Page 96 of Vaquero
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Julio rolled the knots in his neck away and wiped the sweat on his forehead to keep it from running into his eyes. He’d arrived too late. Zapata had a ten-minute lead. He’d already disappeared into the forest north of Ouro Preto. With Meg and tiny Dom.
To make everything worse, Zapata knew Dom was his son. That was why he’d come, to get his boy. Craig told Julio that before he’d gathered the children back into the helo Julio had arrived on. Craig and the children were now headed back to theIwo Jimain that helo, where they’d be safe. Someone would return for the damaged Blackhawk. For now, the pilot of the Blackhawk Meg had been on, Lieutenant Damien Cutler, had been left behind to guard the bird. The mayor of Ouro Preto had sent an army of police officers to assist. Julio hoped that would be enough.
This incident would surely create havoc for USA and Brazilian diplomatic relations, but Julio didn’t care. To hell with Brazil’s local Council of Guardianship, too. They’d done nothing to protect the children. Worse, Craig said they’d frightened the kids. Not that witnessing the esteemed Brazilian leader die, whom Julio now knew as the deceased, Jose Gutierrez, hadn’t already scared everyone. But city officials should’ve known better and done more than send a handful of businessmen to do what an army should’ve done. These hills were thick with thieves and marauders. More should’ve been done to secure this runway, especially since the Brazilian government had known precisely where this Navy helo would land.
Diplomacy be damned. If Brazil cared so much, they should’ve done more to help their unwanted and motherless children to begin with. Maybe they wouldn’t have so many then, and none of this would have had to happen.
The global failure to protect children galled Julio. He was angrier than he’d ever been. After he’d waved the chopper off, he’d begun walking northwest to that stone-cold bunker Zapata called home. That was most likely where Dominic had been born, and where Zapata stored more weapons and ammo. Where his cold-blooded gang of killers might still be waiting. And planning.
Well, let the motherfuckers plan. Let them think they had a chance of seeing another day! Didn’t matter how many, didn’t matter where or how. Julio’s heart had turned cold at the hard and ugly chore ahead of him. But he would clean this rat’s nest out, once and for all.
His language had deteriorated during the long flight back to Brazil. But he also knew God understood the heart of a warrior, that sometimes, it had to become stone in order to do what needed doing. In order to survive. Words would never be as important as steadfast hearts. As life. As rescuing the weak and innocent from animals like Zapata. Bottom fucking line: Zapata was going to die today. Every son of a bitch who stood with him, too.
Pissed to his core, Julio tracked Zapata as he’d tracked every other terrorist and low life he’d been ordered to target. Relentlessly. He had two goals in mind, murder and rescue. End the asshats. Save the only family Julio had.¡Mi familia!He couldn’t lose this one, too. God couldn’t be that cruel. He just couldn’t.
“¡Maldita sea, Dios!It’s happening again!” he railed at the creator of heaven and earth.Damn it, God! “Show me how to be a better man, how to be worthy of this woman and this precious son. Please. Show me the way. Hear my prayer. Be with me. Be my right hand. Give my feet wings and keep my heart strong.”
Because that organ thumping like a beast inside his chest was breaking. Julio had come full circle, back to the worst days of his life. He couldn’t fail again. He wouldn’t!
As he had when he’d first arrived in Brazil, he wore a single gear bag strapped to his shoulder. That bag held a couple bottles of sports drink. Protein bars. His blow-out kit. Two extra shirts in case he’d need to cover any blood, or worse, when or if he came into contact with any villagers after the upcoming battle. There was no sense scaring the locals on his way out of the country.
That bag also carried plenty of ammo for the Berettas holstered under each arm, as well as for the Heckler and Koch MP7, aka room broom, hanging off his other shoulder. The modified, bolt-action SOCOM MK-13 rifle Walker Judge had given him, lay flat against his back, holstered for now. But loaded. Like every other weapon Julio packed.
His gear bag was damned heavy. The trail before him, heavier. But tracking was not as hard as he’d expected. Not with the continual bent and broken branches pointing his way forward. Showing him the way. Meg, even now with a child in her arms—hopefully still in her arms—and partial paralysis weighing her down, had left a trail of breadcrumbs.
Dios!He loved that woman. With hope in his heart for the first time all day, Julio broke into a steady jog. Forward. Ever forward. Zapata wouldn’t be able to move as quickly through these trees, not with a woman determined to slow him down while carrying a child. Julio could overtake them. Make that, would. He’d get ahead of them. When Zapata arrived back at his hole-in-the-wall bunker, he’d be in for one helluva surprise.
*****
Man, this guy was intolerable at so many levels. Every question Meg asked had only earned her a grunt or stone-cold silence. For as short and squat as he was, Zapata was quick. And pushy. And rude!
He had no problem poking her with that damned pistol he’d pulled out of his rear holster, urging her to walk faster. Growling like a bear, other times snorting like a pig when she faltered and lost her footing. And spitting. Always spitting. Yet he wasn’t chewing tobacco, at least not the kind she was familiar with. Whatever he kept stuffing in his cheek, it was black and nasty when it spewed out of his mouth. Looked as if he’d hocked up thick, black phlegm. The jerk took no precaution to keep her or Dominic from seeing it either. Just hocked it up while he walked, and spit it, sometimes into her path. Where she might slip and fall trying to avoid the mess. Keeping up with this creep was getting harder and harder to do. Gross!
“Please,” she said, panting while poor Dom sweated against her. They hadn’t been allowed one chance to catch their breaths, and Dom was frightened. He had yet to loosen his stranglehold around her neck, and his head, now hatless, kept bumping under her chin. Jolting her when she stumbled. Not that Meg minded. She was just winded, and her left side had grown weaker during this forced march. She didn’t have a lot of strength or balance left.
“Please,” she wheezed, trying again. “My boy, err, your son, needs to rest. You’re scaring him and he’s frightened. He needs a drink.”
The asshat leading the charge up this bushy hill never slowed. Didn’t even hesitate or acknowledge that he’d heard. Just kept going.
That did it. With a loud sigh, Meg dropped to her haunches and pulled the only bottle of water that Zapata the Troll had allowed her to grab, out of the flimsy bag flapping off her back. It’d sure be nice if there were more in that bag, but at least, Dom wouldn’t go thirsty. Yet, anyway.
Casting an evil glare back at her, Zapata growled. “Walk,cadela!”
Again with the name calling.
“No,” she told him right back. “Your son needs a break, and so do I. I’ve had a stroke, you idiot. I can’t walk as fast or as long as you can, and neither can Dominic. We’re taking a break, and then we’ll walk and walk some more. Got it?” She tossed that at him with attitude.
With a grunt, the troll lowered his ass to the dirt uphill, glaring down at her like a damned black human-thundercloud. Grunting. Picking something black and disgusting from between his pointed fangs again. Still spitting.
Oh, sweet Jesus.Meg had heard that the Krahô Indians, one of Brazil’s indigenous tribes, chewed some kind of psychedelic plants for their shaman rituals. Was that what he’d been chewing and spitting all this time? Or was this guy high on the cocaine produced from coca shrubs grown in this region? Was he hallucinating? On some other drugs? Or was he just plain cruel like Orlando?
He flicked his black-stained fingertips at her, his sneer as hate-filled and as lethal as the second she’d first laid eyes on him. Yup. Just plain cruel. She’d heard stories of Domingo’s brutality, each worse than the last. This was going to be a long day.
