action, and then the Blackhearts could end up caught between the hammer and the anvil.

  “Fuentes is one of the bigger farmers around here, right?” Burgess had been quiet so far, but there was one thing Brannigan had learned about the quiet man. He was always listening and thinking. That was in marked contrast to their other SEAL, Jenkins, but Burgess was older, and had been around the block. “If they’re keeping such a small security element on his place and focusing more on the new coca farms, might there be some smaller farmers who’ve gone relatively untouched?”

  “There should be.” Cruz sounded as tired as he looked. Despite his background, like Pacheco, he was no spring chicken. “We didn’t have time to check on any of them. They’ll be afraid, though. Most of them have nowhere to flee if the Green Shirts come burn them out, and I’m sure the threat has been put out there. Clemente doesn’t have the men to rule except through terror.”

  “We’d have to be careful, then, but I’d be willing to bet that we can find a few who might lend a hand.” Brannigan was thinking in terms not only of manpower and firepower—the latter would necessarily be limited, at least at first. Pacheco had a surprising amount of weapons, ammunition, and gear squirreled away, but it wouldn’t be enough to arm and equip more than a handful. They’d have to capture some from the Green Shirts. But more importantly, the local farmers would know the ground. “Even if we can recruit ones and twos, get them to drift away into the jungle where we can stage for a follow-on attack, it’ll help.”

  “I still think that Fuentes’s farm would be the best starting place.” Flanagan had seen the place, but more importantly, he was a thinker, too. “If Fuentes is the pillar of the community that Cruz says he is, then freeing him and his family will give the locals a leader to rally around. Especially if most of the high-profile citizens in San Tabal itself have been executed or imprisoned. And I think that we can fortify his house and use it as a better—and closer—base of operations.”

  “There’s one problem in all of this.” Bianco sounded almost apologetic. “And that’s our original mission. We’ve been approaching this as if we’ve got to liberate San Tabal all by ourselves, but what if we’re really just one piece of the puzzle? I mean, we got a time and a place that the target’s supposed to be, along with a description to make sure we whack the right guy.” He looked around at the rest of the team. “Are we really that sure that we should be going off the reservation already? What if there really is another unit here, ready to move in as soon as Clemente gets taken off the board?”

  Flanagan looked at Pacheco. “If there was another unit in the area, there should be some indicators. Have you seen any?”

  The older man shook his head. “No. You’re the first. And yes, I’d hear if anyone were sniffing around, unless they were very, very stealthy. Which isn’t impossible, but it seems a little unlikely.”

  Brannigan’s frown deepened, and he stroked his mustache. “Unfortunately, Vinnie’s got a point. We don’t know what’s supposed to happen after we kill Clemente. There might be a follow-on plan. Or, this might be one of those Good Idea Fairy ops, where somebody picks the figurehead whose death is supposed to end everything magically, just assuming that the rest of the bad guys will just kind of fade away after their leader goes down.” He grimaced. “We’ve only seen that a few dozen times before.”

  His eyes narrowed as he thought. “H-Hour is coming up fast.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got just over a week before the hit’s supposed to go down.”

  Wade looked thoughtful. He glanced at Pacheco. “How much have you found out about the Green Shirts’ leadership, aside from Clemente? Does he have mid-level cronies, or is this a one-man, cult of personality sort of thing?”

  “He’s got at least two lieutenants.” Pacheco didn’t sound entirely certain. “At least, he’s been seen with Diego Galvez and Julio Ballesteros. Ballesteros is a local rancher and sometime politician. The man doesn’t have an honest bone in his body. Galvez is another matter. He’s a foreigner—some say he’s Panamanian, others Argentinian. He has a reputation, though. He’s a killer. He’s wanted from Mexico to Brazil.”

  “Regular murderer kind of killer, or ‘revolutionary’ kind of killer?” Brannigan suspected he knew, but he had to ask the question.

  “The man’s a terrorist and a professional revolutionary. He’s been involved with FARC and ELN in the past. As far as anyone knows, he had actually assumed a fairly high-level leadership position in the FARC just before the peace deal.” From the tone of Cruz’s voice, Brannigan suspected that Galvez had been on the AFEAU’s target deck more than once.

  “Men like that don’t usually get involved in cult of personality operations.” Wade spoke with dead certainty. “Hell, he’s probably waiting in the wings to take over if Clemente gets killed. He might even have a plan to do it himself.”

  Brannigan thought hard. Finally, he leaned on the table, making the entire thing creak with his weight. “Okay, as I see it, we’ve got two options. We can continue to run recon, develop the situation, and see if we can recruit a few of the locals so we can get a better grasp on the situation and get into a better position to take down the Green Shirts as a whole and secure the city. Or, we can go with the plan we were handed at the outset, set up as instructed, off Clemente, and fade, hoping that there is, in fact, a follow-on plan.” He sighed. “I can get in touch with Carlo and see if he can get Van Zandt to discreetly inquire about any such follow-on. It might not work, but it’s better than sitting here in the dark, assuming.”

  “There’s a third option,” Flanagan pointed out. “We prep for both. It shouldn’t take all of us to spring an ambush on a motorcade, especially not
if we can get some explosives.” He glanced at Pacheco, who nodded. He had some, or else he knew how to get them.

  “That might be our best bet.” Brannigan looked around at the rest of the team. “All right. George, Vinnie, Herc, and I will prep for the ambush. In the meantime, the rest of you keep running recon and see if you can get a few of the smaller local farmers on board, with an eye on liberating the Fuentes farm as a central base for the resistance.

  “In the meantime, I’ve got a call to make.”

  Chapter 11

  The sun was just coming up when the Green Shirts stormed the little shop. The colorful sign plastered to the white stucco advertised “Productos de Limpieza.” Flowers bloomed in the blue-painted window boxes above the street.

  Galvez climbed out of his truck and stood by the hood, his Jericho still in its holster, as his gunmen smashed the door in and rushed inside. The sounds of shouts, thumps, and breaking glass resounded from the interior of the store as the Green Shirts smashed things randomly on the way toward the stairs at the back, which would lead them up to the apartment above.

  Screams had already begun to resound from the upper windows as boots clattered on the stairs. More rough shouts followed, and a female voice was raised in a wail, suddenly cut off. Galvez took a long pull on his cigarette as he glanced up at the darkened windows on the second story. He hoped that they hadn’t killed anyone yet. This needed to be public.

  It took several minutes for the Green Shirts to drag the storekeeper and his family out onto the street. The storekeeper stumbled between two of them, in his t-shirt and shorts, looking a little dazed. Two men dragged the wife between them, her head hanging, blood dripping from her face. She was alive, but a blow from a rifle butt had silenced her screaming, at least for the moment.