Two men stood near the entrance to the village, scarcely visible in the dark. A few hundred feet past them was the overgrown pathway I had taken from the marina. Both men held their rifles across their chests, looking straight ahead. Crossing in front of them wouldn't be possible.
I once again considered slinking through the jungle, but it was still too dense. A black wall of leaves, branches, and thick vines. It would have been difficult enough to get through that arboreal wall with a machete in the daylight, much less to navigate it silently at night. What I needed was another distraction.
I laid down on my stomach, crawling along the edge of the jungle. When I was close enough that I could hear them fidgeting and shifting their weight, I stopped and rested against the foliage while I desperately tried to think my way out of this latest predicament.
Thoughts flitted through my head, each quickly dismissed. Ultimately, I was stuck. There was nothing I could do but wait for something to change, something that would provide me with an opening.
I didn't have to wait long. The radios that hung from both men's belts belched out a series of distorted and garbled sounds. Despite my extensive experience with radios and their peculiarities, I could not make out what was being said. Then came another transmission, this one angry and frantic. Both guards exchanged a look, gripped their weapons tighter, and jogged towards the other soldiers in the center of the town, leaving the road unguarded.
I chanced a look back towards the village. Earlier, the soldiers' alertness and zeal had been waning as the search continued, some men all but giving up after a few moments. But something had changed. Now they were all on high alert. Flashlight beams slashed through the night, several dangerously close to where I lay hidden. Heads turned in every direction. I wonder what lit a fire under their asses?
Another squabble came from the radios, more faint and impossible to make out at this distance. The men turned in unison towards the supply pathway where several lights could be seen coming up the path. From across the village I could hear and see the men in the woods. They were searching for someone, and I wasn't about to stick around to find out if it was me or Jaye.
I darted across the road, risking being discovered with my rapid movement. It was a gamble, but it paid off. No shouts or bullets followed me, and I disappeared down the narrow the footpath within seconds. Swiftly, I made my way down the path that had seemed so steep and rugged before. But, after an evening of bushwhacking up and down a tropical mountain, it now seemed flat and manicured. I kept my pace fast despite the near absolute darkness. Deftly, I leapt from rock to rock, moving with an efficient loping gain down the smoother parts of the path. I had to put as much distance between me and the platoon of soldiers as possible.
However, after only a few minutes on the trail I was once again panting and pouring sweat. My right calf was threatening to cramp too. If I didn't get some water soon, dehydration was going to become a serious problem. The sticky, humid night wasn't helping either. My shirt clung to me, soaked through completely. But the hot, damp air prevented any cooling from evaporation. Even though it was miserable, I reminded myself that I was used to it. I'd take hot and sweaty over freezing and cold any day.
Florida's weather was brutal most of the year. It wasn't uncommon for it to remain scorching hot and horribly humid for months on end. Cuba's weather was worse. My watch told me it was nearing midnight, yet the temperatures had never dropped. It was as if the jungle had trapped the heat from the day, storing it like some kind of thermal battery. Each step brought me closer to the coast and lower in elevation. At least near the top of the mountain the air had been a few degrees cooler and there had been a whisper of a breeze. Now it was thick enough to cut with Jaye's machete.
My lungs felt like they were half full of water when I finally arrived at the airstrip. I had hoped for a breeze, anything to relieve me from the heat of the night, but there wasn't even a ripple in the tall grass of the field. Relief would just have to wait.
At the far end of the runway, Mercury's green and white plane sat near the road as it had earlier in the day. There were no signs of people. No guards standing by the road, no soldiers searching the aircraft. And, best of all, no deadly and beautiful women preparing to leave. I had arrived before her. It looked like something finally went my way. Now it was time to lay my trap.
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Slap! I drew my hand away from my neck, a smear of blood and smashed wings staining my palm. Immediately another mosquito buzzed past my ear and landed on my arm, tickling the hairs as it prepared to feast. Red itchy welts stood out from every piece of exposed flesh, and I scratched idly in between swats at the ravenous creatures. Through the tall grass I watched the plane, abandoned and still in the moonlight. I couldn't tell if I was there for a minute or an hour. The torture of the constant swarming attack long ago obscured any notion of time.
Planes weren't my thing. If a boat was a hole in the water you poured money into, an airplane was a black hole in space that sucked up even more. I much preferred my chances for survival on the water too. At least if the engine died on a boat, I could raise the sails
