City of the Beasts (31 page)

"Captain Ariosto, seize those vaccines!" Karakawe ordered. "I will have them examined in the laboratory. If I am right, these vials do not contain vaccine but deadly doses of the measles virus."

Captain Ariosto's response was to aim his pistol and shoot Karakawe in the chest. The officer fell dead on the spot. Mauro Carías pushed Dr. Omayra Torres aside, pulled out his weapon, and as César Santos was running to shield the woman with his body, emptied his gun at the vials lined up on the table, shattering them to bits. The liquid drained into the ground.

Events happened with such sudden violence that afterward no one could describe them with precision; everyone had a different version. Timothy Bruce's camcorder registered part of the events and the rest were captured in the camera Kate was holding.

When they saw the destroyed vials, the Indians believed that the Rahakanariwa had escaped its prison and would come back in the form of the cannibal-bird to devour them. Before anyone could stop him, Tahama let out a bloodcurdling yell and brought his club crashing down on the head of Mauro Carías, who dropped to the ground like a sack of meal. Captain Ariosto turned his weapon on Tahama, but Alex clipped him from behind and Nadia's monkey, Borobá, jumped into his face. The captain's bullets went astray, giving Tahama time to retreat, protected by his warriors, who had armed their bows.

In the few seconds it took the soldiers to get organized and unholster their pistols, the tribe scattered. The women and children raced away like squirrels, disappearing into the undergrowth, and the men got off several arrows before they, too, fled. The soldiers fired blindly, while Alex struggled with Ariosto on the ground, helped by Nadia and Borobá. The captain cracked the youth in the jaw with the butt of his pistol, leaving him half-stunned, then beat off the girl and the monkey. Kate ran to help her grandson, dragging him out of the center of the melee. In all the yelling and confusion, no one heard Ariosto's commands.

Within a few minutes, the village was stained with blood: besides the corpse of Karakawe and the unconscious Mauro Carías, three soldiers were wounded by arrows and several Indians were dead. One woman had been hit by bullets and the child she was carrying in her arms lay on the ground a few feet away. Ludovic Leblanc, who from the moment the tribe had appeared had maintained a prudent distance crouching behind a tree, had an unexpected reaction. Until then he had been nothing but quivering nerves, but when he saw the child exposed to danger, he drew courage from some unknown source and ran through the arrows and bullets and snatched up the tiny creature. It was only a few months old, spattered with its mother's blood and crying at the top of its lungs. Leblanc stood there in the midst of the chaos, holding the child tight against his breast and trembling with rage and bewilderment. His worst nightmares had been reversed: they themselves were the savages, not the Indians. Finally he went to Kate, who was trying to rinse her grandson's bloody mouth with a little water, and handed her the baby.

"Here, Cold, you're a woman; you will know what to do with this," he said.

Caught off guard, the writer took the infant, holding it with outstretched arms as if it were a flower vase. It had been so many years since she had held a baby in her hands that she didn't know what to do with it.

By then, Nadia was on her feet and staring at the camp strewn with bodies. She went over to the Indians to see if she recognized them, but her father put his arm around her and led her away, repeating her name and murmuring soothing words. She had managed to see that Iyomi and Tahama were not among the corpses and was feeling thankful that at least the People of the Mist had two chiefs left that they could count on, because the other two, Eagle and Jaguar, had failed them.

"Line up in front of that tree!" Captain Ariosto ordered the
International Geographic
group. He was purple with rage, his pistol trembling in his hand. Things had turned out very badly.

Kate, Timothy Bruce, Professor Leblanc, and the two young people obeyed. Alex had a broken tooth, a mouthful of blood, and was still dazed by the blow to his jaw. Nadia seemed to be in a state of shock, with a scream stuck in her chest and her eyes glued on the dead Indians and the soldiers moaning on the ground. Dr. Omayra Torres, blind to what was going on around her, tears streaming, was holding Mauro Carías's head in her lap. She kept kissing him and begging him not to die, not to leave her, as his blood soaked into her clothing. "We were going to be married…" she repeated like a litany.

"The doctor is Mauro Carías's accomplice. She was the one he meant when he said that someone they could trust was traveling with the expedition. You remember? And we were accusing Karakawe," Alex whispered his new understanding to Nadia, but she was so paralyzed with fright that she didn't hear him.

Alex realized that the entrepreneur's plan to exterminate the Indians with a measles epidemic had required the collaboration of Dr. Torres. For several years, the natives had been dying off, the victims of measles and other diseases despite the authorities' efforts to protect them. Once an epidemic broke out, there was nothing to be done, because the Indians had no defenses; they had lived in isolation for thousands of years and their immune systems could not withstand the viruses carried by the Whites. A common cold could kill them within a few days, to say nothing of more serious illnesses. Physicians who were studying the problem could not understand why none of the preventive measures were having results. Who could imagine that Omayra Torres, the person entrusted to vaccinate the Indians, was the one injecting them with death so her lover could appropriate their lands?

This woman had eliminated several tribes without raising a single suspicion, and that was what she had intended for the People of the Mist. What had Carías promised that would cause her to commit a crime of such magnitude? Was it simply out of love for him, and not for money? Whatever her reason, whether love or greed, the result was the same: Hundreds of men, women, and children were murdered. If not for Nadia Santos, who had seen Omayra and Mauro Carías kissing, the designs of that pair would never have been discovered. And they could thank the timely intervention of Karakawe—who had paid with his life—that the plan had failed.

Now Alexander understood the role Mauro Carías had in mind for the members of the
International Geographic
expedition. A couple of weeks after being inoculated with the measles virus, an epidemic would break out among the tribe and the contagion would rapidly spread to other villages. Then the befogged Professor Ludovic Leblanc would testify to the world press that he had been present when the first contact was made with the People of the Mist. No one could be blamed; the necessary precautions had been taken to protect the village. The anthropologist, backed by the reporting of Kate and the photographs of Timothy Bruce, could prove that all the members of the tribe had been vaccinated. In the eyes of the world, the epidemic would be an inevitable misfortune; no one would suspect otherwise, and in that way Mauro Carías would be guaranteed that there would be no government investigation. It was a clean and efficient method of extermination that left no trail of blood, unlike the bullets and bombs used for years against native peoples in order to "clean out" the Amazon territory and open the way for miners, traffickers, settlers, and adventurers.

When he heard Karakawe's accusation, Captain Ariosto had lost his head and impulsively killed him to protect Carías and himself. He had acted with the confidence bestowed by his uniform. In that remote, nearly unpopulated region, too distant to be reached by the long arm of the law, no one disputed his word. That gave him a dangerous power. He was a crude, unscrupulous man who had spent years in border posts; he was accustomed to violence. As if the weapon at his belt and his position in the military were not enough, he had the protection of Mauro Carías. The entrepreneur, in turn, had connections in the highest ranks of the government; he was a member of the ruling class, he had a great deal of money and prestige, and no one asked him for an accounting. The association between Ariosto and Carías had been beneficial for both. The captain estimated that in less than two years he would be able to hang up his uniform and go live in Miami, a millionaire. But now Mauro Carías was lying there with his head split open and could not protect him any longer. This was the end of the ride. He would have to justify the murder of Karakawe to government officials, as well as the deaths of the Indians lying there in the middle of the camp.

Kate, with the baby still in her arms, understood that her life and those of the other expedition members, including her grandson and Nadia, were in grave danger; Ariosto's first priority would be to prevent having the events at Tapirawa-teri revealed. It was not simply a matter here of pouring gasoline over the bodies, setting fire to them, and declaring they had "disappeared." The captain's plan had backfired; the presence of
International Geographic
had shifted from being an advantage to being a serious problem. He had to get rid of the witnesses, but he would have to do it very carefully; he couldn't shoot them without really putting his foot in it. Unfortunately for the foreigners, they were a long way from civilization and that would make it easier for the captain to cover his tracks.

Kate was sure that if the captain decided to kill them, the soldiers would not lift a finger to stop him, nor would they dare report their superior. The jungle would swallow up the evidence of the crimes. They couldn't just cross their arms and wait for the fatal shot, they would have to
do
something. They had nothing to lose, the situation could not be any worse. Ariosto was heartless, and nervous besides; they could all suffer Karakawe's fate. Kate didn't have a plan, but she thought that the first thing she should do was create a distraction in the enemy ranks.

"Captain, I think it's urgent that we send these men to a hospital," she offered, pointing to Carías and the wounded soldiers.

"Shut up, old woman!" he barked back.

A few minutes later, nevertheless, Ariosto had Mauro Carías and the three soldiers loaded onto one of the helicopters. He ordered Omayra Torres to try to remove the arrows from the wounded men before putting them onboard, but the doctor ignored him completely; all her attention was for her dying lover. Kate and César Santos took on the task of attempting to improvise bandages for the soldiers to stop their bleeding.

While the military men went about getting the wounded into the helicopter and trying in vain to contact Santa María de la Lluvia by radio, Kate, in a low voice, communicated her fears regarding their situation to Professor Leblanc. The anthropologist had reached the same conclusion: they were in greater danger in Ariosto's hands than with the Indians or the Beast.

"If only we could escape into the trees," Kate whispered.

For once, the man surprised her by keeping a cool head. Kate was used to the professor's fits and his insolence, but seeing him calm and collected, she yielded authority almost automatically.

"That would be madness," Leblanc replied firmly. "The only way to get out of here is by helicopter. Ariosto is the key. Luckily he is ignorant, and vain; that works in our favor. We must pretend we do not suspect him, and conquer him with cunning."

"How?" asked the writer, skeptical.

"By manipulating him. He is frightened, so we will offer him the opportunity to save his skin, and in the bargain come out of this a hero," said Leblanc.

"Never!" exclaimed Kate.

"Don't be foolish, Cold. That is what we will offer him, it doesn't mean that is what we will give him. Once we are safely out of this country, Ludovic Leblanc will be the first to denounce the atrocities being committed against these poor Indians."

"I see that you have changed your opinion about the Indians," Kate growled.

The professor did not dignify her with an answer. He rose up to the full extent of his small stature, tugged at the tails of his mud- and blood-spattered shirt, and walked up to Captain Ariosto.

"And how, my esteemed Captain, shall we return to Santa María de la Lluvia? We will not all fit in the second helicopter," he said, pointing to the soldiers and the group under the tree.

"Keep your nose out of this! I'm giving the orders here!" bawled Ariosto.

"But of course! It is a great relief to have you in charge, Captain. If not, we would be in a most difficult situation," Leblanc commented smoothly.

Ariosto, thrown off guard, listened.

"Were it not for your heroism, we would all have perished at the hands of the Indians," the professor added.

Ariosto, slightly calmer, counted the people and concluded that Leblanc was right; he then decided to send half his contingent of soldiers in the first chopper. That left him with only five men and the expedition party, but as they were not armed, they represented no danger. The helicopter took off, raising clouds of red dust as it lifted from the ground. It flew off over the green canopy of the jungle, fading into the sky.

Nadia had been following developments but was still clinging to her father and Borobá. She regretted having left Walimai's talisman in the nest of the crystal eggs, because without its protection she felt lost. Abruptly, she started crying like an owl. César Santos was afraid that his daughter had been through more than she could handle and was having a nervous breakdown. The bloodshed in the village was horrifying, and the moans of the wounded soldiers and the blood streaming from Mauro Carías's head had been a harrowing spectacle. The bodies of the Indians still lay where they had fallen; no one had made a move to pick them up. The guide concluded that his daughter was disoriented from the brutality of recent events; there was no other explanation for the screeches coming from her. In contrast, Alexander had to mask a smile of pride when he heard his friend: Nadia was casting about for the last possible lifeline.

"Hand over the film!" Captain Ariosto ordered Timothy Bruce.

For the photographer, that was the same as giving up his life. He was a fanatic when it came to his negatives; he had never in his career handed one over, ever; they were all carefully cataloged in his studio in London.