“Once we’re there,” she repeated softly while looking at her glass. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.”
“You and me both; we must be insane.” He gave her a half smile. “Extremely insane.” His smile dropped the more he let himself think about it.
Ben looked up at her. “So why do you want to go? The Amazon is no place for novices. In fact, it’ll be weeks without shelter, and it’ll be hot, humid and uncomfortable, and not to mention deadly.” He leaned forward. “You, me, we could all die there.”
She sipped again. “You’ll protect me.” Her eyes were direct, but after a few seconds, her face broke into a smile. “But honestly, Ben, I’m 32 years old, and haven’t exactly been getting that many casting calls lately.”
“Seriously? You’re still a very beautiful woman, Andrea.” He hiked his shoulders.
“Thank you, but in a land of beautiful women, you need more. I’m tipping towards invisibility in my agent’s office. The thing is, I’m boring.” She put her glass down with a clunk. “The very thought of this fills me with excitement, curiosity, and hope. I’m going to write down everything we do and see, get a writer to turn it into a script, and then I’m going to take it to a producer.” She leaned forward with a cat-like smile on her lips. “And I’m going to play the lead.”
“Good plan. But let’s not count our chickens just yet, Andrea. We might not even make it there.” He sipped again consciously, struggling not to look down at her open shirt.
She also sipped her ale, her eyes on his. The tiny curve of her lips gave Ben the impression she was reading his mind. She slowly put the glass down.
“Well, I for one wouldn’t want to be the guy who was on his deathbed and didn’t bother to see where this adventure might lead.”
Ben grunted, knowing this to be true for himself. “I never said never, Andrea. I’m not trying to be a handbrake, more a… reality check.”
“A shock absorber will do.” She got to her feet.
Ben walked her to the door and pulled it open. She turned in the doorframe and leant forward quickly to kiss him on the lips.
She eased back, but only a few inches. “Never say never; I like it.” She kissed him again, harder.
Ben’s eyes were open, and he couldn’t help his hand finding its way to her waist. She was soft and firm at the same time, and he felt himself become rock hard between them. Over her shoulder, he saw movement and looked up to see a horrified Emma.
Shit, he thought, and immediately pulled back from Andrea who saw the look on his face and turned. She giggled and turned back to him.
“First come first served.” She looked down at his waist. “Ouch, that looks painful.” She then sashayed down the hallway, nodding to a fuming Emma as she went past.
He turned to Emma, but her eyes blazed and her fists were balled. She turned on her heel and also vanished.
Ben groaned as he shut the door and leaned against it. Good grief, he thought. He seemed to stumble from one thing to the next without being in control of any of them.
He sat on his bed and contemplated calling Emma on the in-room phone, but bet she’d never take his call. Ben turned to look at the table with the two beers, one only sipped at and the other, his, empty. The maps, notebook, and old novel stood open. He couldn’t be bothered resuming his research again right now.
“Tomorrow’s another day.” He stripped down to his boxers and T-shirt and flopped back down on the bed, pulling the duvet up over himself.
In another moment he was asleep.
Ben Cartwright ran, fast and hard, from what he had no idea. He just knew he must not let it catch him.
He put his head down to push harder and suddenly needed to skid to a stop — the jungle ended and he was at the edge of a cliff that dropped away to a ground that was lost in the clouds below. A breeze blew into his face that seemed to come from everywhere at once. He squinted, staring down.
Beneath his feet, the ground shook as something of enormous weight came through the jungle like a truck. The thing that pursued him filled him with a terror he couldn’t even measure.
Ben turned back to the cliff edge as his panic was causing his mind to short-circuit with indecision. Behind him, the foliage burst open and the roar made him cringe with a panic he hadn’t known even when he was under siege by terrorists.
He didn’t want to look back, didn’t want to see, but slowly his head edged around anyway. His teeth clamped together hard and pure horror made the gorge rise in his throat. The thing poured towards him, and he threw his hands up in front of his face.
Ben’s eyes flicked wide open. He was back in the dark of his room, and safe.
But then knew he wasn’t alone.
There was the faintest creak of a floorboard and an impression of movement in the room’s still air. He lay still in the near pitch darkness, listening some more. Ben was sure of it now; there were moving bodies in his room. At first, he was hopeful that somehow Emma had managed to get in and was going to forgive him.
But then he knew different. There was more than one person, being silent as wraiths, and he lay there just using senses other than his eyes. He could smell them then, the tangy sweat of men, musty clothing, and worryingly, gun oil.
Another floorboard complained with only the faintest of sounds, but it told Ben that the men were big and heavy. Anyone else might have wondered if some guests had blundered into the wrong room, but Ben’s covert military experience told him that whoever they were, they knew what they were doing and were determined to be as stealthy as possible.
He heard the soft ruffle of papers — they’re going for the notebook — like hell, he thought, and flew from the bed.
He immediately encountered a large boot to the chest. The room was near total darkness, and it told him his intruders must have been wearing night-vision. This was no casual break-in.
Ben had trained for this and went fast, using memory of the room’s layout to avoid obstacles. If they had night-vision, then light was his ally. He came low, lifted quickly and flicked on a bedside lamp. The glow was low wattage, but after the blackness of the room, it illuminated the scene like a flashbulb.
Ben knew when waiting for eyes to adjust from night-blindness, the key wasn’t to wait for everything to take shape, but to just take in enough and react, and let the brain fill in the gaps.
There were two big men, dressed all in black and with Cyclops night-scopes down over the faces. The light would have near blinded them, but instead of recoiling or fleeing, the pair of men turned… to fight.
Ben came low, intending to take the first intruder down, and then use an elbow to his throat or even bridge of the nose to incapacitate him. It didn’t go to plan.
The guy lowered his chest and took Ben head-on. Ben was big, but this guy outweighed him by a good 20 pounds. Ben was skilled in hand-to-hand combat and had the advantage of reacting first. He dived under the barrel chest, grabbed a pair of trunk-like legs, and upended him, flinging him backwards. He heard the satisfying dull thud of skull against wood and the guy stayed down, flat out.
Within the same heartbeat, Ben spun at the second man, who had now ripped off his goggles. The eyes behind the balaclava weren’t wide with shock or fear, but focused and intense — he knew it — professionals.
The straight-hand punch was aimed at his chin and Ben blocked it easily, catching the wrist and twisting it. There was no yell of pain or even a grunt; instead, the man planted his legs and flicked out a flat-hand strike at Ben’s nose.