The Amazon (1969)

  (The 43rd book in the Killmaster series)

  Version 0.9

  Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Services of the United States of America

  CHAPTER I

  The man sat motionless at the edge of the small pond, watching, waiting, hardly breathing. He was a big man, a little too thick around the waist, perhaps, with short-cropped hair and a heavy, lined face. But he could sit as silently and patiently as any of the jungle Indians. Only his eyes moved, flicking among the pickerel weed and bulrushes of the pond. Big grasshoppers leaped from stalk to stalk; botflies and water nymphs crowded the surface of the water. But the man watched another silent, waiting creature—hard, black wings folded over its back, powerful pincer jaws at the end of its eight-inch-long body, poised on the leaf of a water hyacinth. The man had seen these giant beetles in action before-seen them snap a pencil with their powerful jaws, jaws that could slash a man’s finger to the bone. It was no wonder they were called titanus beetles; they were titans of the insect world, able to destroy creatures far larger than themselves.

  A trickle of perspiration ran down the man’s thick neck, but he didn’t move. Always the heat, he growled to himself, always the damned, oppressive heat, always the clammy sweat. He’d never really grown used to it, though he’d been in this outpost of hell for nearly twenty years. Suddenly the man’s eyes narrowed. A huge frog, green with faint black markings and a lime-colored underbelly, was moving across the pond toward the water hyacinths, swimming in short spurts, surfacing to gulp down dragonflies and water nymphs.

  The man watched as the big frog moved nearer, fat, contented, absorbed in its own pursuits. The frog had reached the edge of the water hyacinths, submerged for a moment, then surfaced again, swimming slowly through the floating leaves. The titanus beetle struck with the speed of an arrow, powerful hind legs shooting it forward. The sharp, vicious pincer jaws slashed into the frog’s body just below the neck.

  The frog, nearly three times larger than the beetle, tried to break away, its soft flesh still shuddering from the impact. Diving below the surface, the frog twisted, leaped out of the water, but titanus was not to be dislodged. The frog leaped halfway up on the shore as the giant beetle’s scissorlike jaws ground deeper. It was over in moments, the frog still twitching spasmodically, still alive, as titanus began to dismember its victim.

  The big man slapped his knee and let out a half shout, half laugh, adjusting the little palm-leaf hat atop his head. That’s the way it will be, he said to himself, rising to his feet, smiling a hard, cruel smile. Yes, that’s exactly how it will be, he repeated, wiping the perspiration from his neck. Like titanus, he would just sit quietly and wait. They would come, he was reasonably sure. If it was as important as he thought, the Americans would come quickly. All he had to do was wait. Just wait till they fell into his lap. And if they did not come, then it was not important, not worth spending days, maybe weeks, in that damned, devouring, deadly jungle.

  As he strolled back toward the village, a deadly black-and-yellow-ringed coral snake slithered across the path. He spat at it and watched it disappear into the matted undergrowth. He brushed a line of perspiration from his forehead, slapped at a gnat attracted by the sweat on his neck. Damn the heat, he snarled. There was no escape from it here; day, night, rainy or dry season, it was always there. Of course, if he drank less he wouldn’t feel it as much, he knew. But then, if he didn’t feel the heat 50 much he wouldn’t drink so.

  Back in the village again, he passed the low walls of the old mission buildings, strolled on until he eased himself down on the top step of a wooden porch in front of a small hut. The woman appeared almost instantly in the shadows of the doorway, a skirt covering her torso and legs, her breasts hanging flat, uncovered.

  “Gin, goddamn you,” the man shouted, raising a heavy, thick hand. “Don’t you ever learn?” The woman shrank back, disappeared into the hut and re-emerged

  “She insisted on driving me,” Nick Carter said. “Besides, it was her car.”

  “Her estate, no doubt,” Hawk said, blandly.

  “Correct,” Nick agreed.

  “And her horses.”

  “Right again.”

  “Probably her fox, too.”

  “Probably.”

  “How was the hunt?” The steel-gray eyes didn’t flicker.

  “Unsuccessful,” Nick said, equally imperturbable. “If you’re talking about the fox.”

  “Naturally.”

  Hawk leaned back in his chair and surveyed his top man, Nick Carter, officially N3, one of a handful of men holding the rating Killmaster. It was, paradoxically, a designation given to those who knew the sacredness of life, those who had mastered not only the how and the when of killing but also the why. He knew that N3 could handle anything. God, he’d proved that over and over. But this one was a strange bag of tricks and he wondered if it didn’t call for a less sophisticated, less urbane man than Nick. Demerest, who had spent years in Zambesi, might have done it, but he was on sick list and everybody was on pins and needles, screaming at Hawk to do something. Army, Air Force, State, New Weapons … even NASA had joined the chorus. And precious time had been lost already. It was vital that they move at once. The others would be on their way already, he felt certain.

  He looked at Nick, patiently waiting. “We’ve lost something,” he began. “And we know just about where we’ve lost it. All you have to do is get it and bring it back.”

  Nick smiled. He had learned that whenever Hawk tossed out the ball so casually it was sure to be a sticky one.

  “Sounds simple,” Nick commented. “Why don’t you get the Acme Messenger Service?”

  Hawk shifted the unlit cigar in his mouth and let the remark go by.

  “What I’m saying is that this is not a complicated assignment, N3,” he began again. “It is and it isn’t simple, depending how you look at it.”

  “Tell me about the isn’t part,” Nick said, smiling. “That’s the part that always fascinates me the most.”

  Hawk cleared his throat. “I’ll fill you in from the beginning,” he said. “New Weapons Research has developed something utterly momentous for America, an electronic brain that weighs only two pounds. It can fit almost anywhere, be easily transported and do jobs that now require huge computers. At the moment it is aimed at revolutionizing missile-to-missile defense. As you know, such defense is now primarily based on the heat sensitivity principle, the defense missile’s system detecting the heat generated by the enemy missile. This electronic brain will be more efficient, more effective, more versatile. It won’t depend on heat sensitivity, which can be masked or jammed, but on instantaneous computation of the course of the oncoming missile.”

  Nick’s eyebrows rose in appreciation of the device. “Hardly the sort of thing to mislay,” he commented.

  “Hardly,” Hawk answered. “And it wasn’t ‘mislaid.’ The electronic brain was in a plane, being tested out in different global areas to gauge what effect varying air temperatures might have on it. After completing the first series of tests, the plane was flying toward Antarctica, crossing the South American area, when we got this frantic May Day call from the pilot. Something had suddenly gone wrong—we don’t really know what. All he had tune to do was to tell us he was parachuting the electronic brain to safety and give us a tight reading on his position. Then the plane exploded, and that was that. He parachuted the electronic brain down over an area in the Brazilian Territory of Amapa.”

  Nick’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Amapa,” he mused aloud. “That’s the north flank of the Amazon delta. That happens to be one of the densest jungles in the world, an area absolutely uncharted and unexplored.”

  “That’s correct,” Hawk said. “Roughly one hundred miles north of the equator.” He stood up and pulled down a map from an overhead container near the wall, as though he were pulling down a motion picture screen. “It’s somewhere in this area,” he said, outlining a small square region on the map. “The nearest place is Serra do Navio, a town which marks the end of the line. Beyond it is jungle where few men have gone and none have come out to tell us about it.”

  “I can see the problems,” Nick said. “But a thorough search should come up with it, even in the densest jungle, especially if you have a good reading of the position at the time of the drop.”

  “Oh, we have that, all right,” Hawk said, letting the map snap back up into its container. “And we have something else. As you know, there are few secrets, real secrets, in this game. The Russians knew we were experimenting with something important, and they had an idea of what it was. They were tracking our test plane, just as we track theirs. They heard the pilot’s May Day message, without question. They’ll be sending a team to try to get the electronic brain; you can be sure of that. For all we know, the Chinese may also have been tracking and have heard. You not only have to find it, but find it first and keep it from falling into anyone else’s hands. This thing can put us ten years ahead of everyone else in missile defense alone.”

  “Kind of a scavenger hunt with real scavengers,” Nick said, thinking aloud. “If the jungle doesn’t kill us, we can kill each other.”

  “We do have a big plus for you, N3,” Hawk said. “We have a guide for you, someone who knows the jungle. It’s something the others won’t have. In Serra do Navio you are to contact Father Austin at the Oblate Fathers Mission. Years ago the chief of one of the Amazona Indian tribes brought his little daughter to the mission. She was near death, but Father Aust in treated her with penicillin and other modem miracle drugs, and the girl recovered. Through Father Austin we have arranged for the chief’s daughter to be your guide. The old chief has been waiting, apparently, for a way to repay his longstanding debt to Father Austin.”

  “Thanks, but we can skip that one,” Nick said.

  “Why?” Hawk bristled. “Were very fortunate to have come up with that advantage for you.”

  “Advantage?” Nick countered. ‘To play wet-nurse to some mud-caked, herb-dyed, pierced-lip primitive in Pidgin English? Or maybe even sign language? That’s an added burden, not an advantage. I can just see myself waiting around while she asks the jungle god for advice, or chasing after her to bring her back when Wilhelmina goes off. No, thanks, I’ll dig up my own guide when I get there.”

  “I suggest you contact Father Austin and proceed as arranged, N3,” Hawk said, frostily. Nick grimaced, knowing what a “suggestion” delivered in that tone meant.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “We’ll play it your way—for a start, anyway.”

  “I’ll go in to Special Effects with you,” Hawk said, getting to his feet. “Stewart hasn’t had time to come up with very much for you, but there is one item I want to make certain you understand.”

  Nick followed his superior as Hawk led the way past closed doors, down a long corridor opening into a large room where the head of Special Effects waited for them amid his constantly proliferating welter of machines, lab equipment and esoteric devices. He nodded to Nick with his usual serious, unsmiling manner. The highly specialized devices they supplied him had pulled him out of many a hole, yet he couldn’t help needling them, particularly Stewart. They were so damned serious and so grimly determined.

  “We really haven’t much, old boy,” Stewart began. “We don’t know what you’ll be running into. It’s not as if we could prepare you for a special escape or entry.”

  “I’ll settle for a can of insect spray,” Nick said cheerfully. “Or maybe something for jungle rot, in case I decide to stay on.”

  Hawk shot him a grim look and he subsided. Stewart handed Nick a beautiful off-white safari jacket. “Specially made,” he said proudly. “Waterproof and lightweight. You’ll hardly know you have it on. In the left pocket are some small objects that look like firecrackers. They’re highly powerful agents. When exploded in midair they cause extreme irritation to the antennae of any insect, sending the creatures fleeing instantly. In the right hand pocket is a first aid kit, mostly filled with antivenom fluids and hypodermic needles. Of course we have some first-rate game rifles and rope for you, but I’m afraid that about does it.”

  “Let’s get to the really vital piece, Stewart,” Hawk said crisply. “I think Nick is already familiar with the Fulton Recovery System.”

  Nick nodded. The Fulton Recovery System had originally been devised by the Air Force to rescue downed personnel in jungle and in heavily forested terrain such as Vietnam. It had been adapted to the recovery of other items, like parcels and equipment. A downed pilot either had, or was parachuted, the special helium-filled balloon with the long cords attached to it. The balloon carried him upward, where the HC-13Q Retriever plane came into play. The HC-130 was outfitted with a special twopronged scissor nose consisting of two booms which separated to engage the cords holding the object to be retrieved. Once the cords were engaged the booms closed together and reeled in the object. Stewart handed Nick a small square plastic-covered packet, fitted with a loop to attach to a belt.

  “This contains the self-inflating helium balloon with its cords,” he explained. “There’s also a small transistorized sending set in the packet. The set is pretuned to a fixed frequency so you can tell us the instant you have found the electronic brain.”

  Hawk interjected, speaking quickly, crisply, outlining the rest of the special arrangements involving the Fulton Recovery System. Nick smiled. Not bad, he thought. If it ended up that tight, it might just save the electronic brain at that. It wouldn’t do much for him, but then, as Nick knew, he was expendable. Very valuable, highly regarded, but expendable. As Nick collected the rifles in their carrying cases, Hawk closed out the briefing.

  “Pack whatever you want to take,” he said. “An Air Force jet will fly you to a small landing strip near Macapa. From there you’ll go by jeep to Serra do Navio. The rest is up to you. Good luck, N3.”

  “Thanks, sir,” Nick said, then decided to take advantage of the sincere warmth of the moment. “The old chiefs daughter—she really stays in?”

  “Contact Father Austin as we arranged, N3,” Hawk answered, his eyes icing up instantly.

  When he got like this he couldn’t be budged, Nick knew. He retreated at once. “Will do, sir,” he said as he walked into the elevator.

  CHAPTER II

  It was midmorning when Nick, reached Serra do Navio, and the sun still had not burned away the heavy mists that shrouded the tops of the jungle trees. It was as though a soft white blanket of down had been laid across the very top of the trees. Serra do Navio itself, Nick saw as he slowly walked down the street, was a steaming oasis hacked out of the jungle, an outpost on a road to nowhere. It was, Nick felt, not really a village but a gesture of defiance at the jungle. The main street was wide, unpaved, lined on both sides with a collection of wood buildings in varying states of disrepair. Pigs, goats, near-naked Amazon Indians and hordes of naked children formed the bulk of the traffic along the street.

  He had checked in at what passed for a hotel. It had a sign proclaiming itself as a hotel, anyway. He immediately saw he was not the only visitor to Serra do Navio. A group of men—six, Nick counted quickly—stood in a cluster in the faded, worn, decrepit lobby. Thick, square-bodied men with crew cuts, wearing white shirts and white slaeks, they had Mother Russia written all over them. Six, Nick counted again, and smiled to himself. A regular expeditionary force. They’d be bogged down just carrying supplies for themselves.

  The desk clerk was an elderly, weary-eyed man, bearing just the trace of an erect, proud stance. An excolonial, Nick tagged him, filling out his remaining years, happier to stay here than face that other world.

  “Unusually busy?” he had asked as he checked in.

  “Quite so,” the clerk had said. “Party of mineralogists. Russian, I believe. And a group of Chinese geologists last night. Amazing.”

  “Mineralogists and geologists?” Nick had said, unable to stop a broad smile. “How about that?”

  “And you, sir?” the old man had ventured.

  “Me? I’m just here to pick up a package,” Nick had said, and saw a perplexed frown on the clerk’s face as he walked away.

  Now, sauntering down the street, looking for the Oblate Fathers Mission buildings, he suddenly felt he was being watched. The almost-animal instinct that was a built-in part of Nick Carter alerted his every sense. He tinned to find the source of what he felt and saw the man standing on the steps of the wooden house, really not much more than a shack. He returned the piercing gaze. The man was big, powerful, with arms like small trees. He was red-faced from gin, and his eyes were small, cold, piercing. They went with the cruel set of his mouth. Nick noted the sign, hardly legible, hanging on the shack behind the man:

  SKINS—GUIDE—TRADING

  H. KOLBEN

  The man’s voracious look spoke of more than ordinary curiosity at a stranger in the village. Nick had seen the type before—deserters, fugitives, runaways from the world, men who could live only where no one asked questions and no one gave answers.

  He walked on, sensing the presence of danger, unexplained, unknown, undefined, yet unquestionably there. Once again that instinct that had proven so valuable in the past, that ability to detect danger before it actually made itself known, was at work within him. He felt it so strongly that it was almost a physical rather than a psychic sensation. He paused before an Indian woman, short, squat, her pendulous breasts swaying as she set up a makeshift street vendor’s stand of fruit.

  He let his glance go back to the man Kolben, and saw he had been joined by a second man, black-haired, dark-skinned, with a prominent nose. The second one was watching Nick while listening to Kolben. Nick turned and walked on, tabling thoughts of the two men as he came upon the long, low wall of the mission buildings on his right. A small arched entranceway beckoned at the end of the stucco wall, and Nick entered to find himself inside a small, cool garden.

 

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