The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes

Still laughing, she said incredulously, “Cigarettes? You used your cigarettes? So that’s what happened to them. I wondered.”

“But,” he muttered gloomily, “I don’t imagine there’d be much left of ’em, not after this.”

Ellie fought to straighten her face and failed miserably.

“I’d think you’d be taking this a little more seriously,” McCall said in a crochety tone as he watched her double over with mirth, “considering we’re lost in a jungle in a tropical storm, Lord knows how many miles from anywhere, not to mention surrounded by cutthroat killers.”

“You’re right,” she managed to mumble, winding down through a series of chortles, “except for the part about being lost. I can get us back to the car-at least, close enough. But first-”

“You can get us-how?”

“Remember those tracking devices the general mentioned? What I told him was the truth-they were in my bag, and his men did throw it into the jungle. Except for one.” She tapped her ear, and McCall noticed that it was missing its earring. “This one I planted in one of the cages, when we were here earlier. That’s so government forces-” she paused for an ironic snort “-can find them later. But-” and she tapped the stud in her other ear and smiled broadly, radiantly “-this one’s a receiver, and it’s set to the frequency of the ones in my bag. All we have to do is follow the pings. But-” her smile disappeared and was replaced by a look of grim purpose “-there’s something I have to do first.” She looked around, squinting against the pummeling rain, then darted into the maze of cages with a breathless, “Come on-help me. It’ll be quicker…”

Funny, how he’d already known what she meant to do. And even funnier was the fact that, as crazy a thing as it was to be doing under the circumstances, he didn’t even think of trying to talk her out of it. He didn’t say anything at all, just took one row while she took another, and together they ran from cage to cage, struggling to pull apart makeshift latches and untie sodden twine, throwing wide the rickety wooden doors. Behind them they could hear squeals and squawks and caws, a few confused flappings…and then the air seemed to fill with beating wings, brilliantly colored wings-all painted in primary colors, like the crayons in a small child’s toy box, but muted and blurred, now, by rain and twilight into a misty rainbow swirl.

“Ellie,” McCall panted, “we have to go. Come on-leave the rest.” In the distance he could hear shouts… gunshots. Coming closer. “We can’t-”

“I can’t leave them,” she gasped. “There’s just a few more…”

Crazy woman. She was going to get them both killed yet. And, as much as he was beginning to love her crazy ways, enough was enough. Intercepting her in a narrow aisle and blocking her way, he caught her by the arms and gave her a little shake and shouted down at her through the wild storm-sound, “We can’t save them all. They’re coming-can’t you hear? You want to die for those birds? Because I sure as hell don’t.” He paused while she glared at him, charged-up and furious, spitting fire and water at the same time. Then he ducked his head down and kissed her cold, drenched mouth-kissed it hard, kissed it deep and with unmistakable intent, while the storm raged around him and the sounds of deadly pursuit got louder. He pulled away finally, breathing hard, and in a guttural growl he didn’t recognize, said, “I want to live, dammit! Those birds mean more to you than your life? My life? Our lives?”

She stared at him with wide, dazed eyes. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear what she said. Then she shook her head and caught haphazardly at his hand and they were both running, heads down, as a half-dozen shadowy figures burst out of the jungle and into the courtyard and gunshots crackled through the storm like exploding firecrackers.

“Which way?” McCall gasped as they ran.

“Doesn’t matter,” she sputtered back. “Just…quickest way to cover.”

Cover. Cover of jungle or of darkness? Neither one seemed very friendly to McCall. Either could be their salvation or their doom. Still, considering the alternative… “This way,” he hissed, grabbing her hand and tugging her toward a jumble of stone blocks and fallen pillars half-buried in vines. While there was still enough light to see by, he reasoned, the ruins would afford them more substantial cover than vegetation. Leaves couldn’t stop bullets. Stone would.

The jumble of blocks turned out to be a collapsed section of wall. They scaled it together, pulling and pushing each other over the hard parts, scurrying like lizards over the easier stretches, using vines for handholds and praying they wouldn’t turn out to be snakes, and all the time listening for the crack of automatic rifles and the whine and zing of bullets, and bracing for the thunk of impact.

McCall’s heart was a red-hot hammer in his chest by the time he boosted Ellie over the topmost block of the wall. He hoisted himself the last two feet and crouched there, listening to the scraping sounds she made going down the other side, then the definite but controlled thump of her landing. Darkness was almost upon them now; he couldn’t see a thing beyond the ruined wall but rain…and more rain.

“Ellie?” he said hoarsely-a muted shout in all that noise. Hearing no response, he dropped over the side of the wall and after a bumping, scraping but thankfully short descent, felt the reasuring smoothness of stone under his feet. And Ellie touching him, one hand reaching for him, clutching at the leg of his jeans. “You okay?” he croaked, feeling oddly lightheaded-with relief, he imagined. “Hey-let’s get the hell out of here. Looks like it’s clear-” He took a step.

With a strangled cry, Ellie wrapped her arms around his knees. He gave a startled yelp of his own and pitched forward, face first, into darkness. He put out his arms to break his fall, expecting to break one of them in the process, or a wrist, at least. Instead-and even more horrifying-his hands met…nothing. Just emptiness. Thin air.

“McCall-” He could hear Ellie’s sobbing breaths. Her arms felt like a vise around his legs. “Hold on,” she was whimpering. “Please…hold on.”

“I’m holding, I’m holding,” he managed, grinding sounds into words through clenched teeth as, using muscles he hadn’t even known about, he fought to bring his upper body back onto solid ground. When he caught a handhold-a vine? A root?-pain shot through his arm and shoulder and down into his back and ribs, taking his breath. Ignoring it-after all, what was one more pulled muscle, more or less?-he gritted his teeth and pulled himself onto the stone ledge where Ellie was lying flat on her belly, arms still wrapped in a death-grip around his knees.

“Hey, you can let go now,” he said gently as he rolled over and lay back, propped on his elbows, breathing hard. And after a moment, looking around him at the darkness and rain. “What the hell is this? Some kind of well?” How calm he sounded, denying his hammering pulse and the chilling residue of adrenaline.

“I think it’s a cenote,” Ellie said in a cracked, unsteady voice, shifting around so that she was facing him, on her knees. “I’ve read about them. That’s a collapsed cave-collapsed, then flooded. There are a lot of them around here. They must have used it as a cistern.”

“I know what they are.” There was less rain and wind here, in the shelter of the wall. He could feel her reach for him…feel her touch his face. His heart surged frighteningly as he caught her hand and pressed it to his lips. “Thanks,” he growled against her palm.

She gave an odd little hiccupping laugh. “No problemo.”

Then they both went still as the sounds of momentarily forgotten pursuit grew suddenly loud and triumphant on the other side of the wall.

“We’re trapped,” Ellie whispered. “Unless we jump. And I don’t know if there’s even any water in there, or how deep, or how far down it is.”

McCall craned stiffly to peer into the void. “It’s too dark to see. We’d probably kill-”

“Wait!” It was an excited breath against his cheek. “I have an idea. Quick-find a rock. The biggest one you can lift. Hurry!”

He heard scrapes and bumps and some quick, urgent breathing. There were bumps and scrapes from the other side of the wall, too, and someone barked, “Cuidado, estupido!” Reaching, searching with his hands, McCall found a stone, something roughly round and oblong-shaped. His fingers located ridges and indentations that could only have been made by human hands. “Got it,” he grunted.

“Get ready,” she gasped back at him, from only a foot or two away. “Follow me-do what I do. Okay?”

Crazy woman…what’s she up to now? Yeah, but she was his crazy woman. And he was about to trust her with his life. Why didn’t that worry him? Why, instead, did he feel a strange, wild exhilaration, and more alive than he could remember feeling in…Lord, so many years?

“Okay,” he breathed.