Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (diy ebook reader TXT) 📕

best to bypass them.” I saw him scanning the area before adding, “Even though this is a very hard crossing point. Zorro, where do you think they are waiting?” While he asked, he lay down, with his rifle aimed at the barrier. He was trying to spot them through his telescopic lens. “Okay, I can see them. Two of them are sitting on folding chairs. Black uniforms. Either they are sleeping or someone has already shot them. Both have their heads back and their hats on their faces.”

“We’re not going to get any closer to check,” I whispered. I felt like a rabbit under the eyes of a vulture. “You break it, you buy it. You didn’t shoot it, you don’t check it.”

“But then who did shoot? And more importantly, is he still there?” Guy continued surveying with his telescopic lens and Zorro and I used binoculars to scan the area. Neither one of us saw any movement.

“It looks clear,” Zorro whispered. “According to Kaibiles map, we have another marijuana field ahead of us. Maybe they are just guarding it.”

“Maybe. Let’s advance as much as possible while we are hidden.” Guy got up from where he was lying and added, “We shouldn’t take into consideration fast progress on the main road.”

“It will detain us a lot,” Zorro announced. “You must understand this. Also, that Laura’s foot will hurt even more.”

“We have no choice,” Guy answered.

They both looked at me and in response I said, “If we’re caught it’ll detain us even more.”

As Zorro had said, as soon as we had passed the barrier of the forest, a fresh green field of marijuana was spread out before us. In contrast to what we had expected from the barrier before, the field was empty, and no one was in sight. No one worked in the field or kept watch. We passed through the area in peace and once again stopped at the edge of the forest. There was an eerie silence around us, as if all the people in the world had disappeared and we were the last three people left. I could hear the wind in the field chatting with the rustling leaves, the hum of bees proving nature’s work ethic, the noises of the never-resting forest. Only human beings were missing from the “scene”.

“It’s too quiet here,” I noted the obvious to everyone. “It’s suspicious. I want to stop and make contact with my unit. Maybe they know something that we don’t.”

“We will go into the forest and put up the satellite phone.” Zorro agreed. “It really is too quiet.”

“Okay. Let’s go, let’s pick up some speed,” said Guy.

I tapped into a new, unknown source of energy, and in no time, we found ourselves in the middle of a forest clearing, not a huge one, but large enough for some blades of grass to grown unshaded, and for us to set up the satellite connection.

Zorro took the rifle and lay down in a strategic spot overlooking the way we came. Guy climbed up near me with the binoculars in his hand and I was left with the satellite device. “Hi Gordon,” I said, after the connection was made.

“Where are you!?” he yelled as if his mother was being murdered in front of his eyes. “I have been trying to get a hold of you for the last half an hour! You have to come back to the office immediately. The French desk is on fire -- haven’t you heard the news? How could you disappear at a time like this?”

“The French desk?” I asked, sure that he was mistaken. “You meant the Israeli desk?”

“Not the Israeli… There is always someone there. I said French and I meant French. Where the hell are you?”

“I told you I am tracking down the money trail.” And then I added, “What happened at the French desk?”

“There was a massive terror attack in Paris, dozens of people killed.”

“Dozens killed?” I mumbled and sat heavily on the ground, “You said dozens were killed?” I asked and in my head I thought, ‘shit, shit, shit!!’ This was a massive problem. Even if there had only been one killed, I should have been there, at the French desk. I looked around me. Zorro and Guy took their eyes off their targets and looked at me questioningly. What could I say to Gordon? That he was right? I should have been there to fulfill my job.

“Gordon,” I tried to sound businesslike, but all that came out was a scared whisper. I cleared my throat and continued, “Gordon, I need to ask you a huge favor.” Without waiting for his consent, I continued. “You need to take charge of the French desk for me, for the next forty-eight hours.” I said forty-eight but that was wishful thinking. Who could promise me that in forty-eight hours I would be back?

Gordon was silent. His silence was as surprising as his shouting. “Where are you?”

I hesitated before answering. In the end I breathed in deeply and whispered, “In Mexico.”

“I thought he commanded you not to leave the country.”

“That’s correct. He did say that.” We both knew who the ‘he’ was who had ordered me not to leave the borders of the United States, and we both knew that I had crossed the red line and that when I got back, a letter of dismissal would be waiting for me on my desk.

“Are you still babysitting?”

“Yes.”

“Did he drag you out there? Just tell me please that you did it so as not to lose him…” This was the third surprise in this conversation. Was Gordon prepping me and giving me a cover story for when I get back, so that I’d have a good reason to have violated a direct command?

“Can we talk about it when I get back?”

“We can talk about it whenever you want…”

“Do you know of any missions or actions going on in Mexico right now?”

“Not offhand…” I heard him typing something. “And nothing on the regular news either. Would you