The Covenant Of The Flame Read online

  Juanita was twenty-five, short and thin, with a narrow face and tawny skin. She wasn't beautiful, she readily admitted, and had never been able to understand why Pedro had chosen her. Her single attractive feature was her shoulder-length dark hair, which despite the poverty of her diet had a sheen. How Pedro had loved to stroke it. How he'd bragged that their two infant children had inherited Juanita's lovely hair. What am I going to do without you? Juanita thought, barely able to restrain the trembling in her legs. But the answer-

  – it seemed she heard Pedro's impassioned voice inside her brain-

  – instantly made her stand straighter.

  Have courage, Juanita. Don't give up. Make sure I didn't die uselessly. Take my place. Inflame my discouraged followers. Say the words! Give the speech!

  Yes, Juanita thought and raised her angry eyes toward the thickening haze that obscured the sky. The speech. Since her husband had been shot two days ago, Juanita had felt an overwhelming pressure of words inside her. Although she'd never been gifted with her unschooled husband's amazing ability to speak in public and capture a crowd's attention, she'd suddenly known that she had to make a pronouncement at his graveside. It was almost as if she'd been commanded to do so. Throughout the preparations for Pedro's funeral, while his bullet-ravaged corpse lay on precious, hard-to-find ice, Juanita had mentally rehearsed what her compulsion dictated. Last night, too distraught with sorrow to sleep, she'd perfected the words. Soon, when the elderly priest finished droning his words over the coffin, it would be her turn. She would say hers. Pedro, her beloved husband, would speak in her, with her, through her – and provided that she remained strong, her husband's followers would subdue their fear, overcome their discouragement, and persist in their fight to save the land.

  Be strong!

  The cemetery was ancient, the majority of its wooden crosses listing from decay. The graveyard stood on a barren hill that overlooked the shacks in the village of Cordoba and the silt-choked, mud-colored tributary of the once-magnificent Amazon River. The silt was caused by runoff, Juanita knew, by erosion when the rain washed away the soil that the roots of the former majestic forest could no longer protect.

  Because of the fires.

  Because of the slash-and-burn tactics of her husband's enemies.

  Those enemies had compelled the villagers to cut down the trees, to set fire to them, and to use the cleared land to grow more crops. That was why a thickening haze obscured the sky. Juanita trembled with increasing rage. Because of the fires in the distance, on the rim of the dwindling forest. The soil was extremely thin, even with the ashes from the trees, and after a few years of intensive farming, the soil stopped being fertile. As a consequence, more trees were burned, more land cleared, more crops planted until that soil too became infertile – a sickening pattern of progressive destruction.

  But there was even more sickening destruction, Juanita knew. For her husband's enemies, who owned the land, forced the villagers to leave and brought in heavy equipment to strip-mine the treeless land to get at the minerals beneath it. In the end, nothing of worth remained. Wherever Juanita looked, barren ugliness surrounded her.

  The priest had almost finished his prayers. Juanita felt heat in her soul, a furious need to turn to her husband's followers and say her words, to urge them to persist in their fight. Pedro had organized these villagers, convincing them to refuse to allow the wealthy, greedy, evil men in the nation's capital to continue destroying God's creation. Pedro had learned from visiting foreigners – what had they called themselves? ecologists? – that the dense smoke from the widespread fires was poisoning the earth's air. The foreigners had also said that this largest forest in the world took something bad (she remembered the meaningless term 'carbon dioxide') out of the air and added something good (what was it? oxygen?), that if the forest disappeared, which it would at the present rapid rate of millions of acres each year, the carbon dioxide in the air would accumulate until the weather changed, the temperature rose, and the rains no longer came.

  The world depended on this forest, the foreigners had insisted. The burning had to be stopped!

  Pedro had understood what the foreigners had told him, but he'd also understood that the peasants wouldn't fight to save the forest merely because foreigners claimed it was important to the world. At the same time, Pedro had known that the peasants would fight to save their homes, to preserve the rubber trees that gave them both shelter and the crop from which they earned their living, to protect the river from the muddy erosion that choked the fish they depended on for food. They'd fight. That is, if someone showed them how to fight, if someone banded them together, if someone gave them the confidence to realize that in numbers there was strength.

  So Pedro had accepted the challenge, and for a time, he and his followers had been successful, forcing the enemy from the land. Apparently too successful, for the evil men in the capital had sent assassins with machineguns to shoot – to shred - Pedro's body while he made a speech in a neighboring village, and now the air was again thick with smoke. Once more, the ominous fires burned.

  You mustn't give up! Juanita heard Pedro's voice in her head. You must continue the fight!

  As the priest backed away from the coffin, she spun toward her husband's followers, about to raise her veil, to let them see the furnace-like determination in her eyes, to say her words.

  But her impulse was interrupted, her husband's followers distracted, by a long black car that bumped unexpectedly along the dusty road and stopped at the base of the cemetery.

  The villagers watched in confusion as a stranger got out. He was a tall, refined-looking man in a suit as black as his expensive car. His tie as well was black, in contrast with his immaculate, gleaming, white shirt, perhaps the only such shirt the villagers had ever seen. With dignified funereal steps, the stranger proceeded toward the rear of the car, opened its trunk, removed a cardboard box, and carried it somberly up the hill through the smoky haze toward the mourners in the dismal cemetery.

  'Please, forgive me, Senora Gomez,' the man whispered and bowed in respect. His polished accent and careful pronunciation made it clear that he came from the city. 'I deeply apologize. I'm extremely reluctant to intrude at this sensitive trying time for you. I extend my sympathies and offer a prayer for the soul of your brave departed husband. I would not have troubled you, but a man instructed me – in fact, he insisted – that I do so.'

  'Man?' Her back muscles rigid, Juanita studied the stranger with suspicion. 'What man?'

  'Alas, I do not know. My client never told me his name. Yesterday he arrived unexpectedly at my office… I own a limousine service in the city. He paid me a generous amount to drive to this village and deliver this package… this gift, he said… at this precise moment.'

  With greater suspicion, Juanita stared at the box. 'Gift? What is it?' Her immediate thought was that the evil men in the city had sent a bomb to destroy her in such a dramatic fashion, during her husband's funeral, that Pedro's followers would surely lose their will to fight.

  'My client would not reveal to me what was in the box. In fact, he warned me that if I unsealed it prematurely, he would discover my transgression and punish me severely. He assured me and instructed me to assure you that the gift is not a danger, that instead you'll find it a comfort.'

  Juanita squinted harshly. To drive all this way… and on such a mysterious mission… you must have been paid very well.'

  'True, senora. As I confessed, the fee was generous.' The man looked embarrassed, as if comparing his fine clothes with the poverty around him. 'With the stranger's compliments, senora.'

  Juanita reluctantly accepted the box. Its size reminded her of a cake box. But its contents, which made a thunking sound, were much heavier than a cake.

  Troubled, Juanita stooped to set the box on the ground beside her husband's humble coffin. She tried, but when her trembling fingers couldn't break the seal, a villager stepped forward and used his knife to open it.

  Compelle
d, Juanita pried up the flaps, then gazed warily inside.

  At once she gasped. The villager who'd used his knife to unseal the box gasped as well. With equal suddenness, Juanita moaned, but not in shock, instead in triumph. She eagerly thrust her hands inside the box and held up its contents.

  A human head. The severed skull of one of the evil men in the city who'd ordered her husband's death. The head – its features contorted grotesquely – vividly communicated the agony that the man had suffered while being decapitated. The skull was wrapped in a plastic bag, the bag evidently intended to prevent the jagged neck's blood from soaking through the cardboard box.

  With a wail of victory, Juanita yanked off the bag, grasped the skull by its hair, and jerked it as high as her arm would permit so that all her husband's followers could see the wondrous gift that her unknown benefactor had sent.

  The messenger stumbled back in horror, a hand raised to his mouth as if he might vomit. Nearly toppling him, the villagers surged forward to get a better look.

  'Fight!' she screamed. For Pedro! For yourselves! For the land!'

  The villagers shouted with determination.

  Juanita swung the head toward Pedro's coffin. 'My husband, my beloved, can you see your enemy? Dear father of our children, you didn't die in vain! We won't be beaten! We'll fight! We'll continue fighting! We'll never stop fighting! Never! Until we're victorious! Until the day the fires stop!'

  FOUR

  The Coral Sea. The South Pacific.

  The Argonaut, a supertanker carrying crude oil from the Persian Gulf to a refinery near Brisbane on Australia 's eastern coast, was three hours ahead of schedule. Clear weather and smooth seas all the way. A completely uneventful voyage. Can't ask for better than that, the captain thought. His name was Victor Malone. A twenty-year veteran of the ocean, most of which time he'd spent in the service of the Pacific-Rim Petroleum Corporation, he was forty-eight, of medium height, with receding brown hair and a stocky build. Although while at sea he seldom left the interior of his vessel, his somewhat puffy face had a ruddy complexion. In the supertanker's bridge, which despite its windows had lately caused Malone to feel claustrophobia, he checked the weather, sonar, radar, and navigation instruments. Nothing unusual. Another ten hours, and we'll be in port, he thought. Certainly by tomorrow morning. Confident of a routine evening, Malone told his watch officer that he was leaving the bridge. 'If you need me, I'll be in my cabin.'

  Five minutes later, after locking the door to his cabin behind him, Malone unlocked a drawer in his desk and removed a half-empty bottle of vodka. A condition of Malone's employment was that he abstain from alcohol while commanding a Pac-Rim vessel, and for most of his career, Malone had abided by that rule. Guilt-ridden, puzzled, he wasn't sure when or why he'd begun to bend and finally had broken the rule.

  Perhaps it had been the trauma of the divorce his wife had demanded three years ago after falling in love with a salesman in the real-estate office where she worked in Boston, a man who, she'd angrily explained, wouldn't abandon her for months at a time.

  Or perhaps it had been the lonely nights in foreign ports that had long ago stopped being glamorous.

  For whatever reason, a sip now and then before he went to sleep had turned into periodic secret binges in which Malone tried to counteract the boredom of too many lengthy voyages. Aware that his vice was getting out of control, he'd tried to exercise discipline on this voyage and had indulged his need for alcohol only when absolutely desperate.

  Even so, he'd come close to finishing all eight bottles that he'd smuggled aboard. Amazing how they go so fast, he mused as he poured two inches of vodka into a glass and leaned back in the chair behind his desk.

  He wished he had ice and vermouth, but tomorrow morning after docking at the refinery, as soon as his obligations were completed, he would go ashore, find an isolated bar where he wouldn't be recognized, and at last be able to enjoy a martini again.

  Several martinis.

  He'd rent a room to sleep off his drunkenness and the next day return to work with no one suspecting.

  That was the beauty of vodka. It didn't taint his breath.

  After what seemed a few sips, Malone was surprised to discover that he'd emptied his glass. Confused, he squinted blearily, assessed the situation, and decided. What the hell, we're almost in port. This'll be my last chance before we dock. A routine assignment. No problems coming up. Why let the rest of the bottle go to waste? So Malone poured another two inches into his glass, and by the time he fell asleep a half-hour later, the bottle and the glass were drained.

  Abruptly his watch officer's gravelly voice roused him. 'Captain?'

  Malone struggled – and managed – to raise one eyelid.

  'Captain?'

  Malone, through his half-opened right eye, sought the source of the voice and gradually realized that it came from the wall, from the intercom.

  'Captain, we're having some problems with our sonar reception.'

  With difficulty, Malone raised his head. He shook it to try to clear his thoughts, opened both eyes, and blinked, his vision blurry. His glass fell off his lap as he lurched to his feet and groped for the intercom's speaker button. 'Uh, yeah, what? Uh, what was…? Tell me that again.'

  'Captain, I said we're having problems with the sonar.'

  Malone rubbed his throbbing forehead. 'Problems? What kind of…?'

  'Intermittent fade-outs.'

  Malone's tongue felt thick. He strained not to slur his words. 'Sounds like… an…' That word was a tough one. His lips were rubbery. 'An electrical short.'

  'That's what it seems to me, Captain. I've ordered a maintenance crew to look into it.'

  'Good. Yes, good. A maintenance crew. Good. Let me know what they report.'

  'Captain, I think you'd better get up here.'

  'Absolutely. I was having a nap. I'll be there shortly. As soon as possible.' Too many s's, Malone nervously realized despite his grogginess. He picked up his glass, rinsed it in his cabin's sink, and set it on a counter. Next he placed the empty vodka bottle inside his desk and locked the drawer.

  Better brush my teeth.

  Better gargle and wash my face.

  But when Malone scowled in the mirror above the sink, the stupor in his bloodshot eyes appalled him. Come on! he thought. Wake up!

  He washed his face with hot, then cold water, and swallowed two aspirins. With alarm, he noticed that his shirt was wrinkled. Better change it, he thought. Look alert!

  From the intercom, the watch officer's gravelly voice blurted, 'Captain, the sonar has failed. It's…' Garbled voices in the background. '… completely dead.'

  Malone somehow didn't waver as he crossed his cabin and reached the intercom, pushing its transmit button. 'Completely?'

  'The screen is blank.'

  'Switch to the backup system.'

  'I did, but it's not working either, Captain.'

  'Not…?' Malone inhaled. Dear God. I'm coming right up.' With trembling fingers, he fumbled to change his shirt. As a last-moment thought, he splashed his face with after-shave lotion on the off-chance that a crew member might somehow smell the supposedly undetectable vodka.

  God was merciful. No one saw Malone stumble from his cabin, grasp a bulkhead, straighten himself, and waver onward.

  'Status report!' Malone demanded when he entered the control room with what he hoped was convincing authority.

  'The same,' his watch officer replied. 'Both primary and secondary sonar systems are not in operation.'

  'Give me the navigation charts.'

  'I assumed you'd want them ready for you, Captain. Should I stop the engines?'

  'No! Not yet! Not until we have to!' Malone glared toward his officers. What the hell was wrong with them? Didn't they realize how long it would take for the huge, heavy Argonaut to coast to a stop and, after the sonar was repaired, to regain maximum speed? Three hours! We're three hours ahead of schedule! The refinery's expecting us! We'll probably get a bonus for being so
efficient! But all we'll get is shit if we stop to fix a minor problem with the sonar and we show up God knows how late!'

  The lingering effects of the vodka were making him overreact, Malone realized, but he couldn't help himself. He'd counted on reaching the refinery by tomorrow morning, eager to relieve himself of his obligation, to escape this massive vessel, the walls of which had lately seemed to close in on him.

  Most of all, he'd counted on his reward. The martinis.

  He could almost taste them.

  'But Captain, without the sonar…'

  'It's just an electrical problem,' Malone insisted. The maintenance crew will find what it is and repair it.' He spread the navigation charts on a table and studied them, noting the varying depths of the ocean and the pattern of reefs.

  Yes! These waters were just as Malone remembered! To avoid the reefs in the Torres Strait to the north, he'd guided the Argonaut around New Guinea, then southward through the Soloman Sea into the Coral Sea, carefully skirting the Great Barrier Reef along Australia 's northeastern coast.

  Once past the Great Barrier, except for a few smaller reefs, the ocean was clear all the way to Brisbane.

  'What was our position when the sonar went out?'

  'Right here, Captain,' the watch officer said, naming a latitude and a longitude, pointing at the chart.

  'Perfect.' Malone's skull felt as if a spike had been driven through it. 'No problem. Then all we have to do is make sure to avoid these two reefs.' Striving to maintain his balance, he turned from the chart. Twenty degrees starboard.'

  'Aye, aye, Captain,' the watch officer said. He repeated the course correction to the helmsman, who acknowledged his instructions by repeating them as well. Twenty degrees starboard.'

  Malone's hands shook as he lit a cigarette. 'Now let's get that electrical problem fixed.' He'd amazed himself by thinking so clearly, given his hangover. 'And order some coffee up here. It'll be a long night.'