Alex Archer - Sacrifice

She knelt back by the buttress tree and cut more vines. Annja drank down as much water as she could. She’d move on quickly, so she wasn’t particularly concerned about leaving signs. Anyone with half a brain would be able to see that someone had been active in this immediate area. A few more cut vines wouldn’t compromise her any more than her camouflaging activity would.

But now where?

Annja stayed low to the ground. She could follow the men chasing her; they were leaving enough of a trail to do so. But if she did that, there was a chance she would walk into an ambush.

Her better option was to strike out on her own, in a direction that took her away from the terrorist camp and away from her pursuers.

Left or right? she wondered.

Annja closed her eyes and checked each direction against her gut instinct. She opened her eyes and frowned. Neither direction had produced the sense of relief that normally told her she was on the right track.

It was going to have to be a pure guess.

Right it is, she decided.

She moved off, keeping herself in a stealthy crouch that she knew would tax her quadriceps but would keep her profile low. The last thing she wanted was to present an easy target someone could take a shot at if she was heard.

With her sword stowed safely away, Annja took her time moving vines and branches out of the way. She ran into scores of thick spiderwebs, each with a very annoyed owner. Annja hadn’t read up enough on the tropical varieties of spiders, but didn’t want to start thinking about how many poisonous creatures scampered all around her.

Just keep moving, she told herself. Eventually, she would find her way out.

She hoped.

A sudden burst of high-pitched, purring bleeps surrounded her. For a moment, Annja froze, halfway to closing her eyes and calling the sword back out.

Then she smiled with recognition. Her friend from England had called them “basher-out beetles.” It was the jungle’s way of announcing that it would be nighttime soon enough.

She heard a rumble overhead.

A steady deluge erupted and streamed down through the canopy, soaking her and causing a good deal of her camouflage to drip off. Annja opened her mouth and caught a few mouthfuls of rainwater.

The good thing was that at least her pursuers would have to endure the jungle just as much as she did.

Annja found her way to another tree and maneuvered her way up into the thick branches. As the rain continued to drum down from the heavens, she cut a few vines and sucked them dry. Then she tried weaving them into a makeshift cover for herself.

When she was done, she positioned it over her head.

It wasn’t great, she decided, but it did keep some of the rain off her.

Annja nestled herself into the trunk and leaned her head against the wet bark. She could smell more things than she’d ever smelled before. It was as if someone had cranked up her olfactory sense to eleven. She could smell the leaves, the trees, the dirt and the bugs; virtually everything around her had a scent that was at once peculiar and familiar.

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, like someone turning off a faucet.

Already twilight was giving way to pitch darkness.

Annja felt relieved that she was at least off of the ground. Her friend in British special forces had once told her that staying off the floor in the jungle was paramount to surviving. At night, the jungle floor became a superhighway for every insect, rodent, reptile and creature that made its home in the jungle.

If Annja stayed on the ground, she would be bitten by thousands of things that she’d be better off avoiding.

The best shelter she could take was up in the trees.

She wondered if there were pumas in the jungles of the Philippines. She didn’t think so. Or, at least, she hoped there weren’t.

But what about snakes?

Annja worked her way around until her back was settled comfortably in the crook of the tree. I can’t think about that now, she decided. I just have to try to endure this for as long as it takes for me to get out of here alive.

And when she did, she’d make it her business to tell everyone about Agamemnon and his merry band of terrorist scumbags.

Annja awoke to gunfire. A single shot at first. Then she counted off a series of semiautomatic shots followed by intermittent automatic gun blasts. From the sound of it, there was a bit of a pitched battle going on some distance away.

Annja peered out into the darkness, which seemed as thick as the air itself. All around her, the jungle croaked, buzzed and whined with the calls of animals out on their nocturnal forays. Annja’s muddy mosquito repellent seemed to have done its job at least somewhat. There were still squadrons of buzzing mosquitoes about her head, but they didn’t seem able to penetrate the thick cover of her muddy hair.

At least there’s a chance I won’t get malaria, she thought with a grin.

The gunfire stopped. But the animals of the jungle simply carried on. Annja frowned. They should have quieted as soon as the bullets started flying, but they didn’t. That meant they must be used to the violence that sometimes erupted in this part of the Philippines.

Wherever this part was, exactly.

Annja stretched and tried to work a kink out of her back. It was going to be tough finding any degree of comfort in a place like this. She closed her eyes and imagined what it would feel like to sink into a tub of hot steamy bubbles, lounging for hours until every one of her pores had given up the very last remnants of the jungle mud and grime.

She almost moaned but stopped herself. The jungle around her might still contain a few surprises. For all she knew, Agamemnon might have told his men to fire their guns in the hope Annja would run in the opposite direction. Right into his waiting arms.

Fat chance, jack, she thought. She’d been around the block a few times and knew how things worked. And she was most definitely not interested in the prospect of losing her head to some megalomaniac.

She relaxed her breathing and her muscles. She knew she needed a lot of rest if she was going to try to get out of here in the morning. Her plan was simple. She’d get up at first light and cover as much ground as possible.

If she could find a small river, she’d follow it downstream until it merged with a bigger river and then that would eventually run right out to the ocean. It was survival 101. Once she got to the coast, she’d be able to find someone who could help her.

She hoped.

The problem with Abu Sayyaf was that they had a lot of local support in the poorer areas of the Philippines. Many of the local villages and towns would readily give them money and supplies to help their cause.

That meant Annja might find herself being handed right back to Agamemnon.

She’d have to proceed carefully.

Still, her plan seemed sound. Find the water and follow it. Simple and easy. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew there was a good chance that Agamemnon would position a lot of his men along the riverbanks in the hopes that Annja would do exactly that.

But what choice do I have? she wondered. There’s no way I’ll find my way out of here unless I use the water.

With that in mind, she felt herself drift off into a light sleep. She woke every hour or so, shifted position and then dozed off again, only to awaken roughly hours later when it was still quite dark.

“Ugh.”

She sighed and shifted position. For some reason, she felt uneasy. More so than she had when she’d first run into the jungle.

She peered over the edge of the tree and searched the darkness. There was little ambient light to use, so Annja couldn’t make out very much detail with her eyes, even when she peered at things using her peripheral vision.