The 6th Extinction (Sigma Force 10)

“Someone who might know where she is now?” Painter added.

The woman chewed her lower lip, plainly trying her best to recall anything. Then she slowly nodded.

“I remember. A man come at night. He was very . . .” She struggled for the word and instead forked her fingers and pretended bolts were shooting out of her eyes.

“Intense?” Jenna asked.

“Sim”—she nodded—“but scary, too. Senhor Cruz no like him. He hiss and hide.”

Senhor Cruz must be the tabby out front.

If that nighttime visitor was Amy’s accomplice or boss, maybe the cat was a good judge of character. He certainly had taken a shine to Drake.

Painter stepped forward, pulling out a sheaf of photographs. “Maybe you could recognize him. These are some of Amy’s friends.”

He spread the pictures across the reservation table. They showed various colleagues and associates of Amy’s. But a majority of the photographs came from when Amy was young, from Dark Eden’s old website, which still had pictures of the early members of that group. It was the most likely connection. There was even one that showed a teenaged Amy smiling in a group photo.

The woman bent lower over the pictures, slipping on a pair of reading glasses. She shifted through them and gave each a good look. On the group photo, she tapped one face.

“This the man. He smiles in picture, but not when he was here. He was very”—she glanced up to Jenna—“intense.”

Painter retrieved the photograph and studied the man in the picture. Jenna looked over his shoulder. The suspect had ebony black hair, combed back from a handsome pale face with piercing blue eyes.

“Did you overhear them speaking at all?” Painter asked.

“Não. They go to her room. He leave, but I no see him.”

“And no one else came?”

“Não.”

Painter nodded and passed her a few bills of Brazilian currency. “Obrigado.”

She pushed the bills back with a shake of her head. “I hope you find your friend. I hope she not with that man.”

Jenna patted the woman’s hand atop the bills. “For Senhor Cruz, then. Buy him some nice fish.”

The woman smiled, then nodded, her fingers crinkling the bills off the bench. “Obrigado.”

Jenna headed with Painter out onto the porch.

“Did you learn anything?” Drake asked, waving for Schmitt and Marlow to close in.

Painter sighed. “Someone came to visit her, someone from her past, from Dark Eden.”

Drake glowered. “Then that must be our guy.”

“Who is he?” Jenna asked.

“He was the founder of Dark Eden.” Painter did not sound happy and explained why. “According to all reports, he died eleven years ago.”

Jenna glanced back to the guesthouse.

So it seems we’re still chasing ghosts.

7:45 A.M.

“Isn’t the view beautiful?” Cutter Elwes asked.

Kendall wanted to argue, to lash out, but even he could not find the gumption as he stared beyond the wrought-iron rails of the balcony.

The sun was just cresting the rim of the tepui. The thunderstorm had cleared during the night, leaving the skies a dazzling blue overhead, but mists still clung to the summit, adding to the illusion that this was an island in the clouds. The morning light cast those mists into shades of honey amber and dusky rose. The plateau itself seemed to glow with the new day, glistening in every shade of emerald, while the pond was a perfect reflection of the cloudless sky.

It was tempting to let his guard down in the face of such inspiring beauty, but he remained steadfast. He sat stiff-backed across the table from his host, a breakfast spread between them: a kaleidoscope of colorful fruits, dark breads, and hot platters of eggs and lentils.

No meat . . . not for Cutter Elwes.

Kendall had picked at the offering, but he had no appetite, his stomach churned at what this day surely held for him. Cutter intended to make Kendall cooperate, to share his knowledge, but he would refuse.

At least for as long as I can.

In the past, few people successfully withstood Cutter, and Kendall doubted that reality had changed. He had envisioned all manner of torture during the night, the fear allowing him little sleep. Any thought of escape—of even throwing himself off this mountain—was dashed by his ever-present shadow.

Even now Mateo’s hulking form stood guard by the balcony door.

Trying to steer the conversation away from what was to come, Kendall eyed his escort. “Mateo . . . he’s native to these jungles. As is his sister, your wife. What tribe are they from? Akuntsu? Maybe Yanomami?”

From his days searching rain forests and jungles for extremophiles, Kendall was familiar with several of the Brazilian indigenous tribes.

“You look upon them with the eyes of a Westerner,” Cutter scolded. “Each tribe is very distinct, once you’ve lived among them. Mateo and my wife are actually members of the Macuxi tribespeoples. Their tribe is a subgroup local to this region. They’ve lived in these forests for thousands of years, as much a part of nature here as any leaf, flower, or burrowing snake. Their people are also unique in another way.”

“How?” he asked, hoping to keep the conversation along this track.

“The tribe demonstrates an unusual number of twin births, both fraternal and identical. In fact, Ashuu was born in triplet grouping. A very unusual one. She has an identical sister—and a fraternal brother, Mateo.”

Kendall crinkled his brow. Two identical girls and a boy. He had heard of such unusual cases—of women who gave birth to identical twins along with a fraternal third, called a singleton. While births like that did occur naturally, it was more often the result of the use of fertility drugs.

Kendall lowered his voice, curiosity getting the better of him. “Do you think Mateo being born a singleton . . . could it account for his unusual size?”

“Possibly. Maybe a genetic anomaly secondary to just a strange triplet configuration. But what I find more fascinating is the tribe’s unusual record of multiple births. It makes me wonder if there isn’t some naturally occurring analog to a fertility drug in the local rain forest, some undiscovered pharmaceutical.”

It was an interesting proposition. The rain forests were a source of a great number of new drugs, from a cure for malaria to some powerful anticancer medications. And there were surely hundreds of other discoveries still to be made. That is, if the rain forests continued to thrive, instead of being slashed and burned for farmland or cut down by logging companies.