Fear No Evil(Alex Cross #29)(78)

It was almost noon when I finished with the dummies and Sampson lit the candle, with the rope four inches below the wick.

“Roughly two hours until it burns through,” Sampson said. “If the raft doesn’t snag or go up on a gravel bar, it should take a good hour for it to reach the rapids.”

“So at least three hours before we see it,” I said. “Should be more than enough time for us both to get where we want to be.”





Chapter





90




Two hours later and a mile and a half downriver, Raphael Durango and his three remaining men were in the same positions they’d been in for most of the morning.

Durango and one man were tucked in a small pocket of timber on the west side of Black Bear Canyon some three hundred yards below the rapids and two hundred vertical feet above the river. The position gave them a better view of the narrows upstream.

His other two men were on the opposite side of the river drainage at a similar elevation but upriver another hundred and fifty yards. Due to the bend above the rapids, they would not see the raft until it was sweeping into the final approach to the whitewater.

Durango would signal them when he saw the raft. Cross and Sampson would be caught in the crossfire as soon as they entered the narrows.

After they disposed of the bodies and the raft, Durango could start home to Mexico knowing that he’d laid waste to many of his enemies and— His satellite phone buzzed, alerting him to an incoming text. He did not have to look to know who it was from. Only one person knew the number.

Durango told his man to keep an eye on the river and whistle if he saw the raft coming. Then he climbed farther up the slope, much of which had burned at some point in the past decade, leaving a patchwork of living trees alongside scorched trunks.

He looked at the text, saw the new phone number, and called it.

“They’re not moving,” Emmanuella said. “It’s been almost two hours.”

“I’m watching the signal too, sister,” he said.

“I still don’t understand how you got by them last night.”

“The only thing I can figure is my battery was low and wasn’t picking up the signal in the deeper parts of the canyon. And we never saw their raft even with the goggles.”

“But you’re seeing their signal now?”

“I’m on the spare battery. The signal’s strong.”

“Conditions?”

“Bright sunshine earlier, but now it looks like it’s about to rain again.”

“No one will hear the shots?”

“We’re miles from the takeout,” he said, feeling irritated at being micromanaged.

“What about Butler and his men? You said it was him. Or have you reconsidered?”

“It was him,” he shot back as the first raindrops of the day fell. “I got a good look. And we’ve seen no helicopters today.”

“I said they’d be there,” she said, sounding superior. “M’s men.”

Durango rolled his eyes but said, “You also said M was allied with Cross.”

“Isn’t he? Butler attacked you when you were about to ambush Cross and Sampson. Cross got by you while you defended yourself. Or isn’t that the story?”

Feeling even more like he was being interrogated, Durango said, “That’s one version of the story. Another says that Maestro’s men were flying up there to kill Cross, but they recognized me and decided to take us out first.”

There was silence before Emmanuella said in a tighter voice, “In the end, it doesn’t matter. But I’d advise you to keep an eye out for that helicopter, just in case Cross and Sampson are in touch with Maestro and asking for help.”

“I’ll text you when it’s over,” he said.

“You’ll call me when it’s over, half brother. And I want to see pictures.”

“Pictures of what?”

“The bodies,” Emmanuella said as the rain around Durango became a patter. “And get your men ready. Cross and Sampson are finally moving again.”





Chapter





91




Even though his Gore-Tex gear was back in the raft stuffed with most of his warm clothes, and John was getting wetter by the moment, he welcomed the rain. He’d been walking for nearly three hours by then, much of it traversing steep hillsides on game trails through loud and crunchy dry grass and brush that was crisscrossed with downed, scorched tree trunks.

But the rain, light and steady for almost an hour now, had deadened the sound of his passing. And he’d decided to climb a little higher to find the bridle path that led north, a clearer way through the patchwork of burned-over land and strips of standing trees, which made the going quieter still.

To Sampson’s left and diagonally downhill, the river was about to turn hard right into the rapids. If John paused, he could hear the light roar of the whitewater coming from around the point of the turn, which was just ahead of him, no more than a few hundred yards away.

He stopped in a large patch of timber, put the .375 Ruger against a big ponderosa pine, and rubbed his stomach and thigh scars a moment before picking up his binoculars. He looked upriver and still saw no sign of the raft.