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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  63. Author’s Note

Gina shook herself back to the present and leaned down to scrutinize El Jefe’s second tattoo. It was three inches big—King Tut.

Why would a narco boss have a tattoo of an Indiana Jones quote and an ancient Egyptian pharaoh?

After a moment, Gina’s mouth opened wide.

It was because El Jefe wasn’t a narcotrafficker.

He was an archaeologist.

30

30

t1
august 19, 4:12 p.m.
days since abduction: 14

The odds were staggering. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Andy Depree was on his hands and knees, digging in the dirt. Even from twenty feet away, I could see the wispy orange mustache the anthropologist had grown since I’d seen him a week earlier.

“Andy!” I shouted. “Andy!”

He craned his head up and squinted. It took him a moment to recognize me. “Thomas?”

I pushed aside several branches and made my way to where he’d risen to his feet. His face was contorted, like he was trying to do the Sunday sudoku in pen. I guessed our chance meeting was an even bigger surprise for him than it was for me. At no point in our airplane conversation had I disclosed that I was heading into the jungle as well.

“What? How?” he mumbled. “Last I saw you—”

I finished for him: “—I was being detained by airport officials.”

“What are you doing out here? And who are those other people?”

As he looked a bit apprehensive, I surmised Andy thought I was involved in something illicit.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine who went missing in the jungle. That’s why I was on your flight. It was the fastest way I could get down here.”

“Oh.”

I waved the others forward and introduced them. They all shook hands with Andy. At the sight of Camila poking her head out from behind Diego, Andy’s mouth opened wide and he said, “Oh, my goodness. Is that a sloth? May I?”

“Ask Diego.”

Diego nodded and Andy gently gave Camila a pat on the head.

“She’s so soft,” Andy said, his eyes turning into two heart emojis.

I instantly liked him exponentially more.

I turned to Vern and said, “If you can believe it, this is the anthropologist from the plane—”

I’m not sure if it was the words coming out of my mouth or the lack of shock on Vern’s face that made me realize my naiveté.

This was no one-in-a-zillion chance encounter in the middle of the Amazon jungle.

Far from it.

I turned to Vern and said, “That’s why you kept looking at your stupid GPS.” I shook my head from side to side. “You knew.”

Vern had flown the lidar survey over the area. He would know the coordinates of the ruins.

“It didn’t even cross my mind until yesterday,” Vern said. “That’s when I realized we must be getting close.”

I asked, “You know what this means?”