The Silent Sea by Clive with Jack Du Brul Cussler
Authors: Clive with Jack Du Brul Cussler
Ads: Link
a light load, it wouldn’t affect the boat’s capabilities.
The four men now wore Argentine combat fatigues with the insignia of the Ninth Brigade and their trademark maroon berets. The Ninth was a well-trained and -outfitted paramilitary unit that answered only to General Corazón. In other words, a death squad.
Pretending to be a Ninth Brigade officer, Cabrillo knew he would be able to talk them into or out of any situation that could arise.
He stood at the RHIB’s helm, wearing aviator-style glasses favored by members of the Ninth, his beret at a cocky angle on his head. Behind him, the twin outboards threw up a volcanic wall of white froth while the bow planed over the still surface like a rocket. Mike and Murph stood at his sides, Heckler and Koch machine pistols, a Ninth Brigade staple, slung across their backs. Jerry was still curled up on the fiberglass floorboards like a dog, somehow able to sleep despite the motor’s roar.
The speedometer quivered just below forty miles per hour.
Twenty minutes downriver, they came to their first village. It was impossible to tell how long ago it had been destroyed—the amount of vegetation creeping into the burned-out shells of thatched huts led Juan to think months rather than weeks. Land behind the village that had been cleared for agriculture was also succumbing to the jungle’s intractable advance.
“I know what those guys must have felt going upriver in Apocalypse Now ,” Mike said.
There were no bodies lying on the ground—animals had seen to that shortly after the assault—but the savagery was still in clear abundance. The hamlet’s score of cement-block buildings had been destroyed by high explosives. Chunks of concrete had been blown as far as the river’s edge, and the few remaining sections of wall were riddled with machine-gun holes. There were countless impact craters from the mortar fire used to drive the frightened people into their fields, where the Argentines would have set up a perimeter picket of men. The villagers would have raced into a slaughter.
“Good God,” Murph gasped as they continued past. “Why? Why did they do this?”
“Ethnic cleansing,” Juan replied, his mouth a tight, grim line. “This far north the villagers were probably Indians. Intel reports I’ve seen say the government in Buenos Aires wants to eradicate the last few pockets of natives remaining in the country. And to give you an idea of the characters we’re impersonating”—he nodded in the direction of the little town—“that’s most likely Ninth Brigade handiwork.”
“Lovely,” Mike spat. He’d tucked his beret into a shoulder epaulet, so his fine hair blew free around his head.
“Same thing’s going on in the cities and towns. Anywhere they find natives, they drag them out and ship them off to either labor camps here in the Amazon or they just simply disappear. This place is a mix of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.”
“How many Indians are left?”
“There were about six hundred thousand before the coup. God only knows how many have already been killed, but if this regime stays in power for a few more years, they’re all going to end up dead.”
They passed a ferryboat, lumbering its way slowly upstream. It was big enough for eight vehicles, and maybe forty passengers on its upper deck. The trucks aboard were all painted in camouflage colors, and the men lining the rail were soldiers. They waved over at the speeding RHIB, shouting greetings in Spanish. Keeping in character, the three men standing at the helm didn’t deign to respond. When the Argentine soldiers were close enough to recognize the maroon berets, their happy calls fell to instant silence, and most of them suddenly had the need to see what was happening on the other side of the old craft.
There was little other traffic on the river, mostly hand-built pirogues with single paddlers working along the bank in search of fish. Juan felt bad when they were caught up in the
The four men now wore Argentine combat fatigues with the insignia of the Ninth Brigade and their trademark maroon berets. The Ninth was a well-trained and -outfitted paramilitary unit that answered only to General Corazón. In other words, a death squad.
Pretending to be a Ninth Brigade officer, Cabrillo knew he would be able to talk them into or out of any situation that could arise.
He stood at the RHIB’s helm, wearing aviator-style glasses favored by members of the Ninth, his beret at a cocky angle on his head. Behind him, the twin outboards threw up a volcanic wall of white froth while the bow planed over the still surface like a rocket. Mike and Murph stood at his sides, Heckler and Koch machine pistols, a Ninth Brigade staple, slung across their backs. Jerry was still curled up on the fiberglass floorboards like a dog, somehow able to sleep despite the motor’s roar.
The speedometer quivered just below forty miles per hour.
Twenty minutes downriver, they came to their first village. It was impossible to tell how long ago it had been destroyed—the amount of vegetation creeping into the burned-out shells of thatched huts led Juan to think months rather than weeks. Land behind the village that had been cleared for agriculture was also succumbing to the jungle’s intractable advance.
“I know what those guys must have felt going upriver in Apocalypse Now ,” Mike said.
There were no bodies lying on the ground—animals had seen to that shortly after the assault—but the savagery was still in clear abundance. The hamlet’s score of cement-block buildings had been destroyed by high explosives. Chunks of concrete had been blown as far as the river’s edge, and the few remaining sections of wall were riddled with machine-gun holes. There were countless impact craters from the mortar fire used to drive the frightened people into their fields, where the Argentines would have set up a perimeter picket of men. The villagers would have raced into a slaughter.
“Good God,” Murph gasped as they continued past. “Why? Why did they do this?”
“Ethnic cleansing,” Juan replied, his mouth a tight, grim line. “This far north the villagers were probably Indians. Intel reports I’ve seen say the government in Buenos Aires wants to eradicate the last few pockets of natives remaining in the country. And to give you an idea of the characters we’re impersonating”—he nodded in the direction of the little town—“that’s most likely Ninth Brigade handiwork.”
“Lovely,” Mike spat. He’d tucked his beret into a shoulder epaulet, so his fine hair blew free around his head.
“Same thing’s going on in the cities and towns. Anywhere they find natives, they drag them out and ship them off to either labor camps here in the Amazon or they just simply disappear. This place is a mix of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.”
“How many Indians are left?”
“There were about six hundred thousand before the coup. God only knows how many have already been killed, but if this regime stays in power for a few more years, they’re all going to end up dead.”
They passed a ferryboat, lumbering its way slowly upstream. It was big enough for eight vehicles, and maybe forty passengers on its upper deck. The trucks aboard were all painted in camouflage colors, and the men lining the rail were soldiers. They waved over at the speeding RHIB, shouting greetings in Spanish. Keeping in character, the three men standing at the helm didn’t deign to respond. When the Argentine soldiers were close enough to recognize the maroon berets, their happy calls fell to instant silence, and most of them suddenly had the need to see what was happening on the other side of the old craft.
There was little other traffic on the river, mostly hand-built pirogues with single paddlers working along the bank in search of fish. Juan felt bad when they were caught up in the
Similar Books
