River of Death by Alistair MacLean Read Free Book Online Page B

drinks in their hands. Hamilton gazed happily at the green immensity of the Amazonian rainforest passing by beneath them.
    ‘This fairly beats hacking your way through that lot down there,’ he said. He looked round the cabin of the luxuriously appointed jet. ‘But this is for the carriage trade. What transport is Smith thinking of using when we make our trip into the Mato Grosso?’
    ‘No idea,’ Hiller said. ‘Matters like that, Smith doesn’t consult me. He’s got his own advisers for that. You’ll be seeing him in a couple of hours. I suppose he’ll tell you then.’
    ‘I don’t think you quite understand,’ Hamilton said in an almost gently explanatory tone. ‘I only asked what transport he was
thinking
of using. Any decisions he and his experts have made are not really very relevant.’
    Hiller looked at him in slow disbelief.
‘You
are going to tell
him
what we’re to use?’
    Hamilton beckoned the stewardess, smiled and handed over his glass for a refill. ‘Nothing like savouring the good life—while it lasts.’ He turned to Hiller. ‘Yes, that’s the idea.’
    ‘I can see,’ Hiller said heavily, ‘that you and Smith are going to get along just fine.’
    ‘Oh, I hope so, I hope so. You said we’d be seeing him in two hours. Could you make it three?’ He looked disparagingly at his wrinkled khaki drills. ‘These look well enough in Romono, but I have to see a tailor before I go calling on multimillionaires. You say we’re being met when we arrive. You think you can drop me off at the Grand?’
    ‘Jesus!’ Hiller was clearly taken aback. ‘The Grand
-and
a tailor. That’s expensive. How come? Last night in the bar you said you had no money.’
    ‘I came into some later on.’
    Hiller and Serrano exchanged very peculiar looks. Hamilton continued to gaze placidly out of the window.
    As promised a car met them at the private airport in Brasilia. ‘Car’ was really too mundane a word to describe it. It was an enormous maroon Rolls-Royce, big enough, one would have thought, to accommodate a football team. In the back it had television, a bar and even an ice-maker. Up front-very far up front—were two uniformed men in dark green livery. One drove the car: the other’s main function in life appeared to be opening doors when the back seat—seats—passengers entered or left. The engine, predictably, was soundless. If it were part of Smith’s pattern to awe visitors he most certainly succeeded in the case of Serrano. Hamilton appeared quite unimpressed, possibly because he was too busy inspecting the bar; Smith had somehow overlooked providing a stewardess for the rear of the Rolls.
    They drove through the wide avenues of that futuristic city and pulled up outside the Grand Hotel. Hamilton dismounted—the door having magically been opened for him, of course—and passed swiftly through the revolving door. Once inside, he looked out through the glassed-inporch. The Rolls, already more than a hundred yards away, was turning a corner to the left. Hamilton waited until it had disappeared from sight, left by the revolving door by which he had entered and started to walk briskly back in the direction from which they had come. He gave the impression of one who knew the city, and he did: he knew Brasilia very well indeed.
    Five minutes after dropping Hamilton the Rolls pulled up outside a photographer’s shop. Hiller went inside, approached a smiling and affable assistant and handed over the film that had been taken from Hamilton.
    ‘Have this developed and sent to Mr Joshua Smith, Haydn Villa.’ There was no need for Hiller to add the word ‘immediately’. Smith’s name guaranteed immediacy. Hiller went on: ‘No copy is to be made of this film and neither the person who develops it nor any other member of your staff is ever to discuss it. I hope that is clearly understood.’
    ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’ The smile and the affability had vanished to be replaced by total obsequiousness.