Lost City of the Templars Read Online Free PDF

meal of
cordonizes
, which was supposed to be quail but looked suspiciously like pigeon, served with an odd combination of rice and french fries, followed by something called
manjar branco
, a coconut pudding that was served with a sauce of pitted prunes poached in port wine. They finished off the meal with coffee.
    “Pigeons, pudding, prunes and port,” said Peggy. “A completely alliterative meal.”
    “So, what’s the plan?” Rafi asked. “Rent a boat of some kind?”
    “The last bit of civilization Fawcett mentioned in the journal is a town called São João Joaquin. It’s at the junction of the Rio Negro and the Rio Icana, which flows up into Venezuela. This São João place was Fawcett’s jumping-off place for heading into the jungle. It’s about two hundred miles upstream.”
    “No roads?” Rafi said.
    “Nope,” said Holliday.
    “Riverboat?” Eddie asked.
    “There are a few, but even Fawcett didn’t take one.”
    “He flew?” Peggy said.
    “He flew.”

    •   •   •
    His name was Yachay of the Hupda Indians and he was shaman of his village in the forest. Of his particular branch of the tribe, there were less than could be counted on the hands of ten men left. Once, a long time ago, there had been many, many more, but the traders and the missionaries had killed them with their spirit sicknesses and his village had moved ever deeper into the jungle that was their home. Still, there was danger and this time Yachay feared it would not come from any spirit sickness; it would come from the great gray monster that drank at their rivers.
    He was old, although he didn’t know how old. He had fought a hundred battles and won most of them, lost sons and wives and nephews and untold friends. Now his only solace was in the taking of the
ipadu abiu
and the powder of the
xhenhet
and the visions they brought him and which he used to guide his people. He had taken the paste of the
ipadu
before beginning his journey, and it had foretold great danger.
    His bare feet sank into the rich earth, and in his way he had become part of the forest and not an intruder in it. He could hear the crackling of dead leaves as the beetles foraged and the sound of the birds and monkeys and other creatures in the canopy above him. He could taste the drying air in his mouth and knew by the sun on his back how far he had come and how far there still was to go. He was as sure of this as his taking of breath and just as sure, somehow, that he would not let the monster kill his people.
    •   •   •
    The headquarters of the Pallas Group is located in McLean, Virginia, in a complex of buildings just off the George Washington Parkway and is surrounded by forestland on all sides. From his penthouse office on the twenty-eighth floor of the main building, Charles Peace, the CEO of Pallas, could see the headquarters for the Anti Terrorism Center, the CIA, the Pentagon and the Capitol building—virtually all the elements that made the Pallas Group tick.
    Along the only wall in his office that wasn’t made of glass, there were seven violins encased in glass and kept in perfect humidified and temperature-controlled conditions. In his collection there was a Guarneri, a Maggini, a Gasparo di Salò, an Amati e Bergonzi and two Stradivariuses. In monetary terms the collection was worth between seventy-five and a hundred million dollars, but in actuality the violins were priceless. At one time or another, Peace had played all of them. It was a favorite expression of his that generals and politicians were like the strings on a great violin: stroke them well and they would make beautiful music for you.
    Sir Adrian Grayle, a gray-haired man in his midfifties, stared out at the stunning view from the penthouse office window, then turned back to Peace.
    “In the very center of power, I see,” said Grayle, coming back to the comfortable armchair in front of Charles Peace, who was seated behind his massive desk. The desk had originally