hours before anyone noticed they were missing. It wasn’t as though anyone had checked on them since the sun had set, and he knew from his experience over the last two nights that nobody would be by to look at them until dawn, at the earliest.
“Doug. Listen,” Gordon murmured. “We’re going to slide over by that clump of plants and then run for it. Can you make it?”
Doug seemed more alert now that his hands were free and there was a chance of escape.
“I think so. How do we do this?”
“I’ll go first. There’s so little light, they won’t be able to make us out if we don’t do anything stupid. Once I’m out of sight, you crawl to me, and then we’ll head downhill. If we make it till daylight, we’ll be able to tell by the sun what direction we’re headed, and we can get to the Thai border.”
Doug nodded.
With a final glance at the guards, Gordon inched down and rolled onto his stomach, then dog-crawled to the trees. Nobody noticed — no shots were fired or alarms raised. Once he made it into the brush, he turned and watched for Doug. He hoped he wasn’t making a fatal mistake by taking him.
Two minutes later, Doug materialized next to him. Both of them stood, and Doug tentatively put weight on his leg. The severity of pain this caused reflected in his eyes, but he choked it down.
After a final glance at the camp, they slipped deeper into the brush, the sound of night creatures around them their accompaniment as they wordlessly wove through the thick vegetation, hoping to find a trail in the meager moonlight.
Gordon supported Doug as they plodded forward, an hour into their trek to freedom. Doug was already tiring from the ravaging his system had endured from the infection, but he trudged on without complaint. Gordon’s arm burned with inflammation from where the guards had crudely carved out the implanted tracking chip, leaving a gash of tortured flesh. He could only imagine what Doug was enduring.
They fought their way through deadwood and tangles of vines until they came to a stream that meandered downhill from the camp. A game trail ran along its banks, enabling them to pick up the pace.
“Gahh. Oh, God…” Doug exclaimed as his ankle twisted on a rut, tearing at his brutalized calf muscle and bringing tears to his eyes.
“Let’s take a break and rinse off that bandage. The water will make you feel better,” Gordon said as Doug sank to the ground grabbing at his leg.
As Gordon unwound the gauze, Doug gasped, his breath coming in hoarse bursts.
The stink was unbearable. Like rotting meat. Discoloration ran up the veins, and the wound seeped a bloody mixture of pus. Gordon rinsed it carefully, but didn’t comment on the insects that had taken up a home. The water washed them away, but Gordon wasn’t kidding himself. If Doug survived he’d probably lose the leg unless there was some miracle antibiotic they could get their hands on.
“How is it? Hurts like a b-”
Gordon cocked his head to the side and raised a finger to his lips.
“What?”
“Shhh,” Gordon whispered, listening. “Damn. We need to get moving. Now. Let’s get you wrapped up. We don’t have much time.”
Gordon wrung out the bandage and hastily wound it around the gash — the bullet had passed cleanly through the calf muscle, but the subsequent infection had caused immeasurable damage.
Doug glanced at him with alarm. “What do you hear?”
“A dog.”
They struggled to their feet and stepped into the stream, hoping that would eliminate their trail — although Gordon suspected that Doug’s wound was emanating a strong scent.
He had no idea where his captors had gotten their hands on a dog. Probably one of the nearby villages. A few dollars would buy almost anything, even at three in the morning. Their luck had just run out.
Clouds drifted across the sky, and without warning, a downpour started, drenching the two men and further darkening their way. There was no place to take cover from the cloudburst, but getting wet was the least of their worries.
Doug stumbled several times and cried out. He’d pulled the ravaged muscle again, and this time looked like he wasn’t going to be able to continue any longer.
“Just leave me,” Doug hissed through clenched teeth.
“Not a chance. Come on. Pick up the pace.”
“I…I can’t do it. It’s too-”
A burst of rifle fire tore across Doug’s torso, bullets whizzing past Gordon as he instinctively threw himself to the ground. Doug spun and collapsed next to him, burbling his last breath, and then lay still. The crash of men and beast tearing through the jungle a few hundred yards away signaled that Gordon’s time had run out. He wondered whether they would drag him back or simply end his ordeal with a bullet to the skull.
The rain poured down with renewed vigor, large drops pelting him, and he used the temporary cover it offered to scramble forward and put distance between himself and his pursuers. His boots slammed onto the rocky riverbed, but the torrent falling all around him drowned the sound out. His only hope now was that nobody had night vision gear, or worse, an infrared scope. If they did, he was already dead.
He followed the brook until it tumbled into an area of angry churning froth. Rapids, the stream swollen from the rain. He stepped carefully onto the exposed rocks and hopped across from one to another, hoping to make it to the other side while the downpour covered his escape.
His footing gave out, and his sole slipped on the third rock. Gordon felt himself falling, disoriented as he slammed into the water, the force of the jolt knocking the wind out of him. He shook his head to clear it and felt warm liquid streaming down his neck; when he reached around to feel the back of his skull, his hand came away with a smear of blood.
Glancing around, he climbed to his feet and jogged along the shore as the stream widened, straining to hear any followers. The muffled sound of a dog barking told him everything he needed to know. He needed to put distance between himself and his pursuers while he could. When the rain stopped, he’d be exposed — the guards were all locals recruited from the neighboring hamlets, and he had no doubt that some of them were guides for the smuggling trails that wove through the hills. His only edge now was a slim lead and the dark of night. Come morning, if he lasted that long, he’d be a dead man unless he could make it across the border into Thailand and into relative civilization.
The irony of his being the prey wasn’t lost on him. This had been a seek-and-destroy mission, the target a relatively easy, if elusive, one. Gordon had carried out similar operations in Afghanistan, the Balkans and the Middle East with no complications. He was the predator. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
The sound of men crashing through the trees trailed him, but at a greater distance now.
Maybe his gambit had worked. But if so, he’d need to get away from the stream soon. It had served its purpose but was too easy to follow.
A barely-discernible path forked off from the water to his right. After a moment’s hesitation, he threw himself headlong down the trail, willing his legs to greater speed even as he felt light-headed from the blood loss. He’d have to stop soon and try to clot the gash or it would do the gunmen’s job for them.
Shouts echoed through the jungle behind him, but far enough back to afford him a momentary glimmer of hope. If the dog had lost the scent at the stream, then they were as blind as he was, and it was a big area.
Vines tore at his skin as the trail narrowed. At that moment, he would have given anything for a machete and an M4 rifle. He would have made short work of the amateurs who were tracking him, even with just the machete.
Shots rang out in the distance, but there was no accompanying shredding of vegetation. So the armed men were now shooting at phantoms.
A stirring in one of the trees stopped him in his tracks — a pair of glowing eyes burned into him. He squinted in the dim light and then started. There on a branch was a spotted leopard, capable of taking down a deer.
The big cat hissed as it watched him edge cautiously away while maintaining eye contact so it wouldn’t think he was afraid. Animals could sense fear, Gordon knew. His fight wasn’t with the hungry leopard, and he didn’t want to provoke it in any way. At seventy pounds, it could inflict real damage, especially in his weakened state. He backed off, but the leopard seemed intent on challenging him. It could obviously smell blood.
