by Dan Pollock
They were one floor below D.W.’s penthouse in the Inter-Continental Guayana, in Sam’s smaller, wrong-side suite with a treetop and roof-tile view of Puerto Ordaz and the Río Caroní. Owen Meade was out arranging with Proteus’ local bank for a hefty withdrawal of U.S. dollars and bolívars, in anticipation of a ransom demand. After considerable arm-twisting on Sam’s part, Captain Marco-Aurelio Siso of the Seguridad Policial had finally agreed to this, but with several provisos.
First, if a ransom demand were privately received and seemed authentic, and the media were kept out of the loop, D.W. could pretend to go along, no matter how outrageous the demands—financially, politically, or whatever. But once he’d gotten instructions for ransom delivery and received proof of his daughter’s current safety, the federal cops would take over—the DISIP agents lying in wait to entrap the kidnapper, and the Special Intervention Brigade ready to rescue Jacqueline.
Siso had also suggested they might electronically “tag” the money, by concealing miniaturized transmitters in the packets. His agents could then home in on the signal and apprehend the fleeing kidnapper. Sam and D.W. strongly objected to the idea of double-crossing a wily old bastard like Oscar, a man who might have dealt with large currency payoffs and similar dirty tricks during his years in the cocaine trade with Carlos Lehder. But they decided to let the matter pass. The immediate priority was to get the cash in hand.
Meanwhile, news of the presumed terrorist kidnapping and photos of the American industrialist’s exotic daughter were all over the newspapers and TV. As a result, police and Guardia stations throughout Venezuela were receiving calls from people either claiming to be the Bandera Roja kidnappers or to have seen them or the missing heiress. Investigators were busy running down all these blind alleys, thus far verifying none of the sightings, but managing to phone-trace and detain several unbalanced individuals. Captain Siso and his boss, a Colonel Acosta, had not judged any of the claimants worth being put in negotiating contact with Señor Lee. Should that occur, however, technicians from DISIP and CANTV were also in place in the penthouse to monitor and trace the calls.
Augmenting the police search, since dawn Venezuelan Air Force planes and helicopters had been flying low-level patrols over the vastness of Guri Lake, tracing its ragged margins and following out the many roads and rivers radiating from it. U.S. satellite reconnaissance photos of the area had also been officially requested. Jacqueline Lee’s presence in that abandoned CANTV truck had now been confirmed, as forensic scientists matched hairs recovered from its interior with others found on an armchair in the guest room she’d occupied at the La Promesa ranch.
Against this background of hectic and so far fruitless activity, there seemed little for Sam or D.W. to do. Or so both men had reluctantly concluded after a brief conference in Sam’s suite. Wearily now, D.W. turned to go back upstairs to the penthouse command post. But at the door he hesitated:
“Sam, there’s something else I came down here to say.”
“I figured there was.”
“I screwed you, Sam. We both know it, but I have to say it.”
“Why doesn’t that sound exactly like an apology, Duke?”
“I didn’t say I was sorry. You jerked me around a lot of years, Sam, after promising me your job. So when I saw my chance with the board to get even, I did it.”
“Well, I guess that sets the record about straight. Looks like we’ve been a couple poisonous old Gila monsters, circling in the noon sun, snapping and hissing. And you’re right, Duke. I did jerk you around a couple years longer there than I should have. Hell, I’ll go farther than that. Booting me out was maybe the only damn way you were ever gonna get rid of me. Make you feel any better for what you did?”
D.W. grunted. “I admit I was wrong.”
“How’s that again?”
“Sam, everything I did was wrong, from the moment I sailed up the Orinoco. And now I’m paying for it, and so is Jake.”
“Don’t do that, D.W. Maybe you screwed up some as an executive, but not as a dad. She’s a hell of a girl, and a lot of what makes her great is directly a result of you. Your strength, your determination, your—” Sam broke off, seeing a tremoring around D.W.’s mouth. But he couldn’t leave it there. “That strength is gonna get her through this, D.W. And believe me, we’re gonna get her back.”
D.W. nodded meekly, but looked completely lost.
Sam went on, changing the subject: “You know, Duke, there’s someone else you shafted pretty good down here, besides me.”
“Dr. Laya?”
“That’s the right. But what I want to know is, did you help that musclebound assistant of his cook up that story about Dr. Laya falsifying the location of his findings?”
“No. Rosales came to me with it. Naturally Ray and I wanted to believe it. And for a while we did. But later it was clear the man was just a, you know, a…”
“A hustler?”
“Exactly. A two-bit hustler.” D.W. managed a weak smile. “Not ready for the prime time—like you and me, partner.”
“So what about Dr. Laya? Does he rate an apology from you?”
D.W. shrugged. “I thought about it. But when I saw him, I couldn’t do it. How can I forgive him for letting that madman get anywhere near Jacqueline? He exposed her!”
“Wait a minute, D.W. When did you see Dr. Laya? I thought he was still in police custody.”
“I don’t know his legal status. But he was upstairs a few minutes ago. They brought him in to work with a police artist, drawing a sketch of the two Indians that Oscar had with him on Cerro Calvario. They’ve got prison photographs of the old man, but nothing on the Indians.”
Sam was intrigued. “Think he’s still up there?”
“Perhaps. Captain Siso was waiting to talk to him.”
“I’m going back up with you. I’d like a word with the professor.”
*
Arquimedeo kept apologizing to the police artist that he’d not really paid much attention to his uncle’s native sidekicks. Despite this, the composite image built gradually on the computer screen, until two quite distinct faces had emerged in laser printout for duplication and distribution. Both men were wide-mouthed and blunt-nosed under basin-cropped bangs. But one was boyishly delicate, with large eyes, elfin ears and a pointed chin; while the other was coarser of feature, with jutting brow and jaw, flaring nostrils and a snarling curve to his lips.
Finally, having declared himself satisfied and insisting he had nothing further to offer Captain Siso, the archaeologist turned to leave—and ran into Sam Warrender. They shook hands.
“They’re letting you go?” Sam said.
“Yes, I’m apparently off the prime suspect list. I think the Captain is beginning to realize that nothing would give me greater satisfaction than finding Uncle Oscar myself and putting a bullet into his vicious little brain.”
“You definitely think it’s him?”
“He’s much worse than I ever realized, Sam. They told me about crimes he committed in Mexico City in the late Seventies, and for Carlos Lehder in the Caribbean in the early Eighties. Bank robberies where guards were shot, execution-style killings on Lehder’s island. I swear I never knew this. I knew my uncle was bad; I just never knew he was evil. Still, that’s no excuse for what I did. Even given the little I did know, I should never have let him anywhere around the dig—or Jacqueline. That was criminal.”
“There seems to be a lot of guilt going around just now, Professor. I guess you’re welcome to your share of it. I take it you have no idea where your uncle would hole up?”
“In the bush somewhere, I imagine. That’s what I told Captain Siso.”
“But he’s got to come out, doesn’t he? I mean, if he wants to profit from this?”
“I would think so. Oscar is quite shrewd. He’s a lifelong criminal failure on an incredible success streak—industrial sabotage, terrorist bombings, a headline kidnapping. But of one thing I’m certain. He’s not in any sense an idealist. He wants mone
y out of this—a lot of it, I imagine. I just pray he’s smart enough to know that if he harms Jacqueline in any way, he hasn’t a chance in hell of collecting a bolívar.”
“Amen to that.”
Arquimedeo gave a deprecatory shrug. “Now I’ve got to drive down to Cerro Calvario. They’re allowing me access to make a list of all the equipment my erstwhile associate made off with, and to estimate how much seismic damage those explosions did to the excavation and site substructures. By the way, Sam, I thanked Enrico for his hospitality at La Promesa, but I never had the opportunity to thank you personally. It meant a great deal and obviously came at a time when I needed allies.”
“You’ve still got one in me, Professor. I’m gonna make you a promise. When this insanity is over, we’re gonna get those bulldozers the hell off that iron mountain and get you back to work.”
“We? You mean you and Señor Lee? After what he did, I’m surprised you two are on speaking terms. He and I certainly aren’t, as you can imagine.”
“Well, we all share an awfully overriding goal here, don’t we?—getting Jacqueline back safe, as quick as we can. Believe me, when that happens—and it will, dammit—D.W. will go along with whatever she wants.”
“Whether or not I ever get back my excavation, I certainly hope your promise comes true, Sam.”
But, in the archaeologist’s departing glance, Sam did not see any such hope reflected.
Chapter Forty-Three
Afterward, Sam went down to his suite, slid the blinds across his wrong-way view and embarked on much-needed sleep.
At some point thereafter, he found himself windmilling his arms and convulsing his legs in a frantic race across Canaima lagoon. Unfortunately he was losing, and one sideways glance showed him why. His opponent was a fifteen-foot caimán, the South American alligator. It was cruising along, its broad, black snout arrowing the surface.
Suddenly Sam grasped the full horror of the situation. The point was not just to see which was the faster swimmer, man or beast, but which would reach the girl treading water and crying for help out there. And that girl, Sam realized, was Jacqueline. As usual, she’d wandered off without informing anybody.
In desperation, Sam lunged sideways and managed to grasp the beast’s tail, then hung on blindly as it thrashed the water, lacerating him with bony-scaled armor and gnashing at him with fang-filled jaws. But at some point in their struggle, Sam’s adversary metamorphosed into Félix Rosales, not as muscular and vicious as the caimán, but just as threatening to Jacqueline. Sam fought on...
A persistent knocking suspended the battle, leaving the outcome undetermined.
Sam swam upward, rolled off the mattress and shuffled toward the door without having reached consciousness. He felt like somebody yanked out of open-heart surgery. He threw back the bolt, realized he was stark naked, left the chain attached and peeked around the crack. Bernardo was out there, sucking in a just-burst bubblegum bubble.
“Señor Sam, can I talk to you a minute?”
“I’m taking a nap, Nardo. Can’t it wait?”
“Hey, I’m real sorry about Jake.”
Not counting her father, Sam thought, that made at least three guys she’d given permission to use her pet name—Félix, himself, now Bernardo.
“We all are, Bernardo. Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”
“Yeah, I got a couple more things.”
“Okay, come on in.” Sam unhooked the chain, turned and staggered back to bed. Bernardo, meanwhile, dropped into a chair and balanced his unlaced high-tops on the marble coffee table.
“Here’s the deal, Señor Sam. I want to come work for you.”
“Nardo, if you’re going to speak American, skip the señor, okay?”
“You got it, Sam.”
“Okay. Now what does Owen say about this? He didn’t fire you?”
“No. The thing is, Sam, some days he uses me, some days no. Now he wants me to call him every morning. And he doesn’t want me to take the Cruiser home.”
“That bad, huh? So what makes you think I have any work for you? As soon as we get Jacqueline back safe, I’m flying out of here.”
“I mean at your ranch. Enrico said I did a good job down there for him.”
“Let me get this straight. You want to be a llanero? Can you ride?”
“Can José Canseco hit dingers? You bet. Enrico and one of his caballeros taught me good. Plus I can do all kinds of other stuff.”
“Like watch the satellite TV?”
Bernardo looked suddenly hurt, even stopped chewing his gum.
“Sorry, Nardo, forget that. I get cranky when I miss too much sleep. From what I hear, you’re a heck of a worker. The thing is, Enrico’s in charge down there, not me. Why don’t you give him a call, see what he says? If Owen can’t give you the hours, I say go where you can get ’em.”
“Can I use the phone here?”
Sam heaved a sigh. “Yeah, sure. Will that do it for you, Nardo?”
“I got something else.”
“Shoot.”
“I was talking to Señor Owen upstairs, and I saw those pictures.”
“What pictures?”
“Those Indian dudes who hung out with Dr. Laya’s uncle—on Cerro Calvario.”
“Shit, I forgot! You were down there, too!”
“You sent me, remember? To be her chaperon.” Bernardo pronounced it with a hard “ch.”
“And you recognized the sketches? They’re pretty accurate?”
“They’re okay. But why don’t they just use the video?”
“What video?”
“Jake’s video, man. She shot everybody on Cerro Calvario—me, Dr. Laya, all the diggers, those brothers. She liked their faces.”
“Nardo, did you tell them about this upstairs?”
“No. I just thought of it on my way down to see you.”
Sam rubbed his sandpapery jaw. “So, where’s the stuff she shot? Shit, I bet it all burned on the Kallisto.”
“No way, man! She left all her tapes with Enrico.”
“Why would she do that?”
“So Señor Lee wouldn’t get ’em. She was going to phone Enrico later and tell him where to send ’em. I was there!”
Sam reached for the bedside phone. “I’m calling Enrico now. And Nardo. You just got yourself a goddamn job.”
*
Ten minutes later, sleep once more banished, Sam was riding south on Route 19 with Bernardo behind the wheel of a Proteus Land Cruiser. Sam had decided to check out Jake’s video cassettes personally before notifying Captain Siso. Other than Enrico, they’d told no one of their departure, not even D.W.
They covered the ninety-some miles in an hour and twenty minutes, while silver and gray thunderheads reared high in the western sky. They were rolling into La Promesa’s graveled courtyard as the first raindrops fell, and hurried inside.
Enrico had the stack of eight-millimeter cassettes waiting in the den, beside Jacqueline’s Handycam in its small Halliburton case. The bad news, Enrico said, was that the tapes didn’t fit his VHS videocassette recorder. Sam cursed silently. Why hadn’t he thought to check that before driving down? Whom could he call for help? Or should he just hand the damn tapes over to the police?
Then Bernardo came to the rescue. “No problem, Sam. You don’t need the VCR, just the camera and TV. Jake showed me how to do it.”
The spiky-haired youth was already on his knees, pulling cables out of the Handycam case. He explained what he was doing as he went along, but Sam understood little of it:
“You plug this end into the camera’s S-Video output plug. The other goes into the S-Video input—here, on the back of the set. There’s another way to do it, but S-Video gives better resolution. Now this one’s for stereo sound. Two plugs, red and white, output here, input back here. See, now you don’t need the VCR. The Handycam has all the buttons—fast-forward, rewind, play, pause-still, everything. Okay, where’s the remote? You got to switch the TV to ‘external input�
�� first.”
Bernardo turned on the TV and popped a cassette into the Sony camcorder. The screen hissed with high-contrast fuzz, then resolved into the postcard panorama of Hacha Falls across Canaima Lagoon. An instant later a bare-chested Félix Rosales popped into frame, mugging for the camera and bulging his biceps. What a preening asshole! Sam thought. Then suddenly he recalled his interrupted nightmare—Jake far out in the water, Sam racing and wrestling the caimán who became Félix. If Bernardo hadn’t awakened him, who would have won?
“Wrong cassette,” he told Bernardo. “She must have some kind of dates or numbering system.”
Sam took a look at the cassette boxes. There were a dozen, each two and half hours. The labeling was on the spine, in her neat printing. Some kind of alphanumeric code. Date and location? At least a half-dozen included the letters “CC.” Cerro Calvario?
Sam picked one at random. He had Bernardo fast-forward all the way through it, a queasy-making visual ordeal—and one that made him feel slightly voyeuristic. This was, after all, raw footage, for her eyes only. Sorry, Jake. There was a lot of speeded-up Chaplinesque movement. Close-ups of red earth. Talking heads. Conan the Archaeologist digging a trench, muscles rippling. Scurrying people spreading a tarp over a trench. The camera peeking out through a tent flap at a downpour. Félix again. The jerk was obviously following her around. Then Sam was seeing the fossil flute in its plastic pouch, held up to lamplight by a beaming Arquimedeo. Sam experienced a shiver of excitement. Then the flute and his feelings vanished, and two sweaty, scraggly looking girls were struggling like Sisyphus to lug heavy electronic surveying gear up a slope.
Enrico brought beers, and the evening rain spattered the windows. They were into the third cassette when Sam recognized Oscar Azarias, walking away in filthy pants, obviously not eager to be filmed. Sam was about to tell Bernardo to back up when suddenly there were the two Indians. Bernardo had seen them, too, and quickly switched from fast forward to playback mode.