And in the end, only two or three minutes before Hector and his men had arrived, Joaquin had given in.
And still, there had been one element of the plan that had worried Joe — they had no provision for Hector’s return to claim the rest of the gold from Joaquin’s secret mine. Everyone knew that Hector would not rest until he knew where Joaquin had found the gold, and even if Hunt and Trona were successful in keeping the town’s gold from him that night, Hector would eventually cause more trouble when he came again.
“He’s going to need to know where you found it,” Trona had said, “and he will torture you until you tell him. So there is only one thing to do.”
“What is that?”
“Tell him the wrong mine,” Joe said, “and sting him.”
“Sting him how?”
“That is for you and your father to figure out.”
Four days after Hunt and Trona had landed safely back in the States, Narcisso Rueda, a longtime angling customer of Israel’s, sat in the bow of the panga about a hundred meters offshore. He was awaiting the long run-up at full power into ever more and more shallow water until Israel with perfect timing lifted the screaming, whining propeller up out of the water and killed the engine as the water became the beach and the panga sheared its way through the sand until it came to rest twenty or thirty feet up onto the strand, high and dry. No matter how many fish they caught, and today Narcisso had landed two dorado and two tuna, the beaching of the pangas always provided an adrenaline rush, a last moment of excitement and pure, simple fun.
But today, though they were in position to rush the shore, Israel kept the engine in neutral. Narcisso was, in fact, head of security for the government’s gold mining operations near La Paz. He had, of course, never made any kind of gold deal with Israel’s son. In fact, he was widely known as an incorruptible official. Unlike so many of Mexico’s security forces, especially those dealing with the narcotrafficantes, Narcisso had successfully investigated and prosecuted both gold thieves from among the miners and corruption at the corporate level. No fewer than two dozen men now sat in federal prisons because of Narcisso’s efforts.
After he listened to Israel’s story, a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I have heard something of this Hector Salida. A nasty piece of work. He thinks he can bribe me?”
Israel nodded. “I took him out off Cerralvo last week,” he lied. He has a reckless mouth, and he has heard of gold in one of the abandoned mines. Gold that, supposedly, you don’t know of.”
This made Narcisso laugh. “Ah, that gold. And I let him mine that vein and turn the other way. For a cut. That’s the idea?”
“It’s what he bragged about. You might be expecting him to contact you.”
“I’ll look forward to the conversation, which I’ll be certain to record. He is not the first one to have this idea. And our judges have found such recordings to be… persuasive.”
“I just thought you would want to know.”
Narcisso nodded. “It is always good to have knowledge. It keeps the vermin down.”
STEVE BERRY
VS
JAMES ROLLINS
In his 2006 thriller, Black Order, Jim Rollins dispatched his hero, Gray Pierce, to Denmark. While there, Pierce spent two days “visiting the dusty bookshops and antiquary establishments in the narrow backstreets of Copenhagen. He discovered the most help at a shop on Højbro Plads owned by an ex-lawyer from Georgia.” No name. Just enough information that, if you were a fan of Steve Berry’s hero, Cotton Malone, you’d know instantly who Pierce was talking about. Jim’s purpose was to see if readers were paying attention and could discover the extent of crossover between his and Steve’s work.
He learned things on both counts.
Readers definitely noticed. Jim and Steve together received several thousand e-mails (and still do to this day). When Steve reciprocated and included a reference to Sigma Force (Jim’s clandestine agency where Gray Pierce works) in his next novel, people noticed again. Together, they continued the experiment for several more books. Eventually, fellow thriller writer Raymond Khoury (who’s part of this anthology) joined the mix. It was fun, but it also alerted the writers to the fact that their readers wanted to see the characters together.
That wasn’t possible, until the opportunity provided by this anthology.
There are a lot of similarities between Malone and Pierce. Both are ex-military. Single. With issues. They each work for a covert government agency — Pierce with Sigma, through the Defense Department — Malone, though now retired, freelances with his former employer, the Magellan Billet at Justice. And where Pierce deals more with science and a little history, Malone focuses on history, with a touch of science.
Steve came up with the broad idea of something in South America, on the Amazon. Jim took that thought and wrote a first draft of the entire story. Steve then revamped that draft, which Jim gave a final edit.
The result is about three hours in the lives of Gray Pierce and Cotton Malone.
On a riverboat, in the middle of nowhere.
Everything happens fast.
Nothing atypical for these two.
The Devil’s Bones
Commander Gray Pierce stood on the balcony of his suite aboard the luxury riverboat and took stock of his surroundings.
Time to get this show on the road.
He was two days upriver from Belém, the Brazilian port city that served as the gateway to the Amazon — one hour from the boat’s last stop at a bustling river village. The ship was headed for Manaus, a township deep in the rain forest, where the target was supposed to meet his buyers.
Which Pierce could not allow to happen.
The long riverboat, the MV Fawcett, glided along the black waterway, its surface mirroring the surrounding jungle. From the forest howler monkeys screamed at its passage. Scarlet and gold flashes fluttering through shadowy branches marked the flight of parrots and macaws. Twilight in the jungle was approaching, and fishing bats were already hunting under the overhanging bowers, diving and darting among a tangle of black roots, forcing frogs from their roosts, the soft plops of their bodies into the water announcing a strategic retreat.
He wondered what Seichan was doing. He’d left her in Rio de Janeiro, his last sight of her as she donned a pair of khaki shorts and a black T-shirt, not bothering with a bra. Fine by him. Less the better on her. He’d watched as she tugged on her boots, how the cascade of dark hair brushed against her cheeks and shrouded her emerald eyes. He’d found himself thinking about her more and more of late.
Which was both good and bad.
A ringing echoed throughout the boat.
Dinner bell.
He checked his watch. The meal would begin in ten minutes and usually lasted an hour. He’d have to be in and out of the room before his target finished eating. He checked the knot on the rope he’d tied to the rail and tossed the line over the side. He’d cut just enough length to reach the balcony directly below, which led into the suite belonging to his target.
Edward Trask. An ethnobotanist from Oxford University.
Pierce had been provided a full dossier. The thirty-two-year-old researcher disappeared into the Brazilian jungle three years ago, only to return five months back — sunburnt and gaunt, with a tale of adventures, deprivation, lost tribes, and enlightenment. He became an instant celebrity, his rugged face gracing the pages of Time and Rolling Stone. His British accent and charming self-deprecation seemed crafted for television and he’d appeared on a slew of national programs, from Good Morning America to The Daily Show. He quickly sold his story to a New York publisher for seven figures. But one aspect of Trask’s story would never see print, a detail uncovered a week ago.