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  Drug Lord: Part II

  Detective Damien Drake Book 7

  Patrick Logan

  Prologue

  PART I – No Way Out

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  PART II - Overdose

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  PART III - Undercover

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Epilogue

  End

  Author’s Note

  The serpent is helpless unless he finds an apple to work with.

  –George Ade

  Drug Lord: Part II

  Detective Damien Drake Book 7

  Patrick Logan

  Prologue

  Nobody spoke English. Even the captain of the vessel, who was purportedly from Illinois, spoke in a strange dialect that Drake could barely understand.

  Spanish, Portuguese, and some sort of hillbilly backwoods talk filled Drake's ears for the better part of the voyage from New York City to Riohacha. Under normal circumstances, this would have annoyed him to no end, but not now. Now, he didn't mind being alone. In fact, part of the reason he was making this journey by himself was because he wanted to be alone.

  Being unable to communicate with others meant that there was no burden to explain things that he barely understood himself. The only downside of this was that Drake spent a lot more time in his own head. He thought about Clay a lot, thought about all the fucked-up things that had happened since his friend had been killed. He also thought about his son, whom he’d met only for a few minutes, and then about Jasmine, the woman he still loved despite finding out that she was involved in the smuggling ring.

  But most of the time, Drake thought about Ken; Ken Smith, the true Skeleton King.

  I was so close… so goddamn close.

  Everything Drake had been through since Clay’s murder had led up to the confrontation in Ken’s penthouse apartment. All of the betrayals, all of the pain and suffering, the death, would have been worth it if Drake had just been a little faster, if he’d managed to nab Ken.

  But the slimy bastard had slipped away, retreating to the only place where he still had people he trusted.

  The place where he imported his heroin from.

  The fact that Drake had finally ensnared Raul and that Sgt. Yasiv was in the process of pressing charges against all the crooked cops on Ken’s payroll, was mildly satisfying.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Drake needed Ken, maybe even more than he needed to know what happened to his brother.

  “¿Estas buscando a alguien?”

  Drake lifted his eyes and stared at the Colombian man standing before him. He had tanned skin and a wide nose. His black hair was dry in places and puffy in others as if he’d selectively washed only random sections of it. Like Drake, the man’s face was covered in sweat and moisture from the sea, and his clothes were filthy.

  “¿Quieres un trago?”

  He was holding a bottle of liquor out to Drake and he instinctively reached for it. A moment before he grabbed the bottle, however, Drake hesitated.

  It wasn't that he didn't want the liquor; despite the captain’s promise of copious amounts of booze on board, they’d run out in only a day or two. It was the man’s timing that Drake found curious; they were only a day out now, maybe less depending on the sea, and not once had any of the five Colombian below deck said a single word to him before now.

  They hadn't bothered trying to introduce themselves, they didn't offer Drake anything that they had brought with them on board, nor had they even acknowledged him.

  Drake wasn’t offended; you had to do something fairly reprehensible to smuggle yourself into Colombia and keeping to yourself was something to be expected.

  “¿Beber?” the man asked, this time sloshing the bottle for effect.

  Drake, for one, was on the hunt for the man responsible for bringing carfentanyl-laced heroin into New York. A powerful, violent man with connections, a man capable of murder. In an ideal situation, Drake would arrive in Colombia, deal with Ken, and slip back out again without upsetting any drug lords in the process.

  But nothing that Drake had done over the past few years could be described as ideal.

  “Fuck it,” he said, reaching for the bottle.

  The liquor was some sort of over proofed rum, and Drake could only manage two long pulls before the burn was too great. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and then handed the bottle back.

  “My name’s Drake,” he said, knowing full well that the man probably didn't understand a word of what he was saying. “And I needed that.”

  “Drake?” the man said, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Drake was so taken aback by the man’s nearly flawless English that he simply gaped.

  “No, you’re not Drake,” the Colombian said, still shaking his head. “You are el phantasmo; you, my friend, are a ghost.”

  PART I – The Survey

  Somewhere near Dibulla, La Guajira, COLOMBIA

  1984

  Chapter 1

  “I bet you didn't think you were going to be doing this after Operation Eagle Claw,” Ken Smith said as he tucked a wad of chew into his lower lip. He jammed it in deep with his tongue and then spit some residue off his lips. “Going from trying to free US hostages in Iran to bab
ysitting a couple science nerds, did you?”

  When the man across from him didn't answer, Ken looked up. Cpl. Carl Weathers was staring off into the distance, his dark eyes focused on something that Ken couldn't see. He was dark-skinned, with even darker lines around his mouth which he tried to hide with a goatee. He looked much older than he had back when they’d been partners during Eagle Claw, even though that was less than a year ago. He looked older, and as his name suggested, weathered.

  Ken leaned forward and spat a wad of brown tobacco juice near Carl’s shoe.

  “That was close,” the man said absently.

  “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Did you hear anything that I said?”

  Weathers’ eyes drifted back to the horizon and Ken followed his stare.

  Colombia was beautiful, Ken had to give her that. Sure, the country was host to a whole shit ton of problems, but she was beautiful. And this beauty seemed to only increase the more distance they put between themselves and civilization. Out here, the lush vegetation was greener, the canopy of trees above denser, the persistent bird calls more… well, persistent.

  It was also hot.

  Ken reached up and wiped his forehead with his arm, which proved ineffective; both were slick with sweat. The sun had barely broken the horizon and yet his camo shirt was already clinging uncomfortably to his back and chest.

  “Goddamn birds,” Weathers whispered. “Will they never shut up?”

  Ken wondered what had gotten into his friend; he’d gone from distant to ornery in a matter of hours. They’d been on Colombian soil now for three days, following around the six scientists from RAND Corporation taking their bullshit surveys. Both he and Carl were fully strapped, but there was little chance that they’d be using their guns on this trip. It was bullshit, all of it—political meanderings. The locals they came across were all smiles, even going as far as to offer them glasses of their horrible local moonshine.

  Ken easily saw through this facade; they were placating them, pretending that there was no drug problem here. They told RAND whatever lies would send the scientists and their US soldier buddies back home the quickest.

  And Ken didn’t blame them, nor did it bother him. He was getting paid and getting paid well to protect these six scientists and their precious surveys. After their botched mission in Iran, this was a walk in the park. Besides, First Sergeant Loomis had suggested that this was just a step to bigger and more lucrative things. And with two little ones at home, Ken knew that—

  “I've got a bad feeling about this,” Weathers said suddenly.

  Ken rolled his eyes.

  “Let me ask you something, Weathers.”

  The man turned to look at Ken.

  “You ever get a good feeling about anything? Like, when you’re fucking your wife, right before you’re gonna come, do you whisper in her ear, I've got a bad feeling about this?”

  Carl Weathers’ lined face twitched a little, which made Ken grin. This was the most emotion he’d gotten out of the guy in days.

  “Yeah,” Ken said with a chuckle, “I bet you do. I fuckin’ bet you do.”

  Ken wondered briefly if he’d have traded some of the man’s loyalty for a tiny splinter of a sense of humor. In Iran, Carl’s unwavering resolve and concentration were paramount in them getting out of there alive. But here?

  Just a goddamn grin, please.

  “Naw,” Weathers muttered, as he started to move toward their makeshift base camp. “I only say that when I’m fucking your wife.”

  Ken's eyes bulged, and he froze mid-step, watching his friend walk away from him. Carl was a hair over six feet tall and a solid two-hundred and twenty pounds. And his dark black skin, now glistening with sweat, made every one of those pounds of muscle stand out.

  “Wait!” Ken hollered, as he started after his friend. “Carl… stop! I think… I think you have heat stroke.”

  When Carl turned back to look at him, a frown on his face, Ken grinned broadly.

  “You… you made a joke! Maybe you should lie down, Carl, ‘cuz heat stroke is serious business.”

  Chapter 2

  “In a couple years, ten, tops, you mark my word; all the drugs in the US are going to be coming out of Mexico, not Colombia,” Weathers stated as he hacked his way through more shrubbery. In addition to the useless RAND scientists, they had two guides with them, locals who had agreed to lead them through the jungle to their final village for a pocketful of change. Anything to get them out of Colombia faster Ken supposed. Still, armed with moderately dull machetes and fueled by local moonshine, Ken and Carl took the front position.

  Ken swiped his blade at a mangrove sapling, shearing it clean off. It was sweltering out now—balls sticking to the inside of your thighs hot—making Ken regret wearing such thick clothing. It was supposed to protect him from insects, but he’d gratefully take a dozen bee stings just to cool down a few degrees.

  He had no idea how the six nerdy scientists behind them dressed in long shirts and khaki pants of all things were surviving. They truly were a strange breed.

  “It's true,” Weathers continued without provocation. “You know, after the last war on drugs shut down the Cuba-Miami shipping route, Colombia started using Mexico as a go-between. They have no problem getting their drugs into Mexico, and from there they just hijack the established methods for moving marijuana to move their heroin and cocaine into the US.”

  Ken hacked his way up next to Carl.

  “Why do we even care, that's what I want to know,” Ken said absently. Weathers stopped swinging his blade and turned to look at him. His face was glistening with sweat, making it almost shine.

  “Why do we care? These drugs are killing people, man. Even pot… it’s a gateway drug. My brother had a friend who started smoking weed…”

  Ken stepped in front of his friend as he spoke, hacking away at more saplings. He’d heard this rhetoric before, of course, of pot being a gateway drug, about the perils of addiction. But none of this changed the most basic issue at hand.

  “Yeah, well, if someone wants to put poison in their body, who am I to tell them differently?” Ken offered when Carl paused to catch his breath. “Who is anybody to tell them differently?”

  “The US government, that's who,” Weathers offered predictably.

  Ken shrugged, knowing that this line of reasoning wouldn't go anywhere; it never did. They’d reached a conversational stalemate. So far as he knew, marijuana had never killed anyone. In fact, the deadliest drugs on the market were cigarettes, alcohol, and prescription painkillers. But, for whatever reason, these got a pass. Someone, somewhere, sometime ago, deemed that these drugs were legal, while these over here were not. There was no rhyme and reason to it. There were only lobbyists and politicians.

  So far as Ken was concerned, a person should have the right to put whatever they wanted into their bodies. No one, including the government, should have the power to intervene.

  With a sigh, he glanced over his shoulder and made eye contact with one of the guides.

  “How much farther to the village?” he asked.

  “Ten more,” the man answered in a thick Spanish accent.

  Ken first looked to the other guide, before remembering that this one didn’t speak English at all. He turned to Weathers next.

  “Ten more what? Miles? Minutes? Hours?”

  Weathers shrugged while the guide went back to hacking through the brush.

  “Okay then, I guess—”

  Something struck Ken in the shoulder and he stopped midsentence. A round object—some sort of green nut—fell to the ground at his feet and he knelt to pick it up. Tossing it in his palm, Ken wondered what it would be like to live in a place like this, unencumbered by the burdens of a big city. He'd lived his whole life in New York City. In fact, the only time Ken had left the state prior to this trip, was for Operation Eagle Claw in Iran. And that was nothing like this. Colombia, for all its faults, was brimming with life. Shit, he was hacking through it
right now. Lush, evergreen vegetation, birds constantly—annoyingly—chirping. Vibrant music and awful tasting moonshine.

  Iran had been different; Iran had been all sand. Sand and death.

  Ken wasn’t disillusioned; New York was far from the safest city in the US, and despite his present experience, Colombia was a dangerous, violent place. But what he’d seen in Iran…

  Death was everywhere there. Most people he knew back in the US went their entire lives without seeing death up close. Sure, most everyone knew someone who’d died, but a lifeless body in a beautiful casket wasn’t death. That was passing on or moving to a better place or any of the dozen or so euphemisms that people used to describe the end of life.

  Real death was seeing a seven-year-old kid with his head caved. Real death was seeing a man being buried up to his neck and stoned by his fellow villagers just for being gay. Real death was seeing limbs scattered around a destroyed building that was supposed to be a military institution but ended up being just a run-of-the-mill apartment.

  Limbs that would never be attributed to an owner.

  Ken shook his head and then sucked on the wad of dip tucked into his lip before spitting again.

  “Ten,” the guide repeated, and Ken just shrugged.

  The reality was, it didn’t matter what unit of measurement the man was referring to. This was the last village they had to visit, and they were going to complete this mission whether it took ten seconds to get there or ten days.

  Ken sighed and tossed the nut back into the jungle.

  “Yeah, it’s good to see that someone agrees with me,” Weathers said. “Ten years from now, most of the drugs in the US will come through Mexico, you mark my words.”

  Chapter 3

  ‘Ten more’ turned out to be miles. And, in the sweltering sun chopping their way through thick brush, it felt more like a hundred. Three times Ken had to take a break to sip on his canteen and catch his breath. And during each of these stops, he found his resolve waning.

  What the hell is so goddamn important about this last village? If it was critical to anything at all, they would have built a road to it, wouldn’t they?