The Staging Area

They moved off the watercourse and into the forest beside it, working through the undergrowth carefully and quietly, and Seren was glad of her training in watching where she put her feet, which was a habit her father had instilled in her on hillwalks since she was small. Valentina moved just as quietly, with the particular skill of someone who had played in forest since childhood and knew how to read the ground.

The clearing appeared through the trees after perhaps a hundred metres. It was not large, perhaps fifteen metres across, and it was exactly what Rodrigo had described: a natural broadening of the watercourse where the ground was relatively flat and firm. But what Rodrigo's sketch had not shown, because he had presumably not yet seen it, was what occupied the clearing.

There were perhaps thirty crates, stacked in two rows, the kind of plastic crates used for transporting live plants. Several were open, and inside them Seren could see plants packed carefully in damp moss, the roots wrapped, the leaves protected. Near the crates, two men were working with focused efficiency, checking plants and packing them and closing crates and writing on labels. A third man sat on a fallen log some distance away, and he was not working.

He was sitting with his arms around his knees and his face turned away, and his posture was the specific posture of someone who is not there by choice.

Valentina made a very small sound beside Seren.

"Is that him?" Seren whispered.

"Yes," said Valentina, barely audible. "That is Rodrigo."

He appeared uninjured. He was not restrained in any obvious way, but his position relative to the others and the way he was sitting made it clear that he was being kept there. He was perhaps thirty metres from where they crouched in the undergrowth.

Seren assessed the situation quickly and carefully. Three adults, one of them holding Rodrigo.

Two others working. No visible weapons, but she was not going to make assumptions. A stack of crates representing significant illegal activity. And Rodrigo, who needed to know help was coming.

She looked around the clearing's edge. On the far side, partially screened by a large tree root, she could see the beginning of another path, wider and more used-looking than the one they had followed, which presumably led to the reserve boundary and the vehicle access Rodrigo had mentioned.

She had her emergency kit. In the kit was a whistle, which was designed to be loud, and a mirror, which was designed to signal. Neither of these was subtle.

She also had her camera. Which had a very good zoom lens.

She took eleven photographs of the clearing, the crates, the labels on the crates, and the men, including clear shots of their faces. She took three photographs of Rodrigo. She took a photograph of the wider path leading out of the clearing.

Then she opened the emergency kit and took out the small notepad and pencil it contained. She tore out a page and wrote: We are here. Going for help now. Twenty minutes. She folded it into a tight square.

She looked at the positions of the two working men. They were both at the far end of the crate rows, heads down. The third man was between Rodrigo and the forest on the near side, but he was looking away from them.

Seren looked at Valentina and held up the note.

Valentina looked at the clearing. She looked at the note. She looked at the positions of the men.

She made the smallest possible nod.

Seren pressed the note into Valentina's hand and shook her head: not her. She pointed to herself.

Valentina looked at her for a long moment. Then she held up her phone, showing a weak signal icon. She mouthed: I will call.

Seren pointed to the forest behind them: go back along the watercourse until the signal is stronger, there had been two bars near the shelter. Valentina understood immediately and began moving, silently, back the way they had come.

Seren looked at the clearing. The third man had turned slightly. She waited. He turned back. She moved forward through the undergrowth to the clearing edge, staying low, using the root mass of a large tree as cover, and came up to within five metres of Rodrigo.

He did not see her at first. She waited until his head turned slightly in her direction, and then she moved her hand in his peripheral vision, just enough. He looked. She held up the note and then placed it under the edge of the root mass, visible to him, and then retreated back into the trees.

She could not see his face clearly but she saw him register it. His posture changed, fractionally, in the way of someone who has been told something important.

She retreated back through the undergrowth to the watercourse and ran.