“Who would want to live here? Yuk.”
“Criminals.” Drake shrugged. “No law exists in the Amazon rainforest, love.”
“It’s predator versus predator,” Dahl said from behind. “But luckily, you have the top of the food chain right alongside you.”
Drake allowed the branch to snap back against the Swede’s forehead. “Whoops. Sorry, oh King of the Jungle.”
“What?” Alicia looked aghast. “He didn’t catch that vine in his teeth?”
Dahl wiped rain from his eyes. “Piss off, both of you.”
They tramped on, the hours passing in soulless silence, their boots quietly absorbed by the mulch, moving from trail to trail if they could, but otherwise forging their own path. It was after eight before Hayden called a short break.
Smyth plonked himself down upon a fallen log, face dripping more with sweat than water. Kinimaka sat beside him and eyed what they could of the skies.
“Has it been raining again?”
“This is the face of a man working hard for a living,” Smyth grated. “Not something you’d know about back on the pineapple plantation.”
Kinimaka cleared his throat. “Seriously, I’ll take over if you like.”
“Nah. The rainforest’s losing more than enough trees per hour as it is.”
Drake made sure he checked on Yorgi and Lauren before they resumed. The Russian thief and the New Yorker were the least qualified of any of them to be carting weapons through a jungle, but both looked well hydrated and with an excess of energy. Hayden figured they had come three miles but then the going hadn’t been as hard as they’d figured. At this rate, Drake thought, they’d come close to the site of the bazaar by late morning. He spoke quietly to Dahl and Alicia, careful not to let his voice carry too far into the surrounding vegetation. It was Smyth, sitting on his log, who clearly heard something ahead, for at that moment he signaled the group.
Get out of sight.
Drake rolled into the undergrowth, trying not to imagine what might already be housed there. Beneath the boughs and overgrown surrounds of an immense tree they crouched in silence.
Before long a group of men came by, clearly not natives. They wore dirty T-shirts and cut-off denims, carried Ak47s carelessly and stared only at each other. Drake was glad they had chopped at the trail so carefully, but at the same time believed these men wouldn’t have spotted a man with scythes for arms standing in their way. At the same time, their confidence was discomforting. Drake knelt alongside his friends as the men filed by, speaking in Mexican and laughing among themselves. Ten minutes later the coast was clear and the group emerged, soaked, cramped, but still invisible to the world.
Another hour slipped by, broken only by bird calls, creaking boughs and the snapping of branches. Drake once thought he heard a low growl, but wasn’t sure if it came from an indigenous cat or Smyth. It never came again so he assumed it had emerged from the latter. Hitching up their backpacks and readying their weapons they moved further and further southeast along a line that ran fairly parallel to the Jutai River, occasionally returning to its banks as the trail meandered to and fro.
It was after eleven when Hayden called another break.
With infinite care, the group came together.
Drake swigged more water greedily. “How close are we?”
“Very,” Hayden whispered. “The dots are practically merging. From here on in you guys should use your GPS, scout the perimeter of the bazaar, and then rendezvous back here in an hour to compare notes. Let’s say Yorgi, Lauren and Smyth wait here.”
There were nods all round, and Smyth looked relieved to be taking a break. Hayden gave the trio a parting warning. “Stay alert for roving patrols.”
Drake consulted his own GPS and moved in closer to their objective until a movement eight meters to his right made him freeze. With infinite caution he crept closer, sizing up the person who emerged out of the greenery. As he worked his way around he began to hear music in the distance, a dance tune, and considered the audacity of his prey. That’s good, he thought. A bold enemy is usually a dead enemy.
The guard he evaluated seemed a little different from the usual type of mercenary. Drake studied him and saw a better edge to the vigilance, a certain skill to the way he handled his firearm and words passing between him and other watchers via some kind of headset. These men were real professionals, not just called so because they killed for a living.
Drake continued through his sector until he encountered two more guards. The third seemed to sense him, and that was fair praise, but Drake managed to slip away without detection. All the while the music pumped in the background and occasionally a gust of laughter rode the wind. Twice, Drake heard gunshots followed by either jeering or merriment and assumed some kind of game was underway. In any case, the bazaar was in full flow. Drake backed away and returned to the rendezvous, once more becoming accustomed to the rainforest’s relative peacefulness. They had been lucky so far but now came another intense downpour. Drake found himself smiling.
That should dampen their masochistic amusements.
Back at the rendezvous the team were already assembled. Dahl looked ready to poke fun for his lateness — and for that matter so did Alicia — but their need to keep to murmurs robbed them of their fun. Within minutes the various reports came in.
“Guard every fifty, sixty feet,” the Swede said under the punch of the rainstorm. “Capable looking. Probably hand-picked. Some kind of group communication so no chance of picking ’em off one at a time. A solid cordon, I’d say.”
Drake affirmed with a nod. “Agreed. If we’re trying to get in there unnoticed we’ll have to come up with another way.”
Hayden pursed her lips. “I’m of the same mind. Distraction is a possibility to draw some of them away, but that would only draw attention, and these guys don’t seem particularly dumb. I think we need a way of blending in.”
“Count me the fuck out,” Smyth griped.
Alicia tapped the watery jungle floor. “I came across a tributary of the Jutai that seemed to run close by the main camp. Couldn’t get too far along to get a better look, but a small barge did pass by with guards stood around the top deck.”
Kinimaka crossed his large arms. “So where does all that leave us? We might as well have HALO’d in. Saved us all this hoofing about.”
Hayden shook her head. “The camp, the main bazaar, is huge. No way will we get away with storming it. And even if we did get lucky with the guards we’d lose three quarters of the people we came here to get. And don’t forget Webb, the CIA and Big Dog. No, this one’s gonna take a little finesse.”
Dahl looked blank. Drake coughed. Kinimaka narrowed his eyes. “Say what?”
“Finesse. Skill. Flair. Elegance. You know.”
Dahl continued to stare. “I’m not following.”
Alicia scratched her head. “What the hell is she talking about?”
Hayden threw up her hands in despair, but refrained from shouting. “All right, boys, less of the wise guy routine. Let’s use that incredible wit to come up with a solution, eh?”
“At some point we need to gauge the conviction of Ramses’ soldiers,” Smyth said. “If they’re fanatics this thing could be a whole lot harder.”
“It also means Ramses is good,” Drake said gloomily. “Probably better than all the Pythians put together.”
“We have to assume they have contingencies in place to guard against a full-scale invasion,” Dahl said. “And covert infiltration.”
At that moment the downpour began to lessen. The team took a moment to adjust to the softer noise levels and mopped water from their clothes. Within moments they were sweltering from the new, humid heat.