They awoke at dawn to drizzle, but mild compared to some they’d endured, and made short work of the tents, stowing them in a thicket near the river. As they left for another long day of searching, Allie waved to them from her concealed resting place between two tall trees, nearly invisible in the dense foliage.
They’d already covered a swatch that stretched almost a full mile from the camp. Jack had calculated that at their current rate they’d be ready to do a return run on another ninety-foot-wide section within two more days. The enormity of their task became obvious as they resumed hacking through the jungle at yesterday’s stopping point, every hour seeming to drag by in slow motion with nothing to show for it.
At 1:00, just as they were preparing to call it a day, Drake chopped his way into a clearing where he found a number of green mounds. He approached the overgrown irregularities and poked at the nearest one with his machete.
The blade clanked against stone.
Drake fought to stay calm as his pulse pounded in his ears. He retraced his steps to where he could see Jack and Spencer.
“I think I found it,” he called in a stage whisper.
Spencer appeared a few moments later, Jack behind him. Drake led them through the flora into the clearing. Jack peered at the faint outline where the lone building’s walls had stood, and then moved to the smaller of the lumps beside it and began scraping away the accumulated soil and vegetation. Minutes later they could plainly see the remnants of square columns that had supported an arch, and between them, the rectangular stones set together to form a threshold and path. Jack stood between the columns with his GPS and recorded the spot, and then made a notation to record the direction the path pointed.
Distant gunfire shattered the quiet of the surroundings — the distinctive staccato chatter of an AK-47. Jack swung around, his normally flushed face pale.
“Allie!”
Spencer took off at a sprint, and it was all Drake could do to keep up with him as he ducked and weaved through the path they’d cleared. Jack was right behind him, his boots thumping against the ground as he ran.
When they neared the clearing ten minutes later, Drake was gasping for breath, pouring sweat. Spencer held his arm out and motioned for Jack to move to the right, separating to provide a less obvious target. He pointed to the left and Drake nodded, fighting the urge to vomit from the exertion and heat.
They crept to the riverbank and looked over the camp area. It was quiet, with no evidence of a struggle. If it hadn’t been for the shooting, they would have believed it was just another afternoon following a tedious search.
Except there was no sign of Allie. She wasn’t in her hiding place between the two trees.
She wasn’t anywhere they could see.
After several minutes of watching, waiting for any movement, Spencer emerged from the brush and moved down the bank to cross the river. When he’d made it to the camp side, Jack followed, Drake waiting until they were both out of the water to join them.
When they reached the campsite, a quick hunt through the bush yielded nothing. Their gear was still hidden, undisturbed, but there was no sign of Allie.
She’d vanished without a trace.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The evening meal was a grim one. It was as though Allie had disappeared into thin air, leaving only three brass shell casings and nothing else. All three men had their pistols strapped to their belts and their rifles by their sides, and Spencer and Jack had been quietly discussing how to proceed, with no agreement.
The final rays of waning sun streamed through the overhead canopy as they ate surplus MREs, none of them having the will to fish, their imaginations working overtime on what might have happened to Allie.
A muffled thud sounded from nearby. They were instantly on their feet, rifles at the ready. The vegetation across the river rustled and Drake was drawing a bead when Spencer pushed his gun barrel aside.
“No. Look. Over there.” He pointed to a white square fastened to a grapefruit-sized rock.
Drake retrieved it. A folded sheet of paper was tied to the stone with twine. He unsheathed his knife and sliced the cord, and then unfolded the note. The handwriting was neat, the message brief.
Greetings Drake Ramsey. We have the girl. We want the journal. A trade. The journal for her.
Think long and hard about refusing this. The girl will die, and you next.
Do not fire on my man when he come there tomorrow morning for your answer. Do not attempt any ambush. You and your two companions be where you sit now. Any deviance will result in the girl’s immediate death.
The note was unsigned.
“What the hell…” Drake muttered and gave it to Jack, who read it once and handed it disgustedly to Spencer.
“The Russians.” Jack spat his contempt on the rainforest floor.
“Are you sure?” Drake asked.
Jack squinted at the far riverbank. “They tend to favor the brute-force approach. No finesse. And kidnapping is about as brute force as it gets.” Jack thought for a moment. “We need to figure out a way to deal with them and get her back.”
“Deal with them?” Drake asked.
“Of course. They’re going to kill her no matter what. Even if you give them the journal. That’s how they work.”
“But I don’t have it.”
“Right. And at that point, they’ll want you. What’s in your brain. They’ll torture it out of you and then kill you, too. It’s their standard operating procedure.”
Spencer’s eyes narrowed. “Seems like you know an awful lot about these Russians.”
Jack nodded. “I should. I made it my mission to find out everything I could about them after they killed Drake’s father. You could say I’m an expert on their behavior by now.”
“How did they know we were here?” Drake asked.
“I told you we were racing the clock. They obviously recorded the spot, just like I did, and bet that we’d come back to it eventually. Turns out that was a good bet,” Jack said.
“What are we going to do?” Spencer asked, deferring to him.
Jack paced, fingering the trigger guard of his rifle as he did so, a nervous habit he was unaware of. Eventually he stopped and turned to Spencer.
“How good are you at tracking?”
The next day they rose before dawn and sat around the stones they’d circled to create a fire pit, their faces drawn from a night with no sleep. Nobody spoke, their demeanors serious, dark circles beneath their eyes evidence of their fatigue as the gray shower fell around them, the silence broken only by an occasional bird or a monkey screeching overhead.
When the messenger arrived on the far side of the river, they bristled, guns in their laps. The man on the other bank was reed thin, Jack’s age, dressed in tropical camouflage pants and shirt, his gray hair trimmed tight to his skull. He had a Kalashnikov of his own slung over his shoulder, but seemed completely calm. Jack was almost certain it was Sasha, but it had been a long time…
“Drake Ramsey,” he called, his Russian accent obvious.
“That’s me,” Drake said, standing.
“You read note?” the Russian asked, the words more a statement than a question.
“Yes.”
“Good. You give me journal, yes?”
“No.”
Sasha looked puzzled, but only for a moment. “Then girl dies.”
“I don’t have the journal.”
“Lies.”
“It’s true. I don’t. I left it in the United States.”
“I don’t believe.”
“Doesn’t matter what you believe. I don’t have the journal, and I can’t give you what I don’t have.”