Hot Ice

understand sweetness,” she commented, “and others don’t.” Picking up her pack, she followed Jacques.
    “Sweetness,” Doug grumbled as he struggled with the rest of the gear. “I’ve got a pack of wolves after me and she wants sweetness.” Still muttering, he kicked out the campfire. “I could’ve picked her a damn flower. A dozen of them.” He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of Whitney’s laughter. “Oh Jacques, it’s exquisite,” he mimicked. With a snort of disgust, Doug checked the safety on his gun before he secured it in his belt. “And I can open a goddamn coconut too.” He gave the fire one last kick before hefting the remaining gear and starting toward the canoe.
    When Remo nudged one expensively shod toe into the campfire, it was no more than a pile of cold ash. The sun was straight up and streaming; there was no relief from the heat in the shade. He’d removed his suit jacket and tie—something he’d never have done in front of Dimitri during working hours. His once-crisp Arrow shirt was limp with sweat. Tracking Lord was becoming a pain in the ass.
    “Looks like they spent the night here.” Weis, a tall, bankerish-looking man who’d had his nose broken by a whiskey bottle swiped sweat from his forehead. He had a line of insect bites on his neck that constantly plagued him. “I guess we’re about four hours behind them.”
    “What’re you, part Apache?” Giving the fire a last violent kick, Remo turned. His gaze rested on Barns, whose round moon face was creased in smiles. “What’re you grinning at, you little asshole?”
    But Barns hadn’t stopped grinning since Remo had told him to take care of the Malagasy captain. He knew Barns had, but even a man of Remo’s experience didn’t want to hear the details. It was common knowledge that Dimitri had an affection for Barns, the way one had an affection for a half-witted dog who dropped mutilated chickens and small mangled rodents at your feet. He also knew that Dimitri often let Barns take care of employees on their way out. Dimitri didn’t believe in unemployment benefits.
    “Let’s go,” he said briefly. “We’ll have them before sundown.”
    Whitney had herself nestled comfortably between the packs. Lengthening shadows from cypress and eucalyptus fell on the dunes alongside the canal and on the thick brush on the opposing side. Thin brown reeds waved in the current. From time to time a startled egret folded in its legs and lifted off into the brush with a whoosh of wings and rush. Flowers poked out, profuse in places, red, orange, and melting yellow. Orchids grew as haphazardly as poppies in a meadow. Butterflies, sometimes alone, sometimes in troups, swooped and fluttered around the petals. Their color was a blaze against vegetation and the dung brown of the canal. Here and there crocodiles stretched on sloping banks and took in the sun. Most barely turned a head as the canoe rowed by. The fragrance lifting over the scent of the river was lazily rich.
    With the brim of Jacques’s cap shielding her eyes, she lay crossways in the canoe, her feet resting on the edge. The long fishing pole Jacques had fashioned rested loosely in her hands as she half dozed.
    She decided she’d discovered just what Huck Finn had found so appealing about floating down the Mississippi. A good deal of it was bone laziness and the rest was wide-eyed adventure. It was, Whitney reflected, a delightful combination.
    “And just what do you plan to do if a fish reaches up and bites on that bent safety pin?”
    Taking her time, Whitney stretched her shoulders. “Why I’d drop him right in your lap, Douglas. I’m sure you’d know exactly what to do with a fish.”
    “You cook ′em up good.” Jacques paddled with the long steady strokes that would’ve made a Yale alumnus’s heart patter with pride. Tina Turner helped him keep the rhythm. “My cooking…” He shook his head. “Pretty bad. When I get married, I have to make sure my wife cooks good. Like my mama.”
    Whitney made a snorting sound from under the cap. A fly landed on her knee but it was too much effort to brush it aside. “Another man whose heart’s in his stomach.”
    “Look, the kid’s got a point. Eating’s important.”
    “To you it’s more like a religion. Do it with the proper tradition and respect or not at all.” She shifted the brim of her cap so that she could see Jacques more clearly. Young, she thought, with a good-humored, good-looking face