Unlawful Chase

by C J Schnier

  I looked back at the patrol boat, meandering its way along the coast, heading in my general direction. It was only a matter of time until they noticed me. I looked at the tiny beach and the towering knife-sharp rocks that flanked it. Once again, I knew I didn't have a choice. There was only one possible escape, and so I began swimming.

  As the waves had built, they had forced me to swim farther offshore, outside of the growing breakers. Now, I needed those waves. With little more than my head sticking out, the choppy waters would help conceal me. The real benefit, however, was to use them to help propel me onto the inhospitable shore, preferably before the gunboat saw me. I had to judge the waves just right, there was little room for error. If I miscalculated, I'd find myself slammed into the rocks and cut to ribbons.

  In my college years I had been an avid, if novice, surfer. It was not a water sport I had kept up with beyond a yearly attempt when I would visit friends in Sebastian Inlet. Those visits had become less and less common as the years crawled by, but I knew the basics well enough. Catching a wave and surfing with a buoyant board was a matter of some skill, especially the people that can standup and control the board, but bodysurfing was a bit more primitive. Bodysurfing in sodden clothes, even more so. All I had to do was catch one wave.

  Lining myself up for the opening, I swam with all my remaining strength. I could feel my progress slow as a wave approached from behind, sucking me backwards as it formed. I dug in deeper, crawling my way forward in the water. Suddenly, the suction disappeared, and I shot forward, skimming along the face of the wave.

  The acceleration was exhilarating at first, but as I blinked the seawater from my eyes, I saw the beach and its dangerous rocks hurtling right at me. Instantly, I knew I was too far to the left. I leaned right, pressing my shoulder into the wave, my trajectory curving away from the rocks. But not fast enough. I leaned harder into the breaking wave, attempting to gain a precious few more inches towards the rocky beach and not the stone sentinels guarding it.

  I felt my body waver, teetering like a bicycle that is moving too fast, and then my shoulder dug in and caught the face of the wave. Before I knew what happened, my entire world flipped upside down. Within an instant I found myself trapped underneath the water, flailing. The wave sucked me up to the top of the curling wall of water. I knew what was coming and covered my head with my arms in one last-ditch effort to avoid injury.

  The wave broke, and for the briefest of moments I felt the weightlessness of free-fall before it slammed me into the trough of the wave. I crashed into a submerged rock and was dragged over others. A gurgling shriek escaped my mouth as pain exploded all over my body. I rode out the painful ride for a moment longer until I felt momentum subside and my tumbling motion ceased. Then I clawed my way towards the light, to where I hoped the surface was.

  I opened my mouth to gasp for air and instead sucked in a lungful of saltwater as another massive wave crashed down on me the moment my head broke the surface. I waited for this wave to pass, forcing myself to remain calm while coughing and sputtering for air. Once I was safely behind the wave, and in the trough of the following one, I kicked and crawled with my now battered limbs. The beach was close now, merely a few dozen yards away.

  Another wave, this one less violent, grabbed me and gave me a stern shove through foaming water to cover the last stretch to dry land. It deposited me roughly on the smooth stones that made up the beach. Weakly, coughing and gasping like a landed fish, I struggled to my knees and half crawled, half squirmed my way up the beach and out of the surf.

  All I wanted was to rest on that tiny deserted beach. But I knew I needed to move. I was much more visible now, and though I couldn't see it anymore, the patrol boat's search would bring it by sooner rather than later. Gathering my strength and all of my remaining willpower, I rolled over, put one pruned hand down on the rocks and pushed myself to my feet. I groaned, feeling the tightness and pain that coursed through me.

  Wet clothes clung to me, making my already hampered movements harder, but I managed a respectable shamble up the hill. Weakly I stumbled over the rocks, past the gray-green salt grass, and into the thicket of brush where I knew I wouldn't be seen before finally collapsing onto my back to rest.

  Once the current wave of dull pain subsided, I took stock of myself. Besides the existing wounds from my tussles with my treasure hunter rival, I had a knot the size of a golf ball on the back of my head, a dark purple bruise that probably covered an entire butt cheek, my elbow was stiff and bleeding from its impact with a rock, and my right knee was aching. Beyond that, most of my muscles felt weak, drained of their energy. A powerful thirst overcame me, too. Though at the moment, the thought of water was more appalling than inviting.

  I spent several minutes laying on my back and watching the puffy white clouds float over the network of leaves and tree boughs that shaded me. Birds chirped and squawked in the jungle, going about their everyday life. The normalcy of it was a comfort, a serene and beautiful moment of peace. The first that I'd had since arriving in Cuba. And then the peace shattered with the sound of human voices. Lots of them.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  At first there were just a few voices, but they quickly grew in number, coming at me from every direction. I dropped into a low crouch, ready to spring into the jungle. My head swiveled from side to side, trying, but failing, to lock onto them. I strained to listen harder and picked up something else, a noise hidden in the background. Mechanical noises.

  Now aware of it, the thrum of the machinery enveloped me, just as the voices had. I looked out towards the rocky beach and realized that I wasn't surrounded at all. It was merely echoes bouncing off the trees and the walls of the small depression that I was in. I unknotted my muscles, but refused to relax completely. There was a lot of activity somewhere nearby, and any presence in the jungle was a threat to my safety. But there was something about these sounds that was different that anything I had expected. They were the sounds of men at work, not of soldiers on patrol.

  The mystery of it pulled me deeper into the jungle. What kind of work could be going on in such a remote place, I wondered. There was nothing here. The village was at least a few miles away, and I had seen nothing man-made on the trip up the mountain.

  Keeping an eye out for any movement, I crept my way upwards, toward the rim of the small depression. Crawling through the jungle was a skill that I was becoming quite adept at, but it wasn't easy. My injuries, however, served as constant reminders that my fighting and escape skills were not so well honed.

  Some of my injuries faded as I picked my way through the woods. My aching knees loosened up after a few dozen steps, as did my shoulder. I knew the dull pain of my bumps and bruises wouldn't fade for a few days, but they were manageable. The only injury that truly bothered me was my elbow. Moving it hurt. I didn't think I broke it, but the injury was painful enough for me to avoid using it unless I had to. I kept my arm close to my body to stabilize it as I limped my way uphill towards the voices that were growing steadily louder and more concise.

  As I scrambled awkwardly up the hillside, the multiple voices became more distinct, solidifying until I could discern individual ones, and then eventually comprehensible words. The faint background sounds also came more into focus. Some of it was simply men doing manual labor, sounds common to anyone who had ever worked in the woods. The loud ringing clink of metal on metal, and the duller crack of wood being smashed. Underneath it all was the rustle of something that sounded like cloth. I could also pick out the low thrumming rumble of a truck engine. I had a bad feeling of what I would see once I crested the hill.

  The going got tougher as I neared the top, turning from a steep grade to nearly a vertical rock-face. I clung to saplings and vines as I worked my way to the rim. One misstep and I would end up sliding back down the hill in a shower of loose rocks and leaves.

  It was an eerie feeling, hearing voices that sounded so close when the jungle typically seemed to muffle and devour noise instead
. I knew sound worked both ways. If I could hear them, they could most likely hear me. I could only hope that the noise level from the worksite was enough to drown out anything that would give me away.

  Finally, at the top of the hill, I lowered myself into a prone position and crawled over the summit. It was not a village or a work camp that stretched out before me. It was a large military camp teeming with activity. Soldiers scurried about like worker ants. They had erected several tents, perhaps a dozen, throughout the makeshift complex. Two more were already being erected by the troops. Three enormous canvas tents dominated the center of the sprawling complex. The others, scattered throughout the camp, were all significantly smaller, though no less active. Soldiers moved equipment in and out of these smaller tents regularly. Beside most were stacks of barrels and crates.

  The camp only had one permanent structure, a large triangular tower, twenty or thirty feet tall with what looked like a radio antenna mounted on top. Everything else was temporary, designed to be easy to pack and relocate. There wasn't even a full fence around the camp. A few barricades of what looked like barbed wire had been placed regularly around the perimeter, but in no way completely enclosed the clearing. The only respectable barricade was at the far end.

  A set of movable gates, formed from gleaming razor wire, sat between two large concrete blocks, blocking the dirt path that terminated in the middle of the camp. At that terminus sat three vehicles, two covered trucks, and Bardales' personal jeep. Somehow in my escape I had swam past his camp unseen. It looked like my luck had changed for the better.

  Those vehicles also meant that Jaye Mercury was probably down there too. At least I hoped she was. General Bardales did not strike me as a patient or kind man. If he had decided to kill her, it was very possible that she was already dead. But killing her would provide him with nothing. If I were him, I'd want to extract as much information from her as possible. And if he was half as bad as he appeared, he would probably want something more than that.

  Settling in, I concealed myself with leaves and debris. I allowed myself to watch the activity below for quite some time, studying the movements of the men and waiting for nightfall and a chance to sneak around the encampment when I saw something that caught my eye. A waif of a man, dressed not in army apparel, but in a dress shirt and slacks, was being escorted at gunpoint to one of the larger central tents. Something about him looked familiar, but from this distance I couldn't put my finger on it.

  The man looked up towards me an instant before the guard shoved him inside a tent. A glint of light reflected off the man's eyeglasses, and suddenly I knew why the man looked familiar. I had met him less than twenty-four hours ago back in the village. It was Miles Blatt, Pruitt's anthropologist.

  An idea popped into my head, and typically in a situation such as this, those ideas are best ignored. Also, typically in these situations, I do everything but ignore it. Pruitt was my ticket out of Cuba. The man was a known and possibly even renowned scientist that had spent most of his life navigating the murky waters of banana republic politics in his search for history. If anyone could help me get off this god-forsaken island, it was him. I had to rescue him from Bardales. But how?

  The encampment was far from Ft. Knox in terms of security. No fence, no guard towers, and I had only seen the occasional roving patrol crashing through the forest in what had to be one of the worst displays of military discipline in the Western Hemisphere. Getting inside wouldn't be much of an issue if I waited for darkness. Retrieving Dr. Blatt and escaping unseen would be a little harder.

  I studied the tent that the guards threw him into. It appeared to be off limits except for one soldier that would step inside every thirty minutes, step back out a moment later, and continue their rounds. By the time the sun had set, I had seen no one else come or go from that tent. Only the one solitary grunt who checked in approximately every half hour.

  During that time, I made more mental notes on the rest of General Bardales' base so I would be prepared when night fell and I made my move. He had approximately thirty soldiers at his command. Most were simple grunts, but there were at least two officers coordinating various projects in the camp. I had seen Bardales once in the several hours I watched. He was sequestered in one of the large central tents, adjacent to the one that I knew held Dr. Blatt.

  There was a latrine dug out along the perimeter of one side, near the back of the encampment. The men who were erecting the two tents that I had seen when I first climbed over the top of the hill had long since finished. Dozens of plain wooden crates had been shifted into those tents from the stacks that littered the entire camp.

  Once that task was done, I never saw another soldier enter the tents, except the one roving sentry who seemed to poke his head into each tent as he encountered them along his patrol path. He never deviated from this path, and I had his pattern down cold within a couple cycles.

  I assumed that half of the tents were set aside for storage, as I saw no soldiers coming or going from them. But storage for what? I did not know. The other half of the tents in the camp received the occasional visitor beyond the sentry. Troops would come and go from them often enough that they had to be the camp's barracks. All of the sleeping tents were clustered a short distance from the latrine, buffering it from Bardales's tent, Blatt's tent, and the third large tent nestled near the communications antenna.

  What purpose this last tent served, I couldn't be sure. It had regular traffic from both the grunts and the officers, and they would easily spot us leaving Blatt's tent. We'd have to be extra cautious.

  The jungle had turned from shades of green and orange to purple and blue as the sun slipped beyond the horizon. When it was fully dark, I dusted the leaves and forest debris off of myself. It was time to rescue Miles Blatt, and throw a wrench in Bardales plans. I had yet to see Jaye, but I was hoping she was being held with Blatt. If I could get all three of us out of here, I would consider that a win. Screw Adrian Pruitt and his money. I'd deal with him when I didn't have a tyrannical Cuban general after me

  ◆◆◆

  I entered Bardales' camp between the latrine and the supply tents. Moving swiftly from tent to tent was easy enough. There were few direct sight lines from outside the cluster, and with each tent being over six feet tall, I didn't have to worry about anyone seeing me sneak through this part of the camp.

  Even to a civilian like myself, the layout reeked of poor military planning and execution. Perhaps the general wasn't as military oriented as I had originally suspected. The overall sloppiness of the camp's layout smacked more of a career politician than a soldier.

  Added to the poor layout, the camp had gone nearly completely dark, even before the sun had fully set. The jungle's thick trees cast deep shadows over the complex. Yet, even now, in full darkness, there were only a few lanterns scattered throughout the camp, most of them near the barracks, and a handful of men moving about by flashlight. Every few minutes a flash of lighting from some dark cloud in the distance would light up the camp for a split second.

  A nearly imperceptible breath of wind carried laughter from the barracks of the camp. The soldiers gathered there when the sun went down. With that laughter came the mouthwatering aroma of cooking food, and my stomach grumbled and twisted in protest. I made a mental note to steal some food if I got the chance.

  A set of crates sat stacked four high between the last two supply tents. Putting my back to the crates, I took a quick glance out into the open circle that separated the smaller tents from the larger central ones. Thirty feet away there was a soldier walking, his eyes fixed on the ground and heading directly down the path. Quickly, I ducked back behind the crates and sunk down behind them, curling my legs up so that I wouldn't be seen, and hoped he would walk past.

  This wasn't the sentry that I been watching all afternoon. That soldier had never once deviated from his patrol. It had to be someone else, a soldier on some errand perhaps. I would have to let him pass before I could continue.

  I coul
d hear the crunch of the man's boots as he approached. His footsteps grew louder with each step, and I made sure to remain perfectly still. The man passed close enough to me I could have reached out and touched him if not for the crates hiding me.

  Craning my neck to peer around the wooden boxes, I watched him for a few more seconds as he walked past and then turned towards the communications tower in the center of camp.

  "What are you up to?" I mouthed to myself, remaining behind the crates.

  The soldier reached the tower and fumbled with a metal box mounted on the side that I had not noticed before. He made some sort of movement with his hand and suddenly blinding light erupted unexpectedly from the top of the tower, searing my eyes. Recoiling from the brilliance, I curled myself back into the darkness provided by the shadows cast by the stack of crates.

  My eyes adjusted, but I spent a few moments blinking away the large red blind spots the light had burned into my retinas. The entire camp was now awash in bright white-yellow industrial lights. Three sets were mounted to the top of the tower, each facing out from one of the tower's triangular sides.

  The lighting wasn't perfect. The tents and other obstacles cast deep black shadows behind them, but the entire barren circle around the central tents was now lit like a work site. This infiltration and rescue mission just got a lot tougher. Despite the low guard count, crossing such a lit area was a fool's errand. The soldiers would immediately identify me as an intruder.

  The light provided other problems. I couldn't wait too long for my opportunity to cross to the big tents in the center. Eventually, the roving sentry would make his rounds, and the light hampered my ability to move and stripped away most of the hiding spots. I was entirely too exposed.