Page 26 of Vaquero
Chapter Ten
Casting his humanity aside, Julio allowed the darkness inside him to rise. He might not have a SEAL team at his six, but since Zapata came into his life, he’d become as ruthless as one. As lethal. The first armed idiot wearing Oz’s red bandana, died swiftly. Silently.
He let the limp body fall into the bushes, then stooped one knee to the ground and cleaned his blade on a patch of dried sphagnum moss. The gravel pit lay beyond the fringe of honey locust trees up ahead. Advancing, he stopped in the shadows of those trees to plot an azimuth. In and out. That was how this infiltration would go down. The fewer men who died between here and there, the better. Especially the enslaved, whose lives had now taken front and center of Julio’s plan. He couldn’t end Oz if it meant endangering the men, women, and children he’d kidnapped.
But then…Damn. Everything went from bad to worse. This wasn’t just another one of Oz’s mines dug into the middle of some gravel pit. This was an armed camp, and that explosion hadn’t created a tunnel. It was the beginning of a well where, even now, a team of men were gathered around a drilling rig, complete with twenty-foot high boom and hydraulic hoist.
Julio tugged his micro-binocs up from one of the many pockets in his tactical pants, needing to verify what he was seeing.Madre de Dios!Were those missiles on the backs of those three flatbeds? Were those mobile launchers, not just flatbeds?
His heart fluttered to a full suffocating stop in the back of his throat. Those weren’t just missiles. They were Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles. ICBMs. Designation: RS-24 YARS. Range: close to seventy-five hundred miles. Warheads: nuclear. Weight: nearly fifty-thousand-kilograms per warhead. Three-stage solid-fueled rockets powered these missiles. They were mobile launch capable. And sitting right goddamned here in the middle of fuckin’ Brazil.
Julio faded back into the shadowy oblivion offered by the setting sun, and crossed himself with a fervent, “Padre, Hijo y Esporitu Santo.”Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.Of all the stupid things, he’d left his sat phone with Meg. There was no way to call Sullivan to warn him, and Oz meant for these warheads to strike America. Those weren’t wells he was digging. They were missile silos. With well-digging equipment, maybe, but the man meant to dig missile silos nonetheless. That miscalculation alone offered Julio the single spark of hope he desperately needed. His mission became crystal clear. Orlando Zapata had to die before he brought in more efficient equipment. As in tonight. Every last one of his Russian friends, too.
But where were the Brazilian people he’d enslaved? Where were the children he’d stolen?
Julio needed to know. Intensely alert and focused now, he adjusted the binocs, needing to absorb every last detail below. A hard man made impossible decisions. Life and death decisions. Right now, Julio was faced with one helluva dilemma. If the Russians and Oz meant to strike at America, how many lives could he save by striking them first, here? Tonight? How many American lives would end horribly, painfully, if he did nothing? At what cost? Who was more worth saving? American lives at the expense of these few enslaved Brazilians? Or did he focus on the here and now, save these slaves—if there were any—and hope that another chance to stop Orlando Zapata just, somehow, came along? What about the poor people, men, women, and children he had yet to locate? Were they below in some tunnel, working their guts out? Or were they already dead?
Julio rethought what had previously seemed a simple hit.
“Russians,” he breathed. Sullivan needed to know. Now. Yet Sullivan wasn’t here, and Julio had no way to reach him.
“Shit,” he hissed out loud, pissed at his arrogant stupidity. This was his fault. Yet even as he cussed, he knew he’d give his sat phone to Meg all over again. No regrets. No do-overs. She was the genuine lifesaver and Dom’s choice for a mom. But Julio was just Uncle Sam’s hitman. Expendable. Not even worth a footnote in the annuls of history.
But a sniper in the right place, at the right time, could save the world. His heroes Navy SEALs Chris Kyle, Adam Brown, and Eddie Gallagher had proven that. As had many others.
Okay then. New plan. Better plan.
Julio steeled his heart. There wasn’t enough room in it now for thoughts of Meg, Tomas, or Bianca. There was only now, and the filthy job that had to be done. Decisions to be made. He would end Orlando Zapata. But before he neutralized that bastard, he’d save every last one of Zapata’s slaves. And America. By all that was holy, he’d save America.
The decision made, Julio stepped back to the edge of the quarry. It was time to get real.
A couple guards were still visible, silhouetted along the upper rim, both armed and looking as enthused as the guard Julio had run into earlier at Oz’s mine. Below, razor wire coiled on top the fence that protected the missiles and launchers. Four armed guards kept watch there, but even they lazed against the fence posts as if the nuclear missiles behind them were no big deal.
He didn’t blame them. At its best, Brazil was hot and humid. They were out in the open with no cover, and the heat captured in the pit had to be intense. Plus, they were uneducated muscle. Not trained Navy SEALs. Probably hadn’t any formal education.
Wiping the sweat out of his eyes, he focused on the quarry layout. Several sloping paths and two gravel roads led to ground level. They’d make infil easy. Several boulders and large rocks dotted the edges of those paths and roads, another plus in Julio’s favor. They’d provide solid cover during exfil for the slaves Julio had yet to locate. Plain and simple, this was a suicide mission. Oz had an army. Who knew what resources the Russians had? But with one hot round, Julio intended to turn this pit into Armageddon. All he had to do was locate the missing Brazilians first.
He worked faster now. Studied everything twice. Quickly. At his right, two fuel pumps. Both diesel. Dump trucks, pickups, flat-bed trailers, and automobiles were parked nearby.
Two rows of three tents had each been set up farther south. Both rows faced each other. Had to be where the guards slept. The walkway between the tents led to a single wooden cabin, the rear of it built into the southern wall.
Julio sharpened the focus on his binocs, going for distance. There were two caves in the opposite wall to the east, across from where he stood. Both opened at ground level. A dozen uniformed, armed men stood guard there. Some were smoking, some scooping food off tin plates and into their mouths. Others stood ready with rifles in hand, actually guarding. But guarding what?
The big guy with a rifle slung over his back seemed to be in charge. All the others straightened when he started gesturing, talking, and pointing at the caves. Looked like a drill sergeant giving orders. Three of the other guards disappeared into one of the tunnels. The left one. Not the right. Interesting.
At Julio’s left, two more tents faced the center of the quarry, only these were a bright white. Not dingy gray like the others. Possibly the Russians? Hard to know for sure. Interesting layout, though, with Oz’s cabin tucked in the shade and the Russian tents positioned where they stood in the sun all day. Looked more like a camp of opposing forces instead of friendly allies. It reminded Julio of a line from one of the nonsensical rhymes his grandmother used to sing to him and his sister.‘…back to back, they faced each other... drew their swords and shot each other…’
The scene definitely declared a shaky alliance between Zapata and his Russian friends. They didn’t trust each other. Julio intended to use that to his advantage.
Cautiously, he left the cover of the trees and made his way around the lip of the quarry, needing to understand the entire scene before he ventured down. In the process, he neutralized another guard. This one had a walkie talkie Velcroed to his shirt. Which meant Oz expected a sitrep. Also meant Julio’s time was running out.
But he’d expected that when he’d ended the first guard. Pocketing the walkie-talkie, he settled into his belly at the edge of the east wall, above the caves’ entrances for another thorough sweep of the quarry before he engaged Oz’s army.
Smoke and ash from the previous explosion still hung heavy overhead. As it drifted downward, the air grew drier, and drier air made breathing harder. Julio pulled his full canteen out of his gear bag and swallowed just enough to keep from coughing.
The view across from him revealed a long, wooden lean-to against the west wall. Topped with corrugated metal roofing, the building extended the length of the wall, though what it was for, Julio couldn’t decide. Might be an equipment or supply shed. That actually made sense given its location.
Yet, it didn’t. There were no visible access points into the lean-to. No windows. No garage doors. No doors at all. Which was odd. Why build something that couldn’t accommodate vehicles from all sides? He shrugged the puzzle of the day off. It didn’t matter what Oz built. He’d be dead soon. So would his Russian friends and every other terrorist down there. But where were the slaves?
