Orinoco
Page 29
But all this was incidental. What seized Jacqueline’s attention was the salon’s utter emptiness. Her father had rushed elsewhere. But where were the five crew members, or the two tough security types? Then she noticed the starboard door gaping open and smoke curling in over the coaming.
She had moved in that direction when a popping and spitting noise behind made her turn. The white vinyl-upholstered benches around the fantail were on fire. Before she could react, one of the young crewman—freckle-faced Denis with the Cajun accent—appeared with a Halon cylinder, directing a stream of liquefied gas on the flaming cushions. An instant later, the fire had leaped to his pantlegs. The youth screamed and went right over the side in a flat dive, still holding the extinguisher.
Jacqueline ducked out the starboard door, looked forward—and gasped. All along the waterfront, lurid flames danced against the night sky. And two hundred yards away, the last flaming wreckage of the ore carrier cast skittery orange reflections across the dark water toward the Kallisto.
But the fire was already on board and spreading all around her. She felt its heat strongly out here, saw and heard it attacking the teakwood decks and paneling. Then came a shout from forward. She stared into thick smoke on the tapering foredeck in time to see her father backing out, shouting again at someone and gesturing wildly upward. The boat deck above obstructed Jacqueline’s view, but she feared the pilothouse was in flames. Or perhaps the entire upperworks were engulfed—just as panic was engulfing her now. But how could the steel-hulled Kallisto burn like this—like so much cordwood? And hadn’t her father boasted of the automatic Halon suppression system in the engine room? A lot of good that was doing now!
She cried out to him—”Daddy!”—and raced forward.
D.W. had seen her, but yelled and motioned her back violently. Then she saw why. Flames were eating along the varnished teak rails between them and lashing out through the shattered window frames of the dining salon. Still, she would have dashed through, defying D.W.’s orders out of her need for him, but with each step now she felt the blistering heat of the decking through her ridiculous down booties, as the tar boiled up between the teakwood planks. She cursed herself for not taking an extra few seconds below to put on real shoes.
Thank God, her father was braving the flames and rushing toward her. But when he was halfway to her, a yard-square hunk of upper deck tore loose and crashed between them in a thudding shower of smoking ash and sparks. Jacqueline’s backward leap saved her life, for immediately afterward a smoldering section of the radar mast slammed down on the rail and toppled partway overside. Jacqueline escaped with only minor cuts from the trailing tangle of guywires.
Across this impassable, burning-metal barrier now, she and her father stared helplessly at one other. D.W. was yelling—she could not hear his words over the flames—and motioning for her to jump overboard. But the smoking debris of the mast effectively blocked the entire section of railing before her and sizzled in the swirling current below. Worse, a panicky glance to her right showed a fresh hemorrhage of flames cutting off her path astern. She was trapped there—with the soles of her feet starting to fry.
There was one way out. She bolted back through the salon, zigzagging to avoid pockets of flame. She trampled through broken glass and banged out the opposite door onto the covered port deck. Large portions of dockside were ablaze here, too. She scanned swiftly fore and aft, hoping that her father had circled to meet her. But the only person she saw was a Venezuelan security guy, leaping overboard from the flaming fantail, still cradling his submachine gun.
Perhaps her father had also jumped ship. God, please!
Then she grabbed the heat-blistered rail and swung her legs over. She dangled a moment, scorching her palms and the back of her thighs through the cotton robe as flames licked upward from the lower deck windows. But she was afraid to drop into the gap of oily black water, where hissing, red-hot debris continued to splash down. Instead, she leaped outward for the smoldering edge of the wharf.
She landed on a plank that nearly crumbled to charcoal beneath her, scrambled up and sprinted blindly through smoke, scanning ahead to find uncharred footing. Then she felt searing heat on her legs, glanced down and saw the entire bottom of her robe in flames. She ripped the garment off and ran on naked, doubling back toward the Kallisto’s burning bow, hoping to find her father. Through swirling smoke now, she saw several other figures, silhouetted against the flames and running in different directions on the wharf. A soldier thumped right by her in his boots, rifle in hand, then vanished into acrid vapors. But there was no sign of her father, though she shouted his name continuously now.
Then someone touched her arm. Jacqueline whirled to find an Indian padding along beside her. Except for a black stocking cap, the top of which barely reached her chin, the man was naked like herself—actually running barefoot on the smoking dockboards—and smeared all over with some kind of black grease. He was smiling at her, and seemed totally unconcerned. Strangest of all, Jacqueline knew she’d seen him before, but couldn’t recall where.
“You looking for father?” the Indian asked.
“My father? Where is he? You’ve seen him?”
“Sí, sí. Father is okay.” A grin accompanied this assurance. “We take you to him.”
“We?”
Jacqueline turned to see whom the Indian meant. A much larger Indian, wearing telephone company coveralls, was now right behind her. She recognized him, too. Were they the natives who sold her the blowgun and darts at Camp Canaima? She wasn’t sure. But this giant scooped her up in his arms as though she were weightless, swung around and began thumping along through the smoke, away from the toward what looked like a warehouse—one still untouched by fire. The smaller Indian tagged along beside them.
And suddenly Jacqueline remembered where she’d seen them. On Cerro Calvario. Hanging out with Arquimedeo’s funny old uncle. Uncle Oscar.
The terrorist!
She screamed, then kicked and clawed at her big captor, but the man seemed impervious. And wrapped in his arms, she was unable to make use of her tae kwon do combat techniques. Even when she managed to slash his cheek and draw blood, his grin only broadened. So, he found her fury amusing, did he? She went for his eyes next, but the smaller Indian clamped his hands around her wrists.
Now they were loping down a smoky alley between embedded rail tracks, as flickering firelight threw their demonic shadows ahead. She spied the phone truck parked beside a loading dock. She knew she was going to be put inside it and driven away. Kidnapped. A moment later she was dumped over the doorless tailgate. The Indians followed, the small one warning her idiotically to watch out for broken glass.
Inside this black hole, she lashed out with a side kick and slammed her heel painfully against a metal wheel well. Then the engine coughed and sputtered to life, and she saw someone in the front seat, etched against the dashlights and blown-out windshield. The dark head turned, and in the faint light she knew it was Oscar Azarias. The police were right all along about him being the Bandera Roja terrorist.
“Please, Señorita Lee,” he said with a certain gravelly unction, “don’t fight us. No harm will come to you.”
“Then let me go, you bastard!” she spat back. “I’m Arquimedeo’s friend—yes, I know who you are, and the police know exactly who you are. And they’ve put Arqui in jail just because he helped you! Damn you, let me out of here!”
Perhaps it was not the most persuasive tack. In any case, the old man didn’t even bother to respond. He simply barked something in Spanish to his men and turned back to the wheel, releasing the handbrake and driving off, without lights.
Jacqueline felt this would be her last chance to escape. Later, no matter how much money her father paid in ransom—if he were even alive!—they’d rape her, kill her, or both. Wasting not a breath on screaming, she struggled once more to get free, at least to reach the door handle. Then, when they swarmed on top of her, she raked her hands blindly at them. The large Ind
ian grunted beside her, a massive arm pinned both of hers. Another hand slapped a wet cloth over her mouth and nose.
Jacqueline tried to bite the fingers, but she felt a dry, burning sensation on her lips, and her head was reeling from cloying fumes. Chloroform, came the instant thought. But she couldn’t give up! Then, as the hand clamped tighter, she suddenly remembered the little revolver she’d stuffed in her robe. Dear God, please let it still be there!
Fighting blackout, she groped for the weapon, slapping feebly at her thigh, then pawing at her lap. But there was no gun. And no robe. She’d thrown it away, and the revolver with it.
She was totally helpless now—and even if she had a pistol in her hand, far too weak even to pull the trigger. Her boiling rage, her bitter anguish, amounted finally to no more than a muffled cough behind the chloroformed handkerchief. Then she went limp in the Kamarakota’s arms.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The southeastern-facing rooms of the Inter-Continental Guayana are all advertised as con vista del río, “with a view of the river.” But this is gross understatement. Certainly the penthouse suites on this favored side boast one of the hotel world’s truly spectacular panoramas. From the fifth-floor windows, one can see the lush greenery of three parks and two waterfalls. Eddying and flowing between these cataracts is a considerable sweep of Venezuela’s second great river, the Caroní, nearing the finish of its five-hundred mile journey north from the Guayana Highlands to the Orinoco.
On the morning after the San Félix waterfront bombing, the tenant of one of these luxury suites stood before this grand vista, but without the slightest interest in what he was seeing. In fact, Duk-Won Lee saw very little, and that swimmingly. He had gone to the window wall only to put his back to the room and hide his welling tears from the half-dozen men who had come there to offer him their comfort and counsel.
A gauze pad was taped to his right forearm over a second-degree burn, and his left temple and cheek were bandaged where they’d been lacerated by flying glass. But the gravest injury could be seen as D.W. wiped his face and turned back to the others. His eyes, though dry now, remained inflamed and haunted by despair. They obviously did not wish to focus on any of these associates and functionaries arrayed so conscientiously before him. They were the eyes of a man who wanted to see one thing only in all the world—his daughter, safely returned.
Part of the hellish night D.W. had passed at the hospital. He’d been treated and released very early that morning. En route to the hotel, he had prevailed on his security escort to stop by the docks. There, in the sudden tropical dawn, he’d viewed the charred remains of his $2-million motor yacht. The Kallisto was still afloat, and tethered with fresh ropes, but was little more than a mangled and eviscerated hulk.
D.W. gave it barely a passing glance. Among the investigators prowling the stretch of blackened wharfside, he had spotted Captain Marco-Aurelio Siso of the DISIP. The security policeman had had clearly a long night of it himself. His pompadour had collapsed into a grizzled nest, and his scarified cheeks were dark-stubbled and sunken.
Divers had so far recovered four corpses from the submerged halves of the ore ship, Siso had confirmed, and grisly parts of at least three more victims. Another body had washed up a kilometer downstream and been identified as the ore ship’s radio operator. All five of the Kallisto’s crew, meanwhile, were safely ashore and accounted for, plus the two security men D.W. had hired.
Which left Jacqueline.
Siso now had two pieces of evidence—one physical, one verbal. Both indicated that D.W.’s daughter had also escaped the fiery ship—only to be carried off by persons unknown, presumably the terrorists who had planted the explosives.
The first they’d found wedged between charred dock timbers. It was an incinerated clump of fabric. Wrapped inside was a fire-blackened and badly mangled Smith & Wesson Lady Smith .38 special revolver. The wooden grips were burnt out, the top strap ripped open, the two-inch barrel cracked. But make, model and identification numbers were all readable. The round in line with the barrel had fired. The other four rounds had ignited in their chambers, primer and powder, bursting their cartridge cases and splitting the cylinder.
Captain Siso recounted this information from his notebook. When he found his voice, D.W. explained that he’d given his daughter the pistol right after hearing the explosions. He also confirmed that she’d been wearing a white terry robe.
The second piece of evidence came from a National Guardsman, who’d seen a naked girl being carried away from the waterfront by a large man, and a smaller, black man running beside them. All three had vanished into the pall of smoke. Because of the blasts and spreading fires, the Guardia man had naturally assumed he was witnessing a rescue and had not thought to pursue them.
Upon receipt of this devastating information, D.W. had been bundled off to this hastily commandeered penthouse, where his security detail felt far more comfortable. D.W.’s agony, however, was unabated, and seemed to worsen by the minute. Only reluctantly had he accepted a small dose of Valium to help him cope, after the hotel physician assured him it would not sedate him. Still, he had not slept.
Among the many things that tortured him now was the fact that it had all been utterly preventable, and therefore entirely his fault. That damning truth had been driven home to him again a few minutes earlier when he’d telephoned his ex-wife’s attorney in Boston.
The dockside explosions and fires had, of course, been bannered in local headlines and newscasts. And now, despite official denials, the terrorist-Proteus connection and Jacqueline Lee’s disappearance had also been discovered, with early details set to move on world wire services. D.W. couldn’t have Jacqueline’s mother hearing this nightmarish news secondhand. The attorney was now contacting her physician and would phone back. Then D.W. would have to make that dreaded call. Julienne would blame him, of course. And this time she’d be right.
Back in the Caribbean, when first notified of the work stoppage on Cerro Calvario, D.W. had ordered Jacqueline to fly home. Predictably, she had defied him, and just as predictably, she had won the contest of wills. Now, in stark hindsight, D.W. saw the terrible escalation, not of his daughter’s rebellion, but of his own negligence as a father. He did not blame himself so much for permitting her to play anticapitalist filmmaker. But he would never forgive himself for allowing her to camp out on that mountain among radical rabble, where the chief security guard now turned out to have been a notorious terrorist and drug-smuggler! It was a miracle she hadn’t been snatched earlier.
But the self-indictment didn’t end there. For, finally, he had had Jacqueline safely back in his custody, only to lose her a second time—and perhaps irrevocably. The extra Guardia Nacional harbor patrols he’d arranged had proved ludicrously inadequate, and the two private security guards had succeeded only in saving themselves. He should have hired a small army to protect the Kallisto—or far better, flown out last night or even sailed downriver immediately, instead of waiting for first light to oblige his captain.
If only he could have any of those choices back again...
But the worst, the very worst for him was reliving those last critical minutes and reviewing all his culpable mistakes—rushing topside after the two explosions to assess the damage to the fucking ship—and abandoning his daughter! Fighting fires, directing crewmen—and leaving her unprotected!
And then came the ultimate moment, when he and Jacqueline had stared at each other through the boiling wreckage of the radar mast. Had he to do it over again, how gladly he would hurl himself over that burning barrier to reach her. Instead, he’d retreated all the way around the blazing bow and back to the portside deck—and she was gone. D.W.’s terror had spread like the flames then, as he tried to fight his way below to the cabins, screaming her name, until an impenetrable wall of smoke had forced him back...
“D.W.” Ray Arrillaga separated himself from an executive conference on the black leather sectional and crossed the plush penthouse carpeting. �
�You’d better get some rest. I promise I’ll wake you the moment we hear anything.”
“Why the hell is everybody just waiting around to hear something, Ray? Why the hell can’t somebody find these bastards?”
D.W.’s anguished growl reverberated across the big room, where the black-bearded, red-bereted Colonel Higueras of the Special Intervention Brigade, Venezuela’s crack anti-terrorist unit, was conferring with Captain Siso, who had restored his pompadoured look of the suave Mafia don. These two men were working together on the case by presidential order and would continue to do so around the clock till it was resolved. Both men now turned toward D.W., but neither showed a reaction. Certainly they understood his anguish. In any case, they’d briefed him last within the quarter-hour and had nothing more to report.
Since learning of the sabotage on Cerro Calvario two days before, teams of investigators had been running down the sordid backtrail of Oscar Azarias Rivilla. With the cooperation of Dr. Laya and DISIP’s own computerized records, they’d already talked to scores of relatives and acquaintances and jailmates, very few of whom had anything good to say about the man. More investigators, along with National Guardsmen, had prowled the barrios of Caracas, San Félix, Barquisimeto and several other cities where Oscar had landed between prison terms. But they had failed to uncover any leads to his whereabouts or to the identities of the two Indians who had been seen on Cerro Calvario with him.
With the apparent kidnapping of Jacqueline Lee, of course, that search had taken on a terrible new urgency. Unfortunately, as the security men had explained to D.W., Oscar’s trail ran cold in Maracaibo, where he’d apparently lived after getting out of Sabaneta National Prison in 1992. Captain Siso had pointedly not told D.W. that Azarias had been released with three years left on his drug-smuggling sentence, as quid pro quo for informing on several Colombian associates. By rights, the old bastard should still be doing hard time.