The Amazon Code (25 page)

Here in the rainforest, however, he was way out of his element. This forest did not respect his attempts at stealth the same way the woods back home did. For every twig he accidentally snapped beneath a foot, the forest would echo the noise and reverberate it throughout the surrounding area. He could hear the cooing sounds of smaller monkeys, high above him, watching him through the darkness, and the clicking of millions of insects searching for a late-night snack. Every step he made through the jungle seemed to ignite a chorus of noises, all watching him, awaiting and calculating his next move.
 

It added to his paranoia. He wondered what other — larger — creatures were out here, and which ones were hungry enough to strike. He couldn’t tell if Reggie would be any help in a situation like that, or if he’d even see it coming. He remembered the caiman’s attack, and how…
helpless
he had been.
 

“What are we looking for?” Ben asked.
 

Reggie stopped, turned around, and looked Ben up and down. “This,” he said, pulling aside another branch, as if pulling back a curtain on a grandiose stage. He stepped forward and out onto a shelf situated slightly higher than the ground in front of them, providing a perch above the entire area.
 

Julie gasped.

The clearing in front of Ben was long and narrow, broken up by only a handful of shrubs and bushes, and stretched a half mile from their location to the other side, where the trees grew together once again and formed a tight, impenetrable wall.
 

The tallest of the Amazonian trees at the edges of the clearing connected back together in most places, far above their heads, creating a gigantic bubble of empty space surrounded by forest. It was an amazing sight, larger than any atrium he had ever seen. Even in early morning darkness, with nothing but moonlight poking through the slats between branches and casting long shadows over the entire space, it was a beautiful scene.

“It’s wonderful,” Amanda said. “Like a postcard.”
 

It did, indeed, look like something out of a magazine, or a wall calendar. It was staged so perfectly, their view framed better naturally than any professional photographer could manage artificially.
 

But there was something still off about the scene, something Ben didn’t realize for a few seconds.
 

“Is that smoke?” Amanda asked.

Ben squinted, trying to see what the darkness had done so well to hide.
 

“I think it is,” Paulinho said. “Should we get down there?” he said.
 

Reggie was already moving forward, jumping down the slight grade that led to the floor of the amazing
 
jungle atrium. Ben and the others followed once more, their pace quickened by the desire to learn what lay at the opposite edge of the great clearing.
 

“Any idea what it is?” Julie asked.
 

Ben struggled to make sense of the gently rising smoke, darker than the dark shadows of trees behind it, rising from the base of a larger rock outcropping.
 

No.
 

It wasn’t a rock outcropping they were staring at. The base of the trail of smoke emanated from a structure, the remains of a building that had been scorched down to nothing. His senses immediately went on high alert, and he didn’t need to hear Reggie’s answer to know what lay ahead.
 

“It’s the hospital,” Reggie said.
 

40

BOTH OF THE LARGER BUILDINGS — the main hospital and research station, as well as the smaller staff barracks — had been burnt to the ground, and there were square sections of smoldering rubble in two additional spots.
 

“Storage sheds, I’d guess,” Reggie said, kicking blackened wood and charred debris out of the way. “Looks like napalm, or something similar. There’s hardly anything left. They must have done it last night, around the time the boat sank. Very efficient, too. No explosions.”
 

Ben walked slowly between the main hospital building and the smaller shack, taking it all in. He couldn’t help but imagine what it was like for the doctor and researchers here, and whether or not they were able to get away. There was an empty pit at the bottom of his stomach, growing heavier with each passing minute. As if answering his own question, his eyes were drawn to a rectangular room inside the smaller building, now no more than a black outline, like a life-sized blueprint drawn on the ground. Inside the “room,” he could see a metal file cabinet, most of the sides melted away, somehow still standing upright.
 

Next to it, a body. He recoiled, but didn’t look away. The person inside the room had struggled, but hadn’t left the room when the building went up. He wondered if they’d been locked inside, unable to escape.
 

He felt a flash of white-hot anger.

“But why do this?” Amanda asked from behind him. She was following Reggie around the perimeter of the razed structures. “Why would they burn it down? If they wanted to come for us, they would have.”

“No,” he said, “they wouldn’t. They’re playing with us, trying to force us into a trap.”
 

“What kind of
trap?
” Paulinho asked. He, Archie, and Carlo stood nearby.
 

“They want us to give up Amanda. Make us think it’s not worth it to continue.”
 

It might
not
be worth it to continue.
Ben couldn’t help the inner monologue, but he pushed the thought aside.
 

Dr. Meron stepped closer to Reggie. “Is it? Should we just call it? They’re not going to —“

“They’re
not
going to stop,” Reggie said, interrupting her to finish her sentence. “That’s the point. They’re after
you
, but they’re really after what you
stand for
. What you know that they don’t. You —
we
— are on to something here, and they know it. They sense it. They’re trying to push us out, wear us down, give up the final prize. They’re not going to stop if you get captured, they’re just going to torture you until you give them everything they need.
Then
they’ll kill you.” He paused, then looked at the rest of the group gathered at the edge of the forest. “Goes without saying they’ll kill the rest of us, too.”
 

“Then how do we end this?” Paulinho asked.
 

“We finish the job,” Reggie said. “We figure out what’s hiding at the end of this journey.”
 

“And then?”
 

Reggie didn’t answer at first. “I’m still working on that part.”
 

Amanda was visibly exasperated. “Still
working
on that? Reggie, what’s the
plan
? Find this secret treasure, then hope there’s a helicopter there too?”

“That would be convenient,” he said.
 

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Ben looked at her. She’d finally asked the question to which they’d all wanted an answer, and she’d just asked it in a quick, no-nonsense way. Why had this man, unknown to just about all of them, stepped up and jumped onto their sinking ship?
 

He nodded once, then grinned, but his face quickly returned to an unreadable deadpan expression. “I get it,” he said. “I really do. Why on Earth would I want to come out here? What’s in it for me?”
 

The group nodded.
 

“Look,” he continued. “I’ve been out for a while now, making a living by bringing tourists and a few hardcore survivalists just far enough into the jungle to give them an experience, and to get their money’s worth. But I’m not a tour guide. I ain’t interested in some half-ass jungle treks.”
 

He paused, sighing. “When my wife left me, my life pretty much went on hold. She was the only person I ever knew who could keep up, and she just… lost interest one day. Went off to live in a city somewhere back in the States. I started dumbing down my training programs, taking on more corporate clients, and wasting away in my bunker. But then you — “ he looked at Paulinho. “You called. You told me you needed help, and you said someone was after your friend. Call me insane, but I didn’t need to know the details; I just wanted to jump in and
do
something for once.”
 

Ben stared, unmoving, as the man told his story.
 

“But then I
did
hear the details, and the geek in me perked up. I was fascinated by what you think you’re onto out here, and I thought to myself, ‘hell, they’re going to die out there. Might as well come along and offer some help.’”

“That’s reassuring,” Paulinho said.
 

Reggie flashed him a glance. “It’s true, bud, and you know it. We all do. Shit, I do, and I’m the one who’s trained to
be
out here.”
 

Ben listened, trying to find the holes in the man’s logic. He couldn’t, but that didn’t mean Ben believed the entire story. He couldn’t figure out why someone would be interested in all of this just for the sheer
excitement
of it all. Ben himself wasn’t one to feel excited about much, and when he did it was usually over something simple, like a perfectly cooked pot of chili or some other delicious foodstuff. “You just wanted one last adventure? A suicide mission?”
 

“I’m a realist, Ben,” he said. “I try to see the world for what it is. This is a pretty long-shot play, but there’s hope. We know where we’re going, they don’t. It’s as simple as that. As long as we keep that one thing dangling just out of their reach, we’ll be fine. I don’t know how, so I don’t have a plan to keep it that way, but I know it’s true.”
 

He looked at the rest of the group in turn, finally stopping again on Ben. Ben felt the weight of the man’s gaze, and could almost hear his thoughts burning into his own mind.
And I’ve chosen you as the de facto leader if something happens to me, Ben.

Ben considered this for a moment. It was true that Reggie seemed to have an unlikely affinity for him, and wondered what the man saw in him. Maybe he was just the best option out of the rest of the group, the only person who’d spent a real amount of time in a natural setting.
 

“Come on,” Reggie said, “let’s get out of the open and back into the safety of the trees. We need to —“

He stopped, mid-sentence.
 

Ben felt his blood run cold as he turned to see what Reggie was staring at.
 

41

PAST THE FAR SIDE OF the smoldering remains of the hospital, Ben saw the trees move. He thought it was the smoke at first, until more of the trees began to shake and wobble gently. A large leafy bush, with sharp, spiny fronds of a bright green color was pressed sideways, and a man stepped into view and then out onto the open moss-covered floor of the atrium.
 

He was naked except for a strip of leather wrapped around his waist and between his legs, and his skin seemed to match the leather. Ragged and tough, it was bronzed and hairless, save for a crop of deep-black hair on his head and thick eyebrows. He was covered in jewelry, including bracelets on each wrist, beaded anklets, and piercings in just about every piece of cartilage available to him. The Indian’s wrinkled and sun-beaten face was painted black, with a red stripe stretching from ear to ear, across his eyes.
 

Ben stared at the old man creeping slowly toward them, but it wasn’t the detail of the native’s dress and jewelry that he was focused on. The man held a long spear, stretching out equally in front of and behind him, that he carried without letting the tip drop. It pointed straight toward the group, unwavering as it crept forward in its owner’s grasp.

“Ben,” Julie whispered. She snuck up behind Ben and reached her arm around his. He nodded, silently acknowledging that he was seeing the same thing she was, but not wanting to respond aloud or turn his head away from the approaching stranger.
 

Reggie was standing just a few feet in front of them, and Ben saw him reaching down to grab the machete hanging from his belt. He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or a terrible one, but he didn’t try to stop him. Reggie’s hand fell around the machete’s handle, and Ben watched him slowly lift it straight up, his torso still partially blocking it from the oncoming man’s line of sight.
 

“I’m going to count to three,” Reggie said, keeping his voice down but speaking loud enough for the group to hear him clearly. “Then we’re going to run. Don’t split up, but try to run a few feet away from each other.”
 

Julie tightened her grip on Ben’s hand.
 

“Don’t worry about looking back,” he said. “He’s going to throw that thing, and it’s going to hit its mark. You turn around, you better believe
you’re
his mark.”
 

Ben swallowed.
 

Reggie counted. “One.”
 

The man crept forward, not increasing or decreasing his speed. His eyes seemed to be locked onto Ben’s. His face was unreadable, indifferent to the outside world. He was intently focused on this singular moment in time, this place alone.
 

Focused on the hunt.
 

“Two.”
 

The man continued, now only twenty feet away. Mere inches, it seemed. Ben watched the man’s eyes, trying to see if he’d divert his gaze from the group, but he didn’t. His eyes didn’t give any indication that he was even alive, let alone moving toward them.
 

“Three!” Reggie yelled the last number, and Ben and Julie twirled around simultaneously.
 

And Ben found himself staring at the end of a long, sharpened spear blade.
 

Julie screamed, but Ben almost couldn’t hear it. His body was on high alert, alarms ringing in his head, drawing his focus in to the object three inches from his face.
 

He could see the crude, yet careful work of the blade. The artisan had fashioned it from a rock, smoothing the sides and sharpening the tip to a perfect point. The dull pewter color of the stone reflected no light, but Ben could see through the thin, razor-sharp strip running alongside the extreme edge of the blade.