Scott Mariani - The Armada Legacy

Nico shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s when I figured that instead of trying to get inside, I’d wait for him on the outside. Back in San Tomás, I hung around for a few days, got talking to a few folks and soon found out that nobody wanted to know about Serrato’s place, like it didn’t exist. Except Roberto, this local mechanic I met in a bar. He must’ve sussed out what my business was there. Warned me that if I kept going around asking questions the local cops would bury me. Serrato owns half of them. Then he told me about this crazy old hunter dude who lived in a hut in the woods half a mile outside the village. Said he always had a load of guns to sell, but to be careful of him ’cause he was dangerous. So I go out there and I find the place. Next thing I’m staring down the barrel of a shotgun with this wild-looking old Indian guy on the other end of it, spaced out on Christ knows what. When I showed him American dollars he calmed down some, then after a whole lot of haggling he finally agreed to sell me one of his rifles.

‘Then I was ready to start hunting Serrato. I traded in my car for a beat-up Winnebago. Drove out as near to the compound as the road could take me, camped up by day and cut through the forest on foot by night. You can hardly move without stepping on a fucking snake or getting eaten alive by bugs. Couple of times I was nearly caught by the armed patrols Serrato has combing the perimeter around the clock.’

‘But you never managed to get inside,’ Ben said.

Nico shook his head. ‘It can’t be done, man. Not by one guy on his own. I couldn’t even get to the wall. Hey, let me have the phone again. I want to try Cabeza.’

Ben handed the phone over. A couple of moments later Nico shook his head with a sigh. ‘Still no reply. Where’d that asshole wander off to?’

‘Keep going,’ Ben said.

‘This goes on for about a week, then I ran out of supplies and had to drive back to San Tomás for more. I was depressed as hell, thinking, two more days, then I give this up, it’s useless. But as I’m driving the RV back to my stakeout, suddenly I see this convoy of vehicles coming the other way – Jeeps and trucks, all tailing a black Mercedes with a man and woman in the back. As the Merc comes past the guy turns towards the window and I get a real good look at his face. It was him. Serrato. By then I knew the roads pretty well and I knew that by doubling back on myself I could pick up this track leading onto high ground where I could get a clear shot at the convoy.

‘So I rush up there and lay down in the rocks with the .30-06 bolt-action I got from the old hunter, and there’s the convoy coming round my flank about four hundred yards away. I thought I could make the shot. But my heart was beating so fast and my hands were shaking, I could hardly hold the rifle still. Plus the convoy’s throwing up a ton of dust and the sun’s glaring off the windows. When I thought I had him in the sights I pulled the trigger. Saw the car swerve over the road, slow right down and then take off again. I grabbed that aught-six and jumped back in the RV and got the fuck away from there, hollering and yelling like a crazy man cause I was so sure I’d got him. It was only later on that I found out I hadn’t. Alicia caught the bullet in the throat. She must’ve died right there in the back seat of the car. Shit.’

Nico flicked his cigarette stub out of the window and was quiet for a while, looking pensive. By now they’d descended to the level of the lower foothills, heading fast in the direction of the village of Montefrio. Ben was silent too, waiting for Nico to resume his story while trying to contain the impatience that was gnawing at his guts.

‘After Alicia’s death, Serrato just withdrew deeper into his compound. He stopped travelling by road and trebled his security. Couple of times I saw his chopper flying over the jungle, and I had this idea to get hold of an RPG to shoot him down with. But it never happened and the crooks I had to deal with tried to turn me in to the local cops, who seized my RV with all my stuff, rifle, everything. I was on the run again. Next time I tried to cross the forest to get close to Serrato’s compound I found he’d tripled the guard on the gates and the patrols too. Anyone found hanging around there would get themselves killed, or maybe taken back to Serrato and tortured to death. It was a fucking suicide mission, man.

‘What could I do? I went home and started figuring out a new plan. Instead of trying to attack him on his home ground, I’d devote my life to figuring out ways that I could pick his people off one by one. I didn’t care if it took me thirty years. If I could just get enough of them, then maybe one day, some way, I’d be able to draw Serrato out of his hole and kill him, too.

‘Back in El Paso, nothing’s happening. Time goes by, then more time. I had to take a job in a store to earn some money, and I was fucked up over Valentina and losing heart, thinking maybe I’d just have to forget about Serrato and move on, try and get my life back together somehow. Then a couple of weeks ago my buddy Felipe calls to say he’s hooked up with this other ex-cop who’s got connections we can use to set up wire taps. We still had a list of all Serrato’s old associates, the ones who were still alive or not in jail. So I head back to Bogotá and we start tapping phones, all totally illegal, but hey, this is Colombia, right? Top of our list was a guy in Bogotá called César Cristo, vicious sisterfucking crack-head of a contract killer who back in the day was the Stingray’s favourite assassin for hire. So we’re listening in on all these calls, hours and hours of useless bullshit, when suddenly we’re hearing something unbelievable. This guy’s called Cristo in the middle of the night saying he wants him to go to Spain to do a job on one Juan Fernando Cabeza. When we heard the voice on the line, we all just fucking stared at each other, we just couldn’t believe what we were hearing. It was Serrato himself. The sonofabitch’s got balls so big, he didn’t even try to code what he was saying. It was all there: the hit, the money, the directions to the target’s home, the works. Recorded the whole thing on a hard drive.’

Nico shook his head in amazement at the memory, then went on. ‘Felipe wanted to turn it over to the authorities. I told him no way. One, the evidence was obtained illegally and was inadmissible. Two, we’d be dead by dawn if we breathed a word of this to anyone. Three, even if by some fucking miracle Serrato went down, after a year, tops, of drinking champagne and eating lobster with the prison officials, he’d walk free again. That’s how the system works. And anyhow I had my own ideas about what to do.’

‘You came to Spain to intercept the hitman,’ Ben said.

Nico nodded. ‘I didn’t know why Serrato was gunning for Cabeza, didn’t care. But for Serrato to give the order himself, I knew it had to be important. Maybe so important, that if I took out Cristo and anyone else who came after, there was a chance the Stingray himself might even show up. So I borrowed money from Felipe and flew out to Spain in a hurry. An ex-cop always knows where he can find a hot gun. I paid three hundred euros to this dope dealer in a backstreet in Granada for a forty-four and a speedloader full of hollowpoints. Then I bought this junk car and drove out to Cabeza’s place. I got there just in time. Cristo was about to kill Cabeza with that SIG, but I blew his ugly head off before he could pull the trigger. Found the sonofabitch’s Beemer up the road a ways and pitched it over the side of the mountain along with his body. That was last Saturday.’

The same day Brooke was taken, Ben thought. ‘How did Cabeza handle it?’

‘Let’s just say that after that, he didn’t need a whole lot of persuading to hide someplace safe. I drove him to the safe house in Montefrio and then came back to hang around here, set my trap and wait for the next guy to show up. Turned out the next guy was you.’ Nico shrugged.