Amazonia: a novel

by James Rollins

  Manny had attempted to join this last party, but he’d been rebuffed by Captain Waxman. “All other civilians stay here.”

  With the matter settled, Kelly could only watch as the others set off. Two Rangers—the newly arrived Private Eddie Jones and Corporal Tom Graves—remained at the camp as bodyguards. Once the others were launched and on their way, Kelly overheard Jones grumble to Graves, “How did we end up minding the friggin’ sheep?”

  Corporal Graves did not respond, staring dully into the drizzle, clearly grieving for his brother Rodney.

  Alone now, Kelly crossed to Frank’s side. As the nominal leader of this operation, her brother had the right to insist on joining either of the departing groups, but he had chosen to remain behind—not out of fear, she knew, but concern for his twin sister.

  “Olin has the satellite link hooked up,” Frank said, taking his sister under his arm. “We can reach the States when you’re ready.”

  She nodded. Not far from the fire, under a rain tarp, Olin sat hunched before a laptop and a satellite dish. He tapped busily at the keyboard, his face scrunched in concentration. Richard Zane stood over his shoulder watching him work.

  Finally, Olin glanced to them and nodded. “All set,” he said. Kelly heard the trace of his Russian accent. It was easy to miss unless one’s ears were tuned for it. Olin was ex-KGB, once a member of their computer surveillance department before the fall of the communist regime. He had defected to the States only months before the Berlin Wall tumbled. His background in technology and his knowledge of Russian systems earned him a low-level security position in the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology.

  Frank guided Kelly to a camp chair before the laptop computer. Since learning of the contagion, Kelly had insisted they be updated twice daily now. Her excuse was to keep both sides fully apprised, but in reality, she had to know her family was still okay. Her mother, her father, her daughter. All three were at ground zero.

  Kelly sat on the camp chair, eyeing Olin askance as he moved aside. She was never fully at ease around the man. Maybe because he was ex-KGB and she had grown up with a father in the CIA. Or maybe it was that ropy scar that stretched from ear to ear across his throat. Olin had claimed to be no more than a Russian computer geek for the KGB. But if that were true, how had he obtained that scar?

  Olin pointed to the screen. “We should be uplinked in thirty seconds.”

  Kelly watched the small timer on the computer screen count downward. When it reached zero, her father’s face blinked onto the screen. He was dressed casually, his tie half undone, no jacket.

  “You look like a drowned rat” were his first words from the flickering image.

  With a small smile, Kelly lifted a hand to her wet hair. “The rains have started.”

  “So I see.” Her father returned her grin. “How are things out there?”

  Frank leaned forward into the view. He gave a quick overview of their discovery.

  As he talked, Kelly listened to the echoing whine of Nate’s boat. The waters here and the overhanging jungle played tricks with acoustics. It sounded like the boat was still nearby, but then the noise suddenly choked off. They must have reached the village already.

  “Watch out for your sister, Frank,” her father said, finishing their talk.

  “Will do, sir.”

  Now it was Kelly’s turn. “How’re Mother and Jessie?” she asked, holding her fists clenched in her lap.

  Her father smiled reassuringly. “Both in the pink of health. We all are. The entire institute. So far no cases have been reported in the area. Any risk of contamination has been successfully quarantined, and we’ve converted the west wing of the institute into temporary family housing. With so many MEDEA members here, we’ve got around-the-clock doctors.”

  “How’s Jessie handling it?”

  “She’s a six-year-old,” he said with a shrug. “At first she was a bit scared at being uprooted. But now she’s having a ball with the other staff’s children. In fact, why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  Kelly sat straighter as her daughter’s face came into view, a small hand waving. “Hi, Mommy!”

  Tears welled. “Hi, sweetheart. Are you having fun?”

  Her daughter nodded vigorously, climbing into her grandfather’s lap. “We had chocolate cake, and I rode a pony!”

  Choking back a laugh, her father spoke over the top of his granddaughter’s head. “There’s a small farm nearby, in the quarantine zone. They brought a pony over to entertain the kids.”

  “That sounds like fun, honey. I wish I could’ve been there.”

  Jessie squirmed in her seat. “And you know what else? A clown is coming over and is gonna make animal balloons.”

  “A clown?”

  Her father whispered to the side. “Dr. Emory from histopathology. He’s damn good at it, too.”

  “I’m gonna ask him to make me a monkey,” Jessie said.

  “That’s wonderful.” Kelly leaned closer, soaking up the view of both her father and her daughter.

  After a bit more elaboration on clowns and ponies, Jessie was lifted off her grandfather’s knee. “It’s time for Ms. Gramercy to take you back to class.”

  Jessie pouted but obeyed.

  “Bye, honey,” Kelly called. “I love you!”

  She waved again, using her entire arm. “Bye, Mommy! Bye, Uncle Frankie!”

  Kelly had to restrain herself from touching the screen.

  Once Jessie was gone, her father’s face grew grim. “Not all the news is so bright.”

  “What?” Kelly asked.

  “It’s why your mother isn’t here. While we seem to have things contained, the outbreak in Florida is spreading. Overnight, there’s been another six cases reported in Miami hospitals, and another dozen in outlying county hospitals. The quarantine zone is being widened, but we don’t think we secured the area in time. Your mother and others are monitoring reports from across the country.”

  “My God,” Kelly gasped.

  “In the last twelve hours, the number of cases has now climbed to twenty-two. The fatalities to eight. Scenarios calculated by the best epidemiologists in the country have these numbers doubling every twelve hours. In fact, along the Amazon, the death toll is already climbing toward the five hundred mark.”

  As Kelly calculated in her head, her face blanched. Frank’s hand on her shoulder tightened. In just a few days, the number in the U.S. could climb into the tens of thousands.

  “The president has just signed an order to mobilize the National Guard in Florida. The official story is an outbreak of a virulent South American flu. Specifics on how it got here are being kept under wraps.”

  Kelly leaned back, as if distance would lessen the horror. “Has any protocol for treatment been established?”

  “Not as of yet. Antibiotics and antivirals don’t seem to be of any help. All we can offer is symptomatic care—intravenous fluids, drugs to combat fever, and pain relievers. Until we know what is causing the disease, fighting it’s an uphill battle.” Her father leaned closer to the screen. “That’s why your work out in the field is so critical. If you can find out what happened to Agent Clark, you may discover a clue to this disease.”

  Kelly nodded.

  Frank spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper. “We’ll do our best.”

  “Then I’d better let you all get back to your work.” After a sober good-bye, her father signed off.

  Kelly glanced to her brother. She saw that Manny stood to one side of him, Richard Zane to the other.

  “What have we done?” Manny asked. “Maybe someone should have listened to that Indian shaman back in Wauwai. Burned Clark’s body after he died.”

  Zane shook his head and mumbled, “It wouldn’t have mattered. The disease would’ve eventually broken out of the forest. It’s just like AIDS.”

  “What do you mean?” Kelly asked, turning in her seat.

  “AIDS started after a highway was built into the African jungle. We come disturbi
ng these ancient ecosystems, and we don’t know what we stir up.”

  Kelly pushed out of the camp chair. “Then it’s up to us to stop it. The jungle may have produced AIDS, but it also offered our best treatments against the disease. Seventy percent of AIDS drugs are derived from tropical plants. So if this new disease came out of the jungle, why not the cure, too?”

  “That’s if we can find it,” Zane said.

  Off to the side, Manny’s jaguar suddenly growled. The great cat swung around and crouched, ears pricked, eyes fixed on the jungle behind them.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Zane asked, backing a step away.

  Manny squinted at the shadowed rain forest as Tor-tor continued a deep warning growl. “He’s caught a scent…something’s out there.”

  Nate crossed down the narrow trail toward the small Indian village, which consisted of a single large roundhouse, open to the sky in the middle. As he approached the structure, he heard none of the usual noises coming from the shabano. No arguing huyas, no women yelling for more plantains, no laughter of children. It was ghostly quiet and unnerving.

  “The construction is definitely Yanomamo,” Nathan said softly to Kouwe and Anna Fong. “But small. It probably houses no more than thirty villagers.”

  Behind them marched Private Carrera, her M-16 held in both hands, muzzle pointed at the ground. She was whispering into her radio’s microphone.

  Anna stared wide-eyed at the shabano.

  Nate stopped her from continuing through the roundhouse’s small doorway and into the village proper. “Have you ever been among the Yanomamo?”

  Anna shook her head.

  Nate cupped his mouth. “Klock, klock, klock,” he yelled. Then softer to Anna, he explained, “Whether it seems deserted or not, you never approach a Yanomamo village without first announcing yourself. It’s a good way to get an arrow in your back. They have the tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “Nothing wrong with that policy,” Carrera mumbled behind him.

  They stood near the entrance for a full minute, then Kouwe spoke. “No one’s here.” He waved an arm behind him. “No canoes by the river, no nets or fishing gear either. No yebis squawking in alarm.”

  “Yebis?” their Ranger escort asked.

  “The gray-winged trumpeter,” Nate said. “Sort of an ugly chicken really. The Indians use them like feathered guard dogs. They raise a ruckus when anyone approaches.”

  The Ranger nodded. “So no chickens, no Indians.” She turned in a slow circle, surveying the forest around them. The woman refused to let down her guard. “Let me go first.”

  Lifting her weapon higher, she paused near the short entrance. Bowing low, she ducked her head through. After a moment, she slid through the bamboo-framed entrance, sticking close to the banana-leaf wall, then barked to them, “All clear. But stick behind me.”

  Carrera moved toward the center of the circular structure. She kept her weapon ready, but as Nate had suggested, she kept the rifle’s muzzle pointing at the ground. Among the Yanomamo, an arrow nocked and aimed at a fellow tribesman was a call to war. Since Nate didn’t know how familiar these particular Indians were with modern weapons, he wanted no misinterpretations on this point.

  As a group, Nate, Kouwe, and Anna entered the shabano.

  Around them, the individual family units were sectioned off from their neighbors by drapes of tobacco leaves, water gourds, and baskets. Woven hammocks, all empty, hung from the roof beams. A pair of stone bowls lay toppled in the central clearing beside a grinding stone, manioc flour spilled onto the dirt.

  A sudden burst of color startled them all as a parrot took wing. It had been roosting atop a pile of brown bananas.

  “I don’t like this,” Kouwe said.

  Nate knew what he meant and nodded.

  “Why?” asked Carrera.

  “When the Yanomamo migrate to a new site, they either burn the old shabano or at least strip it of all useful items.” Kouwe pointed around him. “Look at all these baskets, hammocks, and feather collections. They wouldn’t leave these behind.”

  “What could make them leave so suddenly?” Anna asked.

  Kouwe slowly shook his head. “Something must have panicked them.”

  “Us?” Anna stared around her. “Do you think they knew we were coming?”

  “If the Indians had been here, I’m sure they would’ve been well aware of our approach. They keep a keen watch on their forest. But I don’t think it was our party that made them abandon this shabano so quickly.”

  “Why do you say that?” Nate asked.

  Kouwe crossed around the edge of the living sites. “All the fires are cold.” He nudged the pile of bananas upon which the parrot had been feeding. “They’re half rotten. The Yanomamo would not have wasted food like this.”

  Nate understood. “So you think the village was abandoned some time ago.”

  “At least a week, I’d estimate.”

  “Where did they go?” Anna asked.

  Kouwe stood in place and turned in a slow circle. “It’s hard to say, but there’s one other detail that may be significant.” He glanced to Nate to see if he had noticed it, too.

  Frowning, Nate studied the dwellings. Then it dawned on him. “All the weapons are gone.” Among the abandoned wares, there was not a single arrow, bow, club, or machete.

  “Whatever spooked them to run,” Kouwe said, “they were scared for their lives.”

  Private Carrera edged closer to them. “If you’re right, if this place is long deserted, I should call in my unit.”

  Kouwe nodded.

  She stepped away, mumbling into her radio.

  Kouwe silently waved Nate aside so they could speak privately. Anna was busy examining an individual dwelling, picking through the goods left behind.

  Kouwe whispered. “It was not these Yanomamo who were tracking our party.”

  “Then who?”

  “Some other group…I’m still not sure it was even Indians. I think it’s time we informed Frank and Captain Waxman.”

  “Are you thinking that whatever spooked the Indians is what’s now on our trail?”

  “I’m not sure, but whatever could frighten the Yanomamo from their homes is something we should be wary of.”

  By now, the constant drizzle had stopped. The cloud banks began to break apart, allowing cracks of afternoon sunlight to pierce through in dazzling rays. After so long in the misty murk, the light was bright.

  In the distance, Nate heard a single engine roar to life. Captain Waxman and his Rangers were coming.

  “You’re certain we should tell them?” Nate asked.

  Before Kouwe could answer, Anna had wandered over. She pointed to the skies off to the south. “Look at all those birds!”

  Nate glanced to where she pointed. With the rains dying away, various birds were rising from the canopy to dry their wings and begin the hunt for food again. But a half mile away, a huge flock of black birds rose from the canopy like a dark mist. Thousands of them.

  Oh, God. Nate crossed quickly to Private Carrera. “Let me have your binoculars.”

  The Ranger’s eyes were on the strange dance of black birds, too. She unsnapped a compact set of binoculars from her field jacket and passed them to Nate. Holding his breath, he peered through the glasses. It took him a moment to focus on the birds. Through the lenses, the flock broke down to individuals, a mix of large and small birds. Many were fighting among themselves in the air, tearing at each other. But despite their differences, the various birds all shared one common trait.

  “Vultures,” Nate said, lowering the binoculars.

  Kouwe edged nearer. “So many…”

  “Turkey vultures, yellow-heads, even king vultures.”

  “We should investigate,” Kouwe said. In his eyes, Nate saw the worry shared by all. The missing Indians…the vultures…It was a dire omen.

  “Not until the unit gets here,” Private Carrera warned.

  Behind them, the roaring
of the other boat drew abreast of their location and choked out. In a few minutes, Captain Waxman and another three Rangers were entering the shabano. Private Carrera quickly updated the others.