Snap, snap, snap … The breaking wood reminded Lohan of Chinese firecrackers. There were soldiers everywhere, running to the edge of the mine and staring down. But Matt had only just started. He swung his head round and suddenly an entire stretch of the mine exploded, the huge mud walls folding in on themselves and plunging down. If anyone had been below, they would have been killed, crushed under the weight, but it was still early morning and the lower levels were empty. Lohan watched in disbelief. How many hundreds of tonnes of earth had the slaves at Serra Morte carried to the surface? In seconds, tonnes more of it had been returned. An entire cliff face had collapsed. A huge section of the mine had once again been filled in. And Matt was responsible. He had done it with a single movement of his head.
There was a brief silence, then confused shouting as the guards reacted to what had just happened. Now Lohan understood what Matt was doing. Nobody knew what had caused the collapse but right now nothing else mattered. He had just created an incredible diversion.
“Let’s go,” Matt whispered.
The effort had taken away what remained of his strength. Lohan could see that he was shaking, soaked in sweat. He put his arm around him and dragged him away. The other workers saw them move but not a single one of them tried to join them. That was what life in Serra Morte had done to them. They had reached the point where many of them would have been unable to tie their own shoelaces without being given the order. Their spirits had been broken. They were no longer really human.
With Lohan supporting Matt, the two of them hurried towards the path that would take them back to the landing strip. Matt was stumbling and if it hadn’t been for Lohan’s arm around his waist, he would have fallen. For his part, Lohan was hoping that nobody would see them, that all the soldiers would be concentrating on the devastation they had left behind – but, of course, it didn’t happen that way. Almost at once they were seen. Somebody shouted out a warning. It was followed by a single gunshot.
They didn’t stop. They couldn’t stop. They had attacked a guard and giving themselves up was no longer an option. The edge of the rainforest and possible safety were about twenty metres in front of them. Matt was forcing himself forward, leaning against Lohan. There was another shot and Lohan cursed himself for not taking the gun from the man he had killed. Even if they made it to the landing strip, the plane would be guarded and he couldn’t just walk up to it unarmed. And a second, grimmer thought crossed his mind. If he was captured, he would have been glad to have had a gun in his hand. He could have turned it on himself.
There was the shriek of a whistle, a burst of sustained gunfire. Lohan was still holding Matt, almost lifting him off the ground. Matt had no shirt and Lohan could feel the heat and the dampness of the boy’s skin. Matt’s legs were hardly working at all. Bullets were whipping around them and it occurred to Lohan that Matt must still be using his power. Otherwise, surely one of them would have been hit. The rainforest loomed in front of them. There were more shots and the leaves of the nearest trees were shredded. But then they were inside, letting the darkness and thick green light swallow them up. The commotion behind them was abruptly cut off. It was as if they had plunged into another dimension.
Within seconds, they were lost. The track that had first brought them to the work place was some distance away and there was no way they could reach it. The forest itself was too dense, too unwieldy. It alone would decide which direction they took. Lohan knew that they had to lose themselves in the interior, to get as far away from their pursuers as possible. They could worry about the airstrip later. Almost blindly, the two of them followed whatever paths they could find, twisting round the trunks of huge trees, climbing over the tangled roots that covered the ground, pushing through creepers that hung down like solid walls. There was no sound now except for their own tortured breathing. Matt stumbled and collapsed, his legs giving way beneath him. With a curse, Lohan swept him up in his arms, carrying him like a child. Matt’s eyes had closed. He didn’t seem to be conscious.
Lohan looked back, resting against a tree. At least it seemed that nobody was following them. Perhaps the soldiers had decided that the mine was more important than two escaping prisoners who would probably end up dying in the rainforest anyway. He realized that he had no idea where he was, that he had lost any sense of direction. Matt was heavy in his arms. He wouldn’t be able to continue for more than five or ten minutes and he had no food or water. A movement caught his eye and he weaved sideways as a huge spider with a red and furry back scuttled down the trunk of the tree. If he hadn’t moved, it would have bitten him. And what then? A fast, painful death for him. Matt left on his own. The rainforest would cover them over and neither of them would ever be found again.
He continued forward as far as he could, then set Matt down on his own feet. “Can you stand?” he asked.
Matt opened his eyes and nodded.
“We have to find the landing strip. And when we get there, I’m going to need your help. Do you understand me? You have to open the gates … like you did at the mine. And get rid of the guards.”
Matt nodded a second time. “I can do that.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “Don’t leave me, Lohan.”
“I won’t do that.”
How had he known? Even as they had stumbled through the rainforest, Lohan had thought about dropping Matt and continuing on his own. Why not? It was how he had always been trained. His first responsibility was to look after himself and Matt was slowing him down. He had only kept faith with Matt because he needed his powers – but if Matt lost consciousness a second time, Lohan had already made up his mind. The two of them weren’t friends. They had been thrown together by chance. At the end of the day, it was each to his own.
They pressed forward, Matt somehow managing to keep going. Lohan was certain that the airstrip was somewhere over to the left but the vegetation kept forcing him to go in the opposite direction and he knew it would only waste his strength to push his way through. He wished more than anything that he could have equipped himself with a machete. A bird hooted overhead. During all the time they had worked at the pit, they had never seen a bird in flight but the rainforest was full of them. Something moved in the undergrowth and Lohan remembered the spider. He thought of the snakes, of the screams he had heard in the night. They were still going the wrong way. The rainforest was playing tricks on them, leading them ever further into its embrace. The path behind had gone. It was as if the trees and the vegetation had closed in on them, deliberately preventing them from finding their way back.
And then came the sound they had both dreaded most. Somebody shouted. The soldiers hadn’t seen them yet but they were close. How many of them were there? It was impossible to say in the green nightmare in which they found themselves, but one thing was certain. The soldiers would know the rainforest better than they did. They might have dogs with them. It wouldn’t take them long to track the two prisoners down.
Matt was stumbling again, his legs tying themselves in knots, and Lohan put an arm around him, not just propping him up but urging him forward, forcing him to keep up the pace. Once again he thought of abandoning him. At least the vegetation was screening them from their pursuers, deadening any noise they made. They needed somewhere to hide … a tree to climb or a burrow to crawl into. But they couldn’t go on much further, not together. He would have a better chance on his own.
He pushed a veil of leaves aside and stopped.
It was impossible.
He couldn’t believe what was in front of him.
The rainforest simply ended, like a chapter in a book. In front, the landscape was blank. As far as he could see, and he could see for miles, the ground was empty and flat with just a few stumps of old trees sticking out of the dirt. It was as if a gigantic wind had somehow swept the rainforest away, leaving nothing behind, but even as Lohan stared at this lifeless, empty desert, he knew the truth. This had been done on purpose. Men had come here. They had cut down the rainforest for cattle ranche
s and farms. Slash-and-burn agriculture. They had grown bananas, maize and soyabean until the soil had refused to yield any more and then they had left.
They say that the rainforests are the lungs of the world. But there was nothing breathing here. The Serra Morte mine had cleared away a few hectares of rainforest. But this destruction continued all the way to the horizon and it would be hundreds of years before it was repaired. Lohan gazed with a certain wonderment. Who needed the Old Ones to destroy the planet when mankind was doing such a good job of it already?
“Lá săo!”
The shout came from behind then and it was close enough for Lohan to hear the actual words. They couldn’t go back.
“Matt…”
“Keep going!”
Matt could have been answering Lohan. He could have been talking to himself. Without a moment’s hesitation, they continued forward, crossing the empty space, horribly exposed in the open, with nowhere to go, nothing to guide them. Lohan had never been anywhere so completely dead. There were no birds in the sky. Even the insects seemed to have abandoned the few roots and creepers that still covered the ground. There were just two of them, Matt and him, jogging forward, arm in arm, waiting for the two bullets that would bring them down.
They came to a track, defined only by the vehicles that had left their tyre prints. It might quite possibly have led to the airstrip – but they couldn’t follow it now. As Lohan glanced back, two things happened. The first of the soldiers emerged from the rainforest, saw them and shouted to the others. And, at the same time, a jeep suddenly appeared, bursting out of the undergrowth and racing towards them, with two men in the front and two in the back. All of them were armed.
It was over. Lohan stood where he was, his face covered in sweat, his chest heaving. He was ready for death. In truth, he had never expected to live long, although he couldn’t have imagined that this was how he would finish his days, shot like a dog in the middle of Brazil. He turned to Matt. Could the boy have one final trick up his sleeve? But Matt didn’t even seem to be aware of the danger he was in. The jeep was getting closer. It would reach them in seconds. More soldiers were stepping out of the rainforest, appearing as if by magic, forming a long line.
But then, at the last second, Matt stepped forward. He seemed to have briefly shaken off his illness. As Lohan watched, he raised a hand and simply pointed at the jeep. The driver and his passengers might have thought he was greeting them. But the result was devastating. It was as if they had hit a brick wall or as if a huge fist had punched the jeep from beneath them. With no warning at all, it rose into the air, spun forward and crashed into the ground. The bonnet and the front windscreen crumpled and both the driver and the man next to him were killed instantly. Another was thrown out and lay still. The last was buried underneath the jeep, which had ended up on its back with its wheels, still spinning, in the air. There was a brief pause and it burst into flames. Matt lowered his hand and looked away.
The soldiers who had come out of the forest had seen what had happened. They stopped in their tracks and began to chatter excitedly among themselves. It was impossible to hear what they were saying but their eyes stared in fear and disbelief. Then they simply turned round and fled. They had decided they weren’t going to take on this devil boy, who could destroy a vehicle and kill four men simply by gesturing with one hand. They vanished into the rainforest. Once more Matt and Lohan were alone.
“Get me a shirt,” Matt said.
Lohan nodded, then hurried forward, approaching the burning jeep. The man who had been thrown clear was dead. He had broken his neck when he hit the ground and Lohan wasn’t going to waste any tears. He dragged off his shirt and carried it back to Matt. He had also grabbed a water bottle and a gun.
“How far do you think it is to the airstrip?” Matt asked. He had made the destruction of the jeep look simple, effortless. But it had taken a huge effort. He was swaying on his feet. Lohan handed him the water bottle and he drank greedily, only remembering at the last moment to hand it back while it was still half full.
“It can’t be too far,” Lohan said. He drank the rest of the water and threw the bottle aside. “Let’s just hope the plane’s still there.”
“Yes. Be careful…”
It was all Matt could manage. Lohan took his weight once again and they followed the tyre tracks back into the rainforest, glad to leave the empty space, the great scar, behind them. The jeep had cut across diagonally towards them and the path it had taken led back to the airstrip. After a few minutes, they saw the wire fence through the undergrowth – only the narrowest strip of vegetation had separated it from the wasteland. And the plane was still there. Lohan felt a huge surge of relief when he saw it sitting in its place beside the control tower.
There were four armed soldiers on guard.
Matt couldn’t deal with them. He was finished, the sweat trickling off his face. His eyes were glazed, out of focus. Lohan helped him sit down and rested him against a tree.
“Wait for me here,” he said.
Matt nodded. But as Lohan straightened up, he grabbed hold of his arm. “Thank you, Lohan,” he said.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“Yes. I do. Only because of you…”
Matt’s voice trailed away and it was then that Lohan made his decision. There could be no other way. His father would have approved.
From the very start, Lohan had helped Matt because it was to his own advantage but things were different now. Matt was finished – and even if he’d had the strength to reach the plane, Lohan had come to a decision. There was no way he was flying to Antarctica. It was a crazy idea! His time in Serra Morte had taught him that he had no part in this adventure. If he could reach the Legacy 600, he would fly north to America, as he had always planned. Somehow he would survive and make enough money to begin the journey east. He wanted to go home, back to the Triad, his family and his friends. The Old Ones didn’t matter. Nor did the Gatekeepers. They could look after themselves.
Lohan slipped round the perimeter fence, keeping close to the edge of the forest. Matt was already forgotten. He could see the four soldiers ahead of him and despite everything that had happened – the destruction of part of the mine, the escape, the jeep that had just crashed and exploded – they looked remarkably relaxed. It was always possible that they had no idea what was going on, but as Lohan drew closer, he saw the true reason. They had been smoking ganja, the mind-altering drug that was cultivated all over Brazil. Lohan smiled to himself. It was the first stroke of luck he’d had all week. The next time they looked, they’d be dead.
Lohan had learned many martial arts in his time with the Triads, some of them handed down by the ninjas, the famous secret agents of feudal Japan. One of these was stealth walking, the ability to approach an enemy without being seen. Lohan knew that he was barely more than a novice. He had once sent an assassin across a crowded restaurant to kill a man who was surrounded by friends and bodyguards, and nobody had seen him approach. It was only when the shot had been fired that they realized he was there.
Even so, Lohan had been taught the rudiments of stealth walking and he applied them now. From the gate to the aircraft was a matter of some thirty steps and, with flat rubble and grass all around, there was nowhere to hide. The secret of stealth walking is mental, not physical. It is finding a oneness with your surroundings so that you blend into them, become them. He knew that time was short. More soldiers would be on the way. But he made himself slow down, searching for the necessary concentration. Only when he was sure that he was ready did he step forward.
He passed through the gates and walked over to the men. They were talking among themselves, telling obscene jokes and laughing. Not one of them so much as glanced his way. Lohan was carrying the gun he had taken from the jeep. Step by step he approached, standing in plain sight and yet invisible. Suddenly he was there, in front of them. The soldiers scrabbled for their weapons but it was far too late. He shot all four of them at close ra
nge, watching the bodies slump. And there he was, alone with the aircraft. It was hard to believe he had got away with it.
A flight of steps led to the plane. The cabin door was open. Lohan climbed up quickly, not looking back, already going over the various procedures for taxiing and take-off. But even as he reached the top he heard the grinding of metal, and before he could do anything, the door slammed shut like the entrance to a tomb. His first thought was that someone inside had closed it but that was impossible. There had been no one there. He reached out and tried to open it, but the door was stuck fast. Slowly, with a sense of foreboding, he turned round.
Matt had managed to drag himself to the perimeter fence and he was clinging onto it, his eyes fixed on the plane. Even at this distance, Lohan could see his anger, his sense of betrayal. He also knew that if Matt wanted to, he could sweep the Legacy 600 aside … or cause it to shatter into a thousand pieces.
“Open the door!” he shouted. “I just want to go in and check the controls.”
Matt didn’t reply.
Lohan stood there, waiting for him to speak, the two of them about thirty metres apart. Stalemate. Matt couldn’t fly the plane without Lohan. But Lohan wasn’t leaving here without Matt. The rainforest was still, the sun beating down. Nothing moved. It was as if they were the last two people in the world.
Then Lohan swore silently and ran back down the steps, past the dead bodies and through the gate to reach him. Matt couldn’t move. If he had let go of the fence he would have collapsed. All his strength was focused on the plane.
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