MAMista (34 page)

It all happened so quickly that Inez hardly had time to understand until it was done. Then she had only a great feeling of relief that Lucas was still alive and calling to her from the boat.

She gathered up his clothes and the rifle and took them down to the boat. Then she climbed aboard. They were both intoxicated in that release that comes with escape from danger. She kissed him. He put his hat on and got the boat
moving. She kissed him again. She hardly noticed the oily scum the river had left on his body, the leeches already swollen and falling away, or the watery blood that streaked his arms.

‘Blow the whistle, Inez,' he said. ‘Make sure they know it's us.'

As they came into view even Paz and Singer joined in the frenzy of cheers. To what extent they were cheering Lucas, his marksmanship, his swimming or the prospect of crossing the river without getting drowned, even they didn't know. Some were cheering none of these things: they were simply cheering a mad old fellow who strolled off with a beautiful woman and returned stark naked, except for his hat.

The cheers did not last long. There was too much to be done. Singer and Santos crossed the river first. They organized a campsite on the far bank. Lucas went with them. He helped to get the fire going. It proved a long job to cross the river even with the use of the boat. There was shallow water that grounded it, and the mules objected spitefully to their enforced swim.

Lucas dried himself by the heat of the big fire. ‘You did well, Lucas,' Singer said. ‘That second boat would have zapped us all.' They were all exhilarated by their narrow escape. Even Singer was good-humoured.

‘You would have outgunned them,' Lucas said. ‘They were vulnerable on the water. You had cover.'

Paz came up to where they were talking. ‘Yeah. Thanks,' he said. He was looking out at the river. The rain still thrashed down. The last boatload was coming across. ‘I should have put out guards,' said Paz, still looking at the boat. ‘You should have told me, Lucas.'

‘Quite so,' Lucas said. ‘My mistake.'

Paz shrugged.

Lucas said, ‘Since you are inviting suggestions let me take the boat downriver and collect those bodies.'

‘It's getting dark.'

‘It won't take long.'

Singer said, ‘Do we know who they are?'

Paz said, ‘Pekinista probably. We are near the border of the
provincia de la Villareal
where Big Jorge's outposts start. On the other hand they could have been government people:
rurales
– a militia force that is supposed to keep the communications clear.'

‘Here in the middle of nowhere?' said Lucas.

‘Lightweight boats like that could be moved on a truck down the highway or even brought in by chopper.'

Singer said, ‘You don't believe that, do you? Why would they put patrols through this nowhere place?'

‘Surveys, the power scheme, agricultural schemes … I don't know.'

‘Bullshit,' Singer snapped.

‘Can I go?' Lucas asked.

‘If you are not back by morning we'll leave without you,' Paz said.

‘I'll be back for supper,' Lucas promised. ‘It's the last of the dried fish.'

In the dull light of late afternoon Lucas, with Inez and with Tito, took the boat downriver. The rain continued as they searched. It did not take very long to spot the first body. It was the one that had been entangled in the prop blades. It had not moved far. Two more were only half a mile downstream. They found no remains of the men from the first boat, but there were empty beer-cans and some big plastic bottles that might have survived the explosion.

Lucas dragged the bodies to the riverbank and searched them carefully: cheap plastic wrist-watches, but no identity dogtags. None of the clothing had any marks that gave a clue to the men's origin. The pockets yielded a pack of local cigarettes, low-value notes of Guianese paper money, a stub of wooden pencil.

Coming back they sat together at the front of the boat
while Tito took the helm. Lucas smoked a cheroot he'd saved for a special occasion.

‘Not a thing,' he said. ‘Funny that.'

‘They'd been briefed to do a special mission. Unattributable. Anonymous.'

‘It looks like that.'

‘I believe they were our people, Lucas.' She looked back to be sure that Tito was not within hearing distance.

‘MAMista?'

She didn't answer immediately. ‘I don't mean I recognize them. But I am sure they were Ramón's men.'

‘Just instinct you mean?'

‘They were from the south: strong short men with beardless faces and waxy skin.'

‘Pekinista?'

‘No. In such a mixed society we have a sharp eye for physical differences.'

‘Don't say anything of this to Angel Paz. He'll be suicidal if he thinks we've wiped out one of Ramón's patrols.'

‘Why would Ramón send a patrol this far north and tell us nothing about it?'

‘Say what's on your mind, Inez. Do you think these people were looking for us?'

‘I don't know, Lucas.'

‘They were a bit trigger-happy,' Lucas said. ‘Well-armed too. I mean they weren't behaving like a mission bringing food and comfort to the needy.'

THE WHITE HOUSE
.
‘Then I don't know either?'

It had been a fiercely hot summer. The sprinklers could not prevent the White House lawn from fading to the colour of straw. The President was in the sitting-room of the residence, staring out of the big fan-shaped window, but he was not worrying about the lawn. He was thinking of the eleven men caught there by the guards in the last six months. Some were cranks, some were admirers but three of them had been armed. His only consolation was that the stories had not made headlines. Behind him he heard the door open and someone come in. He knew it would be John Curl. Curl was always exactly on time.

‘Did you see all that stuff they brought up here this morning?' the President asked without turning away from the window.

John Curl was fully occupied with arranging the papers he'd brought with him. The true answer to the President's question was an unequivocal yes. Curl had carefully vetted every last aspect of the plans the new Secret Service chief had prepared for the President's trip to California. But if the President had found a big flaw – either real or imagined – in that plan, Curl was not going to be its father.

‘I skimmed through some of the notes he'd prepared,' Curl said.

‘Notes!' The President turned round to face his visitor. ‘He came equipped like a Madison Avenue whizkid pitching for General Motors. Graphs, flip charts, time and motion, critical path analysis.'

John Curl smiled. The President was apt to exaggerate when indignant. ‘He's a good man,' Curl said.

‘I don't deny that, John. I don't deny it for one minute. All I'm saying is: keep him away from me.'

‘You don't mean that literally, Mr President?'

‘Is protecting the President's ass such a specialized task that this is the only man who can do it?'

‘No, of course not, Mr President. I'll find someone else to show you the material.'

The President would not let it go at that. ‘Just for that one Tuesday night shindig, they are strengthening the auditorium roof for the chopper. I get off the chopper and they whisk me from rooftop to podium in an elevator built solely for that purpose. I then deliver my speech from behind bullet-proof glass … Three hundred men? I said, Stalin … Hitler. Not even those guys needed this kind of muscle. What's happening to us?'

‘It's no more than was done for President Johnson in the late Sixties.'

‘So that clown told me. And it made me feel like an idiot.'

‘I hope I haven't …'

‘It's okay. I pay you to make me feel like an idiot from time to time.'

‘Maybe we should think again about getting rid of him.'

‘Now don't overdo it, John. Don't try making me look stupid twice in one minute.'

Curl waited while the President made himself comfortable in his favourite chair. ‘See this, John?' He held up a long strip of paper rolled up tight in his hand.

‘Yes,' Curl said guardedly.

‘Not so good, John.'

‘No, Mr President.' Curl gave his reply a touch of indifference. The President seemed to have become obsessed by Congressional headcounts lately. He reeled through those strips of paper, reading the names and dividing the world into friends and enemies. Curl saw no reason to encourage these irrational fears.

‘Yes, Mr President; no, Mr President. If I was running Boeing or Paramount Pictures all my staff would be running round telling me how great I am; telling each other what a tough job I've got. But the Presidency is different. Sometimes I have the feeling that half the West Wing staff think they could do a better job than I'm doing.'

John Curl stiffened. The President seemed to be accusing him of disloyalty. In fact Curl was the most devoted slave any President could have wished for.

‘Not you, John. Not you,' said the President as he saw Curl's expression of horror. ‘Come along. Tell me the worst.'

‘It's about Spanish Guiana. The newspaper cutting. The alleged CIA man. Do you remember?'

‘I think I do,' the President said sardonically.

‘It's become a little complicated,' Curl said.

‘Oh, no.' The President gave a deep sigh.

‘The story was basically correct,' Curl said. It was best to get that one over with and then start on the good news.

‘Didn't I tell you I didn't want any CIA action down there?'

‘He was there before this thing broke, Mr President. Long before. They were about to pull him out.'

‘Will you explain to me how the editor of some half-assed local newsletter gets to hear things about CIA operations that you don't know?'

‘It's all jungle down there,' said Curl imperturbably. ‘Sometimes agents are out of touch for weeks at a time.'

‘Except for calling this guy at the newsletter you mean?'

‘Have a heart, Mr President.' Curl made a plaintive face; it was as near as he ever got to clowning his way out of
trouble. ‘The newsletter guy took a flyer. I couldn't make that kind of guess when reporting to you.' He waited for the President to accept that explanation before continuing. ‘The man they sent there has shown exceptional ability, Mr President. In fact there might be talk of a commendation for him.' On past occasions such recommendations had helped to smooth things over.

‘Exceptional ability? To do what?'

‘He's been talking to the MAMista leader: Ramón. We have an agreement permitting Steve Steinbeck to go ahead.'

‘Did you tell Steinbeck?'

It was a trap. ‘No,' said Curl. ‘These things always come to you first. But Steinbeck is raring to go. He only needs our okay and he'll do another series of drillings. If that comes up positive, he'll set up a company to haul it out.'

The President walked across to a side-table and busied himself – looking at his commitments for the rest of the day – while his mind was racing ahead. Curl wondered whether to tell him that the next stage would be a massive defoliating of the whole region of the coca plants but decided to hold it over for another time. There would be a lot of problems on that one.

‘Steinbeck will need all kinds of hardware,' Curl said. ‘The way it looks at present, all those orders for hardware will be placed where they'll do the most good.'

The President could not conceal his pleasure. He sat down at his desk and enjoyed telling himself he was the President of the USA. Every day he had to tell himself anew. Even then it was difficult to believe it. If only his father had lived to see him inaugurated.

‘In many ways it's all working out well,' said Curl, expressing mild surprise, as if the outcome were not a product of his own hard work. ‘A quick swing through the boondocks, and the big show in California immediately following the announcement of new factory contracts, and your Gallup will be back where it always was.'

‘A Gallup through the boonies,' said the President.

‘Exactly, Mr President.' Now was the time, thought Curl, it was always a matter of getting the timing right. ‘And by the way, Mr President, we think it's essential that the CIA hook their guy out of the jungle without stirring up the media in Tepilo.' Curl paused. The President said nothing. Curl continued, ‘The best way to do that would be a civilian helicopter off the fantail of a navy destroyer.'

There was a long silence. ‘You know how I feel about that kind of deal.' The President rubbed his nose. ‘What's all the rush?'

‘The agreement with the guerrillas has all been verbal. We don't have anything in writing. I'd like to have the man who made that agreement on ice somewhere. He is, in fact, our piece of paper.'

‘A destroyer would have to go in very close, John. I take it Benz has got some kind of radar down there?'

‘Look at it this way, Mr President: suppose the Benz government got wind of these talks and grabbed our guy and twisted his arm a little … and then put him on TV?'

‘Sounds unlikely, doesn't it?'

‘The Benz people will not be too pleased to learn that we were talking to the MAMista at the same time we were talking to them. Imagine how we would feel if …'

‘Yeah yeah. Okay, John. You don't have to draw me a diagram.'

‘If you gave a provisional okay we could put the ship into position and get the helicopter moving. Time could be vital on this one. If the situation changes, the helicopter team gets a free cruise. But if we need them we can activate it at a few minutes' notice.'

Again the President paused a long time. Cooperation between the US armed services and the CIA was something he'd always opposed. He allowed his conscience to shade a little doubt and reluctance into his voice: ‘Okay. But no
paper, no teleprinter from the Crisis Management Center, no memo from you and no phone calls and no computer record with mainframe backups that come to light weeks afterward.'

Curl nodded and smiled. He sat on the edge of a hard chair.

The President smiled too. ‘Okay, smart-ass, but one day I won't say all that, and you'll goof.' He looked up. ‘Joint Chiefs been told?'

‘Not officially.' Curl's answer meant that they had all been told off the record as now the President was being told. In fact the Chief of Naval Operations had simply been asked to inform CINCLANT that a civilian helicopter would be taken to a position near the coast of Spanish Guiana and, at a later date, landed aboard again. Coming from Curl such a request was not queried.

‘Then I don't know either?'

‘That would be best, Mr President.' Curl put the prompt cards back into his document case. The case held a night action telegram for the CIA in Tepilo and copies to others ‘witting'. On the corner of his copy his secretary had written ‘operation snatch'. Curl remembered that the word had sexual connotations and made a mental note to change it to ‘operation Shanghai'.

‘Tell me afterward,' said the President. ‘And if it's a foul-up, bring your head gift-wrapped.'

John Curl seldom answered back to the President, but this time he afforded himself that pleasure. ‘Mr President, any time you walk into Congress with my head on a platter, your tail will be in flames. Pleading ignorance has never yet got a President out of a political hassle.'

‘Just humour me, John.' The President picked up two heavy reports about tax changes that he would have to understand before his meeting with the Business Council.

Curl stood up, closed his case and locked it. ‘The CIA may get a little over-zealous sometimes, Mr President, but
that's only because they like to have you in the Oval Room. You must forgive them for that kind of zeal.'

‘I don't need a slow-motion replay of how hard they're working to keep me in office, John. But the way I read the entrails, that's also a demonstration of how they can put the skids under me if I don't play ball.'

‘Yes, Mr President.' Curl fidgeted awkwardly. Then he closed his case. ‘Unless there's something else …'

The President began reading the tax report. He did not look up.