Page 84 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

“They encountered an unexpected problem.”

“Which was?”

Vargas pointed at the twin images on the monitor.

“This man.”

The images weren’t clear. One was a grainy screenshot from one of the cameras at the Port of Acajutla. The entire tape had been forwarded to Fierro from Peng De’s office. The MSS chief was furious about the loss of the fentanyl shipment and was desperate to find the culprits. The Chinese had determined that some kind of jamming device had been temporarily deployed, knocking out warehouse securitysystems. But one camera hadn’t been entirely disabled, and managed to pick up a short burst of damaged imagery.

The second picture came from the digital camera carried by the mercenary team lead, a long-distance shot of the terrace at President Olmedo’s private residence. The camera had been focused on Olmedo’s twin daughters—the kidnapping targets of Arrow Heart—but several other figures appeared in the footage as well, including the second partial image of what appeared to be the same man.

In both cases, Vargas had enlarged, enhanced, and cropped the images to pull in as much detail on the man’s face as possible. He then ran the pictures through his facial recognition software, but came up empty.

“And who is this man?” Fierro asked.

“No idea. But somehow, I feel as if I know him.”

“What about your friend in Colombian intelligence? Surely he has access to more databases.”

“He drew a blank as well.”

The Colombian friend Fierro was referring to was the current chief of field operations for the DNI—Colombia’s National Intelligence Directorate. Technically, he was Vargas’s handler.

Vargas had been working for him for over twenty years as a counterintelligence asset. Captured as a FARC revolutionary in his youth, Vargas bargained his way out of a prison cell by becoming an agent for the Colombian government.

After FARC was defeated, the Colombians turned their attention to the drug wars. They deployed Vargas as an undercover operative against the Colombian cartel networks and specifically Jerónimo Fierro, Amador’s father.

But Vargas and Jerónimo formed an immediate friendship and Vargas secretly flipped his allegiance. For decades, Vargas fed only carefully curated information to the Colombian intelligence organization to take out Fierro’s political and criminal rivals—and all without his Colombian handlers ever realizing it. In fact, Vargas was still considered their most valuable intelligence asset.

But neither the Colombians nor the Fierros understood the truereason why the psychopathic hit man was playing his duplicitous games nor his vengeful reasons for doing so.

“What do we do now?” Fierro asked. “Another kidnapping attempt?”

“The question answers itself.” Vargas had warned his skittish boss previously that kidnapping operations were among the most difficult to carry out, as Arrow Heart proved.

Unlike his bloodthirsty father, Amador avoided killing whenever possible. Assassinations were always easier, and for Vargas, infinitely more satisfying. Now it would be nearly impossible to do either, since Olmedo and his security people would be on high alert for it.

Fierro sighed. “Then we must escalate.”

Vargas nodded. “You need to go for Olmedo’s jugular before Tamacas decides to tear your throat out.”

“Killing presidents isn’t like killing mice. It draws a lot of attention.”

“You have several politicians on your payroll, including the president of the legislative assembly. Aren’t you paying these people for exactly this kind of situation?”

Fierro scratched his beard, thinking. “According to the Salvadoran constitution, Olmedo can’t run for a third term. In a perfect world, we could wait his term out and not spill any blood, but Narcisco’s impatience won’t permit it.”

“Agreed.”

“The president of the legislative assembly has expressed his strong desire to become the next president.”

“He won’t mind becoming president sooner, will he?”

Fierro laughed. “Are you kidding? He’s already designing his own presidential sword and sash.”

Vargas laid a cold hand on the younger Fierro’s shoulder.

“You must be decisive, and act swiftly.”