by Donn Taylor
More bullets struck nearby.
“You’d better get down.” Vickers’s hand pressed on Kristin’s shoulder. She let him draw her down with Jocelyn behind a fallen log. Dully, she remembered that she and Jocelyn carried ammunition that might be needed. Vickers laid down the rifle he’d been carrying and filled his pockets with ammunition.
He’s a missionary. He’ll never use that weapon. Probably doesn’t know how.
The firefight grew increasingly fierce. Bullets from the guerrillas’ long, full-automatic bursts filled the woods with ricochets, while Sledge’s group replied with disciplined single shots. An occasional cry indicated someone had been hit, but Kristin didn’t dare put her head up to see who. She hugged the ground and told herself things couldn’t get any worse.
Events proved her wrong.
Above the din of battle she heard the unmistakable sound of the helicopter departing.
10
Denver, Colorado
“We wondered about Steve Spinner’s sincerity,” Roger Brinkman said to the teleconference screen in his underground office, “but this is the third day in a row he’s spoken against the Colombian guerrillas. His networks have turned it into a litany.”
“That’s not all,” the image of Brian Novak replied from the screen. “He’s apparently changed a couple of Congressional ‘no’ votes to ‘yes’ on that aid package to the Colombian government.”
Brinkman squinted. “From all I can find out, his humanitarian aid shipment to North Korea is exactly as advertised. Nothing to suggest anything illicit.”
Novak’s image smiled. “We can always hope it’s a real conversion. Some of the most extreme anti-American radicals of the sixties have repented and become patriots.”
“Anything new on the Octopus?” Brinkman asked.
Novak made a face. “Nothing. We haven’t even found a new tentacle lately.”
“Something may turn up,” Brinkman said. “Meanwhile, we’ll hope Spinner’s conversion turns out to be genuine.”
“Time will tell,” Novak said, “but I’m not holding my breath.”
****
Colombia
Sledge didn’t blame the helicopter pilot for fleeing. None of these vulnerable aircraft were equipped for battle. But that departure meant they had no choice except to fight these guerrillas to the finish. He knew whose finish it would be. The women would be captured again. If they were lucky, they might live to be ransomed, but Vickers would be taken back to face his firing squad. Sledge, Raúl, Mario, and Javier, if they survived the battle, would probably be executed on the spot.
For the next few minutes Sledge found targets and thought he hit several. He had the satisfaction of hearing one cry out. Then an automatic burst ripped into the tree above his head and sent him ducking. He’d expected that. That was the base of fire to pin him down, and the flanking maneuver would soon follow. He looked to his right to find the flanking force.
What he saw, though, was the missionary running toward that flank. Vickers ran in a semi-crouch, his AK-47 carried at the port position, his head erect and his eyes steady to the front. Those were the motions of a trained infantryman. He hadn’t learned them on the mission field. At a fold in the terrain so small that only a practiced eye could have found it, he dropped into prone position, using the butt of his rifle to break his fall. Then he wriggled forward on his elbows to combine the fold’s cover with that of a tree.
Three guerrillas appeared on that flank, and Vickers’s fire drove them into cover. His three-shot bursts knocked the bark off of trees above their heads. But in taking cover from him, the guerrillas placed themselves in Sledge’s line of fire. He dispatched two with well-aimed single shots. For the third, he felt rather than heard his weapon click on an empty chamber.
He reached automatically for another magazine, but found he had none. Desperately, he looked around to see if he had misplaced one. He had not. He was out of ammunition.
Then a form slumped down beside him and a woman’s voice called, “Sledge, here!” She thrust three magazines of ammunition into his hands.
“Hello, brat.” Sledge felt himself grinning. “I thought you’d have dug yourself halfway to China by now.”
Her eyes shot fire. “Shut up and start shooting.” With that she lay flat and pressed her face to the ground.
It was a nice face, even marred by black camouflage marks. But Sledge had no time for reflection. The enemy fire redoubled, and he answered with his own. His group could not hold out much longer, despite its best efforts. It was a miracle some of them hadn’t been killed. He could only account for that by the guerrillas’ concentration on volume of fire rather than accuracy. They’d been hurt by his own group’s aimed fire, but that wouldn’t stop them. Their numbers alone would eventually win the day.
As the enemy fire continued from directly to his front, Sledge loaded his last magazine and looked for a target. To his amazement, a guerrilla on the right broke from cover and withdrew to another position. More followed, and one man dragged the body of a comrade with him. Sledge could have shot him but made a quick decision against it. Anyone who wanted to disengage was welcome to. Why make withdrawing more dangerous than attacking?
“Hold your fire!” he shouted to Raúl and Javier and followed with hand signals. As they ceased, the guerilla fire team facing them delivered a final fusillade and withdrew.
Sledge expected silence except for the ringing in his ears, but he heard something quite different. From several hundred yards beyond the guerrilla force came the sounds of a terrible firefight—automatic weapons, single shots, explosions that sounded like grenades or even Claymore mines. That indicated a sizeable force behind the guerrillas. No wonder they withdrew.
The din of that battle died away but another began, this time off to the right front. Another large force, this time on the guerrilla’s flank. It must be the Colombian army. But how had it gotten there in that strength without being detected?
The welcome sound of a helicopter approaching interrupted his thoughts. Sledge didn’t wait for the aircraft to come into sight. He gathered his party and pointed them toward the clearing. Without being told, Raúl and Vickers carried Mario. The helicopter was landing , its broad door gaping wide to welcome them.
Sledge was gratified that the two women retrieved their packs before running for the helicopter. And how about the brat—leaving the safety of a covered position to bring him ammunition!
Sledge and Javier acted as a covering force until every member of the party was in the helicopter. At a nod from Sledge, Javier ran to join them, but paused beside the aircraft with his weapon ready as Sledge made his own withdrawal. With an exchange of smiles, they cleared their weapons and entered the aircraft together.
Inside they found a grinning Ramón Ramirez. “Welcome, señores. The helicopter did not connect on its first two attempts, but the third charm is on time.” He pounded their shoulders so vigorously that Sledge thought they might yet go home wounded. He was too tired to wince at the Colombian’s malapropism.
Elation showed on every face as the chopper cleared the trees and climbed to a safe altitude before heading south to Bogotá.
Sledge himself felt deep fatigue in every cell of his body now that the adrenaline from the firefight had drained away. But he still had work to do, even if only verbal. First, he sought out Vickers. “Thanks for the flank support. I thought you men of the cloth weren’t supposed to bear arms.”
“We aren’t, normally, but there’s no rule that says we have to let our friends get killed.” A doubtful look clouded his face. “Besides, I didn’t shoot anybody. I made them duck around to your side of the tree where you could shoot them.”
“That makes a difference?”
Vickers frowned. “I don’t know. I’ll have to thrash that out for myself.”
“Let me know when you do. Look, you handled yourself well. You didn’t learn that in seminary.”
“I learned it with the First Cavalry Division in Vie
tnam. You don’t forget lessons like that.”
“You learned them well.”
Next, Sledge sought out Ramón. “Thanks for coming back for us. Could you see what made the guerrillas withdraw?”
“It is simple, señor.” Ramón’s face wore an enigmatic expression. “They have heard the song of the nightingale.”
That one was too deep for Sledge. He filed it for reference and moved toward the two women. The journalist appeared to be dozing off, but the brat remained wide awake. She sat firmly strapped into the helicopter’s canvas bench and looked up at him apprehensively.
He wondered why, but persevered. “Brat, I want to thank you for bringing me the ammo.”
He stopped. He had leaned close to her to be heard above the helicopter’s engine noise, but she shrank away as if she expected him to strike her.
He muttered, “Thanks again,” and went back to his seat.
What was going on with her? Except for that one silly scene about the photographs, she’d weathered the past thirty-six hours well enough. She’d seen men killed, carried her own pack and part of Mario’s load, endured the firefight, and even risked her crazy neck to bring him ammunition. But now, when he only wanted to thank her, she acted as if he were a greater threat than the guerrillas.
There was no accounting for the erratic moods of women.
Especially spoiled brats.
11
The remainder of the flight proved uneventful. Sledge tried to put his mind in neutral, but he could not help remembering that he still had to deliver two unpredictable women to Steve Spinner in New Orleans.
The helicopter deposited its passengers at the hacienda where the rescue had begun. A waiting doctor hustled Mario off to a hospital, escorted by two armed guards. Three attendants relieved Sledge’s group of its weapons and equipment.
A beaming Elena Ramirez greeted the two women. “Welcome, señoritas. Upstairs you will find the hot bath you have been longing for. You will also find your baggage. When you were kidnapped, the American embassy took charge of it. Señor Spinner’s name was good enough to shake it loose.”
“Señores,” Ramirez said to Sledge and Vickers, “this hacienda is secure. You must rest here tonight, and tomorrow we can decide what to do next.”
With the word “rest,” Sledge felt his muscles deflate on cue. He’d put in three days of intense exertion with only two short catnaps. Now that the requirement for action was past, exhaustion engulfed him like an ocean wave. In his upstairs room a king-sized bed awaited. With an effort, he held himself awake long enough to strip off his boots and dirty fatigues. Leaving them scattered on the floor, he collapsed onto the bed.
Once again he’d completed a dangerous work in a good cause. Yet, as always, it wasn’t enough. Even as sleep embraced him in soft velvet arms, the familiar emptiness of things closed in again.
****
Kristin, alone in her room after a luxurious hot bath, silently chided herself for weakness. Freed from captivity, seated at a beautifully feminine vanity, clad in her own robe and cleaning her face with her own cosmetics, she should feel elated. Instead, all she felt was self-loathing for the irrational fear she’d showed to Sledge. She should have shown gratitude for all the risks he’d taken—for her. Heaven knew she was grateful. But when the old fear leaped up and surprised her, she’d exhibited something she hadn’t intended. Something she’d kept locked inside her for years.
Even now the humiliating memory came back as if it were happening today. The night of her senior prom back in Minnesota, her coveted date with a lineman from the football team, a huge boy who went on to stardom at a state university. A lineman who had a good line of patter, too. Good enough to get a date with that pretty but standoffish girl who didn’t go out because she’d set her mind on winning a scholarship to a prestigious university. She’d promised herself she would not end up like her parents, overworked and underappreciated in a dingy little public school.
The lineman’s patter had prevailed, and she’d agreed to go with him, even felt proud at the envious looks more popular girls had thrown her way. Until he danced her out of the ballroom into the hallway and pulled her into an unlighted room. She’d resisted, but she couldn’t compete with his strength. She remembered the wall at her back and the huge weight of his body crushing her against it.
Somehow she’d found enough breath to scream, and people came running. Soon enough, fortunately. Lights went on and the pressure against her body released. When it did, she burst into tears and ran from the room. One of the chaperones drove her home.
Nothing was ever said about the incident, and nothing was ever done. Through the remaining month of school she greeted the inquiring glances with an icy stare. She took the stare with her, first to Radhurst and then into the world of journalism. In both worlds it kept her safe from prying questions. It also stopped unwanted male advances before they got started. Most of the time, she actually felt safe.
But whenever a large male stood close to her, however innocently, the old fear came flooding back and she again felt the lineman’s crushing weight against her.
It had happened on the helicopter when Sledge leaned over her to speak. Earlier, he’d immobilized her physically while he put the camouflage on her face. That was all it took to trigger the old fear later when he stood close.
As always, she hated herself for that reaction. But she must not think of that now. First she must rest. Then she had to find her way back to Chozadolor and recover her photographs. No one—not even a dumb hulk like Sledge—was going to keep her from getting that career-building story.
****
Sledge woke with the late afternoon sun in his eyes. For a few moments his dream remained as real as life itself. He and Alita sat alone in a courtyard amid a profusion of red and yellow flowers. Their heady perfumes, carried on a gentle breeze, at times overpowered the delicate aroma of Alita’s Shalimar.
She wore a modest white dress for morning Mass. Reluctantly, he had agreed to go with her. He’d put such things behind him when he left the church that ostracized his father. Who needed a church to know the difference between right and wrong?
He and Alita sat close but not touching. He felt the familiar longing to put his arms around her, but the time was not right. For now her dark eyes held him with a solemn gaze, and she spoke earnestly.
About what?
He could not tell. He reached for her words but they remained, tantalizingly, just beyond his ken. Then the dream faded, leaving only the poignant knowledge that he once had lived the dream. He and Alita had gone from that meeting directly into the ambush that took her life. This was their last conversation, so vitally important to her. And he could not remember it. Somewhere in those weeks of pain and anesthesia, the memory had slipped away. Maybe someday…
But today he had no time for chasing memories. He still had to deliver the two women to New Orleans. The headstrong brat wouldn’t make that easy. Thank heavens the journalist hadn’t made any trouble. And what was the secret joke they shared whenever he called one of them by name?
His hosts had not been idle while he slept. Slacks and a sport shirt from his baggage had been laid out for him, with socks and sneakers beside them. His guerrilla uniform lay on a bureau, washed and neatly folded. He hoped he’d have no further need of it.
A bath and a shave left him feeling alive again. The windows had grown dark when he finished.
Ramón stood waiting at the foot of the stairs. “I have made a report to Señor Spinner’s office, as you requested.”
“Thanks. What did he say?”
Ramón snorted. “He said nothing. I told his assistant, a man named Crowder, that the women were in good condition and resting. He said nothing except that he understood the message.”
That was about what Sledge expected. No expression of thanks or of pleasure that the women were unharmed. Just a checkmark on the weekly to-do list for an expensive project successfully completed.
“Thanks for takin
g care of that,” he said. “I’m sorry you didn’t get a better reception.” His hands made a gesture that took in his fresh clothing. “I see you were busy while I was sleeping.”
Ramón nodded. “We make hay while the iron is hot.”
Sledge managed not to flinch. “Do you have news of Mario?”
“They say he will recover fully in two months.”
“He did more than the mission required. When Spinner pays me, I’m going to send Mario an extra ten thousand. Can you get it to him?”
Ramón agreed, and Sledge broached a question that had been nagging at his mind. “When you picked us up, you said the guerrillas heard a nightingale...?”
The Colombian’s face lit up. “The U.S. Special Forces did not teach you about that? You are too young, of course. In Southeast Asia they deceived the enemy with a device called a nightingale. It is a big cloth loaded with things that go boom, with a time fuse to start them booming. They sound like the worst firefight you ever heard.”
“I thought the whole Colombian army was attacking.”
“So did your guerrillas. One man and I rappelled into the forest and placed the nightingales to imitate attacks from two directions.”
“I heard something that sounded like a Claymore mine.”
Ramón’s eyes flashed. “That, señor, I must take with a fifth of amendments. But come. The others are waiting, and soon we will have a dinner to celebrate your successful mission. Tomorrow we will put you on the plane for home.”
They found the others in a restful sitting room decorated with good taste. Raúl wore a fresh bandage on his forehead but otherwise looked none the worse for his crash. Javier appeared smaller in slacks than he had in fatigues. Despite wearing borrowed clothes, Vickers radiated his usual calm.