The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2) (43 page)

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Nine and Seventeen were preparing for the risky climb down to the bottom of the ravine. They’d spent the last ten minutes frantically cutting down vines to use as climbing ropes. Nine had also made up a makeshift sling using his shirt and vines to put their weapons and other gear into.
They planned to lower it as they descended, thereby avoiding the need to carry anything that would weigh them down as they made the risky descent.

A now bare-chested Nine went first, holding onto a one hundred foot length of vine he’d tied to a tree. Seventeen waited anxiously as Nine abseiled down. She hadn’t let on, but she hated heights.

As he inched his way down the cliff-face, Nine didn’t see the torchlights of the approaching Wapishana trackers, but Seventeen did. They were to her left, coming from the east. She estimated they’d reach her position within the next twenty minutes.

Seventeen looked down and saw Nine had only managed to descend thirty feet. The slippery vine was obviously slowing his descent.

You won’t get a better chance than this
.
Do it now.

Without hesitating, Seventeen drew her hunting knife and, using its serrated bottom edge, cut through the vine, sending Nine plummeting down the cliff-face.

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Glancing cautiously over the edge of the ravine, she didn’t see him at first through the driving rain. Lightning flashed and then she saw him. He lay motionless on a rock ledge, having fallen some ten or twenty feet.

Seventeen had been planning Nine’s demise ever since she’d learned they were to be paired up for the Guyana mission. Such was the deep-seated hatred she had for her long-time rival. The opportunity hadn’t presented itself until now.

She’d known from the outset it would have to look like an accident. After all, she and the other orphans had been trained from birth to survive incredible odds, and Nine had demonstrated time and
again his ability to overcome
the seemingly impossible. Seventeen knew there was always a chance he’d survive an attempt on his life, and she didn’t want to run the risk of his returning to Chicago and accusing her of trying to kill him. Their Omega masters wouldn’t be impressed.

Looking at him now, she didn’t think Nine had survived the fall. He still wasn’t moving. Seventeen was convinced he was dead, but daren’t wait to find out. The bright torchlights signaled that their pursuers were coming fast.

Retrieving her survival pouch from the sling Nine had rigged up, she then opened Nine’s pouch and scattered its contents in the undergrowth.

She took one last look around her. What was left of the vine she’d cut remained tied to the tree. It would be immediately visible to the trackers when they arrived. They would undoubtedly see Nine in which case they would most certainly finish him off if he wasn’t already dead. Hopefully, they would assume she had also plummeted to her death.

Satisfied, Seventeen left the scene, taking care to cover her tracks as she headed along the top of the ravine, away from her pursuers. As she fled, the storm abated. Within minutes, a light drizzle replaced the torrential rain. She took this as a good sign.

Some fifty feet below the cliff-top, Nine came to. At first, he had no awareness of anything. He didn’t even know where he was. Then it struck. The pain. It came in white hot flashes, causing him to cry out in agony. As he regained his senses, he looked around, trying to recall where he was and what had happened. Slowly, it came back to him.

The vine broke. I fell
.
It’s a miracle I’m alive
.

Then he remembered he wasn’t alone.

“Seventeen!” he shouted. No answer. “Jennifer!” Still no answer. He wondered what had happened to her.

Did they get you? Did you fall?

Nine tried to assess his injuries. He was pretty sure he’d been concussed. Blood streamed from a gash on his head. He had many other cuts, and his shoulder hurt like hell.

Looking down at the night vision goggles he carried around his neck, he realized they’d been smashed in the fall, so he threw them away.

It was then he noticed the light from the torches of the trackers approaching along the cliff top. Nine estimated they were less than fifteen minutes away. He wondered if Seventeen had also seen the lights.

Looking over the edge of the ledge that had arrested his fall, he realized it would be suicidal to attempt to descend alone in the dark. Especially in his condition. And it was too much to hope the trackers wouldn’t see him if he stayed where he was.

There’s only one thing for it. I have to climb back up.

As he pushed himself to his feet, he grimaced in pain. The fall had damaged his ankle. He wondered if it was broken. Testing it cautiously, he was relieved to find it wasn’t.

Nine looked up. It was only now he realized the storm had subsided. Soft drizzle soothed his face. He drank in droplets of water, assuaging his thirst.

The orphan-operative steeled himself for what was ahead. He knew the next ten minutes or so would be painful. Beyond that, he daren’t think. He still hoped to reach the extraction point to the north, but wasn’t sure he could stay ahead of those tracking him let alone reach it in time for the scheduled midnight rendezvous with the chopper.

Nine took a deep breath and started climbing. Handicapped by his injuries, the predicted ten-minute climb took closer to fifteen minutes. More than once he nearly lost his tenuous connection with the cliff-face. Only grim determination prevented him from falling to his death.

By the time he reached the cliff-top, he was exhausted and racked by pain. It took all his energy just to lie on the ground, gasping for breath.

Bright lights from the approaching trackers roused him. He could see he’d have company within two minutes, three at most. 

Nine staggered to his feet and began searching for his survival pouch. He knew Seventeen would have left it for him to find somewhere nearby. Sure enough, he found the pouch behind the tree he’d tied the faulty vine to earlier. He opened it to find it was empty. His pistol and emergency rations had been removed and, more importantly, his map and the coordinates were missing.

It began to dawn on him that Seventeen had left him for dead. However, he didn’t have time to dwell on that. The trackers were now so close he could hear them crashing through the undergrowth.

Something caused him to hesitate. He looked down at the vine that had almost been the death of him, and stooped to inspect the point where it had broken.

The moon chose that moment to peep through a break in the clouds. Its light revealed the vine hadn’t broken. The end of the vine had clearly been serrated.
The bitch cut it!

Amerindian voices alerted him to the arrival of the trackers. Still shirtless and armed only with his hunting knife, Nine limped off in the opposite direction and was swallowed up by the jungle. The sound of voices faded as he put distance between himself and his pursuers. He guessed they had stopped to inspect the vine he and Seventeen had left at the cliff-top.

Thanks to Seventeen’s treachery, he now had to estimate where the extraction point was. Nine had a rough idea of its location, having memorized his map, but wasn’t at all confident he could find it before the scheduled midnight rendezvous. He wasn’t even sure he could travel that far in his present condition.

Torchlight in the trees behind him forced him to move faster despite the pain.

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Half a mile ahead of Nine, Seventeen was feeling more confident by the minute. Since the rain had stopped she’d been able to use her night vision goggles, and they made all the difference. She was now moving much faster than before. At this rate, she’d reach the extraction point ahead of schedule, even though she’d had to go around the ravine.

As she slid down a muddy decline, a rumbling sound reached her ears. Five minutes later, she found the source of the noise: an impassable waterfall. The noise was deafening and spray from the falls drenched her.

Seventeen quickly consulted her map by the light of the moon. Noting that a ford was indicated quarter of a mile upstream, she struck off in that direction.

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Injured and without the benefit of night vision goggles, Nine was struggling as he tried to stay ahead of his pursuers in the dense rainforest. He hadn’t seen them yet – only the light of their torches – but guessed they were Wapishana trackers.

It has to be them. Only they could have tracked us through a thunderstorm
.

The orphan-operative knew his freedom could be measured in minutes now. And probably his life, too.

A distant rumbling sound reached his ears. Realizing there was a waterfall up ahead, he began running as fast as the darkness and his injuries would allow. He prayed it would provide a possible escape route.

The same three Wapishana trackers were closing on their prey. The fastest of them – the tracker armed with the bow and poison-tipped arrows – was now so close he could see Nine. He sprinted toward the American like a jaguar hunting its prey.

As Nine neared the waterfall, he experienced a searing pain in his thigh. He looked down and realized he’d just been skewered by an arrow. Its sharp tip protruded out through the front of his thigh. Fortunately, it hadn’t struck bone.

The orphan-operative managed to stagger the last few feet to the edge of the falls. They were so high, he couldn’t see the bottom. Glancing behind, he saw the tracker who had shot him was selecting another arrow from his quiver. The tracker had been joined by his two companions who were in the process of unshouldering their shotguns.

What to do? Jump and die, or stay here and die?

Knowing that he was probably jumping to his death, he leapt as far out into the falls as he could. As he did, he felt the wind of another arrow fly past his ear.

Then he was gone.

The trackers were left staring into the spray and darkness. They felt cheated. They’d wanted to kill him slowly and then cut out his heart and eat it – as their forefathers would have done. At least they had the consolation of knowing that even if the young white man survived the jump, the poison arrow would ensure he’d die a slow and painful death.

A hundred feet below them, Nine had survived the jump. He’d emerged unscathed in the boiling waters at the foot of the falls, having mercifully avoided hitting any rocks on the way down. Now he had a new problem: how to avoid drowning in the swift-flowing river.

Struggling to keep his head above water, he felt like he was inside a washing machine. He had no idea where the nearest riverbank was.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, his headlong dash downstream ended as the river suddenly widened and its waters became languid. Nine was fortuitously closest to the bank he needed to reach to continue his trek to the extraction site. He reached it in a few quick strokes and pulled himself up onto the rocks.

There, he inspected the arrow that remained lodged in his thigh. He knew he had to remove it.

Despite the high humidity, he felt cold. He missed the warmth of his shirt. And although his adrenalin was still pumping, a strange lethargy was starting to set in. He felt dizzy and was starting to loose feeling in his limbs. It slowly dawned on him what was wrong.

I’ve been poisoned!

Nine enlarged the tear in his trousers to inspect the wound. He winced as he touched his thigh. The flesh around it felt hot.

In the moonlight, he could see the skin around the arrow’s exit wound was red and inflamed. It was obviously becoming infected. Then he inspected the arrowhead that protruded from his thigh. His suspicion was immediately confirmed: its tip was blackened as if it had been dyed. He cautiously touched it. It felt syrupy. If he had to guess, it was curare, a paralyzing agent extracted from the curare vine and used by Guyana’s indigenous people to kill animals, and sometimes enemies.

As his lethargy threatened to overwhelm him, Nine tapped into his inner memory to desperately try to recall what he’d previously read and heard about curare. Gradually, through the fog that clouded his brain, it came back to him.

The main toxin of curare is d-tubocurarine. It causes paralysis and then asphyxia, resulting in death. Was once used to treat tetanus. U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers
carried a curare-tipped needle when he flew over the Soviet Union.

Nine shook his head as if to dispel the fog. He marveled that he was still able to function at all. His recollection of curare was that it paralyzed its victims within a minute or two. At least ten minutes had passed since he’d been shot. He put his survival down to the fact the arrowhead hadn’t remained buried inside his thigh and had instead come out the other side of the entry point. If it weren’t for that, he was in no doubt he’d be dead by now.

Focus man! What’s the cure? A leaf. What’s it called?

Then it came to him.

Purple zeb grass! A leaf used by Amerindians for cleansing the blood. Commonly found in the Amazon Basin.

Nine recalled numerous sightings of the common plant since he’d arrived in Guyana. Fortunately for him, it was in plentiful supply in these parts. Knowing every second counted, he began searching for the distinctive purple zeb grass along the riverbank.

In the semi-dark, it took him half an hour to find the lifesaving plant. By now, he was close to losing consciousness, his limbs felt numb and he was having trouble breathing. Using his last reserves, he gathered up a handful of the precious leaves, stuffed them into his mouth and started chewing for his life.

Nine recalled the Amerindians boiled the leaves with tea then drank the brew, but he didn’t have the luxury of a fire or a pot for the water. He had to make the most of what he had.

As he chewed, he stuffed his trouser pockets full of leaves. His movements slowed until, finally, he lost consciousness.

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