The Darkest Heart (15 page)

Leonardo took the far end of the crate and pushed it across the plank towards me so I could grab it and heft it onto the boat. Rocky stuck close to my legs, sniffing at the box, until I shooed her away.

Between us, Leonardo and I manhandled the crate onto the deck
and stacked it beside the store cabin where Daniella was keeping out of sight.

‘How many more of these?' I asked as Leonardo climbed back onto the plane, jumping over the gunwale and through the cargo door.

‘Four.' he said, disappearing from sight again.

The top of the crate beside me had been prised open, so I guessed that's why Leonardo had taken so long. He'd been checking the contents.

Not caring that he would see me, I leaned down and pulled up the corner of the lid, shifting it to one side. Underneath was an oiled covering which I lifted to look at the weapons beneath.

Rocky came close, putting her nose in for a quick sniff then backing away as if she didn't like the smell.

‘I wonder what these are for?' I said to her.

They were rifles, but not the kind used for hunting.

These guns were designed for killing men.

Five assault rifles were nestled together in a formal line, and I estimated from the depth of the crate that there would be at least another three layers of weapons in there.

Five crates containing twenty rifles each.

I closed my eyes for a moment, making the addition, using my fingers.

‘A hundred?' I put a hand on Rocky's head. ‘What the hell does anyone want with a hundred of these?'

They were the kind of weapons I hadn't seen since leaving Rio. Back then, boys bought weapons like these from corrupt policeman selling them from the boot of police vehicles, but they had been used. They were damaged and worn, just as likely to go off in your face as shoot a hole in your enemy.

These ones looked new and it made me wonder how they were connected to Sister Dolores Beckett. It was too much of a coincidence that she was headed to Mina dos Santos at the same time as a shipment of weapons like this. There were enough rifles here for a small army, but not an army led by a nun who fought for Indian rights. Perhaps an army led by men who wanted to
occupy more land; an army that would be glad if a woman like Sister Beckett were to disappear.

Her name was a reminder of the clipping folded in my pocket and, without intending it, my fingers felt for it nestling against my heart. That soft paper with the grainy picture and the illegible words had become a presence just as the shadow was a presence, the two of them fighting for space in my thoughts.

Sister Beckett was with me during the quiet moments of our journey and I was struggling over whether or not I would be able to do what Costa wanted. There was no obvious way out of it, though, and every time I imagined myself putting a knife to the nun's throat, I saw Sofia's face. I was ashamed of what I was going to do, and she would have been ashamed too.

Maybe if it had been someone else. Someone who deserved it.

I glanced up when I heard scraping from inside, then Leonardo came into view again, pushing another of the crates. He stood and put his hands on his hips. ‘You like them?'

I shrugged.

‘Maybe if you make this delivery on time I can do some kind of deal for you. A good price for one of them.' He grinned and there was something different about him. He seemed energised, and I put it down to having met the plane on time. Maybe there were consequences for him if he failed here.

‘I have no use for one of these.' I told him.

Leonardo raised his eyebrows. ‘I've seen men like you before, Zico. I
know
you could find a use for one of these.'

‘But for a hundred?'

Leonardo looked confused for a moment, then smiled. ‘Eighty,' he said. ‘The last crate is for something else.'

‘Ammunition?'

He raised both hands and pretended to sight down the barrel of a rifle at me. ‘They're not water guns, Zico.'

‘What're they for?'

‘Killing people. What else?'

19

It didn't take long to load the remaining crates onto the
Deus
, and once it was done, Leonardo stayed on the boat, leaning across to speak to the man who had opened the cargo doors. I couldn't hear them over the sound of the idling engines, so I took a step back and looked up at the pilot.

Something had agitated him. From having been almost motionless, he was suddenly animated as if struck by an unexpected urgency. He grabbed the earphones, pulling them back on and twisting in his seat to shout to his partner. As soon as he did this, the man standing in the doorway looked in his direction, an expression of concern and surprise beneath the peak of his cap. There was a fraction of a second when he decided what to do, then he reacted, taking a step back and throwing the tethering rope onto the
Deus.
He dragged the gangplank back onto the plane with a couple of hard yanks, mock saluted Leonardo, then slammed the door just as the engines throttled hard.

‘What's going on?' I asked Leonardo, but all he could do was shake his head as the seaplane moved away from us.

As soon as it was past the boat, gathering speed on the straight, flat stretch of the river, I saw what had sent them away in such a hurry.

Coming from the right fork in the river, maybe four hundred metres away and approaching with speed, a boat was skimming across the water. It was a small craft, much smaller than the
Deus
, and it must have been equipped with a good motor because it was gaining quickly. The old man gunned our engine and started to turn the
Deus
, but there was no way we were going to outrun the
boat. If the people on board intended to catch us, there was no doubt they would.

‘Police?' Leonardo turned to me.

‘No,' I said, my eyes going from the approaching boat to the plane that was now gaining speed. ‘Not here.'

Rocky sensed our tension, and mirrored it, pacing the deck beside me, stopping every now and then to watch the activity. She alternated between whining and barking, pushing against me one moment, then jumping up on the gunwale the next.

Leonardo kept an eye on her while trying to concentrate on the river as the plane's nose began to lift, the impossible bulk of its bloated belly rising out of the water, the sun glinting on the hull.

Further away, the boat approached.

Nearer and nearer by the second.

‘Pirates?' he offered.

‘Could be. They would have seen the plane land. There's always a chance.'

The Catalina lifted into the air, water cascading from its underside, engines droning as it climbed into the sky. It tracked away from us into the blue, rising to safety before banking as it slipped over the trees.

Leonardo pulled a pistol from beneath his shirt, a more sophisticated weapon than the
pistola
I had taken from him. He racked the slide on the automatic and held it loose in his right hand, obscuring it behind the gunwale, before meeting my eye and shrugging. ‘I felt naked,' he said. ‘And they had a spare on the plane.'

‘Well, make sure you keep it cold for now,' I told him, pointing at the pistol. ‘You don't know how things work out here. They might be anybody. Curious fishermen, locals looking to make a trade. Don't shoot anybody.'

Leonardo grinned and shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, boss.'

I couldn't tell if he was excited at the prospect of a fight, or if he was just pleased that he'd had the chance to show me he was armed, but he was more animated than before. And when Rocky came between us, he put his foot on her and pushed her away, making her yelp in pain.

‘Keep the damn dog away from me.' He pointed the weapon in her direction. ‘I'll shoot it.'

Rocky turned on him, baring her teeth, so I grabbed her by the scruff and took her back to the wheelhouse, telling the old man to keep hold of her. ‘Something's got into him,' I said. ‘He's different.'

‘Leonardo? Different how?'

‘I don't know exactly. Excited. Revved up.'

‘He was worried about missing the plane, maybe he's just pleased to pick up.'

‘Those boxes are full of guns,' I said. ‘You have any idea why they need eighty assault rifles at Mina dos Santos?' I couldn't help wondering whether Sister Beckett was connected to this delivery of weapons. Something was happening along the Rio das Mortes; that much was clear.

The old man shook his head.

‘You look like shit,' I told him. ‘Feeling any better?'

‘I'II survive.'

‘Sure you will.' I looked out at the smaller boat. It was two hundred metres away now, the sound of its motor coming to us across the water. Leonardo was waiting, watching with interest. ‘I'd better get over there.'

I jogged back along the deck, reaching the gunwale just as Daniella emerged from the housing. The metal door squealed and she stepped out saying, ‘They gone? Can I come out now?'

‘Not yet. Stay inside.'

‘Why? What now? It stinks in there.'

‘You'll get—'

‘I haven't got used to it yet,' she said.

‘Please.' I gently pushed her back inside. ‘Please. Just for a while longer.' I left the door ajar, so that some fresh air might find its way into the hot, dark interior, and turned my attention to the boat which was now almost upon us. I took the revolver from its holster on my hip, and stood beside Leonardo, hiding the weapon behind the gunwale.

The boat wasn't big, perhaps twice the size of the one secured to the back of the
Deus.
It was light and low to the water, skipping across the surface as it skimmed around the sandbanks, but it wasn't a long-range boat. There was a chance it could have come from Piratinga – sometimes the locals used them to come upriver and fish for a couple of days – but it would have to be carrying spare fuel, otherwise it would never make it back.

There were two men on board. One sitting at the stern, operating the tiller, a red cap on his head, and the other at the centre of the boat, a rifle across his knees.

‘That a shotgun?' Leonardo said without looking at me.

‘Yeah, they look like hunters. Fishermen, maybe.'

‘Only one shot in that thing.'

I looked at him. ‘Stay calm. They're probably nobody.'

As they came near, the driver slowed the engine and the other man stood up, resting the butt-plate of the shotgun against his hip and raising his left hand as he shouted, ‘Oi!'

I waved back and smiled.
‘Tudo bem?'

‘Bom,'
the man nodded. He had a serious face beneath the straw hat and he shifted his shotgun so he was holding it in both hands. If he wanted to, he could raise it and aim it in just a few seconds.

When the driver cut the engine, the smaller boat drifted towards us, skewing in the current, so that it knocked against the tyres on the hull of the
Deus.
He threw up a rope which I wrapped around a cleat on the gunwale, then he sat back down and watched us.

For a moment, no one spoke as the smaller boat twisted in the current so that it was at a right angle to the
Deus.

‘We saw the plane,' said the man with the shotgun, breaking the silence. He was skinny, all angles and bone. His T-shirt hung off him like it was still on the hanger.

The bottom of their boat was flooded with four or five inches of water, reels of fishing wire washing from side to side. There were four jerrycans at the back, so I might have been right about them coming from Piratinga, but I didn't recognise their faces.

There was a catfish in the bottom of the boat, too, a big one.

‘Pirarara,'
I said. ‘Good catch. That was you?'

He shook his head and pointed with his thumb at the man sitting by the motor. ‘Took him close to an hour to bring it in.' His eyes flicked from me to Leonardo and back again. ‘Thirsty work.'

‘You planning on shooting the next one?' Leonardo asked, drawing the man's attention.

‘Eh?' He looked confused, then glanced down at his shotgun and raised it a touch.

I sensed Leonardo's tension beside me.

‘It's for the
paca,'
the man said. The large rodent had good meat and it was a treasured prize for hunters. ‘Maybe a boar.'

‘Not many of those on the water,' Leonardo said.

The man showed us a nervous smile and shrugged. ‘Maybe in the forest.'

‘Well, it was good to meet you.' I was eager to end the conversation. Leonardo was winding tighter and tighter, becoming twitchy beside me.

‘Water,' the man said. ‘You have water?' The sinews in his arms loosened a touch and the shotgun hung a little lower as he showed us an embarrassed grin, full of stained teeth. ‘My brother came past about an hour ago and took our water.'

‘We haven't seen anyone else on the river,' Leonardo told him.

‘Maybe he went a different way. There's channels and ... which way did you come from?' the man asked.

‘Which way did he go?' Leonardo replied.

I could feel the tension crackling around him like electricity and when I glanced down, I saw his fingers wrapped around the butt of his automatic. His knuckles were white, as if he were squeezing the handle hard enough to crack the grips.

I had to make him relax. He was starting to feel more dangerous by the second.

‘We have water,' I said to the man before turning to Leonardo. ‘Why don't you get them some? There's bottles in the cooler box.'

I thought it would diffuse the situation, give Leonardo something to do, but instead he stared at me and shook his head. ‘You get the water.'

As we glared at each other, I caught movement out of the corner
of my eye. Leonardo spotted it too, and we turned to the man standing in the boat. But what I saw and what Leonardo saw were two different things. I saw a man stepping forward to come closer to the gunwale of the
Deus.
I saw a man coming to accept our gift of water. Leonardo saw something else.