Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

He cut a salami-thin slice of HMX off one of the sticks on his web gear, inserted a nitro chip and pressed it against the lock. He went into the next room and pressed the red button.

He heard the explosion, but it came from outside. He looked down at the det box. He'd blown another pit by mistake. He set the selector to number six-the number on the corresponding nitro chip-and pressed the button. The explosion was more immediate. The blast knocked him to the floor.

The door was blown completely off its hinges. The air was dense with plaster dust. He coughed his way into the room and saw him.

He was coated with dust. He didn't move. Diatri leaned over the face and blew off the dust.

"Mr. Becker?"

Dead.

Diatri put his finger to the throat. There was a pulse.

"MR. BECKER!"

The eyes opened, but they were lifeless, glazed. "Mr. Becker, I'm Frank Diatri, DEA. I'm pleased to meet you. You're under arrest."

The old man shook his head and closed his eyes. Diatri rolled up his sleeves and saw the marks.

He got him over his shoulder and walked up the stairs. "You ready, sir? We're going to do this quickly. We're going to…" Diatri thought: What was the plan? There was no way he was going to hump the old guy back through the jungle to the Zodiac. This guy must have boats, though. All dopers have boats, fast boats. "We're going on a boat, Mr. Becker. Hold on now. Here we go."

He was only twenty feet from the forest when he heard "Halt!" He kept going. Bullets hit the ground around him. Diatri stopped.

They circled him. A man stepped forward, breathing hard. He was missing some hair. Everyone was out of breath. He said, "Put him down."

Diatri pointed to the stick of HMX on his web gear and held up the det box. He did a slow 360-degree circle so they could all see.

He said, "You're all under arrest."

El Niño stared. He said, "Gringo, it's been a bad night. Do not INSULT ME!"

They stared at each other. Diatri held the det box to his mouth and said into it loudly, "Charley Bird, this is Delta Baker Actual. Drop a sixty into that pit about a quarter click west of center field. Over." He pressed the button.

Another gonad-shrinking blast went off in the distance, hurling tons of half-macerated coca-leaf goo hundreds of feet into the air. Everyone watched.

"Thank you, Charley Bird," said Diatri into the det box. To El Niño he said, "You want another one?"

"No."

"Okay. Here's what's going to happen. My prisoner and I are going down that path over there. I see anyone following, anyone twitch, I'm going to call in an artillery enfilade that'll bring the fucking mountains down on you. You like snow? I'll give you so much snow you can turn this fucking place into a fucking ski resort. You got that?"

El Niño stepped forward. "That's a detonator in your hand, gringo, not a radio. Don't play games. What do you want?"

"Him."

He shook his head. "No."

"I'm taking him back to stand trial."

"We will take care of that, I promise you."

"Not in your courtroom." Diatri turned the detonator switch to the number nine position and placed his thumb over the button.

El Niño said, "Don't be foolish. You're not going to kill yourself for him. He's half-dead already."

Why not? Nothing to go back to. It was perfect and painless, instant disintegration, four million psi and into the cosmos in a blaze of quarks and protons. Go on, press it! Take all these shit buckets with you. Look at them. Thirty of them. Press it.

Diatri's thumb closed on the button. The old man moved. It was just a small movement, a breath going in and out of his lungs, but against Diatri's shoulder it felt close, like his own breath. A strange thing happened. The old man began to snore. With all this going on. Some of the men laughed. He'd had an uncle who used to do that, drop off right in the middle of everything and snore. He used to let Diatri steal money from his wallet.

He crouched on the floor by the through bolt, holding the cable, examining the parted end. At first he thought she must have cut it herself, but his forefinger came away with a smudging of lead.

Claudio stuck his head in. "Niño, it's Espinosa, on the scrambler." He picked up the phone on his desk. As he did, Arriaga appeared in the doorway.

"Hello, General," El Niño said. "I hope I'm not disturbing you, but I have something for you. I think you'll be very interested. Do you have your chart in front of you? Look at the river between Campanilla and El Valle. About five o'clock from El Valle, you see the mud island in the middle of the channel? You'll find there a large North American yacht, badly damaged, with an important gringo inside. Dead. I think it's best that way. His crew deserted during the fierce battle when you discovered them trying to leave the country with some valuable Inca artifacts on board, including an arm from the idol of Pachacamac. By the way, I'd like them back afterward… Yes. Yes. It's going to be a very big scandal. He's a significant gringo. He knows the President… Yes. Yes. A major embarrassment. You're going to be a hero. Make sure you have on your clean uniform when the TV people arrive… No, I'm-Angel, I'm just joking… All right. Fine, but not until after three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I need time to prepare. How's Mariela? And Juanito?… With the Jesuits? Oh, watch out, he'll grow up to be a Communist!" Arriaga scowled. "Well, don't worry, he'll be too busy screwing all the beautiful girls, just like his old man, eh? Hah! Bueno, un abrazo. I'll be watching you on television. Don't forget to smile."

Arriaga said, "How much do you pay this pwta?"

"Not half what I pay you."

Arriaga walked to the desk and leaned over so that his face was close. His breath was unpleasant. He had been eating fried pork. A real cholo , Arriaga. "Comrade," he said, "you confuse bribery with revolutionary taxes. You should not."

"Of course." El Niño managed to smile. "It's been a difficult day." Arriaga left.

El Niño crouched again over the parted wire, looked at the still-rumpled bed where… He rubbed the sharp wires against his thumb. Perhaps there was less holding him here than he had thought. His bank accounts in Geneva, Brussels, the Cayman Islands, were all brimming over. There was, really, no need to continue working. Though business was starting to get exciting. He loved the apartment on the Avenue Foch in Paris. The Manet would have to come with him. He couldn't leave that. Bendinck would contrive a way to get it back into the Continent. Rupert loved a challenge. The idol of Pachacamac would be his valedictory gift to his country. It was fitting.

A single bare bulb hung from a rafter. The walls and roof were corrugated tin, and though it was well after midnight, it was still hot inside and the cheep-cheep of cicadas and the grunting of frogs reverberated inside. Diatri kept putting his hand to his groin, where a few hours ago they had placed the jaws of a large set of bolt cutters. At first he had felt guilty. But he hadn't told them anything very useful, only who he was and who he worked for. He'd thrown in his Social Security number for good measure. He didn't know what was going to happen now, but he wished he had pressed the red button. So seldom does life offer such a clear-cut choice. Why didn't he press the damn button? Because Becker started snoring like Uncle Fabrizio?

He'd persuaded one of the two guards outside to bring a bowl of cool water and a rag. He dipped it in the bowl and squeezed it and laid it across the old man's head, which felt very hot. Once in Vietnam he'd-

The old man bolted up and looked at him and shouted, "Felix!"

Diatri jumped. The bowl clattered to the floor.

"No, sir. It's Frank Diatri. DEA."