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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
  1. 1
  2. 2
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  5. 5
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  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
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  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
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  38. 38
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  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
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  51. 51
  52. 52
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  63. Author’s Note

Andy said, “So these people who have Gina, they must work for Belippa?”

“We have to assume as much.”

“But then how did they end up at the ruins?”

“I’m not sure.”

I drew a Venn diagram in my head. Three circles. The Expedition circle, the Thomas circle, and the Gina Abduction circle. Each circle overlapped with the other two, but there was a tiny area where all three overlapped.

How did three different groups end up in the exact same spot in the middle of more than a hundred thousand square miles of jungle?

I asked, “What does Nsé-Eja mean?”

“I have no idea.”

“Have you told anyone else about this?”

“I wanted to tell you first.”

A wave of nausea came over me, and I grimaced. I fought back the urge to throw up, and it passed.

I said, “Can you go get Diego? We’ll see if he knows what it means.”

Andy nodded and left.

Less than two minutes later, the flap to the tent opened. It was Diego and Camila.

At the sight of me, Camila squeaked wildly. She reached out her arms, and Diego handed her over.

Diego said, “She has been very worried about you.”

“Have you been worried about me?” I asked, bobbing her up and down lightly. I was so weak it felt like she’d gained forty pounds since I last held her.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and touched her cold nose to my face. I soaked up Camila’s love for twenty seconds, then reached down and handed Andy’s phone to Diego. I’d zoomed in on the photo and the only word on screen was Nsé-Eja.

I asked, “Do you know what that word means?”

Diego’s chubby cheeks went flat. “No, no, no, no,” he murmured under his breath.

“What does it mean?”

“I tell you earlier. The unfriendly tribe. The headhunters.” He paused. “The cannibals.”

41

41

pyramid ruins
august 15, 11:23 a.m.
days since abduction: 10

Bill Wyeth ducked out of the tent. He couldn’t listen to any more of Patrick’s interrogation of Martin Lefbrevor. The ethnobotanist didn’t even know what year it was—he thought it was 1982—so obviously he couldn’t be expected to remember the location of a tribe he’d encountered in the middle of the Amazon jungle.

“How do you get there?” Patrick shouted from inside the tent. “I know you know how to get there!”

Bill walked until he was out of earshot. He bypassed the soldiers digging up artifacts at the base of the pyramid and wandered over to a large rock near the outer edge of their campsite. He set down his daypack and let out a long breath.

How had it come to this?