by Stuart Gibbs
The new part of the Anaconda River that Charlie, Dante, and Milana encountered wasn’t nearly as dangerous to their health as the Thames of the 1800s, but it looked eerily similar.
Around noon, they arrived at a break in the flooded forest. They saw it coming long before they reached it, because there was light ahead. For days they had been moving through the heavily shadowed permanent gloom of the rain forest floor, but suddenly there was brightness ahead, sunlight beaming down. It turned out to be a good-size lake, nearly a mile across. But while the surroundings were gorgeous—the lake was ringed with marsh grasses and pristine stands of forest—the water’s surface was quite spooky. The water itself was so black, they couldn’t see the ends of their paddle blades through it—probably due to a large amount of decaying plant life in it, Charlie figured—and smoke crept across it, even in the middle of the day.
Darwin’s Thames would have also been coal black, with the smoke of ten thousand chimneys clinging to it.
Charlie, Dante, and Milana paused at the lake’s edge, cautiously sniffing the air. Charlie detected a faint rotten egg smell. “Sulfur,” she said.
“Yes,” Milana agreed. “It’s not smoke; it’s steam. There must be a thermal spring nearby.” The smell and sight made Milana feel strangely at home. She had grown up on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in northern Montana, and her family had often taken trips to the southern reaches of the state, where there was a large amount of thermal activity. The most famous spot was Yellowstone National Park, which was located in the largest volcano caldera on earth, but there were many other, lesser-known areas close by with similar thermal activity. At these places, heat would vent up from the earth and turn to steam where it met the water. Milana had always loved those areas; the warm waters were wonderful to soak in, and she found them eerily beautiful as well.
She dipped her hand into the lake and found it to be quite cool, indicating that the steam vents were far away.
Charlie thought about Darwin’s clue, as she had done thousands of times over the days since she had found it:
Follow the red river upstream for a month until you reach a place that looks like the Thames. Then find the altar in the main temple in the city of stone.
Dante must have been thinking the same thing, because he said, “According to Darwin, the city of stone should be very close to here.”
“Makes sense,” Charlie said. “A big lake like this would be a good place to locate a city. Lots of fresh water, so probably plenty of fish to eat.”
“But where is the city?” Dante asked, scrutinizing the forest along the lake.
“There.” Charlie pointed to the farthest shore, where there was a bulge in the forest, like a small mountain of greenery. “Everywhere else in the Amazon basin has been flat as a pancake. I’m betting that any rise in elevation that big must be something man-made.”
That made sense to the others, so they set off across the lake. After days on end of fighting their way through thick brush and portaging the canoe time and again, it was a relief to paddle across open water. The canoe glided easily across the smooth surface.
Compared with the forest, the lake also seemed to be far more full of life—or perhaps the life was simply easier to see out in the open. Although patches of steam occasionally obscured the shores of the lake, for the most part, they could see much farther than they had in the forest, and the bright sunlight helped as well. Hundreds of birds roosted in the trees by the lake’s edge, including a dozen hoatzin, which were the size of turkeys but significantly prettier. Two families of howler monkeys foraged in trees on opposite sides of the lake, while a clan of giant river otters cavorted in the water. Charlie also spied several caimans lurking in the shallows, only their eyes and nostrils poking above the surface. She knew that the distance between eye and nostril was an indicator of how big each caiman was and deduced that some of them must be quite large, at least six feet long, if not more.
For the most part, however, they kept their eyes locked on the approaching shore, studying it for any sign of an abandoned city.
Dante was the first to notice something. “Look!” he exclaimed.
“Where?” Milana asked, scanning the shoreline.
“Not on land,” Dante told her. “In the water. Below us.”
Charlie and Milana both looked down into the lake and saw what Dante had.
Directly underneath them was a line of white stone blocks. The stones stood out despite the inky blackness of the water because they were only two inches below the surface and a dull white that reflected the sun. Charlie guessed they were limestone, like the stones that the road had been made of, and had probably been even lighter at some point, but now they were dulled from silt and plants growing on them. Still, they could see that the stones made a graceful arc on both sides of the canoe.
“Looks like a submerged wall,” Milana observed.
“It’s a fish pond!” Charlie exclaimed. “For a fish farm!”
“I think you’re right,” Dante agreed.
“Of course I’m right,” Charlie told him. “I’m me.”
The way she figured it, the large area created by the wall would have been perfect for raising fish. The wall would prevent big fish from escaping while also keeping predators out, while all the natural food and nutrients from the river could still flow into the pen.
A curtain of steam ahead of them drifted away, revealing that both ends of the curved wall extended to the shore where they believed the city was located. The shoreline was overgrown, so thick with reeds and grasses that they couldn’t paddle the canoe through it—but the sunken wall provided a path to land.
Charlie, Dante, and Milana tied the canoe to the branches of a tree that had long ago fallen into the lake, then carefully stepped out onto the wall. They left most of their gear in the canoe, bringing only their small backpacks with them, loaded with the supplies they thought they would need, and headed for dry land.
Dante led the way, hacking through the reeds with a machete. The plants grew up to six feet out of the water, creating a wall of greenery on either side, so the route along the wall was narrow and claustrophobic. As Charlie edged along it, she was overcome by an unsettling feeling, like they weren’t alone out there.
She turned back, staring across the lake toward the shore they had come from, but it was now obscured by the clouds of steam drifting over the surface.
A splash to Charlie’s right startled her, and she wheeled around to see something as thick as a big tree limb slithering through the reeds.
“Anaconda,” Milana said, sensing Charlie’s unease and placing a hand on Charlie’s arm to calm her.
Charlie was at once thankful for the small gesture and annoyed at herself for needing it.
She watched the snake vanish into the water, wondering if that was what had caused her ill ease. It was significantly bigger than any snake she had ever seen outside a zoo, but she knew they could get much larger.
“Hey!” Dante shouted from ahead. Not in alarm, but excitement.
Charlie realized he had made progress while she’d been watching the snake. She hurried along the sunken wall to shore, glad to be clear of the reeds, and found Dante staring into the forest.
“We found it!” he exclaimed triumphantly, smiling as broadly as she had ever seen.
Charlie stared into the forest too, letting her eyes adjust to the dark after being out in the bright sun. And then she saw what Dante had.
Charlie usually prided herself on being calm and unflappable, but she couldn’t manage that now. Her eyes went wide and she let out a gasp of surprise.
“Whoa,” she said. “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
THIRTY
CIA headquarters
Langley, Virginia
Jamilla Carter sat in her office, wondering where on earth Dante Garcia could be.
Technically, she knew he was in the Amazon basin. The last dead-drop message she had received from him indicated as
much. But the Amazon basin was the same size as the United States. Knowing where in all that forest Dante was would have been nice.
According to Dante’s last message, his mission was proceeding well. He had located Charlie Thorne, won back her trust, and co-opted her into tracking down whatever Darwin had discovered; Charlie even believed the decision had been her idea.
But it had been more than a week since then, and Carter had heard nothing else.
Carter knew that the rain forest was one of the last great stretches of wilderness on earth and therefore not easy to send a covert message from. She was also used to agents being in positions where they couldn’t send messages; sometimes they went dark for weeks or months at a time.
However, that didn’t make her feel any better.
There was so much that could go wrong on a mission like this. The Amazon basin was full of unpredictable factors: drug runners, guerilla factions, piranhas. But perhaps the most unpredictable factor in all this was Charlie Thorne herself.
Carter had never met Charlie. She had only read the girl’s file. Her psychological profile was filled with terms that made Carter uneasy: headstrong, impetuous, distrustful of authority, too smart for her own good. The girl had already caused the CIA considerable trouble when they had gone looking for Pandora. Given, there had been plenty of other complications on that mission, but still, Charlie hadn’t helped. Especially when she had decided to let everyone believe she was dead and then fled the country.
Carter logged into her private account on her computer, which required three separate passwords. Then she brought up the encrypted email that had kicked off this new mission.
The email contained photos of Einstein’s coded message, the one that indicated there had been other scientists who had made discoveries before him, along with the translation of that message.
Jamilla Carter wanted to know what those discoveries were. In theory, they couldn’t all be equations like Pandora, discoveries that had the potential to destroy millions of lives and thus give whoever controlled them great power. But who knew? Maybe there was something hidden out in the world that was even more powerful than Pandora. If so, Carter didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands.
The same went for Pandora itself.
The game had changed. Charlie Thorne was no longer needed to search for Pandora. Charlie was Pandora. The only copy of Einstein’s formula was inside her head, which complicated things even more. It made Charlie an asset for the United States—and a target for other countries. Carter had intel that the Russians were actively looking for the girl, which probably meant there were others who knew about Charlie too.
But she was also aware that Charlie wouldn’t give up Pandora easily. In Dante Garcia’s debriefing after the Pandora debacle, he had made it clear that Charlie didn’t trust anyone else with Pandora, even the United States. Therefore, her confidence needed to be won again. Which was why Director Carter had sent Dante after her, rather than anyone else. Charlie might not have trusted Dante very much, but that was still more than she trusted anyone else.
Although, at the end of the day, Carter wasn’t 100 percent sure that she could trust Dante, either. The guy was Charlie’s half brother. Which meant he might not be willing to do everything necessary to get Pandora from her.
Carter also wasn’t sure she could fully trust Milana Moon. In a sense, Milana was tougher than Dante where Charlie was concerned, but Carter suspected that Milana might have developed a soft spot for the girl as well.
Therefore, she hadn’t been completely honest with either of them. She had asked them to go easy on Charlie, to present themselves as friendly and kind to win her trust. She had told them that she truly believed that was the best way to get the kid to cough up Pandora.
But there were other ways to get information from someone. They weren’t nice, and Carter didn’t like the idea of using them on anyone, but the fate of humanity was at stake where Pandora was concerned. She simply couldn’t trust a twelve-year-old girl with it.
Playing tough would only be a last resort, of course. Maybe the threat of that alone would be enough to make Charlie cooperate. But to make any of this work, she needed Dante to bring Charlie in.
That’s what his orders were. Once they found Darwin’s great discovery, he was to use any means necessary to get Charlie to CIA headquarters. And if Dante had second thoughts, then Milana would take over. Carter had made it very clear that any failure on either one of their parts to comply would result in the termination of their jobs.
Carter was certainly intrigued to learn what Darwin had found down in South America. She expected it would be important, possibly even revolutionary, and that controlling it might be of great value to the CIA.
But her main objective was recovering Pandora, once and for all, no matter what it took.
Charlie Thorne wasn’t going to get away from her again.
THIRTY-ONE
The City of Stone
Upper Reaches of the Anaconda River
Peru
The lost city was surprisingly hard to see at first.
It was amazing how thoroughly the forest had reclaimed it. Charlie assumed that at one point everything around her would have been cleared of trees in order to build the city, but now it was as though the trees had fought back. Except for a few tiny glimpses of stone, everything that humans had built was hidden. Every single building, street, and wall had been consumed by plant life. If Charlie hadn’t known to be looking for a city, she might have missed it completely.
But it was still there. Buried beneath tree roots and bushes and vines, there were the forms of buildings. And when Charlie looked closer, she could see a kind of symmetry to them; the city had been laid out with a distinct pattern. The lake formed the northern edge, with a road heading directly to the temple, which was probably the center of town. The road was no longer visible, of course, but its presence could be inferred. It was almost like the floor of a valley, flanked by small hills that were really ancient buildings bedecked by trees—and the biggest hill of all, by far, was the temple. It loomed at the far end of the road, one hundred feet tall, by Charlie’s estimate. The buildings that surrounded the temple were arranged in what seemed to be concentric circles, although it was hard to tell for sure given how overgrown everything was.
“It’s like the world’s biggest Chia Pet,” Charlie observed.
“It’s incredible,” Milana gasped. Her usual cool reserve had given way to the awe and excitement of discovery. “This could be one of the most important archaeological finds in history.” She went to the nearest building and brushed aside a curtain of vines to reveal a rock wall underneath. “What do you think this might have been? A home? A store?”
“There’ll be time to explore later,” Dante said brusquely, heading down the road toward the temple. “Darwin said we need to find the altar in the city of stone. So let’s find it.”
Milana let the vines fall back into place with what Charlie interpreted as a look of disappointment, then followed Dante. But while Dante strode purposefully toward the temple, as if he were on a schedule, Milana and Charlie walked more slowly, trying to take everything in.
“Just think,” Milana said reverently. “The last person to see this place might have been Charles Darwin. And before that… Who knows how long it’s been since anyone walked these streets.”
“Would you slowpokes move it?” Dante called impatiently, already far ahead of them.
“Relax!” Charlie called back. “It’s not like the altar’s going anywhere.”
“Just move your butt, will you?” Dante yelled. “I want to find Darwin’s next clue!” He stormed on ahead through a stand of trees—and screamed in fear as three large animals that had been hiding there suddenly burst out of their cover.
They were mammals the size of full-grown pigs, but with thicker hair, wider snouts, and more powerful legs. They fled down the road, racing between Charlie and Milana, then plunged into the lake and swam away.
“What on earth were those things?” Dante asked, clutching his heart.
“Capybaras,” Charlie told him. “The world’s biggest rodents. They’re harmless. So no need to soil yourself.”
Dante grimaced. “I didn’t soil myself. They just startled me, is all. I had no idea a rat could get that big.” He continued toward the temple—although Charlie noticed he now proceeded much more cautiously.
In the distance, the monkeys had calmed down. Their shrieks had stopped and the trees were no longer shaking. Charlie couldn’t see them through the foliage, but she had the eerie sense the monkeys were watching them.
She and Milana picked up their pace, catching Dante as he reached the temple.
Even up close, it was so overgrown, it looked like a natural formation, rather than a man-made one. The stonework was buried beneath a riot of plant life. There was a wide, flat area in front of it that had probably been a central plaza at some point, but which was now reclaimed by forest as well. The stone paving had eroded enough for plants to get roots down through it. Given the great size of some of the trees, Charlie estimated that it had been several centuries since the city had been abandoned.
“Here!” Dante announced triumphantly. He was standing at the center of the temple’s base. “There’s an entrance!” He swept aside a curtain of vines to reveal a dark passageway behind them.
Milana and Dante both fished their flashlights out of their backpacks, flipped them on, and stepped inside.
Charlie took an extra moment to gather her nerve. Although she was excited to explore the lost city and find what Darwin had discovered, she was nervous about heading into the dark temple. The last time she had been inside a cramped underground space had been in Jerusalem, while searching for Pandora, and that had been quite unsettling.
