Emily hadn't knowingly hired a loser. But she was starting to think she'd gotten one all the same. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves." She lowered her voice to a bare whisper. "First, let's find the library. Then we can figure out how to handle it."
Miranda's eyes turned wild. "Screw you."
Emily understood Miranda's passion for the library. She felt it too. She could still recall the exact moment she'd first laid eyes on Hope's diary. She recalled flipping it open and studying the brittle pages. It had fascinated her and sparked a lifelong interest in the unknown. Years later, that interest had led her to found Arclyon Consulting.
"Be reasonable."
"I don't need you to find the library." Miranda reached into her pocket and retrieved a pistol. "In fact, I don't need you at all."
With a loud scream, Emily threw her hands up in front of her face.
A few seconds passed.
Slowly, Emily lowered her hands. Miranda was nowhere to be seen.
She twisted her neck. Miranda stood in the middle of the chopper with Tum and Graham. All three of them stared at her.
Looking past them, she saw Beverly and the Maneros. They stared at her as well.
Her face felt hot as she turned her attention back to her book. Unfortunately, the hallucinations were getting worse. This latest one had been the most vivid and lifelike yet. And that meant just one thing.
She was running out of time.
Chapter 26
I felt uneasy as I stepped out of the cockpit. Despite intense questioning, Dr. Wu had refused to expand upon his comments about Emily.
I looked around. Emily was huddled with Crowley. I'd heard her scream just minutes earlier. I tried to approach her to ask what had happened, but she waved me off.
Shifting my gaze, I saw Graham talking to Miranda and Tum. Further back, Beverly chatted with the Maneros. We'd agreed to split up in order to tackle all of the expedition members. But since I'd finished early with Dr. Wu, I decided to make the rounds.
The helicopter bumped. Lifting a hand, I steadied myself against the roof. Then I made my way to the middle of the cabin.
"What about food?" Graham asked as I drew near. "And water?"
"They've got weeks worth of supplies," Miranda replied. "We made sure of that."
"How about predators?"
"Rigoberta and Pacho are smart," Tum said. "They'll keep to themselves."
"I hate to interrupt." I cleared my throat. "But we haven't officially met each other yet."
He looked at me. "Carlos Tum."
"Cy Reed." I shook his hand. Tum was younger than me. His face appeared weathered. His black hair was cut short. He carried himself with quiet confidence and a regal air of authority.
"Keep to themselves?" Graham shook his head. "That only works until a jaguar decides they look like an easy lunch."
"I understand your concern," Tum said softly. "But they're used to working in the jungle. They'll be fine."
I glanced out the window. Through the stains and scratches, I saw dark clouds enveloping the sky. A steady rain shower poured from above, splattering against the pane. It was the first rain I'd seen in weeks.
Beneath me, shrouded in hazy sunlight, I noticed a sea of muted colors. Thick, green forest. The lighter greens and browns of a clearing. Trickling lines of blue water. Together, it formed one giant mass swaying gently from side to side, as if dancing to some hidden beat.
"Stunning, isn't it?" Miranda said. "Gives me goose bumps every time I fly over it."
"You've done this before?" I said.
"I give occasional sky tours of the jungle to raise money for climate change awareness."
"You must know a lot about it."
"The Lacandon Jungle is North America's last tropical rain forest. We're flying over part of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. It covers about fifteen hundred square miles of jungle, indigenous settlements, and ancient Maya ruins. The Mexican government established the reserve in the 1970s and handed guardianship of it over to the Lacandon tribe." She smiled at Tum. "Our people."
Tum's eyes were wide open and he looked like he was in some sort of mystical trance.
Graham frowned. "You're both from the jungle?"
"Not just us," Tum replied. "The Maneros too. All of us were born and raised near Lacanjá. In fact, I still live there."
"How about you?" I asked Miranda.
She shook her head. "I moved away to pursue a degree in archaeology."
"Do you ever go back?"
"Well, I fly the tours and work at my dig sites. But I rarely get an opportunity to visit home these days."
I nodded. "So, you were surrounded by Maya ruins as a kid. No wonder you became an archaeologist."
"She's more than an archaeologist." Tum grinned. "In case she hasn't told you yet, Miranda is one of Mexico's most outspoken environmentalists."
"One doesn't grow up in the jungle without a deep desire to preserve it," Miranda explained. "And the ruins of my ancestors have been around so long they're practically one with the jungle. So, for me, the ruins and environmentalism are intertwined."
Miranda desperately wanted to play the role of environmental guru. But I sensed it was partly a facade. While she was clearly passionate about climate change, she seemed to have little interest in natural settings.
Tum, however, was the real deal. He radiated nobility. Not the kind of nobility that came with a title. Rather, it was mystical nobility, the sort of thing one would expect to find in an old wise man. One look into his eyes and you knew you were looking into the soul of someone who was one with the jungle, one with nature.
"So, I've got a question." Graham studied Miranda's face. "Do you really believe all that crap you say about climate change?"
She blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Climate change is a scam."
"You're a denier?"
"It's better than being a fool."
An amused look crossed her face. "Tell me, why do you consider climate change to be a scam?"
"The whole field of study — if you can call it that — is based on modeling. But weather is a chaotic system. It's impossible to model."
"Chaotic systems aren't random. Cause and effect still exist."
"Maybe so, but they become increasingly difficult to model over time. And since climate change is supposed to occur in the distant future, it can't be modeled with any accuracy. Besides, chaotic systems depend on perfect measurements of initial conditions, something that's impossible to obtain."
"Weather is chaotic, I'll give you that much." Miranda's voice took on an edge. "But consider this … if you go north of the equator, temperatures are generally warmer during the summer than during the winter. Snow and ice occur during fairly predictable periods of the year."
"So what?"
"So, chaos in weather is just noise. It can be averaged out of the system."
"No it can't," Graham insisted. "And that's not all. Climate research is based on ridiculously inaccurate historical information. We've got temperature data of varying quality for maybe the last one hundred and fifty years. Prior to that, we’re forced to depend on tree rings, ice cores, and the sedimentary record to reconstruct temperatures. Those things are far from exact and anyway, they only take us back a couple hundred million years. That's not much time, considering the earth’s been spinning for some four billion years."
Miranda rolled her eyes. "I don't have time for this. Suffice it to say human-induced climate change is a real thing. Despite what you may think, it's not just some crazy idea cooked up by environmentalists. It's science, supported by consensus."