The large living room looked much as it had before. Books and papers were everywhere. But instead of Blatt's untidy stacks, the books now lay with their covers open in lumped piles on the floor. A couple of bare lightbulbs burned from the few lamps still working, the others laying in pieces scattered across the floor. All of the small tables and chairs had been turned over, most of them were now missing legs.
I picked my way through the mess, tiptoeing silently to the front door in the foyer. It teetered back and forth, supported only by its lower hinge, the other hung useless and flapping, ripped from the doorframe with its screws somehow still in place. A splintered crack, shaped like a jagged lightning bolt, ran from the top of the door to the bottom, splitting it nearly in half. A quick look outside revealed no guards.
Leaving the foyer, I quickly checked the rest of the house. The spartan kitchen was nearly untouched. A few cans of food had been knocked to the floor, but that was it. Upstairs, I found a few of Dr. Blatt's belongings. His bags had been rifled through and his clothes tossed haphazardly into a corner of a bedroom. A sweat-stained brown mattress leaned against the window with the drawers from the dresser piled up in front of it. Even the bathroom had been ransacked.
I returned to the study and surveyed the mess again. Blatt told me the file was hidden there somewhere, but finding it would not be easy. I rifled through the scattered papers and documents on the big table. Topographical maps, mining surveys, geological studies, and aerial photographs made up most of the remaining material. There were several reports, all written in technical Spanish miles beyond my understanding of the language. After flipping through these reports, most of which looked to be on the local populace and the rainforest, I moved on to the desk Pancho had been working at.
A container of pens and markers had been knocked over, leaving a smattering of writing utensils scattered on the floor around the desk. On top there were a few scattered papers, but little else. Pinned to the wall above it was a handwritten list, scrawled in childish penmanship, nothing more than a simple grocery list. Pancho must have left it behind when Blatt sent him away.
I moved on to the bookshelves that lined the walls. Many of the books had been removed and now made up the piles on the floor, but some remained resting on their shelves. All of them were old, caked in layers of dust. Most were brown leather-bound tomes and few had legible titles embossed with gold leaf. They didn't look like they had been disturbed in decades.
I flipped through a few, hoping to find the files Blatt had left for me. Nothing. I flipped through more, discarding book after book but still finding only words. Frustrated, like the soldiers before me, I threw a book towards the far end of the room. I turned to grab the next volume when a shock of color caught my attention. Peeking out from the top of a bookshelf was the corner of a red leather book. It was different from the others. The leather wasn't the same dull matte texture as the rest. It looked newer, still having a shine to it. It looked smaller too. The entire library had an almost homogeneous quality to it, but this one didn't belong. Using one of the few remaining intact chairs as a step stool, I pulled it down.
Its pages were gilded in gold leaf, but the spine bore no title, nor did the cover. The only marks on the inside of the cover were two letters marked in rich black ink. M.B. Miles Blatt. I flipped the page and then another, and yet another one after that, but the pages were empty. Stifling a groan, I picked up the book by the spine and shook it. A plain, thin envelope fell to the floor. Closing the book, I stooped to retrieve the envelope. On the front were two initials, written with the same rich black ink as the inside of the book. C.H. Chase Hawkins.
I reached to open the envelope when a floorboard creaked behind me, and I froze.
"Don't move," a feminine, but arrogant, voice said. "Now, turn around, real slow."
I put my hands up, doing my best to draw attention away from the envelope, and did as I was told. Standing in the middle of the room a few feet away was a woman. In her hand she held a black Glock 19 pistol, which she pointed, unwaveringly, at my chest.
She was gorgeous, even in the loose pants and long-sleeve quick-dry shirt that hid her thin, but athletic frame. Tight curly ringlets of blonde-highlighted black hair sprung from her head in all directions, forming a dark halo around her. Her hazel eyes, striking against her olive complexion, were cold and hyper-alert. They moved constantly as she took in her surroundings, rarely straying far from the sights of her weapon.
"You just saved me a bunch of time," she said. Her voice tinged with a slight southern accent.
"You're American?" I asked, surprised.
"I'm whatever I have to be. Now give me the directions Blatt left."
"This?" I asked, waving the book back and forth. "Sure."
"Toss it on the table next to me," she said.
As I leaned forward and flicked the book towards her, I reached back and slipped the envelope into my back pocket. As I had hoped,
