McKendry turned toward the door. He really does look like George Hamilton playing Zorro, he thought, watching Rodolfo weave his way through the crowd.
“So soon you leave me?” The star arrived with his latest accessory. “But I have just found a wonderful man for you to meet. Quite a coincidence. I have brought him over here to you.”
A stranger accompanied Rodolfo, a small, wiry man with quick eyes and a feral smile. His mode of dress, not glamorous but prosperous, made it clear that he was in the Venezuelan government, and well placed at that. More important, as far as McKendry was concerned, the man’s furtive glances and calculating stare showed him to be in a security field—police, military, or something even more useful.
“Don’t think of it as leaving you, Rodolfo.” Keene rolled ther and lengthened the vowels. “Think of us as lost sheep and know we’ll find our way home.”
McKendry stifled a laugh and thought, not for the first time, that his partner should have been in movies.
Keene went on, “But who is your friend here? We haven’t had the pleasure.” He thrust his hand toward the official.
Rodolfo responded as the perfect host. “Ah, my manners. Terris, Joshua, this is Juan Ortega de la Vega Bruzual,ministro de la seguridad . Juan, these are my friends whom I told you about.”
Señor Bruzual’s lips twisted up on one side of his face. “My pleasure,” he said, shaking first Keene’s hand, then McKendry’s.
Music blared from the sound system as more scantily clad dancers rushed onto the stage behind them. Keene leaned in and shouted, “We can’t hear ourselves think here. Why don’t you join us in our suite for a nightcap?”
McKendry considered that a very good idea, now that Rodolfo had finally brought in someone who might have information for them, or at least suggestions on how to proceed. He noticed that Rodolfo seemed very pleased at Keene’s offer and motioned his muscle man to clear them a path out of the nightclub, but Juan Ortega touched the star’s arm and gestured back toward the table where he had been sitting. “But my own guests, Rodolfo. I can’t simply desert them.” The minister looked genuinely stricken, then brightened. “Perhaps…I hate to impose, my friend, but could you entertain them until I return?”
Well maneuvered, McKendry thought, nodding good night to his former employer, who bravely went to join Señor Bruzual’s guests.
The ride up in the glass-enclosed elevator was fast and filled with chitchat between Keene and Señor Bruzual. McKendry, lacking their obvious gift for inane chatter, kept silent.
When they reached the suite, one floor below the top of the towering hotel, the minister got right down to business. While Joshua poured drinks, Bruzual said, “I can tell that you are not men of leisure, that you would prefer to be direct. I have heard of your interest in Green Impact. Why do you seek this terrorist group?”
“We’re actually only interested in one of their members, Selene Trujold.” McKendry took a scotch and water from Keene. No reason to beat around the bush. Bruzual had been apprised of their search.
“Well,” the Venezuelan said, sipping his own drink, “Selene Trujold is not just a member of Green Impact, she is the leader.”
McKendry didn’t want to get sidetracked. “That complicates things a bit. I suppose now you’re going to tell us that Green Impact is no longer operating from the Maracaibo Basin.”
Bruzual’s lip twitched up into his crooked smile, but instead of answering, he asked, “Why do you seek Señorita Trujold?” He sipped his own scotch, obviously savoring it. During the headiest days of the oil boom, Venezuelans had consumed the highest per-capita amount of fine scotch in the world, and their taste for it had not declined despite higher tariffs and import restrictions.
McKendry nodded to Keene, who said, “We’re working with Oilstar. She may have information about a sensitive…item stolen from Oilstar’s labs. We’re here to recover it.”
The security minister nodded. “I have had a task force keeping an eye on Green Impact’s troublesome activities for many years. For the most part, their terrorism has amounted to nothing more than an annoyance. However, two months ago their former leader was found shot along with several security guards at the site of an attempted sabotage in Cabimas. None of the guards had fired their weapons.
“A week later, we received reports of sabotage campaigns in the east led by a woman. Our information shows that Green Impact has gone at least as far as Maturín, and it is said they have an encampment in the Delta Amacuro.”
Keene looked at McKendry. “Just like Frik thought. Not far from Oilstar’s operations between Trinidad and the Venezuelan coast.”
“That is all I can give you.” Bruzual downed his scotch and stood up. “It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen.”
McKendry stood and extended his right hand. “Thank you, Señor Bruzual. We will return the favor.”
“Just bring me Selene Trujold’s head. One of those dead guards was my nephew.”
As the door closed behind the Venezuelan, Keene grinned. “You pack,” he said. “I’ll see about getting us a ride. Should I bring an Enya CD for mood music?Orinoco Flow , maybe?”
“Very funny.” McKendry grimaced at Keene, pulled out his suitcase, and started to pack. His friend was well aware that Terris had turned down a lucrative assignment with the New Age star because he couldn’t stand to listen to her music.
Keene chuckled. “I didn’t think so,” he said, and picked up the phone.
12
Sitting directly behind the pilot of the Cessna they’d hired to fly them from Caracas to Maturín, McKendry had a clear view of the gray ribbons of pipe forming stripes through the woven tapestry of green and brown and tan that was the coastal range. The pipelines delivered crude from the rich Orinoco oil belt in the south over the mountains to refineries in Puerto La Cruz and other cities to the north, on the Caribbean coast.
From his seat, he couldn’t see the vast central plains and forests of the Venezuelan interior, but from Keene’s bored expression and constant attempts to find something to talk about over the growl of the engines, he knew there couldn’t be much excitement down there.
McKendry instead used the time to review their plans. The pattern of Green Impact’s movements made it clear that Selene was attacking targets of opportunity as the terrorists relocated for their campaign against Frikkie and Oilstar. The obvious place for them to hide was the maze of the Orinoco Delta, which lay due south of Trinidad on the east coast of Venezuela. The delta, a vast fan of swampy streams and dense jungles that covered nearly eight thousand square miles, emptied into the ocean across more than a hundred miles of coastline.
The northwestern curve of the delta fan flowed into the Gulf of Paria—where Frikkie had most of his oil wells—and the nine-mile-wide channel known as the Boca de la Serpiente, or Serpent’s Mouth, which separated the southern tip of Trinidad from the Venezuelan mainland. On the map, McKendry thought, the island’s southern peninsula looked like the head of an adder set to strike the giant body of South America.
The snake analogy was not appealing. For all of his daredeviltry, there were two things McKendry preferred not to face: snakes and sharks. There was little he could do about the latter except avoid them, to which end he confined his swimming to lakes and pools. As far as the former were concerned, he habitually wore heavy boots and always carried a fresh snakebite kit in his backpack.
Pausing in his review, he checked to make sure the kit was there.
Deciding that the scenery held no further interest to him, he leaned back, closed his eyes, and napped for the remainder of the trip.
Upon landing, McKendry and Keene hired a truck and a driver to take them from Maturín across the Tonoro River to the Mánamo, on the western edge of the delta.