Brotherhood and Others (19 page)

Monarch spun and took off after the pygmy, who was limping hard past the dark hulk of the helicopter. For an instant, he considered jumping inside the bird, seeing if he could get it to turn—

The boy soldiers opened fire from the stockade. Bullets whipped by Monarch's head, slapped at his fleeing heels.

*   *   *

“Slow down there,” Claudio said as the last of the other brothers went down the staircase.

“Why?” Robin asked, finishing his second beer. “Things can't get a whole lot worse, can they?”

“Come downstairs, and get your share,” Claudio said. “You earned it. We'll talk about the rest later.”

Earned it? Earned it how? Through the death of an innocent father? Those acid thoughts churned in Robin's head as he followed Claudio into the inner sanctum of the Brotherhood of Thieves. The walls were decorated with nude pinups and posters of motorcycles and cars. Julio stood behind a table at the far end of the basement below a painting of the tattoo they all wore. The other members of La Fraternidad were taking their places on benches facing Julio, who was untying the plastic grocery bags.

Julio looked out at the Brothers, appearing to acknowledge every one of them except Claudio and Robin, before he lifted the grocery bag, dumped the contents on the table, and said, “All jewels.”

The other thieves erupted in gasps, claps, and cries of wonder.

“How did you do it, Julio?” one of the other thieves called out.

“Like you do any great job,” Julio replied, and then pointed at his head. “You think. You plan. You execute. You follow the eighteen rules and you—”

Robin cut him off, shouting from the back of the room, “You are so full of shit, man. Completely so full of shit!”

Claudio grabbed him, said, “Calm down.”

Robin wrenched free and stormed toward the front saying, “You had nothing to do with this except fucking things up, Julio. And now I suppose you're going to demand a bigger share as a reward for being a complete drunken gun-happy fuck-up who could get us sent to prison for life!”

*   *   *

Monarch dodged over a rise, and sprinted down toward a beach several hundred yards from the fortress. Behind him he heard the gate being lowered.

“Find them, Gahji!” Lieutenant Zed roared. “Bring me back that stone!”

Hearing the creaking noise of the bridge being extended, Monarch hit the beach and ran toward Fasi, who was already pushing a dugout into the water. Tossing the gun on the bottom of the big canoe, he climbed in on his knees. There was a push-pole lying in the canoe bottom, but the pygmy handed him a crude paddle to use instead. The eastern sky was quickly softening toward dawn. It would be daylight soon enough, and there was no doubt they'd be spotted out there on the open lake.

Monarch put his back into it, knifing the paddle down into the water, and pulling it through in a J-stroke he'd learned from SEALs when he was in the U.S. Special Forces. Again and again, he stabbed the water and pulled, feeling the heavy dugout begin to pick up speed and glide.

He could hear shouting now and looked over to see a mass of dark figures coming across the bridge. A few were already past the helicopter.

“How many canoes are back there on the beach, Fasi?” Monarch grunted as he switched the paddle to the opposite side and stroked again.

“Eight or nine,” the pygmy replied. “But it will take them a while to find the paddles. I threw most of them in the lake.”

Monarch decided he liked the little man very much.

They were less than three hundred yards offshore when the first of Lieutenant Zed's boys reached the beach, spotted them out there on the moonlit lake, silhouetted against the gathering dawn. A shout went up, and then bullets swept after them like a thunderstorm's pelting rain.

*   *   *

Julio's eyes had gone hard and cold. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing,” Claudio yelled. “He's just—”

“Done!” Robin shouted at the gang leader. “Done listening to how you're the brains, the greatest. Done letting you take so much of my take. And most definitely done listening to your lies.”

Robin looked around at his brother thieves. “Claudio figured this whole thing out. Claudio. The only thing Julio did was find some tanks of acetylene gas and a bottle of rum that he drank while Claudio and I were risking everything.”

“I killed a man,” Julio snarled. “Or did you forget that?”

“Kill?” The room was suddenly echoing that.

“How could I forget you were drunk and decided to shoot a man in cold blood?” Robin shot back.

“He saw us,” Julio hissed. “There was nothing else I could do.”

“He saw us because you didn't tie his wrists right,” Robin said. “This is just another case of you being drunk and fucking up.”

“Name one other,” Julio said.

“That girl we kidnapped a couple of years ago,” Robin said. “The one who escaped and stole back her ransom money because you were too drunk to—”

Julio was aiming the pistol right at Robin's head.

*   *   *

More shots. More bullets ripped the water around the canoe. Monarch heard one hit, splintering the wood right behind him.

Like a racehorse under a whip, he pulled with every ounce of strength, over and over again, trying to put distance between them and the bullets.

The wind came up at his back, helping to take them finally out of range. The shots were fewer behind them and the bullets fell harmlessly on the water. But even as the sky turned a brilliant red, Monarch kept up his relentless paddling, and was now able to see the southern shoreline of the lake ahead of him a mile or so. They'd get there, and then hike south, eight, nine miles? And Barnett? Had she heard his last transmission?

“American, look behind you!” Fasi cried.

For the first time in many minutes, Monarch looked to his rear. There were three canoes on the lake back there almost six hundred yards. There were at least five boys in each canoe, all of them paddling hard.

Monarch was swinging his attention away from them and caught movement in the trees. Bands of boy soldiers were running along the shoreline, trying to cut them off.

*   *   *

“I knew you hit me!” Julio roared at Robin. “You let that little bitch go, and stole the ransom money!”

The leader of La Fraternidad glared at Claudio. “You lied to me too, told me no way Robin did that, that I just drank too much. You're part of it. You!”

“Julio…” Claudio began.

“Shut up, traitor,” Julio said, now swinging the gun back and forth between Claudio and Robin. “Empty your pockets or I'll shoot you like I did the cleaner.”

They hesitated. Julio cocked the hammer on the pistol. “Do it.”

Claudio reached in and got the four gold ingots, put them on the table.

“Lying thief,” Julio said in disgust. “I knew you were trying to blind me while you got them from that safe.”

“Robin's right,” Claudio shot back. “You've been taking too much.”

Julio tilted his head. “So what, you want a revolution?” He looked to the other thieves. “Against the one who helped rescue all of you from the garbage heaps?”

The other thieves were shaking their heads, none willing to come to Robin and Claudio's side on this count, especially with Julio drunk, pissed, and armed, having already shot one man tonight.

Julio smiled bitterly at Robin and Claudio. “I know you think you're smarter than me, but I read, brothers.” He had the gun pointed at Robin again. “You know how great men stay in power, men who lead for year upon year, decades?”

“I know dictators eliminate their enemies,” Robin said, glaring at the gun.

Julio's anger returned. “That's right. They do.”

“So you just going to shoot us, is that it?” Robin said. “Right here in front of everyone?”

“You broke rules,” Julio said. “You got to be punished or no one will listen to me ever again.”

“But like this? With me having no chance to defend myself? Like the cleaner tonight? Is that how you like it now? Shooting defenseless people?”

Julio's face turned beet red, but he did not lower the pistol. “You want a chance? Is that it? To what, fight me?”

To Robin it was clearly a better alternative; he'd rather have a chance than no chance at all. “Yes,” he said. “I want to fight you for control of La Fraternidad.”

At first Julio looked insulted, but then grinned wickedly, said, “You know, I like that better in so many ways.” He glanced at the other brothers, gestured with his chin at Claudio. “Tie up this traitor up.” Then he looked back at Robin, and said, “And give this dead thief a knife.”

*   *   *

The wind shifted broadside to the canoe when they were less than two hundred yards shy of land. The boys running on the lake's southern shoreline were at least a half mile shy of cutting them off. But the three dugouts were closing hard behind them. Monarch glanced over his shoulder, and saw Gahji in the front of the closest dugout, about three hundred yards back. He was trying to aim.

“Go left!” Fasi screamed.

“What?” Monarch said, whipping his head around and feeling like the diamond in the knapsack on his back was like a bull's-eye.

“East,” the pygmy insisted. “Go in there.”

Monarch looked left, seeing heavy weeds on the water that became a wall of reeds far out from shore.

“How deep's the water in there?” Monarch yelled. He cut his paddle to turn the dugout toward the marsh.

“That's the point,” Fasi yelled. “You and me with this pole to push us, no problem. But five in the canoe, they're in—”

A burst of gunfire cut him off. Bullets spit and sliced the water to their right. Monarch drove them forward into the lilies, heading toward the flooded marsh. Ten strokes later his paddle hit bottom.

Fasi was already handing him the push pole. Monarch stood, grabbed the pole, stabbed it into the mud, and heaved himself against it before another burst ripped the lily pads to their left.

“Shoot at them!” Monarch shouted.

The pygmy scrambled back toward him, grabbed up the gun, showed only a moment's hesitation before leaning out, aiming around Monarch, and pulling the trigger. The recoil threw Fasi and the gun out of the canoe.

“Shit,” Monarch said, crouched as he went by and grabbed the little man by the back of his shirt, heaved him and the gun, now coated in muck, into the bottom of the dugout.

He got two more solid pushes and they were almost to the high marsh grass. Fasi was up on all fours. He wiped the mud from his eyes, said, “There!”

Monarch saw the narrow channel of the water and pushed again, and once more. The dugout hit deeper water and accelerated just in time.

Bullets slashed at the grass and reeds that swallowed them. He could hear shouts behind them and more shots. But they were harmless, just a waste of ammunition. Fasi lifted a machete Monarch hadn't noticed before and slashed at the branches that blocked their way. In less than two minutes, Monarch had almost poled them to shore. He heard cursing behind them that intensified. Carrying the machete, Fasi scrambled out onto drier ground with Monarch close behind him, carrying the mud-caked AK-47. Up on the bank, he paused to look back over the high grass toward the lake.

Two of the dugout canoes had foundered in the mud. Several of the boy soldiers had jumped overboard, trying to pull the dugouts back to open water, and were stuck as well. But the third canoe, Gahji's, looked like it had never gone toward the marsh at all, and he and his paddlers were now less than one hundred and fifty yards from land.

“Come,” Fasi said, and pulled Monarch after him into the jungle.

*   *   *

Robin held a double-edged fighting knife in his right hand and used it to track Julio's movements. The other thieves had pulled the benches back and crowded the basement walls. Claudio had been bound and thrown on the ground in the corner.

“So you think you can cut Julio?” the gang leader sneered, his gold tooth gleaming. “You think you are big and strong enough to take control of La Fraternidad. My Brotherhood?”

Robin kept the knife pointed right at Julio's chest, just the way Julio had taught him. “About to find out,” he replied.

“Ahh, my little thieving idiot,” Julio said, playing to the crowd before lashing out at Robin with a vicious backhand strike.

Robin was quick, but not quick enough. Julio's knife flayed a three-inch gash on his right bicep. Blood spurted and ran down his arm. Some of the brothers were cheering Julio now, and Robin understood Julio's strategy: Cut my weapon arm as often as possible, cripple me, and then finish me.

He felt the blood running onto his hand, making it more difficult to hold his knife. Julio sensed it, leered at him, and said, “You should have taken the bullet when you had the chance.”

*   *   *

The pygmy had some kind of internal compass.

Monarch realized this within five minutes of entering the rain forest. To Monarch the jungle proved a three-dimensional maze that left him feeling directionless, and clawed at by dripping vegetation, vines, and the exposed roots of trees that grew a hundred feet or more, up through several canopies toward the light and the sky.

But it all seemed familiar to Fasi, who pushed on, clambering around and over obstacles, cutting through the vines and thorns that blocked their way. Monarch kept checking the compass function in his watch, and was amazed that the needle hardly wavered off of a southeast heading.

“Shouldn't we be going straight south?” he asked at one point.

“Soon,” the pygmy gasped. He was moving quickly, but there was a definite limp in his stride.

Monarch looked behind him, realized that they were leaving strong evidence of their passing: broken branches, crushed ferns, and turned rocks.

Easy tracking.