One of the soldiers kept a close eye on her as she ducked ten meters into the trees and squatted. She didn’t actually need to pee—she didn’t have a urinary tract infection—so she spent the next couple of minutes replaying the past five days over in her head.

If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the weight of the barrel pressed to her temple. She could still hear Patrick counting, “One . . . two . . . three.” Gina had no doubt that Patrick had been prepared to shoot her. She felt his finger flex against the trigger, but right before he administered the five pounds of pressure necessary, Martin had shouted, “Wait! Please! I’ll take you to the tribe! Just don’t hurt her!”

Patrick demanded the exact coordinates of the tribe, but Martin swore he didn’t know them. However, he did say that if they made their way back to the pyramid, he could lead them to the tribe from there.

It took two and a half days to retrace their steps, and they reached the pyramid a few hours after sunrise on what by Gina’s calculations would have been August 21. Gina silently hoped that in the days since they’d left, someone had stumbled on her ceramic artifact and its hidden message, but the bowl was in the same place she’d left it. There was no trace anyone had been to the ruins since they’d departed. Still, Gina refused to give up hope.

At the pyramid, Martin consulted his compass and began leading them to the tribe. Along the way, Gina took every opportunity to slow them down, to maybe give her trackers, or Thomas, a few more precious minutes to discover her clues and find her.

“Wrap it up!” Patrick shouted.

Gina glanced around. If she made a run for it, they wouldn’t be able to catch her. She was too fast. She nearly took off, but she couldn’t abandon Martin.

Her father was a marine. The phrase had been pounded into Gina from birth.

No man left behind.

≈

Martin checked his compass for the umpteenth time and said, “I think it’s this way.”

Gina wasn’t sure if the ethnobotanist was trying to stall, much as she and her fake inflamed bladder were—she’d made them stop three more times in the past two hours—or if he truly needed to know their exact heading every few minutes.

“I’ve about had it with you,” Patrick said. “We’ve been walking for more than two days since leaving the pyramid. Either you don’t know how to get there, or you’re deliberately leading us in the wrong direction again.”

“No, really, I think we’re close.”

“You think or you know?”

“I haven’t been back here in thirty years. The forest has changed.” Martin flipped his compass open and squinted at it.