“How do you know you can trust him?” Drake asked.
“How can I be sure I can trust anyone here? He’s being recommended by a friend. An expat who’s been in country for a long time and has his fingers in a lot of pies. So he rubs shoulders with plenty of people who are, shall we say, helpful when it comes to niggling issues like crossing borders without paperwork, getting weapons…”
“Great. Who is this recommendation, exactly? What does he do?”
“The way my friend described it, he’s a facilitator who does a lot of business in the tri-border area — Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. Knows the customs, the locals.”
Drake nodded. “He’s a smuggler?”
“An ugly word.”
“For an ugly occupation.”
“The world here’s different. It requires a certain…ethical flexibility. Corruption is endemic, and there are a lot of people who exist in a gray area that would be illegal in the States. Here, they make the machine work. They get things done. They arrange things.”
“What else does the guy have on his résumé?” Allie asked.
“He’s been in the region for over ten years. The jungles are his backyard. Speaks some of the local dialects. Most importantly, he likes money. And he’s always hungry. My friend contacted his associates in Peru, and this was the only name that came back. So he’s our only choice.”
Allie and Drake shared after-dinner beers once Jack had retired for the night. They sat outside, stargazing, the clouds having blown west earlier. The trees around them buzzed and clicked and rustled with nocturnal creatures, and with all the lights off except for the one in the kitchen, the darkened compound could have been uninhabited.
“You think we’ll actually be able to pull this off?” Allie asked, swinging one leg lazily as she reclined in an outdoor chair crafted from wood and hide.
“If anyone can, we can. Don’t ask me why I feel that way, but I do. Maybe it’s having read the journal, I appreciate the logic that went into my father’s reasoning. Or maybe it’s because I’m stubborn, and I always finish what I set out to do.”
“Have you always been that way?” she asked, taking a pull on the bottle of beer.
“As long as I can remember. My mom said that’s how my dad was, too. She said it probably ran in the genes. When she first told me that, I was about six. I ran around for a week wondering where in my jeans stubbornness was running — what it looked like and how she could see it.”
Allie laughed. Drake took a swig from his brew and set it down by the side of his chair. “What about you? What does the trained archeologist among us think?”
Allie beetled her brow. “I don’t have an opinion yet, because I don’t fully know what we’re up against. In a way, it’s like a needle in a haystack. Worse, really. We need something that will narrow the odds. Hopefully the journal will help us do that. It would really help if I knew what you did. I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
Drake nodded. “The journal’s really a set of deductions based on a careful examination of the oral and written histories that exist. Much of it’s speculation, but it seems well founded. Remember that my father made at least four prior trips here, so he felt like he was onto something to make the final one. And your dad says that my father believed he was only a day or two from locating the treasure when he was killed. Really, all we need to do is get back to that last camp area and see if we can find any of the landmarks he mentions — waterfalls, a stone jaguar, an arch. Waterfalls near Paititi are consistently mentioned.”
“Then it’s really going to be more about thoroughness than any aha moment.”
“That’s how it sounds. Good old-fashioned grunt work,” Drake agreed.
“If that’s all it would take, I wonder why the Russians never found it.”
“Because they’re criminals, not critical thinkers or archeologists. That’s my guess. If we see them, we can ask,” Drake said.
“I wonder why they killed him. Your dad?” Allie said softly.
“Maybe he wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. Or maybe he did, but it wasn’t the truth — or simply wasn’t enough to go on. I’ve come to grips with the idea that I’ll never know. Whatever happened, only a few people were there. My dad. The two Russians. Maybe helpers, if they had any.” Drake paused. “Or here’s an idea that came to me a while ago: we’ve been assuming the Russians killed him. What if they didn’t? I mean, we know they were in the jungle, but so were the local tribes, and probably smugglers, and who knows whom else. It’s possible he was killed for reasons that have nothing to do with Paititi.”
Allie shook her head, disagreeing. “I’ll go with ‘the murderous psychos chasing us killed your dad’ as the most likely, though.”
Drake finished his beer with a nod. “Seems the most obvious. But I’m also willing to entertain the possibility that he was killed and the Russians either didn’t do it, or didn’t learn anything, and that’s why any information they got didn’t help them. It doesn’t change much from our end, but one of the things that comes through loud and clear in the journal is my father’s philosophy of keeping an open mind. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
“It’s never a bad thing,” Allie agreed.
Drake went inside, retrieved two more beers and popped the tops off using his new knife. He handed one to Allie and returned to his seat.
“What about you, Allie? Seeing as we’re going to be going into the deepest darkest reaches of the rainforest together. What are you all about?” he asked, his tone light but the question serious.
“What is there to tell? I’m just a girl. Grew up without a mother, for the most part. Spent most of my time working my ass off in school. And then trying to find a job. There’s not a lot more. It’s not like I have some fascinating hobby or anything. Just a girl out in the world trying to get by.”
“That’s it? There’s always more. Come on. Give.”
“Okay. I’m also a serial killer. Been abducting hot young male hitchhikers for the last five years, keeping them locked in the basement to pleasure me, and then offing them when I grow bored. Oh, and I cook ’em and eat ’em like that Hannibal dude.”
“Sounds like you’re not getting enough fiber in your diet.”
“Or greens. It’s really hard to prepare a balanced hitchhiker meal.”
They sat comfortably, bantering easily for another fifteen minutes, but when they mounted the stairs to the bedrooms, Drake knew little more about Allie than he had that morning. A part of him wondered what she was hiding or defending against, but another cautioned against being too interested. He needed to work with Jack, and that would be almost impossible if Allie and he became a thing.
Morning came too soon, and he was still groggy when he descended with his bag. Allie and Jack were at the dining room table, drinking coffee and nibbling at their plates.
“Hey. Good morning. There are some more eggs on the stove. Just heat them up for thirty seconds and you should be golden,” she said as he dropped his backpack near the door.
“Thanks.” He helped himself, preferring to wolf his breakfast down lukewarm from the pan. Two minutes later he sat down across from them with a mug of steaming coffee and checked the time. “At least I’m not late.”
“You’ll find that once we’re in the jungle, you’ll be rising at dawn,” Jack said. No greeting. Just a terse warning. Drake had already grown accustomed to his abrupt style, so he merely nodded.
A car approached the front of the house, its exhaust burbling from a deteriorated muffler, and they quickly finished their coffee and rose.
“I’ve got to take care of Paolo. Go ahead and load the stuff into the car. I’ll be right back,” Jack said as he moved to the door. Drake and Allie hefted the bags and followed him out into the bright sunlight. The heat was already rising and the atmosphere humid, as it had been since their arrival in the tropics. The driver, a tall black man with a shaved head, helped them load the luggage into the battered sedan, and when Jack returned they all piled in, Jack in the front seat, Drake and Allie in the rear.