Free Lost City of the Templars by Paul Christopher Page A

northerly direction. According to the notebooks, Fawcett entered the jungle at a place he called the Falls of Babylon, a large set of rapids and cliffs . . . here.” He pointed to a written notation on the enlarged copy of the map. “We get there first and ambush them.”
    “We kill them, yes?” Akurgal the Turk asked, a glint in his eye.
    “First we talk. Then we kill,” said Rogov.

10
    On their first night in the inflatables, they drew the two Zodiacs into a small, vine-enclosed backwater on the right bank that would be invisible both from the water and the air. The water in the little inlet was black as ink and covered with some kind of water lily. Directly above them vines and moss hung down in great sweeping curves, and above that was the distant rain forest canopy itself. The air was breath-snatchingly hot and their clothes were damp with sweat. The inlet smelled heavily of rotting vegetation, and all around and above them was the chattering, clicking and screeching of creatures hiding in the shadows of the dying day.
    They had pulled the two Zodiacs together for the night. Tanaki had used his fragile little bow and arrow to capture a pair of zebra catfish, and his grandfather Nenderu was cooking some sort of stew he’d made of the fish and local vegetation, boiling it all in a collapsible leather pot over the low flame of the expedition’s Primus stove.
    “My grandfather says he likes your fire in a bottle very much,” said Tanaki.
    “Tell him he can have it if we get out of this alive,” answered Holliday, flipping through the notebooks, looking for some clue as where to go next.
    “A lot of bugs and things in places like this?” Peggy asked Tanaki.
    “Tarantulas, wolf spiders, poisonous caterpillars, several kinds of scorpions. The jungle is not a very inviting place, missy. There are also caimans, like alligators, boas, anacondas, bushmasters . . . fire ants.”
    “Which is why we sleep under these,” said Holliday as he and Eddie began to slide together the poles that made up the twin mosquito nets that enclosed the Zodiacs.
    “You sure would make a hell of a salesman for Amazon Tours,” said Peggy to Tanaki. “Come to a land of enchantment where caimans eat you by day and giant anacondas swallow you whole.”
    “Don’t forget the bushmasters,” added Rafi, dishing out Nenderu’s fragrant stew.

    •   •   •
    With the mosquito nets to protect them, the group settled in for the night.
    “We’re supposed to sleep through all that?” Peggy asked, staring up through the netting. The sound was deafening, worse than it was during the day. Insects, night birds, larger creatures coughing, barking or growling. Peggy had always thought of the rain forest in almost a spiritual way: the grandeur of the canopy, the rain forest as the living, breathing lungs of the earth. She’d just never expected the lungs to be quite so noisy and quite so . . . real. Animals ate other animals, scorpions stung spiders, snakes killed monkeys—things died here all the time and they rotted, and what didn’t rot, the bugs ate.
    “Just what the hell are we doing here?” Peggy asked. A giant brown moth landed on the netting six inches from her face, and she screamed. “Son of a bitch!”
    “It’s a giant silk moth,” answered Rafi, “nothing to be frightened about, sweetie.”
    “Don’t you sweetie me! This place is a horror show. Nobody in their right mind would come here!”
    “Peggy’s got a point, you know,” said Holliday thoughtfully, leaning back on the heavy rubber inflatable hull.
    “Peggy’s always got a point,” said Rafi, grinning fondly at his wife and squeezing her hand.
    “I’m being serious,” said Holliday. “Fawcett looked for his lost city everywhere but north. On his last expedition, financed by latter-day Templars, he comes up the Xingu River—clearly with the first Lord Grayle and his White Gloves pulling the strings.”
    “Wasn’t that because of the ships