Jungle Hunt. Don Pendleton

he wouldn’t be able to stop and there was nowhere to swerve. The alley remained empty, fortunately, and he took the first road they came to, cranking left to get back onto one of the main roads and out of the slum.

       “Incredible! You are something else!” Bernier had put away his pistol and stared at Bolan in admiration. “A man of your talents shouldn’t be wasted on Alarico. How about you come work for me? At triple your previous pay, of course!”

       “That is a very generous offer, Senhor Bernier. Let’s get out of the city first, and then we can discuss my new arrangements—and my payment.”

       “Of course, of course.” Bernier took out his smartphone. “I can have my jet ready to go in an hour. Head to Galeão.”

       Bolan kept his smile to himself—the international airport twenty minutes away from the city was where they were headed anyway.

       They negotiated the afternoon traffic to get on the highway and were soon cruising along underneath the bright sun, the carnage of a half hour ago rapidly receding. Bernier smoked a cheroot and talked expansively, promising Bolan a top position in his cartel. “Maybe even to replace that weasel Alarico—his payments have been a little light recently. I think you could handle his operations very nicely.”

       For his part, Bolan kept his eyes on the road and nodded where appropriate.

       “The Gulfstream is in hangar 11E, just head right down, they’re expecting us.”

       Bolan took the turnoff to the private hangars, but as 11E came up, he didn’t turn toward it.

       Bernier looked at his jet as they drove past his hangar. “What are you doing? It’s back there, you missed it…” He trailed off when he saw the SIG Sauer in Bolan’s hand pointed at him.

       “I’m afraid I came to you under false pretenses, Senhor Bernier. I’m not going with you—you’re coming with me. What condition you’re in during the flight, however, is completely up to you.”

       Bernier’s gaze rose to his face, and Bolan knew exactly what he was thinking. Could he draw and shoot before he fired? Bolan shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t.” Bernier slumped back in his seat.

       They turned into another hangar, where a larger Gulfstream jet was idling on the tarmac. A tall man with light brown hair and dressed in a summer-weight tropical sport coat, open-collared shirt and sunglasses stood by the open stairway. Bolan pulled to a stop in front of him.

       “Afternoon, Mack.” The man’s voice had a thick layer of cockney in it.

       “David.”

       “Any problems?”

       “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

       The head of Phoenix Force shook his head. “Still say it would have been more prudent to have me with you.”

       Bolan smiled. “I wanted to get one man out, David, not bring down the entire slum around me.”

       “Fair enough.” David McCarter moved to the passenger door. “This our third passenger?”

       “Yup.”

       McCarter grinned, a sharklike baring of teeth that was completely devoid of warmth or humor. “You aren’t gonna be any trouble now, are you, mate?”

       Staring at the fox-faced Brit, Bernier shook his head. David reached in and relieved him of his sidearm and smartphone. “All right, then, time to go.”

       It was on the way to the plane that Bernier got some of his courage back. “Wait a minute. You cannot just take me out of the country—there are rules to this sort of thing. I cannot be extradited like this. I demand to speak to your State Depart…” He trailed off at seeing the wolfish looks on Bolan’s and David’s faces.

       “When are these guys gonna learn?” David asked rhetorically.

       “I never claimed to be affiliated with the government, U.S. or otherwise.”

       Bernier’s face clouded in confusion. “What—are you bounty hunters? Private security? Whatever you’re being paid, I can give you ten times the amount.”

       David dropped a firm, unyielding hand on the Brazilian drug lord’s shoulder. “You can just call us troubleshooters, mate. And if you’re not nice and polite on the flight up, you’ll be the trouble we’ll shoot next.”

       Thiago Bernier, once a top drug kingpin and mastermind behind a large pipeline that stretched from Rio to Peru and three other continents, allowed himself to be meekly led into the Gulfstream’s interior, searched in more detail and secured to a captain’s chair.

       Meanwhile, Bolan contacted their pilot, Jack Grimaldi, and had him get into the takeoff schedule. Thirty minutes later, they were wheels up and off the ground, arrowing into the brilliant blue Brazilian sky.

      3

      Once Bernier had been settled—with the aid of a mild sedative to relax him—Bolan had planned to take a well-deserved break himself, having been up for the past thirty hours tracking down his leads to the drug lord. McCarter, however, had other plans for him.

       “Sorry, mate, but Hal said to call in the moment you got here.” He dropped his rangy form into the cushy leather seat across from Bolan. “You’re lucky I let you have a drink first.”

       “Well, I already noticed we’re not heading north.” Bolan gestured with his bottle of water at the sun setting ahead of them. “What’s he got now?”

       David shrugged as he held out a sat phone. “No idea—your ears only, apparently. All I know is that I get to babysit Mr. Silk Pants there back to D.C. while you get to jaunt off into the shite again.”

       Bolan grinned as he took the receiver. “Too bad there couldn’t be another mission in Rio—preferably on the beach?”

       “Oi, mate, wild horses wouldn’t have kept me from that one.” McCarter rose. “I’m gonna go check on our passenger.”

       “Thanks.” Bolan waited until David had headed out before connecting to Stony Man Farm, his stateside base of operations. Bounced off several satellites, the tight-beam communication went through multiple encryption layers, rendering it virtually unbreakable. To the rest of the world, Bolan and his contact outside of Washington, D.C., were speaking static-filled gibberish.

       “Striker?” Bolan heard a quiet chewing sound and knew Brognola was munching on one of his ever-present antacid tablets.

       “I’m here, Hal.”

       “How was your fishing trip?”

       Bolan grinned. “Not as much time on the beach as I’d wanted, but I landed the big one. David cleaned him up and we’re bringing him home so you can cook him for as long as you want.”

       “Excellent. Look, normally I don’t like sending you back out in the field right after the completion of one mission, however, Wonderland’s breathing down my neck on this one, and since you’re already in the area, so to speak…”

       “Yeah, it seems I can’t get enough of South America lately. Where’s Jack dropping me off this time?”

       “Quito, Ecuador, and from there you’ll be taking a charter plane to Neuva Loja, in the province of Sucumbíos. Ultimately you’ll be heading into the Amazon rainforest, so let me know whatever gear you’ll need that isn’t on the plane and we’ll drop it to you.”

       “Okay—what’s going on over there?”

       “Part of this—okay, most of this—is the D.C. policy wonks and bureaucrats covering their collective asses. As I’m sure you’re aware, the energy crisis is ramping up again, with oil futures climbing to record levels again and showing no signs of receding anytime soon. With truly effective alternate power sources still slow to come online, efficient use of current fields and discovery of new ones is of paramount importance,