Blue Gold

"Excellent. How are the other privatization bills faring?"

"They'll do just fine. You'll be seeing publicly run water facilities being privatized all over the country."

"So there are no problems?"

"One maybe. The biggest pain in the butt is the editor of the daily paper in my state capital. He's raising a ruckus, and I'm afraid he might bollix things up."

She asked the editor's name and made a metal note of the senator's answer. Her desktop was free of pen and paper. She committed everything to memory.

"By the way, Senator Barnes, was the contribution to your reelection campaign sufficient?"

"Yes, ma'am, it was very generous considering I'm ru

A red light was blinking on the phone console.

"We'll speak again. Good-bye, Senator."

She pressed a button, and a door opened in the wall of the room. The Kradzik brothers, wearing their usual black leather, stepped inside.

"Well?" she said.

The thin lips widened in identical metallic smiles.

"We have fired Mexican farmer . . ."

". . . and lawyer as you ordered."

"No complications?"

They shook their heads.

"The authorities will spend little time on the farmer's case," she said. "The lawyer had many enemies. Now to other matters. There have been some developments on the explosion at our Mexican operation."

She touched the screen, and two photos appeared. One of the photos, taken by a surveillance camera, showed Austin and Zavala in the reception area of the tortilla plant. The other picture was an enlarged shot of the two men standing on the deck of the Sea Robin off Ensenada. Brynhild's eye went from the wide-shouldered man with the silver-white hair for a moment, then shifted to the handsome dark-haired man.

"Do you know who these men are?"

The brothers shrugged.

"That's Kurt Austin, head of NUMA's Special Assignments Team, and Jose Zavala, a member of the team."

"When can we . . ."

". . . eliminate them?"

The temperature in the cool room seemed to drop another twenty degrees.

"If they were responsible for the destruction of the Baja facility, they will pay with their lives," Brynhild said. "But not now. There's a minor problem to be taken care of." She gave them the name of the newspaper editor and said, "That's all. You can go."

The brothers hastened from the room like a pair of dogs sent to fetch a bone, and Brynhild was alone again. She sat there brooding about the Baja facility. All that work wasted. Even worse, the supply of the catalyst was destroyed in the blast. She stared with hate-filled eyes at the faces of the two men on the computer monitor.

"Little people," she snarled.

With a wave of her hand the screen went blank.

Chapter 17

Paul Trout turned the shower off and again examined its workings with scientific admiration. Water flowed through a wooden pipe and sprayed out through tiny holes in the hardened shell of a hollowed-out gourd. A simple wooden valve controlled the flow. The water disappeared through a drain hole in the hardwood floor. He stepped from the wooden stall, dried himself with a cotton towel, wrapped his body in another, and went through a doorway into an adjacent room lit by clay lamps.

Gamay was stretched out on a comfortable grass-filled mat tress placed on a platform bed. She had fashioned her towel into a toga, had combed and braided her dark red hair, and was sampling fruit from a large bowl like a woman of ancient Rome. She eyed Paul, whose towel looked ridiculously small on his tall figure. "What do you think of all this, nature boy?"

"I've seen worse plumbing back in the so-called civilized world."

"Did you know a civilization can be measured by the sophistication of its plumbing?"

"I can't say much for the uncivilized habit the locals have of sticking heads on sharpened poles, but this whole village is a miracle. Look at the workmanship in these walls," he said, ru

"She sent Tessa by and said she would see us after we've had a chance to rest. Talk about pulling a rabbit out a hat. I thought the Chulo grabbed Dieter's wife."

The goddess had offered no explanations. After greeting the Trouts by name and producing Tessa, she simply said, "Please be patient. I'll explain everything in time."

At a clap of her hands two young Indian women had emerged with heads lowered from behind the curtain. The bare-breasted ladies-in-waiting led the Trouts to their bedroom, demonstrated the workings of the shower, and left them with a bowl of fruit.

"I know better than to disobey a white goddess," Paul said, sitting alongside his wife. "What do you make of her?"

"Let's deal with the obvious." Gamay tallied her conclusions on her fingers. "She didn't grow up in these parts. She speaks English with a slight accent. She's smart. She's friendly. And certainly knows her fruit. Here, try one of these little yellow ones. It tastes like an orange sprinkled with ci

Trout sampled the plum-sized blob and agreed with the assessment. Then he stretched out on the bed, his feet sticking out over the end. They only intended to rest a little while, but exhausted from the long trek in the sun and relaxed by the shower, they fell asleep.

When they awoke they saw an Indian lady-in-waiting sitting cross-legged on the floor watching them. Seeing them stir, she slipped silently from the room. Lying on a table were their clothes, which had disappeared when they were in the shower. Their shorts and shirts had been washed clean of sweat and grime and were neatly folded. Trout checked his watch. They had slept three hours. They dressed quickly, hastened by the aroma of cooking food.

Tessa arrived and beckoned for them to follow. She led them along a passageway to a large chamber. A dark wood table and three covered stools occupied the center of the room. An Indian woman was tending to clay pots bubbling on a ceramic stove whose exhaust was carried through the ceiling by pipes.

The white goddess arrived a moment later, her barefoot presence a

"That's a remarkable setup," Paul added. "As a native New Englander, I was intrigued by your Yankee inventiveness."

"It was one of my first projects, thank you. The water is pumped by windmill into a holding tank to maintain pressure. It ties in with a ventilated system of pipes that runs through these walls and keeps this place cool even on the hottest days. It was the best air conditioning I could come up with given the materials I had to work with." Anticipating their curiosity, she said, "First we'll eat, and then we'll talk."

The cook brought over a vegetable and meat stew served with salad greens in blue-and-white bowls. Questions were for gotten as Gamay and Paul plunged into their food, washing their meal down with a refreshing faintly alcoholic beverage. Sugar sweetened cakes were served for dessert. The goddess looked on, amused at their hunger.