The driver was waiting, Kalashnikov in hand. He signalled for the prisoners to advance. The guards pushed them forward. Macy could hardly breathe, the stench of rot clogging her nostrils and fear tightening her chest. She rounded the truck to see . . . the hole.
It was aptly, bluntly named: just a ragged opening in the earth, steep sides littered with decomposing leaves. But as Macy got closer, she saw that it was not empty.
Bodies were piled inside it, a dozen, more. Most were rotted beyond recognition, insects and animals having feasted on the rich flesh and organs. Only the pair on top of the heap remained recognisably human, just a day or two dead, but even these had already lost their eyes and chunks of skin to the relentless scavengers. Insects swarmed from the blackened bullet wounds in their chests. Cayo’s partners, the drug smugglers.
Cayo himself soon joined them. As the other soldiers held the prisoners at gunpoint, two men pulled his corpse from the truck, carted it between them like a sack to the pit, and tossed it in. Flies exploded from the bodies as it thumped down on top of them.
The soldiers repeated the process with Cuff. Macy looked away in horrified disgust. Loretta’s pitiful cries became even louder at the sight of the dead American splayed on the pile, his remaining eye staring dully back at her.
‘Mother of God,’ grumbled one of the soldiers in Spanish, ‘that’s a noise I could live without.’
‘We’ll do her first,’ said another man, before switching to English. ‘Okay, down! On your knees!’
They forced the explorers to kneel at the pit’s edge. Valero muttered a desperate prayer. Macy realised she was crying, tears stinging as she started to hyperventilate. Loretta gave her a pleading look as the soldier stood behind her.
Macy wanted to keep her eyes fixed on the helpless, innocent woman, but her fear forced them shut. A last whimper escaped Loretta’s mouth—
A gunshot, shockingly loud.
There was a soft thump as her body slumped forward. The dull impact of a boot against flesh, and with a slithering thud Loretta’s corpse dropped into the hole.
The soldier moved behind Macy.
She desperately tried to open her eyes again, to take one last look at the world, but they were locked shut by terror.
A rustle of cloth as the soldier raised his gun . . .
And another sound, rising fast—
An engine!
She heard the man behind her turn in surprise. ‘Who’s that?’ Macy opened her eyes and looked back.
A military Jeep charged past the truck. Its driver held the steering wheel with one hand, an AK in the other—
Eddie !
‘Duck!’ he yelled, yanking at the wheel—
The 4×4 skidded in the mud as Eddie pointed the Kalashnikov out of its side and pulled the trigger. He didn’t need to aim – the Jeep’s spinning turn swept the bullets in a swathe above the kneeling prisoners’ heads.
Three soldiers took hits to their chests and faces, dropping dead to the ground. The man behind Macy was caught in the left shoulder, the impact sending him reeling to the edge of the pit. With his good arm, he pointed his AK-103 at the Jeep . . .
Macy sprang up and barged him over the edge. He landed on the heaped corpses, rolling down them into the rotting sludge at the bottom of the hole.
One soldier was left standing, though. Eddie’s wild fire had missed him. He raised his gun—
The skidding Jeep had made a half-turn, and was now pointing backwards. Eddie jammed it into reverse and leaned low across the front seats, stamping hard on the accelerator. Bullets clanged through the bodywork and cracked against the seat backs. He yelled, but held his course.
The Jeep hit the soldier with a bang, scooping him up over its back end. Eddie raised his head, seeing the man bent over the rear seat – still very much alive. In reverse the 4×4 was only doing twenty miles per hour.
The Venezuelan’s eyes met Eddie’s, widening with anger. He swung the AK round—
Eddie twitched the wheel, and dropped again.
The Jeep smashed tail first into a tree, throwing Eddie against the bullet-pocked seats – and mashing the soldier into the wood.
Eddie pushed himself upright. The Venezuelan was pinned against the trunk, mouth open in a silent scream of agony. His gun had been thrown into the undergrowth.
‘Eddie!’ Macy cried. Not in thanks, but in warning. The soldier in the pit was still alive, still armed, climbing up over