Текст книги "Trojan Odyssey"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

26

During those initial moments of shock, everyone stood there stunned with disbelief. They stared at Giordino stupidly, not understanding what he'd said. It took another five seconds for the implication to sink in.

Then Dodge blurted, "What are you saying?"

"Renee is dead," Giordino repeated simply. "Rita murdered her."

Pure rage flooded Pitt. "Where is she?" he demanded.

"Rita?" Giordino's face had the look of someone who had woken up from a nightmare. "She's gone."

"Impossible. How could she leave the boat without being seen?"

"She's not to be found," Giordino said.

"May I see the body?" Ortega asked, with official dispassion.

Pitt was already dropping down the ladder, almost falling on Giordino, who leaped off to one side. "This way, Inspector. The women were in my cabin below."

Inwardly, Pitt felt a flood of guilt at not recognizing Rita as a woman who was capable of murder. He cursed himself for not accompanying Renee, for sending her alone to release her killer.

He muttered, "Oh God, no!" under his breath at the sight of Renee, stripped nude, lying on the bed with her legs together, arms outstretched in the position of a cross. The image of the Odyssey logo, the Celtic White Horse of Uffington, had been carved into her stomach.

Rita had acted compliant and docile when Renee removed the duct tape from around her arms. But when Renee, innocently unaware that her life was in jeopardy with five men less than ten feet away, knelt to remove the duct tape from Rita's legs and ankles, the witch clenched her hands and brought them down in a vicious chop to the nape of the neck. Renee dropped without uttering a sound.

Rita quickly removed Renee's clothes, laid her out on the bed and pressed a pillow over her face. There was no struggle. Already unconscious, Renee was never aware of being smothered to death. Then Rita took a pair of hair scissors from Pitt's shaving kit in the bathroom and carved the image of the Celtic horse on Renee's stomach. From start to finish, the hideous act took less than four minutes.

Moving quickly toward the forward section of the boat, Rita came up through the bow hatch, shielded by the pilothouse. Out of sight of the men conversing on the stern deck, she climbed over the side and slipped into the water without making a splash. Then she swam underwater to the opposite side of the dock, reached the shore and crawled through the thick vegetation that covered the bank. In the exact moment Giordino discovered Renee's body, Rita disappeared into the jungle.

"The woman cannot get far," said Ortega. "There are no roads leading in and out of Rio Colorado. She cannot flee into the jungle and live. My men will apprehend her before she can obtain air transportation or a boat."

"All she has is the bikini she's wearing," Pitt informed him.

"She took no clothes?"

"Renee's closet is still closed and her clothes are scattered on the deck," said Gunn, pointing to where Rita had thrown them.

"Does she have money?" Ortega asked.

Pitt shook his head. "Not unless Renee had some on her person, which I doubt."

"Without money or a passport, she has no place to run except the jungle."

"Hardly a place a woman could survive in only a bikini," said McGee, who stood in the doorway.

"Please secure the cabin," instructed Ortega. "And do not touch anything."

"Can't we at least dress her?" Pitt requested.

"Not until my forensic staff arrives and conducts a formal examination."

"When can we remove her for a flight to the States?"

"Two days," Ortega replied politely. "In the meantime, please remain here and enjoy Mr. McGee's hospitality until you can all be questioned and reports filled out." He paused to look down at Renee indifferently. "She is from your country?"

Dodge could not bear to look at Renee and turned away. "She lives in Richmond, Virginia," he whispered in a voice that choked.

Pitt looked at Gunn. "We'd better inform the admiral."

"He won't take this sitting down. If I know him, he'll demand Congress declare war and send in the Marines."

For the first time, Ortega's eyes widened. "He would do what, senor?"

"A play on words," said Pitt, ignoring the police inspector and drawing a blanket over Renee.

Rita hurriedly made her way through the jungle, staying close to the riverbank until she reached the Rio Colorado Sport Fishing Lodge. She followed the signs on the walkway to the swimming pool. Wearing her bikini, she fit right in with the other fishing widows lying around the pool while their husbands indulged themselves trolling for tarpon and snook in the river.

Ignoring the stares from the pool attendants and waiters, she snatched up a towel from an empty lounge chair and draped it over one shoulder. Then she stepped along the walkway between the lodge's rooms. Finding one where the maid was cleaning the room, she stepped inside.

"Tome su tiempo."She told the maid to take her time, acting as if it were her room.

"Me casi acaban,"the maid replied, as she carried the dirty towels to her cart on the walkway and closed the door.

Rita sat at the desk, picked up a phone and requested an open line. When a voice answered, she said, "This is Flidais."

"One moment."

Then came another voice. "The line is clear. Please go ahead."

"Flidais?"

"Yes, Epona, I'm here."

"Why are you calling on an open line from a hotel?"

"We have an unexpected problem."

"Yes?"

"A NUMA research boat looking for the source of the brown crud was not deceived by the hologram and destroyed our yacht."

"Understood," said the woman called Epona, without the slightest trace of emotion. "Where are you?"

"After our yacht sank, I was captured by the NUMA people, who held me prisoner. I escaped and am now sitting in a room at the Rio Colorado Lodge. It's only matter of minutes before the local police trail me here."

"Our crew?"

"Some were killed. The rest escaped in the helicopter and abandoned me."

"They will be dealt with." The voice paused. "Did they interrogate you?"

"They tried, but I gave them a phony story and told them my name was Rita Anderson."

"Keep the line open and wait."

Flidais, alias Rita, went to the closet and found a flowered-print summer dress that was a size ten to her size eight. Close enough, she thought. Better large than too small. She pulled it on over her bikini and found a scarf, which she tied around her head to hide her red hair. It didn't bother her in the least that she was stealing another woman's clothes and running up a large phone bill, certainly not after having killed Renee. Next she pulled on open sandals that were a close fit. A pair of sunglasses were sitting on a bed stand, so she slipped them on.

She smiled to herself as she searched the drawers of the dresser and found the room occupant's purse. Why women never used any creativity in hiding their valuables was a mystery to Flidais. It was well known among hotel thieves that women invariably hid their purses, including their wallets, under their clothes in a drawer. She found eight hundred dollars American and a few Costa Rican colones. With an exchange rate of 369,000 colones to the dollar, most monetary transactions in Costa Rica were handled in foreign currency.

Barbara Hacken was the name below the picture of the face on the driver's license and the photo inside the passport. Except for a different hair color and a few years' difference in age, they might have passed for sisters. Flidais cracked the door to see if the room's occupant was coming up the walkway, when Epona came back on the line. "All is arranged, sister. I'm sending my private plane to pick you up at the airport. It will be waiting on the tarmac when you arrive. Do you have transportation?"

"The hotel should have a car to carry guests to and from the airport."

"You may have to show identification to get past airport security."

"All is established on that score," answered Flidais, slinging the purse strap over her shoulder. "I'll see you and our sisters at the ritual in three days."

Then she hung up and walked to the hotel lobby past two local uniformed policemen who were checking the grounds. Looking for a woman last seen in a bikini, they gave her a quick glance, thinking she was a guest of the lodge, and passed on. She spotted Barbara Hacken sunning at the pool. She looked to be dozing. When Flidais reached the lobby, the owner of the lodge was standing behind the desk and smiled when she asked for a car.

"You and your husband are not leaving us, I hope."

"No," she said vaguely, scratching her nose to cover her face. "He's still out on the river after the big ones. I'm meeting some friends who are dropping in at the airport to refuel before continuing on to Panama City."

"We'll see you for dinner?"

"Of course," Flidais said, turning away. "Where else would I eat?"

When her car reached the airport gate to the tarmac, the driver stopped, as the security guard stepped from a small office.

"Are you leaving Rio Colorado?" he asked Flidais through the open window.

"Yes, I'm flying to Managua."

"Passport, please?"

She handed him Barbara Hacken's passport and sat back looking out the opposite window.

The guard went by the book. He took a long moment comparing the passport photo with Flidais's facial features. The hair was covered by a scarf, but a few red strands seeped from under the silk. He was not concerned. Women seldom tinted their hair the same color they wore the month before. The face seemed similar, but he could not see the eyes behind the sunglasses.

"Please open your luggage."

"Sorry, I don't have luggage. Tomorrow is my husband's birthday. I forgot to buy him a gift, so I'm on a shopping trip to Managua. I intend to return in the morning."

Satisfied, the guard handed back the passport and waved the car through.

Five minutes later, everyone within a mile of the airport stared in awe as a lavender-colored aircraft that looked too large to land on the airstrip came in low over the trees and set down smoothly. Reversing engines and braking, it stopped a hundred yards short of the runway's north end. Then it turned and taxied to where Flidais was waiting in the car. Five minutes later, she was aloft on the Beriev Be-210 bound for Panama City.

27

The two men casually lolling in what the native villagers called a pangalooked like any of the local men who fished the Rio San Juan. They wore baggy white shorts and T-shirts with soft white baseball-style caps. Two outriggers hung over the panga'sstern on an angle, their lines trolling for the fishermen's next dinner.

Except for a passing experienced fisherman who bothered to notice, no one on shore would have guessed the lines carried no hooks. In a waterway teeming with fish, no hook went without a bite more than a few seconds after it dropped under the surface.

The skiff was propelled by a thirty-horsepower Mariner outboard steered by cables running to a center console-column surmounted by an automobile steering wheel. The flat-bottomed, twenty-foot pangamoved smartly up the calm river through the tropical rain forest under a light shower. They were traveling in the middle of the long rainy season that began in May and lasted through January. The jungle vegetation was so thick along the shore it seemed that every plant was in constant battle against its neighbor for a glimpse of the sun that beamed down infrequently through the never-ending mass of clouds.

Pitt and Giordino had purchased the panga,whose bow was painted with the name Greek Angel,along with fuel and supplies, within hours after the NUMA jet had taken off for Washington with Rudi Gunn, Patrick Dodge and Renee Ford's body. The repair crew that was flown into Barra Colorado had beached Poco Bonitoat low tide and were working efficiently to make her seaworthy for the voyage north.

Jack McGee threw them a going-away party and insisted on stocking their boat with enough beer and wine to start a saloon. Inspector Ortega was on hand, graciously expressing his appreciation for their cooperation in his investigation, and his sorrow for Renee's senseless murder. He was also irritated and regretful that the woman they knew as Rita Anderson had eluded his dragnet. Once Ortega's team learned of Barbara Hacken's missing passport, and they interrogated the owner of the lodge and the security guard at the airport gate, they were certain Rita had fled Costa Rica to the United States. Pitt added a piece to the puzzle when he heard the aircraft was painted lavender. This fact placed Rita squarely in the Odyssey camp. Now Ortega vowed to pursue Renee's murder internationally and to seek the cooperation of American law enforcement.

Pitt sat relaxed, leaned back in a raised chair in front of the wheel column, and steered the boat with one foot as they passed quiet picturesque lagoons that opened onto the river. Giordino had borrowed a lounge chair and pad from McGee, and reclined with his feet hanging over the bow, warily eyeing the occasional eighteen-foot crocodile that he spotted sunning itself on the bank.

Wise to the ways of a rain forest, Giordino shrouded himself with mosquito netting. Not usually mentioned in the travel brochures, in this part of the world the little bloodsuckers were nearly as prolific as raindrops. Not wanting to hinder his movements, Pitt soaked his exposed skin with repellent.

The first twenty miles took them northwesterly along the Rio Colorado until it eventually met the muddy waters of the Rio San Juan that served as the meandering borderline between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. From here, it was another eighty kilometers up the river until they reached the town of San Carlos on Lake Cocibolca, better known simply as Lake Nicaragua.

"I've yet to see any signs of construction," said Giordino, studying the shoreline through a pair of binoculars.

"You've already seen it," said Pitt, watching the multicolored birds nesting in the trees whose branches reached over the flowing water.

Giordino twisted in his lounge chair, pulled down his sunglasses and stared at Pitt over the rims as if he were looking at a bookie giving hundred-to-one odds on a favorite to win the next race. "Run that by me again."

"Your friend Micky Levy. Remember her?"

"The name rings a bell," muttered Giordino, still trying to follow Pitt's tack.

"Over dinner she talked about plans to build an 'underground bridge,' a railroad tunnel system that was designed to travel through Nicaragua between the oceans."

"She also said the project was never launched because Specter pulled out."

"A deception."

"A deception," Giordino parroted.

"After the engineers and geologists, like your friend, Micky, finished their survey, Odyssey officials insisted they sign confidentiality agreements never to reveal any information about the proposed project. Specter threatened to withhold any payment until they agreed. Then they announced that after studying the reports, they decided the project was not practical, and cost-prohibitive."

"How do you know all this?"

"I called your friend Micky just before we left Washington and after she faxed me the site plans," Pitt said casually.

"Go on."

"I asked her a few more questions regarding Specter and the underground bridge. Didn't she tell you?"

"I guess she forgot," said Giordino pensively.

"Anyway, as it turns out, Specter never had any intention of dumping the project. His Odyssey engineers have been digging furiously for more than two years. This is borne out by the port we passed, with containerships unloading what was probably mining equipment."

"Wasn't it I who said, 'A neat trick if he could hide millions of tons of excavated rock and muck?'"

"And you were right, it is a neat trick."

A light suddenly flashed on in Giordino's head. "The brown crud?"

"The million-dollar answer," Pitt acknowledged. "Satellite photos never showed construction activity because there was none to be seen. The only way to hide millions of tons of dirt and rock was to build a large tube, mix the muck with water and pump it a couple of miles offshore into the sea."

Giordino opened a Costa Rican beer and wiped the humidity-induced sweat with a towel across his face under the mosquito net. He rolled the cold can across his forehead. "Okay, mister smart guy, why the secrecy? Why would Specter go to such great lengths to cover up the project? Where is the gain if it was created and built to transport goods and materials from sea to shining sea and no one knows it's there?"

Pitt took a beer thrown by Giordino and pulled the tab. "If I knew that, we wouldn't be swimming in our own sweat cruising up the river admiring the wildlife."

"What do we hope to find?"

"An entrance, for one thing. They can't completely hide men and equipment going in and out of the tunnels."

"You think we'll find it on the jungle ride through hell on the African Queen?"

Pitt laughed. "Not on, but under. According to Micky's site plan, the excavation would have run under a town called El Castillo halfway up the river."

"So what's the attraction in El Castillo?"

"Tunnels of extreme length require ventilation shafts to supply air to the workers, cool or heat the air as required and bleed off exhaust fumes from the excavation equipment and smoke in the event of a fire."

Giordino stared uneasily at a huge crocodile swiveling off the bank into the water. Then his gaze turned to the impenetrable jungle along the north bank. "I hope you don't have any plans to hike in there. Mama Giordino's sonny boy would never be seen again."

"El Castillo is an isolated community on the river with no roads in or out. The main attraction is an old Spanish fortress."

"And you think a ventilation shaft pops up where everybody in town can see it," Giordino said dubiously. "Seems to me the jungle is a more ideal hiding place for ventilator shafts. It's so thick no aircraft or satellite photo could spot a shaft from above."

"No doubt most are hidden in the jungle, but I'm counting on them constructing one that comes up near civilization in case they have to use it for an emergency evacuation."

The scenery along the river was so spectacular, the two men drifted off into silence as they absorbed the beauty of the vegetation and the varied species of wildlife. It was like a boating wildlife safari through untouched tropical splendor. They spotted white-faced spider monkeys jabbering at jaguars which lurked under the trees. Anteaters as large as blue-ribbon state fair sows ambled through the brush, keeping a safe distance inshore from the caimans and crocodiles. Colorfully beaked toucans and multihued feathered parrots flew amid rainbows of butterflies and orchids. The jungles around the Rio San Juan had been described by Mark Twain when he journeyed down the river as an earthly paradise, the most enchanted land to be experienced anywhere.

Pitt kept the Greek Angelat a steady and smooth five knots. This was not water to speed through and cause waves from your wake to wash over the environmentally perfect shoreline. The fabulous three thousand acres of virgin rain forest was preserved as the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve. Three hundred species of reptiles, two hundred species of mammals and over six hundred species of birds called it home.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they turned off the Rio San Juan onto the Rio Bartola and cruised a short distance before docking at the Refugio Bartola Lodge and Research Center. Nestled in the rain forest, the compound had eleven rooms with private baths and mosquito nets. Pitt and Giordino each registered for a room.

After cleaning up, they headed for the bar and restaurant. Pitt had a tequila on the rocks whose brand was unknown to him. Giordino, claiming he had seen over a dozen Tarzan movies crawling with Englishmen on safari, opted for gin. Pitt noticed a fat man in a white suit sitting by himself at a table near the bar. There was an air about the man that suggested he was a respected local resident of the river, someone who might be a wealth of information.

Pitt approached the man. "Pardon me, sir, but I wondered if you might like to join my friend and me."

The man looked up and Pitt could see he was quite elderly, approaching his eighties. His face was flushed and he sweated freely, but miraculously managed not to stain his white suit. He wiped a handkerchief over his bald head and nodded. "Of course, of course, I'm Percy Rathbone. Please, it might be easier if you joined me," he said, pointing at his girth that amply filled his wicker chair.

"My name is Dirk Pitt and my friend here is Al Giordino."

The handshake was firm but sweaty. "Pleased to meet you. Sit down, sit down."

Pitt was amused that Rathbone had a habit of repeating his words. "You have the look of a man who knows and enjoys the jungle."

"It shows, it shows, does it?" said Rathbone, with a short laugh. "Lived along the river in Nicaragua and Costa Rica most all my life. My family came here during World War Two. My father was an agent for the British, keeping an eye on Germans who tried to operate hidden facilities in the lagoons to service and refuel their U-boats."

"If I may ask, how does someone earn a living on a river in the middle of nowhere?"

Rathbone looked at Pitt slyly. "Would you, would you believe I rely on tourism?"

Pitt wasn't sure he believed him, but played along. "Then you own a local business."

"Right on, right on. I make a tidy income off fishermen and nature lovers who come to visit the refuge. I have a small chain of resorts between Managua and San Juan del Norte. You gentlemen should look me up on my website when you get home."

"But this refuge is owned and run by the wildlife refuge."

Rathbone seemed to stiffen slightly at Pitt's perception. "True, true. I'm on holiday. I like to get away from my own ventures and relax here where I'm not bothered by guests. How about you fellows? Come for the fishing?"

"That, and the wildlife. We began our cruise at Barra Colorado and intend to reach Managua eventually."

"A marvelous tour, a marvelous tour," said Rathbone. "You'll enjoy every minute of it. There's nothing like it in the hemisphere."

A round of drinks came and Giordino signed for them on his room. "Tell me, Mr. Rathbone, why is a river that runs almost from the Pacific to the Atlantic known to so few outsiders?"

"The river wasworld-famous until the Panama Canal was built. Then the Rio San Juan fell into the dustbin of history. A Spanish conquistador named Hernandez de Cordoba sailed up the San Juan in 1524. He made it all the way into Lake Nicaragua and established the colonial city of Granada on the opposite end. The Spanish who followed Cordoba built forts bristling with guns throughout Central America to keep the French and English out. One was El Castillo a few miles up the river from here."

"Were the Spanish successful?" asked Pitt.

"Indeed yes, indeed yes," Rathbone said, waving his hands. "But not entirely. Henry Morgan and Sir Francis Drake sailed up the river, but never made it past El Castillo into the lake. A hundred or more years later, they were followed by Horatio Nelson when he was a mere captain. He sailed a small fleet of ships up the San Juan and attacked El Castillo, which still stands. His assault failed. The only time in his career he lost a battle. He was reminded of the embarrassment the rest of his life."

"Why is that?" asked Giordino.

"Because he lost an eye during the attack."

"Right or left?"

Rathbone thought a moment, not getting the joke, then shrugged. "I don't remember."

Pitt savored a sip of the tequila. "How long did the Spanish control the river?"

"Until the early eighteen fifties and the California gold rush. Commodore Vanderbilt, the railroad and shipping tycoon, saw a golden opportunity. He made a deal with the Spanish for his ships to provide ferry service for eager prospectors who had booked his steamers in New York and Boston for the long voyage to California. His passengers changed from oceangoing ships to river steamers at San Juan del Norte. Then they steamed up the San Juan and across the lake to La Virgen. From there, it was only a short twelve-mile wagon ride to the little Pacific port of San Juan del Sur, actually only a couple of docks, where they reboarded Vanderbilt steamers that carried the gold-hungry miners onto San Francisco. Not only did they cut off hundreds of miles by not sailing around Cape Horn, but they saved another thousand miles bypassing the isthmus at Panama to the south."

"When did river traffic die?" asked Pitt.

"The Accessory Transit Company, as Vanderbilt called it, faded away with the construction of the Panama Canal. The Commodore built a huge mansion in San Juan del Norte, which still stands, although it is abandoned and overgrown with weeds. For eighty years the river lay forgotten, until the nineteen nineties when it emerged as a tourist attraction."

"Seems like it was a more logical route for a canal than Panama."

Rathbone shook his head sadly. "By far, by far, but a complicated game of politics played by your President Teddy Roosevelt put it in hundreds of miles out of the way to the south."

"They could still dig a canal through here," said Giordino thoughtfully.

"Too late. Big business interests in the Panama Canal, environmentalists and ecologists would all fight the project tooth and nail. Even if the Nicaraguan government gave its blessing, no one would put up the money."

"I heard there were plans afoot to build a railroad tunnel through Nicaragua between the oceans."

Rathbone stared out over the river. "There were rumors circulating up and down the river for months, but nothing ever came of it. Surveyors came with transits and tramped through the jungles. Helicopters were buzzing all over the place. Geologists and engineers filled my lodges and drank my whiskey, but after nearly a year they packed up their equipment, went home and that was the end of that."

Giordino finished off his scotch and ordered another. "None ever came back?"

Rathbone shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of."

"Did they give a reason for not pursuing the project?" Pitt queried.

Again, a shake of the head. "None seemed to know more than I did. Their contracts were finished and they were paid off. It all seemed very cloak-and-dagger. I got one of the engineers drunk the night before he was to depart, but all I got out of him was that he and his fellow engineers were all sworn to secrecy."

"Was the general contractor called Odyssey?"

Rathbone stiffened slightly. "Yes, that was it, that was it, Odyssey. The head man even came and stayed at my lodge in El Castillo. A huge fellow. Must have weighed four hundred pounds. Called himself Specter. Very strange. Never did get a good look at his face. He was always surrounded by an entourage, mostly women."

"Women?" Giordino perked up.

"Most attractive, but business executive types. Very aloof, very efficient. Never talked or offered to be friendly with any of the local people."

"How did they arrive?" Pitt put to Rathbone.

"Landed and took off on the river in a big amphibian airplane painted like an orchid."

"Lavender?"

"I guess you could call it that."

Giordino swirled his scotch around the ice cubes. "Did you ever get a hint about why the project never got off the ground?"

"Rumor, gossip and hearsay came up with at least fifty reasons, but none made any sense. My friends in the government at Managua acted as amazed as everyone along the river. They claimed the fault was not theirs. They offered Odyssey every benefit, every advantage, since the project would have greatly enhanced Nicaragua's economy. My own opinion is that Specter found other more profitable projects for the Odyssey Corporation and simply moved on."

At that moment, it felt as if the earth was twitching and the ice in their glasses tinkled, and the contents quivered as if invisible raindrops were falling on it. The tops of the trees in the jungle swayed in unison with the birds squawking and the moan of unseen animals.

"Earthquake," Giordino said indifferently.

"More like a slight earth tremor," Pitt agreed, taking another sip from his drink.

"You fellows don't seem upset at our local ground movement," said Rathbone in mild surprise.

"We grew up in California," Giordino explained.

Pitt exchanged glances with Giordino. Then he said, "I wonder if we'll experience any tremors on the rest of our voyage up the river."

Rathbone looked uneasy. "I doubt it. They come and go like thunder, but very infrequently and have yet to cause any damage. The natives are a superstitious lot. They believe the ancient gods of their ancestors have returned and are living in the jungle."

He slowly, with some effort, rose from his chair and stood unsteadily. "Gentlemen, thank you for the drinks. It was indeed, indeed, most delightful talking with you. But with age comes an urge to go to bed early. Will I see you again tomorrow?"

Pitt came to his feet and shook Rathbone's hand. "Perhaps. We'll probably take a nature hike in the morning and continue our journey later in the afternoon."

"We'd like to spend a day in El Castillo and see the ruins of the fortress before we head upriver into Lake Nicaragua," added Giordino.

"I'm afraid you can only see the fortress from a distance," said Rathbone. "Government police have put it off-limits to all locals and visiting tourists. They claimed it was deteriorating under the crowds wandering the ruins. So much humbug in my book. The rain does far more damage than the feet of a few tourists."

"Are Nicaraguan police guarding the walls?"

"More security than a nuclear bomb factory. Security cameras, guard dogs and a ten-foot fence around the fort, with barbwire running along the top. One resident of El Castillo, a fellow by the name of Jesus Diego, became curious and tried to penetrate the security. Poor fellow was found hanging in a tree on the riverbank."

"Dead?"

"Very dead." Rathbone quickly changed the subject. "If I were you, I wouldn't go near the place."

"We shall take your advice," said Pitt.

"Well, gentlemen, it was a pleasure. Good evening."

As they watched the old man shuffle away, Giordino said to Pitt, "What do you think?"