Assignment - Amazon Queen

by Edward S. Aarons

  "Da. Well. You have not spoken of guarantees."

  "Gentlemen, the man who bids and wins the Zero Formula, the party whose letter of credit is satisfactorily honored and redeemed—a matter of only a day or two to verify, I assure you—will receive complete protection while here. Once the money has been safely transferred and is in the control of my agents abroad, the owner of the Zero Formula will, under adequate guard, be escorted by plane from this place to any destination he chooses. All the others must remain here under close watch for a period of forty-eight hours before being permitted to leave. No attempt to steal the formula from the winning bidder will be permitted. Is that satisfactory?"

  Vladim Vodaniev remained stubbornly on his feet. His round, pudgy face was adamant.

  "Not quite, Colonel. We know your record. We know your tricks. You are like the bad penny that always turns up in the till. Your record stinks of deceit and treachery. How can we know that the winner of the Zero Formula will have the one and exclusive copy of it?"

  "There is only one copy now," de Santana said softly. "This entire place and the laboratory will be burned to the ground before anyone leaves. Inspection and search of our persons and the premises will be permitted." De Santana smiled paternally. "There will be no written, taped, or recorded copy of the data in existence except that which the winner will receive."

  Atimboku called impatiently from his seat. "I wish to bid thirty million."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Thirty-five," said the Bulgarian.

  Mr. Soo said, "Thirty-six."

  De Santana turned to where Durell sat. "You are not bidding, sir?"

  "No," Durell said.

  "The USA does not wish to possess the one and only copy of the formula? Perhaps to—ah—use to keep the world safe for democracy?"

  There was a stir and a snicker from some of the others. Durell was impassive. "I am not bidding."

  "Not at all?"

  "Not yet."

  "Ah."

  De Santana looked puzzled for a moment, then urged the others to continue. Durell waited and watched. His head throbbed, his ribs and belly ached. He did not wish to be the one to ask the inevitable question that must occur. The bidding reached fifty-five million. Atimboku's black, hawk's face was covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Standing on the stage behind the lectern, de Santana seemed to be in excellent humor now. Durell wished for a drink and an aspirin. He felt the toll of the long trek from Sao Felice more than the others, considering the beating he had taken to save Belmont The air grew hot and stale in the decayed splendor of the little theater. It was past one o'clock in the morning. Now and then the others gave him curious, puzzled glances. He wished for a cold shower, a few hours of sleep in a clean bed with crisp sheets.

  He waited.

  Mr. Soo stood up.

  "One more question. Colonel de Santana."

  "Certainly, Mr. Soo."

  "There will always be, within his lifetime, one who could recreate the formula and perhaps sell it to someone else. Another copy, so to speak, in the mind of another man."

  "Yes. I have anticipated such a query. I wish to prove to you my earnest desire to satisfy you. You refer, of course, to Professor Anton Tovachek, whose brilliant brain conceived the Zero Formula and who could, of course, recreate it again, at any time."

  "Precisely," said Mr. Soo.

  From offstage, as if on cue, came a dim shout.

  De Santana said, "The winner of the formula takes Professor Anton with him, of course."

  Now the shout offstage became a muffled cry of denial. There was something inevitable about what followed, Durell thought. It was as if all the events that had brought them to this ghostly place were foreordained, like the elemental movements of a Greek tragedy. Professor Anton came onto the stage. His arms flapped in his dirty white silk suit. His silver-rimmed glasses glinted on his pinched nose. His face was gray. He did not look at any of the men seated in the small theater. He walked to the lectern, staggering slightly, and confronted de Santana.

  "What are you saying?" he shouted. "How dare you make such a proposal? Everything I have done has been meant to keep my freedom. I did not offer myself as a prisoner! What good would the money do to me, if I rot in a cell somewhere in China or Russia or Africa? Nothing of this was ever discussed between us—"

  "But my dear professor, logic makes such an agreement utterly necessary."

  "I do not agree!" Anton shouted. He turned and looked out from the stage, his eyes blinking behind his round glasses. His face worked curiously. There was a trapped expression in his frantic eyes. He was a man betrayed, appealing for justice. But no one among the bidders reacted to his pathetic gestures, his silent and futile arm-flapping, his appeals for help and understanding. The full extent of his betrayal slowly convulsed his features. He looked as if he were going to weep. He stood under the light on the stage and began to shiver.

  "It is true." His whisper was like the ghost of the wind that moved among the ancient rubber trees on the plantation. "Yes, true. I created the formula, and I can create it again. When I worked on it and tested it, it was not my purpose to terrorize the world with its results. Quite the opposite. I meant to give it to all mankind for peaceful purposes, in exchange for my freedom from pursuit and the freedom of my family. None of the trickery that was devised to bring you people here was of my invention." He flapped his arms again, and now sweat poured down his round face. "What would I know of your world, gentlemen? How would I know your names and positions? It was the colonel who arranged it all, who shipped samples to your countries, who hired men to spray from planes and trucks." Anton paused and gulped. His eyes were like a toad's behind his round glasses. His sudden courage gave way to a quivering of his chin. He straightened in his pathetically oversized clothes and stared at them all. "There is only one copy of the formula. That is true. But whoever thinks he will have a monopoly on the Zero Formula is mistaken. Not by taking me with it."

  He tapped his head. "It is all here. In my brain. I have had enough of this monstrous charade. The colonel has a streak of madness in him, sirs. I suggest we end this so-called auction. I shall give each of you a copy of the formula, and in this way, the world will remain in balance for a while longer. I suggest that you ignore the colonel's offer to purchase what I can give you freely."

  Professor Anton Tovachek stopped talking. There was a long silence in the dusty theater. It went on for too long. No one looked at each other. It won't work, Durell thought grimly. The little man was fighting for his life, but these men were dedicated to their work, to the needs of their respective countries. They had come here in rivalry for one purpose only. The piteous plea fell on deaf ears. These men were not altruistic. They were here under compulsion, each an alien island to the others, each a wary predator cast against his will among other predators. But Durell did not expect the reaction that followed.

  Colonel de Santana smiled his gentle smile, picked up his heavy target pistol from the lectern, and crossed the stage to where Anton stood.

  Then he placed the muzzle of the gun to the back of Anton's head and pulled the trigger.

  The report was calamitous in the little theater. Dust jumped. Some plaster fell. The bullet blasted through the back of the professor's skull and blew out bone, brains, one eye, tissue and blood from the man's face. Some of the human debris spattered the bidders in the front row of seats. Anton was dead before he hit the floor. Atimboku jumped aside with a small yelp. No one else moved or said anything. No one voiced an objection. De Santana calmly replaced his gun on the lecturn and kept his hand on it.

  "Gentlemen, you have just been delivered your guarantee. I have the only copy of the Zero Formula. It cannot be reproduced any more by that." He gestured to the body below the old stage. "Whoever wins the formula may also bum this place down." He turned slightly. "Mucujai?"

  One of the guards stirred at the left end of the stage. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, with a dark coppery face. Durell saw that of all the pe
ople in this place, only the Indians seemed shocked by what had happened.

  "Mucujai, take the body away."

  "Sim, Senhor Colonel."

  The Indian's voice was gravelly with open resentment. He had short-cropped gray hair and a long jaw. His shock did not keep him from obeying the order, however; and he chose another assistant from among the armed guards to help him. Agosto was silent, watching them depart with their burden. Then he smiled with great good humor again.

  "Are there any other questions, gentlemen?"

  "Yes."

  "Mr. Soo?"

  The Chinese said, "We have seen and learned much about you. Colonel. How can we trust you? You said you have no other copy, here or elsewhere, but how can we know that?"

  "Ah?"

  "You could offer that copy of the formula for sale, later, as a form of further blackmail, I should think."

  Agosto suddenly looked impatient. "Surely you must realize that I haven't told you the entire truth. Of course I have another copy, Mr. Soo. Am I stupid enough to trust you? The extra copy is to guarantee my personal safety. If anything happens to me after this meeting, the Zero Formula will become public knowledge, and the bidder will have spent his nation's money uselessly. One can only guess at the penalties that might befall such a man then. The extra copy is not here. There is no point in wondering where it might be. Perhaps on the other side of the world. But if any harm comes to me, then the penalty will be paid. The formula will be published."

  Durell spoke up. "You're bluffing, Agosto." "Ah! The American speaks. The poker player, eh?" Durell said, "If you have another copy elsewhere, one that will be published automatically if you are killed, then all of us who lose in the bidding will see that you die promptly, to keep the winner from gaining a monopoly on the Zero Formula. So either way, Agosto, you will lose."

  This time there was a murmur of sardonic amusement from the gathering. Agosto sensed that he had momentarily lost control. His face darkened with anger, and he raised his heavy pistol for a moment, then lowered it.

  "There is an answer for you, Mr. Durell. You are very clever. And more dangerous than I thought. But, I assure you, there is an answer. We will adjourn until tomorrow morning, gentlemen. The hour is late. We will resume our business at 0800 sharp. The guards will escort you back to your quarters."

  Chapter Twelve

  It was well past one o'clock in the morning. Durell felt weariness and pain drag at him as he spoke to Inocenza in the bungalow. The gasoline lantern was turned off, but the moonlight outlined the girl's rich and sullen mouth. She looked defiant. Belmont slept on the floor, rejecting the bunks. Willie Wells, lounging against the door, watched a small red lizard dart along a broken rafter in the dim ceiling.

  "Don't bully her, Sam," Wells said softly.

  "I want to know where O'Hara is."

  "How can she know that?"

  “She knows. O'Hara has been here before."

  "What do you want with the old man? His crime against your grandmother was long ago, Cajun."

  Durell shook his head. "We need O'Hara. You see, I gave Agosto no choice. I brought it all out into the open."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I argued him into a box. He has no alternative now. Whoever wins the formula goes free."

  "But you didn't bid, you say."

  "I had my reasons. According to Agosto's plan, the rest of us will be killed. It's the only way he can come out of this alive, without one of us killing him to release his copy of the formula to the whole world. He made a mistake by admitting his 'insurance.' He can only be safe now by eliminating all the losers and burying us here in the forest."

  Inocenza whispered, "He will kill all of us?"

  "He must. It's his only way out."

  "Do the Russians and Mr. Soo know this?" Willie asked.

  "I'm sure they've figured it out already. We're all dead men, except for the one who pays Agosto's price and then becomes Agosto's blackmail victim in the future."

  Inocenza's dark face turned from Wells to Durell. "And what do you want O'Hara for?"

  "I need his help, or we'll all be executed tomorrow. I won't hurt him."

  "Do you promise?"

  "I promise."

  "Very well," she said. "How do we go past the guards? They are very nervous now, since the professor was shot."

  "You can help me with that, too."

  It worked well enough. Inocenza opened the door and stepped out of the bungalow. The night was darker now; the moon was ready to set. The moment she appeared, one of the Indian guards jumped up and jabbed her backward with his rifle. The girl spoke angrily in a mixture of Portuguese and Tupamaca dialect. The Indian grinned and began to laugh and made an obscene gesture with his fingers on his buttocks. Inocenza spat at him and started across the compound toward a clump of tall bamboo. Her hips swayed provocatively. The Indian turned to watch her. The moment he did so, Durell came through the bungalow doorway and hit him in the back of the neck, stabbed two fingers into the base of the man's spine. The Indian made a low grunting sound as his knees buckled and he pitched forward. Durell caught the Russian-made rifle before it clattered to the ground. He chopped once at the side of the guard's throat, and was satisfied that the man was out.

  "Willie?" he whispered. "Take care of him. Keep him quiet and keep him out of sight."

  Wells said, "We've got one rifle now, anyway."

  "We'll get more," Durell promised.

  Inocenza vanished into the thicket of bamboo. He waited a moment to make sure there was no alarm, then ran across the dark compound after her. The effort made his right leg ache from a bruise he hadn't known was there.

  The girl's whisper was hardly more than the rustle of the spiky bamboo leaves overhead.

  "This way, Sam."

  Her dark face was only a blur in the gloom, but through the tall bamboo stems he could see a pale sprinkle of tropical stars.

  "What did you tell the guard?" he asked softly.

  She giggled and he touched her lips to be sure she was careful about noise. "I said a lady needed some privacy now and then for personal matters." She added, "O'Hara has a woman here—one of the Indian girls of these guards. He told me they have some shacks down in the rubber trees. Most of these Tupamara people are descendants of the old seringueros —the rubber-tappers who were once slaves for Don Federico."

  She moved as silently and sinuously as a forest creature, leading the way through to the other side of the bamboo thicket. Most of the lights were out in the main house now, but floodlamps strategically illuminated a perimeter where shadowy guards patrolled. A small wind moved in the tops of the old trees. There was a path of sorts, winding be>-tween the gnarled, twisted trunks. She held his hand and drew him along after her. The forest was silent. Presently there was a clearing among the thickly bunched trees and he made out the shapes of a few raggedly built huts, scattered at random here and there.

  From one of the nearest huts came the sound of O'Hara's grating voice, mumbling or singing something. A woman spoke softly and patiently to him. Durell remembered the fat old Indian woman at Paramaguito, and wondered at the old man's toughness. A faint light inside showed him a patchily screened window and the outline of a door.

  "He never seems to sleep," Inocenza whispered.

  "Stay here," he suggested.

  "No. If he yells, you will have the other Indians down on you. They will surely kill you. But if he sees me, he may be quiet. If he is not too drunk, or too frightened of you."

  They moved soundlessly through the darkness to the door of the hut. A bottle clinked. There was a gurgling noise. O'Hara's voice rumbled, complaining in the Tupamara dialect, and the woman crooned soothingly. Durell put up a hand to keep Inocenza motionless and reached for the door handle and then yanked it wide open and leaped into the single-room cabin. He glimpsed two hammocks, an old oil stove, a lantern smothered with suicidal insects. The woman lay naked in one of the hammocks. She looked very young. O'Hara's back was toward him as t
he old man stooped to choose another bottle from among several in a wooden box. Durell got his left arm around O'Hara's throat and his right hand clamped over the man's bearded mouth before O'Hara was even aware that he had come in. Inocenza took care of the young Indian woman, holding her in the hammock. O'Hara's thick body heaved convulsively and Durell tightened his arm across the fat man's larynx and whispered, "Hold still or you're dead, Capitao."

  For a moment, O'Hara continued to struggle. He tightened his arm again. O'Hara made a choking sound and let himself sag down on all fours, panting.

  Durell said, "I don't want to hurt you, Capitao. Listen to me. We're all dead men here if we don't help each other. Agosto will kill all of us. Nobody will be allowed to leave here alive, except those he chooses. You and I won't be the lucky ones. Understand?"

  O'Hara moved his round, bearded head slightly. His fat stomach heaved.

  "Do you understand?" Durell repeated.

  "I__can't—"

  "We'll just talk. I need some help."

  "Okay."

  Durell released his grip and stepped back warily. For some moments, O'Hara remained on all fours, coughing and choking and shaking his head. The Indian girl in the hammock peered at them with enormous dark eyes. Inocenza looked watchful. O'Hara turned his head toward her. "You brought him here, baby?"

  "For your own good. Agosto is a crazy man."

  "It's true, he'll kill everybody so there won't be any witnesses?"

  "Durell tells the truth."

  "Shit. Durell wants to get me because of his old grandma. He found her grave. He don't believe I loved her. It drove me crazy, all these years. I took her with me to the Amazon, but she wouldn't ever have any part of me. I begged and cried and told her how much I wanted her. But she got sick with the fever right away and died on me.

  Durell said, "I believe you, O'Hara."

  The fat old man scrunched around and sat upright on his buttocks, glaring at Durell from under his shaggy brows. A drool of spittle ran from his open, panting mouth. Fear and doubt clouded his rheumy eyes.

  "I always knew one of you would come here for me."