him. As they quickly made their way to their Jeep, Jack noticed a dust cloud heading towards them in the distance, the undulating terrain impeding any view of the vehicle.
‘Quick, get in,’ ordered Jack, pulling the keys from his North Face trekking pants. The Jeep started and then quickly pulled away. Jack headed into the trees and stopped. Overhead, they could hear the rumblings of a private jet approaching. They both jumped out of the Jeep. Crouching behind the dense brush they were able to obtain an excellent view of the runway and surrounding buildings. As the white Falcon 2000 touched down on the small, but robust, runway, the dust cloud-producing vehicle drove into view. But it was more than one vehicle. In fact there were three GMC 4x4 vehicles, all dark blue. Jack and Anjo watched as the vehicles stopped. The doors opened and a total of eight armed men exited and most importantly, Sperafico himself.
‘Sperafico!’ Anjo indicated, turning to Jack for his next move. Jack just kept still and put his index finger to his lips and continued to watch. They watched, as Sperafico waited by the luggage hold. A team of men were pulling out packages that could only be paintings. The paintings were loaded into two of the vehicles. The luggage hold was closed and Sperafico resumed his position in one of the vehicles. The last GMC waited. Two armed men stood by its side.
‘They must be waiting for the pilot,’ suggested Jack. ‘It will be a while before we can leave, so make yourself comfortable.’ Anjo turned and sat down, leaning against the side of the Jeep’s tyre.
‘I can’t believe Sperafico was right there and we couldn’t do anything about it,’ Anjo said, running her fingers through her hair ‘but I don’t feel so bad about the helicopter, now I know Senhor Sabino helps Sperafico.’
After another forty-five minutes, the GMC Yukon left the airfield. It was now safe for Jack and Anjo to leave as well. They both jumped into the Jeep and headed back to town.
Once the images had been downloaded onto Jack’s tablet, they could clearly see the points of entry and rooms of each of the three buildings. They also identified each man present in the compound and some out in the surrounding jungle. The room was full of Anjo’s family, all wanting to help.
‘We need to discuss weaponry,’ suggested Jack.
‘I think we can get some FMKs and grenades,’ Paulo answered.
‘That’s good, but we’ll need some rifles as well as sub machine guns, we need to do this as quietly as possibly, or Sperafico will be running before we can even get close’, Jack said. Fernando rose from his seat.
‘I know where we can get some,’ and he went off to call them. Jack looked at the pictures in front of him.
‘My biggest worry is that his hectic lifestyle isn’t a guarantee that he’ll have the decency to be in when we pop round to kill him. We need someone to keep an eye on him over the next day while we prepare,’ Jack stated.
‘I thought that you had satellites, ways of spying on us all, can’t you use them?’ said the man in the corner.
‘I am here alone. I have no access to any such technology,’ Jack replied.
‘Then why are you here? What can you do that we can’t,’ the man added.
‘He is a professional, he does things like this for his work,’ Anjo interjected, rising from her chair, ‘why do we need you to plant our crops, we can do that ourselves?’ Anjo continued, ‘The reason is that, your crops are more successful, because you have more experience than the rest of us, Jack here, is the same as you but in a different line of work.’ Jack didn’t know where to look. He had never been defended like that before. In fact he felt a little embarrassed. The man in the corner fell silent.
‘We still need a watcher,’ Jack restated.
‘I will do it,’ emerged a voice from the other side of the door. The door opened and a boy entered.