Considering that we were all helpless captives in a locked vehicle, being transported against our wills toward an unknown fate at an unknown destination, this bickering was a big waste of time and verbiage. Clearly, instead of fighting with each other, we should have been figuring out how to cooperate against our captors. Still, the arguments had kind of cleared the air and brought everybody up to date on everybody else’s activities.
“How did they get you?” I asked Ruth, beside me.
“I was waiting in my room for Roger to take me down to dinner. When somebody knocked on the door, I opened expecting to see him; well, he was there, all right, but obviously a prisoner. I couldn’t react fast enough; one of those men grabbed me and had me out in the hall before I could slam the door shut."
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m fine.” She glanced at the man facing us. “Roger’s been a perfect little gentleman all week, even if his word of honor doesn’t seem to be worth doodlesquat. ”
Belinda spoke up from the other side of me: “I’m sure you’ll be glad to know, Ruth, that Matt’s been a perfect little gentleman all week, too, damn it. . . . God, look at those fields! You wouldn’t think a horse—or even a llama—could keep its footing up there, let alone pull a plow."
It was a magnificently rugged landscape in the low red light of evening, but the truly remarkable thing was that practically all the mountainsides that weren’t solid rock, no matter how high or steep, were cultivated. I wouldn’t have wanted to climb some of those fields, even on hands and knees; if you ever started sliding and rolling, there’d be no stopping you. You’d wind up with a heroic splash in the river a couple of thousand feet below.
Gradually, as we drove, the light faded and the peaks ahead lost the last light of the sun. The chauffeur turned on the headlights, and soon there was nothing to see but the twisty mountain road ahead and sometimes not even that as the beams swept out over a black abyss. Occasionally we’d pass a village with a few lights showing, but we met no traffic, which was just as well; there wasn’t room for much besides the big Cadillac. Often there didn’t seem to be room enough for that. Trying to keep track of the altitude—as far as direction was concerned, the fading glow in the sky more or less behind us told me we were moving roughly eastward—I sensed that the downgrades were generally somewhat longer than the upgrades, and I no longer had that tight, eleven-thousand-foot feeling in my chest. We seemed to have come down a bit, even though we were heading deeper into the Andes.
I remembered that the Machu Picchu ruins, which should lie in this general direction, were actually at a lower elevation than the city of Cuzco, according to the tour material that had been given us. But it didn’t seem likely that Don Gregorio was bringing us all together, all dressed up, for a visit to the lost city of the Incas that had been discovered, if I remembered correctly, by a gent named Hiram Bingham. Of course the local Indians had known where it was all along.
Then the chauffeur made a sharp turn off the main road, such as it was, and put the limousine to a steep climb up a track that would have challenged the borrowed little four-wheel-drive Subaru I’d left in New Mexico. The headlights gave us a glimpse of a couple of heavy stone gateposts going by; shortly thereafter we saw a large stone house ahead, with illumination of its own. There was a wide, lighted terrace in front of the house, and on it a wheelchair awaited us occupied by a white-haired man in evening clothes. A black-clad attendant stood behind the chair. A dog sat beside it.
“Please to disembark now,” Palomino said to us through the intercom. “Don Gregorio wishes to greet you. . . . But first a word of warning. Some in your party, perhaps all, have been seeking El Viejo with violent intentions. I will not threaten you; I will merely suggest that you wait to hear what your host has to say to you before you commit suicide by attempting to abuse his hospitality.”
The locks clicked and Palomino opened the door on Ruth’s side. We clambered out and approached the wheelchair in a straggling group. The seated man was, of course, considerably older than the photographs I’d been shown; they never manage to keep those file pix up to date. The hair had not been totally white in the last snaps I’d seen. However, the aquiline features were unmistakable, particularly the bold blade of a nose. The body was thinner than I’d visualized it, and the right leg was in a hip cast that was supported by the raised footrest of the chair. Vasquez waited for us to stop before him.
Then he said, “You are guests at Casa Coca. I joke. The name is Hacienda San Gregorio. Strangely, it was not named by me, or for me, but I heard the name and found that it filled my need for a pied-a-terre in this area. I am Gregorio Vasquez Stussman. This is Bravo." He patted the dog’s head. “Whatever plans you may be entertaining against me, please do not feel it necessary to harm Bravo. He is a very friendly dog.”
I heard Ruth make a choked sound beside me. Her hand grasped my arm tightly, and I remembered that this was probably one of the dogs that had chased her, and killed her rescuer, when she was escaping from her first kidnapping. I could see that Bravo was a very large young Chesapeake, but little more than a pup. He’d go seventy-five or eighty pounds already; he’d wind up close to a hundred when he got his full growth. He had a fine massive head and a tightly curling, yellow-brown coat. They are not attack dogs; they were bred to retrieve waterfowl under extremely rugged conditions; but unlike Labradors and goldens they are not blessed with unending tolerance. A Chessie may give you the first bite, but unlike his gender retrieving cousins—my lost Happy, for instance—he’ll sure as hell bite back.
Vasquez looked at Ruth and spoke deliberately: “You are Mrs. Steiner, whose husband wrote one book containing much nonsense and some truth about my business and was killed while writing another. . . . And you are Mr. Helm, assigned to protect her as she searches for her husband’s electronic manuscript, but with certain personal motives for seeking me out, am I correct?” When I nodded, he turned to Belinda and Ackerman. “And you two feel a sacred obligation to save mankind from one of its innumerable bad habits; it might have been better if you’d directed your earnest salvation efforts toward tobacco or masturbation. . . . No, no, we will talk later. Right now I am sure you would all like an opportunity to ‘freshen up,’ as I believe it’s called. Señor Palomino will show you the facilities. I do not believe in the barbaric Yankee custom of cocktails, so we will meet again at the dinner table.”
El Viejo’s mountain hideout—one of many hidden sanctuaries, no doubt—was not a treasure house of fine old paintings and priceless period furniture, but it was not a vacation cottage in the Berkshires furnished out of the Monkey Ward catalog, either. The house was roomy and massively built, and everything in it was sound and solid. The bathroom to which Ackerman and I were directed had been remodeled quite recently with new U.S. plumbing. Roger had nothing to say to me, which was fine, since I had nothing to say to him. Finished in there, we waited out in the long hall, under Palomino’s supervision, for the ladies to join us.
“This way, please,” Palomino said.
The dining room to which he directed us was big enough for a table that could have seated eight people, or maybe even ten if they were skinny, but was set for five. The tablecloth was linen or as close as made no difference; the china was thin and gray, marked with a colorful crest; the glasses seemed to be crystal or a good imitation; the flatware was silver and also sported a crest. Having associated, upon occasion, with aristocratic Scandinavian relatives who also went in for shields and crowns and lions and unicorns, I’m not particularly impressed by heraldic symbols, but I noted that Belinda, as soon as she was seated, picked up a fork to study the markings with unabashed curiosity. With Ackerman beside her, she’d been put to the left of the place setting at the head of the table that had no chair; Ruth was on the right, with me to talk to if Vasquez proved boring. I doubted that we’d be holding any lengthy conversations.
Then Don Gregorio, as he seemed to be called locally, was wheeled to his place by his sil
ent attendant. Bravo trotted alongside the chair and sat down at a hand signal.
He said, “I hope no one objects to a dog in the dining room, but I must ask you not to feed him. We would not want to give him any bad habits, like begging at the table, would we? Were you very strict with your dog, Señor Helm?” I shook my head. “I’m afraid Happy was a terrible beggar, Señor Vasquez.”
“I wish to state that I regret your loss very much. It was certainly not intended—”
Ackerman made an angry sound. "Did you drag us all this way to talk about dogs, for Christ’s sake?”
Vasquez said calmly, “As you Yankees say, first things first. Now we talk about important things like dogs; later, perhaps, we discuss unimportant things like people. I’m certain that Señor Helm will agree with those priorities.”
I said, “All the way.”
“But first we eat,” Vasquez said. He didn’t smile, but there was, let’s say, a certain twinkle as he went on: “I was intending to serve cabrillo, but consulting Señor Palomino, I learned that there is a certain prejudice. Do you know what cabrillo is, Mr. Ackerman?”
“No, I don’t talk Spanish.”
Ruth said, “As a good New Mexican of about two years’ standing, I know that a cabrillo is a young goat.”
Belinda said, “Goat, ugh! Don’t they have any cows or chickens south of the equator?”
Vasquez laughed shortly. “Apparently Palomino was correct; there is a prejudice. So I am happy to announce that you will be served good Argentine beef. Now let us commence, and let us not spoil our meal with business talk; that will come later. Do you know about die nearby Machu Picchu ruins and how they were so heroically discovered by a gentleman named Bingham . . . ?”
It was quite an elaborate, European-style meal, with one course following another and a different wine for each. Our host gave us the history of Machu Picchu and the Incas in considerable detail; then he told us about the cultivation of the coca leaf and its many uses, recreational, medicinal, and religious.
“In your country you encounter only the evil side of this versatile substance,” he said, looking at Ackerman. “But today, here in Peru, you have seen the kind of fields cultivated by the natives. Do you think over the centuries they could have sustained such effort at such an altitude without the support of coca, Señor Ackerman? As for the religious aspects, I believe your country permits the use of peyote in certain religious ceremonies. . . .”
Ackerman spoke sharply: “It’s ridiculous to compare a fairly harmless hallucinogen like peyote with a poison like cocaine! Anyway, I think the most recent court cases involving peyote have been decided the other way.”
“Ah, so your vaunted freedom of religion is just another Yankee sham,” Vasquez said. “Well, after we have finished our discussion, Señor Palomino and his associates will demonstrate one of the less secret religious ceremonies performed by the Compañeros de la Hoja; I think you will find it very entertaining.”
“Discussion?” Ruth said. “What do we have to discuss, Mr. Vasquez?”
“Peace,” Vasquez said.
Chapter 28
There was an interruption while coffee and after-dinner drinks were offered around. I settled for some brandy that was a little hard to track down as it rolled around in the bottom of a snifter the size of a kid’s balloon. Coffee for Ruth, a gooey-looking liqueur for Belinda, a Scotch for Roger. Vasquez, taking nothing, apologized for keeping us at the dining table, but the other rooms were small, he said, and he thought we’d be more comfortable here. I thought it more likely that Palomino, stationed at the door to the kitchen supervising the black-clad attendants who hovered around catering to our every whim, had suggested that it would be easier to control us if we remained grouped neatly at a table than if we were allowed to sprawl around untidily on sofas and easy chairs.
Finally, with everyone taken care of, Vasquez leaned forward to address us: “Now to business. I am an old man, and as you can see my bones are becoming brittle—the doctors do not seem to be certain whether my hip broke because I fell, or I fell because my hip broke. In any case I no longer thrive on conflict. That is why I have brought you here gently and fed you well. I think in most instances we can resolve our disagreements without violence. So, ladies and gentlemen, this is a peace conference. Let us hope it will be more successful at generating useful compromises than most such conferences.” As he sat back, folding his hands, I noted belatedly the ring with the green stone that Ruth had mentioned.
Across the table from me, Ackerman stirred indignantly.
“If you think . . . This is a big waste of time! I don’t compromise with drug dealers. If that means you’ll have me shot, go ahead and shoot!”
“Shooting is what we are trying to avoid, Mr. Ackerman. There has been sufficient shooting. . . . I will be honest with you,” Vasquez said, addressing all of us. “The killings at Estacón Seis—Station Six—in Brazil, where two of you were held for a while, can easily be explained as the result of some young Americans—well, three young Americans and an evil old professor leading them astray—looking for drugs and getting too close to a major operation. Unfortunately, it means sacrificing a productive laboratory to the police and the press, but so be it. However, while this incident was required, it rather limits my options, as your businessmen might say. We cannot have too many wandering Americanos dying violently down here; it gives tins continent a bad name.”
I reflected that the son of a bitch had a nice, dry sense of humor, which didn’t make him any less a son of a bitch. But it was nice to see the smoothie approach so nicely done. He and Palomino. The toughies know you hate them and will clobber them instantly at the first opportunity; the smoothies think they can get you to like them or at least respect them, and thereby slow you down a bit when the time comes. Well, it’s been known to work under favorable conditions, with susceptible subjects. There even seems to be a syndrome of sorts leading captives to love their captors. So far I’ve managed to stay immune.
Vasquez was still talking: “There is also the fact that some of you are working for your government, which makes things slightly awkward, since your country takes these matters with ridiculous seriousness. For instance, a certain U.S. agent was killed in Mexico; you have probably heard of the case. It happened a considerable time ago, but your country is still making more trouble about it than one would think a single man would be worth to a country of endless millions. Well, it is a form of trouble I can survive if I must; but I would prefer not to. Therefore I will not shoot you unless you force me to, Mr. Ackerman, even though you are not employed by quite such a well-advertised U.S. agency. Mr. Helm’s organization, I understand, avoids publicity, and is less likely to call for government action when it loses an operative; but it is reputed to have a very long memory, and I prefer not to spend what life I have left to me looking over my shoulder. As for Mrs. Steiner, she is the widow of a fairly prominent literary figure, and her death or disappearance would also cause some inconvenient notices in the press. This is why I have brought us together here. ”
Ruth started to speak and checked herself. It was Belinda who spoke: "What about me?"
Vasquez regarded her for a moment and said, “I gather that you have quite recently severed your connections with the U.S. government, so you can hardly claim protection there, Miss Nunn—I believe that is your correct name. We will discuss your problem later. Right now, let us commence with your former associate. Mr. Ackerman, what would satisfy you?”
“To see you extradited and standing in a U.S. courtroom answering for your crimes!”
Vasquez smiled thinly. “If you could guarantee that I would be standing, it might be worth it, since the doctors do not promise that I will ever stand, or walk, again,” he said. “But consider, what kind of a triumph would that be, trying and convicting and sending to prison a doddering old fart like me?” Vasquez glanced at Belinda without expression; a little color came to her face as she realized that her hotel-room remarks had been record
ed—as had, obviously, the conversation in the Cadillac where she’d thrown her government job into Ackerman’s face. Vasquez went on: “You can see that I am a helpless cripple, and the fact that I have brought you here for such a ridiculous reason—in such a violent business, how can I ever expect to find peace?—should indicate to you that I am mentally, as well as physically, incompetent, totally incapable of controlling the far-flung empire of crime I will be accused of manipulating for your country’s destruction.”
Ackerman said quickly, “Then you admit that you intend to flood the U.S. with cheap drugs?”
Vasquez shrugged. “This room is flooded with delicious odors and there is a roast on the sideboard with considerable meat remaining. Yet Bravo sits beside me, resisting this terrible temptation. Should I concern myself with the fate of men who have less self-control than a dog? Should you? And even if you do, do you really wish to put a senile cripple on trial when you could prove to your employers, and your press, that the infamous Old One is really only a figurehead; the real power behind the South American drug trade with connections all over the world, both financial and religious, is the much younger man you will produce as your prisoner—”
The Threateners Page 26