Guaviare Department, Colombia
October 2004
Day 5

The next morning, Eliot let Nate sleep until dawn while he scaled a tree. It was time for some better perspective.

He changed into his spare pants so he could use the old pair for climbing gear. He twisted and knotted the old ones so they looked like a thick length of rope. Then he slung them around a thick tree trunk, going up lumberjack-style, one end of "rope" in each hand, the insteps of his feet pressed hard against the bark.

Spikes are for pussies, he grinned to himself as he clambered up.

Once he got above the dense underbrush, he took a few deep breaths. There was a palpable feeling of relief - like he was crawling out of a tunnel he'd been trapped in for years. The air was less humid, the noise softer. Everything felt better.

And then, as he neared the top and stared north and a little west, he finally - finally - saw the river.

He took another deep breath and tried to keep the sudden rush of optimism under wraps. It was a good sign, yes. But they still had one full day of hiking. More likely, a day and a half, and that was going to cut them awfully close on catching the last plane of the day out of San Jose del Guaviare.

And if Nate didn't catch that, there was no way he was making his deadline.

Eiot scanned the rest of the area and saw no signs of movement, no signs of danger, but that was no guarantee of anything. The FARC would camp at night and they would burn a fire until morning to ward off insects and animals - unless they knew they were close. So either he and Nate still had a good lead or they bad guys were closing in and they knew it.

On their first full day in the jungle, "good lead" seemed plausible. Now, on the third, it seemed a lot more like wishful thinking.

When he got back down, he unzipped Nate's hammock. "Up and at 'em, Sunshine."

Nate was laying on his back, forearms crossed over his chest, and with his chalky skin and his hair slicked with sweat, he'd gone from looking like a zombie to looking like a vampire. A very sickly vampire. When the sound of the zipper hit him, his eyes flew open, but he remained in his death-like pose, body still. Then he saw Eliot and rolled his eyes back in his head and closed them again. "Uhh."

"My thoughts exactly," Eliot said. Then he patted the side of the hammock. "Now let's go."

Nate took a deep breath and pulled himself slowly into a sitting position, squinting and blinking, rubbing a hand over his face. He didn't look flushed with fever, and he wasn't as boneless as he had been the evening before. But he wasn't all rainbows and sparkles either.

He glared over at Eliot, expression pained and, also, pretty darned pissed. He clearly was not happy about being up and at 'em.

"What are you so perky about?" he grumbled.

Eliot raised an eyebrow and decided immediately that it would be better to keep his concerns about the FARC to himself.

"I'm just rarin' to go," he smiled and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "We got the river in the distance. We're in the home stretch, bubba."

Nate squinted at him, skeptical. "Yeah? How much further?"

"Til' San Jose? Thirty miles. Give or take."

Ford blew a deep breath, his cheeks puffing out, and it wasn't clear whether he was relieved about how much ground they'd covered or depressed about how much they still had to go.

Eliot handed him a water bottle, and when Nate took it without looking up, Eliot decided that it was definitely more depression than relief.

Over the course of their little adventure, Eliot had been the muscle and the jungle guide and the nurse. Now Ford's mood was triggering his cheerleader instincts.

"Come on, man," Eliot said, clapping him on the back, pleasant memories of military camaraderie in his head. The way guys would pick each other up when they were down. "We can do that in a day. Easy."

Ford stared blankly at the water bottle, shoulders slumped, and for a brief, quiet moment, it was not at all clear that he was not about to actually give up. But then he took a deep breath and schooled his features into a mask of determination. He took a deep swig from the water bottle and swung his legs over the side of the hammock.

"That's it," Eliot told him, and gave a clap. "Let's fucking get this thing done!"

Nate hobbled over to his shoes, and Eliot added with a smirk: "Just try not to get yourself bit by anything else. Or eaten."

Ford focused on shaking out his shoes and easing himself onto the ground to pull them on. Then, as he was just about to pull on a sock, something occurred to him. "Wait. Did you say eaten?"

Eliot shrugged. "Did I?"

Ford narrowed his eyes - for a second, Eliot almost had him with that one - then he gave the other man a sardonic glare. "You know I hate you, right?"

"Mutual," Eliot smiled. "Totally mutual."

Eliot was pleased with their progress. Nate was keeping down water, and even with the exhaustion and the aching and the blisters, he was moving at a significantly better pace than the day before.

At their first break of the morning, his hands shook a little when he fumbled with the cap on his water bottle, and Eliot thought he looked at least a little bit faint, but he never complained, and it was he who called the end to their break. At the nine minute mark. One minute early.

Any doubt he had conveyed when he first woke up was gone. Now he was well and truly fixed on his goal.

He's possessed, Eliot decided, watching him. The man was absolutely possessed with determination. Eliot found the single-mindedness admirable and surprising and just a little bit unsettling. It definitely was not normal. When Jacques had called him the Insurance Terminator, Eliot had scoffed. He'd kept scoffing, too. But after the last few days, Eliot suddenly understood the nickname, and he could understand that your average art thief or insurance scammer would be more than a little intimidated at being the subject of that laser-sharp determination.

They were just over two hours in when Eliot heard a noise he didn't like. Beneath the birds and the monkeys and the clean sound of branches moving overhead: the heavy, flat-footed sound of dried leaves rustling on the jungle floor.

He stopped dead, listening.

Behind him, Nate pulled up, too. "What is it?" He asked, way too loud.

Eliot held up a hand to shush him. It was human nature to look when you thought there might be a threat. Eliot didn't bother to look. He was listening.

And then he heard it. Underneath the noises of the insects and birds.

The metallic springing sound from the bolt of an assault rifle being pulled.

Eliot whirled and dove at Nate, just as the first gunshot cracked through the air.

A bullet struck a tree close enough to Nate's head that Eliot could see the splinters pelting his neck and ear. Eliot grabbed him by the shoulders and started moving backwards, belly pressed on the ground, dragging Ford with him.

"Let's go! Let's go!"

A quick scan showed him an almost redwood-sized tree with thick, long roots in the distance, and he yanked Ford up and pushed him towards it, bullets cracking into trees and whizzing by in the air around them.

They made it behind the shelter without any serious injuries, but Eliot had had to abandon his machete to drag Ford by both hands, and the gunman kept firing, one round after the other. He didn't seem to be thinking about stopping either, despite the fact that Eliot and Ford were well-protected. The shots kept coming, quickly -

Mechanically, Eliot thought.

Which meant one thing.

Decoy.

Eliot pushed Nate between two thick roots and threw the packs on top of him. He turned around just in time to see a rifle barrel edging from behind a another tree. He lunged for it. He grabbed the barrel just behind the sight tab and pulled it hard - bringing the FARC guy with it.

It was funny how human instinct could go so wrong.

In that second, the FARC guy would have been better off letting go of the gun and attacking Eliot by hand while he was still holding the rifle by the barrel. But of course the FARC guy didn't. Once you used a gun - really used it - it was hard to let it go. The gun was life. And so when someone tried to pull that gun away from you? Well of course you held on tighter.

Except in this case, that meant being pulled straight into Eliot Spencer's fist.

The guy let go of the gun then. He dropped like a stone as soon as Eliot's fist connected with his jaw. Then Eliot pitched the rifle hard against the tree, breaking it in two.

The FARC guy wasn't done, though - only stunned. He kicked out at Eliot from the ground, catching just enough of his calf to put Eliot off-balance, and when he stumbled, the FARC guy leaped up.

They tangled, wrestling, and even as the guy wrapped himself around Eliot like a python, a voice of warning cried out in the back of the head. The other guy wasn't firing anymore.

"Jesus," he grunted, digging his fingers into a pressure point behind the guy's collar bone. "Fuck!"

The guy wailed and started to loosen his hold, and Eliot looked towards Nate. He had gotten himself out from under the packs and was watching Eliot's fight with a rock in his hand, as if he were going to leap in there and participate if necessary.

Isn't that cute, Eliot thought on one level, his natural smartass instincts unable to overlook how ludicrous it was that Nate thought he was going to do anything but get in the way.

On the other level, every alarm bell in his head was going off, because the other gunman was coming up behind Ford, holding the machete.

"Nate!" He yelled, but even as he did, he knew he had no time. He couldn't stop the machete guy before he attacked.

Ford cocked his head a little when he heard his name, like a confused pup. Then his eyes went wide, and he whirled to see what Eliot was looking at.

(Eliot could only imagine how wide his eyes went when he saw a guy standing over him with a machete.)

Then Eliot heard a thhpt.

The man with the machete froze like a statue with his arm raised over his head. Then he fell forward like a tree going down - rigid and straight - hitting the ground face down at Nate's feet.

A long, thin dart was sticking out of the back of his neck.

When the other FARC guy saw that, he disentangled himself from Eliot and started to run, an awkward, panting, panicky run.

The guy made it about ten feet before there was another thhpt, and a dart landed in the side of his neck, just beneath his jaw. He reached up to grab it, but just as his fingertips brushed against the thin wood, he collapsed.

As Eliot and Nate stared at the bodies, men started to emerge from the underbrush. Not like they were hiding behind anything, but like they were transforming from the very underbrush itself into men.

There were over a dozen of them, barefoot. Some wore loincloths, but a couple wore shorts they must have found. (Or if the FARC men lying on the ground were any indication, perhaps taken.) Their chests and arms and faces were painted a rusty orange-brown, and they were all carrying homemade blow-dart guns or spears.

Nate stood slowly, and Eliot narrowed the distance between them, so they were shoulder to shoulder.

"Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Nate whispered to him, as the men slowly moved in, cautiously surrounding them.

Eliot looked at the FARC men. The one he'd been fighting was laying motionless on his back, arms spread across the ground, eyes wide open.

"Well, we're not dead yet."