What’s that sound?” From under the wide brim of her straw hat, Alex peered out at Deborah Simons, who was photographing a parade of ants marching over one of the outermost canopy pontoons. “Do you hear it?”
Deborah lifted her head as the noise intensified. Rhythmic, quick, and low, the sound was unlike anything they’d heard since entering the jungle.
“Jungle drums?” Deborah guessed. “Lazaro showed us how they beat on the trunks of those hollow trees—”
“It’s not the same. It’s—” Alex groaned as the realization hit. “It’s a helicopter.”
A moment later, a chopper appeared on the green horizon, confirming her suspicions. Muttering an oath, Alex dropped to her knees and laced her fingers through the mesh surface. She had finally begun to feel at ease on the raft, but she didn’t relish the thought of being buffeted by the rotor wash of an intruding helicopter.
“What sort of idiot,” she yelled as the chopper drew closer, “would approach us up here?”
Milos Olsson, who had been standing near the porthole, waved his arms in a desperate attempt to warn the helicopter away. But the pilot was either blind or stupid, for the craft kept coming, whipping the green sea beneath him into frenzied waves.
“Down, everybody,” Olsson called, dropping to his knees. “Secure your equipment!”
Leaving one hand securely entwined in the mesh, Alex pulled her notebook from beneath her knee, then dropped it down her buttoned shirt. Her camera hung safely about her neck, her water bottle snuggled in the pocket of her backpack, and her mechanical pencil—well, by now it was probably resting in the well of a bromeliad or on the forest floor.
Amid a blizzard of curses flowing from her teammates, the pilot came nearer, then hovered above them for the space of about thirty seconds. Caught by the air currents, the platform rose and fell as the branches of the tree whipped to and fro, threatening the mesh fabric.
Tipping her head back to see beyond her hat’s flapping brim, Alex caught a glimpse of two men behind the wide windshield—a grinning pilot in headphones and a white man wearing a baseball cap. The white man was emphatically gesturing to the east.
“That’s right, Einstein,” she muttered. “Please send him away. It’s not like we’re terribly secure up here.”
A moment later, the helicopter turned and flew eastward, toward the river. Alex remained tucked into a ball until the loudest thumps had faded, then she lifted her head to survey the damage.
They’d survived with no serious casualties. Deborah was fussing because the windstorm had agitated her ants, and Louis was bewailing several lost specimens. But this tree was laden with flowers, so he’d be able to replace his samples with little effort. Flailing branches had torn a twelve-inch gash in the mesh near Baklanov, but after assessing the situation with a string of Russian curses, he announced that he would take care to avoid that spot until the fabric could be mended.
Olsson leaped around the raft, taking stock of the situation, then announced that they needed to descend if they wanted to be back at the lodge before dark.
They had spent a long morning on the platform and then had crawled into the shade provided by a towering teak for lunch and a shady siesta. After slathering on fresh applications of sunscreen and mosquito repellent, they had crawled out again to complete their investigations of the mahogany.
More accustomed to the raft now, Alex had finally been able to relax. She had spent part of the day helping Baklanov with his samples, then she had sat on the mesh with binoculars and studied wildlife in the treetops below, watching one particular troop of active marmosets for any sign of illness. She had observed nothing unusual, but still it had been a good day. Despite her weariness, she had managed to keep her emotions and her muscles under control.
After checking to be sure she and Baklanov had gathered all their supplies, she stood and moved over a pontoon toward the porthole. She halted when she saw a large gray object, no bigger than a football, a few inches from their exit. As she took another cautious step, she noticed that the object was . . . buzzing.
“Olsson?” she called, keeping her distance. “You wanna take a look at this?”
The sturdy Swede came closer, then grimaced and muttered a curse. “Stupid chopper dislodged part of a wasps’ nest,” he said, propping his hand on his hip. “Probably from that teak.”
“Do we dare walk around it?”
Olsson turned to Deborah Simons, who was packing her bag. “Dr. Simons? This is your area of expertise, yes? What would you suggest we do?”
Deborah stood and came closer, then bent with her hands on her knees. She studied the nest for a long moment, then the corner of her mouth drooped. “Yeah—I saw that species earlier today. A marmoset ventured close to one of those nests in the canopy below us.”
Alex’s mouth went dry. “What happened?”
“I didn’t see the attack, but after a minute that monkey dropped like a stone. I’m not sure what species that nest houses, but right now I’m not especially eager to find out.”
Olsson scratched at his beard. “Could we kick it away?”
The entomologist shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to take a chance. What if it breaks when we kick it? Some insects will swarm if attacked, and if they do, we’ve nowhere to run.”
“So how do we get down?” The question came from Carlton, who had ventured up without his lovely assistant.
Deborah straightened and slipped her hand into her pants pocket. “We find a way to fling the nest and hope like mad the wasps go with it.”
Groaning, Alex slipped the kerchief from her neck and dabbed at her forehead and the back of her neck. The sun seemed to have become hotter in the last five minutes, the air thinner.
Baklanov came forward, one hand holding his backpack, the other pushing sweat from his brow. “So—how do we fling it away?”
Olsson pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am taking suggestions.”
Alex glanced around the raft. Each researcher had brought only the minimum of equipment to the canopy—notebooks, cameras, specimen vials, water bottles, tubes of sunscreen. Though several of them carried insect repellant, nothing short of industrial-strength wasp spray would neutralize this threat.
“I have an idea.” Louis Fortier’s scrawny shoulders rose perceptibly as he stepped up to meet the challenge. He walked to within three feet of the nest, then bent and pulled a purple blossom from a plastic specimen container.
Deborah eyed the flower with narrowed eyes. “What is that?”
The bantam Frenchman grinned at her. “Tell me, Dr. Simons— have you observed that type of wasp on the forest floor?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“In the understory, perhaps?”
She shook her head.
“I thought not. Well, I have not seen this flower below the canopy, either. I think the vine grows up here for a reason, and that reason may have something to do with your wasp.”
After pulling a red kerchief from about his neck, Louis spread the fabric on the mesh surface of the raft, then crushed the blossom between his palms, squeezing the petals until his hands were shiny with wetness. He then wiped his hands on the kerchief.
“I only hope my human pheromones will not overpower the scent,” he said, his expression serious as he took pains to wipe even the flesh between his fingers with the cotton cloth. “But I think we are in luck. The fragrance of this flower is strong, especially to a creature as small as a wasp.”
He glanced around, then looked at Alex. “Madame Pace, if I may be so bold—would you donate your belt?”
Alex’s hands flew to the plain leather belt strung through the loops of her khaki trousers. She couldn’t imagine what the man had in mind, but if it would help them get out of this tree . . .
She unfastened the clasp and pulled the belt free. “Here,” she said, tossing it to the Frenchman.
Grinning at Olsson and Baklanov, the perfumer poked the sharp tongue of the belt through a corner of the thin cotton kerchief. He then made a loop of the belt and locked the clasp, leaving the scented kerchief dangling from the metal prong of the hasp.
Holding the belt on his palm, in playful formality Fortier bowed to the Swedish botanist. “Monsieur Olsson, do you think you could cut a thin branch for me? I will need a fork at the end.”
Grinning, Olsson retreated to a cutout in the raft. “How long?” he called.
Fortier eyed the wasp nest. “Two meters should suffice.”
Olsson returned a moment later with a slender branch about six feet long. He handed it to Fortier. “I see what you’re about to do. I hope it works.”
“That makes two of us.”
Gripping her pack, Alex took an involuntary step back as Fortier placed the belt in the forked end of the branch, then lowered it to within an inch of the wasp’s nest. A moment later the buzzing sound increased as a veritable wave of insects swarmed out to settle onto the fragrance-soaked fabric.
“They don’t understand what’s happening,” Simons explained, a smile in her voice. “But they are irresistibly drawn to the aroma.”
“And that, my friends, is the power of perfume.” Moving slowly, Fortier lifted the twig, drawing the kerchief away from the nest. Scores of wasps clung to it, while around it hundreds of others formed a living cloud. Stepping daintily over a pontoon, Fortier moved carefully, holding the kerchief aloft and away from his face. A sudden breath of wind fluttered the cloth for a moment, threatening to blow it back toward the group, but the clasp on the belt held it tight.
Creeping like a tardy husband sneaking into his wife’s boudoir, Fortier proved himself the Pied Piper of wasps as he minced his way to the edge of the raft. He suspended the branch over the edge, waited for a lull between wind gusts, then smacked the base of the branch with his right hand, launching kerchief, belt, branch, and wasps over the edge of the platform.
“I hope those buzzing babies didn’t land right by the rope,” Alex called, moving toward the porthole.
Lifting his arms, Fortier danced his way to the center of the raft. “Do not worry, chérie—they will float around the kerchief for as long as the fragrance lasts. They will not bother you tonight.”
As Alex hooked her safety harness to the line for the trip down, she realized the wasps had completely taken her mind off her dread of the descent.
For at least a few moments.
The sun had balanced atop the western horizon by the time the boat pulled within view of Yarupapa Lodge. Alex and her companions stared silently at the helicopter resting on its pontoons a few feet offshore. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised to find the helicopter at the lodge; this part of the jungle held few pockets of civilization.
Leaning forward on her knees, she propped her chin on her fist and tried to disguise her annoyance in front of the others. So the man in the chopper had business at the lodge—fine, but why was he still here? Anyone in such an all-fired hurry should have completed his business and rushed off by now. If Mr. Baseball Cap were still around, she could only surmise that the pilot’s mission had not been a matter of life and death . . . though it had nearly created a life-and-death situation for the canopy team.
Milos Olsson must have been thinking the same thoughts. “Stupid fool is still here,” he muttered, tossing his gear onto the dock as the boat pulled alongside it. “If that’s some millionaire dropping in for a nighttime caiman search, I’ll—”
The sound of footsteps interrupted his threat. Alex looked up to see Herman Myers and another white man turn the corner. The stranger, a clear-eyed, stubble-cheeked thirty-something at least a foot taller than Myers, had lost the baseball cap. The pleated trousers and a polished cotton shirt he wore hinted at refinement, but his trousers were wrinkled and patches of perspiration marked the underarms of the shirt. Despite his disheveled state, he moved in an attitude of selfcontrol and studied relaxation, his black hair falling over his collar and gleaming in the fading sunlight. One curl casually brushed his forehead, giving him the windblown look of a spoiled tourist who had just choppered in for a bit of sightseeing. As much as she wanted to be irritated at the intrusion, the sight of such an unexpectedly attractive visitor caught Alex off guard.
Lifting his hand, Myers pointed directly at Alex. “That’s the woman you want.”
To her annoyance, she felt herself blush.
The stranger came forward with long strides, offering his hand to help her out of the boat. “Dr. Pace? Mr. Myers said I might find you here.”
She narrowed her eyes, trying to place his accent. He was not American—maybe English or Australian. Unless English was his second language; in that case, he could have come from anywhere.
“It’s Pah-chay.” She tossed her bag onto the dock. “I use the Italian pronunciation.”
“I beg your pardon.”
Ignoring his outstretched hand, she stepped onto the boat bench, then leaped onto the dock, rocking the boat. Behind her Olsson began to mutter in Swedish while Deborah Simons suffered a sudden fit of giggles.
The blasted man persisted with the outstretched hand. “Forgive the intrusion, Dr. Pace. I’m Michael Kenway, a physician practicing at the Regional Hospital in Iquitos.”
He had to be English—his manners were too polished to be Australian. The few Aussies she’d met in her travels were more freewheeling and a thousand times more field-savvy than this guy.
Reluctantly, she shook the interloper’s hand. “What brings you out to Yarupapa, Dr. Kenway? I certainly hope it was a medical emergency— snakebite, perhaps? Caiman attack?”
He released her hand. “Not an emergency, I’m afraid—unless you consider the term in a broad sense.”
“Really?” Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she began to follow her departing teammates toward the dining hall. “I figured it would have to be something extremely important to make a helicopter pilot nearly knock a team of researchers off a canopy raft.”
The doctor fell into step beside her. “I’m sorry. I tried to warn the fellow away, but he was curious.”
“Well, that excuses it, then. Except that you weren’t content to blast us with rotor wash or whatever you call it, but you also nearly inflicted another variety of violent and painful death upon us. Were you aware, Doctor, that your little buzzing of our work area kicked a wasps’ nest onto our platform? And that nest of extremely large and terribly potent wasps landed only inches from the porthole through which we had to descend?”
A faint smile hovered about his lips as he slipped both hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Perhaps you didn’t know that certain species of the Amazonian wasp can paralyze with one sting—and cause even more problems if a human is allergic to the venom. But, being the big-shot doctor you are, I suspect you were prepared to intubate anyone who stopped breathing—”
“That’s quite enough.” Turning in front of her, he blocked her path, halting the torrent of her words. “I’m trying to apologize, if you will only listen. I didn’t know about the wasps, and I didn’t know the helicopter would create such a problem. But when I rented the chopper, I happened to tell the pilot what sort of work you were doing, so the bloke was naturally curious. The moment I realized he’d spotted you and was descending, I tried to warn him off, but apparently I didn’t speak forcefully—or accurately—enough. For my weak Spanish, I apologize. For causing you trouble, I apologize. For being here, I apologize. If there’s anything else for which you’d like me to apologize, you had better tell me quickly because you, Dr. Pace, have taxed the limits of my patience.”
She stared at him as a thought that she’d pushed aside resurfaced in her brain—this foolhardy doctor was an incredibly attractive guy.
In that lay a major problem.
She swallowed hard. “You’re a man.”
He blinked. “Am I supposed to apologize for that?”
“It might help. I’ve had bad experiences with men.”
“Obviously.”
He stood there, tall and irritated, and in that moment Alex realized he would not be intimidated.
She changed her tactics. “You told your idiot pilot what sort of work I was doing?”
“Yes.”
“Me, personally? Or the entire team?”
“You, personally.” Holding her stare, he crossed his arms. “If you would stop firing salvos in my direction, Dr. Pace, I think you’ll be interested in what I’ve come to tell you.”
“I fail to see how you could know anything that would interest me or—”
“I have information regarding a spongiform encephalopathy case in Iquitos.”
Alex caught her breath. Mad cow disease had not yet been reported in South America. So this had to be either a genuine case of sporadic disease or . . .
She frowned as another thought occurred. “How did you know about my interest in prion diseases?”
“I read the article.”
“What article?”
“In the Lima newspaper, El Tiempo. They even had a nice picture of you . . . though, I must say, I don’t think it did you justice.”
Good grief, was he flirting with her? She brought the meaty part of her palm to her forehead, wishing she could remember what she’d told the reporter. Probably nothing. After all, not even Carlton knew about her personal link to her work.
Lowering her hand, she focused her gaze on the doctor. “I’d like to know why you think your patient has spongiform encephalopathy.”
“Had—he expired last night.”
“You discovered spongiform tissue postmortem?”
“Yes.”
“You did the autopsy?”
“This morning.”
She shook her head. “I don’t mean to disparage your methods, Dr. Kenway, but I doubt you have the proper equipment for a proper diagnosis.”
“This afternoon I confirmed the results in Lima under an electron microscope. With my own eyes I observed spongiform brain tissue and scrapie-associated fibrils. I know what I saw, Dr. Pace. I saw prions.”
Alex closed her eyes as surprise siphoned the blood from her head. Thirty seconds ago she would have thought it impossible to find a Peruvian prion patient or a physician who could discern a prion from a paramecium . . .
She studied the planks on the walkway. “Did you train in neurology?”
“Pediatrics. But I worked with several BSE patients in London during the outbreaks.”
“About your patient—any family history of the disease?”
“We couldn’t take a family history. The man walked out of the jungle thirty-six hours ago. He spoke an odd Indian dialect—we were fortunate to find anyone who could understand him.”
Abruptly, she lifted her head. “You say he walked out of the jungle? A patient in the last stages of a prion disease does not walk.”
“That’s why I came to see you. My patient died from acute sepsis due to bowel perforation—he’d been wounded with a stone spear.”
She rubbed her forehead. Of course. The infection had ended his life before the disease could, perhaps the infection had been a mercy. Still . . .
She lifted her eyes to find him studying her. “Does your standard autopsy include a microscopic examination of brain tissue?”
His expression changed, some stray thought quirking the corner of his mouth. “Not when I have twenty patients waiting.”
“Then why did you go the extra mile?”
His gaze shifted, his eyes momentarily darting up to the thatched roof as if he were appealing to a higher authority. “I looked because the patient told our interpreter that he had been stricken by the shuddering disease years earlier. Knowing he would soon weaken and die, he fled to a nearby tribe known as the Tree People and lived with them for years. He was searching for a white man’s village when he encountered the spear-chucker.”
“I fail to see—”
“The Tree People healed him, Dr. Pace. Though his brain tissue was riddled with prions, I observed no symptoms of encephalopathy in his body. He had good muscle tone, strong legs, and he was ambulatory even after his wounding.”
For a moment Alex could do nothing but stammer while her head swarmed with words, then paralysis loosened its grip on her tongue. “I should warn you, Doctor, that I don’t like games, particularly when the hour is late and I’m tired and hungry. The circumstances you’ve described cannot be accurate.”
“Are you certain?” The setting sun gilded his face as he challenged her. “I, too, thought the story incredible until I saw prions under the EM. If his story is true, Dr. Pace, a cure for prion diseases exists . . . and it lies somewhere in the jungle.”
Blank, amazed, and shaken, she could only stare at him as his words faded into the gathering shadows.