Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

"I thought you were dead. Felix!" The old guy was gripping him by the shoulder. He was strong. He peered deep into Diatri as if Diatri might be hiding Felix inside him. Finally, with a look of pain, he let go of Diatri and slumped back onto the pallet.

Diatri remembered from the photographs that he bore a resemblance, same build, hair, permanent tan, the old "olive" complexion.

"What happened to Mr. Velez, sir?"

The old man closed his eyes. Diatri looked and saw a tear roll out the corner of one eye, trickle sideways down along the ear and disappear.

There was a commotion at the door, unlocking, a sliding of bolts. El Niño entered, looked at Charley.

"How are we feeling tonight?"

"Fuck you," said Diatri. El Niño hit him in the face with the back of his hand. Diatri jumped up. El Niño put a pistol to his forehead. "Go ahead." Diatri sat down. El Niño said, "That was for letting the girl go." He looked at Charley.

" Billonario , are you well?"

Charley opened his eyes. Diatri had never seen such a look pass from one man to another. It seemed to unsettle El Niño, who said with apparent sincerity, "I'd give you some more morphine but they'll be doing an autopsy on you and I don't want… Well, I can give you some codeine if you want."

"You're a real prince," said Diatri.

El Niño gave a small laugh. "A count, more likely, if you worked it all out. Maybe a baron. But you'd need a team of genealogists and it would probably take them a month to establish it."

"What's the deal?"

"There's no deal. Well, actually, in your case, yes, there is a deal. Now that we know who you are. I assume you follow sports. You're being traded, to Medellin. It's more in the nature of a payment for a mistake one of my… incompetent associates committed. I just got off the phone with Reynaldo Cabrera. I'm sure you know of him. Certainly he seems to know about you. He's very eager to meet you. He wants you airmailed. You know that ranch he has outside the city, with a lake? He says to drop you in the lake. But not too hard. He has all sorts of things planned for you."

"What about him?"

"Oh," said El Niño, "that's all arranged. It's going to be on television. Ask Reynaldo to let you watch if you still have your eyes." He stood and went to the door. "Tell you what, as a personal favor I will ask Reynaldo to leave in your eyes until after it's been on. He can always amuse himself in the meantime with your other… parts. Good night."

A pair of eyes watched through the barred window opposite, then disappeared.

" Tearing open the door, Pizarro and his party entered. But instead of a hall blazing, as they had fondly imagined, with gold and precious stones, offerings of the worshippers of Pachacamac, they found themselves in a small and obscure apartment, or rather den, from the floor and sides of which steamed up the most offensive odors,-like those of a slaughterhouse. It was the place of sacrifice. A few pieces of gold and some emeralds were discovered on the ground, and, as their eyes became accommodated to the darkness, they discerned in the most retired corner of the room the figure of the deity. It was an uncouth monster, made of wood, with the head resembling that of a man. This was the god, through whose lips Satan had breathed for the far-famed oracles which had deluded his Indian votaries! "

" Tearing the idol from its recess, the indignant Spaniards dragged it into the open air, and there broke it into a hundred fragments. "

And here, he thought, laying Prescott on the desk and picking up the dark brown arm beside it, the fingers angrily splayed in an attitude of noli me tangere , was the largest of those ancient fragments, passed down fourteen generations, father to son, father to son, to him, who, regrettably, had been forced to steal it rather than allow Papa to make a present of it to the National Museum so as to curry favor with the new leftist government so they'd leave his monopolies alone. He was only seventeen at the time, but he had staged it with precocious verisimilitude. The newspapers reported the theft.

ROBARON AL BRAZO DEL DEMONIO DE PACHACAMAC.

For the precious national relic to turn up, years later, on the boat of a North American art thief was a stroke of, well-he smiled-it would add a certain historical resonance to the outrage. Espinosa, that pig, had no conception of what was being handed to him.

He listened to the night sounds outside his window. The crickets sounded like the telephones that would soon be ringing: in the Presidential Palace, at the U.S. State Department, at the United Nations.

He crushed his cigarette and stared out the window toward the hangar. He had given Claudio discreet instructions. The twin-engine Aztec was ready, with enough fuel for Panama. "Maximilian" was rolled up inside a fly-fishing-rod tube already packed aboard. He'd be in Paris in twenty-four hours. What time was it there? He picked up the phone and made a reservation at his favorite restaurant, a small Gascon boite in the Dixieme.

Half hour to sunrise. His heart was thumping out extra beats from the coffee and the anticipation. He decided to call Claudio on the radio, just to check everything again.

Claudio didn't answer. That was annoying. Rogelio would be in the new communications room. He called him. Rogelio didn't answer. Intolerable.

He called Gomez on the intercom. Gomez did not respond. He charged to the head of the stairs and was about to shout for Gomez when he thought better of waking Arriaga. He went angrily down the stairs ready to kick Gomez in the balls for falling asleep on sentry duty. He banged through the screen door. No Gomez. Where the hell was Gomez?

He charged across the field, furious, toward the communications shed, rehearsing the speech that would put the fear of God-better, of the idol of Pachacamac!-into Rogelio, after which he would activate the sirens, authentic, vintage English blitz sirens. There was nothing to match them, and to hell with waking up Arriaga.

Rogelio was bent over the console, passed out drunk, the bastard. He aimed his kick at the back of his chair. Rogelio toppled onto the floor. His eyes were wide-open. He leaned over him and looked. He didn't see it right away-a tiny ball of wool dipped into clay at the end of a thin sliver of bamboo protruding from the hair at the base of his neck.

He smashed his fist down on the siren, grabbed Rogelio's Uzi and ran out the door.

WhoooooooooooooOOOOOOOooooooooooooo.

Diatri opened his eyes. What was this? World War II? For a split second, the exciting possibility dangled that it had all been an extremely bad dream. But there was the bare bulb above him, and the old man in the cot next to him. Charley was sitting up, eyes open to the widest, listening to the strange klaxons.

He burst through the barracks door, shouting at them to get up. They were all in their beds, his men, Arriaga's men, face up, mouths tightly shut like mummies, with red lines drawn neatly across their throats.

He ran back toward the white house. He saw something in the bushes around the side, a pair of legs. Gomez's. He didn't stop. He ran up the stairs and into Arriaga's room. Arriaga was leaning against his pillow, pistol in hand, staring dully, the tip of the dart shaft sticking out between his closed lips like a toothpick.

Charley unwound the bandages from his hands. Diatri crouched by the door. Charley nodded and began to shout, "Help, help!" No guards rushed in.

Diatri took several steps back and ran and put his shoulder into the door. It was made of tin and gave easily. He found himself on the ground outside between two dead guards. They each had arrows sticking out of their-Jesus. He grabbed one of their MACs and crawled back inside.