by Toby Neal
The first one tasted like heaven, sweet and starchy and over too soon. The second was also good—but by then my stomach had begun to rebel. I stowed the third in a pocket as my belly cramped painfully. Falconer cut up the rest of the bunch and gave us each a handful.
“If we find a palm, I know how to get the heart, and that’s good to eat. Bamboo, too, and ferns. There are some edible roots and other fruit here.”
We stripped off our boots. I didn’t want to look at my feet. I’d been feeling blisters and lesions forming on them as we moved through the water, brought on by friction on wet skin. Sure enough, all of our feet were going off to some degree, but mine were the worst. Open, oozing sores covered my feet, and sheets of skin came off the soles as I removed my soaking-wet socks.
“Jesus, LT,” Kerry said.
I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I didn’t want to take my wet pants off and give the clouds of buzzing mosquitoes more to feast on, so I draped the socks over a banana frond and curled up, the M16 cradled in my arms, as Falconer assigned a watch order for while we rested.
Lying on my side, curled in on myself under a few banana leaves, I noticed a gleam of water on the leaves of the jungle floor. The color sparked a memory of Lei.
The sun shone on her curly brown hair just that way in our yard at home as Lei threw a ball for the dogs. Our son ran after the ball, too, laughing. I loved that big yard, filled with fruit trees, the grass always a little too long because neither of us had time to keep it up the way we should.
My heart felt as sore as the rest of me. I shut my eyes briefly. God, keep them safe. Just get me home. I’ll never leave again. I’ll never drink again. Please.
Sleep dropped over me like a black cloak, and even as it did, gratitude filled me. I was sleeping again, and that felt like heaven. Too bad I’d had to come to hell to get it.
Chapter Fourteen
The police convoy crested a rise, and Lei looked out the window of the SUV down the stretch of muddy road into the cup of the secret valley. Sharply pungent smoke rolled up from the pot fields.
“Contact-high alert.” The SWAT leader in the front seat grinned. “They’d rather burn the product than let us get our hands on it.”
Lei nodded, but she couldn’t smile or joke, even with the pre-raid jitters. She wore a helmet and a new, black Kevlar vest, and she was glad to have left the blood-stained, tooth-marked one behind. On the way she’d chugged a bottle of water and eaten a couple of sticks of beef jerky one of the men had given her. Tension crawled along her nerves as the vehicles bumped through deep puddles, the fronds of wild hapu`u ferns, grass, and ginger brushing the sides of the vehicle as they crept down the rough track to the bottom of the valley.
They pulled into an empty clearing. Tire tracks showed the departure of vehicles. Camouflage netting was draped over a series of nearby metal sheds, and a path led deeper into the valley.
“Stay to the rear,” the SWAT commander told her as they flung the doors open. “We’re going to check for hostiles and booby traps in these buildings first.”
Booby traps. That would be just like Boss Man. He would be happy to hurt them just for spite. “Yes, sir.”
Lei hung back as directed. The team swept the buildings, one of the men checking for hidden trip lines and explosives. It reminded her of working with ex-partner Abe Torufu, with his big grin and steady coolness under pressure—but she didn’t miss her bomb squad days. Lei felt no such cool. A restless apprehension swept over her in waves as she waited by the vehicles, her weapon ready.
Finally they gave the all clear for the sheds. Lei strode over and looked inside. Clearly used for drying and processing the marijuana, the sheds were empty now but for the thick scent of dried weed. She walked under the drying racks, bare of anything but a few twigs, and looked around outside. The area was tidy, and signs of human use had been hidden under the kukui and albizia trees that forested this area.
“I want to see where they were keeping the workers. The kids I saw. There were living areas near the fields at the stream,” she told the commander.
“Will do. Let’s move out.” He gestured for the men to follow. They moved out down a well-worn path leading toward the source of burning. Lei was sandwiched between the SWAT members, with the booby-trap expert on point. He carried a motion detector, a powerful light, and a probe for clearing the path. As they walked along, he worked his equipment.
Lei kept her shotgun ready, scanning for movement, but there was nothing other than the last of the afternoon sun gleaming on the light green palmate leaves of the kukui trees. Clumps of six-foot pili grass provided a scary amount of cover as they progressed down toward the smoldering fields.
“Got a trip wire here,” the sabotage expert said, turning to them. He was in the standard black helmet and bulletproof vest, but he wore an additional backpack of supplies. He slung it off his back and set it down.
Lei spotted the wire crossing the path once he pointed it out. It was actually a loose strand of transparent fishing line, and if the sun hadn’t gleamed on it, she wouldn’t have seen it at all. She moved up next to the expert, Sergeant Manolo, whose name was marked on his vest.
“Can I help? I have explosives training.”
He glanced up at her. An older, weathered man, his intelligent brown eyes gleamed. “Yeah. You can hold this clamp. Keep the tension on.”
Lei held the clamp steady, keeping the tension on the line, as Manolo traced it to its end, uncovering a cardboard box. She controlled her breathing and tension as he opened the box carefully. Inside, a grenade was nestled cozily in a bed of nails. The transparent filament was tied to the pin of the grenade.
Manolo cut the line. “Keep the tension on while I check the other end.”
Lei felt sweat spring out under the restrictive vest. She remembered this from working on the explosives detail with Abe—endless minutes filled with danger. Patience, skill, and calm nerves were required. The bomb squad had not been a good fit.
Manolo traced the other end of the line and it was tied to a small sapling. “Done.”
He cut the line. Lei dropped the clamp back into his kit, exhaling on a whoosh of breath.
“Where we’ve got one booby trap, we may well have more.” Manolo addressed the squad leader. “This is crude, but could have been plenty effective. We need to proceed with extra caution.”
The squad leader gave a brief affirmative nod. “Move out.”
Manolo led the way. Lei followed him, and the rest of the team covered them, constantly checking the area with their weapons while Manolo scanned the path slowly as they proceeded. They arrived at the area of the burned fields. Most of the marijuana had burned down to smoking skeletons of the huge plants Lei had seen, but the smoke was still sharp and potent in her nostrils.
The stream with its waterfall was as beautiful as Lei remembered—and the pit bull’s body lay in the water where it had fallen. Lei gulped bile, harsh and burning, at the sight. Whatever else happened today, she was going to bury that dog.
“Looks like a shelter over here,” Manolo said.
“Yeah, that’s where the kids appeared to be staying.” Lei gestured to that side of the stream. “The boss came from a building on the opposite side. I want to check on the kids’ shelter first.”
“Roger that.” Manolo continued his deliberate progress up the short path to the crude shack built of scrap wood and tin. They were within fifty feet of the shelter when they heard thumping and muffled cries of distress coming from inside.
Lei tightened her grip on her weapon. “Could be the child workers I saw earlier.”
She started to run forward and fling the door open, but Manolo held up a fist, halting them. “Got another line. Across the door.” His handheld light ran back and forth along the transparent filament draped across the doorway. “Window, too. Sergeant Texeira, let’s do a perimeter check around the building.”
“Roger that.” Lei fell in behind Manolo as he circled slowly arou
nd the exterior. The captives must have heard them, because the frantic thumps and cries grew louder.
Lei’s heart thundered, and sweat prickled along her hairline. She couldn’t hate Boss Man more, a righteous rage that was hard to control.
But explosives detail was all about control.
She did her relaxation breathing and pulled in close behind Manolo as he ended the search and opened his kit at the door. She holstered her weapon and he handed her a clamp.
“Same deal as before with these. I’ll trace the line, find out what kind of IED they left, and cut it. You keep the tension on.”
“Got it.” Lei placed the clamp he handed her on the window line and held the line’s tension as Manolo traced the strand to another grenade in a box of nails, this one tucked up under one of the roof’s crude rafters. He shook his head as he deactivated the IED and removed it. “This would have really done a number on this little building.”
The front door trip line was the same, but taking it down went faster now that they knew what they were dealing with.
The door was locked with a padlock. “I don’t think they will have more booby traps inside,” Manolo said to Lei and his captain as he got a pair of bolt cutters out of his pack. “These have the look of quick and crude devices. Something rigged to go off from inside takes longer to set up.”
Lei hated to imagine the terror of being restrained and locked inside a shed that was rigged to blow up victims and rescuers alike. “He decided the boys were disposable.”
“Maybe they have intel he didn’t want to get out,” the squad leader said.
Lei hung back as Manolo used his light to carefully check around the lintel of the closed door as he breached it, and then he gave it a tiny push. It creaked open.
Chapter Fifteen
I woke with a sticky feeling in my mouth, a mealy texture, as if the unripe bananas I’d eaten had decided to grow on the walls of my mouth. The light was dim, the sun hiding behind clouds somewhere high above. I sat up slowly, taking inventory. I had aches and pains, most specifically the ruined skin of my feet, but I felt much better than when exhaustion had pulled me under so completely.
Perhaps I was done with withdrawals.
Drawing my knees up, looking out at the dense foliage, I mentally tested the idea of a drink of good single malt.
I looked at the imaginary glass in my hand, filled with a nut-brown liquid that captured light, distilling it in warm sparks. I could feel the smell of it in my nostrils, tingling and smoky. I sipped, feeling a slight numbness on my lips. The taste was a little harsh, peaty and dark, then smooth as it moved down my throat, leaving an initial burn followed by a loosening, a wave of warmth that rippled through my body and brought relaxation.
It still appealed.
I was an alcoholic. Probably inherited the tendency, like they said you did, and the mental shit had set off the addiction. I’d known it for a while and was finally ready to really know it. I was going to have to stay off the sauce permanently. But I wasn’t sick anymore, and that was a damn good thing, given the circumstances. If I could just get home, I’d never drink again.
MacDonald was on watch. “Hey, LT.” His voice was low. Falconer was sleeping curled on his side. He’d covered himself with banana leaves. Kerry was closer to me, sprawled on his back. His face looked young as a teenager’s as soft snores issued from his slack mouth.
“So what do you do for Security Solutions?” I whispered.
“I’m the camp’s coordinator. I put the whole package together.” MacDonald shuffled closer to me so we could talk quietly.
“You mean the physical camp we arrived at? Trifecta?”
“Yeah. I’m the manager. I get everything from the tents to the menus lined up. Keep supplies moving. Run everything.”
“So the army doesn’t have anything to do with that?”
“They provide most of the actual supplies and support staff. But I work with them, order shit, et cetera. They provided the security detail that was with us. We’re doing a specialized service for them—training the MPs. In return, they pay for the services and provide infrastructure.”
“Did you notice all the American supplies at the camp where they were holding us?”
“I didn’t get much of a chance, between the pit and the wooden shelter. But yeah, I noticed the weapons were American.”
“A lot more than that. The camp commander was even eating MREs.” I contemplated my ruined feet. “How did the kidnappers know where we were? And who to take?”
MacDonald shrugged, but he looked down. He knew something.
“You work for Security Solutions. Think they have a leak?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He still had his eyes down. “Could also be someone in the army brass.”
“So why’d they take you?”
“All Security Solutions employees carry the same insurance you do.”
“If that’s the case, why isn’t Security Solutions negotiating for our release?”
“That I don’t know. Could be the army interfering. They’d have policy changes and we were often the last to know. Right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, all that.”
I leaned closer and caught his eye. Devan MacDonald had the soft jaw and waistline of a man who spent a good deal of time behind a desk, though our recent hardship had caused a collapse of his plump cheeks. “You sure that’s all that’s going on there?”
“I don’t know anything worth anything. But I heard something from one of the guards at the camp. I speak Spanish, so they used me as an interpreter with the other men a little bit. Anyway, it seems like there might have been a dirty army officer involved. Someone was getting a kickback from the kidnappers.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised, for them to be able to nail us so completely. But I can’t imagine Forsythe being in on it.” The polished major had made no bones about how much he disliked the location and the assignment, but he’d seemed like the kind of straight-arrow officer who was an army lifer.
“No. Not likely Forsythe. Maybe one of the sergeants.” There had been Forsythe, two sergeants, and our camp’s security detail.
“Think the Hondurans were in on it? The trainees?”
“Naw.” MacDonald shook his head. “They were freaking the hell out when we were hit.”
“Doesn’t mean they weren’t scared shitless for a reason. Their people were pulling off the raid. They’re a trigger-happy bunch. But if the army decided they were terrorists, that would make the negotiations a lot harder.”
“I just don’t know, LT. There were casualties when they took us, and who knows what the kidnappers told the army when they asked for the ransom.”
I wondered what the people at home had been told, too. I longed for the satellite phone I’d left that day on the charger back in the Trifecta tent. Just to be able to hear Lei’s voice—she must be going crazy.
My stomach tightened. She wouldn’t come over here and try to get me out, would she? I already knew the answer to that, and it almost made me retch. God forbid the army gave her any information. But she wouldn’t come after me. That other time she’d gone off the reservation had cost us more than either of us wanted to admit, and she wouldn’t leave Kiet.
My wife was a warrior, but she was a mother, too. She wouldn’t leave our son.
The best thing I could do for both of them was to survive this and get home, sober and right in the head. But I’d settle for just surviving, at this point.
I reached into my pocket and took out the third banana. My belly should be able to deal with it after digesting the other two. I took extra time chewing, hoping to break it down more in my mouth. Falconer woke up, rustling up from under his banana leaves, and that woke Kerry.
“Think we’ll be ready to get moving soon?” Kerry sat up on his elbows.
“We can’t go back into that water.” Falconer gestured to my feet. “Stevens’s feet will go septic.”
“Would be great to let our clothes and socks dry out befo
re we got moving.” I grabbed my socks off the frond they’d been draped over. They were still damp. “We have no idea how close the hostiles are, do we?”
Falconer shook his head and lifted his dark face to the sky. As if to demonstrate how helpless we were, rain began plinking down. “Shit. We can get moving, or we can make a shelter with these banana leaves and wait this out.”
“Shelter. Wait for it to pass,” Kerry voted, raising a hand. MacDonald nodded in agreement.
“Probably should have made the shelter first thing, but we didn’t know how long we’d be here.” Falconer stood and stretched, his muscular body imposing. I was damn glad he was with us. “I’ll cut some leaves. Let’s use the walking sticks for the frame.”
In a remarkably short time Falconer had directed the erection of a fairly functional lean-to shelter, with room for us to all lie inside. The banana leaves, layered on top of each other, did a good job of sloughing the rainwater off.
The patter became a downpour, and we huddled close. I slept again.
The door creaked open. A path of light illuminated the three young boys Lei had seen working the fields. They were restrained and gagged with duct tape. One of them had lost control of his bladder, and the smell of urine stung Lei’s nose as she moved forward into the room, weapon drawn, and knelt beside the nearest child.
“You’re okay now. We’re going to help you. This will hurt a bit.” The boy whimpered as Lei pulled the gag off the boy’s mouth and the ultra-sticky tape pulled the sensitive skin of his face and lips. “Are there any other booby traps we should know about?” She squatted beside him, pulling her knife to cut the tape binding his wrists behind his back as Manolo freed the others.
“No more. Just the window and the door.” The boy’s voice was rusty and dry, and she gestured for one of the SWAT members to bring his canteen forward.