He rolled to his knees and peered through a gap in the branches, feeling a surge of adrenaline when he saw that it wasn’t a helicopter. It was at least five—flying low and playing their powerful lights over the canopy.

“David Chism,” a male voice said over a megaphone. “We’re dropping supply caches and maps on how to find them. Get to one and use the phone to call us. We’ll set up an extraction.”

He felt Liu lean against him from behind, trying to see through the same hole. “They’ve come to save us,” she said. “Mr. Ward sent them, yes? It has to be. Gideon Auma has no helicopters.”

The amplified American voice started up again, repeating the same recorded message.

“David?” Liu prompted.

He found himself unable to respond. The slow loss of hope over the last few days had dulled his fear to the point that it had become nothing more than a drone in the back of his mind. Now, with the possibility of rescue flying overhead, he was terrified.

Lieutenant Jeremiah Grant was on point, giving speed and stealth roughly equal consideration as he slipped through the dense forest. All pretense at being an eco-tour group had been abandoned and it was a significant relief. No more fawning over rare plants, zooming in on colorful birds, or oohing and aahing over local mammals. But most of all, no more listening to the loud and largely inaccurate nature lectures from their scumbag guide.

And now, finally, something was happening. The question was what?

One thing he knew for certain was that he and his team were being watched and had been since the moment they’d penetrated the jungle. He was fifty-fifty that their guide was somehow communicating with the people tracking them and eighty-twenty that they would eventually be targeted. If Auma’s men found David Chism—or more likely his corpse—then the American team wandering around the forest would become useless to them. And Auma’s reputation was to kill anything that didn’t directly benefit him. Even worse would be if Grant were the one to find Chism. At that point, they would find themselves standing between Gideon Auma and what he wanted.

Heads they win, tails we lose.

It was a sentiment he’d tried to get across a few times to a nameless, faceless man on the other end of his satellite phone. Every description of the futility of their situation, no matter how graphic, simple, or emphatic, fell on deaf ears. The response from the bored, bureaucratic-sounding son of a bitch was always the same: keep searching.

It had been the same story for thousands of years. The rich and powerful tossed poor slobs like him into the meat grinder whenever they found it convenient. Grant—and apparently his men—had thought Anthony Cook was different. But now it was clear that he was just another carefully crafted illusion.