Emma spun around and ran down toward the strip. She skidded and slid down the side of the mountain until she reached the bottom. She took a quick glance around before she stepped out into the sun and the heat. The glare from the light reflecting off the plane’s metal body made her squint. The wreckage lay in front of her. It looked like a disjointed piece of metal sculpture. The smell of decay, burned hair, and the still-smoldering rubber was so strong that she was forced to put a hand over her nose and breathe through her mouth.
The path the passengers had forged lay on the other side of the piled wreckage. To cross the airstrip required a run of one hundred yards over dead bodies, discarded clothing, and jagged metal pieces sheared off the jet’s body. Emma could skirt the deadly triangle, or she could cut straight across. Straight across saved time.
She took a deep breath, stepped over the nylon line and ran. She dodged the metal jet pieces and bloated bodies, disturbing the flies that fed off them. The insects rose up in a cloud, buzzing in protest.
Emma focused on the far side of the strip and the narrow path cut by the passengers. She could hear the ticking noise of the oven timer as it counted down. A bumblebee flew in front of her, diving at her face and then swooping away. Sweat poured down her face and into her eyes, making them sting. She wiped her face as she jogged, not missing a beat. She reached the second line marking the far end and stepped over it. She lunged onto the trail, running for all she was worth. The pack banged against her back in a rhythmic cadence.
At one hundred yards in, the strip behind her blew.
The blast knocked Emma flat. The ground shook. She stayed down, flinging her hands over her head. After ten seconds she struggled back to her feet to run again. She took two steps, and the second bomb blew. This blast felt even stronger than the first. Black smoke boiled into the sky. Emma ran a few more yards and the third detonated. This one sent metal shrapnel catapulting upward. The pieces rained down on the trees, each one sharp and deadly. Emma threw herself back down and once again covered her head. A huge burning chunk of metal fell onto the path behind her. A woman’s hairbrush hit her back and rolled off.
Emma heard the fire before she could see it. Panic engulfed her. She imagined the fire was shooting toward her, burning everything in its path. She pulled herself upright, took a final deep breath, and plunged down the path to follow the passengers.
10
MIGUEL STOOD IN APIAY, COLOMBIA, IN THE SMALL OFFICES THAT housed the Air Tunnel Denial program. He listened as Señor Lopez, a skinny man with a face like a hound and a personality to match, nattered on about the myriad small runways that littered the countryside.
“We cannot possibly monitor them all, can we?” he said.
Miguel decided Lopez was a whiner. “It’s your job to monitor them all.”
“With inadequate equipment and no help from the police!”
“These are your problems, sir, not mine. My problem is finding a large jet downed on one of those runways. My commander in the U.S. suggested that you could help pinpoint the location of the airstrip the hijackers may have used. Now, with all this radar equipment at your disposal, are you telling me you didn’t see this jet when it entered your airspace?”
Señor Lopez chattered on some more, and Miguel tuned out. All he caught was something about “procedure,” “trajectories,” and “mushroom clouds.” The last comment caught his attention.
“What do you mean, ‘mushroom clouds’?” he said.
Señor Lopez shrugged. “We heard that a mushroom cloud was seen somewhere around here.” He pointed to a map of Colombia that hung on a wall next to the radar equipment.
“That’s where we noted it, as well as a cell-phone transmission. However, when we sent the Colombian military there, they said no flight had landed. Should I believe them?”
Señor Lopez pursed his lips. “What town did the military embark from for this mission?”
Miguel named a small town. “It was closest to the cell-phone transmission.”
“That town is controlled by the paramilitary.”
“Controlled? How?”
“Some say they are blackmailing the mayor.”
Miguel felt his irritation rise. “I do not care about money, and neither should the mayor. Is it possible that he lied to us?”
“That is entirely possible.”
“Perhaps he should care more about innocent lives being taken,” Miguel said.
Señor Lopez nodded. “He does. The paramilitary group threatens that if he does not cooperate, they will kill his wife and children. He is a father of four. So he cooperates.”
Miguel didn’t know what to say for a moment.
“What about the airstrips? Do you map those?”
Señor Lopez nodded. “There are hundreds. The drug runners’ airstrips will be no easier to find than your jet—perhaps harder.” The man waved at the map on the wall. “Here are the ones that we have been able to locate. Each red line is a strip.”
Miguel counted forty such lines. The map also had a large circle, drawn in red, with Apiay marked as a dot on the circle’s edge. The mushroom cloud occurred outside the circle.
“What is that circle?”
“That is the distance that our surveillance airplanes can fly before they must turn around and come back to refuel. Our planes are small. They can fly to the edge of the circle, but they have only ten minutes to find the airstrip used by the drug transport. After that time, they must turn back or they will run out of fuel before they’re able to land. If we fly to your mushroom cloud, then the plane doesn’t have enough fuel to return.”
Miguel studied the map. There were tiny pins stuck on what appeared to be random points. The majority of the pins were scattered in an area along the Colombian-Venezuelan border. All fell outside of the red circle.
“What do the pins mean?” Miguel said.
“All are suspicious flights and landings,” Señor Lopez said.
“As in drug flights?”
“Yes. But you see, most of these so-called suspicious flights landed outside our interference capabilities.”
“So the drug runners know how far you are able to fly,” Miguel said.
“And they have adjusted their operations accordingly, yes.”
“Do you know Cameron Sumner? He works as a trainer with the American organization charged to help you find and intercept these drug flights.”
Señor Lopez nodded. “I do know him. He is a quiet, efficient man.”
“Is he a survivor?” Miguel said.
“I will answer that by telling you a story about an incident that occurred here eight months ago. Mr. Sumner was here to review our policies and determine whether we were acting in accordance with the terms of the joint cooperation between his agency and mine. While he was here, we spotted a suspicious flight. Mr. Sumner insisted on flying the intercept plane himself.”
“I understand that he is a good pilot,” Miguel said.
“He is an excellent pilot. He chased the plane and determined it was a drug transport. When the pilot refused to land, Mr. Sumner followed it outside of the red circle.”
“And?” Miguel said.
“He shot the plane down.”
Miguel was shocked. “Is that protocol?”
“Absolutely, and Mr. Sumner followed it to the letter. With the exception that his flight tracked beyond the area where the plane could safely return, however.”
“How did he get back?”
“He turned around, flew as far as he could, and landed on a drug runners’ airstrip ten miles from his origination point. He hiked back to us through the night.”
“Determined man.”
“Very much so,” Lopez said.
Miguel poked a finger at the map where the mushroom cloud was seen. “He was on the plane that created the cloud.”
Señor Lopez looked even sadder than his usual sad expression. “Then I am truly sorry for him, because a man that goes into that area without additional security does not come out alive.”
“He came out alive before.” Miguel felt compelled to voice an optimism that he didn’t feel.
“But that time he flew back very far and was armed. This time I presume he is unarmed and on foot.”
Miguel nodded. “If you were Sumner, what would you do?”
“I would tell the guerrillas that my relatives are wealthy Americans and will pay any amount to ransom me.”
“Would you tell them you were with the Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense Agency?” Miguel asked.
Señor Lopez looked horrified. “Absolutely not! If they discover this, they will kill him on the spot.”
Miguel stared at the map.
Señor Lopez sighed. “I will miss Mr. Sumner.”
11
THE HOWLER MONKEYS BEGAN THEIR EERIE HOWLING AT DAWN. The noise started low, then rose to a bass-toned roar before ending in a full-throated howl. The sound echoed through the forest. It sounded like a thousand lions roaring in a cave. As others took up the call, the jungle came alive with sound. The mournful howl set Emma’s teeth on edge, and chills ran up her spine.
No sooner had the howler monkeys completed their morning chorus than the parrots started screeching. By the time they finished, the sun was up. Emma dragged herself out of the tent, broke it down, and began to run.
Stinging insects plagued her and the oppressive heat dehydrated her. The passengers moved so slowly that she doubted they had completed fifteen miles. She’d caught up with them without any trouble and adjusted her pace to match theirs. She trudged behind them, close enough to be able to hear their progress but not so close as to be discovered.
She was losing weight at an alarming rate, because she sweated profusely, but she rationed the drinking water. Every day, when the rains came, she set out the small plate from the airline food to catch what she could. Finding water was the second item on her mental list. The first was staying hidden from the guerrillas.
THE TORRENTIAL RAINS DRENCHED her clothes and turned the path to mud. At times the water pounded so hard on the leaves above her that it sounded like drumbeats. The only positive thing about the rain was that it kept the bugs from biting.
At dusk, Emma heard a whistle blow. She took it as a signal that the day’s march was over. She set up her tent and crawled into it. She removed her shoes and peeled off the soaking-wet, sweat-drenched running socks. She flicked on the lighter to look at her feet. They were bone white, with red patches on the edges of her toes where blisters were forming. The shriveled skin had a cheesy texture. She’d switch to her second pair of socks, but if she didn’t find a way to dry them soon, the blisters would never heal. Then each step would be agony, and she would start bargaining with the devil: If I take off the shoes, will you promise not to have my feet swell to balloons? She propped her feet up on the backpack and hung her socks out to dry. Without the benefit of sunlight, the humidity ensured they never would.
She sat in the tent and thought about her situation. She’d already eaten one whole packet of food last night, her first night after running away from the airstrip. She had nine packets left. If she ate one half a day, she had, at most, eighteen days to eat. She reached out and fingered a packet. The meat was cooked, so it wouldn’t spoil immediately, but she doubted the packets would stay fresh enough to eat for as long as eighteen days. The heat would rot it in three, maybe four. She revised her food intake downward. She’d eat one full packet a day. She’d continue to eat it once it rotted. Nine days. She needed to reach safety in that time.
She turned her thoughts to her third agenda, which was summoning help. She still clung to the hope that the authorities would find the jet. If they knew better than to take the booby-trapped road, they might see the crudely hacked path. Emma decided to leave clues along the path.
The next morning, she began her march with a clearer purpose. She located a stone and etched an X into the trunk of a nearby tree. She had a difficult time adjusting to the passengers’ slow pace. One minute she would think she was far behind them, the next she would hear them only a few feet away around a bend in the trail. While the slow pace wasn’t taxing, the feeling they were getting nowhere was.
Emma stepped around a group of trees and found herself looking at the back of a lagging guerrilla. She froze. She held her breath and willed the man not to turn around. He stood ten feet in front of her. Close enough that she could see the grime on his gray T-shirt. He stopped, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and rubbed the back of his neck. A minute later the man sighed and started forward once again.
After her close encounter, Emma took one of the pistols out of her bag and put it in her pocket. She didn’t bother to load it; the guerrillas would empty an entire clip into her before she’d squeezed off one shot, plus she was afraid that it would discharge accidentally and shoot her in the thigh. She reasoned that if confronted, she could wave it around to buy a little time. No one need know it was empty.
She also kept her eyes peeled for any sticks stout enough to be used as both a walking stick and a weapon. In the afternoon, during the obligatory downpour, she huddled in the tent and used a stone to hack at one end of the stick, fashioning a crude spear. When it was finished, she gazed at it with pride. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such a sense of accomplishment in her work.
THE AIR PULSED WITH the scratching sounds of thousands of insects. Emma hated the bugs. They tormented her before she entered the tent, and swarmed at the tent’s mesh opening when she was inside. She plunged her hands into the soft earth at the base of a tree, pulling up fistfuls of the soft loam. She smeared the mud on her arms and face. It smelled fresh and the coating provided some relief from the biting bugs.
As the next night deepened, she fell into a fitful sleep. She started awake, momentarily disoriented by the dark. She fumbled for the illumination button on her watch. The numbers glowed three in the morning. Emma huddled in the dark, her heart thumping. She couldn’t pinpoint why she’d awoken, but her whole body tingled with some primitive instinct. An eerie quiet settled over the forest. She heard a soft footfall a few feet away from the tent’s walls.
Something stepped out onto the makeshift path hacked by the passengers. Emma saw its shape through the mesh door. The animal turned its head to her, and its eyes glowed like the face of her watch. It slunk away, as quietly as it came. After a minute the scratching sounds of the forest resumed, as if the lesser animals were celebrating their near miss from the predator.
At four in the morning, Emma woke again. She hovered in the twilight between waking and sleeping. She’d been dreaming she was on a life raft and she’d just spotted land.
A twig snapped. Fear surged through her, but she managed to stay motionless, hoping it was another animal that would slink away. Another twig broke, closer. Emma slid her hand along the tent’s nylon floor until her fingers reached her spear. She closed her fist around it.
