"The important thing will be for Mac to time his mortar bombardments to my flybys. Think you can handle that?"
Mac looked at Bundy. Bundy shrugged, as if it would be too much effort. Hot Stick proceeded, unfazed.
"I'm pleased to say our attack profile will include one of the first true turbine UAVs, built by Mr. Brian Seegers himself. Brian doesn't know about this particular application of his technology, but I'm certain that if he did, he would be proud to be taking part in the war on drugs."
Charley stirred. "This isn't the war on drugs, son. This is my war."
"Yes, sir. As you know, true turbines won't give you scale speed, only about a hundred miles an hour. But they will give you scale sound."
"I'm counting on it."
"I can deliver a hundred and ten decibels at a hundred feet. But the main advantage of the true turbine, for our purposes, isn't sound, but heat. Ordinarily these engines run so cool you can put your hand to the exhaust. Since we're not worried about reusability, I'm using a low-temperature grease in the shielded bearings and choking up on the ram air inlet, plus running a mix of thirty-five percent nitromethane into the fuel spray manifold. She's going to run hot."
"Hot enough to draw a heat-seeking missile?"
"I guarantee it. I'm pretty sure, anyway."
"Good, 'cause you're gonna be up there in the chopper with me. You don't think adding thirty-five percent nitro is a little on the combustible side?"
"No problem."
"Okay, talk to us about the attack profile. We're going in in three waves?"
"Correct. First in will be the A-10 Thunderbolt. One-to-seven scale. She's configured right for the turbines, plus the Peruvian Air Force flies Thunderbolts, so it won't look out of place."
"You got her all decaled?"
"'Fuerza Aerea Peruana,' yes, sir. I thought it'd be better to wait till the last minute, in case we got inspected back in Iquitos."
"Good thinking."
"Thunderbolt's radio designation will be Slow Boy. Now, the second wave will consist of the two F/A-18 Blue Hornets. They're one-to-twelve scale. These are just-I can't say enough about these aircraft. They just never let you down. These will be our real workhorses, with U.S. markings. They'll look like they just blasted off the deck of the Nimitz. Their radio designations are Slim Jim One and Slim Jim Two."
"The third and final wave is Fat Albert. We're assembling him right now. Fat Albert is a one-to-seven-scale version of the Grumman A-6E Intruder."
"Aw, shit." said McNamara.
"There a problem?"
"Go on," said Charley.
"We're going with the 6E configuration instead of the 6A on account of the increased payload factor. The Intruder carries two tandem triplets of five-hundred-pound bombs. Ours will be carrying two tandem triplets of six-hundred-grain HMX bombs. We're talking payload here. You boys who took part in the Vietnam conflict-"
"Conflict?"
"Well, we never actually declared war, as I understand. However, you may recall that the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong nicknamed this aircraft quote the Miniature B-52 unquote, and for good reason. I've never seen a one-to-one-scale A-6E in action, but I've read everything there is to-"
"I have," said McNamara. "I saw one wipe out a whole field of infantry once, just like that."
"I bet it was some sight, huh?"
"Yes, it was. First Batt, First Marines. It was some fucking sight."
"Uh huh. Well, shit happens."
Mac stared.
"Usually it was a Forward Air Controller calling up bad coordinates, not the pilot," said Hot Stick.
"Couldn't find enough of the FAC to ask him. Had to ask the pilot himself. Tracked him down up in Seattle afterward. That happens here, going to track you down."
"This probably won't mean anything to you, but I learned how to fly UAVs from Dennis Crooks and Bob Fiorenze."
"And I learned how to remove lungs from Master Sergeant Bob Ruckhauser."
"Boys, boys," said Charley, "we're all on the same team here, let's try to remember."
"Well, what about that accident he had?" said Mac. "You win one of your Scale Masters trophies for wiping out a section of grandstand, Dip Stick?"
"That was a faulty fuel-control unit."
"So?"
"We few," Charley murmured, "we happy few, we band of brothers."
"And even then I was able to get her into an easy graveyard spiral. You have any idea how hard that is to do? It wasn't my fault they all stood there with their binoculars like a bunch of sheep."
Charley said, "Now, I'm sure we all got things in our pasts we'd like to change if we had the chance. We can talk about it on the way downriver. What we need to talk about now is… What's the matter with him? Dolby? Has he been drinking?"
Dolby, sitting down at the end near the passageway into the salon, had pitched forward onto Tallulah's table.
"Damnit, Dolby, this is no time to take a nap."
Bundy saw it first, a sliver of bamboo protruding from the pony-tail. The end of the stick was wound with wool dipped in clay for ballast and a tight seal when the dart was propelled with a blast of air through the hollow shaft. The tip, coated with the sweat of a tiny black-and-yellow frog, was embedded a half-inch deep in the muscles of Dolby's neck, a short hop to the brain.
30
"I don't care if the Army feels left out, Ray. For God's sake."
"It's just, they feel there's an Army dimension to it."
"I don't see what. It's a river, isn't it? A river is water, isn't it? Water is Navy material, isn't it?"
"Sure, but if you look at the broader context-"
"This is exactly what happened with the Grenada thing. Every branch of the service had to have its thumb in the pie."
"From an Army point of view-"
"Same with the Iranian thing."
"We may be apple-and-oranging here."
"What happened to our loop here, Ray? Dick? This loop is getting out of hand. It's not even a loop anymore. It's a, a Beltway. You've got the Navy, the Marines, now you want the Army in on it."
"The Seventh Special Forces Group is on station down there, in Santa Lucia. The feeling is they have a feel for the area. Besides, John, this came from Colin, not me."
"It came from Colin?"
"Well, Colin is Army."
"We just keep adding to this, Ray. We just keep adding and adding and adding. You're going to come in here tomorrow and tell me there's a, a Coast Guard dimension. Why don't we get the, the Army Corps of Engineers while we're at it. Why don't we have them go down there and build a dam so he can't get upstream."
"It's still a tight loop. If it's the loop you're worried about, you know what the Airborne motto is."
"No, I do not."
"'Land softly, kill quietly.' You don't have to worry about leaks from the Army."
"I'm not worried about leaks. I'm worried we're going to need an aircraft carrier to transport everyone. And then you'll tell me we need submarines to protect it."
"It's just that SOLIC draws on all the services, John, so it's only natural that all the services would want, would want to input the thing. But I'll go back and tell Colin that you're dead set against the Army dimension. I'll just say, 'John says no Army.'"
"No. All right, look, if Colin wants the Army on board, if he really thinks-whatever."
"I think that's a good call."
"But I want it on the record that I think this thing is turning into a nine-hundred-pound gorilla."
"It just looks that way."
"Bill, what about things at your end? Are we nailed down?"
"I didn't think we were there yet."
"We're not, I just want to know if, is it nail-downable if we do get there?"
"We're more at the probing stage. We're trying to find out who knows what. You've got to know where to put the nails."
"I appreciate that, Bill. But when I take this package down the hall, I don't want to have to tell him, 'Everything's set except
for Bill's end. He's looking where to put the nails.'"
"No, we're, we're working something inside DINTID."
"DINTID?"
"Direccion de Investigaciones de Narcoticos y Trafico Ilicito de Drogas. It's within PIP."
"PIP? Never mind."
"Policia de Investigaciones del Peru. Federales. Their version of the FBI. Though I don't think Dave would like to hear it put that way."
"Are we saying to them, 'We may need you down the line, stand by'? Is that the particular nail you're trying to figure out where to put?"
"That's close enough."
"Well, okay, but are they in a position to damage-control it if we get into the banana-peel situation?"
"That's the idea. The problem is containing the information. Down there the shit floats uphill, if you follow."
"No, I don't follow, Bill. I just don't want to have to go down the hall and tell him, 'The problem is that down there shit floats uphill.' He's not going to know what I'm talking about and I'm not going to know what I'm talking about."
"We're talking about corruption."
"Our-this asset is corrupt, is that it?"
"No, but you want to be careful. One individual we were using down there turned out to be drawing five paychecks, three of them from U.S. agencies. Us, DEA and Customs. And two from competing dopers. Counting his PIP paycheck I suppose that makes six."
"Well, that's just wonderful. That's just dandy. I hope whoever this new asset is has a little more, more self-respect."
"The guy with six paychecks had lots of self-respect."
"Entirely unwarranted, if you want my input. All right, are we, is that it, then? Dick?"
"There's something, I don't know if you want to put it on the table now or down the line. But say we get him back."
"That's the whole point, Dick, to get him back to the United States."
"Right, so are we then in a prosecuting situation?"
"You're darn right we are. We're in a very prosecuting situation. The man is a criminal, Dick. He needs to be locked up."
"Right, absolutely. But we still have the symbolism problem, space-shuttle-wise, and the international problem, plus the other problem."
"What other problem, Dick?"
"Well, let's assume he's going to have some pretty good legal representation. You want to talk about nine-hundred-pound gorillas, my God. You can imagine who's going to be on that defense team. And the opening statement to the jury is going to be that the U.S. government ought to be a, a co-defendant, because they knew all about it and that's misprision, and obstruction, to say nothing of convention violation and, and well, about fourteen other things."
"We're not there yet, Dick."
"And there's, you know, a lot of people are going to be cheering him on. The Rich Man's Bernhard Goetz. One man's war against drugs and, and we stopped him."
"From irreparably ruining U.S.-Peru relations, you're darn straight."
"I just don't think Joe Six-Pack out there frankly gives a shit about U.S.-Peru relations, John. Maybe the Op-Ed gang, but that's about it. I think Joe is going to be cheering for Charley Becker, you want my frank opinion."
"I'm just saying-"
"I know what you're saying."
"John, I think what Dick is saying-"
"I know what Dick is saying, Bill."
"Actually, I wasn't saying that."
"Saying what?"
"What you were telling Bill I was saying."
"Maybe the thing to do is go the ad hoc route. Let it ripen a little and look at it then."
"We could do that. We could definitely do that."
"I don't have any problem with that."
31
The shotgun pointed at his face was an old hammer-action twelve-gauge, Charley estimated from the width of the muzzle, possibly a sixteen, and covered with as much rust as the twentieth century had been able to provide so far, making it impossible to read the barrel markings and see if he was about to be killed by a Remington or a Savage. He would not have been musing on this but for Mac's quick reflexes. Seconds after Dolby had keeled into his bowl of eternal soup, Mac had pulled his 9mm pistol out and aimed at the Indian closest to him, whose needle-nosed bamboo spear had no doubt been dipped in something similar to whatever was now puddling in Dolby's stilled bloodstream.
Charley didn't allow his eyes to roam too widely around the dining room for fear of seeming rude to the man who was holding the rusty Winchester-or whatever it was-on him, but he thought there must be better than a half dozen of them. For the moment it was unclear who their CEO was. The pressure was definitely building, though, he could feel it in his eardrums, and it was just a matter of time before Hot Stick said or did something that would get them all killed before you could reach three-Mississippi, so he had to do something, only trouble was what?
It was like getting a dog outdoors on a cold winter's day, but Charley coaxed his zygomaticus muscles into a smile and said, "Hola," Spanish for hello. A little lame, but all that came to mind under the circumstances, and it had the advantage of utter neutrality. Only someone suckled on witch tit would take offense at that, and the man with the shotgun did not have an unkindly face. Charley had to read it through red achiote juice and purple tattoo stippling, but the eyes seemed to belong to a man he could do bidness with, as they say in Texas.
Think, now. My yacht is your yacht? My name is Charley, what's yours? Into these lucubrations intruded a keen desire to urinate. He did not relish the prospect of appearing incontinent in front of his men, so he said the next word that dog-paddled across the synaptic gulf: "Bienvenido." Welcome.
"Bien… venido," he heard Felix repeat. Soon there was a general murmuring of bienvenidos, except from Mac and Bundy, who were not the types to indulge in pleasantries, however strategic, with minatory strangers.
The Indians made no response to these imbecilic pleasantries, but neither did they open fire, and this Charley welcomed, even if he doubted they were going to be able to make an all-night mantra out of it.
The Indian's eyes went for a second to Charley's wristwatch, a quick flicker, then back to the crater he was contemplating making in the middle of Charley's skull. A gold Rolex was a small coal in Newcastle aboard a yacht like Esmeralda, but it was portable, certainly it was that, and Charley was rehearsing how to get it off his wrist in one easy and unthreatening motion when the Indian dropped his shotgun, just an inch but enough to reveal the objects dangling from the thong of dried capybara gut around his neck. Charley saw teeth which he recognized from the pictures in Cousteau as coming from the boto, from the pink dolphin. Between them was a crucifix. It was handmade, two polished twigs of dark wood tied together with human hair-crude, but truer to the genuine article than what swung from so many pierced earlobes these days.
Moving his hand very slowly, Charley pointed at the crucifix, then at his own chest, where he traced the outline with his finger hard enough to leave a little white welt template before the blood flooded back into the exsanguinated capillaries. The faded cross tingled on Charley's sternum. We share the same God or X marks the spot, he could take it either way.
Eladio leveled the shotgun at the pistaco's chest and tightened around the trigger. He told himself not to look directly into the eyes so the pistaco would not draw his strength out of him. Hunting pistaco was like hunting jaguar: you must not look into the eyes and you must not utter its true name or it will become ferocious.
The pistaco was pretending to be afraid of the gun. But Eladio knew that the pistaco could not be killed by a gun. They had to be crushed until the bones showed and the eyes were pulled out and burned so they could not follow you afterward. Truly, killing a pistaco was more difficult than killing a jaguar. He wanted to start killing this one before he made any more kistian signs on his skin, but he knew without turning to look that the two large pistacos, giants, truly, had been fast with their guns, and if he shot their headman they would kill his son Zacari and some of the others before they themselves
could be killed. The large ones had the look of true grease stealers. How many had they cut up into pieces and boiled to get the human oil for their Challenger rockets? Already he could feel the pistaco's voice singing inside him. The killing must begin. He stood back so that the shotgun would get both the pistaco's eyes with one shot. True, it would be better first to crush the skull and then remove the eyes, but he saw no other way. The iwishin could tell him what to do, but the shaman was old and no longer went out on the hunt. He asked Tsewa, headman of the spider monkeys, who taught his ancestors the blowgun and the hunting songs. Tsewa told him to begin.
"Apu! Apu!" The voice came from the main salon. An Indian came running with a face like he'd seen God and spoke excitedly to the Indian whose finger, Charley was certain, was about an eighth of an ounce of trigger pressure from scattering his brain all over Tallulah's table, increasing its value as an artifact only marginally.
He was pointing in the direction of the salon, saying the same word over and over: "Tsugki. Tsugki." Charley saw there was something else in Shotgun's eyes now, the shadow of a doubt. His gun lowered a few inches, a useful barometric indication of how things stood between them. Shotgun looked at Charley and there were no words necessary, it couldn't have been clearer: I'm going into the next room to check out this tsugki situation my man here is telling me about, and you better pray I like what I see. Charley did pray, prayed like an EPIRB beacon in a shark-surrounded life raft beaming up SOS bursts at the cold stars above, hoping one of them was a plane.
They squatted and sat on the salon carpet in front of it. It was going through one of its waterfall cycles, shimmery, iridescent strands of blue light cascading over invisible rocks into a moonlit pool. When a new cycle began, they sighed in unison. Charley said, "Maybe it would be a good idea if you passed around some snacks and soft drinks. Nothing with caffeine."
Felix approached with a cordless phone and an Uzi submachine gun. He had two handguns tucked inside his waistband. Felix was armed. Everyone had undergone a personal defense buildup. Hot Stick had so many bulbous grenades dangling off him he looked like an overdecorated Christmas tree. Charley's.45 was bolstered, though with safety off. For the time being things were under control. What Charley feared most was a generator malfunction. Rostow was in the engine room making sure all the needles were in the black; Felix had been on the phone to the vice-president for Operations, up in Rosslyn.
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