Not knowing what else to do, Roland opened his jacket and exposed the white Roman collar of his station. If Father Pelham was well regarded, perhaps that respect might extend to another who wore that collar.
He waited, standing there with his chest exposed, all too cognizant of Gray’s earlier warning.
Finally, without even a rustle of leaves underfoot, the shadows coalesced into the returning figures of the elder and the boy.
The older tribesman stepped forward, his gaze fixed to Roland’s collar. He spoke sternly, but with a measure of forbearance.
Jembe translated. “Chakikui says he will listen. Because priests have shown kindness to our tribe.”
Roland recognized the boy’s use of the word priests . . . as in plural. The elder was certainly old enough to have been alive during the time when Father Pelham’s predecessor ran the mission in Cuenca. He decided to play that card now.
“You knew Father Carlos Crespi,” he said. He noted the elder’s eyes narrow at the mention of the missionary’s name and pressed his case. “We come this night to honor the good father’s memory, to hopefully carry on his duty in these forests.”
Jembe relayed Chakikui’s skeptical response. “Many come after the gold.”
“Not us,” Roland insisted. “We come for knowledge. To find a city of ancient teachers, a place of learning.”
He pulled out Father Kircher’s old journal from the inside of his jacket and showed the gilded cover to Chakikui and the boy. The elder’s attention focused on the labyrinth, his eyes narrowing again, as if in recognition.
Interesting . . .
“We have heard stories of caverns that hold many books like this,” Roland said, remembering Petronio Jaramillo’s tale of a lost library buried underground. “Can you take us there?”
The elder spoke, giving a disconcerting shake of his head. Jembe looked equally grim as he translated. “Chakikui says he took another to those caves. Long ago. He says it was a mistake.”
Roland glanced at Gray. Could this be the same tribesman who took Jaramillo to those caves back in the forties?
“It is forbidden to go there,” Jembe said, continuing to share the elder’s words. “Even to honor Father Crespi.” The boy made the sign of the cross at the mention of the father’s name. “May he rest in peace.”
Roland sighed and wiped his brow, struggling to find a way to convince the elder to cooperate. He had noticed during this entire exchange that Chakikui’s eyes kept returning again and again to the book in his hand.
Hoping it might be the key to gaining the elder’s support, he held forth the journal. “Another reverend father wrote this book. Hundreds of years ago. Like Father Crespi, he sought out this lost city of ancient teachers.” Roland flipped through the pages until he came to the map of South America with a labyrinth marked on it. “He said for us to seek out this place.”
Chakikui stepped closer, holding out his hand. Roland let him have the journal. The elder searched through other pages. He paused at a page where Father Kircher had copied down the star petrogylphs found above the graves of Adam and Eve.
Chakikui whispered to Jembe.
The boy turned hopefully toward Roland. “Chakikui asks who is this other father? He says there is one name—another father from long ago—that will open the path to those caves.”
Roland felt a surge of relief and certainty. “His name is Father Athanasius Kircher.” He pointed to the journal. “Those are his words, his writings.”
Chakikui closed the journal and handed it back to Roland. He turned away, casting back a final verdict, which the boy shared.
“That is not the one.”
The pair began to head into the forest again.
At a loss for words, Roland did not know what else to do to convince the man.
Gray pushed past Roland. He reached for the elder’s shoulder, but then retracted his hand before making contact, fearing such physicality might be mistaken as a threat.
“Wait,” Gray blurted out. “This other father . . . Was his name Nicolas Steno?”
Roland stiffened, realizing his mistake.
Of course.
Father Kircher had never set foot on this continent. He had been too infirm in his later years, so he had sent an emissary, a younger man capable of such a hard journey, his dear friend Nicolas Steno. But could it be possible for the oral history of the local Shuar tribe to still remember such a man, to still revere his name?
The answer came as Chakikui faced them again, his eyes glinting brightly. “Nikloss . . . Steno?” he said, searching their faces.
Roland nodded.
Chakikui let out a long breath, as if he had been holding it for decades. He then whispered to the boy.
Jembe nodded as the elder turned away. “He will take you to the home of the ancient ones, to the city of the Old Andes.”
Roland barely heard the boy’s translation. Instead, the last words of the elder rang in his head. He had recognized Chakikui’s use of the Amerindian translation of Old Andes.
Atl Antis.
He turned to the others, who all wore varying looks of shock, having heard it, too.
Could it be true?
11:58 P.M.
Lena followed behind Gray and Roland, with Seichan trailing them all.
After they had trekked through the rain forest for forty minutes, all of her clothes clung to the crevices of her body—not from sweat, but from the perpetual cold dampness trapped under the high canopy. The moisture dripped from branches, pooled under mats of decaying leaves, and hung in the air. With every breath, she drew in that clamminess. Even her lungs had begun to ache, as each inhalation grew more ragged in the thin air.
She strained to keep close to Gray, who carried a flashlight. It cast enough light to illuminate their way through this green tunnel under the canopy. Still, her eyes often drifted to the darkness to either side. The forest rustled, creaked, and buzzed, breaking out occasionally with the sharper hoot of a monkey or a whistling cry of a bird. Her thoughts ran with other imagined threats hidden behind that cloak of darkness, mostly dwelling on snakes.
The shifting tendrils of mist only added to her unease.
Makes the whole forest feel like it’s moving.
A sudden cry pierced the night, full of leonine rage, sounding both distant and close at the same time. She stumbled forward to get closer to the others.
Jembe drifted back to her, leaving the older tribesman to continue leading them through this trackless forest. “Jaguar,” he informed her. “Lots of them around here. But they won’t come closer. We are many and making lots of noise.”
Lots of noise?
Barely anyone said a word for the past fifteen minutes. All she heard was the sound of breathing and the soft squelch of their boots in the damp loam.
Jembe patted her arm, his eyes shining on her, plainly infatuated. “I protect you,” he offered. “I’m fast. Like my name. It means humbird.”
“Hummingbird?” she asked with a smile.
He bobbed his head proudly, imitating the flit of a bird with one hand. “Very fast.”
“I’m sure you are.”
They continued on for what seemed like miles, traipsing up steep paths and winding down switchbacks. Twice they had to ford fast-flowing streams over moss-slick rocks. The last time the water had been thigh-deep.
Then slowly a louder roaring grew ahead of them.
What now?
Before they could reach the source of that thunderous rumbling, Chakikui drew them to a stop at the crest of a ridge. Jembe translated his warning.
“Past here, the land is forbidden. Guarded by . . .” Jembe struggled for the word. “By devils.”
As proof, Chakikui stepped to a tall standing stone at the ridgeline. Its surface was encrusted with lichen, but the side facing them was clear enough that they could recognize a crude figure engraved into the rock. The petroglyph had been drawn by scraping through the dark outer varnish of the boulder to reveal the wh
ite stone beneath, casting a ghostly quality to the image.
“A devil,” Jembe said, scowling at the depicted beast.
The figure stood upright on its hind legs, with claws raised high, growling menacingly at them.
Lena pushed forward. “It’s not a devil,” she said with awe. A fingertip traced the muzzle and the rounded ears; then she glanced to the others. “It’s a cave bear. Similar to what we saw painted underground in Croatia.”
Roland nodded. “She’s right.”
She shook her head. “But the Paleolithic territory of Ursus spelaeus did not extend to South America,” she whispered. “This image shouldn’t be here.”
“Unless someone drew it from memory,” Roland offered.
She stood up and stared past the crest. Beyond the totem marker, more boulders were strewn down the steep slope ahead. Even from her perch, she spotted other petroglyphs scratched into those rock faces. Most of the designs were abstract: geometric shapes, fanciful whirls, even what appeared to be sticklike writing. But there were also many more animals: snakes, birds, jaguars, monkeys, and a giant horned and hoofed beast that could be a bison.
No wonder such a place spooked the local tribes.
Chakikui blocked them with an arm, relating another reason for the forbidden nature of this area. Jembe explained, “Father Nikloss Steno. Long ago, he say to let no one come here. Not unless they know his name.”
“Why?” Gray asked.
Chakikui frowned and answered with the boy’s help. “Dangerous.” The elder patted his bare chest. “To body and to spirit.” He waved to encompass more than the forest. “And to world.”
The elder stared at Gray, clearly seeing if he still wanted to continue.
“I understand.” Gray waved onward. “Show us.”
Before obeying, Chakikui raised his hands to his mouth and let out a sharp whistle, not unlike a birdcall.
Jembe explained, “He sends the others away. Back to our village. They cannot come with us.”
Lena peered into the dark forest.
Seichan looked unsurprised. “We’ve been followed since we left the helicopter. I figure at least a dozen.”
Shocked, Lena continued to stare over her shoulder as they all headed down the slope, following Chakikui.
Roland hiked beside her. He swept an arm to either side of their path. “According to Jaramillo’s account of his journey to the lost library, the trail to its entrance led through a maze of carved boulders.” He pointed toward the distant roaring of water. “A path that ended at a storm-swollen river.”
As Chakikui continued down, the canopy began to thin overhead, shredding apart to allow the bright face of the moon to show in glimpses and pieces.
Lena craned up at the brilliance, happy for the extra light, but also weighed down by Roland’s earlier assessment of that satellite. She remembered the strange synergy of alignments and proportions that defined the relationships of the earth, moon, and sun.
Roland noted her attention skyward. “Makes me wonder again about Neil Armstrong’s involvement in all of this.”
“How so?” she asked.
“Maybe he truly did experience something strange up there.” He gazed in wonder at the moon. “Maybe that was what drew him to join that British expedition? A desire for the truth. We know he had been in touch with the first expedition’s organizer, a Scottish engineer named Stan Hall—a man who had also been in contact with Petronio Jaramillo. Hall was also the one organizing the second expedition with Armstrong before Jaramillo was assassinated.”
By now any further discussion became more difficult as the roar of water grew deafening. Ahead, the river came into view, shining silver in the moonlight. It cascaded along a series of cataracts down a rocky cliff and pooled into a crystal-clear basin. From there, its course continued over another sheer drop, becoming a thunderous waterfall that disappeared into the forest far below.
Gray checked his satellite phone as they neared the riverbank.
“Strange,” he muttered.
Lena moved closer. “What?”
“The GPS shows we’re generally right on the mark. At the same longitude and latitude noted on the map in Kircher’s journal. Except look at this.” He tapped a compass in the lower right corner of the screen. “This is a magnetic reading, not the result of any satellite feed.”
Lena saw that the needle jiggered clockwise and counterclockwise, spinning erratically.
Before anyone could comment, Jembe called to them. He stood with Chakikui beside the wide pool. Misty droplets from the cataracts sparkled over their figures.
As she and the others joined the pair, Chakikui pointed to the other side of the river, to a cliff face that rose on the far side.
“The entrance is through there,” Jembe explained.
Lena squinted but failed to see anything but sheer rock.
Roland let out a small groan. They all turned to him. “Look near the waterline. I can make out a shadow of a tunnel entrance. Only the top foot of it is showing. I think that’s what they’re talking about.”
“So the entrance is flooded,” Gray said.
“What else did you expect?” Seichan said with a sigh. “If this is Atlantis, wasn’t it supposed to have been sunk under the water?”
Gray gave a sorrowful shake of his head. “Looks like we’re going to have to swim.”
Lena’s reaction was stronger. Her breath quickened and her heart began to pound with trepidation. She remembered another set of flooded tunnels, a place she had barely escaped from the first time.
Roland must have sensed her fear and offered his support. “At least this time we’re not being shot at.”
12:04 A.M.
The wind whipped and snapped at Shu Wei’s clothing as she fell through the well of mists. She studied her landing zone, searching through goggles fixed with night-vision equipment. The gear was toggled and attuned to pick out heat signatures.
Below her, the largest object glowed a fiery crimson, marking the location of her target’s helicopter, its engines still warm, casting off a discrete signature against the cool background of the cloud forest.
Smaller pools of fire marked the other members of her strike team as they spiraled down, parachuting into the forest clearing.
Finally, a brighter spark bloomed at ground level. It marked a flare ignited by her second-in-command, Major Sergeant Kwan. He had landed and was signaling the all clear.
She pulled her chute’s cord and heard the satisfying flutter of fabric unfurling above her head. Then her body yanked hard into her rig’s straps as the canopy snapped open. Her plummet from the single-engine jump plane far overhead braked swiftly. She expertly manipulated her lines to follow the others in a tight spiral into the small clearing.
Moments later, she skirted past the glowing bulk of the helicopter and landed with a soft bump to the forest floor. Cutting loose her canopy, she shed her rig, removed her goggles, and took in the scene that presented itself.
Major Sergeant Kwan knelt over a body sprawled facedown beside the aircraft. A shotgun rested a meter from the figure’s outstretched arm.
Kwan straightened. “I had no choice but to take out the pilot.”
She frowned. It was disappointing. She had hoped to interrogate the man before dispatching him. But ultimately it wouldn’t matter.
“The targets are already gone?” she asked.
He nodded and stood, but not before she noted him pocketing a locket of hair, a trophy he must have cut from the pilot’s head. With each death, the Black Crow always demanded his toll.
She didn’t scold him for it and stayed focused on the task at hand. “How far ahead are they?”
“Best estimate. No more than forty minutes.”
So, closer . . . but not close enough.
Still, she was content with their progress. The team could have come by helicopter and made better time, but the noise would have carried far, alerted their quarry. It was worth the sacrifice of minutes to mainta
in their cover.
“We’ve already disabled the aircraft,” Kwan said. “The enemy won’t be leaving the way they arrived.”
They won’t be leaving at all.
She stared off into the shadowy forest. Her team would go dark from here, moving forward with night-vision gear.
“Have Zhu and Feng head out,” she ordered.
The two were her team’s best trackers.
Kwan gave a bow of his head and headed off to get everyone ready.
Shu Wei stood quietly, listening to the whisper of wind, the whirring of gnats, and the twitter of distant birdsong. She imagined the number of predators hidden in the dark forest, while certain of one detail . . .
The true threat to her targets had just arrived.
With everyone ready, Kwan eyed her, awaiting her signal.
Very good.
She stepped into that shroud of darkness.
Now to end this.
21
May 1, 12:04 P.M. CST
Beijing, China
I have to do something . . .
Maria stood with her back to the arch of windows that overlooked the hybrid habitat. She kept her fist snarled in the collar of Dr. Han’s scrubs and a scalpel held at his neck. From the corner of her eye, she had watched the grate to Kowalski’s small cage begin to rise, exposing him to the beasts below.
The giant silverback still remained squatted on his haunches a yard away, patiently waiting for its meal to be let loose.
Maria searched for a way to help Kowalski. Her gaze settled on the locked cabinet that held a double-barreled tranquilizer rifle. She called over to the surgical team, pressing the scalpel more firmly to Dr. Han’s throat.
“Someone unlock that case!” she ordered.
A figure rushed forward. It was the young nurse who had shown herself to be the most cooperative of the group. She reached the case, tapped a code into its electronic lock, and opened the door.
Maria shoved Dr. Han away. As the surgeon stumbled and fell to his knees, she tossed the scalpel aside and snatched the double-barreled rifle from its rack. She had been trained with such weapons as part of her orientation at the primate center. She quickly checked to see if the rifle was preloaded. She was relieved to find a pair of feathered darts resting in the chambers of the two barrels.