but now they taunted him. Just when he was beginning to believe in Father Orlando's garden, just when he was getting close, it was to be denied him. 'The last directions are gone.'
'So?' said Hackett. 'We don't need them any more.'
'We do,' said Zeb. 'They were the most critical.'
'But this is it. This lost city is what we were looking for.' Hackett paused. 'Isn't it?'
'No,' said Ross. 'It's not.'
'What are you saying? Finding this place was a bonus? What's going on?'
Ross looked at Sister Chantal in her sleeping-bag. 'I don't know if it was a fluke or not but this isn't where Father Orlando's directions lead,' he said. 'In fact, he made no mention of this place in any of his writings.'
'But this is one of the biggest archaeological discoveries in history,' Hackett expostulated. 'Not just in South America, but the entire world. How can it not be where his directions lead? What could possibly be more important than this?'
'Or more valuable?' demanded Mendoza.
Zeb pulled some photocopied sheets out of her backpack and passed them to Hackett, then summarized the story in the Voynich. 'We're looking for a garden where plants like this grow.'
'You came all this way, into the largest rainforest in the world, to find a garden?' said Hackett.
'Yes.'
Hackett studied the photocopies. 'These plants are like the ones on the carvings here.'
'Exactly,' said Ross. 'Which means we're probably close.'
Hackett frowned, trying to understand. 'The garden must be pretty special.'
'That's what we're hoping,' said Zeb. 'Father Orlando called it the Garden of God.'
'How is it special?' asked Mendoza.
Ross kept his eyes focused on Hackett. 'We're hoping it has healing properties, as in the Voynich story.'
'Healing properties?' Hackett snorted. Ross recognized his own initial scepticism in the doctor's face. Hackett stared into the fire. 'Let me guess, you think the plants are somehow linked to the water from the fountain here. You think the spring once came from this miraculous garden.'
'It fits,' said Ross. 'The spring could have been fed via an underground stream, which flowed from the garden and then got blocked. Perhaps the people were dependent on the water, or whatever was in it, and became sick when it dried up.'
Hackett was shaking his head.
'You think the garden is close to here?' said Mendoza, clearly intrigued.
'Yes,' said Ross.
'If it exists,' said Hackett, 'what do we do about this place and the gold? Which, by the way, does exist.'
'The gold will wait for us,' said Mendoza. He gave a decisive nod. 'I'm coming with you, Ross.'
'You don't have to. It'll be dangerous. According to the story, all the surviving conquistadors died in the garden. Only Father Orlando survived to tell the tale.'
Mendoza laughed. 'If it's safe enough for an old nun, a man with a broken wrist and a young woman, it's safe enough for me. I'm coming.'
'Hang on,' said Hackett. 'This is madness. We've already lost Juarez in finding this place. Why put anyone else at risk looking for some mythic Shangri-La?'
'None of you has to come with me,' said Ross. 'I'm sorry about Juarez, I really am, but finding this garden was the reason I came here.'
'And you, Zeb?' demanded Hackett. 'You're committed to finding it, too?'
'Yes.'
'Then I've no choice but to go too, I suppose,' said Hackett, and gave a weary sigh. 'The garden sounds like a load of guff, but we should stay together.' He looked at Zeb. 'If it's dangerous you'll need someone to take care of you.'
For the first time that evening Zeb smiled. 'Someone like you, Nigel?'
Hackett bristled. 'Someone exactly like me – someone careful and cautious. I'm not losing anyone else on this trip.'
'This discussion is academic, anyway,' Ross said quietly. He held up Father Orlando's damaged notebook. 'The crucial section, containing the final directions to the garden, is unreadable.'
'Can't you remember any of them?' said Mendoza.
'All I can remember is one of the last landmarks, something called La Sonrisa del Dios, the Smile of God. After that I think we find ourselves in a cave system. But I've no idea how to find La Sonrisa del Dios, whatever it is.' He turned to Zeb. 'How about you?'
'I remember it being a good three days' walk from La Barba Verde to La Sonrisa del Dios, with only the stars to guide us. But I've no idea which stars.'
'So, what are you saying?' said Hackett. 'We're stuffed?'
'Yes.' Ross was suddenly desperate to get away from the cursed city. 'That's exactly what I'm saying.' That night on the ancient ziggurat, sitting under the stars surrounded by the ruins of a civilization that had been dead for more than a thousand years, was the loneliest Ross could remember.
While the others slept by the fire he kept watch, Juarez's rifle cradled in his lap. Despite his exhaustion, he knew he wouldn't sleep. It wasn't his aching wrist that kept him awake but the suffocating feeling of time crushing him. He thought of Lauren in the States and of the life growing inside her womb. In a few weeks it would be six months, two-thirds of the way through the pregnancy. In another three months it would be due. These next weeks were critical, and yet they seemed insignificant against the centuries of history that surrounded him.
Turning away from the crackling fire, he stared into the humid, enveloping dark, wishing he could believe in some merciful higher power. Tomorrow he would leave this forsaken place, go home and accept whatever happened. His great quest was over.
47
Ross woke with a start. A pearlescent moon still hung in the sky, but, when he looked over the lost city to the horizon, a soft glow told him dawn was imminent. He couldn't remember falling asleep but he felt alert and fresh. He also felt compelled to act.
He stood up, stepped round the sleeping Hackett and Mendoza, passed Zeb's still form and knelt beside Sister Chantal. He shook her gently until she opened her eyes.
'Wake up,' he murmured. 'We've got to go.'
'Where?' She touched the bruise on her head, dazed, disoriented and frightened.
He kept his voice soft but firm. 'You get up now and take us to Father Orlando's garden, or we turn back and go home.'
She reached out her hand. 'Where's the notebook?'
'It's ruined. There are no more directions. It's up to you now. You say you're the Keeper, that you've been to the garden before. Now's the time to prove it.'
'What about the others?'
'They'll be with us.'
'But they can't-'
'I don't care about secrecy any more. Your plan to use this place to distract them didn't work. Juarez is dead.'
Her eyes widened. 'Juarez is dead?'
'The jaguar that attacked you killed him. We're in the middle of nowhere – literally – and there are two choices. We go on to the garden together or we go home. We're depending on you. Lauren's depending on you.'
'All the directions are destroyed?'
He handed her the notebook. 'See for yourself.'
She rubbed her head, thinking. 'The others can come only if they vow to tell no one of the garden and to
