Twelve Mile Limit df-9

by Randy Wayne White

  This Evil stands no chance against my prayers!

  Where had I heard it? In my memory, the phrase was somehow associated with some event, something bad, a tragedy, but also the strength of the individual who’d endured it but had managed to go with her life.

  Her life. A car wreck. A lost child.

  Then I knew.

  I stood, in slow realization, and pulled the microphone arm away from my mouth, calling a single name, as loud as I could: “Janet? Janet! Where are you?”

  I waited in the silence and called her name once more. Then, behind me, I heard a pounding, creaking noise, and I turned to see a door in the barn’s floor being opened-the passageway to some kind of tack room or feed cellar, probably. Then the familiar face of Janet Mueller was peering out, her cheeks very gaunt, as if she’d been starved, her eyes hollow as caves, blinking in the darkness.

  I heard her strong voice say, “Doc? My God! Oh dear God, please let it be, please. Is that you?”

  The barn was so dark that she couldn’t see me, I realized, so I spoke as I rushed toward her, saying, “It’s me, Janet. It’s Marion Ford come to take you back to Sanibel.” Then I reached and pulled her up to look at her-nope, I wasn’t dreaming-and then I hugged the lady mightily, feeling her thin arms, the warmth of her body against me. “You’re safe now.”

  On the ladder below her, someone had lit a candle. I watched eight more haggard, emaciated people climb out, all naked but for rags of burlap or underwear or maybe a T-shirt. One of them, a tall, lean black woman, threw her arms around me, even as I still held Janet, both of them weeping in my ear.

  The woman, whom I knew had to be Grace Walker, said to me, “I’m not dreaming, am I, man? Man, tell me I’m not dreaming. I want to go home. Please take us home.”

  I pulled away long enough to say, “That’s exactly where we’re going. But first, where’s Amelia?”

  Grace said, “Who?”

  I repeated her name, “Amelia,” as I looked toward the cellar. “Is she still down there hiding?” Then I called, “Hey! Amelia. It’s me. ”

  Even now, in shock, Janet was still reactive enough to be puzzled. “Do you mean Amelia Gardner? Oh, Doc, something terrible happened. Our boat sank, and we got separated from Amelia, and we left her. I feel terrible. I feel so guilty. We couldn’t find her, and we left her. She’s probably still out there in the ocean somewhere. And Mikey, my God, poor Mikey.” She began to cry again, and Grace Walker was now sobbing even louder. “This terrible man-a guy we call the albino-he shot our dear Mike for no reason, and he’s treated us like animals.”

  In my earphone, I heard Tyner say, “Commander, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  I felt my body numb slightly when he added, “It’s about that woman you’re after. Amelia Gardner.”

  A weapons firefight is sustained panic interrupted by moments of raw terror, and the sounds of that fight-the shouts, the screams, the gunfire-had drawn closer. Tyner was crouched in the doorway, and he leaned and fired two short bursts out the door as I approached.

  Expecting return fire, I turned and motioned for Janet and the others to get on their bellies, before I said, “What about Amelia, Tyner? Is there something you didn’t tell me?” To my own ears, my voice seemed oddly pitched.

  “We need to get our asses out of here, Commander. My men are on the move a little earlier than I expected. We don’t have time to look for your other friend. We’ve got to go.”

  I told him, “Go without me. She’s here somewhere. I’m not leaving.”

  “Looks like we’ve got eight or nine very weak people to take care of. I can’t get them out alone.”

  “You’ll have to try. The moment I find Amelia, we’ll be right behind you.”

  His words seemed then to slow horribly and deepen into a spatial echo, as he said, “Then you leave me no choice. I want you to get a hold of yourself, Commander. I’d have told you earlier, but I needed you gung-ho, with your full facilities because of what we had to do here tonight.”

  He said, “That woman? She never made it out of Cartagena. Maybe she put up too much of a fight, I don’t know. The guys who kidnapped her shot her. They found her body in a motel. I got the word about an hour before we left.”

  I whispered, “They… killed Amelia? She’s dead. You’re sure?”

  “Yes. The Intel comes from the U.S. Embassy. There’s no doubt about it.”

  Emotional shock affects different people different ways. In that moment of comprehension, into my mind came an analytical clarity: They had murdered a woman about whom I cared deeply, and so there was only one rational response. I would kill them. I would kill both of them, Kazan and Stallings. I did not have time to indulge in overwhelming emotion or expressions of grief. Perhaps I would-but later. Now I needed to stay absolutely focused on the task at hand: Find those two, look into their eyes, tell them why I had sentenced them to death, and then eliminate them.

  “Are you okay, Commander Ford?”

  I had been down on one knee, but now I stood. “Yep. Hundred percent. I want you to lay down some covering fire. I’m going to bust into the big house and see who’s there.”

  “No. It’s too late. We’ve got to move out now.”

  “Sergeant, I’ve been given an executive order on Hassan Kazan, and I’m obligated to carry it out.”

  He was standing, waving Janet and the others to get in line and be ready to follow him. “The time to hit them was when we first got in. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. You missed your chance. They’re gone by now.”

  He raised his night-vision goggles long enough to look into my eyes. “But I’ll tell you what. Help me get these people out safely, and I’ll come back with you and kill anyone who’s left.”

  Behind him, Janet was helping to support a young girl who looked sick, near death. “Doc, please don’t leave us. Please. We need you.”

  I noticed that my whole body was shaking, quivering, as I answered, “Okay, okay. Of course I won’t, Janet. I won’t leave you. I’m here.”

  That morning, in the jungle’s first bronze light, Tyner and I returned to the remains of the rubber plantation. Janet and the others were safely on their way out via a private plane that we’d hired, so there was no rush.

  We tallied nine bodies among the rubble-a profitable night’s work for Tyner’s team. We also found a wall safe in which there was a box of Colombian emeralds and more than $100,000 in cash.

  I was more interested in inspecting the bodies. Six looked to be Middle Eastern, but neither the big Samoan nor the albino was among them.

  34

  Back in Cartagena, I behaved as a modern, responsible adult is expected to behave. As with the heirs of the very wealthy, victims of crime are assigned many small, legal obligations by governments, as if to punish them. I busied myself taking care of those details for all involved. But that feeling of clarity, of pure purpose- Stallings and Kazan -stuck with me.

  My first consideration was Janet, Grace, and their fellow captives. The FBI and the State Department wanted to debrief them, but both agencies agreed to wait until they’d had complete physicals and their health was back on track. That meant the nine of them had to stick around in Colombia for a few days before flying home, and they insisted on spending those days together, as a group.

  So I got them rooms at the Hotel Santa Clara. Made sure that the superb staff there kept them stuffed with gourmet food and local fresh fruit. I took paternal pleasure in watching them divide their time between the plaza dining room and the lounge chairs around the pool.

  They had become extremely close, Janet explained. One of the two males was a boy in his early teens-the albino had killed his oil executive father-and she had taken the kid under her wing.

  “Ronnie has become like a son,” she said. “He hasn’t seen his mother in years, so we’ve already discussed it. He’s coming back to Captiva to live with me. If I can, I’m going to adopt him. You know how badly I’ve missed my child, Doc.”


  The change that had taken place in Janet was remarkable. She’d always been a solid person, but the quiet type, seldom outwardly demonstrative.

  Not now. I saw in her a strength, a confidence, that positively glowed, yet both she and Grace Walker also exhibited a demeanor of inner peace that provided me with both courage and hope during what were among the darkest days of my life.

  One night, standing on the docks of Club Nautico, looking out over Cartagena Bay, Janet confided something to me. She said, “The night we were adrift, lost at sea, I’d never experienced such fear. The chaos of it all, the wind, the waves, and those black stars. I remembered walking the beach on Captiva a while back, at sunset, and telling someone that I felt at one with nature.” She shook her head and squeezed my hand, remembering. “It’s the sort of thing people say, but it was a lie. A fairy tale. I’ve never felt a union with anything other than another human being. I know that now. The people I’m with, the courage they all showed during some of the terrible things they did to us, their love and caring, like a family, that’s what makes life not just bearable, but wonderful. Everything else seems as… well, as cold as the stars that night.”

  Something that Grace said also helped me through those days: “Out there, I learned that on the other side of every great fear is freedom. Even if we’d have died, our loved ones could have found comfort in that. We helped each other, and, after a while, we weren’t afraid.”

  On the day that I identified Amelia’s body-she looked so tiny and alone in the refrigerated drawer, all of the youth leached out of her-I’d walked the streets of Cartagena like a zombie, walked for hours until I somehow ended up in Grace’s arms, and then on her bed, wanting badly to cry but unable. I don’t know if I’d have made it without her strength, and Janet’s.

  There was one dazzling bright and happy moment during that time. It was when we first got back to Cartagena, and I placed a call to the office of Dinkin’s Bay Marina, Sanibel Island, and asked to speak with Jeth Nicholes.

  When I heard his voice, I said, “Hey, you big ape, I’ve got a pretty lady here who wants to talk to you.”

  “The Family of Nine,” as they called themselves, flew back to Florida on Wednesday, December 24, and I waved them away as their Avianca flight pulled back from the boarding ladder.

  Then I hurried to another part of the airport where Curtis Tyner’s Bell helicopter and pilot were waiting for me.

  The pilot, whose name was Barry Rupple, told me, “The hotel sent your gear over, Dr. Ford, and I’ve got it stored aboard. Sergeant Tyner wanted me to offer you his help. Again. Whatever you need.”

  I said, “Transport back to the jungle is all I need,” and strapped myself in.

  I had the pilot land us at the convergence of two rivers-a paranamirims, in the Jivaro language-and I stepped out, seabag over my shoulder, into the smell of wood fires, roasting meat, and something else, something intimate and important, a memory that was instantly recognizable but, for some reason, impossible to anchor consciously in my brain.

  Keesha wasn’t there, but they found her. With the chopper gone, I ignored the bitter stares of the painted men, the suspicious chatter of women, until the girl arrived, smiling, and held out her hand to me. “You will stay with me in my pacovas, big man. The creature is gone from my belly, and I am healthy again. But you must bring me food.”

  Keesha’s village was deep in the interior, at the confluence of two narrow, blackwater rivers where, at dawn and dusk, I used a spear tipped with the barb of a stingray to take piranha, and red-scaled pacu and, once, a very large arapaima -it had to be close to fifty pounds-that fed the whole village.

  Not that there were many people in this small branch of the larger Jivaro tribe. There were a dozen huts, home to three dozen men, women, and brown-eyed children, and an amusing variety of pet monkeys and macaws. The huts were framed with bamboo, built beside small cooking fires and roofed with banana leaves that fauceted off the afternoon downpours.

  When it rained that way-a waterfall that crashed down through the forest canopy-Keesha would lead me to the big, woven hammock, and we would cling to each other there, and use our hands to explore each other’s bodies, and give comfort.

  I stayed a month. Longer. I don’t know. I lost track. It was long enough to be accepted and, I hope, respected by the men. I hunted with them and learned to use the long blowguns with which they took howler monkeys and three-toed sloth, though I was not a good shot. I made certain, though, that I did more than my share of any unpleasant jobs that had to be done-a sure way to win allies in any survival situation.

  One night, squatting around the communal fire, Keesha’s brother, Zarabatana, handed me a huge gourd filled with what he called cashiri . It was a kind of beer made from the mandioca root, and slightly psychedelic. The village men-as men are likely to do-proceeded to get me, the cashiri novice, absolutely shit-faced. They thought it was hilarious when I tried to show them how to limbo by drunkenly imitating Tomlinson’s artistry. Still roaring, they mimicked the sounds I made as I vomited into the bushes.

  Two days after that, Zarabatana returned to the village, paddling his carved obada, and said to me, “Finally, our people have located the men you seek. They are in a village in the jungle where the tourists come to see the big river. I think they will not be there for more than two nights. Our people say they are running from something, hiding. They say that they get very drunk at hotel where they yell insults, then sleep.”

  Feeling a great stillness inside me, nearly whispering, I said, “Is this jungle hotel close?”

  “Yes. A half-day’s paddle. Hotels such as this, there are more and more of them near the big river.”

  I grilled Zarabatana for all the details I could assemble before asking, “I don’t suppose anyone raises pigs in the forest near this place?”

  He looked at me like I was insane-and perhaps I was.

  “Pigs?” he said. “No. Of course not. Why would our people raise pigs when we have peccary to kill and eat?”

  That night, when I told Keesha what I must do, she insisted on painting my body. “You are in my heart, big man. It is the only way that I can protect you.”

  Another village woman, plus the curandeira, the old shaman, helped her. They built the fire high and stripped me naked as the rest of the village watched. First they smeared my face and body with a dark-red powder they called carujuru, and then kneaded it into my hair.

  Then Keesha brought out a wooden bowl that contained dark-blue genipapo dye. With a brush made out of a twig, she painted my ankles in the fashion of her tribe, then began to paint my face with a series of parallel lines.

  I didn’t mind. I could picture the jungle resort where Kazan and Stallings were holed up. One of those travel-adventure outposts where people were boated in for quick bites of wilderness and prepackaged ecology lessons. For two murderers, it was perfect cover.

  For a man painted like a Jivaro warrior, the same was true.

  Zarabatana let me borrow his obada and offered me his pucuna, too. I refused the blowgun but promised to return the dugout to him soon.

  “It does not matter,” he said, with the easy indifference of his people when it came to material items. “I can always make another.”

  Just before I pushed away from the bank, Keesha came trotting down the path, something in her hand. “Would you care to wear this, as your muisak, the avenging soul of your enemy? As a necklace for luck.”

  I looked into the tiny, wizened face of Niall McCauley, his eyes sewn closed, head suspended on a leather strap, and said, “No. That guy ran out of luck long ago.”

  The jungle hotel was not hard to find. In six hours of paddling through darkness, past the occasional village fire, it was the only human stronghold with a generator and incandescent lights.

  The place consisted of a main hut and outdoor Tiki bar, then a series of little bamboo cottages, all set along a dock fronting this broad section of river. A place for the tour boats.

&nb
sp; Nor was it difficult to find the cottage where Kazan and Stallings were staying. From the darkness, after peering through half a dozen screened windows, I saw an open bottle of Moet on the kitchenette counter and a carton of Dunhill cigarettes.

  All people create a personal spore, and this was the spore of Hassan Atwa Kazan, the man who’d murdered Amelia.

  I went inside and searched the two small bedrooms. In one, I found clothing that would fit only a giant. In the other, I found the clothes of a very tall, very thin man, plus several linen kaffiyehs, in several colors, folded atop the chest of drawers.

  I turned off all the lights, sat in a chair by the door, and unholstered the SIG Sauer. In my left hand, I held an obsidian knife with a mahogany handle, beautifully polished, that Keesha had given me as a present. I waited, expecting both men to return at the same time, after the little bar had closed.

  They did not.

  Stallings returned first, and I watched the surprise register in his face when he switched on the overhead light and saw me, a strange, painted vision, a big man wearing only a breechcloth, pointing a gun at his belly.

  The bully in him came to the fore. “This better be some kind of joke, asshole!”

  I hit him in the face with the heel of my open palm and dropped the full weight of my elbow on the back of his neck. Then I walked him at gunpoint out into the jungle. Once he said, in a tone of dawning realization, “Jesus Christ, it’s you. I know who you are now!”

  His last words were “I didn’t kill her. I swear it.”

  When Kazan came in, wearing baggy pants and a crooked linen kaffiyeh roped around his head, he was so staggering drunk that his slow-motion reaction was the second disappointment of the day.

  The first was the fact that there were no wild hogs nearby to which to feed a wounded man.

  He had a surprisingly high voice and a stink about him, like curry, or toads kept in a jar too long. It is one of our oddities that, as humans, we invest in our enemies strengths they do not possess and qualities of evil that elevate them while diminishing us.