With few other options, Bravo Team keeps moving downriver, hoping to at least stay ahead of any pursuers.
The canoes are gone, as are all the men who had been enlisted to pilot them. Ray figures there are three possibilities: the locals were killed by Abdhir's guys; they were in on it from the beginning; or somebody warned them what was going down, and they took off.
He hopes for option three. The locals didn't ask for any of this. They have their own belief system, their own way of life, and all they want is to be left alone to live it.
In the late afternoon, a storm hits. The rain is brief but comes down like a waterfall, so heavy that it makes it hard to breathe, makes Ray feel like he might drown. As soon as he thinks that word, drown, he's back to Spenser plunging off that rock, and he wonders if Clay was already dead when he fell. If he had enough awareness left to feel his lungs filling up with water.
Ray decides he doesn't want to think about that anymore. He mostly manages not to.
With Brock's quiet support and the help of the painkillers Trent keeps giving him, Ray stays on his feet until dark; not moving as fast as they need him to, but doing the best he can. Once the sun starts to drop low over the mountains, Jason picks a spot and they make camp, quietly, with no fire. Jason tells them not to use lights during the night unless absolutely necessary.
The rainforest's sheer size is both bad and good. It's bad because it's making it hard as hell for them to get back to civilization. It's good because, so long as they stay clear of the river, it should also be really damn difficult for Abdhir's guys to find them in the hundreds of miles of largely uninhabited wilderness.
After Ray has been re-bandaged, fussed over and helped into his hammock, Sonny comes and sits at the base of a tree near him, tilts his head back, and stares up at where the sky would be if it weren't swallowed up by rainforest canopy.
Eventually, he says, "This one's gonna hurt for a while, ain't it?"
Ray breathes through the pain. "Yeah. I think it will."
Sonny nods, staring straight ahead now, glassy-eyed. "Guess I got used to having him around."
"Me too, brother."
After Nate, after the way they lost him, it took a while. Spenser didn't exactly make it easy at first, either, with his prickly need to prove himself, his confidence that sometimes crossed into arrogance. He's gotten better about that (at least some of the time), and his team has also gotten better about understanding where it comes from: the loneliness; the asshole father whose shadow Clay has had to fight so hard to escape.
"Right before," Ray says, "he was telling me things he'd read about the river. And clouded leopards. How long their tails are."
Sonny exhales a laugh, sucks the breath back in as a sob. He swipes his sleeve across his eyes. "Jesus, that kid is a nerd."
"He kind of is, isn't he?"
Their use of present tense for Clay is a small, deliberate act of defiance. They'll have to give it up eventually, but not today. Today, he was just here. They have some of his gear with them. He still feels real.
It'll take a while for that to fade. Especially if they never get the closure of being able to bring him home.
"On the way up here, he was tellin' me about the villages we were passing," Sonny says. "How durn near every one of 'em has a different language than the last. Some folks up here speak three or four separate languages, but not a one that would be understood anywhere on earth except this river." He leans his head back against the tree, smiles a wobbly smile. "I told him he might as well learn some of 'em, since he already speaks everything else. He said he'd get right on that."
Ray tries to swallow past the grief clogging his throat. He feels crushed beneath the unbearable weight of all the years of Clay Spenser's unlived life: languages he won't learn, battles he won't fight. It's Nate all over again, and too many brothers before Nate. It doesn't get easier. If anything, it might be getting harder.
After a while, Sonny gets up and squeezes Ray's shoulder. "You hang in there, you hear me?"
"Copy that."
Once Sonny is in his own hammock, the camp goes quiet. In the heavy darkness, the jungle sounds settle over them like a weight. Nightbirds sing. Monkeys quarrel in treetops. Ray's side throbs under the clean bandages Trent applied before sunset. He closes his eyes and tries to sleep, and tries not to think about anything but Naima and his babies, and the way that their faces will light up when they see him again.
During the night, it rains again. Ray passes out at some point, then wakes up disoriented in the dark, soaking wet, his teeth chattering with cold. His bones hurt. Every heartbeat sends a stab of hot agony through his side.
"Trent," he whispers, his voice a shallow croak. "Trent…"
Ray hears stirring. A hand lands gently on his forehead, and then Trent swears quietly.
"You're running a pretty high fever," the medic says softly, in the very calm tone he uses when things are not going well. He clicks on a small light, shielding it with his hand, and checks Ray's wound. There's just enough illumination to see his expression when he catches sight of it.
"That bad, huh?" Ray can't stop shivering, even though moving hurts.
Trent quickly smooths his expression back to neutral. "I'll put you on a second antibiotic. Hopefully that will help us get ahead of the infection." There's a clear apology in his voice when he adds, "I need to clean out the wound again."
And it's gonna hurt, and Ray has to stay quiet anyway. He knows how this goes.
"Just do it," he whispers.
God must still love him at least a little, because he mercifully passes out again before Trent is done.
In the pale gray dawn, Jason jolts awake to the sound of gunshots upriver.
Bang. Pause. Bang. Bang.
Silence.
Sonny looks back from where he's crouched at the edge of their camp. "Jason," he breathes.
"I know."
"Jason, that was-"
"I know."
Sonny just stares at him with a sort of quiet, hollow-eyed desperation.
Jason says into the radio, "Bravo One to HAVOC."
"Go for HAVOC."
"We've heard some gunfire from upriver. Three shots. Sounded like a Glock. Like maybe Bravo Six's gun."
Blackburn doesn't answer right away. He must know, just as well as Jason does, that the most likely scenario here is that either it's a coincidence, or Abdhir's men found Clay's body and are now using his gun in an attempt to draw out the rest of the team.
Blackburn also likely understands that none of that actually matters.
"Good copy. What's your course of action?"
"Shots were pretty clear. Sound doesn't carry well here, so they couldn't have been coming from all that far away." Jason chews at his lip. "I'm thinking we'd better check it out."
"It's your call, Bravo One," Blackburn responds, a hint of resignation in his tone.
"Copy. Will report back if we find anything."
Brock and Trent are awake, but Ray is still sleeping. "You need to stay with him?" Jason asks Trent.
The medic hesitates. "His fever's down. Breathing's good. I think he's okay for now. Brock, think you can handle keeping an eye on him?"
Brock nods, propping his foot up on a log with a stifled wince that Jason doesn't mention, but tucks away in his mind for later. Whatever it is, it can't be too serious or he would have mentioned it already.
"Anything moves that ain't us, you shoot first and ask questions later," Sonny tells Brock, who, taciturn as ever, just responds with a slight smile.
The morning sun filters through the trees in latticed stripes. Steam rises off the forest floor. Brightly colored birds flit from branch to branch. It's the sort of place that would look beautiful in a children's book; the reality is significantly less idyllic.
It doesn't take long for the search to get frustrating. They're navigating based on their best guess of where the shots were coming from, which might work out all right if there were even a little long-range visibility, which there isn't. The trio ends up wandering through bamboo thickets, past walls of flowering vines, and through spaces crowded with trees so massive that Jason feels like Jack looking up at the beanstalk.
There's no sound but for the cacophony of rainforest noises, and no sign of anything out of place.
Jason thinks about Brock and Ray back at camp, and wonders if he should have left them there alone. His neck itches with a nagging sense of unease that's probably unfounded but that he can't shake anyway. After maybe half an hour of absolutely nothing, he pulls up and turns to Sonny.
"No," the Texan says immediately.
"Sonny…"
"Twenty more minutes. Please. Jason, please."
Jason sighs. "Fine. But then we head back, you understand?"
"Roger that, boss," Sonny says, with a shifty expression that makes Jason suspect there will be further arguing once the twenty mikes are up.
They trudge through another bamboo patch, soupy mud sucking at their boots. Sonny is the first to break through into the small open space on the other side. He freezes in place.
Jason follows Sonny's gaze to the other side of the clearing, where Clay Spenser is sitting in a patch of orchids.
He's wet and muddy, blond hair matted with blood. His back is propped against the trunk of a massive tree, head tilted back, eyes closed. He doesn't move.
Jason's mood flips rapidly from elation to fear, because they've found Spenser, but he doesn't look alive.
What if it's a trap?
Sonny surges forward, ignoring Jason's hissed warning, and drops to his knees at Clay's side. "Spense?" His voice shakes. "Hey. Wake up. We found you, brother. We've got you. Come on." He touches Clay's shoulder, then gently pries the Glock from his teammate's lax grip.
Before Trent has a chance to check for a pulse, Clay rolls his head to the side and groans weakly. His eyelids crack open. He stares up at Sonny's face.
"Ow," he mumbles.
Sonny's laugh is higher-pitched than usual. "You got a headache there, Goldilocks?"
Clay starts to nod, winces. "Yeah." His voice comes out hoarse, and his breathing sounds labored. He must have nearly drowned. The fact that he didn't is a straight-up goddamn miracle.
"Hey, Clay," Trent says softly. "Can you look at me? I need to check your eyes, okay?"
Clay looks. When Trent flashes the light across his pupils, Spenser whines like a kicked puppy and grabs Sonny's arm, leaning his head against the Texan's shoulder.
"Sorry, sorry." Trent clicks off the light and carefully runs his fingers through Clay's matted hair to find the wound.
"What have we got?" Jason asks.
"He's lucky. Bullet didn't penetrate. It did take off a chunk of his scalp, though, and he's lost some blood. Skull might be fractured, but there's no displacement. He's got a pretty bad concussion. Clay, can you tell me where you are?"
Clay squints at Trent, opening his eyes just a sliver, probably worried that the light will come back. "Um," he says. "Jungle."
Trent smiles a little. "In what country?"
Clay's eyebrows scrunch together. "Not sure."
"Okay. Can you tell me what you were shooting at earlier?" When Clay gives him a blank look, Trent explains, "You fired your sidearm. That's how we found you."
Spenser shakes his head a little. "I … don't know. Can't remember. Sorry."
"Hey, that's okay," Trent lies calmly. "Can you tell me your name?"
Clay looks mildly annoyed now. "Uh, yeah. It's Clay Spenser."
"How about his name?" Trent tips his head toward Sonny, whose sleeve Clay probably doesn't even realize he's still holding. Sonny has his other arm wrapped around Clay's shoulders, possibly as much for his own reassurance as to keep his brother upright.
"Sonny," Spenser says, then adds, eyes sliding closed, "Quinn."
"That's good, Clay." Sonny's tone is about as gentle as Jason has ever heard from him. "You're doin' great."
Clay huffs, clearly not buying it, but doesn't argue. He leaves his head resting against Sonny's shoulder while Trent takes his pulse, listens to his breathing, then rises and pulls Jason aside to give him the full verdict.
"He's about as stable as could be expected for now. Respiration is a little rough from the water, but I think his lungs are okay. Main concern is the head injury. If he's bleeding into his brain, there's not a damn thing we can do about it out here."
"Got it. Bottom line?"
"He needs to be in a hospital, boss."
"Copy that." As Trent goes back to Clay, Jason turns away and says into his radio, "Bravo One to HAVOC."
"Go for HAVOC," Blackburn responds immediately.
"We've got Bravo Six. He's alive." Serious as the situation still is, Jason can't help the smile that finds its way into his voice.
"Good copy, Bravo One. Glad to hear it." Beneath Blackburn's unshakable professionalism, there's a hint of pure relief. "What's his status?"
"Significant head injury, but he seems stable for the moment. He's responsive but confused. Bravo Four says he needs medical care ASAP."
"Understood," Blackburn says. They both know that's not possible right now. Like Ray, Spenser will just have to hang on for as long as he can.
Sonny and Trent pull Clay to his feet. His left knee buckles and he lets out a stifled groan. Only Sonny's quick reflexes keep him from pitching forward.
At Trent's questioning look, Jason shakes his head. Clay doesn't seem to be bleeding from anywhere other than his head, and Jason's antsiness hasn't lessened. He doesn't like being separated from Brock and Ray - especially since, if Bravo could hear the shots Clay fired, it's possible someone else could too.
"Help him keep his weight off that leg," Jason tells Trent. "You can check it when we get back to camp."
"It's okay," Clay says. "I'm okay."
"Sure you are, kid."
Spenser does seem capable of putting at least some weight on the leg, though he looks more and more pained as they walk. By the time they make it back to camp, he's ashen and sweating so much that some of the mud is dripping off his face.
Jason briefly radios ahead to let Brock know they're coming, but doesn't mention who they have with them. When they emerge from the jungle, Brock bolts to his feet like he's been shot out of a cannon and says, "Holy shit."
"Clay's not dead!" Sonny announces.
"I see that. Holy shit. Spense, it is good to see you, brother." Brock gets nothing more than an unintelligible, mumbled response from his semiconscious teammate, but he breaks into a wide grin anyway.
While Sonny eases Clay down to a sitting position against a tree so that Trent can check his leg, Jason crosses the camp to kneel beside his 2IC's hammock. Ray is still out, which says a lot about how hard this infection is hitting him.
Jason pats his best friend's shoulder, wincing at the heat he can feel even through Ray's damp shirt. The fever isn't as bad as it was during the night, but it's definitely not gone either, despite the second antibiotic Trent has started him on.
When Ray's eyes open a sliver, Jason leans forward and tells him, "We got somebody here I thought you might want to see."
In Jason Hayes's line of work, there are a lot of bad days and not a lot of miracles. Brothers die and they don't come back. You bury them, or sometimes you bury their empty caskets, and then you go forward and try not to let it eat you alive. And when those rare miracles do happen, you hang onto them as tight as you can.
Jason will never, as long as he lives, forget the look on Ray's face when he sees Spenser, filthy and bedraggled and alive.
Ray swallows a couple times before he manages to get words out. "He okay?"
"Bullet more or less grazed him. He's got one hell of a concussion, but he's alive and knows his name." Jason squeezes Ray's shoulder. "He's a tough kid. He'll be fine."
Just then, Trent gives a low whistle and says, "Damn, Clay. I guess you didn't miss all those rocks after all." He has found the source of Spenser's sore leg: the kid's entire left thigh is nearly black with bruising. Jason winces just looking at it.
"Nothing broken," Trent concludes after some prodding that makes Clay hiss through gritted teeth, "but it's gonna hurt like hell for a while."
"Oh good," Clay mutters.
With his team finally in one place, back together like they should be, Jason starts thinking longer-term. Ray and Spenser need medical treatment, and the sooner the better. Traveling by river is out. The terrain makes helo extraction impossible. What does that leave?
A call to Blackburn confirms what Jason suspects: that Bravo's only viable option is to continue downriver on foot. Due to the largely impenetrable rainforest canopy, ISR is of limited usefulness in evaluating the terrain and planning a route. HAVOC's best guesstimate is that Bravo may be able to reach the nearest downriver village in two days, if they're lucky. Once there, they can hopefully hire someone with a boat to take them the rest of the way.
That is, of course, if Abdhir's guys aren't already waiting for them there. It's a risk they'll have to take.
Jason stands up. Conversations die off as his team turn to look at him.
"We've got one hell of a hike ahead of us, boys," he says. "Let's get to work."