Deadly Journey (20 page)

We continued onward for another five
minutes. The stench of chemicals hung in the air. Entering the cocaine unit, I
checked on Carlos. His fever had worsened. Slipping in and out of
consciousness, he kept calling out for Rosanna, his girlfriend.

‘Is he dying?’ asked Leandra.

Chapter 33

Struggle for life

Without a full
command of the languages being spoken, I felt inept
–
somehow
distanced from what was going on around me. We had the natives speaking in a
mixture of Spanish and tongue-clicking sounds and the
cocalero
talking
rapidly in an odd dialect, all of it hard to translate. If I hadn’t had Leandra
with me, I would never have had a clue what was being decided. Even Leandra was
finding it difficult to follow what was happening.

‘Have you worked out what they’re saying?’
I asked.

‘I think we’re going straight back to the
village.’

It soon became apparent that she was right.
Two of the natives picked up the stretcher and set off walking. The young boy
from the boat scurried ahead and took point. The elder of the natives signalled
us to follow and he walked at our rear. Four more of the natives moved into the
undergrowth, with two at either side to cover our flanks.

When I glanced back, the family waved. Some
of the tribe had stayed behind, I figured, to provide additional protection.

Without the women of the tribe carrying
their loads, we made far better progress than on the march inward. It seemed
strange to be carrying the assault rifle. A sense of invincibility made me feel
as tall as the trees that surrounded us. It helped that the Indians were
covering our flanks, point, and rear. That, and knowing Leandra had the protection
of the pistol, added to the secure feeling. All it would have taken was for me
to have access to a cell phone and a signal, so I could phone my family, and I
would have been at peace.

Keeping up was difficult as the
stretcher-bearers set a punishing pace. Two hours had elapsed when those up
ahead stopped and placed the stretcher down. Dropping to the ground, I took out
my water bottle, and took a sip of warm water.

Screwing the top back on, I looked at
Leandra. ‘You okay?’ I asked.

‘I’m fine. Exhausted, but fine.’

‘I’ll check on Carlos. You rest here.’

Using my hands for leverage, I pushed
myself up to a stand and, dragging my backpack, walked over to Carlos. When I
knelt beside him, I saw that he was out cold. I say cold, though when I touched
his forehead, his temperature was off the charts. I lifted his T-shirt at the
neck. Around the point where the arrow had penetrated his skin, his flesh was
crimson. I sucked air through my teeth at the sight of the infection. Taking
the knife from my belt, I put down the rifle and decided to cut away his
T-shirt to administer some antibiotic powder.

As I poked at his T-shirt with the knife,
there was a sudden grumbling and activity around me. Leandra screamed. Snapping
my head to look upward, I found myself staring into an eye, and followed a line
of sight down an arrow shaft, the bowstring held taut.

I dropped the knife and held up my hands.

Leandra appeared between the arrowhead and
me. The young boy came forward, spoke to the native holding the bow, and had
him lower his aim. He talked to Leandra in Spanish.

Leandra turned to me. ‘What the hell are
you playing at? They think you were going to put him out of his misery with the
knife.’

This was the second time she had stood
between a weapon and me. But there was no time to thank her. Heat rising in my
cheeks told me how stupid I had been.

‘The arrow wound is infected. All I was
going to do was cut away his T-shirt and apply some antibacterial powder.
Without that, he might not make it to the village. Please explain to them.’

Leandra turned and exchanged words with
Boat Boy.

‘Carry on,’ she told me.

This time my actions were slow and
deliberate. First, I opened my backpack and took out the packet of powder from
the medical kit. I handed it to Boat Boy to hold, making sure he was involved.

Leandra must have spotted my hands shaking.
She picked up the knife and deftly cut away Carlos’s T-shirt. I held out my
hand for the packet. Tearing off the top, I sprinkled the powder around the
wound.

‘Will that do it?’ Leandra asked and handed
me the knife, which I slipped into my belt.

‘I don’t know. If the infection spreads
–
well, hopefully it won’t.’

The rest period didn’t last long and we
were on our way. Somehow, I didn’t feel as tall after my encounter with the
native and his bow and arrow. I guessed they owed Carlos some loyalty. Carlos
had told us back at the campfire that he’d spent three months with the Indians,
when illegal tree loggers had threatened to interrupt the supply line to the
cocaine unit and to encroach on their tribal territory. No wonder he knew so
much about their call signals and customs. He didn’t explain the outcome, but I
could guess what it had been, seeing as how we hadn’t encountered any tree
felling.

We must have travelled at twice the speed
of the inbound journey as we broke through the edge of the forest to the
clearing. We were greeted by the women and a group of children who joined in
the walk to the community hut.

Inside the hall, it was a huge open space.
They set Carlos down in the centre, next to an open fire. The women and
children formed a circle around the stretcher, interrupted only by an
out-of-place-looking, ornate gilt chair with a red velvet seat. The legs were
bowed, with clawed feet, the likes of which I had only ever seen in one of
those garish Italian furniture reproduction shops. Goodness knows how they had
shipped it out here.

More of the natives joined in the circle
and they all chanted. Boat Boy beckoned Leandra and me to join the circle, now
swelled by the men. All went quiet as the chief entered carrying a spear and
took his place on the ornate chair, with a warrior standing on either side.

‘What do you think is happening?’ Leandra
whispered.

The chief raised his spear and started to
chant alone.

‘Maybe he’s calling on the spirits to cure
Carlos. At least his chest is still rising and falling.’

Truth was, the infection was spreading and
the redness now extended to the bottom of his rib cage. It wasn’t looking good
for Carlos.

The chief pointed his spear to the entrance
of the hall. I turned to see the weirdest spectre it had ever been my
misfortune to encounter. The ghostly apparition was painted head to toe in
white, with symbols daubed in red all over his body. As he danced and chanted,
his hand shook what I hoped was a monkey skull and not a shrunken head,
attached to a stick. On his head he sported a panther head, with the skin
flowing as a cape. Around his neck he had a multitude of necklaces with bird
claws swaying to his movement. In need of some dentistry, he looked menacing
with his top two front teeth missing.

His actions were agile and rapid. We
flinched and ducked as he leaped over Leandra and me and into the circle. The
skull must have had something like small pebbles inside to create a rattle. He
circled Carlos, shaking the skull over his body and still chanting. He paused
by the fire, reached into a pouch, and flung something into the embers. The
fire sparked like a firecracker and a plume of smoke rose to the heights of the
room.

The assembled tribe gasped.

The shaman knelt at Carlos’s side and, with
his eyes closed, waved his hands and fingers over where the arrow had entered
as if he were playing an imaginary piano. Everyone in the circle chanted. The
shaman took a cloth bundle from a second pouch and rolled it out on the ground.
He picked up a large dried leaf and scrunched it in his hands, allowing the
fragments to fall onto another leaf. Rolling up the leaf, he then picked up a
stick from the fire and began sucking on the leaf like a cigar, blowing the
smoke over the area of the wound.

Fascinating as the exhibition was, I
couldn’t see how it would do Carlos any good.

The shaman beckoned to the crowd and two of
the men stepped into the circle alongside him. They took hold of Carlos and
lifted him to a sitting position, his arms hanging limp, his head slumped
forward. The shaman lifted Carlos’s arm and felt around the fleshy area where
the arrowhead was lodged. After blowing more smoke under his arm, he discarded
the leaf cigar in the fire. His attention turned to the contents of the cloth
he had rolled out. Picking up an assortment of berries and leaves, he placed
them in his mouth and began chewing.

One of the men handed him his knife.
Lifting Carlos’s arm again, the shaman made an incision away from the entry
point and then placed the blade in the fire. Leandra grasped my arm as he took
hold of the broken arrow shaft. At first I thought he was going to pull it, but
unexpectedly, he thrust it through the skin and pulled it out through the other
side. I scrunched my eyes. Leandra gripped me tighter and buried her head in my
chest.

Carlos was oblivious to what had happened,
not making a sound. The shaman took the knife and seared the entry and exit
wounds. Then, without warning, he spat the contents of his mouth onto the
wounds. A mixture of purple and green slime dribbled over the wounds and the
men lowered Carlos back to the stretcher.

My stomach churned at the thought of what
might have been in that mixture.

‘You can look now,’ I said to Leandra. ‘I
think he’s finished.’

She raised her head, the colour drained
from her face.

Once more the shaman reached into his
pouch, and tossed what looked like dust into the fire. The crowd gasped again
as a magnesium type of sparkle erupted and a cloud of white smoke rose into the
air. They all returned to chanting and swaying sideways in unison.

The drone went on and on in a hypnotic
tone. My eyelids felt heavy.

The next thing I knew, when I opened my
eyes, the tribe had left, save for the shaman. He was no longer chanting, but
swaying back and forth, his eyes once again closed. It was dark outside.
Leandra was still asleep, her head on my lap. I had to do a double take when I
looked across at Carlos. In the light from the fire, the redness on his torso
looked to have been reduced to a small area around the entry wound. Luckily, he
was still breathing.

The trauma of the day’s events and the gruelling
walk had left me weak, my limbs aching.

I moved my backpack to use it as a pillow,
trying to move slowly so as not to disturb Leandra. As tired as I was, getting
back to sleep again was difficult as I ran over my options. If I didn’t go back
to the villa, Perez could order retribution against Mary and the kids. If
Leandra didn’t go back, she might never see her child again. Moreover, if
Carlos pulled through and we were gone, likely his life would be at risk, along
with that of his girlfriend.

We were all in a hopeless situation. Carlos
wasn’t in a position to stop either of us from leaving. All we had to do was to
take a boat before anyone awoke and head up river, hopefully to find
civilization.

But really, Perez had us all in checkmate.

I heard someone call in the distance.

‘Kurt.’

I opened my eyes to daylight. Carlos was
leaning on his good arm, with a weak smile on his lips, but nonetheless a
smile.

‘
Ayee, ayee
,’ the shaman called at
the top of his voice, followed by a series of clicking sounds made with his
tongue. As some of the tribe entered, whooping with delight, the shaman held a
bowl to Carlos’s lips and he took a sip.

Something was missing.

I looked around
–
Leandra
and her backpack were nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 34

Leandra Goes Missing

With some of the
tribe gathering around Carlos and the shaman, I took the opportunity to slip
out of the community hall, unseen. A crazy, almost frenzied feeling took over
my thought processes. My eyes rolled in all directions around the village
looking for Leandra, not unlike forgetting where I had left the car in a
crowded parking lot. However, this was no concrete jungle. She should have been
easy to spot in the rainforest clearing, but she was nowhere in sight.

Under the shade of a leafy canopy, women
were pounding seeds on stones with large pestles fashioned from logs. To one
side, young boys under the supervision of one of the men were practicing with
their bows and arrows on a swinging target. Over to my right, one of the men
was passing palm leaves to another on the roof of a hut, carrying out repairs.
An old woman stoked a fire in the centre of the village, the flames licking a
steaming cooking pot. Two elders of the tribe walked toward the woman, carrying
a string of freshly caught fish, and dropped them at her feet.

I called out. ‘Leandra?’

The activity stopped. Eyes turned to me and
then everyone carried on with their chores as if I didn’t exist. A tap on my
shoulder startled me. Gripping the stock of the rifle, I turned. Boat Boy
greeted me with his almost permanent toothy grin and pointed in the direction
of the river.

Walking quickly, I headed for the river. As
I approached the brow of the slope down to the river, my heart thumped. Recall
of the caiman slithering from the bank filled me with dread.

Leandra’s backpack stood at the side of the
river, opened. Her fatigues were strewn on the bank.

Scanning the scene before me, I started to
snicker. My legs weakened and I sat on the grassy bank. Children were splashing
the water, laughing and giggling, their hair covered with soapy bubbles. The
old woman I had seen when we first arrived, who was now watching over the
children, had joined in the fun. Leandra rubbed the woman’s hair with a bar of
soap. The children whooped with glee. Leandra formed her thumb and finger into
a circle and blew bubbles. The children soon followed her example.

I shook my head and smiled. I’d almost
forgotten what it was like to have fun as a family. The routine of the drudgery
of surviving in the real world hadn’t allowed much time lately for family
activities. Burying my head in my hands, I began to think about all the things
that I would want to do differently when I returned home.

The short time in the rainforest had taught
me how little I knew about nature. As a child, Dad used to take us camping as a
family, until Mom died. After that, alcohol and prescription drugs hastened his
following Mom. My taking Craig fishing was the nearest we ever got to nature. I
had always wanted to do better than Dad had done. Working on an automobile
production line wasn’t my idea of a life, but at least Dad had had regular
hours and time to spend with us as a family.

My body sagged as the thought crossed my
mind that Mary would need some serious persuading to exchange her Gucci shoes
for hiking boots. Pictures of Mary as a broken woman on the television screen
flashed before me. Not once had she lifted her head to look me in the eyes,
such was her grief. I tried to recall the last time we had looked into each
other’s eyes.

‘Kurt, join us,’ said Leandra, followed by
an ear-to-ear smile.

Shaking my head, I mouthed ‘no’. I hoped
she would leave it at that and let me wallow in my self-pity over what I had
done to my family.

But Leandra wasn’t taking “no” for an
answer. She waded out of the river. I didn’t know where to look, and my cheeks
flushed. She looked like a Bond girl, walking to shore from the sea. Only
Leandra wasn’t wearing a bikini, and her wet bra and panties left nothing to
the imagination. The children followed her, scrambling up the bank. Surrounded,
Leandra took my hand and hauled me to my feet.

‘Come on
–
playtime.
Besides, you stink.’ She laughed.

The children followed her lead, pushing and
pulling me to the river. The heat rose in my cheeks, taking my embarrassment to
a completely new level.

‘Strip! You can’t go into the river with
your pants on.’

At the water’s edge, I stripped down to my
boxers. Leandra took my hand and had to drag me into the river. With the water
up to my waist, Leandra and the children splashed me happily. My reluctance to
join in the fun evaporated and I splashed them back. When I made the mistake of
grabbing one of the boys and launching him into a dive, they all wanted a turn.

Leandra rescued me, rubbing my hair with
the bar of soap and then washed my back.

‘How was Carlos?’ she asked.

‘Conscious and smiling. I don’t know what
the shaman spat on his wounds, but his fever has gone and the infection is
reduced.’

‘Boat Boy told me he uses kapok and coca
leaves, together with some berries. The kapok reduces the fever and the coca
acts as an anaesthetic. The berries fight the infection.’

‘Incredible. They should get the scientists
to check it out.’

‘What, and have them come up with a new
narcotic like they did with the coca leaf?’

‘Smarty pants.’

I playfully took her by the shoulders and
ducked her under the water. The children thought it was a game and, piling on
me, they dragged me under the water. Surfacing, I held my hands up in surrender
and waded out of the river.

‘Wait, I’ll join you to dry off,’ said
Leandra.

Frolicking in the water had loosened the
bandage holding the key. I turned to Leandra. ‘I need a fresh bandage.’

‘Sit down and I’ll get a new one from my
backpack.’

In the intense heat, my skin had already
dried. Leandra took a fresh bandage from the medical kit and handed it to me.
She slipped her T-shirt on over her shoulders. Unravelling the bandage from my
hand, I took the key and grasped it in my other palm.

‘What are you going to do about escaping?’
she asked as she wrapped the new bandage around my hand.

‘I don’t have an option, I have to go back
and escape from the villa.’

‘Why the frown?’

‘Because Perez has my family under
surveillance, that’s why. I need to find some way of contacting them to tell
them to get to a safe house before Perez can do them harm. Trouble is, I don’t
know if the mini-sub will have a radio, or a GPS phone.’

‘So what, then?’

‘I really don’t know.’

Placing the key on the bandage, Leandra
continued to wrap it around my hand and then tied it off.

I raised my eyes to the heavens. The key
wasn’t enough by itself to guarantee my escape and to save both my family’s
lives and mine. All I could hope was that on the journey back to the villa, I
could come up with a new plan to overcome what seemed to be an insurmountable
problem.

‘Do you think Perez will have the time or
the inclination to harm your family?’ Leandra asked. ‘What with the Cobras
mounting attacks on him, won’t he be distracted?’

‘I can’t gamble with my family’s lives.
It’s not only Perez I have to worry about. Without knowing who put the original
hit out on me, they might just be pissed at Perez for buying out the hit and
place a new contract with someone else. It could be the Cobras. Carlos never
did answer me, remember? Added to that, Perez may want to seek retribution when
and if I get home. How in hell am I going protect my family?’

‘Can’t you move somewhere safe?’

‘It’s not that simple. I’d have to go into
Witness Protection, along with my wife and kids. This whole thing is a mess.
We’d have to give up everything. Our home, our friends, our whole lives.’

Drawing my hand to my face, I shook my head
to dispel the negative thoughts from my mind, but they weren’t going anywhere.

Leandra pulled my hand from my face, placed
her fingers under my chin and lifted my head. She looked directly into my eyes
as if she were trying to read my mind.

‘Oh, Kurt, I wish I could make your
troubles go away.’

I wished that too, but it wasn’t going to
happen.