The helicopter was actually empty. The three Americans on El Presidente's island were stranded, after all. Marque suddenly came skipping out behind them, clapping with maddening speed. They turned around just in time to see him rushing them.
"What the hell, man!" Daniel, the sound guy for the team held up his case in defense from the crazed coke-head running at them, probably an assassin sent by El Presidente.
"Run you fools!" Marque's eyes were wide with the pulse of jungle drums as he fled into the sugar cane field and was gone, just like that.
"What was that all about?" Katie sounded worried. She had wanted to come here the most and now she wanted to leave, the most.
"I thought he was gonna stab us to death, or something." Daniel swallowed. He realized he had wet his khakis and held the sound equipment case he was carrying in front of his crotch.
"He had no machete." Steinmeyer pointed out. He had been in the sugar cane with a senorita, all along, and had walked out half a moment before Daniel spoke.
The senorita was from the cabaret. Not one of the single ones. Steinmeyer just kept making himself into more and more of a liability every time they found him. First the spiced rum, then the cock fight gambling debt he owed overnight and now some senorita who worked at the cabaret.
"Ever hear the phrase 'don't crap where you eat', Steinmeyer?" Chris asked the other guy on the island that was his size. Steinmeyer just grunted and glared. The heavily built mercenary had been a mistake, both in the budget and in practice. Where was he at each moment they had been in some kind of peril, so far?
"I've had it, Steinmeyer, you're fired." Katie said without any real commitment. She tried again: "Steinmeyer get the hell out of here, pendejo!"
"Don't swear." Steinmeyer told her with his heavy accent. He tipped his beret to her and lit one of his laced black cigarettes. This one had a blue stripe on its tip. Only Steinmeyer knew what each one was dipped in. After a few puffs he elaborated. "I mean you shouldn't swear. Not that swearing is bad. I do it all the time. I will probably drop the f-bomb more than any of you, during this outing. I mean it, I never stop cussing. From me, with my accent, it sounds perfect, you have to use the words right. From you, you are mangling the words. Don't swear."
"And you are high on the job, all the time." Katie admonished. Nothing really sounded too qualified from her on the subject of verbal abuse. She had dropped the clumsy swearing, that was a start.
"We have to get out of here." Steinmeyer said. "I am getting in that chopper." He turned as if to go to the chopped but casually walked into the sugar cane instead. Headlights lit up everyone.
Three military trucks of El Presidente had arrived.
"Your visas did not check out. We already have your money, too. Looks like this is it, Senora~. The game is over." Colonel Achrome walked alone up to the three Americans. He had been on Katie's case since she got to the island. Daniel had the tiny-enoughist-balls to suggest she just sleep with the creep and 'get it over with so we can get off this island' and she had hated him ever since. Of course she had done no such thing. "And here we are. You are under arrest for trying to leave, after El Presidente invited you to meet him tomorrow morning. Tell me Senora~, how will you meet El Presidente if you have left his island?"
"I wasn't going to meet him. And I am not going to offer you anything 'Casa Blanca' style as you put it." Katie said with no real volume-of-voice. Her timorous nature spared the Colonel any embarrassment and therefore he didn't have to shoot one of her two male companions. It was how order was maintained on El Presidente's Island, embarrass El Presidente or one of his top ranking officers and someone was going to get shot.
"That is alright. I would still like it very much if you would ride with me. There is room enough for one of your friends if you like. You have one too many, though." Colonel Achrome just said something he said alot when he got rejected. He wasn't the kind of villain that would abuse a woman. But he didn't appreciate being turned down either, and he was a murderer. He didn't shoot women, of course, that would anger El Presidente. Women were valuable and besides, El Presidente had an image to uphold. Not every dictator makes it to the cover of Time magazine twice.
"Could I bring Chris with me and Daniel could ride in one of the trucks?" Katie offered Colonel Achrome a smile, hoping he might get stingy with his bullets. They still had lots of footage of evidence and testimonies of public shootings and executions and even filmed a few, when they weren't being followed, just after the incident with the boats and the spiced rum.
"I don't see why not." Colonel Achrome offered Katie his arm and was led past the three trucks to his car. The Colonel had brought all of his men. There had to be about a hundred of them in those trucks. It was sinister beyond immediate comprehension, just how helpess they were without the helicopter crew.
"The Rolls Royce. He let you take out the Rolls Royce to bring us back?" Chris asked as he climbed in on the other side with Katie in the middle. Colonel Achrome just put one finger to his lips and shook his head 'no' and shrugged and tossed his hand as if he didn't care if El Presidente' found out he had borrowed the Rolls Royce.
"Is that why you brought all of your men?" Katie asked him.
"Sure." Colonel Achrome said. He stared out the window as if he were going to ignore her. Or now that the business of capturing the Americans was over with he had a lot of other things to worry about.
The Sugar Plantations of the island and the various infrastructure and canneries and military and communication outposts (the same thing) were passed by the convoy of three trucks and the Rolls Royce as it got very dark out as the stars faded under some low clouds and the moon disappeared over the very distant horizon of the sea, where stars met the water beneath those low clouds.
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Suddenly the lead truck stopped.
"Colonel!" A lieutenant came running towards the Rolls Royce. Achrome rolled down his window. "It is...its a snake!"
"Well run it over. Oh wait, no. The Royce. It would make a mess." Achrome decided. "Have a squad go at it with machetes and get it off the road."
"Why not just shoot it?" Katie wondered. She was the journalist, after all.
"There are reports of a rebel camp in this area. I would prefer to keep quiet as we pass through here. Ever see a convoy like this get hit from the sides? I'd lose a lot of men, maybe all of them. Can't afford that. Soldiers are very expensive, you know. I would lose my job."
"So shooting it is out-of-the-question." Katie agreed, comprehending. Chris was taking note of this also. He had lots of stock footage of these trucks driving all over the island. He was the documentary cameraman. He said:
"Could I film the snake?"
"Absolutely not. El Presidente wouldn't want to see that." Colonel Achrome stated. "He is going to be watching all of your footage, personally, before you leave."
"Oh." Chris heard himself say. He worried he could get shot for the stuff he had filmed. Spiced Rum wasn't the only crop on the island of El Presidente.
"Colonel! The snake! The snake. It killed five of our men. We can't kill it with machetes." The lieutenant reported. He was shaken by the battle with the snake.
"Nonsense. Send all of the men from the first truck with machetes to kill it. It can't win, it is just a dumb animal. Just a reptile. A snake." Achrome growled at the lieutenant.
The lieutenant complied and had all of the men from the first truck get out and then he armed them all with machetes, bayonets, shovels and even a few two-by-fours when they ran out of other obvious weapons they could use in the dark on the snake. The two-by-fours they lit on fire as torches and went around either side of the truck to engage the snake, disappearing from sight.
"How big, I mean, what kind of snakes are there on this island?" Chris asked. The men were screaming loudly. Something was killing them.
Then they came running around either side of the truck, fleeing the wrath of the serpent that had stopped the convoy by crossing the road.
"None at all. El Presidente saw to that. He had them exterminated. Every last one." Achrome drew his gun. He got out and started walking around the front of the truck. Shots rang out and flashes of gunfire. Then silence.
"Maybe since all the other snakes are gone this one ate up all the snake-food and possibly those large rodents that eat the cane, why they were a problem and then not a problem. The people said it was because El Presidente went to Harvard and has his own science, but really it is the leftover snakes, huge monstrous snakes with no rivals for food any more, eating it all to themselves." Katie was trembling and speaking quietly.
"I was just gonna say 'looks like you guys missed one' but then he got out and is probably dead." Chris said. The driver of the Rolls Royce suddenly got out and took off running as well.
There in the headlights was a massive king cobra-related serpent, this was a rare species and this specimen of it was longer than any anaconda or python on record. Over-fed and mutated, the snake had to be well over twenty feet long and it was very pissed off.
It had it's strangely shaped hood displayed. It was a smaller hood than a king cobra, and had dents in it, making it look like a double hood. It was out of venom, having just killed eleven men. All of them had been stunned and were now going into cardiac arrest as they lay on the road. Not all of her venom.
She spit some directly at Katie.
It splattered on the glass. Chris reached over and slammed the driver's door shut. The cobra slithered around the Rolls Royce and reared up, spitting the last of it's venom. Chris had heard snakes stop attacking when they ran out of venom, so the continous attack must mean she was still venomous. She wasn't though, but Chris's fear was elevated thinking 'it can spit'.
The snake blinked, or did something with its eyes, shifting them somehow. It was as if it was examining the glass. It reared up and struck the glass with it's thick skull, cracking the glass slightly. It struck again. Then the snake struck the glass a third time, this time seriously cracking the glass.
"Your fucking filming this?" Katie looked over and saw that Chris had his camera out and was filming the monster snake smashing its way into the Rolls Royce to kill the occupants in some kind of reptile rampage.
"Yeah, isn't it great?" Chris was grinning.
"It will kill us!" Katie exclaimed. "You idiot!' She added.
"Oh." Chris realized.
Suddenly the glass shattered and the snake poured its lengths into the Rolls Royce to get to Chris and Katie. They both escaped out the open door and slammed it shut before the snake could get out.
Just then, soldiers surrounded the Rolls Royce, this time with their automatic rifles. The lieutenant came staggering up. The snake was trapped in the car.
"Look, it is Colonel Achrome." Katie pointed. Achrome was still alive, he had gotten into the cab of the truck and saved himself while the snake decimated his men. He was coming towards them, trying to reload his gun and dropping it, along with his bullets.
"Shoot it. Shoot the snake." The lieutenant ordered. The soldiers started shooting bursts of thunder and light and lead. The glass all shattered and the seats took gore and holes. The car looked like it had belonged to Bonnie and Clyde by the time they had unloaded on the creature.
"No! Omigawd no! I am a dead man. A dead man." Colonel Achrome looked at the shot up Rolls Royce with the disintegrated snake all over the inside of it.
"Shouldn't we be getting out of here, like about the rebels and everything?" Chris asked the lieutenant. The injured officer nodded and ordered the bodies bagged and the trucks reoccupied. It was done with hustle.
Then the Rolls Royce started smoking from under its hood and flames erupted out of it.
"No!" Achrome screamed in agony. The trucks started moving out and had to push the burning vehicle out of the way. Part of the dead snake flopped out and dangled. The trucks left Achrome there.
He was crying. He watched the Rolls Royce burning, knowing he would not be forgiven by El Presidente. He found his gun and a bullet and shot himself. His body lay on the road.
"Did you get all of that?" Katie asked Chris.
"Most of it. Good stuff. Think he has our visas on him?" He asked.
"Only one way to find out." Katie emerged from where she had hid in the jungle. No doubt that rebels would come and investigate soon. They needed to hurry. She checked him and found their passports, including Steinmeyer's and Daniel's.
"We gotta go." Chris told her. She agreed and they fled all night back to the helicopter. There they found Steinmeyer had actually not left them there.
"Where is the other one, Daniel?" Steinmeyer asked them.
"He is with El Presidente. We are getting the fuck off this island. You can go back for him later, if you want to." Katie said to Steinmeyer.
"I just think you should wait for him. He is your friend. I am not even your friend and you tried to fire me and I waited." Steinmeyer pointed out.
"We are not waiting. Get us out of here." Katie ordered Steinmeyer.
"You are the boss. I have no way to come back for him, are you really sure you want to leave him behind?" Steinmeyer was already climbing into the helicopter.
"Let's go." She said without hesitation. Chris shuddered, glad he wasn't the one getting left on El Presidente's island.