by Noel Hynd
Reflexively, she knelt down low into a firing position, partially concealed by the wall. In a fury, she fired at one of the men who had shot the boy and his mother.
She saw the weapon fly from the man’s hands. The man clutched his chest and went to a knee, stunned.
Alex had hit him in the middle of his gut. She turned her pistol toward the other gunman, who had suddenly realized they were under fire. Alex fired two shots at him. The first one spun him, the second one dropped him.
Then she heard another popping sound. Then a second. Father Martin lay motionless on the ground. His killer stood over him. Then he turned toward Alex.
Alex stood and, against all logic, in a blind rage, stepped out from cover. She held her Beretta forward, steadied it and fired twice. The first shot hit Father Martin’s killer in the upper chest, the second hit him full in the face. Then she heard a bullet whistle past her and smack into the stucco of the church.
She stepped back under cover. She knew the rest of the invading party would now come for her. Some of them would circle the church and try to come up behind her.
Before they could, she fled. She ran at full speed past her cottage and into heavy foliage beyond, a sickening horror still in her gut, but an instinct for survival pushing her onward. She reached the heavy foliage beyond the back of the church. She kept herself low as she ran in a zigzag pattern, pushing and pulling her way through the brush. Brambles and small branches struck at her bare legs, scratching her badly.
She kept going. Occasional shots came after her.
She stopped behind a tree. She could see slightly through a clearing. She needed to slow down her pursuers. She saw one gunman who had a teenage girl from the village by the arm. He was about forty yards away. Then she realized it was Paulina he was threatening.
Alex raised her Beretta. It was a risky shot, almost worthy of a sniper with a pistol, but she could hold her hands steady and shoot from cover.
She took the shot. She hit him full in the chest. She watched him reel backward and go down. She saw Paulina flee. Alex put a second bullet into him for good measure.
Alex knew that she would be followed. She ran deeper into the jungle. A barrage of bullets from automatic weapons ripped through the brush on different sides of her. One shot, the closest, tore into the bark of a tree about ten feet away.
But she knew they were firing wildly now. She kept herself low, her heart pounding, her adrenaline racing, her heart in her throat.
She didn’t return fire. Her only instinct was to get as far into the jungle as possible, change directions, and escape.
She kept moving. In the distance, she could hear them coming after her.
SEVENTY-ONE
L t. Rizzo had had a horrid week.
First, Mimi, his favorite intern and Sailor Moon girl, had changed her course of studies at the university. Because of this, her schedule at the university had changed. She had signed up for a series of art and design courses that conflicted with her internship with the city police department. Hence, she had resigned her position with the Roman police. The irony of all this was that she and her new boyfriend, Enrico, were inseparable in their off hours.
An even worse disaster had occurred with Sophie. Rizzo might have known that no long-term good could come from her working at one of those chic designer clothing places on the via Condotti. Flouncing around in there each day, modeling the chic dresses, designer jeans, sheer blouses, and snug miniskirts, it was a matter of time before the wrong pair of male eyes settled upon her.
In this case, the wrong pair of eyes belonged to an American pop singer who went by the stage name of Billy-O. He was a guy in his thirties who had limited musical range but was a first-class piece of eye candy. His music producers in Los Angeles pushed him heavily and were currently getting him into some films. They had even hired a hack Hollywood TV writer to usher in a new script for him.
Thus Billy-O’s income resembled the GNP of a small hot country, even though he personally had more fun than a small hot country. In his public life, he played the part of a white working-class rocker-rapper up against the establishment, and his music matched that image. The truth was, he was a spoiled kid from the New York suburbs. Sammy Newman was his real name. He was a young man who dragged three broken marriages behind him, dozens of affairs, and a couple of attache cases filled with lawsuits. But he still was one of the great lotharios of his generation. The man was a known bad boy; no one ever came out of a relationship with him better off than they’d gone in. But women couldn’t resist him. Sophie was his latest. They had met in the clothing shop, and now she had taken a few vacation days to spend a long weekend with il cretino, as Rizzo thought of him, in Monte Carlo.
So much for the lot of a career policeman when some Hollywood music Adonis rolled into Rome and started to flash a limitless bankroll.
All of this left Rizzo in a thoroughly rotten mood as summer finally arrived in Rome and the month of July progressed. It also gave him more than a bit of a rotten attitude. So when his captain phoned him on a Monday in the middle of the month and requested that he assemble all the papers and documents he had on the two abandoned murder cases, he met the request with a subservient growl. Rizzo was to assemble all his information and prepare for a meeting with some law-enforcement agents of another nation.
When he learned through the grapevine that the agents he would meet with were American, he pondered the possibilities and complications before him.
He wondered, in his best passive-aggressive manner, how he could make the most of what was obviously a wonderful opportunity.
He looked at the calendar. Two weeks till retirement. Well, he would do some administrative finagling and maybe push back retirement for another sixty days. There were some strings that needed to be pulled, some contacts who needed to take care of a few things. The Roman police were understaffed right now anyway. No one would mind much if he remained on to take care of some pressing open cases.
Mimi and Enrico, he mused to himself as he assembled everything on the four murders. Sophie and Billy-O. What was the world coming to?
SEVENTY-TWO
A lex lay perfectly still in the underbrush, feeling the insects in a cloud around her face, feeling the humidity of the jungle drench her clothing. She had maintained her position for several hours.
She lay low on her right side against a small embankment of rocks, a tangle of branches and leaves pulled over her to conceal her. Her bare legs extended into the tall grass for cover. She was dripping with sweat, lying on her side, listening carefully to hear if any of the enemy assassins were near. Twice they had passed within ten feet of her. She had kept her pistol raised and even had one of the men in her sights. But they hadn’t seen her. So she hadn’t betrayed her position by firing.
She tried to separate the sounds of the jungle from the sounds of human pursuers. She listened for voices. She heard none. She had put the weapon away. Then she heard movement somewhere.
She moved her hand to her weapon and again pulled the Beretta from her holster. She positioned the weapon close to her, leaning on one elbow, keeping both hands on the gun. Her heart started to race again. Almost every sound seemed like the enemy. Who were these people and why would they have attacked peaceful missionaries and an isolated village? Yet in the forefront of her mind, all she could think of was her own survival.
At this point, it was defend yourself or be killed.
Just like Kiev.
She wished the world weren’t like this, but it was. Nervous tic time again. As she leaned on one elbow, one hand strayed from the pistol and went to her neck. Instead of finding the little gold cross that she had felt there for twenty years, she found the pendant Paulina had made for her. She messaged it. It felt cool and reassuring in her hand. Somehow it made her feel better.
She could still hear her own heart pounding. She tried to pace her breathing to let things settle. The underbrush that concealed her was settling around her. Her bare legs stung wh
ere they had picked up some scrapes and small cuts. She would soon have to clean the cuts and apply a strong disinfectant, but how?
Blood poisoning in this part of the world could be instant and horrific. It could paralyze a man or woman with a systemic infection within two or three days. It could kill a person in four. She would need water soon, too. Her mouth was parched. She knew where the streams sliced through the jungle, but it would have to be safe before she could move. No point taking a bullet in the back, even though water meant survival.
She reckoned that she was positioned about five hundred yards from the village. She had carefully noted the position of the sun as she had moved to one point of concealment after another, and she also had her compass.
She hatched out a plan. She would move at dusk, she reasoned, and try to find water. Then she would hide again overnight and try to creep back toward the village near dawn. She guessed that the raid on the village was a hit and run. But she was guessing.
Something in the tall grass shifted, underbrush she guessed, near the lower part of her body. Whatever it was, it pressed against her leg.
Look out for tarantulas, she reminded herself. She moved her legs slightly. Well, too big for a giant spider. It wasn’t small and crawly whatever was pressing against her. It felt like a branch or a vine.
Her heart settled slightly. She heard no voices pursuing, though she knew her pursuers would be quiet. Her heart settled more.
Time passed interminably. The tedium alone, combined with the building thirst, was enough to kill a woman.
Then she felt the pressure on her leg. The “vine” was moving, sliding. Then she felt it slide itself across her legs. At the same time she heard a distinctive rattle. The snake was already upon her bare skin, exploring.
Every instinct within her told her to jerk her leg away. But simultaneously, she knew she was dead if she moved. The snake had already entwined her. If she budged, it would strike. If it struck, she was dead.
The sweat rolled off her with a new fury. She heard the rattle again and felt the body of the rattlesnake coiled itself in a tightening grip around her leg. She had a knife but couldn’t reach for it.
She moved her head slowly. The serpent was firmly around her calf now and working its way up her leg. Then it was past the knee. Then it was on her thigh a few inches above her right knee.
If she fired a shot, she would draw the attention of her attackers. But at least she would be alive to fight. She would have to kill the snake within the next minute before it sank its fangs into the flesh of her bare thigh.
She couldn’t even see it yet. The tall grass hid it. She moved her gun slowly, positioning its nose in the direction of the snake. She would have one shot to try to save her life, but if the bullet from her own gun blew her foot off, that would be akin to a death sentence out here, too.
A prayer kept repeating itself in her mind.
Oh, my Lord. Oh, my Lord. Protect me now if you ever have before! She was in tall grass so thick that she couldn’t see past her waist. A little breeze rustled the grass. The snake was still climbing her, staking her out, claiming her.
Alex guessed it might be four feet long because it was coiled around her from her ankle till past her knee, and she couldn’t feel the head or neck of it.
Then the grass moved slightly, and like a small dark ghost emerging from a pale green cloud, the head of the snake poked through, skin glimmering with scales, its small black eyes alive with menace, small black bifurcated tongue flickering in and out.
The rattler was a creature of horror and beauty at the same time. The head was silvery gray, and a row of diamond shaped markings with brown centers outlined in yellow spanned downward from the head to the body. Beyond it, as the grass moved and the snake advanced toward her upper body, its head lifted, Alex could see the tail, lightly striped with brown and yellow.
She gazed at its eyes, elliptical pupils centered by black irises. For a moment it opened its mouth slightly, showing the venomous fangs that could kill her as easily as a jungle fighter’s bullet.
The head was now about eighteen inches away from the nose of her pistol. It seemed to be looking her right in the eye, almost freezing her. The head continued forward. In the back of her mind, she suspected that it was instinctively going for her throat.
Closer.
It was now about a foot from the nose of her gun.
She figured she had one shot. Maybe two if the first one wasn’t a clean hit.
She steadied her wrists as best she could. There would be a kickback to the pistol, enough so that a second shot would be questionable.
The snake moved forward another inch or two, exploring. Then it stopped.
The tongue continued to flick.
She knew. It was ready to strike at her flesh, either her arm or her neck.
Now or never.
The heat pounded her, and the sweat rolled off her so furiously that she felt as if a fat person were lying on top of her.
A final prayer and…
Now! She pulled the trigger.
The weapon erupted with a powerful bang.
The impact upon the snake’s head was instantaneous. The bullet took the snake’s head off with precision, smashing it into oblivion, leaving a writhing decapitated creature spasming and unraveling on her, spilling its reddish yellow guts onto her clothing. The rest of the snake’s upper body, the part that wasn’t coiled around her, flew backward toward the grass, the neck oozing with blood and intestines.
Alex felt the snake’s body go limp around her leg.
She felt a deep sickness in her stomach and wanted to vomit. But she fought back. She reached through the grass and grabbed the remains of the carcass where it was wrapped around her leg. She pulled it off her and flung it away.
She slid forward.
Cautiously, she got to her feet. Both her legs were red and cross hatched from scrapes. She gasped for her breath, breathing hard, the gun still in her hand at her side. She looked in every direction and saw no enemy. Maybe they had departed already. Many people had fled into the jungle, perhaps the attackers had given up and departed. She prayed that was the case.
She guessed the direction of one of the streams. She went five minutes through some heavy foliage, then heard the water. She reasoned that she was about three hundred yards downstream from where the women of Barranco Latoya were used to bathing.
The water there would be safe, she reasoned. And it might be a terrain she knew better than the attackers.
She found the stream. She holstered her gun. She picked a secluded place and removed her shoes and socks. She waded in and drank. Never had water felt so good, satisfied so deeply. She washed the cuts and scrapes on her legs. The abrasions stung but the water soothed. She caught her breath. Then she washed her arms and her face.
She kept up her vigil. She saw no one else. No raiders, no survivors from the village. She wondered if she should creep closer to the village but reasoned that if any gunmen had been left behind, that’s what they would be looking for her to do. So she didn’t. She would maintain her plan to return at the next dawn.
She found some wild roots and berries that she knew to be edible. She had enough nourishment to sustain her. She was still in shock over what had happened, what she had seen, at having been under fire. But she was alive, rallying her spirit and still ready to fight back.
Her hand went to the stone at her neck again, then left.
She moved another hundred yards downstream, measuring the distance with paces, using the position of the sun to verify her direction. She then tailed off into the woods. She found a vantage point and settled in again. She covered herself with leaves and branches and kept her back to a rocky slope.
More time went by. An intense exhaustion began to grip her, then possessed her completely. She closed her eyes, unable to keep them open. Her pistol was in her hand, on her lap. It must have been four in the afternoon when she drifted off.
She opened her eyes again a few
hours later. There was still some daylight and some of her camouflage had been pulled away.
She blinked awake, startled, as someone grabbed the pistol from her. The dying sunlight of the day cast severe shadows among the trees. But she did see the large heavy silhouettes of three men, all in military green and brown camouflage-style uniforms, with beige coiled braids on the right side. All three had automatic rifles.
One of the rifles was pointed straight at her face, inches away. A second man poked her in the shoulder with the nose of his rifle. The third one held her Beretta. He tucked it into his belt. The leader appeared to be about thirty. The two younger men were barely out of their teens. They stared at her as if she had arrived from outer space.
“?Levantese! ” the rifleman ordered. Get up.
Slowly, raising her hands in the air in surrender, she stood.
SEVENTY-THREE
? Quien es? ” one of them asked. Who are you?
She assessed quickly. On their chests they wore nameplates, on their lapels and shoulders, they wore ranks. Militias didn’t do that. On their heads, they wore the floppy hats of regular army units assigned to the mountains.
They were soldiers of the Venezuelan army. The leader was a trim comandante named Ramirez, equivalent to a major. His two men appeared to be privates.
The leader held her at gunpoint and one of the others took her knife away. Then they started patting her down, a frisk and a grope at the same time. Across her body, across her breasts, between her legs. She cringed and pushed back. In return, the groper held her arm tightly, shook her and threatened her with worse if she didn’t cooperate.
She refused to answer them.
The indignities continued. One of the men pushed his hand within her T-shirt and continued to explore. She pulled back angrily, throwing an elbow.
“?Parense! ” she snapped. Stop! “ Soy norteamericana,” she said. “I was in the village when it was raided. I fled.”
Ramirez looked her in the eye. The other two studied her up and down.