Catherine Coulter - The Edge

I smoothed the hair back from her face. After a few minutes she looked woozy. I didn't want to kill her with too many pain pills. I looked down at my watch. Nearly eight o'clock in the morning. No more pills until noon. I said, "Just be quiet for a while, Laura. You can tell us all this stuff later, after you feel better.

Are you warm enough?"

She thought about it but didn't say anything.

Sherlock was far off in a stupor, no doubt troubled by visions of Marlin Jones.

"How long has it been since they drugged her the last time, Savich?"

He thought a moment. "Actually, she was back with me only about thirty minutes before you and Laura arrived with Molinas."

"So it's only been about six hours."

Savich was staring up into the canopy of trees over our heads. I heard monkeys shrieking, a bird's wings flapping wildly, and other sounds I'd never heard before.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"I hear something," Savich mouthed to me. "Someone's coming this way. We knew they'd come after us.

I wonder if they found Molinas."

I squeezed Laura's hand to keep her quiet and listened. Yes, someone was coming, several someones.

They were searching blind, not too far away now. Savich had lifted one of the AK-47s. I eased the Bren Ten out of my waistband. "Don't move," I whispered against Laura's ear. She looked at once alarmed, then almost instantly quite calm again. "I might be down, Mac, but I'm not out. Give me a gun."

"Not on your life. You're a patient. You're not to move. Just think about that shoulder opening. It wouldn't be good, Laura. We've got to survive. Now, just lie still and-"

"I don't want Sherlock or me to die because I'm helpless, Mac. Sherlock's out of it. I'm all she's got.

Give me the Bren Ten."

I gave it to her without another word.

"They're close, Mac," said Savich. "Let's go."

I slung the other AK-47 over my shoulder, slid the machete through my belt, checked the other magazine in my waistband, and fell in behind Savich. If something happened to us, Laura had the Bren Ten. No, I wouldn't think about that, but I still took one backward look. Laura's fingers were curled around the pistol. I gave her a thumbs-up.

We were nearly on their heels fifty steps later. They weren't trying to be quiet. They were speaking loudly in Spanish, cursing, from what I could make out.

We waited, crouched down beneath some broad green leaves larger than my chest. The heat was rising.

The air was becoming so heavy, so filled with water that moving through it was like carrying weights. It was tough to breathe. Thank God for that water I'd found in the Apache. The men kept complaining, coming within a dozen feet of where we were crouched on the floor of the forest.

"Let's get behind them," Savich said.

They were walking single file only about eight yards ahead of us. Their heavy steps covered any noise we might have made. I saw Savich's profile. He looked carved out of stone. Mean, dangerous stone. There was death in his eyes, and utter concentration.

He took the last man down so quickly I heard only a hoarse gurgle. The men ahead didn't hear a thing.

Savich sliced his throat with a small scalpel he'd taken from the first-aid kit, then quickly dragged him out of sight. There were two others, who could turn around any minute. We didn't want to be standing there just staring at them. He looked up as he laid the guy on his back.

"Let's get the other two."

We heard the two men talking just ahead of us in rapid Spanish. I paused a moment, listening carefully. I said behind my hand to Savich, "They think Leon stopped to piss."

"We'll take them both together," Savich said.

It happened fast.

Savich took one of them cleanly with the scalpel, just like the first man. I quickly sidestepped them when the other one turned, alarm firing his face. He yelled and lunged at me, bringing up his AK-47. I brought up my hand and smashed it into his throat. His head snapped back. He dropped to his knees, gagging and choking. I finished it with a blow with my rifle butt.

I raised my head to see a big cat staring at me calmly. He was stretched out along a low-lying branch, watching the two of us, unmoved. He looked down at us with, at best, mild interest. Was he waiting to eat the guys who lost?

Savich said, "It's just a jaguar, Mac. He won't risk tangling with you. But he might take your prey. Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Don't worry about him. Now, let's see what we can salvage here."

"Look," I said. "There's a couple of Baby Ruth candy bars here. Hot damn, we need those. We should check the other guy too. You know, Savich, these wrappers aren't written in Spanish. Neither is anything in the first-aid kit I got out of the helicopter, which was also American. Everything's American except for Molinas's men. Who the hell are these guys? What do they do around here?"

Savich answered me with a shrug. He was right. At the moment, who these goons were wasn't important.

I felt strangely detached from the three dead men, poor bastards. "We got it done. Let's get back to Laura and Sherlock."

When we came through the trees to Sherlock and Laura, I nearly lost it. A man was standing over the women, his AK-47 pointed down at Laura's chest. Laura's eyes were closed. I didn't see the Bren Ten.

He didn't seem to know what to do. He saw us and said, "You will not move, senor, or I will shoot the women. That's right, lay down the weapons and step away."

They were the last words he ever said.

Laura pulled up the Bren Ten in a single motion and shot him through the forehead.

That was well done, Laura," I said. She laid the Bren Ten back against her stomach. "One minute we were alone, the next, he just appeared. You rattled him. It gave me the chance I needed."

We took his weapon and three candy bars from his pants pocket. Soon Savich was stamping his feet into new boots. "They fit perfectly," he said. "And he has water too."

I said, "That shot could attract anyone else out there. Savich and I should look around. We shouldn't be much longer than ten minutes."

Laura said, "Go. We'll be all right."

Savich and I went together, back toward where they'd come from. We saw a green boa wrapped at least three times around a tree we had just passed. I felt a chill slide over my flesh. "There are too many things alive in this place. Every step you take you've got to look everywhere, up and down and sideways, all the time. I just touched a tree that was covered with spikes. It's all so bloody wild and we're not in control here."

"If Laura hadn't taken that machete," Savich said, "we wouldn't be here at all."

I traced the flight of a scarlet macaw, its brilliant red feathers blending down its back into yellow, then blue. He landed, hovering on the very end of a branch not three feet from us that pumped up and down with the bird's weight. I wondered what Nolan would think of this otherworldly bird.

"A trail or two might be nice," Savich said. "There's no sign of anyone else. Let's get back."

It was so hot now it was hard to breathe. The humidity was crushing. Our shirts were soaked with sweat.

The sweat was so deep on my forearm I could see insects drowning before they could bite me.

"It's still morning," Savich said. "I can't wait to see how much hotter it gets by this afternoon. Look at this damned soil-it's clay. I don't want it to rain. Maybe it's not the rainy season, you think?" He laughed, shaking his head at himself.

I said to Savich, "It's not even ten o'clock yet, but we shouldn't stay here. What do you think? Carrying Sher-lock and Laura and all the supplies, can we make maybe half a mile before collapsing under a tree?"

"At most," Savich said. "If we have to use the machete to get through, we might not make more than a couple of miles all day."