“No, what?” Drake whispered back.
“Someone follow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quiet.” Uncle Pete stood stock-still for half a minute and nodded. “Not far behind.”
“What do we do?”
“We go.”
“Right. But how do we lose them?”
Uncle Pete spit into the bushes. “We don’t. We kill.”
“What? We can’t go around murdering people,” Drake protested.
“They kill you, then.”
Drake swallowed hard, reality setting in. He was in another nightmare like that with the Russians in the Amazon, where only one party emerged alive. Suddenly the innocuous jaunt the CIA had described had become a killing field; and in his corner was a highly questionable Thai whose background was a complete unknown and who had the only weapon.
Uncle Pete set off at a fast trot and Drake hurried to keep up. They moved along the ridge, the drop to the stream steep and deadly, and then the trail forked. Uncle Pete took the uphill track, surprising Drake, but stopped after a dozen yards and broke a couple of branches before he turned on his heel and led Drake along the downhill slope. Drake understood his strategy without any explanation – it was possible their pursuers might believe they’d taken the high road, buying Drake and Uncle Pete a little additional time.
Ten minutes later, Uncle Pete stopped beside a clump of bamboo. He eyed several fallen stalks and selected two yellowed, desiccated lengths, and reached into his pocket and removed a butterfly knife, which he flipped open theatrically. He made short work of fashioning two jagged points, and then set to work on trimming the opposite ends so he had a pair of six-foot-long spears.
Drake watched him wordlessly and then whispered, “What are you going to do with those?”
“What you think?”
“Why not just shoot them?”
“Maybe. Depend how many.”
“Can’t we just hide?”
Uncle Pete nodded. “We will.”
“Where?”
He pointed at a banyan tree whose branches shaded the trail. “In tree. They come, we jump, spear like fish.”
“That’ll never work. Just shoot them.”
“Shooting make noise. Bring more bad men.”
“Shooting’s efficient. Something goes wrong, we’re dead if all we have is spears.”
“Still got gun. Spears better.”
“It’s insane.”
“Come. We climb.”
Chapter 23
A pair of oriental pied hornbills flapped into the sky as a trio of gunmen worked their way down the trail, having only been duped by the broken branches on the upper trail for a few minutes. They moved carefully, their sandals quiet on the ground, their AK-47s held at present arms, ready to fire. All wore the simple vestments of rice farmers, baggy long-sleeved shirts and loose pants rolled to the knee, and the skin on their exposed hands and faces was brown as pecans.
They came around a bend, and the lead gunman slowed near a banyan tree. He pointed at where the bark was frayed off a low-hanging branch and motioned for his companions to spread out, their weapons now trained on the tree’s breadth. As they approached, the leader signaled for the man on his right to circle the tree; anyone hoping to ambush them was likely hiding on the back side. The gunman nodded and crept around the trunk, squinting up at where sun was streaming through the dense cover.
The gunman looked at the lead man and shook his head. The other two moved to where he was standing, puzzled expressions on their faces. Someone had climbed the tree. But to what end?
There was now nobody there.
~ ~ ~
Drake studied the raft that he and Uncle Pete had painstakingly constructed from branches they’d gathered. The contrivance bobbed unsteadily in the current, and Drake shook his head.
“Not a chance.”
“Only way end trail.”
“It’s the best way to drown, you mean.”
“You no want kill anyone, so run like schoolgirls. Can’t run forever.”
“I don’t think it’ll support both of us.”
“We try, okay?”
Drake regarded the fronds Uncle Pete had used to tie the collection of flotsam together. It was suicide to try to navigate the river, which at this point was easily thirty yards wide and obviously deep, but he could also see the resourceful Thai’s point: they had to lose their tail if they were to avoid a gunfight. Getting a little wet was certainly preferable to being shot to pieces.
“You get on first. Let’s see how it holds,” Drake suggested.
Uncle Pete shook his head disgustedly and moved to the raft. He waded knee deep into the water and dragged himself onto the makeshift platform. The raft sank a good three inches, but remained afloat. Drake didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.
“See? No problem.” The raft shifted and creaked as though taunting Drake. Uncle Pete held out his hand. “Need help?”
“No, I think I can manage getting onto a raft.”
Drake inched into the water, holding the vine they’d used as a tether, and crawled aboard the raft next to Uncle Pete. It was now barely above the water, but still floating, Drake had to admit. The current took hold and they began drifting south. The chocolate water frothed around them, the river swollen from rain runoff. They were running out of time before dark, and the sun was now sinking into the western mountains of Myanmar. Even though Drake was reluctant to give Uncle Pete credit, he had to admit that the raft was doing its job, as every yard they drifted put another between them and the abrupt end of the trail they’d left.
“You sure they’ll give up once they see we’re no longer on land?”
“Probably. Want to get home before night, if they smart.”
“Sure. They probably have families.”
“No. Scared of other killers in jungle. This place bad. Lotsa drug wars.”
“But doesn’t the same danger also apply to us?”
“One problem one time.”
Several minutes went by, and the river curved so they couldn’t see the spit of land from where they’d pushed off any longer. If nothing else, Uncle Pete’s idea had done its job, and now, assuming he was right, all they had to do was float down the Mekong and they’d be able to find a barge headed south.
“Uncle Pete, I’ve got to hand it to you–”
Drake was interrupted by the sound of water splashing directly ahead of them. They turned to face downstream and Drake spotted a ledge no more than ten yards away where the river disappeared – a waterfall where the froth was spilling over.
“What do we do now?” Drake asked.
“Hang on.”
They picked up speed as they neared the waterfall and then they were over it, landing hard in the froth six feet below the falls.
The raft gave a sickening lurch and split in pieces as the bindings let loose. Drake watched helplessly as a third of the branches drifted away, and then he was sitting in six inches of water, the raft breaking apart beneath them.
“Damn,” Drake said, and then the rest of the bundled wood let go and he was swimming for shore, fighting the undercurrent and trying to keep his head above water. Uncle Pete was splashing a few yards ahead of him, pulling for the bank with all his might.
They made it to the rocky slope and dragged themselves out of the water. Drake spit a mouthful of brown to the side and made a face. Uncle Pete coughed and eyed their surroundings.
“You think we got far enough to lose them?” Drake asked.
“Know soon. Hope so.”
They looked up at the peak of a green mountain towering above, and Uncle Pete forced himself to his feet, dripping but uninjured. He dumped water and mud from the barrel of the submachine gun and then moved back to the water to rinse it. Once finished, he stripped the weapon and wiped away the worst of the grit. Drake watched him and then gazed off at where the sun was dipping into the hills.
“Now what?”
“We close to Meko
ng. Road run along Laos side. Get to road, easier going. Follow nose.”
“Not much light left.”
“We camping, for sure.”
“Would have been nice if we’d managed to grab one of the backpacks,” Drake said, thinking about the equipment now underwater in the wreckage of the helicopter. He tried to imagine the senator’s daughter’s plane going down, at night, and realized that they really were completely out of their depth – the jungle was vast, and they were only a few amateurs. A wave of hopelessness washed over him, and he felt like an idiot for allowing himself to be talked into the search. His ego had gotten the better of him, and the CIA had played to that – Drake Ramsey, master treasure hunter, unstoppable force of nature, doer of big deeds.
“What’s the saying? Never believe your own press releases…” Drake muttered, and Pete gave him a dark look. Drake tried a grin and felt grit between his teeth. “Nothing. Just thinking.”
Uncle Pete finished with the gun and began walking along the bank. “We get away from water. They still after us, they walk down bank like me. No good.”
“You really think we can find the Mekong without tracking the river?”
“Gonna give try.”
They made it no more than a quarter mile before dusk surrendered to night, and stopped near a clearing. Drake took the first three-hour watch while Uncle Pete tried to sleep with the calls of nocturnal animals for a lullaby and the elephant grass and rocky ground for a bed.
Chapter 24
Chiang Rai, Thailand
Reggie Waters, former Georgetown halfback and now one of the CIA’s deep-jungle field specialists, stepped from the jet and made his way to the arrivals area inside the airport, checking his cell phone signal as he walked. He’d been on planes for the equivalent of two days, with the connections and the time difference from Washington to Bangkok, and he was anxious to meet the treasure hunters, who headquarters had assured him were already searching for the downed plane.
Reggie had arranged with Uncle Pete to meet up after the day’s helicopter flight, and he checked the time as he strode through the terminal to where a throng of sad little taxis and tuk-tuks waited outside in the shade provided by the roof overhang. He selected the least decrepit vehicle and gave the driver the address of the group’s hotel as he blotted his brow, his skin the color of cappuccino from a Caucasian father and Jamaican mother. The low-horsepower motorcycle engine revved to life and the driver called out to his fellows, presumably announcing when he’d return.
The town had all the charm of a fungal infection, but Reggie felt at home. He’d spent more than his share of time in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Central America, so he was used to the conditions. Compared to some of those spots, Chiang Rai was Park Avenue.
The trip to the hotel took ten minutes, and by the time he arrived, he was ready to be rid of the tuk-tuk, the exhaust of which seemed to spew directly into the passenger seating area. He paid the driver and carried his bag to the office. He was accustomed to living out of a suitcase and, sometimes, out of a tent; it was often rough duty, but he did a job few could, and it was a necessary one, he believed.
At forty-three Reggie was old by field standards to still have an operational career, but he dreaded the prospect of a desk job – the inevitable future as an analyst, which would pay well but was about as exciting as getting his teeth cleaned. Reggie was an adrenaline junkie through and through, and the idea of sitting in a cubicle made him cringe, so much so that he’d begun exploring retirement to one of the islands he’d set his eye on. Belize, Honduras, Panama, all had the environment he enjoyed – away from his fellow man, living in harmony with nature.
The hotel was passable, and he killed time wandering the nearby streets. When his six o’clock meeting with the group didn’t happen, he began to worry, and by nightfall he was sure something had gone wrong. When eight o’clock came and went with no Uncle Pete, he made a series of calls to headquarters, the last of which assured him that he would receive instructions as soon as anyone knew anything.
Half an hour later his phone rang, and he thumbed it to life on the second ring. “Waters,” he answered.
“Big problem. Air traffic control shows their transponder in the middle of the Laotian jungle.” The dispassionate voice gave him the coordinates.
“Maybe they located the target?”
“Negative – they’re not answering their sat phone, and they didn’t call, which they would have if they’d found the plane. The transponder signal is weak, but it looks like it’s coming from the middle of a small river a few miles from the Mekong. We had a satellite overhead and there wasn’t much cloud cover in that area, so we were able to pick them up on the historical footage from the bird.” Reggie’s control paused. “It shows the helo crashing into the river.”
“Shot down?”
“Not that we could see. The rotor looks like it just froze up. It dropped like a rock.”
“Crap. So how should I proceed?”
“We zoomed in, and four passengers managed to make it out.”
“Then they’re alive?”
“At least they were then. But it gets worse. Drug smugglers are operating in the area, and they went after our gang. So they’re now either dead or stranded somewhere in the jungle. We want you to go in and verify which it is.”
“I’m presuming there’s been no communication,” Reggie said, just to be clear.
“Roger that.”
“Any backup?” Reggie asked.
“Negative. You’re not to wait. Go in ASAP.”
“It’s already dark here. I’ll have to line something up. Might take until tomorrow morning.”
“Understood. Keep the line open and report in when you have the logistics confirmed.”
“10-4. My phone will be on.”
Reggie terminated the call and sat, thinking, for several minutes before retrieving a zipped satchel from the bag on his bed. He withdrew two stacks of currency – one dollars, in fifties and hundreds, the other Thai baht. He’d need to spread some money around to find someone willing to ferry him to where the helicopter had gone down, and that wouldn’t happen instantly. If he was lucky, he could be underway by late morning, after locating a suitable craft with a captain who could exercise appropriate discretion. He checked Google Earth, entered the coordinates his control had given him, and then zoomed out to see where the nearest outpost of civilization was. He spotted what he was looking for and nodded. Surely there would be someone he could sway with his powers of persuasion and a fistful of hard cash. It would just be a matter of pounding the waterfront at dawn.
He peeled off a suitable slug of both denominations and stuffed the wads into the pocket of his Ripstop TDU cargo pants, and then repacked his bag and set off to find someone to drive him north to Chiang Saen, on the Mekong River – a charming little hamlet that was as close as you could get to the epicenter of the infamous Golden Triangle, where the borders of Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar converged. He wasn’t worried about accommodations – there was sure to be at least one fleabag where he could find a room, given the town’s prominent location as a trafficking stop. His only concern was getting up there. Chiang Rai didn’t seem like the kind of place where anyone drove the roads at night if they could help it, and he fully expected to be turned down a number of times before locating a ride.
Reggie’s most pessimistic expectations were more than met, and he wound up spending the better part of an hour being rejected by every working taxi in the city. Eventually he found a trucker in a bar who was willing to brave the road for a couple hundred dollars, and as they set off into the gloom, he wondered what the odds were that a collection of neophytes could survive in one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Chapter 25
Allie jolted awake. Spencer’s hand covered her mouth, muffling her involuntary cry. She could barely make him out right in front of her in the darkness, but she could see the moonlight reflecting off the whites of his eyes. He moved his lips t
o her ear and whispered so softly she barely understood him.
“Something’s coming.”
She shivered and was instantly alert. He’d said something, not someone, reminding her that the jungle was filled with threats easily as dangerous as the upright biped variety.
“What do we do?”
“Move.”
Spencer’s hand enveloped hers, the AKM in the other, and he led her forward. Branches tore at their clothes as they fought their way through the dense vegetation. They had barely made it a dozen yards when she tripped over a vine and went down with a thud, biting back the yelp of pain her twisted ankle caused.
Spencer was helping her up when a flashlight blinked on from the other side of the clearing and a voice called out in Laotian, which bore some similarities to Thai. Neither of them understood what the speaker was demanding, but the sound of metal on metal from rifles being readied was sufficient translation. Spencer slowly knelt and laid the AKM on the ground and then stood with his hands over his head. Allie struggled to her feet and did the same, slightly off balance as she favored her hurt leg.
Three men approached in the flashlight’s glare. Allie flinched as one of them searched her, his hands roving over every curve. Another man did the same with Spencer before calling out to whoever was holding the light. A response came instantly, and the third member of the trio scooped up Spencer’s AKM while the other two trained weapons on them.
A push against their backs with gun barrels drove Allie and Spencer toward the flashlight, which blinked off as they neared. Their eyes adjusted to the gloom, and they could just make out two more men, also heavily armed, regarding Allie like they’d never seen a female before.
The one with the flashlight barked an order, and the gunmen behind Allie and Spencer prodded them with their weapons again. The flashlight bearer, clearly the leader, turned and led them into the night, the trees swallowing them up as they left the clearing and moved through the jungle.
Emerald Buddha (Drake Ramsey Book 2) Page 14