The Anthrax Protocol

by James Thompson

  She began to move back up the trail toward the village. “Now, here’s what I want you to do. Go to Maria and see if she will make us some food that we can carry with us, and it’ll have to last us for at least a week. Also, you’ll need to gather up all of our empty water bottles and fill them with clean water so we won’t get dehydrated on our journey. Do you think you can do that without the bad men who are watching us from the jungle seeing you?”

  He nodded eagerly. “Si.”

  “After you’ve done that, bring the food and water down to the river and find the best boat and put the supplies in the boat.”

  “Hokay.”

  She stopped walking and again knelt in front of the boy. “Now, Motzi, here is the hardest part, and you are going to have to trust me.”

  He gave her a puzzled look.

  “After our boat is all ready, I want you to take an ax and put holes in the bottoms of all the other boats.”

  Now he stared at her aghast. “But, my people need boats to catch the fish for us to eat.”

  “I know, but if you don’t do that the bad men will follow us when they discover where we’ve gone and if they catch us they will kill us and steal our samples. You’re going to have to trust me when I say Dr. Williams and I will make sure our government replaces all the boats with even better, newer boats as soon as we get back to our lab.”

  He continued to look unsure but he finally nodded.

  She stood up. “Now, let’s get to work and try not to let the bad men know what we are planning.”

  * * *

  The sun was just disappearing behind the jungle canopy when Mason finally drew the last blood sample and packed it in the padded case with the others. He now had two small suitcase-sized bags by his side, one holding the plants and flowers and the medicinal “tea” Maria and the village boys had gathered and prepared, and the other with the blood samples from virtually everyone in the village.

  “What did you do with Maria?” he asked Lauren when they approached the table. “I could have used her to help pack up the last of the samples.”

  “She’s doing something for me that is much more important than that,” Lauren said, giving him a wink.

  When he stood and stretched, trying to ease his cramped muscles from having sat hunched over all day drawing blood, Lauren looked around the village and grinned.

  “What’s with all the kids in the village running around with sticks poking out of their mouths?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Leave it to Shirley Cole,” he said. “She packed a large sack of suckers in the bag with the blood-drawing equipment. I guess she thought if the kids were going to have to endure the pain of a needle, they should get some reward.”

  “Probably the first suckers they’ve ever seen,” Lauren commented.

  He nodded. “You are right. I had to show the first couple of children how to eat them, but the rest caught on real quick.”

  “The State Department could learn something from your candy diplomacy,” Lauren said.

  He gave her a mock serious look. “Hey, giving a child candy is the surest way to get him on your side.”

  He moved around the table and got close to her. “Have you figured out a solution to our problem?”

  “Uh-huh. But first we’ve got to get something to eat and drink and figure out where we’re gonna bed down tonight.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Did I hear you say we’re going to bed down . . . as in the two of us together?”

  She laughed. “Down boy, don’t get your hopes up. If my plan works out, neither of us is going to get much sleep for the next few days.”

  They began to amble over to where a group of the village women had spread a large amount of food out onto some blankets in the center of the village square, along with pitchers of fruit juice, sliced coconuts, various fruits, and other tropical delicacies.

  Lauren leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Eat hearty, Mason. It might be the last chance we get to eat for many hours.”

  He glanced at her with a quizzical expression on his face, but he didn’t have to be told twice to eat, having had nothing but water since breakfast.

  * * *

  After stuffing themselves until they couldn’t force another bite of food into their mouths, they glanced toward Maria.

  “Is there a vacant house where we might sleep?” Lauren asked. She already knew the answer, having earlier told Maria they needed a house with a back door facing the river and away from the area where they knew the men watching them were camped.

  “Yes, please follow me.”

  Maria led them to a small house sitting right next to the trail that led down to the river and showed them inside.

  Once they were inside, Lauren pulled Maria aside. “Did Motzi tell you of our plan to use the river to escape?”

  Maria nodded, but put her hand on Lauren’s arm. “Yes, but is muy peligroso . . . ummm, dangerous. The river runs very fast and there are many rapids on the way around the mountain where the land falls quickly toward the ocean.”

  Lauren shrugged. “I know, but we don’t have any other choice, Maria. If we go back the way we came, we’ll be ambushed and probably killed, and the medicinal plants and blood samples will be stolen.”

  Mason moved closer. “Did I hear someone say ‘river’?”

  Just then Motzi slipped silently into the back door. Without saying a word, he picked up the two sample bags and both Lauren’s and Mason’s backpacks. He grinned at Lauren and moved just as quietly out the back door and into the jungle beyond.

  “Maria,” Lauren said seriously, “Once we’re gone and the men who are following us realize they’ve been tricked, they may come down into the village to find out where we’ve gone. I want you to tell them everything you know, okay?”

  Maria looked alarmed. “But . . .”

  “No, listen to me,” Lauren entreated. “These are very bad men and my guess is if you try to stall them, they may start hurting people in the village to make you talk. Perhaps even the children.” She shook her head. “Mason and I do not want to have to worry about your people, Maria. Once we get a good head start down the river, even if they know where we’ve gone it will be very hard for them to catch us.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mason said, pulling the small GPS unit that had been fastened to Motzi’s shirt out of his pocket, “I’ve got a better idea.”

  He handed the unit to Maria. “About an hour after we leave, pin this to the fastest, most agile boy in the village and have him run as fast as he can back up some trails through the jungle in the general direction from where we came, okay?”

  Maria looked unsure but she nodded. “Tell him to stay just off the trails and to be very careful not to let the bad men catch him. Do you have someone who can do that?”

  Maria nodded. “Jesus Garcia. He runs like the deer and he is very quick in the jungle. But why do you want this done?”

  Lauren smiled and said, “The bad men have a machine that will allow them to follow this thing. It will make them think we have left the village in the night and have headed back the way we came. If they follow Jesus, even for a little while, it will help us get farther ahead of them, maybe far enough ahead so they won’t be able to catch us.”

  Maria clasped both of her hands in hers. “As you wish, Señorita Lauren, but I will pray for you and will only say, vaya con Dios.”

  “Going with God sounds pretty good to me,” Mason said, and he leaned down and kissed Maria gently on the cheek. “Thank you so much for all you’ve done, Maria. The world will owe you a great debt that can never be repaid.”

  Maria blushed, smiled, and then quietly left the room.

  After she left, Lauren took Mason by the shoulders and pushed him toward a small bed in the corner of the room. “Come on, boss man. We need to get a couple of hours of sleep before we begin our journey. It may be a long time before we get another chance.”

  He gave her a leer. “Both of us in that tiny bed?”

  She shook h
er head. “Don’t get any ideas, mister. We need the sleep worse than what you’re thinking of.”

  “Speak for yourself,” he said resignedly.

  * * *

  Blade crawled up next to Bear on the ridge and watched the doctor finish his meal and then take the two suitcases with the samples in them into a small house on the edge of the village, followed by the Mexican lady and the white woman.

  He licked his lips and turned to stare at Bear. “How about we go down there and take them right now? We could be in and out with the samples in less than thirty minutes and on our way back to the real world in an hour.”

  Bear stared back at him, his eyes narrowed. “And I guess they’ll just put down their Armalites and hand over the cure for the worldwide plague to us if we ask them nicely?”

  Blade whipped out his knife. “Who says we’re gonna ask them anything? I say we take what we need and to hell with the doctor or the babe.”

  Bear nodded. “I see, and the hundred or so villagers . . . or should I say witnesses, what do you propose we do about them?”

  Blade grinned evilly, showing yellowed teeth. “Simple, like my biker friends always say, we kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.”

  Bear took a deep breath and rolled on his side looking at Blade. “I’m going to try to make this so simple even an imbecile like you can understand, Blade. Wouldn’t it be much easier, and a whole lot safer, if we just ambushed them along the trail back home . . . or even better yet wait until they make camp tomorrow night and take them while they’re asleep? That way there’re no pesky witnesses that have to be killed and we run almost no risk of them getting off a lucky shot with those Armalites and maybe killing one or two of us in the process.”

  Blade’s face flared red at the word “imbecile” and his lips compressed into a tight white line. “I don’t know!” he growled.

  “Jesus,” Bear said, “you’re even stupider than I thought.”

  Blade grabbed Bear by the front of his shirt and stuck the point of his knife against Bear’s throat. “I’ve had about enough of . . .”

  He stopped when he felt the barrel of Bear’s Glock push up against his groin. “Enough of what?” Bear asked quietly as he thumbed back the hammer on the 9mm. “Enough of living with your dick attached to your body . . . enough of lying there breathing instead of writhing in the dirt covered with your own shit . . . enough of taking orders from me? Well let’s ask the others if they want to follow my orders and get a huge paycheck, or listen to you and spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders after killing an entire village of one of the United States’ best and nearest allies?”

  He ground the barrel against Blade’s balls until Blade was groaning and sweat was pouring off his face. “What do you think their answer will be, Blade?”

  “Uh . . . uh . . .” he mumbled and lowered the knife to his side.

  “I thought so,” Bear said derisively, “now get the hell out of my sight before I make you buzzard bait and blow your stinking brains all over my new fatigues.”

  Blade backed up a foot and then he stuck the knife up to its hilt in the dirt in front of Bear. “This ain’t over yet, Bear.”

  Bear sneered. “Yes it is, ’cause if you had the balls to challenge me you’d already have done it. You’re finished with this team, Blade, and after I get through telling our clients that you proposed killing an entire village, I don’t think you will be getting many calls for work in the future.”

  Blade took a deep breath to respond, and then he noticed that standing behind him with weapons drawn and pointed at his back were Jinx, Hoss, and Psycho, while Babe was just standing with his arms crossed in front of him smiling as if he hadn’t a worry in the world.

  “Man makes a lot of sense to me, Blade,” Jinx drawled, letting the barrel of his pistol drop just a little. “Perhaps it would be best if you go back to camp and hunker down and think about your options before you go off half-cocked, and we’ll see if we can’t get Bear to give you another chance to stay with the team.”

  “Or you can pull that other pigsticker you have in that scabbard on your belt and we can finish this right now,” Psycho said with a wild look in his eyes.

  Blade forced himself to chuckle and he held up his hands palms out. “Hey, guys, just a little disagreement between friends. Ever’thin’ is cool now, okay?”

  “Yeah, cool,” Hoss whispered. “Now you go on an’ do like Jinx said an’ git yoreself all calmed down back at camp. We’uns will watch the village till it gits dark.”

  After Blade had slunk off toward their camp hidden a hundred yards back in the jungle, Bear told Jinx to take the first watch and said the others would relieve him every four hours until dawn, when they would all be up and ready to shadow the doctor and his companion back toward the lab.

  “What about Blade?” Jinx asked quietly.

  Bear shrugged. “Keep one eye on him. If he behaves himself, I might let this slide. Otherwise,” he drew a finger across his neck.

  “You want him to stand a watch tonight?” Babe asked, his eyebrows raised.

  Bear grinned and shook his head. “Not unless you want to stay up with him. We’d probably all wind up with a knife in our gizzards.”

  Chapter 31

  Two hours after they’d laid down, the alarm on Mason’s wristwatch gave a series of small beeps.

  He and Lauren came instantly awake. His left arm was under her neck and his right arm was curled around her cupping her breast while he spooned her from behind.

  She yawned and said, “As nice as this is, maybe we’d better get up before we both get other ideas and fall behind schedule.”

  He moaned in disappointment. “You are a hard taskmaster, lady.” He pulled his arm out, rolled over, and sat up to put on his shoes.

  Moments later, they slipped out of the small bed they’d shared and began to get ready for their upcoming journey. They’d laid everything out so it would be easily found in the darkness, as they didn’t dare turn on a light for fear the watchers would see it and get suspicious.

  Several small blankets were rolled up and put under the bedcovers to simulate two bodies still sleeping in the bed just in case someone decided to check up on them.

  Finally, everything they were carrying with them was packed and ready to go. As Lauren moved toward the back door, Mason stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

  As she turned to face him in the dark, he leaned down. “How about a kiss for luck?”

  “You got it, boss man,” and she pressed her lips to his, wishing they had time for more than a quick kiss.

  Mason eased the back door open and slipped out, moving in a crouch so he couldn’t be seen from more than a few yards away. Lauren followed close behind him, shutting the door behind her as she moved through the darkness.

  The moon was obscured by a canopy of clouds, but they had no trouble following the path to the river as it was the only cleared ground through the jungle.

  When they arrived at the river’s edge, they found Motzi sleeping in the boat he’d chosen for their journey.

  Even their almost silent footfalls in the soft dirt of the trail were enough to bring the Indio boy instantly awake.

  “Buenos noches,” he called softly to them as he stretched and jumped to the shore to help them load their cargo.

  “Good evening to you, too, Motzi,” Lauren whispered, handing him a couple of blankets they’d use to cover themselves in the cool evenings on the water.

  Mason grunted as he passed over the two Armalite rifles and a small bag containing extra clips and ammunition.

  “Did Maria give you the other supplies?” Mason asked, looking in the boat to make sure the blood and plant samples had been packed securely under the bow.

  “Sí, she give me food and water,” he answered, holding up a burlap sack filled with food and a five-gallon jug of water.

  “You think this boat will handle all of us and our gear and food?” Lauren asked.

  As always
, Motzi gave her his shrug, as if like all things this was in the hands of the gods. “Perhaps,” he said, grinning and winking at Mason at the look of horror on Lauren’s face.

  “I do believe the boy is teasing you, silly lady,” Mason said, returning Motzi’s wink.

  She assumed a fierce glare and whispered, pointing at him, “There is an old American saying you need to learn, Motzi . . . paybacks are hell!”

  He assumed an innocent look and spread his hands, “Que?”

  She took Mason’s hand and let him help her into the boat. “Oh, I think you understood me, Motzi. So you better watch your back from now on . . . and you, too, mister boss man,” she added with a look at Mason that should have frozen his testicles.

  He pushed the boat off from the shore and jumped aboard, picking up one of the oars as Motzi did the same thing on the other side of the wide, flat-bottomed craft.

  “How about the other boats?” Mason asked Motzi as they paddled out into the middle of the rapidly moving current.

  Motzi pointed to a small hatchet in the bottom of the boat. “They no float no more,” he said, quietly, as if the sabotage he’d carried out on his friends and neighbors’ boats caused him some shame.

  “Don’t worry, Motzi,” Lauren assured him, “we will make sure the village gets many boats, newer and better boats so that they can catch many fish.”

  Since the current was moving so fast, they didn’t have to row at all, just use the oars as rudders to keep the boat heading straight down the middle of the river.

  Mason leaned back against his backpack and smiled. “Man, this is much easier than I thought it was going to be. If we keep this pace up we should be at the coast by dawn.”

  Just then they rounded a wide bend in the river and a loud crashing noise could be heard from up ahead of them.

  Lauren leaned forward and peered into the semidarkness ahead and saw a white, frothy phosphorescence as the rapidly flowing river seemed to fall off a small cliff and crash into and around large boulders scattered throughout the water.

  “Uh-oh, Captain Ahab, I think you’re about to earn your captain’s bars. Rapids ahead!” Lauren called over the increasingly loud noise.