43

The compound appeared deserted except for one man with an AK in front of the white house that dominated the large open field. The place reeked of stale smoke. Diatri recognized another smell. He followed it until his eyes started to sting. It took his breath away, literally. The fumes made him gag. There were NO FUMAR signs all over.

He had seen pozos before, but none this size. It must be almost a hectare, he thought, two and a half acres of coca leaves macerating in kerosene and sulfuric acid and-something else, maybe ammonia or carbolic acid. Working his way around the perimeter, he found four more pits of nearly equal size. It was impressive; this was refining like they did in New Jersey.

He made his way back to the edge of the compound and put his binoculars on the white house. Where the hell was everyone?

He heard a shot in the distance.

He saw them. It was a procession, twenty or more, walking across the field to the white house. He focused on a man near the front with white hair and a bandage wrapped around his head. They were carrying him. His head was down. They carried him into the white house.

He waited until dark, until the crickets had a good heavy thrum going. He set the selector switch on the det box to the number-one position, disarmed the six safeties. He burrowed down and pressed the red button.

Nothing.

"You son of a bitch bastard piece of garbage," he hissed at the det box. He turned the selector to the number two position and pressed the button. This time, the earth moved.

A geyser of fire lifted into the sky from the second pit. Diatri watched, amazed at his own pyrotechnical creation. It was a volcano, Fourth of July and sunspot all at once. It was great.

Suddenly everyone was shouting and running out of the white house and a building along the field that looked like a barracks. A man appeared on the veranda and began shouting orders. He ran down the steps. Everyone followed in the direction of the pit.

Diatri crept to the back of the white house, then to the front. He peered around the corner and saw the sentry. "Psst, asshole." The sentry swung around and Diatri killed him with a short burst from his Uzi. He went inside. There were stairs. He went up them. He heard a voice coming from the head of the stairs. "Luis?"

"Si," said Diatri.

"What's going on?"

"This," Diatri said, killing him. He opened a door and saw her. She was lying on the bed, looking at him without fear, as if he might be room service with the iced tea and sandwich. There was a bruise on the left side of her face. She had on a man's shirt that came down just below the point of modesty. She had Indian features. She couldn't be more than… fifteen? A thin steel cable was fastened to a through bolt in the center of the floor; the other end was pressure-swaged around her wrist. Diatri sighed. There was always some bad sexual weirdness behind the doors he had been kicking in for so long, some naked guy with his dick all coated with cocaine and a terrified lock-jawed teenager underneath him.

"It's okay," he said. He held the cable to the muzzle of his Uzi and shot it off. He took her by the hand. They ran down the stairs. He opened the door cautiously, looked in both directions.

"Go," he said.

She looked at him.

"Go," he said. "It'll be all right."

She was fast. He had never seen someone run like that. He watched her until she reached the edge of the forest. She turned and looked back at him. She took off the white shirt and let it fall to the ground. Then she disappeared into the jungle and was gone.

Diatri went back inside. He found a door that led downstairs. He went down. There were several heavy steel doors. He opened one, and found the room empty except for a painting of-figured-a firing squad. The second room was full of weapons. The third door was locked.

He cut a salami-thin slice of HMX off one of the sticks on his web gear, inserted a nitro chip and pressed it against the lock. He went into the next room and pressed the red button.

He heard the explosion, but it came from outside. He looked down at the det box. He'd blown another pit by mistake. He set the selector to number six-the number on the corresponding nitro chip-and pressed the button. The explosion was more immediate. The blast knocked him to the floor.

The door was blown completely off its hinges. The air was dense with plaster dust. He coughed his way into the room and saw him.

He was coated with dust. He didn't move. Diatri leaned over the face and blew off the dust.

"Mr. Becker?"

Dead.

Diatri put his finger to the throat. There was a pulse.

"MR. BECKER!"

The eyes opened, but they were lifeless, glazed. "Mr. Becker, I'm Frank Diatri, DEA. I'm pleased to meet you. You're under arrest."

The old man shook his head and closed his eyes. Diatri rolled up his sleeves and saw the marks.

He got him over his shoulder and walked up the stairs. "You ready, sir? We're going to do this quickly. We're going to…" Diatri thought: What was the plan? There was no way he was going to hump the old guy back through the jungle to the Zodiac. This guy must have boats, though. All dopers have boats, fast boats. "We're going on a boat, Mr. Becker. Hold on now. Here we go."

He was only twenty feet from the forest when he heard "Halt!" He kept going. Bullets hit the ground around him. Diatri stopped.

They circled him. A man stepped forward, breathing hard. He was missing some hair. Everyone was out of breath. He said, "Put him down."

Diatri pointed to the stick of HMX on his web gear and held up the det box. He did a slow 360-degree circle so they could all see.

He said, "You're all under arrest."

El Niño stared. He said, "Gringo, it's been a bad night. Do not INSULT ME!"

They stared at each other. Diatri held the det box to his mouth and said into it loudly, "Charley Bird, this is Delta Baker Actual. Drop a sixty into that pit about a quarter click west of center field. Over." He pressed the button.

Another gonad-shrinking blast went off in the distance, hurling tons of half-macerated coca-leaf goo hundreds of feet into the air. Everyone watched.

"Thank you, Charley Bird," said Diatri into the det box. To El Niño he said, "You want another one?"

"No."

"Okay. Here's what's going to happen. My prisoner and I are going down that path over there. I see anyone following, anyone twitch, I'm going to call in an artillery enfilade that'll bring the fucking mountains down on you. You like snow? I'll give you so much snow you can turn this fucking place into a fucking ski resort. You got that?"

El Niño stepped forward. "That's a detonator in your hand, gringo, not a radio. Don't play games. What do you want?"

"Him."

He shook his head. "No."

"I'm taking him back to stand trial."

"We will take care of that, I promise you."

"Not in your courtroom." Diatri turned the detonator switch to the number nine position and placed his thumb over the button.

El Niño said, "Don't be foolish. You're not going to kill yourself for him. He's half-dead already."

Why not? Nothing to go back to. It was perfect and painless, instant disintegration, four million psi and into the cosmos in a blaze of quarks and protons. Go on, press it! Take all these shit buckets with you. Look at them. Thirty of them. Press it.

Diatri's thumb closed on the button. The old man moved. It was just a small movement, a breath going in and out of his lungs, but against Diatri's shoulder it felt close, like his own breath. A strange thing happened. The old man began to snore. With all this going on. Some of the men laughed. He'd had an uncle who used to do that, drop off right in the middle of everything and snore. He used to let Diatri steal money from his wallet.