take nothing from it.'
'They'll make that promise.'
'There might be one other way to find the garden, but I need a compass.'
'Here's mine.' He reached into his pocket. 'I doubt it'll work, though. There's some strange magnetic field here. The GPS is out and our watches have stopped.'
'Give it to me.'
He glanced at it, then at the rising sun. Wherever the needle was pointing, it sure as hell wasn't magnetic north. 'Like I said, it's not working.'
She took it, sat up and smiled. 'Follow the needle.'
'What do you mean?'
'Follow the needle. It should lead us to the garden.'
He took the compass from her. Normally when a compass wasn't working correctly the needle became erratic. This one wasn't. It pointed firmly in one direction. It wasn't north but it was steady. His pulse quickened. Was the interference coming not from the ore-riddled ridge they had passed through but from the garden – or the source? 'You sure this will lead us there?'
She nodded, eyes sparkling.
'Good.' Ross hardly dared to believe they were continuing the quest. 'In that case, I'll wake the others.' Within an hour they were ready to leave. They climbed the path out of the valley to the high shelf above, then turned in the direction of the compass needle. As they were about to re-enter dense jungle, Ross looked back. From this elevation, the valley again seemed lush but unremarkable, its secret concealed beneath the vegetation. He strained to glimpse the ziggurat to no avail.
Then he caught a glint of light, the reflection of the sun on metal or glass, coming from the high shelf near the ridge. He wondered what it could be, then pushed it from his mind and followed the others into the jungle. Father General Leonardo Torino lowered his binoculars and squinted in the early-morning sunlight. For the first time since Iquitos he could see Ross Kelly and the others. It took all his self-control to prevent the relief showing on his face.
'How did you know they would be here, Father General?' said Fleischer. 'We found their trail in the jungle but how did-'
'I told you, Feldwebel, we're on a sacred mission. The Lord is guiding us.' Torino fixed him with his most intense stare. 'Did you doubt me?' Fleischer and his men bowed their heads and crossed themselves. Torino raised his binoculars and focused on the spot where he'd seen Kelly. 'However, the Lord may need our help from here, Feldwebel. We must follow our quarry and not lose them in the jungle.'
'I understand, Father General.' He pointed to one of his men, a shorter, muscular man with thick eyebrows and a jagged scar on his right cheek. 'Weber, keep close, but make sure you aren't seen. Leave a trail for us to follow. If your pack's too heavy, share its weight with Petersen and Gerber.'
'It's fine, sir. I can move fast enough to track them.'
'Good.' Fleischer reached into his pack, pulled out a pair of basic two-way radios and handed one to Weber. They switched them on and both crackled into life, unaffected by whatever force had stopped their watches. 'Keep us informed.'
As Torino and the others watched Weber hurry along the high shelf after Kelly's party, not one noticed the lost city in the valley below, slumbering beneath its blanket of green.
48
Juarez was in their thoughts as they hacked their way through the steaming jungle over the next two and a half days. They missed his alert presence and nimble ability to thread a path through the densest forest. Even the immaculate Hackett was dishevelled. They slept by night, suspended above the forest floor in hammocks, sheltered beneath tarpaulins to keep out the rain. By day, they moved at a slow but determined pace, oblivious of any trail they left.
Ross lost count of the exotic creatures they encountered: golden-pelted monkeys, brilliantly coloured snakes, spiders the size of a man's hand. He was sure some must have been unclassified species. When he thought of the strange plants and animals he had seen since entering the Amazon, how commonplace the bizarre had become, Falcon's garden, with its exotic flora and fauna, seemed less and less inconceivable.
On the third day another ridge blocked their path. It was concave and topped with tooth-white rocks. Immediately Ross knew it must be the one other landmark he remembered from the notebook, La Sonrisa del Dios, the Smile of God.
It occurred to him then that the garden was protected by a number of concentric circles of high rock, like ripples when a stone is dropped into a pond. They had passed through the first via the fierce waterfall of El Velo de la Luz and the second by La Barba Verde. As Ross gazed at La Sonrisa del Dios, adrenalin surged through him. Was this the final barrier protecting Father Orlando's mythical garden?
As if reading his mind, Hackett asked, 'Are we almost there?'
'Yes,' Sister Chantal said. 'The cave system that leads to the garden cuts through the ridge beneath those white rocks.'
Ross checked his GPS again, hoping to determine his exact location, but two words filled the screen: Signal Error.
The sun was setting and, though Ross and Sister Chantal wanted to press on, the others decided to rest and tackle the caves in the morning. Ross feared his racing mind would keep him awake, but when he collapsed on to his hammock he fell instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep. Only Sister Chantal did not sleep that night. Clutching her crucifix she lay awake in the dark, listening to the sounds of the forest, waiting for dawn to break. Though she was consumed by fatigue, and her body ached, she couldn't relax. Not yet. She burnt with the need to reach the end of her long journey. She yearned to finish her ordeal, fulfil her promise and reap her elusive reward.
49
The next morning, Ross, Zeb, Hackett and Mendoza followed Sister Chantal to the cliff beneath the white rocks of La Sonrisa del Dios. She led them to a vertical fissure crowned with a natural arch and, one by one, they squeezed through the opening until they found themselves in La Catedral, the cathedral-like cave described in the Voynich. Shafts of sunlight illuminated the vast space and Ross saw dozens of small openings hundreds of feet above their heads, which shone like stars among the stalactites on the soaring vault of the roof. The shafts of sunlight picked out glittering, gilded veins in the rock walls.
'Gold,' said Mendoza, with greedy eyes.
Ross studied a vein. 'It looks like gold but I'm afraid it's pyrites, fool's gold.'
'Whatever it is, this is the band of gold that Father Orlando and the conquistadors followed to the garden,' said Sister Chantal. 'We must follow it, too.'
They had entered the vast cave on what amounted to a mezzanine level. Its ceiling, with the star-like apertures, rose above, and its floor was over an abrupt edge to their right, many feet below. A Boeing 747 could have parked in it with ease. Hell, a fleet of them could land and take off in it, Ross thought. The air was surprisingly hot, and tainted with a foul smell, which worsened as they went deeper. Ammonia made his eyes water and Hackett, sucking at his inhaler, was scrabbling in his medical bag for a surgical mask.
Deeper into the cave, the ground sloped down and the passage became narrower until they were walking in single file along a ledge. Now Ross could see the source of the overpowering stench. Over the abyss to his right there was a conical mountain of bat droppings. At least forty feet across and easily as tall, it rose from the floor below to its peak, a few feet from where they were standing. A rustling, clicking sound came from the mound and its dark surface was constantly moving. Every inch was beaded with writhing cockroaches, feeding on the waste. Zeb covered her face. The sight was almost worse than the smell, and Ross put his hand over his mouth to stop
