Rogue Op II Page 6

  Below the lost city, at the central point of the labyrinth, was a crossroads of passageways. Tunnels shot off in four different directions. At this junction, the ceiling of the tunnel rose a hundred meters high creating a hollow underground pyramid. This intersection was an amazing place. It was the central axis beneath the citadel, and it was marked by an extraordinary shrine—a massive seventy-foot high stone carving of a knife that had been stabbed into the floor. In fact, the tip of the knife had been perfectly fitted into a stone hole. The stone blade and handle rose vertically from the floor as if it had indeed been stabbed into the ground by an Inca god. The stone blade, which must have weighed twenty tons, featured Inca designs cast in gold up its entire height.

  Lazar looked at the monument with pride. Years ago, an archaeologist had deciphered the messages and meanings of the images and symbols depicted on the massive stone knife blade. The lower portion, the blade, told the story of the inevitable fall of the Inca Empire to foreign invaders. The upper portion, the handle, prophesied that one day a great leader would come from the east and lead the Inca people to victory once more, but this time they would be more powerful than ever before.

  ***

  As Chuck crested the mountain top, he took out his binoculars and studied the area for twenty minutes, then watched for ten more without them, allowing him to take in the entire landscape without focusing in on any one point.

  Then, from his hiding place in the trees, Chuck intently studied the terrain. The plateau, with its fifty-foot high stone-block walls, was a formidable barrier. Chuck studied the situation a few minutes more. At one place, a man-made entrance was slashed into the wall. A ramp between the break in the wall rose to the citadel atop the cliffs. There was no gate prohibiting a man from hiking up this incline to the protected plateau, upon which the lost city rested. However, the narrow ramp, lined by vertical stone-block walls, was a perfect ambush point, as it was no doubt intended to be by its fifteenth-century builders.

  Chuck then saw two Black Cobra guerilla fighters seemingly emerge from a bush at the base of the wall. Carrying assault rifles, they appeared to be going on patrol in the lower forests as they headed down the mountain. Chuck worked his way through the forest and studied the place where they had emerged. All he could see was a big patch of bushes at the base of the rock wall.

  After taking a quick look around, he dialed a number on his SatPhone. After a few seconds, an explosion thundered on the far slope, then a secondary explosion. With his distraction now sprung, Chuck made his move.

  He ran across thirty yards of gravel and snuck behind the bushes. There he found a small cave opening, barely four-feet high. Alert for trip wires, he entered the cave. However, instead of angling up toward the citadel, it slanted downward into the earth.

  He spirited down the shaft. As Chuck began to descend the shaft it became a stairway. Casket-sized eyes carved in the stone atop the cave appeared to watch his every move. Cool air that flowed from far below swept over his face. Chuck stepped back for a moment as a strong earthy smell emanated from the ancient structure, which was as old as time and which, and in its own way, marked the end of time.

  Chuck found that the steps were uneven and slippery. He turned on his flashlight and scouted a hundred yards down into the tunnel.

  ***

  As Lazar marveled at the magnificent stone carving in front of him he felt the ground move and saw trickles of dirt dislodged from the walls that surrounded him. He hurried down the shaft to the nearest wall-mounted phone with a landline.

  “Muerte, Muerte. Come in.”

  “Yes, General. I’m here. Over.”

  “What was that?”

  “One of our trip wires was triggered. My men are investigating. It was probably just an animal, but I’m heading into the tunnels to make sure.”

  “Good. It better not be Brandt. If it is, you know what to do.” Lazar hung up and headed towards the stairway and the safety of his reinforced strategy room.

  CHAPTER 15

  A man with a scalp-red face moved through the gloom of the tunnel like a vision from a nightmare. He wore a black t-shirt covered in cobwebs. Standing tall at 6’-6”, his body was like a big sack of potatoes, a mass of brawn pocked with knots and pits. His arms and legs were logjams of muscle. His face would have sent a pit-bull running. It was like a ball of tightly-wound cords and ropes fraying from tension. His nose was snarled. His eyes were vicious. His forehead looked like the end of a battering ram. His scalp was bald, his hair having been replaced with tattoos of black snakes. He weighed over three hundred pounds.

  This was Muerte, the death spirit of the city, but he was no spirit. He was a thug and a killer. He was fear personified. He was his enemies’ worst nightmare. He was the Black Cobra cage-fighting champion that had killed over a dozen men in the Octagon. Out of the ring, he had left a trail of bodies up and down South America, enough to create a 2”-thick scrapbook of crime articles.

  He was six-six and all muscle. They didn’t call him Muerte because of his bulging, scalp-red face or his fierce eyes. They called him that because of his reputation, and especially his actions. When villages refused to relinquish their sons for their cause, Muerte killed everyone and burned down the village. “The people must be taught a lesson,” he’d said. The stories of his cruelty were legion in the land.

  Muerte flared out his big arms. In his right hand, he carried a Russian AEK-971 assault rifle. The gun was very efficient and had soft recoil. This one was unique in that it also had a golden magazine.

  Muerte was right-handed, and a holster was attached to his belt at his right hip. It featured a .45 Nighthawk custom handgun. Muerte’s hands swung as he walked down the dim tunnel. On his right wrist, he wore a diamond bracelet that glinted when he walked under the tunnel lights. The diamond-studded handgrip of his Nighthawk custom handgun also shimmered in the light. “You see sparkle just before I kill you,” Muerte liked to say to his victims.

  On his left hip, Muerte wore a wide-bladed machete with a diamond–studded handle. It had a tempered steel blade and a sickle hook at the tip. The wide blade was heavy enough that it cut like an ax. Muerte had used the machete in the villages. He was very persuasive when it came to recruiting.

  Muerte walked at a cautious pace down the dim tunnel. The overhead lights were evenly spaced, but not all the tunnels were lighted yet. Three miles of the Chachapoya catacombs would take several months longer. They would do it, though, because the catacombs were a perfect place to conduct Black Cobra training in stalking human prey.

  Muerte knew that Brandt was far more dangerous than any training victim, but that was good. Muerte would enjoy killing Brandt and adding him to his long list of victims. Muerte knew all about the chaos Brandt had caused at the Amazon compound. All Black Cobras knew about that. Killing Brandt would be a trophy. He was believed to be the best in the world at his trade. However, rumors had floated that he’d been betrayed by his leaders and was now a rogue op. Didn’t matter, though. Chuck Brandt was the runt that killed his brothers and Muerte would be sure to take care of him. He could not allow him to continue living.

  Muerte passed one of the many television monitors that played Lazar’s monologue 24/7. As always, Lazar preached revolutionary propaganda for the Cobras as they trained. Muerte had tuned all this out months ago.

  He stopped in the tunnel and listened for several minutes. Then he continued walking through the gloomy tomb.

  CHAPTER 16

  The underground was quiet, and Chuck ghosted quietly down the subterranean shaft. At the first cross tunnel, he hid twenty yards back and waited. Within thirty seconds of the explosion, two Black Cobras ran by. Once they were around the corner, Chuck stepped back into the main shaft and followed it deeper into the earth. He continued to follow the main tunnel. Electrical wires ran along the ceiling powering the overhead lights. His shadow constantly changed in the dim caverns and the musty air.

  Chuck heard voices up ahead, so he kneeled in the dre
ary gloom and listened. He was puzzled because he realized that it was one voice that never stopped. He crept forward. He came to a wide spot in the tunnel that was lit up by a mounted television monitor. Hidden behind a rock wall he watched the monitor from his hiding spot. General Lazar was on the screen, with his thick, black hair, fanatical black eyes, and bushy eyebrows. He was repeating statements of propaganda over and over again. He acted as if he was speaking to an audience, but Chuck thought there was something disembodied about the delivery. It was as if he was talking to nobody and everybody at the same time.

  “Man is a noble savage when one with nature,” he ranted. “but he becomes corrupted by society. It falls upon an enlightened leader to use men as a natural resource for the betterment of society.”

  “An enlightened leader must extract personal glory from the masses just as a doctor extracts blood from the sick.”

  Chuck shook his head. He would find Lazar and either put an end to his insanity or die trying. There would be justice. A wise man once said that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing. Chuck had seen Lazar’s crimes in the Amazon first hand. He knew what the man was capable of. He also knew that at the moment he was the only one who was willing and able to stop this madman. Given that Lazar had friends in high places in the US government, it was up to Chuck to put an end to him.

  Chuck moved ever-so quietly down the dim shaft. Skulls peered out of crypt nooks in the walls. Bones lay nearby as proof of the brevity of life. Chuck crept through the murky tunnel intersections, the smell of death in the air.

  Lazar’s voice drifted down the tunnel from the monitor.

  “Only the political elite are fit for happiness. They alone have been chosen and trained by the enlightened leader.”

  “No man is allowed to have more than any other man. All receive an equal share of hardship, but the political class lives in splendor.”

  Chuck followed the walkway a hundred yards down into the depths of the mountain. Cold, crimson stone walls reached into the darkness beyond the reach of the last ceiling light. The walls were pocked with nooks and niches. Hundreds of mummies were stuffed in the openings.

  When he saw a gunman’s shadow reaching past a corner, Chuck hid in one of the nooks. He waited, but the gunman walked by and kept going, heading up toward the entrance. He heard other voices, speaking in Spanish but he could not tell where the voices were coming from. He kept going, passing dozens of side tunnels. Chuck realized that he was in an elaborate web of shafts. It reminded him of something he’d seen in Turkey once.

  Suddenly the voices seemed right around the corner.

  Chuck took cover behind a large stone that was five feet tall, and four wide. It was not just any stone. It was a carved sculpture of a human head. The face depicted a blank stare as if the human was in some kind of a trance. The huge stone head was off to the side of the main passageway. It was placed in a wide spot; half its bulk set back in the side of the tunnel wall. It looked like the Incas had started to dig a tunnel but changed their mind and placed the massive head there instead. Chuck noticed a two-foot gap between the huge stone and the cave wall. He slipped into the void and hid in the shadows.

  He watched as two black-clad Black Cobra guerilla fighters walked by, their AK-47’s held ready for action. A minute later, two more moved past him. They also looked alert although they were talking, a major mistake. Not only that, they didn’t check behind the stone face, which was good luck for them. If they had checked it, they might have paid for it with their lives.

  Chuck eased out of his hiding spot and continued down the passageway. Holding his assault rifle at the ready, he passed numerous side shafts, but stayed on what seemed to be the main tunnel. It was a wide passageway lined with catacomb nooks dug into the wall. Human skeletons were lying in almost every recess. Some had their mouths wide open, showing their teeth as if they had died screaming. Mummified fingers covered the eyes of others. All the skeletons looked as if they had perished in agony.

  The part of the underground he was now in had a more primitive construction style. It didn’t have lighting so he used his flashlight. He shuddered as he walked by the crypts of hundreds of dead people. His eyes were drawn to an elaborate frieze that had been created above the crypts. The frieze depicted a red-lipped, fanged monster head.

  Then Chuck saw daylight down a side tunnel.

  “Drop it or you’re a dead man,” he heard from behind.

  He spun around. A thin, but muscular guy stood in the crude dark passageway with an AK47 pointed at Chuck’s head.

  The man picked up a wall-mounted landline phone. “Lazar, this is Salvador,” he yelled. “I found Brandt!”

  Heads Up: Thank you for reading this far! The next book in the series, AMERICAN OP, is now available on Amazon. Grab a copy today. Now back to ROGUE OP II.

  CHAPTER 17

  Without any hesitation, Chuck turned and bolted towards the light he’d just seen down the side tunnel. If he could just get to that opening, he could lose his pursuer in the thick jungle that surrounded the citadel. He broke into a weaving run and just as he entered a chamber that was at the end of the tunnel, shots were fired.

  “You cannot escape!” Salvador screamed.

  Chuck knew that was wishful thinking. He could see an opening with sky. He’d found a way out of this grisly tunnel system and it was less than twenty feet away. He ran for the opening, eager to flee and disappear into the rainforest. He leapt for the light, but at the last second realized something was terribly wrong.

  The light was actually a window and he had too much momentum!

  His hands grabbed the edge of the window just as his legs and body spilled over it. Chuck looked over his shoulder. He couldn’t see how far the drop-off was, but he could tell the fall would be long and deadly. His fingers could barely hold on.

  They began to slip. Fear burst through him. He walked his hand over a few inches for a better grip. His shoulders were on fire. His strength began to fail, but he had a mission. He knew thousands of lives depended upon his success. Shaking, he slowly pulled himself back into the window. He climbed into the room that he’d almost fallen from. It was only then that he looked out the window and saw what was over the edge. He felt sick. It was a thousand-foot vertical drop-off into a rock field far below. He realized now that he’d just jumped out of the window bank that he’d seen earlier on his hike up the mountain, the one carved into the cliff.

  Another voice joined Salvador’s and said, “Come out of there now, or you will be shot.”

  Chuck figured that this guy would never win a salesman of the month award, but was persuasive in his own way.

  Fortunately, Chuck was not in direct view of the shooter, so he had not seen his mistake and had been cautious about approaching.

  Chuck hurried over to the doorway and waved his hand for a second to create a sense of movement. Evidently, someone didn’t like to see movement. A flurry of gunshots followed.

  Chuck kneeled and this time he swung his M16 around the corner and squeezed off several bursts of gunfire. This was answered with several bursts. Then several more.

  Chuck looked at the M203 grenade launcher that was attached to his rifle, but decided not to use it in these tunnels—unless he had to. If he did, he and the others would probably be entombed within minutes just like the mummies he’d just walked by were.

  Chuck glanced around the stone-walled room. It took him about two seconds to realize he was in the middle of a mausoleum. In the center of the grisly area was an altar covered with skulls. He lifted one end of the altar and dumped all the heads onto the floor. He then dragged the thick wood altar over by the doorway. He tipped it onto its side and pushed it across the doorway to give him cover to move from one side to the other. Then he stood there, catching his breath.

  After a moment of silence, Chuck heard the footfall of running. Salvador and his friend were getting reinforcements. He swung his rifle over the table, squeezed off a burst and took
a quick look. A guy was running toward him, attempting to storm his position. He’d somehow dodged the bullets and was undeterred. Murder and fanaticism filled his eyes. Chuck hit his selector switch and dropped him with two single shots at his thighs, enough to slow him down, but give him a chance to live and hopefully get a real job selling cars.

  Unfortunately, the man wasn’t interested in second chances. Nor was he thinking of going back to school, getting a degree, or earning an honest living. He began spewing a hate-filled rant, salted with every curse word known to man. It was a shocking monologue, and Chuck glanced around the corner just in time to see that the man had lost it. He pulled the pin on a grenade and was about to throw it into the mausoleum, making it Chuck’s permanent home. It didn’t work out the way he’d planned, however. The man was so caught up in his fit of rage that he spewed his hate for a second too long. Chuck brought his gun up and fired at his shoulder, rendering the arm useless. The killer threw the grenade, but not properly. It bounced off the wall and twirled on the floor halfway between the man and the mausoleum.

  Chuck dove for cover as the grenade detonated in the tunnel. The effect of the explosion was all out of proportion to what you would normally expect with a grenade because evidently the ceiling in that part of the tunnel was not stable. The roof collapsed, causing a cave in and burying alive the man who’d thrown the grenade. A cloud of dust rolled into the mausoleum filling the air so thick that Chuck couldn’t see anything for a couple of minutes.

  Chuck ran to the open-air window to get a breath. As he gulped the fresh breeze, he realized he was in a bad situation. He was now trapped in a subterranean crypt. The only way out was to jump off a thousand-foot cliff.