Thibodaux popped another boob biscuit in his mouth. “That’s a good sign, l’ami,” he said. “The little book Adelmo’s bride gave me said that when you see pink dolphins you don’t have to worry about the crocodile caiman things and can go in swimming. Sort of reminds me of home… minus the pink dolphins.”
Bo leaned over to take a whiff of his armpits. “I still smell like rosy lilac water.” He grimaced at Jericho, the wind blowing a lock of blond hair across his face. “You, however, ought to jump in. You know how you get when you haven’t bathed for two days.”
“We don’t have time,” Quinn said. “And besides, just because the caimans are afraid of dolphins doesn’t mean the piranhas are.”
Bo jerked his hand out of the water. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Or how about those teensy little catfish?” Jacques observed around a mouthful of cunape. “The som-bitches swim up inside you when you pee underwater and get stuck in there.”
Aleksandra crinkled her freckled nose in disgust. “How do you know this revolting thing?”
Jacques took slug of bottled water. “Jungle training.”
“I didn’t know you’d been to jungle training,” Quinn said. “That’ll come in handy out here.”
“Truth be told”—Thibodaux grinned—“I haven’t really. I saw it in that Tom Berenger Sniper movie.”
“Who knows,” Quinn said, looking ahead at the thick foliage along the river. He swatted a mosquito that landed on his forehead. “Maybe that will come in handy too.”
CHAPTER 57
Pollard moved like a robot, taking one last look at the bomb before he screwed the false wooden panel on the crate. As per Zamora’s plan, a half dozen military-grade Kalashnikov rifles would be stacked in front of the false front in case anyone got nosey. Pollard found it mind numbing what he’d do to keep his family safe for a few days longer.
He was smart enough to know that crazy bitch Lourdes would kill them eventually. He’d seen the black hole in her eyes when she’d first walked in his classroom what now seemed like months before. He’d been away from such things for so long that he hadn’t recognized it until it was too late. Marie stood no chance against a woman like her. She was too nice, believing that even people who did bad things were by and large good at heart and would all jump at the chance to mend their ways if only given the right set of circumstances. She gave money to beggars at every street corner and wept at the poverty of people who had to send out Internet scams from Nigeria to survive. People are mostly moral, she’d often say, if you give them a chance.
He called such naïve notions the Mermaid and Unicorn Fart Theory, explaining to his classes that though they sounded sweet and fantastical, they were every bit as foul smelling as their normal, everyday counterparts.
Sometimes bad people were just that: bad people. They might pet a puppy because society expected them to, but in their hearts they wanted to kick it across the room and listen to it yelp. Marie just wouldn’t be able to get her pretty head wrapped around such a person. Matt was sure of it.
Yesenia startled him out of his inner dialogue when she stepped in the door of his hooch, rifle slung across her chest as always.
“Señor Zamora will be here soon.” Her chin quivered ever so slightly as she spoke. “So you are going away.”
“It is better for you that I take this thing away from here,” he said.
“I wish that I could come with you.”
“Me too, Yesenia.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “If I can figure a way out of this, I’ll make sure you get to school.”
“I do not know much, Dr. Matt, but I do know Señor Zamora.” She looked down at the toes of her boots. “He will kill you when you’ve finished — and your wife.”
“I know,” Pollard said.
She looked up at him. “Then why do you do as he asks?”
“Because every moment that I do, my wife and son stay alive for just a little while longer. And as long as they live, no matter how awful the circumstances, I can cling to the hope that I can figure out a way to save them.”
“I like that,” Yesenia said. “It makes me think of my sister.”
“Me too,” Pollard lied. In reality, such futile hope sounded a lot like a unicorn fart.
Yesenia suddenly turned her head to one side so quickly it knocked the parrot feather out of her hair. She lifted the rifle.
“Dr. Matt,” she said, looking at the door. “Do you hear that?”
“Something is wrong.” Zamora stood in the middle of the wooden boat and watched Borregos’s Piper bank in over the jungle from the north. “I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it.” He toyed with the holster at his side, unsnapping and snapping it absentmindedly while he tried to work out what was going on.
Monagas let the boat drift against the slow current.
“Shall I continue upriver?”
“No,” Zamora said, still looking. “Our plan depends on the Yemenis taking possession of the bomb.”
Monagas nodded, and aimed the boat for the bank ahead.
A six-foot caiman hung motionless in the shallows, staring at the interlopers to his territory with nothing but the twin bumps of his eyes and the tip of his toothy snout breaking the chocolate surface of the river.
They were roughly four miles up a tributary from the main arm of the Beni, off the beaten path of eco-tourists. Even the local indigenous tribes knew this was a river of no return — a place where piranha, electric eel, and deadly snakes were nowhere near the most dangerous things in the jungle.
Zamora took a deep breath, scanning the shadowed foliage that came right to the water’s edge in most places. Angelo stood on the small apron of bank below the boughs of several ceiba trees, hanging heavy with their own weight. Behind him, a barely noticeable trail vanished into the undergrowth, connecting the river to the camp nearly fifty meters away.
Angelo waved with his ball cap, smiling as if he was happy to see his boss.
The roar of the Piper’s engines diminished as it touched down on the grassy strip hacked out of the jungle in back of the camp.
Zamora turned back to his companion. “Be watchful.”
“As always, patrón.” Monagas nosed the boat sideways against the muddy bank and killed the engine. He threw the landing line to Angelo, who helped Zamora over the side and up a teetering path of wooden planks he’d placed on the squishy mud.
“All is well?” Zamora asked, still sniffing the air for any sign of the Chechens. “You have not seen any other boats or aircraft?”
Angelo snapped to attention, patting the rifle slung across his chest. “No, patrón. I have been on guard. It is only us and Dr. Matt. The aircraft just arrived.”
“I see that,” Zamora said, still toying with the snap on his holster. He brushed past the stubby Angelo, pushing his way through the thick undergrowth for the camp. They’d purposely left the trail to the camp tangled and choked with vines to discourage visitors from the river.
As he expected, Pollard met him with the hateful gaze of a man with a plan for vengeance. He was so predictable. What Zamora hadn’t expected was the same look from Yesenia. He made a mental note to have Monagas kill her after the bomb was loaded and they were safely away from any would-be interference by the Chechens.
Borregos and his camouflaged men were just making it into camp when Zamora emerged from the river trail into the clearing. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the arm of his shirt. They were so close now. He would be glad to get out of this place.