Spy Read Online Free PDF Page B

hand in greeting to a tall man wearing some kind of ragged uniform as the catamaran bumped up against the dock.
    The man uttered an incomprehensible greeting and had one of his dockhands throw the Xucuru chieftain a line.
    Hawke’s cage was unloaded by the Xucuru and placed at the far end of the dock away from the crates. Except for Wajari, the Indian war party returned immediately to their dugouts. The rain had let up, so Hawke was content to sit in his bamboo cage under the dripping palms, eat from his bowl of manioc bread, and contemplate his fate. He saw Wajari go inside a smaller corrugated tin building, its windows lit from within. An office perhaps.
    He understood without being told that he was being turned over to some new authority. Wajari’s concern now made sense. The chief had feared his captive might not survive long enough to complete this transaction.
    But, nonetheless, Hawke’s spirits rose. He felt better than he had in months. He’d slept on the river, the deep sleep of a man no longer on the run. There had been plenty of water and bread. He had begun a program of strenuous exercise, using the bars of the cage to lift himself with his upper arms, pushing at the sides with his legs. Pilates, he believed the ladies of London called this kind of thing.
    Even the fevers came less frequently now. Perhaps the malaria was subsiding. Wajari had fed him a foul, whitish herbal concoction every day. It wasn’t the milk of human kindness, he knew now. The man was simply trying to keep Hawke healthy long enough to collect the bounty that was surely on his head. He was in that small building even now, getting his thirty pieces of silver.
    Hawke used this rare moment of lucidity and made a decision. He was not going back to the camps. No matter what his new captor planned for him, when Wajari returned and opened his cage he would kill him. Take the machete and use his own blade on him. He’d kill anyone who got in his way.
    Then he’d see what he could learn in the small dock office. There were sure to be papers there, documents of some kind that he could use to support his story of the camps. And if he was really lucky, maybe even a vehicle parked on the other side of the warehouses. He’d heard the sound of a motor revving and then being silenced.
    He waited patiently in his bamboo cage and plotted his escape. He knew in his bones he was still too weak to run far. But, if he could somehow steal a boat, even a dugout and summon the strength to paddle, make his way back upriver, maybe he could get to a wireless radio, or even a telephone. He would only get one chance to survive this ordeal.
    Who would he contact first? There was a man he knew, who now lived up in Miami. A true friend of many years. A man who sometimes worked with a Martinique outfit called Thunder and Lightning. They were the best freelance Hostage Rescue team in the world. He had U.S. Navy connections, too, maybe good enough to get a search and rescue plane in the air.
    His friend’s name was Stokely Jones.
    Somehow, he would contact Stokely. The man was the most reliable soul he knew; the toughest human being Hawke had ever encountered. Stoke had survived and even thrived in the jungles of Vietnam and New York City. He was a true friend, one of Hawke’s closest. Over the years, he had helped Hawke out of far worse scrapes than this one. Hell, this rescue would be child’s play to the human mountain named Stokely Jones Jr.
    Hawke felt tiny sparks of hope-neurons firing somewhere inside his brain. For the first time in months, he began to think he might actually survive this bloody adventure. If he could just hold fast a bit longer, Stoke would think of some way to get him out. That was the ticket. Somehow, he had to live long enough to get to a bloody telephone.
    Is that you, Mrs. Crusoe? Hold on a tick, will you, I’ve got young Robinson on the line.

4
    M IAMI
    S o how much you want for the trade?” the used car guy said to Stokely, eyeing