State Of Fear

Page 56

No one spoke. The team of six climbed in silence, trying to make as little noise as possible. Despite their best efforts, they were fairly noisy, the undergrowth crackling beneath their feet, small branches snapping as they reached to pull themselves up.
Kenner was somewhere farther ahead, leading the way. Evans couldn't see him. Sanjong was bringing up the rear. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder; he had brought it with him and assembled it from a small briefcase in the copter. Kenner carried a pistol. The rest of them were unarmed.
The air was still, wet, and stupefyingly hot. The jungle buzzed, an incessant background drone of insects. Halfway up the slope, it began to rain, lightly at first and then a stupendous tropical downpour. In a moment they were drenched. Water streamed down the hillside. It was slipperier than ever.
Now they were two hundred feet above the beach, and the prospect of losing footing was clearly nervous-making. Peter looked up at Sarah, who was just ahead of him. She moved with her usual agility and grace. She seemed to be dancing up the hillside.
There were times, he thought, huffing his way along, when he really resented her.
And Jennifer, who was ahead of Sarah, was climbing with equal ease. She hardly reached for the tree limbs, though Evans was grabbing for them constantly, feeling panic as his fingers slipped on the fungus-covered bark. Watching Jennifer, he had the sense that she was almost too good at this, too skilled. Going up this treacherous jungle hill, she radiated a kind of indifference, as if it were all to be expected. It was the attitude of an Army Ranger, or the member of some elite force, tough, experienced, conditioned. Unusual, he thought, for a lawyer. More than unusual. But then, she was Kenner's niece.
And farther up was Bradley, with the leech on his neck. He was muttering and cursing and grunting with every step. Finally Jennifer punched him, then held a finger to her lips: be quiet. Bradley nodded, and though he clearly disliked taking advice from her, he was silent from then on.
At around three hundred feet they felt the stirring of a breeze, and soon after, they climbed onto the crest of the ridge. The foliage was so thick they could not see down into Resolution Bay below, but they could hear the shouts of working men and the intermittent rumble of machinery. Briefly, there was a kind of electronic hum, a sound that started softly, then built quickly until in a few moments it seemed literally to fill the air, and to make Evans's eardrums ache.
Then the sound was gone.
Evans looked at Kenner.
Kenner just nodded.
Sanjong climbed a tree, scaling it quickly. From his vantage point, he could look down on the valley. He came back down, and pointed to a hill leading down to the bay. He shook his head: too steep at this point. He indicated they should circle around, and descend on a more gentle slope.
So they started out, following the ridge around the bay. Most of the time they could see nothing but the six-foot-tall ferns dripping with water. After half an hour, there was a sudden break in the foliage, and they had a panoramic view of Resolution Bay spread out below them.
The bay was about a mile wide, and had structures set at intervals on the sand. The largest one was to the far right, at the eastern edge of the bay. Three others of equal size were arranged at intervals, making a sort of triangle in the western section of the bay.
Evans could see there was something funny about the houses, though. Something odd about the wood that was used. He squinted.
Sanjong nudged him. He wiggled his hand in the air.
Evans looked. Yes, it was true. The wooden structures were moving, fluttering in the air.
They were tents.
Tents made to look like wooden structures. And pretty good ones, too. It was no wonder they had fooled the aerial survey, Evans thought.
As they watched, men emerged from one or another of the tents and shouted to others down the beach. They were speaking English, but it was difficult to make out what they were saying at this distance. Most of it seemed to be technical.
Sanjong nudged Evans again. Evans saw him make a kind of pyramid with three fingers. Then he began to wiggle the fingers.
So, apparently they were tuning the generators in the tent. Or something like that.
The others in the group did not seem to be interested in the details. They were breathing hard, catching their breaths in the soft breeze, and staring down at the bay. And probably thinking, as Evans was, that there were a lot of men down there. At least eight or ten. All in jeans and work shirts.
"Christ, there's a lot of those bastards," Bradley muttered.
Jennifer nudged him hard in the ribs.
He mouthed: Oh, sorry.
She shook her head. She mouthed: You'll get us killed.
Bradley made a face. He clearly thought she was being melodramatic.
Then, from the jungle below them, they heard a cough.
They froze.
They waited in silence. They heard the buzz of cicadas, the occasional call of distant birds.
It came again, the same soft cough. As if the person was trying not to make noise.
Sanjong crouched down, listening hard. The cough came a third time, and to Evans there was the strangest sensation of familiarity about it. It reminded him of his grandfather, who had had heart failure when Evans was a kid. His grandfather used to cough like that, in the hospital. Weakly. Little coughs.
Now there was silence. They had not heard the cougher move awayif he had, he was truly noiselessbut the sound stopped.
Kenner looked at his watch. They waited five minutes, then he signaled for them to continue moving east, curving around the bay.
Just as they were leaving, they heard the cough once more. This time, there were three, in succession: uh uh uh. Then nothing.
Kenner signaled. Move out.
They had not gone a hundred yards when they came upon a path. It was a clear trail, even though the overhanging branches hung low. It must be an animal trail, Evans thought, wondering vaguely what kind of animals they might be. There were probably feral pigs here. There were pigs everywhere. He vaguely remembered stories of people being surprised by pigs, gored by the tusks of an aggressive boar that charged out of the underbrush The first thing he heard, however, was a mechanical click. He knew instantly what it was: the sound of a gun being cocked.
The entire group froze, strung out in single file. Nobody moved.
Another click.
And another. Click!
Evans looked around quickly. He saw nobody. It seemed they were alone in the jungle.
Then he heard a voice: "Dai. Nogot sok, waitman. Indai. Stopim!"
Evans had no idea what it meant, but the meaning was clear enough to them all. Nobody moved.
From the bushes ahead, a young boy emerged. He was wearing boots without socks, green shorts, a "Madonna World Tour" T-shirt, and a baseball cap that said "Perth Glory." A half-smoked cigarette stub hung from his lips. He had an ammunition belt over one shoulder and a machine gun slung over the other shoulder. He was five feet tall and could not have been more than ten or eleven. He pointed his gun with casual insolence. "Okay, waitman. You prisner biulong me, savve? Bookim dano!" And he jerked his thumb, indicating they should move forward. "Gohet!"
For a moment, they were all too astonished to move. Then, from the jungle on both sides of the path, other boys emerged.
Bradley said, "What is this, the lost boys?"
Without expression, one of the kids slammed the butt of his rifle into Bradley's stomach. Bradley gasped and went down.
"Stopim waitman bilong toktok."
"Oh, Jesus," Bradley said, rolling on the ground.
The kid hit him again, this time in the head, and kicked him hard. Bradley moaned.
"Antap! Antap!" the kid said, gesturing for him to get up. When Bradley didn't respond, the kid kicked him again. "Antap!"
Sarah went over and helped Bradley to his feet. Bradley was coughing. Sarah was smart enough not to say anything.
"Oh, nais mari," the kid said. Then he pushed her away from Bradley.
"Antap!"
But as they trudged forward, one of the kids went over to Bradley, and squeezed the back of his arm, the triceps. He laughed. "Taiis gut!"
Evans felt a chill, as the words sank in. These boys were speaking a version of English. He could decipher it, if he thought about it a little, and played the words back in his head. Nais mari was "Nice Mary." Maybe Mary was a word for woman. Antap was "And up."
And taiis gut was "Taste good."
They walked single file through the jungle, the kids at their side. Kenner was in the lead, then Ted, who was bleeding from his head, and Sarah, and Jennifer. Then Evans.
Evans glanced over his shoulder.
Sanjong was not behind him.
All he saw was another ragged kid with a rifle. "Antap! Antap!"
The kid made a threatening gesture with his rifle.
Evans turned, and hurried forward.
There was something chilling about being herded by children. Except these weren't children. He was only too aware of the cold look in their eyes. They had seen a lot in their lives. They lived in another world. It was not Evans's world.
But he was now in theirs.
Up ahead, he saw a pair of jeeps at the side of a muddy road.
He looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock.
Seven hours to go.
But somehow it didn't seem important anymore.
The kids pushed them into the jeeps, and then they drove off, down a muddy track, into the dark and trackless interior of the jungle.
Chapter 80
PAVUTU
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14
11:02 A.M.
There were times, Sarah thought, when she really did not want to be a woman. That was how she felt as she was driven into the muddy village of Pavutu, the rebel stronghold, in the back of an open jeep. The village seemed to be populated almost entirely by men, who came yelling into the clearing to see who had arrived. But there were women, too, including older women who stared at her height and her hair, and then came up and poked at her, as if she might not be real.
Jennifer, who was shorter and darker, stood beside her and attracted no attention at all. Nevertheless, they were herded together into one of the huge thatch houses. Inside the house was a large open space, a kind of central room, three stories high. There was a ladder made of wood leading up to a series of landings, going all the way to the top, where there was a kind of catwalk and a viewing area. In the center of the room was a fire, and at the fire sat a heavyset man with pale skin and a dark beard. He wore sunglasses and had a sort of beret with the Jamaican flag on it.
This, it seemed, was Sambuca. They were shoved in front of him, and he leered at them, but it was clear to Sarahshe had an instinct for these thingsthat he was not interested in them. He was interested in Ted, and in Peter. Kenner he inspected briefly, then looked away.
"Killim."
They pushed Kenner out the door, poking him with the butts of their rifles. They were clearly excited at the prospect of executing him.
"No nau," Sambuca said, in a growl. "Behain."
It took Sarah a moment to translate in her head. Not now. Behind. Which must mean later on, she thought. So Kenner had a reprieve, at least for a while.
Sambuca turned and stared at the others in the room.
"Meris," he said, with a dismissive wave. "Goapim meri behain."
Sarah had the distinct impression, from the grins on the faces of the boys, that they were being given the freedom to do with the two women what they wanted. Go up 'em. She and Jennifer were led off to a back room.
Sarah remained calm. Of course she knew things were bad. But they were not bad yet. She was noticing that Jennifer did not appear to be shaken in the least. She had the same flat, uninterested expression that she might have if she was walking toward a company cocktail party.
The boys took the two women into a thatched room at the back of the larger building. There were two posts sunk in the earthen floor. One of the kids took out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed Jennifer to one post, her hands behind her back. Then he cuffed Sarah to the other post in the same way. Then another kid reached up and squeezed Sarah's tit, smiled knowingly, and walked out of the room.
"Charming," Jennifer said, when they were alone. "You all right?"
"So far, yes." There were drums starting to beat from somewhere outside, in the courtyard between the thatch buildings.
"Good," Jennifer said. "It's not over yet."
"Sanjong is"
"Right. He is."
"But we came a long way in the jeeps."
"Yes. At least two or three miles. I tried to see the odometer, but it was spattered with mud. But on foot, even running, it'll take him a while."
"He had a rifle."
"Yes."
"Can you get free?"
Jennifer shook her head. "It's too tight."
Through the open door, they saw Bradley and Evans being led away to another room. They glimpsed the two men only for a moment. Not long after, Kenner followed. He glanced into their room, giving what seemed to Sarah a meaningful look.
But she couldn't be sure.
Jennifer sat down on the bare earth, leaning back against the pole. She said, "Might as well sit down. It could be a long night." Sarah sat down, too.
A moment later, a young boy looked in and saw that they were sitting. He came into the room, looked at their handcuffs, and then walked out again.
Outside, the drums were louder. People must have been starting to gather, because the women could hear shouts and murmurs.
"Going to be a ceremony," Jennifer said. "And I'm afraid I know what it is."
In the next room, Evans and Kenner were also handcuffed around two posts. Because there was not a third post, Ted Bradley was handcuffed and left seated on the ground. His head was no longer bleeding, but he had a huge bruise over his left eye. And he looked distinctly frightened. But his eyelids were drooping, as if he might fall asleep.
"What's your impression of village life so far, Ted?" Kenner said. "Still think it's the best way to live?"
"This isn't village life. This is savagery."
"It's all part of it."
"No, it's not. These young kids, that fat creepy guy amp;this is lunacy. This is everything gone wrong."