turned activist by the name of Yegor Viktorvich Zakharov, to simply look the other way when requested.
The PME soldiers stopped their Jeep just a few meters from where Ruiz and Pereira were hiding, at a bend in the construction road that would partially hide them from the guard towers back at the construction site. They were making an awful lot of noise. They searched the area carefully, looking right at the two men hiding in the bushes several times, then returned to the Jeep. Ruiz was then surprised when one of them pulled out a bottle of cachaca—liquor similar to rum, fermented from sugarcane juice—and took a sip. Pereira pulled a suppressed .45 caliber IMBEL-GC Pistol-45 from a shoulder holster and aimed it at the men; Ruiz pulled his pistol, a suppressed .380 caliber IMBEL-GC Pistol-380, but did not aim it. He was not yet comfortable with aiming a gun at another human being, although every day in the jungle was slowly but surely changing his mindset.
“Don’t turn around,” Pereira said.
The man drinking from the bottle took a shallow swig, passed the bottle, then started taking off his web belt and undoing his fatigue trousers, getting ready to take a piss. “You two fucks are about two minutes away from getting your asses caught,” he said. “They brought in more security in armored vehicles. The first patrol is on its way out.”
“We’ve seen them—they’re deploying them over at Unit One, not out here,” Pereira said. “Why in hell are you out here drinking, puta?”
“Because this is outside our normal patrol route—we’ll need a reason why we’re out so far from the construction site. If they spot us from the towers, they’ll see us drinking, and TransGlobal will probably fire us. I wouldn’t want to be around when you two get caught anyway.”
“You already have your money and your escape plan,” Ruiz said. “All we need to know is if our packages are secure.”
“No one has touched your packages,” one of the soldiers said. “That is our normal patrol route and our responsibility. Don’t worry.”
“Then why the hell don’t you just get out?”
“Because I want to see it with my own eyes when you set it off.”
“What in hell are you talking about?” Ruiz asked. “Are you crazy, or just drunk?”
The soldiers looked confused. “It’s not every day you see a nuke go off,” one of the other soldiers remarked.
“Do you wear just sunglasses, or do you wear special goggles?” another asked. “Are we far enough away here? It looks awful close.”
Ruiz and Pereira looked at each other in total shock. “What are you talking about?” Pereira exclaimed finally.
“You guys don’t know?” the first soldier asked incredulously. “Shit no, you don’t, because you’ve been crawling around out here in the mud for the past week. All hell has broken loose in America, and you guys are responsible for it. You’ve just been declared the number-one terrorist organization in the whole fucking world, way ahead of al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad…”
Ruiz looked at Pereira, his mouth open in surprise. “What happ…?”
But at that moment, they heard the soldier’s radio crackle. The man listened, then responded. “They’re starting to seal up the entire complex, boys, including the dam. I think your stash of explosives down by the garbage pit was found.”
“I thought you said…!”
“Fuck what I said, asshole. I secured them the best I could.”
“Damn you!” Ruiz holstered his pistol and turned his binoculars toward the dam. He and Pereira had already hidden about a hundred kilos of high explosives in various sections of the dam, getting ready to blow it up in the next couple days; they had planned to plant another fifty kilos, but that was going to be impossible now. They had no desire to make martyrs of themselves, so the plan was to get safely away first—but now it looked like that was not possible either. Sure enough, he saw several dozen soldiers running toward the dam, with a helicopter starting to move into position. Ruiz turned back toward the PME soldiers. “Why didn’t you tell us…?”
“Because then we couldn’t capture you before the dam blew, assholes,” the soldier said. Ruiz turned. Pereira was still pointing his pistol at the first soldier, but the other two soldiers now had their M-16 rifles aimed at them. “Drop your pistol, Pereira, or my comrades will open fire.”
“You bastard,” Pereira breathed. “You’ll be the first to die if there’s any shooting.”
“You won’t be able to spend all the money you’ve been squeezing out of both sides if you’re dead,” Ruiz reminded him.
“Don’t be stupid, both of you,” the soldier said. “You don’t want to die out here lying in the mud and bushes —neither do I. I take you in, I get the reward money for capturing a saboteur, I get the hell out of the state, and you have Zakharov and your other supporters spring you from prison. Everyone keeps a clear head and we get out of this alive.”
“The TransGlobal Energy security forces won’t let us live,” Pereira said. “They’ll interrogate and torture us, then dispose of us.”
“I’ve notified your buddy Zakharov to arrange with the PME and the state tribunal to take you into custody right away—TransGlobal won’t get their hands on you, as long as you do everything I say.” He looked overhead. One of the TransGlobal Energy security force helicopters that had been patrolling the northwest face of the dam was now slowly heading in their direction. “They’ll be watching everything we do, and if you resist, they’ll likely kill you. Do as I say, and I will stay in control of this situation. Now drop the guns and let’s go.”
“Jorge?” Pereira asked in a low voice. “I think I can tag at least two of them…you might be able to get away…”
“No,” Ruiz said. “We tried. Put the gun down.” Pereira reluctantly dropped his pistol.
The PME soldier radioed to the TransGlobal security chief that he had two prisoners and was going to take them to the security force headquarters in Cascavel. The helicopter kept on approaching, very slowly, staying at least fifty to sixty meters away. They could now see a TransGlobal security officer sitting in the helicopter’s open right-side doorway, wearing sunglasses and a headset, with what appeared to be a hunting rifle with a large telescopic sight affixed, safely pointing out the door but not upraised or aimed at anyone on the ground.
“He will not hesitate to shoot you in the head if you resist, Ruiz,” the soldier repeated. “Those TransGlobal sharpshooters are damned good, I must admit. Now, first, hand over the detonators to the explosives you set on the dam.”
“Your greed has destroyed you,” Ruiz said. One of the other soldiers had climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep and started it up; the other lit up a cigarette, cradling his rifle in his arms.
“Shut up and hand them over, Ruiz,” the leader said. He nodded to the third soldier, then motioned with his head toward Pereira. “Handcuff that one and search him.” The soldier nodded, then slung his rifle over his shoulder as he took a deep drag of his cigarette and reached in a rear pocket for handcuffs.
Pereira used that moment of distraction to move. The first soldier may have been anticipating his move, because he had the gun trained on him the entire time, but Pereira was quick and managed to get a hand on the pistol…but he wasn’t quick enough to keep him from firing. Pereira was hit in the right shoulder. He cried out and rolled to his right, but he didn’t go down. Instead, he grabbed the second soldier’s rifle out of the front seat. Struggling through the pain, he flicked off the safety and tried to level it at the first soldier, but he had lost all strength in his right arm.
“Too late, Pereira,” the first soldier said with a smile. The helicopter was hovering, now less than forty meters away. The shooter in the door had already raised his rifle and was taking aim. Pereira thought about trying to dive atop Ruiz before the gunner took them both out, but just then he saw the gunner’s body buck and a puff of smoke jet from his rifle’s muzzle…
…and the first soldier’s head disappeared in a cloud of red gore. The heads of the two other PME soldiers disappeared seconds later. Three head shots, three kills, from forty meters away, in about three seconds. Whoever was in that helicopter was a damned good shot, Ruiz thought.
The gunman in the door motioned for Ruiz and Pereira to follow, and then the helicopter translated to a wide spot in the construction road a few hundred meters away. Ruiz supported Pereira as they trotted over to it. The gunman was aiming his rifle toward them, scanning over their shoulders for any sign of pursuit. As they approached, the gunman took his sunglasses off…
…and when Ruiz saw that it was none other than Yegor Viktorvich Zakharov, a wave of relief washed over
