Assignment, Amazon queen

202 Pages·1974·0.98 MB·English

by  Aarons Edward S Edward Sidney

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

AMAZON QUEEN
FOR CLIFF The Best of Old Friends
Chapter One
Durell spoke above the thump, bang, and creak of the massive rocker-arm high
above .him on the riverboat's Texas deck. "Remember, there are families aboard,
women tod children, chickens, goats, the engine gang, maybe some river police.
We don't want a panic or trouble with the locals. So you each know what to do."
"Yes," Wells nodded.
"I don't think we can do this quietly," Belmont said.
"I don't like it," Agosto said quietly.
Durell turned to the Portuguese. "What don't you like about it, Agosto?"
"He knows we are aboard, senhor. He is waiting for us to move against him. He
will be ready. If anythmg should go wrong—"
"Nothing will go wrong."
"But if it does, we have no place to go except into the river. We are all, as you
Americans say, in the same boat together. The river is wide and deep. We call it
O Rio Mar. The River Sea. I do not swim too well, and I would not like to offer
a leg or an arm to the piraiba, the great catfish that can eat children. The river is
full of wonders, senhor, and many of them are horrible."
Durell said quietly, "Agosto, just make sure they are bottled up in their
staterooms while I get the key from the girl. Then join me topside in the pilot's
cabin."
Willie Wells' teeth shone big and white when a grin touched his dark brown
face. There were lumps of muscle tension along his jaw. "You always get the
best jobs, Cajun. But she's a wildcat."
"This is business," Durell said.
"She's had an eye on you since we left Belem."
Durell smiled briefly. "Her name is Inocenza—but she's not so innocent." He
looked at the dim glow of his watch dial. "We're all in synch. We'll go now."
"One moment." Agosto's soft voice interrupted. He was a Brazilian of
Portuguese descent, a moreno whose touch of Tapajos Indian blood gave his
face a flush like a burning coal, resembling the red wood known as pau brasil.
His ancestors might have been among the Portuguese ban-deirantes who pushed
furiously into Brazil's vast interior in a hunt for slaves and loot, for plunder and
glory. He was a short man, wearing a wide-brimmed straw planter's hat and a
white drip-dry shirt with very long pointed collars, open at the thick, muscular
column of his neck. His slacks were striped, white and black. He affected glove-
leather shoes. His shoulder muscles'bulged and strained against the fabric of his
shirt. He was a thief, a professional, one of the best of men, so K Section's
Central had reported. Agosto said, "We do not land, Senhor Sam, at Paramaguito
for two hours yet. Let me try the safe myself, first. You know I am an expert at
it."
"And if you're caught?"
"I am never caught yet, Senhor Sam. If so, I can handle o capitao."
"Captain O'Hara is tougher than you think."
"I can compete with him. He is an old man, anyway." Agosto stared at Durell.
"Perhaps you do not trust me alone with the contents of the safe? I understand
the big money is involved, but—"
"I don't trust anyone in this business," Durell said flatly. "The key is easier. We'll
do it my way."
They were eight days out of Belem, and time was running short. The river
showed no sign of narrowing. It was tremendous, awesome, a massive, mighty,
incredible flow of stained water that had already coursed down for almost four
thousand miles from the Peruvian Andes. Far, far off to starboard, there were a
few twinkling lights ashore, four miles away. To port there was nothing but the
inky, star-pricked, hot and shimmering darkness of a humid equatorial night, a
sense of timeless and infinite expanse, of unthinkable power. The Amazon's
volume equaled that of the next eight largest rivers in the world. It had been
rightly termed O Rio Mar, the River Sea, by the first Portuguese explorers who
had come here four hundred years ago. Ilha de Marajo was far behind thegj, with
its countless webs of channels and seaborne traffic of rusty freighters, tankers,
fishing boats, river transports, patrol launches, tugs, barges, and Indian canoes.