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  Savage Coast

  A Ryan Savage Thriller

  Jason Briggs

  Copyright © 2019 by Jason Briggs

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  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

  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

  Author’s Note

  Also by Jason Briggs

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The scream sent an icy chill tracking down my spine, like an ice cube melting on the back of my neck.

  She was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  At least, not with my hands tied behind my back and my ankles tethered to the chair legs. They had even wrapped half my face in duct tape, which left me sucking air through the only useful nostril I had left; the other one was stuffed with rapidly congealing blood. Think of snorkeling with a clogged straw as your only breathing apparatus and you’ll get the idea.

  I heard her scream out from the other room again. This one was different from the ones that had come before. Those had been cries of fear and anger. This one was pure terror now, most assuredly a last-ditch effort to ward off some depraved and imminent action on the part of her kidnappers.

  My crazed eyes looked to the other side of the room and as they fell on my best friend they burned with an even hotter fury. His dead body was sprawled out across the dirty stone floor, two bullet holes leaking blood from his chest. I had been forced to watch as they shot him just two minutes before, helpless to do anything about it.

  The scene caused my wrists to work even more furiously against the ropes that were binding them together. But whoever had knotted them knew exactly what they were doing. I wasn’t getting out of this.

  Another scream from the room behind me, and I heard the tear of clothing as she fought her assailants with everything she had left.

  My bloodied chin fell to my chest as I felt the fight finally start to seep out of me.

  I had failed everyone who trusted me.

  If only she hadn’t found that damn notebook . . .

  Chapter Two

  Five Days Earlier

  There’s nothing like the sound of a bullet whizzing by your face to remind you of your own mortality.

  Beads of sweat gathered on my forehead as I peered around the palm tree, raised my M27, and sighted a shooter in an upstairs window. I pressed the trigger and watched my target take the round in the neck, spin, and tumble out the window to the cobbled drive below.

  All around me gunfire was chattering, tearing up the trunks of palm trees, perfectly manicured grass, and pinging off the Bentley that was parked at the top of the circular drive near the front door. Ducking, I scurried behind one of the armored vans my team had come in on and checked my load, cursing under my breath as I plucked a fresh magazine off my chest rig and swapped it out.

  The M27 is a lightweight Infantry Automatic Rifle, chambered for 5.56×45mm NATO and fitted with an ACOG Squad Day Optic and a reflex sight on top for close-quarters engagement. It is the assault rifle currently favored by the Marines. Compared to previous variants like the HK416 and M4, the weapon is lightweight and has a fair edge on reliability. I’m not a Marine, but still, I absolutely love it.

  With a fresh magazine inserted I pulled back the charging handle and took a few moments to catch my breath as I decided on my next course of action.

  The raid on Rico Gallardo’s beachside mansion was supposed to be in and out. Grab and go. I was sent down here to Guatemala two weeks ago to assist the U.S. Secret Service in planning the raid on the counterfeiter’s opulent home.

  Gallardo was single-handedly responsible for flooding the U.S. market with billions of counterfeit bills each year. He was one of the most powerful men in the small Central American country, and his reputation for violence was matched only by the most ruthless of the Mexican drug lords. He paid his people well, lubricating violent and evil orders with fat paychecks.

  But his little money spigot was about to get turned off.

  Our initial intent was to grab Gallardo without requesting help from or notifying the local authorities, but the order had come down from Washington to work hand-in-hand with the Policía Nacional Civil—Guatemala’s national police force. That immediately made the risks go up a hundredfold. You bring in the local police and you’re bound to have a squeaky rat somewhere in the mix who’s on the very payroll you’re trying to shut down. It seemed that no one down here was immune from the rampant corruption found among police units and politicians. Everyone has their price, and down here, that price was usually to be found at dollar store prices. Another bullet pinging off my cover was reminder enough that someone in the Policía Nacional Civil had chosen fidelity to Gallardo over the people in his country he had taken an oath to help keep safe.

  No one had expected the crime boss to just throw up his hands and let us take him without a fight, but we had also planned to catch him off guard so we didn’t end up in a full-out war like we were in now.

  A flurry of hasty orders charged the air around me and men repositioned themselves as they tried new ways to infiltrate the mansion. Across the lawn, a Secret Service agent fell to a fresh wave of bullets and my blood heated with anger. I saw movement in my periphery and shifted to my right as Secret Service Special Agent Bud Cole slid in beside me and took a moment to catch his breath. He was a hefty bald man. A fantastic agent, but he’d spent a little too much time behind a desk the last couple of years. “Savage,” he said, grinning, “what are you doing in the dugout? You’re supposed to be on the field.”

  “Too many players out there,” I replied. “We’ve got to find a way into that house or we’re going to be sitting ducks out here. Tell the snipers to focus everything they have on the second floor. We’re not getting enough cover fire.”

  Cole leaned into his shoulder mic and barked off a couple of orders then checked the load on his own rifle. I looked over at him. “I’m not leaving here until I’ve got Gallardo’s head to mount on my wall. You hear me?”

  “I’m not either. Hang tight.” He yelled out another order and waited. Every precious second felt like an eternity as we waited for the Guatemalan snipers to do their jobs right.

  Drones were keeping watch on the property’s perimeter from abo
ve. Gallardo had been trailed from one of his homes in the mountains to his beachside mansion earlier this morning. Unless the crime boss had an underground tunnel system we didn’t know about, he was in that house somewhere. And, for me, success was nothing less than a bullet resting in between Gallardo’s eyes. If we escorted him out in handcuffs he would be out of jail before the ink even dried on his fingers.

  Looking off to my left I saw a cluster of leaves on a banana tree tremble. I flipped the fire selector on my rifle to full-auto, shouldered it, and sent a short burst into the foliage. A young man clutching a grenade fell forward into the grass, dead, his weapon lying beside him.

  I rose up just as fresh sniper rounds from our team deterred the gunmen at the front of the building. Cole and I ran toward where the young man’s body lay, and I stopped just long enough to grab up the RPG and run for cover on the west side of the building. I heard Cole order his men to our location as I shouldered the grenade launcher. Within thirty seconds half a dozen men were beside us. Cole aimed his assault rifle at a first story window and blew out the glass with an extended burst of fire. Then I aimed the RPG into the house and it shot off with an angry hiss.

  It exploded inside the house a moment later, creating a fireball that spread out eight feet in diameter. Cole led the charge into the mansion and I dropped the grenade launcher and followed his team inside.

  Painful groans echoed off the tile floors and high ceilings, issuing from men who had been caught in the explosion. As we fanned out Cole and I moved into the enormous kitchen. A man started to rise up from behind the marble-topped island, and I sent three rounds into his face before his weapon even made it over the counter.

  More of our own soon made it inside, and room by room we cleared each space and began to systematically take down the enemy. Some made it out the back door and fled past the pool and into the backyard toward the hedges that grew tall up against the edge of the beach. They wouldn’t get very far; they would be met with another team stationed out on the sand.

  With the first floor finally cleared, we advanced up the stairs to the second floor where the hallway forked off into three directions. Cole and I took the one on the far left, followed by three other agents. There were no guards in the hall which meant that everyone was behind closed doors. Coming to the first door on our right, I waited for the team to get in position before flinging it open. We rushed in with weapons at the ready and a woman shrieked—a shrill defenseless cry that sent a shiver through me. Beside her were two young boys. She held a baby girl in her trembling arms.

  Gallardo’s wife and children.

  The monster hadn’t even bothered to post a sentry for his own family.

  We checked the closet and the room for anyone who might be hiding and searched for weapons before Cole got on the mic, calling for assistance. Leaving an agent in the room to babysit, we continued to the next room on the other side of the hall. The door was unlocked, and I cracked it open to see a shooter at the window, still taking shots at the front lawn. Behind me, Cole updated the snipers on our position inside the house, and then I slipped into the room, stopping only ten feet from the shooter, my muzzle fastened directly on him. “Psst,” I said, and he whipped around with a startled expression on his face. I loaded his body with lead before clearing the room and joining the team in the hall. We proceeded through four more rooms, one of them empty, and three with Gallardo’s men with their focus out the windows or in the process of reloading.

  The door to the last room was different from the others. This was one made of thick steel set into a steel frame. And, of course, it was locked. Special Agent Cole stepped up to the door and rapped loudly, before calling out, “La gestión interna.” Housekeeping. It was answered by a volley of bullets pinging the door from the inside. Cole flinched back, and I chuckled.

  “Guess they have a thing for dirty sheets,” I said.

  I stepped back and assessed the hallway. From the door to the end of the hall was another twenty feet. On the canary yellow wall hung two paintings of local landscapes and one of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Moving quickly, I removed the pictures from their nails and tossed them to the floor as I murmured a brief apology to the Blessed Mother.

  “What are you doing?” asked Cole.

  “Getting into that room. Move everyone back.”

  I used the butt of my rifle to knock the nails up to a steeper angle and then plucked two fragmentation grenades off my rig. I was hoping that the entire wall wasn’t made of steel like the door was. We were about to find out. I slipped a grenade on a nail and handed one to Cole, nodding to the naked nail on my right. “Help me with that one,” I said.

  Cole ordered everyone back into a room and then set the small explosive on the nail. He wrapped his hands around it. “Pin,” I said as we tugged out the pull rings. “Ready?”

  Cole nodded.

  “On my mark. Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark.”

  We released our grip on the small explosives, and the safety levers flew free and clattered to the floor. Cole followed me into the room where the team was waiting two doors down. I yelled, “Frags out!” and two seconds later the pyrotechnic delay element ignited the explosive filler and the grenades detonated, shaking the room and stirring up a cloud of dust and debris. Gunfire immediately erupted in the hallway. Whoever was in the room was making a last-ditch effort at staying alive.

  I looked down at my chest rig and took inventory. I only had one grenade left. Without speaking, Cole unclipped one of his and handed it to me. I exited the room and saw that my plan had been successful. There was a large hole in the wall—a new door to the secure room. Sometimes, you just have to think outside the box. I pulled a pin from the grenade and tossed it through the new doorway, angling to the right. Just before I covered my ears, I heard the panicked voice of someone who knew they were about to die. The detonation erupted, and I shot past the hole in the wall and tossed my last grenade toward the left. As soon as it exploded, I called for the team and led the charge into the room.

  I was momentarily disoriented, unable to see anything around me. It was snowing inside the room.

  Snowing money.

  Benjamin Franklins fluttered in the air and came to rest at our feet and on our shoulders. The entire perimeter of the room was lined with stacks of money running up to the high ceiling.

  Two young men lay dead against the wall, their rifles still strapped across their shredded bodies. A fat, heavily bearded man lay on his back near the corner of the room. A blanket of freshly fallen money covered him. I walked up to him and looked down at his broken, bleeding body. He lay there silent and stunned.

  “Rico Gallardo. So nice to finally meet you,” I said. “I’ve got to say, I’ve been in the country for a couple of weeks now, and this is by far the worst reception I’ve had yet.”

  He lay sprawled out among millions of dollars, a mountain of cash towering high behind him. I chuckled at the irony and moved some of the money around with my foot. I shook my head. “Can’t spend it if you’re dead, Gallardo.”

  The counterfeiter’s face was almost unrecognizable; it resembled a nightmarish Halloween mask. A wide piece of shrapnel had cut away a large part of his left cheek. His left eye was gashed in. But he was breathing. And Rico Gallardo breathing was not good.

  Cole stepped up beside me. He shook his head and put on a mock grin as he looked at Gallardo’s face. “So much for mounting his head on your wall,” he said, and then he ordered his team out of the room.

  I unholstered my sidearm and pointed it at the crime boss. “Any last words?” I asked him. “Maybe an apology to your wife and kids for leaving them unguarded?”

  His eyes burned into mine with a hateful fury. He hocked a bloody wad of spit up at me, but there wasn’t enough force behind it and it fell back into his beard.

  “My turn.” His body shuddered as I emptied all fifteen rounds into him and then sent the toe of my boot into his ribcage. I nodded satisfactorily as I holstered my weapon and
then turned to exit the room.

  “Where’re you going?” Cole asked after me.

  “Cerveza. The kitchen’s downstairs.”

  Chapter Three

  I spent the rest of the evening conducting interrogations before finally putting my head on the pillow at just after one o’clock in the morning. A few of Gallardo’s security detail had made it through the raid and, now that their leader and his lieutenants were dead, they were a little more willing to speak up and make a deal without having to worry about the safety of their families.

  My alarm went off at just after six, and twenty minutes later I was in a taxi headed to a small airstrip in Escuintla. The Secret Service would be down here for another couple of weeks while they handed off the post-operational reigns to the CIA. Gallardo’s death would precipitate a power vacuum in the region, so the CIA was stepping in to ensure that his empire was not dispersed into corrupt hands, that it was disassembled altogether.

  But my role there was done, so it was time to head back to Florida. I’m a special agent for the Federal Intelligence Directorate, Homeland Security’s latest addition to their list of over twenty-five component agencies. The FID is primarily tasked with a supportive role that brings us into close proximity with the Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the FBI, as we assist them in high-priority investigations. Most of my work keeps me in the general region of South Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean. But sometimes—mostly when I get farmed out to alphabet agencies—I’ll end up in places like Guatemala, Panama, or even Colombia. The FID maintains trans-border jurisdiction and, since its inception over three years ago, has made tremendous strides in keeping Americans safe and the bad guys disoriented.