Alpha Threat (15 page)

“I just ate,” answered Wayne.
 
“I had a late breakfast.”

“I’ll bite,” said Sherrie, who from her looks one would think she didn’t eat at all.
 
She could be a Baywatch babe in anyone’s book.
 
“I’d love a Cuban sandwich, with extra mustard!”
 

“That goes double for me too,” said Hugo, taking his last bite of a chocolate doughnut.
 
“I’m starving.”

Dane got up and walked over to Hugo and gave him a playful slap on the back.
 
“You are always starving, big guy.
 
Who wants to take my jeep?”
 

“I’ll go,” said Hugo.
 
“And Sherrie, you can ride along to hold on to the food on the way back.”
 

Wayne smiled.
 
“Typical Hugo; he’d do anything to ride with a pretty girl.”

“Oh,” fawned Sherrie in her best southern belle lilt.
 
“Who? Lil’ ole me?
 
Dane, why don’t you come along too.”

“And who did you think?” said Wayne, picking up a pair of binoculars and scanning the beach.
 

“You two go ahead.
 
Here’s a few bucks,” said Dane, handing Sherrie a twenty dollar bill.
 
“Get me one of those special salads.
 
But hurry back.
 
We need to do our mid-day patrol in a few minutes.
 
There’s too much burning flesh on the beach today being the Fourth of July weekend.”

“And some of it you just don’t want to see,” quipped Wayne, still scanning the beach.
 
“The old folks’ home must have dropped a group off here.
 
And half the women are topless.
 
Oh, my aching eyes.”
 

“Sherrie beamed as she took the cash from Dane and grabbed Hugo and pushed him toward the door.
 
“I better get lover boy moving before he hits the sand looking for those old ladies.
 
He’s a sucker for his sweethearts.”

“Hey,” Hugo whined.
 
“There are beautiful ladies down there too!”
  
Sherrie pushed him out of the door and away they went.
 

Wayne put down the binoculars and shook his head, smiling.
 
“That guy will never change.”

“What would we do without Hugo?” Dane mused.
 
“He’s ninety percent of the entertainment around here.”

The Fourth of July weekend was big on Miami Beach.
 
As the Beach Commander for all of Miami Beach, Dane had direct charge of over 150 lifeguards placed up and down the beach, each patrolling their specific areas.
 
Dane and his staff at the Beach Patrol Headquarters were primarily the administrative headquarters but also were responsible for the oversight of each lifeguard on the beach.
 
Sherrie and Wayne were two of Dane’s best supervisors, both with several years experience as beach lifeguards and beach supervisors.
 
It was fairly rare a real emergency arose; mostly sunburn, man-o-war stings and cut feet.
 
But every now and then someone would venture out too far and have to be rescued.
 
That’s when the frantic calls would come in and Dane and his staff would dispatch emergency vehicles to the site.
  
While the lifeguards handled the swimming and directed rescue chores, the City of Miami Beach wanted professional EMTs to handle the true emergency medical duties.
 
For that reason Dane had nearly a dozen EMT units standing ready at all times.
  
Those folks did the heavy lifting but it always resulted in more paperwork and reports from his group at patrol headquarters.
 
The patrol did have a twenty-seven foot rescue vessel and several jet skis and other jet-propelled craft to rescue folks in emergencies.
 
To Dane this was his small navy.
 
Ultimately it all fell back on his shoulders.
 

“So far we’ve had a nice, calm fourth,” said Wayne, scanning the beach again with the binoculars.
 

“Oh, man, don’t jinx us by saying that!” cried Dane.
 
“Now all hell will break loose.”
 
He looked over at Wayne and laughed.
 
“That’s what my dad used to always say.
 
I had to say it.”

Wayne grinned and put down the glasses.
 
“Yeah, it seems that way sometimes.
 
How is your family?
 
I haven’t heard you mention them lately.
 
Everybody doing okay?”

“Actually, everyone’s doing great… Knock on wood.
 
Mom and Dad are doing well and enjoying retirement and Dana’s down in the Amazon with Randall.”

“The Amazon,” Wayne said surprised.
 
“What in God’s name are they doing down there?”

“Oh, what they usually do.
 
Tromp around in the jungle looking for natives and artifacts.
 
All I know is I couldn’t do it.
 
Can you imagine the Amazon jungle in July?
 
You think it’s hot and humid here…”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.
 
But those two like that, huh?”

“I guess so,” answered Dane.
 
“They got a nice grant to go so I guess it’s not too bad if you have someone else paying for it.”

“Are they looking for anything in particular or are they on a general safari-like trip?”

“Oh, hell, I have no idea,” laughed Dane.
 
“I gave up on trying to figure out my sister years ago.
 
Once she met Randall, they took off into the wilds together and seem to love it.
 
Better them than me.”

“I guess so, but running around in the Amazon jungle is dangerous.
 
I mean, there are cannibals and wild animals and disease, just to name a few dangers of the wild.”

“Yeah, but they like it.
 
That’s their job.
 
I know Mom and Dad aren’t too sure about them most of the time but, hey, they are adults so we leave them alone.
 
I think most of it is Mom’s fear of snakes.
 
She thinks the Amazon is full of all kinds of snakes ready to eat you.”

“I guess I can’t disagree with her,” said Wayne.
 
“Looks like we have another large group coming out on the beach,” he said, picking up the binoculars again and turning to the window overlooking the beach.
 
“We may want to add another person on David’s tower.”

“Go ahead and do that,” Dane said, getting up from his desk and moving over by Wayne at the large windows overlooking the beach.
 
“Looks like another hotel bus just let off a load of folks.”

“Yep, more fodder for the sun.”

“Did we miss anything?” cried Hugo, bursting through the door, arms full of food.
 

“Not a thing,” Wayne said, turning to see Sherrie walk in.
 
“We did add another guard to Dave’s tower.
 
There seems to be a large crowd down there.”
 

“Okay,” Hugo answered as he sat down to eat with Dane and Sherrie.
 
“I’ll take a run down there as soon as I eat and see how Dave’s doing.
 
Maybe there will be some babes down there.”

”Hugo, you will never change,” smiled Sherrie, taking a bite of her sandwich.
 
“You are always on the make.”

“Hey, I’m one of the happiest men on earth,” laughed Hugo.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Deep in the Amazon Jungle – Western Brazil;
 
1:00 p.m.

“Let’s get back to it.
 
We have a lot of work to do before dark,” sighed Dana Finley.
 
The others in her party began to stir from the lunch break.
 
Dana looked upward but saw very little light filtering through the canopy of the jungle.
 
She wiped her brow with her red bandana and returned it to her pocket.
 
It was so hot and humid but what else would one have expected here in the Amazon?
 

The jungle around her felt like a giant wet blanket.
 
An early morning shower had drenched everything and the humidity had skyrocketed.
 
She was used to dense forests back in her days in the state of Washington where she was a child.
 
This jungle, however, was nothing like home.
 
Everything seemed alive.
 
It was never silent.
 
Wildlife was everywhere, on the ground, filling the trees above and on every frond and bush they seemed to encounter.
 
She had never seen so much life.
 
Even with the vibrant canopy of trees overhead, the sun seemed to stick its fingers down through the treetops touching the ground all about her.
 
Each point of light seemed to illuminate the thousands of crawling insects and bugs on the ground.
 
Those creatures not on the ground were flying about her head.
 
This made South Alabama and the gnats seem like child’s play.
 
Some of these insects were as big as small birds.
 
The ground seemed to move as thousands of ants and other crawling things traveled along their way, undaunted by their presence.
 
One thing about the rainforest, it was bursting with life!
 

Randall Finley stood near her intently reviewing a map in one hand and his GPS in the other.
 
An already thin man of six feet, the past several weeks in the jungle had taken a few more pounds off of his gaunt frame.
 
But with his chiseled looks, he looked like a thin Indiana Jones in his khaki trousers, khaki shirt and old brown brogan shoes.
 
He took turns looking at his GPS and checking back with his map.
 
Outwardly he seemed confused.
 

“We aren’t lost, are we?” smirked Dana, knowing full well that Randall probably knew where they were within inches.
 

“Yeah, we are lost,” he quipped, knowing they were exactly where they wanted to be.
 
“I guess we will just have to hope Sheena of the Jungle will find us.”
 

“Right; that’s what we need, a half-naked blonde woman out here driving you crazy,” she answered, smiling and shaking her head.
 
“Let’s get going.”
   

“I already have that,” said Randall, trying to hide his grin as he turned and led the group deeper into the jungle.
 

“Aww, you just love me to death,” laughed Dana.
 

The group followed Randall as he wielded his bolo and began another leg of their trek.
 

Dana and Randall had been married for two years but had been roaming around the wilds of Brazil together for nearly three years before that.
 
Both had graduated from Princeton where their studies in Amazon cultures had gotten them choice professorships that provided a good life.
 
Their marriage was attended by all of the faculty as well as international benefactors who for whatever reason seemed totally enthralled with the Finleys and their work.
 

They both loved the wilds of the jungle.
 
They especially loved the Amazon.
 
This was the last great largely uncharted area in the world.
 
Hundreds had trekked the wilds of Africa but few had tried the Amazon River jungles, especially here in western Brazil.
 

They were searching for ancient Amazon tribal artifacts.
 
Buoyed by the small grant they received from an anonymous but well-funded benefactor, they had rushed down to the Amazon immediately after the spring term.
 
They had been here since June 8
^th
and were now headed into their sixth week.
 
The lion’s share of their grant money had been spent to fly down and outfit the small team of eight researchers and ten locals.
 
The Finleys wanted to get as much done as they could before returning to their teaching jobs at Princeton.
 
Fall quarter was just around the corner.
 

Their area of interest was in the southern Amazon near the headwaters of the Rio Juruena in west-central Brazil about 400 miles north-northwest of Caceres.
 
The area was about as far away from nowhere as anyone could get.
 
Far from any large town, there were very few foreigners that ventured into this area.
 
This was the home of several indigenous tribes.
 
The Finleys were there to study those that they could find or, to be more specific, those who found them.
  

“According to my bearings, I suggest that we head north,” said Randall as calmly as if he were in his classroom back at Princeton.
 
“If we can make eight miles before dark, we should be in the general area where we were told that new tribe should be.
 
I believe they are a derivative of the Trumai tribe.”