Loud crackling and rustling sounded just ahead on the path, and Jackson quickly ducked into a shadowy tree hollow, hoping he wasn’t invading a snake’s hideaway. The snapping and crunching drew closer, preceded by three dancing flashlight beams that crisscrossed the slender path.
He slowed his breathing, slipped the assault rifle strap from his shoulder, and clicked off the safety. Who was tramping around the rainforest at this time of night? There was only one jackpot answer. The drug smugglers.
A lone gunman appeared first. The thickly bearded man studied the path beneath the beam like a professional tracker. Jackson held his breath. His footprints would be easy to spot in the damp earth! He lowered the barrel until its lethal eye was directed at the man’s chest. One trigger tug, and the man would be hamburger.
Two other men crashed clumsily through the bordering vegetation, a steel cage hoisted between them. A spotted jaguar snarled at the rough handling and swiped through the cage bars at its closest captor.
“Be careful, you idiots!” the first man hissed in Portuguese. “You’ll alert the Americans, fools. Our bosses would not like that, no?”
His two gaunt accomplices nodded fearfully at the mention of their superiors.
The tracker pointed down at Jackson’s fresh footprints. “See, the Americans have been down this trail recently,” he said. “It’s time to release our friend.”
Jackson smiled. The tracker was unable to distinguish footprint direction, because his were headed toward the drug smugglers, not back to camp. The three were obviously out of their element in the jungle!
The pair lowered the cage to the ground and hesitantly removed the locking pin.
“Now?” one of the men whispered.
“Now!” the tracker answered, when he stood safely behind the cage.
They raised the cage door. The five-foot jaguar ignored the men and sprang past Jackson up the tree to freedom. The drug smugglers scanned the area again for signs of their enemies, the Americans, and then turned and backtracked along the path. Soon their slashing flashlight beams vanished.
Jackson swallowed dust. He wasn’t out of the woods yet. His feline friend rested on a limb twenty feet above him, waiting for him to move from the hollow’s sanctuary.
The leafy limbs prevented him from getting a clear shot at the one-hundred-and-fifty-pound cat with the rifle. He swore under his breath. If he sprayed the tree limb with a Hail Mary volley, the three smugglers would return quickly. He didn’t like those odds. Not one bit.
A wave of anxiety washed over his calm. He fought it back. The old childhood feeling never failed to reappear at the worst times. Perspiration saturated his face, and he brushed it away. He waited impatiently for the sensation to pass. Time ticked away inside his head like an ominous countdown. Soon the jaguar would make its move, and he had to be ready for the confrontation. Completely focused. Composed.
The predator leaped down from limb to limb until it was crouched above its prey. A snarl rippled its jowls. Jackson lowered his weapon and stepped out onto the path.
The jaguar’s golden eyes locked on his green ones, and for a full minute the large cat did nothing. Its breathing rhythmically swelled and drained its ribcage like blacksmith bellows. It appeared to be a Mexican standoff.
Then, without warning, it leaped to the ground at its prey’s feet, but Jackson didn’t flinch. Didn’t break his hypnotic bond with the savage creature.
Its eyes glowed like moonstones as Jackson gradually lowered the flat of his hand to the top of the jaguar’s head. The coarse fur bristled beneath his touch, but still Jackson remained unaffected. Mosquitoes hummed around his face and fed at will, but his concentration remained unbroken.
A low growl quivered the cat’s throat, but it didn’t attack at the anomalous contact.
Jackson’s mind was filled with vivid images. Several corrupt dockworkers stood talking and smoking on a nondescript river pier in daylight. A line of stacked jaguar cages rested in the shade beside the far dock. The entrances to four cavernous warehouses gaped open and revealed a procession of yellow forklifts motoring in and out like worker ants and transporting unwieldy crates to a moored river freighter.
Since the psychic vision was streamed through the big cat’s brain, the men’s conversation was reduced to unintelligible garble, but Jackson was skilled at reading lips. He interpreted the word Manaus and Thursday before dawn before the unkempt men concluded their banter and begrudgingly returned to work. He committed the layout of the river warehouse zone to memory.
Tomorrow was Thursday, and Manaus was a river town about five miles west of Holloway’s camp. With luck, Desmond and his band of merry men could trap the smugglers in Manaus, while he, Holloway, and his FBI agents could storm the river warehouse operations.
Jackson’s boosted the intensity of his gaze into the animal’s mind, and finally after five tedious and tense minutes, the jaguar sank to its stomach and rolled over on its side, fast asleep. Jackson wiped the feeding insects and a sea of sweat from his face, retrieved the rifle, and jogged toward camp. He didn’t have a moment to waste.
The stark camp lights bled into the darkness directly ahead. Jackson quickened his stride. There was considerable planning to coordinate in a brief amount of time. He just hoped they could pull it off.
Teddi’s life depended on their success.
Chapter 45
Twenty-eight-year-old Tori Hopewell stared out the window of her third-floor townhouse that rested on the fringe of the Everglades along Interstate 75. Her building resembled an island fortress, surrounded on all sides by water. Steaming, stinking swamp water. Thankfully, the townhouse sat above the swamp’s flooded water level.
Whatever had possessed her and her boyfriend, Miguel Sanchez, to purchase the damn place? The developers promised serene country living, that’s why, but those lying assholes were a little vague on the country part of their claim. Their salesman’s animated spiel about country living had excluded mosquitoes, gators, some crocs, boas, and pythons, and of course, water snakes. Lots and lots of nasty snakes. She brushed her red hair from her shoulders and shivered from the many memories of strolling to her car in the early morning to discover coiled water moccasins dotting the pavement. Thick, short, and ugly serpents that were forever pissed off and ready to strike.
And now the rain. Flooding rains. Fucking monsoons! Their brand-new cars sat submerged in the rear of the townhouses under four feet of smelly, gross water, isolating their owners from the world for the past three weeks like island castaways. Their food supply was nearly exhausted, although some local jet skiers made beer, snack, and pizza runs for cash. That is, until every alligator in the world decided to abandon the swamp and pile up around the facility’s perimeter fence like patties on a triple Whopper. Drool formed and leaked out a corner of her mouth. God, that triple-bypass burger sounded damn good at the moment.
Tori scanned the living room walls and felt them closing in on her and Miguel. She was feeling a lot claustrophobic after a steady diet of his company without a break. Rainy day sex had been really great for a while, but they had both grown bored with each other. Depression smothered their ecstasy. Neither felt like rising to the occasion, but they were eager to snap each other’s head off at the slightest provocation. If the waters didn’t recede soon, they might well become victims of a murder-suicide.
Miguel lazed on the couch like a leech on a wound, occasionally showing signs of life if his Florida Marlins won a game. Wins were in short supply this year.
Tori turned away from the rain-splattered window. “I’m going for a short walk around the building,” she announced abruptly.
Miguel’s black mop-topped head popped up. “Say what? Are you nuts, woman? Didn’t you see the gators hanging around down there?” he reminded her.
She pointed out the window into the evening twilight. “They’re outside the fucking fence where they can’t get me. And besides, I can’t go far. Everything’s flooded around our building.”
“Thanks for the advice, Jungle Mig.” Tori retreated to their bedroom, tossed her bathrobe on the unmade bed, and slipped into a brief bikini top and jogging shorts. She adjusted her ample breasts so the pink of her nipples didn’t peek out from the top, and tugged on an older pair of New Balance running shoes.
She surveyed her appearance in the dresser mirror. She looked pretty damn spectacular for a claustrophobic nut job on the verge of hacking her boyfriend into little pieces. She grinned maliciously. All except one part of his anatomy. Her long red hair hung in flowing curves over her shoulders, framing her oval, freckled face. Her normally radiant hazel eyes were dulled from the tedium of isolation.
Tori marched past Miguel and slammed the townhouse door shut behind her without so much as a grunt goodbye. When she opened the steel stairwell door, the humidity wrung her lungs of air and frosted her fair skin with perspiration. She didn’t mind the discomfort. She finally was free from her confinement, if only for a short while.
The ground floor door swung open easily, and Tori paused to scan the dreary landscape. Hundreds of restless alligators were stacked haphazardly against the wrought iron fence, crushing the snake fence that spanned the bottom three feet of the eight-foot fence. The builder advertised it as a means to keep their compound relatively snake-free, but like everything else he promised, it failed to validate his claims.
It ceased raining, and she was glad for the relief. Despite the presence of her new neighbors outside the fence, she threw caution to the wind and moved briskly on the wet sidewalk toward the back of the six-building complex. Parking-lot lights perched atop spindly poles cut through the misty nightfall and relieved some of her anxiety.
Primordial grunts and the swish-slapping of gator tails eroded her pluck as she paused to study the flooded parking lot. A lumpy sea of car rooftops. Tori speculated about how many insurance agents would slice their wrists over the impending claims.
Ahead, at the end of a raised walkway that resembled a narrow dike running parallel to the swamp, Tori stared wistfully at the arched footbridge. It spanned the channel connecting the swamp to the retention pond behind the parking lot and was seldom used. Except for the lake doctor’s puny boat putt-putting in from the Everglades to maintain the pond-water clarity. Chain-link gates spanned the canal opening at the swamp and prevented gators from entering.
Tori loved the pond. Its serene beauty absorbed the stress of her long days of hawking timeshare properties to unreasonable people with too much money and too little appreciation for her talent. But, it was a decent living. Decent enough to allow her to purchase her overpriced townhouse in a country paradise.
Tori continued to ponder the footbridge, but her sarcasm soured her mood. Her stress level elevated a smidge. Her temples tingled at the thought of her poor choices in real estate and boyfriends. She absently massaged her forehead. She chastised herself for the negativity. After all, she came outside to alleviate her tension, not amplify it!
Her eyes roamed the fence that ran precipitously close to the elevated path leading to the footbridge. Her sanctuary. But what if the fence collapsed, sending all those gators streaming into the townhouse property? She’d be trapped on the footbridge until they climbed it and made a meal of her. Stop it, Tori!
Her anxious gaze shifted to the sidewalk surface. She estimated that it was flooded by no more than a few inches of water — shitty, slimy-looking stuff.
Tori took a deep breath. The odds of the fence collapsing were slim to none. She bent and removed her sneakers. Her decision was made. She would walk the two hundred feet to the bridge barefooted in the gross water, and then meditate atop the arched span.
She dropped her shoes on the moist pavement, strode up the ramp that led to the elevated sidewalk, and began her nerve-wracking trek to the bridge beside the gators a mere six feet away. She carefully raised her foot with each step and planted it silently back into the water. No use calling attention to herself — ringing their dinner bell.
Tori was just over halfway to the bridge when she spotted her first water snake, but it S-stroked away from her as if it had more important things to do than inject her with a painful dose of poison.
The footbridge stood in a puddle of black beyond the reach of the parking-lot glow. Normally, the stone structure arched majestically twelve feet above the canal, but the flooding had reduced that clearance in half. The canal gates rested forty feet to the west, and the swamp stretched into the blotted sunset.
Tori hurried the final twenty feet to the bridge and raised her fist in triumph when her foot landed on the relatively dry concrete and stone surface. After rapidly scaling the incline to the top of the arch, she leaned against the short stone wall on the pond side. She made it!
Her eyelids collapsed as the calm of her sanctuary swept over her. She attempted to shove the depression of the past three weeks from her mind. A slight breeze rustled her hair and chilled her damp skin. Her nipples rose like yeast bread against the thin fabric of her top, and she felt a welcome tinge of horniness below. She smiled. Miguel loved her nipples hard. Maybe she should have insisted that he accompany her. They could’ve made mad passionate whoopee on the bridge.
A sudden whooshing below the footbridge erased her sexual fantasy. She peered over the wall and watched swirling ripples disturb the canal surface. Hmm. Too large for snakes, even pythons. Probably a rogue gator that was trapped inside the pond before the rains started falling forever.
Tori looked toward the swamp and the now absolute darkness to the west. Even the gators were invisible. She heard a faint metallic thunk, and she crossed the bridge and squinted into the darkness. A vague movement caught her eye, and her heart raced. The chain-link gates were open and bumping the concrete walls flanking the canal!
Her serenity exploded like a pricked balloon. God, the place could be swarming with gators, and she was the center of attraction. Dinner on a bridge! Come and get it!
Tori fearfully scanned the pond’s visible shoreline to the east where the faint glow from the parking lot cast ragged shadows. No sign of gators there, but they were good at hiding. She dropped her gaze again to the water below the footbridge. The black surface was gator-free. What was up with that? she wondered. The gators should have crowded the canal by now.
As Tori leaned over the wrought iron handrail and pondered the significance of the gator-less canal and pond, a monstrous form burst from the water. Its toothy mouth completely filled her vision and plucked her off the bridge! A scream formed in her throat, but the giant creature’s mouth swiftly closed on her soft flesh and ground her struggling form to lifeless pulp within seconds.
The fifty-foot beast fell back into the canal with a cannonade splash, taking half of the stone arch and the entire handrail with it. A frothy wave washed over the remains of the bridge as the creature swam past the broken gates into the swamp. After its latest snack was forced down its throat into its stomach, the beast sped southward toward the Gulf of Mexico.
It was still ravenous.
Chapter 46
Dex angrily kicked a leg beneath his office desk. His number one choice for a temporary deputy had up and disappeared on him! He propped his elbows on the blotter and buried his face in his calloused hands. Jesus, what else could go wrong?
Phone calls to Jackson’s Louisiana house and to his FBI boss, Charlie Simmons, had yielded a big fat zero on the information scale. The psychic had seemingly vanished into thin air. However, Dex had a sneaking suspicion that Charlie hadn’t come completely clean on the subject of Jackson’s whereabouts, but that was to be expected.
Dex kept in touch with the hospital, too, ostensibly to monitor Teddi’s progress, but he really wanted to know if Dr. George had seen or spoken with Jackson. So far, that was another dea
d end.
Teddi, unfortunately, was still in a deep coma. Dr. George was afraid that the longer she remained comatose, the slimmer her chances of ever awakening. Dex listened, but didn’t believe a word of the doc’s dire predictions. He had a thing called faith on his side, and he truly believed Teddi would wake up soon and be her old sassy self.
The phone rang, and Dex nearly leaped from his chair. A back muscle complained from the sudden awkward movement, and he jammed a fist into his lower back and plucked the receiver with his other hand.
“Sheriff Lowe,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Hey, Dex, it’s John Redfeather.”
“Good to hear from you.” He meant it. “What’s up?”
“We have a lunch appointment with Professor Jilly Newton Friday at P.F. Chang’s across from Florida Atlantic University.”
He noted on his calendar that that was three days away. “What time?”
“Eleven-thirty. You know, to beat the lunch rush.”
“Gotcha.” Dex wrote down the meeting specifics on a white legal pad. “Did you send her your pictures?”
“Oh yeah. I emailed them.”
“And?”
“She thought we were both full of shit.”
Dex leaned back and laughed, but his back didn’t. He grimaced.
John chuckled. “But after watching the displaced gator population on television and a close-up of the Lapis brothers’ boat, she backed off a little and agreed to meet us for lunch,” he explained.
“But she still thinks we’re certifiable?”
“Oh yeah, I definitely got that impression.”
“Maybe all the professor really wants is a free meal.”
“I was thinking along those same lines myself, but hey, it’s worth a shot.”
“Amen. I’ll see you Friday.”
“Dex, wait!”
Dex planted the receiver back against his ear. “Yeah?”
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