The Man on the Rubber Balloon or Optimism: The new, explosive globe-spanning thriller set in Latin America (The Colombian Connection Book 1) by Paul Kelly

Author:Paul Kelly [Kelly, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: North Oak
Published: 2022-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Rich pressed his forehead against the tempered-glass window and tried to make out something, anything . . . It was like an inky-black curtain had been dropped over the land below, smothering all light and movement, for he saw nothing and stared into an abyss. Above him, the engines of the high-winged Casa C-212 turboprop made the plane vibrate and shake slightly, pushing it deeper into the void ahead.

He was surrounded by men dressed in the same fatigues as he was wearing, but he couldn’t trust a single one of them. The informant of Operation Tondy was still at large, and it could be any of them. He had taken on a particular distrust of Alfonso, and even his own partner was not above suspicion. Clenching his fist, his knuckles tapped gently against the glass, and he winced slightly as the memory of his humiliation in El Bar Tábano returned.

All he needed was a bit of luck . . . He had snooped on telephone calls, read papers left on desks and listened to conversations, looking for any attempts made to discourage a particular line of enquiry. But he was still no closer to finding the informant. For now, he had decided to immerse himself in the day-to-day business of the base and wait for a clue to emerge.

It had taken a few weeks for Rich to familiarise himself with the DEA set-up. At first, the flow of intel from the CIA, the national police and DEA snitches had been overwhelming. Luckily, his training at Quantico and in Boston PD had helped him to develop a system for sifting through and finding promising leads in the mass of papers he received. He had started to get on well with Jim, who also had a police background, and their inauspicious start and the disastrous evening at El Bar Tábano were never mentioned.

Rich turned away from the window and faced the Bolivians, who were sitting opposite him with their backs against the fuselage. He was going to demonstrate to them that the US was not just a consumer of cocaine, fighting its war from cushy offices on the east coast. It was an active participant on the battlefield, and Rich was one of the select few sent by the greatest nation on earth to help co-ordinate, cajole and command their efforts on the narcotics playing field. He was proud, calm and prepared for his first operation.

Only ten of the sixteen passenger seats were occupied. The remaining space was taken up by a couple of two-hundred-and-fifty-gallon rubber bladders which would refuel the UH-1 Iroquois helicopters they were flying towards. Rich and Jim knew what was planned, as did Alfonso, but none of the seven non-ranking UMOPAR officers had any idea what lay ahead. They looked tense, and none of them spoke. The anxiety on their faces felt good to Rich. It meant that the narcos would not be expecting them this time.

His eyes wandered around the cabin and up to an array of lights in the cockpit.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.