End of Women: Part Two

Prototype

The air was hot and heavy when Degan got out of the cargo plane. His face and neck instantly coated with sweat and his survival pack felt like an iron ball on his back.

'Careful out there, Sir,' said the toothless Brazilian pilot who had landed him on a cracked and overgrown airfield surrounded by tropical trees, 'there's trouble around these days.'

Degan tipped him well and then set off straight into the bushline. He had only made twenty paces when he heard the plane engines reignite, and before long the noise was right above his head, chugging into the distance as a disappearing shadow.

He got out his TabPhone and traingulated the signal. A small red speck dotted his target about four miles from the runway in an area that the mapping system believed to be nothing but trees. Degan hitched up his laden sack and got to walking.

Hours later he mounted a steep climb and stopped to catch his breath, drinking deeply from his canteen. He had seen no-one, which was not surprising, and also nothing, which was unsettling. Not a whisper of birdsong, not a scurrying or a clicking or so much as a growl. There was wind and the rustling of trees, but otherwise only a smell that reminded Degan of abattoirs and bad restaurants.

He jumped when his TabPhone rang, louder than any other noise in the rainforest so far. It was Wilkes.

'Hey.' He tried to sound as if he wasn't out of breath.

'Where are you? ' Wilkes demanded bluntly.

'Thought I needed a vacation.' Degan took another swig from the canteen. 'That's a pina colada and this is Aruba, baby.'

'Fine,' Wilkes seemed to buy it, 'not the worst idea. Let me know next time, we've got a lot happening this week.' He paused, and Degan knew he was agonising about something. He could almost hear the synapses burning. 'We have a new cage runner.'

'We need them. Is it that kid Waymark sent you?'

'So you were listening. Maybe Aruba agrees with you, haven't heard you this cheerful for a while.'

'Yeah. Well, you know, if you can do without me... '

'Think so. How long you going to be?'

Degan checked his location. The red dot was within a few hundred yards.

'Not too long. '

'Good. Call me when you're back in country. Maybe stop over in Havana while you're there, I might have a job for you.'

'You know Im a billionaire, right?'

'Then I doubt you turn down business opportunities. Have fun in Aruba, and fly on a manifest next time.'

Degan hung up and swore loudly. Wilkes was having him tracked. Looks like he was right to stay off the radar, in all senses. 

The hill rose a few feet further before the treeline broke over a deforested area, about the size of a stadium. From the height Degan could see something which was not on his map, and in all likelihood was not on any  map, and that was probably half the point.

It looked a little like the compound; concrete, grey and reinforced with a steel perimeter fence. Two guard towers flanked the entryway but did not appear to be manned - or womanned - by anyone or anything. There was always a chance they had set up some kind of automatic early warning system, coupled with the possibility that every step he took might be onto a semtex mine that would blow him back to the States in tiny pieces. 

Alright, thought Degan, treading carefully.

He circled around, using the trees as cover, putting himself on the opposite side of the perimeter fence out of the view of the guard towers. The basic detection equipment he had with him was accurate enough to spot basic level explosives, so with each new step toward the perimeter he hoped that they had nothing more sophisticated buried in the dirt. The air grew cooler the further he stepped away from the trees; now but for the wind there was no sound at all, and from the broken and dilapidated appearance of the concrete outside he might have been trying to sneak into an abandoned building in the middle of the Amazon.