It might have been the different lighting, but as Andy glanced around, he didn’t find anything in the surrounding jungle that looked the least bit familiar. He couldn’t believe they were on the same trail they’d traversed fifteen hours earlier.

A moment later, they stopped.

Andy recognized a large tree covered in thick climbing vines and the group of ferns where a day earlier Farah had stashed her backpack. On that note, so far Farah had been well behaved. It appeared, at least for the time being, that Holland’s threat to send her packing if she went AWOL a second time had tamped down her rogue spirit.

Roth consulted his GPS, but evidently it had dropped its signal. After checking to make sure no one else had a signal, Roth asked Farah, “Do you think you can navigate to the temple ruins from here?”

“I think so.” Farah pulled a compass out of her pocket. “Should be one hundred and forty-two degrees southeast for about eighty or ninety meters.”

“Okay, we’re going to have Farah lead the way,” Holland said. “Rix and I will slash through anything that needs slashing. The rest of you stay five meters back.”

Holland and Rix pulled out their bright-pink machetes. Holland nodded at Farah and said, “Lead on.”

The expedition team slowly trudged through the dense foliage in single file. Andy ended up at the rear, with Darnell a few feet in front of him.

Darnell had the large camera balanced on his equally large shoulder and was whistling a tune. Andy listened for a minute, then said, “ ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’?”

Darnell stopped and turned. “Not even close.”

“Darn.”

“I’ll give you two more guesses. Loser sleeps outside tonight.”

Andy shook his head and said, “There’s not enough money in the world.”

“Really? Not for a hundred thousand dollars?”

“No way.”

“Come on now. You’re telling me you wouldn’t sleep on the ground for one night for a hundred grand ?”

With $100,000 Andy could pay off all his student loans and still have enough money to upgrade his fourteen-year-old Camry.

Darnell turned back around. Andy hustled forward to catch up and said, “I’d do it for five hundred thousand.”

The back of Darnell’s head shook back and forth as he said, “Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.”

It had been years since someone called him Andrew—not since his uncle visited him in Chicago. The memory brought a smile to Andy’s face. “Why, how much would you do it for?”

Darnell made a few clicks out of the side of his mouth, something Andy had overheard him do a few times before, then said, “I’m being serious here, I’d do it for five hundred dollars.”

“You’re on.”

Darnell stopped and turned. “You know when you tell a brother that it’s on, then it’s on.”

Andy did not know this.

“Good, because it is on,” Andy said.