James Rollins - Amazonia

chieftain's kinsmen, would dare touch her. She was well known through-out the region as one of the rare female shamans, a practitioner of wawek,

malevolent sorcery. Her skill at poisons, tortures, and the lost art of tsantza, head-shrinking, were both respected and feared. In fact, the only article of adornment she had worn as she left the village was the shrunken head of her husband, hung on a twined cord and resting between her breasts.

This was how Louis found the woman, a wild, beautiful creature of the jungle. Though he had an estranged wife back in France, Louis had taken the woman as his own. She had not refused, especially when he and his mercenaries slew every man, woman, and child in her village, marking her revenge.

Since that day, the two had been inseparable. Tshui, an accomplished interrogator and wise in the ways of the jungle, accompanied him on all his missions. She continued to collect trophies from each venture.

Around the room, aligned on shelves on all four walls, were forty-three tsantza, each head no more than a wizened apple-the eyes and lips sewn closed, the hair trailing over the shelf edges like Spanish moss on trees. Her skill at shrinking heads was amazing. He had watched the entire process once.

Once was enough.

With the skill of a surgeon, she would flay the skin in one piece from the skull of her victim, sometimes while he or she was still alive and screaming. She truly was an artist. After boiling the skin, hair and all, and drying it over hot ashes, she used a bone needle and thread to close the mouth and eyes, then filled the inside with hot pebbles and sand. As the leathery skin shrank, she would mold its shape with her fingers. Tshui had an uncanny ability to sculpt the head into an amazing approximation of the victim's original face.

Louis glanced to her latest work of art. It rested on the far bedside table. It was a Bolivian army officer who had been blackmailing a cocaine shipper. From his trimmed mustache to the straight bangs hanging over his forehead, the detail of her work was amazing. The collection was worthy of the finest museum. In fact, the staff of the Hotel Seine thought Louis was a university anthropologist, collecting these specimens for just such a museum. If any thought otherwise, they knew to keep silent.

"Ma cherie," he said, finding his breath again. "I have wonders

She rolled toward him, reaching in his direction. She made a small sound, encouraging him to join her. Tshui seldom spoke. A word here or there. Otherwise, like some jungle cat, she was all eyes, motions, and soft purrs.

Louis could not resist. He knocked off his hat and slipped from his jacket. In moments, he was as naked as she. His own body was lean, muscled, and crisscrossed with scars. He swallowed the draught of natem laid out for him while Tshui lazily traced one of his scars down his belly to his inner thigh. A shiver trembled up his back.

As the drug swept through him, heightening his senses, he fell upon his woman. She opened to him, and he sank gratefully into her warmth. He kissed her deeply, while she raked his back with sharpened nails.

Soon, colors and lights played across his vision. The room spun slightly from the alkaloids in the tea. For a moment, it seemed the scores of shrunken heads were watching their play, the eyes of the dead upon him as he thrust into the woman. The audience aroused him further. He pinned Tshui under him, his back arching as he drove into her again and again, a scream clenched in his chest.

All around him were faces staring down, watching with blind eyes.

Louis had one final thought before being consumed fully by his passion and the exquisite pain. A final trophy to add to these shelves, a memento from the son of the man who had ruined him: the head of Nathan Rand.

ACT TWO - Under the Canopy

PERIWINKLE

FAMILY: Apocynaceae

GENUS: VInCa

SPECIES: Minor, Major

COMMON NAMES: Periwinkle, Cezayirmeneksesi,

Common Periwinkle, Vincapervinc

PARTS USED: Whole Plant

PROPERTIES/ACTIONS: Analgesic, Antibacterial,

Antimicrobial, Antiinflammatory, Astringent,

Cardiotonie, Carminative, Depurative, Diuretic,

Emmenagogue, Febrifuge, Hemostat, Hypotensive,

Lactogogue, Hepatoprotective, Sedative, Sialogogue,

Spasmolytic, Stomachic, Tonic, Vulnerary

CHAPTER FOUR

WauWai

AUGUST 7, B:12 A. M.

EN ROUTE OVER THE AMAZON JUNGLE

Nathan stared out the helicopter's windows. Even through the sound dampening earphones, the roar of the blades was deafening, isolating each passenger in his own cocoon of noise.

Below, a vast sea of green spread to the horizon in all directions. From this vantage, it was as if the entire world were just forest. The only breaks in the featureless expanse of the continuous canopy were the occasional giant trees, the emergents, that poked their leafy crowns above their brethren, great monsters of the forest that served as nesting sites for harpy eagles and toucans. The only other breaks were the half-hidden dark rivers, snaking lazily through the forest.

Otherwise, the jungle remained supreme, impenetrable, endless.

Nathan leaned his forehead against the glass. Was his father down there somewhere? And if not, were there at least answers?

Deep inside, Nathan felt a seed of anxiety, bitter and sour. Could he handle what he discovered? After four years of not knowing, Nate had learned one thing. Time did indeed heal all wounds, but it left a nasty, unforgiving scar.

After his father's disappearance, Nate had isolated himself from the world, first in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel's, then in the embrace of stronger drugs. Back in the States, his therapists had used phrases such as abandonment issues, trust conflicts, and clinical depression. But Nate experienced it as a faithlessness in life. With the exception of Manny and Kouwe, he had formed no deep friendships. He had become too hard, too numb, too scarred.

Only after returning to the jungle had Nate found some semblance of peace. But now this . . .

Was he ready to reopen those old wounds? To face that pain?

The earphone radio clicked on with a rasp of static, and the pilot's voice cut momentarily through the rotor's roar. "We're twenty klicks from Wauwai. But there's smoke on the horizon:"

Nathan peered ahead, yet all he could see was the terrain below and to the side. Wauwai would serve as a secondary field base for the search team, a launching-off point from which to supply and monitor those trekking through the forest. Two hours ago, the three Hueys, along with the sleek black Comanche, had set off from Sao Gabriel, carrying the initial supplies, gear, armament, and personnel. After the expedition proceeded into the jungle later today, the Hueys would serve as a flying supply chain between Wauwai and Sao Gabriel, ferrying additional supplies, men, and fuel. Meanwhile, the Comanche would remain at Wauwai, a black bird reserved in case of an emergency. Its armament and long-range capabilities would help protect the team from the air if necessary.

That had been the plan.

"The smoke appears to be coming from our destination," the pilot continued. "The village is burning:"

Nathan pulled away from the window. Burning? He glanced around the cabin. In addition to the two O'Briens, he shared the space with Professor Kouwe, Richard Zane, and Anna Fong. The seventh and final passenger was the hard-faced man who had sat across the conference table from Nathan during the debriefing, the one with the ugly scar across his neck. He had been introduced this morning as Olin Pasternak, another CIA agent, one associated with the administration's Science and Technology division. He found the man's ice-blue eyes staring right back at him, his face an unreadable stoic mask.

To his side, he watched Frank pull a microphone up to his lips. Can we still land?"