The Annihilators

by Donald Hamilton

  “Until tonight,” I said.

  She was finding it difficult to get to the point; but I held her and let her work around to it her way, with just a verbal nudge or two in the right direction.

  “Even tonight,” she said. “But you’ve got to understand that I’ve encouraged him, Matt. I’ve let him get used to talking to me. I’ve let him know that I found him interesting and that our daily conversation was also a pleasant break in the dull prison-camp routine for me. I mean, it was the obvious thing to do, wasn’t it? For our sakes here, and for Archie’s sake, wherever he is, I was bound to take any advantage I could get, wasn’t I? Gaining Ramiro’s confidence, making him like me, was only sensible. I’d have been a fool to insult him or antagonize him, wouldn’t I? And after a while I did begin to overhear moderately useful things, like what I told you this afternoon about the progress of the negotiations. But tonight…” She hesitated. “Tonight, he asked me to stay the night.”

  “Polite and charming,” I said dryly.

  “That’s just the point, he was. And apologetic. He said he sincerely hoped that I wouldn’t misconstrue the suggestion. He said that we were friends, as much as a man and woman could be friends, and that he wouldn’t dream of doing anything that would cause him to lose my respect and friendship. He merely would like me to stay there until morning, safe, for reasons he was not at liberty to divulge.” She drew a long ragged breath. “Of course I couldn’t act the least bit curious. I couldn’t afford to arouse the slightest suspicion. I had to think very fast. I knew I had to find out what he planned to do, why he wanted me out of the way. I said… I said I’d be happy to stay, for a while at least; but wasn’t he being just a little too gentlemanly and considerate? I said, after all, Ramiro, querido, it is not as if I were a sheltered virgin.” She swallowed hard. “He looked at me and gave a great laugh and pulled the curtain that hung across the doorway, saying that he had been waiting many days for this moment and he hoped his fine patience was appreciated…”

  There was still light in the doorway. It was about the same time of evening that they’d come for Gloria Jean that first night nine days ago, or was it ten? It was hard to keep track of time in a situation like this.

  Frances said, “You don’t want a pornographic play-by-play account, I hope. Afterward… afterward we talked a little. He was relaxed and unguarded then; he let me know that the reason he didn’t want me here is that he’s coming for you tonight. He has considerable respect for your warlike abilities, darling; and he didn’t want me present in case shooting became necessary.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “After midnight some time, when everybody’s pretty sure to be asleep.”

  “Why, after all this time?”

  “That Tolson bitch. And that stupid Olcott woman. Olcott confided the main outlines of your plan to his handsome, brainless, blond wife; he thought she had a right to know what he was getting them into. Tolson wheedled it out of Elspeth Olcott somehow and took it straight to Ramiro. Tolson’s got that strange hostage fixation and feels that it’s wicked and disloyal, not to mention dangerous, for anybody to plot against the camp authorities. Besides, she’s of course firmly and self-righteously opposed to violence.”

  I said grimly, “So was Miranda Matson. She hated guns.”

  “Don’t get mad at me. I’m just passing it along as I heard it,” Frances said. “So Ramiro knows you’ll probably go on the prowl the first suitable night. He’s been letting your conspiracy come to a head, so to speak, so he can lance it brutally… Meaning that he’s going to grab you and make a terrible example of you for the rest of the camp, just as he established his authority in the first place by shooting Miss Matson.”

  “But he let you come back here after all,” I said.

  She nodded. “I pointed out how it would look if I were seen stumbling out of his quarters, sleepy and disheveled, on the morning after you were taken. All the people who’d been depending on you would assume I’d betrayed you, and they’d tear me into little pieces if they could get their hands on me. At least they’d have nothing more to do with me, and my usefulness to him, Ramiro, would be destroyed. And there was also the fact that if I didn’t come back here tonight, you’d get suspicious and might do something drastic and unpredictable before he was ready to deal with you.”

  “What does he plan now?” I asked.

  “We’ve arranged that when the camp is quiet and I’m sure you’re asleep, I’ll slip out and give the signal. If you should wake up and see me, I can always say I’m going to the john. Real Samson-and-Delilah stuff.” She rubbed her forehead against my cheek. “Matt, what are we going to do?”

  “What do you suggest?” I asked. Then I looked at her more sharply. “We?”

  She said, sounding a little surprised, “Well, if you do escape, Ramiro will know I warned you, won’t he? He’ll be very angry, justifiably so; and I don’t think he’s a nice man when he’s angry. I don’t think I want to stay behind and have my face remodeled with the butt of a gun, like Marshall Wilder. Or worse.” When I didn’t speak, she went on breathlessly: “It wasn’t easy for me, darling. I had to make a choice between playing along with Ramiro for Archie’s sake, or trying to save your life; and here I am. I hope you appreciate the… the sacrifice I’m making for you!” Then she turned abruptly against me, gasping her words into my shoulder: “Oh, Matt, Matt, darling, I couldn’t let you be killed! I just couldn’t!” After a while, in a totally different voice, she said, “There’s a path back to Copalque. I think I’m the only one here who knows about it.”

  “Where?”

  “We cut it when we were tracing that ancient paved road that, we finally discovered, leads straight from the Great Court at Copalque to the Arch of the Emperors and here to Labal. That’s how we found this place. We used the path for a while; but after we started excavating here we did some more exploring and found a better route, the Jeep road we still use today. Our old path to Copalque is probably pretty overgrown by now, but at least it should be considerably better than crashing through the virgin jungle, and there’s enough of the old Melmec pavement left to let us know when we go astray. Well, you saw it the day we visited the arch.”

  I hesitated; then I said, “I can’t run out on these people, Frances. As you pointed out yourself, they’re depending on me.”

  She shook her head quickly. “Matt, your fancy escape plan is doomed. It will never work. Certainly not now that it’s been betrayed to Ramiro; and most certainly not if you’re captured and tortured to death. If we can get away, we can try to get help to free the others.”

  “Well, maybe you’re right.” I sighed. “Okay, you’d better get your boots on; you can’t flee through the jungle in those sandals. We’ll go as soon after dark as the sentries cooperate.”

  It turned out to be absurdly easy. It was just a matter of timing, picking a moment when the distant sentry up on the pyramid was at the far end of his beat, on the other side of the Citadel ruins from us, and the near one on the Nunnery patio was also at the far end of his, away from our cell, preferably lighting a cigarette and destroying his night vision. But it wasn’t much of a wait, and the near man actually did light up conveniently—apparently they’d never heard of lung cancer in these parts—turning his back to the gusty wind to shelter his match.

  We were out of our cell and around the end of the building before he straightened up and looked around. We passed the men’s toilet, which had already developed the ripe excremental odor of any well-established outdoor facility. Momentarily safe from observation behind the Nunnery, we made our way cautiously down the rubble slope into the adjacent jungle with the wind covering the sound of the occasional pebble we couldn’t help dislodging. We followed the edge of the clearing where the thorny vines had been chopped away, but the trees remained to give us cover as we came out from behind the man-made Nunnery hill.

  There were, again, two sentries to be considered. There was still the Citadel man with his fine elevated viewpo
int; but he was far enough away, now, that I doubted he could distinguish a couple of small dark shadows moving among the trees on the far side of the big open space—jeans don’t show up much at night, and I was wearing my black turtleneck; and Frances’s red shirt looked black in the dark.

  And then there was the man guarding the Jeep road to Copalque. It took me a while to spot him. He was sitting in the lee of a tree trunk, sheltered from the wind, with his weapon across his knees and his cap over his eyes, sound asleep. We slipped into the footpath fifty yards away without arousing him and stumbled along the cleared trail that led to the Arch of the Emperors; but I stopped when I saw the ragged ruin of the Monastery loom black against the sky.

  “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “For God’s sake, they could be looking into our room right now and realizing that we’re gone!”

  “Relax, I won’t be long.”

  It took me a few minutes to find my landmarks in the dark and get my bearings; then I was reaching under the rock and feeling the butt of the .38, cold and reassuring in my grasp. I tucked away the spare cartridges, clipped the holster into place, and made some adjustments to the buckle of my belt. Frances, standing stiffly in the path, looking back the way we’d come as if expecting the pursuit to charge into sight at any moment, gave a start and an audible gasp when I rejoined her, indicating that she hadn’t heard me coming for the sighing, rustling sound of the wind in the jungle all around us.

  Then on again down the path that was only a pale track through the trees; and at last we stumbled out onto the cleared portion of the ancient road that had never known a wheel, with the massive Arc-de-Triomphe shape of the ancient ceremonial gate black in the darkness ahead. Suddenly I was aware of armed men stepping out of the brush behind us. A familiar voice spoke.

  “You will raise your hands, Señor Felton!”

  I stopped obediently and raised my hands.

  Frances’s voice, strained and ugly, spoke quickly: “He picked up the gun, Ramiro. It was hidden near the Monastery, just as we thought.”

  Colonel Sanchez laughed behind me. “Perhaps we could have found it by searching, but it pleases me to have the clever Yankee secret agent deliver to me his own weapon. At least we no longer have to worry about that missing firearm being used against us. You have done very well, senora; and I will see what can be done about obtaining your husband’s release. Trust me. Now you will disarm this man, por favor…”

  There were three of them, which I suppose was flattering; four including Frances. I couldn’t see the colonel, directly behind me; but I assumed he was still wearing his fancy Sam Browne belt and holster—the Browning Hi-Power itself was presumbly in his hand. On my right was my old friend Eugenio, Scarface himself; whose Ml6 I’d become reasonably well acquainted with on an earlier occasion. On my left was the slim dark boy who’d stood guard at the cenote this afternoon, also armed with U.S. artillery, junior grade, 5.56 mm—.223 caliber to you.

  Then Frances was in front of me, reaching for the holstered Smith and Wesson at my waist. She paused and met my eyes. “I’m sorry, but I warned you!” she breathed. “I told you I’d do any dirty thing to get Archie back safely!”

  “Well, you really made a project of it, didn’t you, Delilah? All you forgot was the haircut!” I said harshly. “What’s the matter, can’t you even pull a gun out of a holster? No, that’s right, you’re better with other weapons, aren’t you? There’s a trick catch, see… Great, and now you’ve got it, let’s see you use it. Or haven’t you got the guts to do the job yourself? God, to think I really was sap enough to like and respect… Well, finish the job, Frances, dear! Use the gun you betrayed me for; don’t leave the dirty work for somebody else! Shit, I’ll make you shoot me, get a little real blood on your dainty treacherous hands!”

  I’d been crowding her, moving against the .38 she was holding inexpertly and trying to keep pointed away from me. Now I lowered my hands to reach for her throat. I was rewarded—and reward is precisely the correct word—with a sharp jab in the kidney.

  “Halt! That is enough melodrama!”

  I knew a moment of incredulous triumph. I’d gambled on it, of course, but I hadn’t really believed it would work; I hadn’t quite been able to convince myself there were people that stupid in the world. Against anybody in the business, or even a good cop, I’d never have tried it; but I’d reassured myself—or tried to reassure myself—with the thought that these people were not professionals in the sense that we think of professionals. I’d reminded myself of Eugenio using his Ml6 like a cattle prod…

  Military men are great at a thousand yards and don’t do too badly at a hundred, but they don’t really expect to have to cope with the enemy at zero range very often. Colonel Ramiro Sanchez of the People’s Liberation Army, or whatever they called it, was probably hot stuff when it came to emplacing a heavy machine gun for a good field of fire, but when it came to dealing with a prisoner at gunpoint he was, like his boy Eugenio, a hopeless amateur. Shoving a gun into a trained man’s back, for God’s sake!

  I whirled left while he was still speaking, slamming my left arm through the space between us to knock the weapon aside and, with the other hand, slugging him low as I turned. The Browning fired and I felt a blow against my back, whether a lethal wound or just the muzzle blast I couldn’t tell and I wasn’t waiting to find out. For the moment the human machinery was still operative, and that was all that counted. The little belt-buckle knife, which I’d slipped under the watchband on my left wrist at the time I’d picked up the hidden revolver and grabbed right-handed when my hands came together just now in my dramatic lady-strangling pose, went into Sanchez to the hilt, edge up—or since it had no real hilt, it went in until my knuckles came up against the cloth of his pants. Crowding him, not letting him back clear, I ripped upward savagely.

  It was a schizophrenic moment. I had to have the Browning; and I was groping for it left-handed as I moved against him; and all the time I was aware of the well sharpened little knife in my right hand slicing upward, parting the clothing and the skin and the fatty layer underneath and the ridged muscles of the abdominal wall. I hoped the weapon was up to the job. In all respects but one it was an ordinary little buckle-and-blade instrument. You simply unfastened the belt, grasped the buckle a certain way, freed it from the leather a certain way, and the blade that was part of it slipped out of its hidden sheath in the end of the belt, leaving you with your pants falling down, unless they were a good snug fit—mine were—and with a mean little three-inch slicer protruding from between your knuckles. Such hideout knives are not uncommon; the special thing about this one was that it was plastic: a special space-age composition with a silvery coating, the blade bonded to just enough steel to take and hold an edge, meaning that you could stroll past the airport metal-detectors all day and they’d never let out a murmur.

  Well, I would be able to report that, although I’d had some doubts, the plastic-and-steel composition was strong enough—assuming that I lived to make a report, which was beginning to seem doubtful because I’d lost the Browning. Aghast at what was happening to him, Sanchez had dropped the pistol before my left hand could find it. He was trying now, desperately, to minimize the damage, to keep the dreadful incision from being further enlarged, grappling for my bloody knife-hand with both his hands. But already the air held the nasty stench you get when you dress out a deer or an elk carelessly and damage the intestines, letting the contents of the digestive tract spill out. Stolid Eugenio was standing by as we wrestled, gun ready, waiting for a safe shot; but I realized suddenly from his tense posture that the nervous dark boy wasn’t going to wait. He was going to save his colonel, he was going to try for it, for me…

  I released the buckle-grip of the knife, befouled and slippery now, and dove for the ground as the Ml6 opened up. There was no time to locate the fallen pistol in the dark, let alone retrieve it; I simply hit and rolled, and rolled some more. The kid was swinging with me but shoot
ing high where I’d been instead of low where I was. I heard at least three bullets go into Sanchez as the weapon traversed; and farther away Eugenio was hitting the ground to avoid the wild burst of fire. Abruptly the M16 was silent.

  Still rolling toward him, I caught a glimpse of the young revolutionary soldier, face gray in the dark, mouth hanging open slackly, gun muzzle sagging, as he realized that he’d shot his commanding officer. Then I hit him hard and brought him down. When I scrambled up I had a weapon—his weapon—solidly in my hands, a lovely feeling.

  I beat Eugenio up by a bare fraction of a second. He tried to bring his weapon to bear, but, still on his belly, he had to shift his whole body first. On my feet, I had no trouble pivoting freely to line up my liberated assault rifle by instinct, firing from the hip, although I prefer to use the sights whenever I can. Here there wasn’t time enough—nor was there light enough—for such refinements; he was already rolling away. My five-shot burst bracketed him for an instant before he disappeared into a depression on the far side of the prehistoric road; but with that small caliber it was by no means a sure kill.

  Ramiro was down. There were dark bloodstains on his khaki shirt where he’d been shot, but he seemed unaware of them, concentrating on the knife-torn mess that was his belly as he sat against a roadside rock, holding himself together with both hands. Frances was still standing where I’d last seen her, frozen with shock but apparently unhurt.

  I found that even in that moment I was pleased by that, although I could see no reason why I should be. The boy whose weapon I’d liberated was on his knees, vomiting convulsively. I moved to where I could cover him and still keep an eye on the spot where Eugenio had disappeared. The kid soldier wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked up at me fearfully.