Prologue
Near Puerto Asís, Colombia
Carlos arrived just before dawn, knowing the comandante would be leaving early to tend to his obligations and before Senor Martinez returned from yet another “business” trip to the city of Cali.
He had climbed the tree to avoid the stone wall with its embedded glass shards and the alarm sensors that surrounded the hacienda. He brought only the minimum of equipment—a long hollowed tube from the branch of an Iryanthera tree, a small quiver formed from a gourd, and a half dozen ten-inch darts, each whittled to a sharp point. The darts had been dipped into a concentrated, highly toxic exudate from the skin glands of the golden dart frog.
As he had for so many hunts, he waited. Silent. Invisible.
Just after seven, he saw the comandante open the front door, kiss Senora Martinez good-bye, and walk toward his Land Rover.
Carlos pulled a dart from the quiver, wrapped the blunt end with fiber from the bark of the kapok tree, and inserted it into the breech of the blowgun. He took careful aim, and with one swift blow, the dart sailed invisibly through the heavy morning air until it struck the comandante in the middle of his back.
The comandante felt a gentle pinch as the dart penetrated his skin to the blood-rich dermis tissue below. He turned to look behind him but saw nothing. He reached back, but the dart was beyond his fingertips. Believing he’d been stung by a bee, he continued to his vehicle. Meanwhile warm blood was quickly dissolving the dried resin on the dart, and the fluid was surging through the comandante’s circulatory system—a poison so potent that one microgram, the equivalent of a grain of table salt, is deadly.
After a few steps, the comandante felt another pinch. This time he felt the thin lance in his back. He pulled it out and examined it. He looked around again but saw no one. Realizing what was in his hand, he made a desperate retreat to the house. Too late. Already the batrachotoxin was short-circuiting his nerve cells, freezing his muscles. In sheer panic he called for help, but only a silent scream echoed in his ears. Before the comandante could reach the door, his heart went into ventricular fibrillation, and he no longer could stand, as his legs buckled in paralysis, which was quickly followed by cardiac arrest, then darkness.
It was several hours before the returning Senor Martinez saw the dead man at his doorstep. The Colombian police were jubilant—some of them at least—when they notified Bogotá. The senora mourned in secrecy. And Carlos returned to Ecuador with his friend Gustavo’s blowgun. Justice was sometimes ugly, but the debt had been repaid.
Near Puerto Asís, Colombia
Carlos arrived just before dawn, knowing the comandante would be leaving early to tend to his obligations and before Senor Martinez returned from yet another “business” trip to the city of Cali.
He had climbed the tree to avoid the stone wall with its embedded glass shards and the alarm sensors that surrounded the hacienda. He brought only the minimum of equipment—a long hollowed tube from the branch of an Iryanthera tree, a small quiver formed from a gourd, and a half dozen ten-inch darts, each whittled to a sharp point. The darts had been dipped into a concentrated, highly toxic exudate from the skin glands of the golden dart frog.
As he had for so many hunts, he waited. Silent. Invisible.
Just after seven, he saw the comandante open the front door, kiss Senora Martinez good-bye, and walk toward his Land Rover.
Carlos pulled a dart from the quiver, wrapped the blunt end with fiber from the bark of the kapok tree, and inserted it into the breech of the blowgun. He took careful aim, and with one swift blow, the dart sailed invisibly through the heavy morning air until it struck the comandante in the middle of his back.
The comandante felt a gentle pinch as the dart penetrated his skin to the blood-rich dermis tissue below. He turned to look behind him but saw nothing. He reached back, but the dart was beyond his fingertips. Believing he’d been stung by a bee, he continued to his vehicle. Meanwhile warm blood was quickly dissolving the dried resin on the dart, and the fluid was surging through the comandante’s circulatory system—a poison so potent that one microgram, the equivalent of a grain of table salt, is deadly.
After a few steps, the comandante felt another pinch. This time he felt the thin lance in his back. He pulled it out and examined it. He looked around again but saw no one. Realizing what was in his hand, he made a desperate retreat to the house. Too late. Already the batrachotoxin was short-circuiting his nerve cells, freezing his muscles. In sheer panic he called for help, but only a silent scream echoed in his ears. Before the comandante could reach the door, his heart went into ventricular fibrillation, and he no longer could stand, as his legs buckled in paralysis, which was quickly followed by cardiac arrest, then darkness.
It was several hours before the returning Senor Martinez saw the dead man at his doorstep. The Colombian police were jubilant—some of them at least—when they notified Bogotá. The senora mourned in secrecy. And Carlos returned to Ecuador with his friend Gustavo’s blowgun. Justice was sometimes ugly, but the debt had been repaid.