Jamie Freveletti - Running from the Devil

Sumner lowered his head to the tent floor and closed his eyes. Within minutes he was sleeping again.

Three hours later, Emma ate a cattail and stared at the last food carton. The final filet. Sumner sat against a tree, munching on his own cattail and two baby carrots, which was the sum total of his lunch and dinner.

“You’re El Chupacabra,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The sentries kept running back into the camp with various wounds and babbling that they’d been attacked by ‘El Chupacabra.’”

“What is an El Chupacabra?” Emma could barely pronounce the word.

“A mythical being that is routinely sighted in Mexico, Texas, and South America, but is never caught. Kind of like the Big Foot sightings. El Chupacabra has green skin, is scaly, and its long claws and teeth can rip livestock apart. It sucks the blood from its prey.”

Emma shook with laughter. “Oh my God, that sentry I speared thought I was a green beast with scales?”

“Don’t laugh. When you burst out of the trees covered in mud and shrieking, you even had me thinking that you were a beast.”

“I don’t know who was more frightened, him or me.”

“They are drug addicts and ignorant peasants. I imagine in the dark, and through a hashish-induced haze, you could be mistaken for a beast.”

“And here I thought he was racing back to the camp to tell everyone that a passenger had escaped. I expected a posse to come after me every minute.”

“No, but I’ll bet the posse is coming now. The guerrilla leader told his soldiers to take me out and kill me on the trail. He wants me dead, and he won’t rest until I am.”

“Is that the skinny one? I call him Rat Face.”

Sumner snorted. “Good name. His actual name is Luis Rodrigo.”

“Do you two know each other?”

“Not before the crash, no. But in my job I had to learn the names and techniques of most of the better-known paramilitary organizations in Colombia. Rodrigo’s was mentioned as a particularly vicious, loose affiliation of maniacs. From what I saw, the reputation is deserved.”

Emma fought against the depression that was settling over her.

“I left the clothes drying in the sun. I’ll go get them.”

She left the tent and headed to the stream. On her way, she passed some jimsonweed, a common plant that grows in abundance in the jungle. The trumpet-shaped white flowers made the bush look beautiful against the green leaves. Emma ignored the flowers, however, and collected the spiny seedpods. She shoved several into her cargo pants pockets.

The clothes had dried, thanks to the hot sun and the added reflective abilities of the silver sheet. Emma held them to her cheek, relishing the dry warmth. She grabbed everything and turned back. She heard the sound of engines somewhere close. She jogged up a small rise and looked down.

A Range Rover sat at the side of the road that ran along the trail. Two men stepped out. They wore cargo pants tucked into steel-toed boots. The first man wore a shirt with the words LOUISIANA STATE on it. The second man sauntered to the back of the Rover, flung open the hatch. Two bloodhounds jumped down. They ran in circles, happy to be released. One relieved himself on the Range Rover’s tire. The men slung packs over their backs and added assault weapons on their shoulders.

“Hotter than a bitch here, ain’t it?” the second man said.

The first shrugged. “Like Louisiana. Used to it. Got the scent?” His voice carried to Emma. He spoke with a drawl that wasn’t quite southern.

The second man nodded. He reached back into the Range Rover and retrieved a piece of white cotton with a name embroidered in blue stitching on the pocket. He balled it in his fist and shoved it under the dogs’ noses. Emma recognized the cotton.

It was her lab coat.

She shot back on the trail, running for all she was worth. When she got to the camp, Sumner was standing in the clearing, stark naked, holding a rifle. He looked like a feral man. He put a finger to his lips and waved at the trail behind them. Emma listened. Between the scratching of insects and the twittering of the birds came a chopping sound.

“Jesus, they’re close.”

Sumner nodded.

“But they’re not our worst problem.” The sound of barking dogs drifted toward them. Sumner frowned.

“What the hell is that?”

“They’re bloodhounds, and they’re after me.”

Sumner raised an eyebrow. “Care to fill me in?”

Emma shoved the clean clothes at him. “I was headed to Colombia to accomplish a specific goal. Somebody must want to stop me. I don’t want to say more. The less you know, the better for you if they catch us.”

Sumner took the clothes and dressed in silence. He paused for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to speak. The baying hounds echoed through the jungle. He shook his head.

“I’ve got a maniac after me, and you have bloodhounds after you. We’re quite a pair. Let’s get out of here,” he said.

They collapsed the tent. Emma slung it onto her back. They hit the trail. Emma ran like she’d never run before. Sumner stayed with her, moving with surprising agility for someone so newly recovered. The hounds bayed behind them. Emma now knew what a fox felt like when it was hunted. The baying was loud, insistent, magnified by the jungle’s echo. The howls ignited an age-old, primitive fear in her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.

They ran until the night came. The baying quieted only once. Emma supposed the dogs were given a break. Sumner was drenched in sweat and stumbling after two hours. Emma braced him with her shoulder when it appeared he’d collapse.

Sumner’s fever returned that evening. He lay in the tent, barely moving.

“You pushed too hard, too soon,” Emma said. “We’ll stay put tomorrow so you can rest.”

“We can’t. They’ll be upon us by midday.” Sumner’s voice was a whisper.

“We’ll have to risk it.”

“No risk is worth them catching us. They’ll tear us to shreds.”

Emma didn’t reply. There was nothing to say.

25

BANNER KNEW THE DAY WAS SHOT WHEN HE HAD A CALL FROM Whitter at eight o’clock sharp. Whitter’s message was succinct. He expected to see Banner at 0830 hours in the war room. There was news.

Banner walked into a room filled with DOD personnel, various aides and interns of congressmen assigned to the endless committees that sprouted like weeds in Congress, and the secretary of defense, Carl Margate.

Banner considered Margate to be one of that breed of men who love all things military, but who never joined any military branch. They were the men who debated the Battle of Waterloo, who questioned the decisions of generals like MacArthur, but who did it from the safe distance of their leather chairs in their paneled libraries under the roofs of their quiet and restful mansions.

Margate was all these things, but took it one better, because not only did he imagine himself a brilliant strategist, but he hadn’t a shred of human decency. To him the soldiers enlisted to protect the country meant nothing more than the plastic toy soldiers he used to plot moves and countermoves. He didn’t care how many died as long as his political and personal agenda was met.

Banner took one look at Margate and he just knew that the man was going to lay a bomb on him. When everyone got seated, the secretary opened his mouth, and the explosion issued forth.

“We conveyed to the Colombian president that unless the passengers are freed in the next twenty-four hours, the United States will suspend aid to Colombia and demand the immediate extradition of all drug and paramilitary leaders suspected in the manufacture and import of cocaine into America.”

Banner glanced at Whitter. Whitter’s expression didn’t change, but Banner had spent quite a bit of time with him in these past few days, and he could tell that Whitter was shocked. Whitter’s face rarely froze.