Unacceptable Risk (9 page)

The fat fox waits by the right rabbit hole.

—Tilok proverb

They came up the river at thirty miles per hour, Sam at the bow of the twenty-five-foot boat, watching the mud brown Yavari River disappear beneath him. Even a quarter-mile distant, the giant trees that created the highest layer of jungle canopy seemed immense. It bore no resemblance to the conifer forests of northern California. Here, one experienced layers upon layers of green, things growing up and down the enormous trees, things flowering, things sprouting, things dying in a never-ending cycle witnessed by few and understood by no one.

Sam's party had come down the Amazon from Iquitos to the Yavari and from there up the Yavari and finally to Angamos, where they refueled before proceeding toward the black water of the Galvez River. Two hours later, they were forty miles up the Galvez.

Sam waved for the guide Javier to stop.

Grady announced her intention to use this opportunity to run into the jungle and pee. Yodo, a big Japanese man whose body was about halfway between a sumo wrestler and a professional basketball player, with a round cherubic face and hair drawn back tight to a smidgen of a pigtail, followed at a discreet distance. At the moment his job was to protect Grady, and he was a man who took his job seriously. Javier grabbed a small fishing pole and some chicken bits for bait and proceeded to pull in piranha and toss them in a plastic tarp.

Sam called the office on the sat phone. They connected him to Jill.

"Where are you?"

"Not far from Bowden's. About ten miles downstream."

"Well, you may want to hurry. We have word that a boatload of white men is headed up the Tapiche, one of them traveling under a French passport. I'm convinced that Girard is really Gaudet. Figgy says he's not so sure. The Tapiche would be the back way to the Galvez if somebody didn't want to be detected. They could walk from the Tapiche near where it joins the Blanca. That would take maybe two or three days."

"Damn." Sam consulted a map of the region.

"The spooks are getting their Brazilian general friend to turn 'Big Eye' in your direction. Nothing yet."

"I sure didn't expect this."

"Neither did we."

"I have Grady. I can't go all the way back to Angamos. And even if I did, I can't just drop her off on the beach. I'd have to leave Yodo and the guide as well."

"All true. But Grady can fight."

"Yeah," Sam said without enthusiasm. He could handle dying in a firelight with Gaudet, but he wasn't sure he could deal with watching Grady being tortured. There was a conspiracy of feminine minds in the bowels of his company. They believed in women in combat and he couldn't quite admit that he did not, so he flirted with it, allowing female fighters when he was reasonably certain there would be no fight. So far, he had been right more than he had been wrong, but there was a dead woman to commemorate the occasion when he had misfigured. It had left a hole in his soul that would never be filled and no amount of ethical reasoning would change that for him. It didn't feel like normal war, if there was such a thing, when a woman was being abused.

"We could travel with the spotlights and be to Bowden's in an hour. We'd have to go slower in the pitch dark."

Jill stayed quiet and Sam thought.

"I'm gonna go. As you say, they
should
be at least a couple days getting there. We'll figure out a reception."

"Okay. We'll be sitting here with our fingers crossed."

It took only forty-five minutes to get to the landing, but finding the house was tougher. It was set back a bit in the jungle and the palm thatch roof came down low over the porch, so at night it blended with the jungle. Sam led the way up to the porch and found a note written in Spanish. Javier explained that Mr. Bowden had gone off with a Matses girl to locate a group of criminal intruders headed to the Galvez from the Tapiche. They went into the house and found handmade furnishings and a shortwave radio. Sam found a sheet of paper on the floor. It was another note in Spanish and he handed it to Javier. According to the note, trunks containing notes or papers from Bowden's work had filled part of this room. The note asked a fellow called Ramos to take the trunks and to use Bowden's boat in order to deliver them to the scientific group at Pacaya-Samiria and then to have them sent to a professor at Cornell University. It listed a Professor Richard Lyman and his address.

"Obviously, he suspects the men are after his work. Now he's going after them? Unbelievable," Sam muttered. Grady and Yodo were standing at his elbow, just behind Javier. "Bowden can't know what he's getting into. We'll put Figgy on the Cornell professor, so we can get to the journals."

"What now?" Javier asked.

"Go after them. Fast. If it's Gaudet, Bowden's a dead man. Unless Gaudet needs him alive."

"If he's with a Matses girl," Javier said, "things may go better than you think."

A day after the last debacle, Baptiste had another meeting planned with Benoit Moreau that he hoped would go better than the prior. He had just spent a half hour talking to his doctor about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Benoit had had a test recently and was clean, but according to the doctor, the results would not be accurate as to AIDS for any recent sexual activity. The woman was a terrible risk for more reasons than AIDS, but the logic of the situation was not taking any toll on his loins, only his brain. Even though it was more dangerous than trying to strangle a Paris whore, he couldn't abate his desire nor could he reason with it. He had never even really considered being unfaithful to his wife because in the area of intimacy he was paranoid. And he was a Catholic from a Catholic family, even if it was more in name than in deed.

For the paranoid, such as Baptiste, sleeping with Benoit would be a terrifying dance with chance. He pondered whether she might claim rape and retain some of his semen to prove it, and he obsessed over that one. Other problems in life did not have this effect on him. Figuring all this out took an incredibly large chunk of time and a bigger chunk of emotional energy. Asking the questions made him feel demeaned. He supposed that is what Benoit Moreau had in mind.

If he didn't obtain Benoit's help, he was placing all of his hopes in Rene's race against the Americans to find Bowden first. That wasn't a good enough bet.

Before he went to see Benoit, he had a meeting with the admiral. Waiting outside the office at the end of the line was agonizing. He wanted nothing more than to get it over with and get on with Benoit. It took about five minutes to get his turn. Sitting in front of the admiral, he concentrated on remaining calm and unflappable.

"How are we doing with Benoit?"

"I think I'm getting closer."

"'Closer' is not your assignment. The minister is on my tail, and the prime minister is calling me every day. I'm making things up to say—things that sound like real progress. We need success, and we need it now."

"Our man is in with the Americans. Rene's in the field. We have good men in New York. We're in a good position," Baptiste confirmed.

"So the Americans have to wipe our ass. Don't misunderstand, it was smart to get in with them. But we have to beat them, not catch their crumbs. As for Rene ... you know my feelings about him."

"Yes, sir."

The admiral took a drink of his very black coffee. "I know that this American, Sam, is well connected." Baptiste wondered if his boss was nervous. They both were familiar with the rumors surrounding Sam. Few knew him, but nobody claimed he was anything less than shrewd. "Do you really think Newton or Rene can outmaneuver him?"

"So far, we are clean. I'm waiting for a full report from both."

The admiral nodded, his eyes distant. "I wish we could play rough with Benoit Moreau, but she knows too many politicians. Carnal knowledge, I mean. Even in prison she gets more favors than a round-heeled laundress."

"I did not know this. She has it good?"

"She's behind bars—but aside from that, they treat her like someone would be treated if there were a steady stream of discreet inquiries from parliament. If you get my meaning."

"No wonder it is hard to bribe her," Baptiste affirmed.

"You're talking about the job offer?"

"Yes. She has not bitten."

"On the job or your cock?"

"I would never—"

"Of course you wouldn't. Make sure you don't. Maybe I should talk to her. Discreet inquiries or no, she's still in a cell. The work deal should appeal. Go see her again, and if she says no, then I will see her. If you have to promise her a possible pardon, then do it. It won't be possible anytime soon, but she won't know that. Whatever it takes to get her cooperation is what you should do," the admiral stated.

Baptiste swallowed and nodded.
Indeed.

"The admiral wants to come and see me, doesn't he? He's looking for excuses." Benoit Moreau gave Baptiste a level stare when she said it, and for some strange reason he wanted with all his soul to give in. He wanted to be in league with her, to be her partner and confidant, even her subject. There was a strange titillation to it. Somehow she knew what he wanted better than he did. So strange. But he was not ready to accede to her demand for sex. Not yet.

"My boss wants the job done."

She smirked. "I'm so grateful you don't actually believe that. Okay, let's do a test. You pick up the phone and call Admiral Larive and ask him if he would like to see me. Just a simple question with me listening. We can share an earpiece."

"I can return you to your cell. I can find an excuse to throw you against the wall. Break your ribs, knock your teeth out—and you just don't get it."

"Knock my teeth out. Go ahead. Great career move."

"What the hell do you want?"

"I will deal either with you or your boss. Which will it be?" Benoit challenged.

"Let's talk about the deal. You go to work. You get out of here for the day, every day. You help us and we make your life a lot better."

"Okay. It will be your boss. I will make your deal and take care of the admiral myself. When I am in my new office, I will ask him to come and see me. I will tell him all my secrets and you will be rewarded because you made the deal."

"You will never seduce him."

"Then that is not your concern. Besides, I said nothing about seducing him. Let's make the deal."

"The deal is, you go to the lab starting tomorrow. As long as we like your cooperation, you keep going. That's the deal. And on your first day there you will tell me everything you know about Chaperone," Baptiste explained.

"That is not the deal. A deal is a negotiation. That was no negotiation."

"You are a criminal. The French government does not negotiate with criminals. They impose conditions. You will not see the admiral and we will not be manipulated."

He was angry and knew he shouldn't do what he did next, but he could not lose face now. He yanked her from the chair, dragged her to the door, and threw her out of the office so that she tripped in her chains and landed hard on the linoleum. The guards looked mystified and a little nervous. She looked up with pure superiority and he knew he wouldn't like whatever she was about to say.

"If the Americans get Chaperone before you do," she whispered, "you will look like an idiot."

He kicked the door shut and felt for a fleeting moment as though he had reclaimed his manhood. Then her words sank in and he knew that she knew.

* * *

The place was a green-leafed steam bath. In some places the visibility in the beam of the flashlights narrowed to a few feet. Dawn had just arrived, revealing highland jungle: terra firma. It actually tended to have thicker foliage than the lowland jungle because it was not underwater for six months out of the year. There was no visibility above to the sky even in the daylight except in natural openings and thin spots in the forest canopy. GPS signals were often weak, maybe one good satellite signal and one faint. In the rare clearings five good satellite signals were common.

Sam was getting the hang of this jungle, although navigating was extraordinarily difficult. Javier managed to walk generally in the appropriate direction according to the intermittent GPS readings, but it was obvious that they traversed nothing like a straight line, making the journey longer than the map would indicate.

Sam used a GPS to find the approximate coordinates of a spot on the Tapiche closest to Bowden's house. As they went, they meandered, looking for the sign of a small group of men. They traveled into the early afternoon and then looked for a natural opening in the canopy and once again used the satellite phone. Sam noted that he had a good signal. He dialed and got his office on the line and soon was talking to Jill.

"Where are you?"

"About twenty miles from Bowden's as the crow flies. We've been wandering, looking for a sign. We'll go no farther toward the Tapiche, unless you guys know something we don't."