Unacceptable Risk (8 page)
"You are astounding me, you realize. You come here and never say a word...."
"I am shy. I like to watch people first."
"It is still strange to go that long," he said.
"Especially when visiting pink dolphins."
He laughed. "A tale you obviously don't believe."
"Blond men from America are blond men from America."
She placed her book on the table next to the English manuscript:
The Ramparts of the Amazon
by Michael J. Bowden. It was a Portuguese-language edition.
"Ja leis-te? "
He asked her.
"Fala Portuguese? "
"I speak Portuguese fine. But I wish to practice English. I want to go to New York. At least to see. If I like it, I want to have my children there."
"Is thatwhy you came to see me?"
She hesitated. "I desire that you come with me. Now." Somehow her grave expression didn't match the words she spoke.
"Your English is remarkable."
"I have been to missionary school for twelve years. Catholic. On the Brazil side of the river. In Tabatinga. They say I learn fast. They give me many tutors."
He was beginning to get an inkling that she was older than she appeared. Girls normally went to school from about ages six to twelve, maybe fourteen, and then they began bearing children. In Peru early education was compulsory except for the indigenous tribes. Obviously, Marita was not fitting the mold of limited education and that told him that she must have an unusual aptitude for learning to attract such attention among the Catholics.
"But you have never spoken to me. You stood and watched."
"I explained the best I can about that. Now I need your help. You will need a gun."
"A gun?" Michael didn't like them, but he owned plenty.
"A long gun," she said, gesturing with her arms in the manner of someone firing a rifle.
She looked dead serious, even a little fearful. Without questioning her further, Michael walked to a cabinet that held his rifles. He removed a .300 magnum, Winchester Model 70. Returning to the porch, he said, "This is a big gun. Why do you need it?"
"Do you have a small gun? I think we'll need both. You can show me how to shoot."
"Why? What's wrong?"
"To protect us from the bad men."
"Que homens? A gue distancia? Conto e que sabes que sao maus? "
He spoke rapidly in Portuguese to make sure she understood his questions.
What she said next nearly stopped his heart.
"One of the men is the man who killed your wife."
Before he realized it, he had sat back down at the desk, dumbfounded. After a moment he opened a side drawer, removed a .357 magnum Ruger GP 100 pistol, and placed it on the desk. "I need to understand how you know this."
"They are one day's walk from here ... for a
estrangeiro."
She seemed stuck on English now.
"How many?"
"Six. Matses hunters saw them on the Blanca."
He tried to picture the terrain. It sounded like they had come up the Ucayali and Tapiche river system, then overland on foot. It would only make sense to do so if they sought to remain bidden. To think the Matses wouldn't see them was foolish. That would make them foreigners.
"I saw them this morning," Marita said.
"But you're here."
"They are
estrangeiros.
I am Matses."
"Do you know why they have come?"
"The same reason as before, when the man killed your wife. They are looking for your experiments."
Michael stood again. "You're sure this man killed my wife?"
"Yes. He took your things too."
"You saw him do this?"
"I did."
"Tell me."
"It's better not to talk about it. She fought and they killed her. They were trying to ... hurt her."
"But only one of these new men is the same."
"Yes. They call him Cy. The other men ... I think they are very bad too."
"What do you think you can do?"
"I want to kill them."
"We have police."
"Where? These men will break the police like little sticks. And the police won't follow if they go into Brazil."
"Soldiers?"
"These men will be here and they will kill and hurt Matses and they will be gone before the soldiers arrive."
"We could leave and try to get everyone out of San Jose."
"Matses men? Run? They already think I am unruly and crazy. They will say I have bewitched you."
He thought for a moment and nodded. He had never seriously considered killing anyone. Even when he found his wife's brutalized remains, killing did not become his dream. His first rule of life was to do no harm. But then to kill this kind was to prevent harm. Perhaps his first rule of life could use some rethinking.
"Did they hurt you?"
"No."
He was surprised at the almost physical sense of relief he felt at her answer.
"They hurt my sister, and killed my child," she said. "Before my sister escaped...," she trailed off. "She is different now."
His throat thickened and he hesitated. He still did not know for certain if there was a connection between his wife's death and this group. Or if so, who exactly was responsible for Eden's murder. He looked to Marita. Her eyes said what he scarcely dared to think: one, at least, among these men was a murderer and rapist, and that was enough.
He stood. "How will we find him?"
"They will walk along the small creeks. The way the land lies they will eventually find the trail from Herrera to San Jose. Like any
estrangeiro
they will stay on it because the jungle is thick."
"Probably." Quickly he went back inside and pulled two military M-16 rifles from a footlocker. He had bought these guns only after Eden's murder. He grabbed a backpack already loaded with the basics—knives, lighters, water, and the like. He stuffed all the ammunition in the packsack. Back at the footlocker, he removed a Glock 10mm model 20, with fifteen-round clip, and for her a Glock 9mm model 17, with a seventeen-round clip. As much as he liked any gun, he liked this one and he had plenty of ammunition. Then he considered that they should both be using the same ammunition, so he grabbed a second 9mm and took the 10mm as a backup. He got her a pack for her ammo and water, then threw in some more supplies. Normally, she would need only matches, salt, a fishing line, and a knife to survive in relative comfort for lengthy periods, so she would be traveling in relative luxury. In the packsacks were a number of individual flour sacks that had been dipped in liquid latex, making them waterproof and buoyant, allowing the backpack to double as a crude flotation device. Anything that needed to remain dry went in a latex-coated sack.
"We may die trying. Is this worth it to you?" Michael was tempted to revert to Portuguese for the philosophical aspects of this question.
"It is worth it."
Before they left, they practiced with the guns for half an hour, and when they were finished, she could use the M-16 to obliterate a stump in seconds. Her facility with the guns was almost unnerving.
They gathered up their things and began walking toward the Tapiche. Somewhere between the Tapiche and the Galvez they would find the trail of the men who came to steal again, perhaps to rape and kill. And they would kill them.
Baptiste made his way to a small holding area where informants, witnesses, and prisoners could be interviewed by the government. He did not want to speak to Benoit Moreau in her cell or in the regular visiting area. By bringing her out, he hoped she would begin to feel what was possible and to build in her soul a yearning so deep that she could not resist the generous offer of the French government.
She waited in the holding area, a neat and clean room with a fresh coat of paint, sitting in a nice chair, such as the kind that might be used by an executive secretary. There was even a desk for her to sit behind; in a way she could imagine that she was interviewing him. These were props of pride and position, luxuries that would never again be hers...
Unless.
He had come up with the idea himself, like a car salesman who puts you behind the wheel of a brand-new Citroen. There was a glass window in the office and blinds that were partially open to let in light and to allow her to see snatches of what was going on outside the door of her little office. She sat in the chair in chains. That was different from the Citroen and the unctuous salesman, but necessary for the time being.
He started by offering a friendly smile. He was not good at them, as his wife often pointed out.
"I'll get right to the point," he said when Benoit showed no reaction. God, she was beautiful. He knew it, he had seen her, but still he wasn't quite ready for it. And for just a brief second he wondered whether he might ever have sex with her, and then he blew the notion out of his mind, knowing that it was incredibly weak and incredibly dangerous. Straight-backed and lithe, she projected a cold sexiness even in her prison suit.
He sat, determined to let her see nothing in his eyes. "I called you here to begin a discussion regarding an offer from the French government."
"Aren't you going to greet me? How are you, mademoiselle? How do you like the office, mademoiselle? Nice weather we're having? No small talk or chitchat? Amazing for a man with a big plan."
"What big plan is that?"
"Whatever big plan you have to lift yourself from obscurity in a job that is going nowhere and a future that is only slightly less dull than this office."
"I like my job. I take it very seriously. You are the one with no future."
"Really?"
Something about her unbelievable confidence was unnerving.
"You think you have a big future? You can go back to your cell in your chains and rot."
She rose, completely unperturbed. "I'm ready. I'm sure that the admiral will be wanting to see me, so give him my best regards and tell him I am looking forward to our meeting."
She was ambling toward the door in her chains. A wave of panic washed over him.
Could she. ..?
The admiral was reputedly a womanizer like many Frenchmen in positions of prominence.
"Unfortunately, you won't be seeing the admiral."
"Uh-huh."
"Get back there and sit down," he said.
She sat and smiled. "It's true that I've only seen him once. He was curious like all men. He lusts, but he is too smart to ask for sex. Just as you are. But, just like you, he was tempted."
"I am not going to waste time on your games."
"What, then? Will you physically abuse me? Are you going to rape me as well?" She studied him with bright appealing eyes. "You want my help with the genetic science of Grace Technologies, particularly Chaperone, but of course at the same time you're wondering if we might one day have sex. Don't deny it and we'll get along better. I hate men who lie to me."
"I am interested in making an arrangement where you can do France some good, instead of sitting on your ass all day. In exchange you would be released from prison each day. Of course you return here at night. And there would be security to and from and at work. The key is that you earn our trust. Which you are not doing right now. For example, you could start by telling me what the name Chaperone means. Why did they call it that?"
"For me your offer is a way out of that hole at least for the day, to see the pigeons on a windowsill, to watch it rain, to walk outside, to be with normal people instead of lunatics, maybe to have sex in the copy room. And by telling you about Chaperone, God knows what little extras I might get. I got it. But I'm not interested." "Why?"
"Because it's not good enough. I can touch and hold, but I cannot take a bite and cannot really taste. No thanks. My imagination does the same for me here. I'd rather rot."
"But there are possibilities. Real possibilities."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"If your work were good enough. If you were reliable. Maybe, who knows, a sort of house arrest? You weren't convicted of actually pulling the trigger on anyone. There were a lot of charges for conspiracy, and of aiding and abetting, that sort of thing. Nobody, though, said you shot anybody or poisoned them, except of course Chellis, but he didn't die and he mistreated you, I am sure. An argument could be made."
