THE DESTROYER #42: TIMBER LINE

Warren Murphy

For Chrissie, and the Eternal House of Sinanju

P.O. Box 1454

Secaucus, NJ 07904

CHAPTER ONE

The younger man did not Sweat. Even here in the steamy, putrid depths of a Matto Grosso night, the younger man did not sweat.

That is what Karl Webenhaus hated most about him. He hated it even more than the fact that Roger Stacy was noisily, joyously making löve to Webenhaus's wife in the open-flapped tent next to his. He hated the non-sweating even more than the fact that Stacy was going to kill him and claim for himself all the glory and the money from the discovery of the magic oil tree, which Webenhaus had worked and struggled and sweated after for so long. Roger Stacy had never sweated after anything. That was what Webenhaus hated most about him.

Webenhaus stretched and groaned. He put down his fountain pen and got up from the camp table and stretched again. His report was done.

He stretched one last time, then scratched his ample stomach. Fifteen years ago, he thought, that stomach had not been there. Fifteen years ago, he had been beautiful. So had Helga. She still was; but he wasn't, not anymore.

And why should he be? First, there had been all the long years of sabotaging Hitler's Third Reich while pre-

tending to be a loyal follower of the lunatic; that would age anyone. Then there was the predawn flight with Helga to the United States, arranged by his American contact, a thin, lemony man who never smiled. Then there had been the years of hard work, establishing himself in America, working as a researcher for Tulsa Torrent, the world's largest lumber company. And then the many years of trying to find the legendary oil tree. And, just before this last trip to the Brazilian jungle, the word from the doctor that some of Webenhaus's burgeoning stomach had nothing to do with food. It was cancer, inoperable and deadly.