by J. M. Madden
Rector produced a pair of pliers and started cutting individual wires. It was slow and tedious work, but there was no way they could go over the fence. There were two curling ribbons of razor wire. If they’d been uniformed correctly they probably could have gone over it, but there was no way the cotton they wore would survive the razor blades, let alone their skin. And walking into the jungle with five hundred little cuts all over your body would be exceedingly dangerous.
Rector did a good job in cutting the corner, though. By the time they began to hear yelling voices, they were slipping through the gap in the fence. Once they were all through, Rector pulled the flap back down and secured it while Aiden covered him. Hopefully it would take the Army a while to find where they’d gone through.
Then they were trying to run through the jungle. Fontana had found some kind of long blade and he started hacking at the vegetation. Within just a few yards it was thick enough that they turned on the flashlights to see. Then, about a quarter mile from the fence, they found a faint game trail. Fontana ducked and started running, legs bent. He flashed hand signals when he thought they needed to see something. Occasionally it opened up and they could stand vertically. Other times they had to slow to a crawl because they couldn’t find a way through the wall of green. Rector lagged behind and Aiden paused. “Are you okay?” he hissed.
“Yeah, just so damn out of shape.”
Nodding, Aiden waved him ahead. He would bring up the rear for a while.
The flashlights were enough to illuminate what was exactly in front of you, but no more than that. They listened for the sound of pursuit, but it never came. They had debated following the road out of the camp but decided against it. If anyone saw them and were beholden to the camp for anything, there was a chance they would be reported. So, following a game trail, they wound away from the camp. After about an hour Fontana called a halt.
They were all out of breath. Aiden leaned against a tree with no thorns and braced his hands on his knees. His heart was going to thud right out of his chest. As he looked at the lush landscape around him, though, he decided if he had to die it could be in a place like this. At least it wouldn’t be in a cell, or on a damn stainless steel medical table they could just wash the blood off of when they were done.
Fontana produced a blue, multi-folded, laminated map and spread it open across the ground. “I don’t know exactly where we are, but I think we’re somewhere in this area. The tech I asked had no real idea.” He pointed to a broad expanse of green with very few dividing lines or identifiable roads. “It looks like the shortest possible distance to the coast, where we’ll be able to arrange pickup, hopefully, is to head northeast.”
His finger followed a line to the coast, and Aiden’s heart sank. He had hoped that they would be at least near some city, but it didn’t appear that they were. It would take weeks to reach the coast, especially if they had to navigate thick vegetation. If by chance they found a village they might be able to focus in on where they were, and maybe find transportation. If they had to hike that entire way, though, it would take them weeks to get anywhere.
He had thought that getting away from the camp might be the hardest part, but now he wasn’t so sure.
They agreed to head northeast, then they started going through their bags and cataloging everything they had. Fontana had broken into one of the American tech’s rooms who had been known for being an outdoorsman and had a treasure trove of equipment.
“The guy started to wake up and I told him to go back to sleep and dream about women with big tits. He smiled as he drifted off.”
They all laughed because they all wished they could do that, and it was the perfect way to break the ice after their escape.
Fontana had hit the jackpot though. In an excess of preparedness, the tech had brought along a bunch of camping supplies. Not especially useful in the Amazon jungle, but maybe it could be. There was a backpack with a mosquito net, a machete, a firestarter, and a weird straw thing that you could apparently drink through that would filter the water before it made it to your mouth. There was a length of fishing line with a small hook, possibly usable if they hit one of the Amazon’s many tributaries. Rope.
“How did you know he had this stuff?” Aiden asked.
“During one of the tests he was bitching at himself at how much money he’d spent on all the camping gear when he hadn’t used any of it. Apparently, the camp was enough for him and he had no desire to go beyond the perimeter fence. I think he was scared shitless when he got a look at the jungle.”
Aiden shook his head as he played his flashlight over all the gear. That was probably right. This was an urban outfitter’s overpriced gear pack, but it was better than nothing.
TJ Rector displayed the food he’d managed to gather. There were a few cans of smoked meat, vegetables and fruit, as well as several packets of freeze dried vegetables. A bag of sugar packets as well as a bag of salt packets. That was good because they would need the salt with the way they were sweating. There was a box of crackers as well as what appeared to be a cheesecloth wrapped package of meat. Hm. That might be kind of iffy unless they ate it soon. He’d also gathered several plastic wrapped packages of the oat cakes they all knew and loved.
Aiden winced but he knew they would need the calories to get through the jungle.
Wulfe brought out his haul next. He’d been carrying a black box and when he opened it, Aiden recognized the bottles of Ayahuasca serum that the doctor had produced. Two of the bottles were partially drained, but a third was completely full. He stared at the drug for a long time, not sure exactly how he felt about it.
“Seemed foolish to leave it,” Wulfe said simply, and they all nodded.
Once they’d catalogued everything they had they shared part of a liter bottle of water, then took off again. The going was slow. And dangerous. Aiden brought up the rear and his flashlight beam caught several dangerous critters moving across their path. He paused once to look at the paw prints of some type of cat, probably a jaguar. When he spread his fingers over the impression, they barely reached the edges.
“Maybe we’re too scrawny to appeal to him,” TJ murmured, catching sight of the tracks. Aiden snorted, but he wasn’t so sure.
In spite of their tiredness they managed to travel for several hours. Fontana, the most knowledgeable about jungle terrains, called a halt in a small clearing. “I think we should take a break, rehydrate and catch some sleep. As soon as the Bitch in Blue gets to the camp she’s going to be after us. I’ll take first watch.”
Aiden thought that was a brilliant plan. Moving to some kind of little palm tree, he broke off a couple of long fronds and laid them on the ground. Sitting on the fronds he pulled off the once white nurse shoes to let them dry. Then, curling up with his head on his elbow, he drifted off to sleep. It was the best mattress he’d had in months and he slept like the dead.
They each grabbed three hours of sleep, then they split a bottle of water and each ate one of the calorie dense oatcakes.
Just after dawn they heard the sound of a helicopter heading for the camp. It wasn’t directly overhead but definitely close enough that they gave in to the urge to take cover. “Heads are going to be blown off,” Wulfe murmured.
Yes, that tended to be how Bitch in Blue handled so many issues. Or with that handy stiletto of hers through the brain, à la Captain Aguirre.
Aiden didn’t feel bad for any of the people in that camp though. Everyone had seen the men in the cages and done nothing about it. They’d never reported anything and no one had ever come to check on the men being housed so cruelly. Fuck them all.
“Fuck ‘em all,” Fontana snapped, echoing Aiden’s thoughts. “They deserve everything coming to them.”
Wulfe looked back toward the direction of the camp, but there was no way he could see anything now. They were at least several miles away.
“We need to go,” Rector said, his voice quavering just the tiniest bit. “That woman is not getting her hands on me again.”
They packed up their few belongings and headed out, following a machete-swinging Fontana. The straps of the bag had left abrasions on his shoulders, but he wasn’t complaining. He was too happy to be gone.
They came across their first village three days later. They scoped it out for two hours before deciding that things seemed to be fairly quiet. The villagers appeared to be poor farmers, making do with what they could cultivate from the land. Brown-skinned, dark-haired children ran around playing, with the elderly adults looking on from the shade of a hut. It was midday and the heat had become sweltering. Younger men and women were in the fields the team could see cleared on the other side of the village. There was a slight track to the village, but no vehicles.
“Is it even worth stopping?” Fontana growled. “It’s too small to be on the map and people like this would love to sell the Collaborative information about us. Hell, if the army comes they won’t even bargain, they’ll just tell them.”
He was probably right, but Aiden needed to know that they were heading in the right direction.
“They might be able to tell us how to get to one of the villages actually on the map,” TJ suggested.
Wulfe, a frown darkening his beard-grizzled face, nodded once. “I think, even with danger, we should get idea of location.”
So, over Fontana’s scowling objections, they decided to go forward and see if they could discover their location. Rector was voted the ambassador, because he supposedly spoke fluent Portuguese. Aiden would believe that when he saw it.
“Give me that lame ass camping bag,” he told them. Fontana handed it over.
The kid seemed dismayed that he’d volunteered the information but, firming his shoulders, he headed down the slight incline and into the village. Aiden didn’t think they had a choice. They had to know where they were.
As soon as he entered the clearing tension ran through the people of the village. An older woman stood up and called the children in, obviously telling them to hurry because they ran like their hair was on fire. TJ tried to look harmless, but he was too obviously military in bearing to do that. He was also obviously white, so the people were leery. He spoke several words in Portuguese and one woman gave him a terse answer. He asked another question and she murmured to the older man beside her, then she shouted out the answer. TJ repeated it incredulously, and the woman nodded firmly.
Reaching into the bag carefully, one hand up in a calming gesture, he lifted out two of the flashlights and flicked them on to show that they were still usable. He called out a few words, but the woman shook her head vehemently, crossing her arms over her chest. He was trying to barter for food, but the woman was not willing to budge. She spewed something at him, and TJ bowed his head to her, then turned to leave.
One of the more daring children had crept to the closest corner of a building to TJ, where the woman couldn’t see. The boy seemed fascinated as he looked TJ up and down, then looked at the flashlight in his hand. The sun had risen, but it was still possible to see the light when he turned it on and shone it at the boy. The child, who couldn’t have been more than ten, gasped. It was apparent he wanted to come near but it was equally apparent that he was scared spitless of the domineering old woman.
TJ turned off the light and tossed it to the boy, who caught it in his hands. Then he found the button and turned the light on, racing back to his friends to show them the prize for being daring.
Aiden wanted to laugh at the boy’s antics. The batteries in that thing would be dead in no time if he kept it on all day. But that light may have saved their lives at some point. Yes, they had several, but it was hard to know what they faced ahead.
With a final wave at the people, TJ turned to head back into the jungle. He was almost at the forest line when the woman called out a word, stopping him in his tracks. She strode out to him, proud in her threadbare t-shirt and colorful skirt, and handed him a small, rag-wrapped bundle. Then she murmured a few quiet words to him before turning and heading back to her people.
TJ bowed to her in thanks, then turned and headed into the bush. They didn’t talk as they met up, just headed through the jungle for a while. Once Fontana thought they were far enough away, they crouched down together.
“What did she tell you?” Aiden asked.
“We’re in a reserve on the southern side of the Amazon River. And we’re about three hundred miles from the closest decent sized port where we can find a phone or an airport or anything. She says there’s another small village along a road if we head directly east, and sometimes there’s a truck there, but it’s no guarantee.” He looked down at the package in his hands and unwrapped the fabric. Inside were several pieces of cooked meat. Aiden hoped it was chicken. TJ split the meat between them all, then broke off pieces of the banana the woman had wrapped as well. It was a filling meal, and surprisingly good.
“I could feel how leery she was of me, even fearful. It took a lot of courage for her to approach me, and the closer she got the more scared she became. But she managed it.”
“We might encounter a lot of that on our way out of here,” Fontana said thoughtfully. “We look military and I doubt they have reason to trust anyone in the military, any military.”
The others nodded. It would probably be smart to work on walling themselves off from that kind of emotion. They couldn’t afford to be overwhelmed by other people’s joys or fears. In this part of the world, Aiden was sure there was more worry and fear and desperation than joy.
As soon as they’d started making contact with each other in the camp, Aiden noticed that they were picking up a kind of static from other people as well, and he received general mood impressions. It was distracting to say the least. A couple of times Aiden had picked up impressions strong enough to almost respond to the person actually having the feelings. When he’d asked Wulfe about it, he’d admitted that he’d been having the same issues. Apparently, in addition to the Ayahuasca strengthening their bodies, it seemed to be opening multiple pathways in their minds as well.
After their meal they hunkered down against trees and took a sweaty nap, waving tenacious bugs away. Aiden was covered in welts from insect bites, but there wasn’t much he could do about it other than wave them away and be eaten.
They were startled awake by gunfire. Aiden scrambled to his feet immediately, weapon held at the ready. The gunfire, though faint, was probably more than two miles away, back in the direction of the village they’d just left. They looked at each other in grim knowledge.
“We have to go back,” TJ said, fists clenching and unclenching.
“If we go back, we get shot as well. We move out,” Fontana said firmly. He turned for the forest and started hacking his way through the vegetation. “They’re going to be on our tails if we don’t move our asses right now.”
Unfortunately, TJ was overruled and they headed out, following Fontana. Aiden’s chest ached at the thought of the Brazilian Army moving in on the poor village. There had been too many shots for it to be random firing. The Army had a hint of their whereabouts now, and they would capitalize on that.
But how had they gotten their whereabouts? Finding one small random village in the Amazon basin was ridiculously precise. They had to have been tracking them.
“Wait guys. Hold up.”
“We don’t have time, Will,” Fontana snapped, using the shortened version of Willingham. All of the guys had begun using the shortened version.
“We have to,” he said firmly. “How did they know we were in the village?”
The three men looked at each other for a long second, then back to Aiden. “Tracker,” Wulfe said with a snarl.
“I don’t think it’s anything we grabbed, though.”
They blinked at each other again. “American, you think inside us?”
He nodded at Wulfe. “As much as we’ve been poked and prodded, you know they could have slipped a tracker in us easily.”
Fontana looked down at himself grimly. “I can’t even tell you how many cuts a
nd gouges I’ve had in the past year.”
Aiden couldn’t either. “They would want it on the same place on every person. Look for scars in the same place.”
TJ found it a few minutes later. There was a scar just under his clavicle, as well as on all three other men. When they palpated the site, they could feel something rolling beneath the skin.
“That has to be it,” Aiden told them. Scrambling for the first aid kit, he dug through the contents. He found the scalpel blade first, then the handle, and snapped them together. Then, using an antibacterial wipe, he started scrubbing a clean spot onto TJ’s skin. “You better sit down, buddy.”
TJ gritted his teeth and sank down onto a fallen log. As he laid back on the thing, Aiden could see how white the younger soldier had turned. “I’ll be as quick as possible,” he promised.
He had to be, because he was fairly certain he could hear yelling coming toward them.
Using a finger, he palpated the area again, then pulled the scalpel from the plastic sleeve. With a decisive cut, he split TJ’s skin just beneath his clavicle. Dragging air through his clenched teeth, the Ranger didn’t say a word, though Aiden knew it had to hurt like a bitch. After making a half inch incision, he worked the blade down inside, feeling something hard at the tip. Digging a little, he forced up a small, white plastic tube, about the size of a large piece of rice. Was that seriously it?
Aiden set the tracker onto a piece of plastic, then put a wad of gauze over TJ’s cut. “Sit there a minute and I’ll bandage it.”
Fontana was next, gritting his teeth as Aiden made a similar cut almost directly over the old scar. His tracker almost popped out, no digging required. He made Fontana hold a gauze piece over his wound.
Wulfe was waiting on Fontana’s other side. Aiden made the cut and squeezed, and the small tracker popped right out. He put it on the piece of plastic beside the others and made Wulfe hold gauze to the incision. Then, going back to TJ, he positioned a butterfly bandage over the cut, then a waterproof Band-Aid over the whole thing. Then he did the same to the other two men. Then, handing the scalpel to Wulfe handle first, he took their place on the log.