Red Jungle (23 page)

TWENTY

She can’t stay here,” Mahler said. “It’s too dangerous. They’ll kill us all.” “She can go out with us to the bush,” Russell said. He put down his pack.

“I won’t take her,” Mahler said.

“Yes you will,” he said. “You’ll take me, and you’ll take her too.” Mahler looked at him.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll go without you,” Russell said. He picked up his pack and walked down the hallway. He was exhausted from the drive from the capital. “I know where to look now. I don’t need you. Remember, I own the place.”

“You’ll never find it without me,” Mahler said. The look on the German’s face changed. He’d been sitting in the kitchen, and he stood up. His hair was loose at his shoulders. He’d taken his shirt off. It was hot in the room. Mahler wore just jeans, without shoes. “Don’t be a fool. They’ll kill us too. Send her away. . . . I’m close now. Since you left, I found something.”

Russell could hear the fans in the room turning, feel the warm air hit his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” he said.

“I wanted to surprise you. I tell you, we’re close. And it may be a very big find. . . . A city, maybe,” Mahler said.

“What?”

“An entire Mayan city,” Mahler said. He walked out into the living room. “Do you know what that means? You’ll be richer than you can possibly imagine. It’s all there, gold, silver, jewels. You see, I think Bakta Halik was just the outskirts. I think this site is big. Like Tikal. The jungle swallowed it all. But it’s there,” Mahler said. “And we own it.”

“I don’t care. She’s still coming with us,” Russell said.

“They’ll kill us all. You know what they’re like. It won’t matter. They’ll follow us out there.” Mahler put his hand on his naked white chest.

“Maybe,” Russell said. “But she can’t stay here, can she?” They saw headlights in the driveway. “That’s her.” He walked towards the door.

“You’re a stupid fool,” Mahler said before he got to the door. “Typical American.”

Russell let the remark go and walked out into the night. He saw Katherine’s white UN jeep pull up next to his car and park. The night was warm and humid. Her headlights went out as he descended the stairs. The white volcanic sand driveway was still visible in the weak, bug-infested porch lights.

“Okay, I’m here,” she said, hugging him as she got out of her jeep.

“We have to talk,” he said. “Come inside.” He turned and saw a second set of headlights, yellowish and bright, on the road coming toward the house.

She was still holding him. He moved towards his own jeep and opened the driver-side door. He groped for his shotgun.

The vehicle came up the road and stopped just below them. A Ford Explorer, dark colored; two men got out of the front. A third man emerged from the open sunroof. The sunroof man pointed some kind of weapon at them. Russell couldn’t tell what it was.

The two men came towards them, wool balaclavas pulled over their faces. One of the men was holding a Steyr machine pistol. Russell could see it clearly in the light from the house. He glanced back towards the porch and saw the living room lights go out. The awful fear he’d had for months, the fear of being helpless, was suddenly playing itself out.

The smaller of the two men stopped in front of Russell and told him to put his shotgun back in the jeep. The man with the Steyr grabbed for Katherine as Russell tossed his shotgun into the still-open door of his jeep.

“Russell?” Katherine’s voice, terrified, called him. The short man, without a weapon, took her by the hand and started to lead her towards the Ford’s open passenger door.

“I know General Selva,” Russell said in Spanish. “I can call him now.” He didn’t know what else to say or do. The man who had the Steyr trained on him was going to shoot him, he realized. What Russell had said stopped him. “He won’t like this.”

The man with the gun looked back at his shorter companion, who continued to lead Katherine away.

“Now what?” the man with the Steyr said in Spanish.

“I’m an employee of the UN. And I’m an American citizen,” Katherine said angrily.

“Let me call him,” Russell said. The tone of his own voice scared him. He saw Katherine looking at him in fear. He saw the short man hesitate, then stop. The man who had them covered with some kind of automatic weapon from the Ford’s sunroof didn’t move. Russell took his cell phone out of his pants pocket and dialed the general’s home number. A maid answered, and he asked for the general.

“Yes.” Carlos’s voice finally came on the line.

“It’s me, Russell. They have my friend… Will you talk to them? For God’s sake.” There was a pause.

“All right,” Carlos said. Russell looked towards the man holding Katherine’s arm.

“General Selva wants to talk to you.”

The man with the Steyer turned around. He called to the man standing in the sunroof and told him to get out of the car. The sunroof man climbed out onto the driveway. Russell could clearly see an AK-47 in his hand. The sunroof-man walked over to where Katherine stood and took her by the hand.

“What’s this about, Russell?” Katherine said. He wanted to run to her side and beg the men not to hurt her, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“I don’t know,” he lied.

The short, unarmed man walked towards him and took his cell phone.

“Digame
.” The short man—obviously the leader—said into the phone. Russell caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were not cold, but they were menacing. He listened for a moment.
“Sí. Eso, sí,”
the short man said.
“Pero ella, no. Ya está echo
.”

The man tossed the phone back to Russell. Unable to grab it fast enough, it bounced off his chest and it fell onto the ground. He picked it up.

“She’s going with them,” Carlos said. “I told them you were a member of my family and, if he did anything to you, I’d find him and have him killed. That’s all I could do. I can’t do anything for her. She’s already dead. But if you do anything to try and stop them, they will kill you, too. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Russell said.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos said and he hung up.

When he looked up, Katherine was already inside the Ford, which was slowly turning around. Its headlights painted the porch. Russell dropped the cell phone on the ground and walked back towards his jeep. He threw open the driver’s side door and lifted out his shotgun. The Ford continued slowly down the road towards the gate.

As he was coming down the road—staying far to the right, hoping to stay out of the driver’s line of sight—he saw, with disbelief, Mahler step out into the middle of the road just down from the house. Mahler waved the Ford down. It stopped in front of him. He could see Mahler smiling at the driver, his shirtless body in the headlights.

“Hola, amigos!”
Mahler said. He raised his hands—palms out —high above his head. Mahler walked towards the driver’s side window, hands in the air. “I’m sorry I had the gate closed. I’ll have it opened immediately,” Mahler told the driver. He continued to walk towards the Ford’s driver, still smiling, both his hands held high in the air. Mahler finally stopped at the driver’s window. He started to lower his hands, making sure he kept his palms out.

Russell—as he walked quickly—wondered if the men in the Ford could see him. He unslung his shotgun and approached the rear of the car.

Mahler, leaning in towards the driver, put one hand on the driver’s side door. Russell saw Mahler’s other hand move quickly behind him as he spoke to the driver. Suddenly he saw Mahler fire his weapon, point blank, into the car. Russell heard the first shot, then a second. The gunman, sitting again on the sunroof, tried to fire back at Mahler, but was hit in the legs, which were dangling inside the car. Russell, running now, opened fire on the sun-roof man, hitting him in the back with a blast from his shotgun and knocking him forward. There was more firing as Mahler, yelling in German, ran along the side of the now slowly rolling Ford. Russell could see Mahler’s right arm thrust inside the Ford’s cab, firing his pistol.

Russell jogged down the dark road, his shotgun raised, but unable to fire indiscriminately into the Ford. He watched Mahler—everything quiet now—jump on the Ford’s running board and grab the steering wheel. All Russell could hear was the sound of the Ford’s tires on the sandy road. Russell saw the sunroof man he’d shot lying across the roof of the Ford. He jogged behind the car, staying to the left. He watched Mahler struggle with the steering wheel as the Ford started to pick up speed, heading down the hill towards the gate.

“Get in!” Russell yelled. He was running, catching up. Mahler, riding the running board, turned to look at him. He still had his automatic in his hand. Mahler dropped it and climbed into the Ford, first pulling open the door and yanking the dead driver out of the cab. Russell had to jump over the driver’s body as he gained on the car.

Mahler, behind the wheel now, began to slow the car, then stopped it abruptly. Russell ran to the driver’s side window and looked in past Mahler. Katherine was sitting in the passenger seat, her face blood-splattered. He could see the dangling legs of the sunroof man. Russell looked into the back seat, where another body was lying, the dead man’s balaclava shot up, the backseat cushions bullet-smacked and torn. Mahler pulled the Ford’s emergency brake on.

“I thought you were in here,” Mahler said. “I thought they were taking you. I couldn’t have that. Not now.” Mahler looked up at him. He was smiling. It was the smile of a crazy man.

Russell turned and watched Katherine climb out of the car. The sunroof man’s foot hit her shoulder. He ran around the front of the Ford to help her. She was wiping her face with the back of her hand; she hadn’t said a word. She put her arms around him.

“What do we do now?” Mahler said from the car.

“I don’t know. I’m taking her up to the house.”

“We can’t just leave them here,” Mahler said. “What if their friends come looking for them?”

“I don’t know,” Russell said. He slung his shotgun over his shoulder and walked Katherine back up the road in the dark.

There was the sound of howler monkeys high in the canopy above their camp site. Mahler threw cold coffee on the fire, and it began to smoke. They sat in a jungle clearing, the air above them hazy, tinted blue by the smoke and the humidity.

Russell looked at Katherine. She had spoken very little since the death squad had come for her the night before. Mahler looked at her, and then smiled. The automatic he’d used the night before was stuck in the front of his jeans.

They’d taken the weapons from the dead men before they’d driven them and the Ford to the outskirts of Colomba and left them. They were better armed now. They’d found an M16 with a grenade launcher and several grenades, as well as the Steyr and the Kalashnikov with a hundred-round drum.

Russell looked up into the canopy, but there was no sky. And there was no sound now from the river, either. They knew what time of day it was only from the half-light that penetrated the greenish-blue canopy. He looked at his watch; it was six in the morning, and it was warm already. He pulled off his filthy T-shirt

“I would go back through Belize. That’s the way I’d do it.
Rio Dulce,
and then cross over to Belize. Then it’s easy. It’s lightly manned, that crossing,” Mahler told her. “You’ll be okay.”

“The airport is out of the question now. Maybe he’s right,” Russell said.

“If I leave, they win,” Katherine said. It was the first thing she’d said since they’d woken up and fixed breakfast. Mahler had been going on about the reach of the death squads and how they worked. He didn’t seem to care that he was scaring her. Katherine had just stared at him. She was grateful, Russell imagined, because Mahler had saved her life, but she was obviously horrified by Mahler’s insensitivity.

“Thank you for what you did. . . .” she said. She put her cup down on the ground. They’d brought cold coffee in a Thermos.

“I didn’t do it for you. I didn’t even know you were in the car. I thought it was Russell. I thought they’d come for him.” She nodded. “I couldn’t afford to see my partner leaving with a death squad just now,” Mahler said, cigarette smoke pouring out of his nose. “It wasn’t convenient.”

Russell stood up and walked to where they’d hobbled the horses. A jaguar had attacked one of the horses during the night, and its leg was scratched up. Five red claw marks ran along its rear flank. The red stood out in the early morning light. Russell had woken up and heard the commotion. By the time he and Mahler had lit a flashlight—Mahler firing his pistol in the air—the jaguar had gone, looking back at them once. It had been a very big male.

Everything on the ground smelled of rot. They were leading their horses back down the path that had been cut through the jungle down to the river. Russell could hear the river first; then suddenly the ground went soggy, and he was staring out at it through the tunnel they’d cut that first day.

Katherine was behind him and Mahler behind her, with the injured horse. They had left for the jungle late the evening before, deciding that the safest place was here in the bush. There would be hell to pay for killing those men, Russell thought, watching his horse drop its head and drink from the pewter-colored river. He swung up on the horse and rode out into the river. He saw the banks of the other side, bright green and higher, and overhead a strip of sky, soft-looking, marred by clouds. He felt safe here. Even if they came looking for them, it would be almost impossible to spot the hole they cut