by Fiona Quinn
She offered him a wan smile.
“And weigh about forty-five kilograms or one hundred pounds.” He turned back around, and they moved farther along the path.
The nature walk was supposed to last three hours and loop around. Around the one-hour mark, the group was taking a break sitting on logs that had been placed on either side of the path. Suz pulled out her bug spray and was dousing herself as the mosquitos came out with the approach of evening and found their little group by their exhalent. Without thinking about it, Suz held out the spray to the man/boy who was with her. The scathing look he gave her made her shrug and pack the spray back in the side pocket. Sure, manly-men didn’t need bug spray. She hoped he had his shots. Then she briefly wondered what kinds of diseases the mosquitos might carry – dengue fever and zika. . . His problem. Not hers.
A text buzzed, and she pulled her phone from under her poncho.
Your friend does not feel well, you will turn around and walk back to the parking area to get him home. Thank your guide for the tour. Tip him with one pink bill. Head back where you came from.
Her “friend” looked just fine. Here she was again, having to make the decision. Did she follow through? Did she ignore the directive? Once again, she realized she was seat-of-the-pantsing this thing, and she’d have to rely on her gut. Her gut said she needed to get to those kids. She felt like they were near.
Suz walked over and spoke with the guide. The guide said that the bus could take them back and would return in time to pick up the other family. The guide grinned, accepting the money and hoping all would be well. And off she moved with the guy.
They walked for about ten-minutes when the guy slowed his pace. His eyes were on the ground, searching. She saw it before he did. At the side of the road three rocks were stacked.
She stopped beside them, reaching under her poncho to lift the back pack straps off her shoulders. They had rubbed her raw through the t-shirt material. Thirty pounds, Jack had said. Minus the weapons. Weapons were metal; they were probably pretty heavy. But last night she had gone through the bag a little and remembered there was a water bladder incorporated in the design. She had filled it with water. Thank goodness she had filled it with water. But water was heavy. Probably heavier than the weapons that had been left behind. She pulled the hose from the clip on the strap and ran it to her mouth and drank down a gulp. It tasted like plastic. She clipped it back in place quickly, so she didn’t feel compelled to share with the guy. Suz felt very protective of her water.
The guy’s eyes swept back across the path and this time he saw the stack. He motioned to her as he moved into the tropical forest, kicking the stack as he went. The guy had a compass out and was following in some direction right through the foliage. After a few paces, he picked up a couple of short sticks. After searching around, he found two more. He handed these off to her. They began walking again and Suz realized the sticks were to use in holding back the dense foliage. Just a few paces in and already Suz was exhausted.
An hour later, she was ready to drop to the ground and sleep with the capybaras. This was by far the most physically grueling thing she had ever done in her life. The rain had started again. The earth began sucking at her boots. As she lagged behind, the guy would turn and hiss at her. Literally, hiss.
There were no animals. No birds. No lizards (thank god). She could hear them, though, in their mad cacophony of trills and squawks. The eyes she had felt on her by whoever was instructing her over the cell phone had nothing on this. This was beyond spooky. As she moved farther and farther into the dense forest, her mind was back on the pictures in the educational building of all the terrifying animals that breathed with her amongst the trees.
The silent one with his disdain for women – or maybe just for her – walked ahead, moving vegetation out of the way for his passage, sometimes letting it snap back at her. She thought she sensed some glee from him when she would yelp in pain. She felt like her pain was his pleasure. If she had done something to rile this boy up and make him want to hurt her, she couldn’t imagine what it was. But she decided to try to keep herself quiet. Sometimes a bully just thrived on getting a desired outcome, when that response wasn’t forthcoming the bullying stopped. That’s the way it worked at her school – it’s not how things were working here in the Paraguayan forest.
When they left the main tourist trail, Suz wondered why this guy didn’t use a machete to hack his way through, then realized they were trying not to leave any trails. At first, she was careful to leave guide posts herself, reaching out and bending branches the way she had read that Indians sometimes did when they were taken from their villages – so their scouts could follow and find them. Suz thought if her marks were frequent enough and visible enough that she could get herself out of here. She was losing hope that they were headed for the boys. She wasn’t sure what lay at the other end of their hike, but she thought if they meant to just kill her, that could have happened an hour ago, and there would be no way that anyone would find her body. If they were even looking.
Would they be looking? Suz started the loop that would take her through her speculations of what could be. The same kind of speculations that filled her with anxiety that then turned to a low burning rage when it came to Jack. And then it hit her like a smack across the face, the irony. Oh the irony. “Irony is the hygiene of the mind,” that was a Bilbescoe quote Suz had used to answer an essay question to get in to Stanford undergrad. Why the heck they were asking high school seniors about irony was beyond her. Back then, the biggest irony in her life was that when she was dead tired she was too tired to sleep. But now. . .now irony was slapping upside the head.
Suz had been angry. Yes, furious. She had to own it. Suz had been angry because Jack kept choosing “other” than her. He chose his missions. He chose the kidnapped victims. He chose the law. He chose his brothers in arms. He kept choosing “other” than her. She was angry because she wanted him to be hers. Living in their little house in the woods, living the life that had always been painted for her since her childhood – a husband who comes home from work and scooped the children up in hugs, pecked his wife on the cheek, and they all lived happily ever after. She wanted her happily ever after – though, wow, to put it in those terms seemed very 1950s Disneyesque. Her little “Leave It to Beaver” world.
But Jack insisted on being in danger and danger meant he could die. She’d never get to see him again, never get to tell him she loved him in person again, never get to make love with him again. That sudden and horrific loss, well she had been through something a little like that with her dad. She didn’t think she could survive it with Jack. So she fought to keep him safe. To keep him nearby.
And now she had decided enough was enough and she needed to let him go. Go and be himself. If she didn’t have the details, eventually she’d stop worrying. He needed to live his life away from her. She needed to open that space he had been living in to welcome some other man in and be hers. Suz felt as she laid it out in those words to be monumentally selfish.
And then here was the irony piece.
She knew back at her house that she was in desperate trouble. She very well could be killed by Jones and the other one. Hence, she decided to go along with their “request” that she go and take care of the children. It was an odd request, very odd, and she wasn’t going to try to work her way out of that maze again. She had gone along. And she continued to go along. She had had a gajillion opportunities and ways that she could have escaped and gotten aid. She had taken none of them because there was a shot that she could find the children and help them. But in that script there was always a “Jack” coming to their rescue. Her Jack was incapacitated, but there were others who were rough and ready, willing to go into dark damp places like this, willing to put their lives on the line for strangers.
She needed one of those people now.
Yes, they were humans and not characters. They got hot, and hurt, and . . .died. How horrible would that be if someone died tryin
g to help her? These rescuers were humans with relationships – mothers and fathers, sister and brothers, maybe even wives and children if not lovers and would-be fiancées. The person she wished would come for her would do so while someone else was feverishly praying that they not come for her. Like she had wished Jack would just stay home and take a policy job with the government or something.
That wasn’t actually irony at all. What it was was hypocrisy. She was a hypocrite.
Jack came after people like her. Saved their lives. Pat them on their backs and off they went to follow their destinies, big or small. Then he came home and painted her bathroom. Built a dog pen for Dick and Jane. Grilled steaks on the grill and told all of his friends what a lucky man he was to have such an amazing woman in his life.
Suz felt the conviction that she felt long ago when she first said no to Jack’s marriage proposal. There were women built on stronger frames than she was. Women who were physically strong, mentally strong, and emotionally strong. Suz shared their intellectual strength but that was such a small slice of the pie. Jack deserved someone better than she.
20
Jack
18:30 Hours, Thursday, Feb. 17th
Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil
Jack had made his way to the Friendship Bridge, watching the dark waters churn along the shore line. His phone buzzed. He moved to a private place to talk, as he pulled his cell from his pants’ pocket. He glanced at the readout. Lynx.
“Hey there. I’m late getting this intel to you, I was on the interrogation team to chat with Pavle. We didn’t get anywhere. He just stared at us for a few hours. But I wanted to let you know what’s new here. First off, our systems haven’t found any intel on Jones. When I get the green-light from you, I’ll take this to Iniquus command, and we can expand the search to all databanks.”
“Hold off for now,” Jack replied.
“We picked up the SAT phone from Suz’s pack.”
Jack raised a victory fist. “Is it still pinging her location?”
“Negative. We had a trail crossing over the Friendship Bridge between Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil and Ciudad del Este, Paraguay.”
“Copy that.”
“The trail travels 3 km north of Hernandaria on the Supercarretera to Saltos del Guairá. From there it went to a place called Refugio Tatí Yupí. I did some research on it. It’s another tourist spot.”
“And you lost her there?”
“The phone. I lost track of the phone. Remember we don’t know if she is attached to the phone.”
“Our Israeli friends had eyes on when she entered the Tatí Yupí gate.”
“They didn’t follow her in?”
“Entrance requires paper work and IDs. They had someone waiting outside the only exit until the refuge closed for the day that was an hour ago. She didn’t come back out.” Jack’s hand wrapped around the back of his neck. “I hate to ask you. I really hate to ask this.” Jack had trouble forming his mouth into his next words. “Are you picking up anything psychically? Is she. . . is she alive?”
“Jack, I know you’re freaking out. I know that her not exiting those gates seems like a really bad thing, but there are other options besides her being hurt – or worse.”
“Options like what?”
“Okay, you said she has a reservation for tonight at the hostel. This refuge is on the dam. They have buses that go up to the dam for tours. The Brazilian tourist department has buses that are up there too. It could very well be that she took the tour of the dam to see the night lights and planned to go back over to Brazil via the dam.”
“She had her zombie bag.”
“She had to have had it or we wouldn’t have picked up the SAT phone. It could be that she left her gear back at the hostel, and she’s carrying the bag with her journal, or art supplies, or to carry the souvenirs she wants to bring back. Another scenario is that she’s staying at the dorm there at the refuge. Or camping. Both are possibilities there.”
“Now you’re reaching.”
“I just want you to remember, conjecture isn’t fact. Okay?”
Jack sat on a rock wishing for an ice pack to cool his bulbous knee. He reached for the water bottle in his day pack, tipped back two more pain meds and didn’t reply.
“Okay, well the good news is we located her even if briefly. The bad news is that it’s going to be next to impossible to pick up on anything if she’s still in the refuge.”
“Because?”
“The forests there have trees that exceed a hundred feet in height. It has canopy cover and only small walking trails, over a very limited section, that allow the tourists to hike beside the waterfalls. Off trail, you’re looking at almost six thousand acres of protected lands. So a little bigger than Connecticut.”
“Government protection?”
“Apparently.”
“So not private ownership.”
“No. It’s the government – and I don’t have to tell you that the graft system is a way of life down there.”
“Any luck finding your bread crumbs with the boys?” Jack asked?
“Nada.”
“My contacts said they saw two young American boys being walked across the bridge.”
“Why walked?”
“It seems the guards are only stopping cars here. You can walk, bike, motorcycle. . . so if they wanted to get the boys across without official knowledge it couldn’t be in a vehicle.”
“Did your contacts take photos?”
“Too dark, they said. Before you ask anything else that’s all they had. It was just interesting timing, the boys on the bridge.” Jack took in a deep breath. “What’s going on in the states with the political landscape? You have any interface with St. Clair?”
“He’s got a Secret Service detail that’s on him like flies on the proverbial honey. He refuses to recuse himself from his chairmanship. Certain people are antsy about it. They think that the boys’ disappearance might have something to do with grandpa’s job title. There’s talk that this might be a tiger kidnapping scenario where the boys’ safe return is promised after the successful completion of X, Y, and Z. Finley and the FBI and Black and the CIA are holding that information very tightly to their chests. They aren’t showing their cards to anyone.”
“Because?”
“They don’t want to start a precedent in this country to allow our politicians to be manipulated in such a way. It would be impossible to secure every lawmakers’ family members. But a few people are making waves, wondering if the kids’ disappearance might have a direct effect on how St. Clair’s votes are being influenced. Right now the official line is that there are conspiracy theorists everywhere.”
“In this case they’d be right. Did Hound News bring it up?”
“No they’re still going on about how everyone would be safe and sound if the body guard had had his gun on him and not in the glove compartment. Of course, everyone’s skipping over the fact that he was shot in the back. They found the guy’s car burned out in New Jersey. Guess what was in the glove compartment?”
“His gun. So the big story hasn’t hit the airwaves yet?”
“No, but our computers are tasked with pinpointing it if it does. The Secret Service is stepping out of their normal role and ‘protecting’ St. Clair but not saying why. I believe the president wants to know who is contacting the senator. Now here’s something interesting I’ve seen on some of the security tapes Finley’s brought in. St. Clair is shadowed all the time by his right-hand aid. Thursday that aid changed.”
“Who is it now?”
“No. You misunderstand me. I mean he changed. This guys is suddenly looking like a shock victim. Like someone who is caught in an alleyway with gang bullets flying, and he doesn’t know where to run. He’s functioning on high octane anxiety. I pointed it out to Finley for a follow up and guess what’s missing from his house?”
“From the aid’s house? I can’t imagine.”
“His wife. She hasn’t shown up to work and the aid, Gu
nther is his name, called to make an excuse for her. Family emergency. We have nothing in the way of concrete information.”
“But the FBI is looking into it?”
“They are.”
“And you have a theory?”
“It would be an interesting play. We know that indeed it was a tiger kidnapping ploy. With the school bombing fail, too many eyes were on the St. Clair, they couldn’t reach him to communicate. So what if they just layered on another tiger kidnapping? They pick up the aid’s wife. The wife ostensibly goes somewhere to help some family member while in reality the bad guy makes the aid into a go between informing St. Clair how to act to keep the boys safe.”
“Seems like a simple solution to their problem.”
“Simple is often the best solution. I need you to be checking in regularly. Are you settling in for the night?”
“Right now, I’m headed over to see a bud of mine. He’s ex-SRR, British special forces, runs a cover for freelancers coming through. He’ll be able to get some hardware for me. Hopefully he can put me up while I’m down here. I don’t want curious eyes on me especially if I’m keeping odd hours or coming in not looking like someone who belongs in polite company.”
“Copy that. How’s the knee?”
“We’re not going to talk about that.”
“Okay. I had a knowing. Should we talk about that instead?”
Jack stared over the choppy waters and drew in a breath. “More jumping?”
“Looks like you cleared that hurdle. This time I got a rhyme I can’t remember hearing before. I had to look it up.”
“Shoot.”
“The rhyme goes: Jacky, come and give me thy fiddle, If ever thou mean to thrive. Nay, I’ll not give my fiddle to any man alive.”
