“Why are you here, Agent Donn-” Before she finished her sentence she saw the look of amusement on his face. “Of course, your name’s not Billy Donner. What are you doing here?”
Duncan walked up from behind them. “Hey,” he said to her. “You guys got eggs? Got any left?”
“Of course.”
Sam watched as he took out the pan and began to make more eggs. She stood up and walked away, Duncan asking her what was wrong and she just brushing past him without a word.
She got far enough away that she couldn’t hear what they were talking about and then wondered whether she should go back. Instead, she went to find Benjamin.
She came to the hut and saw him standing outside in his boxer shorts, speaking with the guide. He was scratching his underarms and he glanced to her and stopped. When they had finished speaking, he walked over.
“We got news,” Benjamin said, “a town two days from here. There’s a rumor that the population was wiped out by a sickness. It’s where that canister that Holly mentioned might be.”
“We need to talk about Donner.”
“What about him?”
“He’s not FBI.”
“Shit, you just figure that out now?”
“You knew?”
“Hell yeah I knew. What federal agent would quit his job to follow my ass around? But the fucker’s good at just about everything. He repaired this old truck the organization had that mechanics didn’t think would work anymore. He got Cami a fake passport too.”
“What did she need that for?”
“She’s illegal. She’s not a doctor in the States; she’s a doctor in Mexico. Or was, until she helped out a journalist that the cartels tried to kill. They went after her and she ran and kept running until she got to the States.”
Sam shook her head. “He’s dangerous.”
“He’s weird, I’ll give you that, but I don’t know about dangerous. Best I can tell, he’s ex-military or something. Probably just looking for a cause and happened to find ours.”
“No, he’s too smart for that.”
“Oh, so now you have to be dumb to believe in what I’ve dedicated my life to?”
“That’s not how I meant it.”
“Well, whatever, look, I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you so you can chill out or take off. I don’t really care. We’re heading out to the village. If you’re coming, you’ve gotta pack up now. If not, I’ll ask one of the folks in the village to take you back next time they go into town. Might be a while, though.”
He turned and walked away, leaving her standing there. She glanced back to Duncan who was sitting against the same tree she had been and eating eggs with Donner. She caught movement off to her right and saw one of the villagers glaring at her. It was a middle-aged man with darkly tanned skin and missing teeth. He was looking at her with madness in his eyes and she knew, just knew, what he was planning to do to her the second he had the opportunity. It was the man that had beaten the woman the previous day.
She thought about it a few moments, and then went inside her hut to pack.
CHAPTER 46
There was really no trail as Samantha was winding her way up the mountain, behind all the others and far behind the guide and Benjamin, who were pumping their arms like distance runners and trudging up the slope. It was a five-hour journey to the village they were heading to but the five hours turned to two days because of the terrain. In many areas, you had to walk so slowly that if you didn’t keep your eyes on the ground, you couldn’t be sure you were actually moving.
The humidity would go from completely dry to soaking wet in a matter of minutes and they were having to constantly stop and rest under the shade of a tree or next to a cool stream. They could hear the mighty river in the distance now but the guide assured them they weren’t near it.
Duncan looked back to her and smiled, slowing his pace to allow her to catch up. She had told him earlier about the conversation with Donner and he shrugged his shoulders and just said, “Since when are they ever honest with us?”
At this point everyone was exhausted and dehydrated. Even to Sam the question of who Donner really was and who he worked for seemed to fade in the distance. He was certainly government and he was certainly some type of law enforcement; that would have to be enough.
They made it to the top of either a large hill or a small mountain and they rested on some boulders, the tree-top view before them a sea of green against the backdrop of a sparkling blue sky.
Sam took out a breakfast bar and ate half, washing it down with half a bottle of water. They didn’t speak much and that was fine with her. She removed her pack, feeling the sweet release of lightening weight, and the tightness in her muscles instantly began to disappear. She felt like she could sleep right now, like she could close her eyes and lie down on the rock behind her and not wake up for years. Her stomach was queasy and had been for two days. She was concerned that she may have picked up a trematode worm from the water supply or the food. Iodine pills could only do so much.
“All right,” the guide said in his heavily accented English, “it’s not far.”
They continued down the path as Sam re-strapped her pack. It wouldn’t have been as bad if it was just clothing, food, and water, but she also carried biohazard gear and several laboratory kits to run preliminary tests in the field. Porters had offered their services in town for less than five dollars a day and she wished now she’d taken them up on it.
The sun kept beating down on them but mercifully they declined in slope and were eventually on flat ground; the jungle canopy above them shielding most of the sizzling rays that were slowly cooking them.
They hiked until night fell and they set up their tents near what could be considered a path but was little more than a worn trail where animals and people had gone down before. A stream flowed near them but the guide warned that camping next to a water source was a good way to get killed-either by native Indians or the jaguars whose roars were ever-present in the darkness.
The morning came and Sam placed Duncan’s pack on him and he did the same for her. He looked to her and brushed aside a strand of hair that was in her eyes.
“We need to have another dinner when we get back to the States,” he said.
“We will.”
They began the day’s long trek before the sun was even up but soon the rejuvenation of sleep was gone and the same exhaustion of yesterday was there.
Sam kept checking her watch incessantly. She tried to fight it, but every few minutes her eyes would wander down to her wrist seemingly on their own. She counted three hours of torturous jungle hiking before they came to a small clearing and the guide stopped and began speaking with Benjamin. He nodded several times and then came back to speak with the group.
“Well,” he said when everyone was gathered, “the village is just up ahead past that patch of trees. What do you guys want to do?”
“I’ll go,” Duncan said, placing down his pack.
“Me too,” Sam said. She glanced at Cami to see if she wanted to come but she had already sat down cross-legged on the dirt, leaning against her pack.
“Okay,” Benjamin said, “you guys check it out and tell us when we can head up.”
It took nearly twenty minutes for both Sam and Duncan to suit up in the yellow biohazard suits they had brought with them. The suits were thinner than those found at USAMRIID or the CDC, but they had two underlayers and thick plastic helmets that had been designed for the handlers responsible for testing chemical weapons.