Amazonia

Rodney kicked and reached, fingers scrambling out.

Tom caught his hand. "Got him!" he yelled. The muscles of his fore-arm bulged like corded iron.

The two soldiers yanked Tom back as he hauled Rodney forward. With his free arm, Tom snatched a handful of his brother's soaked field jacket for extra purchase, then fell backward, yanking his brother over the pontoon.

Rodney flew up out of the water, landing belly-first onto the pontoon. He laughed in relief. "Goddamn crocodile!"

He twisted to pull his feet out of the water when giant jaws, already gaped wide open, shot out of the water and swallowed both booted legs up to his thighs. The jaws clamped over their captured prey, then fell back into the river. The ton of armored beast could not be fought. Rodney was torn out of his brother's hands, a cry on his lips.

Rodney disappeared under the water, but his last scream echoed over the river. Soldiers, on their knees, had rifles pointed toward the river, but no one shot. Any blind round could take out their fellow unit member rather than the caiman. Yet from their expressions, Nate knew they all understood the truth. Corporal Rodney Graves was gone. They all had seen the size of the monster, had seen the jaws snap him away.

And Nate knew they were right.

The caiman would take its prey deep and merely hold it clamped until the waters drowned its victim. Then it would either eat or store the body in the submerged mangrove roots where it would rot and be easier to tear apart.

There was no way to rescue the man.

Nate remained floating in the water, keeping his limbs still. The caiman was probably content with its meal, but where there was one, there might be other predators, especially once the blood flowed down the cur-rent. He took no chances. He rolled to his back and floated quietly until he felt hands grab him and haul him back aboard the boat.

He found himself staring into the stricken face of Tom Graves. The corporal was staring at his hands, as if blaming them for not being strong enough to hold his brother.

"I'm sorry," Nate said softly.

The man glanced up, and Nate was shocked to see the flash of anger in the man's eyes, anger that Nate had survived, anger that his brother had been taken instead. Tom turned away stiffly.

Another of the unit was not so reticent. "What in God's name were you trying to do?" It was Captain Waxman, his face almost purple with rage. "What sort of asinine stunt was that? You trying to get yourself killed, too?"

Nate swept the wet locks of hair out of his eyes. It was the second time in a week he had dived into the Amazon's waters to rescue someone. Without doubt, it was becoming a bad habit. "I was trying to help," he mumbled.

The fire in Captain Waxman's voice burned down to dull coals. "We were sent to protect you. Not the other way around:"

By now, Nate's own boat had drawn abreast of the Rangers: He clambered over the pontoons to resume his original seat.

Once settled, Captain Waxman waved an arm for them to continue forward. The pitch of the motors rose.

Nathan heard a protest raised by Tom Graves. "Captain . . . my brother . . . his body."

"Gone, Corporal. He's gone:'

So the trio of boats continued on. Nate caught Professor Kouwe's gaze across the waters from the other boat. Kouwe shook his head sadly. In the jungle, no amount of military training or arsenal could completely protect you. If the jungle wanted you, it was going to take you. It was called the Amazon Factor. All who travelled the mighty green bower were at the jungle's mercy and whim.

Nate felt a touch on his knee. He turned and saw Kelly seated beside him. She sighed, staring forward, then spoke. "That was a stupid thing to do. It really was, but"-she glanced at him-"I'm glad you tried:"

After the sudden tragedy, Nate didn't have the strength to muster more than a simple nod, but her words helped warm the cold hollowness inside him. She took her hand from his knee.

The rest of the day's journey was made in silence. There was no more whistling by Corporal Okamoto as he manned the craft's outboard motor. They travelled until the sun was near the horizon, as if trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the death of Rodney Graves.

As the camp was prepared, the news was passed back to the base at Wauwai. The somber mood stretched through a dinner of fish, rice, and a platter of jungle yams Professor Kouwe had found near the campsite.

The only topic of discussion was the sugary yams. Nathan had asked from where such an abundance had come. "It's unusual to find so many plants:" The professor had returned with an efficiently constructed back-pack of palm leaves filled to the brim with wild yams.

Kouwe nodded toward the deeper forest. "I suspect the site where I found these was an old Indian garden. I saw a few avocado trees and stumpy pineapple plants in the same area:"

Kelly straightened with a fork half-raised. "An Indian garden?"

For the past four days, they had not encountered a single soul. If Gerald Clark had obtained his canoe from a Yanomamo village, they had no clue where he got it.

"It was long abandoned," Kouwe said, dashing the hope that had briefly shone in Kelly's eyes. "Such sites dot the riverways throughout the Amazon. Tribes, especially the Yanomamo, are nomadic. They plant gardens, stay a year or two, then move on. I'm afraid a garden's presence here does not mean anything significant:"

"Still, it's at least something," Kelly said, refusing to dismiss this bit of hopeful news. "Some sign that others are out there:"

"And besides, these yams are damn good," Frank added, munching a mouthful. "I was already getting sick of the rice:"

Manny grinned, running his fingers through his jaguar's ruff. Tor-for had feasted on a large catfish and lay stretched by the fire.

The Rangers had set up a second campfire a short distance away. At sunset, they held a short service for their fallen comrade. Now they were sullen. Only a few muttered words were shared among them. It was unlike the previous nights when the soldiers were full of ribald jokes and loud guffaws before settling to their own hammocks and posts. Not this night.

"We should all get to sleep," Kelly finally said, pushing to her feet. "We have another long day tomorrow:'

With murmured assents and a few groans, the party dispersed to their separate hammocks. When returning from the latrine, Nate found Professor Kouwe smoking near his hammock.

"Professor," Nate said, sensing Kouwe wanted to speak to him in private.

"Walk with me a moment. Before the Rangers activate the motion sensors:" The shaman led the way a short distance into the forest.

Nate followed. "What is it?"

Kouwe simply continued until they were deep within the jungle's gloom. The camp's two fires were only greenish glows through the bushes. He finally stopped, puffing deeply on his pipe.

"Why did you bring me out here?"

Kouwe flicked on a small flashlight.

Nate stared around. The jungle ahead was clear of all but a few trees: short breadfruit palms, oranges, figs. Bushes and low plants covered the forest floor, unnaturally dense. Nate realized what he was seeing. It was the abandoned Indian garden. He even spotted a pair of bamboo poles, staked among the plantings and burned at the top. Normally these torches were filled with tok-tok powder and lit during harvest times as a smoky repellent against hungry insects. Without a doubt, Indians had once labored here.

Nate had seen other such cultivations during his journeys in the Amazon, but now, here at night, with the patch overgrown and gone wild, it had a haunted feeling to it. He could almost sense the eyes of the Indian dead watching him.

"We're being tracked," Kouwe said.

The words startled Nate. "What are you talking about?"

Kouwe led Nate into the garden. He pointed his flashlight toward a passion fruit tree and pulled down one of the lower branches. "It's been picked bare:" Kouwe turned to him. "I'd say about the same time as when we were hauling and securing the boats. Several of the plucked stems were still moist with sap:'

"And you noticed this?"

"I was watching for it," Kouwe said. "The past two mornings, when I've gone off to gather fruit for the day's journey, I noticed some places that I'd walked the night before had been disturbed. Broken branches, a hogplum tree half empty of its fruit:"

"It could be jungle animals, foraging during the night:"

Kouwe nodded. "I thought so at first, too. So I kept silent. I could find no footprints or definite proof. But now the regularity of these occurrences has convinced me otherwise. Someone is tracking us:"

Who.

"Most likely Indians. These are their forests. They would know how to follow without being seen:"

"The Yanomamo:"

"Most likely," Kouwe said.

Nate heard the doubt in the professor's voice. "Who else could it be?"

Kouwe's eyes narrowed. "I don't know. But it strikes me as odd that they would not be more careful. A true tracker would not let his presence be known. It's almost too sloppy for an Indian:"

"But you're an Indian. No white man would've noticed these clues, not even the Army Rangers:"

"Maybe:" Kouwe sounded unconvinced.

"We should alert Captain Waxman."

"That's why I pulled you aside first. Should we?"

"What do you mean?"

"If they are Indians, I don't think we should force the issue by having an Army Ranger team beating the bushes in search of them. The Indians, or whoever is out there, would simply vanish. If we wish to contact them, maybe we should let them come to us. Let them grow accustomed to our strangeness. Let them make the first move rather than the other way around:'

Nate's first instinct was to argue against such caution. He was anxious to forge ahead, to find answers to his father's disappearance after so many years. Patience was hard to swallow. The wet season would begin soon. The rains would start again, washing away all hopes of tracking Gerald Clark's trail.

But then again, as he had been reminded today by the caiman's attack, the Amazon was king. It had to be taken at its own pace. To fight, to thrash, only invited defeat. The best way to survive was to flow with the current.

"I think it's best if we wait a few more days," Kouwe continued. "First to see if I'm correct. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's just jungle animals. But if I'm right, I'd like to give the Indians a chance to come out on their own, rather than scare them away or force them here at gunpoint. Either way, we'd get no information:"

Nate finally conceded, but with a condition. "We'll give it another two days. Then we tell someone:"

Kouwe nodded and flicked off his flashlight. "We should be getting to bed:"

The pair hiked the short distance back to the glowing campfires. Nate pondered the shaman's words and insight. He remembered the way Kouwe's eyes had narrowed, questioning if it was Indians out there. Who else could it be?

Arriving back at the site, Nate found most of the camp already retired to their hammocks. A few soldiers patrolled the perimeter. Kouwe wished him good night and strode to his own mosquito-netted hammock. As Nate kicked out of his boots, he heard a mumbled moan from Frank O'Brien in a nearby hammock. After today's tragedy, Nate expected everyone would have troubled dreams.

He climbed into his hammock and threw an arm over his eyes, blocking out the firelight. Like it or not, there was no fighting the Amazon. It had its own pace, its own hunger. All you could do was pray you weren't the next victim. With this thought in mind, it was a long time until sleep claimed Nate. His final thought: Who would be next?

Corporal Jim DeMartini was quickly growing to hate this jungle. After four days travelling the river, DeMartini was sick of the whole damned place: the eternal moist air, the stinging flies, the gnats, the constant screams of monkeys and birds. Additionally, closer to home, mold seemed to grow on everything-on their clothes, on their hammocks, on their rucksacks. All his gear smelled like sweaty gym socks abandoned in a locker for a month. And this was after only four days.

Pulling patrol, he stood in the woods near the latrine, leaning on a tree, his M-16 resting comfortably in his arms. Jorgensen shared this shift with him but had stopped to use the latrine. From only a few yards away, DeMartini could hear his partner whistling as he zipped down.

"Fine time to take a shit," DeMartini groused.

Jorgensen heard him. "It's the damn water. . :"

"Just hurry it up." DeMartini shook out a cigarette, his mind drifting back to the fate of his fellow unit member Rodney Graves. DeMartini had been in the lead boat with a few of the civilians, but he had been close enough to see the monstrous caiman rise out of the river and rip Graves from the other boat. He gave an involuntary shudder. He was no plebe. He had seen men die before: gunshots, helicopter crashes, drowning. But nothing compared to what he had witnessed today. It was something out of a nightmare.

Glancing over his shoulder, he cursed Jorgensen. What's taking the bas-tard so long? He took a deep drag on the cigarette. Probably jerking off. But then again, he couldn't blame Jorgensen if he was. It was distracting with the two women among them. After setting up camp, he had covertly spied upon the Asian scientist as she had stripped out of her khaki jacket. Her thin blouse beneath had been damp from sweat and clung invitingly to her small breasts.

He shoved back these thoughts, ground out his smoke, and stood straighter. In the dark, the only light came from the flashlight taped on the underside of his rifle. He kept it pointed forward, toward the nearby river.

Deeper in the woods, past the laser motion sensors, small lights winked and flitted. Fireflies. He had been raised in southern California, where there were no such insects. So the blinking of the bugs kept him further on edge. The flashes kept drawing his eye, while around him the jungle sighed with the rustle of leaves. Larger branches creaked like old men's joints. It was as if the jungle were a living creature and he was swallowed inside it.

DeMartini swung his light all around. He firmly believed in the buddy system-and even more so right now in this cursed black jungle. There was an old adage among the Rangers: The buddy system is essential to survival-it gives the enemy somebody else to shoot at.

Slightly spooked for his buddy's company, he called back to the latrine. "C'mon, Jorgensen!"

"Give me half a break," his partner snapped irritably from a few yards away.

As DeMartini turned back around, something stung his cheek. He slapped at the insect, squashing it under his palm. An even fiercer sting struck his neck, just under the line of his jaw. Grimacing, he reached to brush the fly or mosquito away, and his fingers touched something still clinging to his neck. Startled, he batted it away in horror.

"What the fuck!" he hissed, stepping back. "Goddamn bloodsuckers!"

Jorgensen laughed from nearby. "At least you aren't bare-assed!"

Staring around the jungle with distaste, he pulled the collar of his jacket higher, offering less of a target to the bloodthirsty insects. As he turned, the splash of his flashlight revealed something bright in the mud at his feet. He bent to pick it up. It was a tied bunch of feathers around a pointed dart. The tip was wet with blood, his own blood.

Shit!

He dropped into a crouch and opened his mouth to shout a warning, but all that came out was a silent gurgle. He tried to take a deep breath but realized he couldn't seem to get his chest to move. His limbs grew leaden. Suddenly weak, he fell onto his side.

Poisoned . . . paralysed, he realized with panic.

His hand still had enough motor control to scrabble like a spider over the stock of his rifle, struggling to reach the trigger. If he could fire his M-16 . . . warn Jorgensen . . .

Then he sensed someone standing over him, watching him from the dark jungle. He couldn't turn his head to see, but the prickle of some primal instinct sent warnings through his body.

Further panicked, he strained for the M-16's trigger, praying, wordlessly begging. His finger finally reaching the trigger guard. If he could have gasped, he would have done so in relief. As darkness blackened the edges of his sight, he fed all his remaining energy into his single finger-and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

In despair, he realized the rifle's safety was still on. A single tear of defeat rolled down his cheek as he lay in the mud. Paralysed, he could not even close his eyelids.

The lurker finally stepped over his prone body. In the glow of his weapon's light, he saw a sight that made no sense.

It was a woman . . . a naked woman, a sleek creature of wondrous beauty, with long smooth legs, gentle curves leading to full hips, firm and rounded breasts. But it was her large, dark eyes-full of mystery, full of hunger-that held his attention as he slowly suffocated. She leaned over him, a cascading fall of black hair over his slack face.

For a moment, it felt as if she were breathing into him. He felt some-thing course through him, something warm and smoky.

Then he was gone, darkness swallowing him away.

Kelly startled awake. Voices shouted all around her. She sat up too quickly and tumbled out of her hammock, crashing to her knees. "Damn it!" She glanced up.

More branches had been tossed on the two campfires. Flames climbed higher, spreading smoke and a fiery light all around. In the distance, flash-lights bobbled through the forests, clearly searching. Shouts and orders echoed out of the jungle.

Gaining her feet, Kelly struggled to find her way through the tangled mosquito netting. She spotted Nate and Manny nearby. Both men were barefooted, dressed in boxers and T-shirts. The large jaguar sat between them. "What's going on?" she called, finally freeing herself of the netting.

The other civilians were now all beginning to gather in various states of undress and confusion. Kelly quickly noticed that all the green canvas hammocks of the Rangers were empty. A single corporal stood between the two fires. His rifle was held at ready.

Nate answered her question, bending down to tug on his boots. "One of the soldiers on patrol has gone missing. We're to stay here until the others secure the area:"

"Missing? Who? How?"

"Corporal DeMartini:"

Kelly remembered the man: slick black hair, wide nose, eyes that constantly squinted with suspicion. "What happened?"

Nate shook his head. "No one knows yet. He simply vanished:"

A sharp shout arose from near the river. Most of the bobbling flash-lights converged toward the site.

Professor Kouwe joined them. Kelly noticed an odd look pass between the two men. Something unspoken, something they shared.

Frank suddenly appeared on the far side of the camp. Flashlight in hand, he rushed toward them. He arrived out of breath, the freckles on his cheeks standing out against his ashen face. "We've found the missing man's weapon." His eyes flicked between Nate, Manny, and Kouwe. "You all know more about the jungle than anyone. There's something we could use your opinion about. Captain Waxman has asked for you to come take a look:"

The whole group of civilians stepped toward Frank, intending to follow.

He held up a hand. "Just these three:"

Kelly pushed forward. "If the man was injured, I may be of help, too:"

Frank hesitated, then nodded.

Richard Zane moved to follow, his mouth open to protest, but Frank shook his head. "We don't want the site trampled any more than necessary."

With the matter settled, the group hurried past the fires toward the river. The jaguar kept to its master's side, padding silently with them. They crossed into the dense growth that fringed the tributary. Here was the true mythic jungle: a tangle of vines, bushes, and trees. Single file, the group trekked into the thick growth, approaching the glow of many flashlights ahead.

Kelly followed behind Nate. For the first time, she noticed the spread of his shoulders-and how well he moved through the woods. For such a tall man, he slipped under liana vines and around bushes with a casual ease. She trod in his steps and tried to mimic his moves, but she kept stumbling in the dark.

Her heel slid on something slippery. Her feet went out from under her. She fell sideways, hands out to break her fall.

Then Nate's arms were around her, catching her. "Careful:"

"Th . . . thanks:" Blushing, she reached toward a vine to pull herself up, but before she could grip it, Nate yanked her away. Only her fingers brushed the vine.

"What are you-ow!" Her fingertips began to burn. She rubbed them on her untucked blouse, but the sting grew even worse. It felt as if her fingers were on fire.

"Hold still," Professor Kouwe said. "Rubbing will spread it:" He snatched a handful of thick leaves from a slender tree. Crushing them in his hands, he grabbed Kelly's wrist and smeared the oily moisture over her fingers and hand.

Instantly the sting faded. Kelly stared in wonder at the crushed leaves.

"Ku-run-yeh," Nate said behind her. "Of the violet family. A potent analgesic:"

Kouwe continued to rub her fingers until the pain was gone.

In the glow of her brother's flashlight, she saw that a couple of blisters had formed on the tips of her fingers.

"Are you okay?" Frank asked.

She nodded, feeling stupid.

"Keep applying the ku-run-yeh and you'll heal faster," Kouwe said, giving her arm a fatherly squeeze.

Nate helped her to her feet. He pointed to the grayish vine. "It's named `fire liana.' And not without reason:' The vine draped from a tree and lay tangled near the trunk's base. She would've fallen into the nest of vines if Nate hadn't caught her. "The vine exudes a potent irritant to keep insects away.

"A form of chemical warfare," Kouwe added.

"Exactly." Nate nodded for Frank to continue ahead, then waved an arm. "It's going on all around you all the time here. It's what makes the jungle such a potent medicinal storehouse. The ingenuity and variety of chemicals and compounds waged in this war far outwit anything human scientists could invent in a lab:"

Kelly listened, not feeling particularly appreciative of being a casualty in this chemical war.

After a few more yards, they reached the Rangers, gathered in a ring around one section of forest. A couple of men stood off to the side, weapons on their shoulders, night-vision goggles in place over their faces.

Corporal Jorgensen stood at attention before the unit's captain. "Like I said, I was just using the latrine. DeMartini was standing guard by a near-by tree:"

"And this?" Captain Waxman held up the butt of a cigarette under the man s nose.

"Okay, I heard him light up, but I didn't think he left. When I zipped and turned around, he was gone. He didn't say a word that he was going to wander over to the river:"

"All for a goddamn smoke," Captain Waxman grumbled, then waved an arm. "Dismissed, corporal."

"Yes, sir."

After taking a deep breath, Captain Waxman crossed to them, fire still in his eyes. "I need your expertise on this," he said, his gaze sweeping over Nate, Kouwe, and Manny. Turning, he swung his lights toward an area of trampled jungle grasses. "We found DeMartini's weapon abandoned here, and this stubbed cigarette, but no sign of what happened to his body. Corporal Warczak has searched for any prints leading from here. There aren't any. Just this trampled and shredded area of grasses that leads back to the river.

Kelly saw that the disturbed area did indeed lead all the way to the water's edge. The tall green reeds lining the bank were parted and crushed.

"I'd like to examine this more closely," Professor Kouwe said.

Captain Waxman nodded, passing Kouwe his flashlight.

Nate and Kouwe moved forward. Manny followed, but his pet jaguar stopped at the edge of the area, growling deep in the back of his throat as it sniffed at the grasses.

Hand on his whip, Manny tried to coax the cat to follow. "C'mon, Tor-tor:" The jaguar refused, even retreated a step.

Kouwe glanced back to them. The professor had stopped to crouch at a spot, examining something near the reeds. He sniffed at his fingers.

"What is it?" Nate asked.

"Caiman feces:" He wiped his hand clean on some grasses, then nodded to the growling jaguar. "I think Tor-for agrees:"

"What do you mean?" Kelly asked.

Manny answered, "Wild cats have the ability to sense the size of an ani-mal from just the smell of its excrement or urine. In fact, elephant urine is sold throughout the western United States as a repellent against bobcats and cougars. They won't go near a site marked with elephant urine, freaked by the smell of such a huge animal:'

Kouwe clambered through the reeds to the river's edge. He was careful to pluck aside a few broken stalks, then waved Captain Waxman over. Kelly followed.

Kouwe shone his light on a spot of muddy bank. Clawed prints were clear in the riverbank mud. "Caiman:"

Kelly heard an odd note of relief in Kouwe's voice. Again Nate and the professor shared a secretive glance.

Straightening, Kouwe explained, "Caimans will often hunt the river-banks, snatching tapir and wild pigs as they come to drink. Your corporal must have come too close to the river and was grabbed:"

"Could it he the same one that attacked Corporal Graves?" Waxman asked.

Kouwe shrugged. "Black caimans are fairly intelligent. After learning that our boats are a source of food, it might have followed the rumble of our motors, then lay in wait until nightfall:"

"Goddamn that motherfucker!" Waxman spat, a fist clenched. "Two men in one day."

Staff Sergeant Kostos stepped forward. The tall swarthy Ranger wore a tight expression. "Sir, I can call for reinforcements. The Hueys could be here by morning with two more men:"

"Do it," he snapped. "And from here on out, I want two patrols every shift. Two men in each patrol! I don't want anyone-civilian or soldier-walking this jungle alone. Ever! And I want the river side of every camp set up with motion sensors, not just the jungle:"

"Yes, sir:"

Captain Waxman turned to them. There was no warmth in his words, only dismissal. "Thank you for your assistance:"

The group wound back through the forest. As they marched, Kelly felt numb. Another man gone . . . so suddenly. She hiked past the nest of fire liana vines and eyed them warily. It wasn't only chemical warfare going on out here, but a savage feeding frenzy, where the strong consumed the weak.

Kelly was glad to reach the campsite with its roaring fires-the warmth, the light. In a small way, the flames were reassuring, temporarily driving back the dark heart of the forest.

She found the eyes of the other teammates upon them. Anna Fong stood with Richard Zane. Frank's fellow operative, Olin Pasternak, stood near the fires, warming his hands.

Manny quickly explained what they had found. As he talked, Anna covered her mouth with her hand and turned away. Richard shook his head. And as usual, Olin remained his stoic self, staring into the flames.

Kelly barely noticed their reactions. Standing by the campfire, her attention remained focused on Nate and Kouwe. The pair had moved to the side, near Nate's hammock. From the corner of her eye, she watched them. No words were exchanged between the two men, but she caught the inquiring look on Kouwe's face. An unspoken question.

Nate answered with a small shake of his head.

With some secret settled between them, Kouwe reached to his pipe and moved a few steps away, clearly needing a moment alone.

Kelly turned, giving the older man his privacy, and found Nate staring at her.

She glanced back to the fires. She felt foolish and oddly frightened. She swallowed and bit her lower lip, remembering the man's strong arms catching her, saving her. She sensed Nate still staring at her, his gaze like the sun's heat on her skin. Warm, deep, and tingling.

Slowly the feeling faded.

What was he hiding?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Data Collection

AUGUST 12, 6:20 A.M.

LANGLEY VIRGINIA

Lauren O'Brien was going to be late for work. "Jessie!" she called as she nestled an orange beside a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in a lunch box. "Hon, I need you down here . . . now." The day-care center was a twenty-minute drive out of her way, followed by the usual fight through morning traffic into Langley.

She checked her watch and rolled her eyes. "Marshall!"

"We're coming," a stern voice answered.

Lauren leaned around the corner. Her husband was leading their granddaughter down the stairs. Jessie was dressed, though her socks didn't match. Close enough, she thought to herself. She had forgotten what it was like to have a child in the house again. Patterns and schedules had to be altered.

"I can take her to day care," Marshall said, reaching the bottom stairs. "I don't have a meeting until nine o'clock:"

"No, I can do it:"

"Lauren. . ." He crossed and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "Let me help you:"

She returned to the kitchen and snapped shut the lunch box. "You should get into the office as soon as possible:" She tried to keep the tension out of her voice.

But Marshall heard it anyway. "Jessie, why don't you get your sweater?"

" 'Kay, Grandpa:' The girl skipped toward the front door.

Marshall turned back to Lauren. "Frank and Kelly are fine. If there was any change, we would know it right away"

Lauren nodded, but she kept her back toward him. She did not want Marshall to see the threatening tears. Last night, they had heard about the first Army Ranger being attacked by a crocodile. Then, a few hours past midnight, the phone had rung. From Marshall's tone as he spoke, Lauren had known it was more bad news. A call this late could only mean one thing-something horrible had happened to either Frank or Kelly. She was sure of it. After Marshall had hung up the phone and explained about the second dead soldier, Lauren had cried with selfish relief. Still, deep inside, a seed of dread had been planted that she could not shake. Two dead . . . how many more? She had been unable to sleep the rest of the night.

"Another two Rangers are being airlifted to their campsite as we speak. They have plenty of protection:"

She nodded and sniffed back tears. She was being foolish. She had spoken with the twins last night. They were clearly shaken by the tragedy, but both were determined to continue onward.

"They're tough kids," Marshall said. "Resourceful and cautious. They're not going to take any foolish chances:"

With her back still turned to her husband, she mumbled, "Foolish chances? They're out there, aren't they? That's foolish enough:"

Marshall's hands settled on her shoulders. He brushed aside the hair from the back of her neck and kissed her gently. "They'll be fine," he whispered in her ear calmly.

At fifty-four, Marshall was a striking man. His black-Irish hair was going to silver at the temples. He had a strong jaw, softened by full lips. His eyes, a bluish hazel, caught her and held her.

"Kelly and Frank will be fine," he said succinctly. "Let me hear you say it."

She tried to glance down, but a fingertip moved her chin back up.

"Say it . . . please. For me. I need to hear it, too:"

She saw the glimmer of pain in his eyes. "Kelly and Frank . . . will be fine:" Though her words were muttered, speaking them aloud was some-how reassuring.

"They will be. We raised them, didn't we?" He smiled at her, the pain fading in his eyes.

"We sure did:" She slipped her arms around her husband and hugged him.

After a moment, Marshall kissed her on the forehead. "I'll take Jessie to day care:"

She didn't object. After giving her grandchild a long hug by the front door, she allowed herself to be guided to her BMW. The forty-minute drive to the Instar Institute was a blur. When she arrived, she was glad to grab her briefcase and head through the cipher-locked doors into the main building. After such a disturbing night, it was good to be busy again, to have something to distract her from her worries.

She crossed to her offices, greeting familiar faces in the hall. The complete immunology report was due today, and she was anxious to test Kelly's theory about an alteration to Gerald Clark's immune status. Preliminary results, coming piecemeal, were not terribly helpful. With the degree of cancerous processes ravaging the body, assessment was difficult.

Reaching her office, Lauren found a stranger standing by her door.

"Good morning, Dr. O'Brien," the man said, holding out a hand. He was no older than twenty-five, slender, with a shaved head, and dressed in blue scrubs.

Lauren, as head of the MEDEA project, knew everyone involved on the research, but not this man. "Yes?"

"I'm Hank Alvisio:"

The name rang a bell. Lauren shook his hand while racking her brain.

"Epidemiology," he said, clearly reading her momentary confusion.

Lauren nodded. "Of course, I'm sorry, Dr. Alvisio:" The young man was an epidemiologist out of Stanford. She had never met him in person. His field of expertise was the study of disease transmission. "How can I help you?"

He lifted a manila folder. "Something I'd like you to see:'

She checked her watch. "I have a meeting with Immunology in about ten minutes:"

"All the more reason you should see this:"

She unlocked her office door with a magnetic ID card and ushered him inside. Switching on the lights, she crossed to her desk and offered Dr. Alvisio a seat on the other side. "What have you got?"

"Something I've been working on:" He fiddled through his folder. "I've turned up some disturbing data that I wanted to run past you:"

"What data?"

He glanced up. "I've been reviewing Brazilian medical records, looking for any other cases similar to Gerald Clark's:"

"Other people with strange regenerations?"

He grinned shyly. "Of course not. But I was trying to put together an epidemiological assessment of cancers among those living in the Brazilian rain forests, with particular concentration in the area where Gerald Clark died. I thought maybe, by tracking cancer rates, we could indirectly track where the man had travelled:"

Lauren sat up. This was an intriguing angle, even ingenious. No won-der Dr. Alvisio had been hired. If he could discover a cluster of similar cancers, then it might narrow the search parameters, which in turn could shorten the time Kelly and Frank would need to trek the jungle on foot. "And what did you find?"

"Not what I expected," he said with a worried look in his eyes. "I contacted every city hospital, medical facility, and jungle field clinic in the area. They've been sending me data covering the past decade. It's taken me this long to crunch the information through my computer models:"

"And did you discover any trends in cancer rates in the area?" Lauren asked hopefully.

He shook his head. "Nothing like the cancers seen in Gerald Clark. He seems to be a very unique case:"

Lauren hid her disappointment but could not keep a touch of irritation from entering her voice. "Then what did you discover?"

He pulled out a sheet of paper and passed it to Lauren. She slipped on her reading glasses.

It was a map of northwestern Brazil. Rivers snaked across the region, all draining toward one destination-the Amazon River. Cities and towns dotted the course, most sticking close to channels and waterways. The black-and-white map was dotted with small red X's.

The young doctor tapped a few of the marks with the tip of a pen.

"Here are all the medical facilities that supplied data. While working with them, I was contacted by a staff doctor at a hospital in the city of Barcellos:" His pen pointed to a township along the Amazon, about two hundred miles upriver from Manaus. "They were having a problem with a viral out-break among the city's children and elderly. Something that sounded like some form of hemorrhagic fever. Spiking temperatures, jaundice, vomiting, oral ulcerations. They had already lost over a dozen children to the disease. The doctor in Barcellos said he had never seen anything like it and asked for my assistance. I agreed to help:"

Lauren frowned, slightly irked. The epidemiologist had been hired and flown here to work specifically and solely on this project. But she kept silent and let him continue.

"Since I already had a network of contacts established in the region, I utilized them, sending out an emergency request for any other reports of this outbreak:" Dr. Alvisio pulled out a second sheet of paper. It appeared to be the same map: rivers and red X's. But on this map, several of the X's were circled in blue, with dates written next to them. "These are the sites that reported similar cases:"

Lauren's eyes widened. There were so many. At least a dozen medical facilities were seeing cases.

"Do you see the trend here?" Dr. Alvisio said.

Lauren stared, then slowly shook her head.

The epidemiologist pointed to one X with a blue circle. "I've dated each reported case. This is the earliest:" He glanced up from the paper and tapped the spot. "This is the mission of Wauwai:"

"Where Gerald Clark was found?"

The doctor nodded.

She now recalled reading the field report from the expedition's first day. The Wauwai mission had been razed by superstitious Indians. They'd been frightened after several village children had become inexplicably sick.

"I checked with local authorities," Dr. Alvisio continued. He began to tap down the line of blue-circled X's. "The small steamboat that trans-ported Clark's body stopped at each of these ports:" The epidemiologist continued to tap the riverside towns. "Every site where the body passed, the disease appeared:"

"My God;" Lauren mumbled. "You're thinking the body was carrying some pathogen:"

"At first. I thought it was one of several possibilities. The disease could have spread out from Wauwai through a variety of carriers. Almost all transportation through the region is by river, so any contagious disease would've followed a similar pattern. The pattern alone wasn't conclusive evidence that the body was the source of the contagion:"

Lauren sighed, relieved. "It couldn't be the body. Before being shipped from Brazil, my daughter oversaw the disposition of the remains. It was tested for a wide variety of pathogens: cholera, yellow fever, dengue, malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis. We were thorough. We checked for every known pathogen. The body was clean:"

"But I'm afraid it wasn't," Dr. Alvisio said softly.

"Why do you say that?"

"This was faxed this morning:" He slid a final paper out of his folder. It was a CDC report out of Miami. "Clark's body was inspected in customs at Miami International. Now three cases of the disease have been reported in local children. All of them from families o€ airport employees:"

Lauren sank into her chair as the horror of the man's words struck her. "Then whatever the disease is, it's here. We brought it here. Is that what you're saying?" She glanced over to Dr. Alvisio.

He nodded.

"How contagious is it? How virulent?"

The man's voice became suddenly mumbled. "It's hard to say with any certainty."

Lauren knew the man, even at such a young age, was a leader in his field or he wouldn't be here. "What is your cursory assessment? You have one, don't you?"

He visibly swallowed. "From the initial study of transmission rates and the disease's incubation period, it's a bug that's a hundredfold more contagious than the common cold . . . and as virulent as the Ebola virus:"

Lauren felt the blood drain from her face. "And the mortality rate?"

Dr. Alvisio glanced down and shook his head.

"Hank?" she said hoarsely, her voice hushed with fear.

He lifted his face. "So far no one has survived:'

AUGUST 12, 6:22 A.M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Louis Favre stood at the edge of his camp, enjoying the view of the river at sunrise. It was a quiet moment after a long night. Kidnapping the corporal from under the other camp's nose had taken hours to prepare and execute, but as usual, his team had performed without fail.

After four days, the job of shadowing the other team was reduced to a routine. Each night, runners would slip ahead of the Rangers' team, trekking through the deep jungle to set up spy positions in well-camouflaged roosts in emergent trees that towered above the forest canopy. While spying, they maintained contact with the mercenary team via radio. During the day, Louis and the bulk of his forces followed in a caravan of canoes, trailing ten kilometers behind the others. Only at night had they crept any nearer.

Louis turned from the river and crossed into the deeper wood. Hidden among the trees, the camp was hard to spot until you were on top of it. He stared around while his forty-man team began to break camp. It was a motley group: bronze-skinned Indians culled from various tribes, lanky black Maroons out of Suriname, swarthy Colombians hired from the drug trade. Despite their differences, all the men had one thing in common: they were a hardened lot, marked by the jungle and forged in its bloody bower.

Rifles and guns, wrapped in sailcloth, lay in an orderly spread beside sleeping sites. The armament was as varied as his crew: German Heckler & Koch MPSs, Czech Skorpions, stubby Ingram submachine guns, Israeli-manufactured Uzis, even a few obsolete British Sten guns. Each man had his favorite. Louis's weapon of choice was his compact Mini-Uzi. It had all of the power of its bigger brother but measured only fourteen inches long. Louis appreciated its efficient design, small but deadly, like himself.

1n addition to the munitions, a few men were sharpening machetes. The scrape of steel on rock blended with the morning calls of waking birds and barking monkeys. In hand-to-hand combat, a well-turned blade was better than a gun.

As he surveyed the camp, his second-in-command, a tall black Maroon tribesman named Jacques, approached. At the age of thirteen, Jacques had been exiled from his village after raping a girl from a neighboring tribe. The man still bore a scar from his boyhood journey through the jungle. One side of his nose was missing from an attack by a piranha. He nodded his head respectfully. "Doctor."

"Yes, Jacques."

"Mistress Tshui indicates that she is ready for you:"

Louis sighed. Finally. The prisoner had proven especially difficult.

Reaching into a pocket, Louis pulled free the dog tags and jangled them in his palm. He crossed to the lone tent set near the edge of the camp. Normally the camouflaged tent was shared by Louis and Tshui, but not this past night. During the long evening, Tshui had been entertaining a new guest.

Louis announced himself. "Tshui, my dear, is our visitor ready for company?" He pulled back the flap and bowed his way through the opening.

It was intolerably hot inside. A small brazier was burning in a corner. His mistress knelt naked before the small camp stove, lighting a bundle of dried leaves. Aromatic smoke spiralled upward. She rose to her feet. Her mocha skin shone with a sleek layer of sweat.

Louis stared, drinking her in. He longed to take her then and there, but he restrained himself. They had a guest this morning.

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 Wax-man'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 cherie. 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 cherie," 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 theFittest

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

CHAPTER 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 tight 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 Waxmans 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 Camera, 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 Camera 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.

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 CIAs 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 goodbye, 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 disturbing 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 shabuno. 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 Camera, 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," Camera 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:"

Camera 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 Camera.

"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 Camera 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 Camera. "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 Camera 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 Camera quickly updated the others.

"I've sent the Rangers stationed in the woods back to camp," Captain Waxman said. "They'll gather everyone here. In the meantime, we'll scout what lies out there:" He pointed to three of his unit: Private Camera, Corporal Conger, and Staff Sergeant Kostos.

"I'd like to go with them;" Nate said. "I know this jungle better than anyone.

After a short pause, Captain Waxman sighed. "So you've proven:" He waved them off. "Keep in radio contact:"

As they left, Nate heard Kouwe approach Waxman. "Captain, there is something I think you should be made aware of . . :"

Nate ducked out of the shabano's low door, glad to escape. He imagined Captain Waxman would not be pleased that he and Kouwe had kept hushed about the nighttime prowlers around their campsites. Nate was more than happy to leave such explanations to the diplomatic professor.

Out in the woods, the two men, Conger and Kostos, took the point, leaving Private Camera to dog Nate's steps and maintain a rear guard.

They half trotted through the wet woods, careful of the slippery mud and dense layers of sodden leaves. A small stream that drained toward the river behind them seemed to be heading in the same direction. They found an old game trail paralleling it and made better time.

Nate noticed footprints along the trail. Old prints almost obscured by the rain. Barefooted. He pointed one out to Private Carrera. "The Indians must've fled this way."

She nodded and waved him onward.

Nate pondered this oddity. If panicked, why flee on foot? Why not use the river?

The scouting party climbed the trail, following the streambed. Despite the hard pace, Nate kept up with the Rangers in the lead. The forest around than was unusually quiet, almost hushed. It was eerie, and suddenly Nate regretted leaving his shotgun back at camp.

So occupied was he with keeping his footing and watching for any hidden dangers that Nate almost missed it. He stumbled to a stop with a gasp.

Private Camera almost collided into him. "Damn it. Give some warning.

The other two Rangers, failing to notice the pair had halted, continued up the trail.

"Need a rest?" Camera asked with a bit of playful disdain.

"No," Nate said, panting heavily to catch his breath. "Look:"

Soaked and pinned to a small branch was a scrap of faded yellow material. It was small, half the size of a standard playing card and roughly square. Nathan pulled it free.

"What is it?" Camera peered over his shoulder. "Something from the Indians?"

"No, not likely." He fingered the material. "It's polyester, I think. A synthetic:" He checked the branch upon which the scrap had been impaled. The thin limb had been cut, not naturally broken. As he examined the end, crude markings on the tree's trunk caught his attention. "What's this?"

He reached and brushed rainwater from the trunk. "My God. . :'

"What?"

Nathan stood clear so his escort could see. Deeply inscribed into the bark of the tree's trunk was a coded message.

Private Camera whistled appreciatively and leaned closer. "This G and C near the bottom. . :"

"Gerald Clark;" Nathan finished her thought. "He signed it. The arrow must indicate where he had come from . . . or at least where his next marker might lie:"

Camera checked her wrist compass. "Southwest. It's pointing the right way."

"But what about the numbers? Seventeen and five:"

The Ranger scrunched up her face. "Maybe a date, done the military way. The day, followed by the month:"

"That would make it May seventeenth? That's nearly three months ago:" Turning, Nate started to question her assessment, but Camera had a palm raised toward him. Her other hand pressed her radio earpiece more firmly in place.

She spoke into her radio. "Roger that. We're on our way."

Nate raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"Conger and Kostos," she said. "They've found bodies ahead."

Nate felt a sickening lurch in his belly.

"Come on," Camera said stiffly. "They want your opinion:"

Nodding, Nate continued up the trail. Behind him, as they marched, Private Camera reported their discovery to her captain.

As Nate hurried, he glanced down and realized he still held the bit of faded yellow material. He remembered Gerald Clark had stumbled out of the jungle barefoot, wearing only pants. Had the man used the scraps of his own shirt to flag these sites? Like a trail of bread crumbs back to wherever he had come from?

Nate rubbed the bit of cloth between his fingers. After four years, here was the first tangible bit of proof that at least some of his father's team had survived. Up to this point, Nate had not entertained any hope that his father was still alive. In fact, he had refused even to contemplate that possibility, not after so long, not after coming to some semblance of peace with his father's death. The pain of losing his father a second time would be more than he could handle. Nate stared at the scrap in his hand for a second longer, then stuffed it into a pocket.

As he trekked up the trail, he wondered if there were more such flags out there. Though he had no way of knowing, Nate knew one thing for certain. He would not stop looking, not until he discovered the truth of his father's fate.

Camera swore behind him.

Nathan glanced back. Camera had an arm over her nose and mouth. Only then did Nate notice the stench in the air. Rancid meat and offal.

"Over here!" a voice called out. It was Staff Sergeant Kostos. The older Ranger stood only ten yards farther down the trail. In full camouflage, he blended well with the dappled background.

Nate crossed to him and was immediately assaulted by a horrible sight.

"Jesus Christ," Camera gasped behind him.

Corporal Conger, the young Texan, was farther down the trail, a handkerchief over his face, in the thick of the slaughterhouse. He waved off vultures with his M-16 as swarms of flies rose around him.

Bodies lay sprawled everywhere: on the trail, in the woods, some draped halfway in the stream. Men, women, children. All Indians from the look of them, but it was difficult to say for sure. Faces had been chewed away, limbs gnawed to bone, entrails ripped from bellies. The carrion feeders had made quick work of the bodies, leaving the rest to flies, other insects, and burrowing worms. Only the diminutive sizes of the corpses suggested they were Yanomamo, the missing villagers. And from the number, probably the entire village.

Nathan closed his eyes. He pictured the villagers with whom he had worked in the past: little Tama, noble Takaho. With a sudden burst, he rushed off the trail and hunched over the stream. He breathed deeply, fighting in vain the rising gorge. With a sickening groan, his stomach spasmed. Bile splattered into the flowing water, swelled by the recent rains. Nate remained crouched, hands on his knees, breathing hard.

Kostos barked behind him. "We don't have all day, Rand. What do you think happened here? An attack by another tribe?"

Nate could not move, not trusting his stomach.

Private Camera joined him, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "The sooner we get this done," she said softly, "the sooner we can leave:"

Nathan nodded, took a final deep breath, and forced himself to climb back within view of the slaughter. He studied the area from a few steps away, then moved closer.

"What do you think?" Camera asked.

Gulping back bile, Nate spoke quietly. "They must've fled during the night."

"Why do you say that?" Kostos asked.

Nate glanced to the sergeant, then nudged a stick near one of the corpses. "A torch. Burned to char at the end. The village took flight in full darkness:" He studied the bodies, recognizing a pattern to the carnage. He pointed an arm as he spoke. "When the attack came, the men tried to protect the women and children. When they failed, the women were a second line of defense. They tried to run with the children:" Nate indicated a woman's corpse deeper in the woods. In her arms rested a dead child. He turned away.

"The attack came from across the stream," Nate continued. His hand shook as he pointed to the number of male bodies piled near or in the stream. "They must have been caught by surprise. Too late to put up an adequate defense."

"I don't care in what order they were killed," Kostos said. "Who the hell killed them?"

"I don't know," Nate said. "None of the bodies are pierced by arrows or spears. But then again, the enemy might have collected their weapons after the attack-to conserve their arsenal and to leave no evidence behind. With the bodies so torn apart, it's impossible to tell which wounds are from weapons and which from the carrion feeders."

"So in other words, you have no damn clue:" Kostos shook his head and swung around. From a few steps away, he spoke into his radio.

Nate wiped his damp forehead and shivered. What the hell had happened here?

Finally, Kostos stepped forward, raising his voice. "New orders everyone. We're to collect a body for Dr. O'Brien to examine-one that's chewed up the least-and return it to the village. Any volunteers?"

No one answered, which earned a mean snicker from the sergeant. "Okay," Kostos said. "I didn't think so." He pointed to Private Camera. "Why don't you take our fragile little doctor back to camp? This is men's work:"

"Yes, sir." Camera waved Nate to the path, and together they continued down toward the village. Once out of earshot, Camera grumbled under her breath. "What an asshole. . :"

Nate nodded, but truthfully, he was only too glad to leave the massacre site. He couldn't care less what Sergeant Kostos might think. But he understood Camera's anger. Nate could only imagine the hassles the woman had to endure from the all-male force.

The remainder of the journey down the trail was made in silence. As they neared the shabano, voices could be heard. Nathan's pace quickened. It would be good to be among the living again. He hoped someone had thought to light a fire.

Circling around the shabano, Nathan approached Private Eddie Jones, who stood guard by the entrance. Beyond him, limned against the water, a pair of Rangers was posted by the river.

As he and Camera reached the roundhouse's door, Eddie Jones greeted them and blurted out the news. "Hey, you guys ain't gonna fuckin' believe what we fished out of the jungle:'

"What?" Camera asked.

Jones thrust a thumb toward the door. "Go see for yourselves:"

Camera waved her rifle's barrel for Nate to go first.

Within the shabano, a small congregation was clustered in the roundhouse's open central yard. Manny stood somewhat to the side with Tor-tor. He lifted an arm when he spotted Nate, but there was no greeting smile.

The voices from the others were raised in argument.

"He's my prisoner!" Captain Waxman boomed. He stood with three Rangers, who all had their weapons on their shoulders pointing at someone out of sight behind the group of civilians.

"At least remove the cuffs on his wrists," Kelly argued. "His ankles are still bound. He's just an old man."

"If you want cooperation," Kouwe added, "this is no way to go about it:"

"He'll answer our questions," Waxman said with clear menace.

Frank stepped in front of Waxman. "This is still my operation, Captain. And I won't tolerate abuse of this prisoner:"

By now, Nate had crossed the yard and joined them. Anna Fong glanced to him, her eyes scared.

Richard Zane stood slightly to the side, a satisfied smirk on his face. He nodded to Nathan. "We caught him lurking in the jungle. Manny's big cat helped hunt him down. You should have heard him screaming when the jaguar had him pinned against a tree:"

Zane stepped aside, and Nate saw who had been captured. The small Indian lay in the dirt, his ankles and wrists bound in strips of thick plastic zip lies. His shoulder-length white hair clearly marked him as an elder. He sat before the others, mumbling under his breath. His eyes flicked between the rifles pointed at him and Tor-tor pacing nearby.

Nate listened to his muttered words. Yanomamo. He moved closer. It was a shamanic prayer, a warding against evil. Nate realized the prisoner must be a shaman. Was he from this village? A survivor of the slaughter?

The Indian's eyes suddenly flicked to Nate, his nostrils flaring. "Death clings to you," he warned, in his native dialect. "You know. You saw."

Nate realized the man must smell the stench of the massacre on his clothes and skin. He knelt nearer and spoke in Yanomamo. "Haya. Grandfather. Who are you? Are you from this village?"

He shook his head with a deep scowl. "This village is marked by shawari. Evil spirits. I came here to deliver myself to the Ban-ali. But I was too late:"

Around Nate, the arguing had stopped as they watched the exchange. Kelly whispered behind him. "He's not spoken a word to anyone, not even Professor Kouwe:"

"Why do you seek the Blood Jaguars, the Ban-ali?"

"To save my own village. We did not heed their ways. We did not burn the body of the nabe, the white man marked as a slave of the Ban-ali. Now all our children sicken with evil magic:"

Nate suddenly understood. The white man marked by the Ban-ali had to be Gerald Clark. If so, that meant . . . "You're from Wauwai."

He nodded and spit into the dirt. "Curse that name. Curse the day we ever set foot in that nabe village:"

Nate realized this was the shaman who had tried to heal the sick mission children, then burned their village down in an attempt to protect the others. But by his own admission, the shaman must have failed. The contagion was still spreading through the Yanomamo children.

"Why come here? How did you get here?"

"I followed the nabe's tracks to his canoe. I saw how it was painted. I know he came from this village, and I know the trails here. I came to seek the Ban-ali. To give myself to them. To beg them to lift their curse:'

Nate leaned back. The shaman, in his guilt, had come to sacrifice himself.

"But I was too late. I find only one woman still alive:" He glanced toward the site of the massacre. "I give her water, and she tells me the tale of her village:'

Nate sat up straighter.

"What is he saying?" Captain Waxman asked.

Nate waved off his question. "What happened?"

"The white man was found by hunters three moons ago, sick and bony. They saw his markings. In terror, they imprisoned the man, fearing he would come to their village. They stripped him of all his belongings and tethered him in a cage, deep in the woods, intending to leave him for the Blood Jaguars to collect. The hunters fed and cared for him, fearing to harm what belonged to the Ban-ali. But the nabe continued to sicken. Then, a moon later, one of the hunter's sons grew ill:'

Nate nodded. The contagious disease had spread.

"The shaman here declared them cursed and demanded the death of the nabe. They would burn his body to appease the wrath of the Ban-ali. But that morning when the hunters reached the cage, he was gone. They thought the Ban-ali had claimed him and were relieved. Only later that day would they discover one of their canoes was missing. But by then it was too late:"

The Indian grew quiet. "Over the next days, the hunter's child died, and more in the village grew ill. Then a week ago, a woman returning from gathering bananas from the garden found a marking on the outer wall of the shabano. No one knew how it got there:" The Indian nodded to the southwest section of the roundhouse. "It is still there. The mark of the Ban-ali:"

Nate stopped the story and turned to the others. He quickly recounted what the Indian shaman had told him. Their eyes grew wide with the telling. Afterward, Captain Waxman sent Jorgensen to check that section of the outer wall.

As they waited for him to return, Nate convinced Captain Waxman to slice the wrist bindings off the prisoner. He agreed, since the man was clearly cooperating. The shaman now sat in the dirt with a canteen in hand, sipping from it gratefully.

Kelly knelt beside Nathan. "His story makes a certain sense from a medical standpoint. The tribe, when they kept Clark isolated in the jungle, almost succeeded in quarantining him. But as Clark's disease progressed, either the man became more contagious . . . or perhaps the hunter, whose son got sick, had somehow contaminated himself. Either way, the disease leaped here:"

"And the tribe panicked:"

Behind them, Jorgensen ducked back into the shabano, his face grim. "The old guy's right. There's a scrawled drawing on the wall. Just like the tattoo on Agent Clark's body." His nose curled in distaste. "But the damn thing smells like it was drawn with pig shit or something. Stinks something fierce."

Frank frowned and turned back to Nate. "See if you can find out what else the shaman knows:"

Nate nodded and turned back to the shaman. "After finding the symbol, what happened?"

The shaman scrunched up his face. "The tribe fled that same night . . . but . . . but something came for them:"

"What?"

The Indian frowned. "The woman who spoke to me was near to death. Her words began to wander. Something about the river coming to eat them. They lied, but it followed them up the little stream and caught them:"

"What? What caught them? The Ban-ali?"

The shaman gulped from the canteen. "No, that's not what the woman said."

"Then what?"

The shaman stared Nate in the eye to show he spoke truthfully. "The jungle. She said the jungle rose out of the river and attacked them:"

Nathan frowned.

The shaman shrugged. "I know no more. The cursed woman died, and her spirit went to join her tribe. The next day, this day, I hear you coming up the river. I go to see who you are:' He glanced over to Manny's jaguar. "But I am found. Death scent clings to me, like it does to you:"

Nathan sat back on his heels. He stared over at Manny. The biologist had Tor-tor on a leash, but the cat was clearly agitated, pacing around and around with his hackles raised. Spooked.

Kouwe finished translating for the others. "That's all he knows:"

Waxman waved for Jorgensen to slice the shaman's ankle restraints, too.

"What do you make of his story?" Kelly asked, still kneeling at his side.

"I don't know," he mumbled, picturing the spread of bodies up the trail. He had thought something had attacked from the stream's far side, but if the woman's story was true, the attack had come from the stream itself.

Kouwe joined them. "The story is consistent with the myths of the Ban-ali. They're said to be able to bend the very jungle to their will:"

"But what could come from the river and kill all those tribesmen?" Kelly asked.

Kouwe slowly shook his head. "I can't even imagine:"

A commotion near the shabano's door drew their attention. Staff Sergeant Kostos pushed inside, dragging a travois behind him. A dead body lay atop it. One of the massacred.

Behind them, the shaman let out a piercing cry.

Nate swung around.

The Indian, his eyes wide with terror, backed away. "Do not bring the cursed here! You will call the Ban-ali upon us!"

Jorgensen tried to restrain the man, but even at his age, the Indian was wiry with muscle. He slipped out of the Ranger's grip, fled to one of the dwellings, then, using a hammock as a ladder, scrambled to the encircling roof of the shabano.

One of the Rangers raised his rifle.

"Don't shoot!" Nathan called.

"Lower your weapon, Corporal," Waxman ordered.

The shaman paused atop the roof and turned to them. "The dead belong to the Ban-ali! They will come to collect what is theirs!" With these final words, the shaman dove off the roof and into the surrounding jungle.

"Go fetch him," Waxman ordered two of the Rangers.

"They'll never find him," Kouwe said. "As scared as he is, he'll vanish into these jungles:"

The professor's words proved prophetic. The Yanomamo shaman was never found. As afternoon closed toward evening, Kelly ensconced herself in a corner of the shabano and worked to discover what had killed the tribesman. Nate took Captain Waxman and Frank over to the tree with the carved directions left behind by Gerald Clark.

"He must have written this just before being captured," Frank said. "How awful. He was so close to reaching civilization, then was captured and imprisoned:" Frank shook his head. "For almost three months."

As they returned to the shabano, the rest of the team prepared to set up for the night: lighting fires, setting up guard shifts, preparing food. The plan tomorrow was to leave the river and to begin the overland journey, following Gerald Clark's trail.

With the sun setting and a meal of fish and rice being prepared, Kelly finally left her makeshift morgue. She settled to a camp chair with a long, tired sigh and stared into the flames as she gave her report. "As near as I can tell, he was poisoned by something. I found evidence of a convulsive death. Tongue chewed through, signs of contracted stricture of spine and limbs:"

"What poisoned him?" Frank asked.

"I'd need a tox lab to identify it. I couldn't even tell you how it was delivered. Maybe a poisoned spear, arrow, or dart. The body was too macerated by the carrion feeders to judge adequately."

Watching the sun set, Nate listened as the discussions continued. He remembered the words of the vanished shaman-they will come to collect what is theirs-and pondered the massacre up the nearby trail and the disease spreading here and through the States. As he did so, Nate could not escape the sinking sensation that time was running out for them all.

CHAPTER NINE

Night Attack

AUGUST 14, 12:1 B A.M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Kelly woke from a nightmare, bolting up from her hammock. She didn't remember the specifics of her dream, only a vague sense of corpses and a chase. She checked her watch. The glowing dial put the time after midnight.

All around the shabano, most of the others were asleep. A single Ranger stood by the fire; his partner was guarding the door. Kelly knew another pair patrolled outside the roundhouse. Otherwise, the rest were snuggled in their hammocks after the long, horrible day.

It was no surprise she had nightmares: the massacre, the ravaged body she had examined, the ongoing tension. All of it overshadowed by the everpresent fear for her family back in Virginia. Her subconscious had plenty of fodder to mull through during her REM sleep.

Yesterday's evening report from the States had not been any cheerier than the lunchtime update. Another twelve cases had been reported in the U.S., and another three deaths-two children and an elderly matron from Palm Beach. Meanwhile, across the Amazon basin, disease and death were spreading like fire through dry tinder. People were barricading themselves indoors or leaving cities. Bodies were being burned in the streets of Manaus.

Kelly's mother had reported that so far no cases had yet arisen among the research team at Instar. But it was too soon to say they were out of the woods. The newest data, gathered mostly from cases in the Amazon, where the disease had a longer track record, suggested that the incubation period could be as short as three days or as long as seven. It all depended on the initial health of the victim. Children with poorer nutrition or parasitic conditions became sick faster.

As to the cause of the disease, a bacterial pathogen had been firmly ruled out by the CDC, but various viral assays were still continuing. So far, the culprit had not yet been identified.

Still, even as grim as the report was, there was worse news. Her mother had looked pale as she had spoken over the satellite link. "We now know that the transmission of the disease can be strictly airborne. It does not require physical contact:" Kelly knew what this meant. With such ease of transmission, a pathogen like this was one of the hardest to quarantine. And with the mortality rates so high . . .

"There's only one hope," her mother had said at the end. "We need a cure:'

Kelly reached to her canteen beside her hammock and took a long slow drink. She sat for a moment and knew sleep would not come. Moving quietly, she climbed from her hammock.

The guard by the fire noticed her movement and turned toward her. Still in the clothes she had worn yesterday-a gray T-shirt and brown trousers-she simply slipped on her boots. She pointed toward the entrance, wanting to stretch her legs but not wishing to disturb the others sleeping.

The Ranger nodded.

Kelly walked quietly to the shabano's entrance. Ducking through, she found Private Camera standing guard.

"Just needed some fresh air," Kelly whispered.

The female Ranger nodded and pointed her weapon toward the river. "You're not the only one:"

Kelly saw a figure standing a few yards down the path by the river. From his silhouette, Kelly knew it was Nathan Rand. He was alone, except for two Rangers positioned a short distance upriver, easily spotted by their flashlights.

"Keep a safe distance from the water," Private Camera warned. "We didn't have enough motion sensors to secure the perimeter and the river:"

"I will:" Kelly remembered too well what had happened to Corporal DeMartini.

Walking down the path from the roundhouse, Kelly listened to the jungle hum of locust song, accompanied by the soft croaking of countless frogs. It was a peaceful sound. In the distance, fireflies danced in the branches and zipped in graceful arcs over the river.

The lone spectator heard Kelly's approach. Nathan turned. He had a cigarette hanging from his lips, its tip a red spark in the night.

"I didn't know you smoked," Kelly said, stepping next to him and staring at the river from atop the bank.

"I don't," he said with a grin, puffing out a long stream of smoke. "At least not much. I bummed it from Corporal Conger:" He thumbed in the direction of the pair on patrol. "Haven't touched one in four or five months, but . . . I don't know . . . I guess I needed an excuse to come out here. To be moving:"

"I know what you mean. I came out here for the proverbial fresh air." She held out her hand.

He passed his cigarette.

She took a deep drag and sighed out the smoke, releasing her tension. "Nothing like fresh air." She passed the cigarette back to him.

He took one last puff, then dropped it and stamped it out. "Those things'll kill you:"

They stood in silence as the river quietly flowed by. A pair of bats glided over the water, hunting fish, while somewhere in the distance, a bird cried out a long mournful note.

"She'll be okay," Nate finally said, almost a whisper.

Kelly glanced to him. "What?"

"Jessie, your daughter . . . she'll be okay."

Stunned for a moment, Kelly had no breath to reply.

"I'm sorry," Nate mumbled. "I'm intruding:"

She touched his elbow. "No, I'm grateful . . . really. I just didn't think my worry was so plain:"

"You may be a great physician, but you're a mother first:"

Kelly remained quiet for a bit, then spoke softly. "It's more than that. Jess is my only child. The only child I'll ever have:"

"What do you mean?"

Kelly couldn't say exactly why she was discussing this with Nate, only that it helped to voice her fears aloud. "When I gave birth to Jessie, there were complications . . . and an emergency surgery." She glanced to Nate, then away. "Afterward, I couldn't bear any more children:"

"I'm sorry."

She smiled tiredly. "It was a long time ago. I've come to terms with it. But now with Jessie threatened . . ."

Nate sighed and settled to a seat on a fallen log. "I understand all too well. Here you are in the jungle, worrying about someone you love deeply, but having to continue on, to be strong:'

Kelly sank beside him. "Like you, when your father was first lost."

Nate stared at the river and spoke dully. "And it's not just the worry and fear. It's guilt, too:"

She knew exactly what he meant. With Jessie at risk, what was she doing here, traipsing through the jungle? She should be searching for the first flight home.

Silence again fell between them, but it grew too painful.

Kelly asked a question that had been nagging her since she had first met Nate. "Why are you here then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You lost both your mother and your father to the Amazon. Why come back? Isn't it too painful?"

Nate rubbed his palms together, staring down between his toes, silent.

"I'm sorry. It's none of my business:"

"No," he said quickly, glancing to her, then away. "I . . . I was just regretting stamping out that cigarette. I could use it right now."

She smiled. "We can change the subject:"

"No, it's okay. You just caught me by surprise. But your question's hard to answer, and even harder to put into words." Nate leaned back. "When I lost my father, when I truly gave up on ever finding him, I did leave the jungle, vowing to never come back. But in the States, the pain followed me. I tried to drown it away in alcohol and numb it away with drugs, but nothing worked. Then a year ago, I found myself on a flight back here. I couldn't say why. I walked into the airport, bought a ticket at the Varig counter, and before I knew it, I was landing in Manaus."

Nathan paused. Kelly heard his breath beside her, heavy and deep, full of emotion. She tentatively placed a hand on his bare knee. Without speaking, he covered it with his own palm.

"Once back in the jungle, I found the pain less to bear, less allconsuming.

"I don't know. Though my parents died here, they also lived here. This was their true heartland:" Nate shook his head. "I'm not making any sense:"

"I think you are. Here is where you still feel the closest to them:"

She felt Nate stiffen beside her. He remained silent for the longest time.

"Nate?"

His voice was hoarse. "I couldn't put it into words before. But you're right. Here in the jungle, they're all around me. Their memories are strongest here. My mother teaching me how to grind manioc into flour . . . my father teaching me how to identify trees by their leaves alone . . :" He turned to her, his eyes bright. "This is my home:"

In his face, she saw the mix of joy and loss. She found herself leaning closer to him, drawn by the depth of his emotion. "Nate. . :"

A small explosion of water startled them both. Only a few yards from the bank, a narrow geyser shot three feet above the river's surface. Where it blew, something large hunched through the water and disappeared.

"What was that?" Kelly asked, tense, half on her feet, ready to bolt.

Nate put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her back down. "It's nothing to be afraid of. It's just a boto, a freshwater dolphin. They're abundant, but pretty shy. You'll mostly find them in remote areas like this, traveling in small packs:"

Proving his point, another pair of geysers blew, casting spray high into the air. Ready this time, and less panicked, Kelly spotted small dorsal fins arcing through the water, then diving back down. They were moving swiftly.

"They're fast," she said.

"Probably hunting:"

As they settled back to their log, a whole procession of dolphins sped by, arcing, spraying. Frantic clicks and whistles echoed out eerily. Soon it seemed the whole river was full of dolphins racing down the current.

Nate frowned and stood.

"What's wrong?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know:' A single dolphin shot through the shallows near their feet. It struck the mud bank, almost beaching itself, then, with a flip of its tail, fled to deeper waters. "Something's panicking them:"

Kelly got up and joined him. "What?"

Nate shook his head. "I've never seen them display this behavior before:" He glanced over to where the two patrolling Rangers stood guard. They also stared at the parade of dolphins. "I need more light:'

Nate hurried along the top of the bank toward the soldiers. Kelly followed, her blood beginning to race. The guards were positioned where a small stream emptied into the river.

"Corporal Conger, could I borrow your flashlight?" Nate asked.

"They're just dolphins," said the other soldier. It was Staff Sergeant Kostos. The swarthy man scowled at them. "We've seen lots of the damned things while patrolling at night. But, oh yeah, that was while you all were sleeping in your beds, all tucked away."

The younger Ranger was more cooperative. "Here, Dr. Rand," Corporal Conger said, passing his flashlight.

With a mumbled thanks, Nathan accepted the light. He moved down the bank, shining the light upriver. Dolphins continued to pass but not in as great a number. As Kelly looked on, Nate widened the cone of the light, splashing it down the river.

"Damn," Nate said.

Almost at the reach of his light, the river's surface seemed to be churning, like white-water rapids over sharp rocks, frothing and gurgling. Only these rapids were moving toward them, flowing down the current.

"What is that?" Kelly asked.

Another dolphin bumped into the shallows, bellying into the mud, but this one didn't quickly flip away. It rolled against the bank, squealing a high-pitched wail. Nate swung the light. Kelly gasped and took a couple steps back.

The tail end of the dolphin was gone. Its belly had been ripped open. Intestines trailed. The current rolled the pitiful creature back into the river.

Nathan swung his light back upstream. The churning white water was already much closer.

"What is it?" Corporal Conger asked, his Texas drawl thicker. "What's happening?"

From up the river, the piercing squeal of a pig woke the night. Nesting birds took wing. Monkeys, startled awake, barked in irritation.

"What's going on?" the Texan repeated.

"I need your night-vision goggles," Nate ordered.

Kelly stood behind his shoulder. "What is it?"

Nate grabbed the Ranger's glasses. "I've seen rivers churn like this a few times before-but never this much:"

"What's causing it?" Kelly asked.

Nate lifted the goggles. "Piranhas . . . in a feeding frenzy."

Through the night-vision lenses, the world both brightened and dissolved into a monochrome green. It took Nate a moment to focus on where the waters churned. He fingered the telescopic lenses to bring the image closer. Within the roiling waters, he spotted flashes of large fins-dolphins caught by the razor-toothed predators-and in brief flickers, the silvery flash of the deadly fish themselves as they fought over their meal.

"What's the threat?" Kostos said with thick disdain. "Let the dumb fucks chew up the dolphins. They ain't gonna get us on dry land:"

The sergeant was right, but Nate remembered the bodies of the massacred Indians . . . and their fear of the river. Was this the threat? Were the waters here so thick with piranhas that the Indians themselves feared to travel the rivers at night? Was that why they had fled on foot? And this behavior, attacking dolphins . . . it made no sense. Nate had never heard of such a slaughter.

Motion at the edge of his goggles drew his eye. He turned from the churning water, and spotted a carcass lying on the bank. It appeared to be a peccary, a wild pig. Was it the same one that had screamed a moment ago? Something smaller, several of them, hopped around the carcass, like huge bullfrogs, except these seemed to be tearing into the dead pig and dragging it toward the water.

"What the hell..." Nate mumbled.

"What?" Kelly asked. "What do you see?"

Nate clicked the telescopic lenses up a few notches, zeroing in. He watched more of the bullfroglike creatures leap out of the water and attack the carcass. Others joined it, flying high over the bank to disappear into the riverside foliage. As he watched, a large capybara burst from the jungle and ran along the muddy bank. It looked like a hundred-pound guinea pig racing beside the river. Then it suddenly fell as if tripping over its own feet. Its body began to convulse. From the waters, the creatures flopped and hopped, leaping at this new meal.

Nate suddenly knew what he was seeing. It was what the village Indians must have seen. He remembered the shaman's words. The jungle rose out of the river and attacked them. Down the bank, the capybara ceased writhing as death claimed it. Hadn't Kelly mentioned something about the corpse she had examined showing signs of a convulsive event?

He ripped off the goggles. The line of white water was now only thirty yards away. "We need to get everyone away from the river! Away from al waterways."

Sergeant Kostos scoffed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Corporal Conger retrieved his glasses. "Maybe we should listen to Dr.-"Something knocked the corporal's helmet askew, hitting with a wet plop. "Jesus Christ:"

Nathan shone his light down. Sitting in the mud was a strange creature, slightly stunned. It looked like a monstrous tadpole, but in the stage where its muscular hind legs had developed.

Before anyone could react, the creature leaped again, latching onto Conger's thigh with its jaws. Gasping, the corporal bludgeoned it away with the stock of his rifle and took a few shaky steps away. "Damn thing has teeth:"

Kostos slammed his boot heel atop the creature, squashing it and shooting entrails down the bank. "Not any longer it doesn't:"

As a group, they scurried away from the river. Conger fingered the pant leg of his fatigues, hopping along. A hole had been torn in the fabric, and when he lifted his hand, Nate spotted blood on the corporal's fingertips. "Practically tore a chunk out of me," Conger said with a nervous laugh.

In no time, they were back at the shabano's entrance.

"What's going on?" Private Camera asked.

Nate pointed back to the river. "Whatever got the Indians is coming our way. We need to clear out of here:"

"For now, maintain your post," Kostos ordered Camera. "Conger, yon get that leg looked at while I go report to Captain Waxman."

"My med pack is inside," Kelly said.

Conger leaned against a beam of bamboo. "Sarge, I'm not feeling so good:"

All eyes turned to the man.

"Everything's gone sort of blurry."

Kelly reached to help him. Nathan saw ropes of drool begin to flow from the corner of the man's lips. Then his head fell back, followed by his body, already convulsing.

Sergeant Kostos caught him. "Conger!"

"Get him inside!" Kelly snapped, ducking through the entrance.

The Ranger hauled the soldier toward the shabano's door, but was having difficulty as the man thrashed. Private Camera shouldered her rifle and bent to help. "Maintain your post, soldier!" Kostos barked, then turned to Nate. "Grab his goddamn legs!"

Nate dropped and hooked Conger's ankles under his arms. It was like holding the end of a downed power line as the man's body snapped and seized. "Go!"

As a team, they hauled the soldier through the narrow doorway.

Others came rushing up, awakened by the yelling.

"What happened?" Zane asked.

"Stand out of the way!" Kostos hollered, bowling the man over as he ran with the fallen soldier.

"Over here!" Kelly called. She already had her pack open and a syringe in hand. "Lay him down and hold him still:"

After lowering Conger to the dirt, Nate was elbowed aside. Two Rangers took his place, pinning the soldier's legs to the ground.

Kostos knelt on the corporal's shoulders, holding him in place. But the man's head continued to bang up and down as if he were trying to knock himself unconscious. Froth foamed from his lips, bloody from where he half chewed through his own lip. "Jesus Christ! Conger!"

Kelly sliced open the man's right sleeve with a razor blade, then quickly slid a needle into Conger's arm. She injected the syringe's contents and knelt back to watch their effect, holding his wrist clamped in her fingers. "C'mon . . . c'mon . . :'

Suddenly the man's contorted form relaxed.

"Thank God," Kostos sighed.

Kelly's reaction wasn't as relieved. "Damn it!" She pounced on his form, checking his neck for a pulse, then pushed the soldiers aside as she began CPR on his chest. "Someone start mouth-to-mouth:"

The Rangers were too stunned for a moment to move.

Nathan bumped Kostos aside, wiped the bloody froth from Conger's mouth, then began to breathe in sync with Kelly's labors. Nate's focus narrowed down to the rhythm of their work. He vaguely heard the concerned chatter of the others.

"Some damn frog thing or fish," Kostos explained. "It hopped out and bit Conger on the leg:"

"Poisoned!" Kelly huffed as she worked. "It must have been venomous:"

"I've never heard of such a creature," Kouwe said.

Nathan wanted to agree, but was too busy breathing for the dying soldier.

"There were thousands," Kostos continued, "chewing their way downstream toward here."

"What are we going to do?" Zane asked.

Captain Waxman's voice drowned everyone else out. "First of all, we're not going to panic. Corporal Graves and Private Jones . . . join Camera in securing the perimeter:"

"Wait!" Nate gasped between breaths.

Waxman turned on him. "What?"

Nate spoke in stilted breaths between attempts to resuscitate Conger. "We're too close to the stream. It runs right past the shabano:"

So.

"They'll come for us from the stream . . . like the Indians:" Nate was dizzy from hyperventilating. He breathed into Corporal Conger's mouth, then was up again. "We have to get away. Away from the waterways until daybreak. Nocturnal. . :" Down he went to breathe.

"What do you mean?"

Professor Kouwe answered. "The Indians were attacked at night. Now this assault. Nathan believes these creatures may be nocturnal. If we could avoid their path until sunrise, we should be safe:"

"But we have shelter and a secure area here. They're just fish or frogs or something."

Nate remembered the black-and-white view through the night-vision goggles: the creatures leaping from the river, bounding high into the trees. "We're not secure here!" he gasped out. He bent down again, but he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

"It's useless," Kelly said, pulling him up. "He's gone:" She faced the others. "I'm sorry. The poison spread too quickly. Without an antivenom . . ." She shook her head sadly.

Nate stared at the still form of the young Texan. "Damn it. . :" He stood up. "We have to get away. Far away from the waters. I don't know how far from the streams and rivers these creatures can travel, but the one I saw had gills. They probably can't stay out of the water for long:"

"What do you suggest?" Frank asked.

"We travel to higher ground. Avoid the river and the little stream. I think the Indians believed it was just the river they needed to fear, but the predators followed the stream and ambushed them:"

"You're speaking as if the creatures are intelligent."

"No, I can't imagine they are:" Nate remembered the way the dolphins were fleeing, while none of the larger river fish were bothered. He pictured the attack on the pig and the capybara. A theory slowly jelled. "Maybe they're simply focused on warm-blooded creatures. I don't know . . . maybe they can zone in on body heat or something, scouring both the water and the river's edges for prey."

Frank turned to Waxman. "I say we heed Dr. Rand."

"So do I," Kelly said, standing. She pointed to Corporal Conger. "If a single bite can do this, we can't take the risk:"

Waxman turned on Frank. "You may be the head of operations, but in matters of security, my word is law:"

Private Camera ducked her head through the roundhouse's doorway. "Something's happening out here. The river is frothing something fierce. One of the boats' pontoons just blew."

Beyond the walls of the shabano, the jungle awoke with monkey howls and screeching birds.

"We're running out of options," Nate said fiercely. "If they come up the stream and flank us, cutting us off from higher ground, many more will die like Conger . . . like the Indians:'

Nate found support in the most unlikely of places. "The doctor's right," Sergeant Kostos said. "I saw those buggers. Nothing'll stop them from attacking:" He waved an arm. "Definitely not this flimsy place. We're sitting ducks in here, sir."

After a pause, Waxman nodded. "Load up the gear."

"What about the motion sensors outside?" Kostos asked.

"Leave 'em. Right now, I don't want anyone out there:'

Kostos nodded and turned to obey.

In short order, everyone was shouldering packs. Two Rangers dug a shallow grave for Corporal Conger's body.

Camera stood crouched by the doorway. She wore night-vision goggles and stared out toward the river and jungle. "The commotion by the river's died down, but I hear rustling in the brush:"

Beyond the walls, the jungle had grown silent.

Nate crossed to the door and knelt on one knee beside Camera. He was already packed and ready, his stubby-nosed shotgun clutched in his right hand. "What do you see?"

Camera adjusted her goggles. "Nothing. But the jungle is too dense to see far:"

Nate leaned out the door. He heard a branch snap. Then a small forest deer, a spotted fawn, shot out of the jungle and dashed past where Nate and the Ranger crouched. Both gasped and ducked inside before realizing there was no danger.

"Christ;' Camera said with a choked laugh.

The deer paused near the edge of the roundhouse, ears pricked.

"Shoo!" the Ranger called, waving her M-16 threateningly.

Then something dropped out of the trees and landed on the fawn's back. The deer suddenly squealed in pain and terror.

"Get inside!" Nate ordered Camera.

As she rolled through the door, Nate covered her with his shotgun. Another creature pounced from the jungle's edge toward the deer. A third leaped from the underbrush. The fawn skittered a few steps, then fell on its side, legs kicking.

A single motion sensor blared from the direction of the side stream.

"They're here," Nathan mumbled.

By his side, Camera had torn off her night-vision goggles and clicked on her flashlight. The brightness spread down the jungle trail to the river. The jungle to either side remained dark, blocking the light. "I don't see-"

Something plopped into the trail, only a few yards away.

From this angle, the creature appeared to be all legs with a long finned tail dragging behind it. It took a small hop toward them. From under two globular black eyes, its mouth gaped open. Teeth glinted in the bright light, like some cross between a tadpole and a piranha.

"What the hell is it?" Camera whispered.

It leaped toward her voice.

Nate pulled the trigger of his shotgun. The spray of pellets shredded the creature, blowing it backward. That's what Nate appreciated about a shotgun in the jungle. It didn't require precision aim. Perfect for small threats-poisonous snakes, scorpions, spiders-and apparently against venomous amphibians, too.

"Get back," he said and swung the small door shut. It was no more than a woven flap of banana leaves, but it would temporarily block the creatures.

"Thai's the only way out," Camera said.

Nate stood and unhooked his machete with his left hand. "Not in a shabano:" He pointed the blade toward the far wall, the side opposite both river and stream. "You can make a doorway wherever you want:"

Frank and Captain Waxman joined him as he crossed to the central yard. Waxman was folding a field map.

"They're already out there," Nate said. He reached the far wall, raised his machete, and began hacking through the woven palm and banana leaves. "We have to leave now:"

Waxman nodded, then shouted and waved an arm in the air. "We're hauling out! Now!"

Nate cleared a ragged hole through the rear wall, kicking debris aside.

Waxman waved Corporal Okamoto to take the point. Nate saw an unusual weapon in the soldier's hands. "Flamethrower," Okamoto explained, hefting the weapon. "If necessary we'll burn a way through the bastards." He pressed the trigger and a steam of orange fire shot from the muzzle like the flickering tongue of a snake.

"Excellent:" Nate patted the corporal's shoulder. After so many days on the river, Nate had grown fond of his boat's motorman, although the Asian corporal's off-tune whistling still drove him crazy.

With a wink to Nathan, Okamoto ducked through the arch without hesitation. As he passed, Nate spotted the small fuel tank strapped to the corporal's back.

Another four Rangers followed: Warczak, Graves, Jones, and Kostos. All had outfitted their M-16s with grenade launchers. They spread to the right and left of their point man. New alarms blared as the Rangers tripped the perimeter's motion-sensor lasers.

"Now the civilians," Waxman ordered. "Stay close. Always keep a Ranger between you and the forest:"

Richard Zane and Anna Fong hurried through. Next Olin and Manny followed, trailed by Tor-tor. Last, Kelly, Frank, and Kouwe passed.

"C'mon," Kelly said to Nate.

He nodded, glancing back to the shabano. Waxman oversaw the last of the Rangers, who would guard their rear. Two soldiers were gathered over something in the middle of the yard.

"Let's move, ladies!" Waxman ordered.

The Rangers stood. One, a corporal named Samad Yamir, gave a thumbs-up sign to Waxman. The corporal seldom spoke, and when he did, his voice was thick with a Pakistani accent. There was only one other fact Nate knew about Yamir. He was the unit's demolitions expert.

Nate eyed the device left in the yard with suspicion.

Waxman found Nate staring. The captain pointed his rifle toward the opening. "Waiting for a personal invitation, Dr. Rand?"

Nate licked his lips and followed after Frank and Kelly.

Again he found Private Camera marching behind him. She was now outfitted with a flamethrower, too. She studied the dark forest with narrowed eyes. Beyond her, Waxman and Yamir were the last to leave the shabano.

"Stay close!" Waxman yelled. "Frag or fry anything that moves:'

Camera spoke at Nate's shoulder. "We're going to make for a knoll about five klicks ahead:"

"How do you know it's there?"

"Topographic map:" Her voice sounded unsure.

Nate glanced over his shoulder questioningly.

Carrera lowered her voice and nodded to the side. "The stream wasn't on the map:'

Kelly glanced over, looking sick, but she remained silent.

Nate sighed. He was not surprised at the inaccuracy of the map. The waterways through the deep jungle were unpredictable. While the boundaries of lakes and swamps varied according to the rainfall, the smaller rivers and streams were even more changeable. Most remained unnamed and uncharted. But at least the knoll was on the map.

"Keep moving!" Waxman ordered behind them.

As a group, the team fled into the jungle. Nate stared around him, his ears pricked for any suspicious rustle. In the distance, he heard the babble of the small stream. He imagined the Indian villagers racing up the nearby footpath, unaware of the danger lurking so close, oblivious of the death that lay ahead.

Nate tromped after Frank and Kelly. A flicker of flame lit up the jungle ahead as Corporal Okamoto led the way. Few words were shared as the group scaled up the gentle slope away from the river. All eyes watched the jungle around them.

After about twenty minutes of climbing, Waxman spoke to the soldier at his side. "Light the candle, Yamir."

Nate turned. Samad Yamir swung around and faced the way they had come. He shouldered his M-16 and loosened a handheld device.

"Radio transmitter," Camera explained.

Yamir raised the device and pressed a button, triggering a red light to blink rapidly.

Nate frowned. "What is-?"

A soft boom sounded. A section of forest blew upward in a ball of fire. Flames shot high into the night sky and mushroomed through the surrounding forest.

Stunned, Nate stumbled back. Shouts of surprise arose from the other civilians. Nate watched the sphere of flames die away, collapsing in on itself, but leaving a good section of the forest burning. Through the hellish red glow, a scorched hole in the forest was evident, every tree stripped of leaf and branch. At least an acre. There was no sign of the shabano. Even the motion-sensor alarms had gone silent, fried by the explosion.

Nate was too dumbstruck to speak-but his eyes, furious, met Waxman s gaze.

The captain waved them all on. "Keep moving:"

Camera urged Nate forward. "Fail-safe method. Burning everything behind us."

"What was that?" Kouwe asked.

"Napalm bomb," the corporal explained dourly. "New jungle munition:"

"Why weren't we told . . . at least warned?" Frank asked loudly, walking half backward.

Captain Waxman answered, marching and waving them on. "It was my call. My order. I wanted no arguments about it. Security is my priority."

"Which I appreciate, captain," Richard Zane called back from up ahead. "I, for one, commend your actions. Hopefully you've annihilated the venomous bunch:'

"That doesn't appear to be the case," Olin said with narrowed eyes. Their Russian teammate pointed to the stream, now visible due to the blaze. A section of the waterway on their side of the fires frothed with the leaping, racing bodies of thousands of small creatures. A roiling stampede climbed up the stream, like salmon spawning.

"Get moving!" Waxman yelled. "We need to reach higher ground!"

The pace of the party accelerated. They scrambled up the slope, less concerned with watching the forest than with speed. The creatures were flanking them off to the right.

Flashes of fire marked the point man ahead. "I've got water here!" Okamoto called.

The group converged toward him.

"Dear Lord," Kelly said.

Fifty yards ahead, another stream cut across their path. It was only ten yards wide, but was dark and still. Beyond it, the land continued to rise toward the knoll, their destination.

"Is this the same stream?" Frank asked.

One of the Rangers, Jorgensen, pushed out of the forest. He had his

night-vision glasses in his hand. "I've scouted down a ways. It's an offshoot of the other stream. This one feeds into the other:"

"Fuck," Waxman swore. "This place is a goddamn water maze:"

"We should cross while we still can," Kouwe said. "The creatures will surely come this way soon:"

Waxman stared at the slowly flowing water with clear trepidation. He moved beside Okamoto. "I need some light:"

The Ranger fired his flamethrower across the waters. It did little to reveal what lay in the murky depths.

"Sir, I'll go across first," Okamoto volunteered. "See if it can be crosses safely"

"Careful, son:"

"Always, sir:"

Taking a deep breath, Okamoto kissed a crucifix around his neck, then stepped into the water. He waded into it, his weapon held chest high. "Current's sluggish," he said softly, "but deep:" Halfway across, the waters had climbed to his waist.

"Hurry up," Frank mumbled. He had a fist clenched to his belly.

Okamoto climbed to the far side and out of the water. He turned with a grin. "It appears to be safe:"

"For now," Kouwe said. "We should hurry."

"Let's go!" Waxman ordered.

As a group, they splashed through the waters. Frank held Kelly's hand. Nate helped Anna Fong. "I'm not a good swimmer," Anna said to no one in particular.

The Rangers followed, guns held above their heads.

On the far side, the party climbed the steep slope. With wet boots and the mud still slick from the rains yesterday, trekking was treacherous. Their progress slowed. The tight group began to stretch apart.

Jorgensen appeared out of the gloom, night scope in hand. "Captain," he said, "I've checked the other stream. The waters seem to have calmed. I don't see any more of the creatures:"

"They're out there," Nate said. "They're just not in a frenzy any longer."

"Or maybe now that the fires have died down, they fled back to the main river channel;" Jorgensen offered hopefully.

Waxman frowned. "I don't think we should count-"

A sharp cry interrupted the captain. Off to the left, a body slid down the slick, muddy slope. It was a Ranger. Eddie Jones. His limbs flailed as he tried to break his fall. "Fuck!" he screamed in frustration. He tried to grasp a bush, but its roots ripped out of the thin soil. Then he hit a bump in the slope, and went cartwheeling, his weapon flying from his fingers, and landed in the stream.

A pair of Rangers-Warczak and Graves-ran to his aid.

He popped out, coughing water and choking. "Goddamn it!" He clambered to the stream's edge. "Fuck this jungle!" As he straightened his helmet, more colorful obscenities flowed. He climbed out of the stream.

"Smooth, Jones . . . very smooth," Warczak said, running his flashlight up and down the man's soaked form. "I'd give you a perfect ten in the jungle slalom:"

"Cram it up your ass," Jones said, bending to finger a rope of sticky algae from his pant leg. "Ugh:"

Corporal Graves was the first to spot it: something moving atop the other man's pack. "Jones. . ."

Still half crouched, the man glanced up. "What?"

The creature leaped, latching onto the soft flesh under Jones's jaw. He jerked. "What the hell!" He tore the creature from his neck, blood spurting. "Ahhhhh . . ."

The small stream suddenly frothed and burst forth with another dozen of the creatures. They leaped at the man, attacking his legs. Jones fell backward, his face twisted in agony. He hit the stream with a loud splash.

"Jones!" Warczak stepped nearer.

Another of the creatures leaped from the water and plopped in the wet mud at the corporal's feet, gill flaps vibrating. Warczak scrambled backward, as did Graves.

In the shallow stream, Jones writhed. It was as if he had been thrown in boiling water. His body jerked and spasmed.

"Get back!" Waxman yelled. "Everyone uphill!"

Warczak and Graves were already running. From the stream, more of the creatures leaped and bounded in pursuit.

The group tossed caution aside and scrambled up the slope, some half crawling on hands and knees. Kelly's legs suddenly went out from under her. Her muddy hand slipped out of her brother's grip. She began a deadly slide.

"Kelly!" Frank called out.

But Nate was a couple yards behind her. He caught her one-handed by the waist, falling on top of her, holding his shotgun in his other arm. Manny came to their aid, hauling both back to their feet. Tor-tor paced anxiously back and forth behind him.

The Brazilian waved the jaguar ahead. "Move your furry ass:"

By now, the three were the last of the group. Frank waited a few yards up.

Only Private Camera was still with them. She stood and sprayed a jet of fire behind them, her flamethrower roaring dully. "Let's pick up the pace;" she said tensely, backing up the slope, herding them upward.

"Thanks," Kelly said, her eyes swiveling to encompass the entire group.

Frank met them and took his sister in hand. "Don't do that again:"

"I'm not planning on it:"

Nate kept a watch behind them. He met Camera's gaze. He saw the fear in her eyes. This momentary distraction was all it took. One of the creatures sprang at the Ranger from the surrounding underbrush. It had slipped past her firewall.

Camera fell backward, fire spitting into the sky.

The creature had latched onto her belt, but squirmed for a meatier purchase.

Before anyone else could react, a sharp crack split the night. The creature was flung away, the two halves of its body sailing high. Both Camera and Nate turned to see Manny snapping his short bullwhip back into ready position.

"Are you just gonna sit there gawking?" Manny asked.

Camera scrambled up with Nate's help. The group sped up the hill. At last they reached the summit. Nate hoped putting the rise between them and the amphibious creatures would be enough.

He found the others gathered on top.

"We should keep moving," Nate said. "Keep as much land between us and them as possible:"

"That's a good theory," Kouwe said. "But putting it into practice is another thing altogether:" The shaman pointed down the knoll's far side.

Nathan stared. From this height, the stream below shone silver in the moonlight. Groaning, he realized it was the same stream they had been avoiding all along. Nate turned in a slow circle, recognizing their predicament. They had made a fatal error.

The small waterway they had crossed a few minutes ago was not a feeder draining into the larger stream, but actually a part of the same stream.

"We're on an island," Kelly said with dismay.

Nate stared upstream and saw that the flow of the waterway split and ran around both sides of the knoll. Once past the hill, it joined to become a single stream again. The party indeed stood on an island, in the middle of the deadly stream, water all around.

Nate felt sick. "We're trapped."

2:12 A.M. WEST WING OF THE INSTAR INSTITUTE LANGLEY VIRGINIA

Lauren O'Brien sat at the small table in the communal galley, hunched over a cup of coffee. At this late hour, she had the place to herself. All the other quarantined MEDEA members were either asleep in their makeshift bedrooms or working in the main labs.

Even Marshall had retired to their room with Jessie hours ago. He had an early morning conference call with the CDC, two Cabinet heads, and the director of the CIA. He had eloquently described the meeting as "a preemptive strike before the political shitstorm hits the fan:" Such were the ways of government. Rather than attacking the problem aggressively, everyone was still pointing fingers and running for cover. Marshall's goal tomorrow was to shake things up. A decisive plan of action was needed. So far, the fifteen outbreak zones were being managed fifteen different ways. It was chaos.

Sighing, Lauren stared at the reams of papers and printouts spread atop her table. Her team was still struggling with one simple question. What was causing the disease?

Testing and research were ongoing in labs across the country-from the CDC in Atlanta all the way to the Salk facility in San Diego. But the Instar Institute had become scientific ground zero for the disease.

Lauren pushed away a report from a Dr. Shelby on utilizing monkey kidney cells as a culture medium. He had failed. Negative response. Up to this point, the contagious agent continued to thwart all means of identification: aerobic and anaerobic cultures, fungal assays, electron microscopy, dot hybridization, polymerase chain reaction. As of today, no progress had been made. Each study ended with similar tags: negative response, zero growth, indeterminate analysis. All fancy ways of saying failure.

Her beeper, resting beside her now-cold cup of coffee, began to buzz and dance across the Formica countertop. She snatched it before it fell off the table.

"Who the heck is paging me at this hour?" she mumbled, glancing at the beeper's screen. The Caller ID feature listed the number as Large Scale Biological Labs. She didn't know the facility, but the area code placed it somewhere in northern California. The call was probably just some technician requesting their fax number or submission protocol. Still . . .

Lauren stood, pocketed her beeper, and headed over to the phone on the wall. As she picked up the receiver, she heard a door open behind her. Over her shoulder, she was surprised to see Jessie standing in her pajamas, rubbing at her eyes blearily.

"Grandma. . :"

Lauren replaced the receiver and crossed to the child. "Honey, what are you doing up? You should be in bed:"

"I couldn't find you:"

She knelt before the girl. "What's wrong? Did you have another scary dream?" The first few nights here, Jessie had awoken with nightmares, triggered by the quarantine and the strange environment. But the child had seemed to adjust rapidly, making friends with several of the other kids.

"My tummy hurts," she said, her eyes sheening with threatening tears.

"Oh, honey, that's what you get for eating ice cream so late:" Lauren reached out and pulled the girl into a hug. "Why don't I get you a glass of water, and we'll get you tucked back into-"

Lauren's voice died as she realized how warm the child was. She reached a palm to Jessie's forehead. "Oh, God," she mumbled under her breath.

The child was burning up.

2:31 A.M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Louis stood by his tent as Jacques strode up from the river. His lieutenant carried something wrapped in a sodden blanket under his arms. Whatever it was, it appeared no larger than a watermelon.

"Doctor;" the Maroon tribesman said stiffly.

"Jacques, what did you discover?" He had sent the man and two others to investigate the explosion that had occurred just after midnight. The noise had woken his own camp mere minutes after they had settled in for the night. Earlier, at sunset, Louis's had learned of the discovery of the Indian shabano and the fate of the villagers. Then hours later the explosion . . .

What was going on over there?

"Sir, the village has been incinerated . . . as has much of the surrounding forest. We could not get too close due to the remaining fires. Maybe by morning.

"And the other team?"

Jacques glanced to his toes. "Gone, sir. I dropped Malachim and Toady ashore to scout after them:"

Louis clenched a fist and cursed his overconfidence. After the successful abduction of one of their soldiers, he had grown complacent with his prey. But now this! One of his team's trackers must have been spotted. Now that the fox had been alerted to the hounds, Louis's mission was far more complicated. "Gather the other men. If the Rangers are running from us, we don't want them to get too far away."

"Yes, sir. But, Doctor, I'm not sure the others are fleeing from us:"

"What makes you think that?"

"As we paddled up to the fire zone, we saw a body float out from a side stream."

"A body?" Louis feared it was his mole, dispatched and sent downriver as a message.

Jacques unrolled the sodden blanket in his arms and dropped its content to the leafed floor of the jungle. It was a human head. "We found it floating near the remains."

Frowning, Louis knelt and examined the head, what little there was of it. The face had been all but chewed away, but from the shaved scalp, it was clearly one of the Rangers.

"The body was the same," Jacques said, "gnawed to the bone:"

Louis glanced up. "What happened to him?"

"Piranhas, I'd say, from the bite wounds:"

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty damn sure:" Jacques fingered the scarred half of his nose, reminding Louis that, as a boy, his lieutenant had had intimate experience with the voracious river predators.

"Did they feed on him after he was dead?"

Jacques shrugged. "If he wasn't, I pity the poor bastard."

Louis climbed to his feet. He stared out toward the river. "What the hell is happening out there?"

CHAPTER TEN

Escape

AUGUST 14, 3:12 A. M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Atop the island knoll, Nate stood with the other civilians, ringed by the Ranger team, which was now down to eight members. One for each of the civilians, Nate thought, like personal bodyguards.

"How about using another of your napalm bombs to clear a path through the buggers?" Frank asked, standing near Captain Waxman. "Roll it down the slope, then duck for cover."

"We'd all be dead. If the heat blast didn't fry us, then we'd be pinned down between a burning forest and the poisonous bastards:"

Frank sighed, staring out into the dark forests. "How about your grenades? We could lob them in series, creating a swath through them."

Waxman frowned. "It'd be risky to deploy them so close to us, and no guarantee that it would kill enough of the bastards among all these tree trunks. I say we hold the hill, try to last until daybreak:"

Frank crossed his arms, little pleased with this plan.

Around the knoll, occasional fiery blasts from the flamethrowers ignited the night as Corporal Okamoto and Private Camera maintained sentry posts on either slope. Though it had been half an hour since sighting one of them, the beasts were still out there. The surrounding forests had gone deathly quiet, no monkey calls, no birdsong. Even the insects seemed to have died down to a whispery buzz and whine. But beyond the reach of their flashlights, the leaves still rustled as unseen lurkers crept through the underbrush.

Night scopes focused on the surrounding waters revealed creatures still hopping into and out of the stream. Nathan's earlier assessment seemed to be accurate. The creatures, gill-breathers, needed to return to the waters occasionally to revive themselves.

Nearby, Manny knelt in the leaf-strewn dirt, working by flashlight. Kelly and Kouwe stood behind his shoulder. Earlier, Manny had risked his life to dash into the forest's fringe to collect one of the beasts stunned by a blast of flame. Though partially charbroiled, it was a decent specimen. The creature was about a foot long from the tip of its tail to its razor-toothed mouth. Large black eyes protruded, giving it a nearly 360-degree view of its surroundings. Strong articulated limbs ended in webbed and suckered toes almost as long as the body itself.

As the others watched, Manny was performing a rapid dissection. The Brazilian biologist worked deftly with a scalpel and forceps from Kelly's med kit.

"This thing is amazing," Manny finally mumbled.

Nate joined Kelly and Kouwe as the biologist explained.

"It's clearly some form of chimera. An amalgam of more than one species.

"How so?" Kelly asked.

Manny shifted aside and pointed with his thumb forceps. "Nathan was right. Though its skin is not scaled like a fish, it definitely has the breathing system of an aquatic species. Gills, no lungs. But its legs-notice the banding on the skin-are definitely amphibious. The striping pattern is very characteristic of Phobobates trivittatus, the striped poison-dart frog, the largest and most toxic member of the frog family."

"So you're saying it's some mutated form of this species?" Nate asked.

"I thought so at first. It looks almost like a tadpole whose growth was arrested at the stage where gills were still present and only its hind legs had formed. But as I dissected further, I became less convinced. First, and most obvious, is that its size is way out of proportion. This thing must weigh close to five pounds. Monstrously gigantic for even the largest species of dart frog:'

Manny rolled the dissected creature over and pointed to its eyes and teeth. "Additionally, its skull structure is all misshapen. Rather than flattened horizontally like a frog's, the cranium is flattened vertically, more like a fish's. In fact, the skull conformation, jaw, and teeth are almost identical in size and shape to a common Amazonian river predatorSerrasalmus rhombeus:" Manny glanced up from his handiwork. "The black piranha:"

Kelly leaned away. "That's impossible:"

"If this thing weren't right in front of me, I'd agree:" Manny sat back. "I've worked with Amazonian species all my life, and I've seen nothing like it. A true chimera. A single creature that shares the biological features of both frog and fish:"

Nate eyed the creature. "How could that be?"

Manny shook his head. "I don't know. But how does a man regenerate a limb? I think the presence of such a chimera suggests we're on the right trail. Something is out there, something your father's expedition discovered, something with a distinct mutating ability."

Nate stared at the dissected ruins. What the hell was out there?

A call arose from Private Camera. Her sentry post faced the northern slope of the knoll. "They're on the move again!"

Nate straightened. The rustling from her side of the forest had grown louder. It sounded as if the entire jungle were stirring.

Camera flamed the lower slope. Her fiery jets pushed back the darkness. Reflected in the fire were hundreds of tiny eyes, covering both the forest floor and the trees. One of the creatures sprang from its perch on the limb of a palm tree and bounded into the fire zone. There was a short chatter of automatic rifle fire, and the creature was shredded to a bloody mush.

"Everybody back!" Camera called. "They're coming!"

From the trees and underbrush, small bodies started to leap and bound toward them, oblivious to the fire and bullets. The creatures were determined to overrun them with their sheer numbers.

Nate flashed back on the Indian massacre site. It was happening all over again. He swung his shotgun from his shoulder, aimed, and blasted a creature in midair as it leaped from a branch over Carrera's head. Gobbets of flesh rained down.

As a group, they were forced to vacate the knoll's summit and retreat

down the southern face. Gunfire and flames lit the night. Flashlights danced, making every shadow shift and jerk.

Leading the charge down the southern slope, Corporal Okamoto swathed jets of fire before them. "It still looks clear this way!" he called out.

Nate risked a peek his way. Distantly through the forest, he could make out the other fork of the stream below as it swept around the southern flank of the hill.

"Why aren't any of the creatures on this side of the hill?" Anna asked, her face flushed.

Zane answered, his eyes wide as he kept glancing behind him. "They probably rallied all their numbers on the far side for this final assault:"

Nate stared toward the stream below. It was wide, smooth, and quiet, but he knew better. He remembered the large capybara rodent flushed from the forest and racing along the river, where it was set upon by the predators. "They're herding us," he mumbled.

"What?" Kelly asked.

"They want us close to the water. The pack is driving us to the river:"

Manny heard him. "I think Nate's right. Despite their ability to move on land for short distances, they're basically aquatic. They'd want their meal as close to water as possible before taking it down:"

Kelly looked behind her to the line of Rangers flaming and firing along their back trail. "What choice do we have?"

Down the slope, Okamoto slowed as they neared the river, clearly suspicious of the water, too. The corporal turned to Captain Waxman behind him. "Sir, I'll try to cross first. Like last time."

Waxman nodded. "Careful, corporal:"

Okamoto headed for the stream.

"No!" Nate called. "I'm sure it's a trap:"

Okamoto glanced to him, then to his captain, who waved him forward again.

"We have to get off this island," Waxman said.

"Wait," Manny said, stepping forward, his voice pained. "I . . . I can send Tor-tor instead:"

The others were now all gathered around.

Waxman stared at the jaguar, then nodded. "Do it:"

Manny guided his jaguar toward the dark waters.

Nate's mind spun. It was suicide to enter those waters. He knew this as certainly as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow. But Waxman was right. They had to find a way across. He ran through various scenarios in his head.

A rope bridge over the stream. He quickly ruled that out. Even if they could somehow string a bridge up, the aquatic creatures were adept at leaping great heights. They'd all just be so much bait strung on a line.

Maybe grenades tossed in the water to stun them. But the stream was long. Any creatures killed by the concussion would be quickly replaced by those upstream. They would sweep down the sluggish current, attacking the team as they tried to rush across. No, what was needed was something that could strip this entire fork of the creatures-but what could do that?

Then it dawned on him. He had seen the answer demonstrated just a few days back.

By now, Manny and Tor-tor were only a couple of yards from the stream. Okamoto was with them, flames lighting the way.

"Wait!" Nate called. "I have an idea!"

Manny paused.

"What?" Waxman asked.

"According to Manny, these things are basically fish:" So.

Nate ignored the captain's glare and turned to Kouwe. "You have powdered ayaeya vine in your medicine kit, don't you?"

"Certainly, but what-?" Then the professor's eyes grew rounder with understanding. "Brilliant, Nate. I should've thought of that."

"What?" Waxman asked, growing frustrated.

Behind them, up the slope, the line of Rangers held the creatures momentarily at bay with rifles and fire. Down slope, Okamoto stood ready by the river.

Nate quickly explained. "Indians use crushed ayaeya vine to fish:" He remembered the small fishing scene he had witnessed as he canoed with Tama and Takaho to Sao Gabriel: a woman dusting the river with a black powder, while downstream the men gathered stunned fish with spears and nets. "The vine contains a potent rotenone, a toxin that literally chokes and suffocates the fish. The effect is almost instantaneous:'

"So what are you proposing?" Waxman asked.

"I'm familiar with the compound. I'll take the satchel upstream and poison the stream. As the toxin flows down this fork, it should stun any and all of the creatures in the river:"

Waxman's eyes narrowed. "This powder will do this?"

Kouwe answered, digging in his pack. "It should. As long as the creatures are true gill-breathers:" The professor glanced to Manny.

The biologist nodded, clear relief in his eyes. "I'm sure of it:"

Sighing, Waxman waved Okamoto and Manny away from the stream. As the captain turned back to Nate, an explosion sounded behind them.

Dirt, leaves, and branches blew high into the air. Someone had fired a grenade. "They're breaking through!" Sergeant Kostos yelled.

Waxman pointed to Nate. "Move!"

Nate turned.

Professor Kouwe pulled a large leather satchel from his pack and tossed it to Nate. "Be careful:"

Nate caught the bag of powder one-handed, swinging around with his shotgun in the other.

"Camera!" Waxman called and pointed to Nate. "Cover him:"

"Yes, sir:" The private backed down the slope with her flamethrower, leaving her post to Okamoto.

"When you first start to see fish float to the surface," Nate instructed the others, "haul ass across. Though the current here is slow, I'm not sure how long the effect will last before the toxin is swept away."

"I'll make sure we're ready," Kouwe said.

Nate glanced around the group. Kelly's eyes met his, a fist clutched to her throat. He offered her a small, confident smile, then turned away.

Together, he and Private Camera sprinted upstream, keeping a wary distance from the water.

Nate trailed behind the soldier as she strafed the way ahead with continual bursts from her flamethrower. They crashed through the smoking underbrush and raced ahead. Nate searched behind. The encampment of his fellow teammates had dwindled down to a green glow in the forest.

"The buggers must know something's up," Camera said, gasping with exertion. She pointed a free arm toward the stream. A couple splashes marked where creatures were beginning to hop out of the water in pursuit of the pair.

"Keep moving," Nate urged. "It's not much farther."

They rushed on, accompanied by tiny splashes and the sound of crashing bodies hitting the underbrush.

At last they reached the place where the main stream forked into the northern and southern branches, encircling the knoll. Here the channel was narrower, the current swifter, rumbling over rocks in a frothy white foam. More of the creatures leapt from the current, slick bodies glistening in the glow of the firelight.

Nate stopped as Camera laid down a protective spray of flame. Creatures sizzled in the muddy bank, some fleeing back into the river, skin smoking. "Now or never," Camera said.

Shouldering his shotgun, Nate slipped in front of her, the satchel of powder in hand. He quickly loosened the pouch's leather tie.

"Just lob the whole thing in," the Ranger recommended.

"No, I have to make sure it disperses evenly." Nate took another step nearer the river.

"Careful:" Camera followed, jetting bursts of flame around them to discourage the predators.

Nate reached the edge of the stream, standing now only a foot away.

Camera half knelt and strafed fire over the water's surface, ready to incinerate anything that dared pop out. "Do it!"

With a nod, Nate leaned over the stream, extending his arm, his fingers clutching the satchel. Attracted by the movement, something sprang from the water. Nate jerked his arm back in time to miss getting bitten. Instead, the creature latched its razored teeth into the cuff of his shirt sleeve, hanging there.

Nate whipped his arm back, fabric ripped, and the creature went flying far into the woods. "Damn it!" Not waiting, Nate quickly powdered the river with the crushed ayaeya vine, sprinkling it slowly, ensuring a good spread.

Behind him, Camera was busy protecting their rear. The beasts from the stream were now converging on them.

Nate shook the last of the powder from the satchel, then tossed it into the stream. As he watched the pouch drift downstream rapidly, he prayed his plan would work. "Done," he said, turning.

Camera glanced over to him. Past her shoulder, Nate spotted bodies leaping from branches in the deeper jungle. "We have a problem," the Ranger said.

"What?"

The Ranger lifted her flamethrower and shot a jet of fire toward the jungle. As he watched, the line of fire drizzled back to the weapon's muzzle, like a hose draining after the spigot had been turned off.

"Out of fuel," she said.

Frank O'Brien stood by his twin sister, guarding her. At times, he swore that he could read her mind. Like now. Kelly stared at the river, watching with Kouwe and Manny for any sign that Rand's plan might work. But he noticed how she kept peering into the jungle, her eyes drawn to the path the ethnobotanist and soldier had taken. He also saw the glint in her eyes.

An explosion momentarily drew his attention around. Another grenade. The rain of debris rattled through the canopy. Gunfire was now almost continuous, all around them. The line of Rangers was slowly being driven back to the cluster of civilians. Soon they would have no choice but to retreat toward the stream and closer to whatever skulked in its watery depths.

Nearby, Anna Fong stood with Zane, guarded by Olin Pasternak, who stood with a 9mm Beretta pistol in hand. It was a poor weapon against such small, fast-moving targets, but it was better than nothing.

A growl suddenly rumbled behind him, from Manny's jaguar.

"Look!" Kelly called out.

Frank turned. His sister stood with her flashlight pointed toward the stream. Then he saw it, too, lit by the reflection of her flashlight. Small glistening objects began to bob up from the water's depths, floating, drifting with the current.

"Nate did it!" Kelly said, a smile on her face.

At her side, Professor Kouwe stepped nearer the streambed. One of the piranha-frogs burst from the water toward him, but landed on its side in the mud. It flopped for a couple seconds, then lay still. Stunned. Kouwe glanced to Frank. "We must not lose this chance. We must cross now."

Frank turned and spotted Captain Waxman a short distance up the slope. He yelled to be heard above the gunfire. "Captain Waxman! Rand's plan is working!" Frank waved an arm. "We can cross! Now!"

Waxman acknowledged his words with a nod, then his voice boomed. "Bravo unit! Retreat toward the stream!"

Frank touched the brim of his lucky baseball cap and stepped to Kelly. "Let's go:"

Manny hurried past them. "Tor-tor and I'll still go first. It was my dissection upon which this plan was based." He didn't wait for a reply. He and his pet stepped to the stream's edge. He paused for half a breath, then waded into the stream. This fork was clearly deeper. Midstream, the water reached Manny's chest. Tor-tor had to swim.

But shortly the biologist was climbing out the far side. He turned. "Hurry! It's safe for the moment!"

"Move it!" Waxman ordered.

The civilians crossed together, strung along the current.

Frank went with Kelly, holding her hand. By now, hundreds of creatures bobbed in the water. They had to wade through the deadly forms, bumping them aside, avoiding sharp teeth that glistened from slack mouths. Horrified, Frank held his breath, praying for them to remain inert.

They reached the far side and scrambled, half panicked, out of the water. The Rangers followed next, rushing across in full gear, oblivious to what floated around them. As they clambered up to dry land, the first of the advancing creatures began to appear on the far side of the stream, hurtling out of the jungle. A couple piranha-frogs approached the stream but stopped at the water's edge, gill flaps trembling.

They must sense the danger, Frank thought. But they had no choice. On land they were suffocating. As if obeying some silent signal, the mass of mutated piranhas fled into the water.

"Back away!" Waxman ordered. "We can't count on the water still being tainted:"

The group fled from the stream into the jungle-covered heights. Flashlights remained fixed on the water and banks. But after several minutes, it was clear the pursuit was over. Either the waters were still toxic to the beasts or they had given up their chase.

Frank sighed. "It's over:"

Kelly remained quietly focused beside him, using her flashlight to scan the far bank of the stream. "Where's Private Camera?" she asked softly, then turned to Frank. "Where's Nate?"

Upriver, a blast sounded, echoing through the forest.

Kelly's eyes widened as she stared at Frank. "They're in trouble:"

Nate raised his shotgun and blasted another of the creatures that ventured too close. Camera had shrugged off her weapon's fuel canister and was bent over it. "How much longer?" Nate asked, eyes wide, trying to watch everything at once.

"Almost done:"

Nate glanced to the stream at his back. In the glow from Camera's flashlight, he saw that the poison in the water was working. Downstream, bodies floated to the surface, but the current was rapidly carrying them away. The narrow streambed behind them was empty of bodies and could not be trusted. The current, as swift as it was, had surely swept the powdered poison away from here and down the length of the stream. It was not safe. They needed to backtrack along the trailing toxin in the water and seek a secure place to cross, where the current was more sluggish, somewhere where the poison was still active-but between them and safety lay a small legion of the creatures, entrenched in the forest, blocking their way.

"Ready," Camera said, standing.

She hauled her handiwork from the jungle floor and tightened the canister's lid, leaving a primer cord draping from it. The tank contained only a bit of fuel, not enough to service the weapon, but enough for their purposes. At least he hoped.

Nate held his position with his shotgun. "Are you sure this will work?"

"It had better."

Her words were not exactly the vote of confidence Nate was seeking.

"Point out the target again;" she said, moving beside him.

He shifted his shotgun's muzzle and pointed at the gray-barked tree about thirty yards downstream.

"Okay." Camera lit the end of the primer cord with a butane lighter. "Get ready:" She swung her arm back and, using all the strength in her body, lobbed the canister underhanded.

Nate held his breath. It arced end-over-end-and landed at the foot o. the targeted tree.

"All those years of women's softball finally paid off," Camera mumbled, then to Nate: "Get down!"

Both dropped to the leafy floor. Nate fell, keeping his shotgun pointed ahead of him. And he was lucky he did. One of the creatures leaped from a bush, landing inches from his nose. Nate rolled and batted it away with the stock of his shotgun. He rolled back to his belly and glanced to the Ranger beside him. "Varsity baseball," he mumbled. "Senior year.

"Down!" Camera reached and smashed his head to the dirt.

The explosion was deafening, shrapnel ripped through the canopy overhead. Nate glanced over. Camera's trick had indeed worked. She had transformed the near-empty fuel tank into a large Molotov cocktail. Flames lit the night.

Camera got to her knees. "What about-?"

Now it was Nate's turn to tug her down.

The second explosion sounded like a lightning strike: splintering wood accompanied by a low boom. The nearby jungle was shredded apart, followed by a rain of flaming copal resin.

"Damn it!" Camera swore. Her sleeve was on fire. She patted it out in the loam.

Nate stood, relieved to see that the plan had worked. The tree, their target, was now just a blasted wreck, bluish flames dancing atop the stump. As Nate expected, the sap, rich in hydrocarbons, had acted as fuel, causing the makeshift Molotov cocktail to turn the tree into a natural bomb, and torch the entire riverbank as well.

"C'mon!" Nate called, bounding up with Camera.

Together, they ran along the flaming and shredded section of the forest, paralleling the stream until they overtook the poison trailing through the water. Bodies of the creatures and other fish filled the channel.

"This way!" Nate ran into the river, half swimming, half clawing his way across. Camera followed.

In no time, they were scrambling up the far bank.

"We did it!" the Ranger said with a laugh.

Nate sighed. Off in the distance, he spotted the shine of the others' flashlights. The team had made it across, too. "Let's go see if everyone else is okay."

They helped each other up and stumbled away from the stream, aiming for the other camp.

When they marched out of the forest, a cheer went up. "Way to go, Camera," Kostos said, a true smile on his lips.

Nate's greeting was no less earnest. As soon as he arrived, Kelly threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. "You made it," she mumbled in his ear. "You did it:"

"And not a minute too soon," Nate said with a nod.

Frank patted him on the back.

"Well done, Dr. Rand," Captain Waxman said stoically, and turned to organize his troops. No one wanted to remain this close to the stream, poisoned or not.

Kelly dropped her arms, but not before planting a soft kiss on his cheek. "Thanks . . . thanks for saving us. And thanks for returning safely"

She swung away, leaving Nate somewhat bewildered.

Camera nudged him with an elbow and rolled her eyes. "Looks like someone made a friend:"

10:02 A. M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Louis stood in the center of the blasted region near the river's edge. He could still smell the acrid tang of napalm in the air. Behind him, his team was offloading the canoes and loading up backpacks. From here, the journey would be on foot.

With the dawn, clouds had rolled in, and a steady drizzle fell from the sky, dousing the few fires that still smoldered. A smoky mist clung to the dead pocket of jungle, ghostly white and thick.

Off to the side, his mistress wandered around the site, a wounded expression on her face, as if the damage to the forest were a personal injury. She slowly circled a pole planted in the ground with a speared creature impaled on it. It was one of the strange beasts that had attacked the other group. Louis had never seen anything of its ilk before. And from Tshui's expression, neither had she. Tshui eyed the beast, cocking her head like a bird studying a worm.

Jacques stepped up behind Louis. "You have a radio call . . . on your coded frequency."

"Finally," he sighed.

Earlier, just before dawn, one of his two scouts had returned, badly frightened and wild-eyed. He had reported that his partner, a squat Colombian who went by the name of Toady, had been attacked by one of these beasts and died horribly. Malachim had barely made it back alive. Unfortunately, the man's report of the other team's whereabouts was thready at best. It seemed the Rangers' group, chased across a tributary stream, had fled these same beasts, and were now heading in a southwesterly direction. But toward where?

Louis had a way of finding out. He accepted the radio from Jacques. It was a direct link to a tiny scrambled transmitter held by a member of the opposing team, a little mole planted under the Rangers' noses at significant expense.

"Thank you, Jacques." Radio in hand, Louis stepped a few yards away. He had already had one previous call this morning, from his financiers, St. Savin Pharmaceuticals in France. It seemed some disease was spreading across the Amazon and the United States, something associated with the dead man's body. Stakes were now higher. Louis had argued to raise his own fee, on the grounds that his work was now more hazardous. St. Savin had accepted, as he knew they would. A cure to this disease would be worth billions to his employer. What were a few more francs tossed his way?

Louis lifted the radio. "Favre here:"

"Dr. Favre:" The relief was clear in the other's voice. "Thank God, I reached you."

"I've been awaiting your call:" A bit of menace entered Louis's tone. "I lost a good man last night because someone did not have the foresight to inform us of these venomous little toads:"

There was a long pause. "I . . . I'm sorry. In all the commotion, I could hardly sneak off and place a call. In fact, this is the first chance I've had to slip away to the latrine alone:'

"Fine. So tell me about this commotion last night."

"It was horrible:" His spy blathered in his ear for the next three minutes, giving Louis an overview of what happened. "If it wasn't for Rand's use of some powdered fish toxin, we would all have surely died:"

Louis's fingers gripped the radio tighter at the mention of Rand's

name. The family name alone bristled the small hairs on his neck. "And where are you all now?"

"We're still heading in a southwesterly direction, searching for Gerald Clark's next marker."

"Very good:"

"But - "

"What is it?"

"I. . . I want out:"

"Pardon, mon ami?"

"Last night I was almost killed. I was hoping that you could . . . I don't know . . . pick me up if I wandered off. I would be willing to pay for my safe delivery back to civilization:"

Louis closed his eyes. It seemed his mole was getting cold feet. He would have to warm the little mouse up. "Well, if you vacate your post, I will certainly find you:"

"Th.. . thank you. I would-"

He interrupted. "And I'd be sure, when I found you, that your death would be long, painful, and humiliating. If you're familiar with my dossier, I'm sure you know how creative I can be:"

There was silence on the other end. Louis could imagine his little spy blanching and quivering with fear.

"I understand:"

"Excellent. I'm glad we've settled this matter. Now on to more important matters. It seems our mutual benefactor in France has placed a request upon our services. Something, I'm afraid, you'll have to accomplish:"

"Wh . . . what?"

"For security purposes and to ensure their proprietary rights to what lies ahead, they wish to choke off the team's communication to the outside world, preferably as soon as possible without raising suspicion:"

"How am I supposed to do that? You know I was supplied the computer virus to degrade the team's satellite uplink, but the Rangers have their own communication equipment. I wouldn't be able to get near it:"

"No probleme. You get that virus planted and leave the Rangers to me:'

"But-"

"Have faith. You are never alone:"

The line was silent again. Louis smiled. His words had not reassured his agent.

"Update me again tonight," Louis said.

A pause. "I'll try."

"Don't try . . . do."

"Yes, Doctor." The line went dead.

Louis lowered the radio and strode to Jacques. "We should be under way. The other team has a good start on us:"

"Yes, sir:" Jacques retreated to gather and organize his men.

Louis noticed that Tshui still stood by the impaled creature. If he wasn't mistaken, there was a trace of fear in the woman's eyes. But Louis wasn't sure. How could he be? He had never seen such an emotion displayed by the Indian witch. He crossed to her and pulled her into his arms.

She trembled ever so slightly under his hand.

"Hush, ma cherie. There is nothing to fear:"

Tshui leaned against him, but her eyes flicked to the stake. She pulled tighter to him, a slight moan escaping her lips.

Louis frowned. Maybe he should heed his lover's unspoken warning. From here, they should proceed with more caution, more stealth. The other team had almost been destroyed by these aquatic predators, something never seen before. A clear sign they were probably on the right path. But what if there are more hidden dangers out there?

As he pondered this risk, he realized his team possessed a certain inherent advantage. Last night, it had taken all his opponents' cunning and ingenuity to survive the assault-a battle which inadvertently had opened a safer path for Louis's group to follow. So why not again? Why not let the other team flush out any other threats?

Louis mumbled, "Then we'll waltz in over their dead bodies and collect the prize:" Pleased once again, he leaned and kissed the top of Tshui's head. "Fear not, my love. We cannot lose:"

10:09 A. M.

HOSPITAL WARD OF THE INSTAR INSTITUTE

LANGLEY VIRGINIA

Lauren O'Brien sat beside the bed, a book forgotten in her lap. Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham, Jessie's favorite. Her grandchild was asleep, curled on her side. Her fever had broken with the rising of the sun. The cocktail of anti-inflammatories and antipyretics had done the job, slowly dropping the child's temperature from 102 back to 98.6. No one was sure if Jessie had contracted the jungle contagion-childhood fevers were common and plentiful-but no one was taking any chances.

The ward in which her granddaughter now slept was a closed system, sealed and vented against the spread of any potential germ. Lauren herself wore a one-piece disposable quarantine suit, outfitted with a selfbreathing mask. She had refused at first, fearing the garb would further alarm Jessie. But policy dictated that all hospital staff and visitors wear proper isolation gear.

When Lauren had first entered the room, all suited up, Jessie had indeed appeared frightened, but the clear faceplate of the mask and a few reassuring words calmed her. Lauren had remained bedside all morning as Jessie was examined, blood samples collected, and drugs administered. With the resilience of the young, she now slept soundly.

A slight whoosh announced a newcomer to the room. Lauren awkwardly turned in her suit. She saw a familiar face behind another mask. She placed the book on a table and stood. "Marshall:"

Her husband crossed to her and enveloped her in his plastic-clad arms. "I read her chart before coming in," he said, his voice sounding slightly tinny and distant. "Fever's down:"

"Yes, it broke a couple of hours ago:"

"Any word yet on the lab work?" Lauren heard the fear in his voice.

"No . . . it's too soon to tell if this is the plague:" Without knowing the causative agent, there was no quick test. Diagnosis was made on a trio of clinical signs: oral ulcerations, tiny submucosal hemorrhages, and a dramatic drop in total white blood cell counts. But these symptoms typically would not manifest until thirty-six hours after the initial fever. It would be a long wait. Unless . . .

Lauren tried to change the subject. "How did your conference call go with the CDC and the folks in the Cabinet?"

Marshall shook his head. "A waste of time. It'll be days until all the politicking settles and a true course of action can be administered. The only good news is that Blaine at the CDC supported my idea to close Florida's border. That surprised me:"

"It shouldn't," Lauren said. "I've been sending him case data all week. including what's happening in Brazil. The implications are pretty damn frightening."

"Well, you must have shaken him up:" He squeezed her hand. "Thanks:"

Lauren let out a long rattling sigh as she stared at the bed.

"Why don't you take a break? I can watch over Jessie for a while. You should try to catch a nap. You've been up all night:"

"I'll never be able to sleep:"

Marshall put his arm around her waist. "Then at least get some coffee and a little breakfast. We have the midday call with Kelly and Frank scheduled in a couple hours:"

Lauren leaned against him. "What are we going to tell Kelly?"

"The truth. Jessie has a fever, but it's nothing to panic about. We still don't know for sure if it's the disease or not:"

Lauren nodded. They remained silent for a bit, then Marshall guided her gently to the door. "Go:"

Lauren passed through the air-locked doors and crossed down the hall to the locker room, where she stripped out of the suit and changed into scrubs. As she left the locker room, she stopped by the nurses' station. "Did any of the labs come back yet?"

A small Asian nurse flipped a plastic case file to her. "These were faxed just a minute ago:"

Lauren flipped the file open and thumbed to the page of blood chemistries and hematology results. Her finger ran down the long list. The chemistries were all normal, as expected. But her nail stopped at the line for the total white blood cell count:

TWBC: 2130 (L) 6,000-15,000

It was low, significantly low, one of the trio of signs expected with the plague.

With her finger trembling, she ran down the report to the section that detailed the different white blood cell levels. There was one piece of news that the team's epidemiologist, Dr. Alvisio, had mentioned to her late last night, a possible pattern in the lab data that his computer model for the disease had noted: an unusual spike of a specific line of white blood cells, basophils, that occurred early in the disease as the total white blood cell levels were dropping. Though it was too soon to say for certain, it seemed to be consistent in all cases of the disease. It was perhaps a way to accelerate early detection.

Lauren read the last line.

Basophil count: 12 (H) 0-4

"Oh, God:" She lowered the chart to the nurses' station. Jessie's basophil levels were spiked above normal, well above normal.

Lauren closed her eyes.

"Are you okay, Dr. O'Brien?"

Lauren didn't hear the nurse. Her mind was too full of a horrifying realization: Jessie had the plague.

1 1:48 A.M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Kelly followed the line of the others, bone tired but determined to keep moving. They had been walking all night with frequent rest breaks. After the attack, they had marched for a solid two hours, then made a temporary camp at dawn while the Rangers contacted the field base in Wauwai. They had decided to push on until at least midday, when they would use the satellite link to contact the States. Afterward, the team would rest the remainder of the day, regroup, and decide how to proceed.

Kelly glanced at her watch. Noon approached. Thank God. Already she heard Waxman grumbling about choosing a site for the day's camp. "Well away from any waterways," she heard him warn.

All day long, the team had been wary of streams and pools, skirting them or crossing in a mad rush. But there were no further attacks.

Manny had offered a reason. "Perhaps the creatures were local to just that small territory. Maybe that's why the buggers were never seen before:"

"If so, good riddance," Frank had voiced sourly.

They had trudged onward, the morning drizzle drying slowly to a thick humid mist. The moisture weighed everything down: clothes, packs, boots. But no one complained about the march. All were glad to put distance between them and the horror of the previous night.

From up ahead, a Ranger scout called back. "A clearing!" It was Corporal Warczak. As the unit's tracker, his scouting served double duty. He was also watching for any physical evidence of Gerald Clark's passage. "The spot looks perfect for a campsite!"

Kelly sighed. "About time:"

"Check it out!" Waxman said. "Make sure there are no close streams:"

"Yes, sir! Kostos is already reconnoitering the area:"

Nate, just a couple steps ahead of her, called forward, "Be careful There could be-"

A pained shout rose from ahead.

Everyone froze, except Nate who rushed forward. "Damn it, doesn't anyone listen to what I tell them?" he muttered as he ran. He glanced back to Kelly and Kouwe and waved an arm. "We'll need your help! Both of you."

Kelly moved to follow. "What is it?" she asked Kouwe.

The Indian professor was already slinging his pack forward and working the straps loose. "Supay chacra, I'd imagine. The devil's garden. C'mon:"

Devil's garden? Kelly did not like the sound of that.

Captain Waxman ordered the bulk of his Rangers to remain with the other civilians. He and Frank joined in following Nate.

Kelly hurried forward and saw a pair of Rangers on the ground ahead They seemed to be fighting, one rolling in the dirt, the other striking him with the flat of his hand.

Nate ran toward them.

"Get these goddamn shits off me!" the Ranger on the ground yelled, rolling through the underbrush. It was Sergeant Kostos.

"I'm trying," Corporal Warczak replied, continuing to slap at the man.

Nate knocked the corporal aside. "Stop! You're only making them angrier." Then to the soldier on the ground, he ordered, "Sergeant Kostos, lie still!"

"They're stinging me all over!"

Kelly was now close enough to see that the man was covered with large black ants, each about an inch long. There had to be thousands of them.

"Quit moving and they'll leave you alone:"

Kostos glanced to Nate, eyes burning and angry, but he did as told. He stopped thrashing in the brush and lay panting.

Kelly noticed the blistered welts all over his arms and face. It looked as if he had been attacked with a burning cigarette butt.

"What happened?" Captain Waxman asked.

Nate held everyone away from Kostos. "Stand back:"

Kostos trembled where he lay. Kelly saw the tears of pain at the corners of the man's eyes. He must be in agony. But Nate's advice proved sound. As he lay, unmoving, the ants stopped biting and crawled from his arms and legs, disappearing into the leafy brush.

"Where are they going?" Kelly asked.

"Back home," Kouwe said. "They were the colony's soldiers:" He pointed past a few trees. A few yards ahead opened a jungle clearing, so empty and bare it looked as if someone had taken a broom and hedge clippers to the area. In the center stood a massive tree, its branches spread through the space, a solitary giant.

"It's an ant tree," the professor continued to explain. "The ant colony lives inside it:"

"Inside it?"

Kouwe nodded. "It's just one of the many ways rain forest plants have adapted to animals or insects. The tree has evolved with special hollow branches and tubules that serve the ants, even feeding the colony with a special sugary sap. The tree in turn is serviced by the ants. Not only does the colony's debris help fertilize the tree, but they're active in protecting it, too-from other insects, from birds and animals:" Kouwe nodded to the clearing. "The ants destroy anything that grows near the tree, trimming away stranglers or climbers from the branches themselves. It's why such spots in the jungle are called supay chacra, or a devil's garden:'

"What a strange relationship."

"Indeed. But the relationship is mutually beneficial to both species, tree and insect. In fact, one cannot live without the other:"

Kelly stared toward the clearing, amazed at how intertwined life was out here. A few days back, Nate had shown her an orchid whose flower was shaped like the reproductive parts of a certain species of wasp. "In order to lure the insect over to pollinate it:" Then there were others that traded sugary nectars to lure different pollinators. And such relationships weren't limited to insect and plant. The fruit of certain trees had to be consumed by a specific bird or animal and pass through its digestive tract before it could root and grow. So much strangeness, all life dependent and twined to its neighbors in a complex evolutionary web.

Nate knelt beside the sergeant, drawing back her attention. By now, the ants had vacated the soldier's body. "How many times have I warned you to watch what you lean against?"

"I didn't see them;" Kostos said, his voice pained and belligerent. "And I needed to take a leak:"

Kelly saw the man's zipper was indeed down.

Nate shook his head. "Against an ant tree?"

Kouwe explained as he rummaged through his pack. "Ants are tuned to chemical markers. The man's urine would have been taken as an assault on the colony living in the tree:"

Kelly broke out a syringe of antihistamine, while Kouwe removed a handful of leaves from his own pack and began to rub them together. She recognized the leaves and the scent of the oily compound. "Ku-run-yeh?" she asked.

The Indian smiled at her. "Very good:" It was the same medicinal plant that Kouwe had used to treat her blistered fingers when she had touched the fire liana vine. A potent analgesic.

The two doctors began to work on their patient. As Kelly injected a combination of an antihistamine and a steroidal anti-inflammatory, Kouwe smeared some of the ku-run-yeh extract on the soldier's arm, showing him how to apply it.

The sergeant's face reflected the immediate soothing relief. He sighed and took the handful of leaves. "I can do the rest myself," he said, his voice hard with embarrassment.

Corporal Warczak helped his sergeant stand.

"We should skirt around this area," Nate said. "We don't want to camp too near an ant tree. Our food might draw their scouts:"

Captain Waxman nodded. "Then let's get going. We've wasted enough time here:" His glance toward the limping sergeant was not sympathetic.

Over the next half hour, the group wound again under the forest canopy, accompanied by the hoots and calls of capuchin and wooly monkeys. Manny pointed out a tiny pigmy anteater nestled atop a branch. Frozen in place by fear, it looked more like a stuffed animal with its large eyes and silky coat. And of more menace, but appearing just as artificial due to its fluorescent-green scales, was a forest pit viper, wrapped and dangling from a palm frond.

At last, a shout arose from up ahead. It was Corporal Warczak. "I've found something!"

Kelly prayed it wasn't another ant tree.

"I believe it's a marker from Clark!"

The group converged toward the sound of his voice. Up a short hi' they found a large Brazil nut tree. Its bower shaded a great area littered with old nuts and leaves. Upon the trunk, a small strip of torn cloth hung. soaked and limp.

The others approached, but Corporal Warczak waved them all away. "I've found boot tracks," he said. "Don't trample them:"

"Boot tracks?" Kelly said in a hushed voice as the soldier slowly circled the tree, then stopped on the far side.

"I see a trail leading here!" he called back.

Captain Waxman and Frank crossed over to him.

Kelly frowned. "I thought Gerald Clark came out of the forest barefooted:"

"He did," Nate answered as they waited. "But the Yanomamo shaman we captured mentioned that the Indian villagers had stripped Clark of his possessions. They must have taken his boots:"

Kelly nodded.

Richard Zane pointed toward the tree. "Is there another message?"

They all waited for the okay to enter the area. Captain Waxman and Frank returned, leaving Corporal Warczak crouched by the trail.

The group was waved forward. "We'll camp here," Waxman declared.

Sounds of relief flowed, and the team approached the tree, decaying nuts crackling underfoot. Kelly was one of the first to the trunk. Again, deeply incised in the bark were clear markings.

"G. C.: Clark again," Nate said. He pointed in the direction of the arrow. "Due west. Just like the boot trail Warczak found. Dated May seventh."

Olin leaned against the tree. "May seventh? That means it took Clark ten days to reach the village from here? He must have been moving damn slowly."

"He probably didn't make a beeline like we did," Nate said. "He probably spent a lot of time searching for some sign of habitation or civilization, tracking back and forth."

"Plus he was getting sick by this time," Kelly added. "According to my mother's examination of his remains, the cancers would've been starting to spread through his body. He probably had to rest often:"

Anna Fong sighed sadly. "If only he could've reached civilization sooner . . . been able to communicate where he'd been all this time:"

Olin shoved away from the tree. "Speaking of communication, I should get the satellite uplink set up. We're due to conference in another half hour."

"I'll help you;" Zane said, heading off with him.

The rest of the group dispersed to string up hammocks, gather wood, and scrounge up some local fruits. Kelly busied herself with her own campsite, spreading her mosquito netting like a pro.

Frank worked beside her. "Kelly . . . ?" From her brother's tone, she could tell he was about to tread on cautious ground.

"What?"

"I think you should go back:"

She stopped tugging her netting and turned. "What do you mean?"

"I've been talking to Captain Waxman. When he reported the attack this morning to his superiors, they ordered him to trim nonessential personnel after a safe camp had been established. Last night was too close. They don't want to risk additional casualties. Plus the others are slowing the Rangers down:" Frank glanced over his shoulder. "To expedite our search, it's been decided to leave Anna and Zane here, along with Manny and Kouwe:"

"But-"

"Olin, Nate, and I will continue with the Rangers."

Kelly turned fully around. "I'm not nonessential, Frank. I'm the only physician here, and I can travel just as well as you:"

"Corporal Okamoto is a trained field medic:"

"That doesn't make him an M.D."

"Kelly. . ."

"Frank, don't do this:"

He wouldn't meet her eyes. "It's already been decided:"

Kelly circled to make him look at her. "You decided this. You're the leader of this operation:"

He finally looked up. "Okay, it was my decision." His shoulders sagged, and he swung away. "I don't want you at risk:"