"We're talking about corruption."

"Our-this asset is corrupt, is that it?"

"No, but you want to be careful. One individual we were using down there turned out to be drawing five paychecks, three of them from U.S. agencies. Us, DEA and Customs. And two from competing dopers. Counting his PIP paycheck I suppose that makes six."

"Well, that's just wonderful. That's just dandy. I hope whoever this new asset is has a little more, more self-respect."

"The guy with six paychecks had lots of self-respect."

"Entirely unwarranted, if you want my input. All right, are we, is that it, then? Dick?"

"There's something, I don't know if you want to put it on the table now or down the line. But say we get him back."

"That's the whole point, Dick, to get him back to the United States."

"Right, so are we then in a prosecuting situation?"

"You're darn right we are. We're in a very prosecuting situation. The man is a criminal, Dick. He needs to be locked up."

"Right, absolutely. But we still have the symbolism problem, space-shuttle-wise, and the international problem, plus the other problem."

"What other problem, Dick?"

"Well, let's assume he's going to have some pretty good legal representation. You want to talk about nine-hundred-pound gorillas, my God. You can imagine who's going to be on that defense team. And the opening statement to the jury is going to be that the U.S. government ought to be a, a co-defendant, because they knew all about it and that's misprision, and obstruction, to say nothing of convention violation and, and well, about fourteen other things."

"We're not there yet, Dick."

"And there's, you know, a lot of people are going to be cheering him on. The Rich Man's Bernhard Goetz. One man's war against drugs and, and we stopped him."

"From irreparably ruining U.S.-Peru relations, you're darn straight."

"I just don't think Joe Six-Pack out there frankly gives a shit about U.S.-Peru relations, John. Maybe the Op-Ed gang, but that's about it. I think Joe is going to be cheering for Charley Becker, you want my frank opinion."

"I'm just saying-"

"I know what you're saying."

"John, I think what Dick is saying-"

"I know what Dick is saying, Bill."

"Actually, I wasn't saying that."

"Saying what?"

"What you were telling Bill I was saying."

"Maybe the thing to do is go the ad hoc route. Let it ripen a little and look at it then."

"We could do that. We could definitely do that."

"I don't have any problem with that."

31

The shotgun pointed at his face was an old hammer-action twelve-gauge, Charley estimated from the width of the muzzle, possibly a sixteen, and covered with as much rust as the twentieth century had been able to provide so far, making it impossible to read the barrel markings and see if he was about to be killed by a Remington or a Savage. He would not have been musing on this but for Mac's quick reflexes. Seconds after Dolby had keeled into his bowl of eternal soup, Mac had pulled his 9mm pistol out and aimed at the Indian closest to him, whose needle-nosed bamboo spear had no doubt been dipped in something similar to whatever was now puddling in Dolby's stilled bloodstream.

Charley didn't allow his eyes to roam too widely around the dining room for fear of seeming rude to the man who was holding the rusty Winchester-or whatever it was-on him, but he thought there must be better than a half dozen of them. For the moment it was unclear who their CEO was. The pressure was definitely building, though, he could feel it in his eardrums, and it was just a matter of time before Hot Stick said or did something that would get them all killed before you could reach three-Mississippi, so he had to do something, only trouble was what?

It was like getting a dog outdoors on a cold winter's day, but Charley coaxed his zygomaticus muscles into a smile and said, "Hola," Spanish for hello. A little lame, but all that came to mind under the circumstances, and it had the advantage of utter neutrality. Only someone suckled on witch tit would take offense at that, and the man with the shotgun did not have an unkindly face. Charley had to read it through red achiote juice and purple tattoo stippling, but the eyes seemed to belong to a man he could do bidness with, as they say in Texas.

Think, now. My yacht is your yacht? My name is Charley, what's yours? Into these lucubrations intruded a keen desire to urinate. He did not relish the prospect of appearing incontinent in front of his men, so he said the next word that dog-paddled across the synaptic gulf: "Bienvenido." Welcome.

"Bien… venido," he heard Felix repeat. Soon there was a general murmuring of bienvenidos, except from Mac and Bundy, who were not the types to indulge in pleasantries, however strategic, with minatory strangers.

The Indians made no response to these imbecilic pleasantries, but neither did they open fire, and this Charley welcomed, even if he doubted they were going to be able to make an all-night mantra out of it.

The Indian's eyes went for a second to Charley's wristwatch, a quick flicker, then back to the crater he was contemplating making in the middle of Charley's skull. A gold Rolex was a small coal in Newcastle aboard a yacht like Esmeralda, but it was portable, certainly it was that, and Charley was rehearsing how to get it off his wrist in one easy and unthreatening motion when the Indian dropped his shotgun, just an inch but enough to reveal the objects dangling from the thong of dried capybara gut around his neck. Charley saw teeth which he recognized from the pictures in Cousteau as coming from the boto, from the pink dolphin. Between them was a crucifix. It was handmade, two polished twigs of dark wood tied together with human hair-crude, but truer to the genuine article than what swung from so many pierced earlobes these days.

Moving his hand very slowly, Charley pointed at the crucifix, then at his own chest, where he traced the outline with his finger hard enough to leave a little white welt template before the blood flooded back into the exsanguinated capillaries. The faded cross tingled on Charley's sternum. We share the same God or X marks the spot, he could take it either way.

Eladio leveled the shotgun at the pistaco's chest and tightened around the trigger. He told himself not to look directly into the eyes so the pistaco would not draw his strength out of him. Hunting pistaco was like hunting jaguar: you must not look into the eyes and you must not utter its true name or it will become ferocious.

The pistaco was pretending to be afraid of the gun. But Eladio knew that the pistaco could not be killed by a gun. They had to be crushed until the bones showed and the eyes were pulled out and burned so they could not follow you afterward. Truly, killing a pistaco was more difficult than killing a jaguar. He wanted to start killing this one before he made any more kistian signs on his skin, but he knew without turning to look that the two large pistacos, giants, truly, had been fast with their guns, and if he shot their headman they would kill his son Zacari and some of the others before they themselves could be killed. The large ones had the look of true grease stealers. How many had they cut up into pieces and boiled to get the human oil for their Challenger rockets? Already he could feel the pistaco's voice singing inside him. The killing must begin. He stood back so that the shotgun would get both the pistaco's eyes with one shot. True, it would be better first to crush the skull and then remove the eyes, but he saw no other way. The iwishin could tell him what to do, but the shaman was old and no longer went out on the hunt. He asked Tsewa, headman of the spider monkeys, who taught his ancestors the blowgun and the hunting songs. Tsewa told him to begin.