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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  63. Author’s Note

Usually after her four-mile run, Gina would drink a liter of water and eat a banana to rehydrate, but she’d never had the chance. The soldiers had forced her to pack up all her medical equipment, then with a gun sticking into her back, they’d marched her into the jungle. They hadn’t even let her change out of her shorts and T-shirt.

That had been six hours earlier.

Gina stopped. She turned to the soldier behind her and said, “Necesito agua.”

He shook his head. “¡Vámonos!”

“If I don’t get water soon, I’m going to get sick,” she said to the soldier in Spanish. Over the past twenty minutes, Gina had developed a throbbing headache and rapid breath, and despite the brutal heat and humidity, she’d stopped sweating. She was on the verge of heatstroke. “And if I’m sick, then I’m not going to be able to help whoever needs it.”

The soldiers hadn’t told her anything except that someone in their camp was hurt. She guessed it must be someone important to their operation. Whether that operation was drug trafficking, illegal mining, illegal logging, or something else, she wasn’t sure. There was no short list of unlawful activities taking place in the jungles of northern Bolivia. But whoever was hurt, Gina was certain it must be someone important.

The boss.

El jefe.

“¡Alto!” the soldier shouted, and the two others in the front stopped and turned around.

A canteen was eventually passed to Gina, and she took a few small sips. She didn’t want to overwhelm her system. After a minute, when the water didn’t nauseate her, she drank heartily.

One of the soldiers (the one who spoke passable English) handed her a bag of large brown nuts—Brazil nuts, which, oddly enough, Bolivia, not Brazil, was the largest exporter of.

Could they be in the nut business?

Even legal businesses in Bolivia often kept soldiers on the payroll to protect their inventory. But if it was a legal operation, they would most likely have tried to help the sick person more diplomatically. Three soldiers storming into a village and kidnapping a doctor with the threat of violence didn’t sing legitimacy.

Gina ate a large handful of nuts and drank a bit more water. Her breathing slowly returned to normal, and five minutes later she nodded that she was ready to continue.