by Dane Hartman
Soundlessly, three men, all wearing dull white tunics, all brandishing Karl Gustav submachine guns, appeared, stepping up behind Harry and Slater in response to Virgilio’s command.
“You will forgive me,” Virgilio addressed them, “if I do not see you to the door. It is a dereliction of my responsibility as host, I know, but I have other obligations that demand my attention.”
One of those obligations, Harry surmised, was undoubtedly the buxom peasant girl.
“You will please surrender your weapons,” Ignacio said, reminding his partner that this rather important detail had been neglected.
Harry threw down his .44 which landed with a jarringly loud clunk against the tiled floor. He did nothing to draw attention to the .22 strapped to his ankle.
One of the guards now poked his weapon against Slater’s back, grunting to make his—and the gun’s—point clearer. He had evidently decided that Slater must also be armed, and he wasn’t going to be satisfied until he had confirmation of this fact.
Slater turned swiftly, angrily, toward the man and without considering the consequences, slapped him across the face with the back of his hand. This took everyone by surprise, and for a moment no one, not even the offended guard, reacted.
There was a moment of dead silence in the room. Then the guard lunged forward, hoping to deliver a more painful injury to Slater with the butt of his gun. Slater, proving astonishingly agile for someone his age, managed to avoid the blow and the weapon simply glanced off the side of his arm. This man’s difficulties in subduing Slater were clearly amusing his companions and even Virgilio and Ignacio, for they made no move to aid him. Instead they stood right where they were, laughing, waiting for an entertaining climax.
Something seemed to have come unhinged in Slater. Faced with imminent death, he appeared to gain rather than lose confidence. His eyes were inflamed, his gray hair stuck out wildly from his pink, sunburned scalp. “This what you’re after, you son of a bitch?” he challenged his assailant.
Harry looked to see him holding up a knife that was ordinarily employed to cut bait and filet tuna. It was stained and not as sharp as it might have been, but it was effective for all that. Harry had not known he’d been carrying it and could not quite understand how he had gotten it out so quickly. It might well have been sleight of hand: the rabbit plucked out of the hat.
This changed everything of course, but no one in the room could actually believe Slater would use the knife, Harry included. Indeed, the entertainment value of the proceedings seemed only to have increased. The smiles that had perched on the lips of the men remained where they were.
Harry realized now that all eyes were turned on Slater and the determined guard and that the .44 lay unobserved only half a foot away from him. It was possible that Slater hadn’t gone mad after all, that he was doing his utmost to provide the distraction necessary for Harry to recover his weapon.
But at that moment Harry still could not risk even the slightest movement without drawing attention back to himself.
The guard said something unintelligible to Slater, presumably urging him to drop the knife. But far from dropping it Slater was whipping it through the air, daring the Mexican to advance closer. There was no question that the guard was so frustrated now that he would have simply liked to shoot Slater and be done with it. But he knew that this would be a violation of orders and would, besides, cut short the little drama that his employers found so highly amusing.
So he had to make do with clubbing Slater senseless or else ramming him directly, which was the alternative he chose, charging in at him like a bull ready to gore a particularly brazen matador. His thinking in this strategy wasn’t exactly coherent. For one thing, the knife still was slashing through the air in such a way that it threatened at the very least to deprive the guard of his left ear and a goodly portion of his scalp besides.
As a result, the guard strode almost directly into the knife’s path, still under the impression that Slater would not dare strike him with it. Neatly sidestepping the thrust of the Karl Gustav, Slater, as though doing a little jig on a dance floor, leapt up and, in coming down, sliced open the guard’s tunic and much of his chest underneath. Then, like a mother embracing her son, he hugged the guard, clasping him with one hand while the other busied itself digging the knife in under his solar plexus and manipulating it around, cutting savagely into subcutaneous tissue and the vital organs that it protected. The guard flung aside his weapon and in an odd unexpected motion clutched hold of Slater as though to prop himself up against the pain.
Now the others concentrated all their attention on the struggling pair. This drama had taken an unexpected turn, and they were uncertain whether it pleased them. They still, of course, felt in control of the situation and could at any time—just as soon as the guard got out of their way—dispense of Slater with a single volley.
But Harry, recognizing that this was his opportunity, his sole chance, dived for the .44, flattening himself out against the floor and firing quickly at the two remaining guards. It was the force of the .44 cartridge he counted on, not the exact location it entered his targets. He hadn’t the time to sight the gun, after all.
All his many years of practice had not been for naught. One bullet ascending up from the floor caught a guard in his kneecap. The injury was at once so painful and so debilitating that all the man could do in response was fire a fitful, ineffective blast of his gun toward the ceiling before flopping down against the far wall. The hardness of his landing caused his gun to fly away from him. Perhaps sensing that the odds had vastly altered, he made no effort to retrieve it. Instead he stayed where he was, trying futilely with his hands to staunch the flow of blood. Tears drained copiously from his eyes.
The second guard took a more serious injury as the .44 tore apart his intestines, sending up a great stench as feces oozed out of the wound. There was no possibility of retaliation from him. Surprise seemed to have frozen itself permanently on his face.
Slater, perhaps thinking that the situation had now been consolidated, allowed his eyes to wander and he stepped back from his dying victim, preparing to drop to the floor to escape the crossfire—should there be any crossfire.
Which may have explained why he failed to notice Virgilio who, having sought the relative sanctuary of the floor at the first report, now seized hold of the submachine gun that had fallen away from Slater’s assailant. Virgilio had not emerged as a triumphant survivor from so many battles to die empty-handed; it would be a dishonor to exit from the earth, if that was his fate, without taking at least one of his enemies with him.
The Karl Gustav clattered in his hands. Splotches of blood appeared in sequence all down the length of Slater’s body as though he were being spattered. But he was being completely riddled; that his body remained whole on the outside was a cruel deception, for on the inside there was nothing that was not pierced, shattered, or ruptured. Slater’s eyes sought Harry’s one last time and there was a sign of recognition in them, a sign of something else too, of friendship and forgiveness. Then he seemed all at once to diminish in size, to fade into something incorporeal, something that was just blood and air, no longer identifiable as an old mariner who had come to meet his death in this forbidden site in western Mexico.
Harry could not get a line of sight on Virgilio who had wisely taken shelter behind a giant, stone pre-Aztec god whose grotesque features seemed to mock the scene of death that was being played out before it. But neither could Virgilio seem able to find Harry in his sights, for Harry had taken refuge behind the couch where only ten minutes previously Virgilio had been probing the ample charms of his whore. Thick tufts of upholstery went flying into the air as the couch was perforated by successive rounds from the submachine gun, but Harry remained untouched.
Ignacio in the meantime was trying to crawl away, navigating himself between the four bodies that lay on the floor—only one of whom showed any sign of life at all: the guard with the demolished kneecap. Ignacio gasped an
d cried out for his madre whenever the fire from Virgilio’s gun swept over his head. A journey to the Amazon would not have seemed as far to him as the one he was now attempting to make to the doorway.
Naturally, all this commotion was heard throughout the villa. Three men—another security detail—came running into the corridor that lay just beyond the threshold. They were sufficiently cautious not simply to rush the room, and so they contented themselves with digging in just beyond the exposed doorway.
But the only one who was doing any firing was Virgilio. Harry could have shot Ignacio, but he balked at putting a bullet into an unarmed man crawling to safety on his belly. And being unable to hit Virgilio, he decided to save what ammunition he had.
Virgilio kept on firing until he had expended his clip. But hearing only the groans of the surviving guard and the uproar in the corridor outside, he realized that he was accomplishing nothing by laying down a second barrage. He reloaded and called to Ignacio who had nearly attained his goal of the threshold.
“Tell them to rush the room!” he cried. This was spoken in Spanish, but Harry knew just enough of the language to catch the meaning. What Virgilio hoped was that by drawing Harry’s fire he could circle around and kill him himself. That others might be sacrificed so that he could execute his stratagem mattered nothing to him.
Ignacio crept out of the room, heaving a sigh of relief and offering up a prayer to several patron saints, and then proceeded to communicate Virgilio’s directions to the security detail hunkered down in the corridor.
They obeyed without question. The first two, as soon as they were framed in the doorway, were brought down immediately. Harry held an excellent position, and his aim was as accurate as necessary. The reason he did not shoot the third was that the third, orders or no orders, had decided to withdraw.
Virgilio opened up again, infuriated that he had secured no additional advantage, but all he did was to gouge the couch out. He screamed at Harry, cursing him and himself for stupidly allowing this unhappy situation to develop. Then he screamed out to the corridor, upbraiding his men for failing to come to his aid. But they seemed determined not to meet the fate of those who already had complied with Virgilio’s commands.
Though the situation threatened soon to become a stalemate, Harry understood the importance of making a hasty escape, not just from the Villa Corona but from the whole of Carangas and environs. But until his eyes again fell upon the pre-Aztec statue he could think of no way to accomplish this.
The statue, he now noticed, was not consistent in texture. Breaking the rough harsh stone surface that defined the statue was a small, narrow, smooth band that circled the neck. Harry deduced that this was where the statue had been repaired; it had been probably found in two pieces, head and torso. Previously, Harry had entertained no notions of penetrating the statue—it looked too sturdy, having already resisted what ravages time could visit on it. But there was an outside chance that if the .44 struck this ribbon of smoothness about the neck it could send the head tumbling down on Virgilio’s more vulnerable one. Accordingly, Harry fired so that the trajectory of the bullet would impact directly against the rejoined neck. There was a loud walloping sound in response and a sudden spurt of dust and stone fragments. Then the hideous head rolled out of its mooring and dropped not on Virgilio’s head but his foot. Virgilio let out a whoop of pain, hollering defiantly.
Without wasting a moment, Harry rushed forward, catching Virgilio unawares. Virgilio was too preoccupied in extricating his left foot from under the extraordinarily heavy head that lay on it to notice Harry until the .44 was pressed flush against his skull. Gazing up at his antagonist, he shook his head, still muttering with the pain, and said, “You are being most inconsiderate, señor. It is senseless for us both to die.” He threw down the submachine gun, fully prepared to meet his maker, but this did not cause him to cease his efforts to get his foot free.
But on the contrary, Harry had no intention of hastening Virgilio’s introduction to his maker (whichever maker would take the dubious honor of having been responsible for his creation). He viewed Virgilio as his passport out of this place. At last, with a pronounced groan, Virgilio succeeded in recovering his foot. He began to knead it with his hands, but Harry ordered him to stand. It was not easy, and the look he gave Harry was the look not of a heroin dealer or murderer but rather of an angry child.
“Must I stand up to be executed?”
“No execution now. We’re taking a little trip.”
Virgilio discerned Harry’s plan and shrugged. He was not certain that this extension on his life made things better or worse. At the moment, however, he seemed to recognize the necessity of playing his role to the hilt. Four armed guards stood ready to clutter Harry’s body up with 5.54mm cartridges. They certainly would have done so were it not for the fact that they would have to do the same to Virgilio’s.
“Lower your weapons,” Virgilio said, first in English for Harry’s benefit, then in Spanish.
The guards appeared baffled by the request but did as they were instructed, allowing the two to pass.
Harry now was in possession of both the .44 and the Karl Gustav submachine gun, both of which discouraged anyone from attempting to rescue Virgilio, who grumpily dragged his injured foot behind him.
“Show me the laboratory,” Harry said.
This directive obviously startled Virgilio. “You wish a guided tour—now?”
Harry was in no mood to discuss his motives. Spying Ignacio who slunk against the wall, curiously eyeing the two, he called out to him. Whatever he said was incomprehensible to Harry, but somehow Harry caught the sense of it simply by the intonation. He abruptly whipped around, spinning Virgilio with him. Ignacio was now armed and had with some difficulty produced a handgun of some kind from his pocket. Harry allowed him no opportunity and fired simultaneously with both the .44 and the submachine gun.
Ignacio crashed back against the wall, aghast that he had lost this one opportunity to demonstrate that he was no coward, then slowly drifted to the floor. His glasses slipped off and in his final moments of life it was his glasses that he groped for. He wanted one last clear look of the world before he departed it. He never got it.
Virgilio looked from the lifeless form of his partner to Harry and gave him one of his customary shrugs. Life was hard, it was over easily, he would have said had he been inclined to say anything at all.
Two of the tunic-gowned figures appeared and stooped down by Ignacio to see if medical assistance might help him. Determining that it would not, they turned him over so that they wouldn’t have to look at him any longer.
The sentry at the door leading down to the laboratory, where the heroin was derived from the morphine base, was unwilling to admit Harry even with Virgilio. He evidently thought that he could reason with Harry for he addressed him in a Spanish so rapid he couldn’t get one word out without a second overtaking it. Harry, having neither the time nor patience to listen to his gibbering, simply knocked him aside with the Karl Gustav. Virgilio gave Harry one of his suspect smiles.
“You can be most persuasive when you want.”
Strangely, Virgilio showed no trace of nervousness, not in his manner nor in his voice. His sense of fatalism allowed him a kind of freedom.
Peering down a short flight of stairs Harry could see only a welter of burners, pipes, sinks, and trays filled with what looked like chemical solutions. Men in white, not all of them Mexican, were toiling over their chemicals, carrying out their tasks in an antiseptic atmosphere that vaguely reminded Harry of an operating theater. The smell reminded him of something as well, but he could not say just what it was. But it was heavy in the air, almost sickening.
To Virgilio he said, “Tell all of them to leave.”
So absorbed were most of these people that they took scant notice of Harry and their employer standing at the head of the stairs. Virgilio’s voice surprised them. They raised their eyes to him in confusion. Then Harry began shooting at all the equ
ipment, shattering glass and demolishing some of the elaborate machinery that had been set up for the distillation process. This reinforced the impact of Virgilio’s words, and the air was filled with plaintive screams and cries of alarm as the chemists and their assistants scrambled for the exits.
Harry’s bullets hit something that was obviously combustible because suddenly flames shot up from perhaps three or four different locations in the laboratory; with the enveloping smoke it was difficult to determine exactly.
“We only will rebuild this, you know,” Virgilio said, almost chiding him. Still, he admitted that it would be a rather costly loss. The smoke from the fire began to waft up in their direction. Harry supposed that he had done enough, maybe more than enough, for Keepnews. Now his only objective was to save his ass. For that he was going to have to rely on Virgilio once again.
But the fact was that with the fire spreading so rapidly, consuming the Villa Corona with ease, no one seemed to be paying attention to Harry or Virgilio any longer. It looked like every man for himself. All the inhabitants of the compound were fleeing in the direction of the lush tropical vegetation, which was already alive with the vicious chatter of birds adding to the human cries of alarm.
The Land Rover was where Ignacio had left it. But it was obviously too much of a temptation, for already five men were attempting to clamber into it. Harry, still keeping the .44 pressed to Virgilio’s back, advanced unhurriedly toward the vehicle. He raised the Karl Gustav so that it was targeted directly on the man who had just taken the wheel. The man, sputtering from the smoke that had infiltrated his lungs, looked vastly surprised to find somebody impeding his way. His four passengers, greedy for prompt movement, were not especially pleased to see him either.