Dedicated to the men of the Secret Services of the United States of America
Chapter One
He was definitely a Cuban Marine. He had this particular swagger, this incredible poise, even when crabbing across volcanic banks or hacking through jungles or sweating out his guts on mountain trails.
I had followed him for six miles through the night. Across the volcanic bank of Mt. Toro, through a section of the Nicarxa Rain Forest; now he was resting, getting his breath in short, gasping snorts preparatory to making the climb to Alto Arete.
Home of Don Carlos Italla, the wizard of war, the vicious chieftain of guerilla forces that would not let peace come to this beautiful land.
Don Carlos, the monk, the man of God, the religious fanatic whose religion was the taking of lives, the shedding of blood, the stirring of maniacal passions in men who would be far better off at home screwing their wives, tilling their fields, drinking their vino, loving their children.
And the Cuban Marines were the left hand of this God, this humble monk who loved war above everything and who lived in ultimate protection and seclusion among his monk-brothers in the ancient abbey that occupied the flat top of Alto Arete, three thousand feet above the jungle floor.
It was my job to bring the man down from his mountain lair. To topple the man-God. To eliminate the Cuban Marines, to educate the monk's followers or to kill them, to bring peace once again to Alto Arete and peace to the Reina Valley below that lofty peak.
My name? Nick Carter. My job? For the moment, to topple the man-god named Don Carlos Italla.
"Nick," Hawk had said, "we have put the finishing touches on a peace treaty that will end the long war between Nicarxa and Apalca."
"Are they both willing to sign?" I asked.
In fact, I had not known that Nicarxa and Apalca, two island Republics south of Cuba, had even been at war. But there are, at any given time, perhaps fifteen small wars going on in various parts of the world. It's the big wars that get all the publicity.
"Everyone involved has agreed to it," Hawk said. "Except for Don Carlos Italla. He is a violent enemy of the Nicarxan power structure. Religious differences, mostly, but there's a rumor that someone in the country once did something rather atrocious to him or his family. I don't know the details. I do know that Don Carlos must be shown the light. Think you can handle it, Nick?"
"I certainly can, sir."
If I had known what I later learned, I probably wouldn't have said anything so abysmally foolish. I don't know what I would have told the man, but it would not have been a definite, foolish, braggadocio like that.
I also knew that I had a great deal more to learn, all of it bad for our side. All I knew for certain (which was more than I wanted to know once I had learned it) was that Don Carlos and his closest lieutenants were on top of Alto Arete, which I could now see in the distance, dark clouds hovering around its great, lumpy peak. They were armed to the teeth. The only way up was by a narrow, winding mountain trail that left enormous gaps missing from its path. The trail was guarded from bottom to top.
What I didn't know was how many guards were on location, top or bottom. I also didn't know if other defenses were on the mountain — minefields, electrified fences, snake pits, guard dogs, that sort of thing.
The Cuban Marine was going to tell me what I didn't know, only he didn't know yet that he was going to tell me.
He was only a hundred yards ahead of me now. We were still two miles from the base of Alto Arete, where the trail began its vertical climb to the top, still swathed in cumulus clouds.
I increased my pace, sweating like a eunuch with an erection, narrowing the distance between us. Ahead was a small farmhouse, nestled in the foothills, sheep grazing in a meadow beside a meandering stream. The Cuban, as cool as viewer reaction to a new sit-com television program, veered from the trail and walked with uncanny grace down toward the farmhouse.
I waited until he had crossed the stream, then I checked my weaponry. Strapped to the small of my back was Wilhelmina, the big, booming Luger that had no notches for kills. If I had begun to notch my pistol, Wilhelmina would have disappeared long ago in a mass of filings.
There was Pierre, my admittedly old-fashioned gas bomb, but effective as ever in this world of modern chemicals, potions, drugs and hallucinogens spurted from aerosol cans. He was cool and calm in his tiny lamb's wool pouch right behind my testicles. All three were precious to me.
Last, but sometimes first to be used, was Hugo, my razor-sharp stiletto that is always in a sheath on my wrist. Always, that is, except when in use. Sometimes, though, I have to use more primitive weapons. They are also quite effective, even in this modern world. I call them "hands."
I stood near the trail, behind a banana tree, keeping an eye out above for the massive scorpions that love green bananas, and watched the Cuban disappear into shadows beside the farmhouse. I knew where he was. When the door opened and mellow light streaked out into the softly-moonlit night, it was confirmed. He was standing on the farmer's porch and I figured he had stopped for a drink of water, or perhaps vino.
I was wrong.
The feminine scream that rent the quiet jungle night told me one thing, and one only. The farmer had a daughter. The Cuban knew about her. He had stopped for fun and frolic, and she was not really very interested.
The Cuban Marine's obvious poise had failed to charm the lass.
Even as I dashed noiselessly down the path toward the stream, I triggered the release to snap Hugo into my hand. Time was important, but silence was vital. There was a whole detachment of Cuban Marines two miles ahead. One bark from Wilhelmina and the sound would ricochet off Alto Arete, sending the whole damned detachment down the trail in quadruple time.
Screams, especially feminine ones, didn't send them crashing out of their tents. Feminine screams had been rather commonplace in this valley since Don Carlos Italla had brought in the Cubans.
They would never become commonplace with me.
My boss, David Hawk, once told me: "Nick, you'll never fall prey to the real enemy. No man, however monstrous, however vicious, however powerful, will ever best you. You'll get yours, my boy, on the trail of a lady's petticoat."
The ladies I fool around with — and occasionally save — haven't worn petticoats in fifty years, but Hawk is a bit old-fashioned.
I got over the stream without even getting my shoes wet. Another scream, muffled by the closed door, cracked into the night. A wild, frightened bird from a banana tree responded with a horrible shriek. Then silence. So silent that I could hear the husky trickling of the stream behind me.
I disappeared into the shadows, but avoided the front porch. The first three windows produced nothing of interest — an overturned chair, a smashed pitcher, a rumpled rug, all indicating signs of struggle in the family parlor. At the fourth window, I saw the farmer and his wife huddling on their bed. They had to huddle; they were tied together.
The fifth window said it all.
The Cuban had stripped the girl, who was one hell of a ripe-looking young thing, and she was cowering naked on her narrow cot. Her black hair fell in cascades about her tear-stained face, covering most of her nubile breasts. She was trying to cover herself, but her slender brown hands couldn't handle all the chores at once.
The Cuban Marine was slipping off his pants, his tongue out, his bulging eyes taking in the view of nipples, creamy breast, pubic hair, rounded little belly, the long expanses of thigh that glistened enticingly in light from a kerosene lamp.
As the Marine slung his trousers against a far wall and began unbuttoning his tunic, I edged my hands up to the window frame. Hugo was clamped tightly in my teeth. The window wouldn't budge from slight pressure, so I gave it a healthy shove. Nothing.
The tunic was off, going the way of the trousers. The Cuban Marine was a husky one. His light brown muscles rippled in the kerosene lamplight as he whisked off a grimy white tee shirt and snaked his thumbs under the waistband of his shorts and jerked down quickly. His back was to me, so I couldn't tell what was going on in front until I saw the girl's eyes widen. She was staring at his crotch. What she saw brought new terror.
It was then that she gave me the opportunity to act without alarming the local Marine detachment or getting my head blown off. The man's rifle was leaning against the foot of the bed and the girl made a lunge for it.
She moved fast. The Cuban was late in responding, but he flipped away his shorts and dashed for the rifle just as the girl closed her hands on the barrel.
I hit the window frame with the heels of both hands, the lock broke and the window went up with the jerking swiftness of a killer carnival ride.
The girl was squealing, the man roaring, so the sound of the rising window was lost on that. I leaped in headfirst, ducking my head low to bring my feed around. I landed in the middle of the room on my heels and buttocks, then flipped up to my feet. The Cuban, his hands grasping the stock of the rifle, turned abruptly and glared at me, teeth and gums bared like a trapped animal's.
"Quien es?" the man hissed in Spanish. "Que pasa?"
"Just a little disturbing of the peace," I said, unable to resist that horrible old pun. Too bad he didn't understand English. As it was, I caught a tiny crinkling around the corners of his mouth. By God, he did understand English.
I was in my if-you-don't-attack-me, I-won't-attack-you crouch, Hugo glistening in my outstretched right hand.
The girl suddenly let go of the rifle and flipped back on the bed. Another display of streaking goodies until she yanked a sheet up around her.
The Cuban's eyes had followed her. My eyes had followed her. Now we were eyeball-to-eyeball. He had the right end of the rifle. I had the right end of Hugo.
"Quien es?" he said again in Spanish, asking me who I was.
"My name is Carter," I said politely, inching Hugo a bit nearer his now flaccid member. "I'm also known as N3, also Killmaster, the numero unoagent for AXE. Does that clarify things?"
He Began moving his hand toward the trigger guard. His large blue eyes were on my large brown eyes, although both of us were being torn apart by an urge to see what the beauty was doing on the cot.
"Lower the rifle," I said, "or I remove your manhood."
"No hablo engles," he said.
If he did speak English. I thought, he's taking one hell of a chance. His manhood was on the line. His hand moved another quarter of an inch on the stock.
I lunged forward. The man leaped backward. The girl screamed. I made a light swipe with the stiletto, drawing only a few drops of blood right at the stump of his penis where it disappeared into crinkly black hair. He yelped in the universal language of pain.
His finger found the trigger and I aimed Hugo to another place. It was a good aim. The vibrating point of the stiletto caught the fingernail and sliced through it as through icing on a baby's birthday cake. I felt the blade grind against bone as I whipped the stiletto up, nearly severing his trigger finger.
The rifle went flying, as I knew it would. The girl screamed again, as I knew she would. The Cuban had both hands on his bleeding manhood, as I knew anyone would.
And it was over. So easy. Talk sense to any man in any language and he'll get your point. Hugo is tops in his field at talking sense and making points.
What I learned during the next few minutes lade me sick to my stomach.
After untying the old farm couple and using the ropes to tie up my Cuban jock-commando-makeout artist-Marine, I learned that the people were Jorge and Melina Cortez. The daughter was Elicia, age seventeen. A son, Antonio, age nineteen, had been conscripted into the Italla guerilla band a year ago, hadn't been heard from — or of — since.
Elicia had lost her virginity three months ago when the Cuban Marines arrived. She had lost it the same way she was about to lose her free will tonight. A Marine had stopped by on his way between the village and the garrison, after having seen the girl riding her horse in the fields. Drunk, he had decided to test the wares, had found them suitable and had brazenly told his fellows.
For three months, Elicia had had callers almost nightly. Even though her parents knew the routine and never fought, the routine was always the same. Elicia screamed when a Marine appeared, the Marine tied up the old folks and ripped the girl's clothing from her body.
After three months, she still fought. Her hatreds were gestating like laboratory cultures.
Why didn't the old man get a gun and shoot the next bastard who came to entertain his daughter? Threats, that's why. A roll in the sack would be the least the girl could expect if the old man fought back.
The visits may not have been under the sanction of Don Carlos Italla, but he had been told of them, had said nothing. He needed the Cuban Marines; he didn't need that old farm couple and their lovely daughter.
"But why is Don Carlos continuing his battle when both governments want peace?" I asked the old man. I had asked Hawk and I had even asked the President that same question. Their answers had been couched in protocol, political guessing, rumor; much flim-flam. The old man's answer was the only true answer.
"Because he is a man of Satan, not a man of God."
What wasn't true, I hoped, was the old man's description of Don Carlos Italla. A giant of seven feet, a mountainous specimen of three hundred pounds, eyes like ingots of burning phosphorous, hands that could shred stainless steel slabs. A fury of a monster with a booming voice like the rumble of thunder.
Obviously, Don Carlos Italla was the local dragon, a creature to rival Tolkien's Smaug, hidden away on his evil mountaintop where no woman had ever gone, where Satan was welcome, where wars were planned, but never fought, in clouds.
Well, it was time for a few changes.
If Don Carlos would not come from his cloudy retreat to wage war with me, I would take war to him. My brand of war, on my terms.
Wizards and giants and men of Satan have always given me a royal pain in the ass.
Elicia had gone into shock after the little scrap between me and her would-be lover. Her mother bathed her, bundled her up and sat in the back bedroom rocking her on her lap, singing in a low, mellow voice of lost Spanish princes and faraway castles. The proper nursing for children. And she was a child, not equipped mentally or physically for the kind of abuse that had come to her from across the Caribbean.
Anger was building in me with every word the old farmer spoke. And the filthy soldier sat listening to those words, still holding his crotch. I couldn't be cruel enough to tie his hands behind him, but they were tied nonetheless. After listening to the old man, and learning also that this was the third visit for this bastard, I wished I had cut off his hands altogether.
"All right, up," I said, looming above him.
"No comprendo," he said, looking up with what I interpreted as disdain.
Good, you son of a bitch, keep it up. I'm only pissed off right now, you just wait until I get mad.
"You understand," I said.
He stood, but I had made a rising gesture with my hands as I talked, so it could have been from that. Maybe he didn't speak English. I knew that my Spanish wasn't adequate for the details I needed from this jocko. In time.
Jorge Melina gave me a lantern to find our way down to the barn. I didn't want him or his wife to see what was to happen next. It's hardly something you'd take to school for show-and-tell day.
The horse, whose name I learned was Pistola, glared at us through huge, frightened eyes as we stumbled into the ramshackle barn. I walked with hard strides, barely containing my anger. I wanted to hit. I mean, really hit. My intentions must have been obvious to my Marine friend, because as soon as we hit the barn he began to sing.
Chapter Two
The Marine's name was Luis Pequeno and it was not a pleasure killing him. Killing is never a pleasure, except for the hopelessly insane, even under extreme conditions when your life is threatened. I have never killed without remorse; I hope to God I never do.
What bothered me most was that my life was in no immediate danger from Sgt. Luis Pequeno. But, if I let him live, he would most certainly make his way to his unit and report my activities and purposes in the little island country. At that point, my life wouldn't be worth the sweat off Pistola's shanks.
What Luis Pequeno had told me convinced me of that.
The Cuban contingent, he said, was headed by Col. Ramon Vasco, a man who was every bit as much a maniac as Don Carlos Italla. Colonel Vasco had grown up in New York City, returning to Cuba to join Fidel Castro's revolutionaries in 1957. His experiences in the Cuban "minority sector" of Gotham had built in him a crushing hatred of Americans.
"He has told us repeatedly," Luis said when I had untied him, "that if we find any Americans interfering with our great cause here in Nicarxa we are to disembowel them and feed them to the pigs."
Even worse than Colonel Vasco's grimly-dedicated hatred of Americans were the solid military defenses he had arranged for the protection of Don Carlos and his fellow monks.
Alto Arete, Luis said, spilling his guts the way he had been instructed to spill American guts, was truly impregnable. The trail up the side of Mt. Toro was accessible only by ropes controlled from above. The gaps in the trail were the colonel's idea. He had dynamited them out to create immense chasms, and had established rescue stations above the points where the trail had been blown away.
From above, armed soldiers would ascertain if the traveler was welcome. If so, they would lower ropes and raise the visitor to the next level in the trail. If not, they would drop boulders on the poor sap. And the soldiers were so well hidden in their outposts above the trail that no firepower from below could unseat them.
Even before a traveler could start up the trail, he had to pass through a thousand Cuban Marines bivouacked in a base camp at the foot of Mount Toro. Security was tight here and, so far, no unwelcome visitor had made it past the Marines. Once, though, Luis told me, the soldiers at the first outpost — the first break in the trail — had mistaken a party of Nicarxan diplomats for the enemy and had crushed them all with boulders, then had emptied their Russian XZ47's into their wrinkled corpses.
If an unwanted visitor or enemy should penetrate the Marines and somehow make his way around the breaks in the trail, through bits of sharp metal impregnated with curare, that visitor would be greeted near the top of Alto Arete by a minefield. If he got through that in one piece, he would encounter a high metal fence charged with ten thousand volts of electricity. If, by some insane and perverse twist of reality, he should get over that fence without being fried to a crisp, he would be met by a hundred armed monks and vicious guard dogs infected with rabies.
Attack from the air was equally futile, even if I had access to a fleet of bombers or fighter planes. Computer-controlled antiaircraft guns rimmed the boundaries of Alto Arete. They had already destroyed the total air force of resisting guerillas and had shot down a number of private planes that had ventured near the sacred mountain column.
As if all that news wasn't depressing enough, Sergeant Pequeno went on to say that Don Carlos had plans to start a bloody revolution in just six days. The crazy monk, who was in constant radio contact with his agents in the capital, had arranged to have a group of Apalcan allies visit him on the mountaintop in a few days. If he gained their full support for his revolutionary ideals, he would signal the start of the war. His own guerillas, with the help of the Cubans, would annihilate all government resistance and would even kill the peace commission members already trying to work out a treaty between the two island countries.
After all the dust had cleared, Luis said, Don Carlos would be the undisputed chieftain of both island nations and would be surrounded only by fanatic believers. Together, under the leadership and guidance of these crackpots, Nicarxa and Apalca would commence a reign of terror, a crusade of conquests that could quite quickly lead the world into its third major conflict.
As far as I knew — and my information came directly from the President of the United States — I was the only American in Nicarxa. And I knew also that I was the only man outside of Don Carlos Italla's gaggle of crackpots who knew of his plans. In short, N3, Killmaster for AXE, was the only man who could stop Don Carlos. Unfortunately, I couldn't do it with the plans and weapons at my disposal. And I certainly couldn't do it if Sgt. Luis Pequeno walked free and told what he knew of me. I already had been exposed to his penchant for singing like a bird of everything he knew.
"Turn around, sergeant," I had said when Luis had finished his incredible tale. "Open the door to the horse's stall and go inside. I'm going to tie you securely and take your uniform. I have plans for it. You'll be safe here. Even the family you terrorized will feed you and bring you water."
There was a smile on the sergeant's face as he entered the stall. Pistola moved aside, her eyes glinting in the lantern light, afraid of this new incursion of her privacy. Luis was convinced of my softness, knowing that all Americans are soft and cannot summon the courage or the viciousness to do what must be done in a tough, troubled world. He felt safe because of that knowledge, and because he knew that his comrades would come by each night to see Elicia, and would free him.
I let those comforting thoughts rattle around in the sergeant's head for a time, feeling that it's bad enough to die with violence, much less with frightened and troubled thoughts. But my stalling wasn't mere stalling.
"One last favor, Sergeant," I said, taking out my notebook and a pen. "I want you to help me draw a map of the fortifications on top of Alto Arete. After that, I'll leave you to sleep and then Senor Cortez will bring you food. Will you help me?"
It took quite a while to get a suitable map drawn. I caught Luis in a number of lies, diversions from his original story, but I was finally convinced that the map was mostly accurate. I pocketed the notebook and pen, and got up. I walked around behind the Marine sergeant and slipped Hugo into my hand.
"I'll be leaving you now, Sergeant," I said softly.
He was turning toward me, a smile broadening on his face, when my hand leapt out and pressed the nerve juncture beside his neck at the top of his right shoulder.
He went instantly unconscious and I moved into the stall, Hugo in my hand. I plunged the stiletto through his ribcage, striking straight at the heart. He felt nothing and he died in a few seconds. I got a shovel and buried him in the stall. I buried him deep.
* * *
"Aaaiiii!
Elicia cried out in panic when I entered the house. She was still cradled in her mother's arms. She might have slept, fitfully, but now she was awake and the sight of the Marine's uniform sent her back to the depths of terror.
"It's all right," I said, hastily but softly. "It's all right, Elicia. I'm not the Cuban. I'm the man who saved you from him. I merely need his uniform."
Old Jorge and Melina were the first to come around. When they knew that it was me and not the burly Cuban, huge smiles spread across their wrinkled faces, revealing teeth that had never known a moment of dental hygiene.
"It is as he says, niña," the old man said to his daughter. "It is the good man, not the bad one. Where is — what have you done with the soldier?"
I told them. It would have been no good lying to them. Their eyes widened in horror and fright. I had to calm them.
"You don't have to worry about other Marines finding him," I said. "You'd have much greater worries if he were alive. Now, it's a certainty that his buddies will come here looking for him, and for Elicia. It's important that we get you all out of here, to some safe place in the mountains. I'll try…"
"No," Jorge said, shaking his old head vigorously. "Here is where I was born, here is where I will die. You take Elicia to my cousin's house in the hills. She can show you where it is. When the soldiers come, we will pretend ignorance. They will not find the body. If they do, we are ready to die. Please, take our daughter and care for her. Find our son and he will help."
"No," the old woman said, cradling Elicia closer to her ample bosom. "My child stays here."
"Basta!" the old man snapped, turning on her. "We deal in our own lives now, old woman. You cannot have all you wish in life. Take Elicia, take her now."
It was settled in that manner. When the Marines came, the old couple would say that the Marine sergeant came, raped Elicia and kidnapped her. A search would be made of the premises, but I'd buried the sergeant well, was wearing his uniform, and the smell of the stable would prevent even well-trained bloodhounds from sniffing out his grave.
Ten minutes later, I retrieved my knapsack hidden near the farm. Leaving my portable radio there, Elicia and I set out on foot in the darkness, heading along narrow trails in the inky blackness of the jungle night. The girl was no longer crying, but she was still terrified — and a part of it was fear of me. I made certain not to touch her as we moved through the night. A few times, we accidentally bumped together and she recoiled as though I were a snake. It was not the happiest of situations.
An hour after we left the house, Elicia came to a stop on a ledge high above the valley. She stopped without warning and I ran smack into her warm, supple body. She didn't recoil. I felt her finger against my lip and heard her low shushing sound.
"Just ahead," she said in a melodic accent that was surprisingly soft in view of her earlier screeching and carrying on, "is an open place where we should be able to see the main encampment. We must be careful not to be seen by them."
We moved slowly forward and, sure enough, entered an open area where we had a clear view of the Reina Valley below; clear, that is, except for the darkness that lay on the land like a black velvet curtain. In the murky distance, I could make out silhouettes of darkened houses, of trees, of the meandering river that ran down from the arroyos and gullies and springs of Mount Toro. There were few lights in the houses. Since the Cubans had come, most of the citizens had imposed a kind of curfew on themselves, afraid to venture out, afraid even of letting the pillaging Marines know that they were alive.
I brought my gaze upward and saw a dark column rising into the sky. It was Alto Arete and, from the lookout, the mountain column looked like an enormous chimney rising from Mount Toro. I hadn't seen Alto Arete from this vantage point before. It was imposing, impressive and, worse than all, frightening and impregnable.
Elicia tugged at my sleeve (the sergeant's sleeve, actually) and brought me nearer the sharp edge of the ledge. "To the left," she said, "where you see the glow of light."
I leaned forward, aware that my toes in Luis Pequeno's big combat boots were jutting out into space, and saw the glow, then what was causing it. Tucked away in a little valley off the main valley were dozens of campfires. They stretched up the narrow hollow and around the base of the mountain, like an electric necklace around an ebony neck. It was the thousand Marines, guarding the advances to the main trail up to Alto Arete.
In that moment, I gave thanks to the intuitive reasoning that had put me on the trail of the Cuban Marine. If I hadn't followed him, I wouldn't have found the Cortez family and this girl. Without the girl, I'd never had found this safe trail up the mountain opposite Mount Toro. Without this safe trail, I would have stumbled headlong into that encampment of Marines and would have been disemboweled and fed to the pigs. Or to those rabid dogs up on top.
"Beyond that encampment," Elicia said in that same soft, tuneful voice, "is the encampment of the guerillas supporting Don Carlos. None of us dares go near either encampment, but I have watched with my horse from this point. I am certain that Antonio is down there, with the other guerillas.
"But he's so close to home," I said. "Why wouldn't he break away and come back to his family?"
I could only guess at the expression on her face. I knew she was staring at me as though I were the dumbest gringo who ever lived.
"Deserters are shot," she said. "So are their families, including cousins and those who have married into the families."
"Sweet bunch," I muttered. "Okay, let's get you to your cousin's house, then I'm coming back here to wait for daylight."
"Why would you do that? You can stay with my cousin as well."
"I can't stay anywhere, Elicia. I didn't come all the way down here to hide."
"All right," she said, touching my arm again. I was starting to like that. "I will not hide either. Let us both wait for daylight."
There was no time to explain to her that I planned to figure out the best way to infiltrate that Marine encampment, as Sgt. Luis Pequeno, or that she would only be in the way of my progress. We were hours away from her cousin's house, considering how long it had taken us to reach this point from her parent's farm. I took her arm and pulled her away from the ledge. She didn't recoil from my touch.
"We'll do it my way," I said. "And that means getting you to safety and me coming back here alone."
"Everybody bosses the Nicarxans," she said almost sullenly. Then, she sighed. In the mellow glow from the Marine's campfires, I could have sworn that I saw a smile on her face. This time, the smile said, she didn't mind being bossed by an outsider.
It took three hours to get her to her cousin's house, actually a hut on Mount Toro's northern slopes. We had crossed and recrossed the valley, and the Reina River, so many times that I lost my way and doubted that I would ever make it back to that lookout point.
As we stood on the dusty road leading to the hut where Elicia would hide, she moved close to me. Her breath smelled of orange blossoms and I wondered how she had managed that, considering the lack of toothbrushes and toothpaste in her parents' home. She rummaged in a pocket and pressed a gold chain and locket into my hand.
"Antonio gave this to me on my sixteenth birthday," she said, "Give it to him and he will know that you are our friend."
"Maybe not," I said, always the doubting Thomas. "He might think I stole it from you. Or took it by force."
"No," she said. "Before we left my parent's house, I folded a note into the locket."
I started to object, recalling her reluctance to go with me, remembering how she had recoiled from my touch on the trail. And then I knew. She had trusted me from the beginning, but her memories of what those Marines had been doing to her was so fresh in her mind that she would have recoiled from the touch of any male. The fact that she had warmed to me at all was proof enough that the memories were fading as the trust built in her.
I thought about kissing her goodbye then, but discarded the idea. There is such a thing as pushing your luck. Even as I was thinking this, she stood on tiptoe, found my face in the darkness and kissed me soundly and sweetly on the lips.
And then, like a wraith or a shadow, she was gone and I stood like an adolescent lover on the dirt road following her body with my imagination. The strains of the lovely old song, "On the Street Where You Live" raced through my mind.
It was with great reluctance that I turned to retrace my steps to the ledge above the Marine encampment.
Light was just beginning to filter down on the mountains when I made it back to the lookout point Elicia had shown me. I snuggled close to the ground and watched the encampment as dawn increased. When there was sufficient light, I took my binoculars from my knapsack, studied the layout of the Marine detachment and could find no indications of which company was bivouacked where. Sergeant Pequeno had told me that he was in the Baker Company of the second battalion. I would do everything possible to avoid that battalion: even if I could pass as the dead sergeant, I had no intentions of being shot for desertion. Luis was already several hours AWOL.
But the uniform and my use of Spanish would at least get me into the encampment without drawing undue suspicion. After that, I should have no trouble finding out precisely where the guerillas were encamped, no trouble walking there to make discreet enquiries about one Antonio Cortez.
Or so I thought.
I again hid my knapsack at the lookout, chose a sector that seemed to have the least concentration of troops, picked out trails leading in that direction, and set off to find it on foot. The sun was coming up over the eastern mountains by the time I crossed the river and neared the edge of the camp. Campfires that had warmed them at night had gone out: new ones were being built to cook the morning meal. Only the sleepy guards and the cooks were up and about. I picked out a particularly sleepy-looking guard who was slouched against a tree. The makeshift sign just in front of his post announced: HQ-Zed Compania — Headquarters of Z Company.
"Atención," the guard said as I approached. He came to attention himself, more or less.
I put on my most sheepish grin, honed up a slurred, drunken Spanish, and told the guard that I was Sgt. Luis Pequeno of B Company, returning from a marvelous night with a local talent on one of the peasant farms. I said I was trying to get to my home company before reveille and would appreciate it if he didn't make a fuss and get me in difficulty with my lieutenant.
He grinned back his understanding and passed me on without missing a yawn. I was in.
I found B Company's headquarters' sign two hundred yards farther up the valley, adroitly circumvented it by crossing a high slope, and came into the purview of J Company up near the entrance to the main trail to the mountain, to Alto Arete. I loitered in the area for some time, taking in the terrain and the probable intelligence and alertness of the guards at the gate there, then was circling back to the area of Z Company where I hoped to forage for food. The smell of cooking up and down the narrow hollow was wrinkling my stomach and making me drool. It occurred to me that I hadn't eaten since noon yesterday. I had been busy during the dinner hour keeping watch over my quarry, Sergeant Pequeno, whom I had followed from that canteen in the capital to the home of Jorge and Melina Cortez — and to Elicia.
I stepped brazenly up to the three wiry cooks who were working at a primitive table, chopping up chicken and vegetables and tossing them helter skelter into a huge black pot over a blazing fire. With a few well-chosen lies, some sly winks and comments about the drawing power of the local lasses, I managed to cadge food. The first lie concerned my alleged special mission from Colonel Vasco. The cooks were mightily impressed with my status, so I ate well, crouched against a tree where I kept a wary eye out for scorpions. I should have been keeping a wary eye on the cooks; one of them disappeared while I dined on the stew and I never even noticed that he was gone.
"Atención!" It was a sharp command, sharply given. I locked up into the face of a man who had obviously done brutal things in his approximately forty five years of existence on earth. He was tall and broad, with an immense shock of black hair that was giving over grudgingly to gray. His broad chest was bedecked with enough medals to give an ordinary man fatigue just from carrying them around. "Su nombre y jefe, por favor."
I stood and, even though I'm a tall man well over six feet, I found myself looking up at the rough, scarred, pockmarked face of the officer. From his insignia, I guessed him to be Colonel Ramon Vasco. And he had demanded my name and the name of my commander.
"Sergeant Luis Pequeno," I responded swiftly, standing at attention. "My commander, Captain Rodrigues, has sent me from the guerilla encampment to warn that an American may have infiltrated his encampment."
The colonel studied me for a moment, trying to satisfy himself if I were an imposter, or merely stupid. I had tried to convey the idea of stupidity, had obviously succeeded. The thinnest part of my story concerned Captain Rodriguez. I knew no such man and was only guessing that, in a detachment of a thousand Cuban Marines, there had to be a captain named Rodrigues.
"What is Rodrigues doing with the guerillas?" the colonel asked. "He belongs with Q Company, right down the mountain there."
"He was sent with a few of us to investigate some unrest among the conscripted peasants," I said quickly, counting on the story about Antonio to be a common one.
"I have no memory of authorizing such a change in the captain's assignment." The colonel was still studying me, still convinced that he was witnessing stupidity, but perhaps also seeking a rat in disguise.
"I believe it was your adjutant who authorized the change," I said. I wasn't even sure the colonel had an adjutant.
"All right," he said finally. "Tell Captain Rodrigues that his message has been delivered. We know there's an American on the island, but he was last seen in the capital. There's no possibility of him showing up here — and certainly he will never find the guerilla encampment. Get back to your post now."
I moved away, swiftly, wanting to put a lot of distance between me and the strong, surly and obviously vicious colonel.
"Atenci6n, Pequeno!" the colonel snarled.
I was torn between standing at attention and running like a castrated wildcat.
"Not that way, stupido," Colonel Vasco said, laughing at my now obvious stupidity. "That way lies the lower minefield. Go back the way you came, over there."
Thank God, he was pointing off to his right, or I would have taken off in another wrong direction. Thanks to the colonel, though, I was finally on the way to the Guerillas. It could very easily have gone sour, though, gone all wrong. Sometimes, a little stupidity can work miracles.
But the misdirection wasn't what was making me sweat so much as I walked away over the small rise. I was sweating because I had just come through that section which the colonel had said was the lower minefield. The main miracle was that I hadn't stepped in the wrong place and been blown to bits.
Even so, the way to the guerilla encampment wasn't as simple as the colonel had made out. Within two hundred yards up a narrow trail leading from the main hollow, I was hopelessly lost. The trail ended and I stood gazing at walls of jungle. Vines riddled the high trees, creating a network of obstacles. Underbrush added spice to the sealed wall of green.
I was about to turn back, to seek another trail through, when a section of jungle shook, rattled and then moved aside. A grizzled man in peasant clothes and a Russian rifle slung over his bony shoulder, stepped into the opening and grinned at me.
"Are you lost, sergeant?" he asked in Spanish.
"No," I said, thinking fast. "I've been serving as courier most of the night and was on the trail when today's password was given out. I was afraid I'd be shot if I called out to you."
I knew enough about military operations to know about passwords and the daily changing of them. And I knew that this was a checkpoint where a password would be required.
"How do you know of this place?" the guerilla demanded, eyeing me with even greater suspicion, unslinging his XZ-47. "Only the leaders and a few select guards know of this place."
Obviously, I couldn't tell him that I'd merely stumbled onto it. Well, I had fooled Colonel Vasco with the story about a special assignment from Captain Rodrigues. I would move up in the chain of command.
"I was told of it by Colonel Vasco himself," I said, looking brazenly into the peasant face and keeping a sharp eye also on his hands that clutched the Russian rifle.
"And why did he not give you the password?"
"As I told you," I said, pretending exasperation, "I have been two days on the trail. I was not able to receive today's password."
He looked me over good, checking to see if the uniform really was mine, I supposed. The uniform fit like a glove, but the man still didn't seem impressed or convinced.
"Whom do you seek?"
"On orders from Colonel Vasco," I said, emphasizing the name of the obviously dreaded and feared military leader, "I am to locate a man by the name of Antonio Cortez and to bring him to headquarters."
The guerilla studied me much the way the colonel had studied me, trying to assess the depth of my stupidity, or my shrewdness.
"This Antonio Cortez," he said, slowly, clutching his rifle and walking through the opening of the jungle wall. I peered around him and saw that he was alone, that the thick vines and underbrush he had so easily moved rode on a wooden platform with huge rubber tires. It was an effective and ingenious camouflage. "Who is he and why is he so important to the colonel?"
I shrugged and looked as stupid as I could manage. "I am but a courier. I don't involve myself with the reasons behind the commands of my betters."
The guerilla laughed, coughed and spat up a wad of phlegm. The wad landed on my right boot. As I was studying the situation down there, trying to decide if he had done that on purpose, the guerilla swung his rifle and caught me in the forehead with the butt. I went down, my eyes watering from the blow, but still painfully conscious.
"You stupid fool," the guerilla said, shifting the rifle around and jamming the muzzle into my throat. "If you had come from Colonel Vasco, you would know the password. He gives it to the couriers the night before the change. Sometimes, they have a week of passwords in their knowledge, just in case they are on the trail when the regular troops are given the daily change. And, if you were from the colonel, you would know that Antonio Cortez is in the stockade, scheduled to be shot at noon today, along with twenty two other troublemakers and would-be deserters." He pressed harder with the gun barrel, almost cutting off my wind. "Who are you and what do you want here? Be quick and be truthful, my friend, or you will never be anything else but food for the maggots, scorpions and ants in this jungle."
I was about to ask why he would cheat the pigs out of a good meal, but decided flipness wasn't called for just now. Besides, he hadn't yet guessed that I was an American. That was good — or was it? Perhaps the truth would give me a few more minutes of life. There was no way I could reach and use Wilhelmina, Hugo or Pierre before this man pulled the trigger of his automatic rifle and reduced me to an entree for insects.
"I am the American everyone seeks," I said, corrupting my Spanish a bit to convince him of my gringo status. "I want to be taken to Colonel Vasco. I have important information for him, about an American attack being planned."
His eyes widened, but he didn't ease back on the rifle barrel. It was still jammed into my windpipe. I had spoken those words in a kind of falsetto, gasping for enough air to breathe, much less to talk. His eyes narrowed again and the grin was back.
"My instructions are to…"
"I know your instructions," I said, gasping out the words. "Disembowel all Americans and feed them to the pigs. But I have important news for the colonel. You'll be in great trouble if the news doesn't reach him in time."
He eased back on the rifle, but didn't lower his guard. "Why were you coming this way when the colonel is in the opposite direction? And what is this business about taking Antonio Cortez to see Colonel Vasco?"
I knew I couldn't do Antonio any more damage, especially since he was to be shot at noon. I would involve him more deeply in my web of truth and lies.
"Antonio Cortez is one of the key contacts for the Americans being sent to Nicarxa," I said, moving away from the rifle and sitting up on the ground.
The rifle moved back to my neck, forcing me to lie supine again. The guerilla's scowl was back.
"Cortez is just a boy," he said, sneering. "What could he know of Americans, of being an important contact. He is nothing, a peasant lad who fell into the wrong company and got himself a death sentence for his opposition to the great Don Carlos."
"Zapata was only nineteen when he set out to destroy the tyrannical rulers of Mexico," I said, drawing on my knowledge of revolutionaries.
"And he was killed for his efforts."
"But only after great successes in the field."
"True. All right. Stand up. Do it carefully. I will take you to my chief and let him decide what to do about you."
As I stood, I pressed the trigger release on Hugo and the stiletto slid easily into my hand. But the guerilla kept his rifle aimed at my throat and I had no chance to charge him. We moved through the fake opening in the jungle wall. Once that opening was Closed, I knew my goose would be cooked. This man's chief, I knew, would radio Colonel Vasco and, when the two compared notes, the colonel would know that I was the man who had fooled him. In his ire, he might well order me shot, disemboweled and fed to anyone or anything that happened to be hungry.
The bearded guerilla lowered the rifle and reached for a handle to roll the intricate gate back into place. It was my moment. I stepped in close, knocked the rifle aside and, before the man could call out, I rammed Hugo into his throat, twisted, gouged and pulled sharply upward. He died instantly and my remorse was minimal.
I pushed the opening aside again, dragged the guerilla's body through and back down the trail. I pressed my way into the jungle wall beside the trail, dropped the dead body in a thicket and arranged the undergrowth so that it didn't look as though it had been disturbed in a hundred years. It would take them days to find him, and then only by following their noses.
Once inside the compound, though, with the camouflaged gate back in place, I had no idea where to go, no idea how many more guerillas were between me and the stockade where Antonio was awaiting execution. Once again, I would have to follow my own nose and hope that it didn't lead me through minefields or up against men like Colonel Vasco.
It took only a half hour to find the stockade. Suspicion seemed to drop away from the guerillas now that I was inside the compound. It was inconceivable to them that any unauthorized person could make it this far; and the Cuban uniform kept them in awe. They were afraid to challenge the Cuban Marine sergeant who walked with a purposeful step and seemed to know precisely where he was going and what he was doing. Little did they know that I was a babe in the wilderness. A dangerous babe, but a babe nonetheless.
The stockade was recognizable by its high, barbed-wired fence, the armed guards around its makeshift gate and the scraggly, woebegone unarmed peasants peering out through the fence. I strode up to the guards and was pleasantly surprised when they snapped to attention. It was a plus gained for me by the arrogant Cubans and I decided to make best use of that plus.
"Bring the prisoner Antonio Cortez to the gate," I ordered in my best Cuban Spanish. "He is to be interrogated regarding information he may possess about an American who has come to Nicarxa to interfere with the revolution."
The guards — four of them — stared at me and at each other. They didn't seem about to follow the order with any degree of expeditiousness.
"Hurry it up, damn you," I said, being as arrogant as I knew the Cubans to be with these simple peasants. "Colonel Vasco is waiting for this information. Bring Cortez out here."
They bumped about a lot, into each other and even into the barbed wire where they snagged their already tattered clothes. But they got the gate open and, while three of them poised with aimed rifles at the motley crew of prisoners behind the fence, one of them went in to fetch a skinny, dark-haired, black-eyed boy who looked enough like Elicia to have been a twin. The build was different, though, and the height.
Antonio Cortez looked surly and uncooperative as the guard brought him to me. He seemed about to spit on my boots and I wouldn't have blamed him. If he had, though, I would have had to knock him flat for his efforts, to keep up my image as a Cuban non-com.
"Come with me," I said, palming Sergeant Pequeno's forty five and leveling it at Antonio. I glanced over my shoulder at the guards. "It's all right," I said. "I must interview him out of earshot. I will take full responsibility."
They seemed nervous about it, but the one man closed the gate again and the others lowered their rifles and snapped again to attention. It was working like a charm. So far.
When we were out of earshot, I turned to face Antonio, my back to the guards so that they couldn't read my lips if they were so inclined. That was a mistake on my part, but I didn't know it then.
"Don't say anything, Antonio," I said. "And don't express any surprise at what I have to say. Just listen and keep looking surly and angry. Do you understand?"
"Who are you?"
"A friend. An American. I was sent here by your sister." His eyes widened and a smile flickered on his lips. "Don't change expressions," I snapped. "Damn it, the guards are watching." The surly look came back.
"How do I know you speak the truth?"
"For one thing," I said, losing patience, "You have no choice. You're to be shot in a few hours. If I work it right, I may be able to walk out of here with you, pretending that I'm taking you to Colonel Vasco."
"Sure," he said, really surly now. "And once we're out of the compound, you'll kill me yourself."
"Don't be stupid. If I wanted you dead, I could fire eight now. Better still, I could leave you for your little party at noon. There's another thing." I fished the gold chain and locket from my pocket. "Your sister gave this to me. There's a note folded up in the locket. You can't take a chance on reading it now. You have to trust me. And we…"
"You bastard," Antonio exploded. "You took this from her. You killed her and took this and came trying to convince me to tell what I know of the counter-revolution."
"Again," I said, sighing more deeply as patience ran thin, "don't be stupid. I left Elicia very much alive at the home of your cousin. She gave me that chain and…"
"What is our cousin's name?"
I told him the name Elicia had given me, having never met the cousin.
"You could have gotten the name from the authorities," he snapped. "They know all my family and will kill them as soon as I'm executed. But of course you know all that since you are from the authorities."
"And you're strictly from hunger," I said, losing all patience with this bullheaded little counter-revolutionary. "Listen to me. I'll tell you how I happen to be here."
I told him about following the Cuban Marine, about stopping him from raping Elicia. I made the mistake then of telling him that it was one of a series of rapes. He exploded in rage before I finished.
"You filthy pigs," he screamed. I could hear — even feel — the guards stirring behind me. At any moment, they would open fire on Antonio, kill him and then bring the local commander to question me about what the hell was going on. I held up a hand to shush the hothead, but he was off on a tirade.
"I will kill you all for what you've done to my sister. I will not die at noon, you filthy bastard. I will live and I will lead the counter-revolutionaries to wipe every stain of you from the face of Nicarxa. You come to me with a chain and a locket that you took from my sister while you were defiling her, you fucking animal…"
The guards were rushing up behind me now. I could hear the click and slap of their rifles as cartridges were injected into the chambers. I had only seconds to act, and it would take a week to calm down the raging Antonio Cortez.
I leaped forward and knocked the slender Nicarxan flat on his ass. In the same motion, I had Wilhelmina in my left hand. I whirled as the startled guards tried to decide where they should aim their rifles — at me or at the fallen Antonio.
They hesitated too long. I let fly with both guns — Wilhelmina and the Marine sergeant's sidearm forty five. With four well-aimed shots, I downed all four guards.
But there was a hue and cry all around the camp beyond the stockade and I saw fresh guards gathering up weapons and running in our direction. I reached down and grasped Antonio's hand, pulling him to his feet.
"Follow me," I snapped. "If you do, we might have a chance of getting out of here. If you don't, then you can go to hell for all I care."
I took off running, hoping I hadn't lost my sense of direction for the trail that had brought me into this nest of trouble.
Chapter Three
There was no way I could use the gas bomb, even if I could get to it in time. I would have killed Antonio's friends in the stockade — and there were more of them than I first thought. The sound of the shots brought dozens of them out of low, mean huts into the stockade yard.
And guerillas and Cuban Marines were streaming out of barracks beyond the stockade. Running alone wouldn't do it for us. I had to create a diversion.
"Get the guards' rifles, and sidearms," I shouted to Antonio as I sprinted for the gate in the barbed wire fence. "Come on. Make it quick."
I opened the gate and the dissident guerillas came streaming out, going for the weapons that Antonio was already assembling in a pile. Antonio himself clutched a Russian automatic Volska and was priming the chamber for an assault on the on-rushing guards.
We both opened fire at the same time, Antonio with the wicked Volska, me with Wilhelmina and the forty five. The guerillas all hit the dirt, flat on their bellies. Some of them even turned and ran. But the Cuban Marines, better trained and better motivated, kept on coming.
Just when it looked as Antonio and I would be overwhelmed by the Marines, who had already opened fire on the run, a half-dozen of Antonio's friends took professional stances to our right and opened a withering fire against approaching Marines. Their three Volskas and three forty fives thundered in the dusty compound.
This time, even the Cubans took cover. There is such a thing as bravery and dedication: there is also such a thing as stupidity. The Cubans weren't stupid.
In that brief respite, while the Marines were seeking cover — and while some of them were shouting at the other guerillas to come out of hiding — I tugged Antonio's sleeve and nodded toward the narrow trail leading back into the jungle. Hopefully, it was the one leading to the camouflaged gate on wheels.
"We'll retreat in alternate waves," I said. "Let's take a point at the trail's entrance, then open fire while your friends fall back."
It worked like a charm. Or almost like one. It was aided by Antonio's unarmed friends who had been dashing around in the compound, creating confusion by looking for weapons. Some of them were brave enough to dash all the way to the first group of fallen Cubans to rob them of weapons.
Antonio and I, along with two of his rebel friends, took up positions at the entrance to the trail. We opened fire again on the regrouped Cubans, careful to miss Antonio's scrambling, hustling friends. As we fired, more than a dozen of the rebels dashed past us up the trail, found a high point on the hillside and began firing down on the Cubans.
"Okay. Our turn next. Let's get on the trail."
"No," Antonio said sharply. "I stay here until they're all dead."
He was one hard head. "Look, champ," I said, "if you don't move your ass right now, I'm going to pump a bullet into it. There's no time for arguments. Colonel Vasco's whole damned battalion will be here in a matter of minutes. Now move it."
To emphasize my command, I held the forty five aimed at his head. That surly look came back and he considered resisting even me. But he fired another burst from the Volska, sent a squad of Cubans flying into the dirt, and then hot-footed it up the trail. I went after him.