Hell's Gate(9)
The scientist approached the map again—closer this time. Slowly, he drew a finger across the plateau, the valley, and a knot of river tributaries so hopelessly tangled that he knew the mapmaker had to be guessing. Had to be.
“Pat, not even the Brazilians know much about this place. Except that it defines remote. A quarter of a million square miles of wilderness—and shit for roads, where you can find ’em. We could go in with a hundred men, a thousand, and still not run across anybody. The bad guys could be anywhere. And those Rangers you sent in . . .” He trailed off into thought, trying to dredge up everything he knew about the region. It wasn’t much. In fact, no one really knew anything. It was a blank spot on South American maps, as inaccessible as any place on the planet.
Hendry pressed on: “I don’t know if our men ran into that I-400 crew, but it’s only fair to warn you, the alternative’s not pretty, either. One of the tribes living in Hell’s Gate may be a real problem: the Xavante,” which he pronounced “zhah-vahn-thee.”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“Then you know these babies are no good from way down deep. In fact the last recorded meeting with the tribe happened around the time the Conquistadors were working over the Inca for their gold. Story has it that the Xavante chieftain promised to satisfy, once and for all, the newly installed governor’s appetite for the shiny stuff. The Portuguese thought they’d finally gotten a peace offering, you know, out of sheer desperation. Well, at the feast of the treaty signing, the Xavante grabbed the governor and bound him. Then they propped his mouth open and poured molten gold down his throat. Just to make sure everybody got the message, they slaughtered every white man for a hundred miles around.”
MacCready grimaced. “Lousy party.”
“You can say that again. Since then, just about the only thing they know about these Xavante is what their arrows look like. Kids swim out and recover ’em from the backs of guys who come floating down that river.”
“Sounds like effective advertising. The mist, the river, friendly Indians.”
“Right: ‘Stay the f*ck out!’”
“And just the kind of place you’d want to bring a three-hundred-foot submarine into, if . . .” MacCready’s voice trailed off, unable to fill in the blank.
Hendry slammed the empty glass down on the desk. “Exactly, Mac. And that’s why I need you to find out what those Axis bastards are up to. And while you’re at it, find out what happened to our men.”
The major drew in a mouthful of cigar smoke, held it, then blew it past MacCready’s face. The blast of smoke impacted on the map, downriver; and Hendry pointed to a small dot marked “Chapada dos Guimar?es.” “Jesuits built this town in the late 1700s. Now it’s mostly farmers: half-breed Caboclos. But there’s a fine assortment of scumbags there, too—gold miners and the like—so watch it. We’re dropping you just outside of Chapada. You’ll hook up with an old friend of yours: Robert Thorne.”
MacCready, who’d been wondering what the gold looked like once it hardened inside that Portuguese governor, did a double take. “Wh—what?”
“You heard me, Mac.”
“But Bob Thorne disappeared five years ago in—”
“—the Amazon. Yeah, yeah—we know all about his disappearance.”
“They found his campsite in ruins. There was blood. They said he’d been—” MacCready paused for a moment at the memory. Things had already started unraveling back home, and the loss of a close friend made it even worse. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?”
“Brooklyn boy, right? Leaf-head.”
“Botanist,” MacCready corrected. “But that can’t be.” Then his voice dropped, almost inaudible. “Everyone said that Bob was—”
“They’re right. He is dead. And he’s working for us now.”
Hendry saw MacCready’s head come up. “There you are,” he thought, aloud. “Oh, and before I forget, Thorne says to bring him a dozen packages of cigarette papers. So, I figure not only is he dead, he’s growin’ his own tobacco. Now if I was a hotshot scientist like you—that’d be my theory.”
MacCready shook his head, then smiled broadly. It was Bob Thorne. “Jesus, Pat . . . I spoke at his memorial service.”
“Well, now you can tell him all about it. And I betcha folks’ll be streaming out of the bush for miles around, just to be on hand for that historic reunion.”
“Bob Thorne,” he said to himself, drifting.
“Captain MacCready, are you quite finished?” Hendry said, not bothering to mask his growing annoyance.
“Yes, sir.”
“When you get to Chapada, pick up any new information you can from your dead friend. He’s chummy with the natives—big-time. And if anyone is going to notice signs of an incursion by Axis *s, it’ll be the locals. Get that information, then hike into Hell’s Gate and figure this out. You’ll be going wheels-up as soon as you pull your gear together. Corporal Juliano will assist you.”
MacCready said nothing, but the major knew that wouldn’t last.
“You got something to add?” Hendry asked.
“Yeah. Well, besides the fact that this whole thing sucks, that would be a hypothesis you have about Thorne and the tobacco. Not a theory. Everybody gets those two terms mixed—”