by Dane Hartman
Ellie was in a state of conflict. In one week she had witnessed more violence than she had ever wanted to see in her entire life. So in one sense, she was ready to go home to the security of the KCVO news anchor desk. But that would mean sacrificing the story she had gone to such desperate lengths to obtain. She had come this far; why not go all the way? In the end, she decided as Harry suspected she would, and declared her intention to accompany him to El Salvador.
Like her exasperated boss back in San Francisco, Harry knew better than to object. She had amply demonstrated her persistence and her courage; to argue with her was as mad as—well, as mad as going to El Salvador in the middle of a war.
On this occasion, however, Ellie said that she would be content just to stay in the hotel and not venture out on the streets.
But since they were registering as Mr. and Mrs. Harry Grave—the name not chosen arbitrarily—in the same hotel where Mr. Cravitch and Kayyim were expected to show up, this did not necessarily guarantee her safety. Harry reminded her of this. She just said, “I’ll be a good girl and get a lot of reading done.”
Harry didn’t know how seriously to take her—in terms of this remark or anything else.
They arrived in El Salvador on a sizzling tropical night. The shooting didn’t sound quite as bad as it had in Beirut, but that undoubtedly made no difference to the victims whose bodies would turn up in all sorts of unlikely places once the sun came up. Some of the residents of the capital continually complained about the corpses, often mutilated and riddled with gunshot wounds, that they would have to step over to get out of their houses each morning. This was not the kind of thing to inspire a great deal of tourism.
Just as it had been in Beirut, one never quite knew who one’s enemies were. They might be from the left, but the likelihood was that they were from the right. Often they were members of the nation’s security forces who cloaked themselves in the anonymity of sinister death squads. A banker, a schoolteacher, a minister, a youngster, a young bride: no matter how innocent one might be, if one rubbed somebody the wrong way or happened to keep the wrong company or turn up at the wrong place at a very wrong time, he too might end up on somebody’s doorstep in the morning.
“A couple of Americans down here to advise on land distribution were shot to death in the restaurant in this hotel,” Harry told Ellie. “Somebody walked in, blew them away.” He did not wish so much to frighten her—she might have recalled the story on her own in any case—but he did want her to be more aware of the risks than she’d been in Lebanon.
“I think,” she said after a few moments of hesitation, “I think that I’ll have my meals sent up to me.”
Their room was nicely kept; the maids, squat, dark Indian women with sorrowful eyes, did not stop coming just because of the war. The rates were cheap, too, since it was obviously a buyer’s market.
Harry noticed right off that the bed was a double and not a twin. “I’ll have to call down and see if they can change it,” he said and was about to do so when Ellie stopped him.
“I see no reason to bother them. I think it’s fine the way it is.”
Harry didn’t put the phone down; instead he dialed Room Service. He was rather surprised when someone picked it up. He had begun to wonder whether anything worked in this country except for a relentless killing machine that had claimed in excess of twenty thousand lives.
“I’d like a bottle of your best champagne,” he said. “I don’t care what the cost is.” Turning to Ellie, he added, “Especially since the U.S. Government is footing the bill for it.”
By the time the champagne arrived, conveyed by a mestizo who looked like he’d be deft with a machete, Ellie had changed into something she judged appropriate for a sweltering night in San Salvador. Unlike Harry, who would have chosen a bullet-proof vest as part of his stay-at-home wardrobe, she had elected to wear a cream-colored gown that was slit up both sides. She had only to stand in front of the lamp for the gown to become fully transparent, an effect that she sensed Harry might appreciate for she very rarely moved away from the light.
“You should wear that when you do the nightly news,” remarked Harry. “I’m sure your ratings would go through the roof.”
He began to work the corkscrew, the only thing keeping them from a vintage bottle of Taitinger. There was a loud pop. But it wasn’t from the champagne. Harry went to the window and looked out. There was another pop. That wasn’t from the champagne either; that was from some joker who was either setting off firecrackers or setting off explosives. Harry guessed that it would have to be the latter. To Ellie he said, “Make sure you don’t stand too close to the window.”
The next popping noise was a more innocent one. Champagne frothed over the neck of the bottle. The only problem was what toast they should make.
“To a long life,” Ellie said.
A rapid burst of machine-gun fire echoed down in the street, mocking her declaration. Then there was a loud scream, the type of scream that could send chills down one’s back, then silence.
“To any life at all,” Harry said, clinking glasses.
She was suddenly afraid or rather the fear that she’d suppressed up until now was coming to the surface. Her hand was shaking. It was hard for her to keep the glass steady in her hand. She stepped over to Harry and threw her arms around him and nestled her head against his chest. For a moment, he held her tightly, feeling the warmth of her skin against the light fabric of the gown. But it was only for a moment.
Somebody was rapping on the door.
Ellie broke away from him. He, in turn, reached for his gun although he did not believe that they faced any danger. Would a terrorist or a member of a death squad bother to knock?
Still, he was careful about the way he opened the door.
In sauntered Jake Brady, accompanied by a man in a rumpled suit who looked as shady as anyone Harry had ever seen in an old Howard Hawks movie he’d caught on late night T.V. Both of them carried briefcases which made them seem important, not a particularly wise image to present in El Salvador. Important people were occupying a great many important graves these days.
Brady glanced around the room, Ellie had discreetly taken refuge in the bathroom; the only way Brady would have to register her presence was through his nose; her perfume hung heavily in the air. He refrained from making any comments.
Instead, he took a seat and so did his friend. Seeing the glass of champagne Ellie had discarded, he picked it up, sipped at it, pronounced it of reasonably good quality. Then he said, “Why are you here, Callahan?”
“I thought I explained that to your station chief in Beirut. I assumed he passed along the information.”
“He did, but I want to hear it in your own words,”
So, wearily, Harry related to him why he was here, that he expected Kayyim and Cravitch and that it seemed to him by removing these two men, he would be doing a great deal to thwart an international terrorist network. “That’s what you wanted me to do, if I remember our conversation a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco.”
Brady owned that this was so. He said, “I don’t care what happens to Kayyim. If you can dispose of him without the American government being linked to it, all well and good. The problem is with Russell.”
“Russell?”
“Russell Cravitch. We don’t want him touched.”
“You are aware of the fact that he’s been arming the Libyans, the PLO, the Basque separatists, the Provisional IRA, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and the Red Bridages, among others, for several years?”
“I have no comment on that. My instructions from Washington are explicit. Kayyim is one thing, but Cravitch is quite another kettle of fish. If you so much as take him in for interrogation, you will be in deep trouble. I cannot be responsible then for what would happen to you.”
Harry knew a threat when he heard one. “The plastique used to blow up San Francisco Airport—that came from Cravitch’s warehouse in Beirut. The Alpha Group acquires arms from Cravitch, co
urtesy of Kayyim’s funding. Now you tell me he’s not to be touched. Is he supposed to go on providing arms to these people or is this a part of another investigation I know nothing about?”
Brady didn’t like these questions nor the fact that it was Harry asking them. “Actually, I think it would be preferable if you returned home. Tomorrow morning there’s a plane leaving for Miami, I want you and your friend—” he nodded toward the bathroom and continued, “I want her to be with you. You’ve helped us enormously, the agency is grateful to you, but your presence in San Salvador can only make things much more difficult for us.”
“You change your mind very quickly.”
“I was sent here to evaluate you and now that I’ve made that evaluation, there’s nothing more to discuss. You are, frankly, not reliable enough for our purposes.”
Then Harry realized why Cravitch would remain immune from prosecution or disposal: he was supplying arms to the other side as well, to elements supported by the U.S. government. He had heard rumors that Cravitch had once been with the agency, and there were those who insisted he still was. It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that Cravitch and Brady had once been colleagues, perhaps even friends. He knew very well Brady would deny such a connection. He was a man well-trained to lie; it was his business, after all.
Instead, Harry said, “I’ll be on that plane tomorrow.”
Brady seemed astonished that he should give in so easily.
“It’s at 10:40. There’ll be a taxi waiting for you and Miss Winston—or is it Mrs. Grave?—an hour before. I wouldn’t want you to be late.”
The two agents let themselves out.
Only then did Ellie emerge. “I heard what they said. “Are you actually planning on leaving here?”
“Oh, yes, for a couple of hours. We will go to the airport like they want us to, but we won’t be on the plane when it leaves. That is, I won’t be. You have the choice.”
“I’ve made it,” she said, giving Harry a lingering kiss. “Now let’s see if we can’t resume where we left off a little while ago.”
It was the best proposition that Harry had heard in some time.
The unidentified man who’d barged in with Brady the night before had evidently been assigned the task of following Ellie and Harry and making sure they got off to Miami as they were supposed to. Harry noticed that he still had on his rumpled suit.
Certainly, he would have little reason to doubt that they had any other intention aside from complying with Brady’s edict; they were both lugging suitcases and tote bags. How was he to know that they were empty?
Harry hadn’t quite figured out how he was to deceive the tail, but he was sure he could devise some plan.
The airport was crowded with throngs of Salvadorian citizens, mostly those with money, who were happy to get out of the country. Great numbers of relatives congregated in the waiting areas, hoping to see their loved ones off.
Harry allowed their tail to observe them at the airline desk where they were provided tickets, courtesy of the U.S. Government, and directed to the departure gate. He made sure they were seen checking in their luggage and undergoing the usual customs formalities. They even joined the other passengers filing through the departure gate.
But they never got on the plane. The man in the rumpled suit watched it soar into the sky, satisfied that his mission was completed; he never realized that Harry and Ellie hadn’t left the airport.
Another plane landed only ten minutes after the flight to Miami had taken off. Harry was just about to hire a taxi back into town when the passengers debarking from it began to stream into the terminal.
One of the men was instantly recognizable. One gets familiar with someone after chasing him around half the globe. It was Kayyim. Inevitably, he was flanked by bodyguards.
He was taking no chances this time.
“Our friend showed up,” he whispered to Ellie.
She quickly looked back, then stepped into the shadows again.
The Libyan minister was too preoccupied to have taken note of them.
They found a taxi but rather than taking it immediately back to the capital, they waited until they could see where Kayyim was headed.
As it happened, Kayyim did not go to the Sheraton, but instead chose a route that took him into a district of San Salvador called San Benito, an obviously prosperous suburb situated on a slope of a dormant volcano.
Maybe, Harry thought, there had been a change in plans. Whatever the case, Kayyim’s destination turned out to be a white stucco villa situated behind high walls adorned with barbed wire. Men with automatics and German shepherds patrolled the perimeter.
Somebody of great significance lives here, Harry decided.
He had kept his eyes so riveted on the Lincoln carrying Kayyim just up ahead of him that he failed to see what was happening behind him.
Ellie did, however. She nudged Harry who turned around and saw three armed motorcyclists racing after them. Their faces were hidden by reflecting glasses; otherwise they were all in black leather ornamented by silver epaulets.
Harry tried to get the driver to speed up. He was reluctant to take any action; his hands were frozen on the wheel and his eyes were filled with terror.
The road they were on wound up to the gate of the compound. Another quarter of a mile and the limousine would be through it and Kayyim would be lost to him again. Already the security guards were in the process of opening the gate to admit the Lincoln.
The motorcyclists were meanwhile gaining on them from behind.
“Get ready for a bumpy ride,” Harry warned Ellie. Then he vaulted over the seat and, using his Magnum as a means of persuasion, forced the driver to surrender the wheel to him.
C H A P T E R
T h i r t e e n
The taxi was a delapidated vehicle of mid-Fifties vintage and it didn’t want to do more than forty miles an hour, but Harry flattened his foot on the gas pedal and managed to get it close to sixty though the entire chassis rattled in response, threatening to burst.
“You were right about the bumpy part,” Ellie muttered, trying desperately to keep from being thrown off her seat.
“Keep down, Ellie, in case they fire.”
And the cyclists were now close enough to hit their targets.
The Lincoln was accelerating, rapidly bridging the distance that separated it from the compound.
“Hold tight!” Harry urged, then veered the taxi off the road, onto a dirt shoulder, only to take it back on when he’d come abreast of the Lincoln, crashing into its right rear fender with such force that the Lincoln itself was propelled partway off the road.
Again Harry launched the taxi as though it were a missile, hurtling into the Lincoln again, but with even more power than before so that this time he succeeded in melding the two cars together. As a result, when the Lincoln moved it took the taxi with it. And vice versa.
The wretched taxi driver was down on the floor, cowering and praying in growing desperation to the Madonna. Ellie too was on the floor, having been jarred from her seat by the successive crashes. She decided that all things considered it was better to stay there.
At the same time, the three motorcyclists had begun to slow, Harry caught a glimpse of them in the rearview mirror which was all that he required. Abruptly, he put the taxi into reverse and since the road was steeply graded, he had the advantage of having gravity on his side.
The taxi lurched backwards, so did the Lincoln it had become entangled with.
Too late, the motorcyclists realized what Harry was doing. Having no chance to maneuver themselves backwards in time, they had only one choice: to jump.
Only one of the cyclists managed to do this in time. The other two were sent catapulting into the air as the Lincoln-towing taxi barreled into their bikes. The first landed on his head and lay still with blood seeping slowly out of his helmet, the second broke both his legs and his left arm in his descent. Even the third, who had jumped, was stunned and in no condition to pose any r
esistance.
But the security men from the compound had come running, with their huge dogs snarling ahead of them. The Lincoln’s tires were churning but it wasn’t moving anywhere. One of its doors opened and a man emerged from it. Blood was on his forehead, apparently he’d injured himself in the crash. He was armed only with a handgun which he sighted on the crumbling taxi window and fired.
The windshield, never very sturdy, collapsed at once. Glass covered the entire interior of the battered vehicle, causing the driver to wail fervently in protest.
Harry was crouched down low so he avoided any injury from the bullet, if not from the flying glass. Opening the door on his side, he leaned out and fired back.
He did not wait to see if he had hit the man he was aiming at for he speedily ducked back into the taxi, but he was rewarded by a prolonged scream that would seem to intimate some success. When he looked up, he saw the guard slumped over the Lincoln’s hood, his bloodless face reflected in its highly polished surface.
Six guards, composing the security detail for the compound, took up position now and opened fire simultaneously. The barrage was heavy and continued for well over a minute without accomplishing very much except to disable the taxi.
Still Harry wasn’t particularly concerned. The taxi didn’t actually have to work, it just had to go downhill. Releasing the handbreak, he began maneuvering the taxi backwards. Naturally, the Lincoln was dragged right along with it.
The security force ceased firing. Their target was receding too fast for them to have any hope of stopping it. Instead, with a great deal of shouting, they scrambled after the taxi.
Those in the Lincoln were very much aware of their predicament. All they had to do was look down and they would see a precipitous drop on one side and a narrow circling road on the other. If on the other hand, they looked directly in back of them they would see a bullet-riddled windowless taxi, but no driver, Harry was steering blindly and keeping out of sight but there was no way for those in Kayyim’s party to know this. There was every possibility that Harry was dead, that the taxi was moving downhill out of control, and that if they didn’t take action soon they would be dead as well.