The Hunt

34

The crawl through the ditch had been grim, even by Jaeger’s standards.

For the most part he’d been fighting back the gag reflex, as unidentified things bobbed and hissed on the rank surface. There was one upside: this place had to be so toxic that nothing else would surely venture into its putrid depths.

Jaeger dreaded to think what prolonged immersion was doing to him and Narov. They were probably going to grow an extra head. But there had been no other way.

He figured the ditch served a dual purpose: it was Dodge City’s main sewer and drain, plus the coca refineries dumped their used chemicals here. Though it was largely stagnant, he figured there had to be a net outflow at the far end, where the toxic crap drained into the jungle.

But right now his senses were focused very much elsewhere.

Inch by inch he raised his head towards the lip of the ditch. The noise here was deafening: to his right, the bars were cranking out the Latino beat. He could feel the sound waves pulsing through the shitty water.

As he slipped above the lip, he sensed Narov right beside him. Two heads emerged into the open, two sets of eyes behind gaping gun barrels. Each chose a 180-degree arc to scan.

No doubt about it: they had penetrated into the very heart of El Padre’s narco fortress. All around them were the sounds, sights and smells of the place.

It had taken almost an hour to reach this point; it was approaching midnight, and Dodge was busy. Loud drunken laughter rang across the water. Crowds surged back and forth from bar to bar. Neon signs flashed their gaudy glare. Engines revved and horns blared as a pickup forced its way through.

Jaeger and Narov kept up a whispered commentary to each other.

‘Warehouse, nine o’clock, one hundred yards,’ Narov noted. To her left lay one of the massive buildings they figured were the cocaine refineries. ‘I see a gun truck pulling up. Six guys in the rear.’

‘Weapons?’

‘Longs. All of them.’

Jaeger swivelled his eyes around his 180-degree arc. Where the hell should he start? Narov had the easy bit: she was checking south, over the warehouse district and airstrip. He was gazing north, into Dodge’s chaotic drink- and drug-fuelled heart of darkness.

The nearest bar was maybe thirty yards away. It was made of galvanised iron, and Jaeger could see where a set of speakers were bolted to the roof, belting out the party beat. The neon beer-bottle sign pulsed with the throb of a generator, the strength of the current matching the thud of the engine.

Out front, a crowd swayed to the music. It was almost exclusively male, and all were clutching beer bottles; most also sported a sidearm. From the steps, a woman in a very short skirt yelled taunts at them. Jaeger figured she was trying to drum up custom.

He was about to start relating all of this to Narov when a series of shots rang out. Jaeger forced his head into the dirt, his mind processing the sound: low-velocity rounds, 9mm for sure. Pistol shots. Which more than likely spelled trouble at the bar. Sure enough, a series of hollow thuds and angry yells rang out as the narcos started beating the crap out of each other.

Jaeger raised his head again and eyed the scene. ‘Bar brawl. Four o’clock. I figured you got that. Plus I got a pickup incoming, with what look like enforcers. I got—’

More gunshots. Jaeger hit the dirt again and froze, face scrunched into the mud. Those had been high-velocity rounds from an assault rifle. Most likely an AK-47. They’d sounded up close and personal. The only thing he could do now was keep utterly still, and use his sense of hearing to try to work out what the hell was going on.

Yelled orders drifted across from the direction of the bar, punctuated by the crunch of rifle butts on human flesh. From the sound of things, the brawling had come to an abrupt halt.

Jaeger raised his head a little, using the back of his hand to wipe the gunk from his eyes.

Absence of the normal, he reminded himself. There was nothing he could see that wasn’t symptomatic of a normal night in Dodge, which was a huge relief. It meant that their presence here was unlikely to have been detected.

He glanced at Narov. ‘Warning shots?’

‘Got to be.’

Dodge’s enforcers had seemingly broken up the brawl. They’d been on it in record time. Jaeger figured El Padre wasn’t going to put up with any kind of serious ruckus, which maybe meant that there was important business being done tonight.

Narov resumed her commentary, as the gunmen in the pickup dismounted at the warehouse and others took their place. Two took up position at the building’s massive sliding door, which was open just a crack, light bleeding out. The others dispersed inside. It was a change of sentries.

Further to Narov’s left, figures were still busy on the airstrip. Dodge seemed to be split into two categories of activity. On one side, off-duty narco workers getting in some serious partying. On the other, on-duty workers engaged with the core business of refining and trafficking drugs.

There was a businesslike feel to the warehouse side of town; a sense of dark purpose.

As if to confirm this, the airstrip itself suddenly flared into life. Shadowy figures darted up and down its length, lighting a series of beacons, metal baskets stuffed with paraffin-soaked rags. Put a light to the rags, and hey presto, you had crude runway lighting.

Moments after the flares had been lit, an aircraft put in an appearance. The Latino beat that washed over the ditch was so loud that Jaeger and Narov barely heard it, before the shadowy form swept across at low level and bumped down onto the dirt.

The light aircraft – a Twin Otter by the looks of things – taxied to a standstill at the warehouse. Figures gathered at its cargo hatches, unloading sacks of what had to be raw coca paste, and loading up bales of white from the warehouse in turn.

The entire operation took maybe ten minutes. It was smooth and well practised. But when they were almost done, one of the men dropped a bag of refined cocaine, which split open, spilling its contents across the dirt. As the hapless worker went to try to scoop it up, a voice started yelling maniacally and a figure strode out of the shadows, machete clutched in his hand, a small entourage of bodyguards with him. With barely a pause, he brought the cruel blade down hard. The man who’d dropped the cocaine let out a bloodcurdling scream and keeled over, wailing pitifully. The man who had struck him didn’t let up. Instead, he started to put the boot in.

Jaeger watched with a growing sense of unease. ‘El Padre,’ he whispered to Narov. ‘Like the briefings said, he’s one evil fucker.’

Moments later, the Twin Otter taxied to the end of the runway and took to the skies again, banking hard. Even as the shadowy silhouette disappeared over the jungle, the DIY runway lighting was being doused.

Slick. This was the business side of Dodge.

And here, cocaine was serious business.