Running from the Devil Page 6

  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.

  Now whatever, or whoever, was coming toward her was moving fast. Sticks cracked under its feet, and she heard stones crunching. The footfalls came faster and faster, closer and closer. She heaved herself to her knees, holding the spear at her side, ready to attack whatever came through the tent’s mesh door.

  The moonlight broke through the clouds, sending shafts of light through the foliage. The light revealed a man’s shape, standing five feet from the tent’s entrance. He swung a rifle off his back by the strap and in a few seconds closed the distance. He shoved the rifle into the tent’s entrance.

  The man’s head followed his rifle into the tent and he locked eyes with Emma. He smelled like rancid meat and old smoke. His face registered shock and fear. His gaze swept across the spear. He got a crazy, wide-eyed look, like he was seeing a monster.

  Emma lunged forward, burying the spear tip deep into the man’s shoulder. He shrieked and fell backward, out of the tent. Emma pulled the spear out of him, feeling the drag as it yanked at the man’s flesh. The man rolled to his knees and grabbed at his rifle. Emma heard his fingernails scratch across the metal. She tumbled out of the tent after him. He flipped the rifle up to aim.

  “No!” Emma screamed at the man. She took the spear and swung it like a bat, catching him across the side of his head. The spear connected to bone and then splintered with an explosive, cracking sound. The man swayed, then toppled over, blood spurting from his temple. He fell over like a stone.

  Emma stood over the prone man, breathing hard. She struggled for control, but she felt the tears gathering in her eyes.

  Shit, Emma, this is no time for a crying jag, she thought, but the utter hopelessness of her situation was once again upon her, blocking out all logical thought. She took three cautious steps backward.

  Emma jumped behind a tree and listened for signs that the other guerrillas had heard her yell or the spear break. The injured man didn’t move. After a few minutes, Emma went back to the man, grabbed his arm, and checked for a pulse. His heart beat in a strong rhythm. She searched his pockets and found a folding knife and a large rag that smelled of gunpowder and grease. She took both.

  She knew she should kill him. If she let him live he’d return to camp and set the other guerrillas on her trail. She’d have to do it quietly. She looked at his knife in her hand. She could slit his throat. She opened the wicked-looking five-inch-long blade and lowered herself to one knee next to him.

  The sounds of the night intruded on her. The wind rustled the leaves in a soothing sound and a tree frog croaked nearby. The man breathed softly in and out as he lay in front of her, defenseless. He looked like he was sleeping.

  Emma felt as though some wide chasm had opened before her. The years of her Catholic-school upbringing crowded into her head and she thought of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shall not kill” being the foremost among them. She could have killed him in the heat of the moment in self-defense, but now, with the immediate danger over, what she contemplated felt like murder.

  Emma closed the knife with a sigh. She lifted him under the arms and dragged him down the trail. He weighed too much for her to drag very far. She put him on the side of the path and covered him with branches.

  When she was finished, she checked the trail. A long smear ran in a straight line from the path to the brush where she’d hidden the guerrilla. Emma used a tree branch to sweep away the telltale signs of dragging. She broke down her tent and put it and the pack on her back. She swung the man’s rifle onto a shoulder. More firepower that she didn’t know how to use. She’d analyze it later. When she was done she took one last look around, turned, and ran back the way she came.

  12

  BANNER GAVE HIS FIRST NEWS CONFERENCE THIRTY-SIX HOURS after Flight 689 went down. He wore a bespoke suit made in Hong Kong and a silk tie, also from Hong Kong, and his French cuffs hit his wrist with precision. He stood in a borrowed conference room in a Miami hotel and tried to tell himself that he’d faced much worse in his career. It was true, but the thought didn
’t help calm his nerves.

  Stromeyer raised an eyebrow when she saw him in all his sartorial splendor. “Feeling a little vulnerable, are we?”

  Banner grimaced. “Wouldn’t you? I have to report to the most rapacious wolves in the industrial world that not only did we allow a plane to get hijacked, but this time we can’t even locate it or the people on board.”

  “Why isn’t a State Department spokesperson giving this conference?”

  “No one wants to face the tough questions about how airport security was compromised. As the Department of Defense’s leading search-and-rescue consultant, they figure I can take the heat when they can’t.”

  “They’re right. I’ve never seen you sweat before.”

  “Stromeyer, those were field operations. I’d much rather be in the jungle tracking a hostile force. This media stuff always gets to me.”

  “Don’t you think your reaction’s a little extreme? At least the media can’t kill you.” Stromeyer peeked at the computer monitor that showed an interior view of the rapidly filling conference room. “That jerk TV reporter O’Connor is here.”

  “Least of my problems. The guys from MSNBC are the really worrisome ones. They know their stuff.”

  The last hours had been hell. Banner had dealt with the various agencies assigned to handle the crisis, while Stromeyer drew the unenviable job of “Victim Relative Liaison.” She fielded hundreds of frantic calls from distraught relatives of the plane’s passengers. All received the same news: That it was too early to tell if there were any survivors, but that the United States Army had boots on the ground searching for the plane.

  The only relative that would have heard different news was someone related to Emma Caldridge. However, no one called about the woman. When Stromeyer contacted Caldridge’s employer to ask for next-of-kin information, the receptionist transferred the call to the vice president of research and development for the company.

  “Gerald White.” The man’s hearty voice boomed through the phone.

  Stromeyer introduced herself. “I understand that you were the one Ms. Caldridge sent her text message to after the plane went down.”

  Mr. White cleared his throat. “Yes, I head up her department. I gave the message to someone from the Department of Transportation.”

  “Yes, thank you, but I’m not calling about that. I’ve been trying to track down her next of kin. No one has asked for her. Do you have any information?”

  “It’s not my area. I think you’ll need to speak to human resources for that.”

  Stromeyer bit her tongue to quell a retort. “Mr. White, if our suspicions are correct, Ms. Caldridge survived the jet’s landing. If there are any next of kin worried about her, I need to know that. Surely she left instructions with the firm about who to call if there is an emergency.”

  “Perhaps she did. I’ll be happy to look into it and get back to you.”

  “I’m in a press conference that should last about an hour. Is that enough time? I can drive over to your offices after.”

  Mr. White cleared his throat. “Yes, that would be fine.”

  Now Stromeyer drew circles around Mr. White’s name while she waited for the press conference to begin. She heard Banner cough.

  “You look preoccupied. What’s up?” he asked.

  Stromeyer frowned. “Something about Emma Caldridge is bothering me. I think she has family in Florida, or at least a man named Caldridge lives near her in Miami Beach, but when the plane went down she sent a text message to her boss asking for help.”

  Banner took his eyes off the computer screen. “Maybe she isn’t close to her family.”

  Stromeyer nodded. “Maybe. But in such an extreme circumstance wouldn’t you text your family first?”

  Banner shook his head. “I’d text you first. You’re the one I know could manage the situation to my best advantage.”

  Stromeyer smiled. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but she’s not a covert operator, she’s a civilian. I would think they’d text the person they love the most.”

  Before Banner could reply, the door swung open and Whitter strode into the room. From the look on his face it was clear that he did not have good news.

  “Banner, I just spoke to the secretary of defense. There’s been a strategy reversal. You are to tell the press that we already have five hundred special forces personnel in place in Colombia whose sole mission it is to find and free these people.”

  Banner snorted. “Sole mission? Five hundred? Miguel said he’s working with twenty.” Banner pointed at Stromeyer’s computer. “Is Rubenstein there? The smart one from that cable channel?”

  She checked the computer monitor. “You betcha.”

  “And,” Whitter continued, “you are to tell them that we flew these men down within twelve hours of learning of the trouble. You are to let them know that we had fighter planes scrambling in one hour and ready to go within three.”

  “What a crock of shit,” Banner said.

  Whitter bristled, pulling himself up like a private on roll call. “It’s not shit. We do have five hundred men in Colombia.”

  “There to protect some private corporation’s precious pipeline.”

  “There to fight terrorism whenever and wherever it may be found!”

  Banner grabbed a clipboard that contained his notes and headed to the door.

  “Do you hear me, Banner?”

  Banner was gone. Stromeyer made herself busy with her ever-present manifest lists. Whitter slammed out of the room.

  The news conference went fine for twenty minutes and slid south at twenty-two, when O’Connor threw the first mud ball.

  “Major Banner, isn’t it true that this breach of security would never have happened if the liberals in Congress had approved additional spending for Homeland Security?”

  Banner gave O’Connor his patented military stare, a look that had quelled greater men than the soft reporter. In his relentlessly perfect suit, with his erect military carriage, and with his reputation as a former military man who’d seen battle, even the jaded media guys in the room felt a certain respect.

  “Mr. O’Connor, save the spin for your television show. We don’t have the time for it here.”

  The other reporters snickered.

  “Isn’t it true that this administration had fighter pilots in the air within two hours of learning of the event and over five hundred special forces personnel on their way in three?” O’Connor said.

  Banner glanced at Whitter, who leaned against a wall in the back of the room. The smirk on his face was enough to tell Banner that he intended to get the ridiculous story out one way or another.

  Banner knew if he confirmed the lie, then he would be the one in the hot seat when Congress convened a committee to review the events. Whitter leaned against the back wall and looked very pleased with himself while he waited for Banner to take the fall.

  Over my dead body, Banner thought.

  “There are five hundred special forces personnel in the area and available to assist should we need to call on them,” Banner said. At least that much was true. Banner figured a guy with O’Connor’s simplistic thought processes would never see the difference in the two assertions. He was right. O’Connor gave a supercilious nod, as if Banner had confirmed what he already knew.

  Banner wasn’t out of the woods, though. While O’Connor wasn’t bright enough to see the fine distinction Banner had drawn, Rubenstein was.

  “What were they there for, if not to assist in this operation?” Rubenstein said.

  Banner watched an alarmed look wash over Whitter’s face.

  Serves you right, asshole, Banner thought.

  “There are several projects proceeding in Colombia that require a U.S. military presence,” Banner said. He eyed Whitter, who seemed to hold his breath.

  “Like the joint effort between Colombia and the U.S. to spray herbicide on the coca plants to reduce cocaine production?” Rubenstein said.

  “Like that,” Banner sa
id. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all I can tell you right now. I’m needed back at headquarters to continue managing the situation. We will attempt to keep the press, and the public, informed as much as is reasonably possible as this unfolds.” He strode out of the room while the press corps screeched questions at him like a flock of magpies.

  “Good job,” Stromeyer said. “But a little short. You didn’t give them much to report.”

  Whitter slammed into the conference room before Banner could respond. Today’s tie was a hideous gray with yellow vines running up and down in a trellis pattern. Banner would rather have taken a bullet than wear such a tie.

  “That was damn close,” Whitter said. “You didn’t tell them what I told you to.”

  Banner handed Stromeyer his clipboard. “If you want to tell them something, tell them yourself.”

  Whitter pursed his lips. Banner glanced at Stromeyer, who flicked a glance at Whitter and then winked at Banner. Her lighthearted response to Whitter’s aggression made the muscles in Banner’s neck relax. She had a way of making the worst situations bearable.

  “Meet me at Southern Command offices. We’re having a conference call with the American embassy in Bogotá in twenty minutes.” Whitter snapped out the information and stalked out of the room.

  The Miami sun felt like a blowtorch. Banner and Stromeyer strolled along the downtown streets, taking a short break before heading to Southern Command’s offices. It was their first quiet moment since the hijacking, and the constant meetings and conferences were taking their toll on both of them. The sunlight and fresh air revived them. A limousine prowled behind, waiting to whisk them away when necessary. Banner began overheating within seconds. He searched for shade, while Stromeyer turned her face up and let the sun wash over her.