the Source (2008)

by Cordy, Michael

  Mendoza coughed. 'I still can't believe what Juarez did for me.

  'He was a brave and selfless man,' said Ross.

  'But I'd thought he was a coward.'

  'We are what we do,' said Ross, almost to himself. 'His last act defined him.'

  Mendoza patted the earth with his hand. 'This man will go to heaven.'

  'I won't argue with you on that one.'

  After filling in the hole, they dragged a slab from the plaza, placed it over the mound, and Mendoza assembled a small pile of stones to mark the grave. Then they called to the others. Hackett came down, then he and Mendoza said simple prayers, while Zeb watched over Sister Chantal.

  Later, they made a fire on the flat top of the ziggurat and prepared food. No one was hungry but they went through the motions, picking at their tinned beans and meat stew.

  'How's Sister Chantal?' Ross asked.

  'She's stirred a couple of times, but she's still out of it,' Hackett replied. 'Her blood pressure's okay, though. I think she just needs rest.'

  Zeb was sitting by the baggage, frantically rooting through Sister Chantal's shredded pack. 'You okay, Zeb?' Ross called to her.

  Zeb's eyes were bright and red-rimmed from crying. 'No,' she said quietly. 'I'm not.' She held up a pile of shredded, bloodstained paper, then Father Orlando's notebook, what was left of it. 'The backpack saved Sister Chantal's life but the notebook was in it. The jaguar tore it to pieces.'

  Ross felt sick. 'Show me.'

  The cruel irony was that the first pages were still legible and the last mismatched section had survived virtually untouched. It was only the middle of the book, the end pages of the first section - the crucial final directions to the garden - that had been obliterated. He took the torn pages from Zeb and knew immediately they couldn't be salvaged. He thought again of the strange plants carved at the base of the ziggurat and the story of the fountain. The metallic taste of disappointment flooded his mouth. The carved images had encouraged him earlier, but now they taunted him. Just when he was beginning to believe in Father Orlando's garden, just when he was getting close, it was to be denied him. 'The last directions are gone.'

  'So?' said Hackett. 'We don't need them any more.'

  'We do,' said Zeb. 'They were the most critical.'

  'But this is it. This lost city is what we were looking for.' Hackett paused. 'Isn't it?'

  'No,' said Ross. 'It's not.'

  'What are you saying? Finding this place was a bonus? What's going on?'

  Ross looked at Sister Chantal in her sleeping-bag. 'I don't know if it was a fluke or not but this isn't where Father Orlando's directions lead,' he said. 'In fact, he made no mention of this place in any of his writings.'

  'But this is one of the biggest archaeological discoveries in history,' Hackett expostulated. 'Not just in South America, but the entire world. How can it not be where his directions lead? What could possibly be more important than this?'

  'Or more valuable?' demanded Mendoza.

  Zeb pulled some photocopied sheets out of her backpack and passed them to Hackett, then summarized the story in the Voynich. 'We're looking for a garden where plants like this grow.'

  'You came all this way, into the largest rainforest in the world, to find a garden?' said Hackett.

  'Yes.'

  Hackett studied the photocopies. 'These plants are like the ones on the carvings here.'

  'Exactly,' said Ross. 'Which means we're probably close.'

  Hackett frowned, trying to understand. 'The garden must be pretty special.'

  'That's what we're hoping,' said Zeb. 'Father Orlando called it the Garden of God.'

  'How is it special?' asked Mendoza.

  Ross kept his eyes focused on Hackett. 'We're hoping it has healing properties, as in the Voynich story.'

  'Healing properties?' Hackett snorted. Ross recognized his own initial scepticism in the doctor's face. Hackett stared into the fire. 'Let me guess, you think the plants are somehow linked to the water from the fountain here. You think the spring once came from this miraculous garden.'

  'It fits,' said Ross. 'The spring could have been fed via an underground stream, which flowed from the garden and then got blocked. Perhaps the people were dependent on the water, or whatever was in it, and became sick when it dried up.'

  Hackett was shaking his head.

  'You think the garden is close to here?' said Mendoza, clearly intrigued.

  'Yes,' said Ross.

  'If it exists,' said Hackett, 'what do we do about this place and the gold? Which, by the way, does exist.'

  'The gold will wait for us,' said Mendoza. He gave a decisive nod. 'I'm coming with you, Ross.'

  'You don't have to. It'll be dangerous. According to the story, all the surviving conquistadors died in the garden. Only Father Orlando survived to tell the tale.'

  Mendoza laughed. 'If it's safe enough for an old nun, a man with a broken wrist and a young woman, it's safe enough for me. I'm coming.'

  'Hang on,' said Hackett. 'This is madness. We've already lost Juarez in finding this place. Why put anyone else at risk looking for some mythic Shangri-La?'

  'None of you has to come with me,' said Ross. 'I'm sorry about Juarez, I really am, but finding this garden was the reason I came here.'

  'And you, Zeb?' demanded Hackett. 'You're committed to finding it, too?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then I've no choice but to go too, I suppose,' said Hackett, and gave a weary sigh. 'The garden sounds like a load of guff, but we should stay together.' He looked at Zeb. 'If it's dangerous you'll need someone to take care of you.'

  For the first time that evening Zeb smiled. 'Someone like you, Nigel?'

  Hackett bristled. 'Someone exactly like me - someone careful and cautious. I'm not losing anyone else on this trip.'

  'This discussion is academic, anyway,' Ross said quietly. He held up Father Orlando's damaged notebook. 'The crucial section, containing the final directions to the garden, is unreadable.'

  'Can't you remember any of them?' said Mendoza.

  'All I can remember is one of the last landmarks, something called La Sonrisa del Dios, the Smile of God. After that I think we find ourselves in a cave system. But I've no idea how to find La Sonrisa del Dios, whatever it is.' He turned to Zeb. 'How about you?'

  'I remember it being a good three days' walk from La Barba Verde to La Sonrisa del Dios, with only the stars to guide us. But I've no idea which stars.'

  'So, what are you saying?' said Hackett. 'We're stuffed?'

  'Yes.' Ross was suddenly desperate to get away from the cursed city. 'That's exactly what I'm saying.'

  That night on the ancient ziggurat, sitting under the stars surrounded by the ruins of a civilization that had been dead for more than a thousand years, was the loneliest Ross could remember.

  While the others slept by the fire he kept watch, Juarez's rifle cradled in his lap. Despite his exhaustion, he knew he wouldn't sleep. It wasn't his aching wrist that kept him awake but the suffocating feeling of time crushing him. He thought of Lauren in the States and of the life growing inside her womb. In a few weeks it would be six months, two-thirds of the way through the pregnancy. In another three months it would be due. These next weeks were critical, and yet they seemed insignificant against the centuries of history that surrounded him.

  Turning away from the crackling fire, he stared into the humid, enveloping dark, wishing he could believe in some merciful higher power. Tomorrow he would leave this forsaken place, go home and accept whatever happened. His great quest was over.

  Chapter 47.

  Ross woke with a start. A pearlescent moon still hung in the sky, but, when he looked over the lost city to the horizon, a soft glow told him dawn was imminent. He couldn't remember falling asleep but he felt alert and fresh. He also felt compelled to act.

  He stood up, stepped round the sleeping Hackett and Mendoza, passed Zeb's still form and knelt beside Sister Chantal. He shook her gently until she opened her eyes.
>
  'Wake up,' he murmured. 'We've got to go.'

  'Where?' She touched the bruise on her head, dazed, disoriented and frightened.

  He kept his voice soft but firm. 'You get up now and take us to Father Orlando's garden, or we turn back and go home.'

  She reached out her hand. 'Where's the notebook?'

  'It's ruined. There are no more directions. It's up to you now. You say you're the Keeper, that you've been to the garden before. Now's the time to prove it.'

  'What about the others?'

  'They'll be with us.'

  'But they can't--'

  'I don't care about secrecy any more. Your plan to use this place to distract them didn't work. Juarez is dead.'

  Her eyes widened. 'Juarez is dead?'

  'The jaguar that attacked you killed him. We're in the middle of nowhere - literally - and there are two choices. We go on to the garden together or we go home. We're depending on you. Lauren's depending on you.'

  'All the directions are destroyed?'

  He handed her the notebook. 'See for yourself.'

  She rubbed her head, thinking. 'The others can come only if they vow to tell no one of the garden and to take nothing from it.'

  'They'll make that promise.'

  'There might be one other way to find the garden, but I need a compass.'

  'Here's mine.' He reached into his pocket. 'I doubt it'll work, though. There's some strange magnetic field here. The GPS is out and our watches have stopped.'

  'Give it to me.'

  He glanced at it, then at the rising sun. Wherever the needle was pointing, it sure as hell wasn't magnetic north. 'Like I said, it's not working.'

  She took it, sat up and smiled. 'Follow the needle.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Follow the needle. It should lead us to the garden.'

  He took the compass from her. Normally when a compass wasn't working correctly the needle became erratic. This one wasn't. It pointed firmly in one direction. It wasn't north but it was steady. His pulse quickened. Was the interference coming not from the ore-riddled ridge they had passed through but from the garden - or the source? 'You sure this will lead us there?'

  She nodded, eyes sparkling.

  'Good.' Ross hardly dared to believe they were continuing the quest. 'In that case, I'll wake the others.'

  Within an hour they were ready to leave. They climbed the path out of the valley to the high shelf above, then turned in the direction of the compass needle. As they were about to re-enter dense jungle, Ross looked back. From this elevation, the valley again seemed lush but unremarkable, its secret concealed beneath the vegetation. He strained to glimpse the ziggurat to no avail.

  Then he caught a glint of light, the reflection of the sun on metal or glass, coming from the high shelf near the ridge. He wondered what it could be, then pushed it from his mind and followed the others into the jungle.

  Father General Leonardo Torino lowered his binoculars and squinted in the early-morning sunlight. For the first time since Iquitos he could see Ross Kelly and the others. It took all his self-control to prevent the relief showing on his face.

  'How did you know they would be here, Father General?' said Fleischer. 'We found their trail in the jungle but how did--'

  'I told you, Feldwebel, we're on a sacred mission. The Lord is guiding us.' Torino fixed him with his most intense stare. 'Did you doubt me?' Fleischer and his men bowed their heads and crossed themselves. Torino raised his binoculars and focused on the spot where he'd seen Kelly. 'However, the Lord may need our help from here, Feldwebel. We must follow our quarry and not lose them in the jungle.'

  'I understand, Father General.' He pointed to one of his men, a shorter, muscular man with thick eyebrows and a jagged scar on his right cheek. 'Weber, keep close, but make sure you aren't seen. Leave a trail for us to follow. If your pack's too heavy, share its weight with Petersen and Gerber.'

  'It's fine, sir. I can move fast enough to track them.'

  'Good.' Fleischer reached into his pack, pulled out a pair of basic two-way radios and handed one to Weber. They switched them on and both crackled into life, unaffected by whatever force had stopped their watches. 'Keep us informed.'

  As Torino and the others watched Weber hurry along the high shelf after Kelly's party, not one noticed the lost city in the valley below, slumbering beneath its blanket of green.

  Chapter 48.

  Juarez was in their thoughts as they hacked their way through the steaming jungle over the next two and a half days. They missed his alert presence and nimble ability to thread a path through the densest forest. Even the immaculate Hackett was dishevelled. They slept by night, suspended above the forest floor in hammocks, sheltered beneath tarpaulins to keep out the rain. By day, they moved at a slow but determined pace, oblivious of any trail they left.

  Ross lost count of the exotic creatures they encountered: golden-pelted monkeys, brilliantly coloured snakes, spiders the size of a man's hand. He was sure some must have been unclassified species. When he thought of the strange plants and animals he had seen since entering the Amazon, how commonplace the bizarre had become, Falcon's garden, with its exotic flora and fauna, seemed less and less inconceivable.

  On the third day another ridge blocked their path. It was concave and topped with tooth-white rocks. Immediately Ross knew it must be the one other landmark he remembered from the notebook, La Sonrisa del Dios, the Smile of God.

  It occurred to him then that the garden was protected by a number of concentric circles of high rock, like ripples when a stone is dropped into a pond. They had passed through the first via the fierce waterfall of El Velo de la Luz and the second by La Barba Verde. As Ross gazed at La Sonrisa del Dios, adrenalin surged through him. Was this the final barrier protecting Father Orlando's mythical garden?

  As if reading his mind, Hackett asked, 'Are we almost there?'

  'Yes,' Sister Chantal said. 'The cave system that leads to the garden cuts through the ridge beneath those white rocks.'

  Ross checked his GPS again, hoping to determine his exact location, but two words filled the screen: Signal Error.

  The sun was setting and, though Ross and Sister Chantal wanted to press on, the others decided to rest and tackle the caves in the morning. Ross feared his racing mind would keep him awake, but when he collapsed on to his hammock he fell instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Only Sister Chantal did not sleep that night. Clutching her crucifix she lay awake in the dark, listening to the sounds of the forest, waiting for dawn to break. Though she was consumed by fatigue, and her body ached, she couldn't relax. Not yet. She burnt with the need to reach the end of her long journey. She yearned to finish her ordeal, fulfil her promise and reap her elusive reward.

  Chapter 49.

  The next morning, Ross, Zeb, Hackett and Mendoza followed Sister Chantal to the cliff beneath the white rocks of La Sonrisa del Dios. She led them to a vertical fissure crowned with a natural arch and, one by one, they squeezed through the opening until they found themselves in La Catedral, the cathedral-like cave described in the Voynich. Shafts of sunlight illuminated the vast space and Ross saw dozens of small openings hundreds of feet above their heads, which shone like stars among the stalactites on the soaring vault of the roof. The shafts of sunlight picked out glittering, gilded veins in the rock walls.

  'Gold,' said Mendoza, with greedy eyes.

  Ross studied a vein. 'It looks like gold but I'm afraid it's pyrites, fool's gold.'

  'Whatever it is, this is the band of gold that Father Orlando and the conquistadors followed to the garden,' said Sister Chantal. 'We must follow it, too.'

  They had entered the vast cave on what amounted to a mezzanine level. Its ceiling, with the star-like apertures, rose above, and its floor was over an abrupt edge to their right, many feet below. A Boeing 747 could have parked in it with ease. Hell, a fleet of them could land and take off in it, Ross thought. The air was surprisingly hot, and tainted with a foul smel
l, which worsened as they went deeper. Ammonia made his eyes water and Hackett, sucking at his inhaler, was scrabbling in his medical bag for a surgical mask.

  Deeper into the cave, the ground sloped down and the passage became narrower until they were walking in single file along a ledge. Now Ross could see the source of the overpowering stench. Over the abyss to his right there was a conical mountain of bat droppings. At least forty feet across and easily as tall, it rose from the floor below to its peak, a few feet from where they were standing. A rustling, clicking sound came from the mound and its dark surface was constantly moving. Every inch was beaded with writhing cockroaches, feeding on the waste. Zeb covered her face. The sight was almost worse than the smell, and Ross put his hand over his mouth to stop himself retching. Above the surgical mask Hackett's eyes showed his disgust. For a man who hated anything remotely dirty or sucio this was a nightmare.

  In the darker corners of the ceiling, Ross spotted thousands of bats hanging from the rock. He dreaded the possibility of their waking suddenly and overwhelming them as they fled the cave in their thousands. He pointed upwards to warn the others, who instinctively pushed themselves closer to the wall, putting as much distance as they could between them and the edge.

  The danger, however, came from below.

  Hackett saw the sandy-coloured snake first, wriggling along the ledge, trying to evade them, but Zeb almost stepped on it. It reared and struck her thick walking boot. As it prepared to strike again Hackett kicked it away, inadvertently towards Mendoza, who jumped out of its path and lost his footing. Trying to regain his balance, he fell on then rolled off the ledge. He scrabbled frantically for a handhold on the sharp rock but gained only a momentary grip before he dropped into the seething mound of filth. He sank fast. Cockroaches covered his boots and lower leg, then swarmed up his body.