by Stuart Gibbs
This, in turn, was due to the unique geography of South America. Unlike other continents, South America’s mountains were clustered on one side, clinging to the western shore. The Andes created what was known as a rain shadow, catching the clouds that blew west across South America, so that almost all the rain fell on their eastern slopes. (The Pacific side of the Andes was so dry that there were some places where it had never rained in recorded history.) Thus, a staggering amount of water funneled into the Amazon basin—and then took its time getting to the ocean, because in addition to being incredibly large, the basin was also incredibly flat.
From the Peruvian border to the Atlantic Ocean, the Amazon descended only two hundred and fifty feet, which was less than the height of a good-size tree. Instead of flowing quickly downstream, all the water spread out across the basin, nurturing the ecosystem and giving rise to the extremely abundant array of life. The level of water fluctuated greatly throughout the year, with massive sections of the forest flooding for a few months, then slowly drying out, then flooding again.
Normally, April would have been the tail end of the floods, but there had been an unusually rainy wet season, and as Charlie, Dante, and Milana headed along the Napo tributary, the river was as high as anyone could remember. In the town of Coca, where they had flown from Quito, the river had burst its banks and the streets were filled with so much water that residents were using motorboats to navigate them, rather than cars.
It was more than twenty-three hundred miles to get from where Charlie was to the mouth of the Amazon, and yet the river here was so wide—even in a non-flood year—that it was more than a mile across. It was big enough that both Ecuador and Peru maintained navies on it.
Not surprisingly, the standard way to travel through the Amazon basin was by boat. A great swath of the rain forest didn’t have a single road; from Coca, the locals traveled along the Napo in water buses, old cargo boats that had been crudely refurbished for passengers. They were slow, aging tubs that belched diesel smoke. The operators did not appear to be paying much attention to safety; Charlie thought that many boats appeared to be dangerously overloaded with passengers, who sat on every available space, including the roofs.
The tourists, being wealthier, were traveling along the Napo in slightly better style: long motorboats with several rows of seats and green canopies to block the sun or rain. Dozens of these were ferrying people up and down the Napo River, to camps or lodges located deeper in the rain forest.
But Charlie and her team felt that even these were too slow for their purposes. Dante wanted to conduct the mission as quickly as possible, so he had tracked down the fastest boat he could find, a relatively new motorboat that had been impounded from drug runners by the local police. It had dual 750-horsepower outboard motors and a small cabin for sleeping and cooking. The CIA had a long history in South America—for better and worse—and Dante was able to work some connections to get the police to rent it to him for a reasonable price. Meanwhile, Charlie and Milana had visited an adventure outfitter and stocked up on food and survival gear.
While doing this, Charlie had tried to strike up a conversation with Milana. “So,” she’d asked, “what have you been up to since betraying my trust a few months ago?”
Milana had given her a cold stare that said she didn’t think this was funny. “Our official CIA activity is classified.”
“What about your unofficial activities, then? Has Dante worked up the nerve to ask you out yet?”
Milana gave Charlie another cold stare, but this time Charlie detected a hint of amusement in it. “That’s also classified,” Milana said.
That was all Charlie could get out of her. Milana remained stoic throughout the rest of the shopping excursion, save for detailing things like how many mangos they should buy.
Milana stayed silent for most of the trip down the Napo too. While Dante drove the boat, Milana sat at the bow, vigilantly scoping out their surroundings. She reminded Charlie somewhat of a watchdog on the alert at the front window of its house.
It had not been hard for Charlie to deduce that her half brother had a crush on Milana. And she understood why: Milana was smart and capable and beautiful. A Native American, she had grown up on the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana, earned a full scholarship to college, then had been recruited to the CIA and had excelled there. Charlie was less sure how Milana felt about Dante. She figured most women would consider Dante a good catch, as he was intelligent, accomplished, and handsome. But she presumed that Dante would never act on his crush, as his loyalty was to his job first, and dating your fellow agent probably wasn’t allowed in the CIA.
Still, like most younger sisters, Charlie loved teasing her older brother about his love life. In truth, Charlie loved teasing Dante about everything she could.
He was so earnest and dutiful, it was easy to get under his skin.
Charlie sat down beside him on the pilot deck. They were half an hour downriver from Coca, and there were only a few clouds in the bright-blue sky above them. The river was the color of hot cocoa, due to all the sediment in it, and the forest was a fringe of green along each bank. It was warm and humid, but due to their speed, there was a nice breeze.
Dante was dressed for maximum protection against the blazing sun, wearing pants, a long-sleeved button-down shirt, and a hat with a wide, floppy brim. Everything was the exact same color of khaki. He was also slathering sunscreen on the few bits of skin that were still exposed. He had so much on, his face had a pale white sheen.
Meanwhile, Charlie was only wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, enjoying the feel of the sun and the breeze on her skin.
“You don’t have to put on quite so much sunblock,” Charlie told him. “There are vampires who are less concerned about sunburn than you.”
“There’s no such thing as being too cautious with your health,” Dante replied. “You ought to be covering yourself more.”
“I want to get a little sun.”
“It’s not just sun that you should be concerned about here. Do you know what the most dangerous animal in the Amazon is?”
“Of course. The mosquito. Which is technically the most dangerous animal on earth.”
“Right. At least a million people a year die from their bites, mostly in the tropics, which is where we are right now.”
“I’ve had all my shots.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I’ll cover myself more once we’re out of the breeze and in the rain forest,” Charlie said. “Although the people in town said mosquitoes aren’t much of a problem right now. They breed when the water is low and stagnant, not when it’s high. The locals said the much bigger concern is anacondas.”
Dante gave her a sideways glance. “Anacondas?”
“They’re good swimmers. So when the water gets high, they expand their hunting grounds in a big way. They’ve been swimming through the streets of Coca, snatching dogs and chickens.”
“But not people,” Dante said, sounding slightly worried, like he was trying to convince himself of this.
“Not yet,” Charlie said ominously. “Although there are rumors of some enormous ones deeper in the Amazon that have eaten humans. And of course, there’s also piranhas. They’ve been known to reduce an entire adult man to nothing but bones within seconds.”
Dante had heard this before and was pretty sure that Charlie was only saying it to unnerve him. “I think that’s an exaggeration.”
Charlie shrugged. “It’s still probably best to stay out of the water. The candiru fish are probably worse than the piranhas anyhow.”
“Candiru fish?”
“It’s this really tiny relative of the catfish that can swim up your urethra, lodge itself there, and then devour you from the inside.”
Dante reflexively put a protective hand over his crotch. “That’s not a real thing.”
“Yes it is. You’ve never heard of it? I thought the CIA gave you survival training.”
“I trained
for the desert. Because I was stationed in the Middle East. And I trained for the tundra in Russia. But I’ve never had any training for the rain forest.” Dante had his phone out now, trying to look up the candiru fish, although the coverage was already getting spotty as they left civilization behind.
“So you don’t know about bullet ants, either?”
Dante looked up from his phone, concerned. “No.”
“Oh. You should. They’re about an inch long and they have the most painful sting of any insect. They got their name because getting stung by one feels like being hit with a bullet. Supposedly, you’re almost crippled by pain for twenty-four hours.”
“You’re making this up,” Dante said.
“She’s not,” Milana said from the front of the boat.
“She’s not?” Dante echoed, now sounding extremely worried.
“One of the people I trained with got stung by a bullet ant on a mission,” Milana reported. “He said it was worse than being shot. It was the most painful thing he’d ever experienced in his life.”
Dante looked as though he might have gone slightly pale with fear, although Charlie couldn’t quite tell because of all the sunblock on his face. He said, “So there are ants out here with the most painful sting imaginable and giant snakes and man-eating piranhas and tiny fish that can swim into your private parts and consume you from the inside. Is there anything else completely horrifying that I should know about?”
“Brazilian wandering spiders,” Charlie said. “Electric eels. Giant centipedes. Jaguars. Assassin bugs. There’s also a couple dozen venomous snakes.…”
“And caimans,” Milana added.
“Oh right!” Charlie exclaimed. “I totally forgot about those.”
“What are caimans?” Dante asked.
“Relatives of crocodiles,” Charlie explained. “Also known to attack humans on occasion.”
Dante grimaced and noticed Charlie laugh in response. “This mission just keeps sounding better and better,” he grumbled.
Charlie’s laughter suddenly faded as she noticed something on the bank of the river. “To be honest,” she said somberly, “all these things aren’t nearly as dangerous to us as we are to them.”
Dante and Milana followed Charlie’s gaze.
An oil refinery sat on the river’s edge. A great swath of vegetation had been scraped away around it, leaving only barren dirt. Its four oil derricks were pumping furiously, and thick, black smoke belched from its stacks. A steel dock extended into the Napo, where oil trucks rolled onto wide, flat barges for delivery downriver. Garbage lined the bank and bobbed in the water by the refinery: rusted sheets of metal, truck tires, bits of plywood, and hundreds of empty plastic soda bottles.
Given how big the Amazon basin was, Charlie had been shocked to see how far humans had encroached into it. All around Coca, the forests had been leveled and replaced with palm oil plantations and cattle fields, and ever since they had left the city, construction projects had dotted the banks of the river. In addition, they had passed dozens of barges hauling construction supplies, dump trucks, bulldozers, cranes, and other heavy machinery.
Charlie had heard that an area the size of Connecticut was being destroyed every year in the Amazon basin. Now she was seeing it with her own eyes. She couldn’t help but feel that she was witnessing the end of the Amazon… that someday soon none of it would be left.
Milana nodded toward the refinery. “Considering that, we might have an issue with our treasure hunt here. Darwin told us to find a tree that looks like King’s College Chapel…”
“Whatever that means,” Dante interjected.
“… but he wrote this clue well over a hundred and fifty years ago,” Milana continued. “What’s the chance that this tree hasn’t been cut down?”
Charlie had already thought of this. “I don’t know,” she conceded.
“For that matter,” Milana added, “it could have fallen over. Or caught fire. Or just died of old age.”
“If it’s the kind of tree that I think it is,” Charlie answered, “then there’s a very good chance it’s still around.”
Dante looked to her curiously. “You know what Darwin’s talking about here?”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“Why don’t you share that with us?”
Before Charlie could respond, she heard the sound of an airplane approaching. She looked back over her shoulder in the direction they had come from. A seaplane was heading their way.
Charlie had seen only a few planes since they had started down the river, but those had been much higher up. This one was staying quite low over the river, maybe five hundred feet tops.
“That plane’s coming in awfully low,” she observed. “Planes usually fly higher because it’s more fuel efficient.”
“Maybe they’re tourists,” Dante said, although he was watching the plane cautiously now as well. “If they’re sightseeing, the view is better if you’re low.”
“Maybe they’re looking for us,” Charlie said. “I don’t know if your buddy Ivan Spetz knows how to fly a plane, but Esmerelda does.”
Milana climbed up onto the pilot deck from the bow, keeping her eyes locked on the plane as well.
The plane dipped downward.
“They’re coming toward us,” Charlie observed, concern in her voice.
“They might just be coming in for a landing,” Milana said.
“On the exact stretch of river where we are?” Charlie asked doubtfully. “Right now?”
“Coincidences occur all the time,” Dante said.
“There’s no such thing as coincidence,” Charlie replied.
Dante yanked on the steering wheel, making the boat veer suddenly.
Which turned out to be a shrewd move, because in the very next second, someone in the plane started shooting at them.
FIFTEEN
Esmerelda knew there were disadvantages to having a plane in the Amazon. It wasn’t nearly as versatile as a boat. A small enough boat could go almost anywhere in the Amazon basin during the flood season, whereas a plane could only go where it could land. There were very few airstrips in the basin, and a seaplane had to land on a long, open stretch of water. Plus, a plane could carry far less weight than a boat, which meant fewer supplies and provisions—especially when two of your three passengers were big, hulking men like her brothers.
But a plane was much faster than a boat. And Esmerelda knew the others were ahead of her, which meant she had to make up time.
Also, a plane had the upper hand in battle. Especially when the other side wasn’t expecting to be attacked.
There weren’t very many seaplanes with artillery to begin with, and Esmerelda hadn’t expected to find one in a small outpost like Coca, so she had been forced to improvise. In a town on the edge of wilderness, it was never that hard to find weapons. Paolo and Gianni had tracked down a low-rent arms dealer who had a surprising array of weaponry, thanks to the continuous drug wars waging in South America. They had picked up two submachine guns, plenty of ammunition—and a few sticks of dynamite.
Esmerelda had taken a picture of Charlie with her phone, and it didn’t take much asking around before she learned that the girl had arrived with two other people and acquired a speedboat. It also hadn’t been hard to find her boat on the river, as it was the fastest-moving craft out there.
Esmerelda had hoped to attack with the element of surprise, but figured that was a distant hope at best. Charlie was unusually intelligent, and there wasn’t any way to keep her approach in an airplane a secret. Still, she had given it a shot.
The old seaplane was made for low-altitude travel, so the windows could be opened. If you really wanted to take a chance, you could even open the doors in flight and step out onto the pontoons. But for the time being, Paolo and Gianni had simply aimed the semiautomatics out the windows while Esmerelda came in low with the sun behind her, just like the kamikazes did in World War II.
But her target veered away from her at t
he last instant. Her brothers’ bullets only hit the water. Gianni got caught up in the excitement and lobbed a stick of dynamite as well. If the boat had stayed on track, he would have blown it to bits, but it swerved once again and his toss went wide, resulting in a blast that kicked up a geyser of water.
Esmerelda flew past the boat, then hooked around to come in for another attack. She might not have caught them by surprise, but she still had the advantage. There was no cover for them out on the big, wide river.
They were sitting ducks.
* * *
“That was a freaking stick of dynamite!” Charlie exclaimed.
The blast had been close enough that she, Dante, and Milana had been soaked by the plume of water. Some very stunned fish were flopping around on the deck of their boat.
“Nice friends you have there.” Dante veered toward the nearest bank of the river. “They’re coming back. Our only hope is to get to shore and seek cover.”
Charlie gauged the distance to shore and calculated it would still take nearly a minute to get there. “It’s too far! And they’ll still be able to drop dynamite on us!”
“You have a better plan?” Dante demanded.
Charlie quickly took in her surroundings. They were badly exposed, way out in the open on the big, wide river. However, not far ahead of them was a barge carrying two oil tanker trucks.
“In fact, I do,” Charlie said. “Get me to that barge!”
Dante saw where she was looking. “No way. If they hit any of those trucks, we’ll be incinerated in seconds!”
The seaplane was coming back.
“I don’t have time to explain everything!” Charlie yelled over the speedboat’s motors. “Just get to the barge!”
“It’s too dangerous,” Dante told her.
Charlie screamed in frustration, exasperated by her half brother. She knew he was never going to listen to her—so she took matters into her own hands. As the seaplane swooped around for another pass, she ran across the pilot deck and dove into the Amazon.
