by Alex Archer
And since the mapinguari was real, perhaps the other Amazon creatures she’d come in search of were, too.
Somehow Annja would talk Doug into financing a return trip. But she suspected she’d not see a creature like this ever again.
The sun had set by the time she reached Dillon’s camp. The surrounding forest was dark, but the cloudless twilight sky over the clearing revealed the remnants of a battle. A half-dozen Dslala tribesmen lay outside the log perimeter, bodies riddled with bullets and insects. From the smell and look of them, they’d been dead for several days. A few of the bodies had gaping holes in them, scavengers come to dine. She knelt at the closest body and quickly backed away, a snake slithered over the torso.
D’jok had said five days; that would be about right.
She climbed the log wall rather than walk around to the barbed wire gate. There were another half-dozen Dslala tribesmen in here, bodies in the same horrible state—masses of maggots, some bloated with gasses. The smell was intense and the insects swarmed around the corpses. There were fatalities on Dillon’s side, too; she saw four men, all in coveralls, some with kneepads, two with helmets on as if they’d come up from the mine to join the fight.
Annja padded closer, wanting to see how they’d died. Poison darts, each of Dillon’s men, the darts still in them. Their eyes were hollow sockets and pieces of their faces were gone. She looked away and toward the tents. No one else had been here yet. Maybe they hadn’t found the place, or maybe her report and the one Duarte had made on the phone from his farmhouse were in a stack on someone’s desk.
When she got back to Belém she’d find someone to do something about all of this. She was nothing if not persistent.
“Dillon!” she hollered. Hand out to her side, she felt the sword poised at the ready. “Dillon, you monster!” His wasn’t one of the bodies, and neither was Hammond’s.
D’jok had heard helicopters. Maybe Dillon had hitched a ride out with one of his so-called plant shipments.
“Dillon!”
The tent canvas flapped in the wind that gusted. There was no one in the main tent, which had been stripped of its computer, microscopes and various other devices. Cases of batteries remained. The drawers of a file cabinet were open, and the cabinet itself leaned forward, unbalanced. Whatever files that had been in it were gone. She went back outside, took a helmet off one of the dead men, scraped out the insects, and turned on its light. Back inside the main tent, she searched more thoroughly. The light died and she replaced the batteries, stuffed a few more batteries in her pockets, and continued to rummage around.
Nothing useful. She’d hoped to spot forgotten jump drives or other computer-related items so she could follow Dillon’s electronic trail.
Next tent, and the next, and the next. All of them empty, a place of ghosts. And in the growing darkness, it was a place of eerie shadows. The insect chorus started, frogs and nightbirds joining in. Faintly she heard a big cat snarl. She brushed away mosquitoes the size of quarters.
Beyond the perimeter she saw where helicopters had landed fairly recently, the marks still evident in the damp ground. Two helicopters of different sizes, one quite large by the print it left. Dillon probably needed it to take his men out of here...though he’d had fewer to accommodate after the fight with the Dslala.
Annja returned to the camp and took down all of the sleeping tents and one of the larger ones. She wanted the nylon cords from them. Inside the tent that covered the crevice to the emerald mine, Annja sat and worked on the cords, tying them together, making a harness for herself, tying another length together and looping that over her arm. Outside, she tied one of the ropes to the generator and tugged fiercely; it would hold. They’d taken the rope ladder with them. She found another helmet inside the tent, and opted for it, as it didn’t stink of a dead man. She put it on, tested the light, and went down the hole.
She noticed a difference right away; two more graves had been added, and there was a mound of wilted wildflowers on the oldest. At least Dillon, or his men, had enough respect to bury some of their dead. But they’d left others up top to rot, and so they’d left the camp in a hurry. He’d mentioned to her and Marsha that he had a small camp twenty or thirty miles due west. Maybe she’d go there next. But first a little more exploring.
Picks had been abandoned, buckets—but these were empty. There were a few small chunks of emerald-laced rocks along the wall where the men had been working. Undoubtedly valuable, the smallest pieces weren’t valuable enough for Dillon. Farther along and she saw a gaping hole in the wall where the massive emerald had been. They’d managed to get it out...unfortunately, Annja thought. They’d also managed to pretty well strip most of the thick emerald veins, though dozens of smaller veins had been left untouched. She imagined they’d been working around the clock and could almost picture Dillon’s face red with rage that he’d had to abandon this pot of gold.
She picked a sturdy outcropping, looped the other cord around it and tied it tight, tugging repeatedly to make sure it would hold. Annja didn’t want to risk getting trapped in the cavern below. Yes, the underground tributary was a way out, but that wasn’t a ride she ever wanted to repeat.
Down again.
The light dimmed and Annja replaced the batteries. My kingdom for a camera, she thought, as she stared at the walls with all their primitive paintings and at the bones of the ancient beasts. She allowed herself a few minutes to ogle the cave paintings, the one bright spot in this otherwise beyond-miserable day.
Then she went to the center of the cavern, where she’d left the mapinguari skull. Next, she found Moons’s body. Because it was cooler here, the girl’s body wasn’t too badly decomposed. Annja could deal with it. She gathered up the body and managed to get it to the level above.
Annja went back for the mapinguari skull. She’d only take the one, and leave all the rest of the bones behind.
Wait...one more notion. Annja retraced her steps and returned to the area the men had been mining, picked up a few small emeralds and put them in her pocket. They were for Moons, to pay for getting her body back to her parents, which wouldn’t be cheap, and to pay for a proper burial.
Then back up top. She laid Moons’s body in the tent, the skull next to it, and looked outside.
Annja might make it back to the shaman’s hut by midnight if she started now. But it would be slower going with Moons’s body. Annja wasn’t going to leave her here to rot with the dead Dslala and Dillon’s men. Waiting until the morning might be prudent. But there wasn’t a trace of rain in the air, and she’d made the trip between the village and this camp enough times to find her way even in pitch darkness. She went outside and took the canvas and poles from one of the smaller tents and fashioned a litter, wrapped Moons’s body in another section of canvas and tied it to the litter. Then she sat the skull on top of that.
Annja was halfway to the barbed wire gate when she saw him.
“Hammond.”
“Should’ve shot you before I tossed you into the hole. I had bullets then.” Hammond’s twin machetes gleamed in the starlight.
“Where’s Dillon?”
Hammond chuckled. “Gone.”
Annja could smell Hammond, though he was nearly two dozen feet away. He stank of sweat, strong enough for her to pick it up despite the reek of the corpses. He was filthy, his skin streaked with mud, dried blood and other stains, his face a mass of scratches.
“So the master left the dog behind.” Annja was taunting him. “Did he leave you any scraps? Or did he take all the money and gems for himself?”
Hammond’s lip curled. “I stayed to clean up some loose ends. I just didn’t expect—”
“—me to be one of them?”
“No,” Hammond admitted. “I expected you to be dead.”
“Where’s Dillon?” she tried again.
“A long way
from here.”
Annja dropped the litter poles and stepped aside as he rushed her, summoned her sword and brought it around, catching both his blades as he swept them in, meaning to cut her in half.
“Where the hell did the sword come from?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Annja said. She skittered back to give herself more room and get Hammond away from Moons’s body. She wanted it to remain in reasonably good condition. “This sword, it belonged to Joan of Arc.”
He spit at her and shifted his grip on each machete. Hammond wasn’t usually clumsy; Annja had noted earlier that he was rather stealthy, but clearly he wasn’t used to using machetes as weapons, and he obviously didn’t know any of the rudiments of fencing. Still, he was angry and determined, and that combination was dangerous.
“Tell me where Dillon is.” Annja set her jaw and locked eyes with his. Hammond’s expression was cold.
“Safe,” Hammond said. “Where no one can get to him.”
“You going to join him?” Annja circled slowly, and he turned to keep her in front of him.
“I like it here.” Hammond gestured with a machete to her sword. “And I’m liking that weapon. It will look good hanging from my brand-new belt, don’t you think?”
“Charlemagne held this sword when he was a young boy,” Annja said. She didn’t mind recounting the rest of the sword’s history for Hammond. The moment she saw him by the barbed wire gate, she knew what the outcome would be. Hammond wouldn’t be telling any of her secrets.
He rushed in and cleaved with both machetes, and Annja parried one blade, catching it on the edge of her sword, the metal squealing, then hooking it at the handle and yanking, hurling the machete away. The other blade she’d managed to dodge, but she felt the air from his swing.
“You’re going to die!”
“You’ve tried a few times already,” she said. Annja danced to his right, and then came up behind him. He spun and jabbed at her, but she leaped back and caught the edge of his machete, rode her sword down along it and drove forward. Her sword plunged into his side.
Hammond screamed in pain and pulled the machete back and up above his head, clearly intending to drive it down on her. Annja stepped in close as she pulled her sword out, and then whirled around behind him. Hammond cleaved the air.
“Over here,” Annja said.
He turned, leaning to his right, favoring his wounded side.
“I don’t suppose you’ll just give up. Surrender.”
He charged her.
“I didn’t think so.” She pivoted and swept her blade in, the edge slicing deep into his stomach. He let go of the machete and dropped to his knees, held his hands close as if trying to keep the blood from coming out.
“Where’s Dillon?” Annja asked.
“A long way from here. You’ll never find him.” Hammond pitched forward, dead.
Annja dismissed the sword, tossed the hard hat on the ground and picked up the ends of the litter.
“I will find him,” Annja said.
She repeated the mantra all the way back to the village. It was almost dawn before she made it there to see D’jok and Roux.
“I dreamed you would succeed, Annja Creed. And I dreamed that you will return.”
She held his hand tightly. “I will, my friend.” Annja would return with archaeologists and another film crew, finishing her planned series and participate in a dig. “And maybe...maybe I will dream with you.”
Chapter 39
Annja rented a sailboat, but ended up taking down the sail and paddling most of the way when the wind died. She’d set off from Coron, where she’d flown in late yesterday—the largest town on the island of Busuanga in the Philippines. She intended to fly out of there tomorrow afternoon, catch a connecting flight to Manila, and then off to Belém again; it would be a long flight with a couple more connections. There’d be a lengthy layover, too.
But that’s what it was like when flying to and from the remotest of places. It took her more than two hours to reach the private island of Innaapupan, roughly two hundred and fifty acres, all of it considered virgin...no development, a place untouched.
Her arms ached from the workout, but it was a good feeling, and she relished the sun on her face and the salt-tinged scent of the sea air.
The beach she landed at had powdery white sand that glistened like fresh snow under the noon sun. She pulled the boat up, canted it, and tied the rope to a big piece of heavy driftwood. Annja stared out across the brilliant blue water, seeing other smaller islands nearby, one of them called Lamay, a place with people and amenities, or so said the brochure at the airport. Snorkeling was supposedly good around that island.
The handful of other islands she could see ranged from five to ten acres, like dots of ink on a map that most eyes would overlook. But Dillon hadn’t overlooked them—he’d bought six of them; this was the largest of the lot.
That’s how Annja had tracked him.
A cop she’d met a little more than a year ago in Madison, Wisconsin—she’d been in the city attending an archaeology conference that turned into quite the adventure—told her it was always about the money.
And while she didn’t think it was entirely about the money in Arthur Dillon’s case, taking the cop’s advice worked. She followed the money. Despite her most diligent efforts and calling in favors, she hadn’t been able to track the sale of the massive emerald. Maybe it hadn’t been sold. Brazilian officials—who eventually arrived at Dillon’s camp and the mine beneath it—could not find it either or prove its existence. But they had managed to catch Dillon’s British partner who’d been living in Belém. If the Brit knew about the massive gem, he wasn’t saying.
Still, she followed the money, studying expensive transactions in places beyond the reach of the Brazilian government. One transaction raised a big red flag: the purchase of six islands dotted with tropical rainforest. Dillon had paid forty-two million dollars for them.
She’d followed the money and found Dillon’s goal of finding cures for the world’s most horrid diseases. Annja believed he’d been sincere about his desire to eradicate cancer and other maladies during his lifetime, no matter how twisted his methods.
And now she followed a path that led away from the beach and into the trees. Another boat had been pulled farther up on the beach and turned over. The name on the side, though upside down, was clearly legible. Nancy’s Emerald Dream. A nice touch.
She found his tent about a hundred yards from shore. It was one of those luxury models that probably cost a few grand. An outdoor grill next to it, a lounge chair and umbrella to cut the sun, a small table with a pitcher of tea.
He wasn’t inside. The tent was divided down the middle, half a laboratory, with some of the same equipment she’d seen at his site in the Amazon, a small generator under a counter, but it wasn’t turned on. The other half was living space, a comfortable looking bed, an easy chair, lanterns on a bookcase stuffed with a mix of biology books and mysteries.
She went back outside, sat on the lounge chair and waited.
Dillon arrived about a half hour later, carrying a canvas bag probably filled with plants he’d harvested. His tanned face appeared to pale when he saw her.
Annja got up.
“You’re—”
“—trespassing, I know. This is private property. You own this island, you own other islands. I looked on one of those first.”
“I could kill you.” Dillon dropped the bag and reached into his pocket. Even here, he carried a gun.
“You could try,” she said. The sword hovered, waiting. She kept her hands in her pockets. “Hasn’t there been enough deaths? The Dslala. Edgar. Moons. Your people.” She paused and studied him, inhaled and picked up the scent of his sunscreen. He’d had a bout with melanoma, he’d told her. Of course he’d wear sunscreen. He sti
ll had that spot on his hand, no larger, but it looked worrisome. Maybe he’d get it taken care of in prison. “I killed Hammond.”
The gun wavered for a moment, and Dillon squared his shoulders.
“In hindsight, I didn’t have to.” Annja continued confessing, spilling out the thoughts that had been tumbling through her head since that night at his abandoned pharma campsite. “I could’ve taken him without killing him. Looking back now, I should have. But I was tired and full of righteous anger and out for vengeance. But vengeance was really not mine to take.” She quoted a piece of scripture to him; she knew he would appreciate. “I don’t always follow the directions.”
“Get off my island.” Dillon gestured with the gun. “Get off!”
“I will,” Annja said. “But you’re coming with me. Brazilian law doesn’t apply here. That helped me find you, by the way, looking where their justice couldn’t reach. I’m going to take you where their justice reaches just fine.”
Dillon fired.
Annja had noticed his finger twitch, and in that heartbeat she reacted. She dropped in a crouch, pulled her hands from her pockets and summoned her sword.
Dillon gasped, the instant of surprise giving Annja an advantage. She pushed off and raised her leg, twisted and kicked his gun hand. He kept hold of it, but she followed through, bringing the pommel of the sword down hard. She heard fingers crack. The gun dropped.
“I can save us!” Dillon screeched. He swung at her and connected square in her stomach.
The blow was harder than Annja had anticipated, Dillon was clearly fit. He got in another blow before she leveled the sword and turned the blade so the flat of it caught him in the ribcage. She swung again with more power and felt his body give. She’d broken a few ribs.
“Maybe you could,” she said. “Maybe you could find a cure for something.”
