Brazil: Criminal Empire - Chapter 199: Following the Trail (Patreon)

Santana was a capable driver. As a former member of Brazil's elite paratroopers, he also knew how to tail a vehicle.

He didn't simply stick to the van's rear bumper. He kept changing positions amid the traffic so no one would immediately realize he was following it.

As he followed, Santana made a phone call.

A few kilometers later, they reached an intersection.

Santana stopped beside a black Ford sedan. A young man stood next to it, looking around.

“Quick, switch cars. We'll keep following them.”

There was a hint of excitement in his voice. It seemed he suspected they'd stumbled upon something unusual involving the PCC.

Rock and Cassiano exchanged a glance. Both were skilled and fearless, especially Rock, whose physical abilities were extraordinary.

Cassiano always followed his formidable boss's instructions to the letter.

Neither hesitated before following Santana into the replacement car.

The young man who had delivered the Ford took Santana's armored Volkswagen and followed at an unhurried pace.

The pursuit continued for about half an hour. By then, the young man in the Volkswagen had fallen so far behind that no one knew where he was.

Santana and the others had left Foz do Iguaçu and were driving along a muddy country road.

Santana followed at a distance of roughly a kilometer.

At one fork in the road, they even lost sight of the van.

Rock got out, examined the tire tracks, and identified the road it had taken.

Sure enough, a little over a kilometer later, they spotted the van again in the distance.

Santana was both excited and deeply impressed by Rock.

Eventually, the van turned onto a narrow track barely wide enough for one car.

Rather than follow, Santana steered the Ford into a small thicket beside the road.

He switched off the engine and turned toward Rock.

“That van is heading for a small dock we usually use for smuggling...”

After leaving the Parachute Brigade, Santana had returned to his smuggling family and quickly become involved in its affairs.

His exceptional skills had won the trust of the family elders, who brought him into many of their secret smuggling operations.

Within a few months, he'd become intimately familiar with the smuggling routes and associated sites around Foz do Iguaçu.

Now that they'd reached this point, Santana knew there was no reason to follow the van any farther.

There was only one vehicle-accessible way in or out along this side road.

Because of his friendship with Cassiano and Rock's earlier display of skill at reading tire tracks, Santana looked at them with some excitement.

“Interested in taking a shortcut to see what they're doing?”

Cassiano immediately looked to Rock. His rule was simple. Whatever Rock said, he would do.

Rock nodded without hesitation. Since they were already here, he might as well see the situation for himself.

The PCC had seized nearly half the local smuggling routes. If Rock wanted to import goods from Paraguay in the future, dealings with the PCC would be unavoidable.

From what Rock had learned about the PCC in Rio de Janeiro, working with them would be a bad idea.

As the saying went, the bigger the business, the more it bullied its customers. The PCC had never been the sort to play fair.

If he used them to smuggle his purchases, he suspected less than half the goods might reach him.

It worked much like ordinary business. Once a company established a monopoly, it controlled the prices. Everyone else was at its mercy.

The same was happening to the smuggling routes around Foz do Iguaçu.

The PCC had already seized half of them through its usual heavy-handed methods.

In time, it would surely try to bring most of the remaining routes under its control.

If Rock didn't want to handle every smuggling shipment personally in the future, he would have to break the PCC's growing monopoly.

For now, his interests aligned with Santana's. That made Santana's invitation easy to accept.

Santana took Rock and Cassiano to the Ford's trunk and opened it. It looked like a miniature armory.

Inside were four M4s fitted with suppressors, holographic sights, and vertical grips, three Glocks with holsters, and a Remington shotgun.

You couldn't operate in a lawless borderland like this without serious firepower.

Especially not when this area was one of the main routes supplying weapons to Brazil's underworld. Santana's preparations didn't surprise Rock at all.

Santana tossed an M4 to each of them, then picked one up himself and checked it with practiced ease.

“There are magazines and tactical vests here. Take six magazines and a Glock each.”

Santana put on a tactical vest first, loaded it with six full magazines, then strapped a holstered Glock to his thigh.

Rock and Cassiano geared up alongside him.

After securing his Glock, Rock drew and reholstered it a few times until the position felt right, then looked up at Santana.

“Lead the way. Let's see what's over there.”

Rock's manner naturally carried the authority of a leader. Santana accepted his lead without a second thought.

He nodded and pointed into the trees. “We'll go this way. It's faster than driving.”

No wonder Santana hadn't hurried after parking. He knew a shortcut that could put them ahead of the van.

Santana took point, Rock followed close behind, and Cassiano naturally brought up the rear.

The three moved swiftly along the path in combat formation.

As they went, Santana kept an eye on Rock and Cassiano behind him. What he saw secretly startled him.

He and Cassiano had both served in the Parachute Brigade's First Special Operations Battalion and received extensive jungle-combat training. Both could move through dense woods with ease.

But the man Cassiano called 'Boss,' Mr. Locke, moved through the forest even more effortlessly than either former paratrooper.

He made less noise than either trained jungle fighter, and his light steps left almost no trace.

In actual combat, a man like that could be called a 'jungle ghost.' He would be a terrifying opponent in rainforest warfare.

Santana remembered Cassiano once casually saying that his boss outclassed him completely in both close-quarters combat and marksmanship.

Santana had thought he was exaggerating, but after seeing Rock in action, he knew the man was truly formidable.

The Santana family would never hesitate to cultivate a relationship with such a powerful fighter.

He recalled that Rock wanted to find reliable arms and tobacco dealers in Paraguay.

He would have to sift through his family's information and share the best leads with Rock.

Who knew? Rock might even bring the family some unexpected rewards.

As these thoughts passed through his mind, Santana pointed to a low, densely wooded hill ahead. “Once we're over that hill, we'll be at the little dock.”