by Donn Taylor
The intruder’s eyes searched out each corner of the hut. Apparently satisfied, he lowered his pistol to his side, his finger still caressing the trigger. With his other hand he picked up the grenade and fastened it to his shoulder harness. His gaze settled on Kristin. She recoiled from its intensity but forced herself to meet it squarely.
Her heart pounding, she summoned her most demanding voice. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The apparition grinned. “Jocelyn, your father sent me to bring you home. Our lives depend on how quickly we move.”
6
Denver, Colorado
From the spacious window of Roger Brinkman’s home in a guarded apartment building, Brinkman and Brian Novak watched the spectacular view of the Rockies. Novak had been a young CIA case officer when Brinkman first met him in the 1970s. Since then he’d climbed to a senior level and, among other things, acted as the Agency’s chief contact with the Brinkman network. Presently, Brinkman drew the blinds and led his guest to a pair of comfortable chairs.
“There’s something new in the international black market for weapons,” Novak said. “We’ve been visualizing it as unrelated individual operations, but now we suspect there may be some shadowy agency coordinating most of them. We call it The Octopus, with the individual operations as tentacles.”
“Interesting theory,” Brinkman said. “Anything concrete to base it on?”
Novak wrinkled his nose. “Just rumor, so far. I mention it in case your people should come up with anything. There also are vague rumors, nothing definite, about something new in the illicit weapons trade—”
The telephone rang. Brinkman answered and listened without speaking. A few minutes later he said, “Thank you,” hung up, and smiled.
“Odd news,” he said. “Steve Spinner just appeared on one of his networks, raising money for his shipment of food and medicine to North Korea.”
“What’s odd about that?” Novak asked.
“Nothing, but he ended by denouncing the Colombian guerrillas as a gang of self-serving, drug-smuggling thugs who should be given summary justice by the Colombian government.”
Novak sat up in his chair. “That is new. Last month he was praising the guerrillas as populist heroes and denouncing the Colombian government as puppets of the American imperialists. In the past, his networks have supported every anti-American movement they could find. Is it possible he’s had a genuine change of heart?”
Brinkman laughed. “It’s possible. Diego Contreras kidnapped his daughter and kept her after Spinner paid the ransom. That’s enough to make anyone rethink his priorities.”
“We can hope so,” Novak said, “but I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“I’m skeptical, too,” Brinkman said, “but Spinner has put his money where his mouth is. He’s bankrolled a rescue operation that ought to be going on right now….”
****
Colombia
Kristin’s heart pounded as she and Jocelyn complied with their rescuer’s curt instructions. He would pretend to be their guard, and they would pretend to be his prisoners. As he talked, he holstered his pistol and unslung his rifle.
They emerged from the hut with the man holding the women at rifle point, their hands clasped behind their heads. Kristin recoiled at the sight of the dead guard propped grotesquely in a sitting position. Though grateful for the rescue, she feared her rescuer as much as she feared Diego Contreras.
The trio rounded the corner of the hut and marched into concealment among the trees behind it. Kristin could hardly believe they remained unchallenged, but relief flooded through her being with each step she took.
“You can put your hands down now, but keep moving,” the gruff voice behind her said.
Dropping her hands, Kristin turned. “Thank you for rescuing us, but there’s something I have to do—”
“You’re not rescued yet. Be quiet and keep moving.”
Walking quickly, they penetrated deeper into the forest. Kristin saw two dark shadows barring the pathway ahead of them. The shadows materialized into uniformed men who carried AK-47s.
Kristin’s heart beat faster. Had she been granted this breath of freedom only to be captured again? She turned and looked a silent question at her rescuer.
“They’re ours,” he growled. “Keep moving.”
They joined the two men at the junction of two paths.
“How about that outguard?” the rescuer asked.
One said, “They will trouble us no more.”
Both men smiled.
The rescuer pointed to the speaker. “This is Mario. The other is Javier. I’m Sledge.” Before Kristin could answer, he pointed to her and spoke to the two men. “This is Jocelyn. The quiet one is Kristin.”
Blast Steve Spinner’s insufferable ego! With his daughter’s life at stake, he still continued his cruel joke about the switched identities. That meant they’d have to keep up the masquerade.
While Kristin fumed, Sledge opened a backpack—she hadn’t noticed the packs lying on the ground—and removed two sets of black coveralls. He handed one to each of the women. Kristin looked for a covered place where she could change.
Sledge grunted. “They go on over your other clothes. You’ll need the warmth when the sun goes down.”
When they had donned the coveralls, he gave them bandanna-sized black cloths. “Bind your hair with these. We’ll be traveling at night, and those blonde tresses do everything but glow in the dark.”
As Kristin finished tying the cloth, Sledge advanced on her with something that looked like a large black crayon. Instinctively, she turned her head away.
“Don’t be difficult,” he growled. With his free hand he reached over her shoulder and gripped the back of her head, turning it with an irresistible pressure until she faced him again. She hadn’t been forced like that since. . .
“Pretend you’re getting a mud pack in your favorite beauty salon,” Sledge said. He smeared lines of the charcoal-like substance across her nose and cheeks.
Still holding the back of her head in his palm, he surveyed his artistry. “That will break up the high points that reflect light. We won’t have to do your neck if you’ll keep your collar turned up.”
Even with her head restrained, Kristin saw Jocelyn receiving the camouflage treatment without complaint. Indeed, she seemed to enjoy Mario’s attentions. The two men seemed to enjoy it, too.
Kristin gave Sledge a defiant look. “There’s something you must understand. I have to go back to Chozadolor and get my photographs. If you don’t agree, I won’t go with you.”
Sledge’s grip tightened on the back of her head, and he placed his other forefinger on her nose, his own face not far behind it.
“There’s something you have to understand.” His growl grew deeper. “I’m paid to take you back to your father, not to find your photographs. So far, I’ve had to kill two men. I’m not sure you’re worth their lives, but that’s not for me to judge. I’m contracted to bring you back, and I’m going to do it if I have to tie you up and carry you. We have to make an all-night march through guerrilla-held territory, and one false move may get us all killed. Now stop being a spoiled brat and try to help.”
Kristin fumed, but she knew she couldn’t break free. Worse than that, Sledge was right. They were dangerously close to the guerrilla camp. If that weren’t enough, Jocelyn laughed. Out of the corner of her eye, Kristin could see her and Sledge’s two companions enjoying her plight. She would have to give in. At least for now.
“I’ll help all I can,” she said. “But turn me loose, you—you dumb gorilla.”
Sledge’s hands dropped and his voice softened. “Thanks, brat. That makes it easier on everyone.” He turned to the others. “Let’s get started.”
Mario and Javier fitted each of the women with a light backpack and a belt with a full canteen. “The packs hold things you need,” Mario explained. “You carry them…makes our packs not so heavy so we can move fast.”
Without furthe
r words, he followed the path toward the south ridgeline. Kristin and Jocelyn fell in behind, while Sledge brought up the rear. To Kristin’s surprise, Javier moved out in the opposite direction.
“What’s he doing?” she asked.
“Keep moving.” Sledge’s voice resumed its customary growl. “Javier will lay a false trail in the opposite direction. Then he’ll cover our tracks and join us at the mountain pass.”
They had not gone far when the sound of many helicopters came from higher up in the valley. The sound grew until the aircraft passed overhead, then faded as they continued westward.
“Diego Contreras knew exactly when the army was coming,” Kristin said. “He and his guerrillas moved out earlier today to set an ambush. I hope they didn’t succeed.”
Sledge laughed. “They didn’t. The choppers never landed. They were a feint to draw the guerrillas out of the village. That cost your father a lot of money.”
“You mean they did all that for us?”
“Not quite. The Colombian army had its own reasons.” Sledge’s tone grew sardonic. “As I understand it, they knew someone in that unit was a guerrilla spy, but they didn’t know who. The next best thing to finding him was to discredit him.” He chuckled. “Whoever it is, Diego Contreras will never believe him again.”
“I see.” Kristin filed the information for later reference.
“No talking from here on,” Sledge ordered. “We could run into a guerrilla patrol at any time.”
The path winding upward around steep mountain slopes soon had both women breathing hard in the thin mountain air. They continued upward until Kristin’s legs ached and threatened to rebel. She was almost ready to drop when Mario called a halt. Sledge came forward and led them into a partially concealed side path. Mario remained by the main trail as lookout. The new path quickly opened into a pleasant glen with a brook running down its center.
“Ground your packs,” Sledge said. “We’ll rest here until nightfall. Javier should be along soon.”
Gratefully, Kristin slipped her pack off and dropped full-length beside it. The cold bit at her cheeks and she was grateful for the coveralls Sledge had given her. Jocelyn lay down beside her, seemingly less fatigued. Kristin wondered about that.
Sledge sat near them and whispered, “From here on, we talk in whispers. Not many of them. After dark, we have to take out a four-man guerrilla outguard at the watershed on this trail. Then we’ll make a night march into the next valley. We’ll be picked up by helicopter several miles down the valley.”
“How will they know when to pick us up?” Jocelyn asked.
Sledge patted the satellite phone clipped to his belt. “I have this one, and Mario carries a backup. I’ll make the call when we reach the next valley.”
Kristin had misgivings. “You called it a four-man outguard, but there are only three of you. And won’t the shots tell the guerrillas where we are?”
Sledge showed a grim smile. “We hope there won’t be any shots. The three of us infiltrated past that outguard on the way in, but that would be asking too much of you ladies. With a little luck, we can dispose of it without gunfire.”
“And if you don’t have luck?”
“Then we’ll do the best we can. While we wait here, you need to learn how to use night vision goggles. They’re a must for traveling at night in mountains.”
He took the goggles from their packs, explained their controls and cautioned, “Keep the batteries turned off until we actually have to use them.”
From one of the packs he produced something that looked like large candy bars and gave one to each of the women. “These aren’t gourmet, but they’ll give you enough energy for our night march.”
Having missed the noon meal, Kristin and Jocelyn ate hungrily, washing the food down with long drinks from their canteens. The bars tasted like chocolate with nuts, but left an aftertaste suggesting medicinal elements. Sledge refilled their canteens at the brook, adding what Kristin took to be purification tablets.
Javier arrived soon after. “The guerrillas are wondrously angry,” he reported. “I heard them talking while I hid in the bushes. They’re frustrated that their ambush didn’t work out, and they are most unhappy that someone has killed their guards and stolen their beautiful blonde hostages. Fortunately, their pursuit followed the false trail I laid.”
“I’m not worried about their pursuit,” Sledge said. “It’s their radios that bother me. They may put the outguard ahead of us on its toes, and we don’t know what kind of force they can alert in the next valley.”
Javier answered with a shrug, and the group grew silent. Mario came back from the main trail and, as the afternoon light dwindled into full dark, the men withdrew a short distance and appeared to make plans for dealing with the outguard.
Night fell quickly, bringing blackness more impenetrable than any Kristin could remember. Out of that blackness, the form of Sledge materialized and sat between her and Jocelyn. “Sleep if you can,” he whispered. “It’s going to be a long night.”
“Sleep?” Kristin asked. “I thought you were going to do something about that outguard when it was dark.”
“We will. But first we’ll give them a couple of hours to get bored and careless.” He lay down, and soon his regular breathing showed he had followed his own advice.
But sleep would not come to Kristin. The tension and fear of the day would not leave her, nor would remembered images of the bodies near Chozadolor or today’s horror of seeing a man killed before her eyes. She tried to push the images aside by calling up memories of her sometimes-happy college days with Jocelyn or her bittersweet memories of growing up near St. Cloud, Minnesota. But the images of death kept returning, and she wondered if she bore the guilt for the lives lost in her rescue.
Two other forms emerged from the dark. A voice whispered, “It is time, Señor Sledge.”
Sledge sat and stretched. Then he touched Kristin and Jocelyn on their shoulders and drew them close for whispered instructions. “We’ll be gone for an hour, maybe even two. We don’t know who might come down the main trail, so don’t talk and don’t move about. Your defense is being invisible.”
He strapped his wristwatch around Kristin’s wrist and pulled her coverall sleeve down over the illuminated dial. “Keep it under your sleeve, and cover it with your hand when you look at it. After one hour, turn on your night vision goggles and watch for us to return. I don’t want our return to startle you into screaming.”
“I’d feel better if you left us a weapon,” Kristin said.
Sledge grunted. “I’ll feel better if I don’t.”
With the three men gone, the blackness became more oppressive, and the night grew chill. The coveralls Sledge had given them helped somewhat, but soon she and Jocelyn again clung together for warmth.
Kristin drifted into troubled thoughts. One short month ago she’d been a harried but generally safe reporter for a respected magazine. Now her ambition for a great story had led her not only into being kidnapped, but into this precarious situation on an Andean mountain, dependent for life itself on three men she’d never seen before. Two men had been killed in rescuing her, and more would be killed tonight. Was her story really worth it?
Then she remembered the bodies she’d photographed near Chozadolor, and certainty returned. The world needed to know about that horror. She would find her photographs and file her story. And no dumb gorilla like Sledge was going to stop her.
The night grew colder. Kristin checked the watch. Only forty minutes since the men had gone. Another twenty before she and Jocelyn should activate the night vision goggles, and yet longer before the men would return.
The silence became oppressive but, she consoled herself that silence was the measure of the men’s success.
Then the quiet was shattered by the unmistakable sound of automatic weapons fire.
7
Shortly before sunset, Diego Contreras had led his forces back to the village, angered because he’d been denied his anti
cipated victory over the Colombian army. Worse news greeted his arrival. Two of his men had been killed and the gringas had escaped. He received the news in silence, careful from long habit not to let subordinates see his true feelings.
His deputy, Tomás, stepped forward. “I will find out what happened, Comandante. You must rest.”
At his desk in the crude headquarters hut, Contreras nurtured his anger as if it were a rare but noxious orchid. Things never happened by chance. Someone had shown him bait, and he had taken it. That meant he had an enemy who could bribe the army to launch a diversionary operation while a smaller party stole his prisoners. Who had resources to buy that kind of influence?
His former friend, Steve Spinner.
The insult must be avenged.
Tomás returned and reported. “It is worse than we thought, Comandante. The outguard below the village is also dead.”
“Fools!” Contreras permitted himself the one exclamation, then asked for details.
“The two guards of the gringas were shot with a small-caliber pistol. Probably silenced, since no one heard the shots. One dead guard was left in a sitting position. Until the next shift came on, everyone thought he was still on duty.”
“No one saw anything?” Contreras clenched and unclenched his fists.
“One woman saw a man wearing our uniform march the two women around the hut. She thought he was taking them to the latrine.”
“What kind of man?”
“She says only that he was very big. Not tall, but wide and bulky.”
Contreras struck the desk. “Sledge! Last year he trained security forces for the Salinas family plantation. That cost us twelve men when we raided the place. I thought we were rid of him when we eliminated that prosecutor.”