by Roland Smith
“There’s that, too,” Marty said.
Reluctantly, Grace untied the rope from around her waist and joined Marty back at the trunk.
“That was scary,” Dylan said as they scooted up. The rope was wrapped around the tree trunk, and he was holding the slack in his hand. In his other hand he held the Gizmo. He looked at Marty. “What do you have in mind?”
“I thought of it when Grace was climbing back up,” Marty answered as he rummaged through his pack. “Perfect. I have everything I need. Give Grace the Gizmo.”
Dylan handed it to her. The dragonspy was still hovering over the broken branch with a view of the raging river below.
“You still haven’t told us what you’re doing,” Grace said.
Marty put his backpack on. “I’ll explain when I get out there.”
He scooted down the branch before she could grab him or voice further objections.
“What do you think he’s going to do?” Dylan asked.
“Something insanely stupid,” Grace answered.
“At least he’s consistent.” Dylan looked over her shoulder at the Gizmo screen. “Do you know how to fly it?”
Grace shook her head. A few minutes later, Marty appeared on the screen. He looked up and waved.
“Can you hear me?” he shouted.
It was almost deafening over the Gizmo’s speaker.
“We can hear you!” Grace exclaimed. “You don’t have to shout!”
Marty gave them a grin and took off his pack. He was sitting on the very end of the branch. He took something out of his pack and hunched over.
“Can you tell what he’s doing?” Grace asked.
“No,” Dylan said. “But whatever it is, it’s making me nervous.”
“Me, too,” Grace said.
Marty finished and looked back up at the camera. “Dylan, give me a shout when you have that rope anchored around your waist.”
“Done!” Dylan shouted.
“Great,” Marty said over the speaker. “What I need you to do is to let about three or four feet of rope out every time I shout out the word now. Got that?”
“Yes!”
“It’s kind of like a cross between Tarzan and Spider-Man,” Marty said, and fell off the branch backward.
Grace was too stunned to scream. She watched in horror as her cousin fell fifty feet. Then the rope went taut and he bounced upward.
“Bungee jump!” Dylan said. “Why didn’t he just tell us?”
“Because he knew I’d try to stop him,” Grace said.
“Now!” Marty shouted.
Dylan let out three feet of slack, then tightened his hands.
Marty, hanging upside down, started to swing across the river, arching his body to increase his momentum. As he reached the apex of his swing, he shouted again. Dylan let out few more feet of rope.
“Perfect!” Marty shouted.
“He’s going to smash into a tree and kill himself,” Grace said.
“Or catch a branch on the other side and get us across the river.”
“Now!”
Dylan let out a few more feet of rope. Marty was swinging dangerously close to the trees on both sides of the river.
“Unless he goes too far,” Dylan said.
“Marty always goes too far,” Grace said.
But not this time. Marty caught a limb that stretched down from a huge tree on the other side of the river and came to a sudden stop.
“Give him more line,” Grace said, but Dylan had seen the catch and was already feeding out more rope.
They watched as Marty pulled himself up onto the limb. He managed to straddle it, looked up at the dragonspy, and let out Tarzan yell, startling a flock of colorful parrots that knocked him off his perch. Marty caught himself by one hand and heaved his body up again.
“Too far,” Grace said.
Luther paced the room as he ate his drumstick, which wasn’t bad. The room wasn’t bad, either, for a prison. The O’Haras had obviously spent a lot of time making it as comfortable as possible. Luther poked his head into a little room in the corner, cobbled together with wooden crates. Inside was a toilet, a small sink, and a showerhead sticking out of the wall.
Sylvia came up behind him. “I hope you like cold showers.”
Luther, in fact, liked long, hot showers, but at least there was a shower. “You built this?”
“Timothy did.”
“Lucky you found plumbing supplies down here.”
“Not luck,” Sylvia said. “Observation.”
“What do you mean?” Luther asked, continuing his tour of the room.
“It took us a couple of weeks to recover from our injuries.”
“The helicopter accident,” Luther said.
“It was no accident. It was a surface-to-air missile. Whoever shot us down, I don’t think they planned on survivors. But when Timothy and I lived, they changed their plans and had us brought here.”
“By the Trips?”
Sylvia smiled. “Is that what you call them? As best as I can remember, there were three sets of them. They had to carry us on litters. We couldn’t walk.”
“No Butch McCall, or Noah Blackwood?”
“Just the Trips, as you say. We had no idea who they were. At first, we thought they were rescuing us. Timothy and I were both in a pretty bad way after the crash, in and out of consciousness and delirious. Neither one of us has much of a recollection of how we got here.”
“They just dumped you down here?” Luther asked with disgust. “No one came to help you?”
“Not in this particular room, but yes, they dumped us. And you all are the first people we’ve seen since we were brought here. They put us in a room with MREs, water, medical supplies, and a couple of mattresses. They took our watches and phones, and without a window, it was hard to know how long we spent in that first room. I’d say five or six days. Tim was the first to recover and go exploring. He liked this room better than the one we were in, so we set up here.”
“Because of the bathroom,” Luther said.
Sylvia shook her head. “The bathroom, such as it is, wasn’t here when we moved in. Most of the rooms down here have toilets. I’m not sure why. But the sink and showerhead parts showed up in another room a few days after we moved in here, along with some plumbing supplies.”
Luther looked up at the ceiling. “So they are watching. They brought the plumbing stuff down here because they thought you might need it.”
“I think it’s more complicated than that. Perhaps more sinister. They put the plumbing supplies down here to see what we would do with them. Just like the eggs.”
“Which you could have eaten,” Luther said.
“But we chose not to. Two days later, supplies to make a crude incubator showed up. The day before the chicks hatched, we found a stack of chicken feed in one of the rooms. Earlier today, we found six mattresses.” She pointed to where she and Timothy had stacked them along the wall. “We knew you were coming. They’re not just watching us. I think they’re studying us. And now they’re studying you.”
“That ought to be interesting for them,” Luther said, and was about to say something else when he caught a movement along the far wall. He hadn’t noticed them before, but there were three large circular holes cut into the cement wall about five feet up from the floor.
He hurried over to them. “What are these?”
“Portholes,” Sylvia said. “It turns out we’re underwater, and this is the only room that has them, which is why Tim picked it as our home base. A bit of light comes through, so we can keep track of the days.”
Luther stood on his toes and looked through one of the portholes. A large gaping jaw filled with jagged teeth rushed at him. He jumped backward.
Sylvia laughed. “Startling, isn’t it?”
“Another giant alligator! We saw one from the boat on the way to the island.”
“An island. Yes, Flanna mentioned that as well. All this time we had no idea that this structure we’r
e in is actually connected to land. And those creatures, we think they’re a cross between an alligator and a caiman,” Sylvia said. “Or maybe an entirely new species. The one you just saw was small compared to some of the others. They’re watching us, too.”
“Creepy.”
Luther was about reach up for another look when the four explorers returned from their rounds.
Buck was carrying a bunch of carrots. “Ask and you shall receive,” he said. “There were a couple of packets of carrot seeds as well.”
Laurel looked up from her lexicon. “But no Wolfe.”
Buck shook his head. “Not a sign of him.”
Luther walked over to where she was working. “They speak English,” he said. “Well, at least one of them did. A guy named Ziti.”
“The ones that took us didn’t speak English,” she said. “Or if they did, they didn’t let on. Their language is strange. A cross between German, Portuguese, and an indigenous dialect I’m not at all familiar with.”
Luther looked at her scribblings to be polite, then walked back to the portholes for another look at the giant gators.
* * *
Wolfe sat dead center on the sleeping bench at the back of the cage, ensuring that neither the bearcat nor the chupacabra could reach him through the wire mesh on either side. The bearcat had tired of trying to maul him and was now asleep in the far corner of its cage. The chupacabra hadn’t moved and continued to watch him with reddish golden eyes that rarely blinked. A surveillance camera watched him as well, shielded from harm, high above on the other side of the mesh. The door Butch had pushed him through was locked tight. On the ground was a stainless steel bucket filled with water and a pile of stinking meat crawling with maggots. It had looked relatively fresh when Butch had dumped it in with a laugh, saying in terrible French, “Bon appétit.”
Wolfe supposed that after a few days, his hunger would reduce his revulsion for the food.
Noah will get a kick out of watching me eat this, which is probably why he’s kept me alive and put me in his twisted menagerie. It’s either that or he’ll open the door between the cages and let in the chupacabra, or the bearcat, or maybe both. May the best mutant win.
Wolfe knew that with Noah, it was all about control and manipulation through fear, which is why Wolfe was sitting on the bench calmly, as if being locked in a cage between two genetic mutants was an everyday occurrence. The only way to fight Noah Blackwood was to do the unexpected.
As long as I’m alive, there’s hope.
* * *
Agent Steven Crow cut the engine of his Zodiac before gliding down the tributary leading to the jaguar preserve. He decided it would be better to come onto the camp quietly, unannounced. He wasn’t exactly sure why. It was just a bad feeling he had, and over the years he’d learned to pay close attention to those feelings. About half the time the feelings amounted to nothing, and he felt like a fool, but the other half had kept him alive.
He was exhausted after bumping up the river for several hours in an inflatable that was a far cry from Ted Bronson’s Rivlan.
And what about this Ted Bronson? he thought as he slowly paddled through the opening. And the mysterious Travis Wolfe in the stolen helicopter? And running into Dylan Hickock in the middle of the Amazon just as I’m about to catch up with Buck Johnson?
Perhaps his bad feelings weren’t entirely due to exhaustion. If he hadn’t talked to Al Ikes, he would have never gone along with this.
He looked at the sky. It was getting dark, and it would be pitch-black by the time he reached camp, which suited him just fine. With luck he’d be able to stake things out and see what was going on before moving in.
It was dark by the time he reached the dock, but not too dark to see that he was the last one to the party. Tied up to the dock were two boats, the Anjo — Yvonne’s — and another, which he assumed belonged to Dr. Lansa. Next to the boats were the hijacked helicopter and Ted’s ultralight. Ted had buzzed him in it hours earlier as he’d slowly made his own way upriver in the Zodiac.
Crow grabbed his pack, stepped onto the wooden dock, and listened. There was plenty of noise coming from the rain forest, but none of it was human. He could see a dim, flickering light up the trail leading to the camp, which had to mean that it was occupied, or had been occupied recently. He decided to go halfway up the trail, then cut off into the trees and find a good observation site, but he didn’t get the chance. A man stepped out from behind a tree and jammed the barrel of a short automatic rifle into his chest.
“Welcome. Put your hands on your head.”
Crow did as he was told. The man was wearing jungle fatigues and was clearly one of Yvonne’s men.
“Let’s see if you can get to camp without me shooting you in the back of the head.” The man shoved him forward.
Crow walked toward the dim light of the camp. When they arrived, the man hit him in the back of the legs and Crow dropped to his knees. Yvonne and two other men were sitting on camp chairs near a smoky fire, swatting insects.
“Who are you?” Yvonne asked dully, as if she really didn’t care.
“Steven Crow. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
The men laughed.
“Wallet.” Crow said, his hands still on his head. “Right shirt pocket.”
The man behind him pulled it out, glanced at it, then tossed it to Yvonne. She held it up in the dim firelight, then passed it on.
“Look,” Crow said. “I understand you being cautious, but now that you know who I am, I suggest you let me up and put the gun down.”
This was greeted by another round of laughter from the men and an icy stare from Yvonne. “What’s your connection here?”
“I’m after a fugitive whom I believe to be here.”
“Who?”
“Buckley Johnson.”
“What did he do?”
“He hijacked an airplane.”
“Good for him,” the man to Yvonne’s right said.
Yvonne leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “Where’s Ted Bronson?”
“I thought he was here.” There was no point in denying it. They had seen his tiny airplane tied to the dock.
“Where’s Marty and the other kid?”
“They’re on Ted’s boat.”
Yvonne stared at him. If he’d had any doubt about who the bad guys were, it was gone now. The look on her face sent chills up his spine.
“Wrong answer,” she said. “Their footprints are all over camp.” She nodded at the man to her right.
The man stood up. “One more question.” He stepped over to Crow, took something out of his shirt pocket, and thrust it into Crow’s face. It was blinking. “You know what this is?”
“I’m not an entomologist,” Crow said. “I’m an FBI agent.”
The man pulled his pistol from its holster. “Deceased FBI agent. We just stopped here to rest before we track the kids down. Bad timing on your part. We’re outta here. Can’t take you with us. Can’t leave you here.” He cocked the pistol.
Crow wasn’t exactly sure what happened next. There was a sudden movement to his right. He heard the man behind him yell. The man with the pistol fired. A split second later, the pistol flew out of his hand. Crow scrambled for the weapon. The camp exploded with gunshots. Crow felt a searing pain in his left calf. He didn’t let it stop him. He grabbed the pistol and rolled over, holding it in two hands. Yvonne was about to finish him off. He got her first — a head shot. Then he shot the man next to her. He looked for the other two men. They were lying near the fire. It looked like their necks were broken.
Ted Bronson was sitting between them.
“You hit?” Ted asked.
“Leg,” Crow answered.
“Me, too. And my arm. Didn’t work out exactly as I had hoped, but I guess any gunfight you can walk away from, or in our case crawl away from, is okay.”
“You were here the whole time?”
Ted nodded. “Got here just before they came out of the woods. Co
uldn’t very well leave and let you walk into this mess alone. A few minutes later, and I think you would have missed them.”
Crow looked at the man who had pulled the pistol on him. “Bad timing,” he said.
“At least we don’t have to worry about them coming up behind us now, or going after the others.” Ted looked off into the trees. “Wherever they are.”
“Pretty fancy martial arts,” Crow said.
“Yeah, but it’s not the best defense against guns.” He picked up something on the ground and held it up. “And they squashed my bot.”
“Now what?” Crow asked.
“Looks like you and I are out of commission. All we can do is patch each other up and wait.”
“What about communications?”
“Still jammed. I’ll see if I can get them working after we stop bleeding.”
Marty felt someone shaking his shoulder. At least he hoped it was someone and not something. His eyes snapped open. It was Grace.
They had made it to an abandoned campsite a little after midnight and discussed continuing on for less than a minute before they’d all fallen into an exhausted sleep without even removing their backpacks.
Marty blinked the sleep out of his eyes, looking past Grace at the canopy above. It was getting light out.
“What?” he asked.
“Luther was definitely here,” Grace said.
“We knew that last night.”
After Marty, Grace, and Dylan had crossed the river, the hatchlings had resumed their forging-ahead-then-circling-back routine. The dinosaurs had spent a considerable amount of time in the camp sniffing around, which could only mean that Luther had passed through there earlier.
“Wolfe was here, too.”
Marty sat up. “What did you find?”
“A corpse.”
“Excuse me?”
“Raul.”
“Who’s —”
“He’s the guide who led Wolfe into the rain forest.”
Marty didn’t relish the idea of looking at a corpse first thing in the morning, or ever, for that matter. He stood up and took off his backpack, wondering how he had actually slept with it on.
“Let’s go take a look,” he said.
Grace shook her head. “I’ve seen enough.”
