Jungle Up, page 27
Of course, the villagers didn’t autopsy their dead, and they could have confused the symptoms of cancer with another malady, but it had struck Martin as odd. So odd that on returning to his native Canada, the ethnobotanist wrote in his new book that the Nsé-Eja may be immune to cancer.
Of course, this had been after his escape.
According to his book, that happened on his seventeenth day of captivity. Lefbrevor’s death was just days away, earmarked for the full moon. While the villagers were sleeping, Martin was able to break free of his cage and flee into the jungle.
Without his pack, supplies, or compass, the ethnobotanist nearly succumbed to the jungle, but survive he did. For twenty-six days, before finally finding his way to a small village.
Thirty years later, Patrick tracked down the retired professor in Calgary and begged him to take him to the tribe. Patrick even offered Martin an enormous payday. But Martin had maintained there was no sum of money great enough to get him to go back to the tribe. Not after what they did to him. Which is why, as he’d done countless times before, he refused to return to the Amazon jungle.
It wasn’t until Patrick decided to take the man by force that Martin revealed that the ruins and the tribe were located in northeastern Bolivia.
Everything was going according to plan until their second day in the jungle, when Martin made a run for it. One of the soldiers hired to keep them safe from the countless jungle threats spooked the fleeing doctor, and Martin had fallen, hitting his head on a tree trunk.
Bill glanced to his left.
Gina Brady was sitting in the dirt, going through a series of yoga poses. She was in incredible shape and unequivocally attractive, and her green-flecked hazel eyes sparkled with intelligence. She would turn the head of most red-blooded males, and Bill had witnessed the soldiers gazing at her lustily on numerous occasions. Or perhaps, vengefully. It was so easy to forget that Gina had killed one of the soldiers. But Bill couldn’t blame the doctor, after all, they had kidnapped her.
After Martin had fallen and hit his head, there was little they could do. Even after working in the medical field for so many years, Patrick had no actual medical training. And if Martin died, there would be no chance of finding the tribe. Luckily, one of the soldiers they hired was a Yanomina Indian and knew of a village nearby that had an American doctor living among them. Three of the soldiers had set out, and they returned with Dr. Gina Brady a day later.
It was remarkable she’d been able to keep Martin alive this long.
On that note, Patrick emerged from Martin’s tent. He stalked his way toward the several artifacts the soldiers had excavated from the earth. He picked up a large ceramic bowl and threw it into the side of the pyramid, where it shattered into a hundred pieces.
The monkeys in the trees started screeching and howling.
It took Bill a moment to realize it wasn’t the shattering of the artifact that had put the monkeys in a frenzy; it was the sound of a helicopter flying overhead.
42
base camp
august 22, 7:41 a.m.
days since abduction: 17
When I was eleven, my best friend and I had a sleepover. We set up our sleeping bags in the finished basement and watched The Goonies. The movie was our favorite—Goonies never say die!—and we’d seen it several times before. When it was over, when we knew my parents were fast asleep, we popped in the second movie of our double feature: Candyman.
The R-rated movie—which Rob Gillis’s older brother rented for us from Blockbuster—followed the legend of the Candyman, who supposedly appears whenever someone looks in the mirror and repeats his name five times, then he slashes his victims with a metal hook.
When the movie was over, all the lights in the basement were on, and Rob and I were each holding one of my dad’s golf clubs. Rob dared me to go into the bathroom by myself and say “Candyman” five times in the mirror.
There was no way I was doing it, and I double-dared him back. He shook his head, and then, as often happened, he triple-dog-dared me. Up to that point in my life, I’d only chickened out on one triple-dog-dare—to do a backflip off the high dive at the pool—and Rob had never let me live it down. I told him I would do it.
I went into the downstairs bathroom, which was always cold because of the concrete floor. I looked at my reflection in the mirror—which, with a bad bowl cut done by my mother and a mouthful of braces, I wasn’t too keen on—and took a deep breath.
“Candyman,” I said. “Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Can—”
I couldn’t finish the fifth one. I turned and ripped the door to the bathroom open and ran to the couch.
Thankfully, Rob didn’t hold it against me. He said he wasn’t sure if he could have even said the name once. I might point out he wet his sleeping bag that night, though I might have too, if I’d fallen asleep for even a second.
It wasn’t until my freshmen year of college that I would finally have the guts to say “Candyman” a fifth time in the mirror.
I swiveled my gaze across the large group circled around me in the white canopy tent—Holland, Rix, Vern, Diego, Andy, Lieutenant Goytia, and Darnell—and said, “And guess what, the Candyman didn’t show up. He didn’t kill me.”
Blank faces stared back.
Holland wrinkled his nose and said, “That’s a great story, Thomas, but I’m not sure how it applies here.”
“It applies, Mark,” I said, “because it was a silly superstition. Just like with this Nsé-Eja tribe.”
“No, no, no,” Diego said, shaking his head. “Nsé-Eja is no movie. They real. The jungle is filled with dark spirits.”
When I had first gathered the group, I told Diego to tell everyone what he told me the previous evening.
So Diego recounted the legend of the Nsé-Eja.
They were a ruthless tribe hidden in the deepest recesses of the rainforest who, many years ago, had made a pact with the jungle spirits. They would protect it from all threats, and in return the jungle would give them dark powers. A few unlucky souls who had stumbled upon the tribe had been eaten—their heads removed, then hung from trees as trophies. And the lucky few who escaped, well, they weren’t so lucky after all, as the dark spirits of the Nsé-Eja would overpower their souls and turn them into cannibals themselves.
At which point, I had started in on my quite applicable Candyman story.
“You have to understand,” Andy said to me, putting a hand on Diego’s shoulder. “Myth and superstition are an important part of Latin American culture and history. This isn’t a legend to him. It’s as real as the Candyman was to you when you were eleven.” He pointed over his shoulder to where Juan Pablo and Carlos stood fifty feet away. “That’s why they won’t even come over to the tent. They’re afraid to even hear ‘Nsé-Eja,’ in case it upsets the spirits.”
At that utterance, Diego cringed slightly. Camila, who was holding onto his neck, gave a timid squeak.
Lieutenant Goytia, who I no longer suspected of having anything to do with Gina’s abduction, twitched his heavy mustache and said, “What Andy said is true. I heard this legend from my grandfather growing up. When I would do something wrong, he would tell me he was going to take me into the jungle and leave me for the Nsé-Eja.”
I nodded.
Part of me hoped Lieutenant Goytia would lend me a few of his soldiers to go after Gina, but I had no doubt that, much like Juan Pablo and Carlos, they wouldn’t dare sign on.
“Good luck,” Goytia said, extending his hand. “I hope you find her.” He turned on his heels and exited the tent.
From the chair where he was seated, Vern said, “You know I would come if I could.” He rubbed his right knee. “But I would only slow you down.”
“I know,” I told him.
And as for slowing me down, well, I wasn’t sure exactly how fast I was going to be able to move. I was feeling a click better than the previous day, but that wasn’t saying much, considering I’d been on my deathbed. Just walking from our campsite to the main camp was a struggle. And although my fever had abated and my joint pain was down to a manageable 8.4, Holland told me the virus was notorious for laying low for a few days before roaring back even stronger.
But I wasn’t letting anything stop me from finding Gina. Not the jungle, not dengue, not even fucking Thanos himself.
Every second I wasted was another second she was being held hostage by her Belippa captors, or another second she was closer to being eaten by this bloodthirsty tribe.
“I would go myself,” Holland said, “or I’d send Rix along. But with what happened to Roth yesterday, this whole documentary is now up in the air. I can’t risk it.” He nodded at where Goytia had disappeared into the trees and said, “And after what you told me about him taking that bribe at the airport, I’m a little dubious about him and his small army.”
I didn’t blame Holland. He was responsible for the expedition, not Gina’s rescue. And he was right to be suspicious of Goytia. Nevertheless, I could tell it was killing him not to help.
“You know what?” Holland said. “On second thought, I can handle Goytia on my own. Rix will go with you.”
Rix gave a quick nod and said, “We’ll find your girl.”
I felt better with him along, but no matter how much jungle warfare experience he had, I still needed Diego.
“What about you, Diego?” I asked. “I can’t do this without you.”
“I have family,” he said. “I need to take care of them. And if I escape, I don’t want to eat them.”
I scoffed. “You’re not going to become a cannibal.”
“I don’t know,” Andy said. “Weirder stuff has happened.”
I glared at him, and he added, “But yeah, I mean, he’s right, Diego, that whole cannibal thing is probably hocus-pocus.”
“Exactly.”
I was surprised when Darnell said, “What do you say, Andrew? You up for a little adventure?”
Andy’s face fell. I noticed that he quickly glanced over his shoulder to where Farah and the rest of the expedition team were having a meeting of their own under command central. “Oh, I don’t know. I think we need to stay here and—”
“Dude, I was kidding,” Darnell said with a smile.
“Oh, right,” Andy said with a forced laugh.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the $10,000 Vern had instructed me to stash away for an emergency.
I held it out to Diego and said, “This is yours if you come.”
43
ruins
august 16, 10:15 a.m.
days since abduction: 11
Gina finished off the last of her morning rice and beans, then glanced upward at the tiny blue holes in the towering canopy.
Less than fifteen hours earlier, a helicopter had flown directly overhead. Immediately, she had thought of Thomas. It had been six days since she’d left the voicemail on his phone; surely, the helicopter was looking for her.
Gina had bolted from the shadows to a small area—maybe fifteen feet in diameter—where the sun shone through a break in the canopy. She screamed and waved her arms.
She had caught only the faintest glimmer of black as the helicopter zoomed past, leaving the tall canopy swaying in its wake. She continued staring upward, wondering if she’d blown her only chance at rescue, when she felt a hard sting on her cheek.
She brought her hand to her face where Patrick Sewall had struck her. “Don’t you dare do that again!” he shouted, the cords in his neck taut.
Fifteen hours later, Gina’s cheek still stung from the blow. She set the bowl down on the rock beside her and peered at the ceramic artifact fifteen feet away.
The ground around the bowl was dark and wet. Not long after Patrick struck her, a storm had blown in. It rained for most of the night and again that morning, and Gina couldn’t be certain the words she’d scrawled into the soft earth hadn’t turned into a muddy mess. Hopefully, the weight of the heavy bowl would keep the earth beneath it dry.
But maybe it wouldn’t come to that.
If Martin could keep up his charade for a few more days, maybe the helicopter would return. Or they might encounter a search-and-rescue group on the ground. The longer they stayed in one place, the better. It was odd, but Gina could feel that Thomas was close. He was in Bolivia; she was certain.
She turned at the sound of feet slurping through the mud. Patrick was pulling Martin behind him, stalking toward the pyramid. Martin glanced in her direction and gave her the softest of winks.
Patrick Sewall had kept them separated the previous night—probably to prevent them from trading information and coming up with an escape plan—and Gina was forced to sleep in one of the soldiers’ tents. Thankfully, Bill had forced three of the soldiers to cram into another tent and Gina was alone.
Fortunately, in the hour before Gina informed the soldiers that Martin was awake, the ethnobotanist had told her everything: About the twelve years he’d spent bouncing around the Amazon, studying with different shamans and tribal healers. About finding the golden jaguar and then the pyramid. About being captured by the Nsé-Eja and how they had kept him locked in a cage. How, before his escape, Martin had learned that the ruthless tribe was seemingly immune to cancer. About the publication of Martin’s book, which detailed the whole ordeal, and his meteoric rise through academia. How, two weeks earlier, Patrick Sewall, the president of Belippa Pharmaceuticals, had stuck Martin with a syringe just inside the door of his Calgary home and kidnapped him. And how Patrick was trying to get Martin to lead him to the village that had nearly killed him thirty years earlier so they could find the cure for cancer.
Presently, Gina watched as Patrick and Martin halted just feet from the base of the pyramid. Patrick pointed and said, “You’re telling me that you’ve never seen this pyramid before?”
Martin shook his head. “I think I would remember a pyramid in the middle of the jungle.”
“You took a picture of this. It was in your book.”
“I don’t remember writing any book.”
Patrick closed his eyes and grunted. Glancing in Gina’s direction, he said, “How does he remember everything before 1982 and everything that happened the last two days, but he doesn’t remember anything in between?”
Gina stood and stepped toward the pair. “He’s suffered severe trauma to his temporal lobe, which is one of the memory centers. His short-term memory appears to be fine. But those long-term memories that appear to be lost, they could return in a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or a few years.” Then she added, “Or they could be lost forever.”
“I wish I could help you find this tribe,” Martin said, “but I don’t remember any of this.”
“Not even the golden jaguar?”
“No, uh, I don’t.”
Gina, who grew up playing poker with her father, noticed the small wrinkle of Martin’s nose before he said the words.
Patrick noticed it as well.
“You do remember!” Patrick screeched.
“I don’t!”
Patrick gripped Martin’s head behind his ears and pressed his thumb into the healing wound.
Martin screamed.
“What year is it?” Patrick shouted.
“1982!”
“WHAT . . . YEAR . . . IS . . . IT?” Patrick repeated, grinding his thumb even deeper.
Martin wailed against the pain, then finally, he uttered the correct year.
“I knew it!” Patrick said, smirking. “Now, I will ask again, do you remember seeing this pyramid?”
“Yes,” Martin whimpered.
“Do you know how to get to the Nsé-Eja tribe?”
The ethnobotanist didn’t respond.
Patrick gritted his teeth and dug his nail into the now open wound. Blood cascaded over Patrick’s fingers and ran down onto Martin’s ear.
Martin could no longer stomach the pain. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes, I do.”
≈
They had been following Martin through the jungle for nearly three days.
Gina kept looking for opportunities for her and Martin to escape, but none arose. Patrick was being cautious. Both she and Martin had a soldier in front and in back of them at all times. And at night, her tent was zip-tied closed and her ankles shackled together with military zip cuffs.
Gina was still very much a captive. And now that Martin was alive and well, Gina’s life was even more at risk. What reason did Patrick have to keep her alive? She’d outlived her usefulness.
“Where the hell are we?” asked Patrick Sewall. “In your book, you say it’s two days’ travel from the pyramid.”
The ethnobotanist checked a compass heading every now and again, but for the most part, it appeared, at least to Gina, that he had no idea where he was taking them.
“It’s not too much farther,” Martin said.
“You’ve been saying that for a day and a half!” said Patrick.
“No, really, it’s just up ahead.”
Patrick stormed forward, and just like he had three days earlier, he dug his fingers into the wound behind Martin’s left ear. Squeezing tightly, he said, “Are you leading us on a wild goose chase?”
“No, no, I swear.”
Gina watched as Patrick gritted his teeth, pressing his fingers into the wound as hard as he could. “Is the tribe close?”
Martin shook his head from side to side. “I can’t go back there,” the ethnobotanist wailed. “They kept me in a cage. I can’t. I won’t. You’ll have to kill me.”
Patrick released Martin’s shoulder. Martin crumpled to the ground. “I can’t go back,” he sobbed. “I can’t go back.”
Patrick pulled a gun from the waist of his pants and pointed it at Martin.
He shouted, “Martin, look at me!”
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