He didn’t get his target. They were, no doubt, well hidden behind the trunks of the trees. Still he’d had to try.
If this is where it ends, Porter thought, this is how it ends.
We’ll take as many of you bastards as we can.
What he wanted was to kill everyone out there. But he couldn’t let his own rage run things. He had to get these people safely off this mountain somehow.
If they could hold out until the rains came, then make a break in the post rain fog in the predawn, they’d have a chance.
But he knew the monks wouldn’t leave the golden elephant behind.
And it was also something of a security blanket because, with it, they wouldn’t be attacked with grenades—and these guys might have—for fear it would destroy the very thing they wanted.
Phommasanh and Tang joined him to discuss the plan. The Hmong leader now knew as well that there would be no relief force coming. They had to escape.
“The monks not leave statue here. They carry.”
Porter nodded. Leaving it might keep everyone alive, but that wasn’t going to happen. They’d die here first.
Tang said, “The rain come before the sun. We go then.”
Porter said, “One thing that might happen. We can scatter a lot of money around. Maybe that will help us. Delay them a bit.” Tang and Phommasanh discussed this and liked the idea.
49
After the shooting had finally stopped, Kiera continued to lie for a time completely still in the thick bed of weeds, thinking the shooters were sitting quiet, waiting for movement or noise.
The harsh effluvium of the jungle floor from the stench of decay and mud filled her nostrils as she struggled to open her lungs fully.
The difficulty came in waves of pain that spiked on the left side of her chest. Christ that hurts. Am I going to die like this? Give some beast or reptile a good meal?
But her lungs finally, mercifully, began to let in air. The oxygen burned like acid, but it was life affirming acid.
It’s a partial collapse, she reassured herself.
I will survive. I have to survive.
Kiera stared up at the trees and the steep slope, astonished at what she’d fallen through.
The monsoons had softened everything. And the slope, filled with soggy undergrowth and mud, had cushioned the final descent.
She reached up with her left hand to find the locket still around her neck. The movement of her arm brought more pain.
She stretched backwards a little at a time, arched, and fought off the pain in order to bring more air into her lungs. That brought wheezing, gasping and she feared it might also bring bullets.
When no shooting ensued, she loosened the backpack belt and rested a moment. Staring upward, she wondered if they were still there and looking for a way down. Beyond the leaves and limbs, she imagined someone staring down, searching for her, listening, waiting for movement, an AK-47 shifting back and forth looking for a kill shot. The world’s most popular weapon seeking her, wanting her, the rifle’s inventor back in Russian having lunch, his success celebrated around the globe.
Finally deciding they were no longer there, she turned her attention to Narith. She feared he was dead or badly hurt, but she was afraid to say anything for fear of being heard above.
She felt over her body. Things seemed intact. It really surprised her that the fall didn’t seem to have broken anything.
The jungle lay silent and heavy. She had to get up and find Narith but she didn’t dare move yet, afraid of the pain as well as the shooters.
Finally she knew this had to change. They had to get out of there. She said quietly, her voice barely audible even to her, “Narith?”
A grim silence.
C’mon, where are you?
She said it a little louder. “Narith?”
Kiera heard something that sounded like a thin, muffled reply, but she couldn’t tell from where.
In the trees or in the undergrowth? She felt he was very close. He was at least alive, but how alive? Their pursuers might be on the way down to make sure they were dead. If she was going to do something, she needed to do it now.
Again she went over her body, more quickly this time, in search of broken bones. Each limb, each rib and both hips passed inspection.
Again Kiera considered it miraculous that she had not only have survived, but survived with no apparent broken bones.
She searched for the radio but found only a piece of it in her back pocket. She cursed herself for not having moved it to one of her backpack’s outer pockets.
The Glock, though, lying under her leg in the soft grass, was intact and she was very happy about that. Never had a gun felt so good in her possession.
Now she heard Narith saying something in a hushed voice.
Using the tree to lean on, she pushed herself slowly to her feet. Her arms, legs and back felt like someone had worked her over with a baseball bat.
She moved slowly toward the sound of the monk’s voice, fearing what she’d find. Kiera had tremendous respect and affection for Narith and his mission and she had no intention of letting this man die here.
And he was necessary to saving Porter and the men on the mountain. She had to get him back to the caves and soon. “Narith?”
He replied and she nearly stumbled on him in the dark. He was sitting on a large exposed root. “You hurt?” she whispered.
“Shot,” he said quietly. “Leg.”
Kiera knelt beside him. Twilight existed above the canopy but little light was making it to the jungle floor.
It was so dark she could barely see him. To look at the wound she was going to have to use her pen light. She took it from her pocket. Narith pulled up the robe and bared his leg and she shielded the light with one hand as she took a look at the wound.
The bullet had cut down across the muscle above the knee, but didn’t look to have struck bone. The blood was minimal. But walking would be all but impossible with torn muscle. “Not too bad,” she said. “We need to get out of here. Let me wrap it. Do you have anything?”
“Yes.” He opened his pack and took out a t-shirt. She used it to make strips and wrap and secure the wound the best she could.
“You go,” Narith whispered. “Find the elephants. Go back to the Hmong caves and send men to the mountain.”
“I can’t go alone,” Kiera whispered back. “I can’t find my way back to the elephants without you. And I need you to come to the caves to talk to the men, explain things.”
“No. You go. Elephants are maybe two kilometers. You keep going along the mountain. You must hurry.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “I need you,” she said, looking around, trying to hear movement in the jungle, and thinking no way she was leaving this man to die here.
“No,” Narith insisted. “You must go on.”
She tightened her fingers. “You’re coming with me.”
He tried to pull away, but she was having none of that. “I can get you out of here.”
“My leg—”
“You have one good leg. Like you said, the elephants can’t be that far.” He was a very small, light man. Skin and bone. No meat on him at all and for that she was thankful. She could use a fireman’s carry if it came to that.
“I will stay here,” Narith whispered. “Please. You go. Send the men back.” Then he reached in the grass and came up with his flute case. “Keep it safe.”
Kiera had become very close to this man and leaving him here wasn’t going to happen.
“No.” She gave him back the flute case. “Use this as a crutch.”
Before he could say another word she grabbed the monk, pulled his arm around her waist, put her right arm around his back, lifted him up and started to walk.
He stumbled along, and then she changed grips, moving his left arm around her shoulder.
“This isn’t working,” she said, stopping a moment to realign their bodies and get her breathing right. When she recovered, she began to move awkwardly forward.
He protested for a little longer, but then surrendered. Nearing an opening in the jungle, Narith’s good leg began to falter and he nearly pulled her down. They recovered and continued for another thirty or forty yards, rested and then went off again.
Then, maybe ten minutes later, she slipped on the muddy grasses before catching herself and regaining her footing and knew it had hurt him a lot worse than her.
She was beginning to suspect he had more wrong than his leg. Maybe cracked ribs.
It was more difficult than she’d hoped. She readjusted her grip on Narith. He didn’t complain but she could feel him tighten whenever she came close to his right rib cage.
“I’m too heavy,” Narith protested.
“You’re not. I can handle the weight.”
The burn in her thighs and calves was searing, but nothing compared to the tenderness in her lungs as she struggled for the oxygen. She’d never felt a pain like this. Like hot spikes driven into her chest. She didn’t want to lose focus, awareness. Kiera knew the fine line, as all long distance runners learn, between pushing through the wall, and dying against it.
You have to know when to back off and she could feel her reserves beginning to give out, surrendering to the pain.
With no alternative, Kiera willed herself forward, even as her body rebelled. She was now hitting the wall and she knew she couldn’t go on like this.
They finally exited a stretch of heavy forest and moved around the rock face.
The world around her was revealed by a thin moon. The mountain on their left, rising sharply, before them the rugged valley cut tight and shallow through the towering, misshapen mountains.
In the distance she saw the low, flat rock face where she’d climbed earlier. It seemed a very long time ago.
The watering hole where the elephants were wasn’t very far now, but she knew she couldn’t carry Narith there. Or even another twenty yards.
She knew even her will power couldn’t overcome the deficit. She was giving out and would hurt herself to a point where just getting there alone might be a serious problem.
“No more. You must stop now,” Narith said, apparently realizing as well that she was finished.
“Yes,” she said, accepting reality. “I can’t carry you any farther.” She knew she would have no trouble finding her way now. “I’ll bring the mahout back.”
She lowered him to the ground.
“Yes,” Narith said, as he lay on the ground. “I will wait here. Go fast. Leave your pack here.”
Kiera took the pack off and put it beside the monk and now, free of both burdens, she gained something of a second wind.
The elephants couldn’t be that much farther, half a mile at the most. She increased her stride almost to a labored jog, ignoring the scream in her lungs, the ache in her legs and hips and back.
She was in triathlon mode now, just more so. A state of mind where nothing matters but the next step and the next and the next…
Fixed on her goal with total focus, Kiera moved as quickly as she could through the grass swales and rocks, around the slope of the mountain. She had to get to the elephants and get the mahout back to Narith fast.
She reached the bomb-crater watering hole in about half an hour.
There she found the elephants gathered along the north side of the waterhole, but no sign of their handler. The mahout was maybe sleeping. He had to be here somewhere.
She called out in a soft voice: “Hello. Hello.”
Kiera tried to remember his name. Wasn’t sure she ever knew what his name actually was.
She ran around the side of the crater toward the large female, Bo. The big elephant stood rock still, watching her intently. “Bo, remember me?”
The other elephants were moving around with restless agitation. Where was the mahout? He wouldn’t leave them.
As she drew closer she saw something lying at the edge of the pool, half in the water.
She thought at first it was an animal of some kind, but then realized with a shock that it was a human body.
Jesus, it’s the mahout.
He lay face down, a hand out as if he’d been reaching for something. With his face buried in mud and water she knew he wasn’t alive.
Oh no!
She couldn’t believe this. What had happened?
When Kiera approached closer the elephants grew even more agitated, moving back and forth, shifting their weight aggressively. The big tusker’s black eyes fixed on her, his head moving up and down. That made her nervous.
She spoke softly, hoping to calm them down. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt him anymore. It’s okay.”
When the tusker looked like he was going to charge she swore softly to herself. Not knowing what else to do, she said in a command voice, “Hey, calm down. I’m here to help.”
The male elephant started moving its head faster and she didn’t know what to do if he charged. Scare him off with a hand gun? Run? Go into the water?
Did the elephants rebel and kill the mahout for some reason? She’d heard of elephants suddenly turning on people at circuses and zoos.
“Relax,” she said, keeping her voice even and strong. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
She hoped showing strength and boldness was the better part of valor in this situation. They were creatures used to human control, so it seemed the right way unless they in fact had rebelled. In which case she knew her mission to get Narith back to the caves so he could arrange a relief force to go up the mountain was doomed. Everything was doomed.
That just couldn’t happen.
“I’m not your enemy,” she said quietly. She wanted to see what had killed the mahout, find out how he died. She made a move toward him.
The big tusker raised his trunk and let out a strange set of chirpy sounds.
“Don’t charge me, damn you. Settle down. I know you’re upset. Just calm down.”
She again considered firing her weapon in the air. That might scare them off, but then what? Without the elephants she couldn’t do anything. It would be the end for everyone.
Two more steps.
Fuck, he’s going to charge me
. She decided to back off in a hurry as he moved toward her with bad intent.
But then the big female Bo suddenly cut the male off as she came toward Kiera.
Backing up, Kiera tripped and fell, her head striking something hard on the ground behind her…