Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2) (9 page)

BOOK: Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2)
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18.

 

 

The narrow road winds and bends its way around the base of
Machu Picchu, the fast-moving, white-capped Urubamba River running parallel to
the road almost the entire way. Two hours later the driver turns onto an even
narrower dirt road that zigzags its way up a steep mountainside. The dirt road
is wet from a recent rain, super slick, and boasts no roadside barriers, wooden
or otherwise, to prevent us from dropping off the sheer cliff face that rises
rapidly with every foot of ground covered.

Although I say nothing about it, my heart lodges itself in
my throat with every tight one-hundred-eighty-degree turn the truck makes up
the corkscrew road. The few times I’ve looked over the side of the flatbed, I
haven’t witnessed any kind of road at all, but instead, open air. It’s no
wonder fifty doctors and nurses were killed in this exact area only a few
months ago when the bus that was transporting them up the mountain slid off the
side and tumbled two-hundred-plus feet down into the riverbed. Better not to
think about that right now. Better to think happy thoughts, like those
involving a snake-infested jungle that may or may not still house head hunters.

I have to give Leslie credit. She’s not saying a word about
it, but I know she’s scared to death. That is, judging by the way she grips my
hand, squeezing it tightly every time the truck negotiates one of the hairpin
turns. Carlos senses her discomfort also, because he does something that takes
me by complete surprise. Shifting himself in his seat, he takes hold of Leslie’s
other hand.

“I’m told the Peruvians have a saying,” he says. “‘When it
is time to see God, it is time to go see God. Until that time, however, you
must fear nothing. For nothing cannot hurt you.’”

Leslie bites down on her bottom lip.

“Dropping off the cliff could certainly hurt me,” she
whispers. “Hurt us.”

“Ahhh,” Carlos exhales. “But the guide operating this truck
has been doing so for ages, as did his father before him, and his father before
him. The Peruvians have another saying. ‘Place your trust in the unknown. It is
what makes life interesting.’”

Leslie issues the faintest of laughs. “You making this shit
up, Carlos?”

Now it’s his turn to giggle. “But it sounds like something a
Peruvian would say, does it not?”

 

By the time we come to a stop inside an area carved out of the
thick forest, I’ve worked up a sweat. The moisture combines with the humid
vapor of the rainforest, making my skin feel slick and my clothing damp.

“Okay, everyone,” Rodney says, standing up. “This is where
we get off.”

We’re all happy to exit the truck, including Carlos, who
only now releases Leslie’s hand.

“I told you it would be all right,” he says.

Once on the ground, Rodney pulls out his map, lays it out
over the hood of the truck. With Carlos on one side and me on the other, he
points to our present position with a red Sharpie. He then hands me the pen and
without a word, I draw a quick red line to the position where we want to go,
based on Keogh’s instructions. This isn’t rocket science, but someone has to
lead the way, and that’s where I come in. But judging from the sometimes steep
terrain we’re sure to encounter, it’s not going to be an easy trek.

Rodney insists, “If it’s kosher with you, Chase, I’ll take
lead since I’m not bad with a gun should we run into trouble. You stay close
behind. Leslie, you take the position behind him. Carlos, you take up the rear.
Agreed?”

“What about the guides?” Leslie inquires.

“They go ahead of us, clearing a path as they go,” I inform.
“One will stay in the rear and act as an equipment porter. It’s likely that the
lead men will reach the day’s destination point long before we will. Trust me
on that. These guys grew up climbing in these forested mountains, barefoot.”

“What about bandits and natives?” Carlos asks. “Have the
guides showed any concern whatsoever?”

“Rodney,” I say, “you’re the only one who’s been
communicating with them. What’s your take?”

The black man shrugs his big shoulders while gripping his
AR-15.

“No concerns other than asking us to take the usual
cautionary measures,” he says.

“What are the usual cautionary measures?” Leslie asks.

“If something or someone tries to kill you, try and kill
them first.” The big man assumes a delighted expression, exposing his
gold-capped tooth.

We all chew on that thought for a moment until I say, “Let’s
move, people, while we have a few more hours of daylight left.”

Cocking his weapon, Rodney spits more tobacco juice to the
green vegetation-covered floor and begins the trek into the thick Amazonian
jungle.

I follow, with Leslie my literary agent on my tail.

19.

 

 

The forest is dark, damp, and unrelenting in its humidity. The
walking is slow and difficult, even with the guides cutting away the thick
vegetation that stands in our way. Between the tall tree canopy that blocks out
the sun and thick weeds and vines, you can’t see more than a few feet in front
of you. The feeling is claustrophobic and, although no one will admit it, more
than a little frightening.

We move ahead in silence, the packs on our backs as heavy as
our not-so-altitude-adjusted breathing. As I walk, I’m reminded of my dad. As a
child I’d beg him to take me along on a jobsite he might be working on.
Something that required his special talent for digging unusually deep without
causing a cave-in.

Once, he allowed me to join him on a special Saturday dig.
He was manning the controls on one of his heavy-duty tracked excavators while I
looked on mesmerized at the action from a safe distance. The blueprints called
for a depth of more than twenty feet in sandy soil. Such a deep dig combined
with the precariousness of sandy soil meant that cave-ins would be a major
danger. Or so my dad informed me prior to starting the dig.

At one point, the steel teeth on my dad’s excavation bucket
hit bedrock on an area where bedrock was not expected. Under normal conditions,
he would have had one of his men take a look at the obstacle with a pair of
binoculars. But this was a Saturday and my dad was the only man from his crew
on site.

“I have to head down in the hole, Chase,” he told me while
wrapping a rope around his waist, and tying it off to one of the cleats on the
excavator. I remember feeling my heart enter into my throat as he grabbed a
shovel and made the descent into the narrow pit. Knowing that at any moment, the
sides might cave in on him, I stood paralyzed with fear. But I said nothing
about it. I didn’t want to show my fear in front of my dad. I could only trust
him for what he was: a magician of a digger.

Minutes passed while he inspected the pit’s bottom, stabbing
so hard at the rock with the tip of the spade he was producing sparks. He
mumbled grumpily about having to blast the rock out, which was something he
never anticipated in his original bid. But now he’d have no choice but to do
it. To my dad, a contract might be a contract, but a man’s word was a man’s
word, and a man’s word was sacred.

“C4 is expensive, goddammit,” he groused out loud. Then,
“Oops. Sorry, Chase.”

I couldn’t quite make out his face from where I was
standing, and I was far too close to the pit’s edge, but I knew he had to be
smiling. But when he looked up and saw me standing there, he most definitely
wasn’t smiling.

“Get back, Chase,” he barked. “It’s too dangerous.”

Tossing the shovel out of the trench, he tugged on the rope
to make it taut and began the climb out. He wasn’t halfway when both sides of
the trench began to give way.

I remember seeing the earth caving in on him from the top
down. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. It was as if someone had cut out my
voice box. I stood there beside the excavator shivering in fear as the
red-brown sand began to pour down on him until no sign of him existed anymore.
There was only the rope which was trembling and buzzing like a guitar string
wound too tight from bearing the sudden weight of the sand. I shifted my eyes
to where it was knotted on the cleat. I knew that if the knot came loose or
worse, the rope snapped, my dad would be buried alive.

But then suddenly, through the tears in my eyes I saw a head
emerge from the sand, then a pair of shoulders, and finally a torso and legs.
Using the strength in his powerful arms, my dad leapt up onto the solid ground,
landing on his knees. He coughed and choked for a full minute before he looked
up at me with a sand-covered face and said, “Son, don’t ever do what I just
did. You got that?” Then he laughed and took me in his arms, and held me
tightly.

With every step I take into the jungle, I can’t help but
feel that same anxiety I felt when my dad entered into that deep trench all
those years ago. Only difference now is, I don’t have a rope to pull myself out
should the sides start caving in on us all.

 

We trek for more than an hour, until something catches my
attention underfoot. It might not be entirely noticeable at first, but there’s
no denying that we are entering onto something that resembles a foot path. It
tells me the guides know precisely where they are going. The path can’t be more
than one foot across in width, but the length seems to go on forever through
brush that now is thankfully thinning out with each step we take. Rodney must
notice it too because for the first time since we entered into this dark,
almost impenetrable jungle, he turns to me.

“Here it is,” he whispers. “One of the paths Keogh’s father
was hired to find.”

“My guess is that the natives have been using these paths
for hundreds of years as roads between settlements.”

“Maybe for hunting too. There are probably thousands of
veins that break off into the wilderness. Getting lost must be pretty damn
easy.”

“Thank God for the guides,” I point out.

“Thank God for GPS,” he says. “And our fearless literary
trailblazer.”

“The things I’ll do for money,” I say.

That’s when Rodney stops dead in his tracks.

“What is it?” I say.

“You hear that, Chief?” he says. “Listen.”

I watch him as his dark eyes stare off into the thick forest
while he tries to make out something that’s happening up ahead of him. I hear
it then. One of the guides sounds like he’s crying. Another is shouting at him,
as if ordering the crying man to hold himself together.

“What’s happening?” Leslie begs, the fear in her voice as
plain as the dew that drips from the thick vines.

“Don’t know yet,” I forcefully whisper. “Sit tight.”

I hear running. I turn and see Carlos coming up on Leslie
from behind, his video camera in hand.

“The porter behind me,” he says, while sucking breath, “he
won’t go any further, Chase. My hearing isn’t as good as it used to be, but I
swear he keeps mumbling something about the great death being upon us. The
death in the jungle. He is positively catatonic.”

I lean into Rodney.

“Lock and load,” I whisper.

Rodney shoulders his AR-15, begins making sweeps with the
short black barrel—ten o’clock/three o’clock, ten o’clock/three o’clock. I draw
my .45 and thumb the safety off. Carlos shoulders his video camera, begins
filming the stillness which isn’t exactly still, and the silence which isn’t
entirely silent.

“Chase,” Leslie whispers, “I’m afraid. Maybe this was a bad
idea after all.”

“Shhh,” I say, bringing the index finger on my free hand to
my lips. “Don’t say a word.”

That’s when the arrow whips through bush and pierces
Carlos’s neck.

20.

 

 

Rodney shoots at will, his thick index finger pumping the
trigger of an AR-15 switched on automatic mode. But the high velocity rounds
that blast into the surrounding bush are about as effective as spitting in the
ocean.

“Hold your fire, Rodney!” I bark. “Hold your damned fire!”

He stops, smoke oozing from his barrel while the drops of
damp that drip onto it sizzle from its intense heat. Down on the ground, Carlos
is grasping at his neck where the arrow has pierced it, blood oozing out of the
wound. Leslie seems to be in shock as she stands beside me, stiff as a statue,
her eyes locked on what appears to be a mortally wounded Carlos.

“Hang tight, Carlos,” I whisper forcefully, but my gut is
telling me that his is a lost cause.

Then it comes. A wave of arrows flying through the bush,
some of them embedding into the trees, others cutting into the earth at our
feet, a few zipping by our heads.

“Get down!” I order, grabbing Leslie’s collar, pulling her
down with me. “Get the hell down!”

My .45 in hand, I search for a face or faces to go with the
arrows. But all I see are trees and vines. Until a half dozen hostiles emerge
from the thick stuff about fifty yards out and sprint directly for us, banzai
charge style.

From where I’m positioned I can see that they’re dressed
only in leather thongs, everything else exposed including their feet. Their
hair is long and greased back against their heads while their arms, legs,
chests, and faces are tattooed with colorful images. Their bows now slung
diagonally over their chests, pouches of arrows slung over their backs, they’re
coming at us with spears that might pass for state of the art in prehistoric
times.

“I got the three on the right,” I shout to Rodney.

“I got left,” he confirms, sending a blast into his three
men, dropping them on the spot.

At the same time, I trigger three shots, aiming from right
to left, dropping the remaining three hostiles.

“Sit tight,” I insist, as the hot, humid air goes quiet.
“There could be another team in reserve waiting to ambush us.”

Rodney changes out the clip on his AR-15.

“I need to make a check on the guides,” he says.

“Get them up on the radio,” I say.

He presses the broadcast button on his chest-mounted
walkie-talkie, speaks some Spanish into it. When he releases the button, we
both wait for a reply. But all we can make out is dead air.

“Try again,” I demand.

He does it.

More dead air.

“Shit.”

“What do we do, Chase?” Leslie says, speaking for the first
time since the attack began.

I plant my eyes on Carlos. He’s no longer struggling to
remove the arrow from his neck. His soul has clearly left his body.

“We go back the way we came,” I say.

“Not a chance,” Rodney says. “Carlos knew the risks. You
know the risks. We all
know
the fucking risks. Keogh didn’t send us all
the way out here to quit at the first sign of trouble.”

“Case no one’s noticed,” I say, “we got a man down.”

Propping myself up onto my hands and knees, I crab my way
over to the wounded man, press my fingers against his jugular, my left ear over
his mouth. Then, lifting my head, I add, “Correction: We’ve got a very
dead
man
down. And now it’s possible our guides are dead, or at the very least, run
off.”

“I’m surprised at you, Chase,” Rodney says, as he climbs
back up onto his feet. “From what I’ve heard, you’re not the squeamish type. I
should think you’d want to find the cave and the aircraft as much as we do.
More so, even. Casualties of war or no casualties.”

I didn’t know we were at war…

He’s right and he knows it. I feel my heart beating in my
chest, and I feel the sweat that soaks my skin and clothing. But I also smell
fresh blood and gunpowder. Turning to Leslie, I place my hand on her shoulder.

“You okay, Agent?” I say. “You want me to lead you out of
this death trap, say the word. Rodney might be expedition leader, but he is not
my boss.”

She assumes a sitting position, brushes the soil from her
arms. Swatting a mosquito from her face, she inhales and exhales.

“I live with dead men and dead women in the fiction
manuscripts I read every day,” she says. “But I’ve never seen a real man killed
before my eyes. One as nice as Carlos anyway.”

I instantly recall him pointing a knife at me back in New
York, but I quickly dismiss the thought. That was prior to our getting to know
one another, so to speak.

Leslie gets up.

“Do you want to leave?” I repeat.

She wipes her face, takes a drink from her water bottle, and
exhales profoundly. “This might surprise you. But my vote is to keep going,
Chase. Rodney’s right. You came here to do a job. Let’s keep on doing it. My
guess is that Carlos would have wanted it that way. And besides, we have a book
to write.”

But this expedition is far more than simple research for a
new novel. This is about uncovering a relic that, if it’s real, will not only
turn history onto its back, it will prove once and for all that mankind has not
only been the beneficiary of help from ancient aliens, but that humankind is
indeed derived from ancient aliens. The enormity of locating the Golden Condor
is almost too great to contemplate since it will challenge our everyday notions
about God and religion, and it will force us to accept the fact that we are not
the isolated species we once thought ourselves to be, and therefore, not the
most important life in the universe.

There’s no question in my mind about the course of action we
must take. And that course is to keep on going no matter what or who stands in
our way. The chase for the Golden Condor is why I was put on God’s earth. And
something else too: if we weren’t close to finding it, the hostiles wouldn’t be
trying to kill us.

I pull myself up onto my feet. “Rodney, call Keogh, tell him
what’s happened. Let him know we’re proceeding as planned. We’re going to find
the Condor even if we die trying.”

“Consider it done,” Rodney says, pulling his cell phone out.
He walks on ahead of us, his phone pressed against his ear.

“I can’t stop shaking,” Leslie says, her eyes still locked
on Carlos.

I strip the deceased man of his wallet, passport, cash, and
cell phone, toss them to the side.

“Come on,” I say to Leslie. “Take hold of his feet while I
grab his hands.”

Working together, we shove the surprisingly heavy,
dead-weight body off the path and into a section of thick brush.

“The ground is filled with roots,” I say. “It’ll be
impossible to bury him here.”

“The insects will get him,” Leslie points out. “So will the
animals. In this heat he’ll rot away almost immediately.”

“Let’s at least cover him up.”

Pulling his sleeping bag from his pack, I drape it over his
body. We then cover the body with leaves and brush. For a brief moment, Leslie
and I stand over the mound that conceals Carlos’s body.

“Shouldn’t we say something?” she says. “You know, like a
prayer?”

I catch a quick glimpse of Rodney standing about thirty
paces up trail. He’s still on the phone. The expression on his face isn’t
exactly unhappy or anxious. I’m guessing a team member’s death doesn’t mean a
whole lot to the big man. At least, not in terms of the broader picture…the big
prize to be uncovered up inside a mountain.

“Rest in peace, Carlos,” I say, after a time. “Pleasure
sharing a cab ride with you.”

“Amen,” Leslie whispers.

“Amen,” I say.

 

Retrieving Carlos’s AR-15, I hand it to Leslie, who straps it
over her shoulder. I grab his passport and the rest of his personals and stuff
them into the pockets on my bush jacket. The last item to salvage is his video
camera.

“How would you like to do the honors now?” I say, holding
out the camera for her. “After all, media is your specialty.”

She grabs hold of the camera, fiddles with its buttons and
controls like she knows what she’s doing. And as a former Columbia film school
student, she does.

“Good. It will take my mind off Carlos,” she says. Then,
while shouldering the camera, “What about the guide who was behind us?”

“He’s gone,” I say. “My guess is he ran off at the first
sign of trouble.” But what I’m thinking on the inside is that he’s probably as
dead as Carlos.

“Wasn’t he carrying food?”

“We’ll have enough in our packs. After all, we won’t need as
much now and we’re only here for forty-eight hours.”

“Let’s hope so,” she says.

Rodney whistles to get our attention.

Leslie and I turn, focus our eyes on him.

“We got a go from Keogh,” he barks.

I nod, knowing full well that the danger we just encountered
is not a one-time-only deal.

“Let’s go get this thing done and then get the hell out of
here,” I say. “Keep your eyes and ears open, everyone.”

“Open wide,” Leslie says, her confidence brewing despite the
death that weighs heavy in the air, like the thick jungle humidity.

BOOK: Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2)
6.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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