And Katsoros was going to get one. No native people were going to be sacrificed for Transworld Union.
***
Katsoros watched the security feed and saw Janaina leave the building. She picked up the phone and dialed three numbers.
“We have a complication. A replacement for Mariel Castro demands to go into the field.”
“That increases the risk of our secrets going public,” a deep voice responded.
“I’ll make certain that it doesn’t. Amazonia can be dangerous. People die out there all the time.”
Chapter Four
Grant Coleman staggered off his flight and into the São Paulo airport. A variety of minor problems had added up to a major delay in his arrival. His brain was too fuzzy to do the math, but he thought he’d been awake for twenty hours.
After gathering his bags at baggage claim, he turned to see a stout man in a black suit carrying a tablet with “Dr. Grant Coleman” and a Transworld Union logo glowing on its screen. Grant sighed with relief because upon landing he’d realized that he spoke no Portuguese and his only contact for Transworld Union was through a United States phone number.
“I’m Dr. Coleman,” Grant told the man.
The man smiled with the same level relief Grant felt. “Good.” He patted his chest. “Hervé.”
“Hey, Hervé.”
“We go airport now.”
Grant was going to correct him that we were going from the airport now, but he was too tired and too happy that Hervé’s minimal English made up for Grant’s complete lack of Portuguese. Hervé grabbed Grant’s roller bag, and Grant followed him through the terminal.
They passed outside to a parking garage and the humid night air hit him like a boxer’s jab. He cringed thinking that he wasn’t even in the jungle yet, and São Paulo was comparatively temperate. Hervé loaded his bag into the trunk of a black four-door Mercedes. Grant plopped into the rich, leather back seat. He was asleep before Hervé got out of the garage.
***
“Doctor!”
Grant came to with Hervé nudging him from the open door of the car. It was still night time. Grant checked his watch and saw two hours had passed. “Yes. Okay. Thank you.”
He slid out of the car with his backpack and stood up. An older-style aircraft hangar stared him in the face.
“Hervé, where are we?”
“We go airport.”
“No, we go hotel. Sleep, Shower. Food.”
“You late. No hotel. Aeroporto Virocopos.” Hervé dropped Grant’s bag beside him, got back into the Mercedes, and drove away.
A beefy security guard approached from under the hangar lights. He wasn’t a mall cop. A stubby sub-machine gun hung from his shoulder across his Kevlar vest.
A heavily-armed man on a dark taxiway at an unknown airport, Grant thought. Great.
His anxiety dialed up again about his lack of Portuguese language skills. He stood stock still and hoped against reason that might make him invisible.
“Dr. Coleman?” the guard said in American English.
Grant managed a relieved “Yes.”
“You’re late.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“This way.”
Grant followed him to a door beside the main hangar door. The guard typed in a code on a keypad and the door unlocked. He opened it.
The inside of the hangar was almost as dark as it was outside. A few emergency exit signs at the far end provided some scant illumination. The dark mass of a large aircraft filled most of the space. Shadowy lumps of people slept in neat rows on foldable, canvas cots. Stacks of equipment sat by the rear of the plane.
“Get some sleep,” the guard said. He pointed Grant to an empty cot. “The plane leaves at dawn.”
“How many hours from now is that?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Grant decided that he didn’t. He stepped inside and the guard closed the door behind him. The snap of the lock echoed in the cavernous space. A light drone of snoring rose from the group. Grant shuffled to the open cot and set down his bags. He lay on the cot and before he could take off his shoes, he fell sound asleep.
Chapter Five
Dawn ended up being four hours away. But the hangar lights flared on an hour earlier. It felt like they set Grant’s retinas on fire. He forced himself out of the cot.
The rest of the hangar looked like someone had kicked over an anthill. People scurried back and forth, closing containers, trussing up bags, and checking the enormous aircraft in the hangar’s center.
A squat C-130 transport plane in faded green camouflage pointed toward the closed hangar door. Markings from its former military career were spray painted over in flat black. Two giant prop engines hung from each side of the overhead wing. An open ramp at the rear exposed an interior already packed with pallets. He could see the one closest to the door, but the nature of the packed items was obscured by layers of opaque stretch wrapping.
An announcement spat from an overhead speaker. “Briefing in five.”
Grant had the sudden realization that this might be his last access to running water for a while. He spent the next four minutes in the bathroom with a toothbrush and soap. Then he followed the traffic that headed into a room off the main hangar.
A lanky man in faded Vietnam-era jungle fatigues stood at the front of the room. His shaved head had the shape of a bullet, and from the semi-permanent scowl on his face, Grant thought that might be why he’d shaved it. A dozen people filled the irregular rows of folding chairs that faced him.
“Listen up!” the man bellowed.
The room went silent.
“I’m Jason McCabe,” he said. “I’m running insertion, extraction, and on-the-ground security for this op. We’re going someplace dangerous and we are not taking some pansy-ass cruise to get there.”
All of Grant’s misgivings about this trip knocked on the inside of his head and said “I told you so.”
“If at any moment during this op,” McCabe continued, “I take time out of my busy day to talk to you, it’s because what I’m telling you to do will save your life. So don’t ask questions, just do it.”
McCabe looked around the room as if daring someone to object. None did.
“We are wheels up in forty-five,” he said. “So if your gear isn’t packed and stowed you are way behind the power curve. Ms. Katsoros will give the overview, then I’ll talk details.”
He stepped aside and Thana Katsoros stood up and took his place. She wore khaki cargo pants, combat boots, and a baggy blue T-shirt. This was certainly the woman who recruited him at the book signing, but she sure didn’t look the same. Even the scarf tied around her neck had a patina that said it had been put to productive, rather than decorative, use during its lifetime. She’d cut off the blonde ponytail since they’d last met, no doubt a concession to the jungle. She tapped a laptop keyboard and a projector lit up the wall behind her.
“This is the first time all parts of the team are together, so I’m taking the opportunity to make certain you all know the roles you will be playing over the next two weeks.”
She tapped up an aerial picture of a forested plateau rising from a misty jungle. Another layer of clouds capped it from the sky above.
“This is our destination, deep in the protected lands in Amazonia state. This three-hundred-square-kilometer plateau rises about a hundred meters above the jungle floor, with the headwaters of the Amazon flowing around it. The combination of mist below, clouds above, and general middle-of-nowhere isolation have kept the place unknown and unexplored.”
“By Europeans,” said a woman from the front row. She was tall, with angular features and dark hair that just passed her shoulders. She wore a black military style shirt that looked at least a size too large.
“Explored by anyone,” Katsoros said with irritation. “There is the slim possibility of indigenous tribes in the area, completely isolated from outside contact. But the plateau’s sheer cliffs guarantee that
no locals have climbed up there. It would be technologically impossible. However, to placate the government and to prove our point, we’ve enlisted, at our expense, Ms. Janaina Silva,” Katsoros made a dismissive hand gesture to the woman in the black shirt, “of the Native People’s Foundation to certify the obvious.”
Janaina turned and gave the group a smile that was not returned. Hers wilted and she turned back around. Grant’s heart went out to her.
“Now what sparked the attention of Transworld Union was this picture.” Katsoros switched photos to the one she had shown Grant when they met. An apatosaurus head stuck out from a tree line at the edge of a cliff.
“We believe that this picture shows that animals from the age of the dinosaurs have survived in this isolated microclimate. This expedition will prove it. But we have no plan to turn it into some version of Jurassic Park. We all know how that ends.”
The room filled with nervous laughter.
“Transworld Union just wants the genetic makeup. These could be the keys that unlock the world of millions of years ago, codes that can help cure disease, extend life, answer questions about how these animals lived, and maybe why they died. To help on that end we’ve brought renowned expert on extinct animals, Dr. Grant Coleman.”
She pointed to Grant at the rear of the room. He straightened his glasses and gave them a sheepish wave. A look of recognition crossed the face of a swarthy bearded man in a Korn T-shirt and baggy jeans.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Didn’t you write that book about the giant scorpions in a cave?”
Crap, Grant thought. Of all the times to meet a fan. “Well, yes.”
“Ain’t that kind of like making Tom Hanks an astronaut because he played one in a movie?”
Grant bristled. “I have three degrees, including a doctorate in paleontology. I’ve spent a decade of summers in field excavations. I’ve taught at several colleges. I know what I’m talking about when it comes to extinct species.”
Okay, he’d puffed that resume up about ten percent. But the guy pissed him off, and no one would be doing any background checks at this point.
“Dr. Coleman has more than proven himself in expeditions such as this,” Katsoros said. “Transworld has complete faith in him.”
She pointed to a man one seat behind Janaina. “Our other scientist is Dr. Kabir Dixit. He’s our biologist who will be extracting that DNA.”
Dr. Dixit was practically round, with a thick mop of black hair and skin the color of light chocolate. Grant didn’t think that he looked old enough to have earned a doctorate, but fifteen-year-olds were taking college classes online now, so what did he know.
“He’s going to swab the mouth of the dinosaur for DNA?” Grant said. The smart-ass quip slipped out before he could stop it. The room laughed again.
“No, no,” Dixit said. His Indian accent was thick. “My technician Mr. Hobart and I can sample quite passively in a multitude of ways, such as from eggshells, shed skin, or urine deposits and fecal matter.”
Grant made a mental note to skip the fecal matter sampling.
A geeky-looking kid in bifocal glasses and an eruption of acne sat behind Dixit. He listened to Dixit with the intensity only a lackey could muster, so he had to be Dixit’s tech. Hobart had “fecal matter sampler” stamped all over him.
“And to make certain everyone gets home safe,” Katsoros said, “Mr. McCabe and his men will be, as he said, providing security for us. Mr. Griggs and Mr. Riffaud are his team. All ex-military and expert marksmen, they will be there to defend us from any attack.”
Two other men in jungle fatigues leaned against the body of the plane. Both had automatic rifles slung over their shoulder. Riffaud was the taller of the two, with sallow cheeks, high cheekbones and black hair shorn down to stubble. Griggs had longer dark hair and a reddish moustache that melted down both sides of his mouth past his chin. Griggs gave a two-finger salute.
An apatosaurus was herbivorous, but after fighting giant bats and scorpions in the Montana cavern, Grant wasn’t going to complain about having some defensive firepower on his side.
“Mr. McCabe?” Katsoros moved aside and McCabe stepped up.
“My mission is to get you in and out in one piece,” McCabe said. “To get in, I’d use a helicopter. But the distance is too great, the cargo too heavy. So we are going to fly in using that C-130.”
Grant raised an eyebrow. He didn’t see a runway in the pictures Katsoros showed them.
“We’ll be airdropping the expedition from a thousand feet up into a meadow to the northeast.”
Grant’s eyes went wide.
“The supply pallet will drop first, the equipment pallet will drop last. All non-jump qualified personnel will drop in the cargo container on the middle pallet.”
Oh, hell no, Grant thought.
A picture of the inside of a container about the size of a one-car garage popped up. It had no windows though it looked like mesh-covered vents made up the top quarter of the walls. Uncomfortable, upright plastic seats on springs lined each side, facing in. Each seat had what looked like a race car’s four-point safety harness.
“We’ll make one pass over the DZ, then on the second, everyone will take their seat. The door locks automatically when it closes. Buckle in and stay seated. If you get up and run around like a damn fool during the drop, you’ll screw up the CG and the box will land ass over elbows. We’ve done this dozens of times. It works perfectly when you follow instructions.”
“No one mentioned parachuting,” Janaina said, almost to herself.
From the looks on the faces of the non-military team members, McCabe’s explanation wasn’t reassuring anyone else either. The pilot and co-pilot looked at each other and laughed at the big joke on the passengers.
Of course they’d think it’s funny, Grant thought. They’re going to fly back here and drive home.
“My men and I will jump in solo. We’ll get you out when you land and make certain the area is secure. Stay in the container until we give the all clear. There is a small electric Bobcat front loader on the third pallet. Mr. Griggs will use it to clear a landing strip for our extraction at mission’s end.”
“Transworld wouldn’t have okayed this if they didn’t think it was safe,” Katsoros said. “I mean, I’m in the box with you, right?”
“That’s it,” McCabe said. “Gather your gear, meet on the ramp when the aircraft is out of the hangar.”
The pilots and the military escort headed out the door. Grant approached Dixit, figuring the most likely to bond with on this excursion would be the fellow scientist.
“Well, parachuting wasn’t in the cruise brochure,” Grant said to him. “Do you think they’ll charge us extra for it later?”
“Come again?” Dixit said.
Grant feared a translation issue. “Don’t worry about it. Just wanted to say I’m glad there’ll be another man of science on the ground.”
Dixit gave him a sideways look. “One man of science. One storyteller.”
So that’s how this is going down, Grant thought. “Well, great talking to you. Have fun collecting the feces. I prefer mine fossilized. If you come across some of those, let me know.”
Grant grabbed his bag and headed out through the open hangar door. The ground crew was hooking a tug to a tow pole secured to the nose of the C-130. False dawn lit the edge of the eastern sky.
He realized by the time the sun was straight overhead, he could be face to face with a living dinosaur.
Chapter Six
Once the whining hydraulics closed the rear ramp, Grant realized that the C-130 had no windows in the cargo area. Not that the palletized cargo needed them, but the human cargo might want a reminder that there was daylight out there.
Dim electric lights lit the cargo bay. Gray pads of insulation covered the interior of the fuselage. A row of inward-facing canvas-mesh seats ran along each side of the aircraft. Grant had to suck in his belly to pass the pallets and sit down. He was pleased to see the rotu
nd Dixit go through much more of a struggle. An orange and white Bobcat front loader sat strapped to the third pallet. Dried mud still clung to its twin tank treads. Right next to it, a seat beside Janaina was open. Dixit wasn’t going to be a good field trip buddy. Chatting up one of the mercenaries was off the table. He hoped Janaina might be a better fit.
He plopped down in the seat. His butt felt like a waffle as the latticework of canvas straps compressed strips of his cheeks.
“That’s comfortable,” he said to no one in particular but he hoped to Janaina in specific.
“Three hours from now,” she said, “I may be permanently numb from nerve damage.”
“That will work to our advantage if a dinosaur bites us in the butt.”
“Dinosaurs. You are not thinking we’ll really see any, are you?”
“The pictures seem legit.” He thought about the cave from Hell in Montana. “And stranger things have happened. Trust me. Don’t you think there might be dinosaurs?”
“Hardly. What I do think is that there will be indigenous tribes, possibly with no previous contact with the outside world. My job is to keep them protected.”
“I hadn’t considered there might be human beings there, and from the start I assumed there were dinosaurs. You believe the opposite. Odds are only one of us can be right.”
“Soon enough,” she said, “we will know for sure.”
“Given the quality of our seating, it can’t possibly be soon enough.”
“The time will pass fast as thunder.”
“Lightning.”
“Lightning?”
“The phrase is ‘fast as lightning’.”
“Ah, some of your phrases, they don’t translate easily. I’m still trying them out.”
Outside, engines sputtered to life. By the time the fourth one spun up to speed, conversation was impossible. Between the echoing roar and the vibrations through the hull, Grant felt like he was in a rock tumbler. Exhaust fumes seeped into the aircraft.
McCabe banged on one of the steel ribs of the plane with a crowbar and the clang managed to rise above the din. He wore a bulky headset. He tapped it and pointed to the area above everyone’s head. Headsets hung over each of them, though only McCabe’s had a mic. Grant snapped his on. Blessedly, it cut the roar of the engines down to a rumble.
Monsters In The Clouds Page 2