"Tearing the idol from its recess, the indignant Spaniards dragged it into the open air, and there broke it into a hundred fragments."
And here, he thought, laying Prescott on the desk and picking up the dark brown arm beside it, the fingers angrily splayed in an attitude of noli me tangere, was the largest of those ancient fragments, passed down fourteen generations, father to son, father to son, to him, who, regrettably, had been forced to steal it rather than allow Papa to make a present of it to the National Museum so as to curry favor with the new leftist government so they'd leave his monopolies alone. He was only seventeen at the time, but he had staged it with precocious verisimilitude. The newspapers reported the theft.
ROBARON AL BRAZO DEL DEMONIO DE PACHACAMAC.
For the precious national relic to turn up, years later, on the boat of a North American art thief was a stroke of, well-he smiled-it would add a certain historical resonance to the outrage. Espinosa, that pig, had no conception of what was being handed to him.
He listened to the night sounds outside his window. The crickets sounded like the telephones that would soon be ringing: in the Presidential Palace, at the U.S. State Department, at the United Nations.
He crushed his cigarette and stared out the window toward the hangar. He had given Claudio discreet instructions. The twin-engine Aztec was ready, with enough fuel for Panama. "Maximilian" was rolled up inside a fly-fishing-rod tube already packed aboard. He'd be in Paris in twenty-four hours. What time was it there? He picked up the phone and made a reservation at his favorite restaurant, a small Gascon boite in the Dixieme.
Half hour to sunrise. His heart was thumping out extra beats from the coffee and the anticipation. He decided to call Claudio on the radio, just to check everything again.
Claudio didn't answer. That was annoying. Rogelio would be in the new communications room. He called him. Rogelio didn't answer. Intolerable.
He called Gomez on the intercom. Gomez did not respond. He charged to the head of the stairs and was about to shout for Gomez when he thought better of waking Arriaga. He went angrily down the stairs ready to kick Gomez in the balls for falling asleep on sentry duty. He banged through the screen door. No Gomez. Where the hell was Gomez?
He charged across the field, furious, toward the communications shed, rehearsing the speech that would put the fear of God-better, of the idol of Pachacamac!-into Rogelio, after which he would activate the sirens, authentic, vintage English blitz sirens. There was nothing to match them, and to hell with waking up Arriaga.
Rogelio was bent over the console, passed out drunk, the bastard. He aimed his kick at the back of his chair. Rogelio toppled onto the floor. His eyes were wide-open. He leaned over him and looked. He didn't see it right away-a tiny ball of wool dipped into clay at the end of a thin sliver of bamboo protruding from the hair at the base of his neck.
He smashed his fist down on the siren, grabbed Rogelio's Uzi and ran out the door.
WhoooooooooooooOOOOOOOooooooooooooo.
Diatri opened his eyes. What was this? World War II? For a split second, the exciting possibility dangled that it had all been an extremely bad dream. But there was the bare bulb above him, and the old man in the cot next to him. Charley was sitting up, eyes open to the widest, listening to the strange klaxons.
He burst through the barracks door, shouting at them to get up. They were all in their beds, his men, Arriaga's men, face up, mouths tightly shut like mummies, with red lines drawn neatly across their throats.
He ran back toward the white house. He saw something in the bushes around the side, a pair of legs. Gomez's. He didn't stop. He ran up the stairs and into Arriaga's room. Arriaga was leaning against his pillow, pistol in hand, staring dully, the tip of the dart shaft sticking out between his closed lips like a toothpick.
Charley unwound the bandages from his hands. Diatri crouched by the door. Charley nodded and began to shout, "Help, help!" No guards rushed in.
Diatri took several steps back and ran and put his shoulder into the door. It was made of tin and gave easily. He found himself on the ground outside between two dead guards. They each had arrows sticking out of their-Jesus. He grabbed one of their MACs and crawled back inside.
"Indians!" he gasped. "We're under attack by Indians!"
"Yeah," Charley said. "That can be a problem down here."
"Jesus. Indians."
"There's an airfield. Come on."
He moved slowly, turning continuous 360-degree circles like a tank turret, an Uzi in each arm, grenades dangling from the web gear on his chest.
The light was dim and the air-raid sirens made it impossible to hear movements. He fired bursts into every bush, any quivering leaf or vine. Chunchos. Were they playing a game with him?
"Eladio," he called out above the siren roar. "Don't be a coward. Show yourself."
He kept toward the airfield, reaching to the edge of the number-three pozo, the only one the gringo hadn't destroyed with his super-plastique. He heard something in the bushes to his left and opened fire.
"You hit?"
"No," said Charley.
"Where'd it come from?"
"I don't know."
"Keep your head down. Listen."
They heard, "Eladio? Eladio!" Diatri saw the look come into the old man's face. He started to crawl toward the voice. Diatri gripped his leg. Charley snarled, "Leggo my leg."
He was certain of it. There was something in there. He kept firing into the bush.
Diatri crawled after the old man, bullets cutting through the bush just above their heads, leaves falling around them.
He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade.
It landed next to the old man and just in front of Diatri. Diatri grabbed it and threw it. It bounced off a nearby liana vine and exploded.
The DEA gringo was knocked out, perhaps dead. His face was black and bleeding. The old man was stunned but was still gripping a submachine gun and looking up at him fiercely, trying to get to his knees. He let him get part of the way up before kicking the gun out of his hands. He aimed the Uzi at the old man's chest and was about to pull the trigger when he felt something sting the side of his face, like a wasp. In the next instant his legs went out from under him and he fell.
He could breathe. But he could not move. Eladio's face came into his vision, above him, then the girl's. He tried to speak to the girl, to explain, but he couldn't. He was paralyzed. It was, they used, he tried to remain calm, it was just a tree resin they rubbed on their darts when they hunted monkeys. The drug relaxed their muscles and made them fall to the ground. It would wear off.
Then he was being picked up and carried. Yes, good. Thank you. He was in the air-no, please, not that-he tried to scream but nothing came.
He looked and saw the billonario watching him from the edge of the pit. Please, help. He began to sink. He felt the most terrible burning in his eyes and tried to shut them but he couldn't. He tried to close his mouth, but it came in, rushing over his teeth in a scalding, tidal surge as the idol of Pachacamac gripped him by the throat and dragged him down into suffocating blackness.
Diatri felt something on his face, a woman's hands. They were smearing something on him, something greasy but very good, very soothing, very cool. He heard a voice through the blur. "Frank," it said. "You're going to be all right."
"My… face, I can't…"
"You're going to be all right. There's a real pretty nurse here with you. She's fixing you up. I'm going to give you a shot now, Frank."
Nurse? He tried to make the blur settle but it was like looking through moving water. He thought he saw breasts. He wanted to touch them, but then a warm river was flowing into him and he felt very relaxed. He was dimly conscious of being carried, of being placed in a comfortable chair, of hearing strange voices-kurinku pataa!-of a door shutting, of engines starting, of gravity forcing him back into his seat, of climbing and climbing, of a voice that kept saying, "It's all right, Frank, you're with me now, I'm taking you home."
46
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"So your thinking is-"
"The thinking, Dick. This isn't, this is, what I'm trying to say, do you see what I'm trying to say, Dick?"
"I, yeah, I, I-"
"There's no case, after all."
"Well-"
"Well, what? DEA's guy has disappeared."
"We think he's dead. I mean, what else would he be?"
"Good. I mean, I didn't mean it that way."
"Of course not."
"He was, I gather he was pretty good."
"Apparently. Yes. Anyway, without him there's really no, I mean, I suppose we could reconstruct the case… but as you say, the thinking is-"
"The thinking is, there's a heck of a lot else to do. We're in a war here, Dick."
"Absolutely."
"The Noriega trial thing is going to be, well, it's going to be…"
"I understand, John."
"You do?"
"Yes."
"That's good, Dick."
"How do you, how do you want us to handle the boat situation?"
"I thought that might be better coming from Jim's shop. It's more of a State thing."
"Right. Right."
"American citizen goes on, on a vacation and he's attacked by drug people and his people are killed and, and it's, it's a terrible thing."
"Right."
"It's a question of spin, really."
"Yeah, it has to have the right spin."
"Jim's people are good at spinning."
"Oh yeah. I was thinking, actually this could be a win situation for us, war-on-drugs-wise."
"If it was spun right."
"Sure. Absolutely."
"Hell of a thing, Dick."
"Hell of a thing, John."
Epilogue
"Frank?"
Diatri's head jerked up out of his sleep. His chair was pulled up next to the old man's bed. The dawn was coming through the French windows, a soft blue light full of the gossip of nuthatches, thrushes and blackbirds, with a screech of cock pheasant. The LED display on the IV stand gleamed brightly. Diatri saw with embarrassment that his hand was resting on top of the old man's. He pulled it away.
"Yes, boss."
"The priest, is he gone?"
"Yeah, he's gone."
"Shut that thing off, would you?"
Diatri reached over and clicked off the IV. "You feeling better?"
"Frank, he gave me absolution."
Diatri shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"
"Well, it wasn't just any confession."
"You want some water or something?"
"The way he was looking at me, it was like he didn't believe me."
"I think I'm going to have some water. It's, with confessions it's basically, as I understand it, it's the intention. That's all that really matters."
"That's right, Frank. I feel better."
"That's good, boss."
Charley stared at the Baudelaire "Absinthe Drinker." "I'm going to give that to the museum, Frank. I'm awful fond of it, but it's-I'm going to give it to the museum."
"How about some water?" Diatri reached for the pitcher on the nightstand next to the photo of Tasha and Margaret.
"I'd like a whiskey. Let's us both have a whiskey."
Diatri laughed. "Okay." He poured out a couple of brown fingers and gave the glass to Charley. The old man's hand was weak, but he held it himself. He raised the glass. "To Tasha and Felix."
"To Tasha and Felix," said Diatri.
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