by Toby Neal
The other shooter, who’d come from the jungle on the other side, was no more than a teenager. “She’s not getting away now.” Lei’s throat closed at the excitement in the kid’s demeanor. “We’ll get her.”
“We have to get her,” Boss Man said. “Or she’ll go straight back and bring in the narcos for a raid. We’re on a schedule now.”
The two of them stood with their backs to the truck, scanning up and down the road as if Lei were going to be crazy enough to come out. She stayed perfectly still, grateful for her army-green pants and camouflage-patterned vest. She raised her weapon, steadying it on the rock, and drew a bead on Boss Man.
Lei was a decent shot, but not great, and the distance was significant. She’d need to get him in the head or chest to keep him from firing that automatic weapon all over the area. And then she’d need to nail the kid, just as permanently. She loosened her finger on the trigger.
There had to be another way out of this.
“If she hadn’t shot Killah, he’d find her for us,” Boss Man said. “I’ll kill that bitch myself just for that.” He hooked a radio off his belt. “Eddie, get everyone out harvesting the bud. If we don’t find that cop, we need to bring in everything we can and burn the rest.” A long pause as “Eddie” vented, the words too garbled by static and distance to make out. Boss Man nodded. “Yeah. Pull the plug. You know what that means. And send Akira out with the rest of the ammo. We might still be able to find her.”
Boss Man had begun walking down the road as he was speaking, heading for the hidden trail opening the teenager had come out of.
Lei pulled her phone out, thumbed it on. Still no bars.
“What should we do, Uncle?” the teen asked. The kid was slender, his wifebeater tank shirt hanging on a hollow-chested frame. He swung the machine gun around, his finger alarmingly loose on the trigger. “You want I should just fire all around the area? We’d probably hit her.”
“Nah,” Boss Man said. “I saw where she dove into the bushes. When Akira gets here, we’ll grid off and search for her.”
Lei’s heart hammered. She had a limited amount of time to get out before she was discovered.
Staying flat on her belly, she backed stealthily into the heavy undergrowth, giving up her visibility window onto the growers. She’d run out of options now that she’d decided not to risk shooting them. She needed to get far enough away into the jungle that she could approach the road again, and flag down a car when it was safe.
As if in answer to this thought, she heard the sound of approaching cars and a muffled curse from Boss Man. He and the teen ducked out of sight.
This was Lei’s chance, while they were distracted by the passing vehicles. She rose to a crouch, the Glock ready, and moved as quickly and quietly as she could, deeper into the jungle.
Chapter Eleven
I stumbled over something as we moved through the dark jungle at a trot. I never saw what it was, but I went down with a muffled curse, and the headlamp fell off and went out. The black was instant and total.
“Shit! You okay, LT?” K-Man had lost his grip on my belt as I went down, and I heard the rustling and muttering of the men behind him.
I rose to my hands and knees. “Hold up. I’ll find the light.” I patted the ground around where I’d tripped, feeling twigs under my hands. Leaves. The stiff, poky sensation of some broken branch. Something unpleasantly damp and spongy, probably a lichen of some kind. I tried not to think of the vicious smack of the snake hitting my pants as it tried to bite.
“It’s got to be right here,” I panted. “K-Man, can you help?”
“My name’s Tim Kerry, LT,” the young man who’d been my best helper said. “But K-Man is okay.” I heard by the change of his voice that he’d dropped down to squat beside me.
“Let’s get side by side and search a square pattern,” I said. Kerry got close beside me, and we swept and patted the ground, making sure no more than a few inches separated us.
“I found it!” Kerry exclaimed. I heard him fumbling with something in the dark. My eyes had adjusted more, and now I could see the faintest gray of sky behind the lacy patterns of the leaves of the jungle far above. The moon was up, somewhere out there.
“It’s not turning on, LT,” the young man said, and he thrust the light to me.
I felt the unit all over, and sure enough, it was no longer turning on with the touch of a button.
“Maybe it’s damaged or the battery got knocked out. Everyone, take a break.” I heard by the rustling that the men had dropped where they stood. Everyone was waiting for me to get the damn headlight working.
Using touch, I located the notch in the back cover and fumbled it open with a fingernail. It seemed to be a AAA battery. I slid it out, rubbed it on my pants, reinserted it, slid the little door back up, and pressed the button.
Nothing. “Damn it. I think we’re going to have to quit for tonight. We can’t get anywhere without a light. Unless someone has matches, a lighter?”
“Naw, LT. They searched us and took anything that could be useful,” Kerry said.
“Okay, then. Might as well get some rest. Stay close together, though, and keep your weapons handy. There could be predators out here, and not just the human kind. Let’s set a watch by turns. Falconer, can you take the first round?” I trusted the competency of the big black man.
“You got it,” he rumbled from beside me. I’d never heard him advance to my position.
Rustling and murmuring followed as our little group settled into the damp tree litter and underbrush where we’d halted. I lay down, curling on my side. Sleep fell over me, a thick blanket of oblivion brought on by exhaustion.
The Maui jungle growth was thick. A combination of saplings, ferns, wild ginger, and other bushes choked the bases of java plum, mountain apple, and other bushy growth as Lei pushed forward, scanning and listening. All she could hear was the distant breeze in the tops of the trees, a swish of movement. Mynah birds did their conversational chattering, doves cooed, cardinals chirped, and there was the sound of her movement: the crack of a twig under her shoe, the whisk of wet jeans, the soft thud of her feet as she bore to the right, hoping to parallel the road.
Lei crossed the trail that led into the growers’ secret valley after a quick check that it was clear, and kept going.
She wasn’t sure how far to go before heading back toward the road, but the question was answered for her by an abrupt rise in the ground as she hit one of the steep valley walls.
She looked at the ridge. She’d have to go relatively straight up, at least a couple of hundred yards of climbing, and then descend the other side.
Better to go back to the road and see if she could flag down a car. She turned in the direction of the road and hurried through the underbrush as quietly as she could.
“Stop!” The teenager’s reedy voice steadied as he yelled again. “Stop! I’ve got you!”
Lei froze. Her weapon was in her hand, held in the low ready position.
“Drop your weapon! I can’t miss!” The kid’s volume increased, and so did his aggression.
They were going to kill her if they captured her. There was no doubt in her mind. But right now she had her back turned to a trigger-happy kid with an automatic rifle. She had to buy time.
“Okay, okay.” She dropped the pistol right in front of her.
“Get on your knees!”
She did. But he didn’t say to put her hands up, so she kept them down at her sides, ready for action. She heard him crunching through the leaves, talking into his handheld radio.
“I got her, Uncle.”
“Good. Hold her until I get there. If she moves, shoot her.”
“Ten-four.” He must be putting the radio back on his belt. Lei could imagine the automatic in his hands, pointed toward her, his finger itchy on the trigger, amped up by adrenaline and eager to prove himself. Scared to kill a cop, but determined to do what his boss wanted. Part of him not wanting to kill, the other eager to. Neither
part really understood what it meant to take a human life.
Lei understood it too well.
Time slowed down, those seconds right before action unwinding one by one, sliding by like beads on a string, every sense hyperaware.
The rustle of leaves as the kid approached.
The smell of damp and mold thick in her nostrils.
Wetness as the mulch she knelt on soaked her pants and penetrated to her skin.
Shush of the wind, high overhead.
Pale, gray-streaked bark, nubby as a hand-knit sweater covering the java plum tree directly in front of her. On the left, a rising, steep tree- and debris-covered slope of the ridge. On the right, more jungle and forest.
Right behind her, a very dangerous kid.
“I’ve got you now.” The boy’s voice was gloating. Lei felt the barrel of the automatic press into the notch between her neck and skull. She drew a deep breath and coiled all her muscles tight, drawing on core strength. She’d practiced a jump from knees to feet both in the gym and on a surfboard, but this was the first time she’d tried it with a gun to her head.
Lei bounced to her feet and spun, grabbing the barrel of the automatic and tearing it out of the kid’s hands. The strap caught on his shoulder and head, and he gave an inarticulate cry. She didn’t have it totally free because of that, but hit him with all the leverage she could with the butt end of the rifle, nailing him in the chin.
The boy’s hand scrabbled for the radio as Lei wrenched the strap off over his head and used the butt end of the rifle to whack him again, from the other direction. The kid yelped, twisting sideways. He got the radio into his hand this time, but now she had some room to maneuver. She swung the rifle with all her strength.
He dropped like an anchor. Blood streamed from his nose.
Lei took a second to scan and see if Boss Man had appeared yet, then looked at the slender, crumpled form at her feet. At least the little bastard was still alive. She hoped he deserved the break she was giving him.
She reached down to search the kid’s pockets. She found a cell phone and a knife in a scabbard. No ID or wallet, but stuck out in the valley as they were, he probably had no use for those. She unbuckled his belt, flipped him, and used it to bind his legs. She put her cuffs on him behind his back, and gagged him with his T-shirt.
The whole operation had taken five minutes, and that was five minutes too long. Slipping the automatic’s strap over her head, she retrieved her Glock and broke into a run through the trees, heading for the road.
Chapter Twelve
Falconer woke me with a squeeze on my shoulder. “Sun’s up, Stevens.”
“Barely.” I sat up and dusted leaves off of my clothing, looking around at the deep gray shadows around us. “But enough for us to move.” We woke the rest of the men and got moving quickly.
The twittering, keening, and shrieking of birds and animals brought the jungle to life around us and increased our sense of urgency. I rationed out the packet of sugar cookies I’d taken off the guard, and we each ate one and sipped water off the canteens as we walked. With enough light to see a little distance, and that light brightening by the minute, I set as fast a pace as I could in my weakened state.
I was glad we’d stopped where we had, because we had hardly gone another hundred yards before we encountered some sort of wetland slough. The tall forest gave way abruptly to shorter, bushy trees, bunchy clumps of sharp grasses—and swampy, sinking mud that dragged at our boots.
“I’m hoping this means the river’s ahead.” I took another compass reading. North was straight into the wetland.
“I saw some maps of the area.” Falconer joined me, assessing. “The camp organizers said to watch out for the areas around the riverbanks. Snakes and pockets of quicksand.”
“Do you remember how far that stretch went? Is the river right on the other side of this?” I swiped the sweat pearling on my forehead with a muddy forearm.
“I was planning the infiltration training, and I was going to do a section in this environment, but I was working on more traditional obstacle courses as a warm-up,” Falconer said. “We need to go slow if we’re going to try to get through here. Probe the ground with sticks and clear any wildlife.”
“Maybe we should go sideways a while,” Kerry said. “There might be an area where we can get to the riverbank that’s drier.”
“We haven’t even considered how we’re getting across the river,” the fourth man said. “It’s a huge river.”
He was a bald, barrel-chested man who worked for Security Solutions. I wondered at the kidnappers’ choices. Falconer, Carrigan, and I were contractors, but Kerry was an MP, and here was a Security Solutions staffer.
“What’s your name again?” I asked.
“MacDonald. Devan MacDonald.”
“Do any of you have an idea why each of us was captured?”
Falconer shrugged. “I thought it was for the kidnapping insurance on us. It was in the contract.”
“You have that, too?” I frowned. “So how did they know Security Solutions had that insurance? And a better question—why wasn’t Security Solutions negotiating for our release?” I told them what I’d overheard from the Spanish-speaking camp commander. “He was going to start killing us the next day, starting with me. I had to take the chance to get out.”
“I don’t have any extra insurance, as far as I know.” Kerry rubbed the back of his neck. “I do have a wealthy family back in the States, but that’s supposed to be confidential.”
“Let’s walk and talk.” Falconer had found a long, heavy stick. “Do we want to go west awhile, then try for the river again? Or straight ahead, into the swamp?”
“Let’s vote.” I’d gotten them this far, but I wasn’t willing to be responsible for everything that happened from this point on. The men voted to go west, and with Falconer in the lead, probing the dank puddles before us. I told them what I’d seen in the commander’s tent. “So why wouldn’t they pay for our release is what I’m wondering,” I concluded.
“I hope Carrigan makes it,” MacDonald said. “He seemed pretty confident that they were going to pay his ransom. I just didn’t want to take the chance.”
The heat intensified with the rising sun, and with it came insects. Tiny gnats rose in irritating clouds, and the mosquitoes were an ever-present whine. My stomach was so empty it felt like knotted rope. I was relieved to let Falconer lead. Truth was, the burst of energy that had carried me from the camp was long gone, and without food and rest to get back to full health, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up the pace.
The buzz of mosquitoes was drowned out by the distant sound of all-terrain vehicles. They sounded like motorcycles, a burring growl, but I remembered seeing several of the four wheelers parked around the commander’s living area.
I should have blown them up, too.
Falconer broke into a run. “They’re coming!”
I began scanning for somewhere to take cover, but once we’d turned away from the swamp, we were back in an area of more open space under the trees’ canopy. The four-wheeled ATVs would be able to navigate the area easily, and I was sure we were leaving plenty of trace for them to follow.
“Let’s go straight north, into the swamp. The ATVs can’t follow us there.” I paused to take a quick reading with the compass knife, and we turned straight left in the direction of the river, running as best we could, clambering over downed, rotting logs, around bushes, between the boles of the ever-present trees. Dank puddles filled with tea-colored water, shining with iridescent scum, became more frequent. I tried to leap over or go around them, but that wasn’t always possible.
Kerry gave a sudden cry, and I whirled to see a snake, its sleek brown body lashing, attached to his pant leg. He kicked and the snake flew off, slithering away into the underbrush.
“Did he get you?” I took a second to ask.
“I don’t think so.”
“Some of the most toxic snakes in the world live right here,” Fa
lconer said. “And now that we’re getting into the wet area, keep an eye out for crocodiles. They’ll look just like logs.”
The ATVs sounded louder, and I could feel the spot between my shoulder blades itching as if it were a target. The heavy undergrowth and razor-sharp grasses increased. We made a single file line again, forging forward as fast as we could, eventually ending up in water to our knees.
The sound of the ATVs ceased abruptly.
They’d probably had to abandon the vehicles once they hit the water, but that meant they were on foot, and nearby.
“Here’s the compass,” I told Falconer. “You lead. I’ll bring up the rear and watch our backs.”
Falconer took the knife and pushed on, clambering over a slimy, half-sunken log, MacDonald right behind him, Kerry next. I brought up the rear, turning every ten steps or so to scan behind us, the M16 at the ready.
I scanned constantly for crocodiles, snakes, and other hazards. I didn’t want to use the rifle except as a last resort, because it would pinpoint our location for the pursuers.
I heard a splash behind us, and whirled. A log was arrowing toward us through the dark water.
But logs didn’t swim. “Croc!” I yelled.
The men burst into a run as best they could. So did I, lifting my knees, floundering and pushing through the scummy brown water, heading for a large downed tree that broke the surface, a long low wall of safety. My finger tightened on the trigger of the rifle as I looked back. The croc’s snout had broken the surface and its tail lashed the water as it sped toward me. I couldn’t even see its tiny, slitted eyes, only the arrow shape of its pursuit.
I still didn’t want to shoot it and give away our position. Now that we were in the water, there was some chance the kidnappers would lose our trail.
“Run, Stevens!” Falconer bellowed, and I knew the creature was almost on me. I dove for the huge fallen tree’s stump, scrambling up onto the exposed roots. I felt a quiver through the wood and heard a thump and splash as the croc struck the log.