The Devil's Elixir

66

I could feel the tube pressing against my esophagus. I desperately wanted to gag, but I tried to slow my breathing, to ignore what the back of my throat was shouting at me. Navarro finished stirring the mustard-colored mixture and nodded to himself, obviously satisfied that his creation was ready. Stephenson was watching him, too, his face white and glistening with fear.

In three words, we were screwed. There was no way out of this. Tess and Alex would die—and not quickly—and even then it probably wouldn’t be the end. The monster would probably go after Kim, too. What goes around really was coming around. With interest.

I closed my eyes briefly and, for some reason, I had this thought that I wanted a priest. It gave me a small measure of peace. Navarro must have seen my expression shift somehow, even though half of it was incapacitated by the tube. A quizzical expression animated his face. For a moment he must have wondered why I wasn’t pissing myself and begging for my life. He needn’t have worried; after seeing what he did to Wook and Torres, I was pretty sure I’d become a gibbering wreck given half the chance.

What hurt most was I couldn’t even say good-bye to Tess.

“Ready?” he asked, as if my saying no would change anything.

He raised the end of the tube and began to pour the gloopy liquid into the other end. I could see it dripping down the inside of the tube. It would be inside me in seconds and, I imagined, in my bloodstream in minutes. There was absolutely nothing I could do, no fanciful ninja move that would whip my arms free and slaughter my tormentors in seconds, so I fought with myself to accept that. An odd thought sailed into my mind. For the first time in my life, I wished I’d let my hair down a bit more in college. Maybe tried hallucinogens once, so I had some idea of what was about to happen. Would have maybe helped dampen the fear I was feeling right now. And, apparently, I wasn’t going to get a do-over either.

My eyes were locked on the sludge oozing its way down the tube when a deafening noise cracked the air, accompanied by a sodium-white flare.

Flashbang.

The whole place shook.

Navarro dropped the bowl and spun his head away in total surprise—

Then another explosion, almost on top of the first. I summoned every iota of strength left in my bruised body and threw my entire weight to my left. The chair topped and flew, just as something flew into the room as another stun grenade filled it with blinding light.

The noise of the third flashbang was immediately replaced by the sound of machine gun fire from outside the building.

From my limited point of view on my side and pressed down against the floor, I spotted frantic movement around the room. Navarro may have been nuts, but he’d already well demonstrated that he was also a pragmatist when it came to self-preservation, and by the time the air cleared, he and his henchmen had already left the room through another door at its other end.

I craned my neck to try to get a better view, but I was facing the wall and couldn’t see anything. Then a familiar voice barked, “Get him up. The target’s heading back to the main house. Follow him.”

A couple of soldiers in full black Special Ops gear were all over me, and I felt the straps loosening and the tube being slowly pulled from my throat. I retched and threw up the bit of goop that had made it into me. My head was pounding. After giving me a couple of seconds, they dragged me to my feet, and I turned round to find myself facing Munro.

“You good to go?” he asked.

My head felt like it had been tossed through a giant pinball machine.

“How’d you find us?”

He dismissed it with a grimace. “Long story.”

“Alex, Tess—where are they?”

“In the main house.”

I snapped with surprise. “They’re not with you?”

“They’re in the main house,” he repeated, stern and a bit slower, like I was having trouble understanding the language.

I was furious. “Why didn’t you go for them first?”

“You were about to fucking die here, amigo,” he fired back. “You sure you want to second-guess my choices?”

I just glared at him in disbelief, then asked, “So where’s the damn house?”

“Follow me,” he said, pointing.

“I need a weapon.”

Munro swung his MP4 submachine gun off to one side, pulled his Glock from its holster, and handed it to me.

He moved to head out, then I remembered something.

“Wait,” I hollered. I scoured the room looking for the stainless steel vial that Navarro had shown us, but I was still dazed and couldn’t see it. I had no choice but to mention it.

“The drug. There’s a sample of it somewhere.”

I looked around urgently—then I spotted it, lying innocuously on the floor.

By Munro’s feet.

He read my reaction, followed my gaze to it, and picked it up. Then, with a smug grin, he pocketed it.

“Come on,” he barked, then he set off toward the house.

I followed, hot on his heels.

We followed a narrow passage that led to an old stairwell, then we were outside again, and we sprinted in a slight crouch along a tree-lined path that led across a football-field-size landscaped quadrangle and back to the hacienda. Off to the right, I spotted several men from Munro’s unit who were locked in a manic firefight with Navarro’s guards, the latter firing away from behind a pickup truck while three of Munro’s guys had taken cover behind a stone water trough.

Munro didn’t even cast a look at them as he ran toward the house.

We were still more than a hundred yards from the house’s main entrance when I saw Tess run out of there. I could see blood on the side of her face, but she was moving smoothly and didn’t seem badly hurt. I didn’t need any more information to know that Navarro had taken Alex and that she’d been helpless to stop him. I gestured with my arm and shouted out, “Stay down,” and as I pushed myself to move even faster, the sound of an engine straining to its limit rose above the gunfire. It was coming from the other side of what looked like some derelict stables off to the left of the house, and through an arcaded walkway, I glimpsed a Jeep tearing off away from us.

Navarro. And Alex.

Munro turned to me and pointed at the other side of the main house.

“I saw a couple of quad bikes over by the cemetery.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgement from me, he banked away and was running full tilt toward the handful of broken grave markers that were visible at the left-hand end of the house. Every muscle in my body wanted to run directly toward the engine noise. If we lost sight of Navarro and Alex, I was worried we’d never find them again, but Munro had made the right move. We’d certainly never catch the Jeep on foot. I also couldn’t take the time to go to Tess, much as I wanted to. Agonizingly, it would have to wait. So I ignored the thudding pain in my back and the torment in my head and forced myself into a run.

I caught up to Munro at the far end of the cemetery. He had already started one bike and yelled out to me, “Come on.”

I hopped onto the second four-wheeler and churned its engine to life, then twisted hard on the gas handle and powered off after the Jeep, with Munro no more than ten yards behind me.

We drew level with a big dilapidated stone building at the opposite end of the quadrangle, and it was clear that Munro’s unit was gaining the upper hand in the firefight with Navarro’s hired guns. Two of them were slumped dead behind the truck, which was riddled with bullets and not going anywhere anytime soon.

I gunned the quad and sped toward what looked like some stables, Munro now riding level with me.

As we rounded the stable block, we could see the dust cloud thrown up by Navarro’s Jeep as it was swallowed up by the dense tree line that marked the edge of the main compound.

We aimed our bikes at the jungle and charged after the Jeep.

The road was cut through the thick foliage that barely let any light through. In virtual darkness, we wound our way through some undulating ridges, then a couple of minutes later, we hit a sun-blasted clearing and slid to a halt.

Three different roads wound away from us in three entirely different directions.

And we had no way of knowing which one of them Navarro had taken.