The Source - Michael Cordy [81]
'I understand, Father General.' He pointed to one of his men, a shorter, muscular man with thick eyebrows and a jagged scar on his right cheek. 'Weber, keep close, but make sure you aren't seen. Leave a trail for us to follow. If your pack's too heavy, share its weight with Petersen and Gerber.'
'It's fine, sir. I can move fast enough to track them.'
'Good.' Fleischer reached into his pack, pulled out a pair of basic two-way radios and handed one to Weber. They switched them on and both crackled into life, unaffected by whatever force had stopped their watches. 'Keep us informed.'
As Torino and the others watched Weber hurry along the high shelf after Kelly's party, not one noticed the lost city in the valley below, slumbering beneath its blanket of green.
48
Juarez was in their thoughts as they hacked their way through the steaming jungle over the next two and a half days. They missed his alert presence and nimble ability to thread a path through the densest forest. Even the immaculate Hackett was dishevelled. They slept by night, suspended above the forest floor in hammocks, sheltered beneath tarpaulins to keep out the rain. By day, they moved at a slow but determined pace, oblivious of any trail they left.
Ross lost count of the exotic creatures they encountered: golden-pelted monkeys, brilliantly coloured snakes, spiders the size of a man's hand. He was sure some must have been unclassified species. When he thought of the strange plants and animals he had seen since entering the Amazon, how commonplace the bizarre had become, Falcon's garden, with its exotic flora and fauna, seemed less and less inconceivable.
On the third day another ridge blocked their path. It was concave and topped with tooth-white rocks. Immediately Ross knew it must be the one other landmark he remembered from the notebook, La Sonrisa del Dios, the Smile of God.
It occurred to him then that the garden was protected by a number of concentric circles of high rock, like ripples when a stone is dropped into a pond. They had passed through the first via the fierce waterfall of El Velo de la Luz and the second by La Barba Verde. As Ross gazed at La Sonrisa del Dios, adrenalin surged through him. Was this the final barrier protecting Father Orlando's mythical garden?
As if reading his mind, Hackett asked, 'Are we almost there?'
'Yes,' Sister Chantal said. 'The cave system that leads to the garden cuts through the ridge beneath those white rocks.'
Ross checked his GPS again, hoping to determine his exact location, but two words filled the screen: Signal Error.
The sun was setting and, though Ross and Sister Chantal wanted to press on, the others decided to rest and tackle the caves in the morning. Ross feared his racing mind would keep him awake, but when he collapsed on to his hammock he fell instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Only Sister Chantal did not sleep that night. Clutching her crucifix she lay awake in the dark, listening to the sounds of the forest, waiting for dawn to break. Though she was consumed by fatigue, and her body ached, she couldn't relax. Not yet. She burnt with the need to reach the end of her long journey. She yearned to finish her ordeal, fulfil her promise and reap her elusive reward.
49
The next morning, Ross, Zeb, Hackett and Mendoza followed Sister Chantal to the cliff beneath the white rocks of La Sonrisa del Dios. She led them to a vertical fissure crowned with a natural arch and, one by one, they squeezed through the opening until they found themselves in La Catedral, the cathedral-like cave described in the Voynich. Shafts of sunlight illuminated the vast space and Ross saw dozens of small openings hundreds of feet above their heads, which shone like stars among the stalactites on the soaring vault of the roof. The shafts of sunlight picked out glittering, gilded veins in the rock walls.
'Gold,' said Mendoza, with greedy eyes.
Ross studied