Casius ground his teeth and forced his mind to run through his options for the hundredth time.
SHERRY WOKE to the smell of burning wood. She started and pushed herself to her arms. Three feet away a small fire managed to burn through damp wood, filling the cave with smoke.
The vision had come again and raged with its intensity, soaking her with sweat. And now she had awakened. Which clearly meant that the rest of this was not a vision or a nightmare or any other such supernatural episode. The attack, the escape, and now this caveâthey were all real. Sherry swallowed and sat all the way up.
Father Petrus slept on one side, head facing the wall away from her.
How Casius had managed a fire of all things, she didn't know, but he bent over it now, blowing into the coals as rising white ash filtered through his hair. A single small flame flickered lazily over red embers. Smoke drifted past him, bent at the cave's ceiling, and then wandered out the small opening through which they had crawled in the night. The tiny firelight flickered amber on the rough stone walls, highlighting a dozen plum-sized insects fixed to the cave's interior. Sherry swallowed again and turned her eyes to a dead lizard lying limp next to the man.
“Good morning,” he said without looking up from the flame. “The fog is thick outside, so I lit a small fire. It will mask the smoke. You need some food, and I didn't think you'd want to eat it raw. We'll wait here until the search parties have come and gone.”
“What search parties?”
“They know we escaped. They will send out search parties.”
Made sense. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“I'm taking you to safety,” he replied.
“Yes, but to where?”
“The Caura River. We'll find a boat that can take you to Soledad.”
His voice tweaked a raw nerve in Sherry's spine, reminding her that she had decided she did not like him. She stared at the wide yellow strip running from the creature's snout to its tail. If she had woken hungry, her appetite had already made a hasty retreat. She looked up at the man as he quickly skinned the lizard with a large knife and lay strips of its flesh in the coals.
The firelight danced off broad, muscled shoulders. He knelt over the coals and she thought his calves must be twice the size of her own. The broad band of tape still clung to his thick thigh. A makeshift Band-Aid perhaps. Dark hair lay close to his head. His eyes glimmered brown in the dim light. Camo paint was still plastered on his face, unwashed by the rain.
Whoever he was, she doubted he was simply a DEA scout who'd grown up in Caracas. In another world he could easily bear the title “the Destroyer” or
“
the Emancipator” or some other such stage name. The likeness resonated.
Smoke stung her eyes. “Is there a way to get rid of the smoke?” she asked. Her cold had worsened through last evening's rain. She cleared her sore throat.
He looked at her and blinked once. “No.” He returned to the preparation over the fire, and she realized he would probably insist she eat the meat.
She unfolded her cramped legs and stretched them before her, leaning back on her hands. Mud had dried on her shins and thighs, no doubt covering a dozen cuts and bruises. She rested one boot over the other and edged close to the fire, watching the man's face. He glanced at her legs quickly and then back to the lizard meat now simmering in the red coals.
“Look, Casius.” She cleared her throat again, thinking she sounded like a husky man with the cold. Her chest felt as though a vise had moved in over night. “I realize this is all a terrible inconvenience for you. We've crashed some terribly important mission you were dying to complete. Life-and-death stuff, right?” She flashed a grin, but he merely glanced at her without responding. A wedge of heat rose behind her neck.
“The fact is, we are together. We might as well be civilized.”
He pulled the meat from the fire, laid it on the moss, and sat back to his haunches. “You've thrown a kink in my plans.” He lifted his eyes and studied her for a moment.
Sherry shoved herself up and crossed her legs. “Is that how you see us? A kink?”
He dropped his eyes to the fire and she saw his jaw muscles clench.
Now
that was good, Sherry. Go ahead, alienate the man. He's obviously a brute with the
social skills of an ape. No need to enrage him. Just toss him a banana and he'll be
fine. He saved your life, didn't he?
Then again, she wasn't exactly the queen of social graces either. “You know, the thing of it is, I didn't choose this. And I don't mean just
this
, as in running through the jungle with some . . . Tarzan, but coming to the jungle in the first place.”
He didn't respond.
“A week ago I was a medical intern, studying with top honors. And then my grandmother convinces me that I have to get to this mission station two hundred miles southwest of Caracas. Something terrible is about to happen, you see. And I'm somehow a part of it. I'm having terrible nightmares about something that's going to happen. So I rush down here, only to be thrown into a bloodbath. Do you know how many men you killed back there or don't you count?”
He looked up at her. “Some men need to be killed.”
“Some?”
He held her eyes for a few seconds. “Most.”
The word seemed to fill the enclave with a thick silence.
Most?
It was the way he said it, as if he really meant it. As if in his opinion, most people had no business living.
“You are right,” Father Petrus said. Sherry turned to see that he'd awoken and faced them. “In fact, all men need to be killedâone way or another. But not by you they don't. You are the hand of God?”
The corner of Casius's mouth lifted. “We are all the hands of God. God deals in death as well as life,” he said.
“And to whom do you deal death?” Father Petrus asked.
Casius looked as though he might break off the conversation. He dropped his eyes and stirred the coals. But then he looked up.
“I deal death to who he tells me to kill.”
The fire crackled.
“
Who
tells you to kill?”
Casius stared, eyes blank. “Your God, as you call him, doesn't appear to be so discriminating. He slaughtered whole nations.”
“Are you directed by God?”
No response.
“Then, you are against him,” Petrus said. “And in the grand scheme of things, that's not such a good place to be. But still, we are grateful for what you did. Now, what's for breakfast?”
Casius glared at him. Looking at the man, a small portion of sorrow spread through Sherry's chest. There was a whole history there that neither she nor Petrus could possibly know.
She dropped her eyes to the fire, suddenly feeling heavy. “I was told yesterday that life comes through dying.” She lifted her eyes and saw that Casius stared at her. “Are you ready to die, Casius?”
She had no idea why she asked the question. Really she was asking it of herself. A knot rose to her throat and the flames suddenly swam. She swallowed.
Casius tossed a stick onto the fire, sending a shower of sparks to the ceiling. “I'll be ready to die when death defeats me.”
“So . . .” She was speaking again, and she still wasn't sure why. “Death hasn't put its claws into you yet? You yourself haven't felt the effects of deathâ you're too busy killing.”
“You speak too much,” he said.
This was all wrong. She didn't mean to insult this man. On the other hand, he reminded her of everything she'd come to believe was offensive. Men like Casius had killed her parents.
“I'm sorry. It's not that I'm not grateful for your helpâI am. You just bring back some pretty . . . awful memories. I've seen enough killing.” She looked at Petrus. “The father told me that for every killing, there is a dying. There were two sides to the crucifixion of Christâa killing and a dying. Like in some grand chess match, there are the black players who are the killers, and there are the white, who are the die-ers. One kills for hate, while others die for love. I was just coming to understand that . . .”
“You show me someoneâanyoneâwho dies for love, and I'll listen to you. Until then, I will kill whom I have to. And you should learn to keep your mouth closed.”
“You are CIA?” Father Petrus asked.
He pulled back into himself then and breathed deliberately. “I've said too much already. I'll be back as soon as I check the perimeter.” He stood abruptly, walked to the entrance, and slid out, leaving Father Petrus and Sherry alone with the fire.
And the lizard.
Wednesday
THEY SPENT the rest of the morning in an odd silence, waiting for signs of a search, huddled speechless in the small cavern. Several times the woman made comments in hushed tones, but Casius immediately lifted a finger to his lips. As long as they were in the cave, they wouldn't have the advantage of being able to hear an approach. Their own silence became critical. He was glad for the restriction.
Casius made the fifth perimeter sweep of the day, stepping lightly from tree to tree, eager to confirm the direction of any search party and resume their journey north. Eager to step beyond the strange dichotomy that seemed to rear its head as the day progressed.
He decided that the priest's and woman's presence was simply an inconvenience. A
kink,
as he'd said. As long as he ignored them, they wouldn't be much of a threat to his mission. He'd soon dump them in the arms of safety and continue. He pulled into the shadow of a large Yevaro tree and scanned the slope before him. Several times helicopters had beat low over the trees, possibly carrying men to the search. So far, none had ventured this deep.
He leaned on the tree and thought about the woman. Sherry. She was an enigma. For reasons out of his grasp, ignoring her was more difficult than he had imagined. She kept popping into his mind like one of those spring-loaded puppets. Only she was no more a spring-loaded puppet than he was her monster. The talk had put a spur in his chest. A small ache.
And what about you,
Miss Sherry Blake? You and your mission from God, come to the jungle to die with
your priest. What kind of heart do
you
have?
A good heart. He knew that and it gnawed at his mind. She'd surprised him with the questions earlier and he had surprised himself even more by engaging her. An image of her leaning back in the dim firelight rose in his mind's eye. Her dark hair lay on her shoulders; her hazel eyes glistened like marbles in the flickering flame. The white T-shirt was no longer white, but muddy brown. She had well-muscled legs and a silky smooth complexion under the dirt. Her cold had turned her voice husky and her eyes a little red. She'd slept againâstretched on her side, her head resting on her arm. Sherry Blake.
He'd seen someone who looked like her before. Not Shania Twain or Demi Moore, but someone from his past. Someone from Caracas maybe. But he had shut out his past. He couldn't even remember what his father or mother looked like. They said the stress of the killing had done that. Washed out portions of his mind.
Casius left the tree and scaled the hill to his right quickly. He paused at its crest and listened carefully. Far off, possibly as far as the mission, another helicopter whacked at the sky.
The snap of a twig interrupted his thoughts and he shrank back into the tree's shadow. Down the slope, slogging away from them, three men headed back toward the mission. So they had come and gone then. He watched them step carefully through the brush, dressed in khakis and a mismatch of paramilitary garb. They held their course and disappeared through the jungle.
Casius turned and retreated to the cave quickly. He found Sherry on her side and the priest poking a stick at the ashes, attempting to revive the dead fire. Light streamed in through the vines at the entrance now.
“I'm sorry, but I had to extinguish the fire when the fog lifted,” he said, dropping to one knee. “They're gone. We'll go now.”
He slid through the opening, followed by the woman and then Father Petrus. It dawned on him that if a guard had been waiting in the open he would have hardly noticed. He swore under his breath. For all their talk of killing, the pair might be the death of him.
He looked at Sherry, suddenly struck by her beauty in the full light. “Let's go,” he said.
“WHERE DID you last have them in sight?” Abdullah asked. It was late and he was tired. Tired from the lack of sleep, tired of incompetent men, tired of waiting endlessly for Jamal's call.
Ramón leaned over the map in the security room. Other than the laboratory below, this room contained the only real sophistication in the compound. There was the processing plant, of course, and the conveyors that took the logs to the chute through the mountain, but those were relatively basic operations. Security, on the other hand, was always a matter of the highest regard in Abdullah's mind. Not even Jamal knew what he had here.
The map showed the boundaries of the perimeter security system, a sensitive wire buried several inches under the forest floor. Using radio waves, the system showed the mass of any object that crossed over, allowing them to distinguish animals of smaller mass from humans.
“They crossed here.” Ramón pointed to an area south of the compound. “Three persons. Traveling fast, I think.”
Abdullah blinked, letting the last statement settle. Who could possibly be in the jungle so close to the compound? Hunters maybe. The infection on his lip throbbed and he ran his tongue over it gently. “How can you know they are traveling fast?” he asked.
“They crossed the perimeter here and then exited here, ten minutes later. At first we thought they had left, but within a few minutes they reappeared here.”
Heat spread down Abdullah's neck. Hunters? Yes, hunters might move about like that. But so deep in the jungle? It could just as easily be a sniper with his spotter. Or a reconnaissance mission, launched by some suspecting party. The Russians, perhaps, somehow tipped off as to Yuri's location after all these years. Or the CIA.