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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
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  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
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  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  33. 33
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  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
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  49. 49
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  63. Author’s Note

Andy didn’t want to tell him how he had been miserable the entire time. How he’d penned his letter of resignation twice but fell short of sending it. How he was dreading the first day of the fall quarter come October.

“It was great,” he lied.

“You teach the Incan Empire, correct?”

“I do.”

“How’d you fall into that?”

“In undergrad I took an Inca-studies class and loved it. They were so incredibly innovative; their society was so much more complex than what is commonly thought.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“And there’s so much drama to their demise. Betrayal, heartache, sibling rivalry, pestilence. It’s all there.” Andy took another chip, then asked, “Do you know much about them?”

“A decent amount. I write an adventure-novel series, and one of my books had an Incan element to it. I did some surface research and it gave my wife and me a chance to go down to Machu Picchu, which, as you know, is simply out of this world.”

“The Cusco Paradox,” Andy said with a smile.

“You’ve read it?”

“I have.” Andy had read most of Buxton’s books. “It was pretty good. A few things you got wrong about the Incas, but hey, it’s fiction.”

“When you’re writing fiction and you get something wrong, you just say you took ‘creative liberties.’ ” He gave Andy a light slap on the shoulder. “But yeah, sometime over the next few days, let’s chat about what I got wrong. I’m curious.”

“I have an email saved in my draft folder if you really want to know.”

“Seriously?”

“No, of course not. I’m not one of those people.” In actuality, Andy was one of those people, and he did have an email in his draft folder listing the many inaccuracies in Buxton’s book.

Buxton laughed, then started into a conversation with Alejándro Cala. Andy offered to trade places with the Bolivian so they could talk more easily, which left Andy at the head of the table, opposite Roth.

Andy watched as Roth and Farah chatted, their chairs angled close together and their heads nearly touching. Farah’s beer was half empty and her olive skin carried a light glow.

Andy felt a pang of jealousy. He didn’t know if he was jealous of Roth or Karim. He surmised it was a little bit of both.

11

11

riberalta
august 14, 7:24 a.m.
days since abduction: 9

The parrot was red, yellow, and blue. And small, which made sense as it was just a baby. The colorful bird was in a cage with six other baby parrots, who I could only assume were his brothers and sisters. Or at the very least, third cousins.

“Mi amigo,” shouted the booth’s owner. “Buy parrot. I give good deal.”

Vern and I had been at the outdoor market on the outskirts of Riber Plaza for the past fifteen minutes, picking up last-minute supplies, which, thus far, mostly consisted of snacks.