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"You want us looking good e attack?" she asked

In answer he disassembled theHer s smile when she saw the rest of the duffel’s contents

"Let’s go," Skyler said "Plenty of time to ransack this place later"

"Just a second," Ana replied She went to a rack near the cash registers and selected two loves and a wide-briet sweaty," she explained "When I hold a gun, I one, the sun loves into the new vest she’d pilfered, a journalist’s vest in desert tan When she realized Skyler atching her, she flashed him a thuer than her twenty-two years, soher here, safe and out of harht to that foolish abandon only young people can get aith? Those years had been robbed from her, after all The battle to come was too much to ask of someone who’d lost what she had Her parents, her world Her youth And even if they succeeded it would only be to face the thing that loomed in the rainforest The cave The black-clad subhu red eyes

But when her smile vanished, Skyler saw only Ana the survivor She becah uniinable terrors over the last five years That a fire of youthful recklessness still burned in there filled Skyler with a sudden sadness that he couldn’t explain The world he knew had no room for innocence anyhts concerning Sa since been bled out of her Sorip

For the next few hours he led her on a winding path through Belém’s ruined streets Rain, the mortal enemy of asphalt, had turned the avenues and alleys into a moonscape of potholes and cracks Littered on top were derelict vehicles of every size and shape Trucks, cars, and buses Many flipped on their side, or i Some had skeletons inside, and more littered the road

Skyler shook his head Much of the carnage that occurred in those first days of the disease was due to panic and mass hysteria A few infections in a city like this, even just the rumor of such, would have spurred the entire population into a desperate race to flee, riot, or hide He’dtheir own surreal journey to Darwin, that the disease’s reputation had been just as deadly as the brain-crushing infection it carried Skadz, the first i his own invulnerability to the disease, had a knack for stating things plainly "We huinal captain had said

Soon they reached the city’s border, where urban press reen wall of the rainforest, like two armies frozen in the initial clash of their front lines Buildings and shanty hoave way to a wall of emerald trees that fronted the dark, endless forest

He paused there and glanced up at the zenith of the sky Ana, at his shoulder, did the saer clouds dotted the vast blue expanse, but above the vieas clear He thought he could see the Elevator cord, or hints of it The hair-thin cable was hard to detect when no traffic marked its path, and his eyes often played tricks on hi so close to the equator, Belém’s cord didn’t slope nearly as much as Darwin’s did, but that didn’t ht up still wasn’t quite the right place to look He scanned the sky for a moment just to be sure There were no cli, was still hours away

"Plenty of ti"

Skyler followed a deliberately wide route toward their destination, alith a wary eye on the cloud that clung to the forest canopy a few kiloht, visible through the occasional break in foliage If Ana saw the strange fog, she didn’t ht If Gabriel had brought a thousand trained killers down on the base camp, it wouldn’t fill Skyler with the same dread as the subhuman he’d seen inside the cave But he knew the colony must be liberated first if they were to have any hope of finding out the nature of that creature, and the ship from which it came

The sun shiht theone, and the worst of the rains with it, the river’s angry brown churn had given way to a more tranquil surface that reflected soain At the sky’s zenith, a s in the sky, like the opposite of a star "There they are," he whispered

Ana put her hand on his back "How long do we have?"

"Two hours Maybe three"

They took a ten-ranola bars from her backpack and handed Skyler one They ate in silence, both watching the climber above After he finished the tasteless snack, Skyler sed a few gulps of cool water from his canteen, and Ana copied hiae near the shore Thick vines and roots lined the ground like veins, and branches spanned the narrow trail every few meters Their pace slowed to a crawl, but Skyler wasn’t worried

An hour later he spotted the sler’s boathouse He led Ana inside and instructed her to be silent for aminutes he sat perfectly still, crouched in the doorway of the tiny shed, listening Birds, whispering branches, and the gentle lapping of the river against the shore were all he heard

"Let’s get to work," he said, and closed the door

Chapter 22

Belém, Brazil

6MAY2283

AN HOUR LATER, the inflatable raft slipped out from the boathouse and into the river’s current

The two occupants sat side by side, facing the northern shore One hunched over a hunting rifle, the other at the sniper’s shoulder, a pair of binoculars pressed to a hooded face

Skyler and Ana watched the boat drift away In the waning sun, the mannequins looked a bit silly to his eye He could only hope that the craft would drift out froht them ten seconds of confusion, he’d consider the effort hile

"It’s ency in her voice

And she was right The current picked up pace a few an to bounce along nearly twice as fast as the leaf Skyler had used as a test run If the craft beat them to base camp, and the diversion worked, it would be wholly wasted

Skyler ran He swept aside vines and ducked under branches, tripped twice on roots Ana, right on his heels, helped hiled as they untangled theame trail turned north, and Skyler had no choice but to push into the dense foliage that stood between thelances at the tiny raft, which drifted along thirty meters ahead of them, and the cliht ahead The vehicle was only a few hundredthe sun to the horizon The sky blazed cri the climber in stark silhouette