“Same here.”
“What do you think Smith plans to do to them?”
“Best case, he ties them up and he and his minions leave with the booty.”
“Worst case?”
Logan shrugs. “Hard to say. He left us sealed in a tomb to die. Kind of a big tell on the guy’s character.”
“But you said he wasn’t a murderer,” I protest, recovering the rifle. Smith’s M16 is muddy but seems otherwise undamaged. I check to make sure the safety’s on, then look down the barrel. It’s unclogged, shouldn’t be jammed.
Logan smiles apologetically. “I was only trying to comfort you.”
I knew he was lying. I don’t know if I should be mad or grateful. The lie did make me feel better at a time when I desperately needed comfort, so I land on grateful.
“Then we have to check the camp,” I say, making the decision. “Let’s make sure our friends are okay, and then we’ll see from there.”
“All right.”
I turn in a half-circle. I have no idea where we are. “Which way?”
Logan closes his eyes.
“Err?” I cough. “Are you trying to meditate the answer?”
He frowns, but keeps his lids closed. “I’m picturing a mental map of the area.”
After a few minutes, he blinks and stares up at the sky.
“Any luck?” I ask.
Logan stalks over to the edge of the vegetation. “Our best bet is to head west and then south, circle back the opposite way we came.”
“And how can you tell where the west is?”
He pulls out the machete from the sheath on his belt and points it at the sky. The rain has finally abated, turning into a drizzle while the clouds are clearing away. “The sun’s moving that way. We should follow.”
Logan
After ten days in the jungle, my muscles are used to the strain of handling a machete. But trained or not, I’m tiring fast. I haven’t slept in I don’t know how many hours, I’ve only eaten two protein bars in as much time, and there’s no one to rotate with. The heat doesn’t help either. The sun is up and shining again and it has turned the jungle into an open-air Turkish bath. So, even if the forest is less thick down here, we’re slow. Too slow.
If we keep this snail’s pace, I’m afraid the soldiers will catch up with us soon.
As if on cue, three bullets rip into the trees directly in front of me, saving me the need to use the machete. I dive sideways and careen into Winter, taking her down with me. We find cover behind a boulder, her soft curves pressed up against me, and I spare a second to catch my breath before peeking over the rim of the rock.
Smith and his cronies are standing at the edge of the cliff, having easily spotted us from the high ground. Another round of shots rings through the air, and bullets zing against the boulder. I duck behind the stone again.
“Smith?” Winter asks.
“Yeah, and he brought his merry band of mercenaries.”
“Both Carter and Montgomery? How come they’re both with him?”
I shrug. “How am I supposed to know?”
“We need to get out of here. We’re sitting ducks without the cover of the jungle.”
I rub my forehead, my head splitting with a headache. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m exhausted, and cutting down vines isn’t an easy-peasy job.”
She pats the machete at her side. “I can help.”
“No, you can’t. You’re not strong enough.”
“Why do you always have to assume—”
I point at a thick root at her feet. “Cut that,” I interrupt. I don’t have time for a feminist protest. This isn’t about her being a woman.
Winter unleashes the machete from her belt and swings it at the root. The blade barely makes a dent before it harmlessly slides off to the side.
I raise my machete and, with one clean slash, I split the root in the middle.
Winter’s glare subsides. “I see your point.”
Even though the situation is dire, I find it in me to grin. “Careful there, that almost sounded as if you were admitting I was right and you were wrong.”
She smiles back and jokingly pokes me. “Never.”
More bullets make the vegetation around us splinter, sobering us up.
If only I could see what they’re doing, but they’re so far away. Then an idea strikes me. “Do you have anything in your photographic equipment I could use as a binocular?”
Winter unslings the backpack from her shoulders and rummages inside for a few seconds. She hands me a contraption that looks like a miniature telescope. “Try this.”
I bring it to my eye, but another round of bullets prevents me from looking.
I don’t notice that Winter also took her camera out of the backpack until she’s raised her head out of cover, prompting a fresh bout of gunfire. Shards of rock fly in all directions.
“Are you crazy?” I grab Winter by the collar of her shirt and drag her back down. “What are you doing?”
“Collecting evidence. The police will need proof. Otherwise, it’s our word against theirs.”
“Not if you get your head blown off. Put that camera away and focus on staying alive.”
Begrudgingly, she does as I say.
Then I notice everything has gone quiet. I bring the mini-telescope to my eyes, wrestle with the zoom to focus the lens, and chance a look.
“Damn! They’re dropping ropes over the side of the cliff.” I watch as one by one they rappel their way down, Smith in the lead. “They’re coming.” I turn to Winter. “On my three, we jump out and make a run for it.” She nods, and so I start the countdown. “One, two… three!”
We jump to our feet and dash forward, leaving the clearing behind. Just as we plunge into the cover of the jungle, a rain of bullets pelts the stretch of earth we were standing on only seconds ago.
As we charge through the trees, branches slap against my face. The growth is too dense for me to duck out of the way. Winter is having an even worse time than me. I check on her as we run and see her struggle as one of her braids gets caught in a low branch. Hands flying to her head, she yanks at it and struggles free, but not without leaving a long blond lock entangled in the prickly vine.
The undergrowth becomes denser. Machete in hand, I hack as fast as I can, fresh adrenaline giving me the strength I lacked before. Cursing under my breath, I slash at the vines and tree limbs with clean strokes of the blade, clearing a narrow passage. My muscles scream in protest from the effort, but fear spurs me on, fueling my arm as it whips through the underbrush at lightning speed. Let’s hope Smith and his mercenaries aren’t good trackers. Our only chance is to lose them.
Winter stumbles behind me, but I can’t spare the energy to check on her; I’m too busy battling the palms. Salty sweat pours down my face and arms, turning the million cuts and scratches on my skin into as many tiny flaming welts. But, despite the knotted, aching muscles and constant tension in my arms, my sole focus is on keeping my machete arm going.
My grip on the handle has become almost maniacal; I don’t dare to flex my fingers for fear of dropping the blade, regardless of the cramping. Handle fused to my palm, I develop a rhythm in a life-or-death dance with the vegetation as my partner. Arm up, I aim for oblique cuts, followed by a backhand hack when I don’t finish the job on the first try, and a strong pull from my free hand to clear the chopped branches. Raise, cut, chop, pull. Raise, cut, chop, pull. Over and over again until my arm becomes one with the machete.
Every swipe is crucial. I can’t afford even a single miss, as every inch I carve forward keeps us alive. I try not to think of the consequences should Smith overtake us. There won’t be any prisoners this time around. Smith isn’t a fool-me-twice kind of fella.
At my heels, Winter isn’t fairing any better. Her sharp intake of breath whenever a branch slaps her in the face, or when she stumbles, is a dead giveaway of how hard this is on her, too.
&nb
sp; “How are you holding up?” I say, glancing back at her.
“This rifle is too heavy,” she pants. “I’m dropping it.”
“WHAT?!” I yell, all the while hacking away at the jungle. “You can’t drop our only weapon. Leave the backpack.”
“No way, I have all my equipment in here.”
“And how are a bunch of cameras going to help us stay alive?” I turn just a fraction to glare at her. “Are you going to photograph Smith to death?”
“I’m not leaving my cameras behind; do you have any idea how much they cost? You’ve already wrecked one.”
“Here.” I pause for a second and backtrack to her. I snatch the rifle from her hands and sling it over my shoulders.
The short break is enough for men’s voices to carry over to us, the ring of their whizzing machetes audible now that mine has stopped. Smith and his men are moving in closer. I redouble my efforts, slicing into the undergrowth—raise, cut, chop, pull, raise, cut, chop, pull—while sweat pours down my face and spine.
Another palm falls, and we reach a less dense stretch of jungle. I grab Winter’s hand and we take off at a run.
I glance over my shoulder and see glints of silver flash through the dense greenery. They sweep up and down in identical semicircles, their eerie ring whizzing through the air. Too much silver for three men; the soldiers must be spinning a blade in each hand, gaining on us even faster.
As the sound of the machetes grows louder, I wipe sweat from my eyes with my shirt sleeve, stumble, and lose precious seconds. I get up and race on, listening to the machetes’ ring grow ever louder in my ears. A tall thicket gets in my way, so I slice at it with more aggressive swings and push forward. And almost drop eighty feet into the wildly raging river below.
I fling my arms out just in time to stop Winter from tumbling over the edge, and we stare in horror at the jagged sides of the cliff covered in a gnarly growth. We’re trapped!
“Look,” Winter says, pointing to our right. “There’s a bridge.”
Hope swells in my chest, only to be crushed when I spot the crumbling wooden structure she’s referring to. The “bridge” is a narrow, broken-down assemblage of rotting planks covered in vines and dangling precariously over the void. Even when newly constructed, I bet it couldn’t hold two people abreast, and mustn’t have had the strength to carry more than ten in total. And in the present, I fear a single person would be too much. The wood has been ravaged by hundreds of years of exposure to the elements: rain, wind, sun, and whatever else this hideous jungle threw at it. That is, where there’s any wood left. Many of the bridge’s boards are missing or shattered in half.
“That’s not a bridge,” I say, unhooking the rifle from my shoulder, ready to make my final stand. “That’s a historical artifact.”
“Oh, please,” Winter scoffs as I kneel behind a tree trunk, trying to spot the exact position of Smith and his sergeants. “You can’t even shoot.”
“I’m a quick study,” I say, pulling a lever I hope removes the safety. How hard can it be? Point and shoot, right?
“I’m taking my chances with the bridge,” Winter says.
The first plank groans under her weight as she steps on it, but I don’t turn to witness the stubborn woman’s walk to her certain death. I focus on the jungle, trying to pinpoint the exact location of our pursuers. They seem to be coming from the left, where I can hear the rustling of the vegetation being trashed and trampled. Let’s see if I retained some marksmanship from my childhood days playing at cowboys with air guns. My only chance is to quickly pick the soldiers off before they overtake us.
I aim the M16 toward the advancing militia, and only detach my eyes from the rifle sight to spare a glance at Winter. She’s made it a third of the way across the bridge, but I bet she can’t make it halfway before the whole thing comes crashing down. The photographer will fall and smash her pretty head on the craggy rocks and violent waters below. Already, the boards she’s passing are tearing off and scurrying down into the river where they are mutilated on impact.
“Come back!” I yell. “That’s suicide.”
My call is answered by the hiss of bullets hitting wood a few feet left of my position. A blind attack. I peek over the trunk and, just as blindly, try to return the fire. I raise the rifle, pull the trigger, but nothing happens.
How do I remove the damn safety? I’m uselessly pawing at the rifle when suddenly… snap! I turn just in time to panic as the board under Winter’s feet gives way and goes tumbling into the river. Showing quick reflexes, she grabs at a vine, the inertia of the fall sending her swinging over the gorge. Through the rips in her shirt, I can see the muscles in her arms tense with the effort of holding on. She clings on to the vine with both hands and, knees raised to her chest Tarzan-style, she swings across, clearing the canyon and landing safely on the other side on a bed of ferns.
Ah, hell! If she can make it… I stop fighting with the rifle and sling it back over my shoulder, tightening the strap. With a few quick strides, I’m at the bridgehead, already pulling on a vine to test it. Another strong tug, and I declare it safe. I backtrack a few steps to create a runway of sorts before I make the leap. But just as I take the first step, the vine goes limp in my hands.
I drop the useless piece of vegetation and glance backward over my shoulder. A groan escapes my lips as I spot a silver blade not thirty feet away. They’re almost here. This is it, then. I can only choose if I want to die splattered on the riverbank, or with a bullet in my back. I’ll take my chances with the river.
I grab another vine and give it an even stronger tug. This one has to hold, and if it doesn’t, I’m a dead man anyway.
There’s only space for three running steps before I fling myself into the void. As my feet leave the ground, I keep a firm grip on the vine and try to close myself up in a ball as Winter did, but not quite managing. Still, the move works, because I’m flying over the precipice in a swift swing. Only, as the other side draws near, I realize I’m not headed for a soft landing. The vine I’ve picked is too long and is going to send me crashing right against the rock wall. My eyes widen in panic as the cliff comes closer. I barely have time to brace myself for the impact before my body smacks against the rocks, knees first.
Ignoring the pain, I scramble for hand and toe holds in the vegetation covering the stone and let go of the vine. Once I’m secured, I crane my neck up at the cliff’s edge, fifteen mockingly short inches away. Then, heaven knows why, I stare down. And now I see why they say never to look down. A fresh rush of terror makes my head spin, and I hold on to the roots for dear life.
When I’ve stopped shivering, I struggle to pull myself up, but can’t find a grip strong enough. The rifle slips lower on my back, but I don’t try to fasten the strap. I throw my head backward and in a hoarse voice call for help. “Winter!”
“I’m coming,” she screams from somewhere above.
Just then the buckle snaps and the rifle falls into the river. I watch its descent in horror. The lost weapon crashes to the bottom and splinters into a million pieces. In an instant, the swarming river has washed away all traces.
A speck of rock explodes two inches above my head, sending shards raining over me. I don’t have to look back to know that Smith and his men have caught up and are playing target practice with my ass. Another piece of rock shatters below my left foot, and I can only send a small thank-you prayer to my guardian angel they’re not equipped with sniper rifles.
“Would you mind hurrying up?” I scream.
“I’m trying,” Winter yells. “Grab this.” A thick vine falls over the edge.
Spurred on by another bullet just barely missing me, I grab the makeshift rope without testing its resistance and let go of the wall. As I haul myself up, another small explosion splinters the rock where my calf had been a moment ago. With a few forceful pulls, I clear the edge of the cliff and, once on flat ground, I dive undercover.
Winter and I crawl away
from the rim into the safety of the jungle just beyond.
“Where’s the rifle?” she asks.
“I dropped it.”
She curses under her breath. “I could’ve taken those sorry shots out in a second from here.”
“All right, Lara Croft, let’s just get our asses out of range, what do you say?”
Sixteen
Winter
Incredibly, this stretch of jungle is even more dense and foreboding than the area we left behind on the other bank of the river. Since the storm clouds rolled away as suddenly as they came, they’ve been replaced by a thick curtain of steam, rising from the sunbaked rocks and treetops. The humidity in the air must’ve spiked to one hundred percent. And without the downpour, all kinds of insects have come swarming out of their hives to have a snack—mostly on me. It seems this side of paradise, bugs don’t mind being about during the day.
A million bloodsuckers must be infesting this jungle, I swear, and no matter how many I swat away, the flies keep on coming. We didn’t grab any chemical repellent spray, and my natural one has no real effect. Mosquitoes, moths, and gnats fly in my face, crawl on my bare skin, and sink their stingers in my exposed flesh. More flesh exposed than normal, thanks to the downhill slide and subsequent struggle through the jungle that have left my clothes in tatters.
Even now, the vegetation tears at them, pointy limbs reach out and grab at my ruined shirt, which offers little protection against the onslaught. No time to change, though. We need to put as much distance as we can between us and Smith before we can rest.
Ahead of me, Logan isn’t fairing any better. His new shirt is hanging off his body in shreds worse than when we came out of the cave, and even if his pants are still in one piece, there are bloodstains on his kneecaps where he hit the cliff. I don’t know where he finds the energy to keep hacking at the vines, but he does. We’re both pushing beyond our limits.
When by late afternoon the terrain becomes less dense, we call on our last physical reserves. Logan, to swing his machete with renewed effort, and me, simply by putting one foot in front of the other without falling to my knees.
From Thailand with Love Page 13
