Deadly Journey (4 page)

Chapter 6

No Plan B

The T-shirt had
dried, but my jeans were still damp as I dressed. Dragging the mattress to the
hole, I glanced downward. My fear was that the mattress would bounce off the
barbed wire and finish up out of reach. There was no way I could lever enough
power to clear the barrier without taking a run and a jump, but the hole just
wasn’t big enough. Cracks had appeared in the cement above the hole. If I took
out any more bricks, the roof was likely to collapse and I’d be screwed.

Thoughts that the noise of the mattress
hitting the wire might disturb my captors’ sleep prompted my already thundering
heart to race even faster. My mind might have wanted to jump, but leaden legs
and my heart trying to escape my chest told me my body was reluctant to follow
instructions. With the mattress leaning against the wall, I held out my hands.
My fingers were bloody and blistered from clawing at the brickwork. They shook
along with the rest of my body and I needed to get a grip.

Looking at my fingers, my eyes widened...
there was no wedding ring. My gut tightened and bile entered my throat. Defying
logic, I wasted precious moments trying to recall if I had noticed the ring on
my finger while I was in the cell. Getting out of captivity took second place
as I scratched through the debris. With nothing found, I tried to restore some
composure and attempted to convince myself that my captors had taken the ring.
Long, even breaths brought the tremors under control and the shaking subsided.
It was now, or never.

I took hold of one end of the mattress and
inched it out of the hole until it was vertical against the wall outside, the
dead weight tugging at my armpits. With a final push away from the wall, so the
mattress would fall horizontally, I closed my eyes.

The sound of cowbells rang out as the
mattress struck the wire and alerted the farm dog. All hell broke loose and my
mind turned to spaghetti as their dog barked long and loud. My stomach was in
the process of trying to escape through my backside at the thought that they
had alarmed the wire. Light flooded outside and I rolled away from the hole.
Springing to my feet, I took a quick glance down at the ground and then pressed
my back against the wall. The mattress had landed perfectly as planned. How far
I could get in ten minutes on stony ground, with already lacerated feet, ran
through my mind and froze me to the spot. A vision of Squat’s AK-47 riddling
bullets into my back as I ran cemented my fear. The “if only” scenarios started
to bug me again. If only my arms were two inches longer, I could have opened
the cell door and simply walked away.

My head screamed at the thought that there
was no plan B. The hopeless resignation that I had built my own bridge, left me
knowing I needed to get over it, and I slid down the wall to sit on the floor
to await the outcome.
What a jackass.

Outside sounded like mayhem. Over the dog
barking, doors slammed. People were shouting and running around. Engines
started, tyres screeched. A flashlight beam illuminated the cell, dancing
through the hole in the wall, before turning its attention elsewhere. If you
have ever reacted in a sort of daze to events happening while you were awake,
then that’s how I felt. The feeling I was in another dimension looking in on
the scene took hold, together with the notion that I was helpless to cross over
and help.

Why they didn’t check the cell, other than
with the flashlight from below, I’ll never know. Maybe Dad had had a quiet word
with Lady Luck after all. The sounds diminished outside and the dog stopped
barking. Stretching my neck and scrambling to my feet, I closed my eyes and
listened with my back melting into the wall. I could hear the sound of engines
in the distance, but otherwise there was silence outside.
One, two, three,
I
counted for courage, and took a glance through the hole to the yard below and
then out into the distance. There were maybe five vehicles tearing away from
the farm, probably trucks, or open-back jeeps. Besides the headlights, beams of
lights were scouring the brush from atop of the vehicles.

Dropping to a haunch, and thinking about
the mood they’d be in when they returned, left little to the imagination of
what they might do with me. If they had left a guard back at the farm, which
was likely, then jumping and setting the cowbells ringing wasn’t an option.
Picking up the belt, I started to flail my knees with the strap in a kind of
self-flagellation. Then it dawned... Plan B.

Nothing in life is easy, but like trying to
hoop a prize at a fairground booth, the new plan was pure desperation, nothing
short of impossible, and would cost in effort what the fairground cost in
dollars. Thoughts of my body and mind ending up like an empty wallet made me
shiver. Still, it had to be worth a try.

Tiptoeing across to the cell door, I slipped
the strap through the buckle of the belt to form a loop. With a firm grip on
the strap, I extended my arm through the bars and ran my hand along the bolt to
the bend, leaving the loop dangling. To say I was petrified of losing the strap
would be an understatement as I teased it through my fingers to add small
degrees of length and kept flicking my wrist. I thought my heart had stopped
when the belt snagged at the flick of the wrist at the umpteenth attempt and I
heard a metallic creak. Sweat poured from my forehead and smarted in my eyes.
The strap was taut and I gave a final tug, releasing the creak from hell that
amplified down the corridor.

Praying to God wasn’t one of my strong
points, but if it was to work, I made a promise to go to church every Sunday.
The fear was that when I released the tension, the handle would simply fall
back into place. It would have been impossible to grip the bolt without
withdrawing my arm. God must have been listening, because when I hung the strap
over a cross bar, I gripped the bolt, and it moved along and out of the door
bracket with ease.

When things go according to plan, something
in the back of your mind tells you to give yourself a pinch so as not to get
too complacent. There were a number of options. One was to bolt the door behind
me and hide in Miguel’s cell. The idea was that they would return, see the cell
door locked, and believe I had escaped; I would wait for them to retire and
then sneak off into the night. The problem with that was that A, they might find
me in Miguel’s cell, or B, they would bolt his cell with me in it, or C, they
would secure the outside door.

There was nothing else to debate. Slipping
through the cell door, I bolted it and headed the ten paces to the exit. After
moment’s hesitation I grasped the door handle and listened. Opening the door an
inch at first, I peered out and saw the farmhouse lit up like a Las Vegas
casino. The stairway down to the yard was in full view. Aware that everything
around there creaked, making a quick rush for freedom didn’t seem to be the way
to go, so, inching the door open enough for me to slip through I dropped to a
crouch on the gantry and slowly closed the door.

Hope that the dog had jumped into one of
their vehicles clung to me as I scrambled down the stairway and hid behind a
stack of barrels. Why I hadn’t asked Miguel what lay in the opposite direction
was beyond contemplation. Then it hit me, the water bottle... I’d forgotten the
water bottle. If all that lay ahead was mile after mile of desert, it would
have been a gigantic mistake, unless I doubled back to pick up the creek and
followed its flow. There were bound to be other farms or houses near to a water
source. Keeping as low a profile as possible, I moved like an ape from cover to
cover away from the house. Behind a row of bushes, I peeked out and my jaw
almost hit the ground. An eight-foot-high wall stood there, an insurmountable
obstacle, with huge, wrought-iron gates. A guard sat on a stool nursing an
automatic rifle and smoking. My eye-line followed the wall, which connected the
farmhouse to the cellblock, and beyond. Behind me, I detected the sound of
vehicles and looked around. The headlights were moving toward the farm.
Whatever I decided to do, it had to be quick.

Using the cover of a row of bushes, I moved
swiftly along the back of the cellblock and then crawled across and behind a
small guard shed at the entrance. The smell of cigar smoke hung in the air and
hit the back of my throat. They had left a guard behind. Thank God for his
iPod; his head was swaying to a beat, and there were telltale wires running
from his ears.

I had to think carefully before my next
move. The vehicles were no more than ten minutes away. There was no way past
the guard without him seeing me. It was one of those all or nothing decisions,
as I wrapped my arm around the guard’s head. My biceps pressed firmly on the
artery in his neck. Using the leverage of my head pressed against his and with
hands clasped, I counted.
One... two... three... four... five.
His body
went limp and I lowered him to the ground. It was enough to knock him out cold
by starving his brain of oxygen, but not enough to kill him. He didn’t look a
day over sixteen, so his mom would be pleased that I hadn’t gone for those few
extra seconds, or snapped his neck. I dragged him into the shed, slung the
strap of his rifle over my shoulder, and headed outside and through the gate to
freedom.

The terrain was flat and the horizon was
devoid of any lighting indicating habitation. Thinking back to the search pattern
of the vehicles, going straight ahead would be inviting them to find me, so I
turned left down a dirt road. Running would lead to exhaustion, so I tried
speed-walking. I’d always thought speed-walkers looked ridiculous when I
watched them on television, but the ground I covered made up for my feeling
stupid. Around four hundred yards and it felt like I was walking on hot coals.

Trying to concentrate on something to
distract myself from the pain, I tried to remember how many yards there were in
a mile, which was about the stride I was generating. Seventeen hundred and
sixty came to mind, drilled into me by my old math teacher at middle school. I
started counting from four hundred. At nine hundred and twenty, I felt dizzy.
My footsteps were spaced about a foot per stride and then reduced to a
stumbling shuffle. The mattress material had long since stopped acting as a
sole and was flapping around my ankles, whipping and stinging my calf muscles.
There was no alternative; I had to stop to remove the rags from around my
ankles.

Having travelled over half a mile, I looked
down the road. The hedgerow hid the farm from view, but over on the left, I
could see multiple headlights in the distance, probably searching for me. They
must have found the guard. It was a mistake to have sat down. What with the way
I had been trussed up on the journey into captivity, and the beatings I had
taken, plus the fact that my feet were lacerated and the muscles in my legs had
seized up, I was a mess. Not even Scott would have made it to the Pole in that
condition. The only thing I could do, under the circumstances, was to crawl
through a gap in the hedgerow and rest.

Whatever insects might be crawling around
me, I had no idea, nor did I care; it just felt good to lie on the ground and
gaze up at the sky. I had a soft moment. Maybe it was relief at being free.
Below the moon and stars, I felt humble... privileged and yet insignificant. If
only I’d learned about astronomy, I could have worked out which way was north
and home. My childhood seemed a million years ago, when I’d last camped out
under the stars. I’d never really taken any notice of the beauty and wonder of
the universe since then. For all the distance, it felt like I could reach out
and touch the moon’s surface. The thought that if Mary was looking out of our
bedroom window right now, she would be looking at the same lunar surface that I
saw, brought a tear to my eye.
So near and yet so far.

Secure in the belief that I was hidden, I
decided to rest for an hour and then check to see if my captors had called off
the search. “Rest” seemed such an odd choice of word. I might have relaxed my
body, but every sound of nature in the still of the night brought with it a
fear that they would find me.

Chapter 7

Exhausted

Exhaustion and
lack of sleep had taken their toll on my body and mind. My eyes opened to
daylight, throbbing feet and aching leg muscles. To think I had only had the
stamina to travel such a short distance from my captors made me want to scream,
but at least I was free... and armed. The flaring sun perched on the horizon.
Its position pinpointed the compass bearing for home. That’s when I looked down
at my feet and realized I was in a heap of trouble.

If sunrise was around seven in the morning,
I had probably been asleep for three, or possibly four hours. Hitching a ride
seemed like a lost cause. I looked at my jeans and T-shirt caked in blood and
dust. My fingers stroked two days of facial-hair growth. I had no shoes,
revealing bloody feet, and my face was a mess with cuts and bruises. To
complete the picture, I was carrying an automatic rifle. If I came across
someone looking the way I did, I’d have stepped on the gas pedal and run them
over.

Short of hijacking a car at gunpoint, the
only way forward was for me to set off walking and to keep behind the hedgerow.
A half-baked idea fermented that I should go back to the hacienda and
surrender. If they wanted to ransom me, maybe they would give my feet medical
attention. What they’d done to Miguel soon squashed that idea. A shake of my
head did little to remove the vision of Squat holding Miguel’s head, the scene
holding centre stage in my mind. Even the sounds of the gunshots and his pleas
for mercy played out. Miguel’s pleading and bulging eyes reminded me of what
might lie ahead if I didn’t make good my escape. It’s not that I wasn’t used to
seeing death masks. Goodness knows I’d had plenty of experience down at the
morgue and at the scenes of shootouts. Usually, there is never that connection
that I had encountered with Miguel, tenuous as it had been, with the few words
we shared. This was up close and personal.

Rolling over, I pushed myself to my knees
and then to my feet. The vision of Miguel’s severed head was cleared from my
mind by the pain running from my feet and on up through my legs. I had probably
covered twenty yards shuffling and stumbling, using the rifle as a crutch, when
I could walk no farther and collapsed. Blisters had popped, leaving raw,
exposed flesh on the soles and heels of both my feet, and the lacerations from
my previous walk in the desert were infected. Even with the best of intentions,
moving from this spot in an upright position would have been impossible. Back
home, I would have needed a wheelchair and emergency medical treatment to get
me mobile. Likely, I needed a week’s recovery for the skin on my feet to heal
enough to allow me to walk. The idea of lying in a ditch for a week, without
food or water, until I had recovered reminded me of the desperate situation I
was in and that it would call for desperate measures.

My eyelids were heavy, despite my having
slept. Although the hedgerow afforded some cover, the open field where I was
lying left me exposed. On hands and knees, I crawled until I reached the cover
of some bushes and a drainage ditch alongside the hedgerow. A truck thundered
past along the road. It was the first vehicle I had heard and I hoped there
would be more, but Sunday morning wasn’t the best of days to be hoping for
heavy traffic.

Curling into the foetal position gave me
respite from the pain and made me wonder if having started life in that
position, that was how they were going to find me if I expired. Mary and the
kids drifted into my mind. If it wasn’t for thoughts of returning to my family
spurring me on, it would have been easier to put the gun barrel to my chin and
pull the trigger; such was the pain I was enduring. Warmth from the morning sun
was my only comfort and with heavy eyelids, I drifted asleep again.

***

I awoke to the sound of rustling in the
bushes, followed by a twig breaking. My heart went into ticking time bomb mode
and I grabbed the rifle. Taking aim in the direction of the sound, I scrambled
to my knees. To have gotten this far, if I was to be discovered and returned to
the cell, I would be dead anyway. A picture of Miguel’s severed head stuck in
my mind’s eye. My sense of urgency turned to frustration. Sweat ran from my
brow, dripping into my eyes. My vision blurred, adding to the panic. Swiping
the back of my hand across my eyes, I cracked open first one eye, then the
other and decided to fight my way out. I called out a warning.

‘Stop and show yourself, or I’ll blow your
freakin’ brains out.’

All composure had deserted me, and I
trembled from head to toe. My lips had parched in the sun. Uttering those few
words had ripped a split in my top lip like an overripe tomato bursting. The
drainage ditch gave me some cover, but whoever was out there continued to move
in on my position. I was sure I heard a click, as if someone was locking and
loading a round in the chamber of a shotgun and I squeezed the trigger of my
AK-47 to fire off a warning shot.

Nothing happened. I rolled over onto my
back to change position and for me to inspect the AK. It was fitted with a
damned safety. Frustration turned to anger. By the time that I’d figured it out
and rolled back onto my belly to aim, my eye-line came face-to-face with a
goat’s head. Damn thing bleated at me through a gap in the bushes. Tears and
laughter flowed at the same time. The animal flicked its head and trundled
away.

Scanning the area, I relaxed, satisfied the
goat didn’t have a herder in tow. My sight fixed on a small lizard gathering
heat on an exposed stone. Its head bobbed rapidly up and down in a ritual that
was beyond me. In the blink of an eye, the creature darted forward, gathered an
insect in its mouth, and began chomping. Fascinating as it was and though I was
pleased at the distraction, it reminded me that there could be other predators
around, looking for me. Feverishly, I checked my immediate surroundings for
snakes. Every twig became a suspect as paranoia took hold.

In an effort to curb my fear, I began to
think about the incident that had led to my incarceration. It seemed idiotic to
me for the suppliers of the crack house to have planned to have me kidnapped.
Surely they would know that the agency would round up all the occupants of the
crack house, and someone would talk at the onset of cold turkey, before being
cut a deal for release. I began to think that our position had been
compromised. Whoever had done this to me must have known we were there all
along and had watched Rob scuttle off around the back of our position. Then
again, maybe none of that had been planned and they just saw him leaving me
alone as an opportunity to take me hostage as a warning, without thinking it
through. I quickly discounted that idea. My kidnapping had definitely been
planned. The who, why and what of it scrambled my brain, especially at the
possibility it had nothing to do with the crack house and it was payback for my
having arrested someone in the past. Trying to work it out brought on a
thumping headache.

I knew I couldn’t stay in that position. I
needed to put more distance between the farmhouse and me. I crawled to peer
through the hedgerow, just in time to see a passing car. Farther down the road,
I could see a slow-moving vehicle and decided I had to attempt to get a ride.
As it neared, I could see it was a battered pickup truck, pulling an open
trailer. The chugging vehicle looked as though it had driven out of a museum.
Clouds of black smoke belched from the exhaust and the engine spluttered. There
was only the driver behind the windshield. Leaving the rifle behind, hidden
under boulders on a rocky outcrop, as the vehicle neared, I crept through the
hedgerow.

Standing in the middle of the road, in the
truck’s path, took every ounce of strength and willpower I could summon to
overcome the hurt running through my body. I waved like a madman, and then, as
my legs wobbled, the landscape started to shimmer. It was hard to make out the
outline of the approaching vehicle. All around my head, the vision before me
spun as if I stood in a vortex. Light of head and foot, I hit the ground with a
thud. Dust billowed around me and I choked, taking in a lungful of dirt. The
sound of the truck’s engine exploded in my ears. As I laboured to lift my head,
like a tortoise trying to find its bearings, the radiator grill loomed large.
The shrill grating of graphite on metal… then, as if someone had thrown a cover
over me, darkness descended.