River of Death Page 8

  Hamilton gestured again, this time towards the very considerable pile of equipment lying on the garage floor. ‘How did those arrive—the packaging, I mean?’

  ‘Crates. We crate them up again?’

  ‘No. Too damned awkward to handle aboard a helicopter or hovercraft. I think—’

  ‘Waterproof canvas bags.’ He smiled at the slight surprise on Hamilton’s face. ‘We thought you might require something like that.’ He pointed towards two large cardboard boxes. ‘We bought them at the same time as we got the equipment. We’re not mentally retarded, you know.’

  ‘Fine. Your plane, a DC6, I understand—what’s its state of readiness?’

  ‘Superfluous question.’

  ‘I suppose. Where are the hovercraft and helicopter?’

  ‘Almost at Cuiabá.’ ‘Shall we join them?’

  The DC6 parked at the end of the runway of Smith’s private airfield may not have been in the first flush of youth but if the gleaming fuselage was anything to go by its condition would have ranked anywhere as immaculate. Hamilton, Ramon and Navarro, aided by an unexpectedly helpful Serrano, were supervising the loading of the cargo. It was a thorough, rigorous, painstaking supervision. Each canvas bag in turn was opened, its contents removed, examined, returned and the bag then sealed to make it waterproof. It was a necessarily lengthy and time-consuming process and Smith’s patience was eroding rapidly.

  He said sourly: ‘Don’t take many chances, do you?’

  Hamilton glanced at him briefly. ‘How did you make your millions?’

  Smith turned and clambered aboard the aircraft.

  After half-an-hour’s flying time out from Brasilia the passengers, with the exception of Hamilton, were all asleep or trying to sleep. No-one, it seemed, felt philosophical enough or relaxed enough to read: the clamour from the ancient engines was so great as to make conversation virtually impossible. Hamilton, as if prompted by some instinct, looked around and his gaze focused.

  Heffner, sprawled in his seat, appeared, from his partly opened mouth and slow deep breathing, to be asleep, a probability lent credence by the fact that his white drill jacket, inadvertently unbuttoned, lay so as to reveal under his left armpit a white felt container which had obviously been designed to accommodate the aluminium flask inside. This did not give concern to Hamilton: it was perfectly in character with the man. What did concern him was that on the other side of his chest could just be seen a small pearl-handled gun in a white felt under-arm holster.

  Hamilton rose and made his way aft to the rear end of the compartment where the equipment, provisions and personal luggage were stored. It made for a very considerable pile, but Hamilton didn’t have to rummage around to find what he was looking for—when loading he had made a mental note of where every item had been stored. He retrieved his rucksack, opened it, looked casually around to see that he was unobserved, removed a pistol and thrust it into an inside pocket of his bush jacket. He replaced the rucksack and resumed his seat up front.

  The flight to Cuiabá airport had been uneventful and so now was the landing. The passengers disembarked and gazed around them in something like wonder, which was more than understandable as the contrast between Cuiabá and Brasilia was rather more than marked.

  Maria was gazing around her in apparent disbelief. She said: ‘So this is the jungle. Quite, quite fascinating.’

  ‘This is civilisation,’ Hamilton said. He pointed to the east. ‘The jungle lies over there. That’s where we’ll be very soon and once we get there perhaps you’d sell your soul to be back here.’ He turned and said sharply to Heffner: ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  Heffner had been walking in the direction of the airport building. Now he stopped, turned and looked at Hamilton with a languid, insolent air.

  ‘Talking to me?’

  ‘I’m looking at you and I don’t squint. Where are you going?’

  ‘Look, I can’t see it’s any of your business, but I’m going to a bar. I’m thirsty. Any objections?’

  ‘Every objection. We’re all thirsty. But there’s work to be done. I want all the equipment, food and luggage transferred to that DC3 there, and I want it done now. Two hours on and it will be too hot to work.’

  Heffner glared at him, then looked at Smith, who shook his head. Sullenly, Heffner retraced his steps and approached Hamilton, his face heavy with anger. ‘Next time I’ll be ready, so don’t be fooled by last time.’

  Hamilton turned to Smith and said, almost wearily: ‘He’s your employee. Any more trouble or threats of trouble and he’s on the DC6 back to Brasilia. If you disagree, I’m on the plane back there. Simple choice.’

  Hamilton brushed contemptuously by Heffner who stared after him with clenched fists. Smith took Heffner by the arm and led him to one side, clearly having trouble keeping his anger in check. He said, low-voiced: ‘Damned if I don’t agree with Hamilton. Want to ruin everything? There’s a time and a place to get tough and this is neither the time nor the place. Bear in mind that we’re entirely dependent upon Hamilton. You understand?’

  ‘Sorry, boss. It’s just that the bastard is so damned arrogant. Pride cometh before a fall. My turn will come and the fall is going to be a mighty big one.’

  Smith was almost kind. ‘I don’t think you quite understand. Hamilton regards you as a potential troublemaker—which, I have to say, you are—and he’s the sort of man who will eliminate any potential source of trouble. God, man, can’t you see? He’s trying to provoke you so that he can have a reason, or at least an excuse, for disposing of you.’

  ‘And how would he do that?’

  ‘Having you sent back to Brasilia.’

  ‘And failing that?’

  ‘Don’t even let us talk about such things.’

  ‘I can take care of myself, Mr Smith.’

  ‘Taking care of yourself is one thing. Taking care of Hamilton is another kettle of fish altogether.’

  They watched, some of them with evident apprehension, as a giant twin-rotored helicopter, cables attached to four lifting bolts, clawed its way into the air, raising a small hovercraft with it. The hovercraft’s rate of climb was barely perceptible. At five hundred feet, it slowly began to move due east.

  Smith said uneasily: ‘Those hills look mighty high to me. Sure they’ll make it?’

  ‘You’d better hope so. After all, they’re your machines.’ Hamilton shook his head. ‘Do you think the pilot would have taken off unless he knew it was on the cards? Only three thousand feet. No trouble.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘The headwaters of the Rio da Morte are only a hundred miles away. To reach the landing strip? Perhaps eighty. In half-an-hour’s time we’ll leave in the DC3. We’ll still be there before them.’

  Hamilton moved off and sat by the side of the river, idly lobbing stones into the dark waters. Some minutes later Maria appeared and stood uncertainly beside him. Hamilton looked up, smiled briefly, then glanced indifferently away.

  She said: ’Is it safe to sit here?

  ‘Boy-friend let you off the leash?’

  ‘He’s not my boy-friend.’ She spoke with such vehemence that Hamilton looked at her quizzically.

  ‘You could have fooled me. Misinterpretations, so easily come by. You have come, no doubt, or been sent, to ask a few craftily probing questions?’

  She said quietly: ‘Do you have to insult everybody? Wound everybody? Antagonise everybody? Provoke everybody? Back in Brasilia you said you had friends. It is difficult to understand how you came by them.’

  Hamilton looked at her in some perplexity then smiled. ‘Now look who’s doing the insulting.’

  ‘Between gratuitous insults and the plain truth there’s a big difference. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ She turned to walk away.

  ‘Oh, come and sit down. Childish, childish. Maybe I can ask a few probing questions while you congratulate yourself on having found a chink in Hamilton’s armour. I suppose that could be misinterpreted as an insult, too.
Just sit down.’

  She looked at him doubtfully. ‘I asked if it’s safe to sit here.’

  ‘A damn sight safer than trying to cross a street in Brasilia.’

  She sat down gingerly, a prudent two feet away from him. ‘Things can creep up on you.’

  ‘You’ve read the wrong books or talked to the wrong people. Who or what is going to creep up on us? Indians? There’s not a hostile Indian within two hundred miles of here. Alligators, jaguars, snakes—they’re a damned sight more anxious to avoid you than you are to avoid them. There are only two dangerous things in the forest—the quiexada, the wild boar, and the carangageiros. They attack on sight.’

  ‘The caran what?’

  ‘Giant spiders. Great hairy creatures the size of soup plates. They come at you one yard at a time. Jumping, I mean. One yard and that’s it.’

  ‘How horrible!’

  ‘No problem. None in these parts. Besides, you didn’t have to come.’

  ‘Here we go again.’ Maria shook her head. ‘You really don’t care much for us, do you?’

  ‘A man has to be alone at times.’

  ‘Evasion, evasion.’ She shook her head again. ‘You’re always alone. Married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you were.’ It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

  Hamilton looked at her, at the remarkable brown eyes which reminded him painfully of the only pair he’d ever seen like them. ‘You can tell?’

  ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Divorced?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? You mean—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh! Oh, I am sorry. How—how did she die?’

  ‘Come on. Plane to catch.’

  ‘Please. What happened?’

  ‘She was murdered.’ Hamilton stared out across the river, wondering what had caused him to make this admission to a total stranger. Ramon and Navarro knew, but they were the only two in the world he’d told. Perhaps a minute passed before he became conscious of the light touch of finger-tips on his forearm. Hamilton turned to look at her and knew at once that she wasn’t seeing him: the big brown eyes were masked in tears. Hamilton’s first reaction was one of an almost bemused incomprehension: this was totally out of character with the image she—ably abetted by Smith—projected of herself as a worldly-wise, street-wise cosmopolitan.

  Hamilton gently touched the back of her hand and at first she didn’t appear to notice. Perhaps half a minute passed before she wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand, disengaged her other hand, smiled apologetically and said: ‘I’m sorry. What must you think of me?’

  ‘I think I may have misjudged you. I also think that in some way, some time, you may have suffered a lot.’

  She had nothing to say to this, just wiped her eyes again, rose and turned away.

  ‘Battered’ is the adjective invariably, and perhaps inevitably, used to describe vintage and superannuated DC3s and this one was no exception: if anything it was an epitome, a prime example. The gleaming silver fuselage of yesteryear was but a fond and distant memory, the metal skin was pitted and scarred and appeared to be held together chiefly by large areas of rust: the engines, when started up, were a splendid complement to the rest of the plane, coughing, spluttering and vibrating to such an extent that it seemed improbable that they would not be shaken free from the airframe. But the plane lived up to its reputation of being one of the toughest and most durable ever built. With what seemed a Herculean effort-it couldn’t have been, it was under-loaded—it clambered off the runway and headed east into the late afternoon sky.

  There were eleven people in the plane, Hamilton’s party, the pilot and co-pilot. Heffner, as was customary, was taking counsel with a bottle of Scotch: the aluminium flask, presumably, was being held as an emergency reserve. Seated across the aisle from Hamilton, he turned to him and spoke or, rather, shouted, for the rackety clamour from the ancient engines was almost deafening.

  ‘Wouldn’t kill you to tell us your plans, would it, Hamilton?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t kill me. But what does that matter? How’s that going to help you?’

  ‘Curiosity.’

  ‘No secret. We land at Romono airstrip about the same time as the helicopter and hovercraft. Helicopter refuels—even those big birds have only a limited range—takes the hovercraft downstream, leaves it, returns and takes us down to join it in the morning.’

  Smith, sitting in the seat next to Hamilton and listening, put a cupped hand to Hamilton’s ear and said: ‘How far downstream and why?’

  ‘I’d say about sixty miles. There are falls about fifty miles from Romono. Not even a hovercraft could negotiate them so this is the only way we can get it past there.’

  Heffner said: ‘Do you have a map?’

  ‘As it happens, I have. Not that I require it. Why do you ask?’

  ‘If anything happens to you it would be nice to know where we are.’

  ‘You better pray nothing happens to me. Without me, you’re finished.’

  Smith said into Hamilton’s ear: ‘You have to antagonise him? You have to be so arrogant? You have to provoke him?’

  Hamilton looked at him, his face cold. ‘I don’t have to. But it’s a pleasure.’

  Romono airstrip, like Romono itself, looked, as it always did, a miasmic horror. The DC3 and the helicopter-cum-hovercraft arrived on the strip within minutes of each other. The helicopter’s rotors had hardly stopped when a small fuel tanker moved out towards it.

  The passengers disembarked from the DC3 and looked around them. Their expressions ranged from the incredulous to the appalled.

  Smith contented himself with saying merely: ‘Good God!’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Heffner said. ‘What a stinking, nauseating dump. Jesus, Hamilton, is this the best you could do for us?’

  ‘What are you complaining about?’ Hamilton pointed to the tin shed which constituted both the arrival and departure terminals. ‘Look at that sign there. Romono International Airport. What more reassuring than that? This time tomorrow, gentlemen, you may well be thinking of this as home sweet home. Enjoy it. Think of it as the last outpost of civilisation. Look, as the poet says, your last on all things lovely every hour. Take what you need for the night. We have a splendid hotel here—the Hotel de Paris. Those who don’t fancy it—well, I’m sure Hiller will put you up.’ He paused. ‘On second thoughts, I think I could have a better use for Hiller.’

  Smith said: ‘What kind of use?’

  ‘With your permission, of course. You know that this hovercraft is the lynchpin to everything?’

  ‘I’m not a fool.’

  ‘The hovercraft will be anchored tonight in very dicey waters indeed. By which I mean that the natives on either side of the Rio da Morte range from the unreliable to the downright hostile. So, it must be guarded. I suggest that this is not a task for one man, Kellner, the pilot, to do. In fact, I’m not suggesting, I’m telling you. Even if a man could keep awake all night, it would still be extremely difficult. So, another guard. I suggest Hiller.’ He turned to Hiller. ‘How are you with automatic weapons?’

  ‘Can find my way around, I guess.’

  ‘Fine.’ He turned back to Smith. ‘You’ll find a bus waiting outside the terminal.’ He reboarded the plane and emerged two minutes later bearing two automatic weapons and some drums of ammunition. By this time Hiller was alone. ‘Let’s go to the hovercraft.’

  Kellner, the hovercraft pilot, was standing by his craft. He was thirtyish, sun-tanned, tough.

  Hamilton said: ‘When you anchor tonight don’t forget to do so in midstream.’

  ‘There’ll be a reason for that?’ Kellner, clearly, was an Irishman.

  ‘Because if you tie up to either bank the chances are good that you’ll wake up with your throat cut. Only, of course, you don’t wake up.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d like that.’ Kellner didn’t seem unduly perturbed. ‘Midstream for me.’<
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  ‘Even there you won’t necessarily be safe. That’s why Hiller is coming with you—needs two men to guard against an attack from both sides. And that’s why we have those two nasty little Israeli sub-machines along.’

  ‘I see.’ Kellner paused. ‘I’m not much sure that I care for killing helpless Indians.’

  ‘When those same helpless Indians puncture your hide with a few dozen darts and arrowheads, all suitably or perhaps even lethally poisoned, you might change your mind.’

  ‘I’ve already changed it.’

  ‘Know anything about guns?’

  ‘I was in the S.A.S. If that means anything to you.’

  ‘It means a great deal to me.’ The S.A.S. was Britain’s elite commando regiment. ‘Well, that saves me explaining those little toys to you, I suppose.’

  ‘I know them.’

  ‘One of my luckier days,’ Hamilton said. ‘Well, see you both tomorrow.’

  The saloon of the Hotel de Paris, after closing hours, had six occupants. Heffner, glass in hand, was slumped in a chair, but his eyes were open: Hamilton, Ramon, Navarro, Serrano and Tracy were asleep or apparently so, stretched out on benches or on the floor. Bedrooms were, that night, at a premium in the Hotel de Paris. As they were all equally dreadful and bug-ridden, Hamilton had explained, this was not a matter for excessive regret.

  Heffner stirred, stooped, removed his boots, rose and padded his noiseless way across to the bar, deposited his glass on the counter, then crossed silently to the nearest rucksack. It was, inevitably, Hamilton’s. Heffner opened it, searched briefly, removed a map, and studied it intently for some minutes before returning it to the rucksack. He returned to the bar, poured himself a generous measure of the Hotel de Paris’s Scotch. Wherever the birthplace of that particular brand was it hadn’t been among the highlands and islands of Scotland. He returned to his seat, replaced his shoes, leaned back in his chair to enjoy his nightcap, spluttered and emptied half the contents on the floor.