15. Shit Has Officially Hit The Fan
shit has officially hit the fan
Solomon
A fist pounding on the door between the rooms wakes us—a thin gray dawn light streams through the open windows, a cool breeze fluttering the translucent curtains.
I roll out of bed and dress swiftly, Scarlett doing the same. The moment we're dressed, I open the door. Inez is on the other side, dressed in fresh clothes, this time with a body armor vest over her shirt. Her hair is wet and braided, the braid twisted into a tight bun at the back of her head. Behind her, Lorenzo is sitting on the bed, lacing up his boots; he’s shirtless, tanned, and scarred.
Inez pushes past me, going to our balcony and peering out. "They've got eyes on the building."
"Not surprising," I say, accepting a vest from Lorenzo as he saunters into the room. "Plan?"
She doesn't answer, gaze raking the street and then the rooftops of the buildings opposite. "Need your suppressed Glock," she snaps.
I slap it into her waiting hand, and she drops to a knee, bracing her support wrist on her knee and aiming carefully. Draws in a breath and then fires once. A black shape on the rooftop directly opposite winks red and slumps out of view.
She hands it back. "That ought to buy us a few minutes. Let's go."
Understanding that she has a plan she's just not sharing with me at this exact moment, I opt to simply trust her, following her out of the room.
Scar is behind me, and Lorenzo brings up the rear, the big bag of goods on his shoulder. We exit the side of the hotel, slipping out a side door. Gone is the truck, in its place, a small van. We pile in and Lorenzo takes the wheel.
We get out of Quito without a problem. About fifteen or twenty miles later, however, we pick up a tail. They stay a few cars back, seeming content to just follow us for now. Lorenzo keeps an eye on them, accelerating and changing lanes, gunning around slower-moving vehicles. The tail makes no effort to be inconspicuous but does keep its distance, staying at least two cars behind us at all times.
A few miles turns into a few hours, and the tail stays on us. When we stop for gas and food, the tail mysteriously vanishes; we make quick time refueling and grabbing food to go, hoping to put some distance between us and the tail. Lorenzo even pulls off the highway and takes a squirrelly route along twisting, winding surface streets before getting back on the highway for the northward journey, but an hour later, the small gray sedan is back, sedately tailing us two cars back.
"Observe and report only, I guess," Lorenzo says. "May as well play along. They'll make their move at some point. We just have to be ready."
"So far, Mercado seems to be playing softball," Inez says, sounding annoyed.
"Softball?" Scarlett echoes, disbelieving.
Inez nods. "He doesn't want a shootout in a big city. He has consistently underestimated us, but he has also been playing to take us alive. Me, mainly. Now that he knows I’m down here, your lives are no longer valuable to him, so expect enemy fire to concentrate on the rest of you. Me, he needs alive. If he didn't, he'd just set up a roadblock and hose us down or light us up with a rocket."
"So we just ignore the tail?” I ask.
Inez nods. "They will move to interdict before we get to Costa Rica. Expect it to be the stiffest resistance we've faced."
"We talked about going to San José, but we never discussed The Darién Gap," Scarlett says.
"I have a contact in a place called Esmeraldas," Lorenzo says. "It’s where we are going."
"I'd noticed we weren't going north," I say. "But you know this area, I don't."
Inez glances at me. "Lorenzo knows many people in many places across Latin America."
"So I've noticed. You're not still working for Brazil, are you?" I ask.
He shakes his head. "No, not for a long time. I am something of a private contractor in the intelligence community."
"So, Esmeraldas," Scarlett says. "What's there?"
"A flight to Puerto Arayas in the Galapagos and then a very long boat ride to Costa Rica,” Lorenzo answers. "Assuming all goes well, which I do not assume it will."
“I’ve had a bad feeling for a while now," Scarlett says. "This has all been too easy so far."
I snort. "As much as I hate to admit it, it has been. For a cartel boss with billions of dollars to blow, we've gotten away with a lot."
Inez sighs. "That is Mercado. He is notorious for his clever cruelty. He likes to let his prey think they've gotten away, only to make his move at the last second, usually when freedom is in sight. He has an uncanny ability to predict the actions of his prey. I expect him to make his real move either before we get to Esmeraldas or in Puerto Arayas." She turns to look at me. "Solomon, I need you to promise me something."
I frown. "I do not like the sound of that."
She retains a blank expression. "You won't like the promise I am about to extract from you, either."
I sigh. "You know I'm a man of my word, Inez. I promised to be loyal to the brotherhood, and while you may not have the brand, you're part of the brotherhood. So I’m loyal to you. I'll give you your promise, and I'll keep it."
Inez stares hard at me for a long time. Slowly, reluctantly, she peels off the bulletproof vest, sets it aside, and then turns in the seat to face me. She lifted her T-shirt up, revealing a black binding garment—like a sports bra, but more compressive. She pulls it down at her left breast, revealing the upper swell of a much larger breast than I’d expected…
And a Broken Arrow brand-tattoo—identical to the one on the inside of my left bicep—midway between the flat of her upper chest and the hint of areola. After baring the brand to me for a few moments, she lets go of the chest binder, lets down her shirt, and puts the vest back on.
"I have the brand. I swore a similar oath as yours, but an oath of leadership. My oath does not contain the prohibition against taking a life. That element came later, after we began the process of choosing a slate of prospects." She lets out a sigh. "So I am part of the brotherhood. Part of the team. I am your leader. The only thing you have sworn to that I have not is the prohibition against killing."
Another long pause.
“You must promise me that when I tell you to, you will let me go. You won’t want to, but you must. This is the promise you must give me, Solomon.”
I wipe my face with both hands. “I promise.” A sigh. “But–”
"Later, Solomon," Inez murmurs. “Later, please."
I nod and say nothing. I glance at Scarlett, and it's clear she shares my overload of questions, but she just shakes her head and shrugs.
A million questions swirl in my head, but it doesn’t seem like the right place or time to ask them. I stare at Inez's profile, trying to put any of the thoughts and questions into words.
We reach Esmeraldas without issue, and the gray sedan never wavers, remaining constantly two cars back. My unease is growing. Surely, if Mercado is going to make a move, it's going to be before we leave the Ecuadorian mainland. Letting us get airborne seems like too big a risk.
Sprawling on the banks of the wide, muddy Rio Esmeraldas, the city is a provincial capital and boasts a small international airport, the northern subcommand station of the Ecuadorian Coast Guard, as well as a naval station. Newer buildings squat against smaller shacks, shops, and restaurants, with cracked but paved roads and bustle of people, none of whom pay us any attention beyond an uninterested glance.
I expect that Lorenzo will take us to the airport, where we'll board a private puddle-jumper. Instead, he drives right up to the main gates of the naval station. Scarlett and I trade nervous glances, but Inez seems perfectly at ease, bored even. Although, that could be an act. Lorenzo chats easily with the guard, discussing someone they both know—the Spanish is too rapid for me to translate on the fly, but I get the gist of it: Lorenzo called ahead and made arrangements with a friend, who seems to be someone fairly high up in the Ecuadorian navy. We’re granted access, and Lorenzo drives us toward a remote section of the base. We get more than a few puzzled looks from sailors and guards, but no one stops us.
A small official-looking vehicle is waiting for us at the end of a pier, a gray sedan much like the one that tailed us all the way to the gates of the naval base—it did a three-point turn and drove away; I caught a glimpse of the driver on the phone.
As we approach the vehicle, a short, stocky man emerges, hat under his arm, which he places on his head the moment he's on his feet. Lorenzo parks, shuts off the engine, and gets out. Inez follows suit, and so Scarlett and I do as well.
Lorenzo approaches the officer—he bears the usual military rank insignias, but I'm unfamiliar with the Ecuadorian versions, so I couldn't say what his rank is. Lorenzo salutes him, receives one in return, and then the two men converse in rapid-fire Spanish—something to do with a delay, pursuit...fuck, my Spanish is so rusty, and the Portuguese-Spanish carryover isn't enough to let me follow men speaking as rapidly as these two are.
"What are they saying?" I ask Scarlett.
"Logistics," she murmurs back. "The plane that was supposed to bring us to the Galapagos got delayed or something. Lorenzo isn't happy, and the officer is promising him that he's working on another solution."
"Great," I mutter.
"I trust Lorenzo," Inez whispers. "You must trust me. All will be well."
"Too bad we can't get them to take us all the way to Costa Rica," I say.
"Indeed," Inez answers. "But not possible. We aren't supposed to be here at all. The officer is an old friend of his, someone he worked closely with many years ago. He’s doing a favor for Lorenzo that carries great risk to his career were he to be discovered. Ecuador has enough trouble with Los Chaneros and does not want the attention of someone like Mercado."
"But this guy is helping us," I ask.
Inez nods. "He owes Lorenzo. I do not know for what. If his superiors knew he was aiding us, fugitives from Mercado, he would face court-martial at best. Most likely, they would just throw him to Mercado and wash their hands of him."
"Jesus. Quite an ex you've got, Inez," I mutter.
She eyes me. "I never divorced him. He is still legally my husband."
"That's gotta burn," I say.
She sighs, nods. "Indeed. I wish to be free of him more than just about anything else."
"Just about?"
She shrugs. "I will not discuss that with you, not here, not now."
"Fair enough."
"So, if you had to put money on where hubby-dearest is gonna make his move..." I prompt.
Inez frowns at me. "I do not feel levity regarding that man is appropriate, Solomon."
I hold up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "My bad, sorry."
Inez lets out a breath, shoulders lifting, pausing, and falling. "Out there. On the water.” She flips a hand in the direction of the sea. “It is the most logical. Consider it. There is nowhere to go. No alleys or buildings or such things to hide in and run down. They can easily surround us and force us to surrender or die. Rafael needs me alive so he can attempt to torture the location of my son out of me, but he knows I will die first. So yes. The attack will come at sea."
"Are we prepared for that?" Scarlett asks.
"To a degree," Inez answers. "It will depend on the scale, location, and manner of the assault and also upon the nature of our transportation. If Lorenzo can obtain a vessel with more robust defensive systems, our chances of survival and escape rise significantly. If we're stuck on a glorified ferry, they plummet in equal proportion."
"So it all comes down to what this guy can pull off," I say. "Sweet. Love being at the mercy of others."
"Indeed," Inez mutters.
After a few more minutes of discussion, Lorenzo saunters over to us, looking less than thrilled. "Bad news and worse news," he says. "Our flight to Galapagos is now a boat ride—that's the bad news. The worse news is that the only ship headed there in the next seventy-two hours that he can put us on is a supply ship."
"What's the likelihood of Mercado attacking an Ecuadorian naval vessel?" Scarlett asks.
"Not high,” Lorenzo admits. "My feeling is he'll wait for us to board the fishing trawler we're taking to Costa Rica. I've kept that as quiet as possible, but we have to assume everyone and everything is compromised. Once we get to the islands, I'll try to pull a switch one way or another, but our options are going to be limited."
"Well," Inez says. "With no good options, we do what we must and work for the best outcome. When does the ship leave?"
The naval officer gestures at Lorenzo.
"Shortly," Lorenzo says. “Let’s go.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, we're on board a supply vessel headed for Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal Island, a journey of anywhere from two to four hours, depending on weather and sea conditions. As we depart, it's a gray, gloomy, damp sort of day, still and oppressively humid. All that changes when we reach the open seas, however.
The wind picks up, and the sullen, leaden skies darken with alarming rapidity, and then the rain begins to patter, slowly and intermittently at first and then with increasing violence.
At the end of an hour, it's obvious we're in for a storm. Upon boarding, the captain of the vessel offered us the use of the crew lounge, but none of us felt it prudent to hide in a safe, warm lounge with an enemy like Mercado after us, so we all opted to stay on deck, scanning the horizon. Lorenzo is in the cockpit, attempting to make contact with someone on San Cristobal, hoping to procure us an alternative means of transportation to San José that Mercado won’t know about.
Judging by Lorenzo's increasingly foul mood, however, he's not having much luck.
As the island approaches—little more than a smudge of darkness emerging from the gloom and rain—we are all soaked, grouchy, and miserable. We haven't seen anything, and our vigilance is feeling wasted, which is a damned dangerous feeling. The second you think it’s safe to let your guard down, shit hits the fan.
The port is on the north side of the island's extreme southwestern tip, and we're making the long, slow arc around the end of the island when we feel the ship's engine cut and our forward momentum slacken.
Out of the blowing curtains of rain, another ship is visible, this one a fishing trawler—long and low, with a sharp high prow and trailing boom arms; it's a dirty vessel, old and battered and small.
Lorenzo approaches, hair plastered to his forehead, rain dripping from the tip of his nose. He leans close to us, yelling as the wind howls. “Radar has spotted several vessels approaching from the northeast. The captain wants us off his ship A-S-A-P. This is our ride." He gestures at the trawler. "We transfer now."
I stare at him. "In this shit?"
Lorenzo tips his head toward the door leading to the interior of the ship—armed personnel stand waiting, glaring in our direction with blank, stony expressions. "Yes, in this shit. At gunpoint."
Waves roll the supply ship, pitching us through several degrees. Rain splatters and is driven in sideways sheets by the relentless wind. Transferring from one vessel to another in conditions like this is a fucking suicide mission—I should know, I’ve done it more than once with SEALs, both in training and during live missions. It's dangerous in the extreme, the kind of thing you only attempt when there's no other choice. And judging by the armed naval personnel watching us, we do not have a choice.
"Fuck." I scrape my hand down my face. "Well, we might as well get it over with."
A rope ladder trails over the side of the ship, dangling several feet above the choppy, white-capped waves. With each roll of the ship, the surface rises and falls at least six feet at a time. A tiny rubber Zodiac boat waits for us, bobbing like a cork; the pilot is skilled, using the outboard motor to adjust position constantly in an attempt to stay near the supply ship so we can make the jump from the ladder to the Zodiac.
Making sure my pistol is secured, I swing a leg over the side and cling to the rope ladder. Immediately, my stomach lurches up into my throat as a massive swell sends the ship bucking upward—at the same time, a ragged blast of harsh wind spews parallel to the ship, sending me swaying sideways, clinging precariously to the rope ladder.
The ship slides down into the trough between waves, which is deep enough that the wind fades. The timing is the trickiest part—I miss the first opportunity and have to ride the ladder up the crest and back down again, watching the tiny target of the Zodiac bobbing as the pilot frantically adjusts, trying to stay close enough to the bucking, storm-tossed ship for me to make the jump.
At some point, you have to just jump and hope, and that's what I do—at the bottom of the trough, the Zodiac is a couple of feet away, rising as the ship falls; I leap, and the rubber slams into me, knocking the air of me. Frigid seawater sloshes over me as I roll further into the little boat; a strong hand grabs my collar and helps haul me upright, choking, coughing, and spluttering, trying to get my breath while clearing brine from my mouth and throat.
From here, the supply ship is a massive wall of metal, and I have renewed respect for the Zodiac pilot, who is so skillfully keeping the rubber craft mere feet from hundreds of tons of metal. The supply ship skates down the side of a wave while we perch on the crest of another, and I see Scarlett clinging to the rope ladder midway down the side of the ship, watching over her shoulder. Like me, she rides through the first dip, tracking the differential between the movement of the two crafts, and then, at the bottom, as the ship passes the Zodiac, she leaps. Landing heavily on the side of the boat, she clings desperately to the handhold, shaking her head as seawater sluices over her. I haul her in and drag her over to me.
Inez is next, and of course, she makes it look easy, landing catlike directly in the belly of the Zodiac. Lorenzo is last, and he almost misses, managing a single handhold, the rest of him in the ocean. All three of us drag him in, spluttering and hacking.
No more bag of goodies—there was no way to bring it with us on the switch.
That's just the first part.
Now we have to cross several hundred feet of open ocean in the middle of a storm in a dinky little rubber boat, and then transition again to the trawler, which is in some ways even harder, as you have to get close enough to grab the ladder.
Fortunately, the trawler is smaller, with a low lip, and the jump isn't terribly difficult—we all make it without issue, and then we help the pilot get the Zodiac hooked up to one of the boom arms and winched out of the sea and on board.
Soaked, exhausted, and miserable, we gratefully allow the trawler crew to guide us down into the ship's belly, where it's warm and dry. We're given towels and steaming mugs of thick black coffee as the trawler's engines rumble and rattle to life.
As we huddle together around a small table in the mess area, I lean close to Lorenzo. "What kind of fishing trawler has a Zodiac and a pilot of that caliber?"
He sips coffee. "The kind that's not trawling for fish."
Smugglers, then, likely, or pirates…or some of both. Maybe they even do some real fishing for appearances, but fish aren't their primary source of income, that's for damn sure.
"When Mercado makes his move, will they help us or throw us to the wolves?" I ask.
Lorenzo shrugs. "Who knows? Fifty-fifty chance, even with hefty compensation."
For several hours, then, it's quiet. We slowly dry off and warm up, and the crew leaves us mostly alone, except to offer us more coffee, hearty stew, and cigarettes.
We all take the opportunity to doze.
I notice that when Inez nods off, her head rests on Lorenzo's shoulder.
Inez has a son.
What a fucking world.
Scarlett rouses from a catnap, blinking and stretching. "Remember that bad feeling I said I’ve had for a long time?"
I nod. “Yeah."
"It's going apeshit right now. I've got a feeling shit's about to hit the fan." She pulls her Glock out and sets about stripping and cleaning it.
I do the same, and soon, both Inez and Lorenzo are awake and doing the same thing.
One of the crew members tromps down the stairs. He's older, with salt and pepper hair buzzed close to his scalp, a thick bushy beard splayed on his chest, wearing a yellow rubber slicker. "Vessels come. Bad men. We fight. You come."
Without a word, we follow him topside—the storm has abated some in the last couple hours, the waves now merely rollers, the wind slackening, the once-brutal rain more of an all-pervading wetness in the air. A grizzled bear of a man is at a storage locker, handing out AK-47s—we all accept one and a couple of spare mags. Besides the four of us, there are six men on the crew, not counting the captain, who stays in the cockpit. He has no intention of stopping, regardless of what happens.
By unspoken agreement, we all take up positions at the stern together while the rest of the crew ranges around the sides and bow.
For a few minutes, it's just us and the waves and the wind. And then a shape cuts out of the misty gloom, a long, low, sleek black speedboat skipping across the surface. The moment they're in range, one of the crew opens fire.
Shit has officially hit the fan.