Rogue Angel - Secret Of The Slaves Part 4

Chapter 6.

"Was it just me," Dan said, sipping strong coffee the next morning at a green metal table at an open-air waterfront cafe near their hotel, "or did that woman seem scared to tell us about the Maroons?"

"It wasn't just you," Annja said. She took a sip of her own coffee. "But she seemed more scared not to."

"So did we learn anything?" he asked.

"They have a long reach."

Dan set down his cup, shaking his head. "This is all starting to sound way too Indiana Jones."

She smiled. "What would you call a quest for a lost city?"

He laughed but shook his head again. "The real world doesn't work like that."

"Doesn't it? I thought terrorizing people to get results was thoroughly modern. Doing it long-distance, even."

"Touche," Dan said without mirth. "It just struck me as far-fetched." Dan said without mirth. "It just struck me as far-fetched."

It would have me, not so long ago, Annja thought but did not say.

The cafe stood near a set of docks servicing riverboats somewhat larger, if not markedly more reputable looking, than the small craft Annja and Dan had seen crowding the river the day before. Dockworkers were swaying cargo off a barge with an old and rickety-looking crane. The stevedores were big men, mostly exceedingly dark and well muscled.

Although it was relatively early in the day and they were both lightly dressed and sat in the shade of an awning, Annja could feel sweat trickling down her back.

"It's not, really," she said, sipping her coffee. "Farfetched, I mean. If you think about them just like any other... interest group or faction. A lot of governments go to extremes to protect their secrets."

"Corporations, too."

"Sure. Other groups, as well. These people's ancestors fled to escape slavery and then persecution attempts to recapture them, reenslave them. That could account for their being a little paranoid."

"But didn't Brazil abolish slavery what? Over a hundred years ago," Dan said.

"In 1880," Annja said. "It may be," she continued, setting the cup down and leaning forward over the table, "that Mafalda gave us more information than she intended."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought a lot about what she told us last night. She was worried, basically, that the Maroons the Promessans, we might as well call them might think she talked too much about them."

"So you're thinking they've got some kind of surveillance on her," Dan said. "Bugs? Or maybe something astral?" He said the last with a laugh.

"Hey, I'm as hardheaded skeptical about that stuff as you are." Although I bet I have to work a whole lot harder at it, she thought. "I'm not even sure I go so far as buying electronic eavesdropping, although with snooping gear so incredibly cheap and tiny these days, I guess I shouldn't dismiss it out of hand."

"What are you thinking?" He was all business now. In a sense she was pleasantly surprised. While he had been polite and correct the whole time they had been together, she had picked up pretty unequivocal signals he found her attractive. But he also conveyed a certain sense of superciliousness. Not quite disdain. But as if he were the professional here, not she.

Given his background, and current mission brief, she could even understand that, however it irked her. If only he knew how wrong he was. If only he knew how wrong he was. And yet, of course, she couldn't tell him that the last thing she needed was his protection. And yet, of course, she couldn't tell him that the last thing she needed was his protection.

Not that he'd believe her if she tried.

But now he was acting like one pro talking business with another, and that was good. "While it's not even impossible they could bug Mafalda's shop long-distance I mean, all the way from Upper Amazonia I don't think that's the likeliest thing. At least, it's unlikely to be their only measure," Annja said.

"Back up a step. You think they could bug the shop all the way from their hidden fortress?" Dan asked.

She shrugged. "Why not? It could be something as prosaic as a satellite phone relay."

"So you're not envisioning these people as, like, some kind of lost culture still living in the eighteenth century or whenever?"

"I think that's King Solomon's Mines," she said with a smile. "Not necessarily. Were you? For that matter, is Sir Iain? I thought his whole thing was the possibility they might possess technology far in advance of ours."

"Well maybe. But they could possess, say, herbal techniques developed beyond the scope of modern medical science and still have an archaic culture. Or an essentially indigenous one."

"Maybe. But from what Sir Iain told me, and some research I did afterward, one of the first things the escaped slaves did was start trading with the English and the Dutch for modern weapons."

"I don't mean to be racist, but that seems pretty sophisticated for slaves," Dan said.

"I found out something pretty startling. Not all the slaves were preliterate tribal warriors from the bush. It turns out the Portuguese colonists were so lazy they got tired of administering their plantations and mines and other businesses themselves. So they started kidnapping and enslaving people from places like the ancient African city of Tombouctou. They may even have enslaved their own people from their colonial city of Luanda."

"Meaning "

"Meaning they were deliberately capturing and enslaving clerical and middle-management types," Annja said.

He laughed vigorously. "That's great," he said. "Just great. They really were were lazy. And so these well-educated urban slaves teamed up with their warrior cousins taken from the tribal lands and created their own high-power civilization." lazy. And so these well-educated urban slaves teamed up with their warrior cousins taken from the tribal lands and created their own high-power civilization."

"Pretty much. That's why they were able to stand off their former masters for so long. They were every bit as sophisticated as the Europeans. More, in a way, because of their allying with the Indians early on. They knew the terrain better."

"A guerrilla resistance," he said. "I like it."

"My sense is," she said, leaning forward onto her elbows with her hands propping her chin, "if this city Sir Iain thinks exists really does, its occupants would be pretty current with modern technology."

"Or even advanced beyond it." He arched a brow.

She shrugged. "Your boss seems to think so."

Dan frowned. "He's a great man. He's my friend. You can call him our employer," he said, emphasizing the our our subtly, "but I don't like the word subtly, "but I don't like the word boss. boss."

"Understood," Annja said.

"So, all right, conceivably these descendants of the long-ago escaped slaves, the Maroons or Promessans, might be able to bug a shop in Belem long-distance. I see that. But you seem to think that's not what they're doing."

"If they really exist," Annja added.

"Sure."

She thought a moment, then sighed. "No. I don't. A key aspect of their early survival was trade. I'd bet they've stuck with that as a mainstay of their economy. If for no other reason they'd have agents factors in the outside world. Belem is pretty much the gateway to the entire Amazon in one direction and the entire world in the other. And that seems to have been the connection with the German businessman your... Publico told me about. He must have had some kind of commercial relations.h.i.+p with Promessa. What business was he in, do you know?"

"Electronic components of some sort.Controls for computerized machine tools, possibly."

"Hmm." She regretted not pressing Moran for further details. The fact was, he had so swept her off her feet during their one and only interview, with the sheer hurricane force of his personality and pa.s.sion, that she never even thought of it. "Perhaps we can call him or e-mail him. That might be a lead to follow up, too."

"Maybe," Dan said. "Publico kind of likes his people to use their own initiative."

"Well." Annja wrinkled a corner of her mouth in brief irritation. "Maybe it isn't necessary. If the Promessans keep agents here for trade, they can just as easily keep them here for other purposes."

"So their traders are spies."

She shrugged again. "There's precedent for that. They may or may not be the same people. We don't have enough data even to guess."

"So if we can spot one of these agents we might not need Mafalda's cooperation."

"That's what I'm hoping, anyway," Annja said.

For a moment they sat, thinking separate thoughts. A young woman came into the open-air cafe. She was tall, willowy, and as Annja found distressingly common in Brazil quite beautiful. She squeezed the water from a nearby beach from her great mane of kinky russet hair. Water stood beaded in droplets on her dark-honey skin, which was amply displayed by the minuscule black thong bikini she wore.

The rest of the cafe patrons were locals. No one else seemed to take notice of the woman as she strode to an open-air shower to one side of the cafe, s.h.i.+elded by a sort of gla.s.s half booth from splas.h.i.+ng any nearby patrons.

Nor did they show any sign of reaction when the young woman dropped a white beach bag with white-and-purple flowers on it to the floor, turned on the water and skinned right out of her bikini.

Annja looked around, trying to keep her cool. Am I really seeing this? Am I really seeing this? The customers continued their conversations or their perusals of the soccer news in the local paper. She glanced back. Yes, there was a stark naked woman showering not twenty feet away from her. The customers continued their conversations or their perusals of the soccer news in the local paper. She glanced back. Yes, there was a stark naked woman showering not twenty feet away from her.

She looked toward Dan. He was looking at her with a studiedly bland expression. "You might as well watch," she said. "Just don't stare."

"Never," he murmured, and his eyes fairly clicked toward the showering woman.

The young woman finished, toweled herself briskly, then dressed in shorts and a loose white top. She looked up as a small group of young women came into the cafe, chattering like the tropical birds that cl.u.s.tered in the trees all over town. She greeted them cheerfully and joined them at a table as if nothing unusual had happened.

Dan let the breath slide out of him in a protracted sigh. "Whoo," he said.

"Whoo indeed," Annja said. "It's like a whole different country, huh?"

"Excuse me," a voice interrupted.

At the quiet, polite feminine query in English both looked up. Two young people stood there, a very pet.i.te woman and a very tall man. Both were striking in their beauty and in their exotic appearance. Both wore light-colored, lightweight suits.

"Are you Americans?" the woman asked.

"Are we that obvious?" Dan asked.

The young man shrugged wide shoulders. He exuded immediate and immense likeability. "There are details," he said in an easy baritone voice. "The way you dress. The way you hold yourselves. Your mannerisms they're quicker than ours tend to be, but not so broad, you know?"

"And then," Annja said with a shrug, "there's our tendency to gawk at naked women in the cafe."

The man laughed aloud. "You were most polite," he said.

"She probably would have appreciated the attention," the woman said. "We Brazilians tend to take a lot of trouble over our appearance. Clearly you know that beauty takes hard work."

"You've probably noticed, we don't have much body modesty hereabouts," the man said. "But you were wise to be discreet. Brazilians also tend to think that Americans confuse that lack of modesty with promiscuity."

"They're probably right," Dan said, "way too often."

"Please, sit down," Annja told the pair. She was not getting threatening vibes from them. And she and Dan were drawing blanks so far. Any kind of friendly local contact was liable to be of some help. At least a straw to clutch at. "I'm Annja Creed. This is Dan Seddon. He's my business a.s.sociate."

Dan cast her a hooded look as the woman pulled out a chair and sat. The man pulled one over from a neighboring table. Annja saw that they both had long hair. The woman's hung well down the back of her lightweight cream-colored jacket, clear to her rump. The man's was a comet-tail of milk-chocolate dreadlocks held back by a band at the back of his head, to droop back down past his shoulders.

"I'm Xia," the woman said. "And this is Patrizinho." The pair looked to be in their late twenties, perhaps a year or two older than Annja.

"Pleased to meet you," said Annja, who was accustomed to the Brazilian habit of going by first names alone. "What do you do?"

"We work for an import-export firm," Xia said. "Mostly we are consultants. We help foreign merchants negotiate the labyrinth of our trade laws and regulations."

"They're quite bizarre," Patrizinho said. "Some of our people take perverse pride in having them that way."

"And you?" Xia asked. "Are you here on vacation?"

Annja glanced at Dan. To her surprise he sat more tightly angled back in his chair than slouched, with his legs straight under the table, arms folded, chin on clavicle. He frowned slightly at her but gave no indication she shouldn't discuss their real purpose.

"We're here doing research for an inst.i.tution in the United States," she said, parrying an internal stab of annoyance at Dan. "I'm an archaeologist and historian by trade. My partner is a representative of the inst.i.tute."

"It's a humanitarian inst.i.tution," he said. "We're here doing research on quilombos. quilombos."

Patrizinho raised his brows. "Not many Americans I've met know anything about them."

A male server appeared. Patrizinho ordered fruit juice, Xia some bottled water.

"What's your interest in the quilombos, quilombos, then?" Xia asked. then?" Xia asked.

"We understand that some of them actually managed to survive as independent ent.i.ties until Brazil became a republic," Annja said.

"True enough," Patrizinho said. "Some of them still exist as recognized towns.h.i.+ps today."

Annja glanced at Dan, who seemed to be sulking. "We're trying to track down reports that there might be a settlement derived from a quilombo quilombo far up the Amazon, which has declined to join Brazil or, perhaps, the modern world." far up the Amazon, which has declined to join Brazil or, perhaps, the modern world."

Patrizinho grinned and tapped the table with his fingertips. "Hiding like Ogum in the forest!"

"What's that?" Dan asked sharply.

"An old expression."

"A lost civilization," Xia said. "Do you really think that's possible in today's world? With airplanes and satellites everywhere. Wouldn't it turn up on Google Earth?"

Annja shrugged. "We aim to find out."

For a moment they sat without exchanging words. A breeze idly flapped the red, green and yellow awning over their heads. From somewhere came strains of Brazilian popular music, faint and lively.

Since their newfound acquaintances weren't jumping in to offer clues to the location of the lost City of Promise, or even expand on local legends to the effect, Annja said, "Patrizinho, your mention of Ogum puts me in mind of a question both Dan and I had."