by Alex Archer
Nothing.
Wait, there was someone, but not one of Dillon’s men. It was the Dslala she’d seen minutes ago. He was wearing the belt he’d taken, and the machete was hooked to it.
There was no sign of Len, but she saw the spot where she’d dropped him, and so his friends must have picked him up. She could still hear them talking. Annja edged out and picked a course perpendicular to the Dslala. Was he out here searching for his missing tribesman? Had his dream led him here? Her dream had led only to a nightmare...Charlemagne and Joan of Arc, Roux, a monstrous caiman and...a cave.
Dillon’s cave?
Had the dream been a premonition?
She crouched behind the trunk of a tree thick with clusters of yellow-gold flowers. Its scent reminded her of cantaloupe. Some of the petals fluttered down like big snowflakes and caught in her hair and against her sweat-damp skin. Annja pressed on, thinking she was homing in on the voices.
“Len?”
“I’m all right,” came the reply. They’d roused him.
“He can walk now. Take him back to camp. If you find Ham, send him out here. He’ll track her. It’s his fault she’s here. Ham was supposed to chase ’em all out.”
“Hey, Matt. I wouldn’t worry about trying to take her alive. You see her, plug her between the eyes. She’s gator bait as far as I’m concerned.”
Again she wondered how many men were at the pharma camp and what sort of firepower they had. Maybe she should revise her plan, skirt back to the Dslala village and pull out her sat phone and call for help, let the authorities know something was definitely wrong out here. Maybe...but first she’d get a look at Matt.
There were bushes to her left, where another gap in the canopy let enough light and rain down. The tallest was about three feet high, and warty gourds spread away from it on thick vines. It looked similar to something she’d seen growing near the Dslala village. Hunkering down, she skittered behind the bushes and came up at the trunk of a giant that stretched up out of sight. Some sort of tropical balsam, it was festooned with tiny white flowers; their perfume cut the stench from her sweat. From here, she could see Matt.
He was wearing khaki pants with kneepads, a long sleeved shirt tied around his waist. He had muscles and a tattoo on his arm that marked him as ex-military. She couldn’t read the words with it, but she suspected he’d been a Marine. Interesting assortment of men Dillon had working to collect plant samples.
Matt had a Taurus in his right hand and was impatiently tapping it against his leg as he looked one way and then the next. He drew himself against a tree, pressing forward as if he was listening for something. Annja listened, too, but only heard something rustling the branches overhead and thrumming rain. He raised his gun and looked around the trunk, but away from her. That gave her an advantage and so she skittered closer. She was nearly on him when she saw him crouch and take up a classic firing pose. At the edge of her vision, she saw his target: the Dslala.
“No!” Annja hollered.
Matt spun and fired just as Annja sprang away, the bullet grazing her arm and feeling like fire. He fired again, but she was already moving, protecting herself behind a tree.
“I’ve got her!” he hollered. “She’s pinned. What the—”
Annja heard the dull thud a body makes when it drops. She looked out from behind the trunk and saw Matt flat on his face, not moving. It didn’t have the feel of a ruse, and the gun had slipped from his hand. She listened, looking in every direction quickly and seeing no one else. But she heard things—beyond the rain and the creatures moving through the canopy. Heavy footsteps crunching, another goon was coming closer.
Matt was breathing, but barely.
She squinted and shifted a few feet closer, and saw a dart protruding from the man’s back. Annja released the sword and instantly it vanished. She pulled out the dart, but the poison obviously had been strong and quick and had done its work. He made a rasping sound and stopped breathing entirely. She rolled him over, concern for herself discarded. She tipped back his head, cupped a hand under his neck, and brought her mouth down on his, trying to breathe for him. His heart had stopped. She gave a chest compression and—
“Get away from him! Now!” The voice was familiar and Annja paused. She heard the click, a round chambering. “Get up.”
One last compression and she complied. She rose to face Hammond who was bare-chested, wearing faded sweatpants and a scowl. He only had one gun this time, and it was pointed squarely at her.
“I can help him.” She pointed to the downed man. “Let me try to help.”
“Get away from him.”
“Then you help him,” Annja pleaded. “He’s dying. It’s poison. His heart has stopped.”
“I saw your boat leave this morning. You should have been on it.”
“That’s what your friend told me earlier,” she replied. “Let me help him.”
“Dillon didn’t want you dead, but he might have other ideas now.” Hammond spat on the ground. She noticed a tattoo on his arm; it matched the one on the downed man. Dead man, she corrected herself. The poison was very fast-acting and his lips were already discoloring.
“Your friend’s dead,” she said. “You should have let me—”
“I got eyes,” he retorted. “You might be joining him soon.” He paused and cocked his head, listening for something. “Put your hands up. That’s it. A little higher. We’re gonna go back to the camp, see what Dillon wants to do with your sorry blue ass. I’m betting—” Hammond turned.
Annja saw the black-as-night Dslala at the same time Hammond did. The tribesman had a blowgun to his lips, his cheeks puffed, and he expelled air. The dart flew straight at Hammond. Annja dove at the mercenary to knock him out of the way.
All life was sacred to her, and though she’d killed more people in self-defense than she wanted to think about, she didn’t want Hammond to die. She wanted him alive to question him. He had some of those precious puzzle pieces she was looking for. Annja barreled into him with enough force to push him aside...and put herself directly in the path of the dart. She felt it sink into the fleshy part of her upper arm, and she heard Hammond’s gun go off, heard the whistle of another dart, which struck her in the back as she was going down.
Then she didn’t hear or feel anything.
Chapter 21
Roux wanted to quit this ridiculous notion. It was getting more expensive by the moment, not that he didn’t have the money to cover it. He’d invested well through the centuries and was more than comfortable. But in a handful of days he’d shelled out thousands on what was probably a wild goose chase to find Annja Creed.
Annja would be all right. Somehow she always was. Sure, he’d gone looking for her before when he’d had a feeling that she was in trouble or could use his help. But it had never been this difficult to find her. It was a damn big river, and locating her somewhere on it would be like looking for that needle in a haystack—and a very giant haystack at that.
He suspected his efforts would be all for nothing and that she’d be safely ensconced in her New York City apartment before he got out of this insect-infested place.
Still, he paid the money to charter the tug, finding a captain and a mate that knew enough English. It was only a two-man crew. They were fishermen, and had at first thought that Roux wanted to go fishing. He dropped his suitcase in the center of the deck and opened the maps he’d purchased.
Roux had asked enough questions on the docks and spread enough money around that he got the name of the captain of Orellanna’s Prize and his likely course, a swollen tributary that led to only remote places.
“Sounds like where Annja would go,” he told his captain. “So I want to go here.” Roux stabbed a finger at a spot on one of the maps. It looked like a solid piece of green, no river that he could see. He scowled as rain started to fall on his map. He
brushed the water away.
“There is nothing there,” the captain returned. “River in the rainy season, solid ground otherwise. We have been that way, good fishing sometimes.” He smiled. “Together we speared an arapaima as long as this boat on that piece of river.”
That would be about ten feet, Roux mentally translated, a very big freshwater fish.
“Much money we sold that fish for. Took a picture.” The captain reached in his wallet and pulled out a photograph with curled edges. The fish was probably longer than ten feet.
“Jonah’s whale,” Roux teased. “I certainly don’t want to go fishing for something like that.” I am fishing for Annja Creed.
“But along this tributary, other than big fish, there is nothing else.” The captain leaned over the map to help shield it from the rain. “Now, here and here are interesting places I can take you. Some villages over there like tourists and have many trinkets—”
“No. This tributary,” Roux was adamant. “I’m looking for something, maybe a village.”
“It is your money.” The captain worried at a wart on his thumb. “Okay. There are some villages, but they are small, very small, and have no names.”
“That’s fine. That’s where I want to go.”
Other boats, larger and in better repair, were leaving with tourists on them. Roux envied that there were metal or sturdy canvas roofs to keep the passengers relatively dry. But this was the first boat he’d found willing to take a lone man on a trip, and he was impatient enough not to look for something better.
“Long way, you are thinking,” the captain said. “More than a day, maybe more than two or three.”
“I’m paying you well enough.”
“Yes, very well. But you will wait just a little while.” He turned to his mate. “Bento, take some of this money and buy us some food. And a bottle for the evenings. Two bottles.”
An hour later Roux was getting drenched and wondering if indeed he should have quit this nonsense and stayed at the hotel in Belém that he’d so quickly checked into and abandoned. That had been more money tossed at this silly venture.
* * *
BY THE AFTERNOON of the next day, Roux was certain he should have remained at the hotel—or back in France for that matter. The thread that connected him to Annja Creed was back. He closed his eyes, elbows on his knees, grateful the thin link had been reestablished. So very often he didn’t realize the connection was there, as it drifted to the background of his life. He didn’t let it drift this time, his mind keeping a firm grasp on it.
Was she all right?
Images flickered behind his eyes, as if he was having a dream while awake. He saw Annja, or was it Joan? No, both, the images next to each other, then one superimposed over the top, trading places in the corner of his mind. Joan was the youngest he’d ever seen her, innocent and determined. Annja was jaded but equally determined. The sword was held between them. Did the vision mean something? Should he turn around, content that he knew where she was?
“The village may have no name,” Roux said. “But I know for certain where it is and where I want your boat to take me.”
Chapter 22
“She’s dead, boss, that television woman.” Hammond appeared to show some amount of care when he laid the body of his fellow ex-Marine on the empty table in the pharma camp clearing. The wind that found its way into the camp drove the rain sideways. It quickly washed the dirt off the body. Hammond rubbed at a stubborn spot on the man’s forehead and straightened the legs and arms. “I watched the boat leave at dawn, didn’t know that she wasn’t on it. I’m thinking she must have been in the village. So the boat left without her. Probably wouldn’t wait for her, as sick as those people must have been.”
“Not good. Not good at all.” Dillon shielded his eyes from the rain and looked in the direction Hammond had come, waves of concern rippling through him.
The surrounding rainforest was dark and seemed almost sinister. He’d go in looking for Annja’s body himself if it wasn’t so dangerous. Easy enough to get lost in the rainforest when there was daylight sneaking down. But with no light and in this weather? “You’re certain she’s dead? Absolute certain?”
Hammond laughed. “Oh, yeah. And the kick of it? The ironic thing was that she died saving me...or maybe she was just trying to throw off my aim so I didn’t kill the native.” He recounted the incident with the Dslala and the blowgun. “Poison. It’s what got Matt. I guess the Dslala are angry about those two guys gone missing. Well, now there’s another one missing. I plugged the blowgun dude.”
“And left his body to be found?”
“I know where it is, boss. Not to worry. If it doesn’t get eaten overnight, we’ll take care of it in the morning. Gotta go back anyway.”
“The Dslala don’t know for certain their missing fellows were killed here.” Dillon folded Matt’s hands in front of him and straightened a ring on his right hand. He’d liked Matt, who’d served with Hammond during a tour. “I do not need an entire village of them provoked. I don’t want them poking into our business.”
“No, like I said, caiman eat the evidence.” Hammond ran a hand through his hair. “I want Matt buried. He deserves better than to be eaten.”
“Of course,” Dillon said. “In the cave would be best.” There was a section in the upper chamber with a dirt floor. They’d already buried two bodies there. “We can put him there, have a little ceremony if you’d like.”
“Yeah, I was thinking that myself, the cave, next to Nancy. Your wife was the only one who’d play chess with him. It’d be appropriate, like their ghosts could have a game.”
Dillon didn’t believe in ghosts or any afterlife. It was all about the here and now, and when it was done, there was nothing else. “Yes, that would be fine. I think Nancy would have liked that.”
A silence settled between the two. Lightning flickered overhead. The rain patted against the ground, flattening the reeds and grass and bouncing off the tarp. Dillon didn’t mind the sound of the rain, which had become almost comforting to him. But he was getting weary of being wet so often.
“The Dslala with the blowgun?”
“Took two bullets, ’cause the television woman knocked my aim off the first one. Had a hard time seeing him, too, so dark in there, and he was black as night. I think he got Nate. Had Nate’s brand-new leather belt on him and one of our machetes.” Hammond tapped his waist. He was wearing the belt around his waist now, though the sweatpants had no loops for it. “I’m keeping it. I liked Nate well enough, and it don’t need to stay on no damn dead native.”
“No, I suppose not.”
There was more silence, and this time Dillon broke it. “Can’t trust the big cats to eat her, that Miss Creed. Or the Dslala.”
“No, I suppose not,” Hammond parroted. “Like I told you, I gotta go back in the morning. I already have that figured out, boss. Morning comes, me and Joe’ll go get her and Nate. Couldn’t carry them all back by myself, so I picked Matt out of respect.” He spat at the ground. “Didn’t want Matt getting chewed on. But that damn woman? I couldn’t care less what tries to make a meal of her. But I get it, just in case someone goes looking, they don’t need to find her. And we’ll get the dead native while we’re at it. Feed them to caiman and piranha. Except Nate. If we find him, we’ll bury him in the cave, too.”
Dillon nodded. His mood was darkening with the sky. He’d called his men in a while ago, not wanting to misplace any in the rainforest. He didn’t have any particular attachment to them, but he needed their numbers to work this double operation. Down two men now—Nate and Matt—shifts would be adjusted to compensate. Everything had been going reasonably smoothly until Annja Creed and her crew showed up and set his nerves all a jangle. Would anyone come back looking for her? Her disappearance could be easily explained away; people went missing in the rainforest. But wou
ld they search? A celebrity, someone would come looking.
“Damn it all to hell,” he said. “We’ll have to go faster. Probably can’t take everything. We’ll go for the bigger pieces.”
“Boss?” Hammond gave him a curious look.
“We need to put in a lot more hours in the cave,” Dillon said. “I’ll contact the labs in the morning. Tell them we’ve hit a snag with our plant harvest. I’ll come up with a reason. Every effort goes into the cave in case we have to pull out.”
“In case they come looking for her?”
“A celebrity? Someone will look for her. I just don’t want anyone to find something we’re trying to keep hidden,” Dillon returned. “We cannot risk getting caught. How can we enjoy all our money if we’re rotting in some South American prison?”
Hammond’s expression turned grim. “Then if we speed up production, how’re we gonna ship it out of here? If we don’t use the plants as cover—”
Dillon considered his options. The Brazilian government had only checked the transports going out the first month he was here. Everything all nicely labeled for research laboratories in Atlanta and Dallas, they fell to trusting him. He’d not had a single container inspected in the past ninety days.
“We’ll still use the plants as cover,” Dillon said. “Whatever snag I come up with to slow our shipments to the labs will become conveniently unsnagged. We just won’t be shipping any plants. And our shipments won’t be going to any laboratories.” Dillon spun and walked through an ankle-deep puddle toward the tent near the generator. “Bring Matt’s body, and let’s bury him now.” He looked over his shoulder. “Then we’ll all put in a long shift tonight.”
