Page 46 of No Questions Asked

I exchanged a glance with Slash, but his eyes warned me to save any discussion for later. After a few minutes, the boat driver was able to get our boat working. We discussed going to Coari to turn the guys over to the police, but the boat driver suggested it would be best to wait, as there could be other drug boats out there looking for them. Before we had decided what to do, our rescue crew arrived in two boats.

Salvador told us that our rescuers included Coari’s chief of police. Several other uniformed men carrying rifles quickly took charge of the prisoners. The one who got knocked out when I fell on him had regained consciousness, but seemed kind of woozy and in pain. He was saying something, clearly confused, when the police roared in laughter at him.

“What’s going on over there?” I asked Salvador.

“They’re telling him that an unarmed women took him and his friend out without getting a scratch. They find it quite humorous.”

I didn’t know what to say about that, so I sat down. Slash sat beside me, letting me lean my head on his shoulder. He linked hands with me and for a minute we sat there in companionable silence.

“I really don’t want to get back on that boat again,” I said.

“Would you like to spend the night here?” he suggested. “We could have a romantic evening under the stars listening to the chirp of birds, the slither of the python and his mate, and perhaps become friends with a couple of river spiders.”

“Ha ha.” I punched him in the arm. “Funny. Not.”

When the police finally deemed it safe for us to board the boats, we did. The return trip seemed to go a lot faster. Our jeeps were where we left them. We climbed in and were escorted by the police, without incident, back to the research camp.

Vicente, Gabriel and others rushed out to greet us. Martim was nowhere to be found. Vicente reached me first and was about to say something when Slash stepped between us and crossed his arms. He didn’t say anything, but the way he looked at Vicente, the message was clear.

Stay away from her.

Vicente took a surprised step back. I walked around them both and handed Gabriel the satellite phone. “Thanks, this really saved me.”

“Lexi.” Gabriel, clearly uncomfortable, looked like he wanted to say something, but after some internal struggling, he didn’t. Instead he took the phone, and without another word, walked over to the authorities to speak with them.

I wanted nothing more than go to my bunk and collapse, but Slash steered me to Melinda and forced her to do a full examination. I didn’t have any broken bones, just some scrapes, bruises, and a bump on the back of my head. She suspected a concussion and ordered me to bed as soon as I took a shower. While under the spray of the cold water, it occurred to me this was the second day in a row our attempt to deliver the vaccine to the indigenous populations had failed.

If Vaccitex’s competitors were the ones behind this, they were succeeding beyond their wildest dreams, and they hadn’t even needed to hack to do it.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Slash

The situation was fast becoming intolerable. Seeing Lexi drop out of the tree onto a guy with a gun had taken another ten years off his life. At this point, he was operating on negative years after only a year together with her. It was time to get a handle on what was going on. He was not going to be able to protect her—as well as the project—if he was only being reactive.

The question was where to start.

After making sure Lexi was thoroughly checked out by Melinda and ordered to rest, he showered, changed, and asked one of the security guards to take him to the police station in Coari. When the guard hesitated, he slipped him a hundred dollar bill. Once they arrived at the station and the driver agreed to wait, Slash went inside.

Unfortunately Portuguese was one of the few languages he didn’t know, but he was fluent in Spanish, and luckily, one the officers also spoke it. That young man, who looked to be about fifteen, escorted him to the holding area where a group of guards were sitting around smoking. They quickly came to attention when he entered the room.

Slash introduced himself as a member of the research team interested in following up on the state of the prisoners. The young officer translated for him. To Slash’s surprise, the other officers knew who he was and were quite interested in talking to him.

“How’d you do it?” one of the officers asked him. “Take out two bandits like that without a weapon? You ex-military?”

So, they’d heard about the escapade in the jungle after the first attack. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Coari was a small town. The news about a bunch of scientists sending two sets of possible drug runners to jail in two days had probably been a record.

Slash shrugged. “Something like that.”

“So, tell us what happened.” The guys leaned forward, their eyes gleaming. They wanted details and a good story, and he wanted information. It seemed like a fair trade.

He told them what had happened, embellishing a lot of the story to make it sound like the battle was a lot tougher than it actually was. The young officer apparently translated sufficiently because the guys were transfixed. When it came time to ask his questions, they were happy to comply.

“So, you’ve got four new prisoners here,” he said. “Know anything about them yet?”

The first officer leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Nothing yet on the two you deposited today, but we know a little about the two from yesterday. Both have criminal records and neither are local. They aren’t even Brazilian. Their files indicate that they’re originally from Boa Vista, a small city up near the Venezuelan border. They deny any involvement with drug operations, but they both have a unique tattoo on their necks indicating that they’re members of a gang headquartered in Venezuela that’s heavily involved in cocaine trafficking.”

Slash digested that information. They were drug runners after all. How did that play into concentrated attacks on the vaccine distribution process?

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