Quest for redemption, p.22
Quest for Redemption, page 22
“I am, too, Dolcezza,” she said, her breath coming in great gulps. “You are the man I love. We are together now, my husband.” She held his head in her hands, touched her forehead to his. “We will never be parted again, not by anyone, not by anything.”
Slowly, the sounds of life around them came back to Jim. People were laughing, crying as the group reunited. Gina kissed him one more time, then they fell on their side as they struggled to get up, laughing at their own awkwardness. He got to one knee, helped her to her feet, and as she was pulling him up, he looked at the lodge and saw one of the hikers running out to them. It was Tom, and he looked anything but joyous at seeing his comrades. “Hey!” he yelled. “Gina!”
“I’m here, Tom,” she said, brushing herself off as she turned to face him. Jim struggled to his feet, using a hiking pole to prop himself up, and realized that the group that had made it first to Wayra considered Gina their leader.
“Gina, the guy from the police came back on the radio. He said the army won’t be able to get a chopper here for another hour, maybe longer.” He put his hands on his knees, sucking air. “Something about mechanical trouble. They only have one available. There’s trouble up in the north, near the Colombian border, so they’ve sent a lot of troops up there.”
“Shit,” somebody said. It was Brad, holding an AK with easy familiarity. Jim remembered that he’d said something, eons ago in the hot tub at the first lodge, about being a hunter since childhood. “What the hell do we do now?”
“We need to get food and water for Jim and his people,” Gina said. “Then we need to move. Don’t you think so, Jim?” Everyone’s eyes turned to him, including Ernie’s. The veteran guide was the master of his realm when the scariest thing on the trail was a loose rock, but times had changed, very quickly. This was a tactical environment now, and Jim suddenly realized that he was the only one here with even a little experience in that challenging realm.
“I’m afraid she’s right,” he said. “We managed to slow them down back there, maybe take out one or two, but we don’t know if there are any more of them. We can’t count on these guys giving up too easy.”
“We can hold out in the lodge, can’t we?” That was Brad, holding his rifle, ready to go.
Jim looked at the lodge. It had been built for comfort, not as a fortress. “I don’t think so,” Jim said, shaking his head. “Nightfall’s coming in a couple hours. If they come after us in the dark, we’re in real trouble. We don’t know how many guns they’ll have. They could even try to burn us out.”
“They meant to kidnap us,” Tom said. “I heard them talking about it, back at the tent. My high school Spanish got me that far.” Something about Tom bothered Jim, but he couldn’t quite focus on it. Was it what he said? No, something else…
“I don’t think that’s on the table now,” Gina said. “They have to know the army has been alerted. They need to get away, but maybe first they try to eliminate all witnesses.”
Willa stepped forward “Well, what about the army? We should wait for them. We can hold out that long, can’t we?”
“I am sorry to say, we can’t count on them coming in time,” Ernie said.
Silence fell over them, a sense of dread as they all realized that the worst wasn’t necessarily behind them. Jim broke the spell. “Ernie, how far to the train station from here?”
“On the trail, maybe forty kilometers.”
Don groaned. “Damn, that’s twenty-five miles or so, isn’t it? Lois can’t make it that long, Jim.”
“We have a wounded man in the lodge,” Gina said. “Michael was shot at the tent. It’s not life-threatening, yet, but we need to get him to a hospital as soon as possible.”
“There is another way,” Ernie said. “I know a trail. It is not often used. But we can make it to the Urubamba, the river crossing, in perhaps twenty kilometers from here. From there, it is maybe two kilometers to the train station. But this trail, it is hazardous.”
“Does it bypass the next lodge?” Jim asked.
“It goes past Colpa, but not by much. We could perhaps detour there off this shorter trail, get some food and water, maybe some rest, before we press on.” He looked back up the trail, as if worried that the guerillas would march over the ridge at any moment. “These men, perhaps they don’t know the trails here too well. This one I speak of, it is not on any map they are likely to have.”
Gina looked at Jim. “What should we do?”
Jim was about to say they should take a vote when something popped into his head about Tom. He wasn’t with Stacy. “Tom, where’s your wife?”
“Inside, guarding the prisoners,” he said.
Jim picked up his rifle. “Alone? How many prisoners do you have?”
“Three,” Gina said. “Sergio, who betrayed us, and two teenagers from the group that came to the tent.”
“Well, let’s get inside and—”
From the lodge came the sound of a gunshot, then a woman’s scream. A crash, and a man shouting something in Spanish. Another gunshot. “Help! Help!”
“Stacy!” Tom shouted. He bolted for the lodge, with Jim and Gina right behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Avalanche site
Hector was examining Garcia’s hip when there was a shout from up the trail. It was Aguilar, leading Green Team, approaching on the double. “Enough,” Garcia said, pushing his sergeant away. He took a step, testing the leg. It hurt, but nothing was broken. There would be a bruise tomorrow, a big one, but that was the least of his worries. Right now, he didn’t want the arriving squad to see him at anything less than full strength.
“¡Teniente! ¡Mi amigo!” Aguilar shouted as he trotted the last few meters. He was a large man, a good hundred kilos, Garcia estimated, and strong. That was made apparent by his forced march to catch up to Red Team and confirmed with a bear hug of his superior officer. “We heard the rumble,” Aguilar said when he’d allowed Garcia to breathe again. “An avalanche?”
“Yes,” Garcia said. “At a most unfortunate time. We lost two men, with another injured.”
“The earthquake last week must have loosened the boulders,” Aguilar said, peering up at the side of the mountain from which the landslide had come. “But you sent a man up there to find out for sure, I see.”
Garcia followed his gaze and saw one of the boys, the nipu-peruanu son of the late Sergeant Yamada, loping down the slope, nearly losing his balance once or twice. Garcia hadn’t given any such order, but he saw now that Hector must have, because the sargento was walking out to meet the boy. The teenager started chattering away, excited, pointing back up to the top of the small mountain. A hill, really, but large enough to have given the avalanche the speed necessary to rain death and destruction down upon him and his men.
Hector clapped the boy on the shoulder and trotted over to Garcia and Aguilar. “There are prints in the dirt at the top,” he said. “Boots, adult sized. Two men. They must have loosened the big boulder to start it.”
“Two men?” Aguilar said. “Who would do such a thing?” When the Red Team men were silent, the sergeant said, “Surely not these Americans we are chasing.”
“The Americans have proven to be…more resilient than we expected,” Hector said, taking his lieutenant off the hook.
“Then, they are responsible also for the four dead men we saw back at the tent?”
“Yes,” Garcia said, knowing he needed to take charge of the situation. But first, it wouldn’t hurt morale to accept some responsibility. “It is my fault, mi compadres. I underestimated these Americans. There are at least two among them who are very skilled, probably ex-military.”
“One of them is an archer, yes?” Aguilar asked. “We saw the two men killed by the arrows. Expert shots.”
Garcia gripped the larger man by the bicep, a rare display of emotion on his part, but he realized that Aguilar’s arrival could mean the salvation of the mission. “That is why we are glad you are here, José. You add three guns to ours. My man Chavez suffered a broken arm in the avalanche, so he cannot use his weapon. On top of that, we lost his son.” He looked at Hector, then back to Aguilar. “I want each of you to select the boy from your squad who has the most training, then arm them with rifles. Take the one Chavez was using and the one Hiroshi no longer has need for.”
“A good idea, Teniente,” Aguilar said. “We shall pursue the Americans, then?”
Garcia gave them his best El Tigre stare, and there was no need to fake this one. “To hell, if we have to.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Wayra Lodge
The inside of the lodge looked a lot like the one they’d stayed in the night before, except for the dead body on the floor and the frightened, bleeding woman pointing a rifle at two teenagers. When Tom and Jim ran through the open front door, rifles at the ready, they called out for Stacy, and she answered in a quavering voice, directing him to a side room.
Sergio lay face down, a dark red pool spreading beneath his throat. A bloody kitchen knife was next to him. Two Peruvian teens, one of them seeming to be about eighteen, were on their knees, hands behind their heads. “Stacy!” Tom yelled. He took the gun from his wife, whose trembling hands seemed more than willing to give it up. An ugly wound on her left forearm was bleeding. She slumped to the floor.
Gina was at her side in moments. “She’s been cut,” she said. “Somebody get the first-aid kit!” Behind the group crowding around the doorway, Willa said, “I’m on it!” and ran off.
“I need something to stanch the wound,” Gina said. Tom tore his shirt off, peeled his undershirt over his head and tossed it to her. “This will need stitches, but she’ll be all right.”
“Brad, guard the prisoners,” Jim said. He knelt down next to the women. “Stacy, what happened?”
“Sergio…said he needed water. I let him come with me to the kitchen. Stupid mistake. He grabbed a knife, slashed at me. I got a couple shots off. Missed him, but he ran off, came in here. Smashed the radio.”
For the first time, Jim noticed the shortwave radio set, or what was left of it, on the floor next to a desk against the far wall. Brad saw it, too. “Looks like it’s toast,” he said. “Those things aren’t built to take much punishment.”
Willa had arrived with a first-aid kit. Gina began to clean the wound. “What happened to Sergio after he trashed the radio?” she asked.
“One of the boys took the knife from him and…” Stacy gulped. “He slashed Sergio’s throat. Then he dropped the knife and stood there.”
“She’s close to going into shock,” Gina said. “Let’s get her to a bed. She needs to lie down.” Tom and Willa helped Stacy to her feet, then slowly took her out of the room, with Gina right behind them.
Jim knew the hikers had to get things squared away. Security had been breached, and one thing he’d learned at OSS was that after a breach, the team had to get the situation under control right away, or it could snowball into even more serious problems. “All right,” he said. “Bill, go back outside and keep an eye out for anybody coming into the valley from up the trail. Ernie, I’ll need you to translate.” The guide shouldered his way into the room. Jim pointed at the older of the two teens. “Tell them they can stand up, then ask them their names.”
A rapid exchange, then, “The older one is Julio Mendez, the younger one his brother, Esteban. Their father was killed back at the tent.”
“Which one of them took down Sergio?”
“I killed him,” Julio said, looking Jim straight in the eye. “I know some English, señor.” He glanced at Ernie, then said, “Who is the leader here?”
“I am the chief guide, but now Señor Jim is in charge.”
The boy—a young man, really—met Jim’s eyes again. “Our father, at the tent, they killed him. The nipu-peruano.”
“He means, the Peruvians who are ethnic Japanese,” Ernie said.
“Why?” Jim asked.
Julio shrugged. His eyes started to tear up. He reached his hands up to brush at the tears, and Jim saw that his wrists were bound with what appeared to be clothesline. “They…bother the American woman. My father, he told them to stop.”
“The younger Japanese guy was feeling up Wendy,” Bill said. “Michael went apeshit. The older Japanese guy shot him, then all hell broke loose.” He pointed at Julio. “This kid took out the older guy, but not soon enough to save his father.”
The younger boy, Esteban, was crying now, too, no doubt at the memory of watching his father murdered. Jim felt a pang of compassion. “We know you guys have been through hell today,” he said. “Julio, you killed Sergio?”
“Yes. But he smashed the radio first. I am sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Another thought hit him. Where were all the Peruvians that staffed the lodge? “Brad, what happened to the staff here?”
“They bugged out right after we showed up, Jim. They saw our guns, our wounded man.” He gestured toward the prisoners. “Then these guys come in, tied up. Next thing we knew, they took off.”
“The Shining Path, they have frightened a lot of people for years,” Ernie said apologetically.
Tom had come back to the room. “Yeah, well, why don’t you people take care of the problem? For Christ’s sake, you’ve got guys with AKs running all over the place, trying to kidnap people who are just here to enjoy the country, not to mention spend a lot of money.”
“Hey, Tom, cool it,” Brad said. “It’s not Ernie’s fault. They’re doing the best they can. Cut ‘em some slack.”
Tom got right into the Texan’s face. “Hey, that character on the floor cut my wife pretty damn good! Michael took a bullet for his. And where’s the goddamn army? Don’t they have more than one helicopter in the whole fucking country? Why don’t—”
“All right!” Jim shouted. That brought immediate silence, but Tom was still seething, and Brad was not too far behind him. “Let’s keep it together, people. Fighting among ourselves only makes the enemy’s job easier. And as much as we might want to see a couple choppers full of U.S. Marines landing outside, that’s not likely to happen. We need to tend to our wounded and plan our next move.” He gestured to Willa. “Keep these two quiet, but you stay in the doorway. Everybody else, come with me.”
When the hikers and Ernie had moved to the main room, Jim took a deep breath, as much to give him a few extra seconds to think as to get some oxygen. They were still at about twelve thousand feet of altitude. “Okay, where do we stand here?” He saw Gina had come out of the bedroom where Stacy had been taken. “What’s the status of our wounded? Can they be moved?”
Gina nodded. “Yes, if they stay on horseback. But now we have three, including Lois.” She gestured to Don’s exhausted wife, who was lying on a couch in obvious pain, her naked foot propped up by a pillow. The ankle was badly swollen.
“How many guns do we have?” Jim asked. “No, that’s not the right question. Brad, what do you think? How many people do we have here who could even halfway handle themselves in a firefight?” He looked around at the anxious faces, then added, “No offense, anyone, but if the shit hits the fan, it isn’t gonna be a game of laser tag.”
The tall Texan swallowed. “Well, hell, Jim, none of us have been in the service. I’ve done my share of hunting, so has Bill, and I think Tom has, too, right?”
“Yeah, but deer don’t shoot back,” Tom said. He still looked upset, but he’d calmed down a little, at least.
“Okay. Willa’s been on the range with me a couple times.” Brad paused, tallying up the numbers in his head, then said, “I’d say, we’ve got seven guns max, plus Gina and her bow. No telling how many of those guys are still out there, though.”
“The two Peruvian kids, they could help us if it comes down to a fight,” Stephanie said. “They’ve obviously had training.”
“I wouldn’t trust them any farther than we could throw them,” Don said. “We trusted Sergio and look what happened.”
“I have to agree,” Jim said. Another pause, then, “Ernie, can we make the next lodge by nightfall?”
“Colpa Lodge, at Collpapampa? It is ten kilometers by the regular trail. No, it will be dusk when we get there.”
The hikers looked back to Jim. He felt the pressure of leadership weighing down on him. For a moment, he felt tendrils of panic reaching for him. He hadn’t counted on this, that’s for damn sure. He’d convinced Gina to come on this trip all the way back to last summer. An adventure, an exotic land, the mysterious lost city. Instinctively, he’d known then that this was something they needed to do. But now? A combat environment was the last thing in the world he’d expected to run into down here, much less having people relying on him to get them home safely.
He needed help for this one. “Gina, what do you think?”
She gave him a tight smile, then looked at the group. “We need to stick together,” she said. “I know we’re all exhausted, we’re all scared. Some of us are hurting. But, if we believe in each other, we can make it.” A few of the heads were nodding, others still carried worried frowns. “My husband has been in some situations even worse than this, believe it or not. He’s always made it home to me. He—” She paused, collected herself, then looked back at them, eyes shining. “He is not Superman, but he is my man. He won’t let us down.”
She reached to him, took his hand. The emotion of the moment almost overcame him. He felt his knees wobbling, forced himself to stay strong. For her, for his companions. Looking at their faces, he knew that he could do it. They all believed in him. Now, he had to believe in himself. “Okay,” he said. “We get to the next lodge. Take Ernie’s shortcut, stay ahead of the bad guys, if they’re following us, and maybe by the time we get there the army will show up. But if they don’t, and those guys are still on our tail, we’ll have to make a run for the river and the train station.”
