RACE AMAZON: Maelstrom (James Pace novels Book 2)

by Andy Lucas

  Even in daylight the tent was lit by more naked bulbs, as there were no windows set into the canvas. There were two camp beds inside, still in disarray, and a metal-framed, plastic table. Sat in canvas chairs at the table were two very tired, ragged, familiar figures, both drinking steaming cups of coffee from plastic cups.

  Heads turned, stomachs lurched, and eyes met.

  14

  Despite the excitement, both looked like shadows of the people Pace had last seen heading off into the jungle. Bailey had shrunk; his cheeks visibly sunken. He was at least a stone lighter, maybe more.

  Poranchez on the other hand had fared better physically, except for the bandage tightly binding his left hand. With him, it was his eyes that told of the terror. They were haunted and his pupils shifted nervously from place to place. He didn’t seem able to concentrate his gaze on anything for more than a second, which was a far cry from the confident man Pace had first met on his trip to race headquarters in Rio.

  ‘Glad to see you back with us, honey,’ said Bailey to Sarah, the thick Bronx drawl the same at least. Then he looked Pace’s uniform up and down. Chuckling, his weary face broke into a smile. ‘They’ll take anybody in this outfit.’

  ‘I don’t think I qualify. It was either this, or have me running around naked.’

  ‘You said the same thing about being in the race,’ Bailey reminded him kindly. ‘The fact that you’re still alive tells me you had as much right to cross that starting line as any of us.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Pace, meaning it

  ‘Boy, you should have seen it last night,’ Bailey went on, standing and hugging first Sarah, then Pace. ‘It was all over so fast. One minute we were being frog-marched along, hands tied behind our backs and the next there was all this screaming, and more guns going off than a crack deal gone bad.’

  ‘Sounds familiar,’ agreed Pace.

  ‘Something hit me in the back and I went down.’ Wincing, he moved a hand around and rubbed a sore spot in the centre of his back. ‘Turned out to be one of these guys, getting me down so that they didn’t accidentally blow my head off.’ His tone was tinged with genuine respect. ‘If those bastards holding us hadn’t been such assholes, I might have even felt sorry for them.’ He paused, recollecting the vicious fire fight in his mind’s eye. For a brief moment his eyes clouded. ‘I do feel sorry for them anyway,’ he confessed. ‘They didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘My men had to be thorough,’ Baker remarked from the sidelines. ‘To tackle the situation any other way would have put both your lives in danger.’

  ‘I know,’ said Bailey. ‘You’re right. My brain tells me you’re right, but to see it....well…the way they all died, and so fast. To hear the cries and see the looks on their faces is something I will never forget.’

  ‘It will haunt me forever,’ Poranchez grieved, remaining seated and distant. ‘I came into the race for life. It was my dream to face the hardships and help our planet. Because of me; in my name, bullets were fired and people were killed.’

  ‘They would have killed you at some point, make no mistake,’ Baker explained gently.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Sensibilities must be put into perspective in the heat of battle. Ask yourself, would they feel badly about your death if the situation turned out differently?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ he countered testily. ‘They died so I could be saved. One life, for what?’ He did the sums in his head. ‘For ten others, fifteen maybe.’ Both of them had seen a brutal snapshot of real warfare and were struggling to cope.

  Sarah was incredulous. ‘Did they all have to be killed? Couldn’t you have captured them, or arrested them?’

  Baker studied her for a moment. All eyes were on him, although Poranchez had sunk deeper into his chair, head in his hands and alone with his visions. ‘The men did not hang around to do a body count miss,’ he replied. ‘Their job is to get in, extract as many survivors as possible and get out again. If there were fifteen enemy soldiers to go through then there will now be the same number of dead bodies lying out there in the jungle. I am sorry that it became necessary but that’s how it works.’

  ‘It just seems….’

  Baker raised his hand to cut her off. ‘We can’t try to capture mercenaries and we are not law enforcement officers. For one, we have nowhere to keep prisoners. Also, at some stage it would mean releasing them and being identified as being active down here. This is a covert operation and not for public consumption.’

  ‘So that makes it okay?’

  ‘The enemy are no slouches,’ he went on, showing no sign of being irritated by her position. ‘All the dead from last night were hired, trained professionals. If my men hadn’t been so thorough, the enemy would have had time to fight back. Then it might be my people dead out there and none of us came here to die. I’m sorry.’ He didn’t look very sorry, she noted.

  She fixed his gaze and shrugged. She didn’t like the sound of it any better but was an intelligent young woman who knew when a reasonable argument was being offered.

  Pace knew she wasn’t convinced but decided to let it go. She forced a smile back on her lips and crossed to a small table where an urn of water simmered, grey trails of steam escaping periodically from beneath its stainless steel lid. There were more of the disposable cups and, surprisingly, a box of familiar-brand tea bags. The thought of tasting a real cup of tea made his stomach rumble. That, in turn, reminded him they hadn’t eaten anything. Pace was suddenly starving but it was definitely the tea first.

  Together they made four fresh cups of tea, with Baker making his excuses and leaving them alone. Pace wanted to know what had happened to them because they should have hit the trouble first. Two more canvas chairs were found and they settled into them, away from the table. Sipping the hot tea, he asked Bailey for the story, which was horrifically similar to his own.

  His own tale came next. Bailey listened intently, making appropriate noises when he heard about the fire-fight and then muttering his sorrow at hearing of the deaths of Attia, Cosmos and Ruby. Poranchez seemed to rise from his trance every now and again, just to listen briefly, before sinking back into his own world. He seemed to have been totally phased by his nightmare, almost unhinged by it.

  Pace recognised similar symptoms in his behaviour to some of the patients he’d looked after in the mental health unit. He had grave doubts about the man’s state of mind but had more important matters to consider, so pushed any worry aside.

  Baker returned with a large tray of scrambled eggs, sausage and toast about an hour later. It smelled heavenly and they all ate well. He stayed for breakfast as Bailey took the opportunity to question him about other survivors.

  The news, for once, was heartening. Team Three had been plucked from the jungle before the mercenaries could hit them. A team of soldiers had dropped in on them and whipped them off to the safety of an undisclosed hideaway. They were lucky. What Pace still couldn’t understand is why one of the mercenaries had used a native dart to kill Attia when a burst of automatic fire would have killed them all.

  Baker moved as if to say something, caught himself, then said simply, ‘It could have been a disgruntled local tribesman,’ he sighed. ‘A lot of them have every reason to detest modern influences on their homeland.’

  ‘For influences, read destruction, disease and death,’ ventured Bailey.

  ‘Anyway,’ Baker began, ‘we have recovered all the live bodies that we are going to. Just in case I’m wrong we will wait for the rest of today and pull out under cover of darkness. Be ready.’

  ‘Where will we be going?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Can’t give you specifics,’ Baker replied. ‘Just that we have a small airfield prepared on the outskirts of Manaus. Once there, my guess; and it’s only a guess mind, is that you will be driven into the city and de-briefed at a safe house. After that, I’ll bet it’s a private plane home for each of you.’

  He seemed quite certain that this would all pass off without a hitch, so Pace tac
tfully reminded him of all those armed mercenaries still prowling through the rainforest. Baker laughed, assuring him that they were in no danger from ground forces. He was more serious when he said that only an aerial assault could cause them real problems.

  ‘Government aircraft are hunting the rebels now and, as we are not meant to be down here, we could be attacked as well. They would assume we were rebel forces. We’re carefully monitoring all air traffic because we don’t want to get hit. Out here, there is hardly any legitimate air travel so we must consider all aircraft to be hostile.’

  ‘So, as long as we aren’t spotted today, we should be okay?’ Bailey growled. ‘What can we do between now and then? I, for one, don’t want to sit in this damned tent all day long.’

  ‘There isn’t anything for any of you to do, other than stay out of sight and let my men get this little mission tied up.’ Bailey thought to speak again but Baker cut him off with a look. ‘Your meals will be brought to you in your tents. If there is anything you need to know, I’ll send a soldier to brief you. Please remain under cover, either under the trees, or in your own tents,’ he looked over at Sarah and Pace. ‘It’s for everyone’s protection,’ he added.

  He left after breakfast was finished, closely followed by Pace and Sarah. Bailey and Poranchez needed to rest. The big American talked as if he was up for a marathon or two already but his body was weak. Poranchez remained alarmingly distant and remote.

  Outside, the sun beat down strongly. The sky was free from cloud and formed a gorgeous blue oasis above the clearing. Pace actually dared to begin to look forward to a day of safety but he should have known that fate wouldn’t be kind enough to give him a break just yet.

  15

  At about the same time a very different disaster was playing out, as two worlds prepared to collide.

  Party hats and bunting had been banned, with good reason. The company had just been taken over by a major international firm, with plans for expansion and heavy investment. Every job was secure, after months of uncertainty, and bonus cheques were supposedly in the post. The deal had been cemented at midday and by eight in the evening, most of the staff were dangerously drunk at the impromptu celebration bash hurriedly cobbled together in the conference room above the main floor.

  Despite the need to celebrate, nobody had forgotten the pain of the man now slumped at his desk, in his office next door to the conference room; more drunk than anybody else. Sympathy cards still lined the window sill, overlooking the main street, and his staff were amazed that he had managed to pull off such complex negotiations so soon after learning of his sister’s murder.

  But David Pace, their boss and head of the firm, was not going to fail the very people who had helped him to such commercial success. He had put aside grief, and anger, and got on with securing the future of the business.

  He was now a wealthy man, not that he hadn’t been before, but money meant nothing to him. After being able to buy a large, comfortable house, three cars, a forty-foot motor yacht so he could indulge his passion for sport fishing, and owing not a cent on any of them, money lost its power over him. He was happy with his lot in life and had no intention of getting a bigger house, or larger boat, just because he now had the extra cash to do so.

  There was a knock on his office door but David ignored it. He was too drunk to care who it was and sought only to focus his bleary eyes on the empty glass and half full bottle of Scotch, wondering if his co-ordination would allow him to refill his glass. He didn’t think so but was going to try before he watched the bottle slide out of his reach, clutched firmly in a beautiful, sculptured and feminine hand he knew all too well.

  ‘Paul told me I’d find you in here,’ said the tall brunette softly, hating to see the man she loved so damaged by tragedy. ‘I’d like to tell you off about drinking so much but then I’d have to tell them all off,’ she nodded out towards the conference room. ‘You’ve done a great thing today and they all know it. Why don’t we go home, eh?’

  David sat up in his black leather chair and looked at the woman he’d been married to for the past eight years. Bethany Pace looked back at him and they smiled together; they knew each other so well that they often did the same thing, or went to say the same thing, together. Some people found it sickening but they were still very much in love, and they were caring parents to their two children; Ethan, aged seven and Charlotte, barely five.

  As far as David was concerned, he’d struck gold when he met his wife at a tennis club, barely six months after leaving England to start his new life. Beautiful, sexy and bright, she had eased his homesickness and started him on the road to success.

  A trained chef, she noted her new boyfriend’s financial management flair and his own passion for cooking. Unable to find the kind of English food that he so loved, he had hit upon the idea of starting a takeaway business selling just traditionally prepared, British favourites. With so many British people flocking to start anew in Australia, he figured they’d do well.

  A decade on and the Roast2Go chain boasted fifty outlets across Australia; soon to be two hundred now that the buy out had gone ahead. It was hard work but they’d slogged through together, emerging stronger because of it.

  ‘Who’s looking after the kids?’

  ‘My mother. You know how she loves to spoil them and they love having her over.’ It was true, his mother-in-law was far removed from the stereotypical harridan. She also loved to sport fish, in fact it was his mother-in-law who first got him interested in the sport. She was a clever, strong woman, who pulled no punches when telling you what she thought, but also blessed with a wonderful heart and humour. Widowed five years earlier, she lived in a nice apartment only a couple of miles from their home.

  ‘Come on then.’ Accepting her arm, David staggered to his feet and waited for the room to stop spinning. When it didn’t, he gave an indifferent shrug and allowed himself to be helped from his office, out into a small, carpeted hall. On the way over to the lift, he passed the open door to the conference room.

  People were still dancing to some old seventies party tunes but a few had collapsed on the floor and one couple; probably Mrs Byers from Accounts and Mr Carpenter from Sales, were going at each other hammer and tongs. Poorly covered by a stained tablecloth, ripped in a frenzy of passion from the conference table, bare buttocks pumped up and down in plain view.

  ‘Get a room,’ David managed to call before the lift came and he was gently steered inside the car. Riding the two floors down to the lobby of what was once his very own building, he leaned heavily against his wife for support, wondering if he would make it home without throwing up.

  ‘They’ll both regret that in the morning,’ she said, smiling at what they’d just seen in the conference room.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he slurred a little. ‘Maybe they’re star-crossed lovers who are meant to be together.’ His wife shot him a questioning look. ‘It happens,’ he finished firmly. ‘Sometimes people find their soul-mate at an awkward time.’ He didn’t know why he was defending them really but he had learned that life was never as cut and dried as it should have been. ‘Let’s hope they used protection though.’

  ‘The only protection they’re going to need is from their respective spouses. They’re both married,’ she argued. ‘How can that be okay?’

  ‘If it’s just sex, then it stinks,’ he agreed softly. ‘But if they are in love, and want to be together, then this may be the start of something that lasts for the rest of their lives. And that makes it the right choice.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll give you that,’ she conceded. What he was saying did make sense to her and she was secretly impressed that he could think so deeply, given the state he was in.

  ‘Great,’ he beamed a drunken smile at her. ‘If they’re meant to be together, then they should be, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘At least I can always trust you to only be shacked up with a bottle of good Scotch when the mood takes you,’ she laughed.

  ‘I’m the
luckiest man alive,’ he said honestly, trying not to stagger. ‘I was lucky enough to find my soul-mate and marry her.’

  ‘If you weren’t so smashed, that little bit of creeping would have earned you a night of animal lust.’ Her voice dropped to a sultry whisper.

  ‘There’s life in the old dog yet,’ he shot back. ‘Let’s see if I can raise a smile when we get home.’

  ‘We’ll see. Just walk with me, that’s right, one foot now the other…good.’

  With Bethany’s help, he made it to the waiting taxi, oblivious to the driver’s look of despair at the thought of carting another drunk passenger. He’d better not puke, the driver thought, then got the car moving. He was determined to get rid of them before the man ruined his upholstery.

  The driver flew through the little seaside town of Dasler as darkness fell. Situated on the eastern coast of Australia, some one hundred and seventy miles north of Brisbane, the thriving, cheery community was one hundred miles south of Rockhampton, and the southern tip of the breathtaking Great Barrier Reef.

  There was no crime to speak of in Dasler. The police officers that patrolled the streets were well liked by the inhabitants and commanded old-fashioned respect, even from the teenagers. It was a fantastic place to live, work and raise a family as far as the Pace family were concerned.

  Blessed with a fantastic climate, beautiful beaches and great diving, the town was a favourite of sporting tourists, mainly scuba divers and windsurfers. Its three hotels were all five-star rated and attracted the better-heeled tourists, while tight controls on guesthouses and private rooms limited tourist numbers to a manageable level. Their money was very welcome but tacky motels or amusement parks would never be allowed in Dasler.