Green Ice (29 page)

Which route to Bogotá was the worst for traveling by car? she wanted to know.

Why?

Which? she insisted.

There was a road south through the mountains via Sachica and Samacá. In some places, depending on the season, it was impossible by car; at all times it was very questionable.

Sounded ideal to Lillian. “Is that road patrolled?”

It surely would be.

“At night?” Lillian asked, making her point.

Miguel understood what she was proposing. He didn’t jump at the idea, but a couple of hours of hazardous driving was certainly better than a whole day of risk by foot and slow bus. He went to check the jeep, to make sure it would start.

For a final meal Lillian broke out the delicacies. Miguel was amused when she told them she’d taken them from Argenti’s larder. Miguel scooped up a mound of caviar with a Carr biscuit, and another, and another, popped pistachio after supercolossal olive after pistachio into his mouth.

Come the revolution, Miguel will be looting gourmet shops, Wiley thought.

They packed and were ready to go.

At eight Miguel went up to have a final word with Lucho. Wiley went along.

Lucho showed them the shelf he’d built for the plaster Jesus. Candles flickered at its feet in several ordinary food jars painted red.

Lucho’s farewell handshake with Wiley had something extra in it. He also winked like a conspirator.

Then it was dark.

Lillian wanted to drive.

Miguel gave that responsibility to Wiley, leaving Tomas, Jorge and himself free and ready in case of trouble. They sat in the back, Russian automatic rifles covered at their feet. The jeep was carrying the emeralds in a bandana taped to the inside of its spare tire.

The first ten miles weren’t easy. The dirt road was unpredictable, with ruts and corrugations. There were some relatively smooth stretches but no straight or level ones. Wiley took it as fast as he could and as slow as he had to, sometimes spurting up to sixty, at other times shifting down and braking almost to a stop. He kept the headlights on high beam.

A fork in the road.

Miguel told him to bear left.

Then they were on even less of a road. By comparison the previous road had been a super highway. This one defined itself in the beam of the headlights as a pair of parallel tracks separated by tufts of dry grass and jutting rocks. Its ruts were vicious and there were sudden drops when Wiley felt not a wheel of the jeep was touching ground. He fought the road turn after turn, kept an eye on the mileage indicator, measuring the effort necessary to cover a mere five miles.

The steering wheel felt small and brittle, as though it might snap in his grip.

Lillian, in the seat beside him, usually had to hang on with both hands, but whenever the road gave her a chance she reached over to encourage Wiley with her touch on his arm, thigh, the back of his neck.

The high night air was cold. It struck the windshield, lashing around and down on Miguel, Tomas and Jorge. They huddled together, hunched down into the necks of their jackets.

On the good side of things: They hadn’t seen a house or a light or a sign of anyone since the turnoff. The road and its difficulties partially eclipsed other dangers on their minds.

In the first hour they covered thirty miles. Seventy to go, but only about forty of those would be so rugged. Each mile less to Bogotá increased their confidence.

The road improved a little.

They passed through a small village, its cantina prominent, lighted.

Then the road resumed its challenge.

A sharp curve ahead. Wiley got set for it, expecting it, as most of the others had been, to be banked wrong.

They saw the beam shooting off into the night before they saw the headlights coming from the opposite direction.

Wiley pulled far over, and even then there was barely room. The two vehicles passed with less than a foot of clearance. The passengers caught the merest glimpse of one another.

The other vehicle had been a jeep. Three soldiers in it. A patrol. Perhaps they were anxious to get to that village and cantina. Maybe they weren’t equipped with a two-way radio.

Wiley tried for more speed, couldn’t really go much faster. The risk of the road was a governor.

Like holes in the darkness behind them. The headlights came into view, were cut off by a curve, reappeared. No doubt it was the jeep. The soldiers had the advantage of knowing the road, their patrol. They were gaining.

Impossible to outrun them or lose them.

Miguel leaned forward, told Wiley, “Around the next curve stop and cut the lights.”

Wiley did.

Miguel leaped out with his rifle, took a concealed position just over the shoulder of the road.

The other jeep came around the curve, had to brake fast, skidded to a stop. Two soldiers were quickly out. One stood slightly off, to the left of Wiley’s jeep, another to the right. Their automatic rifles at the ready. Then the third soldier got out and walked forward. He had a flashlight in one hand and a service automatic in the other.

He was a Lieutenant.

Lieutenant Costas.

The same who had been in command of the patrol that had killed Professor Santos and the others on the road outside Chinquinqirá. The enlisted men with him now were two of those who had also taken part in that, and the rape.

The Lieutenant shined his flashlight on Wiley’s face, then on each of their faces. Evidently he believed that there were only four of them.

Lieutenant Costas asked for papers.

Lillian dug into the pack that was at her feet. She rummaged around quite a bit, acting nervous and tired. Finally she presented her United States passport and Wiley’s temporary one. Tomas and Jorge showed identification. The Lieutenant looked them over and handed them back. The United States passports didn’t seem to impress him.

He asked Wiley, “What are you doing on this road?”

“We got lost,” Wiley said.

“Coming from where?”

“Sightseeing around Leiva.”

“Did you see the church in Leiva, the large white adobe church?”

“It was gray and made of stone,” Wiley told him, recalling.

“What is your destination?”

“Bogotá.”

“You could have taken the road to Tunja and the highway from there.”

“I made a wrong turn.”

“This is a very bad road.”

“That’s for sure,” Wiley said casually.

“Who are they?” the Lieutenant asked of Tomas and Jorge.

Wiley almost said hitchhikers. “Guides. They were asleep when I took the wrong turn.”

Tomas and Jorge confirmed that with guilty nods.

“They tell me this road will eventually get us to Bogotá,” Wiley said. “Will it?”

“Perhaps,” the Lieutenant said.

He examined the jeep, walked around it slowly, noticed where the army markings had been painted over. He stopped on Lillian’s side. “Everyone out,” he said.

They didn’t move. They couldn’t undergo a search. The weapons would be found.

“Out!” the Lieutenant snapped.

Lillian had her Llama pistol hidden beneath her right thigh.

In a single swift motion she brought it up and fired twice. The second bullet went in almost exactly where the first went in. Just above the Lieutenant’s breastbone and on through his heart. He clenched his eyes and opened his mouth as he died.

In that same instant, Miguel opened fire. All the while he’d had one of the soldiers surely in his rifle sights. A short burst of bullets killed that one. Only a slight rapid adjustment was needed to aim at the other.

That soldier threw his rifle anywhere and his hands upward. His life fell on the merciful side of Miguel’s ambivalence. Miguel frisked him, roughly, ordered him to lie face down on the road. Tomas gathered up the weapons: the automatic rifles of the soldiers and the Lieutenant’s pistol. He also found twenty thousand pesos in the Lieutenant’s pockets, about eight hundred dollars. Miguel went to the second jeep, saw it was equipped with a twoway radio that was switched on. He smashed the radio. There were some spare magazines containing ammunition on the rear floor. Jorge came and got those. Miguel lifted the hood, used his knife to sever all the connections to the distributor, paralyzing the vehicle.

Tomas wanted to know about the surviving soldier, reminded Miguel, “He knows us.”

The soldier cursed his eyes.

“Kill him,” Miguel said.

Tomas killed him.

They got under way again.

Wiley wondered if it had seemed as unreal to the others as it had to him. And the steady, unhesitating way Lillian had killed the Lieutenant. Couldn’t she have left it to Miguel and his comrades? She was probably feeling the aftereffects now, hollow, sick and shaky about it, fully realizing the deadly seriousness of this adventure.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the road and could only spare a hand for a moment, reached over to find hers—still holding the Llama. She took his hand to her mouth, kissed the back of it rather consolingly and returned it to where it was more needed, on the steering wheel. She got the other Llama from his pack, placed it between his legs. Also shoved a couple of spare clips into his jacket pocket. In case there was another encounter. But now that sort of danger seemed behind them.

A sudden downgrade, extremely steep.

Wiley shifted to the lowest gear and rode the brake. The jeep skidded, kept skidding, practically straight down, increasing momentum with its weight. The speedometer registered twenty but they were going twice that, beyond control. If the road curved, Wiley would not be able to match it. No telling how far they would fall. Two hundred feet was equal to twenty stories, Wiley recalled, and a two-hundred-foot drop was probably less than average in these mountains.

The headlights hit upon a milky substance ahead.

It looked like a lake.

They plunged into it.

Fog.

So thick the headlights reflected off it and glared back into Wiley’s eyes. All he could do was keep hold of the steering wheel and hope the road was somewhere under them.

Gradually, the grade gave up most of its pitch.

The gears grabbed and growled.

Wiley stopped the jeep.

He needed a breather, took three deep ones, and flexed his fingers, stiff from gripping. There was the taste of sweat on his upper lip.

Miraculous as it seemed, they were still on the road.

Lillian activated the windshield wipers, which helped a little as they continued on, taking it slow. Visibility was less than a dozen feet.

They didn’t see the town until they were practically in it.

They didn’t see the army truck parked across the road, blocking the way, until they almost hit it.

Lieutenant Costas had used that radio, notified ahead.

Suddenly, yellow searchlights, fog lights, were on them from the left and the right.

Miguel, Tomas and Jorge grabbed their rifles and jumped out into the night.

The first shot from the truck hit the windshield of the jeep slightly left of center, shattering it in an opaque web pattern.

Lillian ducked down.

Wiley slouched as far down as he could.

A barrage of shots pierced or ricocheted off various areas of the jeep. One headlight exploded.

Wiley stomped the gas pedal, pulled the steering wheel hard right, swerved so sharply the right wheel buckled and the jeep nearly overturned. The left fender grazed the lower body of the truck. Wiley caught a glimpse of the soldiers positioned beneath the truck, recoiling, expecting a collision, not getting off a shot.

The searchlight on the right tried to track, but the jeep was too close in. As they passed under the searchlight Lillian shot up at it. Three rapid shots. Her third was a hit.

With the fog, Wiley could only guess how far he had to go to run their flank. The jeep was bucking every which way over the rough terrain. Without letting up he turned full left and a structure loomed into view. The rear of a building. He thought he must be running along the fringe of the town, probably parallel with the road. Given an opening on the left, he would cut through and get back on it.

Rifle shots came in staccato bursts as the troopers exchanged fire with Miguel and his comrades. How could they find anything to aim at in this fog?

The jeep kept on bucking over the irregular ground. Wiley couldn’t see, had to take whatever came, several times almost tipped over one way or the other. There was an abrupt dip into a gully and up. The jeep hit a hump with a sharp ridge in it, a long rock like an exposed bone that scraped the jeep underneath, a powerful, damaging sound.

Wiley tried to steer off it.

The jeep was wedged up on the rock, its frame jammed tight. Wiley slammed the gearshift from low to reverse several times, trying for momentum, but three of the jeep’s wheels were off the ground, spinning in place. Lillian took over the driving while Wiley got out to push the jeep with all his loathing for it.

It wouldn’t budge.

They abandoned it, ran for cover.

The cluck of disturbed chickens.

A dog barked warning.

The fog that had been their enemy was now an ally that might be able to hide them. It was so dense it was nearly a fine spray on their faces, and it fell cold on the backs of their necks.

They reached the rear wall of a house that didn’t have a light on. There were no lights anywhere. The townspeople were probably lying low inside in the dark. Had been told to.

The rifle fire at the edge of town hadn’t let up.

No doubt some of the soldiers had been detailed to pursue the jeep, them.

Wiley felt he couldn’t let anything stop him from getting away, to Bogotá and away. Not now. But then, a feeling that was an emotional composite of all the other not-quite’s in his life seemed to counter his determination.

They had to find a car or truck.

But was this town big enough for anyone to have more than a burro? It probably didn’t even qualify as a town, only a place, a few buildings stuck together for no important reason on that godforsaken road.

In a half-crouch they went around the corner of the house and along its side. From the front corner, through the fog, they could just make out the front of another structure across the way. That meant Wiley had been right about the road. There it was.