As he approached the plateau, he could see a few braids of water cascading down its steep flanks. He would camp at the bottom tonight, and make the thousand-meter ascent in the morning. It would be steep, muddy, and possibly dangerous. If he met the Kothoga—well, he would be trapped.
But he had no reason to think the Kothoga tribe was savage. After all, it was this other creature, Mbwun, to which local myth cycles ascribed all the killing and savagery. Strange—an unknown creature, supposedly controlled by a tribe nobody had seen. Could Mbwun actually exist? he wondered. Conceivably, a small remnant could be alive in this vast rain forest; the area was virtually unexplored by biologists. Not for the first time, he wished that Crocker hadn’t taken his own Mannlicher .30 06 when he’d left camp.
But first, Whittlesey realized, he had to locate Crocker. Then he could search for the Kothoga, prove they hadn’t died out centuries before. He’d be famous—the discoverer of an ancient people, living in a kind of Stone Age purity deep in the Amazon, on a plateau that floated above the jungle like Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World.
There was no reason to fear the Kothoga. Except that hut ...
Suddenly, a sharp sickly smell assailed his nostrils, and he stopped. There was no mistaking it—a dead animal, and a big one. He took a dozen steps as the smell intensified. His heart quickened with anticipation: perhaps the Kothoga had butchered an animal nearby. There might be artifacts left at the site—tools, weapons, perhaps even something ceremonial in nature.
He crept forward. The sweet nauseating reek grew stronger. He could see sunlight in a patch of canopy high above his head—the sure sign of a nearby clearing. He stopped and tightened his pack, not wanting to be hampered in case he had to move fast.
The narrow trail, walled in by brush, leveled off and took a sudden turn into the head of the small clearing. There, on the opposite side, was the carcass of the animal. The base of the tree it lay against had been ritually carved with a spiral, and a bundle of bright green parrot feathers lay on top of the gaping, greasy brown rib cage. But as he walked closer, he saw that the carcass was wearing a khaki shirt.
A cloud of fat flies roared and swarmed about the open rib cage. Whittlesey noticed that a severed left arm was lashed to the tree trunk with a fibrous rope, the palm sliced open. A number of spent cartridge casings lay around the body. Then he saw the head. It lay face up under the corpse’s armpit, the back of the skull torn away, the cloudy eyes staring upward, the cheeks bulging.
Whittlesey had found Crocker.
Instinctively, Whittlesey began stumbling backward. He saw how rows of claws had flayed the body with obscene, inhuman strength. The corpse looked stiff. Perhaps—if God was merciful—the Kothoga had already departed.
Assuming it was the Kothoga.
Then he noticed that the rain forest, normally overflowing with the sounds of life, was silent. With a start, he turned to face the jungle. Something was moving in the towering brush at the edge of the clearing, and two slitted eyes the color of liquid fire took shape between the leaves. With a sob and a curse, he drew his sleeve across his face and looked again. The eyes had vanished.
There was no time to lose—he had to get back down the trail, away from this place. His path back into the forest lay directly ahead. He’d have to make a run for it.
Just then he saw something on the ground he hadn’t noticed before, and he heard movement, ponderous yet horrifyingly stealthy, through the brush in front of him.
= 2 =
Belém, Brazil, July 1988
This time, Ven was pretty sure the dock foreman was onto him.
He stood well back in the shadows of the warehouse alley, watching. Light rain obscured the bulky outlines of the tethered freighters and narrowed the dock lights into pinpoints. Steam rose as the rain hit the hot deckboards, bringing with it the faint odor of creosote. From behind him came the nocturnal sounds of the port: the staccato bark of a dog; faint laughter leavened with Portuguese phrases; calypso music from the waterfront bars on the avenida.
It had been such a sweet deal. He’d come down when Miami got too hot, taking the long route. Here, it was mostly light trade, small freighters bound up and down the coast. The dock crew always needed stevedores, and he’d loaded boats before. He’d said his name was Ven Stevens, and no one questioned it. They wouldn’t have believed a first name of Stevenson, anyway.
The setup had all the right ingredients. He’d had plenty of practice in Miami, plenty of time to sharpen his instincts. Those instincts paid off down here. Deliberately, he spoke Portuguese badly, haltingly, so he could read eyes and gauge responses. Ricon, junior assistant to the harbormaster, was the last link Ven had needed.