by Nick Thacker
“And why would they choose to travel so slowly in that case?” he asked. “Why not take a plane, or drive?”
“We believe it means that they are heading into the rainforest; their destination is therefore most easily reachable via one of the feeder rivers, and there are no airstrips nearby. It’s the rainy season, so the waters will be flowing higher than normal, meaning boat travel is the most sensible transportation choice.”
Joshua knew this as well, but he didn’t interrupt his employer .
“In addition, they may have an additional team member. A professor, the owner of the house they stayed in. We can’t tell for sure until we have eyes on, but you need to be aware.”
Joshua nodded, still thinking. “Mission parameters remain the same?”
“No,” the voice said. Joshua’s ears perked up slightly. “If they in fact head into the jungle, we will have no need for the stealth we’ve required thus far. The objective is the same — we need Dr. Meron, alive, or we need whatever it is she is looking for — but there will be no local authorities in the rainforest to wonder about any ‘loose ends’ you need to tie up. Once they leave the city, we’re interested in speed.”
This is good, Joshua thought. The sooner the mission was accomplished, the sooner he could get back home. He was usually more than happy to be in the field, but this particular mission was one he despised. His father’s emails explaining the parameters and objective were strange enough — usually he’d get at least a phone call with the mission details — but his contact at the Company had also proven to be nearly insufferable to work with. The man called every day, expecting an update, offering his “advice” to Joshua about how best to control the unfolding situations, and even suggesting how he should manage his team. He’d held his tongue so far, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to refrain from comment much longer.
“I’m pleased to hear that,” he said. “My team is growing restless, and given last night’s —“
“Please, do not worry about last night,” the man said. “We are hoping to include more data points for our next intelligence briefing, and —“
“If you would have allowed my team to do our own intelligence gathering, this wouldn’t have been an issue… Sir. ” Joshua said.
There was a long silence, and Joshua steeled himself for a dressing-down. The first million dollars had already been safely wired to his accounts, but he was very interested in receiving the other half of the money as well, upon successful delivery of Dr. Amanda Meron to the Company’s headquarters. He hoped he hadn’t just argued his way out of a job. He waited for the man’s response.
“Unfortunately we cannot do that,” the voice said. “It isn’t an issue of trust, but of data sensitivity. ”
Joshua almost asked what the difference was, but caught himself.
“We will remain cognizant of the developments, and provide you with remote support in whatever way possible. You are in charge of the ground team, as well as your particular methods for retrieval of the Company’s interest, but we must retain control of the reconnaissance.”
Figures , he thought. Whatever . “What is the remaining time on the beacon?”
Joshua didn’t know the details, but the Company had ensured him they were tracking the target using a GPS beacon. He wasn’t given the specifics, another fact that irked him, but he knew the Company operated in ways that seemed frustrating to him. He assumed the beacon was placed in a bag one of the group’s members was carrying.
“The device will be charged for a total of at least two days, but starting this morning it will go into a low power mode, and will only emit a signal every hour, then every four, until it dies.”
Joshua shook his head. We shouldn’t have started tracking them until we knew they’d go off the grid , he thought. But he knew they would have done a lot of things differently, had he been fully in charge of the mission. He made a mental note to renegotiate his contractor status with the Company next time he was in the office.
“Fine,” he said. “Then I need to get my team on the road. I’ll be out of signal range, even from the satellites, once we hit the heavy jungle cover, so my updates will be sporadic.”
“Understood. Thank you, Joshua.”
Joshua hung up the phone and started walking back to their safe house nearby. He saw the woman and her dog rounding the corner near the edge of the park, heading back in his direction after a lap around the square. He smiled, waving as he crossed the street.
The dog whined again, its tail wagging as Joshua left them behind.
Chapter 24
Ben’s group set out early the next morning from Archie’s home. The old man had a surprising cadre of equipment, and he and Reggie had spent an hour that morning discussing what to take and what to leave behind. They finally settled on just adding some smaller survival tools and devices to the three packs they already had. Reggie was mostly unimpressed with the offerings, claiming much of the gear was “too old,” “outdated,” or “just for looks.” The two men took turns throwing friendly insults at one another as the rest of the group worked on cooking, eating, and cleaning a massive breakfast.
Their location was within walking distance from the house, only two blocks south, so they began walking up the gentle sloping street just as the sun was inching over the horizon on their left. When they reached a small shack set off from the street a few paces, Archie stopped and pointed at the building. Ben looked above the tiny building and saw a simple, hand-painted sign written in Portuguese, with an English translation just below it: Boat Tours. He was surprised to see another hand-painted sign covering the only window on the shop’s face: “Closed.”
“It’s open,” Archie explained. “They just don’t do a lot of marketing. Helps keep the tourists out.” He turned around and addressed the group. “Wait here. I’ll be able to get us a pretty good rate.”
Archie walked across the cracked concrete walkway that led to the shop’s front door and banged on the window. Footsteps sounded from inside the building, and a heavyset, drooping old man yanked the door open. Ben watched the two older men exchange words, the shop owner exaggerating his speech with wild arm and hand motions. Finally, Archie turned back around and smiled. He walked back to the group.
“Great,” he said. “We just need to find the boat down at the docks. They’ll call down and tell the captain to expect us.”
Without waiting for a response, Archie began walking south again, the group in tow.
Ben sped up to match Archie’s pace. “Tell me again why we have to take a boat? Wouldn’t it be faster to fly?”
Archie shook his head. “No, it’s the end of the rainy season, so much of the lower areas are flooded. The rivers are easier to navigate, but runways are either nonexistent or in unknown condition.”
“What about flying over to Peru or Bolivia first, then heading north into the area we’re looking for?”
Archie chuckled. “The place we’re going is as remote as any; some of the most unforgiving environment on the planet. You do not just ‘hike in’ from those countries — the only place to fly to in Bolivia right now is La Paz, and then you’d need to cross Las Cordilleras and the Altiplano, and of course navigate the cliffs and falls to get down to the levels of the upper basin. If we survived that, we’d then need to figure out how to get downstream the rest of the few-hundred miles we’d need to travel, since we didn’t bring a boat. The forest is so dense in these parts that traveling is only possible on the river, and believe me, we will want a boat.”
Ben nodded. “I’m all for using a boat, it just seems slow.”
“It will not be. The river’s width will make the current slower in most places, so it will not be a challenge to push the boat upstream. Besides, the boat is big, and has a motor. See?”
Ben followed the man’s finger as he pointed down the street. They’d slowly rounded the top of the hill and were now descending down the other side. The stretch of docks connecting Manaus to the rest of the Amazon River
were now in full view, and the sight took Ben by surprise.
Behind him, Julie and Amanda both gasped.
“Woah,” Rhett said.
“Welcome to Manaus,” Paulinho said, the last of the group to clear the ridge.
Ben wasn’t sure what to expect when Archie had explained that they’d be traveling by boat. He supposed the boat would have been an open-top, flat-bottomed boat, pushed along by long poles of some sort. They would pile their supplies in the center of the deck, each taking turns pushing them along upstream until they reached their destination.
He could only have been more wrong if he’d guessed they would travel in a canoe. The docks in front of them stretched across his entire field of vision — boats of all shapes and sizes nearly stacked on top of one another, crammed together closer than the houses and buildings on each side of the street they were on.
But it was the size of the boats that most surprised him. The largest stood a full three stories above the water, wraparound decks on each level, like a floating civil war-era Atlanta mansion. There were three or four of these gargantuan boats, two of them already full of tourists, hanging over the railings and gawking at the passersby far down below. He was close enough to see individual faces now, and there were families, smiling and pointing as they held their phones out over the ledges and snapped selfies.
The smaller boats were still large by his standards — two- or three-stories tall, some twice as long as the largest of the tourist boats. There were freight carriers, flat-topped and powered by massive diesel engines, and other commercial-looking vessels, all bobbing along beside the others.
Even between these larger crafts Ben could see dozens of small, single-person boats, pushing against each other as they fought for dockside real estate. Some of the smallest vessels carried loads of bananas, fish, and other sacks of goods, while others sat empty, awaiting the return of their owner.
The noise was nearly deafening now, as they reached the edge of the congregation of dockworkers and tourists that gathered for the morning departures. The sound had been slowly increasing in volume, but it was only now that Ben realized how intense it had gotten. Vendors yelled for attention, tourists shouted at one another, corralling family members together, and the normal hustle and bustle of urban city life competed with all the rest of it.
The midsummer sun was still low on the horizon, but it was already nearly sweltering. Ben wiped his forehead with a wrist and smiled at Julie.
“Crazy, isn’t it?” he said.
“I had no idea it was this… big.”
He nodded, turning back to the living picture in front of him. The heat, the noise, and the volume of people and boats all screamed for his attention, but nothing could compare to the river, sitting silently behind the scene.
The river was absolutely marvelous. Ben could barely see the shore on the other side, and the large bridge that traversed the body of water was only visible for some distance before it too vanished. The sparkling morning light gave it a sheen that contrasted sharply with the horizon and sky above it, and painted a perfect backdrop for the thousands of travelers preparing for their journeys.
“Our boat should be one of the midsize ones,” Archie explained. He pushed his way through a group of locals and veered off to the left. “The boat is called the Adagio ,” Archie said. “Means ‘slow,’ but don’t let that fool you — speed isn’t nearly as important as integrity. Adagio has the fuel capacity to get us to the higher basin and back twice, and our skipper isn’t as opposed to traveling at night as some other captains are. He’s also the only one around who didn’t have a tour planned, so we will have the boat to ourselves.”
“There it is!” Rhett pointed to a large, three-level boat that floated behind three smaller boats on the water. Adagio was stenciled in all capital letters on the bow. Aside from trails of reddish residue that had crept up the boat’s side, the Adagio was pristine white. One man hauled in lines and curled them up on the deck of the boat, while another, undoubtedly the skipper, watched from inside a glass-enclosed front window. The boat itself was facing the city, but a gentle foam of wake had already formed behind the giant floating machine, the engines already heated up and prepared for departure.
Ben and the others picked up their pace as they descended the rest of the slight hill and approached the docks. The chaos of the masses of people bustling around the makeshift harbor was heightened from their closer perspective, and Ben was growing more and more anxious as every second ticked by.
“Are you okay?” Julie asked, grabbing for his hand. He allowed her to bring his hand in around her waist, pulling his body closer as they walked side-by-side.
“Yeah,” he said. He knew she was only trying to help, but her question only reminded him of his own reclusive tendencies and discomfort of crowds and busy places. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he repeated. “I just need to get on that boat and find a quiet corner.”
“Soon enough,” she responded. Juliette leaned in closer and whispered into Ben’s ear. “And maybe we can find a corner big enough for both of us.”
He smiled, starting to feel more relaxed already. Some quiet time with Julie would be more than welcome, considering how insane the last few days had been. He started daydreaming a bit, hoping the boat ride would be mostly uneventful and give them all a chance to decompress.
Rhett had been walking a few paces ahead of them, and he suddenly turned and darted back into the safety of the group. His eyes were wild, wide-eyed, and it was clear he was distressed.
“That guy, right over there,” he whispered. “He’s in a black t-shirt and jeans, sunglasses. He’s one of the guys that attacked us at the cabin.”
Chapter 25
Ben saw the man Rhett was describing immediately. He was standing to the side of the docks, between two smaller boats, and looking directly at their group.
“Everyone’s going to stick together,” Reggie whispered back. “We split up, we’re toast. There’s bound to be more of them patrolling.”
They continued walking, listening for further instructions from Reggie. Archibald, Amanda, and Paulinho formed one smaller group in the back, while Ben, Julie, and Rhett walked directly behind Reggie.
“He’s going to radio in and tell them which boat we’re heading toward, so we need to plan a distraction. Ben, you have that pack?”
Ben nodded, swinging the backpack he was wearing around to the front of his body.
“Left-side pocket, second from the top,” Reggie said. He didn’t explain more. Ben fished around for the zipper, then grabbed the small, cylindrical device. He held it tightly in his hand, at first surprised to find such an object in their gear, but then remembered the type of paranoid survivalist they were dealing with in Reggie. “Keep it hidden, and don’t throw it until I say.”
Reggie turned in a full circle, then faced forward and continued walking. “They’ve got two more grunts posted up beneath some of the stands on each side of the road. Sunglasses, jeans, and t-shirts. Same uniform. These guys aren’t trying to stay hidden — they know we know they’re there.”
Still doesn’t make me feel good about it, Ben thought.
“Everyone listen up,” Reggie said. “Take a look at the boat, and the path to it. It’s a straight shot. There are three boats about the same size docked near it, and five smaller ones crammed in-between. Memorize the location of our boat, and don’t forget it. Visibility’s about to get very restricted.”
The group visibly tensed, but no one stopped.
“Archie, you got this?”
Archie nodded, his smooth and controlled demeanor unchanged. “I will be perfectly fine, Reggie. Let’s get to our boat.”
Reggie smirked and addressed the group a final time. “When you hear me yell, you take off toward the boat. Don’t worry about sticking together, just get to the boat. Got it? Get on, get down, and don’t wait for anyone else.”
Ben saw nods all around, and Reggie nudged him in the side. “Ready? Three seconds.”
Ben nodded, clutching the cylinder in one hand and the Sig Sauer in the other. He felt the adrenaline starting to pump through his system, remembering the last time he’d been under so much pressure.
You’re going to push through this, just like last time. You’re the driver, he told himself, you’re in charge.
“Now!” Reggie yelled. Ben reacted on instinct, tossing the grenade in front of the group about fifteen feet, half of the distance to their dock.
The grenade popped on impact, but didn’t explode. Instead, thick streams of smoke poured out over the asphalt road, shielding the entire area in seconds. They ran forward, into the thickest section of smoke. Ben watched his feet, hoping each progressive step found asphalt or wood dock, and not open water .
He felt Julie bouncing at his side, her smaller body pressing into his as they ran forward in tandem. He wanted to reach out and grab her, to help her along, but he knew she was every bit as capable as he was, and he had a backpack and a gun to control.
Ben listened for any sounds of gunfire, or any indication they were being pursued, but heard none. A few people shouted cries of surprise when the smoke grenade detonated, but anyone between his group and the boat dispersed quickly enough. They didn’t run into any bystanders or tourists as they reached their destination.
The Adagio was suddenly in front of him, and he followed along its hull until he found the gangplank. He hoped the others had been as lucky, but he followed Reggie’s instructions and worried only about himself as he launched his body up the plank and into the boat. The boat’s engine noise was now matched by a gentle buzzing throb as his feet fell on the boat’s bottom deck. He swung the pack off his back and threw it toward the front of the vessel, then turned to wait for Archie, Rhett, Paulinho, and Dr. Meron.