Lynx

by Matt Rogers

  His mind was far more dangerous than the road.

  Because he couldn’t stop thinking about a nine-year-old girl he’d left in the hands of Williams back in Macau, making the shadowy government figure swear to find her a decent home and give her some semblance of a normal life.

  Had he?

  Or had he done something else?

  If there’s any chance…

  Slater pushed toward Quibdó, wondering if he’d crossed a bridge from which there was no going back.

  40

  He let them out on the outskirts of Quibdó, in a street that would ordinarily be considered dangerous for tourists, but paled in comparison to where they’d started.

  Puddles swamped the muddy street, and two parallel ditches on either side of the main road created jagged miniature canyons that prevented any kind of foot traffic. But the rundown dilapidated houses had their porch lights on, creating a warm glow along the street, and a large group of foreigners milled around an open-walled building advertising itself as a luxury cab service.

  Slater stopped the truck a few dozen feet from the procession, and pressed a crumpled wad of bills into Casey’s sweaty palm.

  ‘Use that to get a good cab,’ he said. ‘They’ll cater to you if you have money. There’s minimal risk of kidnap and extortion here. You’ll be safe.’

  ‘The airport,’ she muttered. ‘What was it called?’

  ‘El Caraño.’

  ‘That’s where we arrived,’ she said, nodding. ‘A few days ago. Feels like years.’

  ‘You’re still in shock. You will be for a while. But it’s better to get back to the States and then try to break down what happened. Take it slow. Piece by piece. It’s not going to be easy. It never is.’

  ‘Seems easy for you.’

  ‘Like I said, I’m used to it.’

  ‘What do I tell my parents?’

  Jake, Harvey, and Whitney all murmured their agreements.

  Slater said, ‘Not the truth.’

  ‘They’ll know something happened.’

  ‘I didn’t say cover it up. Just … don’t be that specific. Say you were threatened. Say it scared the shit out of you. They’ll believe you. They’re protective, I’m sure.’

  ‘You got parents like that?’ Casey said.

  Some kind of attempt at humour, given his seemingly personal relationship with avoiding death by a hair.

  Slater’s face turned to stone.

  The replay of his childhood still ran fresh in his mind. Only recently conjured back up from the drive. Usually he would think nothing of it. Now he battled a rising surge of emotion.

  Casey paused, understanding the silence.

  ‘You three go,’ she said, facing the back seat. ‘Talk to the guy at reception. I’ll catch up to you.’

  Silent nods. Slater caught a flash of the gestures in the rear view mirror. Jake, Harvey, and Whitney shuffled silently out of the car, muttering half-hearted goodbyes as they stepped down into the mud. They weren’t thinking about saying anything sentimental. They weren’t thinking about saying anything at all. He didn’t take anything they did or didn’t say to heart, because he knew their brains were embroiled in a feedback loop, stuck on the same sensations.

  Like fear and anxiety and terror all mashed together and then drip-fed a steady dose of steroids.

  I remember my first time.

  They closed the doors, already fading from Slater’s memory, and he turned to Casey.

  ‘I like you,’ he said.

  She seemed taken aback. ’What?’

  ‘You’ve got your head on your shoulders. You’re smart. You’re handling this well. Don’t blame yourself if it all goes downhill when you get back home. You’re still in a different mode of being. You’re travelling, backpacking, being wild. Or at least you were. So your brain’s a little more adapted to experiencing new sensations. It’ll be keeping most of it at bay. When you get back to your own bed you’ll start to realise how close you came to dying. And it’ll eat at you.’

  ‘You’re really doing a great job of reassuring me.’

  ‘I’m preparing you. Better to know than be blissfully oblivious until it hits you.’

  She nodded. ‘I guess you’re right.’

  ‘Help your friends through it. Learn what not to do in future. That’s all there is to it.’

  She blinked twice, as if contemplating whether she was hallucinating all of this. ‘So … that’s it?’

  ‘What else is there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I still don’t understand why you did it. Any of it. We deserved for you to let us die.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that.’

  ‘It’s the truth. You almost got yourself killed.’

  ‘I basically did.’

  ‘And then, that woman…’

  ‘Did you speak to her? Before I showed up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anything you can help me with?’

  ‘In terms of what?’

  ‘Did she give anything away?’

  Casey paused, deep in pensive thought, chewing her bottom lip. Drawing into herself. The shoddy glow of the houses around them filtered through the windshield and bathed her in a warm light. Accentuating the sweat and dirt matted to her face. With specks of blood dotted all around like a sick accoutrement. She looked nothing like the quietly confident girl Slater had met earlier that afternoon.

  She shook her head. ‘I think — when I get back home — that’s going to be the most puzzling thing for me.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You’re like a god out here. This is your world. And even you’re confused by her.’

  ‘So she played the part well?’

  ‘I believed she was a terrified hostage with every fibre of my being. I can’t stress that enough.’

  ‘So she’s good.’

  ‘There’s something above good. Far, far above good. That’s what she is.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You two used to work together?’

  ‘No. But we know the same people.’

  ‘You come from the same background?’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll find out.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  Slater smiled at the irony. ‘Thanks. I knew I could count on you.’

  She smirked. It took some serious effort, but she managed.

  She looked around. ‘Mad life, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mine’s like this all the time.’

  ‘You get used to everything,’ she parroted.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Take care of yourself.’

  ‘I just feel like … this can’t be it. Can it?’

  ‘It’d be best for your health if you never saw me again.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I attract trouble.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  She shrugged. ‘Fair enough. I’d tell you how much I owe you, but you already know how I feel. I’m sure you’ve pulled people out of situations like that in the past.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Does it feel good?’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like anything, if you want me to be honest. I just have to do it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because what else am I going to do?’

  She left it at that. There was nothing more to be said. She opened the passenger door and hovered there for a beat, one palm on the handle, the other in the process of levering herself off the coarse leather. She froze in place and stared him in the eyes, as if searching for something. He gave her nothing. It would be best for her to forget he ever existed. Best to leave her the absolute minimum to remember.

  She seemed to see right through that. ‘You’re a complicated guy. I hope you end up happy. Eventually.’

  ‘I am happy.’

  ‘You don’t look it.’

  ‘I put myself in so many situations like that, and I learned to suppress fear. Guess I suppressed every other emotion along with that. Just a byprod
uct.’

  ‘You’re truly happy?’

  ‘I think so. It’s complicated.’

  ‘Then keep doing what you’re doing.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Can I see you again? Even if it’s years from now. I just … I’ve never met anything like whatever the hell you are. I’m not coming onto you. It’s just fascinating.’

  ‘Do me a favour and pretend I never existed,’ he said, accompanying it with a half-smile to let her know he wasn’t being unnecessarily harsh. Then he leant across the centre console and gently guided her out of the car with an open palm. She stepped down into the mud, and looked at him again.

  ‘I don’t even know your name,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ he said, and pulled the passenger door closed from the inside.

  41

  He was two miles away before he realised they didn’t have their passports.

  All their luggage had either been destroyed or left outside the hostel when they were taken. Either way, it was gone. He paused with his foot on the brake, then figured they would have ample opportunities to contact an embassy or a consular service. So he pressed on. There was nothing he could do for them that they couldn’t do for themselves.

  He ditched the car at the next available opportunity. It didn’t take much effort. Plastic containers of fuel ran along the edges of the truck’s rear tray, held tight in place by thick straps and bindings. Slater eyed them in the rear view mirror and formulated a plan.

  He trawled deeper into Quibdó, moving through what he guessed constituted the ghettos. He passed ramshackle dwellings and slightly larger houses with cracks running down the exterior and moss protruding from the walls. Passersby, most locals, barely threw him a second glance. His was just another indiscriminate filthy Toyota trundling the backwaters of this fetid city. He imagined the centre of town was a little more accomodating to satiate the tourists that trickled in through the airport.

  Almost immediately, he forgot about the four college kids.

  He’d found, through experience, that dwelling and speculating on the people he’d saved did him no good in the long run. It bogged him down in possibility, and he preferred an uncomplicated life. He simply helped when he saw it, and focused on maximising his own happiness in the interim.

  Casey had probed deeper than she probably realised, and now he was forced to face those questions.

  But he was happy.

  His satisfaction just didn’t reside on the ordinary spectrum.

  He spotted a trio of locals positioned on a street corner at a deserted T-junction, in no man’s land between the residential neighbourhood and the commercial district beyond. The commercial district sported hotels and convenience stores and a few skyscrapers dotted intermittently in the distance. This here was a desolate zone, devoid of life, inhabited by no-one except the three scrawny guys chain-smoking cigarettes and staring at nothing in particular.

  They weren’t talking much. Hard lines creased their faces, the cracks stained deep with dirt and muck. He could see it caked into their clothing. Workmen, probably pausing for a moment of stillness before returning to their homes after an obscenely long work day. Or getting up well before dawn. It was close to three in the morning — the strange hours where little happened and the shadows seemed to grow longer.

  Slater made up his mind in an instant. He aimed for a sharp ditch a few dozen feet away from the three men, where weeds and vegetation grew thick, and put his seatbelt on. He slowed down at the last second, but the pick-up truck still pitched violently forward into the mud, its hood crumpling and twisting into the grime, mud spraying up and caking the windshield, seeping through a couple of cracks in the chassis.

  Slater snatched up his phone, shoved it into his pocket, and got out of the driver’s seat.

  He tasted the night, pausing a beat to soak it all in.

  This is really happening.

  He fetched one of the dirty plastic containers, unscrewed the lid, and upended its contents across the truck’s interior. The three men watched with placid expressions, likely amused but unwilling to share their emotions with this stranger. Then there was the language barrier to take into account.

  Slater poured a second container across the rear tray and circled around the truck, now positioned at a grotesque diagonal angle.

  He gestured to the closest man’s cigarette, nothing more than a stub, hanging loosely from his mouth.

  The guy stared at Slater like he was deranged, then shrugged and handed the butt across.

  Slater tossed it on the car.

  Flames seared, burning hot in the dark. Swallowing the atmosphere. Licking and torching and removing any trace of Slater’s existence.

  He nodded his thanks, and moved on.

  He didn’t pay attention to the trio as he sauntered past them. He heard them, though. One of them snickered, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The three of them devolved into raucous laughter, bemused by the ridiculousness of it all.

  They finished their cigarettes and turned to admire the flaming wreckage.

  Colombians certainly weren’t easily deterred by the abnormal.

  Slater patted himself down as he disappeared into the night.

  Phone.

  Wallet.

  Passport.

  Keys to the compound.

  The four things he kept on him whenever he wasn’t working out, to allow room for exactly the kind of behaviour he was currently exhibiting. The passport stood out as the strangest to maintain hold of at all times, but he never knew when he would be forced to abandon ship, in the kind of situation where the slightest hesitation would get him killed.

  He walked off down the dirt road, alone with his thoughts and stripped of possessions.

  And that suited him just fine.

  42

  He took his time making his way into the centre of town. He kept the Atrato River to the west and used it as a reference point, zoning in on the rushing water as its sounds filtered through the streets. The night turned hot and oppressive, wrenching sweat out of his pores. He didn’t think he could perspire any more than he already was.

  That proved inaccurate.

  The perspiration started coagulating with the dried blood all over his head — a disgusting combination. He paused in the shadows to locate a nearby tap and found one only a dozen feet away, a single metal pole spearing out of the ground and surrounded by overgrown weeds, caked with rust and grime.

  But it worked.

  He twisted the nozzle and a steady stream of water poured out into the dirt. He’d shot himself with every vaccination and immunisation under the sun before stepping foot in-country, so he had no qualms with scooping the water into his palms and drenching his face, his scalp, his neck. It burned in the wound across his scalp, but it was only superficial pain. There was no neurological damage. The bullet hadn’t made it to his skull. It had only sliced a thin sliver of flesh off the top of his head. It would heal. Already the bleeding had stopped.

  In the big picture, nothing to worry about.

  Especially considering he’d taken on an entire cartel a few hours ago.

  He removed all the dirt from his visible pores and carried on, allowing the night heat to dry him naturally. There were no passersby. No tourists. No pedestrians. It was too late for any of that. He was a ghost in the city, passing quaint dwellings with dilapidated walls and no fences separating the properties from their neighbours.

  He sensed an air of community, even all the way out here, even under conditions that might classify as the worst kind of poverty to uninformed visitors.

  He used the peace and quiet to think.

  He hadn’t been alone since the cartel narcos had stormed his compound, and he was accustomed to a lifetime of being alone. In fact, the excursion into the jungle had thoroughly disrupted his routine.

  Driven him out of what he’d temporarily considered home.

  Flipped his life on his head.

  But there was no g
oing back.

  He found it effortless to hit the road — as he strolled through muddy streets he didn’t know from the back of his hand, he sensed some kind of smug satisfaction, and he knew what it was.

  This was his peak mode of operating. Leaving material possessions behind. Giving up the designer furniture and smooth floors and high ceilings for the open road. He had the clothes on his back, and that was it.

  And somehow it felt more like home than the building he’d occupied for the last couple of months.

  He’d always known it was a farce. Even when he’d hired the contractors, the architects, the builders, the laymen. Even when the plan he’d envisioned in his head came to reality. It was still a fixed physical location. Plenty of room for vulnerability. Maybe that was why he’d given up entirely on installing any kind of security system. They’d offered everything under the sun. Motion sensors, fortified windows, and everything in between.

  And this was Colombia. Rural, deserted Colombia. They’d offered a hell of a lot more. Claymores and turrets and fully automatic machine guns.

  He’d refused everything.

  Because he knew none of it would matter, and it hadn’t. In truth he’d been looking for an excuse to get the hell out of there.

  He was worth four hundred million dollars — not that anyone knew. A strange and twisted detour in Macau had led to that. The funds had previously belonged to the triad, now secured in a private bank in Zurich, available at the tap of a button on his smartphone. He’d spent half a million building the compound, and it hadn’t made a dent in his personal fortune. He accrued that amount in interest payments every couple of weeks.

  So it doesn’t matter.

  The past left behind.

  The future uncertain.

  Just how I like it.

  Then his mind turned to more pressing issues. Ruby. Twenty-two years old, and a true enigma. He figured he would never decipher her completely. He started down the mental rabbit hole, postulating where she might have come from and how she came into possession of the talents she displayed in the clearing.

  Then he gave up, almost immediately.

  He’d never allowed time for any of that.