to the other side of what was left of the wall.
'Move! Move!'
I kicked him to his knees and he fell forward on to his hands. Stepping back out of grab range, I aimed at his head.
'Can you hear me?'
The shouts were getting nearer. I kicked him.
'The missile guidance system, make sure-' 'What is wrong with you people?' He coughed as blood dribbled from his chin, not lifting his head as he shouted back angrily, without a trace of fear.
'It's been delivered last night! You have the launch control system you have everything! The Sunburn is complete! What more do you want?'
'Delivered? This is about getting it delivered?'
He looked up at me, staring along the barrel that moved up and down as we both fought for breath.
'Last night! You people use my son to threaten me, demanding it by tomorrow night, you get it and still-' As the blood ran down his neck he saw my confusion.
'Don't you people know what each other is doing?'
Tuesday the guy in the pink Hawaiian shirt. He was here -has he got it?'
'Of course!'
'Why should I believe you?'
'I don't care what you believe. The deal is done, yet you still threaten my family... Remember the condition no Panamanian targets. Why is it still here?
You said it would move straight to Colombia not use it here. Do you know who I am? Do you know what I can do to you?'
'Fatherrrrr!' Michael had seen us and his eyes widened.
'Don't kill him please don't kill him. Please!'
Charlie yelled something in Spanish, probably telling him to run, then fixed his glare on me once more. There was not a flicker of fear in his eyes.
'Well, Englishman, what now? You already have what you came here for.'
I took a swing with the rifle butt and got him on the side of the neck. He curled into a ball of pain as I turned and ran along the treeline, back towards the bergen. I grabbed it in my spare hand, looked back and saw Michael limping towards his dad as people and vehicles converged.
That was the problem. Michael was real people. He was a kid with a life, not one of the shadow people I was used to, the sort of target I'd never thought twice about killing.
I hurled myself into the jungle, crashing through wait-a-while, not caring about sign. I just wanted to get my arse out of here and into the wall of green.
Barbs tore into my skin and my throat was so parched it hurt to take breath. But none of that mattered: the only thing that did was getting away.
The commotion behind me gradually faded, soaked up by the jungle as I penetrated deeper but I knew it wouldn't be long before they got organized and came in after me.
There was automatic fire. The follow-up was much quicker than I'd expected: they were firing blindly, hoping to zap me as I ran. That didn't bother me, the trees would take the brunt. The only important thing was whether or not they were tracking me.
I pulled out my compass, checked, and headed east for about twenty metres, towards the loop, taking my time now, trying not to leave upturned leaves or broken cobwebs in my wake. Then I turned north, then west, doubling back on myself but off to the side of my original track. After five or six metres, I stopped, looked around for a thick bush, and wormed my way into it.
Squatting on my bergen, butt in the shoulder, safety off, I fought for breath.
If they were tracking, they would pass right to left, seven or eight metres in front as they followed my sign. The rule about being chased in the jungle, learnt the hard way by far better soldiers than me, was that when the enemy are coming fast you've got to sidestep and creep away. Don't keep on running, because they'll just keep on following.
Slowly peeling three rounds from one of the ready rounds I pulled back the bolt.
The bearing surfaces glided smoothly over each other as I caught the round it was about to eject, then fed the four rounds slowly and deliberately back into the mag before pushing the bolt home.
I sat, watched and listened as I got out the blood-smeared mobile. No matter what was going on down here stop delivery, guarantee delivery, whatever I'd failed to do what the Yes Man had sent me here for, and I knew what that meant.
I had to make a call.
There was no signal, but I tried the number anyway, just in case, my finger covering the tiny speaker hole that sent out the touch tone. Nothing.
Baby-G said it was 7.03. I played with the phone, finding vibrate, and put it away again.
Shit, shit, shit. The pins and needles were returning. I had the helpless feeling that Carrie had described, that awful emptiness when you think you've lost someone and are trying desperately to find them. Shit, not here, not now A frenzied exchange in Spanish brought me back to the real world. They were close.
There were more shouts from under the canopy but were they following me? I sat motionless as seconds, and then whole minutes, ticked by.
Nearly seven fifteen. She'll be getting up soon for school... I had fucked up, I had to accept that. But what was more important now, at this very moment, was getting a signal on the mobile, and that meant going back uphill towards the house, where I'd seen it used.
There was the odd resonant yell that sounded like a howler monkey, but I saw no one. Then there was movement to my front, the crashing of foliage as they got closer. But they weren't tracking: it sounded too much of a gang fuck for that. I held my breath, butt in the shoulder, pad on the trigger as they stopped on my trail.
Sweat dripped off my face as three voices gob bed off at warp speed, maybe deciding which direction to take. I could hear their M-16s, that plastic, almost toy-like sound as they moved them in their hands, or dropped a butt on to the toecap of a boot.
A burst of automatic fire went off in the distance and my three seemed to decide to go back the way they'd come. They'd obviously had enough of this jungle lark.
Anyone tracking me, even if they'd lost my sign and had had to cast out to find it, would have gone past my position by now. Even with me trying to cut down on sign, a blind man could have followed the highway I'd made if he'd known what he was feeling for.
I got just short of the edge of the treeline, all the time checking the signal bars on the mobile. Still nothing.
I heard the heavy revs of one of the bulldozers and the squeal of its tracks.
Moving forward cautiously, I saw plumes of black diesel smoke billow from the vertical exhaust as it lumbered towards the gate. Beyond it, the front of the house was a frenzy of people. Bodies with weapons shouted at each other in confusion as wagons moved up and down the road.
I moved back into the wall of green, applied Safe and started checking up at the canopy as I unravelled the string on the weapon to make a sling. I found a suitable tree about six metres in: it would have a good view of the house, looked easy to climb, and the branches were strong enough to support my weight.
I took out the strapping that was going to be my seat, got the bergen on my back, slung the weapon over my shoulder, and started to clamber up as engines revved and people shouted out in the open ground.
When I was about twenty feet up I tried the Nokia again, and this time I got four bars.
Fastening the straps between two strong branches, I hooked the bergen over another next to them, settled into the seat facing the house, then spread one of the mozzie nets over me before closing down the bergen in case I had to buy out.
I was going to be here for a while, until things had quietened down, so the net had to be hung out on to branches so it wasn't clinging to me, and tucked under to cover the straps. I needed to hide my shape, shine, shadow, silhouette and movement; that wouldn't happen if I didn't spread it out a bit to prevent myself looking like a man in a tree with a mozzie net over him. Finally, cradling the weapon across my legs, I calmed myself down as I hit the keypad.
