“Okay, that’s something, but it’s still not conclusive.”
“Excluding military special forces, how many shooters can make a kill from over eleven hundred yards?”
Nathan didn’t answer, but Estefan had a point. Aside from some highly skilled big-game hunters who didn’t normally shoot people, he believed it couldn’t be more than a handful. “Have you kept in touch with the other kilos over the years? Couldn’t it be one of them?”
Six kilo teams, totaling twelve men, had been trained — six snipers and six spotters. Nathan and Harv had trained all twelve men.
“I’ve had contact with only three of the snipers over the years. Stinger moved with his family to Panama after the election. Zebra lives in Spain; he’s a lawyer now. Jag lives in America. He and his wife were lucky and got work visas. Last I heard, he was a gunsmith in Texas. I’m pretty sure he got his citizenship.”
“Excluding you, that leaves Raven and… I can’t remember the last kilo.”
“Martillo,” Estefan said. “The Spanish word for hammer.”
“Marty. That’s right,” Harv confirmed. “I remember he played the guitar and sang. He had a good voice. He was always so lighthearted and positive. I can’t see him turning bad, which kinda leaves Raven.”
“I’ve had no contact with Raven or Marty at all. If you’re asking me to tell you it’s Raven with one hundred percent certainty, I can’t.”
Nathan looked toward the source of the vehicular light, but it still wasn’t visible without NV. “But you feel it,” he said.
“Yeah, I do.”
“That’s good enough for us. Harv’s trusted my instincts over the years, and he’s never second-guessed me. You’ve earned the same respect, Estefan. I wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t helped Harv. So what’s your plan?”
“I don’t really have one yet, but one thing’s for sure: if Raven killed my father, one way or another, he’s going to die.”
Nathan didn’t know how to respond, so he kept quiet.
“My father wrote tons of letters over the years.” Estefan looked down again. “I kept all of them, but I was busy… and he wrote so many. I was getting three or four a week for nearly a year at one point. Lately, he’d been writing often again.”
“You didn’t read all of them?” Harv asked.
“I didn’t care about his missionary work, but I should have. I should’ve visited him more too. I really regret that now. My father wasn’t a scholar by any means, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what was going on in Santavilla. I guess he hoped the letters would serve as some kind of written record of his life, of what he was trying to accomplish. Some of the letters I did read had information on Macanas’s mining operations. Once a week, one of his men would fly up from Managua and collect the gold. There’s a helicopter pad in town somewhere. My father said everyone in Santavilla knew why the helicopter came and went. It wasn’t hard to figure out. If we can find—”
“Estefan,” Nathan interrupted, “what you’re proposing sounds complex and will likely require extensive surveillance.”
“I understand.”
“Look,” Harv said, “our presence down here is dangerous for a lot of reasons. We don’t exactly look like locals. Except for this immediate area, we don’t have aerials or road maps. How well do you know the area around Santavilla?”
“Fairly well. Because of my work, I have access to detailed topographic maps and aerials. The area around Santavilla has been identified for potential large-scale mining operations.”
“I’m assuming these aerials are in Managua?” Nathan asked.
“My office is in a government building.”
“How long does it take to drive down there?”
Over the sounds of the forest, they all heard a distant clank of metal on metal, followed by another noise with a slightly different pitch. To Nathan it sounded like the pickup beds being jarred by potholes in the road. They turned toward the sound and saw the glow of the headlights. Nathan glanced in Lyle’s direction and saw the recon had his NVGs on. Like a statue, Lyle was totally focused on the source of the sound. The sound of two more clanks reached their position just before the vehicles the recons had spotted earlier came into sight. Their high beams looked incredibly bright against the dark background. Through clearings in the canopy, the illumination bounced and changed direction as the trucks drove closer.
They lost sight of the headlights as the trucks moved laterally below them. Nathan wondered how often this road was used. The clanking and banging from the trucks grew louder, but the noise didn’t stop, which was a good sign. Gradually, the glow from the headlights started to dim as the vehicles moved away to the south.
“It takes about four hours to reach the Pan-American Highway,” Estefan said. “It’s another hour from there. It hasn’t rained heavily, so the stream crossings won’t be bad. The road those trucks just used intersects a paved road about thirty miles away, but it winds all over the place, and it’s pretty rough going and slow.”
Nathan needed a moment to gather his thoughts. When Nathan had been captured in Nicaragua, Estefan had dropped everything and risked his life to help Harv rescue Nathan. Although the final day of Nathan’s ordeal escaped him, he recalled the rest of it with clarity. He’d endured three weeks of relentless torture before being suspended in a vertical bamboo cage that had forced him to stand. By the third day without water or food, he’d welcomed death. That kind of thirst can’t be described to someone who’s never experienced it. Time itself became the enemy. His tormentor had teased him by spitting water on his lacerated skin. Rage had sustained him, fueling his soul with the energy it needed to survive. Traces of that anger still haunted him and always would.
Now, Estefan needed their help, and they’d deliver. It was as simple as that. The bond they shared wouldn’t be broken. Time hadn’t diminished or diluted it. If Nathan died helping this man, so be it.
“It’s okay,” Estefan said with resignation. “I shouldn’t have asked Harv to come. I didn’t think it would be both of you, but I should’ve anticipated that. I’m sorry.”
Nathan looked at Harv. No words were necessary.
“You aren’t doing this alone,” Nathan said.
“I can handle it.”
“No, I mean you aren’t doing this without us. Estefan, you’re family to us and you always will be. We’re going to help you, but we don’t have unlimited time.”
“That means a lot to me. Besides you guys and my wife, I don’t have any family.”
“No kids?” Nathan asked.
“No. My wife can’t have children. I knew that when I married her.”
“Harv?” Nathan asked.
“Even though we both speak Spanish, we don’t have the local dialect or accent. We’d never blend in. Nathan’s a good foot taller than everyone down here. At six one, I’m still a head above most of the locals.”
“I blend in perfectly,” Estefan said with some renewed energy. “I’ll do all the legwork.”
It was good to see Estefan’s mood improve, but Nathan needed to make something clear. “Our help isn’t unconditional.”
“Okay.”
“Harv and I are in command.”
“That’s okay with me.”
“I need you to fully understand the situation. Command decisions are ours unless we ask for your input. Think about it carefully, Estefan. There will be no second-guessing us.”
“I can live with that. It worked before when I was a kilo… I never questioned your orders.”
“That’s true, you didn’t. Now you said you read some of your father’s letters. We’ll start there, with all of them, and glean what we can. But before we go down this path, Estefan, you have to really think about it. You’ve got a good thing going. Are you sure you want to risk everything you’ve accomplished? It sounds like you have an important job and a wife you love.”