Deadly Additive Read online

  Brinkman gritted his teeth. “Spinner was involved in all of this?”

  Markham slumped in his chair. “We couldn’t prove it. He was there and met with the people involved. Then he came home and spoke publicly against the Peruvian government.”

  “Any idea about motives?”

  “Some people say the United States causes most of the world’s problems. Everyone else is an underdog, so anything that undermines U.S. interests advances their cause.”

  Brinkman studied the wall for a moment. “What has Spinner been doing since the BCCI shut down?”

  “Humanitarian stuff. Charities with a third world orientation. With United Nations approval, he sent shiploads of food and medicine to Iraq during the embargo—part of the oil-for-food program. I don’t know if anyone checked the actual cargo.” He licked his lips. “Has he done something actionable?”

  Brinkman grinned. “Not that I know of. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  Markham’s disappointment showed as he took his departure.

  Was Spinner’s change of heart sincere? Brinkman reviewed all he knew. Spinner had shipped “food and medicine” to Iraq before Saddam’s fall. Now, with a ship loading in New Orleans, he was sending the same kind of cargo to North Korea, another country making trouble for America. It was worth checking.

  Brinkman reached for his Rolodex. Who did he know in New Orleans?

  ****

  Colombia

  Kristin and Elena Ramirez sped along the highway north from Bogotá. Their ancient Jeep, equipped with canvas top and rattling side panels, reminded Kristin of military surplus from the 1950s. Elena said they kept it for jobs that required a shabby vehicle.

  It was Elena who’d made the return to Chozadolor possible. At dinner, Kristin had told her about the photographs, and the older woman seized the baton and ran with it. She said she was fed up with men keeping all the adventure to themselves, and her methods could get better results.

  “We will foolish them tonight like in the movies,” she said.

  They used a trick they’d seen in an old Ginger Rogers movie. At four in the morning, Elena passed the hallway guard disguised as a chambermaid. Once in Kristin’s room, she became herself again and Kristin became the maid, blonde hair hidden under a black wig. Departing, Kristin averted her blue eyes from the guard. He did not question the hiking shoes she wore under the long skirt.

  Elena departed in her own person. The guard knew her, and her radiant smile won free passage.

  Elena’s statement that the guerrillas would not set their roadblocks so early in the morning proved correct. Kristin hoped Elena was also right that, if they did encounter guerrillas, their aged vehicle and campesina dress would make them appear too poor to bother with. Kristin worried that the guerrillas might notice the hiking clothes she wore beneath her peasant garb, but Elena had a plan to prevent that, too.

  Their adventure began in elation and excited chatter, but as they entered guerrilla territory, their moods grew somber. Elena concentrated grimly on driving, while Kristin brooded on her conversations with Glenn Vickers.

  They had talked over afternoon coffee while Sledge slept. Kristin was glad to be free of Sledge. His presence brought an emotional pressure that went beyond his physical domination and refusal to help find her photographs. But with Vickers, so much her elder, she felt safe and comfortable. She knew he’d spent his life in battles both literal and figurative, yet he possessed a deep calm beyond her understanding.

  Her parents possessed the same quality. Strange that she hadn’t valued it before. She’d viewed them only as victims of an unjust system, prevented by meager finances and early parenthood from earning advanced degrees, trapped for life in the thankless grind of public school teaching and yet devoting many of their few free hours to their small church. A fat lot of good that church had done them! It dangled a vague promise of future rewards before them, but in this world it exploited them as shamelessly as any other part of the system.

  She’d confirmed that view in her education at Radhurst, where Professor Watson taught her about the Second Protestant Reformation. In the First Reformation, he said, people learned they could live without an authoritarian church; in the Second, without an authoritarian God. Freed from the intellectual bondage of the past, they were free to create their individual selves however they chose.

  She had carried that philosophy into the workplace though, truth to tell, she’d never quite rid herself of the old concepts of right and wrong. And the new self she’d created still suffered reflexive fear of large men. Overall, though, Professor Watson’s hard-nosed philosophy had served her well.

  At least until she encountered Glenn Vickers and his deep-seated calm. Then, suddenly, she realized she’d never seen that quality in her professors. Despite their intellectual brilliance, they had been driven people who at times showed signs of desperation. And now the mere presence of this quiet missionary made her question the sophisticated ideas she’d chosen as the foundation of her life.

  “We’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  Elena’s voice jolted Kristin back to the present. What actions must she take when they reached Chozadolor? What questions would she ask? How would she gain the trust of the village women?

  “Thirty minutes,” Elena repeated, “unless we get stopped by the guerrillas.”

  13

  At one o’clock that afternoon, as the helicopter circled for landing, Sledge looked down on the village of Chozadolor. The village lay well to the east at the mouth of the valley where Spinner’s daughter had been held. A single, unimproved road connected the village to the main highway. The road ended in the village, and a footpath led farther east. The valley was several miles wide here, unlike its narrow upper end that Sledge had seen before.

  The village itself consisted of some twenty rough huts clustered around the end of the road. A crowd of poorly dressed women and children gathered there around a shabby vehicle. Through his binoculars, Sledge identified the vehicle as a Jeep that had seen better days. He searched for a blonde head among the women but found none.

  He had no time to see more. The pilot landed in a field at the edge of the village. Ramón dispatched two guards to the road west of the village and two to the eastward path. As he and Sledge approached with rifles slung on their shoulders, the women awaited them with wary eyes.

  “They don’t know what to make of us,” Ramón said. “We wear guerrilla uniforms, but guerrillas don’t have helicopters.”

  One campesina stepped forth and stood with hands on hips. “So you finally got here. We wondered how long it would take.”

  Surprised, Sledge recognized Elena. In her peasant dress she looked far different from the sleek creature he’d seen last night at the hacienda.

  Ramón’s nostrils flared. “You will be the death of me yet, mi vida. How many times must I tell you not to draw to an inside flush?”

  Elena gave a toss of her head. “You are beating a dead horse blanket, mi corazón. Have I not told you I could talk my way through the guerrillas and finish the job without firing a shot?”

  Ramón did a double take. “You talked your way past the guerrillas? How?”

  Elena flashed a triumphant smile. “There was only one roadblock. With lipstick I filled my companion’s face with red spots. I told the guerrillas she had smallpox and I was driving her home to Bucaramanga. They chose not to kidnap the smallpox. They did not search us, and they were happy to let us pass without paying toll.”

  “But red spots on the face are for measles, not smallpox.”

  Elena sniffed. “Do you think the guerrillas man their roadblocks with medical students?”

  Sledge broke in. “Elena, where is the brat? We have to find her and get out of here.”

  Elena pointed eastward, up the valley. “She went to find her photographs. We came for that, but we have found much more.”

  Sledge did not wait to hear the rest. Jaw set and rifle held at ready, he ran toward the path
leading east. About a hundred yards past the village he found the two guards Ramón had posted. They had seen nothing. Sledge continued at the same dogtrot pace he’d used in finding Raúl’s helicopter crash, his anger growing with every step. What did that idiot brat think she was doing?

  He held his steady trot for a distance he guessed at about two miles. The path narrowed, apparently seldom traveled. What could have brought the two women so far from the village on their first visit? Could they have taken their bird-watching cover story seriously?

  Where was the brat? Concern for her safety tempered his anger. Had she been kidnapped again? Why would she risk that to recover her photographs? And what about the other woman’s story of a second massacre? That was something completely new to the Colombian scene.

  New! The word triggered his memory of Roger Brinkman’s claim, vague rumblings of something new among the Colombian guerrillas…

  Rounding a turn, Sledge found himself in a clearing. Perhaps thirty yards away, a black-haired peasant woman was bending over a bush, her back toward him.

  “Hello,” he called in Spanish. “Has a blonde woman passed this way?”

  She startled erect but did not turn. “No, señor. There are no blonde women in Chozadolor. You must look for them in the bars of Bogotá.”

  She spoke in a pure Castilian Spanish no campesina would use. Her left hand held an object she seemed anxious to conceal.

  A flashbulb exploded in Sledge’s mind. “All right, brat, the game is up. Let’s get out of here before we both get kidnapped.”

  She turned with a laugh. “I’m ready. I’ve found my memory card.” Her hand opened to reveal it for a second before she dropped it down her blouse.

  She looked just as good as a brunette as she had as a blonde, even with her face full of red dots. But Sledge stood in silence as remembered facts swirled dizzily in his mind. Second massacre…bodies jerked around in weird positions…blood. The other woman’s words, “I snapped pictures with one camera while Kr—while my friend used the other one.” The secret smiles the two women had exchanged…

  The maelstrom of thoughts steadied into a clear picture. “You’re not Jocelyn,” he said. “You’re Kristin. Only an idiot journalist would risk her life twice to get a scoop.”

  Strangely, he wasn’t angry now. He would be later. He didn’t like people playing games with him, and he didn’t yet know how extensive the game had been. Had the two women thought up the deception, or was this the information Steve Spinner had withheld? But right now, there were other things he had to know.

  Kristin straightened and gave a deep sigh. “I’m glad you know. It simplifies everything. Now let’s go back.” She made as if to walk past him.

  He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Is this where you found the bodies? Kr—uh—Jocelyn told me about them. I need to know what you saw.”

  Her face showed distaste. “Nineteen or twenty of them were scattered through the clearing. They lay in odd positions, some alone and some in piles of three or four. It was clear they’d died violently. There was a lot of blood.”

  Sledge groped for understanding. “Do you know how they died? What did the wounds look like?”

  Kristin grimaced. “The bodies had no wounds—not the kind that bleed. Their exposed skin was covered with small, hard-looking blisters, like someone had thrown drops of acid on them.”

  “No penetrating wounds? But you both said there was blood.”

  “All over everything. Some came from ears and noses and…other body orifices. Maybe my pictures will explain.”

  Sledge strode into the clearing and studied the ground. He found no sign of blood, but fresh earth had been scattered loosely over several patches. Rain had blended it into the other soil, but the grass had not yet grown through.

  In one of those patches, sunlight glittered on something half buried. With his knife he dug out a shard of metal as long as his forefinger. It had jagged edges that showed it had been ripped forcibly out of a larger piece. He wrapped his handkerchief around it and shoved it into his pocket. Maybe an analyst could make something of it.

  He turned to Kristin. “Where were the bodies?”

  “Several about where you’re standing.”

  “That figures. The people who did this didn’t want the blood found, so they covered it with dirt. They must have taken the bodies somewhere else.”

  Tears filled Kristin’s eyes. “It was horrible. Can you guess how it was done?”

  “No ideas about the blood. None that make sense about the blisters. Maybe something like mustard gas, but no one in Colombia has chemical weapons.”

  “Chemical…” Kristin’s eyes widened. “Sledge, the eyes on some of the bodies had pin-pointed pupils.”

  Sledge slapped his forehead. “You’re suggesting nerve gas?”

  They stared at each other in horror.

  The moment dragged on, each seemingly unwilling to accept the possibility as true. Then the sound of airplane engines broke the silence.

  They could not see the aircraft, but Sledge recognized the roar of piston engines rather than turbines or jets. The sound came from the west and drew steadily nearer. The aircraft was flying low, much too low to clear the mountains to the east. The noise lessened as the pilot reduced power for a descent.

  Sledge drew Kristin under the trees. “We don’t want to be seen. Drug smugglers use piston-engine aircraft like that. And don’t look up. That complexion of yours will shine like a searchlight even if you do have smallpox.”

  She showed him a sad smile. “Are you afraid you’ll catch it?”

  “I’ve already caught your disease. It’s called trouble.”

  “Then here’s more trouble for you.” A frown clouded her eyes. “The first massacre was committed by guerrillas, not paramilitaries.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I suspected it from the time they captured us. The guerrillas’ arriving at that particular moment, their smashing my camera, the way Diego Contreras questioned me. But the village women have confirmed it.”

  “I thought they blamed it on paramilitaries.”

  “They say they didn’t. The reporters assumed the paramilitaries did it, and the women didn’t contradict them.”

  “What do they say now?”

  “The guerrillas were dressed like paramilitaries—floppy camouflage hats instead of caps, arm bands with the letters AUC for Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. But several women recognized distant kinsmen they knew had joined the guerrillas.”

  “Why didn’t they tell the reporters? I’d think they’d want justice.”

  “They were afraid. One woman said, ‘They’ve already killed my husband. If they kill me, who will look after my children?’“

  Sledge’s patience dwindled. “So how did you get them to talk?”

  Kristin’s eyes twinkled. “I didn’t. Elena started gossiping with them, woman to woman, and pretty soon it all came out. We never mentioned journalism and they never asked.”

  The sound of throttled-back engines came closer and passed low overhead. Too low. That meant the airplane was landing. Sledge gave it a quick glimpse as it settled beyond the trees. “A C-47,” he muttered. The venerable cargo aircraft of World War II. Nowadays it was often used in smuggling drugs, guns, and other contraband.

  As the aircraft passed, questions again raced through Sledge’s mind, aggravated by Kristin’s attributing both massacres to guerrillas. What was the cause of death? Were chemical weapons used? And why two massacres? Why hold some men back from the first, only to kill them later? Why kill them here, in this particular clearing? The answers must lie somewhere nearby, and he would never have another chance to find them.

  The engine noise dwindled to idle. The varied engine-growls of a taxiing aircraft confirmed that it had landed nearby.

  “I’m going to have a look at that airplane,” Sledge said. “You’d best wait here, brat.”

  Her chin lifted a fraction of an inch. “I’m coming with you. Thi
s is my story, and I’m going to get every bit of it.”

  Without answering, he poured water from his canteen onto the ground, then smeared the mud onto the highlights of his nose and cheekbones. He did the same for Kristin. This time she raised no objection to being camouflaged. He thanked his stars that the colors of her peasant garb were dull.

  The woods around the path became thicker and darker as they progressed, but after about a quarter mile the light of another clearing appeared. Sledge led her off the path, and they approached the woodline through thick underbrush. At the edge, he crawled under a bush and gently moved a small branch to clear his line of sight. Kristin crept up nearby, imitating his woodcraft as accurately as if she had been born to it.

  A dirt airstrip surrounded by trees stretched before them for several thousand feet. The C-47 rested on the south side of the strip at the far end. Beside it, engaged in animated conversation, stood a dozen men, some in guerrilla uniform and some in street clothing. In the woods behind them, only faintly visible through the trees, lay a sizeable one-story building whose dimensions Sledge could not make out. A mud-spattered farm truck, loaded with large boxes, crawled from the building toward the aircraft, where armed men in guerrilla uniforms stood waiting.

  Sledge and Kristin stared, then exchanged a glance of understanding. Regardless of risk, they would have to investigate.

  14

  Kristin concentrated on Sledge’s instructions as she followed him along the northern edge of the airstrip. He kept them well back in the trees to avoid being seen from the strip but close enough to the edge to guide on it.

  She watched her step, but her occasional stumbles brought hard looks from Sledge. He seemed to have no such problems. He strode forward steadily, rifle held ready before his chest, head ranging from side to side. He might be a dumb gorilla, but he was good at his work.

  Dumb? She’d have to revise her opinion. He was the only person who’d seen through her masquerade. And if she was so smart, how had she gotten herself into this new life-threatening situation for the sake of a story?