09-Twelve Mile Limit (39 page)

I was so surprised by his reaction that I couldn’t speak for a moment, but then in a flat voice, I finally replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He slapped the swagger stick into his palm again. “I’m right. I know I’m right. You’re one of about ten guys with the W designation. You are him. I can see it in your face. Jesus Christ, man, you’re one of my heroes! What you did in Cuba, your work in Cambodia, it’s legendary. The way you took out the Soviet attaché in Managua, the way you set him up—‘Let’s go spearfishing, comrade’—it was a masterwork. A piece of art. And that anarchist professor who disappeared from the bar in Aspen. Hell, man, I know a lot about you. I’ve studied your work.”

In the same flat tone, I said, “Sorry. Mistaken identity. You’re confusing me with someone else.”

“Hey, Ford, you can trust me. A couple years back, a guy named Heller—you trained together, according to him. He was here, doing the same kind’a work I do. Blaine Heller. An amazing man. He told me if anything happened to him, I should destroy all his files. He bought it in a chopper crash, so I burned all his papers. But I read them first—hell, who wouldn’t? That’s how I know about you.”

I waited but said nothing. Blaine Heller had been a good, good man. An intelligent, perceptive man who loved literature and fine art. What could have possibly driven him to come to this dark place?

Tyner stopped talking, grinned, and slapped his knee with the swagger stick, then thrust out his right hand to me. “Curtis Tyner, U.S. Army, Green Berets and Delta Force at your service, Dr. Ford! This is an honor. Damn glad to meet you.”

He began waving me toward the Humvee. “Come. I’ll radio ahead, have my staff lay out some food for you. I’ve got a couple prime Kobe steaks from Japan I’ve been saving. Anything you want. Finally, I meet a man who’s truly going to appreciate what I’ve done here. My place—it’s a … well, hell, it’s a warrior’s palace.” The little sergeant made an open-handed gesture of delight. “We have so much in common, you’re not going to believe it.”

Tyner didn’t live in a house, he lived in a castle fortress. It was built on a mountaintop, at the end of a long series of muddy switchbacks, constructed of rebar and concrete, dug into the bare hillside like a sprawling bunker, a low-profile mansion built for luxury, comfort, and defense.

The complex had a half-dozen or more thick-walled out-buildings, some set far from the house—munitions warehouses, possibly—the entire compound consisted of at least ten acres, all of it contained by high, iron fencing—electrified, it looked to be—with a ribbon of concertina wire around the top.

As the driver steered us through the gate, onto the grounds, Tyner chattered away about the years of work it’d taken to get his complex properly built. How difficult it was to get good help out in the jungle. Told me about his redundant systems for generating electricity, potable water, communications, waste treatment, and the improvements he’d made to guarantee easy transportation by land, river, and air.

“The danger of living in the jungle,” he said, “is that the goddamn thing never quits. It’s always out there, pressing in. Stand too long in one place and the vines will grow up your legs, around your neck, and strangle you. The humidity seeps in and turns everything metal into rust”—he snapped his fingers—“that quick. If you don’t fight it every single day, it’ll swallow you alive. But why am I telling you? You know that.”

When Ron Iossi of the CIA told me there were some retired special ops guys out in the jungle getting rich, he was accurately describing Curtis Tyner. The man had all the imported toys: satellite dishes, cellular communications mini-tower, new pickup trucks, ATVs, skeet range, three-hole golf course, a massive garden patio with built-in barbecue grill and wet bar, and a competition-sized lap pool with a three-meter diving board. On the bottom of the pool, in golden tiles visible through the chlorinated water was a Latin motto: Vae Victis.

When I asked about it, he translated, “Woe to the conquered. I’m surprised you don’t know it. It’s an old military expression. Dates back to Roman times.”

I told him, “Military history was never a main interest of mine.”

The man had an affection for maxims. Over the double doors that were the main entrance to the house, chiseled into the cement were the words: By Way of Deception, Do We Make War—that phrase, at least, I knew. Carved into the mantel over a wall-sized fireplace of raw stone was more Latin: Mors ad Barbarii.

This one, I didn’t bother asking about.

Inside, the place was furnished as impersonally as a model home. It was as if he didn’t live there. The building was a trophy—a thing to be shown, not used. The entrance hall was draped and carpeted, two stories high, and the dining room table was beautifully made, some kind of exotic black wood, and long enough to seat twenty or more beneath crystal chandeliers.

When I asked, “Do you get a lot of guests out here?”

Tyner replied. “Not yet. But I will. I’ve been making a few friends. I know a family in Bogotá that I like a lot. There’s a priest there that I sometimes play golf with. But it’s tough out here. Socially speaking, I mean. You don’t want to associate with the locals too much. It undermines respect—I’m sure you understand what I mean.”

I thought to myself: This man’s insane. But I said, “Sure. In a place like this, a little distance is healthy.”

Each time I reminded him that I was in a rush, that I had a deadline if I wanted to save my friends, Tyner made a dismissing motion with his hands as if it were a minor problem, as if all my worries were over.

Once, he said, “Remanso? I own a piece of a Bell helicopter. I’ll call my pilot, have him pick us up. We can be there in an hour. There are two ways we can work it. We can pay the ransom in cash, make sure your friends are secure, then kill the bad guys. Or we can lure the bad guys out and do it surgically. That might be the most interesting way to approach it. As a classic problem—hostage rescue.”

When I replied, “I don’t have that much cash, so the ransom option won’t work,” Tyner seemed pleased that I’d opened the door to the subject.

“I’ve got cash, all you need,” he said. “You won’t believe how much money there’s to be made down here. After you eat, get some sleep, I’ll explain to you how it works. The way we could do it is, I lend you the cash. You give it to the turban—Kazan, you called him?—he gets the cash when your friends are safe. Then we pop him and as many bad guys as we can, get my cash back plus collect the bounty on the heads. See? We actually make a very sizeable profit. Outstanding! Something like this, I think of as an investment, man.”

Another time, he said, “I don’t know why you’re so dead set on involving the Colombian government in this, or calling your friends at the State Department. You really think those idiot Anfibios can do a better job than us? Think about it. This is a chance for the two of us to finally work together. You and me!”

Tyner had a staff of a couple dozen or so people, most of them teenage Latino girls, and a few stoic Indio men. “See a girl you like?” he told me. “Let me know, and she’s yours. The reason you need to talk to me is, I’ve got a personal relationship with three of them. All Castilian, all from Cali—where the prettiest women in the Americas come from. Other than those three, the choice is yours. But some things, a man won’t share, right?”

He assigned a girl to me, then one to Keesha, too, though he was visibly disappointed that I was taking a personal interest in Keesha’s well-being.

“Indio girls, man. The jungle’s thick with them. They breed in the bushes like rabbits, drop babies like it’s nothing. I don’t see why you’d waste your time.”

I told him, “This one may have saved my life. I kind of like her.”

From Tyner’s house on the mountaintop, I could look out the window of our guest suite and see a horizon of cloud forest, the black tree canopy silent, cavernous beneath a layer of white mist. It was a swollen presence, meticulous photosynthesis in relentless slow motion. Connected as they were, the forest and the eroding strip of mountainside, the yellow earth seemed an indecency, bare as private flesh, an exposure that needed covering. It drained into the only section of river that I could see, changing the water’s color to a bloody orange.

The two servant girls—there was nothing else to call them—led Keesha and me into the suite, and showed us the full refrigerator, the closets of generic clothing, and a massive sunken marble bathtub. When I told them that Keesha would need her own room, the Indio girl grabbed my arm, squeezing, and shook her head. “I stay with you. Not alone. Not for a moment. In this place, we will be always together.”

I could see that she was very frightened, and I didn’t blame her. Houses, even some buildings, have a feel to them. Tomlinson would be able to explain it more completely, but it’s true. Perhaps my impressions were colored by my subconscious assessment of Tyner’s employees—they never made eye contact, and they spoke in whispers—but this house had a dark feel to it, a kind of chilly dread. Even as solidly built as it was, it did not seem a thing of permanence in this vast place.

One servant girl brought us a stack of sandwiches—ham and cheese, and rare roast beef with onions. The other filled the sunken tub with hot water and bubbles.

Standing in the doorway of the huge bathroom, Keesha looked at the tub and said uneasily, “What form of soup is it that she is making?”

When I told her it was a place for bathing, Keesha thought about that for a moment, then nodded as if pleased—as if the bath were a good opportunity. Without commenting to me, she then told the servant girl to bring one of the Indio men to her immediately—a woman right at home giving orders.

Keesha’s conversation with the man was in a tribal language I didn’t understand, and very brief.

When I asked her about it, she said, “I asked him for the leaves and the root from a lehuenka plant. In this room’s cooking place, I can make a strong tea of it. I’ll drink it, then sweat myself in this tub of bubbles. It must be done soon, very soon, and you’ll be here to help.”

“Help do what?” I asked.

The girl walked to the stove, looking at it, scrutinizing the knobs, not sure how to use it. “I’ve missed my cycle by nearly seven days. The soldiers who raped me. One of them, I think he now lives inside my body.”

I got a pot of water boiling, then went to the bathroom, stripped, and sat myself neck-deep in the tub.

It was now noon. I’d had no sleep for more than thirty hours, and I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I made a little pillow of a towel, and lay my head back.

When I closed my eyes, Amelia was there. Amelia with the copper hair and wildly green eyes. Amelia with the good laugh, and comfortable, communal silence. The tall woman with the vixen smile, whose hands and body had so quickly learned the likes and wants of my own.

I told myself that she was out there, somewhere, getting closer to me each and every minute, and I sent out a private and personal message to her, Please be safe, my friend. Please be safe.

Prior to our leaving for Colombia, nearly midnight and unable to sleep, I’d idled my skiff over to where the No Mas sat at calm anchor, lighted portholes creating golden paths on the waters of Dinkin’s Bay. There I’d found Tomlinson sitting naked on the bow, a single candle stuck into his ear, lighted and flame flickering.

Because the candle was hollow, he explained, specially made for one’s ears, it channeled heat into his auditory canal, warmed the back of his eyes, and also the lower, more primitive portions of his brain.

He’d said to me, “What I’m attempting is what the Hindus call Klartraum. I know you often doubt my rationality, old friend, but you have never doubted my honesty. Astroprojection. Soul travel, psychic navigation. That’s what I’ve been doing nearly every evening since the sixth day of our search for Janet. Sometimes I find her. I can see her. I know exactly how she felt, what she said.”

He added that there were five forms of soul travel: imaginative projection and trances were two that I still remembered. Something else he’d said also stuck with me: “The ashes of the average cremated person weigh nine pounds. The volume of the Earth’s moon is precisely the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.”

When I told him that I failed to see the connection, he nodded, very pleased with himself. “Exactly. Specialization is for insects.”

Which made even less sense, though now the prospect of soul travel—as ridiculous as it was—seemed an appealing thing to try. So, as I lay in the hot water, I tried to imagine some inner sensibility soaring out of my body, over the horizon of rain forest to where, finally, I found my girl.

I watched as I touched my ghostly hand to Amelia’s soft face, wanting desperately to draw all the fear and pain out of her, and then whispered my thoughts into her ear. I’m coming for you. Hold on. I’ll be there.

Keesha said, “American man? Can you hear me?”

I’d fallen asleep in the tub. The water had been nearly too hot to endure. Now it was barely warm.

I looked at my watch. I’d been in there asleep for almost two hours.

Something was wrong with the girl. Her face was very pale, and she was not only trembling but also sweating.

“I made the tea from the lehuenka plant,” she explained. “I chewed the root, just as the old women told us as girls to do if a stranger plants a creature in our bellies. Now I must sweat myself in this hot tub. I will need help. Will you help me?”

I pulled the plug, stood, and found my glasses, then found a towel. “Of course,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do. But my advice is let’s get you to a doctor. You’re in pain, this could be serious.”

Keesha shook her head—no. No modern doctors—as she said, “I didn’t know the tea would hurt my bowels so much. Perhaps the sweating will help.”

I said, “I wish you could have waited a few days.”

“Ten or twelve days past a woman’s cycle, the tea no longer works. It may not work now. You saw the man who created the creature. Would you choose to carry it to birth?”

I answered, “You’ve got a point.”

I refilled the tub with steaming water. As I did, the girl pulled the ornate blouse over her head, shed the cotton skirt, and stood naked, shivering, arms crossed over brown, heavy breasts. She was heavy-hipped, short-legged, and her nipples and areolas, I noted, were an unusual clay-like shade of red.