October 2004
Guaviare Department, Colombia
Day 2

They drove the truck until they couldn't drive any further, which was not all that far. The road got progressively worse - portions of it were partially washed away by mudslides, and they had to move a half dozen trees that had fallen across it - and then eventually, it just . . . ended. Like whoever had been building it got fed up with the job and decided, eh, screw this! and turned around and went back the way they came.

They had the right idea, Eliot thought as he and Ford climbed out and stood in front of the thick expanse of trees and vegetation in front of them. Turning around would be the best possible option, if only it wouldn't also have involved getting his own insides boiled by Cesar Ventura.

"Now what?" Ford asked.

"We walk," Eliot said.

Ford absently rubbed his shoulder and kept staring at the jungle while Eliot went back to the truck, rooting through the glove compartment and the storage bins in the back. He found a tarp and some lengths of bungee cord and a couple of unopened bottles of water. He found a lighter and a machete.

Ford's carry-on had a zip-away day pack, and Eliot removed that. Then he went through the bag itself.

"Do you mind?" Nate asked, a hint of amusement in his voice as Eliot started pulling out boxer briefs and t-shirts.

Eliot ignored him and held up a t-shirt and socks and khakis - all lightweight, but all cotton. "You know, for a guy who gets down here a fair amount, you sure packed for shit."

"I don't usually work from the jungle," Nate said defensively.

Eliot folded the tarp and put it in Ford's pack. He threw in the socks and the t-shirts and the boxer briefs. They'd be worthless for hiking, but they'd be dry clothes to sleep in at the end of the day. If they got much sleep. Then he added the water bottles and a pen light he found in Ford's briefcase.

"You gonna put that croc in here or you carrying it?"

"Carry."

Eliot nodded, zipped the pack and threw it to him (or possibly at him), and Ford caught it against his chest with an oof.

"Thanks a lot," he grumbled.

Eliot slung his own pack over his shoulders and picked up the machete.

Ford looked at him skeptically. "We're seriously walking to San Jose del Guaviare?"

"You want to wait for Ventura, you feel free," Eliot said. "I'm walking."

Then he turned and started hacking his way through the underbrush.

They hiked until almost dusk, and Eliot set a brisk pace - as quick as he dared to go through through the jungle brush with Ford in tow. Ventura would be the least of their worries if one of them stepped on an Equis viper or grabbed a branch with a Banana spider on it.

When they stopped, Eliot was barely winded, but Ford was breathing like he'd just run a race, an irritated look on his face as he waved at the gnats clustered around the open scrapes on his cheek.

They were in a decent-sized clearing, and the trees were right for stringing up hammocks - his camp hammock and the one he'd rig for Ford from the tarp and bungee cords they'd found in the truck. (It wouldn't be as bug proof as Eliot's, but it'd be off the ground, and it'd be dry.).

"We'll set up camp here," Eliot said.

"Looks homey."

Eliot smirked and tossed him a protein bar from his bag. Ford caught it against his body, using his right arm like a basket. He was still favoring the left.

Eliot had to admit, he'd expected Ford to bitch about it the whole afternoon. He'd had that same twisty-pressure move put on him once in Afghanistan, and it was not a pleasant feeling. It'd taken a week before he could raise his arm more than a few inches without a burning, shooting, numbing pain from armpit to fingertips.

Ford tore open his bar with his teeth and took a bite. "So what's our plan," he asked out of the side of his mouth.

"Keep going northwest until we hit the river," Eliot said, nodding in the direction they'd be walking, "and we follow that straight on to San Jose del Guaviare. There's two flights a day to Bogota from there."

Ford chewed and thought about that. "How long is that going to take?"

"If we move fast enough? If Ventura doesn't catch up with us. If we get a little lucky? I'd say . . . three days, maybe four."

Ford nodded, silent, his eyes drifting as he mulled something over. He walked over to an enormous tree - so big that its roots extended partially above ground like a giant's fingers - and sat at the base of it.

Eliot knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about his goddamn deadline. He had the good sense not to bring it up, though. Apparently, even the Insurance Terminator wasn't audacious enough to start making demands on the guy who just barely decided not to kill him.

Eliot didn't mention that they'd have to be very lucky to make it by his deadline. The rundown truck had been a blessing in disguise with the supplies it had in it. But Ford was banged up. His clothes and his shoes - ridiculous leather and gore-tex dress-casual lug sole shoes that probably weighed 5 lbs each - were a problem. They were going to have to go all-out survivalist on this one, and Eliot was quite certain that the office-pale, trimmed-nail insurance man didn't have it in him.

And then there was Cesar.

They had a decent head start, and it'd take a while for him to get any transportation even after he woke up and shook the cobwebs out of his attic.

But once he did, he was going to move fast.

Eliot looked at Ford. He had his shoes off, and his feet were pinkish-white, like newborn rats. There were puff,y disc-shaped blisters on his toes and the balls of his feet. The blisters on his heels had rubbed open and then rubbed raw; they were red and bleeding.

Cesar was going to move a lot faster than they would.

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and support so far! This is a short chapter, but I'll get the next one up soon. Jungle fun awaits! For everyone who wondered - yes, Nate did plant the crocodile on Eliot while they were moving the tree. He was already suspicious of Eliot, so he did the switcheroo just in case it looked like Eliot was going to double-cross him. He probably would have held out a little longer with Cesar and his goons, but the threat of having his insides boiled . . . well, yeah. That kind of spurred things to a head. :)