Ready to Kill Page 8

  “And this crushed ore comes from a mine, I’m guessing?” Harv said.

  “Right. After the ore is removed from the mine, it’s broken into smaller chunks, usually by laborers with sledgehammers. Then it’s hauled by mules or men to pickup trucks and driven to processing mills, where it gets tumbled in crushing drums to pulverize it. Sometimes huge grinding stones are used. The crushed ore is then run through large sluice boxes, and some of the leftover material gets panned by hand. Mercury is often added to the sluice boxes to create the amalgam.”

  “This all sounds pretty rough on the workers,” said Nathan. “I understand why your dad got involved.”

  “It’s terrible. There are all kinds of physical injuries. My father kept warning the workers about wearing eye protection, but few of them do it. Eye injuries are common. The laborers also suffer from hearing damage. The crushing drums are deafening. Steel balls the size of watermelons are rotated in huge steel drums to crush the ore for sluicing and panning. And then there’s mercury poisoning. Women do a lot of the panning, and their hands come into contact with the mercury.”

  “Incredible,” Harv said.

  “The main processing mill is on the north side of Santavilla near the lumber mill. I remember driving past it when I visited my father several years ago. The crushing drums were loud, even from fifty yards away. The mercury poisoning represents the worst danger to the mill workers. After sufficient quantities of amalgam are made, there are several ways to separate the gold from the mercury. The best way is with a retort. The amalgam is placed in a steel capsule and heated with torches. The mercury evaporates leaving fairly pure gold behind.”

  Nathan asked, “What happens to the mercury? It’s not lost, is it? Isn’t it expensive?”

  “It’s actually fairly cheap. In large quantities, it costs less than fifty cents an ounce, and an ounce of mercury can go a long way because it can be used over and over. The retorts are supposed to capture and condense the mercury for reuse, but they’re often not sealed properly and mercury vapor escapes. The mill workers are breathing that stuff all day long. Eventually, the mercury becomes what’s known as ‘dirty’ and stops amalgamating with gold. It has to be discarded then.”

  “And I’m sure everyone disposes of it safely,” Nathan said with sarcasm.

  “Sadly, they don’t. It gets buried or tossed in a river, or it just sits around in open containers, mostly jars and cans. Unscrupulous types try to resell it, but everybody knows dirty mercury when they see it: it doesn’t have its original luster.”

  “This sounds like a recipe for disaster,” Harv said. “Mercury around rivers and streams? It’s got to create an environmental mess.”

  “It’s an environmental disaster. The freshwater fish around here are toxic, but people still eat them. Then the mercury moves up the food chain to other animals.”

  “Let’s get back to Raven,” said Harv. “Why do you think he’s the shooter?”

  “My father isn’t the first sniper victim near Santavilla. Other people have been killed in the same area. I had a long call with him the night before he was killed. He used the phone at the general store. We talked for over an hour. He told me there had been at least five long-distance shootings this year alone. He had specific details about a murder several months ago at the lumber mill. One of the miners who lives at the base of the mountain where the shot originated told my dad he heard the report come from somewhere above his home. The lumber mill where the man was killed is eleven hundred yards away from the mountain.”

  Nathan looked at Harv. “That’s a good shot, but it doesn’t mean Raven did it.”

  Estefan didn’t say anything.

  “Who got nailed?”

  “The manager of the lumber mill. My father said the mill became profitable again after that. He thinks the manager had been skimming.”

  “Who owns the lumber mill?” Harv asked.

  “Guess.”

  “The same man who owns the mines,” Nathan said.

  “His name is Paulo Macanas. He’s known simply as El Jefe, The Boss. I’m willing to bet he’s connected to a larger cartel. He conducts legitimate businesses like the lumber mill and some cattle ranches and coffee farms, but he’s dirty. He either owns or directly controls everything in Santavilla. The last thing Macanas wants is for his revenue stream to be interrupted. I’m convinced that’s why my father was murdered.”

  “I’m only speculating,” said Nathan, “but don’t you think killing your father just because he was educating the miners is . . . I don’t know . . . extreme? Would your father really be murdered for that?”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. He was certainly no threat to anyone. All he wanted to do was save people’s lives, the very people who are needed to work the mines.”

  “Estefan, don’t get me wrong, and I’m not suggesting anything, but I think it’s reasonable to assume he wasn’t killed just for trying to help the miners.”

  Estefan looked down and didn’t respond right away. “Actually, I’m afraid I’m responsible for my father’s death. Once I suspected Raven was the shooter, I asked my father to see what he could dig up on Macanas’s gold-mining operation. I told him to be careful, to only talk to people he trusted. I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve known something like this would happen.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Estefan. You don’t know the reason why he was murdered. If Macanas’s love of money goes deep enough, he might’ve been killed solely for the reason you suggested, for meddling in Macanas’s operation. Macanas might’ve killed him to send a message: mess with me and you pay the ultimate price. People have been murdered for far less.”

  “I guess that’s true, but the timing is highly suspect. A week after my father starts asking about Macanas’s operation, he gets killed by a sniper.”

  “Does Macanas know the connection to you? Are you or your wife in danger?”

  “I’ve considered that, but I don’t think so. If Raven knew I was Tobias’s son—a former kilo—I’d already be dead.”

  “How do you know so much about Macanas?” Nathan asked.

  “I’m friends with the deputy chief of police. His office is near mine in Managua; we go to lunch a few times a year. I asked him to look into my father’s murder, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s no secret Macanas is a huge landowner in the area. He’s got around forty square miles.”

  Harv asked, “Are we on Macanas’s property right now?”

  “No, it’s a few miles farther east. Big landowners annex more property by disputing property lines. They’re often successful because smaller owners usually don’t have title insurance and have no way to prove they own it, and they can’t afford a lawyer to defend the claim. It’s a pure land grab. My friend in the police department told me Macanas has been expanding his holdings over the years. As a concession, Macanas lets the people stay in their homes, but he takes ownership of the land.”

  “How generous of him,” Harv said.

  “It’s like that everywhere in the remote areas outside of the forest preserves. Nobody cares what happens. Forests are slowly being destroyed. Everyone’s on the take. It’s a cash society. It’s the reason there’s a lack of infrastructure. Not enough taxes are collected. It’s getting better, but it’s a difficult problem to solve.”

  “The problem isn’t exclusive to Nicaragua,” Harv said. “It’s like that all over the world.”

  Nathan caught movement to his left.

  “We’ve got company,” Lyle called.

  CHAPTER 13

  “What’s going on?” Nathan asked.

  “Rammy spotted bleed light coming from the northeast. He thinks it’s two vehicles, possibly three. His NV picked up the glow. We can’t see it with the naked eye yet. ETA is seven to ten minutes.”

  “What’s over there besides the road?” Nathan asked.

>   “Nothing that we know of, sir.”

  “How close does the road come to our position? It looked pretty close on the aerials.”

  “About eight hundred yards due east.”

  “Whoever they are, they have their headlights on . . .”

  Lyle nodded. “Yes, sir. But we’re still going to monitor this closely. Be ready to bug out just in case.” He looked at Estefan. “Sir, is your vehicle concealed?”

  “Yes, it’s parked off the road. No one will see it, even in daylight.”

  “Stand by,” Lyle said and rejoined his men.

  Nathan didn’t need to ask Estefan if he’d been followed—it would be an insulting question, and Estefan likely came from Managua, in the opposite direction from the vehicles. And Estefan’s kilo training had included spotting and losing tails. Nathan and Harv flipped their NVGs down to their eyes and looked to the northeast. A mile or so distant, the canopied slopes of the canyon glowed with varying intensities as two or more vehicles negotiated turns along the road. They couldn’t hear any sound yet. In these conditions, Nathan expected to hear the vehicles when they closed to within a thousand yards.

  “You still haven’t explained why you’re convinced Raven’s the shooter,” he said to Estefan.

  “Using information my father gave me about the shootings, I plotted the kills on a map. All of the kills are within Raven’s old territory—Jinotega. My territory was farther east in Atlántico Norte, where the large commercial mines are.”

  “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 do
n’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.”

  “Raven murdered my father.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “He did it.”

  “All I’m saying is we need to avoid impulsive decisions and do this right. Engaging Raven in a long-distance shoot-out might not have a favorable ending. We need to take him by surprise on our terms. If what you suspect is true, he’s still quite lethal. We’re going to need a whole lot more information on Macanas’s operation in Santavilla. When we asked if you had a plan, you gave us a goal, not a plan.”