The Amazon Code

by Nick Thacker

  Joshua reached for his own combat knife, pulling it out of its sheath on his leg. He held it up over the wound, and Julie looked away, repulsed. She tried to ignore the sounds of flesh being cut.

  “Here,” he said, and Julie looked down again. Joshua’s hand was covered in blood, but in his fingers he held up a small cylindrical device.

  “Is that a tracking device?” Ben asked.

  Joshua nodded.

  “Sick,” Reggie said. “Masochist.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Joshua said. “The good news is we’re off the grid now.” He used the blade of his knife to rip open the device, pulled out its electronic innards, and threw the lot of it down and stomped on it with the heel of his boot. “The Company can’t find us out here,” he said.

  “Maybe not,” Archie said, “but they can.” Julie turned to see what he was pointing at.

  The mercenaries were standing just on the other side of the river, preparing to cross. She wondered why they hadn’t fired, then realized where they stood.

  They have us pinned down. No need to waste ammunition. They can get closer, grab Dr. Meron, then pick us off one by one.

  “Guys, we need to move,” she said. “We’re standing in front of a cliff. No way we’re getting up and over it before they’re here.”

  But Julie felt a sense of dread wash over her as she realized how wrong she’d been. The mercenaries opened fire, the first rounds hitting the water just feet from them. They’re not afraid to waste ammo, she thought. They want us all dead.

  As soon as possible.

  57

  “RUN!” REGGIE YELLED, BUT THE command fell on deaf ears. All the others, including Amanda, were already diving into the trees at the edge of the river.

  They were less than a hundred yards from the cliff face, and Reggie knew once they hit that, there were only three options for progressing forward: to the left, following alongside the cliff as it circled back through the valley, to the right, also following the cliff, or straight up.

  The destination, according to their maps, had them scaling the cliff and continuing on in the same direction they had been traveling. But Reggie knew there was no possible way they could climb — without gear, of course — straight up the cliff and onto its top without the group of soldiers behind catching up and picking them off as they ascended.

  That left two options: left or right. Neither got them closer to their target, but both were equally poor choices. In Reggie’s mind, that meant they were both equally good choices. As long as we stay together, he thought.

  The mercenaries were still firing at them, even though his group was well into the cover of the trees and into the swampy section of land surrounding them. He assumed their ammunition stores were far higher than he had originally anticipated, and that they were hoping for a lucky shot or two to zing through the forest and hit one of them.

  Joshua ran directly in front of Reggie, giving Reggie a visible reminder of the other topic he was still mulling over. Joshua had shot his own brother, at almost point-blank range, without batting an eye. It was a heroic gesture, when Reggie considered that Joshua might have done it in the interest of saving the rest of them, but Reggie knew there were always at least two sides to every story. In this particular story, Joshua seemed to have always carried some grievances against his brother, and he knew Joshua was telling the truth when it came to his distrust for his younger sibling. Still, Joshua didn’t even hesitate when Rhett sprang forward on the attack. He lifted his gun and fired — twice — into his own family member’s chest.

  Reggie considered that if Joshua was anyone else, he might have justified the action by assuming the reaction was involuntary, just a natural desire to protect oneself and survive. However, Joshua seemed to be as well-trained as Reggie himself, meaning that his ability to think on his feet and make split-second decisions was one of the characteristics that had kept him alive in his line of work so far.

  Other than that, Reggie couldn’t figure out any plausible explanation for Joshua to join up with their group under the guise of wanting to “help them out.” His soldiers were stronger, better trained, and had far more experience than Reggie’s own group, on average. Reggie was the only one of them with military experience, and certainly the only one with actual battlefield training. Joshua would be stupid to think that he needed to convince them he was better off fighting on their side than his own.

  That left one final explanation for Joshua’s actions back at the river. Reggie chewed on this, considering the different sides and motives involved, and finally landed on the truth. He considered Occam’s Razor, a principle he used to define a situation by the number of assumptions that could be made about it. Whatever solution seemed simplest — in other words, had the fewest assumptions that could be made about it — was likely the correct solution.

  The solution, according to this principle, was that Joshua was telling the truth. He had stumbled through the jungle with Amanda and Julie because he had helped free them after deciding his own company was no longer aligned with his interests. He needed the help of Reggie’s group, and knew that his own chance of survival was greater fighting against the men he had led out here.

  It wasn’t an altruistic move, either. Reggie knew that the man was most interested in his own survival — just like everyone else in the world. It just so happened that he shared a common enemy with Reggie’s group and had a common goal: figure out who was really pulling the strings in his organization. In order to do that, he would need to help Reggie and the others find the solution to their problem and get out of the rainforest alive.

  Reggie realized they had made it to the cliff when he nearly bumped into Joshua. Paulinho, Archie, and Amanda were slightly behind the rest of them, but Ben and Julie were waiting already in front of a large, moss-covered rock. Directly behind that, the cliff rose up past the top of the tree canopy into the sky.

  “Now what?” Ben asked.

  Reggie waited for Paulinho, Archie, and Amanda to arrive and catch their breath. “I don’t know, to tell you the truth,” he said. “There’s no way we’re getting up that cliff with no gear, and especially not before the rest of your guys arrive.” He directed the last sentence at Joshua, hoping that the man might have a suggestion. He smirked, and raised an eyebrow, waiting.

  Joshua shook his head. “Unfortunately, I think I reached the same conclusion.”

  The gunfire had subsided for the moment, but Reggie calculated that they only had a minute, maybe two, before it started again. And unless they figured out how to disappear, it was going to be a bloodbath.

  “Anyone have any bright ideas? Basically: left or right?”

  Reggie looked around at his battered, broken group. Paulinho was still holding his head as if trying to force back a massive migraine. Amanda was holding her side, breathing heavy gasps of air. Archie, considering his age, was doing remarkably well but still struggling. Ben and Julie were holding hands, but he could almost feel the tension between them. It was a tension he felt as well; it was a tension he knew all too well.

  His mind flashed back to another time, another place. He was running through the desert, trying to find the target he’d been ordered to bring in. His team was spread out over the dunes on either side of him, all running forward. The tension he felt then nearly matched the heat of the day, beating down on all of them as it blistered their bodies and gear. They ran for what seemed like an entire day, but he knew by the sun’s refusal to move forward even an inch that they hadn’t been traveling for more than a few minutes. He remembered wondering why his squad wasn’t given any specific instruction beyond the few mission parameters they had. Find target, acquire target, return to base.

  They never made it back to base. Reggie returned, alone, three days later.

  “Reggie, you okay?” Reggie snapped up and saw that the others were staring at him. Ben stepped forward and grabbed his shoulder. “We’re going left, unless —“

  Reggie grinned. “Le
ft sounds great. What are we waiting for?”

  Ben smiled and returned to Julie’s side.

  Reggie turned the opposite direction and saw that Paulinho was still holding his head, only this time with both hands.

  “I — I’m sorry, I cannot continue on much longer.” Paulinho’s words were stuttered, forced out through quick breaths of air.

  “What’s going on?” Reggie asked.

  “My head,” Paulina said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s worse than I’ve ever felt.”

  “A headache?” Amanda asked. She reached up and put her hand on his temple, slowly massaging it. Paulinho seemed to appreciate the gesture, dropping one of his hands to his side, but he groaned in agony.

  He nodded. “Yes, worse than any other migraine. It started on the boat, but I thought it was related to my injury.” His eyes were closed, squeezed tightly shut in pain. “I didn’t want to say anything, but —“

  “Nonsense,” Amanda said. “There might be internal bleeding. Something that snuck up on you; maybe you were hit harder than you —“

  “No,” Paulinho said, shaking his head. “It’s not that. It isn’t a physical pain. I’m not sure how to describe it, other than that.”

  Reggie walked over and examined Paulinho quickly. “There isn’t much we can do out here, friend. But we have to move.”

  “No, that’s — I understand,” Paulinho said. “I just wanted to mention it, so that you know why I must stop…”

  “You’re going to be fine,” Reggie said. He wasn’t much for sentimental statements, and certainly not those he couldn’t back up. He hated giving people false hope, but there was no other option. He refused to leave anyone behind. “Can you walk?”

  Paulinho nodded slowly. “I will live. I will let you know if it gets worse.”

  Reggie knew they didn’t have any more time to spare. Without another word he started walking to the front of the group and continued on into the forest, keeping the cliff to his right.

  “They’ve crossed the river by now,” he said to Joshua and Ben, knowing that both men were directly behind him. “Shouldn’t be much longer before they’re —“

  “Get down!” Ben yelled from somewhere behind him. Without stopping to assess the situation for himself, Reggie fell onto his stomach into a prone position. Immediately the gunfire resumed, much closer than he had imagined it would be.

  Each shot was doubled, the sound reverberating off of the cliff face and back to his ears a second time. He heard yelling as well, not from his own group but from the men tracking them through the jungle. They were signaling each other as to the whereabouts of their prey, which only meant they had found the location of Reggie’s group.

  He felt safe on the ground, lying down and keeping a low profile, but he knew it was only a relative safety. It was temporary. They needed to move forward, even at the risk one of the mercenaries’ shots landing. They had only seconds before the mercenaries completely surrounded them. Only seconds before the mercenaries could aim at actual targets and not just voices bouncing off the cliff.

  As difficult as it was, he pushed himself off the hard jungle ground and into a standing position, hoping the others would heed his example. He continued forward, checking that his pistol had a full magazine by reaching into the larger pocket of his cargo pants. He subconsciously recognized that there was only one clip remaining, and second-guessed whether or not he had packed more into the two bug-out bags they were still carrying.

  Before he could determine whether or not they had enough ammunition to last one more firefight, Reggie remembered that they were — either way — completely outgunned and outmatched. They had two pistols to share between himself and Ben, and Joshua’s rifle and pistol, and possibly enough ammo to last a few minutes of sustained fire. All of that would be against about ten assault rifles, wielded by professionals who had been well-trained on that particular weapon.

  The odds were long, and they were running out of daylight. He ran through the plausible scenarios in his mind, trying to land on one and that did not end with their deaths.

  Unsatisfied with the result, Reggie charged forward through the jungle after insuring that Ben, Joshua, and the others were following behind.

  58

  REGGIE WAS ONLY A FEW feet in front of him, pacing himself at a speed that he must have assumed it was reasonable enough for the slower members of the group — Archie, Paulinho, and Amanda — could match. Joshua was running alongside Ben, and Julie was just behind him, keeping pace.

  Ben wondered what the mercenaries were shooting at, since none of his group had yet been struck by a stray bullet. They kept up their three-round bursts, pushing Ben and his group forward with every trigger pull. Either they had an unlimited supply of ammunition they were using to scare their prey, or they were shooting at shadows.

  Suddenly Ben considered that there may be a third option. They might actually be shooting at people, he thought. Just not us.

  As soon as he felt the relief the realization implied, terror set in again. If they are shooting at other people, who?

  The answer found him a few steps away. Ben’s right boot hit the forest floor with a dampened thud as the moss and overgrown rocks consumed the sound. Before his left boot hit, his body was pulled sideways — hard — into the cliff.

  He tensed, waiting to slam into the hard rock surface of the cliff. The moment never came, and instead he was pulled through a winding set of thick vines, their leafy sprouts completely obscuring the opening.

  It was a hole in the cliff, like a cave, just a crack running from the ground upward. Wide enough for a man to fit through, but completely masked by the foliage hanging down. He nearly fell as he stumbled sideways, but the strong hands that held his arm and shoulder righted him as he regained his balance. The entire motion was too quick for him to even cry out, but he reached for his pistol.

  Another hand was suddenly present, pressing his own hand to his side and preventing him from retrieving his weapon. He wanted to scream, pulled backwards into the darkness. He felt the humidity of the cave, somehow still greater than that of the forest outside, and the sweaty-palmed hands of his attackers increasing in number every second. Soon a hand was placed over his mouth and eyes, and he felt his legs being lifted into the air. The only connection to the outside world he had — the ground this place shared with it — was soon taken from him as well as he felt his body levitating in the air, supported by countless hands carrying him along.

  Julie. The single word made him writhe and buck in denial, but it was no use. He was now completely at the whim of the thousand-hand attack that was dragging him deeper and deeper into the cave.

  Deeper.

  The cave seemed never-ending. Ben kept waiting to feel the hands constricting him, a human anaconda slowly squeezing him of life, but it never came. They simply carried him, steadily, stealthily, into the dark recesses of the cave. His mind drifted away, unable to fight against the soothing feeling of relaxation from so many hands and fingers applying pressure to his body as they held him in place. He again thought of Julie.

  A light appeared, manifesting itself through a flickering of shadows above his head. He was on his back, the hands mostly beneath him and on his sides, and the shadows danced and played around the edges of his vision, some of the longer ones extending up and over his head. He called out to Julie, but heard no response. The entire ordeal was eerily silent, and the appearance of the shadows above and around him were the only indicator he wasn’t dreaming.

  The light became a tangle of grays on the rocks, then shades of dim color. The hands were real now, he could see them, each one a part of a pair that belonged to the people carrying him.

  People. He felt their presence now, now that their silhouettes were bathed in light. They hadn’t spoken, and he hadn’t heard any of them making even the slightest noise, but now they were real to him. Ben could see their eyes, dark and hollow as they were washed in the far-off light from somewhere behind him. The
y walked into this light, and with each step became more and more human.

  They were native Amazonian, similar in stature to the group of warriors they’d seen in the atrium, but he knew they were a completely different tribe. The men carrying him were covered in a gray coat of ash, each of them seeming to have grown out of the cave walls, living ghosts of the cliff. They wore headbands made of a woven rope, thin and wrapped once around their foreheads and tied at the back. On the tail of these headbands colored beads and stones were tied together, hanging at different lengths on each man’s head. Many of the men were shorter than Ben, but all had the sinewy musculature of fit, lean warriors. None wore shirts, but he noticed a few of them wearing shorts or long pants.

  One of the men nearest Ben’s head leaned close to him and spoke something toward him. He couldn’t discern any of the words, and the voice itself seemed alien. Gravelly, with a deep, mature tone, the sentence wasn’t hostile or kind, but lay somewhere in-between. He looked up at the native, hoping he wasn’t being asked a question.

  The man repeated the words.

  Ben tried to shrug but he was still being held in place by the mens’ hands. They carried him a few more steps and he was out of the cave and back into the glaring sunlight.

  He blinked the brightness away, then felt himself being set down, gently, on the grass. They took his weapons and pack away, the hands carrying them somewhere out of sight. Ben turned his head as he lay there, unsure of what they expected from him but still wanting to get a look at his new surroundings.

  The sunlight was unimpeded, the canopy of trees he had grown accustomed to seeing overhead long gone. None of the thick foliage of the rest of the forest had found its way here, and Ben was shocked to discover that “here” was a circular, open area, surrounded on all sides by the cliff. There was no “top” to the plateau they’d seen — just a natural wall encircling a gorgeous, lush valley. Ben saw that there was even a stream winding through the center of the valley, fed by a tall, thin waterfall at the far end of the circle. It disappeared into a small lake, then continued past Ben and out a hidden crevice beneath one of the walls of the cliff.