Spirals

by Scott Bergin

  They continued rowing as hard as they could to the side. The waterfall was just two hundred yards away. The line of overhanging branches was only fifteen yards off. The roar of water became so loud talking was almost impossible. Alex wanted to ask Fimyany about the waterfall, about where they were, and about a hundred other things. He didn't. He knew that the only thing that mattered was rowing. If they could not make it into the trees, they would go over the falls. If that happened, none of his questions would do either of them any good.

  Before Alex knew it, they had reached the first tree. It was only ten yards in front of them. Alex looked past it and realized that it was the last tree. Thirty yards beyond it was the edge of a drop off, that he could still not see the bottom of. Fimyany tapped Alex on the shoulder. He turned to see Fimyany crouched, with his hands intertwined in front of him. Alex knew what he wanted. Alex placed his foot into Fimyany's hands, and Fimyany boosted him up. Instantly, Alex was hit by the passing branch. He quickly grabbed it, and climbed on. When he reached for Fimyany, he was too late. The raft had already passed beneath the tree, headed for the waterfall.

  "I did what I came to do!" Fimyany shouted at the top of his lungs. "And I kept my promise!"

  A moment later he was gone. The raft carried him over the falls. Alex waited to hear a crash when they hit the bottom, but the waterfall concealed everything. He thought about what Fimyany had said. What Fimyany had come down the river to do was done days before, back at the cannibal village. The promise he had made was to get them out of the jungle. Alex hated to think poorly of the dead, but he had not kept his promise. Fimyany was dead, and Alex was still somewhere in the middle of a jungle. Now he was without a raft, or a guide.

  Alex climbed down the tree. Placing his feet back onto the ground felt reassuring. He decided that the best thing to do was to follow the river, which meant climbing down the cliff by the waterfall. Alex walked toward the waterfall. He decided not to try retrieving supplies from the raft. The supplies would be useful, but he couldn't bring himself to take them. Somehow, he knew it would feel like he was robbing Fimyany's grave.

  Alex reached the edge of the cliff. The waterfall was more than a hundred feet tall. The bottom was not visible, only a cloud of mist and vapor. Beyond that Alex could see the river continuing its course. Through the mist, Alex saw another river merging with this one. The other river was much larger. Instantly, Alex knew what Fimyany had meant. He had kept his promise. The other river had to be the Ogooue River. Fimyany told him that once they reached it, they would be out of the jungle. Alex also realized what Fimyany had been telling him the day before. There would be no danger between where they were and the Ogooue River, there was nothing said about once they reached the Ogooue River.

  For the next half hour Alex climbed down the cliff. He reached the bottom safely, and was relieved not to find any of the wreckage from the raft. Fimyany had told him that the junction meant civilization, but Alex could still see nothing but jungle in all directions. He started to follow the bank of the Ogooue River downstream. Only a quarter mile down the embankment, it became impassible. A huge rock formation prevented him from following the river too closely. The opposite side of the river was the same way. Alex guessed that this might have been the original course of the waterfall, millions of years ago. All it was now, was another obstacle. Alex slowly made his way up the rocks. When he got to the top, the ground leveled off. As he walked over the top of the rock formation, he spotted a sign attached to a barbed wire fence. After crossing the fence, he was able to read the sign.

  Danger: Wet rocks beyond this point

  It was true. The rocks had been slippery and dangerous. The sign meant that he was very close to civilization, and that he was now heading in the right direction. Alex hurried through the trees. The forest quickly vanished, and Alex found himself standing on a hilltop overlooking a small town. There were at least twenty or thirty buildings that he could see. He could see roads with cars on them, and people walking everywhere. Fimyany had kept his promise. He had gotten Alex back to civilization safely.

  Alex wanted to run right into the center of town and announce his presence. Then he realized that he couldn't. He was not supposed to even be in this country. He didn't have the proper papers, not even a passport. The handcuffs on his wrist would make everyone think that he was an escaped criminal. With the way he looked, and smelled, he would not be able to convince them of anything else. Alex had spent so much time trying to get out of the jungle, that he had given no thought to what would happen if he succeeded. Now that he had, he found the challenges to be as great as those he had faced in the jungle.

  He slowly walked toward the town, thinking what to do. He took off his shirt and wrapped it around the handcuffs. If anyone asked about it, he would tell them he was injured. It was not entirely a lie. The handcuffs had cut their way into his wrist, and the wound was infected. He decided that his best bet was not this town. What he needed was a larger city. One that he would not be noticed in. He decided to find out which road led to a larger city, and try to hitchhike his way there. Once he disappeared into the crowd, he would be able to clean himself up and figure out a way to get out of the country. For now, he would be content with getting himself into a city, and keeping himself out of jail. Alex reached the first road into town, and followed it. As he walked, he tried to think of a good story. He thought of a couple. One involved a plane crash in the jungle. Another involved a mining expedition getting lost. None contained a word of the truth, and none could explain the handcuffs. Alex kept walking toward the town, and kept trying to think of a story that would hold water. Though he knew that he would not be able to prove any story he told, not even the truth.

  Chapter 35

  April 16

  4:10 p.m.

  The Atlantic Ocean

  The waves crashed against the boat with hypnotic monotony. Thomas was more than ready to switch shifts with Hector, though it was not yet time. The sea seemed endless, so long as Thomas looked ahead. When he looked to his right, he could see a distant shore. He had kept with all three of his main objectives. The first was to stay above the required speed, that was easy. Thomas simply put the throttle on full and left it there. The second task was to stay twenty miles offshore. Well beyond the twelve-mile boundary that placed them in international waters. The last task proved to be the most difficult, staying awake. Throughout the day Thomas found his mind wandering far from the business at hand. Now he found his mind taking him back to where it all began, in Italy.

  Thomas met Hector through a mutual friend. Hector was described to him as being slightly annoying, but as a man with a plan. The annoying part turned out to be quite an understatement. Thomas was working as a demolition consultant in Italy at the time. Hector was living in northern Italy with his wife. Hector had been married for five years, and he'd had enough. He was ready for a change. Hector had taken out insurance policies on his wife and house a year earlier. At the time he bought the policies, he had not even begun to plot. A year later, he had the entire thing worked out. All he needed now was an accomplice. He hoped Thomas would become that accomplice. Over the course of several weeks Hector mapped out his plan for the death of his wife, and the destruction of their house. Thomas' first thought was to send a bomb through the mail, but Hector was instantly opposed to it. Hector wanted it to look like an accident. He didn't want to end up spending hour after hour at the police station talking about who his enemies might be. His house was completely run on gas. Hector felt that gas was the key to making it look like an accident. Thomas agreed that a gas leak, and an explosion were possible, but that he would need to have an extensive look at the house. He would have to spend so much time going in and out of the house, that Hector's wife would start to ask questions.

  Hector had the entire solution figured out, down to the last detail. First he sabotaged the pendulum inside the seatbelt of his car's passenger seat. Then he took his wife for a ride. He slid the car out of control at thirty-
five mile an hour, and into the corner of a building. When his wife's seatbelt failed to catch, she was thrown into the dashboard. She suffered a broken nose, two broken legs, and a sprained elbow. As a result of the accident, she was confined to a bed. This gave Thomas and Hector the ability to roam throughout the house without her even noticing. What Hector had not considered, was that it made him on call twenty-four hours a day. She seemed to be in need of something every waking moment. Hector set up a television next to her bed. Eventually, he set up a small refrigerator beside that. He gave her every comfort she asked for, and he considered each one as her last wish being granted. Thomas never got a look at Hector's wife, the possibility of her seeing his face was more than he was willing to risk. Hector showed Thomas several pictures of her, and Thomas stopped questioning why he wanted to leave her. She was not only extremely overweight, but she was ugly as well. Even if she lost all the weight, she would still be too ugly to bear looking at for very long. Thomas wondered what possessed Hector to marry her in the first place. Before Thomas even had a chance to ask, Hector told him that it was for the money. Money was the only thing Hector was interested in. Thomas respected that about Hector. He had gotten married for money, now he was going to blow up his own house and murder his own wife for money. Very few people would be willing to go through so much to achieve a specific goal. Hector was one of those rare breeds. Thomas was interested in the project for a completely different reason, the thrill. Thomas agreed to split the money with Hector unevenly for that reason. Hector would get sixty-five percent of their earnings. Thomas would get the remaining thirty-five percent.

  Thomas recalled seeing the look on Hector's face one day. Hector came into the basement, where Thomas was working. He had just had to give his wife a sponge bath. The thought of that alone was enough to make Thomas sick. Then Hector went into vivid description of the event. Apparently his wife was quite starved for sex. Hector was wiping her thigh with a damp sponge when she grabbed his hand. She forced his hand between her legs. There she pleasured herself with his hand and the sponge for several minutes, until he was able to break free. Hector had stated that it took every ounce of energy to keep from smothering her with a pillow, while she lay naked on the bed laughing at him. Instead, he managed to get off the floor and scramble out the door. Upon reaching the basement, he begged Thomas several times to kill her as quickly as possible. Thomas reminded him who crippled her, and whose idea it was.

  After several days of examining the house, Thomas was able to come up with a plan. Italy experienced hundreds of earthquakes every year. Most of them so small that they go unnoticed. Many of them are large enough to be felt, but cause little damage. Thomas decided to make the bombing look like the result of an earthquake. Hector hated the idea, but only because of the unpredictability involved. It might take more than a week for a sizable earthquake to strike, and he wanted her dead as soon as possible. Thomas decided on the earthquake idea for several reasons. It gave him an excuse to be in the area when the blast went off. Thomas only wanted to blow up the building if he could get to see it be destroyed. An earthquake also provided a quick explanation for the authorities. The earthquake would cause a gas leak below the house. Once the house was filled with gas, a faulty outlet that gave off sparks would set off the explosion. If the outlet was far enough away from the gas leak, the resulting explosion would be enough to level the house.

  Nine days later, the plan went off without a hitch. Thomas sat in a car up the street three blocks. When he felt the rumbling of a small earthquake, he pressed a button on a remote. Inside the basement, a small motor knocked a gas pipe connection out of alignment. While Thomas waited several minutes for the house to fill with gas, he felt a stronger second earthquake. The second quake was enough to send frightened people into the streets. Thomas pushed the second button on his remote control. The house was incinerated in seconds. Pieces of the house landed in the street blocks away. Thomas chuckled as he watched the frightened people run back into their houses. They couldn't decide what was worse, having their own house land on them, or someone else's. Thomas drove passed the house unnoticed. The neighbors were far too interested in their own health to worry about a suspicious looking person driving past the wreckage. Proud of his accomplishment, Thomas drove on. His part of the bargain went off without a problem. The same could not be said for Hector Bishop. The root of his problem was his mistress, Sandra Pennelli. Thomas regretted the day he ever met her, as much as he regretted the day he met Hector.

  Thomas snapped back to reality. The alarm on his watch was going off. His shift was over. It was five o'clock. He glanced to his right, and saw the shore still safely off in the distance. He looked at the controls, and noticed that the gas tank was nearly empty. Thomas tied the wheel off, then headed to the back of the boat. He was relieved to not see any storm clouds creeping up behind them yet. They still had a chance of staying ahead of the storm. When he reached the back of the boat, he shook Hector's chair.

  "It's five o'clock, Hector." He said. "Time for your shift."

  "Not fair." Hector replied, as he came around.

  "What do you mean?" Thomas asked.

  "We passed through a time zone or something." Hector said, getting up from his chair.

  "No, we didn't." Thomas assured him.

  "Right." Hector replied, then walked to the front of the boat.

  Thomas took one of the ten fifty-five gallon drums of gasoline and slid it across the deck. He lifted a large hatch in the floorboards at the back of the boat. Under that hatch, was another hatch. Thomas opened the inner metal hatch. The smell of gasoline rose up out of the hatch. Thomas slid the barrel next to the open hatches. He pulled out his knife, and stuck it into the base of the barrel. Gasoline trickled out the bottom of the barrel, and ran onto the deck. Thomas stuck the knife into the top of the barrel. Before he could pull it back out, gasoline flowed in a steady stream out the bottom of the barrel, and into the open gas tank. The boat was equipped with an eighty gallon tank. The gas from the barrel easily fit into it. Thomas waited for the barrel to empty out, then he threw it overboard. The barrel floated for a minute, then began to take on water. Before it was too far behind them to see, it sank below the surface.

  Thomas decided to carry their food supplies into the cabin at the front of the ship. He hauled the crates and boxes of food and water into the cabin in four trips. After the last one, he stayed in the cabin. Thomas knew that it would be dark soon enough. He didn't want to be on deck if the storm suddenly caught up with them during the night. That was his only concern about having Hector run the night shift, or any shift. Hector was remarkably lazy. He had not bothered carrying any of the supplies below deck. Thomas figured that Hector had probably paid extra to have the supplies delivered. Once they were on the ship, Hector was satisfied. There was no need for order or cleanliness, not for Hector to be content. Likewise, he would probably not prepare the ship for the possibility of an oncoming storm. Thomas had to make sure that all lines were secured at the end of his shift, because Hector would not check any of them at the beginning of his.

  As Thomas lay in his bunk, he was convinced that he had prepared the ship for the storm. Though he doubted it would hit before five in the morning. The only way that could happen was if the ship's engine died and could not be quickly restarted. Thomas dreaded thinking about Hector raising the sails just before the storm. The boat would be destroyed. Thomas had little doubt that Hector was dumb enough to raise the sails in a storm. Hector would just think of it as extra wind. The only other fear Thomas had was Hector falling asleep at the controls. That thought opened up a whole bunch of unpleasant possibilities, none of which Thomas cared to think about. In spite of all his worries, Thomas managed to fall asleep. He knew that he could not watch every move Hector made, though it was the only way to insure safety. He also knew that he could not watch him to make sure he stayed awake. Thomas had started to nod off while he was at the controls. Now that he was freed of his responsibilities, n
othing could keep him from sleeping for the next twelve hours.

  Chapter 36

  April 16

  6:00 p.m.

  On a Private Charter to London

  The plane leveled off at thirty thousand feet. The lone stewardess brought cocktails back to the plane's only two passengers. Robert and Gabrielle accepted their drinks and thanked her. She vanished back behind the curtain from which she had emerged.

  "I'll take that name now." Robert said, casually taking a sip of his rum and coke.

  "Well, you didn't quite get us off the ground in twenty-four hours." Gabrielle said, toying with him.

  "The name." Robert insisted. "Or we turn around."

  "Thomas LaRue." Gabrielle replied.

  "Okay. Now tell me everything you know about him." Robert said.

  "That wasn't part of the deal." Gabrielle complained.

  "New deal." He said coldly.

  "What do you mean new deal?" She protested.

  "My plane." Robert replied. "I make the rules."

  "That's still not very fair." Gabrielle said, pouting.

  "Tell you what." Robert said. "You tell me everything you know about Thomas LaRue, and I'll owe you any one favor you ask."

  "Anything?" Gabrielle asked.

  "Absolutely anything." Robert assured her.

  "So, I'll have my own little genie." She said.

  "Yes, but a used one." He replied. "This genie only has one wish left. What do you say?"

  "I'm still a little concerned." Gabrielle replied.

  "About what?" Robert asked.

  "I just don't want anyone to steal this story out from under me." She replied.

  "Have you ever seen a reporter with this much money?" Robert asked.

  "I'm not worried about you being a reporter." She assured him. "But I still don't know who you are."

  "Who do you think I am?" Robert asked.