William Christie 02 - Mercy Mission

by William Christie

  "Watch behind," he told her. He sped up and took several hard turns. He thought about another homing beeper, then dismissed it. The Guatemalans were there to kill him; they hadn't bothered to screw around with the jeep.

  "We're not being followed," Scanlan announced. She sank back in her seat. "I can't believe it, we got away."

  "Not yet," Welsh said curtly, keeping his eyes on the road.

  "I assume we're going to Belize," she said.

  "We are unless you've got any other business."

  "No," Scanlan replied. "No other business."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Inside five minutes they were past the airport and speeding east on Highway 13. Only two lanes, and narrow, but a hard-surface asphalt highway. There was a hunter's moon, nearly full. Welsh would have liked less light.

  There hadn't been much conversation since they'd left the hotel. As they drove along, Welsh first heard a loud gulp. Then, right behind it, Margaret Scanlan said, straining, a word at a time, "Pull...over...quick."

  Welsh whipped the jeep onto the shoulder. The door opened, and there was the sound of vomiting. Welsh had stashed a roll of paper towels behind his seat. He tore off a few sheets and passed them out through the door to her.

  While she was busy, Welsh occupied himself in the cargo area of the jeep. He opened the case of bottled water he'd purchased in Santa Elena, and slipped a liter plastic bottle into the mesh pouch on each side of his day pack. Two more bottles went inside, followed by a bag of assorted purchases and his new machete, the handle sticking out the top. He put four more water bottles into her bag, and tossed a couple more- into the front seat. By that time she was off her knees, back in the jeep, and getting her breath.

  Welsh slid back into the driver's seat, uncapped a bottle, and handed it to her. "Here, rinse your mouth out with this."

  She did, then sat back, shut her door, and put on her seat belt. "I'm okay now. Thanks."

  Welsh pulled back onto the road.

  "Sorry," Scanlan said. "I don't know what happened."

  "Pretty common reaction, usually when the action's over. Difference between here and the bar in Guatemala City. Watching violence is exhilarating. Doing violence is sickening. Unless you do it often enough to get used to it. When you feel up to it, I'd like to hear how it went down."

  Scanlan sighed and put her head back on the seat rest. "Colonel Dominguez was staying on a ranch to the north of here. Everyone knew where he was, but whenever you asked no one could find him. I couldn't get anywhere near there. So the word leaked out that I'd been able to buy some original Army documents, ironclad evidence he ordered my brother's death. The word is also that the high-level people who sold me the documents are ready to sell him out too.

  "So, I've got the documents. I fly into Santa Elena. I check into the hotel. Colonel Dominguez dropped by to pay me a visit. He was going to rape me, kill me, and get the documents. I didn't know you were in the hotel, or even in Santa Elena, until I bumped into you. I'm sorry if what happened to you was part of it."

  "Where did you get the pistol?"

  "It's easier to buy a real gun than a toy one in Guatemala. My dad taught me to shoot."

  "I'm curious," said Welsh. "I hadn't shown up, what were you planning to do?"

  "Call the police and barricade myself in the room until morning. Then surrender, plead self-defense, and see if I could embarrass both the U.S. and Guatemalan governments for not moving against him when they had the chance."

  "Great plan," Welsh said dryly. "They'd throw you in jail during the investigation, and someone would hire one of your fellow inmates to knife you. Or a couple of guards to hang you in your cell. You wouldn't have lasted a day." He paused. "And the word getting out? Was that Booker's quid pro quo for you putting me and him together?"

  Scanlan didn't reply to that, which was good enough for Welsh. Instead she said, "What happened in your room?"

  "I was asleep. Two guys let themselves into my room, and they ended up dead instead of me."

  "Did you have a gun?"

  "Used one of theirs."

  "After all that, why did you come in to help me?"

  "Because you're a woman."

  That put a hitch in the rhythm of the conversation. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Because you're a woman," Welsh repeated. "The same thing happened that's going to happen if they ever let women into combat units. It's not that women aren't as smart, or tough, or capable of violence as men. It's because men instinctively protect women. It's imprinted on our genes to ensure the future of the species. We do it without thinking...as we do most things," he added.

  "You mean if I was a man you wouldn't have come crashing into my room?"

  "And I knew him as little as I know you? Hell, no, I'd have been a half hour farther down the road, alone."

  There was a moment of silence as she digested that. "Thank you for doing it anyway. And for being honest too. Even though I suppose I ought to be offended."

  "Why? When I busted into your room, you didn't thank me for my concern and insist on handling the situation yourself. You came along for the ride."

  "You can be a bastard, can't you?"

  That only made Welsh chuckle out loud. "I very well may be one, but I only seem to get called it by women whenever I speak some truth they didn't enjoy hearing."

  "Only women ever called you that?"

  "Sure, when men call you names there's a fistfight. Only women have that impunity." He stopped and regrouped. "Look, my intention here wasn't to start an argument. It was to make the point that we're in a major jam. So from here on we have to team up and play it straight all the way. No questions about each other's motives, no manipulation. Teamwork."

  "All right." She put out her hand. Welsh took his off the stick shift and shook it.

  "Why were those two guys trying to kill you at the hotel?" Scanlan asked. "It didn't have anything to do with Dominguez and me, did it?"

  "I honestly don't know. They weren't carrying manifestos of explanation in their pockets."

  "I know you got something from Booker too."

  "That's right. And if it was just my ass, I'd tell you all about it right now. But other people's lives are on the line, so I have to be discreet."

  "I'll try not to take it personally, you not trusting me."

  "You shouldn't."

  "By the way, we'll never get across the border checkpoint at Melchor de Mencos. Someone will have called ahead and they'll detain us on a murder charge, whether they can make it stick or not."

  "Don't worry," said Welsh. "We won't be crossing the border at the checkpoint."

  "So you've already made a plan for that?"

  "Yup. Want to hear it?"

  "No, not really. It's much easier on my nerves when you're close-mouthed and suspicious. When it's time, just tell me what I have to do."

  "Okay, whatever you want. I want to warn you, though, if we run into any checkpoint or roadblock on the highway, I'm hitting the gas and going right through. So if it happens, duck your head below the windshield and hang on."

  "And pray."

  "I wouldn't rely on prayer exclusively, but feel free."

  They drove steadily for the next half hour. Scanlan played with the radio, searching for news, but finding only some terrible Spanish pop music that kept fading in and out as they traveled through the rolling hills.

  They passed through a number of small towns, just a few adobe or mud huts and the ubiquitous church clustered together along muddy streets. All dark, due as much to early rising as there not being enough money to keep a kerosene lamp lit. Welsh remembered reading an account by the legendary Army General Vinegar Joe Stilwell, who as a lieutenant in 1907 had spent six weeks traveling and spying in Guatemala. The Guatemalan, he wrote with characteristic frankness, would not work more than he had to. Not because he was lazy, but because everything he made was stolen by officials, landowners, or the professional classes.

  At a town called El Cruce the highwa
y branched. The asphalt portion continued north to the Tikal ruins, for the convenience of tourists. Highway 13 west to Belize was now just unpaved dirt—and mud. It was less than fifty miles to the border, but it would take three to four hours of very careful driving to cover that, depending on the conditions.

  After an hour and forty-five minutes, the road ran into a series of winding turns and hills. Not knowing what was ahead, Welsh took them slowly. He came onto an open stretch, then suddenly, in the jungle ahead and off to the right, there was the flash and crack of a single rifle shot.

  "Wha..." Scanlan began.

  Welsh jammed the gas pedal down to the floor and killed the headlights. The vehicle surged forward. "Ambush right!" he shouted automatically. "Get your head down!"

  The jungle lit up with muzzle flashes. A huge explosion went off just behind them, and the jeep was buffeted by the shock. Claymore mine, Welsh's brain told him. He thought he heard Scanlan yelling.

  Welsh was flying through the gears, trying to get up speed. It was much easier than the hotel room, the suddenness allowing no time to get scared. Bullets punched through the sides of the jeep and blew by him like little gusts of supersonic wind, but most of the fire seemed to be going high. He began to think he'd succeeded in driving through the ambush.

  Then a machinegun opened up from the bend in the road directly in front. The stream of red tracers from the first burst passed over the jeep. A classic L-shaped ambush, the gun anchoring the small leg of the L at the curve in the road. They were driving straight at it, and the gunner would only need another burst or two to get on target.

  Welsh said, "Oh, shit." He yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, and they went off the road. Now Scanlan was definitely yelling.

  They crashed through foliage, and the front wheels went out into empty air. The front end dropped, and there was a sickening feeling of negative gravity. Welsh thought it was over: a pile of burning metal at the bottom of some canyon. Then all four wheels touched ground, and the jeep was going downhill very fast. The slope was steep and rocky. Welsh thought he could hold on if it didn't get any steeper. He got off the gas and downshifted; he knew that if he hit the brakes they were screwed.

  The jeep kept running over things, and each time the wheels left the ground. Don't roll, Welsh prayed silently. He fought the steering wheel to keep going straight down the slope. Any little twist and he knew they'd start rolling.

  He was doing it all by feel. The jeep scythed through walls of foliage, and Welsh couldn't see anything through the branches slapping at the windshield. He couldn't risk looking over at Scanlan.

  "Are you all right?" he shouted. There was no answer. "Are you hurt?"

  "I'm okay," came the shouted reply.

  "Brace yourself on the dash!"

  They kept going down. Then the jeep finally hit a tree large enough to stop it. The front end buckled, and even with his arms locked on the steering wheel, Welsh couldn't stop himself from snapping forward. He took a sharp blow as the shoulder safety belt caught him. Then everything stopped, and he was sitting upright, still holding the steering wheel. The windshield was broken but intact. He reached down and calmly shut off the engine.

  Scanlan was hunched over in her seat. Welsh popped his seat belt and felt for her arm. He gave it a hard squeeze, and she shot up.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  "I think so."

  "See if you can move your limbs and your neck." Welsh felt around his waist; the Beretta and spare magazines were still there. He hit the latch to open his door. It swung out about five inches and stopped. He kicked at it, but there was a sapling or branch in the way. "Get your door open and get out," he said. "But for Christ's sake check for the ground with your foot before you step off."

  Welsh climbed over the seat into the back of the jeep. It was pitch-black dark under the jungle canopy, so he had to feel around for what he wanted. He found his and Scanlan's bags and tossed them into the front seat. Also one of the four spare metal gas cans he'd purchased and filled in Santa Elena. Scanlan was standing outside her door, as if unwilling to leave the security of the vehicle.

  Welsh thought he could hear more firing coming from up the hill, though nothing was hitting anywhere near them. It was time to be gone. He popped the strap of his pack and took out the night-vision goggles. They're probably broken, he told himself. He slid them over his head and cinched the straps tight, like a baseball catcher's face mask. He nicked the switch, and the goggles went from solid black to lime green. He brought them into focus, and could see perfectly. You are still one lucky son of a bitch, he told himself. He snapped up the pack, then remembered the map. It was jammed half under the front seat. Everything else that had been lying around loose was scattered all over the inside of the cab.

  He slid out Scanlan's door with both packs in his hands. It took him a moment to get reacquainted with the peculiarities of night-vision goggles. There was tunnel vision, like looking through a toilet-paper tube. And you couldn't look directly at the ground and try to walk, because the goggles offered limited depth perception.

  The bottom of the draw was about twenty yards away, and there was a little stream, just a trickle a few inches wide, running down the length of it. "Take my arm," he said.

  There was a high edge to her voice that she wasn't able to keep down. "I can't see anything."

  "You'll get your night vision in a little bit. Just take my arm and follow me, we've got to get going." He led her down to the draw and dropped the two packs. "Put on your pack and wait right here, I'll be back in a second."

  "No way!" said Scanlan, her voice completely broken by now.

  "You've got to," Welsh said harshly. "No matter what happens, don't move from this spot."

  He went back to the vehicle and grabbed the gas can. The cap was jammed, and he hammered it on the bumper until it came off. He poured gas inside, over, and under the jeep, making sure none of it got on him, and kicked the door shut.

  He took off the night-vision goggles so he wouldn't be blinded, and struck his book of hotel matches. They flared up in his hand with an angry hiss. He threw the book at the jeep and scrambled down the hill as fast as he could.

  The vapor caught even before the matches reached the jeep. There was a loud whoosh, and the jungle came alight. Welsh could feel the heat through his shirt, and the back of his neck felt like it was broiling. He had to touch his clothing to be sure he wasn't on fire.

  Several shots snapped overhead, fired from up the hill. They were aiming at the burning jeep, but it was far and inaccurate. Welsh thought it would take them a while to get organized to come down.

  He reached Scanlan and hurriedly put on his pack.

  "Why did you do that?" she shouted. "Now they know right where we are."

  Welsh spoke with forced calm as he cinched the shoulder straps. "I gave them an excuse to wait around till morning to see if we burned up inside." He flipped the goggles back down over his eyes. "Grab one of the long straps on the back of my pack."

  "Why?"

  "Just fucking do it!" he snapped.

  "Okay, okay, I've got it," she said quickly.

  Welsh settled his voice down. "Now, I'm going to walk slow and easy. Hang onto the strap and follow behind me. Watch how my pack moves to see the shape of the ground, whether I'm going up or down. Feel with your toe to make sure you have good footing before you put your whole foot down. Don't say anything unless you have to, and then only in a whisper."

  "God," she said, her voice quavering, "this is terrible."

  "I'll go nice and slow until you get the hang of it," he assured her gently.

  Welsh started walking. Scanlan wasn't able to go five yards without stumbling, but movement was the most important thing now. The bottom of the draw was the only open area around. Downhill was the direction they wanted to go, so he decided to follow the little stream until daylight. Then he could get his bearings from the map and GPS.

  The jungle at night was almost unimaginably noisy
. The insects blended their sounds together in a dull roar. The nocturnal animals made their way as easily as others did in the light. Animals lived, killed, died, and each act had its own screaming chorus. Though it had been a while since he'd walked a jungle in the dark, Welsh felt almost electrically confident. If they could put a little distance between them and the bad guys tonight, he'd worry about the rest in the morning.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  They walked all night. Welsh didn't make any rest stops, only because they were both hyper after the ambush, and the pace was such that fatigue didn't become a factor. He passed his water bottles back and they drank as they walked. Just before first light he called a halt, and they moved into the cover of the stream-side brush.

  "Sit on your pack," he whispered.

  "Better than sitting on the ground, right?" she said.

  "More like something on the ground might object to being sat on," Welsh replied.

  Scanlan pulled herself up onto her pack so no part of her body was touching the ground. She moved so fast Welsh felt the breeze.

  He took off the night-vision goggles, handed her a bottle of water, and opened up his pack. It took a few minutes to get his night vision back. The canopy was thin over the top of the streambed, and quite a bit of moonlight came through.

  Welsh filled the empty water bottles in the stream. Then he dug around in his pack and pulled out a small bottle. He shook two tablets out of it and dropped one in each water bottle. "Iodine tablets," he said. "They make the water taste like shit, but kill all the nasty bugs. Unless you want to die out here, drink no untreated water." He dropped the iodine bottle into his shirt pocket, felt around in the bag, removed two more items, and zipped it back up.

  One of the items was a plastic squeeze bottle. "Insect repellent. Cover all exposed skin except your eyes. When you're done, wipe your hands off by running them through your hair. Keeps the bugs out of it."

  "I'm not complaining, you understand, but how come you have all this stuff?"