‘Ha fuckin’ ha. Okay, here we go . . .’
The Patrol was considerably wider than the Jeep, the wheels on Nina’s side coming within inches of the edge – which sagged alarmingly as the truck’s weight was put on it, clods of earth falling down the steep slope. Somehow, a stunted tree had managed to cling to a rock outcrop below while everything around it had been washed away, the lone sign of life a silhouette against the clouded abyss. She looked away from the vertiginous view to the sliver of road between the tyres and the long drop. ‘About six inches, six inches, three inches – whoa! Minus an inch.’
Eddie turned the 4?4 in as far as he could, trying to keep it in the ruts made by previous traffic. ‘That better?’
‘Yeah. Relatively speaking.’
They reached the waterfall, the stream drumming off the roof. Nina, still leaning out of the window, gasped as spray washed over her. But the Nissan rolled on, soon clearing the landslip.
‘Piece of piss,’ Eddie said, cracking his knuckles. ‘And we even stayed dry! Well, I did.’ Nina glared at him from under damp strands of hair.
The Nissan’s passengers caught up, then the last off-roader made the crossing, Zender chivalrously abandoning the passenger seat and allowing Cruzado to act as Juanita’s navigator. But she too cleared the landslide safely, and the convoy continued. There was an awkward moment when a pickup truck coming the other way took a ‘first come, first served’ attitude by swerving to the inside of another tight, unprotected bend marked by more crosses, forcing the three vehicles to creep around it on the outside, but they soon reached the first piece of actual infrastructure along the road: a short wooden bridge across a narrow gap.
‘We’re getting close,’ Nina said into the radio as she found the landmark on the map. ‘About another mile.’
The news produced a renewed sense of anticipation, even as the clouds closed in. The road narrowed again, the hillside so steep that a short section had actually been carved out of the rock itself to allow it to continue, thousands of tons of stone hanging above the vehicles. Beyond that, though, the way ahead began to widen out. Another couple of turns . . . and their destination came into view.
‘Now that’s more like it,’ said Mac admiringly. The broad waterfall ahead was much more impressive than the one they had passed on the road, plunging down a vertical cliff for over two hundred feet. Its base was hidden by jungle; the falling water had cut a deep bowl out of the hillside, every square inch packed with plant life. Above the cliff, tall peaks loomed through the clouds, the river feeding the falls flowing through a narrow valley between them.
‘This is the place,’ said Nina. She passed word via radio to the other vehicles. The soldiers turned off the road and led the way into the little forest, crunching the Jeep up a slope for a few hundred yards, winding between the trees, before the sheer density of vegetation blocked their path. The other 4?4s stopped behind them.
Everyone climbed out, glad the bumpy ride was over. Nina stretched and looked round. The waterfall was now obscured by foliage overhead, but the echoing rumble from up the hill meant it would not be hard to find.
She noticed that Mac appeared a little hesitant on the uneven ground. ‘You okay?’
‘I just need a bit of extra support,’ he said, smiling. ‘And there it is.’ He picked up a fallen branch and knocked it against a nearby trunk to shake off loose dirt before leaning on it. ‘There. A perfectly good walking stick.’
‘Tie another couple together and you’ll be able to make a Zimmer frame,’ Eddie joked.
Mac waved the stick at him. ‘Do you want me to kick your arse, Eddie, or beat it?’
‘Now, now, boys,’ said Nina, amused. She turned to Osterhagen. ‘Okay, Leonard. What are we looking for?’
Osterhagen had photo blow-ups of the Paititi map laminated in a folder. ‘First, we find the waterfall, I suppose. Then, if the painting was accurate, the ruins should be to one side of it.’
Zender bustled over, Juanita a step behind. ‘Is this the place? Have we found it?’
‘We haven’t even started looking,’ Nina chided. ‘Okay, to find the waterfall we just need to follow our ears. Then we’ll see what else is there.’
The soldiers stayed with their Jeep as the rest of the expedition moved uphill into the jungle. The rumble of falling water soon became a roar, and they emerged from the trees to face its source.
‘Now that’s pretty . . . wow,’ said Macy.
‘No kidding,’ Nina agreed.
Close up, the falls were even more spectacular than they had appeared from the road. The flow, some ninety feet across, plunged down the wide, almost sheer cliff to crash thunderously over the broken boulders at its base. Spray swirled across the pool carved from the rocky ground, sparkling rainbows shimmering in the sunlight breaking through the clouds. A broad, fast-flowing stream acted as a run-off, water rushing away into the forest.
Osterhagen compared one of his pictures to the view before him. ‘It looks a lot like the painting. Don’t you think?’
‘It’s pretty close,’ Nina agreed. While the mural was stylised, there were undeniable similarities between it and the real-life features of the landscape.
‘So in that case,’ said Eddie, ‘where’s this lost city?’
‘Let’s take a closer look, shall we?’ Nina led the way to the water’s edge. ‘According to the map from Paititi, it should be off to that side of the waterfall.’ She pointed. ‘We’ll split up and check the cliffs.’
Eddie looked up at the falls. ‘Think this really is the place?’
‘It could be. I’m getting a vibe.’
‘I thought you left your vibe at home?’ he said with a dirty smile. Nina shook her head, then directed the others to begin the search.
Despite her gut feeling, however, nothing turned up. The cliffs were conspicuously lacking in golden cities, or
