He stamped on the gas and the Ford’s wheels threw up a fountain of dirt as he hurled it into a tight U-turn to head back up the track the way they’d come. Bullets punched through the doors and scored the roof and blew off a side mirror. Ben kept his head down and his foot on the pedal, and the figures of the men bursting out of the trees in their wake and firing at them shrank smaller and smaller in the mirror. He threw the pickup round a bend and the bullets stopped.
Nico was bent double in the passenger seat, crying out in agony at every lurch of the truck over the ruts, clutching at his leg where the bone hilt of Bracca’s knife was protruding from the wound. Even in the dim light of the cab Ben could tell it was a serious one, well beyond his ability to stitch up himself. Blood was all over the seats. Nico’s face was ghostly pale and covered in sweat. ‘The gun didn’t go off,’ he groaned over the engine noise and the crashing of the suspension.
‘You had a duff primer,’ Ben said. ‘It happens.’
‘You should’ve let me kill him, man. He was mine.’
‘He’s dead. That’s what matters.’
‘You ain’t gonna do that to me with Serrato,’ Nico said in a tortured moan. ‘I gotta kill Serrato myself. Gotta! Understand?’
‘Not with that knife in you,’ Ben told him. ‘You’ll be dead yourself pretty fast if we don’t get you to a doctor.’
Nico gasped in pain. ‘Fuck the knife. You promise me, hear?’
‘Fine,’ Ben muttered as the pickup truck hit another rut and the suspension bottomed out with a crash. When he glanced at Nico again, he saw that he’d passed out.
Ben kept driving. He felt the supercharged adrenaline rush of the skirmish with Serrato’s men slowly subside. It left him with nothing but a dead, despairing feeling.
Brooke was still out there somewhere. Lost, frightened, defenceless; totally vulnerable. All alone in the vastness of a jungle it would take a man the rest of his life to search.
There was no way he could possibly find her.
Chapter Fifty-One
The day was already more than half gone. Dark clouds hung over San Tomás. As Ben wandered aimlessly through the town, the first patter of rain quickly ramped up to become another of the region’s unimaginable deluges, until mud rivers ran through the streets and everyone but the blond-haired stranger was driven under cover.
For the last several hours Nico had been under the care of the kindly Dr Rocha, who operated the struggling one-roomed clinic in San Tomás, the only medical facility for miles up and down the river, with his sister Graça. By the time Ben had delivered him into their hands, Nico had lost a great deal of blood and was in a virtual coma. The doctor had found the knife blade’s razor-sharp edge pressing right up against Nico’s femoral artery. Another millimetre of pressure and it could have ruptured. Nico would have bled to death in minutes.
Removing the knife and patching up the deep wound had been a long job that had used up most of the clinic’s medical supplies and left Dr Rocha looking almost as spent as his patient. Graça had changed the dressing on Nico’s arm, frowning a little at Ben’s stitching job but asking no questions. Ben had sat with Nico a while as he slept, then wandered outside to try to get some air and pull his thoughts together. He ambled through the streets, soaked to the skin by the hammering rain. There were a few drops left in his whisky flask. He gulped them down and barely even felt them.
Never before in his career rescuing kidnap victims had he resorted to calling in help from the authorities. It went against all his experience and judgement – but this time he couldn’t see any other way. It was going to take a large-scale operation, both on the ground and in the air, to comb an area of the size he was dealing with.
But then there was Ramon Serrato to consider. If half the things Nico had told Ben were true, the former drug lord had connections at the highest levels of government here. What if a well-organised mass search did succeed in finding Brooke alive? Ben had seen corruption in action plenty of times before, and South America was even more notorious for it than the most volatile and dangerous parts of Africa and the Middle East. He knew how easy it would be for a man of Serrato’s influence to arrange for someone to put a bullet in her head before she ever left the jungle. And Ben’s, too, if he tried to stand in the way. There was a decent chance that if he called in the authorities, he was signing her death warrant. He had to balance that against the virtual certainty that if he didn’t, the end result would be the same. A lose-lose situation.
And all that was assuming she wasn’t dead already.
The rain was pounding more heavily than ever. Ben slowed his pace and came to a standstill in four inches of muddy water. It was the sight of the corrugated-iron shed, San Tomás’s only bar just across the street, that had stopped him. He paused briefly, then headed towards it. He needed something more than those last few drops from his flask to blunt the edge of his anxiety.
The place was almost as empty as it had been before. The same barman was cleaning up using the same dirty cloth. Two drunks were talking loudly in Spanish at a table in the corner. Ben didn’t glance at them as he walked up to the bar and ordered whatever was the strongest drink they had. The barman served him up a fingerprint-covered glass of something that looked like vodka but was about twice as fiery. Ben drained it and asked for another. A double this time.
‘Hey!’ one of the drunks called from across the room. ‘Chief, it’s you! Thought maybe you’d got ate up by a croc.’
Ben turned from the bar and realised that it was Pepe, the riverboat pilot. He and his drinking companion, who looked to be a full-blooded Indian, had been there long enough to amass a large collection of empty beer bottles. Both seemed pretty far gone. Ben was intent on going the same route, and he could do it in a quarter of the time with whatever this clear stuff was in his glass.
‘Come on over, chief,’ Pepe slurred. ‘Have a drink with me and my cousin Cayo here.’
Ben didn’t feel like company. Besides, he could see that both Cayo and Pepe were plainly upset about something. He just smiled and raised his glass, then turned his back and returned to his own thoughts. Talking to the British Embassy in Lima might not be easy with the limited communications from San Tomás. The best way might be to call Jeff Dekker, fill him in on the situation and get him to liaise with them. Amal would have to be told, too …
As Ben struggled with his plans, the inebriated Spanish conversation between Pepe and Cayo went on in the background.
‘This is fucking bad,’ Pepe muttered.
‘Like I said,’ Cayo slurred in between gulps of beer, ‘I’m only telling you what my buddy Angel told me. Word’s spreading up and down the river since this morning.’
Pepe shook his head. ‘Fuck. How many dead they reckon?’
‘Angel says twenty, maybe more. Reckons they were Sapaki people.’
‘Angel’s Murunahua, ain’t he? Then how’d he figure that?’
Cayo shrugged. ‘’Cause a bunch of Sapaki people turned up at his village this morning talking about their relations that’d been killed. Warned the Murunahuas about what’s happening. Whole region’s shit scared.’
‘Fuck,’ Pepe said again. ‘Someone’s got to act, man.’
Cayo gave a snort. ‘Yeah, sure. But who? Cops? Ministry? Forget it, man. Just the way it is. Been going on forever, keep going on forever. Who gonna give a shit about a buncha dead Indians? We ain’t nothing to nobody.’
Pepe stabbed his finger on the table. ‘Fuck that shit, man, there’s gotta be something someone can do. Can’t just take it up the ass like that, it ain’t right.’
‘Indians been taking it up the ass for generations, man,’ Cayo said morosely. ‘What else is there to do, start a war?’
‘They got shotguns, don’t they?’
‘Not these guys, they don’t. Sapaki don’t have nothing to do with that shit. All they got is bows and arrows and blowpipes and shit.’
‘No wonder they got fucked over, man,’ Pepe insisted. ‘Some mar
auding asshole walks into a faceful of buckshot, he’s gonna think twice before he comes onto your patch again. Darts and arrows? Ain’t gonna cut it. This isn’t the fucking Inca Kingdom no more. You gotta get with the times.’
His cousin made a resigned gesture. ‘So what’s changed? Same old, same old. Oil guys gonna take it all away in the end, just like the Spanish did back in the day. And if it ain’t the oil guys it gonna be the loggers, the beefburger ranchers, whatever. Can’t stop the tide, cuz.’
‘That’s fucked,’ Pepe said, shaking his head. There was a pause as they both reached for their beers. ‘So what’re the Sapaki doing calling on the Murunahuas, anyhow? My father knew some of ’em, said they didn’t like to mix with no-one. I ain’t never heard of them coming that far down the river.’
‘Came to get serum. That’s what Angel told me, leastways.’
‘Snakebite?’
‘No, man, spider. The white preacher, he sent ’em for it in his boat. They’s in a real hurry, too, Angel said.’
‘The preacher? That dried-up old fart still alive?’ Pepe chuckled, and they shared a brief laugh. ‘Since when the Sapaki need serum for a bite? Their own cures don’t work no more?’
‘Sure they work,’ Cayo said. ‘They just don’t reckon on they work for a white person, is all. Goes against their beliefs.’
‘You saying it was the preacher got bit?’
‘Nah, man, nothing bite that old iron-butt motherfucker and live. White woman got bit.’
‘Preacher got a woman now? You kidding me, right?’
‘Nah, man, preacher ain’t got no woman. Talking about the woman they found.’
‘Like a tourist?’
Cayo shrugged. ‘I never asked, Angel never said. All I know is, they found her.’
‘She dead?’
‘Wasn’t dead this morning when they came for the serum, I guess.’
Pepe nodded solemnly. ‘Guess that figures.’
Both of them turned and looked up, suddenly aware of the presence by their table. Neither had noticed Ben leave the bar and cross the room. He was standing there, staring at them.
‘Hey, chief,’ Pepe said with a beaming smile. ‘You come to join us after all?
Chapter Fifty-Two
Nico was awake, propped up against his pillow in the tiny ward at the San Tomás medical clinic, when Ben burst in. ‘Hey,’ Nico greeted him in a faint voice.
‘How’s the leg?’ Ben asked.
‘Hurts like a sonofabitch. Doc says I’ll be okay, though. Guess I have you to thank for that.’
‘Yeah, well, I came to say goodbye. I’m leaving.’
‘Leaving?’
‘I know where she is.’
Nico sat up in bed, blinking. ‘Whoa. Say what?’
Ben quickly explained what he’d found out from Pepe and his cousin about the Sapaki tribe’s discovery of a white woman in the jungle. ‘You think it’s her?’ Nico asked in amazement. ‘Is she all right?’
‘I won’t know anything for sure until I get there,’ Ben replied. ‘Pepe’s getting the boat ready right now. We’re setting off in a few minutes.’
‘Where are these Sap—?’
‘Sapaki. Deep in the forest, two or three hours upriver. They keep themselves to themselves.’
‘You know what that means. Better pray they don’t stick your gringo ass in a cauldron and boil you up for their dinner.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Ben said. ‘Seems they’re related to the tribe we came across. Those people didn’t look too hostile to me.’
‘True enough. Maybe if they’d been a little more hostile, they wouldn’t have got wiped out.’
‘Only half wiped out,’ Ben said. ‘From what Pepe’s cousin says, the survivors are spreading the word all over the region. Serrato may just have a tribal uprising on his hands. What are you doing?’
Nico had thrown the sheet back and was struggling out of bed with his heavily-bandaged leg. ‘Whaddaya think I’m doing?’ he retorted. ‘I’m coming the hell with you.’
‘Serrato’s not my concern any longer, Nico. I’m only interested in one thing.’
‘Yeah, and that one thing is exactly what Serrato’s interested in too. You say word’s spreading – that works both ways, man. He finds out there’s this white woman been rescued by a bunch of Indians in the jungle, you don’t think he’ll come for her? Your Brooke is gonna draw that fucker like a magnet. And I intend to be there waiting.’ Nico hobbled towards the chair where the doctor’s sister Graça had neatly folded his clothes, freshly laundered in the only washing machine in San Tomás. His leg gave way under him and he grabbed at the chair to steady himself.
‘You’re in no state for this, my friend,’ Ben said. ‘There isn’t wheelchair access where I’m going.’
‘Oh, nice. You worried about me, or just worried I’ll hold you back?’ Glowering, Nico grabbed a bottle of Dr Rocha’s strong painkillers from the side table and swallowed three of them down dry. ‘Don’t even think about trying to stop me, man,’ he growled. ‘You made me a promise.’
‘Fine. I’m not stopping you.’
‘What about guns?’ Nico said. ‘I lost my Colt.’
‘I don’t have time to go scouring the jungle for more arms dealers right now,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll see you back at the boat. You’ve got twenty minutes to get your act together.’
Nineteen minutes and forty-nine seconds later, Ben looked up from unmooring the river boat and saw Nico stumping along the wooden jetty as fast as his bandaged leg would carry him, struggling with his pack. He looked pale but determined. ‘You got room for one more?’ he yelled.
Ben slipped the moorings, Pepe gunned the throttle with an irrepressible grin and the boat burbled away from the San Tomás quay. The late afternoon sun glinted gold on the river, a heart-lifting sight if Ben hadn’t been so fraught with worry. ‘Let me get that,’ he said, helping Nico to store his rucksack aft.
Nico pointed at Ben’s belt. ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s a knife,’ Ben said.
‘I can see it’s a knife. Where’d you get it?’
‘Out of your leg, if I remember rightly.’ Dr Rocha had had no particular use for the brutal weapon and Ben, having lost his rifle in the skirmish with Serrato’s men, had asked if he could have it.
‘Kinda ghoulish,’ Nico said, peering uncomfortably at the knife and rubbing his thigh.
‘Kind of practical,’ Ben replied.
The boat chugged on. As San Tomás disappeared behind them the jungle closed in again, the animal chorus from the treetops louder than ever. ‘I’m gonna stink of fucking bug repellent the rest of my life,’ Nico complained, swatting at clouds of insects.
Ben left him at the stern and went forward to talk to Pepe in the wheelhouse. Pepe reckoned on a three-hour trip, give or take, admitting that he’d never personally ventured so far upriver. He described how his late father had been one of the few river traders to pay visits to the Sapaki and other largely uncontacted tribes, such as the Mashco-Piro, along the further reaches. He’d even learned some of the Sapaki language, an obscure and ancient form of Quechua that dated all the way back to the Inca Empire. Pepe had picked up a few words of it from his father as a kid, but, as he explained to Ben: ‘I never reckoned on getting close enough to use it. Like I said before, they don’t exactly welcome outsiders. Pop said that’s what their tribal name means in Quechua: “alone”. That’s how they’ve been for centuries; it’s how they want to stay forever.’
‘What about the white preacher who lives with them?’ Ben asked. ‘Is he a Christian missionary?’
Pepe nodded. ‘Been with the Sapaki so long I guess they regard him as one of them. Kind of a legend around these parts. My father talked about how he met him once, said he didn’t look like any preacher he’d ever seen. Some people say he’s crazy. German. Or maybe Canadian. Come to think of it, I don’t think anyone knows where he’s from.’
The boat chugged on towards the unfamiliar reaches of the ri
ver. The first hour dragged past, then the next. Evening was falling and the clouds of insects were thickening even more, until it was almost impossible to draw a breath without choking on a lungful of them.
The atmosphere on board the boat was solemn and silent. Ben gazed down at the passing water, his mind full of anxiety about Brooke. He knew all too well from his SAS jungle training that the bites from certain spider species could be lethal, and South America had some of the worst. He could only pray that the preacher, German or Canadian or whatever he was, had managed to get hold of the serum in time – and that he wasn’t so crazy that he didn’t know what he was doing with it.
A tiny movement on the far river bank caught Ben’s eye and he looked up. Standing in the lengthening shadows among the reeds thirty yards away across the water was an Indian. He and Ben watched one another as the boat glided by. The Indian had patterns of dots tattooed all over his face. He was naked except for a strip of cloth round his middle, and clutched a tall spear. His eyes were piercing and intense.
Ben was distracted for an instant by the splash of a caiman slipping into the water further up the bank. When he looked back at the clump of reeds, the Indian had vanished into the forest, as if he’d never been there.
Ben saw no more signs of human life as evening closed in. When it grew too dark to see, Pepe turned on the lamps mounted on the wheelhouse roof, beaming a yellow glow over the water and the overhanging vegetation. Some time later he announced, ‘I think we’re close.’ He didn’t sound too sure at first, but then after a few more minutes he cut the engine and used a long boat hook to pull them into the bank.
‘You’re certain?’ Ben asked him.
Pepe nodded. ‘This is where my pop used to meet them. He described it to me. See that dead tree there? That was his landmark.’
As far as Ben could tell, there had been a thousand like it all the way upriver. But he had to trust Pepe’s judgement. They disembarked and moored the boat to the dead tree. Pepe shone his flashlight through the greenery, where an earth track barely wide enough for a person disappeared into the trees. ‘This way,’ he whispered softly, as though people might be listening. ‘And watch out for snakes,’ he warned. ‘You step on the wrong one, you’re history.’