[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
fateful morning.
She was recognized and admitted quickly. She knew her pale skin counted little
and her U.S. passport even less if she crossed the powers-that-be in the
camp she wouldn't be the first American citizen to end her days in the cage,
Page 84
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
nor the first American woman. But whatever his relationship with the mining
camp and its warring directors, Publico's patronage was a powerful shield for
her.
She had been forced to leave Dan's body behind. There was no way to carry it
while she threaded her way through the maze of hazards back to the central
compound.
Gomes had assured her his bosses would recover the body. He scoffed at the
notion there was any part of the camp the security forces dared not go,
although privately Annja was inclined to believe Lidia. But she suspected the
main gangs of that part of the colony had temporarily exhausted themselves,
fighting each other, as well as the intruding Promessans, and would hunker
down licking their wounds rather than oppose a patrol of official enforcers.
It all meant little to her.
Dr. Lidia do Carvalho had paid her a visit in her chambers as she packed for
the trip's final leg. Each expressed pleasure the other had made it out alive.
The doctor asked if Annja might please help her young daughter. Although she
obviously felt constrained in what she said, supporting Annja's suspicion the
rooms were bugged, Annja got the strong impression the little girl was being
held hostage for her mother's compliance.
Annja felt genuine sympathy. Yet she had to tell the doctor there was nothing
she could do for the child until she had finished what she was doing now.
Lidia, though obviously disappointed, thanked her for her kindness and left.
Annja wished she could help. But Dan's death had sealed her, it seemed, to his
viewpoint. She felt Lidia's pain. But Lidia and her daughter were only
individuals. How could a the welfare of single individual or even two be
weighed against the common good?
The Promessans had committed grievous crimes, against all humankind, as well
as Annja and Dan. By withholding their knowledge they caused enormous
suffering.
Now Annja would wrest the secrets forcibly from the Promessans' grasp or die
trying.
And in return she would give them retribution.
The mercs along the rail grew impatient with the would-be hunter. They stopped
screeching at the still-unseen monkeys and began to chant, "Billy, Billy," as
Lieutenant McKelvey, a nervous American probably in his early thirties but
with the receding hairline, lined face and stress-sunk eyes of a middle-aged
man, ran around trying to bring them back to some kind of order.
Billy shouldered his rifle. Still no targets presented themselves. He held his
fire. As if to assert his own dominance, he brandished his rifle above his
head, miming triumph. Annja stopped straining her eyes at walls of green
always seeking the tree with nine trunks to watch the proceedings. She felt
a mild stirring of professional anthropological interest.
The chanting subsided. Annja was unsure why. Billy shook the rifle and grinned
at his comrades below him. Annja raised a brow. That teeth-baring display was
certain to be interpreted by the monkeys as a threat, and Annja wondered how
they would react.
Nothing prepared her, or any of the hard men on the riverboat, for what
streaked out of the dense green brush like a line of shadow.
Annja heard it hit, a distinct thump, with a slight crunching sound like
gravel beneath a boot. Billy's grin froze on his sun-reddened face. He glanced
down at his chest. The butt of an arrow stood a handsbreadth from his sternum.
The fletching was black as crows' wings.
"An arrow?" he said in a puzzled voice.
He pitched forward. His body cleared the rail by a couple of inches to plunge
into the reeking, tannin-stained water, raising a greasy splash to wet the
chests and legs of his comrades, who stood gaping with an utter lack of
comprehension at what had just happened.
Billy bobbed back to the surface. He floated on his back with his arms
outflung, eyes staring sightlessly at the hard blue sky. Red stained the
Page 85
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
yellow water around him. The arrow jutted up from his chest like some defiant
banner.
With a furious scream a mercenary raised a machine gun and emptied the big box
of .223-caliber ammunition clamped to its side into the undergrowth. Instantly
the others joined in, blasting the greenery on full-auto with assault rifles
and light machine guns and the shotguns.
Lieutenant McKelvey shouted himself hoarse trying to get them to cease fire.
The boat groaned low in the water from the weight of ammunition as much as
other supplies for the small expeditionary force. But in a serious fight those
crates could be used up quickly.
In the end he drew his own side arm, a Springfield Government Model .45, and
fired it in the air in an attempt to stop the mindless explosion of firepower.
What stopped them, though, Annja thought, was simply that they'd exhausted
their magazines.
The fury ebbed from the men as they broke out empty magazines and replaced
them with full boxes. In part it was because of the utter lack of response to
their bullet storm. Some wood splinters flew, some branches fell, a green
flurry of leaves flew up in the air to settle on the slow flow of the river. A
flight of small scarlet birds rose twittering hysterically from a nearby tree
and flew inland in a colorful cloud.
Otherwise, nothing. No screams. No bodies. Not even more arrows. When the
hammering racket of the gunfire ceased, the silence was complete.
The boat chugged on. Bellowing orders, the captain got the helmsman to turn
the wheel over hard to port and swing the stubby bow back toward the middle of
the broad river.
Billy's body was left bobbing in the wake. No one seemed inclined to get the
captain to halt the boat or make any effort to reel in the body.
Annja had avoided interaction with the hired guns as much as possible, aside
from their none-too-effectual lieutenant. She didn't want them to notice her,
even though she knew they had been instructed to follow her orders instantly
and without question. But now she turned to one who stood near her holding a
big shotgun tipped over a camo-clad shoulder.
"What happened to never leaving a man behind?" she asked.
"He lost. Let the gators have him," the man said.
No matter how it felt the heat was probably not greater at night, Annja
thought. She tried to sleep. Only the crush of fatigue had driven her at last,
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
