The Saboteurs by Clive Cussler (top 10 best books of all time .TXT) 📗

planned to scour the lake for the terrorists. The detail his mind focused on was the dinghy hanging off the back of the craft. He remembered bright bronze oarlocks.

It was the first concrete memory he had of that fateful day and it felt like he’d reached a turning point. He was now confident that the floodgates would open soon and the rest would come back too. He felt his resolve sharpen as he cranked the engine and climbed behind the wheel. He edged the Renault back onto the coast road. The Model T was out of sight, but Bell could see its tire tracks in the newly spread mud layer.

He accelerated hard enough to catch up, and in less than a minute he could just make out the Ford ahead of him. The falling rain helped keep the vehicle indistinct, which also meant it would be near impossible for the men to see the much smaller roadster in their wake.

A few minutes later, Bell realized the Ford was growing larger, from his perspective. The rain hadn’t slackened, so it meant the Model T was slowing. He parroted the move, bringing the Renault to a standstill. Where the dirt road veered away from the shoreline and thick jungle lined both sides of it, the Ford made a left-hand turn. Whoever had a house on this side of the road would have uninterrupted views of the beach and Pacific Ocean beyond.

Bell had expected they would return to the city to report their failure, yet they had turned down the driveway to one of the big haciendas. He made no assumptions about what was unfolding, but his pulse quickened with the potential of a new quarry. There was no cover to hide the Renault like he’d done before. Instead, he backed about a quarter mile up the road and trusted that the Viboras would continue on to Panama City.

Before abandoning the car, he used the dagger he kept in an ankle sheath to cut away the roadster’s leather top and fashion it into a makeshift poncho. He sliced off the two cargo straps from the rear rumble seat and made them into a belt to keep the poncho in place. He wished he had his rubber boots, but they were back at the hotel.

Like in so many of his investigations, he had no idea if he was going to be rewarded with answers or left with more questions.

24

In the deepening gloom and worsening rain, Bell jogged up the coast road to the driveway where the Ford had turned. There was no gate or gatehouse, and the main house was far enough back that he couldn’t see it from there. The driveway curved through the lush landscaping and coconut palms. The rain would block out the sound of an approaching car, so Bell couldn’t follow the drive directly. He moved off into the thicket a good twenty feet and made his way parallel to the gravel track. The going was slow. This place was professionally landscaped and maintained yet still felt like virgin jungle. He had to use his dagger to cut his way through some of the denser vines and creepers.

Five minutes after starting out, Bell reached a clearing. He crouched down under the cover of a canopy of trees. The grand house was in the center of a vast lawn sprinkled with beds of flowers and stands of trees like isles in a green sea. The Model T was parked in the driveway in front of the entrance portico. Its top was up against the rain, and the driver’s elbow rested on his door. Occasional bursts of cigarette smoke blew from the interior and were shredded by the rain.

The house was whitewashed limestone blocks with a red, barrel tile roof, and it made Bell think of some colonial-era plantation. The railings, the window trim, and the double front door were all made of a tropical wood so dark that it looked black in the watery light.

Bell adjusted his poncho and felt a needle-like sting on the back of his hand. He thought it was some insect bite, but when he examined it, it was just a red weal left by a milky splatter of rainwater that was now growing painful. He looked around and recognized the leathery yellow-green leaves, as described by Court Talbot. He’d blundered into a solid wall of manchineel trees. One night on the voyage from California, when Court was on a roll describing all the horrors Panama had to offer, he spent a good amount of time describing the highly acidic plants.

At Bell’s feet were dozens of small, lemon-sized fruits. Court called them manzanillas de la muerte, “little apples of death.”

Another drop of sap-laden water fell from the brim of his hat and hit the back of his neck. It felt like someone had held a smoldering match to his skin. Rather than panic, Bell went very still. He sat more upright so any water falling from his hat landed on the poncho. He pulled his hands under its leather and held them close to his body.

Court had especially warned him not to let any of the toxin get into his eyes. The blindness that caused was only temporary, but the pain was some of the worst imaginable. He’d once been forced to shoot a horse that had broken two legs when it had thrashed in pain after such blinding. He’d been with men who’d begged for the same release.

There was no other cover Bell could reach, with the car sitting in the driveway, and he couldn’t risk backing out of the dangerous grove because any movement would heighten the chances of severe burns across his face and in his eyes. He’d been lucky getting this far through the thicket, but the oozing sap from the leaves and bark and fruit turned the falling rain into a veritable shower of acid. He could not go forward