River of Death

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘I can prove what I say.’ Serrano seemed to have regained a measure of confidence. ‘I can take you to within five miles of the Lost City.’

  Hiller’s initial reaction was one of astonishment and suspicion.

  ‘What do you know about it?’ He paused and recovered himself, ‘Well, I suppose everybody’s heard about the Lost City. Hamilton’s always shooting off his mouth about it.’

  ‘Mebbe so. Mebbe so.’ Serrano, sensing the change in the atmosphere, was almost relaxed now. ‘But how many have followed him four times to within a few miles of it?’ If Serrano had been at the gambling table he’d have leaned back in his chair, his trump card played.

  Hiller had become very interested indeed, even to the extent of lowering, then pocketing, his own gun.

  ‘You have a rough idea where it is?’

  ‘Rough?’ Immediate danger past, Serrano invested himself with an air very close to benign superiority. ‘Close is more like it. Very close.’

  ‘Then if you’ve come all that close why don’t you go looking for it yourself?’

  ‘Look for it myself!’ Serrano looked almost shocked. ‘Mr Hiller, you must be out of your mind. You don’t understand what you’re talking about. Have you any idea what the Indian tribes in the area are like?’

  ‘Pacified, according to the Indian Protection Service.’

  ‘Pacified?’ Serrano gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘Pacified? There isn’t enough money in the country to make those desk-bound pansies leave those lovely air-conditioned offices in Brasilia and go see for themselves. They’re terrified, just plain terrified. Even their field-agents—and there are some pretty tough cookies among them—are terrified and won’t go near the area. Well, four of them did go there once some years back, but none of them ever returned. And if they’re terrified, Mr Hiller, I’m terrified too.’

  ‘That creates quite a problem.’ Not surprisingly, Hiller had become quite thoughtful. ‘An approach problem. What’s so special about those bloodthirsty people? There are many tribes who don’t care all that much for people from the outside, what you and I would regard as other civilised people.’ Apparently Hiller saw nothing incongruous in categorising himself and Serrano as ‘civilised’.

  ’Special? I’ll tell you what’s special about them. They’re the most savage tribes in the Mato Grosso. Correction. They’re the most savage tribes in the whole of South America. Not one of them has moved out of the Stone Age so far. In fact, they must be a damned sight worse than the Stone Age people. If the Stone Age people had been like them they’d have wiped each other out—when those tribes up there have nothing better to do, they just go around massacring each other—to keep their hand in, I suppose—and there would have been no human left on this planet today.

  ‘There are three tribes up there, Mr Hiller. First, there are the Chapates. God knows they’re bad enough, but all they do is use their blowpipes, pump a few curare-tipped poison darts into you and leave you lying there. Almost civilised, you might say. The Horenas are a bit different. They use darts that only knock you unconscious; then you’re dragged back to their village and tortured to death—this, I understand, can take a day or two-then they cut off your head and shrink it. But when it comes to sheer savagery, the Muscias are the pick of the bunch—I don’t think any white man has ever seen them. But one or two of the outside Indians who have met them and survived say that they’re cannibals and if they see what they regard as being a particularly appetising meal they dump him alive into boiling water. Something like lobsters, you know. Go looking for a lost city surrounded by all those monsters? Why don’t you go looking? I can point you in the right direction. Me, I only like cooking pots from the outside.’

  ‘Well, maybe I’ll have to do a little more thinking on that one.’ Absently, almost, he handed Serrano back his gun. Hiller was no mean psychologist when it came to gauging the extent of a man’s cupidity. Hiller said: ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘A room in the Hotel de Paris.’

  ‘If you saw me in the bar there?’

  ‘I’ve never seen you before in my life.’

  An unbiased guidebook to the better taverns of South America would have had some difficulty in finding the space to list the bar of the Hotel de Paris, Romono, in its pages. The bar was not a thing of beauty. The indeterminately coloured paint, what little there was of it, was peeling and blistered, the splintered wooden floor was blackened and filthy and the rough-cut softwood bar bore the imprint of the passage of time. A thousand spilt drinks, a thousand stubbed-out cigars. It was not a place for the fastidious.

  The clientele, fortunately, were not of an overly fastidious nature. Exclusively male and dressed for the most part in scarecrow’s clothing, they were rough, uncouth, ill-favoured and hard-drinking. Especially hard-drinking. As many customers as possible—and there were many—pushed up to the bar and consumed huge quantities of what could only be described as rot-gut whisky. There was a scattering of bentwood chairs and rickety tables, largely unoccupied. The citizens of Romono were mostly vertical drinkers. Among the currently vertical were both Hiller and Serrano, separated from each other by a prudent distance.

  In such surroundings, then, the entrance of Hamilton did not provoke the horror-stricken reaction that it would have in the plusher caravanserais of Brasilia or Rio. Even so, his appearance was sufficient to cause a marked drop in the conversational level. With his tangled hair, a week’s growth of matted and bloodied beard, and ripped and blood-stained shirt he looked as if he had just returned from the scene of a successfully if messily executed triple murder. His expression-as was indeed customary with him—lacked anything in the way of encouragement towards social chitchat. He ignored the stares and although the crowd before the bar was at least four deep a path opened magically before him. In Romono, such a path always opened for John Hamilton, a man very obviously held, and for a variety of good reasons, in considerable respect by his fellow citizens.

  A large, very fat barman, the boss of the four men serving nonstop behind the bar, hurried forward towards Hamilton. His egg-bald pate gleamed in the light: inevitably, he was known as Curly.

  ‘Mr Hamilton!’

  ‘Whisky.’

  ‘God’s name, Mr Hamilton. What happened?’

  ‘You deaf?’

  ‘Right away, Mr Hamilton.’

  Curly reached under the bar, produced a special bottle and poured a generous measure. That Hamilton should be thus privileged apparently aroused no resentment among the onlookers, not so much because of their innate courtesy, of which they had none, but because Hamilton had demonstrated in the past his reaction to those who interfered in what he regarded as his own private business: he’d only had to do it once, but once had been enough.

  Curly’s plump, genial face was alive with curiosity as were those of the bystanders. But Hamilton was not a man to share confidences as everyone was well aware. He tossed two Greek coins on to the bar. Hiller, who was standing close by, observed this and his face grew very still indeed. His face was not the only one to assume sudden immobility.

  ‘Bank’s shut,’ Hamilton said. ‘Those do?’

  Curly picked up the two shining coins and examined them with an air of unfeigned reverence.

  ‘Will those do? Will those do! Yes, Mr Hamilton, I think those will do. Gold! Pure gold! This is going to buy you an awful lot of Scotch, Mr Hamilton, an awful lot. One of those I’m going to keep for myself. Yes, sir. The other I’ll take and have valued in the bank tomorrow.’

  ‘Up to you,’ Hamilton said indifferently.

  Curly examined the coins more closely and said: ‘Greek, aren’t they?’

  ‘Looks like,’ Hamilton said with the same indifference. He drank some of his Scotch and looked at Curly with a speculative eye. ‘You wouldn’t, of course, be dreaming of asking me if I went all the way to Greece to get those?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Curly said hastily. ‘Certainly not. Will I will I get the doctor, Mr Hamilton?’

  �
��Thanks. But it’s not my blood.’

  ‘How many of them? Who did this to you—I mean, who did you do it to?’

  ‘Just two. Horenas. Same again.’

  Although most people at the bar were still looking at Hamilton or the coins, the hubbub of conversation was slowly resuming. Hiller, glass in hand, elbowed his purposeful way towards Hamilton who regarded Hiller’s approach with his customary lack of enthusiasm.

  Hiller said: ‘I hope you’ll excuse me. I don’t want to intrude, Hamilton. I understand that after tangling with head-hunters a man would like some peace and quiet. But what I’d like to say to you is important. Believe me. Could I have a word?’

  ‘About what?’ Hamilton’s tone was less than encouraging. ‘And I don’t like discussing business—I assume it is business—with a dozen pairs of ears hanging on to every word I say.’

  Hiller looked around. Inevitably, their conversation was attracting attention. Hamilton paused for a moment, as if in thought, then picked up his bottle, jerked his head and led the way to the corner table most remote from the bar. Hamilton, as always, looked aggressive and forbidding and his tone matched his expression.

  ‘Out with it,’ he said, ‘and no shilly-shallying.’

  Hiller took no offence. ‘Suits me. That’s the way I like it, the only way to do business. I’ll lay it on the line. It’s my belief you’ve found this Lost City of yours. I know a man who’d pay you a six-figure fee to take him there. That straight enough for you?’

  ‘If you throw away that rot-gut rubbish you have there I’ll give you some decent Scotch.’ Hiller did as requested and Hamilton topped up both glasses. Hiller was clearly aware that Hamilton was less interested in dispensing hospitality than in having time to think and from the just perceptibly slurred note in Hamilton’s voice it could well have been that he could be taking just slightly longer than normal to think quickly and clearly.

  ‘Well, I’ll say this,’ Hamilton said, ‘you don’t beat about the bush. Who says I’ve found the Lost City?’

  ‘Nobody. How could they? No-one knows where you go when you leave Romono—except maybe those two young sidekicks of yours.’ Hiller smiled thinly. ‘They don’t look like the type that would talk too much.’

  ‘Sidekicks?’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Hamilton. The twins. Everybody in Romono knows them. But it would be my guess that you would be the only person to know the exact location. So, okay, I’m only going on a hunch—and a couple of brand new golden coins that may be a thousand years old, two thousand. Just supposing.’

  ‘Supposing what?’

  ‘Supposing you’d found it, of course.’

  ‘Cruzeiros?’

  Hiller kept his face impassive, a rather remarkable feat in view of the wave of elation that had just swept through him. When a man talks money it means that he is prepared to dicker, to make a deal, and Hamilton had the means to bargain. Hamilton had his quid pro quo and that could mean only one thing—he knew where the Lost City was. He had his fish hooked, Hiller thought exultantly: now all he had to do was gaff and land him. That might well take time, Hiller knew, but he had every confidence in himself: he rather fancied his prowess as a fisherman.

  ‘U.S. dollars,’ Hiller said.

  Hamilton thought this over for a few moments then said: ‘An attractive proposition. Very attractive. But I don’t accept propositions from strangers. You see, Hiller, I don’t know you, what you are, what you do, and how come you are empowered to make this proposition.’

  ‘A con man, possibly?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Oh, come. We’ve had a drink a dozen times in the past months. Strangers? Hardly. We all know why you’ve been searching those damned forests for the past four months and other huge stretches of the Amazon and Paraná basins for the past four years. For the fabled Lost City of the Mato Grosso-if that is indeed where it is—for the golden people who lived there—who may still live there—most of all for the fabled man who found it. Huston. Dr Hannibal Huston. The famous explorer who vanished into the forests all those many years ago and was never seen again.’

  ‘You talk in clichés,’ Hamilton said.

  Hiller smiled. ‘What newspaperman doesn’t?’

  ‘Newspaperman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Odd. I’d have put you down for something else.’

  Hiller laughed. ‘A con? A convict on the lam? Nothing so romantic, I’m afraid.’ He leaned forward, suddenly serious. ‘Listen. As I said, we all know why you’re out here—no offence, Hamilton, but goodness knows you’ve told everyone often enough—although why I don’t know-I’d have thought you’d have kept it secret from everybody.’

  ‘Three good reasons, my friend. In the first place, there has to be some reason to account for my presence here. Secondly, anybody will tell you that I know the Mato Grosso better than any other white man and no one would dream of following me where I go. Finally, the more people who know what I’m after the greater the likelihood that some person, some time and in some place, will drop a hint or a clue that could be invaluable to me.’

  ‘I was under the impression that you didn’t require hints or clues any longer.’

  ‘That’s as maybe. Just you go ahead and form any impressions you like.’

  ‘Well, all right. So. Ninety-nine per cent of the people laugh at your wild notions, as they call them—though God knows there’s not a man in Romono would dare say it to your face. But I belong to the one per cent. I believe you. I further believe that your search is over and that the dream has come true. I’d like to share in a dream, I’d like to help a man, my employer, make his dream come true.’

  ‘I’m deeply moved,’ Hamilton said sardonically. ‘I’m sorry—well, no, I’m not really—but something gives here that I just can’t figure. And besides, Hiller, you are an unknown quantity.’

  ‘Is the McCormick-Mackenzie International?’

  ‘Is it what?’

  ‘Unknown.’

  ‘Of course not. One of the biggest multinational companies in the Americas. Probably the usual bunch of crooks using the usual screen of a battery of similarly crooked international lawyers to bend the laws any which way that suits them.’

  Hiller took a deep breath, manfully restraining himself. ‘Because I’m in the position of asking a favour of you, Hamilton, I won’t take exception to that. In point of fact the record of McCormick-Mackenzie is impeccable. They have never been investigated, far less impeached on any count.’

  ‘Smart lawyers. Like I said.’

  ‘You can be glad that Joshua Smith is not here to hear you say that.’

  Hamilton was unimpressed. ‘He the owner?’

  ‘Yes. And the Chairman and Managing Director.’

  ‘The multi-millionaire industrialist? If we’re talking about the same man?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘And the owner of the largest newspaper and magazine chain in the Americas. Well, well, well.’ He broke off and stared at Hiller. ‘So that’s why you—’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So. He’s your boss, a newspaper magnate. And you’re one of his newspapermen, and a pretty senior one at that, I would guess—I mean, he wouldn’t send out a cub reporter on a story like this. Very well. Your connections, your credentials established. But I still don’t see—’

  ‘What don’t you see?’

  ‘This man. Joshua Smith. A multi-millionaire. A multi-billionaire. Anyway, as rich as Croesus. What’s left on earth for him that he doesn’t already have? What more can a man like that want?’ Hamilton took a long pull at his whisky. ‘In short, what’s in it for him?’

  ‘You are a suspicious bastard, aren’t you, Hamilton? Money? Of course not. Are you in it for the money? Of course not. A man like you could make money anywhere. No, and again no. Like you—and, if I may say, a little bit like myself-he’s a man with a dream, a dream that’s become an obsession. I don’t know which fascinates him the more, the Huston case or the Lost City, although
I don’t suppose you can really separate the two. I mean, you can’t have the one without the other.’ He paused and smiled, almost dreamily. ‘And what a story for his publishing empire.’

  ‘And that, I take it, is your part of the dream?’

  ‘What else?’

  Hamilton considered, using some more Scotch to help him with his consideration. ‘Mustn’t rush things, mustn’t rush things. A man needs time to think about these things.’

  ‘Of course. How much time?’

  ‘Two hours?’

  ‘Sure. My place. The Negresco.’ Hiller looked around him and gave a mock shudder which could almost have been real. ‘It’s almost as good as it is here.’

  Hamilton drained his glass, rose, picked up his bottle, nodded and left. No-one could have accused him of being under the weather but his gait didn’t appear to be quite as steady as it might have been. Hiller looked around until he located Serrano, who had been looking straight at him. Hiller glanced after the departing Hamilton, looked back at Serrano and nodded almost imperceptibly. Serrano did the same in return and disappeared after Hamilton.

  Romono had not yet got around to, and was unlikely ever to get around to, street-lighting, with the result that the alleyways, in the occasional absence of saloons and bordellos fronting on them, tended to be very poorly lit. Hamilton, all trace of his unsteady gait vanished, strode briskly along, clearly unbothered by the fitful or nonexistent lighting. He rounded a corner, carried on a few yards, stopped suddenly and turned into a narrow and almost totally dark alleyway. He didn’t go far into the alley—not more than two feet. He poked his head cautiously out from his narrow niche and peered back along the way he had just come.

  He saw no more than he had expected to see. Serrano had just come into view. Serrano, it was clear, wasn’t out for any leisurely evening stroll. He was walking so quickly that he was almost running. Hamilton shrank back into the shadows. He no longer had to depend on his hearing. Serrano was wearing steel-tipped shoes which no doubt he found indispensable for the subtler intricacies of unarmed combat. On a still night Serrano could have been heard a hundred yards away.