by The Behrg
“So saving the world isn’t easy, huh?” Grey said, causing Faye to smile.
It felt good, that smile.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m doing what I feel is right. I won’t put anyone’s life at risk but some things are out of our control. I get you’re angry about Malcolm, but there’s no one to blame! If anything be angry with God. If you believe in that sort of thing.”
“I don’t know what I believe,” Grey said.
“If what I’m doing is more important than the cause I’ve dedicated the last five years of my life to, you know it’s something big. We can make a difference here. If you only knew.”
“So tell me!”
“I can’t,” Faye said.
“Whoever you’re looking for knows – maybe not that you’re here, but that people want to find him. I didn’t have a chance to tell you, but that’s why we were arrested. Not because we’re American, because people heard you were asking around.”
A surge coursed through Faye, her weariness disappearing. She placed her hands inside the front pocket of her light sweatshirt, fingering the eleven-ounce Beretta inside. It’s cold steel so alien to her touch. At only eighteen millimeters wide, it had been small enough for her to pack inside one of the camera bags, equipment they had been given clearance not to run through scanners.
Two .380 caliber bullets were loaded into its steel chamber. All it could hold; one more than she would need.
“Do you see why I’m concerned? Not for you,” Grey added, almost too quickly, “but for us. Your actions affect us all.”
“Everything will work out fine.”
It was Grey’s turn to look away, staring off into the landscape around them. He shook his head. From within the house there was a loud crash followed by a screech. Sir William, yelling, “Spree!”
“I’m gonna change, but don’t leave without me.”
“You’re not going to try and stop me?”
“If helping you means we get out of this godforsaken country faster, then okay, I’ll help. But you’ve got to let me help and that starts by telling me the truth.”
Faye nodded. She could tell him, at least most of the truth. But no one could know her real motive for being here, the driving force that had guided her more persistently than anything in her life. The desire to look her father, the man whom she hadn’t seen in fifteen years, in the eyes.
Eyes that were no longer seeing.
“Come if you like. Just don’t get in my way.”
Verse V.
The trees beyond the river barely rustled with the breeze, their limbs and vines, branches, even leaves, carrying a weight to them which seemed to hold the wind at bay. They were like the tepuis – immovable. Permanent. Indestructible to all but the human hands that would one day ravage as far as this remote part of the jungle in exchange for a few pieces of lumber and a multi-million dollar contract.
Dugan stood at the bank of the Icabarú river, studying the foliage beyond with a cigarette in hand. Chupa laughed behind him at something one of the men said, the noise blending in with the cries of birds and chitter of monkeys.
The bridge here was collapsed, whether from the earthquake or sabotaged by natives he wasn’t sure. In truth, Dugan believed it was one and the same. The Humvees were more than capable of passing through the river, its depths typically less than six feet, but these days were feeling less and less typical.
“What do you think?” he asked, without looking away from the opposite side of the river.
Oso, of course, couldn’t vocalize his answer, but he also didn’t write one. Maybe he sensed Dugan’s question had been rhetorical; the native had been the one, after all, to stop the vehicle and get out, observing quietly their surroundings. Oso had a strange intuition that Dugan had learned to trust and right now the native’s apprehension was making him nervous.
Kendall approached, stretching his arms wide and groaning loudly. Dressed in his camos, he was only missing a beige hardhat to complete what would surely be a Ken doll safari outfit. Though Dugan doubted Mattel outfitted their dolls with fully automatic rifles.
Further down, where debris from the bridge had gathered in the water, the Kid was taking a leak into the river. A few of the others had gathered nearby.
“Should we pull out the picnic blankets?” Kendall asked, swatting at a mosquito on his arm. “Or you want us to build a rowboat?”
Dugan ignored him, glancing again at his handheld GPS coordinator. They were less than two miles from where the native Guayanata had fled; no wonder the men were antsy.
A sharp scream sounded, Dugan following the noise.
The Kid toppled into the water with a huge splash, Rojo and Chupa laughing at the river’s edge. The black Somalian handed Rojo a joint. Weed was like candy down here. Not that much different from where things were going in the States, from what Dugan had heard.
The Kid came up, slapping water at the two of them. “Come on, man, my dick was still in my hand!”
“It’s always in your hand,” Rojo said, to more laughter.
Kendall left to join the others, shouting something Dugan chose to ignore. His attention fell back to the river. It was a dark turquoise, greener at the shores with moss and growth. Giant Amazon water lilies, Victoria amazonica, stretched across the river just north of them; deceptive stepping stones, each up to four meters in length. Thick vines passed in the currents, though they might have been snakes. They were in anaconda country.
The men roared with laughter. Dugan started toward them.
“I think the Kid just earned his name!” one of them shouted.
“That ain’t funny,” the Kid yelled, pulling himself up the shore.
“Leech! Leech! Leech!” the men shouted in uncoordinated unison.
The Kid was covered in them, black masses like tumors sticking to his flesh. He ripped one from his forearm, blood squirting out with its suction-like release.
“You want, we can help,” Chupa said. “With these.” He flipped open a large serrated steel blade.
“Oso’s a whiz at slicing away skinny little leeches,” one of them said.
“Especially white ones.”
The Kid yanked another leech from his stomach with a sickening squelch. The skin beneath it looked like it had been covered in ointment, oozing a thick viscous fluid with trails of blood.
“What you get for dressing like a –”
Dugan raised his Glock and fired into the air, silencing the group. The jungle seemed to hold its breath, animals and birds silenced, if only for a moment.
The men parted for him as he stepped in front of the Kid. His busted lip and broken nose, complete with purple swelling that reached all the way to his eyes from where Zephyr had struck him the previous day, truly made him look like a hick.
Dugan held his cigarette out and pressed its tip into the fat body of a slug on the Kid’s neck. There was a sizzle and then the leech dropped off, the Kid brushing at it on its way down.
“I want to thank each of you personally for guaranteeing this operation is a bust. I think the Pemoni’s in Brazil are aware of our location thanks to your debacle.”
The men looked like school children being scolded by their teacher. Some avoided eye contact, others shrunk at his words.
“It wasn’t my …” The Kid cut off, the tip of Dugan’s Glock pressing against his temple.
“It’s always your fault. I don’t employ people who can’t accept responsibility.”
The Kid nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his long neck. “Sorry, Dugan. My bad; won’t happen again.”
Dugan lowered his pistol. “See that it doesn’t. Leech.”
Around him, the men smiled. Rojo passed the joint to their newest member. Even Cy came up and slugged Leech on the arm.
“Welcome to the club,” he said.
Dugan started toward the water’s edge. “Leave the vehicles. Bring what you can carry.” He sat at the ridged bank and began unlacing his boots.
/> The men immediately fell into action, not a single one questioning why. Leeches or no leeches, they would follow him.
Oso waded into the river not needing to unlace shoes; the soles of his bare feet were as thick as a leather hide. He raised his belt with several long knives over his head to keep from getting wet, as well as a black AK74. Dugan recognized Oso’s notepad as well, nestled in his raised palm.
Chupa dove into the water behind him with a small splash, his twin Sigs held high above him. “Leeches only like little white limp worms, from what I heard.”
Halfway across, Oso suddenly wrestled in the water almost dipping completely beneath. He came up, eyes wide, holding one hand outstretched toward them as he tried to speak with his gargled voice.
“Aghnk.”
Stop.
Chupa slowed, water settling around him. Cy, who had now waded in to his knees, also halted. Oso continued to press his hand out toward them, the ends of his belt dipping into the water. His long black hair flowed around him like a wilting wreath.
The native tossed his belt and gun to the other side, knives scattering on the shore then dove beneath the murky water. After a moment he came back up, his eyes following the length of the river. He continued across lengthwise, raising his hand behind him every so often to tell them to wait.
The clack of a round being racked into a barrel sounded beside Dugan. Zephyr held an SRM Gen2 tactical shotgun pointed at the ground, one of the only shotguns capable of accurately firing over two hundred yards. With its detachable magazine holding sixteen rounds, it was a formidable weapon. His Vektor assault rifle was slung around his back.
Zephyr’s narrow eyes tracked Oso’s every move. “Just in case,” he said.
“He’s one of us,” Dugan whispered.
“You’re the one who sensed a trap,” Zephyr replied.
The air felt electric, thrumming with the anticipation of action, the men feeding off that energy like the mosquitos swarming around them. Not even Kendall slapped at them now.
Oso arrived on the far side of the shore and staggered up. He flung his neck to the side, his long hair whipping after it, then began to pull off his vest. Leeches clung to his thick limbs but he seemed not to notice.
“Oso?” Dugan called. “What is it?”
The bulky native leaned against a thin tree trunk, extending his leg and lifting his foot for them to see.
A long gash ran across the bottom of his foot, blood seeping out and dripping from his heel.
“That it?” Chupa said, starting forward again.
Oso’s hand came up again in warning. He trailed a finger, pointing across the width of the river.
“There’s something down there,” Dugan said. “Did they do it? To stop us? The Makuxi?”
Oso nodded.
“Alright, so keep your legs and balls tucked in,” Rojo said, treading into the water.
“And put that shotgun away,” Dugan said, in a more hushed tone.
“Guess you were right,” Zephyr said.
“He is one of us.”
“No, about leaving the vehicles,” Zephyr finished.
Leech walked past the two of them. “Some club,” he said.
By the time they made it across, Oso’s foot was wrapped with a torn piece from his vest, the unused remnants lying on the ground. Bare-chested, he looked more like a Makuxi than ever. Dugan didn’t ask if he was okay; Oso would have taken offense to such an inquiry.
As the men dug at the leeches clinging to their bodies, Dugan stuffed his leather book back into his breast pocket. Oso reattached his belt, spinning his knives like a gunslinger his gun, before sliding them back into their sheaths. Despite his injury he walked without revealing the slightest discomfort, his bare feet crunching on the broad tufts of gamalote grass by the bank.
Dugan looked over his men, sliding his sunglasses in place. “They know we’re coming.”
“What does that change?” Leech asked.
Rojo and Zephyr, the other men around him, all smiled.
“Nothing.”
Verse VI.
Two dogs chased after a third hairless mutt, cutting through the hard packed dirt road. The one in the lead carried something dripping in its mouth.
Faye kept her eyes on the road. Better not to know.
The small huts and make-shift-homes on either side of the road looked like a leveled graveyard, aluminum siding and tin roofs jutting up from the ground at odd angles. The fields were littered with wash bins and filthy mattresses, dressers and collapsed tables and chairs; small and seemingly trivial possessions, when compared to what was buried alongside them.
Bodies. Or body parts.
A shirtless man’s sightless gaze, staring up beneath the sharp-edged metal roof separating his upper half from his clothed lower one. A child’s bare feet and legs protruding from the remnants of a kitchen sink now lying perpendicular to the ground, an open microwave where his head should have been. Heaps of clothing pinned to the earth by metal scraps, concrete blocks, or furniture turned deadly. With enough convincing, Faye could believe that was all she was seeing – the forgotten laundry of people who had escaped, not their forgotten bodies within and beneath.
To distract herself from the carnage, Faye related to Grey what she could about the man she was looking for. His background, his uncanny ability to get results and the wake he left wherever he went.
“I’m not saying I didn’t come down here for our cause. Regener-Nation is my life. It’s what I’ve dedicated everything to. We have to be the catalyst for change or there won’t be anyone left to change things for. But by the same token, I can’t sit back and let this man, this … evil, continue to exist under the guise of commerce and science. He, and everyone like him, must be held accountable for their actions! Horrors masquerading as progress.”
As they approached Main Street, which lead to the town square, and further down to the alcalde’s office and prison, Grey reached out, grabbing Faye lightly by the arm. His touch surprised her. She almost apologized for her jumpiness, until that touch began to hurt.
“Let go.”
“Wait. We need to talk.”
“Then let go of my arm.”
Grey glanced at where he held her, seeming to be almost as surprised as she was by his actions. But he didn’t let go. “I brought you out here so that we could talk, without the others overhearing.”
“About what?” Faye said, her anger now flaring.
“Yesterday, this … whole trip, the earthquake; everything!”
“You’re hurting me.”
Grey finally let go. Faye took a step back, rubbing at where he had grabbed her. Grey followed her movement, keeping her close.
“Not everyone is so spellbound by you that we believe every word you say. Has anything about this supposed Dugan character been true or is it just another one of your fabrications in order to keep us all in tow?”
“I’m not lying to you!”
“Well then it’s worse! Because if it is true? You’re knowingly risking our lives this time.”
“This was why I wanted to come alone.”
“So that you could put our lives in jeopardy without any of us knowing?”
“Can you even hear yourself? You’re blaming me for an act of God, as if I personally caused the earthquake! Besides, the only one who got hurt –”
She stopped, but not before the damage was done.
“What? Not going to finish your thought?”
Faye looked away. Main Street within sight, but far enough away that there was no one out to witness their argument.
“The only one who got hurt was the intern?” Grey said, finishing her sentence for her. He took another step toward her, matching her retreat.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m taking over. You’re no longer calling the shots or making any decision regarding our stay or leave, and that begins this instant. Which means you and I are turning around and marching back to be with the others w
here we will stay until the helicopter’s ready to take us home.”
“I told you, I don’t need you.”
Grey rushed her, shoving her back with such force her legs lifted into the air. She landed on her tailbone with a twang of pain that shot up her spine as she slid onto her back. But this time Grey wasn’t attempting to save her life.
He lumbered over her, driving one knee into her chest and pinning her to the ground, then slapped her across the face. The shock of what was happening, and how quickly things had turned, kept Faye from reacting other than the defensive gesture of her upturned hands.
Grey pressed his body on top of hers, ripping at her running shorts which slid down with ease.
“Stop!”
He hit her again, this time palm closed, then grabbed her by the shoulders, slamming her back against the ground and locking her arms in place.
Something flashed across his face, a moment of recognition, of doubt, of the realization of the atrocity he was about to commit. And then it was gone.
“This is for Malcolm,” he said, releasing one of her arms so he could unlatch the belt of the jeans he had changed into. “And for every one of us that would have died had I not shown you your place!”
Faye is a little girl again, transported back all those years when she has gone in search of her parents in her own house.
The noise that wakes her.
The shattered pane of glass in the French doors of their kitchen.
Bunny, falling from her arms as someone grabs her from behind.
She screams but a hand clamps over her trembling mouth as she is lifted off the ground. She can’t see the man’s face, but she can feel his whiskers against her skin, smell his sour breath. The stink of his sweat. A droplet rolls from his face to hers, curving down the side of her cheek and continuing down her neck.
