Birth of the Wolf (Wahaya) (5 page)

Nick cursed silently as he pulled his first aid pack from his pistol belt.  An open cut in the most bio diverse environment he had ever seen was an invitation to infection or parasite invasion.  In this tropical environment either could rapidly become fatal.

“This is going to hurt,” he told the girl, “and there’s nothing I can do to stop the pain.  If I don’t clean this thoroughly and do it right now, you could be going to your next prom with a wooden leg.” 

He grinned at her to ease the sting of his words.  He opened a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. 

“I need you to pull the edges apart, like this,” he said, showing her.  The girl winced at the pain, but she did as she was told. 

The moonlight was bright enough for Nick to see that she was pretty, and very young -- fifteen or sixteen if he was forced to guess. 

“What’s your name?” he asked gently as he poured a more than generous amount of the peroxide into the long shallow cut.

“Abbie,” she said through gritted teeth, “Abbie Landon.”

“As in Representative Landon of the House Armed Services Committee?” a surprised Nick asked.

Her eyes large and luminous, Abbie nodded. 

“We weren’t told you were missing,” Nick said apologetically.  “We didn’t even know.”

Abbie giggled.  “They didn’t know either. I knew this was about daddy when it happened.  I had them convinced I was somebody else and that they had gotten the wrong person.”

“Jesus kid, you could have been killed -- or worse, these people are really bad news.”

“I’ll say,” she frowned.  “They were all kind of handsy, always trying to cop a feel until they fed those two guys to the jaguars -- that was gross.” 

Nick looked inquisitively over to Cynthia and she nodded.  Nick made a mental note to ask her about it later. 

He dressed the cut and looked around for something they could use to cover all the women’s feet. They would never make it out of here unless something could be done to help them to walk faster.

Nick looked around and found a palm tree.  At the base of the tree, he found what he had been looking for.  The curved ends of palm fronds where they attach to the tree are broad and slightly curved.  He stripped off his tee shirt and quickly cut it into six pieces as equally as he could.  Wrapping Abbie’s feet with two strips, he fitted two of the palm frond ends by trimming them with his knife. 

The wood of the palm frond was thick and fibrous, and Nick knew he would be a long time at the whetstone when he got home, if they got home, to return the razor edge to his knife. 

After he was satisfied with the fit, he used the thick roll of hundred mile an hour tape to cover the cotton tee shirt strips.  He covered the palm frond soles on the bottom covered with the tape as well.  He sat back and surveyed his handiwork, and asked Abbie to walk a few steps in them.

Nick repeated the chore two more times, quickly and efficiently, and they were ready to move out again.

While Nick tended the women, Dave had used the satellite phone to contact General Swain.  He reported both the success of their primary mission.  He also told the General about Representative Landon’s daughter, that she was safe as well. 

General Swain advised that he would try to lay on an extraction mission for any special forces unit in the area. This had not been preplanned, but after Dave had explained their forced use of “thunder and lightning tactics”, the General agreed with Dave that Tarapoto was probably no longer safe for them. 

The two quickly agreed on a pick up point on the west side of the river -- about two miles through thick lowland jungle from the outside base of the caldera.  Dave was to call back in six hours to verify the extraction, or to get a different time or location.

As Nick would say, the situation was “fluid” until the general could make contact with a special forces unit in the area.

After a brief exchange of information couched in military jargon and references to things years past that the women didn’t understand a word of, Nick and Dave got the three women on their feet and started moving up the steep slope again. Even with the foot covering, Abbie was dragging them down, and Nick once again threw her over his shoulder after handing his weapon to Cynthia.

They reached the summit as the sun was rising, much faster than Nick had anticipated. They checked through their binoculars and they could see the ruins of the villa smoldering still.  There were three vehicles there now, and quite a few men with weapons present.

* * * * *

“We need to get moving Dave.  If he has access to a chopper we’re going to have to go to ground until dark.”

“Yeah,” Dave said, “and Conde has money more money than he knows what to do with.  Wonder why the general can send in a bird with active duty Special Forces types now, when he had to send us in here for the client?”

“Abbie,” Nick nodded in the girl’s direction.  “Her father is an active elected member of the House of Representatives.  I don’t know why she wasn’t reported kidnapped -- unless they thought she was a runaway or something.  Kidnapping her changed this whole ball game.

"Peru has to send in their military now or face possible direct U.S. Military intervention.  Since you called Swain, there’s been one helluva wakeup call in D.C.  I’m just hoping we can stay out of the spotlight until the big shots decide whose ballgame it is. In the meantime, we need to either get off this topless volcano or find a place we can defend until help gets here.”

Dave looked over the few grenades and the small amount of ammo he had left for the SAW.  “I hope you’ve got more than I do Nick, ‘cause if you don’t we gotta put our running shoes on.”

“We have to run. It never pays to wait on the babysitters in Washington.”

They tended to the women, giving them water to drink and self-heated rations. They divided what they had left among the three women, taking nothing for themselves. There was native fruit everywhere, but there was no time to collect it right now.

They carefully wiped the women’s hands clean to keep away the insects.  They explained what was happening and why.  Nick threw Abbie across his shoulder again and took off at a half trot down through the trees on the outside of the caldera. 

“We have to hurry ladies,” Nick grunted.  Abbie didn’t really weigh much, and her soft hands on the rippling muscles of his back told him she was enjoying this ride a little more than he wanted her to.

Abbie wasn’t the only one admiring Nick in the bright light of that morning.  Nick’s body was the product of forty years of athletic prowess and dedication to his personal fitness as a warrior.  Other men stayed fit for their professions, with Nick it was more of a religion.

The massive Cherokee’s bronzed body was more than impressive glistening in the sun with a light coat of sweat, and his natural good looks usually drew attention to him anyway.

Cynthia Cohen was transfixed as she watched him lope down the side of the mountain, carrying Abbie as if she weighed no more than a handkerchief.  He bounded over logs and went through rough spots with the grace of a running deer.  Even Amanda Dunn got a little flutter as she watched him.

Dave made up the tail end of the little group and he sighed deeply as he watched the women ogling Nick. Nick always got the chicks -- some things never changed.

In spite of the steady half trot that Nick maintained, it took them more than two hours to reach the river at the base of Conde’s mountain retreat. The women were exhausted and barely able to stand.  Dave was a soaked and sweating mess. Nick looked as if he had just come in from a Sunday stroll.

Nick dropped all his equipment under a fallen log except the Glock, and indicated to Dave with hand signals to get everyone concealed until he returned.  Nick went off to recon the river bank.

In fifteen minutes Nick was back, and he didn’t look happy.  He sat down next to Dave and tossed him a handful of Lucumas he had picked on the way back from the river.

“We’re going to be here a while ladies, and it’s important that you eat these.  You need to rest and build up your strength for the last stretch.

Conde has boats in the river looking for us.  The good news is that they only have small arms. There are no mounted machine guns.  They’re covering the river in both directions, and I’ll be going back in a little bit to check their pattern.”

“Dave, there’s a three rope bridge about a half klick from here.  If I was them I’d put one or two men on this side of the river to catch anyone trying to cross there, and keep the boats patrolling.  If we’re going to reach that pickup zone in time, we’ve got to cross this river. 

"It’s flowing too fast to swim it with the ladies and besides with the parasites and pirhanna in there, we be foolish to even try it.  There’s also no way to take the men out of the boats without trashing the boats, so that’s out.”

Nick cut half a Lucuma off and put it in his mouth.  He chewed reflectively for a moment and stood up. 

“I’ve got an idea,” he said.  Looking down at the waterproof chronometer on his wrist, Nick started to move.  “Half a klick down the river bank -- parallel to the path and meet me there in twenty minutes.” He told Dave as he turned around.

Nick picked up his gear from beneath the fallen log and shook it to remove any unwanted visitors, and strapped it all back on. In seconds he simply vanished into the trees.

“How does he do that?” Cynthia asked, “I’ve never seen anyone move like that.”

“Nick’s an honest to god legend in Special Forces ma’am,” Dave said.  “I’ve known him for eighteen years, and he’s always been like that.”

Amanda spoke up for the first time.  “You gentlemen are in the Army?”

“No ma’am,” Dave said, “we’re retired.  I’d guess you would call us independent contractors now.”

“He’s some kind of Indian,” Cynthia mused.

“Cherokee ma’am,” Dave said, “but that’s part of the legend too.”

Amanda, Cynthia, and Abbie looked at him quizzically.  “This’ll have to be fast,” Dave said.  "He’d kill me if he knew I was telling this story again, but in a nutshell, it’s the legend of Nick Harris.”

* * * * *

“I was just about to graduate from sniper school with a bunch of Marines and Army Rangers and we were all gung ho from the training.  We believed that we were the sharpest, most alert and elite troopers in the world -- absolutely invincible. 

"We were standing around taking a break and listening to a conversation between a Marine General, a Rear Admiral from the SEALs, and a Bull Colonel from Special Forces. Everyone was impressed with the demonstration and were talking very highly about the graduates. 

"I could tell from the look on the SF Colonel’s face that he was up to something when he suddenly told the group that as long as the new troops didn’t have to face any Ghost Warriors that they would serve just fine. The Admiral and the General looked a little annoyed at a lowly Army Colonel raining on their parade, especially one of those ragtag, unorthodox hoodlums from Special Forces.

"The Colonel went on to say that Ghost Warriors had been known to infiltrate enemy positions in broad daylight, totally undetected, and then disappear as if they had never been there.

"To make a long story short, the Admiral and General all but called the Colonel a bald faced liar, and the Colonel said he could prove it was true. A bet was made and the Colonel borrowed my radio and called Nick. 

"He told Nick what he wanted, and in front of us all he ordered Nick to infiltrate the Sniper Class and take something that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had been there.  When Nick had asked their location, the Colonel had just given him the name of the range they were on and given him until the end of the training exercise to get the job done." Dave said as he remembered what had happened that day.  The events had been burned into his memory.

“You realize Colonel," the general said, “this is a huge range, probably the biggest one on this post, and this final exercise is scheduled to end at 1700 hours.  That's a little over four hours from now.”

“Yes sir,” the colonel had said.

“I can taste that Wild Turkey already,” the Admiral said, rubbing his hands together.  Officers and gentlemen didn’t bet money, and the ante for the bet was a bottle of their choice.  The losers had to buy a bottle for the winner.

The class was deployed around a modest hilltop with some trees and underbrush for cover but with very long clear fields of fire.

“Oh my god,” the general said suddenly, “this is a live fire range, we can’t have an infiltrator wandering around a live fire range!” The Colonel quickly assured them there was no danger to the infiltrator at all. 

“The only danger would be to us, if we were really the bad guys,” he said.

Dave looked down at his watch. “I’ve just got time to finish this and we have to get moving,” he said. “The exercise went on as scheduled and the senior officers and their aides watched from an air conditioned hut belonging to the Range Master. 

"At 1700 hours the Range Master ordered all weapons cleared and declared the exercise at an end."  Dave continued the story as it had unfolded on that long ago afternoon.

The smug Admiral turned to the Colonel and said, "You can have your aide drop the Wild Turkey off at my temporary quarters tomorrow Colonel," he said.  He extended his hand to shake with the Colonel."