The Collector's Cabin

By Andy Harris

What would you do if your past - full of espionage, deception and violence - came back to hunt you? Javier is a longtime spy for hire who has made a living carrying out dangerous missions in Colombia and abroad, but his world becomes a whirlwind of chaos when his history barges into his present. While on a simple surveillance mission in his home country, a bullet aimed at his head signals a sharp, severe change in life for a man used to being in control and calling the shots. After years of operating in the shadows, Javier becomes the target as one skilled assassin after another comes looking to put him in the grave. He does his best to dodge them, but has to balance survival with investigation and find out who wants him dead and why - before they succeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andy Harris
• Release date: Oct 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005352288

Andy Harris

Andy Harris is an accomplished author, photographer and journalist who resides in Akron, Ohio. He is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Condūcō Creative, a public relations and creative media firm. He has interviewed Super Bowl champions, Olympic gold medalists, New York Times bestselling authors and Rolling Stone Top 100 rock stars. His writing has been featured in publications such as Akron Magazine and The Suburbanite, and has been posted on Ohio.com, GoZips.com and fringecollective.com. Andy has visited 22 countries on five continents, and once ran with the bulls in Pamplona.

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THE COLLECTOR’S CABIN

By Andy Harris

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 Andy Harris

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other, - except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Editing and cover photography: Andy Harris

www.conducomedia.com

Cover design: CJ McDaniels

www.adazing.com

Interior design: Jen Birchler

www.jenbirchler.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About Andy Harris

Connect with Andy Harris

PROLOGUE

It’s another sweltering day here in the jungle. I’ve grown used to these days, having lived in this region my entire life, but my current guests aren’t so fortunate.

I’ll get to them in a short while, but at the moment you don’t need to concern yourself with them. My name is Javier, and at right now, I’m what matters. I control my fate as well as the fate of each of the eight men currently sitting in the small, cramped, unlit room in my cabin nearby. The cabin isn’t an impressive structure, but then again, it’s not designed to be. I found it many years ago, on an expedition in this very jungle, and it found a warm place in my heart. I’ve returned here often over the years, sometimes for pleasure, other times for business.

At the moment, I’m sitting on the small, rickety section of old planks that serves as the porch for this run-down building. The view is a breathtaking one, with the hillside dropping off at a severe angle not more than 30 meters from the edge of the porch, and the vast expanse of the jungle visible out in the distance. It’s at least two days’ walk to any semblance of civilization, which works out quite well for the current purpose that brings me here.

Before we go any further, however, I’ll tell you a bit more about myself. As I stated, my name is Javier. Just Javier, no last name. I have never seen the need for one, and for those who have reason to know me, one name will suffice. I’ve lived here in Colombia for all of my life, only five times venturing outside its borders. Each time, there were circumstances where my services were needed on a firsthand basis. I traveled quickly to my destinations and did what needed done, without staying around to see the aftermath. When you’re in the business in which I operate, that kind of detachment is necessary. Too much attachment to one’s work, or to the people one encounters in that work, makes you soft, and being soft is something I can’t afford.

Maybe you are wondering exactly what it is that I do….you wouldn’t be the first to wonder. Many who have wondered over the years continue to be in the dark because I don’t let people inside my head. So it was with my first and second wives, who complained incessantly about my penchant for secrecy, and along with the somewhat transient lifestyle I lead, they were relationships not meant to last. Just as well, because operating alone is something for which I have gained an appreciation. It’s why I have continued to work without a partner, though I do need a little help for larger jobs at times. Even then, those with whom I collaborated were kept on an extremely limited, need-to-know basis, and once the job was done, we went our separate ways.

My work isn’t aptly described by any one word or term. I have filled many roles over the years, working for local and national governments, and for private citizens who needed situations taken care of quickly and quietly. My role has been that of thief, spy, guardian, and on rare occasions, assassin. It’s the last of these four that I have tried my best to avoid, but there come times when it can't be. In these circumstances, it’s best to approach the assignment with a business-like detachment, never getting too personally involved.

I won’t reveal the identities of those that I have killed, for obvious reasons. Needless to say, some of them have been very important people, both in government and otherwise. More than four years have passed since I last had to kill anyone, and it had been my sincere hope that those days were behind me for good. However, that all changed two years ago, when I suddenly became the hunted after years of being the hunter. My life changed from one of pursuing and confidence to one of hiding, surviving and even fear. When a man has lived a life as I have, he accumulates many enemies, and when he is seen as vulnerable, those enemies amass quickly.

The details of how and why this sudden shift occurred are still sketchy at best, and that’s why I’m here now. I believe those eight men sitting in that cramped room nearby hold information as to what is going on. Of course, that’s not the only reason they are here now.

The other reason is that over the past two years, each of them has made an unsuccessful attempt on my life. The methods have varied, from sniper attack to rigging my vehicle with explosives to attempted kidnapping and execution, but all have failed. Some managed to escape, but all were soon captured.

Even those fortunate enough to escape found their freedom to be only temporary, as I tracked them down like the dogs that they are. Since their capture, each of the eight has lived - barely alive - here in this remote jungle location. All are emaciated, malnourished and living in absolute filth, yet this does not move me to have any sort of compassion on them. I have collected them like trophies, and until they provide me with the information that I seek, none of them will ever go free. Even if they do give me what I want, the odds of them ever going free are slim. Once a man has tried to kill you and has failed, he’s almost certain to attempt to finish the task if he ever has the opportunity, and I won’t allow that to happen.

The sun is now setting, causing the darkness to ease over the jungle. It’s time to go inside and begin the evening’s interrogations. The interrogations don’t take place every evening, or on any sort of regular schedule. That would allow the captured to have some sort of consistency and regularity to bank on. I want them on edge, never knowing what is coming or when, thus having them always off guard. They are fed on a similarly erratic schedule, and they are frequently awoken in the middle of the night simply to mess with their minds.

Before bringing in the first man, I set about my ritual of sharpening my hunting knife, placing a piece of moldy bread on the table and filling up a glass of lukewarm, particle filled water to go with it. No one has ever touched either the moldy bread or the water, and this is as I expected, for they all suspect I’ll try to poison them or make them otherwise ill from these two food items. For purposes of taunting, an ample supply of meat, cheeses and fruits sits on display on a shelf behind me, close enough to be seen and smelled by my captives, yet far enough away to remind them that these luxuries are out of their reach.

It’s now time for the interrogations to begin. I walk down the short, dark hallway to the room where the men are kept, and without speaking a word, I unchain the first one from his spot on the wall. He shuffles forward out of the room, still hindered by the shackles on his arms and legs. None of the other men so much as raise their head to glance in my direction, so great is their fear. I follow this first man into the small, cramped interrogation room and shove him down into a rickety old wooden chair. Let the fun begin.

CHAPTER 1

Guerrero Hazenda is the man sitting across from me. He is a small man, somewhere around five and a half feet tall, with a wiry frame that has become a near skeleton during his time here. His bushy black hair has grown long and unruly, and shoots out in all directions from his small head. Guerrero has been here the longest, about two years now. He is by far the most reclusive of the group, and the very fact that anyone hired him to kill me still amazes me. He does not look like a killer, nor does he have the demeanor of a man that could willingly take a life. His small, uncalloused hands look as if they have never done a tough job in their lifetime, yet I’m told that he was, at one time, extremely skilled with weapons of all types.

Our paths first crossed a decade ago in Bogotá, where he was a low-level drug runner and I was the man hired to steal files from his boss. I worked the organization for over a year, keeping a low profile as a security guard, snooping around when I could, eavesdropping and recording phone conversations at every chance.

More than once I had a close call where I was nearly found out, but quick thinking and smooth talking got me out of those jams. I met Guerrero Hazenda when I was assigned to provide security for a shipment that he was to transport across the border into Panama. Even then I found him to be extremely obnoxious, constantly talking and fidgeting, never able to be still or silent. It was all I could manage not to reach over and snap his neck, but I had a job to do.

That first trip nearly ended in disaster when a shootout ensued near the border, but we took down a group of 15 enemy fighters and successfully delivered the shipment. I made two more trips like this over the remainder of my time with the organization, but eventually I gathered the information I had been paid to collect and disappeared. I have no idea what the information was used for, and I never made any attempt to find out. I simply bundled it up in a large yellow envelope, slid it under the door of a hotel room and found my payment taped under the rear bumper of my rental car.

I heard some time later that the organization I had spied on, the Jalateno Cartel, suspected my complicity in the leaking of the information. But by that time I was long gone and had also made some minor changes to my appearance through plastic surgery. Hazenda was the man the cartel sent to snoop around at my old apartment, but he found nothing; I’d already cleaned it top to bottom and left nothing to trace. I suspect he caught flak for returning with no leads to go on, and perhaps this fueled his hatred for me.

Whatever the case, I had no occasion to come into contact with him again until approximately two years ago, when I was once again in Bogotá. Actually, I was on the outskirts of the city, scouting a location for a training base that a local band of freedom fighters wanted to set up. For weeks I watched the area, kept detailed records of police and military presence and also checked the terrain.

One day, toward the end of my stay, I sat motionless on the edge of a steep hill overlooking a small open area where the camp would likely be set up. I had paused to take a sip from my canteen when I heard a rustling in the underbrush somewhere to my left. As I lowered my body closer to the ground and turned to look for the source of the sound, a shot rang out, whizzing past my ear and lodging in a large tree directly behind me. A series of 10 more shots followed, with each coming from a different angle as the shooter quickly moved from spot to spot. He had a silencer on his weapon, but his heavy footsteps made him easy to locate.

After the rapid fire of shots, I could see that whoever was trying to kill me had stopped to reload his gun and I took the chance to run for cover. I drew my own weapon as I did so, and as I hid behind a cluster of bushes, I heard my pursuer clumsily advancing indirectly toward me. I waited for him to come into close range, then fired a single shot that struck his leg, causing him to let out a yell and drop to the ground. He did not remain there long though, almost forcing himself up off the ground and attempting to get away as blood flowed freely from the wound in his leg.

The chase continued through the forest, up and down several small hills in the area. I was confident in my ability to run down any man, having been a sprinter for the Colombian national team in my younger days. I was even more confident now since the man I was pursuing had a bullet wound in his leg. As I pounded over the rugged terrain I suddenly became aware of the fact that I could no longer hear the footsteps of the man I was chasing. Figuring he may have ducked for cover in the brush, I fell back a few steps and found a spot to hide in behind a large tree.

Now it was a matter of waiting for my adversary to make a wrong move. He had not fired a shot back at me as I chased him, and I guessed that he had expended all his ammunition in the initial burst of gunfire. He still had his gun with him, though, because I had not seen it discarded anywhere during the chase. So for the next half hour, I waited and watched, but saw nothing. Then, suddenly, a rustle in a row of brush about 200 yards away piqued my interest.

Whoever this man was, he was on the move, heading back in the direction of where I had first been when he shot at me. I could only guess that he was trying to make it back to his vehicle, wherever it was, but I was on his trail quickly, pursuing at full speed. Within 30 seconds I had caught up enough to be within firing distance. I got off several good shots, the last two of which again struck him in the leg, sending him tumbling to the ground. He tried to scramble to his feet, but in the process staggered to the edge of the hill I had been sitting on earlier. He was unable to keep his balance and fell over the edge of the hill, rolling out of sight.

I pursued, chasing him as he tumbled down the hill. Unable to gain his footing, he rolled downward, falling over plants and small trees before coming to a stop at the bottom of the hill. I was close behind, charging downhill, gun drawn.

I soon was standing over top of a dirty, bloody heap of a man whom I immediately recognized as Guerrero Hazenda. For some strange reason, I did not kill him, though it would have given me great pleasure to do so. Instead, I shot him once more, in the other leg, to ensure he wouldn’t attempt to get away, before going to retrieve my vehicle. I pulled the jeep up beside Hazenda and tossed him in the back, but not before binding his arms and legs together using some spare rope I had with me. A healthy dose of a horse tranquilizer meant he wouldn’t be making any noise for several hours, so I covered him with a green canvas tarp and we made our way out of the city.

I received quite a scare near the edge of town when a police officer stopped my vehicle. It turned out that I bore a slight resemblance to a man the police were searching for, but upon closer inspection the officer was satisfied that I wasn’t the man he was seeking. At this point I was glad to have tranquilized Hazenda, otherwise he could have caused a real problem for me. The officer apologized for the stop and let me go. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as I drove away, knowing I’d dodged a major bullet.

The drive from Bogotá back to the cabin was a long one, consisting of about four hours of winding my way down mostly unpaved roads. To anyone that has grown up in Colombia, these roads are not so bad, and you get used to them over the years. For outsiders, travel is often a nightmare, and they leave vowing never to drive these roads again. I made no stops during the trip and just after sunset I pulled in the driveway of a small, abandoned farmhouse that sat about three miles from the cabin.

The farmhouse itself hasn’t been occupied in more than six years, and shortly after its abandonment I began watching it closely to see if anyone came to check on it. When I determined that no one was keeping tabs on it, I decided to use it, seeing as it was the only other building within a reasonable distance of my cabin. My main interest was the large barn out behind the house; I leave my jeep there when I’m at the cabin.

On this evening, I turn my headlights off a half-mile away from the farmhouse and pull down the dirt driveway to park inside the barn. Once inside, I shut the massive sliding door that covered the main opening. With no electricity to the structure, I light a kerosene lamp for illumination. Hazenda had yet to make a sound from inside the vehicle, which probably had something to do with the heavy dose of the tranquilizer I had administered.

His motionless body lifted easily from the back of the jeep, and I placed him on the ground momentarily while also removing the canvas tarp from over top of him. He seemed somewhat aware of my presence, but made no move to try and free himself. A swift kick to the ribs ensured his continued compliance, so I walked over to a storage area in the corner and rolled out the four-wheeler that served as my means of transportation while at the cabin.

Onto the towing hitch of the vehicle I attached a medium sized storage box on wheels that was just big enough to fit Hazenda in. Shoving him into the box proved a difficult task, but after some maneuvering, he fit in quite nicely. Having accomplished that and loaded a few needed supplies onto the back of the four-wheeler, I locked everything up and headed out, pulling out through the back door of the barn and easing down a small dirt trail that quickly diverged into the jungle.

The ride was a bumpy one, and added to that was the fact that a day of heavy rain had made the path extremely muddy. Going up the final hill to the structure proved especially tough, but eventually I made it up the incline in spite of the extra weight and pulled the four-wheeler behind the shack. I was in no hurry to unload the man who had just tried to kill me, so I allowed him to remain cramped in the cargo box for a while longer. In the meantime, I proceeded to do a quick check of the shack and its perimeter.

The check was something I always did, but it received special attention tonight based on the attempt on my life. When one has come face to face with attempted murder, he tends to be much more careful, perhaps even paranoid about personal security. Finally satisfied that everything was in order and safe, I sat down in the makeshift kitchen for a drink.

The cabin was extremely quiet that night, with no one else inside or having been inside for more than a month. It wasn’t as if I expected anyone to disturb it. This isn’t a well-known location and it’s difficult to get to unless you know exactly where you’re going. My new companion Hazenda wasn’t so fortunate, however, having been unable to see where we were going since we left Bogotá. Even if he tried, he would be hard pressed to escape this cabin, and he was not likely to survive in the jungle if he did manage to escape.

Remembering that I had left him in the cargo box with a limited supply of oxygen, I decided it was time to let him out. After all, I wanted him alive, because only then could I find out why he had been sent to kill me, and by whom. There were no signs of life coming from inside the box, and when I opened it I had to lift his body out. I carried him inside and to a small corner room with no windows. There, I handcuffed him to a thick metal pipe and left the shackles on his feet that I had put on not too long ago. It would be some time before he was fully awake and coherent, so I had no choice but to wait.

The wait lasted about five hours, ending around 3 a.m. The first noises I heard from that room were severe coughing and mumbling that I could not comprehend. Slowly I made my way down the hall, brandishing the knife I had been sharpening. Hazenda was in a sitting position near the wall, clearly trying to figure out where he was and what was happening. His eyes opened wide when he saw me, knife in hand, and I let his mind race for a moment before speaking.

Do you know why you’re here? I mockingly asked, leaning closer and slowly waving the knife in front of his face. You’re here because you made a bad choice. For whatever reason, which I’ll soon get from you, you tried to kill me. I don’t know why you were trying to kill me, or who sent you. But you will tell me that, and you will tell me whatever else I want to know from you. Because if you don’t, you will die a very slow, painful death. Do you understand?

Hazenda did not respond, instead staring back at me defiantly. The resistance was mildly amusing, though I would have been somewhat disappointed if he had not put up a fight. Of course, it was my assumption that after a few weeks or maybe months, I would break him and he would tell me what I wanted to know. I had no idea how long it would take, but even if I had, I would have undertaken the process anyway. At that point, I left the room and shut the door behind me, leaving Hazenda to sit in the damp darkness.

During the night, I twice opened the door, yelling, screaming and shining a flashlight into his weary eyes, all to mess with his mind. The next step was to completely isolate him from all contact, meaning for the next four days I did not interact with him at all aside from sliding his food under the door, nothing more. During those days I caught up on my reading, choosing from a collection of books I’d accumulated over the years at the cabin. Many of them are on the topic of philosophy, though some are historical books about various wars. I was lucky enough to receive a complete education, even attending three years of university, and my appetite for history flourished during those three years.

The strategies and tactics of battle, the mental and physical strain of war … have long fascinated me. It has never fascinated me to the point where I felt compelled to join the army and experience it firsthand, though. I feel compelled to fight for no one but myself, to protect only my own interests and to defend only that from which I personally benefit. The Art of War is one of my favorite books. It has taught me well that if one knows himself and knows his enemy, he need not fear the result of a thousand battles. Here in the jungle, I have come to know myself well, my strengths and weaknesses, and also my survival instinct. Knowing my enemies has made me a lot of