Catherine Coulter - The Edge

Laura moaned. She was lying on her back, her eyes closed. Her face was paper white, her lips were nearly blue. I shoveled more aspirin down her throat.

There wasn't much of anything left in the first-aid kit. My eyes met Savich's across her body. He was frowning. He was also holding Sherlock's hand, tight.

We slogged through the mud at least another couple of miles before we stopped for the night.

Laura was about the same the following morning, weak, shaky, and feverish. The wound was redder, more swollen. There was no kidding anybody now. It was bad. We had to get her to a hospital. We were up and walking, Savich carrying Laura, by sunrise.

"Due west," I said again, and began hacking.

We found a stalk of ripe bananas at nine o'clock. Savich tore them off the stalk to the accompaniment of screaming monkeys, whose breakfast we were stealing. I was relieved they didn't dive-bomb us.

It was nearly noon when I smelled something. I stopped dead in my tracks, lifted my head, and smelled.

It was salt, so strong I could taste it.

I started to let out a yell when I heard men's voices, loud, not twenty feet away from us.

"Oh, no," Sherlock said, and backed up, dropping everything except her AK-47. "How could they have found us? Dammit, it's not fair."

Savich held Laura, who was either asleep or unconscious. He didn't put her down, just drew back so I could come up alongside Sherlock.

"They don't care that we can hear them," I whispered. "Are there that many of them? Have they fanned out?"

"I can smell the salt now, Mac. We've got to be near the ocean."

The voice moved away. Then, to my shock, I heard women's voices. Then laughter. Lots of laughter, yelling, more laughter. I heard screaming, but not in terror, screaming and shouting in fun, and all of it was in English.

Something was very strange here.

The thick foliage melted away, everything suddenly thinning out. I took the lead, my Bren Ten in my hand, Sherlock in the rear, Savich carrying Laura between us. We moved as quietly as we could. I saw a troop of green parrots flying from one banana tree to the next, a phalanx of green with flashes of red and yellow. The salt smell grew stronger, and the sun slashed down through the trees above us as the thick canopy above disappeared.

I felt a breeze on my face. I broke through a final curtain of green leaves and stepped onto white sand.

Savich inched out behind me. I heard Sherlock suck in her breath. We just stood there, staring.

We were standing at the edge of the rain forest, a good fifty feet of pristine white sand stretching between us and the ocean. It was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen.

Some twenty yards up the beach were at least twenty men and women in swimsuits, playing volleyball.

There were beach towels strewn over the sand, a couple of sand castles, half a dozen umbrellas and beach chairs. To top it off, there was a guy on a seat set up some twenty feet above the ground, an umbrella covering him. He was a lifeguard.

Laura made a soft noise in her throat. She opened her eyes and looked at me. "What's happening?"

"I'd say we lucked out, sweetheart. Just hold on. You and I are going to be in that cold shower before you know it."

The laughter slowly died away. The men and women were looking down the beach at us. Two of the men waved the others back and came walking toward us. I dropped the Bren Ten to my side. Sherlock eased down on the AK-47, trying to look a little less terrifying.

I yelled, "We need some help. We've got a wounded person here."

The women came trotting up behind the men. One of the guys sprinted toward us. Short and fiercely sunburned, he was wearing glasses and a slouchy green hat. "I'm a doctor," he said, panting when he stopped in front of us. "My God, what happened to you guys? Who's hurt?"

"Over here," Savich said. He carefully laid Laura down on a blanket Sherlock quickly spread beneath a palm tree.

She was barely responding. I unbuttoned the two shirts and bared the bandages. As he knelt down beside her, I said, "It's a gunshot wound through the shoulder, happened two days ago. I had a first-aid kit, thank God. I didn't set any stitches for fear of infection. I changed the bandages every day and kept the wound as clean as possible. But it looks like it got infected anyway."

In the next minute, at least a dozen men and women circled around us. Savich rose and smiled at them, looking ferocious, I realized, seeing how dirty he was, with mud dried to his thighs and his growth of beard. He looked like a wild man, filthy and dangerous.

Then Sherlock laughed. She tossed the water bottles in their net to the ground and let out a big whoop.

"We've been in the rain forest for over two days. Is this Club Med?"

The men and women just looked at one another. A man in a loose red-and-white-striped bathing suit said, "No, we're on a day trip here from up the coast," he said, eyeing us closely. "You got separated from your guide?"

"We didn't have a guide," Sherlock said. "Where are we?"

"You're in the Corcovado National Park."

"Anywhere near Dos Brazos?" I asked, and slapped a bug off my neck.

"Yeah, it's at the southeast end of the rain forest."

Laura opened her eyes and looked up at the man who was carefully lifting up the bandage on her shoulder. "It's all right. You just hang in there. It's not bad. But you need a hospital. What's your name?"

"I'm Laura. What's yours?"

"I'm Tom. I'm here on my honeymoon. It's a great place. Well, maybe it wasn't such a great place for you. What happened?"

"I'm a federal agent. All of us are. I got shot by some drug dealers. We've been in the rain forest for the past two days."

Tom the doctor sat back on his heels and turned to a woman who had to be close to six feet tall. "Glenis, go tell the lifeguard that we need a helicopter here fast. It's a medical emergency."

"And the police," I said.

Tom said to all of us, "The Sirena Ranger Station is just up the way a bit. It shouldn't take too long. The wound's infected, but it doesn't look too bad, considering. You guys did really well taking care of her."

"Thanks," I said.

"I want a margarita," Laura said. "With lots of lime. We'll even provide the lime."

I looked around at everyone in that circle. "I've heard of Corcovado," I said slowly. "Isn't it in Costa Rica?"

One of the women who was wearing a bright red bikini nodded. "Where did you think you were?"

"Maybe Colombia," I said. "Hey, I've always wanted to visit Costa Rica."

"No wonder the animals were bored with us," Sherlock said.

One of the men said, "Didn't you see anyone?"

"Just the bad guys," Sherlock said. "And some footprints that led off into the undergrowth. We couldn't take a chance of getting more lost than we already were. We've just been making our way west."

"You didn't see the tram overhead?" Tom asked. At our blank looks, he said, "Hey, we all took a ride through the rain forest on it yesterday. It was awesome. Well, I guess you must have missed it." He stuck out his hand to me. "Welcome to Playa Blanca."

I was staring at the man when I heard Laura wheezing and choking. I was at her side in an instant, grabbing her arms, lifting her against me. She was trembling violently. "Laura," I said.

"No!"

Tom shoved me out of the way. He peeled back her eyelids, checked her pulse, then immediately yelled for beach towels. Beach towels?

Men and women came running, their arms loaded down with colorful towels with parrots and leopards and bright suns on them. Tom covered her with a good half-dozen beach towels, wet down the end of one of them and spread it over her forehead. He sat back on his heels and said, "Bring me cold drinks, not the diet ones, the ones filled with sugar."