Passenger 19

FORTY-FIVE

He was as motionless as the earth itself, only his eyes moving to track the boot. A size twelve combat model, Davis guessed, standard issue footwear for every army. He watched it turn a quiet half circle. A soldier being cautious, looking and listening, wondering where his comrade had gone. Davis felt his chest rise and fall rhythmically on the damp forest floor. Silent intakes of moss-scented air. Controlled exhalations, warm and moist. He shifted ever so slightly, grounding to a position from which he could spring if necessary. His right instep found purchase, and the weight on his left elbow shifted to a hand.

There were no more whispers. The man had become wary — if they met it would be on level terms, neither surprised. A radio crackled to life, breaking the silence, and the second boot shuffled into view. A rustle of fabric as the man frantically tried to quiet the speaker. It was a mistake. And for Davis, information. A radio meant this was a commander at some level, probably a noncommissioned officer, or whatever the right-wing paramilitary equivalent was. It implied he was experienced, and by extension, that he knew how to fight at close quarters. More relevant for Davis — this was the man who’d tried to kill him.

He wanted nothing more than to launch at that moment. The problem was distance. The boot was twenty feet away and not getting closer. At that distance, any experienced soldier would sense his rush and bring a weapon to bear — the man wouldn’t be here unarmed. A rifle, a handgun. He would pull the trigger before Davis covered half the ground. Of course, in the heat of the moment, there was a good chance he’d miss with the first shot. Most did. But there was also a chance he’d have a gun capable of full automatic fire, and that Davis would be laced in seconds with more holes than an old shoe. So he forced himself to be patient. Jen was close, and she needed him to not do anything stupid.

The boots did a sudden one-eighty, and the scene quickly changed — now Davis saw one boot and a knee on the ground. The man had spotted or heard something, and he’d gone for concealment. Might it be Jen? Kristin Stewart?

His hand was forced.

Davis began inching forward, looking for every brittle twig and frond, trying not to disturb anything. He advanced ten inches, then twenty. The black boot and knee remained motionless. Davis edged closer, delicately, the only option when stalking a better-armed adversary. He was fifteen feet away when he heard a distant noise. A rustle of brush. Then everything went to hell.

The soldier jumped up and opened fire, a single blast that shredded foliage and scattered birds. Davis leapt to his feet and rushed forward, like a defensive lineman blitzing a quarterback. He saw the owner of the scarred boots for the first time, a massive bald-headed man with the stony eyes of a drill sergeant. A long-barreled rifle was close to his chest, and when he saw Davis coming he levered the bolt while shifting aim, going for center of mass. The center of his mass.

Davis flew the last five feet in a Superman pose, hands straining for the gun barrel. He swatted it at the moment of explosion, the gun’s report obliterating the sound of their collision. Davis tried to wrap up his tackle while keeping a hand on the gun barrel. Someone’s hand tripped the bolt, bringing a mechanical click but nothing else. The drill sergeant struck first, a stunning fist to the side of Davis’ head. The Colombian immediately twisted behind him, a move that suggested he was a wrestler, and before Davis could react, a monstrous forearm was crushing his throat.

He tried to pry the arm from his throat, but couldn’t wedge his fingers deep enough for leverage. He rolled to put himself on top, but even from underneath the massive sergeant held tight. With his airway restricted, Davis was burning oxygen at a far greater rate than he was taking it in. He tried a backward head butt, but missed the mark — the man had seen it coming and angled his head away. With tunnel vision setting in, Davis knew all his adversary’s weight and strength was going into one approach — a stranglehold.

He reached back with both hands, and on the left found a leg. With his last reserve of strength Davis split his own legs wide and pressed to standing position with the soldier on his back. Supporting five hundred pounds in a wobbling stance, he leaned forward and straightened his arm, flipping the man upward into an almost vertical position. Something had to give, and it was the arm locked across his throat.

The two men split, and both tumbled to the ground. When they rose, Davis was gasping for breath while the Colombian went for his weapon. The rifle’s chamber was empty, so the man gripped the barrel end and swung it like a baseball player chasing an outside curve. Davis rocked back just in time, the stock whooshing past his nose.

The bald man cocked his high-caliber club a second time, and said, “I will not be so kind to your daughter.”

He shouldn’t have wasted his breath to begin with, because he had his opponent down and hurt. Those words, however, proved a calamitous choice.

Davis was instantly revitalized, reminded of what was at stake. The Colombian came again with his bludgeon, a coup de grâce aimed at Davis’ skull. He was too close to miss if Davis backed away, which seemed the only defense. Instead Davis lunged forward, and the gun’s stock thumped weakly into his left shoulder. They met chest to chest, and Davis kept the momentum. He drove with his legs and lifted the sergeant a second time, a horizontal drive that ended three yards later against the trunk of a big tree. Mahogany or Brazilian cherry. Some granitelike Amazon hardwood.

This time it was the Colombian who had the air driven from his chest. The impact was cushioned for Davis, and he rebounded to one side, again keeping with the flow. With a hand locked to the gun stock he wrapped completely around the tree. The stunned drill sergeant tried to pull the gun back, and Davis allowed it to a point, the rifle ending flat across the Colombian’s torso. Before the man saw the danger, Davis wrapped his free hand around the other side of the tree and found the gun’s machined-steel barrel.

The two were locked on opposite sides of the tree, Davis with his face to the trunk and the sergeant backed against it. With a firm grip on either side the rifle, Davis pulled with both hands like a rower at a starting line. It wasn’t a rhythmic stroke, but one long continuous draw, the pressure increasing mercilessly. With the gun barred flat across the Colombian’s chest, the compression began.

The man realized his predicament. He squirmed at first and tried to duck underneath. Soon his legs were off the ground, but gravity wasn’t enough, and the move only increased the pressure. He clawed for Davis’ hands, yet with his own arms locked near the elbow, he only flailed and flapped, which did nothing to alter his dilemma. He was slowly getting crushed — a fate not unlike the one he’d tried to impart on Davis using an airplane wing.

Davis used the tree for leverage, working one knee upward and leaning back. The pressure increased markedly, and the first snap of bone rang through the forest. A rib most likely, though the sternum wasn’t out of the question. A guttural grunt soon followed, liquid and uneven.

Davis kept pulling.

The motion on the other side of the tree turned frantic, boots kicking and hands grasping, finding nothing but air. A minute later the man suddenly went limp. Davis didn’t buy it. He kept squeezing, levering all the strength in his legs and arms. That prompted a new flurry of pushing and pulling. Playing possum had been a gamble, but was probably worth a try. The Colombian finally got a foothold on something solid, and pried himself to the right. Davis felt his hands weakening, felt the gun sight cutting into the flesh of his palm. He didn’t let go.

The man again went limp, this time in a slow and uneven way. A rasp of air was followed by another snap, and then a third, neither of which drew a reaction. No grunt of pain, no spastic lunge. Nothing at all.

His arms trembling from fatigue, Davis finally let go.

He did a brief self-assessment, making sure nothing was missing, broken, or leaking, before walking around the tree with the rifle in his hand. The sergeant was not a pretty sight. His eyes bulged in death and his chin was covered in blood. His upper body was misshapen, nearly cut in two. He’d come to rest on one side, folded in half with a crease that belonged on a cardboard box.

“Jesus!” someone said.

Davis turned and saw McBain. He was standing ten steps away with a hand holding his opposite forearm — there was blood where the sergeant’s bullet had apparently found its mark. Yet McBain looked mobile, and there was a rifle slung over his good shoulder, likely taken from the first man Davis had encountered.

“I’ve been in the trenches,” said the DEA man, “but I’ve never seen anything like that. You just — you crushed him.”

Davis looked out across the jungle. “Happens all the time around here. You know, anacondas and the like. You okay?”

McBain nodded, still staring at the halved Colombian.

Davis said, “The good news is, we have three real guns now.”

“Actually,” said McBain, “I think it’s only one. I tried the Beretta but it misfired.” Then he pointed to the rifle Davis was holding.

He looked down, and for the first time recognized the gun as a bolt action Remington. Then he saw the problem — the barrel was bent like a steel banana. He dropped it to the ground. “Okay, one gun.”