upriver and get close to that jungle landing strip we saw.” He let her know, “Kavak is a crapshoot. Finding that airstrip and calling Worley for a plane is a roll of the dice. Take your pick.”
“Scott, hate to mention this, but we don’t have a sat phone to make the call.”
“Right. I forgot to mention—we can see if Mercer is still on that fishing platform with our sat phone.”
“Are you joking or crazy?”
“Neither. Maybe both.”
They remained crouched, listening to the sounds around them. The firing from the range had stopped, so Mercer must have called a halt to the training, and everyone was preparing to evacuate the camp. Or they were all going to lunch. Hard to figure out what was going on in Camp Tombstone. But if anyone was coming to relieve Emilio so that he could take a shower with the lady prisoner, that relief man would be coming up this path. Eventually someone would find Emilio, and Brodie wanted to be long gone by that time.
“Scott?”
“Could you make a trek through the jungle?”
“To where?”
He’d given this some thought and replied, “Brazil is less than a hundred miles to the border. A four- or five-day hike.”
She thought about that. “I took a survival course at Bragg.”
“How’d you do?”
“Like I do everything else. Just fine.”
“You eat a snake?”
“I did.”
“Good. But… the river is an easier way out of here if we had a boat. But not so easy to get the boat…” He looked at her. “I say we go for the whole enchilada. We go see if Mercer is still communing with nature on the fishing platform. If he is, we have him, the sat phone, and the boat. If he’s not there, we still have the boat.”
“If the boat’s still there.”
“Right… but there may be other boats. Mercer’s boats on the mudflat. The river is the way out, Maggie. If nothing else, we can swim across and be on the other bank, away from these fucking lunatics.” He asked, “Can you swim?”
“I can. And so can the crocs and the piranhas.”
“We’re down to only bad options.”
She nodded and seemed to be considering those bad options.
Brodie was confident that they could survive four or five days in the jungle by living off the land. But the land could also live off them. He pictured himself in the warm embrace of a python. He recalled Collins’ advice on that subject: Take the river. He also recalled his E&E takeaway—the escape part is easy compared to the evasion part. And taking the camp commander as a prisoner along the way was not part of the course.
Taylor suddenly stood. “Let’s see if Mercer or the boat is still there.”
He looked at her. “You sure?”
“What’s the goal? Survival or completing the mission?”
“Both.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“You understand that if we get captured, we’re going to pay the price for killing Emilio?”
“Scott, I understand we’re as good as dead here. Let’s go.”
“Okay.” Brodie continued down the trail, moving quickly, but slow enough to take in his surroundings. He found himself growing fatigued, and the heat was becoming oppressive. He glanced back at Taylor a few times; she was keeping up, apparently reenergized and renewed.
They reached a cross trail, and Brodie whispered, “If we continue on, this will take us too close to the center of the camp—where we saw the ladies’ dorm. We need to make our way down to the river. Once we get there, we might have a few other options.”
She nodded, then put the walkie to her ear. “Nothing unusual. Wait… someone is trying to call Emilio…”
“He’s sleeping. Let’s go.”
They moved quickly downslope toward the river, which would be a ten- or fifteen-minute walk. As they came to a bend in the path, someone rounded the bend coming toward them. Brodie dropped quickly into a kneeling firing stance and almost squeezed off a round, but then saw it was a Pemón woman with a wicker basket on her head of what looked like laundry.
Brodie lowered the gun and stood. The woman stopped, and they looked at each other. The woman noticed Taylor, who said, “Buenos días, señora.”
The woman returned the greeting, and they all stood there. Well, what do you say after “Buenos días”? “Come here often?”
Taylor spoke to the woman, who replied, and Taylor said to Brodie, “Juanita wishes us a safe journey home.”
“Right…” And the best way to ensure that would be to coldcock Juanita and lay her in the brush.