War to the Knife (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 9) by Peter Nealen

Author:Peter Nealen [Nealen, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

“We don’t have enough time to harden this place.” Brannigan stood by Fuentes’s kitchen table, his arms folded and his Galil hanging by its sling around his neck. Flanagan, Wade, and Pacheco stood with him and Fuentes, as the rest of the Blackhearts helped Fuentes’s hands haul the bodies out of the living room.

Brannigan suspected that the family wasn’t going to be able to live in that house for a little while.

“We don’t have the time, and we don’t have the manpower,” he continued. “We’ll have to move you and your family somewhere safer—I should say, we’ll have to have Pacheco and his network get you moved somewhere safer. We need to move before the Green Shirts can get their act together.” He stroked his mustache as he looked down at the map he’d spread over the table. “Since we can’t turn this place into the Alamo, we’ll have to move fast and hit them hard, keep them off balance.” He glanced over at Pacheco. “Any suggestions?”

Pacheco, for his part, looked at Fuentes. “You know the people here better than I do. What do you think?”

Fuentes still looked a little green around the gills. While Pacheco had assured Brannigan that the farmer had done a stint in the National Army, and had even fought the ELN once or twice, he was hardly a seasoned veteran, and he was still working through his shock at the bloodshed in his own living room. But he’d had a little time to adjust, and his mind was working through things. Brannigan could see him start to harden as he thought.

“A lot of the farmers are not happy, and I’m sure that if we can give them some kind of substantial plan—and a way to make it work without charging machineguns with machetes and bare hands—more of them will be willing to rise up. Especially some of those who have had their farms turned into cocaine labs.” Fuentes was soft-spoken and his English was halting and thickly accented. He grimaced. “Not all of them. There are a few, I think, who would have gladly turned their farms to growing coca if they thought they could get away with it. Serra, Nieto, and Zamora, especially, I think will probably resist if we try to turn them against the Green Shirts. We might even… no.”

“We might have to deal with them.” Pacheco didn’t share Fuentes’s reticence. “Sooner or later, we will have to deal with them. If any of the Green Shirts make it out of San Tabal alive, it will be a bad idea to leave sympathizers behind. And if they’re willingly cooperating with these pendejos, then they need to pay the price, anyway.”

Pacheco had a ruthless streak. Given his history, that shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

“We don’t have the time to go after the small fry first.” Brannigan was firm. “We can mop them up after we’ve torn down the Green Shirts and gotten the National Army to move in and keep the Venezuelans from crossing the border.

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