Spy (36 page)

“Have you broken our code?”

“Some of it. There is a break, right in the middle and—”

“I know, I—forgive me. I’m very tired.”

“I’ve come because I think you can help me, Frau Zimmermann. You, too, might save a lot of lives.”

“Help you?”

“With the balance of the code. Help me break it. Please. It’s another attack, isn’t it? Against the Americans this time?”

The nurse cracked the door and said, “Five more minutes.”

After she’d gone, the woman said, “I don’t want to die in this horrid place, Doctor. I want to go home.”

Congreve looked quickly over at Stokely, who nodded his head in the affirmative.

“Perhaps I can arrange that. I will try. I know someone who may be able to help you. You have to tell me who is responsible for your being here.”

She suddenly opened her blue eyes and looked up at him.

“Do you promise? You’ll help?”

“I promise. But you have to help me first. Now. There isn’t much time, I’m afraid. A matter of a week or less, if what I’ve deciphered thus far is accurate. Tell me who is holding you against your will. And why.”

“The answer lies above.”

“Above?”

“With Jesus.”

Congreve’s eyes went immediately to the crucifix. His mind racing, he looked at the peeling paint on Christ’s robe, the faded gold leaf of the cross. The feet, he noticed, and the hands, had nails driven through them directly into the plaster wall. The wood and porcelain figure would be difficult to remove and examine. There was no time.

“Jesus? I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”

“No, no, not the crucifix. The books! The books beneath the cross!”

“Ah. Of course.”

Ambrose stood and examined the drooping shelf of books, scanning the titles on the spines. They were mostly works of European history and politics. A book of poems by Longfellow. However, in the exact middle was a single novel. He pulled it from the shelf and examined the dust-jacket of the hardcover book.

O Codigo Da Vinci.

“If you know enough to bring me this book, you’ll understand that one. You’ll find the answers to your questions in that volume, Doctor.”

“The second half of the Zimmermann Code is in the Portuguese edition of the Da Vinci book,” Congreve said, more to himself than anyone in the room. It was not really a question.

“Yes. You’ll find the second half of my husband’s letter can easily be decoded with the Portuguese translation. It’s the way he liked to do things.”

The nurse was at the door again. Before she’d finished clearing her throat, Ambrose whirled and looked at her.

“One minute! Please!” Ambrose said it so sharply and with such authority that the nurse instantly withdrew, pulling the door softly shut behind her.

The poor woman looked up at him with pleading eyes.

“Exchange the dust jackets, I beg you, Doctor. Then replace the Portuguese edition on the shelf with the English one you brought. They check all my possessions. Every night. If one book is missing, I’ll go hungry. Or, worse.”

“One more question. Who is doing this to you? Who poisoned your husband?”

“The ones who come in the night.
Las Medianoches.
”

“Thank you,” Ambrose said, quickly slipping her book inside his yellow mac. “Thank you very, very much indeed. May I have your husband’s letter back, Madame Zimmermann? I promise to mail it along with the book to you when I’ve finished my work here.”

“Of course. The book is worthless without the letter. Good-bye, Doctor Congreve. I do pray I shall go home soon. I want to die in my own bed.”

“I shall do all that I can. I promise you. Good-bye.”

“Papa Top is an animal,” she whispered as he and Stokely moved toward the door. “He cannot be understood any other way. He cannot be treated in a civilized way, Doctor. Never forget that.”

“What is it?” Stokely whispered as they hurried down the hallway and into the stairwell. “What’s with the book?”

“It’s so simple!” Congreve said under his breath. “I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it myself.”

“What?” Stokely said as they reached the bottom of the steps and walked quickly past Reception.

“The Portuguese edition of the thriller. The one sold here in Brazil. The second half of the coded letter is in Portuguese.”

“Yeah. Tell me again why you can’t believe you didn’t think of that before?”

“Because it was a
possibility,
my dear Stokely.”

Stoke was going to say that possibilities were endless, but decided not to get into that philosophical argument. He said, “So, we’ve got it now? What you and Alex needed to go after the bad guys?”

“Yes, we’ve got it all right. I pray that we do. And we’ve got to get that poor woman out of here. Did you see her tongue? Her skin? The same river-borne bacterial infection they used to kill her husband. We need to get your Mr. Brock on this issue immediately. Get her out of there.”

They climbed inside the car and Stokely turned the ignition key.

“Don’t worry,” Stokely said, “Brock and I will take care of it in the morning.”

“The Latin way,” Ambrose said, feverishly turning the pages of the new book. “I certainly hope you’re right.”

As they reversed out of the courtyard, tires squealing, the matronly figure of the Reception nurse appeared at the doorway. She raised her hand and appeared to be calling to them but they ignored her. A moment later, they’d cleared the sentry booth without a problem and were back on the river road, speeding through the pink dawn to the Jungle Palace.

Unseen by the two men, another car had pulled out of the jungle in their wake and was following at a discreet distance, its headlamps extinguished. It was an armored vehicle belonging to the Military Police, a car bristling with gun barrels called a
Cavelrao
by the terrified citizens living in abject poverty in the worst of the slums, the
favelas
of Manaus.

S
tiletto
knifed through the mist and ghosted toward the dock. The only lights visible on the vessel were a reddish glow from inside the wheelhouse and the red and green LED running lights inset forward on the sharp prow, small haloes of mist encircling each one. As she steamed up river, coming around the wide river bend out of the dark, she looked more like a Jules Verne fantasy submarine than the twenty-first-century monster offshore powerboat she was.

Stokely said, “Damn thing looks like an assault knife with a rudder. Doesn’t it?”

The hotel’s dock master was standing on the dock beside Stokely watching Hawke’s boat slide through the water. The wiry little guy, whose name was Candido, was nodding his head in serious agreement. He let out a long, low wolf-whistle.

“Scary looking thing, Señor Jones,” he said in pretty good English. “I’m telling you the truth, man. Those fuckin Indians they got up the river? Most of ’em never seen a white man. They see this boat, they’re already half toasted.”

Candido had been helping Stokely and Harry load miscellaneous supplies, extra ammo, and fresh vegetables on the dock for the last couple of hours or so. He was Stoke’s new best friend. How that happened, Mr. Jones had come out to the dock and handed him a thick envelope earlier in the day. Since then, Candido had been filling his guest in on recent activities of
Las Medianoches
in this neck of the jungle. If Hollywood was doing these bad boys it would be al-Qaeda meets the Gangbangers meets the Hell’s Angels. As far as Stoke could tell, they were a law unto themselves around here. And there was nobody, including the Military Police, that they did not own.

Nobody.

“Carpet tacks?” Stoke said, eyeing the big canvas sacks of the things. “I still don’t know why we need carpet tacks.”

“You will understand, Mr. Jones, once you’re on the river. That, I promise you,” Candido said, this wise grin on his face.

Stoke shrugged and stared at the oncoming craft, trying to imagine such a beautiful thing in the heat of battle. He could just make out Hawke. He was the man in the black turtleneck sweater, standing on the starboard bow, talking quietly to the crewmen. Crew had on their jungle camo, Stokely noticed, olive drab tiger stripes. The deck hands were preparing to throw mooring lines to a couple of hotel dockhands waiting for the big vessel’s arrival.

It was getting late. Without traffic, the river looked wide, deep, and black. Tendrils of night fog lay scattered on the mirrored surface of the Rio Negro like strings of thin gray wool. The dark jungle crowding the river banks on either side was dead quiet. Stoke shivered just a bit when a howler monkey screamed, shattering the peaceful silence.

Midnight. Hawke was right on time.

Stiletto,
her engines ahead dead slow, eased alongside the old wooden picr and lines were heaved ashore. The still air was now filled with the low rumble of her engines and the sounds of her exhaust burbling at the stern. No one on deck said a word now, even Hawke, who had waved briefly when he recognized Stoke among the men lining the hotel dock.

Guns were out onboard Hawke’s boat. Every man not handling lines cradled a semi-automatic weapon. Stoke saw some familiar faces. A lot of these men were old friends of his from the Thunder and Lightning Spec Ops group based in Martinique. He scanned the faces, looking for his little pal Froggy, the Foreign Legionnaire. Didn’t see him yet.

During
Stiletto’s
last hours in Key West and rapid transit south, certain modifications had been made. Mods included the addition of four sleek carbon fiber canoes mounted at the stern for when and if they ran out of navigable water. Deck guns had been mounted, fore and aft in rotating turrets armored with bubbles of clear, two-inch thick bulletproof Lexan. In addition, twin .50 caliber machine guns had been mounted atop the wheelhouse with an access from a ladder inside. There was an armored surround on the mounts so gunners would have reasonably good protection from shore fire.

Also on the stern, two mysterious black boxes. Something Hawke had requested from unnamed sources in Washington after his debriefing with Harry Brock. Stoke thought they looked like oversized dishwashers but they probably weren’t.

Stoke knew the two things Hawke feared most on the river were mines and rocket-propelled grenades. RPGs, launched from the banks, could take out the deck guns despite the armor. There was only one antidote to RPGs and that was speed. For speed, though, you needed a whole lot of water. So what was in the boxes?

“Welcome to the jungle, Commander,” Stoke said, extending a hand as Hawke stepped easily across the two feet of open water that remained between boat and dock.

“Good to be back,” Hawke said, looking back at
Stiletto
in the steamy moonlight. “Under more advantageous circumstances.”

“Trip didn’t take long.”

“Flat seas and light wind all the way, except for the rough bits off eastern Cuba. Upriver, we were mostly flat out all the way from the coast. Brownie, her new skipper, says we set a Key West-Manaus record. This thing is seriously fast, Stoke. Despite all the composite armor and weapons.”

“I think we’re going to need every bit of it,” Stoke said, casting his eyes downriver.

“I’m afraid we will indeed. Everybody ready here? I want to shove off immediately after the tanks are topped off.”

“I got my stuff right here. The
Blue Goose
is gone. She took off two hours ago. The pilot, Mick, and Harry Brock, plus a couple of local people Harry’s been working with down here.”

“Any good?”

“Yeah. I think so. Ones who helped him locate this Papa Top character. And found that Zimmermann lady for Ambrose. They don’t exactly admit to it, but I think they’re both with some Brazilian Spec Ops unit called Falcon Five. A man and a seriously good-looking woman.”

“You trust them?”

“Down here? I don’t trust anybody.”

Hawke nodded, thinking through the next steps. Time was dwindling rapidly and he had to use every hour as best he could. “Let’s go aboard and attack the maps while they fuel this beast. Where’s the world’s most ingenious detective?”

“See that light burning in the upstairs corner window? That’s him. Working away.”

“God love him,” Hawke said, “I just hope he can crack this bloody thing. We’re running out of time.”

H
awke and Stokely faced each other across a map-strewn table in the small cabin that would serve as
Stiletto’s
war room. Stoke told Hawke all about the visit he and Ambrose had paid to the St. James Infirmary the night before. He recounted Congreve’s conversation with the imprisoned elderly widow and explained Congreve’s reaction upon discovering the Portuguese version of the novel.

“Giddy?” Hawke said, smiling.

“Your word, not mine. But, yeah, I’d say he was giddy over getting that book.”

“Damn good work, you and Ambrose finding that woman. That book may yet help us stop this bastard.”

“Well, all I can tell you, the man has been in his room ever since we got back just before dawn last night. Been holed up in there all day. Working on his code. Won’t answer the phone, won’t even come to the door. I sent him some room service and it sat outside the damn door so long they finally took it away.”

“Got the bone in his teeth, all right. That’s good. Let him keep beavering away right up until it’s time to shove off.”

“What’s so special about this book we got last night? It’s a novel, isn’t it? Fiction. We don’t have a whole lot of time for fairy tales right now.”

“The book was encoded. This woman’s husband, Ambassador Zimmermann, was dirty. Mixed up with al-Qaeda here in Brazil. And possibly the Mexican, Cuban, and Venezuelan governments as well. Remember what your friend from Caracas told us?”

“The Mambo King? Yeah, Colonel Monteras told us what we already knew. That
el Presidente
Chávez of Venezuela was determined to bring down the American government. And he was using his oil money, buying those Russian anti-ship missiles from Cuba to help make that happen. Sink tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. Start the war that way.”

“Chávez has his own plans for dealing with America. I’ll let the Yanks worry about those missiles for now. Top is the more imminent threat. We’ve got enough on our plate.”

“But you think Top is in cahoots with Chávez?”

“Chávez may be bankrolling Top, Stoke. Based on what Harry Brock told me, Top’s weapons development alone requires massive amounts of cash. And Chávez is rolling in the stuff right now. Chávez, Fidel, and Top all have the same objective. They’re just coming at it from differing perspectives.”

Half an hour later, Hawke straightened up and stretched his back muscles. He’d been bent over the bloody maps with Stokely for too long, and he hadn’t had any exercise in forty-eight hours. He was tempted to go for a night swim in the river but there wasn’t time.

“Now you know why they built their stronghold in this part of the jungle,” Hawke said, looking at Stokely across the table. “No satellite imagery, no aerial recon photos, no thermals, nothing. Just a bloody map with a ton of green on it.”

“It’s a bitch all right. How do you find something that isn’t on a map?”

“I think Harry Brock has at least gotten us within spitting distance. We’ll see for ourselves shortly.”

“So, when we do go in, this will be Brock’s LZ here,” Stokely said, “The strip where he saw the drones and the little remote control tanks.”

Stoke was pointing to the small red grease mark Brock had placed on the laminated map of the target area. An inch away was a long yellow mark indicating the deep ravine that was believed to be the western perimeter of Top’s compound.

“Yeah. Brock’s land force goes in there, moves toward the river. We move west from the river and join them roughly here.”

“Where exactly do we go in?”

“Good question. Captain Brownlow is plugging river waypoints into the GPS guidance and weapons systems now. Brock believes we’ll find Top’s central command approximately here. Somewhere along this stretch of water is a camouflaged bridge. Find that bridge and we’ve found Top.”

Hawke used his index finger to trace his intended route on the map.

“The Black River?” Stoke said, looking through the large magnifying glass.

“Right. To get there, we execute a rapid backtrack east on the Amazon to the mouth of the Madeira River here. Then head due south along this large tributary. At this point, right here, the junction of the Aripuana and the Roosevelt, we—”

“Whoa. Roosevelt? That’s the river’s name? Down here?”

“Teddy Roosevelt. Back in 1908, he led an expedition looking for something called the River of Doubt. T.R. found it, everybody thinks anyway, and the Brazilians named it after him. Rio Roosevelt.”

“You don’t think he found it? The river?”

“There’s still some doubt, pardon the pun, in London’s geographic circles. There’s another river. It’s called the Igapo, or Black River. You can only see it with the glass. It’s this tiny hairline tributary that disappears into the forest here. No one’s ever found the source. Or, even where it ends. My friends back at the Geographical Society think it actually goes underground and resurfaces in a distant location still uncharted. I think this river might have been the one the great Bull Moose was actually looking for.”

“So this river, the Igapo, is not really on any map. Even now, in the age of electronic miracles.”

“Right.”

“So, we’re winging it.”

“To some extent, yes, we are.”

“Excuse me, Skipper?”

Brownlow was at the door.

“Yes, Cap’n?” Hawke said.

“Wanted to make sure everyone was aboard. We’re topped off and ready to get underway.”

“Is Chief Inspector Congreve aboard yet?”

“No, sir,” Brownlow said. “Haven’t seen him yet, sir.”

Hawke looked at his black-faced wristwatch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. Everyone was supposed to be aboard and prepared to shove off at midnight. “Well, we’ll just have to go fetch him. Give us ten minutes, will you? We’ll be back with him. He’s the only one missing. Everyone else has gone ahead to the next rendezvous by air.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

H
AWKE AND
S
TOKELY
walked quickly through the deserted lobby, climbed three flights of stairs, and walked along the hallway until they came to Congreve’s room. The hotel had gone to sleep, by and large, and the only room showing a light under the door was the one on the left, Room 307, belonging to Ambrose Congreve.

Hawke paused a moment, listening, then put his hand on the knob. The door swung inward.

“Holy Jesus,” was all Stoke could say.

The room had been tossed. Not just tossed, heaved upside down and turned inside out. Every drawer had been pulled from desk and dresser, upended on the floor. The bed had been stripped of its bedclothes, the mattress had been pulled from the bed, sliced open and gutted, wads of stuffing everywhere.

“What the hell were they looking for?” Stoke asked.

Hawke’s eyes were brimming with anger.

He said, “Last night, Stokely. Your visit to the St. James Infirmary. Was there any trouble?”

“We were in and out of there in fifteen minutes.”

“It was Brock who told you she was there? And Brock who got you inside, too?”

“Right. Brock and five thousand U.S. dollars paid to a Major Rojales of the Military Police here in Manaus.”

“No names, right? Tell me you two didn’t use names last night.”

Stokely thought about it. “Damn. Ambrose called himself ‘Dr. Congreve’at Reception.”

“Then it’s the bloody letter they’re after. The Zimmermann Code,” Hawke said, barely keeping his anger out of his voice. How could Ambrose have been so bloody careless? A momentary lapse, probably because of his fixation with breaking that code book.

“We’ve got to help that poor woman,” Stokely said. “God knows what they’re doing to her out there.”

“Whatever it is, they’ve most likely already done it. They extracted information about the letter and the fact that Ambrose had it. The Zimmermann woman is probably dead, I promise you. And she didn’t die in her sleep.”

“Look in the bathroom,” Hawke said, furiously yanking open the closet door. His friend’s expensive clothing was still on hangers, although all the pockets had been pulled out and many of the jacket linings had been slashed. The beautiful shoes, normally a neat file, were strewn about the room. He’d never had time to pack. His mind was racing, but one thought was winning.
What in God’s name am I to tell Diana Mars?
”

“Alex. Come here.”

Hawke went instantly to the bathroom door.

“Oh, shit,” Stokely said.

“Where?”

“Come inside and close the door.”

Hawke did so. On the white tiled floor and on the wall, a bright spatter of red blood.

Hawke stared at the pattern for a second, then looked at Stokely and said, “He didn’t cut himself shaving.”

“No.”

“You didn’t see him at all this morning?”

“Said goodnight outside that door last night around midnight. Didn’t see or speak to him since.”

“Look at this,” Hawke said, holding up the black bowler hat he’d found in Congreve’s closet.

“A hat with a hole in it. That’s not Ambrose’s style.”

“It’s a voodoo calling card. From Papa Top, I’d guess. He’s half-Hatian and they’re big Voodoo worshippers.”

“I got it now.”

“Bastards have got my friend,” Hawke said. “Let’s go.”