Garmendia had taken the time to shave and dress before coming down to see his uninvited, and most unwelcome, guest. The grooming was not to honor the man
but to allow time for his outrage to subside from murderous to merely insulted.
Which most of the smuggler's acquaintances, whether rivals or employees, would recognize as more than dangerous enough.
He'd soothed his anger not in fear of the Sector or its agent but because he wanted to know just how much von Rossbach knew about his secret and who, if anyone, he had told. Once he had his answers, well, the Sector agent might just become fatally accident-prone. He might fall into a river, for example, at a place where caimans gathered.
Garmendia smiled at the image of the crocodilelike reptiles tearing into the foreigner's flesh. It almost put him in a good mood.
He found von Rossbach in the morning room, sipping coffee and smoking a huge cigar. Irritation rose in him to find that his servants had provided refreshment without his permission. He'd deal with that later.
Dieter looked up to find Garmendia standing in the doorway, his eyes still puffy from sleep but bright with rage and hatred. Deep inside him a sense of warning woke and he admitted to himself that, just perhaps, John might have had a point.
The smuggler moved into the room and took a stance before him. "Are you comfortable, Senhor von Rossbach?"
"Very comfortable, thank you," Dieter said, then took a sip from his cup. "Your cook makes excellent cafe com leite."
"I am so glad that you approve," Garmendia growled. He moved closer and clasped his hands behind him, glaring down at the former Sector agent.
"It was also good of you to see me on such short notice," von Rossbach added, smiling falsely.
"Oh," said Lazaro in mock surprise, "I actually had a choice, then?"
Dieter took another sip and smiled. "Not really."
The smuggler looked around. "And where is your young friend? I would have expected him to be with you."
Shaking his head, Dieter said, "Not this time." He put the cup and saucer down on the table beside him. "I find that, once again, I must call upon you for assistance."
"What kind of assistance?"
Dieter began to feel annoyed at the smuggler's persistence in looming over him.
"Travel assistance. Why don't you sit down and we can discuss it?"
"Because," Garmendia said quietly, stepping forward until their legs almost touched, "I do not want to sit down, any more than I want to give you assistance, or wanted to see you in the first place." Suddenly he grinned and there was pure evil in his eyes. "But since you have come, I shall do my very best to entertain you."
Uh-oh, von Rossbach thought.
John had checked the room where he and Dieter had forced Garmendia's
cooperation the last time they were here and had found it empty. He didn't check the kitchen, easily found by the scent of coffee and cooking, since he was certain von Rossbach wouldn't be there. He wished he had a floor plan of the place.
They're probably in a parlor or maybe some sort of breakfast room, he thought.
The place, a former rubber baron's mansion, was big enough to have both—"red rubber" had been very profitable back around the turn of the last century, what with thousands of Indio debt slaves who could be worked to death collecting latex in the jungle. He headed back toward the kitchen, figuring that if he had a breakfast room he'd put it where the coffee and toast wouldn't get cold on the way to the table.
As he moved slowly and carefully along he thought he caught the rumble of Dieter's voice. Good call, Connor!
He pulled himself through the duct until he was under the room from which von Rossbach's voice had come. John found himself at a bad angle for observation and had to content himself with listening. The conversation was not going Dieter's way.
"You force yourself into my house," Garmendia was saying, walking around his unwanted guest, "you give orders to my servants, you make yourself very comfortable, and then"—he came back to face von Rossbach, holding up one finger—"you tell me I must do you a favor."
He smiled and tilted his head. "You are a very pushy man, senhor."
Dieter took a puff of his cigar and narrowed his eyes, savoring the rich Havana smoke that went so well with good mountain coffee. He'd feel even better if he
were armed, but that would have been stupid— Garmendia's men were professionals, if not what you'd call top drawer.
"You will not be sorry to do me a favor, old friend," he said. "You would only be sorry not to."
The smuggler lost it then; he grabbed the silver coffeepot and swung it at Dieter.
The big man's hand slashed up and knocked it out of his hand, splashing the smuggler with the hot liquid. Garmendia shrieked, more rage than pain. Doors flew open along the wall that faced the veranda; they were made of slatted louvers anyway, no barrier to sound.
Shit, Dieter thought.
Garmendia tried to grab him around the shoulders; Dieter shoved the cigar over his shoulder, and the smuggler toppled backward with a yell of fear as it nearly touched his eye. That gave Dieter time enough to grab two of the first wave of Garmendia's men and smash their heads together with a ringing knock that made every man in the room wince.
Every man but the one behind him. Dieter's eyes widened slightly as he threw a punch into the man's stomach with all his huge strength behind it. The fist sank through a layer of blubber and rebounded off muscle like…
No, not rubber. Like a rubber tree.
The thug was a good six inches taller than Dieter, with a shelf-browed, huge-nosed face—a hormone-disease giant. He was built like a pear, but most of the bulk was anything but fat. A hand like the Jolly Green Giant's flyswatter came
around and hit the Austrian over one ear. The room dimmed and Dieter felt his knees begin to buckle. He had them back in working order in an instant, just in time for the next six of Garmendia's goons to pile on.
Garmendia spat into Dieter's battered face, then swung at him with all his strength. His fist hit squarely on the big man's jaw and von Rossbach's eyes rolled back, his head lolling. The bodyguards let go of his arms and the Austrian fell unconscious to the floor.
Swearing mightily, Garmendia rubbed his fist, then shook it. He turned to Dieter and gave him a vicious kick in the stomach.
" Bastardo!" he shouted, and kicked him again, almost knocking himself off balance. "You are going to die!"
A guard took out his pistol and pulled back the slide.
"NO!" Garmendia said, slapping the gun aside. " Idiota! Too easy, too quick.
And not here!" He glared at the unconscious man, chewing his lip thoughtfully.
"We'll take him to the river." He chuckled. "Something there is probably hungry.
No?"
His men smiled. "Piranha?" one asked.
"No, no," Garmendia said, waving the suggestion away. "Too hard to find.
Caiman will do." His eyes glittered at the thought of the big lizards. "And they take bigger bites!"
They all laughed.
"But first I shall have my breakfast like a civilized man. Lock him in the trunk of the car." The smuggler turned away, then back again. "And park the car in the sun."
His men laughed again and began dragging Dieter away.
Whoops, John thought. Looks like we're going on a boat trip.
He began to back out and found himself having to work very hard at it. The going had been tight heading in, but pushing himself backward seemed to make him fatter somehow. In less than a minute he had himself plugged in the duct.
His shirt had rolled up around his shoulders and he couldn't push it down or pull it off; the excess bulk had him jammed in like a stopper in a bottle.
Great! he thought. Just great. Then he forced himself to calm down and consider the problem as though it was outside himself. He pulled himself forward again and eventually the shirt began to roll back down. When he'd loosened it sufficiently he pulled it up over his head, the sort
of exercise that made him wish he was double-jointed. Then he resumed his backward journey, dragging the shirt with him. Thank God my pants aren't a problem.
After about thirty minutes of sweaty, claustrophobic effort John finally crawled backward out of the hole in the palacete's wall. For a moment he just lay there, indulging a sense of release as the hot, humid, muggy, wonderful outside air cooled him. Then he forced himself to his feet and began looking for a limo left in the sun.
John found the car with little problem. Unfortunately there was a veritable crowd
of thugs around it. One sat on the trunk with his feet on the back bumper while two of his friends leaned against it laughing at his jokes. One of them was big enough to make John blink, wondering if he was an optical illusion. They all had slight suspicious bulges under loose guayabera shirts.
John considered a couple of ideas about creating a distraction, then rejected them. There were two more under a nearby tree. These five were the only ones visible from where he crouched in the bushes, but he was willing to bet that there were more nearby. Plus there were passersby, some of whom might call the police… and many of the local police were friends of Garmendia's. Good friends; affluent friends.
It would have to be one hell of a distraction, he thought. Like maybe holding a gun to Garmendia's head. If he had a gun, which he didn't.
The point became moot as the smuggler came out and signaled that he wanted them to start up the car.
Guess Lazaro changed his mind about eating breakfast. Or he's on a diet. He eyed the sweaty jowls, already blue with beard stubble. Probably just in a hurry.
Unless he'd been in that damned tunnel even longer than he'd thought. His best bet now was to try to follow them, or failing that, to get to the river and hope to catch up with them there. John sprinted for the wall, hoping that most of the goons were fighting for a place in the limo and so wouldn't notice him; he felt a cold stab of anxiety. This was not going well. Why couldn't Dieter listen to him for a change?
Using the branches of a bush that had begun to turn tree, Connor was able to get
high enough to stretch his hands onto the top of the wall, then he pulled himself over and dropped down the other side.
His heart almost stopped when the limo drove right by him. Miraculously he went unnoticed. Garmendia must have been very distracted by his plans for von Rossbach. His bodyguards wouldn't have noticed who John was, but only that he was unarmed.
John stood and watched them go, then started to jog down the street, planning the quickest way to the river. As he ran he noticed a woman on a moped speeding toward him and decided that she was about to find herself on foot.
The woman wasn't young, but she didn't seem elderly either. She wore a pale blue shirt and beige skirt and a big straw hat tied to her head with a gauzy scarf.
Huge sunglasses made her look like a bug.
John dashed in front of her and the woman brought the bike to a skidding stop.
"I'm sorry, senhora…" Connor started to say, reaching out for her.
" John?" she said, whipping off her sunglasses. "I've been looking all over—"
" Mom?" The relief he felt almost made him weak in the knees. "No time," he said brusquely, and got behind her on the moped. "Dieter's in trouble. Follow that car."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "And here I'd hoped there'd come a day when I neither heard nor used that phrase ever again," she said as she revved up the little machine and started down the road.
"So what's your story?" she asked, pleased by the feel of his arms around her.
She'd missed him so much.
"Dieter went to Garmendia to get help in getting back to Paraguay," John explained.
Sarah frowned. "He went to Garmendia for something like that?" That was like using an ax to swat a fly.
John shrugged. "He thinks of Lazaro as a smuggler and doesn't seem to think he's dangerous. Anyway, uh…"
Uh-oh, Sarah thought. When John's voice petered out like that he was usually going to say something she didn't like. "What?" she demanded.
He pursed his lips for moment, then plunged ahead. "Garmendia thinks that you've told us some big, dark secret of his, so he cooperated with us the first time we came through here and asked for his help."
"Shit!" Sarah muttered. "That was an incredibly stupid thing to do, John!"
"But this time he took exception." John winced. That was putting it mildly considering that Garmendia was going to throw Dieter to the crocodiles.
Shaking her head, Sarah said, "If you only knew. I'm surprised you lived long enough for there to be a this time."
Up ahead she caught sight of the big limo. She took stock of what they knew.
Well, we know who's in the car, we know where they're going and why. Now
what do we do about it?
"Mom, are you carrying?"
"Don't you know me any better than that?" she asked. "Check the side saddle."
John opened one of the straw baskets attached to the side of the bike. There, wrapped in a red-and-white-checked napkin, he found a micro-Uzi and three spare magazines, plus a stun grenade.
"What about you?" he asked, flicking the napkin back over the gun.
"I'm covered," she said grimly.
They rode on in silence for a while as they'd come to a more populated area and the traffic was thick and deadly; you got a license here by paying the jefe a small bribe, if you bothered to get a license at all. Fortunately the limo had to slow down as much, if not more, than their little moped; there were trucks, gaudily painted and often crammed with crates of poultry.
Once Sarah had to stop lest she risk coming up right behind them.
"Mom," John suddenly said. "I've been thinking, and we need to stop them before they get to Garmendia's yacht."
Sarah said nothing as she concentrated on the traffic but turned her head slightly to show she was listening.
"If we could take out a tire they'd have to stop."
"Yes," she agreed. "But we'd still be five to two with Dieter in their hands."
John blew out his breath. "Yeah, anyway your micro-Uzi wouldn't do it." Sarah was silent a little longer, then John felt her relax..
"It's not the best idea in the world," she said, "but it's the best we've got. Look in my other saddlebag."
Leaning back, John rummaged in the basket for a moment.
"Cool!" he said, "One of those collapsible shotguns." He hugged her one-armed as he examined it. "I might have known you'd have one of these. And explosive shells! Neat!"
Sarah smiled. "Yeah, I'm always on the lookout for something practical that will fit in my purse."
She sped up as they came into the riverside area of town, deserted this time of the year, drawing even with the limo's back end. Sarah felt like she had a target painted on her chest, even though the limo's blacked-out windows made it impossible to tell if they'd even spotted her yet. She felt John adjusting his weight as he prepared to bring the shotgun up from the side away from the limo.
Suddenly the huge black car sped up.
"They've seen us," she muttered.
"C'mon, Mom, we're losing "em," John said.
Sarah gunned the throttle; unfortunately, that didn't mean much on a moped.
"Mo-om!"
"This is our top speed, John! We're on a moped, for God's sake, not a chopped Harley!"
He let out an impatient breath. "Gee, this situation seems weirdly familiar."
"No. That would be them trying to run us down while we're in a vehicle that seems to be standing still." She grimaced; her life was probably going out of control again if she was measuring positive and negative by such bizarro standards.
John kept his gaze focused on the limo as though he could slow it by sheer will.
Up ahead the road curved sharply and the limo slowed. Sarah maintained her speed, leaning into the curve like a racer, and they quickly gained back lost ground. Buildings reared on either side, huge decrepit warehouses—from the rubber boom, or pe
rhaps one of the seventies megaprojects gone bust.
"Go, go, go," John urged, barely above a whisper. He automatically shifted his weight to balance his mother's and his eyes sought out his target.
"Now, John," his mother said. "This is as good as it's gonna get."
He brought up the shotgun, aimed, and fired. A brief spurt of fire from the dusty, potholed street; a miss. The limo slammed on the brakes, fishtailing slightly, and the moped shot ahead of them, turning down an alley.
"MOM!" John shouted in protest. "What the hell are you doing?"
Sarah didn't answer; she was too busy trying to get them away from potential disaster. What was I thinking? she berated herself. This is John I've got riding behind me! Riding behind her pitting a shotgun against a carload of demented goons. Nothing was more important than John. Nothing! Not even Dieter von Rossbach, who should have known better than to pit himself against a rottweiler like Garmendia. Especially armed with nothing better than a secret he didn't even know.
How could she forget that even for a second?
"Mom," John said, leaning close. "You remember how a minute ago we were talking about them chasing us? Well, they're doing it!"
Shit! she thought.
Up ahead there was a burst of debris from a wall.
"And they're firing at us," John added.
No kidding.
"They've got automatic weapons," he went on, as something—somethings—
went whackwhackwhack through the air far too close. She began to sway the moped back and forth. That's not going to help for long, she thought. The limo was already gaining.
John risked a glance behind them. There were gunmen leaning out of the car windows, all of them firing. "Mom?" he said, his voice quavering a little. Bullets whizzed by, spanging up dirt and bits of building around them.
Sarah saw a dark space up ahead that warned of an alley between the tightly packed buildings and she turned into it. Unfortunately it was wide enough for the limo and she knew they'd follow. It wound on and she looked desperately for side alleys, finding none, as they came around a curve only to find a dead end.
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