"Are you suggesting that I stole something from a dead man? I'm not the criminal here. I wasn't the one looting the ruins, the very heritage of these people. I may be a lot of things, but I am not a thief."
Gearhardt flashed a disarming smile that might have had the desired effect under other circumstances, but Merritt already had his quills up. Maybe his character and loyalty were often suspect, but never his integrity. Never.
"That isn't what I meant to imply at all, Mr. Merritt. I was simply pointing out that had any other man on the planet found that bag, he would have taken the headdress, if not all of the contents, for himself. You're an uncommon man. And I just wanted to personally thank you for it."
Merritt softened subtly, but he could sense the other shoe hovering overhead, and he had run out of patience waiting for it to drop.
"Let's get this over with. What do you really want?"
"I want you to show me where you found my son's body. I need to see it." There was a barely noticeable shift in the man's posture, a sagging of his shoulders. "Please."
Merritt saw just a glimpse of the man's true pain before the stoic, businesslike demeanor returned. His anger softened in the face of such anguish. He knew the soul-deep sorrow of losing friends and family, but he could only imagine the sheer torment of having to bury a child.
"My son was my world, Mr. Merritt. I'll pay you whatever you want. Money is of no consequence right now. I just need to find out what happened to my boy."
"Of course," Merritt said. "I'll help in any way that I can."
"Name your price, Mr. Merritt."
Merritt smiled. "I wouldn't mind another cup of guava juice."
Gearhardt looked quizzically at him for a moment, and then laughed. He clapped Merritt on the shoulder and gently turned him toward the shore.
"I suppose you should put on your shoes while I track down some guava juice. From what I understand, we have a bit of a hike ahead of us."
V
11:10 a.m.
Leo's heartbeat accelerated at the sound of the river ahead, an almost mocking chuckle. Until this very moment, he had felt as though he were walking through a dream, his movements sluggish, his mind shrouded in fog, disconnected. There had been no sensation in his legs, and yet they had somehow propelled him down the muddy path through the jungle. Passing from the dirt roads, through the meadows, and into the suffocating prehistoric forest had been like journeying back through time. He felt small and insignificant, while the mounting burden he bore grew larger with each step. Somewhere through the oppressive jungle of broad, vine-draped ceiba and Brazil nut trees with their buttressed roots and impregnable canopies was where his son's remains had been discovered, facedown in the mud, rotting even as the piranhas feasted on his viscera.
He wanted to cry, to release the anguish from inside if only for a time, but the tears refused to flow. Perhaps it was the years of repressing his feelings in order to build his empire, or maybe it was the rage burning in his chest that prevented the display of emotion. Either way, someone had killed his Hunter, and even now the murderer was still out there, possibly in this very forest. And unlike his son, the killer was still alive.
But his days were now numbered. This Leo vowed. Even if it cost him his life, whoever had slain his son would know true suffering.
Poison dart frogs chirruped out of sight and invisible creatures scampered through the branches. Mosquitoes swarmed around him, drawing blood as quickly as he could swat them, their frenetic humming punctuated by the occasional chirp or squawk of a bird and the clap of wings.
Merritt pushed through a screen of branches, and abruptly, stepped out onto the lip of a sloppy trench, at the bottom of which flowed a dirty brown river. Sunlight shined between the interlocking branches in shifting kaleidoscopic patterns that lent the impression of motion to the muddy ground. The pilot slid down the slick slope, using the limp vegetation that clung to it for leverage until he reached the edge of the water. Leo joined him a moment later, hands and boots caked with muck, cheeks smeared brown from smacking the mosquitoes, whose numbers were reinforced at the river's edge.
Merritt looked back at him with an genuine empathy, but said nothing. He merely turned and advanced upstream toward a tangle of branches reminiscent of a beaver dam to the side of a gentle bend.
"He was right here," Merritt said in little more than a whisper. He gestured to the ground, where Leo could still see a vague human outline filled with standing water. The earth surrounding it was choppy with hundreds of footprints.
Leo crouched beside it and ran a finger along the contours of the impression left by Hunter's head. He raised his stare to the west, where, through the wavering gaps in the branches, he could barely discern the jagged line of the green Andes, their peaks hidden by clouds.
A single tear eroded through the mud on his cheek.
He lowered his gaze and scoured the bank, but found only what he expected. Nothing. Flashes of silver caught his eye from the murky water, and then they were gone.
"Are you okay?" Merritt asked just quietly enough that the others couldn't hear.
Leo nodded and rose again, smearing away the tear. He studied the pilot's face, searching for answers. When he found none, he looked past him to the edge of the forest where Colton and Sam waited. Colton at least had the decency to turn his attention elsewhere, but Sam stared directly at them, tears shimmering on her cheeks. He had to look away before his fading strength abandoned him entirely.
There was a splash on the opposite side of the river as an unnoticed black caiman plunged into the river from the swath of sun where it had been basking. Leo watched for the crown of the skull and the bubble-eyes to break the surface, but they never did. At least not that he could see. He took a few cautious steps away from the water and positioned himself to make eye contact with Merritt.
"I'm willing to offer you fifty thousand dollars to join our expedition."
"Me?" Merritt's face reflected shock for a beat before he again composed himself. "Why would you possibly want me?"
"Make it a hundred grand." Leo scrutinized the man's reaction, watching for an unconscious tell. "For roughly one month's work."
Merritt's gaze flicked uphill, then returned.
"I'm a pilot, Mr. Gearhardt. My place is in the sky. What good would I be to you in the jungle?"
"You have certain training that could prove advantageous, Mr. Merritt. I would imagine those particular skills will be even handier in the wilderness than in the air. And for someone looking to stay lost, there's no better place than the jungle."
"You've been checking up on me?" There was a flash of fury in Merritt's eyes. He quickly regained control and feigned nonchalance. The subtle threat had been received.
"You were the one who discovered my son's body."
"So you assume that I had something to do with his death?" Again, Merritt's eyes ticked toward the jungle, then back. Leo discreetly glanced in the same direction, but saw only Sam. "You're out of your mind. It's awful what happened to your son, but the poor guy drowned. Like you said, I found the body. Trust me, your son was in the water long before I arrived."
"Hunter was a very strong swimmer, Mr. Merritt."
"Which makes you wonder if it's possible he ran into some other kind of trouble up there." Merritt furrowed his brow. "And you suspect I might know something about it."
"I don't know what I think." Leo shook his head. "The bottom line is we still haven't received word from the rest of Hunter's party. For all we know, they could have met the same fate up there in the mountains. Enough time has passed that they should have returned to Pomacochas if they were physically able to."
"Then why in the world do you want to go up there?" Merritt glanced at Sam again. Not at the forest. Not at Colton. But directly at Samantha. "If you're thinking of hiring me as some sort of protection, then whoever you had digging into my past didn't do his job. I'm obviously not who you think I am."
Leo let it drop. His message had been del
ivered. The silence was pregnant with tension until he broke it with a sigh.
"Mr. Merritt, something happened to my only child and his group somewhere up there." Leo inclined his head toward the Andes. "And I was the one who potentially sent them to their deaths. I am ultimately responsible for their lives. I need to learn what happened to them. For all I know, there may still be men alive up there. Communications gear broken. Starving. Lost in the cloud forest. If that's the case, then it's my responsibility to bring them out."
Merritt narrowed his eyes and appraised him.
"I understand. But if you suspect foul play, you shouldn't have brought civilians." His gaze lingered on Sam for emphasis.
So Merritt was interested in Sam, was he? Leo steadied his poker face. He had him now. If Merritt had nothing to do with Hunter's death, then he might prove a valuable asset. And if he had? Well, hundreds of men vanished in the jungle every year.
"These 'civilians' are here to help us find our destination. Only they have the necessary knowledge to find exactly what we're looking for in a range of nearly twenty-five square miles of practically vertical primary forest."
"You didn't share your suspicions with them, did you?"
Leo allowed the question to hang in the air between them.
"You would willingly subject these people to possible danger without forewarning them first?" Merritt flushed with anger. Then, suddenly, a puzzled expression crossed his face. "What else is up there? What aren't you telling me?"
Leo masked his surprise. The man had made the connection so quickly. Perhaps too quickly. Had he recognized the gold vein placers among Hunter's belongings? Was it possible that he too knew more than he was letting on?
"So are you coming with us or not?" Leo asked.
Merritt sighed. When he looked up toward the dark-haired woman crouching at the base of an epiphyte-addled kapok tree, Leo had his answer.
VI
2:36 p.m.
"Now pan left and sweep up the hillside," Dahlia Warner said from behind him where she knelt on the dock. "Make sure you get that little market and the church across the street."
Jay Sizemore did as he was directed. The shot of the street and the Spanish-style buildings against the backdrop of the lush rainforest may not have been exciting, but it was an improvement over the ten minutes of footage he had filmed of the nearly naked fishermen just sitting in their boats out in the middle of the lake. He felt the constant need to wash his hands for fear of contracting some disease or other. He looked forward to heading out into the jungle. Granted, everything would be dirty and covered with fungus and moss, but it was supposed to be. For whatever bizarre reason, that made all the difference in the world.
Jay rose from where he crouched and walked down the center of the road leading away from the dock. Dahlia's goal was to shoot this documentary in a way that made it feel like a first-person exploration, as though the viewer were actually a participant in the expedition. She had delusions of the film appearing on IMAX screens across the country in wide, panoramic splendor, and who knew? If they indeed discovered ancient ruins filled with priceless relics that had remained hidden for a millennium, she just might be right. And if she was, he could only imagine the fame and financial rewards that would come. Perhaps even a little golden statue or two.
Gravel crunched underfoot. Mosquitoes hummed and flies buzzed. The din of voices drifted down the street. None of these sounds would reach their final version, of course, as they would be replaced by voiceover or music of some kind. For whatever reason, the score from the Indiana Jones movies played on a continuous loop in his mind.
A ramshackle cantina clouded by cigarette smoke and desperation passed to his left, their humble accommodations to his right. A hairy monkey scrabbled up the side of the shack beyond and disappeared over the roof. For a brief moment, Jay thought he saw the silhouette of a man in the shadows between the buildings, and then it was gone. He watched from the peripheral range of the viewfinder as he passed, but saw only an empty alley filled with garbage and rusted appliances. Apparently, the natives were both curious and camera-shy.
A burro stood in front of the market, saddle bags brimming with round green lucuma fruit. It raised its tail and dropped a pile of manure for the eager flies, which gleefully abandoned the rack of cured meats upon which they'd been crawling. An elderly woman wearing a traditional oversize sweater and skirt made from alpaca wool seized the opportunity to peruse the selection in their absence. Across the street, the church, which reminded him of the little missions scattered throughout Southern California and Mexico with its sloping tiled roof, terraced bell towers, pedimented gables, and fortified quadrángulo, stood vacant. He had heard the bell's Call to Mass not so long ago, and wondered how much it would cost to convince the priest to make it ring again for the camera, or would even the request be considered sacrilegious?
There was a shift in the shadows beside the church. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw a human form peel apart from the darkness. He stepped to his right to get a better view, but saw nothing between him and the quadrángulo wall. Probably just another monkey or a skittish child. Nothing to get worked up about.
"Zoom down the street and then up to the mountains," Dahlia said. "Focus on the clouds covering the peaks, and then fade out."
Jay did as instructed, then lowered the camera. When he turned to Dahlia, she was positively beaming.
"You realize we're about to make history, don't you?" she asked.
Her enthusiasm was contagious. He couldn't help but return her smile.
"I believe you've mentioned that once or twice."
"I mean, no one has ever documented the discovery of ancient ruins like we're about to."
"Technically, the ruins have already been discovered."
"You don't know that for sure. Mr. Gearhardt's son could have not found them at all. There's no verifiable proof."
"If that's the case, then there might not be any ruins up there at all."
"When did you become such a pessimist?"
"Where have you been? I've always been the voice of reason in the sea of unbridled optimism. Even back in film school."
"Way back then, huh? What was that, three years ago now?"
"I already feel like I've been paying the student loans forever."
"Well, this ought to put an end to that nonsense," Dahlia said, and gave him a wink that weakened his knees.
He'd been crazy about her for more years than he cared to admit. Unfortunately, he knew nothing would ever come of it, so he would have to settle for proximity and hope that like a mold or a fungus, he would eventually grow on her. He wasn't a bad looking guy by anyone's definition. He just wasn't in the same league as Dahlia. From the right angle, he imagined he looked a little like Kurt Cobain with dark hair, while in reality, he was probably more reminiscent of a long-haired Gary Sinise in Forrest Gump. Dahlia, on the other hand, had all of the magical qualities that would have served her every bit as well in front of the camera as behind it. It wasn't just the Jaime Pressly hair or the Claudia Schiffer eyes, the Jennifer Aniston body or the Denise Richards lips. It was everything about her: the way she moved, the way she projected herself, her boundless confidence. The way she elevated his skills to her level whenever she was around.
Perhaps the formation of Four Winds Productions had been a marriage of convenience at first, but it had become a true partnership. Granted, his father owned the rundown sound studio they'd been able to renovate with only a small bank loan and charged only nominal rent, and his uncle had known a guy at Paramount who had sold them the used equipment for a song and dance, but she had brought the ambition and the will to succeed that he often lacked. Now if only she could see him as a partner in more than the financial sense.
"So are you just going to stand there, or are we going to get in on this strategy session and figure out what the plan is from here?" Dahlia asked. She smirked, slipped her arm under his, and led him back down the street toward their hotel.
Jay glanced back over his shoulder at the church. He was certain he could feel the weight of unseen eyes watching him from just out of sight.
VII
4:19 p.m.
First Sergeant Kelvin Tasker called for another beer in Spanish and adjusted his sweaty flannel shirt to ensure the sidearm in the hostler beneath his left armpit remained invisible. There was only one other patron in the dark cantina, a downtrodden local who guarded his bottle of Pisco Soldeica Huaco with both arms and never once looked away from it, as though the clear fluid held the secrets of life itself. An uneven scatter of scuffed tables and unmatched chairs covered the sticky wood-plank floors, upon which only a few rays of sunlight shined through the twin windows covered with faded promotional posters. Tasker sat in the rear corner with the doors to the kitchen and the rear exit to his left, the main entrance diagonally across the room to his right. The shadows surrounding him momentarily peeled back at the snap of his lighter, then swallowed him again, save the glowing cherry of his Ducal cigarette. Whatever had crept closer along the wall under the cover of darkness scurried back toward the ceiling with a series of clacking sounds.
The bartender set Tasker's Malta Polar on the table in front of him with a slosh of fluid. Tasker dismissed him with a fifty nuevo sol note that not only covered the beer, but his continued privacy as well. Thus far, there hadn't even been a sideways glance from behind the warped maple bar. That was one thing about the people down here. They knew how to mind their own business.
Tasker allowed the world around him to vanish while he focused on the chatter from the wireless receiver in his right ear and watched the entrance carefully. They had placed the audio surveillance microphones and transmitters inside the walls of the hacienda, in the deepest reaches of the finch nests. The voices were somewhat muffled, but the words were clear enough. He eavesdropped while they detailed their plans and made pointless conversation about things that didn't concern him. The different types of birds they would encounter; the social hierarchy of the Chachapoya people pre- and post-Inca conquest; the various kinds of structures they should expect to find; the species of plants and animals to avoid; and myriad ways to repel insects. It wasn't until a female voice, that of Dr. Samantha Carson, began detailing the types of artifacts they might stumble upon that he paid close attention. Apparently, the headdress was a cultural anomaly, but that didn't change the fact that it existed. And where there was one, surely there were a dozen more just like it. He had been able to secure a buyer for the first in a matter of hours, a Korean businessman who had offered seven figures for it and asked if he could ascertain any more artifacts of similar quality. Through his newfound international channels, he expected this venture to bring in somewhere between ten and twenty million dollars, and he fully intended to keep half for himself. After all, he had come up with the plan and was responsible for its implementation. He was the one out here risking his neck. Monahan should consider himself fortunate that he had even been offered a cut, but when it came right down to it, Tasker needed him. For the time being anyway. The office of the Consul-general provided a measure of legitimacy, and would help facilitate a speedy exodus from Peru when the job was complete.
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