He looked toward the shuttered blinds. “Conch, my bloody boat is right out—”
“On your way up to my office, I mean. No one told me.”
“Ah. Sorry about that. I guess I gave them the slip.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Hmm.”
He stepped inside the door, fingering the scrambled eggs on the white Royal Navy commander’s hat in his hand. She was relieved to see he was a bit nervous, too. She moved to him, trying to avoid those eyes, looking at his epaulets, his buttons, his hands, anything. Without any conscious effort she was taking his hand and remembering how warm his skin felt next to hers in bed.
He said, “I didn’t give you much advance warning, did I? Sorry, my dear girl. I should have rung you, shouldn’t I? I just thought I’d pop up here and surprise you. You know, say hello before the conference got started properly. Under way. I do apologize for inviting myself to your conference, by the way. But you should know it was hardly my idea.”
“Really? That’s a comfort. God knows I’d hate to think you actually wanted to be here. So. How are you, Alex? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Last time I heard from you, you were headed off into the jungle.”
“I did write. Many times.”
“You did.”
“You never responded.”
“I’ve been busy. There’s a war on. Any number of them in fact.”
“Look. It has been too long a while, Conch. I know that. That’s why I jumped at the chance to come to Key West.” If Hawke was aware of his inconsistency, he did his best to conceal it.
“Well—” she began, and then paused, for she thought she’d heard someone tapping lightly at the door.
“Oh, terribly sorry!” a young woman’s voice said. The door hadn’t fully closed and now it was opened about six inches. Yes, there was someone there, pushing the door open.
She turned away from him to see who it was. It was a tall and very beautiful young blonde with silky tresses falling softly to her shoulders. She carried a thin maroon leather satchel tucked tightly beneath one arm. Visible on the briefcase were the tiny letters AH embossed in gold. Her carefully tailored navy blue suit could not disguise a lush, spectacular figure. Somehow she’d made it through the rain with her makeup and wavy coif perfectly intact.
“Awfully sorry,” the young woman said, stepping inside, deftly managing to both look at Hawke but speak to her. “Alex, you forgot this. I thought you might need it in the meeting. I’ve included the newly edited section on Brazilian economy which went missing earlier.”
“How kind of you,” Hawke said, quickly taking the satchel. “Won’t you say hello to our hostess, the secretary of state?”
Conch extended her hand to the girl and said, “Consuelo de los Reyes. So nice to meet you. And you are?”
“Guinness, Gwendolyn Guinness,” the pretty girl said, smiling effusively but offering nothing more by way of information than to add that she was called Pippa.
Conch smiled back at her, but both smiles soon faded in the growing silence.
“Pippa,” Conch said.
“She’s my aide,” Hawke finally said, the pathetic word sounding as if it had been strangled up from the depths of his damnable soul.
No one seemed to have any idea what to say next.
Then Conch broke the spell.
“You call him Alex?” Conch said.
37
MADRE DE DIOS, BRAZIL
T he robot tank tore through the jungle like a wounded animal. It was all Harry could do just to hold on. Low-hanging creeper vines whipped at his face and shoulders. He was on the vehicle’s right rear, one hand on the grab-rail, one leg wrapped around one of the tank’s aft-facing machine guns. Caparina was up front on the left. She was bouncing around, looking back at him, plainly terrified. Hassan was holding on to the right front grab-rail with both hands. Every time the speeding tank hit a deep rut, or strayed from the narrow jungle pathway, the three of them were sure they’d be flung off.
The pint-sized Troll was doing about thirty miles an hour. Because of overhanging vegetation on either side, the passengers felt like they were doing a hundred or more. Dangling creepers constantly lashed their uplifted faces. You had to constantly duck and bob to keep a vine from lassoing you around the neck.
Now they splashed through a shallow brown river and disturbed a number of sleeping caimans. The South American alligators were not happy at the noisy intrusion and everyone aboard struggled to keep their flailing feet away from the snapping jaws.
Harry was glad of their speed and the fact that submersion in the river had not stalled the engine. The amphibious vehicle slowed, but kept moving forward, throwing off a bow wave of white water on either side. Soon enough they were dry and plunging back into the deep green stuff.
The lens remained pointed straight ahead. The human controller, wherever he was located, only wanted to keep the thing on the path. Harry sensed the robot was returning to home base. Speed increased and you got the feeling of riding a bucking bronco with a bad case of stable fever.
A half-hour later, it was tough on the bones. Harry was beginning to think the tank didn’t know where the hell it was going. They were still deep in the jungle but the path was angling upward and had been doing so for some time now. He figured they must have climbed about a thousand feet in the last twenty minutes or so. The air was slightly cooler and very damp at this elevation.
Suddenly, the damn thing slowed to a crawl. The trail had become muddy and deeply rutted.
They were going so slowly Harry was able to get up onto his knees and take a look at the road ahead.
“Big ravine up ahead,” Saladin Hassan called back. “More of a deep gorge.”
“I see that,” Harry yelled. “Are we going to stop, or get off, or what?”
“I don’t think I see any bridge!” Caparina cried. The chasm was looming and she looked like she might jump off. “Do we stay on, Harry?”
It was clearly poop or get off the pot time, Harry saw. The ravine was wide and deep. Hundreds of yards across. Mist was rising out of it so there was probably a river at the bottom. Yeah, he could hear it thundering down there. Rapids.
“Bridge directly ahead!” Saladin shouted. “I’m not sure it will take our weight!”
Harry could see it now. There was a suspension bridge stretching across the chasm. The bridge reached five hundred yards across the ravine and was ten feet wide. A metal grating ran right up the middle of the thing. On the far side, a sheer cliff descended a thousand feet to the river. The bridge angled slightly upward. There was some kind of structure over there on the opposite cliff, barely visible at the edge of the forest. For a second, Harry dared to hope that they had discovered an entry point into Top’s military compound.
“Harry? Jump, or not? Make the call!”
Tough call to make. The cabled bridge looked wide enough to accommodate their stubby vehicle, but could it hold the weight of the one-ton “Troll” plus three pasajeros? That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, and they were rapidly coming up on a drop-dead decision. Think, Harry.
Whoever was driving this thing obviously knew where he was going. If he was taking the bridge route home now, he’d clearly done it before. It had to hold.
Harry said, “We’ve got a better chance on this damn thing than we do on foot. We stay on.”
Both of them looked at him for a second and then turned their attention back to the looming bridge. They were twenty yards away. Harry used the moment to ready his weapon, as did Saladin and Caparina. You could feel the nervous tension aboard. Good nervous, the kind that gave you an edge.
They rolled into a narrow clearing. Clouds of mist were rising from the river gorge, and Harry watched a flock
