Amazonia (12 page)

Nathan had added his own support. If the team wished to convince any Indians into cooperating, the presence of Tor-tor could go a long way toward winning them over. The jaguar was revered by all Indians. To have one accompany the expedition would give the team instant validity.

Anna Fong had agreed.

Slowly Frank and Captain Waxman had been worn down, and Tor-tor was allowed to join the expedition.

Kelly eyed the cat from a safe distance. "We should gear up."

Nathan nodded and picked up his own small pack. It contained only the essential supplies: hammock, mosquito netting, a bit of dry rations, a change of clothes,
machete, water bottle, and filter pump. He could travel months in the jungle with little else. What with the wealth of the forest readily available--from various fruits and berries to roots and edible plants to abundant game and fish--there was little need to haul additional food.

Still, there was one other essential piece of equipment. Nathan hooked his own short-barreled shotgun overa shoulder. Though the team was backed by the Rangers' weaponry, Nate preferred to have a little firepower of his own.

"Let's get going," Kelly said. "We've already lost the morning putting out the fires." The slender woman hefted her own pack to her shoulders, and Nate couldn't help but stare at her long legs. He forced his gaze upward. Her pack had a large red cross printed on its back, marking the team's medical supplies.

Frank ran down the line of civilian team members, making sure all was in readiness. He stopped in front of Nate, pulled out a faded baseball cap from a back pocket, and tugged it in place.

Nate recognized it as the same one from when he had first seen the man at Sao Gabriel's hospital. "Fan?" he asked, pointing to the Boston Red Sox logo.

"And a good-luck charm," Frank added, then turned to the group. "Let's set out!"

In short order, the eighteen-man team tromped into the jungle, led for the moment by a small, wide-eyed Indian.

As she followed the four Rangers in the lead, she craned around in wonder. Contrary to old movies, the un-derstory of the Amazon rain forest was not a clotted mass of clinging vines and overgrown vegetation. Instead, it was more like they were marching through a green cathedral.
A dense canopy of woven tree branches arched overhead, absorbing most of the sunlight and casting everything in a greenish glow. Kelly had read that less than 10 percent of the sun's light pierced through the unbroken green tent to reach the jungle floor. Because of this, the lowest level of the forest, where they walked now, was surprisingly clear of vegetation. Here the jungle was a world of shadow and decomposition, the domain of insects, fungi, and roots.

Still, the lack of green vegetation didn't necessarily make trekking through the pathless forest an easy journey. Rotted logs and branches lay everywhere, frosted with yellow mold and white mushrooms. Under her boots, a slick mulch of decaying black leaves threatened her footing, while buttress roots that supported the gigantic trees in the thin soil snaked under the leaves and added to the risk of a twisted ankle.

And though the vegetation down at this level was scant, it was not nonexistent. The floor was festooned with fan-tailed ferns, thorny bromeliads, graceful orchids, and slender palms, and everywhere around were draped the ubiquitous ropelike vines called lianas.

The sound of a slap drew her attention around.

Her brother rubbed at his neck. "Damn flies."

Kelly reached into a pocket and passed a plastic bottle of insect repellent to Frank. "Put more on."

He doused his exposed limbs and rubbed some on his neck.

Nathan stepped beside her. He had donned an Australian bush hat, and looked like some cross between Indiana Jones and Crocodile Dundee. His blue eyes sparkled with amusement in the jungle gloom. "You're wasting your time with that repellent," he said to Frank. "Anything you put on will be sweated off your skin in minutes."

Kelly couldn't argue with that. After just fifteen minutes
of trekking, she felt damp everywhere. The humidity under the canopy had to be close to a hundred percent. "Then what do you suggest for the bugs?"

Nathan shrugged, wearing a crooked grin. "You surrender. You ignore them. It's a battle you can't win. Here it's an eat-or-be-eaten world, and sometimes you have to simply pay the price."

"With my own blood?" Frank asked.

"Don't complain. That's getting off cheap. There are much worse insects out there, and I don't just mean the big ones, like bird-eating spiders or footlong black scorpions. It's the little ones that'll get you. Are you familiar with the assassin bug?"

"No, I don't think so," Frank said.

Kelly shook her head, too.

"Well, it has the unpleasant habit of biting and defecating at the same time. Then when the victim scratches the wound, he drives the feces loaded with the protozoan
Tripanozoma crusii
into the bloodstream. Then in anywhere from one to twenty years you die due to damage to the brain or heart."

Frank paled and stopped scratching at the fly bite on his neck.

"Then there are the blackflies that transmit worms to the eyeball and cause a disease called river blindness. And sand flies that can trigger Leishmaniasis, a leprosy type of disease."

Kelly frowned at the botanist's attempt to shake her brother. "I'm well familiar with the transmittable diseases out here. Yellow fever, dengue fever, malaria, cholera, typhoid." She hiked her medical pack higher on her shoulders. "I'm prepared for the worst."

"And are you prepared for the candiru?"

Her brow crinkled. "What type of disease is that?"

"It's not a disease. It's a common little fish in the waters here, sometimes called the toothpick fish. It's a slender
creature, about two inches long, and lives parasitically in the gills of larger fish. It has the nasty habit of swimming up the urethras of human males and lodging there."

"Lodging there?" Frank asked, wincing.

"It spreads its gill spines and embeds itself in place, blocking the bladder and killing you most excruciatingly in about twenty-four hours."

"How do you get rid of it?"

By now, Kelly had recognized the little fish's description and nasty habits. She had indeed read about them. She turned to her brother and said matter-of-factly, "The only cure is to cut the victim's penis off and extract the fish."

Frank flinched, half covering himself. "Cut his penis off?"

Nate shrugged. "Welcome to the jungle."

Kelly scowled at him, knowing the man was only trying to spook them. But from his grin, she could tell it was mostly all in good fun.

"Then there are the snakes..." Nate continued.

"I think that's enough," Professor Kouwe said behind them, rescuing the siblings from Dr. Rand's further lecturing. He stepped forward. "While the jungle must be respected as Nathan has suggested so eloquently, it's as much a place of beauty as danger. It contains the ability to cure as well as sicken."

"And that's why we're all out here," a new voice said behind them.

Kelly turned. It was Dr. Richard Zane. Over his shoulder, she noticed Anna Fong and Olin Pasternak deep in conversation. And beyond them, Manuel Azevedo stalked with his jaguar alongside the Rangers at the rear.

She turned around and saw that the grin on Nate's face had vanished. His expression had hardened at the intrusion by the Tellux representative. "And what would you
know of the jungle?" Nate asked. "You've not set foot out of the main offices of Tellux in Chicago in over four years...about the time my father vanished, as I recall."

Richard Zane rubbed his small trimmed goatee and maintained his casual countenance, but Kelly had not missed the flash of fire in the man's eyes. "I know what you think of me, Dr. Rand. It was one of the reasons I
volunteered
for this expedition. You know I was a friend of your--"

Nathan took a fast step in the man's direction, one hand balled into a fist. "Don't say it!" he spat out. "Don't say you were a
friend
of my father! I came to you, begged you to continue the search after the government stopped. And you refused. I read the memo you dispatched from Brasilia back to the States: 'I see no further benefit in extending Tellux's financial resources in a futile search for Dr. Carl Rand. Our monies are better spent in new endeavors.' Do you remember those words, words that damned my father! If you had pressed the corporate office--"

"The result would've been the same," Zane said between clenched teeth. "You were always so naive. The decision was made long before I gave my report."

"Bullshit," Nathan said.

"Tellux was hit by over three hundred separate lawsuits after the expedition's disappearance. From families, from underwriters, from insurance companies, from the Brazilian government, from the NSF. Tellux was under assault from all sides. It was one of the reasons we had to merge Eco-tek's assets. It helped insulate us from other rapacious pharmaceutical companies. They were circling like sharks around our financially bleeding carcass. We could not continue funding a search that seemed hopeless. We had a bigger fight on our hands."

Nathan continued to glower.

"The decision
had
already been made."

"You'll excuse me if I don't shed tears for Tellux."

"If we had lost our battle, thousands of families would have lost their jobs. Hard decisions had to be made, and I won't apologize for them."

Nate and Zane continued to stare each other down.

Professor Kouwe attempted to mediate. "For now, let the past lie in the past. If we're to succeed here, I suspect we'll all need to work together. I suggest a truce."

After a pause, Zane held out a hand.

Nathan glanced to the open palm, then turned away. "Let's go."

Zane shook his head and lowered his hand. He met the professor's eyes. "Thanks for trying."

Kouwe watched Nate's departing back. "Give him time. Though he tries to hide it, he's still in a lot of pain."

Kelly stared after Nathan. He walked stiffly, shoulders back. She tried to imagine losing her mother, then her father, but it was a loss she could not comprehend. It was a well of pain from which she didn't know if she could have emerged. Especially alone.

She glanced to her brother, suddenly glad he was here.

A call rang out from far ahead. One of the Rangers. "We've reached the river!"

An Indian guide could have moved with more assurance and set a faster pace. But after reaching the tributary, the small Yanomamo tribesman from Wauwai had refused
to go any farther. He had pointed to clear footprints in the loam that led deeper into the forest, following the watercourse.

"You go," he had mumbled in stilted Portuguese. "I stay here with Padre Batista."

So they had set off, determined to cover as much distance as possible before nightfall. But Corporal Warczak was a cautious tracker, proceeding at a snail's pace. This left much time for Nathan to review his heated outburst with Richard Zane. It had taken him this long to cool off and consider the man's words. Maybe he had been narrow-minded and had not considered all the factors involved.

Off to his left, the crackle of dead twigs announced Manny's approach. He and Tor-tor had kept a bit of distance between themselves and the rest. When the large cat was nearby the Rangers were edgy, fingering their M-16s. The only one of the unit who showed curiosity about the jaguar was Corporal Dennis Jorgensen. He accompanied Manny now, asking questions about the cat.

"So how much does he eat in a day?" The tall corporal took off his slouch hat and swiped the sweat from his brow. He had shockingly white hair and pale blue eyes, clearly of some Nordic descent.

Manny patted the cat. "Somewhere around ten pounds of meat, but he's been living a pretty sedentary life with me. Out in the wild, you almost have to double that amount."

"And how are you going to keep feeding him out here?"

Manny nodded to Nathan as he joined him. "He'll have to hunt. It was the reason I brought him along."

"And if he fails?"

Manny glanced to the soldiers behind them. "There's always other sources of meat."

Jorgensen's face paled a bit, then realized Manny was joking and nudged him with an elbow. "Very funny." He fell back to join the others in his unit.

Manny turned his attention to Nate. "So how're you holding up? I heard about that row with Zane."

"I'm fine," he said with a long sigh. Tor-tor nudged his leg with a furry muzzle, and Nate scratched the jaguar behind the ear. "Just feeling damn foolish."

"Nothing to feel foolish about. I trust that guy about as far as it would take Tor-tor to run his sorry ass down. Which, believe me, wouldn't be far." He pointed a hand forward. "Did you see that dandy outfit he's wearing? Has he ever been in the real jungle?"

Nate smiled, cheered by his friend.

"Now that Dr. Fong. She looks damn fine in her outfit." Manny glanced to him with one eyebrow raised. "I wouldn't kick her out of my hammock for eating crackers. And Kelly O'Brien--"

A commotion ahead interrupted Manny. Voices were raised, and the group was stopped, gathered near a bend in the river. Manny and Nate hurried forward.