Jorge dispenses with the jetty and with a few sharp strokes of his powerful legs has Paloma and Jonny directly in the reeds fringing the steep banks of the lake. By now Jonny is so cold that the outer reaches of his body are almost numb. Even the questions swirling around his mind are starting to slow, fragmenting into single, disconnected words. Rearing from the shallows on his knees, Jorge drags them both through the slippery bullrushes up the riverbank. A few more tugs and he’s hauled them both to kneeling, propping their bodies together against a wet tree trunk. The cold is taking root now, mountain air turning their sodden clothes to frost.
Jonny folds a wet arm around Paloma, deathly pale and shivering beside him. While his body shaking uncontrollably, his mind is slowing to a crawl. Somewhere deep inside of him, he knows warmth should bud soon – they’re out of the water, they’re on unmistakably solid ground. But his core still feels inescapably cold, foggy with mistrust and confusion.
How did Jorge find them so quickly? If Allen told him to tail them all along then what the fuck was he doing while electricity was chasing the blood out of Jonny’s veins? More, why was he told to tail them in the first place? What was the point of some covert meet and greet a gazillion useless miles further north?
There’s a rustle and a second man materialises from further up the bank – Pancho? Now there are two sets of hands manipulating their bodies – lifting Jonny and Paloma, propping them to standing, dragging them both further and further away from the water. Paloma lets out a weak cry, the surrounding reeds suddenly 201razor sharp higher up the drier sections of riverbank. Jonny tries to take in the man to his side but can only seem to process the most basic of details – shorter than Jorge but moving with equal strength and deliberation, following the same path, focused on getting them away from the water’s edge.
But where are they going after that? What’s these men’s ultimate goal? Here, Jonny’s body flails along with his mind. And just as the question finally starts to form on his numb lips, they are there. The slope levels out into a small, dusty clearing. At last Jonny can feel something, the blistering reflection of sunlight off polished metal catching in his eye with a painful gleam. Because waiting in the clearing is a small car. And when its back doors open, the interior is so warm that by rights, it feels like steam should come billowing out.
Jonny suddenly feels himself moving like a rag doll, the prospect of getting warm and dry making him even weaker at the knees. They are crumpled into the backseat, where there are towels, thermoses, even two balled-up pairs of thick socks lolling ghostly white in the footwell. A sharp gust of mountain air takes his breath away again as more doors open and Jorge and the second man slide into position up front. Beside him, Paloma is gasping, rocking back and forth, seemingly incapable of exchanging the wet arms wrapped around herself for a dry towel.
The second man turns from the front, snakes a thick arm backward between the seat and the door to extract a thermos. Jonny folds his towel around Paloma before reaching for hers to wrap around himself. The car is already moving, scything through the undergrowth. But he can’t see anything through the windows, condensation already misted on to every surface. The clearing seems to have narrowed immediately to a dirt track, heavily wooded on either side. The lid of a thermos, steaming with hot liquid, appears in a meaty hand in the gap between the two front seats. Paloma shakes her head as Jonny leans forward to take it.
202‘Come on,’ he urges her, flinching as hot splashes burn his fingers.
She shakes her head again, tendrils of hair finally lifting from her face as they dry.
‘We have to get warm,’ Jonny whispers, sipping from the cup himself. ‘We’re no good to anyone, least of all ourselves, if we’re half frozen to death.’
He gestures at the supplies in the footwell: clean, dry, appropriately sized shoes alongside the balls of socks. Two fleeces. Two undershirts. All in dark, forgettable shades of green, brown and grey. The prospect of warming even further is enough to snap him into further action. But Paloma just stiffens as he leans down, unlacing their soaking boots.
Jorge grunts approvingly from the front seat. ‘Good. Dry yourselves. Get changed. Everything you need is there.’
Paloma clenches her towel, teeth chattering. ‘Who … who are you people?’
A branch snaps off the windscreen, but Jorge doesn’t flinch. ‘Just get changed. You don’t have long.’
Long? Jonny pauses with a sock in his hand. Warmth finally starting to penetrate, he takes in the supplies in the footwell again as if he’s seeing them for the first time. Socks, shoes, clothes. Two small, brand-new and neatly fastened document wallets sitting next to his sodden and largely empty rucksack. He pictures his iridium in its waterproof bag, its GPS dot flashing red on a screen somewhere else.
‘How did you find us so quickly? Did Allen tell you to follow us from the start?’ he asks.
Another grunt from the front seat.
‘Does that mean yes?’
Silence, until another branch cracks off the windshield.
Jonny tries again. ‘Did you see us get ambushed? Did you see those men snatch us in Bariloche?’
203Jorge presses the accelerator. The car lurches forward with a barrage of sharp snaps.
‘I need to talk to Allen,’ Jonny says, reaching for his iridium, intact below the damp plastic bag. ‘And if she’s the one who’s been telling you to stay close all along, then you need to talk to her too. You need to confirm you’ve extracted us safely.’
‘We don’t have time right now,’ Jorge answers finally.
‘Why not? Aren’t we going back to Buenos Aires? That’s almost as far as driving to Rosario. If you’ve been following us all this time, you know exactly how long that takes. We’ve got hours ahead of us. Time is one thing we’ve most definitely got.’
Paloma reaches a hand out from her towel to grab his arm. But not even her quicksilver bracelets of scars can distract Jonny now. ‘We only need to stop for a minute. I know Allen will want to hear directly from me. She’s the one who gave me this satellite phone in the first place. Just stop the car and let me call her.’
‘It’s not safe yet,’ Jorge answers. ‘And that is why we are here. To keep you safe. That’s all.’
Jonny feels electricity fizzing in his veins all over again.
‘Then why didn’t you rescue us before? You must have seen us get ambushed. You must have seen where we were taken. You couldn’t have found us so quickly otherwise. With dry clothes, too. What are you, mind readers as well as former special forces? If you can’t explain that to me, then Allen is going to have to. And she’s expecting me to call in. That’s the protocol for any Trib journalist being extracted from a high-risk location. I’ve heard her explain it on the phone myself. She’ll want immediate confirmation that you’ve got us safely secured. She’s done it a zillion times before.’
‘Don’t worry. She knows.’ The second man this time, staring resolutely ahead.
Jonny pictures that dot again, flashing on a faraway screen. Exactly what else does Allen already know? The cold sweat of betrayal begins to trickle down his back.
204‘The same way you knew where we were too, huh? So why didn’t you help us when we got into trouble? If you’ve been so close by all this time? Did Allen —’ There he has to stop, chest hitching. ‘Did she…?’
But Jonny can’t get the rest of his question out. Just to give the idea oxygen is enough to take his own away. He thinks about the two years that have passed since he and Allen last worked directly together. How she has been promoted into ever more senior editorial positions at the heart of the Trib’s headquarters in Washington DC. How her goals have clarified, how her focus has sharpened, while his has consistently fallen wide of the mark, always distracted by searching for the one thing he never seems able to find. When Paloma takes over, she is able to articulate the obvious in a way Jonny can’t.
‘You were under orders too.’ A statement, not a question. ‘You were told not to intervene under any circumstances, unless you got the nod. And now …’
Jonny knows Paloma is still speaking, she’s even leaning forward, shrugging off her wet towel, stabbing an accusatory finger into the fetid air. But his ears are shutting down, processing any more of her words is causing him physical pain. Isn’t Allen the one who always says that no story is worth dying for? Isn’t Allen the one repeating this to him whenever he heads off on a story with the merest hint of risk? Jonny tries to mouth the words but can’t seem to make his lips obey instructions either. Is it possible that Allen, the one person left on this earth that Jonny thought he could trust with his life, is now driven by ambition over everything else?
Jorge suddenly hits the brakes, sending them both flying forward. Jonny meets the leather back of the seat head on, instinctively screwing his eyes shut, bracing for the blow. But when he opens them, Paloma is pulling herself straight with the most curious of expressions.
205A flick of a wrist and Jorge cuts the engine. Jonny shakes his head. He’s sure he can still hear the car running, but there’s a keening in his ears. Paloma turns, mouthing something unintelligible. He shakes his head again, mind short-circuiting every time it encounters the idea that Allen might have deliberately let them come to harm just to get the best possible news story of all.
Jorge opens his door into an unmistakable cloud of noise.
Paloma mouths at him again, but it’s no use. Jonny’s hands are clamped back against the sides of his head. The keening is so intense now that it is almost unbearable. Relentless waves of sound are billowing dust up off the floor of the wide forest clearing.
Jonny sees it now without needing to look into the sky.
A helicopter is coming in to land.