was a little pissed off at her now, but he was certain that in the days and years to come he’d thank her for keeping him from acting on his worst primitive instincts. Without women, there would be perpetual war and chaos. With them, there was only chaos.
Brodie raised his hand to signal a halt. He took a grid reading; the sat phone’s beeping continued, and now the battery indicator was flashing empty. He turned off the phone and walked toward Taylor, who was kneeling. As he passed Mercer, he said, “Nod if you’d like to kill me.”
Mercer nodded enthusiastically.
Brodie knelt beside Taylor. “How’re you doing?”
“Legs are cramping.”
First sign of severe dehydration. It goes downhill from there. “We’ll keep an eye out for water. Can you get up?”
She struggled to her feet and almost fell over. He caught her and helped her sit.
“I’m fine…”
“You’re not fine.” He stood and looked around at the vegetation, then walked back to Mercer and asked, “What’s safe to eat? What has water?” He untied the gag and pulled the handkerchief out of Mercer’s mouth.
Mercer took a deep breath and said, “Asshole.”
“Is that safe to eat? C’mon, Kyle. You live around here. We’re all in this together. Be a good soldier.”
Mercer took another breath and said, “Worley is going to kill me, and kill both of you.”
“Let me worry about Colonel Worley. We don’t want to die of heatstroke. What’s to eat and drink here?”
Mercer hesitated, then replied, “Lots of things… manioc root… some fruit trees…” He looked around at the jungle growth that crowded the trail. “Easiest is the vines. The ends are moist and edible.”
“Sort of like asparagus tips?”
Mercer had no reply, and Brodie told him to sit, then drew his KA-BAR and pushed into the brush. There were vines hanging from trees, and vines crawling through the brush and along the ground, so it wasn’t difficult to find the succulent green ends and cut off about three dozen.
He got back on the trail and walked to Mercer. “You first.” He shoved a vine in Mercer’s mouth, and Mercer chewed it and swallowed.
“Seconds?”
Mercer nodded, and Brodie fed him a second vine.
Mercer said, “Untie me. I have to pee.”
“Next you’ll be asking me to hold your dick. Pee in your pants.”
Brodie moved quickly to Taylor, and they shared the rest of the vine tips after wiping them off on their dirty T-shirts. Brodie said, “Jungle trail mix.”
“Scott… please… you’d find a hanging funny.”
“They can be.” Brodie chewed. “They taste like kale or shit.” He looked at her. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
She stood. “I’m ready now.”
“Okay. We’ll take it slow.”
Brodie fed the last vine tip to Mercer, then re-gagged him. “Get up.”
They had only about an hour to go, and they should be able to do that with bellies full of vine-ripened vines. Unless they were poisonous.
Brodie kept the pace slow but steady. This was definitely a game trail, though maybe used by the indigenous people. He wasn’t concerned about running into a cougar or panther—they generally avoided people, and in any case he had a gun. Poisonous ground snakes could cause a fatal encounter, but most snakes also avoided people. The biggest threat to people was other people, and what he didn’t want to run into were Pemón with rifles. The Pemón seemed friendly enough—despite César’s larceny—but encounters in the wild brought out the worst in human beings.
Brodie made a quick check of his sat phone, and was now convinced that this trail either intersected with the airstrip or came close. This was a walk in the park. Canaima National Park, to be exact. Someday, when the socialists were kicked out, there’d be condos here.
He glanced back at Mercer and Taylor and they seemed to be doing okay, so he picked up his pace, but his stockinged feet were starting to feel raw.
After what seemed like forever, he looked at his watch and saw that another hour had passed. He checked his sat phone coordinates, glanced at the sun, and realized he was supposed to be at the end of his journey. But he didn’t see an airstrip.
He stopped, and Taylor came up beside him. “Problem?”
“We’re supposed to be at the airstrip. These sat coordinates can be off by twenty or thirty meters. But I think we’re close.”
Taylor reminded him, “Close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades.”
“Right.”
Taylor looked around at the walls of vegetation, then looked up at a gnarled thirty-foot tree. “I’ll shimmy up there.”