your supermarket if you don’t believe me. Enrico used his government connections, sprinkled the bribes around to get a piece of the action.” He pushed the files across the desk. “I can’t let this go out of the office, but you’re welcome to read it.”
Austin thanked him and took the file into a small conference room. He and Zavala sat on opposite sides of a table. Austin gave Joe the file on the legal businesses, told him to shout if he saw anything interesting, and begin to skim through the other file. He wanted a measure of the man he might be dealing with. The more he read, the less he liked. He hadn’t thought so much evil could be poured into one skin. Enrico was responsible for hundreds of murders, and every one of the executions had its own grisly touch. He was glad when Zavala gave him the excuse to halt his reading.
“Got it!” Joe said. He rustled a couple of sheets of paper. “These are background and surveillance reports on the tortilla factory. He’s owned it a couple of years. The FBI went down to take a peek. Didn’t see anything suspicious. Sounds like they took the same tour we did, except for my little side trip. Report says it seems like a legitimate operation.”
“Nothing about the underwater facility?”
Zavala frowned. “Nope. Not a word.”
“I’m not surprised. The installation could have been floated in at night.”
“Plausible. How about your file? Did you learn anything?”
“Yeah, that he’s one nasty SOB. We still have to talk to him.”
“Gomez says it’s impossible. Got any ideas?”
“I might have.” He handed Zavala a piece of paper from his file. “This is a list of his hobbies. Wine, women, racehorses, gambling, the usual things. Something caught my eye.”
Zavala saw it right away. “He collects antique firearms. Sounds like someone else I know.”
Austin smiled. He was a serious collector of dueling pistols. The walls of the old Potomac boathouse where he made his home were covered with the exquisitely fashioned instruments of death. He kept the most valuable pieces in a vault and had one of the finest collections in the country.
“You remember the new pieces I bought for my collection the day before our race? They’re a fine pair, but they duplicate a brace I have. I was planning to use them in trade with another collector.”
Chapter 14
The scene was so awe inspiring in its terrible beauty that Trout almost forgot the predicament he and Gamay were in. Paul sat on a rocky ledge about twenty feet above the lake, long legs dangling down, swiveling his head back and forth to take in the whole panoramic sweep. He had to strain his neck to see the tops of the falls. Multiple rainbows arced over the five cascades as the sun caught the droplets of water in the twisting vapor cloud that rose for hundreds of feet. The roar was like that of a hundred distant loco motives at full steam. Trout wasn’t a religious man, but if anything was the Hand of God, he was looking at it.
A groan ended his reverie. “What are you doing?” Gamay said with a yawn. She was lying nearby in the shade of a tree.
“Thinking what a great place this would be to build a hotel.”
“Ugh,” Gamay said with a scowl. She sat up and wiped the sweat from her face. “Make sure you have air conditioning.”
It had rained briefly an hour before, and the sun returned with a vengeance. Their perch was well shaded by trees and bushes, and they slept for a time, but there was no way to escape the suffocating humidity. Paul was the first to awake.
“I’ll get you some water,” Paul said. He fashioned a palm leaf into a cup, climbed down to the lake, and scooped up water in the makeshift container. He spilled half the contents bringing it to Gamay, who was trying to pick blades of grass from her ratty looking hair. She guzzled the water, her eyes closed in bliss, then passed what was left to Paul.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “That was refreshing. I hope you won’t mind if I take a dip in our water supply.” She climbed down to the lake, plunged in, and swam out several strokes.
Paul was thinking of joining Gamay after he had quenched his thirst, when a movement near the river outlet caught his eye. He called out a warning, but Gamay couldn’t hear him because of the rumble of the falls. He climbed down, half falling, to the water’s edge and dove in. He swam out to Gamay, who was peacefully floating on her back, and grabbed her by her T-shirt.
Gamay was startled at first, then she laughed. “Hey, this is no time to get playful.”
“Hush,” he said. “Get back to shore. Hurry.”
The urgency in his voice was unmistakable. Without a further word Gamay swam quickly to shore with Paul right behind her. She started to climb onto the ledge. Paul pulled her down into a bush. He held his finger to his lips and pointed toward the lake.
Gamay squinted through the leaves and tensed as the sun glinted off wet paddles and she saw flashes of blue and white. Chulo. Paul had seen the four canoes emerge from the river into the lake. They would have run right into Gamay. The canoes were moving in single file. Each canoe held three Indians. Two were paddling, and the other was riding shotgun, his bow resting across his lap. They seemed intent on where they were going and unaware that they were being watched.
The Indians passed within a few yards of the hiding place, so close the beads of sweat on their rippling muscles were clearly visible. They moved silently across the lake until foggy tendrils enveloped them. An instant later they disappeared into the vapor cloud.
“That was some vanishing act,” Paul said, puffing his cheeks out.
“Now we know why they’re called the People of the Mist,” Gamay said.
Using his six-foot-eight height to good advantage, Paul stood cautiously and made sure there were no stragglers. “All clear,” he said. “We’d better think of getting out of here. I still have the Swiss Army knife. Maybe we could fashion a raft with logs and vines and float our way out.”
Gamay was staring toward the mists. “I have a better idea.” She paused. “It may be a little risky.”
‘A little risky?” Paul chuckled. “Don’t forget I’m well acquainted with the way your mind works. You’re about to suggest that we follow those guys and steal a canoe.”
“Why not? Look, this is their home turf, so they won’t expect it. With all due respect for your talents with a Swiss Army knife, I can’t see us fashioning a boat that will carry the two of us God knows how many miles downriver without sinking or running into more of those characters. It was tough enough traveling in an airboat. They can’t paddle those canoes all day. They must pull them up somewhere on shore. We just find them, wait until dark, and slip one away. They’ll never even miss it, I bet.”
Amusement crept into Paul’s large hazel eyes. “Do I detect a hint of scientific curiosity in your proposal?”
“Okay, I admit there’s more here than simply a matter of survival. Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered about this high-tech tribe and the talk of a white goddess.”
“I was wondering if they have any food,” Paul said, patting his stomach. He chewed thoughtfully on a blade of grass “Seriously, we’re in something of a pickle and really don’t have many choices. We don’t know where we are and aren’t sure how to get out of here. We have no supplies. As you pointed out, this is their territory. I suggest that we reconnoiter. We’re strangers in a strange land. We go slow, and if the situation looks too dangerous, we get out in a hurry. ”
“Agreed,” Gamay said. “Now, as for food, I’m fresh out of granola bars. I’ve been watching the birds eating the berries on that bush. I don’t see any dead birds, so they’re probably not poison.”
“Berries it is,” Paul said. “They can’t be that bad.”
Trout was wrong. The berries were so bitter it was impossible to eat even one without puckering up. With empty stomachs, the Trouts struck off along the shore of the lake. At one point where the mud looked like quicksand, they climbed to higher ground and stumbled onto a footpath. The trail was overgrown and looked as if it hadn’t seen any recent use. Still, they proceeded cautiously, ready to dive into the bushes if they encountered anyone.
They trekked along the path for about a mile until they came to a place where mists from the lake rolled into the forest like vapor from a fog machine. The leafy growth was as wet as if it had been pelted by a rain shower, and the roar of the falls was like the beating of a thousand kettledrums. They were aware that the same noise that muffled their movement could drown out the approach of a marching army. ‘The air became chilly and so damp that
