Hour of the Assassins (36 page)

It was nearly midnight when he finally collapsed. He tried to crawl to his feet, but he couldn't make it and fell face-first into the decaying earth. Got to rest, he thought stupidly. You can't rest, another part of him said. If the Indians don't get you, the bugs and snakes will. You can't lie down on the ground in the jungle. It was as though he had three selves: one that obstinately refused to move; a second that insisted on it; and a third that observed the debate as though it were a tennis match.

Your only chance is to rest, he told himself. No, your only chance is to move; there's time enough for rest in the grave, he countered. Somehow he got to his feet again, stumbled ahead, and then he was down again. Can't stay here, got to move, he thought dully, licking his dry lips with a tongue that felt raspy as a file. Take one more step, Hudson's voice was screaming at him from the darkness and he was up again, lurching farther down the trail and then he was down again, sprawling in the rank, moist dirt.

The darkness was complete and he couldn't tell whether it was the night, or whether he had blacked out. Got to get off the trail. Can't let them find me here, his thoughts clinking dully against each other like coins in a nearly empty purse. He crawled heavily into the bush and blindly pulled at palm fronds to make a rough bed. The frond edges cut his fingers, but he was already in so much pain that he hardly felt it. He collapsed with a dry rustle on the small heap of fronds and then there was only the darkness.

Caine woke with a start at the cracking sound of a broken twig. The jungle was bright with the milky light of morning and the merry chirp of birds. The air buzzed with the sound of insects and it took him a few seconds before he remembered where he was. Through the dense foliage he could see the naked, brown figure of an Yagua on all fours, sniffing the ground like a dog. They were tracking him!

The Yagua stood up and carefully inspected the bushes along the trail. He was carrying a blowgun, a bamboo quiver of darts dangling from it. Caine knew that the darts were tipped with curare. Just to prick your finger with one of the darts would cause death within fifteen seconds, and he remembered Father José telling him that the Yaguas could hit a parrot at a hundred yards with their blowguns.

He needed a weapon desperately, he thought, his skin shiny with sweat. The Indian's gaze passed right across the sun-dappled foliage in front of Caine, and Caine's muscles tensed into knots. A shout sounded farther down the trail and the Yagua turned and trotted away. As he disappeared from sight, Caine began to breathe again. He glanced down at his sweat-slick arms, the skin swollen and welted as boiled sausage and he began to panic. The heat was intense and he couldn't tell whether it was fever from the ant bites, or just the sun.

“Are you okay?” Hudson's voice sounded in his ear, just as it had when he had sprained his ankle on their first twenty-mile cross-country march in Panama. Hudson had shown him how to tightly bind the ankle, but Caine didn't think he could walk on it. Hudson just stood there glowering at him.

“When I say ‘Are you okay?” I mean, are
you
okay? I don't mean your ankle. That's just pain and pain is just pain. It's no excuse for not doing anything. What I want to know is, are
you
okay?”

“I'm okay, Hudson, I'm okay,” Caine muttered, just as he had that time in Panama. He scrambled painfully to his feet and began to check his pockets, but there was nothing he could use for a weapon. He began to move slowly through the bush and cautiously started hiking down the trail, keeping his eyes peeled to the ground till he found what he was looking for: a dead branch of hardwood, about an inch in diameter. With difficulty he broke the branch into two roughly equal pieces, each about eight inches in length. He tied the two sticks at the ends with a length of tough, slender vine, which he cut by chewing with his teeth so that the sticks were connected by a two-inch-long stretch of flexible vine. He got a sense of power by just holding the crude
nunchaka
he had just constructed. It wasn't the greatest weapon in the world, but he felt better just having it. You used it by holding one stick and whipping the other at your opponent, and it was efficient enough to have been outlawed as a deadly weapon by the state of California. He grimly looped the
nunchaka
through his belt and started down the trail toward the Yarinacocha.

Caine could hear the sounds of the Indians crashing through the bush long before he could see the shimmering light of the sun reflecting off the water. He quickly abandoned the trail and angled into the undergrowth, toward where he estimated he had cached the survival pack. If he could just get to the pack before the Indians spotted him, he might have a chance, he thought anxiously. Then he heard something and froze.

The Indians were all around him. He could hear the faint rustlings of movement as they picked their way through the jungle. Down toward the water a voice that sounded like Rolf's was snapping orders in a muffled tone. There was a shout and then an ear-piercing scream that was cut off as suddenly as it had begun. The sweat poured into Caine's eyes, stinging them sharply, and he blinked to clear them. He wearily leaned his forehead against a tree, the rough bark scratching his skin. Why didn't they find him and just get it over with? he wondered.

When he finally opened his eyes and focused them, he realized that he was staring at a strange marking on the trunk. His heart skipped a beat when he recognized it. It was the blaze he had cut the night before last, to mark the way to the survival pack. He started into the clearing toward the three
cedro
trees and then froze. A wide-eyed Yagua was staring right at him, the blowgun already being raised to his lips.

Caine dived sideways into the brush as the poison dart thunked into a tree trunk, vibrating inches from his head. He rolled and, in complete desperation, charged at the Indian, who was raising the blowgun into position for another shot. He wasn't going to make it, because the gun was pointed right at him and there was no way to miss at this range. Caine tucked his head and went into a forward roll, the dart ruffling his hair as it passed. With a loud war cry, the Indian dropped the blowgun and whipped out a knife.

Caine scrambled wildly to his feet and pulled the
nunchaka
from his belt. Warily the two men crouched and began to circle each other. The Indian slashed at Caine and he pulled back just in time, the glittering blade just missing the tip of Caine's nose. The Indian shouted again for help and Caine knew he had to end it right away. He stumbled and the Indian thrust forward at Caine's belly, but the stumble was a feint and Caine completed the move with a slicing crescent kick that knocked the knife hand sideways. Caine whipped the Indian's arm with the
nunchaka
and the Indian screamed and dropped the knife. Caine whipped the
nunchaka
back horizontally with a wrist flick. The stick crashed into the side of the Indian's head with a loud crack, knocking him to the ground. The Yagua lay unmoving, a thin trickle of blood seeping from his ear.

Caine didn't take the time to check whether he was unconscious or dead; he raced for the center tree and tore wildly at its hollow core for the survival pack. He wrestled the suitcase out of the trunk and scrambled into the foliage only seconds before the clearing filled with chattering Yaguas and Chamas. Caine rolled behind a dead tree trunk which was swarming with termites and cautiously zipped open the suitcase.

The AR-15 came to his hand like an old friend and when he slammed the first clip home, he no longer cared whether they heard him or not. His eyes had gone flat and cold. He was the hunter once more. He carefully peered over the trunk at the clearing.

There were half a dozen Indians running toward him, three of them wildly waving their machetes. Caine swung the gun into firing position over the log and began rapid-fire, aiming at the farthest one first and working back toward the lead Indians. They went down like figures in a shooting gallery and the two lead Indians didn't realize what was happening at first. Then they turned to flee and he got them in the back, just like that.

Silence filled the clearing, palpable as the humidity, as Caine grabbed the knapsack and headed back toward the trail. He had to get across to the other side before Rolf got there. Caine hesitated at the edge of the trail, crouching in the age-old stance of the jungle predator, his senses alive to any movement. A sudden stab of pain drilled his cheek and he almost cried out. He winced and an insect the size of a dragonfly buzzed his ear and was lost in the trees. He had been bitten by a
mutaca
and almost immediately he could feel the skin on his cheek tighten as it began to swell.

The trail was clear; all he had to do was cross it. Sure, he told himself, but he couldn't make his feet move. How many times had they tried to cross empty trails in Laos, only to get cut down by the unseen enemy? Go on, you bastard, do it, he urged, but his feet were frozen in place. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve. The dense greenery across the trail beckoned him like a distant view of Shangri-La. Why does a killer cross the road? he asked himself stupidly. To get to the other side, you gutless son of a bitch, he answered, jeering. Do it! You're a dead man anyway, so just get it over with. That's not why you cross the road, he amended. You cross it because you can't stay here. And he stumbled awkwardly across the trail and crashed into the trees.

Rolf and the Indians would be along at any second, he realized, and feverishly dug in the knapsack for a length of fishing line. Rolf had the Winchester, with its greater range, but he had the AR-15 for firepower. Rolf was the key. If he could get Rolf, the Indians were odds-on to run for it. Then he saw two Chamas far down the trail and fired at them. They dived into the foliage for cover. He had to move quickly.

He tied one end of the fishing line to the bush and crawled through the scratching, tearing undergrowth to a tree about twenty yards away, trailing the line behind him. He propped the knapsack beside the tree as a shooting rest and took up the slack in the line. Now all he had to do was wait.

Sweat blinded him and he had to keep wiping his eyes with his sleeve. It was Laos all over again, he thought. It was like a wound that wouldn't heal, a dull ache that never went away. “You never came back,” C.J. had said. It was exactly the way it had been for them. The fetid heat and sounds and stench of the jungle and always the enemy, invisible and yet you knew they were there. It had come back, that awful sense of frustration, because you never saw them, not even when they got you. You would lie there, your life draining away, while the medic told you it wasn't bad, you would make it. You were one of the lucky ones, boy. You were going home. And you could look up and see the lie in the medic's eyes, because he wouldn't look at you and you knew it was bad, because you couldn't feel it and those were the ones everybody said were the bad ones. And they would check your dog tags, for the blood-type, the medic said, but you knew that it was for the records before they shoved you into a body-bag. And there was nothing you could do, so you just lay there, feeling your life drain away and thought that you had come so close; you had almost made it. But it didn't matter anymore, because C.J. had been right all along. He had never come back.

He whirled at a sudden rustling sound behind him, his heart fluttering like a trapped bird, but it was just a large turtle plodding through the undergrowth. Rolf would send the Indians around to outflank and flush him, he reasoned. He had a fairly decent field of fire, he thought, peeking carefully around the tree, but there was nothing to see but the dappled greenery along the trail. Where was Rolf? He had to draw his fire. If he waited much longer, the silent Indians would have him boxed. His nerves were screaming, like a fine wire being drawn tighter and tighter, until he couldn't stand it anymore.

He jerked cautiously at the fishing line and the bush rustled harshly. Almost immediately the thwang of arrows flew at the bush, followed by the crash of the Winchester. Damn! He hadn't spotted it. He desperately jerked the line again and the Winchester fired again, followed by a sudden, arching rain of arrows and darts at the bush. Caine jerked the line feebly once more and waited breathlessly.

An Yagua cautiously emerged from the undergrowth, his eyes rapidly darting about. Something must have frightened him, because he pressed back against the foliage. Come on, you kraut bastard, Caine pleaded silently. Then there was a movement, as a hand or something shoved the Indian forward from behind and Caine fired rapidly, emptying the clip at the bush behind the Indian.

As the Yagua tumbled dead to the ground, Caine slammed home another clip and continued firing at the bush until the clip was empty. Suddenly there was a murmur of voices and he could hear the Indians running, the sounds receding in the sullen heat. Caine loaded another clip and sprinted back across the trail, diving into the brush for cover, but nothing happened. He crept in a wide circle until he neared the bush he had been firing at. He went down on his belly and crawled slowly, one step at a time, until he was within close range. Then he snapped into a kneeling firing position and put half the clip into the area around the bush.

The jungle was silent except for the endless insect whine that was as much a part of the jungle air as the heat and the humidity. Caine crawled on his belly until he saw the bodies. Rolf was lying facedown, his back stained a dull red with blood. Next to him, a dead Yagua lay curled in a fetal position, part of his face scooped out, leaving a bleeding red mass. Someone must have run off with Rolf's Winchester, because it was gone, he noted. Caine kicked Rolf's body over, but there was no need for a coup de grâce. He could see that at a glance. Caine stared down at Rolf's dead eyes.

“I forgot to tell you. I cheat,” he said to the dead, staring eyes. A cluster of insects had already formed near the body, feeding on the blood that seeped from Rolfs chest.