Page 62 of No Questions Asked

Taken down by an unarmed girl?

Idiots! It had been a perfect plan. The disappearance of the vaccine team would have shut down the project for some period of time, perhaps permanently. Then he would have been able to resell the vaccines to the Indians for a handsome bonus. Finally, it would have helped him honor his other commitment to use his official capacity to reduce traffic up the rivers and into the protected native areas.El Esqueleto’speople were paying him good money to minimize government interference in the region, and make it unpopular for outsiders.

He was an important man who had a lot to offer his clients. He could restrict or approve any activity in the region that might threaten the native people’s sovereignty. Therefore, as part of his arrangement with the cartel, he was able to contact hired cartel enforcers on the river to make it more dangerous to outsiders and alert them to potential traffic. It had been a stroke of brilliance to recognize the opportunity to use them to get paid for disrupting the vaccine project. Offering them a bonus for the vaccine recovery ensured they would follow his instructions.

He had been furious when the plan failed and the bandits were captured. Fortunately, no one knew he was the mastermind behind the plan. He was clever like that, and knew how to hide his tracks. He was, however, worried thatEl Esqueletowould be unhappy his effort had failed. He’d been planning how to explain that so it wouldn’t reflect badly on him. After all, he could not be held responsible for the incompetence of others.

Unfortunately, that was the least of his problems at the moment. First, that despicable American rogue was headed right toward the area whereEl Esqueletohad set up his new operation. He had to be alerted and quickly. Even worse, the nosy American had seen the tattoo on one of the cartel men in the Coari jail and linked it toEl Esqueleto. Things were beginning to get hot and he needed to cool things down or, at the very least, spin a web to protect himself.

Sitting down at his desk, he called up his email program and began to draft an email to his partner, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in South America.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Lexi

The village was abuzz with excitement and I had no idea why. After playing hopscotch with the kids and turning on the satellite phone, I returned to the hut to find the girls in an excited state, all of them chattering constantly. Several were sitting on the floor, adding shells to their already intricately decorated loincloths. The tall girl was combing the hair of one of the younger girls and others were practically jumping around with excitement.

I tried to ask what was going on, and they tried to answer, but I still couldn’t understand. The most I could determine was that everyone appeared to be getting ready for some event that was going to happen, probably this evening.

But what, I had no idea.

Not being able to follow what was going on in the hut, I wandered into the village where I discovered other preparations were going on. In an open area off to the side of the village, a large unlit fire was being prepared and the dirt area around it was being swept of leaves and debris. Felled logs surrounded three sides of the area, indicating this was a gathering area. The fire didn’t look like one of their usual cooking fires as it was taller in design, with the wood stacked about three feet in height. Several of the younger men were doing the sweeping around the fire. They looked at me with an interest that made me want to find someplace else to go in a hurry.

As I continued walking around the village, I found several of the older women were preparing vegetables for cooking. Several dead, possum-size animals were lined up awaiting skinning for food or fur, though I didn’t recall seeing fur in the village. As I wandered, I ran various probabilities in my head. If Slash had received my signal, how long would it take him to find and reach me? I figured I was at least a two-day hike from where I’d been captured. I trusted that Slash would be looking for the signal and coordinates from the phone, but after so many days, had he received the alert? I knew the phone battery had been working, at least for a short time, but I had no idea how long the battery had lasted after I turned it on. Had it been long enough to get a signal to Slash? That was an unknown variable.

I decide to take a short hike up to the highest point of the village to see if I could figure out where I was. I figured it was also possible I could find a way to signal for help, like starting a fire, but I didn’t have a flint for the fire and I presumed any airborne observer would likely assume it was just a tribal fire. I started the hike up, and discovered after a few minutes that someone was following me at a discreet distance. They weren’t boxing me in, but they weren’t letting me roam around freely either.

I stopped when I got to a clearing with a rocky outcropping. I climbed up to the top of the rock pile and looked around. My breath caught in my throat. The view was one of the most beautiful I’d ever seen in my life. Green in every direction with splashes of color and jutting gray rocks that stretched toward an azure sky. So stunning, in fact, that I had to give my brain time to acknowledge and appreciate all the aspects of such spectacular natural majesty.

As I stood there, I recalled some fascinating facts I’d learned about the rainforest. Forty to ninety percent of all life in the rainforest existed in the trees,abovethe ground. The canopy that covered the rainforest was made up of billions of leaves, most of them acting as solar panels, turning sunlight into energy. All of that meant the rainforest was critical for regulating and supporting global climate.

All of this beauty was vitally important to our world.

Unfortunately, I still had no clue where I was. The canopy stretched as far as I could see. No obvious landmarks or anything like that marred the perfect beauty of the landscape.

I heard a rustle in the bushes and the man who’d been following me stepped into view. He motioned at me that it was time to return. I took one last look at the view and climbed down off the rocks.

When we returned to the village, I checked my watch and saw it was four thirty in the afternoon. The girls seemed excited to see me and insisted I had to go with them to the pool to bathe. I wasn’t crazy about the idea, especially after what had happened last time I bathed. I resisted, but they pulled me along, so I reluctantly followed. I sincerely hoped no one would steal my loincloth or fishnet bra. In the end, I left the loincloth on the shore, but kept the fishnet on, just in case.

Everyone seemed in such a good mood, I sincerely wondered what was going on. My anxiety spiked. I’m not necessarily suspicious by nature, but I donotlike surprises, and all this excitement had me on high alert. Luckily my loincloth was waiting for me when we finished. After dressing, two of the girls linked arms with me as we headed back to the hut. I looked at both of them in surprise. How was it possible that while growing up, I’d never been included in any girl activities, but here, in the middle of the rainforest, I’d suddenly become one of the girls in such short order?

The universe had a strange sense of humor.

When we reassembled in the hut, we reapplied the oil to our bodies before the girls pointed to a spot they wanted me to sit. Puzzled, I obeyed. The tallest girl in the group, other than me, presented me with a new loincloth that had been elaborately decorated.

“Me?” I said. “That’s for me?” I pointed to myself and all the girls nodded.

“Wow. That’s amazing. Thank you.” I accepted the loincloth, fairly sure all of them had participated in making it for me.

They motioned I should try it on. It felt weird getting dressed with everyone watching, but I didn’t want to offend them, so I dropped the old loincloth and stepped into the new one. The tall girl fussed with the ropes on my hips and then, satisfied, stepped back. The other girls twittered in excitement.

The rest of the time the girls fixed each other’s hair while I watched, baffled. I had no idea what was going on. It was after six o’clock when the chief’s oldest wife appeared in the hut and all the chatter ceased immediately. She walked over to the tall girl and fussed with her hair. She spoke to the girl in a way that made me believe this was her mother, especially since she didn’t fix anyone else’s hair. That likely meant the girl was the chief’s daughter, or at least one of them.

After the woman fixed the girl’s hair to her satisfaction, she motioned for the rest of us to stand up. I scrambled to my feet, falling to the back of a line that had formed.

We walked out of the hut in a single-file line behind her, headed to the area where I’d seen the bonfire earlier. The fire had been lit and the flames leapt and crackled. We skirted the bonfire and headed to an area a short distance away near a large dirt circle ringed with stones.

We waited for several minutes until a procession arrived. The chief came first, wearing a short, colorful cape decorated with feathers. He stopped next to us and everyone fell silent. I had no idea what was going on, but I had started to get a bad feeling. A few minutes later, I heard a man’s voice calling from the trees outside the village. It sounded like a wolf howl. He made the call exactly three times. After the third time, the chief made the same call back and then...nothing. We just continued to stand silently.

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