The DMZ Read online

  Quickly, he checked over his remaining ammo clips, then retrieved the bug and tucked it into a gnarl of wood above him.

  “Okay, let’s shake these guys once and for all. And then it’s time we worked our way down to ground level.” His mouth twitched ruefully in the first admission of inadequacy Julie had ever heard from him. “I’m not much on heights.”

  “Yeah, well, you could have fooled me,” Julie muttered, reaching reluctantly for a vine. Still, the hope that they had finally thrown off their pursuers and would soon be down on levels designed for human legs gave her new energy, and she even managed a thumbs-up of her own and a grin as she clambered onto a branch after him.

  Which made the panorama that assaulted her eyes not fifteen minutes later an even greater consternation.

  Rick had begun maneuvering their descent as soon as they were out of sight of where they’d left the tracking device. Behind them they heard the shouts of the converging guerrillas, and Julie contemplated with grim pleasure the thought of the slippery climb ahead of them with not so much as a twig for fifty feet or more off the ground.

  They saw daylight ahead, and Rick turned their course toward it. Their difficulty was to find a tree without the tall straight trunk of the hardwoods so they could climb back down to ground level. But as they descended, they had to keep a sharper lookout for the guerrillas. They were now vulnerable to spying eyes from below.

  As the daylight brightened, the huge hardwoods were becoming interspersed with shorter, less massive trees, and they were finally able to slide into the upper limbs of a wild guava tree whose branches were truncated enough to allow them to scramble quickly earthward. Sunshine streaming through a grove of the wild guavas made it clear they had reached the opening in the jungle canopy toward which Rick had headed them. Dropping the last meters to the ground, Julie hurried eagerly through the guavas until she could see what that promise of daylight held.

  Then she gasped. “Oh, no!”

  It wasn’t a swamp this time, but a river. A murky-brown, slow-moving jungle river that in dry season would shrink to a shallow stream, but whose banks the recent rains had overflowed until it lapped at the very roots of the wild guava where she stood and stretched away the distance of at least two Olympic-sized swimming pools.

  As Rick strode up beside her, Julie glanced up at him in blank dismay. “We can’t cross that! What are we going to do?”

  Rick was studying the river himself, his eyes narrowing as he measured its width, then scanned both banks upstream and down. “We have no choice. The best bet we have to throw those guys off our trail and keep them off is to get across there. You can swim, can’t you?”

  “Sure I can swim. But if you think we can cross that without a boat, you don’t know the jungle very well. Do you know what’s in that water? Piranhas, stingrays, crocodiles—oh, watch out!” Julie choked back a shriek before it got out of her throat. “There’s one now! It’s coming straight at us!”

  Rick glanced down at the cylindrical shape floating leisurely downstream on a direct course toward his army boots, then straightened up to throw Julie a sardonic glance. “That’s not a crocodile! It’s a tree branch.” Un-slinging his AK-47, he used the butt to snag the drifting log and pull it up to the bank. “And it’s just what we need to get us across. Here! Give me your pack.”

  He was already peeling off his ammo vest and gun belt. Laying them and the AK-47 on top of the log, he held out a hand for Julie’s knapsack. Julie edged back a step, her face white. She had endured much over the last hours of flight, obeyed him without question in that mad scramble through the jungle canopy, accepted meekly his continual strictures to keep up and keep moving. But this was too much!

  “I’m not going into that!” she told him flatly. “You’re crazy to even think of it! We’ll just have to take our chances on this side. Now that we’ve found their bugs, I don’t see why we can’t just head downriver. We’ve got a start.”

  She took another step back, but as she did so, Rick’s hand shot out, grabbing not her knapsack but her wrist. His grip bit cruelly into the small bones there, but it was no less inflexible than the steel of his gaze. “You will!” he answered even more flatly. “Do you hear that?”

  Julie grew still under his hold as she heard the gunfire, first just one burst, then what was unmistakably several weapons joining in.

  “They’ve triangulated the tracker position,” Rick said grimly. “They’re trying to drive us down. When they realize we aren’t up there anymore, Victor’s going to have a good idea we’ve found the second bug. He’ll have his unit spread out to flank us, hoping to throw a net wide enough to pull us in. I know. I taught him the tactics. And since they’re on the ground and moving a whole lot faster than we’ve been, it won’t take long before they stumble on this too, and know they’ve got us backed up against the river. We can keep running, but you’re tired and so am I, and they’ve got radios and can call in reinforcements, even bring boats up that river. Sooner or later, we’re going to make a mistake and they’re going to have us backed into a corner. Look, I know the dangers in that river as well as you do—”

  “Do you?” Julie demanded in a hot whisper, tugging at his iron grip on her wrist. “Have you ever seen anyone torn to pieces by a crocodile?”

  “Maybe not,” Rick retorted. “But I do know one thing. At least out there we have a chance to end this. To be safe once and for all from Victor and his band. If we stay here, we have no chance at all.”

  When Julie kept shaking her head, his tone grew biting. “I’m not giving you a choice here. That kid back there, Carlos—he died to get you this far. I guess he figured you were worth that sacrifice. Don’t ask me why. But you’re not going to throw that away. Not if I have to drag you across there myself!”

  It was as much a slap as the one she had dealt him. Julie flinched at the anger blazing in his eyes. It was the same anger she’d encountered before when she’d wandered across his path and into his camp, and Julie knew now what it was—fury that she’d messed up his plans and his life and who knew how many other people’s as well. And because she couldn’t totally blame him, she only glared back at him in mute misery.

  As suddenly as it had flared, the anger left him, and his voice gentled. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing this too well, am I? Look, Julie, don’t you think I’m just as scared as you are to go out there? But you told me once you believe God runs this universe. So do I! I’m not going to say that if we trust God, He’s never going to let anything bad come into our lives. We both know that isn’t true. But I believe with all my heart that He knows what He’s doing—for both of our lives. And that nothing can touch us unless He chooses to allow it for His own perfect reasons. Right now that includes getting us across that river—crocodiles or no crocodiles. Either way, we have no choice!”

  His gentleness hit Julie harder than his anger, and she found herself blinking back tears. It was ironic. She was the daughter of missionaries. That God knew what He was doing—that He was in control of her universe—was a tenet by which she had lived her life. Yet here was this army officer taking it upon himself to explain that difficult theological concept to her with a simplicity and acceptance that were a world away from Tim McAdams’s confident assurances that all would be well. Bowing her head, Julie let the resistance ease from her muscles.

  Accepting her silence as capitulation, Rick hooked Julie’s knapsack over a protuberance on the log that was the stump of a broken bough. Unsheathing his army knife from the belt he’d already loaded on the log, he gripped it in one hand while with the other he pushed off the log and waded out to swim alongside it.

  Julie followed him into the river, grabbing at the broken-off limb that held her knapsack as she helped to push the log out into deeper water. Rick kept a sharp eye on her until he was sure she was obeying his orders, then began kicking with strong strokes toward the other shore, one arm hooked around the log to pull it after him.

  Julie’s legs felt horribly exposed as
she kicked with all her remaining strength. She wasn’t really concerned about the piranhas or stingrays. The stingrays buried themselves in the mud at the bottom of the jungle rivers and weren’t really a hazard unless you were foolish enough to step on them. The piranhas too were basically a scavenger fish and wouldn’t attack a healthy living creature unless there was blood or an open wound to attract them.

  The crocodiles were another story. They were not true crocodiles, though they were commonly misnamed as such. The South American caiman that infested these waters belonged to the same family, but was at once both smaller and more vicious and agile. Julie had watched her father amputate the leg of a screaming Indian who had fallen from his canoe into their jaws. She’d seen a village playmate pulled down under the water when he had wandered outside the wooden stakes planted as a barricade around the communal swimming beach. He had never resurfaced, and Julie found Rick’s combat knife little comfort as she tensed herself for any movement besides their own in the water.

  But whether the heat of the late morning discouraged the caimans from leaving their naps along the riverbanks, or whether it really was God’s hand of protection as Rick had suggested, the log bumped into the far side with no further incident than the handful of leeches Julie discovered attached to her ankles as she staggered ashore. Almost absently, she paused to pull them off before grabbing her knapsack.

  She glanced back toward the river and her eyes widened. She reached out to touch Rick on the arm as he buckled his belt back around his waist. “Look!”

  A long, sleek shape was moving torpedo-like through the muddy water they had just abandoned. This time it was no log. Besides the fact that it was moving upstream against the current, Julie could see the cold, unblinking eyes that were the only thing showing above water. Julie glanced up at Rick, and she saw in his face some of the same chill that was going up her spine. If they had delayed in crossing even thirty seconds longer!

  Rick let out a sudden exclamation under his breath. Snatching up his ammo vest and the AK-47, he pulled Julie away from the bank and into the cover of a patch of elephant ears. They were just in time. Across the river, two figures in battle fatigues stepped out onto the flooded bank. They were at least fifty meters downstream, too far to distinguish individual features. But the big, dark one had to be Jaime and the smaller one Linda or Marcela. Julie stiffened as Jaime raised binoculars to his eyes. Rick’s hand was hard on her wrist to keep her still, his long frame tense and motionless as the binoculars swiveled in a slow scan of the opposite bank.

  A feminine shout rang across the water. The woman—Linda or Marcela—pointed to the caiman still making its leisurely way upriver. Lowering the binoculars, Jaime walked over to her. There was a brief, inaudible discussion. The two guerrillas turned and disappeared back into the jungle. Julie felt the tension leave Rick’s body, and he released her wrist. He was smiling as he glanced down at Julie.

  “Thank God!” he said quietly, and from him it sounded like a serious suggestion rather than an exclamation. “Because of Mr. Croc there, they think we can’t have crossed the river. I think we just might have done it!”

  NINETEEN

  JULIE’S LEGS SUDDENLY REFUSED TO hold her up, and she sank down into the patch of elephant ears that had given them cover. She was shivering in her wet clothes, even with the heat of the day, and she had to resist an absurd impulse to check over her limbs to make sure they were still intact.

  Rick hunkered down in front of her, and she could feel his keen gaze on her face. “You’re as white as a sheet even under all that mud,” he said quietly. “You’ve had some kind of bad experience with those crocodiles, haven’t you?”

  “A couple of friends of mine,” Julie said flatly.

  Taking off his cap, Rick ran a hand through his hair, amazingly still dry, unlike Julie’s. “I’m sorry about that. I wish there’d been some other way.”

  “No, you were right,” Julie admitted quietly. “We didn’t have any choice. Anyway, we made it. So what now?”

  Rick replaced the combat cap with a frown. “I wish we could take time for you to rest up a bit. But we need to move on immediately. They’re not going to give up searching. They’ll keep throwing the net wider, calling in reinforcements if they haven’t already, and sooner or later, when they get a boat up here or a canoe, someone will be over here to check this side. When they do, I want us far enough outside the perimeters of their search grid that they won’t be stumbling over us—by accident if nothing else.”

  First Rick took the time to wash away the tracks they had made coming out of the water, not stepping out onto the riverbank where watchful eyes might still be searching, but using his cap to dip water from among the reeds and sluicing it out through the stems and down the bank until only dimples remained in the smooth surface of the mud.

  Rick eyed with disapproval the broken elephant ear stems where they had crouched. “There’s not much we can do about that. We’ll just have to hope they figure it was a croc or pig in here if they find it.”

  As he had done earlier in the swamp, Rick led them through the shallow water of the reeds rather than up onto the bank. They were coming into a stretch of fresh-water mangroves, their exposed root system a tangled maze that ran out into the river and over and under and around each other as far back from the bank as Julie could see. After threading through the reeds for some distance downstream, Rick turned their course up into the mangroves, stepping from one root to another away from the river.

  The roots were slimy with moss and from the recent floods, and they were slippery enough to make Julie thankful that this time they were only a few feet off the ground. It was an exhausting scramble to keep up with Rick’s long, easy steps, and when he turned to give her a hand down onto ground that was both solid and dry, she glanced back with aversion. It would take a determined tracker to bother searching through that. Which was probably the point.

  “Do they teach you that in Special Forces?” she asked Rick curiously. “Throwing off a trail like that?”

  “Some of it,” Rick shrugged. “Some is just common sense.”

  Sliding his AK-47 from his shoulder, he began to remove his ammo vest. “We’re not out of range yet. But I want to make sure they have no more surprises for us before we go any farther. If you need a rest, this is the time.”

  Without further explanation, Rick slid the wide belt that held his knife and other items from his waist and began a careful inspection of every seam. He was clearly a man of few words, as Julie had already observed during the weeks at the guerrilla camp.

  Which was fine with her, since it was also clear he held her responsible for their present predicament and wasn’t exactly harboring friendly sentiments toward her. Rick Martini might have yet again saved her life, but he’d treated her as an unwelcome appendage ever since, and hadn’t shown the slightest compassion for the nightmare she herself had endured that day. He had in fact been a whole lot kinder back when she’d thought him to be a guerrilla.

  Until he’d found out that his precious mission was being interrupted to baby-sit her.

  Letting her knapsack slide from her shoulder, Julie slumped against the mangrove root from which she’d climbed down. A wave of exhaustion threatened to carry her away until she hastily forced her eyes open. No, she couldn’t let herself fall asleep or she’d never move again.

  Instead, she watched as Rick meticulously checked over his ammunition vest, then upended her knapsack on the ground. He glanced up to meet her eyes. “I’m going to need to check through the clothes you’ve got on as well,” he told her brusquely.

  Julie clambered hastily to her feet. “I’ll do it!”

  The sardonic curve of his mouth told her he’d expected her reaction. “That won’t be necessary. If you’d like to change into something clean, you can just toss those out to me.”

  Stepping behind a tree, Julie hastily stripped off her muddy clothing and pulled on a dry T-shirt and another pair of khaki slacks. The clean clothes fe
lt heavenly against her damp skin. She changed her socks as well, grimacing as she tugged her wet sneakers back over them.

  Rick was sliding the clips for his assault rifle back into the ammo vest when she emerged. He quickly ran a hand over her wet clothing, then rolled it up and scooped all her belongings back into her knapsack. His clothing clung to his hard, lean frame, but if they were causing him any discomfort, he didn’t show it.

  “We’re clear,” he announced shortly. “Unless they’ve got technology a lot more advanced than anything I’ve seen them with.” He scooped up his AK-47. “Let’s move out. I’d like to put a few more kilometers behind us before we stop.”

  As he swung around on his heel, Julie bent over to pick up her pack. She regretted the action immediately; a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over her, and she had to grope for the nearest tree trunk to keep from stumbling to her knees.

  She could have sworn she hadn’t uttered a sound, but Rick spun around. “What’s the matter?” he demanded sharply. “Are you sick?”

  “I’m fine!” Julie retorted, but she had to brace herself as another wave of dizziness swept over her. “Just low blood sugar. Making time for the most important meal of the day wasn’t exactly on my agenda this morning!”

  Ignoring her sarcasm, Rick strode back to her side. He muttered something under his breath as he studied her pale face. “Why didn’t you say something?” he demanded harshly. As she opened her mouth, he added unexpectedly, “No, I’m sorry, this is my fault. I just wasn’t thinking.”

  He sounded as though he really meant it, and Julie, raising confused eyes to his, saw that they weren’t angry, but dark brown with concern. Maybe he wasn’t as hard as he appeared.

  His mouth curved ruefully. “Truth is, you’ve been doing so well, I keep forgetting you’re not one of the guys back there. Here!”