Chapter 11
Winston Sharp looked at them from the other side of the long table. His forehead wrinkled, and his hat tipped farther back on his head. He wrapped his hand around the coffee cup and watched steam curl up out of it. Clara sat quietly by his side, a happy expression on her face-a look of satisfied emotions and contentment. She favored him with admiring glances now and again. Outside, cold wind drove the rain into the window glass with increasing fury, changing the morning light into an early-evening gloom.
"The best I can get," he said, "is that this junk we picked up in Bogota is coming in from all sides now. I'm afraid it's going to coalesce into one big weather system that's going to squat all up and down the corridor and spill over the edges and raise pure hell."
"Oh, no," Martha said. "You mean we'll have to sit here and watch it do this? That's no vacation." She had another reason. She couldn't wait to get to Lima, where Alva would leave. The thought of staying under her destructive influence in Quito made her shiver suddenly in the worsening cold.
Sharp smiled at her. "The commercial boys are starting to talk about grounding themselves already, Martha. They're bigger than I am. I'm sorry."
"We can't stay here!" Tuesta fairly shouted, jumping up from his chair. "You have your money, Sharp. You're under contract to fly this tour now!"
"Not when it's dangerous, I don't," he bristled, the hairs rising on him again.
"We must!" Tuesta ranted. "It's imperative we get at least to Cuenca today!"
Sharp looked at him from under his brows. "What's so damned imperative that you want to risk lives, Tuesta?" he asked coldly.
"There's... I have... I insist, Sharp. If you're not flying, then I demand the money back."
Winston hesitated. His gaze faltered. Martha saw the frown on Clara's face, and she could see how much the money meant to him-to them both.
"Now wait a minute, you long-haired punk," Sharp growled, rising up from his seat. Clara put him back down with a touch of her hand.
"Typical American," Tuesta gloated, twisting the knife a little more. "Money makes you hesitate. Well, I think also it's more than money. I think you're afraid of a little weather. You've made such an issue of how well you fly, I want you to show us. Prove you can really do it, Mr. Sharp," he said insolently, "or are you all wind like the other old-timers grubbing a living out of the jungle, conning the tourists."
"Shut up, Tuesta."
"It isn't that dangerous yet, and you know it. You also know it probably won't be dangerous later. Everything could blow over, isn't that right? I've lived here many years too. I know. Are you trying to give Mrs. Foster a thrill?"
"You stinking...."
"Winston!" Clara said sharply. "Don't let him bully you, darling."
"Shit! I've had tougher times in my backyard than he's had in his whole life! Are you kidding? Him bully me?"
"Let's take a vote," Tuesta suggested. "Isn't that your method in America? Everything by majority rule?"
"The others aren't here," Sharp said.
"The others have left the tour," Tuesta grinned triumphantly. "They found some other-stimulating couples in Quito, and they've decided to stay. Alva, you seem to be the only one who hasn't said anything."
She moved her shoulders lithely. "I don't care," she said. "It might be exciting. Perhaps I will never make it home. I'm willing to go."
"That makes three to two, captain. I assume Mrs. Foster will do whatever the mighty one says."
"You can't force me into this kind of crap, Tuesta," Sharp raged.
The money then, Captain."
There was a strained silence. The door flew open, and cold rain whipped in around a harried-looking American businessman and a blowzy blonde, whom he dragged by the hand.
"One of you Winston Sharp?" he demanded, out of breath.
"Yeah."
"A fellow said you were flying to Cuenca. The commercial line won't fly. I've got to get there this afternoon with some papers."
"No dice," Sharp said.
"Christ, I've got to! It's a ten-million-dollar signature I've got in here!" he said wildly, waving an attach‚ case. The blonde hugged his arm and grinned toothily, basking in the spotlight of his importance. She had plump cheeks and breasts and hips and small eyes that were hard as flint when she wasn't watching herself.
"Who's the woman?" Sharp asked.
"Wendy Prather, my secretary. I'm Robert L. Grovebank, Third, representing American Minerals out of Tucson. Surely you've heard of us?"
Sharp shook his head and looked at them. The man was in his early thirties, wearing heavy, black-framed glasses with lenses so thick they reduced his eyes to startled dots. His face was puffy, round, thick-lipped, and had a greasy appearance, as did his black hair. His body moved as if his skin were filled with water. He had the look of a fledgling lawyer whose specialty was finding loopholes, and he came around the table with the girl in tow.
She was no secretary. She looked younger than he, physically, but her eyes had the age of two granite marbles that had crystallized from a primeval hunger for money and power at any price. At the moment, the price was Eobert L. Grovebank III, and she wasn't letting go of him.
"Never heard of it," Sharp said deflatingly. "And I'm not going."
Grovebank lowered his voice. "Get me there, and it's worth two thousand bucks. US. Here," he said, flipping open a long black wallet and taking all the bills out. "This is in advance-all I've got. Seven hundred and... the hell with it, here. The rest is in Cuenca, I swear." He quit trying to count them and shoved the bills into Sharp's hand.
"There you are, Captain," Tuesta gloated. 'Tour dream comes closer every minute. You can't afford to pass up that kind of money."
"Go, no, man," Grovebank agreed dramatically. "And it's tin, Sharp. You don't know how your country needs tin!"
"What do you need with it?" Sharp asked.
"Bobby gets a bonus," the girl said in a sugary voice. "A big bonus. Big enough to give you more, if you'll take us. Isn't that right, Bobby?"
Grovebank twisted her hand painfully in silent command for her to shut her big mouth before she offered him the two percent option besides. Her eyes sparkled hatred, then smiled again. Sharp fondled the bills.
"What about your other passenger, Tuesta?"
"To hell with him. He makes it, or he misses it. Don't stall until it's too late on his account. It's five against two now, Captain. You should be flattered we all have such faith in your ability to fly. We hope you haven't lost faith in yourself. That happens with age and decrepitude, I hear."
Winston folded the bills and stuffed them into his shirt pocket with a crisp motion, standing up quickly. "I'm going to make you eat shit when this is over, Tuesta," he said threateningly. He marched to another part of the room and stuck his head in a doorway where his copilot was talking to some other men. "Get it gassed up, Rico, we're pulling out."
Rico appeared in the doorway. His naturally surly look was embellished with incredulity. "You're going by yourself, Sharp," he said defiantly. "I ain't gonna fly in that slop."
"I'm going to fly," Sharp said between his teeth. "You'll ride."-
"No!"
"You goddamned punk kid! No-guts wonder of the new generation-kiss off! I'll take it up myself. You aren't any damn good anyway. You'll never get out of this hell-hole because you haven't got any guts! No pride! Well, this is my chance, and I'm taking it, See? Now haul your ass out there and gas it up!"
"In that rain? Go to hell!"
Sharp struck with lightning speed. The flat of his hand slapped across the surly face and knocked Rico off balance.
"Winston!" Clara said sharply.
He came out of his crouch and walked toward her when Rico slunk back into the room. "I'm sorry, Clara, but I've got my pride. I've got that and my record and a willingness to take a chance. That isn't much, but it's more than these diaper-panted, insolent-mouthed kids have. They'd bitch and throw a bomb because God didn't make it quit raining for them. These infants want the whole world paved over for them, and then they'll bitch because there isn't any scenery left. I'm giving the tower a flight plan. I'll "be back in a minute."
"Now why would you do that, Captain?" Tuesta goaded. "You aren't afraid of getting lost, are you?"
"I might have guts, Tuesta," he growled, standing close. "But I'm not stupid. If I go down, somebody's going to have an idea where lam."
He slammed out a door and left a charged silence in the room, Just as he came back, the outside door whipped open, and a broad-shouldered, yellow-haired man came into the room and made Martha gasp with total astonishment.
"Ken!" she cried. "What are you doing here? You can't be here."
"Now that's a hell of a greeting," he said.
"After all the damn work I went to find you. He smiled and went toward her. "Hi, baby," he said. "I just couldn't stay away."
Sharp paused m his march through the room. "Who the hell are you ? "
"Ken Bast," he said amicably. "Are you Mr. Tuesta? I'm joining the tour here. Your office was supposed to send word to Bogota."
Winston lost his antagonism. He took Ken's hand and shook it curtly, his eyes running over the big blond with approval. "I'm the pilot," he said. "Tuesta's over there. How'd you come in?"
"Roughly," Ken laughed. "It's getting bumpy out there."
"Does that give you cold feet?"
Ken looked at him openly. "No," he said. "I figure the pilot doesn't want to go down any more than I do."
"Then we're taking off. The sooner the better." He paused, his eyes appraising Tuesta and Bobby III with a sweep. "Glad to have you aboard with me, Ken."
Gusts swept sheets of rain across the runway. Inside, they were drenched and cold. The plane rocked in the wind while the engines warmed up. Clara sat beside Winston in the cockpit and smiled bravely, but her eyes grew wider as he fed gas and snaked down the runway. The plane tipped eerily to the side a couple of times, and his face beaded with sweat.
The plane jerked up, shuddered, went down for a jarring bounce, and lifted again.
"We're up," he said tightly. A determined grin from the old days crept over his face. The engines roared powerfully, and the propellers bit into the thin air. He couldn't see the tip of the wing, and he edited the instrument readings with the instinctive kinetic senses he'd developed over many years. He headed down the corridor, clawing his way between the crooked-toothed rows of jutting volcanic peaks. Only then did he take one hand off the wheel to inspect the bump on the side of his head. He felt the sticky wetness of blood and guessed it was the door brace the wind had slammed him into.
"Winston, you're hurt," Clara said, staring at the red tips of his fingers.
He smiled at her reassuringly. "Just a bump," he said. The plane dipped and twisted in huge sweeps, making him feel a dizziness he'd never had before.
"For God's sake, Martha." Ken said earnestly. "What are you sore about? I thought you'd be happy to see me."
"I told you I didn't want you following me, Ken. I told you I wanted to get away from you for a chance to think. Now you've-you've messed everything up, damn you! How in God's name did you find me?"
"It wasn't easy. I searched through every damn-listen, Martha, we've got to get off at Quito. I brought my savings that I was going to use...."
"What, to fly me back home! How dare you, damn it!"
"No, listen to me. I want you to finish the tour. I'd like to come along with you so we can enjoy it together, but on a different one."
"I like this one," she said, stubbornly, wondering why she argued with him, wanting to open her arms and hug him into them tightly and kiss his handsome, wonderful face all over. He'd come just when she'd needed him, but she was too stubborn to let him know.
"But this thing's a front, Martha," he whispered urgently.
"What are you talking about? Ken, don't be melodramatic.
"I'm not. This Tuesta has been mixed with a student radical group with connections to one of Castro's cells in Miami."
"Oh, God, Ken!" she said sharply.
"I didn't think you'd believe me," he said. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a clipping. "This was in this morning's paper."
She took it from him and read it. It gave a description of how the back of a Hialeah office was ransacked and burned. Cuban exile groups braggingly took the credit as part of a retaliatory action. The front of the office had housed a travel agency, Inca Econo-Tours.
"I found the place and made reservations the day you left," Ken said. "This happened last night, and I flew out as soon as I could this morning. Honey, have you been all right? I don't know what they're up to. Who's this guy Sharp?"
Martha stared across the aisle at Martin Tuesta, and her face went white. Everything came clearly to her now-his mercurial changes, the wild look in his eyes, his hunger for conquering women and goading men like Winston Sharp. It explained the captain's instinctive wariness and dislike for the kind of person he regarded as the enemy of his hard-bitten ideals.
She glanced at Alva, sitting in the seat behind Tuesta, and found herself distrusting the girl, too. Alva caught her eyes at that moment. She gave Ken an animalistic smile and a flash from her sexually charged eyes that was an open invitation into her world of carnal depravity. She let Martha know with one supple thrust of her breasts that she would take Ken from her, that she would lure him away from the virginal coward with pretty blonde hair and show him what a real, living, fiery woman was like. There was nothing political in the look. It was one of pure, raw sex.
Alva unfastened her seat belt and lurched against the sway of the plane to where they were sitting. She held to the back of Ken's seat and leaned against the arm so that her thighs pressed heavily against his hand and her lithe hips weaved in front of his face.
"So you are the man who is tormenting Martha," she said, her eyes running over him suggestively, lingering in his lap. "I can see why she is tormented. You would torment me-but I would love it and would welcome such agony instead of fighting it. Your Martha fights too much, even when she is in such need."
Ken looked at her, dumbfounded.
"Alva, shut up!" Martha said desperately.
Alva tipped her head back and laughed throatily. "What's the matter, my jungle blossom? Are you ashamed of our little secret? I think Ken would like to hear what a passionate woman he has for a girl. Perhaps he would even like to watch your passion bloom. You can't deprive him of such a thrill as that, can you?"
Martha couldn't answer. The solid bang from the cockpit startled them all. She looked up to see Tuesta with a gun in his hand. There was a hole in the radio box, and Clara was screaming with terror. The plane pitched, tossing Alva across Ken's lap, preventing him from getting up. Tuesta held on tightly and shoved the barrel of the pistol into the back of Winston's neck and grinned with maniacal triumph.
"Don't anybody move, or I blow the back of this gringo's neck off!" he shouted. Smoke came out of the barrel and curled lazily up the side of Winston's head.
Out of fury, Ken grabbed Alva's arm and twisted it until she cried out in pain. Frustration colored his face. "Good timing, sister," he growled. "But now you're my prisoner." He shouted to Tuesta. "It's a standoff, Tuesta! I've got the girl, and I'll break her neck!"
Tuesta curled his lips and laughed. "You do that, Bast."
"No!" Alva squeaked. "I'm not in with him! I'm not in anything with a fucking paca like him! Stupid Indio! He wants you to break my neck already I Martha, make him stop!"
Ken looked at her. She swallowed hard with confusion. "I...I don't think she's with him, Ken, really."
He relaxed the scissored grip around her neck. Tuesta laughed again. "Aw, I thought you were going to do it for me, Bast."
"All right, Tuesta," Sharp said. "Either say what you want or get that goddamn iron out of my neck."
"Now that's the way I like to hear a gringo talk," he grinned. "You have been very abusive with me. You've all been very abusive with me. But now I have the power, no?"
"Get away from him, damn you!" Clara shouted with a shrill tone.
"Clara, don't rile him," Sharp said.
"Yes, Clara, don't make me nervous, or your jungle-ass lover might be hurt."
"Spit it out, Tuesta-what do you want?"
"I want you to change course, Captain. I want you to fly east through Ataxamba Pass."
"Into the basin?"
"Only a short way, Captain. There's a camp on the other side near the headwaters of the Caymono where a strip has been cleared for you to land in. We weren't going to have such a big plane, but our other pilot had an unavoidable problem. You can do it though. You're the best goddamn pilot there is, remember?"
"I'm not good enough to see through this weather, Tuesta. You're crazy as hell. We'll be doing good to get to Cuenca without plowing into these mountains. How the hell am I supposed to pick my way through a pass I can't see?"
"Then go over the Andes, I don't care. The weather will stop on the other side."
"You're nuts!" Sharp exploded. "I need twenty thousand at least to clear them, and there's no oxygen!"
"I don't think we'll suffer too much. We're all young and healthy. We can stand it for a few minutes. Can't you? Are you that old?"
"You son of a bitch," he cried with frustration. "What you're asking is impossible. I can't even find the pass to begin with."
"I've provided you with the charts. Look in your case and see. And you'd better do it right, or some people are going to be hurt." He shifted to the other side of the cockpit suddenly and held the gun on Clara. "I will start with her."
Sharp gritted his teeth. He glanced at Clara and saw that she was taking it well. He opened his chart case and found extra maps that hadn't been there last night.
"According to my elementary calculations," Tuesta said, "we'll be over Ambato in five minutes. Fifteen after that, you will change course the way I want you to."
"Are you hijacking us?" Clara asked. "Why? What do you want?"
"Because he's a long-haired punk," Sharp said viciously.
Clara cried out and held her hand to her face.
"Every time you talk to me that way, Captain, I'm going to slap your piece of pussy in the face," Tuesta said cruelly. "Is that clear?"
"You rotten...."
Clara cried out again and began to sob quietly.
"All right, Tuesta," Sharp said. "You win for now."
"No he doesn't!" Grovebank said from behind them. He wallowed out into the aisle and was thrown around so badly he sat down again. "Tuesta, listen. I've got to get to Cuenca. Let him land there. I'll give you the two thousand-five, ten! Name your price! You can't do this!"
"I am doing it, and I will name my price. And how convenient for me that you came along. You'll make the ransom worth much more."
"Ransom!" he squeaked.
"From your stinking government. We need money to finance our operations, Grovebank. What better way than to kidnap Americans and hold them for ransom ? "
"You fucking paca Indio bastard!" Alva spat. "I'm not American!"
"Ah, but your father is rich. Or won't he pay for you either?" He laughed insanely. "I wouldn't blame him!"
"The Caymano," Sharp said. "That's Jivaro country."
"That's right, Captain-Jivaro, Caymano, and Umpani. They are all fierce warriors when they have something to fight about. We have given them something. Our first objective will be the Shell Oil outpost on the Corrientes. This will give us even more power. We will gain Indian support and then spread through the Amazon and into the capitals and topple the juntas your country supports under the lying name of democracy. And I, Martin Tuesta, will have been instrumental in it. We are making history this very moment!"
"You stupid, idealistic, dreaming bastard. Che blew it. What makes you better than him, huh?"
Clara screamed harshly again, and tears ran down her cheeks. Sharp clamped his jaws tieht with fury and saw Tuesta calmly, coldly, look at his watch.
"Start changing, Sharp."