Mercer watched him as he walked through the clearing, toward the river and the boat that would take him to the Kavak airstrip and a plane back to Caracas—back to the squalor and the misery of his revolution.
They are coming for you.But who?
He thought back to his chance encounter in the whorehouse two weeks ago. He couldn’t believe his eyes at first. Seeing a couple of doughy Americans in a place like that was already strange, but when one of them started staring at him and Mercer realized it was that fuckup Al Simpson he’d befriended in basic training a lifetime ago… He should have killed him, but… then he’d have had to kill the other American with him, and also the locals who’d brought them there. And that might be too many corpses for the Hen House to dispose of.
In any case, Mercer had figured that Simpson was too drunk, too scared, or too embarrassed by his own presence in a brothel to report it to anyone. But apparently he had. And that changed the equation. That meant CID might be in Venezuela.
Whoever these two Americans were, they’d likely meet their end tonight in Petare. But whether they were Intel or CID, they were part of a larger machine, and once that machine’s gears start turning they don’t stop.
He also thought of that whore Carmen, who would sell him out for a pack of cigarettes. She would have no clue where the camp was, but if anyone managed to find her and speak with her, she’d help them make a few more connections… It occurred to Mercer that he was leaving too many witnesses alive.
Mercer glanced again at SEBIN’s list of the soon to be dead. There were women on the list. Also a priest. They were probably all good people—Venezuelan patriots. And probably some of them were backed by the Americans. The CIA. And also the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Which meant they were working for Brendan Worley, and therefore, they had to die.
CHAPTER 37
Mercer walked out of the hut and turned onto a path that led deeper into Camp Tombstone. The camp had grown darker as the sun sank beneath the towering trees, and the Pemón were lighting torches on the paths. Mercer’s men were starting to return from the obstacle course and the rifle range, hungry for dinner. The changing of the perimeter guard would take place at exactly 8P.M. Kyle Mercer ran a tight ship, and the men hated the discipline. They were by nature anarchists. But he, Kyle Mercer, by the sheer power of his will and his command presence had transformed these men into a coherent fighting machine. He treated them with dignity and respect—something most of them were not used to. And in return he demanded—and earned—their loyalty. They weren’t exactly Delta Force, but they followed orders, and they would follow Señor Kyle to hell if he led the way.
Mercer continued along the dark trail. The tree canopy rustled with birds and monkeys. Insects buzzed and chirped; lizards skittered through the underbrush. This jungle was bursting with life, with sounds and smells, unlike the craggy brown wastes of the Afghan frontier, a dead place where all you could hear was the mournful wind and the sound of your own breathing.
The trail ended at a small bamboo hut where a tall, muscular man stood, wearing jungle boots, camo pants, a tight black T-shirt, and a holstered pistol. This was Emilio, who, like Franco, was a veteran of the brutal and unending drug wars. Emilio had once been a hit man for the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico until the Zetas killed his family and Emilio got out of the drug business. This part of the world produced an abundance of cocaine, corpses, and dead souls.
Emilio stood straight as Mercer approached. “Buenas tardes, Señor Kyle.”
“Hola. Cómo está el prisionero?” How is the prisoner?
“Alive. Wishing he was dead.”
Mercer knew that feeling. “If he dies on your watch, you will take his place.”
Emilio nodded.
Mercer opened the bamboo door and entered the windowless hut, which his men had nicknamed la Capilla—the Chapel. Light and air filtered through the bamboo walls, so this wasn’t the worst prison cell Mercer had ever seen—that honor went to his own stone hut where he’d spent more than two years lying on a dirt floor, baking in the summer heat and freezing in the winter cold. This jungle hut also had a dirt floor, but it was covered with palm fronds, a bit of luxury for the important prisoner.
In the middle of the floor lay a huge log, and embedded in the log were two eyebolts, anchoring chains connected to manacles that were clamped onto the prisoner’s ankles.
There was a waste bucket on the floor, and Mercer could smell it. Also on the floor were an empty plastic water bucket and a wooden bowl of ground yucca root, uneaten.
Mercer looked at his prisoner in the dim light, lying on the palm fronds. He was either sleeping or feigning sleep, which Mercer recollected doing when he’d had a visitor who’d come to beat him or torment him. This prisoner had been beaten only once, when he first arrived, just to show him how it felt, and to make him live in fear of another beating—or something worse.
The prisoner wore only boxer shorts, and his body was covered with sweat, insect bites, heat sores, and dirt. He hadn’t been allowed to bathe or shave and he’d grown a weeks-old beard, gray and matted, as was his long hair.
Mercer crouched beside the man. “Hello, Ted.”
The man lay motionless, eyes closed.
“Don’t make me punch you in the balls.”
The man opened his eyes, but said nothing.
Mercer looked at the man’s face in the dim light. Ted Haggerty was in his early sixties, and Mercer recalled that he’d been good-looking a few weeks ago, before he’d had his nose broken. Also, he stunk.
“You’re looking a little thin, Ted. Are you on a hunger strike?”
Haggerty did not reply.
“I can tell you from firsthand experience that it takes over a month to die from starvation. You can speed that up if you don’t drink water. But it’s hard to go thirsty. Would you like some water?”
