Mancaca

The commuter plane shuddered as it hit rough air while approaching the city of Iquitos in northern Peru.  A dozen passengers nervously gripped their armrests; some in business suits, others in Bermuda shorts. The man in window seat 3D was dressed in a polo shirt and designer slacks.  Sitting beside him was a Peruvian man who noticed that his fellow traveler had stared out his window the entire flight.  When the plane smoothed out, the Peruvian addressed his fellow traveler. “Usted vive in Iquitos?”

“No,” replied the anxious man in the window seat.  “Yo soy de los Estados Unidos.”

“Really,” the other man said in accented English.  “First time Peru?”

“First time in South America.  I’ve been staring at that jungle down there.  It goes on forever.” 

“All the way to Atlantic Ocean, thirty-three hundred kilometers to the east.  Can you see Amazonas down there?”

“The river?  Yeah, it’s a ribbon of brown in a carpet of green.”

“Did you know Rio Amazonas carries one fifth of all river water in entire world?”

“It’s a monster all right,” said the man by the window.  “Do you live in the city of Iquitos?”

“I lumber merchant there.  Most lumber from the western Amazon basin pass through Iquitos before it shipped to the outside world.  What brings you to Peru, if you not mind me asking?”

The man by the window took a sip of bottled water.  “I’m from Cornell University in the USA.  One of our professors is working down here at a field station in Iquitos.  He broke contact with us, and I came to find out why.”

“He missing in jungle?”

“Not exactly.  The Peruvian government says he’s in the city of Iquitos, so it’s not like he disappeared.  He just stopped sending e-mails, and won’t return any phone calls.”

“You his friend?”

“Well yes, but I’m here because he’s a senior member of our faculty, and a leading expert in his field.  I was on summer break, so the university bought me a ticket to come down and find him.”

“Where is your university?”

“New York State,” said the man by the window.  “A city called Ithaca.”

“You probably not like climate in Iquitos.  Average humidity eighty-five percent, and temperature a hundred degrees Fahrenheit today.  Can you see city?”

“Yeah, we’re coming up on it now.” The American looked down from his window.  “It has – what – half a million people?  But I only see one road leading out of the place.”

“That is road to Nauta, ninety kilometers to the south.  Another road goes north, but it ends at oil refinery, and then becomes dirt path.  The only way into Iquitos or out of it is by boat or plane.  What you think of Lima, our capitol?”

“Lima?  I didn’t get a chance to leave the airport.  When my jet landed from Florida, this commuter plane took off right away.  I think Iquitos is about six hundred miles north of Lima, isn’t it?”

“About that, yes.  You teach at university?  Please excuse my poor English.”

“I teach ethno-pharmacology.  That’s the study of relationships between various cultures and their medicines.”

“You looking for jungle cures?”

“No, I’m basically involved in cultural anthropology, but the man I’m looking for is a doctor and a cancer expert.  He’s a leader in the quest for so-called smart drugs.”

“People sent you all the way down to Peru just talk to him?”

“Well, my university paid a lot of money to sponsor this guy, and they want to know why he won’t talk to them.  He sent back two medical papers by e-mail, and then – poof – nothing for the last two months.  I wanted to see the Amazon, so I talked the university into buying me a ticket.”

“Maybe he stumble onto something important.”

“Well it would be nice if he’d let us know about it.” 

“If you want to get feel for Amazon life, be sure to visit the Belén District on south side of Iquitos.  Tourists like it.  Maybe you find your friend there.”

“Oh?” the American professor asked.  “Why?”

“Belén has huge outdoor markets.  One of them called Pasaje Paquito, or Medicine Lane.  People buy cures there, and I often see peasants shopping side-by-side with Ph.D.s.  Many foreign experts study native compounds, looking for new drugs.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

When the plane landed, the Cornell professor almost gasped when he stepped out of the exit and felt the heat of the jungle.  It was as though a giant hand had seized him – hot, moist, and relentless. 

Continuing across the tarmac, he entered a small terminal that had only two doors, and saw an oriental man holding a sign that said Prof. Tim Hopkins.

“Buenos tardes,” the professor said.  “Yo soy Hopkins.”

“From the university?” the oriental man asked in English.

“Y-yes.  I didn’t expect anyone to meet me here.”

“A taxi’s waiting outside.”

Hopkins followed the oriental man through the terminal and out to a taxi by the curb.  The man opened a rear door for Hopkins to enter, and then went around to the driver’s door and got behind the wheel.

“I need to go to the Esbaran Amazon Field Laboratory here in town,” Hopkins said.  “Do you know it?”

“Yes.”

“Did the university arrange for you to meet me?”

“Yes,” the driver said.  “Cornell University sponsors that Field Laboratory doesn’t it?”

“Uh huh.”

The oriental man spoke as he drove.  “That field lab searches for new medicinal compounds through applied field chemo-ecology.  It also catalogues the inventory of biological diversity in the Yarapa River Basin.”

“That’s right,” Hopkins said.  “I presume you work there.” 

“No,  I just try to keep up with what’s happening around town.”

“Really. You’re remarkably knowledgeable.  Are you Japanese?  Or—“

“Chinese,” the driver said.  “There are five million of us here in Peru.  We originally arrived as contract laborers for sugar plantations in the 1800s, and we later helped colonize the place.”

The passing city looked like places Hopkins had seen in Mexico, but with evidence of jungle humidity.  Every steel surface was rusty, while every concrete wall was black with mold and carbon leeching.

“This part of town is called the San Juan Artisans market,” the driver said.  “Look — some of your countrymen.”

Hopkins saw a group of light-skinned people in t-shirts and baggy shorts, confirming that they were Americans.  Whenever he traveled abroad, the Americans he ran into always dressed shabbily, as though they felt the natives weren’t good enough to wear proper clothes for.

The driver motioned toward the group.  “I’ve given rides to some of those people.  Ayahuasca tourists.”

“Ayahuasca?”

“Iquitos is a jumping-off point for rich foreigners that come to the Amazon looking for thrills involving shamans and drugs.  Every year some of them wind up dead in the jungle.”

“I’m impressed by your command of English.”

“I practice a lot.  Is this your first time in South America?”

“Yes, actually.”

“There are lots of things down here that average Americans don’t know about,” the driver said.  “Look at that house, for example.”

Hopkins looked out at a huge mansion.

“Left over from the days of the rubber plantations.  Casa Fierro – Iron House.  Designed by Gustav Eiffel, who also designed the interior structure of the Statue of Liberty in your state of New York.”

“What’s your name?”  Hopkins asked.

“Ricardo Sanchez.”

“Sanchez?”

“During the colonial era a lot of Chinese families took the names of plantation owners.  Are you here to see professor Jackson at the field lab?”

“Yes, “Hopkins said.  “Do you know him?”

“He’s famous in the field of research oncology.  I heard he just came back from Brazil.”

“Brazil?  We assumed he was here all this time.”

“Professor Jackson is an exceptionally brilliant man,” the driver said.  “Are you a doctor like he is?”

“No, I only have I have a Ph.D.  He has a Ph.D. plus an M.D.  How do you know about him?”

“From the Internet,” the driver said.  “There are six million Internet users in Peru.”

The air outside the taxi became filled with an oily haze from hundreds of motor-taxis that raced through the streets.  Many of the buildings were elegant in design, but poor in condition, while the main boulevards were decorative but dilapidated. Some of the smaller streets were empty, while others were full of people that stood around doing nothing.  Everywhere were indications that Iquitos had once been a major center of the rubber industry, but now subsisted on breweries and rum distilleries. 

Finally the driver pulled up to a building that looked the same as every other building in the city.  A sign outside it said Esbaran Field Laboratory. “Where are you staying?” the driver asked.

“I haven’t chosen a place yet.”

“I’ll wait for you here.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“How long will you be in Iquitos?”

“A day or two,”  Hopkins said as he paid the man and got out.  “Thanks for the ride. By the way…if you’re not with the field laboratory, how did you know I was coming to the airport?”

“They called me from Lima and said you were coming,” the driver said.

“Who is they?”

The man drove off without answering.

Hopkins entered the building and asked for Professor Jackson.  A receptionist pointed to the back of the room, and Hopkins was surprised to see Jackson sitting at a desk talking on the phone.  He assumed his colleague would be hard to find, but Jackson was right out in the open.   

As Hopkins moved toward him, Jackson put down his phone and stared at his approaching friend.

“Hello Bob,” Hopkins said.  He held out his hand, expecting a cordial reunion.

Jackson backed away, as though seeking to avoid physical contact.  “Did the university send you down here?”

“Of course.” Hopkins dropped his hand.  “No one’s heard from you for—“

“I’m fine,” Jackson said.  “Tell the university I’m busy with other things, and I won’t be coming back.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

“Your wife—“

“She’s sleeping with one of her students,” Jackson said.  “Anything else?”

“Well, yeah.  I came down here to find out why you won’t return any phone calls—“

“I told you.  I’m busy.”

“I don’t understand,” Hopkins said.  “You’re an authority on advanced medicines, and suddenly you vanish—“

“I haven’t vanished.  I’m right here, as the Peruvian government keeps telling Cornell.”

Hopkins pulled up a chair and sat down.  “I heard you went to Brazil—“

“What?  Who told you that?” 

“A taxi driver.  Ricardo—“

“Sanchez,” Jackson said.  “That little Chinese bastard.  Did he bring you here?”

“He said the university sent him to meet me at the airport.”

“He’s a liar.”

“He also said someone called him from Lima and told him I’d be coming.  He seemed to know all about you—“

“If you see that little creep again, tell him the natives will be using him for fish bait if he ever comes around here.”

“He said you’re an exceptionally brilliant man.”

“He’s a little cockroach that was probing you for information,” Jackson said.  “I’ll squash him soon enough.”

“Ah – yeah.  Well, do you intend to stay down here permanently or– ”

“I didn’t say I’m staying here,” Jackson said.  “I said I’m busy with other things.” 

“Bob, this makes no sense!  What the hell are you doing down here?”

“I’m inspecting jungle clinics for the Peruvian Ministry of Health.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”

“Jungle clinics?  You’re a research oncologist, Bob.  What happened to you?”

“I developed a cocaine habit.  Will that work?”

“No,” Hopkins said.  “In fact I’m staying here until you give me an explanation that sounds halfway sane.”

Jackson studied his American colleague.  “We can settle this right now.  Stand up.”

“What—“

“Do it.”

Hopkins got up from his chair.

“Look behind you.”

Hopkins turned around.

“Bend over and touch your knees.”

“Bob—“

“Do it, or I’ll have you removed.”

Hopkins did as he was asked. 

There was a moment of silence.

“Have a seat.”

Hopkins sat down once more.

“I need to make some phone calls,” Jackson said.  “There’s a bar called the Palacio Colonial down the street.  Why don’t you wait for me there?”

“Why can’t I wait here?”

“Adios, Tim.”

“All right, all right,” Hopkins said.  “I’ll wait at the bar.”

It was late afternoon when Hopkins left the building and walked down a street that felt like a steam bath.  Baffled by his friend’s behavior, Hopkins could not understand why Jackson had changed so radically from the way he had been for years at Cornell University.

Toward sunset Jackson came into the bar and sat at Hopkins’ table without ordering anything.  “Your lucky this is a dry day.” 

“A dry day?”  Hopkins wiped his sweaty forehead.  His entire body was dripping. “You call this dry?”

“I mean the rains,” Jackson said.  “They start in May and usually don’t let up until October.  I’m told that Jesuit missionaries founded this city in 1750.  Imagine what they thought when they first arrived at this pressure cooker.”

“You seem to like it here,” Hopkins said.

“I despise this place.”

“Oh?”  Hopkins looked around at the bar.  “Other than the climate, it doesn’t seem that bad—“ 

“I was referring to the jungle,” Jackson said.  “It’s crawling with bugs, snakes, bad-tempered monkeys, and blood sucking leeches.  The rain feels like tree sap, the ground feels like foam rubber, and everything smells like a sauna full of dirty underwear.”

“Sounds like Manhattan in summer.”

“The rivers are teeming with piranhas, plus disease-carrying insects and flesh-eating bacteria.  Everything competes at a fever pitch for survival, like a slow-motion meat grinder—“

“Whoa — if it’s that awful, why don’t you come back to New York with me?”

“I can’t,” Jackson said.  “There’s work to be done.”

“Bob, what are you really doing here?”

“I told you.  I’m inspecting jungle clinics for Peru’s Ministry of Health.  I’m going to one of them tonight.  You can tag along if you like, but it’s a two-hour journey on the river.”

“A jungle cruise?  Sounds interesting.”

“Hardly,” Jackson said.  “The jungle is awful at night.  When I was in Brazil, I saw a giant cloud of mosquitoes over the river at sunset, just waiting for succulent human prey to show up.  They caught scent of our boat from a mile away, and assumed attack formation.  Then they homed in on us like a squadron of fighter jets, but the boat operator outmaneuvered them and got away.”

“Well I’m glad for that, but—“

“I’ve heard stories of boats getting surprised by one of those roving clouds.  Half the passengers jump over the side and cling to ropes until the boat is in the clear.  Then they climb back onboard and scrape the leeches off one another.”

“Sounds like we should open an exotic theme park down here.” 

“The rainforest is swarming with amoebas,” Jackson continued.  “If one of those stalking clouds of mosquitoes comes your way, you’ll have to choose between staying in a boat and getting malaria, or jumping over the side and getting amoebas.  Most amoebas eat your intestines, but there’s one type that goes strait to your skull and eats your brain.”

“Wow,” Hopkins said.  “You really do love it here, don’t you?”

“It’s a green hell, Tim.  The Devil doesn’t live in a fiery inferno; he lives in a swamp.  I just want you to know what you’re getting into.”

“Fine.  So – what’s this clinic you’re going to inspect tonight?” 

“Yesterday I got a report about a village doctor who’s curing fatal diseases by using advanced machines rather than drugs.”

“Advanced machines?  What—“ 

“That’s what I want to find out,” Jackson said.  “This so-called doctor is most likely a charlatan who’s preying on the ignorant locals.”

“Bob, I’m confused.  You came down here to research medicinal compounds, and now you’re inspecting jungle clinics for the Health Ministry?  I don’t un—“

“It’ll make more sense when we get to that village,” Jackson said.  “Are you sure you’re up for this?  That jungle is not like anything you’ve experienced before.  Do you get nightmares easily?”

“Huh?”

“I mean you’ll see things that are rather—unusual.”

“How long would we be gone?”

“A few hours.”

“I think I can handle it.”

“Suit yourself,” Jackson said.  “But remember, I warned you.”  He stood up in the bar.  “We’ll have to find a llevo-llevo to take us there.  That’s a public ferry.  Let’s stop at the field station so I can pick up my briefcase.”

Twenty minutes later they stood on the bank of the Amazon River amid a large crowd that waited to board four different boats.  Each of the ferries was a metal box two levels high and sixty feet long, with a canvas tarp over the top deck so passengers could sit in the open.

Jackson purchased tickets from nearby hut, and led Hopkins onto one of the boats, which turned out to be hollow.  There were no berths or seats; just rows of hammocks full of cargo or human bodies.

“Bathroom’s at the far end,” Jackson said.

Hopkins looked down a line of hammocks and saw a wall with the word Bano.  Mounted on the wall was a miniature black and white TV that showed a Spanish soap opera.

“Be careful,” Jackson said.  “The floor’s slippery.”

The deck was coated with urine, feces, and maggot-infested trash.  “Looks like some of the student dorms I’ve seen at Cornell,” Hopkins said.

“Let’s go up on deck. Hopefully we’ll find a couple of empty chairs.”

As they walked down a narrow corridor toward a ladder, Hopkins looked into the restroom and saw a cubicle with a hole in the floor.  Directly below it was the river.  He followed Jackson up a ladder, came out on the roof by the wheelhouse, and saw that all chairs on the top deck were occupied. Jackson went to a pile of black plastic trash bags in one corner, picked out a few, and arranged them into two mounds like beanbag chairs.

“What’s in those bags?”  Hopkins asked.

“I don’t want to know.  If you’re hungry, there are vendors on board.”  Jackson pointed at a group of people on deck that were preparing fishing gear.  “They’ll sell you whatever parasite-infested delicacy they catch.  They’ll even use a butane torch to warm it for you in the executive lounge.”

“Where’s the executive lounge?” 

“You’re standing in it.  Have a seat.  If your pants gets dirty, there’s a Laundromat below.”

Hopkins looked down at the filthy brown water of the Amazon.  “You mean the river?”

“The cost is included in the ticket fare.” 

“What about soap?”

“Right here.”  Jackson put his right fist in his left palm and made rubbing motions.  “Detergent-lite. Here on the river, everyone travels first class.  Oh — that puddle near you?  Whatever you do, don’t touch it, even with the bottom of your shoe.”

Hopkins looked down at a multi-colored pool of fluid.  “What is that stuff?”

“Not even God knows that.”

The sun was disappearing behind the trees as the boat pulled away from the muddy riverbank and started down the Amazon.

“Ah yes,” Hopkins said,  “an evening cruise.  How romantic.”  Several children near him were covered with ulcers.  An old man smiled, displaying toothless gums.  Beyond him was a full moon,  just above the horizon.

“A moonlight cruise, no less,” Hopkins added.

“The moon is the reason why I’m going tonight,” Jackson said.  “The jungle is pitch black after sundown, but the moon will allow us to see.  You stay seated here while I go buy us some bug repellant.”

Jackson went to the far end of the deck and returned with two bottles of warm beer.

“Beer?”  Hopkins asked.  “If you drink beer, it keeps the mosquitoes away?” 

“Rub it on your skin if you must,” Jackson said.  “If the mosquitoes get bad, you’ll be tempted to rub river water on you.  Do not do that.”

Jackson shifted on his pile of trash bags, several of which made gurgling noises.  “This isn’t so bad.”

“The ferry will take us halfway to the village,” Jackson said.  “Then we’ll hire a dugout canoe to take us the rest of the way.  We’ll arrive at our destination in about two hours.”

“How do we get back to Iquitos?”

“We’ll figure that out later.”

“Jesus—“

“You wanted to come, remember?”

As the boat cruised down the Amazon in the darkening twilight, Hopkins asked about the clinic that Jackson had mentioned earlier.  “This doctor you’re going to see—“

“So-called doctor.”

“You said he’s using machines to cure terminal diseases?”

“That’s the rumor.  The villagers claim the machines were delivered by volando vagones.”

“Flying—“

“Boxcars,” Jackson said.  “Flying boxcars.  The Amazon Basin is full of wild stories about rectangular UFOs that shoot beams of light.  Anyone caught in those beams supposedly develops strange illnesses.  The Peruvian Army Intelligence Directorate is looking into the reports.”

“UFOs?  Bob, you’re an M.D.  How—“

“Like I said, the jungle is full of crazy stories, and this doctor is probably a charlatan.  I’m going to shut him down.”

 

Hopkins looked at the other people in deck, most of which seemed to be Indians.  “Well, I doubt space aliens could be as dangerous as white men when we first arrived in South America.  Our diseases were so fierce that within the first hundred years of the colonial era we had wiped out ninety percent of the natives.”

“Yes, and now the whites are about to experience the same genocide in their own countries.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll explain when we get to our destination,” Jackson said.  “It’s a village called Tupi Rondônia.  We’ll find out more about this jungle doctor from the cantina in the village.”

“What if the village doesn’t have a cantina?”

“Almost every village has a cantina,” Jackson said, “although it rarely looks like a cantina.  Usually it’s just a tent, or an outdoor table where an old man sells homemade rum from plastic containers.  The village we’re going to apparently has a real cantina, which will probably be a rusty metal shed the size of a small Winnebago.”

Hopkins looked out at the passing jungle.  “I was in India once, on a tiger preserve.  Wildlife has a supernatural aura in the bush, don’t you think?  In India it was as though the tigers were spirits that glided through the trees.”

“That’s why shamans down here sometimes wear jaguar skins,” Jackson said.  “They’re impressed by the jaguar’s mastery of the unknown.  But there are no jaguars around here — at least, not any more.  They’ve all been eaten.”

“Eaten?  By who?”

“It’ll make more sense when we get to the village.” 

Half an hour went by, and the oppressive humidity that Hopkins had felt in Iquitos became much worse. 

“Damn,” he said as he swatted mosquitoes.  

“Try to relax,” Jackson said.  “This place gets on your nerves at night.  The frogs and insects are bad enough, but the pockets of silence are worse.  If you don’t relax, the silence will screech at your mind until you start screeching back at it like a monkey.”

“Yeah?  Was it like this in Brazil?”

“Worse,” Jackson replied.  “Much worse.”

“Why did you go there, anyway?”

“It’ll make more sense—“

“Yeah, yeah.  When we get to the village.” 

An hour later the ferry stopped at a place that looked an oil refinery, or perhaps a sugar mill.

 

“Come on,” Jackson said.  “We need to hire a boat-taxi from here on.”  He led Hopkins off the ferry and approached a group of people that sat in dugout canoes powered by small outboard motors.  Jackson spoke to one of the natives, and motioned Hopkins to join him in one of the canoes.

“Put your feet on the box in front of you,” Jackson said.  “Don’t touch the river water.”

They pushed off and continued down a branch in the river.  Soon the bottom of the canoe became full of water, which the operator started to bail out with his sandal.  Jackson held his briefcase in his lap.

After a while, Hopkins noticed flashes of emerald-green light in the water.

“Hey—“ 

“Lobsters,” Jackson said.  “They generate those green lights to attract prey.”

“Lobsters?  You mean prawns?  Crayfish?”

“More like aquatic scorpions.”

“Huh?”

“The local natives call them longostas ezmeraldas.  Emerald lobsters.”

“Those are awfully huge flashes for things the size of scorpions.”

“They can weigh up to three hundred pounds,” Jackson said.

“What?”

“On moonless nights they haul their enormous bulks onto the riverbanks and dig their claws into the muck.  Then they raise their genitalia into the air and make gargling noises to attract mates.”

“Wow,” Hopkins said.  “I’m amazed I’ve never heard of them — but then, the Amazon Basin has never been fully explored, has it?”

 

“They arrived six months ago,” Jackson said.  “Stay out of the water at all costs.  The venom from those lobsters is a lethal nerve agent.  The Peruvian government determined that the creatures breathe nitrogen in the water, not oxygen, and that they thrive on nitrates from agricultural runoff.  Their bodies have an unusual defense mechanism.  Pouches full of nitroamines that are chemically similar to RDX.”

“RDX?”

“The active material in most plastic explosives, like C4 or PE4.  When the lobsters are attacked, they explode, spraying their enemy with a toxin that’s as deadly as a military nerve agent, such as TB or Sarin.”

“My god—“

“There are even rumors that they’re learned to imitate human voices in order to lure fishermen to their doom.”

“They eat fishermen?” 

“They eat anything they can catch,” Jackson said.  “And they’re very cunning.  Like I told you before, the jungle has unusual things, and they’ll get a lot more unusual as we go.”

Hopkins nervously looked around at the dark.  “What if we run into one of these lobsters?”

“When they’re out of the water they give off an odor like human excrement.  It helps them attract mates, and it’s so powerful that you’ll have ample warning.  Just stay in the canoe.” 

The operator continued to bail water with his sandal, frantically trying to keep the canoe afloat.  Meanwhile the moon cast an amber glow on the jungle, while the river water became filled with increasing flashes of emerald-green light.

The operator grew weary from bailing, and stopped to rest.  Hopkins watched as the river water rose near his feet.  Quickly he bent to start bailing with his hands.

“Not without gloves!”  Jackson said.

Soon Hopkins saw lights ahead of him.

“That’s the village,” Jackson said.  “Tupi Rondônia.  Back in the 1950s, a group of Portuguese fishermen from Brazil started a leper colony here.  But don’t worry, there are no lepers there today, and everyone will probably speak Spanish.”

Finally the boat stopped at a wharf, and Jackson paid the operator.  “Come on.”

They proceeded down the wharf toward several people walking by.  “Perdone me,” Jackson asked them.  “Pueden decirme donde esta su cantina por favor?” 

The villagers explained where the cantina was, and Jackson led Hopkins to an area that reeked of dead fish.  Soon they approached a corrugated metal shed that had an electric bug-zapper by the entrance.  The device popped and crackled continuously, and Hopkins noticed that its light was a deep red instead of blue.  Near it was a gasoline-powered generator that provided electricity for the cantina.  Under the big zapper was a pile of banana peels.

Seconds later Hopkins saw that the pile was not banana peels, but insects.  They resembled mosquitoes, but were the size of small pigeons.

“What it God’s name are those?”

“They arrived about six months ago with the lobsters,” Jackson said.  “Apparently they suck blood from livestock and humans.  The locals call them murcibichos.  Bat-bugs.”

The creatures were turquoise, and had bulging red eyes.  Each had a proboscis that looked like an ice pick, with something like a drill bit at the end.  

“I don’t think they’re insects,” Hopkins said.  “They have eight legs like scorpions and other arachnids, and those beady red eyes have lids. 

He reached down to pick one up from the pile. 

“Don’t touch them!”  Jackson said.  “They ooze a sticky compound that penetrates human skin.  Last month a local entomologist handled one of those things and died of acute encephalitis.”

Hopkins stood up.  “Bob, let’s go back to New York right now.”

“Where it’s safe?”  Jackson said.

“Where it’s livable, at least.”

“Soon New York will be the same as this place.”

“What do you mean?”

Jackson entered the cantina without answering, and asked the owner about the village doctor and his miracle cures.

“Yes,” the cantina owner said in Spanish.  “The doctor opened a clinic here in the village six months ago.  He only takes people with terminal illnesses, and he doesn’t charge for treatment.  I had liver cancer myself, and he used advanced instruments to cure me.”

“Cure you?”  Hopkins asked.  “He cures people with a wave of a magic wand?”

“Well there are drawbacks.  Anyone who gets cured develops a lump in the area of the affected organ.”  The cantina owner lifted up his shirt and displayed a lump the size of an orange just below his rib cage.

Hopkins examined it.  “Does it bother you to have a strange lump sticking out of your body?”

“It’s a small price to pay for my life.  When I got cancer, I went all the way to Lima, but every doctor told me that liver cancer is inoperable.  If this doctor hadn’t opened his clinic in my own village, I wouldn’t be talking to you now.”

The man lowered his shirt.

Hopkins looked at the bulge beneath the fabric.  “Unusual cures involve unusual side effects.  Have you had any other problems since your treatment?”

“Well, sometimes this lump throbs.”

“Throbs?”

“Yes, and when it does, it makes me have strange nightmares.  I learned to avoid sleep when it pulsates.  In fact, it started right now.”

The man lifted up his shirt again, and Hopkins saw that the lump in his mid-section was now twitching erratically.  Meanwhile Jackson looked around the cantina, as though he had seen the bizarre phenomenon before. 

“There’s a much worse problem,” the cantina owner said.  “When patients develop a lump after they’ve been cured, the same lump appears in people the patient lives with, even if those other people have no cancer, and get no treatment.  The doctor warned me about it in advance.  He said it was an unfortunate side effect, which he called iso-genesis.” 

The cantina owner went to a door and called outside. 

Two young men came in.

“These are my sons.  Levante sus camisas, mis angeles.”

 The two young men raised their shirts to reveal lumps identical to the cantina owner’s, complete with the same twitching.  Hopkins realized that the jerky movements were perfectly synchronized in the young men and their father, as though a single organ lived in three separate bodies.

“My sons never went to see the doctor,” the cantina owner said.

Hopkins looked behind the bar and noticed a framed photo of a young man who looked like the two young men that had come into the cantina. 

“Juanito,” said the cantina owner.  “My third son.  After I had my treatment he grew a lump like the rest of us.  When his lump throbbed, his nightmares were so bad that he threw himself into the river as a sacrifice to the lobsters.  When my wife’s lump appeared, she shaved her scalp.  Then she raised an electric drill to her head and—“

“That’s enough,” Jackson said, finally speaking up.  “This so-called doctor – does he have a name?”

“Senor Balto.”

Hopkins looked at Jackson.  “Balto?  Odd name.”

“Ridiculous is the word,” Jackson said.  He looked at the cantina owner.  “Could his name be Bulto?”

The cantina owner nodded.  “Yes.  Doctor Bulto.”
 
“Uh huh.” Jackson nodded.  “Bulto means lump in Spanish.  Like I said — ridiculous.”

There were six other customers sitting around a large table in the cantina.  Hopkins addressed them as a group.  “Has anyone else been treated by this doctor?”

“My wife had cervical cancer,” one of the men answered.  “The doctor cured her.”

“Did you develop a lump too?” 

The man smiled.  “All of us did.  First me, and then the others – but we can’t show them to you.”

Hopkins looked at Jackson.

“Probably enlarged genitals,” Jackson said quietly.  He spoke to the customers.  “Where is this doctor?”

“North road out of the village,” one of the men said.  “About two kilometers.”

“Have any of you seen one of those flying boxcars?”

The customers looked at each other.  Then they laughed and traded comments in a strange language.

Jackson shut them up by saying something in the same language, and then uttering the phrase, “Grupo Colina.”  Then he picked up his briefcase and looked at Hopkins.  “Let’s get out of here.”

Hopkins walked out of the cantina behind his colleague. 

“LOOK OUT!”  Jackson yelled.

One of the ‘bat-bugs’ came out of the night with its proboscis aimed at Hopkins like a stiletto.  Hopkins ducked and heard the bug-zapper pop and sizzle.  Then he saw the creature smoldering on the pile of bug carcasses, which was now three feet high. 

The customers laughed inside the cantina.

“Get away from those fumes!”  Jackson said.

“Are they just going to leave those things here?”  Hopkins asked as he looked at the pile.

“The cantina owner will probably incinerate them in the morning.”

“Yeah?  What was that language you spoke in there?”

“Reengage,” Jackson said.  “A common tongue used by Amazon Indians, but it’s rarely heard in Peru.  Most people here speak Spanish, or Quechua, or Aymara.  The fact that they were speaking in Reengage tells me that those cantina customers shouldn’t be in this village.”

“What was this Grupo Colina thing you mentioned?”

“A right-wing death squad active in Peru during the early 1990s,” Jackson said.  “They were so feared that their name still has power today.”

Hopkins looked at the village, which was a collection of huts made of cardboard boxes.  One dwelling was a merely bunch of steel drums arranged into a square. 

“Now what?”  Hopkins asked.

“Now we hire an auto to take us to this so-called clinic.” 

“A car?  Out here?”

“Auto-rickshaw.” 

Jackson flagged down a rickety three-wheeled contraption that spewed clouds of blue smoke, making Hopkins cough. 

Jackson smiled.  “At least it’ll keep the bat-bugs away.”

“What if this doctor won’t see us?”  Hopkins asked as he climbed aboard the auto-rickshaw.

“No one refuses the Ministry of Health.  By the way, it looks like our driver got treated by that doctor. Check out his neck.”

Hopkins leaned forward and saw a massive tumor under the driver’s jaw.  Then he looked over at Jackson, whose head swayed as the auto-rickshaw bumped down the dirt road in the night. 

Several minutes later Hopkins caught a whiff of something like human waste, and remembered that Jackson said the lobster-things gave off a similar odor when they were out of water.  He looked around nervously, expecting one of the things to jump out at him.

“It’s him,” Jackson said, pointing at the driver.  He leaned forward and spoke to him.  “Por favor deja de los pedos.”  (Please stop farting.)

Hopkins waved his hand in front of his nose.  “Maybe it helps keep the bat-bugs away.”

The auto-rickshaw had a small headlight that shined on two people walking on the road.  Hopkins watched them go by.  “These lobster things –have you seen one?”

“Yeah, they look like giant scorpions with a stinger about eight inches long.  The pain is indescribable, and the slightest touch is fatal.”

“Strange that they showed up with both those bat-bugs and this doctor.”

“It’s not strange at all,” Jackson said. 

“Oh?  Why?”

“Here we are.”

Hopkins looked out at a clearing in the jungle and saw a bungalow that was so small it seemed like a highway tollbooth.  It had a door with a small light bulb shining beside it, but no windows.

“That’s a clinic?”

“Most of it is probably underground,” Jackson said.

“Huh?”

“Let’s get closer.”  Jackson grabbed his briefcase and got out.

“How will we get back to the village?”  Hopkins asked.

“Helicopter.”

“What?”

“Come on.”

Hopkins walked toward the bungalow, amazed by the sheer volume of buzzing insects and croaking frogs.  “Jesus, how could anyone ever get any sleep with all this racket?”

Jackson pointed at giant trees above.

“What?”  Hopkins looked up. 

Jackson opened his briefcase, took out a flashlight, and shined it at the boughs overhead.  The branches swarmed with millions of fat insects that hung down in gigantic swarms, like masses of writhing moss.

“See how they hang down?”  “Jackson asked.  “That’s why the locals call them bat-bugs.”

“Are they aggressive?  What if I threw a rock into one of those masses?”

“We’d be dead in seconds.” 

As they continued toward the bungalow, Hopkins again smelled human waste, and looked around nervously.

“Cesspool,” Jackson said.  “Relax.  We’re not near the river.  Watch your foot, though.”

“WHOA!”

A gigantic snake slithered by Hopkins foot.

“Anaconda,” Jackson said.  “If he gets big enough he’ll be a tasty morsel for the lobsters, unless the bat-bugs suck him dry first.” 

Jackson walked up to the tiny bungalow and looked at it carefully, shining his flashlight on every angle.  Then he walked around it with Hopkins following behind.  There were no windows, and the place was totally silent.

They circled the building and came to the front door. 

Jackson pounded on it and called out, “HEALTH MINISTRY!” in Spanish. 

Then he walked away.

“You’re not going to wait for an answer?”  Hopkins asked.

“It’s just a formality.  No one will open that door.  Come on.  We need to get out from under these trees.”

They walked across the clearing to an open patch, and stood beneath a night sky that was full of stars and passing clouds. 

Jackson opened his briefcase, took out a satellite phone, and unfolded its panels.  Then he set the device on the ground and made a call, using code words and military jargon that Hopkins didn’t understand.  Finally he mentioned GPS and hung up.

“GPS?”  Hopkins asked.  “The U.S. satellite system?”

“Yeah, this phone is hooked into it, and my transmission gave our coordinates to authorities in Lima.  I called in a little help.”

“From Lima?  That’s 700 miles south of here.”

“There’s a military base up north, near the Ecuador border.  They’ll send a couple of guys to give us a hand.  We’ll wait here for them.”

As Hopkins looked at the giant trees silhouetted against the stars, he was surprised by how ghostly the jungle seemed in the moonlight.  “What do you think is inside that clinic?”

“Things that shouldn’t be there.”

“What sort of things?”

“Things.”

“We should have asked that cantina owner what he saw when he was inside.”

“He wouldn’t have told us anything,” Jackson said.  “I’m surprised he talked as much as he did.”

A minute later, Hopkins saw distant lights in the sky and heard the whoop-whoop of approaching helicopters.

“Stand with your back to me,” Jackson said.

“My back?”

“You look in one direction, and I’ll look in the other.”

“Why?  What am I looking for?”

“Anything out of the ordinary.”

The helicopters continued to approach as Hopkins scanned the jungle.  He was about to turn around when he noticed an object rise silently from the trees, two hundred yards from the bungalow. 

“Look!”

Jackson turned and watched the object continue to ascend in the moonlight.  It was a black rectangular box the size of a large tractor-trailer truck lying horizontally.

“Damn!”  Hopkins said.  “One of those flying boxcars?”

“Yeah,” Jackson said.  “Brazilian natives call them chupa-chupas.”

Suddenly the object shot away at extreme speed and disappeared into a cloudbank.

“Wow!”  Hopkins said.  “A genuine UFO!  I’ve never seen one of those things!”

“They’re fairly common in Brazil.” 

“Yeah?  I’m beginning to understand why you’re so obsessed with this place!” 

“No, Tim.  But you will understand in a minute.”

The whoop-whoop from the approaching helicopters continued to grow louder.  Hopkins listened to it while staring at the cloudbank where the UFO had disappeared.  “How could those flying things not be detected by radar?”

“They are detected on radar,” Jackson said.  “Air traffic controllers don’t mention them, because they know they’ll be fired, or passed over for promotion.  That’s why there’s never been a truly scientific study of UFOs.  Most of the data is ignored.  It’s the nature of bureaucracy.  In a few seconds, though, we’ll do a little scientific study of our own.”

Boomp—BANG—BOOMPFF—Hopkins heard explosions, accompanied by flashes of green light in the trees.

“What the hell?  Are those helicopters dropping bombs?” 

“Lobsters,” Jackson answered.  “The helicopters startle them, and the lobsters cause each other to explode as they scramble to get away.  Come on.”

Jackson folded up his satellite phone and stuffed it into his briefcase.  Then he led Hopkins back to the auto-rickshaw.  Six helicopters arrived over the clinic and hovered above the treetops, making the branches sway.  Millions of bat-bugs took off and swirled upward into the helicopter blades, getting pureed like guppies in a blender.  Hopkins heard countless squeals of agony as the giant insects were shredded into turquoise pulp. 

Ee—EEE—eeeee—EEEEE—eeeeeeEEEEeee.

“Jesus.”

As the helicopters continued to liquefy the bugs, some of the creatures realized what was happening and tried to fly above the blades, but were caught in the vortex and sucked down into the flashing melee of death.

Ee— eeeeeeEEEEeee –EEE—eeeee—EEEEEeeeee.

“Madre de Dios,” the auto-driver said.

Millions of the giant bugs formed a donut-shaped cloud as they flew out and up, and got savagely funneled back into the merciless blades.

Ee— eeeeeeEEEEeee –EEE—eeeee—EEEEEeeeee.

“That’s why we had to get out of there,” Jackson said.  “I didn’t want to get caught in a shower of toxic bug juice.”

“Those helicopters look like Russian models,” Hopkins said.

“They are. Peru bought several of them during the Soviet Era.” 

Eeeee—EEE—eeEEEee—EEEEE—eeeeeeEEEEeee.

The helicopters became drenched with turquoise goop. 

“Actually it’s a good thing they’re not newer models,” Jackson said.  ”Otherwise they’d have jet engines whose turbines would suck in those bugs, which would cause the helicopters to crash.”

EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee—-.

When the bugs finally thinned out, the helicopters dropped smoke bombs that filled the clearing.

“Ordinary tear gas,” Jackson said.  “The bat-bugs hate it.”

“This is nuts,” Hopkins said.  “All this to question one doctor in the jungle?”

“We’ve been looking for this guy,” Jackson said.  “It was sheer luck that I got a report about him yesterday.  And Peru is only one country.  There are clinics like one this all over the world in remote places.”

“This gets weirder and weirder.”

Ropes dropped from three of the helicopters, followed by men in gas masks who rappelled to the ground.  The men ran to various trees, attached small objects to their trunks, and proceeded to other trees.

“Get behind the auto,” Jackson told Hopkins.  He grabbed the stupefied driver and pulled him behind the tiny vehicle.

There were several explosions, followed by the groaning of the trees as they fell over.

Jackson looked up.  “They put Semtex on the trunks to clear a landing spot for the helicopters.”

Hopkins saw the helicopters come down, their blades sweeping away the remaining tear gas.  The little bungalow was unchanged. 

“Come on,” Jackson said.  “It’s game time.”

When the helicopters landed, twenty commandos with machine guns came out of them.  Hopkins watched as they surrounded the bungalow and attached objects to its foundation.  Two of the commandos walked toward the auto-rickshaw.  One of them yelled to Jackson.  “Hey Bob!”

One of the two approaching men looked like a military commander, while the other was a civilian in a cowboy hat and boots.  The civilian chomped a cigar and addressed Hopkins in perfect English.  “Cornell University, huh?  Go Big Red!”  He put out his hand. 

Hopkins winced as his own hand was crushed in a vice.  “Who are you?” 

“Freelance contractor.”

“CIA,” Jackson said.

“Ex-CIA,” the man corrected him.

The military commander standing beside the CIA man was in the Peruvian army, and had a face that looked like chiseled granite.  His manner evoked the stereotypical image of a battle-hardened leader.  “LISTO?” he called to his troops by the bungalow.

“SI COLONEL!” one of the soldiers answered.

The CIA man chomped his cigar.  “Let’s rodeo.” 

Seconds later an explosion annihilated the bungalow, spraying Hopkins with wood splinters. 

Hopkins looked again and saw a large metal box where the bungalow had been.  It was black, shiny, and resembled a bank vault. 

He started to walk toward it.

“Whoa,” the CIA man said, holding him back.  “We can’t have a jungle party without a blanket and an ice chest.”

“Blanket?  Ice chest?” 

Two more commandos approached from the helicopters, each grasping the twin handles of a large ice chest.  Quickly they carried it to the metal structure where the bungalow had been, while other soldiers spread a large plastic tarp on the ground near Hopkins.

“Yes indeed,” the CIA man said as he watched the ice chest.  “Sparkling cold refreshment.” 

“What do you have in that?”  Jackson asked him. 

“Corona on ice.”

“HMX?”

“Oh come on, Bob.  We only work with the finest ingredients.  There’s a hundred kilos of HNIW in that.”

“Sweet.”

The two commandos opened the lid of the ice chest and reached into it.  Meanwhile the CIA man adjusted his cowboy hat and spoke to Hopkins.  “Lie down flat on the plastic tarp and put your hands tight on your ears.  And keep your mouth wide open.”

“My mouth?”

“Don’t touch any bat-bug juice.”

Jackson called out to the auto-rickshaw driver, telling him to get down.

Hopkins lay on his stomach and heard footsteps approach.  It was the two men that had carried the ice chest.  They came running and laid flat on the plastic tarp beside him. 

Seconds passed in silence.

Suddenly there was an explosion so massive that it almost knocked the air out of Hopkins’ lungs.  Mammoth trees were jolted in the surrounding jungle, causing leaves to rain down at the edge of the clearing like green snowflakes in the night.  The whole area came alive with the howls of startled moneys. 

“Yes!” the CIA man said.  “Touch down!”

Thunder continued to roll through the sky as a mushroom cloud rose above the jungle clearing.  It was by far the most powerful explosion that Hopkins had ever witnessed. 

The CIA man spoke to him.  “In Brazil we almost got to use a nuke that I purchased from Israel.  This place is a lot smaller, so we went conventional.  Let’s boogie.”

Hopkins got up, feeling dizzy, his ears ringing. 

The explosion had ripped open the ‘bank vault,’ leaving a gaping hole with jagged edges.  Soldiers approached it from the perimeter of the clearing, their machine guns held ready.

Jackson yelled into the opening in Spanish.  “MINISTRY OF HEALTH!  WITH YOUR PERMISSION, WE’D LIKE TO CONDUCT A COURTESY INSPECTION!”

The CIA man puffed his cigar.  “Ministry of Health?”

Jackson shrugged.  “Whatever.  By the way, we saw one of their boxcars take off before you arrived.  Your helicopters must have scared it away.”

“Damn!”  The CIA man turned to Hopkins and almost burned him with the end of his cigar  “I’ve never seen one of those things myself.  How do you rate?”

“You mean that was some kind of alien craft?”  Hopkins asked.

“Maybe,” Jackson said.  “We’re not sure.”

“Whatever they are, they’re not welcome here,” the CIA man said.  He took the cigar from his mouth and sent a ball of smoke rolling into the night air.  “Well, shall we pay the good doctor a house call?”

“Who is this doctor?”  Hopkins asked. 

“Human collaborator,” Jackson said.  “The aliens choose psychopaths that have delusions of grandeur, and promise them power and riches.  Makes you wonder about most of today’s politicians, aye?”

“Aliens?”  Hopkins asked.

Several of the commandoes approached the steel box and threw grenades into the black opening. 

“Aliens?”  Hopkins repeated.  “Bob, what the hell is going on?”

The CIA man brushed past him, enveloping Hopkins in a cloud of cigar smoke.  “Invasion from outer space.”

Boom-Boom-BOOM –the grenades went off inside the structure, haven fallen down a kind of shaft.  Quickly the soldiers rigged up pulleys and ropes, preparing to go down inside. 

Hopkins inched closer to the jagged opening and heard a rhythmic pulsing sound below, like blood coursing through a vessel.  Wort-WORT-wort-WORT-wort-WORT. 

“What’s down there?”

“Octopus-like creatures that act as bio-machines,” Jackson said.  “I saw them in Brazil.  They’re huge.  The size of whales.”

“That Brazilian site is an underground nest,” the CIA man added.  “A hell of a lot bigger than this place.  Personally I think we should take that nuke I purchased from Israel and roll it inside, but nobody listens to me.  Everyone wants to protect the rainforest.”

Hopkins shook his head.  “It’s like I’ve entered a bad science fiction movie.”

“Yeah?”  The CIA man chomped his cigar.  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being invaded by nasty critters from – wherever.  I’m funny that way.”

“Did these aliens bring those bat-bugs, and those lobster things—“

“We think the critters are extraterrestrial parasites that hitched a ride on the boxcars,” the CIA man said.  “When the aliens arrived, their parasites found virgin territory and sorta went nuts.  Fortunately the excrement from those lobsters kills all plant and animal life, so it’s only a matter of time before they destroy their own food supply.  When they begin to starve, they’ll probably try to eat each other, and hopefully blow themselves up in the process.  All we have to do is contain the little varmints until they die off.”

“Dream on,” Jackson said to him.  “They’ll probably mutate, like they’ve done before.”

Hopkins watched as the commandos continued to prepare their ropes and pulleys.  “What about those bat-bugs?  Can they be controlled?” 

“We’ve tried pesticides,” Jackson said.  “But they thrive on it, especially DDT.  Agent Orange too.  We’ve had some luck by setting up giant Tesla coils, though.  The electrical bolts attract them, and they explode like firecrackers.  Makes the jungle sound like a gigantic popcorn machine.  Kinda interesting to watch.”

Several of the troops went to the helicopters and returned with large duffle bags full of plastic suits.

“Just a precaution,” Jackson said.  “Our friends downstairs pack quite a punch.  This commando team is assigned to South America, and it’s known as Section Three.  Every continent has a team like it.” 

“Oh?”  Hopkins watched them work.  “Do you have a world headquarters or something?”

“There’s a coordinating center at the McMurdo research station in Antarctica,” Jackson said.  “Our UFO friends don’t seem to like cold places.  At least, we’ve never seen one of these clinics anywhere near there.”

Hopkins continued to watch as the commandos got into plastic suits and zipped them up.  “If extraterrestrials are behind all this, as you claim, why would they set up clinics in remote locations?  It doesn’t make sense.  Why are they invading?  What do they want?”

Jackson and the CIA man looked at each other. 

“What?” Hopkins asked.

“Not now.”

More soldiers went to the helicopters and returned with a small generator and several lights, which they positioned around the opening of the metal structure.  Soon they had the place lit up like a rescue operation at the mouth of a cave.  Then the soldiers in plastic suits proceeded to climb down ropes into the jagged opening one by one. 

Hopkins heard gunfire below, followed by more grenade explosions, plus an underground blast he could feel through his shoes.

Then everything quieted down.  Even the riotous frogs and insects in the jungle went silent.

Hopkins inched toward the opening, trying to listen.

“Ah-ah-ah,” the CIA man said.  “Don’t stick your hands into a cookie jar unless you know what’s in it.  Get away from that opening right now son.”

As Hopkins did so, there was an underground blast so huge that it felt like a boat oar had slapped the soles of his feet.  He fell onto his rear end as knees as twigs, leaves, and bat-bug bodies were thrown up six inches from the ground.  Hopkins realized that if he had been standing by the opening the blast would have killed him.  “Damn!” he said as green smoke drifted from the opening.  “Won’t that kill the doctor, or whoever it is you want to get down there?”

“He’s probably in a protective cocoon,” Jackson said. 

“Si,” the Peruvian commander said.  He smiled at Hopkins and made the okay sign with his hand.  “My men just – how you say – limpiando con trapeador?”

“Mopping up?”

“Si, si!”

Presently one of the soldiers appeared from the opening and climbed out to the surface.  Then he started to bring up something attached to the end a rope.

“Hot damn!” said the CIA man, rubbing his hands together.  “Let’s see what we’ve caught.”

The ‘catch’ was a man tied up with rope, with a gag in his mouth.  As his head appeared, he blinked in the glare of the portable floodlights.

“Roped and tied like prize calf!” the CIA man said.  He looked at his wristwatch.  “A hundred and thirty seconds.  We’re getting better all the time.”

The commando yanked his prisoner out of the opening and dragged him away, face down in the dirt.  Then he dropped the rope and let the man flop around on the jungle floor like a landed fish.

“Turn that bad boy over,” the CIA man said.

Jackson put his toe under the man’s shoulder, but the man moved away.

“Now, now,” Jackson said.  He leaped into the air and stomped the man’s face so hard that Hopkins thought he heard the man’s skull crack.

“Christ, Bob!”

The man on the ground screamed through the gag in his mouth. 

The CIA man laughed.

More soldiers emerged from the opening in the steel box.

Jackson grabbed the prisoner’s ropes and flipped him onto his back, while the CIA man swiveled one of the floodlights so it showed on the prisoner.

Hopkins gasped as he looked at the thing lying on the ground.  The man was covered with throbbing lumps that oozed and glistened in the portable lights.  His face was horribly distended, while his entire chest was throbbing.  One eye bulged halfway out of its socket.

Jackson stood over the prisoner.  “Buenas noches, doctor bulto.” 

The man seemed to be in his forties, but was so disfigured by lumps that Hopkins wasn’t sure.  He wore ordinary clothes, and had a leather sandal on one foot.  One half of his head was hideously enlarged.  The eyeball bulging out of his face was throbbing in unison with the lumps on his chest.

The CIA man was wearing cowboy boots, and walked around the prisoner while singing, “These boots are made for walkin.’  And that’s just what they’ll do.  One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.”  Using the toe of his boot, he gently tapped the lumps on the prisoner’s chest, probing until he touched one lump that made the prisoner flinch in pain. 

“Ah yes,” the CIA man said.  “The sweet spot.” 

Suddenly he stomped the lump with the heel of his boot, causing a squishing noise, plus more howls of pain. 

Hopkins felt his skin crawl. 

Meanwhile the last two commandos came out of the opening and slapped each other in a ‘high five’ sign.

“Hey,” the CIA man said to Jackson.  “Remember Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?  Wasn’t one of the dwarfs named Lumpy?  Or Dumpy?”  He knelt beside the man on the ground.  “Help me out here, doc.  Which dwarf are you?” 

Suddenly he jammed his lit cigar into the throbbing eyeball. 

“Dammit!”  Hopkins said. 

There was an audible sizzling as the CIA man ground his cigar into his victim’s eye. 

“Is that NECESSARY?”  Hopkins protested.

“He’s right,” Jackson said.  “Let’s be professional.  Doctor lumpy here has questions to answer.” 

“Yeah okay.”  The CIA man stood up.  “We’ll treat him gently.  Then we’ll feed him to those lobsters.”

Jackson held up his hand like a schoolboy in a classroom.  “Oh please — oh please, can I feed him to the lobsters?  Can I?  Can I?”

Hopkins was shocked at this display.  Jackson was his mentor, his idol, a genius, and a renowned expert in his field, a senior professor at Cornell, an M.D. and a Ph.D. — yet he was acting like a sadistic punk.

“I have a question for both of you,” Hopkins said.  “Those soldiers just destroyed whatever advanced machines were down there.  I don’t understand how one man like this could be an invasion.  And if there is an invasion, what do these aliens want?  What if this guy really can cure cancer and other diseases?  Shouldn’t we at least—“

“He’s can’t cure a damned thing,” Jackson said.  “He and his alien friends are causing cancer, plus other diseases.  It’s all part of their plan.”

“Plan?”

The CIA man spoke up.  “I think it’s time we educated your professor friend.”  Then he spoke to Hopkins.  “Come with me, son.”  He led Hopkins away, while Jackson took a machete from one of the commandos and knelt beside the victim on the ground.

“We’ve questioned his kind before,” the CIA man said.  “Based on what we’ve learned, it seems our alien friends can’t survive in our atmosphere, so they’re changing us into them.  Those boxcar things can pass into and out of strange dimensions.  They shoot rays at us that cause cancer and other diseases.  Naturally the aliens want to be discrete at first, so they’ve started by opening clinics in remote areas like this one.  The aliens cause jungle natives to develop diseases, so the natives will go to these clinics for treatment.  The natives come out thinking they’ve been cured, when in fact their diseased organs have been replaced by alien organs.  That’s why there are lumps.  The aliens are changing us into them, piece-by-piece, organ-by-organ.  Rather than destroy, they appropriate.  Our human prisoners say the aliens have done this with many planets.  It’s how they colonize new territory.”

Jackson came up to them and wiped off his machete.  “Just like white Europeans colonized human natives in the past,” he said.  “White men opened clinics, but they brought deadly diseases with them.  They killed far more Native Americans than they cured.  They changed Native Americans into white men, piece by piece.  In those days the UFOs were sailing ships, which brought alien plants and animals.  And, as always occurs with invasions, the white men selected natives to act as traitors to their own kind.  Throughout history, there’s never been any shortage of traitors, and they can be bought with very small bribes.  Today these extraterrestrials do the same thing with people like that moron on the ground there, and there’s no shortage of eager collaborators.” 

“So you attack clinics like this one in order to fight back?”  Hopkins asked.

 “That’s only part of the picture,” Jackson said.  “You’ve seen how people develop lumps—“

“Alien organs?”

“Yes, even if people never go near one of these doctors.  They only have to be around someone in whom the process has already started.  We haven’t figured out the contagion vectors, but our prisoners say the aliens spread the disease by using space-time curvature engines, whatever that means.  People get infected without even realizing it.  The colonization of earth started six months ago, and now it’s spreading across the planet.  Naturally we wouldn’t have brought you into this if you weren’t already involved.”

“Involved?”  Hopkins asked.  “What do you mean?” 

“Lift up your shirt.”

Hopkins almost tore off his shirt, but was relieved to find no lump.  “Damn — you scared the hell out of me!”

“Back side.  Kidney level.”

Hopkins slowly moved his hand around his back.

The CIA man caught Hopkins’ hand and pushed it toward the front.  “It’s there,” he said.  Then he lifted up his own shirt and turned around to display a huge lump on his back.  Jackson did the same.  Both men’s lumps throbbed in unison.

“I saw your lump this afternoon when I asked you to bend over and touch your knees,” Jackson said.  “It was visible through your shirt.  That’s why I decided to let you know what’s happening down here.”

“The soldiers all have lumps in their abdomens,” the CIA man said.  “There’s no way to tell if you’ve been infected until the lumps show.  Our doctor friend on the ground there is slightly further along in the process.  We haven’t found any humans in the advanced stage, since by that point they’re probably flying around in those damned boxcar UFOs.” 

“Damn you!”  Hopkins said to Jackson.  “YOU INFECTED ME!”

“No, Tim, you were probably infected at Cornell.  In fact, when you first appeared today and reached out to shake my hand, I backed away in case you weren’t infected.  We don’t know who’s a carrier until it’s too late, and there’s no instrument that can spot the transformation until a lump appears.”  

“We can halt it!”  Hopkins protested.  “We have to figure out a way!”

“Agreed,” the CIA man said.  “Any bright ideas?”

“Have you tried communicating with these aliens?”  Hopkins asked.  “I mean, appealing to their sense of morality?”

“Repeatedly,” Jackson said.  “Since they’re technologically superior, they regard themselves as morally superior.  To them, we’re livestock.”

“In short, they’re exactly like us,” the CIA man added.  “When one group of humans considers itself technologically superior to another group, it regards the other group as sub-human.  In fact, the aliens promise that if we accept their religion, we’ll go to their celestial abodes when our metamorphosis is complete.”

“Religion?”  Hopkins asked.  “What religion?”

“Again it’s the same as when the white man came to the New World,” Jackson said.  “Basically we have to accept the aliens as gods.  They say they came to help us, and that we resist them because we hate the aliens’ freedom.  Naturally they call people like us terrorists, which in their language translates as mancaca.”

“Surgery,” Hopkins said.  “Excise the lumps, and—“

“We’ve already tried that,” Jackson said.  “We’ve tried everything.  Once you’re infected, you can hack out all the lumps you want, but more lumps keep appearing.  It’s not a virus or a bacterium or a prion, or anything we can detect.  The only physical sign is the lumps when they start sprouting.  We don’t even know how near you have to be to a carrier to get infected.”

“That’s right,” said the CIA man.  “There are even cases in which one person infected another by talking to the other on the telephone.  Mister Potato-Head on the ground there probably did a lot of damage with nothing more advanced than a cell phone.  In your case, you might have been infected by anyone at any time.  We just don’t know.”

“That Chinese taxi driver who picked me up at the airport,” Hopkins said.  “Ricardo Sanchez—“

“He’s a collaborator,” Jackson said.  “Like our friend tied up on the ground there.  When we get back to Iquitos, we’ll take Senor Sanchez for a ride in one of our own taxis.”  Jackson motioned toward the helicopters.  

The CIA man yawned.  “Well, it’s past the doctor’s bedtime, and I don’t want to keep him from his milk and cookies.  We’ll take him back to base so the boys can sing him some Spanish lullabies.”

“We you serious about feeding him to the lobsters?”  Hopkins asked.

“Yes,” Jackson said.  “After we’ve tortured him for information, that is.  Why?  Did you want to do it?”

“What?  How could you ask me that, Bob?  This whole thing is gross!  It’s horrible!  Do I want to do it?  What are you talking about?” 

“Is that a no?”

Hopkins was unable to comprehend Jackson’s casual brutality.  Jackson had become a monster, a sadist, a psychopath.  Shocked, revolted, and bewildered, Hopkins finally opened up and unleashed his true feelings.  “Actually that sounds like fun.”

“Okay,” Jackson said.  “Help us drag that piece of filth to the helicopter.  Tomorrow we’ll raid a clinic in the Andes Mountains.  If you think the lobsters down here are freaky, wait until you see the snow-squids up there.”

Hopkins went to the man on the ground and kicked him in the eyeball, making it burst with a loud POP. 

The CIA looked at Jackson.  “Wow Bob.  What kind of professors do you have at Cornell anyway?  Your friend needs to go to an anger management class.”  Then he laughed, took a cigar from his shirt pocket, and offered it to Hopkins.  “Welcome to the team!”

Jackson spoke to Hopkins.  “So, are you going back to New York?”

“No,” Hopkins said.  “My wife’s been sleeping with one of her students, just like yours has.  I’ll stay here and help out.” 

Then he stuffed the cigar between his teeth, grabbed the rope on the ground, and dragged the prisoner toward one of the helicopters, while singing, “These boots are made for walkin,’ and that’s just what they’ll do….”

~~~~~~~~~~ END ~~~~~~~~~~

Them suckers can weigh up to three hundred pounds!