Текст книги "Lost Empire"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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CHAPTER 21

WARY OF LEAVING TELLTALE DRAG MARKS, THEY CHOSE TO LEAVE the crate where it sat. Unintentionally, they’d dropped it in an ideal location-a dry rivulet near the riverbank. They covered it with scrub brush and then, using bundled foliage to obscure their tracks, they back-walked off the sandbar to solid ground and into a copse. A hundred feet inside the tree line they found a ten-by-ten-foot depression surrounded by fallen logs. It gave them a vantage point of not only the crate but the open ground down to the beach.

After probing the area with the muzzles of the rifles to drive off any snakes or sundry creepy crawlies, they settled into their bolt-hole. While Sam kept an eye out for visitors, Remi took inventory of their packs. “Remind me to send a thank-you letter to Ziploc,” she said. “Most everything is dry. The satellite phone looks okay.”“How much battery life?”

“Enough for one call, maybe two.”

Sam checked his watch. It was just after two in the morning. “It might be time to take Ed Mitchell up on his offer.” Remi fished Mitchell’s card out of her pack and handed it over. Sam dialed.A gravelly voiced Mitchell picked up on the fourth ring: “Yeah.”

“Ed, it’s Sam Fargo.”

“Huh?”

“Sam Fargo-your Mafia Island charter a couple days ago.”

“Oh, yeah . . . Hey . . .what the hell time is it?”

“About two. I don’t have much time. We need an evac.”

“That’s a word I ain’t heard in a while. You in trouble?”

“You could say that.”

“Where you at?”

“On the mainland, about four and half miles due east of Big Sukuti,” Sam replied, then gave him a description of the area.

“You guys get around,” Mitchell said. “Hang on a minute.”

Sam heard the sounds of paper crinkling, then silence. Mitchell came back on the line: “You know you’re sitting smack-dab in the middle of crocodile hell, don’t you?”

“We do now.”

“Can’t get a fixed wing in there. I’ll have to use a helo. That’ll take a little doing.”

“We’ll make it worth your while.” “I know you will, but that’s not my worry. I probably won’t get there until just after sunrise. Can you hang on?”“We’ll have to,” Sam said.

“Are folks going to be shooting at me when I get there?”

“No guarantees.”

There was ten seconds of silence, then Mitchell chuckled. “Ah, what the hell. Life’s a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

Sam laughed at this. “It is indeed.”

“Okay, keep your heads down. I’ll be there at first light. Just in case I’ve got some competition at the LZ, I’ll drop blue smoke so you don’t shoot at me.”

Sam disconnected. Beside him, Remi said, “Here, drink.”

Sam turned, took a deep gulp from the canteen, then accepted a piece of beef jerky. He recounted his conversation with Mitchell. Remi said, “That man’s on our permanent Christmas list. So he’ll be here in another four or five hours.”“With luck.”

They sat in silence, chewing for several minutes. Sam checked his watch. “It’s been forty minutes since we left the island.”

“You don’t think they-”

Sam held up his hand. Remi went quiet. After a few moments, she said, “I hear them. Two of them, somewhere offshore.”

Sam nodded. “Hard to tell, but it sounds like the Rinkers. We’d better assume so.”

“How far inland are we?”

“A quarter mile, maybe a little more.”

They listened for a few more minutes. The sound of the engines rose in volume, then suddenly went silent. “They’re ashore,” Sam said.

They checked their weapons: two AK-74s, one with a full magazine, the other missing the dozen or so rounds Remi had fired at the Cushman; the .357 Magnum; and the H amp;K P30. Whether these would be enough should a firefight erupt was an unknown. They’d been lucky so far with Rivera and his men, but neither Sam nor Remi were under any illusion: In a head-to-head contest, they had little chance of besting Special Forces soldiers.“Let’s get comfortable,” Sam said.

“And invisible,” Remi added.

After shoving their packs under a rotting log and covering them with loam, they did the same for themselves, lying lengthwise, head-to-head, so that each of them could see the approaches from the beach. Sam handed Remi a handful of mud to cover her face, then smeared some on his own.“Promise me something, Sam,” Remi said, slathering herself.

“A suite at the Moevenpick?” he guessed.

“I was going to say a hot shower and a big breakfast, but since you offered I’ve been composing a list . . .”

PEERING THROUGH A GAP between the logs, Remi spotted a speck of light a few hundred yards to the east. She tapped Sam on the shoulder, mouthed, Flashlight , and pointed. The flashlight beam seemed to float through midair, disappearing and reappearing through the trees as the owner picked his way inland.“I’ll say this much for Rivera,” Sam whispered, “he’s like a dog with a bone.”

“He’s probably said the same thing about us but in less congenial language. Are we waiting until we see the whites of their eyes?”

“No, we’re crossing fingers they don’t even wander this way.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“In Africa, darkness and forest equals predators.”

“I could have done without that tidbit.”

“Sorry.” As if on cue, somewhere in the distance they heard the deep-throated huff-huff-huff of a big cat. It was a sound they’d both heard before, but either on organized safaris or from the safety of a lodge. Here, in the open and alone, the sound was chilling.Sam whispered, “It’s a long way off.”

Soon a second flashlight joined the first; then a third and a fourth. The men were moving in a line abreast like flushers leading a hunting party. Soon the party was close enough that Sam and Remi could see the figures behind the flashlights. Not surprisingly, each man appeared to be carrying an assault rifle.

Another five minutes brought the group to the sandbar, where they converged. One of the men-Rivera, perhaps-appeared to do most of the talking, gesturing first up and down the shoreline, then inland. They shined their flashlights along the bank and over the water. Twice the beams appeared to skim over the helicopter blade jutting from the water, but it generated no response. Suddenly one of the men pointed across the river. Almost in unison, each of the men unslung his rifle.“They spotted our fanged friends,” Remi whispered.

Weapons up and ready, the group backed off the sandbar until they were on the scrub ground. They conferred for another minute, then separated, one pair walking downriver, the other upriver. This was the pair Sam and Remi watched closely; as the river abutted the copse’s northern edge, the pair’s path would take them within fifty feet of the hiding spot.Sam whispered, “I took a look as we flew in: The nearest crossing is a mile downstream. Now we’ll see how determined they are.”

Clearly wary of what other dangers the river might hold, the two men kept a safe distance from shore, walking from left to right across Sam and Remi’s field of vision until the river curved east and merged with the copse. Here they turned southeast, shining their flashlights along the tree line as they walked. Now only twenty yards away, their figures were more distinct. One of them was more distinct than the other: Tall and gaunt, he moved with the economical, purposeful gait of a soldier. It was Itzli Rivera.

Suddenly Sam felt clawed feet crawling over his ankle. Before he could resist the impulse, he kicked his foot. The unseen creature squealed and skittered off through the underbrush.

Rivera stopped suddenly and held up a closed fist, the soldier’s universal hand signal for “Halt!” His partner stopped in his tracks, and in unison they slowly dropped to one knee. The flashlights were doused. Each man’s head began rotating, looking, listening. The flashlights popped back on again and began skimming over the trees, pausing occasionally here and there. Rivera looked over his shoulder and gestured something to his partner. Together they stood up, turned, and began picking their way into the trees, heading directly for Sam and Remi’s hiding spot.Sam felt Remi’s hand on his shoulder. He reached up, gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Rivera and his partner kept coming. They were thirty feet away.

Now twenty feet. Ten feet.

They stopped, looked left and right, and flashlight beams probed the gaps between the logs around Sam and Remi. Twigs cracked. Rivera whispered something to his partner. Sam and Remi felt the log over their heads sink a couple inches. The tips of a pair of boots appeared at the edge of the log, and a flashlight beam swept over the depression.Five long seconds passed.

The flashlight clicked off. The boots pulled back, followed by a double thump as Rivera dismounted the log. Slowly the footfalls faded.

Sam counted to one hundred, then slowly lifted his head until he could see through the gap. Silhouetted by the glow of their flashlights, Rivera and his partner were back at the tree line and moving south toward the sandbar. Sam watched them for another minute and turned his head so his mouth was closer to Remi’s ear.

“They’re moving off. We’ll stay put in case they double back.” For the next twenty minutes they remained still, wedged as tightly as possible in their bolt-hole, until finally they heard in the distance the Rinker’s engines growling back to life.Sam whispered, “Just a little longer.” He gave it another five minutes, then rolled out from under the log. “I’m going to have a look around.”

He crawled out of the depression and disappeared. He returned ten minutes later. “They’re gone.” He helped Remi out from her hiding spot.

She exhaled heavily. “That bell better be worth it.”

“Another few hours and we’re home free.” ED MITCHELL WAS as good as his word, if not a little better. Just as the sun was peeking through the forest to the east they heard the thump of helicopter rotors. As a precaution Sam and Remi scrambled back into their bolt-holes, occasionally peeking out as the rotors grew louder. To the west they saw a yellow-and-white Bell helicopter sweep in over the beach and turn inland, following the course of the river. When the helicopter reached the sandbar, the pilot’s door opened. A moment later, blue smoke began drifting over the ground.Sam and Remi rolled out together and stood up. Sam asked, “Ready for home?” Remi shook her head, and he chuckled. “Right. Sorry. Hot shower and breakfast.”

AN HOUR LATER, with the crate strapped safely to the Bell’s deck, they touched down at the Ras Kutani airstrip. While Mitchell trotted off to collect his vehicle for the ride back to Dar es Salaam, Sam and Remi used the sat phone to place a long-overdue call to Selma.“Where have you been?” their chief researcher said over the speaker. “I’ve been sitting by the phone.”

“Is that your way of saying you were worried about us?” Remi asked.

“Yes, it is. Now, explain yourselves.”

Sam briefly recounted the last few days, ending with their recovery of the bell. Selma sighed. “I wish I could say positively you haven’t wasted your time.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“We got the first shipment from Morton’s museum yesterday. In with the miscellanea we found what looks like a journal of sorts-Blaylock’s journal, to be exact.”

“That’s good news,” Remi said, then added tentatively, “Right?”

“It would be,” Selma replied, “if not for the fact that I’m pretty sure Winston Lloyd Blaylock, the Mbogo of Bagamoyo, was certifiably insane.”

CHAPTER 22

GOLDFISH POINT,

LA JOLLA , CALIFORNIA

EXHAUSTED AND WANTING TO HIT THE GROUND RUNNING WHEN they got home, Sam and Remi spent the majority of the flights home sleeping and eating and generally trying to keep their minds off Selma’s proclamation regarding Winston Blaylock. Their chief researcher wasn’t prone to hyperbole, so they took seriously her suspicion which, if true, cast a pall on their efforts to recover the Shenandoah’s bell. Of course, while the bell was of significant historical value regardless, the cryptic inscription on the bell’s inner surface and Blaylock’s obsession with the ship (either under the guise of the Ophelia, the Shenandoah, or the El Majidi) had suggested to them a deeper mystery-one that had apparently prompted Itzli Rivera and perhaps someone in the Mexican government to murder nine tourists.AS PROMISED, PETE JEFFCOAT and Wendy Corden were waiting for them in the baggage claim area. Pete took their carry-ons. “You look tired.”

“You should have seen us eighteen hours and a couple dozen time zones ago,” Sam replied.

“What happened to you?” Wendy asked, gesturing to Sam’s swollen cheekbone and his taped finger. While the latter was now properly bandaged with medical tape, the cut on his cheekbone was crusty with Super Glue-a remedy Ed Mitchell swore was better than stitches.“I burned a casserole, and Remi got mad,” Sam said. He got a light punch on the arm from his wife in return.

Remi said to Wendy, “Boys being boys, that’s what happened.”

“We’re glad you’re home,” Pete said. “Selma’s been pulling her hair out. Don’t tell her I told you.”

The baggage carousel started turning, and Pete wandered off to collect Sam and Remi’s luggage.

Sam asked Wendy, “Any word on the bell?”

“It’s en route. Should be halfway across the Atlantic by now. With luck, we’ll have it the day after tomorrow.”

“Care to give us a hint why Selma thinks Blaylock is a fruitcake?”

Wendy shook her head. “She’s been up for almost three days straight trying to piece this together. I’m going to let her explain.”

SAM AND REMI’S HOME and base of operations was a four-story, twelve-thousand-square-foot Spanish-style home with an open floor plan, vaulted maple-beamed ceilings, and windows and skylights enough that they bought their Windex in ten-gallon buckets.

The upper floor held Sam and Remi’s master suite, and below this, one flight down, were four guest suites, a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen/great room that jutted over the cliff. On the second floor was a gymnasium containing both aerobic and circuit training exercise equipment, a steam room, a HydroWorx endless lap pool, a climbing wall, and a thousand square feet of hardwood floor space for Remi to practice her fencing and Sam his judo.

The ground floor sported two thousand square feet of office space for Sam and Remi and an adjoining workspace for Selma, complete with three Mac Pro workstations coupled with thirty-inch cinema displays, and a pair of wall-mounted thirty-two-inch LCD televisions. On the east wall was Selma’s pride and joy, a fourteen-foot, five-hundred-gallon saltwater aquarium filled with a rainbow-hued assortment of fish whose scientific names she knew by heart.

Selma’s other love, tea, she approached with equal passion; an entire cabinet of the workroom was devoted to her stock, which included a rare Phoobsering-Osmanthus Darjeeling hybrid that Sam and Remi suspected was the source of her seemingly boundless energy.

In appearance, Selma Wondrash was eclectic in the extreme: She wore a modified 1960s bob, horn-rimmed glasses, complete with a neck chain, and a default uniform of khaki pants, sneakers, and a tie-dyed T-shirt.As far as Sam and Remi were concerned, Selma could be as strange as she wished. There was no one better at logistics, research, and resource scrounging.

Sam and Remi walked into the workspace to find Selma leaning over the tank, writing something on a clipboard. She turned, saw them, held up a finger, then finished writing and set aside the clipboard. “My Centropyge loricula is looking sickly,” she said, then translated: “flame angelfish.”“That’s one of my favorites,” Remi said.

Selma nodded solemnly. “So, welcome home, Mr. and Mrs. Fargo.”

Sam and Remi had long ago given up trying to convince Selma to call them by their first names.

“Good to be home,” Sam replied.

Selma walked to the long, maple-topped workbench that ran down the center of the room and sat down. Sam and Remi took the stools opposite her. Blaylock’s massive walking staff was lying lengthwise on the table.“You look well,” Selma said.

“Pete and Wendy disagreed.”

“I was comparing your current condition to how I imagined you over the past few days. Everything is relative.”

“True enough,” Remi said. “Selma, are you stalling?”

Selma pursed her lips. “I’m not fond of handing you incomplete information.”

Sam replied, “What you call incomplete we call mysterious, and we love a good mystery.”

“Then you’re going to love what I have for you. First a little background. With Pete and Wendy’s help, I dissected, indexed, and foot-noted Morton’s biography of Blaylock. It’s on our server in PDF format, if you want to read it later, but here’s the condensed version. Selma opened a manila folder and began reading.

“Blaylock arrived in Bagamoyo in March 1872 with nothing but the clothes on his back, a few pieces of silver, a .44 caliber Henry rifle, a bowie knife big enough to ‘chop down a baobab tree’ stuck in his boot, and a short sword strapped to his hip.”“Clearly, Morton had a creative streak,” Remi said. She looked to Sam. “Do you remember the story we read about the murdered British tourist?”

“Sylvie Radford,” Sam finished.

“Remember what she found while diving?”

Sam smiled. “A sword. It’s a long long shot, but maybe what she found had once belonged to Blaylock. Selma. Can you . . .”

Their chief researcher was already jotting a note. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

“A short sword and a bowie knife could easily be confused. Maybe Morton got it wrong. Sorry, Selma, keep going.”

“Evidently, Blaylock terrified the locals. Not only was he a foot taller and wider than almost everyone, he wasn’t prone to smiling. On his first night in Bagamoyo, half a dozen thugs got together and decided to separate Blaylock and his money. Two of them died, and the rest required medical attention.”“He shot them,” Sam said.

“No. He never picked up his Henry, the bowie, or the sword. He fought with his bare hands. After that, no one bothered him.”

“Which was probably the point,” Sam replied. “Doing that to six men while unarmed tends to create an impression.”

“Indeed. Within a week, he was serving as a bodyguard for a rich Irishman on safari; within a month, he’d started his own guide business. As good as he was with his hands, he was even better with the Henry. Where other European guides and hunters were using big-bore hunting rifles, Blaylock could take down a charging Cape buffalo-a mbogo-with one shot from his Henry.

“About two months after Blaylock arrived, he contracted malaria and spent six weeks on his back near death while his two mistresses-Maasai women who worked in Bagamoyo-nursed him back to health. While Morton never came out and said as much, Blaylock’s brush with death seemed to have left him slightly . . . touched in the head.

“After the malaria Blaylock would disappear for months on end on what he called ‘vision quest expeditions.’ He lived with the Maasai, took concubines, studied with witch doctors, lived alone in the bush, hunted for King Solomon’s mines and Timbuktu, dug fossils in Olduvai Gorge, followed the trail of Mansa Musa, hoping to find his staff of gold . . . There’s even an anecdote that claims Blaylock was the one who found David Livingstone first. According to Morton’s account, Blaylock sent a runner to Bagamoyo to alert Henry Morton Stanley; shortly after that the pair had their famous ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume’ moment near Lake Tanganyika.”“So if we’re to believe Morton,” Remi said, “Winston Lloyd Blaylock was the Indiana Jones of the nineteenth century.”

Sam smiled. “Hunter, explorer, hero, mystic, Casanova, and indestructible savior all rolled into one. But this is all from Morton’s biography, right?”

“Right.” “By the way, we’re assuming Morton was named after the Morton-as in Henry Morton Stanley?”

“Right again. In fact, according to the family tree in the back of the book, all of Blaylock’s direct descendants were named after Africa in some fashion-the places, the history, the larger-than-life characters . . .”“If you got all this from the biography, what about the journal you mentioned?” asked Sam.

“I used the word ‘journal’ for lack of a better term. In fact, it’s a potpourri: diary, field sketchbook . . .”

“Can we see it?”

“If you’d like. It’s in the vault.” Off the workspace, Selma had a temperature– and humidity-controlled archive area. “It’s in bad shape-insect-eaten, soiled, water-damaged pages stuck together. Pete and Wendy are working on the restoration. We’re photographing and digitizing what pages we can before we start work on the damaged portions. There’s one more thing: It appears the journal also served as Blaylock’s captain’s log.”“Pardon me?” Remi said.

“While he never mentions the Shenandoah or the El Majidi, many of his entries clearly indicate he was at sea, on and off, for long periods. Blaylock does, however, mention Ophelia quite often.”“In what context?”

“She was his wife.”

“THAT WOULD EXPLAIN his obsession, I suppose,” Sam said. “Not only did he mentally rename the Shenandoah, he also carved Ophelia’s name into the bell.”“Ophelia is a distinctly un-African name,” Remi said. “It had to be the name of his wife back in the U.S.”

Selma nodded. “There’s no mention of her in the biography. And he never speaks in detail about her in the journal-just little snippets everywhere. Whether he was simply yearning for her or it’s something more, I don’t know, but she was never far from his mind.”“Are there dates in the journal?” asked Sam. “Anything we can cross-reference with Morton’s biography?”

“In both books, only months and years are used; in the journal, those are far and few between. We’re trying to do some matching, but it’s turning up discrepancies. For example, we found a time where in the biography he’s trekking in the Congo, while according to the journal he’s at sea. It’s slow going so far.”“Something doesn’t add up,” said Sam.

“Just one thing?” Remi replied. “My list is longer than that.”

“Mine too. But on the captain’s log angle: If we’re thinking Blaylock might have been at sea aboard the Shenandoah-El Majidi, I mean-then we’ve got a contradiction. By all accounts, after the Sultan of Zanzibar bought the Shenandoah in 1866 he all but abandoned her at anchor until she was destroyed either in 1872 or 1879. I think someone would have noticed her missing.”

“Good point,” Selma said, jotting down a note. “Another point of curiosity: Sultan Majid died in October 1870 and was succeeded by his brother and bitter rival, Sayyid Barghash bin Said. By default, he became the owner of El Majidi. Some historians find it curious that Sayyid didn’t change the ship’s name, let alone keep it around.”Sam added, “Can we put together a time line of the Shenandoah/ El Majidi ? Be easier to visualize the events.”

Selma picked up the phone and dialed the archive room. “Wendy, can you throw together a rough time line of the Shenandoah /El Majidi? Thanks.”“We also need to find out more about Blaylock’s life before Africa,” Remi said.

“I’m working on that as well,” said Selma. “I reached out to an old friend who might be able to help.”

Wendy stepped out of the archive room, smiled at them, held up a Just one second finger, then sat down at one of the workstations. She tapped away at the keys for five minutes and said, “On your screen.”Selma used the remote control to find the new graphic:

• March 1866: Shenandoah sold to Sultan of Zanzibar.

• November 1866: Shenandoah arrives Zanzibar, renamed El Majidi

.• November 1866-October 1870: El Majidi spends most time sitting at anchor or on occasional merchant voyages.

• October 1870: First Sultan dies. Brother’s reign begins.

• October 1870-April 1872: El Majidi presumed at anchor.

• April 1872: Hurricane damages El Majidi . Sent to Bombay for repair.

• July 1872: El Majidi

reportedly sinks en route to Zanzibar.

• July 1872-November 1879: Six years’ lost time. Disposition unknown.

• November 1879: En route to Bombay, El Majidi reportedly sinks near island of Socotra.

Sam said, “We’ve got two seemingly reliable accounts of her sinking that contradict each other, and over six years where the El Majidi is unaccounted for.“Selma, what’s the earliest date in Blaylock’s journal?”

“As best we can tell, August 1872, about five months after he arrived in Africa. On our time line, that’s a month after the El Majidi’s first reported sinking and at the beginning of her lost years.”“Six years,” Remi echoed. “Where was she all that time?”

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES to the south, Itzli Rivera sat in President Garza’s anteroom waiting to be summoned, as he had been for the past hour.

Garza’s executive assistant, a doe-eyed girl in her early twenties with glossy black hair and an hourglass figure, sat at her desk typing, her index fingers wandering over the keyboard and occasionally punching a key. Her expression was one of puzzlement. As though she’s trying to finish a master-level Sudoku puzzle, Rivera thought. Clearly, the woman’s administrative skills had not been a priority during the hiring process.

Hoping to kill some time, Rivera wondered if Garza had ordered the woman to take a Mexica name. If so, what would it be? As if on cue, President Garza’s voice came over the intercom on the woman’s desk, answering Rivera’s question.“Chalchiuitl, you may send Mr. Rivera in.”

“Yes, sir.”

She smiled at Rivera and gestured toward the door with one of her ridiculously long fingernails. “You may-”

“I heard him, thank you.”

Rivera walked across the carpet, pushed through the double doors, and closed them behind him. He strode to Garza’s desk and stopped at semiattention.

“Sit down,” Garza ordered.

Rivera did.

“I was reading your report,” Garza said. “Do you have anything to add?”

“No, sir.”

“Let me summarize, if you don’t mind . . .”

“Go ahead, sir.”

“That was rhetorical, Itzli. You and your men, after being outwitted for days by these treasure hunters . . . these Fargos . . . You finally manage to take possession of the bell and transport it to Okafor’s island, only to have it stolen out from under your noses.” Rivera nodded.“Not only did they steal back the bell, but they also stole Okafor’s four-million-dollar helicopter.”

“And I lost a man. Nochtli fell from the helicopter and broke his neck.”

President Garza waved his hand dismissively. “You were vague about how the Fargos managed to get aboard the helicopter at all. Can you elaborate? Where were you when all this was happening?”Rivera cleared his mouth and shifted nervously in his seat. “I was . . . unconscious.”

“Pardon me?”

“The man, Sam Fargo, attacked me aboard Okafor’s yacht. He surprised me. He clearly has some martial arts training.”

“Clearly.” Garza rotated his chair and gazed out the window. He drummed his fingers on his desk blotter for a minute, then said, “We have to assume they’re not going to give up. That could work in our favor. If they’re as clever as they seem, we know they’ll be visiting at least one of the areas we’ve already searched.”“Agreed.”

“Start reaching out to your contacts-immigration officers, airport employees, anyone who will alert us when the Fargos appear.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll start with Antananarivo. Anything else?”

Garza stared hard at his underling. “You mean, are there going to be any repercussions for your failure?”

“Yes, sir.”

Garza chuckled humorlessly. “What are you expecting, Itzli? Something from the movies, perhaps? For me to pull out a pearl-handled revolver and shoot you? Or open a trapdoor beneath you?”Rivera let himself smile.

Garza’s expression went cold. “For now, you’re still the best man for the job. The best I have, in fact. Now I want you to prove that my faith isn’t wasted. Ideally, that would involve Sam and Remi Fargo ending up dead.”“Yes, Mr. President, thank you.”

“One more thing before you go: I want to make memorial arrangements.”

“For Nochtli,” Rivera said. “Yes, sir, I-”

“No, no, for the other one-Yaotl. It seems he and his wife died in a car accident this morning.”

Rivera felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “What?”

“Sad, isn’t it? He lost control and drove his car off a cliff. They were both killed instantly.”

“They had a child, a five-year-old.”

Garza pursed his lips as though weighing the question. “Oh, the girl. She’s fine. She was at school at the time. I suppose we’ll have to find her new home. You’ll see to that as well?”“Yes, Mr. President.”