Instigator

by Fiona Quinn

  “Luck!” Lynx called as the line went dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gator

  Friday, The Trailhead, North Sumatra

  “Is it safe here?” It was the Japanese guy. Taro Eto. The group that held all the Davidson party goers, except for Papa Bear Davidson had all arrived on the same privately charted jet. Then the group had split up, again. After the men in the party had been bounced and jostled over the backroads to the trailhead and the sun had risen higher in the sky, several of their group had decided to stick with the driver and luggage as they headed down to the coastline. From there the walk to the yacht mooring was a mere three kilometers. Daniel, the head of their security detail, had warned them that they could only offer these guys one body guard. The men seemed to think that was just fine.

  Their expedition group was down to eight businessmen, two women, and four body guards – him, Blaze, Daniel, and Ralph. They had a guide and a photographer, but how this photographer was going to take pictures of great men doing great things out here in the forest was beyond Gator. These titans of industry already looked like they were melting and that was the photo shoot of them smiling and waving as they got off the plane and loaded into their jeeps.

  “I heard that there was unrest,” the East Indian said. He seemed to know Taro - they grouped together frequently. Gator made sure to blink and take still-shots of them interacting.

  “The bandits are near the orangutan sanctuary, in north,” the guide said, as if this should quell any concern.

  “So it’s safe here?” Taro pushed.

  The guide shrugged. “Safe enough.”

  “Safe enough?” Taro turned to his friend. “What does that mean?”

  Gator shook his head. They were barely into the tree line. This was gonna be fun.

  The guide stopped and pointed at a leaf. The photographer hustled forward and took a picture.

  “What is that?” Taro asked.

  “They call it poison leech,” the guide explained.

  A poison leech. Gator made sure to get eyes on it, so he could recognize it along their walk.

  Christen pulled her arms in tight to her chest. Their bodies brushed as she moved past Gator. He sucked in a breath to help him brace against the emotions raging through him in that moment. If he could just hold her to his heart, just for a moment, he might find some respite from the storm she’d kicked up in his system.

  Nadir hustled toward the guide. “I want to see the orangutans in the wild. Is it possible that there are some that live in these trees?”

  “Not here. North,” the guide said. At least he pointed due north when he said it, that gave Gator a little comfort that he knew where he was going. Gator had his GPS zipped into his thigh pocket. This trail was already in the downloadable maps – it wasn’t like they were bushwhacking. It wasn’t a wide, well-worn trail, but it was in pretty good condition.

  “Where the bandits are?” Taro was asking.

  Nervous little fucker.

  “Yes,” the guide replied patiently.

  “Are we staying near here tonight?” Taro asked.

  “Too dangerous at night. You go way out in the water for to be safe,” the guide said.

  Then they walked in silence.

  About two kilometers in, Blaze asked if everyone was hydrating. They all wore backpacks with the survival ten. An emergency tent, fire starting equipment, a space blanket…most importantly everyone had a camelback water bladder and a hose to suck from. As Blaze asked the question, the hikers dutifully put their hoses in their mouths and took a few swallows.

  “I’m going to keep reminding you,” Blaze said. “In the humidity, your body has to work harder to cool you down. There’s no evaporation to help you out. Drinking is very important.”

  Gregor, Karl and Nadir had clustered together. Christen and Red had inserted themselves near their group. Gator walked just behind them Taro and the Indian guy hiked right behind him budged up tight, sometimes stepping on his heels. Gator needed to get this Indian guy’s name, he kept listening for it in conversations…Neither he nor Blaze were issued the usual headshots and roster of names at the beginning of the mission. It seemed Daniel liked to hold his cards tight to his chest. Odd. Unprofessional. But that had been Gator’s take on the guy since he’d first seen him step out of the limo in Dar es Salaam.

  “I knew this woman once,” Red gave Christen a nudge and a significant look that was lost on Karl, Nadir, and Gregor.

  Gator wanted Gregor to be nowhere near Christen, though he knew it was Christen and Red’s job to get in close.

  “She was a numbers cruncher at my office.” Johnna said with a lazy tone of shooting the shit. “One day I was in the breakroom, and she was all done up, fresh manicure, new highlights, new outfit. I asked if she was having a job interview or something special that day, and she said she was celebrating. I asked what she was celebrating, and she said, ‘water’.” Red picked up her hose, took a few swallows, then flipped the nozzle to off and let it drop over her shoulder.

  Christen caught Gator’s gaze for a long moment. She murmured. “Well that was an unexpected response. Water.” Red put her hand on Christen’s elbow and leaned in to whisper. “You have a little drool, just there on the side of your mouth.” She wiggled her finger on the corner of her lips to indicate where.

  “Funny,” Christen said and her face flamed pink. She sent an embarrassed glance his way and Gator grinned in response.

  Red had noticed that there were sparks flying, too. But then he remembered his talk with Lynx and the grin fell off. This was no time for flirtin’. His practiced eye swept the foliage for any sign of danger.

  “Seriously,” Red kept talking as if nothing else were happening. “She said she was crying into her pillow one night, stressed to the max because she couldn’t make ends meet. She tried to figure out what she could change so she had money in the bank at the end of the month, and she decided that one of the best things she could do for herself was to drink more water. And by that, I mean nothing else ever, only tap water.”

  “Water only?” Karl asked. “How in the world would that help anything? A good stiff drink might do her better.”

  “I can see that as a strategy.” Christen said. “If she got a five-dollar coffee every morning, that’s a hundred and fifty dollars a month right there. If she skipped a soda at lunch, say two dollars a day that’s another sixty bucks.”

  “Yup. And she didn’t swerve even if someone else was buying, or it was there for free, because she thought then she might just say, ‘Well, I’ll just have this one cocktail with my friends, I deserve it after a long day like today.’”

  “Do the math,” Christen said. “Two cocktails on a Friday night, two on a Saturday night. A bottle of wine to sip while cooking during the week that’s another fifty bucks a week. She’s up to four hundred and ten dollars. Add orange juice at breakfast, and random other drinks… Yeah, I could see how she might be drinking down five or six thousand dollars a year.”

  “Exactly.” Johnna took another sip of water and raised her chin toward Christen reminding her to keep drinking. Christen took a few sips while Red continued. “That was what she calculated, but she said that the savings were more than that. When she stopped drinking alcohol she stopped going out with her drinking pals who talked each other into dinner out and getting the desert. When she stopped drinking alcohol, she stopped buying weed. No weed, no munchies and no midnight calls to the pizza delivery guy.”

  Nadir had a bemused smile on his lips. Gregor was considering the women with a hard-calculating stare. Gator was worried that the women weren’t pulling off their cover story and that Gregor might be guessing that these two fit, intelligent women weren’t who they said they were.

  “No bail money, no attorney and court fees,” Christen said.

  “I hadn’t figured those numbers in.” Red snapped a branch and threw it out of the pathway. “When she stopped drinking the coffee, she stopped going to the coffe
e shop. She wasn’t tempted by the smell of blueberry muffins. She said in the first month of drinking only water she had an extra seven hundred dollars in the bank.”

  “No way,” Karl said.

  “Way. She also lost ten pounds without even trying. I couldn’t tell the difference, but she could and that’s what counts. She spent some of that savings to reward herself, and now she’s got some money in the bank and is much happier. Water can giveth and water can taketh away, depending on her mood.”

  “Amen.” Christen said, then she twitched as if a shiver were running down her back.

  After that, the walk was silent.

  Blaze walked point up the path, with his GPS in hand, talking with the guide. Gator looked back to see Ralph behind his two timid shadows, then three other businessmen, and then Daniel was a speck in the distance taking up the rear. The farther they walked, the more their group was spreading out as those with more athletic ability kept a quicker pace. Gator didn’t like that they were so far apart. But there was little he could do about it.

  The heat was oppressive, and Gator noticed that almost everyone was wearing new footwear. He wondered if they had broken their boots in properly or if everyone was getting massive blisters. They weren’t complaining though. That was good.

  “Drink,” Blaze called.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Gator

  Friday, Rainforest, North Sumatra

  They came around a bend and the tree branches opened up. They found themselves in a massive clearing. Homes were built in neat rows and topped with boat shaped roofs. It looked more like a shipyard than a village. As the group huddled around their guide, he described the architecture and how it served the villagers well during the rainy season. Many of the homes were hundreds of years old, he explained, and were still used by the same families, today.

  “Now, gentlemen.” The guide failed to address the women, or maybe his English was poor enough that he thought that the term was inclusive. “I know you’re here to take fabulous pictures. Mr. Davidson, your host, told me that he had planned to have you pictured with the orangutan. As this is not possible. I have produced an even better photographic opportunity for you.” He sounded like a carnival huckster to Gator. “I will be introducing you to the village holy man. He is of the Christian faith but as those who came before him, he blends his Christianity with the beliefs of his ancestors.”

  There was a general discomfort in the group. People shifted from foot to foot.

  “Yes,” he chuckled. “I see that you’ve been told that these villagers were once head hunters, and they ate their enemies. But thankfully, this is not on the menu today, since you have provided your own caterer.”

  There was a bit of nervous laughter amongst the men.

  “Today, we will meet with the holy man. He will prepare you, then we will walk on the burning embers! What wonderful pictures of you walking bravely across the hot coals!”

  Hot coals. What?

  “After this we will show you our warriors as they dance and leap the boulder.” He turned to Karl. “You say boulder?” He pointed to the large rock in the middle of the open space. It was about shoulder height to an average man.

  “Boulder works,” Karl said.

  “And they will jump this for the video.” He nodded at the photographer, who nodded in return. “Then you will leap over the boulder for photo opportunity. Before you leap, you eat. American chef is there behind the houses preparing your meal. All food you know and enjoy. I promise you, no cannibal meat.” He grinned broadly as if this were a great joke.

  No one in the party seemed to think it was funny. A couple of them pulled out their phones to see if they had signal and looked up at the cloud covered sky.

  The guide saw this and misinterpreted. “Unusual day. The weather is changing. We think maybe a storm later. Not now, though. Tonight. This is new. This weather. Climate change.”

  That last bit didn’t seem to go over well with these men. They weren’t in the business of worrying about climate change. They were—as far as Gator could tell—petroleum giants. Either producers or consumers.

  The guide opened his hand toward the end of the row of houses and set off.

  Gator was unsettled. There was a weird vibration about this place. He’d felt that way in some places in the Middle East. A shimmer of something. An accumulation of undefined energy. It raised his hackles. He sidled toward Blaze.

  “They’re going to walk on hot coals?” Blaze said under his breath. “We can’t medevac out of here.”

  “My guess is one guy steps in, burns his foot, screams to high heaven, and there ain’t no other takers on the opportunity. We have burn bandages enough for that in our first aid kits. We can take turns fireman carrying him outa here.” His gaze scanned over the group. “Maybe we can get a little one to go first.”

  Blaze shifted his focus over to the group. “Keep Gregor away. I’m not sure how we’d wrangle him down a path.” Blaze slapped a hand on Gator’s shoulder. They moved behind the group where they were listening to the holy man explain his ancestral beliefs, his words being translated by their guide.

  Gator moved into the woods and scanned for anything that needed his attention, lifting his feet high as he made his way through the foliage. Blaze stood to the side of their group and caught his eye. All was well there. Gator increased the distance and made another sweep.

  When he got back to the group, they were seated on benches that had been carved out of logs and had been worn over time to a satin finish. The holy man raised his stick and the sounds around them stopped. The birds, the insects, the frog calls stopped. What had been a loud buzz of ambient noise became eerily silent. Gator was instantly focused. This weren’t normal.

  The holy man called to the sky then threw fists full of herbs on the fire. A shower of sparks flew up making everyone gasp. The photographer was snapping his pictures of the show. Gator caught Blaze’s eye. Blaze gave him a one-sided smile. Look at this show, it said to Gator. But Gator was on alert. The bugs didn’t stop humming all in accord for nothin’. He’d seen the power of magic on dark nights in the bayou where voodoo was a way of life. There was strength in this holy man’s incantations.

  Smoke billowed and cloaked their group, the air was still and the humidity high. It held the thick cloud in place, stinging their eyes, making them cough. More herbs, more sparks, more smiles on the faces of the group. Even nervous-as-shit Taro was smiling.

  The holy man stamped his walking stick into the ground three times and swirled his hand in the air as he called out what sounded to Gator’s ear like an invocation. Gator watched as the faces of those around the fire slackened. He wondered what plants had been thrown on the flames. He sent a glance toward Blaze to get his gut check of the situation. Blaze was leaning backward into the tree trunk, looking drunk on the experience. Eyes shut. The same slackness about his face.

  Gator looked at the other two guards, the guide, and the photographer guy. They had succumbed to the smoke and the chant. Gator was the only one standing on his own two feet. The only one with his eyes open. He was afraid to step closer and breathe the fumes. He wondered if this was all part of the preparation for the fire walking. Truth be told, he didn’t know what to make of this.

  Whooeee, I have seen some strange Voodoo shit. But this here takes the cake. His thoughts seemed to have physical density, and they wended their way over to the holy man.

  The holy man turned toward Gator. And though his mouth didn’t move, Gator heard, “Welcome.”

  Without forethought Gator pressed his hands together over his heart and bowed.

  “This is but a dream.” The holy man held his arms wide. “We live through thousands of dreams in this life-time. We live through thousands of lives in our soul time. We enter one life with birth and return to the whole with death. As the water comes from the sea and falls again into the sea. From the sea. To the sea. Dreams of our lives are like our lives in one life.”

  The words we
re like a dance. A spell. They swirled around Gator. Making sense. Not making sense. Gator needed to make a sweep, needed to make sure the area remained safe. He needed to check pulse points and respiration on the group to make sure they were dealing okay with the drugs that filled the air. But he couldn’t move from where he stood, his eyes locked on the holy man. Gator had never met anyone this powerful before. Formidable. Gator wasn’t afraid. Perplexed? Yes. Curious? Definitely. But he felt nothing malevolent here.

  “What brought you to this place at this time?” The question came on the wind moving from the holy man’s mind to his. The man hadn’t opened his mouth; he couldn’t speak English if he did. But Gator knew the question was posed. It was the kind of question that Lynx would ask. She didn’t believe that anything happened by chance. She thought that people moved in and out of our lives purposefully. She’d say that Gator’s being here now and having this experience now was a gift that would serve him. He could almost hear her whispering those words. But it was just the wind, he told himself.

  Gator had no answer as to why he was in this place or why this time. But it made perfect sense in the grand scheme of the energetic shit-storm he’d been living through that this was happening. Why not throw a little shamanic-voodoo-Sumatran holy man hallucination into the mix? Man, Lynx was going to laugh when he told her about this.

  The holy man rested both hands on his staff. “You have walked the Earth many lifetimes. You have been accompanied by two women. One is a woman who has fought beside you and been your bosom friend – I see her as a wild cat, her spirit animal. She is your great friend. And you think of her now.”

  Shit.

  The holy man lifted his arm, the sun-faded red cloth of his cloak draped and rippled in the now turbulent air. “You came for her.” He pointed to Christen and a dragon breathed fire through Gator’s system. This guy needed to drop his arm and leave Christen the hell out of this.