Don't worry about it! His "tourist" helicopter was a Guatemalan candidate for the Air & Space Museum, an old Bell UH-1D patched together with chicle and corn masa. Surely the storm was pushing it far beyond its stress limits.

"Right, but what exactly—?"

"Sounds like the nav station." He clicked open his seat belt. "Something . . . Who knows? If you'd be happier, I'll go up and look."

I felt my palms go cold. "Doesn't seem too much to ask, considering."

The world down below us was a hostile mélange of tow­ering trees, all straining for the sky, while the ground itself was a dark tangle of ferns, lianas, strangler vines, creepers—among which lurked Olympic scorpions and some of the Earth's most poisonous snakes. If we had to set down here—I didn't even want to think about it. To lower a helicopter into the waves of flickering green below us would be to confront the hereafter.

"It's just the lights, like he said." Dupre yelled back from the cockpit's door, letting a tone of "I told you to chill out" seep through. He was peering past the opening, at the long line of instruments. He followed his announcement with a sigh as he moved back into the main cabin. "Relax."

I wasn't relaxed and from the way his eyes were shifting and his Gauloise cigarettes were being chain-smoked he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In his case it wasn't just the weather. He was fidgeting like a trapped animal, giving me the distinct sense he was doing someone's invisible bidding and was terrified he might fail.

"Well, why don't you try and fix it?" Was he trying to act calm just to impress me? "Can't you bang on the panel or something?"

"Okay, okay, let me see what I can do. Jesus!" He edged back into the cockpit, next to Villatoro. The wind was shak­ing us so badly that, even bent over, he was having trouble keeping his balance. Then he halfheartedly slammed the dark instrument readouts with the heel of his open hand. When the effort produced no immediate electronic miracle, he set­tled into the copilot's seat.

"Que pasa? " he yelled at Villatoro, his voice barely audi­ble over the roar of the engine and the plastering of rain on the fuselage. Then he looked out the windscreen, at the tor­rent slamming against it, and rubbed at his chin.