WITH THE TENSION DISSIPATED, the dinner conversation became light and casual, and Jake had eaten with enthusiasm. It was the first good meal he’d had in a week. After enjoying sizeable helpings of everything, he soaked up the remnant juices from his plate with a wad of bread, and savored the mix of flavors as he finished it off. Alex was already done. From the numerous bare pineapple rinds on his plate, and the satisfied look on his face, Jake surmised his son had enjoyed the meal every bit as much as he had, despite the continued refusals to sample the monkey meat.
Alex sat back, rubbed his stomach, and licked the last bit of glistening pineapple juice from his lips. He scanned the room. “I guess we’re slow eaters.”
Jake followed his gaze. All the tables were still filled with people chatting quietly amongst themselves, but their plates and platters had long since been cleared. The children seemed anxious to depart, but Jake could tell from the adults’ furtive glances that they were waiting for him and Alex to finish. Whether it was out of politeness for the guests of honor or fear of Frank, Jake wasn’t sure. Either way, there was no sense in making them wait any longer. Besides, he and Alex had things to do.
He stood up. “Best meal ever. My thanks for your generosity, Frank, and for your company, Mandu and Lucy. But I wonder if we could meet our guide now, if that’s okay?” He looked over the crowd, many of which were now staring at him. “Can you point him out? Ask him to join us?”
Frank frowned. He made a sharp tilt of his chin toward the exit, and the group of diners all seemed to rise at once to proceed outside. A couple of the kids Jake recognized from the dock started to come toward them, but adults ushered them away. Servers swept in and cleared the last few dirty plates and platters, and a minute later Jake and Alex were alone in the big space with Frank and his family.
“Now, then,” Frank said, ignoring the rapid evacuation as if it was an everyday thing. “About your guide. I found somebody special for you. He’s going to cost you more but he’s worth every penny of it. Nobody knows the jungle like Trumak.”
Mandu and Lucy stiffened.
As if on cue, a hard-as-nails native pushed through the swinging doors. He stopped cold, and his head swiveled in their direction, his black eyes locked on Jake.
Lucy rose from the table. “Must excuse.” Eyes on the floor, she hurried out the doorway behind the bar.
Alex looked after her with concern.
“Don’t you mind her none. Trumak’s a wee bit intimidating, that’s all.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Jake said, sizing up the man. Trumak was short but formidable, with bowl-cut black hair, a mask of red paint surrounding his eyes, and a broad nose that had been pierced through the septum by a four-inch long bone the thickness of a chopstick. Three more bone stubs projected from under his full lower lip, combining with a swirl of facial tattoos to create the impression of a perpetual snarl. He wore a loincloth, and his skin was stained neck to toe with mottled splotches for camouflage. Straps crisscrossed his chest, supporting an animal-hide backpack, a sheath of long arrows, and a smaller sheath of twelve-inch darts. Most of the darts had red-painted shafts, but a few were painted green. A machete was strapped at his side. He held a bow in one hand, a long blow pipe in the other, and from the look on his face, he was taking no prisoners.
A warrior kitted up for battle.
“Wow,” Alex muttered.
Frank gestured and Trumak slid toward them, like a panther approaching prey. Jake never took his eyes off him.
Alex, on the other hand, rose to confront the man. “You. Are. Awesome. Is that a blowgun?”
Trumak’s brow creased as he considered Alex, like a predatory animal appraising a squirrel.
“Sure enough, lad,” Frank said. “And the tips of the red darts are coated with poison taken from the secretions of the most colorful frogs in the rainforest. Even a scratch from their sharp tips causes instant paralysis. And I do mean instant! A minute later, you stop breathing.”
“What about the green ones?”
“Those are for jaguars, if you’re unlucky enough to meet up with one. They’re sacred animals to Trumak’s tribe and must never be killed. So the green darts carry a powerful sedative in case of a chance encounter. It’ll put ’em down instantly, but they’ll wake up later with little more than a headache.”
Alex took a step back. Trumak sniffed, and the bone through his nose twitched.
“And you’re going to be our guide?” Alex asked.
“He doesn’t speak a word of English,” Mandu said, which earned her a scowl from Frank.
“Maybe not,” Frank said, motioning toward the doorway. “But Jabuti and Quando over there can translate. They’ll be going with you.”
The two natives had slipped in unnoticed by Jake, and that unnerved him. They were outfitted like Trumak, though neither shared his fierce countenance.
“Are you kidding, Frank?” Mandu asked. “They can’t put a sentence together between them.” Frank’s jaw tightened. She ignored him and waved to the newcomers. “Hey, Quando, what’s the weather like today?”
The shorter of the two natives squinted as if trying to figure out what she’d said. The other simply stared at her.
Frank’s hands closed into fists, but his wife pressed on. “What’s the difference between a tree and a river?”
Still no reaction from the taller one, who Jake guessed was Jabuti. The shorter one, Quando, shifted uneasily.
“Enough!” Frank pounded on the table. Alex hurried to sit back down next to Jake. Frank added, “They know enough to get by on a two-day trek.”
“Hardly,” Mandu said. “But it doesn’t matter. Because there is someone who knows the jungle better than Trumak and that’s me. I will guide them.”
“You? Don’t be daft, girl. You’ll do no such thing.”
She rose and glared at him. “I will, and that’s that!” Her nostrils flared.
Frank’s face went beet red. When he stood, he towered over her. But she didn’t back down. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the bar. Jake stood, but before he could take a step, Trumak blocked his way. The warrior didn’t speak, but his body language said don’t interfere.
“Excuse me, lads. I’ll be right back,” Frank said, before disappearing with Mandu through the doorway behind the bar.
Jake sat back down. Alex gripped his pant leg under the table. It was fear for his son’s safety that forced Jake to keep his anger in check.
The five of them waited uncomfortably together. Trumak stood firm between Jake and the bar, while the others lingered at the main exit. The entire setup made Jake more convinced than ever that they had to get away from here before morning. Mandu had said she knew the jungle better than anyone and Jake believed her. Perhaps she would help.
An old AC/DC rock-’n’-roll track suddenly streamed from the back room. When the volume was turned up, Jake knew it was to cover up their argument. Or worse.
The minutes stretched, and two songs later Frank finally returned. Alone. “Sorry ’bout that. Poor lass has been a bit out of sorts lately. In any case, Trumak really is the best guide we’ve got. He’ll do a fine job for you.”
There was a crack of thunder. The clouds opened up and water fell in sheets outside. Quando pointed out the window. “Rain!” he said, with a proud nod.
Frank grinned. “See? I told you they could speak English.”
***
Back in our room, I stuffed freeze-dried food packets into my pack while Dad loaded bullets into the magazines for the assault rifle and his new pistol. He’d purchased a lot of gear from Frank, to make it look like we were going along with the plan to leave in the morning with Trumak. But we planned to get Mandu’s help so we could leave on our own that night. We were worried about her after the way Frank had pulled her out of the bar. I’d wanted to sneak to her hut in the village to see her right away, but Dad said we had to wait until nightfall, for her sake as much as ours. It would be pitch-dark in an hour. In the meantime, we needed to get packed up and ready to go.
We didn’t think Mandu would risk guiding us after Frank’s objections, but maybe she could at least point us in the right direction. The coordinates of our final destination were branded into our brains from the visions we’d shared, so we knew where we had to end up. But it was fifty miles from where we were now, in the middle of nowhere, and we didn’t have a clue about the best way to get there. Either way, we would have to move fast, and we couldn’t do that with overstuffed field packs. So the tent, sleeping bags, tarps, and other noncritical items were piled on the floor along with the aluminum-framed backpack designed to hold it all. The packs we’d brought with us on the plane would have to do.
Dad slid two of the banana-shaped rifle magazines into his pack, and the third into an outside pocket of his new tactical vest. I put another bottle of water in my pack, wedging it alongside Dad’s sat phone.
“Can we call Mom yet? She’s got to be worried sick.”
“I’m still not convinced the sat phone can’t be tracked.” He patted a zippered pocket on his vest. “The encrypted phone Marshall gave me is supposed to be untraceable, but I don’t want to risk it until we’re clear of this place. As soon as it’s safe, we’ll call her. I promise.”
“All right.” I stuffed one last bottle of water into my pack.
“Make sure it’s not too heavy,” Dad said.
I hefted my pack off the bed. “It’s okay.” It wasn’t that much heavier than the load of books I usually had to cart to and from school back home. Between the food, water, gear, and personal stuff, it was a lot bulkier, though, and I couldn’t buckle the flap.
“No worries, son. Hand over the water.”
His pack was triple the size of mine, and already jammed full. I was small but I still wanted to do my share. “No, I can handle it. Hang on.” I dug around the bottom of my pack until I found what I wanted. I pulled out the broken Spider headset. I’d been saving it because I figured Uncle Marshall would be able to repair it when we hooked back up with him.
If we hooked back up with him.
I tossed the Spider on the floor, jiggled my pack to settle the contents, and buckled the flap. Dad was giving me one of those I’m-proud-of-you looks. It made me feel better.
Dad rose and hoisted his pack onto his back. “Try yours on, too. Make sure the weight is evenly balanced.”
I swung it around to loop it over my shoulders, and nearly lost my footing from the weight of it. Dad just stood there watching. There was no judgment and I appreciated that. I slipped my arms through the straps and took a couple of steps. “It’s a little bulky, but it’s okay.”
Dad crouched down. “Turn around and I’ll adjust it so it’s not riding so low.” A couple of tugs later, the pack was seated higher. “Better?”
I jogged from one end of the room to the other. The pack bounced a little but not much. “Yep. I can handle it.”
He nodded. “You’ve got this.”
How he looked right then reminded me of a kitted-up hero from one of my video games. Besides the ball cap, fully loaded tactical vest and backpack, he had a pistol strapped to one thigh, a hunting knife on the other, and a determined expression that said nothing was going to stop him from completing his mission. The bulge of the mini in his cargo pocket reminded me there probably wasn’t anything that could stop him, my mind flashing to all the dangers he’d been through, and those that lay ahead for the two of us.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, son. It’s you and me against the world. You up for it?”
I thought about Ellie and my other new friends. I held my hand up for a high five. “Nuttin’ to lose.”
Dad smiled and slapped my palm. “Nuttin’ to lose.”
In the heartbeat that followed, we both heard the chime from my tablet. I retrieved it from the dresser and woke it up. The notification indicated a Wi-Fi signal was in range. The network name was Franks. We looked at each other. The system wasn’t supposed to be working again until morning.
“Can you hack into his system?” Dad asked.
I glanced longingly at the broken Spider. That would have made it easy. “I’ll try.”
But by the time I opened a new screen, the signal was gone, as if it had connected automatically while booting up, and was quickly switched off by the user.
“He’s up to something,” Dad said. He removed his pack and vest and dumped them on the bed. “I’ll go check it out. You stay here.” He grabbed the door handle.
“Wait. As soon you open that door, Frank’s men will see you.”
Dad hesitated. He moved toward the window at the other side of the room.
“It’s too far down,” I said. “Besides, someone could still spot you.” It was dusk but darkness hadn’t completely fallen. I dropped my pack on the bed, grabbed my tablet, and stepped toward the door.
“Hold on. Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m small. Not a threat. Nobody will care.” I slipped outside before he could stop me, and closed the door behind me.
I went downstairs to the main landing. A shadow shifted behind the foliage but I ignored it. I sauntered into the bar. Nobody followed. A few women were gathered at one of the tables. They appeared to be attaching beads to some sort of ceremonial clothing, taking advantage of the bar’s lighting. It was the only structure in the village that had electricity. The conversation quieted when I entered, but otherwise they didn’t pay me much notice as I walked behind the empty bar and helped myself to a glass of milk. I made a show of it. When I finished, I took my dirty glass, pushed through the curtains into a hallway behind the bar, and set the glass on a side table. There was an exit at the other end, and three open doorways in between. Light streamed from one of them. As I edged close, I heard someone tapping on a keyboard. I was about to peek around the corner when the door opened at the end of the hall and my dad slipped in, silent as a cat burglar.
He glared at me, and held his hands to either side as if to ask, what the heck are you thinking? He must’ve used my showy exit from the room as a distraction to help him slip out the window. I guess he wasn’t about to let me out of his sight. That’s what dads do, right? Though a part of me wished he could’ve just trusted me. Either way, we were both here now. I gestured toward the open doorway and we both peeked inside.
Frank had his back to us. He wore a headset and was seated in front of a two-screen computer console. We had a full view of the screen on his right. It showed a satellite image encompassing the northwest region of Brazil, and from the overlaid border maps, I could tell the image was centered over Frank’s place, where an icon pulsed. It wasn’t that icon that set my mind racing, though. It was the six others converging on it from different directions. One seemed very close.
Frank spoke into his headset. “Don’t worry about it, Number Five. The bidding won’t start until you’re all here.”
Dad pulled his pistol and stepped into the room. His body was coiled to spring, and I felt the mini’s energy expanding from his pores as if trying to burst free. He said, “You lousy, backstabbing bastard.”
Frank spun around. His shock morphed quickly to anger. “Me? A backstabber? Coming from the man who single-handedly tried to end humanity?”
I followed Dad into the room. Frank snorted in my direction like I was little more than a cockroach. “Lugging your brat here in the middle o’ nowhere? Thinkin’ the two of you could make yourselves scarce out here? Blah!” His hand moved toward the keyboard, but Dad was on him so fast I could barely gauge his movements. He grabbed Frank’s wrist and whipped the big man and his rolling chair across the room, sending them crashing into a wall of lockers. The chair didn’t topple. As Frank tried to rise to his feet, Dad aimed the pistol at his face.
Frank’s eyes twitched, but I didn’t sense the kind of fear I would have expected from him. It was like he was holding back a snicker.
Dad must have sensed it, too. “Figuring I won’t shoot, Frank? Because it’ll alert your pal, Trumak? Good point.” Dad’s hands moved fast. An instant later the pistol was holstered, and Dad’s Bowie knife was pressed against Frank’s throat. Frank’s sneer vanished. He held his breath.
Dad motioned toward the computer. “Check it out, Alex.”
I moved to the workstation, and it was my turn to move fast. I couldn’t maneuver through a network at light speed like I could with the Spider, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t fly faster than most people using a keyboard, especially since Frank had already logged in and I didn’t have to deal with security firewalls. There were a dozen or more tabs open, all linked to the darknet. My brain soaked up the data as I flipped from one screen to the next, scrolling through emails, chat-room messages, and a bunch of sites with information about Dad and his friends. And the increasing reward for their capture. I came across one that included images of me, and a mention that the government wanted to find me because of what I had stored in my head. There were rewards for my capture as well, though the reward was payable only if I was turned over alive. Dad, on the other hand, could be handed over alive or dead. If alive, the reward was nearly three million dollars now. If dead, the body had to be accompanied by a video of Dad’s head being sawed off. My stomach twisted just reading it, and my focus returned to the flashing icons on the satellite image.
I looked at my dad. “They know we’re here.”
“Who?”
I gulped. “Everyone.”