The Taste of Fear (32 page)
The last time she’d felt this lost, this scared and miserable, had been the day the woman from Child Services had come to her school to tell her that her mother wasn’t going to be picking her up that day—or any day ever again (she would learn years later her mother had been hanging by an electrical cord from the backyard swing set that afternoon). Only then, twenty-four years ago, Scarlett had a child’s resilience, a child’s amazing ability to forget and move on. Now, well, now she didn’t think she’d ever be able to forget what happened. How could she? Against her will images of Sal’s mutilated body jumped to the forefront of her mind, cutting cruelly through the out-of-body unreality she’d been floating through since his death.
I’ll never see you in one of your William Fioravanti suits again, she thought, knowing she shouldn’t be going down this road but unable to stop herself. Never tease you about looking like a gangster. Never see the excitement and pride in your eyes when you spoke about your hotels.
How insignificant the brief affair seemed now in light of everything else.
When they eventually left the rainforest for the secondary jungle, they didn’t find the path they’d come in on, and Danny was forced to use the machete to carve a new route through the tropical vegetation. Just as Scarlett was beginning to think they were hopelessly lost, they came upon the river in which she’d almost been swept away.
“Thank God!” she blurted. “This means we’re only twenty, maybe thirty minutes away from the main river.”
“Good,” Danny said. “It gets dark fast at the equator. We don’t have much light left.”
Fitzgerald, who hadn’t said a word since they’d left the ruins, forded the stream first. Danny went next. Thunder took Scarlett’s hand and they followed together, wading through the chest-deep water. By the time they climbed out on the far bank, Thunder was huffing for breath.
“You okay?” she asked him. She knew he was still suffering from whatever ailment had afflicted him. “Do you need to rest?”
“I’m all right.”
She glanced at the welt on his wrist.
“I’ve been bitten by a funnel-web back home,” he explained. “Never a widow before.”
She was shocked. A black widow? She’d found a few in her garden back in LA, and she’d always killed them on sight. Their venom might rarely be fatal, but the symptoms from a bite could become severe if untreated.
“Walked right into its web yesterday while, pardon the slang, hanging a piss.”
“You’re sure that’s what it was, a black widow?”
“Nah. Brown widow. Venom’s twice as poisonous.”
“You said you didn’t know what it was.”
He shrugged, appearing both boyish and bashful. “Guess I didn’t want to worry anybody.”
They almost bumped into the back of Danny before they realized he’d stopped.
“What is it?” Scarlett asked.
“Ask him.” Danny nodded at the Irishman.
“Well?” she demanded.
Fitzgerald looked at her. His face was pale and expressionless. “We’re being followed,” he said simply.
Scarlett’s blood turned to ice. She glanced fearfully about. She couldn’t see anything except gloomy shades of greens and grays.
“More rebels?” Thunder asked.
Fitzgerald shook his head. “A leopard—and a big one at that. I saw its tracks coming in.”
“Did you see it?” Scarlett asked Danny.
“No. I was watching him”—he tipped his head at the Irishman—“not the forest.”
“I reckon it’s just curious,” Thunder said.
“Leopards are opportunistic hunters,” Fitzgerald said. “They’ll eat anything. Moths or crocs, it doesn’t matter. If it thinks it can take us down, it’ll try.”
“We’re not far from the river now,” Scarlett said. “Let’s just keep moving.”
They agreed and pressed on. Scarlett found herself wishing she hadn’t left the AK-47 behind. But it had seemed rather redundant considering Danny’s machine gun looked like it could take down an elephant. Thunder, too, had brought no weapon, saying he’d felt too weak to carry one.
Danny stopped again. He pressed a finger to his lips and pointed silently. At first Scarlett didn’t see anything, then she made out a black shape slightly darker than the background of shadowy foliage. It gradually resolved itself into the shoulder and long abdomen of a large animal.
Moments later it shifted and was gone.
“That wasn’t a leopard,” Scarlett said softly. “It was completely black.”
“It’s called a melanistic leopard, lass,” Fitzgerald told her.
“What does that mean?”
“Melanism is a genetic mutation, the opposite of albinism, a selective advantage for survival in dark rainforests. It’s also called a black panther.”
“Great,” she said cynically. “But why is it following us?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Fitzgerald said without mirth. “It’s hungry.”
A branch snapped ahead of them. Danny shoved Fitzgerald to his knees so he couldn’t make a break for it, then swung the machine gun toward the noise.
“Will that stop it?” Scarlett asked.
“It’ll pulverize it,” Danny said. “But I think all it needs is a little warning shot. Cover your ears, if you want.” He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Frowning, he checked a plastic box attached to the underside of the weapon, which contained a linked belt of green-tipped brass cartridges. He swore. “Feed tray’s mangled. It must have happened during the crash.”
Fitzgerald laughed. Scarlett’s jaw dropped.
“It doesn’t work?” she said.
“No.”
“Can you fix it?”
He never had time to answer. The leopard finally abandoned stealth and burst from the bush. It was a low dark blur, nothing but yellow eyes and white teeth and pink tongue. Scarlett grabbed Danny’s arm to the left and Thunder’s to the right. The Irishman remained on his knees in front of them.
“Don’t run!” she shouted, thinking wildly of what Cooper had told her back in the Serengeti. “Whatever you do, don’t run!”
The leopard didn’t slow.
She felt both Danny and Thunder stiffen beneath her grip.
“Trust me! Don’t—”
Danny broke away and ran. The leopard swerved from its course and plunged into the woods behind him.
Chapter 39
Danny knew he shouldn’t have run.
Nevertheless, some wild, primal urge had overwhelmed him, and his legs were moving before he could think better of it. Now he heard a crashing sound behind him: the leopard, following its hunting instincts to pursue the fleeing prey.
Danny had only gone about ten or fifteen meters when he felt two paws on his back, dragging him to the ground. He managed another few steps, but the leopard was too heavy, and his legs collapsed beneath him. He dropped the machete.
A fiery heat spread through his left leg. He flipped onto his back and saw the leopard had seized his calf between its jaws. Its sharp claws mauled his upper legs. He shook and twisted, but the cat was too strong. His struggling did nothing to free himself. Crying out in pain as the claws continued to shred his flesh, he brought his free leg back so his knee was almost touching his chest, then he kicked forward, landing the rubber heel of his boot square to the leopard’s sensitive snout. The leopard made a furious hiss and released his leg.
The victory, however, was short-lived. Even as he shoved himself backward and away, the cat lunged for his throat. He threw up his right arm in time, and instead of tearing out his throat, the leopard now had his forearm in its vice-like jaws. It shook its head back and forth with such power Danny feared it was tearing his arm right out of his shoulder socket.
Desperate, he smashed the cat across the side of the head with his free hand. The leopard didn’t let go. He smashed it again and again. It still didn’t let go. Finally, with his strength failing, Danny formed a claw with his index and middle fingers and dug it into one of the leopard’s eyes. The beast went ballistic, making a noise like ice cubes being crushed in a blender. It released his forearm.
Instead of scrambling backward again, Danny rolled onto his knees, shoved himself to his feet, and started limping away. His injured leg could barely support his weight, and he knew he wouldn’t get far. His only hope was that the leopard had had enough—
Claws sank into his back, pulling him down once more. Stiletto-like fangs punctured the flesh surrounding Danny’s eyes. To his horror, he realized the leopard had his head in its mouth. He heard a low, hot growling next to his ear. A dreaminess washed over him, replacing the agonizing pain and terror and filling him with a sense of tranquility—and distantly Danny realized there was one positive to being eaten alive.
You didn’t feel a thing.
Chapter 40
Fitzgerald knew he was dying.
For the past hour or so he’d been pressing ahead through the difficult terrain on sheer willpower alone. The fight with the Israeli had taken away most of whatever strength remained after his interrogation in the chair. His legs continued to bleed profusely and were now surely infected. On top of that, the Australian’s tackle had broken at least two of his ribs, one of which had surely pierced a lung. His breathing had become wheezy and bubbly and he continued to hawk up blood.
It seemed he now had two options. Remain where he was on the ground, close his eyes, and give up the good fight, drifting away quietly and peacefully. Or go out fighting.
He lumbered to his feet and started off in the direction the Israeli and melanistic leopard had gone.
“Stop!” Scarlett Cox yelled from behind him.
He ignored her and continued on, his eyes scanning the jungle floor to see whether the Israeli had dropped the machete in his panicked flight. With each step, more and more adrenaline flowed into his body, sweeping away his exhaustion and filling him with a final, much-needed reserve of strength.
He became acutely aware of every detail in the surrounding forest, every blade of grass brushing past his legs, every scent. He breathed in the peaty, mossy air, knowing it would be the last time he would experience the smell. That thought gave him a pang of regret. He had enjoyed his life immensely, and he didn’t want to die. Nevertheless, some things you simply had no control over. He understood that. And because he understood that, he accepted it.
Through the dense tangle of branches and bracken, he made out the black hide of the leopard. It was hunched over the prostrate form of Danny Zamir—at least what remained of Danny Zamir. The man’s legs were bent at ugly angles. His stomach was torn open. The leopard had its snout in the soup of intestines. It tugged its head upward, pulling out a mouthful of stringy pink guts.
Six meters away the machete glinted silver on the dark scrub-covered forest floor. It was equal distance between Fitzgerald and the leopard.
Out on the African savannah, you could never sneak up on a leopard that had just made a recent kill. They remained extremely vigilant, knowing lions and hyenas would be close by, looking to steal the hard-earned meal. But here, in the jungle, the leopard was king. There was no other carnivore large enough to threaten it.
Fitzgerald crept forward, slowly and softly, making sure there were no sticks or twigs underfoot that might crack before stepping down with his full weight. The leopard remained unaware as it feasted on the Israeli. A dozen or so steps later he reached the machete. He squatted until his bound hands gripped the weapon. He rose again, sawing the rope that secured his wrists. The final twines parted with an audible snap.
The leopard glanced back over its shoulder and blinked at him with a very human-like twitch of surprise. For three very long seconds it stared silently, snout and whiskers coated with blood. Then it curled back its lips and snarled, showing a flash of tongue and yellow fangs.
Fitzgerald planted his feet firmly in a fighting stance and turned his strongest side, his left side, forward, keeping his chest and hips at a ninety-degree angle to the leopard. He pressed his right elbow and arm against his side, to protect his ribcage, while bringing his left arm in front of his body, protecting his chest and abdomen. The blade of the machete hovered inches from his chin. He had never felt as alive as he did right then, facing down the formidable predator with nothing but an edged weapon. The knowledge of his inevitable death no longer caused him regret; it flooded him with an ecstasy that bordered on enlightenment. Every nerve ending buzzed with macabre excitement.
“Come on, kitty,” he snarled. “Come and get me.”
The black leopard charged, coming fast and hard at him on its short legs. He held his ground. The leopard leapt. At the very last second Fitzgerald ducked and spun, bringing the machete around in a semicircle. He swiped air. The leopard had been too quick, sailing past him, unharmed. He whirled to face the cat, which had landed on its feet. It was now padding back and forth, never taking its yellow eyes off him.
A grin split Fitzgerald’s face. “Not your average monkey, am I?” he said, his voice barely more than a dangerous rasp.
Monkeys—baboons especially—were the leopards’ main prey, and leopards knew exactly how to take down a primate. They lunged for the head or throat and, if finding purchase with their fangs, kicked down with their hind legs, tearing open the victim’s belly. Knowing this, Fitzgerald had anticipated the first attack and had been able to dodge it easily enough. But now the leopard knew he was aware of its MO, and it likely wouldn’t try the same approach twice.