“Could the shaman…be Palenko?” Drake asked, eyes on the jungle they’d just fled through.
“Who’s Palenko?” Spencer asked, and Drake remembered he’d never shared that part of the story with him.
Drake sat down, Allie next to him, and gave an abridged version of the Russian’s history, including the speculations about Palenko’s technology. Spencer’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he finished.
“So this is another little surprise you left out of the mix? A lunatic Russian with a doomsday weapon?” Spencer growled.
“It’s not a weapon. We actually aren’t sure what it is, other than some kind of ore.”
“Our deal was full disclosure. Now I’m facing some Russian who’s as nutty as a Christmas fruitcake, who’s set himself up a death camp with an entourage of cutthroat natives. Did I miss anything?” Spencer seethed.
“It doesn’t change much, does it? We found Paititi. Now we just need to locate the treasure.”
“Right. While we’ve got a lunatic mass murderer defending the place.”
Drake couldn’t argue with the assessment, so he didn’t try. “I didn’t say it would be easy.”
“You weren’t honest about what I got myself into.”
A crack sounded from the trees, and Spencer swung around, his weapon leveled in the direction of the commotion. A simian shape flitted among the branches, and they relaxed. When Spencer returned his focus to Drake, any trace of anger was gone.
“Whether or not their leader is this Palenko character doesn’t matter. The natives are the only thing standing between us and the city, and I didn’t come this far to turn tail and run. Frankly, I’ll feel pretty good about taking out a bunch of child killers, so I say we watch, figure out their weakness, and then exploit it.”
“That sounds fine, but how?” Allie asked.
“We’ll start with surveillance. I want to understand whether that was the whole group, or if we’ll be facing down more. The good news is that I didn’t see any guns. Although we shouldn’t underestimate the effectiveness of the blowguns. But in a straightforward assault, spears against AKs aren’t going to fare well,” Spencer said.
“It doesn’t look like they’re worried about being attacked,” Drake said.
“No, any natives in the area are probably scared out of their minds. Like your shaman was. I bet everyone gives it a wide berth. Especially if the Paititi residents are poaching for sacrifices from other tribes, which would be my guess. I have to admit, it’s an effective way to ensure nobody comes calling on your discovery.”
“It’s cold-blooded murder,” Allie said.
Another rustling came from the trail leading to the city, and Spencer turned to face the dense underbrush before whispering to Drake and Allie, “Let’s get moving. I don’t like being this close to an enemy camp with no plan.”
Drake was rising when something whizzed by his head. He wasn’t sure what it was, but Spencer didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Allie’s hand. “Run. They’re firing darts at us.”
Spencer and Allie sprinted along the water’s edge. Drake was scrambling to his feet when a dart hit his backpack with a thump and another brushed his cheek. He didn’t wait to find out whether the next volley would be better aimed, and bolted after Spencer and Allie, who were now thirty yards down the river.
Drake’s foot hit a slippery stone and he lost his footing. Tumbling sideways, he slammed against the ground. A bolt of agony shot through his ribcage as he felt something crack — he’d fallen against his elbow, breaking a rib. Drake gasped for breath and tried to get up, but the pain was momentarily blinding, each inhalation sending spikes of agony through him. He was fighting to stand when something struck his head, and everything spun and went dark.
Allie’s and Spencer’s footsteps thumped along the bank as they ran, putting as much distance between themselves and their attackers as possible. Not sensing Drake behind them, Allie slowed and looked over her shoulder. Spencer tried to pull her along, and she jerked back, hard.
“Stop. We’ve lost Drake,” she said.
Spencer slowed, rifle gripped in his right hand, and looked back over his shoulder before coming to a halt. They’d rounded a bend in the serpentine river, so they couldn’t see more than a dozen yards behind them.
“Damn.”
“We have to go back,” she insisted.
Spencer hesitated, but Allie made the decision for him when she began retracing her steps. Spencer caught up with her and grabbed her arm.
“You can’t just go charging in, or you’ll wind up dead. Do you understand? If Drake ran into trouble, getting yourself killed isn’t going to help him.”
“Fine. But we have to get him.”
Spencer grunted and nodded. “Stay behind me. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you need to shoot. Which you shouldn’t unless someone’s trying to kill you.”
“Got it.”
They crept along the riverbank, Allie six paces behind him, their senses tingling, ready for an attack that never came. When they reached the spot Drake had been sitting, there was no sign of him. Spencer scanned the jungle, the barrel of his weapon searching the undergrowth for any hint of a threat, as Allie knelt by the river.
“Spencer, this is bad,” she whispered, holding up two fingers red with blood. “They’ve got him.”
He squinted at the leaves and saw the red droplets on the dirt, already coagulating in the heat, and returned to his scrutiny of the surrounding jungle. Allie stood and he shook his head, annoyance coming through his whisper.
“Allie, just hold your horses. We need a plan. Otherwise, even with superior firepower, we could fail, and it’ll cost us our lives.”
“Then start planning. Because based on what we know, we were out of time the second they got their hands on him.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Drake came to slowly, his skull throbbing, his shirt wet with blood from his head wound. The tribesman who’d whacked him with a club stood over him as he gradually regained consciousness — and was the first thing Drake registered when his eyes opened, the lids heavy, reluctant to cooperate. Drake peered around the native and saw that he’d been carried to the clearing, near the altar, and laid on the ground there. The clay-covered man was rooting through Drake’s backpack as the natives stood guard over him. The man held up Drake’s pistol and studied it with interest before dropping it on the ground next to Drake’s rifle and continuing to remove gear from the pack.
Drake’s bindings cut into his wrists, but he knew better than to struggle — an exercise in futility, given that he was outnumbered over twenty to one. Pain seared down his neck as he tried to turn his head, and he cursed silently. This was the second time in a week he’d been tied up by natives, suffering from a head wound. And something told him that this time his experience wouldn’t end with him being led to safety by a shaman’s comely daughter.
His blurry gaze drifted to the altar, still stained rust-colored from the blood of the sacrificed boy, and locked with the clay-smeared man’s, who’d spread out Drake’s meager possessions in front of him. The man approached and Drake could see that his eyes were bloodshot, with a crazed, manic look. Some kind of drug, perhaps from a hallucinogenic plant, Drake thought…and something more. Something deeper than a chemical reality, more akin to barely controlled blind fury.
The man spoke in halting Spanish, watching Drake for a reaction, and when he didn’t get one, he moved closer. Drake could smell him now — a dank, primitive stink, like an animal used to sleeping in filth. The man barked the same words, this time more clearly, but they meant nothing to Drake.
He felt a tug at his belt. The man had his knife and was staring at it as if possessed, his grin displaying diseased gums with only a few teeth left. Drake watched as he keened an atonal hum and then did a little dance to music only he could hear, brandishing the knife like a trophy. For some reason, the display frightened Drake more than anything so far, and his breath froze in his chest as he watched the bizarre performance.