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  Sadly for Braga, Interpol investigations had compelled him to relinquish other homes in Paris and on southern Spain’s Costa del Sol, but Braga had discreet hideaways in Zurich and on Grand Bahama, outside Freeport.

  None of which would help him when the Executioner came knocking.

  Tonight, however, was simply recon, as he’d told the Cronins. Even with the help of satellite photography, Bolan still needed a feel for the place from ground level. A soldier’s-eye view of the target. He had no intention of engaging with the enemy beyond what he’d already done that afternoon, but circumstances had a way of changing without prior notice once a battle had been joined. He was prepared for anything as he paced off the miles, watching for predators along the way and drawing closer to his goal with every stride.

  At last Bolan stood on the outskirts of the compound. The only lights were those that shone through certain windows or from lamps inside of tents. He heard at least one generator chugging in the night, and Bolan traced its sound to a prefab shed on the camp’s southern perimeter. There was no fence encircling the compound—an obstacle to bailing out in the event of unexpected raids. Its absence also meant that Bolan would require no special gear to infiltrate the camp, as long as he could slip past sentries on patrol.

  Speaking of which, the guards were out in force. He didn’t know what kind of strength was normal for the site, but there were ten men armed with IMBEL MD-2 automatic rifles walking beats around the camp. Each one had a strip of ninety yards or so to cover, marching back and forth, eyes on the forest that pressed close on every side. There was no road to cover, hence no standard motor pool of four-wheeled vehicles. Supplies, Bolan guessed, were either carried in on foot, or—far more likely—flown in via helicopter as required.

  And speaking of choppers, intel had it that a major cocaine shipment from Colombia was due tomorrow. If Bolan could meet it, all the better. And if not, well, let the pilot find a smoking ruin when he got there and be forced to turn around and take his cargo home again. In either case, if Bolan had his way, the marching powder wasn’t getting through this time.

  Chapter 5

  Cold Camp, Mato Grosso

  Mercy Cronin woke in darkness, startled by the roaring of a jaguar. Had it only been a dream, in fact? She waited, trembling, for the noise to be repeated, but it never came. Instead, she peered around the clearing where she’d drifted off and found herself alone.

  “Abner?” She kept her voice pitched low, almost a whisper, worried by the prospect of attracting some nocturnal predator. When there was no reply, she tried more urgently. “Abner!”

  And still no answer.

  Scrambling to her feet, she felt disoriented—a little drowsy from her nap—but she was growing more frightened by the second. Where had Abner gone? He might have left the clearing to relieve himself, but how long could that take?

  How long? It struck her that she had no idea when he’d left her side, or even how long she had been asleep. She wore a cheap wristwatch but could not read it in the jungle darkness. Not that it would matter, since she hadn’t checked the time before she had dozed off, when Abner had offered to take the first watch. Sometime while she slept, he had not only moved away from her, taking his warmth, but he’d left the clearing altogether.

  Leaving her alone. Defenseless.

  No! She couldn’t make herself believe that Abner would desert her. If he’d stepped into the forest for a moment, answering the call of nature, something could have happened to him. There were snakes, the jaguar that had woken her...

  Now Mercy’s fear was close to panic. Abner was her husband and her lover, though the loving had admittedly been sparse the past six months or so. They had been married after college, before Mercy ever tried to manage living on her own. She knew the basics, but she couldn’t picture life without him.

  Reality snapped back at her with that thought, and she almost laughed aloud at her stupidity. Why was she wondering about the details of a normal life alone, when she was stranded in the middle of a jungle wilderness, with no idea of what might happen to her next? It was conceivable that she’d be slaughtered and devoured before sunrise. Problem solved!

  Mercy abandoned any pretense of composure, shouting, “Abner! Where are you?”

  Her own voice echoed back to her from the surrounding trees, but no one answered. Abner surely would respond if he could hear her, wouldn’t think of leaving her in such distress.

  Except he had.

  The only possible solutions came down to a choice of evils. Either Abner had deserted her or he was lying somewhere in the forest, dead, or incapacitated and unable to respond. It shamed Mercy to realize that she preferred the second choice. That way she’d know he hadn’t left her purposely. She could imagine that he had been thinking of her at the end.

  And yet...

  He didn’t want to leave the mission. Even after they were kidnapped and members of their congregation had been murdered, he had argued for remaining—over Mercy’s personal objections—going on as if nothing had happened. Was that dedication? Selfless courage? Or insanity?

  If he’d been around to answer questions, Mercy guessed that Abner would have said he was answering God’s call. Did that include abandoning his wife to jaguars, snakes and vampire bats? Scripture clearly stated that a husband and wife were one flesh. If he’d left her, choosing the Mundurukus over her...

  “Damn you, Abner!” Mercy spat into the darkness, then blushed furiously and began the ritual of praying for forgiveness. Abner’s sin was no excuse for any lapse on her part.

  But the truth was, in that instant, she hated him for leaving her.

  There’d been no jaguar mauling, or she would have heard his screams. If he’d been bitten by a snake, however deadly, Abner could have staggered back to camp before collapsing. Quicksand only formed in jungles along riversides or lake shores. Likewise, since they weren’t near water, Abner obviously wasn’t eaten by a caiman or an anaconda.

  He had simply left her to her own devices, without even telling her goodbye.

  This time when Mercy cursed him, she felt no regret.

  But there was fear, oh, yes. She couldn’t get away from that. Her only hope, from this point on, was Matthew Cooper.

  And where was he? What if he never made it back from his mysterious “recon” and she was left to die alone?

  Defeated, Mercy Cronin slumped against the tree where Abner had abandoned her and wept.

  Condor Acampamento

  IT WAS GETTING late, but Joaquim Braga poured himself another glass of ultra premium cachaça.

  He needed it tonight, with thirteen of his soldiers dead, two prisoners extracted from their custody and unknown enemies prowling around his turf, perhaps to strike again at any time. Those troubles were the very last thing he needed with Hugo Cardona sleeping in his camp and one thousand kilos of cocaine arriving tomorrow.

  He needed that shipment and those which would follow. He needed the heroin, the marijuana and the methamphetamines that Cardona’s syndicate could furnish in huge quantities. Beyond the drug consumption in his homeland, there were epic profits to be made in North America and Europe, plus a growing market in South Africa. Why should the Boers and Zulus be denied the pleasure of escape into a land of addled fantasy?

  And why should Braga be denied the billions he would earn from them?

  Beyond the profits, it was important that he keep Cardona’s trust—and most important that his own ferocious reputation be maintained. If it was thought that some competitor could murder Braga’s men and get away with it, the jackals would be snapping at his heels forever, forcing him to fight defensive actions on all sides while his business declined into ruin. Vengeance must be swift and merciless, preferably running up a body count double or triple his own recent losses.

  First, of course, he had to find his enemies, id
entify them and determine why they felt they could challenge him, today of all days. Understanding might come through interrogation, if his search parties were fortunate enough to bring survivors back tomorrow. Braga made a mental note to tell them he wanted prisoners able to speak. Their questioning could serve a double function—information gathering and entertainment for his troops.

  As for the missionaries, Braga assumed they would be found among their rescuers. If the couple believed they could escape from Braga, they were living in a dream world, some pathetic alternate reality. Or were they something more than they appeared to be?

  Their extrication from captivity had started Braga thinking. What if they were spies of some kind—for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration perhaps—posing as ministers while they collected evidence against him? It would be a strange and cynical approach, but he put nothing past his enemies in Washington.

  Not that Braga had any complaint about the Yankee “war on drugs.” Without it, Braga’s profits would have plummeted. Indeed, if drugs were legalized worldwide, he would become irrelevant, superfluous. God bless America, England and every other nation that had banned narcotics under penalty of law! Braga woke up each morning grateful for their rigid attitudes—and the hypocrisy that kept his product flowing, while it seemed that politicians and police always had their hands out for the next bribe, and the next.

  Corruption made the world go round.

  Joaquim Braga would not have had it any other way.

  Cold Camp, Mato Grosso

  BOLAN RETURNED ALONG the green trails lit by his night-vision goggles, satisfied with what he’d learned about the layout and security of Braga’s jungle compound. Bolan was looking forward to a short rest—half an hour, say—before the hike to meet Grimaldi and off-load the Cronins at first light. Tomorrow his move against the Braga syndicate would begin in earnest.

  Pausing on the outskirts of the clearing where he’d left the missionaries, Bolan noted only one of them in view. Mercy was huddled with her back against a tree, knees drawn up to her chest and forehead resting on her folded arms. From where he stood, he couldn’t tell whether she was awake or not, but Abner was not visible.

  “Hello, the camp,” he called out, watching Mercy jerk upright. At the sight of him emerging from the trees, she bolted to her feet and came halfway to meet him, stopping with ten feet of open ground between them as she started speaking rapidly.

  “I was asleep. I didn’t see him go. Heard nothing. He was standing watch and then...and then... He’s left me!”

  Mercy started weeping. Bolan fought the impulse to console her and asked, instead, “How long ago was this?”

  “I told you, I was sleeping, and—”

  “When did you notice he was gone?”

  “I’m not sure.” Shoulders slumped, she stood defeated in the middle of the clearing. “Hours now, I think. I couldn’t read my watch when I woke up.”

  “What woke you?”

  “Well...I thought it was a jaguar, but I can’t be sure.”

  “Not Abner leaving?”

  “Definitely not.”

  Bolan dismissed the jaguar from his mind. Real or imaginary, no big cat had ever killed a person without wreaking bloody, noisy havoc in the process. Neither did he think that Abner Cronin could have gone to take a leak and lost his way. A few steps into darkness would have been sufficient, with the clearing and his wife still plainly visible.

  “What did you talk about after I left, before you fell asleep?”

  “The mission,” Mercy answered. “Abner didn’t want to give up on it. He knew I was scared of staying, so...he left.”

  Bolan accepted that, since Mercy obviously understood her husband better than Bolan ever would. And granting that she was correct, he knew tracking Abner through the dark rain forest was impossible. Whether he made it back to Mercy Mission or got lost somewhere along the way, Abner was well beyond Bolan’s reach for the time being.

  “You’ll find him, won’t you?” Mercy asked, pleading.

  “I can’t follow him tonight,” Bolan replied. “I’d miss too many clues along the way, even with these.” He raised a hand to tap the goggles folded up against his forehead.

  “But—”

  “Tomorrow I can try to find his trail. Meanwhile, the best thing you can do is try to get some sleep.”

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t. Abner—”

  “Made a conscious choice. You’re not responsible. It’s not your fault.”

  “I could have gone with him.”

  “In which case, I’d be killing time till daylight, then wasting tomorrow hunting both of you. This way, you’re safe.”

  It sounded cold—was cold—but Bolan had to keep things in perspective. Rescuing the Cronins once had been an unexpected delay. Having to put his job on hold and doing it all over again was aggravating.

  To distract her, Bolan asked, “How’s Abner’s woodcraft? Can he find his way around the forest fairly well?”

  “Oh, yes.” She focused, brightened slightly. “He knows all the signs for animals and has a great sense of direction.”

  “Okay then. That helps. First thing tomorrow, I can hike to the mission. If he’s there, I’ll bring him back to you.”

  “But if he doesn’t want to leave—”

  “I’m not negotiating with him,” Bolan said. “He’s coming back, like it or not.”

  “If I go with you—”

  “No. You’d only slow me down, and I don’t want to referee some big domestic scene with Braga’s soldiers hunting us.”

  She winced at that but nodded, saying, “I suppose you’re right. But what if...if he isn’t at the mission?”

  “The State of Mato Grosso covers more than three hundred and forty-eight thousand square miles,” Bolan answered, “I can’t follow Abner all over creation and still do the job I came for. I’ll check at the mission, then come back to you. Either way, you’ll be leaving soon.”

  “But not at first light.”

  “Not with Abner,” Bolan said. “You want to take off on the flight that I’ve scheduled, you leave him behind. Raise a search party later, when I’m finished here—say, day after tomorrow. That’s one way to go.”

  She considered it, then shook her head. “I can’t leave him.”

  “You may have no choice.”

  “Please look for him!”

  “At dawn then. Now go get some rest.”

  Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso

  JACK GRIMALDI LISTENED, standing with his back against the warm flank of the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, scowling. “You’re freakin’ kidding me. He just gets up and wanders off?”

  “He’s on a mission,” Bolan told him, via sat phone. “You know how that is.”

  “Uh-huh. But there’re missions, and there’re missions. What, he couldn’t wait a couple days to check back on the Indians?”

  “It’s done,” Bolan replied. “I’ll try to find him in the morning. If I can’t, he stays behind.”

  “So, what’s the ETA look like?”

  “Sunrise is close to six o’clock. An hour to the mission, give or take, and then an hour back. Two hours to the LZ, if they can keep up. Say ten o’clock, unless I have to call and push it back.”

  “Okay,” Grimaldi said. “I’ll be there.”

  “Never doubted it,” Bolan replied, as he cut the link.

  Cold Camp, Mato Grosso

  THE SETBACK WASN’T fatal, in and of itself, but Bolan had a schedule to keep. The information he’d received from Stony Man, gleaned from a DEA informant in Colombia, was that the shipment of cocaine inbound for Braga’s camp would be arriving at seventeen hundred hours. Bolan’s watch ticked off the seconds while he listened to the jungle’s nightly chorus.

  Nocturnal birds and insects sang throughout the hours of dar
kness if they weren’t disturbed by predators. Amid their calls, Bolan’s ears picked out the sounds of a bat swooping to feed on moths, mosquitoes, anything its radar could detect in flight. Outside the clearing where he sat, persistent rustlings in the undergrowth charted the passage of rodents and reptiles, perhaps a Goliath bird-eating spider out trolling for prey. Bolan kept track of all the noises he recognized as normal, staying on alert for their cessation, while he thought through what he had to do over the next few hours.

  Sleep was off the table, but he’d rested well before he had dropped into the jungle and was nowhere near the limit of his stamina. He then prioritized his jobs, keeping the deadline for the cocaine drop in mind and working back from there to frame his schedule.

  Look for Abner at the mission. If he turned up, retrieve him by any means required. If not, forget him for the moment and evacuate the preacher’s wife. From there, get back on track with Braga, taking time to set an ambush at the forest compound and be ready when the drug-filled chopper from Colombia arrived. Rain hell on Braga and his men, his illegal cargo, his transports, everything. The scorched-earth treatment he’d perfected during his one-man war against the Mafia and later in his antiterrorist campaigns.

  It sounded simple, when he spelled it out that way. If only life—and death—could be that easy.

  Standing watch while Mercy Cronin slept, Bolan ran through what he’d learned about his enemy. Braga was in his mid-forties, a child of Rio de Janeiro’s slums who’d clawed his way up from the gutter, literally, to command an outlaw empire. He had started out small, as a thief and street-corner drug peddler, graduating to armed robbery and kidnapping for ransom, then to pandering and human trafficking—the latter enterprise divided between labor contracting for sugarcane plantations and procuring sex slaves for big-city brothels.

  Narcotics trafficking had followed as a matter of course—the real bonanza for any would-be gang lord in Latin America. Today, off the record, Braga ranked among the richest twenty-five or thirty people in Brazil.