A few of the spectators looked like they could have been Vietnam vets, maybe former Marines, who’d made a point of being there to see the Pendleton boys in action and be reminded of their own glory days. The rest of the observers were the kinds of guys you might expect at a rest stop at 6A.M.—truckers headed down to Mexico, workers returning home froma graveyard shift, and a few burnouts who were doing whatever they do at rest stops.
Kyle Mercer remembered being in awe of what he was seeing. Those men on the other side of the fence were of another world and another breed. An elite warrior class. He wanted to be like them, and that day he promised himself he would.
He sat up in bed—a pungent foam mattress on a bamboo platform—in his jungle hut. He looked at the woman next to him. Rosalita. She was sleeping, naked, the bedsheet pushed down below her pubis. She had a boyish body, not much in the way of tits or ass. But she had a certain appeal. Perfect facial bone structure. Big brown eyes. Long, slender limbs and luxuriant black hair. She could have been a runway model in New York or LA in another life. But in this life she was a whore in Caracas.
She hadn’t been a very happy hooker in the Hen House. It’s hard to really enjoy it when you’re living in fear of your next client, or of your boss if you don’t get a next client.
Mercer had taken her out of that cesspool, out into the wild. He made her free, and it turned out she was a tiger. That’s the thing about freedom. It shows you who you are.
Someone knocked on the door of the hut. He picked up the Desert Eagle pistol from the crate that served as his nightstand and got out of bed. “Quién es?”
A voice from behind the door said, “Es Franco, señor. El hombre está aquí.”
“Un momento.” Mercer looped his belt and holster around his camo pants and slipped on a white tank top, then pulled the bedsheet over Rosalita’s naked body. He held the Desert Eagle at his side as he walked to the door and looked through a crack in the wood slats. Franco stood in front of the hut, alone.
Mercer holstered the pistol, then opened the door and stepped outside.
Franco flashed a gap-toothed smile. He was a weird-looking guy—short, head too big for his body. He was the kind of man other men underestimated, until they looked into his eyes. You don’t fight for the FARC in the Colombian jungle for ten years and live to tell about it unless you’ve got some big cojones and serious skills.
Franco told him, in Spanish, that the man was waiting for Señor Kyle in the Situation Room. La Sala de Situación. That was the name he’d given to the hut where he held his meetings. It was kind of a joke, but no one else got it.
They walked through the encampment, past a cluster of small thatched huts set among the trees. The jungle was thick here, and even though the late afternoon sun was blasting overhead, it was dim on the forest floor.
Camp Tombstone. Every camp needed a name, and that’s what Kyle Mercer had picked for this place. Another inside joke that was only for him. Franco had politely asked about this choice when he’d learned the meaning of the word: “Is this not a morbid thing, señor?” Mercer had explained that it was named in honor of a town in the American state of Arizona where some famous banditos made a stand. That seemed to satisfy Franco.
They reached a small clearing, where a Pemón man was building a campfire while another was cleaning a fresh catch of catfish from the river. They looked at Señor Kyle, but did not say anything to him. No one spoke to Señor Kyle unless they were spoken to.
Mercer looked up at the small patch of unbroken blue sky. From the air this would look like any other indigenous village. He’d thought about suspending camouflage netting to cover the opening, but a drone’s thermal imagery would pick up their heat signatures regardless. No different than Afghanistan, really. Nowhere to hide so long as the Predators knew where to look. But Mercer didn’t think they did.
In the distance, he heard the crack of gunfire. His men were keeping busy on the rifle range. Some of them were real sharpshooters. Others were liable to blow their own dicks off. But the training was helping.
Franco and Mercer approached a large open-sided hut on the far end of the clearing. In the middle of the hut was a bamboo table surrounded by log stumps that served as chairs. A man sat on one of the logs, smoking a cigarette.
Mercer dismissed Franco and walked into the hut. The two men looked at each other. Mercer did not sit, so his visitor reluctantly stood.
General Ricardo Gomez was a stocky guy in his sixties with a dark complexion and tightly curled salt-and-pepper hair. A lot of African and indigenous blood, like his hero Hugo Chávez. And proud of it too, just likeChávez. To men like him, looking the way he did and wearing a military uniform with two stars on his epaulettes was itself a revolutionary act. Except he wasn’t wearing his uniform today—just a sweaty white dress shirt and jeans. No one who was headed to this camp wanted to draw attention to themselves.
Gomez took a drag and blew a trail of smoke. His eyes were deep-brown slits beneath heavy eyelids, which made him hard to read. “Good afternoon, Comrade Kyle.” He spoke heavily accented but otherwise perfect English.
Comrade. He’d first got called that by one of those Chavista thugs in the barrio, and it seemed to stick, at least among the true believers. He preferred Señor Kyle, but maybe comrade was better than captain, a rank he’d renounced and would never go by again.
“Buenas tardes, General,” Mercer replied. He would use the general’s military title, of course, but would never salute him. He got the feeling this irked General Gomez, but he didn’t really give a shit.
“I have this for you. From SEBIN.” Gomez took an envelope from the pocket of his jeans and tossed it on the table.
Mercer picked up the envelope and removed a long, typed list of names, locations, and job titles.Manuel Gutiérrez, Caracas, Student Activist. Tomas Palacios, Maracaibo, Journalist. Alberto Fernandez, Ciudad Bolívar, Lieutenant Colonel, National Guard.Each name also included an address.
“What is this?” asked Mercer, knowing the answer.
Gomez looked at him with his narrow, inscrutable eyes. “A list of people who need to die.”
Mercer tossed the document back on the table. “A lot of these are civilians. You don’t need me for this shit.”
“Some of them are not civilians. More importantly, all of them are working with your government.”
“It’s not my government.”
“Sí. You are a man without a country.”
