Running from the Devil (7 page)

Señor Lopez nodded. “I do know him. He is a quiet, efficient man.”

“Is he a survivor?” Miguel said.

“I will answer that by telling you a story about an incident that occurred here eight months ago. Mr. Sumner was here to review our policies and determine whether we were acting in accordance with the terms of the joint cooperation between his agency and mine. While he was here, we spotted a suspicious flight. Mr. Sumner insisted on flying the intercept plane himself.”

“I understand that he is a good pilot,” Miguel said.

“He is an excellent pilot. He chased the plane and determined it was a drug transport. When the pilot refused to land, Mr. Sumner followed it outside of the red circle.”

“And?” Miguel said.

“He shot the plane down.”

Miguel was shocked. “Is that protocol?”

“Absolutely, and Mr. Sumner followed it to the letter. With the exception that his flight tracked beyond the area where the plane could safely return, however.”

“How did he get back?”

“He turned around, flew as far as he could, and landed on a drug runners’ airstrip ten miles from his origination point. He hiked back to us through the night.”

“Determined man.”

“Very much so,” Lopez said.

Miguel poked a finger at the map where the mushroom cloud was seen. “He was on the plane that created the cloud.”

Señor Lopez looked even sadder than his usual sad expression. “Then I am truly sorry for him, because a man that goes into that area without additional security does not come out alive.”

“He came out alive before.” Miguel felt compelled to voice an optimism that he didn’t feel.

“But that time he flew back very far and was armed. This time I presume he is unarmed and on foot.”

Miguel nodded. “If you were Sumner, what would you do?”

“I would tell the guerrillas that my relatives are wealthy Americans and will pay any amount to ransom me.”

“Would you tell them you were with the Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense Agency?” Miguel asked.

Señor Lopez looked horrified. “Absolutely not! If they discover this, they will kill him on the spot.”

Miguel stared at the map.

Señor Lopez sighed. “I will miss Mr. Sumner.”

11

THE HOWLER MONKEYS BEGAN THEIR EERIE HOWLING AT DAWN. The noise started low, then rose to a bass-toned roar before ending in a full-throated howl. The sound echoed through the forest. It sounded like a thousand lions roaring in a cave. As others took up the call, the jungle came alive with sound. The mournful howl set Emma’s teeth on edge, and chills ran up her spine.

No sooner had the howler monkeys completed their morning chorus than the parrots started screeching. By the time they finished, the sun was up. Emma dragged herself out of the tent, broke it down, and began to run.

Stinging insects plagued her and the oppressive heat dehydrated her. The passengers moved so slowly that she doubted they had completed fifteen miles. She’d caught up with them without any trouble and adjusted her pace to match theirs. She trudged behind them, close enough to be able to hear their progress but not so close as to be discovered.

She was losing weight at an alarming rate, because she sweated profusely, but she rationed the drinking water. Every day, when the rains came, she set out the small plate from the airline food to catch what she could. Finding water was the second item on her mental list. The first was staying hidden from the guerrillas.

THE TORRENTIAL RAINS DRENCHED her clothes and turned the path to mud. At times the water pounded so hard on the leaves above her that it sounded like drumbeats. The only positive thing about the rain was that it kept the bugs from biting.

At dusk, Emma heard a whistle blow. She took it as a signal that the day’s march was over. She set up her tent and crawled into it. She removed her shoes and peeled off the soaking-wet, sweat-drenched running socks. She flicked on the lighter to look at her feet. They were bone white, with red patches on the edges of her toes where blisters were forming. The shriveled skin had a cheesy texture. She’d switch to her second pair of socks, but if she didn’t find a way to dry them soon, the blisters would never heal. Then each step would be agony, and she would start bargaining with the devil: If I take off the shoes, will you promise not to have my feet swell to balloons? She propped her feet up on the backpack and hung her socks out to dry. Without the benefit of sunlight, the humidity ensured they never would.

She sat in the tent and thought about her situation. She’d already eaten one whole packet of food last night, her first night after running away from the airstrip. She had nine packets left. If she ate one half a day, she had, at most, eighteen days to eat. She reached out and fingered a packet. The meat was cooked, so it wouldn’t spoil immediately, but she doubted the packets would stay fresh enough to eat for as long as eighteen days. The heat would rot it in three, maybe four. She revised her food intake downward. She’d eat one full packet a day. She’d continue to eat it once it rotted. Nine days. She needed to reach safety in that time.

She turned her thoughts to her third agenda, which was summoning help. She still clung to the hope that the authorities would find the jet. If they knew better than to take the booby-trapped road, they might see the crudely hacked path. Emma decided to leave clues along the path.

The next morning, she began her march with a clearer purpose. She located a stone and etched an X into the trunk of a nearby tree. She had a difficult time adjusting to the passengers’ slow pace. One minute she would think she was far behind them, the next she would hear them only a few feet away around a bend in the trail. While the slow pace wasn’t taxing, the feeling they were getting nowhere was.

Emma stepped around a group of trees and found herself looking at the back of a lagging guerrilla. She froze. She held her breath and willed the man not to turn around. He stood ten feet in front of her. Close enough that she could see the grime on his gray T-shirt. He stopped, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and rubbed the back of his neck. A minute later the man sighed and started forward once again.

After her close encounter, Emma took one of the pistols out of her bag and put it in her pocket. She didn’t bother to load it; the guerrillas would empty an entire clip into her before she’d squeezed off one shot, plus she was afraid that it would discharge accidentally and shoot her in the thigh. She reasoned that if confronted, she could wave it around to buy a little time. No one need know it was empty.

She also kept her eyes peeled for any sticks stout enough to be used as both a walking stick and a weapon. In the afternoon, during the obligatory downpour, she huddled in the tent and used a stone to hack at one end of the stick, fashioning a crude spear. When it was finished, she gazed at it with pride. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such a sense of accomplishment in her work.

THE AIR PULSED WITH the scratching sounds of thousands of insects. Emma hated the bugs. They tormented her before she entered the tent, and swarmed at the tent’s mesh opening when she was inside. She plunged her hands into the soft earth at the base of a tree, pulling up fistfuls of the soft loam. She smeared the mud on her arms and face. It smelled fresh and the coating provided some relief from the biting bugs.

As the next night deepened, she fell into a fitful sleep. She started awake, momentarily disoriented by the dark. She fumbled for the illumination button on her watch. The numbers glowed three in the morning. Emma huddled in the dark, her heart thumping. She couldn’t pinpoint why she’d awoken, but her whole body tingled with some primitive instinct. An eerie quiet settled over the forest. She heard a soft footfall a few feet away from the tent’s walls.

Something stepped out onto the makeshift path hacked by the passengers. Emma saw its shape through the mesh door. The animal turned its head to her, and its eyes glowed like the face of her watch. It slunk away, as quietly as it came. After a minute the scratching sounds of the forest resumed, as if the lesser animals were celebrating their near miss from the predator.

At four in the morning, Emma woke again. She hovered in the twilight between waking and sleeping. She’d been dreaming she was on a life raft and she’d just spotted land.

A twig snapped. Fear surged through her, but she managed to stay motionless, hoping it was another animal that would slink away. Another twig broke, closer. Emma slid her hand along the tent’s nylon floor until her fingers reached her spear. She closed her fist around it.

Now whatever, or whoever, was coming toward her was moving fast. Sticks cracked under its feet, and she heard stones crunching. The footfalls came faster and faster, closer and closer. She heaved herself to her knees, holding the spear at her side, ready to attack whatever came through the tent’s mesh door.

The moonlight broke through the clouds, sending shafts of light through the foliage. The light revealed a man’s shape, standing five feet from the tent’s entrance. He swung a rifle off his back by the strap and in a few seconds closed the distance. He shoved the rifle into the tent’s entrance.

The man’s head followed his rifle into the tent and he locked eyes with Emma. He smelled like rancid meat and old smoke. His face registered shock and fear. His gaze swept across the spear. He got a crazy, wide-eyed look, like he was seeing a monster.

Emma lunged forward, burying the spear tip deep into the man’s shoulder. He shrieked and fell backward, out of the tent. Emma pulled the spear out of him, feeling the drag as it yanked at the man’s flesh. The man rolled to his knees and grabbed at his rifle. Emma heard his fingernails scratch across the metal. She tumbled out of the tent after him. He flipped the rifle up to aim.

“No!” Emma screamed at the man. She took the spear and swung it like a bat, catching him across the side of his head. The spear connected to bone and then splintered with an explosive, cracking sound. The man swayed, then toppled over, blood spurting from his temple. He fell over like a stone.

Emma stood over the prone man, breathing hard. She struggled for control, but she felt the tears gathering in her eyes.

Shit, Emma, this is no time for a crying jag, she thought, but the utter hopelessness of her situation was once again upon her, blocking out all logical thought. She took three cautious steps backward.

Emma jumped behind a tree and listened for signs that the other guerrillas had heard her yell or the spear break. The injured man didn’t move. After a few minutes, Emma went back to the man, grabbed his arm, and checked for a pulse. His heart beat in a strong rhythm. She searched his pockets and found a folding knife and a large rag that smelled of gunpowder and grease. She took both.

She knew she should kill him. If she let him live he’d return to camp and set the other guerrillas on her trail. She’d have to do it quietly. She looked at his knife in her hand. She could slit his throat. She opened the wicked-looking five-inch-long blade and lowered herself to one knee next to him.

The sounds of the night intruded on her. The wind rustled the leaves in a soothing sound and a tree frog croaked nearby. The man breathed softly in and out as he lay in front of her, defenseless. He looked like he was sleeping.

Emma felt as though some wide chasm had opened before her. The years of her Catholic-school upbringing crowded into her head and she thought of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shall not kill” being the foremost among them. She could have killed him in the heat of the moment in self-defense, but now, with the immediate danger over, what she contemplated felt like murder.

Emma closed the knife with a sigh. She lifted him under the arms and dragged him down the trail. He weighed too much for her to drag very far. She put him on the side of the path and covered him with branches.

When she was finished, she checked the trail. A long smear ran in a straight line from the path to the brush where she’d hidden the guerrilla. Emma used a tree branch to sweep away the telltale signs of dragging. She broke down her tent and put it and the pack on her back. She swung the man’s rifle onto a shoulder. More firepower that she didn’t know how to use. She’d analyze it later. When she was done she took one last look around, turned, and ran back the way she came.

12

BANNER GAVE HIS FIRST NEWS CONFERENCE THIRTY-SIX HOURS after Flight 689 went down. He wore a bespoke suit made in Hong Kong and a silk tie, also from Hong Kong, and his French cuffs hit his wrist with precision. He stood in a borrowed conference room in a Miami hotel and tried to tell himself that he’d faced much worse in his career. It was true, but the thought didn’t help calm his nerves.

Stromeyer raised an eyebrow when she saw him in all his sartorial splendor. “Feeling a little vulnerable, are we?”

Banner grimaced. “Wouldn’t you? I have to report to the most rapacious wolves in the industrial world that not only did we allow a plane to get hijacked, but this time we can’t even locate it or the people on board.”

“Why isn’t a State Department spokesperson giving this conference?”

“No one wants to face the tough questions about how airport security was compromised. As the Department of Defense’s leading search-and-rescue consultant, they figure I can take the heat when they can’t.”

“They’re right. I’ve never seen you sweat before.”

“Stromeyer, those were field operations. I’d much rather be in the jungle tracking a hostile force. This media stuff always gets to me.”

“Don’t you think your reaction’s a little extreme? At least the media can’t kill you.” Stromeyer peeked at the computer monitor that showed an interior view of the rapidly filling conference room. “That jerk TV reporter O’Connor is here.”

“Least of my problems. The guys from MSNBC are the really worrisome ones. They know their stuff.”

The last hours had been hell. Banner had dealt with the various agencies assigned to handle the crisis, while Stromeyer drew the unenviable job of “Victim Relative Liaison.” She fielded hundreds of frantic calls from distraught relatives of the plane’s passengers. All received the same news: That it was too early to tell if there were any survivors, but that the United States Army had boots on the ground searching for the plane.