He let the sentence fade.
DeVane kept his eyes on him.
“Go on,” he said. “Please.”
Rojas hesitated, then said, “The laborers are poor and the Chapare crop is their main resource. A hundred kilos might bring three million dollars in greenbacks if they handled production from beginning to end. Instead, they must either find other buyers for their plants or have them rot in the field.”
Devane smiled, his small, even white teeth showing suddenly and briefly. “Give your people too little and they resent you. Too much and they no longer need you. The secret of holding onto their loyalty is to let them have just enough, Francisco.”
“I would still think that your dealing with outside growers would cause resentment,” Rojas said, his curiosity momentarily overbalancing his caution. “And that the Sendero Luminoso would have its own reasons to balk. They have long had their own processing system in place, and are adamant about protecting their interests.”
“No more so than I am, and they know it,” DeVane said. “I have my reasons for keeping the leftist rebels part of the operation. And they have their unprecedented earnings to make them happy.”
Rojas decided to back off, feeling vaguely as if he’d been maneuvered.
“As I say, you have my admiration,” he said. “It is a dance of devils that I could never manage.”
DeVane didn’t seem inclined to end the conversation. “The devil can be the best of partners once you know his steps,” he said. “You are aware, I’m sure, that the nickname he has been given by the tin miners in the southern mountains is El Tio. The Uncle. On Sunday mornings they attend church with their families, make their genuflections, and sing the praises of Jesus and his saints. But before going down into the mine shafts, they pause at their entrances to leave offerings before statues of El Tio—alcohol, cigarettes, and coca leaves.”
Rojas’s discomfort was escalating again.
“Appropriate gifts for the Lord of Hell,” he commented.
“Precisely.” DeVane flashed his quick, icy grin again. “Their reasoning is wonderfully pragmatic. If you’re going to work where it’s dark and hot, you must learn how to get by. And appease the gods whose bounty you seek.”
There was a long period of silence. The sun had climbed into the center of the sky and hammered the livestock across the field into immobility. Rojas glanced around at the young guards standing near the table with their Kalashnikovs in plain view, then turned his attention back toward the airstrip and the workmen moving heavily between their trucks and the plane. He felt tired and depleted, and once more wished he were somewhere else.
DeVane took a small sip from his glass, then placed it carefully down on the table.
“I’d like your assistance with something, Francisco,” he said. “A matter of considerable importance.”
Rojas had been waiting for this moment. In most instances he would have sent a courier along with payment for a shipment of product, but when DeVane had insisted on his presence today he’d obliged without asking for an explanation — aware the American wouldn’t offer one until he was good and ready.
“If it concerns the Guzman fiasco, then you may be pleased to know I’ve gone ahead and intervened,” he said. “Give me another day and I’ll have him out of his prison cell and back across the border.”
“I appreciate that and will provide whatever funds are necessary to secure his release,” DeVane said. “But this has nothing to do with him.”
Rojas lifted his eyebrows. Eduardo Guzman was a bottom runner in DeVane’s organization, an errand boy whose arrest on suspicion of narcotics and weapons trafficking had resulted from his involvement with a prostitute who was cooperating with the anti-drug police. In ordinary circumstances he would have been beneath DeVane’s notice, a scrap to be thrown to the wolves, but because it was widely known that his uncle was one of DeVane’s major executives in Sao Paulo, Rojas had assumed the American would want him pulled out of his own shit, and made discreet overtures to the prosecutors getting ready to arraign him on formal charges. Little to his surprise, nearly all of them had hinted they might be influenced into changing their minds for a price.
However, DeVane had just made it very clear that he did not want to talk about Guzman. Leaving what he did want to talk about a mystery.
“Forgive my confusion,” Rojas said. “I’d thought—”
“There was an incident last night in the Mato Grasso, a break-in of sorts at an American industrial site,” Kuhl interrupted. It was the first time he’d spoken since Rojas’s arrival. “Did you hear anything about it before starting out this morning?”
“I don’t think so,” Rojas said. In fact, he knew that he hadn’t. But as a rule, it paid to stay out of the water until you knew which way it was flowing.
“Rest assured, you will before too long,” Kuhl said. “What you should know is that a number of the intruders were captured or killed by this facility’s private security force. I can’t tell you how many survived, or even if they’ve been turned over to the gendarmerie. But that is certain to occur. When it does, you must see that these men are never interrogated. I don’t care whether they are freed or executed or simply disappear. My sole interest is making sure that they do not talk to their captors.”
Rojas looked at him, trying to think of a response. Eight months ago his relationship with DeVane had begun with a straightforward purchase of cocaine, but almost before he knew what was happening, it had grown into a complicated tangle of affairs. He had helped DeVane to cloak transactions that might otherwise have attracted the unwanted interest of the Brazilian government. He had been a conduit to political and law-enforcement circles. He had been a small link in a very long chain, a tiny drop of oil in an immense machine, and he’d been handsomely rewarded for it. There had been money and women, stays in extravagant hotel suites, and trips to foreign countries.
Only in recent weeks had Rojas awakened to how deeply he was enmeshed in DeVane’s affairs. The things he was being asked to do were becoming riskier, and the pressure to carry them out increasingly direct. But there were limits. There had to be limits. And it sounded as if the problem he was being asked to fix went beyond any he could have imagined.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The Mato Grasso is outside my jurisdiction. I could ask some questions. Find out the status of the prisoners without too much difficulty. But if the regional authorities want to conduct an interrogation, I can’t think of how to stop them.”
Kuhl was staring at him.
“You’ll cope with it,” he said. “There is no other choice.”
Rojas looked into his eyes and was quiet for close to a full minute. The sun seemed suddenly hotter. His palms and underarms were moist with sweat. It had been mad to believe he could link himself to DeVane without losing his independence. Completely mad. He had been bought and paid for in regular installments, and was now expected to obediently jump to his master’s wishes.
At last he turned to DeVane and said, “You understand that I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.”
“Nor would we want that, obviously,” DeVane said. “All we expect is that you give it your best.”
Rojas raised his drink to his lips and drained it. The mimosa’s shade had dwindled, making the heat almost intolerable. For an irrational moment he pictured himself spontaneously erupting into flames while DeVane and Kuhl looked on without expression.
“Is anything wrong, Francisco?” DeVane said. “You seem disconcerted.”
Rojas shook his head. He heard the noisy rumble of the Beech’s engine starting up, and looked out toward the head of the airstrip. The cocaderos had emptied their trucks and were moving them back onto the dirt road as the plane prepared for takeoff. His general practice of never traveling with a shipment aside, he almost would have preferred to be on board. He did not think his nerves could stand the company of these men much longer.