Choke Point (33 page)

Simon watched her go, glancing every few seconds toward the burial party, and feeling helpless.
Should have arranged some kind of signal. Shouldn’t have let her go.
But it was too late, too many shoulds and shouldn’ts to count.

She reached the enclosure in less than two minutes, momentarily visible before disappearing behind a stack of boxes. Every moment felt like an hour, until he had no idea how much time had passed, his body numb with the agony of helplessness.
Come on, come on! Get out of there!
Then, at the edge of his consciousness, he realized the murmur of voices had died away—the burial party breaking up. He could see Atherton and Bricker moving through the trees, heading straight for the enclosure.
Oh, Jesus! Get out of there! Run!
For several eternity-in-an-instant heartbeats he knew she’d be caught, and then he saw her, crabbing her way along the tree line.
Thank you, Jesus.

She crawled in beside him just as the men reached the enclosure, her face dripping with sweat, hands and knees bleeding. She expelled a heavy sigh and rolled onto her back, panting and gulping for air.

“You okay?”

She nodded. “Sorry—” Quick breath. “—no guns.”

He kept his eyes on the men, watching for an indication that they might have seen something. “So…?”

“It was perfect.” She swallowed, still trying to catch her breath. “Big pot of stew.”

Stew
—these guys were serious carnivores—only an animal would eat stew in this kind of heat. “How much did you put in?”

She pulled the half empty bag from her pocket. “Just the little ones. I was afraid they might notice if I did more.”

“So what now?” He watched as Atherton and the other man settled into their chairs, their heads tilting forward in conversation, oblivious to her visit. “What will the effect be…assuming they eat?”

She shook her head. “I’m no expert. Mushrooms are normally eaten raw or dried. I’m not sure what effect cooking will have on them.”

“Best guess?”

“Nausea and vomiting, followed by a kaleidoscope of possibilities, ranging from paranoia to a nice Alice-in-Wonderland field trip, a kind of dreamy state of consciousness with lots of colors and patterns. The effects can last from four to six hours.”

“You’re right, doesn’t sound like you know much.”

She smiled, making no attempt to deny the implication of his words. “When I was in the Amazon, most of the interns tried them.”

“Sounds like fun. Especially that vomiting part.”

“It’s not pretty from the outside,” she agreed. “Once was enough for me.”

“Let’s just hope—” He watched as another man entered the enclosure. “We’ve got a new guy. Some kind of pow-wow.”

Kyra rolled onto her side, peering through the undergrowth. “That’s Chricher. The chopper pilot.”

A few minutes later, apparently leaving Chricher in charge, Atherton and Bricker loaded one of the small Zodiacs with gear and headed south along the coast. “What do you think?” Kyra whispered.

“Our odds just got better.”

“You think they’re going back to the cave, don’t you?”

Of course that’s what he thought. “It makes sense. The tide’s going out.”

“If you’re right, we need to make our move before they discover we’re gone and come back.” She pointed toward the enclosure as Robbie and the third man joined Chricher. “That’s Fosseler. The one they call Catman.”

Obviously.
Thin and wiry, the man had a way of walking, an effortless kind of glide, like a cat ghosting through tall grass. “Let’s hope they’re hungry from digging.”

Two hours later they were still hoping, the men apparently too upset with the loss of Big Paddy to think about food. They huddled around the table, drinking beer and telling stories:
Big
the only discernable word that made it into the trees, the man growing “bigger” by the minute. Finally the stories seemed to run out, and after a few long minutes of silence, Robbie and Catman Fosseler retreated to their tents, leaving Chricher to stand guard.

“How long,” Kyra whispered, “you think we have before they get back?”

He studied the waterline, trying to gauge the ebb since Atherton and Bricker had left. “An hour…two at the most.”

“I’m thinking one. That’s our window. We need to do something before then.”

He nodded, but saying it and doing “something” were two different things. “I don’t see how we can disable that large Zodiac. Not as long as he’s—” He was about to say “just sitting there,” but suddenly realized the man wasn’t
just
sitting, but had his head bent forward. “Is he eating?”

She edged forward, trying to get a better view. “Maybe…I think so…yes…no question about it.”

“How long will it take for something to happen?”

“If it works…not long.”

Ten minutes later the man was on his knees in the sand, experiencing the first euphoric effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms: regurgitated stew. Until that moment, Simon didn’t give the plan much of a chance, but now it actually seemed possible. Those positive feelings dissolved almost instantly when Chricher suddenly bounced to his feet, apparently purged of his demons and ready for his next adventure on the magic carpet. He wandered toward the water, his gait dysrhythmic, his arms floating about his body like disengaged appendages. After a few aimless trips to nowhere, first in one direction and then the other, he began to circle the large Zodiac in a kind of slow-motion, tango-around-the-temple dance, babbling incoherently and staring at the stars, seemingly dazzled by the light show, most of which, Simon assumed, was taking place inside his head. “Will he pass out?”

Kyra shook her head. “He’s actually in a heightened state of awareness. Unless he suddenly wanders off, this may be our best opportunity.”

“What opportunity? There’s no way we can get to that boat.”

“I’m talking about your backup plan.”

“I don’t have a
backup
plan.”

“Don’t give me that, Leonidovich, you’re usually on the fourth move before anyone else realizes they’re playing chess and not checkers.”

“I appreciate the flattery, Rynerson, but it’s not true.” Which, of course, wasn’t true, and she saw it, giving him one of those hooded, give-it-up stares he could never resist. “Well…it’s just an idea…”

“Stop stalling, Leonidovich. I get it. It’s risky. Spit it out.”

“While he’s over there tripping around in psychedelic heaven, we might be able to float one of the smaller boats out of here.”

“And what good will that do? They’ll hear us the minute we start it up.”

“That’s the idea.”

“I don’t get it,” she admitted. “They’d run us down in that big monster before we got half a mile.”

“It’s a diversion. We won’t be in it. They’d be chasing an empty boat. By the time they catch it…”

“Oh.” Her eyes suddenly brightened. “We’ve gotten away in the other boat.”

“Exactly.”

She nodded slowly, thinking about it. “How long do you think it would take them to catch the thing?”

“They would have to keep shutting down their engine to listen. That’s the only way they could track it—by sound. I would guess somewhere between five and ten minutes, which would give us from ten to twenty minutes before they got back. But—” He paused, letting her know this was a very big
but.
“—that’s assuming the boat continued in a straight line. If it got turned in the waves…”

She glanced at the water. “It’s dead calm.”

“Right, and we could lock down the engine, but there’s still a prevailing current. We could compensate for that, but it would be a guess at best.”

“And what if they leave someone behind?”

“Then we’re in no worse shape than we are now.”

She let that percolate for a few seconds. “You really think we could pull it off?”

Probably not,
but they were running out of options. “Why not?” A cop-out answer if one ever existed.

“Okay, we have nothing to lose. Let’s give it a try.”

“You stay here. I’ll—”

“Forget that,” she interrupted. “You can’t get that thing in the water with one arm. Not quietly, anyway. If he spots me, I can at least swim. You get the crest, I’ll get the boat.”

It was another one of those you’ve-only-got-one-arm battles he could never win. “Okay.” He fished the mini-flash out of the cargo bag. “Let’s go.”

They backtracked through the trees, just far enough so that she could enter the water without being seen. “I’ll meet you right here.”

“Don’t do anything crazy, Rynerson. If you can’t get it, we can still try to signal a ship.”

She nodded and slipped into the water. He waited until she was out of sight, then hunkered down in the rocks, nothing to do but run through the mental checklist and hope for the best. As he started down the list, the moon suddenly bulged over the horizon, huge and white, as if God had decided to turn on a spotlight so as not to miss the action.
Thanks a heap.

In answer, something broke the surface of the water, a sudden pop and splash, and for a moment Simon thought his heart had abandoned ship.
Sorry, God.

The night seemed to absorb everything, a giant sponge sucking everything into its vortex, until he had no sense of time or its passage. Surprisingly, though his five senses were working overtime, he didn’t hear or see her until she was less than twenty yards away, her head hidden behind the black rubber surface of the boat. He waded out and helped her pull it into the shallows. “Any trouble?”

“Not a bit,” she whispered. “He’s still riding that magic dragon. You get the crest?”

“I decided to leave it.”

“What!”

“Keep your voice down, Rynerson. If we get away, I can always come back.”

“Come ba…oh, I get it. In case we get caught, you don’t what them to get that too.”

An implied question he had no intention of answering. “You need to rest?”

“No. Let’s get out of here before that sonofabitch and his buddy get back.”

“Sounds good to me. You climb in—” He handed her the mini-flash. “—and drop the engine.”

“Yessir, boss.” She put the light in her mouth and shimmied over the side.

“There should be some way to lock the steering arm.”

She snapped on the light, shielding the beam with one hand as she dropped the engine with the other. “Yeah, I see it.”

“Okay. Lock it straight ahead. I’ll line you up.”

“Ten-four.”

“Once you start it, you’ll have to let it idle a bit. You don’t want to kill the thing when you open it up.”

“I’m a pilot,” she hissed back, “you don’t think I know how to warm up an engine?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I try to forget that.” He held up his broken arm. “Did I mention that problem you have with landings?”

“Screw you.”

“I get so excited when you talk dirty, Rynerson.”

“Now I know we’re in trouble, you’re starting to joke around.”

He ignored the commentary; so he had a little avoidance quirk, who didn’t? “Don’t forget to lock the throttle before you bail out.”

“Yessir, boss.”

“Come straight over the back, or you’ll throw the thing off course.”

“I have to do everything.”

“Don’t let it go to your head, Rynerson. You’re muscle, I’m brains.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s get this party started, Einstein.”

“You’re all lined up. Give it a rip.”

She yanked the starter cord and the tiny engine began to cough and sputter—a heart-stopping clatter that seemed to last for minutes, but couldn’t have been more than five or ten seconds—then settled into a wake-the-dead whine. While Simon tried to keep the boat aligned, Kyra worked the throttle, goosing it higher and higher until it was screaming, then she backed it off, gave him a nod, and dropped it into gear. The boat lurched forward as she opened the throttle, and was nearly thirty yards away before she could jump clear, a graceful dive directly over the stern.

Simon could hear the men shouting even before she reached the shore, their frantic words indistinguishable beneath the fading whine of the engine. “You okay?”

She nodded, grinning like a schoolgirl on prom night. “That was fun.”

The woman, he decided, had a serious risk addiction. “We still need to be careful. They might leave someone behind.”

She nodded again. “Let’s go.”

The giant outboard roared to life just as they reached the encampment. A second later the boat was accelerating across the water, the huge engine throwing a roostertail, Catman Fosseler at the wheel, Robbie stretched out over the bow with a spotlight, its beam cutting a wide swath through the darkness. “I only see two of them,” Simon whispered, then realized he could have shouted and the men wouldn’t have heard him. “Where’s the zombie?”

“He’s with them,” Kyra answered. “Lying on the deck. I caught a glimpse of his head.”

“Let’s hope they don’t start wondering what’s wrong with the guy, and start putting two and two together.”

“I think they’re more worried about what Bricker will do if we get away.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” So why did he have that feeling things were going
too well
—that the cosmic gods were about ready to tilt the scales? “Let’s do this.”

They ran across the open stretch of beach, but when they reached the boat, he suddenly realized the sound of the engine seemed to be growing louder, not fading. “It sounds like they’re coming back!”

Kyra, who was already pulling the inflatable toward the water, stopped and cocked her head. “It’s just the night air. The sound reverberates off the water.”

He hesitated, not convinced—it was too loud, too close—but before he could argue the point the sound faded, as if the boat had suddenly slipped over the horizon. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

“I don’t think so.”

The soft but threatening words seemed to float across the water, and Simon realized instantly why the sound of the motor had seemed so close.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY

An Island in the South China Sea