River of Nightmares

by Alex Archer

  Certainly plants were part of this operation, but not all of it. Drug smuggling maybe, that was a good bet. South America had plenty of drug cartels, and maybe Dillon’s company was the front for one, shipping out illegal drugs along with legitimate medicinal samples. It could be a good cover and possibly go unnoticed by authorities on either end. Dillon certainly didn’t want any authorities poking around out here—otherwise he would have reported Moons and Edgar. It was the fact that he hadn’t reported the pair that made Annja certain something untoward was going on.

  But what?

  Annja loved a mystery, especially when it would keep her mind off her associates and what they were going through. She didn’t have all the puzzle pieces yet, and so she couldn’t fathom what the picture was supposed to look like, but she knew just enough to know that Dillon was not the righteous cure-finding man he let on he was. A glance at the sky; it was going to rain again and soon. The soft rumble of thunder punctuated that thought. She hunkered down to watch and took the camera out of the bag.

  Two men wearing heavy flannel shirts emerged from one of the smaller tents, lights affixed to the tops of their hard hats, rollerblade pads on their knees. They tugged off their flannel shirts and shook them out and spread them on the empty table, like they were letting the rain wash them. They laughed, and the taller one slapped his fellow on the back.

  Annja turned off the camera, stuck it back in the bag, and hid it in a hollow spot in a kapok tree. She’d need to get inside that smaller tent to see what they had been doing, and so she’d probably have to wait until nightfall.

  Curiouser and curiouser. Flannel shirts in a tropical rainforest? Lights on their hard hats? And the kneepads... It spelled caving.

  There was a cave under Dillon’s camp. And that’s why he didn’t want the authorities here—he didn’t want them seeing the cave, or maybe what was inside it. Annja considered herself a veteran caver. She was suddenly itching to do a little spelunking.

  Chapter 20

  There was a loud bang, and Annja knew that wasn’t from a possumwood tree.

  “Hands up! And drop the machete.”

  Annja recognized the voice...Joe, the big guy. So much for her taking the stealth approach. His warning gunshot alerted the two men with the kneepads. She turned and saw that the Joe’s gun was pointed straight at her, rain beading up and running off the barrel.

  “Ham said your boat left at dawn. You should’ve been on it. Would’ve been healthier for you.”

  She could take him easily and without killing him, so she did just what he wanted. Annja dropped the sword. He came close, looking in the ferns and not seeing the weapon. She’d willed it away.

  “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?” She glanced over the barrier into the camp and saw that four men were there now, all watching.

  “The machete,” Joe said. He ran his foot through the ferns. “Where is it?”

  “You’re close enough,” she said.

  “Close enough?”

  “For this.” She kicked high, the hard heel of her boot connecting with his wrist. The gun went flying. Before he could react, she followed through with an old-fashioned uppercut to his jaw. It wasn’t enough to drop him, but he was staggered. She turned sideways and drew her hand back, the sword forming. She swept it in, all her strength behind it, the flat of the blade striking him in the chest.

  He’d been shouting something, but it came out a strangled, unintelligible sound that was cut off by a boom of thunder.

  The shouts of the four in the clearing were quite clear, however. They were hollering “Ham!” She hadn’t seen guns on them, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have them. And who knew how many more men were inside the tents?

  She changed the grip on the sword and cracked the pommel on the side of Joe’s head, dropping him. She didn’t want to kill him. All life was precious—even his. Again, she wondered how many men were involved with Dillon’s operation; she didn’t want to face an army.

  “Get her!” one of the men shouted. “Take my gun. Shoot her!”

  Okay, at least one of them was armed.

  “Put her out of our misery!” called another.

  “Wake Ham! Someone wake Ham!”

  She remembered that Hammond was the tall, skinny one that carried two guns.

  “I’ll get the boss. You get Ham.”

  Annja darted into the depths of the forest as thunder rumbled loud enough to make the ground shiver. She hadn’t seen Dillon, and she’d been watching the camp awhile. But obviously he was around somewhere. She ran to the northwest. There was a gap in the canopy and so the ground vegetation was thick and no paths evident. Annja couldn’t effectively run here because the moss was deceptive, hiding snake burrows that her feet could sink into and roots that spread away from trees and tried to trip her. She dismissed the sword, as it was more trouble than help at the moment, getting snagged by vines and caught on low branches.

  The air she sucked in was warm and wet, cloyingly humid. She heard the men behind her, ungainly and thrashing in their haste. It sounded like one of them fell. They were shouting to each other...helpful because she could angle away from their voices. She couldn’t hear everything they were saying for the racket they made, but she caught pieces of it.

  “—Creed, the television woman—”

  “Boss didn’t want her dead. He’d said—”

  “Her boat left.”

  “Ham watched it.”

  “—take her alive.”

  “—made them sick, had to leave the—”

  “No guarantees on—”

  “Damn, look out—” Another man tripped and fell.

  “Spread out and keep quiet.”

  They’d stopped talking. Now they were smartening up, but Annja had acute hearing and detected them working through the tight foliage.

  When the ground cover started to clear, leaving only moss and low ferns, she slowed and hugged one trunk after the next, some of them as big around as an elephant. Up against one, she registered how dry the bark was. The lower canopy in this spot was so thick that the rain wasn’t reaching the ground. In fact, the way directly ahead was dark like a cave, the weave of branches so close, the air sickly sweet with death. There was little growing at ground level in that direction, not enough light stretching down...some seedlings, vines and patches of fungus, mostly bare earth. Near a cluster of seedlings she saw a monkey carcass. Large colorful insects feasted on it.

  She hid in the darkest section, careful not to step on fallen branches that could snap and give her away. Annja didn’t hear the men and wondered if she’d lost them; she hoped not. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  Annja held herself still against the trunk of a “tourist tree,” so called because its red, peeling bark was reminiscent of sun-burned tourists. Dillon’s crew probably had been here, as half the trunk was stripped of its bark. At least they hadn’t taken it all. She’d had tea made from such bark one night on the Orellana. The captain’s chef had told her he always kept some on board because it was a good remedy for insect bites and sunburn. But he said it also made an excellent tea. She’d concurred; it had a rich, yet subtle flavor.

  There! She heard a branch snap, someone coming closer. Annja wasn’t running from the men—had that been her intent she would’ve headed to the Dslala village where there was safety in numbers. She was too curious about the hidden cave beneath Dillon’s tents to take that tact. Rather, she was attempting a divide and conquer approach. She hoped to take them down and go back to the camp for further snooping.

  She breathed shallowly and sorted through the sounds. Something was in the branches of this very tree, high overhead. Something small, judging by the slight noise, maybe a parrot or monkey that was otherwise being silent. It was probably watching her. There were a few bare
ly audible thunks of what looked like pieces of overripe fruit falling from a nearby tree, a bang in the distance from a bursting possumwood pod. The ground trembled with a boom of thunder. And then came what she was listening for...the footfalls of someone trying to be quiet, but missing the mark because the ferns rustled and the ground crunched under his boots. Annja held her breath, opened her hand, summoned the sword, and waited.

  He was one of the cavers, face smudged with dirt and sweat. He’d ditched the hard hat, but in his haste he hadn’t taken off his kneepads. He was following a narrow trail she hadn’t noticed, but it led by her tree. He had a machete in his right hand, a walkie-talkie in his left; it crackled faintly. Annja preferred a straight-on fight, but right now she just wanted to pick off these guys one by one. Focused, she stepped away from the trunk, eyes on the ground so she wouldn’t step on anything that might give her away. Not on a twig or nut husk. Slow.

  Slow.

  She was behind him, shoulder brushing another “tourist tree,” the papery bark peeling. He was still oblivious, and he was actively searching, gazing to his right and left, then down at the trail like he was looking for tracks. He froze abruptly and Annja held her breath again. A few large drops of rain found their way through the tight trees and ran down her forehead. She could tell he was listening, too. Someone else was moving through the brush at a right angle and well ahead of them.

  “Matt?” her quarry whispered. Whispers always seemed to carry. When he didn’t get an answer, he held the walkie-talkie to his face and repeated the name. “Where are you? I’ve spotted a native, black as coal and carrying spears. No sign of the woman.”

  Annja took advantage of her quarry’s distraction. She slipped behind him, raised the sword with both hands, and brought the pommel down on the back of his head. She’d not put everything into the blow—Annja just wanted him stunned, not dead. As he dropped to his knees, she belted him on the side of his head. He fell forward on the walkie-talkie, and she turned him over. He was breathing, but unconscious. She grabbed the radio and darted away.

  “Jerry?” There was static and then the voice again. “Jerry, come in.”

  Annja turned down the volume and retraced her steps back to her “tourist tree.” She could see the fallen man from here, and watched as a Dslala—one of the dreaming trio judging by his midnight-black skin—came upon him and knelt to investigate. The Dslala had a spear in one hand and a blowgun in the other, had a small pack on his back. He laid the weapons down and jiggled the man. She stopped herself from approaching. Annja didn’t know a word of the Dslala language, and wanted to keep the tribesman out of her plans. He prodded the body harder and put his head to the man’s chest. Then he swung the pack around and proceeded to take whatever the fallen man had in his pockets and put them in the pack. The Dslala tugged the man’s belt off and strapped it around his own waist, took the machete, and left.

  She smiled, and then doubled back to get closer to the camp again and find more of Dillon’s men.

  The rainforest was disconcerting, and she wasn’t wholly sure she was headed in the right direction. Dillon’s men had been this way at some time, however; she spotted a tree that had been thoroughly tapped for its sap, another that had vines harvested. Dillon obviously was culling plants for research; her brief tour of his laboratory tent proved that. But what was he doing with a hidden cave? Were the operations connected? She had to get underground and get some questions answered.

  She hadn’t traveled more than a dozen yards when she saw another of Dillon’s men. He was wearing dark green coveralls. A radio was strapped to his waist, and he had a machete in each hand. Better than him having a gun—the noise from a gun would alert the others.

  Annja inched toward him, easy because his back was to her. His head was cocked, listening, and he was ambling one way, and then the next, stepping over a fallen limb, poking at bushes with the machete, maybe thinking she was hiding in one, spooking a lizard and laughing as it scampered down the path. The ground rocked with thunder once more, and unseen birds started squawking, leaves overhead rustling and causing water they’d been catching to come down. The man pivoted, looking up, but catching sight of Annja.

  “Got her!” he hollered. “I found the blue-skinned one!” He held the machetes close and charged, wisely picking his feet up as he went so he wouldn’t trip.

  Annja obliged him, summoning her sword, and in the same instant she wrapped her fingers around the pommel, bringing it down and around, catching one of his machetes. The machete spun away. The man blinked in surprise, but recovered, countered and took up a fencing pose as he jabbed forward with his remaining machete, forcing Annja back.

  “Don’t know where you got that,” he said, a nod referring to her sword. “Nice one. I think I’ll keep it when I’m done with you.” He twirled the machete with practiced grace.

  She was surprised; it looked like he had some skill. He lunged, another fencing move, a fast strike that she deflected with her sword. He stepped back and displayed an evil grin.

  This was proving slightly more difficult. She’d hoped to clock him into unconsciousness like she had with the first guy she’d come across.

  “Matt says to keep you alive. Boss doesn’t want any blood in the camp.” He lunged again and their blades caught, making a rasping sound as the edges slid against each other. His was a heavier weapon and not meant for being used in a duel. It was designed to help a traveler cut through the underbrush.

  “Matt!” he hollered again, thumbing his walkie-talkie with his free hand. “I said I’ve got her and—”

  Annja lunged and he quickly parried; she jumped back, came in again, and he managed to dodge her. That she wasn’t trying to kill him made it more difficult. She looked for an opening so she could use her sword to knock the wind out of him. He had her at an advantage, as it became clear he was no longer following Matt’s instructions to not hurt her.

  She parried his next few blows, still looking for an opening and at the same time trying to wear him down. When his swing slowed she became the aggressor forcing him back until his free arm scraped against a tree. When he parried this time he didn’t draw back. Instead he counterstriked, his machete sliding down her blade again and not giving her a chance to defend. The machete sliced through her shirt and drew a line of blood.

  “Matt!” he tried again. This time the walkie-talkie crackled loudly.

  “Coming!” a voice answered. “Keep the mic on and keep talking so we can find you.” He tried a feint, but had telegraphed it, coming at her from a different angle.

  She dodged and tried yet another move. This one was tricky, a counterattack in which Annja extended her right leg behind her and reached down with her free hand to catch herself from falling. Supported like a camera on a tripod, she aimed her blade up and jabbed him in the side. She could have run him all the way through, but her design was merely to wound him and put him in a panic.

  It worked.

  “Demon from hell!” The injury stoked some fire in him and he came at her faster, his grace discarded in lieu of more power in his swings.

  Annja rotated her blade as she parried, then feinted herself, leaping to his left side and striking hard with the flat of her sword. The blow caught him in his sword arm and before he could raise the machete to parry her next swipe, she used a saber maneuver, a precision attack stop cut. He tried to block her, but she hit his arm again with such force he cried out, dropped the walkie-talkie, and shifted the machete to his other hand. In that instant she upped her tempo, caught his blade, and nearly wrenched it away.

  “Damn you!” He hissed at her, sweat pouring in his narrowed eyes. “Demon!”

  “I’ve been called worse.” Annja did another stop cut, and when she pulled back she heard someone thrashing toward her. She needed to end this now, and so she gave him an opening, at the last moment dropping below his blade and attacking from b
eneath. She spun the sword and rammed him in the gut with the pommel, at the same time hooking her foot behind him and bringing him down. He tried to pull the machete up to counter, but she drove her heel onto his hand, hearing the crunch of his fingers as he howled.

  The thrashing was louder. Her new assailant led with a gun and fired, the bullet hitting the tree at eye level, inches from Annja’s face. She jumped behind the tree and then raced to the next, hoping her feet wouldn’t get snagged by anything in the ground cover—she wasn’t watching her step. A heartbeat later she realized her mistake. The tip of her boot caught under a knobby root and she went flying, the sword spinning away and disappearing. She rolled when she hit, a bullet spitting into the ground where she’d been a second before. Jumping to her feet, she cut to her right, thinking to come up on her new foe from another angle. She’d lost her sense of direction, the forest a blur of green and brown, the shadows so thick it looked like night was descending.

  “I see her!” This from the gunman. “Len is down. But I see her!”

  She couldn’t tell if he was speaking into a walkie-talkie or if another of his buddies had arrived. Annja sprinted behind another tree, held her breath, and listened. Two sets of boots walking nearby, voices talking softly, no static from any walkie-talkies. Then something louder: “Len? He’s bleeding, but it doesn’t look bad. Do you still see her?”

  “No, but she has to be close. Here, take my gun.”

  Two men, one gun. Easy odds. Annja kept listening, trying to place where they were in relation to her position, direction and distance. The rain must be coming down harder now, as a trickle was finding its way to the ground. Overhead something moved through the trees, rattling branches and making quick and harsh sounds... A few bangs followed and she couldn’t tell if they were from a gun or possumwood pods bursting. She gave up trying to guess where the men were and looked out from behind her tree.