She was starting to sound like Scott Brodie, and he wasn’t sure he liked that. “He could turn around any minute. He doesn’t need his binoculars to see two gringos coming toward him in a boat.”
“Those bastards captured us there, and we’re going to capture him there.”
Really? “I think upriver would be a good way to go.”
“We don’t know what’s upriver except for that landing strip, and we don’t have a sat phone to call Worley.”
“Okay… so we’ll wait for Mercer to go address the troops, then we drift downriver with the current, and when we’ve gotten clear of this place we motor up and head toward Kavak to check out the situation. If we don’t like what we see, we keep going until we find something that looks like civilization.”
“That’s not what we agreed to do.”
Brodie glanced back at the fishing platform.
Taylor said, “Fate, or whatever you believe in, has given us this one opportunity. He’s there, and we’re here. We’ll never see him again.”
Brodie thought about that. “Right.” If Worley found Mercer, he’d make sure Kyle Mercer never made it back to the States. If another CID team found Mercer, Dombroski would buy the team beers in the O Club and not invite him or Taylor. If nobody found Kyle Mercer, he’d be free to continue his deranged mission to undermine American interests in Venezuela. Maybe more importantly, Kyle Mercer would continue to get away with murder.
On that subject, Taylor said, “Even if we can’t capture him, we can kill him.”
Now you’re talking. That would be easy. Or easier.
“Scott?”
“Okay… anchors aweigh.”
They pulled the boat into the river and pushed off on the oars until they caught the current and began drifting downstream. Taylor turned down the volume on the walkie.
They steered the boat with the two oars and the outboard rudder, keeping it close to the shoreline, but away from underwater obstacles. Brodie figured it would take about five minutes to reach the platform. Maybe less. If Mercer left the platform, they could conceivably beach the boat and follow him—depending on how crazy they felt at that moment. If he turned and saw them coming, Mercer had a few courses of action: run, get on his walkie, or pull a weapon if he had one. Then it would be a shoot-out, with Mercer holding the high ground while his sitting ducks drifted toward him. The only thing that could keep Mercer from hitting them was if he was laughing too hard.
Taylor leaned toward him and said, “We should go under the platform, secure the boat with a line, then come onto the shore, up the ramp, and tell him to surrender or die.”
“Maybe I should pull my gun first.”
“If you have to shoot him, shoot him.”
“That makes a lot of noise. Okay, let’s see how this goes.”
They were within a hundred meters of the platform now and Brodie could still see Mercer, still holding his walkie to his ear. He also saw the boat they’d taken from Kavak, tied to the platform. If they killed or captured Mercer, they could put him in either boat and head upriver toward the jungle landing strip, call Worley on the sat phone—assuming Mercer still hadit—and make the rendezvous with Worley’s Otter. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?
They were within twenty meters of the platform now, and Brodie could see only the top of Mercer’s head—then Mercer turned, and Brodie drew his Glock. But then Mercer’s head disappeared, and Brodie guessed that he’d sat down.
They steered between two pilings and the boat was suddenly under the dock, where it hit bottom with a thump that Brodie thought was as loud as a landing craft hitting the beach. Not waiting for Taylor to find something to tie the line to, he scrambled out of the boat and made directly for the open space between the platform and the riverbank. He found himself slipping in the mud, then got his traction and came out on the shore, jumped on the ramp, and pulled his Glock and charged up to the platform. The element of surprise.
And there was Kyle Mercer, sitting in the same chair, his back to him. Unfortunately, there was another man at the table sitting in a chair facing Mercer, and also facing Brodie.Surprise!The man’s eyes doubled in size, but he recovered from his shock and went for the gun in his shoulder holster.
Brodie fired at his center mass, and the man did a backflip, taking himself and the chair over the side of the platform with a splash. The sound of the gun blast echoed into the trees. Mercer didn’t even turn his head as Brodie yelled, “Surrender or die.”
Kyle Mercer, Delta Force, had another idea, and he grabbed the table with both hands, spun, and swung it at Brodie, who ducked and squeezed off a round that would have hit Mercer in the chest, except that Mercer had done an impressive back roll over the edge of the platform and into the river.
Taylor ran onto the platform and took in the situation quickly.
Brodie flipped his gun to her. “Cover!” He dived off the platform and began swimming toward Mercer, who was headed quickly downstream, doing a backstroke that was as impressive as his backflip.
Mercer’s jungle boots were slowing him down, and he couldn’t get them off and swim at the same time. Brodie kicked off his running shoes, and within a minute he was within arm’s reach of Mercer.
Mercer sensed Brodie behind him and suddenly got upright, revealing a long knife in his right hand that gleamed in the sunlight. He brought the knifedown toward Brodie’s head, and Brodie did his own backflip in the water as he drew Emilio’s KA-BAR and plunged it toward Mercer’s submerged abdomen, but the current had pulled Mercer back about a foot out of reach.
As Brodie came up, he saw that Mercer was making toward the shore, and he followed.
