Final Challenge (33 page)

They found their two faithful guides waiting them, just at the point that Souza had indicated. Realizing the absence of the Brazilia
n, the two Indians didn't need
further explanation, as a counterpoint to
their silence on their face one
could see a grimace of pain.
One of the guides replaced Hanson at front of the stretcher of the President and the othe
r one to Susan, who exhausted,
leaned on Hanson.
The walk was long, but given the state of the patients and the general exhaustion, they decided to do it much more slowly than in their previous way to get there.
They walked for no more than six hours a day, stopping to rest every two hours. They had no food, so they readily agreed the two pieces that natives hunted every day early in the morning.
They were not asked about its origin, they couldn't afford delicacies in their state but grilling it over the fire, it seemed all a delicacy.

The walk
had no major incidents, except that it was long, hard and painful. On the third day the President was determined to get up and start walking.  He was far from being recovered but his determination and his spirit was imposed on his body, so he did half the distance of the third day on their own feet.  When the fourth day, at sunset, they finally reached the village of their guide, they thought it was a hallucination caused by the effort. But as they saw that it was a hallucination shared by all and to be greeted by the whole village, could confirm that they had reached their goal.

 
That night they held a great feast in their honor. Hanson and Kelly, although exhausted as the whole group, regained their sense of humor. They enjoyed the dinner, based on abundant game and fruit. They even think that those cooks were not so bad, because it was just other customs, other rites and other flavors so as good homo sapiens they should be able to adapt to changing conditions.
In fact, coming as they came from a paradise turned into hell, the meal tasted to glory. But Hanson thought that a little of Western counte
rpoint would not hurt. He sought
with zeal at the helicopter until he found a box of rum that, as expected, the good
of Souza had very well hidden. The
natives were not averse to the
invitation, in fact it seemed that they had had a chance to test it in more than one occasion.

 
In turn they offered them snuff, a mild hallucinogen made
from toasted snuff leaves and
as
h from the bark of tree Pupui, which produces a sore throat to those are not used.
From that moment the dream was taking possession of them.
They rested in the huts that were allocated for this purpose as well as long ago they did not remember. The next mor
ning, in an atmosphere
of general excitement, they said goodbye to their guides, their new Indian friends whom they also were owed
their lives, and from the whole village.

They went to the helicopter and were settling into the extent possible. Hanson and Kelly helped Marvin to get in, Susan came in behind him making cuddle. They then helped the President, Hanson could not avoid to
dedicate him one of his jokes.

- Go ahead, President. I am sorry you have to go a little tight.

- I don’t
care, I never had so eager to go home - Harold said smiling as he jumped to get in the machine -

Kelly and Hanson finally got into the front seats. Kelly thought that it wa
s very strange that Hanson had
decided to fly the helicopter as he wasn't
friend
at all of the aerial devices. In fact usually he had had even to overcome his aerophobia to get into. However, he had been so decided from the beginning that no one had dared to doubt about his expertise.

However she preferred not to ask anything, for fear of finding an answer that did not meet her expectations. She didn't need it. He started the engine, and after noting as natives moved away prudently, Hanson, who kept looking and touching some of the controls, implicitly answered the question that was in the air.

 
- Finally the diploma of intensive pilot is going to serve for something - he said calmly -  

- Thank God! When did you do the course? - Kelly asked, relieved -  

- About fifteen years ago - he said very seriously -  

- God!

Hanson looked at her with a knowing smile. Then he kissed her cheek.

-
         
Quiet. Everything is going to be fine - confirmed in a tone of security - In addition, I feel much better when I am the pilot. I only have fear, I mean
…
panic, when I am in other hands.

-
         
I hope it is not the same on the road. I warn you that I consider myself a good driver and I'm not willing to allow that no one doubts about my driving skills - Kelly said smiling back
–

-
         
Okay - he paused, he waited for the helicopter was high before continuing

-
         
By the way, I'm glad you have so confident in me because you haven't ever wondered how we are going to be oriented.

-
         
Well, we have the GPS, I think it's enough, not?...

-
         
The GPS is not working.

-
         
Y
ou are transmitting me much confidence, thanks
!
Is there something that we can do?...

- It is simpler, more than you think - he pointed with his hand to a glove compartment located in front of her - Open it, please

Kelly opened the glove compartm
ent and pulled out a paper. She
unfo
lded it and watched it closely.

-
         
A map
!
–
she e
xclaimed -

-
         
Yeah
, and made for dummies, just what we need.

-
         
Where did you get it?

- It was there all the time. Yesterday, when I came in search of the rum, I was searching in every corner of the device. Souza was a phenomenon, one of a kind, he didn't miss any detail.  He must have drawn it some time ago, in anticipation that something might happen as unfortunately has happened. As you can observe - put his finger on a point of the paper - it is very simple. It marks the exact address to follow until meeting the great river, the Amazon.
From there, we only must
to follow it.

When the helicopter lifted enough, Susan took Marvin's hand and with a knowing wink invited him to look down out the window. A green mantle spread beyond the eye could reach. But regardless of its wild beauty, Marvin knew her well enough to know how to interpret the look of who was still his wife.
She wanted to say him that under that mantle, they had returned to be reunited with their love, which seemed lost forever. Who would say that, ironically, her kidnapping and such suffering were to bring back the lost happiness?...
As so often in life, when we choose a path, we are unable to see beyond the first tranche, of which we have before our eyes, our reference is short, easily lost.
Therefore not possible to choose the most appropriate way,
as could tell a
deterministic, our ability to maneuver is very limited. Other times it seems to be the destiny that we mark the wa
y so we aren't forced to choose
.
In such case we have to limit ourselves to follow him, without stopping to think where it ends. That was the case of Marvin and Susan, their marriage probably would have sunk if those circumstances had not united them in their fight against adversity, the adversity that had marked their lives forever.

 
Harold looked very worried. Kelly told him that Clerigan could have gotten an organic moiety of the President four years ago, po
ssibly taking advantage of his
presence at any public event, presumably a campaign rally. It would then be sufficient that any person of the teams of cleaning had collected a hair, only one, to get their DNA, which after referral to the genetic disturbance that caused the acceleration of the aging process, lead to the achievement of a clone, an older brother of Tommy that looked of his own age.
Then Harold would have been kidnapped to be supplanted by that clone. If the assumption f Kelly was correct, probably the country was being ruled by a being like him physically but with a mental age of no more than twelve, and, worse still, he would share the bed with Carol.
How would his wife react?
Had she noticed it?
...
Harold didn't hesitate, the answer could only be affirmative, and not because his clone did not have the scar of that operation for appendicitis that he had suffered when he was a child. Most likely she would think that he had a dementia syndrome or simply that he had gone mad.

 
Harold was
only
partly right. Carol, despite the changes suffered by person that she thought that was her husband, had never doubted that man was really Harold, physically looked like to be his twin, and thinking of another possibility was ridiculous. And althought  Dr. O'Connor barely allowed her to be by his side, she had had a chance to see, in more than one occasion, that scar. Clerigan and his people had so thoroughly researched his past as his every detail of his character.
They had made definitely an almost perfect work.

 
What Harold did not know was that, almost coinciding with his arrival at Kennedy Airport in New York from Manaus, his clone had died accompanied in his last moments by O'Connor, who had remained faithful to him during the last few days, in fact barely had separated from him, and Carol, who was plunged into grief and was victim of an incipient depression.

 
Kelly and Hanson brought the facts to the attention of the FBI that in concert with the CIA decided to enable a private plane to pick them up in Manaus and moving them to New York.
Thence Kelly, Hanson and the President went to Memphis, where he was admitted to a health center surrounded by the more consistent and strict security measures.
The media were invited to notify them that the president hadn't dead, that someone should have leaked this news maliciously, a persistent rumor that was about to be published in newspapers. Instead they were told that the president was recovering miraculously thanks to a new treatment, a cutting edge gene therapy that he had accepted as a last resort.
This last idea, which did not lack credibility and had some parallelism with the ordeal suffered by Harold, had been proposed by Hanson and applauded by Kelly, who in turn managed to convince his superiors.   Shortly before the unexpected announcement to the media, Hanson and Kelly met with Carol to explain in detail all the events and preparing her for the big news, that her husband was alive and looking forward by her visit at a hospital in Memphis, where he was recovering.

Carol received the greatest joy of his life. Really at the bottom of her heart always had  harbored the hope that that individual was not her husband, for the simple reason that, sick or not, he was very different of his Harold, though that rationality had finally prevailed on her mind.

 
The next morning the newspapers published the scoop on the front page, with a huge photo of Harold smiling, relaxed, kissing his wife. Treatment was booming and promising results predicted a quick recovery. But Harold also said that in any case he had decided to give up for election to enjoy what remained of his life with his wife.

 
For the vast majority of readers there were two news in the obituary section that went unnoticed, because they barely seemed to be relevant. One of them echoed that Dr. O'Connor, the private physician of former president in recent months, had suffered a sudden heart attack. It was so strange for the unexpected, since, despite its hefty weight, he enjoyed excellent health. The other news was related to Edwards, previously head of Marvin and Hanson. He had suffered a car accident. He apparently had run out of brakes when coming down from his house on the hill to his favorite golf course.

Newspapers had to make many prints that day, and most, a second edition at noon, with another story that was a re
al hit. Peter Feaks,
candidate
of the Party
for
the
election
s
following the resignation of Harold, had been killed by three accurate bullets during a rally in a public park. It opened a mystery about his successor, but Harold had advanced that his decision was irrevocable.

 
Kelly, and Marvin Hanson were the only ones who could connect the dots. O'Connor, Edwards and Feaks had been killed by the plot that had financed
the activities of Clerigan. The same that had ended
with the life of Owen. They only didn't understand as they had got to know out the final outcome in the Amazon and of their private flight from Manaus to the U.S., since it was confidential information. It could have been Olsen, the scientist enrolled in the ranks of Clerigan who was out buying some supplies, who had sounded the alarm.
Other possibility, that they preferred to ignore, was they could have influential people able to find out state se
crets that were held by only a
few privileged of FBI and CIA.