“How do you want to do this?” Drake asked.
“Let me go first, and if I get him, you spear him too. Then we haul him out before the piranhas can get him.”
“Piranhas?”
“Of course. Water’s teeming with them. They’re attracted to blood, so we won’t have much time.”
“All right. Go for it.”
Spencer turned his attention back to the fish, which was immobile. Its odd tail waved lazily, keeping it stationary headfirst against the mild current. He hefted the sapling, as if testing its balance, and then drove it through the catfish’s flank in a fluid stroke. The creature bucked like a bronco as the water turned bright red. Drake followed Spencer’s lead and skewered it with his spear, and then they heaved the big pirarucu out of the water and up onto the bank.
Spencer went to work on the catfish with his machete, cutting long filets before tossing the carcass into the water. They carried the big slabs back to the camp and again used the stove as night fell. Everyone overate, the fresh protein a welcome change from the dry food they’d munched on throughout the day, and by the point Allie took the first watch, they were ready for sleep.
The sky was darkening when the captain pulled the fishing skiff onto the beach and pointed to the nearby jungle with a gnarled finger. The three hardened CIA operatives gathered their rifles and packs and followed the local guide they’d hired out of the boat — an expert in tracking who claimed to be as familiar with the rainforest as with his backyard. The captain reversed the bow off the sandy slope and returned down the river, leaving the four men staring at a wall of dense vegetation.
The guide walked along the edge of the jungle until he spotted a trail. He studied the surrounding branches, nodding and muttering to himself, and then turned to address the team.
“They went this way. But this won’t be easy. Too much time has passed.”
“How can you tell this was the route they took?”
“Some of the bark is scraped from that sapling where a pack or a rifle rubbed it.”
The leader relayed the information to his men. After a hurried discussion with the guide, he shook his head and shrugged out of his pack. He retrieved a satellite phone and placed a call as his men prepared to make camp.
“We should have gotten the helicopter. They’re a day ahead of us now, and the guide says that may be too much of a lead.”
“We tried. There was nothing available on short notice, and nobody who would risk setting down near there,” Gus said.
“We’ll do the best we can, but the guide’s already equivocating. Says he’s the best, but there may have been too much rain. And that if they’re sticking to game trails, it could make it impossible.”
Gus’s tone hardened. “I don’t need to tell you what’s at stake here. Best efforts won’t cut it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter Thirty
Morning brought an eerie mist that blanketed the rainforest, and when they set out, visibility had fallen to twenty yards, making the first hours on the trail otherworldly. Spencer seemed especially apprehensive and stopped several times to listen attentively before waving them forward. The fog eventually burned off and they were treated to more of the humid heat that was now their norm, the daily rain that had made it at least somewhat bearable nowhere in evidence.
Just before lunchtime Spencer stopped them again and, after peering through a clump of plants ahead of them, backed away and shook his head.
“Trouble. A few shacks in a clearing. There’s nothing I know of out here, so I’d bet that’s where our friends from the other day were coming from. Meth labs are a big moneymaker these days. Let’s backtrack and give this a wide berth,” he whispered. “There are two men by the larger building. Armed. So stay quiet.”
They retraced their footsteps, and when they found a smaller track that led south, Spencer took the lead again and they made their way through the almost impassible brush, wary of anything more accessible — the last thing they wanted was to meet a returning group of drug traffickers on a heavily traveled route.
An hour later they’d made a half circle around the encampment and found a tributary to one of the larger rivers, which they followed for six miles before it turned south. A thunderclap sounded at two o’clock and the rain came shortly after, torrential but welcome, and it continued until Jack took a bearing on the GPS and announced that they were only a quarter mile from the site.
There was no clearly defined track for the last leg. They had to hack their way through, Spencer in the lead, tirelessly swinging his machete to clear a path. When they finally reached the riverbank, they were all spent, dehydrated in spite of the steady downpour, physically exhausted from the long march.
“This is it? You’re sure?” Drake asked Jack when he set his backpack down on the brown bed of wet leaves of the jungle floor.
“Absolutely. This was our final camp. I still remember it well. That outcropping of stones near the bank. Those trees,” Jack replied.
“Where did you find him?” Drake whispered.
“Over by that grove of palms.”
“Show me.”
Jack nodded. When they arrived at the spot, both men stood staring at the rainforest floor, which looked exactly like all the other ground around it, creeping vines intertwined as they crawled up the sides of the trees, streams of rain runoff trickling from the leaves. “He was lying here. What was left of him. I wound up burying his remains along the river, using my machete to scoop the dirt. There was no way to get his body out of the jungle — you’ve seen what we went through to get here.”
“Where, exactly?”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. North along the bank. There was nothing to mark the spot with other than a few small rocks and a cross I made out of two branches — but there’s no way it would still be here. In the end it was just a place. Like any other.” Jack hesitated. “I’m sorry, son. I never thought anyone would be returning to pay their respects. Least of all you and me. But he’s out here, where he chose to spend his final days. That’s the important thing. The exact place doesn’t matter that much. This whole rainforest was his grave, the trees his tomb. He would have approved. He wasn’t big on ceremony.”
“Walk down there with me. Maybe there’s something you’ll recognize — that’ll jog your memory.”
Jack nodded. “Sure, Drake. Why not?”
They plodded to the river and made their way up its bank, wary of snakes, the game track that ran parallel barely passable. After fifty yards Jack slowed. “I don’t think it was any farther than this. So somewhere between the palms and here. That’s about as close as we’re going to get.”
“You don’t see anything that stands out?”
Jack stopped. “Look around you. This is jungle. I doubt anything stays the same for a month, let alone two decades.”
They spent a couple of minutes watching the rain flow in veins to the river, and then Jack turned and began walking back. Drake stayed planted, and Jack stopped and turned to him.
Drake shook his head. “Go ahead. I can find my own way back.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Pretty easy. Follow the river, make a right at the palms. A cinch.”
“All right.” Jack left him alone, understanding Drake’s desire to commune with his departed father, and inspect every bump or irregularity in the bank for a clue as to his final resting place.
Drake took his time, the big knife in his hand, cutting away plants to get a better look at anything he thought promising. After a half hour he came across a lump of blackened leaves that yielded four softball-sized river rocks in a pile. There was no cross, the wood having rotted away, but Drake didn’t need that final marker to know that he’d finally found his father. He stood staring down at the spot for a long time. Then he dropped to his knees, his tears mingling with the rainwater on his face, the salty drops falling onto the stones, the sadness soaking into the silent earth as he sobbed, as sons had been sobbing for their departed fathers since time began.