Shannon was in the cab, seated a little away from the window, but not too much away as to arouse the cab driver's suspicions. He already seemed suspicious of her.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked.
He was middle-eastern. Thick accent. Wearing a turban.
"I'm fine," Shannon said. "Just a bad day to go running in the hills."
She'd already said that, and now she'd repeated it.
Was she being too obvious?
The guy stopped looking at her, kept his eyes forward.
It turned out much easier to hail a cab than she'd first assumed. The street bordering the woods was busy enough. Three cabs passed her before one picked her up.
She didn't know if the helicopter was USI's or not, but it hadn't seen her. For the moment, she was safe. She'd have this guy drop her off in the city. She'd get cleaned up in a public restroom in a clothing store and buy some new clothes so she wouldn't look so dirty and bloodied up.
Then she'd ride a cab out of the city.
USI had great procedures in place to track people.
But she was the leader of tracking people. The best at her job in that department. Slipping away in a big city like DC would be relatively easy for her.
She looked out the rain-patterned window. It was like her life as she knew it was being washed away today. She had a sudden impulse to cry. She took a calming breath, let it pass. Decided to stop thinking about how terrible everything had been, and instead think about what she had left to do today.
She needed to focus.
Like Virginia.
*****
Virginia woke up again. This time more lazily than the last time. She knew where she was immediately, but it was as if all the strength in her body had left her.
Mind over matter, she told herself.
Mind over matter.
That's the kind of thinking you need to pass USI training, like when they waterboard you for twenty-four hours straight without letting you sleep.
Mind over matter.
So simple in theory. So difficult in practice.
But you can't tell yourself it's difficult.
Virginia fought the pain, denied the lack of energy. And worked her way to a seated position while her eyes tried to focus, and her mind tried to expel the darkness at the edges of her vision.
"Jake," she said, because she didn't see him anywhere.
It took twenty very long seconds for her vision to clear.
Jake was nowhere to be seen.
For the first time, she was able to clearly take in the forest around her. Thick tree trunks extended toward the sky, unfurling into the thick canopy, which was only letting in big drops of rain.
There were colorful birds, perched on lower branches, squawking and talking. They almost seemed like they were talking to her. Like this was some kind of twisted take on a Disney movie. She saw a monkey or baboon of some kind swing from one tree to the next overhead.
Virginia felt for the locket around her neck.
Still there.
Her dress had ridden up high on her legs. She pushed it back, extended out the soaked dress. Then she got to her feet. At first, her legs were unsure, which was a weird sensation. One leg was scathed, bruising. Scratched up and down. The leg that had rammed into that tree.
She was going to shout for Jake, but then she saw him. He was fifty yards off, deeper in the forest, back to her. He was backing up, holding his hands out in front of him as if motioning to someone. He was moving slowly and murmuring. Virginia couldn't make out his words.
Virginia took a step to the side, to get a better view. The ground was soft under her bare feet, but she felt something move. She looked down and saw a colorful red-and-yellow spotted snake just under her foot. She wanted to scream and jump away, but realized that might be counterintuitive.
She unstrapped her gun from her leg.
She took out the clip and made sure it was fully loaded. It was. The snake was still slithering underneath her foot, deeper under the bed of leaves. Until finally it was gone, underneath the forest floor.
Virginia didn't like the thought of strange creatures underfoot.
There were many species of snakes in the Amazon that were deadly. Virginia recalled a doc she'd seen on the Discovery Channel. She was soothed to know her recall worked—but not soothed by the subject matter.
Snakes here weren't like rattlesnakes in America. Rattlesnakes have neurotoxic venom. Whereas snakes here have hemotoxic venom, which basically means that if you get bit, the snake's venom will begin to digest you from the inside out. Not a pleasant process, and without administering anti-venom quickly, the subject will die within a few hours or face serious medical complications for the rest of their lives.
Virginia, like all decent people, didn't like the idea of being eaten from the inside out.
This rainforest was not well-traipsed, if traipsed at all. They were in the middle of no man's land. The animals in this area wouldn't have seen very many, if any humans.
Most animals don't react well to random human interference when they've never before met a human. Virginia's pistol wouldn't defend against a random snake attack in her sleep.
Not that there was much she could do about it.
She was watching Jake back up more and more. Then, finally, he turned around and began running. He saw Virginia standing there and yelled, "RUN."
Virginia still didn't know why, until a massive jaguar, yellow and tanned with black spots, bounded into view behind Jake. Its massive paws dug into the floor as it came after Jake, who ran towards her. The thing growled, and life in the forest responded—monkeys jumped across trees, birds alighted from branches, Virginia could feel things moving underfoot. The presence of the jaguar itself so powerful that everything in its wake moved on instinct. It was almost supernatural, in a way. Perhaps things that often appear supernatural are simply reality forged from millions of years of evolution. Instincts, killer and otherwise. Responses, corporate and unconscious.
"Run!" Jake yelled again.
But Virginia knew she couldn't.
Instead, she took a few steps to the side, lifted her pistol. Waited for a clear shot of the jaguar. It was gaining on Jake. Jake was about ten feet from her. Jaguar, about thirty.
Then it abruptly stopped.
Virginia kept the gun aimed at it.
Jake stopped and faced it, raising his hands. "Away!" he yelled. "Back!" He was forceful, without an ounce of timidity. Trying to scare the thing off.
Virginia knew that Jake had a gun. He was holding it.
She knew he had ammo.
He didn't want to shoot the jaguar because he wanted to save ammo. Bad men had fallen into this forest with them.
Jake took a few confident steps forward, knowing Virginia had a finger on the trigger. "Get out of here." His voice was deep and booming, trying to keep the thing away.
The jaguar yawned, apparently losing interest.
It was a massive thing. Beautiful. Virginia remembered a documentary where a jaguar ate a crocodile. She couldn't have imagined it until she'd seen it. A jaguar biting down through the hard, scaly neck of a crocodile, easily winning.
Jake looked back at her, shrugged.
"What's the matter?" she said with a smile. There was probably more to the joke but she couldn't seem to find the words.
The jaguar sneezed, rubbed its face with its paw, then finally turned away from them. It sauntered off with utter indifference toward the two American arrivals.
"That won't be the first," Jake said, keeping his eye on it.
Then he looked down in response to noise on the floor.
Two snakes slithered past his feet.
He contained a yell.
"Don't react," said Virginia. "We're not welcome here."
"Need to save the ammo," he said.
"I know. We will."
"I'm not a big fan of scary animals," he said.
"We'll be fine."
"No we won't."
Virginia felt truth to his words.
She didn't want to believe them. By sheer force of will, she wanted to make it out of here. But the pain returned to her head, a throbbing pain, matching the calm beating of her heart.
The feeling of cold returned as reality settled.
The chattering teeth returned.
Virginia hugged herself, looking around. "We need to cross the river."
"I know," he said.
Virginia knew they needed more weapons and ammo. And they needed more layers of clothing otherwise they'd die from hypothermia. The bodyguards had fallen on the other side of the river. It was a wide river, deep by the looks of it. Moving pretty well, too.
She knew there would be crocodiles, but they had to cross it, had to risk it.
Otherwise, there'd be no chance.
"Anacondas, jeez," said Jake, murmuring to himself.
Oh, yeah, those too. She'd almost forgotten.
"Unless you can think of another option," she said.
He shook his head.
She began walking towards the river. "Let's get this over with."