Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2) (14 page)

They are the heads of the guides we discovered crucified last
evening.

They’ve been set side by side directly before us in a way
that tells me we’re not only being watched from our front, but we’re also being
followed. How else would they know enough to plant the heads here way
off-trail?

“Nobody move,” I say, my eyes going from the heads to making
a one-hundred-eighty-degree sweep of the vicinity.

“Fucking animals,” Rodney says, shouldering his AR-15.
“Fucking…animals.”

“How can anyone be so evil?” Leslie poses, her voice
cracking under the strain of her fear.

Silence ensues so that the only noise is the sound of
insects flying past our ears and the occasional calls from a Macau or a spider
monkey jumping from branch to branch far overhead.

But after a minute of standing still as a statue, I begin to
make out something else.

So does Rodney.

“You hear that?” he says.

“I hear it,” I say, slowly drawing my automatic, cocking a
round into the chamber.

The sound that is filling my ears sounds almost like a
stampede. Only not of hooves, but of human feet.

“Christ,” Rodney says. “It’s another war party.”

“Hold your fire and get down,” I demand, pulling Leslie down
beside me by her belt buckle.

The sound of footsteps trampling through the woods is
getting louder. Now it’s accompanied by shrieks. Rodney aims his weapon at the
source of the noise.

“Hold your fire,” I repeat. “Those aren’t war cries, Rodney.
Those are cries of fear.”

He holds his fire.

That’s when we see the first man. He’s running not at us,
but toward us. Another native follows him and another one after that. Soon a
half dozen nearly naked unarmed men sprint right on past us, screaming their
lungs out.

When they’re gone, we rise back up onto our feet.

“What the hell was that?” Leslie says.

“They’re afraid of something,” I say. “Something out there
in the jungle.”

“They are afraid of what you came here to find,” says the
voice of a man who pops his head out of the bush. “The aircraft that you are
going to find for us.”

The mechanical gunmetal on gunmetal sound of two AK-47s
being cocked follows as two rebels emerge from out of the jungle.

They are the men I originally spotted at the landing strip in
the Sacred Valley. The men who, no doubt, are responsible for crucifying and
now beheading our guides. They approach us with their AK-47s held at the hip,
at the ready.

“Your weapons, gentlemen,” says the lead man in a heavily
accented voice. He’s tall, thin, wearing worn jeans, cowboy boots, and a jean
jacket over a worn work shirt. He’s got a straw cowboy hat that’s seen better
days planted over a head of stringy black hair while his face sports a matching
beard that doesn’t know if it’s coming or going.

He makes his way to Leslie, reaches out with his free hand,
runs it under her felt hat, flipping it off her head. The hat falls down
against her back, its string catching on her neck. From where I’m standing, I
can see her eyes go wide as he caresses her hair. I see her body go stiff and
cold.

The other man is shorter, chubbier. He’s wearing military
clothing. Combat boots, green fatigues, and matching jacket, with an olive
green baseball hat to match. He’s clean shaven, and beneath his chin he sports
a bright red bandanna that, if I remember correctly, represents the official
color of their terrorist organization.

“Weapons!” he shouts. “Or the woman’s brain becomes home to
a bullet.”

Rodney and I toss a glance at one another. Reaching into my
bush jacket, I slowly draw my piece by its barrel so that the grip faces the
bandits.

“Drop it,” says Military Man.

I drop it.

“You too,” he insists, dark eyes now focused on Rodney.

Rodney slowly pulls the AR-15 off his shoulder, drops it at
his feet.

“Fuck you,” the angry big man whispers.

“Excuse me, gringo?” Military Man barks, shouldering his
AK-47, aiming the barrel for Rodney’s head, point-blank.

Rodney raises his hands in surrender.

“I said ahhhcchooo,” he smiles. “All this vegetation makes
me sneeze, compadre.”

“I am not your compadre, gringo,” Military Man hisses, as he
gathers up our weapons while maintaining his lethal aim on both Rodney and
myself. Obviously, he’s a pro at this sort of thing.

As Military Man backs away, Long Hair removes his hand from
Leslie’s hair and steps toward me.

“You are the leader, huh?” he says in a deep, throaty voice.

“The buck stops here, asshole,” I say, not without a grin.

“Such language,” he says, inverting his weapon so that the
wood stock faces me. “You should learn better manners. Your life may depend
upon it.”

When he jams the stock into my stomach, I double over from
the sharp abdominal pain and from the sudden loss of air in my lungs. But I
don’t drop to my knees. Chase the proud and the strong.

It’s a struggle, but I manage to straighten myself slowly
back up.

“Chase, say something,” Leslie says, panic painting her
voice. “Are you okay?”

“Silence,
perra
,” shouts Long Hair while shooting
Leslie a look. Then, turning back to me, “We will make a deal now, Chase
Baker.”

“You know my name?”

“Yes, I know all about you. You are quite the famous
Renaissance man, are you not?”

I force myself to grin, despite an abdomen screaming with
pain. “Thanks…I try.”

He taps his temple with his index finger. “But you are not
always so smart. People in organizations talk, and my hearing is perfect.”

“You saying there’s a mole in my boss’s organization?”
Rodney chimes in.

Long Hair turns to the big man.

“Let’s just say your Mr. Keogh could use a security upgrade.
But enough of this useless small talk. We all want the same thing and you’re
going to lead me to it.”

I could play dumb here and pretend I don’t know what Long
Hair and Military Man want, but that would only make them more pissed off. And
pissing off revolutionary terrorists who are holding locked and loaded AK-47s
is probably not the best idea in the world.

“You have a map?” Long Hair poses.

I nod.

“Sure, I’ve got a map. It’s right here in my chest pocket.”

“Fuck you doing?” Rodney whispers in my direction.

“Trust me,” I say. Then, to Long Hair. “Would you like to
see it?”

“Yes,” he says, “I would.”

Lowering my left hand, I pull the map out and toss it at his
feet. Keeping his eyes on me, he squats, picks the map up, unfolding it with
one hand. When he glances down at it, his eyes light up.

“This is it, Juan,” he cries. “This is the way to the
aircraft. In a matter of hours, the world will stand still in shock over our
discovery, and they will fear us.”

“Now that we have the map, Pedro,” Juan/Military Man says,
“shall we shoot the gringos?”

“Bad idea,” I say.

“Why is it a bad idea?” Pedro giggles. “You are worthless to
me now.”

“The map doesn’t tell you everything.”

He squints at me. “How do you mean, everything?”

“What isn’t written down are the many booby traps and
obstacles that will not only prevent you from entering into the cave more than ten
feet, they will terminate your life in a most painful way. Trust me, I did my
research.”

“You are bluffing, of course.”

“Okay, I’m bluffing. Go ahead. Take your chances.”

Rodney lowers his hands.

“Hey, you need someone to fly the damned thing, right?” he
says.

The long-haired Pedro shoots a glance at Military Man Juan.

“
¿Qué te parece?
” he says. “What do you think?”

Stepping up to Leslie, rubbing her back with his hand, Juan
says, “They lead us to the aircraft. We keep them alive for as long as we need them.”
He grins, revealing brown, crooked teeth. “That includes this luscious little
lady. She will come in handy later on when we enjoy a drink or two, and a
smoke.”

Leslie locks eyes on me. I wink at her like,
Try not to
worry.

“Okay then,” Pedro shouts, while waving the barrel of his
weapon at us. “The big negro man cuts away the vegetation while you and the
perra
follow. Understand?”

“I understand,” I say.

“
Vamos!
” demands the revolutionary.

Prisoners of the unknown, we walk.

The hiking is getting harder, the angle of the climb steeper.
The vegetation is also getting thicker so that the machete-swinging Rodney is
soaked with sweat after only an hour of bushwhacking. I try to get a look at
Leslie, who is walking so close behind me I can almost feel her hot breath on
my neck. I know she needs water. We all need water. But the bandits want
nothing to do with keeping us hydrated. They want us to show them the way to
the mountain, but they also want to keep us as weak as possible. It’s standard
operating procedure for a revolutionary band like Tupac, just as it was for
Castro’s bandits many decades ago.

I always chuckle to myself when I see some kid walking the
streets of Manhattan or Florence wearing a mayday-red T-shirt that bears the
black-stenciled image of a beret-wearing Che Guevara, the bearded
revolutionary’s black eyes poised upwards at the heavens. These days
The
Motorcycle Diaries
author is supposed to be cool, but what most people
don’t know is the former medical student’s penchant for torturing his prisoners
and bleeding them to near death in order to build up his own blood bank.
Revolution is a bloody business. Che could have told you all about it. So could
Pedro and Juan.

I can’t see them exactly, but I sense them behind me. Sense
their guns. They’re laughing, and speaking rapidly in Spanish so that it’s
difficult for me to understand. I’m somewhat fluent in Italian since I spend
almost half my time in Florence, and the language is not all that different
from Spanish. But when it is spoken too quickly, I am easily lost.

One thing I know for sure, however: If Rodney, Leslie, and I
can stay healthy long enough, I will find a way to kill these men. Exactly how
remains a mystery. But this is the jungle and the jungle poses many dangers.
The key will be to capitalize on just one of them.

We walk for another hour.

“I need to stop,” Leslie whispers from behind. “I can’t go
on.”

“Are you sure?” I say, surprised to find my own voice a
hoarse whisper.

Rodney must be able to make out our conversation, because he
stops swinging at the vegetation, which earns him the ire of long-haired Pedro.

“Hey you,
stupido
!” the rebel shouts, running uphill
toward us with his AK-47 out front. “Why you stop?”

“We need rest and water,” Rodney says, his hand clutching
the machete, the long metallic blade bouncing gently off his khaki-covered
knee.

“He’s right,” I say, feeling the sweat pouring off my body.
“We need water. Especially the woman.”

Military Man Juan comes up on us.

“We keep moving,” he insists. “No stopping.”

“The ladies want water,” Pedro mocks. “Isn’t that right,
ladies?”

“Sure,” I nod. “Whatever you say,
jefe
.”

Pedro pokes the gun barrel in my gut—a gut that’s still sore
from the gun butt he jammed in it not too long ago.

“You call me, boss, huh?” he says. “I like it when you call
me boss. Let me show you what your boss is capable of, gringo.” Raising his
weapon, he takes aim at Rodney, fires, hits him square in the chest. Then,
turning fast, he grabs Leslie by the head of her hair. He shoves her down to
the ground, pulls her T-shirt up and over her breasts, yanking her bra off with
it. Stuffing his face into her face, he tries to kiss her.

“Stop, you son of a bitch!” I shout.

That’s when Military Man Juan raises up his AK-47, triggers
a bullet that whizzes past my head like a hornet.

To the left of me, Rodney is struggling to stay alive, a
small geyser of arterial blood pouring forth from the center of his chest. To
my right, Military Man Juan is aiming the black barrel of his assault weapon at
my head while hungrily watching his partner commit rape. Directly before me,
Leslie is on her back, struggling to stave off Pedro’s bearded face and hands.

“Give it to her,” Juan chants, the smile on his face wide
and beaming. “Give it to her and then I give it to her.”

Leslie lifts her head, opens her mouth, and chomps down on
Pedro’s bottom lip. The lip explodes in blood. Pedro screams, raises his right
hand high, and brings it swiftly down, slapping Leslie hard. She lets loose
with a high-pitched scream that rattles my bones. Then she spits in his face.
Once more raising his right hand while holding her to the jungle floor with his
left, he makes a tight fist which he uses to punch her square in the face.

“I’m going to kill you for this!” Leslie shouts.

My heart beating in my throat, I am helpless to do anything
about it.

Or am I?

Out the corner of my left eye, I spot Rodney’s machete. It’s
lying in the grass only a few feet to the left of me. With Pedro entirely occupied
and Juan absorbed in the action, it might be possible to shift myself to the
left. I don’t hesitate to do it. Sliding my booted feet on the damp grass, I
inch my way toward the machete. Juan might be aiming the gun at me, but thus
far he has no idea what I’m doing. It takes maybe thirty seconds for me to
cover the few feet to the blade, but I manage it without drawing the attention
of either two bandits.

I drop down onto my belly, reach out, grab hold of the
blade’s grip.

Juan turns to me.

“Stupid fucking gringo!” he snaps, shouldering his weapon,
firing off a burst that hits the ground only a half inch before my head,
sending dirt flying up into my face.

Pulling myself up to my knees, I bark, “Leslie!”

Then I toss the blade into the earth directly beside her
right hand. As if anticipating my every move, she grabs the machete grip with
her right hand, yanks it out of the ground, swings the blade against Pedro’s
left elbow. The blade impales itself halfway into his arm, causing him to
shriek like a monkey while jerking his torso up and off of Leslie. She pulls
the blade out of his elbow and swings it again, taking his left hand clean off
at the wrist.

Military Man Juan fires at me again, but the bullets shoot
wildly into the trees. He makes the mistake of pouncing on Leslie, while a
crying and screaming Pedro rolls off of her onto his back, his nub of an arm
spurting dark arterial blood like a fire hose. Juan lifts the stock of his
rifle and brings it down towards the center of Leslie’s forehead. But she
manages to shift at precisely the right moment, the butt landing instead into
the soft earth.

“Eat this, asshole!” Leslie barks, as she whips the blade
across the base of Juan’s neck. The blade impales itself into the meat, bone,
and cartilage, until the furious Leslie pulls it back out and swings once more,
severing his head entirely. Leaning herself up onto her left elbow, she stares
down into the still alive face on the amputated head. Juan is trying to speak,
his dark eyes bulging and wide and fully aware that he’s been decapitated. With
a smile on her face, she puckers her lips, and as a final gesture of her
disgust for the Tupac revolutionaries, spits in his eyes.

I crab my way over to Leslie.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m good,” she says. “Watch out for asshole number two.”

Locking eyes onto Pedro, I see him turn onto his stomach.
He’s crawling away from us on an empty patch of brown earth. Raising himself up
awkwardly onto his feet, he tries to run away. But something stops him dead. He
turns to us, his stub gripped in his right hand, the blood still spilling out.
It’s not hard to see that he is sinking. The area of brown earth he’s stepped
into isn’t stable soil.

It’s quicksand.

By the looks of it, clay quicksand, which is not uncommon
for this part of the jungle. The look on Pedro’s scraggily bearded face is one
of horror and shock.

Eyes wide, he pleads, “Help me! Please!”

Leslie turns to me.

“Should we shoot him?”

I glance back at him just as his legs disappear.

“What the hell,” I say.

Taking hold of Juan’s AK-47, I plant a bead on him. I’m just
about to fire a life-ending burst into him when something extraordinary
happens. I make out a large commotion in the vegetation as a jaguar jumps out,
impaling its fang-filled jaws into Pedro’s neck. The rebel’s screams are muted
as the cat’s long teeth enter into his neck, piercing his voice box. The
five-foot-long, muscular, black-spots-on-gold-furred cat must have smelled his
blood. The cat somehow manages to yank him out of the quicksand without sinking
into it herself. The last vision we have of Pedro the revolutionary is of his
being dragged off into the brush, his wide black eyes locked onto us the entire
way.

Dropping the AK-47, I roll onto my back beside Leslie.

“There’s gotta be an easier way of doing book research,” I
say.