Authors: David Leadbeater
Bullets ripped into the ground at Kinimaka’s feet as Drake leapt forward. Yorgi danced away, his own shoes also being used as target practice. Dahl and Alicia circled the six men, weapons leveled. The prisoner in the pastel colored T-shirt quivered in fear, pressed up against a withered tree.
“Cool it,” Drake said. “Or you all die.”
Three gun barrels rotated in different directions, giving Kinimaka chance to draw his own gun. Drake breathed almost silently as a sudden tension fell over the clearing, each man eyeing his enemy in the Amazon-Mexican standoff. Even the breeze dropped and the only sound was the quiet ooze of the forest.
Ramses stepped into view. “Well!” His voice boomed so loud every eye swiveled except those of the SPEAR team.
“It seems we have a problem.” The prince chuckled. “I see no winner here and I really don’t want to see guests shedding each other’s blood. Put your weapons down, my friends, the prey is going nowhere.”
Drake saw Akatash sidling up behind the prisoner.
Never even saw the asshole coming.
Weapons were lowered; Ramses was respected in the wild as much as in his element, even outgunned. The Crown Prince of Terror nodded with satisfaction.
“Good. Good. So what say we let the quarry loose again? After all, the game is unfinished, yes?”
A flick of his head and Akatash jabbed at the prisoner’s spine. When he flinched, rooted to the spot, Akatash persuaded him some more, then drew a wicked, blood-encrusted machete. Even Dahl’s eyes widened slightly at the size of the thing, which had to be three feet long. Ramses smiled as his future victim departed.
“The hunt resumes. Shall we give him, oh, sixty seconds? And dear guests, please know that committing murder at my last bazaar comes with the punishment of death by machete.”
Alicia motioned at the still-twitching underbrush. “Then why are we chasing this guy?”
“Of course, I should have specified Ramses’ law only protects human beings. Animals, they’re fair game.”
The countdown commenced and Drake made a point of moving away from the six-man pack. Ramses and Akatash watched, easy in their surroundings and confident with their expertise. Drake rendezvoused with his team and leaned in for a quick confab.
“Any ideas?”
“Distraction,” Dahl said. “Melee. You guys cause it and I’ll grab the kid.”
“And where will you stash him?” Alicia scowled.
“There is only one place,” the Swede said. “Back at the boat.”
Drake exhaled. “You might be mad, mate, but even I don’t think you’re crazy. You’d never make it.”
Dahl tightened his grip on his rifle. “As a team we wouldn’t make it, but two men might.”
“Ready?” Ramses called out.
The team straightened and rolled out stiffening muscles.
“Go!” Ramses and Akatash turned and sprinted. Drake raced after them, leading his team down a parallel game trail. The track was narrow, the ruts and channels perilous, winding to and fro, but Ramses had the same problem. Drake assumed Akatash, ranging a dozen steps ahead, was tracking the boy.
He nudged Alicia as she panted behind his right shoulder. “You’re the distraction.”
A shake of the tied blond locks. “And nothing really changes.”
She sped up, taking the lead, and employed skill and risk to close the gap between herself and Ramses’ bodyguard. It took a moment for the man to notice her, so intent was he on following their quarry’s trail, but when he did she immediately saw the deep light of cunning in his eyes.
“ ’ow’s it hanging?” she asked as she ran. “The machete, I mean.”
Akatash ignored her. Alicia took in his frame, his physique and posture. “Work out, do we?”
The trails parted for a moment, looping apart before coming back together. Alicia heard footsteps at her back and knew the team were close.
“Seriously though. If you get a few spare minutes later I could teach you how to put that body to much better use.”
Akatash swung his head around, slowing. Alicia knew this approach could have gone one of two ways—and still might. But all was well as her team and Ramses crashed past.
“I do not have time for games,” Akatash said in a thin voice, an accent she couldn’t place. “This is your warning. Do not push me, married woman.”
Alicia held out both hands as she slowed even more, making Akatash slow right along with her. “Hey, people have fought over this body.”
“But I am a man of the strangest tastes and, I fear, not even a whore like yourself could survive my attentions.”
Akatash ran off as Alicia sputtered and searched for a reply. A small part of her held back though. She had seen that feral light, the presence of something broken and vicious, an inner fury that could never be sated. She had seen it and wanted no part of it.
Allowing the bodyguard to leap away she followed carefully, hoping she had gained the team enough of a lead.
*
Drake recognized Alicia’s ploy and led the entire team, barring Dahl, slightly away from the trail their prey was leaving. His plan was based on Ramses’ inability to track, his reliance on Akatash, and it bore fruit. Ramses joined them on their trail, smiling broadly, an inharmonious giant in the rainforest.
Drake ducked a low bough, skirted a fallen tree and then leaned over as he sprinted around a long bend; water, mulch and tree sap dogging his every step. Twice, his boots slipped but he caught the slide. Once, he heard a booming gunshot echo through the jungle. Another half minute and he caught sight of the six-man team crossing their path, arrow-straight and unfortunately heading in the right direction. He made a show of pointing out their “mistake”, and received more than a few puzzled looks and comments for his troubles.
“Guy’s lost it. Trail’s clearly this way.”
“Idiot’s lost it. Ignore them.”
“Hey, what if they know something we don’t? Ramses is with them.”
Drake was passed by that time and still following the rough track. Outwardly he had shown no signs of concern for Dahl’s plan, but inwardly something acidic burned his stomach.
*
Dahl bounded after the man dressed in pastel, knowing that the hounds of hell would soon be snapping at his heels. Before long he was reminded that the combatants they had thus far seen weren’t the only ones vested in this chase as he came alongside two Americans arguing about which way to go. Both sported double-barrel shotguns bored out for the sport of it all. When Dahl passed they followed and he let out a silent curse.
No helping it. I’m too close to the victim to lead them astray.
He slowed, whirled and threw a hammer blow into the face of the first. The man fell, poleaxed, as if he’d sprinted headlong into a stationary elephant. The second slowed more quickly, brought his double-barrels down and fired without thought.
Dahl was already moving, anticipating it. The heavy shot slammed into the fork of a tree, sending twigs, branches and foliage scattering in all directions. Dahl bent low and came up like a charging beast, ramming the American at mid-chest level and lifting him off his feet. There was a gasp of pain, a painful smashing together of teeth and the shotgun arced away. Dahl plowed on, keeping the advantage and driving his opponent into the nearest tree. Staggered, smashed from two sides, the hunter wavered in place for a moment. Dahl finished the job with a pounding to the ears.
Without pause he raced off again, picking up the quarry’s trail and closing the gap. Quiet as a snake gliding on ice he approached the man’s blind side and then stopped him by scooping him up in a bear hug.
Screams ensued. Dahl clamped a large hand over the man’s mouth and met his eyes. “Quiet,” he breathed. “I’m here to save you not hurt you.”
Confusion and disbelief followed, but Dahl let go, holstered his gun and took a breath. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll take you to safety.”
More crashing resounded from the undergrowth and Dahl saw the six-man team approaching through a nebulous pattern of trees. His face urged Ramses’ prey to action.
“Okay, help me. Please.”
Dahl herded him into dense jungle, squeezing through branches for almost a minute before finding another trail and pausing to reset his bearings. He remembered the small stream from earlier and, for the first time, wished for a heavy downpour. Of course, when required nothing happened so the Swede set to a more reliable means of escape. Treading lightly they both crept among towering trees, avoiding all paths until the Swede’s sense of direction brought them back to the stream. Stepping straight up to their knees in it they increased the pace, now following the rushing water toward the big river.
Dahl stopped as the high banks came into view.
“Now we swim,” he said. “And hope anything with teeth, suckers or abilities to swim up a urethra are fast asleep. You ready?”
“To be honest I’m ready to drop.”
“Never give in,” Dahl said. “Or admit defeat. Hold out, my friend. Hold out until your very last breath.”
*
Drake stumbled at the head of the pack, seeing the sloping banks of the river ahead and hoping to gain the Swede a few more precious moment of time. They were downriver from where he would be, but still dangerously close. Alicia and Akatash had caught up to them a moment ago and they had also managed to incorporate the six-man team. One look back at Ramses’ dour face and Drake knew the Arab was starting to regret this imperfectly organized hunt.
He caught himself by placing a hand to the ground, ran up the slight incline and then came to a sudden, abrupt halt at a gap in the overgrowth that bedecked the muddy bank.
“Oh shit. No!”
He turned fast but Alicia, in her eagerness, was trying to catch up with him and couldn’t stop herself. Next came Kinimaka, never one to avoid a mishap; his solid impact sent the three of them tumbling down the slope, right into a writhing mass of black caimans.
Drake heard shouts from above, saw two members of the following six-man team also rolling down the bank and Ramses standing watching with interest, and then his world was a splashing, seething mass of scales and teeth. He needed purchase, and to help save both Alicia and Kinimaka. His fingers scraped across hard scales. Water splashed into his eyes as his sunglasses dislodged, dark and fetid, and he spat leaves from his mouth. The river’s sloping side gave purchase to his feet and he rolled. A dragon-like tail flashed across his vision. A caiman lay immediately to his left, terrible eyes unblinking, making no movement as limbs flailed all around it. Maybe it was wondering who the hell ordered such noisy takeout, but its brethren were another matter. Drake’s vision filled with teeth as a caiman squirmed up the bank toward him, teeth bared and already mere inches from his feet. Again he rolled, slamming into one of the strangers, grabbing his vest and using sheer adrenalin to hurl him in the direction of the approaching beast.
“Oh, ha, ha, ha!” boomed Ramses’ voice. “Look at it chasing down that bone!”
Drake felt revulsion at himself and at the terrorist, but that feeling soon passed as the second of the strangers confronted him. An elbow, its impact lessened by a heavy jacket, smashed into his cheek, sending him onto his back.
Alicia scrambled across them both, the encrusted nose of a predator at her heels, its mouth closing fast close enough to make her squeal. The caiman turned its attention to an easier prey—Drake and his opponent. Drake saw it first and struggled up the bank using his elbows to get purchase. The caiman brushed up against the other man with its heavy snout, sending droplets of water flying. If that wasn’t enough, Mano Kinimaka then came into view, standing upright, bellowing and holding a caiman close to his chest, its belly exposed and its vicious mouth snapping at the Hawaiian’s face.
“Now
this
is what I call a little friend!” he roared.
Drake focused on his own caiman, but then saw yet another sliding over this one’s body as the two marauders battled for the right to kill. This new threat clamped down viciously onto the stranger’s exposed leg, inducing a terrifying, bloodcurdling scream.
A gunshot rang out. Yorgi stood halfway down the bank, Glock clutched unsteadily in one hand. The slug came closer to Drake than his attackers and sent Ramses into almost uncontrollable guffaws. Drake gasped then as Kinimaka body-slammed his own caiman right down on top of the other two, shocking all three beasts who had never known such impudence.
As one, they writhed. Drake saw a chance.
Kicking the stranger in the face he crawled backwards and then twisted around as he managed to grab a thick branch. Alicia slogged beside him, and Kinimaka leapt over the mass of bodies. Drake never took his eyes from the scene below so wasn’t entirely surprised to see the stranger they’d left draw a pistol of his own.
What did surprise him was that it was deliberately pointed straight at him.
“Are you joking? Your friends aren’t about to save you, asshole.”
The gun wavered. The caiman bit deeper and started to move, trying to drag its victim into the water. One of the other nightmarish monsters clambered across the man in an effort to latch onto his upper torso. Drake’s gaze never wavered.