Another Way to Kill Read online

  A Liberty Island Book

  ISBN: 978-1-947942-30-1

  Another Way To Kill

  ©2018 by Brian Evankovich

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Logotecture

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Liberty Island

  Libertyislandmag.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Contents

  1. So Long, Tubby

  2. A Good Thief

  3. Running Low on Vitamins

  4. A Short Drop

  5. Negotiations Can Be Murder

  6. Little Victories

  7. When You Anger Your Country

  8. Playing With Trains

  9. Smash Him Like a Bug

  10. Firefight

  11. Chicks Dig Scars

  12. Harder Than It Looks

  13. A Drop in the Ocean

  14. Along With the Cavalry

  15. Act of War

  16. Let’s Have a Blast

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Liberty Island

  1

  So Long, Tubby

  Somewhere over Colombia…

  THE LIGHT over the fuselage doorway turned from red to green, and for the first time in many years, Steve Dane jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

  His insulated jumpsuit blocked the harsh cold of the night, but he felt the icy blast on his neck and most of his face. Goggles with built-in night-vision capability covered his eyes. The goggles gave the ground below a greenish hue. As he fell through space, he scanned for a dot somewhere in the forest below. Dane pulled the rip cord; the parachute billowed out of his pack and jolted him violently as it blossomed. His descent slowed. He grabbed the risers over his shoulders and continued looking for the dot.

  His lady and partner in crime, Nina Talikova, was supposed to be down there with the landing beacon. They faced a tense situation in Bogotá. If something had happened to her—

  He found it.

  The dot appeared off to the right, in a small clearing. Dane pulled on the opposite riser and drifted in that direction. He’d land perhaps twenty yards in front of the beacon, but that was fine. Nina had made the rendezvous. Plenty of other obstacles remained.

  Jumping into Bogotá, or anywhere in Colombia, wasn’t his idea of a good time. One of Dane’s friends, Devlin Stone, a man who had saved Dane’s life and responded to his calls for help many times without argument, now needed him. It was time to return the favors. Dane did not understand why Stone had been captured by one of the local cartels. All he knew was that his friend needed help, and Dane intended to show up.

  Stone ran a smuggling operation in Europe, and perhaps that somehow was connected with his capture. Dane didn’t know. He had a list of unanswered questions about this caper, while the cocaine runners seemed to have the upper hand. They knew of Stone’s associates, and of his friends—like Dane and Nina and fellow buccaneer Todd McConn. All three had taken individual paths to enter Colombia as a way to avoid detection. Stone’s people had set up a safe house and provided equipment. Dane, Nina and McConn were going to break Stone free and get to the bottom of everything.

  A gust of wind kicked Dane left. He corrected with a pull on the right riser, keeping the beacon in sight. Nina was taking a huge risk. If Dane could see it, so could anybody else.

  The beacon cut off as Dane neared the ground. The ground rushed up at a frightening rate. He pulled on the risers to slow the descent in the last second and bent his knees on impact. The jolt of landing rattled his bones. He stayed on his feet, quickly detaching the rig. Anybody who later discovered the rig would find it clean of identifying marks.

  Dane ran across the hard-packed ground to the Chevy SUV twenty yards ahead. The motor turned over. He jumped into the passenger seat and yanked off the goggles. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden low light in the SUV. He grinned at the woman behind the wheel.

  Nina Talikova, dressed in black with her long hair tied in a ponytail, didn’t return the smile. “You’re late.”

  Dane shook his head. “You are the sunshine of my life,” he said.

  She drove without headlights. The terrain looked treacherous without illumination; shadows concealed both dips and bumps.

  “Patrols are all over the place,” she said.

  Nina inched the vehicle along.

  “Army, police, or cartel?” Dane said.

  “It doesn’t make much difference.”

  She slammed the brakes. The SUV jerked.

  The headlights of another vehicle loomed ahead.

  Dane put on the night-vision goggles and looked around. “To the left there’s a cave.”

  Nina spun the wheel. “I got two AKs in the back.”

  Dane removed the goggles again and reached onto the rear seat where the automatic rifles lay. He grabbed one. Instead of the usual banana clip, Nina had attached a 100-round circular drum magazine. Dane worked the charging handle and chambered a round.

  Nina powered the Chevy up the incline. The dark mouth of the cave opened before them. The SUV barely fit. Part of the back end stuck out. She put the front bumper against the back wall and shut off the motor. Darkness closed around the SUV.

  “Too narrow to open the doors,” Dane said. He climbed over the front and back seats to the rear cargo area. Nina followed with the second AK-47.

  Dane and Nina scooted to the back window. Dane cursed leaving the night-vision goggles up front.

  “We’re sitting ducks if they open up on us,” Nina said.

  “Try not to be so optimistic.”

  The other vehicle finally rolled into view. A military Jeep with four soldiers aboard. The jeep slowed. The man in the passenger seat stood up, holding on to the windscreen, and scanned the area. He took out a flashlight and shined the beam around.

  “Somebody saw the beacon,” Dane said.

  “They’re gonna see your parachute.”

  The jeep rolled out of sight. Then they heard yelling.

  “Found it,” Nina said.

  Dane’s throat felt dry as he touched the trigger.

  “I didn’t jump out of a plane,” he said, “to die in a cave.”

  Sweat dripped down Dane’s neck. The passing seconds felt like hours. When you live on the fringes of the law, even friendlies can be enemies, and Nina’s remark about the army and police and cartel not being much different resonated in the wrong way. The level of corruption in Colombia was legendary.

  Finally, they heard the jeep’s motor rumble to life. The vehicle drove by in the direction it had come, the puffy parachute jammed between soldiers in the back seat.

  “They’ll report the landing and come back with a search party,” Nina said.

  “Is there another road we can use? They may set up roadblocks.”

  “Yes, but we gotta move now.” Nina left the AK with Dane and climbed back behind the wheel.

  NINA STEERED through cobblestone city streets with Dane lying low in the back. The SUV rocked gently as it passed over the stones. The wide sidewalks could accommodate plenty of pedestrians, though at this hour of the morning all the normal people were still sleeping. Getting two motor vehicles to pass comfortably was asking too much. Nina turned up an incline, made the next right and kept climbing. The short buildings on either side were sandwiched together with virtually no gaps between them, save for narrow alleys here and there.<
br />
  “Where are we going?” Dane said.

  “Top of the hill,” Nina said.

  The safe house had been provided by Stone’s people, who also had transportation out of the country standing by, waiting for Dane’s call. When they had contacted Dane to enlist his help, they offered payment; Dane turned it down. His friendship with Stone meant more than money.

  Of course, Nina hadn’t liked that, but she knew Dane too well to argue.

  She finally pulled into an open carport beneath an upper-level apartment. The outside showed a lot of faded paint, with the steps leading to the front door landing rotting in spots. A short deck wound around the front door to a large living room window overlooking the street.

  “Spared no expense,” Dane said.

  “It’s nicer on the inside, sunshine.”

  Nina used a key to get in.

  “Honey, we’re home!” she said.

  No lights in the living room. A short hallway led to a lighted kitchen. The wooden cabinetry had been painted a gaudy white and the tiled floor had seen better days, but otherwise it looked fine.

  Todd McConn lifted a whistling teakettle off the yellowed stovetop. “Just in time,” he said, and poured three mugs. He wore a T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots—his usual uniform. His normally close-cropped hair had grown a bit shaggy.

  Dane stood by the wobbly kitchen table and stripped off the jumpsuit, revealing jeans and a black T-shirt underneath. He left the jumpsuit on the floor, gladly accepting the offered mug. English breakfast, a favorite blend.

  Dane and McConn sat while Nina took a moment to get a bottle of vodka from a cabinet; she touched up her tea and returned the bottle.

  “So how is the neighborhood?” Dane said.

  “Families, working class,” Nina said. “Lots of kids kicking a ball around during the day.”

  “We’re in a perfect spot,” McConn said. “Got surveillance set up on the target. Cameras on the roof. Lots of notes and pictures.”

  “Any sign of Dev?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do we know why the cartel grabbed Dev?”

  “I’ve been poking around,” McConn said. “He’s never touched drugs in the past, so it’s strange this happened. A fellow named Ramon Coda runs the cartel. He’s been buying up or taking over smuggling operations around the world. Got his hooks in Asia and most of Central America, but nothing in Europe.”

  “He wants Dev’s business?” Dane said. “That would never happen.”

  Nina said, “Which cartel?”

  “South Coast Cartel,” McConn said. “Made up of leftovers from the Celi and Norte del Valle cartels, which no longer exist.” McConn sipped his tea. “One thing we do know is that they’re moving Dev in two days.”

  “Where?” Dane said.

  “To a camp in the mountains. Their version of ‘enhanced interrogation’ takes place there.”

  “There are some good ambush points along the route they’ll take,” Nina said. “Hitting them on the way is the best bet…”

  “But?” Dane said.

  “We’ll have cartel forces and army on us faster than you can blink if we aren’t quick.”

  “I want to see the route tomorrow morning,” Dane said.

  “Okay,” McConn said.

  Dane finished his tea. “Bathroom?”

  “Down the hall,” Nina said.

  DANE JOINED McConn in one of the other bedrooms where McConn had the surveillance equipment set up, a row of monitors showing images from three hidden cameras, along with panels to control the angles.

  “Ramon Coda lives in this house on top of the mountain,” McConn said. He opened a picture of the house on a laptop beside the monitors. “House sits at the top, forest on all sides.”

  Dane didn’t see a road leading to the house. “How do you get in and out?”

  “See this cable car? It goes up and down the hill with entry and exit points at the house and bottom of the hill—which also serves as Coda’s parking lot. He keeps four vehicles there, three SUVs for the troops, and his own armored sedan.”

  The monitors didn’t show much because of the dark, but McConn ran back footage from earlier in the day and Dane watched the comings and goings around the house. No sign of Devlin. Where did they have him?

  DANE CLIMBED into bed after a hot shower. Nina had opened the windows, but humidity still hung thickly in the air. Dane eased under the sheet next to the snoring Nina.

  As he often thought, she sounded like a chainsaw stuck in a log when she snored. She awoke long enough to roll over and lie against him. She wore nothing under the sheet. The humidity made her sticky skin feel good against his.

  Dane didn’t have many friends, and the ones he did have he wanted to keep. Too many, over the years, had either gone bad or wound up dead. He didn’t want to add Stone or McConn to the list of the latter. He probably didn’t need to worry about Nina the Indestructible.

  She snored into his neck.

  Dane took a deep breath and tried to doze off.

  KIDS IN the street kicked a soccer ball and scattered when McConn pulled out of the garage. They took over the street again once he had driven away.

  Dane lit an H. Upmann and blew smoke out the window as McConn negotiated the narrow streets, pausing often for the crush of pedestrians who owned the roads.

  “Rush hour here,” McConn said. “Lots of walking.”

  McConn finally made it through town and onto the motorway, where he took a turnoff onto a two-lane road after thirty minutes.

  “This is the route they’ll take?” Dane said.

  “It’s the only route they can take,” McConn said.

  McConn followed the road as it inclined, the terrain on either side made up of thick forest.

  “There’s a downgrade coming up,” McConn said, “and then a flat section before the road ends and you get a dirt path.”

  McConn slowed at the top of the incline, eased the Chevy over and downshifted into second gear as they started down the other side. He tapped the brakes now and then.

  Dane scanned both sides of the forest. “Lousy place to set up an ambush,” he said.

  McConn upshifted as the ground flattened out. It went straight ahead for at least two miles. He took the drive slowly to give Dane time to examine the roadside some more.

  “Stop a second.”

  McConn braked.

  “This spot might work,” he said. “Mid-section of the road, after they clear the grade. What kind of gear do we have?”

  “RPG-7 and assorted small arms.”

  Dane looked through the back window, then forward again. “Pull off and see if we can find a landing zone.”

  McConn parked on the shoulder but said: “Let’s have technology do some of the work, you dinosaur. Just sit there and smoke.” He turned on the Chevy’s GPS and tapped a finger on the screen to bring up a map of their immediate area. It wasn’t just a map but a detailed satellite picture.

  With his finger dragging the screen, McConn cycled the image and zoomed on potential spots. None looked appropriate enough for a chopper landing until the fourth option, but it was nearly two miles from where they were parked.

  Two miles north.

  “How close will that landing spot put us to the camp they’re taking Dev to?” Dane said.

  “Very close. You can see worn paths here and there that look like they were made by vehicles.”

  “It’s probably the cartel’s landing zone.”

  “The three of us can’t take the camp. We can get more of Stone’s people here, but that will take time.”

  “I’m not suggesting we hit the camp. This is a good spot. What we need to do is save the RPGs for the escape, in case cartel troops come at us.”

  “Okay.”

  McConn made a U-turn and started back along the road.

  “Plenty to go wrong,” McConn said. “They’ll use at least two of the SUVs, but which one will Dev be in?”

  “Another question. Are those SUVs a
rmored like the sedan? Will Dev be in any condition to help when the shooting starts? Will we hit Dev by accident?”

  “Whoa, Steve—”

  “A lot could happen, Todd. We have to find a way to minimize those risks. Maybe your surveillance could fill in some of those gaps.”

  DEVLIN STONE had long since given up finding a comfortable way to wear chains.

  They had placed him in an adobe shed near the edge of the estate, where cartel leader Ramon Coda kept his horses. If the chains were bad, the smell of three horses and the buzzing from the accompanying flies were far worse.

  Some of those flies swirled around him as he stood secured to a wall, arms up crucifixion-style, with his legs spread apart like a V. If he slumped, pressure on his hips made that position unbearable. If he stayed upright, pressure on his back. He alternated and tried to make the best of it.

  They let him down once a day to eat while two armed guards who looked like they knew their business kept watch at all times.

  Those two guards approached through the archway of the shed, a third man holding a tray of food. Stone blinked. The man was Coda.

  “Hello, Mr. Stone. How are you today?”

  Coda was short and round with close-cropped hair, the opposite of Stone’s shaggy top.

  One of the guards slung his rifle and unlocked the chains. Stone collapsed on the ground, gasping.

  “We can end this unpleasantness,” Coda said, “if only you give me what I want.”

  “No,” Stone rasped.

  “You know I’m having you moved tomorrow, to one of our camps from which nobody will ever see you return. After that, I take what I want.”

  “I have friends who will disagree with that.”