“What is it?” Stokely whispered as they hurried down the hallway and into the stairwell. “What’s with the book?”
“It’s so simple!” Congreve said under his breath. “I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it myself.”
“What?” Stokely said as they reached the bottom of the steps and walked quickly past Reception.
“The Portuguese edition of the thriller. The one sold here in Brazil. The second half of the coded letter is in Portuguese.”
“Yeah. Tell me again why you can’t believe you didn’t think of that before?”
“Because it was a possibility, my dear Stokely.”
Stoke was going to say that possibilities were endless, but decided not to get into that philosophical argument. He said, “So, we’ve got it now? What you and Alex needed to go after the bad guys?”
“Yes, we’ve got it all right. I pray that we do. And we’ve got to get that poor woman out of here. Did you see her tongue? Her skin? The same river-borne bacterial infection they used to kill her husband. We need to get your Mr. Brock on this issue immediately. Get her out of there.”
They climbed inside the car and Stokely turned the ignition key.
“Don’t worry,” Stokely said, “Brock and I will take care of it in the morning.”
“The Latin way,” Ambrose said, feverishly turning the pages of the new book. “I certainly hope you’re right.”
As they reversed out of the courtyard, tires squealing, the matronly figure of the Reception nurse appeared at the doorway. She raised her hand and appeared to be calling to them but they ignored her. A moment later, they’d cleared the sentry booth without a problem and were back on the river road, speeding through the pink dawn to the Jungle Palace.
Unseen by the two men, another car had pulled out of the jungle in their wake and was following at a discreet distance, its headlamps extinguished. It was an armored vehicle belonging to the Military Police, a car bristling with gun barrels called a Cavelrao by the terrified citizens living in abject poverty in the worst of the slums, the favelas of Manaus.
62
THE RIO NEGRO
S tiletto knifed through the mist and ghosted toward the dock. The only lights visible on the vessel were a reddish glow from inside the wheelhouse and the red and green LED running lights inset forward on the sharp prow, small haloes of mist encircling each one. As she steamed up river, coming around the wide river bend out of the dark, she looked more like a Jules Verne fantasy submarine than the twenty-first-century monster offshore powerboat she was.
Stokely said, “Damn thing looks like an assault knife with a rudder. Doesn’t it?”
The hotel’s dock master was standing on the dock beside Stokely watching Hawke’s boat slide through the water. The wiry little guy, whose name was Candido, was nodding his head in serious agreement. He let out a long, low wolf-whistle.
“Scary looking thing, Senor Jones,” he said in pretty good English. “I’m telling you the truth, man. Those fuckin Indians they got up the river? Most of ’em never seen a white man. They see this boat, they’re already half toasted.”
Candido had been helping Stokely and Harry load miscellaneous supplies, extra ammo, and fresh vegetables on the dock for the last couple of hours or so. He was Stoke’s new best friend. How that happened, Mr. Jones had come out to the dock and handed him a thick envelope earlier in the day. Since then, Candido had been filling his guest in on recent activities of Las Medianoches in this neck of the jungle. If Hollywood was doing these bad boys it would be al-Qaeda meets the Gangbangers meets the Hell’s Angels. As far as Stoke could tell, they were a law unto themselves around here. And there was nobody, including the Military Police, that they did not own.
Nobody.
“Carpet tacks?” Stoke said, eyeing the big canvas sacks of the things. “I still don’t know why we need carpet tacks.”
“You will understand, Mr. Jones, once you’re on the river. That, I promise you,” Candido said, this wise grin on his face.
Stoke shrugged and stared at the oncoming craft, trying to imagine such a beautiful thing in the heat of battle. He could just make out Hawke. He was the man in the black turtleneck sweater, standing on the starboard bow, talking quietly to the crewmen. Crew had on their jungle camo, Stokely noticed, olive drab tiger stripes. The deck hands were preparing to throw mooring lines to a couple of hotel dockhands waiting for the big vessel’s arrival.
It was getting late. Without traffic, the river looked wide, deep, and black. Tendrils of night fog lay scattered on the mirrored surface of the Rio Negro like strings of thin gray wool. The dark jungle crowding the river banks on either side was dead quiet. Stoke shivered just a bit when a howler monkey screamed, shattering the peaceful silence.
Midnight. Hawke was right on time.
Stiletto, her engines ahead dead slow, eased alongside the old wooden picr and lines were heaved ashore. The still air was now filled with the low rumble of her engines and the sounds of her exhaust burbling at the stern. No one on deck said a word now, even Hawke, who had waved briefly when he recognized Stoke among the men lining the hotel dock.
Guns were out onboard Hawke’s boat. Every man not handling lines cradled a semi-automatic weapon. Stoke saw some familiar faces. A lot of these men were old friends of his from the Thunder and Lightning Spec Ops group based in Martinique. He scanned the faces, looking for his little pal Froggy, the Foreign Legionnaire. Didn’t see him yet.
During Stiletto’s last hours in Key West and rapid transit south, certain modifications had been made. Mods included the addition of four sleek carbon fiber canoes mounted at the stern for when and if they ran out of navigable water. Deck guns had been mounted, fore and aft in rotating turrets armored with bubbles of clear, two- inch thick bulletproof Lexan. In addition, twin .50 caliber machine guns had been mounted atop the wheelhouse with an access from a ladder inside. There was an armored surround on the mounts so gunners would have reasonably good protection from shore fire.
Also on the stern, two mysterious black boxes. Something Hawke had requested from unnamed sources in Washington after his debriefing with Harry Brock. Stoke thought they looked like oversized dishwashers but they probably weren’t.
Stoke knew the two things Hawke feared most on the river were mines and rocket-propelled grenades. RPGs, launched from the banks, could take out the deck guns despite the armor. There was only one antidote to RPGs and that was speed. For speed, though, you needed a whole lot of water. So what was in the boxes?
“Welcome to the jungle, Commander,” Stoke said, extending a hand as Hawke stepped easily across the two feet of open water that remained between boat and dock.
“Good to be back,” Hawke said, looking back at Stiletto in the steamy moonlight. “Under more advantageous circumstances.”
“Trip didn’t take long.”
“Flat seas and light wind all the way, except for the rough bits off eastern Cuba. Upriver, we were mostly flat out all the way from the coast. Brownie, her new skipper, says we set a Key West-Manaus record. This thing is seriously fast, Stoke. Despite all the composite armor and weapons.”
“I think we’re going to need every bit of it,” Stoke said, casting his eyes downriver.
“I’m afraid we will indeed. Everybody ready here? I want to shove off immediately after the tanks are topped off.”
“I got my stuff right here. The Blue Goose is gone. She took off two hours ago. The pilot, Mick, and Harry Brock, plus a couple of local people Harry’s been working with down here.”
“Any good?”
“Yeah. I think so. Ones who helped him locate this Papa Top character. And found that Zimmermann lady for
