BLACK CITY (Ulysses Vidal Adventure Series Book 2)

by Fernando Gamboa

  The unbearable pain made me fall on my face in the mud. I could hardly breathe. A hand grabbed my hair and dragged me to my feet in front of Souza’s eyes. They were bright with the excitement of torture.

  The point of the knife wandered over my face again and came to a stop below my right eye.

  “I’ll ask you again. Where are the others?”

  “If I tell you,” I said panting, “you’ll kill them.”

  “It’s a possibility,” he said with a sinister smile.

  I breathed deeply. “Let’s make a deal,” I said.

  Souza’s laughter must have been audible for several miles around. “Are you a fool or what? You’re in no position to make any deals. Either you tell me right away or I’ll take your eyes out, cut off your tongue, and tie you to a tree for the ants to eat you slowly.”

  This did not sound very promising. It was certainly not what I had in mind.

  “You could,” I said adopting my best poker face. “But then, you’ll have to find my friends all by yourself, and this jungle is pretty big. Before you find them, or rather if you do,”—I looked at the rest of his group—“you’ll all be dead at the hands of the Morcegos. Who, believe it or not, are real, and they’ll kill you one by one every night you spend here. As it happened to your two men. Or do you really believe we pulled the head off a guy like Luizao, with our hands tied behind our backs?”

  The argument seemed to hit a nerve with my captors, who exchanged brief looks.

  Obviously they had already thought about it.

  Souza was equally doubtful. He stood up and stared at me again, weighing me up. There was a long silence. “What’s the deal?” he asked at last.

  “Simple. I take you to my friends, but you give me your word that you’ll spare our lives and take us back to civilization. In exchange, we’ll sign a confidentiality clause and we’ll never say anything about what’s happened here or what we’ve seen.”

  “Now you trust my word?”.

  “Do we have a choice?” I asked gruffly. “You’re our only hope of getting out of here.”

  He was thoughtful for a whole minute. Then he glanced at each of his men, seeking their approval.

  At my back, strong arms raised me effortlessly to my feet.

  “All right,” Souza said. “Take us to your friends and we’ll get you out of here.”

  “Then I have your word you won’t harm them?”

  “You have my word as a soldier.”

  For an instant we stared at each other. Finally, I started toward where I knew I would find the professor and Cassie.

  72

  Although I insisted that it was unnecessary, Souza decided it was best to take my friends by surprise. He gave me no time to complain. Following his instructions, his men fanned out. As for me, not only did I have my hands tied behind my back, I was gagged as well so as not to be able to warn them at the last minute.

  We walked slowly. I was trying not to trip and fall on my face, while they were carrying their machine guns at face level. They looked right and left as they went, almost invisible in their camouflage, scarcely distinct from their surroundings.

  A few steps further on, Souza raised his hand with his fist closed. His men stopped immediately, still as statues. A short distance away the professor and Cassie were sitting with their backs to us, apparently discussing something to do with the murals and the city’s possible origin.

  At a signal from their commander, three of the mercenaries stormed the clearing. Shouting and aiming their weapons at them all the time, they pushed Eduardo and Cassie to their knees with their hands behind their heads.

  Straight away Souza grabbed me by the arm, took off the gag, and threw me into the center of the clearing. I fell down in the mud. Surprised and uncomprehending, the professor and Cassie stared at me.

  Souza turned to me. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “Thank you very much, Mr. Vidal, for telling me where to find your friends. It wasn’t that difficult, was it?”

  Cassie raised her head and looked at me in disbelief. “Did you tell him where we were?”

  “I’ve made a deal with them,” I said defensively. “They’ve promised to spare our lives and get us out of here.”

  “You… pendejo!” she said accusingly. “You’ve signed our death sentence!”

  The professor said nothing, only shook his head, which hurt even more than Cassandra’s insult.

  “You’d have done the same thing in my place,” I protested feebly.

  “That’s what you’d like to believe, you bloody moron, but we wouldn’t.”

  Souza seemed to be particularly taken with the scene, relishing the way Cassie abused me while I took my punishment.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said when he felt the show had gone on for long enough. He gave orders to his men to point their guns at the three of us. “I guess you didn’t find anybody from the other expedition, am I right?”

  “There’s nobody else here,” I said contritely, but for a fraction of a second I glanced toward the thicket.

  Souza saw the swift movement of my eyes. He stared at me distrustfully for a moment, raised two fingers of his right hand, and pointed first at his own eyes and then in the direction I had looked in.

  Immediately, two of his men advanced cautiously, following a narrow path. One of them crouched, touched the ground, and raised three fingers, then moved two of them as if they were legs walking. He had found tracks of three more people.

  “So you wanted to fool me, did you?” Souza said with a cruel smile.

  None of us made any reply to that rhetorical question.

  He grabbed me by the arm again, left two men in charge of the professor and Cassie, and pushed me in the direction of the footprints, which were clearly visible in the mud.

  Beyond a stretch of bushy undergrowth, we came out in a new clearing. Here the other two mercenaries were waiting at the edge of a dark opening in the ground, a wide hole that gave access to the network of tunnels beneath. In fact, it was the one we had used to escape from the Morcegos, thanks to Valeria and her team. Inside, the unmistakable prints of three pairs of boots vanished in the darkness.

  Souza moved his head in sudden inspiration. “So you were using these passages...” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “That’s why we couldn’t find your tracks.” He turned to me. “Where do these tunnels lead to?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  He moved his right hand to the butt of his gun. “Look, son. We can do this nice and easy, or we can do it the hard way. If you don’t tell me, I’ll finish off your two friends without a blink, but if you help me… well, I might seriously consider honoring our deal.”

  “And how do I know you’ll do your part?”

  “Because I’m the one holding the gun. Is that a good enough argument?”

  It certainly was. Conclusive, even. It was clear that if I did not do what he demanded, I would be risking my friends’ lives.

  I bit my lip and nodded silently.

  “Very well,” Souza said. “Now I’ll ask you again: where do these tunnels lead to?”

  “To a kind of sanctuary, where we were safe from the Morcegos… and from you.”

  He knelt down to study the narrowness of the tunnel. “Is it very far?”

  “About half a mile from here. If you want I can draw you a map.”

  Lieutenant Souza stood up and gave me a little smile. “This guy really thinks I’m an idiot,” he muttered in a disappointed tone, turning to his men.

  “Absolutely not, I—”

  “I won’t need any map,” he interrupted me pointing at the hole, “because you’re going to be our guide down there. If you were hoping to get us lost, or else lead us into a trap, you’d better get that out of your mind. You’ll be walking in front, and if I have the slightest suspicion there’s anything funny going on, I’ll shoot you in the neck. Is that clear? Oh, and one more thing,”—he smiled sadistically as he placed his index finger on my chest—“I
’m going to give orders to the two men who are staying to watch grandpa and the girl. If we aren’t back in two hours, they’re to disembowel the old man and have some fun with the blonde… before they disembowel her as well.” He turned around and laughed heartily, like the psychopath he probably was.

  Plans, I had once heard, are the things that never turn out the way you expect them to. I was thinking about that as I looked at the terrifying tunnel I had sworn I would never set foot in again and imagined the terrible fate that might be waiting for all those who had trusted me.

  Now their lives were in my hands. And mine was in the hands of an assassin.

  To be honest, things did not look too good.

  73

  With the persuasive motivation of a 9mm gun aimed at my neck, I let myself slide down the edge of the hole. I landed on my feet on the flooded bed of that primitive sewer. The level was much higher than the last time I had been there.

  A second later, one of the mercenaries landed beside me, then another, and at last, gun in hand, Souza.

  “All right, kid,” he said. “You don’t have much time, so make good use of it and try not to get lost. Which direction are we heading?”

  “First untie my hands and give me a flashlight.”

  “No way,” he replied firmly.

  “How the hell am I going to find my way in this darkness?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll light your way.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. So we wouldn’t get lost in this labyrinth, we made marks on the walls. I won’t be able to find them if I don’t carry my own light. What are you afraid of? Do you think I’m going to attack you with a flashlight?”

  Souza snorted in annoyance, but in the end he agreed reluctantly and asked one of his men to give me his flashlight.

  “Well,” he said as he stuck his gun barrel into my back, “now you have your little light, but untying your hands is out of the question. Start walking.”

  After some contortionism, I managed to pass my bound hands under my legs so that I could hold the flashlight in front of me. Then I began to walk slowly, leading the way, with the water up to my chest and humming a song under my breath.

  “Shut up,” Souza yelled. “Or are you trying to warn them of our presence?”

  “That’s exactly it,” I said. “They have the weapons Luizao had when he was killed by the Morcegos. If I don’t warn them and if they’re not sure it’s me, they might start shooting. And honestly, I wouldn’t like them to put any holes in my favorite shirt.”

  “If you mention that nonsense about the Morcegos again,” Souza said without a trace of humor, “I’ll shoot you in the foot.”

  I could hear the other two mercenaries whispering restlessly behind him. It was obvious that they were familiar with the legend, and the disappearance of one of their fellows followed by the brutal death of another had made them more than a little nervous.

  “Hi there!” I shouted suddenly. I was pleased to notice that Souza, caught unawares, started slightly. “It’s me, Ulysses. I’m coming in, don’t shoot!”

  The truth is I had no idea where I was. I was making a show of following some markings on the walls that were not really there. So all I could do was trust to heaven and pray that what I was expecting to happen—and what I most feared—truly would.

  And so, in reply to my prayers, it did happen.

  We had not walked a hundred yards when there came a dull growl from the darkness ahead of us. It was followed immediately by a foul stench of rank sweat and rotten flesh, coming from somewhere nearby.

  “O que foi?” one of the mercenaries asked anxiously.

  “Silence!” Souza said sharply.

  The lieutenant put his mouth to my ear.

  “I know what you guys are playing at,” he said, avoiding any sign of tension, “but it’s not going to work with me, so tell your friends to come out immediately and stop that nonsense if you don’t want me to shoot you right here.” To give more weight to his words he pressed his gun barrel against my back.

  “I swear it’s not a trick,” I assured him. I was worried by the gun in my back, but even more by what I could not see but knew was lurking ahead. “I’ve told you there are Morcegos here… and you’ve just checked for yourself.”

  “The only thing I’ve checked is that you guys are good at imitations. And now, if you don’t want to finish this walk right now, keep going.”

  “Don’t you understand?” I said firmly turning to face him. He was now pointing at my head. “If we go on along this corridor, we’ll all be dead.”

  Souza’s finger closed on the trigger. While I waited for my whole life to pass in front of my eyes, what I saw instead—or rather sensed—was a fleeting movement behind the second mercenary.

  For an instant, I could not help looking away from Souza’s dark eyes to focus on two other blood-shot eyes that appeared from nowhere, set within an elongated shadow.

  Two long limbs reached out from the black shadow. Before I could grasp what I was seeing, they wrapped around Sergeant Gerias in a deadly embrace as he was dragged into the darkness with sudden violence.

  The poor wretch did not even get the chance to know what had happened to him.

  My face must have shown the horror of the scene, because the other two mercenaries turned around with exaggerated slowness, as if they were afraid to see their worst fears fulfilled.

  I did not even hear the man scream as the creature took him. There was only disbelief on his face. He only left a ripple in the water behind him. As if he had never been there.

  For hardly more than a second an unreal silence held us in a kind of trance.

  Finally Souza seemed to grasp what had just happened to his second in command. “Sergeant!” he shouted with alarm. “Sergeant, where are you!”

  Then he took the gun away from my head and began to aim at the direction from which no answer had come.

  When he finally realized his man was never going to answer, he started to shoot into the darkness. Fabio followed suit, emptying the magazine of his submachine gun in a deafening burst that echoed through the narrow tunnel and filled it with white smoke.

  That was just what I was waiting for.

  Now or never, I said to myself.

  I switched the flashlight off and turned away from the two men who kept firing at nothing. I ran blindly with my hands in front of me, determined to get as far away as possible from the mercenaries before they found out I had taken French leave.

  I was running hunched over so as not to bump my head on the ceiling, touching the wall as I went to keep my sense of direction. It was difficult to run through the water that filled the corridor to a width of three feet, but I managed to get far enough to prevent the beam of the flashlight giving me away. Only then, panting, did I stop and turn to look back. I could still see the flashes of gunfire about fifty yards down that narrow, straight tunnel, accompanied by the dry echo of the semi-automatic submachine gun and the wild shouts of the two men.

  I could not tell if the shouts were of blind fury or sheer terror.

  I tried not to feel guilty about the immediate future that awaited them, and at the same time was glad about the distance I had managed to put between us. I went on at a slower pace as the echo of the detonations receded. I did not dare to switch on the flashlight for fear of being discovered, so I went on touching the wall blindly, like a drunkard making his way home. Then, unexpectedly, the support vanished. I lost my balance and fell in the stagnant water.

  The wall I was following was suddenly not there.

  I got up with difficulty, as my hands were still tied together, and I realized two things, one good and one bad. The good thing was that I had come upon a side corridor which would take me out of the line of vision of the mercenaries, so now I could switch the flashlight back on to find my way. The bad thing was that as a result of my clumsy fall I had no flashlight to switch on.

  It was somewhere under the water now, and after holding my breath and feel
ing the bottom for it, I knew I could not waste more time looking for it. I would just have to do without.

  Luckily I had already anticipated this and hidden the late Luizao’s Zippo in my sock. Taking care not to lose it as well, and trying to ignore a rending yell behind me—whether human or not, I couldn’t say—I slowly retrieved the lighter.

  I sat on the muddy bottom and brought my knees up just above the water level. Holding the lighter between them, I switched it on and put my trembling hands to the tiny flame. The pain in my wrists as they were burned was excruciating, so I had to repeat the operation three more times before the plastic of the bonds began to melt.

  At last the trick worked and I was able to get rid of the plastic handcuffs.

  Now the problem was how to get out of there. I needed to know where I was.

  And I did not have the faintest idea.

  By the wavering flame of the lighter, I moved forward cautiously along that new corridor. I could not hear the sounds of fighting anymore, but whether it was because I was far enough away by now or because one side had finished off the other one, I could not be sure.

  Although that had been my intention from the beginning and the reason for luring the mercenaries into Morcego territory, at that particular moment, with only the light of a ridiculous lighter, unarmed and surrounded in my imagination by terrible monsters lurking beyond the reach of my hand, the idea did not seem quite so brilliant. When I had suggested it hours before, encouraged by the warm light of the midday sun, with the eyes in front of me filled with expectancy, they had called me deranged and brainless.

  Now I realized they were probably right.

  What the hell had I been thinking of?

  Oh, well, as they say in situations like these: what’s done is done. I was at the heart of things, and my only option was to keep going. Continue through the darkness and pray that my guardian angel had not taken the day off.

  “You’ve been in worse situations, old son,” I said to myself under my breath to raise my spirits.

  But deep down I knew it was not true.