‘We see him, boss,’ Vertíz said quietly.
‘Good,’ Serrato yelled. ‘Now, until I see the woman dead like this in front of me, she is alive. And while she is alive, we keep searching. Any man who refuses to follow me, I will personally execute on the spot. Understood? Now, we move. Leave the Jeeps. We keep going on foot. We will search every leaf and twig of this jungle until we find her.’
It was a long, weary trek through the jungle. Serrato headed the march, the line of men weaving through the trees behind him with their weapons ready. Torch beams scanned all around as they walked. Now and then a jungle animal would take fright and go crackling through the undergrowth at their approach. There were no more secretive looks or mutinous grumbles among the men. Nobody wanted to end up like Santos. They all knew his body would be picked to the bare bones by morning.
Luis Bracca, who could slip fast and silently through the thick of the forest, scouted on in advance, looking for tracks. They’d been marching for nearly two hours and dawn was approaching when Bracca returned to report that he’d come across something up ahead – not a sign of the missing woman, but a small Indian village. ‘Maybe fifteen, twenty huts,’ Bracca told Serrato.
‘She may have taken refuge there,’ Serrato said. Bracca privately didn’t think it likely that any tribal community would offer shelter to a member of the white race that had persecuted and victimised them for centuries. He said nothing, partly because the boss was in no mood to be contradicted, and partly because he knew what would come next. Slaughtering Indians was as much fun for him as squirrel hunting was for a young boy with his first rifle.
The armed troop advanced stealthily on the village, communicating only using hand signals. The primitive huts came into view through the trees in the first glow of the morning light.
They were forty yards from the outermost dwelling when the first Indian appeared: a young girl carrying a bundle of sticks she’d been gathering from the forest floor. Her dark, lithe little form was naked except for a cloth round her middle. Her eyes flew wide open and she let out a gasp as she saw the men creeping towards the huts – a gasp that would have turned into a shrill cry of alarm, if Bracca’s strong hand hadn’t clamped over her mouth. As she kicked and struggled, he drew the big Bowie knife from its sheath and slit her throat with a grin. He held her tightly for a moment as the life gushed out of her, then let her limp body drop into the leaves.
There was a shout. An old man with a white beard and a belly that overhung his loincloth darted back behind a hut and began yelling loudly to raise the alarm. Vertíz quickly skirted the hut, found him in his rifle sights and fired. The crack of the shot rang out. The old man fell on his face and lay still.
Now the whole village was alerted. Serrato drew his Glock and began yelling ‘Kill them! Kill them all!’ as the line of men overtook him and ran among the huts, firing at everything that moved. The terrified screams of women and children were drowned by gunfire. Bodies fell to the ground left and right, bronze skin glistening with blood.
Not all the Indians tried to take flight. Some of the young male warriors put up a spirited resistance and arrows and darts from blowpipes came whistling through the air, forcing the attackers to dive for cover. Serrato heard the whoosh as an arrow flew towards him. He ducked behind a tree and the feathered shaft buried itself into the trunk with a judder. He turned to see one of his men who hadn’t moved quickly enough rolling on his back with an arrow in his belly.
Serrato shot the Indian who’d loosed the arrow and then ran to the nearest hut. Brooke wasn’t inside it. He ran to the next, then the next, his hope of finding her quickly turning sour. As he emerged from the last empty dwelling with a bitter look on his face, he could see the Indians all scattering, their feeble resistance broken by his men’s superior firepower.
‘Go after them!’ Serrato yelled as the warriors turned and disappeared into the jungle. Vertíz dropped to a crouch with his rifle, took careful aim and shot down one of the running Indians, then another.
Bracca took off into the trees, his teeth bared and his bloody knife in one fist, his gun in the other. Ahead of him, a terrified young woman had broken off from the rest of the fleeing tribe and was leaping through the undergrowth like an antelope. Her face was contorted in terror and covered in tears. The powerful Bracca was more than twice her weight, but his bloodlust drove him on with pounding speed.
They were well out of sight of the huts now. A little bit of privacy was just what he wanted. As he bore down on her his mind was filling with what he was going to do to the little bitch. Old enough to—
His thoughts exploded in a blinding white flash of pain as something solid swung out of nowhere and hit him a crashing blow across the face. The knife spun out of his fingers and the rifle went clattering to the ground. He landed hard on his back. Winded, he could taste the salty blood that was pouring from his broken nose. He tried to struggle to his feet. A hard kick to the chest knocked him back down again.
Bracca looked up. Standing over him, framed in the red dawn filtering through the jungle canopy, was the figure of a man. A white man, with blond hair and scuffed leather jacket. There was a bag over his shoulder and a scoped hunting rifle in his hands, ready to club him with the butt a second time.
The man looked down at the bone-handled Bowie knife that lay in the dirt nearby. ‘You must be Luis Bracca,’ he said.
Chapter Fifty
After leaving the servants secured in a locked room Ben and Nico had cut back to where they’d left the hunter’s old Ford and started trying to pick up the trail. They’d no sooner rejoined the road leading from the compound than a downpour even heavier than the storm at the Potro River station had come pummelling down over the jungle. Within a few minutes, any tyre tracks they might have been able to follow, any clues they might have gained as to the direction of Brooke’s escape, had been washed away in a sea of mud. A thousand vehicles could have come this way, or turned off any of the scores of side roads and tracks branching off through the forest, and there wouldn’t have been a trace left of their passing.
‘This is hopeless,’ Nico had yelled over the din of the rain on the truck’s roof. ‘She could be anywhere, man. It’s been two days.’
‘I don’t care,’ Ben had replied. ‘I can’t stop.’ Nico hadn’t said another word. He could see the look in Ben’s red-rimmed eyes. It was one he could understand.
All through the night they’d searched for any sign of her. The deluge hadn’t lasted more than an hour but it had left the road impassable in places. Refusing to give up, Ben had started exploring any little track he could find. No sign. Once he ran out of those he’d continue on foot. Nothing else mattered. He drove on, clenching the wheel. He wanted to get out of the pickup and scream her name until his lungs burst.
Come the first glow of dawn, Ben had had no idea how many miles of jungle track they’d covered. There was nothing. No sign. Nico was asleep next to him.
But then, through the fog of exhaustion that was threatening to make him drop at the wheel, he’d suddenly heard a sound he knew too well. It was the sporadic crackle of rifle fire. ‘Listen,’ he’d said, rousing Nico.
‘Something’s happening in there,’ the Colombian said when he heard it. ‘It ain’t so far away, either.’
Ben ploughed the truck into the trees, put his foot down and went crashing on blindly until the vehicle couldn’t go any further. He grabbed his rifle and continued at a run through the dense vegetation with Nico close behind. Soon afterwards, they’d seen village huts and running figures among the trees. Heard the last few shots being fired in the wake of what they were beginning to realise had been a massacre of innocent native tribespeople.
‘Serrato,’ Nico muttered.
Ben had been deliberating what to do when the fleeing young Indian woman had suddenly appeared. She passed within a few feet of where he stood screened behind the foliage. Moments later he’d heard the crackling approach of a much larger, much heavier human. A swi
ng of the .300 Win Mag’s solid wooden buttstock had been plenty enough to arrest the pursuer in mid-stride.
Ben stood over the man, who stared up at him with savage hatred. Bracca looked exactly the way Nico had described him: a remorseless killer. His black hair was drawn back in a ponytail. Where his face wasn’t covered in blood it was smeared in the same dirt he’d used to cover his muscular arms, like the camouflage cream Special Forces soldiers used. The effect made him look even less human. Ben guessed that the blood spattered across his sleeveless combat vest had come from the same poor victim he must have butchered using the huge red-stained knife that was lying on the ground.
‘That’s him, all right,’ Nico said, stepping out of the bushes to stand at Ben’s shoulder. ‘That’s Bracca.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’ Bracca growled. He tried again to get up. Ben kicked him back down.
Thirty yards away, the young Indian woman gave one last look back over her shoulder, then slipped away into the forest. Ben watched her go. He glanced back in the direction of the village. He could hear the distant voices of Serrato’s men as they regrouped. It wouldn’t be long before Bracca was missed.
‘You’re gonna die now, you murdering piece of shit.’ Nico aimed his revolver at Bracca’s head.
‘I remember you, asshole,’ Bracca chuckled. ‘You’re the cop, right? I remember that little girl of yours, too. Sweet kid. It was my pleasure to take care of her.’
Nico’s lips were drawn back from his teeth. The Colt began to tremble in his hand.
Bracca laughed. ‘S’matter? You too pussy?’
Ben reached out, gripped the Colt by the barrel and lowered it. ‘No.’
‘This is the guy who carved up my kids, Ben,’ Nico breathed shakily.
‘I know that. But I need him alive.’ Ben turned to Bracca. ‘You can make this easy on yourself by telling me where Brooke Marcel is.’
Bracca spat blood. ‘Who’s fucking asking?’
Ben planted the sole of his boot hard against Bracca’s chest and shoved the barrel of the .300 in his face. ‘Someone who’s got no problem turning your skull into a jam doughnut. Where is she?’
‘Talking about that little redheaded cooze? We banged that bitch good, every last one of us. I went twice. Then I sawed her fucking head off.’
‘You really want to die? Because that’s the answer that’ll do it.’
‘You haven’t got the cojones, fuckhead. Just like your pussy amigo there.’
‘Three seconds, you’ll find out,’ Ben said. ‘ One …’
Bracca glowered. Ben could feel the coiled-up power in him, like a wild animal ready to go berserk. ‘Two …’ Ben said. ‘I’m waiting.’
‘Fuck you,’ Bracca snarled.
‘Three.’
Something in Bracca’s eyes changed. The look of crazed ferocity was suddenly one of terror. It was the look of a bloodthirsty sadist who’d just realised his luck was out; the look of a man who genuinely couldn’t answer the one question that might save his life. He opened his mouth and roared out in Spanish at the top of his lungs. ‘Help! Over here!’
The distant voices began shouting back. Ben knew they didn’t have a lot of time before Serrato’s men would be all over them. He stepped away from Bracca, nodded to Nico and said, ‘All yours.’
Nico’s eyes gleamed. He stepped up to where Bracca lay and raised the Colt again.
‘Make it quick. We don’t have a lot of time.’ Ben could hear the voices getting closer, and the sound of men moving through the foliage towards them: forty yards, maybe less. He slung the hunting rifle back over his shoulder and snatched up Bracca’s fallen military assault weapon. The M4 carbine’s curved black magazine was almost full.
Bracca’s eyes were wide open in fear. Nico cocked his revolver and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened. The tiny click of the dropping hammer was almost inaudible.
Serrato’s men were getting closer. Someone yelled Bracca’s name.
For an instant, Nico stared at the gun in his hand. It was an instant too long. In one fast and violent sweep of his arm Bracca reached for his knife and brought it up and round to stab the blade deep into Nico’s thigh.
Nico let out a cry. He dropped his gun and fell.
Bracca was half on his feet, roaring in rage and ready to yank the knife out of Nico’s leg and stab him again, when Ben fired the M4. The bullet tore straight through Bracca’s skull, blowing off the back of his head.
At the same instant that Bracca’s lifeless body hit the ground, Ben saw movement in the foliage. Serrato’s men were on them. He flipped the M4’s fire selector to full auto, braced himself and sprayed bullets into the foliage. There was a short scream, but there were more men coming, from everywhere. Muzzle flashes erupted from the dark forest. A man burst out of the bushes to the left, firing. Bark exploded from the tree right next to Ben. He felt a hard impact through his shoulder and knew the hunting rifle had taken a hit. He rolled. Fired. Saw the man fall back into the greenery.
‘Come on!’ he yelled at Nico. The Colombian staggered to his feet. Bracca’s knife was still stuck deep in his leg and he was bleeding badly. Ben grabbed him and hauled him into the bushes. One glance at his hunting rifle showed him the terminal damage to the bolt from the bullet hit. He tossed the dead weight away.
Bursts of gunfire came thick and fast as he half dragged, half carried the Colombian in the direction of the track and the Ford pickup. Nico screamed out in pain at every step. Bullets whipped all around them, trembling the foliage as they ran.
Ben knew the M4’s magazine was half depleted by now, but if he didn’t drive their attackers back under cover there was no way to outpace them. He turned to let off another short burst. An instant before he squeezed the trigger, he caught a glimpse of one of them. The lean-faced, dark-haired man didn’t look like the others. The suit he was wearing was stained with sweat and dirt, but it was an expensive tailor-made item that nobody would wear in the jungle. In the fraction of a second that Ben locked eyes with the man, he knew he was looking at Ramon Serrato.
He fired. The man dived for cover behind a tree as Ben’s bullets ripped up the greenery. Then it was Ben who had to duck down as a sustained blast of fire came back at him in reply.
Ben’s gun was just about empty. But peering ahead through the trees, he could make out a splash of red behind the green. He realised they’d almost made it to the pickup truck. ‘Come on,’ he grunted, yanking Nico on a few yards more.
‘Leave me,’ Nico gasped.
‘Forget it,’ Ben said. He turned and let off another short burst behind them. The gun chattered and jolted in his hand, and then suddenly stopped. The bolt had locked back: empty magazine.
Ben tossed the weapon away. He grasped Nico with both hands and hauled him the rest of the way to the truck. He ripped open the passenger door. As he bundled Nico inside, the passenger window exploded in a shower of glass fragments. Another bullet punched a silver-edged hole into the red steel of the Ford’s wing.
Ben leaped behind the wheel. He twisted the ignition and prayed the bullet hadn’t penetrated the truck’s vitals. It hadn’t. The engine burst into life and Ben slammed it into drive. The windscreen blew apart, stinging him with glass.
He stamped on the gas and the Ford’s wheels threw up a fountain of dirt as he hurled it into a tight U-turn to head back up the track the way they’d come. Bullets punched through the doors and scored the roof and blew off a side mirror. Ben kept his head down and his foot on the pedal, and the figures of the men bursting out of the trees in their wake and firing at them shrank smaller and smaller in the mirror. He threw the pickup round a bend and the bullets stopped.
Nico was bent double in the passenger seat, crying out in agony at every lurch of the truck over the ruts, clutching at his leg where the bone hilt of Bracca’s knife was protruding from the wound. Even in the dim light of the cab Ben could tell it was a serious one, well beyond his ability to stitch up himself. Blood was all o
ver the seats. Nico’s face was ghostly pale and covered in sweat. ‘The gun didn’t go off,’ he groaned over the engine noise and the crashing of the suspension.
‘You had a duff primer,’ Ben said. ‘It happens.’
‘You should’ve let me kill him, man. He was mine.’
‘He’s dead. That’s what matters.’
‘You ain’t gonna do that to me with Serrato,’ Nico said in a tortured moan. ‘I gotta kill Serrato myself. Gotta! Understand?’
‘Not with that knife in you,’ Ben told him. ‘You’ll be dead yourself pretty fast if we don’t get you to a doctor.’
Nico gasped in pain. ‘Fuck the knife. You promise me, hear?’
‘Fine,’ Ben muttered as the pickup truck hit another rut and the suspension bottomed out with a crash. When he glanced at Nico again, he saw that he’d passed out.
Ben kept driving. He felt the supercharged adrenaline rush of the skirmish with Serrato’s men slowly subside. It left him with nothing but a dead, despairing feeling.
Brooke was still out there somewhere. Lost, frightened, defenceless; totally vulnerable. All alone in the vastness of a jungle it would take a man the rest of his life to search.
There was no way he could possibly find her.
Chapter Fifty-One
The day was already more than half gone. Dark clouds hung over San Tomás. As Ben wandered aimlessly through the town, the first patter of rain quickly ramped up to become another of the region’s unimaginable deluges, until mud rivers ran through the streets and everyone but the blond-haired stranger was driven under cover.
For the last several hours Nico had been under the care of the kindly Dr Rocha, who operated the struggling one-roomed clinic in San Tomás, the only medical facility for miles up and down the river, with his sister Graça. By the time Ben had delivered him into their hands, Nico had lost a great deal of blood and was in a virtual coma. The doctor had found the knife blade’s razor-sharp edge pressing right up against Nico’s femoral artery. Another millimetre of pressure and it could have ruptured. Nico would have bled to death in minutes.
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