Fallen Idols (5 page)

Walt had flashed a burst of ire at this insult from the elements, but he'd gotten over it fast. You can fight Mother Nature, but you won't win. He'd learned that lesson a long time ago. Survival in the field depended on rolling with the punches.

He slogged through the muck to where Manuel and Ernesto were working on the dead tree. “How much longer do you think?” He looked up to scrutinize the sky, which hung black and low with thunderheads.

“I hope not much longer,” Manuel grunted, as he cut the trunk into small enough pieces to be wrestled aside.

“So in a half-hour or less we can get going again?” Walt asked optimistically. “We should make pretty good time after this, shouldn't we?”

“That will depend,” Manuel said slowly, “on how bad the mud is up ahead.”

“The four-wheel drive in these minivans has always worked well,” Walt remarked cautiously. “In a normal rain we'd be pushing on through this.”

“Yes,” Manuel agreed, “but vans are not burros. And this is not a normal storm.”

Jocelyn ran up to them, holding a piece of cardboard over her head in a futile attempt to keep her head dry. “What do you think?” she asked nervously. “Are we going to get through? The kids want to know.”

He gave her a grim look. “It's going to be tight.”

The students were still clustered in the rain. A few of the women, shoes shucked off, were performing an impromptu dance of delirious, youthful abandon.

Jocelyn watched them, almost enviously. She didn't do that kind of dancing anymore. She should go over and jump in with them. Show these kids she was as free a spirit as any of them.

In her heart, she was. But she didn't join them.

Manuel and Ernesto finished clearing the road, and at the same time, as if by divine intervention, the thunderstorm was over. The sky turned a vibrant blue, with streaks of cornstalk yellow on the horizon.

Everyone was still outside, standing. Walt and Manuel walked a short distance away from the others. Walt stirred up some mud with his boot. He looked behind him and saw Jocelyn, standing with the others, staring at him. She cocked her head:
“What?
” He turned his palms up, shrugged, shook his head, turned away.

Manuel pried a clump of the viscous gunk off of one of the lead van's tires with a stick.

“Like sticking your hand in the tar baby,” Walt said, frowning at it.

Manuel looked at him in bewilderment.

“American kids story. Not worth explaining,” Walt said, as they walked back to the group.

“Can we get going now?” one of the students asked impatiently. He looked like a bedraggled dog. They all did.

“Here's the deal,” Walt answered. “Yes, we can start driving again. It's going to be slow-going, the road is going to be terrible, all the way to the city, practically.

We'll be hours behind schedule.” He paused. “We'll be on the road long after it's dark.”

That sunk in. They all knew the first rule of Third World travel: don't be on the roads after dark. They started muttering, cursing under their breath.

“You want to bellyache,” he told them, “feel free. I feel as bad about these delays as anyone else. But let's review our options, okay? We continue pressing on. We'll get to the airport after dark, but our flight isn't until past midnight, so we're all right with that. Or …” He paused. “We go back to the site—now—so that we're there before dark, spend tonight there, get a good
early
jump in the morning, get to the airport with daylight to spare, and take tomorrow night's flight.” He dropped his hand to his side. “That's it, the way I see it.”

They all slumped. One of the girls spoke up. “What do
you
think we should do, Professor Gaines?”

He exhaled heavily. This was his decision to make, no one else's. “I think we have to go back to the site.”

A collective moan rose up. “That sucks,” one of the young guys cried out.

“Yeah, it does,” Walt answered. His tolerance was growing thin—he was in no mood for dissension. “These problems happen down here, you all know that. It rains, a piece of equipment breaks down, a tree falls in the road, there's one of a thousand other snafus, and you get stuck. One more day isn't going to make any difference.”

They stood there, silently acquiescing, too tired and wet to argue.

“Come on, let's get back into the vans and get going.” He took a step toward his vehicle, to motivate them to move.

“One more day
will
make a difference.”

He snapped around.

Diane Montrose took a step toward him, separating herself from the others. “It could make a huge difference,” she said, looking directly at him. “I don't think going back to the site tonight is the smart decision.”

“Why not?” Goddamnit, what the hell was she up to now?

“Our tickets are for tonight,” she said, staring at him. “And what if we can't get on a plane tomorrow night? The planes are always overbooked going out of here. We could be stuck in the airport for days. We're out of clean clothes, there would be nowhere to sleep, basic stuff like that. And most of us are low on money, we budgeted for this long, but no longer.”

This is what happens when you've taken that forbidden bite, he castigated himself. You can't put her in her place, which is what you should do. She owns you now, a piece of you.

Jocelyn put a supportive hand on his shoulder. “You know this country better than any of us,” she told him in an almost apologetic tone of voice, “but think about the logic of what Diane's saying.”

Walt looked at the others, trying to gauge their attitude. They were uncomfortable with this public disagreement; his decisions weren't supposed to be questioned. He also knew that if they got hung up in the small, cramped airport and couldn't leave the country it would go down badly, and he'd be blamed.

“You know, honey,” Jocelyn continued, “there hasn't been any news of dangerous activity in this area for a long time. All the problems are up north, like the minister told you.” She put a soothing hand on his forearm. “I really think it'll be okay, Walt.” She glanced at Diane for a moment, then turned back to him. “Taking everything into consideration, I don't think we can turn back now. We have to keep going.”

Walt cursed inwardly. Then he gave an abrupt nod of agreement. What Jocelyn and Diane had pointed out was true, but that didn't make the decision sit any better.

“Okay,” he said, giving in. “Let's go. We have a long ways ahead of us yet.”

The vans slogged over the wet, muddy, tire-sucking road. Walt looked at his watch. Six o'clock. In an hour it would be dark. He had put on a happy face to save face, but inside, he was seething. This was the second time in three days (the screwup over the withdrawal of the military escort was the other) that his authority had not only been put into question, but overturned.

They drove in silence for a while. Most of the others were napping. Manuel, gripping the steering wheel as if it were the reins on a bucking mustang, was keenly aware of Walt's tension and anger. He'd watched his boss lose face to his wife and the other woman. Manuel knew that Professor Gaines hated being shown up like that. He wanted to say something to make his mentor feel better, some positive comment about how letting others in on decisions showed strength, not weakness—a big man, a confident man, doesn't always have to have things his way. But he didn't know how his boss would take such a remark; it might anger him even more. So he said nothing about it. Instead, like people do when they feel they must speak but don't want to deal with the real issues, he talked about the weather.

“It's hard driving this road when it's rained so much,” he complained. “These are the worst conditions I've ever driven through.” As strong as Manuel was, his arms were aching from fighting the steering wheel. “Only a crazy person would attempt to drive this road tonight.”

“Tell me about it. Better yet, tell my wife.”

“It was not her,” Manuel said carefully. He checked the rearview mirror. Diane, in the far-back seat, was zonked out. “It was the other woman,” he said quietly. “Your wife was only trying to …”

“Head off a mutiny?” Walt looked outside for a moment, at the thick, impenetrable jungle surrounding them. “It wasn't my idea, Manuel, but she”—a cocked thumb toward the slumbering Diane—”was right about the plane schedules and the rest of it.” He shook his head in annoyance. “I had two crappy choices. This one was less crappy, that's all.”

He settled back in his seat, trying to find a comfortable position. Logic had been on Diane's side, he couldn't dispute that.

He needed to stay calm; more important, he needed to project an aura of calmness. He was the leader: his attitude set the tone. He knew that his jitteriness was because of anxiety over the unexpected glitches as well as by the heavy weight of the responsibilities he had taken on, but he couldn't show any fear.

All that was behind them now. In four or five hours they'd be at the airport, and with any luck—they were due some, after what they'd gone through—by tomorrow they would be home. And safe.

Darkness fell. They pressed on. You don't know how dark night can be until you're in the middle of a jungle like this, Walt thought, looking out the front window and seeing nothing past the headlights. It's like being inside the whale's belly. But he was starting to feel less stressed—they were making decent time. An hour, hour and a half tops, and they'd be out of the jungle and onto the main highway. Then the airport, only another hour after that.

It was still blistering hot out even though the sun had been down for hours. Except for Walt and Manuel, everyone had fallen asleep. Walt was forcing himself to stay alert, talking low to Manuel about nothing, anything, words to keep his aide's attention focused. He wanted to make sure Manuel didn't lose his concentration, not for one moment—a few seconds’ lapse and you could drive off the road into a tree.

In the distance, lightning flashes could be seen over the foothills to the east, followed by low rolls of thunder. It's going to rain again, Walt thought with concern. Hopefully, not until we're off this road.

They rounded a bend in the road. “Jesus Christ!” Walt shouted involuntarily, as the headlights lit up a man on horseback who was riding toward them out of the darkness.

Manuel jammed on the brakes. The van lurched to a stop, sliding on the muddy passageway.

Walt stared out the dirty windshield. “What in God's name is somebody doing out here at night?” he exclaimed. This was spooky, and unsettling—they never saw anyone on this road, unless they were going to the site. There was no other reason to be on it.

The rest of the passengers had been roughly jostled out of their sleep, falling all over each other. Mumbled voices called out, “What's going on, did we hit something?”

The lone rider stopped ten yards in front of them. He seemed at ease, sitting erect on his horse. Walt, looking out the windshield, noticed with a tightening of his stomach that the man was heavily armed.

“I'd better go see what's going on,” he said to Manuel, who sat in silence, his hands gripping the steering wheel. “Find out what he's doing out here.”

He reached for the door handle. And his hand froze.

Another rider emerged out of the darkness and joined the first, sitting high in the saddles on their horses. And then a third.

And then another, another, another. Out of nowhere, ten men on horseback had come out of the dark, forming a line across the road. They brandished shotguns and rifles, and some had bandoliers strung across their chests.

They had been set up!

That came clear to Walt in a flash, as he stared at the men. They had checked and rechecked the vans. Everything was working. Then a perfectly good alternator suddenly went on the fritz, for no good reason. Right there, that should've told him: it had been tampered with.

With the wisdom of hindsight, there was no other explanation. Somebody at the camp had messed it up. Whoever that person was had to be connected with the official in the government who had pulled their support troops. The corruption went from top to bottom and back up again. He had known that for years, but he thought he was impervious, because of the work he was doing.

But now, he could see clearly, he wasn't. He hadn't paid attention to the obvious, the way he should have, because he was too mad. Fixing the alternator was going to delay their departure, and that was what he had been thinking: we're going to get screwed by leaving late—not suspecting that the alternator being broken could have been deliberate. Because it was so logical—the troops that were supposed to escort them were pulled for a lame reason, which meant they were traveling without protection, then the alternator goes. Read the tea leaves, jackass, he thought, it was all right there in front of you.

His second thought, which came right on top of the conclusion about them being set up, was that some or all of his party were going to be kidnapped, either for straight ransom or for a political reason. Kidnapping had become the counterinsurgency coin of the realm all over the world, from Indonesia to Pakistan to almost every country in Central and South America.

His third thought was the most dire—some of us might be killed. Maybe all of us.

The volunteers were staring out the window. Walt could feel the panic beginning to form.

“What is this?” a girl cried out.

“Are they going to rob us?” another asked tremulously.

Walt had to hold it together. If hysteria took over, they were screwed. “Everybody stay put, and keep quiet,” he told them firmly. “I'm going out there. Don't anyone else move.” He turned to Manuel. “Make sure they all stay inside,” he whispered.

Manuel nodded. His stare was fixed on the men outside. If they survived this he wanted to remember every detail of what these men looked like, so that he could do something in the future to balance the scales.

Walt got out of the van and approached the armed men, who looked down at him from atop their horses. Some of them were pointing their rifles at him, as if measuring him.

One pull of a trigger, and he was dead.

The man who had emerged out of the darkness spoke first to Walt, in Spanish. His voice was rough and harsh, the voice of a heavy smoker. “Turn out the truck lights.”