River of Nightmares (Rogue Angel) Read online

  “Already paid for two weeks. Doug wired the money. We’re getting a refund for the other one.”

  “The O Segura. Not so dependable after all. This one isn’t as sleek as the one we’d planned on, Wall.” Annja’s voice was flat.

  “Look, it was this or wait around a few days until something else opened up or the O Segura got repaired. Or I suppose go to another city on the coast and find something. But I’m liking this boat. I’m liking it a lot.”

  The boat’s name was in faded red paint: Orellana’s Prize. Annja had studied up on the Amazon before suggesting this series. She knew Francisco de Orellana was a Spanish soldier who’d been the first European to explore the river. Orellana had helped Pizarro conquer Peru and served as a governor for a time. After his sojourn down the river he finally returned to Spain, where his tales of gems, spices and native women resembling the Greek mythological Amazons contributed to the naming of the river. Eventually he came back here, but his ship capsized at the mouth and he drowned. Annja shuddered, a boat named after a drowned man...who would do that? And paint the name in the color of blood.

  “C’mon, Miss Creed, I’ll give you the tour. I already put your duffel in your cabin. Gave you the nicest room.” Wallace led the way.

  Cabin? Annja had expected to be roughing it. The boat they’d originally chartered had a common room for sleeping that doubled as the dining room. She’d selected the O Segura after contacting a charter company she’d found on the internet and followed up on with a few phone calls. This series was wholly Annja’s idea, and she’d thought that particular boat would come over great on film, make it look like taping these segments was dangerous, that taking an antique-looking tug into the tributaries was a big risk. More drama. This boat was probably three times the size of that tug, practically luxurious.

  “According to the captain, Orellana’s Prize is one of the oldest still navigating the Amazon. Maybe the oldest. Built in France in 1876.”

  Annja felt a tingle on the back of her neck. Roux had called her from France this morning, said he was thinking of her. Odd connection, this boat to France.

  “She was originally a Peruvian naval ship, was in the campaign to expel the invasion of Ecuador back in 1902, or maybe it was 1903. I should’ve written all of this down, might be a good tidbit for the website promo. Maybe we’ll do a clip just on the boat, for the ‘extras’ on the DVD.”

  That had been part of Annja’s proposal, too. Release the segments as a DVD around the holidays, include bonus features on their boat, the river itself and any other tidbits that struck their fancy.

  “We’ll double-check it all, the dates and history, with the captain when we start filming. He’s quite the character. I want to do a little piece on him. Anyway, apparently in the early 1900s, this boat was used for exploration of some tributaries—maybe the same ones we’re going down. She was fully restored four or five years ago.” He stroked his chin. “We’re sailing on a piece of Amazon River history, Miss Creed. Maybe it was a good thing our other charter didn’t work out, eh?”

  “Steam powered?” Annja noted that keeping with the boat’s apparent history, the original brass ornamentation here and there was reasonably polished. But the paint was weathered and faded all around, the tropical climate taking its toll despite the restoration.

  “Captain said they switched that out a couple of years back. Has a diesel engine and two generators.”

  They circled the deck; Annja put it at a little more than ninety feet long and sixteen or seventeen feet wide. It had two upper levels, giving it the look of a Mississippi riverboat, and the roof served as a viewing area, complete with safety rail and padded benches.

  “We each have our own cabin,” Wallace said, beaming. Annja remembered him grumbling about the shared sleeping quarters in the dining room of their original charter. “Air conditioned, private bathrooms with showers. And there’s a big dining room, and off of it a library.”

  “A library?” Annja did the math. The boat had at least six private cabins for guests, because counting herself, there was six in the film crew. Wallace; Ned; a second videographer—Marsha Carr; logistics—Ken McCullough; and sound—Amanda Hill.

  “Six cabins,” she said.

  “Yeah, six exactly. Worked out perfect. The captain, well, I’ll intro—”

  They were outside Annja’s cabin. “I suppose there’s a laundry, too.”

  “A small one. Well, one of those stacking washer-dryers. It’s next to the dining room. I doubt your ‘dependable’ boat had a laundry.”

  “I’d never inquired.” Annja was adept at doing her laundry in a bathroom sink, or at the edge of a river.

  “Well, um—” Wallace seemed as if he wanted to say something else, but stopped and screwed his face into an expression that looked comical.

  “I’m going to change.” And take a shower, Annja thought. The race through the downtown to retrieve Ned’s satchel had made her sweaty; she didn’t like the smell of herself. “How about we meet in the dining room in about an hour? Can you arrange for something? There’s grub on board, right?”

  “Actually, there’s a cook. A late lunch and go over our schedule? Sure.” Wallace nodded. “I’ll tell the captain we’re good to go. We can shove off? Ask the cook to fix us something.”

  “Fine.” Annja closed the door, stripped and discovered the shower didn’t have a lot of water pressure, but the heat felt good running over her back. She’d managed to squeeze a half-dozen changes of “camera suitable” clothes, hiking boots, tennis shoes, a rain poncho, insect repellent and an overlarge sleep shirt in her duffel—along with her laptop and a spare battery. She’d been warned regarding the “dependable boat” that internet reception would be spotty at best, but she suspected that Orellana’s Prize had some sort of Wi-Fi. She sat the laptop on the nightstand and hung up the clothes, figuring the dampness from the river would take any wrinkles out of them. She hadn’t counted on the luxury of a closet. She selected a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve shirt and decided a washer-dryer on board was probably a good thing so she wouldn’t be washing things out by hand. A little luxury would be helpful after all.

  Her satellite phone rang; she figured Doug wanted to make sure they were underway.

  “Roux?” Two calls in one day. “What’s going on?”

  There was a pause on the other end.

  “Roux—”

  “I was thinking of you.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you said when you called this morning.”

  “And everything is still fine?”

  “Sure.” Annja talked while she dressed, shifting the phone from one hand to the other as she wriggled into the jeans. “Other than this boat being a little too lavish, and me being too accepting. My jog through the downtown resulted in my getting a private bath with a shower and a closet. I wasn’t here to pick a different boat.”

  “A different boat?”

  “Never mind. You don’t know what I’m talking about. What’s this about, Roux? What’s going on?”

  “Probably nothing.”

  “Probably?” She stopped dead. “Still in Rouen?”

  “Still France,” he said.

  “That’s where this boat was made.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The boat I’m on, named for a drowned man, Orellana’s Prize. Made in France about a hundred and forty years ago. It even has a washer and dryer.”

  Annja paused, waiting for him to continue talking. The back of her neck tingled, something was amiss. She slipped on the shirt and buttoned the sleeves at her wrists. “Are we done with this conver—”

  “I’m at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Annja. There wasn’t a direct flight from Rouen.”

  “Direct flight?”

  “To Belém.”

  “Roux, what is going on?”

  “Pro
bably nothing, Annja, like I said. Probably nothing. I’m probably being a silly old man.”

  “You’ve got the old man part down.”

  “Watch yourself, all right?”

  “Always.”

  “This boat that you’re—”

  “Orellana’s Prize. It’s not waiting for you, Roux. I felt it leave the dock. Your flying to Belém is a waste of your time and money. You’re probably not going to be able to catch up with us...let alone find us. The Amazon is a big, big river.”

  “It wasn’t cheap, the flight. Fifteen hundred Euros for an open return ticket, and that was for a seat in coach.”

  Annja’s brows knitted together. Roux had a bad feeling about something if he was willing to sit in coach for an international flight. And giving her that tidbit about the cost was his way of telling her to worry.

  “I’m fine, Roux. The boat’s fine. Whatever your intuition is telling you it’s off the mark. But, yeah, I’ll watch myself.” She ended the call and sat on the bed, head in her hands. “I don’t need this.” She didn’t need Roux following her down the Amazon River. She closed her eyes and searched for the sword, finding it in the otherwhere. She wasn’t going to need her sword on this trip, she thought. Or was she? Something had spooked Roux. “Are you being a silly old man?”

  She tried to push thoughts of Roux out of her mind, but they hovered there, like the sword. Sometimes the old man just showed up, unannounced, conveniently helping her with one problem or another, somehow knowing she was in danger. But Roux had oddly announced himself in advance this time and warned her to take care, and so something was bothering him more than a little bit.

  And that bothered her.

  Annja left the phone next to the laptop and headed to the dining room. She didn’t want to deal with another Roux call for a while. She hoped lunch was something significant. Her stomach was rumbling like crazy.

  Chapter 6

  When Annja met the captain, the nagging displeasure over this “luxury cruise” vanished. Wall had mentioned doing a little feature on the captain for the DVD extras...absolutely. She was instantly mesmerized by Captain Belmiro Almeirão and not only wanted him in Wall’s sidebar, but in some segments for the actual series. His charisma was palpable. He had a presence.

  She figured Almeirão was in his mid-to late-forties, with skin that looked like tree bark. He had a short, coarse beard the color of wet shale that was bisected here and there by heavy scars where no hair grew, hinting that he’d either gone through hell or had lived through an incredible adventure. It was as if he’d grown the beard to cover up the disfigurement of his face, but instead it only added to the ugliness. His nose was wide and crooked, obviously broken at some time, his head shaved, and a thick, ropy scar wrapped down the side of his neck like a cord. He was missing the thumb and index finger on his left hand, the scarred, knobby remains looking like a surgeon had done a poor job patching the injury.

  Almeirão smiled, but it was a polite one, an expression that didn’t reach his coal-black eyes, which looked to be thoroughly studying Annja. He shook her hand, the grip strong and dry, the fingers and even the palm heavily calloused. Then he took his spot at the head of the dining table, not saying a word but commanding all eyes on him.

  Vatapa, a shrimp dish with peanut sauce, and moqueca de peixi, a coconut fish stew, was on the menu. Annja watched Wallace pick at the unfamiliar food; she’d been on enough projects with him to know he was hesitant to try anything that bordered on exotic and that he’d probably packed several boxes of granola bars. His favorite meal was a hamburger with a side of macaroni and cheese. While she’d always had a healthy appetite, her metabolism had shot up since inheriting Joan of Arc’s sword. Annja dove in, found everything incredibly delicious, and asked for seconds of both.

  In between bites, she took in the casual conversations of her crew. Marsha Carr, the second videographer, was talking about her rescue cats she’d had to put in a boarding facility because of this trip. Marsha had recently celebrated her twenty-first birthday. She’d dropped out of film school after her second year, and worked freelance for one of the NYC news stations a few months. Her footage of a warehouse fire caught Doug’s attention because of her sharp camera work and obvious willingness to wade into a dangerous situation. She wasn’t quite five feet, kept her red hair trimmed short like the cap of an acorn, and never wore a trace of makeup. Annja had liked her immediately and asked for her on this shoot. While Wallace was top-notch, he was sixty-two and stubborn, and Marsha would no doubt be willing to climb a few trees or go where the older film man would balk.

  Amanda Hill, the sound technician, hadn’t been Annja’s choice. She came across as a debutante, fitting because her father was an investment banker on Wall Street. Although she wasn’t the most cordial soul, Amanda was the best “sound man” Doug had. Annja knew sound was more important to this series than video, at least in terms of quality. Viewers of documentaries and programs like Chasing History’s Monsters were more apt to accept spotty camera work as long as they could hear what was going on.

  Lastly was Ken McCullough, in charge of logistics and settings. Annja had worked with him twice before and found him competent. He was in his mid-thirties and had jumped from job to job, although always TV related. He loved it and it showed. Ken sat to the left of Captain Almeirão and was futilely trying to engage him in conversation.

  However, when the chatter drifted toward their planned series, which would focus on the various historical monsters rumored to live along the river, Almeirão finally spoke.

  “In my earlier years I spotted creatures that defied explanation, certainly the things you are looking for. Big. Dangerous maybe, I’d never gotten close enough to test their proclivity. But lately it is all monkeys, parrots, alligators and snakes. A lot of snakes. But those beasts from my childhood, I believe, are still in the forest, hiding. And the Amazon people who are mostly hidden see them from time to time. I hear their stories.” His voice was craggy and seemed forced, reminding Annja of longtime smokers she’d known; but he didn’t have a trace of smoke on him. The scar on his throat—perhaps some injury had affected his speech. Amanda might have to finesse the sound to make him clearly understood when they got him in front of the camera. She’d wished Marsha or Wall had brought cameras to lunch and could have recorded him.

  Annja and Wallace stuck around after the others left.

  “Captain, Wallace said he’s given you our planned schedule and—”

  “Belém to Macapá to Manaus to Iquitos.” He waved his fingers, reminding her of thick flying beetles. “I know where you want to go and what you want to do. We can do all that. I’ve taken charters to those places. But these films for your television series, they will be better if we go elsewhere... Talk to the Amazon people who have seen your hidden beasts.”

  The skin on the back of Annja’s neck started tingling again. Still, she was intrigued.

  “Oh, I dunno,” Wallace said. “We’ve pretty well got this arranged and—”

  “Where would you take us?” Annja leaned over the table and watched Almeirão’s finger trace a thread-fine tributary on the map that disappeared into a dense patch of green.

  “We are still in the rainy season and so the river and its veins are swollen. My Orellana? She drafts shallow and can navigate here and here and here. At least for three more weeks.” He pointed to places that looked like solid forest, no trace of the blue river lines. “There are tribes living here, little places that have no names. These are the forest people that time has changed only a little.” The captain stood, and Annja noticed his right shoulder was lower than the left, the length of his legs uneven. Maybe later she would press him about the injuries that shaped him.

  He continued. “Because the river and all of its parts are so deep and wide right now, I can take you. We will go where the water is cut by low slivers of land like stretching
fingers. Where the sun sets early because the forest is so high and dense, where zebu-cattle stand like ghosts at the water’s edge, white against green, against black when night comes to swallow them. Where the channel gets ever narrower and narrower.” He put the thumb and index finger of his right hand together, as if he was squeezing something. “Places where the river’s tributaries are only a memory during dryer months.”

  “Yes,” Annja said, caught up in his magnetism and the notion of going seriously off the beaten track. “Take us. I’ll inform my crew our destinations are changing.”

  “You do not understand.” The captain shook his head. “The destination is the river, and so the destination does not change. It is the stopping points that will be different. It is the people that you will meet who will be different.” He said something in Portuguese that she couldn’t understand, and then he turned and left the dining room.

  Wallace folded the map. “I don’t know about this, Miss Creed. There aren’t any place names on these maps, not along the route he suggests. Nameless villages? Nameless tributaries? Doesn’t even look like the river goes where he’s pointing. Maybe we should call Doug, check with him.”

  “No. That won’t be necessary, Wall. And it’s really not Doug’s call. This is all on me. Besides, I’m sure he’d agree.”

  “But what if this is a bad idea, going where the captain says?”

  Annja countered. “What if it isn’t?”

  Chapter 7

  The first village was nothing more than a collection of huts made from woven reeds and wooden poles. Half of the small buildings were at the very edge of the river, with people standing in the doorways, water above their knees. There was a larger building farther back, but Annja couldn’t make out the details. The lowest canopy was so dense that the shadows were thick and effectively cloaking the structure.

  It had taken them nineteen hours to reach this stop on the unnamed tributary that Captain Almeirão steered them down. Annja had spent quite a few of those hours with the captain, Wallace discreetly recording parts, and Amanda flawlessly finessing the voices to make them as smooth as possible. Annja learned that the captain’s various injuries and resulting disfigurements hadn’t come from any one episode...an alligator a dozen years ago, anacondas more than once, an arapaima—a monstrous carnivorous catfish responsible for one of his legs being shorter than the other. The captain had a prosthetic foot. Yet he had no fear of the river, only respect, if not outright love.