Four was the ritual Arawak unit.
The odyssey of death.
No time for thought.
He found the path at the opposite side of the small clearing and began
to run, gathering speed as he raced toward the banks of the Martha Brae.
There was no air left in his lungs now, not breath as he knew it; only
the steady explosion of exhaustion from his throat, blood and
perspiration falling from his head, rivering down his neck onto his
shoulders and chest.
There was the river. He had reached the river!
It was only then that he realized the pounding rain had stopped; the
jungle storm was over. He swung the flashlight to his left; there were
the rocks of the path bordering the final few hundred yards into the
campsite.
He had heard no rifle fire. There had been no shots. There were five
experienced killers in the darkness behind him, and the terrible night
was not over … but he had a chance.
That’s all he had asked for, all that was between him and his command to
a firing squad ending his life.
Willingly, if he failed. Willingly to end it without Alison.
He ran the last fifty yards as fast as his exhausted muscles could
tolerate. He held the flashlight directly in front of him; the first
object caught by its beam was the lean-to at the mouth of the campsite
area. He raced into the clearing.
There were no fires, no signs of life. Only the dripping of a thousand
reminders of the jungle storm, the tents silent monuments of recent
living.
He stopped breathing. Cold terror gripped him. The silence Was an
overpowering portent of horror.
“Alison. Alison!” he screamed and raced blindly toward the tent. “Sam!
Sam!”
When the words came out of the darkness, he knew what it was to be taken
from death and be given life again.
“Alexander … You damn near got killed, boy,” said Sam Tucker from the
black recesses of the jungle’s edge.
am Tucker and the runner called Marcus walked out of the bush. McAuliff
stared at@ the Halidonite, bewilS dered. The runner saw his expression
and spoke.
“There is no time for lengthy explanations. I have exercised an option,
that is all.” The runner pointed to the lapel of his jacket. Alex
needed no clarification. Sewn into the cloth were the tablets he had
seen in the wash of yellow moonlight on the back road above Lucca
Harbour.
I would not think twice about it, Daniel had said.
“Where is Alison?”
“With Lawrence and Whitehall. They’re farther down the river,” answered
Sam.
“What about the Jensens?”
Tucker paused. “I don’t know, Alexander.”
“What?
“They disappeared. That’s all I can tell you. Yesterday Peter was
lost; his carrier returned to camp, he couldn’t find him. Ruth bore up
well, poor girl … a lot of guts in her. We sent out a search.
Nothing. And then this morning, I can’t tell you why-I don’t know-I
went to the Jensen tent.
Ruth was gone. She hasn’t been seen since.”
McAuliff wondered. Had Peter Jensen seen something?
Sensed something? And fled with his wife? Escaped past the tribe of
Acquaba?
questions for another time.
“The carriers?” asked Alex warily, afraid to hear the answer.
“Check with our friend here,” replied Tucker, nodding to the Halidonite.
They have been sent north, escorted north on the river,” said the man
with the usurped name of Marcus. “Jamaicans will not die tonight unless
they know why they are dying.
Not in this fight.”
And you? Why you? Is this your fight?”
“I know the men who come for you. I have the option to fight.”
“The limited freedoms of Acquaba?” asked Alex softly.
Marcus shrugged; his eyes betrayed nothing. “An individual’s freedom of
choice, Doctor.”
There was a barely perceptible cry of a bird, or the muted screech of a
bat, from the dense, tropic jungle. Then there followed another. And
another. McAuliff would not have noticed … there were so many
sounds, so continuously. A never-ending nocturnal sympathy; pleasant to
hear, not pleasant to think about.
But he was compelled to notice now.
Marcus snapped his head up, reacting to the sound. He swiftly reached
over and grabbed Alexander’s flashlight and ripped it out of his hand
while shouldering Tucker away.
“Get down! ” he cried, as he pushed McAuliff violently, reeling him
backward, away from the spot where he was standing.
Seven rifle shots came out of the darkness, some thumping into trees,
others cracking into the jungle distance, two exploding into the dirt of
the clearing.
Alex rolled on the ground, pulling his rifle into position, and aimed in
the direction of the firing. He kept his finger on the trigger; a
shattering fusillade of twenty bullets sprayed the area. It was over in
seconds. The stillness returned.
He felt a hand grabbing his leg. It was Marcus.
“Pull back. Down to the river, mon,” he whispered harshly.
McAuliff scrambled backward in the darkness. More shots were fired from
the bush; the bullets screamed above him to the right.
Suddenly there was a burst of rifle fire from only feet away. Marcus
had leaped up to the left and delivered a cross-section barrage that
drew the opposing fire away.
Alex knew Marcus’s action was his cover. He lurched to the right, to
the edge of the clearings. He heard Sam Tucker’s voice.
“McAuliff? Over here!”
As he raced into the brush, he saw Sam’s outline on the ground. Tucker
was crouched on one knee, his rifle raised.
“Where? For Christ’s sake, where’s Alison? The others?”
“Go down to the river, boy! South, about three hundred yards. Tell the
others. We’ll hold here.”
“No, Sam! come with me…. Show me.”
“I’ll bethere, son . . .” Another volly of shots spat out of the
jungle. Marcus answered from the opposite side of the clearing. Tucker
continued speaking as he grabbed the cloth in Alex’s field jacket and
propelled him beyond. “That black son of a bitch is willing to get his
tar ass shot off for us! Maybe he’s given me a little time I don’t
deserve. He’s my countryman, boy. My new landsmann. Jesus! I knew I
liked this fucking island. Now get the hell down there and watch out
for the girl. We’ll join you, don’t you worry about that. The girl,
Alexander!”
“There are five men out there, Sam. I killed one of them a mile back.
They must have seen my flashlight when I was running. I’m sorry . . .”
With these words McAuliff plunged into the soaking-wet forest and
slashed his way to the riverbank. He tumbled down the short slope,
there life clattering against the metal buttons of his jacket, and fell
into the water.
South. Left.
Three hundred yards. Nine hundred feet … a continent.
He stayed close to the riverbank, where he could make the best time. As
he slopped through the mud and the growth and over fallen rocks, he
realized his magazine was empty. Without stopping he reached into his
pocket and pulled out a fresh clip, snapping the old one out of its slot
and slamming the new one in. He cracked back the insertion bar; the
cartridge entered the chamber.
Gunfire broke his nonthoughts. Behind him men were trying to kill other
men.
There was a bend in the narrow river. He had traveled over a hundred
yards; nearer two, he thought.
My new landsmann … Christ! Sam Tucker, itinerant wanderer of the
globe, schooler of primitives, lover of all lands-in search of one to
call his own, at this late stage of his life. And he had found it in a
violent moment of time in the cruelest wilds of Jamaica’s Cock Pit. In
a moment of sacrifice.
Suddenly, in an instant of terror, from out of the darkness above, a
huge black form descended. A giant arm fell viselike around his neck;
clawing fingers tore at his face; his kidneys were being hammered by a
vicious, powerful fist.
He slammed the rifle butt into the body behind him, sank his teeth into
the flesh below his mouth, and lunged forward into the water.
“Mon! Jesus, mon!
The voice of Lawrence cried as he pummeled McAuliff s shoulder. Stunned,
each man released the other; each held up his hands, Alex’s awkwardly
thrusting out the rifle, Lawrence’s holding a long knife.
“My God!” said McAuliff. “I could have shot you!”
There was another fusillade of gunfire to the north.
“I might have put the blade in … not the handle,” said the black
giant, waist-deep in water. “We wanted a hostage.”
Both men recognized there was no time for explanations.
“Where are you? Where’s Alison and Whitehall?”
“Downstream, mon. Not far.”
“Is she all right?”
“She is frightened…. But she is a brave woman. For a white English
lady. You see, mon?”
“I saw, Union,” replied Alexander. “Let’s go.”
Lawrence preceded him, jumping out of the water about thirty yards