with his right hand he drew the blade across Haggerty’s throat.
Mercer didn’t bother to look at the dying man as he walked out of the hut, his knife still dripping blood. He said to Emilio, “You are relieved. Go to dinner.”
Emilio glanced at Señor Kyle’s knife, and replied, “Gracias,” and moved off down the trail.
Mercer stood there a moment and listened to the night sounds of the jungle.
They were coming for him, as he knew they would. He understood and never underestimated the long arm of American power. He was one of them, and had been part of that power. What had started in Afghanistan was coming to an end here, and it was coming soon.
CHAPTER 38
Kyle Mercer entered the long, open-sided structure draped in mosquito netting. Coleman lanterns hung from the bamboo rafters illuminating four long tables, at which sat about thirty of his men, eating and talking. There was a lull in the conversations as he entered, and, if he’d still been in the U.S. Army, he’d have shouted, “Carry on!” but there were no such protocols in his own army, and the men would carry on with their talk as soon as they were sure he had nothing to say to them, which he didn’t.
One protocol he did observe was having his own table—the officers’ table—and since he was the only officer at Camp Tombstone, he sat alone, though usually he invited one or two of his team leaders to join him. Sometimes he would also invite one of the men he wanted to congratulate for something he had accomplished or learned. Tonight, however, he wanted to dine alone. Tonight he had just killed a man—an American—and by now, everyone in the camp knew about it from Emilio. They also knew that Señor Kyle had spoken to a man from the outside, whom they had seen before. They didn’t know that this man was an army general, but they knew he was an important man. So to avoid any questions on these subjects, Señor Kyle sat by himself. The women in the camp—the prostitutes, including Rosalita—ate in the women’s hut.
A Pemón man hurried over with a bowl of beans and rice, and a freshly caught and fried catfish. Also on the menu was a piece of cassava root flatbread, brought in by Pemón women from the nearby native village.
As in the U.S. Army, where officers ate only what their men ate—and sometimes less, because officers in the field were served last—Kyle Mercer made sure that the orderlies, the Pemón men, did not give him anything special. His men noted this and, coming as most of them did from societies where rank had extravagant privileges, were impressed by Señor Kyle’s show of shared hardships and brotherhood.
The beverage of the day was bottled water, which the Pemón brought from Kavak. Dysentery and other waterborne diseases had destroyed more armies than artillery. The men wanted cerveza, of course, or more potent beverages, but alcohol—and drugs—were available at Camp Tombstone only when Señor Kyle distributed one or the other. Anyone caught using drugs or alcohol at other times spent a week in the Chapel—the hut where Ted Haggerty now lay.
Mercer picked at his food. It was good, but he wasn’t particularly hungry. And that wasn’t because he’d just killed Ted Haggerty, or because General Gomez annoyed him; it was because he had a lot to think about. Specifically about the gringos poking around the barrio, who at this very moment might either be staking out or attempting to enter the Hen House. He had no doubt that the colectivo and the management at the Hen House could handle them, and get whatever information they possessed before disposing of them.
If the two Americans were Intel officers or otherwise working with Brendan Worley, then that meant the little shit was getting more proactive about locating him, which was a development that Kyle Mercer welcomed. The two men had been playing a distant and psychological game of cat and mouse ever since Worley became aware that Kyle Mercer was in Venezuela. But it was well past time to engage the enemy.
Most men would flee from a person who wanted to kill them. But Brendan Worley was a soldier, and he knew that his job was to kill Kyle Mercer. In any case, sooner or later the men were fated to meet, and it might as well be sooner—though Mercer enjoyed the game, and took pleasure in undoing the work that Worley had been sent