There is an implicit dirtiness to machinery designed to maim and kill. Participate even once, and that dirt can never be washed away.
Harrington had included a couple of more conventional weapons as well, pistols. There was a Colt. 380 semiauto Mustang, which was featherlight and smaller than the palm of my hand. It was a very easy weapon to hide in a boot or under a ball cap. There was also a much larger and more lethal SIG Sauer P226 9mm-exactly like the one I kept stored away in my old fish house back on Sanibel and had used over so many years.
It was no coincidence. Years ago, Harrington and I had been trained by the same people, on the same weaponry, and in the same way. Maybe he considered it a nostalgic touch.
I checked the magazine of each weapon. All were fully loaded. Inside the briefcase, I also found a “drop” weapon. A drop weapon is usually something silent and sharp that can be used in crowds. Walk up to your target, make the hit, and walk away, leaving the weapon behind.
There was a small plastic cylinder in which there were a dozen or more Fukumi bari needles. Ninja warriors would hide the needles on their tongues and blow them into the eyes of their enemy. I am no Ninja, so judging from the tiny skull and crossbones on the cylinder, these needles were dipped in something poisonous.
I broke the cylinder’s seal and sniffed. The needles had a fruity, vinegar odor. Probably sodium morphate. Attach the cylinder to the tip of an umbrella, touch the needles to the leg of your target as you pass, and within thirty minutes or so, he will begin to feel a terrifying anxiety, then cramps, and soon will collapse with all the symptoms of both a heart attack and a brain aneurysm. A very nasty weapon and also illegal, according to the Geneva Protocol of 1927.
“This is a dirty war!” Bernie Yeager had told me.
I had no doubt of that now.
Finally, there was a military SATCOM telephone. SATCOM is a satellite-based, global wireless personal communications network designed to permit easy phone access from nearly anywhere on earth. Sixty-six satellites, evenly spaced four hundred miles high, made it possible. The phone was compatible with cellular systems worldwide, if the phone being called was equipped with a cellular cassette.
Hal Harrington’s phone undoubtedly was.
I had to pace around the room a couple of times before I could bring myself to read the accompanying note from Harrington: Commander F., Our intelligence now confirms that Hassan Atwa Kazan has financial links with terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, whom the Israelis consider a clinical psychopath. It was Mughniyeh who kidnapped Beirut’s CIA chief William Buckley, videotaped his torture, then killed Buckley with his own hands. The tape was later sent anonymously to CIA headquarters. Kazan works through terrorist cells in the Colombian city of Maicao, which is near Barranquilla on the Caribbean. Maicao is a Muslim extremist stronghold. Our government has yet to deal with anti-American organizations here, but it is time we started. Kazan is a low-echelon soldier, a freelance money raiser probably in business strictly for personal profit, but he may lead you to more prominent members. When and if you conclude your private business with him, we urge you to take executive action against Kazan. If you have assembled sufficient evidence, you may also take executive action against any of his associates you deem an enemy of our government. You have already been briefed on the restraints and limitations, and you are not authorized to exceed those limitations under penalty of military prosecution. We have no interest in Earl E. E. Stallings, and leave his dispensation to you. As a personal favor, and with the help of our friend BY, we are hereby supplying additional classified information concerning your own private business in Colombia. According to satellite imagery, as of yesterday’s date, 15 December, 9:45 P.M. EST, nine women and two men were photographed in what appeared to be a wire-fenced area within a walled courtyard in the Colombian state of Amazonia, outside the village of Remanso. The fenced area was west of a large house, the entire compound four miles south of the village. Five of the women and both men
appeared to be Caucasian. Good hunting, HH
I read the note a second time before tearing it into pieces and flushing it down the toilet. Then I went and sat heavily on the bed. I remembered obsessive Bernie Yeager saying to me, “Ours is a dangerous world. It would be good to have you back working with us again. We need you!” Remembered Hal Harrington once telling me, “I wish we could find a way to get you to come back.”
I felt like vomiting, like running out of the room, jumping into a cab, and heading for the airport. I’d already done my duty; I’d served my time. My life was my own now. I was content to live quietly and alone on Sanibel Island, content to spend quiet, peaceful nights in my lab, doing my work. I didn’t want to come back and participate in a dirty war.
But they’d found a way. I’d opened the door for them with my requests for help, baited my own trap. When I’d asked Bernie for information, was he already aware that these terrorist groups were involved in smuggling drugs, people, and weapons to finance their cause?
Of course. He had to know that the odds were good that the men running the Nan-Shan had at least indirect ties with enemies of our government.
Had Harrington known?
Certainly. He was an expert on South America. He knew who was doing what and where they were doing it. And the two of them had been in contact, obviously sharing information. They’d been smart enough to wait until I was already in Colombia to finally formalize the assignment. The obligation was implied but understood: They’d helped me. Now I was expected to help them.
“Dear God…” I said softly.
My voice sounded unusually hoarse in the silence of the air-conditioned suite. I stood, looked out the window, and saw that Amelia was no longer by the pool.
I rushed to the briefcase and began to pack the weaponry. I’d just gotten the thing locked and under the bed when I heard the door open and she came into the bedroom. Her skin was the color of fresh cinnamon, and there was a bawdy smile on her face that quickly faded. “Hey… Doc? What’s wrong, you’re so pale. You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
I said, “I think I’m just thirsty. Let’s go down to the bar and get a drink.”
21
That night, we showered together and dressed in our best clothes for dinner. Amelia wore a sleek beige dress that showed her body, made her look even taller, and left no doubt that she was braless, too. “When I’m outside the country,” she laughed, “I always take the opportunity to show what little I have.”
I wore khaki slacks, a Navy polo shirt, a light, silk sports coat I’d had tailored in Asia, and my old, soft jungle boots-which earned me a minor rebuke. “Just when I think you’re halfway civilized, you prove me wrong.”
I told her Colombia wasn’t a particularly civilized country, and she smiled as if I were joking.
We walked the cobblestone streets west toward the Hotel de Acension, Hassan’s hangout and sometime home. I didn’t tell Amelia why we were going there, just that I’d eaten in the restaurant and the food was very good. Nor did I tell her why I asked to have my new briefcase kept in the hotel safe.
It was a typical December night in Cartagena. A jungle breeze came off the water carrying aromatic little pockets of open sea, of jasmine and frangipani blossom, and of the city, too. It smelled of water on rock and diesel exhaust, of wood smoke and the shadowed musk of narrow alleys, and of cobblestone markets that hadn’t missed a night in three hundred years.
Once Amelia hugged herself close to me, and said, “I love it here. We’ll have to come back just to have fun. I feel so… relaxed.”
Already, it seemed very comfortable to speak of us as “we,” two people but one united couple.
I, however, did not feel relaxed. We were on our way-hopefully-to meet a man that I was now duty-bound to murder.
Earl Stallings was in the bar. I saw him when we walked through the great stone archway that was the entrance into the Hotel de Acension. The bar was to the left, elevated above the marble lobby. Wrought-iron tables were crowded, p
eople drinking and laughing, ceiling fans above stirring slow mare’s-tails of smoke, while a very black man at a very black grand piano played and sang “Jamaica Farewell” in Spanish.
“My heart is down, my head is spinning around, I had to leave my little girl in Kingston town…”
Stallings stood beside the piano, dressed in white linen slacks and a white guyaberra shirt, smoking a cigar. Clinging to his waist was a woman wearing a purple blouse and a white Panama hat.
Shanay Money had been correct. Stallings made her giant of a father appear small. He dwarfed the piano and dominated the room. His head was huge, pumpkin-sized, and even from that distance I could see the yellow smoothness of a burn scar on the right side of his face. He appeared to be Polynesian, possibly Fijian or Samoan, and he had to weigh well over four hundred pounds.
“Doc, what’s wrong? What are you staring at?”
I realized that Amelia was pulling me by the hand toward the restaurant, while I stood there taking him in, memorizing his features.
I said, “It’s somebody I think I know. Let’s get a table, and I’ll come back and say hello to the guy.”
The restaurant was in a smaller courtyard separated from a larger courtyard by palms and hibiscus in red and yellow bloom. From our table, I could see the moon through the feathered leaves, above the stone gables of the hotel.
Amelia took my left hand in both her hands and said, “Hey pal, we haven’t known each other that long. I want to learn everything there is to know about you, all your moods, what makes you mad, everything, but I haven’t had time. I want to. I will. The point is, I get the feeling that something happened this afternoon, that there’s something wrong. Did I say something that offended you? Sometimes I talk before I think. You seem so distracted.”
I kissed her hands, smiling. “No, I think you’re wonderful. I mean that, Amelia. I’m a little preoccupied, thinking about how to get information on Janet and the others.”
“You said you might know some people who can help.”
“Maybe. That guy in the bar. I need to talk to him after we order. Alone.”
Earl Stallings blew smoke toward the ceiling fan before he looked down at me, and lied, “Kazan? Kazan… hmm. No, I’ve never heard of a man named Hassan Kazan. And if I had, why should I tell you?”
I’d introduced myself to him at the piano and endured his domineering handshake. Then I endured him saying, “I saw that redhead you’re with. Kind of attractive. I’ve never slept with a redhead. They any good?”
Now we were standing in a quiet corner of the bar, him with a tall brown drink in hand, me with a bottle of Aquila beer in a brown bottle.
I said, “I’m surprised you don’t know Hassan Kazan. He stays at this hotel regularly. That’s what my friends tell me, anyway.”
Stallings seemed to swell slightly. “You interrupt my evening, I don’t even know who the hell you are, and already you’re calling me a liar?”
His voice had a mellow, raspy quality that I associate with Hawaiians, but his English was occasionally clipped, guttural in a way that suggested Austronesian languages. I forced myself to smile congenially while my brain struggled to remember a few of the Samoan phrases I knew. Laega, laega -didn’t that mean “sorry”?
I couldn’t remember for certain, and then I decided, screw it, I wasn’t going to bother trying to charm him. I said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m calling you. A liar. I’ve got a business proposition for Kazan. Maybe for you, too. But I’m not going to stand here and let you waste my time.”
For a moment, I thought he was going to swing at me, smash the glass into my face, or maybe pull a knife. I watched his face blanch, then freeze masklike as he reconsidered. Stallings was used to bullying people, and bullies rarely have to use any force stronger than words. It was a struggle, but he got his temper under control. “If I’m included in your business, that might be different. Money. If there’s money involved, I’m interested. You have American cash with you? Here in Cartagena? How much are we talking?”
I had brought a sizeable bundle of cash-about $5,000-but I doubted if that were enough to tempt someone like Stallings. So I said, “All I could bring in legally, plus I have access to a little more, depending on how our negotiations go.”
“You’re going to need a lot more than that, but, okay, it’s a place to begin. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
A reasonable man-if cash were involved.
I said, “I wasn’t thinking, Earl. Sorry. So let me start all over again. I want to discuss something that could make you both a profit. Sizable money and very simple. So the question’s the same: Where’s Kazan?”
“No, no, no, Ford. The question is: What kind of business are we discussing?”
I said, “I think three friends of mine are being held captive somewhere in Colombia. I’m here to buy their freedom.”
“How would I know anything about that? Now you’re saying I’m a criminal, too.”
“I know because they were adrift in the water the morning you ran the shrimp boat Nan-Shan into the Ten Thousand Islands. I know you saw them and stopped.”
He did a good job of trying to hide his surprise. When he started to reply with a predictable lie, I held up a warning finger. “No more of your bullshit. I’m going to have dinner now. Think it over. Find your pal Hassan Kazan and meet me at that little restaurant, La Habinita. No… make it Plaza de Santa Domingo.” I looked at my watch. “Let’s say eleven.”
Stallings wasn’t used to being on the defensive, but he was already regrouping. “I’ll meet you-but not so early. Let’s say midnight.” He nodded toward the woman with the purple blouse and Panama hat as he grinned, his incisor teeth gigantic, the color of yellow ivory. “I hired her for the evening. I want to make sure I get my money’s worth.”
As I left the bar and was walking through the hotel’s marble lobby, a tiny Arabic-looking man in a dingy white suit, his black hair pasted smooth, stopped me. He had a normal head, but his hands and his legs were dwarf-like. He was obviously very nervous, sweat beaded on his face, and his head swiveled constantly in a way that reminded me of a pigeon that has just heard a hawk. He was smoking a cigarette in a short black holder, and he took the cigarette from his mouth when he had my attention, and said with a Pakistani accent, “Senor, if I may be so bold as to offer you a warning. The man you were speaking with in the bar, do you know who he is? What he does?”
He was a humorous caricature of the sort of person one often meets in smuggler ports in the earth’s darker places. They make a living off the scraps of larger predators, but I did not smile. “Why do you ask?”
“Because he is a very dangerous man. Extremely dangerous. And he has many dangerous friends. If you are here to purchase something-anything-I am a much better choice. Emeralds? Gold? Women? Whatever you want, even items I have not named. I’ll leave those words for you to use.” He touched a finger to one side of his nose and sniffed to illustrate. “I’ll guarantee you fair market value, and I am not nearly so dangerous.”
I told him I’d think it over, maybe another time. As I was walking away, he called after me, “In the jungles here, there are still savages! On the street, as well. Trust no one!”
Back at our hotel, Amelia stripped the beige dress up over her head, draped it on a chair, and walked on long legs, pelvis rotating, through the wedge of light that came through the doorway. Then she stood beside the bed in silken bikini underwear, her nipples very dark on the white, white skin of her breasts, and she said, “Every time I see your body naked, I love it even more.”
I folded my hands behind my head, and said, “Same here, lady. I’m getting to be a very serious fan of yours.”
She laughed as she lay down beside me, her fingers already encircled around me, moving on me, eager for me to be ready, and she said, “Yes, you do seem to be a fan, right there for the world to see. No denying it.”
We made love quickly, both of us too eager and needy to attempt to slow ourse
lves, losing ourselves in a physical unity of belly-slapping, groaning, laughing without inhibition.
Then we held each other, saying private, silly things until slowly, gently, we were each ready again, and then we took turns pleasing each other, giving ourselves without restraint, and finally coupling to a final release that was simultaneous, and so powerful that I actually heard a ringing in my ears.
“You’re amazing,” I told her.
She replied, “No. We are. We’re amazing.”
Later, as we lay together in darkness, our bodies still wet, our legs tangled, Amelia pulled her face close to my ear and said in a tone that was touching for its uncertainty, “There’s a word my heart keeps wanting me to use, but my brain won’t let me.”
I said, “I hope the word’s not ‘three.’ After that last one, I’m going to need a little more recovery time.”
She chuckled. “That sounds wonderful. But you told me you had an appointment.”
“People in Colombia are big on midnight meetings. They sleep ’til noon and have dinner at ten. I’ll only be gone an hour or so.”
She lay silently beside me for a long time before she said softly. “The word is love. I don’t want to say it because it scares me. And it might scare you. Doc? It’s true. I think I’m falling in love with you. It scares me because I’ve never truly been in love and, if it happens, you’ll have all of me, everything about me. I don’t want to scare you away by saying it, but it’s true. I’ve never really given myself before, but, if I do, I’ll no longer be just one person. Forever.”
I nuzzled the hair away from her ear and kissed her cheek. “The funny thing is, what you just said should scare me. It always has. I’ve lived alone so long.”
“What are you telling me, Doc?”
“I’m saying that maybe it doesn’t scare me so much now. I’m not sure.”
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