Survival (9 page)

Sand scraped on the bow as they were pushed onto the beach, the rear of the boat twisting as another incoming wave pushed it onto the sand. The little craft listed to the side, and Hannah’s mouth made a small O as her world tilted and they found themselves standing on what had been the side of the boat.

Matt opened the access hatch and climbed out. After looking around to ensure there were no threats, he leaned down and held out his good hand. “Hannah? Come on. I’ll pull you up.”

He didn’t have to ask twice. She grabbed his arm with all her strength, and he gripped her under an arm and unceremoniously hoisted her from the hatch, twisted, and slid down the hull until his feet were on the sand. He put her down and pointed to a spot about five feet away. “Stand right there. I need to get our stuff. I’ll be back in a second. Don’t go near the water, or anywhere, until I’m back, okay?”

Another nod.

Matt returned to the boat and grabbed their bags. He pushed them through the hatch and grabbed one of the emergency survival kits. He’d rummaged through it; it was heavy, but had some useful items that might come in handy: dry rations, water sanitizer, a first aid kit, a flare gun, collapsible bottles and bowls, a lighter, a knockoff Super Tool, a small flashlight, batteries, a flimsy four-man tent, toilet paper, antiseptic, hand sanitizer, vitamins and electrolyte replacement tablets, a cheap compass, and other odds and ends.

He was back on the beach in sixty seconds with the bags. Hannah was frozen in place, waiting with an expectant look on her face. Matt gazed up at the sun and wiped away the sweat, cursing his broken hand – if he’d ever needed both mitts, now was the time.

The jungle looked dense and forbidding, a vibrant green that quickly faded to darkness, seemingly impenetrable. Matt gathered the bags and, with at least seventy-five pounds of weight, wondered how far he would make it before they had to rest. He hadn’t slept in almost forty hours, and his body was sending him unmistakable signals that it wouldn’t go forever.

He spotted a break in the vegetation and motioned to it. “Looks like there’s a trail. Come on, Hannah. Stay right behind me. Don’t stop to look around. I don’t want to lose you.”

The trail turned out to be a winding path overgrown with vines and plants, probably used by game, although not heavily, by the looks of it. Once they were in the jungle, where the offshore breeze was blocked by the trees, the heat became stifling. The only positive was the overhead canopy, so thick that it blocked the sun; but even so, within fifteen minutes of trudging along Matt was soaked through with sweat.

They came to a clearing, and he set the bags down. “We’re going to rest for a few minutes, okay?”

Hannah smiled sadly and, after inspecting the ground, sat down. Matt rooted in his bag until he found the satellite phone. He inspected the screen and powered it on, but the light and signal indicator remained dark. He’d hoped that the trace moisture inside the screen wouldn’t pose a problem, but the phone had obviously gotten wet enough in the torrential downpour of the storm that it was dead.

He removed the battery, wiped the contacts off, and replaced it, but got the same nonresponse when he depressed the power button. He stared at it for a few seconds, silently cycling through the many curses he knew in three different languages, and then shrugged and put it back in the bag. It would do no good to rail at the universe. They were both physically fine, they had supplies and a compass, and because it was jungle, it was just a matter of time until it rained or they came across a stream. Matt had spent months in Laos living in worse conditions, so this was nothing new. His only concern was for Hannah, who might not prove as resilient as he was.

“All right. Let’s keep moving and see if we can find some water, okay?” The emergency kit had two one-liter bottles, but he’d prefer not to have to drain them until he knew he could replenish their stores. He opened the bag and removed one, took three cautious swallows from it, and then sat next to Hannah and held it for her while she drank greedily.

He pulled the bottle away before she was ready to quit, and she gave him an annoyed look, but he ignored it and screwed the plastic cap back on. “Only a little, then we walk.”

The afternoon gradually darkened, and as dusk approached Matt stopped near a mangrove forest where there was a relatively clear area. Working quickly, he removed the flimsy tent from the orange emergency bag and erected the aluminum frame, driving stakes into the spongy ground as Hannah watched. When he was done, he stood back and studied his handiwork – it would do for the night. Not that they had any other options.

The mosquitoes found them shortly after he was finished, and he got Hannah into the tent before following her in, and spent the next fifteen minutes killing bugs that had made it inside. The last thing he needed to add to their problems was to contract malaria or dengue fever, both of which he suspected were prevalent.

The flashlight provided sufficient glow for them to munch on the tasteless dry rations, and Matt sacrificed the rest of the water bottle to wash it down. By the time they were done, it was dark as pitch out, and the mosquito swarm had abated. He held the light while Hannah went potty near the tent, and after she scampered back inside, he did the same.

When he returned to the tent, Hannah was sitting waiting. The interior was mildly cooler from a tiny breeze that managed to flow through the two mesh window openings. He lay down with a grunt and sighed, his stomach rumbling from hunger. The inadequate pickings had been barely enough to keep him going.

Hannah crawled over to him, and they drifted off to sleep with her head on his chest, the sound of her breathing vying with the calls of nocturnal creatures whose feeding time was just beginning. Matt felt by his side to where he’d placed the flare gun, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it, and was asleep within two minutes of closing his eyes.

Chapter 13

Puerto Vacamonte, Panama

Jet drove across the Centenario Bridge, watching cruise ships and tankers pass beneath in the Panama Canal, guided by tugboats as they made their way between two oceans along the forty-eight-mile stretch that had been dubbed one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

The concrete jungle of Panama City gave way to rainforest as she wended her way west, the heavy traffic in town now a trickle. The freeway had become two lanes in either direction, and it was hard to believe that just a few miles back was a teeming metropolis overrun with humanity.

When she pulled off the highway at the town of Vacamonte, the contrast with Panama City was immediate and stark. Clearly the town was at the opposite end of the economic scale, the road a single lane in either direction and the cars battered and old, corroding from the salt air. She passed a roadside restaurant that was little more than a lean-to, a sheet of corrugated metal suspended over suspect timbers advertising the freshest seafood in Panama on a hand-scrawled slab of plywood.

Jet checked the time – the fishing boat wasn’t scheduled to arrive for four more hours, but her natural field caution had her there far in advance so she could take up a safe position from which to watch it dock. She’d bought a pair of small binoculars for that purpose, but as she bumped down the patchy road, she wondered what was at the end of it.

The port was on the tip of a spit of land that thrust into the Pacific Ocean. Only one looping road led out to it, low-end housing projects under construction on either side. The encroachment ultimately gave way again to jungle before she arrived at the waterfront. The entire harbor was only a half mile wide, a good chunk of it devoted to one of the saddest black sand beaches she’d ever seen, next to which was a concrete wharf with a series of piers stretching into the water.

The fishing fleet was almost entirely rusting scows that looked like they might sink at any time, moored side by side fifty yards into the harbor in clumps of ten to twenty boats. A breakwater protected the anchorage from the Pacific’s swells, and near the mouth were the larger, long-range commercial net boats, 200 to 300 feet long, built to spend months at sea in any weather harvesting their catch before returning to port.

The rest of the boats were in the sixty- to eighty-foot range, most at least thirty years old, judging by their weathered appearances. Jet drove slowly through the waterfront before passing the shipyard at the far end and looping back around toward the lone entry road. When she was out of sight of the wharf, she made a U-turn and returned to the large parking lot near the industrial buildings that hulked along the entry. She parked and got out, stretching her legs, and then picked up her bag and made her way across the road, away from the harbor, in search of an elevated vantage point from which she could watch the boats arrive.

She found a deserted bunker, covered with graffiti and half-filled with broken beer bottles and detritus, and cleared a small section. With the surrounding brush and vines, her hiding spot was virtually invisible. The binoculars had been a wise purchase, she thought, as she swept the buildings methodically to familiarize herself with the layout and the few vehicles parked nearby. The day was winding down, and it would be dark in two or so hours. From what she could see, the workers in the boatyard were in no pressing hurry to get anything done, and spent as much time chatting and laughing as they did sanding and painting. She watched with absent interest as small clusters of men strolled from the buildings, their day at an end, and moved to their cars, as battered and tired as their passengers.

Time dragged by with little to see. A few boats entered the harbor and moored next to the rest, their crews remaining on board while sheltered from the swell. The vessel Matt and Hannah would be on, the
Paloma
, would put in at the main dock, which she guessed had a higher cost associated with it than tying off in the harbor, judging by the few boats that availed themselves of the cement pier’s hospitality.

Light gusts blew off the water, carrying with them the faint odor of decaying sea life and diesel exhaust. In the distance, the sonorous lowing of ship horns from near the canal carried across the water. Jet shifted in her spot, the humid stifle still oppressive even as the sun faded into the sea, and did another sweep of the harbor with her binoculars, there being nothing else to do.

A van rolled down the entry road, attracting Jet’s attention. Its brake lights flashed as it slowed to a stop, and the side door opened. Two men got out, and the van continued on its way to the parking lot, where it pulled into a slot near the entrance.

The hair on Jet’s arms stood up as she eyeballed the men who stepped down from the van. They looked casual enough, laughing as they walked together to the small restaurant servicing the harbor, but something about them triggered alarms. These weren’t fishermen or laborers, in spite of their clothes being the same as the men working the waterfront – they were too clean, their posture too disciplined.

She continued to watch them as they entered the restaurant, while down by the water the first pair split up after shaking hands. Maybe she was being overly paranoid – it had been a rough month by any measure. She followed the first man as he walked unhurriedly along the wharf, smoking a cigarette and gazing out at the water. Jet zoomed in on the second man, who was ambling in the other direction. He stopped by the beach and also lit a cigarette, and then walked into a little shack selling drinks and emerged holding a can of beer.

She ducked down lower, instinct telling her that this wasn’t innocent. She picked up the first man again and saw him working his way along the dock, meandering out to the end of the pier, where he stood, watching the sun set.

Jet switched back to the second man, after confirming that the other two hadn’t come out of the restaurant. He was nursing his beer, his eyes roaming over the cars and buildings even as he appeared to be completely uninterested in anything but the boats.

That sealed it. Something was wrong. They’d been sold out.

Her mind flitted to Alejandro. She’d thought he was trustworthy, but he was the only other one who knew the details of Matt and Hannah’s arrival, and obviously he’d opened his mouth. The thought of him betraying her stabbed through her heart like a blade, but she pushed the emotion away. If he had, she’d find him and pay him back.

Jet froze at her next thought. Matt and Hannah.

If there were pros here waiting for her to show, then it was also possible they’d corrupted the fishing boat in some way and intercepted her daughter and her man.

She told herself she was getting ahead of herself, but the thought did little to comfort her as she studied the drinking man’s face. They were good. Very good, for civilians. So good that if she had arrived later – say, only a couple of hours before the boat was scheduled to arrive, instead of four – she wouldn’t have picked them out. Jet scanned back to where the first man had been and didn’t see him. He’d vanished, either into one of the boats or one of the buildings.

“Probably one of the boats,” she whispered to herself. That’s what Jet would have done. Found an empty boat on the same dock the
Paloma
was scheduled to arrive at and hunker down, waiting for Jet to arrive, to slip up, to make a mistake.

The two in the restaurant would probably stay put, she thought; their vantage point from the elevated bluff that overlooked the whole harbor was the perfect place from which to spot her.

Twilight transitioned to night, and the beer drinker took a call on his cell phone. It was short, only ten seconds, but it confirmed what she had already suspected. She could imagine the discussion: “Any sign of her?” “Not yet.” “Stay put and keep your eyes open.”

The harbor was now dark except for the glimmer of stars overhead peeking between the clouds and a few dim lamps outside the restaurant. The little drink-vending shack closed up for the night, and her watcher moved to the sea wall and sat down, looking like a tired laborer who was taking the edge off a harsh day with a few brews.