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

“Diego, our tracker—he brought her with him. He found her a year ago while guiding a jungle excursion. He was hoping to reintroduce her to the jungle on this trip. She is the most amazing little lovebug.”

“Lovebug?” she said, cutting her eyes at me. “Aren’t you the same guy who once called your sister’s dog a fart-breathing, Benjamin Button–looking, narcoleptic snort-monster?”

“That was Thomas BP.”

“BP?”

“Before piglets.”

“Piglets?” Gina said, her face aghast. “We do have a lot to catch up on.”

“Yes, we do. Anyhow, Diego and I left Camila a quarter mile away.”

“A quarter mile is pretty far for a sloth. How’d she get here so fast?”

I had no idea. It would take her three days to go a quarter mile.

I glanced back. Camila was now ten feet away. She’d gone two feet in the last thirty seconds. I did the math in my head. A quarter mile was roughly 1,300 feet. Two feet every thirty seconds was four feet a minute. That’s 325 minutes. So maybe three days was a bit of hyperbole, but at her current pace it would take her five hours and twenty-five minutes to go a quarter mile.

There was only one explanation.

Camila was a supersloth!

I smiled big and said, “Come on, honey. Come on!”

Camila swiveled her head back and forth, her small mouth turning up into a wry grin.

“Yes, I know—it’s me!”

I turned and glanced at Benecio. It had now been four minutes since Bill and the other soldiers left him alone to watch over us. He squinted in the direction of the approaching sloth but didn’t seem overly alarmed.

“What are you going to do when she gets here?” Gina asked. “Supposing she ever does.”

“I’m going to tell her to cut through my restraints with her claws.”

“And you think that’s going to work?”

“Probably.”

Camila continued inching forward. Right arm, reach. Left arm, reach. Left leg forward. Right leg forward.

When she was within eight feet, Gina asked, “Do you see something on her belly?”

I squinted and watched Camila eke forward. “Yeah, I do.”

“And look, there’s clear tape going around her back.”

Gina was right. There was something taped to Camila’s stomach.

“Oh my God,” Gina said. “It’s a knife.”

58

58

tribal village
august 23, 4:41 p.m.
days since abduction: 18

It was hard to see because it was camouflaged by her stringy tan fur, but under Camila’s belly you could just make out a leather sheath.

“Okay,” I said to Gina. “Play it cool.”

She nodded.

I nonchalantly gazed into the surrounding jungle, looking for whoever was responsible for taping a knife to Camila. It couldn’t have been Holland. If it were him, he would have put a bullet through Benecio’s skull.

Vern?

I doubted it; he could hardly walk.

It must have been Juan Pablo and Carlos.