Camouflage Heart

by Dana Marton

  She pulled until her shoulders ached, until she was breathing hard, sweat mixing with rain on her face. But she got the boat to higher ground, untied its rope from the palm tree and tied it up again to a tree a couple of yards farther into the woods.

  She waded into the water for the other boat, got in up to her chest before she reached it and realized she could do little. She had to untie it, let it move past the rock and tie it up again. Pulling it out of the water at this stage was beyond her strength.

  Using the rope to guide her, she made her way back to the palm tree, fighting against the might of the river that tried to take her with it. Nothing else mattered now but the next step, the next few inches to grab onto the rope. She lost track of time, concentrating on her footing, making her aching arms work harder than she’d ever thought they could.

  She reached the palm and found it standing in water now, the rope just below the surface. She tore at the swollen fibers but couldn’t untie it.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  She had to do something. They were too close to camp. The rain dampened sound, but the clanging of the aluminum boat against the rock was just loud enough so she couldn’t be sure how far it would be heard.

  She wrapped her left arm around the rope, grabbed on, then with her right arm pulled her knife and sawed through the knot. The next instant the current caught the boat and it lurched forward, pulling her into the water. She fell face first, went under.

  Freed finally, the boat was dragging her out into the deep water. It would drag her on, drown her, if she weren’t careful. She came up sputtering but refused to let go. She had lost her knife and hung on to the rope with both hands now. But her strength was no match for the raging river.

  She went under again, came up, coughing up water, struggling for air. She had only one choice, one thing to do if she wanted to live. She had to let go of the boat.

  Tears stung her eyes as she relaxed her fingers and felt the rope slip from her. She struggled to reach shore, got knocked under by a jumble of branches rushing downriver, but she got back up again. Nicky was out there somewhere, and Brian. And they needed her, counted on her. She had to make it.

  She’d lost her hat. Rain pelted her hard from above. She could see little to begin with, the water running into her eyes making things worse. She could make out land, just barely, only because the sky was a miniscule fraction darker above it then above the river.

  Swim.

  One hand in front of the other.

  Her boots were pulling her down, but she kicked wildly, refusing to give up. She had to make it. It wasn’t just her life at stake. Others counted on her.

  She went under, fought her way up again, coughed up the nasty tasting water. Kick. Left arm. Right arm. Breathe.

  She wasn’t making any progress, nothing but exhaustion to show for her efforts. Then she remembered Brian’s words when they’d crossed the river before, and she flipped on her back, swam for shore at an angle.

  She was shaking with fatigue by the time she reached shore and collapsed onto the muddy bank, letting the rain wash over her face.

  She had lost the boat. Their way to safety.

  It was one thing for Brian and her to try to walk out of the jungle. Taking a dozen hostages with them on foot, some of whom might be sick or injured, was another matter. How on earth would they find food for so many people? They had barely found enough by scavenging as they went, to feed the two of them.

  An explosion shook the air, coming from the direction of the hillside camp. Brian was out there, fighting guerillas, and she had his gun. Even if by some miracle he succeeded and brought the hostages with him here to their meeting point, one boat would not carry them all. Half of them would be trapped between the river and the pursuing guerillas.

  She had to go and warn him.

  Her teeth were chattering, her wet clothes pasted to her body, chilling her in the night air. Or was she getting some kind of fever? Didn’t matter, couldn’t worry about that now. The shakes probably came from the shock of having nearly drowned.

  Audrey pulled herself up and dragged her exhausted body forward, feeling around in the dark. She had to find the remaining boat and the gun, and then she had to find Brian.

  Chapter Seven

  Brian ignored the rifles pointed at him and kept his on Hamid. “Give me the hostages. You’re not going to get the money anyway. You took too many this time, foreigners. The government has gotten involved.”

  He scanned the room, if the place could be called that, walls carved from rock, the crates that stood in for furniture, his eyes hesitating briefly on the only other exit.

  “The government doesn’t know its head from its ass.” The leader seemed calmer than his men, his words slow, deliberate. He had a handgun tucked into his waistband, but he hadn’t reached for it. An elaborate tattoo decorated his arm—a leaping tiger with a crown on its head.

  “The army has you surrounded.” If there ever was a time to bluff, this was it.

  The man paused, his small brown eyes watching Brian sharply. “Why aren’t they here?”

  “I’m here. I’m the negotiator.” And the recon team, the main force, and the backup.

  “An American?” Hamid said the words with derision and made a dismissing motion with his hand.

  But as relaxed as he seemed, tension was thick in the air. Brian looked at the men, making eye contact with one after the other, trying to determine which ones were scared, which ones were angry, if any of them might get nervous enough to shoot without waiting for an order from the boss.

  When he turned back to Hamid, he made sure his voice was calm and even. “You kidnapped some Americans. Our governments are working together. Let the tourists go, they don’t matter to you. Why die for them? Stay alive to fight for your cause.”

  Silence followed his words, the sounds of gunfire barely filtering down to where they were. Hamid’s men were probably firing blindly into the jungle, but their panicked incompetence played right into Brian’s hands, making it sound as if a good-sized battle raged above.

  Hamid tapped his fingers on his gun belt. “What’s in it for me?”

  Brian relaxed a little. Good. The man was willing to negotiate. “They’ll treat you like a political prisoner instead of a criminal.”

  The man laughed. “One prison is the same as the other. If I let the tourists go free, I go free, too.”

  Brian shook his head, determined to play out his ruse. “Not gonna happen.” If he offered something that was too good to believe, Hamid would become suspicious. They stared at each other for a while before he spoke again. “The army came up the river by boat. No place to land a helicopter around here.”

  “So?”

  “They’ll have to take you back to the river. It’s the middle of the night. If you run into the jungle, they will never find you.”

  The man thought on that for a while. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I don’t care what happens to you. I get the American hostages home alive, my government will be happy with me, I get a promotion, the wife will be happy. End of story.”

  Hamid watched him closely. “I could give you a promotion.”

  Yeah, he probably could. He probably had money stashed away to finance his projects. “No can do, man. I’m the negotiator. I came down here, I have to come up with hostages.”

  “You don’t look like a negotiator.” Hamid glanced at his worn clothes.

  “I got pulled off another job. Didn’t have time to go home and change.” He smiled at the man. “It’s not your regular nine-to-five type of work. You should understand.”

  Hamid waited, looked him over again, shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”

  It would have been too easy, Brian thought a split second before the guerilla leader nodded to his men, and all hell broke loose.

  Brian ducked behind a metal desk, clipped Hamid in the shoulder on the way. The man went down. Brian let some bullets fly then took cover again. A couple of the
men were helping Hamid escape, the rest were shooting back. But Brian was the better shot. He had the room under control in five minutes.

  He kicked in the door in the back of the room, grabbed a flashlight, ran down the mineshaft. The hostages were a good three-hundred feet in, tied arms and legs, six Westerners, four Japanese, two Indian and an Orang Ulu man—a local tribesman Brian figured must have been their tour guide. Brian cut the ropes off him then handed him the knife to free the rest while he looked around, hoping to find another way to exit the mine. Nothing. The other end of the shaft was closed in.

  “Which one of you is Nicky?” he asked when he stepped back to the hostages.

  A petite blond stood up by the wall. He ran the flashlight over her face. She was Audrey’s sister all right, same eyes, same determined set of the mouth.

  “Your sister loves you very much,” he told her, then helped the last person shrug off his ropes. “Let’s go, people.”

  They followed him into the large room where he had fought with Hamid’s men. Some of the women sobbed at the sight of the bodies that littered the floor. He didn’t have time to worry about them.

  “Everyone who knows how to shoot a gun, grab one,” he said and riffled through the desk, stuffed handfuls of papers into his shirt before moving on.

  He went ahead to check out the main building, but found it empty. Not for long. Soon Hamid’s men would figure out there was no army shooting back from the forest and they would come back for him.

  Except someone was shooting back. He stilled. Through the window, he caught a glimpse of a flash of gunfire that came from the bushes, directed toward camp. What the hell?

  Audrey.

  It had to be her. What the hell was she thinking?

  She was no coward, and he liked that about her, but she had to learn to obey orders from a team leader when she was in a team operation. And he was the team leader here, damn it.

  “Let’s go. Keep down, get away from this building as fast as you can, too much explosives in here. Go to the right, into the jungle, and wait for me.” He turned to the Orang Ulu man. “You take care of them. Don’t leave.”

  “No, sir.”

  “What can I do?” One of the American men stepped forward, rifle in hand. He didn’t seem happy that Brian had given lead to a mere native.

  “You follow him.” Brian jerked his head toward the tribesman. “Keep quiet, make sure everyone stays together. Your life depends on it.”

  “I’ll take care of them. Don’t worry about it. Those sons of bitches out there have it coming—”

  “Your job is not to get revenge on the guerillas. You just focus on staying alive. Got it?” He waited until the man reluctantly nodded.

  He scanned the rest of the group, noted who took weapons and who didn’t. “Don’t shoot unless you’re shot at. Otherwise you’ll just draw attention to yourselves,” he told them, and hoped to hell they were paying attention.

  The night and the rain made for poor visibility, working in their favor. Brian killed the light then stepped outside. Using up the hand grenades in his pocket, he covered for the hostages until they disappeared into the trees. Then he headed for Audrey. Damn it. He’d told her to stay put. Now he had to get her and scatter the remaining guerillas before he could come back to use the radio.

  He crouched and just began to cut across the clearing when a group of men came around the side of the building, guns blazing. He threw himself on his stomach and did the best he could, but was nowhere near cover. Bullets slammed into the ground around him. Hard to shoot back without risking hitting the building—he was too close. If the explosives blew, he had a better than good chance he would blow with them.

  He crawled backward, using careful aim. Then someone from behind him sprayed the men with bullets, and the next second he was blinded and deafened by a ground-shaking explosion.

  He felt a pair of hands on his ankles, somebody pulling him toward the jungle. The gunfire had stopped.

  “Audrey?” He twisted onto his back.

  She let go of his legs and reached for his hands to help him up. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you find Nicky?”

  “She’s waiting for us in the forest with the rest.” He grabbed her and dragged her into the woods, into the cover of one of the larger trees, then leaning against the trunk crushed her to him, holding her for a long moment, feeling her heart beat against his chest. She was unharmed. Alive. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  She lifted her head, hesitated before responding. “The river took one of the boats.”

  AUDREY CRINGED. She should have done more, fought harder against the river. Their lives depended on their ability to get away. But under the considerable guilt, a current of joy spread through her veins, and hope. Nicky was alive and free.

  “The other one?” Brian asked as he moved forward carefully.

  What? Oh, the other boat. “I pulled it to higher ground. The water is rising fast.” She kept close behind him.

  “Must be raining even harder up the mountain.”

  “Did you radio for help?”

  He didn’t say anything for a while. “You blew up the radio.”

  Oh, God. First the boat and now the radio.

  He swore under his breath.

  She waited for him to yell at her, to tell her she had practically sentenced them all to death. But instead, he stopped, raising his hands to signal for her to do the same.

  She listened, but couldn’t hear anything over the rain.

  “Don’t shoot,” he called out.

  The next second bullets flew into the trees a few feet to their left.

  He pushed her down, flattened her into the mud, half-covering her with his body. The forest fell silent. “Don’t shoot,” he said again, his voice clipped with anger.

  There was some scuffle ahead, people talking.

  “Nicky,” she said, hope making her voice thick.

  And she could see a shadow separate from a tree, and heard her name called and she was on her feet, rushing forward into her sister’s arms, the rain washing away her tears as fast as they formed. “Nicky.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Are you all right?” They spoke at the same time.

  “Did they hurt you?” she asked, holding her breath until Nicky shook her head.

  Brian was right there. “We have to move out.”

  And she could see the rest of the people now, the darker shapes in the dark of the jungle, coming forward one after the other.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Brian was chewing out one of them.

  “Hey.” The man stood his ground, not bothering to keep his voice down. “You sent us into the jungle. We didn’t know if you were coming back or not. I have the right to defend myself, same as everybody.”

  Brian was silent. Ominously so. He was close enough so she could feel the anger radiate from his body. Audrey detangled herself from her sister and stepped between the two men. “We have to get going.”

  “He could have killed you,” Brian said.

  She’d never heard his voice so tight. “I’m fine. Everyone is fine.”

  He stepped away. “Follow me closely, watch where you step, it’s slippery. Make as little noise as possible. There are still plenty of guerillas out there,” he told the group, then turned and started out.

  Nicky came up behind her and took her hand. Audrey squeezed it, as they followed him.

  “Who is he?” her sister asked close to her ear.

  “Some kind of special forces,” she whispered back. “He saved my life, Nicky. He saved all of us.”

  “He’s scary.”

  She smiled. She’d had the same first impression of him. It seemed a lifetime ago. She shook her head in the darkness. “He is a hero.”

  “Where’s Trev?”

  “He sent the money. He’s probably in the country by now. I didn’t wait for him. I was so scared, Nicky,” her voice broke of
f.

  “I’m glad you came. Your guy is more help in this situation than mine would be, anyhow.”

  My guy? she thought, but for once, she didn’t mind being teased by her little sister. Over the last week or so, she had regretted every time she’d yelled at her when they were growing up for stealing her clothes or makeup, every time she’d been mean to her, made fun of her. God, it was good to have her back again.

  The rain was easing off. It stopped completely by the time they reached the water. The moon was out over the river, giving some visibility at last.

  Brian was going for the boat. The water had lifted it while she’d been gone, but the rope had held.

  One of the men came forward. “Where is the rest of the rescue team?”

  She recognized his voice. He was the same guy who’d sparred with Brian before.

  “This is it.” Brian wrapped the rope around his arm and pulled the boat in, fought with the current. A couple of the other men went to help him.

  “You gotta be kidding me. Is that the only boat?” The troublemaker was working up his righteous anger.

  “Yep.” Brian heaved.

  “We won’t all fit. I demand that my wife and I get on.” He raised his rifle without pointing it at Brian, but making his meaning clear. “If anyone should stay behind it’s you. Our taxes pay your salary.”

  She moved forward, knowing what was coming, but too late. The next second, the man was on his back in the mud, the rifle in Brian’s hands.

  “Take it easy, buddy.” One of the men who was helping with the boat came over and spoke to the one on the ground. “He saved our lives. We need to thank him, shut up and do what he says.”

  The guy sat up, looking taken down a peg or two. He had wanted to take leadership of the group, probably. And he knew he wouldn’t now. The rest wouldn’t follow.

  “Listen to me, all of you,” Brian said. “There is a fair chance that we can all make it out of here, but it’s not going to be easy. You are going to have to pull together. If you don’t, you’ll end up your own worst enemy. Two rules to remember—don’t fight each other, don’t fight the jungle.”