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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
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  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
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  58. 58
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  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. Author’s Note

“Okay, hand me one end of that pole,” I said to Vern.

Vern handed me a six-foot-long bamboo pole that he’d found behind the structure. I passed one end to Diego and said, “Hold this against your neck.”

If this were an actual crime scene, Diego would be a mannequin named Milton, and I would be using string. Which, come to think of it, is a dated practice. Most of this stuff is digitized now, done with fancy 3D cameras.

But in the jungle, you use the tools at your disposal.

I moved the other end of the pole up and down, which helped to visualize the different angles of the blood spatter. I made Diego lean his head back, tilt his head this way and that, fall to his knees.

After spending several minutes with Diego, I had him switch with Carlos. I ran Carlos through a similar array of positions.

“Okay, you can put that down now,” I said to Carlos, trying to fight back a smile.

“What gives?” Vern said.

I couldn’t get the angles to work with Diego, who at five foot three was an inch shorter than Gina. But for Carlos, who was six two, the angles nearly fit. In fact, for the blood spatter to fit perfectly, we needed someone a few inches taller than Carlos.

“Someone died here,” I said, “but it wasn’t Gina.”

24

24

jungle
august 9, 7:07 p.m.
days since abduction: 4

Guillermo reached under the table and yanked Gina out by her hair. She let out a loud scream.

She wanted the others at the camp to hear her. She might be punished for trying to escape, but she doubted they would kill her. Sadly, her scream only lasted half a second as one of Guillermo’s giant hands wrapped around her throat and tightened like a vice.

He lifted Gina up, her backside up against the plywood table. She clawed with her right hand against the hand at her throat, but it was useless. None of her combat training could help her now.

Gina squirmed, helplessly watching as the drug-crazed soldier reached down with his free hand and pulled his seven-inch bowie knife from his belt.

He lifted it up and pressed the tip into the flesh of her left breast.

Gina’s vision began to tunnel.

She only had seconds of consciousness left, and if she passed out, who knew what this monster’s plans for her were?

Somehow, throughout the struggle, she’d held tightly to the satellite phone in her left hand. With her last ounce of strength, Gina brought her left arm up and parallel to her shoulder. Then she swung her arm violently in an arc toward Guillermo’s face.