Chapter 140: Battle Royale
One week later, deep within the Amazon rainforest, Nicolau Silva’s compound lay nestled like a hidden scar. It was a sprawling, self-sufficient hub of illicit operations: sturdy wooden cabins housed his men, two large corrugated steel warehouses hummed with activity, and a constant rotation of heavy trucks rumbled in and out. Guerilla armed forces, a mix of hardened young adults and grizzled veterans, patrolled the perimeter and manned watchtowers. Their attire varied, but a unifying splash of crimson—a red hat, a scarlet bandana, or a blood-red T-shirt—marked them as belonging to the formidable Commando Vermelho.
Inside his spartan, yet strategically placed, office on the second floor of the main cabin, Nicolau Silva sat hunched over a cluttered desk. The humid air hung heavy, but his focus was absolute. One of his encrypted phones, a relic of cutting-edge covert communications, vibrated. Simultaneously, his personal phone, buried beneath a stack of ledgers, chimed. He picked up the encrypted device first.
A text message blinked on the screen: [in Brazilian Portuguese: CEM MILHÕES DE DÓLARES AMERICANOS FORAM ENVIADOS. SINAL DE BOA VONTADE. ELE ESTÁ CHEGANDO.]
One hundred million US dollars. A sign of goodwill and future relationship. He is coming.
Nicolau’s mind raced. Months ago, he had received a similar, anonymous text—a terse message of "goodwill"—followed by an undeniable deposit of twenty million clean US dollars into a private, untraceable bank account.
Was it the CIA, trying to turn him? The FBI, playing a long game? Or, a chilling thought, was it somehow connected to those "aliens" his father had spoken of in hushed, haunted tones before his death, tales of beings that manipulated the world from the shadows?
The sheer fact that this money was impeccably clean, unlike the one billion reals of dirty money his organization had pulled in last year from both domestic and international operations, baffled him. And now, another hundred million.
How rich is this guy?!
He had been preparing for this moment for months. Recruitment had ramped up; new blood, loyal to him, swelled Commando Vermelho’s ranks. He had assumed it was one of the rival cartels—perhaps the Italian mob, finally making a play, or a ruthless Mexican cartel expanding their reach. Whatever it was, he was ready. He wouldn’t give an inch without a brutal fight.
Over the past few months, since the PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) and other smaller gangs had also received their own anonymous, albeit smaller, sums from an unknown sender, turf wars had exploded across Brazil. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro had become battlegrounds, rival factions duking it out for territory and influence. Nicolau wondered if the sender’s true intention was to let them fight, then pick up the pieces, consolidate power.
Whatever it was, he had a grim hunch it wasn’t good. So, with cunning foresight, he had already begun storing his refined produce and reserves in a network of deep underground tunnels, particularly in sections designated UG-4 and UG-5, in case an all-out war erupted. Better safe than sorry.