He grew restless quickly, his body craving some type of physical activity.
So he put in time on the firing range.
And he ran.
The thin air and humidity that came with the region’s 8,300 foot elevation made running all the more grueling, but it was already going better than yesterday’s run, so he pushed himself a little harder, enough to feel the burn in his lungs and the strain in his thighs. He’d always hated PT in Colombia’s tropical climate, even back then as a twenty-four year old soldier, and it hadn’t become any easier with age.
Maybe he possessed a sadomasochist streak, but Avery liked to push his body under less than optimal conditions. He thought forcing himself through a run while deprived of sleep or in the freezing rain was a good system of enforcing strict discipline. Habituated comfort quickly lent itself to laziness and complacency, which was to be avoided at all costs.
A squad of Colombian soldiers ran past him in formation, with full combat gear, making it look depressingly easy. The gap quickly expanded between the young troops and Avery. He tried picking up the pace to keep up, and failed miserably.
He soon experienced grinding aches behind his knees with each step, and he gasped and sucked air into his lungs like he couldn’t get enough, while sweat drenched his shirt. The humidity and high elevation made him feel twenty pounds heavier and slow. Even with his mind a thousand miles away, it was difficult to ignore the immense physical discomfort.
He was halfway through his third mile, pushing himself much harder than he normally needed to after only three miles. He began to wonder if he’d even make it to a fourth. Back home, five, six miles would be considered a light run with little exertion.
A shadow fell across the ground beside him. He turned his head and saw Aguilar coming up beside him in a relaxed jog.
“Fuck, you look like you’re about to drop dead.”
Avery looked at him and extended an upright middle finger.
“I don’t know what the docs told you, but I can’t imagine they okayed you for this kind of activity.”
“Maybe not, but sitting inside going over the same shit through my head all day isn’t going to do me any good either,” Avery replied between gasps for air. Finally, he stopped running and fell into a walk, panting for air as his heart pounded against his chest. He accepted the water bottle Aguilar tossed to him, guzzled its contents, and poured the rest over his face.
“You’re letting Moreno get to you?” Aguilar asked.
“Not really. I’ve dealt with her kind before.”
“Castillo?”
“Yeah,” Avery said. “I never had to worry about my teammates from 75th stabbing me in the back; never entered my head. I always could count on some guy in the next chalk I didn’t even know to lay his life down for me, because he knew I’d do the same for him, because we were both Rangers. It was the single absolute I could always count on. It’s what kept us sane in shitholes like Afghanistan.”
Aguilar shrugged. “I won’t lose sleep over Castillo. I would have taken a bullet for him any other time, but there in the stairwell he wasn’t going to hesitate to kill me. He made his own choices. Someone like that should have never made it this far in the army. The system failed him, and us, by letting him slip through.”
Aguilar had been close with Jon Castillo, and Avery knew it was hitting him harder than he let on. Aguilar had served in Afghanistan with Castillo, after all, and he’d been to his wedding five years ago, and held his newborn baby in his arms. Looking down the barrel of a gun in Castillo’s hand, and pulling his own trigger with his sights over Castillo, must have gone against every instinct in Aguilar’s body.
“What are you going to do?” Aguilar asked.
Avery didn’t need to stay around any longer, and he’d briefly entertained the thought of heading back home. Soon CIA’s regional stations, FBI, Homeland Security, and the National Security Council would be brought into the loop, and there’d be little room for Avery.
But Avery knew he wasn’t going to walk away from this. Kashani, an old enemy who had already killed three of his friends in Libya, was arming a terrorist with one of the world’s deadliest weapon systems. He cared little about Moreno, but he thought that maybe she could lead him to Kashani.
“You know I’m going with you,” Aguilar said.
“Huh?” Avery frowned. “And where the hell do you think I’m going?”
Aguilar smiled. “You’re easier to read than you think you are. You’re going after her, aren’t you?”
Avery allowed his silence to answer for him.
“I thought so. My team couldn’t have pulled off Phoenix without your help, and Phoenix is the catalyst for all this. The Viper is the unfortunate product of my country’s internal conflict. She’s my responsibility. I’m not going to let some gringo fight our battles for us.”
“Look, Felix, I appreciate it, but I’m better off on my own. I really am.”
Avery didn’t say it, but he thought he would have stood a better chance of bringing Pablo Muňoz out alive if he’d gone in solo.
But Aguilar wasn’t buying it.
“Bullshit. You can’t face her alone, not in the shape you’re in. Look at you. You can barely run, and I’m willing to bet that shoulder isn’t doing much for your shooting. I know you’ve been putting a lot of time on the range, more than you need to.”
Avery sighed. He knew Aguilar was right, and Avery’s options for reliable support were limited. After Panama, he wasn’t about to trust another local CIA station. He doubted Culler would be able to get SAD assets over here — CIA’s paramilitary units were all focused in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the Middle East, and Africa. DEA was good and could provide solid leads and intelligence, but DEA was a law enforcement agency, had to work with local agencies, and couldn’t take the quick action necessary for an effective counterterrorism op.
And after Aguilar double tapped Castillo without flinching, Avery had no doubt that he could trust the Colombian with his life. That was sentiment Avery presently shared with nobody else in the country, sentiment he only shared with a handful of people, and at least two of them had still managed to stab him in the back.
Avery knew he couldn’t do any better than having Aguilar watching his six. Aside from his loyalty and dedication, he also knew Aguilar was a pro.
Colombia’s Special Forces Brigade had the finest spec ops troops on the continent. They regularly win the main events in the two-week long, SOUTHCOM-sponsored Fuerzas Commando, an annual and highly secretive competition among South American special operations and counterterrorism units in fields ranging from physical fitness, to marksmanship, to assaulting and emergency responses. Colombian Special Forces were also highly sought after by West African and other Latin American governments to train their counternarcotics and counterinsurgency troops. They also trained regularly with the troops at Fort Benning, where most of them breezed through the Ranger Course. Due to their cross-training, Avery and Aguilar were familiar with each other’s fighting styles and tactics, and could therefore function cohesively.
“What do you know about the Viper?” Avery asked. “You ever come up against her before?”
As a hunter of terrorists, he never bought into the mystique or hype that often grew around the bin Ladens or Abu Nidals or Jackals of the world. They were simply criminals and murderers on a large scale, and their motivation, cause, and ideology didn’t matter.
“I know little more than you do. But I’ve operated against many terrorists to come out of the FARC camps or trained by the Cubans at Camp Mantanzas. They were extremely well trained, competent and dangerous. We hit a jungle camp once, just over the border in Ecuador, where intelligence had spotted Moreno and her brother. There was no sign of them when we attacked, but we found ANIC’s source hanging from a tree, draped in his intestines, full of bullet holes and knives. Radio intercepts later indicated we missed the Morenos by eleven hours.”