"s.h.i.t! s.h.i.t! s.h.i.t!"
There was the crash of branches, followed swiftly by the thud on the jungle floor, close enough that I felt the vibration in the ground as it does when two tonnes of dead tree have just given up the will to stay upright.
The crash spooked not only me but also the birds lazing on branches high above.
There was screeching and the heavy, slow flap of large wings getting their owners the h.e.l.l out of there.
A few gallons of canopy-held rain had followed the deadfall. I wiped the water from my face and stood up. s.h.i.t, it"s getting bad. I"ve never had them on a job and never had them about Kev and his gang. It must be because I"m so knackered, I just feel totally drained ... I pushed hair off my forehead and got a grip of myself. Knackered? So what? Just get on with it. Work is work; cut away from that s.h.i.t. You know where she is, she"s safe, just do the job and try to keep her that way.
Deadfall was a constant problem in the jungle, and checking to see if there were any dead trees or branches nearby or overhead when basha"ing up for the night was an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) that was taken seriously. I marked time, trying to do something with my legs. I could feel pins and needles.
Please, not here, not now.
According to Baby-G it was 2.23, not long to pick-up.
The rain had held off while I"d been here, but now and again a bucketful still fell after being dislodged, bouncing off the foliage on its way down with the sound of a finger tapping on a side drum, as if to accompany my static marching.
I"d been here amongst the leaf litter for nearly six hours. It was like having a night out on belt-kit not having the comfort of being off the ground in a hammock and under a poncho, instead having to rough it with just the equipment that you have on your belt: ammunition, twenty-four hours of food, water and medical kit. Only I didn"t even have that. Just guaranteed misery as I became part of the jungle floor.
I finished with marking time: the sensation had gone away. I"d fought off jet lag, but my body still wanted desperately to curl into a ball and sink into a deep sleep. I felt my way back down against the hard rough bark of a tree and was surrounded by invisible crickets. As I stretched out my legs to ease the cramp in the good one and the pain in the other, I felt around to make sure the sweatshirt dressing was still tight around the wound; it didn"t feel as if it was bleeding any more, but it was painful and, I imagined, messy down there. I could feel the pulse throbbing against the edge of the wound.
As I moved to relieve the numbness in my a.r.s.e once more, the soles of my Timber lands pushed against Unibrow. I"d searched him before we went into the treeline, and found a wallet and several metre lengths of copper wire tucked into a canvas pouch on his belt. He"d been setting traps. Maybe he was into that sort of stuff for fun: it wasn"t as if the lot up at the house would be in need of the odd wild turkey.
I thought back over some of the stuff I"d done over the years, and right now I hated all the jobs I"d ever been on. I hated Unibrow for making me kill him. I hated me. I was sitting in s.h.i.t, getting attacked by everything that moved, and I"d still had to kill someone else. One way or another that was the way it had always been.
Until midnight I"d heard only three vehicles moving along the road, and it was hard to tell if they were heading towards the house or away from it. After that, the only new sounds were the buzzing of insects. At one point a troop of howler monkeys pa.s.sed us by, using the top of the canopy so they had some starlight to help them see what they were doing. Their booming barks and groans reverberated through the jungle, so loud they seemed to shake the trees. As they swung screeching and bellowing from tree to tree they disturbed the water caught in the giant leaves, and we were rained on again.
I sat gently rubbing around the cut on my leg as more buzzes circled my head, stopping just before I felt something bite into my skin. I slapped my face just as I heard movement high above me in the canopy, sending another downpour.
Whatever it was up there sounded like it was moving on rather than coming down to investigate, which was fine by me.
At 2.58 I heard the low rumble of a vehicle. This time the noise didn"t fade.
The engine note took over gradually from the chirping of the crickets, pa.s.sing my position until I could clearly hear the tyres splashing in puddled-up potholes. It stopped just past me, with a gentle squeak of not-too-good brakes. The engine ticked over erratically. It had to be the Mazda.
Leaning on the gollock to help me get to my feet, I stretched my legs and tried to get them warmed up as I checked to make sure I still had my docs. The wound felt even more tender now I was standing again, and my clothing was sodden and heavy. Having given in to temptation hours ago, I scratched my lumpy back.
I felt around for Unibrow, got hold of an arm and a leg, and heaved him over my shoulder. His body was slightly stiff, but far from rigid. The heat and humidity probably had something to do with that. His free arm and foot flopped around as I jiggled him into position.
With the gollock and hat in my right hand I made my way slowly towards the edge of the treeline, my head and eyes at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the ground and half closed to protect them from the unseen wait-a-while. I might as well have closed them completely: I couldn"t see a thing.
The moment I emerged from the forest, I saw the silhouette of the Mazda, bathed in a glow of white and red reflecting off the wet tarmac. I laid Unibrow down with his hat in the mud and tall gra.s.s at the jungle"s edge, and squelched towards the pa.s.senger side, gollock in hand, checking to make sure there was only one body shape in the cab.
Aaron was sitting with both hands gripping the wheel, and in the dull glow of the instruments I could see him staring rigidly ahead like some sort of robot.
Even with the window down, he didn"t seem to register I was there.
I said quietly, "Seen any of those barry-whatever trees yet?"
He jumped forward in his seat as if he"d just seen a ghost.
Is the back unlocked, mate?"
"Yes." He nodded frantically, his voice shaking.
"Good, won"t be long."
I walked to the rear, opened the tailgate, then went back to fetch Unibrow. Lifting him in my arms and leaning back to take f| the weight, I carried him across to the vehicle, not knowing || whether Aaron could see what was happening. The suspension || sank a little as I dumped the body on the c.r.a.p-strewn floor. His ; | hat followed, and in the dim glow from the tail-lights I covered " him with his own poncho, then lowered the tailgate before gently ; clicking it shut. The back window was a small oval, covered in grime. n.o.body would be able to see through.
;" I went round to the pa.s.senger door and jumped in. Water | oozed from my jeans and soaked into the blanket covering the " seat. Aaron was still in the same position.
"Let"s go then, mate.
Not too fast, just drive normally."
He pushed the selector into Drive and we moved off. A cool draught of air from the open window hit my lumpy face, and as ; we splashed through pot-holes I leaned down and placed the gollock under my feet.
Aaron at last found the courage to speak.
"What"s in the back?" L There was no point beating about the bush.
"A body."
"G.o.d forbid." His hands ran through his hair as he stared v through the windscreen, before attacking his beard once more. !
"G.o.d forbid ... What happened?" i I didn"t answer, but listened to the rasping of stubble as his left ( hand wiped imaginary demons from his face.
What are we going to do, Nick?"
"I"ll explain later it"s OK, it isn"t a drama." I tried to keep my voice slow and calm.
"All we need to worry about is getting away from the area, and then I"ll sort the problem out, OK?"
Switching on the cab light, I fumbled for Unibrow"s wallet in my jeans and pulled it apart. He had a few dollars, and a picture ID that called him Diego Paredes and said he had been born in November "76 two months after I"d joined the Army. There was a cropped photograph of him and what looked like his parents and maybe some brothers and sisters, all dressed up, sitting at a table, gla.s.ses raised at the camera.
Aaron had obviously seen it.
"Someone"s son," he said.
Weren"t they all? I put everything back in the leather compartments.
His head was obviously full of a million and one things he wanted to say.
"Can"t we take him to hospital? We can"t just keep him in the back, for G.o.d"s sake."
I tried to sound relaxed.
"Basically, we have to but only for now." I looked across at him. He didn"t return my glance, just stared at the headlights. .h.i.tting the road. He was in a world of his own, and a frightening one it was.
I kept my gaze on the side of his face, but he couldn"t bring himself to make eye contact.
"He belongs to Charlie. If they find his body, it could put all of us in danger all of us. Why take that risk?" I let that sink in for a bit. He knew what I was talking about. When a threat"s extended to a man"s wife and children, it invariably focuses his way of thinking.
I needed to inst il confidence in this character, not anxiety.
"I know what I"m doing and he"s just got to come with us for now. Once we"re out of the area we"ll make sure we dump him so he"s never found."
Or at least, as far as I was concerned, not before Sat.u.r.day morning.
There was a long, awkward silence as we drove along the jungle-lined tarmac and eventually hit the ghost town of Clayton. The headlights picked out the shadows of empty houses, barracks, and deserted streets and children"s play areas. It looked even more deserted at night, as if the last American soldier had turned off the lights before he went home for good.
We turned a corner and I could see the high-mounted floodlights of the locks a few kilometres in the distance, shimmering like a big island of white light. The superstructure of a heavily laden container ship was facing to the right, half hidden as it waited in the lock for the water to surge in and raise its ma.s.sive bulk.
SIXTEEN.
I was just too f.u.c.ked to worry about anything, but Aaron was in deep flap mode.
His left hand couldn"t stop touching or rubbing his face. His eyes kept checking through the rear window, trying to see the body in the back, even though it was in pitch darkness.
We were driving alongside a very wide, deep, U-shaped concrete storm trench. I got Aaron to stop and turn off his lights, and he faced me for the first time, probably hoping that we were going to do something about Unibrow.
I nodded towards the lights.
"I"ve got to clean myself up before we hit all that." I wanted to look at least a bit normal, in case we were seen or stopped as we went through the city. Being wet wasn"t unusual here, it rained a lot. I could have told him it was time for my daily prayers and he would probably have replied the same way.
"Oh, OK."
Once I forced my aching body out of the Mazda I could see what was going on under the floodlights. The stumpy electric lo cos were moving up and down the tracks beside the ship, looking like little toys from this distance and too far away to be heard properly. Only a m.u.f.fled version of the radio traffic from the speakers reached us. The glow from the powerful arc-lights got to us, though, giving just enough light to see what was going on about us, and cast a very weak shadow on the Mazda as I went to the rear and lifted the tailgate to check Unibrow. He had been sliding about and he was pushed hard against the side body work his nose and lips compressed, his arms thrown behind him as if they couldn"t catch up. The stench of blood and guts was so strong I had to move my head away. It smelt like a freezer after a power-cut.
Leaving the tailgate up, I scrambled two or three metres down the side of the concrete ditch and into the surging storm water. Bits of tree and vegetation raced past my legs as I pulled the plastic bag from under my jacket and wedged it above the water-line in the gap between two of the concrete sections. Even if I had to run naked from this spot I would still be armed with my doc.u.ments.
I squatted in the edge of the flow and washed off all the mud, blood and leaf litter that covered me, as if I was having a bath with my clothes on. I didn"t bother to check the wound; I"d sort it out later, and in the meantime all I"d do was keep the cut-up sweatshirt wrapped around it and just sit in the water and rest for a second.
I hadn"t really noticed it up till now, but the sky was very clear and full of stars, sparkling like the phosph.o.r.escence on the jungle floor as I slowly took off my jacket.
I heard Aaron"s door creak open and looked up to see him silhouetted against the glow from the ca.n.a.l. By now I was nearly naked, rinsing my jeans in the trench before wringing them out and throwing them up on to the gra.s.s, then checking out my back rash and face.
I watched as he stuck his head slowly into the back of the wagon. He recoiled and turned away, vomit already exploding from his mouth. I heard it splatter against the side of the vehicle and tarmac above me, then the sounds of him retching up those last bits that stay in your throat and nose.
I scrambled up on to the gra.s.s and hurriedly dressed in my wet clothes. Aaron had his last cough and snort and walked back to the cab, wiping his beard with a handkerchief. Sidestepping the pool of vomit on the tarmac, I covered Unibrow again with the poncho, lowered the tailgate, and climbed in next to Aaron, ignoring what had just happened even though I could smell it on his breath. That"s better, wet but clean-ish." I grinned, trying to lighten the tone.
Aaron didn"t respond. He looked terrible, even in this low light. His eyes were glistening with tears and his breathing was sharp and quick as he swallowed hard, maybe to stop himself throwing up again. His large hairy Adam"s apple bobbed up and down like a fishing float with a bite. He was having a moment with his thoughts, not even realizing I"d spoken as he rubbed his stubble with shaking hands.
"Back to your place, then how far is it again, mate?"
I patted him on the shoulder and he nodded, turning the ignition with another little cough. He gave a quiet, resigned, "Sure." His voice trembled as he added, "It"s about four hours, maybe more. We"ve had some very heavy rain."
I made the effort and kept my happy voice on, not really knowing what else to do or say "We"d better get a move on, then, hadn"t we?"
We got through Fort Clayton and hit the main drag; the Barrier was up, it seemed the old security guy didn"t play at night. I"d been wrong, the street lighting wasn"t used now that there wasn"t much traffic on it any more.
We turned left, leaving the lock and Clayton behind us, travelling in silence. A distant arc of light in the night sky indicated the city, along with flashing red lights from the top of a profusion of communication towers. Aaron just stared straight ahead, swallowing hard.
Before long we approached the floodlit toll booths by the old Albrook air-force base. The noise of the bus terminal blasted all | around us as power hoses washed the buses. A surprisingly large number of workers were waiting for transport, most holding small iceboxes and smoking.
Aaron spent the best part of a minute fumbling in his pockets and the glove compartment at the toll booth. A bored, middle-aged woman just stared into s.p.a.ce with her hand out, no doubt dreaming about getting on to one of those buses at the end of her shift.
I let my head bob about as we bounced along the pot-holed road and into the sleeping city via El Chorrillo. A few lights were on here and there in the apartment blocks, and the odd scabby mongrel skulked along a sidewalk, then a black BMW screamed past us at warp speed. Five or six heads with cigarettes glowing in their mouths jutted backwards and forwards to the beat of some loud Latin music as it roared down the street. The BM had violet-coloured headlights, and a powerful fluorescent glow beneath the body work made it look like it was hovering. My eyes followed it into the distance as it hung a right, tyres squealing like something out of NYPD Blue.
I looked over at Aaron. He probably wouldn"t even have reacted if we"d been overtaken by the USS Enterprise. He screwed up his face and deep lines cut into his skin. He looked as if he was going to be sick again as we bounced along, turning right at the junction the BM had taken. Once more we drove past the Pepsi stand, barred up for the night, and into the market area.
I thought I needed to say something to fill the silence, but I didn"t know what.
I just looked out at the rubbish overflowing from the piles of soaked cardboard boxes that fringed the square, and cats fighting over the sc.r.a.ps.
In the end it was Aaron who broke the deadlock, wiping his nose into his hand before he spoke.
"Nick ... ?"
"What"s that, mate?" I was almost too tired to speak.
"Is that what you do kill people? I mean, I know it happens, it"s just that-" I pointed down at the gollock in the foot well "I nearly lost my leg with that thing, and if he"d had his way, it would have been my head. I"m sorry, mate, there was no other way. Once we"re the other side of the city, I"ll bin him."
He didn"t reply, just stared intently through the windscreen, nodding slowly to himself.
We hit the bay once more, and I saw a line of ships" navigation lights flickering out at sea. Then I realized Aaron had started to shake. He"d spotted a police car at the roadside ahead, with two rather bored-looking officers smoking and reading the papers. I gave myself a mental slapping, but not enough for him to see.
I kept my voice calm.
"Don"t worry, just drive normally, everything"s OK."
It wasn"t, of course: they might stop a beaten-up Mazda just to relieve the boredom.
As we pa.s.sed, the driver glanced up from his newspaper, and turned to say something to his mate. I kept my eyes on the cracked wing mirror, watching the four police cars as I spoke.
"It"s OK, mate, there"s no movement from behind.
They"re still static. Just keep to the limit and smile."
I didn"t know if he responded. My eyes were glued to the vehicles in the mirror until they dropped out of sight. I caught sight of my face for the first time.