Stephen Leather - Breakout

He covered the distance between himself and the sicario in two strides, and smashed the butt of the pistol down on to the man’s skull. He brought it down with such force that the plastic covering the metal frame of the butt split in two, but it did even greater damage to the sicario. The butt of the gun punched right through his skull, sinking an inch into his brain. He went into spasm, his heels drumming on the road surface, but Harper made sure, battering him again with the gun-butt. He then grabbed him by the shoulders as he slumped, stone dead, and pulled him back over the crash barrier and sent him tumbling down the embankment.

The man’s rifle slipped from his hands and fell into the river, and after a swift glance up and down the road to make sure he had not been observed, Harper slid back down the embankment after him. He crouched alongside the body and went through his pockets, finding a half-eaten chocolate bar in one of them but nothing else that was useful. He took the chocolate bar but ignored the billfold with a few Bolivianos in it. He stood up, looking and listening intently for a few moments, then lifted the sicario’s body and threw it into the water after his rifle.

The body drifted out into the river, but was then caught in an eddy for a few moments, circling slowly and Harper was about to strip off and plunge in to push it into deeper water when the current at last caught it and it was carried away downstream.

Harper ran back to where Scouse was waiting and first divided the chocolate bar between them, giving most of it to Scouse. ‘Eat that,’ he said, ‘it’ll give you a little energy boost, and then we need to get moving before anyone finds that guy or realises he’s gone missing. We don’t have time to do counter-surveillance up and down the river bank to make sure they haven’t posted anyone else to keep watch on this stretch, so we’ll just have to chance it on the river crossing. Right, we need to strip off again. If you like, I’ll carry your bundle of clothes as well as mine this time and then you can wait till I’m over and just swim across after me.’

‘Great idea, Lex,’ Scouse said. ‘Just one problem: I can’t swim.’

‘Then you’d best get wading and hope it isn’t too deep in the middle. Don’t worry,’ he said, as he saw the panic in Scouse’s eyes. ‘I haven’t got any water-wings, I’m afraid, but I’ll wade alongside you and help you if you get out of your depth. But if you slip and go under, for fuck’s sake don’t panic and start thrashing around or you’ll probably drown and even worse than that, my clothes’ll get wet.’

‘You’re all heart, Lex, you know that?’ Scouse said, trying and failing to smile.

Before he stripped off, Harper went to the water’s edge and swept both banks of the river with his gaze, trying to look through the foliage rather than at it, searching for an outline or unexpected shape behind it that might give away the presence of an enemy.

‘It looks clear,’ he said eventually, ‘but the only way to be sure is to get in the river and find out. Let’s go.’

He stripped off his clothes and wrapped the Colt inside the bundle. Then, picking up Scouse’s bundle as well, he carried them on his head as he walked down to the water’s edge, waiting for Scouse to join him before stepping into the water. ‘You’d better go on the upstream side, Scouse, and then if you fall, I can catch you as the current sweeps you past me.’

Scouse was now past speaking, staring at the river with the expression of a man who was expecting to find it infested with crocodiles or piranhas, but he edged into the water after Harper. The rocks and pebbles were slimy and slippery underfoot and after the crawl through the freezing culvert, the temperature of the water was an even icier shock to the system. They moved slowly out towards the middle of the river while the water rose up to their chests and then their necks. ‘Relax,’ Harper said, seeing Scouse’s wide-eyed look. ‘We’re in the middle now, it’s not going to get any worse.’

The words were barely out of his mouth, when Scouse took another step forward, lost his footing in a hollow in the river bed and disappeared beneath the surface. He came up again, coughing and gasping, his arms flailing and panic etched on his face.

Still trying to keep a grip on the bundles of clothes on his head with one hand, Harper grabbed Scouse by the only thing he could get a grip on: his hair. ‘Stop panicking, and keep the bloody noise down,’ he said. ‘If there’s anyone within half a mile of here they’re going to hear you splashing around. I’m still standing on the river bed so if you calm down, move a little more towards me and put your feet down instead of kicking out in all directions, you’ll be able to stand up again.’

He waited until Scouse had stopped panicking before releasing his grip on his hair. ‘Right, take a couple of deep breaths and then let’s get out of this sodding river before we both freeze to death.’

Half-guiding and half-dragging Scouse behind him, he struck out for the opposite bank and within a few strides, the water level had dropped back down to their chests and then their waists.

‘Sorry about that, Lex,’ Scouse said, when they were once more on dry land, rubbing themselves down and struggling back into their clothes. ‘I’m never good in water.’

Harper smiled despite himself. ‘They really broke the mould when they made you, Scouse, didn’t they? We’re trying to cross some of the most mountainous and unforgiving terrain on the planet, with virtually no food and not much water being pursued by a bunch of psychotic sicarios with the blood of hundreds of people on their hands, whose only thought is to torture and kill us, and yet you’re worried about drowning in a river that doesn’t even come up to your chin!’ He even won a smile from Scouse at that.‘Right,’ Harper said. ‘We’re very far from safe here, so let’s get going.’

CHAPTER 21

Harper made a quick study of the map to refresh his memory and then pointed up the side of the valley towards the shoulder of the ridge high above them. ‘Once we get over that ridge, we’ll be in the right place. Let’s go.’

He set off at a steady pace, his relentless stride eating up the ground, but once more Scouse was soon struggling and dropping behind. Harper couldn’t bollock him, because he knew Scouse was moving as fast as he could, so he slowed his own pace to match, but he kept casting anxious glances behind them as they moved up towards the shoulder of the ridge at what now felt like a pace that could see tortoises overtaking them.

They were still exposed on the slopes, well below the ridge, when he saw one of the Landcruisers moving along the road in the valley bottom behind them. It came to a stop at the point where Harper had killed the look-out and he saw two figures emerge from the vehicle and begin walking up and down the road. They were out of earshot, but he could imagine that they were shouting to their missing comrade. They wouldn’t find him, of course, but his absence would tell them that something was wrong and if they began to use binoculars to sweep the mountainside, they would almost certainly spot Harper and Scouse, for there was little cover on the steep slopes they were crossing.

Movement was always more visible than stillness, however, so he said ‘Drop and keep still’, and did the same himself, lying in a position where he could keep watch below them. The two men eventually abandoned the search for the look-out and returned to the Landcruiser, but they did not drive off and remained standing by it. A couple of minutes later, Harper saw a momentary glint of light as the sun reflected from the binoculars one of the men was using. They remained there for another ten minutes, scanning the valley walls on both sides of the river, and then the two men suddenly jumped into the Landcruiser and set off with such speed that Harper saw a puff of smoke from the tyres as they accelerated away.