White Cargo

by Stuart Woods

  “The American Embassy,” Cat said to the driver, and Maribel immediately said the same in Spanish.

  Maribel clutched Cat’s arm, and laid her head on his shoulder. “Thank you, thank you,” she kept repeating.

  Cat patted her hand. “It’s all right,” he said, “we’ll be at the embassy soon.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” she said again, and before he could react, she threw an arm around his neck and planted an enormous kiss on his lips.

  Cat did his best to calm her, wiping the lipstick on the back of his hand. Shortly, the taxi pulled up to the same rear gate through which Cat’s ambulance had driven not long before. Candis Leigh, accompanied by a Marine guard and another man, was waiting to let them in. Cat gratefully turned over Maribel to Candis and the consular official and followed them into the embassy.

  In Buzz Bergman’s office, he immediately telephoned the Tequendama and asked for his suite. Meg, to his relief, answered. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes! I haven’t had so much fun in years! We had the manager, the local police, the doorman—everybody got into it. You’ve never seen Latinos turn the shade of red those guys did! Is Maribel safe?”

  “Yes, she’s in the Consul’s office now, getting some paperwork done. I think she has already talked to her father.”

  “Good. Now listen, when do we leave for Leticia?”

  “I want to take off tomorrow morning at eight, sharp, okay?”

  “Okay, but I may not see you until then. I’ve got some things to do, but I won’t miss the plane, believe me.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Cat said, and hung up.

  Barry Hedger swept into the office carrying a briefcase. “Morning,” he said. “You ready for some cloak-and-dagger stuff?”

  “Sure, why not?” said Cat.

  Hedger opened the briefcase and took out a fairly large Sony portable radio. “Okay,” he said, “what we got here is an ordinary, multiband radio, you see?” He switched it on and twiddled the tuning dial. A mixture of voices and static came out of the set. “But,” Hedger said, raising a finger, “if, instead of turning the knob the usual way, you pull the knob out and turn it counterclockwise”—he demonstrated—“then you got a transmitter that puts out a signal that can be picked up on the automatic-direction-finding equipment on every airplane.”

  Cat tried turning the radio on as instructed. “That’s it, just turn it on?”

  “Not quite,” Hedger said. “You want to be outdoors, away from any large structures that might interfere with the signal, and you want to extend the antenna to its maximum, got it?”

  “Got it. What sort of range does it have?”

  “About forty miles, to an aircraft at two thousand feet, more at a higher altitude.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much.”

  “It’s enough to do the trick. We’ll be overflying the Trapezoid on a regular basis from the moment you leave Leticia for Prince’s base. The Colombian force will be in place tonight at a Brazilian army base just across the border, on the Amazon, here.” He pointed at a spot on the map, downstream from Leticia. “The radio’s batteries are good for an hour’s transmission, if you don’t spend too much time listening to rock and roll.” He paused and switched off the radio. “Take care of this thing; otherwise you’ll just have to find a phone booth.”

  “Right,” Cat said.

  Johnny Gomez came into the room. “Hi, Cat. I wanted to tell you that you’ll have a friendly face on the ground at Leticia. My man, the one with the pockmarks who was in the nightclub last night, is already on his way down there. He’ll be staying at Parador Ticuña, playing the tourist, registered under the name of Conroy. He’ll be in the bar when you have your meet. If you want to bail out of this thing, he’ll help, and that’ll be your last chance. You understand?”

  “I understand, but I won’t be bailing out.”

  Buzz Bergman spoke up. “Cat, your best chance is to find your daughter, get her away somewhere, then turn on the radio and hide. When these troops hit the ground, they’re liable to shoot anything that moves. Don’t come out until the shooting is over. Be very, very careful that you don’t get waxed by one of the good guys, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Cat said.

  Bergman and Gomez shook Cat’s hand and wished him luck, then Hedger escorted him out of the room and down the hall to his own office.

  “How long since you fired a handgun?” he asked, taking Cat’s H&K automatic and its holster out of his desk drawer.

  “Not since I got out of the Corps,” Cat replied, a little sheepishly.

  Hedger beckoned him down the hall to the elevators, then down to a subbasement. He opened a door and switched on a light.

  Cat could immediately smell raw earth. He followed Hedger into a rough room, one wall of which was earthen. Hedger switched on another set of lights, revealing a long, tunnel-like extension. At the end was a target with a human figure drawn on it.

  “The Marine guards use it,” Hedger said. He handed Cat the pistol. “Be my guest.”

  Cat checked the clip, worked the action, switched off the safety, and assumed the stance. He fired five rounds, then Hedger stopped him and pulled the target toward them on a long cord. Cat had missed it twice, and the other three shots were all over the target.

  “Forget the military stance,” Hedger said, taking the weapon from Cat. He crouched and held the pistol out with both hands. “Do it the police way.” He changed the target and pulled it back into place.

  Cat crouched and fired five more rounds.

  Hedger peered through binoculars. “Better. That’s a fair grouping, but they’re all in the upper right-hand corner of the target. Squeeze, don’t pull, remember?”

  Cat fired five more rounds and began reloading the clip from a box of cartridges furnished by Hedger from a cupboard while Hedger pulled the target back.

  “Much better,” Hedger said. “In the middle of the target. Now you have to get the grouping smaller.”

  Cat shot for nearly an hour, becoming more and more comfortable with the pistol, accepting Hedger’s pointers.

  Finally, Hedger seemed satisfied. He took a leather and canvas grip from the ammunition cupboard. “Here’s something that will be of use,” he said, opening the grip. Pressing at the sides of the bottom panel, he lifted the panel out and exposed a shallow compartment. “There’s room here for your weapon and ammo. Don’t carry it through airport security, though.”

  “Thanks,” Cat said. “I’ll try and remember that.”

  Hedger walked over to a counter and found some cleaning equipment behind it. As Cat watched he effortlessly fieldstripped the weapon and began carefully cleaning it.

  “You know,” Hedger said, looking only at the pistol, “I hated your guts for a long time.”

  Cat said nothing.

  “You whipped my ass more ways than one at Quantico, and I didn’t like it.”

  “I’m afraid I liked it more than I should have,” Cat said, apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be,” Hedger said. “It made me tougher, later, when I needed to be tougher.” He went on cleaning the weapon in silence, then reassembled it and handed it to Cat. “I admire what you’re doing down here, what you’re about to do. I’d like to think if I were in your place, I’d do the same. I wish you luck, Cat.”

  It was the first time Hedger had ever called him by his first name, Cat reflected. He took the offered hand and shook it.

  26

  CAT OPENED THE ALUMINUM CAMERA CASE AND COUNTED OUT ninety stacks of a hundred one-hundred-dollar bills—nine hundred thousand dollars. He set Barry Hedger’s canvas-and-leather grip on the desk and opened it, then removed the false bottom. He loaded one of the three clips into the H&K automatic pistol, arranged it in the compartment with the other clips, the shoulder holster, and the silencer, then loaded Bluey’s .357 Magnum and tried it for size. There was barely enough room in the compartment for the second pistol and no room
for the box of cartridges. Cat found a roll of cellophane tape and managed to fit another dozen cartridges into odd spaces. He replaced the false bottom and stacked the money in the case. It was still only about half full, so he put some shirts on top of the money, and Barry Hedger’s high-tech portable radio on top of those.

  He still had another million dollars in the camera case, and he was beginning to feel a little foolish about it. It was fortunate that he had misunderstood Bluey about how much money to bring; at least he had had the “franchise fee” when he needed it. Still, the other million dollars was something of a burden. He had thought of it, so far, as only a lot of paper, but now he remembered that the extra million represented everything he owned, except the house and the company stock. He dismissed the thought from his mind. If it took that to get Jinx back, so be it. He was going to have enough to occupy him without worrying about the money. He thought of leaving it in the hotel safe and coming back for it, but there was always the chance, he reckoned, that it might come in handy. He closed the camera case and spun the combination lock. His wristwatch said seven o’clock.

  Cat checked out of the hotel and got a taxi to the airfield. The flying school was deserted, and Meg was nowhere in sight. It was just as well, he decided. He wanted her with him, but now he was heading into a situation where he might be better off alone, without having to worry about her safety.

  At the airfield, he threw his bags into the back seat of the airplane, then got out the little stepladder and checked the wing tanks. They were full, and so was the auxiliary tank in the luggage compartment. He gave the airplane a thorough preflight inspection and added a quart of oil. Then he got into the airplane, pulled out his charts and flight plan, and rechecked all his figures—courses, distance, and fuel. Everything tallied with the flight planning he had done the night before. He had a weather forecast from Eldorado Flight Services, and with the help of an English-speaking staffer, he had filed an instrument flight plan, something he had never done before. What the hell, he thought, his bogus Ellis license said he was instrument-rated.

  It was a little after eight o’clock now, and there was nothing else to do but leave. Suddenly, he felt terribly alone. There were eight hundred miles of mountains and jungle to cross, and nowhere to put the airplane down in an emergency. Up until now he had had the help of, first, Bluey, then Meg, then Hedger, Gomez, and Bergman, but now he was on his own. For a small moment, he wanted to run—abandon the airplane, leave Hedger, Bergman, and Prince to their own devices. But he couldn’t forget Jinx. He had no way of being sure that she was where he was going, but if there was even a chance she was there, then he would be there, too. He took a couple of deep breaths. Meg was nowhere to be seen, and he had to take off on time or have his flight plan canceled.

  Feeling hollow inside in spite of a good breakfast, he picked up his checklist and started to work through it: seat belt and shoulder harness fastened; doors closed; radios and navigation aids set to correct frequencies; cowl flaps open; avionics power switch off; circuit breakers in; mixture rich; propeller control in; carburetor heat off; prime engine; master switch on; area clear—he made a sweep of the area to make sure nobody was standing near the prop. As he turned to his right, he jumped: Meg’s face was framed in the window. She rapped on the glass.

  He opened the door; she tossed her bags into the back seat, climbed in, and kissed him on the neck. “Sorry I’m late; you weren’t going to leave without me, were you?”

  “I was,” he said, “and I still think I should.”

  She looked hurt. “You don’t want me along?”

  He shook his head. “It isn’t that. It’s because of you I’ve gotten this far. I don’t have time to explain the whole thing right now—I’ve got to make a time window or they’ll cancel my flight plan. All I can tell you is that if you come with me, there’s an awfully good chance that neither of us will get out of it alive, and I don’t think I should ask you to take that risk. I hope you’ll believe that I’m not exaggerating.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Listen, sport,” she said, “I expect I’ve been in more tight spots than you the past few years, and I’m still in one piece. I’ll stay that way—don’t worry about me.”

  “I’ll explain on the way,” he said. “We can always part company in Leticia.” He looked around the airplane again, opened his window, and shouted, “CLEAR!” He turned the key, and the engine coughed, then came to life. They both slipped on their headsets, and he continued with his checklist. There was no control tower to call, so he taxied to the end of the runway and stopped. He throttled up to 1,700 rpms and did his run-up checks. Finally, all was ready. He craned his neck to see the skies around him—no incoming traffic—then taxied onto the runway. It was shorter than what he was accustomed to, but plenty long enough—1,000 meters. Mixture—full rich. He announced his takeoff to any possible traffic in the area, then shoved in the throttle. The airplane began to roll. Cat watched the airspeed, waiting for sixty knots, when the airplane could be flown off. The needle rose to forty, then forty-five knots, but it seemed to be moving upward very slowly. The airplane had used up three-quarters of the runway when Cat realized they were not going to make it.

  He glanced at the instruments, ready to slam on brakes, but he knew they would never be able to stop. They would drive straight ahead into the low shrubs off the end of the runway. Then he noticed that the manifold pressure was low, and suddenly he realized what was wrong. “Oh, shit!” he yelled, startling Meg. Quickly, he put in twenty degrees of flaps, and as the runway came to an end, the heavily loaded airplane lifted sluggishly a few feet into the air. It seemed to take forever to get to two hundred feet, then he reduced the flaps to ten degrees, and the airplane began to climb faster.

  “What was that?” Meg asked, a little breathless.

  “My fault,” Cat replied, mopping his brow. “I forgot we are at about nine thousand feet of elevation here. The air is thin and the engine won’t develop full power this high up, so the airplane needs more runway to get off. If I had put in flaps at the beginning, it would have worked a lot better.”

  He took out the last ten degrees of flaps, started his turn toward the Eldorado VOR beacon, and called Bogotá departure. The accent was thick, but the controller gave him his departure instructions. Soon they were out of the mountains and over the Magdalena Valley. Cat switched on the autopilot and relaxed, checking his position with the distance-measuring equipment. They would soon be out of range for that, and there was no loran this far south. There were enough other navaids to get them to Leticia, though.

  “Okay,” he said finally, “what have you been doing for the last couple of days?”

  “I had some people to see,” she replied. “Once I knew you were all right, I had time on my hands, and I’m always looking for a story.”

  “I thought you had a story,” he said, a little miffed.

  “Now, now,” she said, “don’t get jealous of my time. I had nothing else to do. Could I have come to all those meetings with you if I had been around?”

  “No,” he said. “Barry Hedger thinks you’re a Communist agent, or something.”

  She gave a short, derisive laugh. “Of course. He told you about my father, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. I remembered the incident.”

  “It was a hell of a lot more than an incident, let me tell you. Father never recovered. He was only fifty-one when he died. They broke his heart.”

  “Hedger says most of the reporting you’ve done is about various Communist revolutionary movements.”

  “A lot of it has been,” she agreed. “My father’s name got used by all sorts of left-wing groups; he was a real hero to them. I suppose it was a sort of entrée for me.”

  Cat was silent.

  “Oh, I see, you want to know if I’m a Communist spy, right?”

  “Well?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t really give a damn, but I would like to know.”

  She unclipped her shoulder harness and turne
d to face him. “Yes you do care, bless your heart,” she said. “You’re afraid you’ve gotten involved with a regular Red Menace, aren’t you?”

  “Look . . .”

  “Well, I suppose I’m glad you care. No, I’m not a Communist spy, or even a Communist. I despise what a lot of the guerrilla movements are doing—or at least the way they’re doing it. On the other hand, I despise the way the United States does a lot of what it does, too. Politically, I suppose I’m a stateless person. I mean, I’m glad that part of me is an American, and I’m glad that the other part is a South American—I feel just as comfortable here as I do in the States. The United States has a right-wing administration that I abhor, and Colombia has a left-wing guerrilla movement that I hate, too. There’s no political home for me unless it’s a place like Sweden, and I couldn’t live there, because I’m not a Socialist, and half of me is a hot-blooded Latin.”

  Cat laughed. “I’ll vouch for that.”

  • • •

  Now they were over jungle. There was nothing else as far as the eye could see. It was so thick, Cat thought he could land the airplane on the treetops. Every couple of minutes, he scanned the instrument panel, looking for reassurance. The needles held steady, and the engine drummed monotonously along. Fuel flow was a bit more than he had planned, but he had a much bigger reserve than he and Bluey had had on the flight from Florida.

  Meg had cranked her seat back and was sound asleep. He looked at her face, innocent and childlike in repose. He knew there was nothing he could say to talk her out of going to the Trapezoid with him, and he was glad. He remembered the terrible moment that morning, when he had thought he was alone.

  • • •

  They had sandwiches a little later, then, early in the afternoon, Cat looked out ahead of them and saw a strip of brown cutting across the green of the jungle. Cat felt a thrill of anticipation and of fear. The Amazon—the biggest river in the world, dwarfing the Congo, the Nile, and the Mississippi. It was a good thirty miles away, but down here there was no air pollution, only a haze rising from the rain forest. As they flew closer the river widened, until it became apparent what a huge body of water they were approaching. It stretched, east and west, as far as the eye could see. Twenty miles out, when Leticia was a smudge beside the Amazon, Cat called the tower and was instructed to start his descent. A few minutes later they were entering the traffic pattern, and as Cat turned onto the base leg for landing, a large helicopter rose from the airport and headed away north at a low altitude.