Lost City of the Templars (3 page)

They made their way to Manaus from Heathrow in grueling hops with stopovers in Washington, D.C., Houston, Texas, and Caracas, Venezuela. By the time they reached the Park Suites Hotel in Manaus, a little more than twenty-four hours had passed. They all managed to shower, then stagger into bed, and that was that for their first day in Brazil.

The next morning, Holliday and the rest of the still-groggy crew made their way to the Alpaba Restaurant, the hotel’s attempt at haute cuisine with a view out over the Rio Negro.

“It’s kind of hard to concentrate on eggs Benedict when you’re looking out at a river full of things big enough to swallow you whole or rip the flesh off your bones,” Peggy said.

“It’s not that bad,” said Holliday. “All that stuff about vampire fish swimming up your genital tract and sticking there is a lot of bunkum.”

“You shouldn’t be eating hollandaise anyway.” Rafi grinned. “It’s not good for you.”

“Is that another comment about my weight?” Peggy bristled.

“I’m just teasing,” answered her husband. “You haven’t gained an ounce since Doc and I rescued you from those Tuareg bandits.”

“Took you long enough,” said Peggy, grumbling. “And there are monster snakes out there. I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”

“We’ve got more than monster fish to worry about,” Holliday said.

“He’s right.” Rafi nodded. “If Rogov’s not here, he soon will be.”

“This man, he is so dangerous?” Eddie asked.

“He usually travels with a bunch of Turkish and Syrian thugs—tomb robbers most of them. Hard men.”

“How would they get passports or visas to get into Brazil?” Peggy said.

“Not hard with Grayle and his people behind him,” Holliday said.

“Why would they come here?” Rafi asked. “I thought all the stories about Fawcett have him traveling down the Xingu River on his last expedition.”

“Grayle’s no fool,” said Holliday. “The Xingu is famous for its rapids. Most of it’s too shallow for even the
Santo Ovidio de Braga
or the
Santo João de Deus
. If he’s following the ships, he’d follow the Amazon, and the Rio Negro is a ‘blackwater river’—deep and calm, more than deep enough for those shallow-draft ships. Not to mention the fact that Grayle’s people may already be on our trail. Rogov wasn’t trying to get that chest for no reason.”

“So what is our next move, amigo?” Eddie asked.

“We find a way to get up the Rio Negro to an ancient little place called Barcelos.”

•   •   •

They reached Barcelos aboard a Piper Comanche of indeterminate years, the pilot and copilot apparently flying using a photocopied map they had taped to the windshield. Below them was a solid carpet of dense rain forest broken only by the wide black line of the Rio Negro as it snaked its way northward. There wasn’t a road to be seen.

Two hours later after a remarkably smooth ride, they landed at Barcelos Airport, which seemed to be quite busy. There were even a few executive jets parked on the hardstands outside several hangars. A minibus was pulled up beside a Hawker 4000 and taking on passengers, all of them carrying long tubes. The sign painted on the minibus said RIO NEGRO FISHING TOURS. The name on the side of the jet was White Horse Resources.

“British,” said Holliday.

“A long way to come for a fish,” grunted Eddie.

“More money than brains,” agreed Peggy.

“Y que lo digas,”
said Eddie.

“What?”

“You can say that again,” translated Holliday. “White Horse is one of Grayle’s companies.”

Their taxi this time was a sagging Ford Taurus driven by a giant sausage of a man with a few tufts of gray hair over his ears and the gurgling wheeze of someone with end-stage emphysema. He managed to get them to their destination, a three-story hotel called Rio Negro that looked as though it had once been a nineteenth-century warehouse with a residence above it. The building was within a block or two of the Porto Velho, the Old Harbor.

The manager of the hotel, who gave his name as Mr. Carlos, also seemed to be the maître d’ of the family-style dining room, and while an aging bellboy took their luggage to their rooms Mr. Carlos sat them at a table covered with a gingham tablecloth and a real candle in an empty bottle of port.

They had a pleasant enough meal of
cordonizes
, which was supposed to be quail but looked suspiciously like pigeon, served with an odd combination of rice and french fries, followed by something called
manjar branco
, a coconut pudding that was served with a sauce of pitted prunes poached in port wine. They finished off the meal with coffee.

“Pigeons, pudding, prunes and port,” said Peggy. “A completely alliterative meal.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Rafi asked. “Rent a boat of some kind?”

“The last bit of civilization Fawcett mentioned in the journal is a town called São João Joaquin. It’s at the junction of the Rio Negro and the Rio Icana, which flows up into Venezuela. This São João place was Fawcett’s jumping-off place for heading into the jungle. It’s about two hundred miles upstream.”

“No roads?” Rafi said.

“Nope,” said Holliday.

“Riverboat?” Eddie asked.

“There are a few, but even Fawcett didn’t take one.”

“He flew?” Peggy said.

“He flew.”

•   •   •

His name was Yachay of the Hupda Indians and he was shaman of his village in the forest. Of his particular branch of the tribe, there were less than could be counted on the hands of ten men left. Once, a long time ago, there had been many, many more, but the traders and the missionaries had killed them with their spirit sicknesses and his village had moved ever deeper into the jungle that was their home. Still, there was danger and this time Yachay feared it would not come from any spirit sickness; it would come from the great gray monster that drank at their rivers.

He was old, although he didn’t know how old. He had fought a hundred battles and won most of them, lost sons and wives and nephews and untold friends. Now his only solace was in the taking of the
ipadu abiu
and the powder of the
xhenhet
and the visions they brought him and which he used to guide his people. He had taken the paste of the
ipadu
before beginning his journey, and it had foretold great danger.

His bare feet sank into the rich earth, and in his way he had become part of the forest and not an intruder in it. He could hear the crackling of dead leaves as the beetles foraged and the sound of the birds and monkeys and other creatures in the canopy above him. He could taste the drying air in his mouth and knew by the sun on his back how far he had come and how far there still was to go. He was as sure of this as his taking of breath and just as sure, somehow, that he would not let the monster kill his people.

•   •   •

The headquarters of the Pallas Group is located in McLean, Virginia, in a complex of buildings just off the George Washington Parkway and is surrounded by forestland on all sides. From his penthouse office on the twenty-eighth floor of the main building, Charles Peace, the CEO of Pallas, could see the headquarters for the Anti Terrorism Center, the CIA, the Pentagon and the Capitol building—virtually all the elements that made the Pallas Group tick.

Along the only wall in his office that wasn’t made of glass, there were seven violins encased in glass and kept in perfect humidified and temperature-controlled conditions. In his collection there was a Guarneri, a Maggini, a Gasparo di Salò, an Amati e Bergonzi and two Stradivariuses. In monetary terms the collection was worth between seventy-five and a hundred million dollars, but in actuality the violins were priceless. At one time or another, Peace had played all of them. It was a favorite expression of his that generals and politicians were like the strings on a great violin: stroke them well and they would make beautiful music for you.

Sir Adrian Grayle, a gray-haired man in his midfifties, stared out at the stunning view from the penthouse office window, then turned back to Peace.

“In the very center of power, I see,” said Grayle, coming back to the comfortable armchair in front of Charles Peace, who was seated behind his massive desk. The desk had originally been used by F.D.R. in the Oval Office and a number of presidents who came after him. It had cost Peace a fortune.

“Being at the center of power is a requirement of the business,” answered Peace, “and I like to see my enemies coming.” Peace was older than Grayle, with dark hair in a widow’s peak. A pair of neon red half-frame bifocals was perched on the end of his nose.

“As I told you on the telephone, Mrs. Sinclair suggested that I see you before I returned to England about helping to solve my current problem.”

“Yes, she mentioned you’d be calling.” Peace smiled thinly. “What exactly is your problem?”

“I assume you know I’m the chairman of White Horse Resources, and I’m sure you also know that we have invested several billion dollars in the Itaqui Dam Project in northern Brazil.”

“I know something about the project. I understand you’re having problems with the locals.”

“Forty-eight hundred assorted Hupda Indians and a territory that has recently been internationally recognized as a nature conservancy and also as a reserve for the Hupdas.”

“How does the Brazilian government feel about these people?”

“Noncommittal. They’d like to see them go away as much as I would.”

“We could probably arrange something,” said Peace.

“It can’t be something as overt as President Belaúnde napalming the Matsés in Peru back in the ’sixties,” Grayle cautioned. “That would sink the Itaqui Project on the spot. The whole world can look over your shoulder these days.”

“In which case you show them something acceptable,” said Peace calmly.

“I’m not sure I understand,” said Grayle.

“Pallas controls a company called Firebreakers. It provides water bombers to countries all over the world as well as domestically. It owns one hundred and twenty Canadair CL-215 aircraft.”

“What does this have to do with my problem?”

“Twenty of those aircraft are held in reserve for the aviation arm of our security division. Those twenty aircraft have been retrofitted to drop something other than water.”

“Such as?” Sir Adrian asked.

“The quickest and most effective you have already mentioned—napalm—but the aircraft can also be fitted with tanks of liquid cow manure infected with
E. coli
O157: H7, an enterohemorrhagic strain. The manure would be dropped into the water supply, whatever river the group was closest to. All their children would be dead within twelve days, as would any pregnant woman. The entire village would be infected and most elders would die, as well.” Peace coughed lightly into a closed fist. “If you’re looking for a near-one-hundred-percent kill rate, there is always anthrax, of course.”

“Good Lord,” murmured Grayle.

“Well, Sir Adrian, which is it going to be?”

“I’ll have to think on it for a bit, I think, perhaps consult my board.”

“Take as long as you want, Sir Adrian, but you know the saying—time is money.”

“I’m well aware of the fact,” said Grayle. “Speaking of which, how are things going with our other project?”

“Andromeda?”

“Yes.”

“We have the satellite imaging you requested. I thought that we could meet at the lab in St. Gallen in a week or so to go over the lower-altitude scoops.”

“The initial experiments have been most encouraging,” said Grayle.

“I’m pleased,” said Peace. “As a long-term income stream, it may replace everything. It will certainly change the face of medicine, not to mention war.”

“All right,” said Grayle. “Have your people call me when you have the results and I’ll arrange things with Neri from the bank.”

The floatplane had been drawn up on the muddy beach of the old port using a pair of heavy skids and a hand-cranked chain winch. The aircraft was large, single engined and high winged with a fuselage that appeared to be fabric stretched over some sort of interior skeleton or frame. It had obviously been painted a number of times and was now a mottled dappled green, slapped on in an amateurish camouflage pattern. The leading edge of the wings had clearly been patched in several places, and the lower halves of the floats were coated with some sort of fungus or algae.

“What on earth is that?” Peggy said, staring at the aircraft.

“Our ride,” said Holliday.

“You’re kidding me,” said Rafi. “It looks ancient.”

“Nineteen thirty-six,” said a voice from behind them.

The man standing behind them was medium height wearing a pair of greasy coveralls and wiping his hands off on a rag. His features were vaguely Asian mixed with something else and he had a long jet-black ponytail. On the bulging biceps showing below his T-shirt he had a U.S Army Ranger DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR tattoo. He walked toward them, his right leg noticeably stiff.

“Peggy, Rafi, Eddie, this is my good friend Chang-Su Diaz.”

“Hi,” said the man with the ponytail.

“Diaz,” said Eddie.
“Hablas español?”

“Sí.”
Diaz nodded.

“Avión es bonita,”
said Eddie.

“Gracias, senor. Eres un piloto?”

“Sí. Gracias a la Fuerza Aérea de Cuba.”

“Ah, Cuba,” said Diaz.

“Charlie Diaz was part of a special incursion group into Colombia that I was heading up back in the ’nineties,” said Holliday. “He can fly anything with wings or rotors. He’s just about the only person who flies supplies up to the river tribes upstream. Doctors Without Borders use him a lot. Despite his looks he’s a good man.”

“How did you lose the leg?” Peggy asked bluntly.

“Doc and I were having a sit-down with a man named Tito Valdez. He shot me under the desk with a Turkish Bullpup shotgun.”

“What happened to Tito Valdez?”

“Doc shot him in the face six times.”

“You can really fly with one leg?”

“During World War Two, there was a man named Douglas Bader who flew Spitfires after losing both legs. He played a pretty good game of golf to boot,” said Holliday. “Now, enough history.” He turned to Diaz. “Did you get everything I asked for?”

“All the practical stuff including the two inflatables you asked for, and the boat is waiting. Presumably Eddie can manage it.”

“Qué tipo de barco?”
Eddie asked.

“Un barco de rio,”
Diaz responded.

“Grande?”

“Quince metros.”

“
No hay problema
.” Eddie smiled.

“What about weapons?” Holliday asked.

“Everything you asked for. Forty-fives, Winchesters, a Weatherby, some Stoner POWs, two Heckler and Koch MSG-90s and one FN Maximi light machine gun.”

“Why do we need weapons?” Peggy asked, startled.

Holliday laughed. “Because it’s a jungle out there, Peg.”

•   •   •

The priest sat in his small office in the Vatican Railway Station, his computer humming quietly and a copy of
Debrett’s Peerage
open on the desk beside it. According to Debrett’s, Lord Adrian Grayle was a long-standing member of Brook’s. The priest, a fifty-eight-year-old man named Francisco Garibaldi, had also hacked in to the Brook’s Web site and had discovered that one Lord Jonathon Gibbs, third Baron Vauxhall, now resided in South Africa and rarely came to the club although he still kept up his membership. Garibaldi went onto Google, found a recent photo of Vauxhall and printed it out. He picked up his telephone and dialed the special number in the Vatican Printing Office.

“This is Father Garibaldi. I’d like a full identification package on Lord Jonathon Gibbs.” The priest paused. “Yes, a U.K. passport, as well, and also a membership card for Booth’s Gentlemen’s Club. Two days. Thank you.”

Garibaldi broke the connection, then hit the buttons again. “Gino? Francisco. How is my father? Good, good. Look, Gino, I need a favor. I need you to find out the kind of playing cards they use at Booth’s in London, then make up a deck in my prescription. Fast, two days maybe.” He waited, listening, and then smiled. “
Buono
, Gino. You are a good friend. Call me when they’re ready and I’ll meet you at Rosati’s. Good, good, see you then. Give Papa my love.”

•   •   •

Hank Rand sat on the couch in the Oval Office with his boss, Harrison White, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, seated beside him. Hank Rand was director of the National Resources Division, the most secret of the CIA’s covert departments.

“I hope you’re right about this, Hank,” said White, flipping through the brief they were about to hand to the president. “You know how he hates that bitch, but I don’t want him thinking we’re ass-kissing.”

“It’s from our team in Venezuela and it’s rock solid, Harrison. One of the Pallas Group’s subsidiaries is about to bomb the piss out of the Indians in northern Brazil. Another Pallas division is managing that big dam project in the region.”

“And another division provides contract security troops and VIP transport in Iraq and Afghanistan and have been since Bush and that bozo Cheney,” Rand responded. “And the guy who sits behind that big desk over there would like nothing better than to boot their asses and put Kate Sinclair in jail. This is his chance.”

The president came in, slipped off his suit jacket, loosened his tie and dropped down into the high-backed chair behind the resolute desk. There was nothing on the desk except a telephone and a wooden box full of giveaway pins. On the windowsill to his right were a few family pictures, including his wedding portrait.

“Boy Scout Medal of Honor Award with Crossed Palms,” said the president, having just come from a photo op.

“What do you do to get that?” Harrison White asked.

“This twelve-year-old kid was walking back to his tent at a jamboree or whatever you call them and he found two little kids, Cubs, I suppose. It turned out these two kids had been chewing on some sort of house plant that paralyzes your throat. He used two pieces of a ballpoint pen and a penknife to give them emergency tracheotomies.”

“Jesus!” White said.

“So now he wants to become a surgeon, I suppose.” Hank Rand smiled.

“Nope,” said the president. “He wants to become a lawyer.”

“Why in hell would he do something like that?” White asked.

“Said he’d have a better shot at the Oval Office. Twelve years old, he’s already after my job.” They all laughed briefly. The president leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. “So, what do my favorite spies have for me today?”

“Kate Sinclair on a skewer if we play our cards right.”

“Best news I’ve had today. Almost as good as Osama bin Laden shot full of holes. Now, that was something to see!” The president gave a sigh of contentment and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Do tell, gentlemen.”

•   •   •

The jungle unrolled like a mottled green undulating carpet of forest beneath the wings of the old aircraft. Charlie Diaz flew the plane on a rock-steady course that followed the dark snaking river a few hundred feet below them.

Contrary to Peggy’s fears, Charlie Diaz was a top-notch pilot and the old bush plane flew without a clatter or a bang. Holliday sat on one of four jump seats directly behind the cockpit, and Eddie had the copilot’s chair. Between Eddie and Diaz on the dashboard was a plastic sign that said COPILOT’S CHECKLIST: DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. It was repeated in Spanish and Portuguese. Rafi and Peggy sat opposite, Peggy clutching the side of her seat white-knuckled. The rest of the cabin was stuffed with their gear.

“So, what do you think now, Peg?” yelled Holliday, raising his voice above the unmuffled monster outboard motor bellow of the engine.

“I think I’m going to puke,” she answered, her face white. “He flies like he’s operating a roller coaster.”

Rafi patted her knee consolingly. “Is smooth as silk,” he said. “It just
sounds
like we’re going to crash any second.”

Right on cue the engine noise changed, and they went into a long, steep dive.

“Oh, crap!” Peggy screamed, gripping her seat even tighter.

“No quieres intentar lo hacer aterrizar, mi amigo?”
Diaz asked Eddie, turning in his seat.

“Con mucho gusto!”
Eddie replied.

“What are they saying?” Peggy asked. “What are they saying? Are we going to crash?”

“Charlie just asked Eddie if he wanted to land the plane, and Eddie said sure,” translated Holliday.

“Shit,” Peggy said.

Eddie pulled back on the wheel of the Norseman and took a long, shallow run just above the water, looking for deadheads and other obstacles. Ahead of them and to the right was a series of rickety docks jutting out onto the smooth dark river, the jetties crammed with boats of all shapes and sizes. Whatever town existed here seemed to be higher up the steep bank of the river—roughly made plank buildings with thatched roofs.

“São João Joaquin, gentlemen,” said Diaz, pointing.

Eddie finally eased back on the throttle and simultaneously pulled back on the wheel, guiding them down onto the water, the long aluminum cutting neat wakes on either side of the fuselage. It was a perfect landing.

“Muy bien.”
Diaz smiled.

“Gracias,”
replied Eddie.

Diaz took over the controls and guided them toward one of the longest piers that jutted out into the river. Across from Holliday, Peggy’s color was noticeably returning and her fingers had released their death clutch on the sides of her jump seat.

“There’re boys who will transfer the gear onto the boat, but we must go up the bank to speak with Nanderu.”

“Who’s Nanderu?” Peggy asked.

“The man who’s going to guide us upriver,” said Holliday.

They clambered out of the plane and headed up the rickety pier. A swarm of young men dressed in kiltlike skirts crowded around the Norseman like baby birds around their mother. The leader was about twelve years old with skin the color of buckwheat honey. He was the only one of the crew giving orders and the only one wearing a Chicago Bulls T-shirt.

Diaz led the way up a steep flight of roughly made plank steps to the top of the riverbank. There were half a dozen plank buildings along the bank, some of them cantilevered over the slope. There seemed to be a small boatyard where at least a score of men in their kiltlike clothes were building narrow plank-on-frame boats, the planks joined with handmade rope and the seams sealed with a thick white tarry sap applied with strips of bark dipped into turtle-shell containers. The sap dried to a hard brown color that looked exactly like a heavy layer of varnish.

Diaz entered an open-sided thatch-roof establishment with half a dozen or so men drinking at tables and a makeshift bar. The beer of choice appeared to be a brand called Brahma.

Two men were sitting at a large round table on the far left. One was in his sixties, his long jet-black hair threaded with strands of white, his skin the color of a seamed and ancient oak. The man beside him was in his thirties with the same long black hair.

His skin was a richly creamed coffee. Both men were high cheekboned and strong faced, their brown eyes large and intelligent. Neither man was drinking, but the younger man had a rifle in front of him on the table. It looked to Holliday like a Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk. 1, in use from the mid-1920s on and a staple of the British Army.

“This is Nenderu,” said Diaz, nodding toward the older man, “and this is his grandson, Tanaki. Tanaki’s English is quite good, so he will be your translator. He is also a fine hunter and tracker.”

“Tell your grandfather we are grateful for his help,” said Holliday.

The younger man turned to Nenderu and spoke briefly to him in Hupda.

The older man nodded formally at Holliday. “My grandfather says he is glad to help,” said Tanaki. The grandfather spoke again and once again Tanaki translated. “My grandfather says that we should get on the boat as quickly as possible. It is about to begin raining and it will be better to get under way before it does.”

“It’s bright sunshine out there,” Peggy whispered to Holliday.

“It’s his territory. We follow his advice,” he answered.

•   •   •

The heavy rain hissed against the thatch of Yachay’s hut with a sound like the crackling of a fire. The
xhenhet
paste was in a stone bowl between his knees.
Xhenhet
’s botanical name was
Banisteriopsis caapi
, also known as
ayahuasca
, a potent psychotropic drug that had been informing Yachay’s dreams and visions since he had first been selected as shaman at the age of thirteen.

Yachay leaned forward and scooped up the paste with two fingers, laying them across his tongue. He waited, humming quietly to himself, listening to the rain and staring at the two skulls on the altar. Both of the skulls had gold and silver teeth and both had eye sockets filled with the green stones the miners fought and killed for. The skull on the left had a talisman clutched between its upper and lower jaws. It was a round object of steel and glass that the man whose skull it was had valued highly for its magic. There was even a magic incantation written on the back that Yachay had pondered over many times. Three letters: PHW.

Yachay felt the
xhenhet
begin to take him and he sighed happily. Soon the skulls would talk to him and tell him what must be done.