Deadly Journey

by Declan Conner

  Leandra nudged me with her shoulder. ‘Kurt, I’m frightened.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’ll look after you.’ I lifted my elbow and she sneaked her head into the gap, laying her head on my chest. ‘They’re not going to harm us, trust me. Pedro said they’re moving us for our own safety. At least that’s what it sounded like.’

  The pickup passed through the gates and straight across the road, following a rutted track toward the beach. The vehicle stopped and I could hear the sound of waves lapping the shoreline. Carlos dropped the tailgate and removed our leg irons. Two more guys appeared in ordinary clothing and helped us off the back of the truck. Carlos passed out our backpacks, donned his own, and prodded us toward the sea. A rubber dingy with an outboard motor awaited us on the beach.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Fishing,’ said Carlos. ‘Get in.’

  I stepped into the rigid base of the dinghy. Speedboats may look graceful when you’re watching them glide the waves, but the bouncing on the surf turned me green and I threw up over the side. Leandra didn’t fare much better and squeezed her eyes closed for the entire journey. It didn’t seem to affect Carlos, who set his gaze on me for the whole trip.

  We were heading for what looked like a tiny boat, but it grew bigger as we approached. The dinghy swung to one side and the engine spluttered to idle. It wasn’t the research vessel, but a fishing trawler. The swell bounced us up and down alongside the hull of the boat. A metal arm swung out from the above, lowering chains to the dinghy. The crew set about fastening the chains. Then they signalled to one of the crew above, before they winched us upward and then onto the deck.

  One of the crew approached and started shouting in Spanish at Leandra and me, at too fast a pace for me to translate.

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked.

  Leandra sidled up close to me and clasped her trembling fingers in mine.

  ‘He’s the captain. He says, try anything and they’ll feed us to the sharks.’

  Chapter 27

  Boat Boy

  We sat in the cabin with the door closed. The stench of the fish in the hold somehow managed to pervade every nook and cranny.

  Clever of the traffickers, really, I thought: set off from port with an empty hold, pick up a consignment of drugs on the way, then ship it to wherever for collection at sea. All they had to do was to set out their nets, bring in a haul, and set it down back home, with Customs none the wiser. Just how they’d explain their human cargo, shackled and singing like canaries if the authorities did board the trawler, gave me the idea we’d be sinking twenty fathoms down with the plankton long before then.

  I couldn’t say how long we had been sailing, but it must have been for over twenty-four hours. The trawler headed for a cove and we transferred to a biplane. I slept for most of the flight. When we landed close to the shore, we were transferred to another trawler.

  After a hearty breakfast, Leandra dozed off to sleep, resting her head on my shoulder. Carlos had not been with us the whole time, but then he was secure in the knowledge that there wasn’t much room to escape. The extra set of cuffs connecting my leg shackles to Leandra’s chain made sure of that. Even if I could unfasten our chains, I knew that I couldn’t swim well enough to get to shore.

  The cabin door swung inwards, with Carlos teetering and holding onto whatever he could grasp as he made his way to our table. Leandra didn’t stir, still with her head on my shoulder.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he said and sat down. ‘Sandwiches packed?’

  ‘Yeah, all stowed away, with a bottle of water like you ordered.’

  A man of few words, other than for giving orders, he acted to type as we stared into each other’s eyes, each trying to get the measure of what the other was thinking, until he broke the silence.

  ‘No hard feelings,’ he said, and offered his hand.

  I hesitated and pushed back into my seat. ‘For what?’ I asked.

  ‘Everything. Especially that black eye of yours.’

  ‘That was your buddy.’

  ‘Still, the admiration is there for you trying to take the three of us on in your bedroom. That – and how long you held out back at the barracks. Well – are you going to take it?’ I reached out, took his hand, and shook it, using a firm grip. ‘I didn’t last that long in training and that wasn’t for real. So you have balls. I’ll give you that.’

  Our grasp untwined, with Carlos displaying an awkward disposition as if we had shared an overly long, manly hug. The revelation of mutual respect was unexpected, but I thought it a good opportunity to get him to open up about his background.

  ‘You said training?’

  ‘Yeah, Special Forces.’

  ‘So that’s where you got that choke-hold from?’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, that and a few others, if you ever want to try me out.’

  ‘No, thanks. Why join up with Perez?’

  ‘Money. He pays ten times what we were paid in the army. I came out with nothing, unlike your CIA guys who accompanied us on some missions. Another twelve months and I’ll be out of it, I hope. Pity about the other troops.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I don’t have family like the rest, only a girlfriend. They keep a record of everyone’s family. If you try to leave, they know where your family lives. If you cross them, they make your family pay.’

  It was clear when he said “pay” that he wasn’t talking about money.

  ‘So what do you want to do if you manage to leave?’

  ‘Get married, buy a small farm, anything to have a normal life, but it will have to be outside Mexico. Maybe Brazil.’

  His eyes rolled as he placed both hands on the table and drummed his fingers. I think he’d realized he was giving too much of himself away.

  ‘So really, you guys are prisoners like me.’

  ‘If you put it like that, I guess so. But don’t think I won’t do my job. He who pays the soldier, controls the trigger.’

  I didn’t doubt him for one minute, but his describing them as prisoners gave me an idea as to the weakness in their psyche. How I wished it were in my ability to offer him and his girlfriend American citizenship, if only to help me get out of this quagmire. But then I thought that he wouldn’t know it wasn’t within my power, and stored the notion to long-term memory.

  ‘Understood,’ I affirmed.

  ‘Good, then listen to what I say. I’m going to remove yours and Leandra’s shackles. Five minutes and we’ll be heading to our destination in the dinghy.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt. All you need to know is that where we are going, we’re going to have to rely on each other for our own survival. Even if you were armed to the teeth, your chances of surviving alone would be next to zero. I need your word, one man to another that you won’t attempt to escape.’

  I recalled Stony’s words about jungle training. ‘So I guess you’re talking about the jungle?’

  ‘The rainforest, to be precise.’

  Crossing my fingers under the table, I responded. ‘It’s a promise.’

  Carlos leaned across the table until our noses were almost touching. ‘It better had be a promise. If I lose you, I’m responsible and they’ll get to my girlfriend before I have the chance to get to her first. If anything were to happen to her, wherever you go, you won’t find a hole big enough to hide in.’

  Leandra yawned, lifted her head, and then groaned. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’ve arrived. Time for another dinghy trip,’ I said.

  Carlos said, ‘Put your hands on the table and I’ll remove the cuffs.’

  The cuffs were the easy part, the leg irons more problematic, with Carlos bending under the table to remove them. When we made our way outside the cabin, the skipper was standing on the deck, scanning the shoreline through binoculars. We were hustled into the dinghy, Carlos and two of the crew joining us. At a signal from the skipper, we were winched into the air, swung over the side, and lowered to the ocean.


  The outboard spluttered to life and we were off.

  I found my sea legs this time around, much to my relief. The tide was in when we hit the shore, and the dinghy followed an inlet. The river narrowed. The rainforest became more dense and intimidating.

  ‘Why bring us all the way out here? Wouldn’t it have been easier to hide us locally?’ I asked Carlos.

  ‘I’m here to make payments. Maybe they thought the Cobras would already have ambush points set up and so they sent you with me. Can’t say I’m happy about it, but orders are orders.’

  When we rounded a corner, the river widened. Over on the left, I could see a long, narrow boat moored by a rope to a tree. The propeller was tilted out of the water, fastened to the end of a long shaft and attached to a small outboard engine. The dinghy slowed and pulled up alongside. A young boy in his early teens, with the look of an indigenous Indian, greeted us with a toothy grin. Dressed in nothing but twine and a leather pouch covering his dignity, in pretty much the same design as a woman’s thong, he looked the part with the jungle backdrop. His jet-black hair was cut as if someone had placed a bowl over his head as a template. Running from ear-to-ear, his face was daubed with a wide band of red dye. He stood with his feet apart for balance as the crew held our craft to his boat.

  ‘Get in,’ said Carlos. ‘One at a time, Leandra first. As soon as you’re on the boat, sit down.’

  Leandra glanced at me with a horrified expression. She must have been thinking the same as me. The longboat looked unstable and barely wide enough for a backside. Carlos passed over our backpacks and then he helped her to her feet. The young boy held onto Leandra as she stepped over to the longboat, which started rocking. The teenager grinned and his legs danced. I couldn’t be sure if he was trying to create equilibrium, or having some fun with her. Leandra yelped as she lost her balance, but she managed to sit before the boat rolled over. I didn’t fare much better, but sat with my back to Leandra. After Carlos had joined us onboard, the dinghy turned and set off back to the trawler. The young man fired up the engine and dipped the prop in the water, and we started to glide down the river.

  Debris from fallen trees and branches floated past and littered the river, sometimes only inches away. The young man didn’t slacken his speed for one second as he skilfully navigated the obstacles. The wave from our boat plumed to the banks, either side, rinsing the roots of trees in its wake. I was pleased that Leandra was facing in the opposite direction when I saw a caiman slither into the water from the bank to my left.

  ‘Carlos, are there piranha in this river?’ I asked

  ‘It’s not them you need to worry about. I’ll tell you more when we get to camp. Ladies present.’

  ‘Sorry, Leandra.’

  ‘No worries.’

  We rounded a bend and a clearing over on the left came into view. A ramshackle wooden jetty, jutted out into the river. Four narrow long boats were moored alongside. Bare-breasted women unloaded bales from one of the boats and carried them on their heads, scrambling up a slope that defied gravity, yet they carried their loads deftly. To one side, wooden spikes rose from the river, with some kind of rushes woven into a net and attached to the poles. Naked children, within the safety of its boundary, splashed and screamed with delight in the water, with an old woman sitting in a haunch watching their every move.

  ‘Is this where we’re staying?’ I asked Carlos.

  ‘No, we’ve got a little stroll before we get to the camp. The native village is five-star. Where we’re going is one-star.’

  ‘Oh, great,’ I said as our navigator ran the boat onto the bank.

  I stepped out of the boat, then helped Leandra out and we headed toward the village. There weren’t many structures. All were built with logs, using tree-trunk stilts to raise them off the ground. The leaves of palm trees formed the roofs. One large structure stood out and I guessed it was some kind of communal hall.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Carlos.

  I watched as he walked toward the community hall. A portly Indian appeared in the open doorway to the hall. I imagined he was the chief of the tribe. On his head, he wore a headdress of feathers and a regalia of necklaces fashioned with animal teeth around his neck. To either side of him were two bodyguards, each carrying a bow and a short bamboo stick. They had the same hairstyle and face paint as the teenager. The chief stood out, with a white band across his face framed by red stripes, top and bottom, and wearing the most hideous looking floral Bermuda shorts.

  Carlos exchanged words with him, dipped into his pocket, pulled out a wallet and handed the chief what looked like a few bills. Whatever he had given the chief couldn’t have amounted to much, but it wasn’t as if there was anywhere to spend the money.

  A group of women sat huddled together next to a pile of bales they’d removed from the boats, together with other supplies they must have unloaded before we arrived. Away from them, the men sat together, laughing and joking, rolling stones toward a pebble in the centre of the circle in some sort of game. The chief shouted across at the group and everyone rose from the ground. The women lifted the provisions to carry them on their heads and the men formed a group around them. Carlos joined us.

  ‘Let them go first and we’ll follow. You two, stay in front of me.’

  ‘Is it far?’ Leandra asked.

  ‘No, but if you’re wearing socks, take them off, or you’ll get jungle rot. It’s not far, but it’s slow going, so it’ll take some time. You also need to take off your jackets. It’s going to get hot and humid in there.’

  Leandra asked, ‘What’s jungle rot?’

  ‘When you sweat, the skin on your feet will shrivel and end up looking like a walnut, only soft and chewy. Last thing we want is to have to carry anyone on a pole.’

  I glanced at Leandra, then we both shrugged in a shiver and quickly removed our boots and socks.

  With our shoelaces tied, we rose and set off in convoy. Two of the males dropped behind us, with some of the others forming an escort on our flanks.

  ‘Those short spears without tips they’re carrying don’t like they could do much damage.’ I said, glancing back at Carlos.

  ‘That’s because they’re blow-pipes. See what looks like overgrown cotton buds they’re carrying in those pouches next to their arrows?’

  ‘Yeah, I see them.’

  ‘Poison darts.’

  ‘So I guess we don’t want to be messing with them?’

  ‘It’s not them you have to worry about. If you see one come out of the forest daubed with black and white face paint, drop to the ground to give me a clear line of fire.’

  Chapter 28

  Monkey Business

  The trek through the dense rainforest proved to be hard going. The sound of machetes upfront swathing a route made things easier; that, and the natives treading a path. However, what the tribe couldn’t help with was the sticky heat. The shade from the canopy of trees did little to provide respite. There was no breeze to be had and the foliage overhead locked in the moisture. Perspiring profusely, my clothing was soaked as if someone had hosed me down. Wiping the sweat from my eyes was a waste of energy. Only tilting my head slightly forward and following Leandra’s boots allowed the constant steam from my brow to divert and stop my eyes from stinging.

  How the natives managed without footwear, only God knew. But then, they were at one with nature the way it was intended. Boots offered little advantage over the uneven undergrowth and despite following a trodden path, it was difficult to stay upright, especially carrying the weight of the backpack.

  Taking the water bottle from a pocket in my fatigues, I took a slug of warm water. Inwardly, I cursed at the thought that but for delaying our trip by two and a half hours, I could have escaped and would probably have reached the American border.

  ‘Steady with that, you need to ration the water,’ said Carlos. ‘If we don’t make it to camp, you’ll regret it if you drink it all.’

  ‘How long to the camp?’

  ‘Ac
cording to what the chief told me, maybe another four hours if it doesn’t rain. We’re probably halfway there.’

  Judging by the distance we were covering, I reckoned we could have made it to where we were at in less than half an hour in a car, as the crow flies.

  My hearing had become accustomed to the sound of the creatures in the forest. The contrast between the relative quietness in the clearing of the village and the noise when we first entered the forest had brought on a bout of nerves. The sheer scale of the sounds had banged away at my eardrums with the constant drone and trill of the sounds of the creatures as if they were alarmed at our intrusion.

  There was a sudden intensity of critter and birdcalls. I stumbled as Leandra stopped and she turned to me, gripping my arm.

  ‘Kurt, can you hear that? Do you think they’re wild animals?’

  ‘Keep moving,’ said Carlos. ‘It’s only the menfolk communicating and hunting for lunch.’

  ‘Lunch?’ Leandra asked.

  ‘You’ll see. That’s what they use the poison darts for, hunting. Now move on.’

  Another fifteen minutes and our convoy stopped in a clearing to a crescendo of birdcalls. The natives escorting us cupped their hands and returned their calls. Women dropped their loads and sat on their haunches, forming a circle. The hunters appeared from the forest and like the changing of the guard, the menfolk who had been escorting us moved out into the dense undergrowth.

  The hunters walked over to the women. Four of them unloaded furry critters from their shoulders and launched them into the circle.

  ‘What are those?’ Leandra asked.

  ‘Monkeys.’ Carlos said and grinned.

  ‘No way,’ she said. ‘I’m not eating monkey.’

  ‘Why do you think I had you pack sandwiches?’

  My backpack, which had started out as a minor inconvenience, felt like I was carrying a mountain on my back. Slipping the straps from my shoulders, I dropped it on the ground and helped Leandra to remove hers and we both sat.