Letter to Mr. Diamond

Dear Bob,

I’m supposed to be at a debrief long about now, but I told Cahill that if he wanted to debrief me, he would have to do it from the edge of the bathtub. He made that face – you know the one, the schoolteacher displeased that his students have learned to think for themselves? That face. But he let me go, let all of us off the hook for the moment. Either he’s grown compassion or he realized the odds were stacked in favor of the Band (aka the Angry Mob) and our new mascot Fluffy Fang.

It’s Paris, again, by the way. Paris Mulhare. I have a fictional sister called Geneva. Oh, wait, she’s real. But we’re not on speaking terms, so that’s enough about her.

So I’m immersed in bubbles as I write this, trying to be happy to have a floor beneath my feet and a ceiling above my head. Truth be told, though, I’m feeling a tad claustrophobic.

In case you haven’t heard by now, we never did find Doc Temple. Jack followed the trail all the way to the river (it appears my washing-up stream becomes a full-fledged river around the other side of the mountain. Who knew?) before losing it. He radioed back that he’d lost the trail and to ask for instructions.

So there’s me, trying to get enough of a fire going to make some coffee, while (Up)Chuck tells Jack via radio that he, Chuck, cannot tell Jack what to do since he is not in charge, all the while glaring at me. Now, most of us know that I’m not in charge either, especially Sheila – who is in charge. But Chuck was behaving petulantly because I failed to turn cartwheels at his suggestion in engaging the assistance of the locals to help us move the treasure to the coast. Actually, I think he was just looking for a chance to have more people groveling at his feet, this whole Viracoha thing having gotten to his ego. But really, think about it. I have one job to do on this mission: get the treasure out. I could have sat back, enjoyed the scenery, taken it easy on the three hour tour but did I? No. I pitched tents, watered horses, turned the jungle into a topiary, climbed mountains, crawled over lava –

Where was I?

Oh, yes. We collectively advised Jack to return to camp. Since the trail had faded, there was no advantage to him wasting time by the river hoping for a sign from the gods.

And then we had some things to decide. Do we take the time and the risk to look for the Doc? Do we take Patricia back to the nearest… town (cough) for medical attention and a guaranteed run-in with Ortiz? Or do we head over the mountains to the coast?

There was no consoling Sheila when she learned that it was only a two-and-a-half day ride over the mountains to some semblance of civilization. Apparently, we had taken the long way around. Garret was very diplomatic in his observation that we hadn’t been completely honest with him about our destination to begin with. Yeah, well, we sorta’ skipped over that part.

Jack reassured us that given the trail he had followed, the doc had gone off willingly with two other people and we decided we would have to leave him to his own devices.

With the prospect of leaving the jungle so close, we pitched together as a team and made a world-class litter for Patricia, using the first tent I had been in – the one mostly shredded by condors way back when. We broke camp and set out on a new trail, with Garret in the lead checking his compass and Jack, Chuck and I in the rear creating decoy trails and the occasional trap should anyone be foolhardy enough to follow us.

We passed through a really repulsive swamp at one point, but even that didn’t smell as bad as the reek at Whistler’s/Wizard’s Gate. It did, however, make up for in vermin what it lacked in charm. Jack was good enough to pry the leeches off of me while Chuck tended to Patricia and Sheila waited patiently for us to resume the trail.

What with one thing and the next and exhaustion setting in, I had just a bit of trouble setting up my tent. Luckily, Jack came to my rescue and we all settled in for the night, lamenting our lack of alcoholic spirits.

Now, you’ve likely already surmised that no night passes without event. This time I was awoken by the contradictory sound of gunshots and Sheila’s murmuring "good kitty, nice kitty". I tried to look out and see what was going on, and I probably would have succeeded had the tent not fallen down around me. Damn that Jack!

I scrabbled out of the heap of canvas to find Sheila lying beneath an inert jaguar, and another large cat dead of bullet wounds nearby.

Sheila insisted that the injured cat should be saved. Chuck was more in favor of putting it out of its misery. Jack – still smarting from Sheila’s wrath over his abandonment of her in the fire swamp – sided with Sheila, and Garret quietly went and got the livestock first aid kit.

Chuck reassembled my tent while Garret started surgery on the jaguar, with Jack holding flashlights and otherwise assisting. Garret wanted to know what we planned on doing with the jaguar as Sheila clearly couldn’t keep him in her neat and orderly apartment, but I assured him the cat would be well-placed; we have contacts at zoos worldwide.

Come morning, Chuck – still sore over the failure of his perimeter alarms to detect the big cats – is set to come to blows with Alberto. Seems our quiet guide had already skinned the second jaguar and had stretched the hide to dry. Chuck wanted it for himself. This may have something to do with the Viracoha thing, but I didn’t feel like asking.

Garret and Jack, having been up all night to tend Sheila’s new pet, Fluffy Fang, were sleeping in, and it became evident that we would not be moving camp again till morning.

And I’m still trying to figure this one out. Sheila - who was so hell bent on getting out of the jungle - accepted the extension of our trip without complaint. Maybe the sun was getting to her. Or maybe it was just an extension of her revenge against Jack. Personally I think this would have been a good time for Jack to break it off with Sheila, as Chuck had said he was going to do, but he didn’t. Go figure.

So with a day to kill Sheila and I went off in search of nature’s shower, and found it in the form of a lovely waterfall. Well, it wasn’t a scented bubble bath at the Stanhope, but it was a helluva’ sight.

After cleaning up, I started to dress as Sheila took her turn under the Peruvian cascade. I’d just got my shirt on when there was a rustling behind me. Hmmm…. Had any members of our camp made their way down here they would surely have called a warning. Having left my own gun safely tucked away in San Diego, I tiptoed to Sheila’s discarded clothing and helped myself to hers.

When I turned I learned that I was in close proximity to three snarling dogs. I honestly don’t know what came over me. Had my overdeveloped sense of preservation returned? I took a guess at which one was the lead dog and fired. The drooling beast dropped and the other two tucked their tails and ran. Still…

I did my best Charlie’s Angels impersonation as I made a slow, 360 degree turn with the gun at the ready in front of me. Oh, look, three more dogs, these a bit further away than the last had been.

I fired into the dirt in front of them, hoping they would scatter. One did. I thought dogs were smarter than that. By this time I can hear Sheila screaming ‘no!’, and the unmistakeable sound of the Brute Squad crashing through the shrub. So Charlie and Bosley wouldn’t be too disappointed, I shot another dog. This time his buddy took the hint and departed.

Sheila was out of the water and half-dressed by the time Jack and Chuck arrived, both splattered with what could only be more dog blood. We left them to clean up in the waterfall and trekked back to camp. I should note that I didn’t give Sheila back her gun. She was still giving me grief for killing the wild dogs; I didn’t think it would be in my best interest to hand her something she could use against me.

After this fairly quiet (in comparison to some) day, we bedded down for the night. I began to understand why Sheila is so attached to her apartment, as I was quite enjoying the privacy of my little tent. Plus I figured I was off the hook for a nighttime visitor, having earlier dispatched the doggie wildlife-of-the-day.

A helluva wind kicked up and I crossed my fingers that it wasn’t a precursor to a rain storm. In retrospect, that might have been preferable.

Seems my tent was also a little worse for wear, as a gust of wind grabbed it with enough force to tear the bottom on which I was laying and the whole tent took flight. Damn. Even Dorothy got to travel with her house.

But there was my tent, merrily rolling away. I began to give chase, wondering if I should try and call out to my teammates for assistance. There was no need. The tent broke the beam of Chuck’s perimeter alarms and they began wailing.

Oh, great, now Chuck will think I’m an intruder. As I continued to chase the tent the frightening sound of a shotgun blast cracked the night.

I regret to admit that I stopped in my tracks – as if I wouldn’t have immediately felt being hit by a shotgun and would have to check myself for puncture wounds.

But no, I was still in one piece. My tent, however, now had a Brute Squad-sized hole in it.

Lovely. I trudged back to camp, dragging my useless tent behind me.

(Now, I could tell you where I spent the remainder of the night, but that would be indiscreet.)

Morning, and now we have to make a litter for Fluffy Fang. Hey, no problem. We have another tent to sacrifice.

Proving that miracles do exist, even in Peru, we traveled the next day without incident. In fact, it was an absolutely lovely trail ride. The scenery was spectacular, the company was upbeat, what’s to complain about?

It wasn’t till we stopped for the night that I was politely informed I was suffering another bout of altitude sickness. Really? Better than drugs, that.

(It would also be indiscreet of me to tell you where I slept that night. Mum’s the word.)

Too bad I can’t go straight to morning on this one.

The camp was peacefully sleeping before we were disturbed by… wind? … hail? Hell no! Falling rocks!

Sheila was screaming that we should get to the horses. Apparently we needed to outride this rockslide. Good. Okay. There’s my horse. Here’s Garret. Great. We can go. But where…?

Chuck was still snoring – likely because his perimeter alarms had failed to alert him to this new danger.

I dismounted quicker than an injured gymnast and ripped open Chuck’s tent, screaming at him to wake up.

Stupid me, I watched as he bent to scoop up the heiress and…

That’s all I remember. I spent the rest of the night blissfully unconscious thanks to an assault by rocks.

According to legend, Viracoha carried the fair maiden to safety. Unfortunately, Patricia got left behind. Alberto and Just-One-Jake were pretty beat up, while Jack, Sheila, Garret and Fluffy Fang escaped with a few really minor bruises.

The good news is the perimeter alarms were destroyed in the rock fall. The bad news is, so was Patricia.

The boys buried her the next day while we took stock of our remaining supplies. Evidently, all possessions beginning with a "c" were destroyed: compasses, cameras, compact disc players, and computers.

But, hey, look at this. A satellite phone. Good job that starts with an "s". Too bad it didn’t work down there in the valley.

Chuck volunteered to hike up the mountain and place a call to the powers that be, but it would have been a whole day lost in waiting for him and Sheila was having none of it.

Back on the trail.

Praise all the gods, by midday we came over a rise and looked down on a sleepy little town. It could have been a one-horse town had it not been populated with nearly a dozen motorcycles.

Ortiz. Damn, even we didn’t know where we were. How the hell did he find us?

We used our last miracle coupon to formulate a plan. Chuck would head out around the town to a mountain which he could climb and phone home. Jack would hike out in the same direction, shrouded in a ghili (?) suit, to cover the colossus. Sheila and I would bury the bulk of the treasure and head into town under the guise of looking for Jack and Chuck, whom we would claim went on ahead. In retrospect, we should have clued Just-One-Jake in on that end of the plan, but so much for hindsight.

Nearer the town we conspicuously buried the remainder of the treasure, keeping with us the sacks of coins we had found in the poison treasure chest.

We rode into town.

Look kids, it’s the OK Corral.

And there was Ortiz, sitting quietly beside the well of water that was our primary destination.

With the horses at a walk, Garret and Alberto in front of Sheila and I and Just-One-Jake bringing up the rear, we passed by houses that had recently been taken over by Ortiz’s armed men. They peered through windows or lounged in doorways like video arcade villains. Good thing we had a sack full of coins, eh?

We dismounted to water the horses and fill our canteens and do a face-to-face with Ortiz. Sitting with him at the ancient Peruvian picnic table, Sheila and I forked over a sack of coins to pay for the toll. But Ortiz was not satisfied. He wanted to know where the rest of the treasure was. In short, he wanted all of the treasure and sent some of his henchmen off to fetch our obviously-buried horde.

Somewhere in the midst of the haggling over the fee, Ortiz became convinced that Sheila was, in truth, Paris. Which is to say, he mistook her for me while I was sitting right there.

So there was a dilemma. Do I fess up and tell this guy how wrong he is, in which case, given my track record, he would likely hold me for ransom? Or do I allow him to continue berating Sheila?

Moments shy of the moment of truth, Ortiz madly concluded that our scientists/experts were useless and shot Just-One-Jake. Poor-Dead-Jake fell to the ground. Somehow, we accept his demise without retaliation.

What could not be tolerated was Ortiz’s henchman drawing a knife and threatening to skin Fluffy Fang. (Only a fool would accuse us of having our priorities in order.)

In one smooth move, Sheila pulled her gun and shot the henchman dead-as-a-Jake and announced we were taking the cat and the treasure and leaving.

Somewhere in the hills surrounding the town, Jack decided Sheila must have been in mortal peril. I don’t know what Jack was aiming at, but he hit Ortiz twice in the back of the head – the universal signal for all hell to break loose.

Garret was shooting, Sheila was shooting, bad guys were shooting – the sounds echoing against the hills. Oh, no, wait, that was Chuck shooting. I grabbed Ortiz’s gun and did some shooting myself as a minor explosion rolled down from the mountain upon which Chuck was positioned.

The first volley of gunfire subsided and a now-injured Sheila once again announced our intent to take the treasure and the panther and head for the hills.

Those bad guys who were left standing in the town seemed to think that was okay, but the ones running in from their advanced position below the hills were clearly late to the party. Being the sticklers for prompt arrivals that we are, we fired at them – as did Jack, who was running up behind them like a mutant tumbleweed.

When the gunfire died along with a dozen or so wounded bad guys, Jack put a few insurance rounds into Ortiz and then divested him of his valuables. Sheila and I returned for the properly buried treasure and were back in town just in time for the arrival of the Peruvian cavalry led – most curiously – by Cahill, via helicopter.

The team and our guides – muddied and exhausted and twitching with adrenalin - boarded the choppers, along with pounds and pounds of Incan artifacts and one really cranky panther.

And now we are back to some semblance of civilization. There is hot and cold water, indoor plumbing, real doctors, and whiskey enough to fill Jack’s flask time and again.

Conversely, there are roofs that block out the stars, carpets that hush sound, and air-conditioning that manages to amplify the smell of industrial cleansers rather than the fragrance of fallen rain. Car horns and telephones replace the chatter of monkeys and call of condors, and the shouts and laughter of passers-by grate along hallways rather than being lifted away on a breeze. I begin to wonder….

Well, the water’s grown cold and I have surely tested Cahill’s patience by now and besides, I’ve got nothing more to say about Peru. If I’ve left out any details, no doubt Sheila will be able to fill them in if and only if you say ‘please’.

Best to Keiran -

Yours,

Paris