“Well, hell,” said Karlson eventually. “It’s better than nothing, right?”
Everyone laughed, nodding in agreement. “Yeah,” Gale agreed, “it’s definitely better than nothing. Although a part of me wishes we could stay longer.”
“Oh?” Lee asked with raised eyebrows.
“I mean, we still haven’t really fully understood what we’re looking at here.”
“In what way?”
“Well, you know the chief?” she asked, pointing through the flames.
Lee nodded. “Yeah.”
“How old do you think he is?”
“Forty, maybe.”
“Try nearer seventy,” Gale answered.
“Seventy?” Lee sputtered, unable to believe it. “Damn, the old boy looks good for his age.”
“Doesn’t he, though? And it’s the same story throughout the village. Everyone’s in great shape, no matter their age. In fact, they don’t even really think about age in the same way that we do, it simply doesn’t affect them as much. Sure, they die eventually, but it’s generally when they’re very old, and almost never through disease or illness, which – the rumors are true – just don’t seem to affect them. We’ve checked them out thoroughly – or as thoroughly as they’ll allow us anyway, and without the equipment to do proper tests – and they just seem to be resilient, you know? To everything.”
“Any idea why?” Lee asked. “Or how?”
“They claim – and it might well be true – that their health stems from ingestion of a certain type of flower, which they include as a major part of their diet.”
“A flower?” Lee asked.
“Yes,” Eva replied, pointing to the trees above them. “If you can believe it, it grows above the canopy, or at least in the upper reaches of the canopy, as part of these trees.”
“The flowers grow on the trees?”
“They seem to,” Eva replied, and he remembered that she was the plant specialist on the team. “We’re not sure if it’s actually a part of the tree, or if it’s a separate thing, perhaps some sort of symbiotic relationship. But I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I’ve collected some samples, when we return to Chicago I’ll start finding out more about them. It looks a little like a bromeliad, but I think it’s closely related to the orchid family.”
“And you think it has some sort of medicinal properties?” Lee asked.
Eva shrugged. “I’ve got no equipment hear to establish that. But take a look around you, take a look at these people. There’s something going on, and this flower is the only thing that is significantly different from the diet of other tribes. Now, it might be from ingesting it, or it might even be from breathing in the pollen, they’re so close to the flowers up here, we just don’t know. We’re going to have to come back, though.”
“Come back?” Lee asked in surprise.
Gale nodded her head. “Oh yeah. We need to scientifically evaluate this, we need our equipment, our instruments. Any samples we take back are going to be incredibly helpful, but we need to investigate on-site. In fact, I’m thinking of staying.”
“You’re what?”
“Look,” Gale said. “We know where this place is now, right? We have links to these people. Now, why don’t you take the injured and ill – that’s half the team – back to the US, and leave us here. Eva can take the plants she’s found to the lab and start work on the testing, and – if we can arrange to have our equipment dropped – then we can wait for it here, and do some serious work.”
“Won’t these guys just break it all again?” Lee asked.
Gale shrugged. “I know some of the language now,” she said. “I think I can communicate our needs to the chief, explain why it’s important. And if they break everything? Well, at least you know where we are now, you can just come and get us.”
“Oh, I can?”
Gale shrugged again. “Well, someone can, anyway.”
“I admire your dedication,” Lee said. “But how do these guys feel about it? The more you keep pressing this thing, the more likely it is that the tribe will be discovered. And then what? Everyone will want a piece of them, won’t they?” he shook his head. “Their way of life will be destroyed forever.”
Gale sat in silence for a few moments, deep in thought. “Yes,” she said. “You’re right. It’s selfish, it could cause this tribe to lose a way of life it’s lived for . . . well, who knows how long? But think about it – can we pass up this opportunity? What if this flower – or something else here – does offer the prospect of complete immunity?” She waved her hand around the village. “How many people live here? Fifty, maybe? What we want to do is to take some samples, do some investigating, some research. It is a risk, maybe it will mean everyone here will have to change the way they live, to join the rest of us in the wider world. Yes, it’s possible. But if what we have here can help millions – perhaps billions – of us to reap the same sort of rewards as this tribe, then how can we not do that? With a gift so magical, is it not more selfish to keep it here for just fifty people?”
Lee picked up some fruit and ate it as he thought about what Gale had just said. He knew that she was right, to a certain extent at least. It was true that a lot of people might benefit from whatever was found here. And yet, wasn’t the justification of the “greater good” the excuse every tyrant in history had made? How many people had been killed over the years, how many civilizations and peoples had been lost for all time, in the pursuit of the “greater good”? It smacked of hubris, of arrogance; and yet Lee also knew that – as night followed day – such processes were inevitable. This tribe was inevitably going to be brought out into the open one day; once a single person knew about it, once the secret was out of the bag, then that was it. And that moment, he knew, had already passed.
“Well,” Lee said noncommittally. “You’re the scientists. I guess you guys know best, right?”
She gave him a sour smile in return, and went back to eating her fish.
“I’m going to go and see Lisa and Jake,” Lee said, pushing himself up from the floor. “Tell them what’s going on.”
“Good idea,” she said. “I’ll come and see them too, when I’ve finished.”
“I’ll tell them.”
Lee headed out from the dining platform, following directions he’d been given earlier. It was dark out here now, especially after being close to the fire, but there were occasional torches to light the way as he walked gently across the narrow bridges and walkways that connected this marvel of native architecture. He passed several other huts, all with families in them; some waved, others just stared, but nobody seemed aggressive or threatening, or displeased to see him in their village. There was some suspicion, perhaps, but nothing more.
Finally, he got to the hut where Lisa and Jake were staying, and poked his head around the corner. “Can I come in?”
Jake Harwood looked at him and nodded. “You’re the guy come to get us out of here, right?”
“Right,” Lee confirmed.
“Yeah, the others told me about you. Of course, you can come in. But be quiet.” He pointed at a body on the floor, fast asleep on a bed of palm fronds. “She’s out of it.”
Lee looked down and saw Lisa Garfield, and he thought again of Sylvia Darrow, how heartbroken she had seemed when she even considered the thought that they may never see each other again, and Lee was reminded of why he did this job. It wasn’t for the money, although it did pay well; but it had never been for the money. He just wanted to reunite people with their loved ones, as he hoped – one day – to be reunited with his wife and daughter, in the next life.
“So, you gonna get us out of here or what?” Harwood asked.
“You had enough?” Lee asked. “Some of your friends out there want to stay.”
“Yeah,” the young professor agreed, “I bet they do. They can get a bit obsessive like that. As for me, I think the stress has almost killed me already, you know? I belong in a lab, not out in the field. Man, when the
se guys picked us up, and killed those two people with us, I’d never felt so sick in my life. So, those other guys can stay here if they want. Me, I’m going home. They can send stuff back for me to have a look at in the lab, you know.”
Lee nodded in understanding. Not everyone was cut out for the rough stuff, and kudos to this kid for admitting it to himself. The dangerous ones were the people who tried to be something they weren’t, now they were the ones who got themselves into trouble.
“Anyway, I’ve not decided what I’m going to do yet,” Lee said. “I’ll wait to send a message through to President Dunford, I guess. The job was to take everyone back, so I’ll see what he says and take it from there.”
“I can’t believe he hired someone to find us,” Harwood said in wonder.
“Not just him,” Lee said. “Bakula and Darrow were in on it too.”
“Makes sense,” Harwood said, nodding. “Basically, they’re the only people who knew about this expedition. All real hush-hush, for obvious reasons. Couldn’t even tell our families about it, not all the details, anyway. Probably broke their hearts to tell you about it.”
“Yeah,” Lee said, “I think it did.”
Lee looked back at the girl on the floor, wondering if it was worth waking her to give her the watch. “How’s she doing?” he asked Harwood.
“Oh, she’s better. Came down bad with it just yesterday. Thought she was gonna die at first to be honest, but they gave her some sort of home brew medicine, with that crazy orchid in it, and now she’s doing a lot better.”
“And you?”
Harwood looked down at his ankle and shrugged. “I guess the flower’s just for illness and disease,” he said. “Cos I’ve had some, and this thing still hurts like a sonofabitch.”
Lee laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Still, nothing’s perfect, right?”
Harwood laughed too. “So, what’s the plan, anyway?”
Lee told him the outline, and Harwood nodded as he listened. “Well, hopefully Lisa here will be okay by tomorrow, if things get organized that fast. But Eva and I are gonna need some help. Even getting down from this damn treehouse is gonna be tough.”
“You’re not wrong there,” Lee said, looking down at Lisa once more and deciding to let her sleep. She was going to need her strength.
Instead, he knelt down and removed the watch from his wrist, instantly missing the solid weight, and pushed in into her hands. She pulled it in to her tightly, like a child clutching a teddy bear, and Lee smiled. Let her wake with it, he thought. Let it be a nice surprise for her.
“You want to come for dinner?” Lee asked. “I think she’s out for the count, you might as well come and join the rest of us.”
Harwood smiled. “Yeah,” he said, “why not? Just give me a hand, will you?”
Lee went and bent in front of him, letting him loop an arm around his shoulder and hoisting him gently to his feet.
“Practice for tomorrow’s extraction,” Lee said with a smile, as they started moving slowly from the hut.
Harwood stumbled, cursed in pain, and then laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “I think we’re gonna need it.”
Chapter Three
“Looks like a drugs lab got burned up last night,” said Ryan Millhouse as Daniel Forster strolled into the ops room.
“Where did you get that from?” Forster asked. “Rodrigues?”
“No,” Millhouse replied, “I don’t even think Rodrigues knows about it yet. I’m plugged into a few of the networks the gangs use, I thought it would be a good idea, in case they came across the same guys we’re looking for, you know?”
“Good thinking,” Forster said, sitting down on a swivel office chair near Millhouse. “You think it’s connected?”
“One man did it,” the intel specialist replied, “alone. Took out five armed men empty-handed in the forest, then another twelve back at the lab. Kicked the hell out of them, spent the night in their bunkhouse, then blew the place to hell the next morning.”
“That’s gotta be John Lee,” Forster said, before whistling in admiration. “Damn, that guy’s good. The cartel must be pissed.”
“It is,” Millhouse advised. “They’re after blood, they just don’t know whose.”
“Hmm,” Forster thought, wondering if he could somehow use their anger to his advantage. “Can we –”
A bleeping on Millhouse’s system stopped Forster short, and the younger man checked it, verified it, then smiled widely and turned to his boss. “We’ve got them,” he said.
Forster felt his pulse rise, his heart rate increase. “Which source?”
“Source Delta,” Millhouse said, and Forster smiled too. “Perfect.” It was the best of the multiple sources that might possibly have given them a location.
“Are we waiting for corroboration?”
Forster paused, thinking. Other sources might provide other information, such as exactly who was there, but Forster knew that such confirmation might never come. They had a lead, and his gut told him to act on it, and act on it immediately. “We have a precise target?” he asked.
“We do,” Millhouse said, tapping a point on the screen of his computer, which displayed a large-scale satellite map of the area. “Right there.”
Forster nodded. “Jack!” he called. “Get the chopper running. We’re going hunting.”
“What’s wrong?” Hartman asked Phoenix, as she let out a yelp of nervous shock, sat behind her computer screen.
“I’ve got reports of sightings of a US Black Hawk chopper, leaving Feijó within the last hour.”
“You’re kidding,” Hartman said, leaping to his feet and joining her at the console.
“I’m not,” she said.
“You think it belongs to Apex?”
“It’s got to.”
“But how the hell did they get one? It’s on the US munitions list for ITAR, isn’t it?” ITAR was the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and existed to stop the sale of military-grade equipment to non-authorized buyers.
“I guess someone felt they were an acceptable customer,” Phoenix said, typing away furiously on her keyboard. “Yep,” she said eventually, “their inventory shows four of them in total. All above-board, with end-user certificates.”
“Damn. But there’s only one around here, right?”
“Looks like,” Phoenix said.
“So, where are they headed?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Phoenix said. “But they’re going in John’s direction.”
“Damn.”
“We’re a lot closer than they are,” Phoenix said, deep in thought.
“Closer to where?”
“The border. That’s where John was headed, and I’m sure that’s where these assholes are headed, too.”
“Maybe,” Hartman allowed.
“I know it. Wake Silva up,” Phoenix said suddenly, thinking about the helicopter she’d managed to source earlier that day for the extraction, and which was ready and waiting for them. “And let’s see if he can fly that damn chopper like he claims he can. And Markus?”
“Yeah?”
“Grab your rifle, too.”
Chapter Four
“Well, look who it is,” Gale said with a smile as Lisa Garfield walked slowly off the bridge and onto the dining platform. Dinner had long since finished, but most people – tribespeople and researchers alike – had now moved onto the palm wine, a particularly potent local concoction, and the smoking pipes.
Lee had abstained from both, but was enjoying the conversation, and was even beginning to pick up a few words of the tribal language. One of the things he’d picked up from following his diplomat father around the world as a kid, was a natural affinity for learning languages. He wasn’t perfect in any of them, but was fluent in a couple, and conversational in quite a number.
“Hi guys,” she said, and Lee was surprised that she’d had dysentery the day before; she didn’t look terrific, but she looked a long way from death’s door, and Lee could only sup
pose that the orchid had something to do with it.
He was holding one now, the stem a dark green like the forest leaves among which it grew, the petals a rich, deep purple. It was a curious-looking flower, and Lee found it hard to believe that such an innocuous little thing could be so powerful. He looked from the flower, to Lisa, then back again, and marveled at the miracle of nature. There was, he knew, more out there in the world that we didn’t know about, than that we did, and the thought humbled him.
“How are you feeling?” Jake asked.
“Better,” she said. “Much better, thanks. But I found this watch with me when I woke up,” she said, holding it up for everyone to see. “Who put it there?”
“It was me,” Lee said. “I thought about waking you to give it to you, but it looked like you needed your sleep.”
“Who are you?” Lisa asked.
“He’s come to take us home,” Gale explained. “Hired by Dunford and the others.”
“Yeah,” she said, sitting down with the group and looking at Lee. “But why the watch? What does it mean?”
“It’s from Sylvia,” he said, not knowing how much to say, how much the others knew about her relationship with the professor. “The watch you gave her.”
The confusion on her face was obvious, like when he’d asked the drug runners where the researchers were – it was as if being confronted by the completely unknown. A cold shiver ran down his spine.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lisa said.
“You had it engraved,” Lee persisted, his head starting to throb now, the walls of his world squeezing inward. “Read it.”
“I’ve read it,” Lisa said, “and I still don’t understand. Is it some sort of joke?”
Lee’s heart stopped in his chest as realization started to dawn on him. She really hadn’t seen it before.
Which could only mean . . .
He leaped up and raced toward her, shoving the flower he’d been looking at into the cargo pocket of his pants as he went. “Show me that watch,” he said, nearly ripping it out of her hands.
THE EXTRACTOR: When all else fails, it is time to call in . . . The Extractor Page 12
