by Brad Taylor
She said, “Their food wasn’t that awful. Why did you tell them we didn’t want dinner?”
“Because I need to lose some weight. Pass me that bag.”
She did and said, “Seriously, why?”
“I just don’t like the food. I’d rather have jerky for dinner than whatever crap they make.”
She didn’t believe what I said but let it drop. She started to peel off her sweat-soaked clothes and I stopped her, saying, “Sleep in them tonight.”
She grinned, her teeth showing, and said, “Just because I’m stripping off the day’s sweat doesn’t mean I’m inviting you into my bag. They need to air out.”
I smiled and said, “Really, I want you to sleep in them tonight. You can take off your boots, but nothing else.”
She stopped undressing and frowned, saying, “What’s going on?”
I leaned back on my bag and said, “I don’t trust them. I think those two mule guys are cooking up a scheme to steal the temple. I’m kicking myself for not bringing a gun on this trip.”
I laid my Elishewitz fighting knife near the head of my bag and she said, “Seriously? You’re putting your sword next to you like this is a gladiator movie?”
I said, “Yeah. My spider sense is going into overdrive.”
She buttoned her shirt back up and said, “That’s just great. Exactly what I wanted to hear on my first expedition as a partner with you.”
I chuckled and said, “It’s just a precaution. I’m probably completely wrong.”
I reached over to turn out our light and she said, “You aren’t taking off your boots?”
I said, “Not tonight.”
She grabbed hers and said, “Leave it on for a second.”
* * *
• • •
Hours later, I snapped awake, unsure of the time or what had disturbed my sleep. I leaned over, looking out of the mesh, bending down to see under our rainfly. The fire on the far side was still going but had faded to coals.
I kept my eye on the glow, trying to see someone break the plane of light. Nothing. I rolled back over, then heard voices. An argument of some kind. As we were in the middle of Jurassic Park, it had to be my team. I went to an elbow, cocking my head to hear.
The voices grew louder, but I couldn’t make out anything other than Spanish curses. Then someone began shouting in a rage. I turned over to Jennifer and shook her awake, my hand over her mouth. I whispered, “You got your boots on?”
Eyes wide, she nodded. I leaned over to unzip the door and heard Eduardo, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Pike! Jennifer! Wake up! Wake up and run!”
Then the night was split by a gunshot, followed by a thrashing in the woods as someone ran into the blackness of the jungle.
I jerked upright, grabbing my knife. Jennifer unzipped her bag and said, “What’s happening?”
I said, “It might be an animal. A predator at the camp.”
A light splashed across our tent, like car headlights making a turn. It swept back and forth and then settled on us. And the gun began firing.
Bullets punctured our tent high, and I rolled over onto Jennifer, protecting her body with my own. I heard the snap of the rounds just above my head, unsheathed my knife, and slashed the back of our tent.
Whoever was out there kept coming closer, still firing. I rolled off of Jennifer and said, “Go, go, get to the river.”
She slithered out and I began to follow when it felt like someone branded my upper thigh with a hot iron.
I pulled myself through, using the tent to block the view from the light, knowing the only thing that would save us now was that the killer had nowhere to aim, but that in itself was a risk, because he kept shooting into the tent—and we were behind it.
I hissed, “Get to the river, but stay on your belly. High crawl.”
She began moving and I followed. We reached the edge of the jungle and kept going, now on our hands and knees. We touched the edge of the cliff and I said, “Over. Get over.”
Trusting me completely, Jennifer didn’t hesitate, crawling down the vines in the blackness until I heard her hit the water. I followed, wondering what rancid disease I was going to get by exposing an open wound to the river. I splashed next to her, looked up, and saw the bouncing light trying to find us.
I pressed up against the bank, feeling my way, trying to find a path back up. I caught a vine, tugged on it, and thought it would hold. I turned to Jennifer, literally slapping the bank of the river until I made contact with her body in the darkness. She jumped, and I said, “Make some noise. Scream my name. Get that fucker to the edge.”
She said, “He’s got a gun. Let’s just hide.”
I said, “I’ve got a knife. He made the mistake of bringing a gun to a knife fight. Trust me, do it.”
I pulled myself up the cliff until I reached the edge, seeing beer-gut guy silhouetted by his light bouncing off of our rainfly, staring into our tent. I hissed, “Do it now before I lose him.”
The last thing I wanted was to lose contact with the threat. It was counterintuitive, but if he disappeared, we’d be forced to work our way home through nothing but ambush zones with a man who knew where we were headed. I needed to end this here.
She splashed in the water, then shouted, “Pike! Where are you? Help me!”
The light jerked up, then began bouncing my way. I hissed, “Again! Do it again. Make some noise.”
She began slapping the water, shouting, “Pike! I’m caught in some vines! Help me!”
The light reached the edge of the bank and turned toward the water, and I hugged the overhang. I saw it steady, then begin sweeping. It hit Jennifer, and she shouted, “Pike!” This time for real.
I pulled myself up by the vine, grabbed beer gut’s belt, and hoisted him over the bank, spinning him in the air. He lost his flashlight, slammed his back on the slope, then tumbled into the water, the light now looking like a makeshift lava lamp under the river. I leapt on top of him and he raised his pistol. I grabbed his wrist, then buried seven inches of steel in his chest.
He gasped, and I pulled the gun from his hand, then sawed my blade through his belly. I heard him coughing, and knew it was from blood. I jerked my blade out, kicked him to the current, then waded to Jennifer, walking slowly in the darkness. I got to where I thought she was and hissed, “Jenn?”
I heard movement and then felt her arms around me and heard her say, “Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead.”
I said, “There’s still two more out there. If we just hide here, they’ll find us in daylight.”
I ran my hand over the pistol I’d taken, trying to figure out the make and model. It was an old Colt 1911, something I was intimately familiar with, which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I knew it would fire even after getting dunked, but a curse because it held only seven rounds—eight if he started with one in the chamber.
I dropped the magazine and felt the lips, unloading the rounds into my palm. I reached two before it was empty. I loaded them again, then pulled the slide back slowly, relieved to find one in the chamber.
So you have three rounds. Better than nothing.
I put the final round into the magazine, seated it back into the pistol, and said, “Okay, we’re going to walk downstream, sticking to the bank. Just put some distance between them and us.”
She said, “What about Eduardo?”
I got out, “What about him? He’s in on this shit,” when we heard a thrashing in the jungle, someone or something coming straight at us without any fear of being heard. I racked the slide of the pistol, seating a round, and something came tumbling down the bank. I went to the noise, finding a man who went berserk when I reached him. Above me, I saw another light bouncing toward us.
I hammered the guy in the head with the pistol, and he sagged into the bank.
I saw the light getting closer, turned to Jennifer, and gave her the pistol, both of us working blindly. She took it and whispered, “What are we doing?”
I pulled out my knife again, glad she couldn’t see it, and whispered, “I’m taking whoever this is out. He’s making too much noise. If that light shines down here, shoot it out. Aim for the light. Just like the range. Line up the sights on the light and break the trigger.”
The man in the water had regained his faculties and was trying to wade across the river. I reached him by noise alone, grabbed his head, and exposed his neck. He shouted, “Pike, don’t!”
It was Eduardo. He started shouting about how they were trying to kill him as well, giving our position away. I slapped my hand over his mouth, dragged him to the bank, and hissed, “Shut the fuck up.”
But it was too late. The second flashlight was above us and sweeping the water. It crossed Eduardo and me, and I rolled away, still holding him in my arms. I saw a flash of light, heard the boom of a gunshot, then a crack from my right. The light fell forward, bouncing down the slope, and I heard a splash in the water. I released Eduardo and waded as fast as I could, hitting a lifeless body on the bank.
I rolled him over, prepared to slice his throat, but got no reaction. I ran my hand up his body until I reached his neck, checking his pulse. He was dead. I scrambled back to the dropped flashlight and returned, shining it into his face. It was tattoo guy, his head split open from a .45 ACP round that had hit just to the right of his nose, the skull misshapen and grotesque, brain matter dripping down his cheek like snot. I heard Jennifer come forward and turned out the light.
She said, “Is . . . is he dead?”
I said, “Yes. But you didn’t kill him. You only wounded him. It looks like he broke his neck in the fall.”
I heard her exhale in relief. I said, “Jennifer, if you had killed him, you would have saved my life. You get that, right?”
She said, “Yes. I get it. I mean, I understand it, but I don’t want to kill anyone. I’m not sure I could live with that.”
Which was why I’d turned out the light. I slid my hand forward until I reached her arm, then walked it up to her face. I brushed her cheek and said, “Hey, that was a damn good shot. You did fine tonight.”
She put her hand against mine and kissed my palm, saying nothing. Eduardo slogged forward, bumping into the body. He said, “We have to get out of here. The other man is a trained killer. He’ll find us.”
I whirled around, turned on the light, and hit him full in the face. He recoiled, and I said, “He’s dead too.”
He held his hand up, blocking the glare and said, “How?”
“I killed him.”
I saw his body shudder at the words; then he said, “You killed both of them? For real? They’re trained sicario. How did you do that?”
“I told you I was a predator. Let’s get one thing straight right now: You’d better start talking, or you’re the next one I’ll gut.”
Chapter 15
Eduardo pointed again and said, “That’s it. I’m telling you, that’s the temple.”
I looked again and saw nothing but a bunch of vines on a small hillock. The GPS said we were within a hundred meters of it, but a hundred meters in this jungle was like looking for a Tic Tac in the snow. We could be standing right next to it and not know, which was where Eduardo’s memory came into play.
Last night we’d gone back to the camp and huddled by the fire, me with a gun in Eduardo’s face. It turned out that he and the mule team weren’t looking to steal the temple’s treasures from us. It was far worse. Eduardo’s father had been kidnapped and the price of his release was Eduardo leading us away from the temple, which was what all of that let’s go north shenanigans had been about.
I would have been pissed, but I could see his side of the story. He had no idea I had a grid location to the temple and had just planned on leading us around for a few days, then declaring failure. The two mule-team guys were insurance in case he failed, with orders to leave our carcasses in the jungle for the predators to eat. When I’d demanded to go with the GPS, I’d forced their hand.
They’d said they were coming to kill us, and Eduardo had done what he could to warn us before he fled into the jungle. At night. When I saw him by the light of the waning fire, he looked like someone had whipped him all over his body, his face and arms lacerated from streaking through the jungle in total blackness, chased by the tattooed man with a lantern.
I would have given him sympathy, but I had my own wound to tend to from the assholes he’d brought with him. Jennifer bandaged it, which sort of cut short my hostile interrogation, because it was at the crease of my left buttock and thigh. A shallow trench that had gouged my flesh. An inch lower and it would have shattered my hip.
I ended up questioning him lying on my stomach, with Jennifer slathering on antibiotics and taping up my ass. Not the most intimidating way to go about it, but I tried.
I’d said, “How did it go down? How did they even know I was headed out here?”
Eduardo said, “I don’t know, but it had to be the guy who gave you permission from CONAP. He had to have told them. I sure didn’t.”
Which made absolute sense now, what with him denying permission to come out here. Asshole I’ll deal with later.
I said, “Who took your father, and who knows?”
“Four men came in. The two you just killed and two others. One was a gringo with a dangerous attitude. I’ve seen the type before, when I worked for Machete. He’s the boss. The head sicario. They stormed in, slapped me and my mom around, then took my father. I was put into a vehicle and driven to that mansion we passed today. I was taken inside and met a man named Leopold de Gaulle, the head of a mining firm. He told me that my search would lead to him losing business, and that if I wanted my father to be returned, I would ensure your expedition failed. That was it.”
I said, “Nothing more? Why did he care?”
“He didn’t tell me, but I’m assuming it has something to do with what my father was protesting. There is a rumor that they’re going to allow mining in the biosphere, and if that happens, my father’s livelihood—along with all the other villagers who take tours in the jungle—would be ruined. Asphalt roads, destroyed rain forest, and open-pit mines. My father was fighting against that.”
Jennifer finished bandaging my butt. I pulled up my pants, gingerly sat up, and said, “You realize that finding the temple is the one thing that will save your father, right?”
“How? How will that do anything? We advertise that discovery and they’ll kill him. It was the only reason to keep him alive.”
“They don’t want the temple found because it will prevent them from mining. Your father was protesting them coming into the biosphere out of fear his way of life would be destroyed, but with the temple, he no longer needs to protest. The temple will do that for him, and we’ll help. It’s what my company does. It’ll be on the worldwide stage. De Gaulle will lose his ability to do anything in here, and it won’t be your father’s fault. There will be no reason to keep him.”
Eduardo looked like he wanted to believe but still harbored doubts. “And you think this will happen? Or are you just like them—using me to make your own profit?”
Jennifer said, “Eduardo, there is no way we’ll ever make a profit off of the blood of others. We don’t work that way.”
I said, “I’ve gone against men like Leopold before. He wants money, not trouble. Once he sees he’s lost—and not at your father’s hand—there will be no reason to keep him. He’s a businessman. He doesn’t want to be wrapped up in a kidnapping and a possible murder charge with nothing to gain.”
Eduardo had reluctantly agreed to my logic, and we’d spent the night at the fire, waking up with the sun and trekking the last three hundred meters to the grid. We’d reached a small rise, and Eduardo had pointed to the hillock.
I said, “Stay back here. There was something in the temple that’s deadly to folks of Mayan heritage. Jennifer’s uncle found it.”
He said, “No, Olmec found it. I was with him when he died. He’s past that wall of vines.”
I had no answer to that, so I’d just advanced to the hillock and saw he was right. It wasn’t a hill. It was an opening. Jennifer parted the vines, and we saw a cave beyond. She turned on her headlamp, and we entered. The first thing that hit me was the stench, like roadkill on a hot summer day. She advanced ten feet, then gasped. I went to her and saw a body decomposing in the dirt, the flesh mostly gone from the face, the jawbone and teeth gleaming.
Jennifer backed up, and I said, “That must be Olmec. Eduardo wasn’t lying. Let’s find something to take as proof and get the hell out of here.”
I shined my headlamp against the wall and saw something farther in. Jennifer said, “I found a vase. It’s broken, but it’s real.”
I walked forward, saying, “We need something unique. Pottery could have been looted from somewhere else.” I shined my light down on an ugly little statue, about a foot tall. It looked like a jaguar with the body of a man coming out of the neck. Some sort of Mayan centaur. I said, “Jennifer, over here. Is this something found in every Mayan temple?”
She trotted over, bent down, and said, “No. Not at all. I’ve never seen anything like this in my classes. And I can recognize most of the Mayan gods now.”
I chuckled and said, “How?”
She stood up, wiped her hands on her pants, and said, “Getting ready for this trip. Did you not do any research?”
I wasn’t sure if she was ribbing me or actually asking a question, because of course I didn’t do any research. That was her department.
I said, “I did, but like you, I don’t recognize it.”
She squinted, clearly not believing me. I picked up the statue and handed it to her, saying, “Put it in my pack. It’s our ticket.”