He listened again. “I know it’s a long shot, but I vote we give it a try. If it works, you can go to work trying to identify the alkaloids in each plant that are the active ingredients and we’ll have gone a long way to gaining control of the bug.”
After another moment of listening, he said, “Okay, I’ll get back in touch when we’ve reached the village and gotten a description of the other plants and herbs the curandera uses. I’ll give those to you by sat-phone and you can be working on those until we get back to camp with the blood and tissue specimens from the immune villagers.”
He turned off the sat-phone and put it back on his belt. Handing the plants back to the boy, he said, “Thank you, Motzi. You may have helped save a man’s life with these plants.”
“De nada, Señor Mason.” His eyes shined with pride.
Lauren pointed at the small arrow the boy was shaping. “Motzi, that arrow doesn’t look strong enough to do much damage to an animal. It looks much too small and flimsy.”
Guatemotzi’s eyes wrinkled at the word flimsy, but he said, “Is not size of arrow, but what on it that make animal go to sleep.”
He again reached into his deerskin pouch and pulled out a large green leaf rolled into a tube. He unrolled the leaf and inside it was a bright orange tree frog’s body.
He smiled and pointed at the two rocks and said, “Like with plant, after use rocks, put in water and put on tip of arrow. When dry, arrow will make animal go to sleep if I aim good.”
“Those frogs must have a form of curare in their skin toxins,” Mason said.
“I noticed some pictographs of such frogs carved into the walls of Montezuma’s tomb when Dr. Matos and I went in there,” Lauren said. “They must have been recipes for the poison the Indians left for the gods to use when they came for Emperor Montezuma.”
Mason nodded and glanced at the sky. “Well, we’re burning daylight so we better get a move on or we’ll never get to Motzi’s village.”
As they were gathering their packs and things together, a small plane flew overhead, its wheels almost touching the tops of the trees.
“Jesus!” Mason said, involuntarily ducking at the closeness of the sound. “He can’t be more than a hundred feet off the ground.”
“I thought all planes were grounded because of the plague,” Lauren said.
Mason shrugged. “I did, too.”
He slung the AR-15 and his pack over his shoulder and said, “Come on, time to hit the trail.”
As their plane flew over Mason’s group, Bear saw the light on his GPS locator go from red to green and a set of coordinates flashed on the screen.
“Got ’em,” he said, calling out the coordinates to one of his men who was looking at a map.
“They’re on a course of south by southwest from the camp,” he said.
“Good,” Bear said. “Let’s land at the field Janus told us about before it gets too dark, and we’ll head in the same direction on foot. We should be able to catch up with them by morning, assuming they stop to sleep.”
“And if they don’t?” the man with the map said.
Bear shrugged. “Then we’ll catch them by noon anyway. If you guys can’t move through the jungle faster than two academics and a small boy, then I’m paying you way too much.”
The map man smiled evilly, the scar on his black cheek turning white and making the corner of his mouth turn down. “Oh, we’ll catch them, you can count on that, boss.”
Bear grinned back. “Jinx, head for the landing site Janus gave us and hurry it up.”
“You got it, boss man,” Jinx replied, putting the small plane in a steep bank and pulling up to gain some altitude so he could find the field in the dense jungle all around them.
One of the others asked, “We gonna take them as soon as we catch up with them, Bear?”
“No, we’ve got to let them lead us to the village they’re heading for, and we’ve got to let them take their blood samples and all that crap before we take them down.”
He hesitated, “Unless you jokers want to draw a bunch of blood samples from the Indian villagers?”
The black man with the scar on his face pulled out a wicked-looking KA-BAR knife and held it up. “Naw, this is what I use to draw blood, boss. Ain’t never had much use for needles and syringes.”
“Good, then we’ll get within range of the GPS locator Janus planted on the Indian and then we’ll just quietly follow them until they get us what we need.” Bear grinned, but the smile didn’t seem to reach his eyes, “And then I’ll turn you loose on them to do what you do best.”
Chapter 26
Jinx looked over at Bear in the copilot’s seat. “Hey boss, we’re coming up on the GPS coordinates Janus gave us for the landing field in the jungle. Tell the guys in back to keep a sharp lookout, would’ya?”
Bear turned in his seat and pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at the windows. His men understood the signal and all turned to stare out of the windows at the dense carpet of jungle below.
After a few moments, Blade raised a fist and then pointed out of the window next to his seat on the right side of the plane.
Bear glanced out of his window and saw a ribbon of dirt extending in a straight line in the greenery below.
He tapped Jinx on the shoulder and pointed to the right.
Jinx glanced that way, nodded once, and then began to spiral the plane in a slow turn to the right.
Five minutes later they were bouncing along a rutted, rough patch of dirt that was more road than landing field.
“Goddamn!” one of the men in the back shouted. “Take it easy, Jinx, I just had a filling replaced and you’re about to jar it loose.”
Jinx laughed, his head bobbing back and forth with the roughness of the landing. “Roger that, Psycho!” he called, and then he leaned toward Bear and spoke in a low voice. “Can you imagine wasting good silver fillings in teeth like Psycho’s?”
Bear smirked, looking over his shoulder to make sure Psycho didn’t hear the exchange. Even Bear was a little spooked by Psycho and didn’t want to test who would come out alive if they ever had a serious disagreement.
Finally, the plane slowed and came to a halt fifty yards from the end of the runway.
“Turn it around and have it ready for a quick takeoff,” Bear ordered. “We may be in a hurry when we come back.”
“Ten-four, boss,” Jinx replied, gunning the engine and turning the plane in a tight circle until it was pointed back the way it’d come.
“Load up your packs and check your weapons,” Bear said to the men in the rear of the plane. “We’re gonna be on the trail in ten minutes, and throw that camo-net over the plane. No need to leave it out here in the open to be seen and stolen by the first narco-trafficker that passes by.”
As he finished speaking, his sat-phone buzzed and he saw that he was receiving an email. He keyed it in and saw an announcement from his old gunnery sergeant in the Marines. The email said that his ex — commanding officer, Johnny Walker, had recently died and gave directions about the whereabouts and timing of the funeral.
Bear smiled sadly in remembrance of his old friend, a man the entire unit had called Scotch due to his name. He’d been the straightest and most honorable man Bear had ever known, and he remembered how the unit had followed the man into hell and back several times over the course of Bear’s fifteen-year hitch in the Marines.
He’d heard through the Marine grapevine that Scotch had developed brain cancer and so he’d known the end was near for this brave man, but that did little to alleviate the sadness he felt at the news.