The Devil on Chardonnay (26 page)

Ferreira flew past the flight line road heading for the main gate.  A sign ahead said each passenger should produce ID for inspection by the uniformed Portuguese Army guards.  Boyd was reaching for his wallet as Ferreira slowed with the traffic and then downshifted into second gear and pulled out around them to pass on the right.  When the blue Toyota cleared the gate, all three guards were rigid at attention, saluting.

“My men,” Ferreira said, returning their salute. 

The Toyota sailed through the traffic circle and turned onto the road that crossed the end of the runway, headed toward the mountains. 

Boyd was delighted to be off the base so quickly.  He’d been limited to what he could see from his quarters.

The four-lane blacktop whisked them up from the coast into the mist blowing over the island from the Atlantic as Ferreira pushed the old blue Toyota flat out.  There was little traffic and apparently no enforced speed limit.  Soon they were passed by a BMW and a Chevrolet.  Cow manure on the highway suggested that it might not be as limited in access as people in the States are accustomed to enjoying.  A small three-wheel cart, more a garden tiller than highway vehicle, toiled up the hill on the shoulder.  They passed two donkey carts, likewise toiling in the now bright sun.  They stopped to allow a farmer to move his herd of two dozen cows from a field on one side of the road to a field on the other side.  The farmer yelled and whistled to speed the process, looking anxiously up the hill in anticipation of a Mercedes topping the rise at full speed.  Ferreira remained silent while the cows passed, then gunned the Toyota up the hill.  Just before the crest, he turned onto a cobblestone road and entered a small town.  The whitewashed stone houses sported red tile roofs.

Galanta’s was the least appealing of the half dozen buildings in the village, with a back section of the roof near collapse.  The sign had just the name and a picture of a black and white cow, nothing to identify it as an establishment of a social nature.  Ferreira parked across the road, and they entered a dark, tiny, low-ceilinged bar with hats, pictures and souvenirs of all description hanging from the ceiling and walls.  The mix of U.S. license plates and pictures of Azorean festivals and bullfights indicated this was a place of cultural interface, like Peter’s in Horta, but with much less class. 

“Ferreira!” the proprietor called out, midway into pouring a shot of some clear spirit out of an unmarked bottle. He stopped and stepped around the bar.

They embraced and spoke rapidly in Portuguese.  There were only two small tables and eight chairs in the bar, which didn’t occupy all of a fairly small building.  There was room enough for only one to stand behind the bar, and a curtain covered the back door to a tiny kitchen.  Three swarthy customers were watching a soccer match flickering on an old black and white television, oblivious to the newcomers.

“This is Chailland, my friend from the base.”

“I’m Leo. Welcome.  Are you new to Terceira?”  Leo spoke better English than Ferreira.  In fact, it was very good English.  With his round features and bald head, Leo looked more like an American than an Azorean. 

“Just a few days,” Boyd said.

Leo was already reaching for the Whitehorse scotch when Ferreira said something, irritable.  He poured several ounces into a plastic tumbler and added an ounce of water from a pitcher and quickly handed it to Ferreira.

“Cerveja,” Boyd responded when Leo looked at him. 

Leo opened a bottle of Sagres and handed it to Boyd.  He reached beneath the bar and brought up a plate of fried chorizo and another of large flat beans.  Ferreira turned abruptly and walked back out the door.  Confused, Boyd followed.  Leo was right behind with the two plates.

A small stone patio on the side of the building had a stunning view back down the hill.  The base was visible, like a miniature village perched in a green pasture on the edge of the vast blue Atlantic.  Ferreira had finished his scotch by the time Boyd found a seat.  Leo was right behind him with a refill.

“These are fava beans,” Leo said to Boyd, picking one of the large beans from the plate.  “Squeeze it from the skin, like this.” 

He squirted the bean from the skin into his mouth and dropped the skin onto a small plate on the table, then returned to the bar. 

“The Brigadiero, our commander, has assigned me to work on your problem.  I am not Azorean.  My home is Lisboa, but I know the people here.  It will be very hard.  Constantine Coehlo is Azorean.  His family lives on all the islands.  He is well known.”

Boyd turned his chair so he could see the side of the bar. Leo came around the side with the Whitehorse bottle again.

“Does he know who we’re talking about?”  Boyd asked after Leo had disappeared into the bar again.

Ferreira frowned and shook his head, as if the question maligned his integrity and then started in on his third scotch.

“The man’s a smuggler?”

“Smuggler to you, businessman to them,” Ferreira said, nodding toward the bar. 

“What did they tell you about Constantine?”

“He kidnapped a French banker and blew up her boat.  Two sailors died.  It was an international incident,” Ferreira replied, with pointed nonchalance. 

“That’s not really what happened,” Boyd said.  “What did they tell you about me?”

“A policeman, incognito.” 

Ferreira was not Boyd’s buddy. This was a job he had to do. He was annoyed, and it showed.  He’d been treated as an insignificant functionary by the American Consulate’s political officer by being given limited and faulty information. 

“The story is much better than that,” Boyd said, and began to relate the tale.  After five minutes it was clear Ferreira’s English wasn’t up to the task. 

“Stop,” Ferreira said, clearly not following the story.  He stood, looking down the mountain along the highway.  “Angeja is coming.  His English is better.”

Boyd picked up a piece of chorizo on a toothpick and put the whole piece into his mouth.  It had a spicy, meaty taste, but chewing didn’t seem to diminish it at all.  It seemed to grow larger, and then tasted more like gristle soaked in hot sauce.  Boyd couldn’t swallow it, and it would be rude to spit out their local delicacy.  He could see Ferreira watching him.  Then he thought of toenails.

“Excuse me, I need to get my hat,” he said and rushed around the side of the building.  Safely in front he spit the chorizo out and watched it bounce along the sidewalk and down the hill.  He retrieved his baseball cap advertising a chain of building supply stores owned by an old friend.  He’d worn it to bars, pig roasts, bluegrass concerts and an ass-kicking or two.  It belonged at Galanta’s.   

Capt. Angeja pulled up in a base pickup, dressed in a flight suit.  A decade older than Boyd, he wore aviator’s wings.  Leo appeared silently with a Coke as Angeja joined Boyd and Ferreira on the patio.  Like Ferreira, he did not look happy to be there.

“You fly the Puma?”  Boyd asked casually as Leo retreated. 

“Yes.  We have search and rescue responsibility for the middle Atlantic.  I’m on alert until 1800 hrs.”

“You the one who picked me up?”

“When?”  Angeja didn’t recognize him and hadn’t made the connection. 

“Three weeks ago. There were three of us.  I was the one with the bullet hole,” Boyd said, opening his shirt. 

Everything changed in an instant.  Angeja spoke rapidly, in hushed tones, to Ferreira.  This went on for several minutes, during which he repeatedly pointed to the southwest, and they both looked back at the healing bullet hole. 

“We were told you went out on the air evac rotator the next day,” Angeja said, returning to English and still incredulous.

“We’ve been here, quarantined the whole time,” Boyd said. 

As Boyd related his mission over the next hour, Ferreira and Angeja remained spellbound by the story.  By the time Boyd took a gunshot in the chest and Chardonnay went up in a fiery blast, they were speaking in whispers, faces just inches apart.

Boyd was exhausted by the end of his story.  He’d been in bed for most of the past three weeks, and the hole in his back still had Vaseline gauze covering it while scar tissue built up to cover the missing piece of scapula and rib.  His face must have shown his fatigue. 

“I know Constantine Coelho,” Ferreira said. “He lives in San Miguel, in a villa.  He owns three tuna boats.”  He then reverted to Portuguese, with Angeja translating.  

“The Azores’ only exportable product is milk and cheese, but the European Community won’t allow any of it into mainland Europe because the pasteurization process isn’t up to their standards.  Constantine smuggles cheese into Africa and sells it.”

“He couldn’t pay for three tuna boats selling cheese in Africa,” Boyd retorted, angry at what seemed a lie.

“He brings back hashish,” Angeja replied simply, not waiting for Ferreira.

“Oh.”  Boyd nodded.

“For the tourists,” Ferreira responded quickly.

“There aren’t any tourists here,” Boyd said.

His companions squirmed a bit.

“There are tourists on San Miguel and at Horta.   Some Azoreans smoke hashish.  It is illegal, of course, and the police have attempted to arrest him, but, like in your country, it is not always possible to prove what everyone knows.  Many people live by Constantine selling cheese in Africa.”

“We have people who make illegal whiskey. Moonshiners, they’re called. Their neighbors protect them,”  Boyd said, eager to get beyond this part.  He couldn’t care less about cheese or hashish, and he was so exhausted he was worried about making it back to the car.

“Azoreans feel left out of mainland politics, and resent any intrusion into their affairs,” Angeja said,   “Constantine has played to that emotion very effectively.  It will be hard to find him.”

“You said he has a house in San Miguel.”

“He isn’t there,” Ferreira broke in.  “I called the police chief yesterday.”

“You have that Casa aircraft.  Could we scout the islands in that?”

Angeja squirmed a bit, and Ferreira looked out at the sea.  Boyd thought back to the rows of abandoned houses, built to house officers no longer needed, that they’d passed as they drove through the Portuguese section of the base. He’d seen cracks in the asphalt parking lot of the Portuguese Officer’s Club, cracks through which weeds grew because there was no longer enough traffic to keep the asphalt packed down.  He recalled also how flying hours had been cut at his own base in South Carolina as the result of a shrinking military budget.

“My agency will pay for the flights, of course.”

“We can leave in the morning,” Angeja said in a rush.

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

Renk, South Sudan

They should have fed the monkeys first.  A hungry monkey is an angry monkey, and things got out of hand when Abdul-Haqq opened the first cage.  The plan was for him to grab a monkey and let Hassan inject it with a small portion of liquid they’d been given in Khartoum, and they were to then release it on the outskirts of Renk, the first town on the White Nile inside the boundary of South Sudan.  The monkey had other plans. 

Bypassing the leather glove Abdul-Haqq wore to protect his hands, the vervet monkey chomped down on his forearm with impressive canine teeth.  Abdul-Haqq screamed, fell backward and tripped Hassan, who dropped the syringe of liquid.  They fell to the ground, and the monkey escaped.  Getting up, Abdul-Haqq found the broken glass syringe stuck in his buttock. 

Abdul-Haqq wasn’t worried.  The night before, when he’d been selected for this glorious mission because he knew how to operate an outboard motor, he’d been vaccinated with the vaccine to protect him from the “Wind of Allah” that would soon sweep the infidel out of the upper reaches of the White Nile. 

“Allah will guide them,” Hassan said as he opened the other three monkey cages and stood back as the little band of four vervet monkeys ran into the swamp.  He and Abdul-Haqq fired up the outboard and backed into the Nile, the current sweeping them rapidly downstream past the still sleeping guards at the border. 

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

A Red Waco

“The National Security Council met last night.  Sources from Doha to Cairo have picked up talk of a vaccine of some kind, and a new secret weapon,” Gen. Ferguson said on the secure line in the command post at Lajes. 

Ferguson was in his element, Boyd knew.  He could visualize him in the DTRA Command Center, barking into the phone, surrounded by scurrying staff officers, an air of urgency and purpose in every move.

“We don’t know anything more specific, but we’re taking it very seriously,” Ferguson said. “The Navy has P-3’s patrolling the Atlantic between the Azores and the mainland, and all along the coast of Africa and the Mediterranean, looking for a 90-foot tuna boat.  We’re watching for anyone buying a quantity of the reagents for the polymerase chain reaction, and if anyone in the world tries to pass through an airport with a large aluminum suitcase, they’ll be stopped.”

“Is there really a vaccine?”  Boyd asked, standing in the secure command post wearing a new flight suit in preparation for a flight to search the islands with Angeja and Ferreira. 

“There’s a lot of skepticism about that here.  Joe Smith’s position all along has been that a vaccine makes the disease a very powerful threat as a bio-warfare agent.  But, we don’t have any of what Jacques made on that island to test.  We have only his brief description of stripping the protein coat and using that as a vaccine, not enough to do anything with.”

“Jacques and his buddy out there on the island sure didn’t have a vaccine,” Boyd responded.  “At least, not one that worked.”

“The CDC has isolated all the mutations that took place when Jacques heated the virus too hot, and they’re convinced that the ability to withstand the acidity in a mosquito’s stomach is somehow there.”

“Still got an epidemic back in South Carolina?”

“No!  They had a hard freeze last week and we haven’t seen a new case in three days.”

“Any ransom notes?”

“Nothing.”

“How about the people who got sick?”

“Just like the wild virus; 80% have died so far.”