White Cargo

by Stuart Woods

  The heat was apparent long before they landed, and as soon as they were on the ground Cat and Meg opened the airplane’s windows. They were waved into a tie-down area by a teenage boy, and Cat switched off all the electrics and the avionics power switch, then cut the engine. He was sweating already, and he wasn’t sure it was the heat.

  While the boy got their bags onto a hand trolley, Cat made arrangements for tie-down and refueling, then they got a taxi to Parador Ticuña. As the cab pulled up at the hotel, a crowd was gathered out front. Meg asked the driver what was happening, but the driver didn’t know. He got out and went to the trunk for their bags, ignoring the commotion.

  Cat and Meg got out of the cab and approached the edges of the crowd. As they did so a policeman pushed past them, shouting at the crowd. The group parted to let him through, and Cat was able to see what was at the crowd’s center. A man, a gringo, dressed in an American seersucker suit, lay stretched out on the ground, faceup. His head lay in a pool of bright red blood, and his lips and teeth were a mess. He had been shot in the back of the head, and the bullet had exited through his mouth, but he was still recognizable. Cat’s eyes remained locked on the sandy hair and badly pockmarked face until the crowd closed in again and blocked his view.

  He turned away, feeling ill. The man had joined Bluey Holland as a casualty in the effort to protect Cat Catledge. Who else would Cat get killed before this was over?

  27

  CAT LOOKED AT HIS WATCH AGAIN. IT WAS A LITTLE PAST SIX, and they had been sitting in the bar since midafternoon. He had not told Meg who the murdered man was. He didn’t intend to. At first, they had had the place to themselves, then, around five, the bar had started to fill with people, locals and a group of German tourists. He had begun to worry.

  A tall, blond man wearing bush clothes entered the bar, glanced at something in the palm of his hand, then approached Cat. “Mr. Ellis?”

  Cat stood up. “That’s right.”

  “My name is Hank. Will you come with me, please?”

  Cat and Meg began gathering their bags.

  “Excuse me,” the man said, uncertainly, “I was under the impression you’d be alone.”

  “Wrong,” Cat said, firmly. “Miss Garcia is my business partner. I don’t go anywhere without her.”

  The man looked at them for a moment, then made a decision. “Okay, follow me,” he said. “You’re my last passengers for the day. Sorry I kept you waiting; I’ve been doing a lot of flying today.”

  He led them to a waiting taxi, which drove them back to the airport. The cab drew up next to the helicopter Cat had seen taking off earlier. The tall man put their luggage into a rear compartment, then settled them into the back seat, instructing them to buckle in. Moments later they lifted from the tarmac and headed north, flying at no more than about five hundred feet.

  The helicopter was luxuriously appointed, with leather seats for four and deep carpeting. The noise of the engine and rotor were well suppressed, but Cat didn’t really feel like talking. He was on his way to Jinx; he knew it. He was both excited and frightened. He squeezed Meg’s hand, and she smiled and nodded.

  Cat craned his neck to look over the pilot’s shoulder at the airspeed indicator and found they were making a hundred and thirty knots. Their heading was a little east of north. At this low altitude, the trees below them were something less than the green carpet they had seemed from ten thousand feet, but there were precious few gaps among them, and the jungle floor was rarely visible. They crossed a large river, then a couple of small ones. They had been airborne for an hour and eight minutes by Cat’s watch when the chopper suddenly began to slow. A couple of minutes more and they were hovering, then sinking below the treetops.

  The helicopter came to rest on a large patch of ground that seemed newly cleared. As they climbed out of the machine, Cat saw a group of workmen less than a hundred yards away, and as the copter’s engine died, he could hear the angry growls of chain saws. To Cat’s surprise, there was a small, high-winged airplane parked a few yards away with a camouflage net thrown over it. He wondered how it could have flown into so small an area—he estimated the clearing was about fifty yards wide and eighty or ninety long. Then he saw the name “Maule” painted on the fuselage of the airplane, and he remembered seeing such an airplane back in Atlanta. It was a STOL—short takeoff and landing—aircraft.

  A servant in a white jacket appeared with a hand trolley and loaded their luggage onto it, motioning for them to follow him. As they left the clearing, the helicopter pilot and a couple of workmen had begun to cover the machine with camouflage netting.

  The servant led them down a broad dirt path for a hundred yards or so, then the way became paved with flat stones. Both sides of the walkway had been landscaped and planted with exotic flowers, and beyond those, the jungle appeared incredibly dense. Although the sun was still well above the horizon, they were in a sort of twilight made from the shelter of the tall, hardwood trees that rose into the sky. Soon the path broadened, and they came into a garden. Cat had been expecting a crude camp like the ones in the photographs on Buzz Bergman’s office wall, and he was surprised to see ahead of them a large house of beige stucco topped with green roof tiles. They climbed a dozen steps from the garden to a broad, tiled veranda before the house, and Cat noticed other buildings of the same materials scattered under the trees surrounding the house.

  The servant opened a door for them, and as they stepped into a large entrance hall, they were greeted by a wave of cool, dry air. The building was air-conditioned. “I will wait here for you,” the man said. “Please go first to the office just there.” He pointed to an open door off the entrance hall.

  Cat and Meg walked into a large, well-appointed office. There was a lot of leather furniture and, on one wall, a bookcase containing what appeared to be a large stereo system, with many switches and knobs. There was also, apparently, a public address system, since there was a table microphone resting on a shelf. Sitting behind an imposing desk was the narrow-faced man, Vargas, who had received a hundred thousand dollars from Cat in the rooftop nightclub of the Tequendama Hotel in Bogotá.

  Vargas looked up and recognized Cat, then he saw Meg and frowned. He stood up and looked angrily at Cat. “Who is this person?” he demanded.

  “This is Maria Eugenia Garcia, my business partner,” Cat replied. “Meg, this is Mr. Vargas, whom I met in Bogotá.”

  “You were expected to come alone,” Vargas spat, furious. “You said nothing of this woman.”

  “You hardly gave me an opportunity,” Cat said, taking care to sound annoyed. “You simply took my money and left in a hurry. Half that money was Miss Garcia’s.”

  “Then why was she not at the meeting?” he insisted.

  “She had not yet arrived in Bogotá,” Cat replied.

  “Wait outside,” Vargas said, “and close the door.”

  Cat and Meg stepped back into the entrance hall, closing the door behind them. “What now?” she said.

  “There was a telephone on the desk,” Cat replied. “I expect he’s reporting to his boss.”

  A minute or two passed, then Vargas opened the door and waved them inside. “Give me your passport,” he said to Meg.

  She gave him her Bolivian passport, and he took it to a Xerox machine and made a copy. He returned the document to her. “I require nine hundred thousand dollars in cash,” Vargas said to Cat.

  “It’s in my luggage,” Cat said, turning for the door. “I’ll be right back.” He left the office and went to the veranda, where the servant waited with the bags, retrieved the canvas-and-leather grip, and returned to the office. He opened the grip, removed the shirts and Hedger’s radio, and began stacking bundles of bills on the desk.

  Vargas picked up Hedger’s radio and looked closely at it.

  Cat tried not to notice, kept stacking money.

  Vargas switched on the radio and twirled the tuning dial. Nothing but static greeted him.

  “I didn’t know we’d b
e this far from a radio station,” Cat said.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Ellis,” Vargas said. “We will keep you entertained while you are here.” Vargas did a quick count of the bundles of bills and seemed satisfied. “The two of you will have to share quarters,” he said. “Our facilities here are stretched to the limit.” He turned to Cat. “You will be staying in cottage number twelve,” he said. “The boy will take you there. Please come back here for cocktails at seven o’clock, to be followed by dinner.”

  They followed the servant down another paved path. They passed a large swimming pool and a pair of fenced-in tennis courts, all deserted. Shortly, the path opened into a wider grass path, almost a street, with small stucco cottages on either side. The servant rolled his trolley to the front door of number twelve and ushered them in. Cat found himself in a small but nicely furnished sitting room. The servant showed them a bedroom, bath, and kitchenette. It was like something one might rent at the beach, Cat thought, but with better-than-usual furnishings. The servant left them.

  “Christ,” Cat said. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this. I thought we’d be camped in some jungle hovel.”

  “Yeah,” Meg replied. “I think I’ll have a shower.” She put a finger to her lips and beckoned him toward the bathroom. She turned on the shower, then put her lips close to his ear. “There was an awful lot of electronic equipment in Vargas’s office,” she said. “Before we do any more talking, I want to have a look for bugs.”

  Cat watched as she produced a small electrical meter and methodically went through the whole cottage, checking every nook and cranny for hidden microphones. She checked the telephone, as well, then placed it back on its cradle. “Looks clean to me,” she said, “and I’m pretty good at this. I’ve been bugged by the best.”

  “I’m impressed,” Cat said, “but you’d better either get into the shower or turn it off.”

  She showered, returned. “Now tell me,” she said, “where the hell did you get nine hundred thousand dollars in cash?”

  “At the bank,” he replied, “where else?”

  “In Bogotá?”

  “In Atlanta.”

  “You mean you’ve been hauling nine hundred thousand dollars all over Colombia?”

  “More than that,” Cat said. “I gave Vargas a hundred thousand in Bogotá.”

  “Jesus, I’m glad you didn’t tell me. It would have made me nervous,” she said. “What now? What do we do next?”

  “I guess we show up for cocktails at seven,” he said. “If Jinx is here, maybe she’ll be at the party.”

  “And if she is?”

  “Well, we’ve got to get the lay of the land before we can try to get her out of here—find out where she is.”

  Meg laughed. “While you’re at it, how about finding out where we are.”

  “I can tell you that, roughly,” Cat said. “We’re about a hundred and forty-five nautical miles northeast of Leticia.”

  “Swell. What else is around here?”

  “Not a goddamned thing,” Cat said. “Maybe a few Indians. Otherwise, just jungle—in every direction.”

  “And if Jinx is here, and if you can get your hands on her, what then?”

  “I’m still working on that,” Cat said.

  “You want to take a look around the place before cocktails?”

  “No. I haven’t seen a soul here since we landed, except for staff and Vargas. Let’s not attract attention to ourselves by snooping around.”

  “Why do you think they didn’t search us when we arrived?”

  “Why bother? They’ve got a million dollars of our money, so they know we’re not going to steal anything. And considering where we are, even if we’re armed, what could we possibly do to them in the middle of an armed camp?”

  “Right,” Meg said. “What can we do?”

  Cat walked to his bag and took out Hedger’s radio. “This is a directional beacon. When we’ve gotten hold of Jinx, we turn it on and hide until the cavalry arrives. Colombian army. They’ll be on the lookout for us.”

  “Jesus,” said Meg. “I hope so.”

  • • •

  A little after seven o’clock, Cat and Meg left the cottage and started toward the main house. The sky above them was still bright, but in the shadows of the giant trees, it was nearly dark. They followed the path, and as they did a few others, all men, left the cottages and walked ahead of or behind them. The air was still hot and heavy, and Cat was perspiring, not entirely from the heat. He wanted to break out of the procession and start searching for his daughter. Meg took his arm, as if she knew what he was thinking.

  They crossed the veranda and entered the house. The large entrance hall was now lit by an elaborate chandelier, and a group of twenty or thirty men were helping themselves at a bar and at a table filled with beautifully displayed food. Cat reckoned that their host had an ice house, because a large block held what he reckoned was a gallon of caviar nestled in the scooped-out block.

  The crowd was well dressed and seemed a little subdued. As Cat and Meg approached the bar, a tall man, sweating in a finely tailored, heavy wool suit, was asking, in an upper-class British accent, for a gin and tonic with lots of ice. They got a drink and some food, then they stood to one side of the room and had a closer look at their new colleagues. Cat immediately began to see people he knew.

  Across the room, at the center of a small knot of men, stood Stanton Michael Prince, all smiles and charm, the ponytail flicking as he turned from one member of the group to another. At the edge of the group, looking carefully not at Prince, but at the men around him, was Denny. Cat’s stomach knotted as Denny’s eyes fell on him. Never mind his loss of weight and absence of beard, Cat felt naked; now he would be recognized and the alarm raised. Then Denny’s eyes moved on; there had been no reaction. Cat started breathing again.

  He had once met a President of the United States and had noticed that the Secret Service men guarding the President never looked at him. Instead, they watched the crowd, as Denny was doing now. Cat knew that Denny must be armed.

  Then a movement on the broad staircase to the upper floor caught Cat’s eye. A group of eight or nine young women, all pretty, all beautifully dressed, descended the stairs. It was a moment before Cat realized that the last of them, a tall beauty in a tightly cut strapless dress, was Jinx.

  He stood, transfixed, unable to take his eyes off her. Her hair had grown longer, and she was wearing much more sophisticated makeup than she usually did. Her appearance was not one she would have chosen for herself. Cat felt a peculiar combination of elation and illness. He had found her, but he could do nothing; she was still out of reach. There she was, thirty feet away, alive and, as far as he could tell, quite well, and he could do nothing.

  Meg squeezed his arm. “Look at me,” she whispered.

  Cat tore his eyes from Jinx and turned to Meg.

  “Is the tall girl Jinx?” she asked.

  “Yes. Everything about her is different—makeup, hair, clothes—but that’s Jinx.”

  “Then, for Christ’s sake, stop staring at her,” Meg said.

  Cat tried looking around more, not looking directly at Jinx, always at someone near her. As he looked around, the group reached the bottom of the stairs and dispersed into the growing crowd of men, chatting amiably with them. Jinx continued through the crowd until she reached Prince’s side. He put a proprietary hand on her bare shoulder and began to introduce her to the group.

  Before Cat could think further about this, he was distracted by a shout and a movement at the front door. A group of men was entering the room, and one of them was greeting someone he knew. Cat glanced at the group, then froze. He turned slowly toward them and saw, staring at him from no more than ten feet away, his son, Dell.

  28

  CAT THOUGHT HE HAD NEVER SEEN SUCH A LOOK. DELL STOOD, his face contorted into a hatred of which Cat would never have thought him capable. Even before Dell moved, Cat knew it was over. Within seconds Prince would know who he wa
s and why he was there. There would be no way to get to Jinx. His and Meg’s only hope would be to run for the jungle. Cat didn’t think they could even make the door.

  A man standing next to Dell put a hand on his shoulder, obviously wondering what was wrong. Dell shook off the hand, turned, and started across the room toward where Prince stood. Cat took Meg’s arm and began to move her toward the front door of the house.

  “Keep moving, and listen to me,” he said, steering her through the crowd. “Someone here knows me. We’ve got to run for it. As soon as we make the door, run for the airstrip, and don’t slow down for anything. Go straight across into the jungle, and stay with me. It’s the only chance we have.” He wished he were armed; he wished he had a map, food and water; he wished he had as much as a pocket knife; he wished he had a five-minute head start. He had none of these things.

  Cat glanced back toward Dell and stopped. Dell was standing stock still in the middle of the room, looking toward Prince’s group, perhaps fifteen feet away from where he stood. Cat could not see his face, but he knew that Dell had seen Jinx, and for the first time. He could not have known his sister was here. Cat squeezed Meg’s hand. “Wait near the door. If a commotion breaks out, run for it.” He left her and started toward Dell, his eyes darting from him to Jinx and back. She had not yet seen him.