Chapter 41
Pockets of swirling vapour spewed up from the rocks of the promontory above the Pacific. Evan suppressed his panic, remembering his covenant with himself: he would not die passively; he would not be killed without a struggle, no matter how futile. Yet even last-ditch efforts presumed the outside possibility of survival, and he had spent his adult life studying the complexities of specifics. There were tropical vines all around him, thick and strong from the moisture and the winds constantly assaulting their trunks. There was lush undergrowth on both sides of the string of amber bulbs and loose wet dirt within that twisted foliage, mud that never knew a dry moment. The Mexican who had directed the Mafioso to the killing ground was a reluctant partner to murder. His voice grew fainter as they approached the final steps towards the white barrier.
'?Defrente, defrente!' he cried nervously. '?Adelanto!'
'Go over it or around it, Congressman,' said the Secret Service man, his tone cold, a professional doing his professional job, someone for whom life and death meant nothing.
'I can't,' answered Kendrick. 'It's too high to step over and there's some kind of barbed wire spreading out from the sides.'
'Where?'
'Here.' Kendrick pointed down into the dark undergrowth.
'I don't see—’
Now! screamed the silent voice inside Evan's throat as he whipped around, both hands surging for the large ugly weapon, gripping it and pushing it away as he bent the Mafioso's wrist back and crashed his shoulder into the guard's chest, pulling the arm forward and desperately, with all the strength that was in him, heaving the man off balance and into the brush and the wet dirt. The gun fired, the explosion melding with the sounds of the crashing waves below. Kendrick shoved the weapon into the soft earth and, freeing his right hand, grabbed a fistful of mud and slapped it into the Mafioso's face, grinding it into his eyes.
The guard shouted garbled words of fury, trying simultaneously to wipe his eyes and yank the gun out of the earth and Evan's grip. Kendrick remained on top of the writhing, thrashing killer, repeatedly crashing his knee up into the man's groin as his right hand continuously scooped up mud, crushing it into the Mafioso's eyes and mouth. His knuckles struck a hard, jagged object… a rock! It was almost too large for the panicked spread of his fingers, but nothing could, nothing would, stop him. Straining muscles he had not exerted in months, years, holding off the convulsive assaults beneath him, he pulled the heavy, jagged rock out of the mud, raised it, and crashed it down into the head of his would-be executioner. The killer-guard went limp as the man's body sank into the wet undergrowth and the soft ground.
Evan grabbed the gun and snapped his eyes up towards the Mexican. The Hispanic, waiting to see who would live and who would die yards away in the mist-laden, shadowed foliage, crouched, backing into an amber lamp, smashing it with his foot. Seeing the survivor, he spun around, digging his feet into the path to run.
'Stop!' yelled Kendrick breathlessly, leaping up and lurching out of the bordering overgrowth. 'Stop or I'll kill you! You understand me well enough for that.'
The Mexican stopped, turning slowly in the wash of light to face Evan. 'I am no part of these things, senor,' he said in surprisingly clear English.
'You mean you don't pull the trigger, you just tell them where they can pull it!'
'I am no part,' repeated the man. 'I am a fisherman but there is no decent pay on the boats these days. I make my pesos and go home to my family in El Descanso.'
'Do you want to see your family again?'
'Si', very much,' replied the Hispanic, his lips and hands trembling. 'If this is what happens, I will not come back.'
'Are you telling me it's never happened before?'
'Never, senor.'
'Then how did you know the way!' shouted Kendrick against the sound of the wind and the crashing waves. He was regaining his breath, gradually aware of the mud that covered him and the pain everywhere inside him.
'We are brought here and given maps of the island, which we must know completely in two days or we are sent home.'
'Why? For multiple executions?'
