Chapter 23 - Northern Brazil

   No matter how much you watch you don't make the tiniest mistake? No one is perfect. It happens. Panic realized Vlad had been on the plane before, and probably many times. You wouldn't know there was a trundle cabinet to sleep in under the couch over there like he did, without prior knowledge. Some mistakes, when you miss something or get something figured wrong? Can cost you a life. This one? Didn't.

   Wizzy is dead because of a mistake. That same investigation that cost him his life in the end? We made a mistake before that, but it didn't cost us. Some men just go with things. Other men? Try to control everything. Vlad makes polite suggestions, to explain his personal rules. He went to great and polite pains, to make sure we knew things.

   For instance? Teasing, having fun. Friends can enjoy that, and he's no exception. He demonstrated it, too. Making little self deprecating jokes, to show us he had a sense of humor. He explained, that if we were ever in a situation where it wouldn't be appropriate? He would gently say it beforehand. We're both pretty sure, he means business meetings. And it makes sense if we ever ended up meeting another man that wore Russian stars like he does, well... fairly obvious.

   I followed Panic's advice. To try not to mention or lead conversation into having him talk about Betanya or his children. We did it inadvertently, though. When asking if he had any nicknames. He smiled wistfully, and looked away. At nothing. I've seen Panic do this. The way he did it? He was once called "Vlad the Impaler". It made sense for his wife to give him a sweet love name. Or maybe it was something the guys fighting nicknamed him. He would have had a huge motivation to terrify his enemies. Perhaps? Both.

   We didn't ask for clarification. Remembering his wife if it was her sweet love name, wasn't good. Remembering the fighting served no useful purpose, either. We didn't use the name.

   Refueling at a modern resort area airfield, passed by with no fanfare. As did refueling just before we got close. When we were getting ready to land at our ultimate destination, however, Vlad asked if we had any weapons. Panic shook his head, and simply stated the obvious.

   "Traveling. On a cruise ship."

   Vlad nodded.

   "I ask. Because we will almost certainly, be checked for weapons. For our business meeting. It would be rude, to bring a gun. We are to do business, not fight."

   "Can I ask who we're meeting? Or, do I not need to know that. Or hell, am I even going to the meeting? This is your show. You tell me."

   "I will have you go. This way, if information is correct or incorrect? It will be on him. You will not wonder about what I say."

   "All right."

   "The man? Is name Suarez. He like to be called, General Suarez. His other name? Is... Suave. Suarez likes to think he is... quite a man for the ladies."

   "General Suarez. Military man."

   Vlad chuckled.

   "Not really. He just likes to be called by that name."

   "What does he do? For work."

   "I work for Yuri. He, works for another man. I am sure, he might say... he is, head of security for this man? But... he does, dirty work for the man."

   "What's his boss do? If its any of my business."

   "If I say cocaine? What country do you think of down here."

   "Columbia."

   "Brazil? Is like Columbia that way."

   "They run cocaine."

   "And other things. If it makes money, and it is fast to turn the profit? They would not hesitate. I am sure you know, that cocaine? Is cheaper down here. You sell it north? It is worth more."

   "Naturally."

   "Guns are cheaper down here, and will sell for more, up north. Also? Women are the same."

   Now I asked.

   "They sell people? Like a product."

   Vlad nodded. He made a walking motion with his index and middle finger.

   "And so, if I tell you not to... wander around, on your own? You will understand."

   I nodded yes. I could be snatched, I guess. What a wonderful place. Lets just bring the wife and kids here for a vacation, you know. Looks can be quite deceiving, and flying here, we looked out the windows at some beautiful and even quite breathtaking views. Jungles from altitude look like lush green wonderful exotic things. Big mountains. Rolling hills and brush as the mountains transform into less. Even some plains. Rivers, lakes, marshlands in some areas.

   But humans live in some places around here too, so go figure the human beings fuck mother nature up. Just when I was falling in love with the scenery? There we go. The human fingerprint stamped on it. Walls of smoke, where clear-cutting was being done so quickly, they just burned the trees. Couldn't they at least have a program where they got some use out of the trees first? What a waste. You could make lumber or at least mulch, but no. Just burn it.

   Panic has told me enough to know the beauty is only properly beheld from a distance. The jungle? Can have such a thick canopy that you never actually see the sunlight. Oppressive heat the closer you are to the equator. Humidity so thick you can swim through it. Little tiny frogs that were deadly to touch, and even having one brush your clothes could do you in. Poisonous bugs, malaria and other things. Beautiful plants that drew your eye in for the dazzling color splashes? Mother nature's way of saying do not touch. Plucking the wrong flower and sniffing it or putting it over your ear? Could make you deathly ill.

   Naturally hordes of imported guerrilla fighters that performed any depraved act imaginable upon the helpless, let alone on the enemy combatants. So on that note, it somehow made perfect sense that they bought and sold and transported cocaine, guns, and women to be prostitutes.

   Panic had found that the grass hut villagers that lived as almost indigenous hunter gatherers with a rich social structure? Were in his book, the best feature down here. The airport, such as it was... resembled a scar from the air when we circled while the pilots plotted a landing. It was just clear cutting leveled off and tamped with bulldozers. Hard packed clay and ash, and they salted to keep the plant growth down thereby minimizing maintenance.

   Human beings could pack up and leave, and this scar would remain. Once you salt the earth, nothing will grow there. This, was what they called progress. The grass hut villagers and the jungle dwellers at least lived in something resembling harmony for the local environment. Naturally, the more modern city dwellers and their government would rather that they were done away with.

   Just in case I missed the point, of how progress was perhaps not? In the United States when we landed, we pumped waste tanks from the bathroom and shower into tanks designed to hold it and take it in to be treated. Here? They were directed to just taxi over to a ditch, and pump out the waste. The smell was awful, until we taxied back to park the sport jet. The pilots said they'd rather let drunken chimpanzees perform maintenance on the jet, and they didn't trust the diesel.

   No passport or checking in. A short, fat, balding man in some sweat stained uniform just wanted us to state our business. Vlad simply said "General Suarez", and the smelly oily man smiled to show us his stumps for teeth.

   If there had been a hand painted sign that read... cocaine, guns, and female slaves were on sale this week? Wouldn't have phased me in the slightest. The "airport" buildings were all rusty corrugated metal, over whatever framework was on hand. Some were post and beam and looked carved out of felled trees. Some were framed with real umber, but it looked as if it was all from the pile of what was thrown out from the local handyman store back home. Twisted, knotty, cracked shit. The metal framed Quonset buildings were looking like the best thing going in the way of construction. A few smaller "sheds" were made out of square bales of straw, and the stucco resembled clay and lord only knew what else.

   Not the ecological tour paradise it looked like from the air on the way here. Panic speaks Spanish, and got us directions from the dirty uniformed... whatever in the hell he even was. The town? Looked like a Mexican ghetto. The police force? If you even wanted to grace them with that term, looked much like the thing that checked on the reason for our visit. They walked around the streets with machine guns. They took things from the market vendors and I never saw one pay for anything.

   Panic seemed to enjoy the open market. He bought us fresh fruits and vegetables. He was able to identify the stuff, he had been north of this region when in Redwater hell. He finally settled on one stand, where a middle aged man in rags and sandals had his wife and children helping him cook and run it. Some kind of... it smelled and looked like a Mexican dish at a cheap Mexican dive restaurant.

   He said the meat? Was probably tapir. I asked what in the hell that was, and he said the easiest way to explain it, was to imagine the biggest rodent I ever saw. A member of the rodent family, its the biggest member of it. Whatever, we eat squirrel when the boys are hunting them in the gun range camp back home, why not.

   Beans, meat, sauce, rice, fruit, vegetables, spices, salt. A little zingy and not bad tasting, but otherwise it resembled a burrito. When he paid them in American one dollar bills, they were bug eyed and quite ecstatic. They gave us an extra bag of the things. He handed them a five, after paying. The man looked like he would faint.

   Walking around, I quickly lost my fear of the place. The sweaty police were what I would keep my eyes on staying here, way more than the locals. Its not every day you get to see two oxen pulling the remnants of a small pickup truck to haul local merchandise.

   Panic makes knives for a hobby, and had to stop and chat with a little corrugated tin shack, making and selling knives and machetes and other implements. He handed out some of our burrito looking things that we had more of than we could ever eat. He handed two more out, to get us watching a guy making wicker furniture out of saplings and reclaimed brush. Honestly? I wouldn't mind a whole set of chairs and end tables of the stuff, to put in our shotgun shack of a cabin at the gun range property where we spend a lot of time.

   He had a giant cast iron tank of boiling water. With tongs, he boiled the saplings and twigs to make them pliable. Weaving and wrapping? When it dried, it was real furniture. You could find things that looked like this in America at department stores.

   Panic explained to me that he burned tires, to reclaim the wire from the steel radials. The fire made the steel go soft, and you dropped it in water and it instantly cleaned it with a hiss. He used it to wrap things together making the wicker furniture. He had earthenware jars of, hell I don't know. Sap or some extract that he used like varnish.

   I wonder if this guy knows he could make a quite good living at the right farmer's market back home. Rich people would love this stuff, and brag how it was custom handmade in front of their eyes. Shelves, cribs, baskets. It seemed he could make anything out of twigs and vines. He gave the guy a five dollar bill, for watching and getting ideas for his own arts and crafts. This, on top of the local burrito he shared? The guy was trying to give him something he might want. Panic shrugged, and got essentially a wicker purse. The lid? Had rope hinges but the lid fit tight and secure over the thing. I couldn't help but be impressed. It looked almost waterproof with layers of the locally procured varnish.

   We had arrived early in the morning, and it had been... I'll call it reasonable. Hot and humid? But... bearable. That was early in the day. As we walked around, looking at all the long lines of market stalls and shacks, the heat grew into what I would think of as while technically bearable? Not at all pleasant. What was a super duper heat wave of heat and humidity back home? Was seemingly average here. We weren't even near the equator, which was much worse.

   Panic had an amazingly good time, I thought. He could identify everything. And if he couldn't tell me what it was, food or drink wise? He knew if he liked it or not, and could describe it to me. He bought a giant bag of dried banana chips, for a dollar bill. Back home? The store knows how to charge for this stuff, trust me. He had them mix handfuls of every kind. They had spicy, powdered sugar sweet, salty, and even what resembled some kind of dark chocolate powder. It wasn't bitter, but close. Panic explained it wasn't chocolate, but it was very close to the raw powder they make chocolate out of. He mixed it all up, to make a sort of trail mix.

   As he walked around, he added things. Dried fruits. Dried vegetables. Some spices. We ended up with a rather large bag of our own, what. Custom trail mix. There were bottled water vendors, but he showed us on the sly. You had to check the seal was intact and the plastic looked brand new. They would find empties and fill them up from lord only knew where.

   He found... something. And taste tested one. I asked what it was, he said he liked it. I kept asking what it was, and he kept saying he liked it, he knew what it was. But? I should just try it. Vlad had to have one on not a dare, but... then I had to try one. Crunchy. A little sweet. A little bitter. A little salty. Panic, the bastard. He speaks the language well enough he can ask and understand what things are. After we had all had a handful for pocket change? Yeah. Some kind of fried bug, with... whatever for flavor and coating.

   Once I try something, and kind of like it or don't mind it? Its hard to complain when you find out what it is. He admitted he didn't grasp exactly what it was, but... he was fairly sure. That's how he put it, fairly certain. It wasn't a bug, but, some larvae.

   Panic was excited to find a place to eat, and he knew what was on the menu. We didn't. He wanted to hit this shack for lunch. After the food section of the market, and I use that term loosely... there was what I would describe as the "bulk buy" section. Big bags of whole coffee beans. His method of choosing coffee? Crunch up a small handful of the whole beans. When he liked the taste? That was what he wanted to pick up. A conversation with the proprietor me and Vlad were not privileged to understand, had us leaving and him telling me we had to take some coffee bean bags home. Apparently? The price was to die for. He said we were not in the "coffee belt", but close enough for government work.

   Realizing Vlad knew the jet intimately? What bulk and weight could we take. Vlad said a thousand kilos would be no big deal. Panic wanted to lug big giant bags of coffee beans to the plane when we left. Then? What I will call, again very loosely, the garment section. People were sitting there, and looming like you only see in history books. It ranged, from the roughest cloth imaginable? To quite soft and fine stuff.

   He ended up seeing two things he liked. One? Old cowboy movies I've watched with him. As a kid, he was allowed to stay up late if this certain old western hero was on. The guy went on to become a mega movie star, but his roots? Were called spaghetti westerns. One of his favorites? The quiet guy hits town. He gets fucked with, by the local bad asses. He's polite about the hazing, but. He says friends can do that. And a friend would apologize. They laugh at him. He laughs and cautions them. Would you not rather be friends? Then, I can buy you boys drinks. Because if you don't apologize, I have to kill every one of you. They laugh, until they see he suddenly goes from zero to bitch in an instant.

   I remember the old cowboy movie, its a veritable classic. The quiet, seemingly poor stranger? Suddenly tosses back what looks like a decorative carpet with a head hole he's wearing back, and... his gun rig is showing. He's all business now. You will apologize. I will buy you drinks. We'll be friends. Or? You'll all be dead. What will it be. I'm paraphrasing, its all really cool one liners.

   Caught on their drunken bullshit now, they think. What's one man going to do. One finally goes for his gun? The zero to bitch stranger is a quick draw artist, and can fan the hammer from the hip with a quick draw from hell. He drops four or five bad guys, and walks off to get a meal and a drink. A passerby asks. What was your name? He just one liners him. I didn't give it.

   I've seen this late sixties movie clip on the internet. The making of a western legend. Panic? Is like a little kid. He just found? These carpets with head holes this guy wore in many of his old spaghetti westerns. He wants to take a stack of them home. Him, gifts for Little Robbie and Skykid. George, the range property owner. Even one for Szarabjorna Sturmer. I ask him, in all seriousness. When, in the fuck? Is Little Lightning... ever going to wear a South American carpet.

   His answer? For Halloween. For some dancing set. Or? For fucking me. He said, and I quote. I would kill, for her to walk into the bedroom, wearing this.

   Then, he found another thing he went gaga over. I thought it was heavy canvas cloth. A giant bolt of it. No. He explained, its heavy duty hemp cloth. He says, the old military uniforms, the old stuff you would die before it wore out? Was all hemp canvas. He wants... sweatpants, made out of this stuff.

   I'm fairly certain, that he's going to come into the bedroom. Wearing this decorative carpet with a head hole. And throwing it back, after I get humorous one liners about how I'm going to get fucked to death.

   Call me curious? Yet, I'm strangely fascinated with the concept. I find that I can not only live with the concept, but it gives me some tingles. You see, in another of his old movies? He drags a woman off by her hair to some barn. Throws her down, and ravishes her. After backhanding her, for raising her hand to him. She more or less ends up? Kind of liking it.

   Fuck it. Pretty sure, I'd like that as well. I mean, I'm usually on top and in charge in bed? But... once every week or ten days? Smack me around and use me like a cheap hooker, ain't no girl don't like that now and again if not more often.

   My glances tell him this, its not something I audibly voice in front of Vlad.

   Panic sweetly lectured us about the heat. It was worse on you, if you were in shape. Instead of fatiguing easily and sitting down? You'd keep soldiering on. He searched and found white tablets in jars. He was all smiles after his conversation. Pills? Not like him at all. He popped two into his plastic bottled water, and chugged it down before getting another.

   It was salt with some quinine in it. He explained. We'll sweat bad, and it will deplete us of salt. We'll also dehydrate, from sweating more than we're drinking. The Quinine? Fights us from getting malaria. The quinine made the salt bitter. The chalky aftertaste, if you put one in your mouth and melted it? Were other minerals that worked similar to the salt but in other body systems. A calcium compound, a potassium one as well.

   Fresh fruit and even the real juice with pulp was around. Great source of minerals, but we would get the shits. Solution to that? All the cheap bananas. The bonus, was all the extra potassium from the bananas.

   He said if you feel weak with a mild trembling sensation? It was too late, you'd also get confused. Act sort of senile. That was dehydration, loss of electrolytes, heat sick, or all of them. So? He started directing me when to drink, and how much. Handing me the funny tasting salt tablets two at a time. Monitoring my fruit and fruit juice intake. He wanted to know when I took a shit. What the consistency was. He wanted mashed potatoes at worst, and hard dry lumps that moved easily at best.

   Christ almighty, I feel like I'm four years old again at grandma's house. Did I go this morning? Did I go today. And Grandma had a secret weapon. Did I want a little piece of chocolate? Of course I did, what self respecting four or five year old turns down chocolate.

   An older adult dealing with a child? The little piece of chocolate? Was an over the counter laxative. I was too young to put two and two together. Why what happened later on, happened. My mom and dad had to sit me down, and patiently explain the game to me. Old people thought if you didn't go number two, every morning on a schedule properly? It would lead to getting sick. Mom and dad said it doesn't usually, but you can't tell old people that. They're set in their ways.

   The solution? My first little white lie. Next weekend? I was to go to the bathroom and lock the door for five minutes with my morning pee. Make a joke about the big number two I took. Grandpa was big on bathroom humor. And grandma? Would be happy my ass schedule was all fine, and quit feeding me laxative chocolate. Then? I wouldn't be shitting myself playing kick ball with the neighboring boys.

   Great. Wonderful. I'm a toddler all over again, and I have someone inordinately fascinated with my bathroom habits, monitoring my ass's schedule. Quizzing me on the consistency of every movement, not just timing. Feeding me strange things to control my ass and its own desires and inclinations.

   Vlad was curiously silent and grinned, listening to all this. And I saw him going for fruit juice and bananas at different times. The boys were six years old again, too. Who could drink the most water, the quickest. And that, was when it happened. The boys? Had a distance contest, pissing.

   Fuck it. I've been through this before. As a tall young girl playing sports with all boys. The piss Olympics. I suggested a puddle event.

   I'm shit for distance, but I'm rather stiff competition in the puddle event.

   Vlad said he wasn't used to the hot humid weather like this. But, that if we were ever in below zero cold and lower? He could hand out advice. Depending on where you were in Russia and former Russia? Long periods of twenty below were common. Freezing, was considered a heat wave in the middle of Russian winter. Visitors stood out like sore thumbs, when such a warm front came through in winter. The locals? Were in lighter winter wear. The tourists? Were bundled up like Eskimos. It earmarked you for getting mugged in Moscow.

   Panic described one of the weirdest things I ever heard. Team Sigma, Delta squad? Was a long range reconnaissance patrol among other rotating duties. Not only were they in shape, but they had a secret weapon for long hikes in the equatorial summer jungle. An actual saline water bag, like you get an IV in the hospital? You had one and it dripped directly into a vein on the inside of your thigh. They could move farther and faster than even the zombies. They could overtake them pursuing them in the jungle, and they could run faster and longer when being followed.

   In an extreme pinch? Panic could make his own.

   Again, what kind of a world do we even live in, that a person should have to know all that. Moscow Russians should be natural experts on the bitter cold, and acclimated to run around in T shirts when it goes up to break freezing. These people should know all about heat and humidity. You shouldn't have jobs where you have to travel halfway around the world, to play hide and seek for keeps in the jungles around the equator.

   Panic even had somewhat crude and therefore mildly humorous stories about all this. Your first summer in the jungle? They always deployed you as a virgin to it, at the end of the rainy season. That way, you had a chance to get used to keeping the gear during monsoon, and could acclimate to the rising summer heat better. Because he spent several years in Texas in the service before trying out being a contractor, he was already jogging ten miles in the southern Texas heat and humidity.

   They recruited guys from the south of the States. Who were already used to the heat and humidity. It suddenly made perfect sense, that Little Robbie and Skykid were there. They were both from the Carolina's near the coast. Summer heat and humidity were normal to them. You got monitored and watched like a hawk your first summer. Then, your cherry summer over, you got used to the specialty of working in monsoon season. Constant rain, and bearable temperature.

   Trench foot and jungle rot were the biggest problems then, neck in neck with water damage to equipment. So? By your second summer, you were now an old hand. If you saw a pile of human goose shit? You started asking around. Which new guy was going to get dehydrated and cost lives in the field when operating. If no one admitted to it, you had to stake out the shit spot on down time, and bust the loose shit-taker who was embarrassed.

   Things as simple as a foot blister or the beginnings of an ingrown toenail? Could get infected quick.

   Redwater guys that were a few years in, had been deployed in other places previously. A number of them were in the desert for a few years. There? Your body learned to hoard water eventually. When you finally started dropping hard balls for a shit, you were shitting like a local. Which was highly important. A loose movement? Told the locals where they were and what direction they were going. Apparently, once you hit this highly desirable point in your acclimation to the desert? You could wipe your ass with a postage stamp.

   And no matter where you were operating? You were taught to hide your piss and shit. Because you can track an animal, by following his piss markings and droppings. They used ultraviolet lights with little spray cans that made the piss glow under black light.

   Strange lore and stories galore. A silver dime in every canteen. It kept the water from turning. All of a sudden? Skykid's "fruity" real silver tea and coffee cups made perfect sense to me now. His real silver fork and spoon he used personally anywhere he went. But, you had to be smart. They had little rubber washers that fit around the silver dimes. No noise. Because the zombies knew about silver in the canteens, too. But? They weren't smart enough to get little rubber gaskets to silence the dimes.

   On night watch? The tiniest clink gave away that someone was nearby, having a sip of water while watching. But you didn't dare point and make a spectacle of yourself. You acted normal. You go and quietly and inauspiciously get one of the guys with the tested magic gut. He takes watch. He gets a feeling and can give a good direction to sneak out and come around the person snooping.

   Playtime.

   They had shoe soles that fit over their boots. It made your foot prints go backwards. To throw off anyone crossing your trail. They were now tracking you back to where you came from. They'd run into the team a day behind and get surprised and taken out. Busting a scout like that? Told you that you were somewhat near to a formation of the enemy. They fanned out and looked for piss trees, and started putting dots on GPS electronic maps. It was how you homed in on your prey.

   You would sneak in, and put a device under a transport truck. It dripped slowly. The drips? Were invisible to the naked eye. Under black light, though. They glowed like neon lights. You knew the direction and how fast the truck was moving. And, roughly how long ago. By seeing the distance between the drops, and by the brightness as it degraded.

   No, its always been obvious. These former Redwater men? Were highly dangerous. I remember Wizzy and the MP's. They were all regarded well and highly sought after, at all levels of law enforcement. They were aggressively recruited and promoted quick. To get their benefits they brought to the table. They were thought of as force multipliers. One guy that has ability and knowledge? Now imparts it to the men under and around and even above him. You're more effective, the more of them you can locate and court to work for you.

   But, these guys. The remnants of the now technically defunct original Redwater Group. They were really something else, entirely. Wizzy taught me that karma sees you evolve. If you do better, you come back the next time and get to take the next step. If you do nothing more, or worse yet slip back? You go back or repeat your life so you gain your lessons and can move on.

   Small wonder Wizzy came back to me as a former Redwater Group contractor. He had ran with the MP's, and was ready to take the next step.

   The universe was training and courting him to be an angel of death, with a highly refined sense of right and wrong. And now with the advanced techniques so he knew how to most effectively fix things. To set them right, as only an agent of karma can.

   These men are rare, but they exist.

   They walk among us, and you don't notice them.