Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2) (10 page)

We walk for another two uneventful, but tense, hours. The path
beneath our feet is widening while, at the same time, the tree-lined canopy
above our heads is getting taller and thicker, so that what’s left of the late
afternoon sun is almost completely blocked out, like an unexpected partial
eclipse. But then, just like that, the darkness is replaced with bright
sunlight as the canopy is suddenly broken by an unexpected opening in the
jungle.

Rodney stops, turns.

“You hear that?” he says, his voice soft but strong at the
same time.

I stop, listen.

I hear water. Water flowing. Taking another step forward I
confirm my suspicion. What lies before me is a deep gorge. At the bottom of the
gorge is a high, swift-moving river that’s filled with rapids. Leslie stands
beside me. Carlos’s video camera pressed to her shoulder, she’s filming the
river.

Rodney adjusts the Giants baseball cap on his head, catcher
style, so the brim goes around the back.

“There’s our access across the gorge,” he says.

A few feet before us is the entry to a long arcing rope
bridge, the floor of which is constructed from thin wood panels that, to the
naked eye, appear older than my long-deceased grandfather.

Leslie slowly lowers the camera, runs her forearm over her
sweaty brow.

“You want to cross that,” she says like a question.

Rodney retrieves his water bottle, takes a deep drink.

“I’ve seen worse,” he says.

“Where?” I say.

The big man replaces his water bottle on his hip.

“I lied,” he says. Then, turning to me, his white-knuckled
hands holding tightly to his AR-15, “I guess as team trailblazer, you get the
honor of going first.” Then, grinning, “Age before balls.”

“You’re one hell of a nice guy, Rodney, you know that?”

“So my mother tells me anyway.”

Making my way to the bridge entry, I’m able to look down
into a gorge that must be two hundred feet deep. The power of the rapids is so
intense, I feel the cool mist of the clean river water rising up into my face,
coating it.

“Chase, I’ve got a lot invested in you,” Leslie says. “Be
fucking careful.”

“Thanks for the kind words,” I say. “I think.”

Taking hold of the thick ropes on either side of me, I take
a step out onto the first, damp-soaked wood plank, distribute maybe half my
weight onto it. The slippery plank holds. Swallowing a breath, I take a second
shaky step onto the same board. Releasing some of the tension in my arms, I
bear almost my entire weight onto the board. That’s when I hear a sharp crack,
and the bottom drops out from under me.

Leslie lets loose with a scream.

Rodney shouts, “Chase, hold on!”

He doesn’t have to tell me twice, as I grip the ropes
tightly while flexing my arms to support my entire body weight, preventing my
body from falling through the bridge. As luck would have it, only a portion of
the first board has split off. Maybe one-third of the entire three-by-one-foot-long
piece. If I place my feet on the still intact portion, it seems strong enough
to hold me.

Glancing at what’s left of my team over my left shoulder, I
bark, “Wait until I’m in the center of the bridge. Then you two follow. Leslie,
you’re next. Rodney, you follow. Wait until she gets to the center before you
even think of proceeding. We need even distribution on this thing.”

I take another step onto another board. It holds. Then
another step and another. The bridge begins to sway and rock with my weight. It
feels as though it might capsize entirely, spilling me out into the chasm. But
this isn’t my first trek across a rope bridge and I know that the sensation of
impending doom is mostly psychological.

I wave my right arm over my right shoulder.

“Let’s go!” I demand, knowing in my gut that at any moment,
a team of hostiles could wage a second attack on us, especially when we’re so
vulnerable. At least, that’s the way I’d do it if I were them.

I don’t see Leslie enter onto the bridge so much as I feel
her. The new weight distribution on the rope bridge is causing the center to
bounce up and down, but not severely so. Leslie can’t weigh more than one
hundred twenty pounds. It’s Rodney I’m more worried about. He easily tips the
scales at two hundred twenty-five pounds. In truth, I should make him wait
until Leslie and I are safely across, but time is of the essence.

“You okay, Les?” I shout.

“Right behind you, Chase.”

“You’re not filming, I hope. I just want you to concentrate
on your balance.” I turn to catch a glimpse of her. I’ll be damned if she isn’t
filming the entire walk across the bridge, while she grips the rope on her left
with her free hand. Guess I never realized just how brave my literary agent is.
Now I know.

I’m closing in on the opposite side of the bridge as Leslie
reaches the very center, where she aims the camera down at her feet in order to
shoot the river rapids hundreds of feet below her. What a show that is going to
make; that is, if we survive to produce the tale.

“Okay, Rodney, you’re next!” I insist, my voice mixing with
the roar of the rapids below while echoing off the solid rock gorge walls.

The big man gingerly steps onto the first plank, then the
second. He’s slowly making his way toward the center of the bridge when a wave
of razor-sharp-tipped arrows fly directly for us.

“Holy shit, we’re sitting ducks!” Rodney shouts.

He picks up his pace as the arrows shoot past his head.

I turn completely around to eye the opposite bank we just
came from, and see another band of hostile natives emerge from the bush,
poising themselves before the bridge, combat position. Leslie turns and aims
the camera at them in order to get the shot. She’s not only brave. She’s crazy.

Pulling my pistol from the shoulder holster, I trigger off a
burst of rounds that don’t connect with flesh and bone, but hopefully will make
them think twice about chasing us over the bridge. Another volley of arrows
fly, one of them coming so close to Rodney’s head, he flinches. A few seconds
later I can tell by the trickle of blood that the arrow actually nicked his
right ear lobe. Anger gets the best of him. He turns, points his AR-15, fires
from the hip. He drops the first hostile on the far right.

The bridge is bobbing up and down.

Leslie is doing all she can to maintain her balance and
shoot the action with Carlos’s camera. I could easily take the few steps to the
safety of the bank, but my gut is telling me to help Leslie.

I don’t take two steps in her direction before the board
beneath her feet crumbles.

Leslie falls but manages to catch herself with both her arms
wrapped around the bottom bridge support ropes. The video camera slips out of
her hands, dropping down into the gorge where it’s swallowed up by the rapidly
moving water.

“Chase!” she screams.

“Leslie, don’t move!”

Another volley of arrows whip past my head. Rodney shoots at
the hostiles again, but what was just a small handful of natives is now turning
into an entire army that is not only gathering on the opposite bank, but
entering onto the bridge.

“I can’t hold them,” Rodney shouts.

“Get out of there. Just get the hell off the bridge.”

I holster my .45 and arrive to the place where Leslie is
hanging. She’s supporting herself by having tucked the bottom rope under both
armpits, while her feet dangle in mid-air.

“Leslie,” I say, holding out my left hand. “You have to take
my hand and I will pull you up. Do you understand?”

She nods.

“Am I going to die, Chase? What the hell was I thinking by
trying to be Robert Capa when I should have been saving my skin?”

“You’re not going to die. Not on my watch, Les. Now grab
on.”

She goes to lift up her right hand, but the rest of her body
slips away. She screams, and once again grabs hold of the rope with both her
hands.

“I can’t do it,” she cries.

I steal a glance at Rodney. He’s making his way toward us
while the hostiles follow. I know there’s no way the bridge is going to support
our entire weight, plus the weight of the hostiles. As if to prove it, I see
the top rope to my right growing taut, its individual twines beginning to
unravel. With each up and down and sideways movement of the bridge, another
piece of twine snaps and unwinds, further weakening the rope.

“You can do it, Leslie. You have to do it.” Once more
holding out my left hand. “Now grab hold. I promise I won’t let go. You ready?
On three.”

“On three,” she repeats.

“One, two …”

“Three,” she screams, shooting up her left hand, taking hold
of mine.

I pull with all my strength. It’s as if Leslie weighs
nothing at all, as her entire torso emerges from beneath the bridge and then
sets itself onto the wood plank that’s also supporting my weight.

The plank cracks. I feel the crack more than I hear it. In a
matter of seconds, it too is going to disintegrate and send us both to the
bottom of the gorge.

Another volley of arrows passes.

Rodney shoots until he can’t shoot anymore.

“I’m out!” he yells.

He’s running toward us now, the wood planks snapping and
breaking beneath him with each thunderous step. He’s nearly upon us when, to my
right, the top rope begins to rapidly unravel at its weakest point, causing the
bridge to begin listing dramatically to the right.

“Chase!” Leslie screams. “We’re going over.”

“Go!” I shout. “Get to the bank. Crawl on all fours if you
have to.”

From down on all fours, Leslie speed crabs the final twenty
feet to the bank opposite the hostiles. I follow on foot, with Rodney on my
tail only a few feet behind me.

“Jump for it!” Rodney cries.

I jump.

He jumps.

The top rope snaps, causing the bridge to capsize.

We all fall down.

Rodney lands on top of me, knocking the air out of my lungs. He
rolls off of me, his AR-15 still gripped in his hands, miraculously.

“Are we dead?” he says.

“Yes,” I say, through gasps of breath, “we’re in heaven.
Can’t you tell?”

I manage to get myself back up onto my feet and go to
Leslie. She’s standing only a few feet away, her eyes focused on what’s left of
the now empty bridge.

“All those poor people just fell to their death,” she says,
through wide, almost shell-shocked eyes.

“You got a problem with that?” Rodney quips. “They were
trying to kill us first, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“We most definitely do not have a problem with it,” I say.
“But what I do have a problem with is that it’s going to be mighty tough to
find a way back across this gorge.”

“You’ll think of something,” Leslie says. “You are the
fantastic Man in the Yellow Hat.”

Rodney unclips his rifle, stuffs a new clip into the
chamber, slaps it home.

“No worries, people,” he says, shouldering his weapon.
“We’re going to be flying out of this place.”

I lock eyes onto him.

“You go with that,” I say. Then, “Okay, let’s mount up and
keep going. The light is getting low and we need to find a suitable place to camp
before sundown.”

Together, the three of us enter back into the jungle. A dark
and most hostile place.