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  And yet the cartels still banked their billions, held their funerals and forged ahead with business. When a leader fell, he was replaced, and life went on—for some.

  A notion came to Ramos, not for the first time. His own ambition had been stifled by Braga’s dominance, and while Ramos could not logically complain about the wealth he had accumulated in the service of o chefe, Ramos always yearned for...more. If war broke out, it was not difficult to picture Braga falling in the struggle, and who better to replace him than his loyal second in command?

  Something to think about. But first, beginning at dawn, he had to launch the three patrols in search of the Americans and whoever had been fool enough to fight on their behalf. Examples needed to be made, a lesson taught to all prospective rivals.

  And when that was finished, Ramos could begin to think about his own prospects.

  Chapter 4

  Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso

  Jack Grimaldi’s hotel room was small and musty smelling. Not the worst he’d ever stayed in, but among the bottom few, for sure. There was an eight-inch gecko clinging to one wall, but he hadn’t disturbed it, on the theory that it might intimidate whatever other creepy-crawlers were lurking out of sight, waiting for him to douse the lamps and kill the television.

  Not that watching it provided much, in terms of entertainment. He could only get four channels, three of them in Portuguese, the fourth some kind of time warp to the 1950s with a nonstop offering of I Love Lucy, Death Valley Days, Have Gun—Will Travel and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Still it could have been worse. The new music video channel, for example, rife with “reality” shows about teens in New Jersey and no music at all.

  The sat phone rescued him from Lucy’s foray into bottling salad dressing, losing money on each jar but “making it up in volume.” He answered midway through the first ring, knowing it meant trouble for a call to come this soon.

  “What happened?” he inquired, by way of salutation.

  Bolan’s voice came through the scrambled link. “I’ve picked up a couple stragglers. Long story. They need to exit in the morning.”

  Grimaldi didn’t argue, didn’t bother identifying potential problems with the schedule they had laid out in advance. He said, “Okay. Just tell me where and when.”

  “The first LZ we marked,” Bolan replied. “I’d like to get them out around first light. If we run into any problems there, I’ll call and redirect to the second.”

  Grimaldi had the topographic map memorized. The landing zones they had selected, A and B, were clearings in the forest, higher ground than was normal for the area. Grimaldi didn’t know why they were both devoid of trees, but satellite photography had confirmed it. Either place, he would have room to set down a chopper, take passengers on board and lift them out.

  Whether the LZ turned up hot was something else entirely. In that case, he would have to count on Bolan and his own resources, if he wanted to survive.

  “I’ll be there,” Grimaldi assured his friend. “First light.”

  “Then we reset and go ahead with Braga,” Bolan told him.

  “Works for me.”

  “Tomorrow then.”

  “Tomorrow,” Grimaldi confirmed, before the line clicked dead.

  Tomorrow hadn’t always been a sure thing for Grimaldi. He’d been flying for the Mafia when Bolan had skyjacked him—could just as well have iced him—but they’d hit it off despite the adverse circumstances. Somewhere in the midst of praying that he’d live another day, Grimaldi had enlisted in the warrior’s lonely struggle—had become Bolan’s one-man air force, in effect—and after Bolan had faked his death to join the covert team at Stony Man Farm, in Virginia, Grimaldi had followed to become a member, as well.

  He’d seen the world, and then some, flying for the mob and then for Bolan. Grimaldi had been places that most people only read about or glimpsed in passing on the Travel Channel, but he hadn’t led a tourist’s life by any means. Along with vistas that could take his breath away, there had been situations that would’ve stopped his breath for good, if he had allowed himself a heartbeat’s hesitation in the crunch.

  Grimaldi didn’t just deliver Bolan to a combat zone and pick him up again when all the dirty work was done. Grimaldi was a warrior of the skies, with a prodigious body count, although he tried to think in terms of helping others, not just wreaking havoc on a faceless enemy.

  Bolan had mentioned stragglers, plural, whatever that meant. Bolan had a penchant for snatching strangers out of tight places, even when it put Bolan’s life and his mission at risk. Grimaldi had no idea what to expect, beyond a dawn flight to retrieve the latest strays. There’d been no mention of a medevac, so Grimaldi assumed that the two were fit to travel, and more or less intact. Beyond that...well, the places Bolan deployed were generally not conducive to the best of health.

  Grimaldi would be up and out by 2:00 a.m. to get the waiting helicopter ready for its rescue mission. Until then, he would dispense with loving Lucy and attempt to get some sleep.

  God only knew when he would get another chance.

  Cold Camp, Mato Grosso

  BOLAN REJOINED THE Cronins as they finished up their MREs. “It’s set,” he told them. “You’ll be flying out at first light, from a spot about two miles northeast of here. Allowing for terrain, we’ll need to start the hike at three o’clock. The best thing you can do right now is try to get some rest.”

  “Will you be flying with us?” Mercy asked him.

  “No. I still have work to do. But I’ll be leaving you in good hands, and you’ll be delivered to authorities that you can trust.”

  “Americans?” asked Abner.

  “Likely someone from the consulate,” Bolan replied.

  “And will they send us back?”

  “Smart money says they’ll recommend a change of scene. They don’t have the authority to drag you home without an extradition warrant. Now if the Brazilians get involved, there’s no predicting what may happen.”

  “Meaning they could deport us.”

  Mercy tugged his sleeve. “Abner, maybe it’s best—”

  “I want to get this straight,” he cut her off. “Our mission could be sacrificed, through no fault of our own?”

  “You’ll have to talk that over with whoever meets you in Várzea Grande,” Bolan said. “I won’t pretend to be a diplomat.”

  “It isn’t fair,” Abner complained to no one in particular, while Mercy took his hand and tried to soothe him silently.

  “I’ll say again that you should try to get some sleep,” Bolan said. “When I get back—”

  “Back from where?” Mercy asked, sounding worried now.

  “I have some place to go tonight,” he said. “Some things I have to check on.”

  “But...you’re leaving us?”

  “You should be fine. Braga won’t have another hunting party out tonight, and I’ll be back by one o’clock.”

  “What if...you aren’t?”

  “I will be,” Bolan reassured her. “Recon only. Just sit tight, no fire. If it feels better to you, sleep in shifts.”

  He left them with his Maglite and the adjustable Glock entrenching tool, which could double as a hoe—or hatchet—if a viper happened by during the night. He cautioned them to use the flashlight sparingly, as much to keep from drawing insects or attention to themselves as to preserve its batteries.

  “What if someone does come?” Mercy asked when he was prepared to leave.

  “They won’t,” Bolan said. “First, Braga’s men already took a beating in broad daylight, and he won’t like risking any more of them at night, if he can help it. Second, he knows they wouldn’t stand a chance of tracking us, now that it’s dark. The only place they know to look for you is at the mission.”

  “The mission!” Abner said. “What if the
Mundurukus come back to find us?”

  “Unlikely,” Bolan told him. “I’d imagine that they’re smart enough to stay away from Braga’s people and from government patrols by now. They lost people today and saw you carried off. Most likely they assume you’re dead.”

  “I still believe the mission means something to them,” Abner insisted. “We’ve been getting through to them. Sharing the word.”

  “Let’s say you’re right,” Bolan allowed. “Without you, Mercy Mission’s just another empty building. By this time next month, the jungle will have started to reclaim it. Life goes on.”

  “But what about salvation?” Abner challenged. “We were making progress! And the Mundurukus still have much to learn.”

  Bolan was losing time and patience with the preacher. “Listen, if you want to stick around after tomorrow, make your case to someone from the consulate. Just stay away until I’m finished here. The day after tomorrow should be fine.”

  “What are you doing?” Mercy asked him.

  “Not your problem. All you need to know is that you’re in the line of fire if you stay here. You caught a lucky break today, but that’s unusual. Don’t count on two.”

  “You don’t believe in miracles?” She sounded disappointed.

  “I believe in preparation and determination,” Bolan said. And firepower.

  “You lead a lonely life.”

  “Works better that way, all around. Now, if there’s nothing else?”

  First Mercy, then her husband, shook their heads. Bolan left them, moving off into the darkness, heading for the initial glimpse of his enemy.

  Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso

  THE HELICOPTER WAS a vintage Bell UH-1 Iroquois, widely known as a Huey, officially retired from military service but still full of life—and fight. Jack Grimaldi, after power-napping in his lizard room at the hotel, had made his way to Marechal Rondon International Airport for a preflight checkup on the chopper. He felt better on the tarmac than he would have lying on his saggy rented bed and watching Richard Boone or James Arness taming the West that never was.

  Grimaldi liked the Huey. A single Lycoming T53-L-11 turboshaft engine powered the bird, with a cruising speed of 125 miles per hour, and 10 miles per hour on top of that for maximum speed. As it sat before him now, the chopper was unarmed.

  In combat, it would carry the M21 weapons subsytem, mounted externally, with each side of the aircraft sporting a seven-tube launcher loaded with 2.75-inch folding-fin rockets otherwise known as the “mighty mouse,” plus an M134 minigun chambered in 7.62 mm NATO.

  Each of the six-barrel Gatling-type weapons had a selectable fire-rate capability ranging from two thousand to four thousand rounds per minute. Grimaldi had the M21 setup in storage, but it was a two-man job to mount it on the helicopter, and from what Bolan had told Grimaldi on the sat phone, heavy hardware would not be required for his pickup at dawn.

  Not that Grimaldi would be flying naked when he retrieved Bolan’s newfound friends. Grimaldi would be carrying a Heckler & Koch UMP—the company’s Universal Machine Pistol—in .40 S&W, with an H&K USP semiauto pistol in the same caliber as backup. Nothing heavy, granted, and he wasn’t hauling any spare survival gear beyond a standard first-aid kit.

  As he completed his preflight check, Grimaldi couldn’t help speculating about his passengers. So far he only knew the obvious—that there were two of them, and Bolan had not counted on them when he had hatched their master plan to tackle Joaquim Braga in his own backyard. They were an unknown quantity and, therefore, hazardous.

  The green light for the Braga operation had come down from Stony Man Farm, in Virginia, meaning Hal Brognola, back at the U.S. Department of Justice. Braga was on the map as someone who had proven to be untouchable. A modern warlord on the level of opium kingpin Khun Sa in the Golden Triangle.

  Braga had his own private army—though it hadn’t reached the size of Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army, boasting twenty thousand men at peak strength—and Braga was shielded from attempts at extradition by a network of corrupt police, judges and politicians in Brazil.

  Enter the Executioner.

  It was the kind of job Bolan did best, almost a patented specialty. Penetration of a hardsite no one else could breach, and elimination of the target and whoever chose to stand in his defense, plus whatever contraband was readily accessible. A quick job, in and out.

  Until somebody dropped a pair of innocent civilians into the mix.

  What were they doing in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, much less blocking Bolan’s field of fire? Grimaldi reckoned he would find out soon enough, and in the meantime, it would do no good for him to speculate. Bolan had set a task for Grimaldi, and he would do it to the best of his ability.

  And in Grimaldi’s case, when it came down to flying rescue missions, that was pretty goddamned good.

  Cold Camp, Mato Grosso

  IT WAS ABNER Cronin’s turn on watch, the first time since his very early days in the Brazilian wilderness that he’d stayed awake and listened to the jungle around him. It was strange how soon a city boy got used to things like that and started taking them for granted. Oh, he’d trained himself to shake his shoes and check his clothing every morning, just in case some uninvited visitor had dropped in overnight, but he had quickly lost his fear of walking, working, living in the forest’s majesty.

  Until tonight.

  Tonight, he was embarking on a perilous adventure unlike any in the past. And he was going it alone.

  For some time now, Abner had been aware of Mercy’s faltering commitment to their mission in the jungle. She had gone through all the motions, made the right contented sounds; but after fourteen years of marriage, he knew Mercy well enough to recognize when she had lost her zeal for a project. He had seen it happen in Miami, with a couple of the charities they’d served; and he’d recognized the same signs when their life in the Brazilian rain forest had begun to wear her down. To Mercy’s credit, she had not complained—not verbally—but her increasing weariness was evident.

  Still Abner might have managed to rejuvenate her, somehow, if it had not been for Braga’s men. The threats were bad enough, but the attack had finished her. He saw that clearly now. The only thing his wife still wanted from Brazil was out.

  But Abner Cronin could not bring himself to leave.

  His calling was a holy thing, a covenant with God, not something to be cast aside when times got tough. He could no more give up that calling than he could stop breathing or will his heart to stop beating. Neither though could he force any other soul to share the path that had been chosen for him if the calling was not present—even the wife who had promised submission by the biblical standard, till death do them part.

  His choice was clear. To serve his Lord, Abner must leave Mercy while she slept and go back to the mission on his own. It might seem cruel, but what else could he do? If they had talked about it through the night, Abner supposed that Mercy would have gone along with him, but that was pointless, when he knew her heart was not committed to the task.

  He would have left a note, but where would he find pen and paper in the jungle? They had been snatched out of their home by Braga’s thugs then hauled away by Matthew Cooper into another sector of the forest where there was no stationery to be found.

  Mercy would understand in time, and Abner prayed that she’d forgive him someday. Come what may, he was bound to follow God’s instructions and divest himself of all worldly entanglements that kept him from pursuing that goal.

  Now all he had to do was find his way back to the mission through the trackless jungle. In the dark. Alone.

  The first step was the hardest, sneaking out of camp without disturbing Mercy, knowing that each yard he traveled took him farther from the life he knew. Abner had never truly been a solitary man, but the word of God told him “but with God all things are possible.�
� He would survive against all odds if God so willed it. And if not, then Abner supposed his death would serve some greater good.

  He might turn out to be a martyr yet—but who would know? Or care?

  No matter.

  Sacrifice was not for show. Scripture admonished true believers to pray in their closets, behind closed doors, rather than sounding trumpets to announce their faith for public adulation. Those who flaunted their religion were condemned by Christ as hell-bound hypocrites.

  “‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow,’” Abner muttered, as he moved into the jungle. “‘For the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”

  This day had been evil, indeed, but tomorrow was bright with promise. All he had to do was keep the faith, stay strong and forge ahead as he was guided by the Lord, placing his trust in the Twenty-Third Psalm.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

  And so, Abner wondered, why on earth was he weeping?

  * * *

  BOLAN WAITED UNTIL he was clear of camp to don the night-vision binoculars, turning the jungle an eerie bright green in front of him.

  The goggles let him navigate where any hiker unassisted by technology would soon have lost his way. Very useful, also, was the GPS device he had preprogrammed to direct him toward the hardsite where Joaquim Braga maintained his not-so-secret headquarters. The narco-trafficker owned a stately home in Rio de Janeiro—where he wined and dined selected politicians and associates from time to time—and a condo in Brasilia—for those moments when he simply had to wield his power personally in the capital.