War From The Clouds

by Nick Carter

  * * *

  It was dark when I awoke in the now familiar hut. I opened my eyes and saw one lighted torch on the opposite wall. I swiveled my eyes to my right and there was Elicia, sitting cross-legged beside me, a damp cloth in her hands. She had been applying the cloth to my fevered brow. Near her stood Antonio and Purano, watching anxiously to see if I would speak or merely give out a death rattle.

  But Pico's poultice had done its job, in spite of my failure to cooperate with its healing powers. I felt a bit stronger, but still was unable to rise on my own. Antonio and Purano, against Elicia's wishes, helped me to a sitting position. Botussin entered then and sat on his familiar stool.

  With great effort, I told of what had happened to me since leaving the Ninca lands in the middle of last night. When I was finished, they were all convinced that we had lost. There was no way to penetrate Don Carlos Italla's fortress, no way to halt the revolution that would come at dusk tomorrow, about twenty hours away. Antonio had news that had excited them all during the day, but now he wasn't certain.

  "I understand some of the symbols on the map," he said, "but most are so faint that none of us could read them. With Purano's help, and a few of his warriors, we made it to the general vicinity of the cave's entrance, but it could be in one of several hollows on the side of the mountain. And there are guerillas and Cuban Marines scouting that area. We were nearly discovered a half-dozen times, and escaped just in time. I'm afraid…"

  He sounded so defeated, so desolate. I had no ideas to cheer him, so I said nothing, unwilling to let them hear the note of defeatism in my own voice. I lay back down, wanting sleep and rest, but afraid to waste anymore time.

  "We have to try again," I said. "With what you've made out on the map, we at least know the general location of the cave. We can search all night, avoid the patrols of the guerillas and the Marines, and maybe get lucky."

  "Lucky the way we've been all along?" Antonio asked with a trace of bitterness in his voice.

  "Luck has a way of changing," I said wearily, unable to feel the optimism that my tone implied. "It's time it swung around in our direction."

  "We will help with warriors for such a venture," Botussin said. He had listened to our repartee and had decided that I was right. It was worth another try. "Purano will lead our warriors. They will be at your disposal, Senor Carter."

  For the first time since my return, I noticed that Elicia, though attentive to my needs, hadn't been regarding me with such open adoration. She didn't seem to need to be near me, to touch me often. I soon discovered why. She was sitting quite close to Purano and he was regarding her with a tenderness that I quickly recognized as budding romance. I remembered then what Botussin had told me during our initial discussion, when we had all been tied together in his council hut the first night we came here. "So many of our maidens were killed by Ancio and his fanatic followers… Today, Purano is past marrying age, yet has not found a maiden suitable as a bride."

  Elicia, though she wasn't an Indian, must have been considered of a very high station by Purano and his father. Things had happened here in my absence and I had to admit that I felt a pang of jealousy, knowing that what had happened was a meeting of minds — and perhaps of soul — between Elicia and Purano. Ah, the fickleness of the adolescent mind. But the jealousy was short-lived and slightly diluted. I had been worried about how the matter with Elicia would be resolved. Even though I retained strong feelings for her, I knew that these new developments were for the best. Taking Elicia out of her jungle home, no matter how primitive, rough and dangerous the life, would have been a travesty. She might be as fickle as an American high school girl, but the similarity ended there.

  I took another hour's rest, during which time Elicia still tended me with the cold, wet cloth, but avoided my eyes as much as possible. Even when our eyes met, I saw a kind of troubled expression in them. She was jilting me for another man, after having pursued me so diligently before Purano came into her life. Finally, I decided to put her troubled mind at ease.

  "You're very beautiful and very precious, Elicia," I said, "and I have a great fondness for you. Bat this is better. Purano will…"

  "You presume too much, Senor Carter," she said. "I have announced no decisions of my intentions."

  "Yes, you have," I replied. "Not with your lips, but with your eyes. Perhaps you don't love Purano yet, but you will. Don't fight it, Elicia, and don't be concerned about offending me. Let what will be come to you, naturally, and welcome it."

  "You still presume. I love you, Senor Carter."

  "And you will love Purano."

  She was silent, then her eyes found mine and they were still troubled. I hadn't helped a bit.

  "That is my problem," she said. "I love you both."

  I nodded. I started to tell her about the vast differences in our cultures, about the fact that I would soon be called away on another assignment, perhaps halfway around the world, about the fact that I might never return to Nicarxa. I decided to skip all that malarkey. If I really wanted her, I could resign from AXE and stay right here for the rest of my life. It would be a fine surrogate for that truck farm in Ohio. Better, in fact, I said nothing, only nodded again and slipped into a deep sleep.

  Before I went under, I felt the cold cloth on my forehead again, felt warm tears fall against my bare chest.

  * * *

  Antonio and Purano wakened me shortly before dawn. We had just over twelve hours to stop Don Carlos and his bloody revolution. If we didn't find the entrance to the cave, and if the cave didn't have a chimney that we could scale to the summit of Alto Arete, it was all over. Even I would have difficulty escaping Nicarxa with my skin intact. And if we reached the summit, there was still the lack of a plan as to how we would function up there.

  Beside me on the floor of the hut was my knapsack and I knew that the old chief had sent someone to retrieve it from the high ledge above the Reina Valley. I wished I had told him about my radio, hidden near the Cortez farm, but the radio was no help now — now that I could expect no further help from Washington. Hawk and the President drove hard bargains.

  But the knapsack was a godsend. I had an extra pair of boots in there. We had all studied the map I had made of Alto Arete's layout and fortifications. Even considering that Sergeant Pequeno had lied a bit, we had a pretty fair idea of what to expect. We wouldn't have to worry about the minefields and rabid dogs and guards on the perimeter of the summit, but there were plenty of armed guards inside the compound around the main courtyard and in the palace where Don Carlos Italla lived. Unfortunately, the Marine sergeant I had killed so many days ago knew nothing of the chimney through the mountain, so there was no way of knowing where it came out on top — or if we would be able to get through it.

  We were as ready, though, as we would ever be.

  My fever had broken and I felt strong again. Elicia remained asleep and I was grateful for that. I didn't want to see her troubled look as her soul fought to decide between me and Purano. If the chiefs son knew of her agonizing decision, he said nothing.

  Outside, a dozen warriors, all carrying primitive spears, waited for us to lead them to the cave. Botussin himself slept through our departure and, by first real light, we were well out on the trail, climbing steadily up the western slopes of Mount Toro. We walked slowly but purposefully, knowing that precious minutes were slipping past; also knowing that haste would spend our strength and make us useless once we found the cave — if we found it. It would take all the strength we could summon to scale that chimney, if indeed we could scale it at all.

  Antonio carried the ancient map, studying it every few hundred yards. As we approached the first hollow that could possibly lead to the cave's hidden entrance, I thought I heard sounds ahead of us. They weren't normal jungle sounds, so I halted our small party and went on ahead to find out what the sounds were.

  And there, at the mouth of the hollow, were two dozen guerillas, just rousing themselves for breakfast, in a small camp of a man-made
clearing. They had been camping in the open — no tents, huts or even cots. I knew that Don Carlos had dispatched them all along this area. He knew the location of the cave and was protecting it, just in case we stumbled onto it. Because of this protection, I had the feeling that old Don Carlos considered himself safe from invasion through the lost cave. That was good. If he felt really safe, he wouldn't bother to have the top part of the chimney guarded.

  I reported back to the others and we decided against a frontal attack against the superior force of guerillas. I had noticed sentries at a half-dozen outposts. We set out, knives in hands, with instructions from me on how to take out a man quietly, without alarming the others.

  After staking out the sentry I would kill, I watched his activities until I found the place where he came nearest the jungle wall. I made a circuitous route to that spot, lay in the bushes and waited for the others to do the same with their sentries. Only five of the spearchuckers and I were involved in the caper. Antonio, Purano and the other seven Ninca warriors were set up in a phalanx formation near the camp's main entrance. They would press to the attack on the main force of guerillas only if one of the sentries managed to set off an alarm.

  The backup phase of the operation wasn't necessary. No sooner had I leaped from cover, slashed the throat of my appointed sentry and dragged him into the brush, than the other five warriors, armed with long, keenly-honed blades, were already on top of their sentries, dispatching them silently and swiftly.

  When we had dragged them all into the brush, the camp was as quiet as if nothing had happened. The balance of the guerilla force, eighteen of them, were huddled in a patch of shade near the back part of the clearing, in a narrow part of the hollow. Once again, silence and swiftness were called for. If any of the guerillas called out or escaped, they could bring reinforcements from the adjacent hollow, not more than a half mile away.

  My heart, really wasn't into this obvious massacre, especially since we had no idea if this were the hollow that would lead us to the ancient cave. The hieroglyphics on the map, according to Antonio, indicated that one of the seven hollows on this side of the mountain led to the cave. If the cave were at number seven and there were twenty four guerillas guarding each hollow, we would spend the entire precious day trying to kill nearly a hundred and seventy men in groups of two dozen each.

  The odds in favor of us succeeding in killing all 170 men without running into a fatal snag somewhere along the line were so scant that I knew we were flirting with disaster, as well as the clock. I signaled for a council of war and we met far down the hollow beside a meandering stream.

  After I had put forth my reservations and doubts, and my aversion to such a wholesale bloodbath in the seven hollows, it was agreed that we must devise an alternate plan. I turned to the taciturn Purano.

  "Do you or your men know of any other trail up the mountain, one that circles around these hollows and comes out at the headwaters, nearer the base of Alto Arete?"

  He studied the question, then spoke tersely with his spearchuckers. I didn't understand the language, but there was a great deal of grunting and nodding. Finally, Purano stood and gazed up the hill to the right of the first hollow.

  "Come. We try old trail."

  We found an old and nearly closed trail that hadn't been used in so many years that it was little better than cutting our way through the thickest part of the jungle. And it was steep, much steeper than the trail up the center of the hollow. When we had gone two hours, two very precious hours, the trail seemed to open up a bit. We moved more easily, but it was late in the morning by the time we had finished a complete survey of that side of the mountain's base.

  If there were indeed a cave at the base of Alto Arete, we failed to find a trace of it. The answer lay in the fact that it must be farther down the hill, in one of the seven hollows guarded by Don Carlos Italla's guerillas. It would take too long to go back and instigate our original plan, too long even to check out the valleys from the upper end and thus circumvent the guards.

  We were defeated and we all knew it as we started back down the old trail that had brought us here. Even the spearchuckers walked with a sullen gait as we started back down the mountain. My mind raced with thoughts and ideas, none of them worth a damn. Somewhere in my memory, though, was a key to all this. Someone, somewhere had said something to me to indicate that someone other than Ancio, now known as Don Carlos, knew how to decipher those damned hieroglyphics. But who? And where had I met him? Or had I merely overheard it or read of it? As we trudged along, disconsolate, not only were our spirits at low ebb, our vigilance was non-existence.

  We had no idea that danger lurked until one of the Ninca spearchuckers, heading our small procession and walking far out ahead of Purano, suddenly fell in his tracks. Purano might have been silent, but he made up for it in swiftness. Even before the man was flat on the ground, Purano was off in the bushes.

  The rest of us scattered, plunging into the wall of jungle on either side of the scant trail. I had my luger in my hand and lay still in the bushes, studying the trail below. I could see the Indian lying on his back, a huge throwing knife protruding from his chest.

  We waited, patient, expecting an all-out attack, not even knowing who our attackers might be. In the stillness, we heard someone move in the brush far down the trail. A man in peasant garb and carrying a rifle over his shoulder, stepped into the trail and walked boldly up to the dead spearchucker. He looked around, saw nothing threatening, then bent to pull his knife out of the Indian's chest.

  A spear came flying from out of the jungle and caught the man in the throat. He fell back, clutching his wound and the spear with both hands. His eyes bulged and he kept coughing like a consumptive. Soon, though, he gave up the struggle and fell across the body of the dead Indian.

  The jungle was quiet again. I waited perhaps five minutes, then went down to check the dead bodies. I turned the peasant over and saw that he was one of the guerillas we had seen in the camp at the mouth of the first hollow. Danger bells jangled all through my head. The others were coming out of their hiding places, but I waved them back and plunged once again into the jungle. Not a moment too soon. I had just turned to peer back at the trail when I saw six more guerillas, their automatic rifles at the ready, creep up the trail. They stopped when they saw the two dead men and I knew they were about to open fire on the surrounding jungle. I opened my mouth and let out a single word, loud, raucous and anxious:

  "Attack."

  Antonio and I opened fire at the same time. A split second behind us, Purano and his spearchuckers let go their lethal weapons. Purano himself leaped into the trail and started after the guerillas, knife in hand. Antonio and I stopped firing, to avoid hitting him.

  The remaining guerillas, seeing the tall, strong apparition coming down on them with teeth bared and knife flashing, took off running. A new volley of spears sailed accurately past Purano and found marks on the backs of the fleeing guerillas.

  Only one of them remained alive, none got away. It wasn't necessary to torture the poor devil to get information. He looked around at his massacred friends and talked as willingly and as profusely as that Cuban Marine sergeant had talked back there in the Cortez stable the night I had literally strung him up by his balls.

  He said guerillas at the mouth of the first hollow had quickly missed their sentries. Rather than send for help from an adjacent hollow, they had split up in squads and had set out to find out what had happened to their sentries. This squad had been searching for two hours, finally locating this old trail but not expecting to find anyone. One of the guerillas had run on ahead. He was the one who had spotted the Indian and had killed him by throwing his knife at him. The others hadn't known what was happening up ahead and had walked into our trap.

  By now, the guerilla said, the other search teams had probably sought help from others. The hill would soon be swarming with search teams, leaving the valleys unguarded. It seemed to be our grand opportunity to search for the ancient c
ave. But I looked at my watch and saw that it was well past noon. In about eight hours, it would be dusk and Don Carlos would send up the signal from the top of Alto Arete.

  The guerilla, of course, had no idea where the cave entrance was. He had merely been given orders not to let anyone pass up the hollow; he wasn't even to go up the hollow himself. That was why the search teams had gone up the ridge, and had unhappily stumbled onto us.

  After conferring with Purano and Antonio, I found the future prospects dimmer than I'd previously thought. It would take at least an hour to check out each of the seven hollows. Unless we hit the cave on our first two or three tries, it would be too late to stop Don Carlos. Even after we found the cave, Purano pointed out as succinctly as possible, it would take many hours to scale the natural chimney. It was, after all, more than two thousand feet long.

  For the first time in many years, it looked rather conclusively that Nick Carter, N3, Killmaster for AXE, would fail in an assignment. Not only fail, but be lucky to get out of it alive.

  But there was an answer somewhere in my mind, something that could shorten the time considerably, enable us to find the cave in a matter of an hour or two, giving us ample time to scale the chimney and reach Don Carlos Italla's lair in the clouds.

  But what was the answer, and who had it?

  We dragged all the dead bodies off the trail and, with the sole surviving guerilla securely tied, we started off down the trail again. This time, we moved with more caution, keeping our eyes and ears peeled for the search teams. It wasn't likely they'd all cover the same ground, but with our luck one team could get lost and accidentally stumble across our path. It was a possibility we couldn't overlook.

  We were near the mouth of the hollow when Purano suddenly stopped and held up his hand. We all took to the brush, weapons ready. We could all hear it then. Someone was thrashing his way up the hill, ignoring stealth, coming hell bent for election.