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Chapter Two
Coop
Banking hard through a hairpin turn in the ever-winding river vein, my guide, Reynaldo, throttled the piecemeal trolling motor to its limits. Sensing we were close, I checked my GPS, then told Rey to kill the power.
“Aqui não,” Rey hollered over the motor. “Closer. I get you closer.”
I swiped my fingers across my throat in an emphatic slicing motion. “Shut ‘er down.”
Rey shook his head, but cut the gas.
The murky water swelled against the low-riding skiff’s bow, lifting me high. Just as quickly, it lulled me down, bringing the boat to an eventual stall. Without the rattling engine and whirr of wind, I half expected silence and calm as we bobbed in the dark river channel. Instead, a clamor of insects and wildlife engulfed us. The orchestra of throaty chirps and sawing cicadas served as a reminder of just how much the surrounding foliage cloaked. It wasn’t just the forest’s dangers like poisonous dart frogs and wandering spiders, jaguar and bullet ants. Or snakes. I shuddered. Hate snakes.
The dark jungle concealed something far more threatening—Marco Alvarez, the piece of shit I was being paid to take out.
The Alvarez Cartel’s death grip on the massive river basin made information scarce. What intel Rey had managed to ferret out was sketchy at best. Meaning I could be serving myself up as croc bait for nothing. Approaching the abandoned village Marco was reportedly holed up in from a distance was the only way I could ensure Rey’s safety. Not that the rusted-out skiff provided much of a getaway if things went south, but with the slight head start, the seasoned guide could navigate the river better than anyone.
Knowing the Amazon so well was probably why the round-faced native was eyeing me gear up like I was out of my ever-loving mind. He wasn’t far from the truth.
Speaking in a low, hushed tone, Rey chided, “You must have death wish, SEAL boy.”
Quite the opposite.
While swimming one of the deadliest parts of the Amazon at night did seem a bit extra, scuba diving in a river teeming with black caiman, anaconda, and piranha wasn’t all that different from the missions I’d performed on the reg for the Navy. And risking Rey’s safety by inserting closer to the target wasn’t an option.
I lifted my head from my task of securing my MK 12, sheathed with a waterproof, shoot-through bag, and flashed him a smirk. “Don’t you trust me by now?”
“I know, I know, boss. You only take calculated risk.”
I laughed, enjoying how he threw my old words back at me. Twelve years ago, Rey’s intimate knowledge of the jungles and connections to the indigenous tribes had enabled my SEAL team to successfully retrieve missionaries who’d been taken hostage by the Alvarez Cartel, then run by Marco’s father.
“But this feels like a different kind of mission, my friend.”
Very different.I’d never been a killer for hire before—not when I was a Navy SEAL, not as a black ops contractor for the CIA, and not while playing scarecrow for Omar Zaki at Beryl Enterprises. It was a distinction I’d always been able to hold myself higher than, until now. But I doubted Rey split hairs as fine as I did.
My humor fading, I used one hand to slip a fin on as I motioned with my other hand for him to spit out his concern.
Rey leaned forward, pleading with his eyes for me to be sensible. It was not the first time I’d been on the receiving end of that look. And if I survived, I doubted it would be the last.
“You have no A-Team…no magic skybird.”
I grinned at his choice of words, campy and tribal just like he was. When I’d first worked with Rey, he’d never seen a drone, much less knew what one was capable of. I gathered he still hadn’t had much experience with them.
“No, how you say, que or eff, no er…backup?”
“QRF, quick reaction force. You have a good memory.” Acronyms aside, I understood what Rey was getting at. Without my team to help me, a high-tech drone to be my eyes in the sky, or anyone nearby to save my stupid ass, I was risking more than I ever had. But that didn’t make my plan any less calculated. “Believe me, Rey, I wish I had those resources too.”
I needed something else more important, though. Taking out Marco put me one crucial step closer to that end. Unfortunately, killing the deadliest drug lord of the century was the easy part of my plan.
Rey reached out to set a trinket in my palm. “Perhaps this can offer you some protection.”
I closed my fingers over the protective medal and slipped it in my med pack. As a good Catholic boy, I knew the talisman’s significance, but in the dark I couldn’t tell which patron saint it belonged to. Not that it mattered really, I’d take whosever help I could get.
Rey whispered a quick prayer and crossed himself. Dropping my chin in silent thanks, I settled my underwater night-vision goggles over my eyes before seating the mouthpiece of a rebreather between my lips. Then I went through the requisite pre-breathing sequence to prepare my body for pure oxygen.
“You’re crazy, Cooper,” Rey muttered.
I shot him a thumbs-up as I rolled back into the deadly river.
