out. The track blurred past beneath him. He tried to hook a foot under the front seats, but couldn’t get a firm hold.
Green in his peripheral vision—
He closed his eyes as a plant at the roadside smacked into his cheek, at this speed even mere leaves enough to draw blood. Stinging, he looked ahead again – to see a tree coming up fast.
The driver saw it too. He swerved to scrape off his uninvited passenger against its thick trunk.
Eddie kicked, searching for a foothold. His boot thumped against the hard seatback. He strained to pull himself back into the Jeep, but couldn’t get enough leverage.
The tree rushed closer, filling his vision—
His groping foot finally caught the seat’s underside, and he yanked himself back inside as the tree whipped past, the leafy creepers dangling from it swatting his head.
Other parasitic growths concealed a danger of their own, though – a branch protruding into the road—
The driver screamed and braked hard – but too late.
The branch hit the Jeep’s windscreen. The glass shattered, pieces showering into the driver’s face. Chunks of broken wood bombarded both men. The remaining AK fell off the rear seat, ending up beneath the driver.
Eddie recovered first. He grabbed a piece of smashed tree and swung it at the soldier’s head, scoring a satisfyingly solid hit.
But the driver wasn’t out of the fight, swerving the 4×4 sharply across the track. As Eddie swayed, the Kalashnikov rattled into the front footwell – giving the driver the chance to snatch it up.
With an angry leer of victory, the Venezuelan swung round to shoot his attacker—
Eddie was gone.
The soldier was bewildered by his apparent disappearance – until he realised the Englishman had flattened himself across the rear seat.
He whirled back—
The Jeep had angled off the track – directly under a low, thick branch. There was a crunching thud. Slowed by dense bushes, the 4×4 bounced to a stop amidst the undergrowth. The engine rattled and stalled.
Eddie cautiously looked up. The driver was still in his seat . . . up to his neck. His head was a hundred feet further back, a pulped mess beneath the bough that had chopped it from his body.
‘Nice bit of tree surgery,’ Eddie said, clambering into the front and kicking the decapitated corpse from the Jeep. He recovered the AK-103, then restarted the engine and backed the 4×4 on to the road.
Now, he had to find the truck.
Before it was too late.
The new track was even more narrow and overgrown than the one that had led to Paititi, trees clawing at the military truck. Macy ducked a clawing branch, then peered fearfully at her surroundings. The vehicle had turned off the base’s access road on to the almost hidden path only a few minutes earlier, but even over that short distance the jungle had transformed into a dark, malevolent thicket. The trees were gnarled, as if twisted by the wounds of physically battling each other for the few scraps of daylight. Even the sun seemed to have abandoned this place . . . or turned away in horror.
Because there was something hanging in the air, permeating everything with foulness. A stench, beyond the inescapable jungle odour of decaying vegetation.
Osterhagen had caught it too. ‘I did my civilian service in the Katastrophenschutz – disaster relief,’ he whispered to Macy, his face grim. ‘I know that smell.’
The scent of death.
They were at their journey’s end.
Macy searched the soldiers’ faces for any hint of mercy. She found none. The four Venezuelans holding them at gunpoint were all cold, dispassionate. They had done this before.
One last lurch over some roots, and the truck clattered to a stop. The jungle canopy was so thick it seemed like twilight beneath, all colour sapped away. A soldier unlocked the tailgate and let it fall open with a gunshot bang. ‘Muévete!’ he said, pointing out of the truck with his AK.
Soto began to shudder. ‘Oh, please no, please, don’t do this, please . . . ’ One of the soldiers roughly dragged her to her feet. She wailed, a keening mewl of helpless despair as he shoved her from the truck.
Valero snarled, about to leap up at him, but received a brutal kick to the head for his trouble. Another soldier threw him out on to the ground.
The two remaining men gestured with their guns. Macy and Osterhagen picked up the semi-conscious Becker and carried him from the vehicle. One of the soldiers plucked the injured man’s hat from his head and put