Natalia hesitantly put weight on her bandaged foot. ‘I think so.’
‘Good. If it starts hurting, let me know and I’ll carry you. Ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’ He was about to set off, then paused, spotting something hanging from a nearby small tree. ‘Who’d have thought, Hugo actually said something useful…’
‘What are you doing?’ Natalia asked.
‘Getting you something to eat. I think they’re called longans.’ He plucked a bunch of orange-brown fruit from one of the branches. ‘No idea what they’re like, but a mate of mine from Belgium likes them, so hopefully German tastes aren’t too different.’
He gave them to her. She looked uncertain, but hunger won out and she split open one of the small round fruits to test the pale flesh inside. ‘Oh! This is good.’ She devoured it and spat out the black stone, before giving Chase a sheepish look. ‘Sorry. I am usually more polite…’
He grinned. ‘Don’t worry about being polite around me, love. But those are okay?’
‘Yes, I have had them before, in one of the villages. I just had not seen them growing on a tree.’
‘If you like ’em, then tuck in. I might even try one myself. Once you’re full, I mean — you need to eat more than I do.’
Natalia opened another longan, nibbling at it with more decorum. ‘Thank you.’
‘No problem. All right, let’s find a way out of here.’
He set off, heading north. Natalia followed, still eating.
Although Chase knew they were going in the right direction to reach the rendezvous, he was not sure of their actual position. He took out the map, but it was little help; no landmarks were visible through the dense jungle. ‘We need to get to higher ground,’ he said. The ground to the north-east rose up a slope. ‘If I can see the landscape, I can figure out where we are.’
Natalia peered with interest at the map. ‘The camp where you rescued me — where was it?’
He pointed it out. ‘About here.’
‘Let me see.’ She took the map and examined it more closely. ‘I know this place!’ she said excitedly, tapping on a small black square marked with Vietnamese text. ‘This is Ly Quang — the village where we were working before we were… before we were taken.’ Her tone became more sombre. ‘We were driving from it when they stopped our bus.’
Chase saw that the village was about two kilometres north-east of the camp, another few kilometres south of the highway. ‘You got friends there?’
‘Yes, yes! We were there for four days. We helped them — we gave them medical treatment, vaccinations.’
‘Anyone there have a phone?’
‘There is one telephone, yes.’
He silently debated the options. Sullivan had given him an emergency number; it would, hopefully, allow him to contact their Vietnamese driver, who had a satellite phone. If he reached Thuc, he could find out the status of the rest of the team and the hostages, arrange to be picked up — and warn Sullivan about Hoyt.
The danger was that the kidnappers would also know about the village. It would be an obvious place to search for the fugitives… or lie in wait for them.
‘We’ll try to get there,’ he decided. The benefits outweighed the risks; reaching a phone would save them a longer trek to the rendezvous point, and he was confident he could spot an ambush. ‘We just need to work out how.’
‘Do you know where we are now?’
He waved a finger over the area east of the camp. ‘Here, somewhere.’
Natalia regarded the map again, then indicated a spot south of the village. ‘There is a tower on the top of a hill,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It is from the war, the Americans built it. The people in Ly Quang told me about it. You can see it from the village — it is quite high. If we can see it too…’
‘We’ll know where we are,’ Chase finished. He put away the map, then turned to her. ‘How’s your foot?’
‘I am good, thank you.’ She lifted her bandaged foot to examine it, pale skin almost hidden by dirt. ‘It is…’ She searched for the English word. ‘Sore. But I will be okay.’
‘Good. If you have any trouble, tell me.’
‘Thank you,’ she said again. Chase smiled, and they started up the hill. ‘Mr Chase…’
‘Eddie. Call me Eddie.’
‘Okay. Eddie.’ A coy grin, which quickly faded. ‘Last night, you said my father sent you?’
‘Yeah. Me and some other guys were hired to rescue you and your friends.’
‘You are soldiers?’
‘Used to be. We’re mercenaries, technically. But the good kind.’ The thought of Hoyt darkened his expression. ‘Mostly.’
Natalia was too concerned with her own thoughts to notice. ‘He does not know any soldiers, or mercenaries — and he does not have a lot of money. How did he afford to do this?’
‘I dunno. But he’s waiting for you in Da Nang.’
Her face lit up. ‘He is here?’
‘Yeah. And I’ll get you to him. That’s a promise. Once we’re out of this bloody jungle, that is.’
They continued up the slope. Chase checked for any signs that their pursuers were nearby, but there were none, just the constant drone and flutter of insects and the calls of birds. Even though it was still early in the day, the heat was already rising. ‘You told me the people who took me were Russians,’ said Natalia, also thinking about her former captors. ’Do you know what they were doing to me?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘They had you drugged, and they were taking blood samples. But I don’t know what they were looking for, or why they were doing it.’ He glanced at her; the fearful expression, though veiled, had returned. ‘Do you know?’
She clearly did, or at least had an idea, but it was equally obvious that she was unwilling to discuss it. ‘If you don’t want to tell me, that’s not a problem,’ Chase went on, giving her a reassuring smile. ‘My job’s to get you to somewhere safe, that’s all.’
Her only reply was a quiet ‘Thank you.’ Deciding to let her talk again when she was ready, Chase plodded on up the steepening hill.
Before long, brighter daylight flared through the jungle canopy to the north. He angled towards it. The slope flattened out. Ahead, the ground dropped steeply away to reveal the lush green carpet of the rainforest spread out below. The hill was not high, but it was enough to clear the tops of all but the tallest trees.
He took out the map again. Now that he could see the lie of the land, it would not take long to work out their position. However, Natalia had already found a way to speed up the process. ‘Look, over there!’ she said, pointing to the north-east. Chase advanced until he had a clearer view and followed her gaze. There was a higher hilltop around three quarters of a mile away. A spindly tower rose from its summit. He guessed that it had been a radio mast. Decades of neglect had taken its toll, the top crooked and missing parts of its gridwork. ‘The village is about a kilometre from there,’ she continued.
He quickly translated the view to the map’s two-dimensional grid. ‘Okay, that puts us here,’ he said, tapping the paper. ‘If we go, let’s see… east across the top of this hill and then follow it down, we can go round the bottom of the hill with the tower and head north to the village.’
‘Wouldn’t it be quicker to get to this road?’ Natalia asked, indicating a thin line running south-east from Ly Quang.
‘Yeah, but I want to stay in the jungle until I’m sure it’s safe. The bad guys’ll still be looking for us.’
Her face fell. ‘Oh. Yes, I see.’
‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he said, trying to perk her up. ‘Once we reach the phone, my friends’ll be able to come and get us.’