Ramsey's Gold

Chapter Twenty

Thunderstorms moved through the valley while Drake and his companions ate breakfast on the veranda. Fortunately, the morning’s downpours had tapered off enough to continue with their training by the time they’d finished eating.

Paolo’s wife cleaned up the dishes as they returned to their rooms to collect their things. Drake’s body felt every minute of the prior day’s abuse: his shoulders and arms were stiff, and his muscles protested as he climbed the stairs. He withdrew the big knife from his backpack and strapped it onto his hip, the weight oddly reassuring. The knife seemed like a very real link between father and son, and he resolved to wear it for the duration.

The slog to the clearing took longer than the prior day. Flocks of birds rose into the gray sky as they passed, the air smelling like ozone and wood smoke, the tall grass rustling softly from stray gusts of wind, the trail now mud, pulling greedily at their shoes with every step. When they arrived, Jack stood by the same spot and gave a brief lecture on knife techniques, and then demonstrated them with a short length of dowel he’d found in one of the drawers.

It was immediately obvious why anyone with a functioning brain would want to avoid a knife fight at all costs. When Jack demonstrated the most effective attack, it was truly terrifying. He held the dowel low by his right side as he used his left to block any potential threat. Drake could see why no matter how skilled the defender, he was going to get cut — in most cases, badly cut.

“Add to the pure violence of a knife-wielding attacker your inability to do much to stop him, and you’ll see why it’s the absolutely last thing you ever want to deal with.”

They continued, and after a morning focused on knives, they munched on sandwiches while Jack chatted about guns.

“Let’s talk about silencers. Specifically, on pistols. First, they’re called suppressors, not silencers, by anyone who knows anything about them. Second, with ordinary ammo they’re still really loud. So if you’re thinking you can be like one of those guys on TV and sneak up on your target and pop him without anyone noticing, think again.”

Drake nodded. “What I’m getting out of all this is that it’s hard to kill someone, hard to do so quietly, and hard no matter what method you use.”

Jack grunted. “Yep. But at the end of the day, a gun’s the surest chance you have, so if you can’t dodge a fight altogether, which is what I keep coming back to as the smartest choice, it’s how you want to take on your attackers. But the same things that will make you harder to shoot will work against you. Moving, for instance.”

“I found that out the hard way back in the Rio slum,” Drake affirmed.

“Five more minutes and we’ll start on knots. Allie, this will be more interesting for you. I’ve never really shown you most of these.”

Allie didn’t look convinced. “How about some kind of super ninja skills? That’s what I want to learn.”

Jack grinned. “The takeaway from all this is that your best skill is the ability to stay calm under pressure. That’s a very rare trait. Most soldiers can’t manage it. So that’s what we’ll be practicing. Because to have a chance against professional killers, who will be calm, you need to match them, or you’ll be dead before you know it.”

A cloudburst hit in the afternoon and they had to run for the house, getting soaked by the warm rain in the process. When they arrived, Jack stood under the overhang, water dripping off his nose, watching the deluge.

“That’s one of the things I remember about the trip with your dad. The rain. It hits out of the blue, and it soaks everything. That was the worst part about it. Worse than the bugs, the snakes, you name it. Constant rain. At least at this time of year, it might be a little better than when we were there — right in the middle of the wet season.”

“How long were you in the jungle for?”

“Almost a month. Seemed like it was never going to go anywhere, and then your father discovered the remains of one of the outposts built along the trail from Peru to Paititi. We actually found that in the area that’s laughingly referred to as their Matsés National Park. Don’t let the name fool you — it’s a frigging swamp. Mosquitoes the size of baseballs, venomous insects too numerous to count. Small wonder nobody’s bothered to do much exploration there.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it, Dad,” Allie said.

“Nothing I say will prepare you for the reality of that place — and the Brazilian side’s as bad or worse. This is a vacation at the Ritz compared to what we’re going to be going into.”

A car bounced up the drive, both sides covered in mud up to the windows, and Jack squinted to make out the driver. “That’s my meeting. You two get cleaned up. No point in trying to do anything more with this coming down. If all goes well, we’ll be getting out of here soon.”

Drake and Allie exchanged puzzled looks and she shrugged. Drake followed her into the house, both trailing puddles of water on the rustic hardwood floor. Allie climbed the stairs and looked over her shoulder at Drake with a small smile.

“You want the first shower?” she asked.

“I was thinking I could wrestle you for it. Sort of like combat practice.”

“Haven’t you gotten beaten up enough? If I didn’t know better, I’d have said he wanted to torture you.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything. Plus, you looked way too amused by my misery.”

“That’s not true. I mean, not completely true. You risked your life to recover my purse. That earns a lot of points, Ramsey.”

“Could have fooled me,” he said, and then changed the subject. “Who’s your dad meeting with, anyway? He’s being very secretive.”

“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t read too much into it. He’s always like that.”

Drake paused by his bedroom door. “You can take the first shower. I’m good.”

“A real gentleman, I see. Tell you what, I’ll buy you a beer in half an hour. In the kitchen. I saw they stocked a few six-packs.”

Drake grinned. “Deal. Let me know if you need your back scrubbed or something,” he tried, and immediately regretted it.

She took it in stride. “Did you make my dad the same offer?”

Drake recovered quickly. “You bet. Especially after he spent the last two days beating the snot out of me.”

Her frank gaze met his with a look he couldn’t read. “I’ll leave you some soap. You look like you need it. Go on. I’ll be out in a few.”

He took the hint, his arms sore from hundreds of blocks, and pushed into his bedroom, wondering simultaneously at Allie’s unreadable demeanor and the visitor who’d come in the middle of a rainstorm to the Brazilian hinterlands to meet with Jack on unknown business.

The rain beat a steady tattoo on the metal roof as he stripped off his clothes and wrapped a towel around his waist. The storm had blown through, the insistent percussive attack now little more than a drizzle. Drake stretched his arms over his head and yawned, and then moved to the window to look out. He squinted through the grimy panes of glass at the area beside the house where the newcomer was parked, and saw nothing but muddy puddles of water and two ruts already filled from the downpour.

The car was gone.