he thought, not exactly a good place to be lost.
It was nearing early evening when Juan cut the power so that the boat was barely making headway against the gentle current. The dramatic reduction in engine noise left their ears ringing for a moment.
“We’re about ten miles from Soleil’s last-known GPS coordinates. We’ll stay with the motor for maybe another five and then we break out the oars. Everyone, keep sharp. We have no idea what we’re going to find, but Soleil was convinced there was someone else in the jungle with her.”
Cabrillo’s eyes never lingered on any one spot for more than a moment. He scanned the forest ahead and off to the sides, knowing that someone could be watching them with total impunity. If there were rebels, or drug dealers, or an army patrol out here, they wouldn’t know until they had walked into the ambush. He had to resist the urge to glance over his shoulder. He knew Linda was watching their back, but he couldn’t shake the sense that someone was watching him.
A bird screech high in a nearby tree squirted a healthy dose of adrenaline into his bloodstream. Linda gave a little gasp, and he saw MacD jump. Only Smith hadn’t been startled. Juan was beginning to suspect the man had ice water running through his veins.
When they’d covered the allotted five miles, Juan cut the engine and lifted the outboard from the water so it wouldn’t act as drag. With two rowers on each side of the RHIB, they started paddling. Smith had pumped most of the water out of the bilge, but it was still a big boat, and, no matter how mild the current, it was tough going.
In times like these they usually deployed a small electric motor that could power them along silently, but like so much other equipment it had been left back on the
People who have never rowed a boat together before usually go through several awkward minutes as they adjust to one another’s timing. Not so here. Despite the fact that Smith and MacD were virtual strangers, all four set a tempo instinctively and worked the carbon fiber oars with the symmetry of the Harvard crew.
Every few minutes Juan would check his handheld GPS, and when he spotted a rare clearing ahead on the right bank, he knew they had reached the end of their time on the river. It was a natural trail into the jungle, and he suspected this was where Soleil and her companion—Cabrillo couldn’t recall his name—had exited the water.
He steered them toward the small open glade, noting that a thin trickle of water was running through it. Beyond towered a riotous wall of vegetation. Soleil had last been heard from three miles from this spot.
They edged the boat into some reeds lining the tributary, pushing it as far into cover as possible. No sooner had they stopped than Smith had his machine pistol up high on his shoulder, scanning the area through its scope. There was nothing but the background din of insects and birds and the sound of the water burbling past the RHIB’s transom.
It took just a few minutes to gather up their gear. All of them wore camelbacks for water and lightweight nylon rucks, weighing from twenty-five pounds for Linda to nearly forty for Cabrillo and the other two men.
With luck, they wouldn’t need anything other than the water.
Cabrillo looked back at the RHIB to make sure it was well concealed. He walked a few paces from the others to check from a different angle and that’s when he saw the face. It was watching him through hooded, unblinking eyes. It took him a breathless moment for his brain to comprehend what he was seeing. It was the head of a statue of Buddha that had toppled to the jungle floor just up from the river. Behind it, cloaked in creepers and vines, was a stone building much like the step pyramids at Angkor Wat in neighboring Cambodia, though nowhere near that massive scale.
The structure was maybe thirty feet tall, with the Buddha head once resting on the roof of the tallest tier. It all looked ageless, as if the complex had been here since time immemorial and the jungle grew up around it.
“I think we’re at the right place,” he muttered.
“No kidding,” Linda said. “Look.”
Juan tore his eyes away from the pyramid and glanced over to see that Linda had pulled aside a leafy branch to reveal two one-person plastic kayaks. The sleek craft were commercially available at outfitters all over the world. The pair were dark green in color, and were a logical choice for getting upstream because they could be carried around obstacles by the paddler.
“They must have carried them overland from Bangladesh,” Smith said.
Cabrillo shook his head. “It’s more likely they entered the river where it meets the sea. They must have chartered a boat in Chittagong to carry them on the first part of the trip. Soleil definitely had a destination in mind. She knew right where she was heading. Check that out.”
They all followed his pointed finger to where the last rays of the sun shone on the head so that for a brief few seconds the gray stone visage appeared gilded.
Linda’s hand went to her mouth to stifle a cry of surprise. “It’s beautiful,” she said breathlessly.
“Ah guess we ain’t in Lafourche Parish after all,” Lawless remarked.
Smith made no comment. He looked at the temple for just a second before tucking his machine pistol under his arm and glancing at Cabrillo with an expression that said gawking at antiquities wasn’t on their agenda.
Juan didn’t doubt Smith’s loyalty to Roland Croissard, nor his desire to rescue his employer’s daughter, but he thought the former Legionnaire needed to lighten up a bit and enjoy the surprises life sometimes throws at you. There were probably less than a handful of outsiders who’d ever seen the temple complex. Knowing that sent a charge through his system, and he wanted nothing more than to explore its mysteries.
But he also knew Smith was correct. They were on a mission, and studying archaeological treasures wasn’t part of the deal. They could cover the remaining miles to their GPS target before the jungle became too dark to see. He did let Linda snap a few pictures and slide her cell phone camera back into its waterproof sleeve before giving the order to move out.
10
JUAN HAD THOUGHT THE EASIEST WAY TO TRAVEL WOULD BE to keep to the little stream, but it was a muddy morass that sucked at their boots with each step. When he lifted his foot from the muck, thick clots of it clung all the way to his ankle, and every step seemed to accumulate more. After just a dozen paces he could barely lift his legs free of the ooze.
This forced them out of the streambed and into the bush.
Juan knew immediately what soldiers fighting in the barbwire-entangled trenches of World War I had gone through. The sharp leaves pulled and ripped at his clothing and opened shallow yet painful cuts on his arms and face. There was no trail to speak of. He had to battle his way through snarls of vines and shrubs with the finesse of a bull in a china shop.
MacD, who marched directly behind Cabrillo, tapped him on the shoulder and made a gesture to say that he should take point. Cabrillo silently bowed to him. Lawless stepped ahead of the Chairman, studied the wall of bushes facing them, and moved a few feet to the left, closer to where tree trunks were just barely visible. He started forward, moving his body like a contortionist. It looked awkward, but he more than tripled their pace, with each team member mimicking the moves of the person ahead. And where Cabrillo had sounded like a rhinoceros crashing through the bush, Lawless moved as silently as a snake.
Still, the going was slow, and thirty minutes later so little sunlight was filtering through the canopy, it was as if they were fifty feet underwater.
“We should stop for the night,” MacD said in a whisper. “Ah can’t see nothin’.”
“All right,” Juan had to agree. Looking upward, it was next to impossible to see any daylight at all. “We’ll start out again at first light.”
Everyone’s first order of business was to get the flameless heating units from their MREs to start chemically warming their entrees. Next came laying out nylon sleeping pouches with built-in mosquito netting. Finding areas big enough to lie comfortably in the dense jungle was a chore unto itself, so the single machete MacD had been carrying was put to good use.
By the time their food was ready everyone had their pouches rolled out but still tightly sealed to keep the armada of insects, which had plagued them from the moment the RHIB had come to a stop, from joining them for the night. No one said a word the entire time. When the meal was over, Juan pointed at Smith, then himself, then
