Chapter 1 #2
Even though Logan knows the fate that awaits him as soon as he’s finished this mission, he remains loyal. He’ll always remain loyal. Like a fucking golden retriever.
But he’s smart and ruthless, where others are concerned. He’s a lot more useful to me than a big softie like Everest, or like a sadist who thinks with his dick, like Igor. I left them at home to hold the fort, and I’m traveling with only Logan and Vincent.
The latter is still mostly unproved, but I’m going to have to break in the kid quickly. I’ll need a new righthand man once Logan is gone.
My heart cripples a bit more, the way it does every time I think of life without the two people who have made it worth living. Without the one I’d always considered like a brother. And without my girl.
I crush the bitter thought to my chest. Why did Logan have to pit himself against her? Why did he force me to choose?
I could have had them both. Instead, I’ve lost everything.
I force my face back into its usual mask and jump out of the tiny airplane, its door a few feet from the ground. It has landed on a small strip on the fringes of the Rainforest.
I’ve never been here before, and the first thing that strikes me is the humidity. It feels like I’ve been dunked into a lukewarm bath, only it’s not water, it’s air that leaves a suffocating sheen on my arms.
The second thing is the insects. So many goddamn insects.
Swarms of mosquitoes that don’t seem to care whether or not the sun is up.
Perhaps it never really is, in the forest. The air around me is choked by flying bugs, little black things with an occasional colorful butterfly in their midst, while the tree trunks and ground are nearly coated in the creatures.
“Over 90% of the species in the Rainforest are insects,” declares a voice just behind me.
“Yeah, fuck you too,” I grumble as I turn around and face the stranger.
I’m not here for a damn tour. I’m here to find the fuckers who killed my girl.
The stranger takes an apologetic step back.
I stare at him. He’s just as sweaty as I am, but he seems used to it, as though he embraces it.
He’s wearing camouflage clothes that look something like an old army outfit that’s been reappropriated for civilian use, and has grown nearly unrecognizable with time.
His face is a pattern of lines and stubble, his eyes deeply set back in his face, and the odor that permeates him is a mix of tobacco smoke and body stench.
“I hired Juan Garrido,” quickly explains Logan. “He will guide us through the jungle to the Angel compound. We don’t know exactly where it is.”
“I don’t need a guide,” I lash out.
I certainly don’t need a guide he’s hired.
“I gave Logan his contact,” clarifies Vincent timidly. “Garrido is Lazarus’ old bodyguard, and he knows Angel better than anyone. I think he’ll be very useful.”
“Fine,” I relent, gesturing for Garrido to start walking. I don’t have any time to lose.
He takes the lead, walking down a small path that seems to lead to the heart of the jungle. “We’ll start down this path. After a while, there won’t be a path anymore.”
I notice he keeps his rifle handy, and my hands flit toward my own pistol, which I’ve slung under my belt.
“For animals,” he explains. “We should be fine, however. The jaguar is a rare sighting, and it won’t attack us if we leave it alone. Same with the peccaries. They hunt by the riverbanks, and we will not be traveling near water. Too easy to be spotted.”
He points to a brown and black bug darting over the branch of a nearby tree. “Assassin bug. Lots of poisonous shit out here. Don’t touch the insects.”
“Wasn’t planning to,” comments Logan, failing to suppress a repulsed shudder.
We walk for hours in silence, Logan’s occasional grunts the only sound we hear.
I glance at him and see that his face glistens with copious sweat, and his brown locks are matted to his forehead.
His once white shirt has turned nearly transparent, and he sucks in little spurts of oxygen, before exhaling in long, shuddering gasps.
I’m probably in the same state myself, only I’m not really aware of it.
It’s like I’ve been drowning in some strange, viscous substance ever since I accepted my pet’s fate.
Something red and burning, like lava, and I’ve grown used to the suffocating pain.
The sweat, the physical labor of walking through this rainforest, all of that pales in comparison.
Vincent seems to be faring a bit better.
I rack my brain but can’t remember if I’d heard about this Amazonian compound before.
Has he lived in it? He’s got the dark skin and hair of the people in this region.
All the Murillos do. I wonder if they were born here, if they grew up here.
It would explain why they chose to remain in such a godforsaken place.
It could be noon or the middle of the night, for all I know. Below the suffocating canopy, there is no difference.
Still, as we continue to make our way into the depths of the jungle, I begin to perceive fractures in the canopy, little slivers through which gleam a distant sun. The light grows dimmer and dimmer, until it’s all but extinguished, the forest plunged into an odd, nerve-wracking darkness.
When it’s gotten too dark to see more than a few inches in front of us, Garrido clicks on a flashlight and shines it toward a patch of deep green grass, a few feet away.
“We’ll camp here,” he decides, “and then tomorrow, we’ll continue.”
I watch as he and Vincent gather about dry twigs, which they find under the larger boughs of the trees that glitter with the same moisture as the one that lies heavy on our own skin. They pile them together with Logan’s help, and Garrido cracks a large match, igniting them.
Then we each unclip the rolls of blankets from our backpacks, and sit down on them. Garrido has already settled down, and he’s roasting some sausages he’s been carrying around in the isotherm compartment of his backpack. He distributes them to each of us, after depositing them in rolls of bread.
I stare at mine, pushing down on the wave of nausea that threatens to strangle my throat.
“Eat,” he suggests. “We’ll need all our strength if we want to push through to the compound tomorrow.”
I tear a piece off of the sausage. It tastes like chalk in my mouth. But both Logan and Vincent devour theirs ravenously.
“So, what’s the gameplan, once we arrive at the compound?” asks Logan between bites.
I study Garrido. He’s carefully eating his own sausage, keeping his eyes anywhere but on me.
“I have a plan,” I mutter, taking a long swig of the water in my gourd.
Then I swish it around. There isn’t much of it, and I know better than to take water from the streams, no matter how fresh it might seem. I’ve heard of the parasites that infest these waters, and that can latch themselves onto your brain.
Death by dehydration would be a kinder fate.
“Well?” questions Logan. “What is it?”
In the darkness of the jungle, he’s found a bit of his old bravado. I don’t mind. Anything is better than the cringing creature he’s turned into.
“We’re going to kill all those motherfuckers.”
At that, Logan stops chewing. “That’s your plan? Are you aware just how outnumbered we are? There’s four of us, and probably hundreds of them. We don’t even have our killing machine along with us. Igor.”
I shrug, unwilling to share any more. The truth is, I do have a plan. It’s little more than a suicide mission, but I have no plans to get out of there alive anyway. As long as I’ve accomplished my purpose, I will die happily.
That’s why I kept Everest and Igor at home. Everest doesn’t deserve such a fate. Igor… well, Igor probably does. Still, I don’t want to leave Everest alone. He couldn’t protect himself if he had a whole arsenal of weapons at his command.
I hesitated to take Vincent along, but he’ll be undeniably useful. Without him, it wouldn’t be a suicide mission… just suicide. Still, I feel a twinge of regret as I glance at him.
Then I turn my gaze back to our guide, and note the way his eyes dart to the left and right nervously, his lip reaching up every so often to lick a patch of dry skin.
“Tell me, Garrido,” I say, doing my best to swallow the dry piece of meat that sticks thickly to my palate. “What does it take for one of Angel’s men to desert his camp?”
His eyes flit back to mine and he shifts uncomfortably.
“He was Lazarus’ bodyguard,” begins Vincent.
“I asked Garrido,” I cut him off quietly.
The boy looks down at his sausage roll in apparent embarrassment.
“As Vincent says,” responds Garrido, “I was Lazarus’ bodyguard. The moment he died, my loyalty ended.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Your loyalty didn’t run very deep, then.”
“There’s not much loyalty amongst Angel’s men,” he says easily. “We’re always on the lookout for a better gig.”
“So that’s what this is?” I ask. “A better gig?”
“Sure,” he shrugs, finishing off the last of his sausage and licking his fingers.
I swallow the rest of my roll pensively, my thoughts no longer on the nausea that roils my stomach. If what Garrido says is true, then it could be just as easy as Logan assures me to beat Angel. Paid loyalty doesn’t get you far in this cutthroat business.
I’m going to have to be wary with Garrido, but there’s a real possibility he’ll make my mission easier.
“I’ll take the first watch,” he states. “Followed by Vincent.”
“Could Angel’s men find us here?” questions Logan sharply.
“Not his men, no. But the wild animals. That’s the real threat. Poison frogs, banana spiders, bullet ants… some of them will kill you in an instant. With others, the pain lasts for days.”
With that comforting thought, Logan and I lie down on our blankets, and, despite my misgivings, I’m asleep in an instant.