The two of them hiked through the darkness down the secluded road. Karl immediately flashed back to his days in the U.S. Army, only with a lot heavier pack and weapons. After about ten minutes, he sensed something wasn’t right. Turning around, he saw that he had left Maya far behind. He forgot the length of his own stride. So, he waited for her to catch up.
“Sorry, I can’t keep up with your pace, Karl,” Maya said, out of breath.
“Do you want help with your bag?”
“No. That’s not the problem,” she assured him. “I’m just a little worn out from the jungle.”
That was understandable. A mile through that tangle felt like three or four. And they had traversed at least four miles total. Perhaps that was why he had stretched out his pace on the easy road.
“I’m sorry, Maya. We just have a certain window to hit up ahead.” He checked his phone and saw that their target coordinates had gotten closer, but would still be a challenge to hit if they didn’t keep moving.
“The driver will wait,” Maya assured Karl.
“They might not be able to linger,” he said. “Crap.”
Maya turned behind her and now saw what Karl saw. Two sets of lights moving down the road from about a mile back in the direction of the compound.
Karl took her hand and led her into the jungle on the side of the road, where they hunkered down among the trees and high bushes.
“I thought their vehicles would be taken out by the EMP,” she said quietly.
“Only if they were running during the EMP,” he explained. “That’s why they came through a second time, hoping to catch more vehicles. But obviously not all were disabled.”
As the vehicles got closer, Karl pulled out his gun and made sure it had a full magazine. Maya did the same.
Seconds later, the military vehicles slowly passed in front of them. One was a small truck with two men in the front and four more in the bed. The other one was a Toyota SUV with at least four men inside, their gun barrels pointing out open windows. When they passed, Karl could hear voices over their radio, but he couldn’t tell what was being said.
Once they passed, Karl got up and reached his hand down to Maya, who reluctantly grasped his hand and tried to pull herself to her feet. But Karl had to help her all the way. She was exhausted, he could tell. Yet, they had no choice but to move forward.
“We have less than a mile to our pick-up,” Karl said. “We have to push on.”
“I’m sorry, Karl. I’m dead tired.” She slowly shook her head. “Aren’t those soldiers heading right to our rendezvous point?”
“They’ll be long gone by the time our people get there,” he assured her.
Together, the two of them wandered back out to the road. To help them with their progress, Karl insisted on taking her bag, which he slung to his back next to his own. Even with the two bags, he had no problem keeping his pace down the road. Unburdened, Maya seemed to get a little pep in her step.
In no time, they reached their exfil location. Karl suddenly got a text from Roddy at the Agency. He knew they had reached the GPS location with just five minutes to spare.
Sitting off to the side of the road, Maya said, “What if the soldiers stop and detain our ride?”
Karl smiled. “Not gonna happen.”
Moments later, Maya knew why. Even through the wind and rain, they could both hear the distinct sound of helicopter rotors coming from the north.
In a couple of minutes, the chopper appeared above the jungle on the opposite side of the road. The pilot lowered the landing gear, and then slowly set the black helo down in the middle of the road.
Karl pulled Maya toward the helo. A familiar Agency officer, the Caracas station chief who had picked Karl up in the van, slid the side door open and reached his hand out for Maya. As she got into the chopper, Karl noticed headlights coming back down the road. It was the two vehicles with soldiers.
Climbing in and taking a seat next to Maya, Karl said, “Soldiers are heading toward us.”
The Caracas station chief said something into his headset and the helo quickly climbed up, turned and banked toward the north, and picked up speed in a hurry. Then the officer sat next to Karl and said loudly, “I don’t know who you know in the Agency, but you’ve got some pull, kid.”
Karl was confused. “I would hope you help all of your officers out of a jam like this.”
“True. But usually we have prior knowledge of their ops, so we can plan for these contingencies. What did you find out here?”
Karl almost slipped up and told the station chief what they had just found, but then he wondered why the Agency had not shared this info with him in the first place. And why had Karl been forced to find this missile site when the Agency had plenty of officers in place to do so?
“What did we find?” Karl repeated. “One of the most inhospitable jungles on the planet.” He showed his hands to the station chief. They were all cut to crap by the sharp pernicious vines that seemed to strangle anything in its way as they wrapped themselves like a spider web in the jungle.
The Caracas station chief wasn’t buying Karl’s deflection.
“Where are we heading?” Karl asked. “Caracas?”
“No. The city is in chaos tonight. Rioting. And the military and police have put out a notice on the two of you.”
That made no sense to Karl. How were the two of them even on their radar? That seemed unlikely, Karl thought.
“We’re flying you back to Punto Fijo. You’ll take the same fishing boat back to Aruba at dark thirty.”
Karl leaned back in his seat and glanced at Maya to his left. She was sound asleep. So, he grasped her hand and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the whirring rotors above him. A wave of satisfaction coursed through his body, even though a nagging feeling of angst sat somewhere at the edge of his mind waiting to reach out and slap the shit out of him. Then, deep down, he wondered why the Agency couldn’t just fly the two of them out of Venezuela. He guessed that this station chief was still trying to make a point that this country was his jurisdiction. That was Karl’s obvious reasoning. But truthfully, he guessed the Venezuelan’s could have locked down the airspace.
Now, Karl leaned back and closed his eyes.
36
All of the principals on the National Security Council literally sat on the edge of their seats as they watched the large LED screen showing five video feeds from the perspective of the SEAL team, like a first-person shooter video game. Only this was real.
The SEALs expertly boarded the Russian merchant ship near the stern, climbing up the side like five spiders. Then they moved forward on the deck, entering the superstructure through an outer hatch. Their video feeds showed up through the darkness as a hazy green. Although the ship was dead in the water, every now and then emergency battle lanterns lit their way, temporarily making it difficult for the team members to see properly. Swiftly the men moved up ladders until they reached the bridge level. So far, they had not encountered any resistance. It was as if the ship was abandoned.
Bradford watched as those with military experience in the room seemed to beam with pride at the expertise of the SEAL team. The non-military types seemed to be holding their breath.
The SEAL team leader used hand signals to direct his men. Through his headset, he relayed their progress back to his superiors.