Excerpt

American puta.

Lily.

They could only be talking of Lily Campora of the diamond black eyes and beautiful smile.

He didn’t want to believe it. And yet … Lily was gone. As if she had known Poveda’s men were coming for him.

Betrayed.

Dios, he was a fool.

And he was a dead man.

His eyes burned with the sting of anger. He could not bear to think that the woman he loved could have turned him in. But why else – how else – would Poveda have found a reason to send his thugs and brand him a traitor? The things Manny had told Lily in the dark of night, naked and spent, he’d told no one else. So what other explanation could there be?

He couldn’t think of that now. If he wanted to live, he could not think of her now. He had to figure out how to get out of this. Then he would deal with Lily Campora.

Anger rolled over his heartbreak. Resolve kicked him into survival mode. Talking himself free was not an option. Poveda’s soldiers did not want to hear anything he had to say. He was on his way to prison – if he made it that far.

The Managua streets were midnight dark and as deserted as a ghost town when the soldiers hauled him roughly to an open jeep then took off down the pocked pavement.

They’d tied his hands behind his back. The rope cut into his wrists and already he could feel the loss of circulation in his fingers. The business end of the SKS was still aimed at his heart. He was running out of time.

He glanced at the soldier riding shotgun in the front seat. Recognized him, though he’d never met him. Garcia. Poveda’s hatchet man. Specialized, it was said, with a stiletto. And Garcia had a penchant for using electricity to make his victims talk. He particularly enjoyed using it on freedom fighters.

Manny didn’t recognize the driver or, in the seat at Manny’s side, the young corporal with the SKS. He watched Manny like a hawk, his eyes narrowed and intent on Manny’s face.

Well trained, Manny thought. Always watch a man’s eyes. They were telegraphs to his thoughts. For that reason, Manny kept his eyes as blank as white paper. As the jeep rumbled past the airport on the outskirts of the city then turned off Carrtera Norte and onto a back road, he didn’t let on that he’d figured out where they were taking him. He’d heard of the torture camps deep in the jungles. And he knew of no one who survived them – which was why he could not let them take him there.

Miles and maybe an hour went by. The city grew distant. Up ahead he saw the glimmer of moonlight bounce off water and realized they were approaching the Rio Tipitapa Bridge.

He didn’t so much as glance ahead or to the side. He sat. He waited. Silent. Hunched as if still dazed from the blow to his head and resigned to his fate. They would soon find out he was far from it.

The city lights were a memory as the jeep hit a slight incline leading to the narrow stone bridge he had known was coming up. Manny counted to five then made his move.

With a sharp kick at his guard’s chest, he dislodged the SKS long enough to sway the barrel up and away from him. The rifle discharged wildly into the air, the fire flash from the end of the barrel like mini volcanic eruptions as he stood and leaped from the moving vehicle.

Manny landed on the cracked pavement with a bone-jarring jolt then rolled like a square, wooden wheel. His shoulder and hip roared in pain. He forced himself to his feet to the serrated screech of squealing brakes and guttural shouts.

He didn’t wait to see if the soldiers had drawn on him. Off balance with his hands tied, he vaulted to the stone rail of the bridge. Without a backward glance and swallowing back his fear of heights, he launched himself toward the muddy Tipitapa, flowing fifteen feet below.

The night exploded in a hail of gunfire just before he hit the surface of the rapidly running river. The current sucked him under. He shot toward the riverbed like a bullet, found the silty bottom with his feet and praying he had the lung power, pushed off.

His lungs burned, threatened to burst. But finally, he surfaced on a gasping breath. He shook the water from his eyes and for the first time since Poveda’s men had shattered his sleep and his illusions about Lily, he found something to smile about. It was the rainy season, gracias Dios, or he’d more than likely broken both ankles landing in two feet of water instead of fifteen.

The swift running current had already carried him fifty yards down river from the bridge. There was no way the soldiers could spot him in the inky black night.

His smile was short-lived. The current sucked him down again in a vortex of speed and suffocating darkness. Without the use of his arms, the river rolled him like a deadhead – a water logged stump – spinning him out of control. The harder he fought, the deeper the river took him.

Battling unconsciousness, he forced himself to relax, to sink to the bottom again then pushed off with a prayer. For the second time, he broke the surface with a gasp, coughing mud clogged water and sucking air. He was a good hundred yards downriver now. The jungle had thickened like a gray green fog, closing in on the meandering path that years of spring and summer floods had cut into the bank as the Tipitapa flowed toward Lago Nicaragua a hundred miles down stream.

It wasn’t until his third trip down that he figured out what to do. The only way to fight the current and gravity was to go with it. When he surfaced the next time, he spread his legs, used them as rudders and rode the river.

With concentrated effort, he let himself be a log instead of fighting that fact that he was one. Logs float. So he floated. Coughing and spitting and gasping for air. Sometimes on his back. Sometimes on his belly. However the river wanted him. But always with an eye toward the shore, searching for an opportunity to beach himself. But the night was dark; it was difficult to see and staying a float took most of his concentration.

He didn’t know how long he drifted like that. Long enough that his strength faded like fabric exposed to the sun. And he suspected he knew the reason why.

Besides the bump and gash on his head from the rifle blow, one of the soldiers had gotten lucky. As Manny was freefalling off the bridge, he’d felt the round connect with his shoulder. Felt the slice; felt the burn.

And now he felt the effect of the blood loss.

Light-headedness. Fatigue. And for the first time, disorientation.

A wave of darkness hit him and he sank under again. He battled the urge to fight it. Slowly let himself surface and grabbed the breath he desperately needed. He fought for his life to stay conscious. Fought the chills that overtook him in the depths of this hot summer night. Made himself stay relaxed so he wouldn’t sink like a stone again.

And then he was combating something that snagged at his legs. Grabbed at his feet.

Panic hit before understanding and with it an adrenalin spike that revived him. The Tipitapa was home to any number of night stalkers – including bull sharks, the only freshwater sharks in the world. And if the sharks didn’t get him, there was a good chance a bushmaster would. He’d never tangled with the large pit viper but knew that one venomous bite could kill a man in minutes. He prayed to God he wouldn’t have to fight the snake now. It was a battle he could never win.

He kicked for his life and managed only to become more entangled. And that’s when it hit him. Brush. He’d hit a patch of brush. Which could mean a downed tree. Shoreline.

It was a tree he decided. Branches, not a shark or a snake had latched onto his pant legs and ended his free float down the river.

Dios.

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