A large log banged into the Esmeralda's steel hull so hard it jerked the book in Charley's hands.
"From the Indians Pizarro gathered a confirmation of the reports he had so often received of a rich country lying farther south; and there dwelt a mighty monarch whose dominions had been invaded by another still more powerful, the Child of the Sun."
His eyelids couldn't get a grip on his eyes; like trying to walk uphill on ice.
"It may have been the invasion of Quito that was meant, by the valiant Inca Huayna Capac, which took place some years previous to Pizarro's expedition."
Beebeeb.
Charley slept; and dreamed:
Tasha said to him, "I don't believe this."
"I'm doing it for you."
"Like hell. I will not be your excuse for mass murder, thank you."
"The way you talk."
"I can talk any way I want. I'm dead. I'm beyond you finally, Pops. I have to say it's almost a relief."
"No, you don't mean that. You don't know what you're saying. You're dead."
"How could you kill Timmy? I'm mortified."
"Yeah, well, I don't suppose Timmy is there with you, do I?"
"No one is here. I'm not here."
"Where are you calling from anyway?"
"Nowhere. I have to go now."
"Just tell me where. I'll send Felix to pick you up."
"Oh God, that would be great. I'm in-"
"PLEASE INSERT ANOTHER TWENTY-FIVE DEUTSCHEMARKS OR YOUR CALL WILL BE INTERRUPTED."
"Reverse the charges, operator. This is Charley Becker speaking."
"PLEASE INSERT ANOTHER TWENTY-FIVE MILLION DEUTSCHEMARKS OR YOUR CALL WILL BE TERMINATED."
"I'm telling you, I don't have any damn Deutschemarks. Don't you take dollars, for crying out loud?"
"Pops? Please-"
"THANK YOU FOR USING T‘N’T!"
"Tasha!"
He saw guards in watchtowers singing "Reach Out and Touch Someone" through loudspeakers.
He woke up.
***
"Felix."
"Jesus!" Felix had been sitting on the bow watching with fascination the confusion of the bats. His Uzi, which had been slung from his shoulder, was now aimed at Charley's chest. "Boss, you shouldn't sneak up like that."
Charley, in his bathrobe, said, "I wasn't sneaking. It's these slippers. What're you doing up?"
"I couldn't sleep. Rostow put real coffee in the urn. I'm watching the bats. Bundy says they're confused by the ship's radar. He says they're getting the radar beams mixed up in their own, that's why they're doing that, flying so close."
"ECM."
"What's ECM?"
"Electronic countermeasures. Jamming. Look at that. I never saw such a thing before. Whoa."
"You better sit down. They're all over."
"I've never seen a bat that size. And I've seen bats."
"I have a theory about that bat," said Felix. "I think he thinks the helicopter is an insect and he's trying to get it to fly so he can swallow it all in one bite. I don't really like it here, boss, you want to know the truth."
"I had a dream."
"I was reading the Cousteau book. You know the catfish in this river get up to seven feet long?"
"Catfish don't bite you."
"But what about the crocodile that eats seven-foot-long catfish?"
"It was about Tasha. She was upset with me."
"Sounds like her."
"She was upset about this."
"That's just your superego speaking."
"I don't think I got all that big an ego."
"Superego is the conscience. Freud started calling it that, so now all the shrinks do. Was she upset about burying them in her clearing on the island?"
"She didn't mention that. What is it with the bodies on the island? I don't see the problem."
"Forget it. She mention me?"
"Yeah, she said hi. Damnit, Felix, it was uncanny, it was like when she used to call home from Madeira."
"They got eels in this river."
"Eels?"
"Electric eels. Put out a hundred volts, enough to kill a man. Some people on Cousteau's expedition were attacked by iguanas."
"Now that's just nonsense. Iguanas don't attack."
"These iguanas do."
"I don't believe it."
"It's in the book. The men were in a canoe and the iguanas jumped down on them from the trees above. They tore apart their shirts with their claws."
"Well, I'm sure it was an aberration. I been around plenty of iguanas in my life and none of them ever attacked me."
"They've got a snake-"
"You ought to read something else, Felix. Look, they got snakes everywhere, practically. Hell, we used to eat snakes at the orphanage all the time. Rat snakes, long-nose, patch-nose, king, diamondback rattlers, all kinds of snakes. Used to go out and look for them on the Harlingen road. I've said grace over road-kill snakes."
"Yeah, well, these would say grace over you."
"I got no beef against God's creatures. There's a beauty in all of them, you just have to look."
"There's this one called a candiru. It's a catfish, technically. If you can find the beauty in this fish, it's all yours. It's the size of a toothpick, okay? And it swims up your dick."
"I don't believe a word of it."
"It's in the book. The natives believe it can swim up your dick while you're taking a piss."
"That is the most-look, I got all sorts of admiration for Cousteau, but you got to remember, he's French."
"What does that have to do with it?"
"Well, they're always exaggerating. Look at that revolution they had."
"Once it gets up into you, it throws out these little spines, like fishhooks. The pain is incredible. You can only get them removed by surgery. And where are you going to find a doctor out here?"
"It was so real. It was her, Felix."
"Rats the size of pigs."
"I was trying to get her to stay on the line, only…"
"Pink dolphins. Those are beautiful. They were the only things in this book I wanted to look at. But even them-the natives say that they screw human women and make them pregnant. It's in the book. I think I heard one the other night when we were anchored. Like a long sigh. Unnnnnhh. That's why the natives think they have souls, because of the sigh. You know why I think they sigh? Because they have to live in the same water with all those other things."
"There was this recording kept telling me to put Deutschemarks in the phone or I'd be disconnected. Deutschemarks. Maybe your buddy Freud could figure that out. It was like it was… Ma Hell speaking. Felix."
"What, boss?"
"You don't think, she can't be. I been over it a hundred times. It was a mistake. I cannot believe that God would send her to Hell for a, for a little mistake."
"She's not in Hell, boss. You want to know the truth, I think we're the ones in Hell."
"It is kind of gloomy at that. Reminds me a little of the Belgian Congo. I ever tell you about the place I saw there where all the parrots go to die?"
"No."
"You never seen such a place. Terrible smell."
"I'm going inside."
"Look out! Sweet Merciful Jesus, will you look at the size of him. Got a wingspread on him like a B-52."
28
"I really don't see how we're getting around the No Foreign Troops thing, Ray."
"'Troops' really means brigade strength. We're just talking about a unit here."
"A unit of troops."
"Well, strictly, legalistically speaking, sure."
"Well, strictly legalistically is, is sure as heck how the Peruvians are going to be speaking if this thing blows up in our faces."
"John has something there, Ray."
"Look, it walks like a duck, flies like a duck, smells like a duck. It's a duck. Let's just all face that. There's no way this thing is, is not a duck."
"It's quacking for me too, Ray."
"Oka
y, but I'm saying our chances of doing this are in the high eighties, low nineties."
"I'd like to believe that Ray, but, but we just, we just don't really have the track record to, to justify that."
"What about Panama? We managed Panama okay, didn't we?"
"Well, Ray, that wasn't exactly low-intensity. We had twenty-four thousand men involved in, in the Panama thing."
"And women."
"Yeah, all right. The point is, this is more of an Iranian-type thing, not a Panama thing. And you saw what happened there."
"We're not saying that happened on your watch, Ray."
"No, of course."
"In all respect, I disagree. I don't think we are talking about an Iranian-type thing. And if we should discuss the ten percent area where something goes, where the balls aren't breaking our way, then it can be finessed. We could hardly have finessed the Iranian thing."
"Finesse how?"
"Well, as a communications breakdown. You know, SOLIC assumed JUNG had cleared it with GOP, JUNG assumed SOLIC had cleared it with GOP."
"I don't like it, Ray. And I don't think he's going to like it either."
"Have you ever seen SEALs work, John?"
"Well, no. Obviously not."
"Let me tell you something about SEAL Team Six. These boys are, you should see them. Sometime just come down to Little Creek and see them."
"I'm a little busy here, Ray."
"Something like this, for them, it's, it's a Cakewalk. They could do this in their sleep. It's a straightforward helicopter insertion upriver of the yacht. Our boys float till the boat comes by, they glom on to the hull with these little limpet mines, bang, Mr. Becker's yacht suddenly has serious leak problems. Becker and his people have to abandon ship, end of mission. Our boys just keep on floating downstream to their extraction point. I'll tell you what, I'll look into, see if we can't put together an all-Hispanic team so they'll really blend. It's just not that complicated. We're talking about an in-and-out thing."
"I still don't like it."
"Okay. Then what about cutting GOP in?"
"No no no no. I don't think we're there yet. Bill, do you have people on the inside of GOP?"
"That's kind of sensitive, John."
"Bill, we're all Top Secret/Throne-cleared here."
"That's not Throne level."
"Well, what is it, then?"
"The classification is classified."
"Let's try to work together here, Bill. We're all on the same team."
"It's a question of compartmentalizing-"
"Dammit, Bill."
"We have assets within GOP, yes. That's all I can say, really."
"That's very helpful, Bill. Are they reliable?"
"Well, yes. That's why they're assets."
"Yes, but I'm new at all this, I wasn't dealing with this when I was governor, I mean, but it seems to me, especially with this Noriega thing going on, that all our 'assets' are, are having it both ways, collecting two paychecks. I'm just asking if they can be trusted, is all."
"Down there it's usually a pay-as-you-go. With something like this we'd probably be in a bonus situation."
"Wonderful. Do we have any friends, Bill?"
"How do you mean?"
"Does anyone like us, or, or work for us just on the merits? Or is it all just money?"
"Oh. It's all just money."
29
Esmeralda's anchor chain was taut, links squeaking from the strain of keeping 460 tons of yacht from being swept off in the Huallaga's swift rush. Farther out in the middle of the river, giant logs tore past. Charley had put her nose right against the riverbank, in still water; even so, a wake was burbling out behind her transom.
They sat around the table on which Tallulah Bankhead had allegedly once done the woolly deed. Its fine inlaid surface was covered by a padded tablecloth to protect it from the various metallic objects that were making their rounds: M-16 grenades, radios, collapsible-stock Cars M-16 rifles, CD players and speakers. Bundy was demonstrating grenade etiquette to the new people.
Charley turned on the video and pressed "play."
On came the Becker Industries corporate logo, the eagle holding the globe, which Tasha said looked like a bird trying to dribble a basketball, followed by footage of the space shuttle hurtling through the upper atmosphere. A few seconds later, there were two loud explosions and the solid-fuel rocket boosters separated from the orbiter and began their slow-motion tumble back to Mother Earth.
The voice-over began: "Originally developed for NASA by Becker Industries, High Mass Explosive, or HMX, represents the state of the art in plastic explosives. Here on earth, HMX has literally hundreds of uses. Lightweight, malleable and detonated exclusively by means of an eighty-five percent nitroglycerin power primer controlled by a two-stage safety microchip-also made by Becker Industries-HMX is the first choice of a growing number of government and civilian agencies. With an explosive power of three million pounds per square inch and a flash velocity of twenty-six thousand feet per minute-nearly twenty times the muzzle velocity of a.38 caliber bullet-it's clear why the professionals turn to HMX."
"This wasn't made for… us?" asked Bundy.
"No," said Charley. "Our sales people use it when they make their rounds. Fire departments, mostly. Police Emergency Services. It's good for when you need to get through a wall in a hurry. Plus some government agencies. Delta Force uses it."
"Oh, okay," said McNamara. "Play-Doh."
"How's that?"
"That's what Delta calls it, Play-Doh."
"You get more bang for your buck than with C-4," said Charley. "A lot more. Your basic C-4 just doesn't compare with this stuff. We package it for Delta special, to look like one of those family-size toothpaste pump dispensers. We add peppermint and candy-cane colors so it'll get past the dogs."
The screen showed technicians putting a stick of it inside an old armored car. "Watch this," said Charley. "That's a twelve-hundred-grain stick, less than a quarter pound. Watch."
"Jesus."
"I'm standing one hundred yards away when they did that. I took Natasha along. She was just a little girl at the time. Anyway, one of my earplugs was in wrong. Didn't hear right for a week after that. Hell of a sound."
Charley pressed "stop." He passed the V-shaped stick down the table. Bundy and McNamara were at ease with it; the others handled it as if it would go off if they breathed on it wrong.
"Not gonna bite you. You can put it in the oven, hit it, light a match to it, stick it up your ass and fart, it will not go off without the nitro chip. Okay now, you all met Hot Stick here. They don't call him that for nothing. He's won the Scale Masters Championship three times. That's the World Series of UAV flying, so listen up. Hot Stick, talk to us."
"Yes, sir. First I want to say that me and my crew are proud to be part of the team."
Bundy and McNamara looked at each other dubiously.
"If I could, I'd like to take the opportunity to give the boys a little background on UAVs."
"All right, but we got a full agenda."
"Roger dodger. These aircraft go by different names. UAV, for unmanned aerial vehicle, RPV, for remotely piloted vehicle, or just RC, for remote-controlled. People who don't know better call them 'model airplanes.'"
"Now, the UAV, as we know it, originated during World War II when the Army needed to train antiaircraft gunners. Up to then they'd been towing targets, banners or drogues, behind airplanes and letting the ack-acks bang away at them. The trouble was, they tended to lose pilots, so they started to think in terms of self-propelled vehicles. I know Mr. Becker here is familiar with Project Aphrodite. That was sort of our answer to Hitler's doodlebugs, the V-1 and V-2 rockets. The Navy would take B-17s and B-24s that were coming up on the end of their service lives, rig them so they were remote-capable, pack them full of high explosives. The pilot and copilot would get them off the ground and up over the English Channel and then bail out. They put a sort of TV camera on it so a third pilot, fl
ying alongside, could guide the bomber to its target. That's how young Joe Kennedy was killed. The bomber he was flying blew up on him over the Channel."
"I think we're all set on the history, thank you, Hot Stick."
"Roger. Real briefly then, the technology has come quite a ways since then. In the fifties RPVs were basically just your stick-and-stringer balsa-wood units that took hours and hours to build. Now we make the bodies out of preformed fiberglass or foam core. Then in 1972 J. J. Scozzufavva and Bob Violett developed the first ducted-fan jet engine and turned the UAV world upside-down. Now we had twenty-three thousand RPMs, speeds of up to a hundred fifty miles an hour. From the ground, you cannot tell the difference between these aircraft and the real thing."
"Horseshit," said McNamara.
"Except perhaps in the field of sound. A ducted-fan two-stroker will give you scale speed, but it won't give you scale sound. That's where those CD players you boys will be planting around the target perimeter will come in."
Bundy said to McNamara, "Boys?"
"As the UAVs approach, they'll transmit a signal to the boom boxes and activate the CD sound track. Mr. Dolby here has figured out a way to give us perfect stereo. Right, Dolby?"
"Uh huh."
"As they approach the perimeter, the signal will trigger the boom boxes on the near side, then as they fly by, the signal will activate the boom boxes on the other side of the perimeter."
Dolby said, "The problem I'm having, I mean, are we limited to these small jobs here? I mean, they'll do it, but they're only hundred-watt. I was telling Hot Stick earlier, I could rig us up some four-hundred-watt, eighteen-inch subwoofers with tuned ports and really push some air, you know what I'm saying? Make these dudes think we're the Monsters of Rock. But we'd need more juice. We could get it out of that portable generator you got down in engine room."
McNamara said, "I'm not humping a sixty-millimeter mortar, eighteen-inch speakers and a damn generator into the jungle."
Dolby shrugged. "Too bad, man. Be a totally awesome sound."
"I think the hundred-watt speakers will do fine," said Charley. "Hot Stick?"
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