by Ted Bell
“Don’t worry,” Stokely said, “Brock and I will take care of it in the morning.”
“The Latin way,” Ambrose said, feverishly turning the pages of the new book. “I certainly hope you’re right.”
As they reversed out of the courtyard, tires squealing, the matronly figure of the Reception nurse appeared at the doorway. She raised her hand and appeared to be calling to them but they ignored her. A moment later, they’d cleared the sentry booth without a problem and were back on the river road, speeding through the pink dawn to the Jungle Palace.
Unseen by the two men, another car had pulled out of the jungle in their wake and was following at a discreet distance, its headlamps extinguished. It was an armored vehicle belonging to the Military Police, a car bristling with gun barrels called a Cavelrao by the terrified citizens living in abject poverty in the worst of the slums, the favelas of Manaus.
62
THE RIO NEGRO
S tiletto knifed through the mist and ghosted toward the dock. The only lights visible on the vessel were a reddish glow from inside the wheelhouse and the red and green LED running lights inset forward on the sharp prow, small haloes of mist encircling each one. As she steamed up river, coming around the wide river bend out of the dark, she looked more like a Jules Verne fantasy submarine than the twenty-first-century monster offshore powerboat she was.
Stokely said, “Damn thing looks like an assault knife with a rudder. Doesn’t it?”
The hotel’s dock master was standing on the dock beside Stokely watching Hawke’s boat slide through the water. The wiry little guy, whose name was Candido, was nodding his head in serious agreement. He let out a long, low wolf-whistle.
“Scary looking thing, Señor Jones,” he said in pretty good English. “I’m telling you the truth, man. Those fuckin Indians they got up the river? Most of ’em never seen a white man. They see this boat, they’re already half toasted.”
Candido had been helping Stokely and Harry load miscellaneous supplies, extra ammo, and fresh vegetables on the dock for the last couple of hours or so. He was Stoke’s new best friend. How that happened, Mr. Jones had come out to the dock and handed him a thick envelope earlier in the day. Since then, Candido had been filling his guest in on recent activities of Las Medianoches in this neck of the jungle. If Hollywood was doing these bad boys it would be al-Qaeda meets the Gangbangers meets the Hell’s Angels. As far as Stoke could tell, they were a law unto themselves around here. And there was nobody, including the Military Police, that they did not own.
Nobody.
“Carpet tacks?” Stoke said, eyeing the big canvas sacks of the things. “I still don’t know why we need carpet tacks.”
“You will understand, Mr. Jones, once you’re on the river. That, I promise you,” Candido said, this wise grin on his face.
Stoke shrugged and stared at the oncoming craft, trying to imagine such a beautiful thing in the heat of battle. He could just make out Hawke. He was the man in the black turtleneck sweater, standing on the starboard bow, talking quietly to the crewmen. Crew had on their jungle camo, Stokely noticed, olive drab tiger stripes. The deck hands were preparing to throw mooring lines to a couple of hotel dockhands waiting for the big vessel’s arrival.
It was getting late. Without traffic, the river looked wide, deep, and black. Tendrils of night fog lay scattered on the mirrored surface of the Rio Negro like strings of thin gray wool. The dark jungle crowding the river banks on either side was dead quiet. Stoke shivered just a bit when a howler monkey screamed, shattering the peaceful silence.
Midnight. Hawke was right on time.
Stiletto, her engines ahead dead slow, eased alongside the old wooden picr and lines were heaved ashore. The still air was now filled with the low rumble of her engines and the sounds of her exhaust burbling at the stern. No one on deck said a word now, even Hawke, who had waved briefly when he recognized Stoke among the men lining the hotel dock.
Guns were out onboard Hawke’s boat. Every man not handling lines cradled a semi-automatic weapon. Stoke saw some familiar faces. A lot of these men were old friends of his from the Thunder and Lightning Spec Ops group based in Martinique. He scanned the faces, looking for his little pal Froggy, the Foreign Legionnaire. Didn’t see him yet.
During Stiletto’s last hours in Key West and rapid transit south, certain modifications had been made. Mods included the addition of four sleek carbon fiber canoes mounted at the stern for when and if they ran out of navigable water. Deck guns had been mounted, fore and aft in rotating turrets armored with bubbles of clear, two-inch thick bulletproof Lexan. In addition, twin .50 caliber machine guns had been mounted atop the wheelhouse with an access from a ladder inside. There was an armored surround on the mounts so gunners would have reasonably good protection from shore fire.
Also on the stern, two mysterious black boxes. Something Hawke had requested from unnamed sources in Washington after his debriefing with Harry Brock. Stoke thought they looked like oversized dishwashers but they probably weren’t.
Stoke knew the two things Hawke feared most on the river were mines and rocket-propelled grenades. RPGs, launched from the banks, could take out the deck guns despite the armor. There was only one antidote to RPGs and that was speed. For speed, though, you needed a whole lot of water. So what was in the boxes?
“Welcome to the jungle, Commander,” Stoke said, extending a hand as Hawke stepped easily across the two feet of open water that remained between boat and dock.
“Good to be back,” Hawke said, looking back at Stiletto in the steamy moonlight. “Under more advantageous circumstances.”
“Trip didn’t take long.”
“Flat seas and light wind all the way, except for the rough bits off eastern Cuba. Upriver, we were mostly flat out all the way from the coast. Brownie, her new skipper, says we set a Key West-Manaus record. This thing is seriously fast, Stoke. Despite all the composite armor and weapons.”
“I think we’re going to need every bit of it,” Stoke said, casting his eyes downriver.
“I’m afraid we will indeed. Everybody ready here? I want to shove off immediately after the tanks are topped off.”
“I got my stuff right here. The Blue Goose is gone. She took off two hours ago. The pilot, Mick, and Harry Brock, plus a couple of local people Harry’s been working with down here.”
“Any good?”
“Yeah. I think so. Ones who helped him locate this Papa Top character. And found that Zimmermann lady for Ambrose. They don’t exactly admit to it, but I think they’re both with some Brazilian Spec Ops unit called Falcon Five. A man and a seriously good-looking woman.”
“You trust them?”
“Down here? I don’t trust anybody.”
Hawke nodded, thinking through the next steps. Time was dwindling rapidly and he had to use every hour as best he could. “Let’s go aboard and attack the maps while they fuel this beast. Where’s the world’s most ingenious detective?”
“See that light burning in the upstairs corner window? That’s him. Working away.”
“God love him,” Hawke said, “I just hope he can crack this bloody thing. We’re running out of time.”
63
H awke and Stokely faced each other across a map-strewn table in the small cabin that would serve as Stiletto’s war room. Stoke told Hawke all about the visit he and Ambrose had paid to the St. James Infirmary the night before. He recounted Congreve’s conversation with the imprisoned elderly widow and explained Congreve’s reaction upon discovering the Portuguese version of the novel.
“Giddy?” Hawke said, smiling.
“Your word, not mine. But, yeah, I’d say he was giddy over getting that book.”
“Damn good work, you and Ambrose finding that woman. That book may yet help us stop this bastard.”
“Well, all I can tell you, the man has been in his room ever since we got back just before dawn last night. Been holed up in there all day. Working on his code. Won’t answer the phone,
won’t even come to the door. I sent him some room service and it sat outside the damn door so long they finally took it away.”
“Got the bone in his teeth, all right. That’s good. Let him keep beavering away right up until it’s time to shove off.”
“What’s so special about this book we got last night? It’s a novel, isn’t it? Fiction. We don’t have a whole lot of time for fairy tales right now.”
“The book was encoded. This woman’s husband, Ambassador Zimmermann, was dirty. Mixed up with al-Qaeda here in Brazil. And possibly the Mexican, Cuban, and Venezuelan governments as well. Remember what your friend from Caracas told us?”
“The Mambo King? Yeah, Colonel Monteras told us what we already knew. That el Presidente Chávez of Venezuela was determined to bring down the American government. And he was using his oil money, buying those Russian anti-ship missiles from Cuba to help make that happen. Sink tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. Start the war that way.”
“Chávez has his own plans for dealing with America. I’ll let the Yanks worry about those missiles for now. Top is the more imminent threat. We’ve got enough on our plate.”
“But you think Top is in cahoots with Chávez?”
“Chávez may be bankrolling Top, Stoke. Based on what Harry Brock told me, Top’s weapons development alone requires massive amounts of cash. And Chávez is rolling in the stuff right now. Chávez, Fidel, and Top all have the same objective. They’re just coming at it from differing perspectives.”
Half an hour later, Hawke straightened up and stretched his back muscles. He’d been bent over the bloody maps with Stokely for too long, and he hadn’t had any exercise in forty-eight hours. He was tempted to go for a night swim in the river but there wasn’t time.
“Now you know why they built their stronghold in this part of the jungle,” Hawke said, looking at Stokely across the table. “No satellite imagery, no aerial recon photos, no thermals, nothing. Just a bloody map with a ton of green on it.”
“It’s a bitch all right. How do you find something that isn’t on a map?”
“I think Harry Brock has at least gotten us within spitting distance. We’ll see for ourselves shortly.”
“So, when we do go in, this will be Brock’s LZ here,” Stokely said, “The strip where he saw the drones and the little remote control tanks.”
Stoke was pointing to the small red grease mark Brock had placed on the laminated map of the target area. An inch away was a long yellow mark indicating the deep ravine that was believed to be the western perimeter of Top’s compound.
“Yeah. Brock’s land force goes in there, moves toward the river. We move west from the river and join them roughly here.”
“Where exactly do we go in?”
“Good question. Captain Brownlow is plugging river waypoints into the GPS guidance and weapons systems now. Brock believes we’ll find Top’s central command approximately here. Somewhere along this stretch of water is a camouflaged bridge. Find that bridge and we’ve found Top.”
Hawke used his index finger to trace his intended route on the map.
“The Black River?” Stoke said, looking through the large magnifying glass.
“Right. To get there, we execute a rapid backtrack east on the Amazon to the mouth of the Madeira River here. Then head due south along this large tributary. At this point, right here, the junction of the Aripuana and the Roosevelt, we—”
“Whoa. Roosevelt? That’s the river’s name? Down here?”
“Teddy Roosevelt. Back in 1908, he led an expedition looking for something called the River of Doubt. T.R. found it, everybody thinks anyway, and the Brazilians named it after him. Rio Roosevelt.”
“You don’t think he found it? The river?”
“There’s still some doubt, pardon the pun, in London’s geographic circles. There’s another river. It’s called the Igapo, or Black River. You can only see it with the glass. It’s this tiny hairline tributary that disappears into the forest here. No one’s ever found the source. Or, even where it ends. My friends back at the Geographical Society think it actually goes underground and resurfaces in a distant location still uncharted. I think this river might have been the one the great Bull Moose was actually looking for.”
“So this river, the Igapo, is not really on any map. Even now, in the age of electronic miracles.”
“Right.”
“So, we’re winging it.”
“To some extent, yes, we are.”
“Excuse me, Skipper?”
Brownlow was at the door.
“Yes, Cap’n?” Hawke said.
“Wanted to make sure everyone was aboard. We’re topped off and ready to get underway.”
“Is Chief Inspector Congreve aboard yet?”
“No, sir,” Brownlow said. “Haven’t seen him yet, sir.”
Hawke looked at his black-faced wristwatch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. Everyone was supposed to be aboard and prepared to shove off at midnight. “Well, we’ll just have to go fetch him. Give us ten minutes, will you? We’ll be back with him. He’s the only one missing. Everyone else has gone ahead to the next rendezvous by air.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
HAWKE AND STOKELY walked quickly through the deserted lobby, climbed three flights of stairs, and walked along the hallway until they came to Congreve’s room. The hotel had gone to sleep, by and large, and the only room showing a light under the door was the one on the left, Room 307, belonging to Ambrose Congreve.
Hawke paused a moment, listening, then put his hand on the knob. The door swung inward.
“Holy Jesus,” was all Stoke could say.
The room had been tossed. Not just tossed, heaved upside down and turned inside out. Every drawer had been pulled from desk and dresser, upended on the floor. The bed had been stripped of its bedclothes, the mattress had been pulled from the bed, sliced open and gutted, wads of stuffing everywhere.
“What the hell were they looking for?” Stoke asked.
Hawke’s eyes were brimming with anger.
He said, “Last night, Stokely. Your visit to the St. James Infirmary. Was there any trouble?”
“We were in and out of there in fifteen minutes.”
“It was Brock who told you she was there? And Brock who got you inside, too?”
“Right. Brock and five thousand U.S. dollars paid to a Major Rojales of the Military Police here in Manaus.”
“No names, right? Tell me you two didn’t use names last night.”
Stokely thought about it. “Damn. Ambrose called himself ‘Dr. Congreve’at Reception.”
“Then it’s the bloody letter they’re after. The Zimmermann Code,” Hawke said, barely keeping his anger out of his voice. How could Ambrose have been so bloody careless? A momentary lapse, probably because of his fixation with breaking that code book.
“We’ve got to help that poor woman,” Stokely said. “God knows what they’re doing to her out there.”
“Whatever it is, they’ve most likely already done it. They extracted information about the letter and the fact that Ambrose had it. The Zimmermann woman is probably dead, I promise you. And she didn’t die in her sleep.”
“Look in the bathroom,” Hawke said, furiously yanking open the closet door. His friend’s expensive clothing was still on hangers, although all the pockets had been pulled out and many of the jacket linings had been slashed. The beautiful shoes, normally a neat file, were strewn about the room. He’d never had time to pack. His mind was racing, but one thought was winning. What in God’s name am I to tell Diana Mars?”
“Alex. Come here.”
Hawke went instantly to the bathroom door.
“Oh, shit,” Stokely said.
“Where?”
“Come inside and close the door.”
Hawke did so. On the white tiled floor and on the wall, a bright spatter of red blood.
Hawke stared at the pattern for a second, then looked at Stokely and said, “He didn’t cut himself shav
ing.”
“No.”
“You didn’t see him at all this morning?”
“Said goodnight outside that door last night around midnight. Didn’t see or speak to him since.”
“Look at this,” Hawke said, holding up the black bowler hat he’d found in Congreve’s closet.
“A hat with a hole in it. That’s not Ambrose’s style.”
“It’s a voodoo calling card. From Papa Top, I’d guess. He’s half-Hatian and they’re big Voodoo worshippers.”
“I got it now.”
“Bastards have got my friend,” Hawke said. “Let’s go.”
64
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
A nother ghost truck,” Franklin said to Daisy, shaking his head.
“That’s what I’m telling you, darlin’. Another ghost truck. Only this one, we got cornered.”
“Who calls them ghost trucks?”
“Me and June. We got it from Homer.”
Daisy was driving the pickup. She had just picked up her husband outside the American Airlines baggage claim at San Antonio Airport. All he had was a small duffel which he heaved in the back before he climbed in. She handed her ticket stub and five bucks to the hourly parking attendant and popped the clutch, not waiting for change.
“Daisy. Since I’ve been gone, you’ve gunned down an armed man in the street, you’ve—”
“Excuse me—that was June shot the Mexican looter. Not me.”
“You were just driving the getaway truck.”
“Correct. Trying to deliver your videotape like you asked us to do. And we did.”
“And you did. I thank you for that.”
“What are you so upset about?”
“Nothin. I’m tired, honey.”
Daisy reached over and took her husband’s hand. “Didn’t all those Washington people appreciate June’s tape? Wasn’t it what you needed down there at the conference?”
“It was. I think it’s already on its way to the White House. The president might use it in his speech to the Congress tonight.”