Amazonia. Part 17

"How contagious is it? How virulent?"

The man's voice became suddenly mumbled. "It's hard to say with any certainty."

Lauren knew the man, even at such a young age, was a leader in his field or he wouldn't be here. "What is your cursory a.s.sessment? You have one, don't you?"

He visibly swallowed. "From the initial study of transmission rates and the disease's incubation period, it's a bug that's a hundredfold more contagious than the common cold . . . and as virulent as the Ebola virus:"

Lauren felt the blood drain from her face. "And the mortality rate?"

Dr. Alvisio glanced down and shook his head. "Hank?" she said hoa.r.s.ely, her voice hushed with fear.

He lifted his face. "So far no one has survived:'

AUGUST 12, 6:22 A.M.

AMAZON JUNGLE.

Louis Favre stood at the edge of his camp, enjoying the view of the river at sunrise. It was a quiet moment after a long night. Kidnapping the corporal from under the other camp's nose had taken hours to prepare and execute, but as usual, his team had performed without fail.

After four days, the job of shadowing the other team was reduced to a routine. Each night, runners would slip ahead of the Rangers' team, trekking through the deep jungle to set up spy positions in well-camouflaged roosts in emergent trees that towered above the forest canopy. While spying, they maintained contact with the mercenary team via radio. During the day, Louis and the bulk of his forces followed in a caravan of canoes, trailing ten kilometers behind the others. Only at night had they crept any nearer.

Louis turned from the river and crossed into the deeper wood. Hidden among the trees, the camp was hard to spot until you were on top of it. He stared around while his forty-man team began to break camp.

It was a motley group: bronze-skinned Indians culled from various tribes, lanky black Maroons out of Suriname, swarthy Colombians hired from the drug trade. Despite their differences, all the men had one thing in common: they were a hardened lot, marked by the jungle and forged in its b.l.o.o.d.y bower.

Rifles and guns, wrapped in sailcloth, lay in an orderly spread beside sleeping sites. The armament was as varied as his crew: German Heckler & Koch MPSs, Czech Skorpions, stubby Ingram submachine guns, Israeli-manufactured Uzis, even a few obsolete British Sten guns. Each man had his favorite.

Louis's weapon of choice was his compact Mini-Uzi. It had all of the power of its bigger brother but measured only fourteen inches long. Louis appreciated its efficient design, small but deadly, like himself.

1n addition to the munitions, a few men were sharpening machetes. The sc.r.a.pe of steel on rock blended with the morning calls of waking birds and barking monkeys. In hand-to-hand combat, a well-turned blade was better than a gun.

As he surveyed the camp, his second-in-command, a tall black Maroon tribesman named Jacques, approached. At the age of thirteen, Jacques had been exiled from his village after raping a girl from a neighboring tribe. The man still bore a scar from his boyhood journey through the jungle. One side of his nose was missing from an attack by a piranha. He nodded his head respectfully. "Doctor."

"Yes, Jacques."

"Mistress Tshui indicates that she is ready for you:" Louis sighed.Finally. The prisoner had proven especially difficult.

Reaching into a pocket, Louis pulled free the dog tags and jangled them in his palm. He crossed to the lone tent set near the edge of the camp. Normally the camouflaged tent was shared by Louis and Tshui, but not this past night. During the long evening, Tshui had been entertaining a new guest.

Louis announced himself. "Tshui, my dear, is our visitor ready for company?" He pulled back the flap and bowed his way through the opening.

It was intolerably hot inside. A small brazier was burning in a corner. His mistress knelt naked before the small camp stove, lighting a bundle of dried leaves. Aromatic smoke spiralled upward. She rose to her feet. Her mocha skin shone with a sleek layer of sweat.

Louis stared, drinking her in. He longed to take her then and there, but he restrained himself. They had a guest this morning.

He turned his attention to the naked man staked spread-eagle on the bare-earth floor. The only bit of clothing he wore was a ball gag. Louis kept his eyes diverted from the b.l.o.o.d.y ruin of the corporal's body.

Still holding the man's dog tags, Louis crossed to a folding camp chair and sat down. He glanced to the name etched on the tags. "Corporal James DeMartini," he said in crisp English, reading the name, then looking up. "I've heard it from good authority that you're ready to cooperate:"

The man moaned, tears flowed from his eyes.

"Is that a yes?"

The Ranger, a beaten and tortured dog, nodded with a pained wince. Louis studied the man.What hurt more, he wondered,the torture? Or the actual moment you finally broke?

With a tired sigh, he pulled the man's gag free. Louis needed information. Over the years, he had learned that the difference between success and failure lay in the details. He had reams of facts on the opposing team-not only information supplied directly by St. Savin, but also timely intelligence gained from a closer source.

Still Louis hadn't been satisfied.

He had kidnapped the young corporal because his other resources had proved woefully lacking in specific details about the Army Ranger unit: their firepower, their radio codes, their timetables.

Furthermore, there was always the unspoken military objective, orders meant only for military ears. And last, Louis had arranged the abduction simply as a challenge, a small test of his forces.

The maneuver had gone flawlessly. Equipped with night-vision gla.s.ses, a small team had snuck in via the river. Once the chance arose, they had poisoned one of the Rangers with a special curare dart prepared by Tshui. Afterward, they had covered their tracks, setting up a false trail beside the river with caiman dung and prints. His mistress had then kept the kidnapped man alive by breathing mouth-to-mouth until he could be revived back at their camp with a special antidote.

But Tshui's true talents were proven during the long night. Her art of torture was without equal, plyingpain and pleasure in a strange hypnotic rhythm until finally her prey's will broke.

"Please kill me," the man begged, hoa.r.s.e, blood dribbling from his lips.

"Soon enough,mon ami . . . but first a few questions:" Louis leaned back as Tshui walked around the corporal, waving her smoking bundle of dried leaves through the air. He noticed the broken soldier flinch from the woman, his terrified eyes following her every move.

Louis found this extremely arousing, but he kept himself focused. "Let's first go over a few numbers:"

Over the next few minutes, he extracted all the codes and time schedules of the army unit. He did not have to write any of it down, setting all the frequencies and numbers to memory. The information would greatly facilitate eavesdropping on the other team's communications. Next, he collected the details on the Ranger force's strength: number and types of weapons, skill levels, weaknesses, means of air support.

The man proved most talkative. He babbled on and on, giving out more information than requested. ". . .

Staff Sergeant Kostos has a secret stash of whiskey in his rucksack . . . two bottles . . . and in Captain Wax-man's boat, there's a crate that holds a cradle of napalm minibombs . . . and Corporal Conger has a Penthouse mag-"

Louis sat up. "Hold on, monsieur. Let's back up. Napalm bombs?"

"Minibombs . . . an even dozen . . :'

"Why?"

The corporal looked confused.

"James," he said sternly.

"I . . . I don't know. I suppose if we need to clear a section of jungle. Something that blocks our way:"

"How large a region would one of those bombs clear?"

"I . . :' The man choked back a sob. "I'm not sure . . . maybean acre . . . I don't know."

Louis leaned his elbows on his knees. "Are you telling me the truth, James?" He wiggled a finger for Tshui, who had grown bored with the conversation and sat cross-legged, busy laying out a new set of tools.

On his signal, she rose from her work and crawled like some jungle cat toward the naked soldier.

"No," the corporal cried, mewling, "no, I don't know anything more:" Louis shifted back in his seat. "Do I believe you?"

"Please. . :"

"I think I will believe you:" Standing, he turned to his mistress. "We're done here, macherie. He's all yours:"

She slid smoothly to her feet, offering a cheek to be kissed as he pa.s.sed.

"No," the man on the ground moaned, pleading.

"Don't dawdle," he said to Tshui. "The sun is almost up, and we'll need to be under way shortly."

She smiled, smoky and full of hidden l.u.s.ts. As he stepped to the tent's threshold, he saw her bend down and collect her bone needle and thread from the spread of tools. Lately, Tshui had been trying a new approach in preparing her specimens for head-shrinking. She now liked to sew her victims' eyelids closed while they were yet alive. To better capture their essence, he supposed. The Shuar shamans placed special significance in the eyes, a path to the spirit.

A sharp scream arose behind him.

"Tshui, don't forget the man's gag," Louis scolded. He made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder.

Tshui squatted above the face of Corporal James, her thighs on either side of his head, holding the squirming man in place as she busied herself with her needle and thread. He lifted an eyebrow in surprise.

It seemed Tshui was trying something new.

"Pardon, ma cherie,"he said, bowing out of the tent. Apparently he had scolded her too soon. The gag truly wasn't necessary.

Tshui was already sewing the corporal's lips shut.

ACT THREE - Survival of theFittest.

BRAZIL NUT.

FAMILY:Lecythidaceae.

GENUS:Bertholletia.

SPECIES:Excelsa.

COMMON NAMES:Brazil Nut, Castanheiro do Para, Para-Nut, Creamnut, Castana-de-Para, Castana-de-Brazil

PARTS USED:Nut, Seed Oil

PROPERTIES/ACTIONS:Emollient, Nutritive, Antioxidant, Insecticide.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Village.

AUGUST 13, NOON.

AMAZON JUNGLE.

Frowning, Nate caught the line and secured it to a mangrove tree. "Care-ful," he warned his boat mates.

"It's swampy here. Watch your footing:" He helped Kelly climb over the pontoon and onto the firmest section of the bank. He himself was muddy up to his knees and soaked everywhere else.

He lifted his face to the drizzle of rain from the cloudy skies. A storm had blown in overnight, starting with a fierce downpour, then fading into a steady misty drizzle within the last hour. The day's journey sofar had been dreary. They had taken turns with a hand pump to bilge the water out of the boat all morning. Nate was glad when Captain Waxman had called a halt for lunch.