Choke Point (24 page)

“The way we’ve been going, a blind man with a wooden leg could track us. We need to get out of this ravine. If we continue like this, they could literally stumble into us. We need to backtrack a ways and then—”

“Backtrack!” Atherton interrupted. “Why would we do that?”

“Simon’s right,” Kyra answered. “We need to double back and try to find a place where we can climb out of here without leaving an exit sign.” She ran a hand through her hair, plowing the water off the back of her head. “I’ll take the lead. Jim, you’ll need to help Simon up the incline.”

“Sure thing,” he answered, apparently willing to do whatever she asked. “We can hide the case and come back for it later.”

She unfolded her legs and pushed herself to her feet. “Sounds like a plan.”

A bad one, Simon thought, for reasons he didn’t care to explain. “That may not be a good idea. Another couple of hours, and this area could be under water.”

A look of doubt flashed across Atherton’s face. “You think?”

“Absolutely,” Simon answered, though he didn’t really believe it. “Just get me up that incline. I’ll take it from there.”

The man hesitated, unconvinced. “There’s no way—”

“Forget it,” Kyra interrupted. “You’re asking Dudley Do Right to abandon his mission.” She gave Simon a wink, an acknowledgment that she understood. “Trust me, that’s not going to happen.” She reached down and picked up the case. “I can handle it.”

Despite the rain, Mawl knew he was getting close. They were moving like a herd of frightened animals, following the path of least resistance.
Civilians,
he could have closed his eyes and found them, but he forced himself to slow down. Outnumbered three to one, and blinded by the rain, he didn’t want to run into them unexpectedly.
No more mistakes.

Though he didn’t understand how it happened, now that he had a chance to consider the ramifications, he was actually relieved to have missed the shot on Leonidovich. Bodies and bullets didn’t exactly fit the accident scenario. No more than a fuselage riddled with holes. A mistake he could remedy by planting the bodies fifty or sixty kilometers north, where they would be discovered by one of the local fishing boats. That would put a quick end to any wild speculation, any search near the island, and give Trader his “accident.” But, it also made things more complicated. They would have to die from drowning, with salt water in their lungs.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

An Island in the South China Sea

Wednesday, 11 July 14:28:16 GMT +0800

“Simon.” The man’s hushed voice slipped off-balance into his subconscious. He tried to ignore it, to deny its presence, but the harder he tried, the more persistent it became. “Simon, wake up. You’re dreaming.”

He suddenly recognized the voice, and it all came back, a nightmare of images coming to life in segments: the plane going down, the helicopter, his broken arm…
No dream,
he could feel that, a throbbing ache from his fingertips to his armpit. He took a deep breath, the air muggy and thick, and opened his eyes. The rain had stopped, but a blanket of dark clouds still covered the sky, the light thin and gray beyond the overhang of rocks.

Atherton leaned into view, his voice flat with anxiety. “You were thrashing around pretty hard. I thought you might hurt your arm.”

Simon tried to suck some saliva into his dry mouth. “Water…” The word barely made it past his throat, the choked-off sound of a wild beast being strangled.

Atherton ducked out of sight, then reappeared with a short stalk of hollowed-out bamboo. He looked like a homeless person with a good haircut, his face stubbled with blond whiskers, his well-tailored clothes damp and torn and mud-spattered. He crouched down and carefully trickled a stream of water into Simon’s mouth. “Take it slow.”

Simon swallowed and coughed, then swallowed again, the flavor earthy and sweet. “Thanks.” He still sounded like a frog, but one that could talk.

Atherton sat back on his heels. “You’ve been running a pretty high temperature. Sweating one minute, shaking the next. How do you feel?”

Numb and foggy,
like someone had stuffed his body through a meat grinder. “I’m okay.”

“Can you sit up?”

Good question,
and though he couldn’t remember how he got there, he realized he was lying on a bed of palm branches. “I think so.” Using his good arm, he pushed himself into a sitting position. His torso looked as bad as it felt, his upper body ribboned with cuts and scratches, his left arm bound to his chest. “What time is it?”

Atherton glanced at his watch. “Two-thirty. You’ve been out for sixteen hours.”

“Sixteen hours? What happened? I mean…”

“You don’t remember?”

He remembered walking until dark…he remembered finding this semi-dry, semi-sheltered spot…he remembered…that was it, nothing beyond that point. “Remember what?”

“Kyra setting your arm.”

No, he didn’t remember that. Thankfully. He glanced around, unable to see much beyond the wall of vegetation. “Where is Kyra?”

“She’s been gone over six hours. Said she was going to look for help. I tried to talk her out of it.” He shook his head, a gesture of self-recrimination. “I never should have let her go.”

Right,
as if Kyra Rynerson would let any man dictate her actions. “Don’t worry about her.” He tried to sound more confident than he felt. “That girl’s tough as nails and twice as sharp. She’ll be fine.”

Atherton nodded, though it was obvious he didn’t believe it.

“When did the rain stop?”

He glanced over his shoulder, apparently unaware that it had. “Oh.” He extended his hand out beyond the rocks, palm up, as if he didn’t believe his eyes. “It comes and goes. Mostly comes. So hard most of the time you can’t see a thing.”

“I’m sure that’s why it’s taking her so long.” A weak attempt, Simon realized, to convince himself. “She spent three months in the Amazon rain forest. She knows how to take care of herself.”

“I guess.”

“You find anything to eat?” Simon asked, trying to change the subject. “There should be a lot of berries and nuts in this climate.”

Atherton shook his head. “I didn’t think I should leave you alone.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” He suspected the man was simply too depressed or too afraid to venture beyond their enclosure. “If Kyra’s not back soon, we’ll take a look around, see what we can find.”

Atherton shrugged indifferently. “I’m not really hungry.” He squatted down, until they were eye to eye. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“Of course not.”

“Just between us.”

Uh-oh
—that meant it had something to do with Kyra. He nodded, though he didn’t really want to play keeper-of-secrets in their relationship.

“You and Kyra are close.”

Was that a question? “What do you mean?”

“I know she respects your opinion.”

Simon smiled, hoping to keep it light. “I told you she was smart.”

“I’ve decided to ask her to marry me.”

“Oh…wow…I mean—” What did he mean? He wasn’t
that
surprised; suspected their relationship was heading in that direction, but why now? In this place? “You obviously don’t believe in wasting time.”

“There’s something about going down in a plane that makes a person realize what’s important in life.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Well…?”

Well what? What did he expect? “I think any man would be damn lucky to have her.”

“So you approve?”

Simon chuckled, as if he found the question amusing, though he found nothing about the conversation remotely humorous. “You’re asking the wrong person. It’s not my approval you need.”

“But what you think matters to her. I’d like to know that we have your blessing.”

Blessing!
“Jim, really, you’re placing way too much importance on my opinion. Kyra doesn’t care what I think—not when it comes to love and marriage.”

The man’s lips disappeared into a tight seam. “So you’re against it?”

“No,” Simon answered, being careful to keep his tone matter-of-fact. “That’s not what I said, and that’s not what I mean. I’ve known you less than two weeks.” The same as the proposed bride, he might have added, but restrained himself. “I don’t know you well enough to make a judgement. I don’t know if you like kids, or if you—”

“Don’t,” Atherton broke in, “make this complicated. If you’re against the idea, just say so. Kids have nothing to do with this. If she wants kids, we’ll have kids. It’s not an issue.”

“I wasn’t referring to future children, Jim. Kyra has a child. That’s an important
fact,
not an
issue.
”

Atherton rocked back on his heels, almost as if he’d been slapped. “Oh, right. I misunderstood.”

Simon nodded, though the man’s response seemed disingenuous, his reaction beyond misunderstanding. Did he even remember that Kyra had a child? Was he blindly in love, or an opportunist looking to climb aboard the Rynerson Express?

The object of their discussion suddenly appeared through the foliage, her blouse and slacks caked with mud. “Misunderstood what?”

Atherton leaped to his feet. “Misunderstood how long you would be gone.” He gave Simon an awkward, please-don’t-say-anything smile. “We were starting to worry.”

“Sorry, I wanted to finish scouting the island before dark.” She squatted down next to the makeshift bed. “How you doing, Leonidovich?”

“Good.” If feeling like a regurgitated hair ball qualified as
good.
“Thanks for setting my arm.”

“Ha! That’s not what you said last night.”

“That was my female side talking. You have to ignore her.”

She smiled, just a little, the ordeal clearly having sapped her spirit. “You have sides?”

“Absolutely. Simon and Simone.”

“Sounds a little schizophrenic to me.”

“We resent the implication of that remark.”

She laughed and placed a hand on his forehead. “You’re still a bit warm. Have you eaten anything?”

“He just woke up,” Atherton answered quickly, his tone a touch defensive. “I was about to look around. See what I could find.”

“I might have something.” She reached behind her and pulled an olive-green military cargo bag through the foliage. “Compliments of our friends from the helicopter.”

Atherton stared at the thing, his eyes devoid of understanding. “They left it?”

Simon knew better. “They’re still here?”

She nodded. “Five of them. I didn’t see the helicopter, they couldn’t use it this weather, but it’s the same guys. They were unloading gear from a fishing trawler. Not far from where we came ashore. They’ve got four Zodiacs and enough supplies to last at least a couple of weeks.”

The confusion on Atherton’s face deepened. “Zodiacs?”

“Inflatable rubber boats,” Kyra explained. “One’s pretty good size…big outboard…would probably hold six, maybe eight people. The others are smaller…wouldn’t hold more than two. They’re setting up camp just inside—”

“They sound like fishermen,” Atherton interrupted, his tone hopeful.

“No, they’ve got guns and—”

“Or hunters.”

“Yes, Jim, that’s exactly what they are. And, they’re hunting us.”

“I just don’t understand how you can be sure?” he persisted, clearly not wanting to accept what he was hearing. “We didn’t really get a good look at them.”

“Because—” She took a deep breath, obviously irritated by the interruptions. “Robbie is with them.”

“Oh.” He slumped back against the rock wall. “Oh, Jesus.”

Someone, Simon thought, needed to work on his communication skills before popping the big question. He cocked his head toward the cargo bag, trying to refocus the happy couple’s attention. “So, what you got there, Rynerson?”

“I didn’t stop to look.” She pulled back the zipper and within seconds they were digging through the bag like three kids at Christmas. The contents clearly belonged to one person. The bag contained an assortment of clothes—mostly T-shirts and cargo-style shorts—including an expensive pair of lightweight hiking boots, a cheap pair of flip-flop shower shoes, and a camouflage Boonie hat. There were two smaller bags within the larger: a small toiletry kit, and a nylon accessory bag. The first contained two pivot-head disposable razors, a tube of Marks & Spencer shave gel, a tube of Hedley & Wyche toothpaste, a well-used toothbrush, a first-aid kit, an aerosol can of GreenHead insect repellent, four Safex Delay condoms, a small sewing kit, a washcloth, a laundry line, two sticks of camouflage paint—one loam, the other leaf-green—and a small plastic jar containing an assortment of pills. The accessory bag contained a pair of Steiner 7x50 binoculars, a pair of PVS-7 Ultra night-vision goggles, a SureFire E1e mini-light, a fifty-foot coil of black nylon rope, a clear plastic bottle of dark rum, and an assortment of high-energy snack foods.

Kyra grinned, clearly pleased with herself. “Not bad, uh?”

“Absolutely incredible!” Atherton agreed, obviously trying hard to redeem himself. “How did you get it?”

“It wasn’t that hard. They had most of their gear stacked inside the tree line, out of sight from the water. After the trawler left and they started to set up the Zodiacs, I just slipped in, grabbed the nearest bag, and hightailed it out of there.”

Simon suspected what she described as “just slipped in” to have been one heart-stopping moment, but he feigned a look of disappointment. “You couldn’t have grabbed a gun or two while you were at it?”

“Be careful, Leonidovich, I might have to reset that arm.”

“Did I mention what a really fine job you did landing that plane?”

“Smartass.”

Atherton glanced back and forth between them, clearly irritated by their mindless sniping. “Hey, guys, we’re in trouble here. What’s going to happen when they realize the bag is missing?”

“Nothing,” Kyra answered. “They’ll think they forgot to unload it.”

He opened his mouth, ready to argue the point, then apparently realized their situation couldn’t get worse, stolen bag or not, and changed direction. “Could you tell what they had planned? Were you close enough to hear anything?”