Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

"Now, the Huallaga's where they grow the best leaf in the world. The soil and the altitude are just right for it. Leaves there have an alkaloid content of.79; the stuff down here in the Valle de la Convencion is only about.33."

"The government in Lima didn't mess much with the Huallaga until Sendero moved into the valley in '83. I was there from '81 to '84, until I… When Sendero moved in to provide protection for the narcos , Lima got nervous. Sendero is bad fucking news. I mean, they make Iranians seem reasonable. Their hero, historically, is this Indian Tupac Amaru, who the Spaniards tied to horses two hundred years ago and tore apart. They buried the limbs in like four different provinces-the Spaniards were always doing this sort of thing; you can see why the whole place is so fucked up-and suddenly there's these rumors that the limbs are regrowing. The leader is this guy Abimael Guzman, they call him Presidente Gonzalo, I don't know why, and no one's seen him for like ten years. They're Maoist, basically, but they think the Chinese Commies are soft and forget the Soviets. When I was in Lima the lights would go out about every two hours because Sendero had blown up another pylon. They'll hang dead dogs from lampposts, kill people in ways you don't want to hear about. In Chimbote once they tied a stick of dynamite to a duck-a duck-and blew up a telephone exchange."

"Can't be all bad," said Mac.

"They started providing security for the dopers. It's a great arrangement. They charge a 'revolutionary tax' on every kilo. It works out great for everyone. This whole area here"-he circled the Huallaga-"is a zona rosa . The Red Zone. It belongs to them."

"Scandalous," said Charley, exhaling cigar smoke.

"Every now and then the government decides to do a little pecker flexing and they'll drop in some paratroopers for the photo opportunity, but the moment those boys hit the ground they run for the river- run -where the patrol boats are prepositioned for the extraction."

"Hm," said Charley.

"Now, what our boy did was, his innovation was to figure a way around Colombia. Traditionally the Peruvians only handle it up to a certain point. They take the leaves and soak them in these pits with kerosene and sulfuric acid, then skim off the residue. That's called pasta sucia -dirty paste. Then they wash that, right there in the river, and turn it into pasta lavada , washed paste, or pasta basica de cocaina , PBC. At that point they fly it into Colombia, where they refine it with ether and acetone, and some other precursor chemicals turn it into cocaine hydrochloride, the powder. This guy figured a way to do that himself and cut out the Colombians, which probably didn't make them happy. Sanchez said he owns his own chemical factories in Brazil."

"Vertical integration," said Charley. "Smart businessman."

"Extremely smart. If he's moving a metric ton into the country every week, then he's probably clearing two hundred million a year."

"Jesus," said Charley. "I don't make two hundred million a year."

"Next slide. Here's a sketch of Yenan, according to what Sanchez told us. Four-thousand-foot airstrip for his jets, barracks, drying sheds, soccer field, soaking pits, main house, aquarium-"

"Aquarium?"

"Maybe he likes fresh fish. Communications shed over here, and here," said Rostow, lowering his tone a good octave, "is the radar facility, which is where they keep the Stingers."

"Stingers," Charley grunted.

"He thinks they came from Peshawar, from the muj."

Charley shook his head. "I told Casey not to give those people Stingers. I told him it'd be nothing but trouble."

Rostow drew a circle around the compound with his pool cue. "The perimeter's booby-trapped seven ways from Sunday. Sanchez said that's how they get a lot of their fresh meat. Jaguar, tapir, they got these giant rats, apparently called capybaras. He said they're pretty good."

"I never ate jag," said Mac.

"It's like dog, but stringy," said Bundy.

"You never ate jaguar."

"I ate leopard once in Africa."

"When did you eat leopard?"

"In Angola."

"Bullshit."

"Boys," said Charley, "let's save the gastronomy for later, if you don't mind. Go on."

"That's about it. He's got himself a tight little asshole in there. He's got the Andes on one side, a jungle on the other, a security force from hell, Stingers, a mined perimeter. I don't want to sound downbeat, Mr. Becker, but this isn't going to be easy."

"Is that why you all signed on for this job?" Charley pulled himself up out of his chair painfully. "Because it was going to be easy? Mac? Bundy, is that why you boys signed on?"

"No, sir," said Bundy. "I signed on for the money."

Charley hobbled over to the projection wall. "Gimme a little more scale," he said. The sketch of Yenan disappeared, replaced by a large-scale map of Peru. Charley stared at it, cigar smoke curling upward into the projector light.

He said, "It's been right here the whole time, biting us on the ass."

Two months later

Charley stood on the bridge of the Esmeralda and surveyed with a squint the Amazon port city of Iquitos. A huddle of beggars surveyed him back.

He didn't feel right looking down as he did on them from his gleaming white high-tech perch. The yacht stood out so, here. Her pristine whiteness seemed to rebuke the filth about her. Lord, she seemed to be saying, when's the last time you took a bath?

At least, Charley comforted himself, he'd had the presence of mind to change her name from Conquistador . Be like steaming into Gdansk on a yacht named Blitzkrieg .

The beggars were trying to get his attention. They shouted, " Capitan! Capitan! " and polished the air hopefully with rags. Leishmaniasis had eaten away the nose of one man, leaving a hole, a sad and terrible sight. Charley waved back.

Conquistador had been Margaret's idea. She bought it without telling Charley after reading that Ibiz Fahoudi, the international arms dealer, was under financial pressures. She took Charley to Miami without telling him why and presented it to him as another of her faits accomplis. "Damnit, Margaret, it's a whorehouse."

"I'm going to make it lovely," she said. Yachts bored Charley; he felt trapped on them. He installed a cantilevered flight deck on the upper deck to allow him to fly his UAVs-unmanned aerial vehicles; model planes. Conquistador became a miniature aircraft carrier. Margaret would be below taking the sun on the fantail deck, Charley and Tasha would be on the flight deck reliving the battle of the Coral Sea, scale-model Avengers coming in too low on final and hitting the sides and blowing up, Margaret shouting up at them to stop, giving up, going on with her reading.

" Capitan! "

Charley reached into his pocket. He was an old-fashioned man, had never used a credit card-didn't believe in them-always kept a thick, comforting wad of cash. He peeled off a few bills and was going to crumple them and toss them down to the beggars, then that didn't seem right either.

A security guard looked out of his shed and saw them and came out waving his stick and shouting at them, " Fuera, fuera! Fuera! " just like Sister Angustia used to do when the chickens wandered in during Mass. Charley called down to the crewman standing watch at the gangplank to let the beggars aboard. The beggars came scrambling up, turning as they did to give the wharf guard various unmistakable hand signals. The man with no nose was grinning and made a hissing noise through his exposed sinuses.

Charley came down the stairs and there they were, standing improbably in the main salon. He approached them with his customary Chargin' Charley gait. The beggar nearest went into a half crouch, thinking he was going to hit them.