Dead in the Water (4 page)

Given the state of his shoulder, Rachel is reluctant to let him take the machete, but he insists on leading the way.

After about an hour they arrive in a small clearing, a rough rectangle about the size of a hockey pitch, the site of an abandoned tribal settlement. José sits down. Until now Rachel had not really been able to see his face. She is shocked by his pallor and the sight of fresh blood seeping through the makeshift dressing.

“
José, come on. Let me look at it. Please.”

“
What can you do? Nothing. Is bleeding a little.”

“
José, it’s bleeding too much.”

“
When we get to the river.”

“
If you think I can’t cope with the sight of a wound ––”

“
Raqhel, you think I am pretending to be a hero?”

“
No.”

“
You take the bandage off. It bleeds some more. We have no clean bandage. So you put it back. Maybe half an hour. And maybe we don’t get to the river today.”

She is about to tell him that he should at least rest; then stops herself. He’s right. Every minute they delay will make it less likely that they’ll get to the river before dark.

José gestures to the sky, and says, “Maybe there will be a connection on your phone here. You should ring your friend, Jeremy Peters. Tell him what has happened. Maybe
Greenpeace
will come and rescue us.” There is no hint now that he is teasing her, and whatever she might feel for Jeremy personally, José is right. They have to try to contact him.

“
Can we check the video got through?”

He looks at the satlink, a little piece of kit no bigger than a Palmtop which the camera plugs into. “It transmitted. But did they receive it? Who knows. You have to ask your friend.”

Even in the clearing, however, the heavy tree cover is causing interference. The connection is intermittent, and she can’t even get a ring tone from Jeremy’s mobile or the
One World
office. She tries the
FPA
outpost in Esmerelda, but the connection breaks again So she writes a text and stores it in the memory to send as soon as they get to a larger clearing. Then switches the phone off to save the battery. The built-in solar charger is useless in the depths of the forest. With the phone safely zipped back into her pocket, she catches the look of impatience in José’s glance.

“
I know,” she smiles. “I know. We have to get going.”

When they get to their feet to set off again, however, he trips and falls.

“
I am OK, Raqhel. I am OK,” he says.

She wants to ask who it was who attacked them. Has anyone else survived? What happened to Pablo? But she’s not yet strong enough to cope with the answers, never mind the guilt that she should have gone back to check for survivors.

4
Caracas

At about the time that Rachel had been seeking refuge in the tree hide, Jeremy Peters was arriving at an out of town restaurant for dinner with Ramón Ortega, his contact in the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources. He’d been trying to set up this meeting for nearly two months, and was fearing the worst. But Ortega was on time, they had a table to themselves, well away from the other diners; it was a relaxed, easy meeting. And Ortega’s reassurances about the government’s commitment to environmental protection were more earnest than he expected.

And then, just as they were finishing the main course, the Minister himself, Gustavo Rodriguez, showed up with a tame photographer in tow. Jeremy was delighted. If the Minister wanted to be seen having dinner with Jeremy Peters,
it meant that he saw
One World
as an important player. But Rodriguez clearly had his own agenda, although it didn’t emerge until desserts had been rejected in favour of Tequilas, and the talk moved from the prospects for Venezuelan football to the current political situation and the imposition of the curfew.

“
It is a crisis, my friend, yes,” said Rodriguez. “All governments have those. It is a bad time. What you want, what we want is the same thing. But if we are not in power…. What can we do? So we have the Emergency. That way we stay in power, and when this …
irritación
has passed, then we create the Forest Protection Force.” Rodriguez seemed in good spirits; adamant that the state of emergency, the curfew, the paramilitaries on the street, was a “
Situación
. It will pass. There is no need to get
agitado
. Outside people they want to make things … more exciting. Foreign reporters make up stories. But there is no civil war. Nobody here wants civil war.”

“
Outside people?”

“
Foreign companies. They want us to increase oil production. They think that when Chavez went everything would be OK for them again. We are not communists, but this is our country.” His lop-sided smile was definitive: we do things our way. “But if we are to succeed, Señor Peters, we will need the support of Europe.”

So that’s what this was all about.

“
I don’t have influence, Señor Rodriguez.
One World
is an environmental NGO, not a government agency.”

“
I think you are a very modest man, Señor Peters. Your very close friend, Mark Boyd. He has the ear of your Prime Minister. I think that is how you say it.”

“
It is indeed how we say it. But ––”

“
Please,” said Rodriguez, smiling broadly. There was nothing more to be said on the matter. “Now. How are you getting home tonight Señor Peters? Time passes very quickly in your company. But there is a curfew. And I have detained you here far too long.”

He insisted that if Jeremy would accompany him in his official car to his gated villa in the foothills of El Avila, then the chauffeur would drive him home from there.

Sealed in and protected, he felt ambivalent about riding as the sole passenger in a ministerial car: uncomfortable around that degree of privilege, if glad to be able to beat the curfew in the safest way possible. He started to make some notes about the meeting, but couldn’t stop his thoughts to wandering to Rachel. There was a missed call on his mobile phone, but no message. She must have rung while he was at dinner. It was too late to call her back. She’d be asleep by now.

The driver was following instructions. Drive smoothly. Don’t stop unless it’s an official check point. Don’t turn back. But he could not avoid swerving, causing Jeremy to look up from his palmtop and glance out to see a group of urchins playing football beneath the street lights. One kicked the ball at the Mercedes, then raced across in front of the car, skipping onto the sidewalk, arms flapping abusive gestures at the
puto
hiding behind darkened glass, all of them screaming with silent laughter at the inventiveness of their profanities.

Jeremy Peters, the invisible voyeur, looked back, his smile dropping away as a curfew patrol emerged from an unlit alley. The driver looked straight ahead and turned the radio up ever so slightly. He seemed to know what was coming.

At first glance Jeremy thought they’d all escaped. Then he caught sight of an arm fallen in the road. Jerking in spasms. The body attached to it hidden behind a pile of litter. And then, as the car moved on, a second boy, a thin ghost inside the deep blue of an oversize
Chelsea
football shirt, the shoulder stained dark with blood. The mouth opening and shutting. Unheard through toughened glass.

Two children bleeding to death in the street. Five soldiers. He counted them, then glimpsed a football rolling down the hill.

“
Stop. Stop. At least call an ambulance. We can’t just leave them.” But the driver had his orders.

Two of the soldiers, barely out of their teens, stepped into the road. One brandished his rifle, pointing at the car, the other raised a hand. The driver, who slowed to a crawl, but never stopped, pointed calmly to his Ministry pass in the window. The soldier nodded and waved them on. The Mercedes gliding away from the incident, up towards Maiquetia; and then doubling back to the old industrial district, where Jeremy had a flat in a converted warehouse. He called the emergency services on his mobile; a young woman said she’d send an ambulance. He didn’t believe her.

And now he can’t sleep. He’s used to stories of violence on the streets, but has never personally witnessed anything like that. He knows what people will say, even in the
One World
office: those kids knew about the curfew, they chose to take the risk. He should be hardened to it, but it hurts. People don’t want to talk about it, as if denying the country’s on the verge of civil war will hold the madness at bay. He should be like the foreign correspondents he frequently socialises with. He can keep up with them drink for drink but he can’t keep everything neatly in separate compartments the way they seem able to. They file their reports, do a stint in front of the cameras, look earnest, distraught, tearful even – whatever’s appropriate – then switch off, get drunk, get laid. That’s how you do the job. Think global, fuck local, as the saying goes.
So why can’t I?

But it’s not only the killing that’s keeping him awake. The thing with Rachel is becoming obsessive. Rachel Boyd, Mark Boyd’s daughter. Three months ago, in early February, Boyd called him and asked a favour. Nothing unusual in Boyd asking for favours – for years they were colleagues and the closest of friends. Rachel had registered for a PhD, and wanted to undertake a research project with an indigenous tribe in the rain forest. Could Jeremy arrange something?

“
Mark, it’s not a good time. Things aren’t very stable here at the moment.” Three months ago that was a fair assessment, not a euphemism. It’s only in the past week that things have begun to get out of hand.

“
I know,” said Mark. “But Rachel’s made her mind up. And she’ll go anyway.”

So he agreed. And met her at the airport on April 7
^th
. An Iberia flight from London Heathrow via Madrid, arriving in Caracas 15:50 local time. It’s in his diary.

The thing with Rachel. The ‘thing’. What thing? There was nothing. She laughed a lot, enjoyed his company, flattered him; maybe they both flirted a bit, teased each other. But they didn’t kiss, didn’t hold hands. They didn’t even do anything very exciting – he set up a meeting with José Dias; he took her to the
Jardin Botanico
, they had dinner together one evening. And he can’t stop thinking about her.

Jeremy’s recommendation was good enough for José, who was confident he could find a welcoming community where she could base herself for her research.

From Caracas they planned to travel to La Esmerelda, a small town on the upper reaches of the Orinoco where they’d work with the Forest People’s Alliance for a couple of weeks before heading into the rain forest. It was all a bit rushed, but a perfect opportunity for Rachel. It wasn’t until after she was gone, that he realised how much of an effect she’d had on him, how envious he felt of her. So full of energy, so clear sighted about what she wanted.

So why should he feel so guilty about missing her? He’s unattached; and she split up with her boyfriend before leaving England. Maybe it’s because he cannot dismiss a memory of visiting the Boyds when they lived in Reading – taking the children to the playground. Rachel aged 8 and Stephen in his pushchair. But Rachel’s 24.
You’re allowed to fall for a stunning 24 year old. Might not do you much good, but it’s allowed. Is that what I’ve done? Fallen for someone half my age? Like the man said, the country’s gone crazy. Must be catching.

And now this missed phone call. He sends her a text.

He allows himself the thought that she might be missing him, that she wants to come back to Caracas; but dismisses it as a whimsical, selfish fantasy: the last place she needs to be right now is Caracas.

Thursday

5 London

Mark’s clock radio alarm rouses him just before 6.00. He’s about to get in the shower, when he catches the headlines. A car bomb has destroyed Piccadilly Underpass. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility. While getting dressed and snatching breakfast, he garners an impressionistic account of what’s happened from the
Today
programme. London is already in chaos But it’s not until he gets to Lancaster Gate tube station – just over ten minutes walk from his flat – that the news makes its impact.

Traffic on Bayswater Road is already at a standstill. He stands, gazing in shock at the gridlock. Any one of these vehicles could be carrying another bomb. Like so many other people, however, he suppresses his fears. He has to get to work.

When he emerges from the tube station at Green Park, Piccadilly is sealed off to private users; two fire engines in the mouth of the underpass, half a dozen police cars parked across the road at right angles to non-existent traffic, a jagged kaleidoscope of blue and red lights reflected in puddles and gleaming metal.