Rippeth sidled up to him and spoke so that only he could hear.
"We could head back downriver while it's still dark and flush them out."
Colton admired the man's directness. In cases like this, however, patience was more than a virtue. It was a weapon.
"Not yet. Let them think we don't know they're there. They'll eventually grow overconfident. When they make their move, we'll be ready." Colton followed the man's gaze to the channel leading into the valley. Whoever was following them would eventually have to pass through there. "Besides, I need some time to figure out if we have a mole in our ranks."
Rippeth nodded, but kept his hand within easy reach of the sidearm tucked into the back of his pants.
"You and your men take shifts watching the camp," Colton said. "If anyone so much as attempts to breach the perimeter, I'll pay you fifty grand a head."
"Just the head?" Rippeth asked through a smirk. A strange light twinkled behind his eyes.
Colton clapped him on the shoulder and strolled back over to the fire. The humming of the giant mosquitoes had swelled to a whine. He threw more leaves onto the coals to reinforce the smoke.
Smiling, he turned back toward the lake.
Let their followers come, for they would soon learn that in the jungle, the roles of predator and prey were easily enough reversed.
VI
October 27th
2:58 a.m.
Tasker crouched at the base of a moss-covered stone formation shaped like a sinking ocean liner, concealed by the masses of shrubbery and the enormous prehistoric trees on the crest of the southeastern rim of the bowl-shaped valley. He brought the night vision scopes to his eyes and again surveyed the camp. Where once there had been five men patrolling the perimeter of the oblong circle of tents, nearly concealed by the wide arms of the Brazil nut trees, there were now only two. They feigned nonchalance, but Tasker knew better. These men were professionals with military training. It was obvious from their posture, their stride, and the angles they maintained to one another while surveying the forest. The arrogance that radiated from them. These were men whose egos were bolstered by skill and experience. Their impudence would be their undoing.
The shift change at precisely two a.m. had been rigid, and the discussions more involved than a simple verbal exchange in passing. They had obviously sensed they were being tailed, and thus stood at heightened awareness. Tasker had planned for this contingency, of course. He had never expected to be able to follow them upriver without betraying their presence, not while maintaining the necessary proximity to keep from being shaken. It was all part of the game. As long as their quarry continued to look over their shoulders, they wouldn't be focused on what was ahead.
His right hand in this operation, Corporal Terrence McMasters, appeared as a faint shadow among shadows to the southwest of the camp exactly as he had been instructed. The soldier was flat on his belly in a snarl of vegetation, visible only for a split-second by the whites of his eyes before he again closed them. He was within feet of the stacks of supplies unloaded from the boats. Less than a minute later, he was gone, his assignment complete.
Tasker lowered the lenses and crawled back around the stone abutment until he was safely on the other side of the mountain before standing. The rain drew lines through the mud he had smeared over his face and hair, and which still clung to his fatigues. It reeked of sulfur and decay, but in addition to making him nearly invisible against the ground and the night, it held the mosquitoes at bay.
He half-slid, half-scrabbled down the wet slope, silently skirting massive trees and jagged boulders, and slipping through tangles of shrubbery like a ghost. Even he didn't see the three men guarding their boats until he was right on top of them. He both confirmed the success of the mission and dismissed them with a nod. Making no more sound than the falling rain, the men, specters as intangible as mist, eased their boat out of the undergrowth and into the river. They pushed away from the bank and drifted into the fog that clung to the rapids, and then they were gone.
Tasker vanished into the recently vacated blind and waited for McMasters. Two hours from now, before the first rays of the rising sun highlighted the cloud cover, they would rendezvous with the rest of the unit several miles to the east. Then the waiting would begin.
He withdrew the handheld tracking device from inside his filthy jacket and shielded the display with his hand before turning it on. A small blue beacon radiated in concentric rings at the center of the grid. Everything was going according to plan. He switched off the unit and returned it to his jacket.
Half an hour later, McMasters emerged from the forest, and together they lowered their craft into the water. With a shove, they floated away from the shore and gained momentum as they were carried downriver.
Soon enough, their tracking would begin in earnest. For now, they had plenty of time to relax and let their prey expend all of their energy hacking through the forest and creating their path for them. Then all they would have to do was overwhelm them once they found the rest of the relics.
It was now only a matter of time before they were multimillionaires.
Tasker couldn't help but smile in the darkness.
No one would ever find the bodies. There were countless places to dispose of the remains, and just as many creatures that would be happy to expedite the process of decomposition.
There was just one more thing he had to do before the hunt officially commenced.
VII
4:06 a.m.
The ringing phone roused Eldon from a sound slumber. His eyes were still too blurred by sleep to clearly read the clock. All he knew was that it was late enough that there had better be a really good explanation for waking him.
He snatched the phone from the headboard after the third ring and answered in his most irritated tone.
"Monahan."
"Good morning, Mr. Consul-general."
He immediately recognized the voice, and was suddenly wide awake.
"How did you get this number?"
"You insult me, Eldon."
"Why are you calling me? Especially here? If anything happens, you know how quickly it will be traced."
"Which is exactly why I'm calling. To remind you that we're in this together. I'm not the only one taking a risk here, am I Consul-general?"
Eldon's heart beat so hard and fast that he could barely breathe, let alone formulate a reply. This had gone beyond threat to implication. If their plan spiraled out of control, he would no longer have the luxury of deniability. How had he allowed this to happen? He could have somehow maintained the upper hand, or he could have simply walked away. But he would have still been a third-rate diplomat in a Third World country, and the prospect of that future was even more frightening than the consequences of a liaison with the devil.
"Don't tell me the sound of my sweet voice has lulled you back to sleep," Tasker said.
"No," Eldon whispered.
"Good." He could hear the smile in Tasker's voice. "Now here's what I need you to do..."
Eldon held his breath while Tasker detailed what he realized would be the end of his career in politics. The room began to spin around him and the floor tilted on an unseen fulcrum. There'd be no opportunity to return to the States to vie for a seat in the Senate. He'd be lucky if he ever had the chance to return to America again, luckier still if he managed to stay out of prison.
Life as he knew it had come to an end.
Something broke inside of him and he started to cry.
"You're pathetic," Tasker said. "Suck it up and do exactly as I told you," he added, before disconnecting.
Eldon buried his face in his trembling hands. His shoulders shook as he sobbed. He would be unable to return to sleep tonight, if ever.
There was no immediate need to climb out of bed and do what Tasker asked, but he feared that even from hundreds of miles away, Tasker would know, and the consequences would be dire. The man was a snake without a conscience. Though Eldon had been wrong to t
rust him to uphold his end of their original deal, he completely trusted that the man would follow through on this most recent threat.
Rising, he passed through his bedroom and stepped out onto the hardwood floor in the hallway of the old hacienda that had housed countless Consul-generals before him. Until now, he had never paused to wonder what had become of those who had never reached the ambassador's mansion. A short staircase led him down to the recessed living quarters. As he had been instructed, he weaved through the maze of leather couches and chairs in the darkness until he reached the wet bar at the back of the room, and walked around behind it. He shoved aside a row of champagne bottles on the bottom shelf to reveal a rectangular white box standing on end. It looked like the kind department stores used to wrap sweaters, only larger.
Collapsing onto his rear end, he pulled the box down into his lap. It took several minutes to muster the courage to open it. The headdress fit snugly inside, polished to a high shine that reflected the moonlight from the window behind him. As Tasker had promised, an envelope rested over the jeweled eyes of the relic. Eldon fumbled it open and held the small stack of photographs in hands that shook so badly he could hardly see the pictures clearly.
They were snapshots from the surveillance camera in his office. In the first, he sat at his desk with the headdress in his left hand, lovingly tracing the contours of the precious stones with his right. In the next, he accepted the golden artifact from the dirty pilot. And there were more. All of them showed him in various poses with what the Peruvian government would undoubtedly consider a national treasure. Each bore a time and date stamp. If he had a change of heart and attempted to renege on his side of the bargain, copies would be sent to a dozen different Peruvian and American agencies. Too much time had passed for them to forgive him outright. The Peruvians would undoubtedly love nothing more than to make an example of him and give Uncle Sam a political black eye in the process.
He suddenly realized the true depths of Tasker's deviousness. What if the man had never intended to cut him in on the profits? What if Eldon's only purpose was to serve as a smokescreen for the operation? The black market connections were Tasker's. When he found the relics, they would be in his possession. There were no guarantees that he would ever come back for Eldon. All he had was Tasker's word, the word of a blackmailer who even now was stalking an unknowing expedition into the mountains where he intended to kill them.
His only option was to go through with it, even assuming Tasker had no intention of honoring their partnership.
What were his alternatives? Slip off in the middle of the night and go into hiding, his life ruined? He'd sooner kill himself than live like that.
There would soon be questions regarding the whereabouts of the marines, questions he would be unable to answer without incriminating himself. And in this envelope was the rope they would use to hang him.
Worse still, if Tasker was as evil as Eldon now believed, what would prevent the man from returning to Lima to tie off his loose ends?
But the greatest injustice was still to come. Tasker had arranged for him to make the handoff to the representatives for the Asian buyer. They would see him, and ultimately be able to identify him should their underhanded deal be uncovered. His fingerprints would be all over the transaction.
Eldon was damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
Damned.
Chapter Four
I
Andes Mountains, Peru
October 27th
10:39 a.m. PET
Merritt had passed the point of exhaustion long ago, and they'd only been on the move for five hours. Again he found himself asking what in the name of God he was doing here. He could have been back at his plane, preparing to head anywhere in the world he wanted to go. Instead, here he was, lugging nearly everything he owned in the pack on his back, while the ever-present cloud of mosquitoes made a human pincushion out of him. He had long since abandoned the worry of vector-borne diseases, and now feared he might not have enough blood in his body to simultaneously feed the humming masses and sustain his life. And the more he sweated with the exertion, the more insects he seemed to draw to him. His shirt was already drenched, and rivulets traced the line of his spine to his waistband and rolled down his legs. He could even smell himself over the stench of the rotting detritus. Worst of all was the claustrophobia caused by the low ceiling of branches that admitted precious little sunlight and airflow, and closed in from either side as though constricting. Ever since Afghanistan, the sensation of an impending panic attack was never far behind. His heart raced, his fingertips tingled, and he suddenly couldn't draw enough air. He had to pause to focus on regulating his heartbeat and breathing, and used the momentary respite to steal a glance back over his shoulder at the rest of the party.
The birdman, with the fancy net over his Panama Jack hat and head, appeared blissfully unaware as he continued to annoy Merritt from behind with his need to bludgeon them with his knowledge of every avian species they passed. The other men had fallen a dozen paces behind. They conversed in whispers, which only served to make Merritt nervous. It wasn't the subject of their conversation that worried him as much as the grim expressions on their faces. He was going to have to keep a closer eye on them. Sam remained toward the front, where she walked behind the birdman. She looked frustratingly comfortable in her tank top with her flannel shirt tied around her cargo shorts, and somehow had found the eye of the mosquito tornado. She neither swatted nor slapped, and had developed only a thin sheen of sweat on her brow.
The documentary crew chattered excitedly as they filmed everyone and everything. Merritt made sure to keep his back to them. He had thought the risk had ended when the caiman stole their camera, but he should have known they would have brought several in case of such an eventuality. They had to have nearly twenty-four hours of footage already, and must have catalogued every species of animal and tree they encountered. He tried to ignore them and, in turn, hoped they would return the favor. The last thing he wanted was for his face to appear on the silver screen.
Gearhardt's son's path had remained relatively clear at first; however the deeper they pressed into the jungle, the more the vines and branches encroached. Merritt was taking his turn swinging the machete, which had looked easy enough when the others were wielding it in the morning. The reality was entirely different. The weapon was far heavier than he had imagined, and the muscles required to slash it with enough force to part the sea of foliage weren't the kind he exercised on a regular basis. Both shoulders burned and his arms had begun to tremble. Maybe it was a guy thing, or perhaps the unwillingness to show weakness in front of the men who thought they had him by the short-and-curlies, but he wasn't about to be the one to call for a reprieve. So he continued to swing, refusing to think about his aching appendages, or about how few miles they had actually traveled, or about what the men in the rear were plotting.
With a ferocious hack, a mess of branches crashed down around his feet, and a flood of light flowed onto the path. After so long traveling in relative darkness, the sunlight was blinding. Merritt shielded his eyes and stepped warily into the clearing. It was a light gap, an area where one of the massive kapok trees had fallen and taken a cluster of smaller trees with it, allowing the sun to reach ground unaccustomed to its golden touch. The four-foot-wide trunk sprawled diagonally across the gap, pinning broken trunks and shrubs under limbs that sagged with dying leaves. Saplings that would otherwise have withered and died in the shadows now stood taller than Merritt. Scampering sounds raced away from their approach and a flock of birds, black against the sudden suffusion of light, took to wing.
The oppressive humidity relented for a few precious seconds as a gentle breeze reached the forest floor. Merritt enjoyed the sensation while his eyes adjusted before starting forward. With all of the abrupt changes at once, he didn't immediately notice the stench.
"Ugh," he groaned. "What the hell is that?"
"You mean was," Sam said. She slipped past him a
nd approached the fallen tree. Some kind of film glistened on her forehead and cheeks.
Merritt caught up with her and had to ask, "What's all over your face?"
"A combination of ground up lemon verbena and pennyroyal leaves," she said. The tone in her voice suggested she thought the answer self-evident. He waited for her to elaborate, but she turned back to the tree and scaled the smooth bark.
"So you're going to make me ask, huh? Why did you smear plant sludge all over your face?"
"And arms and legs." He could tell she was enjoying this. "Isn't it obvious?"
"I guess not." He mounted the tree and crawled over behind her. Santos and Naldo scurried past him and dropped down into a cluster of ferns. "Enlighten me."
"Have you seen any mosquitoes on me?"
Merritt hopped down into the weeds. Something fast and green slithered away from his feet. A buzzing sound drew his attention to the far side of the clearing, where a black cloud roiled behind a gnarled ceiba trunk.
"So are you going to hook me up with some of that magic concoction of yours or what?"
"I already told you which flowers to look for. Verbena triphylla, lemon verbena, has lancet-shaped leaves with little purple and white flowers, and Mentha pulegium, pennyroyal, looks like a mint plant with columns of purple dandelion flowers. Surely even you can figure it out from there."
He grabbed her by the elbow and turned her around to face him. "Why are you riding me so hard? What did I ever do to you?"
"You called me a grave robber and attempted to tarnish the memory of a dear friend," she snapped. Her face flushed. "I'm one of the world's foremost experts on Chachapoya culture, and I've undoubtedly spent more time in the jungles of Peru than you. I've helped excavate two of the most fascinating and scientifically important ruins, which draw thousands of tourists every year and help stimulate the local economy. Every artifact I discovered at those sites is now displayed in the Chachapoya Museum in Leymebamba. Every single one of them. And you have the nerve to call me a grave robber?"
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