“Who lives out here?” she said.
She took out the digital camera and began taking random pictures.
Manuel answered. “Nadie. No one any more. There were merchants here. Rubber merchants. But it’s no longer safe.”
“Rebels?” she asked.
“Bandidos.”
Alex nodded.
After ninety minutes, the chopper flew over one of the most beautiful areas of the country, the Canaima lagoon and its surroundings. The lagoon was fed by several small waterfalls. Mist hung above the falls. She was surprised by the changing color of the water and sand. In several places, both took on a reddish hue. In some paces the sand was a light pink because of the presence of quartz. She took out the digital camera and recorded what she saw.
Beyond that, they passed over several flattop mountains. Several mining settlements had dug in. She could see machinery and movement on the ground, plus big gouges in the forests and earth. She took more photographs.
They arrived in La Paragua after a two-hour flight. A Jeep was there for them, along with a driver named José. He was a young man, maybe eighteen, with a handsome smile and an Argentine accent. A lunch of chicken, beans, and rice waited in the car, along with chilled bottled water in a crate with ice. Alex quickly won José’s approval by talking about the ins and outs of Argentine soccer.
The police departed in their own direction, giving Alex a final glance as they departed, admiration mixed with approval and a hint of subdued lechery.
Manuel, Alex, and José then began a three-hour trek over bumpy roads as they drew closer to Barranco Lajoya. The men rode in the front. Alex preferred to have more room to herself by sitting in the rear, but she continued to chat up both her driver and guide.
In some areas, mud on the road was so deep that it sucked at the tires of the vehicle. In one area, one entire lane of the road had been washed away by a mudslide. The road hadn’t been repaired, but the line in the middle had been redrawn. At another area, there was a one-lane “bridge” that was nothing more than a sheet of metal dragged across a fifteen-foot crater. Manuel and Alex got out of the Jeep and crossed the bridge on foot in advance of the Jeep in case the vehicle tumbled.
The roads weren’t bad, they were hideous. To make it worse, Manuel kept looking at the side rearview mirror. Alex asked twice if for any reason he thought they were being followed. Both times, Manuel answered only with a shrug.
“These days in Venezuela,” Manuel finally grumbled, “anything is possible.”
SIXTY-FIVE
The Jeep halted at the side of a clearing. Beyond, a narrow path wound up the mountain between trees and rocks. The path was deeply rutted, the ruts flooded with water.
José stopped the vehicle and they all stepped out.
The late afternoon was so hot that steam rose from the mud. Low swarms of flies and gnats settled into little clouds above the mud. Alex fixed her hair into a ponytail, put on a cap to protect her head, and plastered herself with DEET for the third time.
“Barranco Lajoya is about a mile up the mountain,” Manuel said. “From here we go on foot. When God made this place, he must have been in a bad mood.”
She might have hiked up the mountain in long pants, despite the constant risk of insect or snake bits, but the heat ruled that out. Malaria was also rampant, so was rabies, and anything that flew or crawled had a good chance of being poisonous. She hoisted her pack onto her back and adjusted the weapon in her holster. The sheath with the knife was arranged on her left hip.
“The climb is steep,” Manuel said. “Take plenty of water.”
She put two one-liter bottles in her backpack and tied a fresh canteen at her waist.
“Los machetes,” José reminded them. “Tigritos, ¿ustedes saben?”
She frowned. José explained. There were occasionally jaguars on the mountain, he said. They tended not to attack during the day, but one never knew. If the big cats were hungry enough, they would go after anything. Manuel took a machete with him, for protection as much as slashing through the underbrush. Alex at first declined, then took one.
Both Alex and Manuel checked the ammunition in their sidearms. If they needed the pistols, they might need them in a hurry. With a final gesture, José produced a pair of bracelets, suitable for ankle or wrist. They were made out of light wood, slatted with thin but strong wires running through connecting the beads. He proposed that they each wear one. Within one of the slats on each was a variation on a SIM card, a small directional chip.
“In case someone needs to go looking for a body?” Alex said.
“We try to think of everything,” he said in Spanish.
Then they were ready and began their ascent.
They crossed a barbed wire fence that belonged to a local rancher. Then they trudged several hundred yards through a half-shaded path through the jungle. The DEET worked and kept the biting flies at bay. Above them was a canopy of leaves, which provided some shade but also held the humidity across the floor of the jungle.
The hike was steep, like a march through a giant terrarium. Sweat rolled off her. They stopped for water after a quarter mile and had all the water they wanted when they came to a wide stream with a hard rushing current.
They picked up sturdy fallen branches from the zimba trees and fashioned walking sticks out of them. The path across the first stream was across a series of rocks that some Good Samaritan had put in place but which the force of the current had loosened.
Some of the rocks were submerged. Manuel crossed first and offered a hand back to Alex. There were fifteen steps, then they were at a soggy little island in the middle of the stream. The ground below their feet was soft like quicksand, so they kept moving.
The other side was a deeper ford. There was no choice but to wade through it. Manuel led the way. The water was past her ankles, then up to her knees, then almost touching the hem of her hiking shorts. Then they came up to the other side. They dried off as much as they could, re-applied the insecticides and continued. Alex felt as if her boots would be wet for days, but forged ahead. Fortunately, she had two pairs.
This was like a different planet.
Twenty minutes later, before her was another makeshift bridge of stepping stones, twice as wide and perilous as the first set. The stick was useless now, the water was too deep and the stream swelled into a small unfriendly river right before her eyes.
Manuel, becoming unsteady, crossed ten feet ahead of her. She was on her own. She kept the stick and used it as a balance, as a tightrope walker might.
An insect hit her in the throat and she slapped at it, hitting herself hard on the neck. The rocks below her left foot wobbled and she fought wildly to retain her balance, waving her arms, trying to keep the stick centered. She managed.
Manuel arrived on the other side. She stayed focused. Nine more stones. Then eight. She counted them down. The river narrowed and became shallower. Her confidence swelled. She had made it. Two more steps. Then one.
Manuel extended a hand. “¡Aquí, señorita, aquí!” he said, above the rustle of the current. She grasped his hand and he pulled. She took the final step with a neat jump and landed on the soft riverbank.
“That was the toughest part,” he said.
They stopped to drink, catch their breath, and gather themselves. They found some shade and stopped again where the path was halfway up the mountain. At one point, Manuel took out a pair of binoculars and scanned downward to an area where they could see part of the path they had taken. “What are you watching?” she asked.
“¡Mira! Three men with rifles,” he said.
Her heart jumped. She said nothing. Manuel handed her the field glasses and showed her.
She trained the glasses on them and felt her heart leap a second time. There were indeed three strong dark-skinned men in jungle pants and T-shirts. All three were armed with rifles. The guns were old but could kill nonetheless. One of them also had a sidearm. She scanned all parts of the path to see if there were any more than three, but those were the only ones she saw.