The Edge

by Catherine Coulter

  “The truth is,” Savich said, “we don’t have a clue about what the long-term effects of the drug are.”

  “I’m afraid that even Paul doesn’t know that,” I said. I saw a beetle, black and orange and green, pause a moment, wiggle its antennae at me, then hurry behind some small orange leaves. I saw several other leaves move. Critters everywhere, I thought, all of them hungry. Everything was alive in this place, everything was hungry, everything was hunted by something else, that or dead and instantly rotting or eaten.

  I turned to Laura and lightly stroked my fingers over her mouth. “Since you’ve been cooperative, I’ll give you some more water.”

  She drank down a good bit. I looked at the half-dozen bottles. Should we conserve? I wondered how long we’d have to survive in this place. Laura was shivering. I started to take off my shirt, but she stopped me. “Not here, Mac. You’ve got to keep as much of you covered as possible. There are lots of nasty things around here to bite you. And there are leeches too.”

  Leeches. Good lord. She was right. I doubled one sex-scented blanket and tucked it around her chest and neck.

  “We’ve got to be very careful,” she said. She paused, then frowned. I knew she was trying to get her thoughts together.

  “It’s okay, Laura. Take your time. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “I was just thinking about my boss, Richard Atherton, wondering if the DEA is all over Edgerton.” She stopped then. I knew she was in pain. I couldn’t stand it. I gave her another pain pill.

  After a few minutes, she opened her eyes, smiled at me, but her face was flushed. From fever or the heat or the tremendous weight of the humidity, I didn’t know. “Breathe deeply, Laura,” I said. “Think about that margarita I’m going to make for you. Think of me rubbing oil on your back, massaging your shoulders until all the knots are out. Now won’t that feel good?” I lightly stroked my fingers over her cheek.

  I smoothed the hair back from her face. After a few minutes she looked woozy. I didn’t want to kill her with too many pain pills. I looked down at my watch. Nearly eight o’clock in the morning. No more pills until noon. I said, “Just be quiet for a while, Laura. You can tell us all this stuff later, after you feel better. Are you warm enough?”

  She thought about it but didn’t say anything.

  Sherlock was far off in a stupor, no doubt troubled by visions of Marlin Jones.

  “How long has it been since they drugged her the last time, Savich?”

  He thought a moment. “Actually, she was back with me only about thirty minutes before you and Laura arrived with Molinas.”

  “So it’s only been about six hours.”

  Savich was staring up into the canopy of trees over our heads. I heard monkeys shrieking, a bird’s wings flapping wildly, and other sounds I’d never heard before.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  “I hear something,” Savich mouthed to me. “Someone’s coming this way. We knew they’d come after us. I wonder if they found Molinas.”

  I squeezed Laura’s hand to keep her quiet and listened. Yes, someone was coming, several someones. They were searching blind, not too far away now. Savich had lifted one of the AK-47s. I eased the Bren Ten out of my waistband. “Don’t move,” I whispered against Laura’s ear. She looked at once alarmed, then almost instantly quite calm again. “I might be down, Mac, but I’m not out. Give me a gun.”

  “Not on your life. You’re a patient. You’re not to move. Just think about that shoulder opening. It wouldn’t be good, Laura. We’ve got to survive. Now, just lie still and—”

  “I don’t want Sherlock or me to die because I’m helpless, Mac. Sherlock’s out of it. I’m all she’s got. Give me the Bren Ten.”

  I gave it to her without another word.

  “They’re close, Mac,” said Savich. “Let’s go.”

  I slung the other AK-47 over my shoulder, slid the machete through my belt, checked the other magazine in my waistband, and fell in behind Savich. If something happened to us, Laura had the Bren Ten. No, I wouldn’t think about that, but I still took one backward look. Laura’s fingers were curled around the pistol. I gave her a thumbs-up.

  We were nearly on their heels fifty steps later. They weren’t trying to be quiet. They were speaking loudly in Spanish, cursing, from what I could make out.

  We waited, crouched down beneath some broad green leaves larger than my chest. The heat was rising. The air was becoming so heavy, so filled with water that moving through it was like carrying weights. It was tough to breathe. Thank God for that water I’d found in the Apache. The men kept complaining, coming within a dozen feet of where we were crouched on the floor of the forest.

  “Let’s get behind them,” Savich said.

  They were walking single file only about eight yards ahead of us. Their heavy steps covered any noise we might have made. I saw Savich’s profile. He looked carved out of stone. Mean, dangerous stone. There was death in his eyes, and utter concentration.

  He took the last man down so quickly I heard only a hoarse gurgle. The men ahead didn’t hear a thing. Savich sliced his throat with a small scalpel he’d taken from the first-aid kit, then quickly dragged him out of sight. There were two others, who could turn around any minute. We didn’t want to be standing there just staring at them. He looked up as he laid the guy on his back.

  “Let’s get the other two.”

  We heard the two men talking just ahead of us in rapid Spanish. I paused a moment, listening carefully. I said behind my hand to Savich, “They think Leon stopped to piss.”

  “We’ll take them both together,” Savich said.

  It happened fast.

  Savich took one of them cleanly with the scalpel, just like the first man. I quickly sidestepped them when the other one turned, alarm firing his face. He yelled and lunged at me, bringing up his AK-47. I brought up my hand and smashed it into his throat. His head snapped back. He dropped to his knees, gagging and choking. I finished it with a blow with my rifle butt.

  I raised my head to see a big cat staring at me calmly. He was stretched out along a low-lying branch, watching the two of us, unmoved. He looked down at us with, at best, mild interest. Was he waiting to eat the guys who lost?

  Savich said, “It’s just a jaguar, Mac. He won’t risk tangling with you. But he might take your prey. Hey, you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about him. Now, let’s see what we can salvage here.”

  “Look,” I said. “There’s a couple of Baby Ruth candy bars here. Hot damn, we need those. We should check the other guy too. You know, Savich, these wrappers aren’t written in Spanish. Neither is anything in the first-aid kit I got out of the helicopter, which was also American. Everything’s American except for Molinas’s men. Who the hell are these guys? What do they do around here?”

  Savich answered me with a shrug. He was right. At the moment, who these goons were wasn’t important.

  I felt strangely detached from the three dead men, poor bastards. “We got it done. Let’s get back to Laura and Sherlock.”

  When we came through the trees to Sherlock and Laura, I nearly lost it. A man was standing over the women, his AK-47 pointed down at Laura’s chest. Laura’s eyes were closed. I didn’t see the Bren Ten.

  He didn’t seem to know what to do. He saw us and said, “You will not move, señor, or I will shoot the women. That’s right, lay down the weapons and step away.”

  They were the last words he ever said.

  Laura pulled up the Bren Ten in a single motion and shot him through the forehead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  That was well done, Laura,” I said.

  She laid the Bren Ten back against her stomach. “One minute we were alone, the next, he just appeared. You rattled him. It gave me the chance I needed.”

  We took his weapon and three candy bars from his pants pocket. Soon Savich was stamping his feet into new boots. “They fit perfectly,” he said. “And he has
water too.”

  I said, “That shot could attract anyone else out there. Savich and I should look around. We shouldn’t be much longer than ten minutes.”

  Laura said, “Go. We’ll be all right.”

  Savich and I went together, back toward where they’d come from. We saw a green boa wrapped at least three times around a tree we had just passed. I felt a chill slide over my flesh. “There are too many things alive in this place. Every step you take you’ve got to look everywhere, up and down and sideways, all the time. I just touched a tree that was covered with spikes. It’s all so bloody wild and we’re not in control here.”

  “If Laura hadn’t taken that machete,” Savich said, “we wouldn’t be here at all.”

  I traced the flight of a scarlet macaw, its brilliant red feathers blending down its back into yellow, then blue. He landed, hovering on the very end of a branch not three feet from us that pumped up and down with the bird’s weight. I wondered what Nolan would think of this otherworldly bird.

  “A trail or two might be nice,” Savich said. “There’s no sign of anyone else. Let’s get back.”

  It was so hot now it was hard to breathe. The humidity was crushing. Our shirts were soaked with sweat. The sweat was so deep on my forearm I could see insects drowning before they could bite me.

  “It’s still morning,” Savich said. “I can’t wait to see how much hotter it gets by this afternoon. Look at this damned soil—it’s clay. I don’t want it to rain. Maybe it’s not the rainy season, you think?” He laughed, shaking his head at himself.

  I said to Savich, “It’s not even ten o’clock yet, but we shouldn’t stay here. What do you think? Carrying Sherlock and Laura and all the supplies, can we make maybe half a mile before collapsing under a tree?”

  “At most,” Savich said. “If we have to use the machete to get through, we might not make more than a couple of miles all day.”

  “Better the women are down than us. I can just see Laura trying to tote my carcass over her shoulder.”

  Savich laughed, then sobered. “If Laura’s wound gets infected, she’s in major trouble.”

  “We’ve got some more shirts. We’ll cover every naked bit of her. The shirts might not smell real sweet, but they’re blessed protection against the filth and the bugs.”

  I looked up at the dense canopy overhead, saw a big reddish monkey staring down at us. “There are so many colors,” I said, “everywhere. Look, Savich, mangoes. They’re even ripe. We can eat our Baby Ruths, then have mangoes for dessert.” I picked about half a dozen of the best. I was surprised that some of the critters hadn’t already nabbed them.

  At one o’clock in the afternoon, we broke into a small clearing, maybe two square meters, that wasn’t overflowing with growing green things. The canopy wasn’t as thick here and more light came through. That light brought us some breathing space, literally. I stood a moment, Laura in my arms, under a thick shaft of hot, clear sunlight. I laid her on a blanket right beneath that blessed shaft of light. “Soak it up,” I told her. “Let it dry you to your toes.”

  I dragged the thick net that held the water bottles over the last thirty or so yards. Two snakes flashed across the ground so fast I couldn’t imagine any predator catching them. I had no idea if they’d kill you with a bite or not.

  I spread out the blankets, then scraped away more foliage to create a small perimeter. Laura had been largely silent for the past two hours. I think she’d slept part of the time, so drugged that she couldn’t stay awake. I laid my palm across her forehead. She was hot as hell, but maybe that was normal in this hellhole. It had to be near one hundred percent humidity on the floor of the rain forest. At least her skin didn’t feel clammy.

  Sherlock was finally awake. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of a blanket, staring over at Laura. “Don’t let her die,” she said to me, and began shredding the ragged edge of one of the shirts she was wearing. She’d torn off a strip of shirt and tied her thick red hair back from her face. Still, strands were curling haphazardly around her ears. “I couldn’t have imagined a place like this. I just saw a frog that flew from one tree to another tree. They were at least ten feet apart. It was long and skinny and just about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. I think it was red, maybe orange, I can’t be sure, it flew so fast. This place isn’t meant for people, you know?”

  “I know,” Savich said. “Maybe we should think of our little sojourn here as a bizarre sort of vacation. Maybe Club Med would be interested. Mac and I saw a jaguar. You rarely see them, even here. Drink this, sweetheart. No, don’t just give me ladylike sips. Gulp it down. That’s right.”

  When she’d drunk her fill, Savich wiped her mouth. She raised her hand and touched his fingers as they lay against her cheek. “Dillon, my brain feels like it’s coming back to me. Is that a lemon I see?”

  “Good,” he said. “That’s good. Yep, Mac and I found some lemon and lime trees. We picked both. If we run out of water or need to wash up, we can use them.”

  “We can use the lime in Laura’s margaritas. I can see you now, Dillon, see exactly who you are. I didn’t like being away from you like that.”

  “I didn’t like it either,” Savich said.

  “You don’t have to carry me anymore now.”

  He leaned over and kissed her hard and quick. “Good. That means you can help carry the water bottles.”

  She laughed, a real Sherlock laugh, and again, it made me wish I’d killed Molinas for what he’d done to her. And what he’d done to me.

  Laura’s eyes were closed. I knew she was in pain, but I needed to ration the pain pills. I gave her water, antibiotics, and two aspirin.

  “It’s time for lunch,” I said. “It’s all sugar and fat. My two most favorite things in the world. We’ll be on such highs, we’ll be jumping around up there in the trees with the monkeys.”

  Savich said, “I saw half a dozen red howler monkeys about seventy-five paces behind us. They were swinging around, high above us, interested but not going crazy at the sight of us. It was like we were neighbors they just didn’t like. It made me think they’ve seen a number of people here in their territory. Maybe we aren’t deep in a rain forest in the bowels of Colombia, a hundred miles from civilization. Maybe we’re close to a village or a town. Though I don’t know who would live in a place where taking a breath feels like sucking on a blast furnace.”

  I frowned over at him, nodding. “You’re right. That jaguar we saw just seemed bored, like we were no big deal. Like he’d keep an eye on us because it was part of his job but he wasn’t at all worried.”

  “That’s probably how they look just before they spring,” Savich said, laughing at my expression. “Nah, I wouldn’t worry about the cats. Who knows? Hey, are you guys ready for some lunch?”

  “I want my margarita,” Laura said, her voice slurred. “I know you picked some limes. I heard Sherlock talk about it.” I opened her two shirts and looked at the bandage. No blood, thank God. What should I do for it now? I’d been through some basic survival training, but that was it. I saw a small pool of dried blood on her right breast that I’d missed when I’d cleaned her with the alcohol. I didn’t think, just lightly scratched up the dried blood. Her eyes opened.

  “Blood,” I said. “I couldn’t bear to see it on you, Laura.”

  “How do I look?”

  I wanted to tell her that despite everything I was still a guy, with guy thoughts, and I wanted to look at her breasts and smooth my fingers over them while my eyes were closed, and tell her she was beautiful. I felt an insect bite the base of my index finger. “No new bleeding. The bandage is nice and clean. You’re sweating and that’s good. A nice dry, hot sweat from the sun. I think the best thing is just to leave everything alone. Tomorrow morning I’ll change the bandage and see how the wound looks. Now, since you’re such a good patient, you get a reward.” I peeled a Baby Ruth candy bar and broke off a small chunk. I waved it under Laura’s nose. She didn’t say a word, just opened her mout
h. She smiled while she chewed. I fed her the entire bar. “You’re going to want to start dancing from this sugar high,” I said.

  “She can dance with Sherlock,” Savich said. He was sitting on Sherlock’s blanket, licking chocolate from his fingers.

  “Sherlock, you okay now?”

  “I’m a lot better than you are, Laura. Is the pain bad?”

  “I can control it. I’m forced to lie here and watch Mac eat one of my candy bars. It’s tough. My mouth is watering. If I had the strength, I’d rip it out of his mouth.”

  I broke off a little piece and put it in her mouth. She closed her eyes in bliss and chewed.

  I counted. We had five more candy bars. We needed to find some fruit besides the mangoes. I thought bananas should be all over the place, but I hadn’t seen any. I’d seen a small anteater scraping along on the floor, and I tried to imagine baking him over a fire. I said, “Everyone, keep your eyes open for some edible stuff, probably fruit, that we can pull off a tree, peel, and eat, okay?”

  “We might as well start on the mangoes,” Savich said, as he began peeling mangoes and handing them out. “Nice and ripe. Eat up.”

  “I’ve got matches,” Sherlock said, mango juice dripping off her chin. “When we stop this afternoon, we’ll build a fire. It’ll keep the creepy things away.”

  “I know all about how to do that,” Laura said. “I spent lots of my childhood at campgrounds being ordered around by Dad and an older brother. I’ve seen some birch and beech trees. Even some oak. That’s hard wood, good for burning in a fire.”

  Sherlock crawled over to Laura. “I’ve got another strip of shirt. Let me braid your hair, it’s kind of all over the place.”

  I watched Sherlock try to make a French braid of Laura’s long, very matted hair. She smoothed out most of the tangles and picked away half a dozen insects. The best I could say about the result was that her hair was away from her face.

  “How is it?” Laura asked.

  “You’re gorgeous. Sherlock’s got a real talent with hair, particularly really long hair like yours.” I dabbed a piece of wet shirt over Laura’s mouth to get rid of the sticky mango juice. I could just imagine how all the flying critters would love that stuff.