He’d been here for nine weeks, nine good weeks, but in his adult life he’d rarely stayed in one place for so long. As he’d told the village boy, it was time to go.
The comandante’s team fast-roped onto the riverbank; the first four down dropped onto their elbows in the muck and raised their HKs to the forest to provide cover for the second four as they slid down. The second four moved up to the dirt road, dropped down, and covered both directions. The comandante and his number-two descended last, ran up to the road, and moved out at the head of the column.
The comandante got the call that the men from the other chopper were splashing their way through a marsh; he cussed aloud in Spanish and yelled at his men to pick up the pace.
Gentry sprinted through his tiny camp. It did not take long. The camp was just a tent with a sleeping pallet, a stone-lined fire pit, a well-worn trail to a hand-dug latrine, a hammock enshrouded in mosquito netting, and a few belongings hanging from a net in a tree. He was glad to see the dog wasn’t here; it was close enough to lunch time to know the little four-legged survivor had scampered down to the town’s one little thatched-roof restaurant to await leftovers before making his way to the shady palms near where the fishermen returned with their daily catch. There he could rest for a while before fighting with the other dogs of the village for a chance at leftover fish bait tossed from the boats.
Court was well aware that the dog’s daily agenda was more organized than his own.
He kept a Browning pistol in a locked case inside his tent, but he did not take time to retrieve it. Instead he grabbed a lighter from just inside the canvas door of his two-man tent and a small can of cooking fuel lying next to it. In seconds he’d poured the oil over the tent, his belongings in the tree, even the hammock. He lit his home on fire with neither a moment’s pause nor a shred of regret, tossed the lighter on the ground, and headed off towards a small stream fifty feet away.
A man shouted off to Gentry’s left. From the high-pitched exulting tenor of the voice, he could tell he’d been spotted.
They were close.
Gentry leapt into the ankle-deep stream and sprinted to the south, his footsteps exploding in the flowing water.
The comandante slid on his back down the bank and into the cold stream. He found his footing in the water and raised his weapon just as the target turned to the left, out of his sights and out of view. The men ran on past their comandante, each man wild with the chase, thrilled with the chance of a kill.
He lowered the G3 and sprinted right along with them. He knew there was a road ahead that led to the river, but he also knew that this stream did not wind directly to that road. He assumed there was a little trail that the target was making for, a trail too small to be picked up through the triple canopy of the jungle on the satellite photos. The comandante and his men only needed to get close enough to the target to see where he ducked out of the stream bed and back into the jungle, and then it would be just a matter of time before they caught him on the trail. The jungle would be too thick to hide in, the dirt road too straight for a fleeing man to duck bullets fired from the heavy 7.62 mm battle rifles that he and his men carried.
The comandante made the turn with his men, white water splashing chest high as the ten soldiers ran together. Up ahead he saw the dark-complected man with the long hair and the backpack, both hands empty. One of his men at the front of the scrum fired a shot, blasting vines from a tree well above the target’s head. Just then the man ducked left, ran out of the water and up the steep bank, and disappeared into the black hole of a small foot trail. One more rifle shot from his men chased him into the jungle.
“There he goes!” shouted the Colombian. “Up the bank!”
THREE
A rifle cracked, ripping branches and brush above Gentry’s head as he ran down a slight hill. The killers were close at his heels; he picked his pace up even more, and his thighs burned as the lactic acid squirted from his bloodstream into his muscle fibers.
He’d choreographed this escape, had made several dry runs, had chosen this route to maximize the effect of the natural dangers of the jungle. Natural dangers made more dangerous via certain unnatural means that he had planned.
His left hand reached back and took hold of the hilt of the machete strapped to the side of his backpack. He pulled it free of its Velcro binding, and with a single strong swing he hacked into a bush to his right. Behind the bush he picked up a smaller trail, even darker under the canopy and covered in roots and vines, and here Court went up onto his toes and pulled his knees high to keep from hooking his feet under the obstacles in his path. His pursuers had seen him leave the main trail; of this he had no doubt. They’d be on him again in seconds. He tossed the machete aside as he ran; he loved the blade and would likely need it again soon, but he had to focus all his concentration on his fast footwork and rely on muscle memory in his upper extremities to unhook the shotgun on the right side of his pack. He pulled the pistol grip and swung the weapon out in front of him, pointed it straight up as he ran, holding it with both hands, the barrel just in front of his face.