The Cupel Recruits (16 page)

“We’ve been stockpiling food and water. Brett’s orders.”

“Brett’s orders? Since when does he run camp?”

“Since we developed a security crisis. Rebels are making their way through the countryside and aside from some local travelers, we’re completely cut off to the west.” They arrived at the back tent, one originally used for storage, to find Brett and a handful of soldiers in full gear with guns standing before them. Others stood at the four corners, facing outward, on the lookout for anyone approaching. Unseen, in the surrounding jungle, lookouts responsible for sending back word of any approaching rebel bands were perched. Brett saw Lela and his face contorted in uncommon anger, a rare flash of emotion before his men.

“Damn it! They weren’t supposed to bring you here! My message didn’t get through!” he said to her, but really to no one.

“No. He said he got your instructions for me to be on the floor of the car,” Lela responded.

“Those were the original instructions. I sent word yesterday recanting those and telling him not to bring you here.”

“Well, I guess he didn’t listen.”

“No, that means he never got the message. Our courier to the west must not have been able to get through. I wish these local guys had cell phones.”

“Not this far in,” the soldier to Brett’s left added.

“Where is everybody?” Lela asked.

“Inside,” Brett responded, “It’s safer to have everyone pulled together to one location.” Just then a lookout returned, out of breath. Tina handed him some water, which he quickly downed, gaining enough breath to speak.

“They’re headed this way. From the south,” he reported.

“Get inside,” Brett barked at Lela, “We have to prepare to hold them off out here.” Everyone inside has any remaining weapons, so get one and be prepared in case.

“Wait, Brett, this is not the O.K. Corral-we can’t just have a showdown. Can’t we just escape to the east? There are villages that way.”

“With this many people, we’ll be too slow. We wouldn’t make it more than a few clicks before they catch up. We have the advantage here over terrain we don’t know at all. And we can’t go north. We’d run into the river. No boats, rapids, we’d never make it to the other side and there’s no civilization on this side of it.” Lela’s nausea from the car, which had never really disappeared, now welled up to the top of her throat again. Could this really be happening? Stunned, she went into the tent, grabbed two knives and sat silently next to the others, watching the doorway, listening intently for any sounds from the distance, any approaching footstep, any voice, any gunfire, but she heard nothing. She looked around at the scared faces of those around her-Mako, Tina, interns Brian and Rachel, little more than children, and the goofy, good-natured Texan, Lance, with all the geologists, medical workers, logistics personnel, all those who were not soldiers and not trained for this sort of situation. Mako clutched a single clear plastic container from his colored castle as if it were a security blanket. The mineral inside it was raw, not even neatly wrapped as was his custom. Lela’s nausea quickly subsided and an overwhelming urge moved its way up into her throat. She jumped up and ran for the door.

“Brett! Brett!” she scanned the landscape quickly searching for signs of him. The sentry posted to the tent quickly rounded the corner and put his hand over her mouth.

“We are in silent mode,” he whispered to her, “until our scout returns to tell us how much time we have, we have to assume they are close.” Lela nodded, his hand still covering her mouth, and he removed it.

“I need to speak to Brett most urgently,” she whispered.

“Impossible, Davies is in operational mode now. I can’t just pull him back here. Whatever your question is, it’ll have to wait.” His tone was subtly patronizing, as if to suggest her need to speak to Brett was for comfort.

“Look, I may know of a safe location near here I discovered while resource mapping. So, you get him back here now or you may be deciding we’ll all be unnecessarily slaughtered.” The young soldier appeared conflicted. “Do you really want that sort of decision on your head at this stage of your career?” she pressed in an emphatic whisper.

The sentry pressed a series of buttons on his walkie-talkie which made no sound but the pressing of buttons. In a moment the device returned one blink of a light.

“He’ll be right here,” the sentry reported. Lela looked around the still jungle in the minutes before Brett arrived and observed what a beautiful day it would have been had the humans not been warring with one another. The untouched jungle presented a sharp contrast to the areas closer toward town that had been razed. After four minutes that seemed like twenty, Brett arrived.

“Lela, I don’t have time for this.”

“I know, I know, but I found a cavern when I was exploring. I think we could hide there. It’s plenty big enough for all of us,” she confided hopefully. Brett considered the suggestion.

“These are local people, Lela. They’ve grown up here their whole life. The chances that they don’t know about that cavern already are very slight.”

Lela pressed, knowing deep in her gut that if they didn’t go, they would die. Each passing moment she felt it more and more intensely. Death was approaching. She could just go on her own, but leaving all the others behind did not feel right, not when she truly felt they wouldn’t make it. She had to convince Brett for all of them to go.

“The only entrance was covered with like fifty years of vegetation. I cut it away myself. And the inside was completely untouched. Full of mineral and no sign of even a single axe mark. If anyone knew it was there, it would have at least been mildly disturbed.” Brett sighed as he considered the suggestion.

“Trust me, Brett, I would not suggest it if I didn’t think it was our best hope. And, it’s to the northeast, we’d be moving away from them at the same time, which would give us time to get there.” He looked at her, his keen ability to read people confirming to him that she believed with every ounce of her soul what she was saying. In the end, the real question was: how much did he trust her, this woman he’d known only a short while? Brett turned to the sentry.

“We need a distance estimate right now.”

“The scout isn’t back yet and we’re on radio silence. If we ping him and he’s very close to them, it may compromise his position.”

“I know that. Ping him once. He’ll know what it’s for and ping back how many clicks away they are.”

“That’s not standard protocol, sir. He won’t know what we’re asking for. We can’t rely on that data.”

“You’re right, but in real operations things don’t always go exactly as planned. I trained him myself. It’s not the clearest communication, but he’ll figure it out. He’ll know that’s the only question we would be breaking radio silence to ask the man that is the scout. There would be no other logical reason to break radio silence. Send the ping.”

“Yes, sir,” the sentry withdrew his walkie-talkie once again, adjusted the frequency and sent a single click. The three watched the device for any response. Silence.

“He may be out of range,” the sentry commented. Brett did not respond, but remained intent on the device. He glanced at Lela, his mind already thinking through the logistics of their exodus, should they have sufficient time to make one. He withdrew a laminated map from his pack and held it up to Lela, who wordlessly pointed to the location of the cavern. Brett marked the location and calculated the distance and travel time in his head. He examined the perils of two competing routes.

“I cut this path through, it might move faster since it’s partially cleared, but it’s narrow,” she reported.

“This wide valley is open, so not as much cover. Even though it’s not as direct, the openness of the terrain will allow a group this size to get there faster than the direct route. Plus, that area’s all torn up by animals, not as much work to cover our tracks as the straight route.” Their whispering sounded eerie in the silence of the camp, like ghosts talking. Finally, a response from the scout: 4 clicks.

“That’s 12 kilometers. It’ll be tight, but if we leave right now, I think we’ll make it with a little room to spare.” He turned to the sentry. “Miller, gather everyone else quietly and return back here in 10 minutes. Lela, we’ve got to prepare the other civilians.” They burst into the tent and witnessed the still-huddled crew waiting in crippled silence. They looked at Brett with hope, instantly gathering from his demeanor that something had changed. They could only hope some good fortune had befallen them.

“Good news, we have an alternate location which we think will be safer than this one, and which the rebels likely don’t know about. Bad news, we’re out of here in ten minutes and have a trek ahead of us. So, pack water in your packs, and drink at least a liter right now before we leave, eat a protein bar, and take care of any bio needs you have now. We won’t be stopping for at least 2 hours. Dress in proper gear and protection; change your shoes if you need to. We need to make good time and we need to move in silence. Any questions?”

“What about the animals?” Rachel asked. She had tended to the animals every day since arriving in camp and the small brow on her thin face furrowed at the thought of them being hurt.

“They stay here,” he replied with no shred of sensitivity. “Anything else?” Silence. “Okay, we move out in ten.” He exited the tent. Lela moved to Rachel.

“They won’t hurt them,” she reassured Rachel, “They need milk from them same as we do, so they’ll take good care of them, if they even stop here.”

The camp members dumped all extraneous items from their packs. The few belongings they had intended to keep with them-a single book, extra clothes, a bit of music, or pictures from home-were hastily dumped into a pile and replaced with extra water bottles and protein bars. As much as each person could carry was stuffed into backpacks. Everything they thought was important no longer was-only survival was. In exactly ten minutes Brett stuck his head in the tent.

“Time,” he declared, more quietly than he would have preferred. The members began filing out of the tent and following his hand motion to line up in two lines.

“The path is wide enough for two rows. Try to walk as softly as possible so the tracks we leave are less clear as being fresh. When we get to the clearing, spread out so the tracks are widely dispersed. We’ll cover our tracks on the other side and with a little luck, they’ll be unable to tell which direction we went after the clearing,” he advised. As they set out, with five soldiers on point with guns, two at the halfway point of the line of evacuees, and five at the rear, Brett had an uneasy feeling. He looked at Lela and had an instant recollection of when he first met her in the States. He’d watched her from his seat in the audience, all smiles talking to her father and the other scientists, running across the field, winking at her brother. It all seemed a lifetime ago now. He hadn’t seen her truly smile once since that day, and today was no exception. He knew if this plan didn’t work no one would be smiling today, or ever again. This wasn’t an area of the country where they cared to take prisoners or bothered with ransoms. He knew his enemies well and if they were caught, they would surely be killed.

He heard some noise in the distance. Waving the others on, Brett held four soldiers back with him. The youngest and thinnest, Kye, climbed a tree in moments with the graceful agility of a dancer in an attempt to get a visual. He strained his eyes into slits, peering through the muted green tones of the jungle, but saw nothing. Seventy feet above his team, he withdrew his binoculars and scanned intently. Finally, he saw the rebels, still far off in the distance, but on a path toward the camp. Convinced their own team still maintained the tactical advantage, he began to breathe easier when suddenly he noticed an enormous Anaconda at the other end of the branch on which he sat. Without haste, as if not concerned in the least, the snake made its way toward Kye with a sly smile. He knew sudden movement would provoke the creature to accelerate. Following protocol, keeping one eye on the snake, he snapped twice to his team below. Silently, he looked down at them, at the snake and back again, while assessing if he could withdraw his knife from his waist holster without losing his grip. It was on his inner side, pinned between his body and the tree. To shift to reach it might cost him his life. The snake itself was massive, at least 20 feet long and 2 feet around. Kye’s team, including Brett, swiftly arranged themselves in a quadrangle capture position and as the snake reached just a few meters from him, Kye launched himself out of the tree and into the arms of his comrades below. Having done this from only a height of fifty feet, Kye was surprised at the additional force imparted by only an extra 20 feet of height. They all fell to the ground with a thud, but other than basic bumps and bruises all were unharmed. The five quickly jumped to their feet and looked up, scrambling to the side in case the snake might drop itself down on them, but the snake was bored and not overly hungry, so it decided to remain in its haven in the trees, waiting for the next animal to come along. The five double-timed to catch up with the rest of the camp on exodus and reached them just before the entire party reached the clearing.

In the clearing, everyone fanned out as instructed, but remained silent. Lela walked with Tina, Brian, Rachel, Lance and Mako. She noticed the return of the five soldiers and gave small prayer in gratitude that they had returned safely. It was the first time she had prayed since her family had been killed, yet she did not realize it at the time. God has a way of sneaking back into our lives by being there for us, she would think later. She acknowledged Brett with a small nod of her head and a small smile that let him know she was glad he was back. When he looked pleased, somehow her thoughts immediately turned to James. Where was he right now?