This was no time to give up; he had to make them realize as long as they were breathing, they could fight back. They may not win, but they could fight. His words of encouragement fell on deaf and defeated ears.

  Four hours later, the door opened. Jay walked in quietly. Looking at the curious faces, he said nothing, toying with the group. Finally, he said, “Garcia and Johnson are dead. They lasted longer than the first two, but still four hours, gentlemen? I expected more from the famous Kill Squad of Umm Qasr. Sad, really, but I must admit, my clients are extremely happy today. We’ll be picking up again tomorrow where we left off. Sleep well, goodnight.” Jay left the trophy room and secured the door.

  Outside, Nick could hear the celebration as the sponsors celebrated their day of vengeance. Inside the trophy room, there was now little hope in anyone’s mind that they would survive this nightmare.

  An hour later, the sound of some type of machinery pierced the air for about ten minutes. It was louder than the normal gas-powered generators that provided power for the complex. It sounded like the blade of a sawmill, laboring as it cut green wood. It wasn’t. Once the machine stopped running, Nick heard the jungle come to life. He didn’t like the way the animal noises sounded, frantic and hungry.

  Then there was the unmistakable sound of one of the trucks’ motors starting up.

  Several hours later, Nick awoke to someone crying in the dark. It wasn’t Nõn, he could hear her breathing to his left. He wasn’t surprised it wasn’t her. She’d survived a lot in her short life, that much was clear. She didn’t strike him as the crying type. Fossum and Green were the only two team members left besides he and Nõn. Nick thought about trying to convince the crying team member that there was still hope, then he thought better of it and just closed his eyes. Time to prepare; he could be next in the chute. He wanted a piece of that child molesting prick before he died. He had to survive to make that happen. No way after all he’d been through in his screwed up life was he going down at the hands of a perpetually smiling, carrot sucking, candy assed pedophile with soft hands. Absolutely no way.

  Once Jay had secured the trophy room, he directed the workers to clean up the camp from the day’s events. He liked things to be neat and tidy, and the unexpected success of the day’s hunts had caught his team off guard. In the morning, the next hunt would begin. With any luck, he might be home before the usual two weeks each hunt had previously taken. The successful sponsors were given their choice of their trophies’ possessions to keep as mementos of the hunt. Once they’d chosen the trinkets, the rest of the deceased trophies’ possessions were put into the nightly fire. The workers had dragged the bodies of the second successful hunt to the rear of the camp, where they’d left Rooney and Rohlk earlier. One of the workers began the arduous process of starting the heavy duty wood chipper. One by one, the men’s bodies were fed into the chipper and came out the other side in a huge red cone of bone and meat, spraying into the jungle of the Darien Gap. The jungle came alive with rodents, some small, others alarmingly huge. They began to feast on the mush that now covered the jungle foliage. The rats had become a problem at first and had to be trained not to come into the camp. Traps were put out, and captured animals were tortured and then released, the idea being the memory of the torture would keep them from returning to the camp. The conditioning had worked; the rats didn’t return, and the ones that had since been captured were increasingly aggressive. They knew the results of being caught wouldn’t be pleasant.

  Always, Jay applied the lessons of his own successful hunt so many years ago. Smiling, he remembered the last flight he’d taken just before leaving for Camp Baroota. Standing at a small convenience store in the airport, he had picked up a newspaper, hoping to catch the latest scores in the playoffs. An article had caught his eye as he scanned the paper. He laughed out loud as he read about some damn dentist who was being spotlighted. Seems the dentist had been on safari and killed a lion that was the local favorite. Now the entire world was up in arms over the death of the pet lion. Jay laughed at the irony of the situation.

  Jay loaded the gear of the day’s successful sponsors and prepared to take them to the airport. They would leave tonight. Jay liked his hunts to be conducted by the numbers, and this was the next item on the list. He would return a couple hours later and prepare for the next day’s activities. Like a well-oiled machine, the hunt continued.

  “Nick, are you awake? Nick?” It was Fossum who woke him up.

  “Ya, what?”

  “Explain to me what you mean by thinking outside the box. I mean, I get what that means, but what do you mean?”

  “I mean do what they least expect. Obviously, you’ve been trained to think and act a certain way. They’re using that against you and your team. On the streets, we called it looking at a problem with new eyes. The smart criminals are always doing what they want to right under your nose. They know how to hide in plain sight. We had to learn to go under the radar, to think in new ways, see things in new ways. It’s hard to do. You don’t realize how your whole life is set in patterns that you follow unconsciously. Break those patterns, is what I mean. Think outside the experience of your life. What would you do if you’d never had the training you had? How would you see this problem?”

  Nõn listened quietly while Nick tried to explain what he meant.

  Then the door opened. Jay entered the room, well rested, cleanly shaven and meticulously groomed, even in the jungle of the Darien Gap.

  Nick said, “Dapper as ever, Jay. Tell me, do you count the squares of the toilet paper before you wipe your ass? I bet you do. No more than seven squares needed to wipe Jay’s ass. Any more than seven wouldn’t be tidy and neat. You need to loosen up a bit, man, take a walk on the wild side, next time count out eight or nine squares and then wipe your ass. Who knows what’ll happen?”

  Jay tried to ignore the comments Nick made; sometimes, though, he wondered, How the hell could he possibly know that? Jay had always counted squares and carefully folded his toilet paper. He tried not to think about what that meant. He just liked his life orderly, there was nothing wrong with that, was there?

  Regardless, Jay continued, “Fossum and Green, your time is up.”

  Nick watched as the two men were wheeled out of the room and nodded to Fossum; a silent good luck, give them hell passed between them. And the door closed.

  Nick started to speak, “Listen, when they come for us, we have to be alert, aware, we have to see everything, hear everything. Pay attention to every detail, no matter how small, question it. Why is this here? What does it mean? What isn’t here, and should it be? How does this help them hunt us? Do you understand?”

  Nõn nodded that she thought she understood, but how could you really change the way you think and understand the world?

  Nick ran over every detail he could remember of the past couple of days, the smells, the sounds. Every little nuance of every conversation. He had been in conservation mode until now, it was time to ramp up. Time to kick into hyperawareness. It was exhausting to do, but it could be a useful trick. Once it began, it was hard to shut down. This hyperawareness could be lethal. His body could tolerate it for only so long, then he would break down. He would crash hard.

  Nick’s sweat changed, the scent of his stressed mental state filled the air of the room. Hours had passed, and there was no return by Jay. Apparently, Fossum had listened, and he was making his sponsor work for it. No easy kill there, Fossum had stones. Good! More time to prepare for him and Nõn.

  When the door finally did open, Jay was less jovial and seemed a little bit stressed. He wasn’t as carefree as he’d been in the morning.

  Nick said, “Jay, you look disturbed, it shouldn’t be that hard to count out eight or nine squares, you really need to loosen up, man.”

  Jay said nothing. The day had nearly been a disaster. Green had done exactly as he was expected. He was dispatched quickly. Fossum, however, had done nothing expected and nearly killed his sponsor. Somehow, he’d flanked the guide and the sponsor and snuck up behind them; if it weren’t for the RFID trackers each of the trophies carried, he would have killed them both. Fortunately, Jay had been able to intercede, and he had to kill Fossum himself. The day had not gone by the numbers, as he’d planned. It was a bit disconcerting and unexpected.

  Jay told the workers to wheel the final two out and noticed the smell that filled the room. “Jesus, Nick, you need a bath, too bad you don’t have longer to live. We may just have to follow the smell to find you in the jungle, you stink.”

  Nick blew his breath in Jay’s face. “More where that came from, big boy, I’m sure you and the carrot sucking fat boy have been swapping bodily fluids while we’ve been sleeping. Tell the truth, is he your type? Common law relationships can work, it’s just between us girls. Does he swallow or spit?”

  “Keep talking, old man, your time is up. Time to get on the truck.”

  The truck stopped, and they were dropped off. Dirty uniforms were dropped at their naked feet, logger boots, a canteen and a knife for each. As the workers reached in a bag for their maps of Camp Baroota, Nick saw the unmistakable design of a directional antennae. The worker removed the maps and dropped them at Nick and Nõn’s feet.

  “Seriously, Jay, this is it? No hug?”

  “Laugh it up, funny man, my guess is I’ll be seeing you very, very soon.” Jay smirked and glared at Nick with a cold stare.

  The truck drove off, leaving Nick and Nõn standing naked in one of the vegetation bare trails made by the truck’s tires.

  Nõn started to get dressed, hurriedly trying to get as much distance between her and the camp as she could. Water would be first priority, then…she noticed Nick hadn’t moved.

  Nick glared at the direction the truck had departed. A slight snarl crossed his lips, and he whispered under his breath, “Ante up, motherfucker, the game is on.”

  Turning to Nõn, he said, “I don’t think Jay likes me very much, not sure why, but I just get this feeling he’d rather not hang out and drink a beer with me again. Do you get that vibe, or is it just me?”

  Nõn said nothing. Nick’s constant stupid jokes were getting on her nerves. Did the man ever shut up? They were being hunted! She was nearly dressed and ready to get underway. She hoped to be a couple of miles from the camp in a few short minutes, if possible.

  “Nõn, what’s the hurry? Slow down, girl, no need to get dressed so quickly. Didn’t you see what they had in that bag the maps came out of?”

  Nõn didn’t slow down. She had to get moving, now! Panic was setting in.

  Nick grabbed her shoulders. “Nõn! Nõn! Stop. Stop it. Think.”

  “Getting dressed, that’s what I am doing, let go of me, Nick.”

  “No, you’re not, you’re doing exactly what they expect you to do, what they hope you’ll do!”

  Nõn stopped. Nick was right; she’d already started to do exactly what was expected of her.

  “What should we do then, Nick? Walk naked in the jungle?”

  “No, what we should do is make sure there’s nothing hidden in the seams of our clothing. When the driver reached into the bag to get out maps, I saw a directional antenna inside. Directional antennae are used for tracking animals that have been fitted with an RFID. A radio frequency identifier. Somewhere in all the gear they have given us is an RFID. Get those clothes off and start at the bottom and work your way up, feel for anything unusual. It could be a wire, or a small, pebble-sized microchip. When you’re done, hand them to me, and I’ll double check yours, you do the same for me. Funny that Jay quoted Sun Tzu at the bonfire the other night, do you remember that?”

  Nõn nodded that she did remember. Nick continued.

  “His quote was ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue your enemy without fighting.’ Do you remember?” Nick went on without waiting for Nõn to answer. “I thought that said a lot about the way Jay thinks. He likes to prepare, plan and have options for every contingency. It’s mathematical the way he thinks. Funny, really, because normally it works A+B=C, it always works if you can frame the circumstances, you always win the game if you make the rules. Do you get it?”

  Nõn replied, “Yes, I see what you mean, but the rules are the rules. How can you play and win when the rules are stacked against you?”

  Nick smiled. “Exactly! You can’t win, so you have to break the rules or change them. That’s what we’re going to do. Jay has made the rules, stacked the deck; we’re going to un-stack it, change the rules.”

  The need to run was nearly undeniable, the anxiety overwhelming, but Nõn did as Nick asked. She kept focusing on the wolf on his chest as she felt the hem of her filthy pants. There was no denying what her dream meant now.

  When they were done with the pants, they put them on. Nick started on his shirt, feeling the seams and bending the collar. Nõn started on her own shirt.

  Nick continued, “Look at what Jay’s done, he deprived us of water and now hands us a canteen each. What does that mean to you? What does that tell you? Jay suddenly wants us to get healthy? He cares about our welfare?

  “These clothes, for example, why give them to us? Do we need them to run, to be hunted? No, but they serve some purpose for Jay’s fucked up hunt, you can count on that. We just need to figure out that purpose and use it against him.”

  Nõn was starting to see what Jay meant, everything that had happened had been by design, Jay’s design. Jay’s plan. They could take nothing for granted, everything, no matter how small, had a purpose, a reason and existed for the hunt. Suddenly, she was scared. How can you possibly second guess everything? How do you know when it’s part of the plan, and not just coincidence? She asked Nick exactly that.

  He smiled. “Exactly. That’s what makes the game, a game. However, now we have the advantage, Jay doesn’t know what we know. He needs the deck to be stacked to win. Get it? We do the unexpected, change the rules, and he has to change as well. His structured world falls apart. We can beat him at his own game. But first we have to survive long enough to break his rules and set him on his heels.”

  Nõn was starting to get it. She looked at the knife and said, “Why give us a knife?”

  Proudly, Nick said, “Exactly! Why? Ask what purpose does it serve Jay? Not how can I use it, instead ask how does he use it against me?”

  They swapped shirts and started the process of searching over.

  “Also, count on this. Jay will have layers upon layers to his rules. In case one fails, the next layer pops up. No one on the team has defeated all of Jay’s rules. But I guarantee you, Fossum realized one of them existed and used it against Jay. He looked like someone stole his lunch money when he came back to the trophy room. He was really shaken. My guess is Fossum almost got away or maybe killed one of Jay’s little helpers. Something happened to disturb Jay’s structured little world. On the streets, I looked at it this way: there’s always a feint within a feint within another feint, layer upon layer, you have to peel the onion to get to what’s really going on. That’s what we’ll do to Jay and his little project, peel the onion, take his structured little world apart.”

  Nõn nodded; it made sense to her now. Talking about it calmed her. She realized her anxiety was less urgent.

  Their shirts were cleared as good as they could be, so they passed them back and stood up to put them on. Nick turned around and looked down the single worn roadway they’d been driven on.

  Nõn’s eyes opened wide, and she yelled out to Nick, “Stop!”

  Nick froze. The voice she’d used demanded his compliance. There was no question she meant exactly what she said.

  “What? What is it?”

  He felt her fingers between his shoulder blades, kneading the skin there. It was tender, and he winced. “What are you doing?”

  Nõn said, “You have a small incision here, between the shoulder blades. I think maybe Jay has put trackers in each of us. What better way to track us than to plant the trackers in us? It feels like there is something small and hard under the skin.”

  “Get the knife they gave you, cut it out, now.”

  Nõn picked up the knife she’d been given and turned to Nick. “Ready?”

  “Yes, hurry, we don’t have a lot of time, we have to hurry.”

  A few moments later, Nõn knew she was right. She removed a small metallic cylinder from the fresh wound. It was the size of a standard pharmaceutical capsule.

  She showed it to Nick, smiling.

  Nick took the knife from her and said, “Now your turn. Take the shirt off.” Nõn turned around and removed the shirt. There between her shoulder blades, hidden among the considerable scars, was a small red slit that had started to heal.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes, I am ready!”

  Nick made a quick small cut and squeezed the area around the wound. The capsule erupted from the wound like puss from an angry zit. He nearly dropped it.

  “Excellent observation, Nõn! Layer one of Jay’s little hunting world just peeled back. Now we have to find the others.”

  They put the shirts back on and started on the boots they’d been given.

  Finally, 10 minutes later they finished. They’d found no more trackers, but they knew more had to exist.

  “Give me your canteen and knife.”

  Nõn gave him both, and Nick started to carve a huge semicircle in the dirt with the knives. He pierced both canteens and dropped them.

  Nõn said, “What if they were not bugged? We could have used them; we will need water soon.”

  Nick ignored her. He placed the canteens side by side above the semicircle, then he stabbed the knives deep into the soil just under the canteens.

  Nõn rolled her eyes. “Really, Nick, do the stupid jokes ever end?”

  Nick had made a smile in the dirt. The eyes were the canteens and knives. He said, “Pull out your map, tell me what you don’t see.”

  Pulling out her map, Nõn thought, How can I see what is not there?

 

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