Under the Wire (33 page)

The mahout studied the map. "Walking? Four hours. Maybe five. Or maybe running?" he speculated, taking in Manny's head wound, their ripped clothes, and the rifle slung over Manny's shoulder. "You have problems, friend?"

Manny made an "if you only knew" sound. "And once we get there ... if we can get a vehicle, how long to get to Bulutota Rakwana?"

The mahout scrunched up his face. "Long time from Elkaduwa. Maybe three more hours? But... is not long time from here. I, Kavith, the poet, can take you. On Rajah, we can be to Elkaduwa in five hours. You good man. Good woman. Rajah and Kavith, we can tell. You have trouble?" he asked again.

About that time they heard the whine of gears and looked down the long expanse of road ahead of them.

A military jeep barreled down the road toward them.

"We have trouble," Manny said on a growl.

"You go. Hide there." Kavith pointed to the jungle to the side of the road. "Rajah and Kavith. We will fix. Go. Go."

It wasn't like they had a choice. Manny grabbed Lily's hand and they sprinted for the undergrowth. Crouching low and out of sight, they waited for the jeep to stop. Manny drew his rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. Lily understood that one threatening move the mahout's way and Manny would take those guys out before they could cock a trigger.

After much head nodding and grinning and pointing, Kavith managed to convince the jeepful of soldiers to turn around and head the other way.

They shifted gears with a grind and a jerk and tore off back down the road the way they'd come.

Kavith watched them go, then beckoned with a wave when the jeep was out of sight. "All clear. Come," he said quickly while the monkey jumped up and down on the elephant's back and screeched, like he was laughing at the joke Kavith had played on the soldiers. "We must hurry. They will come back. We must not be here."

Lily scrambled out of the brush, looked the elephant up and down, then looked at Manny.

He looked dubious.

"Here's the way I see it. I've been shot at, I've hidden in a cave, and I've played Jane on a vine swinging across a raging river. I'd just as well make the jungle experience complete and ride an elephant. And if it will get us to Adam faster, I say we go for it."

Manny studied Kavith, the poet who herded elephants and wore Air Jordans, through narrowed eyes. "And what's in it for you?"

Again Kavith grinned and shook his head. "No. No. You mistake what you are thinking. Make wrong notion. I, Kavith, am not what you Americans call a... a... tout, is it? No. I am apprentice. No, that's wrong. Student. Yes. At university. This day I am on holiday—visiting my grandfather. Rajah, he is my grandfather's beast. I am uninterested—no. Again. Wrong word. I am bored... yes, bored today. Nothing to do. So I consider, today I take Rajah for a walk. And look. I find you." His white teeth flashed again. "Not bored anymore."

"You're getting into some heavy stuff here, Kavith," Manny warned.

"Yes. Yes. Much heavy. Much fun. And with you I can perform my English. Make better."

He looked at Manny, his eyes full of hope. " 'Well, what do you say, Reverend? You think a prayer's in order?' Clint Eastwood,
Space Cowboys,
yes?"

More than a prayer was in order,
Lily thought, and gave Manny a nod when he looked at her for a yea or a nay.

CHAPTER 21

Jaffna Peninsula

Dallas sprinted across the tarmac beside a huffing Ramanathan. They ducked beneath the rotor blades of a hulking Cobra that was revved and rocking and vibrating the cracked asphalt beneath their feet.

Dallas still couldn't believe this dual assault was going to come off. But it was happening. The Sri Lankan prime minister and Ramanathan had spoken, agreed that there was a common threat, and mobilized a joint task force in a grand total of two hours. No bickering. No jockeying for position.

No fucking way,
is what Dallas would have thought had he not heard Ramanathan agree to let the Sri Lankan military call the shots. There were already two units of special operations infantry in place twenty miles to the north of the previously held Tiger camp, and three more were closing in from the south. Ramanathan had mobilized two units of his Tigers stationed on the coast in Batticaloa. The Sri Lankan army general had agreed to wait for the rebel forces to get in position before launching the assault.

Done deal. Everyone was playing nice with everyone else. Dallas checked his watch as he swung up and into the chopper. If all went as planned, in a few hours it would be all over but the shouting.

Ramanathan would have his big gun back. The Sri Lankan military would have rousted an unknown insurgency, and for the first time in history Tamils would be fighting someone other than their countrymen.

An hour or so ago Ethan had connected with Manny. They still didn't have a fix on the boy.

"Friend," Dallas said to Ramanathan when they'd donned headsets and he could be heard above the rotor noise. "Don't forget. I get your gun back, you owe me a favor."

"Your life is your favor," the general said as they lifted off. Then he smiled and shrugged. "But perhaps I am feeling generous. Maybe I will grant you two. Because of those balls of yours," he added, then looked toward the south as the snake ate up the knots and headed for the battle.

Bulutota Rakwana range, northwest of Embilipitiya

Adam glanced across the cave at Minrada. Silence. It scared him. So did the fact that they'd been moved again. Shortly after they'd filmed the video this morning, they'd been blindfolded, herded onto a truck bed, and off they'd gone. He didn't know how far they'd traveled or how much time had passed. Several miles. Several hours. Adam had no clue where they were. North, he'd guess, and that was only because the new cave was colder.

It was also full of bats. He could hear the muffled flutter of their wings above. Their high-pitched squeals. Somewhere from the dark recesses of the cavern he could also hear the sound of water. Underground rivers? Pools? He didn't know. Wasn't sure it mattered.

What mattered was that this time the four of them were together.

Adam thought about the video. "Will your government meet the rebel terms?" he asked Amithnal, who sat, exhausted, on the damp stone floor beside him.

Amithnal's hushed voice confirmed what Adam had already decided. "No. They will never give in to such outrageous demands."

Another silence stretched out as the implications of their fate dug deep.

"The rebels know that," Amithnal said. "They know it is an impossible request."

"Then why did they even ask?" Adam's voice barely carried in the dark.

"This I do not know, Adam. It makes no sense to me. Unless . . ."

"Unless?" Adam prompted.

"Unless," Amithnal continued with reluctance, "killing us has been their intent all along."

Sathi's quiet weeping prompted soothing sounds from Amithnal.

"Then why haven't they done it?" Adam mused aloud. "Why didn't they kill us right away? Why make the video? What was the point?"

"That, my young friend, is a question I have been asking myself from the beginning."

"There's something else going on here," Adam finally whispered.

"Yes. I have thought that as well. Today ... I heard the guards talking in Hindi."

"Hindi?"

"The language of India. I am no longer sure they are Tamils."

"They're Indian?"

"I am thinking so, yes."

"What would Indian soldiers want with us? And why would they pass themselves off as Tamil rebels?"

Amithnal was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his words were flat with defeat. "This we may never know. There can't be much time left."

Amithnal had given up, Adam realized. He'd resigned himself to dying here.

"We have to fight them," Adam whispered vehemently.

Amithnal's breath was heavy with resignation. "They are twenty. We are only two."

"Three," Minrada's whisper came out of the dark. A renewed resolve filled her voice and made Adam's heart swell.

Adam reached for her hand, squeezed.

"Four."

Sathi. She had gained strength from her daughter. "There are four," she said, determination making her voice stronger.

"Yes, we are four," Adam agreed, and as he sat there, head pounding, body and pride battered and bruised, a seed of a plan took root.

Kandy

"Ethan, please. Quit pacing. We're stuck here." Darcy sat at a computer in the mayor's office where they were being detained as "guests" of the city. "There's nothing you can do about it."

Griff had managed to move heaven—the joint operation was a go—but not earth. They'd begged, threatened, and cajoled, but Ethan and Darcy hadn't been granted clearance to accompany the military to the Wahala-purha temple ruin site where a staging area was being assembled. As they spoke, the Sinhalese military supported by the Tiger rebels would soon confront the company of foreign insurgents.

Ethan was using their "forced" stay to bring his blood to a slow rolling boil. Darcy had decided to make better use of her time. She'd been searching the Web for militant Indian groups. She was desperate to come up with something to tie the Hindi-speaking fighters Manny had told them about and the suspected insurgency to what was happening with Adam.

"This is bullshit," Ethan sputtered for the tenth time in as many minutes. "We need to be there when the dust settles. Something tells me the bad guys will give up the goods on where they're holding Adam and the Muhandiramalas." He glanced at his watch. "Fuck. Less than six hours."

"Oh my God." Oblivious to his ranting, Darcy felt shock stiffen her spine ramrod straight. "Ethan. Come look at this."

Ethan walked up behind her, read the computer screen over her shoulder. "Holy shit."

"That's one way to put it."

The information she'd just uncovered on a militant blog site might be the key to this entire ugly business.

"Ethan.. . we've got to get out of here. If what's happening is what I think is happening, somehow we have to convince the powers that be to hold off on the assault. If they engage the insurgents before Manny and Lily find Adam, we can kiss the midnight deadline good-bye."

Ethan snapped up his SAT phone and dialed. She knew he was trying to reach Manny.

"Still no signal," Ethan said grimly, and Darcy could see he had to physically resist the urge to throw the phone across the room.

"Okay, babe. It's now or never," he said with a dark look. "We're getting out of here." He walked over to the door and stood behind it. "Use your best decoy ploy."

"My best?" She gave him a sharp look.

"Okay. Not your best. Save that one for me. Just get the guard in here. I'll take care of the rest."

"He's not dead, is he?" Darcy asked a few minutes after the hapless guard came running at her hysterical scream for help.

"No, but he's going to wish he was when he wakes up and finds himself tied to that chair. Help me." Ethan handed her a piece of the man's shirt that he'd ripped into lengths to make bindings and a gag. Together he and Darcy tied up the guard.