Over the Andes to Hell (A Captain Gringo Western Book 8) by Lou Cameron

Author:Lou Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: pulp fiction, revolutionaries, western ebook, lou cameron, captain gringo, ramsay thorne, western online, maxim machine gun, the renegade
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

Chapter Twelve

The sun was setting in Bogotá, too, when the telephone on Colonel Maldonado’s desk rang. El Arano picked up the receiver to answer. It was his superior, General Reyes, and the President for Life did not sound happy as he asked, “All bullshit aside, Maldonado, what in God’s name are you up to?”

“I am serving yourself and Colombia to the best of my limited powers, my General.”

“Hey, don’t fence around with me, muchacho! I’ve been getting reports all day about that crazy Captain Gringo and his little French partner. Do you know what the bastards have done now?”

“Si my General. I, too, have been keeping tabs on their somewhat over dramatic escape to the southeast. At the moment, hopefully, they are crossing the Orientes with the machine gun and a band of dangerous outlaws we are well rid of.”

“So I hear. You know I generally give you a pretty free hand, Maldonado, but this time your web spinning is making me very nervous. First you lure those maniacs back up here after I thought we’d seen the last of them. Then you as much as hand them guns and followers, and every time some of our guys start to close in, you countermand the orders. Damnit, muchacho, they’ve killed a mess of our followers and wrecked an expensive automobile and—”

“The few deaths were unfortunate,” El Arano cut in. “But, as someone said on another desperate occasion, to make an omelet, one may have to break an occasional egg. We would have lost far more than a dozen people in a border war with our Brazilian neighbors, no?”

“Border war? With Brazil? What in the devil are you talking about? We just wrapped up a fucking revolution! I’m in no shape to have a war with Brazil or anybody else, goddamnit!”

“I am aware of that, my General. So are the goddamned cocky Brazilians. You are aware, of course, that our eastern jungle frontiers have been invaded by Brazilian adventurers?”

The general hesitated before he replied. “I’ve heard the complaints from over there beyond the mountains. I’ve passed them on to the Brazilian Embassy. They claim they’re as shocked as we are and that they have no control over their rubber barons.”

El Arano smiled thinly and said, “I know what they say. They are still shipping rubber stolen from Colombian trees out of Manaus. Our jungle outposts are still getting hit by desperate Indians who can’t tell one of us from a slave-raiding flagelado. I, too, have mentioned the matter to my opposite Brazilian number. He literally smirked as he told me there was little he could do about the situation. You are aware, of course, that the Brazilian army has been sharing in the rubber boom via a certain amount of rather open bribery?”

General Reyes growled and said, “If it’s that serious, I can authorize a military sweep of the jungles on our side of the border, Colonel. How big an operation would it take to clean the pests down there out?”

El Arano said, “It would probably cost us many men in snakebite and Indian arrows alone.

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