River of Death Read online

  ‘Nothing. Everybody knows your life is an open book. A man in your position can’t afford to have it otherwise.’

  ‘Me?’ said Tracy.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings but I never heard of you until today.’

  Smith glanced down casually at a still prostrate Heffner, as if seeing him for the first time, and rang a bell. The butler entered. His face remained expressionless at the sight of the man on the floor: it was not difficult to imagine that he had seen such things before.

  ‘Mr Heffner is unwell,’ Smith said. ‘Have him taken to his quarters. Dinner is ready?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  As they left the drawing-room Maria took Hamilton’s arm. In a quiet voice she said: ‘I wish you hadn’t done that.’

  ‘Don’t tell me I’ve unwittingly clobbered your fiancé?’

  ‘My fiancé! I can’t stand him. But he has a long memory—and a bad reputation.’

  Hamilton patted her hand. ‘Next time I’ll turn the other cheek.’

  She snatched her hand away and walked quickly ahead of him.

  Dinner over, Hamilton and the twins left in the black Cadillac. Navarro said admiringly: ‘So now Heffner is labelled in their minds as your bad apple in the barrel while Smith, Tracy, Hiller and for all I know Serrano think that they are the driven snow. You really are a fearful liar, Senor Hamilton.’

  ‘One really has to be modest about such things. As in all else practice makes perfect.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As dusk approached, a helicopter, equipped with both floats and skids, set down on a sandy stretch on the left bank of the River Paraná. Both up-river and down, on the same bank, as far as the eye could see in the gloom, stretched the dense and virtually impenetrable rainforest of the region. The far side of the river, the right or western bank, was invisible in the gathering gloom: at this point, close to where the River Iquelmi flowed into the Paraná, the parent river was more than five miles wide.

  The helicopter cabin was dimly lit even although the precaution had been taken of pulling black drapes across the windows. Hamilton, Navarro and Ramon were having their evening meal of cold meat, bread, beer and soda—the beer for Hamilton, soda for the twins.

  Ramon shivered theatrically. ‘I don’t think I much care for this place.’

  ‘Not many people do,’ Hamilton said. ‘But it suits Brown—alias Mr Jones—and his friends well enough. Defensively speaking, it’s probably the most impregnable place in South America. Years ago I traced Brown and his fellow-refugees to a place called San Carlos de Bariloche near Lake Ranco on the Argentine-Chilean border. God knows that was fortress enough, but he didn’t feel secure even there so he moved to a hide-out in the Chilean Andes, then came here.’

  Navarro said: ‘He knew you were after him?’

  ‘Yes. For years. Our wealthy friend in Brasilia has been after him for much, much longer. There may well be others.’

  ‘And now he no longer feels secure even here?’

  ‘I’m almost certain he doesn’t. I know he was in the Lost City this year, and several times in the past few years. But he likes his comforts and there are none in that ruin. He may have taken a chance and returned. It’s highly unlikely, but I have to check. Otherwise there’s no point in going to the Lost City.’

  ‘You have to have this confrontation between Brown and his friend.’

  ‘Yes. I have no proof. This—ah—meeting will give me all the proof I ever require.’

  ‘Remind me to take care of myself. I want to be alive to see it.’ Navarro turned and gazed at the curtain facing downstream. ‘It will not be easy to get into this place?’

  ‘It will not be easy. Brown’s estate here—it’s known as Kolonie Waldner 555—is better guarded than the Presidential Palace. The estate is hotching with trained killers as guards—and when I say that I mean they’re trained and proven killers. There’s dense jungle to the north and south—Paraguay lies to the south and Brown is a close friend of the President there—there’s this river to the east and a large number of German settlements, populated almost exclusively by ex-members of the S.S., lie astride the roads to Asunción and Bella Vista. You won’t even find a single river pilot here who is Brazilian born, they’re all Germans from the River Elbe.’

  Ramon said: ‘In view of the fact of what you’ve just told us, a thought occurs to me. How do we get in?’

  ‘I’ll admit I’ve given the matter some thought myself. Not much option really. There’s a road used by supply trucks, but it’s too long, too dangerous and has to pass through an armed gatehouse with electrified fences stretching away on both sides. There’s also a landing stage about ten miles downriver from here—about fifteen miles north of the Paraguayan border. The road up to the compound is about a mile long and usually heavily patrolled. But it’s the only other way. At least there are no electrified fences along the right bank of the Paraná—or there weren’t the last time I was there. We’ll wait two hours and move on in.’

  ‘Would it be in order,’ Navarro said, ‘if we gave you what is known as a couple of old-fashioned looks?’

  ‘Help yourself,’ Hamilton said agreeably. He opened a rucksack, brought out three silenced Lugers, three spare magazines and three sheathed hunting knives and distributed those. ‘Sleep if you can. I’ll watch.’

  The helicopter, not under power, drifted with the current down the right bank of the Paraná, keeping as close inshore as possible to avoid the bright light of a brilliant half moon riding high in a cloudless sky. A door in the fuselage opened, a figure appeared, stepped down on to one of the pontoons and lowered an anchor quietly to the bed of the river. A second figure appeared with a bulky package under his arm: there came a subdued hiss and within thirty seconds a rubberised dinghy was fully inflated. A third man emerged from the fuselage carrying a small outboard motor and a medium-sized battery. The first two men stepped gingerly into the dinghy and took those items from him: the engine was clamped on to the transom aft, the battery lowered to the duckboard floor and coupled up to the engine.

  The engine, once started, was almost soundless and the south-east wind, the prevailing one in that area, carried what little noise there was upstream. The painter was unhitched from the helicopter and the dinghy moved downstream. The three occupants were crouched forward, listening intently and peering, not without some apprehension, into the gloom beneath the overhanging branches of the rainforest trees.

  A hundred yards ahead the river curved to the right. Hamilton switched off the electric motor, the twins dipped paddles into the water and very soon, a paddle occasionally touching the bank, they rounded the bend.

  The landing stage, less than two hundred yards ahead, projected out into the river for a distance of twenty feet. Behind it, on land, there was a guardhouse which threw enough light to illuminate the cracked and splintered timber of the stage and two men, rifles shoulder-slung, maintaining a comfortable and relaxed guard on a couple of bent-wood chairs. Both were smoking and they were sharing a bottle. They stood up as two other men came out from the guard-house. They talked briefly, then the two relieving guards took over their chairs—and the bottle—while the previous guards went inside the guard-house.

  The dinghy grounded silently on the muddy bank of the river and was secured by its painter to the low-hanging branch of a tree. The three men disembarked and disappeared into the undergrowth.

  After they had gone about ten yards Hamilton said to Navarro in a barely audible whisper: ‘What did I tell you? No electrified fences.’

  ‘Watch out for the bear-traps.’

  There were four men inside the guard-house, all dressed in uniforms of the field-grey colour used by the Wehrmacht in the Second World War. Fully clad, they were lying on camp beds: three were asleep or appeared to be. The fourth was reading a magazine. Some instinct—there was certainly no sound—made him glance upwards and towards the doorway.

  Ramon and Navarro were smiling benevolently at him. There was nothing pa
rticularly benevolent, however, about the discouragingly steady silenced Lugers held in their hands.

  On the landing stage the two new guards were gazing out over the Paraná when someone cleared his throat, almost apologetically, behind them. They immediately swung around. Hamilton wasn’t even bothering to smile.

  Inside the guard-house all six guards were securely bound beyond any hope of escape and were more than adequately gagged. Ramon looked at the two telephones then questioningly at Hamilton, who nodded and said: ‘No chances.’

  Ramon sliced through the wires while Navarro started to collect the prisoners’ rifles. He said to Hamilton: ‘Still no chances?’

  Hamilton nodded. The three men left, threw the rifles into the Paraná, then began to move up the road connecting the landing stage with Kolonie 555. The twins pressed in closely to the forest on the left-hand side of the road while Hamilton kept to the right. They moved slowly, with the stealth and silence of Indians: they had long moved at will through the disaffected tribes of the Mato Grosso.

  When they were only yards from the compound Hamilton waved his two companions to a halt. The compound of the Kolonie was well lit by the moon. It was built in the basic form of a barrack square and was perhaps fifty yards across. Eight huts faced on to this central square. Most of those were extremely ramshackle, but one at the far left of the square was a solidly built bungalow. Close by that was an arched metal shed and, beyond that, a short runway. At the entrance to the compound, diagonally across the square from the bungalow, was a thatched hut which could well have been a guardhouse, a probability reinforced by the fact that a solitary figure leaned against the entrance wall. Like his colleagues on the landing stage he was in paramilitary uniform and carried a slung rifle.

  Hamilton gestured to Ramon, who waved back. The three men vanished into the undergrowth.

  The sentry, still leaning against the wall, had his head tilted back, a bottle to his lips. There came the sound of a muffled blow, the sentry’s eyes turned up in his head and three disembodied hands appeared from apparently nowhere. One took the bottle from the already powerless hand while the other two took him under the armpits as he began to sag.

  In what was indeed the guard-house six more men lay trussed and gagged. Hamilton, alone in the middle of the room and engaged in rendering rifles and pistols inoperable, looked up as Ramon and Navarro, each with torch in hand, re-entered the room, shaking their heads. The three men left and began to move around the other huts. As they passed by each one, on each occasion Hamilton and Ramon remained outside while Navarro entered. Each time Navarro emerged, shaking his head. Finally, they arrived at the last building, the solidly constructed bungalow. All three entered. Hamilton, in the lead, found a switch and flooded the room with light.

  It was a combination office and living quarters and furnished in considerable comfort. Drawers and filing cabinets were searched but they had nothing that interested Hamilton. They moved on to another apartment, a bedroom, and again a very comfortable place of accommodation. Pride of place on the walls were given to three framed and inscribed photographs—those of Hitler, Goebbels and Stroessner, a former Paraguayan president. The contents of the wardrobes were very sparse, indicating that the owner had removed the bulk of the contents. In one cupboard stood a pair of brown riding boots. The Nazis had always insisted on black riding boots, despising brown ones as being decadent: Stroessner, on the other hand, had favoured brown.

  From there the three moved into what was Brown’s communication centre, containing two large multicalibrated transceivers of the latest design. They located a tool-box and while Hamilton and Ramon used chisels and screwdrivers to remove the faceplates and destroy the inner mechanisms, Navarro located all the spares and reduced them too to scrap metal and shattered glass.

  Navarro said: ‘He’s also got a very nice radio and transmitting set here.’

  ‘You know what to do, don’t you?’

  Navarro knew what to do. From there they moved on to the arched metal shed. It was rather a remarkable place inasmuch as there ran down the middle of it what must have been the Kolonie’s pride and joy, a genuine full-length American bowling alley. They paid no attention to this. What did attract their attention was a Piper Cub in a bay alongside the bowling alley. It took the men less than ten minutes to ensure that that particular Piper Cub would never fly again.

  On their way back to the Paraná, this time walking openly in the middle of the road, Ramon said: ‘So your friend has gone.’

  ‘In that inelegant phrase, the bird has flown the coop, taking most of his hard cases with him-Nazis, renegade Poles, renegade Ukrainians. As fine a collection of war criminals as you’ll ever meet. This bunch here belongs strictly to the second division.’

  ‘Where do you think they’ve gone?’

  ‘We’ll ask, shall we?’

  The three men entered the landing stage guardhouse. Wordlessly, they sliced the ankle-bonds of one of the prisoners, removed his gag, dragged him to his feet and led him outside down to the river edge by the landing stage.

  Hamilton said: ‘Brown had three Piper Cubs. Where have the other two gone?’

  The guard spat in contempt. At a signal from Hamilton, Navarro cut the back of the guard’s hand. The blood flowed freely. The guard was then led forward until he was teetering on the very edge of the landing stage.

  ‘Piranha,’ Hamilton said, ‘can smell blood at a quarter of a mile. Ninety seconds and you’ll be white bones. If a crocodile doesn’t get you first. Either way, being eaten to death is unpleasant.’

  The guard looked in horror at his bleeding hand. He was trembling. ‘North,’ he said. ‘North to Campo Grande.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘I swear to God—’

  ‘Throw him in.’

  ‘Planalto de Mato Grosso. That’s all I know. I swear to you—’

  Hamilton said wearily: ‘Stop your damned swearing. I believe you. Brown would never entrust his secrets to vermin.’

  Ramon said: ‘What do we do with the prisoners?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing. I daresay someone will happen by and free them. Take this character inside and hobble and gag him.’

  Navarro looked doubtful. ‘It’s a pretty deep cut. He could bleed to death.’

  ‘Dear oh dear.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hamilton, Ramon and Navarro were in a taxi driving along one of Brasilia’s broad boulevards. Ramon said: ‘This woman, Maria, she comes?’

  Hamilton looked at him and smiled. ‘She comes.’

  ‘There will be danger.’

  ‘The more, the better. It will at least help to keep those clowns under control.’

  Navarro was thoughtfully silent for a moment then he said: ‘My brother and I hate all they stand for. But you, Senor Hamilton, hate so much more.’

  ‘I have the reason. But I don’t hate them.’

  Ramon and Navarro looked at each other in lost comprehension then nodded as if in understanding.

  A Rolls-Royce and a Cadillac had been backed out of Smith’s six-car garage to make storage room for what Smith regarded as being more important, however temporarily, than the two cars. Hamilton, in the company of the eight people who were going to accompany him, surveyed, with an apparently uncritical eye, the extremely comprehensive layout of the most modern and expensive equipments necessary for survival in the Amazonian rainforests. He took his time about it, so much so in fact that one or two of the watchers were beginning to look, if not apprehensive, then at least uncomfortable. Smith was not one of those. There was a slight tightening of the lips presumably indicative of a growing impatience. It was almost a law of nature that tycoons do not care to be kept waiting. Smith immediately proved that his patience was on a very short fuse indeed.

  ‘Well, Hamilton? Well?’

  ‘So. How the multi-millionaire—or is it billionaire?-travels into the boondocks. But good, really excellent.’

/>   Smith visibly relaxed.

  ‘But there’s one exception, though.’

  ‘Indeed?’ One has to be very wealthy before one can—or is permitted to—raise one’s eyebrows in the proper fashion. ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘Nothing missing, I assure you. Just some items surplus to requirements. Who are those guns and pistols for?’

  ‘Us.’

  ‘No deal. Ramon, Navarro and I carry weapons. You don’t. None of you do.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘Deal’s off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You are children in the rainforests. No popguns for kids.’

  ‘But Hiller and Serrano—’

  ‘I admit they know more than you do. That doesn’t mean very much. In the Mato Grosso they might even rate as adolescents. Forget what they’ve ever told you.’

  Smith lifted his shoulders, looked at the rather splendid armoury of weapons he had assembled, then back at Hamilton. ‘Self-protection—’

  ‘We’ll protect you. I don’t much fancy the prospect of you lot going around shooting harmless animals and innocent Indians. Even less do I fancy the prospect of being shot in the back when I’ve finally shown you where the Lost City is.’

  Heffner stepped forward. He obviously had no doubt that the reference had been to himself. His fingers were actually clutching and unclutching, his face dusky with anger. ‘Look here, Hamilton—’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Stop it.’ Smith’s voice was cold and incisive but when he spoke again the tone had changed to one of bitterness and left no doubt that he was addressing Hamilton. ‘If I may say so, you have a splendid capacity for making friends.’

  ‘Oddly enough, I do. I have quite a few in this city alone. But before I make a man my friend I have to make sure he’s not my enemy or potential enemy. Very sensitive about those things, I am. But so’s my back—sensitive, I mean, sensitive to having a knife stuck in it. I should know, I’ve had it done twice to me. I suppose I should have you all searched for flick-knives or some such toys but in your case I really don’t think I’ll bother. The harmless animals and innocent Indians are safe from any ill intentions you may develop, for, quite frankly, I can’t see any of you lot taking on an armed Indian or a jaguar with what is, after all, little more than a pen-knife.’ He made a small gesture with his right hand, as contemptuous as it was dismissive, and from the sudden tightening and whitening of Smith’s lips, it occurred to Hamilton, not for the first time, that Smith might well and easily be the most dangerous man of them all.