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The guy tried not to be interested, but the desperation in his eyes made it too easy. “Who are you? Your accent...you’re not even from Brazil.”

“I’m not. But I’m in a good position to help you. And from the looks of things, you could use some help.”

He wet his lips and stared at the bag. “Yes! I’m in a lot of pain. I need to see another doctor. The last one didn’t give me enough medicine.”

“That’s because they don’t care about you. They want you to rot in prison. You’re lucky you saw a doctor at all. If you want relief, you’ve got me.” He waved the plastic bag. “Talk a little and they’re yours.”

“How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know who you are. Your moves out there...they weren’t like any scientist I’ve ever seen.”

Slash shook his head, pretending he’d had enough. He started to slip the bag with the pills back into his pocket and the guy began to panic.

“Hey, hey, wait! You pulled that snake off of me. I guess I owe you for that. What kind of questions do you want to ask?”

“Who do you work for?”

“Oh, come on.” He winced as if Slash had hit him. “Anything but that. Can’t you ask me something else?”

Slash turned around to leave when the guy called him back. “Okay, okay. I’ve got a family to think about. They’re innocent in this. You’ve got to keep my name out of it. I have your word?”

“You have my word. But if you play me, I’ll hunt down your family myself.”

The guy studied Slash for a minute, then blew out a breath and lowered his voice. “I work forEl Esqueleto.” He held out his left hand, displaying a small tattoo of a bony hand with fingers curling like a claw on his wrist.

Slash narrowed his eyes. “The Skeleton?” He’d heard ofEl Esqueletobefore, and none of it good.

“Si. He’s from Columbia, but I don’t think he lives there anymore. He’s a ghost, man. You can’t ever find him or touch him. He has six countries looking for him, but he remains invisible. No one willeverfind him.”

“Why didEl Esqueletoorder you to attack us?”

“I don’t know, man. That was just our directive. We were to capture a bunch of scientists and bring them, and their work, safely to a predetermined spot. We knew you were working on some kind of medicine, and we were to ensure it wasn’t ruined or damaged. It was supposed to be an easy assignment.”

Slash considered. They’d thought they were attacking a bunch of scientists who wouldn’t have put up a big fight. An easy target, indeed. “Where was this predetermined spot you were supposed to take us?”

“I don’t know. We were supposed to get instructions once we got back on the river. Someone was going to come to us by boat to make contact, but obviously that never happened. That crazy woman threw a snake on me and then jumped out of the tree, causing Paco to shoot me in the shoulder. Who the hell saw that coming?”

Slash remembered Lexi falling from the tree and his fists clenched. “Why wouldEl Esqueletowant the medicine?”

“I have no idea, I swear. That’s all I know. They don’t tell me nothing. Please, just give me the pills and keep my name out of it.”

After a moment, Slash tossed him the bag. He now had confirmation that the drug cartelwasmixed up in this mess. He had no idea why, but at least he had a place to start.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Slash

It took twelve minutes of walking around Coari to find a decent signal before Slash could contact his coworker Charlie at the NSA with his cell.

“Hey, Slash,” Charlie said once Slash was put through. “How’s that vacation of yours going?”

He had no idea how long the signal would last, so he couldn’t waste time on pleasantries. “I’m in Brazil, Lexi has been kidnapped, and I need everything you can give me on some guy namedEl Esqueleto. Unclassified sources only, as I don’t have the equipment to handle anything else at this time.”

“What?”Charlie gasped. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’m not. Send everything to this account.” He rattled off the address and had Charlie read it back to him to make sure he had it right. “I can’t stress how important expediency is right now.”

“Understood, boss. Coming to you within the hour.”

By the time he and Gabriel got back to the camp, and he returned to his computer in the lab, he had several links pointing him to open source information onEl Esqueleto,whose real name was Lorenzo Molina. After reviewing the links, he confirmed the prisoner had been right, there were multiple countries trying to run down the drug lord. Unfortunately, unlike the notorious Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar, who loved the limelight,El Esqueletoloved the shadows. His operation was global, but he rarely, if ever, traveled for fear of being spotted or captured. His followers had a tattoo with a bony hand with fingers curled like a claw—as confirmed by the prisoner. The last confirmed sighting ofEl Esqueletohad been in southern Venezuela three years prior when he was seen with a senior government official who had since been imprisoned.