Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

Outside in the hallway, El Niño whispered to Yayo, "Find the husband and return the favor." He was grateful to reach the outside again and hear the crowd.

Better still, to be back inside the cabin of the Falcon, climbing above the Andes. In truth, he hated Lima. It was a squalid remnant of a squalid conquest. The real Peru had always been on the other side of the mountains.

He drank a scotch and felt the tension go out of his neck. He was exhausted. An early dinner, maybe once with Soledad, beautiful, brown Soledad. Soledad was the real Peru. He should have kept her original name, but "Cicurrakka" was, well… Soledad was a good name, signifying her isolation, with him, between the two cultures.

A faint humming from beneath his feet, a shifting of hydraulic fluids… sometimes it was triggered by a noise, sometimes by a color, sometimes there was no trigger, just the memory of humming along in that idiotic vehicle, the golf cart, across oppressed lawns, her father talking about some snapping turtle that inhabited the pond between the seventh and eighth holes.

"Fearsome old thing. They tell me he might be forty or even fifty years old. They think he got the groundskeeper's dog a few years ago, can you imagine? Do you have them in Peru, Antonio? Snapping turtles? I imagine you've pretty much got everything down there."

He managed to shake it off. When he opened his eyes he saw not the manicured, artificial green of the golf course but the lush eastern slope of the Cordillera Oriental descending into the Huallaga Valley, cradle of the still-New World.

Virgilio was waiting with a pained expression. Virgilio worried all the time, it was another of his virtues.

He listened without comment to what Virgilio had to report. When they got to the house, he lit a cigarette and made Virgilio go through it again, word for word.

"When Sanchez didn't report in, I called the field in Isola Verde. No answer. I mean, the phone didn't even ring. Nothing. Finally Miguel calls me, scared out of his brain, like, like, like-"

"Okay, Virgilio. Go on."

"He said the pilot had called in saying there was a problem with the landing gear, and, and, and Sanchez was all pissed off because of the front off Ecuador and-"

"Yes yes."

"So the pilot called in a half hour out, with the proper ID code. Sanchez gets into his plane and gets it warmed up because he wants to leave right away as soon as they've got the money loaded-"

"Yes."

"And the Aztec appears and lands and taxis up next to Sanchez's Aerocommander and suddenly everything's in the shit, there's shooting and, and Nestor and Freddy are dead, and Julio's dead. Miguel said he got off some shots, then Sanchez's plane takes off and things start to blow up."

"What starts to blow up?"

"Everything! Everything! The hangar, the, the work sheds. Sanchez's plane flies over and everything starts to blow up. The next thing Miguel knows is he's lying in a field twenty meters away with his pants on fire and no hair. He's-"

"What about the money?"

"Gone, Niño. It's all burned. They must have dropped into the hangar or something with the bomb, or-I don't know, but Miguel says the whole place is full of burned hundred-dollar bills."

"Where's Miguel right now?"

"Shitting himself in the Balboa safe house. With no hair. I think he's drunk, Niño. He wasn't making any sense when I had my last conversation."

"All right, listen to me carefully. First, get the men assembled. Call Vidal in Tingo and tell him we need more men, twenty at least. Second, tell Beni to get his missiles ready. Three, get Miguel on the phone, I don't care how he is, it's important that I speak to him right away. Four, call Garza in Bogotá, tell him to get his team to Cabrera's place-never mind, I'll speak to Garza myself. Five, seal the place, nothing in, nothing out. Especially nothing out, understand? Do you understand , Virgilio?"

" Si , Niño." Virgilio ran to the door and stopped.

She was standing in the doorway, wearing a T-shirt that came down to above her waist. She had on nothing else. She smiled at him.

"Go upstairs." He pointed. "Now!" She gave him a hurt look and ran noiselessly up the stairs.

A few moments later the sirens went off, drowning out the sound of the jungle.

The square of projector light whitewashed the wall. McNamara sat by the carousel with his bandaged upper thigh extended, trying to get the mechanism to work.

Felix was on the couch, quiet. Ever since they started planting them here on the island, Felix had been acting morose. Charley could not figure it out. Tried to cheer him up and all he got back was grunts. Look at him, like he's just been force-fed a dead toad. His ribs are still hurting him. Charley's leg throbbed some. It was good the bullet had gone straight through. Probably should have hired a doctor at the outset. Mac and Bundy had some training, but it was starting to get wet-

"I'm going to have to do this manually," said Mac. "The advance mechanism's all screwed up."

The square of harsh light turned into a face, youthful with fine features, mouth open in laughter.

"Antonio Fabiano Iglesias y Caceres," said Rostow, using a pool cue for a pointer. "Father a wealthy Lima manufacturer and exporter. Deceased. Education: Markam, elementary school in Lima for rich kids run by German nuns; Culver Military Academy, South Bend, Indiana; Williams College, Massachusetts, BA 1970. University of Miami Medical School, dropped out after one year. Worked for father's company 1972; left 1972. Ran for Senate 1973 on platform of nationalizing various industries, canceling foreign debt and banning bullfighting. Defeated. Left Peru, resided Bogotá, Miami, Honduras, Paris, Zurich. Returned Peru 1979 following death of his father. Turned family residence into mental asylum." Rostow read from his notes: "Caused a stir among neighbors. Residence was in Miraflores district, where the rich people live. City government intervened on zoning grounds. Ran for Senate again." Rostow said, "This is strange-he announced his candidacy in a cemetery."

"Cemetery?" said Charley.

"Yeah," said Rostow, "he gave this speech saying since all the dead people in the cemetery had voted for his opponent the last time, he was going to get their votes this time around."

"Huh," said Charley.

"Lost election, left Lima. Said to be involved with Sendero Luminoso-Shining Path-guerrilla movement in Ayacucho. Moved to various Amazon district towns, Tingo Maria, Uchiza, Tocache Nuevo, eventually his own compound, Yenan-that's the next slide. Changed name to El Niño."

"The Kid," said Bundy.

"Christ Child," said Felix.

"Correct," said Rostow. "There was this weather phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean in 1982 where these warm currents caused all sorts of problems, floods and droughts. Caused eight billion dollars' worth of damage around the world, and fifteen hundred deaths."

"Don't seem right to name something like that after Baby Jesus," said Charley.

"South American fishermen named it," said Rostow. "It happened right around Christmastime. Next slide."

The square on the wall turned into a large-scale topographical map of northern Peru. "The upper Huallaga Valley," Rostow said, pointing with his cue toward a region northeast of Lima. "Here's Tingo Maria down here, and up here"-he placed the tip a few inches north of the town-"is his place. He calls it Yenan."

"Yenan? Is that a town?"

"Sanchez says it's named after a place in China. I don't really know what the story is with the name."

"Let's find that out." Charley made a note.

"Right. Okay, here's the deal. You've got your Andes Mountains running north and south like a twenty-thousand-foot wall between Lima and the Huallaga. And to the east of Yenan, you got three thousand miles of Amazon jungle. Between a rock and hard place."