by Chris Ryan
They moved slowly. Warily. At first the panthers kept their distance, but as time passed they seemed to become bolder. Ben watched nervously as they regrouped, and it wasn't long before the animals started edging towards them. They moved slowly at first, creeping, as though they were stalking their prey – which in a way, Ben thought to himself glumly, they were.
And then, all as one, as though someone had just started a firing pistol, they upped their pace.
'Keep going!' Danny shouted. The three of them continued their steady walk – or as steady as was possible in the howling gale. Danny had his gun pointed just above the panthers, but for the moment he didn't shoot.
'Danny!' Ben urged. 'Now would be a good time—'
Danny shook his head. 'The closer they are, the louder it'll sound to them.'
He held his nerve.
Ben felt his stomach tying up into knots. They were playing a dangerous game. The animals were so close – he could see their sharp teeth.
Suddenly Danny fired the gun. Two rounds cracked in the air and, as before, the panthers screeched to a halt and then scampered back.
'Run!' Danny shouted. 'While they're scared.'
The three of them raced as fast as they could towards the wardens' station. They made surprisingly good time and were only twenty metres away when the panthers started to charge them again.
'I need to reload!' Danny shouted. He broke the shotgun and the spent cartridges flew out. Quickly he fumbled in his rucksack for some new rounds.
'Hurry up, Danny!' Angelo shouted. 'Hurry up!' The panthers were powering towards them. To Ben's horror, Danny dropped one of the cartridges on the ground. He bent down to pick it up, but by that time the animals were nearly on them. Ben could hear their snarling over the sound of the wind. It was a low, greedy growl.
It was sheer instinct that made him run, and Angelo did the same. He could hear the patter of the panthers' feet just behind him and any moment he expected them to leap on his back and sink their teeth into his flesh.
And only then did he hear the gun. Another two rounds – and not before time.
Behind him there was a whimper and then the sound of the animals retreating. Ben stopped and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, the panthers had given up the chase. But for how long, he couldn't tell.
'Get to the wardens' station! Now!' Danny roared.
Ben and Angelo didn't need telling twice. Adrenaline surging through their bodies, they sprinted towards the building. As they approached, though, the panthers charged again. The gunshot hadn't sent them running nearly as far, and they seemed emboldened now. They sensed blood.
Ben had never run so fast in his life. His muscles burned as he desperately tried to propel himself towards the building. Danny, being taller, got there first. He crashed the door open and held it for them as Ben and Angelo burst through it. The moment they were safely in, he slammed it shut. As soon as the door was closed, the noise of the hurricane softened slightly; but they could hear the animals, growling and scratching around the outside. If they dared to step out of the building, they'd be panther food.
The three of them were silent for a good couple of minutes. Angelo lay flat on the ground, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Ben was breathing heavily too, his face flushed and his legs like jelly. He was bent double, his hands on his knees, as he tried to regain his energy; Danny was in a similar position.
It was Ben who recuperated first. 'Close shave,' he muttered.
The others didn't respond.
Ben looked around. The wardens' station was very similar to the one they had been in previously – the same layout, and similar posters on the wall. As before there was a picture of a Florida panther – Ben couldn't quite bring himself to look at it this time, or read the words on the poster which no doubt said how rare it was, and how lucky he'd be to see one. Just now, Ben would have been perfectly happy never to see another of those animals as long as he lived.
The windows, he saw with relief, had not been blown in. Not yet, at least. He peered out of one of them. The panthers had not congregated here – they were too busy lurking by the main door. From here, the storm looked even more ferocious than when they were actually out in it. As he watched, it started to rain again, heavy, powerful rain that seemed to sheet down from different directions. Before long, he could barely see the turbulent marsh waters on either side of the road. The raindrops thundered on the roof of the building, almost – but not quite – drowning out the sound of the wind.
Ben was briefly transfixed by the awesome sight of the storm. And then, peeping round the back of the building, he saw something.
His face lit up.
'Danny!' he called. 'Angelo!'
The two of them turned to look at him. 'What?' Angelo asked, his face full of exhaustion.
'Round the back,' he said. 'I think there's a truck.'
Angelo blinked.
'Look,' Ben continued. 'I can just see its bumper through this window.'
The other two joined him. 'You're right,' Danny said.
The three of them continued to peer out of the window, captivated by the sight of the truck – perhaps their only chance of getting out of here safely. It was as they were staring that Ben noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Danny's gaze was flickering between the truck and Angelo and there was a strange expression on his face. Ben couldn't quite put his finger on it, but whatever it was, it made him uneasy.
Angelo broke the silence. 'How do we get to it?' he asked. 'Because if you think I'm walking out of that door when those panthers are there—'
Danny shook his head. 'Let's see if there's a back entrance. The noise of the rain might distract them.' His voice was tense. Clutching the shotgun, he disappeared into the back room. When he returned, he still had a serious look on his face. He nodded to the others. 'We can get out that way,' he said. 'I put my ear to the door and couldn't hear the panthers. And with a bit of luck there'll be a key in the truck.'
Ben looked out of the window again. The rain was still sheeting down. 'Do you think it's safe? Driving in this weather, I mean.'
Danny frowned grimly. 'Not really,' he said. 'But if these windows break like the other ones did, those animals are going to get in.'
Angelo nodded his head. 'Don't know about you, Ben,' he said, 'but I'm hungry. I'd rather eat dinner than be it.'
Ben shrugged. 'All right,' he agreed. 'Let's do it.'
He and Angelo walked towards Danny, who stepped aside to let them into the back room. As Ben passed him, he noticed that the man's hands were shaking. He stopped. 'You all right?'
Danny's face twitched and he seemed not to want to catch Ben's eye. 'Fine,' he replied. 'Just a bit, you know—' He glanced over in the direction of the main door.
'Right,' Ben replied. It was fair enough – they were all spooked by what had just happened. But still something didn't seem quite right. He tried to put the thought from his mind. He was on edge. They all were. They just needed to find the others and get out of the Everglades. Then everything would be all right.
'We should go out one by one,' Danny called as Ben and Angelo approached the back door. 'There might only be one door open. If we crowd round the truck, it'll take us longer to get in, and with those panthers out there—' He pushed past them. 'I'll go first,' he said. 'I'll open the passenger doors. Give me thirty seconds and then Angelo, you go next. Ben, thirty seconds after that. Keep this door shut – we don't want the panthers getting inside. OK?'
The two boys nodded.
'All right then,' Danny said. 'Good luck.' He opened the back door and the room seemed to fill with the howling of the wind and the rain. Swiftly, Danny stepped outside and shut the door behind him.
They waited in silence. Both of them, Ben knew, could feel the tension.
After about thirty seconds, Angelo nodded. 'Go for it,' Ben said quietly, then watched as his Italian friend disappeared out into the elements.
Now Ben was alone. He listened carefully at
the door, his ears straining for the sound of the panthers attacking. But there was nothing. Just the noise of the rain and the wind. He tried not to think of what had gone before: the plane, the alligators, the panthers. The poster he had seen spoke of pythons too. That would be the icing on the cake, he thought to himself glumly as he waited for the time to pass.
Then, when the moment arrived, he took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped outside.
At first he was blinded by the rain. Ben barely took in his surroundings as he rushed to the truck. It was a sturdy-looking thing – a pick-up truck, bright red with huge, off-road tyres. There was a front cab, and the back was covered by a thick fabric that was flapping in the wind but seemed robust nevertheless. Ben sprinted to the front passenger door.
It was only when he got there that he realized something was wrong.
He blinked as he looked through the window and checked again that his eyes weren't deceiving him. But there was no doubt about it.
Danny and Angelo weren't there.
A sick feeling went through him. Almost involuntarily he spun round to see what had happened to them. And it was only then that he saw him.
Danny was standing right behind Ben, only a metre away. His hair was blowing in the wind. In his hands he gripped the shotgun. It was not pointing in Ben's direction, but was held by the barrel. Like a bludgeon.
And Danny's face was set, his eyes narrow.
'I'm sorry, Ben,' he said, quietly but without any real remorse. Without another word he slammed the butt of the gun down on the side of Ben's head.
As he did so, the wind shrieked horribly. It was the last sound Ben heard before he passed out.
Chapter Twelve
When Ben awoke, his head was in agony.
He was lying on his side, his face pressed against something cold and hard. His cheekbone juddered uncomfortably against the surface. Thanks to his grogginess, it was perhaps a minute before he realized that he was travelling in a moving vehicle.
He groaned and tried to put his hands to his head. It was only then that he realized his arms were tied tightly behind his back. He struggled to release them, but without any luck: something was digging deeply and painfully into his wrists, and the more he moved them, the worse it hurt.
It took a supreme effort for him to force his body into a sitting position. Outside the wind was still howling. It made the vehicle shake, which did nothing for the bruises on Ben's body or the pain in his head.
All around him it was dark and gloomy, but he could make out the figure of Angelo, unconscious beside him. His friend was also tied up, and an ugly welt on the side of his face suggested that he had received the same treatment as Ben.
With that thought, Ben remembered Danny. The way he had come up behind him; the implacable look on his face as he raised the butt of his gun and slammed it down on the side of Ben's head. How long ago that had been, Ben couldn't have said; but he worked out that they had to be in the back of the truck. Painfully he turned his head to look towards the front of the vehicle. There, separated from him and Angelo by a pane of glass, was Danny. Their companion was looking straight ahead, clearly focusing on the difficult drive. It was gloomy outside, and the headlamps of the truck illuminated the terrifying way forward. The rain was still sheeting down, and unknown objects were flying around in the air. Danny's gun was resting on the passenger seat next to him. The moment Ben saw it, his mind started working overtime. How could he get his hands on the weapon? How could he get himself and Angelo out of this situation? And what on earth was Danny playing at?
Just then, he noticed the older man's eyes flicker in the rear-view mirror. Danny looked momentarily surprised that Ben was up and about, but as their eyes locked his expression soon settled down into that deadpan look that Ben found so unnerving.
And then, to Ben's surprise, the truck ground to a halt.
Danny grabbed the shotgun and jumped out of the vehicle. Moments later there was the sound of the rear doors unlocking and he appeared at the back of the truck. The gun was pointed directly at Ben.
'You,' Danny said curtly. 'Get out now.'
Ben blinked. There was something different in Danny's voice. Before he had spoken with a perfect American accent, but now there was no hint of it. Instead he spoke his perfectly good English with an accent Ben could not locate.
'What for?' Ben demanded.
'I said, get out.' Danny nodded the gun in Ben's direction, making it clear that there was no option but to do as he was told.
Ben squirmed out of the back of the truck. When his feet hit the ground he nearly fell from the dizziness and his head grew even more painful. A wave of nausea passed over him. As he bent double, Danny grabbed him roughly by the arm and moved him round to the front passenger door, which he opened. 'Get inside,' he barked.
Ben felt himself being pushed up into the cab of the truck and, still dizzy and nauseous, he was unable to struggle as Danny pulled a seat belt around his body – more, he suspected, to stop him from moving than out of a deep concern for his welfare. The man then took his place behind the steering wheel, tucked the gun away by his left-hand side and carried on driving.
It was a couple of minutes before Ben felt well enough to speak. 'Why did you put me in the front?' he whispered hoarsely.
Danny's eyes flickered towards him, but then immediately went back to the road. 'You are a clever boy, Ben,' he replied solemnly. 'Too clever for my liking. I feel more comfortable with you sitting here next to me than thinking of you plotting with—' His lip curled slightly. 'With him back there.'
Ben closed his eyes and shook his head. None of this made sense. None of it. Danny seemed like he had turned into a different person. In the last couple of hours, Ben and Angelo had saved his life; and he had saved theirs. So what was he doing now? Why had he tied them up? Why did he sound so full of hate?
'Danny,' he rasped. His voice was dry and he realized he was incredibly thirsty. 'I don't know what this is all about but you've got nothing to worry about from me and Angelo. All we want to do is find the others, to warn them about—'
And then he stopped.
He opened his eyes and slowly turned his head towards the man sitting next to him as an awful realization fell upon him.
'What happened to your American accent?' he asked sharply. And then, as the pieces of the jigsaw started suddenly to fall into place, 'Your name isn't really Danny, is it?'
Danny's eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't reply.
Ben found himself cursing inwardly. 'It's you, isn't it?' he demanded. 'The second terrorist. It's been you all along.'
Danny kept quiet at first. He just kept looking straight ahead, his face emotionless. When he did finally speak, it was slowly and precisely, though still in the accent Ben could not identify. 'If you knew what I was doing,' he said, 'you would understand that it is not the person sitting in the front of this truck that is the terrorist, but the person lying in the back.'
Ben's lip curled, just as he had seen Danny's do. 'Look, Danny,' he spat, 'or whatever your name is. If this is all about Angelo's dad and his business, you should know that there's a difference between the two of them. From what I can tell, I don't think Angelo even likes the guy.'
Danny's face twitched. 'Maybe,' he replied. 'Maybe not. The boy's father, though, has caused untold sorrow to my family. It is only right that he suffers just as we have done.'
'What do you mean?' Ben asked, his face screwed up with confusion. 'What are you talking about?'
Danny's eyes flashed. He started to speak, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden howling of the wind that knocked the truck from its course and caused him to concentrate even harder on his driving. Ben's body thumped against the side of the car, and he winced as the ropes that were tying his hands together dug sharply into his bleeding wrists. When the gust had died down, Danny tried again. 'I don't have to explain myself to you,' he stated.
Ben felt anger rising up in him. 'Oh no?' he demanded. 'I saved your life
twice today. I reckon that deserves a bit of an explanation, don't you?'
Danny's gaze didn't veer from the road as he negotiated the difficult drive. He snorted. 'I woke up this morning expecting never to see another sunrise. I'm glad I'm still alive, but only because it means that I can see through what I started.'
'And what's that? Tell me, Danny.'
Danny was breathing heavily now, as if he was trying to control his own anger. 'You won't understand.'
'You know what?' Ben asked. 'In the circumstances, I think I'll give it a pretty good go.'
There was a moment of silence between them, broken only by the howling of the wind outside and the struggling of the engine as Danny continued to negotiate the road east. Finally, though, he spoke. 'Very well,' he said. 'I am doing this on account of a young girl, dead because the oil men have raped my people's land.' He spoke with such passion that Ben was forced into silence, and as Danny continued to speak, it was clear that he found what he had to say unbelievably difficult.
'I come from a small island many thousands of miles away from here,' he said emotionlessly. 'You will not have heard of it. There are few who have. We live simple lives, and that makes people in the outside world think we are simple. Stupid. But we are not stupid. We feel things deeply, just like everybody else. We love our land and we mourn the death of our people. For too long now, we have been ignored by the rest of the world, apart from when they want something.' Danny let out a noise that sounded almost like a laugh. 'When that happens, they think they can just take it. Our little island is rich in resources. We choose not to exploit them because we prefer to let the earth be. Some months ago, however, an oil company – the one owned by his father – arrived. They ignored our protests and brought in their machines. It was one of those machines that killed the little girl.'
As Danny spoke, Ben found himself transfixed by the man's face. It was difficult to tell with the jolting of the vehicle, but he was sure he could see tears welling up in Danny's eyes.
