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  What others are saying about The Beekeeper’s Secret…

  “Twists and turns abound as Fernandez precisely knits facts with imagination to entertain and to educate in a genuine page-turner too irresistible to put down.”

  —Michael DeStefano, Award-winning Author of The Composer’s Legacy

  “Relentless tenacity couples with a ‘Never Give In; Never Give Up’ attitude, driving Max to detective stardom. The same intrepid attitude that got us to the Moon and back permeates this heroine’s achievement!!! The reader gets into multiple missions and locations, absorbing each challenge connecting new dimensions of intrigue wrapped in skullduggery! Prepare to get launched into spatial excitement!!!”

  —Tom Wysmuller, NASA Apollo Era (Ret.), VP Medical Claims Operations, Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company (Former)

  “Sally Fernandez has written a fascinating novel, which revolves around the honey bee and the beekeepers who are working hard to keep them alive and healthy. Even though this book is a work of fiction, it is intertwined with a great deal of factual information about honey bees.”

  —Gene Brandi, Gene Brandi Apiaries, Past President of American Beekeeping Federation

  “Max Ford is a wonderful character brought to life in all her glory by Sally Fernandez, an author who weaves intrigue, mystery, drama, and lighthearted repartee into a well researched book which addresses an issue that impacts all of us. The Beekeeper’s Secret is a must-read—a fast read—and a read I would strongly recommend.”

  —Donna Post, Banking Consultant (Ret.)

  “As an alternative practitioner, I am thrilled to see this book available. Knowing some of the people involved, I am looking forward to reading and sharing The Beekeeper’s Secret.”

  —Dr. Michele Benoit, Chiropractor

  “Again, I am astonished by a Fernandez thriller with such amazing and authentic research that keeps my mind reeling with suspense while continuing to be educated. As a devotee of alternative medicine and a lover of nature, The Beekeeper’s Secret must be revealed.”

  —Kenney DeCamp, Physician Assistant, Chef, Producer, Mime

  “Another eye-opener with dangerous consequences. Max Ford does it again, using her tenaciousness to shine a light on the self-serving manipulation from those who espouse to protect us. Max exposes how our freedom of choice is being sacrificed in the name of greed. This book should have been written long ago, but better late than never, because you will not want to put it down.”

  —Ann E. Howells, Wine Consultant

  “The fun thing about reading thriller-mysteries or mystery-thrillers is connecting the dots. A good storyteller keeps you guessing with bits and pieces of plot line that don’t seem connected, and then drops in a hint that sets you off in the right direction and then surprises you with yet another turn. As in her earlier novels, Sally Fernandez does it again with The Beekeeper’s Secret — a crisp, fast read built on intriguing, clever, contemporary issues that make you think a lot, with a dash of humor here and there.”

  —Alfredo S. Vedro, Media Production Consultant

  A Max Ford Thriller

  A Novel

  Sally Fernandez

  The Beekeeper’s Secret

  A Max Ford Thriller

  Copyright © 2018 by Sally Fernandez

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, or otherwise—without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. For information on licensing or special sales, please email Dunham Books at:

  [email protected]

  www.dunhamgroupinc.com

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9996646-2-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9996646-6-7

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018935062

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedicated to David Dunham,

  my publisher and dear friend, who by the grace of God

  won the battle against pancreatic cancer.

  The path David chose became the inspiration for this story.

  “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

  ~ Hippocrates (460-370BC)

  “The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.”

  ~ Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

  “Many cancer patients use complementary and alternative medicines. Oncologists therefore need to learn more about this subject.”

  ~ E. Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine, The Lancet (2000)

  “What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick!”

  ~ Michael Pollan, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (2009)

  “They may have salt, sugar, and fat on their side, but we, ultimately, have the power to make choices. After all, we decide what to buy. We decide how much to eat.”

  ~ Michael Moss, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (2013)

  “In 2017, there will be an estimated 1,688,780 new cancer cases diagnosed and 600,920 cancer deaths in the U.S.”

  ~ American Cancer Society, Annual Report (2017)

  Chapter 1

  Meet The Macumba

  Jeff‘s stomach was roiling with agita; another plane, another trip, nothing unusual—except this time it will be different.

  “Here you are,” Allison said, startling him as he was deep in thought. She noticed something was worrying him as she handed him a stack of neatly ironed, impeccably folded shirts. “Are you okay?”

  “Thanks. I’m fine.” He ignored her concern and placed the shirts in his luggage. At the same time, he noticed a FOX News Alert pop up on the TV screen. “Will you turn up the volume?” he asked.

  “We have breaking news,” said the staff reporter from the KPTV FOX News Affiliate. “’The death of a Gresham woman in Lincoln City has been ruled a drowning and foul play is not suspected, according to police. Jeana Beck was reported missing late last week. Investigators said she was visiting the Oregon coast with her 23-year old autistic son and did not return after leaving their motel room to have a cigarette Thursday night. Her body was found Friday night in a canal that runs behind the Rodeway Inn & Suites on the 1000 block of Southeast 1st Street in Lincoln City.’”

  “How tragic,” Allison injected.

  “Shh!”

  “‘…The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy and Beck’s probable cause of death was determined to be drowning,’” the reporter confirmed.

  Jeff’s head was spinning. How many does that make now, 70, 80? When does it stop? Thoughts he could not shake.

  “What’s wrong?” Allison noticed the alarmed expression on his face.

  “Nothing. I’ve got to get going or I’ll miss my flight.”

  The Norwegian appeared out of place, there in the heart of the Amazon, as he sat in the sparsely decorated lobby of the Seringal Hotel. It was not long before the desk clerk on duty became suspicious of the man in the tattered khakis with aging blond hair and roving blue eyes. Most worrisome were the stranger’s obsessive facial movements that waltzed between the wall clock and the elevator. After twenty minutes of observing this compulsive behavior, the desk clerk opted to intervene. As he was about to approach, the stranger shot upright without warning, startling the clerk, and accentuating his lofty stature.

  Across the lobby, in the other direction, appeared another man in stark contrast, dressed in dark pants and a white business shirt with the sleeves
rolled up. He had just dropped off his room key at the front desk before heading in the stranger’s direction. Seeing this interplay, the desk clerk retreated to his post, passing the new hotel guest on his way.

  The Norwegian checked his phone. The man walking toward him matched the figure in the photo to a T. “You’re late,” he blurted out to the man he knew was Senator Jeffrey Lance. “I’ve been waiting for over a half hour.” He did not mean to display such agitation, but they were on a mission with a tight schedule.

  “Caught up on a conference call,” Lance replied. He made no attempt to hide his distress after a lengthy and exhausting flight and a restless night. “So—you’re Sorenson?”

  “Yes, and welcome to Manaus. Hey, sorry for the slight outburst, but we have less than six hours to get in and out before sundown.”

  “Then let’s go!”

  Sorenson eyed the senator from head to toe. “Change your clothes. It gets miserably uncomfortable where we’re going. And cover up as much as possible.”

  Lance’s day had already spanned over twenty-four hours. It had been a mad rush from the beginning to the end, starting with fielding several calls and signing a massive stack of documents, before leaving his office. Then, he fought traffic all the way to Reagan National, almost missing the dreaded connection in Miami to board his flight to Manaus, Brazil. The inability to sleep only added to his woes. No thought was given to a choice of clothing until the moment Sorenson pointed out the obvious. At that moment, Lance itched to get into something more fitting for the climate. “Give me five.”

  “We’re heading into Malariaville!” Sorenson called out, as Lance dashed back to the front desk to fetch his key again. While anxiously waiting, he tried to recall the last time he had had a vaccine for anything. I’m sure I had shots sometime within the last three months, he prayed. Lance grabbed his room key from the desk clerk, and he rushed to the staircase, not waiting for the elevator.

  The local time was half past eleven on a late December morning. The sun was already sizzling above, radiating temperatures in the high nineties, with eighty-five-percent humidity saturating the air. And the inadequate air conditioner in Sorenson’s Hummer only added to the full-body assault.

  “How long before we arrive?” Lance asked, not having a clue as to their destination. Others had planned the trip; he was only privy to one leg at a time. His only choice was to contend with the magical mystery tour.

  “Another half hour, after one stop,” Sorenson mumbled.

  “Stop where?” Lance tried again to eke out a clue.

  Sorenson was not playing along.

  They had only been on the road for a little over twenty minutes, but it seemed like an hour as Sorenson weaved in and out of the traffic in Manaus. During that time, Lance discovered that his new mate was a man of few words and a despiser of small talk. But Lance goaded him into talking about the city to help fill the vacuum of time.

  “If you insist,” Sorenson sighed before he began his travelogue. “I’m sure you know that because of Manaus’s location, the ship construction industry thrived and allowed for the export of a wide range of goods. But you may not know that the merging of rivers that made this possible is referred to as ‘Meeting of the Waters.’”

  Lance was well versed, and his prodding was only an exercise to refute boredom. From his past trips to Brazil, he learned that Manaus was the capital city of the state of Amazonas and that it was in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. He also knew the city is ideally perched between the Rio Negro and the Solimões River that converge to become the Amazon River. As Sorenson droned on, Lance continued to half-listen while he focused on the activity swarming outside his window. The Manaus’ traffic was reminiscent of the bridge and tunnel crowd in the Big Apple at eight a.m.; the sidewalks equally spilled over with its citizens and tourists alike. It was enough to keep him occupied for the time being.

  Sorenson rattled on about the Spanish conquistadores and how they discovered this area around 1499 or thereabouts, when they came upon the mouth of the Amazon River. But they didn’t stay long and continued to forage into the northern region of Brazil. “Then, in 1669,” he explained, “the Portuguese moved in and established their dominance by building a small fortress called the São José do Rio Negrinho.”

  “I assume to protect them from the horrid conquistadores, in case they returned?” Lance chimed in, feigning interest.

  “Yeah, but it didn’t keep out the missionaries that poured in from all religious sects to compete for souls. And as the village grew, it became known as Barra do Rio Negro. It wasn’t until 1839 that Manaus became the official name for this settlement, after its indigenous river tribe, Manáos. And taking lessons from their rivals, the population expanded at a rapid pace. Give it to the Spaniards—they know how to propagate.”

  Lance noted a hint of a rare smile on Sorenson’s face as he continued with the brief history lesson.

  “Fast forward to the nineteenth century: the rubber boom dominated the region, and Manaus earned its nickname the ‘Paris of the Tropics.’”

  “All very fascinating.” Lance tried to seem impressed, although he was rather indifferent. He had other more pressing items occupying his mind—like where the hell they were headed. “Swell gig you’ve got going.”

  Sorenson shot a look in his direction. “Not my gig. I’m here for one purpose only.” The purpose was obvious.

  “So—where are we going?”

  The history lesson ended abruptly. Sorenson went mute and returned to form.

  Any further attempt on Lance’s part to pry out the purpose of this little side trip failed. Left in captivity, he stared out the window, viewing the traffic, until his thoughts drifted back to the last conversation he had had before leaving his office. The unknown caller warned him of the dangers, but shared little else, other than to follow Sorenson’s directions without exception. One last snippet of information passed on, was that if he were successful it would change millions of lives for the better. The if he were successful bothered him the most.

  “We’re here,” Sorenson uttered.

  The Hummer swerved into an open gate and within seconds its engine shut down. In front of them was a sizable building made of rusted corrugated metal. Lance concluded, as he glimpsed the building along with the runway and wind sock, that the building was an airport hangar.

  “Let’s go.” Sorenson reached around to grab a backpack from the rear seat and hopped out of the vehicle.

  Lance followed.

  Inside the hangar sat a twin-engine plane that looked like an old crop duster, except for the pontoons. As Lance got closer, he could see it was a two-crew AT-802 Fire Boss, used for both agriculture and firefighting. The configuration for the plane was for traditional take-off and landing on runways and waterways. What troubled Lance—it did not appear to be the latest model. At once, the George Bernard Shaw quotation rang in his head: “Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.” Thank God for pessimists, he thought and then demanded, “Now, where the hell are we going?”

  “Airão Velho.”

  “Where?”

  “Novo Airão is a town of about fifteen to sixteen thousand inhabitants, founded by the Jesuits and settled by the Portuguese. It’s one-hundred-forty-three miles upriver from here. On average, it’s eighteen minutes of flying time. In this old bucket, closer to a half hour.”

  “But you said Airão Velho.”

  “It’s the old ruins outside the town.”

  Lance was tiring of the question-by-question approach and opted to sit it out, or rather pray it out until they landed. Close to half an hour into the flight, he noticed they were heading toward a dense forest. Quickly, he began scouring the landscape, looking for a landing strip. Then, remembering the plane could set down on land or water, he prayed harder. It was a toss-up as to which
one he preferred.

  Sorenson thumbed his phone; at the same time, he appeared to begin his landing approach.

  The texting while flying completely unnerved Lance. His prayers went straight into overdrive. And although he was not a practicing Catholic, he drummed up a few sins, and mouthed as many Hail Marys as he could before touchdown. On the tenth try to pay his penance, the plane bounced hard on the river surface and then jolted to the left, before jolting back to the right. Water sprayed outward from both sides.

  Sorenson was nonchalant throughout it all as he spoke with someone on his phone. “We’re here,” he said, before ending the call.

  Lance’s prayers paid off, and the plane landed in one piece in the Rio Negro, just outside the remote village of Novo Airão. While Sorenson edged the plane toward the riverbank, Lance saw an odd-looking, dark-skinned man emerge from the brush. He was seated on a donkey, with another donkey in tow.

  “Why are there only two donkeys?” Lance asked with unease.

  “The man is a special doctor the local villagers call Macumba,” Sorenson said, disregarding the question.

  “You mean witch doctor? I came all this way to meet a witch doctor?” Lance wasn’t sure if it was the jetlag, but he was certainly questioning his sanity.

  “Go with him and he’ll explain.”

  “What?!”

  Sorenson ignored Lance’s flareup and handed him a mosquito hat with a net mesh. “Here, you’ll need this—and you have one hour; then I’m taking off. Now, c’mon get out.”

  With grave reservations, Lance grabbed the hat, checked his watch, and then gingerly stepped out of the plane and onto the pontoon. He edged himself toward the riverbank using caution, holding onto the plane’s strut with a tight grip. The whole time he imagined swamp creatures circling in for the kill. And even though he knew there are no alligators in the Amazon, he knew of something as frightening called a black caiman. Lance kept a close eye until he stepped on solid ground.