The Tarantula Stone

Philip Caveney

Copyright

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

First published in 1985 by Granada Publishing

Copyright © Philip Caveney 1985

Philip Caveney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015 Cover photographs ©

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © MAY 2015 ISBN: 9780008127992

Version: 2015-04-16

Dedication

For Rachel …

who doesn’t like adventure stories

Author’s Note

I am aware that the cruzeiro did not actually become the currency of Brazil until 5 October 1942; but in the interests of the story, I deemed it advisable to disregard this fact. A change of currency seemed an unnecessary complication in an otherwise straightforward tale, which is, after all, intended as a celebration of a time when the world was not yet inextricably bound up with lengths of red tape. I trust that the purists among you will forgive this minor presumption.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author’s Note

Part One: The Last Flight

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part Two: Before the Rains

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Part Three: Downriver

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Keep Reading

About the Author

By Philip Caveney

About the Publisher

PART ONE

Prologue

The backstreet bar was very nearly empty. Mark Austin settled himself onto a vacant stool at the counter and ordered cachaça. The bar-man, a dark-skinned young caboclo, brought him the drink and then left him to consume it in peace. Beyond the open doorway of the bar, the streets of Rio shimmered in the afternoon heat-haze.

Austin sighed. The cachaça was unpleasantly warm and within moments a fine film of sweat had moistened his face, neck and armpits. He was still not sure what he was doing here; looking for a little reality perhaps. The fancy main-street bars and cafés had none of the qualities he was seeking. That was for the tourists, a category to which he liked to think he did not belong. Here, there was only grime and squalor, but at least that was more honest; and it was in places like this that he tended to pick up his stock in trade. He gazed slowly around at the interior of the bar, noting the rusted tin tables, the mottled fly-blown mirrors; and then that the other occupant of the bar was looking at him curiously.

A grizzled old-timer in a slouch hat and a grubby khaki shirt, he was gazing at Austin with the quizzical expression of a man bored with his own company. He was also nursing an empty glass.

‘Drink?’ offered Austin, waving his own glass to make his meaning clear.

‘Hell, don’t mind if I do!’

Austin was pleasantly shocked. He had expected a string of unintelligible Portuguese for a reply, but this was clearly a fellow American. In an instant, the old man was perched on the stool opposite and the two were shaking hands with the kind of warmth only employed by compatriots in a distant land.

‘Mark Austin, Washington DC.’

‘Martin Taggart, somewhere in Wyoming. I forget where.’ The old man’s eyes twinkled but there was, Austin thought, an unmistakable trace of sadness in them. His voice was slow, gruff, laconic. Somehow it seemed to speak of wide experience.

‘Well then, Mr Taggart …’

‘Martin. All my friends call me Martin.’

‘Martin then! What’ll it be?’

‘Oh, I’ll have just whatever you’re drinking.’

Austin ordered a bottle of cachaça – the local raw white rum – and another glass. He took out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to the old man. Taggart shook his head.

‘No thanks. I gave those things up a long time ago. Never went back to them. No sir …’

Austin shrugged, put the cigarettes away. The cachaça arrived and the two men drank together in silence for a while.

‘So, what brings a feller like you to Rio?’ asked Taggart at last. ‘More importantly, what brings him to a piss-hole bar like this one?’

Austin considered the question for a moment. He’d had a couple of drinks so he thought: what the hell, come right out with it.

‘Adventure,’ he said.

Taggart raised his eyebrows. ‘Come again?’

‘Adventure. I’m looking for adventure. You see, I’m a writer and adventure is my thing. I write the stories as fiction, but I like to base them on real-life happenings. I’ve done my last four novels that way and it seems to work for me, so …’

‘A writer, huh?’ Taggart sipped his drink. ‘That pay well?’

Austin grinned. ‘I don’t do so bad,’ he replied. ‘Say, maybe you read my last one, Children of the Kalahari? I think it was published here.’

Taggart shook his head. ‘No, I don’t believe I did.’ He shrugged. ‘But then I don’t read much, these days. Adventure, huh? Well, I’m afraid you won’t find much of that in Rio de Janeiro, my friend. Not any more, anyway.’

Austin topped up Taggart’s glass. ‘Been here a long time?’ he inquired.

‘Oh yeah, hell of a long time. Since before the war. Seen some changes around here, I can tell you.’

Austin nodded. ‘Well, I’m going up-jungle tomorrow. The Rio das Mortes. Maybe I’ll find something there.’

Something suspiciously like recognition dawned in the old man’s eyes. ‘The das Mortes? Yeah … well, even that’s changed, you know. The Indians been killed off or pushed out of their territory. Hell, there’s even a damned ferry on the das Mortes these days, any two-bit tourist can go and have himself a look. None of that kind of business when I was there.’

‘You were there? When?’

‘Oh. Long ways back. Bad story. You wouldn’t be interested.’ Taggart shook his head. There was something evasive in his manner, something that fired Austin’s curiosity. It had been a casual incident very much like this one that had given him the basis for his bestselling book, Hour of the Wolf. These old-timers had their stories and the world tended to forget about them. Still, Austin was an old hand at wheedling out what people didn’t like to discuss. He fed the old man a ready stream of cachaça and gradually Taggart’s reluctant tongue was loosened.

He produced a yellowed scrap of paper from his shirt pocket. It was folded but Austin could see that it was inscribed with various pencilled lines and figures.

‘Looks like a map,’ he observed.

‘It is,’ replied Taggart, his voice slightly slurred with drink. ‘Sort of a map, anyway. Place on the river. That’s where the tarantula stone …’

‘The what?’

Taggart sighed, shook his head. ‘Hell, it’s a long story. You don’t want to be burdened with it.’ He made as if to put the scrap of paper back into his pocket but Austin stayed his hand.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘The day’s free, I’ve got nothing special to do and we’ve a bottle of cachaça to drink. I’d like to hear the story. Speak away, I’m listening.’

Taggart sighed again but then he shrugged. ‘Well, let me see now. It all started back in ’forty-six … well, earlier than that, I suppose. But to get it straight, I’ll begin at that point and backtrack a little. Yes, ’forty-six. The war just over with. That was one hell of a year …’

Chapter 1

Even in the relative cool of the airport lounge, Martin Taggart could not stop sweating. Directly above his head, a large electric fan clicked rhythmically round, beating the humid air into some kind of restless motion; but the perspiration still trickled from his armpits, making dark stains against the fabric of his khaki shirt. It oozed in a viscous stream down the gully of his spine, glued his collar to the back of his neck and made the soft leather pouch that hung round it stick like an island against the tanned flesh of his chest.

For perhaps the hundredth time that morning, Martin’s right hand came up to touch the pouch, his fingers probing the round hard shape that nestled in there. The diamond seemed bigger every time he touched it. It was the size of a chicken’s egg and Martin could only begin to guess at its true value. It would make him rich, that was for sure … provided he could get away with it.

He glanced nervously around the lounge, momentarily afraid that somebody might be reading his thoughts, but the motley assortment of passengers were, just like him, waiting impatiently for their flight to Belém. Out on the brilliantly sunlit concrete of the runway, the plane already stood like a great silver queen bee, attended by the restless assembly of gasoline trucks and maintenance men; but glancing at his watch, Martin could see that there were still twenty-five minutes to wait. It would be the longest twenty-five minutes of his lifetime. He fumbled in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. Extracting one from the damp packet, he struck a match with visibly unsteady hands and inhaled deeply. Then he leaned back in his seat, let the smoke out in a thin stream and watched as it rose for a short distance in a straight column and then went berserk as it was caught in the rush of air from the fan.

He had not wanted to think too much about Caine, because he was nervous enough as it was. But sitting there in the crowded lounge he couldn’t help letting his thoughts drift back to the very beginning, the chain of events that had brought him to where he was now.

He had never had what might be called a steady job, because he had never much liked working. It was a fact that he acknowledged but not something that bothered him overmuch. As a youth, he’d travelled a great deal, taking work when he needed it and wherever he could get it. He had been born in Wyoming and, as far as he knew, his family still lived there; but he’d left home at the age of seventeen and never gone back to visit. More by accident than design, he had gravitated southwards and had spent most of his years in the territory of New Mexico, driving trucks for local contractors and doing the odd spot of manual work whenever his finances got dangerously low. He lived in cheap hotels and rented rooms, slept rough when he needed to and had no ambitions beyond staying alive. He was in his late twenties when two things happened to change all that.

Firstly, it became apparent that America would soon be entering the Second World War; and around the same time, Martin came across an article in the local newspaper that described the recent boom in diamond prospecting in Brazil. There were vast fortunes to be made there. All a man had to do was make his way over and dig it out with his bare hands. For Martin, it was an easy decision. He had always detested the mindless stupidity of patriotism and he wasn’t about to get his ass blown away for any damned cause. South America seemed as good a place as any to hide himself from the draft board and, besides, he was feeling lucky around that time. So he buckled down for a month or so, worked himself like a dog and managed to raise just enough cash to buy himself a one-way ticket to Rio de Janeiro. Leaving was easy. There were no ties for him in New Mexico, no family, no special girl who might have a hold on him. Of course, he had no idea about how to go about becoming a garimpeiro – diamond prospector – but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

And so it was that he had arrived in Rio with nothing but a few dollars and the clothes he stood up in. He had wasted little time in making inquiries in the local bars and eating places. Of course, there had been problems. The native language hereabouts was Portuguese and few people could speak more than the odd word of English. His ‘inquiries’ usually consisted of his saying the one word, garimpeiro (he had picked it up from the newspaper article and did not have the least idea how to pronounce it), whilst striking himself repeatedly on the chest. He was rewarded with blank stares, sad shakes of the head and, occasionally, a string of Portuguese jabberings with accompanying gestures that meant absolutely nothing to him. At last, on his third day out, sunburned and riddled with mosquito bites after sleeping rough in the open, he had some kind of success. He met an old man in a dingy cantina who could speak passable English and seemed to know exactly what to do.

‘If you wish to be a garimpeiro, senhor, you will need a patron, patrão. Senhor Caine is the top patrão around here. For fifty cruzeiros, I will take you to him.’

Martin shook his head. ‘I don’t have any cruzeiros, old man.’

The man’s grizzled face had split into a wide, gummy grin. ‘Not yet,’ he admitted. ‘But Senhor Caine will give you money. For now, a promise is good enough.’

Martin frowned. It sounded too good to be true. ‘Well, I tell you what. This guy gives me any dough, the fifty Cs are yours.’

He had followed the old man through the sprawling ghettos of Rio, observing, as he passed, the awful poverty that existed away from the clean, well-ordered main streets where the richest people in the world came to squander their money in the elegant stores, casinos and night clubs. Back here, reality was the sight of a skinny Indian woman begging in the streets while three emaciated children clung to her skirts. The old man led Martin to a large crumbling office building. At a paint-blistered door, he rang a bell and, shortly after, a thick-set swarthy man in an ill-fitting black suit appeared. He stared disdainfully for a moment and then leaned forward so that his ear might be whispered into. He gazed thoughtfully at Martin for a moment, as though appraising him.

‘Wait here,’ he barked suddenly in toneless, heavily accented English. He slammed the door and the old man turned back to Martin with a reassuring grin.

‘What did I tell you, senhor. Senhor Caine is an important man. He’ll fix you up. The … the money … you would not break a promise to an old man, senhor?’

‘Relax.’ Martin slipped off his battered slouch hat for a moment and mopped at his brow with a bandana. The heat was intense. After a few moments, the door opened again and the thick-set man reappeared. He ushered Martin inside.

Beyond the doorway, Martin followed the man in the black suit along a gloomy roach-ridden hallway. There was a vile smell in the air that suggested bad sanitation. They moved on, up a rickety flight of wooden stairs and through another doorway at the top. A small metal plaque bore the legend Charles Caine Incorporated. Martin’s companion opened the door and stood aside to let the American enter. He found himself standing in a small airless office; at the desk a fat man in an expensive but badly crumpled suit appeared to be busy with a jumble of papers. He had a pale, almost baby-like face and what little hair was left on his head had been teased into an oily series of black curls that drooped down onto his forehead. His eyes were small and piggish, but they glittered with a low animal cunning. Behind him stood an impassive stooge in a suit that must have been run up by the same tailor who had garbed the man who answered the door and who now moved round the desk to join his opposite number. The two stood flanking the fat man like attendant flunkies waiting on an emperor. Martin could see quite clearly the bulges under their left armpits where gun holsters nestled. He frowned and turned his attention back to Charles Caine.

His first reaction was one of instant distrust. An old garage mechanic Martin had known back in New Mexico had once told him, ‘Never trust a guy who looks like he eats better than you do.’ Caine was the first overweight man Martin had encountered since his arrival in Rio. Most people here had the sallow, hunted look of those who did not know where their next meal was coming from. Not so Mr Caine. He looked content as only a wealthy man can, and there was something about the shrewd little eyes gazing abstractedly at the rows of figures before him which suggested that this man should be trusted only as far as he could be thrown. Martin’s nostrils twitched as a smell reached them, the sickly sweet odour of lavender water.

Caine glanced up as if noticing Martin for the first time, but of course this had all been a calculated ploy intended to belittle the newcomer. At any rate, it didn’t cut much ice. When Caine spoke, his voice had a strange, piping, high-pitched tone, but his accent was shot through with the unmistakable tones of a cultured Englishman.

‘So … er … Mister …? I’m sorry, I believe we have not yet …?’

‘Taggart. Martin Taggart.’

‘Mr Taggart. An American. Moreover, an American who wants to become a garimpeiro. An interesting break from tradition, but then we get all kinds in here.’ He grinned, displaying a set of even white teeth that looked too immaculate to be real. ‘I would have thought, Mr Taggart, that like all true-blooded Americans you would be busy preparing yourself for the er … glorious struggle with Japan and Germany; but then, perhaps you find the whole business of war as trivial and tiresome as I do.’ He studied Martin for a moment as if expecting a reply to this, then continued in a different tone. ‘Ah well, a man’s reasons are his own, I suppose. At least it will prevent your running back to your country for a while. The call-up brigade have never been well known for their understanding of those who evade them.’

Martin had to try hard not to register a reaction. The fat boy was obviously a good deal sharper than he looked. It hadn’t taken him more than a few moments to figure out the lie of the land. ‘A garimpeiro,’ Caine continued, pretending that he was unconcerned whether his arrow had hit home or not. ‘Yes, well, you might do at that. You look hungry enough … you look as though you can handle yourself in a tight spot. Show me your hands, please.’

Martin stepped obediently closer to the desk, extended his hands, palms uppermost. Caine reached out suddenly and took them in his own.

‘Ah, now look at these hands, Agnello,’ he purred, half-turning to address the man in the black suit. ‘Here is a fellow who has done some hard work in his time. Not like your lily-white hands, Agnello, hands that have done nothing more than pull a trigger or wield a knife; and not like mine either, hands that have only signed papers and … counted money.’ He gave a little giggle, a rather unpleasant sound; and he gazed for a moment at his own pudgy, stubby hands, the fingers of which glittered with a series of ostentatious diamond rings. Martin took the opportunity to pull his own hands away from Caine’s grasp. The fat man smiled at him a moment, a trace of mockery in his expression. Then he nodded.

‘Yes, well, Mr Taggart, I am after all a patron; I have many garimpeiros in my employ, hundreds. What’s more, I am always ready to take on more, regardless of their nationality. Good fortune owes allegiance to no flag, my friend.’

‘I’d say you’re proof of that, Mr Caine. How does an Englishman come to be a patron in Rio de Janeiro?’

Caine shook his head. ‘Oh, a long story, that one; and a strange and muddy path from the playing fields of Eton to this weird backwater. Let us just say that I am by nature an opportunist, Mr Taggart. It’s not just diamond prospecting that I have interests in. I have my fat fingers in a whole series of delectable pies dotted about this great continent; and as you can see from the shape of me, I never tire of trying out new flavours.’ He laughed drily. ‘But I digress. Let’s get back to the business in hand. I take it you have no money?’

Martin shrugged. ‘About five cruzeiros,’ he replied.

‘Five cruzeiros!’ Caine leaned back in his chair and cackled gleefully. ‘Well, you aren’t quite destitute, but you’re not far away! Let me see now, you will need to buy yourself the necessary equipment, you will need your fare up to the garimpo – the diamond field – and you will need a gun. I think ten thousand cruzeiros will suffice.’ He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a thick wad of money. With the slow relish of a man who loved the feel of paper, he counted out the agreed sum. Then he indicated to Martin that he should take it.

‘What’s the catch first?’ Martin inquired tonelessly.

‘The catch.’ Caine feigned wide-eyed innocence for a moment. ‘The catch, Mr Taggart? Did you hear that, Agnello? Paco, did you hear? Such a suspicious nature this young fellow has. Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he didn’t trust us!’ He fixed Martin with a calculating look. ‘The “catch”, Mr Taggart, is a simple enough idea and one that, I can assure you, you will find the same wherever you inquire around Rio. Of anything and everything that you find at the garimpo, I take fifty per cent.’

Martin returned the gaze calmly. ‘Fifty per cent, huh? That’s a little steep, isn’t it?’

Caine shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is, by some standards. But you see, by lending you the necessary money I’m running the risk of your never finding a thing.’

‘Some risk,’ muttered Martin.

‘I’m afraid that’s the way things work here. Without money for equipment, I don’t see how you can become a garimpeiro at all. Perhaps you may find a friendly backer who will loan you the money you require with no strings attached; but, somehow, I seriously doubt that. If you’d rather forget the whole thing …’ He made as if to put the money back in the drawer, but Martin stepped quickly forward and put his hand down on top of Caine’s wrist. It was an unwise move. The two pistoleiros on either side of the fat man went for their guns. In an instant, Martin found himself looking down two barrels aimed straight into his face. He backed quickly away, his hands in the air.

‘Hey, hold it, hold it! I was only going to say that I accept the terms …’

There was a long and terrible silence. Martin’s body crawled as he imagined the terrible impact of those unseen bullets. But then Caine spoke, his voice like warm oil. ‘You must forgive my boys, Mr Taggart. They tend to be a little overprotective sometimes. You see, I pay them a great deal of money to keep my interests uppermost in their minds. They can be very excitable. You wouldn’t believe the trouble it can cause.’ He waved the guns away with a delicate motion of his fat hands and the pistols were grudgingly returned to their holsters. Then he indicated that Martin should pick up the thin wad of money from the desk. ‘Spend it wisely,’ he advised as Martin slipped the cash into his pocket. ‘Here is a list of the equipment you will need. Go to the address at the top of the page and you will receive a special discount. Also, here are a set of instructions about how to get to the garimpo. The rest, Mr Taggart, is up to you. I wish you luck.’

Caine returned to his papers, seeming to have dismissed Martin completely.

‘Is that it?’ demanded Martin incredulously.

Caine glanced up in surprise. ‘Was there anything else?’ he inquired.

‘Well, uh … that’s for you to say. I figured there’d be some papers to sign … some kind of a contract.’

Caine chuckled, seemingly amused by the notion. ‘Oh, we have no need of any contract, Mr Taggart. That’s not the way things are done in Rio.’

‘Yeah, but … supposing I do strike it rich out there. I mean, what’s to stop me from just taking off with whatever I find?’

Now it was the turn of the two pistoleiros to laugh. They leaned back their heads and guffawed unpleasantly, revealing teeth that were riddled with dark metal fillings.

Caine gave a slow, expressive shrug. ‘Nothing at all, Mr Taggart. Nothing at all. In fact, many others have tried the same thing in the past. There’s a big graveyard out on the edge of the city. You’ll find every one of them there. In fact, why don’t you pay the place a visit before you leave for the garimpo. I’m sure you’d find it most interesting.’

Martin glanced from Caine to the two laughing pistoleiros. He studied their ill-fitting suits for a moment, with particular reference to the strange bulges beneath their left arms. He nodded slowly.

‘Just remember one thing,’ added Caine, beaming up at him. ‘I know everything that happens at the garimpo. You may think it’s a long way from there to this office desk but, believe me, my friend, distance does not matter when a fellow has as long a reach as I have. Once again, I wish you luck.’

Martin said nothing more. He turned and made his way out of the room, closely escorted by Agnello. They retraced their steps down the evil-smelling staircase.

Stepping out from the gloom of the hallway, he was momentarily dazzled by the harsh sunlight in the street. The old man was waiting, his little black eyes glittering greedily. ‘The fifty cruzeiros, senhor …’

‘Sure, sure, here …’ Martin peeled off fifty from the wad and pressed it into the old man’s skinny hand. He stood gazing at it for a moment, as though he could scarcely believe his luck. Then he glanced quickly round to ensure that nobody else had witnessed his good fortune. He grinned and scuttled abruptly away, diving headlong into the nearest alleyway. Martin was left alone in sun-baked silence. He tipped his hat back on his head a little and reached for his cigarettes.

He had come to Rio to become a garimpeiro and now he had the money to enable him to do it; but he didn’t like the set-up one bit. Caine had been too confident of himself to be making idle threats. There was little doubt that those who had tried to cheat the patron really were out in the graveyard he had mentioned. Martin was going to have to keep his nose clean from now on.

That afternoon, he purchased the equipment he required – a pick and shovel, several round pans with wire mesh bases for sifting rubble, a good pistol and some spare ammunition, a knife and as many packs of cigarettes as he could conveniently carry. All these things could be purchased up at the garimpo, the storeholders told him, but would cost very much more. The following morning, before dawn, he took a train through the jungle to Garimpo Máculo. It was a three-hour ride through dank, humid forest and the interior of the train was like a Turkish bath. It was packed with hopeful prospectors of every nationality, each, like Martin, sent out by a patron. For the most part they were a tough, hard-bitten bunch of men, most of them running away from something – the police, the war, or just their own poverty. There was no friendliness between any of them. They began the journey as they meant to continue, as rivals.

One thick-set bearded Englishman asked loudly if anybody could tell him what maculo meant. A Portuguese on the other side of the compartment shouted back in slow, heavily accented tones that maculo was the Portuguese word for the diarrhoea caused by dysentery and that the camp was named after it because the disease was rife there. But this was the only conversation of the journey. Martin was relieved when the train finally came to a stop and the passengers spilled out onto a muddy deserted halt in the middle of the jungle. From here, it was only a short trek across open scrubland to the garimpo.

Martin’s expectations of the place had never been very high and yet he was unprepared for what he saw; a great ugly gash in the surface of a wide stretch of red rock which not so long before had been covered with dense jungle; and, within the gash, countless numbers of man-made pits, each with a single occupant grubbing his way frantically deeper with pick and shovel. There were hundreds of men working here, tough, scowling, sunburnt men dressed in rags who greeted the arrival of the newcomers with nothing more than a sidelong sneer. Round the edges of the garimpo were the living quarters, a description that was little more than a bad joke when applied to the tumble-down, ramshackle collection of squalid huts, lean-tos and canvas shelters that the garimpeiros called home. As Martin and his companions disembarked from the train, a little weasel-faced man in a filthy suit and a shapeless panama hat moved amongst them, announcing that he was the fazendeiro on whose land the garimpo was situated. If anybody wanted to dig here, they would have to pay him, Senhor Mirales, ten per cent of anything they found. The man was an irritating little insect and would normally have been swatted aside like a troublesome mosquito; but, predictably, he was backed up by three venomous-looking pistoleiros and the newcomers were too dazed and numbed from their journey to make much trouble. They milled about in confusion while specially appointed men moved amongst them, offering accommodation for hire. The prices demanded were exorbitant but nobody was in any position to refuse. Martin was billeted in a filthy little wooden shack with no windows, no door, no toilet, not even any running water. There was simply a rough bed made out of boards with a single filthy blanket lying on it. Water could be obtained from a hand-pump on the other side of the clearing or, failing that, from the stretch of muddy river that ran alongside the perimeter of the garimpo. Food could be purchased from the nearby barraca at about four times the going rate elsewhere and would have to be cooked on open fires outside the shelter. Also from the barraca would come any equipment that needed replacing and the cachaça with which a weary miner might drink away the misery of a long fruitless day’s work. For those with a little more money to spend, there was a brothel situated next to the store, haunted by a collection of dead-eyed, gaunt and miserable-looking Indian girls. They were plain and, for the most part, rife with venereal disease but, after a few months of unrelenting toil, it was surprising how attractive they could look.

Martin threw himself into the work with silent dedication, rising every morning at first light to go and hack away the ground in the place which had been allocated to him. The first few weeks were terrible. His skin blistered in the sun, he was bitten half to death by a multitude of insects, he suffered a dose of malaria that turned his skin grey and racked him with uncontrollable bouts of shivering. His hands blistered and scarred against the hard wooden shaft of the pick and at night he staggered back to the stinking little shack to sleep only to find it crawling with rats and cockroaches. And, worst of all, in all this time he found nothing, not the smallest trace of a stone. Others found diamonds. Every few hours a wild shout would go up from some corner of the garimpo and there would be a sudden rush of men, anxious to see what had been discovered. A few moments later, the same men would trudge grimly back to their own claim and continue to hack at the hard, indifferent, unyielding soil. Men went down with the maculo, the debilitating diarrhoea that left them little more than weak skeletons. Others contracted typhoid. The sick who had any money left took the train back to Rio, the others simply died and were buried in shallow graves out in the scrub jungle by men who were well schooled in the art of digging and had no time for prayers.

When a man did grub a diamond from the earth, the word spread like wildfire through the camp; and a short time later, a buyer – a comprador – would appear, a professional man usually employed by the patron or the fazendeiro. He would examine the stone with his eyepiece while the finder looked hopefully on; and then he would make his offer with calm, well-practised disdain. ‘It is not much of a stone; a good size, I grant you, but badly flawed. I could not offer you anything more than ten thousand cruzeiros for it.’ The price offered was always a fraction of the stone’s true value, but the presence of the ever-watchful pistoleiros in the background prevented any possibility of argument. The ‘lucky’ finder would take his share of the money and promptly go on a binge, getting blind drunk, spending a couple of nights fulfilling his tawdry fantasies in the brothel, brawling with his fellow garimpeiros; and a few days later he would be back at his accustomed place, hacking savagely into the soil, fuelled by the conviction that what had happened once could happen again. Sometimes really large diamonds were discovered, so big that even the comprador’s lousy offer would amount to a sizeable sum. Then all kinds of madness would break loose. Martin came to hate the garimpeiros and their stupid macho philosophy which dictated that it was a great loss of face not to squander any money that they had earned in the shortest possible time. One man who had found a good diamond went to the lengths of having a Cadillac shipped in from the United States, piece by piece, so that it could be brought in to the garimpo by train. Once everything had arrived, he had it put together and delighted for a few days in driving the expensive vehicle round and round the perimeter at breakneck speed, its interior packed with yelling drunken men who normally would not have bothered to talk to him. This went on until the car ran out of petrol and the owner was running short of money. Soon he was back at work and the rusting, dilapidated hulk of the car still stood at the edge of the jungle, an incongruous intruder in this remote corner of the world. Other diamond finders had more unfortunate ends. Sometimes a man was knifed in the back at the height of some drunken brawl and the remainder of his money appropriated by the killer. Others simply drank too much cachaça, went berserk and plunged yelling and shrieking into the jungle. Either the Indians got them or wild animals; they were never seen again.

Eventually, Martin found a diamond; not a particularly big one, but a diamond nonetheless; and though he had sneered in the past at the brutish excesses of his workmates, he found himself acting in just the same way. Long months of loneliness and frustration spilled out of him and there was nothing he could do to stop himself. He drank himself insensible at the barraca, he beat up some man who was too slow to get out of his way and, that night, in one of the grubby beds of the brothel, he rutted with an Indian girl who barely acknowledged his presence. The next morning, sick at heart, ashamed of his stupidity and suffering from the worst headache in all of creation, he was back at work, ignoring the jeers of men working alongside him.

Time passed with slow, relentless monotony. The long rains of his second year came, when there was nothing to do but lie in the shelter and stare out at the sorrowful yellow waters, swirling ankle deep around the garimpo and across the floor of the shack, bringing with it all manner of creatures – snakes, rats, scorpions. Vast swarms of mosquitoes and plague flies hovered in the air and fed on the abundance of human flesh. At a time like this, a man had to obtain credit to get those things that would keep him alive. There was always an interest rate and the next year was begun with the miner heavily in debt.

Martin had worked on, stubborn, indefatigable. The third and fourth years, he did better, found six diamonds in all, a couple of them of reasonable size. This time he forced himself to follow some kind of a plan. From each sale he put a little money aside, hiding it in the heel of his boot, and then went ahead and squandered the rest, in the usual flamboyant style, managing to convince his workmates that he had spent everything. He dared not let anybody know he was keeping some back, because inevitably a greedy man would come in the night and take it from him with the blade of a knife. He feigned poverty, asking for credit at the store, even though he no longer needed it. His plan was simple. To amass enough money to escape from the garimpo to something better. It might take him years but there was always the chance that he really would make it good, that he might find a diamond that was big enough to risk running with.

The news that the war had come to an end deepened his resolve. Now he should be able to get back to … or at least pass through, his homeland. The long rains came again. He bided his time. Sometimes, as he lay in the hammock he had constructed as a safer alternative to sleeping close to the water level, an image would come to his mind, an image of Charles Caine, fat and scented with lavender water, growing steadily rich on the proceeds he obtained by selling his diamonds on the international market; and a calm powerful hatred would come to Martin, a hatred and a hunger for revenge. But then he would remind himself that he had only himself to blame for this misery. He himself had wanted to become a garimpeiro; Caine had only provided the one-way ticket. There were men working at the garimpo who had been here for years and, what’s more, it was plain they would remain here till they died.

‘But not me,’ vowed Martin silently. ‘No, not me. I’m going to get out of this.’

And so the sixth year had begun. Martin’s money stash had now become too big to keep in his shoe. Instead he had made himself a crude money belt out of a discarded piece of canvas, working at the dead of night by the light of a candle. He found another two diamonds that year and treated the money as he had done before, creaming off a little for his nest egg and frittering away the rest. He took to hiding the money belt in a small gap behind one of the roof beams of his shack, afraid that somebody might search him when he was drunk. He carried his gun with him at all times and would have been prepared to use it without a moment’s hesitation, should the necessity arise.

And then the miracle occurred, the moment of destiny to which his whole life had been geared. It was late July and he was digging in the merciless glare of the midday heat. He was about four feet down into the latest of a seemingly endless series of excavations. Having broken up a large amount of rubble, he scooped it up in his pan, clambered out of the hole and strolled down to the river to sift through the contents. The yellow stagnant water washed round his ankles and he dropped the sieve unceremoniously beneath the surface, gave the rubble a quick swirl and then heaved the contents back onto the firm mud of the shore. He left them for a moment to soak through, strolling back to the hole to continue digging for a while. This was his usual procedure. After about twenty minutes, he clambered back out of the hole and wandered down to examine what he had. He did not hurry himself, since this was only one of hundreds of similar loads that he examined every day. He picked up a piece of stick from the bank and began to sort through the collection of mud and rock, poking systematically.

For an instant, something seemed to glitter, catching the rays of the sun; but then more mud slid downwards and the light was gone. Martin frowned. He probed with the stick again and found a hardness that seemed far too big to be anything but rock. He pushed his fingers experimentally into the rubble and pulled something free that was the size of a duck egg. He grunted disgustedly and was about to fling the object aside, when another flash of light caught his attention. He gave the object an exploratory wipe with the flat of his left hand, revealing a crystalline, transparent surface below. It was a diamond, the biggest he had ever seen; and he had very nearly thrown it away.

For an instant, he was struck numb, frozen to the spot. Then he opened his mouth to scream, but snatched the sound away before it left his throat, realizing that other men were working only a few yards away. He closed his hand round the diamond, stood up and kicked out with his boot at the discarded pile of rubbish, scattering it in all directions.

‘Nothing but shit!’ he announced bitterly. Then he moved down to the river again, crouched down in the shallows and feigned the act of splashing water on his face, while with his spare hand he doused the diamond in the water, rubbing the remains of the mud from it. He was shaking with emotion and he felt his eyes fill with tears. He dashed them away with muddy water and allowed himself the luxury of a sly glance down at his prize. He had not dared to believe that it could all be diamond, expecting that its size had been increased by lumps of rock adhering to it. He almost cried out a second time. It filled the palm of his hand and was unquestionably the biggest diamond found at Garimpo Maculo, perhaps the biggest ever discovered in the continent of South America. Even sold locally it would make him a rich man. On the international market, it would sell for millions of dollars.

Realizing that to linger there much longer might make his fellow workers suspicious he slipped the gem into the pocket of his trousers, testing the lining first with his fingers to ensure that there was no hole through which the precious object might slip. Then, composing himself with an effort, he mopped his face on his bandana and forced himself to return to his digging place, keeping his face stony and impassive. He hefted his pick and went on with his work, digging methodically and taking the rubble down to the water’s edge every so often. At the back of his mind was the belief that, where one diamond had been, other lesser stones might occur. But all through that long afternoon, perhaps the longest of his life, he found no sign of anything else. As he worked, he considered the possibilities open to him. There was no way he would announce this find to the compradors. It was the discovery of a lifetime and he would either escape with the diamond or die trying. Once, he thought he saw the man working at the next dig staring at him suspiciously; but he assured himself that this was just the product of his overworked imagination.

When the brief tropical dusk came, he gathered up his equipment and trudged back to his shack. Impatiently, he waited for full darkness to fall and then, lying in his hammock, by the light of a single candle, allowed himself the luxury of a first proper look at the diamond. There was a curious shock in store for him. The stone was every bit as big as his first impressions had suggested; but what he could never have guessed was the fine, weird beauty of the rough gem. It was quite translucent and when he held it close to the candlelight, he gave a little gasp of surprise. For within the cool depths of the diamond a strange flaw had created a perfectly symmetrical and highly familiar shape. It was exactly like a spider, a tarantula, etched in a slightly grey series of veins within the heart of the stone.

He knew that shape only too well, for in the rainy season the creatures tended to seek sanctuary in the dusty corners of the hut. Though Martin knew that the bite of a tarantula was rarely very harmful, still he had a horror of their thick, hairy bodies and wriggling legs.

He replaced the diamond in his pocket and began to draw up his plans. Any man here at the garimpo would readily kill to possess such a stone, so he did not intend to linger. In three days’ time, the regular train back to Rio would depart in the early hours of the morning, but to leave suddenly would inevitably cause suspicion. At Garimpo Maculo, there were only two reasons for leaving, death or sickness. So Martin decided that he would become sick that night. It would not be hard to fake. He suffered from recurring bouts of malaria and it would simply be a question of exaggerating the symptoms. That night he sat up sewing an old scrap of leather he had been saving to make a tobacco pouch into a bag in which he could keep the tarantula stone. He fixed a strong loop of rawhide to the bag, double testing it by wrenching the finished article with all his strength. Satisfied at last that it would not break, he hung the pouch round his neck, tucking it beneath the loose khaki fabric of his shirt. With the hard, rough shape of the diamond pressing reassuringly against his chest, he finally snatched a few hours’ sleep, but he was troubled by an awful dream.

He was climbing a remote mountainside, clutching precarious holds on some sheer granite rocks. Far below, the jungle spread out in every direction, the huge trees dwarfed by distance. He had no idea what he was doing in this place, nor what he had come to find. He only knew he had to go on.

Reaching a particularly tricky section, he was obliged to put up both hands in order to pull himself onto a ledge. He began to do this, reluctantly lifting his feet up from their holds and letting his legs dangle above a terrifying chasm, and started to haul himself up; and then, with a sense of shock, he felt a movement under the fabric of his shirt, against his naked chest. Glancing down in terror, he saw that beneath the fabric something was moving, wriggling, pushing against the folds. Martin opened his mouth to yell but the sound died in his throat as he saw something dark and horribly furry begin to edge out from beneath the shirt. His fingers were aching on the ledge, a thick sweat bathed every inch of his body, but he could not move so much as a muscle; he could only hang helplessly as first one leg, then another, came creeping out into full view. Then there was a squat, heavy body and a whole series of quivering tiny jaws. He knew suddenly, with a terrible conviction, that the tarantula was going to crawl up onto his face.

Martin woke, his body caked in acrid sweat. The first light of day was spilling through the open doorway of his shack. Remembering his plan, he stayed in his hammock much later than was his usual custom and then, after several hours of this, collected his tools and stumbled down to his digging place. He wore two layers of clothing to give the impression that he felt cold and of course this made him sweat profusely. The only difficulty was faking the shivering attacks, but even though nobody was taking a great deal of notice of him, he kept the act up all through the day, getting very little work done.

In the early afternoon, he was startled by the sound of a heavily accented voice just behind him. He turned and had to suppress a look of shock. Standing by his dig was the man who had been working opposite him the day before. He was Portuguese, a thick-set, bearded fellow with an enormous belly that jutted out over the belt of his jeans. He had moved to a new site that morning and Martin had not expected to see him again; but he stood now, his hands thrust into the back pockets of his jeans, regarding Martin with a calm, slightly mocking expression.

‘You are ill, senhor?’

Martin shrugged, mopped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Yeah … just a touch of malaria, that’s all. I get it from time to time …’ He turned away to recommence digging.

‘Funny … you don’t look so ill to me,’ the garimpeiro muttered. This was said in such a sly way that Martin was shocked; but he forced himself to continue digging grimly and when he turned round again, the man was gone. Back in the shack, Martin pondered the matter. Could the man have seen anything yesterday morning? Was his remark just coincidental? Was Martin himself becoming paranoid, seeing enemies at every turn? He did not sleep that night and the following morning his feeble attempts at digging were less of an act than they had been the day before. After a couple of hours of ineffectual fumbling, he gathered up his tools and stumbled off in the direction of the barraca. Behind the roughly made counter, he found Hernandez, the man who ran the store. Martin trudged slowly over to him and set the tools down in front of him, shivering violently as he did so.

‘You are ill, senhor?’ inquired Hernandez patronizingly.

‘Yeah … Hernandez, what’ll you give me for these tools?’

‘Tools?’ Hernandez glanced down at the well-worn equipment. ‘You are quitting, Senhor Taggart?’

‘I guess so. I’ve got to get back to Rio and sort out this damned malaria. I can’t take another rainy season feeling this way.’

Hernandez chuckled. ‘You should count yourself lucky, Senhor Taggart. At least you have not yet the maculo. That one, she is a real killer … malaria, a man gets to live with. You will see, in a day or so, the badness will pass …’

‘I ain’t planning on waiting a day or so. Come on, Hernandez, how much for these?’

Hernandez gazed at the tools disdainfully, prodding them with his fingers. ‘These … there is little life in them, eh, senhor? I give you fifty cruzeiros.’

‘Fifty! They damned near cost me five thousand!’

Hernandez shrugged expressively. ‘That is what they are worth to me, Senhor Taggart. Maybe you should keep them. You may decide to come back, eh? They say a garimpeiro never quits until he has made his fortune … or died trying for it.’ He chuckled unpleasantly.

‘I can buy more in Rio, if I ever decide to come back to this rat-hole. Come on, give me a hundred for them, at least.’ He shuddered violently and swore beneath his breath.

‘Sorry, senhor. Fifty. That’s my offer.’

‘All right, dammit, give me that! At least I’m not in debt to you for anything and I guess I can just about afford the train fare back to Rio.’ He accepted the notes that Hernandez counted out from a cigar box under the counter. Martin knew that Hernandez kept a double-barrelled shot-gun beside the box.

‘The senhor should try a bottle of my aguardente; it’s very good for the fevers.’

‘No thanks, Hernandez, I couldn’t afford your prices.’ Martin leaned forward across the counter. ‘Unless, of course, you were offering me a bottle free, out of the goodness of your heart …’

Hernandez shook his head. ‘Alas, senhor, nothing in this life is free.’

Martin sneered and turned away from the counter; he froze for an instant when he recognized the figure standing in the doorway: the bearded Portuguese who had questioned him the day before. He was gazing at Martin with interest, leaning against the edge of the doorframe.

Goddammit, thought Martin desperately. The bastard knows something! But he kept his face impassive as he pushed by the man and trudged slowly outside. The man turned and came quickly after him.

‘Senhor, wait a moment! You leave tomorrow, yes?’

‘Maybe.’ Martin did not pause or look back.

‘Sure, I hear you tell Hernandez! Hold up a moment …’

Martin turned round, his expression threatening. ‘So all right, I’m leaving. What the hell’s it got to do with you?’

The man nodded and an arrogant smile played on his lips. ‘Yes, I figured so … you found something, no?’

‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘A diamond, senhor. You found a diamond, two days ago when I was working near. I wasn’t sure then, but I had an idea … just … something in your face; so I say to myself, Orlando, you wait to see what he does next. He will show you yes or no. And now suddenly you are ill and you have to leave … it is for sure you found a diamond, a big diamond or you would not risk to run with it.’

‘You’re crazy,’ snapped Martin.

‘I don’t think so, senhor. Can I … have a look at it, huh? Listen, I’m not a greedy man, you know. We could be partners you and me … What do you say?’

‘I say you’re crazy. There is no diamond. I’m leaving because I’m sick.’

‘Oh yes, of course! The malaria. Well, senhor, you’re a good actor. But I have seen malaria many times. In cases as bad as this, the skin of the face turns grey … but yours now, senhor, looks perfectly good to me. So you tell me where is the diamond? Can I see it? You keep it on you somewhere, no?’ The man stepped forward and began to finger the fabric of Martin’s shirt; then he lurched backward with an oath as Martin’s right fist clipped him hard against the jaw. He stood there, smiling ruefully and massaging his chin. ‘A strong arm for a man with malaria,’ he observed.

Martin said nothing. He glanced quickly about. Nobody seemed to have observed the fight but there were people around who would come running if the thing escalated. He fixed the man with a contemptuous glare and said, ‘Just keep away from me. You’re crazy. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And he turned and walked away, remembering to keep his gait slow and awkward, just in case anybody else was observing him. He was terrified.

Back at his shack, he threw his meagre belongings into an old carpet bag and made his plans. The Portuguese was wise to him, but what did he plan to do about it? It seemed likely that he’d try to get to Martin before the morning train arrived. Well, let him come; if he was foolish enough to try anything … But would he tell anybody else? Martin guessed not. The man was as greedy as any other garimpeiro and would not wish to share the diamond with any ‘partners’. Besides, he could have no idea how big this particular gem was. Martin could only hope that this reasoning was sound. If several men came after him in the night he wouldn’t stand a chance of holding them off. One man he figured he could handle.

When dusk fell, he bundled the carpet bag and whatever bits of rubbish that were lying about the place into the hammock and covered them with a blanket. He lit a candle and placed it a short distance away, so that it just about illuminated the shape. Then, taking his razor-sharp, big-bladed knife from its sheath, he dropped down into the shadows in the corner of the shack. As a last resort, he placed his pistol where he could grab it in an emergency but he was hoping there would be no need of it. A shot would alert everybody in the garimpo to the fact that he had something worth defending.

He resigned himself to a long, monotonous wait. The hours began their slow, laborious journey towards the dawn. He sat crosslegged in darkness, sweating in the stifling heat. Mosquitoes worried relentlessly at his forehead and bare neck but he remained stock-still, staring out at the slightly lighter rectangle of blue that was the doorway of the shack. The candle gradually burned its way downwards through the wax and from time to time a large moth fluttered jerkily round the halo of light before moving away to rest in darkness. Time seemed suspended and Martin began to wonder if he really had any reason to be afraid. He had slept little over the last couple of nights and now his eyelids grew heavy, his head inclined downwards by degrees until his chin rested against his chest. He slept, a deep, dreamless slumber of exhaustion.

And then he was awake, suddenly, with the intense conviction that something was about to happen. His legs were badly cramped and his mind woolly; but, glancing towards the doorway, he was aware of a shape moving there, crouched down by the floor to the left. For a moment he thought it was some animal that had wandered in from the jungle after food; but then the shape inclined upwards and Martin recognized the fat silhouette of the bearded garimpeiro. The man remained in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity, his gaze fixed to the huddled form in the hammock. The candle had burned very low now and the faint glimmer of light only just caressed the soft curve. Now the man moved slowly forward into the shack, placing his feet on the wooden boards without making a sound. He was obviously barefoot and Martin silently cursed the fact that he had not considered this. His own heavy boots would be sure to make creaking sounds on the warped planking, but there was no time to remove them now. The man was approaching the hammock and between his outstretched fists something glimmered faintly. It was a length of cheese wire. Martin shuddered at the thought of the wire slicing into the vulnerable flesh of his neck. Setting down his own feet with as much care as possible, he got up, using the wall of the shack for support. He did not have long. As soon as the man realized that the hammock was a decoy, he would be on his guard; and even now the assassin was leaning forward over the blanket.

Martin took two quick steps forward, threw his left hand up to cover the man’s mouth and with his right hand slammed the long blade of the knife into the small of the garimpeiro’s back. The man’s fat body shuddered with the force of the blow and Martin began to lever the blade upwards, searching for the heart; but then the bearded man’s right hand let go of the cheese wire and he brought his elbow savagely upwards into Martin’s face, knocking him back across the room. The man spun round like an overweight dancer doing a macabre pirouette, his hand clawing ineffectually at the handle of the knife that protruded from his back. He was making a strange guttural noise deep in his throat and the length of cheese wire still dangled uselessly from his left hand. Knocked half senseless, Martin leapt in again, terrified that the man’s noises might alert the rest of the garimpo. He grabbed the wooden peg at the end of the cheese wire, whipped the man’s left arm upwards round his own neck and, when the wire grew taut, gave it a quick turn round the garimpeiro’s throat, pulling it tight until the sounds he was making ceased with an abrupt gurgle. The man stood in the centre of the room, thrashing hideously for a moment with his free arm. Then he gave a last jolting spasm, his head tilted sideways and he fell into Martin’s arms. Snatching the rubbish free of the hammock with one hand, Martin man-handled the body into its place, pausing only to wrench the knife free of its fleshy sheath. He wiped the blade thoughtfully on the dead man’s shirt, rolled him over onto his back and threw the blanket across him so that there would be no need to look into those glazed, staring eyes again that night.

Martin sighed. He undid the bandana round his neck and mopped his face dry of sweat. It was too bad that it had to happen this way. Now it would be obvious why he had left and of course people would be looking for him. He would have to move quickly as soon as he got to Rio. At least the body in the hammock would buy him some time. People would simply think he was lying in, suffering with his malaria. Only Hernandez at the barraca knew of his intention to leave next morning and he never came down to the diggings. It should be hours before anybody bothered to glance in at his shack, and by then, with any luck, he would be on his way to Europe. He had already decided that Rotterdam would be the best place to sell the diamond; and, with careful planning, he figured he had just enough money put by to pay his fare to there. That was surely one place where even Caine couldn’t reach him.

Glancing at his watch, he saw it was just a few hours to dawn. He remained seated in the corner of the hut, chain-smoking, and gradually the light began to brighten. Now Martin could make out the hunched shape in the hammock and the dark red stain that was spreading across the underside of the fabric. A swarm of plague flies buzzed curiously round the stain, settling and resettling upon it. He felt no sense of guilt at the killing. The man had come to steal a diamond and had paid for his greed in the most fitting way.

Glancing at his watch again, Martin saw it was time to make his move. He stubbed out his cigarette, reached up to the gap behind the roof beam where he kept the canvas money belt and tied the device in place beneath the loose fabric of his khaki shirt. Then, collecting his carpet bag, he ducked out of the doorway of the hut, glancing cautiously around in the half light. There were few people about yet, but he made his way slowly to the railway halt, walking as though with great difficulty. He left the great ugly scar of the garimpo behind him and moved on through the brief stretch of scrub jungle that bordered the trail to the railway halt. The vegetation was sodden with morning dew and the legs of his trousers were soon soaked through. Once he reached the rough earth banking that passed for a platform, he settled down to wait. His pistol was tucked in the waistband of his trousers, in case anybody should challenge him; but the only other people to arrive were a couple of feeble garimpeiros who were genuinely sick. Martin wisely kept his distance from them. Off to the east, lost somewhere in jungle, a few unidentified birds greeted the rising of the sun with a distant squawking. Then, at last, he heard the wheezing of the rusty old train as it came lumbering up out of the jungle. It clanged to a halt in a spasm of steam and ancient metal, disgorging a motley collection of would-be fortune-hunters, a pack of arrogant, snarling tough guys who had yet to be broken by the jungle. Martin watched them pass by, remembering his own arrival here six years earlier. More human fuel for the furnaces of men like Caine. The newcomers strode noisily away towards the garimpo, where the fazendeiros and their henchmen were waiting to greet them.

Martin hauled himself aboard the train and took his place on one of the hard wooden seats. The carriage stank of a mixture of sweat, cachaça and urine, but to Martin it was the vehicle that would carry him away from the living hell that was Garimpo Maculo. An impassive Indian guard came along collecting fares; and a few moments later the train lurched into motion, heading back into the dark, mysterious jungle. Martin sat quietly through the journey, staring out of the dust-streaked window.

Arriving at Rio three hours later was something of a shock. It was six years since he had seen anything of the trappings of civilization and clambering off the train to be swallowed whole by a sea of humanity in the process of hurrying to work was a weird experience. It seemed inconceivable that Rio de Janeiro, with its great glittering skyscrapers of glass and concrete, its traffic-jammed streets and its bewildering mixture of races, could actually have been here all the time, perched on the edge of the jungle like a bizarre oasis on the perimeter of a vast green wilderness. But now was the time to move fast. Martin’s first step was to seek out a cheap clothing store where he purchased a new khaki shirt and trousers to replace his rotting rags. Then he went to a public wash-house, where he was able to bath and shave himself. He was, all the time, horribly aware that the hours were passing and that each minute he wasted would bring him nearer to discovery; but he also realized the stupidity of turning up at the airport looking like a tramp. Once he was satisfied that he looked fairly presentable, he dumped his old clothes in a trash can and hailed a passing cab, directing the driver to take him straight to the airport.

A short while later, he was pushing his way through the crowds of people inside the main building. The presence of so many strangers made him nervous; every couple of moments, he glimpsed a man who could well be one of Caine’s pistoleiros. He made his way to the check-in desk and impatiently tagged himself onto the end of a long queue. When he finally reached the desk, he was met with an engaging smile from the pretty, dark-haired receptionist.

‘You er … speak English?’ he inquired.

‘Yes, senhor.’

‘Fine. Well now, I need to get to Zürich just as soon as possible. I er … had a telegram this morning, a friend of mine is seriously ill.’

The girl looked taken aback. She shook her head. ‘I am sorry, senhor, but … do you not have a reservation?’

‘No. See, I only found out this morning. When could you find me a seat?’

Again she shook her head. She gestured vaguely at the papers in front of her.

‘Now is a very busy time for us. There is certainly nothing until early next week, for sure. Of course, there may be cancellations … Have you perhaps a phone number where I could contact you?’

‘No, you don’t understand. I have to leave right away, today. You see, my friend … is dying, he …’

‘I’m very sorry, senhor, but –’

‘Is there no other way I could go today? I don’t have to go directly to Zürich, you see. Perhaps I could go to some other place first … Britain, Paris … I could pick up another flight from there.’

‘Well …’ The girl scanned her lists thoughtfully. ‘There’s a place tomorrow night on –’

‘Tomorrow night is too late!’ Martin snapped.

‘Well then, senhor, I’m afraid that …’

Martin did not hear the rest of her words. He nodded at her, but her voice did not reach him. This was something he hadn’t figured on. He’d just assumed he’d be able to clamber aboard a plane and take off. If he was obliged to hang around Rio till tomorrow night, he might as well go straight to Caine’s office and turn himself in. He moved away from the desk, his mind turning over furiously. Whatever happened, he had to put as much distance between Rio and himself in the shortest possible time. An internal flight perhaps? Yes, that might be the answer. Brazil was a big country; a simple hop up the coast involved a trip of several thousand miles. Lighting a cigarette, Martin manoeuvred his way across to the local flight desks. Various details were chalked up on blackboards. He found details of a domestic flight to Belém on the north-east coast, at the mouth of the Amazon. There was an overnight stop first at Recife, an eight-hour haul up the coast from Rio; and the second leg across to Belém would involve a journey that was barely shorter. While it was nothing like the distance that Martin wanted to put between himself and Caine it should at least buy him time to wait around for a flight to Europe. Best of all, this flight was due to depart in just under an hour’s time. He inquired at the desk and was relieved to find that there were still a few seats available. He purchased a ticket and strolled gratefully through to the small lounge at the far end of the building. It was quieter here, with only fifteen or so other passengers to worry about. At last he began to feel that his plan could succeed.

The fan above his head came back into focus. He had drifted for a moment into a half-sleep and his mind was a hazy jumble of confused thoughts. Instinctively, he lifted a hand to stroke the hard shape beneath his shirt. The touch was reassuring, but he was suddenly uneasy. Something had woken him and, sleep-dazed as he was, he could not direct his thoughts to identify whatever it had been. He yawned cavernously, shook his head to clear away the last shreds of sleep. Then the something happened again, making the blood in his veins turn to ice.

It was the firm, powerful grip of someone’s hand on his shoulder.

Chapter 2

Mike Stone pushed his foot firmly down on the accelerator, urging the old jeep up to its top speed. The engine growled a noisy mechanical protest, the wheels leaped and bucked over the uneven surface of the road. However, such measures were entirely necessary. Mike was late; he was usually late for something; and there was still a considerable distance to the airport. He sat hunched behind the wheel, his grey eyes fixed on the way ahead. Despite the heat, he wore the scuffed leather flying jacket that was the uniform of his profession. Occasionally, he turned to glance slyly at the woman in the passenger seat, but she was still ignoring him. She leaned back, her eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, her long naturally curly red hair trailing in the wind. In the white cotton blouse and tight navy blue skirt her slim but curvacious body looked particularly inviting. Mike wondered wryly if he’d be able to last out the long trip to Belém without going crazy for her. Her name was Helen Brody; she was Mike’s stewardess and had been for nearly a year now. The two shared several things: a similar sense of humour, a tough, tenacious ability to survive; and on the regular overnight stops in Recife and Belém, a single hotel room and a double bed. It would have been a perfect arrangement but for one major problem: the wife and two children that Mike supported in his home on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. That was the main reason why Helen had not spoken a word since he had picked her up an hour earlier. Mike appreciated her troubles but didn’t feel inclined to do anything about them.

Like most airmen, Mike had found himself at the end of the war with few prospects. His role in the affair had not been a martial one though he had seen plenty of action in the South Pacific. He had flown ‘Gooney Birds’, the rugged, ubiquitous and ever dependable DC3 airliners, hauling troops and equipment to wherever there was a suitable runway hacked out of the jungle. The surrender of the Japanese in ’forty-five had left him somewhat out on a limb. What was there for a man whose only ability was to fly a battered old crate around the airways of the world? The answer should have been obvious, but oddly enough, he had never even considered the idea until Willy Borden had suggested it. Willy was a ground crewman, a little fellow with big ideas and a tidy sum of money put away for safe-keeping. What Willy had in mind was a charter airline; oh, nothing fancy, mind you, just a single plane to begin with, perhaps a couple more in time if things went well. It would be a way of utilizing the particular talents that the war had given them and, as Willy was so quick to point out, one thing that there was bound to be a lot of at a time like this was surplus equipment. So, they had pooled their resources, purchased a Gooney and sought out a stretch of the earth’s surface where there were guaranteed transport problems. Mike’s wife, Mae, was loyal enough to go wherever work might be found and willing to take two young toddlers with her. Things had gone surprisingly smoothly and the only item missing was a capable stewardess.

Helen had answered the advertisement.

From the moment he saw her, Mike had wanted her and she had felt pretty much the same way about him. Helen was the daughter of some stuff-shirted diplomat at the American embassy in Rio. She had grown tired of attending boring functions and opted for making her own way in the world. As she’d told Mike at the interview, she’d never done this kind of work before, but she figured she could turn her hand to just about anything. Helen had got the job and, shortly afterwards, had got Mike. The affair was by now a fixture and, typically, everybody knew about it but Mae.

A horsedrawn wagon appeared in the road ahead of the jeep, a rickety vehicle loaded with cans of latex. A lone driver dozed at the reins while his skinny horse plodded placidly to some unknown destination. Mike did not slow the jeep for an instant but accelerated around the rear of the wagon, cutting perilously close to the side of it. Startled, the horse reared up with an indignant snort and a couple of cans of raw rubber went hurtling back into the road. A stream of livid Portuguese curses were flung in the jeep’s wake but Mike just grinned, rejoicing in the petty annoyance he had stirred up.

Helen glanced at him contemptuously. ‘Big shot,’ she sneered.

Mike glanced at her in mock surprise. ‘Say, you do speak!’ he exclaimed. ‘I was beginning to think it would be like this all the way to Belém.’

She scowled at him. ‘Grow up,’ she advised.

‘All right, all right, I get the message. I’m not the world’s most popular man today, am I? You want to talk about it?’

She shrugged. ‘What’s the use? It never gets us anywhere. I mean, I talk to you and talk to you, but sometimes I wonder if you ever hear a damned word. It’s obvious you didn’t tell Mae.’

‘Hell no I didn’t! It isn’t that damned easy, believe me! I … wanted to tell her but …’

‘The trouble with you is you want everything, Mike. You want me on a string so you can have your fun when it pleases you. And you want Mae and the kids to be there waiting for you when you fly home, to make you feel like a big man back from the war. But what about what I want, Mike? I’ve been patient for a long time now … surely you could have brought yourself to –’

‘Aww, it’s easy for you to say!’ retorted Mike. ‘You’re unattached, you don’t know how difficult it is. You can’t just slap somebody in the face like that, not after all the years we’ve had. Mae’s been a good wife to me.’

‘I could be a better one,’ replied Helen calmly. ‘You said yourself that you no longer make out with her.’

‘Sure, but there’s more to a marriage than that. You don’t know the half of it, that’s your trouble. How old are you, twenty-three, twenty-four? Mae’s given up a lot for me. Heck, she’s trailed halfway round the world hanging on to my shirt-tails; she’s had my kids; she …’ His voice trailed away into a long sigh. He glanced at Helen reassuringly. ‘I will tell her, honey, but I need time, that’s all.’

‘There is no time,’ she told him. ‘This is the last flight, Mike.’

He chuckled, shook his head. ‘You said that last time,’ he observed.

‘This time I mean it, believe me, Mike. I’ve waited for you nearly a year now and that’s as long as I’m prepared to wait for anyone. Besides, I … I’ve had another offer of work. A better offer as it happens.’

He glared at her. ‘From who?’ he demanded.

‘Felix Walsh over at WBA.’

‘Walsh?’ Mike sneered. ‘Yeah, I might have known. Jumped-up little creep, throwing his old man’s money around. Give me three months and Stone’s airlines will be pushing Walsh’s off the airlanes. That jerk probably just wants to get you into the sack.’

Helen smiled wryly. ‘Sure he does. But then that’s his privilege. He isn’t married.’

‘Goddammit, Helen!’ Mike smacked his fist down heavily on the dashboard of the jeep. ‘What money is Walsh offering you? I’ll match anything that he can put up.’

‘You jughead. It’s nothing to do with money, surely you can see that?’

‘Well listen, honey, you’ve got to give me a little more time, that’s all …’

Mike slowed the jeep as he approached the entrance to the airport. The guards recognized him, pushed back the high wire-mesh gate and waved him through. He glanced at his watch in silent irritation and then accelerated through the gate and out onto the airfield. ‘We’ll talk about this in Belém,’ he said quietly.

‘There’s no point in discussing it further.’

‘We’ll talk about it,’ he repeated forcefully; and then they both lapsed into moody silence. Mike headed over to the corrugated iron hanger at the edge of the airfield decorated with the SA logo. The word Stone was hardly one to engender confidence in the air. The Gooney was already out in position, its silvered metal surface glittering in the harsh sunlight. The fuel trucks were pulling away but Willy was still fussing around in his sweat-stained overalls, making a few last-minute checks. Mike clambered out of the jeep and stalked across to the plane leaving Helen to stroll along behind.

Willy glanced up as Mike approached. The mechanic was a grizzled monkey-like man who looked much older than his forty-five years. He was wearing an oily Boston Red Sox baseball cap the wrong way round on his slightly balding head, so that the peak would shield his neck from the sun; and the habitual stump of a foul-smelling cigar was clenched tightly in his teeth. He gave a scowl which in Willy’s world passed for a friendly grin.

‘Punctual as ever,’ he observed. A complete stranger meeting Willy for the first time would deduce that the man had an enormous chip on his shoulder, from the way he snapped out sarcastic comments but actually this was just his way of doing things. The fact of the matter was that he thought of Mike almost as the son he had never had. Willy was the archetypal crusty old bachelor, yet beneath his rough surface there really was a heart of pure gold. He was the most generous of men and ever sensitive to the moods of those around him.

‘Ricardo here yet?’ Mike asked.

‘Sure. He’s been here a half hour. Some people believe in being on time.’ Willy jerked his thumb in the direction of the cockpit where Ricardo Ramirez, the co-pilot, was already going through the flight check. Willy glanced at Helen. ‘Morning, Trojan,’ he said. This was Willy’s perpetual term of endearment for the girl and had something to do with Helen of Troy.

‘Morning, Willy. How’s Matilda this morning?’

Willy reached out an oil-blackened hand to touch the silver flank of the plane with the fondness of a country squire stroking his favourite horse.

‘Well, she’s in one piece and that’s something, I suppose. Which reminds me, Mike, I’ve got a list here of those parts we need. We’ll have to order them just as soon as this trip is finished. The old girl isn’t going to hold up for ever you know.’

‘What’re you grouching about, Willy? She got through all the safety checks, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah, sure, this time. But things are changing, Mike, the war’s over now. People don’t fly by the seat of their pants any more. You’ve been pushing Matilda too hard on that first leg up to Recife. You’ve barely got a reserve of fuel as it is; it would only take some small problem and any one of these parts could give out. Sure the plane is sound, but it’s a helluva responsibility we’ve taken on here. It’s simply a question of keeping in a proper reserve …’

‘OK, OK, I get the general idea. You order whatever you need and I’ll sign the papers. Did you get that problem with the undercarriage straightened out?’

Helen clambered up the couple of steps to the door and went inside to check that everything was tidy. She worked her way along the cramped interior and then went through the doorway into the cockpit. Ricardo glanced back at her with a good-natured grin on his tanned, handsome face. At twenty-six, with his thick jet-black hair, his dark hazel eyes and his perfectly spaced, even white teeth, he was probably regarded as the most eligible bachelor currently working the airlines. Happily though, he was a shy, unassuming boy who didn’t seem to have much time for fooling around. But he was genuinely fond of Helen, she was sure of that. Sometimes Helen wished that she could become interested in a younger man like Ricardo, but she always found herself gravitating back to the more mature male and, nine times out of ten, there was a wife tucked away somewhere, like a nagging conscience. Mature! That was a joke. Mike was the most immature man she had ever encountered but she was stuck on him anyway. Helen returned Ricardo’s smile. If nothing else, she enjoyed flirting with the boy.

‘Hello handsome,’ she said.

‘Hello, Trojan! How’s tricks?’

‘Not so bad. You know me, Ricardo, always a good girl.’

He chuckled. ‘Yeah, that’s what I heard.’

She tousled his hair affectionately. ‘Hey you, keep your mind on your work.’

‘I’ll try. Where’s our great captain?’

‘Outside, arguing with our great mechanic. Think there’s a chance we’ll get this crate up in the air on time, for once?’

‘Hey, now that would be something, wouldn’t it?’

Mike appeared in the doorway. ‘What would be something, Ricky?’

‘Oh, we were just saying. Maybe for once we can take off on time.’

Mike shrugged. ‘What’s the hurry?’ he muttered. ‘We don’t charge enough to make that worthwhile.’ He turned to say something to Helen, but she was already pushing past him, back into the passenger section. Mike frowned. He watched her for a moment as she prowled slowly along the length of the plane. Then he turned back to find Ricardo staring at him thoughtfully.

‘For God’s sake then,’ muttered Mike irritably. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’ He closed the door behind him and then clambered into his seat. As he lowered himself into place, his hand brushed automatically against the butt of the sawn-off shot-gun that rested alongside his leg space.

‘One of these days that things gonna go off and blow your foot away,’ observed Ricardo.

Mike stared at him impassively. ‘Flight check,’ he announced tonelessly.

‘Oh, it’s all right. Everything’s fine, I’ve been through it.’

Mike’s expression didn’t alter. ‘Flight check,’ he said again.

Ricardo sighed. When Mike was in this kind of mood, there was no sense fighting it. He started the procedure again, right from the very beginning.

Martin gazed up into the face of a stranger; but the expression on the face was a warm smile and, after a moment’s hesitation, he began to relax. The man was a stocky Portuguese dressed in crumpled khakis. His swarthy face was quite handsome, dominated by a pair of dark, intelligent eyes, and he wore an immaculately clipped Zapata-style moustache. In one hand he was holding an unlit cigarette. He gave Martin an apologetic grin.

‘Forgive me, senhor. But I was afraid you would sleep through and miss your call for the plane … and also, I am out of matches.’

Martin nodded, reached in his pocket and handed the matches to the man.

‘Thank you, senhor. You are English, yes?’

‘No, American.’

‘Ah.’ The Portuguese lit his cigarette, exhaled smoke and nodded enthusiastically. ‘I wish myself one day to visit your country. Allow me please to introduce myself. Claudio … Claudio Ormeto.’ He indicated the seat opposite Martin. ‘May I?’

Martin shrugged. ‘It’s a free country.’

Claudio sat down. He was obviously not going to let his enthusiasm be dampened by Martin’s aloofness. ‘You are going to Belém, yes?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Is it … how do they say it in American movies … er, business or pleasure?’

Martin smiled. ‘Well now, I don’t think I’ve quite figured that out yet. How about yourself ?’

‘Oh business, business … To be honest, senhor, there’s not a great deal of pleasure to be found in Belém. But my work sends me there. I work for the Brazilian Government in the capacity of an Indian observer. At this time, there are many reports of bad treatment filtering in to our agency. Garimpeiros and seringuiros – rubber tappers – are travelling down the headwaters of the Amazon and laying claim to land in the interior … Indian land. It seems that these men are simply killing off any Indians who oppose them.’

Martin nodded. ‘Yeah, that sounds likely enough. From what I hear, the Indians have always had a rough time of it, ever since the Conquistadores first came over and started kicking them around.’

Claudio nodded. ‘If you had seen the reports that arrived this month … women raped, men strung up and cut open with axes. It’s hard to believe that men can be capable of such things. Now, of course, the big fazendeiros are becoming aware that there are vast areas of jungle land that they can buy up for a few cruzeiros an acre. Certain government departments turn a blind eye to the deal and that only makes our job more difficult. I heard last week of a mateiro – a forester – who has been travelling amongst many of the tribes, distributing clothing to them.’

‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ inquired Martin.

‘The clothing had come from a smallpox hospital in Belém. A clever man that mateiro. He knows only too well that the Indians have no immunity to such diseases. They die like flies, whole villages at a time … and then the fazendeiros move in to pick up the pieces. So neat, so efficient. There can be no murder charges when the assassin is a microbe or a virus. I’ve seen a common dose of influenza decimate a village in a few hours. And what frightens me, senhor, is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. In time, the problem will get worse … much worse.’ Claudio shook his head, looked abstracted for a moment. ‘Ah, but you must forgive me,’ he continued. ‘Always I talk too much about troubles that others may not wish to share. You are staying in this country for long, senhor?’

Martin shook his head. ‘Just passing through,’ he replied. ‘Fact is, I took this flight as something of a last resort. I don’t aim to be staying in Belém for long.’

‘Well, amen to that my friend.’ Claudio leaned forward slightly as if to impart a secret. ‘It is a pity we cannot choose our fellow travellers, eh?’

Martin frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ he inquired.

Claudio nodded in the direction of two people sitting at a table on the far side of the lounge. Martin glanced at them from out of the corner of his eye. One was a middle-aged man dressed in an expensive-looking black suit. He was a short, rather tubby fellow and would have looked insignificant if it were not for a rather distinguished grey beard that seemed to lend him an air of dignity. He was smoking a huge Havana cigar and had one arm draped protectively around a young girl who sat beside him. She was a pretty, frail-looking girl, with straight blond hair and a pair of large blue eyes that seemed to hold a perpetually startled expression. She was surely no more than eighteen years old, dressed in a rather revealing white cotton dress. She was nursing a drink in one hand whilst glancing nervously around at her fellow travellers.

‘Look at that pig,’ muttered Claudio with undisguised hatred.

‘Who is he?’ inquired Martin.

‘His name is Carlos Machado. He’s a fazendeiro, one of the richest in Brazil; owns a fancy villa up in the city. He’s currently in the market for buying land and it’s well known that he isn’t too particular how he comes by it. I don’t doubt for one moment that he’s heading up to Belém to pull off some shady deal.’

Martin raised his eyebrows. ‘Nothing you can do about him?’ he inquired.

Claudio grimaced. ‘In Brazil, my friend, a man is considered beyond the reach of the law when he has enough money to buy himself out of trouble; and Machado has money enough for a thousand men. Money can buy most everything a man requires.’

Martin nodded. He glanced at Machado again. The man was now stroking the girl’s hair with slow sensuous movements of his left hand, and occasionally she giggled as he whispered some remark into her ear.

‘How else would a middle-aged guy like him get hold of a pretty little kid like that one,’ agreed Martin.

Claudio chuckled. ‘Oh, that’s one thing he has not had to buy, senhor. You see, that is his daughter.’

Martin turned back to face Claudio, a look of mild disbelief on his face. ‘His daughter? Say, you don’t think …?’

‘What would I know, senhor? Maybe they are just very close. But a slug like Machado, I would think that he is capable of much that would make a decent man sick to his stomach.’ Claudio sighed, then smiled apologetically. ‘You must forgive me. I do not mean to sound this bitter but somehow … ah, the hell with it!’ He made a conscious effort to change the subject. ‘What time do you have by your watch, please?’

‘Oh, it’s er … a little after twenty past twelve. They’ll be calling us in a few minutes. I think I’ll go and freshen up a little.’

‘Oh, senhor, I hope my foolish talk has not upset you. Believe me, I am not usually a vindictive man. It is just that –’

‘Forget it!’ Martin got up from his seat. ‘We’ll talk some more on the plane.’ He turned and made his way in the direction of the washroom. Now that he had assured himself that Claudio meant no harm, Martin was glad to have somebody to talk to. It took his mind off the doubts and worries that were assailing him. He followed the signs for the men’s toilets, pushing through a swing door set in the end wall of the lounge, and found himself in a short, poorly lit corridor with another swing door at the top end of it some twenty feet ahead. After the comparative bustle of the lounge, it seemed strange to be alone again. He strolled forward, whistling tunelessly to himself, and then pushed through the second door. The washroom was completely empty. Martin moved towards a handbasin. He set down his carpet bag and let the basin fill with cold water. Meanwhile, he examined his face in the mirror above the taps: he had aged terribly in the six years at the garimpo. There were crow’s feet etched into the sunburned skin around his eyes. He raised one hand to finger them thoughtfully for a moment. Little matter, he was still young enough to enjoy the benefits that the diamond would bring. With a sigh, he leaned forward, lowering his face until it was completely immersed in the water. The coldness was a delicious, tingling shock to his sleep-dulled senses. Now he put his hands into the basin, splashing more water around his neck and shoulders, smoothing handfuls of it back through his hair. When he heard the slight creak of the door opening behind him, he willed himself to act normally. Of course, he reasoned, other people would come here, it was a public facility. No reason to stiffen or jerk around in alarm. He went on splashing the water into his eyes for a few moments and then straightened up, giving his head a flick to remove the last traces of liquid from his hair. He felt revived now, fully awake.

And then he became aware of the second reflection in the mirror in front of him. A man’s face was peering intently over his shoulder and there was a terrible silence in the room. The face was a familiar one, though Martin had not seen it for over six years. It was the pistoleiro who called himself Agnello, the same man, in the ill-fitting black suit, who on the occasion of that last meeting had been working for a certain Mr Caine.

Agnello’s face broadened into an ugly grin. ‘Ah, Senhor Taggart,’ he said, in slow, toneless English. ‘I have been looking for you everywhere.’

The boy pushed his way impatiently through the crowds of people that surrounded the reception desks, his dark eyes glancing nervously this way and that. He was perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, a thin rangy caboclo – half-breed Indian – who looked very out of place in his grubby, too-large cotton shirt and baggy trousers. He wore cheap rope-soled sandals that flapped as he walked and the airline ticket that he clutched in his right hand was damp with perspiration.

He moved out from the press of noisy tourists waiting for international flights and hurried over to the quieter desks that handled domestic routes, finding the right place and joining a short queue of latecomers. His eyes strayed again and again to the face of the large clock that overhung the reception area; he had not meant to cut things so fine and he was aware that in the departure lounge anxious eyes would be looking for him in vain. The trouble was he had been too confident, wanting to give his companions the impression that he had everything under control; and then it had all gone wrong, a stupid mistake that he had not even envisaged. The car he’d stolen to get him to the airport had simply broken down on him. In a blind panic, he had been forced to hitch a lift from a passing stranger, a farmer in an old pickup truck that had got him to his destination with only minutes to spare. Diabo, what a fool he’d look if he were to miss that plane!

The queue moved forward a step and the man in front of him, a tubby drawling American tourist, began to flirt with the girl at the desk as though there was all the time in the world. The boy sweated uncomfortably. The barrel of the gun was rubbing his flesh raw where it was tucked into the waistband of his trousers, the heavy butt obscured by the loose folds of his shirt. He noticed with a sense of unease that a uniformed security man was lounging against the wall, just behind the receptionist. His job, no doubt, was to run a critical eye over everyone and question any whose face did not seem to fit. For the first time since he had set out, the boy felt acutely aware of the shabbiness of his clothes. He had been advised more than once to purchase new ones, but had argued against it, maintaining that he would look even more out of place in a business suit. He had the face of a poor man and no amount of fancy clothing could disguise the fact. Better, he had concluded, to present himself as he really was. After all, poor men did sometimes travel by plane … didn’t they? Now he was almost at the moment of truth, the argument seemed somehow less convincing.

‘Take it easy,’ he warned himself; but his stomach gave an abrupt lurch and he had to close his eyes a moment and will his frayed nerves back into some kind of order.

‘Sim, senhor?’

He took a deep breath. Everything would be all right so long as he kept his nerve. He’d gone over every detail again and again, allowing for anything that might conceivably go wrong. All that remained was to get himself onto the plane and the rest … the rest would …

‘Senhor?’

He opened his eyes abruptly, realizing that the girl was talking to him. The American had disappeared and now the receptionist regarded him irritably. Behind her, the security man was smiling mockingly, his eyes inscrutable behind the dark lenses of a pair of sunglasses. Flustered, the boy shuffled forward and handed his ticket to the girl. She took it gingerly, holding it between thumb and forefinger as though it were daubed with excrement. She laid it on the counter, gave it a cursory check and rubber-stamped it with a sigh. Then she glanced up at him as though reflecting on the strangeness of a scruffy young caboclo’s possessing such a ticket.

‘Baggage?’ she inquired.

‘Nao.’ He shook his head and somehow could not meet her gaze. ‘I travel light,’ he mumbled; and instantly wished he had said nothing. The security man had stepped forward, still smiling dangerously. The boy wished he would take off those damned glasses. You needed to see a fellow’s eyes to know what he was thinking. He glanced at the black butt of a heavy pistol that jutted from a holster around the man’s waist as he leaned forward over the girl’s shoulder to look at the ticket.

‘Kind of young to be travelling alone,’ he observed.

The boy shrugged. ‘Old enough, I guess,’ he replied.

‘What takes you to Belém?’

‘I’ve got a job waiting for me there. A cousin of mine is a big man with a mining company. He’s promised to give me a good start …’ With an effort, he wrenched his gaze up to stare right back at the man. ‘I can’t seem to find anything that suits me in Rio.’

There was a long uncomfortable pause, broken only by the distant echoing drone of a flight announcement. The security man seemed to be thinking and it was impossible to tell whether his eyes were on the boy’s face or searching the folds of his cotton shirt for a tell-tale bulge; but then, inexplicably, his mouth lapsed into a friendly smile.

‘You’d better hurry on through,’ he said. ‘The flight will be leaving any minute now.’

The boy smiled, nodded, had to suppress a long sigh of relief. He turned and began to walk in the direction of the departure lounge.

‘Um momento, senhor!’

He froze in his tracks. The man’s voice was suddenly terse and rigid with authority. The friendliness had been simply a ploy to put him off guard. The boy’s blood seemed to run cold. He turned slowly, fully expecting to see the guard’s pistol pointing at his chest… but the man was grinning at him and holding out his ticket.

‘You won’t get very far without this.’

‘Nao … nao, of course not …’ The boy grabbed the ticket and hurried down the short corridor that led to the departure lounge. He went in just in time to hear the first call for flight SA119 to Belém and followed the stream of passengers that were already moving towards the open doorway at the end of the room. Before he stepped out into sunlight, he raised his right hand in an exaggerated fashion and wiped the back of his neck, a sign to those who were watching that nothing had gone wrong.

Out on the tarmac, the plane waited and the boy strolled towards it, whistling to himself. He knew all about this kind of plane, had devoted a year of his life to learning everything he could about it. He knew its range, its weight, the intimate workings of its navigation systems, anything and everything that could be gleaned from books on the subject. He had never actually been inside one before but was fairly confident that, should it become necessary, he could even fly it to its destination. But that would only be if something went wrong. He did not intend to make any more mistakes.

Chapter 3

Martin winced as the point of a switchblade knife dug painfully into the freshly shaved flesh at the side of his throat.

‘Put your hands onto the basin,’ advised Agnello calmly. ‘If you try anything fancy, I’ll slit your throat.’

Martin stayed absolutely rigid, gazing sullenly down at the carpet bag by his feet. His pistol was inside. He cursed his carelessness as Agnello’s large left hand searched methodically up and down the length of his body and, predictably, discovered the leather sheath strapped to his right shin. The knife was quickly removed and tossed contemptuously to the other side of the room.

‘Now you can turn around,’ announced Agnello; and the pressure of the knife blade slackened momentarily. Martin turned slowly, his stomach lurching with fear. Agnello regarded him with silent disgust. ‘An amateur,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Where the hell did you think you were going?’

Martin forced his voice to respond, as he desperately tried to play for time. ‘You were quick,’ he murmured.

‘We got a telegraph about the guy you killed. It was certain you had found something. This was the first place we figured you’d come.’ Agnello’s tone was one of mild irritation. He was like a schoolteacher who had been given the irksome task of punishing a disobedient pupil.

‘So what happens now?’ croaked Martin. ‘Do we go and see Caine?’

‘What for? You ain’t going anywhere, my friend.’ Agnello grinned unpleasantly and then glanced in the direction of the door. ‘But we don’t wanna be disturbed, do we?’ He motioned to a toilet cubicle, the door of which was open. ‘In there,’ he ordered. ‘Get moving!’

Martin’s guts seemed to turn to ice. He began to back away from the advancing blade; the moment he was inside the cubicle Agnello would kill him. He could scarcely control his breathing. ‘Listen,’ he gasped. ‘Listen, Agnello, we can make a deal on this. The diamond I found, it’s big, really big. It would bring millions on the open market. We could make a deal, fifty-fifty.’

Agnello sneered, shook his head. ‘Only a stupid man would try to cheat Senhor Caine. No diamond is worth such trouble.’

‘This one is!’ Martin began to fumble with the pouch around his neck. There were only a few more steps to the cubicle and he had fixed on the notion that the diamond might be his one hope of escape. Everything seemed to be happening in a terrible slow-motion. His eyes took in each vivid detail: Agnello’s cold merciless eyes, as cold as the glittering steel blade that hovered several inches in front of Martin’s face; the great sinewed fist that clenched the handle of the knife, the knuckles whitening slightly from the pressure of holding it; Agnello’s badly made suit, worn at the elbows and cuffs and with a few unidentified foodstains spattered down its front. And now the pouch was in Martin’s hands; he was shaking the diamond out onto the palm of his hand, at the same instant that he was passing into the gloomy confines of the cubicle. He glanced up hopefully but Agnello had not even noticed the jewel, his gaze was fixed on Martin’s chest, seeking out the right place to bury the blade of the knife.

‘For Christ’s sake, look!’ snapped Martin.

For a fraction of a second Agnello’s gaze dropped to examine the diamond; then his eyes widened perceptibly, his jaw fell a few degrees and the blade of the knife wavered. He was standing framed in the doorway of the cubicle, his arm outstretched. He was frozen into immobility because he was looking at the biggest diamond in God’s creation. And now his eyes had caught the strange perfect form of the tarantula shimmering in the diamond’s heart. For a split second only, mesmerized, Agnello had forgotten the instincts that years of violence had taught him; Martin was just beginning to learn them. He let the diamond fall to the floor.

Agnello could not help himself. He made an instinctive lunge to catch the jewel with his free hand and in that instant Martin grabbed the edge of the door and slammed it with all his strength on the arm that held the knife. Then he threw the entire weight of his body against the metal door, snapping the bone beneath the flesh like a dry twig. From behind the door there came a hollow, formless scream of agony and the switchblade clattered to the floor. Now Martin wrenched the door open again, grabbed a fistful of Agnello’s hair and pulled the pistoleiro into the cubicle, hoping to make a quick end of him; but he had reckoned without the man’s brutish strength. Agnello came blundering in, lashing out with his left arm, catching Martin a stinging blow across the eyes. For a moment Martin reeled back against the cistern while Agnello tried ineffectually to grope for his shoulder holster with his useless right hand. Martin unleashed a savage punch that slammed Agnello back against the door, banging it shut again. His hands clamped around the pistoleiro’s thick throat and he began to squeeze with all his strength. Agnello aimed a knee up between Martin’s legs, but Martin twisted away from the full force of the blow. He swung Agnello around and pushed him back against the toilet seat, banging the man’s head with sickening force against the white enamel of the cistern. Then he continued with his squeezing, gouging his thumbs deep into the hollows at the sides of Agnello’s jaw. His eyes bulged grotesquely as the realization struck him that he was about to die. He struggled helplessly, his already swelling right hand clawing ineffectually at Martin’s face.

And then, to his horror, Martin heard the door to the washroom swing open. He glanced nervously back. The cubicle door was shut. He released one hand and clamped it roughly over Agnello’s mouth before a moan for help could issue from it. He applied all his strength into the pressure of the other hand, but somehow, Agnello clung on to life. His feet began to move weakly, the heels making dull scraping noises against the tiled floor. It was horribly quiet for a moment; then a familiar voice spoke.

‘Senhor, is that you?’ It was Claudio, the man that Martin had chatted to in the airport lounge.

‘Yeah, it’s me.’ Martin sweated helplessly as he strove to finish Agnello off. He hoped the tone of his voice did not sound too strange.

‘I thought perhaps you had not heard the call for our flight in here.’

‘Oh yeah, I heard it all right. You go ahead and save me a seat, huh? I’ll be right with you.’

Agnello’s face was now a curious shade of purple. His tongue had emerged from his mouth but he still made one last spasmodic attempt to free himself. Then his body gave a series of convulsions and he began to relinquish his hold on life. Outside, the door opened again. There was a short silence and then it swung shut with a final thud. From beyond, there came the muffled second call for the plane’s departure.

‘Die, God damn you,’ hissed Martin savagely. But there was barely any movement in Agnello’s limbs now and his eyes had begun to cloud over. Frantically Martin began to look about for the diamond. It was nowhere in the cubicle and the possibility that it might have been kicked out through the space beneath the toilet door occurred to him for the first time with an abrupt conviction that Claudio might have found it lying on the floor. He wrenched Agnello’s lifeless body up onto the toilet seat. The pistoleiro sat there, hunched and grotesque, his expression amply displaying the horrible manner in which he had died. Now, Martin realized grimly, he would have to run, as fast and far as he could.

Quickly, Martin picked up Agnello’s gun. Then, fixing the bolt on the toilet door, he slid out through the wide gap beneath. He collected his carpet bag, dropped the pistol inside. Casting around the washroom, he found his knife lying against one wall and returned this to the sheath on his right shin. In the next cubicle, he found Agnello’s switchblade and dropped that in his bag. But where was the diamond? He searched frantically through every corner of the washroom and had just come to the conclusion that Claudio had indeed found it when he spotted a glimmer near the skirting-board beside the door. With a sigh of relief, he snatched the jewel up and slid it back into its leather pouch, dropped the rawhide loop around his neck and settled the pouch back into its accustomed position beneath his shirt. Then he glanced into a mirror to check that he looked all right. Apart from a slight discoloration below his left eye where a fist had struck him, there was no outward sign that he had been in any trouble.

From the airport lounge, there came the muffled tones of the third and final call for the flight to Belém. Martin could only hope that Agnello had come to the airport alone. He opened the door slightly and peered along the hallway. That area at least seemed deserted.

‘Well, here goes nothing,’ he murmured softly as he hurried out of the washroom, slamming the door behind him.

Helen glanced irritably out through the open doorway of the plane, the checklist tucked underneath one arm. Everybody accounted for but one. There always had to be some joker who kept everybody waiting. The intercom beside her head crackled into life and she snatched up the receiver.

‘What’s the hold-up?’ Mike’s voice, edgy and irritable.

‘We’re one passenger short, Mike.’

‘Well, we’ll have to leave him behind. We’re a couple of minutes late as it is.’

‘Your wish is my command, great white captain,’ she replied mockingly. She turned to motion to the mechanics by the door that they could remove the steps; but then she saw the lone figure, running hell for leather across the tarmac. ‘Oh, hold it a minute, Mike. I think Little Bo Peep has just turned up.’ She watched impatiently as the man drew near, running as though his very life depended upon catching this plane. He was a slim, dark-haired man of no great height, obviously an American, though it was plain that he had been in Brazil for quite some time. His skin was tanned a very dark shade of brown and his clothes were not the usual ill-suited selection of a tourist. He clambered up the few steps to the door, panting softly from his run, and then stood regarding Helen intently with deep-set, grey eyes. There was a frankness in the gaze, a challenging, assured quality that threw her for a moment.

‘You er … must be Mr … Taggart,’ she ventured quietly.

He nodded and she ticked the final name.

‘It appears that I cut things a little fine there,’ he observed.

‘You could say that.’ She motioned him into the plane’s interior and signalled to the attendants to remove the steps, then pulled the door shut, moving the heavy bar down and across to seal it. When she pressed a buzzer beside the door, a signal that everything was ready, the plane began to taxi away.

Martin moved down the centre aisle. The seats were nearly all taken, but about halfway along he found Claudio sitting by himself.

‘Ah, senhor! I was beginning to think you were having trouble back there!’

Martin forced a smile. ‘I was.’ He settled into the vacant seat and patted his stomach. ‘Something I ate back at the hotel, I think. Sea-food.’

Claudio raised a hand in sympathy. ‘You do not have to tell me, Mr … forgive me, I still do not know your name.’

Martin smiled. Now he was on his way, he saw little reason to be cagy about his name and it seemed unwise to offer one that differed from what was on his passport.

‘It’s Taggart. Martin Taggart.’

‘Ah, Senhor Taggart, you do not have to tell me about sea-food. When it is good for you, it is like swallowing little pieces of heaven; and when it is bad for you, it is like throwing up several acres of hell.’ He chuckled. ‘Are you nervous of flying, senhor?’

‘Me? No, not at all.’

‘Me neither. I only wish the view was better.’

Martin glanced across the aisle and saw the heavy, grey-bearded figure of Carlos Machado sitting in the opposite seat. He had evidently placed his daughter by the window so that she could observe the wild scenery over which they would fly.

‘In the old days, cattle always travelled in freight cars,’ Claudio observed, making no attempt to lower his voice. ‘These days they go by aeroplane. It makes no sense to me!’ For a moment, Machado glanced at Claudio with a kind of smug, distant aloofness that seemed to suggest that the man’s wealth made him somehow above the retribution of ordinary people. Then he turned away and whispered something to his daughter that elicited a high-pitched giggle.

The plane had come to a halt at the top of the runway. Helen moved along the aisle, asking everybody who had not yet done so to fasten their seat belts. She paused beside Martin. ‘Your belt, Mr Taggart,’ she reminded him.

He glanced up at her, grinned wickedly. ‘Well now, I tell you what the problem is. I can never seem to get the damn thing fixed together. Perhaps you could show me?’

She gazed at him coolly. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to work it out.’

Martin laughed and winked at Claudio. ‘Can’t blame a guy for trying.’

‘Oh, no, to be sure. And I guess you’ve been starved of pretty girls for a long time now.’

A sharp twinge of suspicion cut into Martin’s voice. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh … only that a garimpeiro does not have much opportunity to see pretty girls, that is all.’

‘I never said anything to you about being a garimpeiro. I didn’t say anything about my work at all.’

Claudio nodded easily. ‘You didn’t have to, senhor. It is all written in your hands.’

‘My hands?’ Martin glanced at his outstretched palms and then he understood. Those scarred, calloused, iron-hard hands could belong to only one profession.

‘Tell me,’ he muttered wryly. ‘Is everybody in Brazil a natural detective?’

Claudio laughed. ‘No,’ he retorted. ‘It’s just that we practise all the time.’

Martin’s reply was drowned as the two one-thousand-horsepower engines roared abruptly into life. The plane accelerated along the runway, its momentum pushing the passengers back in their seats. Within a surprisingly short distance, the glittering silver fuselage began to lift upwards into the empty air, leaving nothing but a fleeting black shadow on the hot surface of the runway to mark its passing.

Martin leaned over to peer out of the window, watching in fascination as the buildings, vehicles and people below dwindled to the size of children’s playthings. A few moments later, the plane was banking around towards the north-east and there, far below, perched on the edge of the glittering South Atlantic Ocean, was the famous sugar-loaf mountain, a strange humped shape dwarfed by the vast stretch of blue water. From this height, it looked somehow inconsequential, like a half-melted cake that had collapsed at the edges. He settled into his seat with a sigh of content. Now at last he felt he was really on his way to freedom. He glanced up as the stewardess came walking down the aisle.

‘Say, Miss, can I get a drink now?’

She shook her head. ‘Not just yet, Mr Taggart. I’ll announce when the bar is open.’

‘I’ll look forward to that.’ He grinned at her but she turned away, her face expressionless, and continued to the front of the plane. Martin studied the rhythmic sway of her buttocks beneath the tight blue fabric of her skirt.

‘I think you’re right, Claudio,’ he murmured. ‘It is too long since I’ve seen a pretty girl. Now why do you suppose that one is so unfriendly?’

Claudio grinned. ‘Maybe because you made her late,’ he suggested. ‘Or maybe just because she figures you are a little too fresh with her.’

‘Fresh? Well, I oughta be fresh. I’ve been keeping it on ice for the best part of six years. The dame sure is a looker though. What’s the betting she’s the captain’s personal piece of ass?’

‘She could just as easily be a respectable married lady,’ reasoned Claudio.

Martin shook his head. ‘Maybe you’re not such a great detective after all,’ he retorted. ‘For one thing, the lady ain’t wearing a wedding ring; and besides, women who look the way she does are never married. You know why? Because men are afraid to trust them, that’s why. If I was married to a broad like that I wouldn’t be able to sleep nights, worrying about some other guy sniffing around when my back was turned. That’s why most men are married to ugly women and get their fun chasing around.’

Claudio shrugged. ‘I am afraid I am no expert on the subject,’ he said. ‘I have no wife.’

‘Hell, neither have I!’ Martin watched as the stewardess opened the door that led to the pilot’s cabin and went inside, closing it behind her. ‘Don’t plan to have one either. Got a lot of fun to catch up on.’ He glanced at his companion. ‘Oh, just for the record, Claudio. I was a garimpeiro for six years and I never killed a single damned Indian in that time. Didn’t mistreat one, so far as I can recall, though I’ll admit I’ve seen it happen from time to time. It was never my style.’

Claudio nodded, waved his hand in dismissal. ‘There are good and bad in all walks of life, senhor. I had no suspicions, I can assure you; and look, don’t go thinking I’m some kind of plaster saint. It’s just my job and I do it the best I can.’

‘What happens when you get up to Belém?’

‘Oh … I charter a boat, head down the Amazon. I am already friends with some of the chiefs around the headwaters. Wherever civilization is advancing, I try to be just a little ahead of it. I talk to the people, organize immunization, try to prepare them for the shock that is coming. You might say my function is that of a cushion. I try to push myself between the axe and the tree. Sometimes we get there too late. A man cannot be everywhere at once. Sometimes we find the remains of a massacre.’ He turned to stare out of the window beside him. The plane was already flying over thick, impenetrable jungle, scarred here and there by the meandering muddy coils of a river. It was one of the most striking features of Brazil: only a few minutes out of its biggest, grandest city and already there was nothing below but a wilderness of dank, green rain forest. ‘Ironic, is it not, senhor,’ murmured Claudio. ‘Here we sit in this newfangled, metal flying machine; while down there, it is still the Stone Age. Time has not reached those jungles yet. Sometimes I think that man was never meant to inhabit Brazil at all; no, not even the Indians, and they are the only people who could ever survive for long in that inhospitable world.’

Martin sighed. He eased his hat down over his eyes and slumped back in his seat. ‘Wake me up when the bar’s open,’ he murmured.

Claudio continued to speak, but his voice soon became a formless drone that mingled with the low steady hum of the aircraft. Martin settled down for his first spell of real rest since finding the diamond. In a matter of moments, he was fast asleep.

‘Everything OK back there?’ asked Mike as Helen entered the cabin. He was obliged to shout over the roar of the engines but still somehow contrived to sound indifferent. She wondered why she was so helplessly and miserably attached to Mike Stone and wanted, suddenly, to hurt him.

‘I think I’ve picked up an admirer,’ she said.

‘Oh yeah? You always find one token jerk, every flight.’ Mike’s voice was devoid of any emotion, but she knew how jealous he was about such things.

Helen shifted her attention to the co-pilot. ‘Hey, how’s it going, Ricardo?’

‘Just fine, Trojan, just fine. The weather people have been on, it’s gonna be a nice smooth flight all the way. I arranged it specially.’ He flashed a grin at her. ‘Now listen, any of those guys back there give you a hard time, you just come and tell me, OK? Then I’ll give you a hard time!’

‘Cut the cackle, Ricardo,’ Mike snapped.

Ricardo looked mortified. ‘I’m sorry, chief! What is it, you get out of the wrong side of bed this morning?’

‘Yeah, somethin’ like that.’

‘Well, I tell you what I’m gonna do. When we get to Belém, I know a nice little nightclub there. I’m gonna treat the both of you to the best cocktails in all Brazil, now wha’dya say, huh?’

‘Ricardo, when Helen and me hit Belém, we’re just going to hole up in a quiet hotel room with a bottle of aguardente.’

‘Who says so, big shot!’ Helen’s mood had abruptly boiled over into outright anger. She was furious that, despite everything she had said that morning, Mike had simply assumed that the set-up would continue in the usual way. He turned a little now to stare at her, a smug, half-smile on his face. She hated that look, the way his eyes seemed to say ‘in the end, you’ll do it my way’. But worse was the knowledge that this was most probably true. She had always given in to him, allowed herself to be humiliated. But not this time, she had promised herself that much. She turned back to Ricardo. ‘I’d love to come to a nightclub with you,’ she said brightly. ‘If Mike is feeling too tired, I expect we can manage just as well without him.’

Mike’s expression turned to a dangerous glare. ‘Helen, you’re not making a lot of sense,’ he growled. For a moment, the two exchanged vitriolic glances.

Ricardo began to grow uncomfortable. ‘Hey, well look,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t want to cause any …’

‘… trouble, Ricardo?’ finished Helen mockingly. ‘But why should there be any trouble? After all, I’m a free agent. It’s not as though I’m married to anyone. I’m not even engaged, so what could be the harm in –?’

‘Helen, I think it’s time you chased through some coffee to us,’ snapped Mike forcefully. In the ensuing silence, the thunder of the engines sounded deafening.

‘Yes … captain,’ replied Helen at last, her voice loaded with ridicule. ‘That’s something you can make me do … after all, it’s part of my job.’ She threw him a last defiant sneer and then stalked out of the cabin, slamming the door. She stood for a moment, regaining her composure and ordering her face into the professional smile, aware that eyes were watching her from the rows of seats, then began to move slowly forward along the aisle, inquiring if everybody was comfortable, was there anything that they required? She hoped that her true feelings did not show in her eyes. In the last few minutes, she had made her mind up for sure. When she reached Belém, she would hand her notice in to Mike Stone. She would not let herself be influenced by his glib tongue or helpless expression, as she had so many times in the past; and furthermore, she would not go to work for the other airline either. She would simply get as far away from this business as she could, pursue some other line of work. She was adaptable; she would surely survive.

She reached the seat where the arrogant American had been sitting and found him asleep, his hat tilted over his eyes. In repose, his undeniably handsome face looked serene, almost childlike. The man’s Portuguese companion smiled across at Helen.

‘I was just about to tell him that he could have his drink now,’ she said quietly.

‘He told me to wake him,’ confided Claudio. ‘But I think it’s better that he sleeps. There will be plenty of time to drink later.’

Helen nodded. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘No thank you. I believe I might take a nap myself.’

Helen moved on, noting as she did so that the bearded gentleman sitting to her left seemed to be enjoying a perturbingly familiar embrace with the girl who was entered on the flight records as his daughter. He had his arm around her shoulders in a gesture that spoke of something worlds apart from normal paternal protectiveness. The man glanced up and beamed an oily smile at Helen as though aware of her thoughts.

‘Just a moment, miss!’ He beckoned to her authoritatively and she turned back to stand beside his seat. ‘I believe I’d like a drink,’ he said in stilted, though fairly accomplished English. ‘A Scotch, I think. I don’t suppose you have any ice on board?’

Helen shook her head. ‘I’m afraid ice is a rare commodity in Brazil,’ she replied. ‘But Scotch, we do have. And something for your … daughter?’

The man inclined his head to the side. ‘Miranda, my dear, is there anything you would like?’

She gazed up at him a moment as though she did not comprehend, her large blue eyes wide, her head tilted slightly to one side. For a moment, a sense of shock ran through Helen, for she could see quite clearly that there was madness in those young eyes, a stark, tormented insanity that seemed to stand out as plain as day. Then the girl leaned forward to whisper something into her father’s ear and the man nodded. He glanced up at Helen.

‘My daughter says that she thinks you are very pretty,’ he said.

‘Well … thank you.’ Helen leaned forward a little to catch the girl’s attention; but the blue eyes just seemed to gaze through her. ‘I said, thank you, you’re very pretty too.’ Nothing. The child’s gaze seemed to burn through Helen as if to view some distant mystery.

‘You must forgive my daughter,’ said the bearded man abruptly. ‘She rarely speaks to anyone but me. Some … mental problem. I have taken her to see all the best doctors but alas there is nothing anyone can do. Thank the lord I am here to protect her, otherwise who knows what might become of her?’ He leaned forward suddenly and placed his lips against his daughter’s ear. Helen saw quite clearly that his tongue came out, to lap suggestively inside it. The girl gave an abrupt meaningless giggle, her eyes still staring sightlessly ahead.

Helen felt a wave of revulsion. ‘I’ll get your drink,’ she announced coldly and moved quickly away.

She went back along the aisle, taking orders for drinks from various people. Huddled in a seat in the back, she found a young man sitting alone. He was a caboclo, a thin boy with a shock of thick black hair and handsome brown eyes. He was dressed rather poorly and Helen had thought when he boarded the plane that he did not look the sort who could normally afford a plane ticket. He looked rather ill at the moment, his gaunt face covered with drops of perspiration, and Helen wondered if he was feeling airsick. It was quite possible that this was his first experience of air travel.

‘Is everything all right?’ inquired Helen, in Portuguese.

The boy glanced up at her as though startled. Then he frowned and nodded curtly.

‘Sim,’ he replied.

‘Is there anything I can get you? A drink perhaps … a wet towel for your forehead?’

‘Nao.’ He shook his head and returned his gaze to the floor as though dismissing her from his thoughts. She shrugged and moved back to the narrow corridor between the tiny galley and the lavatory. You met all sorts of people aboard aeroplanes, she observed to herself as she prepared the drinks, and not always the kind you wanted to meet. That bearded man … she glanced at the flight list … Machado, his name was; there was definitely something very unpleasant about him. Still, she would be getting out of this life soon and she did not think that she would miss it overmuch. She would miss Mike, of course, for a time. But in the end, if she stayed firm, it would be no more distressing than the removal of a bad tooth. It would ache for a short while but then she would not even be aware that it was gone. She was remarkably adept at the art of healing her own wounds, simply because she’d had a lot of practise over the years. Before Mike, there had been Adam, an aide to her father at the embassy, a man several years older than her and, of course, married. Before that, there had been Tom, a plantation owner, and before him, a whole string of male disasters, not one of whom could have afforded Helen any future. Married men had been her singular passion and her greatest pitfall and, try as she might, there seemed to be no way she could shake off the obsession. The fact was that younger men had always bored her. Older men had more grace, more sensitivity, they were better lovers. Perhaps it was simply that her first stumbling attempts at high-school affairs with boys her own age had been so disastrous. A psychologist friend had once spent an entire evening trying to convince her that she subconsciously wanted to make it with her father, but the idea had seemed too ludicrous to contemplate. Her father was a pompous, overbearing, money-orientated bigot who treated his daughter as just another possession; more likely, she was trying to find a father figure whom she could find acceptable. Yes, she could buy that.

On her way back from serving the drinks, she noticed that the young boy in the last seat was heaving violently into a paper sick-bag. She stopped, meaning to comfort him, but he waved her away, presumably humiliated by his illness. Helen frowned. How like a man, she thought sadly. Caught up in senseless arrogant pride from the day they were old enough to spit. She sighed, wearied by the thought of the long, uneventful journey ahead. It was good that she was getting out of this business. She ought to have done it a long time ago.

As she came out of the galley, she saw the young man coming towards her along the aisle, his face rather pale beneath the tanned surface of his skin. Assuming he was heading for the toilet, Helen stepped back through the doorway of the galley to allow him to pass by. She was taken totally by surprise when the boy moved suddenly towards her, pushing her back out of sight with a quick shove of his hand. Helen was about to cry out in alarm, but the sound died in her throat as the black barrel of a gun was pointed unceremoniously at her face. For a moment, she was too stunned to register what was happening.

‘Is this some kind of joke?’ she asked brightly; but then she looked at the boy’s face, the grim, desperate expression on it and the wide, staring eyes that were shot through with fear, and she knew, with a terrible tightening of her stomach, that this was not meant to be funny. This was not funny at all. She seemed to lose the ability to control her breathing as she tried to stammer a question out.

‘What … uh … do you … uh … what … please?’

‘Shut up,’ he hissed fiercely; and he pushed the cold steel of the gun barrel against her throat to silence her. It felt like the touch of death and she recoiled from it instinctively, her elbow catching a metal coffee jug that stood on the counter behind her. It rolled over with a clatter and the boy threw out a hand to still it. Then he stood, the gun pushed up against Helen’s throat, while he listened intently for the sound of advancing footsteps. But nobody had heard. In the silence, the hum of the plane’s engines seemed to rise to a terrible crescendo.

Helen spoke again, more slowly this time, in a soft measured whisper. ‘Please … what is it you want? You must …’

‘I told you to shut up!’ snapped the boy. ‘I talk, you listen. I tell you what’s gonna happen, lady, you do like I tell you and you don’t get killed, understand?’ The boy was staring at her, his eyes bulging grotesquely in their sockets. There were thick beads of sweat on his forehead.

‘How old are you?’ asked Helen abruptly.

The boy ignored the question. ‘Here’s what’s gonna happen,’ he said. ‘You and me, see, we’re gonna take a walk up to where the captain sits. You’re gonna go first and I’m gonna be behind with my gun in my shirt pocket like this, see? It’s gonna be pointed straight at you, all the time and you say or do anythin’ makes me nervous and I’ll put a bullet in your back, can’t miss. And there’s five other shots here for anyone tries to get to me. You believe this I tell you?’

Helen gazed at the boy for a moment. There was not a trace of compassion in his face. She nodded. ‘I believe you,’ she said.

‘OK. Here’s the story, like in the movies, understand? You’re sorry for me, sick n’ all … gonna take me up to sit with the captain now, make me feel a whole lot better. Anybody asks you where you’re going, that’s what you tell ’em. Believe me lady, you try one thing that don’t seem right to me, I’m gonna waste you. Now, get walkin’ up there! Hurry!’

‘But why … why do you want to …?’

He jabbed the gun into her ribs. ‘I don’t have time to waste, lady. Move out, now.’

Helen moved rather unsteadily to the door. She had recovered a little from her original shock but her legs still felt like columns of rubber. She stood in the doorway for a moment, taking a deep breath and trying to steady her nerves. But another prod against her back started her on her way. She glanced back once and saw that the boy was indeed just behind her, his right hand pushed into the pocket of his baggy shirt. The boy glared at her and she turned back again, began to move slowly along between the rows of seats. The thought of a loaded gun pointed at her back filled her with unspeakable dread and she could only hope that her emotions did not show on her face. At the moment though, everybody seemed to be either asleep or engaged in conversation. Nobody so much as glanced up as she went by. The short distance to the pilot’s cabin seemed to take an eternity. At last she had the handle firmly in her grasp and was opening the door. She stepped through and the boy pushed in behind her, closing the door. The two pilots were intent on their instrument panels. They did not bother to look up.

‘I thought you were grinding that coffee grain by grain,’ yelled Mike over his shoulder. Helen stood there helplessly, willing them to look up; but it seemed a very long time before Ricardo glanced up and grinned good-naturedly.

‘Hey, who’s this you’ve brought with you?’ he inquired. Then his grin faded as he saw the gun in the boy’s hand. Mike glanced back now. His eyes widened and then narrowed to slits.

‘What the hell is this?’ he demanded angrily.

‘He pulled a gun on me, Mike,’ began Helen. ‘There was nothing I could …’

‘Shut up, lady!’ The boy motioned with the gun. ‘Move ahead of me, where I can see you.’ He licked his lips nervously and surveyed the two pilots for a moment. ‘OK, now here’s what we’re gonna do …’

‘Who the hell are you?’ interrupted Mike. ‘What’s the idea of coming in here like this?’

‘I’m about to explain that to you,’ retorted the boy. ‘Just take it easy. You do like I tell you and nobody … nobody on this plane’s gonna come to any harm. You got my word on that.’ The boy raised his left arm to mop at his clammy forehead with his sleeve. ‘Now what I want is for you to make a little change of course, OK?’

Mike frowned. ‘Oh, so that’s it. I suppose I should have realized. What are you, some kind of rebel or something? Planning to overthrow the Government?’

The boy waved a hand to silence Mike. ‘You shut up. It don’t matter what I am. All that matters is I have this gun and I will use it if I have to.’ He fished in the breast pocket of his shirt and brought out a crumpled scrap of paper. ‘These here are the map references.’

‘Map references?’ Mike stared at the boy for a moment, then turned to his co-pilot. ‘Say, you hear that, Ricardo? This guy doesn’t belong to some chicken-shit organization; he’s got some damned map references!’

Ricardo smiled feebly. ‘A professional,’ he yelled back.

‘Damned right. This kid knows exactly what he wants.’ Mike glanced down between his feet, where the stock of the sawn-off shotgun lay inviting his touch. It seemed a strange irony. Mike had always kept the thing there, all through the war and on every flight since, believing that one day something like this might happen. Now it had, he was afraid to use it with Helen in the cabin. He would have to get her out of harm’s way first. He turned back to look at the boy. ‘And supposing, sonny, I was to say to you that on no account am I going to alter this plane’s course. Then what would you say?’

The boy shrugged. He moved forward until he was standing directly behind the co-pilot’s seat. He pushed the barrel of the gun up against Ricardo’s neck and cocked the trigger. Ricardo gasped and glanced helplessly across at Mike.

‘First, I will kill this man. Then your stewardess here. And if I have to, then I will kill you.’

‘The plane won’t fly without somebody at the controls, boy,’ observed Mike. ‘What use would it be to you then?’

‘No use at all. But, see, I don’t think you will let me go that far. I don’t think you want to see your friends die. And believe me, I will kill them … if you are stupid enough to put me to the test.’

There was a long silence.

Then Ricardo spoke, his voice clumsy and guttural with fear. ‘Mike, I think the kid means it,’ he gasped.

‘I’m sure he does, Ricardo,’ Mike nodded. ‘All right, take the gun out of my co-pilot’s neck and hand him those Goddamned references. Calm down, Ricardo, nobody’s going to get hurt if I can help it. Have a look at the kid’s instructions and let’s see where he wants to take us.’ Mike glanced up at Helen. ‘You all right, honey?’

She nodded dumbly. Mike turned back to face the boy. ‘Kinda young to be pulling a hijack, aren’t you?’

The boy shrugged. ‘Old enough, senhor … and don’t go gettin’ no fancy ideas about me, because I’ve killed a lot’ve men who figured I was too young to handle this gun.’

Mike nodded. ‘Oh yes, I’ll bet you have. You speak good English for a caboclo … a college kid, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Que Diabo!’ exclaimed Ricardo suddenly. He glanced up from his charts. ‘These figures would take us way north-west of here … ain’t nothing out that way but a few savages and a hell of a lot of jungle.’ He glanced at Mike. ‘It’s Mato Grosso territory … I’m not even sure offhand if we’d have enough fuel to make it that far.’

‘You got enough fuel,’ snapped the boy. ‘You started out with eight hundred and four gallons. You keep in cruise and conserve it properly, you’ll make it with just a little in reserve.’

‘The kid’s done his homework,’ observed Mike dryly. ‘But like Ricardo says, if there’s nothing out there –’

‘There is something out there! You think I’m louco, huh? There’s an airstrip, cut out of the jungle. It’s rough but it will do to land this old crate on. I know it’s there, because I helped to build it … but if we’re going to make it there, we have to change course right now. Understand, Capitão?’

‘Yes, I understand.’

The boy stepped forward again and jabbed the gun barrel against Ricardo’s neck. ‘Now you give an order,’ he snapped at Mike. ‘And make it the right order or you’ll be scraping this guy’s head off the windscreen.’

‘All right, take it easy. Ricardo, you do like he says.’

‘And don’t try anythin’ stupid like headin’ off in another direction,’ added the boy. ‘I can read a compass pretty good.’

‘You’re a talented kid,’ said Mike sarcastically. ‘With everything you’ve got goin’ for you, I’m surprised you don’t just fly the Goddamned plane yourself.’

‘Shaddup!’ The boy watched the compass needle closely as Ricardo brought the plane around onto its new course. ‘That was a shaky turn,’ he observed when the manoeuvre was completed.

‘I don’t fly so good with a gun against my head,’ Ricardo sneered.

The boy reached up an arm to mop his forehead again. Then he glanced over at Helen. ‘Hey you! C’mere … yeah, c’mon, I ain’t gonna hurt ya.’ He grabbed her wrist as she stumbled uncertainly forward. ‘Now listen, lady, those people back there, they’re gonna start wanting drinks and things; so here’s what we’re gonna do, OK? You’re gonna go back out there like nothin’ in the world has happened, you’re gonna act like it’s just a normal flight. Anybody gets suspicious, you throw them off, see, ’cos if anybody tries to come through that door before I want them to, I’m gonna kill one of these guys.’

Helen nodded. She glanced down at Mike and he gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Do just like he says, honey. Don’t worry about a thing; it’s going to be all right.’ He reached out and squeezed her hand gently.

‘All right, all right, that’s enough.’ The boy jerked his thumb back at the exit door. ‘Get out there and remember what I told you.’ He backed slowly away from Ricardo, swinging his gun back and forth to keep both pilots covered. When his back was against the wall, he reached out his left hand and opened the door so that he was hidden behind it. Then, with an abrupt flick of his head, he signalled Helen to go out.

‘Pretty girl,’ the boy observed casually as he slipped the door’s heavy bolt into place. ‘You guys use your heads and she’ll stay that way. We don’t want to have to kill anybody, we just need the plane.’

‘I take it you’ve got fuel at this strip of yours,’ said Mike. ‘This thing won’t be much use to you without it.’

‘Sure, we got fuel.’

‘What do you want the plane for?’

‘That’s our business.’

‘Uh huh.’ Mike turned around to the boy. ‘And what about us … the passengers and the crew? You really trying to tell me that you plan to let us go after we land?’

‘Sure, why not?’

‘It just doesn’t seem very likely, that’s all. We’ll know where your base is; we’ll be able to recognize members of whatever tinpot political group you belong to. Seems to me that out there in all that jungle … well, I figure it’ll just be a case of a few more unmarked graves.’

The boy laughed harshly. ‘Well, I guess I really don’t know what the plans are about that. But I think you’d better start hoping that the people I work with are in a good mood when we arrive. Right now, all I want you to do, is fly.’ He moved across and prodded Mike roughly with the gun barrel. ‘You think you can do that?’

Mike leaned forward slightly to peer down at the stock of the shotgun tucked away between his feet. He licked his lips. ‘Oh yes,’ he murmured softly. ‘I think I can do that.’

Chapter 4

Martin was running down a long fleshy tunnel, its walls misty and ill-defined; but at the far end of it, the tarantula stone glittered enticingly, spinning around on the empty air like some mysterious alien planet. It seemed to have grown in size, as large now as a football, and within its glittering heart the spider pulsed, its body seeming to rise and fall as though it were actually breathing. He concentrated all his energy on reaching the end of the tunnel, but his actions were sluggish, his legs heavy, as though he were rooted in the thick clinging mud of a jungle stream. The harder he strove to cover the distance, the farther the end of the tunnel seemed to be.

He woke with a start and sat blinking in momentary confusion. Then he remembered and he instantly slid a hand to the inside of his shirt; with a shock of pure terror, he realized that the pouch was no longer there. He turned to speak to Claudio, but it was not the friendly Portuguese who sat beside him now; it was Agnello, his purple face wreathed in a friendly smile. He opened his mouth to speak and something came tumbling out, something fat and furry and obscene. A tarantula. It fell into his lap with a dull plopping sound and it was followed by another and another and another …

‘Jesus Christ!’ Martin opened his eyes and the back of the seat in front of him came abruptly into focus. He reached out a hand to stroke the fabric of it, anxious to reassure himself that this time he really was awake. His trembling fingers found the leather pouch against his clammy chest; and when he turned, fearfully, it was to find Claudio Ormeto sleeping peacefully beside him. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered again and gave a long sigh of relief. He fumbled for his cigarettes and placed one in his mouth, which felt as dry as a desert. He leaned over and glanced back along the aisle, searching for the hostess. She came forward with an undisguised scowl on her face.

What is this charm I have? thought Martin dryly. She looks like she hates my guts.

Helen came and stood beside Martin’s seat. ‘Yes?’ she inquired mechanically; and Martin noticed that she was not even looking at him but that her eyes were fixed intently on the door to the pilot’s cabin.

‘I was wondering if I could have that drink now?’

‘Drink …?’ She seemed hardly to have registered what he had said. ‘I uh … what kind of …?’

‘Excuse me, but is there something wrong?’

She turned now to stare at him. ‘Wrong? What do you mean? Why should there be anything wrong?’

Martin shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know. You just seem a little disturbed, somehow.’

Helen shook her head. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. I’m sorry, Mr …’

‘Martin. My name’s Martin.’

‘I’m sorry Mr Martin. Now what drink was it you wanted?’

He ordered a Scotch and soda and watched as the girl threw another intense look at the pilot’s door and then moved away. Probably had an argument with her old man. He glanced back at his sleeping companion, then at his watch. He had slept for just over an hour. He found his matches and lit the cigarette that still drooped from the corner of his mouth. When he got to Belém, he’d search out the best hotel and just climb into bed and stay there until it was time to pick up his flight to Europe. Right now, the luxury of sleeping between clean sheets in a soft double bed seemed the most incredible experience a man could wish for. Later he would think of much more imaginative pleasures.

A glass was pushed unceremoniously into his hand.

‘Er, thanks a lot.’ He gazed at the whisky. The contents were nearly slopping over the brim of the glass. There must have been nearly four shots in there. ‘Say lady, if you’re planning to send me back to sleep, you’re going the right way about it.’ He glanced up at her but she was staring apprehensively at that damned door. ‘Look, honey, what’s the matter? Is somebody in there giving you a hard time?’

She glared at him. ‘No,’ she snapped ungraciously. ‘Of course not!’ She turned and stalked away. Martin sighed.

‘If I carry on at this rate,’ he murmured to himself, ‘she’ll be wanting to marry me by the time we land.’ He chuckled and took a large swallow of his drink. It tasted warm and unpleasant, making him long for a handful of crushed ice.

He leaned across Claudio and stared out of the window. Below there was nothing but a wilderness of jungle, stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see.

What a Godforsaken place, he thought. Brazil must be the ass-hole of the world. Nothin’ down there but trees, snakes and savages … He felt suddenly very vulnerable, comparing the tiny, insect-like plane to the vast all-encompassing jungle far below.

Mike was getting desperate. The plane was fast approaching the point of no return and still the kid with the gun had not let his guard down enough for the pilots to risk jumping him. He stood just at the back of their seats, tense and watchful, swinging his gun from right to left at the merest sound from either of them, and he would question every little move they made towards the control panel. It was clear that at some time the boy had received extensive training on the subject of aircraft and it would clearly be unwise to try and hoodwink him in any way. There was only one point in Mike’s favour. The boy did not know about the shotgun tucked away by the pilot’s feet. But to have the gun there was one thing; to use it quite another. It would take several seconds to snatch the gun up, swing it around and fire – no need to aim of course, in the cramped confines of the cabin, but without some kind of diversion, it was folly to even attempt it. The boy’s gun was already aimed and he was jumpy enough to fire at the slighest movement. Besides, there was Ricardo to consider. So Mike just kept asking questions, hoping to needle the boy into making a mistake.

‘Look kid, why don’t you tell me about this organization you’re workin’ for, huh?’

‘I don’ work for no organization,’ the boy sneered.

‘Well, whatever you call it. If I’m gonna fly all this way on account of something, I figure I ought to know what it’s all about.’

‘You don’ need to know nothin’! Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’.’

Mike turned to grin at Ricardo. ‘Helpful kind of guy.’

‘Sure is.’ Ricardo fixed Mike with a curious stare, trying to transmit a silent message in his eyes. The copilot’s gaze moved rapidly across and down to the area at Mike’s feet, then came back to glare encouragingly at him. Mike stiffened, because he had recognized the message and he didn’t like it. It seemed to say: ‘I’m going to try something. Back me up.’

Mike framed the word no with his lips, but Ricardo was already starting.

‘Hey kid, listen, I gotta go take a leak, you know? It’s been ages …’ As he spoke, he began to unbuckle his safety belt, as though taking it for granted that the boy would give him permission to leave.

The gun swung across to cover him. ‘You just stay right where you are, senhor.’

‘Hey, but look, you know … we’ve been flying for over three hours. We’ve still got a long way to go. What am I supposed to do, piss in my pants?’

‘Yeah, if you have to. I sure as hell ain’t gonna let you go out back.’

‘Hey, but look, I gotta go real bad …’

Surreptitiously, Mike reached his hands into his lap and unclipped his seat belt. Ricardo was still talking, half-rising from his chair, his arms outstretched. Mike began to lean slightly forward, so he could reach down to touch the butt of the shotgun.

‘Hey you, whatcha doin’?’

Mike turned his head to look back at the boy. ‘Nothin’, just stretching a little …’

‘You hold still!’ He waved the gun at Ricardo. ‘And you, I’m tellin’ you to sit down. Do it now!’

Ricardo would not let the idea alone. He began to move forward, out of his seat, his hands held up above his head. ‘I tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you –’

That was as far as he got. The boy stepped forward and brought the barrel of his pistol down with sickening force against the side of the co-pilot’s head. He reeled back and collapsed against his seat. He was out cold.

‘You little bastard!’ snapped Mike. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because he was trying something, that’s why.’ The boy prodded Ricardo’s inert form with his right foot.

‘You could have killed him. You didn’t have to hit him so hard.’

‘Maybe not. Anyway, we don’t need him.’ He leaned forward and, picking up Ricardo’s charts, threw them contemptuously into Mike’s lap. ‘It’s easier to watch one man than two. Now, Captain, don’t do nothin’ stupid. Remember, you’re responsible for all them good passengers back there … and the girl too. I guess you wanna get her ass back down in one piece, huh?’

‘You lousy bastard,’ said Mike tonelessly.

‘Sure, Chefe,’ the boy chuckled, ‘that’s the way. You just call me whatever you like; and make damn sure you get us to that airstrip. Look at the distance we’re puttin’ behind us. Soon, there won’t be any other place in reach.’

Then it’s gotta be soon, thought Mike calmly. Ricardo’s out of the way now and if the bastard doesn’t give me an opening I’ll have to make one.

He unfolded Ricardo’s chart and placed it on his lap, pretending to study it intently; but all the time he kept his gaze fixed on the wooden butt of the shotgun. He figured he had maybe another fifteen minutes to wait for an opening; then, ready or not, he would have to make his move.

Claudio woke with a yawn. He stretched himself luxuriously and ran a hand through his black hair. He scratched himself and turned to blink at Martin.

‘Oh, how I hate these long flights! Forgive me, senhor, but you looked so comfortable, I decided to join you.’

‘Don’t mention it! Would you like a drink? They do an interesting warm triple whisky here.’

‘Oh no thank you. Too early in the day for me. You have the time, please?’

‘Sure. It’s a little after four, so I guess we’ve done about half of it. First thing I do when I get to Belém is find a good hotel room with a hot shower.’ The hostess moved past him to take drinks to the seat in front. He watched thoughtfully as she bent forward and handed the glasses to the old couple who sat there. ‘On second thoughts, make that a cold shower.’

Claudio chuckled. ‘Oh, Senhor Taggart, I fear that you are beyond saving! But at any rate, I think I can recommend a good hotel that …’ Claudio’s voice trailed away in mid sentence. He was looking out of the window at the landscape below.

‘Somethin’ wrong?’ inquired Martin, puzzled by his silence.

‘Well … it is only that we … appear to have changed direction.’

‘What?’

‘I have flown this route many times. The jungle below looks different somehow.’

‘Hell, I wouldn’t know one piece of Brazil from the next. Maybe we’re just flyin’ a different way.’

‘I hardly think so.’ Claudio was standing up now, craning his head around to peer this way and that through the window.

‘Hey, take it easy, Christopher Columbus! I’m sure the crew know where they’re headed.’

‘Yes, but you see, there’s something of a mystery here.’ He sat down in his seat, looking vaguely perplexed. ‘When we took off this morning, flying almost due north, the sun was, of course, to our right and slightly in front of us. Now, at … just after four, I think you said … we would surely expect it to be to our left.’

Martin nodded. ‘Sounds logical.’

‘But it is not! It is right in front of us.’

‘Which means?’

‘Which means we are flying west … back towards the middle of Brazil, towards the headwaters of the Amazon.’ He shook his head. ‘But that doesn’t make any kind of sense. There’s nothing that way but jungle.’ He stood up again and began to peer back towards the rear of the plane.

Martin frowned. He looked up at the hostess again. The old people in front were asking her interminable questions in Portuguese and she was answering them, but her gaze was, once again, fixed on the door.

‘Maybe there is something wrong,’ murmured Martin. He waited until the hostess had finished with the questions and then, as she turned to walk past him, reached out and grabbed her wrist.

She looked down at him in surprise. ‘I asked you before if there was anything wrong,’ he told her quietly. ‘Now I’m asking you again.’

‘What do you mean?’ she blustered. ‘Everything’s fine … now, please let go of my arm.’ But Martin kept hold and pulled her gently but firmly closer.

‘My friend here seems to think we’ve changed course,’ he said beneath his breath. ‘And you seem damned interested in what’s going on behind that door. If anything is wrong, I think you’d better tell us, now.’

She stared at him for a moment, a look of indecision in her eyes. ‘It’s a … a temporary change of course,’ she stammered. ‘A fuel correction, that’s all.’

But Claudio shook his head. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. We’re heading inland, aren’t we?’ She lowered her head, her lips pursed. ‘Aren’t we?’ repeated Claudio, a little louder.

Helen glanced nervously around. ‘Please, the other passengers …’

‘Then tell us the truth,’ persisted Martin.

‘All right, I’ll tell you, but please keep your voices down. I don’t want a panic on my hands. There’s a man in the cabin … a young man, seventeen, maybe eighteen. He’s got a gun.’ She waited a moment for this to sink in, then she continued, talking quickly and methodically. ‘He marched me in there hours ago. He made them change course; as you said, inland towards the Mato Grosso. I heard him say something about an airstrip in the jungle. That’s all I know, but please, I beg you not to try anything. He said if anyone tried to go in at the door he’d shoot Mike … he’d shoot the captain and his co-pilot. Besides, the door’s bolted from the inside. There’s nothing anyone can do.’

Martin and Claudio exchanged glances.

‘I hate to admit it,’ muttered Claudio, ‘but I think she’s right.’

Martin nodded. He glanced back at the girl. ‘And you’ve known this for the last few hours? Christ, no wonder you’ve been such a grouch.’ He brightened a little. ‘Say, does this mean there’s still a chance for me?’

She stared at him in mild disbelief and then, despite herself, she had to smile. ‘I’ll tell you the answer to that if and when we get out of this mess.’

‘Lady, you’ve got some style,’ observed Martin. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Helen. Helen Brody.’

‘Well, Helen Brody, I think you’re a brave girl. And now you can have your arm back.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe this conversation,’ she said simply; and she turned and made her way back to the rear of the plane, feeling better for having shared her problems.

‘What happens now?’ asked Claudio blankly.

Martin shrugged. ‘You got me, Mister. I guess we’ll just have to sit tight and sweat.’ He tilted his glass and drained the remainder of its contents. ‘Like the lady said, we can’t risk going in there. Even if we could kick the door down, the pilots would be dead before we could help ’em. Of course, the kid with the gun could be bluffing but I wouldn’t like to take that chance.’ He stared blankly ahead for a moment, then brought his fist down suddenly on his knee. ‘Of all the Goddamn flights I have to wind up on a Jonah!’

Claudio sighed. ‘I feel as bad about it as you do, but surely we aren’t going to sit here and do nothing?’

‘I don’t see what the hell else we can do; not while we’re still in the air. Maybe when we touch down at wherever it is we’re headed for …’ He glanced slyly at Claudio. ‘You carry a gun?’

Claudio shook his head. ‘There’s a handgun in my luggage; a couple of rifles too.’

‘Not much use to us there,’ observed Martin dryly. ‘Well, Claudio, you’re in luck. I just happen to have a spare pistol in my carpet bag here.’ He nudged the bag with his foot and Claudio raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘Do you always travel so well prepared for trouble?’ he inquired.

Martin declined to answer the question. ‘The way I see it,’ he continued, ‘the kid’ll have to come out this way when we land. If he comes past us, it shouldn’t be too much of a job to blow him away, though we’d have to be damned sure the pilots didn’t stand a chance of being hit.’

‘Why just the pilots? There are other people on board.’

‘Yeah, but we don’t need any of them to fly our way out of there. The trouble is, I can’t see the kid taking us way out into the jungle unless he’s expecting a sizeable reception committee.’

‘And what are we meant to do meanwhile? Just sit here and wait?’

‘Well, I can’t think of anything better, I must admit.’ Martin chuckled bitterly. ‘You know, Claudio, for a little while there I really thought that for once things were going to happen like I wanted.’

‘You found a diamond, didn’t you?’ said Claudio unexpectedly.

Martin choked on his own breath. He turned slowly to face the Portuguese. ‘Claudio,’ he murmured. ‘You keep saying things that make me very nervous. A little while ago, I suggested you might be some kind of detective. Bearing in mind that I had to kill the last guy who found out, I’d sure like to know what made you say that.’

Claudio’s dark eyes gazed back at him, frank and unafraid. ‘It was a very easy deduction to make, senhor. You must remember, I know the garimpeiros well, half of my work is with meeting them. I know too that there are only a small number of ways that a man can escape from that life. He can die … he can become ill with the maculo and be carried away on a stretcher … and just once in a while, he may find a diamond big enough to chance running with. You clearly do not fit the first two descriptions … so it follows that you are making a run.’ He smiled. ‘I can assure you that I have no personal interest in your find. Wealth holds no great lure for me. On the contrary, I wish you luck.’ And then he added, cryptically. ‘You will need it.’

Martin looked at Claudio. The man’s face was open, peaceful and somehow without the slightest trace of deceit. ‘I must be getting old or soft in the head,’ he muttered at last, ‘but I think I believe you. Still, just the same, I wish you hadn’t told me what you know.’

Claudio looked puzzled. ‘Why is that?’

‘Because if the diamond ever goes missing … it’s you that I’ll have to come looking for.’

Claudio smiled disarmingly. ‘Believe me, Senhor Taggart. You are probably looking at the last honest man in all of Brazil.’ He brightened a little. ‘At least there is one good thing to come from all this.’

‘Yeah? What’s that?’

‘The ones you are running from will never think of looking in the middle of the Mato Grosso.’

Martin grinned. ‘I guess I never looked at it that way.’ The point of no return had long been passed, the designated last fifteen minutes had elapsed fully an hour and a half ago and still Mike’s opportunity had not come. He glanced sideways at Ricardo. The young pilot remained slumped against his seat, his forehead matted with congealed blood. Apart from the steady rise and fall of his chest, there had been no sign of life since he had fallen. Meanwhile, the kid with the gun remained vigilant, standing just a few feet to Mike’s rear. It was silent in the cabin, for Mike had long since given up the idea of breaking the boy’s concentration by flinging questions at him. What he needed now, he mused glumly, was a miracle, an act of God; as if in answer to some silent prayer, one came along.

The plane began to lurch and buck alarmingly.

‘Hey, what’s this?’ snapped the boy suspiciously. He jabbed the gun barrel into Mike’s neck.

‘Relax, it’s just some air turbulence. We’re passing over a range of hills.’

The boy peered out of the window to validate this statement; then he became alert again as Mike reached for his intercom.

‘OK, leave it be. I don’t want any messing around.’

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