“I represent an organization far bigger than yours.”
“You’re a policeman? FBI?”
“No. I’m with the National Underwater and Marine Agency. I’m an ocean scientist, and I’m investigating an explosion near your plant. In return for information I’d like to make these pistols a gift.”
The avuncular smile had vanished, and Enrico’s lips were curled in a humorless and ferocious grin. “Do you take me for a fool? I own this restaurant. These men, the waiters, the cook, they all work for me. You could disappear without a trace. They would swear you were never here. What do I care for your pistolas?” he said with contempt. “I have dozens more.”
Austin kept his gaze leveled on Enrico’s face. “Tell me, Mr. Pedralez, as a fellow collector, what is your fascination with these old weapons?”
The Mexican seemed amused at the question. The heat went out of the fierce glitter in his eyes, but the temperature went down only a few degrees.
“They represent power and the means of power. Yet at the same time they are as beautiful as a woman’s body.”
“Well said.”
“And you?”
“Aside from their fine workmanship, they remind me that lives and fate can be altered by chance. A trigger squeezed prematurely. A gun raised too quickly. A single shot missing a vital organ by an inch or two. They represent the luck of the draw in its most lethal terms.”
The Mexican seemed intrigued by the answer. “You must consider yourself very lucky to place yourself in my hands, Mr. Austin.”
“Not at all. I took the chance that you would be willing to chat.”
“You made your gamble. I applaud your audacity. Unfortunately this is not your day. You lose,” he said coldly. “I don’t care who you are or who you represent. You have drawn the death card.” He snapped his fingers again, and the men rose from the tables and began to move in. Austin felt like a fox outfoxed by the hunters.
With an ear-splitting roar of its unmuffled exhaust system, the battered yellow cab squealed to a stop in front of the restaurant. The car, an ancient Checker, was still bouncing on worn shock absorbers when the cab driver got out. Except for the soiled seersucker sports jacket over a Hussong’s T-shirt, the driver behind the reflecting silver lenses looked suspiciously like Joe Zavala.
Joe stood on the sidewalk and called out in heavily accented English. “Anybody here call a cab?”
One of Enrico’s men went over and growled at Joe in Spanish.
“I’m looking for an American,” Zavala said in English at the top of his voice, looking past the thug’s shoulder. “Sergeant Alvin York.”
The man put his palm on Zavala’s chest to emphasize his point.
“Okay, okay! Damned gringos.” He stalked back to his cab and lurched off, trailing a purple cloud of exhaust fumes.
The thug turned around and laughed.
Austin breathed a sigh of relief. His eyes roved the low rooftops, and he smiled.
Zavala was passing on a message, not very subtle but effective. Sergeant York was the Kentucky sharpshooter who got the Medal of Honor for capturing German prisoners during World War I.
“An amusing fellow, eh, Mr. Austin?”
“Very amusing.”
“Good. Now I must go. Adios, Mr. Austin. Unfortunately we will not be meeting again.”
“Wait.”
The Mexican scowled at Austin as if he were a bit of lint on his shirt.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you. You’re in the sights of a sniper. One wrong move, and your head will explode like a ripe melon. Look up on that roof if you don’t believe me, and that one over there.”
Pedralez swiveled his head like a praying mantis and scanned the low rooftops. Three snipers, placed at different locations, made no effort to hide. He sat down again.
“It seems you don’t believe entirely in the forces of fate. What do you want?”
“I simply want to know who owns the Baja Tortilla factory.”
“I do, of course. It’s quite profitable, really.”
“What about the underwater laboratory in the cove? What do you know about that?”
“I’m a busy man, Mr. Austin, so I will tell you the story, and then we will part. Two years ago somebody came to me. A lawyer from San Diego. He had a proposition. Someone wanted to build a factory. They would pay for its construction, and I would take all the profits. There were conditions. It had to be isolated, and it had to be on the water.”
“I want to know what was built in the water.”
“I don’t know. A large ship came. There were guards. They brought something into the cove and deliberately sank it. Connections were made to the factory. People came and went. I asked no questions.”
“What do you know about the explosion?”
He shrugged. “Someone called afterward and said not to worry. They would make good on my loss. That’s all I know. The police don’t care.”
“This lawyer who handled the deal, what was his name?”
“Francis Xavier Hanley. Now I must go. I have told you all I can.”
“Yes, I know, you’re a busy man.”
Pedralez waved his hand. The men got up from the tables and formed a corridor to the sidewalk on either side of him. The Mercedes appeared out of nowhere; the door opened with machinelike precision. The bodyguards piled into two Jeep Cherokees ahead of and behind the Mercedes.
“Mr. Pedralez,” Austin called out. “A deal’s a deal. You forgot the pistols.”
Enrico answered with a mirthless smile. “Keep them,” he said, and added a few more words. He got into the back of the car, shut the door, and zoomed down the street. Austin was sweating, and it wasn’t just from the heat. The junky cab pulled up in front of him and tooted the horn.
Austin slid in the passenger side and looked around in amazement. “Where’d you get this rig?”
“Agent Gomez was nice enough to have it waiting for me. It’s got a hot engine and all kinds of radio gear I used to let our friends know where you were. I’m going to hate to give it up. Did Mr. Pedralez say anything?”
Austin held up the pistol case. “Yeah, he told me the next time I came to Tijuana to be sure these things are loaded.”
14
THE SCENE WAS so awe inspiring in its terrible beauty that Trout almost forgot the predicament he and Gamay were in. Paul sat on a rocky ledge about twenty feet above the lake, long legs dangling down, swiveling his head back and forth to take in the whole panoramic sweep. He had to strain his neck to see the tops of the falls. Multiple rainbows arced over the five cascades as the sun caught the droplets of water in the twisting vapor cloud that rose for hundreds of feet. The roar was like that of a hundred distant locomotives at full steam. Trout wasn’t a religious man, but if anything was the Hand of God, he was looking at it.
A groan ended his reverie. “What are you doing?” Gamay said with a yawn. She was lying nearby in the shade of a tree.
“Thinking what a great place this would be to build a hotel.”
“Ugh,” Gamay said with a scowl. She sat up and wiped the sweat from her face. “Make sure you have air conditioning.”
It had rained briefly an hour before, and the sun returned with a vengeance. Their perch was well shaded by trees and bushes, and they slept for a time, but there was no way to escape the suffocating humidity. Paul was the first to awake.
“I’ll get you some water,” Paul said. He fashioned a palm leaf into a cup, climbed down to the lake, and scooped up water in the makeshift container. He spilled half the contents bringing it to Gamay, who was trying to pick blades of grass from her ratty-looking hair. She guzzled the water, her eyes closed in bliss, then passed what was left to Paul.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “That was refreshing. I hope you won’t mind if I take a dip in our water supply.” She climbed down to the lake, plunged in, and swam out several strokes.
Paul was thinking of joining Gamay after he had quenched his thirst, when a movement near
the river outlet caught his eye. He called out a warning, but Gamay couldn’t hear him because of the rumble of the falls. He climbed down, half falling, to the water’s edge and dove in. He swam out to Gamay, who was peacefully floating on her back, and grabbed her by her T-shirt.
Gamay was startled at first, then she laughed. “Hey, this is no time to get playful.”
“Hush,” he said. “Get back to shore. Hurry.”
The urgency in his voice was unmistakable. Without a further word Gamay swam quickly to shore with Paul right behind her. She started to climb onto the ledge. Paul pulled her down into a bush. He held his finger to his lips and pointed toward the lake.
Gamay squinted through the leaves and tensed as the sun glinted off wet paddles and she saw flashes of blue and white. Chulo. Paul had seen the four canoes emerge from the river into the lake. They would have run right into Gamay. The canoes were moving in single file. Each canoe held three Indians. Two were paddling, and the other was riding shotgun, his bow resting across his lap. They seemed intent on where they were going and unaware that they were being watched.
The Indians passed within a few yards of the hiding place, so close the beads of sweat on their rippling muscles were clearly visible. They moved silently across the lake until foggy tendrils enveloped them. An instant later they disappeared into the vapor cloud.
“That was some vanishing act,” Paul said, puffing his cheeks out.
“Now we know why they’re called the People of the Mist,” Gamay said.
Using his six-foot-eight height to good advantage, Paul stood cautiously and made sure there were no stragglers. “All clear,” he said. “We’d better think of getting out of here. I still have the Swiss Army knife. Maybe we could fashion a raft with logs and vines and float our way out.”
Gamay was staring toward the mists. “I have a better idea.” She paused. “It may be a little risky.”
“A little risky?” Paul chuckled. “Don’t forget I’m well acquainted with the way your mind works. You’re about to suggest that we follow those guys and steal a canoe.”
“Why not? Look, this is their home turf, so they won’t expect it. With all due respect for your talents with a Swiss Army knife, I can’t see us fashioning a boat that will carry the two of us God knows how many miles downriver without sinking or running into more of those characters. It was tough enough traveling in an airboat. They can’t paddle those canoes all day. They must pull them up somewhere on shore. We just find them, wait until dark, and slip one away. They’ll never even miss it, I bet.”
Amusement crept into Paul’s large hazel eyes. “Do I detect a hint of scientific curiosity in your proposal?”
“Okay, I admit there’s more here than simply a matter of survival. Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered about this high-tech tribe and the talk of a white goddess.”
“I was wondering if they have any food,” Paul said, patting his stomach. He chewed thoughtfully on a blade of grass. “Seriously, we’re in something of a pickle and really don’t have many choices. We don’t know where we are and aren’t sure how to get out of here. We have no supplies. As you pointed out, this is their territory. I suggest that we reconnoiter. We’re strangers in a strange land. We go slow, and if the situation looks too dangerous, we get out in a hurry.”
“Agreed,” Gamay said. “Now, as for food, I’m fresh out of granola bars. I’ve been watching the birds eating the berries on that bush. I don’t see any dead birds, so they’re probably not poison.”
“Berries it is,” Paul said. “They can’t be that bad.”
Trout was wrong. The berries were so bitter it was impossible to eat even one without puckering up. With empty stomachs, the Trouts struck off along the shore of the lake. At one point where the mud looked like quicksand, they climbed to higher ground and stumbled onto a footpath. The trail was overgrown and looked as if it hadn’t seen any recent use. Still, they proceeded cautiously, ready to dive into the bushes if they encountered anyone.
They trekked along the path for about a mile until they came to a place where mists from the lake rolled into the forest like vapor from a fog machine. The leafy growth was as wet as if it had been pelted by a rain shower, and the roar of the falls was like the beating of a thousand kettledrums. They were aware that the same noise that muffled their movement could drown out the approach of a marching army. The air became chilly and so damp that they put their hands over their noses so they wouldn’t gag. The visibility was only a few feet, and they kept their heads low so their eyes could pick out the path.
Then, suddenly, they were out of the forest. If they were expecting to burst out on a beautiful valley like wayfarers in Shangri-la, they were disappointed. The forest was no different on the other side of the mists. The path no longer led along the lake but instead veered off along a tributary that the canoes must have followed.
After a few minutes Gamay stopped and shook her head. “Notice anything strange about this little river?”
Paul walked over to the edge of the banking. “Yes, it’s much too straight to be natural. It looks as if someone has taken an existing stream and marsh and cleared them out with shovel and pick.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Gamay started walking again. “As I said, the Chulo are most fascinating.”
They plodded ahead for several hours. They had fashioned hats from palm leaves and stopped frequently to quench their thirst from the river. At one point they waited out a shower. They became more tense and watchful as the path widened, and they began to see the imprints of a bare foot in the soft, dark earth.
After a short discussion, they decided to follow the river for a while longer, then hide in the forest until dark. They were dog-tired and needed to replenish their energy. As they plodded along they encountered a path coming in from the forest to their right. It was made of thousands of flat stones and reminded Gamay of the Maya or Inca roads. It was as good as anything she had seen on the Appian Way. Their curiosity got the best of them, and they followed the paved path for five more minutes. They were drawn on even farther by a gleam through the trees.
The walkway widened into a perfectly circular clearing about fifty feet in diameter and also surfaced entirely with stones. In the center of the clearing was a large object.
“I’ll be damned,” they said in unison.
The jet plane was in two sections. The front was intact, but the passenger cabin was virtually gone. The tail section was in fair shape and had been moved directly behind the cockpit, giving the aircraft a short, stubby look. The paint was old and faded and not overgrown by vines or lichen as might be expected.
They peered through the cracked cockpit windows, expecting to see skeletons. The seats were empty. Directly in front of the cockpit was a shallow pit holding the blackened ashes of fires and charred bones of small animals. Carved totems as tall and thick as a man ringed the stone circle. The figures adorning each post were different. Carved in dark wood at the top of each pole was a winged woman with her hands cupped in front of her. It was the same figure carved onto the medallion they had found on the dead Indian.
“It looks like some sort of shrine,” Gamay whispered. She went over to the ash pit. “This must be where they burned sacrifices. Mostly bones from small animals.”
“That’s certainly reassuring,” Paul said. He looked up at the sun, then checked his watch. “They’ve got the plane positioned so that it acts like a sundial. It reminds me of the layout at Stonehenge, with the concentric rings that acted as a celestial calendar.”
Gamay put her hand on the plane’s nose. “Does this blue-and-white color scheme seem familiar to you?”
“What do you know? The Chulo national colors.”
Gamay’s eyes widened as she looked past Paul, who had his back to the forest.
“That’s not the only thing around here that’s blue and white.”
Paul turned and saw about twenty Chulo Indians emerge from the trees, their faces and bodies painted the colors of sky and
bone. He cursed himself for allowing the plane’s discovery to push caution aside. As silently as the ghosts they were reputed to be, the Indians surrounded them. There was no way to run. Paul and Gamay were completely boxed in.
The Indians advanced with their spears held high, but then they did a peculiar thing. They opened the circle. One Indian indicated with his spear that they were to go through the opening. The Trouts glanced at each other for mutual reassurance, then, with the silent Indians flanking them like a military honor guard, they marched from the shrine and followed the path along the river.
The path widened into a road that took them to a stockade palisade. They made their way toward a gate wide enough to drive a truck through. From a distance they had seen on either side of the gate tall wooden staffs that had knobs on the top like flagpoles. As they neared the entrance Gamay squeezed her husband’s hand even tighter.
“Paul, look,” she said.
He followed her gaze. “Oh, hell.”
The knobs were in fact human heads. Their faces had been baked brown like apples in the sun, and the birds and insects had been making inroads, but it was still possible to pick out Dieter’s features. He wasn’t smiling. Neither was Arnaud or his taciturn assistant, Carlo. The fourth head belonged to their Indian henchman. Trout recognized him by the New York Yankees baseball cap.
Then they were through the gates, past the grisly decorations. Behind the fence were several dozen long thatched huts clustered along the river. No women or children were visible. Their guards had lowered their spears and unstrung their arrows and were using the presence of their bodies to keep the Trouts from trying anything foolish.
Paul said, “Look at that water wheel. We have them like that in New England.”
Water had been diverted from the river and was flowing through wooden chutes to turn a wheel. They didn’t get the chance for a closer look. Their guards directed them toward a structure at the center of the settlement. It was four times bigger than any of the surrounding huts, and the walls were made of putty-colored clay rather than saplings. They stopped in front of a portal that looked like a large, gaping mouth. Hung over the entrance was the bladed fan from a jet engine. The Indians closed ranks behind them, put their weapons aside, and kneeled with their noses touching the earth.