Jamie Freveletti - Running from the Devil

Miguel kept his eyes glued on the far side of the path while he crawled. After ten feet, his view was blocked, so he moved sideways. He heard Kohl behind him. Kohl was doing a good job moving in stealth, but there was a certain amount of rustling that couldn’t be avoided.

The noise of a helicopter drowned out any sound Kohl could have made. Miguel looked up to see it hovering over the path. He got a mental picture of the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. As a child they had scared the hell out of him, and this helicopter was doing the same. He watched while a man perched in the open door and fired round after round into the forest below.

Miguel heard men screaming. The helicopter flew low. Guns mounted on the side rained fire down on the hapless soldiers and anyone else in their path.

Another helicopter joined in the fray, this one filled with guerrillas. Miguel watched as one pulled the pin on a grenade. Miguel took aim and shot him. The man died instantly, but the grenade fell out of his hand anyway, dropping to the path below and exploding. Miguel heard more screams and watched as a gun flew ten feet into the air.

Return fire erupted from a location ten feet forward of the sniper’s previous location. The sniper didn’t waste bullets by laying down sweeping fire. Instead, he shot repeatedly into the area revealed by the fire bursts.

The helicopters hovered over them. The rotor’s downwash bent the trees and forced the leaves aside, leaving the guerrillas in the open as they knelt on the passengers’ backs. The nearest guerrilla tried to rise, but before he could, the sniper shot him right in the center of his forehead. He dropped like a stone.

Damn, that man can shoot, Miguel thought. He used the opportunity afforded by the helicopters’ downwash to take out another guerrilla who’d had the bad luck to be exposed by the swaying vegetation. He heard Kohl’s gun discharge to his right and watched yet another guerrilla fall backward.

The sniper shot twice more. Miguel wanted to see the result in order to assess the remaining force, but assistance came from an unexpected place when the men in the helicopter leveled the playing field and started firing on the guerrillas.

I’m in a gang war in the middle of the jungle, Miguel thought. He watched the helicopter fire into the vegetation below.

Now the tables had turned and the kneeling guerrillas were acting as human shields for the passengers below them. They took the brunt of the helicopter fire that rained down from above. Screams joined the cacophony. Some guerrillas were quick enough to jump up and run into the bush, leaving their hostages behind in their desire to save themselves.

The sniper fired a grenade at one of the helicopters. It flew into the open door and exploded. Bits of metal and chunks of fire fell into the jungle while the copter pitched sideways. It flew horizontally for a few seconds before landing in the jungle below. The second veered off, following the retreating guerrillas, peppering them with shot as it did.

42

“FORWARD,” MIGUEL SAID TO KOHL, WHO APPEARED AT HIS SIDE. They laid fire as they walked toward the path. A passenger, still dazed from the horrific scene and disoriented, staggered in front of them.

“Get back down! Now!” Miguel yelled at him. The man dropped and froze. Miguel snorted in exasperation. The fool was lying directly in the center of the path. If a stray guerrilla didn’t shoot him, the sniper might. Miguel continued sweeping the area with shot. He aimed high, hoping to spare any other passengers who thought to get up and walk around. When he reached the man on the path, he knelt down, still firing, and tapped on his shoulder.

“Crawl past me into the bushes behind and stay there until I tell you to move,” he said. The man nodded and scrambled across the path and into the bushes. When the sniper didn’t fire on him, Miguel decided to take the risk and send more passengers that way.

The next two were young, in their twenties, and moved with lightning speed. Miguel reached the far end of the path and knelt next to the old man who had shouted his defiance. He was still, his eyes closed, the dead guerrilla on top of him. When Miguel touched his back, he opened his eyes.

“I’m faking death. Is it safe to move?” the man said.

“Only if you can move as fast as those two just did,” Miguel whispered to him in Spanish.

“They are youngsters with flexible bones. I will wait until you tell me to move.” The man closed his eyes again.

By the time Miguel reached the far side of the path, silence once again greeted him. Silence was not a friendly sound in the jungle. It occurred only when a predator, either four-legged or two-legged, roamed.

He rooted around, looking for his soldiers. He found two, dead. Two others lay in the bush, wounded, but not critically. He pantomimed to them to stay put. Four were missing. Miguel suspected they were hiding, and he hoped they continued to stay concealed. The guerrillas had retreated toward them. Now was not the time to move.

Miguel continued to collect the passengers and sent them crawling. The sniper stayed hidden and allowed them to pass. Kohl sat in a depression next to a verdant palm and waved the passengers into a group behind him as they crossed to him. After they were settled, Miguel went back and got the old man.

“Time to move, sir,” he said.

“And here I was just planning a catnap.”

Miguel admired the old man’s attempt at humor. “Plenty of time to nap on the other side of the path.”

“And the shooter in the trees? The one who is silent now?”

“He’s had plenty of opportunity to hit us, but hasn’t. I don’t think he’s a risk to us.”

The old man rose and straightened his back with a wince.

After the passengers, Miguel turned his attention to the wounded men. One had a bullet in his thigh, the other in his right arm. He pointed to the one with the injured leg.

“Did you get a look at the sniper? He must be in those trees on the far side.” Miguel couldn’t remember the soldier’s name. He was a black man, about twenty-one, from the hills of Tennessee. This was his first special forces assignment. Miguel liked him, and was glad to see he’d survived the gunfight.

The man shook his head. “I could see his muzzle fire, but not him. He’s in the trees, about even with that twisted palm.” The man pointed to a palm at the side of the path and about twenty yards away. Vines covered every branch, pulling the palm sideways. “He has a perfect view of the path, not that he needs it. Jesus! That dude could shoot, couldn’t he? Did you see that grenade go right over those guys’ heads into the copter?”

Miguel nodded. “Not a man to mess with.”

“Who is he?”

“I have no idea. Problem is, he could be a cartel junkie not happy with the guerrillas infiltrating his neighborhood, a northern paramilitary guy, also unhappy, or a member of the secret police.”

“If he’s police, why don’t he come out and introduce himself?”

Miguel shook his head. “There’s a rumor that some have contacts with the paramilitary groups. He could be moonlighting for them and may not want us to know who he is in case we meet him during his ‘day’ job.”

“Ain’t nothing easy here, is there?” the man said.

“Not a thing,” Miguel replied.

43

EMMA LOOKED AT THE SKY. “I’D SAY IT’S ABOUT FOUR O’CLOCK. Ask Maria if Rodrigo comes in the night, and does he come alone.”

Vivian nodded. “He comes only at night, and usually with his lieutenant, a man called Alvarado. They check on me, and sleep in that hut.” She pointed to a hut located dead center in the semicircle.

“Tell Maria that Rodrigo is injured, but I don’t think he is dead.”

Vivian translated.

Maria sucked in her breath. She spoke to Vivian in rapid Spanish, punctuating her words with arm gestures. Her agitation was clear.

“Maria says that if the man is not dead, then the village is in danger. The man threatened to kill all the children unless we cooperated. She asks that you find the man who injured Rodrigo and ask that he kill him.”

“I am the one who injured Rodrigo. Believe me, I was trying to kill him, but I had thirty other guerrillas to deal with, and Rodrigo managed to slip through my fingers.”

Vivian stared at Emma. “You fought thirty guerrillas?”

“Vivian, I had a gun. It wasn’t like we were in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Forgive me for saying this, but I always heard that Americans were a violent lot.”

This from a Colombian? Emma thought. She shook her head. “We can debate the relative merits of our two societies later. Tell Maria that I won’t leave the children to be injured. She should take them into the jungle while I wait for Rodrigo.”

“And when he comes?” Vivian said.

“I injured him. I’ll kill him.”

Vivian blinked.

Emma looked at Maria. “When do the village men return?”

Vivian translated and Maria spoke in rapid Spanish. She kept shaking her head.

“She says we cannot depend on them to save us. They are so afraid of Rodrigo that she doubts they would help us attack him.”

“So we’re on our own. Fine. Let’s get moving. We need to set a trap.”

“What do you have in mind?’

Emma reached the fringes of the jungle and started picking through the foliage. She found several sticks sturdy enough to do the trick. She handed four to Vivian.

“Please ask Maria for two knives. She needs to help us turn the end of these sticks into points.”

Two hours later, Vivian, Maria, and Emma stood around the pit in the center of the hut. They’d placed the sticks in the ground at the bottom, points up.

“I tell you, before now I never gave a thought to a sharp stick. Now I seem to be the queen of them,” Emma said.

“It is a classic trap, is it not?” Vivian said.

“Yes, it is. But”—Emma turned to look at the entrance to the hut—“we need to make this door open inward.” She analyzed the door frame.

Vivian looked at the deepening shadows all around them.

“Emma, I don’t think it’s possible to do this in the time we have remaining. We would need to rehang the entire door.”

Emma looked at it with a critical eye. She had to concede Vivian’s point.

“What are you trying to do?” Vivian said. “Is the trap not enough?”

Emma shook her head. “There is no way he will just step into that hole. Someone has to wait until he gets close and then push him into it. That means that someone must be hidden inside. If the door swung inward, you could hide behind it.”

Vivian gave a worried look around the clearing. “Emma, I think you worry too much. You have the rifle. You will shoot him as he steps into camp.” She snapped her fingers. “Poof! End of problem.”

Emma gnawed on a hangnail. “I only have four rounds and I’m an awful shot. You say you are worse, and Maria refuses to touch a gun. This is a backup plan if the shooting goes south.”

Vivian patted Emma on the back. “Then it will not go south, eh? Because I tell you, if you do not get him, I will. Even if I have to rip him apart with my bare hands.”

Emma rolled her shoulders, where an ache was forming. “Maria told the children to hide? Did she tell them what to do if we all end up dead?”

“We will not end up dead, Emma.” Vivian sounded determined.

Maria said something to Vivian, who laughed grimly.

“Maria says that if I do not kill him, and you do not kill him, she will ask God to kill him.”

Vivian and Emma looked at each other.

“She’s going to end up in heaven, and we’re going…” Emma didn’t want to finish the sentence.