I climbed into the cockpit, taking in the many pieces of duct tape holding the instrument panel together. I had twenty seconds alone with my thoughts, doubts, concerns, and regrets, then Vern clambered into the pilot seat and began flipping switches. The propeller roared to life, and he handed me a pair of headphones, also heavily duct-taped, shouting, “Put these on!”

As I pulled the headphones on, I couldn’t help but think about Anthro Andy and what I wouldn’t give for his lucky flying shirt.

“Here we go,” Vern said, pushing the throttle forward.

The plane lurched, and we taxied a quarter mile to a small runway.

A minute later we were airborne, the plane shaking violently as it gained altitude. Within a few minutes we were closing in on our first hurdle. The altimeter hovered around seventeen thousand feet, but it felt like we weren’t nearly high enough to get over the mountain’s shark-tooth peak. It quickly became evident we weren’t so much going over the Andes as going through them.

For the next ten minutes, Vern piloted the plane through the deep scissoring valleys between the high mountains. Sometimes it felt as though we were barely skimming over the ragged terrain that quickly turned from snow to rocks and finally to unending green foliage.

“You see those cliffs down there?” Vern asked. His voice was reasonably clear through the headphones, but he was still yelling.

I gazed down through the side window at the green rocky cliffs. “Yeah.”

“There’s a road that cuts through there called the North Yungas. They call it the Road of Death.”

I squinted down and was surprised to see a sliver of brown cut into the side of one of the green mountains.

“For a long time, it was the only road connecting La Paz to Coroico. It goes from fifteen thousand feet down to four thousand feet over the course of forty-plus miles. Three hundred drivers used to die on the road each year.”

I grimaced.

He continued, “They put in a better road a decade ago, so not many cars these days. Big thing now is cyclists. They come from all over the world to bike it. Killed about twenty of them over the years.”

“How many rollerbladers?”

He cut his eyes at me. “Don’t tell me—”

“What?” I said. “It’s good exercise.”

He found this funny and let out a gravelly, smoker’s chuckle.

Since I had him talking, I said, “So lay out the plan for me.”

“Right.” Vern nodded. “I spent three hours this morning at the US Embassy making sure Gina hadn’t contacted them. She hadn’t. I filled out some missing-persons paperwork, just in case, but there’s nothing they’re going to do.”

“Nothing?”

“They don’t have the resources to go looking for a missing woman in the Pando jungle. Maybe if she went missing in Madidi, but not up north.”