It wasn’t like this was the first time she had flown into Venezuela. She remembered the youthful exuberance, the excitement, the curiosity… the damned stupidity. Now, ten years older, and with full knowledge of what she was getting herself into, she couldn’t help feeling just as stupid.
She looked around and sighed. She knew what awaited them, but the others didn’t. Even though she had made them read her report, cover to cover, she knew there was no way they could fully comprehend what they were walking into. Her expression dropped as her mind took her back there for a moment.
Who could possibly believe that there was a place where creatures from Earth’s primordial past lived and breathed? That it was a land of brutality, miasmic swamps, and horrors waiting to tear them limb from limb?
She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Maybe it was for the best that they didn’t really believe the truth. Would she have been able to get them to come with her if they did? She doubted it.
She let her eyes touch on her team. Including her, she now had a party of nine: her soldiers, Drake, Fergus, Brocke, and the foreboding Ajax. There were her paleontological experts, Andy and Helen Martin. Plus two extra gatecrashers: Camilla and her cameraman, the large and jovial Juan Marquina, who to her amazement, had even won over Drake and his team with his good humor and his serious knowledge of the Amazon.
Emma knew she might be leading them all to their deaths. She felt a wave of guilt wash over her and screwed her eyes shut for a moment.
Then they slowly opened, and the steely resolve had returned. This was a rescue mission, she reminded herself. That’s what really mattered.
Following the many hours and 2,300 miles of flying, they had a smooth landing into Caracas. Their cargo was unloaded, and Camilla had earned her keep by negotiating a low level of scrutiny over what they contained, for a handsome amount of extra fees.
Along with their cargo crates, they were hustled to a large truck, and then headed directly to the Rio Caroní to wait for their flying boat to arrive.
“Looks good.” Drake nodded to the sky as a twin-float seaplane circled and then came down to glide smoothly along the surface. “DHC3 Otter; that’ll do nicely.”
“Good STOL,” Fergus observed.
“STOL?” Andy asked.
The redheaded soldier grinned. “Short take-off and landing; STOL for short. In these parts, if you’re gonna navigate narrow rivers with all sorts of bends and twists, you might not have a lot of clear water to come down on. A shorter landing and take-off craft is better for getting you closer to your target insertion or extraction point.”
“Got it.” Andy nodded, and then walked a few paces over to his sister. He pointed to the plane. “DHC3 Otter; got good STOL.”
She frowned at him, and Fergus chuckled.
Emma watched as the single-propeller craft eased into their wharf. There was a single pilot, middle-aged and grey-bearded, who touched his cap and masterfully maneuvered the floats and rudders to guide his plane in against the wood. Ajax and Brocke grabbed it, pulled it in close, and then tied it off, the propeller slowing and then jerking to a stop.
It only took them 15 minutes to load up and board, and after she met the pilot, Jake, a retired Canadian commercial pilot, she supplied him with their destination coordinates.
He nodded and whistled as he looked at her map.
“You know it?” she asked.
“No one really knows it. But been over there,” he said, pushing his red cap up on his forehead. “Not much down there. Just miles and miles of nothing.”
“That’s what I’m expecting. How long?” Emma asked.
“Good weather, so, two hours, give or take.” He straightened his cap. “Say the word.”
She grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. “Word.”
Emma headed back into the cabin. Just two more hours, she thought. It had taken them nearly an entire day to come down via boat the last time.
She found her vacant seat and dropped into it. The DHC3 only took 10 passengers, and with the bulk of Drake and his oversized buddies, it felt crowded as hell inside. And hot. But right now, and for the next couple of hours, it was all up to Jake’s flying and navigation skills.
Emma settled back as the propeller started up, and the craft vibrated all around her. She leaned her head on the backrest and stared out the window. They were here, and now they were closing in. When Jake dropped them in the middle of nowhere, it would all be down to her memory and a truckload of luck.
The DHC3 began to ease forward, and Emma let herself relax and settled deeper into the seat. She closed her eyes.
Emma perched on the precipice, one hand on the cliff edge and the other gripping onto the wrist-thick vines. Around her, the wind howled like the scream of banshees, and debris was whipped around so hard and fast it stung her exposed skin and forced her eyes into slits.
Over the roar of the tornado, she yelled for Ben to run toward her. But instead, he backed away, not from her, but from the monster that reared up before him.
She went to climb back, but he turned to her and held a hand up to stop her, and then shook his head.
As she watched, the giant snake, the Titanoboa, lifted the front of its 70-foot body nearly 20 feet into the air. Its soulless glass-like eyes were fixed on the man, and its huge muscular body emanated the raw power of an alpha-apex predator.
Ben turned back, seeming transfixed by the thing or maybe just resigned to his fate. He just stood there, a mouse before a cobra. He finally held up a gun, pointing it at the creature, but it was rusted and old, and eventually, his arm dropped to let the ancient revolver fall to the ground.
The snake gathered itself in behind it, coiling its huge muscled body. Emma saw Ben half-turn to her, and her eyes met his. He mouthed something to her. Was it: Hear me? Help me? She couldn’t hear it clearly, but knew it was the most important thing he wanted to tell her.
Emma became frantic and began to clamber back up over the cliff. Ben turned to the snake, distracting it, and then he took a step toward it.
“Don’t!” she screamed.
The snake struck, its massive diamond-shaped head moving faster than her eyes could follow — or for Ben to react. One second, the man she loved had been standing there, and the next, he was in the thing’s mouth. The snake lifted its head, and gulped, letting Ben slide deeper into its gullet.
“No-ooo!” She clambered up onto the cliff. “No-ooo!”
The snake spotted her, and then faster than anything its size should be able to move, came at her like a heavily scaled river of terror. She backed up and felt her foot right on the cliff edge. A hurricane-like blast of wind pushed her sideways, and she overbalanced and fell. Her legs dangled, and she scrambled for the vines as her body began to slide into the abyss.
Emma looked down, barely making out the jungle thousands of feet below her, as everything seemed oily and distorted. She had one arm on the cliff edge and she began to slide.
The snake must be close now, she thought, and she tried to find the cave to leap into — it was there — she could make it. Emma went to swing into it but was jerked to a stop — it had her arm.
She screamed.
Emma’s eyes shot open as she furiously slapped at the thing on her arm that held on, shaking her. Her teeth were bared.
“Whoa, easy there.” Helen backed up, holding her hands up and away. “Nightmare much?”