Quest

Chapter 17

“There’s the second landmark.” Kennedy pointed straight ahead, where a large, gray object rose up out of the water. It was a dome-shaped rock at least ten feet high, and it looked to Tam like a giant tortoise cutting through the water as the river rushed past it on either side of it. Centuries, millennia of erosion had worn away a few inches of the base on either side, adding to the tortoise-shell illusion. Faint lines carved into its surface indicated that, at some point in the past, humans had also seen the resemblance and sought to augment it by carving a tortoise shell pattern into the stone. Had she been a tourist, she would have stopped to take pictures, but time was a luxury she did not have. In fact, it bothered her that these stray thoughts even entered her mind. What was wrong with her? She had a job to do.

“That’s a relief,” she said, though she hated speaking to Kennedy at all. “I was hoping the map-maker didn’t intend for us to take a right at the first turtle that came swimming up to the boat.”

The corner of Kennedy’s mouth turned up in a false half-smile, but that was the only response. He was angry about Jay’s death, but if he knew the truth, he’d kill Tam, or at least, try to. She had a feeling the two of them were headed for a reckoning sooner or later, but for now, she needed him.

“Go right at the fork,” she told the guide who piloted their boat. Now that two of the landmarks had proved to be real, her confidence was bolstered, and she was eager to press on toward their destination.

“When can we stop and eat?” Even riding in a different boat, Cy managed to get on her last nerve. Despite his recent spate of screw-ups, and the death of his partner, he seemed to believe he was only a notch below Kennedy in the pecking order, and in his mind, Kennedy was at the top of the food chain on this expedition. He bullied their guides and condescended to the three ScanoGen security agents, all of whom were ex-military men Tam had brought along for extra muscle and firepower. Add in the fact that he made no bones about his belief that Tam was in charge in name only, and she was seriously considering going ahead with Salvatore’s orders regarding Cy, no matter what her conscience might tell her.

“Later,” she snapped. “Keep a lookout on both sides of the river for something that looks like an open mouth. Once we find it, there’s a side channel somewhere around it that we’ll need to take.”

“Shut up and look,” Kennedy snapped, not looking back at Cy. Perhaps Tam should have appreciated the support, but she knew it was simply Kennedy trying to assert some authority over the only man on this trip who was clearly loyal to him.

“If you say so.” Cy made it clear that the “you” to whom he was referring was Kennedy, not Tam. He took off his cap and fanned at the cloud of mosquitoes that swirled around his head.

Biting and stinging insects were just a few of the minor perils of the Amazon. They all wore long pants and long-sleeved shirts, and frequently doused themselves with the finest insect repellent money could buy. Cy, however, still managed to draw a cloud of swarming pests. They hovered around him, seemingly waiting for his repellent to wear off so they could suck him dry. He complained about it incessantly, pointing out that no one else received similar treatment from the flying nuisances. She could not help but laugh at the man’s petty annoyance, which was far less than he deserved.

Seated in front of her, Smithson, one of her hired guns, leaned back, let his arm hang over the edge, and trailed his fingers in the water.

“Don’t do that!” Her tone was harsh. He jerked his hand back immediately and gave her a look that was a mix of annoyance and embarrassment. “You can lose a finger that way, or worse. There are piranha, caiman, snakes, even electric eels in these waters. Unless you want to lose your trigger finger, keep your hand inside the boat.”

Smithson lost the annoyed look, nodded, and turned around to face forward. At least the security guys were willing to take orders from her. Rather, they had been willing up to this point. She worried that Kennedy would insinuate himself in-between her and the men. She would just have to deal with that as it came.

Shafts of late afternoon sun bathed the river in a burnished orange glow when they finally spotted it. The river twisted sharply to the left, and directly in front of them loomed the arched outline of a dark cave. Its façade resembled a macabre face. The cave was the mouth, a stone jutted out directly above the opening, forming the nose, and jungle growth hung like thick hair up above it.

“If that’s our landmark,” Kennedy said, “where’s the side channel?”

“I think we’re supposed to go inside the cave.” A deep sense of foreboding filled Tam. She didn’t like the look of this cave, but she knew she was right. She could tell by the flow of the water that the cave was not a dead end, but a passage leading… somewhere.

Kennedy turned to her. “Have the third boat take the lead.”

She understood his thinking. The third boat held supplies, a security agent, a guide, and Andy, the professor of whom she was to dispose since he had no useful information to offer. To Kennedy’s way of thinking, they were the most expendable.

To her mind, however, she was at least a little more certain of the loyalty of her handpicked members of the expedition than that of Cy or Kennedy, though the guides frequently gave her dark looks, and muttered under their breath when she gave them orders. Besides, it wasn’t his place to give orders to her, even if he had almost made it seem like a suggestion. At least he hadn’t given the order outright, a sign that he, too, thought the guides and security men might properly acknowledge her as leader.

She decided to split the difference. She wasn’t expendable, but Cy was. She instructed the guide piloting his boat to take the lead. Cy probably should have been annoyed, but he quickly rummaged for a flashlight, drew his side arm, and crouched over the bow like an eager pirate ready for plunder.

Kennedy gave her a dirty look, which she met with a smirk. “You know what Salvatore’s instructions are in regard to our friend Cyrus,” she said softly. “Maybe something in there will do the job for us.”

Kennedy looked, for a moment, like he was about to argue, but he held his tongue. He turned around and fixed his eyes on their destination.

The cool, moist air of the cave was a welcome relief from the oppressive heat on the river. Nonetheless, Tam did not relax. Weapon in hand, she played her light back and forth in the darkness, wondering what might lay in wait. Her mind conjured images of vampire bats, or the glowing eyes of a jaguar lying in wait.

Her pulse quickened as they penetrated deeper into the darkness. The low ceiling gave her the feeling that the world was pressing down upon her. As they passed through the tunnel, the water was filled with sharp rocks that had to be carefully skirted, lest they damage their boats. Several times the boats hung up on the shallow bottom, and they were forced to get out and drag them, all the time worrying about the dangers that might lurk in the dark water just out of sight.

She breathed a deep sigh of relief when they finally emerged unscathed into a mist-shrouded lagoon. It was nearly sundown; the waning light and the thick canopy of the jungle cast the place in sinister shadows.

She spotted a clearing on the far side of the lagoon and directed them to go ashore there to set up camp. The jungle was silent here, and when they cut the engines and let the boats glide the last few feet to shore, the discomfort she felt in the cave filled her again.

Her grandmother had taught her that some places were “just bad,” and were to be avoided. She hadn’t meant dangerous places, like bad neighborhoods, but wicked places, places where evil resided so strongly that one could literally feel it. Tam had never believed her, but now she did. This was a bad place.

It happened in the blink of an eye. There was a sudden blur of motion as something sprang up from underneath a low-hanging branch. The guide in the lead boat had only a moment to cry out in surprise and pain before something clamped down on the back of his neck. Tam’s mind registered only a flash of olive and yellow before the man was snatched down into the water.

“Anaconda!” she cried, springing to her feet and almost capsizing their boat. Her Makarov was in her hand and her head was on a swivel, searching for a target.

Kennedy, cursing like a sailor, fired blindly into the water. The lagoon was filled with shouts as the two remaining guides called their friend’s name, while Cy cried out in panic and dove for the unattended motor. All the boat engines suddenly roared to life as everyone tried to get to shore as fast as human possible.

Tam wobbled as their boat struck ground, but she kept her feet and sprang nimbly onto shore. Their guides scrambled out of their boats and fled blindly into the jungle. Everyone else stood watching and waiting.

“Over there!” Cy shouted as, on the far side of the lagoon, the water roiled and a mass of coils surfaced for an instant. Only the man’s left arm was visible, desperately tugging at one of the coils. Cy and the two agents sent a flurry of bullets in the anaconda’s direction, but if they hit it, there was no sign.

“Stop!” Tam shouted. “You’re wasting ammunition. There’s nothing we can do for him now, and we don’t know what else we might run into.” Deep in her bones, she knew her words to be prophetic. Something told her their troubles had only just begun.