Biff was wide awake now, the drone of the plane growing louder in his ears. With it, his suspicions of Serbot faded. The smiling man was leaning back in his seat, his own eyes closed as if in sleep. His hands were folded loosely across his stomach.
For the first time, Biff saw why Serbot wore that constant smile. The left side of his mouth was curled to match the right, which was drawn upward by a scar that began at the corner of his lips and became increasingly jagged until it ended beside his right eyebrow.
Before, the large rims and green tint of the sun glasses had helped to hide the scar; but Serbot had removed them before he went to sleep. Now, as Biff studied him, Serbot opened his eyes slowly and gave Biff a sleepy glance. Realizing that Biff had observed the scar, Serbot raised his right hand and traced it lightly with his forefinger.
“A decoration I received during World War Two,” he commented, “while I was working with the French Underground. A Nazi spy tried to give me this—” Graphically, Serbot swept his hand across his throat—“but I managed to save my neck. I received this instead.”
Serbot clenched his left fist as though it contained a weapon. He grabbed his left wrist with his right hand and shook his head.
“If anyone attacks you with a knife or gun, don’t try to stop him that way,” he said. “It won’t work fast enough, as I found out. Hit his wrist like this”—Serbot opened his right hand, bent it backward, and drove it against his left wrist—“with the heel of your hand, upward and outward. Try it.”
Biff practiced the action a few times and apparently won Serbot’s approval, for the smiling man added:
“That not only will stop him, it will jar the weapon from his grasp, enabling you to snatch it all in the same move.”
Serbot demonstrated that, too. Then, noting that some of the other passengers were beginning to look their way, Serbot changed the subject abruptly. Leaning toward Biff, he began pointing out more sights from the window, as the plane followed the north bank of the river.
There, the jungle had opened into widespread grazing lands, studded by a range of low, flat-topped mountains. Perched on one summit was a little town that Serbot said was called Monte Alegre. Then they were far out over the river again, and the Amazon once more resembled a choppy, yellow sea, until the order came to “Fasten safety belts!” The plane was coming to a landing at Santarém on the south bank.