The Furies (43 page)

It was slow going, though, because the boat was big and hard to maneuver. After about thirty minutes they reached a wider channel, deep enough to allow them to use the skiff's outboard motor. They lowered the propeller into the water and started the engine. The boat shot forward, and soon they were speeding across the floodwaters. After another half hour they reached the main channel of the Yarí and headed upriver. About three miles ahead, the Yarí turned sharply to the right. That was their destination, John thought, the river bend. Elizabeth had said it was just a mile away from the Furies' new refuge.

As they approached the bend, John noticed that the local geography was a little unusual. A long, curving peninsula extended from the Yarí's south bank, first stretching north toward the middle of the river and then turning back south, like a fishhook. Between the tip of the peninsula and the south bank was a narrow, shallow strait, maybe five feet deep and sixty feet wide. The skiff slowed as it passed through the strait and entered a wide oval lagoon enclosed by the fishhook-shaped peninsula. Five other motorized skiffs were beached at the far end of the lagoon, and on the high ground beyond them were six large canvas tents. More guerillas in green fatigues milled around the tents, cleaning their rifles or eating breakfast around the campfire. John counted twenty-three men in all. A few of them waved at the boat, and Comandante Reyes waved back. Reyes, John observed, now wore Ariel's backpack.

The guerillas landed the skiff on the riverbank in front of the tents. Two of the men hauled John out of the boat and poked their rifles into his back, ordering him to march in front of them. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ariel following them, flanked by another pair of guards. He thought the guerillas would stop at the tents, but instead they marched right past the camp, following a dirt trail that led into the rain forest.

Reyes and several other men walked alongside them, cradling their rifles. John got a bad feeling as they entered the shade of the jungle canopy. At any moment he expected the comandante to halt their forced march and order his men to form a firing squad. John tried to reassure himself—if Reyes wanted to execute them, he reasoned, the man would've done it as soon as he'd found them—but the fear stayed with him. He pulled his arms, tugging at the rope that bound his wrists behind his back. There was no give at all. He was helpless.

The trail was straight and new. The bushes and branches on either side were freshly cut, hacked by machetes sometime in the past forty-eight hours. The trail also sloped steadily upward. After ten minutes or so, John grew winded from the climb. When he looked over his shoulder again he saw that they'd ascended at least two hundred feet. The Yarí River sparkled in the distance behind them, visible through the gaps in the trees. They were mounting a massive knob in the middle of the rain forest, a lonely hill that was the highest point for hundreds of miles around. John craned his neck, gazing at the vast green carpet surrounding them. Then the guards poked him in the back again and ordered him to walk faster.

After another ten minutes the trail leveled off and started to slope downward. They descended into a crater at the top of the hill, a dark, densely wooded bowl. The trail narrowed to less than the width of a man, and the guerillas had to use their machetes to lop off the encroaching branches. Then they reached what appeared to be a dead end. The trail led to a sheer stone ridge at the rim of the bowl, rising fifty feet above the forest floor. There was no path going around the ridge, and it was too steep to climb. But at the base of the stone wall John spied a dark crevice, an entrance to a cavern. Shards of fractured rock lay nearby, scattered in the brush. These shards, John realized, were the debris from an explosion. Very recently someone had used a stick of dynamite to reopen the cavern's sealed entrance.

Prodded by the guerillas, John squeezed through the crevice. The cavern was so dark he couldn't see anything at first, but after a few seconds he glimpsed a beam of light from a Coleman lantern. He headed for it, walking slowly. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he started to comprehend the cavern's dimensions. Although the rocky ceiling in this part of the cave was only twenty feet overhead, the cavern's floor sloped downward toward an immense lower chamber, as large as a football stadium. John stopped in his tracks, amazed. The guerillas stopped too, conferring with one another in Spanish, and that gave Ariel a chance to walk up beside him. She peered into the depths of the cavern and sniffed the air.

“Not bad,” she said. “It's almost as big as Haven.”

“Yeah, plenty big.” He edged closer to her and lowered his voice. “Do you think we should make a run for it?”

She looked askance. “You want to run through a pitch-black cave with our hands tied behind our backs?”

“I'm just—”

“Keep moving,
Americanos
.” Reyes nudged them from behind. “Your countrymen are waiting.”

As John resumed walking he saw several figures in the light from the Coleman lamp. Two of them sat on a low, flat outcrop that rose about a yard above the floor of the cavern like a granite platform. Nine others stood behind the outcrop, arrayed in a rough semicircle. The standing figures were Riflemen. John couldn't see their faces—they stood too far from the lantern—but he noticed the light gleaming on their carbines and leather boots. As he neared the outcrop, though, he recognized the seated figures, whose faces were lit from below by the lantern at their feet. The one on the left was Sullivan. He reclined on the stone ledge, propping himself on his elbows and spreading his legs wide. The one on the right was Elizabeth Fury, who sat with her back perfectly straight.

Sullivan was still dressed like a biker, in the same filthy bomber jacket he'd worn in Michigan. He put on a look of mock surprise, opening his mouth and raising his eyebrows, as John and Ariel came near. “Hark! Who approaches? Can I believe my eyes? Is it Lily and her paramour, arisen from the dead?”

Comandante Reyes stepped forward. “You see, Señor Sullivan? I told the truth when I gave my report over the radio. They're not even injured. They fell out of the sky and landed in God's hands.”

“God's hands? I think not. Our family doesn't believe in God.” Sullivan squinted at Reyes. “How did you find them?”

“They were stupid. They fell asleep in one of the tribesmen's huts. That's why we patrol the huts every morning, because people are stupid.”

“So true, so true. But you're a clever fellow, Reyes, and you'll be well compensated for your cleverness. Now could you and your comrades step outside for a moment?” Sullivan pointed at the distant shaft of sunlight coming through the cavern's entrance. “I have to discuss some family business with my sister.”

“No problem, señor.” Reyes cheerfully took off Ariel's backpack and dropped it at Sullivan's feet. “I'll just leave this with you.” Then he turned around and led his men out of the cavern.

Meanwhile, Ariel glared at Sullivan. John had never seen her so angry. Even in the dim light from the lantern, her eyes flashed with indignation. Straining against the rope that bound her hands behind her back, Ariel rushed toward her half brother. But she stopped at the last minute, just three feet in front of him, and aimed all her rage at Elizabeth instead. “What on earth have you done, Mother? How can you sit next to this viper?”

The Chief Elder remained still. Her long black dress blended in with the outcrop, but her scarred face glowed in the lamplight. Rather than look at her daughter, she stared at the jagged wall of the cavern. “I had to end the war, Lily. Too many of us were dying. We've just finished negotiating the terms of a truce.”

“A truce or a surrender?” Ariel's voice was thick with contempt. “Did you agree to give him the formula for the catalyst?”

Elizabeth nodded. “After we learned that your plane went down, I flew to Brazil to rendezvous with the Caño Dorado expedition. And yes, I ordered Mariela to hand over the formula. Then Basil and I arranged to meet here so we could settle our differences. I went up the Yarí with the expedition while Basil and nine of his men traveled in one of our Gulfstreams to the Caquetá airstrip.”

“You've gone back to calling him Basil?” Ariel glanced at Sullivan, who was following their argument with a grin on his face. “I thought you said he'd given up the right to that name.”

“Basil, Sullivan, it doesn't matter.” Elizabeth waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. She was still staring at the cavern's wall. “I determined that the risks of continuing the war were greater than the risks of letting our men use the catalyst to produce the Fountain protein.”

“Mother, don't you remember the numbers involved? To make enough Fountain to stop all the men from aging, they'd need an enormous amount of fetal tissue. They'd have to collect thousands of pounds of aborted fetuses
every month.
”

Elizabeth finally turned to look at her daughter. Her lone eye glittered. “The numbers have changed, child. Our family now has half as many men as it had a week ago. Nearly a hundred guardsmen died in the battle of Haven, and the Riflemen lost a similar number. It's an appalling tragedy, but it does ease the task of procuring the fetal tissue.”

Sullivan suddenly sat upright. His grin widened, as if he'd just had a wonderful idea. “May I add a point, miladies? The relocation to this new refuge will also work in our favor. The Colombian authorities are afraid to step foot in this part of the country. We can take advantage of the smuggling routes and make deals with every abortionist on the continent. The government isn't even likely to notice.”

Ariel turned to face him, practically snarling. “Abysmal fool! Fountain alters your brain chemistry! It'll poison you!”

“Oh, really?” Sullivan put on another look of amused surprise. “The protein gives eternal youth to our women, and yet it poisons our men? Does that seem logical to you?”

“Aye, because of the interactions with your Y chromosome! You felt the side effects yourself when I injected you with Fountain, but you failed to report them. You were so damn eager to get the protein, you didn't tell me about the problems.”

He stopped grinning. “There were no problems. Quite the contrary. Fountain made me stronger. That's the real reason why you don't want us to have it.”

Now John stepped forward. He couldn't stay silent any longer. “Ariel's right. I took just one dose of the protein and it screwed up my head.”

Sullivan let out a mirthless laugh. “Shut your mouth, paramour.”

John didn't look at him. He addressed the nine Riflemen standing behind Sullivan and Elizabeth. Those were the people he needed to convince. “It's true, the protein makes you feel stronger. But it also makes you angrier, more violent. I was out of control.”

Sullivan looked over his shoulder at his men. He realized what John was trying to do. “Can you believe the gall of this outsider? First he fucks the only daughter of our Chief Elder. Then he persuades her to give him the remedy that was meant for us. And then he tells us that we shouldn't take it ourselves.”

“Don't you see what's going on?” John pointed at Sullivan. “Fountain damaged his brain. He can't control his impulses. He's already killed half the men he led into rebellion, and now—”

“Silence!”
Sullivan jumped off the outcrop. John assumed the man was going to pummel him, and he braced himself for the first blow. But instead Sullivan knelt on the cavern's floor and unzipped Ariel's backpack. He reached into the bag and tossed aside the first few items he found—flash drives, rations, ammunition clips. Then he pulled out the medicine case and unlatched it. He shouted, “Aha!” as he stared at the syringe and the eight remaining vials of Fountain. Holding up the case so his men could see it, he pointed at the empty slot in the foam padding where the ninth vial had rested.

“You see? One of the vials is missing. The paramour is still taking the protein. It's too dangerous for us, but not for him, apparently.”

Ariel shook her head. “Nay, you don't—”

“I'll show you how dangerous it is.” Still facing his men, Sullivan removed the syringe and one of the vials from the case. He pulled the stopper off the vial and drew the yellowish fluid into the syringe. Then, without any hesitation, he jammed the needle into the crook of his arm and injected Fountain into the vein.

The Riflemen murmured. Although John couldn't see their faces, he knew they were watching carefully. Sullivan placed the empty syringe back in the case and closed it. He took a deep breath and paced in front of the outcrop, swinging his arms. He smiled at Elizabeth, who was still sitting rigidly on the ledge, and gave Ariel a lascivious smirk. Then he lunged forward and socked John in the stomach, throwing all his weight into the punch.

The blow staggered him. John doubled over, gasping for breath. But somehow, thank Jesus, he managed to stay on his feet.

Sullivan turned back to his men. “There, that felt good. In fact, I've never felt better. As you can see, Fountain doesn't hurt me. The only one hurting is this wretch.”

He punctuated the sentence by smashing his fist into John's face. This time John tumbled sideways to the cavern's floor, his left shoulder smacking painfully against the hard stone. His ears rang and the whole cavern seemed to revolve around him, the Coleman lantern swinging crazily. Amid the maelstrom he saw Ariel rush toward him, her eyes wide and her mouth open and her forehead creased in fear. Before she could reach him, though, Sullivan grabbed her by the waist and threw her in the opposite direction. She slid across the floor and came to rest near the outcrop, at her mother's feet.

Elizabeth Fury stood up. Even in his nauseous, disoriented state, John could see how enraged she was. The scar on her face had become a thick dark line. She stepped between her daughter and son and pointed a trembling finger at Sullivan. “Remember our agreement, Basil! No harm comes to Lily! You're forbidden to touch her!”