Libby was standing just outside command central. Camila was cradled in her arms like a baby. “She was lying under one of the tables.”

Andy walked over and gave the little sloth a couple of scratches under her chin.

What could have happened that made them just abandon little Camila?

A moment later, Vern emerged from the brush. He limped toward them, a hard grimace on his face. He threw his hands up in the air and said, “We can’t find him.”

“Who?” Andy asked.

“Thomas.”

Vern explained that an hour earlier, he’d snuck away from his post watching over Thomas to go to his tent and grab a cigar. When he returned, Thomas was gone. He, Diego, Carlos, and Juan Pablo had been searching for him since.

“Fan out,” shouted Farah. “He has to be around here somewhere.”

Fifteen minutes later, Vern and Andy found Thomas. He was sitting in a small patch of dirt at the edge of the Bolivian soldiers’ camp, completely naked. He had a heavy red rash on his torso, his eyes were rimmed in fiery red and nearly swollen shut, and his skin carried a waxy sheen. Without a doubt, he was the sickest person Andy had ever seen.

He wasn’t alone. Jonathan Roth and Sean were already there and had been filming for who knows how long.

Andy pulled his whistle up from around his neck and blew, letting the others know the search was over.

“Stop filming!” Vern shouted.

Sean lowered the camera off his shoulder, and Roth yelled, “Don’t you dare take the camera off of him!”

“Come on,” Andy said. “He’s sick. He’s not going to want this on camera.”

“I don’t give a shit. This is pure gold!”

Vern gave Jonathan Roth a withering glance. Had Farah, Libby, and Nathan Buxton not emerged from the surrounding brush, Andy surmised Vern would have smashed the video camera to pieces. Or else, used the camera to beat Roth to a bloody pulp. Instead, Vern took a few steps toward Thomas and said, “Heyya, buddy. What are you doing?”

Thomas turned and gazed at the group around him. “I’m making a fire,” he said, rubbing two gray rocks together. “So I can cook this bird.” He put the rocks down and held up a bird, which was actually a green leaf.

He was delirious.

“Come on, buddy,” Vern said. “Let’s get you back to the tent.”

“No! I’m not tapping out!”

Andy, who had seen a couple of episodes of the Discovery show Naked and Afraid, said, “No one is tapping you out, Thomas. We’re just going to take you to the production tent and look you over. Your partner is over there.”

“Sheila?”

“Um, yeah, Sheila is there.”

“Sheila is the best.”

“She sure is.”

“What about my bird?” Thomas said, lifting up the leaf once more.

“Tell you what,” Andy said. “We’ll keep your bird safe for you.”