honeymoon: Lauren smiling in the glow of a Hawaiian sunset. She had a flower in her hair and looked tanned and well. He wondered if he would ever see her smile again. The rumble of the boat's powerful diesel engines interrupted his thoughts. He got up and looked out of the porthole. As the brown river water churned below him, the faded, raffish charm of Yurimaguas receded into the distance and the river snaked into the heart of the largest jungle on earth.
As Ross gazed down the winding waterway, he felt his quest had truly begun. Bazin watched the Discovery leave Yurimaguas, then checked his handheld computer screen, which showed a map of north-east Peru. When he activated the GPS transmitter he'd attached to the boat's hull, a beeping dot appeared on the screen, moving out of Yurimaguas. He adjusted his Panama, then turned to the others in the dinghy.
'I like the girl with the red hair,' said the one who had been oiling his gun in the Land Cruiser.
Bazin glared at him. 'Forget her. You know what you have to do. I can't allow any of you to make a mistake. Understand?'
Raul laughed. 'You worry too much.'
Bazin suspected he wasn't worrying enough. He gunned the powerful outboard and the boat sped off in the wake of the Discovery.
31
A bullet hitting the human head makes a particular sound. Once heard, it is never forgotten. The next morning, after a fitful sleep, Ross heard it for the first time – more than once.
The incident happened some hours after the Discovery had passed Lagunas, where the deserted Rio Maranon was half a mile wide. He was reading Falcon's notebook, mentally ticking off the landmarks they'd passed and counting the ones that remained, when he heard Juarez call to Hackett. Ross followed Juarez's pointing finger and saw a dinghy floating near the riverbank with three men on board. Two were waving while the third held up a broken paddle and gestured to the outboard.
'We help them?' said Juarez.
'Of course,' said Hackett. 'If we can't fix their outboard, we'll tow them upriver to the nearest town.'
The Discovery pulled up alongside the dinghy and one of the passengers, a larger man wearing a white Panama hat, held up a bottle in his left hand. 'Usted ha conseguido agua potable? Have you any water?'
Hackett pushed the ladder over the side while Juarez threw them a line to secure their dinghy to the Discovery. Despite the heat, the men wore coats when they climbed aboard. Ross assumed they contained their valuables but soon realized he had been wrong.
Very wrong.
The man with the Panama pulled a pistol from his jacket with his left hand and pointed its oily black muzzle at Hackett. The other two were levelling larger semi-automatics at the passengers on deck. Panama counted each of them, as though he knew how many should be on board. 'I want you to raise your hands and stand in a line.' He turned to Ross and Sister Chantal. 'Which of you has the book?'
'What book?' said Sister Chantal.
Panama shook his head wearily. 'The notebook with the directions.'
How did he know about Falcon's book? Ross glanced at Hackett and saw, from the shock on his face, that he knew nothing of this. One of the men, with acne-scarred skin and small beady eyes, touched Zeb's red hair. 'I like her,' he said.
'I told you, forget the girl. We want the notebook,' said Panama.
'Don't give them anything,' said Zeb. 'Pizza Face doesn't scare me.'
'Shut up, Zeb,' said Ross.
Hackett stepped closer to her. 'Steady on. Let's keep calm.'
Ross turned to Sister Chantal. 'Give it to him,' he said. He was on this quest to save Lauren's life, not to risk anyone else's.
Sister Chantal gazed calmly at the man in the Panama. 'No.'
'Give him the book,' Ross said again.
'No.'
Pizza Face laughed and reached for Zeb's left breast. Zeb recoiled and Hackett shoved him away. 'Take your hands off her,' he said.
Pizza Face twisted round and struck Hackett across the head with his gun, sending the Englishman sprawling to the floor, blood pouring from his temple, glasses clattering across the deck. As Zeb knelt to help him, Pizza Face took aim at him. 'I kill him,' he spat.
'Wait,' said the third man, wiping his forehead while keeping his gun trained on Juarez.
'Give him the goddamned book,' Ross shouted at Sister Chantal.
'They'll kill us anyway,' she said, with glacial calm. 'I will not make it easy for them.'
'Killing you is easy,' said Panama, raising his left hand and pointing his weapon at her forehead. 'Let me show you.'
*
As soon as he heard the Discovery's engines, the man cutting his way through the thick jungle sheathed his machete and rushed to the riverbank. He took cover when he saw the men from the dinghy climb on board the boat and pull out their weapons. He watched for a moment, considering his options, then raised his rifle, nestled the butt in his shoulder and took aim.
He waited for as long as he could, reluctant to intervene, until the man in the Panama levelled his pistol at the old lady's forehead.
He knew then that he had to act.
He slowed his breathing, checked his aim and squeezed the trigger. As Ross watched Panama's finger whiten on the trigger, he knew the man would shoot Sister Chantal, and some futile impulse made him lunge forward to stop him.
His face was a kiss away from Panama's when the shot rang out, sending brilliantly coloured parrots flying from the trees. When the bullet struck its target it sounded like nothing Ross had heard before. Movies sometimes used the metaphor of a bullet exploding a watermelon, but this sounded crisper, sharper: the shattering of brittle bone as the bullet entered and left the skull, counterpointing the explosive impact on soft tissue and brain. Despite the hot, humid air, the expelled blood and flesh felt warm on his face.
In his horror he turned to Sister Chantal and couldn't understand why she was still standing. Why she was unharmed. Then he realized that Panama had been shot. The force had thrown him to the deck, where he lay dead, his white hat and head merged into a bloody pulp that pooled, red and sticky, on the polished wood.
A second shot rang out and Pizza Face fell backwards into the river, a large hole in his forehead, surprise on his face. A third shot collapsed the last man, like a marionette with cut strings. He toppled overboard.
In the eerie silence that followed, Ross and the others stared at each other. Then Ross saw a figure on the nearby riverbank, waving a rifle. 'Hola,' the man shouted. 'You okay?'
Ross looked at Hackett, who nodded, while Zeb picked up his glasses, then dabbed at his wound. Sister Chantal smiled serenely at their saviour. 'God certainly moves in mysterious ways,' she said.
'Can I come aboard?' the man asked.
Juarez rushed to the wheelhouse and retrieved a rifle and a black pistol.
'Bit late for those now,' said Hackett.
Juarez put away the rifle but kept the pistol close to hand as he steered the Discovery to the bank. The man boarded, carrying his rifle over his shoulder and a large rucksack. He was tall and athletic with a handsome, world-weary face and sad eyes, his olive skin burnished by the sun. He didn't seem fazed to have dispatched three men. Waving away their thanks, he approached Hackett as if he was an old friend. 'Senor Nigel Hackett.'
When Hackett rose to his feet he resembled a provincial bank manager beside the swashbuckling stranger. 'Have we met?'
The man raised an eyebrow. 'Osvaldo Mendoza. I also have a boat that ferries tourists down the river. We met once in Lagunas.'
