Amazonia: a novel

by James Rollins

  He turned his attention to the naked man staked spread-eagle on the bare-earth floor. The only bit of clothing he wore was a ball gag. Louis kept his eyes diverted from the bloody ruin of the corporal’s body.

  Still holding the man’s dog tags, Louis crossed to a folding camp chair and sat down. He glanced to the name etched on the tags. “Corporal James DeMartini,” he said in crisp English, reading the name, then looking up. “I’ve heard it from good authority that you’re ready to cooperate.”

  The man moaned, tears flowed from his eyes.

  “Is that a yes?”

  The Ranger, a beaten and tortured dog, nodded with a pained wince. Louis studied the man. What hurt more, he wondered, the torture? Or the actual moment you finally broke?

  With a tired sigh, he pulled the man’s gag free. Louis needed information. Over the years, he had learned that the difference between success and failure lay in the details. He had reams of facts on the opposing team—not only information supplied directly by St. Savin, but also timely intelligence gained from a closer source.

  Still Louis hadn’t been satisfied.

  He had kidnapped the young corporal because his other resources had proved woefully lacking in specific details about the Army Ranger unit: their firepower, their radio codes, their timetables. Furthermore, there was always the unspoken military objective, orders meant only for military ears. And last, Louis had arranged the abduction simply as a challenge, a small test of his forces.

  The maneuver had gone flawlessly. Equipped with night-vision glasses, a small team had snuck in via the river. Once the chance arose, they had poisoned one of the Rangers with a special curare dart prepared by Tshui. Afterward, they had covered their tracks, setting up a false trail beside the river with caiman dung and prints. His mistress had then kept the kidnapped man alive by breathing mouth-to-mouth until he could be revived back at their camp with a special antidote.

  But Tshui’s true talents were proven during the long night. Her art of torture was without equal, plying pain and pleasure in a strange hypnotic rhythm until finally her prey’s will broke.

  “Please kill me,” the man begged, hoarse, blood dribbling from his lips.

  “Soon enough, mon ami…but first a few questions.” Louis leaned back as Tshui walked around the corporal, waving her smoking bundle of dried leaves through the air. He noticed the broken soldier flinch from the woman, his terrified eyes following her every move.

  Louis found this extremely arousing, but he kept himself focused. “Let’s first go over a few numbers.” Over the next few minutes, he extracted all the codes and time schedules of the army unit. He did not have to write any of it down, setting all the frequencies and numbers to memory. The information would greatly facilitate eavesdropping on the other team’s communications. Next, he collected the details on the Ranger force’s strength: number and types of weapons, skill levels, weaknesses, means of air support.

  The man proved most talkative. He babbled on and on, giving out more information than requested. “…Staff Sergeant Kostos has a secret stash of whiskey in his rucksack…two bottles…and in Captain Waxman’s boat, there’s a crate that holds a cradle of napalm minibombs…and Corporal Conger has a Penthouse mag—”

  Louis sat up. “Hold on, monsieur. Let’s back up. Napalm bombs?”

  “Minibombs…an even dozen…”

  “Why?”

  The corporal looked confused.

  “James,” he said sternly.

  “I…I don’t know. I suppose if we need to clear a section of jungle. Something that blocks our way.”

  “How large a region would one of those bombs clear?”

  “I…” The man choked back a sob. “I’m not sure…maybe an acre…I don’t know.”

  Louis leaned his elbows on his knees. “Are you telling me the truth, James?” He wiggled a finger for Tshui, who had grown bored with the conversation and sat cross-legged, busy laying out a new set of tools.

  On his signal, she rose from her work and crawled like some jungle cat toward the naked soldier.

  “No,” the corporal cried, mewling, “no, I don’t know anything more.”

  Louis shifted back in his seat. “Do I believe you?”

  “Please…”

  “I think I will believe you.” Standing, he turned to his mistress. “We’re done here, ma chérie. He’s all yours.”

  She slid smoothly to her feet, offering a cheek to be kissed as he passed.

  “No,” the man on the ground moaned, pleading.

  “Don’t dawdle,” he said to Tshui. “The sun is almost up, and we’ll need to be under way shortly.”

  She smiled, smoky and full of hidden lusts. As he stepped to the tent’s threshold, he saw her bend down and collect her bone needle and thread from the spread of tools. Lately, Tshui had been trying a new approach in preparing her specimens for head-shrinking. She now liked to sew her victims’ eyelids closed while they were yet alive. To better capture their essence, he supposed. The Shuar shamans placed special significance in the eyes, a path to the spirit.

  A sharp scream arose behind him.

  “Tshui, don’t forget the man’s gag,” Louis scolded. He made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder.

  Tshui squatted above the face of Corporal James, her thighs on either side of his head, holding the squirming man in place as she busied herself with her needle and thread. He lifted an eyebrow in surprise. It seemed Tshui was trying something new.

  “Pardon, ma chérie,” he said, bowing out of the tent. Apparently he had scolded her too soon. The gag truly wasn’t necessary.

  Tshui was already sewing the corporal’s lips shut.

  Act Three

  Survival of the Fittest

  BRAZIL NUT

  family: Lecythidaceae

  genus: Bertholletia

  species: Excelsa

  common names: Brazil Nut, Castanheiro do Para, Para-Nut, Creamnut, Castana-de-Para, Castana-de-Brazil

  parts used: Nut, Seed Oil

  properties/actions: Emollient, Nutritive, Antioxidant, Insecticide

  Eight

  Village

  AUGUST 13, NOON

  AMAZON JUNGLE

  Frowning, Nate caught the line and secured it to a mangrove tree. “Careful,” he warned his boat mates. “It’s swampy here. Watch your footing.” He helped Kelly climb over the pontoon and onto the firmest section of the bank. He himself was muddy up to his knees and soaked everywhere else.

  He lifted his face to the drizzle of rain from the cloudy skies. A storm had blown in overnight, starting with a fierce downpour, then fading into a steady misty drizzle within the last hour. The day’s journey so far had been dreary. They had taken turns with a hand pump to bilge the water out of the boat all morning. Nate was glad when Captain Waxman had called a halt for lunch.

  After helping everyone off their boats, Nate climbed the muddy bank onto higher ground. The jungle wept all around him, dripping, sluicing, and trickling from the leafy canopy overhead.

  Professor Kouwe seemed unperturbed. With a pack hastily constructed of palm leaves, he was already heading out into the forest to forage for edibles, accompanied by a sodden Corporal Jorgensen. From the sour expression on the soldier’s face, the tall Swede seemed little interested in a jungle trek. But Captain Waxman insisted that no one, not even the experienced Kouwe, walk the jungles alone.

  Around the camp, the mood of the entire group remained sullen. Word of a possible contagion associated with Gerald Clark’s body had reached them yesterday. Quarantines had been set up in Miami and around the institute where the body was being examined. Additionally, the Brazilian government had been informed and quarantine centers were being established throughout the Amazon. So far only children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems were at risk. Healthy adults seemed resistant. But much was still unknown: the causative agent, modes of transmission, treatment protocols. Back in the States, a Level Four containment had been set up at the
Instar Institute to research these questions.

  Nate glanced over to Frank and Kelly. Frank had his arm around his sister. She was still pale. Their entire family, including Kelly’s daughter and the families of other scientists and workers at Instar, had been put into quarantine at the institute. No one was showing any symptoms, but the worry etched in Kelly’s face was clear.

  Nate turned away, giving them their privacy, and continued on.

  The only bright spot in the last forty-eight hours was that no additional members of their party had fallen prey to the jungle. After losing Corporal DeMartini two days ago, everyone had kept alert, minding Nate’s and Kouwe’s warnings about jungle hazards, respecting their native lore. Now, before disembarking from a boat or bathing, everyone checked the shallows for buried stingrays in the mud or hidden electric eels. Kouwe gave lessons on how to avoid scorpions and snakes. No one put on a boot in the morning without first thoroughly shaking it out.

  Nate checked the camp, walking the periphery, searching for any other hazards: fire liana, ant nests, hidden snakes. It was the new routine.

  He spotted the two new members of the team, replacements for those lost. They were gathering wood. Both were ranked private first class, newly commissioned Rangers: a battle tank of a man with a thick Bronx accent, Eddie Jones, and, surprisingly, a woman, one of the first female Rangers, Maria Carrera. Special Forces had only started accepting women applicants six months before, after an amendment to Title 10 restrictions had passed Congress. But these new female recruits were still limited from front-line combat, assigned to missions like this one.

  The morning after the nighttime attack, the two soldiers had been flown in from the field base at Wauwai, sliding down ropes from a hovering Huey. Afterward, small tanks of fuel and additional supplies were lowered.

  It was a critical shipment, their last one. From that morning on, the team would be motoring beyond the range of the Hueys, beyond the range of air support. In fact, as of today, they had traveled close to four hundred miles. The only craft with enough range to reach them now was the black Comanche. But the sleek attack helicopter would only be utilized in case of emergency, such as the evacuation of an injured team member or in case an aerial assault was needed. Otherwise from here on out, they were on their own.

  Finished with his survey, Nate crossed back to the center of the camp. Corporal Conger was hunched over a pile of twigs. With a match, he was trying to light a pile of dead leaves under a steeple of twigs. A drip of water from overhead doused his flame. “Damn it,” the young Texan swore, tossing the match aside in disgust. “Everything’s friggin’ waterlogged. I could break out a magnesium flare and try to light it.”

  “Save them,” Captain Waxman ordered from a step away. “We’ll just make a cold camp for lunch.”

  Manny groaned from nearby. He was soaked to the skin. The only team member who looked even more dejected was Tor-tor. The jaguar stalked sullenly around its master, fur dripping water, ears drooped. Nothing was more piteous than a wet cat, even a two-hundred-pound one.

  “I think I might be able to help,” Nate said.

  Eyes glanced to him.

  “I know an old Indian trick.”

  He crossed back to the forest, searching for a particular tree he had noted during his survey of the campsite. He was followed by Manny and Captain Waxman. He quickly found the tall tree with characteristic bumpy gray bark. Slipping out his machete, he pierced the bark. A thick rusty resin flowed out. He fingered the sap and held it toward Waxman’s nose.

  The captain sniffed it. “Smells like turpentine.”

  Nate patted the tree. “It’s called copal, derived from the Aztec word for resin, copalli. Trees in this family are found throughout the rain forests of Central and South America. It’s used for a variety of purposes: healing wounds, treating diarrhea, alleviating cold symptoms. It’s even used today in modern dentistry.”

  “Dentistry?” Manny asked.

  Nate lifted his sticky finger. “If you ever had a cavity filled, you have some of this stuff in your mouth.”

  “And how is this all supposed to help us?” Waxman asked.

  Nate knelt and pawed through the decaying leaves at the base of the tree. “Copal is rich in hydrocarbons. In fact, there has been some research recently into using it as a fuel source. Copal poured into a regular engine will run cleaner and more efficiently than gasoline.” Nate found what he was searching for. “But Indians have known of this property for ages.”

  Standing, Nate revealed a fist-sized hardened lump of sap. He speared it atop a sharp stick like a marshmallow. “Can I borrow a match?”

  Captain Waxman removed one from a waterproof container.

  Nate struck the matchhead on the bark and held the flame to a corner of the resin ball. Immediately it ignited into a bright blue flame. He held it out and marched toward the site of the failed campfire. “Indian hunters have been using this sap for centuries to light campfires during rainstorms. It’ll burn for hours, acting as a starter to light wet wood.”

  Other eyes were drawn to the flame. Frank and Kelly joined the group as Nate settled the flaming resin ball into a nest of leaves and twigs. In a short time, the tinder and wood took the flame. A decent blaze arose.

  “Good job,” Frank said, warming his hands.

  Nate found Kelly staring at him with a trace of a smile. It was her first smile in the past twenty-four hours.

  Nate cleared his throat. “Don’t thank me,” he mumbled. “Thank the Indians.”

  “We may be able to do just that,” Kouwe said suddenly from behind them.

  Everyone turned.

  The professor and Corporal Jorgensen crossed quickly toward them.

  “We found a village,” Jorgensen said, his eyes wide. He pointed in the direction that the pair had gone in search of foodstuffs. “Only a quarter mile upstream. It’s deserted.”

  “Or appears to be,” Kouwe said, staring significantly at Nate.

  Nate’s eyes grew wide. Were these the same Indians who had been secretly dogging their trail? Hope surged in Nate. With the rainstorm, he had been worried that any trail left by Gerald Clark would be washed away. This storm was but the first to mark the beginning of the Amazonian wet season. Time grew short. But now…

  “We should investigate immediately,” Captain Waxman said. “But first, I want a three-man Ranger team to recon the village.”

  Kouwe raised an arm. “It might be better if we approached less aggressively. By now, the Indians know we’re here. I believe that’s why the village is deserted.”

  Captain Waxman opened his mouth to disagree, but Frank held up a hand. “What do you suggest?”

  Kouwe nodded to Nate. “Let the two of us go first…alone.”

  “Certainly not!” Waxman blurted. “I won’t have you going in unprotected.”

  Frank took off his Red Sox cap and wiped his brow. “I think we should listen to the professor. Swarming in with heavily armed soldiers will only make the Indians fear us. We need their cooperation. But at the same time, I share Captain Waxman’s concern about the two of you going in on your own.”

  “Then only one Ranger,” Nate said. “And he keeps his gun on his shoulder. Though these Indians may be isolated, most are well aware of rifles.”

  “I’d like to go, too,” Anna Fong said. The anthropologist’s long black hair lay plastered to her face and shoulders. “A woman among the group may appear less hostile. Indian raiding parties don’t bring women with them.”

  Nate nodded. “Dr. Fong is right.”

  Captain Waxman scowled, clearly not keen on letting civilians lead the way into an unknown encampment.

  “Then perhaps I should be the one to go as their backup.” Gazes turned to Private Carrera, the female Ranger. She was strikingly beautiful, a dark-skinned Latina with short-cropped black hair. She faced Captain Waxman. “Sir, if women are viewed as less hostile, I would be best suited for this mission.”

  Waxman finally agreed grudgingly
. “Fine. I’ll trust Professor Kouwe’s assessment for now. But I want the rest of my forces set within a hundred yards of their position. And I want constant radio contact.”

  Frank glanced to Nate and Kouwe.

  They nodded.

  Satisfied, Frank cleared his throat. “Then let’s move.”

  Kelly watched the camp fracture into various units. Nate, Kouwe, Anna Fong, and Private Carrera were already motoring their pontoon boat into the current, while Captain Waxman selected three of his men and led them to a second rubber raider. They would paddle a hundred yards behind the first boat, keeping a safe distance away yet close enough for a rapid response. Additionally, three more Rangers would travel overland with Corporal Jorgensen in command. This team would take up a position a hundred yards from the village. In preparation, they painted their faces in jungle camouflage.