Panama Pursuit

by Andreas Oertel

  I popped below the dead tree again. “I don’t see any artifacts,” I said. “But it looks like they’re about to bury something.”

  “You better take another look,” Ben suggested.

  “Yeah,” Rachel said, “look behind them a bit—on that higher ground.”

  I stuck my head up again and re-examined the area.

  Huh?!

  Now I knew what Ben and Rachel meant. Something definitely wasn’t right. There wasn’t just one hole. The entire area was peppered with holes—dozens and dozens of holes.

  Chapter 7

  I DROPPED BELOW the log. “Why would they did so many holes?”

  “Exactly,” Ben said. “It’s bizarre. A hole is a hole. There’s no need to dig a perfect pit to hide some stolen skulls. Any depression in the ground would do.”

  “And they couldn’t possibly have dug all those holes tonight,” Rachel said. “There must be a hundred little mounds out there.”

  “That’s for sure,” Ben said. “It looks like a thousand gophers live on the side of that hill.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “This is weird.”

  CLANG!

  We all froze.

  “What was that?” Rachel said.

  “It sounded,” Ben said, “like someone got bashed on the head with a shovel.”

  We lifted our heads above the log to see what was happening. The three thieves had moved up the hill ten metres and were now standing around a stone and arguing about something. The girl took her shovel and whacked a boulder. CLANG! She seemed really frustrated.

  “I wonder what she’s all fired up about?” Ben mumbled.

  I still had the night vision binoculars in my hand, so I pressed them against my eyes for a better look. “Hey,” I whispered to Ben, “light that area up—the area where they’re standing.”

  “No problem.” Ben swung his spotlight up the slope and penetrated the night with a blast of infrared light.

  “No way!” I said. “I don’t believe it!”

  “What now?” Rachel demanded.

  “Rachel, it’s a pillar! They’re standing around a petroform. And it looks exactly like the stones in Sultana—in the graveyard.”

  “You’ve seen a stone like that before?” Ben asked.

  I ignored Ben’s question, passed the glasses to Rachel, and said, “Here, take a look.”

  “Anna’s dad said the same astronomical markers might be somewhere in Panama,” Rachel whispered, “but I sure never thought we’d find them here.”

  “What’s the big deal about some stones in the jungle?” Ben asked, confused.

  “We’ll tell you about them when we’re at camp again,” I said. “Which reminds me—we better go back before we get in trouble.”

  “But there are only two,” Rachel said, still leaning over the log and examining the area.

  “Two people?” I asked.

  “No,” she clarified. “Two pillars. I can’t see the third stone marker.”

  “Maybe it fell over,” I said. “Come on, Rachel, we gotta leave.”

  Ben let me use the binoculars to guide us back to the shore and the canoe. When I saw that our boat was still where we’d left it—thank goodness—I turned the binoculars off and let them dangle around my neck. Ben flicked off his spotlight and we cautiously fought our way through the thick shrubs along the shore.

  I suspected we were all covered with leeches again, but we would have to deal with them on the other side of the canal. We couldn’t waste time removing them now, even though I knew they were slowly sucking our blood.

  Rachel and I flipped the canoe quietly. I grabbed the back and was about to slide it into the water, when Rachel pulled on my elbow. “Take one more look around with the NightHawk,” she said, her hands cupped around my ear. “Make sure Captain Pescada isn’t looking this way.”

  I nodded. I’d almost forgotten that we came ashore a mere stone’s throw from the Balboa.

  “I’ll get Ben to shine the spotlight on the boat,” Rachel whispered.

  Again I nodded.

  I turned on the infrared binoculars and pressed them against my eyes. Ben was on the other end of the canoe, and I waited for Rachel to tell him to turn on his powerful light.

  But the Balboa was already bathed in monochromatic green.

  What?!

  It took me several seconds to comprehend what I was seeing. And then I reacted... and I reacted fast. I leapt over the canoe and tackled a dark shadow—a shadow I hoped was Ben.

  “Ugh.” Ben groaned and toppled onto the muddy shore. “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t turn on your light,” I whispered urgently. “Keep it off!”

  “Why?” Ben asked. “No one can see it.”

  “No, no.” I rolled off of him. “We can’t use it, because there’s someone else out there using one right now. I saw their light with the binoculars. If you turn on the NightHawk, they’ll know we’re here—they’ll spot our IR light.”

  Rachel crouched down behind the canoe with us. “You’re kidding,” she said. “You mean there’s someone spying on us?”

  I passed Ben the special binoculars so he could see for himself. “Well, I don’t know if they’re watching us,” I said, “but someone’s definitely watching the Balboa.”

  “We should be okay,” Ben said, after a minute. “It looks like the spotlight is coming from out on Lake Gatun, on the other side of the Balboa. So there’s no way anyone could see us hiding here.”

  “It could be the canal police,” I said. “Maybe they have a patrol boat out there somewhere.”

  “That’s true,” Ben said. “They may just be wondering why the Balboa is tied to a tree in the middle of nowhere.”

  “But why use night vision gadgets?” Rachel said. “Why not just turn on a giant spotlight and pull right up to the boat?”

  Ben and I both mumbled that we didn’t know.

  “Captain Pescada must have gone into the jungle,” I said, “because I never saw him on the boat.”

  “Good,” Ben said.

  “So as soon as whoever is out there turns off their IR spotlight,” I said, “we can head across the canal again.”

  “We can use the light from Camp Gatun to guide us,” Rachel said. “If we paddle to the right of those lights on the hill, that’ll get us pretty close to the dock.”

  We waited nervously for the huge infrared beam to turn off. But it didn’t. Ben and I took turns with the binoculars, watching the light sweeping the jungle and the shore around the Balboa. Finally, whoever was out there spying had had enough.

  “Thank goodness,” I said, passing Ben the binoculars. “The infrared is gone.”

  “Should we wait a bit?” Ben asked. “In case it’s a trick?”

  “I think we have to risk it and go,” I said, glancing at the luminous dial of my watch. “It’s getting close to nine o’clock, and we can’t wait around any longer.”

  We slipped the canoe into the water and paddled silently across the canal. I sat at the back again and tried to aim our boat north of the tent city lights, where I guessed the dock was.

  “See if anyone is tracking us,” Rachel said, when we were halfway across.

  Rachel and I continued to paddle while Ben scanned the area with the binoculars.

  “Nothing,” Ben said a few seconds later. “It’s all black out there. I think we’re in the clear.”

  I suddenly had an idea. “Hey, Ben, keep looking through the binoculars. I’m going to do a quick sweep with the infrared spotlight, starting behind me by the Balboa and ending somewhere near the dock.”

  “Okay,” Ben said, “I’m ready.”

  I flicked on the infrared spotlight and slowly panned across the water from the east to the west.r />
  “GOTCHA!” Ben said, excitedly.

  I immediately turned off the IR light.

  “You saw something?” Rachel said.

  “You bet I did,” Ben said. “There’s a yacht—a really sleek yacht—hiding just behind the point. All its lights are off and I couldn’t see anyone on the deck, but I’d bet anything that boat was the source of the infrared light.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, paddling again. “Do you think it was there before—like before we left the dock?”

  “Could be,” Ben replied. “That boat is tucked in pretty good behind that spit of land. And I don’t think we could have seen it from our side—not even from the end of the dock.”

  “I sure hope they didn’t see us sneak across in the dark,” I said.

  We slid onto the muddy shore of the west bank only a few metres from where we’d left. Quickly, we dragged the canoe up the slope and in the position we’d found it. Rachel and I pulled out our flashlights, and we all began trotting through the dig site and back up the hill. We knew that we risked being caught with the lights on, but we were running out of time. It was almost nine o’clock.

  Outside our tent, at the start of the tent city, we saw Anna pacing back and forth. She saw our lights approaching, flicked on her own flashlight, and ran down the trail to greet us.

  Anna stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh, my God!” she cried, sounding like she was scared of us. “What happened to you?”

  I looked at Rachel, because that was where Anna’s flashlight was pointed. “Whoa!” I said, shining my light at Rachel and then Ben. “We gotta get cleaned up before someone sees us.”

  “Cleaned up?” Anna whimpered, still sounding like she was in shock. “You three look like monsters.”

  We examined each other with our lights and quickly removed the dozens of leeches that still clung to our flesh. Anna stepped back, horrified at our grizzly appearance and grossed out by the blood-sucking bugs.

  When we’d flicked away the last parasite, Anna said, “I can’t believe you still have blood left.”

  “How’s Eric?” Rachel asked.

  “He is okay now. He threw up twice and felt awful, but now he is sleeping. The nurse gave him something to settle his stomach.”

  “Does your dad know we took off?” Ben asked.

  Anna nodded. “He returned briefly to fetch his notebook. I told him you three went to interview Captain Pescada. He believed me but will know I was lying if he sees you like this.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “this looks really bad.” I turned to Anna. “Can you get some clean clothes from our bags and go to the shower buildings? We’ll sneak around the back of the tents—hopefully no one will see us—and meet you there. If we’re lucky we can get washed up before anyone discovers us like this.”

  Asking questions and talking to the other kids was one thing, but prowling around the jungle, on the other side of the canal, in the dark... well, that was something entirely different. Bruno may not think that was valuable use of our time.

  We wound our way south along the perimeter of Camp Gatun and waited for Anna in the shadows. Minutes later she showed up carrying her toothbrush in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. One of the other team leaders stopped to say hello to her. We heard her say that she forgot to brush her teeth and needed to hurry. The man said goodnight and kept walking.

  Anna found us and passed out clean T-shirts and shorts, soap, and towels. “We will see you back at the tent,” she said to Ben and me. She grabbed Rachel’s hand and pulled her toward the girls’ shower building.

  Ben and I took off into the boys’ shower. The two long trailers that served as shower buildings were the only structures other than the kitchen that weren’t tents. And we were lucky—our trailer was totally empty. We each dove into a shower stall and did our best to wash away the dirt from our jungle adventure.

  I found three more leeches—one under an arm pit (gross!), one behind a knee, and one on my neck. I dropped them on the floor and watched the water swirl them down the drain. Good riddance. Some of my leech wounds were still oozing a bit, but otherwise I think I looked presentable.

  “Disgusting!” Ben shouted over the shower divider. “I found five more leeches.”

  “Put me down for three,” I yelled back.

  We both popped out of our change cubicles at the same time and left the trailer. Weaving our way through Camp Gatun, we walked briskly back to our tent. Eric was snoring softly, but otherwise our sleeping quarters were empty. Whew, we made it. We had just finished stashing our filthy clothes under our cots when Bruno walked in.

  “Did you boys find out anything interesting tonight?” he asked, sounding distracted. I think his mind was still focused on his brother.

  I wasn’t sure how much to tell him, and I heard myself saying “Ummm.”

  Ben saved me by changing the subject. “Has Rudi’s lawyer arrived yet?”

  “Yes,” Bruno said, “but things don’t look good right now. The lawyer interviewed the witness who said he saw Rudi leaving the artifact tent, and the description fits Rudi’s. You did not happen to see another giant man around?”

  We both shook our heads.

  Bruno drank some water from his bottle and said, “The lawyer believes this may take a long time to resolve if the skulls are not found. If only we could find them.”

  Ben and I didn’t say anything.

  Bruno shook his head, like he was trying to snap out of a daydream. “How’s Eric doing, anyway?”

  “A lot better,” Ben said.

  “The girls aren’t here?” he said.

  “They went to brush their teeth,” I said quickly.

  Bruno frowned. “Huh, I thought Anna did that earlier.”

  “Anna went along to keep Rachel company,” I added quickly, in case Bruno was getting suspicious.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “Of course.”

  Three minutes later, the nine o’clock curfew bell sounded, indicating everyone had to be back in their tents. Rachel and Anna walked in as the ringing finished.

  I shook my head and sighed. What a night!

  •

  GONG. GONG. GONG.

  A bell sounded somewhere in Camp Gatun and I opened my eyes and looked at my wrist watch. It was 7:30 am.

  “Okay, kids,” Bruno said, tying his shoes. “Breakfast is in thirty minutes. I’ll see you in the dining tent.” He looked like he’d been up for a while already. His face was freshly shaved and his hair was still wet.

  We groaned loudly to let him know we were awake—including Anna and Rachel on the other side of the curtain divider.

  Bruno reminded us not to forget our program binders, and then left the tent to see Rudi.

  I fought my way out of my mosquito net and went over to Eric’s cot. He still looked pretty ashen, but that didn’t say much about his health—he was always kind of pale. “How do you feel?” I asked.

  He pushed back the white netting that made him appear even whiter and sat up cautiously. “Hungry, but otherwise okay.”

  “You should feel okay,” Anna said from the other side of the canvas wall. “You slept for almost twelve hours.”

  “Really?” He looked at his watch. “Man, I don’t remember anything.”

  Anna, Rachel, and Ben came over to Eric’s bed.

  “Do you remember the camp nurse coming here after you threw up the second time?” Anna asked.

  “Not really,” Eric said slowly.

  Anna nodded. “Nurse Angelina said you might be delirious.”

  “Did the nurse say what’s wrong with him?” I asked. “Does he have malaria from all the mosquitoes around here?”

  “No,” Anna said, “it’s nothing like that. She said he either ate too much, got overheated, or a little of both.”

 
“Well, I feel okay now.” Eric slipped on a T-shirt. “And like I said, I’m starving.”

  “I hope you’re ready for a story too,” Ben said, “because we got a good one.”

  Anna nodded enthusiastically and grinned knowingly at Rachel. “Yes, Eric, you will enjoy their story.”

  I suspected that Rachel had already told Anna the highlights of our adventure last night, and that confirmed it.

  Eric’s eyes grew big. “I can’t wait to hear what you guys saw down by the dock.”

  “What we saw by the dock,” Ben said, “isn’t nearly as interesting as what we saw in the jungle on the other side of the Panama Canal.”

  “You’re kidding me!” Eric said. “Now I’m really curious about what I missed last night. But I think I’ll enjoy hearing about it even more after breakfast. I gotta eat something... and soon.”

  “You might not want to hear about the leeches,” Anna said, “with a full stomach.”

  “You saw a leech last night?”

  We all thought that was kind of funny and laughed.

  After going to the washroom buildings and quickly washing our faces and brushing our teeth, we hurried back to the tent, grabbed our binders, and scurried off to the dining area. Eric said he was healthy, but I could tell by how slowly he moved, he wasn’t totally himself yet. Nurse Angelina saw us enter the big tent and walked over to intercept Eric.

  “If you don’t feel up to it, Eric,” she said, “you shouldn’t be out of bed.”

  “I feel okay,” Eric said, “I’m just hungry.”

  “Are you sure?” the nurse asked. “Because I can make arrangements to have food brought to your tent.”

  “Really?” he said, but then he looked at Ben and me. I think he was tempted to relax another day, but he also didn’t want to miss out on any more adventures with us. “Thanks—I’ll be all right.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but don’t work too hard today. And drink plenty of water.”

  Eric grinned at us when she left. “You guys are my witnesses. She ordered me not to work too hard.”