Commando (2 page)

“She looks like she stepped out of the past,” Jake said, more to himself than to Morgan.

“Doesn’t she?”

“If she’s half-white, she doesn’t look it.”

Morgan nodded and continued slowly eating his sandwich. “You looked interested, Jake,” he noted after he swallowed.

“Maybe.”

With a chuckle, Morgan wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “That’s one of your many traits that I like, Jake—you’re noncommittal.”

Jake had to admit that he was feeling anything but noncommittal as he continued to study the photograph of Shah. She wasn’t smiling; she had a very thoughtful look on her face. Pride radiated from her in the way she stood, shoulders squared, with a glint of defiance in her wide, intelligent eyes. But there was something else, something that Jake sensed and felt but couldn’t put his finger on. What was it? Was that a haunted look he saw in her eyes?

“I wonder how old she was when this photo was taken.”

“Why?”

“Dunno.” Jake laid the photo back on Morgan’s desk. “Travers is hiding something from us,” he said.

“I think so, too.”

“But what?”

“I don’t know.” Morgan offered Jake some potato chips. Jake took a handful and munched methodically, frowning as he considered the question.

“Travers seems more angry than anything else,” Morgan offered.

“Not exactly what I’d call the concerned-parent type,” Jake agreed dryly.

“He’s posturing, that’s for sure,” Morgan said. “It’s obvious he’s a real controller and manipulator.”

Jake chuckled. “Yeah, and it sounds like his daughter rebelled very early on and leads her life the way she sees fit.”

“Travers is also prejudiced against Indians.”

“Noticed that, did you?” Jake rolled his eyes.

“I know you’re a walking encyclopedia of knowledge….” Morgan said.

“I prefer to think of myself as a philosopher,” Jake corrected, “despite being an ex-marine.”

“And a mercenary,” Morgan added. “So how much do you know about Indians?”

“Native Americans is the preferred term,” Jake noted. “A little. Enough to realize that Shah is like some of the younger generation of Native Americans who are trying to reclaim their heritage. Her fierce pride isn’t unusual.”

“Ever been on a reservation?”

“Once, a long time ago. I had a marine friend who was Navajo, and I went home with him for Christmas one year. His folks lived near Gallup, New Mexico, and they had a hogan made out of wood and mud. I stayed with them for nearly two weeks, and learned a hell of a lot.”

“You had a good experience?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like Travers didn’t.”

“Travers,” Jake intoned, “would hate anything or anyone who disagreed with him or got in his way.”

With a grin, Morgan finished off his sandwich. “Once Travers fills out the papers, I’m going to have a security check run on him.”

“Good idea. He looks a little too slick to me—one of those greedy eighties business types.”

“Sounds like his daughter is just the opposite of him—clear ethics, strong morals, and decided values.”

“I agree.”

“So, if all of our info comes back in order on Travers, do you want to be a bodyguard for a while?”

Jake shrugged. He tried to appear nonchalant, but his protective feelings had been aroused. He looked down at the photo. “Yeah, I’ll go to Brazil and see what’s going down.”

“She’s a very pretty young woman.”

“The earthy type,” Jake agreed.

Jake sat there for a long time, simply feeling his way through the photo of Shah. There was an ageless quality to her, as if all the generations of the Sioux people were mirrored in her classic Indian features. She didn’t have a common kind of model’s prettiness, but Jake never went for that cookie-cutter type, anyway. He liked women who had their own special and unique features. Character, as far as he was concerned, should be reflected on a person’s face, and Shah’s face intrigued him.

Unconsciously he rubbed his chest where his heart lay.

“Memories?” Morgan asked quietly, breaking the comfortable silence of the office.

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Jake loved Morgan like a brother. They had both served as marines, and that bound them in an invisible way. Once a marine, always a marine—that was the saying. Even though they hadn’t served together, they’d come from the same proud service. Marines stuck together, and supported each other and their families. Maybe that was why Jake liked working for Morgan so much—he understood Jake’s tragic loss, and, like any marine brother, supported him as much as possible.

He gave Morgan a quick glance. “Bess was always spunky, too,” he whispered, his voice strained. “Shah kinda reminds me of my wife in some ways.”

“You always want me to give you assignments that deal with drugs,” Morgan said. “This one won’t involve drug trafficking.”

“It’s okay.” Jake tried to shake off the old grief that still clung to his heart. “Maybe I need a change of pace. Something different.”

“I feel this assignment may be more than it appears to be on the surface,” Morgan warned him.

“What else do I have to do with my life?” Jake said, pretending sudden joviality. “Go home to an empty log house? Sit and watch a football game and drink a beer? No plants in the house. No animals…”
No family. No wife.
Not anymore. The grief grew within him, and he got up, rubbing his chest again. He saw Morgan’s face, which was no longer expressionless. Morgan knew about personal loss as few men ever would. Jake stood there, unable to put into words the feelings unraveling within him.

“Well,” Morgan said softly, “maybe it would do you good to have this kind of assignment, then.” He attempted a smile.

“Where you’ll be going, there’ll be plenty of plants and animals.”

Jake nodded and moved to the windows. The November sky was cloudy, and it looked like either rain or the first snowfall of the year for the capital. “Brazil is having their springtime,” he said, as much to himself as to Morgan. “It’ll be the dry season down there, and the jungle will be survivable.”

“Just make sure
you
survive this mission,” Morgan growled.

Jake rubbed his jaw. “I always survive. You know that.”

Morgan nodded, but said nothing.

Jake turned toward him. “You’ve got a funny look on your face, boss.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah.”

With a slight smile, Morgan said, “Well, maybe I’m hoping that Shah and her situation can lighten the load you’ve been carrying by yourself for so long, that’s all.”

Jake halted at the desk. “Well, time heals all, right?”

Morgan sat back. “Time has been a healing force for me, Jake. I hope it will be for you, too.”

With a grimace, Jake ran his finger along the highly polished surface of Morgan’s desk. “You know what William Carlos Williams said about time? He said, ‘Time is a storm in which we are all lost.’ I agree with him. I’ve never felt so lost since Bess’s and the kids’ deaths.”

“I know.”

Jake forced a smile he didn’t feel. “Well, who knows? Maybe this storm surrounding Shah will be good for me. It can’t get any worse.”

Manaus was the Dodge City of Brazil, Jake decided as he left the seedy-looking gun shop. Less than an hour ago, he’d stepped off the plane into the sweltering noontime heat that hung over the city. Now, standing on a cracked and poorly kept sidewalk outside the shop, Jake looked around. Disheveled houses, mostly shacks, lined both sides of the busy street. Odors in the air ranged from automobile pollution to ripe garbage to the muddy scent of the two mighty rivers that met near the city.

Sweat was rolling off Jake, but that wasn’t anything new to him. Manaus sat at the edge of the Amazon Basin, home to one of the largest rain-forest jungles in the world. Rubber trees had been the cause of Manaus’s rise to fame—and its downfall. Once chemical companies had learned to make synthetic rubber better than what the trees of the Amazon Basin provided, the city’s boom had ground to a halt, leaving Manaus destitute.

Jake flagged down a blue-and-white taxi and climbed in.

“Take me to the docks. I need to hire a boat to take me down the Amazon,” he said in Portuguese to the old man who drove the cab.

Nodding, the driver grinned and turned around.

Jake sagged back against the lumpy rear seat as the cab sped off. The asphalt highway leading to the docks was bumpy at best. Not much had changed in Manaus, Jake decided. Skinny brown children with black hair and brown eyes played along the edge of the road. Dilapidated houses lined the avenue. Although Manaus was struggling to come out of the mire of depression that had hit it so long ago, it had remained intrinsically a river town, filled with a colorful assortment of characters, greedy money-seekers willing to turn a quick dime and the now-impoverished “wealthy” who had depended upon their income from the rubber trees to keep them that way.

The docks came into view after about half an hour. Up ahead, Jake could see the wide, muddy ribbons of the Solimoes and the Rio Negro coming together to create the enormous Amazon. A number of boats—some small, some fairly large—dipped and bobbed, their prows either resting on the muddy river bank or tied off with frayed pieces of rope to some rotting wooden post on one of the many run-down wharves. As the taxi screeched to a halt, Jake paid the driver in cruzeiros, Brazil’s currency, and climbed out. His only piece of luggage was a canvas duffel bag that was filled, though only partially, with clothes and other essential survival items.

Standing off to one side where the asphalt crumbled to an end and the muddy slope began, Jake reached into the duffel bag and pulled out a large knife encased in a black leather sheath. He put the scabbard through his belt loop and made sure it rode comfortably behind his left elbow. Tying a red-and-white handkerchief around his throat to use to wipe the sweat from his face, Jake rummaged in the duffel bag again and came up with a few badly crumpled American dollars that he’d stuffed away in a side pocket.

Recession had hit Brazil big-time, and over the past few years inflation had risen from three hundred to six hundred percent. One American dollar was worth hundreds of cruzeiros, and Jake knew he’d have no trouble finding a willing skipper to take him where he wanted to go if he showed he had American money.

Jake also had a huge wad of cruzeiros stashed in a hidden leg pouch. Americans weren’t common in Brazil, and those who did come were seen by the local populace as being very rich. Jake wasn’t about to become one of the robbery or murder statistics on a local police roster. Manaus was a wide-open city, and it paid for any foreigner to be watchful and take nothing for granted. All of Brazil’s large cities held areas of homes surrounded by huge wrought-iron fences, sometimes ten feet tall, to protect them from thievery, which was rampant in Brazil.

Pulling the leather holster that contained a nine-millimeter Beretta out of his bag, Jake strapped it around his waist. He wanted the holster low, so that he could easily reach the pistol. Because of the constant high humidity, Jake wore khaki pants and a short-sleeved white shirt, already marked with sweat.

Looking around from his position just above the muddy bank of the river, Jake smiled faintly. The cottony white clouds, heavy with moisture, barely moved above the jungle that surrounded Manaus. The noontime sun was rising high in the pale blue sky, shafting through the fragments of clouds. As Jake zipped up the duffel and slung it across his shoulder, he knew that for the next couple of days he’d be adjusting to the brutal combination of ninety-degree temperatures and ninety-percent humidity.

He heard cawing and looked up. A flight of red-and-yellow macaws flew across the river, barely fifty feet above the surface. They looked like a squadron of fighter jets, their long tails and colorful feathers in sharp contrast with the sluggish brown headwaters. Watching his step, Jake gingerly made his way down to what appeared to be the most seaworthy craft available, a small tug. The captain was dressed in ragged cutoffs. His legs were skinny and brown. His feet were large in comparison to his slight build, and he wore no shirt, pronounced ribs showing on his sunken chest. He was balding, and his brown eyes turned flinty as Jake approached.

“I need a ride,” he called to the captain, “to a Tucanos village about three hours down the Amazon. Think that tub will make it that far?”

The captain grinned, showing sharp and decayed teeth. “This boat of mine isn’t called the
Dolphin
for nothin’. She floats even when we have the floods!”

Jake stood onshore, haggling with the captain over the price of such a trip. In Brazil, everyone bargained. Not to engage in such efforts was considered rude. Finally, when Jake flashed a five-dollar American bill in the captain’s face, negotiations stopped. The captain grabbed the money and held out his hand to Jake, a big, welcoming grin splitting his small face.

“Come aboard.”

With an answering grin, Jake hefted himself onto the small tug. It had once been red and white, but lack of care—or more probably lack of money—had prevented upkeep on the paint. With a practiced eye, Jake slowly walked the forty-foot tug, checking for leaks.

“You know the name of this village?” the captain called as he slid up onto a tall chair that was bolted to the deck in front of the wooden wheel.

“Yeah, they call it the village of the pink dolphins.”

Nodding sagely, the skipper waved to the children onshore, who, for a few coins, would untie the tug and push it away from the wharf. “I know the village. There’s a Catholic hospital and mission there.”

Jake dropped his duffel bag on the deck and moved up front as the tug chugged in reverse. The hollow sound of the engine, and the blue smoke pouring from it, permeated the humid air. Narrow strips of wooden planking served as benches along the tug’s port and starboard sides. Jake sat down near the captain and looked out across the bow.

“What else do you know about the village?” Jake asked.

The captain laughed and maneuvered the tug around so that the bow was now pointed toward the huge expanse of the headwaters, which were nearly a mile in width. “We hardly ever see an American who speaks fluent Portuguese.” The man eyed the gun at Jake’s side. “You go for a reason, eh?”

“Yeah.” Jake decided the skipper wasn’t going to answer his question—at least not on the first try.

The crystal-clear tea-colored water of the Solimoes was beautiful in its clarity. Its color was caused by the tannin contained in the tree roots along its banks, which seeped out and tinted the water a raw umber. The Solimoes’s temperature was far lower than the Rio Negro’s. As a result, the river’s depths were clear, icy and pretty in comparison to the milky brown waters of the warmer Rio Negro, which Jake could see beginning to intersect it up ahead. Soon, the water surface around the tug mingled patches of tea-colored water with lighter, muddied water, reminding Jake of a black-and-white marble cake Bess used to bake.

“They say there’s trouble at that village,” the captain said as he maneuvered his tug against the powerful currents of the two rivers mixing beneath them.

So the skipper
was
going to answer him, if obliquely. Jake was pleased. “What kind of trouble?”

The captain shrugged his thin shoulders, his hands busy on the wheel as he kept the tug on a straight course for the Amazon River. “Pai Jose—Father Jose—who runs the Catholic mission there at the village, is said to have trouble. That’s all I know.”

Rubbing his jaw, which needed a shave, Jake nodded. He knew that the Catholic missionaries had had a powerful influence all over South America. The Indians had been converted to Catholicism, but the numerous missions along the rivers of the Amazon Basin were places not only of worship, but also of medical help—often the only places such help was available.

“You know this priest?” Jake asked.

“Pai Jose is balding,” the skipper said, gesturing to his own shining head, “like me. He’s greatly loved by the Indians and the traders alike. If not for his doctoring, many would have died over the years.” The skipper wrinkled his nose. “He is a fine man. I don’t like what I hear is happening at the Tucanos village where he has his mission.”

Jake ruminated over the information. Communications in this corner of the world were basically nonexistent outside of Manaus, except by word-of-mouth messages passed from one boat skipper to another. Few radios were used, because the humidity rusted them quickly in the tropical environment. Was Shah involved with Pai Jose? Was she even at the village? Jake didn’t know—the information Travers had provided was sparse.

“They doing a lot of tree-cutting in this area?” Jake wanted to know.

“Yes!” The man gestured toward the thick jungle crowding the banks of the Amazon. “It brings us money. My tug is used to help bring the trees out of the channels along the Amazon to the Japanese ships anchored near Manaus.”

It was a booming business, Jake conceded—and the money it supplied could mean the difference between survival and death to someone like the skipper.

“Besides,” the man continued energetically as he brought the tug about thirty feet away from the Amazon’s bank, where the current was less fierce, “the poor are streaming out of the cities to find land. They must clear the trees so that they can grow their own vegetables. No,” he said sadly, “the cities are no place for the peasants. They are coming back, and we need the open land. Manaus no longer needs the rubber trees, and the farmers need the land. So, it is a good trade-off, eh?”

Jake didn’t answer. He knew that the terrible poverty of Brazil, both inside and outside the cities, was genuine. Here and there along the muddy banks he could see small thatched huts made of grasses and palm leaves. Curious children, dressed in ragged shorts or thin, faded dresses, ran out to stare at them. He looked out across the enormous expanse of the Amazon. It made the Mississippi River look like a trickle.

“Look!” the skipper shouted with glee. “Dolphins!”

Sure enough, Jake saw three gray river dolphins arc into the air then disappear. They were playful, and soon they saw many more.

“This is a good sign,” the skipper said, beaming. “Dolphins always bring luck. Hey! If you are truly lucky, you may get to see a pink dolphin near that village! They are very rare.”

“What do the Indians say about pink dolphins?” Jake was enjoying the antics of the sleek, graceful gray animals that were now following the tug, playing tag.

“There is an old legend that if a pink dolphin falls in love with a beautiful young village girl, he will, at the time of the full moon, turn into a handsome youth. Once he has legs and lungs, he leaves the river to court this beautiful girl. He will lie with the girl, get her with child, then walk back into the water to become a pink dolphin again. A girl who has such an experience is said to be blessed.”

Jake wondered about that legend, but said nothing. The legend could have been created to explain a young girl’s sudden and unexpected pregnancy. Heaving a sigh, he allowed himself to relax. There was nothing to do for the next two and a half hours, until they reached the village. Stretching out on the narrow wooden seat, Jake decided to see if he could catch some badly needed sleep.

“Hey!” the skipper called. “We’re here!”

Groggily Jake sat up. He was damp with sweat. He untied his neckerchief and mopped his face and neck. The tug was slowing, the engine’s forward speed checked as they aimed at a dilapidated wooden dock where several Tucanos children waited.

Wiping sleep from his eyes, Jake stood up and rapidly sized up the small village huts thatched with palm fronds. The tall trees of the Amazon still lined the riverbanks, but just inside them the land had been cleared for homes for the Tucanos. He counted roughly fifty huts, and saw a number of Indian women near fires tending black iron cooking kettles. The women were dressed in colorful cotton dresses, their black hair long and their feet bare. The children raced around, barely clad. The short, barrel-chested, black-haired men held blowguns. Machetes hung on belts around many of their waists.

The odor of wood smoke combined with the muddy stench of the river. As the tug gently bumped the dock, Jake could also smell fish frying. About a dozen Tucanos children gathered, wide-eyed as Jake leaped from the tug to the dock. He set his duffel bag down on the gray, weathered surface of the poorly made dock.

“How can I get a ride back up the river to Manaus?” he asked the skipper.

Grinning toothily, the skipper pointed to the village. “Pai Jose has a radio. He knows the name of my tug. He can call the wharf at Manaus, and someone will find me.”

That would have to be good enough, Jake thought. He lifted his hand to the skipper and turned to find the Indian children looking solemnly up at him, curiosity shining in their dark brown eyes. They were beautiful children, their brown skin healthy-looking, their bodies straight and proud. He wondered if Shah, because of her native ancestry, felt at home in the village.

“Pai Jose?” he asked them.

“Sim! Sim!”
Yes! Yes! The oldest, a boy of about ten, gestured for Jake to follow him.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Jake followed the boy through the village. The ground consisted of a whitish, powdery clay base that rose in puffs around his boots. Most of the village was in the shade of the trees overhead, and the smoke purled and made shapes as it drifted through the leafy barrier. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the trees here and there, and Jake’s skin burned. Tropical sunlight was fierce.