"Ave atque vale," Trout said, quoting the old Roman salute to the dead. "Hail and farewell."
They went back across the river. As Ramirez was climbing from the inflatable, he slipped on the wet bank.
"Are you all right?" Gamay said.
Ramirez grimaced with pain. "You see, the evil spirits have already begun their work. I've apparently twisted something. I'll put a cold compress on it, but I may require your assistance to walk."
He limped back to the house with a hand from the Trouts. Ramirez said he would report the incident to the regional authorities. He didn't expect a response. A dead Indian was still considered a good Indian by many in his country.
"Well," he said, brightening. "What is done is done. I look forward to our dinner tonight."
The Trouts went back to their room to rest and clean up for dinner. Ramirez collected rainwater in a roof cistern and channeled it into a shower. Gamay had evidently been thinking about the Indian. As she toweled off she said, "Do you remember the Ice Man they found in the Alps?"
Paul had slipped into a silk bathrobe and was stretched out on the bed with his hands behind his head. "Sure. Stone Age guy who got freeze-dried in a glacier. What about him?"
"By looking at the tools and possessions he carried it was possible to picture his way of life. The Indians around here are at a Stone Age level. Our blue-faced friend doesn't fit the mold. How did he learn to make those things? If we had found those tools on the Ice Man, it would be in every newspaper headline. I can see it now: 'Ice Man Flicks a Bic.' "
"Maybe he subscribes to Popular Mechanics."
"Maybe he gets Boy's Life, too, but even if he got instructions every month on how to make neat stuff, where would he get re fined metals to make them with?"
"Perhaps Dr. Ramirez can enlighten us at dinner. I hope you're hungry," Paul said. He was staring out the window.
"I'm starved. Why?"
"I just saw a couple of natives carrying a tapir to the barbecue pit."
Chapter 4
As Austin stepped through the big bay door into the cavernous building at the San Diego naval station, his nostrils were assaulted by a hell smell emanating from the three leviathans whose floodlit carcasses were laid out on flatbed trailers. The young sailor standing just inside the door had seen the broad-shouldered man with the strange white hair approach and assumed from his commanding presence that he was an officer in mufti. When Austin went to identify himself, the sailor snapped to attention.
"Seaman Cummings, sir," the seaman said. "You might want to use this." He offered Austin a surgical mask similar to the one he was wearing. "The smell has gotten real strong since they started pulling out the vital organs." Austin thanked the seaman, wondering whom he had offended to pull such foul duty, and slipped the mask over his nose. The gauze had been sprinkled with a perfumed disinfectant that didn't quite cut the strong odor but subdued the gag reflex.
"What have we got?" Austin said.
"A mama, a papa, and a baby," the sailor said. "Boy, what a time we had getting them here."
The seaman wasn't exaggerating, Austin thought. The final count was fourteen whales. Disposing of their bodies would have been a tall order even without the turf battles. As the first government agency to arrive on the scene, the Coast Guard was
worried about hazards to navigation and planned to tow the whales out to sea and sink them with gunfire. The highly dramatic TV reports had gone around the world and stirred up animal rights activists who were angrier over the whale deaths than if Los Angeles had fallen into the Pacific Ocean with all its in habitants. They wanted answers, fast. The Environmental Protection Agency was equally curious to know what had killed mammals that were under EPA protection.
The city of San Diego was horrified at the prospect of huge, smelly carcasses drifting up to its beaches, marinas, seaside hotels, and shorefront houses. The mayor called the district congressman who happened to be on the naval appropriations committee, and a compromise was reached with amazing speed. Three whales would be brought to shore for necropsy. The others would be towed out to sea and used for target practice. Greenpeace protested, but by the time they mobilized their mosquito fleet, the whales had been blasted to blubbery smithereens by navy gunners.
In the meantime an oceangoing tug hauled the remaining whales to the base. Navy cranes lifted the massive bodies from the water in improvised slings, and they were transported to a vacant warehouse. Mammalian forensic specialists from several California universities went to work as soon as the whales were delivered. An improvised laboratory was set up. Dressed in foul weather gear, gloves, and boots, the technicians swarmed around and on top of the carcasses like large yellow insects.
The head of each animal had been separated from its body, brain tissue removed and taken to the dissecting tables for tests. Wheelbarrows served the function of stainless steel trays in a human autopsy.
"Not exactly brain surgery, is it?" Austin observed as he listened to the buzz of power saws echoing off the metal walls of the warehouse.
"No, sir," the sailor said. "And I'll be glad when it's over."
"Let's hope it's soon, sailor."
Austin pondered why he had left his comfortable hotel room for this ghoulish watch. If the race hadn't been a flop, win or lose he would have been guzzling champagne in celebration with the other racers and the coterie of lovely women who hovered around the race circuit like beautiful butterflies. A respectable number of bottles were popped, but the festivities had been dampened for Kurt and Ali and their crews.
Ali showed up with an Italian model on one arm and a French mademoiselle on the other. Even so, he didn't look particularly happy. Austin elicited a smile when he told the Arab he looked forward to competing against him again soon. Zavala up held his reputation as a ladies' man by carving a chestnut-haired beauty from the field of groupies on hand for the race finale. They were going out for dinner, where Zavala promised to regale his date with the details of his narrow escape.
Austin stayed long enough to be polite, then left the party to phone the owner of the Red Ink. Austin's father was expecting his call. He had watched the race finale on TV and knew Austin was safe and the boat lay at the bottom of the ocean.
The elder Austin was the wealthy owner of a marine salvage company based in Seattle. "Don't worry about it," he said. "We'll build another one, even better. Maybe with a periscope next time." Chuckling evilly, he recounted in loving and unnecessary detail the night a teenage Austin had brought his father's Mustang convertible home with a crumpled fender.
Most grand prix races were held in and around Europe, but Austin's father wanted an American-built boat to win in American waters. He paid for the design and construction of a fast new boat he called the Red Ink because of the money it cost him and put together a top-notch pit crew and support team. His father put it with his typical bluntness: "Time we kick ass. We're gonna build a boat that shows these guys that we can win with American parts, American know-how, and an American driver, You. "
He formed a conglomerate of sponsors and used their economic clout to bring a major race to the States. Race promoters were eager for the opportunity to tap into the vast potential of
the American audience, and before long the first SoCal Grand Prix had become a reality.
NUMA director Admiral James Sandecker grumbled when Austin told him he wanted to work around assignments, when ever possible, so he could race in the qualifying runs. Sandecker said he was worried about Austin being injured in a race. Austin had politely pointed out that for all its dangers, racing was a canoe paddle compared with the hazardous jobs Sandecker as signed him to as leader of NUMA's Special Assignments Team. As a trump card he played on the admiral's fierce patriotic pride. Sandecker gave Austin his blessing and said it was about time the United States showed the rest of the world that they could compete with the best of them.