Zahra swallowed down her fear and stepped through the damned archway, groping her holstered pistol as she moved. But modern-day weapons would do next to nothing down here. Generally, bullets did very little against the ghosts of the past.
Joe and his men watched Zahra Kane disappear beneath the surface of the plunge pool. Everyone, except for Joe, aimed their weapons at the water. They silently waited for the ballsy woman to reemerge. But after sixty seconds of nothing, Joe was beginning to have his doubts. After three minutes, it was plain to see that she had either drowned or had somehow survived the subterranean torrent. If that were the case, then she must have also found her way into the underworld.
No one present had ever stepped foot in that cursed place. Only Joe’s father had ever seen it, and since then, the man had refused to say exactly what he had seen.
All Joe knew was that its contents could cause the most hardened man to lose his mind and curl into a ball and pray for mercy. It wasn’t until a famous English explorer had stumbled upon it — something he had dubbed the Lost City of Z — that anyone alive knew that the secretive Amazonia hellscape actually existed. Until then, it had only been a legend.
Joe shuddered. And now, we must enter its gates and reacquire our prize. He turned to the north and visualized the hidden hilltop entrance. The village that it had once overlooked — every single piece of it — had been painstakingly removed over time, until there was only jungle remaining. Joe’s ancestors had successfully wiped Z’s entrance off the face of the planet.
They could have just as easily left Zahra to die here, but Joe still needed her. There were people over the border in Venezuela that wanted his head on a plate unless he could pay back his debt, plus interest. This was the mercenary’s last chance at redemption.
“Come!” he shouted. “Death awaits.”
Chapter Three
Zahra couldn’t make heads or tails about what she was seeing. The bodies — and there were many — were quite old. All of them were dressed similarly, adorned head to toe in furs and leathery skins. Some of the corpses wore necklaces laced with animal teeth. She stopped and showed her light back the way she had come. Each person was positioned with their head pointed away from Zahra’s objective.
“You were running away, weren’t you?” she deduced, pointing her beam forward again. It landed on an opening up ahead. “But from what?”
Zahra had no way of knowing whether the people responsible were still around, though, from the looks of it, they had probably been gone for some time. Nearing the opening, Zahra heard movement somewhere off in the distance. She quick-drew her Glock and stopped, aiming it and her flashlight forward.
Nothing.
Taking a deep breath, Zahra moved off. She exited the corridor and nearly fell over at what she saw. The space beyond was a naturally formed cavern — like the one behind the waterfall. But that’s where the similarities ended. This one was infinitely bigger.
“A cenote?”
Yes, at one point, the hollow had contained an underground body of water, but no longer. From what Zahra could tell, it had been drained years ago — maybe even centuries ago. She was currently standing on what used to be the cenote’s bank. Pointing her light up, Zahra noticed that the entire roof was solid.
No way out that way, she thought. But even if there were an exit, Zahra doubted she’d be able to make the climb in her current condition. So, she focused her attention on the rest of the chamber, scanning the bank for another way out.
But there was none.
“Just great,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. Not only was she trapped, but she had also lost one of her most important pieces of gear — and she had done so for nothing. She still hadn’t even found Fawcett’s lost campsite.
Zahra pulled her head down. When her chin hit her chest, she stopped and stared at the empty cenote. There was a settlement built into the walls and floor of the drained cenote. It was enormous, built into layers, and expertly pieced together — eons ahead of what the natives of the area should have been able to do. In the beam of her light, Zahra spotted dozens of ladders and sets of steps around the cenote. It was how its architects navigated a miasma of raised platforms. But in the end, each and every one of the levels led down to the ground floor and the buildings around it. This wasn’t just another settlement — or even Fawcett’s Dead Horse Camp.
Her eyes widened. “It’s the Lost City of Z.”
But what about the bodies behind her?
Zahra headed right, toward the first of four ladders leading below. She stopped and raised her pistol once she reached it. The condition of the ladder sent a chill down her spine.
It was new.
Built of thick branches and vines, the ladder had been recently rebuilt by the looks of it. Zahra expected to find it worn and rotten. Someone was maintaining the entry points. She swung her light down toward the nearest building. Oddly, it contained no roof. But Zahra quickly realized why.
“No rain.” Being underground, the dwellings didn’t require a covering of any kind.
A simple whoomp and a rumble caused Zahra to snap her light and pistol skyward. She aimed them both at the center of the doomed ceiling. The noise had come from there, but she had yet to spot exactly what had caused it. A minute later, a second explosion and rumble were followed closely by cascading stone and earth. High above, a single beam of light appeared. It reached all the way down, illuminating the grounds in a soft aura. Zahra knelt and waited, leveling her Glock at the newly made opening. A half-dozen rappelling lines dropped into the hole, touching down with length to spare.
“Joe,” Zahra said, gripping her gun harder. Her finger tensed on the trigger and held it at its wall.
Knowing it would take a miracle to hit any of the mercenaries from this distance, Zahra holstered her gun and light and descended the ladder. She’d take her chances below. They had the numbers, but she had the know-how. Zahra trusted that her training would keep her alive, even in a situation as hopeless as this. The work she had put in while a member of British Army Intelligence had turned her into more than just a linguist. She had always been an adrenaline junkie, and she had willingly and unofficially trained on the side with the elite Special Air Service (SAS).
Zahra could take care of herself.
The climb wasn’t as easy as it should have been. Her arm was killing her, as was the rest of her body. Still, she pushed on, glancing at the ceiling every few rungs. Six blurry blobs appeared and slowly slid down their ropes.
Zahra picked up her pace and made it to the first platform. As she had done before, her attention returned to the six armed men while she moved. A second ladder greeted her, and she leaped onto it and quickly descended. The next platform was twice as big as the first one, easily twenty feet by thirty feet. She knelt in the shadows beneath the ladder and caught her breath. Joe and his men were rappelling impossibly slow, sweeping their flashlights back and forth in long strokes.
What are you looking for? Zahra asked herself. She knew they were here for her, but this felt like more than that. These guys looked skittish. Their undiscernible voices sounded concerned — maybe even frightened.
Zahra’s theory was confirmed as they got closer.
“Keep your eyes open!” one man yelled.
“How many of them are there?” another man asked.
“I’m not sure!” a third one shouted.
So, she thought, looking around, it’s not just me you’re looking for.