River Of Death Part 8

Heffner said: 'Do you have a map?'

'As it happens, I have. Not that I require it. Why do you ask?'

'If anything happens to you it would be nice to know where we are.'

'You better pray nothing happens to me. Without me, you're finished.'

Smith said into Hamilton's ear: 'You have to antagonise him? You have to be so arrogant? You have to provoke him?'

Hamilton looked at him, his face cold. 'I don't have to. But it's a pleasure.'

Romono airstrip, like Romono itself, looked, as it always did, a miasmic horror. The DC 3 and the helicopter-c.u.m-hovercraft arrived on the strip within minutes of each other. The helicopter's rotor had hardly stopped when a small fuel tanker moved out towards it.

The pa.s.sengers disembarked from the DC 3 and looked around them. Their expressions ranged from the incredulous to the appalled.

Smith contented himself with saying merely: 'Good G.o.d!'

'I don't believe it,' Heffner said. 'What a stinking, nauseating dump.

Jesus, Hamilton, is this the best you could do for us?'

'What are you complaining about?' Hamilton pointed to the tin shed which const.i.tuted both the arrival and departure terminals. 'Look at that sign there. Romono International Airport. What more rea.s.suring than that?

This time tomorrow, gentlemen, you may well be thinking of this as home sweet home. Enjoy it. Think of it as the last outpost of civilisation.

Look, as the poet says, your last on all things lovely every hour. Take what you need for the night. We have a splendid hotel here -the Hotel de Paris. Those who don't fancy it - well, I'm sure Hiller will put you up.' He paused. 'On second thoughts, I think I could have a better use for Miller.'

Smith said: 'What kind of use?'

'With your permission, of course. You know that this hovercraft is the lynch-pin to everything?'

Tm not a fool.'

'The hovercraft will be anch.o.r.ed tonight in very dicey waters indeed. By which I mean that the natives on either side of the Rio da Morte range from the unreliable to the downright hostile. So, it must be guarded. I suggest that this is not a task for one man, Kellner, the pilot, to do. In fact, I'm not suggesting, I'm telling you. Even if a man could keep awake all night, it would still be extremely difficult. So, another guard. I suggest Hiller.' He turned to Hiller. 'How are you with automatic weapons?'

'Can find my way around, I guess.'

'Fine.' He turned back to Smith. 'You'll find a bus waiting outside the terminal.' He reboarded the plane and emerged two minutes later bearing two automatic weapons and some drums of ammunition. By this time Hiller was alone. 'Let's go to the hovercraft.'

Kellner, the hovercraft pilot, was standing by his craft. He was thirtyish, sun-tanned, tough.

Hamilton said: 'When you anchor tonight don't forget to do so in mid-stream.'

'There'll be a reason for that?' Kellner, clearly, was an Irishman.

'Because if you tie up to either bank the chances are good that you'll wake up with your throat cut. Only, of course, you don't wake up.'

'I don't think I'd like that.' Kellner didn't seem unduly perturbed.

'Mid-stream for me.'

'Even there you won't necessarily be safe. That's why Hiller is coming with you - needs two men to guard against an attack from both sides. And that's why we have those two nasty little Israeli sub-machines along.'

'I see.' Kellner paused. 'I'm not much sure that I care for killing helpless Indians.'

'When those same helpless Indians puncture your hide with a few dozen darts and arrowheads, all suitably or perhaps even lethally poisoned, you might change your mind.'

'I've already changed it.'

'Know anything about guns?'

'I was in the S.A.S. If that means anything to you.'

'It means a great deal to me.' The S.A.S. was Britain's elite commando regiment. 'Well, that saves me explaining those little toys to you, I suppose.'

'I know them.'

'One of my luckier days,' Hamilton said. 'Well, see you both tomorrow.'

The saloon of the Hotel de Paris, after closing hours, had six occupants. Heffner, gla.s.s in hand, was slumped in a chair, but his eyes were open: Hamilton, Ramon, Navarro, Serrano and Tracy were asleep or apparently so, stretched out on benches or on the floor. Bedrooms were, that night, at a premium in the Hotel de Paris. As they were all equally dreadful and bug-ridden, Hamilton had explained, this was not a matter for excessive regret.

Heffner stirred, stooped, removed his boots, rose and padded his noiseless way across to the bar, deposited his gla.s.s on the counter, then crossed silently to the nearest rucksack. It was, inevitably, Hamilton's. Heffner opened it, searched briefly, removed a map, and studied it intently for some minutes before returning it to the rucksack. He returned to the bar, poured himself a generous measure of the Hotel de Paris's Scotch. Wherever the birthplace of that particular brand was it hadn't been among the highlands and islands of Scotland. He returned to his seat, replaced his shoes, leaned back in his chair to enjoy his night-cap, spluttered and emptied half the contents on the floor.

Hamilton, Ramon and Navarro, heads propped on hands, were regarding him with a quietly speculative air.

Hamilton said: 'Well, did you find what you were looking for?'

Heffner didn't say whether he had or not.

'One of the three of us is going to keep an eye on you for the remainder of the night. You try to stir from that chair and I will take the greatest pleasure in clobbering you. I don't much care for people who meddle in my private belongings.'

Hamilton and the twins slept soundly throughout the night. Heffner did not once leave his chair.

CHAPTER SIX.

Just after dawn, the helicopter pilot, John Silver -- generally known as Long John -- was at the controls. The party of nine embarked and stowed their overnight luggage with the food and equipment that had been transferred from the DC}. Hamilton took the co-pilot's seat. So cavernous was the interior of the giant helicopter that it seemed virtually empty. It rose effortlessly and flew more or less east, paralleling the course of the Rio da Morte. All the pa.s.sengers had their heads craned, peering through what few windows there were: they were seeing for the first time the true Amazonian rainforest.

Hamilton turned in his seat and pointed forward. 'That's an interesting sight.' His voice was a shout.

On a wide mud flat, perhaps almost a mile long, and on the left bank, scores of alligators lay motionless as if asleep.

'Good G.o.d!' It was Smith. 'Good G.o.d! Are there so many 'gators in the world?' He shouted to Silver: 'Take her down, man, take her down!' Then to Heffner: 'Your camera! Quick!' He paused, as if in sudden thought, then turned to Hamilton. 'Or should I have asked the expedition commander's permission?'

Hamilton shrugged. 'What's five minutes?'

The helicopter came down over the river in great sweeping, controlled circles. Long John was clearly a first-rate pilot.

The alligators, hemmed in the narrow strip between forest and river, seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. It was, depending upon one's point of view, a fascinating, horrifying or terrifying spectacle.

Tracy said, almost in awe: 'My word, I wouldn't care to crash-land amongst that lot.'

Hamilton looked at him. 'Believe me, that's the least of the dangers down there.'

'The least?'

'This is the heart of the Chapate territory.'

'That meant to mean something to me?'

'You have a short memory. I've mentioned them before. It would mean something to you if you ended up in one of their cooking-pots.'

Smith looked at him doubtfully, clearly not knowing whether to believe him or not, then turned to the pilot.

'That's low enough, Silver.' He twisted in his seat and shouted at the top of his voice: 'G.o.d's sake, man, hurry!'

'Moment, moment,' Heffner bawled back. 'There's such a d.a.m.ned jumble of equipment here.'

There was, in fact, no jumble whatsoever. Heffner had already found his own camera, which lay at his feet. In Hamilton's rucksack he had found something that he had missed the previous night for the good enough reason that he hadn't been looking for it. He held a leather-bound case in his hand, the one Colonel Diaz had given to Hamilton. He extracted the camera from the case, looked at it in some puzzlement, then pressed a switch in the side. A flap fell down, noiselessly, on oiled hinges.

His face registered at first bafflement, then understanding. The interior of the camera consisted of a beautifully made transistorised radio transceiver. Even more importantly it bore some embossed words in Portuguese. Heffner could read Portuguese. He read the words and his understanding deepened. The radio was the property of the Brazilian Defence Ministry which made Hamilton a government agent. He clicked the flap in position.

'Heffner!' Smith had twisted again in his seat. 'Heffner, if you - Heffner!'

Heffner, radio case in one hand and his pearl-handled pistol in the other, approached. His face was a smiling mask of vindictive triumph. He called out: 'Hamilton!'

Hamilton swung around, saw the wickedly smiling face, his own camera held high and the pearl-handled pistol and at once threw himself to the floor of the aisle, his gun coming clear of his bush jacket. Even so, despite the swiftness of Hamilton's movement, Heffner should have had no trouble in disposing of Hamilton, for he had the clear drop on him and his temporarily defenceless target was feet away. But Heffner had spent a long night of agony in the Hotel de Paris. As a consequence, his hand was less than steady, his reactions were impaired, his co-ordination considerably worse.

Hefftier, his face contorted, fired twice. With the first came a cry of pain from the flight-deck. With the second the helicopter gave a sudden lurch. Then Hamilton fired, just once, and a red rose bloomed in the centre of Heffner's forehead.

Hamilton took three quick steps up the aisle and had reached Heffner before anyone else had begun to move. He stooped over the-dead man, retrieved the camera-radio case, checked that it was closed, then straightened. Smith appeared beside him, a badly shaken man, and stared down in horror at Heffner.

'Between the eyes, between the eyes.' Smith shook his head in total disbelief. 'Between the eyes. Christ, man, did you have to do that?'

'Three things,' Hamilton said. If he was upset, he had his distress well under control. 'I tried to wing him, and I'm a good shot, especially at four paces, but the helicopter lurched. He twice tried to kill me before I pulled the trigger. Third place. I gave orders that no-one was to carry guns. As far as I'm concerned, he's dead by his own hand. G.o.d's sake, why did he pull a gun on me? Was he mad?'

Smith, perhaps fortunately, was given no time to lend consideration to either of those things, even had he then been of a mind to, which he almost certainly was not. The helicopter had given another and even more violent lurch, and although it still carried a good deal of forward momentum, seemed to be fluttering and falling from the sky like a wounded bird. It was a singularly unpleasant sensation.

Hamilton ran forward, clutching at whatever he could to maintain his balance. Silver, blood streaming from a cheek wound, was fighting to regain control of the uncontrollable helicopter.

Hamilton said: 'Quick! Can I help?'

'Help? No. I can't even help myself.'

'What's happened?'

'First shot burnt my face. Nothing. Superficial. Second shot must have gone through one or more hydraulic lines. Can't see exactly but it can't have been anything else. What happened back there?'

'Heffner. Had to shoot him. He tried to shoot me, but he got you and your controls instead.'

'No loss.' Considering the circ.u.mstances, Silver was remarkably phlegmatic. 'Heffner, I mean. This1 machine is a different matter altogether.'

Hamilton took a quick look backwards. The scene, understandably, was one of confusion and consternation although there were no signs of panic.

Maria, Serrano and Tracy, all three with almost comically dazed expressions, were sitting or sprawling in the central aisle. The others clung desperately to their seats as the helicopter gyrated through the sky. Luggage, provisions and equipment were strewn everywhere.

Hamilton turned again and pressed his face close to the windscreen. The now pendulum-like motion of the craft was making the land below swing to and fro in a crazy fas.h.i.+on. The river was still directly beneath: the one plus factor appeared to be that they had now left behind them the mudflats where the alligators had lain in so lifeless a manner. Hamilton became suddenly aware that an island, perhaps two hundred yards long by half as wide, lay ahead of them in the precise middle of the river, at a distance of about half a mile: it was wooded but not heavily so.

Hamilton turned to Silver.

'This thing float?'

'Like a stone.'

'See that island ahead?'

They were now less than two hundred feet above the broad brown waters of the river: the island was about a quarter of a mile ahead.

'I can see it,' Silver said. 'I can also see all those trees. Look, Hamilton, control is close to zero. I'll never get it down in one piece.'

Hamilton looked at him coldly. 'Never mind the d.a.m.ned chopper. Can you get us down in one piece?'

Silver glanced briefly at Hamilton, shrugged and said nothing.

The island was now two hundred yards distant. As a landing ground it looked increasingly discouraging. Apart from scattered trees it was, but for one tiny clearing, thickly covered with dense undergrowth. Even for a helicopter in perfect health it would have made an almost impossible landing site.

Even in that moment of emergency some instinct made Hamilton glance to the left. Directly opposite the island, at about fifty yards' distance and on the bank of the river, was a large native village. From the expression -- or lack of it -- on Hamilton's face it was clear that he didn't care for large native villages, or, at least, this particular one.

Silver's face, streaked with rivulets of sweat and blood, reflected a mixture of determination and desperation, with the former predominating.

The pa.s.sengers, tense, immobile, gripped fiercely at any available support and stared mutely ahead. They, too, could see what was about to happen.

The helicopter, swinging and side-slipping, weaved its unpredictable way towards the island. Silver was unable to bring the helicopter to the hover. As they approached this one much too small clearing, the helicopter was still going far too fast. Its ground-level clearance was by then no more than ten feet. The trees and undergrowth rushed at them with accelerating speed.

Silver said: 'No fire?'

'No fire.'

'No ignition.' Silver switched off.

One second later the helicopter dipped sharply, crashed into the undergrowth, slid about twenty feet and came to a jarring stop against the bole of a large tree.

For a few moments the silence was complete. The engine roar had vanished. It was a silence compounded of the dazed shock caused by the violence of their landing and the relief of finding themselves still alive. No-one appeared to have sustained any injury.