Deadly Journey

by Declan Conner

  When things go according to plan, something in the back of your mind tells you to give yourself a pinch so as not to get too complacent. There were a number of options. One was to bolt the door behind me and hide in Miguel’s cell. The idea was that they would return, see the cell door locked, and believe I had escaped; I would wait for them to retire and then sneak off into the night. The problem with that was that A, they might find me in Miguel’s cell, or B, they would bolt his cell with me in it, or C, they would secure the outside door.

  There was nothing else to debate. Slipping through the cell door, I bolted it and headed the ten paces to the exit. After moment’s hesitation I grasped the door handle and listened. Opening the door an inch at first, I peered out and saw the farmhouse lit up like a Las Vegas casino. The stairway down to the yard was in full view. Aware that everything around there creaked, making a quick rush for freedom didn’t seem to be the way to go, so, inching the door open enough for me to slip through I dropped to a crouch on the gantry and slowly closed the door.

  Hope that the dog had jumped into one of their vehicles clung to me as I scrambled down the stairway and hid behind a stack of barrels. Why I hadn’t asked Miguel what lay in the opposite direction was beyond contemplation. Then it hit me, the water bottle... I’d forgotten the water bottle. If all that lay ahead was mile after mile of desert, it would have been a gigantic mistake, unless I doubled back to pick up the creek and followed its flow. There were bound to be other farms or houses near to a water source. Keeping as low a profile as possible, I moved like an ape from cover to cover away from the house. Behind a row of bushes, I peeked out and my jaw almost hit the ground. An eight-foot-high wall stood there, an insurmountable obstacle, with huge, wrought-iron gates. A guard sat on a stool nursing an automatic rifle and smoking. My eye-line followed the wall, which connected the farmhouse to the cellblock, and beyond. Behind me, I detected the sound of vehicles and looked around. The headlights were moving toward the farm. Whatever I decided to do, it had to be quick.

  Using the cover of a row of bushes, I moved swiftly along the back of the cellblock and then crawled across and behind a small guard shed at the entrance. The smell of cigar smoke hung in the air and hit the back of my throat. They had left a guard behind. Thank God for his iPod; his head was swaying to a beat, and there were telltale wires running from his ears.

  I had to think carefully before my next move. The vehicles were no more than ten minutes away. There was no way past the guard without him seeing me. It was one of those all or nothing decisions, as I wrapped my arm around the guard’s head. My biceps pressed firmly on the artery in his neck. Using the leverage of my head pressed against his and with hands clasped, I counted. One... two... three... four... five. His body went limp and I lowered him to the ground. It was enough to knock him out cold by starving his brain of oxygen, but not enough to kill him. He didn’t look a day over sixteen, so his mom would be pleased that I hadn’t gone for those few extra seconds, or snapped his neck. I dragged him into the shed, slung the strap of his rifle over my shoulder, and headed outside and through the gate to freedom.

  The terrain was flat and the horizon was devoid of any lighting indicating habitation. Thinking back to the search pattern of the vehicles, going straight ahead would be inviting them to find me, so I turned left down a dirt road. Running would lead to exhaustion, so I tried speed-walking. I’d always thought speed-walkers looked ridiculous when I watched them on television, but the ground I covered made up for my feeling stupid. Around four hundred yards and it felt like I was walking on hot coals.

  Trying to concentrate on something to distract myself from the pain, I tried to remember how many yards there were in a mile, which was about the stride I was generating. Seventeen hundred and sixty came to mind, drilled into me by my old math teacher at middle school. I started counting from four hundred. At nine hundred and twenty, I felt dizzy. My footsteps were spaced about a foot per stride and then reduced to a stumbling shuffle. The mattress material had long since stopped acting as a sole and was flapping around my ankles, whipping and stinging my calf muscles. There was no alternative; I had to stop to remove the rags from around my ankles.

  Having travelled over half a mile, I looked down the road. The hedgerow hid the farm from view, but over on the left, I could see multiple headlights in the distance, probably searching for me. They must have found the guard. It was a mistake to have sat down. What with the way I had been trussed up on the journey into captivity, and the beatings I had taken, plus the fact that my feet were lacerated and the muscles in my legs had seized up, I was a mess. Not even Scott would have made it to the Pole in that condition. The only thing I could do, under the circumstances, was to crawl through a gap in the hedgerow and rest.

  Whatever insects might be crawling around me, I had no idea, nor did I care; it just felt good to lie on the ground and gaze up at the sky. I had a soft moment. Maybe it was relief at being free. Below the moon and stars, I felt humble... privileged and yet insignificant. If only I’d learned about astronomy, I could have worked out which way was north and home. My childhood seemed a million years ago, when I’d last camped out under the stars. I’d never really taken any notice of the beauty and wonder of the universe since then. For all the distance, it felt like I could reach out and touch the moon’s surface. The thought that if Mary was looking out of our bedroom window right now, she would be looking at the same lunar surface that I saw, brought a tear to my eye. So near and yet so far.

  Secure in the belief that I was hidden, I decided to rest for an hour and then check to see if my captors had called off the search. “Rest” seemed such an odd choice of word. I might have relaxed my body, but every sound of nature in the still of the night brought with it a fear that they would find me.

  Chapter 7

  Exhausted

  Exhaustion and lack of sleep had taken their toll on my body and mind. My eyes opened to daylight, throbbing feet and aching leg muscles. To think I had only had the stamina to travel such a short distance from my captors made me want to scream, but at least I was free... and armed. The flaring sun perched on the horizon. Its position pinpointed the compass bearing for home. That’s when I looked down at my feet and realized I was in a heap of trouble.

  If sunrise was around seven in the morning, I had probably been asleep for three, or possibly four hours. Hitching a ride seemed like a lost cause. I looked at my jeans and T-shirt caked in blood and dust. My fingers stroked two days of facial-hair growth. I had no shoes, revealing bloody feet, and my face was a mess with cuts and bruises. To complete the picture, I was carrying an automatic rifle. If I came across someone looking the way I did, I’d have stepped on the gas pedal and run them over.

  Short of hijacking a car at gunpoint, the only way forward was for me to set off walking and to keep behind the hedgerow. A half-baked idea fermented that I should go back to the hacienda and surrender. If they wanted to ransom me, maybe they would give my feet medical attention. What they’d done to Miguel soon squashed that idea. A shake of my head did little to remove the vision of Squat holding Miguel’s head, the scene holding centre stage in my mind. Even the sounds of the gunshots and his pleas for mercy played out. Miguel’s pleading and bulging eyes reminded me of what might lie ahead if I didn’t make good my escape. It’s not that I wasn’t used to seeing death masks. Goodness knows I’d had plenty of experience down at the morgue and at the scenes of shootouts. Usually, there is never that connection that I had encountered with Miguel, tenuous as it had been, with the few words we shared. This was up close and personal.

  Rolling over, I pushed myself to my knees and then to my feet. The vision of Miguel’s severed head was cleared from my mind by the pain running from my feet and on up through my legs. I had probably covered twenty yards shuffling and stumbling, using the rifle as a crutch, when I could walk no farther and collapsed. Blisters had popped, leaving raw, exposed flesh on the soles and heels of both my feet, and the lacerations from my previ
ous walk in the desert were infected. Even with the best of intentions, moving from this spot in an upright position would have been impossible. Back home, I would have needed a wheelchair and emergency medical treatment to get me mobile. Likely, I needed a week’s recovery for the skin on my feet to heal enough to allow me to walk. The idea of lying in a ditch for a week, without food or water, until I had recovered reminded me of the desperate situation I was in and that it would call for desperate measures.

  My eyelids were heavy, despite my having slept. Although the hedgerow afforded some cover, the open field where I was lying left me exposed. On hands and knees, I crawled until I reached the cover of some bushes and a drainage ditch alongside the hedgerow. A truck thundered past along the road. It was the first vehicle I had heard and I hoped there would be more, but Sunday morning wasn’t the best of days to be hoping for heavy traffic.

  Curling into the foetal position gave me respite from the pain and made me wonder if having started life in that position, that was how they were going to find me if I expired. Mary and the kids drifted into my mind. If it wasn’t for thoughts of returning to my family spurring me on, it would have been easier to put the gun barrel to my chin and pull the trigger; such was the pain I was enduring. Warmth from the morning sun was my only comfort and with heavy eyelids, I drifted asleep again.

  ***

  I awoke to the sound of rustling in the bushes, followed by a twig breaking. My heart went into ticking time bomb mode and I grabbed the rifle. Taking aim in the direction of the sound, I scrambled to my knees. To have gotten this far, if I was to be discovered and returned to the cell, I would be dead anyway. A picture of Miguel’s severed head stuck in my mind’s eye. My sense of urgency turned to frustration. Sweat ran from my brow, dripping into my eyes. My vision blurred, adding to the panic. Swiping the back of my hand across my eyes, I cracked open first one eye, then the other and decided to fight my way out. I called out a warning.

  ‘Stop and show yourself, or I’ll blow your freakin’ brains out.’

  All composure had deserted me, and I trembled from head to toe. My lips had parched in the sun. Uttering those few words had ripped a split in my top lip like an overripe tomato bursting. The drainage ditch gave me some cover, but whoever was out there continued to move in on my position. I was sure I heard a click, as if someone was locking and loading a round in the chamber of a shotgun and I squeezed the trigger of my AK-47 to fire off a warning shot.

  Nothing happened. I rolled over onto my back to change position and for me to inspect the AK. It was fitted with a damned safety. Frustration turned to anger. By the time that I’d figured it out and rolled back onto my belly to aim, my eye-line came face-to-face with a goat’s head. Damn thing bleated at me through a gap in the bushes. Tears and laughter flowed at the same time. The animal flicked its head and trundled away.

  Scanning the area, I relaxed, satisfied the goat didn’t have a herder in tow. My sight fixed on a small lizard gathering heat on an exposed stone. Its head bobbed rapidly up and down in a ritual that was beyond me. In the blink of an eye, the creature darted forward, gathered an insect in its mouth, and began chomping. Fascinating as it was and though I was pleased at the distraction, it reminded me that there could be other predators around, looking for me. Feverishly, I checked my immediate surroundings for snakes. Every twig became a suspect as paranoia took hold.

  In an effort to curb my fear, I began to think about the incident that had led to my incarceration. It seemed idiotic to me for the suppliers of the crack house to have planned to have me kidnapped. Surely they would know that the agency would round up all the occupants of the crack house, and someone would talk at the onset of cold turkey, before being cut a deal for release. I began to think that our position had been compromised. Whoever had done this to me must have known we were there all along and had watched Rob scuttle off around the back of our position. Then again, maybe none of that had been planned and they just saw him leaving me alone as an opportunity to take me hostage as a warning, without thinking it through. I quickly discounted that idea. My kidnapping had definitely been planned. The who, why and what of it scrambled my brain, especially at the possibility it had nothing to do with the crack house and it was payback for my having arrested someone in the past. Trying to work it out brought on a thumping headache.

  I knew I couldn’t stay in that position. I needed to put more distance between the farmhouse and me. I crawled to peer through the hedgerow, just in time to see a passing car. Farther down the road, I could see a slow-moving vehicle and decided I had to attempt to get a ride. As it neared, I could see it was a battered pickup truck, pulling an open trailer. The chugging vehicle looked as though it had driven out of a museum. Clouds of black smoke belched from the exhaust and the engine spluttered. There was only the driver behind the windshield. Leaving the rifle behind, hidden under boulders on a rocky outcrop, as the vehicle neared, I crept through the hedgerow.

  Standing in the middle of the road, in the truck’s path, took every ounce of strength and willpower I could summon to overcome the hurt running through my body. I waved like a madman, and then, as my legs wobbled, the landscape started to shimmer. It was hard to make out the outline of the approaching vehicle. All around my head, the vision before me spun as if I stood in a vortex. Light of head and foot, I hit the ground with a thud. Dust billowed around me and I choked, taking in a lungful of dirt. The sound of the truck’s engine exploded in my ears. As I laboured to lift my head, like a tortoise trying to find its bearings, the radiator grill loomed large. The shrill grating of graphite on metal… then, as if someone had thrown a cover over me, darkness descended.

  Chapter 8

  False Sense of Security

  I noticed the stench at first, and then my body bouncing about. The motion reminded me of the helplessness I had felt as a child when tumbling in a bouncy castle. Childhood angst returned to haunt me when I was unable to scramble to my feet. I had a vision of a group of children jumping around me, mocking my situation. Opening my eyes, I sat up to find I was on the trailer. It smelled as though it had recently dumped a load of cow dung. Above the sound of the engine chugging, I could hear the noise of an aircraft engine buzzing like an annoying housefly. I looked up in time to see a light aircraft fly low overhead. There were pipes under the wing that gave the impression that it was a crop duster. Through the wooden slats, I could see we had left the hedgerow behind. We were heading in the direction of a small farmhouse.

  Clouds of dust and exhaust fumes surrounded the vehicle as it slowed. We stopped outside the farmhouse door, scattering chickens, clucking with their wings flapping. The back of the trailer dropped open. I came face-to-face with the wizened features of the driver. He beckoned me forward. I shuffled on my backside to the tailgate, dangling my legs over the side. He was twisted and frail, maybe in his late sixties, but his appearance belied his strength. He took me over his shoulder, carried me inside and on into a bedroom. Without ceremony, he launched me onto a bed.

  ‘You passed out. You’ll need fixing.’ That was the nearest I could translate.

  ‘American. Do you speak English?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘I need a telephone.’ To make sure he understood, I formed my hand into a mock handset.

  He shook his head and left the room.

  A woman appeared in the doorway, walked to the bed, and looked me up and down. It was hard to know if her wincing was from the sight of me, or the smell. She left the room and two children entered, a boy aged around eight and a girl around ten.

  ‘Hi, what are your names?’

  They either didn’t understand or they were shy. They started to snicker and the young boy sidled up to my bedside, poked me, and stood back. He became excited and started to shout.

  ‘Americano, Americano.’

  ‘Out, you two,’ said the woman as she returned with a bowl of water, a cloth and a towel.

  ‘You and the children speak English?’

&nbs
p; ‘Yes, I speak it well. The children have forgotten most of it, but they understand the word “out”. We lived in Texas for a while until they caught us, two years back, and sent us back over the border. I’ll need to fix you up. Lucky for you I trained as a nurse. How did you get like this?’

  Telling her I was a US government drug agent from Texas didn’t seem the sensible thing to do; it might make her forget the nursing. I struggled to find an alternative for a while before the words to answer her finally arrived.

  ‘I need to contact the police. I’m a tourist and I’ve been robbed. I don’t have any identification. They took it all. I was heading for the border. I...’ Pausing, realization struck at what I was saying and I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. I, I, freaking I. The way I was speaking sounded unnatural and each sentence I’d uttered sounded like the lie that it was.

  The woman smiled.

  ‘Sorry, what’s your name?’ I asked.

  ‘My name is Leila. We can talk later, but first let’s get you out of these clothes and I’ll wash you, clean your wounds and dress them. We don’t have a telephone, but my father will drive you to the border.’

  She turned her back and placed the bowl on a beat-up old dresser with two drawers missing. The walls in the bedroom and in the living area, as I’d noticed on the way in, were bare brick. The ceiling was open to the trusses and roof tiles. Wires strung along the wall, connected to dangling electrical-plug sockets. Everything I had seen screamed poverty.

  Leila turned and came over to the bed. She helped me take off my jeans and remove my T-shirt. Her silhouette brought a vision of Mary dancing through my thoughts. Averting her gaze, she removed my boxers and chatted away, saving me embarrassment before draping a towel over my lower half. An anxious gut-ache gripped me; I was desperate to contact Mary to let her know I was safe.