Rain falls in a gentle patter, scenting the night, and soaking the world. Nila whines as I stand on the window sill, my back to the night, the makeshift rope looped around my body the same way Simon had it—between my legs, wrapping around my left thigh, coming up and across my chest to fall over my right shoulder. Blue watches me, his ears perked forward. “Go around,” I tell him, pointing toward the door. “Find me.”
I’m not sure what the route is to get to the bottom of the jungle floor, but I’m sure Blue can work it out. He turns toward the bedroom door and Nila waits for me to nod at her before following him.
I look over my shoulder down at the black undulating jungle below. Insects circle all around me, flying past me to get to the light inside. The buzzing sends shivers of unease over my damp skin.
About three feet under the window a metal bar sticks out of the villa’s stucco wall—the core of the bed frame leg that Simon fashioned into a Piton. There is another sticking out of the rock six feet down where the foundation of the villa meets the rock edge of the cliff. How did Ziggy know they were there? He must have clocked them before entering the villa. Probably had that window as a possible escape route—did he trust Simon’s resourcefulness enough to assume he’d have fashioned an escape plan? Fuck, at this point I would hurl myself out a window assuming Simon had a plan how not to die while doing it.
Taking a breath, I lean out into the night, the rope tightening as I cantilever out the window. I step off the ledge. I’m at an angle with my body tipped, so that I’m looking down, arms in a T with my left side pointed toward the canopy below. The rope bites sharply into my right shoulder as I let it out slowly with my left hand. The top rope passes through my right, a slow slide. The rope around my body provides enough friction to give me some control. But it hurts like a bitch.
The ashen dawn light reflects off the rain-slicked leaves ten feet below. Clouds circle above. The insects abandon me as I walk down the side of the villa.
Rain soaks through my shirt and chills my heated skin. The villa ends and my boots find purchase on the rough rock. The scent of the jungle comes up to me on an updraft—sweet rot and fresh green.
I pass into the leafy branches. They trail wet and cloying over my face and body. A new wave of insects waits for me within the close confines. They circle, buzzing my ears. I shake my head, but it doesn’t do any good. The rope rubs painfully against my shoulder.
Shadows thicken, turning the light from metallic to slate. I blink against the rain in my lashes—the sound of it is louder here in the branches, hitting against the leaves, dripping off them, and falling onto others below.
A broken limb, the white center of it exposed, marks Ziggy’s path downwards. My gaze searches through the criss-crossing network of branches below me, finding two more cracked boughs.
Twenty feet into the canopy I can see the ground below—a dark bed of vegetation. A flattened section marks where Ziggy must have landed. I bend my knees and push off the cliff face so I swing out into the boughs of the tree closest to me. I let go with my right hand and reach back to grasp a branch. It sways toward the cliff with me as my momentum shifts, loosening the rain drops gathered on the leaves and dumping them on me as my boots touch the cliff again.
I push again and this time shift my weight to grapple at the branch below me, loosening my rope a little more, letting my weight land on the limb. The tree sways with my weight, and it feels like standing up in a rowboat. I pitch forward and then back before finding my balance. The tree settles. And so do I.
I stay still, just listening. All I can hear is the thrumming of the insects and the pitter-patter of the rain. It hardly reaches me here this deep in the canopy. But it’s loud as it slaps against the leaves above. I loosen the rope, releasing the tension on my shoulder.
I scan the ground cover, finding a narrow trail leading away from the flattened section where it looks like Ziggy landed. I test my balance holding on to the branch above me. The bough I’m standing on is a foot thick and barely moves when I start to pull up the tail of the rope, looping it over my left shoulder.
I use one of my knives to cut through the rope so that I have about a fifteen-foot length, the rest swinging back toward the cliff. Then I start toward the trunk of the tree, holding the branch above me again for balance. I just don’t want to land where I’m expected to land.
It’s more than likely that Ziggy is trying to take cover in the jungle and Simon is hot on his trail. But it could be that the two of them are working together and waiting down here to assassinate me. It’s unlikely, but so is most everything about my life.
I reach the trunk and maneuver around it, finding another thick limb that parallels the trail below. A new sound enters my awareness and I stop, closing my eyes to listen. Voices. I continue, the sound fading in and out, under and over the thrum of the insects and percussion of the rain.
The tree limb I’m on starts to narrow, but the next tree over has extended itself into this one’s canopy and I’m able to shift onto a new branch, headed for another thick trunk. The voices grow stronger.
I don’t see them until I’m almost on top of them; it’s Simon’s white shirt that catches my eye. Wet and streaked with dirt, it clings to his back. His arms are extended—my gun pointed at Ziggy. Who leans against the trunk of the tree, his leg at an awful angle. But his arms are steady as they hold a gun on Simon.
The two men are in a standoff. I inch further along a limb until I’m close enough to hear them. “Give it up,” Simon says. “If you put the gun down I can probably save your life.”
Ziggy laughs, the sound humorless. “You already owe me a life, friend.” The word friend sounds like it’s an insult in his acidic tone.
“You didn’t have to take this job,” Simon says.
Ziggy lets out another grim laugh. “I don’t know exactly what you did, Si, but I’ll tell you this—you’re not going to survive.”
“Says the man with a broken leg, and a bullet in his shoulder, deep in enemy territory refusing to lower his weapon.”
“Throw myself on your mercy?” Ziggy shakes his head, making a clucking sound. “I think I’ll take my chances with God.”
Simon doesn’t respond. Neither man moves. They are both bleeding, both weakened. The question is whose strength will fail first. A part of me wishes I had popcorn for this show. The other part wants to go and end this—use my strength to decide the winner.
“I betrayed Robert Maxim,” Simon says, breaking the silence.
Ziggy shakes his head. “You’re not that stupid.” Simon doesn’t respond. Ziggy laughs, this time it sounds like he genuinely finds this amusing. “You did it for a woman, didn’t you?”
“Not just a woman.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’s very special.”
“For a child.”
My breath stops. Ziggy falls silent. The air fills with tension, some history I don’t know leeching into the air, changing the nature of this conversation. “None of you will survive,” Ziggy says finally, his tone heavy, tired.
“Yes we will.” The explosion of sound from Simon’s gun cracks through the jungle. Birds squawk their anger, rising all around me, scattering into the canopy. Ziggy fires back and Simon’s body twists, his weight following the bullet’s path through his right shoulder. He stumbles and then falls into the ground cover. It crushes under his weight.
Ziggy slumps against the tree, his body shuddering once before falling still. Simon’s chest rises and falls in heaving breaths. Ziggy’s body is still. Deathly still. A bloom of blood spreads on his chest, turning his black shirt to ink.
I release a slow stream of breath, then turn on my radio. It crackles to life, drawing Simon’s attention. His gaze finds me in the tree, standing on the limb, the white rope over my shoulder, legs slightly bent, one hand on the branch above me, the other on my radio. “I found them,” I say. “The intruder is dead. Our prisoner is injured.”
Simon’s face, wet with rain and sweat, breaks into a smile. I shake my head at him. His eyes slip closed. And his chest keeps rising even as the wound on his shoulder slowly stains his shirt red.