Paco had described how the black-clad men hog-tied Megan before throwing her and the priest into the back of a medium-size transport truck. He remembered the truck because he had seen if before while traveling to some of the more distant villages with Father Joe. It was tan in color and had a pair of red snakes painted on its doors.
The Indian had twice seen the truck parked at what he thought was a military facility in a remote corner of the jungle. He described the fenced facility, which sat in a clearing and was guarded by troops with maroon berets.
The priest had explained the significance of the berets. They were part of the distinctive uniforms worn by Guatemalan Special Forces.
Paco wasn’t willing to take Luke to the guarded facility — the man seemed terrified when asked — but he reluctantly agreed to accompany him as far as Mayakital. More specifically, he agreed to take Luke to a summit high above the flooded village where los soldados—the soldiers — would not be able to spot them.
From there, Luke was on his own.
Frankie had worked himself into the plan as a translator for Luke, and it didn’t seem worth arguing about because, in fact, he needed a translator and would send Frankie back to the parroquia with Paco as soon as they reached the summit.
A dull throb was taking hold in Luke’s left shoulder when they reached the mountaintop and he got his first view of the devastation that was once Mayakital. He gazed down at a half-mile-wide lake of reddish-brown mud a thousand feet below them.
Looking to the north, he found the cause of the flood. An earthen reservoir had fractured. It was a limestone pouch formed by the confluence of three peaks — mountains joined at the hip, the geological equivalent of Siamese triplets. He looked through a gaping V-shaped scar into the reservoir’s interior. Sheets of water from mountain streams cascaded down its darkened limestone walls.
Luke told Paco and Frankie to stay put while he searched the area. A dark presence accompanied him as he worked his way down the steep incline and around the perimeter of the muddy moonscape. By the time he reached the northern end of the valley, he was carrying a thick layer of red clay on his jeans.
Staring up at the jagged fissure on the earthen dam, he tried to imagine how it had ruptured. His eyes followed the reservoir’s contours up and down, then across the top.
It was then that he knew what had happened.
It was subtle, but it was there.
Several hundred feet above him, along the reservoir’s upper rim, a spatter pattern of brownish-red sediment covered the jungle’s canopy for a hundred yards to either side of the fissure. He had missed it when peering down from the summit, but saw it now.
The earthen wall had been blasted open from the inside, sending an explosive cloud of pulverized limestone and clay into the sky. It dispersed and rained back down, covering the jungle’s canopy with a film of sediment.
He knew about explosives and blast patterns. It was what SEALs did best.
Whoever had done this was proficient at disguising their lethal handiwork. In another few days, rain would have washed away the last traces of evidence.
A few minutes later Luke reached the spot that Paco had pointed out from the summit. The rains hadn’t completely washed away the shoe prints on the shoreline. At least three different boot treads mingled with the outline of a much smaller set of shoe prints.
He stooped and ran his finger along the rim of one of the small shoe treads, thinking of Megan and the terror that must have seized her.
A raging fury choked off his vision. His chest heaved.
He let out a deafening scream that echoed across the valley.
On the other side of the valley, Mr. Kong lowered his field glasses and reached for his satellite phone.
“He’s here.”
42
Megan awoke to another of Kaczynski’s delirious outbursts. She uncurled her body and threw off a collection of rags and towels she’d used to fashion a sleeping nest in one corner of the room.
Father Joe was propped in a chair next to the geneticist’s bed, breathing heavily in sleep.
The guard — this one didn’t speak English — was sitting next to the door. He slapped his arm, then flicked something off his skin.
It was the middle of the day, but she was taking catnaps whenever she could because the geneticist’s waxing and waning condition left her little time to sleep.
A flutter of birds sounded outside. Megan stood and walked over to the screened window while rubbing the stiffness from her neck. Ten yards away, the compound’s perimeter wall with its garland of concertina wire stared back at her. Tree branches as thick as telephone poles dipped over the walls, as if the jungle were trying to reclaim the land for itself.
The geneticist’s utterances had initially seemed like nothing more than random salvos, but as time passed she noticed recurring words and phrases: malaria, T-cells, germ cells, ovaries, and another word she didn’t recognize—Chegan.
She let his words percolate through her mind, looking for clues about the purpose of the forest compound. Her captors didn’t seem to care about Kaczynski’s chatter, which only underscored what she already knew. Whether her patient lived or died, they were going to kill her as soon as his fate became clear.
It was obvious that Kaczynski was important to them. They wanted him to live and had obtained everything she asked for: a stethoscope; tubing, needles, and fluids for a second IV line; two oxygen tanks and a mask; and an assortment of medications including Lasix, which she would use if the geneticist’s kidneys started to fail, and penicillin.
While considered an exotic disease, leptospirosis responded to penicillin, the most common of antibiotics. What she didn’t know, and wouldn’t know for several more hours, was if the infectious spirochete had destroyed her patient’s brain. He had signs of encephalitis — inflammation of the brain — but it was too early to know whether any damage had occurred.
“How are you doing?” It was Father Joe’s voice.
She continued staring out the window. “Fine.”
His chair creaked. “What can I do to help?”
She spun around to face him. “Can you help me understand why I’m working so hard to save this man’s life, all the while hoping he dies?”
Father Joe suddenly leaned forward, clutching his chest.
She ran to the priest, eased him into his chair, and then grabbed Kaczynski’s oxygen mask and placed it over Father Joe’s face. “I’m sorry, Father. Just relax and breathe.” Megan stooped next to him. “I’m such an idiot. Ignore me.”
A smile formed under his mask.
A moment later the hissing of the oxygen suddenly faded away.
Megan turned.
Calderon was closing the valve on top of the tank, shutting off the oxygen flow.
“You bastard!” she screamed. “He needs—”
“This oxygen is for Dr. Kaczynski.” Calderon held up his index finger. “If I catch you doing that again, the priest dies. Understood?” He waited for a response and got none. “Good. Now, tell me about your patient. How’s he doing?”
“It’s too early to tell.” Megan bit off the words.
“So, what does he have?”
“Hemorrhagic fever,” she lied.
“How bad is that?”
“It’s bad,” she said. “And something else you should know — every one of us is going to get this illness. It’s spread by mosquitoes.” If she was right about her diagnosis of leptospirosis, neither statement was true.