The Geronimo Breach (16 page)

His belly growled. Jesus, that pig-slop from last night was foul. No doubt brimming with liver flukes and God knows what other horrors.

Some days just started off lousy, and then went downhill from there.

This looked to be one of them.

Then the clouds parted, and the sun radiated its warming light upon them. Or more accurately, they arrived at the clearing, where the thick vegetation overhead thinned enough to make the sky visible.

Ernesto sat on an old log and fiddled with his makeshift bandage. Al desperately wanted a cigarette and a cocktail, but held off on the former out of concern it might lead the death squad to them, and nixed the latter because he’d left his emergency vodka ration in his car. So he was virtuous by necessity and circumstance, rather than by choice.

He heard the sharp snapping of a branch and spun around.

The guide was here.

A small, wizened figure in baggy camouflage pants and a stained brown tank top watched them from a nearby grove of trees, an ancient machete dangling from his right hand. There had been no one there a few moments ago when they’d arrived. And then, suddenly, there he was. Carlos.

Al knew the guide was a Kuna Indian, one of the original indigenous tribes of Panama, from a tiny village on the bank of the nearby river. He suspected he had an unpronounceable name, but Carmen had told Al to refer to him as Carlos again, which seemed like a reasonable compromise between whatever series of pops and grunts passed for his moniker in Kuna, and even the Spanish equivalent.

Carlos looked to be in his late sixties, but Al knew looks were deceptive. The jungle was a harsh mistress, and he might be in his forties – or eighties. In the past their interactions had been limited to Carlos virtually ignoring Al’s ice-breaking overtures in mangled Spanish, so it wasn’t as though they were close.

Carlos motioned Ernesto to follow him. Al stepped forward and indicated by touching his chest and pointing that he would also be going. Carlos glared at him as though he’d proposed sodomizing him, and nodded. “No.”

Al approached Carlos, and whispered a few words of ‘Spanglais’ in his ear. “I need to go with you. I can’t go back – it’s not safe. Bad men...”

Carlos regarded him with stoic calm. “Tough shit. This isn’t a free tour, cowboy...”

Al sighed, then fished around in his shirt pocket, carefully peeling off five hundred dollars from his newly acquired wad. He figured he wouldn’t be seeing Sergio for a while, so he probably wouldn’t mind if his cut temporarily went to Carlos.

“That’s it? Is this a joke? The best you can do is beer money? Maybe that gets you across river or two, but to Colombia? Give me a break...” Carlos muttered, but then he snatched the cash from Al’s hand, and shaking his head in disgust, motioned for them both to join him.

~

“Sam! Get in here! Now!” Richard yelled from Sam’s desk.

Sam almost choked on his tenth cup of coffee. He hurried into the office, where Richard was cradling the phone headset on his shoulder while staring at the representation of the cook’s cell phone chip movement on the monitor.

“I just got word there’s been an emergency call from a police cruiser about ten miles south of Meteti, which is, funnily enough, where the cook’s phone chip placed them. There’s been a gun battle, and at least three men are dead,” Richard reported, watching Sam’s face for any inkling of foreknowledge.

Sam’s eyes went wide. He looked genuinely shocked. “What...what do you mean, sir? A cop? Gunfight? I don’t understand,” Sam exclaimed.

“Our boy was being ferried south by a police officer, it seems, and there was an armed altercation. There’s no mention of the cook, so I’m guessing the cop was the transportation arrangement.” Richard studied Sam. “Sam, it’s wildly coincidental that there’s been a gunfight involving the car carrying the cook. So much so I have to believe you had a hand in this. So why not just fess up – what the hell did you do?” Richard demanded, slamming his hand heavily on the desk.

Sam’s eyes widened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir. Really. Look, that area of southern Panama is extremely dangerous under the best of circumstances. Especially at night. Maybe this cop came across a drug deal and they panicked?”

“I don’t buy that horse-crap for a second, Sam.”

“I already had a team wiped out at the whorehouse due to bad luck,” Sam began. “There was no hidden scheme there, just some violent thugs with guns at the wrong place at the wrong time. Is it so impossible that there’s more than one group of armed predators roving around the biggest cocaine trafficking corridor in the world in the wee hours of the morning?”

Richard said nothing. But the way he stared at Sam said it all.

“I swear, I have no idea what’s going on, sir,” Sam promised.

Richard turned back to the monitor. “Well, according to the tracking data, the cook is now bee-lining into the middle of the jungle. He’s over a mile in, and it looks like he’s continuing straight towards the border. So any chance we had of intercepting him on the road is over,” Richard said angrily.

“What are we going to do?” Sam asked.

“We? …We?...
We
aren’t going to do anything. I don’t believe you didn’t have a hand in the attack, even though I can’t prove it. I don’t buy coincidences that involve armed attacks on deserted roads. But I’ll deal with that later. Right now I don’t have the luxury of peeling your skin off, layer by layer, to get to the truth. No, I now have to figure out how to take the cook out before this goes any further,” Richard hissed in frustration.

“Well, there’s nobody for miles, so at least you can pretty much do whatever you want,” Sam reasoned.

“Yeah, but there are no roads to get a team in, and the deeper into that jungle they go, the more dangerous any operation becomes. It’s literally swarming with rebels and coke traffickers, all of whom are armed to the teeth,” Richard said. “And my team is sitting almost twenty miles away, waiting for an ambush that’s never going to happen.” He looked at Sam in disgust.

“Maybe the cook panicked and is running blind? The intel was pretty adamant that any meeting would happen in Yaviza...” Sam speculated.

“I’m going to bet that this time, the intel sucked,” Richard said.

“But...”

“The cook is heading straight for the most dangerous strip of land in the world, and seems to be making pretty good headway, given it’s the densest jungle outside of the Congo. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess he’s got some help, and that help isn’t accidental. We’ve known all along he was making for Colombia. This is how he plans to do it,” Richard explained.

“Then you have to get him on the Colombian side?” Sam asked.

Richard said nothing, lost in thought.

He really wanted to take the cook alive so he could understand what, if any, additional exposure they had to the camera’s contents being leaked. Unfortunately, this operation was already running off the tracks and it didn’t look like he had that option – barring parachuting his team into the middle of a hot zone, with no way out, in the hopes they could intercept the cook without stepping on any land mines or being mowed down by bloodthirsty paramilitary rebels. Richard had read the reports on the Darien Gap, and even this northern edge of it was more deadly than walking down the main boulevard in Tehran singing God Bless America, wearing a stars and stripes jacket. Every murderous faction in Central America was concentrated in that strip of jungle and each was more dangerous than the next. The Panamanians wouldn’t get within miles of it, and the Colombian Army would only venture in on rare occasions, and then in only a limited area with massive firepower. It made Vietnam during the height of hostilities seem like a trip to Cancun on Spring Break.

They hiked further north-east, Carlos moving soundlessly in front of them. Even in the early morning, now just after seven, the oppressive heat beat down on them. Swarms of mosquitoes attacked Ernesto and Al, but seemed strangely uninterested in Carlos.

Glancing back at the pair, Carlos reached into his soiled blue nylon knapsack and tossed Ernesto a small green aerosol can.

“
Backwoods Off
. Best mosquito spray money can buy,” Carlos told them. “Get all your skin and also spray your shirt – they’ll bite right through it. And with Malaria and Dengue everywhere around here you really don’t want bites.”

Great, Al thought. Hemorrhagic fever, where his organs would liquefy and he’d turn into a giant, bleeding hemorrhoid.

This just kept getting better.

They were being stalked by parties unknown, whose only imperative seemed to be to slaughter them in whatever way possible; they were trekking through an area more toxic than the Burmese triangle; the place was lousy with insects and critters that would kill you just for practice; and his stomach felt like he’d swallowed molten lava – possibly from the stress, but almost certainly from the rotting gruel he’d eaten last night.

Finished spraying, Ernesto handed Al the aerosol of repellant. It was nearly empty.

Unbelievable.

After another hour of pressing through the undergrowth they arrived at a brown, odiferous river. Carlos moved to a nearby pile of vegetation and lifted some large fronds, revealing an old
piragua
; a long, narrow rowboat with two plastic jugs of water in it. He offered one to Ernesto and Al, and took a long pull from his own.

“This is Chucunaque river,” Carlos began. “We need to cross it, then we continue on foot. On the other shore it gets much more dangerous, so stay quiet at all times and pay attention to whatever I do or say. I know most of the groups operating in this area, but there are always new ones, and people get killed daily, so there are no guarantees. I have camp a few more miles inland from the river. We should try and make it there by noon.”

“The river stinks,” Al complained.

Carlos nodded. “You don’t want to get in the water, that’s for sure. It has parasites that will drill through your skin and feed on your guts – same in most of the rivers here, so try not to fall in, and leave taking bath until you’re in Colombia,” Carlos advised. He regarded Al skeptically. “Assuming you make it.”

“You sure that thing floats?” Al asked, ignoring his innuendo.

“It did coming over, but you’re the fattest passenger I ever tried to carry, so anything could happen. Try not to capsize it.” Carlos grinned at him, revealing multiple gaps where teeth had once resided.

They were across the river within five minutes, thankfully, with no drama. No alligators leaped snapping at them from the sludgy banks, no water snakes attacked. Still, both Ernesto and Al were glad to be out of the boat – it really did rock precariously and was obviously rotting apart.

Carlos grabbed his water bottle and gestured at Ernesto to do the same. He put his finger to his mouth, reminding them to be silent.

The day got muggier as they moved deeper into the dense jungle. Forty-five minutes past the river it started raining, which was a blessing from a temperature standpoint, but also a curse, as the ground soon became a muddy quagmire. Carlos wore old army boots, but Ernesto and Al both wore tennis shoes, which were ill-suited for the terrain and quickly soaked through with moisture. Carlos didn’t seem to notice or be troubled by the downpour, which stopped as suddenly as it began. Within a few minutes steam rose from the vegetation, making the cloying environment even more unbearable.

How did the locals live in this? Al was dying, and he’d only been in the wilds for a few hours. He couldn’t imagine what August, during the full-fledged rainy season, was like.

Eventually they made it to another clearing. Two burros were tied to a tree trunk, each with a pack on its back. Al noticed that both had rifles conspicuously stuffed in the packs, their dark wooden butts sticking out for easy access. That didn’t portend good things.

Carlos untied the two burros, who ambled about in search of something to nibble. He spoke to Ernesto and Al in a whisper.

“We wait here until the worst heat of day is over, and then make for the mountains. It takes at least two days to make it through to Colombia. I got food and water packed, but only enough for two, so you’ll need to share. Al, I think maybe you could use a few days on a diet, so perhaps this will do you good. But you need to ration your water. Each burro has plastic funnel in the pack – when it rains, open the bottle and put the funnel in, this stretches the water longer.”

“How many times have you done this trip?” Ernesto asked.

“About twenty times. It never gets any easier, but at least it’s not rainy season yet. That’s a nightmare,” Carlos advised.

“Well, at least there’s that,” Al said, and then winced as his stomach gave a sharp stab of pain. “Christ, Ernesto, that poison you fed me at the
mercado
is killing me. Aren’t you feeling sick?”

“Nah. Never better. Your system is messed up in some way. Maybe it’s alcohol withdrawals?” Ernesto suggested.

Al regarded Carlos. “You wouldn’t happen to have any cold beer, would you, Carlos?” Al tried hopefully.

“Sure. I keep it right next to the slot machines. Just take a right at the hookers and look for fridge,” Carlos responded.

“I figured that was a long shot,” Al lamented. He sighed and pulled out his pack of Marlboros.

“No smoking till you’re in Colombia,” Carlos ordered, shaking his head.

“What? You’re kidding me! No booze
and
no cigarettes? What is this…hell? You’re the devil and I died last night?”

“Keep your voice down,” Carlos cautioned. “You light cigarette and you might as well crank a stereo and put a bulls-eye on your back. Any dangerous groups in the area will come right to you…and then you’ll know what hell really is.”

“All right,” Al grudgingly conceded, carefully replacing the cigarette into the cardboard package.

Carlos extended a hand, flipping his fingers, signaling for Al to surrender the box.

“Oh, c’mon, Carlos. For Christ’s sake. I’m an adult. If I promise I won’t smoke, I won’t,” Al protested.