by Nick Carter
On the fifth swing, I was nearing a ledge that was perhaps ten feet wide and about ten inches deep. Below that were other ledges at about ten and twenty-foot intervals.
On the sixth swing, my feet touched the ledge. On the seventh, I was able to make a slight purchase with my toes. To give myself a better chance, I kicked off Nuyan's sandals and heard them clatter down the rocky mountain, knocking loose pebbles down on the Marine guards.
"Bring him up," I heard the fat monk scream from above.
"Drop him down, drop him down," another monk yelled.
I had just pushed away from the mountain and was at the apex of another swing out into space when I looked down and saw the Cuban Marines aiming their rifles up at me. I had to make the ledge on this try or I wouldn't have another chance. Even so, where would I go from there? I tried not to think of that. I put everything I had into that swing, bearing down so hard on the wicker chair and tugging so hard on the ropes as I arched my body that I was certain something had to snap — the ropes, the lock on the winch, the winch itself.
Bullets were now plunking into the rocks. My feet landed on the ledge and I dug in my toes for maximum purchase. I felt the chair drop away behind me and knew that it was all between me, the ledge and gravity. And, of course, the poison-coated steel scraps on the ledge.
The wall above the ledge bulged out from the mountain, giving me little room. My feet had adequate purchase on the ledge, but I had to double over fast to keep from slamming my shoulders in the bulge of rock and being knocked back into space. In one swift, writhing movement, I curled my body and landed on the ledge on my right side. My hands and feet grasped for holds and, as the wind still ripped at my robe and hood, I felt myself settle onto the solid surface.
I had made it, just barely, but there were other problems. Bullets were smacking into the outcropping of rock above me, sending splinters of rock in a shower all over me. A ricochet could easily do me in. And I could feel the sharp pricks of the metal shreds beneath my body as I clung to the ledge. Fortunately, the two thicknesses of cloth — the robe and my own clothes — had so far kept the metal from puncturing my skin. So far.
The bulge of rock above me proved to be a salvation for now. The clustered monks above couldn't see me. Even if they had guns and would let down their religious tenets long enough to fire them, they had no clear line of vision. For the moment, if a ricochet didn't get me, I was safe.
Slowly, carefully, I moved about on the narrow ledge and plucked up the bits of sharp metal. I flung them over the side, hoping the wind would catch them and drive them into the Marines still firing from below. The Marines also had no clear line of vision, but their bullets were just as dangerous as if they had me as an easy target.
The firing ceased just about the time I had located and discarded the last chunk of poisoned metal. I stretched out on my stomach and gazed over the ledge. I could see the roof of the small station below, but couldn't see the Marines. I knew, though, that the guards had already sent word down the mountain via walkie-talkie that an imposter had made it this far. Marines would be coming up in force.
I spotted another ledge a dozen feet below me and to the left of the point where the winch stood above me. I worked my way to the extreme end of my ledge, tossing over metal scraps as I went, and prepared to drop down to that next ledge. The sunlight caught hunks of sharp metal down there and gave me fair warning. I had no sandals now; dropping down there barefoot would be certain suicide.
An idea came. I took off Nuyan's robe and hood, and began to tear them into strips. Working slowly and purposefully, wondering what the guards below and the monks above were plotting, I wrapped my feet, hands, buttocks, thighs and hands with the heavy garb of the monk. If I had had more material, I would have wrapped myself up like a mummy, but I didn't so I would have to take more risks with the sharp metal and the poison than I wanted to take, but there was no other way.
Sure enough, when I dropped to the next ledge, my left foot landed on a huge chunk of metal. I eased up quickly and the metal didn't make it through to skin. And I had made it to the ledge without being observed from above or below. I knew this because the guards were still firing sporadically, and their bullets were going to that outcropping of rock that had been above me on the first ledge.
This second, lower ledge was about thirty feet wide and a foot deep. I cleared it of metal and worked my way to the westernmost end where I dropped to a third ledge only six feet down. I was still more than seventy feet above the trail and was running out of ledges that would keep my momentum to the west, away from the guard station.
I found a small cave on the third ledge, but it would do no good to hide out in there. Even if they didn't find me, I would soon starve. I had already decided that I couldn't wait for darkness to cover my escape from this rock wall of a mountain. Darkness would not be my friend and ally up here. If I didn't miss my footing in the dark, I would certainly fall prey to the ubiquitous metal shards if I couldn't spot them ahead of time.
In fifteen minutes, though, I had worked my way down four more ledges, to a point about thirty feet above the trail and a hundred yards to the west of the Marine station. The Marines were still taking potshots at the first ledge and, above, the four green-hooded monks manning the winch had filled the wicker chair with an enormous rock and had lowered it ten feet. They were swinging it back and forth, trying to hit whoever might be hiding there. Of course, no one was.
Intenday and his group had apparently gone on up the trail, working their way to the top where plans of war would be discussed with Don Carlos Italla. Following this incident of the imposter and the killing of the real Nuyan, I had no doubts as to the outcome of that discussion. Don Carlos would get his support and he would signal from his cloud-ringed mountaintop in two days for the bloody sport to begin.
Once again, my efforts to head off trouble had only fueled the fires of war and made my own task more difficult. Perhaps I'm a firetender by nature.
While I was resting at my last point, thirty feet above the trail, I heard a terrible hubub below and looked down to see Colonel Vasco and a whole company of Marines scrambling up the trail. The final passage to the trail was a gradual slope. I wouldn't have to jump it. If it weren't for the metal slivers and the Marines coming up the trail, I could slide down it and run like hell for a time. Eventually, though, I knew I would have to come face to face with the Marines. Unless I wanted to take an even bigger chance with the metal scraps and hotfoot it down the mountain slope to the west.
I crammed myself back against the wall at the back of my last ledge and let the Marines go streaming past below. Soon, I knew, they would have the monks lower the basket, put an armed Marine in it and winch him up to the ledge where I'd gotten off. At that time, the search would fan out and they'd find me. There were more than a hundred of them up on the trail now, and I couldn't be more than two hundred yards from the station at the gap in the trail.
I remained hidden, not even watching the Marines at their latest activity. After ten minutes, I heard one of them trudging back down the trail, apparently going after climbing equipment to supplement the winch. I waited another five minutes, surveyed the slope beneath me for metal scraps and then went over.
Five metal scraps caught in the wrappings, but I plucked them out and sent them flying over the trail. I reached the trail, undetected I was sure, and began running down toward the base camp. It had taken us two hours of climbing to reach this point; I figured I could run back down it in about fifteen minutes. I figured wrong.
As I made a turn around the side of the mountain, I came face to face with Col. Ramon Vasco. He was leaning against the mountain, smoking a cigarette. The cigarette dangled untended between his heavy lips. Across his middle, pointing directly at me, was a loaded Volska automatic rifle.
"We meet again, Senor Carter," he said, spitting out the words and smiling with a ruthlessness that made my bowels churn. "This time, I know who you are. You can't fool me with stories about be
ing on special assignment for Captain Rodrigues. And this time, you will not squirrel away into thin air."
"It would seem that way," I said, retaining my outward glibness. Inside, I was in riot, trying to decide which of my weapons to go for first. It had to be Wilhelmina, the luger. I was too far away to be effective with Hugo, and poor old Pierre would be too slow for his quick trigger-finger. "What's keeping you? Why don't you shoot?"
His smile broadened and became even more ruthless looking, if possible.
"Patience, Mr. Carter," he said. "You've exhibited a great deal of it in infiltrating my ranks and then concealing yourself among these humble men of God. I will be the one to kill you, make no mistake about that. First, I wish to ask you a few questions."
"Go ahead." I was inching forward, hoping he wouldn't notice but knowing he would. He did.
"Don't move any farther," he snapped, "or we forget the questions and toss your body over the side of the mountain. When you are questioned, it will be by experts. Take my word for it, Mr. Carter. When they are finished with you, we will know everything you know, and more. You will talk as you have never talked before."
"You have ways," I said, using the old cliché in a mocking manner.
"Many, many ways. Now, move to the outer edge of the trail and pass by me. We will go down to the base camp now."
"How did you know I wasn't still up on that ledge?" I asked as we trudged along single file down the trail.
"I didn't. But I have witnessed your miracles before, Senor Carter. This time, I decided to detach myself from the scene and hope that the thin air you disappeared into would be occupied by me. And it was, much to your misfortune."
At a turn in the trail, I saw a squad of Marines far ahead. We would catch up to them in a matter of seconds. Thirty or forty at the most. It would surely be all over for me then. I might have a chance against one armed man, but not a squad of them. I stumbled and stopped. Colonel Vasco stopped behind me.
"What is it? Why do you stop?"
I turned and showed him the blood on my chest. It was Nuyan's blood, but the colonel didn't know it. I leaned against the side of the mountain and let my body sag as though weak. I put my hand to my face and bent over.
"A piece of metal," I said, gasping out the words for effect. "When I dropped down on a ledge up there, a piece of metal cut through my clothes. I feel sick. Weak."
The last words had come slowly, far apart, in a slurred voice. I heard the colonel swear and knew that he was certain the poisoned metal would cheat him out of his brutal interrogation and final disposition of my body. He wanted me for his own, wanted the pleasure of seeing me tortured, the pleasure of pulling the trigger to blast the last remnants of life from my body.
I sagged further and reached out my hand, as though seeking relief from my building agonies.
"Son of a bitch," he grumbled, as he moved forward to take my outstretched hand. "You can't die here. You…"
Hugo flashed in the air and caught the colonel in the throat. His automatic rifle plummeted to the ground and he let out a cry that could have been heard all the way to Miami. When I had wrapped my right hand, I had kept the stiletto clutched in my fingers. But my aim hadn't been as accurate as it should. I withdrew the weapon and plunged it in again, this time in his chest, hoping to pierce his heart.
He fell, slowly, just as the squad of Marines down the trail broke into a run. They had seen me attack the colonel. Two of them had veered off to one side and were on their knees, taking aim to kill the colonel's attacker.
I had no choice, I leaped over the side of the trail and slid on my belly down into the jungle thicket, knowing that it was full of poison-coated metal.
Chapter Six
Bullets swept the hillside like a wave of water before a high wind. I leaped to my wrapped feet and made a twisting, turning dash down the mountain. Although I was out of sight from the Marine squad above, their weapons were sweeping the underbrush that was no protection from steel-jacketed bullets.
Small trees, limbs and bushes all around me were cracking and flashing from the rain of bullets. Clusters of leaves literally exploded in my face. I could see the bits of metal that obviously had been dropped on the mountainside by an aircraft, and knew that I was stepping on those bits as I ran helter-skelter down through the thickening jungle. I could only hope that the wrappings would hold out, would absorb the penetrating shards.
Ironically, it was the existence of the poisoned metal bits that enabled me to get away from the squad of Marines on the trail above. They didn't have their lives at stake, weren't as desperate as I was, so they had no intentions of following me into that sea of death and danger. I zigzagged across the downward slope, found an old Indian trail and made a beeline straight to the valley floor.
When I was out of the area that had been seeded with the poisoned metal, I found a stream and sat down to rest. The wound in my side had come open during the flight and the pain of it was growing unbearable. There was also something in the wrapping on my right foot, a pebble perhaps that was pressing against the sole of my foot.
I washed the jungle dirt from my face and took off the filthy bindings. I checked the bandage over my side wound, found it soaked in blood, but didn't dare remove it. Pico's healing herbs and mosses were still there, doing their magic.
When I had finished washing, I lay on the bank to rest and let my side stop bleeding. I hadn't found a pebble in the wrapping on my right foot, but I soon forgot about that. After resting, I got up and continued on down the Indian path until it faded into jungle. I picked lines of least resistance and, following the sun which I could see at uneven intervals, made my way ever westward toward Ninca lands. With luck, I would be there by dusk. Perhaps now I'd be able to convince Chief Botussin that he'd better lend help with his full complement of warriors. We could at least get to the capital, warn of the coming revolution, and stir up enough action among rebels and government forces there to put a crimp in Don Carlos Italla's plans. If we did our work well, his signal from the cloud-wreathed summit of Alto Arete might not have its full sting; the revolution might fail.
It was a slim hope, but my only one right then. I had thought of going back up to where I had stashed my radio and remaining supplies, where I could hopefully impress on David Hawk, or others at AXE that, unless they came through with support, two more third world nations would slip out of our grasp to the tune of a great deal of bloodshed. Recalling my last effort, I gave up on the idea. It would take too many precious hours and, I was convinced, would prove fruitless.
I hadn't gone a mile through the jungle, though, when I began to feel a throbbing in my right foot. I ignored it for a time, but stopped when I came to the stream where Elicia had taken her bath and had sung her sweet song. I sat on the bank and twisted my foot around to look at the bottom. It was filthy from black jungle dirt, so I dipped it into the stream to wash it off.
The sting of the water was like a hot poker on my foot. I pulled my foot up again and saw the tiny pinprick in the soft part of my arch. The redness and the swelling told me the worst. There had been no pebble in that wrapping.
There had been a piece of the tainted steel, and it had punctured my skin.
I nearly panicked then, knowing from what I'd been told that I probably had little time to live. First, I would grow woozy and weak, then I would become faint, finally going into delerium, then coma, then death.
With all the strength I had, I pulled the foot to my mouth and began to suck blood from the pinprick wound. Not much came out, but I spat it into the stream. An idea hit and I used Hugo to cut an X-mark through the wound. Blood flowed copiously and I sucked and spat until I began to feel nausea. It wasn't enough. The poison had already started working its way up my leg.
The second idea hit and, even though I didn't hold out much hope for it, it was certainly worth a try. I removed the bandage from my side and scooped out a portion of the now putrid poultice Pico had applied to my bullet wound.
Working
patiently and diligently in spite of growing panic, I worked the grisly concoction of moss and herbs deep into the wound on my foot. I wrapped it with my handkerchief, rested for another fifteen minutes, then tested it out. The foot hurt like hell when I stood on it, but I no longer felt wooziness. I knew that, for the poultice to work — if it had any power left — I would have to rest there several hours and let its healing powers seep into my blood along with the poison, but there was no time for that. I had to find Botussin and convince him of the need for hasty action, for a small-scale war, if possible.
The more I walked, the greater the foot hurt. By the time I was within sight of Ninca lands, I was more than exhausted. My side wound was bleeding profusely and the poison had worked its way to my hips. I felt a kind of paralysis setting in there. But I plugged along, stumbling, falling; passing out for short stretches. At times, my mind drifted and I could see myself plunging headlong down another ravine. This time, I knew, Pico wouldn't be there to rescue me. I was miles from his hermitage up on the side of the mountain.
It was late afternoon when I found the final trail leading to Botussin's camp. In just over twenty four hours, at dusk tomorrow, Don Carlos Italla would walk to the edge of his lair in the clouds and send the signal to start the revolution. There was no doubt in my mind that he'd gain the full support of Intenday and his followers from Apalca.
I literally crawled into the Ninca encampment and, just before passing out, saw Purano and two of his warriors coming toward me. The two warriors had spears in their hands and I thought then that something had gone wrong and they were now ready to turn me over to the spear chuckers.
At that point, I really didn't give a damn. In fact, I would welcome the sweet rest that would come from death by any means.