Otero turned back and continued watching the soldiers loading their trucks in the sweltering heat. He had no choice but to make do. If they could leave today, they might still arrive before anyone else knew what they were up to. Then secure the area to keep everyone else out.
And if things got messy, he had a plan to clean it all up once he had what he was after. A plan that would also make this the last mission for Salazar and most of his men.
Putting his distaste for the man aside, Salazar and his men were little more than resources to Otero now. Resources that would help him seize the ultimate prize. And one which, thanks to a dead Alves and Blanco, no one else appeared to know about.
Otero took a deep breath and leaned his head back against the chair’s headrest.
Standing at the glass, Salazar continued watching his men in silence with his hands clasped behind his back. It was imperative to maintain a relaxed appearance in front of Otero. For what the billionaire didn’t know was that Salazar had a plan of his own: direct orders on what to do when he had Otero alone on the mountain. The old man was about to find out that his money and influence only went so far.
22
It took six hours before the convoy of trucks was finally moving. In tight formation, they headed due south past Tucurui, crossing its half-mile-wide river. From there, their route turned northwest over highway BR-230, also known as Brazil’s infamous Trans-Amazonian Highway.
Extending more than 4,000 kilometers through the heart of northern Brazil, the highway was conceived in the 1970s as a means of integrating the northern states with the rest of the country. However, the project came to an abrupt halt when later in the same decade the Brazilian Financial Crisis left behind a devastated economy and vast stretches of the new highway completely unpaved.
Salazar’s lead car, a deep-green painted Humvee, was followed by Otero and Russo in a white Land Rover, driven by one of Russo’s men and another ex-military type named Dutra.
One by one, the stream of powerful belching trucks bounced over the rough dirt road, attracting little attention as they passed through increasingly smaller towns. Trains of military vehicles had become almost commonplace with yet another deteriorating economy. And like many floundering governments desperate to retain control of their populations, various aspects of martial law were already common throughout much of Brazilian life.
The convoy was headed for the northwestern forests of Pará. It was Brazil’s second largest state, second only to Amazonas, and spanned a massive 1.2 million kilometers. More importantly, it was the state which provided Salazar’s company the only clear route into the Acarai Mountains of southern Guyana.
Otero relaxed in the back seat, checking his email and messages on a small tablet. The device finally lost connection as they pushed deeper into the jungle, which was fine with him. He preferred no one know where he was, or better yet, where he was headed.
He slowed to read the last of his downloaded emails carefully. It was from the lead contact for an international genetics team. A team he paid to have flown quietly into Belem. In the email, his contact confirmed the team and their equipment had left Munich and were due to arrive in seventeen hours. They would be waiting when Otero and his team returned.
In a growing world of scientific privatization, the German team Genetik Jetzt was one of the best in the world. They were confident they could not only isolate whatever genes Otero brought back within a few weeks, but could also have a prototype retrovirus designed within three months.
The team agreed to then test the prototype on human subjects, provided they were outside any medical regulations protecting Brazilian citizens. Subjects that were in no position to complain should something go awry, which it always did. And Otero knew exactly who those subjects would be. During his years backing some of the largest mining giants in South America, there was one group he had truly come to despise. The Kayapó. A group of indigenous tribes who had been sabotaging his efforts for decades. Tribes who continually waged war against the machines they insisted were destroying their native lands. Most were cooperative, but some small pockets of the Kayapó proved to be devastating to people like Otero. But individually, they could be captured and used for a far greater good than anything their simple minds could have fathomed. One of the most incredible leaps in human development. A leap now miraculously within his own reach.
Yet despite his materialistic and opportunistic flaws, Otero was still a patriot. Even without a sense of basic compassion, he remained a man deeply rooted to his nation and its former glory. His mighty country was destined to rise again, but this time it would not be through iron ore, oil, or even soybeans. Instead, it would be through the control of perhaps the greatest evolutionary achievement in man’s history. An achievement that would drive every powerful government to align with Brazil, through either desire or desperation. And he would be the one to control it all. He would be the one to help his once proud country return to greatness.
Sitting directly in front of Otero, in the Land Rover’s passenger seat, Russo had a very different thought. He could clearly see the change taking place in his boss’s thinking. He was growing paranoid and obsessed, with thoughts becoming more linear and one-dimensional over what may or may not lie in the mountains. It was sheer folly as far as Russo was concerned. He’d seen more than his share of desperate, aging men pursuing big dreams only to have their spirits crushed by reality in the end. Dreams forever promising to deliver a miracle to change the world. The details were different, but the quest and the conclusion were always the same.
Otero’s obsession was some kind of magical DNA stored in the bones of a monkey now hiding in the jungles of Guyana. Something Russo wasn’t all that worried over. He had a much more practical concern.
Someone was watching Otero, which meant they were also watching him. One of his men was dead with another still in the hospital. Both were ordered to eliminate the rest of Miguel Blanco’s bloodline, but instead his men had found someone even deadlier waiting for them. And that someone appeared to be an American.
Russo’s man in the hospital claimed they barely saw the attacker before he pounced. But how did he know? How did he know either of the men was coming?
Even worse, Russo was convinced the man waiting for them had been a U.S. Navy SEAL. The marking he left on Carlos’s jacket was clear. But was it a warning… or an invitation?
The obvious link was the CIA, but Otero’s attention was waning quickly as this new obsession slowly consumed him. Otero could no longer see the more pressing threat before them, nor could he conceive that it might just be the beginning. If the threat were confirmed, all the DNA in the world wouldn’t help either of them in a war with the CIA.
Yet while Russo remained concerned, he was far from vulnerable. He still had contacts within Brazil’s intelligence agency, the ABIN. A group who was utterly ruthless when it came to tracking down information. Eventually, they would find out who the American was. And then the predator would become the prey.
23
Russo was just approaching the Guyanese border when the man who both he and Brazil’s ABIN agents were searching for stepped off a plane in Puerto Rico.