Monsters In The Clouds Read online

  MONSTERS IN THE CLOUDS

  Russell James

  Copyright 2018 by Russell James

  www.severedpress.com

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Afterword

  Chapter One

  On the bright side, Grant Coleman had to acknowledge that at least today’s challenges wouldn’t kill him.

  The line of customers snaked through the bookstore aisles and all the way to the front door. Every one held a copy of Cavern of the Damned and patiently awaited their turn to get the author’s signature.

  Grant had been at it for thirty minutes so far. A cramp plagued his hand, and his plastered-on smile threatened to crack. A book tour seemed like a soaring adventure when the publisher floated the idea. A month in, it had transformed into a grueling slog. He couldn’t wait to get back to his college classroom next month.

  He reminded himself it was a walk in the park compared to the real-life hell he’d endured, the events that had inspired the book. The readers loved Cavern of the Damned’s fantasy of giant scorpions and carnivorous bats. Grant doubted they would ever believe it had all had been reality.

  A twenty-something guy in a local college T-shirt handed Grant a book from across the table. “Dr. Coleman, this is such an honor. You inspired me.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. The way you used real science as the basis for your novel? It really fired me up for my paleontology classes. All the creatures in the cave are completely unreal, but it’s like grounded enough in fact that somehow it was like totally believable.”

  “Even scientists need to stretch their imaginations now and then,” Grant said. “This book was just me stretching mine.”

  It took another hour for the line to wind down. The last customer approached as the publisher’s rep and Grant’s agent stepped away to talk sales numbers with the store manager. A woman Grant’s age in a short red dress and black boots handed him her book. Her blonde hair was gathered in a short ponytail. The dress caught his attention, but her green eyes held it. He straightened his glasses and squared his shoulders, as if that made him seem less paunchy.

  “You tell quite a story, Dr. Coleman,” she said.

  “It’s fun to spin a little fantasy,” he said. In his head it sounded flirtier than it actually did when he said it.

  “But easier to just relate actualities.” She opened her black leather purse and pulled out the tip of a giant cave scorpion’s claw. She set it in front of him.

  Grant froze. Memories of the awful days in the cave came rushing back. He’d barely escaped with his life when the cavern flooded. He didn’t think any physical proof had survived. “W-where did you…?”

  “We followed some rumors to a place in Montana. Found far more fact than fiction when we sifted through a creek bed there.”

  Grant had a bestseller under his belt. It would be a major studio blockbuster next summer. The fame had landed him a tenure-track teaching position. Any claims that he thought what he’d written had been real would brand him a crackpot, destroy all he’d built these last two years. Sweat rolled down his temple.

  “Don’t worry, Doctor. I’m not here to tell the world that Cavern of the Damned is an autobiography. I’m here to pitch your follow-up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She pulled a tablet from her purse and laid it on the table. With a few taps, an aerial photograph of a rainforest appeared. She pointed to a lush plateau towering over the landscape.

  “My name is Thana Katsoros.” She handed him a business card with the Transworld Union logo on it and a Brazilian address. “My organization just discovered this place, deep in a closed indigenous area in the Amazon rainforest. It’s been isolated for who knows how long—the locals say since the world was created. Though the valley floods every year, no one climbs this plateau to escape the rising water. They say monsters rule in the clouds.”

  “Myths common in every culture.”

  She tapped the screen and magnified a specific spot on the photograph. “Tell me this is common in every culture.”

  Grant bent over and stared in shock.

  An apatosaurus’s head stuck out from the trees. Grant gasped.

  “Dinosaurs, Dr. Coleman, walking the earth in a Brazilian rainforest. It takes a special kind of scientist to face down a species like that for the first time. We think your book says that scientist is you. Are we wrong?”

  Grant couldn’t take his eyes off the sauropod.

  “No,” he said. “You aren’t wrong at all.”

  Chapter Two

  As he sat at his hotel room desk the next morning, Grant began his second round of second thoughts.

  His initial rush of excitement had yielded to a long list of concerns. The first was the environment. He’d been a paleontologist and professor for over a decade. Field work was nothing new. But excavating dinosaurs was a very desert-oriented endeavor. Dry, quiet, and safe. Amazonian jungles were wet, loud, and dangerous. His first internet search had brought up a list of a dozen things that could kill him, from a microscopic virus to a two-hundred-pound jaguar. Katsoros and Transworld had offered him a lot of money, but he couldn’t cash the check if he was dead.

  Second, an apatosaurus was a little outside of his area of expertise. The average person dumped any animal that preceded Homo sapiens into the “prehistoric” category. That time frame was actually four billion years long and split into at least ten different periods, each with unique flora and fauna. apatosaurus’s Jurassic period was about two hundred million years ahead of the Age of Mammals, his era of choice.

  He’d learned one important lesson from his Montana monster hunt. Check out your supposed benefactor. The head of the expedition that ended up delivering Cavern of the Damned had turned out to be a con artist.

  He started with an internet search for some background on Transworld Union. Pages of results popped up. This was an actual company, listed on multiple stock exchanges, the usual global conglomerate with interests in shipping, energy, pharmaceuticals, and a dozen other things that appeared unrelated. At least its check wouldn’t bounce.

  He searched Thana Katsoros within Transworld. An employee information page appeared. Her picture matched the person he’d met, so that was a good start. She had a business degree from a college in Greece and had been with Transworld for eleven years, currently the head of South American Exigent Product Development. The vague title did match the expedition she’d mentioned.

  Her picture reminded him of the exposure Katsoros had threatened about his inspiration for Cavern of the Damned. He only had two semesters under his belt at the university. The dean was fine with Grant publishing fiction in his off hours, but any crazy stories about real giant scorpions would open the college up to ridicule. If Katsoros went public, he might not have a job to return to when the fall semester started next month.

  Ju
st as the decision pendulum started to swing right, to the “go for it” position, the idea of dying thrust the weight back hard to the left. Even without being stomped by a dinosaur, there were just too many ways to end up a corpse. Besides, there was no way dinosaurs had survived into the modern era.

  Grant’s phone rang. The caller ID read Blood Sucking Leech.

  “Damn it.” That would be Howard Berman, his ex-wife’s divorce attorney. Grant could let it go to voice mail, but whenever he did, the bastard called every fifteen minutes until Grant answered. Grant pressed Accept.

  “Howard, what a pleasant surprise.”

  “If I didn’t know better,” Howard said, “I’d say that was disingenuous.”

  “Disingenuous? Certainly not. More like a flat out lie.”

  “Mr. Coleman, when you choose to act as your own attorney, you get to interact with other attorneys. That’s one of the perks.”

  Grant hadn’t chosen to be his own attorney when he got divorced. Poverty had forced the decision upon him. Times like now he regretted it.

  “We need to discuss the alimony,” Howard said.

  “I’m paid up, Howie. Since the university hired me, it’s been coming straight out of my paycheck so Her Majesty can make her next yacht payment.”

  “Not discussing past payments. Future payments. There’s a cut of author royalties she’s due.”

  Only the expense of replacing his phone kept Grant from throwing it against the wall. “And how do you come to that conclusion?”

  “The income scaling clause in the agreement, the one you demanded.”

  Grant cursed himself. His brilliant contribution to the settlement had been to have his alimony be a percent of income rather than a fixed amount. He wanted to protect himself from being thrown into debt if he ended up between teaching jobs or had to take a pay cut. He never thought he’d make any real money outside of his profession.

  “I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is that the two of you have been following my writing career,” Grant said. “You know that book royalties don’t pay much.”

  “No, not as much as selling those movie rights did.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Grant whispered to himself. Grant had only found out about the rights sale last week. “No way she deserves a cut of this, Howzer. I did all this work after we were divorced.”

  “Feel free to fight the modification,” Howard said. “You’ll lose and I’ll tack my legal billing to the alimony, as well as the accrued interest from the delay. Think on that and we’ll get together when you get back from this little tour.”

  “Don’t you think sleeping with my ex-wife creates a conflict of interest in handling her divorce?”

  “If that slanderous accusation was true, which it isn’t, I’d think it would just make for a more zealous advocate. Talk to you soon.”

  Howard hung up. Grant again beat back the impulse to destroy his phone.

  This little bit of extortion would be expensive to fight. But he was going to fight it, and with an actual lawyer on his side this time. He might lose, but he’d take a pound of flesh from Howard and the ex-wife doing it. Pyrrhic victories didn’t come cheap though.

  Lucky for him, he had a chance to make a little money in the Amazon.

  The dino-decision pendulum swung back full right, and he searched his papers for Katsoros’s business card.

  Chapter Three

  Transworld Union’s Brazilian headquarters rose from São Paulo’s streets and towered over Janaina Silva. Gleaming steel and mirrored glass stretched up so high she had to crane her neck to see the top. Glass elevators surged up and down the outside of the building.

  The dark blue business suit she’d borrowed from her roommate complemented her olive skin, but it wasn’t providing the hoped for comfort in this corporate environment. The unfamiliar clothing just made her seem even more out of place, inside strange clothes outside a strange building. If Transworld’s goal was to make her feel intimidated by meeting here, they had scored.

  Transworld’s business with her was a mystery. Her supervisor at the Native People’s Foundation said that Transworld had requested a representative to advise them on potential contact with indigenous people in a remote section of the Amazon. They’d specifically asked for Mariel Castro, but the woman had a last-minute emergency with her granddaughter. Since Mariel had turned sixty, she’d become more family-than-work focused. Janaina had been called an hour ago to fill in, and she wasn’t even certain what she’d be filling in for.

  She took a deep breath. Whatever Transworld wanted, she was up for it. She’d been defending the rights of the aboriginal people of the jungle for years. Not against a company as formidable as Transworld Union, but experience showed that with right on her side, might had always seemed to follow. She had to have faith it would again. She swept her black hair behind her shoulders and then straightened her jacket. With a swirl of the revolving doors, she entered the air conditioning.

  Five minutes and a dizzying elevator ride later, Janaina stood alone in the office of Thana Katsoros. The title on the door read Director of Exigent Product Development, whatever that meant.

  Katsoros entered. Janaina was several centimeters taller than Katsoros, but the woman with the short blonde hair and the piercing green eyes didn’t seem like the type who let height intimidate her. She wore dark pants, heels, a white open blouse, and a look of surprise.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  Katsoros’s default to English irritated Janaina. If the woman was going to work in Brazil with Brazilians, she should speak Portuguese, no matter what language was standard in her more international office. She set the slight aside and extended a hand.

  “I am Janaina Silva from the Fundação dos Povos Nativos.” She hoped using her organization’s Portuguese title would remind Katsoros that she was in Brazil. “We have a meeting at one o’clock.”

  Katsoros left Janaina’s hand hanging in space and walked around her to the desk. She shuffled through some papers until she found a resume from Mariel. “What happened to Ms. Castro?”

  “Family emergency. I am here in her place.”

  Katsoros gave her a dismissive look. “I’d asked for someone with more experience.”

  Janaina bristled. “I have been with the Foundation for almost ten years. I am experienced.”

  Katsoros waved for Janaina to take the seat in front of her desk. Janaina sat down.

  “Transworld Union has purchased the rights to several hundred acres in Amazonia,” Katsoros said. “We’ll be scouting the area for two weeks.”

  “Scouting for what?”

  “Natural resources, undiscovered plants for pharmaceuticals, solar or hydropower locations. We are a diverse company.”

  That sounded like a load of crap to Janaina. Multinationals didn’t invest big bucks unless they had a specific, profitable, agenda.

  “The government would prefer we had an expert on the indigenous peoples on staff,” Katsoros continued, “in the event we come across any isolated tribes. We will set you up with an office here so you can advise us if needed.”

  “I am not understanding this.”

  “We have complete satellite phone capability. If we come across any locals, we’ll contact you. There’s no point in you having to endure all the hardships of the jungle when it’s so unlikely we’ll encounter anyone.”

  “That is not the right procedure.”

  “The arrangement has been cleared by the Interior Ministry.”

  Janaina’s confusion boiled into fury as she put the pieces together. Transworld had bribed someone to okay this ridiculous setup. Katsoros had asked for Maria because Katsoros knew the older woman would welcome such a cushy gig. No company would go to all that effort unless it wanted to keep something secret. Janaina stood up.

  “I don’t know who would be saying that arrangement would be acceptable, but it is not. I will accompany your team into the Amazon.”

  Katsoros opened a folder on her desk and looked
at the first page. “No you won’t. I can hire someone else who will find the arrangement not only acceptable, but preferable.”

  Janaina whipped out her phone and called up a recent news article. She put her phone down over the paper Katsoros was reading. “Do you remember this?”

  Katsoros slid the phone closer. The article was about how timber company Empresa de Madeiras Cruz do Sul had carved a logging road into some protected land. Protesters had ringed the headquarters. Builders promised to boycott the company’s timber. The stock price dropped. The company backed down.

  “Yes, I saw that last year.”

  Janaina yanked back her phone. “How would you like for Transworld Union to get that treatment this year? Except that was a local company. Your bad press would be international. I will not let you be compromising native peoples, and then cover it up.”

  Katsoros’s eyes narrowed in anger. Then her face relaxed into an artificial smile. “There’s no need for all this hostility. We just thought it would be easier on you to remain back as a consultant. There’s plenty of room on the transport if you would rather go into the field.”

  “I most certainly will.”

  “We leave at dawn from Virocopos Airport.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Virocopos was outside Campinas, a hundred kilometers of gridlocked São Paulo traffic away. Janaina didn’t have a car. She hadn’t packed, wasn’t even certain she had what she needed to pack for such a trip.

  “If that’s not enough notice, I completely understand.” Katsoros turned back to the folder on the desk.

  “Oh, no. It is no problem. I’ll be there.”

  “Then I guess I’ll see you in the morning. Hangar Three.”

  Janaina was so furious she stomped out of Katsoros’ office. All the way down in the elevator she fumed about Katsoros’s arrogance and Transworld’s obvious deceit. Only when the elevator approached the ground floor did she comprehend the scared looks on the faces of everyone else in the car. She realized she must look the way she felt—ready for a fight.