The last cryptic message from Hi, a month earlier, had prepared the food magnate for something extraordinary--Hi, said the telegram, was embarking on a secret four-month expedition that would be explained later, that could not be allowed to fail, and that Edgar must materially support. Yet Diego's story was all but beyond credulity. Edgar was almost hyperventilating as he paced.
"My son Hiram a vampire? But he's never been in trouble before. Now he's running around with Hitler?"
"All according to plan," Diego quietly reiterated. "If it works, Mister Hickenlooper, your son will be the greatest unsung hero of the twentieth century, if not of all time."
"I just wanted him to find some damn ruins." Edgar tried to calm down. "What do you need from me?"
"Garlic powder." Edgar gaped at Diego. Was this a practical joke after all? "Garlic flowers are a vampire repellent," said Diego. "Enough powder will confuse, temporarily incapacitate--we hope."
Edgar sighed. "My son a vampire."
The parrot said, "Let's go find a lost city."
Remembering something, Edgar looked urgently at Diego. "This vampire cure--you say there's a cure?"
"Yes. We think so." Diego chuckled.
"Get off your ass, Hi," said the parrot.
"Why are you laughing?" Edgar asked Diego.
"Wait till you hear what the cure is."
Edgar delivered the goods. One month after his talk with Diego, a DC6 cargo plane, full of nothing but stacked boxes of Hickenlooper Foods garlic powder, landed on the airstrip at Canutama, Brazil. McKay himself watched the DC6 land, as did a shirtless, muscular contract pilot who was holding a paintbrush. The pilot was painting insignia on the nose of a crop duster, one of three that were parked by the jungle strip. One duster already sported a feisty little fire-breathing dragon on its nose, with the caption DUSTY DRAGON. On the nose of the second duster the pilot was presently painting a caricature of himself, grinning and bent over, his bared butt blowing out garlic powder. The caption would be EAT MY DUST.
Operation Newfangled--as Hi, Diego, and McKay had named what McKay called "our plan" on that last planning night in Manaus--called for the three crop dusters to deliver the "dust" over Hitler's lair at sunrise on the one hundred and twentieth day. McKay, Diego, and a team of war-hardened commandos would then hit the compound.
But the hope was that, by the time Hi got through at Neuanfang on the one hundred and nineteenth night, the garlic powder and commandos would not even be needed.