Heart of Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

June, July, and August, which meant this was the driest time of the year and the heat was marginally less intense. She suspected that "dry" meant that instead of raining every day, perhaps it would rain only every other day. If they weren't so lucky, it would rain only twice a day rather than three times. She hoped for the first, but was prepared for the latter.
    She walked around for a while, not straying far from the hotel but keeping her eyes open. She overheard at least seven different languages before she had gone two hundred yards. Manaus was a fascinating city, a deep-water port situated twelve hundred miles inland, with all the worldli-ness of any seaport visited by cruise ships. Indeed, the cruise ships probably accounted for the variety of languages she had encountered. So what if they were smack in the middle of a continent? The mighty Amazon was a law unto itself, so deep in some places that four hundred feet of water still lay beneath the hulls of the ships.
    Rick was still sullen over her insistence on keeping the map to herself, scarcely speaking to her at all except to give orders, but she didn't let that sway her determination. This expedition was as much for their father as it was for her—more, in fact. She was strong and could fight her own battles, but the professor couldn't protect either his reputation or his memory. He would be forever remembered as a crackpot unless she could prove that his theory about the Anzar had been valid, and that meant not trusting Rick with the information.
    She wished he weren't involved at all, but circumstances had been against her. Rick had reentered the room only moments after she'd realized what she had, probably to make certain she wasn't up to something, and she hadn't been able to hide her excitement. He had looked at the papers scattered around her, seen a general map of the area, and for once leaped to the correct conclusion, though he had called it a "treasure map."
    He had badgered her for days to give him the coordinates, but she knew her brother, he was what in the old days had been called a ne'er-do-well. He would probably have sold the information to some ambitious fortune hunter without thinking or caring about the professor's reputation. He certainly wouldn't have been inclined to preserve the findings for careful excavation by trained archaeologists or to catalog the finds or to turn any valuables over to the Brazilian government as required by law. If she could have lined up any outside sponsorship she would have done so, and she'd have gotten the documents even if she'd had to resort to burglary, but all of her feelers had been either ignored or laughed at. She could just hear them all now: Crackpot Sherwood's daughter had gone off the deep end too.
    In the end, it was Rick who had brought Steven Kates into the picture. For reasons of his own, Kates was willing to finance the project. Jillian had insisted on coming along to protect the find as best she could, but she couldn't help feeling bitter that she had been forced into such a position by the blindness of some members of her chosen profession. If they had given any credence to her father, or to her, the expedition would have been staffed by trained archaeologists and reliable guides rather than the unscrupulous riffraff she was very much afraid Rick and Kates had hired. If she had had any other option she would have used it, but she had to make do with the resources available to her. She was a pragmatist, yes, but she was a prepared pragmatist. She had committed the location of the Stone City to memory, so they had to take her along, and she would also make certain she was armed.
    It was a logical precaution. She was competent with a firearm, a competence that came in handy in her profession. Snakes and other dangers were part of the job. She was concerned that this time the snakes would be two-legged, but that was a risk she would have to take. She only hoped she could contain the damage; after