The Annihilators

by Donald Hamilton

  She licked her lips and started to speak, but I never heard her last words, if any. My chunky watchdog, who’d been told what to do if I moved, went into action. Something exploded against my head and I went out, not really knowing whether I’d been shot or clubbed.

  22

  I awoke in a shadowed place remembering sunshine. The change was startling enough to make me sit up abruptly, very much afraid that it was my vision that was clouded, not my surroundings.

  The movement sent agony through my head, but the view was reassuring. I was in a shallow cave of sorts—a man-made cave for a change, I realized after a moment. It was a small stone chamber with a high wedge-shaped ceiling; another of the Melmec corbeled-arch jobs. There was a similarly shaped doorway with sunlight outside. I was not alone in the place.

  “Careful, you got a bad knock on the head.” I was aware of the big yellow boots and the flounced yellow skirt; then Gloria Jean Putnam was kneeling beside me, dabbing at the side of my neck. Something had changed about her and after a moment I realized what it was: the patriotic liberation movement had relieved her of her necklace and silver bracelets; they’d also taken her concha belt, leaving her shirt hanging loose outside her skirt. All done with the highest ideological motives, no doubt, I reflected grimly. Gloria Jean said, “The scalp cut isn’t serious, it’s almost stopped bleeding, but you could have a bit of concussion.”

  I tried to speak but my mouth was too dry. I licked my lips and got something out: “Where?…”

  “You’re in our cell, cell number four, in the Labal Detention Center, formerly known as the Nunnery. The ventilation is swell, but the facilities are kind of lousy and I think we’ve got a couple of good-sized lizards for company.” The girl’s voice was humorously resigned. “Just in case you’re wondering, we got you because nobody else wanted you, and Jim was too softhearted to leave you lying there. You’re not very popular right now, Sam Felton, or whatever your real name is.”

  I tried to assimilate all that, finding it a bit puzzling in view of the fact that softheartedness was not a characteristic I would have attributed to James Wallace Putnam.

  I remembered something. “Miranda?” I whispered.

  “I’m sorry, your friend is dead.”

  “I know, but…”

  “Jim and some of the others are burying her right now, under military escort.” She licked her lips, studying my face. “Mr. Felton, or whoever you are?”

  “Yes?”

  “I understand how you feel. But please don’t get Jim mixed up in any wild get-even schemes.”

  “Forty percent,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You read the papers. Down here in Latin America holding people for ransom is the great local sport, like drug-smuggling around Florida. And how many of those kidnaped are never seen again, alive, even if the money is paid? Somebody told me that the hostage-recovery rate is about forty percent. I wouldn’t have put it that high myself.”

  The girl licked her lips again. “You mean you think they might actually kill us?”

  “The killing’s already started. My bet is that Miranda was shot deliberately, not only as an object lesson, but because she was the most dangerous of us in one respect: She was the one who could really blacken the name of the liberation movement, with her press connections, by letting the whole world know about their little sideline in kidnaping for money. Which seems to indicate that it’s unlikely the rest of us will be turned loose to talk once Lupe has his million bucks. Unknown bandits from the hills did the dastardly deed; and anybody who says different is simply parroting the foul slanders invented by the Rael dictatorship to discredit the revolution.” I shook my head. “At the moment we’re being preserved because they may need Jim’s further cooperation; but in the long run… well, even if Frances is right and the cenote wasn’t used as a depository for dead bodies before, there’s always a first time. It’s a nice deep pool. So I think a little enterprise on our part is indicated, Mrs. Putnam, risky though it may be…”

  A shadow darkened the doorway. “What’s risky?” Jim Putnam asked. “Here, grab one of these mattress pads, honey, before I lose my grip on it. I think that corner back there, don’t you? We’re going to wish we had a mosquito bar like at the hotel before we’re through… Incidentally, they’ve gone through our bags and grabbed all the rest of the jewelry, the larcenous bastards—your cameras, too, Felton—but thank God they didn’t steal the ‘Off.’”

  “We have our luggage?” I asked. “Here?”

  Putnam nodded. “Yes, your bag’s outside. Apparently we’re all checked out of the hotel and our tour bus was seen taking us away—well, a load of people unidentifiable behind all that dark glass—in a totally different direction. But at least they’re providing a roof and something to sleep on; they may even break down and feed us occasionally before they shoot us. After the money gets here, of course.” He looked at me hard. “That’s why I hauled you in here; I thought we’d better talk the situation over. Maybe it would even be a good idea if you moved in with us.”

  “And maybe not,” I said.

  He frowned and nodded. “On second thought, you could be right. In that case we’d better get our talking done right now.” Stripped of his metallic adornments, like his wife, he looked like a lean, dark stranger. There was more animation in his face than I’d seen on the trip so far. He squatted beside me. “Okay, we’d better make it quick, Sam. We don’t want them thinking we’re holding a council of war in here, even if we are. Let’s have your thoughts on getting away. Is that what you were telling Glory was risky?”

  I looked at him for a moment and spoke carefully: “Getting away is no problem, amigo. Hell, it’s only fifteen-some miles back to the hotel, with a passable road all the way. Even if they take away all the Jeeps, we can walk it. It’s not as if we were on a desert island, or as if they’d dropped us by helicopter a hundred miles out in the jungle.”

  He was studying me, frowning. “But—”

  I said, “You’re worrying about the wrong thing. To hell with getting away. That will take care of itself, once certain preliminaries are disposed of.”

  Gloria Jean was puzzled. “I don’t understand, Sam. What preliminaries?”

  I waited and saw what I’d been waiting for. Jim Putnam’s dark face broke into a crooked smile; not a very nice crooked smile.

  “Where have you been all my life, friend?” he asked softly. “I could have used a few characters like you in a certain war, not to mention at a certain court-martial.”

  “Hell, they turned you loose, didn’t they?” I said deliberately. “What did you expect, daddy, a medal?”

  He looked a little startled; then he grinned ruefully, the first time I could recall seeing him smile. He said, “Well, actually I did, kind of. We’d performed very well, militarily speaking. I was naive back in those days. As company commander, I thought my job was to bring my company back alive and to hell with the enemy. I didn’t realize I was supposed to bring the enemy back alive and to hell with my company.”

  I said, “So the dead Vietnamese lady had a baby under her garment instead of the grenade somebody thought she had when they blasted her. And there was a sentimental war correspondent handy.”

  He made a face. “Well, not quite like that, but something like that.” After a moment he went on, “I’d seen too damn many men in my outfit hesitate and die—good men—but they’d been ordered to be careful. There had been too much adverse publicity back home… Well, you remember. I was sick of it. Hell, it was a war, wasn’t it, not a Sunday turkey-shoot in the park? So I gave the orders. I told them, when in doubt, shoot, shoot now, and I’d take full responsibility for any mistakes. And I did.” He frowned at me. “Why the hell am I telling you this?”

  I said, “Because it looks as if we might have a little work to do together, and each of us wants to know that he’s not going to lose his life because the other guy got all tangled up in tender humanitarian principles at the wrong moment. What th
e hell is that?” There was a lot of noise outside.

  “Just a minute, I’ll look,” Putnam said. He moved out of the door of the stone chamber; after a moment he returned to us. “Sanchez is heading out with the Jeeps and drivers; he’s left that slimy young bastard Barbera with half a dozen uniformed men to hold the fort.”

  I said, “I’ll be glad when they settle down to a routine so we know what we have to deal with.”

  Putnam nodded and started to speak, but Gloria Jean interrupted. “I wish you two would let me know what you’re talking about. Even though I’m positive I’m not going to like it.”

  Putnam hesitated and said reluctantly, “What Sam means, honey, is that getting away from here is no problem—once Sanchez and his men are dead.”

  She got quite pale. “But… but that’s a horrible idea! You can’t just set out to slaughter—”

  “Can’t you?” I asked harshly. “I can. And if we were to take a vote on it, how do you think Miranda would have cast her ballot?” I looked at Putnam. “Tell me what you’d need, Jim.”

  “Me?”

  But the surprised note in his voice didn’t ring quite true; he’d done some thinking about it already. There was an odd gleam in his eyes I hadn’t seen before. The man was coming back to life.

  “Who the hell else?” I asked. “I’m the lone-wolf type; I couldn’t handle an operation like this. Who’s the gallant leader of men around here, anyway? It’s your baby, Captain Putnam, sir. Now, assuming you had a few moderately competent guys to work with, what would you want to put into their hands, of the stuff you’ve seen out there. Minimum.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Minimum? three of the Ml6s and three or four of the grenades those characters have pinned all over them. That’s assuming surprise, good planning, and lots of luck. And also assuming that Sanchez doesn’t come back with a whole revolutionary regiment, in which case all bets are off. I’d like more, but it can be done with that. Any sidearms you can pick up in addition will be greatly appreciated.”

  I said, “Okay, that’s my job, procurement. Midnight requisitions, I believe they used to be called. Your assignment is to study them, right? Learn all their routines and habits. Any time of day or night I bring the guns, you be ready with a suitable plan that’ll let us wipe them out without losing too many of our tourists…”

  “Jim!”

  The interruption annoyed him. He started to speak angrily; then he checked himself and put a hand on his wife’s arm. “It’s what I was doing on the other side of the Pacific, honey,” he said. “You knew that, you came to terms with it, remember? What makes it so much worse here? Now, please, let Sam and me finish up before somebody comes to see what we’re plotting in here.” He looked at me. “Who?”

  “Henderson and Olcott.”

  He frowned. “Henderson’s pretty old, and not too well.”

  “Don’t send him up any pyramids, then. And you’ll have to treat him diplomatically because he outranks hell out of you. But he was a jungle fighter back when you were bruising other kids’ fists with your nose in that fancy school they undoubtedly sent you to, if you did such a crude and lower-class thing as fight with the other little rich boys.”

  “I did,” he said with a grin. “Olcott? He hunts, doesn’t he?”

  “His specialty is mountain sheep, which means that he can climb, he can stalk, and he can shoot. Whether or not he can shoot a man remains to be seen; some of them can’t. But I don’t think we can afford to pass up an expert marksman.”

  Putnam said thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t want to trust a gun in the hands of that blowhard Wilder. What about Gardenschwartz?”

  “The information I have is that he and his wife are members of a couple of Hate-the-Handgun groups. Their privilege; but my experience indicates that people who want to prohibit guns generally don’t know much about shooting them.”

  “Just four of us, then.” He glanced at me. “You’ve been doing your homework, haven’t you?”

  “Call me Boy Scout for short, always prepared.”

  “You’re mixed up, son, it’s the Coast Guard that are Semper paratus.”

  I grinned. “And now I think you’d both better hate me a little,” I said. “Ostracized, that’s me, the wicked guy responsible for this whole dreadful predicament. Sanchez deliberately turned you all against me; well, that’s great, stay turned. They know what I am, they’ll have their eyes on me, so you and Gloria Jean will have to make all the contacts and arrangements. Just pretend that I don’t exist and that you wouldn’t want to be contaminated by knowing me if I did exist. But have things ready to move when I produce the armaments. I may need some help with that once I’ve got it figured out. If I do, I’ll get in touch. One more thing. Well, two more to be exact.”

  “Yes?”

  I got up carefully, and waited for my head to stop pounding, and looked down at the two of them sitting there. “We’re harmless,” I said. “Keep that in mind every minute of every day. We’re scared like rabbits. After seeing Miranda shot down like that we’re broken, browbeaten, docile like sheep. No spunk, no defiance. No matter what happens, repeat, no matter what happens, we don’t fight back until we have something effective to fight with. Console yourselves with the thought that when the time comes we’ll totally eradicate the bastards; but in the meantime we let the others make their grandstand plays all over the place, but the four of us who’re going to do the work don’t get ourselves beat up so we can’t fight, or shot up, or locked up, or tied up, not if we can possibly help it. Pass the word. We eat all the shit they offer us and ask for more: mas mierda, por favor. It could be a week, it could be much longer, but that’s the way we handle it, no matter how long it takes. Okay?”

  They nodded. Gloria Jean, who seemed to have resigned herself to our plans, asked, “And the other thing?”

  “Don’t trust anybody you don’t have to,” I said. “If Henderson and Olcott feel they have to tell their wives you can’t stop them; but there’s no need for anybody else to know what we’re hoping to do. That goes for the Wilders, the Gardenschwartzes, the two schoolteachers, and even Frances Dillman. All it takes is one peace-loving character who starts a big loud argument with one of us about the virtues of patience and nonviolence, and all our work to maintain a low profile is shot to hell.” I thought I’d done it pretty well, throwing Frances’s name casually into the pot like that. “Well, we’d better break this up.”

  Jim said, “I think there’s an empty apartment a few doors down; let me give you a hand with… No, that’s right, we hate you, you sneaky CIA sonofabitch. Haul your ass to hell out of here and I hope next time they knock your lousy brains out.”

  “Please, Mister, I didn’t mean to make no trouble for all you nice people…”

  I saw Gloria Jean, watching us, stop smiling and look quickly toward the door as the light was suddenly diminished by a human body—four human bodies, as it turned out. Lt. Errol Flynn, otherwise known as Julio Barbera, was there with three armed men.

  “You!” he said to me. “You can walk now, si? You will pick up your belongings outside and go with this man, here. He will show you where you must stay. And this time, if you move too rapidly, he will shoot you.”

  I saw that it was the same scarred, chunky man, Eugenio, who’d clobbered me earlier. I moved forward as he gestured with his weapon; but I heard Julio Barbera’s voice behind me:

  “And you, beautiful señora, you will come with me… Tell your husband to stand still unless you wish him to die!”

  Eugenio poked me in the back as I hesitated. The sunlight was very bright outside. We emerged on the long raised platform, a dozen feet above the clearing, that held the Nunnery we’d never got around to exploring, that was now our home away from home. It was simply a long, low, narrow stone building consisting of a series of cubicles like the one from which I’d just emerged: kind of a tourist court thousands of years old. From up here you got a good view of the blue water of the cenote, at the edge of the jungle; and y
ou could look down a little on the ground-level Chapel, in the center of the clearing; and up at the Citadel on the far side, on its much higher pyramid. A sentry lounged carelessly against one of the ancient stone pillars up there.

  “No, Jim, no!”

  It was Gloria Jean’s voice, breathless and pleading. I waited for shots, but none came. Eugenio poked me with his M16, and I picked up my suitcase and the thin ragged mattress-pad that had apparently been issued to me in absentia. I was aware of the girl emerging from the chamber behind me as I moved away, her arm gripped firmly by Lieutenant Barbera, although she was offering no resistance. In fact she was walking quite steadily beside him, holding herself very straight. She didn’t look back at all.

  After a moment, the other two soldiers who’d come with Barbera backed out of the chamber warily, guns ready, and took up stations from which they could cover the doorway.

  I drew a breath of relief. The precautions seemed to indicate that Jim Putnam was still alive in there… Eugenio poked me again, indicating the last little doorway down the line. I crouched and started inside, but stopped as somebody moved in the shadows ahead of me.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Frances Dillman.

  23

  Gloria Jean Putnam returned to us just as the sun was setting behind the high Citadel ruins. She had to run the ghoul gauntlet, of course. They had all been waiting—okay, we had all been waiting—to receive her, solicitously ready for the worst, to cover up the poor outraged body revealed by the torn clothing, to minister to the poor battered face, to steady her as she stumbled, carry her when she could walk no further, sympathize fulsomely with her shame and suffering…

  She was a big disappointment to everybody. She simply came marching up the steep rubble slope to the Nunnery, holding herself as erect as when she’d left with Barbera, a strong, sturdy young woman getting along perfectly well under her own power, thanks. Her costume was intact and neatly buttoned and zipped. The dark frizzy hair was no wilder than usual.