That evening, Emma set up the tent a football-field length down the trail from the guerrilla campsite. She could smell smoke from fires and the pungent aroma of cooking meat made her mouth water. For a brief moment, she regretted leaving the dead pig behind. It would have made a decent supper. She considered going back the next morning to see if anything was left of it, when reason prevailed. By the next day it would be decaying in the heat and covered with flies. She settled into her tent, the folding knife she’d taken from the guerrilla open at her side.
18
MIGUEL, HIS PILOT, KOHL, AND BORIS HAD BEEN FLYING OVER endless stands of beautiful trees and lush green foliage for two days. The terrain conspired against them. The thick cover could hide something as big as a jet with ease. Miguel doubted that they’d find the jet at all if it had landed in the denser parts of the jungle. While in the beginning Miguel had sat in awe of the beauty laid out before him, now, after two days of flying, he watched without interest as the terrain below them flashed by. He started the search close to the coordinates for the cell phone, and expanded it a little more each day, flying in concentric circles.
Kohl and Boris the dog sat behind Miguel. Kohl held binoculars that he used to look out the window, scanning the ground. Every so often he’d reach over to give Boris a pat. For his part, Boris looked miserable. It seemed to Miguel that the dog didn’t like the noise of the rotors.
“There it is!” Kohl yelled over the noise and gestured at the ground. The pilot leaned his head to the side and then nodded.
Miguel looked down. A huge crater sat in the middle of what looked like a thin road carved into the trees.
“Looks like a huge hole,” the pilot said to Miguel.
Miguel spun his hand in a circle. “Take us back around.”
The pilot swung the helicopter around for a second pass. The jet body itself was missing, but a huge crater indicated where explosives had been detonated. Miguel tapped the pilot on the shoulder.
“Can you get closer?”
The pilot nodded and lowered the copter.
“See the long straight gouge in the earth that disappears into the crater?” Miguel said to Kohl and the pilot as he pointed to the earth.
“That’s a runway they blasted,” the pilot said.
“What’s the line on the road? Plane dragged something that created it?” Kohl said.
Miguel shook his head. “Not likely. Maybe the landing gear didn’t retract.”
“No way that runway is long enough for a jet.” The pilot yelled this information to Miguel. “My guess is she broke up on landing.”
“Take us down,” Miguel said.
“Hold on.” The pilot pulled on the collective, and the helicopter heaved to one side. Boris slid across the floor and knocked into Kohl, who threw his arms around the dog to steady him. The pilot hauled the helicopter back the other way and then spun in a circle and dropped downward. Miguel felt his stomach drop with it.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled at the pilot while he braced himself against the wall.
“Evasive maneuvers. Below three thousand feet and we’re in sniper range. We never go straight down. Not if we want to survive the landing.”
“Yeah, boy!” Kohl yelled while the helicopter swung from side to side and spun around.
Miguel felt like he was on a Tilt-a-Whirl ride at a carnival. He hated that ride. He watched the ground approach. When the copter landed, he was the first one out.
Miguel stood on the remains of the runway and looked around. Debris was everywhere, but very little of it was recognizable. He walked around the area, kicking at broken tree limbs, pieces of luggage, mounds of dirt, bits of shoes, and sections of steel that had survived both the landing and the explosion.
Kohl and Boris searched the fringes. After a minute, Kohl burst from the trees, Boris jogging along next to him. Miguel watched him stop and vomit.
“Let me guess, you’ve found the bodies,” Miguel said.
Kohl took a deep breath before answering. “Not bodies, pieces of bodies. There are a couple of heads and a torso back there.”
“Are they burned? Or are they blasted apart?”
Kohl gave Miguel an incredulous look. “Sir, no disrespect meant, but does it matter? They’re sure enough dead, I can tell you that. I didn’t hang around long enough to analyze the manner of death.”
“Manner of death counts. Burned means that the plane caught on fire and our chances of finding survivors are few. Blasted means that they were blown apart by whatever caused this crater, and perhaps there are other survivors who avoided the explosion.”
“What about burned and blasted?” Kohl said.
“Means that God and the devil fought and the devil won. But don’t worry, God may lose a battle or two, but He always wins the war.”
“I sure hope you’re right about that,” Kohl said.
Miguel marched to the perimeter and looked at the casualties. It was a ghastly sight, and he himself had to repress an urge to retch. He kneeled, said a short prayer, and made the sign of the cross when he was done. His years as a soldier killing the enemy had not taken the conviction from him that the dead needed a prayer said for them. At least the innocent dead. The killers he wouldn’t give the time of day. He waved Kohl over.
“Burned and blasted. You have to wonder what kind of assholes kill people twice. Is once not good enough for them?” Miguel sighed. “You take Boris and search the area from here in about one hundred yards. I’ll canvass the perimeter.”
Twenty minutes later, Miguel found the crudely hacked path. That it was fresh was obvious from the still-green leaves that lay on the ground. They hadn’t had time to yellow after having been cut off. Miguel bent down to get a closer look at the dirt. The marks of shoes were so numerous that they overlapped one another. Miguel felt a little hope rise in him. If the tracks were any indication, quite a few passengers may have survived the landing.
“Kohl, get over here.”
Kohl jogged over, Boris at his heels.
Miguel showed him the path. “That’s where we start hunting. Looks like a bunch of passengers made it.”
“Why would they leave the area?” Kohl said.
“Their guerrilla welcoming committee must be moving them to a secure location.” He pointed to the jagged branches that stuck out, about shoulder height. “These cuts were made by a machete hacking at the branch. While the TSA misses a lot of contraband at airport screening, Transit Security is a lot better than that.”
“What next?” Kohl said.
“Let’s head back to camp and get the others. Tomorrow we come back and take this path.”
19
THE NEXT MORNING, MIGUEL, KOHL, AND TEN OTHER SPECIAL forces personnel swarmed over the bomb site. They’d found several bodies in the surrounding forest, but the bulk of their finds were body parts, not intact bodies. They collected them all, however. DNA would help identify the dead. Miguel led Boris the dog into the tree line. After a few minutes, he found the hidden luggage.
“What do we have here?” Miguel patted Boris on the head. He checked out the bags. The first black roller was good quality, but utilitarian. The kind of inconspicuous bag that Miguel would buy if he ever needed to travel out of uniform. He flipped over the tag.
“Mr. Sumner’s bag survived, if not the man himself,” Miguel said to Boris, who stood next to him, panting. He opened the suitcase and sifted through it. Nothing useful jumped out at him. He turned to the neighboring bag, which was covered in some sort of fancy designer logo. Miguel forgot the guy’s name. This luggage was also high quality.
“Too flashy, hey, Boris? What do you bet these are a woman’s bags?”
Boris flapped his dripping tongue once, and sat down. Miguel unzipped the bag and looked at Emma’s note on top of the clothes.
“Kohl, come over here,” Miguel said. Miguel handed him the note. “Ms. Caldridge left us another clue. And Mr. Sumner of the Air Tunnel Denial program survived the crash.”
Kohl read the note and gave a low whistle.
“Seventy alive. Excellent. You were right about that path. Do you think she’s still around?”
“My concern is that she was hiding and got caught up in the blast.” Miguel stood up and gazed around.
“I sure hope not,” Kohl said.
“Me, too. But my guess is that she’s alive. Call back to Banner and let him know that Ms. Caldridge survived after she sent the text message.” Miguel paused, thinking. “I just wish I knew what she decided to do.”
“What would you do?” Kohl said.
“I’m a trained soldier, so I don’t think what I would do applies in this case,” Miguel said.
“Didn’t you say she was some sort of extreme runner through tough terrain? Doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would fall apart at the sight of a jungle. Even one like this.” Kohl waved his hand to indicate the thick foliage. “Hell, she could run her way out of here.”
Miguel nodded slowly. “You’ve got a point. But she needs food, water, and some idea of direction, or she’ll end up running in circles.”
“Could she use the stars?” Kohl said.
“Could you? I mean, before you joined the special forces.”
Kohl’s grin was a little sheepish. “No way. The only star I could identify was the Big Dipper.”
Miguel laughed. “Don’t feel bad. I couldn’t, either. No, I think she would do something easier, more obvious. She wouldn’t have a machete, so cutting her own path is out.”
Kohl shrugged. “Then her only option is to use the trail or the road. If the road, that means she split from the passengers. The guerrillas must be cutting the trail to avoid being seen from the sky.”
Miguel nodded absentmindedly.
“How about I go up the road a bit? See if she left any more clues for us to find?” Kohl said.
Miguel shook his head. “No! That road is probably loaded with mines. We follow the trail. The footprints all over it lead me to believe the guerrillas are herding the passengers that way.”
“But what about Ms. Caldridge? We just can’t leave her.” Kohl’s voice held a note of shock.
Miguel stood up and dusted off his hands. “She’s on her own.”
Kohl made a noise in protest, and Miguel waved him off.
“While I’m pleased that Ms. Caldridge survived, my job is to rescue all of the passengers, not just her.”
Kohl looked stricken. “But if we find her, she could tell us how much of a head start the passengers got and how far ahead she thinks they are.”
“I doubt we’d catch Ms. Caldridge, even if we wanted to,” Miguel said.
“Why?”
“She’s able to move a hell of a lot faster than we are, I can tell you that.”
“She’s got to be tired, too. She’s only human,” Kohl pointed out.
“Kohl, her brand of tired is completely different from ours. She’s conditioned to run in the heat for miles on end. What she does can only be done by a handful of people in the world. It’s like trying to chase a Formula One race car in a golf cart.”
“I hate to leave her out there.”
Miguel sighed. “I know, but we can’t spare the time looking in different directions. We need to focus our efforts in a way that is likely to find the most passengers. And who knows? Maybe she’s following the guerrillas, too. Come on, let’s move out.”
Kohl turned away, a dejected look on his face.
Within fifteen minutes, they were jogging down the trail. Boris and Natasha ran in front; Miguel, Kohl, and the rest followed. Within an hour, Miguel was drenched. His clothes clung to his body. Thirty minutes later, he reduced his pace to a brisk walk. After thirty minutes more, he was walking even slower.
Miguel called a halt. He sat on a nearby tree stump and drank from his canteen. The wet heat felt like a blanket settling on him. The minute they’d stopped walking, the mosquitoes began forming into clouds. Miguel pulled out some bug spray and sprayed his arms. The unique chemical smell floated in the air. His arms felt sticky and he smelled like a chemical processing plant.
Great, he thought. He waved Kohl over. “What happened to the odorless bug spray?”
“We never had any that I know of.”
“Now my scent can be detected a hundred yards ahead.”
Kohl laughed. “Not by the guerrillas. They all smoke like fiends. Their sense of smell shut down years ago.”
“I hope the same can be said of the cartel guys.” Miguel’s voice was dry.
“They’re worse. They smoke weed. That smell will cover anything in its path.” Miguel stood up and ran a bandanna over his face. Kohl shuffled his feet and studied the foliage all around them.
“Well, look at that,” Kohl sounded excited.
Miguel rubbed the sticky chemical deeper into his skin before glancing up to see what interested Kohl so much. That’s when he saw the large X carved into the trunk of a tree. He gave a low whistle.
“Wonderful,” he said.
“It’s her!” Kohl’s voice was filled with excitement, and way too loud.
“Kohl, pipe down.” Miguel said. He walked over to the X. Ran a finger in the grooves. He didn’t care who carved it, he was just thankful that they did. He spun around. Kohl grinned a crooked grin and batted at a cloud of mosquitoes. “Time to go,” Miguel said.
They started forward again; this time, no one jogged, except Kohl, who seemed to have a new lease on life since seeing the X. Miguel figured they had four hours of light left before the men would need to eat. Each soldier carried a pack that contained food, water, a hammock, and mosquito netting.
Boris came to a dead halt. He stopped so quickly that Miguel stumbled over him. He landed on his knees next to the dog. It was then that he saw the thin nylon wire strung across the path. It disappeared into the tree line. Miguel couldn’t see where it stopped, but he assumed it ended on a spring-loaded mine.
“Everyone stop!” Miguel yelled to the men. They froze in place. Kohl inched forward and squat down next to Miguel. He eyed the line.
“Don’t you just love that dog?”
20
THE DAY AFTER JUAN APPEARED BABBLING ABOUT EL CHUPACABRA, Luis awoke to discover that three men had deserted during the night.
“We have a very big problem,” Alvarado said.
Luis was boiling with rage. He focused on the tall man.
“It is this man who causes us trouble,” he told Alvarado.
Alvarado gave Luis an incredulous look. “Luis, forget that man, will you? How could he be the problem? He is here the entire time, while these sentries see monsters in the dark.”
Luis swung toward Alvarado and poked a finger in his chest. “Or do you believe it is El Chupacabra, too?”
Alvarado shook his head. “I think it is some sort of animal that stalks us. A real animal, not a legendary beast.”
“How do we kill it?” Luis kept his gaze on the tall man, who was kneeling next to a passenger.
