Smoke from a fire swirled in a small clearing. Above a circle of ferns and trampled grass twenty yards across, the trees closed, creating a dome of interlaced branches. Flowering vines splashed the green walls with lurid colors.
A cool breeze carrying the odors of river water and burning wood touched Lyons's face. The point man sat at the fire, poked at something. Lyons and the other men joined him.
"We eat," Thomas Jefferson Xavante told him. "Then we take boats to the next camp."
"How's it going, Ironman?" Blancanales sat beside Lyons. "Looks like you went swimming."
"Yeah." Lyons slipped out of his shoulder holster and bandoliers, took off his long-sleeved shirt. He wrung it out. He draped it over his backpack and Atchisson assault shotgun to dry.
Gadgets sat down and leaned back on his pack as if it was an easy chair. "What's for breakfast?"
Blancanales glanced into the fire's ashes and stones. "Looks like turtle."
"Hmm, a delicacy." Gadgets pulled a Swiss Army knife from one of his pockets and folded out a fork from it.
"So what did you find out from the men?" Lyons asked Blancanales. "Where's that city he talked about? Is it the place we're looking for?"
"We look at your maps, we talk," Thomas told Lyons, taking a seat beside him. The boy sat with him. "This is my son, Abraham Lincoln Xavante. What are your names, sir?"
Lyons hesitated, glanced at Blancanales and Gadgets, then answered, "Ironman."
"And I'm the Politician."
"You can call me Gadgets."
Thomas frowned, offended. Then he flashed his brilliant smile again. "I forget. You are secret agents. You can no give me names. No can? Do not?" He struggled to find the correct words.
"Can't," Blancanales advised. "Your English is excellent, Thomas Jefferson. You speak Spanish and Portuguese also, right?"
"Yes. And my people's language. And languages of other peoples, other tribes. I study in mission school, many years. Then read books, hear radio, see television. I study history of America. I take name of your President Jefferson, give my son name of President Lincoln, give other son name Simon Bolivar."
"What denomination was the mission?" Lyons asked. When he saw Thomas did not understand the word, he said, "What church? Catholic? Protestant? Mormon?"
"This is my church." Thomas gestured to the living cathedral over them. "No need Jehovah, Jesus, Mary. I only want your Constitution. Now we look at maps. Abraham! Bring food." Thomas spoke a few quick words in his own language. The boy hurried away.
Blancanales unfolded a plastic-coated map and located the position of the river airstrip. Thomas leaned across Lyons and traced a line with his finger from the river to a tributary.
"We take boats now. Two hours, three hours we back on same river."
"Then why did we walk overland?" Lyons asked.
Thomas pointed to the map again, to a bend in the river. "Mission school there. Army sometimes come. Priests see us, they tell army."
Abraham returned with a folded leaf the size of a shopping bag. The other Indians gathered around, smiling, watching the foreigners.
"The appetizers!" Thomas exclaimed. "We eat!"
A tangled mass of caterpillars squirmed on the leaf. Barely suppressing a laugh, Thomas took one, popped it into his mouth. He watched the three North Americans as he took several more, threw the handful in his mouth. The tail of one whipped about on his lips until he sucked it in.
His stomach heaving, Lyons watched Blancanales take a caterpillar and eat it. Blancanales took another one, bit off the head, looked at the oozing fluids, then finished it. Gadgets saw Lyons not eating.
"Hey, man. Get with it. High protein."
"Think of them as sushi," Blancanales told him. "You're at a Japanese restaurant eating raw fish. Sea anemones. Except they're still moving. Once you get past that, the taste is all right."
Lyons stared at the caterpillars. They writhed their fat bodies against the slick leaf. Some were blue and white, some bright yellow, others reddish. Some of them had long waving antennae.
Blancanales leaned toward Lyons and told him, "You have to. It's one of the rules of indigenous operations. Eat their food, talk their language, sleep with their girls. Go to it."
Reaching out, Lyons glanced up, saw all the Indians watching him. He steeled his gut, took one of the wriggling larvae. It was warm in his fingers. Keeping his eyes on the Indians, he thought of egg rolls in a Chinese restaurant and tossed the caterpillar into his mouth. It knotted itself up on his tongue in the long instant before his jaws closed.
Like a half-melted chocolate, it squashed between his teeth. Only after he swallowed did he taste it. A flavor not unlike chicken cream soup. He liked it. He grabbed three more, gulped them. Again, the cream-soup flavor, but with accents of spices he couldn't identify.
"Hey, they're great!" he told Thomas.
All the Indians laughed. Thomas slapped him on the back, shook his hand. Then Thomas reached into the fire's embers, pulled out a blackened tin can.
"Now try some grasshoppers!"
After their meal of caterpillars, roast cicadas, and baked-in-the-shell turtle, Thomas told Able Team what he knew of their mission's objective. "Two years ago, the army comes. They have machines, boats, helicopters. The soldiers take many Indians, make them slaves. If Indians no work, army shoot. Soldiers make camp for slaves. Sharp wire, high houses with machine guns. Many dogs. But Indians live. Sometimes we attack when they cut jungle. We kill soldiers. Save some Indians. So army get fast boats, boats that fly. More fences. Bombs. Man step on bomb, legs gone.
First, they make road, then dig great holes. Holes bigger than trucks, bigger than many trucks. River boats bring much concrete, long steel. They make concrete buildings in holes. Much of building in hole, only top of building above dirt.
More Europeans and Chinese come, with many machines..."
"Europeans? Chinese?" Blancanales interrupted.
"Yes. Many. Maybe North Americans. They have light hair, light skin. Chinese never work, only watch. Sometimes kill Indians. Maybe the Chinese the boss. They bring new machines, make electricity. Make place like Dr. No, in movie. You see James Bond? Like that..."
"Were you in there?" Lyons asked.
"No. Later some Indians escape. Boats come from mountains, bring yellow sand. The army, the Europeans, the Chinese, they never touch sand. Only Indians. Soldiers wear mask. Soldiers who drive trucks wear mask.
"There is fire. Much fire, not water. Sometimes smoke that kills, one minute and dead. Soldiers wear suits like spacemen. Indians work, then much sickness. Many Indians sick. Hair fall off, skin fall off, teeth fall off.
"Soldiers take Indians to river, machine-gun. But not all die. We help, they live month, two month. Then they die. Strange things on hands, feet. Sometimes in body here." Thomas thumped his chest.
"Did you take them to doctors?" Blancanales asked.
"Doctors?" Thomas almost spat the word. "Government doctors? Army doctors? We take sick men to church station, one night helicopter comes. Many soldiers."
"Are you sure it was the army? Brazilian army?" Lyons pressed.
"I know army. In time of my father, grandfather, army takes Indians. They are slaves on railroad, on boats. Then for many years, no more slavery. Some government people help Indians, some soldiers build roads with machines. But then army comes to build the city, they take Indians for slaves. Same as old times."
"Where is their territory?" Lyons asked. "Do they have patrols?"
"Soldiers guard city. Leave only to take slaves. Find villages, attack. Take men, take women."
Blancanales studied the map and pointed to their position. "We are in Bolivia now. Do the soldiers attack Bolivian Indians?"
"Map means nothing. Never see soldiers of Bolivia. They camp on roads, stay in trucks. No government here."