by Andy Lucas
Race Amazon
Part 2
Maelstrom
by
Andy Lucas
First published in 2015 by ALB
Copyright Andrew Lucas
www.andylucasbooks.com
First Edition
Cover design by CC Morgan Creative Visuals
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchase.
‘Are you determined to get me killed immediately, or is there any chance that your daughter and I could have a couple of weeks off first?’ The question was a genuine one but delivered by a voice edged with poorly disguised humour. ‘I’ve barely had time to wash the jungle out of my hair. Why the urgency?’
‘I wouldn’t have asked you here if it wasn’t very important. Something has come up and I need you to be involved from the start.’
Skeleton Gold: Scorpion
The new James Pace duology
Acknowledgements
Many thanks, once again, to Ian for his meticulous support in preparing the final text of this book.
My gratitude is also extended to all the people in my life; past and present, who have ever offered me their support and encouragement to persevere.
For Joanna, James, Max, Daisy & Smokie
Prologue
The bedroom was light, air-conditioned and spacious. Solid wooden floorboards had been waxed and polished to glassy reflection over the decades, without a single creak or give, such was their strength. Walls were of smooth plaster, painted in soft hues of lavender.
Sarah stirred on her four-poster bed; its huge proportions and exotically carved mahogany frame magnificent under normal circumstances. The bedding was cream and fresh, suffused with a hint of blackberry and scented with pine. Each over-sized pillow, encased in silk, added a touch of decadence to the overall finish. Sarah sat up in bed, slipped her long legs from beneath the duvet and stood up. She wore a pair of tan-coloured satin pyjamas. The wood felt cold against her bare feet. The room had been her prison for more days than she cared to count.
She remembered setting out for the airport in a taxi, eager to meet her father from the plane yet worried about why he’d pushed up his schedule without forewarning her. Still, she knew him well enough to get on with things and wait for an explanation later. The taxi had been pre-booked and whisked her easily through the streets, giving her no cause for alarm. Now that she thought about it, she could kick herself for not checking the man’s identity at the time but she had no reason to be suspicious.
A few minutes into the journey, the car had started to slow as it eased towards a small junction a few hundred feet from the highway intersection. Engrossed in paperwork, keen to make sure everything was ready for her father’s arrival, she hadn’t paid any attention. Rain was falling and she had paid as little heed to two men standing beneath a large umbrella on the pavement nearby.
The taxi pulled to a complete stop and one of the rear doors burst open. Startled from her work, suddenly frightened, she had attempted to slide across the seat, away from the open door, only to find the other door flung open so fast that she nearly backed herself right out onto the road. The two men slipped into the back, pinning her neatly between them. The doors were closed and the taxi roared away from the kerb. A strong hand clamped over her mouth and her freedom ceased to exist.
She knew she’d been kidnapped, that much was obvious, but her fears of torture, rape and mutilation had so far proven unfounded. In fact, the guards outside her locked door were always polite and courteous in their dealings with her; bringing her delicious food, with even a choice of fine wine every evening, and ensuring a daily change of linen and towels.
Sarah couldn’t fathom it. It made no sense to treat her so well, unless of course her captors expected to fetch a higher ransom from her father when they delivered her unscathed. But that was only guesswork. At any moment it might all change into a world of pain and degradation, so she forced herself to keep up her mental guard. There was no television in her room but a huge bookcase filled to overflowing with a wide range of literature.
She also whiled away the hours practising yoga; something she’d done for a decade or more. It stretched her body, keeping it trim and supple, while the spiritual relaxation of the accompanying meditation often soothed the savage beast of a bad day.
The room boasted only one small window, which looked out over a small cobbled courtyard. Three other windows, set around various walls, had been bricked up prior to her incarceration. It meant she kept the electric lights on all day as the little window was barely a foot wide and twice that tall. Vertical steel bars; newly fitted, reminded her she was most definitely in a prison, however pleasant.
That morning, quite early, Sarah heard the sound of heavy gates being drawn back outside. She couldn’t see them from her windows but watched, with detached interest, as a large black limousine drew silently up into the yard. It stopped and the driver got out; a lean, hard-eyed professional with a noticeable bulge under one armpit.
The figure he released from the luxurious confines of the car’s rear compartment brought her heart leaping into her mouth. Tears erupted from her eyes like water from an underground pipe suddenly pierced by a road worker’s pneumatic drill, and a choking cry bubbled from her throat.
Suddenly panting for breath, pulse racing, she stumbled across to the door, where she hopped from foot to foot in desperation. She was so excited that she almost wet herself and was visibly trembling by the time she heard footfalls on the wooden floor of the passageway outside. Flushed and eager, she stepped back from the door; it opened inwards and she didn’t relish the idea of being knocked flat if it was opened quickly from the other side.
The footsteps halted outside the door and she could hear muttering as the key turned quietly in its well-oiled mechanism. The door clicked open, as the handle turned smoothly, and it swung open.
It was a moment Doyle McEntire had been longing for and dreading at the same time. Days had passed since Sarah’s abduction and it was now time to explain himself and face the music. He had no idea how she would react and was uncharacteristically nervous. Dressed in cream cotton trousers, white silk shirt and expensive, hand-made leather boots, he looked far more relaxed than he felt.
‘Dad! Oh, thank God you’re here!’
‘It’s alright, it’s okay Sarah. I’m here and you don’t have to worry anymore.’
He held her in his arms, with her looming over him with her added height, and fervently wished things could have been different. Everything that had been so carefully planned was unravelling around him and, as fast as he was plugging his fingers into holed dykes, new leaks were springing forth. It was all he could do at that moment to keep things under control and not lose sight of his objectives.
‘What is happening? Tell me you’re here to get me? Have you paid a ransom for me? I am so sorry for not being more careful,’ she sobbed happily.
‘It isn’t your fault darling. And we need to talk.’ He paused to gather his thoughts. ‘There are things you need to know, things that I hoped never to involve you in.’
Sarah stepped away from his warm embrace, suddenly nervous again, wiping tears from her cheeks. ‘What things? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing you c
ould have done anything about,’ he soothed.’
‘Please, stop it. You’re scaring me. Tell me what’s happening.’
‘I’m so sorry for what’s happened to you, you must understand. You are my only child. I know I don’t show it but you mean the world to me and I could never put you in danger.’
Sarah was confused by his words. Why weren’t they already on their way out of this place? Where were the kidnappers? Maybe they wouldn’t let them leave now that they had her father as well as her. ‘We should go. I’ve been locked in here for days. I just need to get out of here.’
‘I am sorry. Truly, truly sorry.’
‘Stop keep saying that,’ she said, wiping away fresh tears that refused to stop spilling from her eyes. ‘What are you sorry for anyway? You’re here now and that’s all that matters.’
‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he confessed.
Rain chose that moment to start hammering on the glass of the single window, rattling it hard within its steel frame. Sarah’s eyes flicked momentarily towards the sound before returning to her father. She watched his eyes harden, hiding the sadness within. His face, tanned and more lined than she could ever remember, mirrored the melancholy of his thoughts.
‘What did you do?’ she asked, almost not wanting to hear his answer. When he did not answer her straight away, she persisted. ‘What?’ There was a lengthy pause as he collected himself. He had tried to prepare the words many times in his mind, turning them over and over on the journey down, but with little success. Whichever way he phrased it, the truth was going to hurt them both.
‘I had you abducted and kept you locked away here. That’s what I’m sorry for.’
‘You?’ She was incredulous, her jaw dropping open in stunned disbelief.
‘That’s right.’ It was the hardest thing he had ever had to say to her. ‘Me.’
1
The scent of rotting flora and living fauna mixed headily beneath the mighty canopy pressing in on him from each side. Conversation over the headsets was sparse and related mainly to the road conditions. Steer left, pothole to the right, that sort of thing. Everybody seemed to be keeping their inner thoughts to themselves, no matter how troubling.
Pace marvelled at how one minute you could be struggling hard against the elements and your own human frailty, and the next see everything blown away by unexpected mayhem.
He stayed riding with Ruby but took the front seat after a couple of hours. It was tiring to concentrate on the road as hard as they must, for long periods, so they swapped over again in the early hours. Nobody complained about feeling tired.
The race seemed like another place and time now; an eon or so ago. Pace had stopped wondering what the next challenge would have been because it had ceased to matter. His eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep and would have been puffy and bloodshot had anybody bothered to lift his visor and look. Several times he snapped himself from a near trance as his senses began to fog. His legs were pumping the pedals instinctively and he surprised himself to learn that he could have actually fallen asleep while cycling. Being in the driver’s seat, he couldn’t afford to slip up, so concentrated even harder, biting down on his lower lip until it bled at times; the pain a stinging aid to wakefulness.
At a little after three in the morning, their little band of exhausted adventurers turned quite a sharp bend in the road, which was rare to find, and were met by another straight section, stretching a mile or so ahead. Ancient trees muscled in even closer and seemed more sinister, their upper branches reaching out and entwining across the road in places.
Pace suddenly spotted a flash of light in the jungle off to his left. His heart leaped into his mouth and he was jerked upright in his saddle, instantly wide awake and alert. He called a warning into his wire microphone and the tandems slowly drew to a stop. He lifted his dripping visor and waited for his eyes to adjust to the surging blackness. The others all followed his lead.
Ignoring the darkness, he stared silently to the left. Sure enough, a flash of yellow light blinked on and off, on and off, in an irregular pattern. It was about fifty feet off into the jungle and it was only now they’d stopped that Pace noticed a tiny, spidery track, heading east off of the road in the direction of the flickering light.
Fear slowly eased when nothing sinister sprang from the darkness. Pace couldn’t just ride on, not knowing what it was, and suggested they investigate. Nobody else seemed keen to go into the jungle but something inside him was curious. After a couple of minutes the others begrudgingly agreed to come along. They got off their bikes and navigated the short stretch of slippery mud.
The trail ended at a small settlement, looking as tatty and deserted as many others they had already seen; three or four ramshackle huts; walled and roofed with rusting corrugated iron. The main street was overgrown in parts but muddy and obviously used in others. Two of the huts, furthest away from them, were wrecked. One sported only a single wall remaining while the other had all four walls but no roof. Bent and twisted corrugated metal lay mangled amid encroaching jungle.
The nearest hut was the culprit Pace sought. A single lantern cast its cheery glow out into the falling rain, swinging softly on a rusty chain, beneath a covered porch made from huge palm leaves tied over a wooden frame. The wooden porch floor was bone dry so the leaves were obviously effective against the persistent rain. A large creeper almost covered the road-facing part of the porch and it was the lamp swinging in and out from behind its leaves and stems that had given the illusion of a blinking light. The sound of music wafted faintly from deep inside the hut, so someone had to be at home.
‘Do you think there’ll be a radio?’ Ruby asked Cosmos.
‘A lot of these small settlements were given a radio transmitter when they were set up, so it’s possible. This place looks very promising.’
‘The deeper we get into the Amazon, the fewer of these places there are. I’m surprised to find one still inhabited. Most of them this far up have long since been reclaimed by the forest.’ Hammond spoke softly over the intercom, thoughtfully even. ‘We’re still too far from the main river for anybody to make a living from fishing here, but there could be some decent tributaries close by, perhaps enough to feed a few people.’
‘If you like fish,’ Ruby quipped.
‘A case of having to,’ he shot back good naturedly.
‘Let’s see who’s home, shall we? Perhaps we can get a message back to McEntire, if they do have a radio?’ Pace said. He glanced from one to the other, knowing that they needed all the help they could get. ‘A helicopter would find it easier pulling us up from here. There aren’t so many large trees to threaten the rotors.’
‘I suppose there is safety in numbers,’ agreed Hammond, his tone cautiously optimistic.
‘I vote we see who is at home too,’ smiled Cosmos. ‘This could be the answer to our prayers.’
There were two small windows in the front of the small building, sheltered by the porch and devoid of glass. Instead each had thick curtains made from insect netting, drawn tightly closed from inside. The front door was closed and made from some unknown timber. Poorly fitted, it hung on one set of old brass hinges and was secured by a simple up-and-over latch bar; there was no sign of a lock.
Pace assumed it was bolted from the inside.
‘I’ll see who’s about. The rest of you wait back here in case it doesn’t go well.’ Leaving Ruby to support their bike, Pace climbed the two rough wooden steps up onto the porch and crossed the few paces to the door. He sucked in a deep breath and knocked loudly, twice.
The door rattled noisily against its frame with each rap of his knuckles. For a horrible moment, he had visions of it falling in on itself. He doubted the owner would be best pleased if he came smashing down his home, even by accident. Luckily it proved to be sturdier than it looked.
From somewhere behind the door came the sound of shuffling feet, moving slowly. A few seconds later there was the sound of a heavy metal bolt being drawn back and the
door opened limply out towards him. Pace stepped back to allow it to swing right open until it clanged back against the corrugated wall. There was no security chain but it was immediately obvious that one wasn’t needed. The occupant had all the protection needed; the barrel of the rifle pushing coldly against the base of Pace’s throat said as much.
‘Hello.’ Pace kept his voice firm. ‘I’m sorry to bother you but my friends and I have run into some trouble.’ Neither reply nor grunt of acknowledgement gave any hint that the shooter had understood a word. He pressed on regardless. ‘We have a transmitter, but it’s broken down. We hoped you might have one we could use.’
Still nothing and the pressure of the rifle muzzle against his skin did not lessen.
‘One of us has been killed. We must get a message back to Manaus. Do you understand me? We’re not here to rob you, we just need some help.’
‘If ye were, ye’d be lying out there in the mud wi’owt a head.’ The sound of a Scottish accent so took him back that he heard himself laugh with surprise. Still the rifle didn’t waver.
‘You’re Scottish?’
No reply.
‘My name is James Pace. My friends and I are taking part in a race, for charity,’ he explained quickly. ‘As I said, one of us was killed a few hours ago and we couldn’t bring the body along. We need to get in touch with the city and get some help out here.’
The gun slowly pulled back from his throat but the evil hole at the end of a visibly scored and pitted muzzle still held its aim, unwavering. There was a further shuffling of feet and a figure solidified out of the darkness as it stepped forward. Average height and build, male by the low, gruff tone of the voice.