River of Death

'I'm aware of that.' Smith was trying to sound patient. 'Well, your plan sounds reasonable. We leave in a couple of days?'

'More like a week. I repeat, no picnic: you don't go dashing off into the Amazonian rain-forest at a couple of hours' notice, especially when you are going to be passing through hostile territory — and, believe me, we will be. We have to allow several days for the hovercraft to get up to Cuiaba — we don't know what difficulties it might encounter. Then we have to get all our provisions and equipment and fly them over to Cuiaba. At least, you will. I have some business to attend to first.', Smith raised an eyebrow. He was very good at raising eyebrows. 'What business?'

'Sorry.' Hamilton didn't sound sorry. 'Where can one hire a helicopter in this city?'

Smith took a deep breath then clearly made up his mind to ignore the outright rebuff. 'Well, you know I have this freight Sikorsky —'

'That lumbering giant? No thank you.'

'I have a smaller one. And a pilot.'

'Again, no thanks. Tracy's not the only one who can fly a helicopter.'

Smith looked at him in silence. His face was without expression but it was not difficult to guess what he was thinking: it would have been perfectly in keeping with Hamilton's secretive nature, his policy of never letting his left hand know what his right was doing, to have flown his own helicopter over the Lost City, so that no other person could share his knowledge. At last Smith said: 'Gracious, aren't you? You don't see a little friction arising when we set off on this search?'

Hamilton shrugged indifferently. 'It isn't a search. I know where I'm going. And if you think some friction is going to arise, then why don't you leave behind those liable to give rise to friction? It's a matter of indifference to me who comes along.'

'I'll decide that, Hamilton.'

'Will you, now?' Again the same indifferent, infuriating shrug. 'I don't think you've quite got the picture yet.'

It was significant of Smith's perturbation that he actually went to the bar and poured another drink for himself. Normally, indeed invariably, he would have summoned his butler to perform such menial tasks. He returned to Hamilton and said: 'Another point. You got your own way about making the plans — but we haven't yet decided who's going to be in charge of our little expedition, have we?'

'I have. I am.'

Smith's impassive air deserted him. He looked every inch the bulti-millionaire he was reputed to be.

'I repeat, Hamilton, I'm the paymaster.'

'The ship-owner pays his captain. Who's in charge at sea? Even more importantly, who's in charge in the jungle? You wouldn't last a day without me.'

There was a sudden silence in the room. The tension between the two men was all too obvious. Heffner rose from the arm of the chair, lurched once and then crossed to where the two men were standing. The light of battle was in his truculent and bloodshot eyes.

'But, boss! You don't seem to understand.' Heffner didn't speak the words, he sneered them. 'This is the intrepid explorer himself. The one and only Hamilton. Haven't you heard? Hamilton is always in charge.'

Hamilton glanced briefly at Heffner then at Smith. 'This is the kind of irritant I mean. Born to give trouble, bound to give rise to friction. What function does he perform?'

'My chief staff photographer.'

'Looks the artistic type. He coming along?'

'Of course he is.' Smith's tone was glacial. 'Why on earth do you think Mr Tracy and I brought him down here?'

'I thought maybe he had to leave some place in a hurry.'

Heffner took a step closer. 'What does that mean, Hamilton?'

'Nothing, really. I just thought that maybe your friends in the New York police department were beginning to take too close an interest in you.'

Heffner was momentarily taken aback, then he took another menacing step forward. 'I don't know what the hell you mean. You wouldn't think of stopping me, would you, Hamilton?'

'Stopping you from coming along, dear me, no.'

Ramon looked at Navarro. Both men winced.

'Amazing,' Heffner said. 'All you require is twenty pounds over a man to make him see it your way.'

'Provided, of course, that you're half-way sober by that time.'

Heffner gazed at him in alcoholic disbelief then swung a round-house right at Hamilton's head. Hamilton moved inside it and brought up his own right in a wicked jab as Heffner's fist swept harmlessly by his head. Grey-faced and doubled over, Heffner sank to his knees, his hands clutching his midriff.

Ramon said thoughtfully: 'I do believe, Senor Hamilton, that he's half-way sober already.'

'A short way with mutineers, eh?' Smith was unmoved by the plight of his trusty chief photographer, and his irritation had given way to curiosity. 'You seem to know something about Heffner?'

'I read the occasional New York paper,' Hamilton said. 'Bit late when I get them, mind you, but that hardly matters as Heffner's activities covet a fair period. What the Americans call a scoff-law Suspected involvement in various crimes of violence, even gangland killings. He's cleverer than he looks, which I don't believe, or he has a clever lawyer. Anyway, he's always beaten the rap so far. It is impossible, Mr Smith, that you had no inkling of this.'

'I confess that there have been stories, rumours. I discount them. Two things. He knows his job and a man is innocent until proved guilty.' Smith paused and went on: 'You know anything to my detriment?'

'Nothing. Everybody knows your life is an open book. A man in your position can't afford to have it otherwise.'

'Me?' said Tracy.

'I don't want to hurt your feelings but I never heard of you until today.'

Smith glanced down casually at a still prostrate Heffner, as if seeing him for the first time, and rang a bell. The butler entered. His face remained expressionless at the sight of the man on the floor: it was not difficult to imagine that he had seen such things before.

'Mr Heffner is unwell,' Smith said. 'Have him taken to his quarters. Dinner is ready?'

'Yes, sir.'

As they left the drawing-room Maria took Hamilton's arm. In a quiet voice she said: 'I wish you hadn't done that.'

'Don't tell me I've unwittingly clobbered your fiancé?'

'My fiancé! I can't stand him. But he has a long memory — and a bad reputation.'

Hamilton patted her hand. 'Next time I'll turn the other cheek.'

She snatched her hand away and walked quickly ahead of him.

Dinner over, Hamilton and the twins left in the black Cadillac. Navarro said admiringly: 'So now Heffner is labelled in their minds as your bad apple in the barrel while Smith, Tracy, Hiller and for all I know Serrano think that they are the driven snow. You really are a fearful liar, Senor Hamilton.'

'One really has to be modest about such things. As in all else practice makes perfect.'

CHAPTER FOUR

As dusk approached, a helicopter, equipped with both floats and skids, set down on a sandy stretch on the left bank of the River Parana. Both up-river and down, on the same bank, as far as the eye could see in the gloom, stretched the dense and virtually impenetrable rain forest of the region. The far side of the river, the right or western bank, was invisible in the gathering gloom: at this point, close to where the River Iquelmi flowed into the Parana, the parent river was more than five miles wide.

The helicopter cabin was dimly lit even although the precaution had been taken of pulling black drapes across the windows. Hamilton, Navarro and Ramon were having their evening meal of cold meat, bread, beer and soda — the beer for Hamilton, soda for the twins.

Ramon shivered theatrically. 'I don't think I much care for this place.'

'Not many people do,' Hamilton said. 'But it suits Brown — alias Mr Jones — and his friends well enough. Defensively speaking, it's probably the most impregnable place in South America. Years ago I traced Brown and his fellow-refugees to a place called San Carlos de Bariloche near Lake Ranco on the Argentine — Chilean border. God knows that was fortress enough, but he didn't feel secure even there so he moved to a hide-out in the Chilean Andes, then came here.'