From behind the house, away from the river, he could hear the horses in the stables snorting from time to time, and in the opposite direction, toward the forest, the occasional night hunting cry of a jungle bird.
Vance-Ehrhardt had many things on his mind this night, chief among them his daughter and her husband. His people at Grainex in New York City had telephoned this afternoon with the disturbing news that Lydia had visited their statistical crop-survey department. They had, of course, told her she would have to get authorization for any inquiries directly from her father, and all evening he had expected her to telephone. But she hadn’t.
The most disturbing aspect of the entire situation was not Lydia’s obvious wish to help her husband in his business by making use of her Vance-Ehrhardt birthright; it was the nature of the information she was seeking. She had asked for Soviet crop projections, especially corn.
Rumors had been flying of a large Soviet grain buy. No one, not even Grainex, had been able to verify the rumors, nor were they able to pinpoint who was doing the buying.
But someone was active — overly active. And Lydia’s visit suggested that it was Newman.
Even thinking about the ingrate raised Vance-Ehrhardt’s blood pressure. Newman had stolen the Vance-Ehrhardt respect, some of its business, and finally Lydia.
He shook his head sadly. The fact of the matter was, he still liked and respected Newman. It was a terrible burden he carried.
He got tiredly to his feet. At the edge of the veranda, he leaned his weight against the marble balustrade and stared out toward the jungle, although he wasn’t really looking at anything in particular. Instead, his mind had turned to another worrisome topic — violence. The explosion at Cargill’s New Orleans facility and the brutal murder of Gérard Louis Dreyfus.
Both the elevator and the man had been vulnerable; both had been needlessly exposed to just that kind of risk. And yet, what kind of sick world was this in which a man and his achievements could not be safe?
Here in Argentina, everyone understood violence. It was a nation of violence, on a continent of violence. But Europe and North America were different. Supposedly more civilized.
Vance-Ehrhardt sighed deeply, then turned back into the house, passing Alberto, one of the outside guards he had put on two days ago.
“Good evening, sir,” the man said, but Vance-Ehrhardt was lost in thought and did not hear him.
Inside, he trudged upstairs to his second-floor bedroom, where he crawled into bed next to his wife, Margarita, who was sound asleep.
The Cargill elevator, the murder of Louis Dreyfus, and now Lydia’s strange inquiries; all those troublesome thoughts intertwined in his mind as he tried for sleep.
Moments later, an explosion shattered the still night air, followed closely by the sound of gunfire. Vance-Ehrhardt, his heart racing, jumped up from the bed, threw on his robe, and got his loaded automatic from the nightstand.
“Jorge?” his wife cried out. “What is it?”
“Stay there,” Vance-Ehrhardt snapped, heading out the door. “No matter what happens, don’t come out of this room.”
Juan Carlos had waited with his people at the edge of the forest until the explosion on the river had come, and seconds later he led them directly across the wide lawn.
They had expected little or no resistance from outside the house, but within the first thirty seconds Eugenio and one of the others had gone down, and the rest of them had taken refuge behind the statues that dotted the lawn.
Without hesitation, the others laid down a heavy line of fire along the front of the house, tossing the fragmentation grenades, which sprayed a huge area with deadly shrapnel. Juan Carlos switched the radio first to Channel A, which was monitored by the waiting helicopter crew, and then to B, which was being monitored by the cell on the river, and shouted the contingency code: “Helpmate one! Helpmate one!”
Within moments the gunfire from the river area intensified. He patiently counted to sixty, then gave the order to move forward.
It was too bad about Eugenio, he thought as he ran. He fired, then ducked behind another marble statue. Run, fire, cover. But they had all understood the risk. Eugenio had taken two hits, one in his chest and one in his face, either of them certainly fatal. But their instructions had been precise: If a comrade goes down, he will be left mercifully dead for the protection of all of us. If he is not dead by enemy gunfire, the unit commander will make sure he is dead. He was glad it had not been necessary to finish the job with Eugenio.
Within three minutes the firing from the river ceased, and as Juan Carlos, his remaining three soldiers, and Teva reached the veranda, the river cell was coming up the path on the run.
“Keep the alternate path open,” Juan Carlos radioed on B. “We’re going in.”
“Roger,” the hand-held radio blared.
They scrambled over the balustrade, crossed the veranda where four of Vance-Ehrhardt’s bodyguards lay dead, and crashed through the French doors.
Two men on the stairs leading to the second floor opened fire; Juan Carlos and Teva returned it. The two men slammed up against the banister, one of them going over it and hitting the parquet floor with a dull thud, the other slumping down, then tumbling down the stairs.
One of Juan Carlos’ men had gone down, and without hesitation he turned and fired a short burst into his head.
“Teva and I will go up for Vance-Ehrhardt,” he said to his remaining two soldiers. “Keep this exit open, no matter what!”
Teva started up the stairs. Vance-Ehrhardt appeared in the upper corridor, and he raised his automatic and fired two shots. The first went wide, but the second hit her in the right shoulder, just below her collarbone.
She let out a small cry and fell back against the banister. Juan Carlos, halfway up the stairs, raised his submachine gun to fire. But he hesitated as Vance-Ehrhardt stepped back, seemingly having trouble with his gun.
Juan Carlos leaped the rest of the way up the stairs and was on the older man before he could fire his automatic, knocking the gun from his hand.
“Jorge?” a woman’s voice called from farther down the corridor.
There was gunfire from below.
“Run, Margarita,” Vance-Ehrhardt shouted, but Juan Carlos shoved him aside.
“Out here, woman, or this man dies!”
“Jorge,” the woman screamed.
“Move it! Now!” Juan Carlos shouted, and Vance-Ehrhardt’s wife, in her nightdress, no slippers on her feet, came out into the corridor and into her husband’s arms.
“Downstairs! Now!” Juan Carlos snapped. He was sweating and his heart was hammering out of his chest. He was riding high.
As they started down the steps, Teva was getting to her feet and raising her weapon.
“Are you all right?” Juan Carlos asked.
“I’ll live,” she said weakly.
“Kill her!” one of the men below shouted.
Teva swiveled around and fired two short bursts from her hip, slamming both men backward out the remains of the French doors.
“Bastards,” she spat.
Juan Carlos laughed out loud as they herded Vance-Ehrhardt and his wife the rest of the way downstairs. At the door he stopped and brought out his radio.
“We have our objective. Can we come?”
“We have the path,” the radio blared.
Juan Carlos shoved Vance-Ehrhardt and his wife outside and helped Teva as they went across the veranda, down the steps, and around to the path that led to the airstrip. They were met fifty yards from the house by four men from the other cell, who without a word grabbed Vance-Ehrhardt and his wife, and the eight of them hurried down the path as their helicopter, running without lights, touched down.