The Threateners (31 page)

Belinda drew a long breath. “My God, are we going through
that?
”

“If we can’t go through it,” I said, “we’re in deep shit, baby, because I doubt very much that this puddle jumper has the guts to climb over it.”

But it turned out to be Ricardo heaven. He found a crack in the wall of rock and snow and hurled us into it and took us through it exuberantly like a kayaker happily shooting the rapids of the Rio Grande. A few dead people hadn’t bothered my stomach at all, but even though the curtains prevented me from seeing the wing tips flirting with the walls of the winding passes we were penetrating, the plane’s gyrations soon had me wishing there was a seasick bag handy, just in case.

To the best of my knowledge there were no mountain ranges of significance in South America except the Andes, which ran down the western side of the continent. Since we seemed to be crossing them, we pretty well had to be heading for one of the countries on the Pacific coast: Chile, Peru, Equador, or Colombia. I remembered that Colombia was Vasquez’s original stamping ground. On the other hand, Mark Steiner had been hounded out of Peru, so obviously
El Viejo
had strong connections there, also—the Peruvian Andes were, after all, the ancient home of the coca leaf—and Peru was closer. I decided that if I were a gambling man, I’d put my money on Peru.

"Oh, Jesus, I think we’re really out of those damned rocks at last!” Belinda spoke in an exhausted voice, as if she’d personally carried the plane the whole way through the mountains; and of course she had, with my help. Now Ricardo was flying reasonably straight for a change, but it didn’t last. Belinda sighed. “Oh, God, what’s he doing now?”

We’d made a right turn and seemed to be following the western flanks of the Andes northward. This lasted for quite a while. I’d expected us to lose altitude once we were through the high passes; but if anything, the plane seemed to be trying for even greater elevations. At last there was some more twisting and turning and Ricardo reached for his microphone, spoke into it, listened, and made some adjustments to our course, descending. He set us down on a paved runway without a jar, as if to show us he could do it that way, too. The guy really could fly. Then Palomino was cutting us free once more, legs and arms both, and instructing us to clean the tag ends of tape off each other.

“This is a different jungle, señora, señor,” he said, “but please to understand it is our jungle. The police are ours and the taxi drivers are ours and the hotel people are ours. No one will help you escape us. It is known that anyone who assists our enemies, particularly U.S. government enemies like you, will soon die. And it is also known that anyone who assists us will be well paid for his efforts. So it is much better for you if you cooperate, okay?”

Belinda said, “Sounds like that place in Colombia, Medellin, where the drug lords blow up all the judges and politicians who don’t play ball.”

I said, "I don’t think we’ve come quite that far." I glanced at Palomino. “Cuzco, Peru?”

Palomino frowned. “What makes you say Cuzco, señor?”

I should have kept my mouth shut; it’s never smart to be clever. But it had been said, so I breathed deeply and patted my chest. “I can feel it here. I’m pretty used to altitude; if I can feel it, it’s got to be at least ten thousand feet. Over three thousand meters. How many cities with real airports do you have at that elevation? Cuzco is the only one I’ve read about. ’ ’ Palomino said, a bit stiffly, “Cuzco is at the approximate elevation three thousand seven hundred meters or eleven thousand feet, so I suggest you refrain from any violent activity until you become accustomed.”

I said, “Well, that’s one way of keeping prisoners in line, take away their oxygen.”

We found the sun low in the west, hot and red, when we descended to the pavement and could look around. It was a small airport, but a sizable jet was parked near the terminal and we could see people at the gates waiting for the word to board, too many people for Belinda’s peace of mind.

“Oh, God, I can’t go through that crowded building looking like this, I haven’t been out of my clothes for a week, I’m a disaster area!” she protested.

But a car had come onto the field and was approaching our little plane, a block-long black Cadillac limousine, polished until it shone like a diamond, transportation deluxe. However, the windows were dark, at least from the outside, and when we’d been ushered into the capacious rear, the uniformed chauffeur pushed a button and both doors clicked softly. I didn’t even bother to confirm that we were locked in.

But if it was a jail cell on wheels, it was certainly a luxurious one. Unfortunately, my first reaction to the plushy interior was to remember that I needed a shave and a bath, and a clean shirt wouldn’t hurt a bit. Maybe Belinda’s dainty concern for her appearance was rubbing off on me. Palomino had got into the front seat. A glass partition prevented me from hearing what he said to the driver, but the car began to move. No officials had come near us; apparently no representatives of
El Viejo
had to worry about foolish formalities like customs and immigration.

Cuzco turned out to be a city of very narrow streets full of shabby pedestrians moving in all directions and yielding the right of way only reluctantly to the vehicles, which were not very numerous. The long Cadillac had to proceed slowly because it was a close fit in many places and could only barely make it around the comers, like a semi maneuvering in a New York alley. I wondered how many kidnap victims had had the privilege of riding in the most conspicuous car in town. I hadn’t taken Palomino’s pronouncement that Cuzco was a wholly owned subsidiary of
El Viejo's
operation too seriously. Naturally, since it would make us easier to manage, he’d do his best to trade on the image of all-powerful South American drug lords presented in the U.S. press and make us believe we were completely surrounded by enemies. However, the spectacular Cadillac indicated, at least, that he felt no need to keep a low profile here, even though he was transporting a couple of unwilling guests.

Reaching the center of the city, we passed a couple of churches or cathedrals that would have rated a second look if we’d been in the mood for religious architecture. The chauffeur squeezed us through some particularly narrow lanes; at last he started to turn into an alley leading to the rear of a massive old building that looked like a hotel, but stopped when he found it completely blocked by a tour bus that was just discharging passengers.

"Hey, there’s Grace; that’s our tour!" Belinda said quickly.

Palomino was already speaking to the driver, who was backing us out of there; but I saw white-haired Annie and dowdy Mrs. Gloria Priestly and lean husband Herman. I also saw, sharply dressed in yellow slacks and a white sport shirt, Roger Ackerman, who’d ordered me killed (join the club, Roge, old boy), and beside Ackerman I saw a slim young woman with ragged light hair who glanced casually at the retreating Cadillac but could not, of course, see us behind the dark window glass; it was like one of those dreams where you can see everybody but you’re not really there, so nobody can see you. Ruth wore her short blue denim skirt and one of her short-sleeved knitted shirts, this one striped red and white. As the movement of the Cadillac cut off my view of the narrow alley she was allowing Ackerman to escort her toward the door of the hotel.

Palomino had picked up a microphone, and his voice reached us from hidden speakers: “An unfortunate delay,” he said. “We must wait. I suggest that you serve yourselves with drinks; the bar is in front of you. But do not drink too much. Don Gregorio Vasquez Stussman is expecting you for dinner, and you will find much refreshment there.”

“I don’t believe this!” Belinda said.

“I don’t believe it, either,” I said. “I didn’t know there was a civilized woman alive who could leave a bathroom in such a mess.”

She laughed. "Whatever gave you the idea I was civilized, darling? Oh, God, look at my hair! Well, at least it’s clean for a change.”

She’d spent the best part of an hour scrubbing and shampooing herself and just soaking in the big bathtub. Now, wrapped in a long, white terry-cloth robe provided by the hotel management, she was tackling the coiffure problem in front of the dresser mirror, yielding me the bathroom at last only because we’d been given a deadline and time was running out on us.

“What don’t you believe?”

I asked my question through the open bathroom door as I leaned forward to operate my safety razor more accurately. Aside from sporting a heavier crop of whiskers, the face that confronted me in the mirror didn’t seem to have changed significantly since I’d last shaved it, certainly not for the better.

“All this,” Belinda said. “First the old fart has Palomino pump us Ml of sleepyjuice and fly us off into the lousy jungle and dump us on a bunch of nutty ecofreaks he’s paying to beat or squeeze or bum some information out of me, except that Palomino grabbed the wrong girl and I don’t have any. So this doddering character—
El Viejo
, the Old One, for God’s sake!—lets us sit there a month or two all wrapped in duct tape and eating boiled goat while he’s making up his senile mind; and then, bingo, he has the freaks massacred and us hauled out of there and given the VIP treatment: a limousine, a hotel suite with our own best clothes from our own suitcases laid out on the beds all pressed and pretty, and a formal invitation to dinner, if you please! Bring that hair dryer over here, will you, darling, and plug it in for me; I don’t seem to have got it all dry in back. ” When I’d done as she’d asked, she looked up at me. “You look kind of dumb, half-lathered or whatever that goop is. I thought all men used electric mowers these days.”

I said, “This way I don’t have to worry about what kind of oddball juice they have when I’m traveling in oddball places. Mr. Gillette does a pretty good job of making his blades available just about everywhere.”

She licked her lips, not yet lipsticked, but full and rosy nevertheless. "Do you want to make love to me?" she asked. “Just a quickie, to make up for all the times we couldn’t on those damn little cots?”

I grinned. “There you go again. Nothing but sex, sex, sex. You know you don’t really want to; you’re just making seductive noises because you think you ought to.”

“No, because I’m scared,” she admitted readily enough. “And do you know what really scares me, stupid me? Not being tortured or raped or killed, but getting all dolled up in chiffon and nylons and then getting all messed up again; it was humiliating enough in jeans. What do you think the old creep is up to with this crazy dress-up charade? Why is he going to all the trouble of cleaning us up and giving us our own clothes back?”

“Our own clothes is easy,” I said, returning to my razor and speaking between gingerly strokes of the blade. "If Vasquez just wanted us decently dressed for the occasion, whatever it may be, he could have bought me a new suit and you the latest evening gown from Paris, but all that would have proved was that he had plenty of money, which we already knew. He’s showing his power. He’s showing us that wherever Roger Ackerman, your revered leader—”

“Ex-leader.”

“Vasquez is demonstrating that wherever your former leader, a U.S. government operative of some standing, stashed those suitcases in or around that hotel in Iguassu Falls after he’d sent you and Morton off to give me a nice swim in the Parana River,
El Viejo's
people were right there watching, ready to produce the hidden luggage for
their
leader anytime it was wanted. As for what else he has in mind, beyond confusing us thoroughly, I have no idea.”

That wasn’t quite true. I felt reasonably sure that surrounding us with luxury, after subjecting us to a week of hardship, was intended as an apology of sorts from Vasquez; and when men with unlimited power start apologizing to you and being very nice to you, you know damned well they want something from you and will squash you flat if they don’t get it. In any case, I didn’t believe for a minute that it was just by coincidence that we’d been held prisoner precisely long enough for a certain tour to reach Cuzco.

Clearly Vasquez had been waiting for Mark Steiner’s young widow to get here before having us flown here. Why he wanted us all together, I couldn’t guess, but whatever he intended, it seemed to be something he couldn’t do—or at least couldn’t do so easily—in Buenos Aires, Argentina, or Santiago, Chile, or even Lima, Peru, the preceding stops on the tour’s sight-seeing schedule. Apparently, it could only be done, or at least it could best be done, here in Cuzco, at eleven thousand feet, a fairly high elevation for an aging gent who, if I remembered correctly, was just about to celebrate his seventieth birthday.

I recalled that Mark Steiner had hoped to attend the celebration—not too closely, say at three or four hundred yards— with a rifle in his hands and me assisting him as a sort of big-game guide. Well, it has been called the biggest, or at least the most dangerous, game on earth; and if it was, Gregorio Vasquez was certainly a trophy specimen. I closed the bathroom door—after a week of togetherness I felt I was entitled to privacy for my bath—and started the water running in the tub.

“Just put it right over there,” I heard Belinda say when I opened the door at last.

I hadn’t heard the knock. Belinda was admitting a waiter with a tray holding two hollow-stemmed glasses and an ice bucket from which protruded the neck of an aristocratic-looking bottle. He set the tray on the cocktail table by the window and turned. For a moment, seeing the ice bucket and the familiar costume of white shirt and black pants, I’d thought it was Armando, but it was another dark-faced man I didn’t recognize. Well, I was a big boy now. I could solve my problems all by myself without outside help. I hoped.

“With Don Gregorio’s compliments,” the man said to Belinda. “Do you wish me to open it, señora?”

“Sure, pop the cork,” Belinda said.

After doing the honors skillfully, the man withdrew. I lifted the glass he had given me.

“To happy landings.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me of that damn little plane and those crazy mountains.” She glanced at the clock radio on the bedside table. “Better drink up and get dressed, darling, it’s almost seven o’clock.
El Viejo
must be running on Yankee time. I thought they never had dinner before ten p.m. in this part of the world.”