Sacrifice. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ men in green fatigues and backpacks scoured the ground. A third held back. All three were armed with AK-47s and pistols.

      They seemed to be stopping every few feet, checking the ground and then continuing along.

      They’re looking for ground sign, Annja thought. If she hadn’t been careful enough, they would see where she’d left the ground and climbed into the trees. She found herself praying that they weren’t used to this jungle any more than she was.

      She heard another clang as the lead scout moved away from her tree, hacking into a fresh batch of jungle. The two other men followed, still chattering away to themselves.

      Annja sighed. She was safe.

      At least for the time being.

      But where was Agamemnon? He didn’t seem the type to give up so easily. And Annja knew that he was probably insulted that she had managed to escape. She wasn’t sure if Filipino men were like Latin men, who took such things as an affront to their masculinity. They’d pursue Annja even if every bit of reason demanded otherwise.

      Annja licked her lips.

      More bugs buzzed in her ears. The mosquitoes would be terrible tonight unless she figured out how to ward them off. She wasn’t exactly prepared with a good medical kit full of antimalarial medicine.

      She scampered around her tree and tried to look off into the distance. If she could get a bearing for some area that was clear and out of the jungle, she’d be on her way back to civilization.

      She looked off in all directions, but could see utterly nothing.

      Damn.

      Annja slumped back into her hiding spot and took stock of her situation. Soon enough, it would be night. She’d need a shelter. In the jungle, there are always two rains a day and she was overdue.

      Combined with the heat and the bugs, Annja knew she was in for a rough night if she couldn’t find a way to make herself more comfortable.

      A fire would keep the bugs away, but it would also alert her pursuers to her presence. She couldn’t take a chance that they would track her. If they brought Annja back to the camp, she had no doubt that Agamemnon would give her no quarter. She’d be killed immediately.

      Annja made her way out of the nook in the tree and slid down the vines to the jungle floor. She summoned her sword and cut two more lengths of vines, this time letting one of them pour its water into the ground, making it muddy.

      Then she knelt and kneaded the dirt into a pasty black mud that she used to smear all over her skin. She started with her face and neck and hair, caking on the dirt until she felt sure she’d covered herself well.

      Annja worked her way up and down her arms and legs, smearing any part of her exposed skin and working the mud into any areas that might come uncovered. Then she worked the mud all over her clothes.

      When she was done, Annja found a fresh patch of ground covered in leafy debris. She lay down and rolled back and forth several times, working all manner of dead leaves, bits of vines and twigs into her makeshift camouflage.

      Annja stood back up and tried to imagine how she looked. Most likely she probably resembled some bizarre swamp creature. But if she was going to get out of this situation alive, she had to ignore her desire to be clean. She had to give herself over to her primal self, rely on her instincts and keep one step ahead of her pursuers.

      She knelt back by the buttress tree and cut more vines. Annja drank down as much water as she could. She’d move on quickly, so she wasn’t particularly concerned about leaving signs. Anyone with half a brain would be able to see that someone had been active in this immediate area. A few more cut vines wouldn’t compromise her any more than her camouflaging activity would.

      But now where?

      Annja stayed low to the ground. She could follow the men chasing her; they were leaving enough of a trail to do so. But if she did that, there was a chance she would walk into an ambush.

      Her better option was to strike out on her own, in a direction that took her away from the terrorist camp and away from her pursuers.

      Left or right? she wondered.

      Annja closed her eyes and checked each direction against her gut instinct. She opened her eyes and frowned. Neither direction had produced the sense of relief that normally told her she was on the right track.

      It was going to have to be a pure guess.

      Right it is, she decided.

      She moved off, keeping herself in a stealthy crouch that she knew would tax her quadriceps but would keep her profile low. The last thing she wanted was to present an easy target someone could take a shot at if she was heard.

      With her sword stowed safely away, Annja took her time moving vines and branches out of the way. She ran into scores of thick spiderwebs, each with a very annoyed owner. Annja hadn’t read up enough on the tropical varieties of spiders, but didn’t want to start thinking about how many poisonous creatures scampered all around her.

      Just keep moving, she told herself. Eventually, she would find her way out.

      She hoped.

      A sudden burst of high-pitched, purring bleeps surrounded her. For a moment, Annja froze, halfway to closing her eyes and calling the sword back out.

      Then she smiled with recognition. Her friend from England had called them “basher-out beetles.” It was the jungle’s way of announcing that it would be nighttime soon enough.

      She heard a rumble overhead.

      A steady deluge erupted and streamed down through the canopy, soaking her and causing a good deal of her camouflage to drip off. Annja opened her mouth and caught a few mouthfuls of rainwater.

      The good thing was that at least her pursuers would have to endure the jungle just as much as she did.

      Annja found her way to another tree and maneuvered her way up into the thick branches. As the rain continued to drum down from the heavens, she cut a few vines and sucked them dry. Then she tried weaving them into a makeshift cover for herself.

      When she was done, she positioned it over her head.

      It wasn’t great, she decided, but it did keep some of the rain off her.

      Annja nestled herself into the trunk and leaned her head against the wet bark. She could smell more things than she’d ever smelled before. It was as if someone had cranked up her olfactory sense to eleven. She could smell the leaves, the trees, the dirt and the bugs; virtually everything around her had a scent that was at once peculiar and familiar.

      The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, like someone turning off a faucet.

      Already twilight was giving way to pitch darkness.

      Annja felt relieved that she was at least off of the ground. Her friend in British special forces had once told her that staying off the floor in the jungle was paramount to surviving. At night, the jungle floor became a superhighway for every insect, rodent, reptile and creature that made its home in the jungle.

      If СКАЧАТЬ