Rogue Op II Page 3

  Rain soaked Chuck’s jeans and t-shirt. He could hear the waves on the beach, and he walked between two beach-front houses to the shore. He walked past rowboats that were pulled up on the sand. He could smell roasting seafood as he passed various cevicherías, but there were few people around due to the rain. Chuck imagined taking Maria out for a lunch of choritos a la chalaca, but the thought upset him. He was hunting her father. That was no way to treat a friend—unless your friend’s father was guilty of genocide in the Amazon Basin. He wondered how Maria was doing in Texas. He knew that she was safe with Jeff who was training her in combat tactics and self-defense. She had told Chuck that she might need those skills one day if her father’s henchman ever caught up with her. She understood the seriousness of her position—hunted by her own father and his psychotic Black Cobra killers, and she wanted to be prepared to defend herself should it come to that.

  Chuck, however, was hoping to find Lazar before he found Maria. Not only did he need to secure Maria’s safety, but he also needed to stop Lazar from unleashing his plot against America. When he was held at Lazar’s death camp in the Amazon, he’d picked up on bits and pieces of Lazar’s sinister plan. He’d learned that the man wasn’t content to just rule his own business empire. He wanted to rule the world and there was only one thing standing in his way. America. Chuck would stop Lazar from destroying it. Even if it was the last thing he did. Chuck knew that given the opportunity, there was every reason to believe that Lazar’s plan would succeed. Lazar was not in the business of failure. General Lazar had been Russia’s youngest and most promising general at one time until his leaders turned against him. Chuck knew that he was a serious threat, but if he could get to him first, his plot would fail. There was no doubt about that in Chuck’s mind.

  On the beachfront in La Punta, Chuck sat on the bench in the rain, and like any devoted bird watcher, he scanned up and down the beach with his binoculars, as well as all the yachts anchored in the bay. The only difference between Chuck and any other birdwatcher was that Chuck was watching for a different kind of bird. He was watching for Lazar and his team of assassins. He was looking for anyone heading to El Frontón Island, which was located just a few kilometers offshore. He realized the grim fact that if he followed them, it would most likely end in a life or death confrontation. Lazar was a vicious sociopath. A killer. Above the law. At the moment he was operating with impunity, but that was about to change.

  Hours ticked off as Chuck sat on the bench watching the beach. He started to wonder why he was even sacrificing himself this way. It was a matter, he realized, of duty to self and country. Sometimes it felt like nobody even cared about his personal sacrifice, like it was all in vain. He wondered if he should do something else with his life. He had started a foundation in his late wife’s name but hadn’t done much with the foundation. Maybe he should devote more time to it.

  Chuck shook his head. He realized that to walk away from the enemies of his country would be to violate his own code: Never give up. Adapt and change your approach, but never leave the fight. The strongest man in the world is he who keeps fighting and never quits no matter what. His purpose was to protect people who could not protect themselves, so that is what he planned to do.

  He sat in the rain for hours. Occasionally, he got up and took a walk down the beach, but always returned to his favorite bench. He checked out several boats along the shore and took a particular interest in a Zodiac tender that was pulled up on the beach right in front of him.

  Maybe I should just retire here, Chuck thought. I could just sit here and watch the birds and listen to the waves year after year. I could get a boat and sail these seas.

  Right. The only problem was that he wasn’t planning to retire. He planned to stay in the field until death caught up with him. Hopefully, no time soon.

  But then again, he was chasing Lazar, who was determined to do away with him. Call it the Chuck Brandt early retirement plan. No buyout included.

  He thought more about General Lazar who not only was determined to kill him, but also bring down America. Evidently, he was conspiring with various diplomats, flying them to his opulent resort on the outskirts of Cusco. Whatever he was planning couldn’t be good. Chuck thought of Lazar’s heinous crimes in the Amazon and the countless doomed lives he was responsible for ending. He figured a man like him would not hesitate to deploy any means possible to destroy America, even weapons of mass destruction. General Lazar was like the black plague, and at the moment, Chuck was the only antidote against the virus.

  Afternoon turned to evening on the shore of La Punta. The rain got worse under the heavy, dark-gray sky. Thick clouds hung over the city—and yet it was peaceful. Chuck loved the rain. That’s why he lived in Seattle. There was something soothing and comforting about it. Chuck thought of his late wife, but the rain washed away his tears and kept him company.

  Leaning forward, Chuck looked down the beach for the hundredth time. He saw something that caught his attention. Three men were walking towards the marina. Two of them carried duffle bags long enough for rifles. When one of the men stepped from the dock into a speedboat, Chuck caught a glimpse of a shoulder holster.

  Chuck began to casually scan the area…

  Patiently, he waited on his bench and watched the boat. Then he saw where it was headed.

  El Frontón Island. He had found his birds.

  Chuck got up and started to walk toward the Zodiac boat resting on the beach in front of his bench, but barely got three steps.

  “Disculpe, Señor.”

  Chuck turned around and faced a cop. “Yes, sir.”

  “You are American?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I am told you have been sitting here in the rain for seven hours. We have laws against loitering. We can put you in jail.”

  “I’m a tourist, sir. I lost my wife not long ago. I’m still grieving. I met her in Lima many years ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Americano.”

  “Thank you. I’ll get in my boat and move on. It was having some electrical issues, so it might take a few minutes. I’ll be out of here soon.”

  “Sure, Señor. Take your time.” The cop stood and watched as Chuck walked to the Zodiac that was pulled up onto the beach. Chuck pushed it into the water. Normally, he was very fast at hotwiring cars, but this Zodiac was tricky. He was familiar with the Zodiac Mil Pro line, but that line was much bigger than this small inflatable.

  After a minute, the cop said, “Do you need help?”

  “No, thanks,” Chuck said as he shoved off. Just in time the motor jumped to life and he waved good-bye to the cop as the Zodiac rumbled away from shore.

  CHAPTER 6

  As rain blew in and the sky edged toward darkness, the little boat engine whined. Chuck held onto the steering arm of the outboard engine as the Zodiac soared over the wind-blown Pacific Ocean offshore of La Punta, Peru. With his free hand, he held up his mini-binoculars and glassed the boat that he was following from a kilometer back. He was giving the men a lot of room, to avoid arousing any suspicion, and since visibility was poor they didn’t appear to know that they were being followed. Sea spray misted Chuck’s face, and he could taste the salt on his lips. He could barely see the three brawny men through the stormy evening, but he could make out the running lights of their boat. It was also an open boat, but bigger, longer, and sported dual outboard engines of much more power than his little Zodiac. It was flying over ocean swells, slapping down the water, and catching air, over and over.

  Chuck’s ride was lower and slower, but he expected to catch up with the men soon enough. He hadn’t chosen this boat for speed. He’d chosen it because it had been the handiest boat that he could steal or borrow under the circumstances.

  Fortunately, the boat was perfect for the occasion. At the moment, he didn’t need speed because he was following professional killers and wasn’t interested in drawing attention to himself. Also, he wasn’t too worried about losing them. He knew where th
ey were going. El Frontón Island. The island had been used by the Peruvian government as a prison. Men like the ones he was following had found themselves locked up on the island never to return to the mainland again. The island itself was nothing more than a rock that jutted sharply from the sea. The tiny islet was dwarfed in size next to the largest island in Peru, San Lorenzo, that was located just to the north of the stony prison site. Although El Fronton lay just slightly southeast of San Lorenza Island, it was never a concern for the prison wardens as the large island had never been inhabited. It lacked a water source, and not only that, in the ancient past San Lorenzo had served as a cemetery for the Inca civilization. It remained a sacred site, frequented only by the sea lions that kept guard of the secrets of the past.

  The wind blew stronger and faster. The rain sprayed down a warm shower in the darkness. The boat blasted along with decent control although the wind was blowing hard enough to push it off course, so Chuck was constantly correcting. The little Zodiac ran rough over the dark ocean with as much spray coming over the sides as rain from above.

  He caught a glimpse as the men in the other boat approached the treeless El Fronton island. Chuck recalled the infamous history of the rocky landmass. He could almost feel the past. In the 1980’s, Shining Path communist guerillas killed tens of thousands of innocent Peruvians through ambushes, assassinations, and bombings throughout the country. The Peruvian government cracked down hard on the rebels and imprisoned many of the killers on the island. Executions were a common occurrence. It was a grim place to go on a night like this.

  It wasn’t long before Chuck was approaching San Lorenzo, the larger island northwest of El Fronton, and he could smell it from a distance. As he got closer to the shore, he could tell why the smell was so strong. Tens of thousands of sea lions covered the beaches and rocks of San Lorenzo. Their incessant barking rode on the wind, carrying their freakish sound through the air.

  Fighting a rip-current, Chuck swung the Zodiac toward El Frontón from the leeside of San Lorenzo, and it was barely five minutes before he was skirting the back side of the prison island, looking for a place to land. The sky was dark gray, and he had just spotted a place when a rogue wave lifted his boat and spilled it onto a rocky bench. The boat hit a big rock and flipped. Suddenly, the wave was receding and pulling Chuck back off the stone shelf and into the water. He swung his arms over a rock and held on against the back-pull. The sea water quickly drained back into the ocean. He could tell that his arms were bleeding from the trauma, but he was lucky that he was able to stay ashore. Of course, his boat had just been pulled out to sea. Didn’t matter, though. It had been destroyed by the rocks anyway.

  Chuck started hiking up the cliff, but it was slippery. The only place he could get any traction was in a chute with a little stream in it that was splashing over sharp rocks. Good traction there. He was half way up, maybe a quarter mile up the slope when the stream turned into a flashflood. In a matter of seconds, the chute was a raging river. Chuck grabbed onto some vegetation. It was all that saved him. The flash flood subsided after a few minutes. It was still dangerous, but after a few falls, Chuck gained the ridge. When he summited, the wind hit him with double the force. The downpour washed away the mud and blood that had covered him.

  He lay down and aimed his binoculars at the boat down on the shoreline by the ruins of the old military prison. Two boats were tied up side by side. A twenty-five-foot cabin cruiser had a line ashore. The open boat that Chuck had been following was also tied to a rock ashore. Two men in the cruiser passed four crates over to the three men in the open boat. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Lazar. Could he be in the cruiser? Then Chuck couldn’t believe what happened next.

  Once the crates were transferred, two of the Black Cobras pulled out submachine guns and opened fire. Bullets riddled the two men in the cabin cruiser. They jerked and twisted and fell to the deck.

  Chuck kept his lenses on the Black Cobras to see what they would do next. It was getting darker now, but he was able to see that they had carried the bodies ashore then dropped them off on the beach while they took a smoke break. After a couple of drags from their cigarettes, they pulled the dead men’s bodies behind the crumbling prison walls.

  A flash of lightning caused Chuck to look at the horizon, which was growing dark and obscured. The humid wind was pounding the island even more, and the rain was like a warm shower on his back. Chuck got up and started hiking toward the ruins of the old prison. Several times he slipped and fell in the mud. The fourth time he shot down another water slide for about sixty meters. He was sure he was going to end up in a hospital or dead, but this time he caught air and landed on a level area. As his body flattened out he was able to stop sliding just before the downward slope began again. Fortunately, he was almost to the penitentiary grounds now and had made it this far without any major damage to his bones and organs.

  Carefully, he hiked towards the decaying prison ruins that sat by the sea because he knew that’s where the Black Cobras were. It took him ten minutes to get there. He walked a hundred yards along the rocky beach. As he approached the decaying foundations, he kneeled behind a stone ledge that was just a few feet above the ocean. Wind-driven waves were angling in, so he could feel the spray. He paid little attention to that, however, because he saw an unforgettable sight.

  The three killers had a battery-powered lantern set up behind the prison walls. They had carried the two bodies to the base of one of the walls and thrown them there. Now they were stacking rocks over the bodies, covering them up. They were using El Fronton just as the Incas had used San Lorenzo…as a burial ground.

  Chuck rose, climbed up over the rock ledge and walked toward them. He had an advantage because they were in the light while he was in the darkness.

  But not for long.

  He walked right up to the edge of the pool of light.

  CHAPTER 7

  Standing within the lantern light on the rocky shore, Chuck looked straight into the eyes of the three Black Cobra assassins as waves licked the stony beach behind him.

  One had a scowl on his face like he’d just been punched and couldn’t do anything about it. He was tall and brawny with long legs that flared out from beneath his leather vest. His long arms were wicked fast as he whipped out a knife in a split second.

  The next was a red-headed thug with cruel brown eyes and a thick red beard. He had a puffy black eye and a nose that had obviously been broken in the past. He wore a black, skin-tight tank top that showed off big tattooed arms.

  The third one had greased-back scraggly hair that spilled down over his shoulders. He was a huge guy, his mug unshaven. He had a long, wide wall of a forehead with black eyes that looked like malevolent olive pits under his arched black eyebrows.

  Chuck glanced around quickly. Lazar was nowhere in sight. Where was he? Was he watching somewhere? Chuck didn’t like unknowns like this…

  He said, “¿qué estás haciendo chicos?”

  Scraggly Hair just stood there and looked at him with his vicious eyes, but the other two lunged for their guns.

  Red Beard got his hands on his weapon and got off a shot just as Chuck fired two shots at him. The man twisted and jerked in an unnatural way. As he fell, he squeezed off a burst of gunfire at the sky over Chuck’s head. When the thug’s back slammed down on a rock, his submachine gun clattered on the rocky shore.

  The other guy tried to slip around the corner of the old prison wall, but suddenly dropped to his knees behind a large boulder. He took aim, but two bullets tore through his chest before he could fire.

  Scraggly Hair bolted in the confusion. As he did, Chuck swung his gun and tracked him with it, but the runner disappeared around a stone wall in the darkness.

  Hot wind and rain pounded the island harder now. Chuck wiped the water from his eyes as he went after the third assassin.

  There were no high perimeter walls or guard towers remaining at the site. The compound had consisted of numerous cement cells built al
ong the stone shelf just above the rocky shoreline. So now Chuck was moving from cell to cell in the darkness. The crumbling limestone walls gave him some cover from the weather, but even now wind blew in through the windows. Not only that, but it was very dark. The moonlight was blocked by the storm clouds, and the confined spaces of the prison cells were even darker than outside. Even as his eyes adjusted to the conditions, Chuck could see very little.

  To hunt an armed man in total darkness was dangerous.

  The good news was that the Black Cobra killer would not be able to see either. The bad news was that the killer was probably familiar with the layout of the old prison.

  Chuck heard sounds in the next cell, but it was blowing hard outside, and he couldn’t tell what the source of the sound he’d just heard was. Was it the assassin?

  Taking small steps, Chuck felt his way through the darkness to the next doorway. He peered into the black cell. Thunder crashed. Illumination from the lightning that followed flickered momentarily through the open-air window.

  The cell was empty. As soon as blackness returned, he moved to the next doorway and waited there about thirty seconds until lightning lit up the sky again. This time he saw his man, but the man did not see him. The assassin had his back flattened against the wall waiting for Chuck to come down the corridor so that he could put a bullet in his back. The killer held his gun in front of his face, close enough to kiss it.

  Blackness returned, but Chuck had gauged the distance, which was not even three feet away. He lunged into the hall and swung his left arm like a big old rope. His fist hammered the gunner’s hands, smashing his gun into his wedge-shaped face.

  Chuck grabbed the big man’s shirt and pulled him off balance. The thug fell to the ground, screaming in fury.

  Cautiously, Chuck ducked back behind his cover. “Move and you die!” he shouted.

  This was answered with three shots that flew within inches of his position. Chuck responded by putting his gun around the corner and firing one shot, but the shooter was making for the exit.