Gator
Friday, The Trailhead, North Sumatra
“Is it safe here?” It was the Japanese guy. Taro Eto. The group that held all the Davidson party goers, except for Papa Bear Davidson had all arrived on the same privately charted jet. Then the group had split up, again. After the men in the party had been bounced and jostled over the backroads to the trailhead and the sun had risen higher in the sky, several of their group had decided to stick with the driver and luggage as they headed down to the coastline. From there the walk to the yacht mooring was a mere three kilometers. Daniel, the head of their security detail, had warned them that they could only offer these guys one body guard. The men seemed to think that was just fine.
Their expedition group was down to eight businessmen, two women, and four body guards – him, Blaze, Daniel, and Ralph. They had a guide and a photographer, but how this photographer was going to take pictures of great men doing great things out here in the forest was beyond Gator. These titans of industry already looked like they were melting and that was the photo shoot of them smiling and waving as they got off the plane and loaded into their jeeps.
“I heard that there was unrest,” the East Indian said. He seemed to know Taro - they grouped together frequently. Gator made sure to blink and take still-shots of them interacting.
“The bandits are near the orangutan sanctuary, in north,” the guide said, as if this should quell any concern.
“So it’s safe here?” Taro pushed.
The guide shrugged. “Safe enough.”
“Safe enough?” Taro turned to his friend. “What does that mean?”
Gator shook his head. They were barely into the tree line. This was gonna be fun.
The guide stopped and pointed at a leaf. The photographer hustled forward and took a picture.
“What is that?” Taro asked.
“They call it poison leech,” the guide explained.
A poison leech. Gator made sure to get eyes on it, so he could recognize it along their walk.
Christen pulled her arms in tight to her chest. Their bodies brushed as she moved past Gator. He sucked in a breath to help him brace against the emotions raging through him in that moment. If he could just hold her to his heart, just for a moment, he might find some respite from the storm she’d kicked up in his system.
Nadir hustled toward the guide. “I want to see the orangutans in the wild. Is it possible that there are some that live in these trees?”
“Not here. North,” the guide said. At least he pointed due north when he said it, that gave Gator a little comfort that he knew where he was going. Gator had his GPS zipped into his thigh pocket. This trail was already in the downloadable maps – it wasn’t like they were bushwhacking. It wasn’t a wide, well-worn trail, but it was in pretty good condition.
“Where the bandits are?” Taro was asking.
Nervous little fucker.
“Yes,” the guide replied patiently.
“Are we staying near here tonight?” Taro asked.
“Too dangerous at night. You go way out in the water for to be safe,” the guide said.
Then they walked in silence.
About two kilometers in, Blaze asked if everyone was hydrating. They all wore backpacks with the survival ten. An emergency tent, fire starting equipment, a space blanket…most importantly everyone had a camelback water bladder and a hose to suck from. As Blaze asked the question, the hikers dutifully put their hoses in their mouths and took a few swallows.
“I’m going to keep reminding you,” Blaze said. “In the humidity, your body has to work harder to cool you down. There’s no evaporation to help you out. Drinking is very important.”
Gregor, Karl and Nadir had clustered together. Christen and Red had inserted themselves near their group. Gator walked just behind them Taro and the Indian guy hiked right behind him budged up tight, sometimes stepping on his heels. Gator needed to get this Indian guy’s name, he kept listening for it in conversations…Neither he nor Blaze were issued the usual headshots and roster of names at the beginning of the mission. It seemed Daniel liked to hold his cards tight to his chest. Odd. Unprofessional. But that had been Gator’s take on the guy since he’d first seen him step out of the limo in Dar es Salaam.
“I knew this woman once,” Red gave Christen a nudge and a significant look that was lost on Karl, Nadir, and Gregor.
Gator wanted Gregor to be nowhere near Christen, though he knew it was Christen and Red’s job to get in close.
“She was a numbers cruncher at my office.” Johnna said with a lazy tone of shooting the shit. “One day I was in the breakroom, and she was all done up, fresh manicure, new highlights, new outfit. I asked if she was having a job interview or something special that day, and she said she was celebrating. I asked what she was celebrating, and she said, ‘water’.” Red picked up her hose, took a few swallows, then flipped the nozzle to off and let it drop over her shoulder.
Christen caught Gator’s gaze for a long moment. She murmured. “Well that was an unexpected response. Water.” Red put her hand on Christen’s elbow and leaned in to whisper. “You have a little drool, just there on the side of your mouth.” She wiggled her finger on the corner of her lips to indicate where.
“Funny,” Christen said and her face flamed pink. She sent an embarrassed glance his way and Gator grinned in response.
Red had noticed that there were sparks flying, too. But then he remembered his talk with Lynx and the grin fell off. This was no time for flirtin’. His practiced eye swept the foliage for any sign of danger.
“Seriously,” Red kept talking as if nothing else were happening. “She said she was crying into her pillow one night, stressed to the max because she couldn’t make ends meet. She tried to figure out what she could change so she had money in the bank at the end of the month, and she decided that one of the best things she could do for herself was to drink more water. And by that, I mean nothing else ever, only tap water.”
“Water only?” Karl asked. “How in the world would that help anything? A good stiff drink might do her better.”
“I can see that as a strategy.” Christen said. “If she got a five-dollar coffee every morning, that’s a hundred and fifty dollars a month right there. If she skipped a soda at lunch, say two dollars a day that’s another sixty bucks.”
“Yup. And she didn’t swerve even if someone else was buying, or it was there for free, because she thought then she might just say, ‘Well, I’ll just have this one cocktail with my friends, I deserve it after a long day like today.’”
“Do the math,” Christen said. “Two cocktails on a Friday night, two on a Saturday night. A bottle of wine to sip while cooking during the week that’s another fifty bucks a week. She’s up to four hundred and ten dollars. Add orange juice at breakfast, and random other drinks… Yeah, I could see how she might be drinking down five or six thousand dollars a year.”
“Exactly.” Johnna took another sip of water and raised her chin toward Christen reminding her to keep drinking. Christen took a few sips while Red continued. “That was what she calculated, but she said that the savings were more than that. When she stopped drinking alcohol she stopped going out with her drinking pals who talked each other into dinner out and getting the desert. When she stopped drinking alcohol, she stopped buying weed. No weed, no munchies and no midnight calls to the pizza delivery guy.”
Nadir had a bemused smile on his lips. Gregor was considering the women with a hard-calculating stare. Gator was worried that the women weren’t pulling off their cover story and that Gregor might be guessing that these two fit, intelligent women weren’t who they said they were.
“No bail money, no attorney and court fees,” Christen said.
“I hadn’t figured those numbers in.” Red snapped a branch and threw it out of the pathway. “When she stopped drinking the coffee, she stopped going to the coffee shop. She wasn’t tempted by the smell of blueberry muffins. She said in the first month of drinking only water she had an extra seven hundred dollars in the bank.”
“No way,” Karl said.
“Way. She also lost ten pounds without even trying. I couldn’t tell the difference, but she could and that’s what counts. She spent some of that savings to reward herself, and now she’s got some money in the bank and is much happier. Water can giveth and water can taketh away, depending on her mood.”
“Amen.” Christen said, then she twitched as if a shiver were running down her back.
After that, the walk was silent.
Blaze walked point up the path, with his GPS in hand, talking with the guide. Gator looked back to see Ralph behind his two timid shadows, then three other businessmen, and then Daniel was a speck in the distance taking up the rear. The farther they walked, the more their group was spreading out as those with more athletic ability kept a quicker pace. Gator didn’t like that they were so far apart. But there was little he could do about it.
The heat was oppressive, and Gator noticed that almost everyone was wearing new footwear. He wondered if they had broken their boots in properly or if everyone was getting massive blisters. They weren’t complaining though. That was good.
“Drink,” Blaze called.