by Ted Bell
“Let the damn tank roll right by us,” Harry said, “On the count of three, you run jump up on the rear.”
“That tank’s going the wrong way, Harry.”
“Trust me. Here it comes.”
The one-eyed Troll rumbled closer, ten feet away now.
“Wait until it goes by you, goddamnit! Ready? Okay, here we go. One…two…three! Go, go, go!”
Saladin took three or four long strides, grabbed one of the grab-rails, and scrambled aboard.
“You have a plan, Harry?” Saladin said.
“Let me get out in front of the bastard, okay? Let the evil eye see me. Good peripheral vision on this little shit. As soon as the camera starts to swivel, and lock on me, cup your hand over the lens.”
“We’re going the wrong way,” Saladin reminded Harry as he ran along beside the tank. The thing was still moving at five miles an hour, in search mode, so it was easy for him to keep up the pace. Dodging plant life was the tough part.
“We’ll improvise,” Harry said, grinning.
“Meaning?”
“I think it’ll stop when it can’t see,” Harry said, not even breathing hard, pulling dead even with Saladin.
“What makes you think that?”
“What else is it going to do?”
“Good point.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“What if it can hear us?”
“Little late for that thought, buddy!”
Harry was pretty sure whoever was controlling this thing back at the ranch couldn’t hear what was going on aboard the tank or anywhere else. The technology was advanced, but not that advanced. Harry figured, if the thing could hear? They’d be dead.
He gave Saladin the thumbs-up, then sprinted out ahead. On the tank, Saladin got ready. He pulled himself up and forward enough to be able to reach up and cover the lens with his hand.
“Ready?” Harry said, over his shoulder. He was way out in front now, weaving back and forth on the muddy trail.
“Okay,” Saladin shouted, hand poised near the lens. “I’m ready to do this if you are.”
Harry checked up suddenly on the right side of the trail. Both men waited for the lens to start its slow arc back towards where he waited.
The guns started spitting lead about a half-second before the lens got to him. Good information, Harry thought. It meant the fish-eye lens had even wider peripheral vision than Harry thought. Helpful to know.
The firing continued, but Harry had already ducked and started moving in a right-to-left direction as the lens and synchronized guns swept over and past him moving left to right. Bullets were chewing up the thick vegetation on the right, turning it to smoking shreds. Harry dove into the underbrush on the opposite side of the trail just as Saladin wrapped a big hand around the lens, temporarily blinding the robot.
The twin guns ceased fire immediately, just as Harry had anticipated or at least prayed they would. But the tank kept creeping ahead.
“It’s not going to stop, Harry,” Saladin said as the Troll rumbled past Brock. He was getting to his feet and smiling.
He said, “It will.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Should stop any second.”
“Yes, well—”
The robot suddenly ground to a halt, forward progress causing it to slip and slide, the treads smothered in thick brown mud.
“What next?” Saladin said.
“Blindman’s Bluff. You keep the lens covered till I say ‘Ready.’ I’m going to start moving slowly back toward the bridge. I’ll start a count aloud down from twenty, go about twenty yards and do a face plant. When I get to ‘five,’ you take your hand off. The camera will do a recon. Probably a full rotation before the tank starts after me. Then I’ll say ‘ready’ again and pop up in the middle of the trail for it to find me again.”
“I think this machine is omnidirectional.”
“Meaning it goes both ways? Speak for yourself.”
“Are all American spies as crazy as you?”
“Who said I was a spy?”
“Christ, Harry. Trolls do go both ways. They simply reverse the tread direction. Ready?”
“Go.”
“Twenty…nineteen…eighteen…seventeen…” Harry said, picking and groping his way through the vegetation, headed back to the bridge.
“Five!” Harry said. He dropped on his belly and disappeared in the undergrowth.
Saladin took his hand off the lens. The periscope tube started its rotation above his head.
“Ready!” Harry cried, and Saladin saw Brock now standing in the middle of the trail about a hundred yards before the bridge. Without the slightest hesitation, the Troll simply reversed its treads and started moving back toward Harry and the bridge.
“Watch out!” Saladin yelled.
A second later the lens found Harry. The machine guns opened up half a tick later, kicking up clods of black earth. Harry faked left and crouched, then made a hard move right and stood upright again. The lens paused and instantly swung again toward Harry, who repeated his faking maneuver, this time faking right but moving to his left to add confusion. Harry took some pleasure in how crazy he must be driving this guy at the controls.
The idea seemed to be working, much to Saladin’s amazement. Harry didn’t get hit and the tank kept heading back down the trail ever closer to the bridge.
When Harry got to the foot of the bridge, he stopped and turned around to face the oncoming tank.
“You want me to blind it now?” Saladin cried, watching the camera swing around toward where Harry stood.
“Wait! Not until the instant he locks me up.”
“You’ll get shot!”
“I have a plan for that,” Harry said. He didn’t need to shout anymore because the Troll was getting so damn close. The lens was coming around, Harry could see it easily now, another fifteen degrees ought to put him in camera range.
“Say when,” Saladin said nervously, his hand hovering over the bug-eye.
The tank was maybe ten feet from Harry, who stood with one foot on the bridge. The Troll’s beanstalk camera and the silent guns were swinging toward him. Harry stood stock still, smiling at Saladin. If Brock was nervous, Hassan thought, he was doing a very good job of hiding it.
Five feet to go and Harry was still alive and on his feet. The lens was almost on him. It had to be.
Four feet.
Three.
“Now!” Harry said, and Saladin clamped his hand down over the bug-eye.
“Get out of the bloody way!” Saladin said. The Troll was about to run Harry down.
“Clear the lens!” Harry said.
In the same instant that Saladin removed his hand, Harry smiled into the camera, then dove headfirst to the ground, directly in the path of the oncoming tank.
“Harry!” Saladin shouted. But Harry was gone, disappearing beneath the tank.
Face buried in muck, Harry had no choice but to hold his breath as the Troll rolled over him. He flattened himself, arms clenched at his sides, the clanking treads missing him by less than a foot on either side. The width was okay, but the ground clearance underneath? A low-slung oil sump or protrusions he hadn’t counted on? Shit. He closed his eyes and waited. It was only a few seconds. But time is so relative when a tank is passing over your head.
Finally, the tank cleared. The Troll, with Saladin on the rear, rolled across the bridge. It seemed happy to be going home.
“Harry! You okay?”
Saladin saw Brock getting to his feet, wiping the thick mask of brown mud from his eyes, at the same time sprinting in pursuit of the tank. Saladin stuck his hand out.
Harry caught it, grabbed a rail, hauled himself aboard.
“Congratulations, Harry,” Saladin said as they both huddled around the base of the periscope, preparing to face the enemy once more. “Credit where it’s due.”
“Yeah, well,” Harry said, “I’m a professional. Do not try this at home.”
4
4
KEY WEST
L ucky old sun was hanging in there, low in the evening sky. Franklin W. Dixon walked over to his hotel room’s seaward window, put his hands on the sill, and took a bite of cool, wet air. The brine was sharp in his nostrils. He still hadn’t grown accustomed to the tang in the air. Not that he minded it. He could see how a man could grow to love living hard by water. One of those little houses on stilts he’d seen back in the mangrove swamps, a rowboat tied to the front porch.
He looked and looked at his view. He could hardly believe it. His hotel was the cheapest Daisy had been able to find for him, but it was smack dab on the water. It would have been quiet and peaceful, too, if not for that big neon sign that hung outside above his window.
The Green Pelican. Every few seconds, the giant bird buzzed and flapped his illuminated wings and flooded his room with watery green light. Snap, crackle, and pop went the neon buzzard, three seconds on, three seconds off, all night long.
If Key West were not some fancy resort town, you’d call his hotel a flophouse. But, from his small corner room on the top floor of the Green Pelican, he could see that picture postcard harbor spread out below. There were some small islands beyond the harbor. They were covered with pine trees and dotted with tall radio antennas, red lights up top blinking against the dark purple clouds, low on the horizon.
Every kind of motorboat and sailboat was criss-crossing the choppy water. There was a tall ship, a schooner maybe, full of party folks, whooping it up. She was heeled over and sailing right by his hotel. Only a hundred yards away! Her sails, like the sea, looked bathed in liquid copper.
The big old schooner sailed by so close he felt like he could reach out and touch her. There was music aboard, Jimmy Buffett and it rode in through his windows from across the narrow stretch of water. Franklin tapped his boot heel to the tune and said to himself, Look who wound up in Margaritaville!
Funny thing was, it was just like he’d always pictured it to be when he heard that song the first few times. Most things, in his experience, were not at all like what you pictured.
From another window, directly beneath the Green Pelican, he could look straight up colorful Duval Street. Swarms of folks were filling the sidewalks, busy buying doodads, gewgaws, and T-shirts; people hitting the bars and burger joints. Sunset was a busy time here in Key West, he figured. Well, it was sure pretty.
Dixon snapped on the television and leaned back in the wicker rocking chair. He stretched his boots out on a thin, rosy-colored carpet that smelled of tobacco and spilled whiskey. He was still stiff from sitting in the folding chair all day at the conference. Long day, but he was glad he’d come. Tomorrow, he’d say what he had to say and then he’d head back home.
There was a lot of stuff about Mexico on the news, nothing he didn’t already know. If there was any good news to be had, it was that folks up in Washington were starting to take the border crisis more seriously. Two states had ordered what little National Guard they had left to help the Border Patrol out with skirmishes. The president had ordered 6,000 more Guardsmen down to the border. He just hoped all this wasn’t a case of too-little-too-late. The Border Patrol, the agents he knew personally, were plumb wore out. It was a thankless task.
God help them if it got any worse.
He had a bottle of good bourbon over on the bedside table. His eye lit on it, but he didn’t even feel like getting up and pouring himself one. Ever since he’d spoken to Daisy on the phone here about ten minutes ago, he’d felt kind of let down. Sad and lonely wasn’t a feeling he was all that familiar with.
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you.
That’s what Daisy had said before she hung up the phone. When he was home, that was always the next to the last thing she said before she fell asleep with her long perfumed hair all spread out on the pillow.
Sweet dreams and leave your problems behind you, that was the very last thing she’d say.
He missed her so bad his heart hurt.
He woke with a start and realized he must have dozed off in his rocker. It was dark outside, and rain was blowing in. The window shades were flapping so hard he was afraid they’d bust off the rollers. He got up to shut everything down and realized what woke him wasn’t the wind. It was the phone ringing off the hook on the bedside table. He picked up, wondering who in the world would call him here besides Daisy.
“Sheriff Dixon,” he said out of habit.
“Sheriff ! I’m so glad I got you! Lord, you’re not going to believe this one!”
It was June Weaver, who ran the courthouse switchboard. She sounded all out of breath.
“June, after two days in Key West, I’d believe just about anything anybody tells me. What’s going on?”
“Well, you know today was my son Travis’s big football game? The play-offs for the State Championship?”
He’d forgotten, but he said, “Yep.”
“I was driving home after the game, just minding my own beeswax, you know, like I do, and I said, I saw, I mean, I saw—”
“June-bug, slow down. You sound like you’re about to have a heart attack. Where are you?”
“Yes, sir. I’m home. Just ran in the door.”
“Sit down and tell me what you saw.”
“Well. I was on the highway headed home. I saw something moving on my right. Over where the river makes that lazy loop, you know, where nobody should be that doesn’t have a perfect right to be there.”
“I know where you mean. No Border Patrol around?”
“No, sir. Well, I slowed down fast just to see. At first I thought it was big trucks coming across the river. But that didn’t make sense so I stopped and got out of the car. Luckily, I had my video camera, from taping the football game, laying on the front seat of the Olds. When I got out of the car, I took it with me just in case, it was something, you know, interesting.”
“What was it, June?”
“What I think it was?”
“What you think it was.”
“I think it was Mexican Army units in military Humvees crossing the Rio Grande, that’s what I think.”
Dixon took a deep breath and said, “Why do you think that, June?”
“I know what they look like, Sheriff. You know that. I was with you a few years ago, when you got that award citation from Mexico down in Laredo. These men were in Mexican Army uniforms. Real ones. And they were heavily armed. The Humvees were definitely Mexican Army vehicles. That’s what I think.”
“Did they see you?”
“Are you kidding me? No, sir, they did not! I crept up though the bushes. But, Sheriff, I got them on tape! Filmed the whole thing. I just looked at the cassette on the TV. You can see them plain as day. I swear.”
“Who’d you tell about this, June?”
“Sheriff, I drove over a hundred miles an hour to get home and call you on the telephone. Only thing I did before calling you is stick a chicken potpie in the oven. I’m half starved to death after all that excitement.”
“All right, June, now listen. Here’s what you do. Eat your supper. Then I want you to go back to town. Go to the FedEx machine and overnight me that cassette. Got a pencil? Send it to the Green Pelican Hotel, 11 Duval Street, Key West. 33040. For a guaranteed ten-thirty a.m. delivery tomorrow morning. You’ll need a FedEx envelope. You still keep some at home?”
“Yessir, I do. I got the address. Wrote it down.”
“Good. And don’t tell anybody word one about anything until you hear from me. Understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Go do it now. I’ll call you soon as I get that envelope in the morning.”
“This is pretty important, isn’t it?”
“It could be. I appreciate your vigilance and courage. Good-bye, June.”
HE HUNG UP the phone and stared at the floor. Things were happening pretty fast now. He felt like he was at the eye of one of those famous Key West hurricanes. Evidence of a military incursion by uniformed Mexican Army troops, if that�
��s what was on the tape, would turn this conference upside down. Turn everybody upside down. His presentation was right after lunch tomorrow. Hell, he could skip his damn jibber-jabber. He’d just show June’s home movies of invading Mexican troops. Couldn’t beat pictures like that with a thousand words.
He sat back down and realized he was about starving. Lunch had been some fancy little finger food and some really bad shrimp quesadillas. He wanted a hamburger, rare, and some French fries. Not to mention a cold beer. Maybe two.
He stood up and pulled his brown oilskin duster off the coat rack. He shouldered into it and then he put on his hat, trying to remember where he’d hidden his wallet. He checked under his shirts in the bottom drawer of the dresser and then remembered putting it under his pillow while he was talking to Daisy lying on the bed. She told him you couldn’t be too careful of your money in a place like Key West. Of course, she’d never been here, only been out of Texas once in her whole life, but she was probably right. She usually was. He stuck his billfold in the back left pocket of his jeans, locked his door, and headed downstairs to the street.
There was a man sitting in the lobby he thought he recognized from the conference. At least he recognized the suit, a very wrinkled white suit and very shiny black shoes. You couldn’t see his face because he had it buried in the local newspaper. On his left hand was a big gold nugget of a ring with a large diamond. The paper he was reading was the Key West Gazette, a paper Franklin had read, cover to cover. It featured mostly Help Wanted ads and real estate. Which was strange, he thought. The stranger didn’t seem the type to be buying himself a house or hiring any short order cooks.
“Howdy,” Franklin said on his way out, since he was polite, but the man didn’t even have the courtesy to look up when he walked by.
He got a funny feeling walking out the front door. He felt like he was in one of those old black and white spy movies during the war. High Noon in Havana, something like that.
Life was funny what it threw at you sometimes. He’d never pictured himself setting foot in a peculiar place like Key West, Florida. Back home, even around folks he didn’t know well, he could at least identify with them to one extent or another. They all pretty much wore the same clothing. Talked about the same things. They were all related somehow, either by blood or by marriage.