by Mark McKay
‘Get everything?’ asked Nick, snapping out of his reverie. Valentina turned around and smiled for the first time since they’d met her.
‘Yes. Hope it all fits.’ Mariko beckoned the girl over and they disappeared into the bedroom, presumably to try out the new wardrobe. They emerged ten minutes later and Valentina had acquired some new jeans and a blouse. Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and delight.
‘I’ll order room service,’ said Nick.
Isabella arrived an hour later, just as they were finishing the meal. She looked wide-eyed at the new arrival.
‘Who’s this?’
Nick introduced them. Valentina was shy, but Isabella coaxed a few words out of her before looking at Nick and awaiting an explanation. He told her what had happened at the retreat centre. The mention of ‘sendero luminoso’ had Isabella looking nearly as horrified as Ibanez.
‘Talk to her,’ said Nick. ‘Ask her what they were doing.’
It was a halting conversation, at first. They were sitting around the table in the kitchen area and for a while Nick thought Isabella wouldn’t get anything out of Valentina. Then she seemed to have a sudden breakthrough and the girl became talkative, albeit in a soft voice. After ten minutes, Isabella turned to the non-Spanish speakers and translated it all.
‘She comes from a village near the Apurimac river valley. It’s a long way south of here, and it’s where most of the rebels are located, these days. The rebels took her to work for them when she was seven years old. Cooking, cleaning, washing. She is a domestic slave.’
Valentina had her eyes fixed on the table top as Isabella went on. Mariko put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
‘Two days ago, she flew up here in a light cargo plane, with two men. They went to what she calls a “new home”. Then they flew from there to the retreat centre and they put her to work clearing out the plants from the shed you mentioned. The men took the conversion machine to pieces and then everything was flown out, to the “new home”. When you arrived they were expecting the plane to come back and pick them up, with the last of the plants.’
‘Does she know why they were doing all this?’ asked Mariko.
Isabella posed the question. ‘She only knows that they were following the orders of some man she hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t a soldier.’
‘Wait,’ said Nick. He grabbed his laptop from the bedroom and turned it on. Once he had an internet connection, he brought up the Hackett Pharmaceuticals website and clicked a few options. Then he spun the screen to face Valentina. ‘This man?’
She nodded. ‘Si.’
Isabella took a look. ‘Who is he?’
‘Edward Torres, CEO of Hackett Pharmaceuticals.’
There was silence around the table while everyone bar Valentina worked out the implications.
‘It would seem as if Mr Torres is consolidating his monopoly and using these rebels to help him,’ posited Nick. ‘What does that mean for the Indians who were supplying Jason?’
‘If history is anything to go by,’ replied Isabella, ‘they will either enslave the Indians or kill them.’
This prompted a further minute’s silence. Valentina was looking concerned, as if she thought all these worried faces were her fault.
‘Did you speak to Don Gilberto, today?’ Nick asked Isabella.
‘I went to the stall in the market, but it was closed. His brother wasn’t home, either.’
‘What about the Hackett Pharmaceuticals’ office?’
‘Also closed. Until further notice.’
They needed to find Don Gilberto and warn him that his tribe might soon have unwelcome visitors, thought Nick. As for Torres, they knew where he was. But not quite.
‘Does Valentina have any idea where her “new home” is?’
Isabella asked. ‘The nearest place is Angoteras,’ she said. ‘That is about 500 kilometres north of here, on the Napo river. She says they went there to buy provisions.’
Valentina said something else and Isabella laughed. ‘She wants to watch television, is that OK?’
‘Sure.’ Nick took Valentina across to the little lounge area and put her in front of the TV. She seemed to know what to do with the remote, so he left her to it.
‘We will need to know how many rebels there are,’ he said. ‘Ibanez will want that information. As for Torres, I assume all that money is being paid to the rebels to protect his business. Seems excessive, don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps he wants to buy more cocaine,’ ventured Mariko.
‘Somehow, we need to separate him from the rebels and ask him about Julian and Ray. How the hell can we do that?’
‘When you tell Captain Ibanez,’ said Isabella, ‘he will probably mount a military-style operation against them. That could be your only chance.’
‘You mean he’ll kill them all. Including Torres.’
‘Yes, possibly.’
Nick didn’t want his investigation to die with Edward Torres. ‘See if you can find out how many rebels there are,’ he told Isabella. ‘Then I’ll speak to Captain Ibanez.’
Isabella interrupted the television viewing long enough to find out. According to Valentina, there were twenty soldiers and ten domestic people like her at the site.
‘I must go,’ said Isabella. ‘But tomorrow, we can go see Don Gilberto’s brother if you wish.’
They agreed to meet again the following morning. Isabella said her farewells and was gone.
‘I think we should go in before the military,’ said Mariko. ‘The only question is, do we tell the captain before or after we do it?’
‘I’ll see if I can find out what he intends to do. But I think Isabella’s right. If they attack the rebels, they won’t be subtle about it.’
They looked at their guest, who seemed lost in whatever Latin American soap opera she was watching. Later that evening they made up a bed for her on the couch and indicated that she should get some sleep. She seemed amenable enough, and everyone went to bed. Nick couldn’t help wondering, as he turned out the light, if she would still be there in the morning.
The next day, Nick went to sound out Ibanez. The captain was keen to attack the rebels and either kill them or drive them away, but their location was causing him concern.
‘It is difficult to go in on foot,’ he explained to Nick. ‘The jungle is a perfect place for snipers to hide. They will almost certainly see us before we see them.’
‘What about hitting them from the air?’
‘We can use helicopter gunships. But they will hear them coming and they probably have anti-aircraft weapons. We know from experience that these people are difficult to fight in the jungle.’
‘We need to get in there and cause a diversion. Enough to keep them busy until your ground troops can be dropped in the area. And I need that same diversion so I can grab Torres. How would you feel if I went in and did that?’
Ibanez was somewhat taken aback by that request. ‘That is highly irregular, Mr Severance. I couldn’t officially endorse such a thing. What makes you think you can do a better job than a small company of my men, for instance?’
‘Because I think I may be able to get help from people who know the jungle better than anyone. And the risk is mine, you don’t have to officially endorse anything.’
The captain judged the merits of that statement for a while. ‘And you will create this diversion with your bare hands, is that your plan?’
‘Ah, no. I’ll want access to weapons and I’ll need communications equipment.’
‘You must want this Torres man very badly,’ said Ibanez. ‘Understand this. I will take no responsibility for your death if it all goes wrong. As for the equipment you want, I can provide that. Again, unofficially. And two of my men go with you. Do you agree?’
‘Yes. If they’re ready to go within twenty-four hours.’
They had a deal. Nick returned to the hotel and told Mariko about the arrangements. He noticed that
a wooden crate had arrived. Valentina, who had decided not to abscond during the night, was helping Mariko open it by levering the top off with a screwdriver.
‘The fortune cat dolls have arrived,’ said Mariko as she liberated a carton from the packing straw. It was about two feet high and eighteen inches across. She opened it, to reveal a white ceramic cat figurine. It was a smiling, seated cat with one paw raised and it had red ears and big black eyes. Mariko turned it upside down and removed a round plastic lid from its base.
‘Empty,’ she declared. ‘Help me with the rest.’
He pitched in and between the three of them they got out the remaining eleven dolls. Each one was passed to Mariko for checking. Four of them had packages stuffed inside, which she put to one side. At the bottom of the crate there was another parcel.
‘What’s that?’ asked Nick.
‘Just something extra.’ She tore it open and began extracting the contents. She held up what looked to be at first glance nothing more than a metal rod, two feet long and an inch thick.
‘This is very high-tech,’ said Mariko. She twisted something on each end of the rod and it released smaller extension rods, which telescoped from each end in a curving motion. When they stopped extending they clicked and locked and she had a bow, four feet in length. She found the bow string and fitted it. ‘Perfect,’ she said.
Valentina had watched this as though it was a trick at a magic show. When the string was attached, she gasped and then clapped.
‘Very impressive,’ said Nick.
There were twelve mini-arrows, which also extended and locked themselves into position. Mariko checked them all and then they arranged the cats in a row and let Valentina play with them while they took the packages into the bedroom. Inside they found two Beretta 92 semi-automatic pistols and ten clips of ammunition, fifteen rounds in each.
‘This should do the job,’ said Nick. ‘Now all I have to do is persuade Don Gilberto to lend me some of his friends.’
An hour later, Isabella picked him up in her car and they drove to the shaman’s brother’s house. The old man remembered them and waved them in. They were in luck, Don Gilberto was sitting in the tiny lounge area, drinking tea. He stood up to greet them, but from his worried expression it was plain to see he had his mind on other things. The brother found a couple of stools and while he went to the kitchen to brew more tea, Nick and Isabella sat down.
‘You had better tell him about what happened at the retreat centre,’ said Nick.
Isabella went into a long monologue on the subject. Don Gilberto’s eyes flitted between her and Nick and he occasionally grunted, but he rarely interrupted her. Then when she’d finished he delivered a monologue of his own and whatever he was saying, he was angry about it. It was making Isabella angry, too.
‘What the hell is he saying?’ demanded Nick. She waved at him to keep quiet and exchanged a few more words with the shaman.
‘Well,’ she began, ‘he hasn’t worked at the retreat centre since the incident with Conrad. But he wasn’t surprised to hear about the deaths and the shining path rebels. In fact, he nearly met them himself.’
The tea arrived. It was black and herbal and god only knew what it was, thought Nick. But it tasted OK.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘He’s part of the Yagua tribe. They have a plantation fifty kilometres away from the retreat centre, where they grow the “Stallion” plants. Maybe a dozen people work there. They either process it themselves and sell it in the market, or they bring plants to the retreat centre and sell them direct to Mr Wilson. But now there is a problem.’
Don Gilberto and his brother were watching this exchange intently, though they couldn’t have understood much of it.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘These sendero luminoso pigs came to the plantation, three days ago. They rounded everyone up and took as many plants as they could. They burned the rest. Then they took the people to the river and put them on a boat with the plants. The only reason Don Gilberto knows all this is because he was there when they arrived, but he hid.’
‘And he doesn’t know where they were taken?’
Isabella exchanged some words with the shaman, who threw up his hands and shook his head.
‘Do I need to translate?’ asked Isabella. She didn’t wait for Nick’s response. ‘It isn’t hard to work out where they went to, is it?’
‘No,’ he concurred. ‘To the new production centre. You’d better tell him about that, now.’
Isabella imparted the details. There was silence when she finished. Don Gilberto was leaning forward in his chair, his palms around the mug of tea. The brother was staring straight ahead and looked distraught.
‘Some of those people are his relatives,’ said Isabella.
‘Tell him that with his help, we’re going to get them out.’
‘You are?’ That stopped Isabella for a second. ‘And how will you do that, exactly?’
He told her what he had planned. ‘I was hoping he could lend me two of his people. With their knowledge of the jungle we could find any sentries or snipers and neutralise them before they even know we’re there. That was my hope, anyway.’
‘Let me tell him.’ She explained Nick’s plan and his request. The brothers exchanged a few words in a language that wasn’t Spanish, Nick could work that much out. Then Don Gilberto turned to Nick and said something to him, directly. There was a follow up exchange with Isabella.
‘He says you must get all of his people out before the police or military arrive, because they will kill everyone. And there is only one person available who could help you in the jungle.’
‘Good. Where do I find this person?’
‘You are looking at him,’ she said.
Don Gilberto saw Nick’s incredulous face and said something.
‘He’s all there is,’ translated Isabella.
‘But he’s 70 if he’s a day. Hardly the best person to take on a reconnaissance mission.’
The shaman had anticipated the age problem. He tried his limited English. ‘No need be quick. Need be smart. Understand?’
‘Shit,’ breathed Nick. He already knew that Don Gilberto was fit enough to walk through the jungle for hours at a time. He was certainly smart, the incident with the snake was testament to that. And he was the only game in town, so to speak.
‘OK, tell him he’s in,’ he said. ‘We will pick him up from here just as soon as I know the schedule. He’ll need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.’
Isabella told him. Both Don Gilberto and his brother got up and showed their thanks by warmly embracing Nick and then Isabella. More tea was offered and politely declined and then they left the house and walked back to the car. Nick gave an involuntary glance towards the little alley that Conrad had emerged from last time they were here. Nobody lurked there today.
‘This is going to be interesting,’ he muttered, more to himself than Isabella. She gave him a little smile and then they drove back to the hotel. All they had to do now was wait for confirmation from Ibanez and they’d be all set to go.
Ibanez called on them at the hotel in the afternoon. He brought a two-way radio and briefed Nick on its use. The frequency was one that was in theory non-interceptible. Guns would be available when they hooked up with his men, Pablo and Alberto, who would pick Nick up tomorrow morning at 6.30am. Pablo spoke English.
‘There are three of us,’ said Nick. ‘I have an Indian native and this lady coming along.’
Ibanez looked dubiously at Mariko, who he was meeting for the first time. ‘Is it wise to take a woman?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry on my account,’ said Mariko, holding his eyes with a level look of her own.
Ibanez looked at both of them and then shrugged. ‘As you wish.’
Pablo was apparently good with explosives and he would rig something up near the rebel camp as the distraction. They could work out the details between themselves.
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‘Once you have your Mr Torres,’ said Ibanez, ‘contact me. We will be stationed near Angoteras and we will come directly in on the gunship and attack the place. Just make sure you aren’t there when that happens.’
Valentina had been frightened by the sight of the police uniform and had rushed into the bedroom when Ibanez had arrived. Once he’d gone, she re-joined them.
‘What are we going to do with her, while we’re away?’ asked Mariko.
‘Maybe Isabella will look after her. I’ll call her and ask.’
Isabella agreed to take Valentina until they got back.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Nick,’ she said, as they finalised the arrangements. ‘These people are much more dangerous than your friend Conrad.’
He muttered some reassurance that suggested he’d done all this before, and not to worry. But the fact was, he’d never stormed a rebel encampment before and the whole operation was going to be ad hoc, at best. The only way to find out if he really knew what he was doing, was to do it.
They got up early and had all their weapons discreetly stashed in their packs when Pablo and Alberto arrived to pick them up. They arrived in a beautiful blue 1950’s Chevrolet which had acres of space in the back. It belonged to Alberto and he was justifiably proud of it, though Nick thought it must cost a fortune to run. The two cops were in their mid-thirties and looked fit. They both had thick dark hair, and wore baseball caps and dark glasses. The look was completed by a few days’ growth of designer stubble.
The two men were clearly interested in Mariko, even if they tried not to let it show. Ibanez must have briefed them, thought Nick. Just wait till they meet our next passenger. He told Pablo where to go and his instructions were conveyed to Alberto, who pulled up outside Don Gilberto’s brother’s place five minutes later. When the shaman appeared both cops laughed, but not for the reasons Nick had feared. They knew Don Gilberto. There was a lot of chatter and they managed to get a smile out of the old man before he joined Mariko and Nick in the back seat.