The Amazon Code

by Nick Thacker

  Whoever he had seen had just launched themselves over the edge of the boat and into the wake behind it.

  “Hey!” Ben yelled, turning around and starting toward the stairs. It was a good fifty feet to the staircase, but he made the trip in just a couple of seconds. He bounded down the stairs and onto the lowest deck, and ran immediately toward the back of the boat. He squinted, trying to see in the darkness, but it was useless. Night had set in, removing any hope he had of trying to see who the person was, or where they were. He thought he could hear the sound of swimming, but it was far off in the distance by now.

  He watched for another few seconds, then heard footsteps above him. He walked back toward the stairs, ready to explain what he had seen to the rest of the group.

  Before he reached them, a massive explosion threw him forward against the wall.

  33

  THE BOAT GROANED BENEATH HIM as boards and supports buckled and collapsed, and the air was immediately filled with thick, acrid smoke.

  He coughed, but the boat was still shifting dramatically, preventing him from even getting up to his knees. He turned his head just enough to see the rear section of the lower deck falling beneath the black waters.

  Shit.

  Reggie was at the top of the stairs, holding on with a white-knuckle grip.

  “Ben! Is that you?”

  Ben pulled himself up using a railing from the staircase. He knew the boat was taking on water, and fast. “Yeah, it’s me. There was someone else down here, they planted explosives on the engine compartment.”

  Reggie uttered a muffled string of expletives, then turned again to Ben and took a few steps down the stairs. “Here, give me your hand,” he said. “We need to get everyone to the top deck before we go under.”

  Ben reached up and allowed Reggie to help him up the stairs, which, at this angle, seemed more like the rungs of a ladder. He reached the next level and leaned against the wall as he caught his breath. Reggie was already rummaging through a closet a few paces away, tossing out whatever flotation devices he could find. There weren’t enough for everyone, but Ben carried a few life preservers back to the stairs and prepared to climb up.

  When he turned around to see about Reggie’s progress, he was stunned to see that the closet was already taking on water, and Reggie was standing up to his ankles in the murky brown liquid.

  “Take whatever you can up with you,” Reggie said. “I need to try to get our packs from the room.”

  Ben knew the room would be mostly underwater at this point, but he did as he was instructed and carried up the flotation devices and coil of rope Reggie had tossed him.

  The remainder of the group, aside from Reggie and Rhett, was waiting for him. He also noticed that Captain Garcia was absent.

  “Where’s Rhett?” He asked.

  Amanda and Paulinho, holding his side, both shook their heads.

  Archie Quinones stepped up to Ben and helped him with the life preservers. “He must still be down below,” Archie said. “Where’s Reggie?”

  “Still down there,” Ben said. “He’s trying to find the backpacks. If anyone’s still down there, Reggie will grab them.” Ben said the words, but he wasn’t sure he believed them. Someone had sabotaged their boat, and then swam to shore. Ben had seen them do it. If, by some strange twist of fate, it had been Rhett or the captain, Ben knew they wouldn’t still be waiting around belowdecks.

  The thought chilled him, and he forced it out of his mind for the moment. They would deal with the saboteur in time, but right now they had more pressing matters to concern themselves with.

  Archie started passing out the life preservers, but Ben pulled him back. “Hold on,” he said. “Let’s use those to keep the backpacks afloat. I’m assuming we can all swim, right? These will just slow us down.”

  Archie nodded in agreement, and he and Ben began tying the flotation devices together using the rope. “It’s crude, but it will do the job. One of us can tie it to our leg and pull it behind us.”

  “Where are we going?” Julie asked.

  Ben looked up and into her eyes. Her anger had melted away into fear, and she seemed as though she had completely forgotten her and Ben’s earlier feud. He knew her well, however. As soon as they were safely back on land, Julie would continue with her cold shoulder and silent treatment.

  “We need to get to land, obviously,” Ben said. “But there’s no way will be able to break into the forest without cutting through the trees on both sides of us. We’ll have to start swimming upstream and hope we find some sort of opening.”

  “Swim?”

  Ben looked over at Paulinho and realized the man was still injured, and probably still in severe pain. “Will you be okay?”

  “I should be,” Paulinho said. “I’m not worried about my injuries, it’s…” he looked at Archie, then back at Ben. Ben was confused, not understanding what was going on. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

  Archie leaned in close to Ben, bringing his voice down so only he could hear it. “We are not on the main river anymore, where all the boat traffic is most of the time,” Archie said. “Paulinho’s right to be worried. There are almost as many predators in the water as there are on land.”

  Almost as many predators in the water? Ben tried to read the man’s pained expression. He’s concerned now? After trying to convince me that the jungle was only dangerous if you were careless?

  “What other choice do we have?” Ben asked, matching the tone and level of Archie’s voice. Julie and Amanda stepped closer to them and took over the lashing together of the floats as the Ben and Archie discussed the situation.

  “None, really,” Archie said. He looked at the group then back at Ben. “But we are not trained for this; none of us are divers or even very competent swimmers, I’m sure. If we get into trouble…”

  “We’re already in trouble,” Ben said. “Look around. We’re on a sinking boat in the middle of an offshoot of the Amazon River. No one is going to come save us; no one will even know how to find us.” Except the group of mercenaries who are already on our tail. “We need to hurry, no matter what we do.”

  Archie nodded quickly, then turned and hurriedly helped the women finish lashing the floats together. Ben saw the top of Reggie’s head appear on the stairs, and walked over to help him with two of the backpacks. One of them was soaking wet, one was dry, and one was missing altogether.

  “I don’t think there’s anything that would’ve been damaged by the water,” Reggie said. “But the river ate one of the packs, the one with the map and my rifle. We still have the hammocks and three tents, but keep close to that pistol, Ben, they’re all we’ve got now. You guys ready to go?”

  “Think so,” Ben said. He slung the two packs over his shoulders and walked back toward the makeshift raft that had been built on the deck. The top level was now at the waterline, the back end rapidly sinking deeper into the river.

  “Let’s get on with it, then,” Reggie said. “I would guess this section of river is deep enough to swallow two of these boats stacked on top of each other, so we are not going to get lucky waiting around up here.”

  Ben tossed the backpacks on the flotation materials, and he and the others hauled the floating island toward the edge of the boat and lifted it up and over the side. It made a gentle splash as it hit the water, and Ben held the rope to prevent it from drifting away.

  Captain Garcia appeared on the stairs, his eyes wide and frantic. He ran up to Ben and Reggie and started babbling in Spanish. The only words Ben could pick out were agua and depredadores. Water and predators.

  “Whoa, there, Cap’n,” Reggie said. “Slow down, take a breather.”

  The captain shook his head, then walked up to Archie and continued rattling off Spanish Ben couldn’t understand. Archie focused on the captain’s words, the water creeping even closer to their feet.

  Archie listened, then stopped for a moment, as if listening now to the sounds of the forest instead of Garcia’s. H
e held a finger to his lips, quietly motioning for the others to join in.

  “Quinones,” Reggie said. “We don’t have time for birdwatching. We need —“

  “Shh,” Archie said, silencing Reggie. “Just listen.”

  Given no other choice, Ben focused on the sounds of the rainforest around him. What are we listening for? All he could hear were the chirping of birds, buzzing of insects, and every now and then a holler from a monkey deep inside the safety of the trees. The same sounds we’ve been hearing for days. Aside from the odd stretch of silence just before the engine had exploded, the sound of the jungle had been almost deafening. To Ben, the sounds became a homogenized blur, unable to be separated out into its individual components.

  And then, somewhere in the distance, he heard it.

  A low, growling roar.

  34

  THE ROAR SOUNDED LIKE SOMEONE trying to pull-start a lawnmower, only the sound was choppier, spaced out.

  The sound stopped and the jungle noises returned to fill the empty space. A moment later there was another noise, identical to the first, only from a different direction upriver.

  “Anyone want to explain what that noise is?” Amanda said.

  You had to ask, Ben thought.

  “Melanosuchus niger,” Archie whispered. Ben looked over at the man, seeing the older gentleman with his eyes closed, listening again for the sounds.

  “Black Caiman,” Reggie said, either interpreting the Latin explanation or jumping in with his own. “It’s the apex predator around here, and the larger ones can take down anything in the basin.”

  “Caiman? Like a crocodile?” Julie said.

  “One and the same, ma’am,” Reggie said. “Closer in structure to an alligator, though.”

  Julie sighed and crossed her arms. “I don’t really care what it’s like,” she said. “I am not getting into the water with those things out there.”

  Reggie glanced back at Ben, who just shrugged. “Hate to break it to you, but we need to get to land. And the only way to get to land is by getting in the water.”

  “I’m with her,” Amanda said. “Unless you can tell me you’ve got a way to keep them at bay.”

  Reggie pulled his pistol out of a pack and held it up. “I don’t, but this is a start. It probably won’t do much, but I’d rather have it along than not.”

  The water was up to Ben’s ankles now, and the boat was sinking even more quickly. He felt the water creeping up to his calves and knew they didn’t have much longer to decide their course of action. He walked forward, physically standing in-between Reggie and the girls.

  “This sucks,” he said. “I’ll be the first to admit it. But we literally have no other choice. We’re sinking, and in 10 minutes this boat is going to be at the bottom of the Amazon River. If we get started now, we can stick close to the shore and get to land the first time anyone spots an opening on that side. Jules, I’ll be right next to you.”

  Julie was staring at Ben, but he felt like she was looking right through him. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were glistening with wetness, and he could see her breathing increase in speed as she took in all of the new information. If she felt anything like the way Ben felt at this moment, he knew she was terrified.

  He also knew she agreed with him — they had no other choice.

  “What about Rhett?” Paulinho asked. “Did anybody see him down there?”

  Reggie shook his head. “No, but you’re welcome to stay back and wait for him if you’d like.”

  Ben flashed Reggie a glance, but Reggie shook his head once more, this time making sure only Ben could see the motion.

  He’s suspicious of the kid, too, Ben thought.

  “We can’t just leave him down there,” Archie said. “What if — “

  “What if what?” Reggie said. “Listen up, everyone. There is not a ’no man left behind’ policy here. There can’t be, much as I wish there was. The lower two decks are completely underwater, so there’s no way he’s still down there, alive.” Reggie paused, then looked around. “As hard as it is to admit it, you all know the truth: he’s either not down there at all, or something happened to him when the boat blew up. Besides, I checked all of the rooms when I went down to grab the packs.”

  “What about the bridge?”

  “If he was in the bridge, he would use the staircase to come up here,” Reggie said.

  Amanda stepped forward, getting right into Reggie’s face. “What if he’s hurt? Injured again? He —“

  “He’s not on the boat anymore,” Ben said.

  All eyes turned to Ben. Reggie seemed to be pleading with him silently, asking him not to reveal what he knew. Ben considered waiting, but they would all have to find out sooner or later.

  “I think Rhett did it,” he said. “We made a mistake bringing him along, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. He tricked us.”

  Ben waited for the looks of shock and awe to register, wear off, then return to normal. As each person considered what he had said, he continued. “We can’t worry about that now, even if I’m wrong. All I know is I saw someone jump off the boat and swim to shore, right before the engine exploded. We need to get to a safer place as soon as possible, then we can discuss what to do about Rhett.”

  And if it wasn’t Rhett who’d sabotaged them, it will be too late for him. Ben pushed the thought out of his mind. There was nothing he could do for the kid now.

  “Are you saying our boat was sabotaged?”Archie asked. He turned to the captain and relayed the message to him in broken Spanish and Portuguese.

  “Without a doubt,” Reggie said. “That engine was detonated by explosives. I don’t know what kind, or how, exactly, but that’s why we’re here now. We’ll figure out who it was later, but for now, we need to get off this boat.”

  “I’ll take point,” Reggie said. Without waiting for anyone to argue, Reggie dove off the angled deck railing and into the water. After three seconds, he surfaced into a perfect freestyle swim.

  Carlo jumped in after Reggie, and though he was much more out of shape than the soldier, Ben had to admit he was an able-bodied swimmer.

  Amanda grabbed Paulinho’s arm as the captain shook his head, made a sign of the cross on his forehead, shoulders, and chest, and jumped into the water, feet-first. Ben could see Amanda’s white-knuckled grip on Paulinho’s arm, but the man and woman walked steadfastly to the edge, sat on the rail and swung their feet over, then plopped themselves into the river.

  Ben knelt down to tie the rope to his ankle, and Archie made sure their makeshift raft was still floating, intact. Julie came down to Ben’s level and leaned in close to his face.

  “We’re not really going to do this, are we?” Julie asked. Ben didn’t answer. It was a rhetorical question, and besides — what could he have said?

  She waited for Ben to finish, then followed him to the edge of the boat. “Ben, wait.”

  Ben turned and looked at her. He was struck by how beautiful she looked, the moonlight glancing off her face and hair perfectly, allowing shadows to fall and soften her appearance even more. She was scared, but all Ben saw right now was the woman he had fallen in love with months earlier.

  “We’re going to be okay, right?”

  Ben wasn’t sure what to say. He knew she was asking about their current situation, about jumping into the Amazon River in the middle of the night, but he couldn’t help but think of their argument. He also didn’t want to lie to her.

  He nodded, then reached out and grabbed her hand.

  She pressed into him and kissed him hard on the lips, and he pulled her close to him as he leaned forward and pulled them both off the railing and into the water.

  35

  HEARING THE SOUNDS OF THE caimans far off in the distance didn’t help Julie’s terror.

  Now, however, she was literally swimming toward them, in a river that was pitch-black and full of all kinds of things she didn’t want to think about, trying to stay in front of a group of people who wanted to kill
them all.

  She focused on her breathing, and on Ben’s large form swimming next to her in the river. She had never been a competitive swimmer, though she had taken classes as a kid and swam through high school regularly. It had been a while since she had been in a pool, and aside from a few excursions to a lake house with friends, she had never swum in a natural body of water before.

  There was something downright unnerving about swimming in water you couldn’t see through, a fact that would not leave Julie’s mind. She wondered if she would feel any attack from below coming, or if it would sneak up on her completely. She wondered if a caiman was large enough to swallow her whole, so she wouldn’t have to think about the alternative.

  She also thought about their attackers — they had seemed so hell-bent on shooting them or blowing them up back in Manaus. Why were they allowing them to escape farther upriver? Were they working with Rhett? And if so, why hadn’t they attacked them tonight, and instead decided to sabotage their boat and force their hand?

  That was it.

  She understood their maneuvering. She knew now what they were intending to do.

  They still need us to lead them, she thought. They need us to show them the way. The attacks back at Manaus and tonight were meant to keep us focused on finding the answer, to push us forward.

  She also knew that collateral damage would be perfectly acceptable out here. They needed Dr. Meron, not the rest of the group. Amanda was crucial, but she wouldn’t travel alone, not out here. Amanda needed the rest of them, and their attackers needed Amanda.

  But picking them off one by one was a terrific strategy — one that would keep them focused, running in the right direction, and scared enough to not deviate from the plan. Once they turned off of the main river channel, into a much smaller and narrower feeder river, their attackers could no longer follow them by boat without being seen. The mercenaries had sabotaged their boat in order to force the group to continue on land. Anyone injured or killed in the explosion would be considered icing on the cake.

  But what was next? What happens after we reach land?