While Babin knew it was only a matter of time before Tucume agreed with him about what must be done, time was an extremely limited quantity. From what he could determine by looking at the map, within four or five hours they would reach a juncture in the highway where they would have to either proceed northward toward Ecuador or turn right toward the region of Tucume’s military district and the barn where the warhead had been kept. Proceeding eastward toward the barn was suicidal, and in no way would Babin do so. In the worst case, he would insist that the general help him find a driver to take him to Ecuador, and he had the general’s small pistol to use if absolutely necessary.
It would be considerably more convenient to convince Tucume that he should join in Babin’s own plan to take revenge on the U.S. To do this, Babin had to tell him that he had the warhead. But he needed the right moment.
Babin watched the general as they drove, staring surreptitiously at his drooping cheeks and heavy frown. Tucume looked different, not just because of his dyed hair and clothes, but also because something inside him had dramatically changed. He had lost the thing that had driven him. More than that, he had seen that his own instincts to trust people close to him had led to his downfall. In a sense, he had betrayed himself. If he couldn’t trust his judgment, he couldn’t trust anything. He had lost his dream, and he had lost his own sense of who he was.
Babin knew the feeling intimately. He had not begun to climb from the deep hole the crash had ejected him into until his plan for revenge took shape.
The general had cared for Babin then, arranging his hiding place and home, bringing Rosalina to watch him. It was partly in the general’s interests, surely; he did not know much about the warhead, and Babin wasn’t even sure at what point the general realized it was a nuke. But killing Babin would have been easy to do at any point; instead, Tucume’s instincts led him to a role more like that of a father or uncle.
Or Inca, to hear Tucume describe his ancestors.
Now their roles were reversed. Though his body was racked with pain, Babin was the strong one. Tucume was now a shell, crippled within.
They stopped around five to get gas in a village that looked like something that came out of the eighteenth century. The station was modem enough, but there were two burros tied to a pole near the building, and just beyond the gas pumps sat a row of huts that from a distance seemed to be made of straw and dried mud.
“Are you hungry?” Tucume asked.
“No, but I could use something to drink,” said Babin.
“There will be food and drink over there,” Tucume said, gesturing across the street. To Babin, the building looked the same as the other hovels, but it proved to be a restaurant, and they were soon eating a kind of casserole of potatoes mixed with tiny bits of chicken. The dining room was open to the kitchen; a TV played in a comer above the stove. Babin winced as the general’s face was flashed on the screen.
Tucume ignored the program, devouring his food.
“They’ll be looking for you in your military district,” said Babin, his voice almost a whisper.
“Sshh,” said Tucume.
He’d found a woven hat to wear, and it made him look like one of the locals. Still, it was not a complete disguise.
The picture changed — there was a shot of Inca ruins from the distance, then the house where Babin had stayed for more than two years.
“This is where the weapon was stored, intelligence agents believe,” said a voice off-camera.
“Rosalina,” said Tucume, but she didn’t appear and there was no mention of her as the program continued. The original footage that had been shot when the bomb was discovered followed, with the commentator describing some of the authentic combat with the rebels that had taken place in the region over the past several months. The scene then changed to a military base in the region, and Babin realized that he’d been watching a lead-in for what the newspeople thought was the main event: a live press conference with the head of the military and several experts who had examined the bomb. Immediately behind the podium were two American military people in freshly starched fatigues.
“The snake,” said Tucume as Major General Maduro stepped to the podium.
Words flashed on the bottom of the screen;
“We must leave,” Babin told Tucume.
Tucume stayed motionless as Maduro announced that experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency had discovered that there was no uranium or plutonium warhead in the weapon.
“The Yankees have the warhead,” whispered Tucume.
“No, they don’t,” said Babin. “Let’s pay and go, before someone recognizes you.”
102
After Jackson got on the airplane, Dean went to a new hotel a mile away, got a room, and went to sleep. He slept so soundly that the Art Room became worried about him and finally had someone from the embassy go over and check on him. The woman they sent knocked on the door for so long that someone from hotel security was sent to investigate; the detective was just getting off the elevator when Dean finally opened the door.
“Charles Dean?” asked the woman.
“Yeah?”
“The embassy sent me. Are you OK?”
Dean saw the detective eyeing them suspiciously. “Come in,” he told her, pushing the door closed so he could undo the chain. He kept his gun behind his back as she came in, not sure who she was.
“What’s up?” he said to her, letting the door close.
“Someone back home wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Who are you?”
“Lisa Tomari. I’m with the embassy.”
“Which means what?”
The woman glanced around the room, obviously trying to indicate to him that she was afraid it might be bugged.
“I got it already,” said Dean.
She was in her midtwenties, very pretty. Looking at her made him ache for Lia.
“I guess you should call home,” Tomari said. Her face blanched white; she’d finally realized he had a gun behind his hip.
“All right. Sit in the chair,” he told her.
He went and got the sat phone, using it rather than pulling on his shirt with the wiring for the com system. Sandy Chafetz answered immediately.
“You wanted me?” Dean asked.
“We hadn’t heard from you.”
“I was sleeping.”
“Can you talk now?”
“Somebody from the embassy is with me.”
“Tell you what — why don’t you go over to the embassy and we’ll update you there?” Chafetz said. “There’s a fresh ID and a credit card waiting for you. Don’t use the rental car; the Peruvian intelligence service has it staked out.”
“All right.”
Dean slapped off the phone.
“Can you give me a ride to the embassy?” Dean asked Tomari.
She nodded, her eyes still fixed on the pistol.
“Just a precaution,” he told her, putting it in his belt. “Let me take a shower first. All right?”
Dean was done in under five minutes. Tomari had flipped on the TV and was watching a news report. Dean
