Deadly Waters (9 page)

XIX

4/3/07 09:00 Arizona Standard Time

Taylor and Mondragon met Wayland Zah on Highway 89, twelve miles northwest of the Glen Canyon Dam, at nine o’clock sharp. Mondragon was pleased by Zah’s punctuality and more pleased that both of his companions were sober that morning. They drove their rental Taurus southeast, in the direction of the dam and Page.

“Look at the size of that thing!” declared Taylor as they passed over the river. They could see the dam directly north of them. “I never thought it would be this big.”

Since he was supposed to be Vladimir Petrovski, he spoke his English with a supposed Russian accent that sounded partly like the deep baritone of Boris Karloff and partly like the silly affectations of Boris Badenoff. The accent irked Mondragon. Wayland Zah had never heard a real Russian and he accepted Taylor as the genuine article.

“This bridge will be gone like that when the dam goes,” said Mondragon and snapped his fingers. “Of course, Wayland, we should speak of these things only when we are in a secure place, as we are now.”

The three men stopped on the south side of the bridge and walked onto the abutment. Taylor kicked some gravel pebbles through the railings and into the water below them. They were so far above the Colorado they could not see or hear the rocks hit the muddy surface of the river.

“The key to success,” Mondragon was saying to Wayland, “is planning. Research and research again. We are seven hundred feet above the river here. The bridge is twelve hundred and seventy-one feet long. We have to know these things. Today, you--and we also--will drive from the loading ramp at Wahweap Marina on the west shore of Lake Powell to the first pay phone on Lake Powell Boulevard in Page. We will time ourselves to see how long it takes. The whole trip has to be traveled in under fifty minutes.”

“Check and double check, Mr. M,” said Wayland.

Unlike the Colombians, Wayland Zah had served time in a federal prison with Mondragon and knew his true identity.

“Don’t say ‘check,’” said Mondragon. “You sound like a cop at roll call. You are supposed to call me Charles Corello. Always. Always Charles Corello.”

“Yes, Mr. Corello,” said Wayland.

The three of them drove in Mondragon’s rental car northwest along Highway 89 taking the dirt cut-off to Wahweap Marina, a resort the size of a small village that was situated just inside the Arizona state line. They remained in the car, parked off the road about a quarter mile above the lake. From that vantage point they watched two boaters launch a small motor boat from a concrete jetty, and with binoculars Mondragon showed Wayland how he could keep track of every detail on the lower section of the reservoir.

“On D-Day,” said Mondragon, “there will be many, many people on the lake. It won’t be the off-season like today. It will be sometime around Memorial Day. At 11:22--and that will be 11:22 in both Mountain Daylight Time and Arizona Standard Time--after the Colombians have set the timers and have dropped all four of their torpedoes into the water, you will approach an elderly couple in one of those double houseboats-”

“Why an elderly couple in a houseboat?” asked Wayland.

  “Because they will be the proper ticket,” said Mondragon. “Old people have medical problems, and they aren’t very mobile. Old people living in a houseboat on Lake Powell are affluent and will be able to afford a cell phone. Now, you will tell them, in an offhanded way, you saw these men lowering something into the water. The twelve Colombians have twenty-three minutes to get to the shore, get inside their cars, and take off for Page. You will follow after them in your vehicle. If they and you drive at least sixty miles an hour, you will be past the Colorado bridge before twelve noon. I cannot emphasize how important it will be that you be beyond the river by then.”

“Can I pass them if they go too slow?” asked Wayland.

“Absolutely not,” said Mondragon. “They must not see you. They might panic, do something foolish.”

“What if they break down or something?”

“Then you would have no choice but to go on,” said Mondragon. “Keep a steady speed. Don’t stare at them as you go by. And change your phone call accordingly. Go on. I’m going to time you.”

Mondragon took off his wrist watch and held it in his right hand, and Wayland Zah got behind the steering wheel. The young Navaho was very nervous in the presence of Mondragon and the man he knew as Petrovski. He went much too quickly through his first practice run from the landing to the bridge. Mondragon repeatedly told him to slow down as the car bounced over the gravel road near the lake and as it whizzed past the slower vehicles on the paved highway.

“The Colombians will be driving at the speed limit,” Mondragon lectured him. “They don’t want to attract attention. Go forty on the dirt, sixty on the highway. No faster. You have a good half an hour to get across the river.”

Even with Mondragon right there in the passenger seat telling him to keep his foot off the accelerator, Wayland made the drive from Wahweap to the south side of the Colorado in only twenty-two minutes. Erin was not pleased with his performance. Wayland asked if he could do it again, but Mondragon told him that for now he should drive on into Page and stop at the first pay phone.

“Try making your phone call, the one I wrote for you,” Mondragon instructed him. “When the real event comes, you will have to wait another twenty minutes at the phone booth to give the Columbians time to drive across Page to the airport. This time you can make the call right away.”

“Should I dial the number?” he asked.

“I think you don’t need to practice dialing 911,” said Erin. “Don’t dial anything this time. Pick up the receiver and talk.”

“Hey,” said Wayland into the dead phone, using his dead-on imitation of the local airport manager, “this here is Harold Peterson out at the airport. I don’t know what’s going on out here; there’s a bunch of foreign men out here in Hanger... Hanger—”

Wayland glanced at the paper he kept in his shirt pocket.

“Hanger B,” said Mondragon.

“In Hanger B,” continued Wayland. “I counted twelve of them. They dartled in there like they’re hiding from somebody. You’ll send somebody out? O.K.”

“Dartled?”said Mondragon after Wayland had hung up. “I didn’t write anything like dartled.”

“I threw that in,” said Wayland. “Mr. Peterson is from Mississippi. He uses made up words like that.”

“I thought he was from Texas,” said Erin. “This morning, when we met him at the airport, he had the quick, almost clipped speech one associates with the west. He doesn’t dawdle. You have to learn to talk a little faster, Wayland. Now let’s get back in the car and drive away.”

“You don’t want me to go all the way to Bluff, do you?” asked Wayland.

“Don’t be silly,” said Mondragon, wondering if he had chosen the right man in Wayland. “You can make the drive during the trial run. No need to go that far today. Is there some place here in Page we can get some coffee before we go back to the lake?”

Wayland stopped at a doughnut shop in downtown Page, an unextraordinary place in which Mondragon and Taylor saw no danger. Not until they were inside did they realize that a half dozen Page policemen and Coconino sheriff’s deputies, Bob Mathers among them, were seated inside and having an early lunch. The officers had each arrested Wayland on various occasions and gazed with curiosity at the two strangers with him that morning. That the strangers were older men, one a tall blond gentleman in a full beard and the other a shorter, darker man dressed in a green silk suit, interested them that much more.

“Couldn’t you have found someplace else?” Mondragon whispered to Wayland.

“Where else?” said Wayland aloud. “This is Page. We would have to sit down to a real dinner if we went anywhere else.”

“Why don’t you just shout?” muttered Erin. “One of them may not have heard you.”

To his great displeasure, one of the sheriff’s deputies stood from the table where the lawmen were seated and walked toward them.

“Bob!” said Wayland to Deputy Mathers, recognizing his friend. “I didn’t know you started taking your lunch with the rest of the doughnut eaters.”

“Just having a decaf,” said Mathers, and his eyes narrowed while he drank in the features of Wayland’s two companions. “The wife doesn’t let me drink the real stuff anymore. Who are your pals, Wayland?

“Some people...” began Wayland, and gave a feeble wave of his hand in the direction of Taylor and Mondragon. “You know...” he added in lieu of an explanation.

“Are these the men you said were going to give you a job?” asked Mathers, pressing closer to the strangers.

“Charles Corello,” declared Mondragon, and stuck out a hand Mathers did not take. “I’m in real estate. Currently developing summer homes for rich folk. We’re trying to

interest Mr. Zah in taking prospective buyers around Page. Very scenic area. He knows it like the back of his hand. Our personnel department want to hire some Native Americans; get the feds off our backs and all that.”

“Is that a prison tat?” asked Bob of the yellow butterfly on Mondragon’s wrist.

“That?” said Mondragon. “Oh, no, of course not. A youthful indiscretion. I’ve never been in prison. What a question,” he made himself laugh. “You have some colorful friends in this town, Wayland.”

“Odd that you and Wayland have the same tattoo in the same place and that he got his in federal prison,” commented Bob. “What about your other friend?” he asked, referring to Taylor. “Has he ever been to prison?”

“That’s Mr. Vladimir Petrovski,” offered Wayland.

Taylor looked absolutely terrified. Adhering to Mondragon’s plan while they had been in South America had been easy. For the first time the unexpected had happened, and he was expected to say something in his phony Russian accent to a real English speaker.

“Vladimir Petrovski, that is I,” said Taylor. “I was thinking of investing in Mr. Corello’s real estate venture. I too think Mr. Zah would be an excellent guide.”

“You do?” said Bob. “Where are you from, sir? You have a strange accent, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Russia,” said Taylor and nodded his head to the east, the direction one must go to find that vast nation.

“Russia is a big place,” said Bob. “You from any city in particular?”

“Moskowa,” said Taylor, using the Russian pronunciation. “You know it as Moscow. The capital city.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Bob Mathers. Turning back to Mondragon he said: “I made some phone calls when I saw that same tat on Wayland. That belongs to an east Los

Angeles gang. What’s a gentleman like yourself doing with that on your wrist?”

“The man in the tattoo parlor said it was a popular design,” replied Mondragon, demonstrating how quickly he could improvise. “The thing was a lark. I know, my wife hates it too. Tell me, Officer Mathers, didn’t you ever have a black leather jacket or a big Harley you used to ride around when you were a kid? We do that sort of nonsense when we’re young. I have a nephew, a real little milksop, or so I thought; the little dunce went off to Princeton and came back home with a tiger on his rear end.”

Mondragon punctuated his remarks with a giggle to demonstrate to the lawman how unconcerned he was about the situation. His two companions did not appear to be nearly as carefree. Taylor’s forehead showed beads of moisture, while Wayland Zah nervously tugged at the long hair on the nape of his neck as he had done when he was a young boy and was about to be punished by a parent or teacher for something he had done.

“A tiger?” said Bob. “Come over here,” he said to Wayland. “I need to talk to you.”

“Does the law say I have to?” said Wayland, for he was unwilling to follow Bob into a far corner of the small shop. “We’re not doing anything, just getting some coffee.”

*

“Get over here!” Bob ordered Wayland Zah, and pulled him away from the other men. “What’s going on?” he demanded when they were at a safe distance. “Don’t tell me those two clowns are in real estate.”

“So I won’t tell you. They are anyway,” said Wayland.

Bob Mathers took Wayland by the arm and hauled him into the doughnut shop’s men’s room. He pushed the boy against the wall and jabbed a finger in his chest.

“This is about drugs, isn’t it?” said Bob. “Don’t lie to me. If I find out you’re running drugs for these two morons, I swear: I will send your ass to prison, Way. I won’t want to, but I will.”

“This isn’t drugs,” Wayland assured him. “Nothing to do with drugs, boss. Didn’t you once say you were my friend?”

“I still am,” said Bob. “Maybe I’m the only one you’ve got in this place. That one, the fancy one with the tattoo, he’s the man you met in prison in California, isn’t he? What is this ‘job’ they’ve got for you? Tell me before you’ve gone and done something you can’t get out of. Tell me now, and those two will take the fall, not you.”

“I have nothing to tell, boss,” said Wayland, breaking free of him. “Nothing I have to tell you, anyway.” He returned to the main dining room, and he and the other two men retreated to the rental car without getting any coffee for themselves.

XX

5/19/07 11:03 Atlantic Daylight Time

“Let the drum down gently into the water,” Col. Method told the group of four Colombians in Spanish. “The anchor--the weight attached to the cable coils--must go in first, then the cable itself, then the oil drum. The entire device will remain suspended below the surface, exactly as the real torpedoes will.”

The Colombians tossed the entire contraption as a single tangled bundle into the water, making a large splash in the weedy jungle lake. They looked at the angular man they knew as Colonel Max and hoped for a nod of approval.

“
Es
bueno
?” one asked.

“
No
es
bueno
,” said Col. Method, scowling at them. “You must go slowly. Be more careful.”

Abe Wilson, the machinist, met the pontoon boat on the pier as the trainees came back to the shore. From the way the chubby fellow was waving to them while the boat was far out in the small lake, Method guessed that something was amiss.

“Max,” Wilson called to the colonel, taking him out of ear shot as soon as the boat docked. “Two of them are missing,” he whispered in English into Method’s ear.

“Which two?” asked Method.

The machinist read from a paper Ed Harris had given him. “Francisco Estafan and Juan Dolce, both of Medellin. Mr. Harris was giving them a class on the shop floor, and they weren’t there for roll call.”

“They’ll take the road,” decided Method. “They’re city boys; they wouldn’t risk travel through the jungle.”

He jogged the mile and a half back to the metal buildings and took one of the three Jeeps parked in the muddy yard. Method kept one hand on the wheel and used the other to call Mondragon in the United States on a satellite phone. Esteban and Dolce’s footprints were visible in places in the mud along the shoulders of the road, showing they had headed northeast to the village of Montecuel, the only inhabited spot between the compound and the mighty Orinoco River.

“Do whatever you feel you have to,” Mondragon told him on the phone. “Otherwise, the others will want to go as well.”

Method sped up the road to Montecual, and there found a bartender in an open-air tavern who said the two Colombians had been in town earlier in the day and had gotten a ride on a lumber truck bound for the river. Eleven miles west of the village, at another bar located at a forsaken crossroads, Method spotted the truck parked out front. The tavern owner in Montecual had said the truck had a split windshield and that the passenger side window was cracked from top to bottom and there was no rear-view mirror on the driver’s side.

Method drove past the tar paper and tin saloon, up a hill about a half mile beyond the crossroad, and parked his Jeep off the road in the shadows of the trees. He checked the Lugar machine pistol he kept in a shoulder holster under his denim jacket. He passed the gun from hand to hand and commented to himself how well balanced it felt. He dragged a rotten log across the road a few feet below his parked Jeep and sat in shadows, the gun in his lap, waiting for the truck.

The Colonel envisioned the three men in the primitive saloon drinking raw sugar cane liquor that was as clear as water, the Colombians loud and freely spending their money. The truck driver, no doubt a rough man in white cotton clothes, would be dreaming of the fat payment awaiting when they reached civilization. The anticipation of their arrival was so enjoyable to him that Method regretted hearing the low rumble of the truck’s engine as it climbed the hill below him.

The three men were not drunk, merely a little more joyous than usual, and were laughing over some joke when they came to the log across the road. Estafan and Dolce jumped from the cab, still chuckling, and stooped to take hold of both ends of the piece of wood as Method stepped forward and took a marksman’s stance, his feet spread comfortably at shoulder width and both hands on the Lugar.

He first shot the driver through the windshield, right between the eyes. The two Colombians stood upright and blinked into the darkness of the forest; they would have run, had they the time. Method remained calm and shot Dolce between the eyes as well. As Estafan turned to dash back to the truck, Method hit him in the back of the head. The last man was still moaning when Method walked up to him and shot him another time in the skull.

“Three men, seven bullets,” thought Method, as he shot each of them twice more in the head. “I must be getting old to waste ammunition like this.”

He took wallets from the two dead Colombians as well as their rings and gold necklaces; the latter of which would be familiar to the remaining thirty-eight men. He collected all of his spent cartridges from the ground and drove back to Montecual and then to the jungle compound.

When the other Colombians went to dinner that evening, placed beside the beans and rice and tortillas Bill Thorpe and his wife had prepared for them on the mess hall’s long central table, was the jewelry and money from Dolce and Estafan.

“This is what happens to deserters,” Col. Method told them in Spanish. “Our Russian friend has gone north for a while. He left our jungle home surrounded by hundreds of his KGB brethren. The men these trinkets belonged to thought they could leave here any time they wished, thought they could go and tell everything to the first policeman they met. Now they are lying dead along the road, and when they do meet a policeman he will think they were killed by bandits. For their daring, Senors Dolce and Estafan have each earned a pauper’s grave in unconsecrated ground outside Montecual. Wild beasts will come in the night to dig up their bodies and eat what is left of them. Escape from here is impossible, my friends. You must each fulfil your contract, then you can go home rich men. Try to leave, and you will share the fate of these cowards.”

*

Mondragon telephoned Earnest Gusman in Cartagena and told him to find two more men to send to Venezuela. “Send them as soon as possible,” he said. “They need to start their training right away.”