Jungle of Deceit (9 page)

Zachary’s eyes were still locked on her, but behind his silhouette, the burning snake’s head swayed back and thrust for the kill bite.

“
Alex!” Mitch hauled her to the ground.

She felt the rough sting of the turf and the weight of Mitch’s body atop hers, yet even from this angle her eyes never left the triangle of Zach, Tim and their Jeep. As the snake’s fangs sunk in, an explosion shook the ground beneath her. Zach tumbled to her level, and his eyes finally broke their connection with hers. A scream pierced the smoke-filled air, the catalyst to snap Alex from her paralysis. She used all her strength and launched Mitch off of her. She felt his hand clasp around her ankle but she shrugged free from it and started towards the Jeep. Before she could make two steps, his arm locked around her waist and he yelled into her ear.

“
No. Stay back.” He pointed through the smoky melee. “They’re both okay. It’s just the Jeep.”

Fire erupted from the rear end of the vehicle, but Tim was indeed safe, offering a hand to Zach to lift him off the ground. The sound of the flames still filled her ears−like fall foliage rustling under the prongs of a rake.

Mitch’s forearm grounded her, but it was time to act. She turned to him and saw perspiration laced with black ash bead on his forehead. He seemed so strong and assured. It was like looking into an abstruse mirror that reflected all the traits she did not possess.

She touched the arm about her waist. Her fingers wrapped around it for a second, holding onto him.

“
Thank you,” she whispered, knowing he could by no means hear her. She saw his head dip in acknowledgment. “I am okay now,” she coughed. “I’ll gather everyone up and we’ll head south.”

He hauled her into a hug, and for a moment she felt fortified by that embrace. Finally he released her and ordered, “Stay close.”

C
hapter Five

It was chaos. Alex had witnessed brush fires before, but always under some modicum of shelter. At first she had considered the field as an avenue of escape, but the smoke and advancing flames were narrowing that channel down to a single alley in the jungle. She thought that if she could just reach the river that they would be okay.

The wall of the forest looked animated. Branches fell to the ground, their gnarled forms ablaze, while glowing vines undulated in a curtain of flames. From that curtain, embers dropped to stoke the undergrowth into an inferno that now attacked with cunning precision.

What staggered her was the speed and aggression of the fire. The group was at an all-out run at this point and she could feel the dogged heat on her tail. In that maelstrom of smoke and flames, the jungle life screeched a tumult of warnings and Alex’ heart broke at the sound.

As she ran she tried to tally up the head count of her men. Beside her, Wes stumbled across a kapok buttress, and ahead, brief glimpses of Chuck’s shirt looked like an exotic bird performing aerial maneuvers through the branches. Nowhere could she locate Mitch, though. She had to assume he had corralled some of her men. She knew little about him, but some facets could be judged immediately, and she considered Mitch Hasslet a man of responsibility−and a leader.

Chuck drew up short and Wes slammed into him, the momentum knocking them both forward. The herd of men halted, many with their hands on their knees as they sucked in air.

Alex moved up alongside Chuck and Wes.

“
We can’t stay still,” she gasped.

Chuck’s face was black with soot. Combined with the dark hair and brown eyes he looked like a covert militant, except for his ridiculously bright tee shirt.

“
Look,” he nodded.

The jungle thinned to reveal a concrete barricade as vast and impenetrable as the Great Wall of China. At the sight, only one thought crossed Alex’s mind.
A fire wall
.

“
Where’s the front gate?”

“
We’re going in there?” Wes asked, incredulous.

“
Do we have a choice?”

Peeking over her shoulder, the intensity of the heat burned her face. The flames were only fifty yards away and closing. “Get the group. Hug the wall. There is a good ten foot circumference of dirt at the baseline. These people knew what they were doing. They built this place to be impervious to forest fires,” she gasped again. “Hug it till we find the gate.”

There was no time for debate. She motioned to the young men with panic in their eyes and took the lead, moving up beside the concrete barricade, scraping her bare arm against the façade because it felt cool to the touch.

The inferno reached for them with smoldering fingers and hissing cat calls as the group progressed in single file until Alex halted them with a lifted hand. Chuck and Wes fell in beside her. The entrance was a ghoulish adaptation of the gates of Oz, where the solid panel was large enough that a man-sized door had been installed in the bottom corner.

With one hasty look at her ensemble, Alex felt a nagging concern when she could not locate Mitch in the crowd. But there was no time to focus on the roving photographer who had just embraced her and allowed her a frenzied moment of weakness in his arms. She stepped forward and banged her fist against the aluminum-plated gate, feeling the sting of heat from the alloy. From the dull thud she elicited, Alex guessed the gate to be thicker than anticipated. Hoisting up a rock from the ground, she clamped her fingers around the solid chunk of limestone.

“
What the hell, Doc?” Chuck shouted.

Alex disregarded him and ignored the bite of the searing rock. Lifting it to the gate, she banged three times before caving into the cough that beset her throat. Trying to reach up one more time, her chest felt as if it had inhaled sand. Wes pried the rock from her fist and hammered it against the gate, producing a staccato to compete with the roar of death behind them.

They jolted when the door at the bottom of the gate opened by a three inch span, and the barrel of an Uzi slipped out like a heat-seeking missile. Another muzzle emerged in that small gap and someone cried out in
K’iche
dialect, “
Back off
.”

Desperate, Alex paid no heed to the guns. She stepped up to the door and shouted in a frenzied blend of Spanish and English.

“
Fuego
. Fire. Please let us in. We are trapped. We will die out here.”

Her words had no impact on the trajectory of the guns. Alex started again, her throat scratching and her eyes watering. “We have no money, but if you help us we can get some once we get back to Ramonez. Your generosity will be rewarded.”

A voice barked from behind the door, prompting it to swing open. The guns withdrew and Alex saw the sweet promise of shelter only a foot away. She wasted no time and waved her hand. Several team members charged into that entryway as if her hand represented the voice of God.

After everyone had shuffled by, Alex searched her periphery. The sound of the fire would forever haunt her. Only a few feet away stood a smoldering wall of what was once flourishing vegetation. This monster had consumed and destroyed everything in its path. Everything.
Where was Mitch?

“
Alex,” Wes called.

Her head jerked. On feet hindered by apprehension, she stepped through the gate.

***

Behind her, the metal bars slid shut with an ominous clang of captivity. Alex’s vision was blurred so she closed her eyes and relied on sound. The resonance of her men−grunts of fatigue and fear mingled with their chorus of coughs. Some of the men commented on the fire. Some spoke of their homes.

A voice of authority boomed above the hum. Guttural Latin commands fired in rapid succession and the armed men leapt in response. Men flocked metal stairways, scaling to the top of the wall where they unfurled fire hoses from their reels, the rubber tubes now plump with water.

“
It will be alright, Señorita.”

Alex looked up startled by the close proximity of the voice.

“
You and your men will be safe here. These walls are impenetrable to fire.”

She stared at the back of the man’s head. He was looking away, engaged by the men spraying water off the ramparts. “We excavated the perimeter several years ago so that the tree line is recessed,” he turned around and she caught a mouthful of white teeth against a backdrop of bronze skin and black stubble. “No worries.”

“
My team will help.” Her eye itched. “We will work for the safety you have provided.”

He waved in dismissal and managed a genial snort. “Not necessary.”

As he analyzed the group of archeologists, Alex was allowed a better glimpse of his profile. The stubble seemed perfect, like a meticulous effort to appear unshaven. His black hair was short and neat, and it shined from hair gel. He stood a few inches shy of six feet and wore a white button-down cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Rounding off the outfit were tan dress slacks and leather shoes. The attire seemed preposterous for this venue. Under all the fancy clothes, Alex could make out the body of a weightlifter. Her glance lifted just in time to collide with his, and below his thick winged eyebrows she sensed shrewdness behind his eyes.

“
These men…” he nodded at her students, “−need water and rest. Follow me and I’ll see you get both.”

He started to turn away but cracked a grin and held out his hand. “Lo siento. I’m sorry. I am Miguel Eduardo Solis.” The last word was phrased with an evocative roll as
So-leeeeeeese
. “And you are Señorita—?”

“
Langley.” Alex glanced at the clean hand extended towards her and then down at her own soiled fingers. “Alexandra Langley.”

There it was again−a sharp glint in eyes that resembled a jaguar’s. The polished veneer of Miguel Eduardo Solis seemed like camouflage and his eyes were portals to the cunning creature that lurked inside. She felt uneasy. The look he gave her indicated that her name had struck a chord.

Miguel smiled again. “Everyone is safe. All your men are accounted for. There is no need for the frown, Señorita…” he hesitated, “−Langley.”

All, except for Mitch
.

Her chest tightened, but Wes had her by the shoulder. “Come on, Alex. You need water. There’s crap in your eyes. Let’s go wash them out.”

Falling in behind her group who were being lead by the suave Pied Piper, Alex examined their environment. Just inside the gate, a barrier fortified by horizontal metal bars could likely impede a charging herd of elephants. As she searched the span of the wall, one corner was visible, but the far bend was at such a great distance it blurred into an obscure merger of dirt and sky. The visible corner was capped with a security turret and two armed guards paced its perimeter like Stormtroopers on the Death Star.

These people knew they were coming
.

Around her, an open courtyard of compressed red dirt and patchy grass resembled any prison grounds, but twenty yards away the earth yielded to a bed of cement and meticulous landscaping. Potted trees and sculpted bushes hugged the entrance to the first building and beyond that she noticed a fountain spouting water into a holding pool. The prisms captivated her as if inside this magical world fire did not exist−only rainbows. The fountain could have been plucked from the memorial gardens of a cemetery. The huge basin tempted her to run her fingertips through it, but she gave it a wide berth as if arsenic churned in the froth. A few more steps and it felt that the further she delved into the compound the more civilized the complex became.

“
Señorita,” Solis held his hand out as they passed the first edifice, a two-story cinderblock structure painted the same almond color as the surrounding barricade. The building was tall, but not enough to be visible from outside.

Alex looked past it towards the row of barracks.

“
These are the living quarters,” he explained. “You are welcome to clean and rest here.” He pointed to a single-story edifice with very few windows, a building that looked more like a warehouse than living quarters. But if her men could clean up and get something to drink, it would afford her the time she needed to gather her wits.

“
Thank you, that is very gracious.” She glanced over her shoulder at the fortified gate shocked to see the soldiers rolling the hoses back on their reels.

“
What are they doing?” Alex cried. “Why are they stopping?”

Solis placed a consoling hand on her forearm, which she shrugged off.

“
There is no recourse but to let the fire burn itself out. The hoses aren’t going to help. They were a precaution from back before we excavated the perimeter. Don’t worry, you’re safe in here.”

“
The wildlife…” she hesitated. “−you’re just leaving it to be slaughtered?”

Alex recognized that Solis was right. They could not battle a jungle fire with a few hoses−a water gun would have just as much an effect. But the devastation and the loss of flora and fauna made her scramble for options.

For the first time, Solis’s congenial smile faltered−and for a second she saw the eyes of the jaguar again. It lurked beneath black eyebrows, circling her, stalking her.

“
Yes,” he said.