Kyle was sobbing and he looked down and saw blood cascading over his body and to his feet; droplets flying off of him as he ran through the vegetation.
There was a crash behind him. He looked back to see something rip through the branches. Before he could scream it wrapped around his face and threw him into a tree, smashing his ribs. It flung him back to the beach in one motion and then dragged him into the water. He clawed at the thing around his face but without air and his ribs broken, his strength faded.
He gave up as he felt the cool water against his back. He sensed himself flopping as his lungs began to burst and the last thing he heard was a high-pitched hiss and he thought of a snake, before his skull was crushed.
* * *
24
The sandy winds of Basra blew against Patrick’s face. They had given him goggles and a scarf to wear under the helmet but it never helped. There was always the sand. In his shoes, in his food, in his eyes, in his ears and nose and even his ass. He slept with it at night and woke with it on his face. It got to the point that he began to feel unsettled without it nipping at his skin.
The house in front of him had a large front yard and a garden. A child’s toy, what looked like a tricycle, was out front. He stared at the tricycle a long time. He saw the sun come up and then go down and the blackness of night took over, and then the sun came up again and he felt it burn the patches of skin on his face that were exposed.
“Russell,” his commander shouted, “get yer ass in that house.”
Patrick lifted his weapon and walked toward the house, three men behind him. The front door opened and inside . . .
Patrick jumped up out of bed and fell to the floor. He reached underneath his pillow for his gun but it wasn’t there. His eyes came into focus and he heard Rodrigo snoring in the cot next to him. The throbbing in his head made him wince and he stood up and went to the kitchen. Putting his hands under the faucet, he drank until his belly was full.
Patrick used the bathroom and then got into the shower. It was little more than a hose attached to a sprinkler head in the ceiling but the water was warm and relaxed his muscles and washed off the salty sweat. He was still drunk and he vomited in the shower and felt better afterward.
He dressed and ran his hands through his hair before looking for his wallet and realizing it was gone. He headed outside.
The jeep wasn’t there. He turned to go back inside and ask Rodrigo where Christopher was when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. There was movement in the bushes closest to the hostel. He walked over and peered in but didn’t see anything.
The last thing he remembered was pain in the back of his head, and then the ground rushing toward him.
*****
There was a floating sensation at first. Something like the state right before sleep when one is dozing off. It was euphoric and pleasant, like slipping under a warm blanket, but it only lasted a moment. Then there was the wet ground underneath him and the spatter of rain drops on his face.
Patrick woke underneath the jungle canopy. Though it was raining, the moon was clearly visible in the sky and the light broke through the vegetation and sparkled on the drops of water clinging to the leaves of the jungle. He thought, for only a split second, that he had died.
Then the shouting in Spanish hurled him back to where he was. He looked up and saw several men standing outside of tents and passing around a drink. They were hard looking men with worn faces and one of them was wearing an Indian Jones-style hat with a large scar running down over his face, covered up briefly by a large bushy mustache.
Pain distracted him. There was pounding in his head from the wound on the back and he felt the stickiness of dried blood on his neck. He looked down and his arms and legs were tied like a pig about to be put over a fire.
One of the men walked over and yelled something in Spanish. The man’s Spanish was quick with no breaks; Spanish not meant to be understood by tourists. Dizzy and with a migraine flashing lights before his eyes, Patrick didn’t understand and the man sent a powerful kick into his ribs, knocking the wind out of him.
One of the other men said something in a calming voice and walked over as the other man went back to the tents. This man was tall and wearing canvas shorts and a button-down shirt. He wore a hat and had black stains on his face from dirt. He looked almost like a tour guide except for a leather strap used as a belt that held several grenades and a handgun.
“Hola,” he said. He waited for a response but received none. “How do you feel? Do you need some food?”
“No.”
“You have been unconscious for five hours my friend. I was afraid Jose cracked your skull and you were dying.”
He offered his hand and Patrick held up his arms, showing him they were tied. The man grabbed both his wrists and hoisted him to his feet. As he sat up the blood rushed from his head and he nearly fell over but the man wrapped his arm around him and helped him to his feet. He pulled out a large knife and Patrick froze. He had survived war, disease, and brutal physical abuse at the hands of his father growing up and he thought it strange that this is how he would die.
“You do not seem frightened?” the man asked.
“I’m not scared to die.”
“I can see that. Many people would be begging for their life right now. Are you going to beg?”
“No.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to see if I can take you with me.”
The man laughed, revealing a mouth that was missing several teeth, the remaining yellowed and chipped. “Good,” he said. “I like you.”
He bent down and cut the cords that were binding his feet. He did the same for his hands and then stepped back and put the knife away.
“I am Martín. Who are you?”
Patrick looked around. The other men weren’t even paying attention. “Patrick.”
“Patrick? Yes, I like that name. Like St. Patrick. I like.”
“What is this place?”
“This, my friend, is where you will be staying as my guest for the next days.”
“Why?”
“Because you are American and Americans are rich.”
“I’m not rich. I don’t have any money.”
“No? Maybe not. But someone who loves you does. Someone who will pay to see you back, no? Oh, I can see you looking to the jungle. It is very bad for you to run, my friend. Very bad. We will have to shoot you and tell your family you are still alive. We will cut off your ear and send it to them or your finger; very bad.”
nt sIs that all you want? Money?”
“Is there anything else? You tell me, is there anything in this world that money cannot get for you? If you can name something, I will let you go.”
“Money can’t buy you a good heart.”
The man thought for a moment and then said, “Perhaps you are right, my friend. But I am not letting you go.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Good, then we understand each other,” he said with a smile. “Let me show you where you will sleep.”
Martín led him through the camp. There were perhaps a dozen tents set up, two or three men to a tent. All the men were armed with pistols and knives but no rifles. Patrick guessed the ones with the rifles were set up as sentries around the camp.
In the center of the camp was a truck with no wheels. It was lifted off the ground by cinder blocks and rubber belts were wrapped around the rims. The truck was running and the belts were turning and they led to a machine with various wires sticking out of it.
“A generator,” Martín said, “my idea.”
“Smart.”
“Gracias.”
They came to large tent just off the center of the camp that was guarded by two men in camouflage uniforms. These men were armed with Kalashnikovs. Martín opened the flap of the tent and motioned for him to go in. Patrick saw on the other side of the tent two more men with Kalashnikovs.
He climbed into the
tent and sat down. There were two other people inside. They were older and white, a male and female. They looked like a couple and were both wearing wedding rings. The blood had gone from their faces and they were trembling, sweat soaking the man’s shirt in the chest and under the arms. He waited until Martín closed the flap before speaking.
“Do you know where we are?” the man asked. “They blindfolded me. Are we still in Chile?”
“I don’t know.”
The woman didn’t say anything; just stared at the ground. Her lips were chapped and cracking and her knees were cut up and bloodied.
“I’m Darren and this is my wife Cheryl. We’ve been here for three days. Are they going to let us go soon? They said if my business partner wired them some money they would let us go.”
“I don’t know.”
“He seemed to like you. Could you talk to him? I tried telling him that if I could go to Santiago and speak to someone at the bank I could have a hundred thousand dollars for him right away. Could you talk to him?”
The man had such a desperate look in his eyes, such hope in his voice, that Patrick couldn’t tell him that he was as much a prisoner as he was. “Sure. Next time I talk to him, I’ll tell him.”
The man smiled, and began to rock gently back and forth. He seemed pleased by that answer and he looked to his wife and nodded as if everything was going to be all right.
“I’m in marketing,” he said. “I work for Strubb and Gilmore in Los Angeles. Have you heard of us?”
“No,” Patrick said. He was looking around the tent, through the flap. The two guards barely spoke and never moved.
“My wife says I’m a workaholic but I don’t know. When you really enjoy your job I don’t think it’s bad to spend a lot of time at it. My grandfather told me once—”
“Darren, I think it’s probably best if we don’t speak right now and work on figuring out a way to get out of here.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen unless we pay them. Those guards are there the whole night.”
“The whole night? They never leave at all?”
“Not both of them. Last night one of them left for a little bit but the other one was still there. But I fell asleep so I guess I can’t say.”
Patrick leaned close to the flap and looked outside. There were two tents across from theirs: one had two cots and was the same as the others. But one had three people sitting down on the ground, the flap only half-open. One of them was white and wearing a Hawaiian shirt. He had a long beard and his clothes were in tatters. He looked like he hadn’t cleaned himself up in at least a few weeks.
“I wouldn’t worry about getting out right away,” Darren said. “I think we’ll be here a while.”
One of the men opened the flap of the tent across from them and he got a good look at the three white people in there. Two were male, one female. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.
The female was Jane.
* * *
25
Christopher drove around the surrounding hillsides of Viña all night and drank whiskey out of a bottle. The bottle was black and had a picture of a goat on it. When it was half-empty, he felt nice and warm and ready to take on the world. Unfortunately, it was five in the morning and the world was asleep. So he drove to the top of a hill overlooking the ocean and drank as the sun came up.
It was a sunrise unlike anything he had ever experienced. He had read or heard about beautiful sunrises affecting people and thought them ridiculous for their sentimentality. But this was something else entirely.
The light baked the water and it looked crisp; it lit up the surrounding cliffs and beaches and there were some caves that he could see just below him that were lit a golden brown. The sky was a deep pink and the clouds looked burnt.
He sipped at his bottle.
Other than the sunrise, what he noticed about the view was Hamilton’s ship. It sat like a mountain jutting out of the sea. But it was empty as the workers had all been sent home until everything could be straightened out with the city.
He started the jeep and headed back to Valparaiso and their hostel.
Rodrigo was still asleep, an open bible next to him. Christopher checked around the hostel. He walked up front to where the manager was and where, they supposedly, served breakfast. There were a few tourists in there eating soggy toast with even soggier bacon but Patrick wasn’t one of them. He asked the manager if he had seen his friend, but he hadn’t.
He ran back to the room and woke Rodrigo.
“Where’s Patrick?”
Rodrigo sat up, rubbing his eyes, and looked around. “He’s not here?”
“No, and the manager says he didn’t see any other cars come and go. Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He was here and we was sleeping.”
“Damn it, Rodrigo.”
Christopher ran out of the hostel and got into his jeep. There were two dirt roads going around the surrounding jungle and he chose the one closest the hostel and began to drive. The road winded through the jungle but the vegetation was so thick he couldn’t see more than a few feet in.
He drove the entire length of road anyway and then went back and took the other one. He drove for two hours and then decided that it was pointless. He went back to the hostel and thought that perhaps Patrick had gone with Jane and as he was about to call around to the various hotels to find her, he noticed something on the ground near a bush. He went and picked it up; it was a leaf with some dried blood spattered across it. He stared at it like it could tell him something.
The police would be no help; they didn’t care about this neighborhood. There was only one place in the city he could think to turn to.
*****
Seven year old Francisca sat at the piano, licking her ice cream cone, as the instructor went through the various notes. She had been taking lessons now for two months but this was the first time that the man in the wheelchair was here. He said hello to her when she had walked in and he smiled to her whenever she looked back to him. He was nice and he had sent the large man with the tattoos out to get her an ice cream.
She understood English well as her mother had been teaching her at home so she knew something was wrong when the other man ran inside.
“Patrick’s missing,” the other man said. “I need your help to find him.”
“Missing where?” the man in the wheelchair said.
“If I knew where he wouldn’t be missing.”
“Don’t get your pussy in a bunch, remember who you’re talking to.”
“I know, I’m sorry it’s just he was really drunk and I left him at our hostel in Valparaiso and—”
“Valparaiso? What the hell were you doing there? I have two rooms reserved for you at the Hotel del Mar above the casino.”
“Oh. You never told us that.”
“My assistant texted you the information. Go get your bags and check in there. Valparaiso’s no place for you two.”
“I know, that’s why I’m worried about Patrick.”
“Does he have any women?”
“One, but I stopped there first and she wasn’t there.”
“Could he be at a whore house?”
“No, that’s not like him.”
“Stewart?” the man yelled out. The muscular man with tattoos came over. Francisca couldn’t hear what they said then as the piano instructor had her put down her ice cream and begin to practice, but the men left after that.
Before leaving, the man in the wheelchair smiled and said that he would see her again.
* * *
26
Hunger made Patrick’s stomach growl. They had been in the tent for hours and evening was now falling. He looked out to Jane’s tent as much as possible, making sure she was okay, although he wasn’t certain what he would do if she wasn’t.
Darren had been wrong. The guards left or slept or read all the time. They were antsy the entire day until two other men came and relieved them. Ex-military would h
ave better discipline. These guys were just amateur bandits trying to make a quick buck.
As darkness began to fall outside fires were lit around the camp. Meat and canned foods were being cooked and beer was brought out. Patrick sat quietly and waited. He saw Martín outside getting drunk, but no food came for him.
After the men had finished eating, a few scraps were gathered together on a large platter. A portion was given first to two mangy dogs, then some was dumped in Jane’s tent, then the rest dumped into Patrick’s tent. A jug of dirty river water was brought out and placed next to the scraps. Darren and his wife began to eat but it churned Patrick’s stomach. Some of the food was portions that the men had chewed and spit out or the leftovers that had crusted onto their paper plates.
“So,” Darren said, “what do you do?”
The question was so ridiculous Patrick couldn’t help but laugh.
“What?” Darren said.
“Nothing. That just seems really trivial right now.”
“Gotta pass the time somehow.”
“I didn’t really do much of anything except hunt.”
“What were you one of those bums livin’ off of welfare?” Patrick glanced at him and he said, “Sorry.”
There was commotion outside. The men were drunk now and rowdy. Two men were arguing about something and then they both seemed to come to an understanding. They walked to Jane’s tent and Patrick heard a scream.
The two men were dragging Jane out of the tent and into the forest. She was kicking and clawing and trying to bite but the men only found it funny and were laughing as they began to tear at her clothes.
Patrick looked to the two guards in front of him and they were smiling. One of them shouted something in Spanish akin to, “Save some for us.”
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