Rogue Angel 47: River of Nightmares Read Online Free Page A

this baby. A group of Baptist ministers from Georgia had her booked for a two-week retreat, but flu swept through them and they canceled this very morning. Lucky, eh?”
    “I suppose,” Annja started. “We could use this for a while and—”
    “Already paid for two weeks. Doug wired the money. We’re getting a refund for the other one.”
    “The O Segura. Not so dependable after all. This one isn’t as sleek as the one we’d planned on, Wall.” Annja’s voice was flat.
    “Look, it was this or wait around a few days until something else opened up or the O Segura got repaired. Or I suppose go to another city on the coast and find something. But I’m liking this boat. I’m liking it a lot.”
    The boat’s name was in faded red paint: Orellana’s Prize. Annja had studied up on the Amazon before suggesting this series. She knew Francisco de Orellana was a Spanish soldier who’d been the first European to explore the river. Orellana had helped Pizarro conquer Peru and served as a governor for a time. After his sojourn down the river he finally returned to Spain, where his tales of gems, spices and native women resembling the Greek mythological Amazons contributed to the naming of the river. Eventually he came back here, but his ship capsized at the mouth and he drowned. Annja shuddered, a boat named after a drowned man...who would do that? And paint the name in the color of blood.
    “C’mon, Miss Creed, I’ll give you the tour. I already put your duffel in your cabin. Gave you the nicest room.” Wallace led the way.
    Cabin? Annja had expected to be roughing it. The boat they’d originally chartered had a common room for sleeping that doubled as the dining room. She’d selected the O Segura after contacting a charter company she’d found on the internet and followed up on with a few phone calls. This series was wholly Annja’s idea, and she’d thought that particular boat would come over great on film, make it look like taping these segments was dangerous, that taking an antique-looking tug into the tributaries was a big risk. More drama. This boat was probably three times the size of that tug, practically luxurious.
    “According to the captain, Orellana’s Prize is one of the oldest still navigating the Amazon. Maybe the oldest. Built in France in 1876.”
    Annja felt a tingle on the back of her neck. Roux had called her from France this morning, said he was thinking of her. Odd connection, this boat to France.
    “She was originally a Peruvian naval ship, was in the campaign to expel the invasion of Ecuador back in 1902, or maybe it was 1903. I should’ve written all of this down, might be a good tidbit for the website promo. Maybe we’ll do a clip just on the boat, for the ‘extras’ on the DVD.”
    That had been part of Annja’s proposal, too. Release the segments as a DVD around the holidays, include bonus features on their boat, the river itself and any other tidbits that struck their fancy.
    “We’ll double-check it all, the dates and history, with the captain when we start filming. He’s quite the character. I want to do a little piece on him. Anyway, apparently in the early 1900s, this boat was used for exploration of some tributaries—maybe the same ones we’re going down. She was fully restored four or five years ago.” He stroked his chin. “We’re sailing on a piece of Amazon River history, Miss Creed. Maybe it was a good thing our other charter didn’t work out, eh?”
    “Steam powered?” Annja noted that keeping with the boat’s apparent history, the original brass ornamentation here and there was reasonably polished. But the paint was weathered and faded all around, the tropical climate taking its toll despite the restoration.
    “Captain said they switched that out a couple of years back. Has a diesel engine and two generators.”
    They circled the deck; Annja put it at a little more than ninety feet long and sixteen or seventeen feet wide. It had two upper levels, giving