The Armada Legacy (40 page)

‘True enough. Maybe if they’d been a little
more
hostile, they wouldn’t have got wiped out.’

‘Only half wiped out,’ Ben said. ‘From what Pepe’s cousin says, the survivors are spreading the word all over the region. Serrato may just have a tribal uprising on his hands. What are you doing?’

Nico had thrown the sheet back and was struggling out of bed with his heavily-bandaged leg. ‘Whaddaya think I’m doing?’ he retorted. ‘I’m coming the hell with you.’

‘Serrato’s not my concern any longer, Nico. I’m only interested in one thing.’

‘Yeah, and that one thing is exactly what Serrato’s interested in too. You say word’s spreading – that works both ways, man. He finds out there’s this white woman been rescued by a bunch of Indians in the jungle, you don’t think he’ll come for her? Your Brooke is gonna draw that fucker like a magnet. And I intend to be there waiting.’ Nico hobbled towards the chair where the doctor’s sister Graça had neatly folded his clothes, freshly laundered in the only washing machine in San Tomás. His leg gave way under him and he grabbed at the chair to steady himself.

‘You’re in no state for this, my friend,’ Ben said. ‘There isn’t wheelchair access where I’m going.’

‘Oh, nice. You worried about me, or just worried I’ll hold you back?’ Glowering, Nico grabbed a bottle of Dr Rocha’s strong painkillers from the side table and swallowed three of them down dry. ‘Don’t even think about trying to stop me, man,’ he growled. ‘You made me a promise.’

‘Fine. I’m not stopping you.’

‘What about guns?’ Nico said. ‘I lost my Colt.’

‘I don’t have time to go scouring the jungle for more arms dealers right now,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll see you back at the boat. You’ve got twenty minutes to get your act together.’

Nineteen minutes and forty-nine seconds later, Ben looked up from unmooring the river boat and saw Nico stumping along the wooden jetty as fast as his bandaged leg would carry him, struggling with his pack. He looked pale but determined. ‘You got room for one more?’ he yelled.

Ben slipped the moorings, Pepe gunned the throttle with an irrepressible grin and the boat burbled away from the San Tomás quay. The late afternoon sun glinted gold on the river, a heart-lifting sight if Ben hadn’t been so fraught with worry. ‘Let me get that,’ he said, helping Nico to store his rucksack aft.

Nico pointed at Ben’s belt. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a knife,’ Ben said.

‘I can see it’s a knife. Where’d you get it?’

‘Out of your leg, if I remember rightly.’ Dr Rocha had had no particular use for the brutal weapon and Ben, having lost his rifle in the skirmish with Serrato’s men, had asked if he could have it.

‘Kinda ghoulish,’ Nico said, peering uncomfortably at the knife and rubbing his thigh.

‘Kind of practical,’ Ben replied.

The boat chugged on. As San Tomás disappeared behind them the jungle closed in again, the animal chorus from the treetops louder than ever. ‘I’m gonna stink of fucking bug repellent the rest of my life,’ Nico complained, swatting at clouds of insects.

Ben left him at the stern and went forward to talk to Pepe in the wheelhouse. Pepe reckoned on a three-hour trip, give or take, admitting that he’d never personally ventured so far upriver. He described how his late father had been one of the few river traders to pay visits to the Sapaki and other largely uncontacted tribes, such as the Mashco-Piro, along the further reaches. He’d even learned some of the Sapaki language, an obscure and ancient form of Quechua that dated all the way back to the Inca Empire. Pepe had picked up a few words of it from his father as a kid, but, as he explained to Ben: ‘I never reckoned on getting close enough to use it. Like I said before, they don’t exactly welcome outsiders. Pop said that’s what their tribal name means in Quechua: “alone”. That’s how they’ve been for centuries; it’s how they want to stay forever.’

‘What about the white preacher who lives with them?’ Ben asked. ‘Is he a Christian missionary?’

Pepe nodded. ‘Been with the Sapaki so long I guess they regard him as one of them. Kind of a legend around these parts. My father talked about how he met him once, said he didn’t look like any preacher he’d ever seen. Some people say he’s crazy. German. Or maybe Canadian. Come to think of it, I don’t think anyone knows where he’s from.’

The boat chugged on towards the unfamiliar reaches of the river. The first hour dragged past, then the next. Evening was falling and the clouds of insects were thickening even more, until it was almost impossible to draw a breath without choking on a lungful of them.

The atmosphere on board the boat was solemn and silent. Ben gazed down at the passing water, his mind full of anxiety about Brooke. He knew all too well from his SAS jungle training that the bites from certain spider species could be lethal, and South America had some of the worst. He could only pray that the preacher, German or Canadian or whatever he was, had managed to get hold of the serum in time – and that he wasn’t so crazy that he didn’t know what he was doing with it.

A tiny movement on the far river bank caught Ben’s eye and he looked up. Standing in the lengthening shadows among the reeds thirty yards away across the water was an Indian. He and Ben watched one another as the boat glided by. The Indian had patterns of dots tattooed all over his face. He was naked except for a strip of cloth round his middle, and clutched a tall spear. His eyes were piercing and intense.

Ben was distracted for an instant by the splash of a caiman slipping into the water further up the bank. When he looked back at the clump of reeds, the Indian had vanished into the forest, as if he’d never been there.

Ben saw no more signs of human life as evening closed in. When it grew too dark to see, Pepe turned on the lamps mounted on the wheelhouse roof, beaming a yellow glow over the water and the overhanging vegetation. Some time later he announced, ‘I think we’re close.’ He didn’t sound too sure at first, but then after a few more minutes he cut the engine and used a long boat hook to pull them into the bank.

‘You’re certain?’ Ben asked him.

Pepe nodded. ‘This is where my pop used to meet them. He described it to me. See that dead tree there? That was his landmark.’

As far as Ben could tell, there had been a thousand like it all the way upriver. But he had to trust Pepe’s judgement. They disembarked and moored the boat to the dead tree. Pepe shone his flashlight through the greenery, where an earth track barely wide enough for a person disappeared into the trees. ‘This way,’ he whispered softly, as though people might be listening. ‘And watch out for snakes,’ he warned. ‘You step on the wrong one, you’re history.’

They followed Pepe into the darkness. ‘You all right?’ Ben asked Nico.

‘Don’t sweat it, man. I’m so full of painkillers, you could stick blades in me wherever you want and I wouldn’t even feel ’em.’

‘Let’s hope we don’t get to put that to the test,’ Ben muttered as he went on following Pepe along the dark track. It was overgrown in places: Ben used Luis Bracca’s knife to slash away the foliage while Pepe chopped and swung with the machete from the boat. The track wound gradually upwards. The jungle seemed even more filled with life than it had on the approach to Serrato’s compound. It was as though they’d discovered a completely virgin world where no human being had ever set foot.

That was something that would change dramatically if Serrato’s designs on the jungle’s hidden oil reserves ever became a reality. Half a million acres of ancient forest would be shorn away as the heavy machinery moved in, and the ancient peoples whose way of life had remained unchanged and untouched since the dawn of history would be eradicated like vermin.

Ben wondered whether the Indians realised just how fragile their existence might really be; just how much of a threat the totally alien outside world was to their green haven.

Pepe suddenly stopped. ‘This is definitely it,’ he whispered, looking nervously ahead. Two spears, their shafts planted in the earth and their points crossing, barred the way. ‘It’s a warning,’ Pepe explained. ‘Telling strangers to steer clear, or else. You sure you want to keep going?’

‘I have to keep going,’ Ben told him. ‘You can turn back if you like.’

Pepe hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Ah, what the hell.’

They skirted round the side of the crossed spears and kept going, their torch beams bobbing ahead. Nobody said a word. There was just the whine of the insects and the soft crackle of their footfalls on the jungle floor.

The Indians appeared around them so suddenly and in such total, eerie silence that Ben could have believed they’d materialised out of nowhere.

There were a dozen of them. Fifteen. The torch beams shone off hostile faces and lean bodies painted red and black. A circle quickly closed in around the three trespassers. Spear points were raised; bows were drawn.

Nico froze. Pepe breathed, ‘Oh, shit.’

‘Don’t move a muscle,’ Ben said.

Chapter Fifty-Three

The circle tightened round Ben, Nico and Pepe, pressing them close together with jabbing spearheads and threatening arrows. Strong hands whipped out and snatched away their torches, one of which was passed to the warriors’ leader. He examined the device, shining it all around him. He was an older man, flabby round the middle. His whole body was stained red with some kind of vegetable dye and he wore a string of decorative beads over the tops of his ears and around his face, attached to his nose by a large ring. He was obviously a man of senior rank – not a chief, maybe, but their equivalent of a squad commander at least.

The commander pointed the torch at his three captives and yelled something to his warriors. Ben didn’t need to understand Quechua to catch the tone of his words. Nor did Nico. ‘They’re pretty pissed off,’ he observed.

Ben tucked the bone-handled knife into his belt and raised his hands. ‘Talk to them, Pepe. Tell them we don’t mean any harm.’

Pepe stammered a few hesitant words to the leader, who just went on glaring and pointing at them.

‘I don’t think they care either way, man,’ Nico muttered. ‘Whoa, easy with that, brother,’ he said to the Indian jabbing him with a spear. ‘Ben, you have any ideas on how to deal with this?’

Before Ben could come up with any, he saw the commander’s gaze drop down to his belt. There was a lot more gesticulating and yelling.

‘What’s he saying?’ Ben asked Pepe.

‘I think he’s asking where you got that knife.’

Ben glanced down at the handle of Bracca’s Bowie sticking out of his belt. ‘Tell him I took it from one of the men who wish harm to his people. And that I offer it to him as a gift.’

‘I don’t know if I can say all that, but I’ll try.’ Pepe addressed the commander again. This time he seemed able to get a few more words out, and they seemed to have a greater effect. The man looked long and hard at Ben from under beetled brows. After a drawn-out pause he signalled to one of his warriors, who darted forward, plucked the knife out from Ben’s belt and ran over to hand it to him. Another long pause while the commander inspected the knife with extreme gravity. He shone the light on Ben again, scrutinised him very carefully, spent a few more moments in deliberation and then grunted an order at the warriors.

The spears were lowered. Bowstrings were slackened. The circle drew back. Nico let out a sigh.

‘Think we’re meant to wait here,’ Pepe said as the commander gave further orders and then led a group of the men away with him. As squat and ungainly as he looked, the Indian slipped through the trees with the grace of a deer.

‘Wait for what?’ Nico said.

‘Guess we’ll soon see,’ Pepe replied.

The remaining warriors were all watching intently by the light of the torches, though Ben would have bet they could see pretty well in the dark. Now that the immediate crisis had eased slightly, he was able to study them. All but one or two had long, thick black hair. Tattoos and other facial adornments appeared standard, and their bodies were dyed either red, like the commander’s, or black. Their weapons were beautifully crafted from wood, hide, twine, feathers and stone. The Indians didn’t seem much affected by the fact that the Iron Age hadn’t reached their part of the world yet. A sharpened flint arrowhead could still penetrate the same vital organs that a steel one could.

Silent minutes passed. Then, with only the faintest rustle of leaves, the commander and his men returned. He was no longer holding the Bowie knife. Pepe listened hard to what he was saying, then turned to Ben. ‘Sounds like we’re being let into the village.’

‘And I thought US immigration control was tough,’ Nico joked nervously as the warriors escorted them through the dark jungle. Ben saw a glow of firelight between the trees up ahead, then the shapes of huts came into view. Figures clustered among the shadows, chattering worriedly among themselves as the three strange captives were led into the heart of the village. A crowd of men, women and children quickly formed in their wake, becoming braver and more inquisitive with each step.

Ben, Nico and Pepe were led to the largest of the huts. As they were shown in through the low entrance, Ben saw he’d been right about the commander’s rank in the community hierarchy. The most important dignitary of the village was seated on a carved stool facing the doorway, surrounded by a group of other men and women. While everyone else was as unselfconsciously semi-naked as the warriors, the chief was cloaked in a colourful robe that together with the adornments on his face and body were obviously the marks of his office. The hut was filled with the flickering light of the fire at its heart and the scent of the woodsmoke that rose up through a hole in the roof.

The squad commander obviously felt that the lowly captives must be made to grovel in front of the chief. Ben obeyed his barked orders and knelt cautiously on the earth floor by the fire, keeping his head lowered. Nico and Pepe did the same. More villagers were filtering in through the entrance, gathering round to stare at the three strangers, some apparently keen to witness their slow dismemberment, others just gaping in fascination.

Peering up, Ben recognised a face: the young woman he’d saved from Luis Bracca in the wake of the previous day’s massacre was standing at the chief’s shoulder, talking fast and gesticulating in his direction as if recounting the story to the others of how this man had rescued her from being raped and killed. Like many of the other women she was wearing a kind of sarong around her waist, made from cotton that had been dyed into colourful patterns. Every so often she’d glance across at Ben with bright eyes. The chief was listening quietly to every word. In his hands was the Bowie knife. For some reason, the knife was terribly important to them.