There was no time for zigzagging. I ran straight over the bodies of moaning terrorists to the Chicom and the MIRistas' leader. The heavy greatcoat the general had given me tugged as a pair of shots went through it. A MIRista leaped to his feet and swung a machete up at my head. I ducked and planted a foot in his stomach. Another man jumped over the fire, his AK-47 held high over his head. He never got a chance to fire it. My shot caught him while he was in the air and his body landed in the fire like a sack of potatoes.
The head MIRista jumped back from the dead body and pulled a .45. I was already firing when I caught out of the corner of my eye the glint of swinging steel. A MIRista I hadn't seen knocked the gun out of my hand. A second swing of his machete sliced toward my neck. I ducked underneath the weapon's saber edge and pulled the man toward me. When we straightened up, I had control of the machete and I pressed its edge against his Adam's apple, holding him in front of me as a human shield.
"Drop the gun!" I yelled at the MIRista chief.
He was a big man with a red beard and small eyes. He made his decision in a second, firing and blasting open his friend's chest with one slug after another, trying to tear him apart until one bullet would get through to me.
Before that could happen, I heaved the dead man at his chief. He sidestepped the flying body but by that time I was in the air, tackling him and bringing him down in the middle of the smoldering campfire. My head jolted back from the force of his elbow, my hair singeing as he pushed me deeper into the fire. His fingers searched for my throat as he cursed loudly.
He didn't seem to notice that I had a grip on the lapels of his fatigues. I yanked forward and brought him facedown in the coals. When he came up screaming, the edge of my hand met his nose like a blunt machete. As the blood spurted out of his mouth, I was already turning my attention to the main target.
The Chinese messenger was slipping the barrel of his automatic into his mouth. One of Mao's sayings, "All power comes from the barrel of a gun," popped into my mind as I acted, seizing his hand not to tear it away from the gun but to paralyze the pressure point in his wrist.
He sat there in the middle of the battle, regarding the gun aimed at his mouth and wondering why no bullet emerged from it to blow off his head. Confused and pathetic, he stared up me. The last shots died down and the general, flushed with excitement, one arm bleeding from a wound, was the first to join us. Tenderly he eased the gun from the Chicom's paralyzed hand and looked back at the trail of MIRistas I'd left behind.
"You are not supposed to be here, Señor Carter. But if you were present, I would say that you are a magnificent warrior."
Back at Punta Arena, we interrogated the messenger at the barracks. Unfortunately the interrogation started without me because the Chileans were so excited by their catch that by the time I entered the room, the entire raid and the fives of a dozen men had been wasted.
"I don't understand," the officer in charge said to me. "I only started when he became like this."
The messenger was sitting stock upright in a chair in the middle of the room under a powerful light. The first thing I noticed was that he didn't blink. I passed my hand in front of his face and his eyes didn't follow it. I clapped my hands next to his ear. Nothing. I stuck a needle into his arm. Still nothing.
"He's in an induced catatonic state," I said. "His breathing has slowed down and so has his heartbeat. You say he wasn't this way when he came in?"
"No, he was just scared. Then I asked him what message he was carrying and suddenly he became like this. Do you think he is faking?"
I could have beaten the officer's head against the wall, but there was no point in blaming him.
"You questioned him in Spanish, of course."
"Of course. None of us speak Chinese. He must speak Spanish or why would they have sent him?"
The answer was that Peking never would have sent him had he spoken Spanish. It was all a part of their effort to control every bit of subversion from their headquarters in China. The messenger would have been taken to Santiago, where a translator would have received the message he brought. If anyone had asked him his purpose in Spanish — as might happen were he captured — he would fall at once into a post-hypnotic trance. It had all been taken care of in a laboratory that specializes in psychological conditioning, and all it took was a tape producing the trigger question in phonetic Spanish and English and an electric generator to provide the pain. And a Mao-worshipping volunteer. Had I been five minutes earlier, I could have tiptoed all around the messenger's mind, using Cantonese. Now all we had was a man who was as good as dead, and dead men tell no tales.
"How long will he be like this?" the humiliated officer wanted to know.
"With reconditioning by a trained psychologist, he might snap out of it in a month. Without that, it will be six months on the inside. At any rate, he's of no use to us."
"I'm sorry. Forgive me, I…"
He had nothing to say either. I took one last look at the messenger who had dragged me through hell. Believe me, if he could have laughed, he would have.
Chapter Seven
Although the messenger didn't talk, the raid wasn't a complete loss. I found this out during the flight back to Santiago as I pieced together the scraps of paper that had failed to burn. They were written in Chinese characters and they were charred, but I knew that AXE's special-effects and editing lab would get information from them if anyone could. I couldn't wait to jump into an American jet and head home.
The capital city appeared below, followed by the airport. When we touched down, I expected to see a U.S. Air Force jet sitting next to us. Instead, the man who greeted me in a closed limousine had a face that I recognized as having been at the Presidential Palace. He was one of Allende's own cabinet ministers. I was reluctant to join him but the chauffeur with the gun was most persuasive.
"What now, a command performance back at the palace?" I asked the minister.
"You got anything from the Chinese?" he demanded abruptly.
He was a lean man with a pale, intelligent face. Now that I was alone with him, I wondered why I hadn't paid more attention to him at the reception. I also wondered how the hell he knew about the messenger. His next words answered both questions.
"In Chile, Mister Carter, the seasons are backwards because here the world is upside down."
It was the password. He was my contact from AXE.
"Just what he couldn't burn," I said, getting down to business. "Nothing that will help us until it's analyzed."
"There is no time for that. Read this."
He handed me a report. On the bottom of the page was a scrawled initial that I recognized as Hawk's. The gist of the report was enough to make me search for a cigarette and bite hard on the gold tip.
I knew the background. A U.S. Air Force reconnaissance satellite had routinely dropped its titanium tube of information-bearing magnetic tape about Soviet missile construction as it passed over the Turkish border. At a predetermined altitude the tube's drogue chute opened up and it floated down to where an American jet — stationed by prearrangement — could snatch it with an apparatus that was no more than a glorified hook. Only it was a Mig 23 that did the snatching this time. Our plane was in a thousand pieces over the Caucasus Mountains, shot down by the Mig's missiles. Naturally the Reds claimed that the incident took place on their side of the border, but then they compounded their piracy. On our satellite's next pass over Russian territory, they tracked it and launched a Cosmos Interceptor from their pads at Tyuratam. The killer satellite stalked our spy-in-the-sky for one orbit and then both of them blew up, sending millions of dollars and rubles showering over the earth and launching what could have been a full-scale war for control of the skies.
Two days later — the day I arrived in Santiago — it looked as if just such a costly war were developing. A team of CIA operatives infiltrated the Tyuratam base, where they tried to seize the still-sealed data tube. They managed to take control of the blockhouse and abort a seco
nd Cosmos killer but they were wiped out before reaching the room where their main objective, the tube, was kept. All this happened without the Americans or Russians hearing a word of it and now the two governments had decided to negotiate a truce before each had its entire space program destroyed by the other.
What caught my eye was the agreement providing that the KGB would personally deliver the sealed data tube at the Finnish border in return for which concession the United States would furnish a personal bodyguard for a high-ranking Soviet minister on tour of the Republic of Chile. The minister was identified as A. Belkev and the bodyguard was AXE Killmaster N3. Me! Now I knew why Hawk had been reluctant to talk further at the airport. The stakes went far beyond the Chilean MIRistas and their proposed coup. Hawk had played it soft, thinking he was protecting me in case I were captured. I didn't know now if I appreciated all that consideration.
"This has to be a joke," I told my contact. "Belkev did his best to kill me and I'd like to return the favor if I ever have the chance. Besides, why not let the Russians keep the tube? We can put a new satellite up and get the same information again."
There's more involved than just a satellite," my contact said. "AXE has information that the MIRistas have coordinated their efforts with Maoist terrorists in Peru and Bolivia. A simultaneous coup is planned for all three countries. The signal is to be the assassination of Belkev. Then a quarter of my continent will fall under Chinese domination."
"That's crazy!"
"I wish it were. But all our armed forces, good as they are, have fewer than forty-eight thousand men. The armies of Peru and Bolivia have both been subverted by Maoist agents. If a coup occurs, who will help us? America, after Vietnam? Hardly likely. Russia? They are even farther away than China."
"That still leaves Argentina and Brazil. They both have big armies and they're not going to stand still for Chairman Mao grinning at their borders."
He nodded as if he already had the answer for that. As it turned out, though, I did.
"There must be some information in the papers the messenger had. We have no time for laboratories, Mister Carter. I understand you can read Chinese."
The curtains had been drawn over the car windows and I had no idea of where we were going. When the limousine stopped, I found that we were in the basement of a ministry in the middle of Santiago. I was led into a bare room without windows, without even a table or chair. There was one fluorescent fixture that filled the room with a greenish glare. Before he left, the minister gave me a pair of tweezers with which to handle the charred papers.
"You think of everything, don't you?" I commented.
"A Dr. Thompson at AXE said you'd need them."
Six hours later my back ached from all the crawling around on the concrete floor I had done but I had what I was looking for. I had managed to piece together hundreds of disjointed Chinese characters on badly scorched paper and I understood at last why Hawk had been so eager to assign me to Chile. After I knocked on the door and told the guard I was ready, I lay down on the cold floor and had a well-deserved cigarette.
The minister walked around the squares of blackened paper I had reassembled.
"I'm disappointed," he said. "How can you make anything out of this?"
"It's not a love letter," I replied. "This is a military analysis and the Chinese military mind isn't very different from any other. In other words, it's specific and repetitious, enough so that I can grasp the general idea." I bent down and pointed at one character after another as I spoke. "Here, for example, is the repetition of the character denoting the sea with a modification meaning south. South Sea."
"Very interesting. I wish I had time for a lecture," he said sardonically.
"Now wait a minute. You dragged me down into this garage to do in one afternoon what it usually takes a team of analysts with slides and enlargements and chemical preparations a week to do. Now that I've done it, you'll damn well listen to this. It won't take long. As I was saying, we have a number of references to the South Sea. Here is a reference to the sea again but modified this time to mean also a ship going under it."
"A submarine."
"Now you're catching on. What is involved is a submarine of the Chinese South Sea Fleet. That's not so earth-shattering. It's not a new character in the Chinese language. It also means a missile, or rather a number of missiles. The modification is relatively new, however. Atomic. So what we have so far is the weapon."
"The weapon for what? What has this got to do with Chile?"
"I didn't know the answer to that until I reached the last page, where I found the first reference to Chile by name. The sub is sitting a hundred miles off the Chilean coast at this second. It arrived inside a specially fitted Albanian freighter. Once the assassination of Belkev has been completed and the coups start, the Chinese sub moves to the Chilean port of Antofagasta."
"That's where I come from."
"Well, the MIRistas have some nice plans for it. Antofagasta will be the first city seized so that the sub will berth with no trouble. That's when the terrorists announce that they have atomic missiles aimed at the capital cities of half the other nations in South America. Which will be true. There's no mention of it in the message but I'm sure we're dealing with a G-Class submarine armed with a Chinese version of the Russian Sark missile. Here on this past page is the character for terror and the distance of 1,700 kilometers. That's the radius of the missile's range, a circle of blackmail that takes in Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. If anyone raises so much as a hand against the MIRistas, these cities will be turned into a nuclear wasteland.
"Say we try to interfere. Suppose we send up our antiballistic missiles to shoot down their missiles. The result will still be at least a dozen nuclear warheads exploding over the continent, and let me tell you that one feature of Chinese missile technology has not been the development of clean warheads. South America will be radioactive from the Amazon River south."
"If nobody interferes?"
"Then the whole western shelf of South America is turned into a second China Sea."
The minister fiddled in his pockets anxiously. I handed him one of my cigarettes and fit it for him.
"You're very calm," he commented. "How do we manage to stop the coups, then?"
"By not letting them start. The cue is Belkev's death. Much as I hate to say it, we — I — have to keep him alive." I added an expletive in English that showed my true sentiments but the minister didn't catch it.
"Then all we have to do is put him under guard at an army base."
"No. That's the last thing we want to do. Once it's obvious that we're on to the MIRistas' plans, they'll change them. Belkev has to remain out in the open, a fat little target for anyone who wants to take a shot at him."
I swept the charred pieces of paper together and made a pile of them and lit it. I didn't want to leave any clues behind. The minister got down on the floor in his pin-striped suit and helped.
"Remember," he said, "Chile has been a democracy for one hundred and twenty years, far longer than the great majority of nations. We will continue to be one and if the Reds try to institute a dictatorship, we will fight with more than words."
I told him that if he had any words, he should say a prayer for the worthless life of Alexander Belkev.
Chapter Eight
Every assignment has its silver fining, I thought as I saw Rosa and Bonita crossing over from their balcony to mine. The scene behind them was one of the most spectacular in the world, the Andes mountains capped with snow and glowing in the moonlight. We were staying in a parador, an inn, in the Indian town of Aucanquilcha, the first stop on Belkev's itinerary and no less than the highest town on the face of the earth.
"Buenos noches," the sisters said together as they slipped into my room. "Belkev is sleeping like a stuffed pig."
For the moment Belkev was the furthest thing from my mind. I was busy glorying in scenery that had nothing to do with the Andes either. Rosa and Bonita were nearly t
wins, the only difference being that Bonita was a bit shorter and plumper. They were both wearing silky bikini nightclothes that were almost transparent, and just in case I did become confused between them, I knew that Rosa wore a gold necklace and Bonita a silver one.
They made themselves at home, going straight to the bar where I had a selection of rums set up.
"Are you as talented as your sister?" I asked Bonita.
She ran her hand inside my shirt and over my chest.
"I am a singer." She giggled. "If you are as talented as I hear you are, maybe you will make me sing something beautiful."
"He will," Rosa promised her. She made a concoction of the rums and handed the glasses around. "He is like the rum. Enough to go around."
"We don't have much time," Bonita whispered. "The other girls will notice that we are gone."
I realized that Bonita was unbuckling my belt in between her giggles. Rosa embraced me from the back and I could feel the press of her breasts through my shirt. The two of them fluttered around me like a pair of exotic butterflies until all my clothes were on the floor. Then Bonita embraced me, sliding her hips against me until my excitement was beyond dispute by the United Nations.
Our glasses emptied and the rum cool inside us, the three of us lay naked on the bed. They took turns in kissing me and as I sprawled out luxuriously, each draped a thigh over me, so. I ran my hands down over their flanks, weighing the possibilities.
What one fantastic Cuban girl can do, two can do better. When the bottles and we were drained, the moon was shining through the window over the Andes.
"God, we've been here for two hours," I said, catching sight of the clock on the bureau. "I thought you both had to get back"
The Inca Death Squad Page 5