Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (39 page)

“She had dreams of
being the top dog of NM2.”

“Is that so? Well,
you brought those plans to an end for that little entrepreneur, Abeni. I’m so
very proud of you. I’ve missed you too much, Sugarlump. And your mother. No
matter what, know that I love you!”

“It’s an honor to
be part of this,” Abbi said.

“You have a gift,
that gift of vision. I used to have it, not as strong as yours, but mine is fading
away. Use it, trust it, Abeni. God-speed and God be with you,” she said. She
handed Abbi a packet. “Today’s mission, should you accept it, will be most
important in securing your mother’s release. This packet will be more complete.
You’ll have a map. Use your GPS. It’s an all or nothing drop.”

Abbi breathed a
sigh of relief. Instead of three different drops, it was all on her. Much less
chance that anything could go wrong.

“I’ll handle it,”
Abbi said.

After a hug, Abbi left
Mrs. Hightower’s office.

She went down to
the lobby where Big Sam and Louise waited. Scott would be in the SUV, ready to
drive to the secluded wooded area in Shenandoah County, Virginia, for the drop.
Abbi thought about her last-minute instructions while Louise seemed intent on
catching the driver’s attention. Big Sam took the front seat and navigated.

Abbi had her rappelling
bag, and grabbed the piece called an ascender. Somehow she felt she might need
it. She attached it to a loop on her harness so that it would be there if
needed.

With the leotard under
her suit, Abbi was ready for this mission. The bag had several pounds of
climbing hardware and her harness. Everything was good to go.        

It would probably
take two hours to reach their destination. Every minute counted. Abbi used a
few minutes of the time to get used to this particular GPS device with its
updated features. She was happy to see its owner’s manual in the packet. She
studied it, said a little prayer and then it was naptime.

Scott would drive
them from Washington, D.C., to an especially secluded area of the Blue Ridge
Mountain range marked only by a mile marker. Once again they were in Virginia,
at the area known in the inner circle of the Bureau as Virginia’s Killing
Forest. As they pulled onto a narrow, winding road and approached a wide
pull-off area, Big Sam woke up Abbi.

“You ready to do
this?” he asked.

            “I think so!” Abbi said,
but inside she felt some trepidation. Her heart had been racing a lot lately,
partly from fatigue, partly from excitement.

Abbi quickly
pulled off her suit, revealing her leotard. Then she switched to the running
shoes and lifted her smaller knapsack to stuff in her harness, rope gear, phone
and other useful supplies, trying to reduce the weight but still holding all
she needed, she hoped. Then Abbi held her fist up to Louise for their fist bump
before she left the vehicle. Abbi looked at Big Sam and the young driver.

“Don’t go anywhere,”
Abbi said as her adrenaline rush began to kick in.

            “About that. They won’t
let us stay,” Big Sam said.

            “OH? When were you
going to tell me?”

            The driver said, “I’ll
be on stand-by, ready and waiting.”

            Standing by the SUV on
the side of the road, Abbi looked over her notebook, map and the list of
waypoints in case she had a last-minute question. While she stood there, she
checked the GPS coordinates to see if the starting point accurately matched the
coordinates in her notes.

Relieved, she
said, “We’re in the right spot!”

Big Sam just
raised an eyebrow at her.

She looked down at
the notebook again and saw a culvert on the list of waypoints. Instructions
said to go through the culvert. She checked the topographic map. She had gone
over this with Mrs. Hightower. It was time for action but she wondered about
the culvert.

“It’s steep and
rugged! Why not just go around the culvert?” she asked Big Sam.

“Check it out when
you get there,” Big Sam said and looked away.

“Listen, I just
want to get it right. OK?” She reached inside the SUV for her water bottle.

“Of course. Watch
every step you make. The time frame is too tight for any missteps. Got that?
Now, get out there and stay safe. We’ll just be a half mile up the road. GO!”

“See ya after the
drop!” Abbi said.

Feeling both
excitement and anxiety, she waved and headed into the thick forest. This time
there probably was no sniper to protect her. And the SUV was pulling away. She
really was on her own, and this was the last chance to make it happen.

Although she saw no
path to follow, Abbi could occasionally see “shine” through leaves and grassy
patches in the woods. Someone had passed through the area on the way in,
probably to set up the drop location, maybe days ago. She saw no sign that the
person had come out of the forested area but couldn’t take the time to look. At
this point, she didn’t care. It seemed everything she did up to this point was
watched and she was getting used to it. Where it used to annoy her, now that
the stakes seemed so high, she had grown to prefer the constant surveillance.

Abbi kept her GPS on
a setting that would remember her path so that, if necessary, she could show
the screen and backtrack to the starting point at the SUV when her companions
would return for her.

Abbi listened for
signs of activity. Not even the twitter of birds could be detected. That was
another indication that someone in this part of the forest watched her every
move. She looked high into trees for anything unusual.

Abbi finally
walked far enough that, when she looked through the binoculars, she could see
just the top edge of the culvert. Surrounded by brush, widespread from years of
growth, it presented a thick barrier.

She had hiked the
silent hilly terrain for something over a quarter of a mile when she finally
reached the culvert. The rugged terrain had quickly let her know that these
weren’t gently rolling hills—she was deep in the mountains. The steep incline
made hiking difficult. She had successfully followed her checkpoints, important
since she was only halfway to her destination. She would have to stick close to
her pace count to end up at the drop zone. There, she would find a hollow rock
under an oak tree.

She stopped and quickly
surveyed the area.

The small package
and its contents made her curious enough that she took off her gloves and removed
the brown package from her knapsack. She turned it over, examining the softness
of it, and wondered what was in it. Money? Sure. But how much? What else? Some
kind of pact? She had her super duper x-ray spray. Hastily, without thinking of
the consequences of her actions, she grabbed the spray. Then Abbi looked all
around using the binoculars, hoping no one could witness what she was about to
do. She lightly sprayed the package with her x-ray spray and blew on the spray
hoping to speed up its action and reveal the contents of the package she would
be droppin. Nothing showed. She sprayed it again. Finally, she saw some folded
papers inside but still no clue whether it was sheets of paper or a quantity of
dollar bills.

Abbi wanted to put
the packet away but now it had wet blotches on it.  She rubbed and blew on it to
get it to dry but the wet spots remained. Hoping she could get it to dry, she
picked up the packet and waved it. Finally, feeling stupid, Abbi put the packet
as discreetly as possible into her bra with the other items, now crowded, while
she fought the urge to yell at herself.  She hoped her body heat would help to
get the packet dry. She didn’t have time to wait on it. She had to move on.

A voice in her
earpiece asked her why she was breathing so hard. Abbi said something about
hyperventilating when she’s nervous. She heard Big Sam say to put her face in
her knapsack and breathe slowly. She shook her head and put the spray back in
the rappelling bag, hoping no one would wonder about the wet spots or see her
waving the packet in the air as if she were trying to attract the attention of
a passing motorist. But it was nice to know he was listening.

The twenty-foot culvert
had caught rain during early spring and had a thick growth of algae developing
inside its tunnel, making the galvanized steel floor thick with slime. Spider webs
covered its opening. At only four feet in diameter, the culvert was too short
for Abbi to stand inside. Abbi would have to crawl. Oddly, she saw no
indication that another person had gone through the culvert.

Sliding down would
be easy but climbing back up at that angle would hard to do, even with the
shoes she wore. To go around the culvert would mean hiking through a huge
growth of briars and wild grapevines. That would throw her off her pace count
and her direction. It was too risky to chance that. She had to stick to the
plan and go through the culvert.

Her binoculars
were hanging around her neck. She put the phone with the small packet in her
bra, using it again as two pockets that were overfilled. Then she grabbed the
knapsack and took out some lightweight nylon webbing. She stepped into her
climbing harness and checked to see that she had a small loop of webbing for
safety, some carabiners, her ascender, and some extra neon pink nylon webbing
attached to loops if she needed them. Then she hid the knapsack near the
culvert.

 The slimy
condition of the culvert convinced Abbi to tie the extra webbing to a nearby
tree. She threw the tail of the webbing inside the culvert toward its base. Holding
onto the webbing would help her climb back up through the slimy steel pipe on
her return trip.

 Reluctantly, she
knew she would need to put the climbing harness on now, before going through
the culvert since she didn’t want to drag the whole knapsack through the slimy
mess. Once she had it on, her only option would be to crawl through the culvert
on her knees to avoid having a wet harness and a slimy butt. Finally, with her
harness on securely, she attached the carabiners, her phone, and GPS. She kept
the drop packet stashed away in her bra. After Abbi put on neoprene gloves for
comfort and protection, she was ready for the descent into the culvert.

Although slippery
and wet, the inside of the culvert didn’t smell too bad. Abbi detested what the
wet slime would do to her running shoes. Hiking boots would have worked so much
better. If she didn’t think about creepy, crawly things that live in slime, going
down through the culvert was easy going. Although the greenish brown masses on her
knees looked and felt disgusting, the gloves kept her hands clean and dry, and her
shoes gave traction as well as protection. After crawling out the other end, she
brushed off her knees the best she could with dry leaves.

Abbi let go of the
slime-covered pink webbing and left the culvert behind.  Then she hiked down
the rest of that hill. On the next ridge she would find the zipline. Abbi
continually checked the GPS and counted her paces, looking at the waypoints as
she hiked. She soon realized, when she got slightly off course, that an uphill pace
can be a different length from a downhill pace. She tried to compensate to keep
her pacing even. Getting her pacing right was critical to ending up in the drop
zone.

Abbi breathed a
sigh of relief when she spotted the zipline just where it should be. Beyond
that, she could see the deep ravine with its huge boulders. This is what she
would be crossing on the zipline. The look of the deep gap made her question
her abilities and the condition of the zipline, especially when it became
obvious by its lack of tension that the construction of the zipline happened
well before today’s drop. She wondered when and for what purpose. She had
believed it was just recently installed but it had the look of a well-used
zipline, and she knew very well that ropes wear out.

Trying not to
think about the ravine and the frail look of the sagging zipline, Abbi studied
the last two coordinates and committed them to memory. She adjusted her
climbing harness and her bra that was full of items other than her own anatomy.
She felt top-heavy and crowded in the already-snug leotard but her hands were
free for the ride down the zipline and nothing should fall out. She would soon
attach her main carabiner to the zipline.  

Although the zipline
was downhill, she attached the ascender so that it would be handy for going
back up the zipline on her return trip. This piece of mechanical advantage should
make going up almost as easy as the descent, just somewhat slower. That is, if
the zipline had the zipline been taut but she already noted it was not.

Abbi’s heartrate
quickened, ready for flight on the zipline in her tight-fitting black leotard. Like
a Ninja, she would use her body’s strength, weight and agility to maneuver above
the treetops.

She used her
binoculars for one quick magnificent view of the ravine before she hooked up. The
hemlock trees and splashes of ferns hanging on the sides of the circular cliffs
and boulders amazed her in their beauty. Then she left the binoculars swinging
freely from her neck, a move she would soon regret.

Abbi finally hooked
up to the zipline, sat in the harness, and enjoyed the descent. Her heart raced
at the exhilaration of looking straight down into the gorge. Wind whistled in
her ears. Occasionally she could look down through 75 to 100 feet of open space
to the moss-covered rocks on the floor of the ravine. At other times, she
skimmed the tops of trees. When she did, she felt the rush of adrenaline, the
bitter taste staying in her mouth like the aftertaste of a bad orange. She
would be alright as long as the rope didn’t begin to sag any more.

Whether it was the
chilly air lifting up from the ravine or her own excitement, she had goose
bumps. She expected the element of danger in this mission but hadn’t expected the
mission to be
so much fun
. The captivating beauty of the ferns and
wildflowers on the forest floor on her rapid descent was enough to take her
breath away. She wanted to stop to take pictures, but her timeline was too short
for photography. Her mission had to be a success.