Viper: A Thriller Read online

  VIPER

  A Thriller

  Ross Sidor

  The product of Colombia’s dirty war, the Viper is South America’s deadliest terrorist.

  Cut off by former sponsors, and armed with one of the world’s most advanced weapon systems, the Viper embarks on a personal mission of revenge, intent on reaping a path of destruction across the United States that will kill thousands and cause untold economic devastation.

  Working alongside DEA agents, NSA cyber-trackers, and Colombian soldiers, CIA security contractor Avery, codenamed Carnivore, is tasked with locating and terminating the Viper.

  He will pursue his quarry from terrorist camps hidden deep in the tropical rainforest, to Colombia’s most brutal prison and through the slums of South America’s most dangerous, gang infested city, to the drug smuggling routes beneath the US-Mexican border.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Viper: A Thriller. Text copyright © 2015 Ross Sidor.

  All rights reserved.

  No parts of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission by the publisher.

  Published by Ross Sidor

  For my dad

  11/29/52—3/3/15

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  ONE

  For over five hours Avery lay still, prone in the mud and leaf litter. Damp grass and weeds clung to his face. His boots were soaked through to his socks. The tropical heat penetrated his fatigues. All around him, his ears were inundated with the sounds of the rainforest. Water streamed off leaves. Birds squawked. Monkeys chattered. Insects buzzed.

  He couldn’t help but ask himself, not for the first time, why he’d taken this job. The truth was that he simply wasn’t able to say no when Matt Culler called with a job. Culler ran the independent contractors, sometimes called scorpions, who CIA’s Global Response Staff kept on retainer. Avery needed to make a living like anyone else, and this was quite simply the only thing for which he was any good. More important, if he declined, he didn’t want it going into his 201 file that he was unreliable, or stepped away from a challenge, and be subsequently passed over when the next job came along.

  The previous day, a Blackhawk helicopter had taken off from the joint American-Colombian Palanquero military base, near Puerto Salgar, north of Bogotá, and deposited Avery near the Venezuelan border, where he made the six hour hike to the target in west-central Venezuela. The FARC camp was located just thirty miles south of San Cristóbal, capital of the Venezuelan state Táchira, and ten miles southwest of the Rio Apure River, near the foothills of the Andes Mountains.

  Upon arrival, Avery carefully established his makeshift hide, and had remained there for the past eighteen hours. He lived off MREs, Meals Ready to Eat. He pissed into a bottle and shit into a plastic bag, both of which were then buried in the ground. His muscles already grew sore and stiff from the lack of circulation that came from remaining sedentary for so long.

  From here, dug two feet into the ground in a coffin shaped space, Avery had a perfect view of the sprawling camp below, fifty yards downhill, and the narrow, muddy trail that led from the jungle to the campground. Cradled in front of him, his M4A1 rifle was equipped with a suppressor and infrared scope.

  The temperature that afternoon peaked at 88°F, with eighty-one percent humidity. Avery almost immediately sweated any water he put into his body. But he hadn’t been sweating for the last four hours, and hadn’t pissed in even longer, so he figured he was pretty well dehydrated by this point, and he already felt a headache beginning. The bottled water he carried needed to be carefully rationed, since it wasn’t like he could drink from a stream, and he wasn’t due to chug the next half bottle of water for another three hours. His body craved that water, but it was important to stick to the timeframe, in case anything came up that might leave him here longer than he’d anticipated.

  Well, at least that cup of water was something to look forward to.

  Green and brown camouflage non-glare grease paint covered his face and every inch of exposed flesh. He was filthy and grimy. He hadn’t showered or cleaned for two days before flying out, because the unnatural scents of soap, shampoo, deodorant, and bug repellants carried in the air and would potentially betray his presence, either to the enemy or to the local wildlife.

  Animals cautiously kept their distance from unfamiliar sounds and scents, and their silence and absence would in turn alert an experienced jungle fighter to the presence of an intruder. The only way to go unnoticed was to become a part of the surrounding environment and meld into the animals’ natural habitat.

  Yesterday’s heavy downpour had given way to a light rain. After a day, Avery was soaked, even through the jungle camouflage netting blanketed over his hide, and the water pooled beneath him. Large beetles and fire ants crawled over him, some biting at the exposed flesh of his hands and wrists with tiny, razor sharp mandibles. Worms emerged from the saturated soil to become lost in the inch-deep puddle of water, and some found their way squiggling down his shirt and into his pockets and against his chin and lips. Tiny gnats flew into his ear canals and nostrils.

  To make matters worse, there was a three hour old pile of rain soaked shit from a capybara, essentially a 145lb guinea pig, just six feet away from his face, and every breath he took carried the fetid, fecal smell to his nose, along with the jungle’s usual tepid, musty scent of plants and moss.

  But worst of all, the occasional snake slithered past. The last one, long and black, came within just two feet of his face, with its little fork tongue flickering out of its mouth. It took everything Avery had to remain calm and completely motionless. He detested snakes, and South America was teeming with the legless reptiles. Here they came in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and temperaments. They dangled from branches, unseen until you were only feet away. They hid beneath the leaf litter, where they were easy to step on, which they didn’t react well to.

  On the way in from Colombia, Avery had stopped in his tracks at the sight of a fifteen foot long green anaconda devouring an equally ferocious looking alligator on a riverbed. He’d spent time in many Third and Fourth World hellholes and had seen his share of oddities, but he couldn’t shake the twisted spectacle from his mind.

  Everything in this environment, from the plants and terrain to the insects and animals, was biologically designed to poison, maim, kill, or eat a man, or even do all four. Even the frogs were poisonous, and the monkeys were cantankerous little thieves who had already tried to steal from his backpack when he’d stopped to rest during his hike.

  To keep his mind off the discomfort, Avery focused on the task at hand.

  The camp occupied about a half square mile clearing in the rainforest. Only the first layer of canopy growth had been cut down, leaving the top canopy layer in place for concealment against satellite and aerial surveillance. A fence composed of spiraling strands of razor wire spaced about a foot apart and attached to seven foot high wooden posts ran along the perimeter of the camp, with a guard shack at the front gates and a twelve foot high watch tower in the rear of the camp. Behind the security fence, there w
ere several small, ramshackle wooden huts with tin roofs, two larger barracks style structures, a communications shack with a satellite dish mounted atop the roof, and an outside mess area comprised of rows of long picnic tables with bench seating beneath a wooden-framed, tarp-covered terrace. There were also three large, rectangular tents and an outdoor firing range. Wooden planks on the muddy ground formed a sidewalk throughout the camp. There were no vehicles. The camp was only accessible by foot. Camouflage netting and tarps were spread out over the huts and tents, to further help conceal the camp from the air.

  The guerillas numbered about two dozen, Avery estimated from what he’d so far observed. They belonged to the 10th Front of FARC’s Eastern Bloc.

  The fifty year old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), was far better organized and disciplined than the typical al-Qaeda or Iraqi amateurs playing insurgents. These guys almost looked like a legitimate army by the manner in which they moved and carried themselves. They were lean, muscled, physically fit, and confident. Their uniforms even included ranks, badges, and unit patches, and they carried their M16 assault rifles like they knew how to use them.

  Avery tried to keep track of the faces, but so far there’d been no sighting of his target.

  Emilio Reyes was a senior ranking member of the FARC Secretariat with close ties to the North Coast drug cartel. He was born in the Colombian port city of Buenaventura forty-eight years ago to an uneducated docks worker and a maid. Before he was eighteen years old, he was already a member of the Colombian Communist Party and full of socialist idealism. He joined FARC in his early twenties and quickly rose to the political leadership in the Secretariat.

  Although he looked like a meek, bookish doctor or lawyer, Reyes had personally ordered the deaths of over a hundred people. The Colombian government sentenced him in absentia for the killings of seven police officers, four judges, two congressmen, two presidential aides, and one minister of culture.

  The Americans wanted Reyes just as badly as the Colombians, and the FBI and the DEA have been working to that end for the past year. The State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest, and INTERPOL placed him on its red list of international criminals.

  Three months ago came a major breakthrough in the manhunt. A high level penetration agent, codenamed Canastilla, run by Colombia’s National Intelligence Agency, produced a telephone number he claimed belonged to one of Emilio Reyes’ satellite phones.

  One of the National Security Agency’s Magnum communications/signals intelligence satellites took over from there, and monitored all calls received and made by this phone. The first intercepted call provided a confirmed voice match of Reyes. By monitoring his phone, the American and Colombian agencies were then able to track Reyes’ movements.

  But Reyes never stayed in one location very long. He constantly travelled between Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela and never stuck to a consistent routine or pattern. If the Colombians launched a strike to capture or kill him, they risked arriving on target too late, after Reyes had already left, and alerting the FARC leader to the fact that the government had a highly placed agent in his organization and that his personal communications were compromised. He’d go to ground and disappear.

  Three days ago, Reyes placed a call to the Venezuelan president in which he announced his impending return to the Venezuelan camp to meet with an officer of SEBIN, Venezuela’s Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional, or Bolivarian National Intelligence Service.

  This was the first time the Colombian government possessed advance knowledge of Reyes’ travel itinerary. President Santos authorized Operation Phoenix, a cross border military action by the Colombian Special Forces Brigade.

  Commonly referred to lanceros, or lancers, in reference to the Colombian army’s intensive School of Lanceros jungle insurgency training facility at Tolemaida, the Special Forces Brigade is the elite of a military already recognized and respected as one of the most professional and physically demanding in the world. These troops are trained specially in counterinsurgency. They’d deployed to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban, to return the favor to their American and British allies who had helped them against FARC and the cartels over the decades.

  Now the Americans and Colombians in the ops room at Palanquero anxiously awaited the satellite burst transmission from their man on the ground that would announce the arrival of Emilio Reyes at the camp.

  Before his deployment, Avery met with Captain Felix Aguilar and his squad leaders, so that they’d recognize him and not accidently shoot him during the assault. Avery trusted the competence and professionalism of the Colombians, but he also knew that once the shooting started, shit happened. Fortunately one of the squad leaders, a senior NCO named Jon Castillo, remembered Avery from when he trained alongside 75th Rangers back in the day.

  It was 14:23 Wednesday.

  The intelligence indicated that Emilio Reyes was due to arrive this afternoon, and so far it looked like his visit wasn’t going to be cancelled. There’d been increased activity at the camp and patrols in the surrounding jungle since first light.

  Avery hoped Reyes wasn’t delayed or called the thing off. It didn’t matter to Avery whether the Colombians waxed their target or not, but he didn’t want to stay here any longer than necessary. He’d also much rather be picked up by helicopter and fly out with Aguilar’s troops than hike all the way back across the border.

  If Reyes didn’t show, then Avery was to wait until midnight and turn on the SATCOM to receive the word from the Palanquero ops room that would either tell him to stay in place or exfil. This was based on the assumption that the only way Operation Phoenix would not take place was if either Avery never reported the arrival of Reyes or if the signals intelligence people heard Reyes announce a change of plans.

  Very close by, leaves rustled. A twig snapped.

  Avery tensed. He’d grown familiar with the natural sounds of the jungle and knew man-made sounds when he heard them.

  His instincts were proven correct when he heard Spanish speaking voices grow slowly louder. One of the patrols was coming back, approaching from somewhere behind Avery’s hide site.

  Avery drew a sharp intake of breath and held it. Every muscle in his body tensed and froze. His rifle, machete, and Cold Steel combat knife were all within quick reach, but wouldn’t do him any good. If someone stumbled upon his hide now, was right on top of him, it was unrealistic to think he’d get into a firing position and take his targets down before they got him. And to move now and be ready for such an eventuality was too much movement and would definitely compromise him. Besides, if he did fire, he’d be dead anyway. Even though his M4 was suppressed, the weapon was far from soundless. The muffled shot still travelled, but at a reduced radius, and the troops in the camp might still hear the shots.

  The voices grew farther apart as the patrol dispersed, and Avery soon saw two FARC soldiers spread apart and descend the hill, returning to the camp. They moved slowly. Their eyes scanned the jungle for irregularities, any shape or color that didn’t belong. One of them turned around, twenty feet away. He panned from left to right, and for a split second was looking directly at Avery without seeing him, then his eyes looked elsewhere and he continued walking.

  A new party of travelers arrived on foot later at 15:37.

  They emerged from the jungle, dressed in camouflage fatigues and carrying rucksacks bulging at the seams. Two guerillas toting M16 rifles led the group, with another pair bringing up the rear. In the middle of the pack, there were two more men. One of them was taller than the others, slender and older. The man beside him was shorter, but heavier, with significantly more muscle packed around his frame. Avery, looking through his scope, wasn’t offered a good view of their faces.

  Without stopping the newcomers, the guards opened the gates and allowed them into the camp. Before entering, the tall and lanky man turned his head around to speak to the gunmen in back, fi
nally offering Avery a clear view of his long and angular face. He recognized the face immediately, having studied dozens of pictures of Emilio Reyes during pre-mission preparation.

  Avery shifted his scope onto the younger man and identified him as Aarón Moreno, Reyes’ lethal and personal killer. Reyes had ordered the killings of numerous people, but he never got his hands dirty. That was Moreno’s job, and, by all accounts, Moreno enjoyed his work.

  The camp commandant greeted Reyes and Moreno, and ushered them into his hut.

  Making imperceptibly slow, deliberate movements, Avery unpacked the miniature satellite radio and a collapsible antenna sixteen inches in diameter. He switched on the satellite radio, then unfolded the antenna, plugged it into the radio, and carefully positioned it in the proper direction and angle. He pressed a button on the radio’s panel, and softly but clearly said “Hide One for Eagle Control. Echo Romeo on-site. Repeat Echo Romeo on-site. You are clear to launch.” He hit another button, and, in less than half a minute, the encrypted message was compressed and, in the form of a one second long burst transmission that was undetectable and impossible to intercept, was bounced off an orbiting satellite and relayed to the Phoenix op center at Palanquero Air Base.

  To limit transmissions, he’d sent only one previous message earlier that afternoon. This had been a detailed verbal description of the camp, using an alpha-numeric system to provide distance between and dimensions of each structure. The US Army Special Forces advisers at Palanquero then used this information to produce a diagram of the camp for Captain Aguilar’s team.

  Avery waited for the acknowledgement from the ops center. It came several seconds later: “Avalanche.” The one word response meant that Operation Phoenix was given the green light.

  Avery disassembled the SATCOM unit, shutting off the radio, unplugging and collapsing the antenna. It was now time to bid his time, since Operation Phoenix was to be conducted at night, and make sure that Reyes didn’t leave the camp in the meantime.