River of Death (10 page)
Authors: Alistair MacLean
Hamilton moved off and sat by the side of the river, idly lobbing stones into the dark waters. Some minutes later Maria appeared and stood uncertainly beside him. Hamilton looked up, smiled briefly, then glanced indifferently away.
She said: 'Is it safe to sit here?
'Boy-friend let you off the leash?'
'He's not my boy-friend.' She spoke with such vehemence that Hamilton looked at her quizzically.
'You could have fooled me. Misinterpretations, so easily come by. You have come, no doubt, or been sent to ask a few craftily probing questions?'
She said quietly: 'Do you have to insult everybody? Wound everybody? Antagonise everybody? Provoke everybody? Back in Brasilia you said you had friends. It is difficult to understand how you came by them.'
Hamilton looked at her in some perplexity then smiled. 'Now look who's doing the insulting.'
'Between gratuitous insults and the plain truth there's a big difference. I'm sorry to have disturbed you.' She turned to walk away.
'Oh, come and sit down. Childish, childish. Maybe I can ask a few probing questions while you congratulate yourself on having found a chink in Hamilton's armour. I suppose that could be misinterpreted as an insult, too. Just sit down.'
She looked at him doubtfully. 'I asked if it's safe to sit here.'
'A damn sight safer than trying to cross a street in Brasilia.'
She sat down gingerly, a prudent two feet away from him. 'Things can creep up on you.'
'You've read the wrong books or talked to the wrong people. Who or what is going to creep up on us? Indians? There's not a hostile Indian within two hundred miles of here. Alligators, jaguars, snakes - they're a damned sight more anxious to avoid you than you are to avoid them. There are only two dangerous things in the forest - the quiexada, the wild boar, and the carangageiros. They attack on sight.'
'The caran what?'
'Giant spiders. Great hairy creatures the size of soup plates. They come at you one yard at a time. Jumping, I mean. One yard and that's it.'
'How horrible!'
'No problem. None in those parts. Besides, you didn't have to come.'
'Here we go again.' Maria shook her head. 'You really don't care much for us, do you?'
'A man has to be alone at times.'
'Evasion, evasion.' She shook her head again 'You're always alone. Married?'
'No.'
'But you were.' It wasn't a question, it was a statement.
Hamilton looked at her, at the remarkable brown eyes which reminded him painfully of the only pair he'd ever seen like them. 'You can tell?'
'I can tell.'
'Well, yes.'
'Divorced?'
'No.'
'No? You. mean -'
'Yes.' '
'Oh! Oh, I am sorry. How — how did she die?'
'Come on. Plane to catch.'
'Please. What happened?'
'She was murdered.' Hamilton stared out across the river, wondering what had caused him to make this admission to a total stranger. Ramon and Navarro knew, but they were the only two in the world he'd told. Perhaps a minute passed before he became conscious of the light touch of finger-tips on his forearm. Hamilton turned to look at her and knew at once that she wasn't seeing him: the big brown eyes were masked in tears. Hamilton's first reaction was one of an almost bemused incomprehension: this was totally out of character with the image she — ably abetted by Smith — projected of herself as a worldly-wise, street-wise cosmopolitan.
Hamilton gently touched the back of her hand and at first she didn't appear to notice. Perhaps half a minute passed before she wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand, disengaged her other hand, smiled apologetically and said: Tm sorry. What must you think of me?'
'I think I may have misjudged you. I also think that in some way, some time, you may have suffered a lot.'
She had nothing to say to this, just wiped her eyes again, rose and turned away.
'Battered' is the adjective invariably and usually inevitably used to describe vintage and superannuated DC 35 and this one was no exception: if anything it was an epitome, a prime example. The gleaming silver fuselage of yesteryear was but a fond and distant memory, the metal skin was pitted and scarred and appeared to be held together chiefly by large areas of rust: the engines, when started up, were a splendid complement to the rest of the plane, coughing, spluttering and vibrating to such an extent that it seemed improbable that they would not be shaken free from the airframe. But the plane lived up to its reputation of being one of the toughest and most durable ever built. With what seemed a Herculean effort — it couldn't have been, it was under-loaded — it clambered off the runway and headed east into the late afternoon sky.
There were eleven people in the plane, Hamilton's party, the pilot and co-pilot. Heffner, as was customary, was taking counsel with a bottle of Scotch: the aluminium flask, presumably, was being held as an emergency reserve. Seated across the aisle from Hamilton, he turned to him and spoke or, rather, shouted, for the rackety clamour from the ancient engines was almost deafening.
'Wouldn't kill you to tell us your plans, would it, Hamilton?'
'No, it wouldn't kill me. But what does that matter? How's that going to help you?'
'Curiosity.'
'No secret. We land at Romono airstrip about the same time., as the helicopter and hovercraft. Helicopter refuels — even those big birds have only a limited range — takes the hovercraft downstream, leaves it, returns and takes us down to join it in the morning.'
Smith, sitting in the seat next to Hamilton and listening, put a cupped hand to Hamilton's ear and said: 'How far downstream and why?'
'I'd say about sixty miles. There are falls about fifty miles from Romono. Not even a hovercraft could negotiate them so this is the only way we can get it past there.'
Heffner said: 'Do you have a map?'
'If anything happens to you it would be nice to know where we are.'
'You better pray nothing happens to me. Without me, you're finished.'
Smith said into Hamilton's ear: 'You have to antagonise him? You have to be so arrogant? You have to provoke him?'
Hamilton looked at him, his face cold. 'I don't have to. But it's a pleasure.'
Romono airstrip, like Romono itself, looked, as it always did, a miasmic horror. The DC 3 and the helicopter-cum-hovercraft arrived on the strip within minutes of each other. The helicopter's rotor had hardly stopped when a small fuel tanker moved out towards it.
The passengers disembarked from the DC 3 and looked around them. Their expressions ranged from the incredulous to the appalled.
Smith contented himself with saying merely: 'Good God!'
'I don't believe it,' Heffner said. 'What a stinking, nauseating dump. Jesus, Hamilton, is this the best you could do for us?'
'What are you complaining about?' Hamilton pointed to the tin shed which constituted both the arrival and departure terminals. 'Look at that sign there. Romono International Airport. What more reassuring than that? This time tomorrow, gentlemen, you may well be thinking of this as home sweet home. Enjoy it. Think of it as the last outpost of civilisation. Look, as the poet says, your last on all things lovely every hour. Take what you need for the night. We have a splendid hotel here -the Hotel de Paris. Those who don't fancy it - well, I'm sure Hiller will put you up.' He paused. 'On second thoughts, I think I could have a better use for Miller.'
Smith said: 'What kind of use?'
'With your permission, of course. You know that this hovercraft is the lynch-pin to everything?'
Tm not a fool.'
'The hovercraft will be anchored tonight in very dicey waters indeed. By which I mean that the natives on either side of the Rio da Morte range from the unreliable to the downright hostile. So, it must be guarded. I suggest that this is not a task for one man, Kellner, the pilot, to do. In fact, I'm not suggesting, I'm telling you. Even if a man could keep awake all night, it would still be extremely difficult. So, another guard. I suggest Hiller.' He turned to Hiller. 'How are you with automatic weapons?'
'Can find my way around, I guess.'
'Fine.' He turned back to Smith. 'You'll find a bus waiting outside the terminal.' He reboarded the plane and emerged two minutes later bearing two automatic weapons and some drums of ammunition. By this time Hiller was alone. 'Let's go to the hovercraft.'
Kellner, the hovercraft pilot, was standing by his craft. He was thirtyish, sun-tanned, tough.
Hamilton said: 'When you anchor tonight don't forget to do so in mid-stream.'
'There'll be a reason for that?' Kellner, clearly, was an Irishman.
'Because if you tie up to either bank the chances are good that you'll wake up with your throat cut. Only, of course, you don't wake up.'
'I don't think I'd like that.' Kellner didn't seem unduly perturbed. 'Mid-stream for me.'
'Even there you won't necessarily be safe. That's why Hiller is coming with you - needs two men to guard against an attack from both sides. And that's why we have those two nasty little Israeli sub-machines along.'
'I see.' Kellner paused. 'I'm not much sure that I care for killing helpless Indians.'
'When those same helpless Indians puncture your hide with a few dozen darts and arrowheads, all suitably or perhaps even lethally poisoned, you might change your mind.'
'I've already changed it.'
'Know anything about guns?'
'I was in the S.A.S. If that means anything to you.'
'It means a great deal to me.' The S.A.S. was Britain's elite commando regiment. 'Well, that saves me explaining those little toys to you, I suppose.'
'I know them.'
'One of my luckier days,' Hamilton said. 'Well, see you both tomorrow.'
The saloon of the Hotel de Paris, after closing hours, had six occupants. Heffner, glass in hand, was slumped in a chair, but his eyes were open: Hamilton, Ramon, Navarro, Serrano and Tracy were asleep or apparently so, stretched out on benches or on the floor. Bedrooms were, that night, at a premium in the Hotel de Paris. As they were all equally dreadful and bug-ridden, Hamilton had explained, this was not a matter for excessive regret.
Heffner stirred, stooped, removed his boots, rose and padded his noiseless way across to the bar, deposited his glass on the counter, then crossed silently to the nearest rucksack. It was, inevitably, Hamilton's. Heffner opened it, searched briefly, removed a map, and studied it intently for some minutes before returning it to the rucksack. He returned to the bar, poured himself a generous measure of the Hotel de Paris's Scotch. Wherever the birthplace of that particular brand was it hadn't been among the highlands and islands of Scotland. He returned to his seat, replaced his shoes, leaned back in his chair to enjoy his night-cap, spluttered and emptied half the contents on the floor.
Hamilton, Ramon and Navarro, heads propped on hands, were regarding him with a quietly speculative air.
Hamilton said: 'Well, did you find what you were looking for?'
Heffner didn't say whether he had or not.
'One of the three of us is going to keep an eye on you for the remainder of the night. You try to stir from that chair and I will take the greatest pleasure in clobbering you. I don't much care for people who meddle in my private belongings.'
Hamilton and the twins slept soundly throughout the night. Heffner did not once leave his chair.
CHAPTER SIX
Just after dawn, the helicopter pilot, John Silver — generally known as Long John — was at the controls. The party of nine embarked and stowed their overnight luggage with the food and equipment that had been transferred from the DC}. Hamilton took the co-pilot's seat. So cavernous was the interior of the giant helicopter that it seemed virtually empty. It rose effortlessly and flew more or less east, paralleling the course of the Rio da Morte. All the passengers had their heads craned, peering through what few windows there were: they were seeing for the first time the true Amazonian rain-forest.
Hamilton turned in his seat and pointed forward. 'That's an interesting sight.' His voice was a shout.
On a wide mud flat, perhaps almost a mile long, and on the left bank, scores of alligators lay motionless as if asleep.
'Good God!' It was Smith. 'Good God! Are there so many 'gators in the world?' He shouted to Silver: 'Take her down, man, take her down!' Then to Heffner: 'Your camera! Quick!' He paused, as if in sudden thought, then turned to Hamilton. 'Or should I have asked the expedition commander's permission?'
Hamilton shrugged. 'What's five minutes?'
The helicopter came down over the river in great sweeping, controlled circles. Long John was clearly a first-rate pilot.
The alligators, hemmed in the narrow strip between forest and river, seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. It was, depending upon one's point of view, a fascinating, horrifying or terrifying spectacle.
Tracy said, almost in awe: 'My word, I wouldn't care to crash-land amongst that lot.'
Hamilton looked at him. 'Believe me, that's the least of the dangers down there.'
'The least?'
'This is the heart of the Chapate territory.'
'That meant to mean something to me?'
'You have a short memory. I've mentioned them before. It would mean something to you if you ended up in one of their cooking-pots.'
Smith looked at him doubtfully, clearly not knowing whether to believe him or not, then turned to the pilot.
'That's low enough, Silver.' He twisted in his seat and shouted at the top of his voice: 'God's sake, man, hurry!'
'Moment, moment,' Heffner bawled back. 'There's such a damned jumble of equipment here.'
There was, in fact, no jumble whatsoever. Heffner had already found his own camera, which lay at his feet. In Hamilton's rucksack he had found something that he had missed the previous night for the good enough reason that he hadn't been looking for it. He held a leather-bound case in his hand, the one Colonel Diaz had given to Hamilton. He extracted the camera from the case, looked at it in some puzzlement, then pressed a switch in the side. A flap fell down, noiselessly, on oiled hinges. His face registered at first bafflement, then understanding. The interior of the camera consisted of a beautifully made transistorised radio transceiver. Even more importantly it bore some embossed words in Portuguese. Heffner could read Portuguese. He read the words and his understanding deepened. The radio was the property of the Brazilian Defence Ministry which made Hamilton a government agent. He clicked the flap in position.
'Heffner!' Smith had twisted again in his seat. 'Heffner, if you - Heffner!'
Heffner, radio case in one hand and his pearl-handled pistol in the other, approached. His face was a smiling mask of vindictive triumph. He called out: 'Hamilton!'