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“Will they come back? Do you know?” she asked Nik in a low voice.
“They might,” he grunted. “Brudin, get the sat phone. Make a call to that Russian helo in Aguas Calientes. Get it up here right now. If we don’t get Korsak to the Cusco hospital within the next two hours, he’s going to die.”
Brudin, for once, didn’t argue with him and got up, jogging quickly back toward his hut.
“Nik?”
“Yes?”
She heard the hard, clipped tone in his voice. Her gaze moved slowly around the path’s opening in the jungle wall, looking for any movement that could mean a second attack from Valdez’s men. “What are we going to do now?”
“Get the hell out of here as soon as possible. Korsak is stable for now.”
“What’s Valdez’s MO? What is he likely to do next?”
Snorting, Nik growled, “We’ve taken out twelve of his men. This is the heaviest pitched battle we’ve had with them in five years. I don’t think he wants to waste his soldiers against us again. He’s probably gone, running back down that path to a fork that can lead either up to the Highlands or further down another jungle trail.”
“He won’t attack again?”
“No. Highly unlikely.”
The men scattered motionless across the ground in front of them did not move. Daria knew that when black ops soldiers got into a battle, they went for head or center-mass shots and they did not miss. And when they fired, it was to kill, not maim or wound. She quickly and thoroughly perused each of the soldiers lying like broken rag dolls between them and the jungle wall. Not one of them moved. She would bet they were all dead, but didn’t want to take that risk. She rose slowly to her feet, taking an AK-47 with her along with the tucked-in Glock.
“Where are you going?” Nik demanded, suddenly reaching out, grabbing her wrist, stopping her.
Daria looked down at Nik. His face was a hard mask, his blue eyes so pale they almost had no color. “Checking the bodies. I don’t want one of them to rise up and shoot one of us in the back later.”
He released her. Quickly, he jerked the vest off himself, handing it to her.
“Put it on?”
Grateful, she nodded, set her weapons down and slipped into the overly-large vest. It hung on her much roomier than she was used to, but she was glad to have it all the same. Daria saw so much in Nik’s eyes, but he said nothing else, returning to sliding an IV into Korsak’s arm. She felt his anguish and worry for her. No one was left unwounded. Nik’s face was dirty, bloody, and she also saw blood on his left forearm where he’d taken a grazing bullet. As Brudin had limped away, she’d seen blood spreading slowly down his left calf, staining through his cammos. Her gaze fell to Korsak, now unconscious. Picking up the weapons, keeping an eye on the path, silence settled around her. Daria was vaguely aware of the sobbing of some women far behind her as she checked every dead soldier thoroughly and carefully, removing weapons and any identification she could find on them as she went. It was grisly work, but it had to be done. Daria could still feel the high from the adrenaline that had punched her system into high gear. Somewhere down the road, she knew she’d crash from it. But not right now.
After making sure all twelve men were dead, she walked silently toward the path. Taking the AK-47 off her shoulder, she held it at the ready, its selector on semi-auto. She saw the muddy imprints of many boots down the path as she warily followed it around the bend, not knowing what to expect. The silence was as heavy as the humidity that drenched her body, dampening her clothes, making them stick to her. Above her, she heard the plop, plop, plop of water condensing at the highest peaks of the jungle canopy and slowly dripping downward from one leaf to another.
Wanting to make sure Valdez and his men weren’t coming back, Daria followed the path for more than half a mile until the point where it forked. She saw a lot of muddy boot imprints leading downward, toward the Machu Picchu area. By the time she’d turned back a mile further down the boot-printed trail and returned to the village, lot of the natives had begun to slowly come out of their huts. They had to be scared out of their minds. Daria wondered if any of them were wounded. She saw Brudin kneeling by the unconscious Korsak, the butt of his AK-47 planted on his thigh, his scowl on her.
“They’ve left,” she told Brudin.
He eyed her, distrust in his expression. Daria could see him silently questioning who the hell she really was. She carried her own AK-47 planted against her hip, muzzle up. The position told Brudin a whole lot, and he looked confused by her. To carry a rifle in that position meant she expected trouble. Only a black ops soldier would know that. And she was supposed to be a botanist. Daria wasn’t going to fill in the missing pieces for him anytime soon. Her gaze dropped to Korsak.
“How he is doing?” she demanded of Brudin.
“Stable. Morozov just checked him.” Brudin hitched a thumb behind his shoulder. “He’s taking care of Duboff right now.”
“What about the rest of the villagers?” she demanded, lifting her chin, her gaze moving across the people standing shaken by the attack.
“I don’t know,” he grunted. “I don’t care.”
Daria nodded, seeing Nik working over Duboff, creating a sling for his wounded arm. She was more worried about the villagers and headed toward the chief’s house. Placing the AK-47 in the chest harness she’d picked up from one of the dead security guards, Daria safed it and pointed the muzzle downward, meaning she didn’t expect an attack. The terror in the eyes of the Indians tore at her as she walked through their folds. The children hid behind their mothers’ skirts, eyes huge and afraid. The men were grim. The women were badly shaken, some of them still sobbing. She quickly found Chief Vega. He had his arms around his two young sons. Speaking to him in Spanish, she asked him if there were casualties.
He shook his head.
That was a miracle in itself, Daria thought, trying to manage a smile for the children who clung to her, their thin arms grasping at her hips and legs. She grazed her hand across their shining black hair and murmured to them that everything was going to be all right. It wasn’t. But the children needed that calming support. None of the Indians looked at all well. Daria understood their fear as never before. There were two major South American factions warring for the cocaine in Peru’s Highlands. Two drug lords: Valdez from La Paz, Bolivia, and his nemeses, Marco Suero from Lima, Peru, had ruled this region long before the Russians had intruded in on their territory five years earlier. Both were billionaires. Both had raised mercenary armies to take over the cocaine trade in this region. Until the Russian invasion had come along. And, according to her brief from Jack Driscoll, these villages were always being captured or recaptured. Either by the Latin drug lords or, in this case, Korsak and his Russian team. Now, the tables had been turned once again.
Daria held the six children who clung to her within her arms. She understood the grip of utter fear that these Indians lived with daily. They had chewed coca leaves before climbs up into the Highlands for centuries. To stop the altitude sickness that always came with such high elevation. But, now that cocaine was a thing, their whole world had been turned upside down into an ongoing nightmare that had no end. As Daria lifted her chin, her gaze fixed on Nik helping Duboff stand and make it over to where Korsak and Brudin were recuperating, she felt deeply for the village’s endless plight. How any of them had escaped being killed by the massive wave of bullets fired into the area by Valdez’s men, she didn’t know. One thing for sure, Valdez’s soldiers were intent on killing everyone on the Russian team.
She wondered where Killmer and his men were hiding. Having no idea, and understanding they did not want to reveal themselves to this Russian team, Daria assumed that they had probably faded away into the embrace of the jungle, never seen, never detected. Mace and his team were probably just as surprised by the attack as they had been. Daria didn’t know the full history of the various drug lords’ war with each other. She squeezed the children’s shoulders, murmuring words of comfort, placed a kiss on each of their heads and urged them to go back to their parents. Turning, she apologized to the chief and his wife Elisa, asking if they would bury the dead. The chief said they would. Daria thanked them and left.
