“Mr Faith?”
Was it his imagination, or was the rain easing up? The outline of one of the slumbering bulldozers waiting on the cement apron outside was sharpening. Soon bulldozers and graders and rubber-rollers and tampers could all be floated downstream to Santarém; and he could be flown out of this hole…
“Yes, Captain?”
“You may be aware that not everyone in our fine cities is quite so hospitable to Americans nor so concerned with the values of civilization. There are alien beings loose in our society. You know who I mean?”
“I guess I do. The Reds. The Urban Guerrillas.”
“How should that affect us?” Jorge asked nervously. “That’s a thousand kilometres away from here, beyond the jungle. Terrorists operate along the coastal strip and in the cities—”
“How much you know, Almeida!”
Jorge emptied his own brandy and shrugged.
“It’s common knowledge.”
The Captain nodded.
“These people loot and assassinate and kidnap for ransom and plant bombs that kill and maim innocent people—under the banner of socialism. Of caring for the common man. How do they care about people by planting bombs in crowded shops? But that’s the Communist ideal—to break down civilization in blood and disorder. Then step in with the vain promise of a better world. You’ll understand this, Mr Faith-I hear you’re a Vietnam veteran? Happily Communists haven’t done so well lately. They cannot kidnap ambassadors so easily. Their leaders are in prison. Their exploits no longer claim world interest. Failed men is what they are. But vicious in failure, like rats in a trap. It is the acts they plan in their despair that bring me here, Mr Faith.”
Paixao took a thin cigar from an inside pocket, inspected it doubtfully before slipping it between his teeth. Ratface hurried to his side with a flickering lighter.
“Reliable information is in our hands that in their rage and despair, and to buy themselves some of the notoriety they hanker after, the terrorists intend attacking these wonderful dams. But we’re not sure exactly which dams, or when, or how, Mr Faith. Our informants weren’t sure. Or I assure you they would have told. Ilha das Flôres prison is persuasive that way.”
The rain was certainly slackening off-but its fingers still tapped out a rhythm on Charlie’s skull. “Yeah, I can believe they would have told,” sweated harlie.
It wasn’t so much the hints of torture which Paixao dropped with such a contemplative smile, as the spook boy with the bright bayonet that worried him, however.
“Some terrorists are certainly coming to harm the Project. But how? By damaging the lockgates at Santarém while some foreign-flag vessel is passing through? By killing some American engineers? I doubt they will try to kidnap anyone. Santarém isn’t the town to hide out in. Nor the jungle either-this isn’t the Sierra Maestra in Cuba. Those city men can’t hope to hide with the labourers or rubber tappers along the rivers. Too stupid and venal, those. Someone would betray. Nor do you melt away into the interior of the jungle without killing yourself-unless you happen to be an Indian, and I hear they’re so primitive they eat soil for supper. Indians want nothing to do with our urban terrorists. Maybe they put a few poison arrows in the backs of our road-builders-but for their own private reasons, to be left alone to eat dirt, not be inoculated with the filth of Mao or Marx.”
“I heard that gangs have been attacking towns up north. What d’you call ’em-flagelados?”
Charlie was aware that the Captain might find the remark annoying-he intended it to be. The man’s smoothly bullying tone irritated him.
Paixao nodded curtly. He blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Beaten Ones, yes. They attack villages for food with some degree of gang structure. That’s in the north-east.”
“Maybe these Beaten Ones have been organizing politically? I recollect your government didn’t realize for a whole damn year you had any urban guerrilla problem. You thought they were just gangsters. Aren’t I right?”
“Because they behaved like gangsters. Still do. Except that no gangster would indulge in such senseless violence. However, Amazonia is not the north-east, Mr Faith. There are no gangs here the guerrillas can infiltrate. Consider the size of the area. The lack of roads. Impenetrability of the jungle. Terrorists can’t operate in this region without giving themselves away. Paradoxical, in view of the size, but there it is. We must assume they’re ready to sacrifice themselves. But doing what? Murdering someone like yourself? You’re vulnerable so we’re here to protect you, you see. Is your dam as vulnerable as you are, in your professional opinion?”
Charlie glanced uncomfortably at Jorge. ‘His’ dam. The Brazilian stared back at him expressionlessly, tapping his finger on his empty glass slowly.
“It isn’t my dam, Captain. I’m just here till the floods have been and gone. It’s Jorge’s kingdom then.”
“You call this a kingdom? You must be joking. I’ve seen the miserable hovels clustering like flies round your construction camp.”
You interfering, contemptuous bastard. Relations were touchy enough with Jorge already.
“There are no lock gates to damage,” he said hastily. “A hovercraft ramp is all we’ve got here. Just a strip of concrete. Nothing could hurt the dam itself short of a nuclear explosion—”
Charlie could see Jorge suffering agonies of pride.
“Even a large dynamite bang wouldn’t do much damage. The soil would absorb the blast. This is a broad earthfill type of dam, not one of your thin concrete jobs. The danger’s not from sabotage but from nature. If the dam was ever overtopped by floodwater, spillage would cut right through it then. Or supposing the water level suddenly sank on the lake side-that’s the pressure face-the saturated earth below the seepage line might slide before it got a chance to drain. That won’t happen, we’ve got good seepage control. The whole of the lake face is covered with strong plastic sheeting—”
“I saw it from the air. Pretty.”
“Then the base of the dam is concreted using the local gravel, and there’s a rock filter on the downstream side for seepage to drain away—”
“Couldn’t an explosion tear holes in your plastic, Mr Faith?”
“Wouldn’t matter if it did. I tell you, it’d take one hell of a punch to burst this baby open.”
“Then it must be you they are coming here to kill. But not to worry, Mr Faith. Have faith. We shall scour the waterways till we catch our prey. They’ll have to come by water, you know.”
“Mind you, it is a pretty critical time for the dam right now, floodwise—”
“Better the death of your dam than your own death, Mr Faith? I appreciate your feelings. Don’t worry—we shall be your guardian angels. Yours too, Almeida, since we have to keep you alive as inheritor of the kingdom. How many courtiers will you have, I wonder?”
“There’s a staff of ten,” Charlie said quickly, “and their families. They’re already living here—”
“Have you a family too, Almeida? No? Then I guess there’ll be consolations for the flesh down in the village?”
Maybe it was Paixao’s technique to anger people deliberately to test their political loyalties? That seemed like an overgenerous assessment to Charlie’s mind. Jorge, without taking time out to ask himself why the Captain might be acting the way he did—cunning or nasty-mindedness—blurted: