Burial Ground

II

Hotel Spatuletail

Pomacochas, Peru

6:12 a.m.

Colton spread the maps out on the table before him. They had rented two adjoining rooms in what passed for a hotel in the middle of the Amazon basin, a converted Spanish hacienda that hadn't seen so much as a paint job since the conquistadors defeated the Inca with Christianity and smallpox. It was little more than a square of decomposing adobe enclosing a central courtyard with wild greenery attempting to claim the obligatory fountain, itself a cracked-tile basin brimming with slimy rainwater that smelled of flatus. But it didn't matter. They were only going to be here for a single night, after which the rooms would serve as storage for their boxes and the packing materials they wouldn't be lugging into the mountains. The sooner the better, he thought. He was no stranger to the type of accommodations one must endure in such remote locales, but the walls were alive with small green and brown lizards and several enormous black spiders had made themselves at home inside the mosquito netting over the beds. He expected that kind of hospitality from the jungle, not the hotel.

He had already formalized their route into the mountains, but there were still any number of variables for which he couldn't account. The maps couldn't predict the depth of the bodies of water or the speed of the current any more than they allowed them to find trails through the dense forestation. For the most part, experience suggested they should be able to follow certain aspects of the topography, but that still remained to be seen. Regardless, they had a starting point, and somewhere in the southern portion of this twenty-five square mile grid was their final destination.

The first thing they needed to do was inspect the area where Hunter had washed up along the Mayu Wañu. The medical examiner had estimated that his body had been in the water for somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy-two hours. He had, of course, qualified that assertion with the caveat that he hadn't been able to examine the remains quickly enough as the body had been delayed by the process of identification and the ultimately unnecessary quarantine. However, a detailed inspection of the river and its current, coupled with an educated guess as to its level at the time, ought to help him narrow down the range where Hunter must have entered the water. The boats had already been reserved, and the guides would be ready to lead them up the river before sunrise tomorrow.

But there was still one element that didn't sit well with him.

The sharp scent of guarana coffee preceded Gearhardt into the room. He carried a Styrofoam cup in each hand, and set one down in front of Colton.

"Here's what passes for coffee down here," Gearhardt said. He sat in the chair beside Colton. "It has the consistency of syrup and tastes like they burned it, which I didn't think was even physically possible."

"The guarana bean has four times as much caffeine as the coffee bean. They even use it in soft drinks."

"That doesn't make it taste any better."

"Get some cream and sugar then."

"And just when do you think I became a woman?"

Colton looked up from the digital elevation reconstruction to find Gearhardt smirking at him. This was good. It was the first time Gearhardt had made any attempt at levity since he had first called. Colton didn't blame the guy, but single-mindedness in a situation like this impaired the ability to adapt and recognize options and alternative solutions. And besides, he didn't much care for the idea of having to drag his old friend's corpse down out of the Andes.

"What did you think of the pilot?" Gearhardt asked.

"Merritt? Or should I say the former James Merritt Westlake? I read his dossier, same as you. Went AWOL from the 160^th Special Operations Aviation Regiment during his second tour in Afghanistan in 2002. Just up and vanished in the middle of the night. Somehow, he managed to get out of the Middle East, and ended up here, piloting that flying heap of junk. In times of war, going absent without leave equates to desertion, an offense just shy of treason. If the Army were to somehow learn his whereabouts, they'd have him cuffed and on a plane stateside in a matter of hours. And now he reappears with your son's remains and a priceless headdress that could have financed a comfortable retirement down here where no one could ever find him. He took a huge risk sticking his neck out like that. Just walking into the Consulate where they could have challenged his fake identification and arrested him on the spot took serious balls."

"That's not what I asked, and you know it."

Colton sighed. "I don't trust any man who doesn't try to fence the headdress, or at least melt it down and sell it, under the circumstances. It goes against human nature. No one would have known, let alone caught him. Not unless he had his eye on the bigger score, and even then he'd be stupid to turn in the artifact. In my opinion, this makes him unpredictable. But to answer your question, no, I don't think he had anything to do with your son's death. I do, however, think he knows more than he's letting on."

"And this unpredictability? How does it factor into the equation?"

"It could not be a factor at all. He could climb back in his plane, take off, and we'd never hear from him again. Or..." Colton paused. "Once we turn our backs on him, we could find that we've made a terrible mistake. He was in special ops after all, and I've learned not to trust a military man."

"You were a military man."

Colton smirked. "You're the one who has to trust me."

"So what do you suggest?"

"How much do you think it would take to convince Mr. Merritt to willingly join our expedition without having to threaten him with his past? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and all that."

"What if he proves...unpredictable along the way?"

Colton smiled and nodded toward the doorway to the adjacent room, through which he could see two of the four men he had personally selected as their "dig crew" leaning against the far wall, taking advantage of the downtime while they could.

"We're prepared for every contingency," Colton said. "There's absolutely nothing we can't handle."