My foot struck something rigid and sent me sprawling. I looked back and saw a steel wire stretched tight and low inches above the ground. What was a steel wire doing way up here? I wondered. Then I remembered the strange steel cable I had seen on the ascent that had stretched from the rim of the cliff down towards the village. It wasn't used to support any large tower, and I could only think of one reason for such a cable.
The crashing in the woods grew louder and closer. There were two distinct sounds now. They had split up. It was a classic military maneuver. They were trying to flank me and catch me in a pincer move. Soon I would have nowhere to go. My only option was down.
I followed the cable towards the cliff until I found its anchor point, which was a supported steel tower about ten feet tall. Someone had cleared the area of vegetation, and a small path ran up the mountain, a path I soon expected to see an armed soldier come down. Next to the base of the tower were several stacked crates. But it was something else that caught my attention. Attached to the steel wire running down to the jungle floor was an open wooden platform.
This was how the army had been supplying their men from the village. It was an oversized military dumbwaiter, I realized. The system was a low-tech but effective means of moving gear and provisions up and down from the mountain.
The wooden platform was attached with some sort of specialized gear that slid on the tight wire, and a simple rope led to a hand-cranked winch mounted on the tower. Its sole purpose seemed to be to retrieve the platform from the bottom of the cliff. I flipped the lever that allowed the spool of line to pay out freely and pushed the platform to the edge of the cliff as the first soldier burst through the brush.
"No se mueve!" the soldier shouted as the second soldier appeared on the small footpath a half-second later.
I did as he demanded and froze, putting my hands up in the air. The first soldier, blood still trickling from his nose, moved towards me, confident that he had me cornered. I took one glance over my shoulder at the long drop off and fought back the urge to vacate my stomach. I gave a quick wave goodbye to the two soldiers and launched both myself and the platform off the cliff.
The platform swung violently as gravity took hold and sent it speeding towards the dark forest below. The rushing air tore tears from my eyes, but the exhilaration and terror of the descent kept me from closing them. If I was going to die, I wanted to see it coming. The black and blue mass of the jungle canopy raced towards me, and for the briefest of moments I wondered how I was going to stop from crashing into the branches, or worse, one of the massive tree trunks.
I braced for impact as the treetops grew closer, but the crash never game. Instead, the platform and I slipped through a hole in the trees untouched. Being back under the canopy of the jungle, I was once again thrust into darkness. I had the vague feeling of unseen trees and plants racing by me, but in the gloom I couldn't make out anything more than a steady blur. It was a complete surprise when the platform suddenly stopped, swung forward and upwards fiercely, and then dumped me on my back in the dirt.
I quickly rolled out of the way as the platform came crashing down with a terrible noise, its supports broken by the sudden stop. Birds slumbering high above erupted with a fit of squawks and screeches, alerting other animals of my unwelcome intrusion. Everything in a half-mile radius, including Bardales' men, would know something was wrong. Good job, Chase, you might as well set off an alarm.
Using the long wire to orient myself, I calculated the direction to the village and set off through the jungle. There was a visible path that led in that general direction, but I ignored it. My loud arrival, and my reluctance to tangle with any more troops urged me to take the more difficult, but better concealed trek through the jungle. The heavy growth of the jungle would help conceal me if the military came investigating.
Quietly, but quickly, I made my way toward the village. My zipline misadventure had made up a lot of lost time. I was certain that I had at least caught up to Mercury, and there was a good chance that I was actually ahead of her. As long as I didn't run into any more problems, I would finally have the upper hand. And I was eager to press this newfound advantage.
It took me a few short minutes to reach the village, and I stayed inside the tree line to scope out the situation. Two of the large military transport trucks were barreling through the dirt streets and came thundering to a halt in the middle of the village. Twenty soldiers poured out of the truck beds. Half ran for what appeared to be a small pathway into the jungle to my left, which must have been the path to the supply point. The remaining half spread out, lit their flashlights, and began what looked like a disorganized search.
They focused on the center of the settlement, which suited me fine. My objective was the hotel on the very edge of the village. I knew Jaye Mercury was using it as her base of operations. When she had set out to retrieve the idol, she only had a small backpack. It stood to reason that she would return for any remaining gear
