Amazonia

Kelly fumed, trembling with frustration. But she knew the decision was indeed ultimately her brother's.

"We'll send out a GPS lock on our current position and leave two Rangers as guards. Then a team will evacuate you as soon as a Brazilian supply helicopter with the range to reach camp can be coordinated. In the meantime, the remaining party-the six Rangers and the three of us-will strike out from here:"

"When?"

"After a short rest break. We'll leave this afternoon. March until sundown. Now that we're on Clark's trail, a smaller party can travel faster."

Kelly closed her eyes, huffing out a sigh. The plan was sound. And with the contagion spreading here and in the States, time was essential. Besides, if something was found, a scientific research team could always be airlifted to the site to investigate. "I guess I have no choice:"

Frank remained silent, cinching his hammock for his short rest break.

A call broke the tension. Olin, busy establishing the satellite uplink, shouted, "We're ready here!"

Kelly followed Frank to the laptop, again protected under a rain tarp.

Olin hunched over the keyboard, tapping rapidly. "Damn it, I'm having trouble getting a solid feed:" He continued working. "All this dampness . . . ah, here we go!" He sat up. "Got it!"

The ex-KGB agent slid to the side. Kelly crouched with Frank. A face formed on the screen, jittering and pixellating out of focus.

"It's the best I can manage," Olin whispered from the side.

It was their father. Even through the interference, his hard face did not look pleased. "I heard about last night," he said as introduction. "It's good to see you're both safe:"

Frank nodded. "We're fine. Tired but okay."

"I read the report from the army, but tell me yourselves what happened:"

Together Frank and Kelly quickly related the attack by the strange creatures.

"A chimera?" her father said as they finished, eyes narrowed. "A mix of frog and fish?"

"That's what the biologist here believes," Kelly said pointedly, glancing to Frank, stressing that even Manny had proven useful to the expedition.

"Then that settles matters;" her father said, straightening and staring directly at Kelly. "An hour ago I was contacted by the head of Special Forces out of Fort Bragg and was informed of the revised plan:"

"What revised plan?" Zane asked behind them.

Frank waved away his question.

Their father continued, "Considering what's happening with this damn disease, I totally concur with General Korsen. A cure must be found, and time has become a critical factor:"

Kelly thought about protesting her expulsion, but bit her lip, knowing she would find no ally in her father. He had not wanted his little girl to come out here in the first place.

Frank leaned closer to the screen. "What's the condition in the States?"

Their father shook his head. "I'll let your mother answer that:" He slid aside.

She looked exhausted, her eyes shadowed with fatigue. "The number of cases. . :" Lauren coughed and cleared her throat. "The number of cases has trebled in the last twelve hours:"

Kelly cringed. So fast . . .

"Mostly in Florida, but we're now seeing cases in California, Georgia, Alabama, and Missouri:'

"What about in Langley?" Kelly asked. "At the Institute?"

A glance was shared between her parents.

"Kelly. . :" her father began. His tone sounded like Frank's from a moment ago, cautionary. "I don't want you to panic:'

Kelly sat up straighter, her heart already climbing into her throat. Don't panic? Did those words ever calm someone? "What is it?"

"Jessie's sick-"

The next few words were lost on Kelly. Her vision darkened at the corners. She had been dreading hearing those words since first learning of the contagion. Jessie's sick . . .

Her father must have noticed her falling back in her seat, pale and trembling. Frank put his arm around her, holding her.

"Kelly," her father said. "We don't know if it's the disease. It's just a fever, and she's already responding to medications. She was eating ice cream and chattering happily when we came to make this call:"

Her mother placed a hand on her father's shoulder, and they exchanged a look. "It's probably not the disease, is it, Lauren?"

Their mother smiled. "I'm sure it's not:"

Frank sighed. "Thank God. Is anyone else showing symptoms?"

"Not a one," her father assured them.

But Kelly's eyes were fixed on her mother. Her smile now looked sickly and wan. Her gaze slipped down.

Kelly closed her own eyes. Oh, God . . .

"We'll see you soon;" her father concluded.

Frank nudged her.

She nodded. "Soon..."

Zane again spoke behind her. "What did your father mean that he'd see you soon? What's this about revised plans? What's going on?"

Frank gave Kelly a final squeeze. "Jessie's fine," he whispered to her. "You'll see when you get home:" He then turned to answer Zane's question.

Kelly remained frozen before the laptop as the arguments began to rage behind her. In her mind's eye, she again saw her mother's smile fade, her eyes lower in shame. She knew her mother's moods better than anyone, possibly even better than her father did. Her mother had been lying. She had seen the knowledge hidden behind the reassuring words.

Jessie had the disease. Her mother believed it. Kelly knew this with certainty. And if her mother believed it . . .

Kelly could not stop the tears. Busily arguing about the change in plans, the others failed to notice her.

She covered her face with her hand. Oh, God . . . no . . .

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Aerial Assault

AUGUST, 14, 1:24 PM.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Nate could not sleep. As he lay in his hammock, he knew he should be resting for the next leg of the journey. In only another hour, his group was due to depart, but questions still persisted. He stared around the campsite. While half the camp napped, the other half were still quietly arguing about the split-up.

"We can just follow them," Zane said. "What are they going to do, shoot us?"

"We should mind their orders," Kouwe said calmly, but Nate knew the older professor was no more pleased with being abandoned than the Tellux rep.

Nate turned his back on them, but he understood their frustration. If he had been one of those left behind, they would've had to hog-tie him to stop him from continuing on his own.

From this new vantage, he spotted Kelly lying in her hammock. She was the only one who had not protested. Her concern for her daughter was clearly foremost in her mind. As he watched, Kelly rolled over and their gazes met. Her eyes were puffy from tears.

Nate gave up trying to nap and slid from his hammock. He crossed to her side and knelt. "Jessie will be fine," he said softly.

Kelly stared at him in silence, then spoke through her pain, her voice small. "She has the disease:'

Nate frowned. "Now that's just your fear talking. There's no proof that-"

"I saw it in my mother's eyes. She could never hide anything from me. She knows Jessie has the disease and is trying to spare me."

Nate didn't know what to say. He reached through the netting and rested a hand on her shoulder. He quietly comforted her, willing her strength, then spoke with his heart, softly but earnestly, "If what you say is true, I'll find a cure out there somewhere. I promise:"

This earned a tired smile. Her lips moved, but no words came out. Still, Nate read those lips easily. Thank you. A single tear rolled from her eyes before she covered her face and turned away.

Nate stood, leaving her to her grief. He noticed Frank and Captain Waxman conferring over a map splayed across the ground and headed toward them. With a glance back at Kelly, he silently repeated his promise. 1 will find a cure.

The map the two were surveying was a topographic study of the terrain. Captain Waxman drew a finger across the map. "Following due west of here, the land elevates as it approaches the Peruvian border. But it's a broken jumble of cliffs and valleys, a veritable maze. It'll be easy to get lost in there:"

"We'll have to watch closely for Gerald Clark's signposts," Frank said, then looked up to acknowledge Nate's presence. "You should get your pack ready. We're gonna head out shortly and take advantage of as much daylight as we can:"

Nate nodded. "I can be ready in five minutes:"

Frank stood. "Let's get moving then:"

Over the next half hour, the team was assembled. They decided to leave the Rangers' SATCOM radio equipment with the remaining party, who needed to coordinate the retrieval effort by the Brazilian army. The group heading out would continue to use the CIA's satellite array to maintain contact.

Nate hoisted his shotgun to one shoulder and shifted his backpack to a comfortable spot. The plan was to move swiftly, with few rest breaks, until sunset.

Waxman raised an arm and the group headed off into the forest, led by Corporal Warczak.

As they left, Nate looked behind him. He had already said good-bye to his friends, Kouwe and Manny. But behind the pair stood the two Rangers who would act as guards: Corporal Jorgensen and Private Camera. The woman lifted her weapon in farewell. Nate waved back.

Waxman had originally slated Corporal Graves to remain behind, to be evacuated out, on account of the death of his brother Rodney. But Graves had argued, "Sir, this mission cost my brother's life along with my fellow teammates. With your permission, I'd like to see it through to the end. For the honor of my brother . . . for all my brothers:"

Waxman had consented.

With no further words, the group set off through the jungle. The sun had finally broken through the clouds, creating a steam bath under the damp canopy. Within minutes, everyone's face shone with sweat.

Nate marched beside Frank O'Brien. Every few steps, the man slid off his baseball cap and wiped the trickling dampness from his brow. Nate wore a handkerchief as a headband, keeping the sweat from his own eyes. But he couldn't keep the black flies and gnats, attracted by the salt and odor, from plaguing him.

Despite the heat, humidity, and constant buzzing in their ears, they made good progress. Within a couple of hours, Nathan estimated they had covered over seven miles. Warczak was still finding bootprints in the bare soil as they headed west into the jungle. The prints were barely discernable, pooled with water from yesterday's rains.

Ahead of him marched Corporal Okamoto, whistling his damn tune again. Nate sighed. Didn't the jungle offer enough aggravations?

As they continued, Nate kept wary watch for any perils: snakes, fire liana, ant trees, anything that might slow them down. Each stream was crossed with caution. But no sign of the piranha-frogs appeared. Overhead, Nate saw a three-toed sloth amble along a branch high in the canopy, oblivious to the intrusion. He watched its passage, glancing over his shoulder as he walked under it. Sloths seemed slow and amiable, but when injured, they were known to gut those who came too close. Their climbing claws were dagger-sharp. But this great beast just continued its arboreal journey.

Turning back around, Nate caught the barest flicker of something reflecting from high in a tree, about half a mile back. He paused to study it.

"What is it?" Frank asked, noticing Nate had stopped.

The flickering reflection vanished. He shook his head. Probably just a wet leaf fluttering in the sunlight. "Nothing," he said and waved Frank on. But throughout the remainder of the afternoon, he kept glancing over his shoulder. He could not escape the feeling that they were being watched, spied upon from on high. The feeling grew worse as the day wore on.

Finally, he turned to Frank. "Something's bothering me. Something we neglected to address after the attack back at the village:"

"What?"

"Remember Kouwe's assessment that we were being tracked?"

"Yeah, but he wasn't a hundred percent sure. Just some picked fruit and bushes disturbed during the night. No footprints or anything concrete:"

Nate glanced over his shoulder. "Let's say the professor was correct. If so, who's tracking us? It couldn't have been the Indians at the village. They were dead before we even entered the jungle. So who was it?"

Frank noticed the direction of Nate's stare. "You think we're still being tracked. Did you see something?"

"No, not really . . . just an odd reflection in the trees a while back. It's probably nothing:"

Frank nodded. "All the same, I'll let Captain Waxman know. It wouldn't hurt to be on extra guard out here:" Frank dropped back to speak with the Rangers' leader, who was marching with Olin Pasternak.

Alone, Nate stared into the shadowy forest around him. He was suddenly less sure that leaving the others behind was such a wise move.

5:12 PM.

Manny ran a brush through Tor-tor's coat. Not that the bit of hygiene was necessary. The jaguar did a good enough job with his own bristled tongue. But it was a chore that both cat and human enjoyed. Tor-tor responded with a slow growl as Manny groomed the cat's belly. Manny wanted to growl himself, but not in contentment and pleasure.

He hated being left behind by the others.

Hearing a rustle at his side, Manny glanced up. It was the anthropologist, Anna Fong. "May I?" She pointed to the jaguar.

Manny lifted an eyebrow in mild surprise. He had noticed the woman eyeing the cat before, but he had thought it was with more fear than interest. "Sure:" He patted the spot next to him. She knelt, and he handed her the brush. "He especially likes his belly and ruff worked over."

Anna took the brush and bent over the sleek feline. She stretched her arm, cautiously wary as Tor-tor watched her. She slowly lowered the brush and drew it through his thick coat. "He's so beautiful. Back at home, in Hong Kong, I watched the cats stalk back and forth in their cages at the zoo. But to raise one of them yourself, how wonderful that must be:"

Manny liked the way she talked, soft with a certain stilted diction, oddly formal. "Wonderful, you say? He's been eating through my household budget, chewed through two sofas, and shredded I don't know how many throw rugs:"

She smiled. "Still . . . it must be worth it:"

Manny agreed, but he was reluctant to speak it aloud. It was somehow unmanly to express how much he loved the great big lug. "I'll have to release him soon:"

Though he tried to hide it, she must have heard the sorrow in his words. Anna glanced up to him, her eyes supportive. "I'm sure it's still worth it"

Manny grinned shyly. It sure was.

Anna continued to massage the cat with the brush. Manny watched her from the side. One fall of her silky hair was tucked behind an ear. Her nose crinkled ever so slightly as she concentrated on the cat's grooming.

"Everyone!" a voice called out, interrupting them.

They both turned.

Nearby, Corporal Jorgensen lowered the radio's receiver and shook his head. He turned and faced the camp. "Everyone. I've got good news and bad news:"

A universal grumbling met the soldier's attempt at joviality.

"The good news is that the Brazilian army has rousted up a helicopter to fly us out of here:"

"And the bad?" Manny asked.

Jorgensen frowned. "It won't be here for another two days. With the plague spreading through the region, the demand for aircraft is fierce. And for the moment, our evac is a low priority."

"Two days?" Manny spoke up, accepting the brush back from Anna. Irritation entered his voice. "Then we could've traveled with the others until then:"

"Captain Waxman had his orders," Jorgensen said with a shrug.

"What about the Comanche helicopter stationed at Wauwai?" Zane asked. He had been lounging in his hammock, quietly fuming.

Private Camera answered from where she was cleaning her weapon. "It's a two-Beater attack chopper. Besides, the Comanche's held in reserve to back up the other team as necessary."

Manny shook his head and furtively glanced at Kelly O'Brien. She sat in her hammock, eyes tired, dull, defeated. The waiting would be the worst for her. Two more days lost before she could join her sick daughter.

Kouwe spoke from near the large Brazil nut tree. He had been examining the crude markings knifed in the bark by Clark, and now had his head cocked questioningly. "Does anyone else smell smoke?"

Manny sniffed, but the air seemed clear.

Anna crimped her brow. "I smell something. . :'

Kouwe swung around the base of the large Brazil nut tree, nose half raised. Though long out of the forests, the professor's Indian senses were still keen. "There!" he called out from the far side.

The group followed after him. Camera quickly slapped her M-16 back together, hauling it up as she stood.

To the south of their camp, about a hundred feet into the forest, small flames flickered in the shadows, low to the ground. Through breaks in the canopy, a thin column of gray smoke drifted skyward.

"I'll investigate," Jorgensen said. "The rest hang back with Camera:"

"I'm going with you," Manny said. "If anyone's out there, Tor-tor will scent them:"

As answer, Jorgensen unstrapped the M-9 pistol from his belt and passed it to Manny. Together they cautiously passed into the deeper jungle. Manny signaled with his hand, and Tor-tor trotted ahead of them, taking the point.

Back behind them, Camera ordered everyone together. "Keep alert!"

Manny followed after his cat, walking abreast of Corporal Jorgensen. "The fire's burning on the ground," Manny whispered.

As they neared the spot, the corporal signaled for silence.

Both men's senses were stretched, watching for any shift of shadows, listening for the telltale snap of a twig, searching for any sign of a hidden threat. But with the twittering of birds and mating calls of monkeys, it was difficult work. Their steps slowed as they neared the smoldering glow.

Ahead Tom-tom edged closer, his natural feline curiosity piqued. But once within a few yards of the smoky fire, he suddenly crouched, growling. He stared at the flames and slowly backed away.

The men stopped. Jorgensen lifted a hand, a silent warning. The jaguar sensed something. He motioned for Manny to sink lower and take up a guard position. Once set, Jorgensen proceeded ahead. Manny held his breath as the corporal moved silently through the forest, stepping carefully, weapon ready.

Manny kept watch all around them, unblinking, ears straining. Tor-tor backed to his side, now silent, hackles raised, golden eyes aglow. Beside him, Manny heard the cat chuffing at the air. Manny remembered the cat's reaction to the caiman urine beside the river. He smells something . . . something that has him spooked.

With adrenaline doped in Manny's blood, his own senses were more acute. Alerted by the jaguar, Manny now recognized an odd scent to the smoke: metallic, bitter, acrid. It was not plain wood smoke.

Straightening, Manny wanted to warn Jorgensen, but the soldier had already reached the site. As the soldier eyed the burning patch, Manny saw the man's shoulders jerk with surprise. He slowly circled the smoldering fire, rifle pointed outward. Nothing came out of the forest to threaten. Jorgenson maintained his watch for a full two minutes, then waved Manny over.

Letting out his held breath, Manny approached. Tor-tor hung back, still refusing to approach the fire.

"Whoever set this must have run off," Jorgensen said. He pointed at the fire. "Meant to scare us:"

Manny moved close enough to see the spread of flames on the forest floor. It was not wood that burned, but some thick oily paste painted atop a cleared section of dirt. It cast a fierce brightness but little heat. The smoke rising from it was redolent and cloying, like some musky incense.

But it was not the smoke nor the strange fuel of this fire that sent icy chills along Manny's limbs-it was the pattern.

Painted and burning on the jungle floor was a familiar serpentine coiled symbol-the mark of the Ban-ali, burning bright under the canopy's gloom.

Jorgensen used the tip of his boot to nudge the oily substance. "Some combustible paste:' He then used his other foot to kick dirt over the spot, smothering the flames. He worked along the burning lines, and with Manny's help, they doused the fire. Once they were done, Manny stared up, following the smoke into the late afternoon sky.

"We should get back to camp:"

Manny nodded. They retreated back to the bower under the large Brazil nut tree. Jorgensen reported what they discovered. "I'll radio the field base. Let them know what we found:" He crossed to the bulky radio pack and picked up the receiver. After a few moments, the soldier swore and slammed the receiver down.

"What is it?" Manny asked.

"We've missed SATCOM's satellite window by five minutes:'

"What does that mean?" Anna asked.

Jorgensen waved an arm at the radio unit, then at the sky overhead. "The military's satellite transponders are out of range:"

"Until when?"

"Till four o'clock tomorrow morning:'

"What about reaching the other team?" Manny asked. "Using your personal radios?"

"I already tried that, too. The Sabers only have a range of six miles. Captain Waxman's team is beyond our reach:"

"So we're cut off?" Anna asked.

Jorgensen shook his head. "Just until morning."

"And what then?" Zane paced nervously, eyes on the forest. "We can't stay here for two more days waiting for that damned helicopter."

"I agree," Kouwe said, frowning deeply. "The village Indians found the same mark on their shabano the very night they were assaulted by the piranha creatures:"

Private Camera turned to him. "What are you suggesting?"

Kouwe frowned. "I'm not sure yet:" The professor's eyes were fixed on the smoggy smudge in the sky. The forest still reeked of the bitter fumes. "But we've been marked:"

5:33 PM.

Frank was never happier to see the sun sink toward the horizon. They should be stopping soon. Every muscle ached from so many hours of hiking and so little sleep. He stumbled in step with the Ranger ahead of him, Nate marching behind.

Someone yelled a short distance away. "Whoa! Check this out!"

The straggling team members increased their pace. Frank climbed a short rise and saw what had triggered the startled response. A quarter mile ahead, the jungle was flooded by a small lake. Its surface was a sheet of silver from the setting sun to the west. It blocked their path, spreading for miles in both directions.

"It's an igapo," Nate said. "A swamp forest:"

"It's not on my map," Captain Waxman said.

Nate shrugged. "Such sections dot the Amazon basin. Some come and go according to the rainfall levels. But for this region still to be so wet at the end of the dry season suggests it's been here a while:" Nate pointed ahead. "Notice how the jungle breaks down here, drowned away by years of continual swamping:"

Frank indeed noticed how the dense canopy ended ahead. What remained of the jungle here were just occasional massive trees growing straight out of the water and thousands of islands and hummocks. Otherwise, above the swamp, the blue sky was open and wide. The brightness after so long in the green gloom was sharp and biting.

The group cautiously hiked down the long, low slope that headed toward the swamp. The air seemed to grow more fecund and thick. Around the swamp, spiky bromeliads and massive orchids adorned their view. Frogs and toads set up a chorus, while the chattering of birds attempted to drown out their amphibious neighbors. Near the water's edges, spindly-limbed wading birds, herons and egrets, hunted fish. A handful of ducks took wing at their noisy approach.

Once within fifty feet of the water's edge, Captain Waxman called a halt. "We'll search the bank for any sign of a marker, but first we should make sure the water is safe to be near. I don't want any surprises:"

Nate moved forward. "We may be okay. According to Manny, those predatory creatures were part piranha. Those fish don't like standing water like this. They prefer flowing streams:"

Captain Waxman glanced to him. "And the last time I checked, piranhas didn't chase their prey onto dry land either."

Frank saw Nate blush slightly and nod.

Waxman sent Corporal Yamir forward toward the swamp's edge. "Let's see if anything stirs up:"

The Pakistani soldier raised his M-16 and shot a grenade from its attached launcher toward the shallows off to the side. The explosion geysered water high into the air, startling birds and monkeys from their perches. Water and bits of lily pads rained down upon the forest.

The party waited for ten minutes, but nothing responded. No venomous predators fled the assault or attacked from the water's edge.

Captain Waxman waved his men forward to begin the search for another tree marker. "Be careful. Stay away from the water's edge and keep your eyes open!"

They didn't have long to wait. Again Corporal Warczak, the team's tracker, raised his voice. "Found it!" He stood only ten yards to the right, not far from the sludgy water.

Upon the bole of a palm that leaned over the water was the now familiar strip of polyester cloth, nailed to the tree with a thorn. The markings were almost identical to the last one. The initials and an arrow pointing due west again, right toward the swamp. Only the date was different. "May fifth," Olin read aloud. "Two days from the last marker:"

Warczak stood a few paces away. "It looks like Clark came from this way."

"But the arrow points across the water," Frank said. He tipped the bill of his baseball cap to shadow his eyes and stared over the water. Distantly, beyond the swamp, he could see the highlands that Captain Waxman had shown him on the topographic map: a series of red cliff faces, broken with jungle-choked chasms and separated into tall forest-crowned mesas.

At his side, Corporal Okamoto passed him a set of binoculars. "Try these."

"Thanks:" Frank fitted the scopes in place. Nate was also offered a pair. Through the lenses, the cliffs and mesas grew clearer. Small waterfalls tumbled from the towering heights into the swampy region below, while thick mists clung to the lower faces, obscuring the forested chasms that stretched from the swamp and up into the highlands.

"Those small streams and falls must feed the swamp," Nate said. "Keeping the area wet year round:"

Frank lowered his glasses and found Captain Waxman studying a compass.

Nate pointed to the tree. "I wager that this marker points to Clark's next signpost. He must have had to circle around the swamp:" Nate stared at the huge boggy spread of the water. "It would've taken him weeks to skirt the water."

Frank heard the despair in Dr. Rand's voice. To hike around the swamp would take them just as long.

Captain Waxman lifted his eyes from the compass and squinted across the swamp. "If the marker lies straight across, that's where we'll go:" He pointed an arm. "It'll only take us a day to raft across here, rather than losing a week hiking:"

"But we have no rubber raiders," Frank said.

Waxman glanced to him condescendingly. "We're Army Rangers, not Boy Scouts:" He waved to the forest. "There are plenty of downed logs, acres of bamboo, and with the rope we have with us and the vines around us, we should be able to lash together a couple of rafts. It's what we're trained to do-improvise with the resources available:" He glanced to the distant shore. "It can't be more than a couple miles to cross here:"

Nate nodded. "Good. We can shave days off the search:"

"Then let's get to work! I want to be finished by nightfall, so we're rested and ready in the morning to cross:" Waxman assembled various teams: to roll and manhandle logs to the swamp's edge, to go out with axes and hack lengths of bamboo, and to strip vines for lashing material.

Frank assisted where needed and was surprised how quickly the building material accumulated on the muddy shore. They soon had enough for a flotilla of rafts. The assembling took even less time. Two matching logs were aligned parallel and topped with a solid layer of bamboo. Ropes and vines secured it all together. The first raft was shoved through the slick mud and into the water, bobbing in the shallows.

A cheer rose from the Rangers. Nate grinned approvingly as he sculpted paddles from bamboo and dried palm fronds.

A second raft was soon finished. The entire process took less than two hours.

Frank watched the second raft drift beside its mate. By now, the sun was setting. The western sky was aglow with a mix of reds, oranges, and splashes of deep indigo.

Around him, the camp was being set up. A fire lit, hammocks strung, food being prepared. Frank turned to join them when he spotted a dark streak against the bright sunset. He pinched his eyebrows, squinting.

Corporal Okamoto was passing Frank with an armful of tinder. "Can I borrow your binoculars?" Frank asked.

"Sure. Grab 'em from my field jacket." The soldier shifted his burden.

Frank thanked him and took the glasses. Once Okamoto had continued past, Frank raised the binoculars to his eyes. It took him a moment to find the dark streak rising in the sky. Smoke? It rose from the distant highlands. A sign of habitation? He followed the curling black line.

"What do you see?" Nate said.

"I'm not sure:" Frank pointed to the sky. "I think it's smoke. Maybe from another camp or village:"

Nate frowned and took the glasses. "Whatever it is," he said after a moment, "it's drifting this way."

Frank stared. Even without the binoculars, he could see that Nate was correct. The column of smoke was arching toward them. Frank lifted a hand. "That makes no sense. The wind is blowing in the opposite direction."

"I know," Nate said. "It's not smoke. Something is flying this way."

"I'd better alert the captain:"

Soon everyone was outfitted with binoculars, staring upward. The ribbon of darkness had become a dense black cloud, sweeping directly toward them.

"What are they?" Okamoto mumbled. "Birds? Bats?"

"I don't think so," Nate said. The smoky darkness still appeared to be more cloud than substance, its edges billowing, ebbing, flowing as it raced toward them.

"What the hell are they?" someone mumbled.

In a matter of moments, the dark cloud swept over the campsite, just above tree level, blocking the last of the sunlight. The team was immediately flooded by a high-pitched droning. After so many days in the jungle, it was a familiar sound-but amplified. The tiny hairs on Frank's body vibrated to the subsonic whine.

"Locusts," Nate said, craning upward. "Millions of them:"

As the cloud passed overhead, the lower edges of the swarm rattled the leafy foliage. The team ducked warily from the creatures, but the locusts passed them without pausing, sweeping east.

Frank lowered his binoculars as the tail end of the cloud droned over them. "What are they doing? Migrating or something?"

Nate shook his head. "No. This behavior makes no sense:'

"But they're gone now," Captain Waxman said, ready to dismiss the aerial show.

Nate nodded, but he glanced to the east, one eye narrowed. "Yes, but where are they going?"

Frank caught Nate's glance. Something did lie to the east: the other half of their party. Frank swallowed back his sudden fear. Kelly . . .

7:28 PM.

As the day darkened into twilight, Kelly heard a strange noise, a sharp whirring or whine. She walked around the Brazil nut tree. Squinting her eyes, she tried to focus on its source.

"You hear it, too?" Kouwe asked, meeting her on the far side of the trunk.

Nearby, the two Rangers stood with weapons raised. Others stood by the camp's large bonfire, feeding more dry branches and bamboo to the flames. With the threat of someone stalking around their camp, they wanted as much light as possible. Stacked beside the fire was a large pile of additional fodder for the flames, enough to last the night.

"That noise . . . it's getting louder," Kelly mumbled. "What is it?"

Kouwe cocked his head. "I'm not sure."

By now, others heard the noise, too. It rose quickly to a feverish pitch. Everyone started glancing to the sky.

Kelly pointed to the rosy gloaming to the west. "Look!"

Cast against the glow of the setting sun, a dark shadow climbed the skies, a black cloud, spreading and sweeping toward them.

"A swarm of locusts;" Kouwe said, his voice tight with suspicion. "They'll do that sometimes in mating season, but it's the wrong time of the year. And I've never seen a swarm this big:"

"Is it a threat?" Jorgensen asked from a few steps away.

"Not usually. More a pest for gardens and jungle farms. A large enough cloud of locusts can strip leaf, vegetable, and fruit from a spot in mere minutes."

"What about people?" Richard Zane asked.

"Not much of a threat. They're herbivorous, but they can bite a little when panicked. It's nothing more than a pinprick:" Kouwe eyed the swarm. "Still. . ."

"What?" Kelly asked.

"I don't like the coincidence of such a swarm appearing after finding the Ban-ali mark."

"Surely there can't be any connection," Anna said at Richard's side.

Manny approached with Tor-tor. The great cat whined in chorus with the locusts, edgy and padding a slow circle around his master. "Professor, you aren't thinking the locusts might be like the piranha creatures? Some new threat from the jungle, another attack?"

Kouwe glanced to the biologist. "First there was the mark at the village, then piranhas. Now a mark here, and a strange swarm rises:" Kouwe strode over to his pack. "It's a coincidence that we shouldn't dismiss:"

Kelly felt a cold certainty that the professor was right.

"What can we do?" Jorgensen asked. His fellow soldier, Private Carrera, kept watch with him. The front edge of the swarm disappeared into the twilight gloom overhead, one shadow merging with another.

"First shelter. . ." Kouwe glanced up, his eyes narrowing with concentration. "They're almost here. Everyone into their hammocks! Close the mosquito netting tight and keep your flesh away from the fabric."

Zane protested. "But-"

"Now!" Kouwe barked. He began to dig more purposefully in his pack.

"Do as he says!" Jorgensen ordered, shouldering his useless weapon.

Kelly was already moving. She ducked into her tent of mosquito netting, glad that they had set up camp earlier. She closed the opening and positioned a stone atop the flap to hold the cheesecloth netting in place. Once secure, she clambered onto her hammock, tucking her legs and arms tight around herself, keeping her head ducked from the tent's top.

She glanced around her. The rest of her party were digging in, too, each hammock a solitary island of shrouded material. Only one member of the camp was still outside.

"Professor Kouwe!" Jorgensen called from his spot. The soldier began to clamber out of his netted tent.

"Stay!" Kouwe ordered as he rummaged in his pack.

Jorgensen froze with indecision. "What're you doing?"

"Preparing to fight fire with fire:"

Suddenly, from clear skies, it began to rain. The canopy rattled with the familiar sounds of heavy drops striking leaves. But it was not water that cascaded from the skies. Large black insects pelted through the dense canopy and dove earthward.

The swarm had reached them.

Kelly saw one insect land on her netting. It was three inches long, its black carapace shining like oil in the firelight. Trebled wings twitched on its back as it fought to keep its perch. She balled her limbs tighter around herself. She had seen locusts and cicadas before, but nothing like this monstrous bug. It had no eyes. Its face was all clashing mandibles, gnashing at the air. Though blind, it was not senseless. Long antennae probed through the netting's mesh, swiveling like a pair of divining rods. Other of its brethren struck the netting with little smacks, clinging with segmented black legs.

A cry of pain drew her attention to Kouwe. The professor stood five yards away, still crouched by the fire. He swatted a locust on his arm.

"Professor!" Jorgensen called out.

"Stay where you are!" Kouwe fought the leather tie on a tiny bag. Kelly saw the blood dripping from his arm from the locust's bite. Even from here, she could tell it was a deep wound. She prayed the bugs were not venomous, like the piranhas. Kouwe crouched closer to the fire, his skin ruddy and aglow. But the flames' intense heat and smoke seemed to keep the worst of the swarm at bay.

All around the forest, locusts flitted and whined. With each breath, more and more filled the space.

"They're chewing through the netting!" Zane cried in panic.

Kelly turned her attention to the bugs closer at hand. The first attacker had retracted its antennae and was indeed gnashing at the netting, slicing through with its razored jaws. Before it could burrow inside, Kelly struck out with the back of her hand and knocked it away. She didn't kill it, but her netting was protected from further damage. She went to work on the other clinging insects.

"Smack them loose!" she yelled back to the others. "Don't give them a chance to bite through!"

Another yelp erupted from nearby. "Goddamn it!" It was Manny. A loud slap sounded, followed by more swearing.

Kelly couldn't get a good look at his position since his hammock was behind hers. "Are you okay?"

"One crawled under the netting!" Manny called back. "Be careful! The buggers pack a vicious bite. The saliva burns with some type of digestive acid:"

Again she prayed the insects weren't toxic. She twisted around to get a look at Manny, but all she could make out was Tor-tor pacing at the edge of his master's tent. Clusters of the black insects crawled across the cat's fur, making it look as if his spots were squirming. The jaguar ignored the pests, its dense coat a natural barrier. One landed on the cat's nose, but a paw simply batted it away.

By now, the area buzzed with wings. The constant whine set Kelly's teeth on edge. In moments, the swarm thickened. It grew difficult to see much outside her tent. It was as if a swirling black fog had descended over them. The bugs coated everything, chewing and biting. Kelly focused her attention on knocking the insects off her netting, but it quickly became a losing battle. The bugs crawled and skittered everywhere.

As she struggled, sweat dripped down her face and into her eyes. Panicked, she batted and swung at the clinging insects and began to lose hope.

Then in her mind's eye, she pictured Jessie in a hospital bed, arms stretched out for her missing mother, crying her name. "Damn it!" She fought the insects more vigorously, refusing to give up.

I won't die here . . . not like this, not without seeing Jessie.

A sharp sting flamed from her thigh. Using the flat of her hand, she crushed the insect with a gasp. Another landed on her arm. She shook it away in disgust. A third scrabbled in her hair.

As she fought, a scream built like a storm in her chest. Her tent had been breached. Cries arose from other spots in the camp. They were all under assault.

They had lost.

Jessie . . . Kelly moaned, striking a locust from her neck. I'm sorry, baby. New stings bloomed on her calves and ankles. She futilely kicked, eyes weeping in pain and loss.

It soon became hard to breathe. She coughed, choking. Her eyes began to sting worse. A sharp smell filled her nostrils, sweet with resins, like green pine logs in a hearth. She coughed again.

What was happening?

Through her tears, she watched the dense swarm disperse as if blown by a mighty gust. Directly ahead, the camp's bonfire grew clearer. She spotted Kouwe standing on the far side of the flames, waving a large palm frond over the fire, which had grown much smokier.

"Tok-tok powder!" Kouwe called to her. His body was covered with bleeding bites. "A headache medicine and, when burned, a powerful insect repellent:"

The locusts clinging to her netting dislodged and winged away from the odor. Kelly vaguely remembered Nate telling her how the Indians would stake their gardens with bamboo torches and burn some type of powder as an insect repellent to protect their harvest. She silently thanked the Indians of the forest for their ingenuity.

Once the locusts had dwindled to only a few stragglers, Kouwe waved to her, to all of them. "Come here!" he called. "Quickly!"

She climbed from her hammock, and after a moment's hesitation, she slipped through her netting, now ragged and frayed. Ducking low, she crossed to the fire. Others followed in step behind her.

The smoke was choking and cloying, but the insects held back. The locusts had not dispersed. The swarm still whined and whirred overhead in a dark cloud. Occasional bombers would dive toward them and away, chased off by the fire's smoke.

"How did you know the smoke would work?" Jorgensen asked.

"I didn't. At least not for sure:" Kouwe panted slightly and continued to waft his palm frond as he explained. "The flaming Ban-ali symbol in the jungle . . . the amount of smoke and the strong scent of it. I thought it might be some sort of signal:"

"A smoke signal?" Zane asked.

"No, more of a scent signal," Kouwe said. "Something in the smoke drew the locusts here specifically."

Manny grunted at this idea. "Like a pheromone or something:"

"Perhaps. And once here, the little bastards were bred to lay waste to anything in the area:"

"So what you're saying is that we were marked for death," Anna commented. "The locusts were sent here on purpose:"

Kouwe nodded. "The same could be true with the piranha creatures. Something must have drawn them specifically to the village, maybe another scent trace, something dribbled in the water that guided them to the shabano:" He shook his head. "I don't know for sure. But for a second time, the Ban-ali have called the jungle down upon us:"

"What are we going to do?" Zane asked. "Will the powder last till dawn?"

"No:" Kouwe glanced to the dark swarm around them.

8:O5 PM.

Nate was tired of arguing. He, Captain Waxman, and Frank were still in the midst of a debate that had been going on for the past fifteen minutes. "We have to go back and investigate," he insisted. "At least send one person to check on the others. He can be there and back before dawn:"

Waxman sighed. "They were only locusts, Dr. Rand. They passed over us with no harm. What makes you think the others are at risk?"

Nate frowned. "I have no proof. Just my gut instinct. But I've lived all

my life in these jungles and something was unnatural about the way those locusts were swarming:'

Frank initially had been on Nate's side, but slowly he had warmed to the Ranger's logic of wait-and-see. "I think we should consider Captain Waxman's plan. First thing tomorrow morning, when the satellites are overhead, we can relay a message to the others and make sure they're okay"

"Besides," Waxman added, "now that we're down to six Rangers, I'm not about to risk a pair on this futile mission-not without some sign of real trouble:"

"I'll go myself." Nate balled a fist in frustration.

"I won't allow it:" Waxman shook his head. "You're just jumping at shadows, Dr. Rand. In the morning, you'll see they're okay."

Nate's mind spun, trying to find some way past the captain's obstinate attitude. "Then at least let me head out with a radio. See if I can get close enough to contact someone over there. What's the range on your personal radios?"

"Six or seven miles:"

"And we traveled roughly fifteen miles. That means I would only have to hike back eight miles to be within radio range of the others. I could be back before midnight:'

Waxman frowned.

Frank moved a step closer to Nathan. "Still . . . it's not a totally foolhardy plan, Captain. In fact, it's a reasonable compromise:"

Nate recognized the pained set to Frank's eyes. It was his sister out there. So far the man had been balancing between fear for his sister and Waxman's reasonable caution, trying his best to be a logical operations leader while reining in his own concern.

"I'm sure the others are okay," Nate pressed. "But it doesn't hurt to be a little extra wary . . . especially after the last couple of days:"

Frank was now nodding.

"Let me take a radio," Nate urged.

Waxman puffed out an exasperated breath and conceded. "But you're not going alone:"

Nate bit back a shout. Finally . . .

"I'll send one of the Rangers with you. I won't risk two of my men:'

"Good . . . good:" Frank seemed almost to sag with relief. He turned to Nate, a look of gratitude in his eyes.

Captain Waxman turned. "Corporal Warczak! Front and center!"

8:23 PM.

Manny and the others stood by the fire, smoke billowing around them. The pall from the powder kept the locusts in check. All around, the swarm swirled, a black cocoon, holding them trapped. Manny's eyes stung as he studied the flames. How long would the professor's tok-tok powder last? Already the smoke seemed less dense.

"Here!" Kelly said behind him. She passed him a two-foot length of bamboo from the pile of tinder beside the fire, then returned to work, kneeling with Professor Kouwe. The Indian shaman was packing a final piece of bamboo with a plug of tok-tok powder.

Manny shifted his feet nervously. The professor's plan was based on too many assumptions for his liking.

Finished with the last stick of bamboo, Kelly and Kouwe stood. Manny stared around the fire. Everyone had packs in place and was holding a short length of bamboo, like his own.

"Okay," Jorgensen said. "Ready?"

No one answered. Everyone's eyes reflected the same mix of panic and fear.

Jorgensen nodded. "Light the torches:"

As a unit, each member reached and dipped the ends of their bamboo in the bonfire's flames. The powder ignited along with the dry wood. As they pulled the bamboo free, smoke wafted in thick curls up from their makeshift torches.

"Keep them close, but held aloft," Kouwe instructed, demonstrating with his own torch. "We must move quickly."

Manny swallowed. He eyed the whirring wall of locusts. He had been bitten only twice. But the wounds still ached. Tor-tor kept close to his side, rubbing against him, sensing the fear in the air.

"Keep together," Kouwe hissed as they began to walk away from the sheltering fire and toward the waiting swarm.

The plan was to use the tiki torches primed with tok-tok powder to breach the swarm while holding the locusts at bay. Under this veil of smoky protection, the team would attempt to flee the area. As Kouwe had explained earlier, "The locusts were drawn specifically here by the scent from the burning Ban-ali symbol. If we get far enough away from this specific area, we might escape them:"

It was a risky plan, but they didn't have much choice. The shaman's supply of powder was meager. It would not keep the bonfire smoking for more than another hour or two. And the locusts seemed determined to remain in the area. So it was up to them-they would have to vacate the region.

"C'mon, Tor-tor:' Manny followed after Corporal Jorgensen. Behind and to the side, the group moved in a tight cluster, torches held high. Manny's ears were full of the swarm's drone. As he walked, he prayed Kouwe's assumptions were sound.

No one spoke . . . no one even breathed. The group trod slowly forward, heading west, in the direction the other team had taken. It was their only hope. Manny glanced behind him. The comforting light of their bonfire was now a weak glow as the swarm closed in behind them.

Underfoot, Manny crushed straggling locusts on the ground.

Silently, the group marched into the forest. After several minutes, there was still no end to the cloud of insects. The team remained surrounded on all sides. Locusts were everywhere: buzzing through the air, coating the trunks of trees, scrabbling through the underbrush. Only the smoke kept them away.

Manny felt something vibrating on his pantleg. He glanced down and used his free hand to swat the locust away. The bugs were getting bolder.

"We should be through them by now," Kouwe muttered.

"I think they're following us," Anna said.

Kouwe slowed, and his eyes narrowed. "I believe you're right:"

"What are we going to do?" Zane hissed. "These torches aren't gonna last much longer. Maybe if we ran. Maybe we could-"

"Quiet . . . let me think!" Kouwe scolded. He stared at the swarm and mumbled. "Why are they following us? Why aren't they staying where they were summoned?"

Camera spoke softly at the rear of the group. She held her torch high. "Maybe they're like those piranha creatures. Once drawn here, they caught our scent. They'll follow us now until one or the other of us is destroyed:"

Manny had a sudden idea. "Then why don't we do what the Ban-ali do?"

"What do you mean?" Kelly asked.

"Give the buggers something more interesting than our blood to swarm after."

"Like what?"

"The same scent that drew the locusts here in the first place:" Words tumbled from Manny in his excitement. He pictured the flaming symbol of the Blood Jaguars. "Corporal Jorgensen and I doused the flames that produced the smoky pheromone or whatever-but the fuel is still there! Out in the forest." He pointed his arm.

Jorgensen nodded. "Manny's right. If we could relight it. . :'

Kouwe brightened. "Then the fresh smoke would draw the swarm away from us, keep it here while we ran off."

"Exactly," Manny said.

"Let's do it," Zane said. "What are we waiting for?"

Jorgensen stepped in front. "With our torches burning low, time is limited. There's no reason to risk all of us going back:"

"What are you saying?" Manny asked.

Jorgensen pointed. "You all continue on the trail after the others. I'll backtrack and light the fire on my own:"

Manny stepped forward. "I'll go with you:"

"No. I won't risk a civilian:" Jorgensen backed away. "And besides, I can travel faster on my own:"

"But-"

"We're wasting time and powder," the corporal barked. He turned to his fellow Ranger. "Camera, get everyone away from here. Double time. I'll join up with you after I've lit the motherfucker."

"Yes, sir:'

With a final nod, Jorgensen turned and began to trot back toward the camp, torch held high. In moments, his form was swallowed away as he dove through the swarm. Just the bobbing light of his torch illuminated

his progress, then even that vanished amid the dense mass of swirling insects.

"Move out!" Camera said.

The group turned and once again headed down the trail. Manny prayed the corporal succeeded. With a final glance behind him, Manny followed the others.

Jorgensen rushed through the swarm. With only his single torch protecting him, the swarm grew tighter. He was stung a few times by bolder bugs, but he ignored the discomfort. A Ranger went through vigorous training programs across a multitude of terrains: mountains, jungles, swamps, snow, desert.

But never this . . . never a goddamn cloud of carnivorous bugs!

With his weapon on his shoulder, he shrugged his pack higher on his back, both to make it easier to run and to shield him from the swarm overhead.

Though he should have been panicked, an odd surge of zeal fired his blood. This was why he had volunteered for the Rangers, to test his mettle and to experience balls-out action. How many farm boys from the backwaters of Minnesota had a chance to do this?

He thrust his torch forward and forged ahead. "Fuck you!" he yelled at the locusts.

Focusing on the abandoned campfire as a beacon, Jorgensen worked across the dizzying landscape of whirling bugs. Smoke from his torch wafted around him, redolent with the burning powder. He circled around the Brazil nut tree and headed toward where the Ban-ali's burning signature had been set in the forest.

Half blind, he ran past the site before realizing it and doubled back. He fell to his knees beside the spot. "Thank God:"

Jorgensen planted his torch in the soft loam, then leaned over and swept free the dirt and scrabbling bugs from the buried resinous compound. Locusts lay thick over this site. Several bites stung his hand as he brushed them away. Leaning close, the residual fumes from the oil filled his nostrils, bitter and sharp. The professor was right. It certainly attracted the buggers.

Working quickly, Jorgensen continued to uncover the original marker.

He didn't know how much of the black oil should be lit to keep the swarm's attention here, but he wasn't taking any chances. He didn't want to have to return a second time. Crawling on his knees, his hands sticky with the black resin, he worked around the site. He soon had at least half of the serpentine pattern exposed.

Satisfied, he sat back, pulled free a butane lighter, and flicked a flame. He lowered the lighter to the oil. "C'mon . . . burn, baby."

His wish was granted. The oil caught fire, flames racing down the twists and curls of the exposed symbol. In fact, the ignition was so fiercely combustible that the first flames caught him off guard, burning his fingers.

Jorgensen dropped the lighter and pulled his hand away, his fingers on fire. "Shit!" The smattering of sticky oil on his hand had caught the flames. "Shit!"

He rolled to the side and shoved his hands into the loose dirt to stanch the fire. As he did so, his elbow accidentally struck the planted bamboo torch, knocking it into a nearby bush, casting embers in a fiery arc. Jorgensen swore and snatched at the torch-but he was too late. The powder stored in the hollow top of the bamboo had scattered into the dirt and bush, sizzling out. The top of the torch still glowed crimson, but it was no longer smoking.

Jorgensen sprang to his feet.

Behind him, the symbol of the Ban-ali flamed brightly, calling the swarm to its meal.

"Oh, God!"

Kelly heard the first scream, a horrible sound that froze everyone in place.

"Jorgensen . . :" Private Camera said, swinging around.

Kelly stepped beside the Ranger.

"We can't go back," Zane said, shifting further down the trail.

A second scream, bone-chilling, garbled, echoed from the forest.

Kelly noticed the swarm of locusts whisk from around them, retreating back toward the original campsite. "They're leaving!"

Professor Kouwe spoke at her shoulder. "The corporal must have succeeded in relighting the symbol:"

By now, the agonized cries were constant, prolonged, bestial. No human could scream like that.

"We have to go help him," Manny said.

Camera clicked on a flashlight in her free hand. She pointed it back toward the campsite. Fifty yards away, the condensed swarm was so thick, the trees themselves were invisible, swallowed by the black cloud. "There's not enough time," she said softly and lifted her own bamboo torch. It was already sputtering. "We don't know how long a distraction Jorgensen has bought us:"

Manny turned to her. "We could at least still try. He might be alive:"

As if hearing him, the distant cries died away.

Camera glanced to him and shook her head.

"Look!" Anna called out, pointing her arm.

Off to the left, a figure stumbled out of the swarm.

Camera pointed her flashlight. "Jorgensen!"

Kelly gasped and covered her mouth.

The man was impossible to identify, covered from crown to ankle with crawling locusts. His arms were out, waving, blind. His legs wobbled, and he tripped in the underbrush, falling to his knees. All the while, he remained eerily silent. Only his arms stretched out for help.

Manny took a step in the man's direction, but Camera held him back.

The swarm rolled back over the kneeling man, swallowing him.

"It's too late," Camera said. "And we're all running out of time:" Punctuating her statement, her own torch cast a final sputter of fiery ash, then dimmed. "We need to get as far from here as possible before we lose our advantage:"

"But-" Manny began.

He was cut off by a hard stare from the Ranger. Her words were even harder. "I won't have Jorgensen's sacrifice be meaningless:" She pointed toward the deeper wood. "Move out!"

Kelly glanced back as they headed away. The swarm remained behind them, a featureless black cloud. But at its heart was a man who had given his life to save them all. Tears filled her eyes. Her legs were numb with exhaustion and despair, her heart heavy.

Despite the loss of the corporal, one thought, one face remained fore-

most in Kelly's mind. Her daughter needed her. Her mind roiled with flashes of her child in bed, burning with fever. I'll get back to you, baby, she promised silently.

But deep in her heart, she now wondered if it was a pact she could keep. With each step deeper into the forest, more men died. Graves, DeMartini, Conger, Jones . . . and now Jorgensen . . .

She shook her head, refusing to give up hope. As long as she was alive, putting one foot in front of the other, she would find a way home.

Over the next hour, the group forged through the forest, following the path the other half of their team had taken the previous afternoon. One by one, their torches flickered out. Flashlights were passed around. So far, no sign of renewed pursuit by the swarm manifested. Maybe they were safe, beyond the interest of the blind locusts, but no one voiced such a hope aloud.

Manny marched close to the Ranger. "What if we miss the other team?" he asked softly. "Jorgensen had our radio equipment. It was our only way of contacting the outside world:"

Kelly hadn't considered this fact. With the radio gone, they were cut off.

"We'll reach the others," Camera said with a steely determination.

No one argued with her. No one wanted to.

They marched onward through the dark jungle, concentrating on just moving forward. As hours ticked by, the tension blended into a blur of bone-weary exhaustion and endless fear. Their passage was marked with hoots and strange cries. Everyone's ears were pricked for the telltale buzz of the locusts.

So they were all startled when the small personal radio hanging from Private Camera's field jacket squawked with static and a few scratchy words. "This is . . . if you can hear . . . radio range. . :"

Everyone swung to face the Ranger, eyes wide. She pulled her radio's microphone from her helmet to her mouth. "This is Private Camera. Can you hear me? Over:"

There was a long pause, then. . . "Read you, Camera. Warczak here. What's your status?"

The Ranger quickly related the events in a dispassionate and professional manner. But Kelly saw how the soldier's fingers trembled as she held

the microphone to her lips. She finished, "We're following your trail. Hoping to rendezvous with the main team in two hours."

Corporal Warczak responded, "Roger that. Dr. Rand and I are already under way to meet you. Over and out:'

The Ranger closed her eyes and sighed loudly. "We're gonna be okay," she whispered to no one in particular.

As the others murmured in relief, Kelly stared out at the dark jungle.

Out here in the Amazon, they were all far from okay.

ACT FOUR-Blood Jaguars

HORSETAIL

FAMILY: Equisetaceae

GENUS: EqUlSetum

SPECIES: Arvense

COMMON NAME: Field Horsetail

ETHNIC NAMES: At Quyroughi, Atkuyrugu, Chieh Hsu

Ts'Ao, Cola de Caballo, Equiseto Menor, Kilkah Asb,

Prele, Sugina, Thanab al Khail, Vara de Oro, Wen Ching

PROPERTIES/ACTIONS: Astringent, Antiinflammatory,

Diuretic, Antihemorrhagic

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lake Crossing

AUGUST 15, B:i i A.M.

INSTAR INSTITUTE

LANGLEY VIRGINIA

Lauren slid the magnetic security card through the lock on her office door and entered. It was the first chance she'd had to return to her office in the past day. Between stretches in the institute's hospital ward visiting Jessie and meetings with various MEDEA members, she hadn't had a moment to herself. The only reason she had this free moment was that Jessie seemed to be doing very well. Her temperature continued to remain normal, and her attitude was growing brighter with every passing hour.

Cautiously optimistic, Lauren began to hope that her initial diagnosis had been mistaken. Maybe Jessie did not have the jungle disease. Lauren was now glad she had kept silent about her fears. She could have needlessly panicked Marshall and Kelly. Lauren may have indeed placed too much confidence in Alvisio's statistical model. But she could not fault the epidemiologist. Dr. Alvisio had indeed warned her his results were far from conclusive. Further data would need to be collected and correlated.

But then again, that pretty much defined all the current levels of investigation. Each day, as the disease spread through Florida and the southern states, thousands of theories were bandied about: etiological agents, therapeutic protocols, diagnostic parameters, quarantine guidelines. Instar had become the nation's think tank on this contagion. It was their job to ferret through the maze of scientific conjecture and fanciful epidemiological models to glean the pearls from the rubbish. It was a daunting task as data flowed in from all corners of the country. But they had the best minds here.

Lauren collapsed into her seat and flicked on her computer. The chime for incoming mail sounded. She groaned as she slipped on a pair of reading glasses and leaned closer to the screen. Three hundred and fourteen messages waited. And this was just her private mailbox. She scrolled down the list of addresses and skimmed the subject lines, searching through the little snippets for anything important or interesting.

Inbox

From Subject

jptdvm@davls.ut.arg re: simian blosimilarities

treat magnus@scriabs.com call for sample standardization

5y5telnattCa@fdC.gaV prog. report

xreynalds@largebio.cam large stale biological labs

synergyrneds@phdrugs.torn pharmacv question

gerard@dadecounty.tfil.gov quarantine projection

brt@washingtonpost.org request for Interview

As she scrolled down, one name caught her eye. It was oddly familiar, but she could not remember exactly why. She brought her computer's pointer to the name: Large Scale Biological Labs. She crinkled her nose in thought, then it came to her. The night Jessie's fever developed, she had been paged by this same outfit. Well after midnight, she recalled. But the sick child had distracted her from following up on the page.

It probably wasn't important, but she opened the e-mail anyway, her curiosity now aroused. The letter appeared on the screen. Dr. Xavier Reynolds. She smiled, instantly recognizing the name. He had been a grad student of hers years ago and had taken a position at some lab in California, perhaps this same lab. The young man had been one of her best students. Lauren had attempted to recruit him into the MEDEA group here at Instar, but he had declined. His fiance had accepted an associate professorship at Berkeley, and he had naturally not wanted to be separated.

She read his note. As she did, the smile on her lips slowly faded.

From: xreynolds@largebio.com

Date: 14 Aug 13:48:28

To: lauren obrienQinstar.org

Subject: Large Scale Biological Labs

Dr. O'Brien:

Please excuse this intrusion. I attempted to page you last night, but I assume you're very busy. So I'll keep this brief.

As with many labs around the country, our own is involved in researching the virulent disease, and I think I've come across an intriguing angle, if not a possible answer to the root puzzle: What is causing the disease? But before voicing my findings, I wanted to get your input.

As head of the proteonomic team here at Large Scale Biological Labs, I have been attempting to index mankind's protein genome, similar to the Human Genome Project for DNA. As such, my take on the disease was to investigate it backward. Most disease-causing agents-bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites-do not cause illness by themselves. It is the proteins they produce that trigger clinical disease. So I hunted for a unique protein that might be common to all patients.

And I found one! But from its folded and twisted pattern, a new thought arose. This new protein bears a striking similarity to the protein that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Which in turn raises the question: Have we been chasing the wrong tail in pursuing a viral cause for this disease?

Has anyone considered a prion as the cause?

For your consideration, I've modeled the protein below.

Title: unknown prion (?)

Compound: folded protein w/ double terminal alpha helixes

Model:

Exp. Method: X-ray diffraction

EC Number: 3.4.1.18

Source: Patient #24-b12, Anawak Tribe, lower Amazon

Resolution: 2.00 R-Value: 0.145

Space Group: P21 20 21

Unit cell:

dim: a 60.34 b 52.02 c 44.68

angles: alpha 90.00 beta 90.00 gamma 90.00

Polymer chains: 156L Residues: 144

Atoms: 1286

So there you have the twisted puzzle. As I value your expertise, Dr. O'Brien, I would appreciate your thoughts, opinions, or judgments before promoting this radical theory.

Sincerely, Xavier Reynolds, Ph.D.

"A prion:" Lauren touched the diagram of the molecule. Could this indeed be the cause?

She pondered the possibility. The word prion was scientific shorthand for "proteinaceous infectious particle:" The role of prions in disease had only been documented within the last decade, earning a U.S. biochemist the 1997 Nobel Prize. Prion proteins were found in all creatures, from humans down to single-celled yeast. Though usually innocuous, they had an insidious duality to their molecular structure, a Jekyll-and-Hyde sort of thing. In one form, they were safe and friendly to a cell. But the same protein could fold and twist upon itself, creating a monster that wreaked havoc on cellular processes. And the effect was cumulative. Once a twisted prion was introduced into a host, it would begin converting the body's other proteins to match, which in turn converted its neighbors, spreading exponentially through the host's systems. Worse, this host could also pass the process to another body, a true infectious phenomenon.

Prion diseases had been documented both in animals and man: from scabies in sheep to Creutsfeldt-Jacob disease in humans. The most well-known prion disease to date was one that crossed between species. Dr. Reynolds had mentioned it in his letter: bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or more commonly, mad cow disease.

But these human diseases were more of a degenerative nature, and none were known to be transmitted so readily. Still, that did not rule out prions as a possibility here. She had read research papers on prions and their role in genetic mutations and more severe manifestations. Was something like that happening here? And what about airborne transmission? Prions were particulate and subviral in size, so since certain viruses could be airborne, why not certain prions?

Lauren stared at the modeled protein on the computer screen and reached for her desk phone. As she dialed, an icy finger ran up her spine. She prayed her former student was mistaken.

The phone rang on the other end, and after a moment, it was answered. "Dr. Reynolds, proteonomics lab."

"Xavier?"

"Yes?"

"This is Dr. O'Brien."

"Dr. O'Brien!" The man began talking animatedly, thanking her, thrilled.

She cut him off. "Xavier, tell me more about this protein of yours." She needed as much information from him as possible, the sooner the better. If there was even a minute possibility that Dr. Reynolds was correct . . .

Lauren bit back a shudder as she stared at the crablike molecule on her computer monitor. There was one other fact she knew about priontriggered diseases.

There were no known cures.

9:1 B A.M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Nate looked over Olin Pasternak's shoulder. The CIAs communications expert was growing ever more frustrated with the satellite computer system. Beads of sweat bulleted his forehead, both from the morning's steaming heat and his own consternation.

"Still no feed... goddamn it!" Olin chewed his lower lip, eyes squinting.

"Keep trying," Frank urged on the other side.

Nate glanced to Kelly, who stood beside her brother. Her eyes were haunted and dull. Nate had heard various versions of last night's attack: the strange swarm of giant locusts attracted to the camp by the burning Ban-ali marker. It was too horrible to imagine, impossible, but Jorgensen's death made it all too real.

Once the entire group had been reassembled at the swamp-side camp last night, the Ranger team had remained on guard. The group kept a posted watch throughout the night, in and around the surrounding forest, alert for any danger, watchful for any flare of flames, ears keened for the whine of locusts. But nothing happened. The few hours until dawn had been uneventful.

As soon as the communication satellite was in range, Olin had set about trying to reach the States and to relay messages to the Wauwai field base. It was vital to radio the change in plans to all parties. With unknown hunters dogging their trail, it was decided to continue with the goal of rafting across the swamp. Captain Waxman hoped to get a couple of days' jump on his pursuers, leave their trackers traipsing around the swamp on foot. Once across, Waxman would keep a constant watch on the waters for any Ban-ali canoes and keep the group intact on the far shore until the evac helicopter could arrive. He planned to trade each civilian with another Ranger from the field base at the mission. With these new forces, he would continue on Gerald Clark's trail.

There was only one problem with his plan.

"I'm gonna have to rip the laptop down to the motherboard," Olin said. "Something is damnably fritzed. Maybe a faulty chip or even a loose one knocked out of place by the manhandling these past two days. I don't know. I'll have to tear it down and check it all:"

Waxman had been speaking with his staff sergeant, but he overheard Olin. The captain stepped nearer. "We don't have time for that. The third raft is ready, and it'll take a good four hours to cross the waters. We need to get moving:"

Nate glanced to the swamp's edge and saw four Rangers positioning the newly constructed raft so that it floated beside the two prepared last night. The additional raft was necessary to carry everyone in their expanded party.

Olin hovered over his computer and satellite dish with a small screwdriver. "But I've not been able to reach anyone. They won't know where we are:" He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. His features were pale.

Zane stood, shifting his feet uneasily and rubbing at a Band-Aid on his cheek that covered a locust bite. "We could send someone back and retrieve Jorgensen's pack with the military radio," he suggested.

Everyone began talking at once, arguing both sides.

"We'd lose another day waiting:" "We'd risk more of our people:" "We need to reach someone!" "Who knows if his radio will even work, what with all those locusts. They could've chewed through the wiring and-"

Waxman interrupted, his voice booming. "There is no reason to panic!" He directed his comment to all of them. "Even if we can't raise the outside, the field base knows our rough location from yesterday's report. When the Brazilian evac copter comes tomorrow as previously arranged, we'll hear it-even from across the swamp. We can send up orange smoke flares to draw their attention to our new location:"

Nate nodded. He had not participated in the argument. In his mind, there was only one way to go forward.

Waxman pointed to Olin. "Pack it up. You can work on the problem once we're on the far side:"

Resigned, Olin nodded. He returned his tiny screwdriver to his repair kit.

With the matter settled, the others dispersed to gather their own gear, readying for the day's journey.

"At least we won't have to walk," Manny said, patting Nate on the shoulder as he passed on his way to wake Tor-tor. The jaguar was asleep under a palm, oblivious to the world after last night's trek.

Nate stretched a kink from his neck and approached Professor Kouwe. The Indian shaman stood near the swamp, smoking his pipe. His eyes were as haunted as Kelly's had been. When Nate and Corporal Warczak had met the fleeing group on the trail, the professor had been unusually quiet and somber, more than could be attributed to the loss of Jorgensen.

Nate stood silently beside his old friend, studying the lake, too.

After a time, Kouwe spoke softly, not looking at Nate. "They sent the locusts . . . the Ban-ali . . :" The shaman shook his head. "They wiped out the Yanomamo tribe with the piranha creatures. I've never seen anything like it. It's as if the Blood Jaguar tribe could indeed control the jungle. And if that myth is true, what else?" He shook his head again.

"What's troubling you?"

"I've been a professor of Indian Studies for close to two decades. I grew up in these jungles:" His voice grew quiet, full of pain. "I should have known . . . the corporal . . . his screams. . :"

Nate glanced to Kouwe and placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "Professor, you saved everyone with the tok-tok powder."

"Not everyone:" Kouwe drew on his pipe and exhaled. "I should've thought to relight the Ban-ali symbol before we left the camp. If I had, the young corporal would be alive:"

Nate spoke sharply, trying to cut through the man's remorse and guilt. "You're being too hard on yourself. No amount of study or experience could prepare you to deal with the Ban-ali and their biological attacks. Nothing like it has ever been documented before:"

Kouwe nodded, but Nate sensed that the man was hardly convinced.

Captain Waxman called from near the water's edge. "Let's load up! Five to a raft!" He began assigning Rangers and dividing the civilians accordingly.

Nate ended up with Kouwe and Manny, along with Tor-tor. Their two mates were Corporal Okamoto and Private Camera. The group was forced to wade through the shallows to reach the bamboo-and-log constructions. As Nate heaved himself onboard, he appreciated its sturdy construction. Reaching out, Nate helped Manny guide the large cat atop the bobbing raft.

Tor-tor was not pleased about getting wet. As the cat shook the swamp water from its pelt, the rest of the group mounted their own boats.

On the neighboring raft, Kelly and Frank stood with Captain Waxman, along with corporals Warczak and Yamir. The last five teammates climbed onto the farthest raft. Olin was careful to carry his pack with the satellite gear high above his head. Richard Zane and Anna Fong helped him aboard, flanked by a stoic Tom Graves and a scowling Sergeant Kostos.

Once everyone was mounted, lengths of bamboo were used as poles to push away from shore and through the shallows. But the swamp's banks dropped steeply. Within a hundred feet of the shore, the poles no longer touched bottom, and the paddles were taken up. With four paddles per raft, it allowed one person to rotate out and rest. The goal was to continue straight across without a break.

Nate manned the raft's starboard side as the tiny flotilla slowly drifted toward the far bank. Out on the waters, the distant roar of multiple waterfalls, muffled and threatening, echoed over the swamp lake. Nate stared, shading his eyes. The highlands across the way remained shrouded in mist: a mix of green jungle, red cliffs, and a fog of heavy spray. Their goal was a narrow ravine between two towering, flat-topped mesas, a yawning misty channel into the highlands. It had been where Clark's last carved message had pointed.

As they glided, the denizens of the swamp noted their passage. A snow-white egret skimmed over the water, a hand span above the surface. Frogs leaped from boggy hummocks with loud splashes, and hoatzin birds, looking like some ugly cross between a turkey and a pterodactyl, screeched at them as they circled over their nests atop the palms that grew from the island hummocks. The only inhabitants that seemed pleased with their presence were the clouds of mosquitoes, buzzing with joy at the floating smorgasbord.

"Damned bugs," Manny griped, slapping his neck. "I've had it with flying insects making a meal out of me:"

To make matters even worse, Okamoto began to whistle again, tunelessly and without the vaguest sense of rhythm.

Nate sighed. It would be a long trip.

After an hour, the little muddy islands vanished around them. In the swamp's center, the water was deep enough to drown away most of the tiny bits of land and jungle. Only an occasional hummock, mostly bare of trees, dotted the smooth expanse of the swamp's heart.

Here the sun, scorching and bright, shone incessantly down on them.

"It's like a steam bath," Camera said from the raft's port side.

Nate had to agree. The air was thick with moisture, almost too heavy to breathe. Their speed across the swamp slowed as exhaustion set in. Canteens were passed around and around the raft. Even Tor-tor lounged in the middle of the bamboo planking, his mouth open, panting.

The only consolation was being temporarily free of the jungle's snug embrace. Here the horizons opened up, and there was a giddy sense of escape. Nate glanced frequently back the way they had come, expecting to see a tribesman on the bank back there, shaking a fist. But there remained no sign of the Ban-ali. The trackers of the ghost tribe remained hidden. Hopefully the group was leaving them behind and getting a few days head start on their pursuers.

Nate was tapped on the shoulder. "I'll take a shift," Kouwe said, emptying his pipe's bowl of tobacco ash into the water.

"I'm okay," Nate said.

Kouwe reached and took the paddle. "I'm not an invalid yet:"

Nate didn't argue any further and slid to the raft's stern. As he lounged, he watched their old campsite get smaller and smaller. He reached back for the canteen and caught movement to the right of their raft. One of the bare hummocks, rocky and black, was sinking, submerging so slowly that not a ripple was created.

What the hell?

Off to the left another was sinking. Nate climbed to his feet. As he began to comment on this unusual phenomenon, one of the rocky islands opened a large glassy eye and stared back at him. Instantly Nate knew what he was seeing.

"Oh, crap!"

With his attention focused, he now recognized the armored scales and craggy countenance of a crocodilian head. It was a caiman! A pair of giants. Each head had to be four feet wide from eye to eye. If its head was that big . . .

"What's wrong?" Private Camera asked.

Nate pointed to where the second of the two caimans was just slipping under the surface.

"What is it?" the Ranger asked, eyes wide, as confused as Nate had been a moment before.

"Caimans," Nate said, his voice hoarse with shock. "Giant ones!"

By now, his entire raft had stopped paddling. The others stared at him.

Nate raised his voice, yelling so all three rafts could hear him. He waved his arms in the air. "Spread out! We're about to be attacked!"

"From what?" Captain Waxman called from his raft, about fifty yards away. "What did you see?"

As answer, something huge slid between Nate's boat and its neighbor, nudging both rafts and spinning them ever so slightly. Through the swamp's murk, the twin lines of tail ridges were readily evident as the beast slid sinuously past.

Nate was familiar with this behavior. It was called bumping. The kings of the caimans, the great blacks, were not carrion eaters. They liked to kill their own food. It was why drifting motionless could often protect someone from the predators. Often they would bump something that they considered a meal, testing to see if it would move.

They had just been bumped.

Distantly, the third raft suddenly bobbed and turned. The second caiman was also testing these strange intruders.

Nate yelled again, revising his initial plan. "Don't move! No one paddle! You'll attract them to attack!"

Waxman reinforced his order. "Do as he says! Weapon up. Grenades hot!"

Manny now crouched beside Nate, his voice hushed with awe. "It had to be at least a hundred feet long, over three times larger than any known caiman.

Camera had her M-16 rifle in hand and was quickly fitting on her grenade launcher. "No wonder Gerald Clark circled around the swamp:"

Okamoto finished prepping his rifle, kissed the crucifix around his neck, then nodded to Professor Kouwe. "I pray you have another one of your magical powders up your sleeve:"

The shaman shook his head, eyes wide, unblinking. "I pray you're all good shots:"

Okamoto glanced at Nate.

Nate explained, "With their armored body plating, the only sure kill shot is the eye:"

"No, there's also through the upper palate," Manny added, pointing a finger toward the roof of his mouth. "But to take that shot, you'd have to be damn close:"

"Starboard side!" Camera barked, kneeling with her rifle on her shoulder.

A rippling line disturbed the flat waters, ominous and long.

"Don't take a shot unless you're sure," Nate hissed, dropping beside her. "You could provoke it. Only shoot if you've got a kill shot:"

With everyone dead quiet, Waxman heard Nate's warning. "Listen to Dr. Rand. Shoot if you have a chance-but make it count!"

Rifles bristled around the periphery of each raft. Nate grabbed up his shotgun with one hand. They all waited, baking in the heat, sweat dripping into eyes, mouths drying. Around and around, the caimans circled, leaving no sign of their passage but ripples. Occasionally a raft would be bumped, tested.

"How long can they hold their breath?" Camera asked.

"Hours," Nate said.

"Why aren't they attacking?" Okamoto asked.

Manny answered this question. "They can't figure out what we are, if we're edible:"

The Asian Ranger looked sick. "Let's hope they don't find out."

The waiting stretched. The air seemed to grow thicker around them.

"What if we shot a grenade far from here?" Camera offered. "As a distraction, something to draw them off."

"I'm not sure it would help. It might just rile them up, get them snapping at anything that moves, like us:"

Zane spoke from the farthest raft, but his words easily reached Nate's boat. "I say we strap some explosives to that jaguar and push it overboard. When one of the crocodiles goes for the cat, we trigger the bomb:"

Nate shuddered at this idea. Manny looked sick. But other eyes were glancing their way with contemplative expressions.

"Even if you succeeded in doing that, you'd only kill one of them," Nate said. "The other, clearly its mate, would go into a rampage and attack the rafts. Our best bet is to hope the pair lose interest in us and drift away, then we can paddle out of here:"

Waxman turned to Corporal Yamir, the demolition expert. "In case the crocodiles don't get bored, let's be prepared to entertain them. Prime up a pair of the napalm bombs:'

The corporal nodded and turned to his pack.

Once again, the waiting game began. Time stretched.

Nate felt the raft tremble under his knees as one of the pair rubbed the underside of the logs with its thick tail. "Hang on!"

Suddenly the raft bucked under them. The stern was tossed high in the air. The group clung like spiders to the bamboo. Loose packs rolled into the lake with distinct splashes. The raft crashed back to the water, jarring them all.

"Is everyone okay?" Nate yelled.

Murmurs of assent rose.

"I lost my rifle," Okamoto said, his eyes angry.

"Better your gun than you," Kouwe said dolefully.

Nate raised his voice. "They're getting bolder!"

Okamoto reached out to one of their floating packs. "My gear."

Nate saw what he was doing. "Corporal! Stop!"

Okamoto immediately froze. "Shit . . :' He already had the strap of his rucksack in hand, half pulled out of the water.

"Leave it," Nate said. "Get away from the edge:'

The corporal released his pack with a slight splash and yanked his arm back.

But he moved too slowly.

The monster lunged up out of the depths, jaws open, water sluicing from its scales. It shot ten feet out of the swamp, a tower of armor plating and teeth as long as a man's forearm. The Ranger was pulled off his feet and shoved high into the air, screaming in shock and terror. The huge jaws clamped shut with an audible crunch of bones. Okamoto's scream changed in pitch to pain and disbelief. His body was shaken like a rag doll, legs flailing. Then the creature's bulk dropped back into the depths.

"Fire!" Waxman called.

Nate had been too stunned to move. Camera blazed with her M-16. Bullets peppered the underside of the giant, prehistoric caiman, but its yellowed belly scales were as hard as Kevlar. Even at almost point-blank range, it looked like little harm was done. Its weak points, the eyes, were hidden on the far side of its bulk.

Nate swung up his own shotgun, stretched his arm over Manny's head, and fired. A load of pellet sprayed through the empty air as the beast dropped out of range. A wasted, panicked shot.

The caiman was gone. Okamoto was gone.

Everyone was frozen in shock.

Nate's raft bobbed in the wake of the creature's passing. He stared out at the spot where the Ranger had vanished, Okamoto with his damn whistling. A red stain bubbled up from below.

Blood on the water . . . now the monsters know there's food here.

Kelly crouched with her brother in the center of their raft. Captain Waxman and Corporal Warczak knelt with their weapons ready. Yamir was finalizing his prep on two black bombs, each the size of a flat dinner plate with an electronic timer/receiver atop it. The demolitions expert leaned back. "Done," he said with a nod to his captain.

"Retrieve your weapon," Waxman said. "Be ready."

Yamir picked up his M-16 rifle and took up watch on his side of the raft.

A splintering crash sounded behind them. Kelly swung around in time to see the third raft in their flotilla knocked high into the air, the same as Nate's raft had done a moment before. But this time, its occupants were not as lucky. Anna Fong, her grip broken, went flying, catapulted through the air by the sudden attack. The anthropologist struck the water at the same time the raft crashed back down. Zane and Olin had managed to cling to the raft, as had Sergeant Kostos and Corporal Graves.

Anna popped to the surface, coughing and choking on water. She was only yards from the raft.

"Don't move, Anna!" Nate called. "Tuck your arms and legs together and float:"

She clearly tried to obey, but her pack, waterlogged, dragged her underwater unless she kicked to keep herself afloat. Her eyes were white with panic; both the fear of drowning and the fear of what lurked in the waters shone bright in her eyes.

Movement drew her attention back to the assaulted raft. Sergeant Kostos was leaning out with one of the long bamboo poles that they had used to propel themselves away from shore.

"Grab on!" Kostos called to her.

Anna reached to the bamboo, fingers scrabbling for a moment, then clinging.

"I'm gonna pull you toward the raft:"

"No!" she moaned.

Nate again called. "Anna, it should be okay as long as you don't make any sudden moves. Kostos, pull her very slowly toward you. Try not to raise a ripple:"

Kelly trembled. Frank put his arm around her.

Ever so slowly, the sergeant drew Anna back to the raft.

"Good, good..." Nate mumbled in a tense mantra.

Then, behind Anna, an armored snout appeared, just the nose, its eyes hidden underwater still.

"No one shoot!" Nate called. "Don't rile it!"

Guns pointed, but there was no kill shot anyway.

Kostos had stopped pulling on the bamboo with the appearance of the caiman. No one moved.

A moan flowed from the woman in the water.

Ever so slowly the snout inched forward, rising slightly as its massive jaws yawned open.

Kostos was forced to slowly draw Anna toward him, keeping her just a couple of feet ahead of the approaching monster.

"Careful!" Nate called.

It was like some macabre slow-motion chase . . . and they were losing.

The snout of the creature was now less than a foot from the woman, the jaws gaping open behind her head. There was no way Anna could be pulled aboard without the creature attacking.

Someone else came to this same realization.

Corporal Graves ran across their raft and leaped over Anna's head like an Olympic long jumper.

"Graves!" Kostos yelled.

The corporal landed atop the creature's open snout, driving its jaws closed and shoving it underwater.

"Pull her aboard!" Graves hollered as he was sucked under by the caiman.

Kostos yanked Anna back to the raft and Olin helped haul her on board.

A moment later, the beast reared up out of the water, Graves still clinging to the top of its wide head. The caiman thrashed, trying to dislodge its strange rider. Its jaws reared open, and a bellow of rage escaped from it.

"Fuck you!" Graves said. "This is for my brother!" Clinging fast with his legs, he yanked something from his field jacket and tossed it down the beast's gullet.

A grenade.

The massive jaws snapped at the Ranger, but he was out of reach.

"Everybody down!" Waxman bellowed.

Graves leaped from his perch aiming for the raft, a shout on his lips. "Chew on that, you bastard!"

Behind him, the explosion ripped through the silent swamp. The head of the caiman blew apart, shredded by shrapnel.

Graves flew through the air, a roar of triumph flowing from his lips.

Then up from the depths shot the other caiman. Jaws wide, it lunged at the flying corporal, snatching him out of midair, like a dog catching a tossed ball, then crashed away, taking its prey with it. It had all happened in seconds.

The bulk of the slain caiman slowly rose to the surface of the lake, belly up, exposing the gray and yellow scaling of its underside.

The slack body of the huge creature was nudged from below. Ripples slowly circled it as the large beast was examined by the survivor.

"Maybe it'll leave," Frank said. "Maybe the other's death will spook it away."

Kelly knew this wouldn't happen. These creatures had to be hundreds and hundreds of years old. Mates for life, the only pair of its kind sharing this ecosystem.

The ripples faded. The lake grew quiet again.

Everyone kept eyes fixed on the waters around them, holding their breath or wheezing tensely. Minutes stretched. The sun baked everyone.

"Where did it go?" Zane whispered, hovering beside his ashen colleague. Anna, soaked and terrified, just trembled.

"Maybe it did leave," Frank mumbled.

The trio of rafts, rudderless, slowly drifted alongside the bulk of the dead monster. Nate's boat was on the far side of the body. Kelly met his eye. He nodded, trying to convey calm assurance, but even the experienced jungle man looked scared. Behind him, the jaguar crouched beside its master, hackles raised.

Frank shifted his legs slightly. "It must have fled. Maybe-"

Kelly sensed it a moment before it struck: a sudden welling of the water under their raft. "Hang on!"

"What "

The raft exploded under them-not just bumped up, but driven skyward. Shattering up from the center of the raft jammed the massive armored snout of the angered caiman.

Kelly flew, tumbling through the air. She caught glimpses of the others falling amid the rain of bamboo and packs. "Frank!" Her brother splashed on the far side of the monster.

Then she hit the water-hard, on her stomach. The wind was knocked out of her. She spluttered up, remembering Nate's warning to remain as still as possible. She glanced up in time to see a chunk of the raft's log dropping through the air toward her face.

Dodging, she missed a fatal blow, but the edge of the flying log clipped the side of her head. She collapsed backward, driven underwater, darkness swallowing her away.

From the far side of the dead caiman's bulk, Nate watched Kelly get hit by debris and go under-dead or unconscious, he didn't know. All around the ruined raft, people, packs, and bits of debris floated. "Float as still as possible!" Nate called out, frantically searching for what had happened to Kelly.

The caiman had vanished underwater again.

"Kelly!" Frank called.

His sister bobbed to the surface on the far side of the debris field. She was facedown in the water, limp.

Nate hesitated. Was she dead? Then he saw one arm move, flailing weakly. Alive! But for how long? As dazed as she was by the blow, she risked drowning.

"Damn it!" He searched for some plan, some way to rescue her. Just beyond her body was one of the small hummocks of land with a single large mangrove tree sprouting up from it. Its thick trunk sprang from a tangle of exposed buttress roots, then fanned out into a branched canopy hanging over the waters. If Kelly could reach there . . .

A shout arose from the waters, drawing back his attention. The caiman's head appeared, rising like a submarine amid the debris. A large eye studied its surroundings. Shots were fired toward it, but it remained low in the water, blocked by the debris and the people. Then it sank quickly away.

Frank finally spotted his sister. "Oh, God . . . Kelly!" He turned, ready to swim to her aid.

"Frank! Don't move!" Nate called. "I'll get to her!" He dropped his shotgun to the bamboo planking.

"What are you doing?" Manny asked.

As answer, Nate leaped across the gap between the raft and the dead caiman. He landed on its exposed belly, landing in a half crouch, then ran down the length of the beast's slippery bulk, trying to get as close to Kelly as possible.

A scream rose on his right. He watched Corporal Yamir, struggling then suddenly Yamir was yanked under the water, large bubbles trailing down into the depths. The caiman was picking off the survivors in the water.

Time was running out.

Nate ran and leaped from the belly of the floating caiman, flinging his body with all the strength in his legs. Flying out, he dove smoothly for Kelly, reaching her in a heartbeat. He rolled her face out of the water. She struggled weakly against him.

"Kelly! It's Nate! Lie still!"

Something must have registered, for her struggling slowed.

Nate kicked strongly toward the nearby hummock. He scrabbled through the debris. His hand hit something: a black dinner plate decorated with blinking red lights. One of the dead corporal's bombs.

Instinctively, Nate grabbed it up in his free hand and continued to kick.

"Behind you!" Sergeant Kostos called from across the water.

Nate glanced back.

A rippling wake aimed in his direction, then the tip of the snout broke the surface, then more of the bull's black-scaled head. Nate found himself staring eye-to-eye with the beast. He sensed the intelligence behind that gaze. No dumb brute. Playing dead wouldn't work here.

He turned and kicked and paddled with the napalm bomb toward the swamp island. His feet hit muddy ground.

With a strength born of fear and panic, he scooped Kelly under his arm and hauled them through the shallows, climbing the banks.

"It's right on top of you!"

Nate didn't bother to turn. He ran toward the tangle of mangrove roots, shoved Kelly between them, then dove in after her. There was a cramped natural cavity behind the main buttress roots.

Kelly groggily awoke, coughing out gouts of water and staring around in panic. Nate fell atop her in the small space.

"What . . . ?"

Then, over his shoulder, she must have spotted their pursuer. Her eyes grew large. "Oh, shit!"

Nate rolled around and saw the monster hurling itself up out of the lake, scrabbling up the short bank. It struck like a locomotive hitting a car on the tracks. The whole tree shook. Nate was sure it would crash atop them. But the tree held. The caiman stared at Nate between the roots, mouth gaping open, teeth glinting with menace. It paused, glaring at him, then backpedaled and slid into the waters.

Kelly turned to him. "You saved me:"

He glanced to her, their noses almost touching in the cramped root prison. "Or almost got you killed. It's all perspective, really." Nate pushed to his knees. He grabbed one of the roots to haul himself to his feet. "And we're not out of the woods yet:"

Nate studied the waters, watching for any telltale ripple. It seemed quiet. But he knew the caiman was still out there, watching. Taking a deep breath, he squeezed back out between the roots.

"Where are you going?"

"There are still others in the water . . . including your brother." Nate shoved the napalm bomb under his shirt and began to climb the mangrove, a plan slowly forming. Once high enough, he picked a good branch, clambered atop it, and slowly crawled down its length to where it hung over the water. As the branch thinned, it began to bend under his weight. He moved more cautiously.

At last, he could risk going no farther. He glanced down and around his perch. This would have to do.

He called to the other raft while pulling out the bomb. "Does anyone know how to arm one of these explosives?"

Sergeant Kostos answered, "Type in the time delay manually! Then hit the red button!"

Waxman yelled from where he floated in the water. Nate had to respect how calm the captain's voice was as he added a warning. "It's got an explosive radius of a couple hundred meters. Blow it wrong and you'll kill us all!"

Nate nodded, staring at the bomb. A simple sealed keyboard glowed atop it, not unlike a calculator. Nate prayed it hadn't been damaged by the dunking or abuse. He set the timer for fifteen seconds. That should be long enough.

Next, Nate cradled the bomb to his chest and snapped free his work knife. Clenching his teeth, he dug the blade into the meat of his thumb and sliced a deep gash. He needed the wound to bleed freely.

Once done, he used a secondary branch as support and climbed to his feet on the swaying perch. He pulled the bomb out with his bloodied hand and made sure he had a good grip. Stretching out over the water, Nate extended his arm, bomb in hand. Blood dripped over the weapon's surface and down to the waters below, plopping in thick drops and sending out ripples.

He held steady, his thumb on the trigger button. "C'mon, damn you." In Australia, he had once visited a live animal park and had seen a thirty foot saltwater crocodile trained to leap after a freshly decapitated chicken on a pole.

Nate's plan wasn't much different. Only he was the chicken.

He slightly shook his arm, scattering more drops. "Where are you?" he hissed. His arm was getting tired.

Down below, he watched a small pool of his own blood forming on the surface of the water. A caiman could smell blood in the water from miles away. "C'mon!"

Squinting, he risked a peek toward the others still afloat in the debris field. With no way of knowing where the caiman was, neither of the other two rafts dared paddle to their mates' rescue.

Distracted, Nate almost missed the flash of something large heaving through the shallows toward him.

"Nate!" Kelly called.

He saw it.

The caiman lunged out of the water, blasting straight out of the lake and springing toward him, jaws wide open, roaring.

Nate hit the bomb's trigger, then dropped the blood-slick device down the open mouth. He realized at the same time that he had vastly underestimated how high a giant swamp caiman could leap.

Nate crouched on his branch, then leaped straight up, propelled by both his legs and the spring in the branch. Crashing through leaves, Nate grabbed a limb overhead. He yanked his feet out of the way just as the monster's jaws snapped shut under the seat of his pants. He felt its huffed breath on his back. Denied its prey, it fell back to the water, shooting spray almost as high as its leap.

Staring down, Nate saw the branch he had been perched on. It was gone, a stump, cleaved clean through by those mighty jaws. If he had still been standing there . . .

Nate saw the caiman again glide from the shallows into the deeper waters, but now it remained floating on the surface, revealing its length. A male, 120 feet if it was an inch.

Hanging from the branch, Nate caught a frustrated glower directed up at him. It slowly turned toward where the others were floating, giving up on him for the moment and going after easier prey.

Before it could complete its turn, Nate saw the beast suddenly shudder. He had forgotten to count the seconds.

Suddenly the belly of the beast swelled immensely. It opened its maw to scream but all that came out were jets of flame. The caiman had become a veritable flaming dragon. It rolled on its side and sank into the murkier depths, then a huge whoosh exploded upward in a column of water, flames, and caiman.

Nate clung to his perch with his arms and legs. Down below in the roots, Kelly yelled in shock.

The blast ended as quickly as it blew. In the aftermath, bits and pieces of flaming flesh showered harmlessly around the swamp. Insulated by the armored bulk of the great giant, the worst of the bomb's effect had been contained.

A shout of triumph arose from the others.

Nate climbed down the tree and retrieved Kelly. "Are you okay?" he asked her.

She nodded, fingering a gash at her hairline. "Head hurts a little, but I'll be fine:" She coughed hoarsely. "I must've swallowed a gallon of swamp water."

He helped her down to the water's edge. While Kostos's raft went to collect the swimmers and packs, Nate's own raft, manned by his friends and Ranger Camera, glided over to the pair to keep them from having to swim.

Camera helped pull Kelly aboard. Manny grabbed Nate's wrist and hauled him up onto the bamboo planks. "That was some pretty fast thinking, doc," Manny said with a grin.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," Nate said, matching his expression with a tired smile. "But I'll be damned glad to be on dry land again.

"Could there be more of them out there?" Kelly asked as the group paddled toward the other raft.

"I doubt it," Manny said with a strange trace of regret. "Even with an ecosystem this large, I can't imagine there's enough food to support more than two of these gigantic predators. Still, I'd keep a watch out for any offspring. Even baby giants could be trouble:"

Camera kept watch with her rifle as the others paddled. "Do you think that the Ban-ali sent these after us, like the locusts and piranhas?"

Kouwe answered, "No, but I would not put it past them to have nurtured this pair as some de facto gatekeepers to their lands, permanently stationed guards against any who dared to enter their territory"

Gatekeepers? Nate stared at the far shore. The broken highlands were now clear in the afternoon brightness. Waterfalls were splashes of silver flowing down cliffs the color of spilled blood. The jungled summits and valleys were verdant.

If the professor was right about the caiman being gatekeepers, then ahead of them stretched the lands of the Ban-ali, the heart of their deadly territory.

He stared at the other raft, counting heads. Waxman, Kostos, Warczak, and Camera. Only four Rangers remained of the twelve sent out here-and they hadn't even crossed into the true heart of the Ban-ali lands. "We'll never make it," he mumbled as he paddled.

Camera heard him. "Don't worry. We'll dig in until reinforcements can be flown here. It can't take more than a day."

Nate frowned. They had lost three men today, elite military professionals. A day was not insignificant. As he stared at the growing heights of the far shore, Nate was suddenly less sure he wanted to reach dry land, especially that dry land. But they had no choice. A plague was spreading through the States, and their small party was as close to an answer to the puzzle as anyone. There was no turning back.

Besides, his father had taken this route, run this biological gauntlet. Nate could not retreat now. Despite the deaths, the dangers, and the risks, he had to find out what had happened to his father. Plague or not, he could only go forward.

Waxman called as they neared the far shore. "Stay alert! Once we pull up, move quickly away from the swamp. We'll set up a base camp a short distance into the forest:"

Nate saw the way the captain kept scanning the swamps. Waxman was clearly worried about other caiman predators. But Nate kept his gaze focused on the jungles ahead. In his blood, he knew that was where the true danger lay-the Ban-ali.

Across the water, Nate heard the captain fall upon Olin Pasternak. "And you, get that uplink running as soon as possible. We have a three hour window before the satellites are out of range for the night"

"I'll do my best," Olin assured him.

Waxman nodded. Nate caught the look in the captain's eyes: full of grief and worry. Despite his booming confident voice, the leader of the Rangers was as nervous as Nate. And this realization was oddly reassuring. Nervous men kept a keen eye on their surroundings, and Nate suspected that their survival would depend on this.

The pair of rafts reached the shallows and soon were bumping into solid ground. The Rangers offloaded first, rifles ready. They fanned out and checked the immediate forest. Soon, calls of "All clear!" rang out from the dark jungles fringing the swamp.

Nate glanced up as he waited for the okay to disembark from the rafts. Around him, the soft roar of countless waterfalls echoed. To either side, towering cliffs framed the narrow defile ahead, choked with jungle. Down the center of the canyon a wide stream flowed, emptying sluggishly into the swamp.

Warczak shouted from near the forest's edge. "Found it!" The corporal leaned out of the shadowy fringe and waved to his captain. "Another of Clark's markers:"

Waxman motioned with his rifle. "Everybody on land!"

Nate did not wait. He hurried with the others toward Warczak. A few steps into the forest, a large Spanish cedar had been pegged with a strip of cloth. And under it, another carved marking. Each member stared at it with a growing sense of dread. An arrow pointed up the defile. The meaning was clear.

"Skull and crossbones," Zane muttered.

Death lay ahead.

3:40 PM.

"Now that was quite entertaining," Louis said to his lieutenant, lowering his binoculars. "When that caiman exploded. . :" He shook his head. "Resourceful:"

Earlier that morning, radioed by his mole, Louis had learned of the Rangers' plan to camp near the far shore until reinforcements could be flown in. He imagined the loss of three more men would cement Captain Waxman's plan. The group was now down to four Rangers. No threat.

Louis's team could take the other at any time-and Louis didn't want those odds changed.

He turned to Jacques. "We'll let them rest until midnight, then rouse the little sleepyheads and get them running forward. Who knows what other dangers they'll prepare us for?" Louis pointed to the swamp.

"Yes, sir. I'll have my team suited up and ready by nightfall. We're draining several lanterns now to collect enough kerosene:"

"Good:" Louis turned his back on the swamp. "Once the others are or. the run, we'll follow behind you in the canoes."

"Yes, sir, but . . :" Jacques bit his lower lip and stared out at the swamp.

Louis patted his lieutenant on the shoulder. "Fear not. If there had been any other beasties lurking in the swamp, they would've attacked the Rangers. You should be safe:" But Louis could understand his lieutenant's concern. Louis would not be the one using scuba gear to cross the swamp on motorized sleds, with nothing between him and the denizens of the swamp except a wet suit. Even with the night-vision lamps, it would be a dark and murky crossing.

But Jacques nodded. He would do as ordered.

Louis crossed back into the jungle, heading to the camp. Like his lieutenant, many others were on edge, the tension thick. They all had seen the remains of the Ranger back in the woods. The soldier looked like he had been eaten alive, down to the bone, eyes gone. A scattering of locusts had still crawled around the site, but most of the swarm had dispersed. Alerted by his mole, Louis had carefully kept burners of tok-tok powder smoldering as they crossed through the forest this morning, just in case. Luckily Tshui had been able to harvest enough dried liana vines to produce the protective powder.

Despite the threats, Louis's plan was proceeding smoothly. He was not so vain as to think his group moved unseen, but so far the Ban-ali were concentrating all their resources on the foremost group, the Rangers.

Still, Louis could not count on this particular advantage lasting much longer, especially once they entered the heart of the secretive tribe's territory. And he was not alone in these thoughts. Earlier, three mercenaries from his party had attempted to sneak off and flee, abandoning their obligations, fearful of what lay ahead. The cowards had been caught, of course, and Tshui had made an example of them.

Louis reached their temporary jungle campsite. He found his mistress, Tshui, kneeling by his tent. Across the way, strung spread-eagle between various trees, were the AWOL trio. Louis averted his eyes. There was surely artistry to Tshui's work, but Louis had only so strong a stomach.

She glanced up at his approach. She was cleaning her tools in a bowl of water.

Louis grinned at her. She stood, all legs and sinewy muscle. He took her under his arm and guided her toward their tent.

As Tshui ducked past the flap, she growled deep in her chest and, impatient, tugged his hand to draw him into the dark heat of the tent.

For the moment, it seemed rest would have to wait.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Shadows

AUGUST 15, 3:23 PM. INSTAR INSTITUTE LANGLEY VIRGINIA

Lauren knocked on Dr. Alvisio's office door. Earlier this morning, the epidemiologist had requested, rather urgently, a moment with her. But this was the first chance she'd had to break away and meet with him.

Instead, she had spent the entire morning and afternoon in video conference with Dr. Xavier Reynolds and his team at Large Scale Biological Labs in Vacaville, California. The prion protein they had discovered could be the first clue to solving this disease, a contagion that had claimed over sixty lives so far with another several hundred sick. Lauren had arranged for her former student's data to be cross-referenced and double-checked by fourteen other labs. As she waited for confirmation, she had time to meet with the epidemiologist.

The door opened. The young Stanford doctor looked as if he hadn't slept in weeks. A bit of dark stubble shadowed his cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot. "Dr. O'Brien. Thank you for coming:" He ushered her into the room.

Lauren had never been in his office, so she was surprised to see a whole array of computer equipment lining one entire wall. Otherwise, the room was rather Spartan: a cluttered desk, an overflowing bookcase, a few chairs The only personal touch was a lone Stanford Cardinals banner hanging or the far wall. But Lauren's eye was drawn back to the computer bank. The monitors were full of graphs and flowing numbers.

"What was so urgent, Hank?" she asked him.

He waved her to the computers. "I need you to see this:" His voice was grim.

She nodded and took the seat he offered before one of the monitors.

"Do you remember when I told you about the possible signature spike of basophils early in the disease process? How this clinical finding might be a way to detect and specify cases more quickly?"

She nodded, but since hearing his theory, she had already begun to doubt it. Jessie's basophils had spiked, but the child was recovering very well. There had even been talk of letting her out of the hospital ward as soon as tomorrow. This rise in basophils could be something that occurs with many different fevers and is not specific to this disease.

She opened her mouth to say just that, but Dr. Alvisio interrupted, turning to his computer keyboard. He typed rapidly. "It took me a full twenty-four hours to gather data from around the entire country, specifically searching for fever cases in children and the elderly with characteristic basophil spikes. I wanted to run a model for the disease using this new criteria:"

On the monitor, a map of the United States appeared in yellow with each state mapped out in black lines. Small pinpoints of red dotted the map, most clustered in Florida and other southern states. "Here is the old data. Each area of red indicates current documented cases of the contagion:"

Lauren slipped on her reading glasses and leaned closer.

"But using the basophil spike as the marker for designating cases, here is a truer picture of the disease's present status in the United States:" The epidemiologist hit a keystroke. The map bloomed brighter with red dots. Florida was almost a solid red, as were Georgia and Alabama. Other states, empty before, now were speckled with red spots.

Hank turned to her. "As you can see, the number of cases skyrockets. Many of these patients are in unquarantined wards due to the fact that the trio of signs designated by the CDC have not shown up yet. They're exposing others:"

Despite her doubts, Lauren felt a sick churn in her belly. Even if Dr. Alvisio was wrong about the basophils, he had made a good point. Early detection was critical. Until then, all feverish children or elderly should be quarantined immediately, even if they weren't in hot zones like Florida and Georgia. "I see what you're saying," she said. "We should contact the CDC and have them establish nationwide quarantine policies:"

Hank nodded. "But that's not all:" He turned back to his computer and typed. "Based on this new basophil data, I ran an extrapolation model. Here is what the disease picture will look like in two weeks:" He pressed the ENTER key.

The entire southern half of the country went red.

Lauren sat back in shock.

"And in another month:" Hank struck the ENTER key a second time.

The red mottling spread to consume almost the entire lower forty eight states.

Hank glanced at her. "We have to do something to stop this. Every day is critical:"

Lauren stared at the bloodstained screen, her mouth dry, her eyes wide. Her only consolation was that Dr. Alvisio's basis for this model was probably overly grim. She doubted the basophil spike was truly an early marker for the disease. Still, the warning here was important. Every day was critical.

Her pager vibrated on her hip, reminding her that the war against this disease had to be fought with every resource. She glanced down to her pager's screen. It was Marshall. He had followed his numeric code with a 911. Something urgent.

"Can I use your phone?" she asked.

"Of course:"

She stood and crossed to his desk. Hank returned to his computers and statistical models. She dialed the number. The phone was answered in half a ring.

"Lauren. . :'

"What is it, Marshall?"

His words were rushed, full of fear. "It's Jessie. I'm at the hospital:"

Lauren clutched the phone tighter. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Her temperature is up again:" His voice cracked. "Higher than it's ever been. And three other children have been admitted. Fevers, all of them:"

"Wh . . . what are you saying?" she stammered, but she knew the answer to her own question.

Her husband remained silent.

"I'll be right there," she finally said, dropping the phone and scrabbling to replace it in its cradle.

Hank turned to her, noticing her reaction. "Dr. O'Brien?"

Lauren could not speak. Jessie . . . the basophil spike . . . the other children. Dear God, the disease was here!

Lauren stared glassily at the monitor with the map of the United States mottled entirely in red. The epidemiologist's theory was not a mistake. It wasn't overly pessimistic.

"Is everything all right?" Hank asked softly.

Lauren slowly shook her head, eyes fixed on the screen.

One month.

5:23 PM.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Kelly sat hunched with her brother, both flanking Olin Pasternak. The Russian computer expert was screwing down the cover piece to reassemble the satellite communication system. He had been working on it all afternoon, trying to raise the States.

"This had better work," he mumbled. "I've torn it down to the motherboard and built it back up. If this doesn't work, I don't know what else to try."

Frank nodded. "Fire it up:"

Olin checked the connections one final time, adjusted the satellite dish, then returned his attention to the laptop computer. He switched on the solar power, and after a short wait, the operating system booted up and the screen hummed to life.

"We've got a connection to the HERMES satellite!" Olin said, and sighed with relief.

A cheer went up around Kelly. The entire camp, except for the pair of Rangers on guard by the swamp, was gathered around Olin and his communication equipment.

"Can you get an uplink established?" Waxman asked.

"Keep your fingers crossed," Olin said. He began tapping at the keyboard.

Kelly found herself holding her breath. They needed to reach someone Stateside. Reinforcements were certainly needed here. But more important to her, Kelly couldn't stand not knowing Jessie's status. She had to find a way to get back to her.

"Here we go:" Olin struck a final sequence of keys. The familiar connection countdown began.

Richard Zane mumbled behind her. "Please, please work..."

His prayer was in all their hearts.

The countdown blipped to zero. The computer screen froze for an interminably long second, then a picture of Kelly's mother and father appeared. The pair looked shocked and relieved.

"Thank God!" her father said. "We've been trying to reach you for the past hour:"

Olin moved aside for Frank. "Computer problems," her brother said, "among many others:"

Kelly leaned in. She could not wait a moment longer. "How's Jessie?"

Her mother's face answered the question. Her eyes fidgeted, and she paused before speaking. "She's . . . she's doing fine, dear."

The image on the screen fritzed as if the computer had become a lie detector. Static and snow ate away the picture. Her mother's next words became garbled. "Lead on a cure . . . prion disease . . , sending data as we speak. . :"

Her father spoke, but the interference grew worse. They seemed unaware that their message was corrupted. ". . . helicopter on its way . . . Brazilian army.. :'

Frank hissed to Olin, "Can you fix the reception?"

He leaned in and tapped quickly. "I don't know. I don't understand. We've just received a file. Maybe that's interfering with our downstream feed:'

But for each key the man tapped, the signal deteriorated.

Static whined and hissed with occasional words coming through. "Frank. . . losing you . . . can you . . . tomorrow morning . . . GPS locked.. :" Then the entire feed collapsed. The screen gave one final frazzled burst, then froze up.

"Damn it!" Olin swore.

"Get it back up," Waxman said behind them.

Olin bent over his equipment and shook his head. "I don't know I can. I've troubleshot the motherboard and rebooted all the software:"

"What's wrong then?" Kelly asked.

"I can't say for sure. It's almost like a computer virus has corrupted the entire satellite communication array."

"Well, keep trying," Waxman said. "You've got another half hour before the satellite is out of range:"

Frank stood, facing everyone. "Even if we can't link up, from what we did hear, it sounds like the Brazilian helicopter may be on its way here. Maybe as soon as tomorrow morning:"

Beside him, Olin stared at the frozen screen. "Oh, God:"

All eyes turned to the Russian communications expert. He tapped the screen, pointing to a set of numbers in the upper right-hand corner. "Our GPS signal. . :"

"What's the matter?" Waxman asked.

Olin glanced over to them. "It's wrong. Whatever glitched the satellite system must've corrupted the feed to the GPS satellites, too. It sent a wrong signal back to the States:" He stared back at the screen. "It places us about thirty miles south of our current position:"

Kelly felt the blood rush from her head. "They won't know where we are.

"I've got to get this up and running;" Olin said. "At least long enough to correct the signal:" He rebooted the computer and set to work.

For the next half hour, Olin worked furiously with his equipment. Oaths and curses, both in English and Russian, flowed from the man. As he labored, everyone found busy work to occupy the time. No one bothered to try resting. Kelly helped Anna prepare some rice, the last of their supplies. As they worked, they kept looking over to Olin, silently praying.

But for all the man's efforts and their prayers, nothing was gained.

After a time, Frank crossed and placed a hand on Olin's shoulder. He raised his other arm, exposing his wristwatch. "It's too late. The communication satellites are out of range:"

Olin sagged over his array, defeated.

"We'll try again in the morning," Frank said, his encouragement forced. "You should rest. Start fresh tomorrow."

Nate, Kouwe, and Manny returned from a fishing expedition by the swamp. Their catch was bountiful, strung on a line between them. They dropped their load beside the fire. "I'll clean;" Kouwe said, settling easily to the ground.

Manny sighed. "No argument here:"

Nate wiped his hands and stared at Olin and his computer. He crossed toward the man. "There was something I was wondering about while fishing. What about that other file?"

"What are you talking about?" Olin asked blearily.

"You mentioned something about a file being downloaded during the feed:"

Olin scrunched his face, then nodded with understanding. "Da. Here it is. A data file:"

Kelly and Manny hurried over. Kelly now remembered her mother had mentioned sending something just before the system crashed.

Olin brought up the file.

Kelly leaned closer. On the screen appeared a 3-D model of a molecule spinning above pages of data. Intrigued, she settled nearer. Her eyes scanned through the report. "My mother's work," she mumbled, glad to occupy her mind on something other than her own worries. But the topic was troublesome nonetheless.

"What is it?" Nate asked.

"A possible lead on the cause of the disease," Kelly added.

Manny answered, peering over her shoulder. "A prion:"

"A what?"

Manny quickly explained to Nate, but Kelly's attention remained focused on the report. "Interesting," Kelly mumbled.

"What?" Manny asked.

"It says here that this prion seems to cause genetic damage:" She quickly read the next report.

Manny read over her shoulder. He whistled appreciatively.

"What?" Nate asked.

Kelly spoke excitedly. "This could be the answer! Here's a paper from researchers at the University of Chicago, published in Nature back in September of 2000. They hypothesized through the study of yeast that prions may hold the key to genetic mutations, even play a role in evolution:"

"Really? How?"

"One of the major mysteries of evolution has been how survival skills that require multiple genetic changes could happen so spontaneously. Such changes are termed macroevolution, like the adaptation of certain algae to toxic environments or the rapid development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. But how such a series of simultaneous mutations could be generated was not understood. But this article offers a possible answer. Prions:" Kelly pointed to the computer screen. "Here the researchers at the University of Chicago have shown that a yeast's prions can flip an all-or-nothing switch in the genetic code, causing massive mutations to develop in unison, to spark an evolutionary jump start, so to speak. Do you know what this suggests?"

Kelly saw realization dawn in Manny's eyes.

"The piranha creatures, the locusts . . :" the biologist mumbled.

"Mutations all of them. Maybe even Gerald Clark's arm!" Kelly said. "A mutation triggered by prions:"

"But what does this have to do with the disease?" Nate asked.

Kelly frowned. "I don't know. This discovery is a good start, but we're a long way from a complete answer."

Manny pointed to the screen. "But what about here in the article where it hypothesizes. . :"

Kelly nodded. The two began to discuss the article, speaking rapidly, sharing ideas.

Beside them, Nate had stopped listening. He had scrolled back to the spinning model of the prion protein.

After a time, he interrupted. "Does anyone else see the similarity?"

"What do you mean?" Kelly asked.

Nate pointed to the screen. "See those two spiraling loops at either end?"

"The double alpha helixes?" Kelly said.

"Right . . . and here the corkscrewing middle section," Nate said, tracing the screen with his finger.

"So?" Kelly asked.

Nate turned and reached to the ground beside him. He picked up a stick and drew in the dirt, speaking as he worked. "The middle corkscrew . . . spreading out in double loops at either end:" When he was done, he glanced up.

Stunned, Kelly stared at what Nate had drawn in the dirt.

Manny gasped, "The Ban-ali symbol!"

Kelly stared between the two pictures: one, a high-tech computer map; the other, a crude scrawl in the soft dirt. But there was no disputing the similarity. The corkscrew, the double helixes . . . It seemed beyond coincidence, even down to the clockwise spin of the molecular spiral.

Kelly turned to Nate and Manny. "Jesus Christ."

The Ban-ali symbol was a stylized model of the same prion.

1 1:32 PM.

Jacques still had an unnerving terror of dark waters, born from the piranha attack that had left him disfigured when he was only a boy. Despite these deep fears, he glided through the swamp with nothing but a wet suit between him and the toothy predators of this marsh. He had no choice. He had to obey the doctor. The price of disobedience was worse than any terrors that might lurk in these waters.

Jacques clung to his motorized attack board as the silent fans dragged his body toward the far shore of the swamp. He was outfitted in an LAR V Draeger UBA, gear used by Navy SEALs for clandestine shallow-water operations. The closed-circuit system, strapped to his chest, rather than his back, produced no telltale bubble signature, making his approach undetectable. The final piece of his gear was a night-vision mask, giving him adequate visibility in the murky waters.

Still, the dark waters remained tight around him. His visibility was only about ten yards. He would periodically use a small mirrored device to peek above the water's surface and maintain his bearing.

His two teammates on this mission trailed behind him, also gliding with tiny motorized sleds held at arms' length.

Jacques checked one last time with his tiny periscope. The two bamboo rafts that the Rangers had used to cross the swamp were directly ahead. Thirty yards away.

In the woods, he spotted the camp's fire, blazing bright. Shadowy figures, even at this late hour, moved around the site. Satisfied, he motioned to his two men to continue on ahead, one to each raft. Jacques would drift behind them, on guard with his scope.

The trio moved slowly forward. The rafts were tethered to the shore and floating in waters less than four feet deep. They would all have to be even more careful from here.

With determined caution, the group converged on the rafts. Jacques watched above and below the surface. His men waited in position, hovering in the shadows of their respective rafts. He studied the woods. He suspected that hidden in the dark jungle were guards, Rangers on patrol. He watched for a full five minutes, then signaled his men.

From under the rafts, the men produced small squeeze bottles full of kerosene. They sprayed the underside of the bamboo planks. Once each bottle emptied, the men gave Jacques a thumbs-up signal.

As his men worked, Jacques continued to watch the woods. So far, there was no sign that anyone had noticed their handiwork. He waited a full minute more, then gave the final signal, a slashing motion across his neck.

Each man lifted a hand above the water and ignited a butane lighter. They lifted the tiny flames to the kerosene-soaked bamboo. Flames immediately leaped and spread over the rafts.

Without waiting, the two men grabbed up their sleds and sped toward Jacques. He turned and thumbed his own motor to high and led his men off in a swooping curve out into the swamp, then back around, aiming for a spot on the shore a half-kilometer from the enemy's camp.

Jacques watched behind him. Men appeared out of the wood, outlined by the burning rafts, weapons pointing. Even underwater, he heard muffled shouts and sounds of alarm.

It had all gone perfectly. The doctor knew the other camp, after the locust attack, would be spooked by fires in the night. They would not likely remain near such a burning pyre.

Still, they were to take no unnecessary chances. Jacques led his men back toward the shallows, and the group slowly rose from the lake, spitting out regulator mouthpieces and kicking off fins. The second part of his mission was to ensure the others did indeed flee.

Slogging out of the water, he breathed a sigh of relief, glad to leave the dark swamp behind. He fingered the unmangled half of his nose, as if making sure it was still there.

Jacques slipped out a pair of night-vision binoculars. He fitted them in place and stared back toward the camp. Behind him, his men whispered, energized from the adventure and the successful completion of their task. Jacques ignored them.

Outlined in the monochrome green of his night scope, a pair of men-Rangers, to judge by the way they carried their weapons-slipped away from the fiery rafts and called back into the forest. The group was pulling back. In the woods, new lights blinked on. Flashlights. Activity bustled around the campfire. Slowly, the lights began to shift away from the fire, like a line of fireflies. The parade marched toward the deeper ravine, up the chasm between the flat-topped highlands.

Jacques smiled. The doctor's plan had worked.

Still spying through his scope, he reached for his radio. He pushed the transmitter and brought the radio to his lips. "Mission successful. Rabbits are running.

"Roger that:" It was the doctor. "Canoes heading out now. Rendezvous at their old camp in two hours. Over and out:"

Jacques replaced the radio.

Once again, the hunt was on.

He turned to his other men to report the good news-but there was no one behind him. He instantly crouched and hissed their names. "Manuel! Roberto!"

No answer.

The night remained dark around him, the woods even darker. He slipped his night-vision diving mask back over his face. The woods shone brighter, but the dense vegetation made visibility poor. He backed away, his bare feet striking water.

Jacques stopped, frozen between the terrors of what lay behind him and in front of him.

Through his night-vision mask, he spotted movement. For the barest flicker of a heartbeat, it looked like the shadows had formed the figure of a man, staring back at him, no more than ten yards away. Jacques blinked, and the figure was gone. But now all the jungle shadows flowed and slid like living things toward him.

He stumbled backward into the waters, one hand scrambling to shove in his regulator mouthpiece.

One of the shadows broke out of the jungle fringe, outlined against the muddy bank. Huge, monstrous . . .

Jacques screamed, but his regulator was in the way. Nothing more than a wet gurgle sounded. More of the dark shadows flowed out of the woods toward him. An old Maroon tribal prayer rose to his lips. He scrambled backward.

Behind his fear of dark waters and piranhas was a more basic terror: of being eaten alive.

He dove backward, twisting around to get away.

But the shadows were faster.

1 : 51 PM.

With a flashlight duct-taped to his shotgun, Nate followed near the rear of the group. The only ones behind him were Private Camera and Corporal Kostos. Everyone had lights, spearing the darkness in all directions. Despite the night, they moved quickly, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and whoever had set the rafts on fire.

The plan, according to Captain Waxman, was to seek a more defensible position. With the swamp on one side of them, the jungle on the other, it was not a secure spot to wait for whatever attack the fires would draw down upon them. And none of their group was delusional enough to think another attack wouldn't come.

Always planning one step ahead, the Rangers had a fallback position already picked out. Corporal Warczak had reported spotting caves in the cliffs a short way up the chasm. That was their goal.

Shelter and a defensible position.

Nate followed the others. Camera marched at his side. In her arms was a strange shovel-nosed weapon. It looked like a Dustbuster vacuum attached to a rifle stock. She held it out toward the black jungle.

"What is that?" he asked.

She kept her attention on the jungle. "With all we lost in the swamp, we're short on M- 16s." She hefted the strange weapon. "It's called a Bailey. Prototype weapon for jungle warfare." She thumbed a switch and a targeting laser pierced the darkness. She glanced over her shoulder to her superior. "Demonstration?"

Staff Sergeant Kostos, armed with his own M-16, grunted. "Testing weapon fire!" he barked forward to alert the others.

Camera lifted her weapon, pivoting it for a target. She centered the red laser on the bole of a sapling about twenty yards away. "Shine your flashlight here:"

Nate nodded and swung his flashlight up. Other eyes turned their way.

Camera steadied her weapon and squeezed the trigger. There was no blast, only a high-pitched whistle. Nate caught a flash of silver, followed by a ringing crack. The sapling toppled backward, its trunk sliced cleanly through. Beyond it, a thick-boled silk cotton tree shook with the impact of something slamming into its trunk. Nate's flashlight focused on the distant tree. A bit of silver was embedded deep in the trunk.

Camera nodded toward her target. "Three-inch razor disks, like Japanese throwing stars. Perfect for jungle combat. Set to automatic fire, it can mow down all the loose vegetation around you."

"And anything else in its path," Kostos added, waving the group onward.

Nate eyed the weapon with respect.

The group continued up the jungle-choked ravine, led by Corporal Warczak and Captain Waxman. They were roughly paralleling the small stream that drained down the chasm, but they kept a respectable distance from the water, just in case. After a half hour of trekking, Warczak led them off to the south, heading for the red cliffs.

So far, there appeared to be no evidence of pursuit, but Nate's ears remained alert for any warning, his eyes raking the shadowy jungle. At last the canopy began to thin enough to see stars and the bright glow of the moon. Ahead the world ended at a wall of red rock, aproned by loose shale and crumbled boulders.

At the top of the sloped escarpment, the cliff face was pocked with multiple caves and shadowed cracks.

"Hang back," Captain Waxman hissed, keeping them all hidden in the thicker underbrush that fringed the lower cliffs. He signaled for Warczak to forge ahead.

The corporal flicked off his flashlight, slipped on a pair of night-vision goggles, and ducked into the shadows with his weapon, vanishing almost instantly.

Nate crouched. Flanking him, the two Rangers took firm stances, watching their rear. Nate kept his shotgun ready. Most of the others were also armed. Olin, Zane, Frank, even Kelly had pistols, while Manny bore a Beretta in one hand and his whip in the other. Tor-tor had his own built-in weapons: claws and fangs. Only Professor Kouwe and Anna Fong remained unarmed.

The professor crept backward to Nate's side. "I don't like this," Kouwe said.

"The caves?"

"No . . . the situation:"

"What do you mean?"

Kouwe glanced back down toward the swamp. Distantly the two rafts still burned brightly. "I smelled kerosene from those flames:"

"So? It could be copal oil. That stuff smells like kerosene and that's abundant around here:"

Kouwe rubbed his chin. "I don't know. The fire that drew the locusts was artfully crafted into the Ban-ali symbol. This was sloppy."

"But we were on guard. The Indians had to move fast. It was probably the best they could manage."

Kouwe glanced to Nate. "It wasn't Indians:"

"Then who else?"

"Whoever's been tracking us all along:" Kouwe leaned in and whispered in an urgent hiss. "Whoever set the flaming locust symbol crept upon our camp in broad daylight. They left no trace of their passage into or out of the area. Not a single broken twig. They were damned skilled. I doubt I could've done it:"

Nate began to get the gist of Kouwe's concerns. "And the ones who have been dogging our trail were sloppy."

Kouwe nodded toward the swamp. "Like those fires:"

Nate remembered the reflected flash high in the treetops as they hiked through the forest yesterday afternoon. "What are you suggesting?"

Kouwe spoke between clenched teeth. "We have more than one threat here. Whatever lies ahead-a new regenerative compound, a cure for this plague-it would be worth billions. Others would pay dearly for the knowledge hidden here:"

Nate frowned. "And you think this other party set those fires? Why?"

"To drive us forward in a panic, like it did. They didn't want to risk us being reinforced with additional soldiers. They're probably using us as a human shield against the natural predatory traps set by the Ban-ali. We're just so much cannon fodder. They'll waste our lives until we are either spent on this trail or reach the Ban-ali. Then they'll sweep in and steal the prize.

Nate eyed the professor. "Why not mention this before we set off?"

Kouwe stared hard at Nate, and the answer to his question dawned in his own mind. "A traitor," Nate whispered. "Someone working with the trackers."

"I find it much too convenient that our satellite feed went on the fritz just as we drew close to these Ban-ali lands. Plus it then sends off a false GPS signal:"

Nate nodded. "Sending our own backup on a wild-goose chase."

"Exactly."

"Who could it be?" Nate eyed the others crouched in the underbrush.

Kouwe shrugged. "Anyone. Highest on the list would be the Russian. It's his system. It would be easy for him to feign a breakdown. But then again both Zane and Ms. Fong have been hovering around the array whenever Olin has stepped away. And the O'Briens have a background tied to the CIA, who have been known to play many sides against one another to achieve their ends. Then, finally, we can't rule out any of the Rangers:'

"You're kidding:"

"Enough money can sway almost anyone, Nate. And Army Rangers are trained extensively in communications."

Nate swung back around. "That leaves only Manny as someone we can trust:"

"Does it?" Kouwe's expression was pained.

"You can't be serious? Manny? He's a friend to both of us:"

"He also works for the Brazilian government. And don't doubt that the Brazilian government would want this discovery solely for itself. Such a medical discovery would be an economic boon:"

Nate felt a sick sense of dread. Could the professor be right? Was there no one they could trust?

Before he could question Kouwe's assessment further, a scream split the night. Something huge came flying through the air. People scattered out of the way. Nate backpedaled with Kouwe in tow.

The large object landed in the middle of the crouched group. Flashlights swung toward the crumpled figure in their midst.

Anna cried out.

Transfixed in the spears of light, Corporal Warczak lay on his back, covered in blood and gore. One arm scrabbled up as if he were drowning in the spreading pool of his own blood. He tried to scream again, but all that came out was a croaking noise.

Nate stared, frozen. He could not tear his eyes from the sight of the ruined corporal.

From the waist down, Warczak's body was gone. He had been bitten in half.

"Weapons ready!" Waxman shouted, breaking through the horrified trance.

Nate dropped to a knee, swinging his shotgun out to the darkness. Kelly and Kouwe dove to aid the downed corporal, but Nate knew it was a futile gesture. The man was already dead.

He pointed his weapon. Throughout the jungle, dark shadows flowed and shifted, jiggled by the play of the group's flashlights. But Nate knew it wasn't all illusion. These shadows were all flowing toward the trapped group.

One of the Rangers shot a flare into the sky. The whistling trail arced high and exploded into a magnesium brightness that cast the jungle in silver and black. The sudden brightness gave those who crept up on them reason to pause.

Nate found himself staring into the eyes of a monster, caught in the shine of the flare. It crouched in the lee of a boulder on the cliff's escarpment, a massive creature, the size of a bull, but sleek and smooth. A cat. It studied him with eyes as black and cold as chunks of obsidian. Others lay nestled in the jungle and boulders around them. A pack of the creatures, at least twenty.

"Jaguars," Manny mumbled in shock over his shoulder. "Black jaguars.

Nate recognized the physique similar to Tor-tor's, but these creatures were three times as large, half a ton each. Prehistoric in size.

"They're all around us," Camera whispered.

In her words, Nate heard the echo of his father's last radioed message: Can't last much longer . . . oh, God, they're all around us! Had this been his fate?

For another breath, neither group moved. Nate held his breath, hoping the nighttime prowlers would be intimidated by the flare's brightness and retreat. As if this thought were shared by one of the Rangers, a second flare jetted into the sky and burst with brightness, floating down on a tiny parachute.

"Hold steady," Waxman hissed.

The impasse stretched. The pack was not leaving.

"Sergeant," Waxman said, "on my mark, lay a path of grenades up toward the cliffs. Everyone else, keep weapons ready. Haul ass for the centermost cave on my signal:'

Nate's eyes flicked to the yawning cavern in the cliff face. If they could make it there, the group could be attacked from only one direction. It was defensible. Their only hope.

"Camera, use the Bailey to cover our-"

The sharp crack of a pistol cut off the captain's order. Off to the side, Zane stumbled backward from the recoil of his smoking gun.

One of the cats spat and leaped in rage. Other jaguars responded growling low and bounding toward the group.

"Now!" Waxman yelled.

Kostos dropped to one knee, aimed his M-16 toward the cliffs, and fired. Camera spun with her new weapon, blasting from her hip, laying down a swath of fire across their rear. A flashing arc of flying silver disks flew out, shredding the jungle.

One of the jaguars was caught in midleap, its exposed belly sliced open. It howled and collapsed to the jungle, writhing.

Its cries were cut off as Kostos's grenade barrage began booming, echoing off the cliffs, deafening. Rock dust and dirt flumed up.

Shots were fired all around. Frank guarded his sister and the professor as they knelt beside the slack form of Corporal Warczak. Manny was on one knee beside Tor-tor, whose eyes were wide, hackles raised. Zane and Olin stood with Anna Fong, firing blindly into the dark.

Nate kept his shotgun raised and centered on the giant fellow he had first seen, crouched by the boulder off to the left. Despite the noises and the chatter of rattling rock debris, the creature had remained stone still.

Other shadowy figures fled from the bombarded slope. Others lay unmoving, dead, shredded.

"Go!" Waxman barked sharply, his command cutting through the explosions. "Make for the cave!"

The group lurched through the fringe of brush and jungle toward the open rocky landscape at the foot of the towering cliffs. Nate kept his shotgun pointed at the cat, finger tensed on the shotgun's trigger. If it even flicks its tail . . .

Waxman waved them on, Kostos in the lead. "Get up there before they regroup!" The captain dropped beside Camera. Behind them, the pack converged along their trail. Several limped or sniffed at a dead mate, but they kept a wary distance now.

Nate sidled past the silent cat off to the left. Only its eyes followed their passage. Nate suspected this was the leader of the pack. Behind that cold gaze, Nate could almost see the thing weighing these strangers, judging them.

Camera had switched her weapon off automatic, conserving her ammunition. She fired at a lone cat getting too near. Her aim was off. The silver disk shaved the jaguar's ear and whizzed off into the jungle. The wounded cat dropped to its belly, glowering with pain and anger.

"Keep moving!" Waxman yelled.

By now, the cave was in direct sight. The group's tense pace collapsed into a panicked rout. Kostos led the way. He raised a flare pistol and fired it into the opening. A bright trace flashed out of the pistol's muzzle and exploded with light inside the cavern.

The deep cave was illuminated all the way to its rocky end.

"All clear!" Kostos hollered. "Move it!"

Olin, Zane, and Anna were the first to race inside. The sergeant stood at the entrance, M-16 in hand, waving his arm. "Move, move, move.. :"

Frank pushed Kelly ahead of him. Professor Kouwe ran beside him.

As the flares died out overhead, Nate took up a position on the other side of the entrance, shotgun ready.

Manny and Tor-tor followed with Waxman and Camera on their heels.

They were going to make it, Nate realized.

Then a jaguar leaped from the deepening shadows, landing atop a boulder right beside the last two Rangers. Camera dropped and aimed her weapon, but before she could fire, a paw struck out and raked into the chest of the team's captain.

Waxman was yanked off his feet, sailing into the air, claws sunk deep into his field jacket and chest. He bellowed, bringing up his own weapon. He fired over his head, striking the cat in the shoulder. The beast toppled backward, dragging the hooked captain with it. His body flew over the boulder, limbs kicking.

Camera lunged up and ran around the boulder, going to the aid of her captain. Out of sight, Nate heard the characteristic whir of her weapon. Then suddenly she was backing into sight again. On her trail were a pair of jaguars. They were bleeding, embedded bits of silver decorated their flesh. Camera was obviously struggling with the cartridge to her weapon, out of ammo disks.

Nate leaped away from the cave wall and ran toward her. As he reached her side, he shoved his shotgun to arms' length, the muzzle only a foot away from the snarling face of one of the jaguars. He pulled the trigger, and the beast flew back, howling.

Camera unholstered her 9mm pistol. She fired and fired at the other jaguar, unloading the clip. It fell back, then collapsed.

They stumbled up the slope.

Around the other side of the boulder, the captain fell into sight, crawling, one arm gone. His face was a bloody ruin.

"I . . . I thought he was dead," Camera said with shock, stepping in his direction.

The captain crawled half a step, then a paw shot out and dug into the meat of his thigh. He was pulled back toward the hidden shadows. He screamed, fingers digging at the loose shale, finding no purchase.

A shot cracked. The captain's head flew back, then forward, striking the rock hard. Dead. Nate glanced behind him and saw Kostos crouched with his M-16 in hand, eyes fixed to its sniper scope. The sergeant slowly lowered his weapon, his expression pained and ripe with hard guilt.

"Everyone, get inside!" he yelled.

The party had remained clustered near the entrance.

Nate and Camera hurried toward the cavern mouth.

Frank and Kostos flanked the threshold, weapons ready. The men were limned against the glare of the dying flare inside the passage. Frank waved to them. "Hurry!"

From Nate's position several yards down the escarpment, he spotted a deeper shadow shift along the base of the rocky cliff. To the left of the cave opening. "Watch out!"

It was the largest of the jaguars, the one Nate had first spotted.

It sprang past the mouth of the cave. Frank was bowled over, flying high into the air and landing on his back. Kostos was slammed into the wall. Then the cat was gone, racing back into the shadows below.

Kelly screamed. "Frank!"

Nate ran with Camera. Kostos picked himself off the ground, wheezing and holding his chest, dazed.

"Help me!" Kelly yelled.

Frank lay writhing in the shale. Kelly's brother hadn't just been

knocked off his feet. Both his legs were gone from the knees down. Blood spurted and jetted across the stones. In those few seconds, the giant jaguar had sheared off the limbs, as cleanly as a guillotine.

Kouwe fell to Frank's other side. Olin helped drag the moaning man into the cave. Kelly followed, yanking tourniquets from her pack. Plastic vials of morphine tumbled to the floor. Nate retrieved them.

Near the entrance, a shot was fired. Light burst outside. Another flare. Nate held out the vials of morphine, feeling useless, stunned.

Kouwe took them. "Go watch our back:" He nodded to the entrance.

Olin and Kelly worked on the stricken man. Tears flowed down Kelly's cheeks, but her face was tight with determination and concentration. She refused to lose her brother.

Nate turned with his shotgun and joined Kostos and Camera at the cave's opening. The new flare showed that the jungle still moved with shadows. The bouldered slope offered additional cover for the cats.

Manny joined them, pistol in one hand. Tor-tor sniffed at Frank's blood on the rock and growled.

"I count at least another fifteen," Camera said, face half covered with night-vision goggles. "They're not leaving:'

Kostos swore. "If they rush us, we couldn't hope to stop them all. We're down to one grenade launcher, two M-16s, and a handful of pistols:'

"And my shotgun," Nate added.

Camera spoke, "I've fitted a new cartridge into the Bailey. But it's my last."

Manny crouched with his pistol, "There's some old debris blown in the back of the cave-branches, leaves, whatnot. We could light a fire at the entrance:'

"Do it;" Kostos said.

As Manny turned, a long, low growl rumbled up the slope. Everyone froze. Illuminated by the flare, a large shape revealed itself on the rocky slope. Weapons were raised.

Note recognized the shadow as the largest cat.

"A female," Manny mumbled.

It remained in plain sight, studying them, challenging them. Behind it, the jungle churned with sleek bodies, muscled and clawed.

"What do we do?" Camera asked.

"The bitch is trying to psych us out," Kostos grumbled, lowering his eye to the sight on his rifle.

"Don't fire;" Nate hissed. "If you shoot now, you'll have the whole pack on us.

"Nate's right," Manny said. "Their blood lust is up. Anything could set them off. At least wait until we have a fire going here:"

The cat seemed to hear him and let out a piercing yowl. In a surge of pure muscle, she leaped toward them, charging at an astounding speed, a precision machine.

The Rangers fired, but the she-beast was too fast, gliding with preternatural swiftness. Bullets chewed at the rock, sparking, missing, as if she were a true phantom. A single razored disk whizzed from the Bailey and zinged off a boulder to skitter harmlessly down the slope.

Nate dropped to one knee, shotgun pointed. "Here, kitty-kitty," he hissed under his breath. Once she was close enough . . .

Camera repositioned her weapon, but before she could fire another shot, she was bumped aside. Tor-tor lunged past her, leaping from his master's side to the slope beyond.

"Tor-tor!" Manny called.

The smaller jaguar bounded a few yards down the slope and stopped, digging in, blocking the path of the larger cat. With a sharp snarl, he crouched low, rear haunches raised and bunched to spring, tail flicking with menace. He bared his long yellow claws and sharp fangs.

The giant black jaguar rushed at him, prepared to bowl him over, but at the last moment, she pulled up and stopped in front of Tor-tor, matching his stance, snarling. The two cats hissed and challenged each other.

Kostos lifted his weapon. "You're dead, bitch:"

Manny motioned him not to shoot. "Wait!"

The two cats slowly padded around each other, circling, only a yard apart. At one point, the giant female's back was toward them. Nate could tell both Rangers had to restrain themselves not to fire.

"What are they doing?" Carrera asked.

Manny answered, "She can't understand why one of her own species, even a small one like Tor-tor, is protecting us. It has her perplexed."

By now, the two had stopped snarling. They cautiously approached one another, now almost nose to nose. Sharing some silent communication, the circling continued. Raised hackles settled back to sleek fur. A soft chuffing sounded as the larger cat took in the scent of this strange little jaguar.

Eventually they both stopped their dance, once again back to their original positions. Tor-tor crouched between the cave and the giant cat.

With a final grunt, the large jaguar leaned forward and rubbed her jowl against the side of Tor-tor's cheek, some understanding reached, a truce. With a blur of black fur, the giant cat spun and slipped back down the slope.

Slowly Tor-tor straightened from his crouch. His eyes glowed golden. With a feline casualness, he licked a patch of ruffled fur back into perfect place and turned to them. He padded back to the entrance as if he'd just come back from a stroll.

Camera lowered her weapon and shifted her night-vision goggles. "They're pulling back," she said, amazed.

Manny hugged his pet. "You stupid bastard," he mumbled.

"What just happened?" Kostos asked.

"Tor-tor's close to being sexually mature," Manny said. "A juvenile male. The female, though huge, appears proportionally to be about the same age. And with all the blood in the air, tensions were high, including sexual tension. From their actions, Tor-tor's challenge was construed as both a threat and a sexual display."

Kostos scowled. "So you're saying he was making a play for her ass:"

"And she accepted," Manny said, patting his jaguar's side proudly. "Since Tor-tor came out and met her challenge, she probably believes him to be our pack leader. An acceptable mate:"

"What now?" Camera asked. "They've pulled back, but haven't left. As a matter of fact, they seem to be massing down the chasm a bit, blocking any retreat back to the swamp lake:"

Manny shook his head. "I don't know what they're doing. But Tor-tor has bought us some time. I say we use it. Get that fire lit and keep our guard up:'

Nate watched the bulk of the pack flow down into the jungle chasm. What were they doing?

"We've got company," Camera said, voice tense again. She pointed in the opposite direction, deeper up the canyon.

Nate turned his attention. In that direction, he saw nothing but the dark jungle and the broken landscape of rock at the foot of the cliff. "What did you-"

Then movement caught his eye.

A short way up the chasm, a dark figure stepped more fully out of the jungle fringe and onto the exposed shale. It was a human figure. A man. He was as much a shadow as the cats, black from head to toe. He lifted an arm, then turned and began to walk up the canyon, keeping in plain sight. They watched him, stunned.

"It must be one of the Ban-ali," Nate said.

The figure stopped, turned their way, and seemed to be waiting.

"I think he wants us to follow him," Manny said.

"And the jaguars aren't leaving us much choice," Camera said. "They've settled into the jungle below us:"

The distant figure simply stood.

"What do we do?" Camera asked.

Nate answered, "We follow him. It's why we came. To find the Ban-ali Perhaps this was their last test, the jaguar pack:"

"Or it could be another trap," Kostos said.

"I don't see we have much choice," Camera said. "I have a feeling we go or the pack will finish us off."

Nate glanced over his shoulder to the deeper depths of the cave. Ten yards back, Kelly, Kouwe and the others were still gathered around Frank, now stripped to his boxers. The man seemed to be sedated. Anna stood; holding an IV bag at shoulder height. Kelly had one of her brother's stumped limbs already wrapped in a bandage and was tying off a vessel in the other. Kouwe knelt beside her, ready with the bandages for this other limb. Around them, empty syringe wrappers and small plastic drug bottle littered the cave floor.

"I'll see if Frank can be moved:"

"We leave no one behind," Kostos said.

Nate nodded, glad to hear it. He crossed to the others. "How's Frank doing?" he asked Kouwe.

"He's lost a lot of blood. Once he's stable, Kelly wants to transfuse him:

Nate sighed. "We may have to move him:"

"What?" Kelly asked, tying off a suture. "He can't be moved!" Panic, exhaustion, and disbelief hardened her words.

Nate crouched as Kelly and Kouwe began bandaging the second stump. Frank moaned softly as his leg was jarred.

As they worked, Nate explained what had happened at the cave's entrance. "We've been contacted by the Ban-ali. Perhaps invited to continue on to their village. I suspect the invitation is a one-time offer:"

Kouwe nodded. "We must've passed some last challenge, survived some gauntlet;' the professor said, parroting Nate's early assessment. "Now we've earned the right to move onward by proving ourselves worthy."

"But Frank . . . ?" Kelly said.

"I can rig up a stretcher out of bamboo and palm fronds," Kouwe said softly, touching Kelly's hand. "Knowing these tribesmen, if we don't move him, he'll be killed. We'll all be killed:"

Nate watched the woman's face tighten with fear. Her eyes glazed. First her daughter, now her brother.

Nate sank down beside her and put his arm around her. "I'll make sure he gets where we're going safely. Once there, Olin can get the radio up and running:" Nate glanced to the Russian.

Olin nodded his head vigorously. "I know I can at least get the GPS working properly to send out a decent signal:"

"And once that's done, help will arrive. They'll airlift your brother out. He'll make it. We all will:"

Kelly leaned into him, softening against him. "Do you promise?" she said, her voice soft with tears.

He tightened his embrace. "Of course I do:" But as Nate stared at the pale face of her brother, with blood slowly seeping through the man's new bandages, he prayed it was a promise he could keep.

Kelly shifted in his hold, and her voice was stronger when she spoke. "Then let's go:"

He helped her to her feet.

They quickly began arranging for their departure. Kostos and Manny crossed to the jungle and gathered material to construct the makeshift stretcher, while Kelly and Kouwe stabilized Frank as well as they could. Soon they were ready to head out again into the night.

Nate met Camera at the cave entrance.

"Our visitor's still out there," she said.

In the distance, the lone shadowy figure stood.

Kostos raised his voice, returning to make sure everything was in order. "Keep together! Keep alert!"

Nate and Camera separated. The group filed out between them with the sergeant in the lead. Near the end of the line, Manny and Olin carried the stretcher, the patient lashed to the bamboo for extra security. The men in the party would take turns hauling Frank.

As the stretcher passed, Kelly followed last. Then Nate and Camera moved in step behind her.

Just past the entrance, the toe to Nate's boot knocked an object from the shale, something dusty and discarded. Nate bent to pick it up and inspected it.

They couldn't leave this behind.

He knocked off the dirt and stepped forward. He slipped in front of Manny, wiped the last bit of dust from the brim of Frank's Red Sox cap, and placed it back on the stricken man's head.

As Nate turned to return to his place in line, he found Kelly's eyes on his, tears glistening. She offered him a shadow of a sad smile. He nodded, accepting her silent gratitude.

Nate took his position beside Camera. He studied the dark jungle and the solitary figure in the distance.

Where did the path lead from here?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Habitation

AUGUST 16, 4:13 A.M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Louis floated in his canoe, awaiting news from his trackers. Dawn was still hours away. Stars shone in the clear sky, but the moon had set, casting the swamp into deep shadows. Through night-vision scopes, Louis watched for any sign of his men.

Nothing.

He grimaced. As he waited in the canoe, he felt his plan crumbling around him. What was going on out there? His ruse to get the Ranger team fleeing had been successful. But what now?

At midnight, Louis's team had crossed the swamp in their canoes, hauled overland from the river. As the group neared the far shore, flares had blossomed into the sky further up the chasm, near the southern cliffs. Shots were fired, echoing down to the swamp.

Using binoculars, Louis had watched a shadowy firelight. The Ranger team was again clearly under attack. But from his vantage, Louis could not see who or what was attacking them. His attempts to contact Jacques's recon team had failed. His lieutenant had gone mysteriously silent.

Needing information, Louis had sent a small team ashore, his best trackers, outfitted with night-vision and infrared equipment, to investigate what was happening. He and the others remained a safe distance offshore in the canoes and waited.

Two hours had passed, and so far, there was no word, not even a radio message from the trackers. Sharing his canoe were three men and his mistress. They all watched the far shore with binoculars.

Tshui was the first to spot a man slip from the jungle. She pointed, making a small sound of warning.

Louis swung his glasses. It was the leader of the tracking team. He waved for them to cross to shore. "At last," Louis mumbled, lowering his scopes.

The convoy of canoes swept to the boggy banks. Louis was one of the first on shore. He silently signaled his men to set up a defensive perimeter, then crossed to the lead tracker.

The dark-haired man, a German mercenary named Brail, nodded in greeting. He was short, no taller than five feet, painted in camouflage and clad in black clothes.

"What did you find?" Louis asked him.

The man spoke with a thick German accent. "Jaguars, a pack of fifteen or so.

Louis nodded, not surprised. Across the swamp, they had heard the strange growls and cries.

"But these were no ordinary jaguars," Brail continued. "More like monsters. Three times normal size. There's a body I can show you:"

"Go on," Louis said, waving this away for now. "What happened to the others?"

Brail continued his report, describing how the trackers had been forced to move with care so as not to be spotted. The rest of his four-man team were positioned in trees up the chasm. "The pack is leaving, heading deeper into the canyon. They appear to be herding the remaining members of the enemy team ahead of them:"

Brail held out an open palm. "After the cats left the area, we found these on a mauled corpse:" The tracker held two silver bars affixed to a scrap of khaki. They were captain's bars. The leader of the Rangers.

"Why aren't the jaguars attacking the rest?" Louis asked.

Brail touched his night-vision scope. "I spotted someone, an Indian from the look of him, leading them from farther up the canyon:"

"One of the Ban-ali?"

The man shrugged.

Who else could it be? Louis wondered. He pondered this newest information. Louis could not let the others get too far ahead, especially if the Rangers had made successful contact with the strange tribe. With the prize so close, Louis dared not lose them now.

But the surviving jaguars could prove a difficulty. They stood between his team and the others. The pack would have to be eliminated as quietly as possible without spooking his true prey.

Louis studied the dark forest. The time of slinking in the others' shadows was nearing an end. Once he knew where the village was located and evaluated its defenses, he could take his plan to its final stage.

"Where are the cats now?" Louis asked. "Are they all heading up the canyon?"

Brail grunted sourly. "For the moment. If there's any change, my scouts will radio back to us. Luckily, with the infrared scopes, the bastards are easy to spot. Large and hot:"

Louis nodded, satisfied. "What about any other hostiles?"

"We swept the area, Herr Doktor. No heat signatures:"

Good. Then at least for the moment, the Rangers were still keeping attention diverted away from Louis's team. But this close to the Ban-ali lands, Louis knew such an advantage would not last long. He and his team would have to move quickly from here. But first, for his plan to proceed, the path ahead had to be cleared of the jaguar pack.

He turned and found Tshui standing at his shoulder, as silent and deadly as any jungle cat. He reached and ran a finger tenderly along her cheekbone. She leaned into his touch. His mistress of poisons and potions.

"Tshui, ma cherie, it seems once again we must call upon your talents."

5:44 A.M.

Nate's shoulders ached from carrying the stretcher. They had been marching for over two hours. Off to the east, the sky was already glowing a soft rose with the promise of dawn.

"How much farther?" Manny huffed from the head of the stretcher. He voiced the question on all their minds.

"I don't know, but there's no going back from here," Nate said, winded

"Not unless you want to be someone's morning snack," Private Carrera reminded them, maintaining a vigil on their back trail.

All night long, the jaguar pack had dogged their trail, sticking mostly to the jungles that fringed the cliffs. An occasional bolder individual would stalk the loose shale, a silhouette against the black rock.

Their presence kept Tor-Tor on edge. The jaguar would hiss under his breath and pace around and around the stretcher, on guard. His eyes flashed an angry gold.

For them all, the only safe path from here was forward, following the lone figure. The tribesman maintained a quarter-mile lead on them, keeping a pace they could follow.

But exhaustion was quickly setting in. After so many days with so little sleep, everyone was bone tired. The entire team moved at a snail's pace, feet dragging, stumbling often. Still, as hard as the night journey was on all their nerves, one member of their party suffered the most.

Kelly never left her brother's side: constantly checking Frank's vital signs and adjusting his bloody bandages as they walked. Her face remained ashen in the starlight, her eyes scared and exhausted. When she wasn't acting as his doctor, she simply held Frank's hand, just a sister at these moments, clearly trying to will him her own strength.

The only blessing was that the morphine and sedatives were keeping the wounded man in a doped drowse, though he would occasionally moan. Each time this happened, Kelly would tense and her face would twist as if the pain were her own, which Nate suspected was partly true. She clearly suffered as much as her twin brother.

"Attention!" Kostos called from up front. "We're changing direction:"

Nate peered ahead. All night they had been trudging along the hardpacked soil where the jungle met the rocky escarpment of the cliffs. He now watched their guide cross the escarpment toward one of the many shattered cracks in the cliff face. It ran from top to bottom, as wide as a two-car garage.

The tribesman stepped to the entrance, turned back to stare at them, then, without a signal or any other sign of welcome, he strode into the chasm.

"I'll check it out first," Kostos said.

The Ranger trotted ahead as they slowed their pace. He had a flashlight secured under his M-16. The light remained steady and fixed on his target. He dashed to the side of the crack's entrance, took a breath, then twisted to shine his light down it. He remained fixed in this position for several seconds, then waved them over with one arm, maintaining his post. "It's a side chute! A steep one:'

The group converged upon the Ranger.

Nate squinted up its length. The crack extended the full height of the cliff, open at the top to let starlight shine down it. The way was quite steep, but there appeared to be crude steps climbing the chute.

Professor Kouwe pointed. "It looks like there might be another canyon or valley beyond this one:"

Anna Fong stood beside him. "Or perhaps it's a switchback of this same canyon, a shortcut to the upper level."

In the distance, the lone tribesman climbed the stone steps, seemingly unconcerned whether they followed or not. But his nonchalance was not shared by all. Behind them, the jaguar pack drew closer, growling and whining.

"I say we need to make a decision," Camera said.

Kostos frowned at the tall walls that framed the crude staircase. "It could be a trap, an ambush:"

Zane took a step toward the chute. "We're already in a trap, Sergeant. I for one prefer to take my chances with the unknown than with what lies behind us:"

No one argued. The memory of the deaths of Warczak and Waxman remained fresh and bloody.

Kostos moved on ahead of Zane. "Let's go. Keep alert:"

The chute was wide enough that Manny and Nate could walk side by side, the stretcher between them. This made mounting the steep stairs a bit easier. Still, the climb was daunting.

Olin moved down to them. "Do either of you need to be relieved?"

Manny grimaced. "I can last a little longer."

Nate nodded, agreeing.

So they began the long climb. As they progressed, Nate and Manny were soon lagging behind the others. Kelly kept near them, her face worried. Camera maintained the rear guard.

Nate's knees ached, his thighs burned, and his shoulders knotted with exhaustion. But he kept on. "It can't be much farther," he said aloud, more to himself then anyone else.

"I hope not," Kelly said.

"He's strong," Manny said, nodding to Frank.

"Strong will only get you so far," she answered.

"He'll pull through this," Nate assured her. "He's got his lucky Red Sox cap, doesn't he?"

Kelly sighed. "He loves that old thing. Did you know he was a shortstop for a farm club? Triple A division:" Her voice lowered to a strained whisper. "My father was so proud. We all were. There was even talk of Frank going into the majors. Then he got in a skiing accident, screwed up his knee. It ended his career."

Manny grunted in surprise. "And that's his lucky hat?"

Kelly brushed the cap's brim, a trace of a smile on her lips. "For three seasons, he played a game he loved with all his heart. Even after the accident, he was never bitter. He felt himself the luckiest man in the world:"

Nate stared down at the cap, envying Frank his moment in the sun. Had life ever been that simple for him? Maybe the man's cap was indeed lucky. And right now, they needed all the luck they could get.

Camera interrupted their reminiscing. "The jaguars . . . they've stopped following us."

Nate glanced down the stairs. One of the giant cats stood at the entrance. It was the female leader of the pack. She paced back and forth below. Tor-tor stared down at her, eyes flashing. The female stared at the smaller cat for a moment-then, in a shadowy blur, she fled back into the jungle.

"The lower valley must be the pack's territory," Manny said. "Another line of defense:"

"But what are they protecting?" Camera asked.

A call sounded from up ahead. It was Sergeant Kostos. He had stopped ten steps from the end of the chasm and waved them to join him.

As the group gathered, the eastern skies brightened with dawn. Beyond the stepped chute, a valley opened, thick with dense vegetation and towering trees. Somewhere a stream babbled brightly, and in the distance, a waterfall grumbled.

"The Ban-ali lands," Professor Kouwe said.

Olin approached Manny and Nate. He reached for the stretcher. "We'll take over from here:"

Nate was surprised to see Richard Zane at the Russian's side. But Nate didn't complain. They passed the stretcher to the new bearers. Relieved of the weight, Nate felt a hundred pounds lighter. His arms felt like they wanted to float up.

He and Manny climbed up to Kostos.

"The Indian disappeared," the sergeant grumbled.

Nate saw that the tribesman had indeed vanished. "Even so, we know where we have to go:"

"We should wait until the sun's fully up;" Kostos said.

Manny frowned. "The Ban-ali have been tracking us since we first set out into the jungles . . . night and day. Whether the sun is up or not, we won't see a single soul unless they want us to:"

"Besides;" Nate said, "we have a man down. The sooner we reach a village or whatever, the better Frank's chances. I say we forge on:"

Kostos sighed, then nodded. "Okay, but keep together:"

The sergeant straightened and led the way from there.

With each step, the new day grew brighter. Sunrise in the Amazon was often sudden. Overhead, the stars were swallowed in the spreading rosy glow of dawn. The cloudless sky promised a hot day to come.

The group paused at the top of the chasm. A thin trail led down into the jungle. But where did it go? In the valley below, there was no sign of habitation. No wood smoke rising, no voices echoing.

Before moving forward, Kostos stood with binoculars, studying the valley. "Damn it," he mumbled.

"What's wrong?" Zane asked.

"This canyon is just a switchback of the one we were in:" He pointed to the right. "But it appears this canyon is cut off from the one below it by steep cliffs:"

Nate lifted his own binoculars and followed where the sergeant pointed. Through the jungle, he could just make out where a small stream flowed down the canyon's center. He followed its course until it vanished over a steep drop, down into the lower canyon, the one they had been marching through all night, the domain of the giant jaguars.

"We're boxed in here," Kostos said.

Nate swung his binoculars in the opposite direction. He spotted another waterfall. This one tumbled down into this canyon from a massive cliff on the far side. In fact, the entire valley was closed in by rock walls on three sides, and the steep cliff on the fourth.

It's a totally isolated chunk of jungle, Nate realized.

The sergeant continued, "I don't like this. The only way up here is this chute:"

As Nate lowered his glasses, the edge of the sun crested the eastern skies, bathing the jungle ahead in sunlight, creating a green glow. A flock of blue-and-gold macaws took wing from a rookery near the misty cliffs and sailed past overhead. The spray from the two waterfalls at either end of the valley made the air almost sparkle in the first rays of the sun.

"Like a bit of Eden," Professor Kouwe said in a hushed voice.

With the touch of light, the jungle awoke with birdsong and the twitter of monkeys. Butterflies as big as dinner plates fluttered at the fringe. Something furry and quick darted back into the jungle. Isolated or not, life had found its way into this verdant valley.

But what else had made its home here?

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

Everyone remained silent for several seconds.

Nate finally spoke. "I don't think we have much choice but to proceed:"

Kostos scowled, then nodded. "Let's see where this leads. But stay alert:"

The group cautiously descended the short slope to the jungle's edge. Kostos led once again, Nate at his side with his shotgun. They marched in a tight bunch down the path. As soon as they entered under the bower of the shadowed forest, the scents of orchids and flowering vines filled the air, so thick they could almost taste it.

Still, as sweet as the air was, the constant tension continued. What secrets lay out here? What dangers? Every shadow was suspect.

It took Nate fifteen minutes of hiking before he noticed something strange about the forest around them. Exhaustion must have dulled his senses. His feet slowed. His mouth dropped open.

Manny bumped into him. "What's the matter?"

His brow furrowed, Nate crossed a few steps off the path.

"What are you doing, Rand?" Kostos asked.

"These trees. . :" Nate's sense of wonder overwhelmed him, cutting through his unease.

The others stopped and stared. "What about them?" Manny asked.

Nate turned in a slow circle. "As a botanist, I recognize most of the plants around here:" He pointed and named names. "Silk cotton, laurels, figs, mahogany, rosewood, palms of every variety. The usual trees you'd see in a rain forest. But. . :" Nate's voice died away.

"But what?" Kostos asked.

Nate stepped to a thin-boled tree. It stretched a hundred feet into the air and burst into a dense mass of fronds. Giant serrated cones hung from its underside. "Do you know what this is?"

"It looks like a palm," the sergeant said. "So what?"

"It's not!" Nate slapped the trunk with his palm. "It's a goddamn cycadeoid:"

"A what?"

"A species of tree thought long extinct, dating back to the Cretaceous period. I've only seen examples of it in the fossil record:"

"Are you sure?" Anna Fong asked.

Nate nodded. "I did my thesis on paleobotany." He crossed to another plant, a fernlike bush that towered twice his height. Each frond was as tall as he was and as wide as his stretched arms. He shook one of the titanic leaves. "And this is a goddamn giant club moss. It's supposed to have gone extinct during the Carboniferous period. And that's not all. They're all around us. Glossopterids, lycopods, podocarp conifers . . :" He pointed out the strange plants. "And that's just the things I can classify."

Nate pointed his shotgun to a tree with a coiled and spiraled trunk. "I have no idea what that thing is:" He faced the others, shedding his exhaustion like a second skin, and lifted his arms. "We're in a goddamn living fossil museum:"

"How's that possible?" Zane asked.

Kouwe answered, "This place is isolated, a pocket in time. Anything could have sheltered here for eons:"

"And geologically this region dates back to the Paleozoic era," Nate added, excited. "The Amazon basin was once a freshwater inland sea before changes in tectonics opened the sea to the greater ocean and drained it away. What we have here is a little peek at that ancient past. It's amazing!"

Kelly spoke up from beside the stretcher. `Amazing or not, I need to get Frank somewhere safe:'

Her words drew Nate back to the present, back to their situation. He nodded, embarrassed at his distraction in the face of their predicament.

Kostos cleared his throat. "Let's push on:"

The group followed his lead.

Fascinated by the forest, Nate hung back. His eyes studied the foliage around him, no longer peering at the shadows, but fixed on the jungle itself. As a trained botanist, he gaped in disbelief at the riotous flora: stalked horsetails the size of organ pipes, ferns that dwarfed modern-day palms, massive primitive conifers with cones the size of VW bugs. The mix of the ancient and the new was simply astounding, a merged ecosystem unlike any seen before.

Professor Kouwe walked beside him now. "What do you think about all this?"

Nate shook his head. "I don't know. Other prehistoric groves have been discovered in the past. In China, a forest of dawn redwoods was discovered in the eighties. In Africa, a grotto of rare ferns. And most recently, in Australia, an entire stand of prehistoric trees, long thought extinct, was found in a remote rain forest:" Nate glanced to Kouwe for emphasis. "So considering how little of the Amazon has been explored, it's actually more surprising that we've not found such a grove before:"

"The jungle hides its secrets well," Kouwe said.

As they walked, the canopy overhead grew denser, the forest taller. The morning sunlight dwindled to a green glow. It was as if they were walking back into twilight.

Further conversation died as everyone watched the forest. By now, even nonbotanists could tell this jungle was unusual. The number of prehistoric plants began to outnumber the modern-day counterparts. Trees grew huge, ferns towered, strange twisted forms wound among the mix. They passed a spiky bromeliad as large as a small cottage. Massive flowers, as large as pumpkins, grew from vines and scented the air thickly.

It was a greenhouse of amazing proportion.

Kostos suddenly stopped ahead, freezing in place, eyes on the trail, weapon raised and ready. He then slowly motioned them to get down.

The group crouched. Nate shifted his shotgun. Only then did he notice what had startled the Ranger.

Nate stared off to the left, the right, even behind them. It was like one of those computerized pictures that appeared at first to be just a blur of random dots, but when stared at cross-eyed, from a certain angle, a 3-D image suddenly and startlingly appeared.

Nate suddenly and startlingly saw the jungle in a new light.

High in the trees, mounted among the thick branches, platforms had been built, with small dwellings atop them. The roofs of many were woven from the living leaves and branches, offering natural camouflage. These half-living structures blended perfectly with their host trees.

As Nate looked closer, what had appeared to be vines and stranglers crisscrossing between the trees and draping to the ground were in fact natural bridges and ladders. One of these ladders was only a few yards to Nate's right. Flowers grew along its length. It was alive, too.

As he stared around, it was hard to say where man-made structure ended and living began. Half artificial, half growing plant. The blend was so astounding, the camouflage so perfect.

Without them even knowing it, they had already entered the Ban-ali village.

Ahead, larger dwellings climbed even taller trees, multilevel with terraces and patios. But even these were well camouflaged with bark, vine, and leaf, making them difficult to discern.

As they stared, no one in their party moved. One question was on all their faces: Where were the inhabitants of these treetop homes?

Tor-tor growled a deep warning.

Then like the village itself, Nate suddenly saw them. They had been there all along, unmoving, silent, all around. Bits of living shadow. With their bodies painted black, they had melded into the darkness between the trees and under bushes.

One of the tribesmen stepped from his concealing gloom and onto the path. He seemed undaunted by the weapons in their hands.

Nate was certain it was their earlier guide. The one who had led them here. His black hair was braided with bits of leaf and flower in it, adding to the natural camouflage. As he stepped forth, his hands were empty of any weapons. In fact, the tribesman was naked, except for a simple loincloth. He stared at the group, his face hard and unreadable.

Then without a word, he turned and walked down the path.

"He must want us to follow him again," Professor Kouwe said, climbing to his feet. The others slowly stood.

In the woods, more tribesmen remained silent sentinels, bathed in shadows.

Kostos hesitated.

"If they had wanted to kill us," Professor Kouwe added, "we'd be dead already."

Kostos frowned, but the Ranger reluctantly continued on after the tribesman.

As they walked, Nate continued to study the village and its silent inhabitants. He caught occasional glimpses of smaller faces in windows, children and women. Nate glanced to the men half hidden in the forest. Tribal warriors or scouts, he guessed.

Their painted faces bore the familiar Amerindian bone structure, slightly Asiatic, a genetic tie to their ancestors who had first crossed the Bering Strait from Asia into Alaska some fifty thousand years ago and settled the Americas. But who were they? How did they get here? Where did their roots trace? Despite the danger and silent threat, Nate was dying to learn more about these people and their history-especially since it was tied to his own.

He stared around the forest. Had his father walked this same path? Considering this possibility, Nate found his lungs tightening, old emotions surfacing. He was so close to discovering the truth about his father.

As they continued, it soon became apparent that the team was being led toward a sunnier clearing in the distance.

The forest around the thin track opened to either side as they reached the clearing. A ring of giant cycads and primitive conifers circled the open glade. A shallow-banked stream meandered through the sunny space, sparkling and gurgling.

Their guide continued ahead, but the team stopped at the threshold, shocked.

In the center of the clearing, practically filling the entire space, stood a massive tree, a specimen Nate had never seen before. It had to tower at least thirty stories high, its white-barked trunk ten yards in diameter. Thick roots knobbed out of the dark soil like pale knees. A few even spanned the stream beside it before disappearing back into the loam.

Overhead, the tree's branches spread in distinct terraces, not unlike giant redwoods. But instead of needles, this specimen sported wide palmate green leaves, fluttering gently to reveal silver undersides and clusters of husked seed pods, similar to coconuts.

Nate stared, dumbstruck. He didn't even know where to begin classifying this specimen. Maybe a new species of primitive gymnospore, but he was far from sure. The nuts did look a bit like those found on a modern cat's claw plant, but this was a much more ancient specimen.

As he studied the giant, he realized one other thing about the tree. Even this towering hardwood bore signs of habitation. Small clusters of Nutlike dwellings rested atop thicker branches or nestled against the trunk. Constructed to mimic the tree's seed pods, Nate realized, amazed.

Across the way, their tribal guide slipped between two gnarled roots and disappeared into shadow. Stepping to the side for a better look, Nate realized the shadow was in fact an arched opening into the tree's base, a doorway. Nate stared up at the clustered dwellings. There were no vine ladders here. So how did one reach the dwellings? Was there a tunnel winding through the trunk? Nate began to step forward to investigate.

But Manny grabbed his arm. "Look:" The biologist pointed off to the side.

Nate glanced over. Distracted by the white-barked giant, he had failed to notice a squat log cabin across the clearing. It was boxy, but sturdily constructed of logs and a thatched roof. It seemed out of place here, the only structure built on the ground.

"Are those solar cells on its roof?" Manny asked.

Nate squinted and raised his binoculars. Atop the cabin, two small flat black panels glinted in the morning sunshine. They indeed appeared to be solar panels. Intrigued, Nate examined the cabin more thoroughly through his binoculars. The structure was windowless, its door just a flap of woven palm leaves.

Nate's attention caught on something beside the door, a familiar object, bright in the sunshine. It was a tall snakewood staff, polished from years of hard use, crowned by hoko feathers.

Nate felt the ground shift under his feet.

It was his father's walking stick.

Dropping his binoculars, Nate stumbled toward the cabin.

"Rand!" Kostos barked at him.

But he was beyond listening. His feet began to run. The others followed him, keeping the group together. Zane and Olin grunted as they struggled with the stretcher.

Nate hurried to the cabin and then skidded to a stop, his breath caught. His mouth grew dry as he stared at the walking stick. Initials were carved in the wood: C.R.

Carl Rand.

Tears rose in Nate's eyes. At the time of his father's disappearance, Nate had refused to fathom the man could be dead. He had needed to cling to hope, lest despair cripple him, leaving him unable to pursue the yearlong search. Even when his financial resources had run dry and he was forced to concede his father was gone, he hadn't cried. Over such a prolonged time, sorrow had devolved into a black depression, a pit that consumed his life these past four years.

But now, with a tangible bit of evidence that his father had been here, tears flowed freely down his cheeks.

Nate did not entertain the possibility that his father was still alive. Such miracles were relegated to novels. The structure here bore evidence of long disuse. Dead leaves, blown from the forest, lay windswept into a pile against the cabin's front, undisturbed by any footprints.

Nate stepped forward and pushed open the woven flap. It was dark inside. Grabbing the flashlight from his field jacket, Nate clicked it on. A tailless rat, a paca, skittered from a hiding place and dashed through a crack in the far wall. Dust lay thick, tracked with little paw prints, along with rodent droppings.

Nate shone his light around.

Inside, near the back wall, four hammocks lay strung from the raftered ceiling, empty and untouched. Closer still, a small wooden bench had been constructed. Atop it was spread a collection of lab equipment, including a laptop computer.

Like the wooden staff on the porch, Nate recognized the tiny microscope and specimen jars. They were his father's equipment. He stepped into the dark space and opened the laptop. It whirred to electronic life, startling Nate. He stumbled backward.