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leticia is a town of fewer than twenty thousand people and serves as the
Colombian gateway to the Amazon. In the southeast corner of a trapezium
bordered on all three sides by Peru and Brazil, it is a busy but laid-back
portal crowded with street markets and an unkempt collection of river vessels.
A continual stream of long, narrow canoes is the only commonality in watercraft;
otherwise, every kind of barge, outboard, dingy, houseboat, raft, outrigger, and
steamboat chugs, floats, or skitters along. The Brazilian border town of
Tabatinga is a few minutes’ walk away; a few days by boat upstream passes
Iquitos, Peru, and a good bit farther downstream is Manaus, Brazil.
Shortly after dawn, Jake bundled his groggy
charges up and pointed them in the direction of the wharf. Wearing khaki cargo
shorts, light t-shirts, and athletic shoes, strapped with backpacks, they
trudged down the mud-caked street toward the river. Jake thought they looked
like they’d been sold off to slavery and were being herded to work the fields.
He stopped at a corner café and got some coffee, hoping that would invigorate
them.
On their way they passed elderly native
women working fruit stands and young barefooted boys hawking fish slung over
their shoulders. The fruit hung in citrusy smelling bunches of orange, yellow,
and red; the fish were fat and gray and smelly. A few cars puttered through the
streets, but motorbikes outnumbered them. When a red one with a pair of
teenagers astride came buzzing around the corner, almost plowing into Falcone
and Niles, adrenaline kick-started the caffeine and their heads snapped up in
startled unison. Before they caught a glimpse of the water, they smelled it in
the stench of diesel fuel simmering up from the congested riverbanks. Already,
the heat was thick and heavy. Falcone and Niles were panting.
Halting at the wharf, the duo scanned the
rickety looking assortment of boats crammed at the edge in stupefied disbelief.
There wasn’t a single one, large or small, that looked capable of holding
together in a bathtub much less rolling along the robust currents of what was,
arguably, the mightiest navigable river in the world. There were a number of
large double-tiered wooden and aluminum boats that resembled the African Queen.
A medium one, made of wood, dilapidated and peeling white paint, was being
loaded with supplies.
Falcone, still slack-jawed, muttered,
“Please, God, tell me that’s not the fucking boat.”
Niles snorted with glee. “I love it! I
absolutely love it! We’ve got to work this into the show somehow. Got to!”
“You’re goddamn kidding me, right?”
“Eddie, it would be great! It’s not been
done before!”
Behind them, Jake said, “Well, we’re doing
it now, so load up.”
“You’re serious,” Falcone said
incredulously.
“Get a move on, gents.”
The no-nonsense tone in his voice sent them
tottering up a wooden plank that stretched to the boat, both flailing their arms
to maintain balance. Jake scrambled easily across, snatched the plank and
dropped it onto the boat’s deck. A group of boys rushed forward and laughingly
untied the lines and tossed them. The old riverboat’s engine coughed,
sputtered, then rumbled with half-hearted determination. Falcone and Niles
grabbed the sides as every timber on the vessel shook. The boat actually began
to move in the water. They were amazed. The riverbank drifted away, the swarm
of activity diminished with distance. The big river suddenly yawed and pulled
them into its strong, murky currents.
they had been chugging along for close to two hours, Falcone and Niles
taking in the scenery with a combination of dread and fascination. Handmade
dugout canoes with native river dwellers streamed by, fishermen were scattered
along the banks tossing out lines with hooks or pronged spears, scantily clad
children frolicked, farmers herded anemic-looking cattle. And the massive
umber-colored river churned on. Jake spent some time conversing with the boat’s
captain. He was a short, thickset man in his late fifties with skin the color
and texture of an old leather belt. Most of his teeth were missing, black, or
gold-plated, but his head was full of gleaming black hair. He seemed competent
enough, but the fact that he downed cans of Águila like it was Gatorade was a
little disturbing.
When Jake rejoined his clients, seated on
the splintered remains of a wooden bench crookedly nailed to the deck, Niles
commented, “I hope the captain can hold his pints.”
“Probably,” Jake replied, frowning, “but I
told him to slow down. His son will relieve him in a while and he can take a
nap.”
“That makes me feel much better,” Falcone
said sarcastically, swatting at a large black insect that looked like a fly on
steroids. “But then if I lived down here, I’m sure I’d stay drunk.”
“Let’s talk about the folks you’re going to
be dropping off in the jungle,” Jake said. “What kind of provisions will they
have?”
“As in supplies?” Niles asked.
“Yes.”
“Actually, just the clothes on their
backs,” Falcone said.
“Not in the Amazon. Unless your
contestants are survival-trained, they’ll be dead before the second episode.
You’ll have to make sure they have safe drinking water at the very least and a
machete. Possibly some food or at least knowledge of indigenous food sources.”
“Okay.”
“Now,” Jake continued, “the reason I’m
taking you into the jungle this way is so you can see their logical way out, in
reverse. And you definitely don’t want to drop them too far in, not more than,
say, twenty to thirty miles. You’ll find that a mile here is like five or ten
anywhere else. So as long as they track like the natives and follow the water,
the tributaries, they’ll find their way to the Amazon and the way out.”
“Hey, that would make a cool title for the
show, wouldn’t it, mate?” Niles said. “The Way Out. I like it!”
“Yeah, it would,” Falcone agreed. “Don’t
think they’ve decided on a title yet.”
The raucous engine sounds had settled into
a more monotonous drone as the boat’s spasmodic movement modulated, so Falcone
and Niles began to settle down themselves.
Jake reached into a cooler and tossed them
bottles of water. “All right. For now, drink lots of water, watch your time in
direct sun, and enjoy the cruise.”
Flinching as a cockroach the size of a bar
of soap scuttled across the deck, Falcone caught his bottle and said, “Royal
Caribbean it’s not.”
FURTHER EXPLORATION OF THE boat revealed
just how not like the Royal Caribbean it was. For one thing, much to their
shock and repulsion, there was no toilet. Instead, tucked in a closet barely
big enough to shoulder into, was a hole covered by a square piece of plywood.
Neither Falcone nor Niles wanted to know what was in the hole or where the
contents wound up. And neither inhaled when they were inside. They did keep an
eye on the hand-sized spider meandering around the ceiling of the stall, and
wondered how they would know where it was later, in the dark.
Their beds were woven rope hammocks, strung
across the covered middle deck, and when Falcone and Niles grew fatigued from
clutching the side rails for fear of being slung overboard, they quickly
concluded there would not be much, if any, sleep on the boat. Unlike typical
hammocks, these hung loosely to form a deep center pocket for the body, and
despite Jake’s direction for optimal positioning—which was to lie diagonally
across in a way that kept the spine aligned—neither man could get comfortable.
And even in the shade, the midday heat was stifling. Falcone and Niles tossed
and twisted and tangled the afternoon away while Jake snoozed as effortlessly as
an infant on cool crib sheets.
Until his satellite phone stirred him,
vibrating at his waist.
Jake’s eyes blinked open and, instantly
alert, he glanced at the incoming number on the display. Raúl Aguilar. He
swung out of his hammock, put the phone to his ear, and strode out to a side
deck.
THEY DISEMBARKED AT A small village about
ten kilometers south of Amacayacu, a national park covering some 1130 square
miles of jungle. Jake would have preferred that Falcone and Niles remain
behind, but after nearly eight hours on the creaking riverboat they were
desperate to set foot on solid land. So after making sure they had slathered on
sunscreen and DEET, Jake waited for them to gather their backpacks and helped
them into the boat’s dugout. He rowed to shore, tethered the canoe, and led
them through the mud to a sandy swath cut into the side of a scrub-covered
bank. There were long, shallow steps leading to the top, all meticulously
rutted and squared in the soil. They looked like Mayan ruins. Small children,
two boys and a girl, sat at the top. Behind them, the sky was pale with dollops
of cloud, the sun so close it was omnipotent, backlighting the whole canvas in
colorless radiance.
When they reached the top of the steps, the
children had scampered away. Falcone and Niles bent over, having a hard time
catching their breath. Their clothing was soaked with sweat, and carnivorous
jejenes—no-see-ums—were already hovering over exposed flesh in anticipation
of the DEET barrier dissolving in the humidity. For some reason, they didn’t
seem as interested in Jake. He immediately set off toward a group of huts, his
own breathing unchanged. Falcone and Niles exchanged dispirited looks and
laboriously jogged to catch up.
The Amazon flood season, typically April
and May, August and September, necessitated that housing anywhere within its
reach be elevated on stilts, but the huts in this village were among the few
high enough to be built on the ground with under spaces and short ladders to
their doorways. They were constructed of palm wood, chosen in part because
termites would not feed on it, and the roofs were made with dried fronds from
the yarina palm, lashed to the rafters with lianas for a watertight seal.
Windows were fly-screens. The village road was a dirt path that encircled the
settlement, which was foliated with lemon, papaya, and mango trees, banana
plants and coconut palms. Large, Day-Glo colored parrots and macaws chattered
and squawked from tree branches overhead, roosters and chickens picked and poked
lazily on the ground.
Jake strode purposefully down the dirt
path, turning into the center of the settlement where a sturdier wooden hut with
a front porch was surrounded by villagers and a number of men in olive military
fatigues. Aguilar was sitting on the porch, beer in one hand, cigar in the
other. The paramilitary commander, who was about the same age as Jake, wore his
usual maroon beret and jungle fatigues, longish hair neatly combed, beard
trimmed. His boots were propped up on the railing. When he spotted Jake, he
swung them down, raised his beer, and shouted, “Qué mas, mi amigo!”
Jake gave him a wave and called out, “Hola!”
He waited for Falcone and Niles to catch up, introduced them to Aguilar, and
climbed up the ladder to the porch. When the duo made it to the platform, Jake
suggested they go inside the bodega to get a beer and cool off, which
they did without hesitation. He peered inside, watched until they had collapsed
into a pair of chairs, then turned back to Aguilar.
Jake gave his friend a quick embrace and
took a seat next to him at the railing. Eyed him expectantly, waiting for him
to say what was important enough to bring him from the other side of Amazonas to
the river edge. He had to wait a while as Aguilar puffed on his Robusto and
seemed to be contemplating something of a grave nature. He flicked ashes to the
floorboards, sipped his beer. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Put
his beer can on the railing and sighed.
“Jake,” he said, and looked him squarely in
the eye. “There is a bounty on you.”
For a moment Jake said nothing, as if it
took his mind that long to process the words. Then, he laughed with a husky
guffaw, tossed his head back and grinned at Aguilar. “That’s what you
came all the way out here to tell me?” He studied Aguilar’s face. “Seriously?”
“You do not believe it?”
“Oh, yeah, I believe it. But shit, Raúl.
I had a bounty on me the second my feet touched Colombian soil.”
Quietly, Aguilar said, “Jake, this is
different.”
“How?”
“This bounty is from a cartel.”
Jake’s face lost some of its elasticity.
“A cartel?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“Five hundred thousand.”
“What?”
When Aguilar did not answer, Jake said,
“Pesos?”
“No. American dollars.”
Now Jake was silent. Somewhere out in the
trees a monkey jabbered, a branch crackled, and a bird screeched.
Aguilar said, “You should not be here.”
“I didn’t exactly want to come back right
now, but”—he jerked his shoulder toward the inside of the bodega—“I have
a private contract.”
“You should not be here,” Aguilar repeated
thickly.
“Well, I am. But I should be wrapping this
phase in a few days. You have any intel that puts hostiles anywhere in my AO?”
Aguilar shook his head slowly. “No. I
think you are secure here, but everything can change in an instant. You know
that.”
Jake nodded. Yes, yes it could. And did.
“Be careful, my friend. I will have your
back as much as I can. My men and your guide will be with you here.”
“Thank you, Raúl.”
“But be careful.”
“Of course.”
Aguilar stood, gave Jake a solemn look, and
headed for the ladder. Stopped and turned around. “This cartel is the one
responsible for Haskell’s death, Jake.”
Jake felt the porch become very light, his
weight very heavy. His lungs labored for air and his skin was on fire.
Impossibly, he could hear his watch ticking. It sounded like a cannon.
“Who are they, Raúl?”
“Valentín.”
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