“If I sleep outside tonight, you’re going to give me five hundred dollars?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t back out.”

“I won’t.”

“I want cash.”

“Venmo.”

“Deal.”

Darnell stuck out his hand, and Andy shook it.

≈

Holland, Rix, and Farah were ten meters in front of Andy, who was at the rear of the group. Still, Andy heard Farah shout, “Here! This is it!”

Fifteen seconds later, Andy joined the others at what appeared to be a small hill, but what according to the lidar scans was actually an earthen mound ninety feet square and twenty feet tall. The mound didn’t look any different than the surrounding jungle: it was covered in small trees, thorny bushes, climbing vines, leafy ferns, and thousands of fallen leaves.

Roth turned to Libby, Sean, and Darnell and snapped, “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“Darnell,” said Libby, “I want you between those two trees, shooting upward. Sean, I want you at the precipice. I want framed reactions from everyone as they get up there.”

Andy was surprised. He had thought Libby was simply Roth’s production assistant, responsible for the countless minutiae that went into filming a documentary, but evidently, she was the DP. The DP, or director of photography—sometimes called the cinematographer—is in charge of a film’s lighting and most of its artistic and technical decisions.

Darnell moved to where Libby had instructed and pulled a collapsible tripod out of his large pack. Libby checked the lighting with a digital light meter, and once Darnell had the camera situated on the tripod, he made a couple of minor adjustments. Libby then clambered up the thirty-degree slope and disappeared. Thirty seconds later, she reappeared and said, “Let’s roll.”

Roth and Farah glanced at each other and then started up the incline. When those two were halfway up, Alejándro and Bernita started their ascent. The final pair to go were Buxton and Andy.

Andy was four feet up the incline when he overheard Roth shout, “Look at these stones! Jackpot, baby!”

The next reaction was from Cala, who cried out, “¡Maravilloso!”

Bernita’s reaction came a moment later. She said calmly, “What an incredible discovery.”

Andy reached the summit a few moments later. The top plateaued out for thirty square feet. There were several—twenty at least—large foundation stones spread in a loose rectangle. The stones were heavily eroded and covered in a thick layer of green moss and strewn with vines.

Next to Andy, Nathan Buxton said, “If that isn’t the ruins of an ancient temple, I don’t know what is.”

Several of the expedition team laughed.

Andy could instinctively feel Sean’s camera zoomed in on his face, waiting for his reaction.