Hans was quick. He got all the travelling arrangements organised before ten o’clock the next morning.
Two hours later, Anadi was on a plane headed for Brazil. She arrived at Brasilia airport by noon the next day.
From there she took a flight to Eduardo Gomes airport in the jungle. A clansman met her there and they travelled from the airport passing the city of Manaus to the Amazon River past the connection with the Rio Negra. There, Anadi said goodbye to the Watcher and boarded a speedboat that took her up the mother river and subsequently down the Purus tributary.
The skipper was a sullen man who refrained from speaking. He stood at the wheel and deftly manoeuvred the fast vessel over the choppy waters. They passed rubber plantations on both sides of the river that effectively functioned as the border between Brazil and Peru. The scenery on both sides was the same—deforestation and devastation. The farther they went up the river, the more the dense forest reclaimed the scenery. The only settlements that she saw now were those of the indigenous people. They eyed the boat with understandable suspicion.
Hours later the skipper turned the boat towards the bank of the river. He indicated that this was as far as he would go. Anadi thanked him and jumped over the side, wading the last two meters to the sandy rivers edge.
As she disappeared into the foliage she heard the boat back out, turn and speed away. There was no going back. But she didn’t want to. She was here on a mission. Get Panat out and stop Azazel. There would be no compromise.
Discarding her clothes, she changed and, enjoying the texture of the leaves and mud under her paws, bounded into the jungle.
Anadi followed her intuition and the general directions that Hans had given her and made good time.
She decided to squander a few hours to kill and eat a tapir. She would need the extra energy. It was an investment. Necessary.
By the early morning of the next day, she was in the general vicinity of the coordinates that Azazel had given them. It was impossible to tell, but she felt that she was near. She slowed her progress and listened to the sounds of the jungle. There was nothing out of the ordinary. She would need to find a higher vantage point. Somewhere she could at least see a bit more of the scenery, somewhere above the dense canopy. She found a small fast flowing river and followed it to a gorge. There she climbed the cliff side before it got steep and made her way through the jungle to the highest point. The foliage was still so dense that she couldn’t see very far, but it was better than earlier. She searched the jungle. Looking for anything that stood out. Anything that shouldn’t be here. She took her time. It would be a detail.
Sure enough, to her right, at a distance of about two kilometres, she saw that something had upset the birds. The parrots flew up into the air, their multi-coloured plumage stark against the bright greens of the treetops. Their flight was accompanied by an angry chattering. They had been disturbed and were none the happier for it.
There was no guarantee that this would be where she needed to go, but it warranted investigation. Leaving her perch, she made her way through the dense undergrowth in the direction of where the parrots had come from.
She took her time. Making sure that she was undetectable. Others would be alert. Waiting for the same tell-tale signs that she was here. She reminded herself that they were waiting for her. Azazel knew that she was coming.