Calderon studied her. “I think you’re lying.”
She held his stare. “You’ve already made it clear that I’m going to die, so whether you believe me just isn’t very high on my list of worries. Sooner or later, whether you like it or not, anyone who spends time in this room is going to get bitten by a mosquito that’s taken a drink from Dr. Kaczynski. I couldn’t care less what you do with that information.”
The truth was, it was the only thing she cared about at that moment. As foolish and unlikely as it was, her escape plan hinged on getting their guards out of the room. It was a harebrained scheme, and her chances of success were minuscule, but at least it was a chance.
A bulky phone on Calderon’s belt buzzed loudly. He pulled a small headset from his shirt pocket and plugged it into the brick-sized device.
After a long stretch of listening, Calderon said, “Follow him, but keep your distance.” A pause, then, “This guy is good, even without any gear. If you crowd him, he’ll spot you.” Calderon looked at this watch. “I’m leaving now. Don’t lose him, and make sure everyone understands that they’re not to do anything until I join up with you.”
Calderon punched a button and slowly removed the headset from his ear. His eyes seemed lost in a distant thought.
Megan felt a chill on her neck in the ninety-degree heat.
Luke knew he was on the right course when he reached the river crossing. It was exactly as Paco had described it. An enormous banyan tree sat alone on an islet where two rivers converged. As he waded across the knee-deep shallows, a large squadron of birds took off from the tree’s canopy in a V-formation.
On the other side, he left behind dense jungle and entered a rain forest. It was an odd combination of enclosure and openness, like the lobby of a grand old hotel. A hundred feet above him, a thick weave of branches and vines let through only a few thin shafts of dusky skylight. The forest’s floor was sparse, covered by a carpet of moss and the occasional stalk of an immature seedling.
It had been almost three hours since he left Paco and a sulking Frankie to make their way back to the rendezvous point with the priest. If the Indian’s information was correct, he was nearing the guarded facility where Paco had seen a truck matching the one that Megan’s abductors had used.
The purple shadows of twilight were descending on the forest. It was the time of day when eyes strained to adapt to diminishing light levels, when the body’s cortisol level slid — and with it, attentiveness — and when guards performing monotonous duties would be distracted by hunger. On a scale that weighed his advantages against those of his adversaries, they were grains of sand, but they were all he had.
He sat against the base of a tree and pulled the thief’s Glock from his shoulder bag. It was filthy, and dry; the weapon hadn’t been oiled in a long while. He popped the clip and thumbed the rounds out of the magazine. His entire arsenal consisted of seven bullets.
Luke quickly disassembled the weapon, cleaned it with his shirt, and reassembled it. Then he began moving forward in a crouch, using the shadows, darting from tree to tree, scanning in a 360-degree arc each time he stopped. Just before nightfall stole the last light, he twice saw fresh tracks in the sodden ground. Neither was human.
Crickets were beginning to chirp when a distant set of lights flickered hesitantly, then swelled to an amber glow. They were spotlights, a quarter mile east of his position.
He went prone.
As he crawled through a humus-covered depression, a small multi-legged creature latched onto his forearm. He stopped and waited for it to pass over him, but instead the thing slowly creeped up his arm until it reached his shoulder, where it stayed.
Luke moved forward.
When he was still two hundred yards from the facility, he spotted one man, then another, patrolling inside the two-acre compound. Three buildings were set back from a Cyclone fence perimeter that was topped with barbed wire.
One of the men passed under a floodlight. He wore a forest camouflage uniform and maroon beret.
Soldiers. Whatever this place was, it was important to someone.
The low hum of insects was everywhere. The creature on his shoulder stroked him with one of its legs, exploring him. Luke brushed off the arthropod.
Twenty minutes later, he’d circled the perimeter and reconnoitered the area. A single dirt road wound its way to a secured entry gate. Outside the entrance was a small unmanned guardhouse. Inside the compound, he saw a large windowless building made of prefab aluminum siding that was flanked by two smaller wooden structures. A single canvas-tarped truck sat in the blackened shadow of an overhang along the side of the main building. It was too dark to make out the truck’s color or any logos.
The compound had its own electrical generator, fueled by a large natural gas tank.
Paired cameras sat atop twenty-foot posts at opposite corners of the compound. One lens in each pair was almost certainly a visible-light camera. The other was probably an infrared night-vision lens or motion detector. He maintained a hundred foot distance and hoped it was enough to avoid detection.
It seemed unthinkable that a remote facility in the Guatemalan rain forest would use security measures beyond what he had already seen. But if these people had set up external security zones with tree-mounted heat sensors or ground-level vibration detectors, they’d soon be on to him.
Both of the sentries carried M-16s, cross-chest position, barrel down, their index fingers wrapped around the trigger guard. Their patrol patterns were irregular, their routes inconsistent. It was no accident. He was looking at well-trained soldiers.
They had no special gear — no sniper scopes, no headsets, no night-vision goggles. Either they had no such equipment, or they weren’t expecting an intruder. Luke hoped that both were true.
He spent the next several minutes considering his options. He didn’t like any of them. He might be able to draw one of the sentries outside the compound and take him out, but no more than one. These soldiers wouldn’t be duped in tandem, and whichever one remained inside would immediately raise the alarm. He had to assume that inside those buildings there were other armed men. Someone, somewhere, was probably monitoring the security cameras. And if they were holding Megan and the priest in there, he guessed he’d find at least two more guards.
Before he made his move, he wanted to know more than just their numbers. He wanted to know their positions, their capabilities, their methods.
But that would take time, and fatigue was already sapping his strength.
He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. The shoulder infection was worsening, the throb swelling.
Waiting was not an option.
43
Luke found a gully deep enough to conceal his movements and belly-crawled along its path until he reached a culvert that passed under the road, about fifty feet from the compound’s gate.
The entry gate, he decided, was his only way into the facility. If necessary, he’d coax one of the guards outside with a ruse, but he was hoping for an opportunity that fell within the natural cadence and rhythm of their duties: patrolling the outside perimeter, or opening the gate for an arriving vehicle.
To take advantage of the moment when it came, he had to get closer. Twenty feet from the entrance the hulk of a fallen tree lay along the side of the road. From that position he could close the distance to the front gate faster than the guards could process and respond to an unexpected attack.
Luke lay back against the embankment and mulled whether to sprint to the fallen tree, which carried with it the risk of awakening the forest and drawing the guards’ attention, or to creep slowly and silently, which meant more time in the camera’s lens.