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  Watching the pistol pressed against Abner’s skull, Bolan stepped out onto the narrow trail, his own SIG dangling at his side.

  “Where are the others?” his adversary demanded.

  “No others. Just me.”

  “You’re lying! Where are they?”

  Bolan shrugged. “Maybe behind you. Maybe to your left or right.”

  “I want to see them all!”

  “They see you,” Bolan told him. “That’s enough.”

  He didn’t understand what the gunman said next, but it didn’t sound like a compliment, based on the tone. “You want this one alive, you let us go.”

  “Not happening.”

  “And if I kill him?”

  “Think about it.”

  “You kill me, eh? But you still don’t have him, if he’s dead.”

  “It’s your call, if you’d rather die,” Bolan said.

  He could see the shooter thinking, almost heard the wheels turning inside his head, considering his narrow range of options. Finally, he said, “You think I’m more afraid of you than of o chefe? Stupid gringo.”

  Bolan saw it coming, dropped into a half crouch as his pistol rose and locked onto its target, half a face exposed just to the right of Abner Cronin’s gaping visage, but he couldn’t beat the twitch of his opponent’s index finger. Muffled slightly by the weapon’s muzzle being pressed against his head, the kill shot shattered Cronin’s skull and sprayed the foliage to his left with crimson just as Bolan fired.

  His shot was dead on target, with the emphasis on dead. The man who had been using Abner as a shield a heartbeat earlier slumped backward, dying even as he toppled to the ground. Cronin, released to gravity’s embrace, collapsed beside his killer’s corpse, a final pose of intimacy for the slayer and the slain.

  Cursing, Bolan stripped off the gunman’s camo shirt, used it to wrap the missionary’s shattered skull, then hoisted Abner in a fireman’s carry for the long hike back to Mercy Cronin and the clearing where’d he’d left her, now a widow.

  Cold Camp, Mato Grosso

  MERCY WASN’T THERE. His time transporting Abner had been wasted, Bolan saw, as he let the body drop. He moved around the clearing, trying to decide how long she had been gone, and finally concluded that she must have followed him that morning—or attempted to.

  Stupid!

  If she’d been close behind him, Bolan knew he would have noticed her—or would he? Concentrating on the search for Abner, caught up in a skirmish with the first party of hunters, Bolan wondered if Mercy could have been following along unnoticed, far enough behind that he hadn’t heard her.

  Maybe.

  The only other possibility was that she’d run off on her own—trying to find the mission on another course she had chosen at random—and got lost. In either case, she’d graduated from a mere annoyance to an obstacle that might derail his mission, if he let it.

  Standing in the forest clearing with a dead man at his feet, Bolan almost decided to dismiss the vanished widow from his mind and press on with his mission. Leave her to the jungle and the elements to meet whatever fate might lie in store for her.

  Almost.

  But when he thought about it for another moment—more time lost that he couldn’t regain—Bolan knew he couldn’t face himself tomorrow if he didn’t make one final effort to pull Mercy Cronin out of the dilemma she’d created for herself, before it was too late.

  One absolutely final effort, right, and no mistake. He wasn’t in the Amazon to babysit an addlepated dilettante or self-appointed Joan of Arc. One more attempt to help her, and if Bolan could not find her—or if she persisted on a path toward self-destruction—he would let her go.

  The only path that led away from camp was the same one he’d followed earlier that morning, on his way to Mercy Mission. Bolan couldn’t pick out any footsteps trailing his, but he had no other choice. He couldn’t simply pick a random compass point and start his search from there. If Mercy hadn’t followed him, though he suspected she had, she was well and truly gone.

  As he approached the point where he had jumped the first column of Braga’s hunters, Bolan picked out signs of someone else leaving the trail, breaking away from the established line of the march. Had that been Mercy, maybe frightened when the shooting had started?

  Once again, he couldn’t say for sure, but played the likely odds and followed where the signs led, on a tangent from the trail and off into the forest. Keeping oriented with his compass and the GPS, he hiked another mile and change before the solitary runner’s path met that of men marching in numbers, likely yet another team from Joaquim Braga’s camp.

  And when that column’s trail went on no farther, when it doubled back, Bolan knew where he had to go. It might be hopeless, but he had to try.

  Chapter 10

  Condor Acampamento

  The prefab shed was roughly eight feet wide and five feet deep, its peaked roof maybe seven feet above the flat dirt floor. Its green aluminum walls had no windows, and its only door was padlocked on the outside. Likely guarded too, as far as Mercy Cronin knew.

  The good news: she was still alive and hadn’t suffered any injury so far. Despite horrendous threats of rape and mutilation offered up with mocking laughter by her captors, she had not been touched so far, except when one of Joaquim Braga’s men had clutched her arm and dragged her to the shed that was her prison cell.

  The bad news: waiting for the drug lord and his men to carry out their threats was driving her out of her mind.

  She wanted Abner, Matthew Cooper—someone—to save her from the gruesome, agonizing fate that lay in front of her. The worst part, to her mind, was that she had already given Braga all the information she possessed. No one in law enforcement or from any covert agency had sponsored Mercy Mission to spy against the Braga syndicate. She barely knew Matt Cooper, and while she’d given up his name—a bid to save herself—she couldn’t tell her captors who had sent him here. She simply didn’t know.

  And Braga thought she was lying.

  Hence the intermission, while he turned his thoughts to what he called her “special treatment.” Based on her “refusal to cooperate,” he had decided she must serve as an example to his men and to a visitor whom Braga clearly wanted to impress. She did not recognize the VIP, had not been introduced to him, but she’d noted that he spoke Spanish to Braga, while the common language of the camp—and of Brazil—was Portuguese.

  Not a Brazilian then. That didn’t narrow down the field much. Braga dealt in drugs, which helped a little. She had read enough about the cocaine scourge to know that most of the big-time cartels were based in Mexico, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia. A Mexican gang would not ship their drugs south to Brazil then back to the States, she imagined. Why double the distance and the risk of discovery, when they could simply cross the border and be done with it?

  So, Braga’s guest was South American, not Mexican—and what on earth did that matter to Mercy? In a little while, the nameless man would watch her die, perhaps join in the butchery himself. She had no interest in his name or nationality, would never have a chance to finger him for the authorities. Most likely she would die and be forgotten by the outside world.

  She had of course considered ways to save herself. Lying might be an option. She could fabricate elaborate conspiracies around herself and Abner, tell Braga that Cooper was working for the CIA, but what would that accomplish? She was not Scheherazade, spinning a thousand tales to keep her own head off a sultan’s chopping block. Braga would see through her pretense, would be infuriated by it, and her suffering would be all the worse for it.

  Escape? How would she manage that?

  There was no fence around the forest camp, but she was trapped inside the shed. If she began to dig bare-handed—tunneling underneath one of the shed’s walls—she would still be in the middle of th
e camp, surrounded by a small army of gunmen.

  No. It was ridiculous.

  There would be no escape for Mercy unless Braga freed her, and she knew that wouldn’t happen. How could he release a person he had kidnapped, knowing that no matter what she promised, she would certainly report him to police as soon as she could reach the nearest town?

  Preposterous.

  Her only hope, she thought now, was to make Braga so angry that he killed her outright in a fit of rage, rather than through protracted torture. That might be a form of suicide—a sin which Mercy had been taught was unforgivable—but she would rather risk the fires of Hell in theory than face an agonizing death in fact.

  * * *

  WHEN HE’D COVERED half the distance from last night’s camp to Joaquim Braga’s compound, Bolan knew the timing wouldn’t work. Assuming that he did find Braga holding Mercy Cronin, extricating her would likely mean a firefight, which would blow his plan for taking out the Medellín delivery along with Braga and his troops. The flip side—if a miracle allowed him to pull Mercy out and slip away unseen—meant calling Grimaldi for another pickup, then a turnaround to bring him back again for Bolan’s blitz.

  No way.

  He was a skillful warrior, and his luck had held so far, but Bolan couldn’t change the basic laws of physics. Grimaldi couldn’t turn his Huey into a time machine. They had to work within the framework of the day that still remained, or let it go.

  And Bolan wasn’t letting go of anything.

  The clock was running down, same way it always did in any military action, and this wasn’t a campaign that could drag on for days, much less weeks or months. He didn’t have the luxury of laying siege to Braga’s operation, waiting for another shipment if he missed the one coming in this afternoon.

  If it came down to one choice or the other, Mercy or the mission, Bolan was a pragmatist. The larger job at hand outweighed one innocent, or two, who crossed harm’s path by choice, knowing the risks involved. When Bolan bottom-lined it, he was still a soldier first and not a savior.

  But that did not mean he wouldn’t try.

  And failing, if he did fail, he could still make sure that Joaquim Braga never harmed another living soul.

  He palmed the sat phone and speed dialed Grimaldi’s number, waiting while it rang once, twice, and then his friend answered. “How’s it going?”

  “Could be better,” Bolan told him. “I’m down one, and Braga has the other, the wife. We should go ahead as planned from this point.”

  On the far end of the line, Grimaldi hesitated for a second then replied, “Okay. I’ll get it rolling.”

  “Same way that we laid it out,” Bolan said.

  “Roger that. I’ve got a couple guys on standby at the airport. I can be airborne within the hour, if we don’t hit any snags.”

  That didn’t worry Bolan. If Grimaldi said he’d be somewhere at such-and-such a time, he showed.

  “They have a chopper at the compound now,” Bolan said. “An Mi-24, like you thought from the satellite photos. With the delivery on top of that, it could get crowded in the air.”

  “No sweat,” Grimaldi said. “I’ll work it out.”

  “Okay then. Let me know if you get hung up anywhere.”

  “I won’t,” Grimaldi said with perfect confidence.

  They cut the link, and Bolan stowed his phone, pushing on along the trail toward Braga’s camp. With Grimaldi upstairs to cover him and make sure the load from Medellín had no chance to turn back, Bolan was fairly certain he could finish Braga’s operation on the ground. The only question left was whether Mercy Cronin would wind up among the casualties or somehow make it out alive.

  Whichever way it went though, Braga’s bill was due, and Bolan would collect the tab.

  In blood.

  Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso

  ARMING THE HELICOPTER took about an hour. On his arrival in the area, Grimaldi had hired a couple mechanics who could help and, for twice their normal wage, keep the arrangement to themselves. He might have stretched a point, letting them think he worked for one of the cartels and that his boss would take it personally if they blabbed, but it was his experience that cash and fear in combination held more loyalty than cash alone.

  The rocket pods and miniguns were bolted onto each side of the Huey, solidly fixed in place and aiming forward. The pods resembled a cluster of stovepipes, one in the middle, surrounded by six, loaded prior to takeoff. The miniguns fed from long metal belts—known in the trade as ammunition chutes. The guns could be rotated within a designated field of deflection, normally firing twenty-four hundred rounds per minute, but there was built-in compensation for emergencies. When either minigun reached the inboard limit of its arc, it automatically stopped firing, while the other’s rate of fire increased to four thousand rounds per minute.

  When the whole weapons subsystem was installed, Grimaldi took the pilot’s seat and ran his checklist to confirm that everything was operational. His M60 reflex sight was up and running, ammo feed was clear and all systems were go on the intervalometer control panel. Once he’d finished paying his crew, and tacking on a bonus he knew would be appreciated, Grimaldi was ready for takeoff. The bribes he’d spread around air traffic control and terminal security prevented any last-minute interruptions before he was airborne.

  It felt good to be back in the saddle—or cockpit, whatever. Flying had been his first love, and while everything about it was enjoyable, Grimaldi found some jobs more rewarding than others. The best involved working with Bolan and/or Stony Man. Simple hops from one point to another, or deliveries to drop zones like the one he’d made just yesterday, were fine. But for the real kick, he’d take combat every time.

  It wasn’t killing he enjoyed, per se, although he’d done more than his share of it. If forced to analyze the rush he got from live-fire missions, Grimaldi would probably say it was akin to high-stakes gambling. And, in fact, the stakes could get no higher than a bet of life or death.

  Each time he flew against an enemy, there was the chance he’d be shot down, or maybe suffer an equipment failure that would have the same result. Grimaldi had performed a few crash landings in his time, and he’d always walked away from them. So far. Walking away when you were under fire, well, that was something else entirely.

  And you might not want to walk away, if capture meant a slow death in the hands of brutal enemies.

  That’s why he never flew unarmed, stacking the deck as much as possible for his own benefit. If he went down—and wasn’t killed or crippled in the crash—he’d be ready to defend himself. Or, failing that, to end it cleanly, without giving some sick customer the pleasure of dissecting him while he was still alive.

  Once he was airborne, heading west, Grimaldi pushed such thoughts out of his mind. He’d never met a pilot who wasn’t optimistic at the point of takeoff. Sure, whatever went up in the sky must later come back down, but pilots—the ones who lasted, anyway—had enough self-confidence to think they would always call the shots on when and where they hurtled back to earth. Only a kamikaze planned on crashing when he got into the cockpit, and since none of them survived, they were an endangered species.

  Grimaldi’s best friend in the world was waiting for him, counting on him. There might even be a stray civilian in the mix, hoping a winged knight would arrive to carry her away. Grimaldi didn’t know if he would have a chance to make her dreams come true, but he’d be there for Bolan, one way or another.

  Come hell or high water, the flying cavalry was on its way.

  Condor Acampamento

  HUGO CARDONA WAS restless. Part of his mind was anxious to be homeward bound, after receiving payment for the cocaine shipment that would soon arrive. He worried about enemies at large, still unidentified, who might pop up and ruin everything. And yet another part was looking forward to the entertainment scheduled for
that afternoon.

  What was so wrong with that? It was a trait he shared with Roman emperors and other great men throughout history, although open to misinterpretation in the modern day.

  A few years ago, a young left-wing reporter based in Bogotá had branded Cardona a sadist, printing graphic details of the punishments inflicted on some of his enemies, particularly traitors from his own cartel. Within a week, the journalist and his fiancée were abducted from a stylish restaurant and treated to an unexpected after-dinner show. For the reporter, it had lasted seven days. His bride-to-be had proved less durable.

  Sitting outside of Braga’s bungalow and smoking a cigar—one of his Nicaraguan Habano/Maduros, eighteen dollars apiece—Cardona saw the drug lord’s second in command approaching. Blowing fragrant smoke in his direction, Cardona asked, “How much longer?”

  “Soon, senhor,” Ramos replied. “The scaffold is nearly completed.”

  So that was what the little group of Braga’s men had been constructing near the center of the compound. It vaguely resembled a child’s swing set, built from metal pipes bolted together, chains dangling from the high crossbar with clamps in place of the normal fabric seats. Cardona could not picture how they would attach to human limbs, exactly, but the mental exercise intrigued him.

  “And where is your leader?” Cardona asked.

  “Questioning those who found the woman,” Ramos said. “They heard gunfire before they met her, and the other teams are late returning.”

  Ramos grimaced as he finished speaking, possibly concerned that he had said too much.

  “The loss you suffered yesterday, I take it that’s unusual?”

  A nod from Ramos. “Sim, senhor. We meet bandits sometimes, on our patrols, but they avoid our territory.”

  “Whereas those who killed your friends seem to be hunting you.”

  “With all respect, that has not been established.”

  “No? How else would you explain it then?”