Two days to departure and I watched Graham like a hawk. There was something that I couldn’t place. Yes, by now it’s well established to the point of tedium that he was decidedly freaky. But there was a fresh aura of mischief about him now.
That silent placid gaze in which nothing could be read but everything was mocked. The thin cruel smile that was unsettlingly familiar yet unplaceable.
I even decided to try a trick. He was reading something a few yards away. I fetched a loaded Colt from the arsenal.
Removing my shoes I slowly crept behind him. I was absolutely certain that the ambient noise of the jungle masked any stray noise that escaped my stride. I’d taken the safety off yards and yards away. I’d already cocked.
I stood a mere ten feet behind him. I aimed directly at his head and allowed my finger to tease the trigger.
Fluidly, he turned his head so that I was able to see that smile in profile. “And what’s the point of that?”
I was momentarily lost. “Just testing your situational awareness.”
Hoyt laughed in a hollow amused sort of way. “There are more situations to be aware of than you can possibly imagine.
I believed him.
“Graham,” I said. “What happened back at the lodge.”
“Well, you know already. I dreamed about a jaguar and had a stimulant induced seizure. Because of Sam’s picture. Right?”
“Yes…but…” Something kept me from prodding further. Like an invisible sucking drain that drew away all will to know.
Hoyt just regarded me with the same cold amusement.
“Nevermind.” I said departing and he returned to his reading.
There was a blankness in my mind. There had been something strange about his terse sentences. Each word, each phrase, its order, its cadence took root somewhere deep in the spine and suggested vistas and chains beyond all reckoning. I wasn’t the only one that felt this way.
I didn’t mind accidentally killing him during that test. That’s what I found the oddest. It was like he was a nonperson. It wasn’t even hatred or disgust or any such thing. There was something in me that wanted to join oblivion with oblivion. Of course I couldn’t because oblivion had become flesh.
‘I guess I’ll just let zero unfold.’ I said as I drew an ankh in the dirt.
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“And well that it is…” I said as I shoveled the last bit of earth over the fragments of that shattered stone.
I gazed at Jones. His lip was aquiver. It was odd to see such a tall man so contorted by fear.
“Take courage…what can they do…they have no flesh.”
Jones gulped.
“Is there something you want to tell me Fred?”
He stared into the middle distance for an inordinate period.
“It’s not true.” He said so faintly that I could barely discern the words among the woodland noises.
“What’s not true?”
“That they do not have flesh.”
I laughed heartily and slapped him on the back.
“You take that Crowley fellow far too seriously. The man is a charlatan… a con artist. Thrilling conversationalist when he’s in a pleasant mood… but damn it man! He’s as unemployed as I and utterly lacking in inheritance. Charms and perversions have long been the trade of loafers the world over.”
Jones shook his head. “No…no…I saw them..”
I laughed again. This was a welcome break from the monotony of musing on my failures. “My man we have spent too many nights on the moors. I myself have had strange nauseas and fancies and I was born here. This desolate house is no place for an opium hound like yourself.”
“I have not touched the stuff in three years. I’m quite sane Roderick…a bit too sane really…a certain sleep has left me. I must say…I do not fancy the light of dawn.”
His words had a certain poetic quality that made them settle in my brain most oddly. I was momentarily dumbfounded.
“Look! Opium or no opium all this hullabaloo with spirits and orders and the like. These are fantasies. I mean we entered into this for the fun of it for the distraction…to rid ourselves of moneyed dissipation and now…it’s gone too far…we must quit this place Freddy. Let’s go to Spain …Italy even.”
“He is in Italy.”
“Who?”
“Perdurabo and his chief…”
I had no idea what he was talking about nor did I have time to question him because just then I turned round to glance back towards the house. A figure was dashing towards us across the moors.
“What on earth…!”
I took out my binoculars. It was Beatrice! Her red locks all akilter my revolver in her hand…I’d never seen her run so fast.
I lowered the glass and just stood and stared while Jones leaned against a tree.
In the span of a quarter hour the diminutive figure reached us. To my great surprise I saw that she was barefoot.
I stared as she collapsed a few steps in front of me breathing heavily.
I leaned down and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Betty…betty what is it?”
And odd sort of half groan half whimper came from the quivering nightgown that lay before me.
“Roderick…” She hissed…. “Roderick…the house…the singing…”
“Beg your pardon?”
“It…IT HUMS…Roderick…”
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Wheeling round I saw Jones face wear a somber tight lipped expression that sent shivers throughout my frame.
“Zo..d…e..c..ah”
It was unbearably hot and humid. The grim face that the hand on my shoulder possessed belonged to Graham Hoyt. His words were quite at odds with his bearing. “Are you coming to dinner?”
I rose from my folding chair and followed Hoyt to the mess tent.
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I found it amusing that only a few of even my own group understood my reference. There is something of inevitability in the unfolding of history. I do not believe in predestination and in fact count it as a blasphemy. There are however instances of such incredible confluence that a defacto form of predestination can be said to exist.
One such phenomenon is the global power of English. How is it that a small island nation surrounded by a frozen sea informed and continues to inform the whole Earth. How small the number of her sons, how great in number the adversaries and perils that beset her, yet she sat as regent of the world. While power proper has inarguably waned… for good or ill the world is still so very English.
Did Dee’s designs so many centuries ago help seal Britannia’s destiny as sovereign? Given the nature of our research, the heritage of the United States, and our current relationship to that jilted forbearer I could not but help feel that we were continuing Dee’s work.
So I knew that we would soon head north and east. I knew that we would be successful. What I did not know was the nature of that success. Even now I can not fully grasp the enormity of the implications that we uncovered for the sake of civilization. But I get ahead of myself.
Our training ground was actually just west of the true location of Dead Horse Camp. I have already described the first week of the second round of training. A lot of calisthenics, hygiene, and packing drills, basically what one would expect.
Week two was a lot more of the same. Except that it was tinged throughout with dire warnings of death.
“I will leave you, which means they will leave you, once we are more than a hundred miles in the depths, if the equipment fails or the helicopters aren’t avaialable, you will die. So don’t get hurt.”
One thing that I didn’t understand throughout all of this is why exactly we had to do it on foot. I mean…we had the coordinate why not just airdrop our way in? Of course the answer was a mixture of pride and ambition.
Cook had long wanted an excuse to risk his life and the lives of whoever was mad enough to accompany him to mount an on the ground expedition. An expedition where he could travel slowly and take in the terrain, the locals, what artifacts he may find. It did make sense from a scientific standpoint. The closer you can get to your subject the better.
I was relieved that upon hearing of all the random shootings, robberies, and deaths Anna was no longer keen on joining us. Honestly I wasn’t too keen to get a lung full of birdshot from the Amazon’s version of Johnny Cash. Some folk shoot you just to see what its like to watch a man die. Lobo had made sure to recount a recent case of a kayaker’s narrow survival after multiple shotgun blasts.
“He was lucky he was close to a village. We are not going to be close to a village.”
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It was possible to get used to it to some degree. But you could never get fully comfortable. I feel that everyone save perhaps the indigenous peoples felt it. That near constant fatigue that always hummed in the background.
It was the heat, the rain, the damp. Even though the scenery and the sheer vitality of the surroundings was exhilarating the constant onslaught of heat was nonetheless oppressive. It slowly drained you from sun up to sun down.
Lobo was determined to not only make us have second thoughts but to feel them. From the dim of 0500 to the setting of the sun we were driven like sled dogs. Cook couldn’t protect Anna from Lobo’s discipline. Not that she wanted to be protected.
Unfortunately she needed to be. It happened on a run down a black earth path. We were all encumbered by sixty pounds of gear. Save for Anna who had on forty. I suppose that’s what they call benevolent sexism. It didn’t help.
At the end of the run as we were returning to camp she began to complain of a constant dull pain that worsened the faster she walked. Once we’d actually arrived and removed her boots she found a telltale swelling.
“Stress fracture.” Lucas said.
Lobo was grinning like a wolf.
Cook sighed.
“It’s fine. I’ll be ok after some sleep.”
“No.” I said.
She looked pissed.
“Look, you don’t want to put anymore pressure on that. Especially at the pace we’re going.”
“Well, then I’ll just stay off it for a day.”
“It’s hard to diagnose the extent of the damage out here. It would be best for you to discontinue training. I honestly don’t know why you gave in to his bullying. It’s not like you’re going any further than Fawcett’s last camp.”
“I’m doing it because you’re all a bunch of macho retards.”
Lobo chuckled. “They may be retards but I have a hard time calling them macho.”
I really wasn’t bothered by this. I never considered myself macho. Except for boxing I’d always hated sports, was shit with cars, and rarely womanized.
“Dem’s fightin words!” Sam quipped rolling up his sleeves. His biceps had gotten substantially larger. We were all far stronger than we had been at the lodge. While age dampened the effect I felt almost as invincible as I had after my first boot camp.
“These are true words. Two of you idiots almost broke your ankles.”
It was true. We weren’t doing very well. But I felt that he was overestimating our short comings. He was fucking us on purpose. He wanted to sabotage this trip. Anna was his first victim. He hoped that we’d all follow suit. I don’t think he knew that ‘The Fibonacci Five’ didn’t have a choice.
Ever since John Dee…the cosmos didn’t have a choice.
“Rule, Britannia…! Britannia, rule the waves!” I burst forth into song.
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Lobo’s duffel dropped onto the damp earth with a dull thud.
He was late.
The second bout of preparations had been set to begin half a week ago. We’d spent the last four days drilling methods of keeping the perpetual damp off our gear and food. When Cook ran out of lessons we’d grapple with Fabre and talk history with the boffins as we loafed around the camp.
“Nice of you to join us.”
Lobo shook his head.
“You’re taking a girl? On top of it all…you are taking a girl…”
“Only as far as dead horse camp, she wants to use every opportunity to get some exposure to Kuikuro chatter.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Though I couldn’t help but worry that once we reached the camp she’d just keep going…you know…for science…
The big spec ops guy psychically mirrored my internal concern.
“That better be so…cause this is not Scandinavia.”
Anna looked exasperated. “Holy shit, I know that. I’m thirty fucking two years old and my dad is a cop.”
‘O no.’ Nirvana’s ‘Been a Son’ started playing in my head.
“Do you know why I am late?”
She bugged her eyes out and shook her head in annoyed dismissal.
“I’m late because anaconda and Indians aren’t the most dangerous thing in this Jungle.”
“So what. Yeah, it’s a jungle smugglers, drug runners, whatever…they don’t wanna run into a small army…”
“Everybody out here is a small army, prospectors, drug lords, human traffickers, you think the Amazon is easily policed…there are resources here so many….the trees are thick…they hide a lot more armies than you could imagine. Armies with methods that you wouldn’t want to imagine…”
“Gotta die someday.”
“I don’t intend to die but I’m gonna be real fucking pissed if I die cause one of you bichanos does something stupid. Which is guaranteed…”
“O come on…” Cook began protesting.
Lobo held up his hand.
“I do not trust the guides, I am familiar with only a few of the security detail, and the rest are typical desperate looking underfed mercs, there are people out here guaranteed to offer a better deal…”
“Well what?!” Cook got mad. “I can get someone else if you don’t want to…”
Lobo laughed.
“You will not find such fools…there is not even one…in all of Brazil…in the whole continent….”
“You take yourself too seriously…João will be arriving with the guides in a week…we are going with or without you.”
“Either way is equally stupid..I will go…I will go for the history of my people…for my loyalty to you…but do not insult me by bringing this baggage.”
Cook softened. “It’s out of my hands…”
I guess Thornton had sort of forced us onto Cook…but I wondered what drove him to take Anna…I noticed that Lobo was talking in English so we’d all understand. I understood but I also felt insulted…I’m a United States sailor…sure we’re a bit soft these days but Jesus Christ.
Sam piped up giving voice to my frustration. “Yea that’s real fucking great for morale there guys!”
“Depends, but I’d say somewhere around a 856 kilometers.”
“What’s that in miles?”
“I think something like three hundred, three hundred and fifty.”
“That’s wildly inaccurate…” Graham chimed in.
“O?” Fabre seemed annoyed.
“Based on the number you mentioned we’re looking at a 533 mile hike.”
“Fuck!” I very nearly screamed.
“Hey, I’m just a good ol boy from Kentucky conversion factors ain’t my bread and butter…”
“Wellp…looks like some of the mystery of how I’ll die ‘s cleared…” Chuck mused darkly.
I looked over at Anna’s long smooth legs glistening in the light of the fire. They were strong but…
“Take a picture it’ll last longer!” She must have noticed.
“Hey…lady…it’s a compliment…you have nice legs ya know…I mean I know you know…otherwise there’s just no reason for those shorts.” Sam jumped in on my behalf.
I raised my hand.
“Eh, your sisters legs are better.”
“My sisters legs are probably wrapped around another tourist by now.” Anna smirked.
“Sailors aren’t known for jealousy. Otherwise every port would be a harem.”
“You know,” she said, “there’s lots of places here to hide a body…I mean…lots…”
Cook smiled bemused as he shook his head and took a laconic drag of his cigar.
“I’m a lot more afraid of having to drag your Suomi ass outta here and running outta supplies than I am of your feisty attitude.”
“Perkele!” She exclaimed sticking out her tongue.
“Huora!”
She sprang from her seat and twisted the ever-loving fuck out of my ear…again…
“VITTU VITTU VITTU VITTU VITTU!” I kept shouting defiantly.
I thought my ear was going to come off.
Looping a finger into her jean shorts belt loop I pulled her to the ground and put her in an arm bar.
“Children…” Cook said rising to his feet.
“You know you’re lucky I’m a gentleman…I could really hurt you right now…”
She giggled, “Gentleman is just a euphemism for pussy…pillu…”
She squealed as I motioned her joints in contrary directions.
“Seriously,” I said taking the opportunity to bring the point home, “I have a hundred plus pounds of muscle on you, and I didn’t spend the last decade in a faculty lounge, drop the GI jane shit.”
With this I released her.
She seemed to have calmed down and to her credit regained her composure rather quickly. There was no crying, no protesting, she knew she’d been a brat. Brushing the dirt off her legs she sat back into the camp chair with a lady like grace.
I chuckled, “You have brothers don’t you?”
She pouted as she nursed her elbow and nodded.
“Do me a favor.” Bohm said with amusement in his voice. “Don’t cripple the foremost authority on indigenous languages…”
I paused cocking my head. “I thought she was just a Ph.D. chaser?”
“Sure, her third Ph.D.”
Was this supposed to make a difference…
“So fucking what, this is still a terrible idea, this is not a fucking campus…”
Anna was going with us. That’s what I learned from Aada on our final night in Cuiaba. This was a bad idea. No amount of neo-progressive gibberish could change basic biology.
The female frame is not built for war. Neither is the male for that matter but the female is really not built for war. We were going to war. We were going to war against weakness, parasites, heat stroke, and possible smugglers and unfriendly natives.
Though she hovered somewhere around six feet and was athletic. There were physical limitations that no amount of gym ratting could surmount. Sure maybe if she was a UFC fighter. But she wasn’t. In fact, most women that are in the armed forces are far from being Ronda Rousey. Anna wasn’t in the armed forces. She was a leggy academic and nearsighted to boot. God, it was so stupid.
Women’s martial struggles were not due to a lack of dedication but due to the fact that women like Rhonda are outliers. And I doubt that even she could sustain the weight of a combat load. Women that served in Afghanistan had suffered skeletal fractures for precisely this reason.
The officer corps always wanted to cover their ass and promote their careers. They went along with whatever corporate shit dropped in their pond. Pulling it out would cause ripples. So men died and women got hurt. If I hadn’t been transferred to a highly specialized op like PLATO I’d have been consulting for international shipping years ago. By the time I’d enlisted in 08 we were already a petticoat flotilla and the only thing that kept my Scotch candor from sinking my career was my ability to find dirt on my superiors. The latter skill actually being the reason Thornton had plucked me into spooky land. My nickname was bloodhound.
Nature doesn’t care about politics. And the nature that I was afraid of wasn’t just physiological. A dozen men and one attractive woman is not good for morale. What the hell was Cook thinking?
I mean he was a professor but this wasn’t fucking Berkley. He didn’t know that I knew. And I knew for a fact that Lobo didn’t know.
I leaned on the bar and studied my reflection as it was blurred by the frosting. Should I tell Lobo? Would Lobo be able to do anything? If I did wouldn’t this just cause more in group strife? A strife arguably more dangerous than a cute geekess in a platoon of libidinous baboons trekking through hell?
“When you were training did you notice any stones in the jungle?”
Everything had been a blur.
“No.”
“Hmm…” Cook said furrowing his brow.
“Isn’t the rainforest famously rockless?”
“Si…yes…for the most part but…you are telling me that you did not see the huacas?”
“Huaca… WAKA?” Sam quipped.
“Yes, you can also say waka. It is a Quechuan word.”
Sam laughed. “Holy shit I’m a fucking shaman. And you guys think I’m the dumb one. None of you had sudden god damned blessed burst of halleluiah glossolalia. I’m Quetzalcoatl bitch!”
“Wrong country…”
Sam waved dismissively.
“As I was saying,” Cook continued. “All roads lead to Cusco.”
“Do they?”
“Yes, you have no doubt heard the saying: ‘All roads lead to Rome?’”
“We’re familiar with the concept.”
“So haucas are all over South America but mostly concentrated in Peru.”
“And you’re saying that we should have seen some, that they’re rocks?” The doctor responded by placing a glossy picture book of various Andean glyphs on the table. I passed it to my right.
“Well…a Huaca can generally be anything but is often a stone or stones sort of like Menhir in England.”
Menhir
“Anybody see anything?” I asked scanning the faces of my comrades. Every expression was blank.
“Huacas are shrines, that served various purposes, many of which had to do with pilgrimage. They are sort of politico/religious outposts of the Inca civilization leading to its center in Cusco.”
“Do you think we should have seen some?”
“O certainly, yes….they were right beside your camp. I was going to give you a lecture on them when I returned but of course, you know I was interrupted..and…actually…about that interruption…”
There was a long silence.
“Apparently that uncontacted tribe wasn’t ever supposed to be there. They were from deep deep in the jungle to the East. Coming from the direction that we were heading. The Kuikuro chief told me that these strangers had chased some very strange looking folk who they had describes as enemies and thieves…”
Kuikuro Man
None of us were sure what this had to do with rocks. Despite several days of airconditioning and rest, we were too tired to make even the most basic deductions.
“Lot’s of weird stuff going on lately.” Anna chimed in. “Doc thinks these ‘enemies’ have been stealing sacred items.”
“Yes, which is very strange because most of these things aren’t worth much and even less when moved from their original location.”
Chuck looked especially lost in thought.
“Say, didn’t Sam’s sketch have a pile of stones in it?”
The doctor paused a bit, obviously trying to recall the subject.
“Si! As a matter of fact, it did.”
“I thought it was ruins but …maybe it’s one of those Waka thingies?”
“Yes, your little drawing there, you said you’d made it under the influence, in a sort of shamanic state?” Dr. Bohm’s urbane voice inquired.
Sam nodded.
“Coupled with the map Hoyt brought along this has all the hallmarks of an authentic vision…which makes me think…that someone out there in the wood has heard…and is destroying what remains of an ancient road.”
“Did a vehicle…land somewhere out there …in the Andes….” Sam sang under his breath.
“Hah, Inca roads!” I exclaimed. This was getting interesting.
“I don’t know what song that is… but yes that is my latest theory…. that Cusco was the epicenter of a far vaster empire than we ever imagined. Though of course, Manco Capac was a rediscoverer of that sacred place. The scion of a remnant who returned and kindled the last flicker of memory before the arrival of Pizzaro.”
“Alonso are you guys familiar with the cosmic bellybutton?” Anna was fond of calling me Alonso…how that arose from Alan I guess only a Suomi would know. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“So South America was the birthplace of all civilization? I mean yeah, I guess the Amazon is far more Eden like than Mesopotamia.” Chuck mused.
“That’s one possible explanation. And explanations are what we have been seeking and why we brought you here as soon as we heard the news about Hoyt’s awakening.”
“So we’re still going…?”
“Si…but…Lobo is really against it now…and I can’t go without him… at some point the native guides and even the mercenaries will abandon us…”
“Why?”
“They are afraid of the Chachapoyas…”
“Huh…”
“Those are the folks that the visitors were chasing. A group of light-skinned savages originating in Peru who till now were nothing but a faint and wispy myth.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“South American empires are renowned for their violence…”
“We theorize that they’re a lost priesthood…and well if the stories are to be believed…Jack the Ripper is a friendlier face in a dark alley…”
I was getting excited again. Maybe I would get to die a beautiful death.
“No bedpans for me…Valhalla here I come…let’s go now!” I yelled to a chorus of eye rolls and giggles.
“To be honest I have no problem dying of an overpowering bowel movement during a Lawrence Welk rerun,” Chuck said.
“You would.” Lucas laughed.
“I am heartened by your enthusiasm but there is still much to prepare. We will begin yet another round of training as soon as I finish up arrangements with Costa and Lobo.”
We all groaned collectively.
After the final banter ceased Anna caught up with me in the institute’s hallway.
“So I heard you made friends with my sister.”
I smirk blushed. “Uh…yeah…actually that’s who I was about to go see.”
“Good…good…hey…” She said pulling a revolver from her purse.
“What the fuuck…”
She aimed it at me…
POP!
A little red flag with the word BANG! Unfurled from the barrel.”
“If you fuck her up…I swear…I swear…the Candiru is more merciful…”
“Jesus…hey…I’m not the marryin sort…ya know…”
“Good you’d make a shitty brother in law…but I swear on my life …I will end you…”
I shook my head. “Hey, I usually don’t respond well to threats but well before right now I really liked you and I’m a sucker for redheads…sooo..fucking relax ok…”
She laughed and tugged on my ear.
3000SL Roadster
“Owww…! Fuck god damn it lady.”
“It’s alright man I’m just fucking with ya…” She said stepping into one of Cook’s mercedes and roaring off.
‘Jesus Christ she didn’t strike me as much of a Tomboy…I guess first impressions are bullshit.’
I was really confused. The exchange that had occurred seemed too easy.
It took a long time for me to understand. I had to piece it together from murmurs and hints.
It was a jungle. It was literally a jungle. And it was also metaphorically a jungle. Unlikely alliances are common in jungles of the latter variety. As any New York deputy would attest.
Interests had converged and what I had witnessed was merely a formality. A way for both Cook and Costa to assure each other that a mutual understanding was honored.
Nothing in the conversation could implicate either man, even if they were being recorded. This thought made my spooky soul giggle. You can lodge a bug right in your target’s colon but you can’t beat good old-fashioned bullshit. A turn of phrase, nonverbal codes, a list of blasphemies for the NSA.
I think they call it social engineering. I was always annoyed by this term even though it was technically part and parcel of my job description. I guess I’m old-fashioned in my disdain for euphemisms. Social engineering is just good old fashioned bullshit.
“What do you think about lying?” I shotgunned. Hoping to catch her off guard mid stretch.
She dropped on her back from the edge of the bed where she was sitting. Rolling over on her stomach and shimmying on top of me her lips found mine. Our tongues met and then suddenly I felt a slight pain. She’d bitten my tongue…
It was blessedly brief. In just over a second she’d shot up and giggled.
“What kind of question is that…you have asked…have you lied to me…I will bite off…off the tongue…”
My fears were somewhat allayed. There had been none of that tell-tale stiffening. One would think that a well-known ‘out’ for a honeypot would be ineffective and thus you’d have to find a new one. But actually familiarity made a reaction harder to mask.
Though I was still suspicious. This sudden tryst had gone a touch too smoothly. I’m not a putz but I’m no Casanova. I’m far too analytical to be a lady-killer.
“It was a test.”
“O…a tehhhst…well so what position are you to test me…” Her obtuse nordic indignation was more Swedish than Finnish.
Which was opportune since she basically handed me the keys to the mansion of sophomoric wordplay.
“How about sideways…let’s gauge structural integrity…”
‘Ewww…’ I was grossed out by my awkward banter but she didn’t seem to notice and I quickly remedied the chance of a spoiled moment with sheer physicality.
We went on for a few more rounds.
“There it was.” She said.
I turned my head to look into her eyes and raised a brow in question.
“You looked at me like you look at her… You were so hungry …but she does not get you…she always gets the fun…”
And it all made sense. It was a repeat of my last romance. Accidental jealousy. A surprisingly effective aphrodisiac.
Still…I was paranoid.
Like with the pow-wow full enlightenment would take some days.
It seemed that Anna, the dirty blonde doing her doctoral dissertation was Aada’s sister. I mean I knew that. They were both Finnish, treating each other with the sort of disinterested familiarity that was more common among families rather than friends. Years ago Saara had taught me some basics which in Brazil coming from an American was I guess…’sexy.’ Or probably just nice.
Anyway, I’d taken no care to mask my lust. I was undoubtedly a touch wild-eyed. Not that it was the least bit surprising considering how rarely female presence and how even more rarely female attention graced us these past couple of years.
Aada had smiled quietly in the corner. And though I favored her reddish blonde head to the more typical indecisiveness of Anna’s. Anna seemed absolutely taken with me. Which to a lonely man was like finding water in the desert.
But nothing had come of the exchange. She left abruptly after receiving a text. I did note that Aada had turned to look at me one last time before they exited Cook’s sitting room.
She was asleep now. I kissed the top of that auburn celebration that so reminded of New England autumn’s at my uncle’s cabin. Scarcely knowing the annoying secret that lay beneath those locks.
Stealth had failed Dr. Cook. There is as much corruption in Brazil as anywhere and there are plenty of travel restrictions even for esteemed scientists. He had wanted to circumvent these. Some of the limits on passage were absolutely ludicrous and had more to do with guarding smuggler’s routes than anything approaching legitimacy.
But he was not cautious enough and the forces of pillage, rapine, and court intrigue would soon have caught up with him had he not failed in placating our yesternights marauders. In fact, that incident attested to the benevolent force of luck which seemed to follow me everywhere.
By all rights, I should be dead many times over. But that is a story for another time. For now, we sit again at the Jewel of Cuiaba with Cook’s niece the fetching Maria. The fading sunlight dapples with utmost play upon her tan and silky shoulders. I was fiercely horny, having seen nothing but jungle, sweat, and sweaty men for a fortnight and a spell. It reminded me of Citadel nights when we’d be allowed to mix with the women. But unlike those times I could not act.
There set that French fuck. A charming enough fellow, intelligent and all, but possessing that Gallic air, a certain carriage that stirred violence within my heart. I do so hate the French and lust most heartily to reacquaint them with their own foul concept of Coup d Grace. Insufferable prick I could snuff out his miserable life and take this little minx for myself. Weak degenerate, academic, shit…Look at her on display as if on a desert roof and I a David and he a French fuck. He turned and smiled his crooked condescending smile and I laughed internally at my primordial violence. No woman is worth the death of even the vilest of men. Not that women are bad. They are just no better than men. Chimps we are the whole sodding lot. Helen is a whore. But I stray…
As we stuffed ourselves with Fejoida and dishes the names of which I cannot recall for the sake of sheer variety. Delicious all, especially so, for our esteemed guest, some G-man betitled Costa. Dr. Cook attempted to extract a travel permit of sorts while the girl lavished the official with drink and feminine viles. Many a stray touch occurred. And this was the reason for Adrien’s grin.
It could not have been pleasant to watch a lover stoke a strangers flame. But he was French after all and seemed to be fine, amused even. Fatalistic frog…typical cynic..blase shit….
I nearly retched upon remembering the vile vile taste of Onion Soup. But the chief portion of our repast was over and as we awaited dessert, Dr. Cook pulled Hoyt’s map from a protective sleeve that he withdrew from a briefcase.
“You have of course heard the rumors?”
“Si.” Senhor Costa laughed turning red a color that mixed oddly with his deeply tanned face. “Is this what you are after! Hah, well if it’s really there, I guess it would be somewhere there between the Xingu and the other branch. But you will die long before you arrive. And for what ghosts? Stories from superstitious fools.”
“But look at the parchment. Is it not authentic. Do you not smell Carvajal?”
“I smell folly.”
“Fine, I am not asking you to believe in the city but you have seen yourself, the ditches, the canals, the traces of road, the black earth. This could be the key to unlocking it all. Myths are not always unfounded you know.”
“Dr. Cook you are an intelligent man. One of the finest minds of Brazil. If I allowed you to venture with these Indians, boys, and mercenaries that deep I would kill you. Then what will they say about me. My wife will hate me even more than if I was stupid enough to fall for your nieces’s flirting.” He said as he smacked away Maria’s hand.
I gained considerable respect for the balding bespectacled beuracrat in that moment.
“No one will know Senhor Costa. It will all seem as if we bribed the Red Hand.”
Costa shook his head and threw up his hands.
“Fine, doctor if you want to die if you want to kill these brancos. You have my blessing.”
The Fractal Journal 