Jungle Up, page 33
Gina stroked Thomas’s arm with her hand.
He turned and gazed at her. His hair was longer than it had been when they dated, and there were a few wayward strands of gray. He had two weeks of light-brown stubble, dark circles under his eyes, and a gauntness in his cheeks. He looked exhausted; his gray-blue eyes, which had always mesmerized her, swam in a soft sea of pink.
Gina still couldn’t believe he was here. It had been two years since she’d seen him. Two years since she’d told him she was moving back to Bolivia.
It was the biggest regret of her life.
Could he forgive her? Had he already? Was that why he was here? Or was he only here out of a sense of duty?
“Hey,” Gina said. She wasn’t sure what her next words would be, whether she was going to ask him what made him come or to apologize for leaving him or to tell him how much she still loved him, that she’d never stopped. But she could tell that although Thomas was holding her hand, she knew it was Lacy who preoccupied his thoughts.
She tuned back to the conversation going on around her, just in time to hear Daniel say, “I’m fairly certain that, at least for a large percentage of sufferers, it will improve symptoms dramatically, if not cure them outright.”
He went on to describe how he had gone a month now without drinking the tea and that none of his symptoms had returned. He theorized that after the autobiotic strain was introduced to a person’s microbiome for a period of longer than two weeks, it would remain in their system.
Bill asked, “So all the millions of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, psoriasis sufferers, and Crohn’s disease sufferers—they can pop a few of these autobiotics for two weeks, and they’re healed?”
“A lot of research still needs to be done,” Daniel said with a smile, “but I’d say the prospects are good.”
Bill took a deep breath, then nodded at the soldiers. All four of them brought pistols up and trained them on their group.
“I’m sorry,” Bill said. “But I can’t allow that to happen.”
54
tribal village
august 23, 3:39 p.m.
days since abduction: 18
While we’d been listening to Daniel’s story, I’d stupidly lowered the shotgun. And at some point, the soldiers had slipped pistols out from ankle holsters—or somewhere else they’d been hiding them—and snuck up behind our group.
Rix, too, had been so entranced by Daniel’s story that he’d lowered his weapon. But unlike me, he wasn’t going down without a fight.
He twirled next to me and popped off a shot, but it missed its mark. Before he could pull the trigger a second time, one of the soldiers shot him twice: once in the arm and once in the leg.
The rifle fell from Rix’s hand and he crumpled to the ground.
“Put it down!” Bill shouted at me as I considered what to do. “Or you’re going to end up like your friend.”
I could probably get off one shot before I met the same fate as Rix. For now, I’d live to fight another day. Or, more likely, another hour. I lowered my weapon, then tossed it onto the soft earth. Behind me, Diego had done the same.
“You too,” Bill said to Patrick. “Hand it over.”
Patrick Sewall spun to face his longtime friend and colleague and shouted, “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“The gun,” Bill said. “Now.”
Patrick took two long, deep breaths, then pulled a shiny Glock pistol from his waistband. One of the soldiers stepped forward and took the gun.
“You’re crazy,” Patrick said, with a shake of his head. “Absolutely, batshit crazy.”
“I’m quite sane, actually,” Bill said, a sly grin flaring his meaty cheeks. “This isn’t some spur-of-the-moment decision. I’ve been planning this since the day I read Daniel’s email.”
“Daniel’s email?” Patrick asked, throwing up his hands. “What are you talking about?”
“June eleventh. We were at your house. We were getting ready to go to that banquet. You were in the shower, and I was finishing up work on the computer in your office. Lo and behold, in comes an email from Daniel.”
“You son of a bitch!” Patrick yelled, taking three quick steps toward Bill. Two soldiers stepped into his path, pointing their guns at Patrick’s chest.
“I can see why you’d be angry,” Bill said. “My keeping secret that your son was alive and well, but I had to. I couldn’t risk him bringing his cure back to the States. That’s why, in addition to your search-and-rescue team, I funded a search-and-rescue team of my own. Well, a search team, at any rate. They had slightly different instructions on what to do if they found Daniel.
“But sadly, my team couldn’t locate him either. Then when you spoke with Jordan Mae and realized exactly where Daniel had been headed and decided that you were going to find him yourself, I had to tag along. A few days into the mission, I took aside the soldiers and told them I’d pay each of them fifty thousand dollars if they helped me get rid of Daniel and his little discovery.”
“You planned on killing your godson?” Patrick asked, his voice raising three octaves.
“That he is, and I love him like a son. Just as I love you like a brother. But I love my position as CEO of the sixth largest pharmaceutical company in the world more. And that position would have been taken from me had Daniel’s superbacteria made it back to America.”
I was a bit confused. “Wouldn’t this superbacteria make you guys billions of dollars?”
I was surprised it was Patrick and not Bill who responded. Patrick said, “Native organisms in their original form can’t be patented. So we wouldn’t be able to patent the bacteria.”
“Couldn’t you patent the term autobiotics?” I asked. “Or make a bunch of autobiotic gummies or something?”
“Yeah, we could,” Daniel answered. “But it wouldn’t take long before another company got ahold of the strain of bacteria and began to replicate it. Within a couple years, there would be fifty companies selling the same product.”
“But that first year, when people found out they could be cured by your product—don’t you think you would make billions?”
Bill said, “Sure, we could make billions, maybe even ten billion in those first few years. But we make over twenty billion on Mireva every single year. Autoimmune disease is our golden goose. Ultimately, we would be curing our customer base.”
“He’s right,” Patrick said. “In the long run it would be catastrophic for the bottom line. But only a psychopath would let profits outweigh curing hundreds of millions of people.”
Daniel Sewall said, “Think about all those people suffering.”
Patrick glanced at his son. Much like how Lacy’s MS stung at my heart daily, I’m sure each time Patrick saw Daniel’s red, flaky skin or saw him grimace as he tried to make a fist, it felt like a nest of bees in his stomach.
“It’s not my job to think of them,” Bill said. “My job is to increase the value of the company for our shareholders.”
“Forget the shareholders,” Patrick said.
“Of course, you, the largest shareholder, would say that. You’ll be worth billions no matter what happens.”
“You’re a millionaire several times over yourself.”
“True. And I will be forever grateful for the opportunity you gave me. But I’ll be damned if I’m surrendering my position as CEO just because your son found some miracle bacteria.”
“Unbelievable,” Patrick scoffed.
“You couldn’t understand,” said Bill. “Everything has always come easy for you—school, girls, money, acclaim—but I’ve had to work and scrape for everything in my life.” He laughed to himself and said, “Do you think it was just a coincidence that Humphries was accused of sexual harassment five days before a shareholders’ meeting?”
“You?” Patrick said. “You did that?”
“Of course I did. Humphries was no letch. He was the consummate family man. I paid those three girls to make up that stuff about him. Paid them well.” Patrick was at a loss for words, and after a short pause, Bill said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
“And what exactly do you intend to do with us?” asked Martin.
“In your book, you said this was a tribe of headhunters.” Bill smiled. “So, I’m going to cut off all your heads.”
55
one mile from the village
august 23, 3:51 p.m.
expedition: day 10
“Twelve,” Andy said.
“Fourteen,” Darnell said back.
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen? That’s pretty ambitious. Okay, let’s hear it.”
Andy was set to start listing off characters from the Marvel Universe, when from ten feet behind him, he heard, “Twenty.”
Andy and Darnell turned and glanced over their shoulders.
“Really?” Darnell said. “You watch those movies?”
“Just a few of them,” said Vern. “I grew up on the comic books.”
A day and a half earlier, when Andy had decided he was going after Thomas to film his rescue attempt of Dr. Gina Brady, he was surprised when Vern had volunteered to come along.
“But what about your knee?” Andy had asked.
With a cigar in his mouth, the old codger did ten jumping jacks. “Good as new,” he’d said.
Andy wasn’t sure if he’d been faking his limp for the past three days or what, but he appeared to be fine.
Vern had traded in his duct-taped rucksack for someone else’s large pack and said, “Let’s get moving.”
And so they had. Andy, Vern, and Darnell moved at a brisk pace through the trampled-down jungle foliage. Luckily, they weren’t only navigating by broken branches and fallen leaves. When Thomas, Rix, and Diego had departed earlier that morning, Holland had insisted the trio attach orange GPS beacons to their packs.
Four hours later, when Andy had been getting ready to depart, Holland handed him the military-grade iPad and said, “The signal goes in and out, but this should help you find them.”
According to the signal, which had been strong at the time, Thomas and his crew were five miles ahead of them.
For the next several hours, Andy’s group made good time. When they made camp for the evening, only three and a half miles separated them from Thomas and the others.
That night, sleeping in a hammock, the weight of what Andy had decided to do hit him with full force. He was voluntarily going after a man who was searching for a ruthless tribe known to cut off its victims’ heads and consume their bodies.
He felt a panic attack coming on. The whistles, croaks, hoots, and buzzing of the jungle grew into a pulsating orchestra of his impending death. The dam was about to burst, and Andy was fumbling for his pills when he realized he hadn’t packed them. He was in the middle of the jungle, without Holland and the camp as a safety net, and he hadn’t packed his pills.
What had he been thinking?
He was on the verge of hyperventilating. He forced his brain to think of Libby.
He ran the clip back in his head of walking past the waiting Farah and toward Libby. Libby’s eyes widening as she realized he was headed right toward her. Andy leaning forward and kissing her. Really kissing her. A manly, going-off-to-war kiss.
A few moments later, Andy’s panic attack subsided.
The three of them woke up before the rising sun and headed through the jungle for the first hour with their headlamps on. They had closed the gap to less than three miles when the three red dots disappeared.
The iPad had a good signal, two out of four bars, which meant Thomas, Diego, and Rix’s GPS beacons had lost their signal.
Andy and the others followed a well-formed trail through the forest, but they couldn’t be positive they were traveling in the correct direction. Three hours later, Andy, once again checking the iPad, realized the it no longer had a signal. They must be traveling through the same area Thomas had when they’d lost their signal.
“Okay, then,” Darnell said. “Let’s hear it.”
Vern took a deep breath and then said, “Iron Man, Captain America, Deadpool, Thor, Thanos, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Hulk, She-Hulk—”
“She-Hulk?” Andy interrupted.
Vern smiled. “Oh yeah! Big, green, and beautiful.”
Andy laughed.
“She got together with Luke Cage. So yeah, Luke Cage—that’s ten.” Vern rattled off five more names.
“Keep going,” Darnell said.
Vern continued with more names as Darnell counted. When Vern exhausted his recall, Darnell said, “Thirty-eight. That’s incredible.”
Vern said, “I’m a man of many skills.”
“That you are,” Darnell said.
Andy stopped to check the iPad. “Guys, the signal is back. They’re only a mile away. And better yet, they aren’t moving.”
The red dots blinked when they were on the move, but now the screen showed them as a solid, steady red.
“They must have found the village,” Darnell said.
“Yeah, but those dots are their packs. They could have dropped them and still be on the move.”
“Either way,” Andy said. “There’s a good chance the village is close by.”
“Time to get our weapons ready,” Vern said. “Just in case these cannibals ambush us.”
All three had guns. Darnell had forgone the large camera and brought a small handheld, which he could fit in his pack. He held one of the pistols in his left hand.
Vern pulled his pack off his back, placed it gently on the ground, and opened it. For the first time, Andy noticed a large “JR” written in black sharpie on the gray cushioning.
Andy asked, “Is that—?”
“Yep,” Vern said. “It’s Jonathan Roth’s pack. I didn’t think he’d be needing it any longer.”
“What’d you do with all his stuff?”
“Left it in his tent.”
Vern dug his hand into the pack and pulled something out. He showed it to the two others and said, “I brought some party favors.”
“A grenade?” Darnell said, laughing.
“Thought they might help us out in a pinch.”
Andy said, “Those, um, look a little old.”
“Vietnam.”
“You have old grenades from Vietnam?” Andy took three steps back from Vern. “Aren’t you worried they might explode?”
“Actually, the opposite. I’m worried they might not explode.”
Vern wanted to test one out to be sure. “Give me a minute,” he said, taking the grenade and working his way into the thick jungle.
Darnell said, “Twenty bucks says he comes back without one of his arms.”
“I’ll take that bet.”
“Give me five to one odds?”
“Sure.”
Twenty seconds later, there was a loud explosion. Andy’s entire body cringed. A flood of birds flew from every tree nearby. The jungle went into a thirty-second frenzy.
“I hope they didn’t hear that at the village,” Darnell said.
Andy doubted that was possible. The jungle was one enormous pair of headphones. It amplified sounds close by, but far-off sounds were muffled by the thick foliage.
“Where the hell is he?” Darnell asked a minute later. “You think he blew himself up?”
“Maybe.”
It was another long minute before Vern emerged from the thicket of green. He had a wide-eyed look on his face. His maroon hat, which Andy had never seen him without, was gone.
“Sounds like they work,” Darnell said.
“Um, yeah,” Vern mumbled.
Andy couldn’t help but notice that Vern had his GPS out.
Why is he marking the coordinates of the area?
“How many more of those thingies do you have?” Darnell asked.
Vern laughed to himself and then said, “Four more.”
≈
For the next thirty minutes, they moved swiftly through the jungle. The iPad kept its signal and the three red dots held steady in the same location.
When they were within a quarter mile away, they came to a sweeping river.
Darnell came to a stop. “Look.”
Andy’s eyebrows knit together as he took in the spear sticking from the tree trunk.
“Keep your guns up,” said Vern. “They could be anywhere.”
Andy swiveled his head, peering left and right. The villagers could be five feet from him, and he wouldn’t see them. And if someone did jump out, would Andy even be able to shoot him? He hadn’t even been able to kill a deer during his brother’s bachelor party hunt. How was he going to shoot a human?
The three of them had just started up the hill, when Andy heard a series of squeaks. He turned, glanced around, then up.
Hanging from a thick branch, reaching an arm out toward him, she squeaked twice more.
It was Camila.
56
tribal village
august 23, 4:14 p.m.
days since abduction: 18
I was having a hard time getting comfortable. But I suppose when you’re sitting on the hard earth with a six-inch-thick pole in your crotch and your arms and legs zip-tied together on the opposite side of the pole, that’s to be expected.
I slid my wrists up the pole as high as I could—about eight inches above my head—and brought my arms down as quickly and violently as possible. But aside from the heavy black plastic cutting into my raw wrists, nothing happened.
Had my restraints been your run-of-the-mill zip-ties, there’s a chance I might have been able to break them—there are several different methods, all of which can be found on YouTube—but these were heavy-duty police zip-cuffs. I knew from my time on the force that they had a 250-pound tensile strength. The only person I’d ever seen break a pair was a three-hundred-pound Samoan. And he was high on PCP.
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