by John Koloen
“You tried to leave the country?” Maggie asked.
“No. I just went there because I felt kinda trapped. Everything Andre was telling me made me nervous. But I had my passport with me and, well, they apparently saw that as intent to leave and they had me under surveillance, if you can believe it. I shoulda listened to you. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
Maggie left her seat several times during the conversation to stare at the lake, as if somewhere in the steely blue water bobbed an idea that would resolve her lover’s problem. All she saw were whitecaps and a sloop fighting the wind.
“I’m going to call Stan Bishop,” she said.
“What’s he gonna do?”
“He’s a lawyer. He’s got connections.”
“Yeah, but he said to get a Brazilian lawyer who knows the system.”
“I know what he said,” she said petulantly. “Maybe I can find someone better than the lawyer you’re working with.”
“I like Andre. I trust him.”
“That may be, but what can it hurt to look for someone better?”
Duncan believed that Montes was doing a good job. Looking for someone else behind his back was an affront to Duncan’s sense of fair play. It represented everything that was wrong about his tenure at Biodynamism and it was a behavior he could not engage in without questioning his personal values, among which loyalty counted for much.
“I’m going to talk to Stan anyway,” she insisted. “It can’t hurt to ask.”
“Well, just so you know, I’m not going to fire Andre. He’s the only friend I’ve got down here.”
How pathetic, he thought immediately, counting his lawyer, a person he was paying to represent him, as a friend.
“You know, I wish you were here.”
“How I wish you were here,” she said, emphatically.
“Do you think you could come down here?” he said timidly, his voice a whisper as if he were afraid to ask.
Hesitating to respond, Maggie grabbed her phone, turned the speaker off and moved away from Hamel, who followed her with his eyes.
“I’d love to,” she said softly, “if I thought it would help.”
“It would help me. A lot.”
She sighed.
“I’ll talk to Stan.”
26
It didn’t seem to Duncan that he was being treated fairly. The hearing had been postponed three times during the first week, and already, once in the second week since he’d arrived in Manaus. His lawyer saw it differently.
“It’s the process,” Montes said more than once. “There is nothing to be done about it. I’m sure it is that way in America as well.”
“I can’t stay here forever,” Duncan whined, though he could think of nothing pressing awaiting him in Chicago, aside from the companionship of his girlfriend, which became more important with every passing day.
He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d done everything he could to convince Maggie to join him in the humid, hot capital city of the state of Amazonas. He cajoled. He reasoned. And finally he begged, desperate to find someone to share his misery. But she’d talked to her attorney, who cautioned her against it.
“But why?” Duncan carped pathetically.
“Because they might come after me,” she said during one of their many phone conversations since his arrival in Brazil.
“I don’t see how—”
“He might be a little paranoid, but Stan says our status as a couple could be construed as a common-law marriage, and they could go after my money.”
“But I’ve got my own place,” he argued.
“I’m just telling you what Stan told me. You might ask your attorney, see if he agrees.”
“I’ll ask him, but do you think it’s true?”
“What’s true?”
“That we’re a common-law couple.”
He could hear her clear her throat.
“I suppose it depends on how it’s defined.”
“Of course,” he said. “But if we have separate apartments?”
“You sound like you’re afraid of something. You love me, don’t you?”
“Of course I love you,” he said assuredly. “It’s just that—”
“I just looked it up,” she said brightly, tapping on her iPad, interrupting him. “It says people in a common-law marriage live together and consider themselves to be married. In most of the U.S. I’m still looking for Brazil.”
“So, we’re off the hook?”
“Off the hook?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t,” she said, hesitating before adding. “Do you want out of our relationship, is that what you’re saying?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” he said emphatically. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant that’s not a reason not to come to Brazil. If we’re not common-law they can’t go after you. Can they?”
More than Duncan, she understood the extent to which they both valued their independence, even though as she grew older she found herself becoming amenable to settling into a long-term relationship. Already, they had lasted much longer than any of her previous relationships. Her money complicated romance because of the difficulty in knowing for certain how important it was to her partner. Because she’d inherited her wealth at an early age, she’d been victimized by men who feigned love to get at her bank account. It took several years to harden herself against it, and it made her reluctant to participate fully in the dating game during her formative years. Duncan was different. She’d been introduced to him at a conference attended by people who were interested in volunteering to help conduct a variety of research projects sponsored by his university. She could have joined a group looking for pyramids in Mexico, or a group conducting research on sea turtles. Though she was smitten by him almost from the start, ironically, his interest in her was primarily financial. The volunteers were expected to pay their own expenses, and when he learned how wealthy she was, he saw her as another funding source. It was only after they were carrying out his research in Brazil that he started to make a move on her. For her part, she feigned an interest in entomology as a strategy to reach him.
“You love me, don’t you?”
“Of course I love you,” he said. “I love you more than anything, and that’s why I want you to come here. I miss you.”
“I know you love me,” she said soothingly, “but you don’t miss me like this when I’m traveling.”
“That’s because I know when you’ll be back. The way it looks, I might be trapped here forever. And, yes, I’m lonely as hell. And I’m bored. But you’re the only person I want to be with. Please, please think about it.”
27
Duncan was sitting alone at a table in the dimly lit hotel bar, still feeling sorry for himself but hopeful that Maggie would join him, when his phone lit up. It was Cody Boyd.
“I am really glad to hear from you,” Duncan said instead of hello. “How the hell are you?”
“Good to hear from you, too,” Boyd said. “I’m fine. I was wondering if we could meet up sometime. Soon. Like today, maybe.”
Duncan lowered his head momentarily. He thought it was a funny request. He would like nothing better to be than somewhere else where they could get together.
“You won’t believe this, but I’m in Manaus. So, I don’t think—”
“I know,” Boyd said. “So am I.”
“You’re where?”
“I’m in Manaus, just like you. Where you at?”
Duncan gave him the name of his hotel, and then gave his friend a minute as he looked it up on his phone.
“It’s not far from my hotel,” Boyd said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I’m in the bar.”
The former professor could barely remain seated. Suddenly, he felt energized and a strong urge to pace. It was what he often did when he was anxious. Minutes passed slowly as he kept a watchful eye on the restaurant entrance. Unable to resist any longer, he finished his drink and entered the hote
l lobby and then, after a couple of minutes in a chair, he stepped outside into the heat and humidity, scanning the street in both directions. It hadn’t occurred to him to even wonder why his former student was in town. He thought only of the joy he felt of meeting someone he knew so well and whose judgment he could rely upon.
Expecting his friend to arrive on foot, Duncan paid little attention to the small, late model Toyota sedan that pulled in front of the hotel. Duncan was looking away when Boyd tapped his former mentor on the shoulder from behind.
“Cody,” Duncan blurted as he hugged the 29-year-old Boyd who reciprocated with equal warmth.
“I’m really glad I found you,” Boyd said as they took seats at a small table in the hotel’s small courtyard, setting an iPad in front of him, which he took from a daypack he’d shouldered.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Maggie told me.”
“She hadn’t mentioned it.”
“I asked her not to. I told her I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, you certainly did that. But I’m really glad you’re here. I don’t know if you know what’s going on, but things are fucked up.”
“I got the gist of it from Maggie but—”
“Let’s not talk about that right now,” Duncan insisted. “Tell me, what are you doing down here?”
“You remember the last time we talked I told you that Biodynamism called me?”
Duncan nodded as he ordered a plate of empanadas and two Stella Artois from the sole waiter roaming the nearly empty restaurant-bar.
“Yeah, you never got back to me. Did you talk to, oh, what is his name, Dr. Thomas’s assistant?”
“Jason Gruber,” Boyd prompted.
“Yeah, that’s the guy.”
“Well, you know, I had to sign another confidentiality agreement after I took on this assignment.”
“You’re working for them again?” Duncan said in disbelief.
Boyd nodded, smiling.
“The money was just too good.”
“How much, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Boyd leaned toward Duncan.
“A quarter mil,” he whispered.
“Who you gotta kill?”
28
Boyd had decided to tell Duncan everything, despite his nondisclosure agreement with Biodynamism. He trusted his former boss completely and was confident the company would never know. Besides, he hoped Duncan would help him in his mission, which would become clear once he outlined what he’d learned from Gruber.
“They lost all the specimens,” he said matter-of-factly.
Duncan nearly spewed a mouthful of beer.
“What? How can that be?”
Boyd recounted what Gruber had told him, how his boss, Nolan Thomas, was so confident about his project’s success that he reduced the number of specimens from hundreds to several dozen, focusing on developing hybrids from what he considered to be the strongest, most vigorous males and females. Their offspring would provide a candidate pool for further development and experimentation, the object of which Gruber declined to identify except to say that it was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.
“So, after all these years they lost their specimens?” Duncan mused, still unconvinced that such a thing could happen under the watchful eye of so cautious an investigator as Nolan Thomas.
“That’s just it. They lost them less than six months after we left.”
“And they’re now getting around to—”
Boyd shook his head and held up his hand, stopping Duncan in mid-sentence.
“According to Jason, they’ve been sending out people ever since, with no luck.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Freelancers. There’s nobody in the company willing or able to do it. He said he heard a rumor that the last team they sent out didn’t come back. Or at least not yet. But that was a coupla weeks ago. I haven’t talked to him since.”
“What’s the problem? It didn’t take much for us to find the bugs.”
“It could be the weather. Places that used to flood now have drought, and places that had drought now get a lot of rain. At least lately. Like in the U.S. and everywhere else, I guess.”
Duncan took it all in with relish. He saw it as vindication and a well-deserved comeuppance for an organization that he despised.
“They tried to contact you, you know,” Boyd said, nursing his second beer.
“Good luck with that.”
“I told ’em no way would you do it. Not even for a million dollars.”
Duncan finished chewing an empanada and swallowed quickly.
“A million? I might do it for a million.”
“You don’t take their calls though.”
“Right.”
“I gotta admit, they asked me to talk to you about it.”
“When was that?”
“You know, when I called you about them calling me. They asked whether I knew how to get in contact with you. I didn’t tell them, of course.”
Duncan smiled broadly. He imagined how the company’s CEO must have reacted, having recruited Duncan, who developed a successful breeding program that went awry at the end, only to turn it over to a scientist who apparently botched it even worse. There were too many specimens during Duncan’s tenure. Now there were none.
“So you offered to take on the job?”
“No, not right away. I told you then I wanted to talk to Gruber first, and that’s what I did. And boy, was I surprised by how things had gone to shit after we left.”
Boyd could tell that Duncan was in a good place now that he was revealing juicy details about their former employer and its predicament. There came a point in the conversation where he became aware that he seemed to be repeating himself and that he’d either revealed everything he knew or thought relevant. It didn’t matter to Duncan, as Boyd’s revelations temporarily displaced the anguish he felt over the legal proceedings hanging over him like a storm cloud.
“You know,” Boyd said tentatively, “I don’t know how to say this, but I could sure use your help.”
“What do you need?”
“I’d like you to come with me,” Boyd said, grinning sheepishly.
29
Boyd’s smile faded quickly as Duncan considered his reply. He’d hoped for an immediate, enthusiastic response, but what he got was the look of someone who couldn’t make up his mind or was desperately looking for an excuse to turn him down.
“You know, you don’t hafta come. I just thought you might be interested,” Boyd said, struggling to contain his disappointment.
“It’s not that,” Duncan said. “I’ve got this legal issue I’m dealing with and I’m not supposed to leave the city until it’s resolved. They took my passport, and I’m guessing I’m being watched to make sure I don’t leave.”
Boyd scanned the area around the empty courtyard. Duncan laughed.
“I’m pretty sure there’s no one here, although, who knows? Maybe the waiter reports to them.”
“I didn’t realize.”
“If I’d known what I was getting into, I wouldn’t be here. There may be a way. It’s not that I’m not interested. You’re not planning to go alone, are you?”
“No, I got two guys who came down with me. They’re at the hotel. You don’t know them. They’re contractors who used to work for the company, like me.”
“Why do you need me?”
“You’re the expert, doc. You know more about these critters than anyone. You’re a scientist.”
“Was a scientist,” he said, quickly.
“Once a scientist, always a scientist,” Boyd countered. “Besides, the guys I’m with act like we’re on vacation. I need someone I can depend on, and I know I can depend on you.”
Boyd had never let him down, and while Duncan wasn’t always a perfect boss, he didn’t want to disappoint his former assistant. They’d been through a lot together and he felt he owed him the courtesy of hearing him out.
“Last time we talked, I didn’t know what I know now,” Boyd said. “For one thing, the bugs have disappeared from where we found them.”
“Yeah, you told me they were where, which state—?”
“Pará state, which is not even close to where we found them before. Totally different habitat.”
“You know I haven’t kept up with things,” Duncan said. “You got any ideas why?”
“I do,” Boyd said eagerly. “It’s just my opinion, but I think conditions have changed so much that they migrated to this other region somehow.”
“They migrated hundreds of miles?” Duncan said, skeptically.
“That, or it’s a different colony. Maybe the colonies we ran into died out.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“You said there’ve been no sightings. How could they migrate hundreds of miles without anyone noticing?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Maybe the colony shrunk, you know, like when we first found them, when there were just a few of them. Maybe that’s how they survive over the long run.”
“I see what you’re getting at, but why travel so far?” Duncan asked.
“I don’t have an answer for that. I got a lot of questions, too.”
“So, if there’s no sightings, how are you gonna find them?”
“I didn’t say there were no sightings,” Boyd said, smiling, while working his iPad, finally pushing it toward Duncan.
“This is how.”
30
Fernando Braga was his own boss, a self-made man. Five-seven, one hundred ninety pounds, broad-shouldered, his face rough-hewn like his thick hands, a tuft of jet-black hair combed back aggressively like a racing stripe, centered on an otherwise bald head. Those in Jacareacanga who knew him avoided him when he was in town to conduct business and recruit workers. Quick to anger, he was not a man to be trifled with.
That’s one reason his workers didn’t like him, even though he paid wages and, as far as they could tell, didn’t shortchange them. Unlike other operations in which miners worked for a share of the gold, Braga made it clear that he was the owner-operator and that his men were employees. At the end of the season, if it had been successful, he would allocate shares in the profits. The more gold they found, the bigger the share. Like pirates. But Braga was demanding and calculating, in an intimidating way. He didn’t give people choices. Men who made it to his work site could either abide by his rules or move on. He ran a tight ship. Troublemakers didn’t last long. He wore a revolver on his hip in a leather holster on the job in the forest, or what was left of it. All around his site, the trees disappeared while he worked to cut ugly scars into a hillside, hydraulically mining gold on a nearly dry tributary of the Tapajós River.