The Jungle (Oregon Files 8)

He clearly saw Linda blasting away, but Smith’s outline was blurred in his memory.

Juan blamed his headache. Usually he could recall every detail and nuance, but not now. Besides which, cold was leaching up through the concrete and settling into his bones. He stood, feeling dizzy enough to need to place a hand on the wall. Without his artificial leg, there really wasn’t anything he could do. He waited until the dizziness passed, but didn’t trust his balance enough to hop around the cell. On a lark, he measured it out using his exact six-foot height. It was twelve by twelve. He did the math in his head. The diagonal would be a touch under seventeen feet. He tested his calculation, knowing that his boot was thirteen inches long. His arithmetic was spot-on.

“The brain’s still working,” he said to the cockroach, which was moving about in the scattered stalks of hay. “Okay, think! What the hell is bothering me?”

There was something about the destroyed camp. He recalled a feeling of confusion, that there was an item out of place. No! Not out of place. Missing. There were certain things a woman out camping for more than a month would have brought with her, and they were things that men had absolutely no reason to steal. Soleil Croissard’s pack had been in the tent, and emptied. There hadn’t been any face cream, or lip balm, or feminine products of any kind.

Had the body he’d almost recovered been a woman’s? He hadn’t seen her face, but the build and hair color had been Soleil’s. It had to be her. And whatever female luxuries she’d packed into Myanmar must be in the ditty bag he’d recovered and handed off to Smith. It had been waterlogged, so there was no way to judge its true weight and thus no way to guess at its contents, but that had to be it. She and her companion, ah, Paul Bissonette—hey, the memory ain’t so bad after all—must have heard or seen the army patrol approaching. She grabbed up her most personal items, and together they lit out into the jungle and eventually to the ruined Buddhist temple.

Then why wasn’t he satisfied? Had he seen her face, there would be no doubt, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t make a positive identification, and that left a loose end, something he professionally and personally hated. Of course, he had bigger things to worry about than the past.

Cabrillo hoped against hope that their Burmese captors would leave MacD alone. It was obvious from his and Lawless’s ages that Juan was the senior man here, so they should concentrate all of their attention on him. He just didn’t think that was going to happen. He had an idea of what Lawless was made of. He was tough and resourceful, but did he have the kind of mettle it took to go through what Juan had just experienced and not break? Cabrillo hadn’t known that about himself, so he had no idea if the kid could take it.

In the end, Juan thought, what did it really matter if MacD broke? What did he know, really? The client’s name and the mission to go find his daughter wandering the Burmese jungle. The Oregon? He knew her name but had no idea of her real capabilities. Juan’s identity? Who the hell would care? He’d been out of the CIA long enough that he couldn’t be considered an intelligence asset.

No, he thought, MacD could spill his guts out and it wouldn’t really change a thing. He now hoped that Lawless was bright enough to see this and spare himself any pain.

Somehow, as exhaustion began to dull his own aches and he felt himself drifting toward sleep, he suspected that MacD would keep quiet if only to prove himself worthy of joining the Corporation.

Cabrillo had no idea how much time had passed—he’d come to on the waterboard without his watch—when he woke with a start. He was bathed in sweat and panting.

“Son of a bitch,” he shouted aloud.

It had come to him during his sleep—a clear vision of John Smith firing at the cable. He had intentionally shot the thing to pieces. Rage boiled in Juan’s veins.

Smith had set them up. No. Roland Croissard had set them up. That hadn’t been a woman’s body in the river; it had been a slender man. And the bag didn’t contain feminine toiletries. In it was something they had plundered from the temple, something hidden beneath the dais where the Buddha statue had once sat, and Juan had handed it to Smith pretty as you please.

This had never been about rescuing any daughter. Croissard had sent his own team into the jungle and they’d failed to recover some item, so he’d hired the Corporation to finish their mission.

“God, what an idiot I am.” Then through the fog of anger came the realization that Linda Ross was with Smith and had no idea he had a completely different agenda than she knew.

Would he just kill her now that he had what he wanted? The question burned in Juan’s mind. Logic said that he wouldn’t. It would be easier for him if she were to explain to Max and the rest what had happened to MacD and Cabrillo. And once he was aboard the Oregon, he simply needed to wait until transport back to civilization could be arranged.

He felt a measure of relief. Linda would be okay. But the idea of Smith and Croissard’s betrayal sent his blood pressure through the roof. How could he not have seen it? He thought back, looking for signs or clues. That audio message Croissard supposedly had received from his daughter was obviously faked. It had just the right note of mystery and desperation to whet Cabrillo’s interest. He had wanted this mission because there was a frightened young woman, a damsel in distress—he thought bitterly of his own stupid sense of chivalry—who needed saving.

Croissard had played him for a chump. Cabrillo looked at the suicide bombing at the hotel under a new light, but he couldn’t see an angle that benefited the Swiss financier’s master plan. That wasn’t staged. Those men were looking to kill as many people as they could. It was just luck that he and Max had survived. There was no way Croissard was behind it. Of that, he was certain.

He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been duped. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had even bluffed him at poker. He’d always prided himself on knowing all the angles, thinking three steps ahead, and having an edge over everyone he dealt with.

How could he not have seen it?

The question played though his mind on a never-ending loop. There was no answer. Mark and Eric had vetted Croissard. The guy was just a businessman. What the hell was he playing at? Why the subterfuge? And then came another question he couldn’t possibly answer: What had been in the bag that made it worth sending the first pair of explorers and then shelling out millions to the Corporation when they fell off the radar?

Cabrillo lay with his back propped up against the cement wall of his cell while a sea of unknowns filled his brain.

12

TO SMITH’S SURPRISE AND HER CREDIT, THE WOMAN DIDN’T argue when he said they should head into the jungle after the rope bridge parted. They stayed just long enough to see that the Burmese soldiers were hauling up their two new prisoners before they ran for cover in the forest. With the bridge out, the soldiers wouldn’t be able to follow until they could find a place to land their chopper. Smith and Linda would have more than enough of a head start to elude capture. But just in case the Burmese had a tracker as accomplished as Lawless, they made certain to sweep the trail behind them.

After an hour of hard going, covering ground they had just crossed that morning, Smith called for a five-minute break. His companion wasn’t even breathing hard. Smith plopped himself onto the ground, panting heavily. In the background was the omnipresent sound of birds and insects. Linda squatted next to Smith, her expression grim, her mind doubtlessly on the fate of her captured companions.

She wiped at her eyes and turned away from Smith. It was the opening he’d been waiting for. He silently drew his pistol and placed the barrel at the back of her head.

“Drop your rifle, carefully,” he ordered.

Linda had drawn air through her

teeth and gone stiff. She had the REC7 across her knees. She slowly placed it on the ground in front of her. Smith kept up the pressure with his pistol as he reached out and dragged the rifle out of her range.