Unacceptable Risk sw-2 Read online

  "Where are you?"

  "About twenty miles from Bowden's as the crow flies. We've been wandering, looking for a sign. We'll go no farther toward the Tapiche, unless you guys know something we don't."

  "Give me your latitude and longitude."

  Sam gave it.

  "Yeah, we have you. We are almost sure you have bad company."

  "Yeah?"

  "I don't know if you want the particulars or just the conclusions." She was referring to Big Brain, which must have correlated far-flung data to make the conclusions.

  "What do you have?"

  "We have Girard and company traveling to Brazil, then into your area. We have a confirmation of that from French intelligence as communicated to Figgy."

  "Why is French intelligence mucking around in our business?"

  "Just trying to be helpful, I guess."

  "So Gaudet or whoever it is didn't come through Lima?"

  "For some reason they flew from Manaus to Iquitos. We have confirmed they hired a boat in Iquitos, went up the Ucayali. We have six bodies leaving the Tapiche on foot."

  "That from Big Eye?"

  "Yeah, the on-foot part."

  Big Eye was a surveillance system built at the urging of the United States by Raytheon for the Brazilian government at a cost of about $1.4 billion and consisting of nine hundred listening posts, five airborne jets, and three remote sensing aircraft. From a height of 33,000 feet and a distance of 125 miles, the radar systems could detect a human being under cloud cover on the forest floor. Brazil had not yet consented to share Big Eye information with the United States, but the CIA viewed that issue as a diplomatic technicality. Some how U.S. spooks had hotwired the thing, and since Sam's project was of some interest, they ran a data pipe over to Big Brain, which did its usual voracious data guzzle.

  "You could be watching any six people. You don't know they came in a boat, right?"

  "Right. Could be Matses people returning from a rare trip to Requena. Maybe European types on holiday. But I doubt it. What are the chances?"

  "How close are they?"

  "Very close. Under a mile. And there is a lone somebody even closer and another single a little farther away."

  "Two alone?"

  "Natives probably. Especially one of them-from the way he moves. Fast."

  The sat phone's connection fizzled.

  Sam told Javier what he knew. The guide nodded and they began making a slow circle, using their flashlights. Staring at the forest floor, they walked for what seemed an hour in constantly widening circles. Since they were not paying at tention to natural pathways, they had to claw their way through tangles and vines, which were dripping with ants. Even seeing the ground was difficult at times.

  "I found them," Javier said at last, surprising Sam, who hadn't even realized that Javier had disappeared and traveled some distance.

  "Six pairs of shoes." They all gathered around and looked. In the soft mud next to a small deep river of black water- that no doubt ran into the Galvez-the imprints were obvious. "By now they could be several miles distant."

  "Next clearing we'll try the sat phone and find out."

  Nothing about the trek was as Sam had envisioned. Most significant, of course, was the fact that they were now following six pairs of shoes, one of which might be Devan Gaudet's. From this fact flowed many other unanticipated eventualities, such as Sam's decision to stalk these killers, which added the prospect of a deadly encounter. Walking in the same general direction as the six men, they would not lit erally follow each footstep because the process of tracking over a leaf-littered jungle floor would slow them down. Instead, they would travel on their own and make sure they located the track every fifty feet or so; failing that, they would backtrack to the last-known location and try again.

  Sweat poured down Sam and the heat baked through him. For reasons he couldn't quite grasp, he was drawn to this place, perhaps to the utter wildness, and so it seemed was Grady, although there was no hiding her physical discom fort. Perhaps the anticipation of meeting Michael Bowden kept her going. Yodo never seemed to feel much of anything about his surroundings. He was pretty close to immune to environmental influences except when someone was trying to kill him or one of his charges.

  They tried not to use machetes to cut a trail because it made noise and left a memoir of their passage and, more sig nificantly, because to actually chop enough to do any good required great effort and much time. So they slithered past everything they could, all the while unable to imagine how any human without a GPS could find anything or anyplace in this jungle-ever. They came upon a toppled tree that opened a vine-tangled spot in the forest that was maybe thirty or more feet across. In this stretch of jungle the open space seemed like a mall parking lot.

  As they made their way across the opening, Sam glanced down and saw something protruding from the base of a small tree. He stopped to retrieve an arrow, which no doubt missed one lucky monkey. Grady stepped around him, apparently walking on automatic. Just as she was looking for a likely spot to re-enter the green wall, Sam noticed a brown face with interesting tattoos around the mouth. He stared at two brown eyes. The young man's body was partially obscured by foliage, but his face was clearly exposed. His hair fell below his shoulders. The fellow seemed to be naked above the waist. He was quite thin and Sam wondered if he saw hunger in the eyes.

  Neither Sam nor the native moved. There was a wicked- looking, stone-tipped arrow about fifteen feet from Sam's nose and it was poised for release, but it was not aimed at Sam. Grady was standing immediately in front of him, so it was her forehead that would take the shot.

  Very slowly Sam put a hand on her shoulder and gently eased beside her, and then around her, all the time watching the native's eyes. It took a full minute to make the switch.

  The arrowhead wore a deep red stain that was smooth and had a sheen like fiberglass. That would be a neurotoxin made with excretions from a dart frog (Grady's research had indi cated it was the Matses version of curare and more effective) and mixed with various venoms.

  "If I need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, it's your job," he whispered, unable to resist the wisecrack.

  "You can count on me."

  "Tell him we're friends," Sam told Javier.

  Javier spoke Spanish, but the man appeared not to under stand.

  "He isn't so wild he doesn't speak Spanish, is he?"

  "He looks Matses and he is in Matses territory. In these parts the Matses speak Spanish," Javier said.

  Moving very slowly, Sam removed a knife on a string from his pocket and demonstrated the folding and unfolding of the blade and then hung it over a branch. Doing his best to look at ease, he stepped back, signaling for Yodo, Grady, and Javier to move back as well. Grady needed no encourage ment. The gesture of giving the knife was called atraccao and meant luring. Early contact with pure jungle natives was normally accompanied by the presentation of gifts. With luck he would win reciprocity and more contact.

  There was good muscle in the young man's shoulders even if the cheeks were slightly gaunt. Sam noticed a slight relaxing across his chest and the hand came forward, slowly reducing tension on the bowstring. As Sam watched the man, their eyes locked. The native was watchful. I am a friend, Sam repeated in his mind as if it were a mantra. Then, I want to hunt with you. Sam now saw three hairlike wood strands protruding through the man's nose-the "cat whiskers" characteristic of the Matses. Around the man's mouth was a tattoo.

  The cat man put his bow to his side and studied the knife. He opened and closed it with familiarity; Sam was sure that Cat-man had seen others, perhaps even owned one. Sam sensed that the man wished to make a return gift.

  "Tell him that I am traveling, so I cannot carry any gift that he might wish to give."

  "Good thinking," Javier said; then he tried to communicate that idea in Spanish.

  "He doesn't understand. He doesn't speak Spanish. The Matses have their own language, but they all speak some Spanish. That's not all that's weird
. Normally, the women wear the nose whiskers unless it's a special deal, and the men are dressing for dinner, so to speak."

  Reaching under his shirt, Sam removed his braided rawhide necklace with the gold locket. He opened the locket, walked forward three paces, and in the beam of a flashlight showed Cat-man a picture of his grandfather Stalking Bear. Cat-man studied the picture for a moment, then ran his fingers over it before turning his attention back to Sam.

  Sam slowly squatted and cleared away leaves and vines on the forest floor until he came to dark soil. He waited a minute and then began patting the ground in a ritualistic fashion and smoothing it. When he had smoothed a three-foot-square area, he stopped. The native stepped out from behind the bush that had partially hidden him, squatted down, cleared the leaves and vines over a similar size square, patted the ground smooth, then stood next to the patch and stomped his feet. Then he stepped back.

  Sam took a stick and drew a winding line in the ground, then drew a number of intersecting smaller lines. He was intending to depict the Yavari River and its tributaries, as well as the Blanca, Tapiche and Ucayali. If he were local Matses, the man would know the geography. Sam stood and stomped on the ground, then pointed with the stick at the crude lines, attempting to indicate their current location between the Galvez and the Tapiche and their direction of travel toward the Galvez. Then he pointed at the sky low on the horizon and circumscribed an arc to the opposite horizon. He pointed to a spot on the Tapiche and made two full arcs, indicating two days' journey.

  "For him it wouldn't take two days," Javier said.

  Cat-man took the stick, went to his own square, and drew a river system similar to the Yavari, then drew what looked like a mound and made two arcs with his arm for two days. Then he put a round mark on the map and stomped his feet.

  "That explains it," Javier said. "It would take us at least three days to get where he is indicating. Maybe more. It looks like he's saying he's from the Brazilian refuge. Probably Rio Lobo. Totally unusual because they don't cross over the border just to hunt or wander around."

  "Why is he alone?" Sam asked. "I would think they would hunt in groups."

  "They would not come over here just to hunt."

  "Fala Portuguese? " Javier asked.

  "A minha lingua e Portuguese."

  "There is your answer. He speaks Portuguese. I don't speak much."

  "Interesting challenge," Sam said.

  "Tu nao deves de estar aqui."

  "What's he say?"

  "Something like… that we are trespassing here. I will say that I know the people of San Jose."

  "Ask for his help in following the white men."

  "Too complicated," Javier said.

  "Eu consiou uma mulher dos Matses neste lado do Yavari e ela e muito boa e ela vai ser a mulher," Cat-man said.

  "What's he say?"

  "Something about a woman. Maybe he's over here courting a wife."

  Sam opened the locket and once again showed him Grandfather's picture.

  'Tell him this man was my grandfather."

  "I know the word for father."

  "That won't work."

  "Why?"

  "Because I need the force of the truth. I want to take him back to the sandbar."

  "Vamos ao rio," Javier said.

  Pointing, Sam indicated that Cat-man should lead the way back in the direction Sam had come. The group went a couple of hundred feet through the jungle and Cat-man stopped. Without waiting, Sam kept going and broke through the jun gle onto the sandbank of a Yavari river tributary. On the river bar there were the footprints of the six booted men.

  "Do you know the words for my son?"

  "Meufilho."

  Sam said the words. Then he took Cat-man's arrow and pantomimed a man being shot, falling to the ground, and dying. Again he said the words: "Meufilho." Then Sam took Cat-man's hand gently and clasped it to his chest. "Meufilho," he said.

  "Your son was killed by the men we are following?" Javier asked.

  "Yes. That is the truth."

  Cat-man opened the gold medallion hanging around Sam's neck and took another look at Grandfather.

  Sam pantomimed following the tracks in the sand. Again he repeated the pantomime of his son's death. Without any other communication Cat-man started off after the six men. Intermittently as they walked, he pointed out a footprint or two. It appeared to be a cautious, disciplined group they were following; they didn't leave signs like normal civilians would.

  Now the men they followed were not far and Sam knew they were confident, even overconfident. He wondered if they could be beaten.

  It occurred to him then that there was something not good about using Cat-man and his skills. No reasonably certain recipe had yet been found for bringing indigenous peoples into the modern world without bringing them onto welfare rolls to stagnate until they died. Cat-man was already in the netherworld between his natural state and civilization. An experience like this would carry him farther from his roots, if it did not kill him outright. But Sam balanced that against his desperate need to find and stop six men bent on harming and probably killing Michael Bowden and likely many others. All he could do was hope this walk through the jungle would not bring harm to Cat-man.

  Sunlight came down through the top layers of the forest in cascades that exhausted themselves before they hit the ground and were gobbled by the largest leaves in the world, soaking up the rays and breathing in the carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen-the lungs of the earth. Sam had read that the Amazon basin produced 40 percent of the world's oxygen and pumped out 20 percent of the earth's flowing fresh water. It was late afternoon under the thick of the jungle canopy and in spots Sam couldn't even discern if the sky was overcast or clear.

  Yodo followed behind Grady, who walked behind Sam, Javier at his shoulder; Cat-man led the way. After they had walked a half hour with Cat-man barely studying the ground, they came to one of the tributaries of the Galvez. It looked to be nearly seventy or eighty feet across and on its near bank stood a half circle of abandoned huts. Matses often made small fishing camps, such as this one, which they'd leave when the fish stopped biting or the floodwaters came.

  This camp had one unique feature: dead tribe members lay between the huts. It was astonishing because the bullet holes indicated they were killed by westernized people, and it was almost unheard of for ciudadanos to sneak up on na tives. Devan Gaudet, if it were indeed his work, never ceased to amaze Sam. It was, however, apparent that not all of the natives in the village had been killed. There were five bodies and, judging from the huts, there could have been as many as fifty in the group. Two of the bodies were prepubescent girls. Three were young women; none were men. The men had probably been away fishing; perhaps others had escaped. It mystified Sam that Gaudet would allow his men to slaughter natives, especially before his main mission was complete. The young women had obviously been tortured, probably raped, so Gaudet would have watched while his men distracted themselves from the discomfort of the jungle. Sam had a hunch that a man like Gaudet would not free his baser instincts in front of his men. He might watch, but he wouldn't participate. For that, he would need to be alone.

  Could this really have been purely for his troop's morale?

  Grady began to retch. Sam quickly pulled her away.

  "It's him, isn't it?"

  "We don't know. If I thought he would get here this quickly, I would have left you home."

  "I hate that bastard. Evil isn't a big enough word"

  Cat-man displayed no emotion and made no attempt to communicate. He seemed as immune to the smell of death as to the muggy air.

  Sam kept his arm around Grady as they skirted the huts, following Cat-man to the place where the killers had exited the fishing camp. Within a couple of minutes they were deep in the jungle.

  Sam noticed a new purpose in Cat-man's stride as he slipped more quickly through the vines and undergrowth, but still he left no visible record of his passing.

  At nightfall they
hadn't yet caught up to the group. Cat-man came to Sam and pantomimed sleep for the group and continued tracking for himself.

  "When Matses go to town, they will walk all day and hunt at night. Cat-man wants to move at his pace and find the bastards. He'll come back for us when he locates them… would be my guess," Javier said.

  It took twenty minutes of machete work to create an opening large enough for five hammocks in the thick jungle. Cat-man set about gathering fruit and within twenty minutes had a pile large enough for everybody to get a good taste if not a full meal. Then he hung his hammock and left.

  "They aren't like you and me. They see in the dark," Javier said. "He'll find those gringos fast, and they'll never see him."

  "Don't suppose he'd tie them up for us?" "I don't think so. Cat-man understands guns." Everybody but Cat-man had a rain slicker to pull over them to provide minimal protection from any night time rain, which was fairly likely even at the end of the so-called dry season. It also helped with squirmy things that might be falling or unreeling on spider silk from above. Around them the vines and undergrowth were thick and full, so that in the soft camp light it appeared that the machetes had created four walls. There were heavy fragrances, some like rotting eggs, some like whore's perfume. Sound emanated from every di rection. There were many sorts of noises: rustling of branches and leaves; a steady intermingled chorus of frog sounds that were bass violas; singing sounds that were the cricket violins; birds that sang melodious and flutelike; raucous birds that squawked and chirped, chief among them the horned screamers, also known as donkey birds, that sounded like a jackass at hell's gate; there was a clicking sound like those made by street rappers; and finally the eerie calls of howler monkeys, similar to the big, breathy hiss of a mountain lion or a child instructed by his mother to make quieter monster sounds.

  Sam could tell that this jungle cacophony wasn't Grady's favorite night music. He stepped away to take a leak and reached into the zippered pocket of his jungle pants, where he found a pack of cigarettes. He didn't smoke, he reminded himself. And it could be dangerous if they were being stalked. He squatted down facing a large tree and cupped it in his hands. Just a few puffs. He took three deep drags, put out the smoke, and returned to camp.