Bill rolled off of me, clawing at the EpiPen sticking in his right eye.

  I was looking over my shoulder for the knife when I heard a loud gasp.

  I turned.

  Bill had removed the EpiPen, but his eye was destroyed. The needle and the force of the blow had split it in two, and blood filled the entire socket.

  But Bill wasn’t holding his eye. He was holding his chest, his right hand clutched to his heart.

  I pushed myself up to my knees with a grunt and crawled until I was directly over him.

  He sucked in ragged breaths, his good eye open wide and pleading.

  The adrenaline had caused the overweight and aging man to have a massive coronary.

  “Bill,” I snapped. “Bill.”

  His good eye settled on me.

  I smiled and said, “I told you I was going to kill you.”

  60

  tribal village

  august 23, 4:43 p.m.

  days since abduction: 18

  After Bill took his last breath, it took me a while to push myself to my feet. I had picked the knife up off the ground and was hobbling back to free Martin and Rix, when a gunshot rang out.

  I turned.

  Bill’s three goons had returned. Two stood over Bill’s corpse. A third strode toward me with his gun pointed at my chest, his brown face twisted in a snarl.

  I could imagine why he was so upset. I’d just killed the man who had promised him $50,000.

  I thought about anything I could offer the man, but I’d given my emergency money to Diego, and before we left, he in turn had given it to Carlos, who’d promised to get the $10,000 to Diego’s wife.

  Martin was still tied up behind me. “Tell him I can arrange for him to be paid—the same amount, fifty grand—if he lets us go.”

  I had no intention of paying the soldier. I was stalling.

  Martin translated my offer to the soldier, but unlike Benecio, who had appeared to consider it for a fast second, the soldier shook his head.

  I didn’t blame him. He would be risking too much. Freeing us might put him in jail or, worse, in the ground. If I were in his shoes, I’d kill us all, then clear out.

  The two other soldiers joined him. They had a quick exchange in Spanish.

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the surrounding jungle. Gina and Camila had made it to the cover of the forest. Hopefully, they could meet up with Andy and Vern and somehow find a way to survive this nightmare.

  The trio of Bolivian soldiers broke their huddle, then began walking forward, their guns up and trained on me.

  “¡Alto!” a voice rang out.

  The soldiers turned, as did I, and watched the owner of the voice pick his way from the foliage where he was hidden and walk to the edge of the village.

  Vern.

  He was wearing a large red pack and his hands were up over his head. For the first time since seeing him, he didn’t have his maroon hat pulled down over his scraggly gray hair.

  “Get out of here!” I shouted at him. “Find Gina and Camila and get back to base camp!”

  Vern shook his head.

  Two of the soldiers turned and pointed their guns at the approaching sixty-five-year-old, who, I couldn’t help but notice, was no longer limping.

  Vern shouted something to the men in Spanish. The soldiers turned to one another, their mood elevated by whatever Vern had said.

  “What did he say?” I asked Martin.

  Martin replied, “He said he had something he could give them. Something worth a lot of money.”

  When Vern was ten yards away, one of the soldiers told him to stop.

  Vern did. Then he pulled off his pack and set it on the ground. He dug his hand in, rooted around, then pulled something out.

  It was shiny and heavy.

  A golden mask.

  The three soldiers gasped. One stepped forward and took the mask from Vern. Another soldier picked up the pack and turned it over. Several items fell out, including a silver alpaca and the Incan ceremonial knife that Andy had shown me a picture of.

  I shook my head. That old son of a bitch was the one who had looted the cache.

  Vern must have been faking his knee injury the whole time, so no one would suspect him when he snuck off to the ruins and stole the priceless artifacts.

  And here he was, buying my life and several others’ lives with his bounty.

  After a quick meeting, the three soldiers said all was good.

  We were free.

  They quickly took their treasure and disappeared into the jungle.

  ≈

  I freed both Martin and Rix from their restraints. Rix had regained consciousness, but he was in a lot of pain.

  “We’ll get you fixed up here soon, buddy,” I told him.

  “The sooner the better,” he said with a grimace.

  “Thomas!” Gina ran out of the forest toward me, with Camila bouncing around her neck. She must not have gone far, probably waiting and hiding at the edge of the forest.

  I pulled both girls into a tight hug, then kissed Gina hard on the mouth.

  “Yum,” Gina said. “I missed those.”

  A moment later, Andy crawled from the bushes. I was surprised to see Darnell next to him, holding a small video camera.

  So that’s why he had come: the documentary.

  “Andy Depree saves the day,” I said.

  He waved me off.

  “No, really,” I said. “That bit with Camila was genius.”

  “I didn’t want to put her in harm’s way, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get a knife to you.”

  “It worked.”

  “Can’t believe we captured that all on video,” Darnell said. “Crazy footage.”

  “I want an executive producer credit,” I said.

  “Hey!”

  It was Diego. I’d forgotten about him.

  “Cut me loose!” he yelled from across the village.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I took a couple of steps in the direction of Diego, Patrick, and Daniel, then stopped. I waved Gina forward and said, “You might want to come with.”

  The two of us walked through the center of the village. As we passed Bill Wyeth’s lifeless body, Gina stopped momentarily.

  I told her about the EpiPen and how it had caused him to have a heart attack.

  “He had high blood pressure.” She leaned over him and said, “You should have taken your pills, Bill.”

  The gun Bill had thrown to the ground was a few feet from him. I picked it up, then slid it into my waistband. Gina, Camila, and I continued to the five large poles where Diego, Patrick, and Daniel were tied.

  I cut through Diego’s restraints and helped him to his feet.

  Camila went crazy, squeaking and leaning away from Gina’s chest toward Diego.

  “She likes him,” Gina said.

  “That’s her dad. At least, she thinks he is.”

  Diego held Camila close, and she calmed down.

  I leaned down and cut the restraints from around Daniel Sewall’s wrists and ankles.

  I helped him to his feet and said, “My sister has MS, so I’m counting on you to get that superbacteria of yours back to the States.”

  “I promise,” he said. Then, his face falling, he said, “I’m sorry about everything.” He turned to Gina and said, “I know you don’t know me, but I can honestly tell you that my dad would never have done you any serious harm.”

  Gina didn’t look convinced.

  “I think he’s telling the truth,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  I pulled the Glock from the waistband of my pants and said, “This was the gun Bill had, the one he took from Patrick.”

  I clicked out the magazine and showed it to Gina. The magazine was hollow and empty.

  Gina glared at Patrick and said, “Your gun wasn’t loaded?”

  He shook his head. “I never meant to harm anyone. I just wanted to find my son.”

  I handed Gina the knife and said, “Your call.”

  She took the knife, knelt down, and stared at Patrick. Stared at the man who had kidnapped her eighteen days earlier.

  Part of me wanted her to jam the knife into his throat, or at the very least, his leg. But she showed restraint and sliced through the zip-cuffs on his ankles and then his wrists.

  “I really am sorry,” Patrick said. “I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

  “Yes, you will,” Gina said. “You will help your son get his bacteria back to the States, and you will lower the prices of all your medications back to something reasonable.”

  “Got it,” he said. “It will be my first move when I return as CEO of Belippa. And you can bet your ass we’re going to get that autobiotic figured out and distributed to the public. And for cheap. And your friend here, Thomas—we’ll get one of the first batches of autobiotics to his sister.”

  “I would appreciate that,” I said.

  Gina leaned down and offered Patrick her hand.

  He took it.

  She helped him to his feet.

  Then with all her might, she kicked him in the balls.

  61

  tribal village

  august 23, 5:03 p.m.

  expedition: day 10

  “I can’t believe you stole the artifacts,” Andy said, clapping the man on the shoulder. “And you faked that limp!”

  They were grouped in a semicircle near the poles where Thomas and the others had been restrained.

  “I didn’t steal anything,” Vern said. “And I wasn’t faking anything.”

  “Come on, Vern,” Thomas said. “We know you took the artifacts. And thank God you did, or else we’d all be dead right now.”

  “I didn’t,” Vern said, putting up his hands. “Swear to the Almighty.”

  Andy still had a hard time believing him. He asked, “Then how’d you end up with them?”

  Vern nodded at the large red pack on the ground.

  “No way,” Andy said. “Roth?”

  Vern nodded. “I didn’t want to lug my shitty pack around anymore, so I snuck into Roth’s tent and found his pack. He was dead, he wouldn’t need it. I was emptying it out when I found the artifacts.”

  “That asshole,” Darnell said.

  “Why would Roth take the artifacts?” Thomas asked. “Didn’t his whole film depend on them?”

  Andy said, “I think he knew the ruins probably weren’t Paititi. And if the ruins weren’t Paititi, his documentary would lose a lot of its magic. He could unload the relics on the black market for a couple million. Pay off his debts.”

  “I thought he was raking it in,” Thomas said.

  “According to Libby, the IRS was coming after him for a decade of back taxes.”

  “So those artifacts could have been his salvation.”

  “I guess so,” Andy said.

  “But then what about your knee?” Thomas asked Vern. “How could you go from barely walking in base camp to trudging twenty miles?”

  “Cortisone,” Vern said.

  “Cortisone?” Thomas said with a laugh. From the way he said it, Andy guessed Thomas had his own experience with the stuff.

  “Yeah,” Vern said. “Holland has a bad back, so he brought a few shots with him. When Andy decided to track you down, Holland said he’d feel a lot better if I went along with. When I told him there was no way I could go, my knee the way it was, he said he had something that could help. Stuck me in the knee, and ten minutes later, I felt like I could climb Everest.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Speaking of cortisone,” Rix said from where he was sprawled out on the ground, his leg and shoulder a bloody mess. “Does anyone have any?”

  Gina knelt beside him and said, “I almost forgot about you.”

  “Don’t forget about me,” Rix said. He sounded loopy, as if he’d been out drinking all night.

  “How are we going to get him back to base camp?” Thomas said. “Can we make some sort of gurney?”

  Martin said, “We should let the shaman take a look at him.”

  “He’s right,” Gina said. “He’s in pretty bad shape. I think between the shaman and me, we can get him stabilized though.”

  Speaking of the villagers. Andy still hadn’t seen any sign of them. He asked, “Where is everyone?”

  “That’s a good question,” Thomas said.

  Andy waved to Darnell and said, “Give me that camera.”

  Andy turned the camera on and walked briskly past several small wooden houses. Andy had been so caught up in the rescue mission that he hadn’t taken the time to realize how beautiful the craftsmanship of the woodwork was.

  He bypassed another two houses, then came to a large fifty-foot-wide square structure. There were carved wooden columns leading up a small staircase.

  It was a temple.

  Andy vaulted up the stairs and found Daniel Sewall already there. He was attempting to push aside a large stone that had been rolled in front of the door by the soldiers.

  Andy set the camera down on the ground and helped Daniel push the stone away from the door.

  “Thanks,” Daniel said, pulling the door open.

  Daniel peeked his head into the temple and said in Spanish, “It’s okay. You can all come out now.”

  Slowly, the villagers began to exit the large building. There must have been close to two hundred people packed into the temple.

  Daniel watched as tribesmen dressed in nothing more than red loincloths filed out. They were soon joined by men and women in their traditional clothing. The men were dressed in ivory-colored sleeveless tunics and sandals. The women wore brightly colored dresses with a sash around the waist.

  The villagers spoke among themselves.

  Andy heard snippets of Spanish, but for the most part, he heard another language.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  The villagers were speaking Quechua.

  Andy took off running, wending his way through the villagers who were making their way back to their homes. He made it to the far side of the village and to the steep hill that made up the back side of the community.

  “Oh my God!” Andy exclaimed.

  He panned the camera over the steep back hill that had been cleared of underbrush and had terraces cuts into its sides. Long rows of food grew from each of the terraces. At the bottom of the hill, grazing behind a small fence were several animals.

  Alpacas.

  Andy turned at the sound of footsteps. A family was making their way to the small wooden house nearby. A man, a woman, and a small girl.

  The girl was holding something in her hands.

  It was red and corded.

  Andy couldn’t believe his eyes.

  It was a quipu.

  Andy’s head was about to explode, when he heard a voice behind him. He turned.

  “I hope you understand.”

  Martin Lefbrevor was holding a spear, pointing it at Andy’s chest.

  Andy gulped.

  “You can’t show that footage to anyone,” Martin said. “These people’s lives will be destroyed. Researchers, historians—no one will ever leave them alone. They could contract diseases, just like they did five hundred years ago, and be wiped out for good.”

  “So it’s true?” Andy said.

  “Yes,” Martin said. “These are the last true Incans.”

  Andy thought back to what he’d said in his interview with Libby.

  Some people believe Paititi is a lost city of gold, while others think it’s simply the last refuge of the Incas after they were conquered by the Spanish. Others believe Paititi to be a lost people, the last pure ancestors of the Incas.

  This was Paititi.

  62

  seattle

  february 26, 11:53 a.m.

  “What about over there?” Gina asked.

  I said, “I thought we tried it over there.”

  “No, we put the other end table there.”

  Gina and I had been arranging—and rearranging—furniture for the past three hours.

  I said, “It looks good where it is.”

  Gina shook her head. “Look at my diagram again. It looks better on the computer.”

  A few years earlier, such domestication would have driven me crazy, but now, in all honesty, I was enjoying it. Thinking about how much time and energy Gina put into where our new couch and our new end tables should go gave me that hot-cocoa-belly feeling.

  It had been a little over six months since Gina and I nearly had our heads cut off in the middle of the Amazon jungle.

  We’d stayed with the villagers that night, before heading back to base camp at first light—the villagers who, I would later learn from Andy, were the last true Incas.

  Gina and the shaman cleaned Rix’s two bullet wounds, and Gina started Rix on a wide-spectrum antibiotic. Since he was in no condition to travel, it was decided that it would be best if Rix stayed behind with Daniel, Patrick, and Martin, who planned to remain in the village for another several weeks and continue Daniel’s research.

  The rest of us—Gina, Andy, Vern, Darnell, Diego, Camila, and I—woke up early on the morning of August 24 and started the twenty-two-mile trek back to base camp.

  When we made camp that night, Camila began squeaking loudly. It took us a few moments to notice a large female sloth hanging from one of the nearby trees. Diego set Camila on a branch of the same tree. Curious, Camila slowly made her way over to the wild sloth. When she was within a couple of feet, Camila’s eyes opened wide and her tiny mouth turned up into the most magnificent little smile. When we woke up the next morning, Camila was nestled into the side of the wild sloth. Diego was both tearful and happy as he said, “I think this her new home.”

  We all spent a few minutes saying goodbye to Camila. I gave her a tickle on the tummy, a few kisses on the nose, and thanked her for saving my and Gina’s lives.

 

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