Dead in the Water (16 page)

Into this aural paradise an unfamiliar noise intrudes: someone is padding on the ground, slapping the earth with their feet or the palms of their hands. The incongruity of the sound irritates, and grudgingly José opens his eyes. He had imagined warriors dancing, the shaman preparing a ritual, children running round.

But in the clearing all is still, and yet the slapping becomes thumping; a fierce racing heartbeat pounding against the outside of his chest.

2
7
Caracas

Jeremy Peters is sitting in an air-conditioned bar of the
Santana Excelsior Hotel
on the outskirts of Caracas at half eleven at night, waiting for a pilot by the name of Terry Sullivan, a guy he’s spoken to on the phone a couple of times; but never met in person. He’s been here for a couple of hours. No sign of Sullivan. He’s chatted to bar staff and read every leaflet on the table several times. The hotel brochure boasts that it’s renowned for breathtaking views of the El Avila Mountain, that it has its own 9-hole golf course, tennis courts and indoor gymnasium. But Jeremy is not here for the sports, the views, or even the range of thirty seven different single malt Scotch whiskies and half a dozen Irish. Uncharacteristically for him, he’s drinking lime juice and tonic – and paying more for it than he would usually spend in an hour in one of his favoured bars. On almost every count, this is not Jeremy Peters’ kind of place, though he promised Rachel that when she returned to Caracas, he’d bring her here for a meal and would show her the roof terrace Infinity Pool.

For all the hotel’s excellent reputation, however, he is one of only half a dozen customers in the bar. The place has the feel of post-colonial abandonment about it. On the glass topped table in front of him lie creased copies of the notice issued jointly by the British and United States governments five days ago, warning travellers about the growing political instability – which has effected a rapid, if as yet informal, tourist evacuation.
One World
has offered to get him out of the country, but Jeremy Peters has no intention of joining the general exodus just yet. He has never seen himself as a ‘man of action’ – his usual way of dealing with problems has been to talk them through – but he has to get Rachel out of the forest.

He pulls a crumpled glossy leaflet out of his pocket:

SULLIVAN AIR TAXIS •  You want to be free of the hassle of waiting for internal flights and connections? •  You want to get quickly to those exotic corners of the country that most tourist guides never even mention? •  You want to fly over Angel Falls! Your own private chartered plane could be the answer! Sullivan Air Taxis provide a complete personal service for up to 4 passengers Contact us at Charallave Airport one hour drive West of Caracas City Centre REASONABLE RATES FRIENDLY SERVICE

He found the company on the internet, rang the phone number and spoke to Sullivan, a blunt New Zealander who told him to get himself over to
The Santana
. Waiting makes him tense: drinking lime juice and tonic in a clinically luxurious air-conditioned bar showing Major League baseball on a giant wide-screen television is not his way of relaxing; and the absence of clients in the hotel makes him even more self-conscious. He’s about to go to the bar and get himself a whiskey, when a stocky, heavily built man with long fair hair, tied with a red ribbon into a pigtail, walks into the bar. He comes straight over.

“
Peters?”

“
Yes.”

“
Sullivan.” They shake hands; his grip as firm and severe as his labourer’s boots. More buccaneer than hippy, muses Jeremy. He should have an eye patch and a parrot. “You’re the guy wants to get yourself down to Esmerelda. Right?”

“
Thereabouts.”

“
Just you?”

“
Going out. I want to pick up two friends who are working down there, and bring them back.”

“
Here? Caracas?” Sullivan sounds amazed.

“
One of them’s an English woman. I want to get her out of the country.”

“
Wise. Best part of a thousand mile round trip. I’ll need to make some phone calls. We’ll have to put in to Puerto Ayacucho and refuel on both legs. 450 miles is just about the range of the amphib, but it’s too risky to fly it in one leg.”

“
How long will it take?”

“
Depends on the wind. Should make Puerto Ayacucho in three hours from take-off. Esmerelda’s maybe two hours further on. Then there’s refuelling.” He assumes Peters is savvy enough to know that will depend on ‘local conditions’.

“
When can we go?”

“
Just you down, and you and your two friends back? Right?”

“
Yes.”

“
It’s going to cost, you know,” says Sullivan, sounding a challenge as much as a warning.

“
I know.”

Sullivan scrutinises him.

“
Six grand in dollars. Cash. In advance.”

Jeremy is used to haggling and wrangling, but Sullivan’s expression is blank, giving no indication whether this is negotiable. They could be playing poker.

“
Your website gave the impression it would be about five ––”

“
Website’s out of date, friend. Times change. Read the small print.”

“
I’m going to have a problem getting hold of five ––”

“
And I’m going to have a problem getting clearance to fly.”

“
But you can do it?”

“
I offered you a price, Mr Peters. It’s a fixed price. You pay me. I sort out the details. I do the job. You want to go, or not?”

“
I’ll get the cash.”

“
Right.” They extend hands to shake on the deal. Then, as if relenting, Sullivan adds: “Look. There’s some people I’m taking to Trinidad tomorrow morning. I can take 4 passengers and luggage. I got three. Trinidad’s an hour and a half. There’s a seat spare. You can have that for five hundred. And you’re outta here. Which is where anyone with half a brain should be.” And he offers a conciliatory smile.

“
I’ll get you the six grand.” Sullivan nods almost imperceptibly, a gesture of admiration at Peters’ determination. “When are you back from Trinidad?”

“
Depends on ATC. Could be midday. Could be four or five. I have an office at Charallave airport. I’ll see you there at eighteen hundred.” They shake hands on the deal. “You want a lift somewhere?” Given the curfew, Jeremy anticipated sleeping on a sofa in the hotel bar. Sullivan, however, is a fixer; and it augurs well for the trip ahead when his jeep is waved through an army road block by young fresh-faced soldiers wearing sub-machine guns like male jewellery. A lot of guys would look forward to a trip like this. Quite an adventure. And Sullivan is undoubtedly the man for the job. Trouble is – Jeremy Peters is terrified of flying in small planes. And what the hell do they do once they get to Esmerelda if Rachel and José aren’t at the outpost?

28
Amazonas

The young warriors have evidently encountered firebirds before now: they run for the cover of the forest.

To the rhythm of gentle waves, the elder and José sit cross-legged, rocking serenely forward and back, beside the motionless shaman, exhausted from his efforts to bring the Hekura to José Dias. They and Rachel are now the only humans in the clearing.

She has to get them out, into the cover of the forest, even if it means violating the circle. And she has to pick up the camera, the phone and her clothes. Tottering on feeble legs, with the earth as unstable as a rope bridge across a mountain ravine, merely standing upright is a balancing act.

The elder is a short wiry man. So he’s first. She grabs him by an arm and pulls him from the circle. The shaman, however, will not be moved. Rachel looks him in the eye; an eye as still as glass. But his spirit is evidently elsewhere and, in spite of Rachel’s frantic gestures, what he sees is not of this world.

So Rachel leaves him and turns to Dias. His eyes are open, but there is nothing in them to indicate recognition. He is no lightweight, and she daren’t risk pulling on his left arm in case she causes further damage to his shoulder muscles. Finding strength she did not know she had, she drags him from the circle by his feet; and then goes back for the satphone and the video camera. She gathers all these together, then tries to run towards the trees with heavy, heavy legs. She dumps everything except the camera in a pile and turns back for the shaman. The thumping of the helicopter much closer now. Dias and the elder are gone. The young men must have carried them from the edge of the circle and into the forest. But the shaman is still not moving.

She is back in the circle of skulls when the chopper comes into view. Something in her is still clinging to the hope that this might be a rescue mission; but as the machine reaches the level of the canopy she knows immediately that it’s too big for a
Greenpeace
helicopter. Side doors open, a man on each side, one with a machine gun, the other a flame thrower. Hands shaking, she switches on the video camera and points it in the direction of the descending helicopter.

The shaman’s hands and arms are limp, and his eyes, though open, are focused on something far, far away.

From the side of the helicopter fire spews down onto one of the huts. The firebird has roared. The roof catches light, sparks flying into the downdraft from the helicopter rotor blades, where they are fanned and driven into the darkness beneath the forest canopy. Rachel watches, as if in a cinema, as fascinated by the extraordinary stillness of the shaman as she is horrified by the fury in the air above them. Whether this is because of the narcotic plants they administered to her while she was asleep, because she is exhausted from the traumas her body has undergone in the past few days, or because she again hears that strange voice of reassurance, she has no idea. Whatever, this place, in the centre of the clearing, surrounded and protected by the ring of skulls, guided by the serene certainties of the shaman, feels the safest place she can be. And maybe the shaman is right: the helicopter is positioned with its nose pointing directly towards them, and the gunmen strafing the fringes of the forest with automatic weapons cannot aim at them.

Then several things happen very quickly, and later Rachel will struggle to remember accurately what happened or to distinguish between what happened and what she imagined. This is what she thinks happens:

She glimpses the flash of a long arrow and sees it hit one of the gunners in the throat. A second arrow comes in through the opposite door. Startled by the attack, they fire wildly in the general direction of the trees. In the cockpit the co-pilot turns and shouts something; and the pilot, trained to be calm in situations far more threatening than this, continues the slow descent. Knowing that he is not vulnerable to savages’ bows and arrows, he looks unconcerned by the indiscipline of those behind him; his job is to get the damn thing onto the ground.

In spite of the thunderous clattering of rotor blades and the shrill whining of the engine, Rachel becomes aware of a screeching sound from one of the burning huts. As the thatched roof falls in, three curassow birds which have been kept inside, fly out, wings beating furiously to escape the fire. One of them is caught in the flames, its feathers catch light and it falls back into the ruins of the burning hut. A full grown curassow is a heavy bird, bigger than a turkey, and its flight is clumsy. What curious instinct might it be that when the two surviving birds have risen above the flames, they fly towards the helicopter? For one of the birds the current of air is too strong: it gives up and is blown away into the forest and out of sight. But the other struggles on; beating its wings with furious energy, but barely moving in relation to the ground; firebird and curassow slowly closing on each other. Then suddenly the bird is caught in a different kind of current, and is sucked into the helicopter engine air intake.

There is so much dust and dirt, so many leaves, so much of the detritus of human settlement flying around the clearing, born on the wind of the flailing blades, that Rachel cannot see the bloody pieces of minced bird, shredded feathers and smashed bones expelled in a stream from the engine exhaust; and cannot know that more bird was sucked in to the engine than has come out the back of it.

But the shaman knows something, for at last he opens his eyes.

And the pilot and co-pilot know something, for their wide mouths show panic.

Holding the camera in one hand, Rachel is still videoing the nightmare, hardly aware that the shaman has taken hold of her other hand, has become her guide.

Then the wounded firebird starts to turn, twisting, spinning like a fish on a line. Slowly at first, then faster, wilder. Two of the gunmen are thrown from the side doors.

And now the shaman runs for the forest, Rachel alongside him. As the tail rotor drops and hits the ground, there is a terrible noise, louder than the thunder of an electrical storm overhead. Those birds that have not already fled from the trees take screeching to the air as shards of rotor blades fly like bullets. And then the machine rears up like an angry stallion, before crashing to the ground and lurching over to one side. There is movement in the cockpit and in the body of the machine. There are survivors. Two of the gunmen jump from the open door that now faces the tree tops. They struggle to get away from the crash; but manage no more than a couple of metres before kerosene from ruptured fuel tanks ignites, and flames engulf them and the wreckage. Knowing what the helicopter is likely to be carrying, Rachel urges the shaman on. They have gone no more than ten metres into the forest before hurling themselves to the ground as small arms ammunition and grenades detonate in secondary explosions and canisters of napalm are ignited by the heat.