Lemuria by Burt Clinchandhill (epub e ink reader TXT) 📕

so she took one. On the wall, she recognized a copy of Ernst Haeckel’s ‘Hypothetical Sketch of the Monophyletic Origin.’ Then she heard the voices again. They seemed to come from another pathway on the other side of the room. She carefully moved across the room and into the dimly lit corridor. After some ten feet, on the right side, an entrance to another chamber appeared. She looked into the empty room. In the center of the room, a transparent plastic tent about fifteen feet wide and fifteen feet long was assembled. She recognized the model of the canvas from a visit to a Doctors Without Borders camp in Sierra Leone during one of her stays in Africa. They were called inflatable isolation modules. This one seemed to be empty, so she snuck inside the room. Through the plastic, she saw an empty bed and some medical equipment next to it.

In contrast to the room itself, the tent seemed a sterile environment. A large sign at the zipper door read, “Shoes,” probably as a reminder to put on medical shoe covers before entering. She left the room again and decided to look further down the corridor, to determine where the voices were coming from. She passed another room with an empty tent in it, then went to a room that was better lighted. She looked around the corner. This time the tent was well lit, and two men, dressed in blue protective clothing and facemasks, bent over the bed, preventing her from seeing what or who occupied it.

She couldn’t understand the mumbling from behind the masks. A plastic bag hanging from the side of the bed seemed to fill up with a clear fluid. As she rose on her toes to try to look into the bed, one of the men stepped aside. Jennifer gasped and slapped her hand to her mouth, muffling the sound. On the bed a darkly tanned woman with black hair lay flat on her belly. On her tilted head, Jennifer recognized a breathing mask, and a tube ran from just below her neck to the bag on the side of the bed, dripping fluid into it. An intravenous drip ran from a stand on the other side to her arm. They were draining some kind of fluid from her. She slapped her back against the rock-faced corridor. I need to get out of here. As silently as possible, she ran through the halls back to the clearing. She looked and listened for a second, and when she didn’t see or hear anything, she quickly passed the clearing before switching on the flashlight she took. She took off into the forest again, finding her way back.

Chapter 20 – Santet Susuk Konde

South Bantam, Java, Indonesia, The Present

For hours, the stretched Beetle drove from the Kanci–Pejagan toll road in the east to the Cikampek-Palimanan toll road in the west. An hour ago, the nearly sixty-year-old German car had left the asphalt road and was now punished by the unpaved dirt road, Jalan Tanah.

Ignatowski bumped his head again on the handrail attached to the car’s roof. “Don’t you think it would be a good thing to invest in seatbelts?” he called out to the front.

“No worries, sir. We are almost there,” the driver shouted back.

“Not a minute too soon,” Lindsey added.

“I think this is it.” Bishop noticed a sign that read, “Perkebunan Teh,” as the car turned onto a remarkably flat road.

After a minute, the Beetle stopped in front of a large yellow concrete building with a large sign above the door that read, “Kantor.” Groaning, they all got out of the car and stretched their arms and legs.

“Next time we fly.” Ignatowski cracked his neck.

“Agreed.” Bishop stretched his arms into the air.

“Men!” Lindsey stated, pretending to be unaffected by the drive as she strolled toward the office. “This way?”

The office door swung open, and a tiny, tanned Indonesian man walked out raising both arms. “You made it,” he called out. “Come,” he said, gesturing as he walked around the building. Looking back, he urged them to follow him. “Come, come.”

At the back of the building, a small terrace overlooked the vast fields filled with green tea plants.

“Please sit down.” He pointed to the teak wooden chairs. “Tea?” Without waiting for the answer, he poured three cups of tea from a pot brewing on a candle. They sat down at the table. “I’ve been expecting you. Welcome to the Perkebunan Teh Chakra Kanaan, The Canaan Chakra-thee plantation,” he said, translating. “My name is Yohanes Kadek, but please call me Jonnie. I’m the owner of the plantation.”

“Wow,” Lindsey nodded. “Great place.”

“Almost one thousand acres with over one hundred thousand tea plants,” Kadek boasted.

“What are those colored lines over there in the distance?” Bishop asked.

Kadek laughed. “Those are the... um, what you call them... tea pickers, I believe, yes? The tea pickers are about the same height as the tea plants, so from a distance, you only see their bright-colored rice hats, those conical pointy hats made of straw.”

“So, those are all people?” Lindsey asked.

“Yes. At any time, there are about five hundred people working the fields. How’s your tea?”

They sipped the dark tea.

“Hmmm.”

“Good.”

“Excellent.”

“So, my friend Kuwan Mansoer spoke highly of you and asked me to help you. You know, Kuwan and I studied together at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Surakarta. I guess he stayed the closest to his study. I wanted to be a photographer but ended up taking over the tea business from my father. Kuwan told me you wanted to visit the Baduy.” He frowned. “Why?”

“That’s a good question.” Bishop took out his phone. “The best answer I have is that we’re looking for this woman.” Bishop handed over his cellphone with a picture of Jennifer on the screen.

“Beautiful young woman. And you think that she’s there, with the Baduy?”

“Well, we’re not sure,” Bishop replied. “We hope that someone there might know more about her. What can you tell us about them?”

“It’s believed that for