Epilogue A Ghost In The Jungle

Scarla

Well, this is a real fucking pickle, isn't it?

"You're sure it was him?" I ask this in Spanish because I'm in Columbia, near the Brazilian border; the man I'm speaking to is a local native, and he doesn't speak English or Portuguese. Just Spanish and whatever dialect or tribal language it is he speaks natively.

"Yes, I'm sure." He points with his machete. "American. Big man. Yellow hair."

I pull my sat-phone out and find the digital photo of him—an old one, snapped from his official CIA security ID. "This guy? You're sure it was him?"

"Yes, yes, no doubt."

I suppress a sigh, pocket the sat phone. "And was he alone?"

"No, no. He was tie up, like this." My informant puts his hands behind his back, wrists together. "Many bad men are with him. They have guns."

"Which way?"

He gestures south down the trail with his machete; we're at a crossroads, featuring a small hut with an old red well-pump and a small covered porch. "Camp. By the river."

I shove a wad of mixed currency at him—dollars, Brazilian Reals, and Columbian Pesos. "Here. Thanks."

"Wait, wait. Lady, you crazy. They are bad, bad, bad men."

I just grin. "And I'm the baddest bitch in all the land," I say in English because it doesn't translate properly into Spanish. "I'll be fine. He's my…friend. I have to help him." This part is in Spanish, to him.

He shakes his head. "You will die for your friend, then."

"You don't know me, or him."

Another shrug. "South. A long walk. Three days of walking, and then two kilometers from the river, up on the hill."

I thank him, and he swings his leg over the seat of his dirt bike, kicks it on, and speeds away in a cloud of dust.

Leaving me alone on a trail in the middle of the Columbian jungle, hundreds of miles from any city, let alone an embassy, much less yet a CIA satellite office.

No one knows I'm here.

I'm not on a mission.

There's no backup to call in.

And the man I loved and lost has been taken prisoner by the most dangerous group of terrorists on this side of the ocean.

How?

That's what I'd like to know. I got an encrypted email, unsigned but undoubtedly from him, with nothing but a set of coordinates and a date.

Here—today.

I assumed he was dead. I was told he was dead.

I watched him die.

I saw him take the bullets—six of them.

Meant for me.

I put him on the last helo out of Caracas myself. I saw his eyes. I saw him fucking DIE .

And then I get an email, from a dead man, with coordinates and a date.

Of course I went. Wouldn't you? I was pretty sure it was a trap because Sol's dead.

But this guy, my occasional informant, tells me he saw Sol with his own eyes, alive, a prisoner of a dissident off-shoot of the FARC, an even more extremist group that's been getting bolder and bolder.

The kind of people who take pride in extravagantly brutal torture and execution methods.

I swipe my camo hat off my head, yank my hair out of the elastic band, and scrub my hands through it—it's gritty and greasy, but what else is new?

I catch my reflection in the glass of the ramshackle little hut—distorted, wavy.

Five-seven, and slender—a naturally lean build that I keep lean through extreme fitness routines and a hard-as-fuck lifestyle. Black hair bobbed just past my chin—long enough I can tie it back or style it and look feminine if needed, yet short enough it stays mostly out of the way if it's loose. Narrow hips, a small, tight ass, and not much by way of tits, but I work with what I've got—and when it comes to men, a tit is a tit, no matter how small.

The name on my government-issued ID is Scarlett Luisa Gutierrez.

But to anyone who knows me, I'm Scarla.

And yes, with the long, wicked scar pulling down at my left lip and eyelid, some people call me Scar—or Scarface, if they like swallowing their teeth.

I tie my hair back, fit it through the hat's opening, and settle it back on. Sweat drips down my back, down my chest.

I wish I knew…well, anything. Was it Sol? Did he somehow survive? Why didn't he come back for me, or find me, if he did live?

Probably because he assumed I was dead, too—there wouldn't have been any official word, and in all the insanity that was going on, the death of what would have looked to anyone else like just another poor Columbian girl wouldn't have exactly made the news.

Is it him? It's hard not to get my hopes up.

Only one way to find out: start walking.

Three days later, I'm exhausted, starving, and mightily annoyed. I'm well into Brazil by now, but exactly where, I've got no clue.

I've fallen off a waterfall, nearly got bit by a snake—which I then killed and ate—lost my favorite knife, endured a twelve-hour monsoon…

And I still haven't found this damn camp.

I've trekked up and down this fucking river on both sides for miles in every direction—fuckin' nada.

"It better be you, Sol," I say to the river. "If I'm doing all this and it's not you? I'm gonna fuckin' murder someone."

Instinct sends me to my belly in the river before I have time to even blink—the water is cold and fast, pulling me downstream several feet before I manage to roll to the edge and pull myself onto the far shore, laying on my back and aiming my Glock 19 down my body as bullets snap through the air where I was and over my head where I am.

Four men stand in a line on the other side of the river, yelling at me in Spanish and Portuguese. Oh, and shooting at me with assault rifles.

"Fuck this," I snarl, and watch their shots go consistently high and wide, waiting for them to run out.

BAM-BAM-BAM…BAM .

They drop like ducks in a row, headshot, headshot, headshot… gut shot.

Gotta get one talking, after all.

I recross the river and kick the rifle out of the survivor's hands. "Where is he?" I snap in Spanish, digging my pistol barrel into his wound.

" Puta ."

BAM .

I send a round after the first, through the red weeping hole in his belly. "Wrong answer, jackass." English, but he gets it. I put the barrel against his dick. "American. Where?"

He starts jabbering. "Up the trail, two kilometers. On the hill. But you won't get him, not alive."

"Says you," I grumble, standing up and finishing him off. Two rounds through the stomach, out here? He was dead anyway.

I check their guns: an AK-47, an old M16, and a couple of super old WW2-era carbines. I take the AK and his mags, their cash, their canteens, and a new knife. Not as good as the one I dropped down that fucking ravine like a dumbass, but something.

Head the way they came, through the jungle away from the river, until I stumble onto a narrow trail, barely more than a faint set of ruts. Two kilometers, up a hill—I see the elevation rise on the left, so I head in that direction.

A few minutes later, I hear voices—duck off the trail and hide.

A couple of tangos wielding AKs and bitching about some assholes going missing when there's work to be done.

Shit.

Into the jungle, following the trail. Up, up. Hot, sweaty, being eaten alive by bugs, but again, what else is new?

Finally, I smell humanity—shit, piss, sweat, smoke, and food. Hear voices: chatter, laughter, a yell.

Staccato gunshots indicate target practice.

Creep to the edge of the clearing and assess.

Which turns into hours of silent, immobile observation—sniper training has its uses, in times like this.

Night falls; a centipede crawls over my hand. Fires flicker.

"Come on, Sol," I whisper. "Where are you?"

Near dawn, I spy movement.

The camp is a ring of huts, crudely made, with cookfires in front of each, and then an inner ring of larger buildings—meeting hall, storage, who knows. On the inside, a central bonfire, a cask of some sort of alcohol, stacks of guns, roasting food, bubbling coffee.

Movement comes from a hut to my left. A soldier shoves open the door, reaches in, and jerks Solomon out. He's bound hand and foot, shirtless, jeans torn and dirty, barefoot. He's been beaten badly, but he's moving okay.

The soldier shoves Sol off the porch—he goes flying, rolling, landing heavily, groaning. Not twenty feet away from my position prone just inside the tree line.

Not yet, Scarla. Not yet.

Sol makes his feet awkwardly and does nothing in retaliation.

The guard shoves him toward the edge of the clearing—right to me. I hold my breath, go even more still, willing myself to melt into the undergrowth.

The guard yanks Sol to a stop, slices his wrist bonds, and then backs up, leveling his gun at Sol.

"Get on with it, American," he says in halting Spanish.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Sol mumbles in English. "I'm going, I'm going," he says in fluent, perfectly accented Brazilian Portuguese.

He unzips and flops that big lovely dick of his out. His pee stream goes barely a foot wide of my face.

I wait till he's done and shaking it off before I inch my hand out under the brush, and rest it on his bare foot.

He doesn't so much as twitch. His eyes cut down, and he sees me.

His deep, dark green eyes meet mine, and his twinkle, just for a moment.

The way they only do for me.

I withdraw my hand, and he lowers one eyelid in a wink and then zips up. Turns back.

"Any food?" He asks his guard.

"Shut up."

A shrug. "Gotta feed me, my friend. I'm no good to anyone faint with hunger."

As he heads up the steps, he trips and sprawls onto the steps. Angles his body toward me, as if rolling to his back—signs to me:

MIDNIGHT.

I give no indication, of course, but he knows I saw it. He rises to his feet. Lets the guard shove him in. The lock is a freaking hook and eye. Sol could kick it down in a heartbeat.

Midnight he says. So, midnight it is.

It's Sol, that's what matters.

He's alive.

He's here.

He's mine .