"And you, Francisco?" he said, speaking Portuguese although Rojas was proficient in English. "Will you be leaving with it? Or can I assume you've made other arrangements?"

"You know it is my habit let the perico fly on separately," Rojas said. "As a precaution."

DeVane was inwardly amused by his choice of words. The cocaine made you manic and talkative. Like a parrot, perico in Spanish. It was a term of low slang he might have expected from some street-level dealer in San Borja, not a Brazilian police official of considerable rank. But Rojas was of a type. A gutless, corrupt, lazy little south-of-the-equator bureaucrat trying to affect the manner of an outlaw. Light a firecracker outside his office window and he would hide quailing under his desk.

"I'll have my driver take you back to the airport in Rurrenabaque when we're finished," he said. "You're entitled to feel safe."

Rojas heard the note of derision in DeVane's voice and held his hands apart.

"Things happen," he said. "I expect no problems, but as always will be relieved when the shipment reaches its destination."

In fact, Rojas thought, his relief would begin the moment he was out from under the hard eyes of DeVane's bodyguards. And away from Kuhl. Kuhl seemed less a human being than a cold precision weapon... and how dangerous it was for such a murderous instrument to be controlled by someone with a boundless appetite for wealth and power. Kuhl had acquired a forbidding reputation on his own, but there was no doubt that his association with DeVane had enhanced his innate capacity for violence and given it a chance for its fullest, bloodiest expression.

Yes, it would be good to be elsewhere.

Rojas reached for his glass again and took a long drink. This was not the first time he had met with these men, and by now he ought to be able to curb his uneasiness. The trick was to steer his attention away from Kuhl and the armed guards. Concentrate on his physical surroundings. He would try, and be satisfied if he were halfway successful. Certainly the scenery was pleasant. They were at a table shaded by a flowering mimosa in the foreyard of DeVane's impressive ranch house, a place of rambling sunbaked walls and a tiled roof that might have been built for a Spanish Don--some descendent of the Conquistadores perhaps--with only the swimming pools and tennis court on its desultory grounds betraying its far more recent vintage. Quite grand indeed, and just one of many lavish homes DeVane kept around the world, traveling continuously between them as he oversaw his far-reaching business empire.

Out across the grassland, the camiones had reached the tarmac and lumbered to a halt in the shadow of the waiting plane. Rojas watched as their ragtag Quechua drivers began to unload the backs of the trucks and carry their bundles toward the Beech's cargo bay.