Monahan also gave him a scapegoat should anything go wrong. He was certain that nothing would---he had planned this too meticulously---but one must be prepared for every eventuality.
Tasker committed the eavesdropped details to memory, and simultaneously plotted his course. He had already reserved the boats that would take him and his men upriver under an alias, and a little extra cash had ensured that no one would witness their departure. It was amazing how much more the dollar was worth here than back home.
He drew a long swill from his beer, feigned wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and whispered into the microphone in his watch. Four voices acknowledged through the earpiece.
The two men who had been monitoring the hotel from hidden locations on the street would now fall back to their rendezvous point, where the others would already be waiting with their supplies packed and ready. These were four of his best and most trustworthy men. Four Marines. They would follow his orders to the letter, and every bit as importantly, they would follow their bank accounts. Their careers would soon be over, and either they would be living life large in the Cayman Islands, or they would be facing a court marshal and prison time. That in itself was motivation enough should millions of dollars not fit the bill. It was a calculated risk they were taking, but a risk nonetheless. Besides, what did they have to lose? Appointment to a consulate in a backwater country was certainly not the fast-track to advancement. He had already been in his post for three years, and largely forgotten by the powers that be. They wouldn't even think about him until he disappeared, but then they would definitely think about him a lot.
He imagined the expression on his commanding officer's face when he heard the news and had to stifle a laugh. Captain Patterson was simply going to explode, and if they were unable to track down and extradite Tasker, the responsibility would fall squarely on the old blowhard's shoulders.
There was just one more thing he needed to do before he vacated his post in the cantina and met up with his team.
He removed the prepaid cell phone from his pocket and dialed the only number programmed into memory. The calls could never be traced back to him, but unknown to the recipient, when the shit hit the fan, they would point like an accusatory finger at the man on the other end.
"Now isn't a good time," Monahan answered. He had proved a hesitant accomplice at first, but any man could be swayed with the right number of dollar signs. Too bad he would never get a chance to spend his share.
"Just wanted to let you know that everything is right on schedule."
"You're responsible for the details," Monahan snapped. Man, he whined like a little girl. "Meanwhile, I'm the one back here trying to conduct business as usual with half of my regular security contingent on 'vacation.'"
"You'll live. Just keep thinking about what you're going to do with all that money."
This statement was met with silence, beneath which Tasker imagined he heard the gears in the Consul-general's brain grinding.
"I'll be in touch again soon," Tasker said, and terminated the connection.
His only regret was that he wouldn't be around to watch Monahan as he was cuffed and led out of the Consulate in tears.
Chapter Three
I
Pomacochas, Peru
October 26th
4:38 a.m. PET
Galen was thankful it was still dark. He didn't want to see the size of the cloud of mosquitoes that swarmed around the long, slender aluminum boat. The humming was so loud it nearly drowned out the putter of the outboard motor as they chugged slowly upriver from the weathered shack where they had procured their transportation. The guide assigned to Galen's boat, a native named Naldo who spoke Quechua and a seemingly random smattering of Spanish and English words, stood at the bow with a long pole to help navigate the unseen rocks and snarls of debris, while one of their party, a man he knew only as Sorenson and with whom he had never shared more than a nod in passing, manned the Evinrude. Naldo wore a dirty white Henley missing several buttons and a pair of brown corduroys so old they lacked nearly all texture. He balanced on the prow with filthy, bare feet, humming tunelessly.
Frogs and insects raised a ruckus from the forest around them, while the drowsy cries of birds and monkeys echoed hauntingly. Something splashed near the bank to his right, but with the fading moon and stars eclipsed by the canopy overhanging the river, all he could see were shadows. He could barely discern the silhouette of the lead boat ahead. It's grumbling motor left a thin trail of diesel smoke that settled over the river like a fog in the stagnant air. His generous benefactor and his henchman, as Galen had come to think of Colton---though he would never speak as much aloud---rode at the front behind their guide, a man named Santos, who wore only a pair of cutoff jeans. His thick black braid trailed down his back between bony shoulder blades that bracketed his knobby spine. Galen hadn't been able to tell in the moonlight if the man had been wrinkled by age or by too much time in the sun. Truthfully, he hadn't paid much attention to their guides at all. He could blame it on the darkness and his inability to clearly see them, but he knew it was a consequence of his nerves, which were strung as tightly as high-voltage wires.
Behind Leo and Colton sat Dr. Carson, Samantha, whose head turned on a swivel. She was in her element out here, so full of excitement that she nearly glowed. Not for the first time, he envied her passion, and wondered if she were similarly passionate in other ways. At her back, a mound of supplies had been roped to the frame of the craft. Rippeth lounged in the stern, maneuvering the outboard motor with such practiced ease that it appeared to be an extension of his arm. What little light pierced the canopy reflected from the man's freshly shaved scalp.
The men behind Galen made him uncomfortable. He was going to have to try to barge his way onto the lead boat the first chance he got. He still couldn't figure out why their pilot, whose knees seemed hell bent on bruising Galen's kidneys, had come along with them. It wasn't as though they were going to encounter any rogue aircraft in the middle of the Andes. And Webber certainly wasn't any graduate student or research assistant. He had the air of a brawler, but the quiet temperament of a fisherman, a dichotomy that could only have been spawned in the service. Perhaps it was simply the way the man rode with his rifle in his lap that caused Galen's unease, or maybe it was the fact that Webber patted down the mound of roped supplies behind him as though to ensure that something hidden remained that way.
The third boat was piled high with the majority of the scientific gear between the pole-wielding guide, a kid named Kemen who didn't even look old enough to shave, and Morton, who manned the motor. The documentary crew was squashed between them. Dahlia wore a khaki vest with snaps that glinted from the countless pockets and matching shorts, her hair tucked up beneath a Dodgers ball cap. She pointed excitedly to either side of the river for Jay, who followed her direction with his camera. His long-sleeved thermal top was already damp with sweat, despite the removal of the flannel shirt that was now tied around his waist. As it bore the bulk of their supplies, the trailing boat moved more sluggishly in the current, and required extra time to change direction to follow in the wake of the first two.
Even in the relatively placid river and with the engines cranked to a fierce whine, they couldn't have been moving at more than five miles an hour in the straightaways, and a fraction of that around the bends. The plan was to take the river as far into the mountains as they could before striking off on foot, unless they saw something in the jungle to necessitate premature disembarkation, specifically, any sign of Hunter's passage. In an ideal world, Gearhardt's son would have left signs to indicate his trail, carvings or flags on prominent trees, but under the assumed circumstances, they couldn't count on being so fortunate. And that was one thing none of them seemed to want to talk about. Leo's son had drowned up in the mountains ahead, and none of them knew why or how. What in the name of God were they doing following in his footsteps at all?
But deep down, Galen knew why. The nature of Hunter's d
iscoveries was far too amazing to leave unexplored, which was why even now, despite the cramp of fear in his gut, he could hardly contain his anticipation. Somewhere in the vast uncharted cloud forest was a species of raptor that had never been documented, perhaps one that no man had ever even seen.
Galen slapped his neck and readjusted the mosquito netting that covered his head and shoulders to keep those pesky stingers at bay. The last thing he wanted was some bizarre tropical disease.
As they rounded a bend in the brown river, he caught a glimpse of the mountains, which rose straight ahead in sheer, jagged cliffs, their upper reaches invisible beneath a mass of clouds. That was where they were going, straight up into those clouds. And somewhere up there, protected from human intervention for millennia, was the ornithological discovery of a lifetime.
A contented smile had barely graced his lips when he heard the thrashing of leaves above him. Before he could even look up, he felt raindrops on his shoulders and arms. The air became water, and the surface of the river appeared to boil. It had been too long since his days in the field. He had forgotten how quickly these tropical storms descended.
Galen tried to remember where the pack with his poncho was loaded, but in the span of seconds, it no longer mattered.
II
8:56 a.m.
When they had come under siege by rain without the slightest warning, Sam had been prepared. Her shoulders and hair were still damp beneath her slicker, but at least she wasn't soaked to the bone like some of her other companions, who hunkered down in their seats in their rain gear or under tarps. Only their guides appeared unaffected. Santos still stood at the bow in only his cutoff jeans, a sheet of water covering his bare skin, poling them around hidden obstacles as the river grew more tumultuous. At least the rain had brought a respite from the assault of the mosquitoes. No longer did animals chatter from the dense canopy. Even the birds had ceased their relentless chirping to bed down in whatever dry alcoves they could find.
These storms were unpredictable. Sometimes they lasted just a few minutes, while other times it could pour for weeks on end. There was no way of knowing until it simply ceased as suddenly as it started. It had only been raining for four hours now, but already it felt like an eternity.
Sam occupied herself by watching the bank slowly disappear to either side as the river rose. The runoff carved channels through the mud and whole sections of earth fell away from the forest, exposing roots and rocks, which tumbled into the water. Branches and trunks raced toward them from ahead and banged against the aluminum hull. Progress slowed as the current grew stronger. The motors had begun to whine and issue a darker black smoke that reeked of burnt oil. They would only be able to go so much farther before they would have to rest the engines.
The stream that had once only been twenty feet wide was now closer to thirty, and flowed thick with muck. At a guess, they had traveled maybe twelve miles, which put them halfway to their first checkpoint, a deep valley beyond the easternmost row of mountains where the river was fed by countless waterfalls that had eroded into the sheer slopes from the higher country. They wouldn't be able to take the boats any farther than that. According to their maps, there was a thin gap that led to the southwest into a perpendicular canyon. That had been the start of Hunter's original route, and assuming they didn't stumble upon any sign of him before they reached it, that was where theirs would begin as well.
It was now just a matter of getting there.
A large gray trunk with wild roots like the tentacles of an octopus slammed into the side of the boat, and for a heartbeat she feared they would capsize. She locked her feet under the bench and gripped the sides so she would be better prepared for the next collision. A glance over the side showed her a dent the size of a satellite dish. And they hadn't even seen the tree, which had fired up from beneath the water like a torpedo from a submarine.
They couldn't afford to lose any of the equipment, let alone their lives. They had to get out of the river before it was too late.
Colton must have recognized the danger as well. He leaned forward and shouted into Leo's ear, but she couldn't make out his words over the roar of the rapids. Leo in turn stood and yelled at Santos, who looked back with a placating smile. He gave a single nod and pointed upriver toward a section of the bank that was several feet lower than the rest. It looked like there might be just enough room to drag the boats out of the water and into the high weeds, but the slope was slick with mud. Scaling it without the weight of their craft would be hard enough. Maybe they could tether the boats to the enormous kapok trees. Unfortunately, that would leave them at the mercy of the projectiles cruising downstream.
Santos guided the boat to the edge of the slope, beached the prow, and leapt out into the mud. He grabbed the coil of rope attached to the frame and scampered up the sloppy incline on all fours with simian agility. At the top, he wrapped the thick cord around a wide gray trunk and signaled for them to disembark.
Sam followed Leo and Colton to the front of the boat, and dropped down into the mire behind them. With none of Santos's finesse, she slipped and scrabbled and clawed her way up onto solid ground. By the time she caught up with the others, there wasn't a single inch of her that wasn't coated with brown sludge.
The remaining craft puttered over behind the first, their guides poling like gondoliers to keep them up against the bank until the lead boat was dragged out of the water.
Sam joined the others on the opposite side of the tree and helped pull on the rope. The boat was a lot heavier than it looked, but with the leverage and relatively solid footing, they were able to drag it up into the weeds under the broad arms of the kapok. Thirty exhausting minutes later, all three boats were crammed into the tiny clearing. They stood shivering as a group beneath the dripping canopy, which only served to mildly attenuate the deluge.
"Check this out," Dahlia said. She leaned closer to a heliconia shrub, and gently peeled back a cluster of broad-leaved branches. "Jay? Do you still have the camera handy? I want a shot of this."
Sam crowded closer with the others while the cameraman separated and headed back toward the boats. It was a phasmid, a walking stick insect, a long-legged, slender-bodied bug that perfectly mimicked the stem upon which it stood. She had to smile at the memory of the first time she had seen such a creature, and the hundreds of others with similar strange and wondrous adaptations they would encounter along the way. She envied these first-timers. There was truly something special about the instances when one's eyes were opened to the magic of the Amazon basin.
"Such an amazing evolutionary marvel," Dahlia said. "To think that somehow through the ages this insect's entire body changed shape to replicate its natural environment. And look how slowly and stiffly it moves, almost like the branch itself in a gentle breeze."
"Wait until you see some of the epiphytes," Sam said. "The world's largest flower grows from the rafflesia epiphyte, and blooms for only three days a year. It has the most beautiful maroon and yellow flower, but releases the most horrible stench to attract flies for pollination. And there are butterflies you have to see to believe."
"And hoatzin hatchlings are born with two claws on the end of each wing that allow them to climb around in the canopy until they're able to fly," Galen said. "The spatuletail hummingbird has two long tail feathers that end in large turquoise discs that it has developed the ability to control independently."
"Jay!" Dahlia called.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Jay held the camera in one hand and his backpack in the other. He tried to swing it up over his shoulder at the same time that a section of the bank fell away from his foot. There one moment, gone the next, Jay slid down toward the raging river.
Sam ran to the edge and fell to her knees. Jay had managed to stop himself halfway down, his legs buried in the mud nearly to the knees. With one hand he clung to a tangle of roots, while he reached toward the water with his other, where his backpack rested in the trench carved by the hulls of the boats, inches from be
ing washed away by the current. Branches and whole tree trunks raced downstream. One particularly dark trunk with thick, ridged bark even appeared to be heading straight toward the bag as Jay finally took hold of the shoulder strap.
"Leave it!" Sam screamed.
Burial Ground Page 8
