Chapter 15: The Encounter with the "Free"
The damp and noisy streets of New Orleans were a distant memory. The air here was different. He was an enemy.
The Arizona desert, near the Mexican border, was a scorching furnace. The midday sun beat mercilessly, whitening the rust-colored rocks and causing the air to vibrate over the sand. The stage was vast and open, but it was a lie. It was a labyrinth of narrow canyons, jagged rock formations, and dry streams that offered more tactical cover than any city.
Jonathan, now sixteen, was moving through this hell. Months had passed since the ambush in New Orleans. Complacency had been burned in him that night, replaced by a cold adaptation. He was no longer a complacent nomad; He was a veteran of multiple mercenary hunts.
His move was a lesson in efficiency. It slid from one shade of rock to another, its breathing shallow and controlled to conserve moisture. His skin, exposed to the sun, was tanned, but showed no signs of burning; His body control had adapted even to this.
He no longer expected ambushes. Now, he was the hunter.
I was tracking. Two days earlier, at a Tucson motel, he had intercepted an encrypted communication about a payment related to the "Bog Machete." Their prey was nearby.
He crouched beside a dry riverbed, his fingers brushing the sand. His analytical eyes scanned the ground.
He found the first trace: a cigarette butt. American brand, cheap. But it wasn't just lying around; It was extinguished in military style, crushed against a rock to make sure there were no embers left. They were professionals.
A few meters ahead, he found the second trace: a boot print. The pattern of the sole was sharp. An expensive tactical boot, from a supplier known for equipping high-level mercenaries.
And finally, the wind brought him the third trace: the faint, chemical smell of weapons oil, too fresh to be from a local hunter.
Jonathan smiled. His innocent smile, now used as a conscious tool.
He looked up at the narrow passage of the canyon in front of him. 'There'
Five men, he estimated. Probably a team of snipers and observers. Waiting in a classic ambush.
His killer instinct was activated, not with a roar, but with the cold precision of a machine. His mind began to paint the scenery: angles of fire from the ledge, the probable ricochet zones of the bullets on the walls of the cannon, and the three flanking routes he could use.
He was having fun. The hunt was exciting.
…..
Jonathan moved like a ghost of heat over the scorched rock. He moved along a narrow ledge, his back against the canyon wall, using his stealth skills to prepare to flank the kill zone ahead. It was 500 meters away from the sniper's nest. His concentration was absolute. He was the predator; they were the prey.
Suddenly, he froze.
It wasn't a sound. It was not a movement. It was a mistake in the air.
His killer instinct, the constant whisper that analyzed every gust of wind and the heat of every lizard, he screamed. Not "THREAT!" He shouted: "ANOMALY!"
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. There were eyes on him. Someone was watching him.
Slowly, without making a sound, his head turned. His eyes scanned the ledges above him, the canyon bed beneath him. There was nothing. There were no lens reflections. There was no displacement of loose rocks. There was no human warmth. His ability to "see seams" was not out of place. It was impossible. Nothing moved in this desert without his knowing it.
"Good stealth, kid."
The voice was calm, funny, and came from behind him.
Jonathan reacted with a speed that would have shattered a normal man's spine. He spun around on himself, his body exploding in a fluid motion, falling into a perfect fighting stance. His hand closed on the handle of his machete, ready to draw and kill in less than a second.
He was looking at an empty stretch of ledge.
'Impossible', he thought.
"This way," the voice said again, now from his right.
Jonathan's eyes shot up at the fountain.
Ten meters away, sitting casually on a flat, red rock that Jonathan knew was empty a second ago, was a man. He had a scruffy beard, a worn military beret, and a calm smile on his weathered face.
It was Che Guevara.
Jonathan's supercomputer brain, the mind that could calculate wind ballistics and undiagnosed disease weaknesses, tried to process the data and failed.
'Impossible,' he thought again, his hand still on the machete. 'There was no sound. There was no air displacement. There was no heat signature. My instincts didn't detect it until he wanted to. Is... it's like me.'.
This man had not only evaded his senses. It had appeared out of nowhere.
Che saw the tension in Jonathan's stance, the way his hand gripped the weapon.
"Relax," Che said, raising a hand lazily. "I have no interest in your little money games." He took a drag on a cigarette. "I was in the box. Felt... a shock." He nodded his chin toward the barrel. "A very silent cat stalking some very noisy rats. I had to see the 'Bog Machete' in person."
…..
Jonathan's hand remained frozen on the handle of his machete. His instinct didn't scream "kill"; he shouted "UNKNOWN". This man was not a mercenary. It was a ghost, and one that had completely overcome his senses, something that not even the elite guards of the Orphanage had achieved.
Slowly, with a deliberate movement, Jonathan let go of the handle of his gun.
It was a gesture of respect. A silent recognition that he was in front of something of his own level, or perhaps higher.
"You were watching me," Jonathan said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement.
Che Guevara laughed, a dry sound that was lost in the desert wind. "I was in the box." He inhaled his cigarette, the tip glistening like coal. "I felt... a commotion. I felt a cat playing with its mice. I had to see the 'Bog Machete' in person."
Jonathan's eyes narrowed. I hated that name. "Are you part of this? The reward?"
Che sneered, a cloud of blue smoke came from his lips. "Please." He blew the smoke dismissively. "I have no interest in their little money games." He pointed his chin at the cannon where the snipers were waiting. "They are pawns. Boring. Predictable."
His gaze became sharp, analyzing Jonathan. "But you... you are different." Che leaned forward, his smile disappearing. "You are in control of a monk who has meditated for a hundred years. But underneath that..." He paused, as if savoring the air around Jonathan. "... I can feel it. You have the fury of a newborn demon."
He leaned a little more, his gaze intense. "So tell me, ghost boy... who are you fighting for? What ideology drives you?"
Jonathan stared at him. It was the first time anyone had "seen" him so clearly: the struggle between his Reversed Training and his killer instinct.
He shrugged, a simple gesture that disarmed the intensity of the moment.
"For no one," Jonathan said. "I fight for myself."
He saw the confusion on Che's face and continued. "I don't care about their flags. I don't care about its causes. I don't care about their fights." His gaze became distant, looking beyond Che to the endless horizon of the desert. "I just want to be left alone."
Jonathan looked at Che again, his voice becoming calm and firm. "I don't follow the path of saving everyone, nor that of killing everyone. I follow my own path: that of surviving."
…..
Jonathan's answer hung in the dry desert air. I just want to be left alone.
Che Guevara studied it intensely, the smoke of his cigar stopped halfway from his lips. Che's gaze was piercing, as if he could see the "seams" of a man's soul. He had met mercenaries fighting for money, soldiers fighting for a flag, and revolutionaries fighting for an idea. This sixteen-year-old boy didn't fit into any of those categories. He had no ideology.
Che's intense gaze softened, and a genuine smile split his beard.
"I see," he said, as if he had just understood a cosmic joke. He stood up in a fluid motion, shaking the desert dust from his military pants.
"You don't fight for anything," Che reflected. "You just are. He looked at Jonathan, not as a child, but as an equal. "You are a true 'free man'."
He threw the butt of his cigar into the void of the barrel. "Well, 'free man,' I won't hold you any longer." He nodded toward the pass where the snipers were waiting. "You have rats to clean up."
Che gave Jonathan a brief, respectful nod, a gesture of recognition from one ghost to another.
And then, he took a step into the deep shadow cast by a towering rock. And it disappeared. There was no sound. There was no movement of dust. There were no footprints. He just left, as impossibly as he had come.
Jonathan stood alone on the ledge, the silence of the desert returning, now heavier than before. He had just met one of the few humans on the planet whose level of stealth rivaled, or perhaps even exceeded, his own. It was a sobering realization.
'Interesting,' he thought.
The charismatic and innocent smile returned to his face as he turned towards the canyon.
'But work first.'.
He crouched down, becoming one with the rock once more. He turned toward the canyon pass where the five bounty hunters were still waiting in their trap, completely oblivious to the stealth master summit that had just occurred 500 meters away from them.
The "Machete God" began to move again, his hand sliding silently toward the hilt of the rusty machete.
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