Ramsey's Gold (Drake Ramsey Book 1) (33 page)

“Then it’s quite likely they’re one of the Amazonian tribes that’s had no contact with modern civilization. If that’s the case, it would explain why the secret’s still a secret. There’s been no one to tell.”

Drake grew silent, his mind elsewhere as he stared off into the distance, and then he snapped back to the present. “Any signs of trouble here?”

Allie shook her head. “Nothing. So it looks like we’re in the clear.”

“That’s good. Tomorrow, at first light, let’s break camp and head for the waterfall. We’ll be able to make it in a few hours. Paititi will take longer, but by afternoon we should be camped there,” Drake said.

“It’ll take a while to explore if it’s big.”

Drake nodded. “Probably. Although my father had some theories about where the treasure could be located once he found the city. But who knows whether those were accurate or not…”

“So you really think you can find it?” Allie asked.

“We wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” Drake said, confidence in his voice. He still hadn’t put it all together, but he had a good idea that the fabled riches of the Inca Empire wouldn’t be located in an ordinary building. It would be in something that would survive the years. Something that would defy the casual adventurer who stumbled across the city, or any raiding conquistadores. He was sure that if there was a pattern to spot, he’d do so once he had seen the city’s layout.

Which all assumed that the mysterious Palenko hadn’t gotten to it. But Drake didn’t want to get ahead of himself. Based on the legends, there were anywhere from two hundred and fifty to five hundred tons of gold. Not the sort of weight you loaded on a few carts and hauled around the jungle. That meant that the treasure was still mostly, if not all, there.

Drake hoped so. The only wild card was the depictions of the demons his escort had drawn. While they could have been superstitious nonsense, Drake had felt a definite stab of unease when he’d looked into the daughter’s eyes, her expression clearly conveying fear for the first time since he’d seen her.

They sat around the fire munching on fish while discussing the following day. Spencer and Allie had innumerable questions about what he’d seen. Drake did his best to answer them without giving too much away.

When he crawled into his tent for the night, he was tired but at peace, the feeling of having crossed an important threshold while with the indigenous tribe stronger than ever. He had no concrete reason for it, but it was as palpable as the heat.

As his eyes fluttered shut, his imagination filled with visions of the old shaman and his daughter. That now seemed like a lifetime away, and the entire encounter had the aura of a dream, a surreal fantasy induced by the remnants of his fever.

~ ~ ~

Awa’s radio crackled softly, and after a short discussion, he went to where Vadim and Sasha were sitting, preparing to eat.

“The young man returned. He’s at their camp.”

“What?” Vadim exclaimed with a start, almost cutting himself with his knife.

“He’s there. But it will be dark before we can reach it. What do you want to do?”

Vadim frowned. “This is our chance. I do not want to ruin it by acting rashly. Let me discuss this with my associate.”

Awa nodded and moved back to where his men were cooking the fish they’d speared, leaving the two Russians to scheme in their mother tongue.

“We could wait until they are asleep and then take them,” Sasha suggested. “They are expecting nothing. It is the perfect time.”

“Perhaps. But also it introduces the possibility that the young Ramsey decides to emulate his father and go to his grave without disclosing his secrets.”

Sasha gave him a lupine smirk. “I can be very persuasive.”

Vadim didn’t comment. He had every faith in Sasha’s abilities. He’d watched him torture enough prisoners during difficult interrogations to know his skills were formidable. But even so, they hadn’t been sufficient to convince the elder Ramsey to capitulate, and he didn’t want to take the chance that the son was made of the same stuff as his father.

His stare moved to the fire, and he seemed to drift away before returning his attention to Sasha.

“At this moment they believe that they are in the clear. And so they will continue their search. To allow them to do the hard work is the smartest – wait until they find Paititi, and then move in. At that point they will be of no use to us any longer, and we can end their troublesome existences with a bullet and conclude our unhappy business with them.”

“True. All we have to do is remain undetected.”

“Which we have easily done for days. We will watch, and they will lead us to city, and then we will dispatch them. It is cleaner this way.”

“Agreed. Although I would like a day or two with the girl before we kill her. I hate to see her go to waste,” Sasha said with an ugly smile.

“Ah, of course. If you have no objections to sharing, I think this can be arranged,” Vadim confirmed.

The two Russians laughed together, and Vadim removed a small metal flask from his pocket and took a long pull from it before passing it to Sasha. “A little celebratory vodka,
da
?”

Sasha took it and held the container aloft in a toast. “
Na Zdorovie
. To a better tomorrow.”

Vadim studied his charred slab of fish and swallowed hard.

“After this, I never want to eat fish again. I have had my fill of seafood. Enough to last a lifetime.”

“What do you think the odds are that Palenko left a trail we can follow?” Sasha asked, his voice quiet.

“There is no real way of knowing. He was a lunatic. Perhaps he stayed in Paititi and died there. But what I do know is that once we have found the city, we are much closer to finding him and his ore, and getting our lives back.”

Sasha nodded. “And the rumored riches?”

“If we locate the Inca gold, as the Americans say, it is icing on the cake. Nobody else need know.”

“It would be a wonderful problem to have, wouldn’t it?”

“Indeed it would. Now stop hoarding the vodka.”

Sasha passed him the flask. Vadim swallowed another large gulp before capping it and slipping it back into his pocket.

Sasha finished his fish and sat back. “Twenty years. A long time.”

Vadim shrugged. “Over and done with. What is that annoying American saying? All is well that ends well.”

“For us, anyway.”

Vadim stared at the guides, who would also be meeting their fate when they found Paititi. They wouldn’t need the natives any longer, and planned to execute them at the first opportunity. Then it would be just the two of them, with their support a satellite phone call away.

“To the victor goes spoils,
nyet?
Now let us get some sleep before the infernal rain starts again. Ahead of us, we have a big day,” Vadim said, the alcohol and a full stomach making him drowsy.

“We do indeed. For the Americans, perhaps, their last day on earth,” Sasha said with a malevolent grin. “Which I will do my best to ensure is also their worst.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Spencer patted Drake’s backpack, the tents rolled up and stowed along with the rest of their gear, and with a final look around the tranquil waterfall area, peered into the surrounding jungle. The early morning sun was just beginning to climb high enough to afford light.

“Lead on, Bwana,” he said.

Drake nodded as he slipped his AK-47’s strap over his shoulder and drew his machete. “It’s about three hard hours away.”

“You sure you can find it again?” Allie asked, approaching from the pool at the base of the waterfall, looking radiant in spite of having been in the rainforest for weeks.

“You bet. I’m really getting the hang of this whole jungle-adventurer thing.”

“That’s good, because it looks like it’s going to start raining again soon,” Spencer said, eyeing the thunderheads parading across the sky.

“Wouldn’t be the rainforest if it didn’t rain, would it?” Drake quipped, making for the faint game trail he’d used the day before.

The clouds erupted with a shattering roar an hour later, and the tepid rain poured down on them as they slogged through the dense foliage, this time with Drake in the lead and Spencer bringing up the rear. The journey took longer than Drake had promised due to the difficult conditions, but by eleven they were standing at the base of an even larger waterfall as the last of the rainstorm spent itself around them. Drake pointed at the river, perhaps thirty feet wide, its brown water swirling with a strong current, and turned to Allie.

“Thar she blows. We follow that, and when we hit a smaller river branching off to the left, that’s our path to Paititi.”

Allie nodded as Spencer removed his backpack and set his rifle against it.

“Let’s take fifteen, refill our canteens, and then get on with it. I’d like to be near the city by the time the heat really gets ugly.”

“Which it will, as always,” Drake agreed.

“How sure are you that it’s only a few more miles?”

“That’s an approximation. I’m assuming that the map the daughter drew was close to scale, but there are no guarantees. However, based on the distance between the two waterfalls, we’re in the ballpark.”

The riverbank was slippery from the rain, but they found a game track that ran roughly parallel, so they were able to set a reasonable pace. Two hours later they came to the branch in the river, and Drake’s pulse quickened as their destination seemed as close as around the next bend. He mopped sweat from his face as he considered the smaller tributary, and after another break, they set off, the heat now oppressive as any cooling effect brought by the rain evaporated with the drying droplets trembling on the leaves around them.

A little over a mile farther, Drake stopped, extending his arm so Allie wouldn’t walk past him. He felt her move closer and signaled for her to remain quiet, and then pointed to a spot a few yards ahead of him. A pile of human bones rested beside a thicket, skulls grinning from between the vines, sightless eye sockets dark in the bushes. Allie gasped and grabbed Drake’s shoulder, and stabbed a trembling finger at another skull impaled on a crude pole to the side of the trail.

Spencer took the lead. They set off, now moving considerably more slowly, clutching their weapons, the sense of menace palpable as they moved cautiously forward. A hundred yards farther they came to another skull, this one with a large crack running along the top and the front teeth almost all rotted out. Spencer chambered a round as they walked by, and a bird flapped away in the overhead canopy, the unfamiliar sound of the rifle loading startling it into flight. A troop of monkeys leapt from branch to branch near a break in the trees by the river, their grunts and cries echoing in the forest. Drake checked to ensure his weapon was also loaded and ready for use.

A quarter mile along the bank, Spencer stopped and pointed into the jungle at what appeared to be ruins, much like those they’d found at the outpost – but far more of the mounds, invisible from the river, the rainforest hiding the remains, having long ago reclaimed them. Spencer motioned for them to stay quiet; and then, from the direction of the ruins, they heard voices.

They froze as the sound of soft male voices drifted nearer, though the exact spot they were coming from was impossible to pinpoint. Drake slowed his breathing and crouched low in the brush, hoping that any snakes were taking the afternoon off. Allie gave him a scared glance, and then the voices were moving away, deeper into the jungle. They waited motionless for a few minutes, not daring to tempt fate. Spencer eventually crept back to their position and whispered to them.

“We’ve got company.”

“What do you think? Traffickers?” Allie asked.

Spencer shook his head. “No. Too quiet. My guess is natives. But you can see why Drake’s tribe would view the area as off-limits. Those skeletons aren’t just for display – they came from somewhere, most likely from other natives who stumbled across the city.”

“So what do we do?” Drake asked.

“Try to avoid getting killed while we see what we’re up against.”

Spencer stopped talking, his head tilted at an angle, listening. A faint thumping sounded in the distance, rhythmic, its beat echoing off the trees. Spencer began moving toward the sound in a low crouch, his rifle in front of him, pushing the bushes aside. Allie and Drake followed him, the wet leaves beneath their feet absorbing any noise from their boots as they edged along another trail, this one more defined. Drake saw footprints in the wet mud – bare feet – which confirmed Spencer’s guess that the voices belonged to tribesmen.

They approached a particularly dense thicket, and the drumbeat seemed only a stone’s throw away. Spencer slowed and eased a branch aside to peer into an open area beyond. Drake edged alongside him and did the same, Allie right behind them, and froze at the spectacle that greeted his eyes.

Two dozen dark-skinned men with their faces painted like skulls waited with spears, bows and ten-foot-long blowguns, watching a stone podium where a figure straight out of hell stood gazing at the drummer, who was beating on a hollow log. The figure was naked, as were the tribesman, but white as a ghost, his hair matted with pale mud that coated his entire body. Streaks of black darkened his eyes, giving his face a cadaverous look. Drake’s skin crawled instinctively at the apparition.

Then the figure moved, and Drake could see it was in actuality an old man, his body thin and frail, the mud lending him an even more skeletal aura. The man barked something unintelligible, and the drummer stopped, waiting.

From the edge of the clearing another tribesman entered, dragging a small figure. Drake saw it was a boy, no more than ten years old. The boy stumbled. His ankles were bound with a leather cord, as were his wrists, and another leather tether had been wrapped across his face, blinding him and muffling any cries. His captor pulled him by the arm, and Drake could make out a wound on his abdomen, blood crusted around it. When they reached the stone podium, Drake realized with a jolt that it was an altar.

Allie inched next to him and watched in horror as the boy struggled to stand, obviously in agony, trembling and tiny as the collection of natives observed in silent witness. The white-clay-covered man leaned his head back and emitted a blood-chilling moan at the sky, only vaguely human in timbre, and then spread his arms wide, as if welcoming the boy.