'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- cum-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 passengers 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 God!'
'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 constituted both the arrival and departure terminals. 'Look at that sign there. Romono International Airport. What more reassuring 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 anchored 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, glass 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 glass 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 passengers had their heads craned, peering through what few windows there were: they were seeing for the first time the true Amazonian rain-forest.
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 God!' It was Smith. 'Good God! 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: 'God's sake, man,
