Free Lost City of the Templars by Paul Christopher Page B

Fawcett discovered?” Peggy asked, snuggling into her husband’s enfolding arm.
    “That’s what I thought originally, but now I’m not so sure.”
    “Why?” Rafi asked.
    “The First Lord Grayle was a businessman, a banker, in fact. I can see how a man of that period could get caught up in Fawcett’s dreams of lost worlds and limitless gold. Fawcett was even friends with Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who wrote
The Lost World
. That kind of thing holds a fascination for nearly everyone.” Holliday paused. “On the other hand the present Lord Grayle is the largest privatizer of water resources in the world among other things. I doubt that he’s got a romantic bone in his body.”
    “You’re saying this all has to do with water?” Rafi asked.
    “Not necessarily,” said Holliday. “But think about it. Rogov’s one of Grayle’s men and he’s been on us from the start. We’re following in Fawcett’s footsteps to some unknown destination that might give us some answers, but Grayle knows exactly what he’s after. You don’t firebomb people just for the fun of it. And don’t forget those fighter planes. I guarantee you they came from whatever Kate Sinclair calls her private army of thugs these days. This whole thing is big and we don’t even really know what it is.”
    •   •   •
    Dimitri Rogov, Steven Cornwell and Tashkin Akurgal flew the ancient single-engine de Havilland Beaver low over the jungle, moving steadily north, keeping the winding path of the Xingu far to the left; the last thing Rogov wanted to do was alert Holliday that they were getting ahead of them.
    “You think maybe you could have found a better plane than this old crate?” Cornwell said, squirming on the cracked vinyl seat. “It’s got to be fifty years old.”
    “More like sixty,” answered Rogov. “In the middle of Brazil, beggars can’t be choosers. You’ve been living in the lap of your master’s luxury for far too long,
muy droog
.”
    “Your master, as well, Rogov, and don’t you forget it.”
    The Russian turned in the pilot’s seat, his face gone suddenly dark. As if by magic a little Beretta Bobcat appeared in his hand, the pocket semiautomatic a few inches from the Englishman’s face. “Know this, my Anglo friend. No man is my master, not even your Lord Grayle. He has set me a task and I will do it and then I shall go my own way once more. Tell me you understand this, or my little gun will blow your brains through the window behind you and then your corpse will follow for the beetles and the flies to feed on.”
    For a moment Cornwell returned Rogov’s malevolent stare with his own, but eventually he nodded.
    “Good,” said the Russian, and they flew on.
    Rogov recognized Fawcett’s Gardens of Babylon immediately: great slabs of dark rock in geometric tiers rising at least two hundred feet into the air, the broader slabs interspersed with narrower ones that jutted out slightly, each one covered in frothy cascades of gigantic pink and purple and yellow blooms, long tendrils of leaf-covered vine and drooping beards of heavy-hanging moss.
    In the center was the waterfall itself, a great curtain of water streaming down in a rainbow torrent that struck the river below, throwing up the gentle mist that made the blooms glisten in the late afternoon sun. It was a magnificent sight, and Rogov couldn’t have cared less for the great natural beauty beneath his wings. The only thing that pleased him was the fact that there was no sign of John Holliday.
    He took the old single-engine plane a little more than half a mile upriver from the falls and then landed. He let the de Havilland drift down on the current, using the pontoon rudders to keep the plane close to shore.
    Eventually he spotted the place he wanted and switched on the engine again, forcing the aircraft up onto the muddy foreshore until the portside pontoon was hard aground.
    “Why this filthy spot?” grunted Cornwell, staring out of the plane’s