The Edge

Chapter Twenty-Two

We were in some sort of old wooden barracks that turned and twisted about like a rabbit warren. The first two rooms we looked into were empty, but in the third one there was a man sleeping in a lower bunk, his back to us. He didn't stir. We quietly closed the door and kept looking. Savich and Sherlock had to be in one of these rooms.

We eased out into the corridor again. We came to a corner, and I motioned Laura to stay back while I went down on my haunches and took a quick look. I nearly lost my tortillas I was so startled. Not fifteen feet from me were at least ten men of all ages, dressed in fatigues and combat boots, all at stiff attention, their weapons held against their shoulders, their backs to me. They were silent, not a single twitch. I couldn't even hear them breathe.

An older man, in his early fifties, stood in front of them. He wore civilian clothes, a white linen shirt open at the neck, tan slacks, and Italian loafers. He was perfectly bald. It looked like he shaved his head for effect. He was a large man, nearly as tall as me, and solid with muscle.

He was carrying a white lab coat over his arm. He was speaking quickly in Spanish. I understood most of it. I slowly eased back as he said, "… we must find the man and the woman. They are dangerous American agents here to destroy us. If you see them, you must not kill them. That is forbidden."

I whispered to Laura, "A dozen soldiers ahead. The man who called the others off us, was he really big, muscular, and bald?"

"No, it was another man."

"This one seems to be the boss. He's giving them orders about us. He doesn't want us killed. I suppose that's good news. Oh yeah, he's a sharp dresser."

"Let's get out of here." We came quickly to the other end of the long corridor, to a big double door. I tried the shiny brass doorknob.

It turned easily and silently. I went in low and swung around, fanning the room with my weapon. It was a very fancy office at first sight, with lots of gold-trimmed antique furnishings and several incredible Persian carpets. It wasn't much of an office. There wasn't a telephone or a fax or a computer, nothing to use to get help.

We eased inside and closed the door. I turned the lock. "Eljefe's office," I said. "The boss of this place.

Probably it's the bald guy out there with the soldiers. I wonder who the hell he is. Damn, I don't even see a phone. They must communicate by radio."

Laura was already behind the huge Louis XIV desk, going through the papers. Behind her was a large glass window looking out over a small walled-in, English-type garden filled with tropical flowers and plants. "Damn, it's all in Spanish and I can't read it," she said. "Quick, come here, Mac."

Someone tried to turn the handle on the door.

I heard shouts. More pounding. A gun butt smashed against one of the doors, then another. The expensive wood splintered.

No time. I prayed and grabbed Laura's left hand. We took a running start, crossed our arms in front of our faces, and crashed through the huge glass window behind the Louis XIV desk.

We thankfully landed on grass, rolled, and came up instantly into a run. We were in a private flower garden, perfectly manicured and maintained, and I, who loved flowers, didn't give a shit.

Ain't nothing easy, I thought, as I smashed the butt of my weapon against a small gate in the far corner of the garden. The aging wood splintered and fell outward. We were out of the compound, only to stop cold. There was absolutely nothing in front of us except jungle and a three- or four-foot-wide moat of sorts, probably to keep the jungle from encroaching into the compound every few days. It was filled with brackish water that looked like it could kill anything that even got close to it.

I took her hand again, and we jumped the moat. We heard shouting behind us. Guns were fired over our heads. Good, they hadn't forgotten el jefe had told them to keep us alive.

We ran into a dense green wall of vegetation that blocked out the sun within a couple of minutes. It was going to be a race, us against a dozen men native to this place.

I'd never been in a jungle before. The floor wasn't a thicket of plants and trees and bushes as I'd expected. We didn't need a machete like the movies I'd seen had portrayed. It was nearly bare, only a single layer of leaves covering the ground. But even that single layer was rotten. Everything around us was alive and green or rotting.

It got darker as we ran, the green over our heads forming an opaque canopy. Only the thinnest slivers of sunlight managed to get through. No wonder everything rotted so quickly-there was no sunlight to dry anything out. People would rot too, I thought, and there were a lot of creatures to help them. This was not a good place to be.

We ran another twenty feet into the jungle and came to a dead stop. We couldn't go farther without a machete after all. It was impossible to pull away the branches and vines that were in front of us, an impenetrable wall of green. I'd never imagined anything like this. We stopped and listened. For a few moments, we didn't hear anything, then I heard a man shout. It was in very fast Spanish and I couldn't make it out. I heard men crashing through the dense foliage, not paying any attention to where they stepped, just coming toward us.

"It's time to try to hide," I said. We went exactly ten big steps to the right, careful not to leave any signs of our tracks to this spot, and hunkered down behind a tree. I looked up and saw a frog staring me right in the eye. At least this little guy wouldn't try to eat us. He looked like he belonged on that old Bud commercial.

We were ill equipped, just our clothes and guns. There was no way we could survive for any time at all in this alien place. I didn't want to think about it. I had no intention of staying here any longer than necessary.

The men were close now, not more than twenty feet away from us. Two of them were arguing about which direction to take. Ants were crawling over my feet. Laura swatted the back of her hand. A coral snake, its beautiful bright bands announcing that it could kill you fast, slithered by not six feet from Laura's foot. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

I realized I was so hot my blood seemed to swell in my veins. Sweat pooled under my arms and at the small of my back. I hated the heat. Why couldn't drug runners deal out of Canada? A lovely little insect the size of a fifty-cent piece dropped from a branch above my head onto my forearm. It took a good-sized bite out of me, then lightly dropped to the ground where it scurried off to hide beneath a leaf.

Finally, the men fanned out, several coming our way. It made sense. I would have done the same thing. I listened carefully to every boot crunch.

Only two men were coining our way. I raised two ringers to Laura and she nodded, readying herself.

I pointed to the guns and shook my head. She nodded again. A minute later they were not a foot from us, sweeping their guns around, swearing at all the bugs, all the dripping leaves overhead, all in Spanish. If they found us, I knew we had to be fast and quiet as the dead. One of the men yelped. Maybe the insect that had just bitten off half my forearm had gotten him.

Then one of the men looked down and we stared at each other. Without a sound, I reared up and smashed the butt of the AK-47 under his jaw. It cracked real loud, but he only let out a whiff of a yell before he fell.

Laura moved fast. She butted the other man in his gut, then raised her weapon and slammed it down against his temple.

We stood over the two men, trying to control our breathing.

We heard men calling to one another. They apparently hadn't heard these two go down, thank God. Of course they'd be missed soon enough. We quickly stripped the man Laura hit, because he was very small. Laura pulled on his pants and his boots and threw the pants and boots she'd been wearing into a bush that, I swear, quivered when the boots struck it. We relieved both of them of their weapons.

It took three minutes, no longer. We began to make our way due west, going by small glimpses of sun.

Every dozen or so steps, we wiped away the marks of our passage. Our progress was slow. Both of us were dripping wet, so thirsty our tongues felt swollen. We heard the chattering of monkeys high above our heads in the interlocking tree branches, and the constant calls and shrieks of animals we'd never heard in our lives. We heard a low, warning growl. A puma, Laura whispered. They knew we were there and were announcing it loudly to their cousins.

Birds checked in-squawking louder and more ferociously than Nolan ever had even at his crankiest.

"Just listen to them," Laura said. "They're all around us and loud as can be. Oh, Mac-what do you think the ice acid does to animals? Like Grubster and Nolan?"

I stopped cold and stared at her. "I hadn't thought about them. Doesn't it make sense that they'd sleep just like we did? That they'd wake up, just like we did? That they'd be all right?"

I thought she was going to burst into tears.

"That was a stupid question," I said without hesitation. "I'll wager my AK-47 that they're just fine." The panic calmed in her eyes. "Maggie's probably feeding them. Don't worry, Laura."

We kept walking, looking carefully down and around before we took each step. To walk a mile would take three hours, I figured, cursing at the boots rubbing my heels.

Then, suddenly, with no warning, it started to rain. We just looked at each other, tilted our heads back, and opened our mouths. The water tasted wonderful. Suddenly, something with a dozen skittering legs landed on my cheek. I shook it off, cupped my hands together, and drank.

The rain was so heavy, even coming through the dense canopy of green overhead, that in just a minute or two we weren't thirsty anymore. We were also sodden and nearly steaming, it was so hot. It felt miserable. God, I couldn't wait to be on a ski slope, puffs of cold air streaming out of my mouth.

I raised my hand and rubbed my fingers over a dirty smudge on Laura's cheek. "You know, Laura, when I flew from Washington just a week ago, I never imagined ending up in a rain forest with the woman I love, someone I had to come three thousand miles to meet."

"This isn't anything I'd anticipated either," she said, and kissed my fingers. "We'd better get to work on finding Savich and Sherlock."

I laid my weapons on the ground and buttoned her shirt up to her neck, then raised the collar. It touched her chin. "Let's keep as much covered as we can," I added, and buttoned my own shirt up to my chin.

Our sleeves were fastened at our wrists. At least our fatigues were tucked inside our boots and the boots were sturdy. It was good protection from all the creatures that slithered close to us.

We started walking northeast, roughly parallel to what looked like clear-cut land just outside the rain forest, not more than a hundred yards distant. We wanted to stay hidden until we were well beyond the compound. After another hour, we turned south again. It didn't take more than twenty minutes to reach the edge of the rain forest. The thick foliage suddenly thinned. The sun was bright overhead, the air immediately drier. The difference in the landscape couldn't have been more dramatic. The lush, dense forest simply gave way to an indistinct barren patch.

I figured we were at least a hundred yards northeast of the compound.