Running from the Devil ec-1 Page 8

  “Calm down. You’re going to make yourself sick. Sit a moment.” Emma lowered her down onto a nearby boulder next to a tree. She bent down and checked the crop.

  Coca. The narrow leaves looked like any other wild weed. Emma found it hard to believe that such a harmless and unassuming-looking plant could cause such misery and heartache the world over.

  She straightened up and shaded her eyes against the sun. No farmer worked the fields, for which she was thankful. Whoever owned this field would not be the sort that Emma would want to meet up close and personal.

  “Gladys, this is coca,” Emma said.

  Gladys’s face turned grim. “So not a nice farmer.”

  “No,” Emma said. She saw a glint of light off to her right. A tin roof flashed in the sun. She pulled the remaining foxglove out of her pocket.

  “Take these. There’s a hut off to the right. I’m going to check it out.”

  Gladys shoved the leaves into her pocket. “Be careful. Don’t let them see you. Oh, dear.” She pulled her rosary out of her other pocket and started rubbing the beads like mad.

  “Saying a prayer for me, are you?” Emma said.

  Gladys nodded. “Always, dear girl.”

  Emma gave her a swift kiss on the cheek. “Just stay put,” she said. She patted Gladys on the arm and moved away. She skirted the tree line, doing her best to stay in cover.

  The field showed signs of being newly plowed. A cash crop, lovingly tended. The sound of a truck engine shattered the peace. Emma jogged back to the tree line and made her way over to Gladys. The sound of the approaching engine grew louder. She ran faster, stumbling over roots jutting out of the earth near the tree line. She’d left Gladys all alone, and the engine sounds were coming from that direction.

  She was too late. At thirty feet from the little area where Gladys sat, two men, both dressed in gray T-shirts and both carrying assault weapons, stood next to a battered truck with wooden slats for sidewalls on the bed. Gladys stood facing them. She stood at an angle from where Emma hid, which gave Emma a good view of her profile. She talked to the men, punctuating her words with elaborate hand gestures. She mimed smoking a cigarette.

  One of the men snorted, grinned at the other, and pulled a crushed pack of Marlboros from his front pocket. He shook out a cigarette and offered the box to Gladys. She snagged it and wasted no time placing it between her lips. The other man stepped forward with a cheap plastic lighter and lit the cigarette. Gladys inhaled, deep. Emma moved closer.

  “Thank you, boys, you have no idea how much better that makes me feel,” Gladys said.

  The man with the cigarettes chattered at Gladys in Spanish. Gladys gave an elaborate shrug.

  “Bogotá? I’ll pay mucho dinero,” Gladys said.

  The cigarette man shook his head. “No Bogotá.” He barked out a name. Gladys cocked her head. “I know about that town. It’s one dangerous place, señor. Mucho dangeroso!” Gladys’s Spanish was a disaster, but the man seemed to understand her. He pointed his weapon at her.

  “Whoa!” Gladys said. She bent forward in a fit of coughing.

  Gladys, stay calm. Emma almost said the words out loud. She could tell that Gladys’s heart was racing. Nevertheless, the woman finished with her coughing fit and took another huge drag off the cigarette.

  “Hospital?” Gladys said.

  The man shook his head. He pointed to the truck’s bed. It was clear he wanted Gladys to get in. He grabbed her arm. Gladys yanked out of his grasp.

  “Okay!” She held up her hands in surrender. The cigarette jutted out from her index and middle fingers. Emma watched the smoke rise into the air. Gladys never relinquished her grasp on the cigarette. She turned her head in the direction of the field and dropped to her knees. She clasped her hands together, as if to pray. Instead, she threw her head back and yelled to the sky.

  “Emma, if you can hear me, I’m going with them, but you stay put. The second man here was at the airstrip with the killer in shirtsleeves. He’s taking me to a town controlled by the paramilitary. But I need to ride, I just can’t walk anymore.”

  The man yelled at Gladys and grabbed her by the arm. This time he didn’t let go until she was directly in front of the flatbed. He shoved her toward it.

  “Okay, keep your shirt on,” Gladys said. She waved at the back and mimed opening the hatch. “Can you lower it?”

  The man made an irritated sound and lowered the back door. Gladys heaved her bulk onto the flatbed, never relinquishing her hold on the cigarette. The man slammed the hatch closed, waved at his buddy, and crawled into the truck’s cab.

  Emma heard the gears grind as the engine turned over. She felt tears gather in her eyes. Gladys leaned out of the back of the flatbed. In her hand was her beloved rosary. The truck wheels spun on the soft earth. The rosary swung in the sudden movement. Gladys dropped it on the ground.

  “For you, Emma!” she yelled into the air. “It will give you the strength to continue. Don’t give up, dear girl. I’ll pray for you every day.” Gladys waved, and Emma waved back, even though she knew Gladys couldn’t see her. Emma watched the truck disappear in a swirl of dust and smoke. Gladys continued to wave as it drove out of sight.

  Emma wiped her eyes, walked over, and retrieved the rosary. The cross sparkled in the sun as it swung from side to side. Despite her anger at the omnipotent being the rosary represented, she felt like it was a talisman. She shoved it in the cargo pocket of her pants and started across the field.

  Emma plodded down the rows, keeping her eyes lowered, taking care not to smash the plants with her feet. The ever-present sun beat on her head, and little puffs of dirt rose around her feet with each step. She heard the distant roar of a small airplane. She craned her neck to look into the sky. The roar got louder. The plane was flying low.

  Drug plane or rescue team? she thought. The plane came into view. In one second she heard the roar but saw nothing. In the next the plane was upon her. It flew so low that it seemed to touch the treetops. As soon as it cleared the jungle it descended even lower, while a mass of black dust poured from a tank in back.

  Emma’s heart did a flip. “Hey! Over here!”

  She screamed and waved her arms. The plane flew right at her. She threw herself down as it roared over her head. The chemicals landed on her in a huge, choking cloud. Her throat closed in protest and water streamed from her eyes. She heaved a breath and then started to cough. The chemical scorched her mucous membranes, and the inside of her mouth was on fire. It sprinkled into her hair and layered over the cut that she’d gotten on her head during the plane crash. The cut burned as the chemical chewed into her skin.

  The plane turned around and flew back at her. The dust poured again, covering the entire coca field in black sediment. It passed over Emma, once again enveloping her in a cloud of chemicals. Her lungs burned. She opened her mouth to breathe. She sucked in the harsh chemical, and her stomach rebelled. She retched, but nothing came up, thanks to the meager rations she’d eaten. She dry-heaved over and over.

  The plane flew away.

  The dust cloud cleared. The field of coca, previously so green, now looked black. Emma sat up and shook the black granules off her skin. She plucked a leaf off a nearby coca plant. She shook some of the herbicide off the leaves onto her palm, and took a closer look at it.

  The granules looked like glyphosate, a typical herbicide used in agricultural applications, but it was mixed with a surfactant of some sort. Emma couldn’t identify it. The surfactant would assist the herbicide to penetrate the waxy surface of the leaves. It would also turn the EPA-approved herbicide into a concoction deadly to humans, plants, and animals. The coca would die, but so would everything else in the jungle.

  “Asshole!” Emma yelled into the air. “Kill everything, why don’t you?”

  Emma staggered into the jungle. She needed to get the herbicide off her skin before it entered her system through her pores. The mud she’d spread all over would act as a temporary barrier, but the surfac
tant would eat its way through it soon enough. She watched the sky. It had rained daily since her ordeal began, so she hoped that it would again, and soon. She felt her panic rising as she used a stick to scrape the mud off her. She felt terrible dropping the herbicide on the ground where it would poison the dirt, but she had no choice.

  An hour later, the rain came. Emma stood naked in the pounding water, and washed the mud and chemical off her skin and hair. Her clothes were draped on a nearby boulder. The rain pummeled everything, including the coca field. The herbicide sluiced off the plants and mingled into the muddy dirt below, turning the ground into a chemical wasteland. When everything was soaked, she collected her things and hiked back to the trail.

  Emma felt clean for the first time in days. She hated to replace the mud. She decided to get away from the herbicide area before reapplying it. She hiked for half an hour but couldn’t take much more. The mosquitoes feasted on her fresh skin as if it were a gourmet meal. She sat on a boulder and counted her bites. One hundred twenty. Sixty on each arm. She sighed. She found some wet earth at the base of a tree and smeared the mud on.

  14

  LUIS GNAWED ON A PIECE OF BONE-DRY BEEF AND BARKED orders at the guerrillas. He washed the beef down with a swig of burned coffee. He’d woken up in a very bad mood. One of his sentries was missing. Desertions were common, but each time it happened it set Luis on edge. He viewed each as a failure of his ability to frighten the men into total obedience.

  Alvarado snapped out orders as well. Luis heard his voice grow hoarse with the yelling. Only the passengers were quiet. Most had entered the depressed, somnolent state that Luis knew was a sign of despair. He kept them hungry and tired, and made sure that one was beaten every day while the others watched. Nothing commanded more obedience than the fear of pain.

  Luis sipped his coffee and eyed the tall man. He’d hollowed out some in the last days due to dehydration, but he still maintained a watchful stillness that bothered Luis. He’d proven invaluable, however, helping to lift fallen logs or other obstacles that needed to be moved as the group progressed, and he still walked with a fluid stride. Luis decided that the man would be the one beaten today. Perhaps then he would see the fear in the man’s eyes that signaled respect.

  A small group of soldiers stood next to the tied passengers. They waved their arms excitedly and gathered in a semicircle at the edge of the clearing.

  “Shit,” Luis said. He spit the coffee onto the ground.

  Alvarado stepped out of the circle of guerrillas and waved him over.

  “We found Juan.” Alvarado’s eyes held a grim look.

  Luis grabbed a machete and strolled over to the circle of men. They moved aside as he approached. Luis enjoyed the anticipation of the moments before he would come eye to eye with the man he intended to kill.

  In the center sat Juan. His head bled from a huge gash above his ear and his clothes were soaked with blood. Luis noted that his eyes, always red from the crack he smoked, looked like two neon lights.

  “Where have you been?” Luis spoke in a conversational tone of voice that belied the ticking time bomb of rage that was building in him.

  “I was attacked in the forest! By El Chupacabra!”

  The circle of men fell silent. Two made a rapid sign of the cross.

  Luis did his best to hide his surprise. He’d expected a long tale of woe from Juan, but not this. The men peered around them with uneasy expressions on their faces. Luis stared hard at Juan, trying to buy time while he decided how to deal with the wild claim. The last thing he needed was a bunch of drug-addicted, drunken men believing they were seeing bloodsucking creatures with red eyes, green skin, and spines running up and down their backs.

  Luis snorted. “El Chupacabra is a myth. There is no such thing.” He waved a hand in the air, as if such myths were not worth mentioning.

  One of the guerrillas, a farmer named Manzillo, stepped forward. “No, Rodrigo, it is not a myth. I have seen one with my own eyes. It killed three of my goats and six chickens. It sucked the blood right out of their bodies.” The men all muttered to one another and several eyed the trees worriedly. Manzillo’s insistence surprised Luis. He was a farmer forced into service by the FFOC. He’d never shown a spine as long as Luis had known him.

  “We have been in these hills for years, Manzillo. Why would the animal be attacking us now?” Luis spoke in what he hoped was a calm, reasonable voice. It was not a voice he usually employed, so he was not sure if he sounded convincing. Especially when what he really wanted to do was grab both Juan and Manzillo and shake the shit out of them.

  “Because of the herbicide. The gringos are killing the coca fields and the farmers are taking their goats and chickens to other places. Without the chickens to eat, it is forced to be bold to get food.”

  The other guerrillas were struck silent. Luis knew it was because none of them was smart enough to come up with such a logical reason for a mythical animal to attack them. Manzillo’s reasoning sounded like rocket science to them.

  “This is ridiculous, Manzillo.” Luis’s anger had always been enough to control the men. But this time, it didn’t work.

  “It is not, Luis. We must have a plan for tomorrow night, or someone else will be next.” Manzillo drew himself up to his full height, which was not tall, but such a move from a mouse like Manzillo made him appear heroic.

  Luis felt the blood rush to his face as his anger rose. He glanced at the tall man, who stood three feet from Luis at the edge of the group of passengers. Luis saw a flicker of amusement in the man’s eyes, which stoked his rage. He focused again on Juan.

  “How much rock did you smoke before you saw this Chupacabra, eh?”

  A couple of the guerrillas snickered. Luis chalked their reaction up as a hit.

  Juan shook his head. “No more than usual, huh? And look at me. How do you think I got these wounds? I tell you, I was attacked by El Chupacabra!”

  “You. Were. Not!” Luis grabbed the machete tighter and spun around. The steel glinted in the early morning light as he slashed the blade down, aiming at the tall man’s neck. A woman passenger screamed; a scream cut short by a male passenger clapping his hand over her mouth.

  Luis timed the attack to match the moment the tall man looked away, but the man spun around at the sound of the scream and dodged the blade. The machete sank into his upper shoulder, slicing the skin, but missed his neck, which was Luis’s real target. The tall man staggered but didn’t go down.

  The tall man faced Luis, his eyes clouded with anger and pain. He said nothing as his blood soaked through his shredded shirt. After a minute, he took several slow steps backward, still standing upright, stopping when he reached the circle of passengers.

  Luis threw the machete on the ground. “That is what will happen to you, Juan, if you talk about green monsters again. And, Manzillo, you will stand sentry tonight.”

  Luis stalked back to his coffeepot and dry-meat breakfast. Alvarado resumed yelling, and the camp prepared once again to march.

  15

  MIGUEL STOOD IN A DOUBLE-WIDE TRAILER THAT SERVED AS A command post and looked at the twenty special forces men assigned to assist in the airplane reconnaissance. Most had been stationed in Colombia for the past six months. All had seen some sort of action. Three had minor injuries, and one was newly recovered from a nasty bout of dengue fever, the scourge of hot-weather locales the world over.

  Miguel had arrived by helicopter, flying over the area he would traverse on foot. Nothing but trees and mountains for miles. The beauty stunned him; the complete isolation worried him. The Colombian police force refused to join him in the search.

  “That is for the Colombian special forces. We do not have the additional men to spare for such an endeavor,” one official had said.

  “This is how the Colombian government treats its allies?” Miguel said.

  The official nodded. “Your government has not sufficiently provisioned you for the mission you are about to undertake. You have no d
ogs to sniff for the mines, and no army backup. You will be dead in a few days unless you take additional precautions. I will not send my men on a suicide mission.”

  “Any suggestions?” Miguel hadn’t bothered to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  “Fly over the area. Do not attempt to go there on foot. The forest is heavily mined and bandits are everywhere. You can find the wreckage just as easily from the air, perhaps more so, and your odds of dying while looking will be drastically reduced.”

  “We will begin with air review, of course, but once we spot the crash site, we will drop men into it. They will canvass the vicinity for survivors.”

  “A very bad idea, sir. They are bound to step on a land mine.” The government official looked sad.

  “Perhaps I’ll arrange for a bomb-sniffing dog,” Miguel said.

  “I’d suggest you get one for every soldier. If you do not, the paw-breakers will get them.”

  “Paw-breakers?” Miguel said.

  The man nodded. “Small mines designed to blow off limbs. They are homemade and activated by hypodermic syringes or mousetraps.”

  “Wonderful,” Miguel said.

  “Welcome to Colombia.” The man had shrugged as he said this.

  Miguel was heartened when he saw the soldiers assigned to the mission. He had been forced to accept fewer men than he’d wanted, but the ones he did have seemed solid and ready for the jungle trek. Most looked fit enough for the hiking that would be required, but none looked very eager to begin. Worse, they all wore light, sand-colored camouflage pants. They might as well have been wearing white, for all the good the light camos would do for them.

  Miguel introduced himself. “I’m your commander for this search-and-rescue operation. We’re planning on heading deep into the jungle, so can anyone explain to me why you’re all wearing camouflage used for desert missions?”

  “We were scheduled to go to Iraq, but they pulled us off at the last minute and sent us here instead.” One of the soldiers in the back row offered the clarification.