Maas glanced over at one of the guards.
Randall saw this. “Wait. We are searching for lost Amazonian tribes. We are part of an expedition from Princeton University in the United States. We are United States citizens and demand to be released and returned to our base camp,” explained Randall, hoping Maas would not turn on Dana again.
“Your base,” Maas’ interest renewed. “You have a base near here?”
“No,” answered Randall. “Our base camp is at Cotriguacu. We trekked back into the jungle from there.”
“So you are U.S. citizens?” Maas said. “That does you no good. You are in Fortress Alpha, the headquarters of the Fourth Reich.”
Randall looked stunned. The Fourth Reich? What in the hell is that, he thought. Are these people Germans? Now he was really confused.
“We found you with a radio and a GPS. Who were you communicating with?” demanded Maas, staring directly at Randall.
“Our base camp,” answered Randall tiredly. “They know where we are at all times. The GPS goes back to base camp and Princeton, New Jersey.”
“That is what I thought you might say. Not good for you, I’m afraid,” hissed Maas, his fears now confirmed. “Do you expect someone to come after you?”
“I don’t know. I think they will if we don’t turn up soon,” answered Randall.
Maas said something in German to one of the guards. The guard reached over toward Dana with a huge knife.
“Wait,” screamed Randall. “I told you everything. Please don’t hurt her again; please don’t.”
The guard cut the rope and watched Dana fall to the floor. He reached down, placed her over against the wall and untied her hands.
“You see good things can happen when you cooperate,” Maas said with a smirk. “If you do not, well, I will personally kill you. It will be a slow, excruciatingly painful death, I assure you.” Randall stared at Maas… if eyes could kill.
“Please help her. She’s badly hurt,” begged Randall. He glanced over at Manolo’s body. His eyes were wide open and blood was still oozing from the finger-sized hole in his forehead. Randall had never see anything like that, just old films of executions during the Vietnam days. There was no helping him. Poor Manolo probably never knew what happened. He may turn out to be the luckiest one of us, he thought to himself. Manolo’s hell was over.
Maas stepped over to Dana. His prurient mind led his hands to Dana’s body. Randall could only watch as Maas ran his hands over her body as he smiled. Randall closed his eyes tightly.
“Leave her alone, you pig!” Randall shouted, figuring he would pay dearly for his statement.
Dana moaned and turned her head slightly. Maas stepped back and smiled broadly. Randall was thankful she was still alive.
“I will send a doctor and some food in a few minutes.” Maas turned to the guards again and spoke to them in German. The two stepped over and picked up Manolo’s body and dragged him from the room. Randall was amazed at the amount of blood around them on the floor.
Maas saw him looking at the blood and yelled something else out in German to the guards outside. Two other guards came into the room. One picked up Dana and the other helped Randall to his feet.
“I will move you two to more comfortable accommodations on Level 8 so you can recover,” said Maas. “Bringen Sie die Beiden zum Wartebereich auf dem 8 Stock.”
“We can talk again after you have eaten something and your wife wakes up. Maybe she and I can have some private time.”
Randall seethed at Maas’ comment. But trying to placate Maas, Randall only said, “Thank you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The TAM Airlines flight touched down minutes ahead of time at the Galeão Airport in Rio. Both Dane and Hugo traveled light, each using only a carry-on bag. While this concerned Hugo, Dane explained Ben could get them what they needed. They raced through the airport trying to get to an information counter as quickly as possible to secure their next flight.
At the information center, Dane and Hugo found the best route to Caceres was to fly to Cuiaba, Brazil. Once in Cuiaba they could charter a small plane for the flight to Caceres. The only problem was the flight to Cuiaba was scheduled for the next morning. They booked the morning flight and decided to grab a cab to a nearby hotel for some sleep.
The cab driver was a gregarious Brazilian. Hugo and the cabbie talked the entire way to the hotel. Hugo tried to see what action was close to the hotel. Dane shook his head. You can’t change Hugo.
At the hotel the two grabbed a bite to eat. Dane succeeded in persuading Hugo not to hit the bar but hit the sack instead. Both slept well and were ready to go the next day, arriving at the airport for their Cuiaba flight with time to spare. The Boeing 737–400 was an old craft but seemed to be in reasonably good shape.
“Thank God we are not flying some prop puddle jumper,” cracked Hugo as they hustled aboard.
“Wait until you see what we have to fly in to get to Caceres,” laughed Dane.
“Speaking of getting there, what are your plans?” asked Hugo, being serious for the first time in a while.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Dane, studiously. “I figure we first need to locate them and then survey their situation. If they are dead, well, there’s nothing we can do about that but I do want to know what happened and who’s responsible. And whose ass we have to kick. On the other hand, I truly believe they are alive but in the hands of those men they reported. Ben was unable to find out anything about them but I had an ace in the hole.”
“Uh-oh, what did you do, Boss?” asked Hugo. He was wondering who Dane talked to. With both Dane and Hugo being ex-SEALS, they had several friends who stayed in the Navy and had moved up in the ranks. They both kept in touch with many of them, usually by way of SEAL group reunions. The “Once a SEAL always a SEAL” adage was true.
“You remember Davis Engle?” asked Dane, knowing full well Hugo knew him well.
“Sure I know Davis. He’s somewhere in Washington, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” explained Dane. “Davis is over at the CIA these days. Let’s say he is in a position of authority that could help us. Two nights ago I contacted him and explained my situation and filled him in on what was going down. Officially he can’t help us, as you might imagine. However, being a close friend, he was able to get me some information from his cohorts responsible for the South American area.”
“That sounds good so far. What did he come up with?”
“Officially nothing,” Dane said with a smile. “But let’s say some interesting side information was discovered.”
Hugo grinned. “I like discovering things.”
As the plane rumbled down the runway and took off, the warm, humid air caused a bumpy ascent. Dane looked out the window and was struck by how fast they had left civilization and seemed to be over endless jungle. Finally the plane leveled off.
Dane continued, “It seems there are increasing reports and comments of people disappearing in this part of the Amazon. Nothing big, nothing noted on the national news anywhere in the U.S. but all the same, people are reported missing. There was the University of Pittsburgh thing back in the seventies but nothing ever became of that. The Brazilian government is not well known to follow up on these types of reports and, frankly, neither is the U.S. government. My guess is the government figure you are on your own when you decide to go deep into these uncharted areas of the Amazon. Remember, Randall and Dana decided to trek into some of the most uncivilized regions of the Amazonian basin. Evidently these disappearances over the past forty years were few and far between with no more than a total of thirty to forty people during those years. In the grand scheme of things these days, that’s small stuff.”