Blood Sun (18 page)

Alejandro powered the go-fast boat into a rearing surge, and like a white stallion given its freedom, the boat charged forward. Max held on to Xavier, who fell to the floor, grasping his wound as he slammed into the bulkhead. The boat slewed right, snaked and then headed due west, toward the setting sun.

“He won’t outrun a chopper!” Max yelled over the engines.

Xavier shook his head. “He’s going for land—for the inlets.”

Max squinted against the blurring light and spray. There, on the ragged horizon, was a scribbled pattern of palm trees. Alejandro was taking the straightest route while shouting instructions to his men. They opened the weapons box and armed themselves.

“He’s crazy. That’s exactly what they want him to do. That gives them an excuse to shoot back.”

Xavier’s face streamed with tears, but whether they were caused by the buffeting of the wind or by his emotions Max didn’t know.

The helicopter was less than a kilometer away now—and so was the shoreline. The waves had disguised the distance between boat and shore, and Max could see the narrow, curved beaches, the rocky outcrops and the headlands. Reefs intertwined like bracelets, settling the swells into narrow strips of calm water.

The walloping downbeat of the rotor’s blades flattened the air above their heads. The helicopter was less than a hundred meters above them. The expert pilot shadowed Alejandro’s every evasive move. But then Alejandro swung the boat
in an almost suicidal maneuver. For a moment it felt as though they would all be thrown overboard. The boat nearly flipped and fell onto its side, engines screaming in the air as they sought the water that fed them. The helicopter zoomed past.

Alejandro turned to Max. “Get ready! I’m going across the reef! You take Xavier.” He paused a moment and locked on Max’s gaze. “He can’t swim. You get him ashore. You saved him once. You save him again. Yes?”

Alejandro was giving him his life. Max nodded.

“He’s a fool, but he’s my brother,” Alejandro said. “Get ready.”

A tortured, ripping sound reverberated through the boat as he ran it across the reef. The helicopter was coming in again. Max gripped Xavier’s shirt.

“We’ve gotta jump, Xavier. You stay with me.”

Xavier looked bewildered. He cried out in Spanish to his brother, who turned and answered him. Max didn’t understand what they said, but he knew that one brother was sacrificing himself for the other.

Alejandro looked at Max and nodded. The engines suddenly slowed; the boat wallowed in its own wake. Max didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Xavier and pulled him over the side. As they hit the water, the boat’s engines surged, churning the sea into a twisting confusion of foam.

Max was out of his depth but quickly hooked the struggling Xavier under his arms. “Kick your feet! I’ve got you!”

Max pulled Xavier after him, calming the boy’s panic. Beyond the reef, Max could see the boat zigzagging and the helicopter weaving to keep alongside. Alejandro had fooled the pilot, making it look as though they were running for the
mangrove inlets and had caught the reef, momentarily losing control. For a few seconds the boat and the wave concealed Max and Xavier, and once Alejandro was back on the open sea, the helicopter crew was focused on him and him alone.

Dark shadows glided beneath Max’s legs. Sharks.
Don’t panic. They must be reef sharks
. His mind urged him to remember that most predatory sharks were outside the confines of the reef—unless there was a break in the reef wall.

Max felt the sand beneath his feet and the slushy entanglement of turtle grass—soggy strips of lasagne-like kelp. “We’re there, Xavier. Come on, we’ve got to reach the trees.”

They floundered, forcing their legs to push against the weight of the water, and fell onto the hard, wet sand, which was darkened by palm-tree shadows and low, overhanging branches. Max pulled Xavier deeper into the shade. The gentle waves lapped behind their heels, but their footprints were still visible. There were barely a few meters of sand, trimmed halfway with a ribbon of seaweed, as light as lace. Max bellied back to the water, brushed the sand smooth and edged up the weed to disguise the scuff marks.

Back in the safety of the tree line, he turned and watched the cat-and-mouse game between boat and helicopter. Max could see the boat was not as maneuverable as the chopper. They must be taking on water. It had been damaged on the reef.

The gentle thunder of waves on the reef muted the cracking of gunfire. Flames spat from the side of the helicopter. Two of the men in the boat pointed machine pistols in the air, fired and then fell back as blood exploded around them, the heavy-caliber rounds smashing their bodies. The
other two men were still alive on the boat. Alejandro steered with one hand and fired his pistol with the other.

The helicopter seemed to shudder, then dipped its nose like an angry bull readying to charge. A sudden shattering noise reached Max and Xavier as the violence from the gunship assaulted their senses. Sustained firepower poured into the boat in angry response to its resistance.

A vivid flame blossomed, ballooning outward, then sucked back in on itself as the inferno in the boat’s fuel tanks made them explode. Moments later, the sound of the explosion washed over the two boys.

Xavier cried out and ran toward the water’s edge. Max grabbed him. The boy fought free, yelling his brother’s name.

“They’ll see us! Xavier. Wait!”

Max threw him to the ground and pinned him into the wet sand. The wildness went out of the grieving boy’s eyes, and Max felt the strength seep from Xavier’s body. Max forced him to his feet and pushed him back into the undergrowth.

The helicopter turned like a beast sniffing out another victim.

Max didn’t wait for it to find them. He grabbed Xavier and ran him deeper into the trees. Within fifteen meters, they had lost sight of the sea, and the tangled undergrowth made it almost impossible to penetrate any farther.

Scratched, bleeding and soaking wet, they rested, gaping upward through the jungle canopy, involuntarily holding their breath, as if the shadow that roared above the treetops might hear them.

The helicopter turned. Max followed the sound, checking
that Xavier was behind him. They crouched and a narrow window between the low branches allowed them to see the chopper hover over the sea, its blades dissipating the black, choking smoke, blowing it aside, as if the beast had snorted air in search of its prey.

Satisfied that nothing remained alive, the helicopter banked away and headed for its mother ship on the horizon.

“I killed my brother,” Xavier said, his body trembling. Shock was setting in.

“If that’s true, he let you,” Max said. “We’d better check your wound, Xavier.”

The boy pulled back. “Leave me alone.” Tears welled in his eyes.

This wasn’t the time to play field medic. Max saw the glitter of light fade through the leaves. It went dark. He checked his watch—6:20 p.m. They could go no farther. Max was already thinking of how to survive the claustrophobic hours in the jungle when, as if on cue, night sounds erupted. Cicadas chattered in deafening unison, and the screeching pitch of night beetles, like a short-wave radio being tuned, filled the night air. Max pulled Xavier down into the base of a tree whose roots flared out like shields from the trunk. This was not ideal. He did not want to spend the night on the jungle floor. Spiders, ants, snakes and all kinds of animals would be moving.

Leaves rustled.

Creatures moved.

The jungle was alive.

Max’s eyes were wide open, staring into the darkness. Pulling his knees up, he felt for anything he could use as a weapon. His hand found a stick, and he held it across his body like a sword, giving himself the confidence of having something for self-defense, even though he knew it would be useless if anything dangerous attacked. Creatures were on their night hunt. Rustling and scratching surrounded him, and Max did not know whether he and Xavier were on the menu. Xavier’s exhaustion and grief held him in a cocoon of deep sleep. Max had become his guardian but had no illusions that they would survive a predator’s attack. He had seen men stalked and killed by lions when he was in Africa. He could never erase the horrendous sight from his mind, or the sounds of the men’s screams as they were torn apart. If fear was the key to survival, then Max thought he should live forever.

Survive, learn and never take your own courage for granted
.
There are times you have to dig deep to get into the zone that drives you on—that’s how you stay alive
.

His dad’s words came unbeckoned into his mind. He squeezed his eyes closed, torn between the comfort of his father’s voice and wanting to blot out the face that came with it. Max grimaced. Time to forget the emotions. Get on with it. If his dad were here, would he be doing this? Was there anything else Max should do? His choices were limited. Stay put and survive till morning and then try to determine a plan of action.

Then, out of the darkness, fingers of light pierced the mangrove forest. An animal’s eyes gleamed as the light swooped across them. The slow rhythmic beat of an outboard engine broke the silence. The Coast Guard team was looking for survivors. Max heard their muffled voices. Americans. Their unhurried search faltered once or twice as they found another body in the water. “Here’s one of them,” a voice called. The engine spluttered as the revs were reduced. Max strained to hear. They were about fifty meters offshore. The searchlight’s beam swung crazily and then settled. Max saw the fractured illumination create shadow and form through the low branches. One of the men cried out, “What’s that? There!”

The lights swung away from the jungle. “Crocs! They’re going for the dead guy in the water!” Two rapid gunshots boomed through the night. Max heard the men whoop with success and heard one shout, “Saltwater croc! Did you see the size of him? Wow!”

Xavier jerked awake as the gunshots reverberated across the water. A cry of alarm escaped from his throat.

Max reached behind him and pushed a restraining hand against the boy’s face, whispering urgently, “It’s all right. It’s all right. They’re searching for survivors. They just shot at something, that’s all.” Max did not have the heart to tell him about the crocodiles and the bodies in the water—it could well have been Alejandro’s body the croc had tried to savage.

Someone shouted a command.

“All right, you men! C’mon, get that guy’s body aboard!”

A slushing rush of water carried across the surface. Max imagined the estuary yielding the body as it was hauled into the boat. He shuddered. He had been attacked by crocs before, but the thought of them prowling through the night waters of the mangrove swamps, ready to take the corpses of the men from the boat, made his stomach squirm.

“You think the Yanquis come for us?” Xavier whispered.

“No, they’ll patrol until daybreak and then do a final search of the area as soon as it’s light. Until then we have to stay exactly where we are, but I think we have to get off the ground. There’s too much going on in there,” he said, nodding toward the dense jungle. The sweeping light from the men’s boat had illuminated ropelike vines coming down from the tree’s canopy. Max tugged. It took his weight easily. “It’ll be OK. We have to climb into the tree. We’ll be safer from whatever’s hunting down here.”

Xavier eased himself from the ground. It was almost pitch-dark, and he reached forward like a blind man stumbling in an unknown place. His hands found Max and gripped his shoulder. “We don’ know what’s up there. The big cats, they hunt in the jungle. They climb the trees. Nowhere is safe. Maybe we swim, into the river, then around the headland.”

Xavier’s nerve had broken. He pushed against Max in the darkness, but Max turned his shoulder and shoved hard, forcing the boy back against the tree. Xavier grunted with pain. Max knew he could not afford to fight now. If they started rolling around on the floor, grappling for supremacy, that would attract bigger creatures than the insects that still shrieked around them. There were killers in the jungle, and the men were still nearby in the boats. The boy obviously had no idea how lethal the jungle and mangroves could be. He was probably a small-town kid who hung around bars and ran messages for his brother.

“We can’t do that, especially not at night—and not with those men out there.” Max could feel the boy’s nervousness as well as his own. He had no desire to go wading waist-deep in the dark estuary with saltwater crocodiles cruising. Max knew the boy wasn’t thinking straight, and if he panicked, they both might die. There was no choice; Max had to shock him into focusing on survival.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Xavier grunted, trying to push Max away.

“Listen to me,” Max hissed, his hand reaching to the boy’s shirtfront, twisting it into a knot. He used his strength to hold Xavier back, to stop him from running blindly into the night. “We survive every minute. We can’t even think about tomorrow! We can’t even think about getting out of this mess tonight. We stay where we are and do the best we can. You want to go out there? I don’t like crocodiles or water snakes, and I don’t like men with guns. They killed the others. You think they won’t kill you?”