Insects 2: The Hunted

by John Koloen

  “That’s not the point,” Duncan said, tersely. “You knew I was planning to go back. If you need more money …”

  “It’s not about the money,” Boyd said hesitantly. “OK, OK, it is about the money. It’s always about the money. But it’s also an opportunity. I’m not here as an assistant, I’m here as a consultant. They look up to me.”

  Duncan realized he was losing the battle. Who could he find to take Boyd’s place? How could science compete against Hollywood? He drew a blank.

  “Cody, Cody, Cody,” Duncan sighed, reaching for his mojito and taking a giant gulp. “So, what kind of show are you doing? It’s not about what happened to us, is it?”

  “No, no, no, I wouldn’t have anything to do with something like that. We’re actually going to follow this really smart guy named Nolan Thomas. We went to a village yesterday, really remote place, had to fly in, and ….”

  “Nolan Thomas?! Really, he’s out there?”

  “You know him?”

  “I’ve met him. I thought he gave up fieldwork,” Duncan said, doing his best to disguise how he really felt. “So, he’s going after blaberus?”

  “Yep.”

  “And he’s already there?”

  “Oh, yeah. We’re scouting locations but what we saw yesterday looks promising.”

  “And what’s his goal?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think he wants to capture some specimens, just like…”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Just like you,” Boyd grimaced. “Hey, you know, maybe he won’t succeed.”

  Just like me, Duncan thought, as he wished Boyd well and ended the call. Downing the remainder of the mojito, he looked at Cross and held the glass up.

  “Can I have another?”

  46

  DUNCAN DIDN’T LET his conversation with Boyd ruin the remainder of the weekend. Cross liked him and he knew that. She knew he liked her. They both knew he needed money. There was never a question in her mind whether she would pay for Suarez’s lawyer and she knew before she came to Houston that Duncan planned to return to Brazil for another expedition. Although he didn’t go into detail when he first mentioned his plans, she knew that sooner or later he would let it slip out that he needed financial help and who better to ask than someone who had provided it in the past? It was obvious to her, even though Duncan seemed to think he had kept it well hidden.

  Disappointed that Boyd had taken another job, he avoided talking about it with Cross until they were having breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Cross’s plane was scheduled to leave early that afternoon and he thought this would be the last time he would speak to her before returning to Brazil.

  “What are you going to do without Cody?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, that was just totally unexpected. I know he had some doubts about going back, and I could understand that, but to just go and take another job without telling me, that’s hard to deal with.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t personal,” Cross said. “He found a better opportunity and took it.”

  “Yeah, you know, I’ve never thought of Nolan Thomas as a competitor. I don’t even know what he’s been working on. He hasn’t published much that I’ve seen. Besides, he’s not really an entomologist.”

  “And yet, he’s suddenly competing against you.”

  “Yeah, it kinda looks that way. I wish I knew more and maybe I can squeeze some info from Cody when I see him in Manaus. It sounds like they may be close to finding blaberus.”

  “I wouldn’t be looking forward to that,” Cross said, smiling.

  “I get the impression he’s after specimens—why else would he be there—but I’m not sure how he’s gonna get them. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately.”

  Duncan outlined what he saw as the challenges facing anyone attempting to track and capture the predatory insects. Nothing was known about how their colonies were organized, how they communicated with each other, how they orchestrated attacks. The fact that most of Duncan’s experience with the insects occurred in water meant that he knew nothing about how they behaved in their normal environment of dry land. Doubtless, they were a more formidable opponent on land than they were on water.

  “That’s a scary thought,” Cross said, comfortable with playing the sounding board.

  “That’s why I’ve been thinking about it. The only thing I keep coming up with is to use traps, you know. But the problem is figuring out where to put them. I have no idea how to locate them except by what they leave behind.”

  “Surely, that person—Thomas, is it—is in the same boat.”

  “Unless he’s been secretly studying them in his lab. I wouldn’t put it past him but, you know, how likely is that?” Duncan asked rhetorically.

  “I wish I could help you with that, but I will never get close to those things again, ever. Not even if they’re in a zoo. I’m scared to death of them. I’ve even had nightmares. And, really, if you want to know, I think you’re crazy to go looking for them.”

  “Well, let’s not forget I’m going down there to help Antonio, too. It’s not all about the bugs.”

  “Oh, yes it is,” Cross countered. “And you know what? I think you’re not going to let anyone get to the bugs before you do. And that worries me.”

  Duncan shook his head.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You can deny it, but I know you. You’ll take shortcuts, you’ll do anything to be the first. And you know it.”

  Duncan grinned slightly and sipped his coffee. He’d finished his omelet and felt content enough not to be drawn into an argument, even a playful one.

  “I want you to be safe,” Cross said, reaching across the table to touch his hand. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, but I understand why you’re going to do this. So I just want you to promise that, at the very least, you won’t cut corners.”

  Duncan started to protest, but she continued.

  “I won’t take no for an answer. I know you need money for your expedition and I’ll pay for it, OK.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Duncan replied, not believing a word of it.

  “Yes, I do. And you know it. I don’t want you going into the jungle without everything you need. And that’s final. I think the best way will be for you to use your credit cards while you’re there and I’ll have George make the payments.”

  Duncan looked at her skeptically.

  “Oh, don’t worry. George isn’t a thief. I’d do it but I’d probably forget.”

  Releasing his hand, she sat back in her chair and smiled triumphantly. Duncan returned the smile. Nothing was going to stop him now.

  47

  THE BOYS GATHERED around when the tribe’s newest and youngest guide showed off the twenty reals he’d received from the ATV driver, whom the Americans had given twenty dollars to pay the boy. Most were impressed that someone their own age from their own village had been paid to be a guide. The young man rolled the currency in his pocket while describing how he’d earned the money.

  “Did you tell them about the other animals?” One of his friends asked when he’d finished.

  “Of course not,” the youngster replied. “I thought we decided not to tell anyone, so I didn’t tell.”

  “That’s good, because maybe we can make money off them.”

  “Like someone is going to pay money for a bunch of dead animals?” another boy said sardonically.

  “You never know,” the young guide said. “Look at me, I’m a guide now. Americans are loaded with money. Anything can happen.”

  48

  BOYD THOUGHT HE had never felt as engaged in his work as he did since becoming a consultant for Broken Tree Productions. He liked everything about his job: the meetings where the crew sought his advice, the scouting trips, the decent accommodations and, of course, the money. But as their questions about Duncan’s ill-fated expedition turned to criticisms he felt pressured to defend it. Were they taking shots at him or at Duncan, he wondered.
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  “Your problem was that you ignored the obvious,” Carl Murphy, the field producer said. “After you found all those animal skeletons, and especially that guy with his dog, don’t you think you should’ve turned back?”

  “We talked about it,” Boyd said. “But it wasn’t really the insects. It was the flood. If the flood hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be here talking about it.”

  “Like that guide who got killed?” videographer Joe Robinson said sarcastically.

  The crew peppered Boyd with leading questions to such an extent that he pushed away from the table and left the room.

  “We’re not trying to put you on the spot,” the producer yelled.

  “Yes, you are,” Boyd shouted. “You’re trying to get me to say that we screwed up. Well, maybe we did, and maybe we didn’t. You weren’t there so whatever you say is crap.” Reentering the room, he argued, “Tell me, what the fuck would you have done?”

  “Take it easy,” the producer said.

  “Fuck you, all of you. I’m out of here. Go find someone else for your fucking expedition.”

  A door slammed. The men looked at each other in amazement.

  “Think we pushed him too hard?” Jack Walker, the soundman, asked.

  “Goddamnit,” Murphy said.

  “We don’t need him,” Robinson said.

  Murphy shook his head. He was perplexed at how things had gotten out of hand so quickly. They were supposed to get more background about the insects from Boyd and then unveil the countermeasure they’d developed if they found themselves threatened by the insects.

  “What’s got you so pissed?” he demanded of the videographer.

  “I don’t know, I guess I smelt blood in the water.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?! He’s not the enemy, for chrissakes! Dr. Thomas is not going to like this one bit. Do any of you know anything about entomology? Any of you want to take his place? Because if you don’t we’re fucked. Goddamn, you people make me sick.”

  “Joe’s that way,” Walker said. “He’s a fucking bully, ain’t that right, Joe?”

  The videographer hissed.

  “I don’t know, I was just trying to see what he was made of. You know, how he handles pressure.”

  “Well, that’s a goddamn stupid thing to do,” the producer squawked, storming out of the room and into the fifth floor hallway and down the carpeted hall to Boyd’s room. He knocked several times before the door opened a crack.

  “Mind if I come in? I don’t know what the hell that was about, but it’s not your fault. I don’t want you to quit. OK? I can get another crew tomorrow, if that’ll work for you.”

  Boyd shrugged and moved to a window overlooking the busy street.

  “Look, I didn’t sign on for this.”

  “I know, I know. Neither did I,” Murphy said. “Frankly, I’m mortified. I’ve worked with Joe before and he’s never lashed out like that. I don’t know what he was thinking. Anyway, he’s sorry, if that helps.”

  Boyd sighed and plopped into an overstuffed chair wedged into a corner of the room. As an experienced reality producer, Murphy often had to deal with tensions between the crew and the subjects they were filming, but nothing like this. He understood that part of his job was peacemaker. He understood how little things could become big things and that it was up to him to make them go away, at least long enough to get into post-production.

  “You know, we’ve been looking for the bugs and really haven’t found them, and that’s frustrating because when we’re not filming we’re not making any money, and there’s so much misinformation going around about what happened to y’all. It’s just…it’s that, you know, give it a chance. Joe’s sorry. Give us another chance. This afternoon we’ll go over our security arrangements. You don’t have to like him,” Murphy said, trying to unruffle Boyd’s feathers. “You just have to work with him.”

  “I’ll tell you what, if he does that again I’m gonna punch him in the mouth. I’m not taking shit from that asshole.”

  “I can work with that,” Murphy said and returned to the meeting room where he spelled out ground rules for working with Boyd.

  “So we gotta treat him like a prima donna,” the videographer snarled.

  “You know, Joe,” the producer began, “if you want out, there’s the door. If it’s a choice between him and you, you know who I’m picking.”

  The videographer looked for support from the soundman and the associate producer. None was forthcoming.

  “Let me say in my defense.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Joe!” the soundman bellowed. “You’re just making things worse.”

  49

  DUNCAN LEFT A message on Boyd’s voicemail soon after checking into his hotel in Manaus. Thanks to funding from Maggie Cross, he had two missions. The first was to attend Antonio Suarez’s bail hearing and testify if necessary. The second was to capture specimens of Reptilus blaberus. Suarez’s lawyer had emailed instructions, including the address of the court where the case would be heard the next morning. After settling into his room, Duncan checked his phone for messages. He wasn’t expecting any since only a handful of people had his new number. Out of curiosity, he used web mail to check his university email account and found it stuffed with more than a thousand messages that he would never read. Scanning the subjects was enough to reinforce his opinion that the world was filled with idiots. But he wanted to talk to someone who wouldn’t ask about his previous expedition.

  Dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt, he went for a walk in the vicinity of the hotel. It was situated in an updated commercial neighborhood populated by restaurants and small shops. The sidewalks were crowded and the streets busy with traffic. The noise bothered him, so he turned down a side street off the main avenue and within a block found himself at a small plaza. Taking a seat on a bench he felt his phone vibrate.

  “Cody, thanks for calling me back. I just got in and wanted to see how things are going with you.”

  “You wouldn’t believe what went on today. I almost got into a fight.”

  “Really!? You? A fight?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know, maybe I got PTSD or somethin’ but, man, that guy, I don’t know, he hit my buttons. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten that angry. I even walked out of the room and slammed the door.”

  “What guy?” Duncan asked. “Did you quit?”

  “No, we talked about it. The old video guy was dissing us, you know, saying that we brought everything on ourselves. I just couldn’t take it. I guess that’s what you’ve been putting up with for weeks, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah, except I don’t listen to them anymore; I don’t even read about them. They weren’t there so all they can do is second-guess us.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened today. I just couldn’t believe how angry I got.”

  They updated each other about what they were doing and agreed to meet at a restaurant near Duncan’s hotel. As it turned out, Boyd’s hotel was less than a mile away. Duncan told him about going to court in the morning and how he hoped Suarez would be released.

  “You know, here’s something funny for you,” Boyd said. “This afternoon they unveiled their plan to protect themselves from the insects.”

  “Protect themselves?”

  “Yeah, you know how we talked about having a flamethrower?”

  “We didn’t have one so ….”

  “Yeah, but these guys got one.”

  “No kidding?”

  “I saw it.”

  Boyd told him that the producer had hired a former mercenary who had built his own flamethrower from surplus parts. If they were threatened by the bugs, he would sweep the area with a mixture of ten percent gasoline and ninety percent diesel.

  “He showed us a video and it looked awesome. I was surprised how far the flames go. I mean, if we had one of those things, we could have incinerated the bugs fifty feet out. They wouldn’t have gotten to us.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Well, yea
h, sorta. We used fire. It’s just that we couldn’t throw the gas very far. With this, man, everything goes up in smoke.”

  Duncan started asking prying questions about where Thomas’s group was looking and what they’d found. At first Boyd was cagey and told him about his contract and its nondisclosure clause. But, even though he no longer worked for Duncan, Boyd felt loyalty toward him and, after the morning’s tiff, trusted him more than the people he worked with. He was having doubts about what the crew really thought about him and what they were saying about him behind his back. He told him about the village they’d visited and the remains that they’d found and later the pile of hides and skeletons the village’s children had collected.

  “Of all the places we scouted, this was the only one where blaberus had definitely been. The bones had all the markings.”

  “Any idea how old it was?”

  “I couldn’t tell. There wasn’t much flesh left.”

  Although it wasn’t his intention, and though Duncan gave him only mild encouragement, Boyd told him everything that had gone on since he arrived in Manaus. They both realized at a certain point that of all the people they knew in the city the only ones they could trust were one another.

  “You know, I really wish you were working with me on this,” Duncan said.

  “Yeah, I get that. I kinda wish that, too. But, I don’t know, I’m stuck with it for now.”

  “Well, if you need an out, call me, but make it soon. I’m gonna start putting things together after tomorrow.”

  “You know where you’re gonna look? Don’t say it’s the village we went to, please don’t,” Boyd pleaded.

  “OK, I won’t say that.”

  50

  DUNCAN CHALKED IT up to language differences. Somehow the judge presiding over Suarez’s bail bond hearing thought that the American professor was the guide’s employer. That counted for more than his affidavit. It wasn’t until after the hearing, after waiting in a lobby while the lawyer finalized paperwork and paid the bond, that Duncan realized there had been a miscommunication. Suarez emerged with a big smile and a bounce in his step. Approaching Duncan, he hugged him gratefully.