Nimec raised his eyebrows but remained quiet a moment.
“ ‘My Girl,’ ” he said finally.
“Huh?”
“That old Temptations song,” Nimec said. “Remember it?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I’ve got the watch set to play it on the day I’m supposed to get back to the States.”
“And see your girl again?”
“Right.”
DeMarco smiled a little.
“Nice,” he said. “That’s nice.”
Nimec kept looking straight out the windshield.
“Think so?”
“Yeah.”
Nimec cleared his throat.
“Actually it was her son who programmed it,” he said. “Annie’s got a boy and girl. Chris and Linda.”
DeMarco nodded. He briefly took his left hand off the steering wheel and wriggled its third finger. He was wearing a simple gold wedding band.
“I miss my sweetie, too,” he said. “Been married going on twelve years, and it’s tough when the job keeps us apart. Separations are especially hard for the kids. We have three in our own brood… Jake, Alicia, and Kim.”
Nimec grunted. “Your wife’s with UpLink too, right?”
“A database administrator,” DeMarco said. “Her name’s Becky. Née Rebecca Lowenstein. My mother was hoping I’d wind up with a nice Italian Catholic girl, keep with the family tradition.” A grin filled his face. “Meanwhile, she’ll be attending my older daughter’s bat mitzvah come next July. Cosí é la vita… that’s life.”
Nimec chuckled, and leaned back against the seat. The vehicle rumbled slowly along behind the 6×6’s tailgate, forging through clumps of broad-leafed manioc plants that swarmed up on the trail and threatened to close it in.
“You and Annie have solid plans?” DeMarco said after a while.
“For right when I get back to the States, you mean…?”
DeMarco shook his head.
“I mean, are you two serious?”
Nimec looked puzzled a moment.
“We’re not engaged or anything,” he said. “Seems a little too early. But we’ve been steady for about a year, year and a half.”
DeMarco shrugged, holding the wheel.
“How long people have been seeing each other has nothing to do with serious,” he said.
Nimec raised his eyebrows.
“I’m not following you.”
DeMarco shrugged a second time. “I once dated a woman, exclusive, for almost three years,” he said. “Thought she was a great person, got on fine with her, but never considered making things permanent. Just seemed like something was missing between us. Then, bang, Becky comes along, and I know we’re a perfect match. Except I’m still involved with that other gal.”
“What’d you do?”
“Broke up with her. It’s one of those things that’s never easy, but had to be done. Then I asked Becky out, popped the question a few weeks later. Cut ahead three months, we’re walking down the aisle at that interdenominational UN chapel in New York City, beautiful place. A priest and rabbi co-officiating.”
“Never had any doubts you might’ve been rushing things?”
DeMarco gave Nimec a short glance.
“I’m only human,” he said. “You hear these stats about how over fifty percent of marriages hit the mat. And then there are all the timetables society lays on you. You’re supposed to date for this long, get engaged for that long, wait so many years to have a baby… sure, I had doubts. You don’t, it’s not normal. But worrying about them seemed like a waste. I knew what I knew. And figured it was enough for me to commit.”
Nimec became quiet in his seat as they rocked along over the deeply rutted trail. He turned his eyes to the display console’s GPS screen.
“Looks like we’re pretty near base,” he said, motioning at the readout graphics. “All we have to do now is get there without breaking an axle.”
DeMarco nosed their Rover forward, took a hard, jarring bump.
“Or our asses,” he said, his hand tight around the wheel.
The sound of engines was close.
They raised their eyes, their heads covered with the heat and flash retardant hoods now. Although the brush around them trembled slightly, it did not part.
Saddled high in the bubinga tree, the man with the Sig SG550 sniper rifle was motionless, camouflage netting wrapped around his face, his cheek against the weapon’s nonreflective black stock.
The sound was growing louder, yes. Closer. But its source had not yet entered their fire zone.
The ambushers remained hidden, ready for the moment.
“What the hell,” DeMarco said. His foot had slammed down hard on the brake pedal. “You ever ask yourself if the boss finds these green splats on the map just to test us? See what it’ll take to drive us crazy?”
Nimec produced a thin smile.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I could almost wonder.”
DeMarco shifted the tranny into PARK. He had a feeling they might be going nowhere for a while.
They sat looking out their windshield at the cargo hauler’s tailgate, their passengers muttering unhappily in the rear. A moment earlier the convoy’s lead Rover had come to a sudden halt, setting off a chain reaction down the line. This after their trail had taken them through a thicket of snarled, spiny-limbed euphorbia toward a jungle corridor that had promised some blessed shade from the relentless sun.
The forward driver had exited his vehicle, gone around to the truck behind him, and then paused to talk with some other locals who’d hopped from its cab — the entire team scanning the trail up ahead, shielding their eyes from the midday brightness with their hands. Now he separated from them, approached the Rover, and made a quick winding gesture with his finger.
DeMarco lowered the automatic window, catching a blast of hot air in his face.
“C’est un arbre qui tombe,” the driver said to him, looking dismayed. A man named Loren with angular features and a deep umber complexion, he was an excellent local guide who had already made the trek out to UpLink’s Sette Cama base a bunch of times.
“Ce mal?” DeMarco asked.
One of the execs riding in back leaned forward in his seat, trying to make out the guide’s response, unable to understand his French.
“What is it?” he said.
“We’ve got some downed trees across the trail,” DeMarco replied. “Our guide says these things happen sometimes. A tree rots, goes over, hits another, and that one crashes into another.”
The exec frowned, but sat back to relay the news to his companions.
“How big a holdup can we expect?” Nimec said to DeMarco.
DeMarco held up a finger, had another brief exchange with the guide in French, then shrugged.
“Depends,” he replied after a moment. “There can be two, three, or a dozen trees that need clearing. Loren, a couple guys from his Rover, and the truckers are going have a closer look at the fall, and he wants us to check it out with them so we know the score. He says it doesn’t seem too bad from here. If a few of us pitch in to help, we should be able to move soon.”
Nimec gazed out in front of him but was unable to see past the 6×6’s broad rear end. After a second he turned back to DeMarco.
“Tell Loren I’ll be right with him,” he said.
DeMarco nodded. “Guess I’d may as well tag along.”
“No,” Nimec said. “You sit tight.”
DeMarco looked at him.
“Any particular reason?”
“Like I told you before, nobody ever gets hurt by being careful.” Nimec pushed his molded radio earplug into place and adjusted the lavalier mike on his collar. He thought a moment and then resumed in a hushed tone, “Call back for some of our boys to get out of their Rovers and keep their eyes open to what’s around us. But I want them sticking close… nobody off the trail. At least one man should stay in every vehicle with the execs.”