Once Tor-tor entered, the large female jaguar had followed.
Carrera remained alert, her weapon ready, in case the wild cat decided it needed a snack while traveling.
Dakii paused at the intersection of trails. Sergeant Kostos grumbled, but they dared not force a faster pace. It would be easy to get lost down here. They depended on Dakii's memory.
The tribesman selected a path and led the others. The tunnel descended steeply. Kouwe stared at the low roof. They must be a hundred yards underground...and going deeper still. But oddly, instead of the air growing more dank, it seemed to freshen.
After a few minutes, the tunnel leveled out and made a sharp turn, emptying into a huge cavern. The tunnel opening was halfway up one wall of the chamber. A thin trail continued along the nearest wall, a stony lip high above the bowled floor. Dakii stepped out onto the trail.
Kouwe followed, gaping at the room. The chamber had to be a half mile across. Through the center of the chamber, a massive root stalk, as thick around as a giant redwood, penetrated from the roof and continued down through the floor like a great column.
"It's the Yagga's taproot again," Nate said, coming up beside them. "We must have circled back to it."
From the main root, thousands of branches spread like tree limbs in all directions, toward other passages.
"There must be miles and miles of tunnels," Kouwe said. He studied the taproot. The giant tree above must be but a tiny fraction of the plant's true mass. "Can you imagine the number of species encased down here? Suspended in time?"
"The tree must have been collecting its specimens for centuries," Nate's father mumbled beside his son.
"Maybe even longer," Kouwe warned. "Maybe as far back as when these lands first formed."
"Back to the Paleozoic," Nate murmured. "If so, what might be out there in that vast biological storehouse?"
"And what might still be living?" Anna added.
Kouwe cringed. It was both a wondrous and frightening thought. He waved Dakii onward. The sight was too terrible to stare at any longer, and time was running down for both them and the world.
They wound along the lip as it circled the chamber. Dakii led them to another opening, back into the tunnel maze again. Though they left the chamber behind, Kouwe's mind dwelled on the mystery there. His feet slowed, and he found himself marching near Nate and Carl. Sergeant Kostos was on the other side.
"When I studied anthropology," Kouwe said, "I read many myths of trees. The maternal guardian. A caretaker, a storehouse of all wisdom. It makes me wonder about the Yagga. Has man crossed its path before?"
"What do you mean?" Nate asked.
"Surely this tree wasn't the only one of its kind. There must have been others in the past. Maybe these myths are some collective memory of earlier human encounters with this species."
He recognized the doubt in Nate's eyes and continued, "Take, for example, the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden. A tree whose fruit has all the knowledge in the world, but whose consumption curses those who eat of it. You could draw a parallel to the Yagga. Even when I saw Carl trussed up among the roots, it reminded me of another Biblical tale. Back in the thirteenth century, a monk who had starved himself seeking visions from God told a tale of seeing Seth, the son of Adam, returning to Eden. There, the young man saw the Tree of Knowledge, now turned white. It clutched Cain in its roots, some penetrating into his brother's flesh."
Nate frowned.
"The parallels here seem particularly apt," Kouwe finished.
Noticeably quiet for several yards, Nate was clearly digesting his words. Finally he spoke. "You could be on to something. The tunnel through the Yagga's trunk is not manmade, but a natural construct. The tunnels had to have formed as the tree grew. But why would the tree do so unless its ancestors had encountered man before and had evolved these features in kind?"
"Like an ant tree has adapted for its six-legged soldiers," Kouwe added.
Nate's father roused. "And the evolution of the Ban-ali here, their genetic enhancements," Carl rasped. "Have such improvements of the species happened before? Could the tree have played a critical role in human evolution? Is that why we remember it in our myths?"
Kouwe's brow crinkled. He had not extrapolated that far. He stared behind the others to where the giant cat stalked. If the Yagga were capable of enhancing the jaguar's intelligence, could it have done the same to us in the distant past? Could humans owe their own intellect to an ancestor of this tree? A chilling thought.
A silence fell over the others.
In his head, Kouwe reviewed the history of this valley. The Yagga must have grown here, collecting specimens in its hollow root system for centuries: luring them in with its musk, offering shelter, then capturing them and storing them in its cubbies. Eventually man entered the valley--a wandering clan of Yanomamo--and discovered the tree's tunnels and the wonders of its healing sap. Lured in, they were captured as surely as any other species and slowly changed into the Ban-ali, the Yagga's human servants. Since that time, the Ban-ali must have brought other species to the tree--feeding the root to further expand its biological database.
And left unchecked, where would it have led? A new species of man, as Carl had feared after the stillborn birth of Gerald Clark's baby? Or maybe something worse--a hybrid like the piranhas and locusts?
Kouwe squinted at the twisting passages, suddenly glad it was all going to burn.
Dakii called from up ahead. The tribesman pointed to a side tunnel. From the passage, a slight glow shone. A dull roar echoed back to them.
"The way out," Kouwe said.
7:49 P.M.
Nate hurried as best he could with his father.
Sergeant Kostos growled constantly under his breath on the other side, counting off the minutes until the bombs blew.
It would be a close call.
The group sped toward the sheen of moonlight flowing from ahead. The roaring grew in volume, soon thundering. Around a corner, the end of the tunnel appeared, and the source of the noise grew clear.
A waterfall tumbled past the entrance, the rush of water aglow with moonlight and star shine.
"The tunnel must open into the cliff face that leads to the lower valley," Kouwe said.
They followed Dakii to the tunnel's damp exit. The rushing water rumbled past the threshold. The tribesman pointed down. Steps. In the narrow space between the waterfall and the cliff, a steep, wet staircase had been carved into the stone, winding back and forth in narrow switchbacks, down to the lower valley.
"Everyone head down!" the sergeant yelled. "Move quickly, but when I holler, everyone drop and hold on tight."
Dakii remained with Sergeant Kostos to guide his own people.
Kouwe helped Nate with his father. They scrambled as well as they could down the stairs, balancing between haste and caution. They hurried as the others followed.
Nate saw Kostos wave Carrera down the stairs, then followed.
Behind them emerged the two cats. The jaguars hurried out of the opening and onto the stair, clearly glad to be free of the confining tunnels. Nate wished he had their claws.
"One minute," Kouwe said, hobbling under Carl's weight.
They hurried. The bottom was still a good four stories down. A deadly fall.
Then a sharp call broke through the water's rush. "Now! Down! Down!"
Nate helped his father to the steps, then dropped himself. He glanced up and saw the entire group flattened to the stone. He lowered his face and prayed.
The explosion, when it came, was as if hell had come to earth. The noise was minimal--no worse than the dramatic end of a Fourth of July fireworks show--but the effect was anything but insignificant.
Over the top of the cliff's edge, a wall of flame shot half a mile out, and flumed three times that distance into the sky. Currents of rising air buffeted them, swirling eddies of fire moving with them. If it wasn't for the waterfall's insulation, they would've been fried on the stairs. But the waterfall was
a mixed blessing. Its flow, shaken by the blast, cast vast amounts of water over them. But everyone held tight.
Soon bits of flaming debris began to tumble over the edge and down the fall. Luckily the swift current cast most of the large pieces of trunk and branch beyond their perch. But it was still terrifying to see entire trees, cracked and blown into the stream, tumble past, on fire.
As the heat welled up and away from them, Kostos yelled down. "Keep moving, but watch for falling debris."
Nate crouched up. Everyone began to climb to their feet, dazed.
They had made it!
As the others started down, he reached for his father. "C'mon, Dad. Let's get out of here."
With his father's hand held in his own, Nate felt the ground vibrate, a tremoring rumble. He instinctively knew this was bad. Oh, shit...
He dove atop his father, a scream on his lips. "Down! Everyone back down!"
The second explosion deafened them. Nate screamed from the pain. It blew with such force that he was sure the cliff would fall atop them.
From the mouth of the tunnel above, a jet of fire belched out, blasting into the fall of water. Scalding steam rolled down over them.
Nate craned upward and watched a second belch of fire blow from the tunnel, then a third. Smaller flames shot out of tinier crevices in the cliff face all around, like a hundred flickering fiery tongues. All of them an eerie blue.
All the while, the ground continued to shake and rumble.
Nate kept his father pinned under him.
Rocks and dirt shattered outward. Entire uprooted trees shot like flaming missiles through the sky to crash down into the lower valley.
Then this too died down.
No one moved as smaller rocks tumbled past. Again the waterfall protected them, deflecting most of the debris, or reducing their speed to bruising rather than deadly velocities.
After several minutes, Nate raised his head enough to view the damage.
He spotted Kouwe a step above his father. The professor looked dazed and sickened. He stared back at Nate, face pale with shock. "Anna...when you yelled...I was too slow...the explosion...I couldn't catch her in time." His eyes flicked to the long tumble below. "She fell."
Nate closed his eyes. "Oh, God."
He heard mournful cries flow up around them. Anna had not been alone in falling to her death. Nate pushed to his knees. His father coughed and rolled onto his side, looking ashen.
After a time, the group crawled down the stairs, beaten, bloody, and in shock.
They gathered at the foot of the falls, bathed in cool spray. Three Ban-ali tribesmen had also met their deaths on the stair.
"What was that second explosion?" Sergeant Kostos asked.
Nate remembered the strange blue flame. He asked for one of the canteens with the Yagga sap. He poured out a grape-sized drop and used Carrera's lighter to ignite it. A tall blue flame flared up from the dollop of sap. "Like copal," Nate said. "Combustible. The entire tree went up like a roman candle. Roots and all, I imagine, from the way the ground shook."
A deep mournful silence spread over the smaller camp.
Finally Carrera spoke. "What now?"
Nate answered, his voice fierce. "We make that bastard pay. For Manny, for Olin, for Anna, for all the Ban-ali tribespeople."
"They have guns," Sergeant Kostos said. "We have one Bailey. They outnumber us more than two to one."
"To hell with that." Nate kept his voice cold. "We have a card that trumps all that."
"What's that?" Kostos asked.
"They think we're dead."
Nineteen
Midnight Raid
11:48 P.M.
AMAZON JUNGLE
Kelly's eyes still stung with tears. With her hands bound behind her back, she couldn't even wipe them away. She was secured to a stake under a lean-to of woven palm leaves that deflected the gentle rain that now fell. The clouds had rolled in as full night had set, which had suited her kidnappers just fine. "The darker the better," Favre had exulted. They made good time and were now enveloped in thick jungle cover well south of the swamp.
But despite the darkness and the distance, the northern skies glowed a fiery red, as if the sun were trying to rise from that direction. The explosions that had lit up the night had been spectacular, shooting a fireball high into the sky, followed by a scattering of flaming debris.
The sight had burned all hope from her. The others were dead.
Favre had set a hard pace after that, sure that the government's helicopters would be winging to the fires posthaste. But so far the skies had remained clear. There was no whump-whumping of military air vehicles. Favre kept a constant watch on the skies. Nothing.
Maybe Olin's signal had never made it out. Or maybe the helicopters were still en route.
Either way, Favre was taking no chances. No lights, just night-vision glasses. Kelly, of course, was not given a pair. Her shins were bruised and thorn-scraped from falls and missteps in the dark. Her stumblings had amused the guards. Without her hands to break her fall, each trip bloodied her knees. Her legs ached. Mosquitoes and gnats were attracted to the wounds, crawling and buzzing around her. She couldn't even swat them away.
The rain was a relief. As was the short break--a full hour. Kelly stared over at the glowing northern skies, praying her friends hadn't suffered.
Closer at hand, the mercenary band celebrated its victory. Flasks of alcohol passed from hand to hand. Toasts were made, and boasts declared amid jovial whispers of how their money would be spent--much of it involving whores. Favre circulated through the group, allowing his men this celebration but making sure it didn't get out of hand. They were still miles from the rendezvous point where the motorboats were waiting.
So for the moment, Kelly had a bit of relative privacy. Frank was under another makeshift lean-to in the middle of the camp. Her only company here was the single guard: Favre's disfigured lieutenant, the man named Mask. He stood talking with another mercenary, sharing a flask.
A figure approached through the drizzle. It was Favre's Indian woman, Tshui. She seemed oblivious of the rain, still naked, but at least she no longer wore the head of Corporal DeMartini around her neck.
Probably didn't want to get the foul thing wet, Kelly thought sourly.
Mask's companion slid away at the approach of the woman. She had that effect on most of the mercenaries. They were clearly frightened of her. Even Mask took a few steps from the lean-to and sheltered under a neighboring palm.
The Indian woman bent out of the rain and knelt beside Kelly. She carried a rucksack in one hand. She settled it to the dirt and began to rummage silently through it, finally pulling out a tiny clay pot and freeing the lid.
Filling the container was a thick waxy unguent. The witch-woman scooped a dab on a finger, then reached to Kelly.
She flinched away.
The Indian woman grabbed her ankle. Her grip was iron. She slathered the material on Kelly's abraded knees. Instantly the sting and burn faded. Kelly stopped fighting and allowed the woman to treat her.
"Thank you," Kelly said, though she was not sure the treatment was solely for her comfort as much as to make sure she could continue to march. Either way, it felt good.
The Indian woman reached again to her pack and removed a rolled length of woven linen. She carefully spread it open on the soggy ground. Meticulously lined in tiny pouches of cloth were stainless steel tools and others made of yellowed bone. Tshui removed a long sickle-shaped knife, one of a set of five similar tools. She leaned toward Kelly with the knife.
Kelly again flinched, but the woman grabbed the hair at the nape of her neck and held her still, pulling her head back. The Indian was damn strong.
"What are you doing?"
Tshui never spoke. She brought the knife's curved edge to Kelly's forehead, at the edge of her scalp. Then returned the tool to its place and took another of the curved knives and positioned it at the crown of her scalp.
With horror, the realiz
ation hit Kelly. She's measuring me! Tshui was determining which tools would be best to scrape the skin off her skull. The Indian woman continued her measuring, fingering different sharp instruments and testing them against chin, cheek, and nose.
She began to line up the proper instruments on the ground beside her knee. The row of tools grew: long knives, sharp picks, corkscrewing pieces of bone.
A noise, a throat being cleared, drew both women's attention outside the lean-to.