No, not rubber. Like a rubber tree.
The thug was a good six inches taller than Dieter, with a shelf-browed, huge-nosed face—a hormone-disease giant. He was built like a pear, but most of the bulk was anything but fat. A hand like the Jolly Green Giant's flyswatter came
around and hit the Austrian over one ear. The room dimmed and Dieter felt his knees begin to buckle. He had them back in working order in an instant, just in time for the next six of Garmendia's goons to pile on.
Garmendia spat into Dieter's battered face, then swung at him with all his strength. His fist hit squarely on the big man's jaw and von Rossbach's eyes rolled back, his head lolling. The bodyguards let go of his arms and the Austrian fell unconscious to the floor.
Swearing mightily, Garmendia rubbed his fist, then shook it. He turned to Dieter and gave him a vicious kick in the stomach.
" Bastardo!" he shouted, and kicked him again, almost knocking himself off balance. "You are going to die!"
A guard took out his pistol and pulled back the slide.
"NO!" Garmendia said, slapping the gun aside. " Idiota! Too easy, too quick.
And not here!" He glared at the unconscious man, chewing his lip thoughtfully.
"We'll take him to the river." He chuckled. "Something there is probably hungry.
No?"
His men smiled. "Piranha?" one asked.
"No, no," Garmendia said, waving the suggestion away. "Too hard to find.
Caiman will do." His eyes glittered at the thought of the big lizards. "And they take bigger bites!"
They all laughed.
"But first I shall have my breakfast like a civilized man. Lock him in the trunk of the car." The smuggler turned away, then back again. "And park the car in the sun."
His men laughed again and began dragging Dieter away.
Whoops, John thought. Looks like we're going on a boat trip.
He began to back out and found himself having to work very hard at it. The going had been tight heading in, but pushing himself backward seemed to make him fatter somehow. In less than a minute he had himself plugged in the duct.
His shirt had rolled up around his shoulders and he couldn't push it down or pull it off; the excess bulk had him jammed in like a stopper in a bottle.
Great! he thought. Just great. Then he forced himself to calm down and consider the problem as though it was outside himself. He pulled himself forward again and eventually the shirt began to roll back down. When he'd loosened it sufficiently he pulled it up over his head, the sort of exercise that made him wish he was double-jointed. Then he resumed his backward journey, dragging the shirt with him. Thank God my pants aren't a problem.
After about thirty minutes of sweaty, claustrophobic effort John finally crawled backward out of the hole in the palacete's wall. For a moment he just lay there, indulging a sense of release as the hot, humid, muggy, wonderful outside air cooled him. Then he forced himself to his feet and began looking for a limo left in the sun.
John found the car with little problem. Unfortunately there was a veritable crowd
of thugs around it. One sat on the trunk with his feet on the back bumper while two of his friends leaned against it laughing at his jokes. One of them was big enough to make John blink, wondering if he was an optical illusion. They all had slight suspicious bulges under loose guayabera shirts.
John considered a couple of ideas about creating a distraction, then rejected them. There were two more under a nearby tree. These five were the only ones visible from where he crouched in the bushes, but he was willing to bet that there were more nearby. Plus there were passersby, some of whom might call the police… and many of the local police were friends of Garmendia's. Good friends; affluent friends.
It would have to be one hell of a distraction, he thought. Like maybe holding a gun to Garmendia's head. If he had a gun, which he didn't.
The point became moot as the smuggler came out and signaled that he wanted them to start up the car.
Guess Lazaro changed his mind about eating breakfast. Or he's on a diet. He eyed the sweaty jowls, already blue with beard stubble. Probably just in a hurry.
Unless he'd been in that damned tunnel even longer than he'd thought. His best bet now was to try to follow them, or failing that, to get to the river and hope to catch up with them there. John sprinted for the wall, hoping that most of the goons were fighting for a place in the limo and so wouldn't notice him; he felt a cold stab of anxiety. This was not going well. Why couldn't Dieter listen to him for a change?
Using the branches of a bush that had begun to turn tree, Connor was able to get
high enough to stretch his hands onto the top of the wall, then he pulled himself over and dropped down the other side.
His heart almost stopped when the limo drove right by him. Miraculously he went unnoticed. Garmendia must have been very distracted by his plans for von Rossbach. His bodyguards wouldn't have noticed who John was, but only that he was unarmed.
John stood and watched them go, then started to jog down the street, planning the quickest way to the river. As he ran he noticed a woman on a moped speeding toward him and decided that she was about to find herself on foot.
The woman wasn't young, but she didn't seem elderly either. She wore a pale blue shirt and beige skirt and a big straw hat tied to her head with a gauzy scarf.
Huge sunglasses made her look like a bug.
John dashed in front of her and the woman brought the bike to a skidding stop.
"I'm sorry, senhora…" Connor started to say, reaching out for her.
" John?" she said, whipping off her sunglasses. "I've been looking all over—"
" Mom?" The relief he felt almost made him weak in the knees. "No time," he said brusquely, and got behind her on the moped. "Dieter's in trouble. Follow that car."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "And here I'd hoped there'd come a day when I neither heard nor used that phrase ever again," she said as she revved up the little machine and started down the road.
"So what's your story?" she asked, pleased by the feel of his arms around her.
She'd missed him so much.
"Dieter went to Garmendia to get help in getting back to Paraguay," John explained.
Sarah frowned. "He went to Garmendia for something like that?" That was like using an ax to swat a fly.
John shrugged. "He thinks of Lazaro as a smuggler and doesn't seem to think he's dangerous. Anyway, uh…"
Uh-oh, Sarah thought. When John's voice petered out like that he was usually going to say something she didn't like. "What?" she demanded.
He pursed his lips for moment, then plunged ahead. "Garmendia thinks that you've told us some big, dark secret of his, so he cooperated with us the first time we came through here and asked for his help."
"Shit!" Sarah muttered. "That was an incredibly stupid thing to do, John!"
"But this time he took exception." John winced. That was putting it mildly considering that Garmendia was going to throw Dieter to the crocodiles.
Shaking her head, Sarah said, "If you only knew. I'm surprised you lived long enough for there to be a this time."
Up ahead she caught sight of the big limo. She took stock of what they knew.
Well, we know who's in the car, we know where they're going and why. Now