Shadow of the Jaguar Read online

  He was hungry again — or rather, hungry still. There was a greasy spoon not so far away, and he could do with the air and to stretch his legs. The email would still be there when he got back.

  There was smoke rising through the trees. It was thick, black, cloying stuff that carried with it the reek of cooking meat.

  Cam Bairstow staggered down through the smothering vegetation, tripping and stumbling along a path that wasn’t there, his eyes fixed desperately on the one sign of civilisation he had seen after days and nights alone in the jungle. The smoke meant hope. He was dizzy from dehydration, exhausted and weak from blood loss, but his cuts had begun to clot. Now it was all about food and water.

  The fragrance flavouring the smoke was irresistible.

  Cam stumbled on blindly.

  While he was lost within the trees, time had become a meaningless concept. There was no day or night, only shadows and darker shadows. His heart hammered erratically now, and his vision swooned as he hit the bole of a thick trunk. The flair of pain in his shoulder reignited the fire in a dozen of his wounds, and a croaking cry escaped his swollen lips.

  He couldn’t remember anything of the last few days. He had woken into a world of blood and hurt. He hadn’t moved for the longest time, allowing the pain to own his flesh. There had been sounds all around him as he opened his eyes, and he had thought that odd. The last thing he remembered had been silence. Complete and utter stillness.

  But that couldn’t be right. The forest was never still. Never silent. It was a living thing.

  Then he remembered the screams.

  Somehow he had staggered away from the ruined temple, but he had been too weak to risk the rope bridge, and instead had slipped and fallen and skidded and slid down the side of the long mountain toward the ravine, his eyes fixed on the crystal blue water. The trees offered him some protection from the elements, though a mist had risen thickly to engulf the world around him, leaving Cam to blunder down until he reached the bottom.

  Images of death formed within the curls of mist, and faces formed in the thick white. He saw again and again the last few seconds before the creature’s attack. It brought back the pain with a shocking clarity. And the pain brought something else in turn, a hollowness at the memory of Jaime’s body lying there, a mess of blood in the dirt of the forest floor.

  His foot caught on a ragged spur of root.

  The plant snagged Cam.

  He fell sprawling into the dark loam of the forest floor.

  He lay there on his back, too bone-weary to move, knowing that if he didn’t locate that reserve of strength needed to carry him to the village, they would be finding his bones. Nothing more.

  Above him a stripe-faced monkey swung through the canopy handover-hand in a looping, easy motion, working its way down through the branches. The animal was skittish, swinging quickly from perch to perch and leaving rustling leaves in its wake. Cam watched it, wishing for a moment that his life might be that uncomplicated — but it was in a way. It had been reduced to the most basic of elements — stand up and walk, or lie there and die.

  He didn’t move because death didn’t feel like such a bad place to be.

  Then the scent of the smoke — ugly and abrasive — entered his lungs, seeping down his throat, but it was also a glorious sensation, one filled with hope. The meat that was flavouring it was sickly sweet. The odour clawed at his empty belly, reminding him how desperately hungry he was.

  He pushed his hands beneath him and tried to stand. He was like a new-born calf, struggling to balance on shaky legs as he rose and stumbled on between the trees. More than once he was forced to use their trunks for support.

  The smell of burning meat grew more and more aromatic as he neared the source of the smoke, until it became so strong that it stung his eyes. It was too strong, he realised, to be some haunch of lama basting on a cooking fire. And the flavour was all wrong. He tasted something else in the air, salty on his tongue, like the crackling of pork rind.

  It was more than a simple cooking fire. He knew that much instinctively, and some primordial part of his brain recognised the stink. But he had no idea how much more than a cooking fire it was until he lurched out of the shroud of trees and saw the smouldering remains of a huge funeral pyre in the centre of the clearing.

  Five women stood weeping at the fireside, watching their loved ones burn. Cam stumbled forward, his hands held out before him as though begging for mercy, until he saw the fear in their eyes. His hands fell to his sides then. He felt the sting of the smoke in his throat, his bile rising, and he felt the bite of the fire’s heat on his face, tightening his raw skin as he walked into it. He couldn’t begin to understand what had happened, even as he began to make out the limbs that were visible within the dying flames.

  One woman hissed something at him, waving her hands, and another screamed as though he were some mindless corpse staggering out of hell to claim her. It was a soul-wrenching sound.

  Cam lurched forward, his legs buckling beneath him, and then fell to his knees. He couldn’t see beyond the flames. There were so many bodies within them. So many shapes all piled one atop another. It was only as the branches shifted, breaking as the fire robbed them of their strength, and one of the blackened bodies rolled out of the pyre that he saw the death wounds, and understood.

  The creature that had killed Jaime had found these people, as well.

  Death had come disguised within the shadow of a huge black jaguar.

  Cam stared at the burning men, unable to move. He tried to form words. To say something. But nothing would come. What words could match the horror trapped within the dancing flames?

  Coincidence?

  Lester had no time for coincidence. In his opinion, it was a word that had no place in a rational man’s vocabulary.

  Cutter walked into his office a little before nine carrying a sheaf of papers and proclaiming that they needed to talk.

  Against his better judgement, Lester listened, and for the second time in less than twenty-four hours heard the words “Madre de Dios”.

  “Thus the gods do conspire,” Lester muttered, steepling his fingers almost exactly as Sir Charles had in his smoking room just a few hours before. But that was where the similarities ended. This conversation was a very different one, and Nick Cutter wasn’t remotely like the old civil servant.

  “What if we’ve been wrong all along?” Cutter was saying.

  “How so?” Lester said.

  Cutter was dishevelled, more so than usual. The academic scruffiness had given way to a lack of grooming which smacked of slovenliness.

  “What if we started from the wrong supposition? We’ve been working under the assumption that these anomalies were localised on our side, following some heretofore unknown law of physics. But what if they’re not? What if rifts are opening in the Arctic, or on the Siberian Tundra? Just because there is no one to see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

  “Like the proverbial tree falling in the rainforest,” Lester said, leaning forward on his elbows. “I assume you are going to blind me with science now.” He eyed the sheaf of papers still clutched in Cutter’s hands.

  “Research,” Cutter said. Lester had noticed that the more passionate the Professor got about his work, or an idea at which he was worrying, the more pronounced his otherwise mild Scottish burr became.

  “I’ve been contacted by an old student working in Peru.” Cutter continued. “His job is to monitor the behavioural patterns of various endangered species, and he’s noticed some peculiarities there, including disturbed migratory patterns among the indigenous animals, and, more importantly, he believes he has found bones from the Plio-Pleistocene.”

  “Hardly evidence of an anomaly, Cutter. Tell me, has an anomaly actually been sighted?”

  “Well, no.”

  “And have these bones been carbon dated, or positively identified in any way, Professor?”

  “No.”

  “Then I would suggest you are reading
your own agenda into the evidence. May I remind you that foreign jollies are well beyond our remit. We do not follow hunches based upon ‘jumped to’ conclusions.”

  “I thought our remit included tracking the anomalies and preventing the rewriting of the evolutionary chain,” Cutter countered. The look on his face made it clear that he didn’t want to let this one go.

  “Well, yes, but within reason,” Lester said. “The British government does not act arbitrarily on foreign soil. There are protocols that must be observed. A few bones are not reason enough to breach them, Cutter. That’s just the way of the world. Bring me hard evidence, and then we’ll talk, but until you do, the answer to the riddle is no, if a tree falls in the rainforest, and there is no one to hear it, it does not make a sound.”

  There was a polite knock on the glass door and the team’s public relations specialist, Jenny Lewis, poked her head around the corner.

  “There’s a call for you on the secure line, Lester,” she said, smiling cheerfully. “Sir Charles Bairstow.”

  Lester rolled his eyes.

  “I’ll take it,” he said to her. “We’re done here,” he told Cutter. “If you would excuse me...”

  Lester picked up the phone before Cutter was halfway out of the office.

  “Lester,” he said into the mouthpiece.

  “James? Good man.” Sir Charles sounded unsettlingly confident, given the way their previous conversation had ended. “There is news that I think might interest your team.” He paused, clearly waiting for someone to tell him to continue.

  Lester left the silence hanging a moment longer than was polite.

  “Go on?”

  “Word has come through from my man on the ground in Peru. A little after nine this morning our time, a young British tourist matching my son Cameron’s description crawled out of the jungle. He has been taken to a hospital facility in Cuzco. No one will allow me to talk with him, so I am missing vital information. He is apparently delirious and suffering the effects of some serious trauma.” He paused, then continued.

  “I want my son back, James, and if — God help me — Jaime is still out there by himself, I want him found and brought home. Do I make my-self clear?”

  “Crystal,” Lester said, “but what exactly do you expect me to do, Sir Charles? We are not in the business of Kidnap and Rescue, after all.”

  The voice on the other end of the line turned cold and distant.

  “This is no longer a polite request from one father to another, James. I have spent the morning making calls. As of ten o’clock this morning you and your team have been assigned to assist me, under the auspices of a scientific investigation. You, of course, will receive confirmation of this imminently. I suggest in the meantime that you prepare your people for a journey, to cut back on wasted time. Bring my boys home, James. That is all I ask. Needless to say I would much rather we had come to an amicable agreement last night, but in the cold light of morning it matters little to me whether you are a willing ally or a co-opted one.”

  “Indeed,” Lester said stiffly, not appreciating the position the senior Civil Servant had angled him into. “Hello Mr Rock, welcome to the Hard Place.”

  Sir Charles did not laugh.

  “My man seems certain it is Cameron, and is doing all he can to get close to him, but the Peruvians have got their security tied up tightly and we are being blocked at every turn from ascertaining the truth. It is, needless to say, a delicate situation, James. Regardless, I want my boys home.”

  “I can appreciate that, Sir Charles, but in all honesty we cannot mount a military expedition to bring your sons home. It is quite out of the question. There are protocols that must be observed.”

  “The question has changed, James. In fact I would go so far as to say it has become a statement. These things you will do: you will make preparations for your team to travel to Cuzco. You will take three men of my choosing from the Regiment who will assist with the recovery of my son and aid with on-the-ground activities. They’ll be fully briefed — we can’t let sheer ignorance jeopardise the mission, so I’ll expect you to fill in the details concerning your... ah... unique activities. And most important of all, you will bring my boys home. I don’t care how you do it or what excuses you concoct, but if you wish to have a desk to sit behind, you will make it happen. If I were you I would stop thinking about what is out of the question, and start thinking about solutions to the problems you face.”

  With that, the Permanent Under-Secretary severed the connection and left Lester holding the phone.

  Lester placed the handset in the cradle, and buzzed Jenny through.

  “Fetch Cutter and the others,” he told her.

  ***

  She was his own personal ghost, and this was his own personal hell. Jenny Lewis knocked on the glass door of Cutter’s office.

  “Lester wants to see you,” she said with Claudia’s voice.

  Nick Cutter glanced up at the woman who appeared so much like Claudia she might have been Claudia, were it not for the slightly darker hair and her perpetual air of confidence. It was difficult to look at her and not see the woman he had allowed himself to love. Difficult because he kept thinking there was a history between them, a connection that she did not share, and he found himself taking it for granted at the strangest moments, in the stupidest of ways.

  “What does he want now?”

  “What does Lester ever want?” Jenny replied, raising her eyebrows and grinning. It was a moment of familiarity that might easily have been shared with her ghost.

  Then she spun on her heels and left him.

  Cutter took his time.

  When he finally walked up the spiral ramp to Lester’s office, the rest of the team were already assembled. Connor Temple and Abby Maitland sat like naughty school children on the long leather banquette against the far wall, her short-cut platinum blonde hair in stark contrast to his dark, unruly mop and five o’clock shadow. Stephen Hart leaned beside them, close to Abby. Jenny stood beside Lester’s desk, while Lester sat back in his leather chair, seemingly content to wait forever. The Spartan warrior’s mask rested on the desk between them. No, not content, Cutter thought, seeing the wrinkled crow’s feet around his eyes and the strain that lurked behind them. For want of a better word, he looks haunted.

  “Close the door behind you,” Lester said. That in itself aroused Cutter’s curiosity; like most modern managers, Lester chose to operate an ‘open door’ policy. It was meant to make him seem approachable, but in actuality it allowed him to see all and hear all, like two of the wise monkeys rolled into one.

  Cutter closed the door.

  “What’s this all about, Lester?”

  “In economic terms, they call it a double coincidence of wants,” Lester said.

  “And what, precisely, is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that what you want and what I want are no longer mutually exclusive, Professor Cutter. Considering our conversation this morning, this should amuse you no end. Word has come down from on high that you are going on a little holiday.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The short version is that Sir Charles Bairstow’s two sons have gone missing in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, which I believe is the same region where your former student was reporting those peculiarities. We have been... requested to aid in their safe return.”

  “We’re going to Peru?” Connor blurted, his dark eyes flashing. “Cool.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Lester said.

  “Wait a minute,” Cutter interrupted, “this morning it was out of the question, now suddenly it’s a done deal?”

  “As I said, a double coincidence of wants. Answering the call for assistance from your colleague provides a legitimate cover for the government’s exfiltration of Sir Charles’ errant children.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “You don’t need to,” Lester told him smoothly. “You get to satisfy your curiosity about the possib
ility of an anomaly in the region, subtly of course. There will be three more members of your team, from the Regiment. They will oversee the recovery of the boys. You need not get your hands dirty with anything apart from Peruvian loam. Consider it a case of getting what you wanted, but not perhaps how you wanted it — or why.

  “Your cover will be relatively straightforward, since the best lies are always close to the truth, after all. You will be investigating the migration of certain endangered species out of the region. More socio-science than the pure stuff, but interesting to the British government nonetheless as we look to protect certain species of our own from dying out. I suggest you begin making preparations, you ship out in the morning.”

  His expression made it clear that they were dismissed.

  Cutter wasn’t about to argue; Lester was right, he had got precisely what he wanted, no matter how uncomfortable the means of its procurement left him feeling.

  “Come on, then,” he said to the others.

  “One last thing,” Lester said, as Cutter opened the door. “Jenny will be accompanying you — the last thing we need is a public relations nightmare. There’s a lot you need to know about the region and the obstacles you are likely to encounter. I’m putting you in charge of this operation, so let’s do our best to keep both feet out of our mouths for once, shall we?”

  THREE

  It was still too early to call Nando Estevez, and would be for some time yet, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make preparations. There were a thousand things that needed to be put in place for a legitimate scientific expedition, and almost none of them could be done overnight. Still, they had to be done.

  Cutter corralled the team into his office, mentally sorting out the best way to divvy up responsibilities.

  He looked at them looking at him, and wondered what they saw. Sometimes he had difficulty recognizing the man he saw reflected in their eyes, seeing instead a distorted image in a fun-house mirror. He recognised the features, the lines and bone structure, that was all in-timately familiar to him, but the flesh did not make the man. The sum of his experiences did. Memories shaped a man’s life and gave it purpose and meaning.