Sabotage Read Online Free PDF Page A

salt-engorged lake, thinking they'd skirt the edge and make their way as far as possible from the downed plane. Vince felt bad about leaving the two dead pilots, but there was nothing they could do about that now.
     
    Karl froze, his hand in the air, head pointed forward. Vince stopped to listen, his eyes trying to peer through the dense fog. It wasn't raining anymore. The only sounds they heard, other than their own voices, had been the sloshing of their boots through the mud and wet underbrush.
     
    "Did you hear that?" Karl asked.
     
    Vince shook his head. "No. What was it?"
     
    "I'm not sure. Maybe a—. Wait, hold on."
     
    Vince sensed more than saw Karl crouch down. Vince matched his movement and then he saw it. Up ahead, there was a faint flickering of light. Not flashlights or anything electric. It looked warm, like the color of the inside of an orange; it was probably a fire. It reminded him of those old stories of southern plantation owners gathering for a manhunt into the swamps, torches lit, weapons ready, as their slaves ran for freedom. It almost made Vince laugh. Now the tables were turned. He was in Africa and he was being hunted.
     
    Even though unarmed, Vince and Karl were far from helpless. The sight of light up ahead sparked Vince’s senses and made him forget about the cold. He motioned for Karl to go right and he would go left. Suddenly his every movement felt amplified ten times. The sound of the splashing hit his eardrums like fireworks. He did his best to keep the sloshing to a constant ripple, and he wondered if they were making the right decision to go toward the light instead of away from it. But Vince’s instincts screamed—if they were going to get out of this mess, they needed help, and help might be sitting next to that burning light.
     
    Maybe they'd get lucky and stumble across peasants out for a midnight stroll, but what they really needed was a telephone. Luckily it seemed like ninety percent of the Earth's population carried around a cell phone, so it wasn't crazy to think that they might be able to borrow or steal one. The light up ahead flickered and disappeared; it took Vince a moment to realize the fire wasn't gone, but as he moved around, a small hill came between him and his objective.
     
    Good , he thought. There wasn't much cover and any he could find was a welcome stroke of luck. The terrain finally opened up and Vince saw the origin of the flickering light. It was a small hut; it appeared more as a collection of rags pulled over taut sticks than a real shelter. As the clouds shifted, and the moon cast down an eerie glow, he saw that the hut was perched on the water’s edge. From where he stood, it didn’t look like a permanent structure. It was not a home for a family but a shack up on stilts to protect nomads from the elements.
     
    He glanced to the right for his twin shadow, but he didn't see Karl. Maybe he hadn't made his way around yet, or maybe he was already there. It would've been better if it was raining to make the approach and conceal their movements. 
     
    Vince was careful now, each step measured, and then he heard voices. No, not voices, he corrected himself as he stopped to listen. He heard one voice, repeating something over and over. So he kept going, and as he closed the gap, he realized it wasn't talking. It was some sort of chanting or maybe singing. He imagined an old sunbaked man sitting in the hut, preparing his nets or hunting spears, mindlessly singing some old family song, whiling away the hours until the weather allowed him to resume his humble trade once dawn approached.
     
    Then the wind shifted and the smell of roasting meat made Vince's stomach rumble. And that was why, a moment later, he was caught off guard at the sound of a snap of a twig to his left, followed by a curse.
     
    Vince froze. There was someone coming followed by a shout from the hut, like a greeting or a question in some foreign dialect. A head poked out of one of the