by J. M. Madden
After a few hours Fontana roused a little. “What the fuck did you people do to me?”
Aiden leaned over him so that he could see his eyes. “You did it to yourself, buddy. Tried a mudslide with no seatbelt.”
“Huh,” he murmured, drifting back to sleep.
On the second day they heard a helicopter approaching.
“Put the fire out!” Wulfe hissed.
They scrambled to smother the fire with big armfuls of dirt. It sat smoldering for a few minutes, just long enough for the helicopter to fly over top of them. Once it was gone, none of them moved to light the fire again until Fontana began to shiver.
“Think it was the Bitch?” TJ asked.
Aiden nodded. “Definitely.”
They kept watch over Fontana for three days before he managed to sit up and talk to them. The leg seemed to be healing, though it was an angry red all around the break. His ass, on the other hand, had healed perfectly, though there was a bit of a pinch of skin on one end where Aiden hadn’t gotten the sides perfectly aligned. He would have a scar, but it didn’t seem to hurt him when he sat up.
Fontana drank more water and ate some food, then went back to sleep.
“When do you think he’ll be able to travel,” Wulfe murmured.
Aiden shrugged. “A couple days probably, and then only part of the day, I would think. That was a devastating injury. It’s not healing great.”
Wulfe nodded, whittling a piece of wood with the long knife. They had settled into a routine in the camp. TJ maintained the fire while Aiden and Wulfe gathered the wood, and whatever protein they managed to find. The stream had proven to be full of small fish, just the right size to skewer and roast over the fire. Aiden was glad to have real cooked food, even if it was a little bland.
They took shifts to guard at night, but they hadn’t seen any kind of habitation or even human movement at all. TJ had climbed to the top of the incline to reconnoiter, but there was nothing other than jungle canopy. No smoke, no breaks in the tree lines where roads might be, nothing. When he’d returned he’d seemed a little pissed off. Aiden could feel the desperation and frustration rolling off of him.
“We’ll make it out of here, TJ.”
The other man had shaken his head and slicked back his short dark hair. “It doesn’t seem like there’s any end to it. How do we know we’re even heading in the right direction?”
Aiden motioned to the sky. “We know where the sun rises every morning. That tells us which direction we’re heading.”
As an Army Ranger, TJ actually had more frontiering training than Aiden did, but he didn’t have the confidence most Rangers had. Aiden tried to reinforce him, but a lot of that would have to come with age, and accomplishments. Or maybe he’d had it but Shu had taken it from him. TJ had only been in the Rangers about five years before he signed up for the Spartan Project.
On the fourth day after Fontana’s injury, he got up and walked. There was a significant limp, but it held him long enough to get him to the stream to wash off four days of body muck. Wulfe waded in with him just to be sure he didn’t drift away, but Fontana waved him off. “I’m good. Yes, it’s achy, but it definitely doesn’t feel like it was broken. More like a heavy bone bruise from a car crash or something.”
That was amazing. The break had been the worst injury TJ, Aiden and Wulfe had ever seen, and Fontana didn’t even remember it.
“Do you remember me digging the machete out of your ass?” Aiden joked.
Fontana looked at him for a long moment before shaking his head. “No. And I don’t want to.”
They feasted on the little silver aracu bait fish that night, then woke the next day and broke camp. They had debated staying one more night, but Wulfe and Aiden both felt something oppressive coming from the west. They weren’t sure what, but it was motivating them to move.
TJ had found a spot where the stream narrowed and they crossed. Aiden took the lead, swinging the machete from side to side. It was hard going because of the vegetation and his inexperience in hacking at it, but after a while he learned how to maximize the damage his swings did. He wasn’t as good as Fontana by any means, but the other man seemed content to follow, his limp growing more pronounced as the day wore on.
When the sky opened up on them about midday, they decided to take a break. They could barely see each other ten feet away through the downpour. Finding a broad-leafed plant, Aiden dropped down to the ground beneath it.
The rain combined with the humidity made everything miserable. More often than not they slogged with damp clothes binding in the cracks and bends of their bodies. They’d made sure to keep all of the paper items they’d stolen from the camp sealed into the plastic bags for security reasons, and so far everything seemed to be holding.
They’d only traveled a few miles before they had to call a halt. Fontana tried to protest but Aiden could see the pain in his face. “We’ll make it up another day,” he told the man.
That night they each had an oat cake. After a week of being on the run, about half of their food was gone. They’d rationed as much as they could and supplemented with the fish, but they were still putting out far more calories than they were taking in. They needed a large source of protein. With that thought in mind, after they’d made camp, Aiden set out to hunt.
If you fire that weapon, Wulfe warned, they will find us.
I don’t think so.
But he took the machete with him just in case he found something else.
Aiden walked for miles, it seemed like, the clothing dragging on his body as it showered, then cleared. He dodged a huge spider web and saw the tail end of a coral snake disappear into the brush. He debated snatching for it because it would be a good source of protein, but he’d tangled with venom before and he had no desire for a rematch.
They weren’t staying long enough for him to set a trap, but maybe if he could set a snare they could check it in the morning on the way out. This was to the east of camp and they would be headed in this general direction tomorrow. Besides, he’d already reconned the path.
Using a short length of the nylon rope he’d cut off, he found a decent game trail. A sapling just to the left of the trail would serve as his spring. Finding a couple of sturdy little branches, he worked them down with the machete into the configuration needed to set the snare. He didn’t have any bait, so he would have to rely on the snare itself to set off the spring.
Pretty iffy odds hoping a critter would stick his head through this little tiny loop of line.
It was what he would hope for though.
There was nothing in the snare the next day. Fontana managed to walk a little further, but still needed to pull up early. Aiden went out with his snare pieces and set up another trap.
When they passed by it the next morning, it wasn’t tripped either. So, he dismantled the pieces and packed them in his bag.
Their food was running dangerously low. They were down to half a dozen oat cakes. Even if they only ate half of the oatcake per person, that would only feed them for three days.
They needed actual food.
Wulfe had tried some of the plants to see if they were edible, but they had left him doubled over in pain in the bush. They couldn’t afford to be too picky, but if it was going to set them back from where they were, it wasn’t worth the risk.
It was TJ that got them food the next night. They’d stopped to bed down for the night and he’d gone off to piss. He didn’t realize he’d parked himself over top of a boa constrictor hidden in the knee of a tree until the animal moved.
When he walked back into the camp with the six-foot animal hanging limp from his hand they all cheered. Aiden immediately started gathering fire material. Wulfe cleared out an area for the camp. They would be staying for a while now, and Fontana guided TJ in how to skin and dress the reptile.
The fire was a bitch to start. They finally resorted to using one of the manila folders, stuffing the papers into another folder. The meat was only good for so lon
g, and it was a huge source of protein for them. Finding material to feed the fire was difficult, but they persevered, drying wood by the fire to be burned later. Finally, they wrapped the clean stretch of meat around a tree branch and began to roast it.
It was a boon to their spirits as well. Just the thought of the meal ahead was enough to get them laughing again. As special forces they were used to extraordinarily hard conditions, had to train through them, but at the end of the day they were still human. The relentless slogging dragged them down emotionally as well as physically.
Just the sight of the snake was enough to re-energize Aiden. They would make it out of this damn jungle alive and they would figure out how to make the Silverstone Collaborative pay for what they’d done. And maybe, maybe, he’d be able to connect with his brother.
The gnawing hunger in his gut got worse when the smell of the meat reached Aiden’s nose. It was only knowing that if he ate it raw he’d be doubled over in the bush like Wulfe had been a few days ago. It took an agonizing twenty minutes to cook the meat fully, then Wulfe began tearing pieces off the stick and handing them out.
It melted like butter in Aiden’s mouth. He’d had snake before, many times in fact, but for some reason this one tasted the best. Maybe it was because they were so hungry.
They ate well that night, and overall had a better outlook on their situation.
“I like dinner at your house, TJ,” Aiden told him, grinning.
The younger man laughed and it was the most lighthearted Aiden had ever seen him.
Chapter Seven
In the downtime from hiking, they developed exercises to work their minds. When they’d been in the camp, he’d noticed the ’static’ from the people around him. As he talked to the other three they realized several things. They had to be closer to feel good emotions radiating off a person, usually within about ten feet. But if the person was having a bad day, it seemed to radiate out further. And whether they realized it or not as soon as they started the Ayahuasca serum their own moods began to deteriorate because they were picking up on the negative feelings of the techs and doctors around them that didn’t like living in the camp.
They needed to find a way to block out all that miscellaneous noise.
Fontana had come up with the wall building exercise. Three of the men would focus on the fourth, barraging him with negative ideas and thoughts and feelings. He would have to imagine building a wall inside his mind to block all of that noise out. It was hard, and they realized they needed to start out one on one before adding the other two. So, they broke into teams and practiced barraging and shielding, then they would switch partners. Fontana was the best at barraging and Wulfe was the best at shielding. Watching the two of them go at each other was fascinating. From the outside Aiden saw two men sitting on the ground. Their fists were clenched and their bearded faces calm. But if you looked from the inside you could see how viciously they fought against one another.
Aiden much preferred to barrage than shield. It didn’t seem to take as much energy to strike. Or maybe he was just better at it, like Fontana.
Even Wulfe had issues holding his shields when they all barraged him, though, and it was an exercise they needed to practice a lot.
They’d been in the jungle for two weeks when they hacked through the vegetation and onto a road. Aiden damn near fell on the blade he was so surprised. Looking one way, then the next, he stared until the other men joined him.
“Do we follow it?” TJ asked.
“It would make our lives a hell of a lot easier.”
Fontana’s leg was still giving him grief. It would definitely be easier for him to travel on the road, even as rough and rutted as it appeared.
“I don’t believe this is a high traffic area,” Wulfe said. “If we hear a vehicle coming we can dive into the brush.”
They all agreed and headed east. They finally began to cover some serious ground. Aiden felt like they covered more that day than they had in five days blazing through the bush. Only once did they have to vacate the road, and that was to a man on a motorcycle. When they got back on the road they settled into an easy jog. In spite of the hunger constantly riding all of them, his bones settled into stride a lot easier than when they’d first escaped. Fontana maintained for at least two miles before he had to pull up to a walk.
That was worrying. For some reason this break wasn’t healing as well as others they’d had. Aiden worried for his buddy, because that limp could threaten his life someday.
They walked into the night, resting only briefly to rehydrate and check the map. It looked like they were a few miles from a village called Muráta. There was no information about it, just the six letters of its name and where it was in relation to the coast. They were still such a long way from recovery, but he had hope. Now that they were near a road they would travel a lot faster than they had been, and if they could find a vehicle or someone to give them a ride they would be set.
Wulfe had suggested that his brother was probably the best option to call. Nikolas Terberger was a powerhouse who owned a major technology firm in Berlin and he would have both the savvy and money to get them out of the Amazon. They just had to make it to a place big enough to support a telephone and an airport. They had Dr. Shu’s satellite phone, but they refused to use it until they were close to extraction. The Collaborative would figure out the phone’s location as soon as it powered up.
So, they continued to walk. Aiden’s white nurse shoes were damn near falling apart after hiking so far. Surprisingly, the sandals Fontana and Aiden had found were holding up well, better than Aiden would have ever expected.
Their clothes were ragged though, and they weren’t much better. They’d eaten the last of the snake already and they needed to find something else to eat. Maybe, in the village, they could barter with the last few flashlights they had or something.
They started seeing signs of the village the next morning. A motorbike roared past them heading west. They hadn’t even heard it before it came around a bend toward them. The man on the bike looked at them curiously but didn’t stop. Once he was passed, they all shared a glance. That man was a major security issue. They needed to be more careful.
Breaking into the brush they reconned the village, gauging size and how many people it held.
No more than about twenty families, and they seemed destitute. Aiden knew just by looking that they didn’t have anything to spare, and there was a general feeling of hopelessness radiating from the area.
Should we even go in?
Aiden glanced at Wulfe, who shrugged his broad shoulders. I don’t think they’re any better off than we are.
They were just about to leave when they saw a white man walk into the village.
The man had to be part of a research team or something, because he had two porters carrying large steel boxes coming up the trail behind him. They’d crossed over that trail earlier and assumed it went to a field or stream, but they hadn’t explored more than a few yards before circling on around the village.
The man looked around for something, but when he didn’t see it he motioned to a shade tree, where the men dropped the four boxes and he sat on one. It was obvious he had been here before because no one raised a ruckus.
The four of them looked at each other, wondering whether they should approach the man or not.
TJ with the lame ass camper routine again? Fontana asked.
TJ rolled his eyes. Thanks.
The idea had merit, though, even he realized that. He resettled the bedraggled backpack over his shoulders, sighed, and headed through the brush.
The villagers seemed to be used to the man in the khaki shirt and hat but when TJ walked out of the jungle, voices raised in surprise. TJ waved weakly, and Aiden knew it was only partially a show. None of them were at peak performance right now thanks to lack of decent nutrition.
The man on the box stood up, looking tense, but TJ went to a couple of villagers, asking for help. One woman waved him toward the w
ell in the middle of the village. She gave him a surprisingly sweet, gap-toothed smile, nodding that he was welcome to the water.
That was exceedingly generous, Aiden thought.
TJ moved to the well and hauled up the bucket tied to the rope. Then, very carefully, he filled the water bottles he had. Before he lowered the bucket he grabbed the cup off the peg at the side of the well and scooped out a cupful, drinking thirstily. Lowering the bucket back down into the water he returned to the woman and offered her a flashlight.
The woman took it with a giggle, pushing the power button on and off again much like the child from the first village. TJ grinned with her, asking her a few questions. She waved down the road shook her head a couple of times. TJ was getting ready to leave when they heard the roar of vehicles coming down the road.
They were all a little stunned. With the thickness of the vegetation sound didn’t travel through it well, and with the bend right outside the village there’d been a pretty complete sound break.
What do I do guys?
Just stay where you are, Wulfe told him. Stick to your story.
Three vehicles pulled into the village. Two looked to be Brazilian Army jeeps, and the other appeared to be an aid worker’s vehicle. It had canvas sides and seemed to be loaded with supplies. As soon as they parked, several unarmed men jumped down from the panel sided vehicle and started unloading boxes. The villagers cheered and started heading for the supplies.
At the same time, though, two of the soldiers spied TJ and started heading toward him, weapons up and ready. TJ held his hands up, showing them he was defenseless, and let them pat him down. He hadn’t entered the village with any of the weapons the group had.
Aiden, watch TJ, Wulfe ordered. I think they have something else going on here.
The second Army jeep held the person in charge, because he walked across to the man that had been sitting on the boxes. Some tense words were exchanged and the white man shook his head, obviously trying to disavow knowledge of TJ. He motioned to the silver boxes and the Army commander moved over to them. Flipping the lid on one he drew out a long weapon.
