El Corazon (7/10)
El Corazon (7/10)
Author: Amy
Pairing: Orlibean
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Never happened. This has been adapted from the movie Romancing the Stone - it does not belong to me no harm is meant and no money is being made.
Beta: The lovely giselleslash all remaining mistakes are mine.
Summary: Romance writer Orlando Bloom travels to Colombia to save his sister who has been kidnapped.
Note: This is for the orlibean Summer Movie Challenge. The movie I chose was Romancing the Stone. There are still plenty of movies to choose from so if you're interested in participating please follow the link above and join the fun.
Note #2: The Next part will be Posted on Sunday 8/26.
Previous Parts
Thanks to cammissbloom for my lovely banner and icon!
Viggo was furious.
They’d had Bloom, and more importantly the map, at their fingertips and they’d let them get away. Bloom had somehow managed to find a helper and they’d disappeared off into the jungle. Now they’d have to be tracked down and Viggo didn’t want to track anyone down. Bloom was supposed to be an easy mark and he was turning into a giant pain in the ass.
No bother, it would just make the end result just that much more interesting. Bloom would be his in the end, there was no doubt about that. No matter how many protectors he got or how long he tried to run he couldn’t escape the fact that he would be in Viggo’s grasp eventually and he would pay for this little escapade.
Oh yes he would pay and Viggo would enjoy every minute of it.
He stared down at the folded map in his lap, his eyes scanning the sector they were in for any nearby towns or villages for the pair to try and get to. The closest substantial town was Santa Maria, it had the twin luxuries of not only having restaurants and hotels and telephones but it was also in the direction they’d need to travel to get to Cartagena. He was sure they would head in that direction.
But he smirked as he saw the small speck on the map labeled Wilama. It was directly in the path between the jungle and Santa Maria. It was not a town that was found on most maps but being the head of the SP gave him access to things that most tourists didn’t need to know about. Wilama wasn’t really a village, but an outpost for a small band of drug runners lead by The Bellmaker. Viggo frowned. The Bellmaker was one of the few drug runners that he had been unable to fully bring under his thumb. Not that it mattered while The Bellmaker probably had a telephone in his estate, but Viggo had no way of contacting the man to order him not to kill the strangers that were about to stumbled into his safe haven.
Viggo was going to need to act fast to get there before they did or at least soon enough afterwards. If The Bellmaker found the map he’d know in an instant what it was or would assume it led to drugs either way he wouldn’t give it up so easily, especially to Viggo. Viggo snapped a hurried direction at his driver. The command was barked throughout the outfit and soon they were screeching off as fast as the muddy roads would allow them. Despite the activity Viggo felt calm. Soon the map and Bloom would be in his possession. He was sure of it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Dominic woke with a start as his car started to rock uncontrollably. His first thought was that he was in the middle of an earthquake. He’d never been in one didn’t know if Colombia was prone to having them or not but that was still the first thought that popped into his mind. After a few more moments his brain began to focus properly and he recognized the sound of cars tearing by him. He carefully poked his head up over the front seat and watched as police vehicle after police vehicle passed by his car.
He quickly ducked his head back down as he recognized them as the ones that had been at the police outpost he’d dropped Viggo off at. He’d managed to get out of there without giving himself away and with his wanted poster in tow. He’d spent the rest of the afternoon chasing them back and forth as they wandered the back mountain and jungle roads of Colombia.
Eventually he’d given up after overhearing a couple of the lower ranked police officers mumbling about how the people they were after had disappeared into the jungle. He’d been hiding behind a tree at that point trying to figure out what the hell had been going on and was lucky to not have gotten caught. Still it was worth the danger because he realized that they didn’t have any clue where Bloom was and that it was pointless for him to chase after them and risk being noticed.
He’d went back to his car and pulled out the Colombian map he’d stuffed into the glove compartment. After some twisting and turning he finally located his presumed location and decided that Bloom would most likely be looking for a phone and his best luck at finding one would be in the town of Santa Maria. He also assumed that it would take Bloom at least a day to get there, if not more, so there would be no hurry. With that in mind he’d backed his car back up off the main road and crawled into the open back area and went to sleep. His stomach was grumbling, he was getting a ranging headache and the car would probably be stuck in the mud when he was ready to move it, but at that moment he didn’t care about anything but sleep.
He glanced down at his watch and was appalled to see how early it was. He crawled back under his blanket and willed himself back to sleep. The crazy messed up world could wait a little longer. It wasn’t like things were going to be getting any better or easier for him anytime soon anyway.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The relief of finally escaping the jungle and then quickly happening upon what looked like a village in the distance disappeared as they started to walk through the streets of the village. If one could even call it a village which Sean quickly realized you couldn’t. It was simply a group of houses strung together along a muddy pathway that had pigs and chickens milling around on it. There were no people about and that caused a shiver of fear to trail down Sean’s spine and he reached out and grabbed Orlando’s arm, pulling him just a hair closer.
“Stay close,” he murmured under his breath.
“Not a problem,” Orlando murmured back.
They walked through the seemingly deserted town in silence. The silence wasn’t really a new thing, it had been following them since they woke up and set off just as the sun was rising that morning. Between the two of them they made good progress at a steady pace. The silence had been friendly enough until Sean had pressed the issue of the map a few too many times and Orlando had shut him down completely and all traces of him being comfortable around Sean had almost vanished.
Sean had backed off but when they took a break, and Orlando had somehow managed to fall asleep on the lumpy ground for a nap, Sean had pulled out the map and tried to memorize as much of it as possible. He knew it wouldn’t be any use so he returned the map and hoped that he’d have a chance to get a photocopy of it before they parted ways.
“What…is this place?” Orlando muttered to him as they weaved around mud puddles and came across an old woman sitting on her porch with knitting needles in hand. “A farming community?”
“Of a sort,” Sean hissed back as they stopped and took stock of the woman in front of them.
Orlando’s eye rounded and became large as saucers as the realization sunk in. He started to back up down the path. “Maybe…we should leave…”
“Where else are we going to go?” Sean said mildly, reaching back to pull Orlando back towards him. “We don’t know where we are or how far it is to the next town. Besides, they’ve already seen us and leaving suddenly would be more suspicious than being here in the first place.”
Orlando seemed to buy that but in reality Sean had no clue what he was talking about. Maybe it would be better for them to turn around and leave but he knew that Orlando was desperate to at least get to a phone to call this Elijah person to let him know that he was okay in case the kidnappers had called his place, where Elijah was staying, demanding to know where he was.
“So…what do we do?” Orlando mumbled tiredly. “Do we ask her if there’s a phone?”
“That would probably be a good place to start,” Sean said with a nod.
He edged towards the old lady. There was nothing to stop her from pulling out a machine gun from inside the open door to the house. Sean would be more surprised if she didn’t have something there. She kept her eyes on her work, not acknowledging them at all, until Sean cleared his throat. Once he had her attention he asked her in Spanish if there was a phone in town.
She regarded them suspiciously, her eyes lingering on Orlando long enough to make him fidget under the stare. Then she slowly nodded her head. “Si, the Bellmaker…” she pointed one of her long bony fingers up the road they had been walking on.
He thanked her and then hurriedly pulled Orlando away from the lady before she could change her mind about being so helpful and pulled out that gun. As they walked the muddy path the hair on the back of Sean’s neck began to stand up and he sensed the movement behind them. Orlando seemed to sense it too because several times he tried to look behind them which Sean forcefully stopped.
“Don’t,” he hissed and kept his hand on Orlando’s arm propelling them forward.
“Why do you think this place is called the Bellmaker?” Orlando asked nervously and Sean could tell he was mainly just trying to distract himself. “Do you think they make bells?” the last was said in such a hopeful tone that the laugh that Sean was going to let out faded quickly.
“Probably not,” he said mildly.
They rounded the corner and a large villa appeared before them. They stopped short. It loomed above them looking entirely out of place after the rest of the claptrap houses they had passed to get there. Sean pushed open the wooden gate and the inside courtyard was immaculately kept with exotic flowers blooming in pots, a friendly dog came to sniff at them and then scampered out. The moment relaxed Sean until the sound of the gate squeaking open behind them brought him back to reality.
He had to look behind them; there was no option now, he needed to at least know what they were up against. As he glanced backwards he wished he hadn’t. There were a dozen dirty, dangerous looking men all carrying large weapons. They looked more unfriendly than anything they’d yet come across and definitely looked like they didn’t like trespassers, which is exactly what they were. Belatedly Sean realized that Orlando had looked behind them too and he tripped and almost stumbled on the steps leading to the front door of the actual home.
“Stay calm,” he murmured as he managed to catch Orlando before he ended up flat on his face.
“Stay calm,” Orlando asked incredulously. “How on earth do you expect me to stay calm when we have a mad army behind us?”
“Just…try…” Sean said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. “I’m going to go knock.”
“Knock?” Orlando asked, nervously following Sean up onto the raised porch area.
“It’ll probably go better with the mad army if I knock rather than barge in.”
“Oh…right….” Orlando said in a small voice.
Sean knocked on the door and waited. The men had stopped when they’d reached the door. Far enough back to not be too menacing but close enough to be a worry. Sean didn’t know how they were going to get out of this if things didn’t go well with this Bellmaker person, which given the track record of their particular adventure, was that things were probably not going to go very well.
A small peephole opened up in the door and a face appeared in the window. It was craggy and the European descent was very clear. “Yes, what do you want?” said a voice in thick broken English.
“Well, sir,” he said as respectively as he could. “We are very much in need of a phone and were wondering if we could use yours…”
“No,” the voice said without hesitation. “Take care of them.”
The window snapped shut and Sean exchanged a glance with Orlando. There was no doubt who the man had been talking to when he’d said take care of them and there was no doubting the meaning behind those words. He reached out and grabbed Orlando placing him between himself and the door as the men started to approach. It was feeble protection but it felt better than just letting Orlando hang out without protection.
“Well Orlando Bloom,” he drawled as pleasantly as he could under the circumstances. “How are you going to write us out of this one?”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Orlando winced as his head made contact with the rough wood of the door. He tried to take a deep calming breath but it didn’t work until he grasped the back of Sean’s shirt as he stood in front of him. It was a feeble sort of protection, Orlando knew it wouldn’t do him much good but he was calmed by Sean’s effort. He gave a half snort at Sean’s comment, he only wished he could write them out of this. Write himself and Sean and Samantha out of the whole sorry adventure. He flinched as the peephole on the door slid open and the man who’d sealed their fate spoke.
“Orlando Bloom? You’re Orlando Bloom…*the* Orlando Bloom?” the accented voice filtered out.
Orlando shifted his position so that he could look at the face that was peering out at him intently. “Ye…yes…” he managed to get out with a shaky voice.
“Come closer,” the voice said again.
Orlando felt rather than saw Sean tense at that comment but Orlando did as he was asked. It wasn’t like he’d be any worse off facing the man in the house than the other men surrounding them. He examined the craggy face as it examined him, the eyes went from suspicious to pleased in about three seconds and a string of Spanish was let out in a commanding tone, Orlando only half registered his name being said over and over. The faces of the men went from angry to excited, they swarmed forward and Sean shifted to put himself more firmly between Orlando and the men. They looked disappointed until Orlando peeked out from behind Sean and gave them a nervous wave. They hurried off back out of the courtyard. Orlando jumped as the door swung open and the man regarded them both with a huge grin.
“Well that’s a horse of a different color,” he said in perfectly clear English with a distinguished sounding British accent attached to it. “Come in, come in.”
For a moment Sean and Orlando stood staring at each other unsure if they should trust this man or not. Sean took a few steps into the house, he grasped Orlando’s arm, gently tugging him after him making sure he was between Orlando and the other man. Orlando shut the door behind them because it seemed the proper thing to do and clutched Sean, allowing him to continue to lead.
“You’re English…” Sean said suspiciously.
“As are you, my boy, as are you,” the man pointed out with a grin as they entered a large sitting room area.
“I’m not pretending to be otherwise,” Sean said in an even voice. Orlando recognized the hint of annoyance hidden in its depth.
“That’s true, that’s true,” the man said in a cheery voice.
It was quickly evident that he was not going to elaborate any further why he was pretending to be a native Colombian. He swept to the side and with a wide arch of his hand showed off a side table that was lined with colorful books. Orlando’s eyes widened as he took a few steps closer and realized it was a library of sorts filled entirely of very familiar titles.
“I have them all,” the man said as he appeared at Orlando’s side causing him to jump in surprise. “Even the first one,” he reached out and fingered the first book, it looked well worn. “Though I prefer the Miranda series,” he said with a grin. “Love that Daisy.”
“Ah…thank you…” Orlando mumbled softly, unsure just how to react to such comments from someone who’d nearly had them killed.
“You stumbled out of the jungle,” the man continued, changing the subject rather abruptly as he swirled away from the books. “Whatever were you doing in there?”
“Ah…” Orlando looked to Sean for help but Sean was distracted by the row of books and Orlando realized that it was probably better that he be the one to answer the questions since they were being addressed to him. “Our bus broke down on the…ah…mountain,” he waved his hand vaguely. “We tried walking and the ground gave way and…we had to make our way through the jungle.” He held his breath hoping that his explanation held enough answers to appease the man’s curiosity.
It seemed to work. “What are you doing in Colombia then?” There was a pause as his eyes lit up. “Are you here on a research mission?”
“Well…yes,” Orlando said after a moment’s hesitation, it was a good cover for why they were there.
The man’s eyes lit up even further and he took a few steps closer to Orlando. “And what sort of research were you doing here?”
“Well…” Orlando trailed helplessly. “Not…I really shouldn’t…tell…my agent…would kill me.”
“Of course,” the man said with a twinkle in his eyes. “But you can’t blame an old man for trying, now can you?”
“No I suppose not,” Orlando answered with a smile and a laugh.
The laughter seemed to drive some of the tension in him out and he let out a deep calming breath. His attention was drawn by a clearing of a throat behind him; he turned and found that Sean was still standing by the books. He was holding one in his hands looking at the picture on the back cover. Orlando found himself fussing momentarily with his hair, he suddenly felt extremely grubby as Sean looked up at him and mouthed phone in his direction.
“Ah...Bellmaker…sir…”
“Call me Ian, please, Orlando,” he said in a silky tone. “It’s not my real name of course but it does the job.”
“Oh…yes…well…Ian,” Orlando stumbled slightly, realizing that Ian was flirting rather outrageously with him. “We were told that you have a phone…and we could really use one, no one knows where we are at the moment…”
“Oh yes, of course,” Ian said with a smile. It was clear he realized he was making Orlando uncomfortable and that he was relishing it. “It’s in my private rooms but I’ll have it brought out and connected out here for your use. In the meantime I’m sure you’re hungry and in need of the facilities so I’ll go see about getting some refreshments.”
There was a slight change in his demeanor as he headed towards a set of doors on the side of the room. Orlando saw that there was a man standing there waiting for him and their heads were already lowered in a hushed conversation before the doors even closed behind them. He turned towards Sean, his stomach sinking a bit. He was holding a different book in his hand flipping through the pages.
“I think we might be in trouble,” he said in a low voice.
“We were never out of trouble,” Sean answered easily. “Did you really write all these?”
“Yes,” Orlando answered distractedly. “Aren’t you worried at all that we’re basically trapped in the house of a man that wanted to have us killed?”
“Not any different from everyone else wanting to kill us at the moment now is it?” he drawled with a shrug of his shoulder.
“Sean!” Orlando snapped in irritation.
“Look,” Sean said tightly dropping the book and stepping closer to Orlando. “You need to calm down. Panicking is not going to help our situation. At the moment it’s pretty good.”
“Pretty good?” Orlando said in an incredulous voice. “The man is clearly a drug…person and we’re trapped in his house.”
“I hardly doubt he’s going to kill us…well you anyway…he’ll never get any more of your books if he does, right?
“Well that’s completely different then,” Orlando said with a roll of his eyes, his voice become even tighter as a layer of familiar panic started settling down over him. “The fact that he could kill you and lock me in a room here somewhere in some bizarre take on Misery makes me feel so much better.”
“You’re cute when you’re upset,” Sean said lazily, running a finger against Orlando’s cheek.
Orlando blinked in confusion and took a step backwards. His eyes narrowed as he took in the smirk that Sean was sending him. He got the impression that while Sean was mostly just trying to distract him from the situation that there might be a little bit of truth behind them. But again this wasn’t the time or place to be examining these feelings. He took a couple of deep calming breaths and tried desperately to think about Samantha. He needed to stay calm to get out of here and get to her. That was the only thing that mattered.
“Thank you,” he mumbled softly.
He knew that Sean wouldn’t realize that he had successfully blocked a panic attack but he was thankful none the less. The relief lasted for a split second when the side doors slammed open and Ian strode back in. Gone was the cheerful flirtatious old man that had left the room. In his place was a cold hard general. Orlando took an unconscious step towards Sean.
“You didn’t tell me that the Police were after you…that Viggo was after you,” he said shortly.
“Ian…sir…” Orlando started but was stopped by a hard look from the man.
“I’m sure you can understand why we didn’t,” Sean said calmly, pinning Ian with a dangerous look.
“Of course I can,” Ian muttered darkly.
“I take it you’re not a fan?” Sean asked. Orlando looked at him wondering where he was going with all of this.
“No,” Ian said with a shake of his head. “I am one of the few that is still openly against him. He doesn’t bother me that much because I only bring in enough money to keep up my lifestyle and support my people in theirs so there is no power to gain from me. I try undermining him anytime I can.”
“You could do it now…” Sean said quickly. “He’s after Orlando.”
“That bastard,” Ian muttered again, his eyes lingering on a confused Orlando. “That can’t happen, I will not allow it.”
“We need to get to Cartagena,” Sean said moving ahead at a brisk pace. “Or some place that we can get a bus or rent a car to get there.”
“Santa Maria is the nearest town with a bus depot, I can get you there,” Ian said after a moment’s thought. “We don’t have much time. They’re swarming towards us as we speak.”
“Do you have something that can outrun them?” Sean asked, his hand already looping through Orlando’s arm and dragging him towards Ian.
“I have something that’ll do just the thing,” Ian said with a twinkle in his eyes. “We’ll just have to pay a visit to Old Milo.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Orlando gave a yelp as the truck burst through the front gate of the complex and careened through the muddy streets of the town scattering the uniformed police officers in every direction as they hurried to get out of the way.
Old Milo, it turned out, was not a person like Orlando was expecting him to be but the truck that they were riding in. Just how Ian had gotten the truck and how it had gotten its name was not a story that they had time to share as they climbed inside as Ian brought it to life with a deep growl. Given the man’s profession Orlando decided that he was probably better off not knowing the answer anyway.
Besides, he was much too busy praying for his life at the moment to worry too deeply about anything else.
He screeched as they rounded a sharp corner and he found himself almost completely in Sean’s lap. Sean laughed and Orlando glared up at him as they spun around in the dirt to avoid a pig and Sean gave a great whoop like they were just on a ride at the fair and not in the middle of a life and death chase. He turned his glare on Ian as they spun around the pig again and tore off in the direction they’d just come from. Orlando found himself landing back on the middle section of the seat with a smack hard enough to make his legs hurt.
“Can’t hit that pig,” Ian said with a wide grin. “It’s my favorite one!”
Orlando clutched at Sean and closed his eyes as they headed straight towards a police car that was headed in their direction. It was a very real and dangerous game of chicken and in the end the police gave in. Ian cackled loudly as the police car careened off to the side and crashed into the side of one of the houses. A glance over his shoulder showed a view of the old lady that had pointed them in the right direction as she had come out of the house and started whacking one of the officers with a broom. It almost made Orlando laugh but instead the whole thing was making his head hurt.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” he yelled towards Ian over the gunning engine.
“Of course I do, darling. I always know what I’m doing,” he drawled with a wink and Orlando huffed in irritation. “Just trying to get a few of them off our back to give us some space to move.”
With a sigh Orlando nodded his head and leaned forward to grip at the truck’s dashboard, both for stability and so he didn’t further embarrass himself by clutching Sean. Not that Sean seemed to mind or even notice the way he was full out enjoying the ride they were in the middle of. It took them another ten gut wrenching minutes to lose all but one of the pursuers. At that moment Ian veered off onto a side street that led them into a wide open field. Orlando breathed a sigh of relief thinking that the wild ride was finally over.
That relief was short lived as he saw a river running lazily through the field. The river had no bridge that he could see, at least not in the direction they were going, which was straight towards it. “There’s no bridge!” he yelped needlessly.
“Not a problem, dear boy,” Ian said with a wink. “My predecessor had plenty of run-ins with the police that he devised a rather ingenious way of escape across the river…”
He reached over and pressed a button on the dashboard and Orlando watched with wide eyes as a ramp appeared out of the river. It was rather ingenious or at least he thought so until he realized that it didn’t extend all the way across the river. He felt his stomach roll as Sean reached out, grabbed him and pulled him backwards giving a great hoot as they hit the end of the ramp and went sailing over the river. For a split second Orlando allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of being airborne, but that was all the time they had before they crashed down on the other side. The truck gave a whine and then sped off across the field.
“That was awesome,” Sean crowed even as Orlando was thanking the stars that he hadn’t had much to eat that day otherwise he probably would have thrown up a few times by now. “But what about them,” he said pointing over his shoulder towards the other car that was heading towards the ramp.
“Ah yes…them,” Ian said with a smirk.
He pressed a different button on the dashboard and as Sean and Orlando turned to look they saw the ramp shift so that it was jutting upwards. The car that had been on their tail didn’t have enough time to stop or to change direction as it smashed headfirst into the barricade. Sean laughed as they watched the two men that had been in the car stumble out. He turned his head and sent Ian an appreciative grin.
“That’s a nice piece of work,” he said.
“It is isn’t it,” Ian said with a wide grin of his own. “’Course it only works one way and the nearest bridge back across is miles away but it’s good when one needs to escape.”
Orlando breathed another sigh of relief as it became clear that the rest of their journey would be without adventure. He settled back against the seat letting his head drop against Sean’s shoulder. He hoped that all the major adventures were over. He was getting rather tired of adventures.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sean was still buzzing 45 minutes later when they finally came to a stop on the top of a rolling hill. Spread out in the valley below he could see a decent sized town. It would be a couple miles hike down to it but given everything else they’d been through it’d be relatively easy.
“That’s Santa Maria down below us,” Ian was saying. “I would take you all the way but I really do need to go back and do damage control and make sure my people are okay. You shouldn’t have any problems going the rest of the way on foot.”
“I hope we haven’t caused you too much trouble,” Orlando said in a worried tone.
“It shouldn’t be too bad,” Ian said with an elegant shrug of his shoulders. “I can’t tell them anything because I don’t know anything and it’s their own fault for breaking our agreement and coming into town. I won’t tell them where you’re going and will try to lead them in a different direction when I come back but…I wouldn’t stick around for too long, there aren’t many towns in this part of Colombia so they’ll figure it out sooner rather than later.”
“Thank you, Ian,” Orlando said with a smile.
He leaned in and pressed his lips against the older man’s ear and began whispering something. Sean shook his head, he could guess what Orlando was telling the older man. He turned to look at the area around them, trying to figure out the quickest way down. For the first time he noticed the tree on the very top of the hill and his heart stopped for a moment before it picked up at a much quicker pace.
It was a very distinctive tree. No leaves of any sort were on it, the main section was tall and thick and there were two other branches jutting off the side that bent upwards towards the sky. It looked almost like a fork. The Devil’s Fork was a landmark on the map and from what he could remember looked remarkably like the tree, though it hadn’t been marked as such. He turned his attention back to the other two men as Ian called his farewell. He lifted his hand up in reply and then walked over to join Orlando.
“You told him where the plane was, didn’t you?” he said with a grin as he stopped next to him. He hoped his voice sounded normal.
Orlando shrugged his shoulders but didn’t look too put out by being pegged so easily. “Well he deserves some sort of payment for helping us out…”
”And for not having us killed…” Sean added mildly.
“That too,” Orlando said with a grin. “The plane seemed the easiest way to do so since I doubt I’ll have a chance to come back here and Elijah would kill me if I gave any spoilers out, even to a Colombian drug lord.”
Sean laughed, he found he rather liked this Elijah bloke, despite having never met him. “Think you can manage to get down the hill without killing yourself?” he teased gently.
“If the end result is food, a long hot shower and a nice warm bed for the night I think I can manage,” Orlando teased back with a grin and then started gingerly down the path that Sean pointed out for him.
Sean paused for a moment as he watched Orlando start down, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have gone first in case Orlando slipped and fell, at least then he’d be able to try to stop the fall. He shook his head, Orlando had done well enough all things considered, he’d do alright with this. He thought about the playful tone in Orlando’s voice as he’d answered him, it was one of the rare occasions they’d interacted where they hadn’t been yelling or talking about how to save their lives. It felt nice, much nicer than it should have and it made the plan that was starting to form in his head about the map seem like a step in the wrong direction.
But he reminded himself this wasn’t a lifetime bond they were forming. He was taking Orlando to Cartagena, once there he’d make sure that the lad didn’t get killed trying to get his sister back and once they were both safe he’d get his payment and they’d disappear from his life. What Orlando didn’t know about the map wouldn’t hurt him. He’d said himself that he didn’t even care what the map led to. He only wanted it to get his sister back. If the kidnappers found that what they were looking for was gone by the time they got there then it was nothing to either one of them. Sean would be long gone and Orlando would be safe back in New York.
All he needed to do was get a hold of the map long enough to make a copy of it and then get it back before Orlando noticed it was missing. It didn’t seem that hard and the end result would make them both happy.
And that was all that mattered in the end…right?
* * *
TBC
Forward to: Part Eight
Back to: El Corazon Fic Index
Author: Amy
Pairing: Orlibean
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Never happened. This has been adapted from the movie Romancing the Stone - it does not belong to me no harm is meant and no money is being made.
Beta: The lovely giselleslash all remaining mistakes are mine.
Summary: Romance writer Orlando Bloom travels to Colombia to save his sister who has been kidnapped.
Note: This is for the orlibean Summer Movie Challenge. The movie I chose was Romancing the Stone. There are still plenty of movies to choose from so if you're interested in participating please follow the link above and join the fun.
Note #2: The Next part will be Posted on Sunday 8/26.
Previous Parts
Thanks to cammissbloom for my lovely banner and icon!
Viggo was furious.
They’d had Bloom, and more importantly the map, at their fingertips and they’d let them get away. Bloom had somehow managed to find a helper and they’d disappeared off into the jungle. Now they’d have to be tracked down and Viggo didn’t want to track anyone down. Bloom was supposed to be an easy mark and he was turning into a giant pain in the ass.
No bother, it would just make the end result just that much more interesting. Bloom would be his in the end, there was no doubt about that. No matter how many protectors he got or how long he tried to run he couldn’t escape the fact that he would be in Viggo’s grasp eventually and he would pay for this little escapade.
Oh yes he would pay and Viggo would enjoy every minute of it.
He stared down at the folded map in his lap, his eyes scanning the sector they were in for any nearby towns or villages for the pair to try and get to. The closest substantial town was Santa Maria, it had the twin luxuries of not only having restaurants and hotels and telephones but it was also in the direction they’d need to travel to get to Cartagena. He was sure they would head in that direction.
But he smirked as he saw the small speck on the map labeled Wilama. It was directly in the path between the jungle and Santa Maria. It was not a town that was found on most maps but being the head of the SP gave him access to things that most tourists didn’t need to know about. Wilama wasn’t really a village, but an outpost for a small band of drug runners lead by The Bellmaker. Viggo frowned. The Bellmaker was one of the few drug runners that he had been unable to fully bring under his thumb. Not that it mattered while The Bellmaker probably had a telephone in his estate, but Viggo had no way of contacting the man to order him not to kill the strangers that were about to stumbled into his safe haven.
Viggo was going to need to act fast to get there before they did or at least soon enough afterwards. If The Bellmaker found the map he’d know in an instant what it was or would assume it led to drugs either way he wouldn’t give it up so easily, especially to Viggo. Viggo snapped a hurried direction at his driver. The command was barked throughout the outfit and soon they were screeching off as fast as the muddy roads would allow them. Despite the activity Viggo felt calm. Soon the map and Bloom would be in his possession. He was sure of it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Dominic woke with a start as his car started to rock uncontrollably. His first thought was that he was in the middle of an earthquake. He’d never been in one didn’t know if Colombia was prone to having them or not but that was still the first thought that popped into his mind. After a few more moments his brain began to focus properly and he recognized the sound of cars tearing by him. He carefully poked his head up over the front seat and watched as police vehicle after police vehicle passed by his car.
He quickly ducked his head back down as he recognized them as the ones that had been at the police outpost he’d dropped Viggo off at. He’d managed to get out of there without giving himself away and with his wanted poster in tow. He’d spent the rest of the afternoon chasing them back and forth as they wandered the back mountain and jungle roads of Colombia.
Eventually he’d given up after overhearing a couple of the lower ranked police officers mumbling about how the people they were after had disappeared into the jungle. He’d been hiding behind a tree at that point trying to figure out what the hell had been going on and was lucky to not have gotten caught. Still it was worth the danger because he realized that they didn’t have any clue where Bloom was and that it was pointless for him to chase after them and risk being noticed.
He’d went back to his car and pulled out the Colombian map he’d stuffed into the glove compartment. After some twisting and turning he finally located his presumed location and decided that Bloom would most likely be looking for a phone and his best luck at finding one would be in the town of Santa Maria. He also assumed that it would take Bloom at least a day to get there, if not more, so there would be no hurry. With that in mind he’d backed his car back up off the main road and crawled into the open back area and went to sleep. His stomach was grumbling, he was getting a ranging headache and the car would probably be stuck in the mud when he was ready to move it, but at that moment he didn’t care about anything but sleep.
He glanced down at his watch and was appalled to see how early it was. He crawled back under his blanket and willed himself back to sleep. The crazy messed up world could wait a little longer. It wasn’t like things were going to be getting any better or easier for him anytime soon anyway.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The relief of finally escaping the jungle and then quickly happening upon what looked like a village in the distance disappeared as they started to walk through the streets of the village. If one could even call it a village which Sean quickly realized you couldn’t. It was simply a group of houses strung together along a muddy pathway that had pigs and chickens milling around on it. There were no people about and that caused a shiver of fear to trail down Sean’s spine and he reached out and grabbed Orlando’s arm, pulling him just a hair closer.
“Stay close,” he murmured under his breath.
“Not a problem,” Orlando murmured back.
They walked through the seemingly deserted town in silence. The silence wasn’t really a new thing, it had been following them since they woke up and set off just as the sun was rising that morning. Between the two of them they made good progress at a steady pace. The silence had been friendly enough until Sean had pressed the issue of the map a few too many times and Orlando had shut him down completely and all traces of him being comfortable around Sean had almost vanished.
Sean had backed off but when they took a break, and Orlando had somehow managed to fall asleep on the lumpy ground for a nap, Sean had pulled out the map and tried to memorize as much of it as possible. He knew it wouldn’t be any use so he returned the map and hoped that he’d have a chance to get a photocopy of it before they parted ways.
“What…is this place?” Orlando muttered to him as they weaved around mud puddles and came across an old woman sitting on her porch with knitting needles in hand. “A farming community?”
“Of a sort,” Sean hissed back as they stopped and took stock of the woman in front of them.
Orlando’s eye rounded and became large as saucers as the realization sunk in. He started to back up down the path. “Maybe…we should leave…”
“Where else are we going to go?” Sean said mildly, reaching back to pull Orlando back towards him. “We don’t know where we are or how far it is to the next town. Besides, they’ve already seen us and leaving suddenly would be more suspicious than being here in the first place.”
Orlando seemed to buy that but in reality Sean had no clue what he was talking about. Maybe it would be better for them to turn around and leave but he knew that Orlando was desperate to at least get to a phone to call this Elijah person to let him know that he was okay in case the kidnappers had called his place, where Elijah was staying, demanding to know where he was.
“So…what do we do?” Orlando mumbled tiredly. “Do we ask her if there’s a phone?”
“That would probably be a good place to start,” Sean said with a nod.
He edged towards the old lady. There was nothing to stop her from pulling out a machine gun from inside the open door to the house. Sean would be more surprised if she didn’t have something there. She kept her eyes on her work, not acknowledging them at all, until Sean cleared his throat. Once he had her attention he asked her in Spanish if there was a phone in town.
She regarded them suspiciously, her eyes lingering on Orlando long enough to make him fidget under the stare. Then she slowly nodded her head. “Si, the Bellmaker…” she pointed one of her long bony fingers up the road they had been walking on.
He thanked her and then hurriedly pulled Orlando away from the lady before she could change her mind about being so helpful and pulled out that gun. As they walked the muddy path the hair on the back of Sean’s neck began to stand up and he sensed the movement behind them. Orlando seemed to sense it too because several times he tried to look behind them which Sean forcefully stopped.
“Don’t,” he hissed and kept his hand on Orlando’s arm propelling them forward.
“Why do you think this place is called the Bellmaker?” Orlando asked nervously and Sean could tell he was mainly just trying to distract himself. “Do you think they make bells?” the last was said in such a hopeful tone that the laugh that Sean was going to let out faded quickly.
“Probably not,” he said mildly.
They rounded the corner and a large villa appeared before them. They stopped short. It loomed above them looking entirely out of place after the rest of the claptrap houses they had passed to get there. Sean pushed open the wooden gate and the inside courtyard was immaculately kept with exotic flowers blooming in pots, a friendly dog came to sniff at them and then scampered out. The moment relaxed Sean until the sound of the gate squeaking open behind them brought him back to reality.
He had to look behind them; there was no option now, he needed to at least know what they were up against. As he glanced backwards he wished he hadn’t. There were a dozen dirty, dangerous looking men all carrying large weapons. They looked more unfriendly than anything they’d yet come across and definitely looked like they didn’t like trespassers, which is exactly what they were. Belatedly Sean realized that Orlando had looked behind them too and he tripped and almost stumbled on the steps leading to the front door of the actual home.
“Stay calm,” he murmured as he managed to catch Orlando before he ended up flat on his face.
“Stay calm,” Orlando asked incredulously. “How on earth do you expect me to stay calm when we have a mad army behind us?”
“Just…try…” Sean said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. “I’m going to go knock.”
“Knock?” Orlando asked, nervously following Sean up onto the raised porch area.
“It’ll probably go better with the mad army if I knock rather than barge in.”
“Oh…right….” Orlando said in a small voice.
Sean knocked on the door and waited. The men had stopped when they’d reached the door. Far enough back to not be too menacing but close enough to be a worry. Sean didn’t know how they were going to get out of this if things didn’t go well with this Bellmaker person, which given the track record of their particular adventure, was that things were probably not going to go very well.
A small peephole opened up in the door and a face appeared in the window. It was craggy and the European descent was very clear. “Yes, what do you want?” said a voice in thick broken English.
“Well, sir,” he said as respectively as he could. “We are very much in need of a phone and were wondering if we could use yours…”
“No,” the voice said without hesitation. “Take care of them.”
The window snapped shut and Sean exchanged a glance with Orlando. There was no doubt who the man had been talking to when he’d said take care of them and there was no doubting the meaning behind those words. He reached out and grabbed Orlando placing him between himself and the door as the men started to approach. It was feeble protection but it felt better than just letting Orlando hang out without protection.
“Well Orlando Bloom,” he drawled as pleasantly as he could under the circumstances. “How are you going to write us out of this one?”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Orlando winced as his head made contact with the rough wood of the door. He tried to take a deep calming breath but it didn’t work until he grasped the back of Sean’s shirt as he stood in front of him. It was a feeble sort of protection, Orlando knew it wouldn’t do him much good but he was calmed by Sean’s effort. He gave a half snort at Sean’s comment, he only wished he could write them out of this. Write himself and Sean and Samantha out of the whole sorry adventure. He flinched as the peephole on the door slid open and the man who’d sealed their fate spoke.
“Orlando Bloom? You’re Orlando Bloom…*the* Orlando Bloom?” the accented voice filtered out.
Orlando shifted his position so that he could look at the face that was peering out at him intently. “Ye…yes…” he managed to get out with a shaky voice.
“Come closer,” the voice said again.
Orlando felt rather than saw Sean tense at that comment but Orlando did as he was asked. It wasn’t like he’d be any worse off facing the man in the house than the other men surrounding them. He examined the craggy face as it examined him, the eyes went from suspicious to pleased in about three seconds and a string of Spanish was let out in a commanding tone, Orlando only half registered his name being said over and over. The faces of the men went from angry to excited, they swarmed forward and Sean shifted to put himself more firmly between Orlando and the men. They looked disappointed until Orlando peeked out from behind Sean and gave them a nervous wave. They hurried off back out of the courtyard. Orlando jumped as the door swung open and the man regarded them both with a huge grin.
“Well that’s a horse of a different color,” he said in perfectly clear English with a distinguished sounding British accent attached to it. “Come in, come in.”
For a moment Sean and Orlando stood staring at each other unsure if they should trust this man or not. Sean took a few steps into the house, he grasped Orlando’s arm, gently tugging him after him making sure he was between Orlando and the other man. Orlando shut the door behind them because it seemed the proper thing to do and clutched Sean, allowing him to continue to lead.
“You’re English…” Sean said suspiciously.
“As are you, my boy, as are you,” the man pointed out with a grin as they entered a large sitting room area.
“I’m not pretending to be otherwise,” Sean said in an even voice. Orlando recognized the hint of annoyance hidden in its depth.
“That’s true, that’s true,” the man said in a cheery voice.
It was quickly evident that he was not going to elaborate any further why he was pretending to be a native Colombian. He swept to the side and with a wide arch of his hand showed off a side table that was lined with colorful books. Orlando’s eyes widened as he took a few steps closer and realized it was a library of sorts filled entirely of very familiar titles.
“I have them all,” the man said as he appeared at Orlando’s side causing him to jump in surprise. “Even the first one,” he reached out and fingered the first book, it looked well worn. “Though I prefer the Miranda series,” he said with a grin. “Love that Daisy.”
“Ah…thank you…” Orlando mumbled softly, unsure just how to react to such comments from someone who’d nearly had them killed.
“You stumbled out of the jungle,” the man continued, changing the subject rather abruptly as he swirled away from the books. “Whatever were you doing in there?”
“Ah…” Orlando looked to Sean for help but Sean was distracted by the row of books and Orlando realized that it was probably better that he be the one to answer the questions since they were being addressed to him. “Our bus broke down on the…ah…mountain,” he waved his hand vaguely. “We tried walking and the ground gave way and…we had to make our way through the jungle.” He held his breath hoping that his explanation held enough answers to appease the man’s curiosity.
It seemed to work. “What are you doing in Colombia then?” There was a pause as his eyes lit up. “Are you here on a research mission?”
“Well…yes,” Orlando said after a moment’s hesitation, it was a good cover for why they were there.
The man’s eyes lit up even further and he took a few steps closer to Orlando. “And what sort of research were you doing here?”
“Well…” Orlando trailed helplessly. “Not…I really shouldn’t…tell…my agent…would kill me.”
“Of course,” the man said with a twinkle in his eyes. “But you can’t blame an old man for trying, now can you?”
“No I suppose not,” Orlando answered with a smile and a laugh.
The laughter seemed to drive some of the tension in him out and he let out a deep calming breath. His attention was drawn by a clearing of a throat behind him; he turned and found that Sean was still standing by the books. He was holding one in his hands looking at the picture on the back cover. Orlando found himself fussing momentarily with his hair, he suddenly felt extremely grubby as Sean looked up at him and mouthed phone in his direction.
“Ah...Bellmaker…sir…”
“Call me Ian, please, Orlando,” he said in a silky tone. “It’s not my real name of course but it does the job.”
“Oh…yes…well…Ian,” Orlando stumbled slightly, realizing that Ian was flirting rather outrageously with him. “We were told that you have a phone…and we could really use one, no one knows where we are at the moment…”
“Oh yes, of course,” Ian said with a smile. It was clear he realized he was making Orlando uncomfortable and that he was relishing it. “It’s in my private rooms but I’ll have it brought out and connected out here for your use. In the meantime I’m sure you’re hungry and in need of the facilities so I’ll go see about getting some refreshments.”
There was a slight change in his demeanor as he headed towards a set of doors on the side of the room. Orlando saw that there was a man standing there waiting for him and their heads were already lowered in a hushed conversation before the doors even closed behind them. He turned towards Sean, his stomach sinking a bit. He was holding a different book in his hand flipping through the pages.
“I think we might be in trouble,” he said in a low voice.
“We were never out of trouble,” Sean answered easily. “Did you really write all these?”
“Yes,” Orlando answered distractedly. “Aren’t you worried at all that we’re basically trapped in the house of a man that wanted to have us killed?”
“Not any different from everyone else wanting to kill us at the moment now is it?” he drawled with a shrug of his shoulder.
“Sean!” Orlando snapped in irritation.
“Look,” Sean said tightly dropping the book and stepping closer to Orlando. “You need to calm down. Panicking is not going to help our situation. At the moment it’s pretty good.”
“Pretty good?” Orlando said in an incredulous voice. “The man is clearly a drug…person and we’re trapped in his house.”
“I hardly doubt he’s going to kill us…well you anyway…he’ll never get any more of your books if he does, right?
“Well that’s completely different then,” Orlando said with a roll of his eyes, his voice become even tighter as a layer of familiar panic started settling down over him. “The fact that he could kill you and lock me in a room here somewhere in some bizarre take on Misery makes me feel so much better.”
“You’re cute when you’re upset,” Sean said lazily, running a finger against Orlando’s cheek.
Orlando blinked in confusion and took a step backwards. His eyes narrowed as he took in the smirk that Sean was sending him. He got the impression that while Sean was mostly just trying to distract him from the situation that there might be a little bit of truth behind them. But again this wasn’t the time or place to be examining these feelings. He took a couple of deep calming breaths and tried desperately to think about Samantha. He needed to stay calm to get out of here and get to her. That was the only thing that mattered.
“Thank you,” he mumbled softly.
He knew that Sean wouldn’t realize that he had successfully blocked a panic attack but he was thankful none the less. The relief lasted for a split second when the side doors slammed open and Ian strode back in. Gone was the cheerful flirtatious old man that had left the room. In his place was a cold hard general. Orlando took an unconscious step towards Sean.
“You didn’t tell me that the Police were after you…that Viggo was after you,” he said shortly.
“Ian…sir…” Orlando started but was stopped by a hard look from the man.
“I’m sure you can understand why we didn’t,” Sean said calmly, pinning Ian with a dangerous look.
“Of course I can,” Ian muttered darkly.
“I take it you’re not a fan?” Sean asked. Orlando looked at him wondering where he was going with all of this.
“No,” Ian said with a shake of his head. “I am one of the few that is still openly against him. He doesn’t bother me that much because I only bring in enough money to keep up my lifestyle and support my people in theirs so there is no power to gain from me. I try undermining him anytime I can.”
“You could do it now…” Sean said quickly. “He’s after Orlando.”
“That bastard,” Ian muttered again, his eyes lingering on a confused Orlando. “That can’t happen, I will not allow it.”
“We need to get to Cartagena,” Sean said moving ahead at a brisk pace. “Or some place that we can get a bus or rent a car to get there.”
“Santa Maria is the nearest town with a bus depot, I can get you there,” Ian said after a moment’s thought. “We don’t have much time. They’re swarming towards us as we speak.”
“Do you have something that can outrun them?” Sean asked, his hand already looping through Orlando’s arm and dragging him towards Ian.
“I have something that’ll do just the thing,” Ian said with a twinkle in his eyes. “We’ll just have to pay a visit to Old Milo.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Orlando gave a yelp as the truck burst through the front gate of the complex and careened through the muddy streets of the town scattering the uniformed police officers in every direction as they hurried to get out of the way.
Old Milo, it turned out, was not a person like Orlando was expecting him to be but the truck that they were riding in. Just how Ian had gotten the truck and how it had gotten its name was not a story that they had time to share as they climbed inside as Ian brought it to life with a deep growl. Given the man’s profession Orlando decided that he was probably better off not knowing the answer anyway.
Besides, he was much too busy praying for his life at the moment to worry too deeply about anything else.
He screeched as they rounded a sharp corner and he found himself almost completely in Sean’s lap. Sean laughed and Orlando glared up at him as they spun around in the dirt to avoid a pig and Sean gave a great whoop like they were just on a ride at the fair and not in the middle of a life and death chase. He turned his glare on Ian as they spun around the pig again and tore off in the direction they’d just come from. Orlando found himself landing back on the middle section of the seat with a smack hard enough to make his legs hurt.
“Can’t hit that pig,” Ian said with a wide grin. “It’s my favorite one!”
Orlando clutched at Sean and closed his eyes as they headed straight towards a police car that was headed in their direction. It was a very real and dangerous game of chicken and in the end the police gave in. Ian cackled loudly as the police car careened off to the side and crashed into the side of one of the houses. A glance over his shoulder showed a view of the old lady that had pointed them in the right direction as she had come out of the house and started whacking one of the officers with a broom. It almost made Orlando laugh but instead the whole thing was making his head hurt.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” he yelled towards Ian over the gunning engine.
“Of course I do, darling. I always know what I’m doing,” he drawled with a wink and Orlando huffed in irritation. “Just trying to get a few of them off our back to give us some space to move.”
With a sigh Orlando nodded his head and leaned forward to grip at the truck’s dashboard, both for stability and so he didn’t further embarrass himself by clutching Sean. Not that Sean seemed to mind or even notice the way he was full out enjoying the ride they were in the middle of. It took them another ten gut wrenching minutes to lose all but one of the pursuers. At that moment Ian veered off onto a side street that led them into a wide open field. Orlando breathed a sigh of relief thinking that the wild ride was finally over.
That relief was short lived as he saw a river running lazily through the field. The river had no bridge that he could see, at least not in the direction they were going, which was straight towards it. “There’s no bridge!” he yelped needlessly.
“Not a problem, dear boy,” Ian said with a wink. “My predecessor had plenty of run-ins with the police that he devised a rather ingenious way of escape across the river…”
He reached over and pressed a button on the dashboard and Orlando watched with wide eyes as a ramp appeared out of the river. It was rather ingenious or at least he thought so until he realized that it didn’t extend all the way across the river. He felt his stomach roll as Sean reached out, grabbed him and pulled him backwards giving a great hoot as they hit the end of the ramp and went sailing over the river. For a split second Orlando allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of being airborne, but that was all the time they had before they crashed down on the other side. The truck gave a whine and then sped off across the field.
“That was awesome,” Sean crowed even as Orlando was thanking the stars that he hadn’t had much to eat that day otherwise he probably would have thrown up a few times by now. “But what about them,” he said pointing over his shoulder towards the other car that was heading towards the ramp.
“Ah yes…them,” Ian said with a smirk.
He pressed a different button on the dashboard and as Sean and Orlando turned to look they saw the ramp shift so that it was jutting upwards. The car that had been on their tail didn’t have enough time to stop or to change direction as it smashed headfirst into the barricade. Sean laughed as they watched the two men that had been in the car stumble out. He turned his head and sent Ian an appreciative grin.
“That’s a nice piece of work,” he said.
“It is isn’t it,” Ian said with a wide grin of his own. “’Course it only works one way and the nearest bridge back across is miles away but it’s good when one needs to escape.”
Orlando breathed another sigh of relief as it became clear that the rest of their journey would be without adventure. He settled back against the seat letting his head drop against Sean’s shoulder. He hoped that all the major adventures were over. He was getting rather tired of adventures.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sean was still buzzing 45 minutes later when they finally came to a stop on the top of a rolling hill. Spread out in the valley below he could see a decent sized town. It would be a couple miles hike down to it but given everything else they’d been through it’d be relatively easy.
“That’s Santa Maria down below us,” Ian was saying. “I would take you all the way but I really do need to go back and do damage control and make sure my people are okay. You shouldn’t have any problems going the rest of the way on foot.”
“I hope we haven’t caused you too much trouble,” Orlando said in a worried tone.
“It shouldn’t be too bad,” Ian said with an elegant shrug of his shoulders. “I can’t tell them anything because I don’t know anything and it’s their own fault for breaking our agreement and coming into town. I won’t tell them where you’re going and will try to lead them in a different direction when I come back but…I wouldn’t stick around for too long, there aren’t many towns in this part of Colombia so they’ll figure it out sooner rather than later.”
“Thank you, Ian,” Orlando said with a smile.
He leaned in and pressed his lips against the older man’s ear and began whispering something. Sean shook his head, he could guess what Orlando was telling the older man. He turned to look at the area around them, trying to figure out the quickest way down. For the first time he noticed the tree on the very top of the hill and his heart stopped for a moment before it picked up at a much quicker pace.
It was a very distinctive tree. No leaves of any sort were on it, the main section was tall and thick and there were two other branches jutting off the side that bent upwards towards the sky. It looked almost like a fork. The Devil’s Fork was a landmark on the map and from what he could remember looked remarkably like the tree, though it hadn’t been marked as such. He turned his attention back to the other two men as Ian called his farewell. He lifted his hand up in reply and then walked over to join Orlando.
“You told him where the plane was, didn’t you?” he said with a grin as he stopped next to him. He hoped his voice sounded normal.
Orlando shrugged his shoulders but didn’t look too put out by being pegged so easily. “Well he deserves some sort of payment for helping us out…”
”And for not having us killed…” Sean added mildly.
“That too,” Orlando said with a grin. “The plane seemed the easiest way to do so since I doubt I’ll have a chance to come back here and Elijah would kill me if I gave any spoilers out, even to a Colombian drug lord.”
Sean laughed, he found he rather liked this Elijah bloke, despite having never met him. “Think you can manage to get down the hill without killing yourself?” he teased gently.
“If the end result is food, a long hot shower and a nice warm bed for the night I think I can manage,” Orlando teased back with a grin and then started gingerly down the path that Sean pointed out for him.
Sean paused for a moment as he watched Orlando start down, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have gone first in case Orlando slipped and fell, at least then he’d be able to try to stop the fall. He shook his head, Orlando had done well enough all things considered, he’d do alright with this. He thought about the playful tone in Orlando’s voice as he’d answered him, it was one of the rare occasions they’d interacted where they hadn’t been yelling or talking about how to save their lives. It felt nice, much nicer than it should have and it made the plan that was starting to form in his head about the map seem like a step in the wrong direction.
But he reminded himself this wasn’t a lifetime bond they were forming. He was taking Orlando to Cartagena, once there he’d make sure that the lad didn’t get killed trying to get his sister back and once they were both safe he’d get his payment and they’d disappear from his life. What Orlando didn’t know about the map wouldn’t hurt him. He’d said himself that he didn’t even care what the map led to. He only wanted it to get his sister back. If the kidnappers found that what they were looking for was gone by the time they got there then it was nothing to either one of them. Sean would be long gone and Orlando would be safe back in New York.
All he needed to do was get a hold of the map long enough to make a copy of it and then get it back before Orlando noticed it was missing. It didn’t seem that hard and the end result would make them both happy.
And that was all that mattered in the end…right?
* * *
TBC
Forward to: Part Eight
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