A dusky haze settled over the countryside as the bus rattled away from the sleepy lights of Yaritagua for the twenty-mile trip to the jungles of Mount Sorte and the festival celebrating the cult of Maria Lionza.
According to legend, sometime around 1535, an Indigenous chief had a beautiful daughter named Yara, who was born with blue eyes. Light eyes were a bad omen, and according to the shaman, she had to be killed. Unable to murder his own daughter, the chief sent her to the jungle to hide—where she was promptly eaten by a giant anaconda. Yara was so pure that Mount Sorte took pity on her and caused the snake to swell and explode, freeing the young maiden. The mountain absorbed her into its very essence, where she began to act as intermediary between the living and spirits of the dead. Devotees held or attended channeling rituals throughout the year, but their main gathering occurred tonight, on the twelfth of October.
Venezuela was a Catholic nation, but an overwhelming majority—including the late president—also professed some level of belief in the cult of Maria Lionza, a mixture of Indigenous, African, and Catholic religions. A heroic statue near the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas depicted a twenty-foot-tall Maria Lionza, naked and extremely muscular, riding on a giant tapir, arms stretched aloft, holding a female pelvis. Few outside Venezuela had even heard of the “blessed queen.” Inside the country, Maria Lionza was considered by many to be a saint.
Yao and five of his team got the last seats on the bus. The remaining two WINDWARD STATION operators would follow as soon as they’d worked out how to procure some vehicles. Rental cars were impossible to come by in Yaritagua. The place wasn’t exactly a tourist mecca.
The bus rumbled along a rough dirt road, squeaking in concert with a shirtless man pounding a skin drum in the back. The passengers—there were easily fifty of them—listened intently to a young woman chanting and moaning two seats ahead of Yao. Without warning, the woman shot to her feet, eyes rolled back, head tilted skyward, elbows drawn against her sides, winglike.
Lourdes had explained that these las materias, or “oracles,” channeled the spirits who were in communication with the Indigenous goddess. Yao hadn’t expected it to happen until they reached the mountain.
A low growl escaped the woman’s chest. She began to speak in short, barked sentences Yao took for one of Venezuela’s many Indigenous languages—or possibly some sort of tongue brought on by religious fervor.
The grandma sitting in the seat beside him gave a rattling whimper and crossed herself, clutching a set of beads against her belly with her free hand. Wanting to blend, he nodded in time with the beating drum. He pulled the backpack on his lap away from the swooning grandma to keep her from crushing its precious contents as she listed sideways.
Ahead, a man sprang from his seat to teeter and sway in the aisle behind the barking woman. He opened his hands behind her in case she toppled over on the swaying bus. Another man pulled a long knife and drew it across his chest, causing a superficial—but bloody—cut. He began to chant along with the drums.
This was going to be an interesting night.
No one on WINDWARD STATION was the sort to get spooked by a knife. All were experienced operators—former Special Forces, Delta, SEALs, Air Force Pararescue, and two females who, though they hadn’t held SOCOM positions, had served frontline tours in the CIA and proven themselves to be capable and steady under fire. The women certainly helped the team blend in, but they were far from just arm candy. Yao made certain of that. Neither was small, particularly shapely, or, for that matter, likely to win any beauty contest. They were, like the rest of the team members, fluent in Spanish and otherwise unremarkable. He needed a team of eight, not a team of six with two more whom everyone else would have to carry if things went to shit.
The Israelis put the optimum size of a hit team at eleven. Some operators preferred to work alone.
Yao thought eight was the Goldilocks number.
Eight allowed for contingencies, variables, the unknown unknowns that inevitably threatened to derail virtually every mission: commo that went tits up at the most inopportune moment, a weapon that malfed when the bad guy was smack in the crosshairs, or some kid that wandered into the field of fire to pick up a forgotten baby doll. Eight allowed for the human element if someone got the runs from drinking bad water or lost focus because of the death of a loved one at home. Operators were human, and a team of eight made it easier to complete the mission and still get all those humans home alive.
The bus hit a tire-eating pothole, throwing Yao against the window and the grandma against Yao. The chanting woman staggered forward while the driver chewed his way through the transmission searching for a lower gear. A collective groan ran through the passengers until the bus lurched forward again. It only had a short way to go up the mountain before they turned in to a wide gravel parking lot full of cars, motorbikes, and a half-dozen other buses. Hundreds of Maria Lionza devotees from all walks of life streamed like ants at a picnic toward a gap in the jungle that formed the trailhead. There were couples, families, farmers in dirt-stained shirts, people in pressed khaki shorts and breezy linen blouses. Some, like Yao and his team, carried only small daypacks, while others lugged bulky foam bedrolls, intending to make several nights of it.
Every devotee approaching the sacred mountain had to pass a motorcade of three dark Suburbans and a charcoal-gray BMW 7 Series sedan that was parked near the trailhead. Dressed in chinos and dark polo shirts, stone-faced men stood watch over the vehicles, all armed with holstered Glock pistols. At least one carried an SMG. Yao couldn’t make out the type because the shooter had it parked on a sling hanging over his right kidney.
“Pros,” he said to himself. “Pirates . . .”