Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4) (9 page)

She could hear a Jeep or two. Guys coming out from the sides.

Aguilo, the translator, grabbed her upper arm and yanked her up, then pulled her down the stairs.

Maybe a dozen soldiers were there to greet them—some in camo, some in civvies.

She lost her footing when they hit the ground. He dragged her the rest of the way, then threw her headfirst into a Jeep, crunching her neck. Without missing a beat, he yanked her up and bound her roughly but effectively to a handhold atop the door. It would be a hard knot to loosen, even with her teeth.

Another guard stood on the outside of the Jeep, weapon trained on her. He watched calmly as she tried to pull apart her wrists, yanking and twisting, feeling the slim nylon rope cut into her wrists. Yeah, he’d seen it before.

The soldiers cleared out the plane, pulling out the pallets and garbage. The leader had the suitcases. He set them in the front of the Jeep, then called over Aguilo and gave him a cloth. “
Véndale los ojos
.”

Aguilo came back around and tied the rough fabric around her head, cutting off her sight.

Fear and desperation burned through her.
Fuck.
The plane had been hers to lose, and she’d lost it.

Spectacularly. God, they’d all make her pay.

She felt spun out, like her senses were everywhere around that field, and she couldn’t feel her face. But there was something else now: a kind of peace—like things would finally even out.

No
.
Stop thinking like that
.

She focused on the activity around her—shouts, engines, doors, winches. A waft of diesel, a large motor humming at a different octave—that would be the plane moving. They’d be driving it under the camo scrim at the edge of the strip. She focused on the jungle chatter beyond the guerrillas. Monkeys and birds echoed under the lush canopy.

She turned her head to wipe a bit of sweat from her cheek. Men were laughing nearby. She couldn’t hear their words, but they were in the tone of those awful stories they liked to tell. There would be awful stories about her after today.

She sucked in a breath, centering herself. And then she heard a sound she didn’t recognize—a
swish-swish-swish
, like something flying through the air, followed by a strange yell—a shout of pain, but worse, somehow. Eerie and high-pitched. Another cry sounded farther away.

Alarm-filled shouts followed. Grunts and groans filled the air. She stayed as low behind the door as the bonds would permit as the world exploded into gunfire.

Frantically, she rubbed her face on her shoulder, trying to dislodge the blindfold as the battle raged on and on. It seemed endless. Eventually she got it shoved up onto her forehead like a headband. She peeked over the seat. She spotted some of El Gorrion’s men behind a nearby truck; more crouched at the corner of a nearby outbuilding. But most were corpses on the runway. The one closest to her was splayed on his back, a knife in his eye. It looked like all of the dead were knife kills. Blades through the right eye.

No way.

Suddenly, everything quieted—even the animals and birds. Everything but the labored breathing that told her somebody was behind the Jeep, frightened out of his mind.
Aguilo
.

Clearly, Aguilo thought this was Kabakas.

But Kabakas was dead. The agent who’d witnessed his death was reliable—she knew him personally. Kabakas’s activity had ceased afterward.

No, this had to be an impostor. Somebody had good aim, that’s all. It had been twelve years since Kabakas burst onto the scene—you could get those skills with twelve years of practice. Maybe. And there were guns now with automatic aim, almost like video games. It could be that, rigged for blades. Somebody hiding in the jungle, just shooting like that.

She took advantage of the distraction to work on the ropes in earnest, wrists slick with blood. When that didn’t work, she leaned over the side of the Jeep and started going at the knot in the door handle with her teeth, right through the gag. It put her in the line of fire, but there was no other way. If she could get free, she could break to the jungle.

“
Ahí! Ahí!
” She recognized Guz’s voice. He was pointing at the trees.
There, there!

She worked faster.

More gunfire. The men were giving their attacker everything. Smoke billowed. The Jeep was pocked now and again.

She worked away, tearing at the rope. When she felt as if her bottom teeth might fall right out, she twisted around and tried to go at it with her fingers, numb as they were. Fruitlessly she toiled. She felt like she was making headway and hauled back around to go at it with her teeth. And paused.

The gunfire had stopped.

The panting grew louder. Aguilo, frightened out of his mind.

She glanced up. Bodies were everywhere. And then she saw him—a huge beast of a man in a Kabakas mask strolling casually and openly across the field toward the truck where one group had taken refuge.

More shots. Still he walked—or more like stalked—right into the gunfire. He wore fatigues, leathers, black boots, pockets, and packs, all battered and battle-worn. He had the bandolier. Blades gleamed between the fingers of his massive leather-gloved hands.

She couldn’t believe somebody was out there impersonating Kabakas. You impersonated comedians. Politicians. You didn’t impersonate Kabakas. Because he was fucking Kabakas. And he was dead.

Or was he?

One man broke off and ran toward the jungle. In the very next moment, a blade was sailing across the space, flashing in the light. It hit home, and the man went down. Another Kabakas thing—taking the neck when he couldn’t get the eye, right through the cervical vertebrae.

More men started running. One by one, he dropped them as though it was the easiest thing in the world. His massive, leather-clad hand dwarfed the blades he threw. He was all dark confidence. Nerves of steel. No mercy, no apologies. Never a fuck-up. Never a break in his excellence. She watched him move, body torqueing, pure economy, fingers hugged by the leather, shining where it gripped tightest.

A silver barong had appeared in his left hand, the essential Kabakas accessory. It seemed to glide alongside him as he closed the distance with a confident stride, brown skin gleaming with sweat, muscles surging over his forearms and disappearing into his gloves. The man pulsed with power.

Surely it couldn’t be him after all these years, but her heart pounded all the same. It was like seeing your favorite rock star.

She shouldn’t think of him like that, considering the Yacon fields massacre, but she had a special compartment for pre-Yacon fields Kabakas. The Kabakas from the photo. Her white whale.

Another barong appeared. His pack, she noted, contained multiple barong swords. The multiple swords suggested he was a fake. Kabakas always carried just two barongs—never more.

A shot tore the air. Dirt sprayed around his feet. He just kept going as though he believed himself impervious to bullets, another Kabakas thing. Another shot blasted out, and Kabakas, almost lazily, tossed the barong into the far-off jungle.

Another mistake—Kabakas never tossed a barong sword. The barong was not at all a tossing weapon.

And then a body tumbled down from the trees. With a sword through his face.

She stiffened, transfixed.

Kabakas never did that; yet the brutality, the outrageousness, that felt very Kabakas.

No. No way.

Feverishly she worked at the knots as gunfire raged, as men cried out.

Concentrate, focus.

Things grew silent. When she looked up again, everyone was dead except for Aguilo behind her and Guz, who cowered behind an overturned truck.

Motion from the side. A small, dark figure strolled out from the jungle wall, assault rifle in hand. He, too, wore a blood-red mask, but he was small. Just a child.

The Kabakas impostor ignored the boy; he was going for Guz, clutching the curved hilt of the barong. His hand gripped and pulsed with power inside that glove.

Guz scrambled out from behind and took off toward the Jeep—toward
her
.

No!

He’d draw the Kabakas impostor’s attention toward her. She redoubled her efforts to get free.

Guz slowed enough to twist around and shoot wildly behind him as he ran.

Calm and sure as the moon, the Kabakas impostor strode on, right into the gunfire. With a flick of the wrist, he threw a knife, and Guz was down. Pierced in the knee.

Wailing in pain, Guz rolled over, leveling his pistol at his masked attacker.

He was between her and Kabakas now.

She stiffened as Guz shot, once and then again at nearly point-blank range.

The man acting as Kabakas reached over his shoulder into his pack and drew out a barong sword. Now he had two. He began to swing them in a figure eight, Sinawali style, as he strolled toward the leader.

He
wouldn’t
.

Except, he would.

He swung them quickly, expertly. It was something to behold, the way the silver ends shone in a figure-eight blur that sometimes shifted into more of an X pattern.

Guz shot at him, and the Kabakas impostor just kept walking. Guz shot again.

Clang.

Zelda felt the breath go out of her. Using the blades to block bullets. A Kabakas hallmark. It wasn’t magical; if you angled blades just so, and if you were good at gauging directions and trajectories, you did have roving plates of armor.

Still, it took practice, not to mention guts.

He might not be Kabakas, but this attacker was nothing short of magnificent.

Guz scrambled backward and got in a wild shot.

And the attacker kept going. He understood what Kabakas always had: the closer he got, the more frightened Guz would become and the worse his aim would become, erasing the advantage of point-blank proximity.

The strange attacker was close enough now for her to see the calm in his eyes through his mask. There was something almost mountainous about him: hard, ancient, immovable.

Whoever he was, she knew one true thing about him: he was completely in the zone, beyond confidence, a mindless unity with everything that was happening around him. It broke her heart to recognize it, to remember it.

A desperate yearning for everything she’d lost crashed over her. She worked at the knots.

She could hear Aguilo panting behind the Jeep. Kabakas always killed everybody but one. The messenger. It was why Aguilo was hiding. He wanted to be the last one.

Kabakas had never utilized a female messenger. In fact, he’d slaughtered scores of women at the Yacon fields.

She had to get away. She formed a plan: she’d kill Aguilo herself and force this guy to use her. He’d use her if she forced his hand.

She sat right up on the side of the Jeep, smashing her wrist. She barely felt it in her fury to get free; she went at the knot with her fingers behind her back. It made her big and made her a target, but it was the only way.

Guz had thrown away his gun. He scrambled back as the barong blades flashed. It was like a lawnmower coming at him, tipped the wrong way. Maybe ten more feet before contact.

Kabakas spoke. The breeze had kicked up and she couldn’t hear, but she made out the words
Buena Vista
as he advanced. Buena Vista, the town the men had been laughing about.

One side of the knot loosened.
She was getting it!

Guz was weeping, apologizing. The man didn’t stop coming.

The battle trance. The imperviousness to guns. Of course this fighter would have access to all that myth, too.

Furiously she worked at the knot.

He was nearly on top of Guz now, with no sign of letting up. Things were going to get bloody.

She braced for it.

And then there it was: the sickening
thwap-thwap
as he severed the man’s ankles, boots and all.

Guz cried out as the attacker lit into him with the two barongs, not missing a beat with his pattern as he moved the chops up to his knees, then his hands, the powerful blades became a kind of mill.

Guz’s cries sounded inhuman.

Cleaving the extremities first in a kill calibrated to be as bloody as possible and also to keep the man screaming as long as possible.

This kill would be the one for show, the one designed to be memorable. Kabakas had often singled out leaders for this special treatment.

Running out of time!

She went at the knot with her teeth again, ignoring Guz’s cries.

Her heart fell when they ended abruptly. The head.

Out of time.

Bird screeched through the dusk. It felt like they were screeching through her belly.

She looked up to see the fighter standing over Guz’s bloody, mangled form.

Movement. The masked boy was advancing on her Jeep from the other side. He had an assault rifle and a revolver, and with a gesture, he had a weeping Aguilo marching out to stand before the attacker. To see the body of his boss.

“
Por favor
.” Aguilo raised his hands and begged to be the messenger. He angled his head at her. “
La puta de Mikos
.
Ella no es más que una puta gringa. Ella no sabe español.”

An American whore who doesn’t even know Spanish. Zelda grunted her protest through her gag and shook her head, not that the attacker even noticed her.

Nobody will listen to her; nobody will believe her
, Aguilo told him.

Aguilo was right.

The sidekick seemed to concur; he began to address Aguilo in rapid Spanish. “You go and tell everybody that Kabakas will hunt anybody who attacks Buena Vista or any village on the slope of the Verde Sirca. He will chop them up until their screams reach hell itself. Whoever wants to challenge this village and those farms, Kabakas will hunt them when they are sleeping. This is now the kingdom of Kabakas.” The boy looked to the attacker as he spoke. The attacker’s gaze seemed to darken through the mask. Was he displeased? Well, the kid was definitely off-roading. Kabakas never made speeches, and certainly not one sounding straight out of a fantasy tale. It was Kabakas’s style to make a simple statement—
Buena Vista is mine.
Kabakas had a possessive thing going with those he protected.