The Armada Legacy

Chapter Fifty-Two

Nico was awake, propped up against his pillow in the tiny ward at the San Tomás medical clinic, when Ben burst in. ‘Hey,’ Nico greeted him in a faint voice.

‘How’s the leg?’ Ben asked.

‘Hurts like a sonofabitch. Doc says I’ll be okay, though. Guess I have you to thank for that.’

‘Yeah, well, I came to say goodbye. I’m leaving.’

‘Leaving?’

‘I know where she is.’

Nico sat up in bed, blinking. ‘Whoa. Say what?’

Ben quickly explained what he’d found out from Pepe and his cousin about the Sapaki tribe’s discovery of a white woman in the jungle. ‘You think it’s her?’ Nico asked in amazement. ‘Is she all right?’

‘I won’t know anything for sure until I get there,’ Ben replied. ‘Pepe’s getting the boat ready right now. We’re setting off in a few minutes.’

‘Where are these Sap—?’

‘Sapaki. Deep in the forest, two or three hours upriver. They keep themselves to themselves.’

‘You know what that means. Better pray they don’t stick your gringo ass in a cauldron and boil you up for their dinner.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Ben said. ‘Seems they’re related to the tribe we came across. Those people didn’t look too hostile to me.’

‘True enough. Maybe if they’d been a little more hostile, they wouldn’t have got wiped out.’

‘Only half wiped out,’ Ben said. ‘From what Pepe’s cousin says, the survivors are spreading the word all over the region. Serrato may just have a tribal uprising on his hands. What are you doing?’

Nico had thrown the sheet back and was struggling out of bed with his heavily-bandaged leg. ‘Whaddaya think I’m doing?’ he retorted. ‘I’m coming the hell with you.’

‘Serrato’s not my concern any longer, Nico. I’m only interested in one thing.’

‘Yeah, and that one thing is exactly what Serrato’s interested in too. You say word’s spreading – that works both ways, man. He finds out there’s this white woman been rescued by a bunch of Indians in the jungle, you don’t think he’ll come for her? Your Brooke is gonna draw that fucker like a magnet. And I intend to be there waiting.’ Nico hobbled towards the chair where the doctor’s sister Graça had neatly folded his clothes, freshly laundered in the only washing machine in San Tomás. His leg gave way under him and he grabbed at the chair to steady himself.

‘You’re in no state for this, my friend,’ Ben said. ‘There isn’t wheelchair access where I’m going.’

‘Oh, nice. You worried about me, or just worried I’ll hold you back?’ Glowering, Nico grabbed a bottle of Dr Rocha’s strong painkillers from the side table and swallowed three of them down dry. ‘Don’t even think about trying to stop me, man,’ he growled. ‘You made me a promise.’

‘Fine. I’m not stopping you.’

‘What about guns?’ Nico said. ‘I lost my Colt.’

‘I don’t have time to go scouring the jungle for more arms dealers right now,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll see you back at the boat. You’ve got twenty minutes to get your act together.’

Nineteen minutes and forty-nine seconds later, Ben looked up from unmooring the river boat and saw Nico stumping along the wooden jetty as fast as his bandaged leg would carry him, struggling with his pack. He looked pale but determined. ‘You got room for one more?’ he yelled.

Ben slipped the moorings, Pepe gunned the throttle with an irrepressible grin and the boat burbled away from the San Tomás quay. The late afternoon sun glinted gold on the river, a heart-lifting sight if Ben hadn’t been so fraught with worry. ‘Let me get that,’ he said, helping Nico to store his rucksack aft.

Nico pointed at Ben’s belt. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a knife,’ Ben said.

‘I can see it’s a knife. Where’d you get it?’

‘Out of your leg, if I remember rightly.’ Dr Rocha had had no particular use for the brutal weapon and Ben, having lost his rifle in the skirmish with Serrato’s men, had asked if he could have it.

‘Kinda ghoulish,’ Nico said, peering uncomfortably at the knife and rubbing his thigh.

‘Kind of practical,’ Ben replied.

The boat chugged on. As San Tomás disappeared behind them the jungle closed in again, the animal chorus from the treetops louder than ever. ‘I’m gonna stink of fucking bug repellent the rest of my life,’ Nico complained, swatting at clouds of insects.

Ben left him at the stern and went forward to talk to Pepe in the wheelhouse. Pepe reckoned on a three-hour trip, give or take, admitting that he’d never personally ventured so far upriver. He described how his late father had been one of the few river traders to pay visits to the Sapaki and other largely uncontacted tribes, such as the Mashco-Piro, along the further reaches. He’d even learned some of the Sapaki language, an obscure and ancient form of Quechua that dated all the way back to the Inca Empire. Pepe had picked up a few words of it from his father as a kid, but, as he explained to Ben: ‘I never reckoned on getting close enough to use it. Like I said before, they don’t exactly welcome outsiders. Pop said that’s what their tribal name means in Quechua: “alone”. That’s how they’ve been for centuries; it’s how they want to stay forever.’

‘What about the white preacher who lives with them?’ Ben asked. ‘Is he a Christian missionary?’

Pepe nodded. ‘Been with the Sapaki so long I guess they regard him as one of them. Kind of a legend around these parts. My father talked about how he met him once, said he didn’t look like any preacher he’d ever seen. Some people say he’s crazy. German. Or maybe Canadian. Come to think of it, I don’t think anyone knows where he’s from.’

The boat chugged on towards the unfamiliar reaches of the river. The first hour dragged past, then the next. Evening was falling and the clouds of insects were thickening even more, until it was almost impossible to draw a breath without choking on a lungful of them.

The atmosphere on board the boat was solemn and silent. Ben gazed down at the passing water, his mind full of anxiety about Brooke. He knew all too well from his SAS jungle training that the bites from certain spider species could be lethal, and South America had some of the worst. He could only pray that the preacher, German or Canadian or whatever he was, had managed to get hold of the serum in time – and that he wasn’t so crazy that he didn’t know what he was doing with it.

A tiny movement on the far river bank caught Ben’s eye and he looked up. Standing in the lengthening shadows among the reeds thirty yards away across the water was an Indian. He and Ben watched one another as the boat glided by. The Indian had patterns of dots tattooed all over his face. He was naked except for a strip of cloth round his middle, and clutched a tall spear. His eyes were piercing and intense.

Ben was distracted for an instant by the splash of a caiman slipping into the water further up the bank. When he looked back at the clump of reeds, the Indian had vanished into the forest, as if he’d never been there.

Ben saw no more signs of human life as evening closed in. When it grew too dark to see, Pepe turned on the lamps mounted on the wheelhouse roof, beaming a yellow glow over the water and the overhanging vegetation. Some time later he announced, ‘I think we’re close.’ He didn’t sound too sure at first, but then after a few more minutes he cut the engine and used a long boat hook to pull them into the bank.

‘You’re certain?’ Ben asked him.

Pepe nodded. ‘This is where my pop used to meet them. He described it to me. See that dead tree there? That was his landmark.’

As far as Ben could tell, there had been a thousand like it all the way upriver. But he had to trust Pepe’s judgement. They disembarked and moored the boat to the dead tree. Pepe shone his flashlight through the greenery, where an earth track barely wide enough for a person disappeared into the trees. ‘This way,’ he whispered softly, as though people might be listening. ‘And watch out for snakes,’ he warned. ‘You step on the wrong one, you’re history.’

They followed Pepe into the darkness. ‘You all right?’ Ben asked Nico.

‘Don’t sweat it, man. I’m so full of painkillers, you could stick blades in me wherever you want and I wouldn’t even feel ’em.’

‘Let’s hope we don’t get to put that to the test,’ Ben muttered as he went on following Pepe along the dark track. It was overgrown in places: Ben used Luis Bracca’s knife to slash away the foliage while Pepe chopped and swung with the machete from the boat. The track wound gradually upwards. The jungle seemed even more filled with life than it had on the approach to Serrato’s compound. It was as though they’d discovered a completely virgin world where no human being had ever set foot.

That was something that would change dramatically if Serrato’s designs on the jungle’s hidden oil reserves ever became a reality. Half a million acres of ancient forest would be shorn away as the heavy machinery moved in, and the ancient peoples whose way of life had remained unchanged and untouched since the dawn of history would be eradicated like vermin.

Ben wondered whether the Indians realised just how fragile their existence might really be; just how much of a threat the totally alien outside world was to their green haven.

Pepe suddenly stopped. ‘This is definitely it,’ he whispered, looking nervously ahead. Two spears, their shafts planted in the earth and their points crossing, barred the way. ‘It’s a warning,’ Pepe explained. ‘Telling strangers to steer clear, or else. You sure you want to keep going?’

‘I have to keep going,’ Ben told him. ‘You can turn back if you like.’

Pepe hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Ah, what the hell.’

They skirted round the side of the crossed spears and kept going, their torch beams bobbing ahead. Nobody said a word. There was just the whine of the insects and the soft crackle of their footfalls on the jungle floor.

The Indians appeared around them so suddenly and in such total, eerie silence that Ben could have believed they’d materialised out of nowhere.

There were a dozen of them. Fifteen. The torch beams shone off hostile faces and lean bodies painted red and black. A circle quickly closed in around the three trespassers. Spear points were raised; bows were drawn.

Nico froze. Pepe breathed, ‘Oh, shit.’

‘Don’t move a muscle,’ Ben said.