JAKE WAS SCARED AS HELL. Not so much for himself, because he’d been in more situations like this in the past several years than he wanted to count. A part of him believed danger would be his constant companion in life, like it or not, and that he’d had it coming to him after he cheated death eight years earlier. But Alex deserved far better, and concern for his son’s safety had Jake tuned up and ready for anything.
Not that his son couldn’t handle himself. Hell, Alex had proved it several times over in the past few days alone. Still, having the weight of responsibility for his son’s life literally riding on his back was enough to make any father throw out the rule book. So, if protecting Alex meant following a thirteen-year-old girl into the unexplored depths of the rainforest to avoid a bunch of blood-hungry mercenaries, then so be it.
He caught up easily with Lucy. The sleep, the food, and the mini’s energy made him feel stronger than ever, and a minute later they broke into the clearing that enveloped the second dock. The pier looked solid, and the aluminum warehouses on both sides of it were well lit. There was nobody in sight, and he suspected Frank’s thugs had all rushed to the man’s aid at the bar. A covered water garage protruded partway into the river. Lucy scampered onto the pier and into the entrance. After Jake lowered Alex to the ground, they followed her inside to see a gleaming speedboat. It was a twenty footer with a closed bow, two rows of seats, and twin Yamaha 225 outboards.
Lucy untied the lead rope, motioning as she did so toward a row of five-gallon gas cans along the wall. “We need two of them.”
There were ten cans in all. Jake grabbed the first two. “They’re empty.”
“It’s the two on the other end. I filled them earlier.” She tossed the rope into the boat and stepped inside.
Jake retrieved the full cans and lugged them beside the boat. Alex had untied the stern, and held the line taut while Jake shuffled the cans into the stern well.
Lucy inserted the key. “It’s going to be loud so I’ve got to move us out fast. This may not be the most practical boat for where we’re going, and it gulps fuel like crazy, but it’s definitely the fastest of the lot. So nobody’s going to catch us anytime soon. Are you ready?”
“Wait. Fastest of the lot? There are others? Where are they?”
“In the warehouse on the other side of the pier.”
Jake grabbed one of the gas cans and stepped out of the boat. “I’ll be right back.”
“But we need that.”
“If anyone shows up, clear out of here and head downriver. I’ll catch up.”
“But we need to go upriver!”
“Trust me,” he shouted over his shoulder.
Jake ran out of the garage to the warehouse. Two roll-up doors fronted the river. They were closed, but the side door for foot traffic stood wide open. He stepped inside, skirted around a double-stacked pallet of eight fifty-gallon drums of gasoline, and surveyed the warehouse. Besides a well-stocked reloader station with three different presses and a variety of ammo, the space housed three power boats on wheeled trailers that could be winched in and out of the water, plus a variety of related gear and equipment. Jake guessed it had all been salvaged from previous guests of Frank’s who’d never made it out of the rainforest alive. He still regretted not killing the man, and hoped the failure wouldn’t haunt him later.
He grabbed rags from a workbench, unscrewed the gas caps on the boats, and stuffed the rags partway inside. He uncapped the fuel can and began dousing the rags and the boats. He was leaning into the stern of the third boat when a man’s voice stopped him cold.
“Drop the jerry and raise your hands.”
The man was behind him, likely with the gunsight trained on the back of Jake’s head. Jake let the can slip from his fingers. It toppled to the cement floor, and the remaining contents gurgled out in a stream that followed the sloping floor toward the roll-up doors. He raised his hands.
“Nice move, you bleedin’ wanker,” the man said, referring to the dumped gasoline. He spoke with a cockney accent thicker than Frank’s. “I oughta end you where you stand, but that wouldn’t please Frank none, would it now? But mind your manners, mate. Because I’m holdin’ an AA-12, and one squeeze of the trigger will blast you to kingdom come whether Frank likes it or not, and then he and I will have to mourn the lost opportunity to slice your head off over a pint or two. Now that would be a damn shame indeed.”
The AA-12 was one of the few weapons Jake hadn’t come across back in the day when he was flash reading anything he could get his hands on. He only knew it was a fully automatic twelve-gauge shotgun that could fire ammunition ranging from buckshot to high-explosive rounds. Whatever it was loaded with now, a pull of the trigger would obliterate him.
“Very slowly now. Turn around.”
He was about to move when another vision invaded his mind. It was more abrupt than the previous ones, and he was once again transported to the cavern. He sensed Alex’s presence beside him, and for an instant he saw his son in the boat with Lucy. But that image vanished as quickly as it appeared, and suddenly he and his son stood alone in the cavern facing the entity who’d called them. The man’s image—if he was a man—was clearer now. He wore a long, green robe. His hair was white, and his sallow cheeks were spotted and wrinkled. He was old and looked worn out, but there remained a faint sparkle in his blue eyes. “It won’t stay closed much longer.” His voice was frail and desperate—and foreboding. The man took wheezing breaths as he continued. “You are close, but you must hurry. I have lowered the shield. Use the lake. Tell the girl to bring you to the mist. She will know.” The man’s image was replaced by an overhead view of a wide waterfall spilling hundreds of feet to a massive valley shrouded in fog. “Everything is at stake,” the man said, his voice trailing off.
And then the vision was gone.
“Last chance, mate. Turn around or face your maker.”
Jake moved slowly, his mind reeling. There was no time to waste, and getting there before the clock stopped ticking meant a change in plans.
A big change.
He stared at the surly man holding the shotgun. With weathered skin, yellow teeth, and a bald head wrapped in a spiderweb tattoo, the man looked like a mangy pirate from a Pirates of the Caribbean flick. A gold ring dangled from an earlobe. That he was a killer like his pal Frank, there was no doubt.
Jake raised an eyebrow. “You’re an ugly bastard, aren’t you?”
The man stepped closer and raised the shotgun. His finger was inside the trigger guard. “And you’re a dead man walking.”
Jake kept his hands up but relaxed his posture, willing the man to move closer. The man took another step and stopped. Still not close enough.
“Ah, I see,” the man said. “You’re getting ready to make a move, right? Trust me, you’ll never make it, mate.” His finger seemed to tighten around the trigger. “And speaking of ugly, what the hell happened to your face? ’Course, as bad as it is, it’s going to look even worse when it’s no longer attached to your neck.” He chuckled.
Even with full use of the mini, Jake couldn’t outrun a shotgun blast. If he tried to send a surge of energy into the man’s skull, it would likely make the pirate squeeze the trigger.
“Hey, mister,” Alex’s voice sounded from behind the pallet of drums. The pirate spun, while keeping the shotgun trained on Jake.
Jake sensed his opening—just as an arrow whistled across the space to embed itself in the pirate’s neck. The man’s mouth went wide, his body stiffened, and he went down like a statue. He still gripped the shotgun, but his paralyzed system couldn’t signal his finger to squeeze the trigger.
Jake was on him in a beat. He peeled the man’s fingers back and took the gun. The man’s eyes darted back and forth, but he had only a few breaths left, so Jake ignored him.
Alex and Lucy stepped into the open. Alex said, “Lucy doesn’t use a blowgun so she dips her arrows in the frog potion.”
“Nice shot, Lucy.”
She nodded.
Alex took her hand. “Are you okay?”
She frowned, as if wondering why she wouldn’t be. “Death is part of life. It was time for him to move on.”
Alex turned to Jake. “I saw you in the vision. Came to help. I guess you know we need a new plan.”
Jake smiled. Putting two and two together was never a problem for his son. “Already on it. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
***
Two minutes later Jake was standing outside the roll-up door with a BIC lighter in his hand.
He now had the shotgun slung alongside the assault rifle. He’d loaded it with a thirty-two-round drum magazine he’d grabbed from the workbench. The canister had a skull and crossbones painted on it, and he’d grinned when he realized it held high-explosive rounds, which essentially turned the weapon into a fully automatic grenade launcher.
The orange glow from the water garage confirmed the flame Lucy had started there had taken hold. He glanced over his shoulder to see her and Alex waiting in a canoe at the water’s edge. Alex sat low in the front, and Lucy was at the stern using her paddle to hold them in place. The moon was gone, the night was dark, and it was time to go.
Jake had repositioned gunpowder and boxes of rounds from the reload station next to the double-stacked pallets of gasoline drums. He’d used his knife to pierce the side of one of the upper containers to spill fuel over it all, connecting the makeshift bomb to the fuel leaking under the roll-up door in front of him. He ignited the BIC, touched the flame to the gas, and ran like hell.
As soon as he kneeled into the center position of the canoe, Lucy used her paddle to push them from shore. She steered the boat into the current and they drifted downstream.
Toward Frank’s Last Chance Bar.
They ducked low. Five seconds later an explosion ripped the night apart, like the grand finale of a fireworks display gone wrong. Even from a hundred yards away, the blast wave hit them with the force of a gale, shoving the boat across the water, and instantly bringing beads of sweat to Jake’s skin. Flaming debris flew in every direction, and one of the fifty-gallon drums shot up like a launched rocket. Birds shrieked, monkeys howled, and a thousand bats leaped from the trees to fill the sky with frantic flaps.
“Keep your heads down,” Jake said, as flaming scraps pelted the water around them.
Alex hunkered down in front of him. He was trembling but otherwise seemed okay. Jake turned to see Lucy bent low as well, but still steering with her paddle. She used her chin to brush a piece of glowing chaff off her shoulder.
Tough kid.
She motioned ahead to the left at the river’s bend, where an abundant overhang of trees and plant life created a deep shadow at the shoreline. The vegetation clinging to the hill beyond was so thick that it was impassable, which was why they’d had to trek through the forest on the distant side of the knoll to go from the village to the warehouse dock. It was the same path Frank’s people would have to take, and the success of their plan hinged on them racing along it now toward the explosion.
And away from their seaplane.
Lucy steered under the foliage. As the canoe slowed, she grabbed a low-hanging branch to hold them in place. Behind them the warehouse fire illuminated the river with sparkles, but they were deep in the shadows and well out of sight.
Alex sat up and rubbed his hands through his hair to shake out small bits of soot. When he turned back to Jake, he blew out a long breath and gave a thumbs-up. Jake patted the air with his palm, indicating Alex should remain where he was. Alex nodded. Jake crawled to the back of the canoe to exchange places with Lucy and take hold of the branch to keep them steady.
“You sure about this?” he whispered.
She gave him an expression that he guessed was the native equivalent of rolling her eyes, and kept her voice low. “The dock is just around the bend. Wait for my signal, then come fast.”
She moved to the middle of the boat and removed her pack, arrows, and bow. She studied the dark water as her fingers looped a leather drawstring around the hilt of the sheathed knife at her waist. After a moment, she closed her eyes and her lips spoke silent words. Then she rose to her feet so lightly the canoe barely moved, and a moment later she sliced into the water and disappeared.
Alex shook his head. “What about the piranhas?”
Jake shrugged. He strained to follow her path beneath the murky surface, but the water barely rippled. It frustrated him to just sit and wait while Lucy exposed herself to risk. But when she’d challenged him to suggest a better plan, he’d come up empty.
Three very long minutes passed before they heard Lucy’s double-hoot monkey call. He pushed off immediately and steered into the current, putting his back behind each paddle stroke. The canoe skipped across the water, and when they made the turn, the plane was less than fifty yards away. A dim wall light on the front of Frank’s building provided the only illumination, but it was enough to see at least a dozen more long canoes on the shore than had been there when they first arrived. Trumak’s tribe was here in force. Jake prayed they’d all taken the bait. There was a lot of movement up in the village, but Frank’s place looked deserted and Lucy was nowhere to be seen. Jake paddled harder.
They were less than ten yards from the dock when he spotted the two natives who had been guarding the plane earlier in the day. They stood on shore under the bow of a tree, their backs to the dock as they watched the activity up the hill. Alex pointed at them. Jake let the boat’s momentum carry it the rest of the way, and then used the paddle to steer it alongside the dock. He cringed when wood scraped against wood but the guards didn’t notice. He held the boat in place while Alex grabbed Lucy’s gear, set it on the pier, and clambered up beside it. His son scurried over to the plane.
Jake was on deck an instant later, and that’s when he saw Lucy. She was in the water at the front of the plane’s dockside pontoon, using her knife to work on a chain that was looped around the plane’s strut and secured to the dock with a padlock.
Crap.
Alex climbed inside the plane, leaving the door cracked open like he was supposed to. Jake stepped onto the pontoon and skirted past it as he rushed to help Lucy. It was a rusty anchor chain. One of the rings was open a fraction, and the tip of her knife was bent from her efforts. She hissed through clenched teeth. “It won’t open.”
Jake turned to survey the lock securing the dock cleat, causing the assault rifle slung on his shoulder to clip the pontoon’s strut. Lucy’s eyes went wide at the sound. She yanked her knife free and vanished into the water.
Both guards spun around in a crouch. A half beat later, one rushed toward Jake while the other faced up the hill and let out a fierce cry. War cries answered from the distance.
Jake leaped onto the dock. The first fighter raced full bore toward him, gripping a hatchet. His partner was behind him, wielding a machete. Either of them could’ve easily pierced Jake with an arrow from where they’d stood, but they’d discarded their bows. The tribe must’ve been under orders from Frank to take Jake alive. As he tapped energy from the mini, he knew he’d use no such restriction. Shadows were charging down the hill, and he’d kill them all if he had to.
He took a knee, aimed the assault rifle, and time slowed.
The first native was ten paces way. He wore a shiny key around his neck. It had to be the key to the padlock. Jake adjusted his aim to the right side of the man’s chest so that he’d fall to the dock, not in the water. He squeezed the trigger.
Click.
The weapon didn’t fire. Jake dropped the rifle and unholstered his pistol, bringing it to bear when the man was three paces away. He squeezed the trigger.
Click.