by Ted Bell
Ambrose and Stokely were en route to some kind of hospital, moldering away out in the countryside. It was called the St. James Infirmary, which he found a charming name, but apparently the institution itself was not. It was said to be a wretched place, formerly a home for indigent children.
Harry Brock and another man, a local chap named Saladin, had been standing on the hotel dock to help with the luggage and mooring lines when the Blue Goose first arrived from Key West. Harry Brock and this other chap had arrived in Manaus four days ago. At Hawke’s request, they had been doing all the preliminary legwork on the widow. It had not been easy, Harry said. He’d been shown a badly decomposed corpse with a death certificate attached. The name on it was Hildegard Zimmermann.
Saladin wasn’t buying it. He had zero confidence in the local police; they’d kept looking.
Harry had told Ambrose, as they stood on the dock under an umbrella, he and Saladin now felt there was a reasonable chance they might find Hildegard Zimmermann still alive in a secret hospital currently used by the military. Congreve had thanked him for all his hard work and then asked for a car. He and Stokely would leave for the hospital immediately after checking in and having a bite to eat.
“How long do you think it will take us to get there?” he asked Stokely. They had reached the end of the long hotel drive and were about to turn right onto the primary road along the Rio Negro.
“About an hour upriver. Then we go into the jungle. If the road isn’t too washed out, we’ll be all right. That’s what Brock said.”
“You know this Harry Brock quite well, I take it?”
“I do. He helped Alex and I in Oman last year.”
“Bit full of it for my taste.”
Stokely looked over at him. It had been a long day in a small airplane and Ambrose was finally beginning to get on his nerves. “If I knew what Harry Brock was full of, I’d order a case of the stuff and split it with you.”
“Bollocks.”
Stokely was driving, thank God; the roads were ridiculous. The car, some sort of official four-wheel drive vehicle this Brock character had borrowed. Very official looking, taken from the local constabulary car pool via the CIA station chief in Manaus. It was beastly uncomfortable. Not that he’d ever mention it or complain, of course.
They were all such rugged outdoorsy fellows, every last one of them. Stokely, the Aussie pilot, Mick, this serious Arab fellow named Saladin, and, of course, the American spy, Harry Brock. Wearing their bloody bush shorts, shirts with epaulets, naff kit from the Indiana Jones Collection. Even the very attractive woman he’d met at the front desk, Caparina, he thought her name was, had a machete hanging from her belt.
He’d looked at his luggage waiting to go up on the trolley. All he had in his trunks were three-piece linen suits and gabardine trousers. And the pith helmet he’d found in his aunt’s attic which currently adorned his head.
“So, how do you like the Jungle Palace?” Stokely asked, trying to lighten the mood.
Congreve craned around and looked back at their hotel. Three stories high, a wide verandah on each floor, and surrounded by overwhelming vegetation. The shuttered windows, some open to the elements, were aglow through the misty rain.
“The Jungle Palace, I would say, only lives up to half it’s billing,” Congreve said with a grin.
“The Jungle part, you mean?” Stoke said, laughing.
“Precisely.”
Harry Brock certainly had exotic tastes in hotels. The palace was on the extreme fringes of Manaus. Brock had chosen this remote hostelry for one reason. Because it was perched on the banks of the Rio Negro; and there was a dock where Mick could moor the Grumman Goose seaplane.
Ambrose, bone tired from the flight down, sat back and tried to think positive thoughts. The hotel’s bar food was edible, at least. And the barman had Johnnie Black and was generous with his whisky. After flying by seaplane all day from Key West, it had been pleasant to taxi up to one’s private dock and heave out the luggage.
The Blue Goose, which had this day proved her airworthiness beyond question, certainly looked right at home in this tropical environment. She was moored on the river, just off the hotel dock. And, should it come time to get out of here in a hurry, Ambrose could think of no better man to do the job than the Goose’s pilot, a former bush pilot from Queensland, Mick Hocking.
All in all, there were some positives. There was a complimentary bottle of gin in one’s room. A vast four-poster with clean linen sheets stiff as boards, and acres of mosquito netting. A verandah outside his room where he could smoke his pipe in peace. And, Ambrose had learned upon checking in, there were eighteen species of bats in the garden.
How perfectly charming. All of this grandeur and luxe living, and only a scant thousand miles up the Amazon River.
Well, no matter, the game was afoot. He and Stokely Jones were wasting no time, already off on their mission to find the Widow Zimmermann and unlock the code. He had the thriller, the book he and Alex Hawke now fondly called the Da Zimmermann Code, resting in his lap. He had sweated bullets over the damn thing, reading and re-re-reading the book until his eyes glazed over.
Finding Hildegard Zimmermann was vital. There was simply nothing more he could do, no possible arrangement or rearrangement of words or ciphers, that would budge it forward past the mid-point. Where were those brainy chaps in Room 40 when one really needed them?
He closed his eyes, exhausted, in the vain hope of a catnap before they arrived at their destination.
“We’re here,” Stoke said seconds later, and he sat bolt upright just as they drove through the iron gates. There was a dimly lit guardhouse and uniformed sentries on either side of it. Seeing the Police shields on their doors, the guards snapped to a salute as the speeding buggy passed through. Ambrose noticed high stone walls with nasty concertina wire atop them. They soon passed under an arch, including an ancient portcullis, and now were on the hospital grounds proper.
St. James Infirmary suddenly loomed in the headlights. It looked more like a large prison reformatory than a hospital for destitute children. Pretty ghastly, but there you had it. They slowed, and Stokely waved some kind of credential at a lone sentry posted at the entrance to the bricked forecourt. He waved them in, and Stoke parked next to a decades old ambulance standing just outside the main entrance.
“I speak fluent Portuguese,” Congreve reminded Stokely, opening his door. “Just in case.”
“Don’t say anything unless you have to,” Stoke said as they climbed out of the car. “Anybody wants to know, you’re an English doctor who’s here to examine the patient for scientific reasons.”
“And who are you?”
“A friend of the guy who slipped the Chief of State Security in Manaus ten grand so you could see her tonight, Doc.”
“Ah. Why is she here?”
“This is where you go before you disappear.”
At the end of a long dark hall, an elderly woman in a starched nurse’s uniform sat at a reception desk in a pool of white light.
“May I help you?” the old woman said, her Portuguese sounding very neutral, if not downright unfriendly. She was tapping her pencil on a clipboard: a sign-in sheet upside down.
“Good evening, I’m here to see a patient,” Congreve replied cordially in the nurse’s native tongue.
“Name?”
“Mine? Or, the patient’s?”
“Yours,” she said, rather impatiently.
“Dr. Congreve. Dr. Ambrose Congreve.”
She checked the clipboard and looked up at Stokely. “Who is he?”
“My driver.”
Stokely offered her his best credential, a broad white smile.
She hesitated, then wrote something on a thin slip of note paper. She folded the paper and shoved it across the desk. In return, Stoke slid a sealed envelope across to her. She pocketed the envelope and nodded her head, indicating the stairwell.
“The Latin way,” Stoke said, opening the note the nurse had gi
ven him.
“It works,” Congreve replied, following him to the stairs.
“Your driver? You have to say that?”
“Whom would have me say you were?”
“Psychiatrist would be more like it. I’ve been trying to cure your fear of flying all damn day.”
“Where are we going, Dr. Jones?”
“Room 313,” Stoke said, “Top floor.”
If the hospital was grim, the top floor was grimmer. It was a long, poorly lit corridor. Filthy. There was a nurse’s station situated beneath a skylight at the center of the wide hall. The periodic lightning flashes gave the elderly nurse on duty a distinctly netherworld appearance. She wore steel-rimmed spectacles that glinted with each strobe as she silently watched their approach.
They paused at her desk and another envelope was delivered and pocketed. The nurse said a few words in Portuguese and Congreve nodded.
“What did she say?” Stoke asked.
“We’re allowed ten minutes, max. No gifts. No items can enter or leave the room.”
“You’ve got the lady’s book?”
“Of course. Underneath my mackintosh.”
Room 313 was at the end of the long hall, on the right. The door was closed and Ambrose tapped lightly upon it before entering. The patient was in a bed on the far side of the room, beneath a dormer window overlooking the hospital grounds. Heat lightning flickered in the heavy cumulus clouds moving rapidly over the treetops.
A candle was burning on the woman’s bedside table, and it nearly guttered out when the door swung open. Ambrose fingered a switch on the wall but nothing happened. A jagged arc of lightning flashed across the sky as the two men crossed to the bed.
There was a sagging shelf of books and a crucifix mounted on the wall above her head. Asleep, she was lovely. White hair framed her pale face, and her thin chest rose and fell slowly under the white muslin gown. There was only a whisper of breath from her lips. She appeared so peaceful propped up against her pillow, Congreve was loath to disturb her.
“Hand me that chair, will you?” he whispered to Stokely.
“Thank you.” He pulled the wooden chair right up to the bed. He placed his gift on the nightstand beside the candle. Then he reached out and gently took the old woman’s hand.
“Frau Zimmermann?”
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Ja?” She responded automatically in German, asking Congreve if it was time for her medicine.
“Nein, nein,” Congreve said in a perfect mimicry of her dialogue, “I’m a friend of your late husband, come to ask you a favor.”
“Was ist los? What’s going on?” she asked, raising her head from the pillow and searching Congreve’s face. Stokely hung back in the shadows, invisible in this light.
“Do you speak English, Madam Zimmermann? It would be simpler.”
“Of course I speak English. I am a diplomat’s wife.” Her voice was remarkably strong given her feeble appearance.
“I saw the ambassador in England. Shortly before he died.”
“You knew my husband?”
“Not well. We met once, but we spoke of many things. He…he asked me to give you this. It was his last request.”
“Gifts are not allowed in here,” she said, a flicker of fear in her eyes, but then she saw the book in Congreve’s hand.
“Please take it. There is a letter for you. Inside.”
She took the book and it fell open to reveal the letter. She pulled the single page from the envelope. Congreve watched her eyes scan the rows of numerals as easily as if she were reading a child’s poem.
She folded the book across her chest and closed her eyes. For a moment, Congreve thought she’d gone back to sleep.
“Whose side are you on, Doctor?” she said, her eyes remaining shut.
“Your husband’s,” Congreve said, silently praying it was the right answer.
“Why have you come?”
“Before he died, your husband saved the lives of many hundreds of people at Heathrow Airport. I believe that, knowing the end was near for him, he had…he had a change of heart. About whatever it was he’d been involved with.”
“He was a broken man, Doctor Congreve. These people in Brasilia, these Arabs, they tricked him into doing things he should never have involved himself in. The bombing at the synagogue in Rio. What could he do? He protected his family. He was a good man, Doctor. A statesman. He had a brilliant career.”
“Why did he do it?”
“Money, of course. Why does one do anything? Money or power. He had plenty of the latter. He knew I was dying. We had spent all our money. We lived too well for too long. Sold everything. He still needed money for my treatment. Sadly, it only prolonged the agony. Look at me.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Have you broken our code?”
“Some of it. There is a break, right in the middle and—”
“I know, I—forgive me. I’m very tired.”
“I’ve come because I think you can help me, Frau Zimmermann. You, too, might save a lot of lives.”
“Help you?”
“With the balance of the code. Help me break it. Please. It’s another attack, isn’t it? Against the Americans this time?”
The nurse cracked the door and said, “Five more minutes.”
After she’d gone, the woman said, “I don’t want to die in this horrid place, Doctor. I want to go home.”
Congreve looked quickly over at Stokely, who nodded his head in the affirmative.
“Perhaps I can arrange that. I will try. I know someone who may be able to help you. You have to tell me who is responsible for your being here.”
She suddenly opened her blue eyes and looked up at him.
“Do you promise? You’ll help?”
“I promise. But you have to help me first. Now. There isn’t much time, I’m afraid. A matter of a week or less, if what I’ve deciphered thus far is accurate. Tell me who is holding you against your will. And why.”
“The answer lies above.”
“Above?”
“With Jesus.”
Congreve’s eyes went immediately to the crucifix. His mind racing, he looked at the peeling paint on Christ’s robe, the faded gold leaf of the cross. The feet, he noticed, and the hands, had nails driven through them directly into the plaster wall. The wood and porcelain figure would be difficult to remove and examine. There was no time.
“Jesus? I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”
“No, no, not the crucifix. The books! The books beneath the cross!”
“Ah. Of course.”
Ambrose stood and examined the drooping shelf of books, scanning the titles on the spines. They were mostly works of European history and politics. A book of poems by Longfellow. However, in the exact middle was a single novel. He pulled it from the shelf and examined the dust-jacket of the hardcover book.
O Codigo Da Vinci.
“If you know enough to bring me this book, you’ll understand that one. You’ll find the answers to your questions in that volume, Doctor.”
“The second half of the Zimmermann Code is in the Portuguese edition of the Da Vinci book,” Congreve said, more to himself than anyone in the room. It was not really a question.
“Yes. You’ll find the second half of my husband’s letter can easily be decoded with the Portuguese translation. It’s the way he liked to do things.”
The nurse was at the door again. Before she’d finished clearing her throat, Ambrose whirled and looked at her.
“One minute! Please!” Ambrose said it so sharply and with such authority that the nurse instantly withdrew, pulling the door softly shut behind her.
The poor woman looked up at him with pleading eyes.
“Exchange the dust jackets, I beg you, Doctor. Then replace the Portuguese edition on the shelf with the English one you brought. They check all my possessions. Every night. If one book is missing, I’ll go hungry. Or, worse.”
“One more que
stion. Who is doing this to you? Who poisoned your husband?”
“The ones who come in the night. Las Medianoches.”
“Thank you,” Ambrose said, quickly slipping her book inside his yellow mac. “Thank you very, very much indeed. May I have your husband’s letter back, Madame Zimmermann? I promise to mail it along with the book to you when I’ve finished my work here.”
“Of course. The book is worthless without the letter. Good-bye, Doctor Congreve. I do pray I shall go home soon. I want to die in my own bed.”
“I shall do all that I can. I promise you. Good-bye.”
“Papa Top is an animal,” she whispered as he and Stokely moved toward the door. “He cannot be understood any other way. He cannot be treated in a civilized way, Doctor. Never forget that.”
“What is it?” Stokely whispered as they hurried down the hallway and into the stairwell. “What’s with the book?”
“It’s so simple!” Congreve said under his breath. “I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it myself.”
“What?” Stokely said as they reached the bottom of the steps and walked quickly past Reception.
“The Portuguese edition of the thriller. The one sold here in Brazil. The second half of the coded letter is in Portuguese.”
“Yeah. Tell me again why you can’t believe you didn’t think of that before?”
“Because it was a possibility, my dear Stokely.”
Stoke was going to say that possibilities were endless, but decided not to get into that philosophical argument. He said, “So, we’ve got it now? What you and Alex needed to go after the bad guys?”
“Yes, we’ve got it all right. I pray that we do. And we’ve got to get that poor woman out of here. Did you see her tongue? Her skin? The same river-borne bacterial infection they used to kill her husband. We need to get your Mr. Brock on this issue immediately. Get her out of there.”
They climbed inside the car and Stokely turned the ignition key.