PRIMAL Nemesis (Book 2 in the Redemption Trilogy, A PRIMAL Action Thriller Book 6) (The PRIMAL Series) (18 page)

“Why do you think they left the rest of you alive?”

“I don't know. But they were definitely here to kill Dante. The poor man, he didn’t stand a chance.”

“How would they have known he was here? Did he visit you often?”

“No, that's what worries me the most. He never even told me he was coming. He just arrived at my doorstep last night. He was scared of something but wouldn’t talk.”

Antonio shook his hand and walked along the gravel driveway, through the unlocked gate, to the street where Igor was waiting in his car.

“How did it go?” asked the Russian.

“It was the same people. But I don’t think they’re the
colectivo.
They spoke English. One of them was called Jimmy.”

***

GULF OF GONAVE, CARIBBEAN SEA

Saneh
checked the fuel readings as the
Nemesis
cut its way through the Gulf of Gonave between Cuba and Haiti. She had been running the engines at around forty knots ever since they refueled. They had burnt over half the resupply but also made excellent time. At this speed they were only five hours from Kingston and the rest of the team.

Her iPRIMAL vibrated on the console. She picked up the Bluetooth headset that was next to it and pushed it in her ear.

“Saneh, it's Chen, how are you tracking?”

“Good, if the weather holds we should make Kingston by 2100 tonight.”

“Excellent, that’ll give us a few hours to refuel and cross-load before we move on to the next phase of the operation.”

“And that is?”

“We're going to take the fight direct to GES.”

“What's going to happen to Wesley?”

“He'll need to work with Flash on the banking transactions.”

“We’re going to honor the deal he offered?”

“If Wesley gets us what he's promised, I'll deliver what we agreed to.”

“Good, any news on Kurtz?”

“No, Bishop's just outside the tri-border area. Aleks is inbound. When he arrives, we'll move the CAT to Brazil.”

“Do you need Mirza and me to back him up?”

“No, I've got a job for you in Venezuela. You've given us one piece of the financial puzzle, now I need the other. You've got lead on Pollard.”

Saneh smiled. “Look forward to it.”

“I'll give you a detailed briefing when I see you tonight.”

“OK.”

“Oh and Saneh.”

“Yes.”

“Vance and I are very impressed with how you've handled your part of the mission. I'll see you soon.” Chua ended the call.

Her lips parted in a half-smile as she stared out through the windshield at the clear blue waters of the gulf. It had taken almost two years but finally she felt like she’d broken out from Bishop's shadow. Now, they could operate as a team on equal footing.

***

BRAZIL

Bishop
was struggling not to fall asleep at the wheel of his hired Hyundai sedan. He’d been driving for fifteen hours straight and the pile of energy drink cans in the passenger footwell was testament to how much caffeine he had consumed. His gut churned and his eyelids felt like they were filled with sand. He rubbed them and checked the clock on the dash. It was 0450.

He was impressed with the little car. The Korean-made sedan had been the only vehicle left at the rental agency. He had taken it reluctantly but soon realized it was more than capable of speeding across Brazil on what was a reasonably well-maintained network of roads and highways.

He didn’t slow as he drove through the city of Cascavel. The streets were empty. His iPRIMAL rang, startling him. The device was hooked up to the Bluetooth system in the speakers.

“Hello.”

“Bish, it's Chen. How you doing, buddy?”

“I feel like I've been on a month long tequila bender, passed out in a gutter, and had a donkey crap in my mouth. But, apart from that, I’m great.”

“Good. I just wanted to let you know we're shutting down the Jamaican FOB in the next few hours. By mid-morning we'll be mobile.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“A precaution. GES attempted to intercept the
Nemesis
in addition to tracking Kurtz.”

“The
Nemesis
? Is Saneh OK?”

“Yeah, they escaped. They’ve just arrived here.”

Bishop exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“They're going to be heading to Venezuela and meeting with Ivan,” continued Chua.

“OK, well I’ll arrive in Foz in a few hours. If I can find Kurtz before Pershing I'm going to try to convince him to drive with me back to Medianeira. There's an airport there. We can get a flight to Rio.”

“Copy that. We’re going to forward base the CAT at an airfield closer to you. As soon as you have any intel I can get them to your location ASAP. Hey, I've got to run. I'll check in once we're out of Jamaica.”

“OK, good luck.”

“You too.”

Bishop tilted his head sideways to stretch the muscles in his neck. Glancing at the clock he did a quick calculation in his head. Pershing would have had nearly a full six hours on the ground by now. However, Bishop had an advantage. He knew the group the former PRIMAL operative was working with. He hoped like hell that would be enough.

CHAPTER 21

KINGSTON, JAMAICA

Chua
shut down his laptop and slid it inside his backpack. It was the last of the PRIMAL equipment left in the hangar. Kruger and the boys were loading the rest of the gear into the Gulfstream. All that he and Flash were going to take on the boat were their laptops, a secure satellite bearer, and some personal effects.

Kruger stuck his head around the office door. “Chua, we're good to go as soon as Aleks gets here. We’ll wait on onboard Sleek.”

“Right, his flight just landed so he won’t be long.” He shouldered his backpack and joined the rest of the team in the hangar. Saneh and Mirza were waiting with Flash.

“You sure about this?” asked Saneh.

Chua nodded. “Yeah, I've got plenty of experience on boats. We'll be fine.”

“Speak for yourself, bro. I want to go in the jet,” said Flash.

Saneh laughed. “Mirza will take you both down to the tender. I'm going to head over and meet Aleks. Stay safe.”

“I will. OK, let’s go.”

“Look after him, Flash,” said Saneh.

The overweight analyst shrugged. “Who’s going to look after me?”

Mirza helped Flash with one of his bags. “Wesley is already onboard,” he said as he led the two intel guys through the darkness to the beach. “I secured him in one of the cabins, even though he's well and truly on-team. He knows if he screws this he's done for.”

Mirza pulled up the wire fence and helped them slide their bags under it. As Chua shimmied under he spotted the
Nemesis’
RHIB tethered on the beach.

“The boat’s only a few hundred meters offshore. You can just see it.”

Chua searched out to sea and in the faint glow of first light he could just make out the dark shape of a hull. “Thanks, Mirza.”

“Good luck.” With that he disappeared into the darkness.

“This is a pretty wild plan, man,” said Flash as he dropped his bags in the boat. “Surely we could have jumped a flight back to Hawaii or something.”

Chua helped him push the tender out past the surf and jumped in. “We can’t take Wesley back to the island. What’s more, staying mobile makes sense when GES are looking for us.” He started the engine and waited for the analyst to climb onboard.

“Yeah, but seriously, bro. Two intel geeks and a banker in a boat. It sounds like the start of a bad joke.”

Chua laughed as he spun the wheel and jockeyed the throttle, launching them out of the surf. The sun was starting to peek over the horizon spreading an orange hue over the clear water. It was a beautiful time to be on the sea. For a moment he relaxed and the tension of commanding a multi-faceted covert operation washed away.

***

FOZ DO IGUACU, BRAZIL

Kurtz
woke at six having slept like a log. His lumpy mattress at the hotel in Foz Do Iguacu hadn’t bothered him. For the first time since leaving PRIMAL he felt like he was part of a team again. The work in Rio had been satisfying but was nothing like this. Arnie and his boys were warriors like him and they planned and rehearsed just as professionals should. He dressed, pulled on his boots, and downed the protein shake he'd bought the night before. Grabbing his backpack, he headed downstairs to wait.

At 0700 sharp two vans, one white and one red, stopped outside the hotel. Arnie got out of the second vehicle and tossed him the keys. “You pumped, mate?”

Kurtz grinned as he caught them. “
Ja
, let's do this.” He got in and turned the ignition. Arnie buckled himself into the seat next to him. Two of the other team members were in the back.

They crossed town and drove onto the road that led to the brothel. As they passed one of the resorts Kurtz noticed a compact white sedan following them. Thinking nothing of it he concentrated on keeping pace with the lead vehicle. As they slowed to turn off the road the car overtook them. Kurtz gave it a cursory glance as it shot past. As the white car disappeared around a corner he parked out the front of the brothel alongside the lead van.

“OK lads, two minutes in and out.” Arnie pulled a balaclava over his face and leaped out. Kurtz waited with the engine running and watched as the two men in the back followed Arnie. One of them carried a sledgehammer but the front door was open and they streamed in.

He glanced in the rear-vision mirror and thought he saw the same car that was following them pass by again. He shook his head. White sedans were common with tourists.

True to his word it only took Arnie two minutes. He and the others reappeared with six terrified young girls and bundled them into the vans. Arnie climbed back in and slammed the door. “OK, let’s get the hell out of here.”

An SUV screamed into the parking lot and skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust, blocking the way out. A second vehicle pulled in behind the first, armed gunmen pouring from it as it stopped. Within seconds there were surrounded, with assault rifles pointed at them.

“What the hell?” Arnie reached inside his backpack and pulled out an extendable baton.

“No, you can't fight them,” said Kurtz.

“Get out of the vehicles!” screamed one of the gunmen in a US accent.

“We need to do as they say,” Kurtz said calmly.

“Fuck that, they're probably one of the sex-trafficking gangs. We get out and they'll kill us.”

Kurtz shook his head. “No, they're Americans.”

“Get out of the cars!” The gunman repeated. To reinforce his point he fired a single round into one of the tires of the lead van.

Suddenly Aleks’s message made complete sense. His former partner wasn't trying to find him for PRIMAL. He had been trying to warn him he was being tracked. Kurtz pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in the number he had committed to memory. He didn't dare lift the phone to his ear so he held it low. “It's me, Kurtz. I'm in Foz Do Iguacu and I've been compromised.”

Arnie frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You need to get out of the car now, Arnie. Get everyone out. These people won't hurt you, they're after me. Tell them you only just met me. Tell them you need to get the girls to safety.” Kurtz left the phone connected and dropped it in his pocket.

There was another shot as the gunman blew out another tire on the van.

Arnie clenched his jaw and opened the door. “Mate, I hope you're right. OK, everyone get out.”

Kurtz waited till they were all clear. Then he popped his own door, but instead of getting out, he dropped the shifter in reverse and stomped on the accelerator. The van shot backward, smashing a chunk out of the side of the brothel. Bullets hit the back of it as it scraped alongside the building and down toward the river. Kurtz thrust the door open and dived out as it gathered speed. He rolled once and sprung to his feet, sprinting behind the brothel. The van continued down the slope. Bullets shattered the windows as it dropped off the bank and splashed into the river.

Kurtz sprinted for the dock on the riverfront. A small wooden workboat with a large outboard motor was tethered alongside. He grabbed the line tying it to the railing and jerked it loose. There was yelling coming from the car park and he knew he had seconds before the gunmen were on him.

The engine started with a single pull. He twisted the throttle and sent the boat roaring along the river. Bullets snapped and hissed over his head, one striking the side of the hull as he crouched low. In a matter of seconds he was a hundred yards up the winding river and out of sight behind the leafy trees that lined the bank.

Kurtz took a deep breath and pulled the phone from his pocket as he kept the boat pointed up river. “Is anyone there?”

“Yes, it's Frank. Bishop isn’t far away. Where are you?”

Bishop’s name should have angered him but all he felt was relief. “OK, I'm heading north along the river. My point of departure was a small villa five miles north from the town center.”

The roar of a powerful engine caught his attention and he glanced over his shoulder to see a silver aluminum-hulled boat gaining rapidly. Crouched in the front was one of the shooters.

Bullets lashed the water and snapped through the air. He slipped the phone back in his pocket and grabbed the side of the boat as he wrenched the tiller sideways. The little boat banked hard in a ninety-degree turn. The rifle barked again and Kurtz felt the round as it cracked past him. There was an almighty bang and the outboard motor exploded, spraying him with shards of hot metal. The little wooden boat washed off speed. The pursuers blasted past before circling back. A woman was at the helm. The armed man in the bow had his weapon aimed directly at him.

“Get your hands up!”

Kurtz felt the warm sensation of blood dripping down his arm. A splinter from the engine had nicked him. “I can't, you shot me,” he snapped back.

The man slung his rifle as he moved to the back of the boat next to the woman. “You're going to get in this boat and kneel in the bow with your hands behind your back.”

Kurtz glared at him.

“Do you understand?”

He nodded.

The helmswoman skillfully brought her vessel alongside. As he stepped across he feigned a fall and dropped face first into the aluminum boat. Shielding his hands with his body he slipped the phone under a pile of life jackets. Swearing he picked himself up and knelt.

A set of flexicuffs were drawn tight around his wrists and a hood was dropped over his head.

“We got him,” reported the woman.

Kurtz felt a boot kick him between the shoulder-blades, knocking him face first into the hull. As he lay with his hands bound behind his back, panic and confusion assailed him. Who were these people and what did they want? What would happen if PRIMAL couldn't find him?

***

LASCAR ISLAND

Thousands of miles away in the operations room of the Bunker, Frank
still had Kurtz’s phone on speaker. The audio was muffled. “It's still on the boat.” He glanced across to Vance who was sitting in his command chair.

As soon as the call had come in over the emergency contact line Frank had called for Vance. He'd managed to talk to Kurtz for a few seconds before the missing operative had gone silent. The audio feed was streaming on the Bunker’s speakers capturing all of the gunshots, the yelling, and the roar of the engines. He had also sent the number of the incoming call to the intel team.

“OK, so what do we know?” asked Vance.

“He said he was just outside Foz at a villa five miles from the town center.” Frank placed a bubble on the overhead imagery displayed on the wall.

“There, right on the river.” Vance used a laser pointer to identify a likely building.

“OK, let’s say he entered the water at that point then went north in a boat. Judging by the noise I'm guessing at least a 150 horsepower outboard. At full throttle he would have been capable of 30 knots. The time from launch to the engine being shot would have taken him this far.” Frank drew a line on the digital map. “That's when we hit a problem. He was intercepted and cross-loaded. We have no idea which direction he was taken.”

The dull drone of the boat’s engine coming in via Kurtz's phone stopped and there was a thud followed by the sound of people leaving the boat. Then there were footsteps and silence except for the sound of lapping water.

“They've offloaded him somewhere with a wooden dock,” said Vance. “Work out the distance they could have traveled in either direction and start searching. Where the hell is Bishop in all this?”

Frank zoomed the map out. “He's about twenty minutes out of town.”

“And where is the fix on the phone? Damn, I wish Chua or Flash were here.”

He opened a comms line with the remainder of the intel team next door. “What have you got guys?”

“Sorry Frank, without assets on the ground the best we can do is a cell phone tower.”

Frank recognized the voice as one of Chua's analysts, Nate. “Send us what you’ve got.” A file came through and Flash dragged the overlay onto the digital map. A thick curved band appeared centered on a spot to the north of the city. The edge of it intersected the river for about a quarter of a mile.

“That's our search zone,” said Vance.

Frank zoomed in. The banks of the river on the Brazilian side led to lush green fields. In the entire section there were only two piers reaching out into the water. One of them had a boat shed.

“That's it. Send the location to Bishop,” bellowed Vance.

“Roger.” Frank’s fingers raced over his keyboard.

“How long till the CAT is airborne?”

“Aleks should be at the terminal now. They should be in the air in fifteen minutes.”

“OK, and Chua, when will he be online?”

“He and Flash are onboard and underway. Chua has requested we manage all command and control from here. He's focusing on the MVI takedown.”

Vance nodded. “Right, let’s get some more staff in here. Things are about to get high speed.”