There were clothes and boots and weapons and a big plastic cooler that presumably held food, but at the moment I was particularly interested in the insulated gallon jug of water. It had been a long, dry hike. However, my conscience reminded me that Gloria was out there awaiting my signal fearfully. Before I indulged myself with drink and food and clean clothes, I’d better set her mind at rest and get her moving this way. I holstered the .38 and straightened up…
“Please to make no sudden movements, Señor Cody.” The voice from behind me was soft and heavily accented. “Turn now, por favor, but slowly, maintaining the hands clearly in view.”
When they get the drop on you like that, you always ask yourself: Is this the place? I mean, if they intend to kill you, you may as well go for it while you still have a gun and your hands free, regardless of how much artillery they’re pointing at you. You’ll take some lead, maybe too much lead, but you were scheduled anyway; and at least you’ve got a chance of taking some of the bastards with you on the long safari. So you wonder if you’ve finally found the spot for your George Armstrong Custer act, otherwise known as Helm’s Last Stand.
It’s always a tough call; but in this case I’ll admit that the politeness of the man behind me influenced my decision somewhat. Of course, I’ve known some very courteous human monsters; nevertheless, it’s easier to surrender to a man who’s nice about it than to a blustering blowhard who tells you how many gory pieces he’s going to blow you into if you move one finger wrong. There was also the fact that nobody was supposed to be there. I’d checked, hadn’t I? I’d scouted the area thoroughly. I would have said I couldn’t possibly have missed anybody. Now I had to live long enough to see what kind of invisible men they grew in this part of the world.
I said, “It’s your deal, Señor.”
I turned slowly, hands at shoulder height. It didn’t make me feel any better to learn that I hadn’t just overlooked one man; there were four of them. There was one consolation, however; they bore little resemblance to the ragtag bunch that had tried to trap us the evening before. I hadn’t fallen into the hands of El Jefe and his machete freaks.
These were small, sturdy, brown men in identical camouflage suits. They were wearing cocky little berets, also in camo. Elite units of the Mexican Army, perhaps, but I seemed to recall that the Mexican military caliber is 7.62mm. These men were carrying U.S.-made 5.56mm M-16 assault rifles, the same kind of weapon that had probably punctured Gloria’s Mercedes, back when Buff Cody was working on scaring her into matrimony. All four men had broad Indian features and were either clean shaven or naturally beardless. Three had ropey black hair worn fairly long. The fourth man, the one who’d spoken, had a more civilized haircut. They all had badges on their berets, dull black so as not to reflect the light and betray the wearer’s location; but his was more elaborate than the others. It was presumably an indication of rank, as was the .45 automatic pistol he held—his assault rifle was slung across his back. The piece in his hand was a lightweight Colt Commander, a compact version of the old 1911 Army pistol. He holstered it and stepped forward to relieve me of my revolver.
He spoke in his careful English: “I am Lieutenant Ernesto Barraga, of the Fuerza Especial. My orders are to capture you alive, which I have done, and to convey you to El Cacique, which I will now do. We will use this vehicle since it is available. As you say in the U.S., it beats walking. I will drive. You will sit beside me. A man in the rear will have you covered at all times. Since it is a small automobile, we will leave the other two to follow on foot.” He stared at me hard for a moment. “Please do not try to escape. I would much prefer to deliver you intact according to my instructions. Even if you should get away without a bullet in you, which is very unlikely, these men would run you down in short order. In this country, with such men, one needs no bloodhounds; they are the best trackers on this continent.”
I said, “I can believe it. At least you all slipped up on me very competently. I usually hear people coming.” I hesitated. “If I may ask, who is El Cacique and what is the Fuerza Especial?”
“Any questions you have, about the Special Force or other matters, will be answered by my superiors, if they choose. Please get into the car.”
He spoke to his men in a language that meant nothing to me, except that it was neither English or Spanish. One continued to cover me as I climbed into the right-hand seat. One of the others seemed to be carrying some radio equipment; he paused to lower an antenna before placing his electronic backpack in the rear of the wagon; then he took his place in the back seat, behind me. Barraga stuffed his assault rifle into the rear and got behind the wheel and started out. Surprisingly he was a gentle and careful driver; there’s something about a vehicle with four-wheel drive that seems to turn most drivers into spring-busting madmen. It was a clear day with a cloudless sky and a very bright sun; I hoped Gloria was hoarding her water supply carefully, but she hadn’t impressed me as being strong on self-discipline. I wondered what she’d think when she saw the station wagon drive away, probably that I was deserting her. Since there was nothing else for her to do, she’d undoubtedly start limping angrily toward the main highway in her impractical shoes. I hoped she’d make it.
We proceeded downhill past the point where I’d crossed the road on foot earlier in the day and entered territory that was new to me. The road lost altitude rapidly and eventually crossed a wide wash where all four tires of the Subaru had to throw sand like paddle wheels to drag us through. We climbed around a shoulder of the ridge beyond and turned off the main road. An even smaller and rougher track brought us to a grassy meadow and an encampment composed of two wall tents, not very large, and a motor pool.
One of the tents was easy to identify. Apparently this was mealtime—late breakfast or early lunch—and men in camouflage suits were lined up at the door and walking away with trays of food. The field kitchen. A sentry in front of the other tent indicated that it probably served as headquarters for La Fuerza Especial or at least this part of it—maybe there were similar units elsewhere. If sleeping was done here, it was apparently done mostly on the ground. Well, as Gloria and I had learned, in this dry climate it wasn’t an unbearable hardship.
The motor pool consisted of four Chevrolet three-quarter-ton Suburbans, the big station wagons sometimes known as carryalls. They had auxiliary air-conditioning units on the roofs—with that long wheelbase, the dashboard cooler isn’t effective all the way back—and they had dark glass in the windows and four-wheel drive. Next to them stood a van that was identical except that it lacked the auxiliary AC and had two fewer doors and windows only in front. It was presumably the supply train for this miniature army. The vehicles were not painted in military camouflage or olive drab; instead they were civilian white, brown, blue, green, and tan.
Little groups of men were sitting cross-legged in the sunshine eating off their laps. I was pretty certain, although I couldn’t see them, that there were others out in the brush standing guard. Lieutenant Barraga was no Latin exhibitionist; he felt no need to call attention to his captured vehicle by gunning it through camp with wheels spinning and dirt flying. He just drove up sedately and parked. I’d played the docile-prisoner game before, so I sat still while everybody else disembarked.
“Now we will see El Cacique,” Barraga said, after retrieving his assault rifle. He opened my door and motioned me out. “Walk ahead of me to the tent that is more near, por favor.”
We passed a small bunch of men eating in the shade of one of the trucks, an exercise in optimism since with the sun almost overhead the shade didn’t amount to much. The food seemed to be tortillas and beans, not my favorite dish but it reminded me that I’d eaten nothing since the carne asada of the previous evening. There was also, it seemed, a choice between coffee and Coca-Cola. Beer would have gone better with that food, but I suppose you can’t serve beer to military personnel on duty; although as I recall the British Navy used to fight pretty well on rum.
“What have you there, Lieuten
ant?”
The contemptuous question was obviously spoken in English so I would understand it. The speaker, emerging from the tent ahead, was a tall man with Spanish features, a small black mustache, the usual camouflage uniform, and a beret badge that was even fancier than Barraga’s.
“This is Señor Horace Cody, Captain,” Barraga said. “Señor, this is Captain Luís Alemán.”
“I think we can dispense with the social formalities, Lieutenant Barraga,” said Captain Alemán. He looked at me without liking. “So this is the subversive arms smuggler we have been seeking!”
I’d forgotten that I was supposed to be a merchant of death here. It wasn’t a very good piece of country for me, I reflected. One gang, knowing I wasn’t a bankrupt oil millionaire named Cody dabbling in weapons to retrieve his fortunes, was trying to butcher me with machetes. And now another group of gents, who believed I was that arms-smuggling Cody, was pointing automatic weapons at me. I restrained the impulse to tell the tall captain that he couldn’t have been seeking very hard or he’d have found me sooner, like at the border.
He spoke sharply, “Why are his hands free? Tie them immediately… No, behind him!” When Barraga had whipped a length of rawhide around my wrists, Alemán said, “That is better. I will take him to El Cacique.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Then Alemán was giving me a violent shove toward the nearest tent that, with my hands lashed behind me, would have had me on the ground if I hadn’t been expecting something of the sort. You can always tell the shovers and the slappers. They’re the ones who aren’t quite sure who they are and what they are, and it shows in their eyes. They have to keep proving their toughness at other folks’ expense.
“Inside, you!”
He waved the sentry aside and gave me another push that sent me stumbling through the door of the tent. He followed me in and swung me around and backhanded me across the face.
“Where is it?” he demanded.
12
Except for the two of us, there was no one in the tent. As I’d guessed, it was an office of sorts. GHQ. A sturdy folding table with metal legs and a plastic top functioned as a desk, well loaded with paperwork. There was a typewriter and a portable radiotelephone set. A folding metal chair was set up behind the desk, and a couple of others waited in reserve against the side wall of the tent. There was a narrow folding cot along the rear wall, behind the desk chair. It was neatly made up. An expensive, closed suitcase stood at the foot of it—an unmilitary touch, I thought. On an expedition like this you’d expect everyone to operate out of duffel bags and leave the fancy luggage home. On the other hand, rank confers certain privileges everywhere.
Getting no answer to his question, Alemán took another swing at me. The forehand wasn’t as bad as the backhand since I didn’t get the knuckles or the stones of the rings he was wearing, but I made it look spectacular, flinching away from the blow and letting myself lose my balance and go down. They always enjoy knocking you down; and when they’re beating on you, you want to keep them happy. If you make them sad, they may actually hurt you.
“El Cacique has stepped out for a few minutes,” the tall man said, standing over me. “I intend to have this settled before he returns. Where is it?”
I felt a little blood running from my nose; I made no effort to sniff it back. They love the sight of blood—other folks’ blood—and the human body holds several quarts. I could spare a few drops for public relations.
“Where is what?” I asked. “Dammit, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain!”
“Do you think I am so foolish?” he demanded. “We want the shipment of arms, Cody; waste no time pretending you do not know where it is! The arms intended for the rebels. We know they were landed on the beach at Bahia San Cristóbal. Four trucks transported them inland. We know there was the cross-double, as you Yankees call it. The rebels did not have the money they claimed to have, the money they had promised, so they tried to take the weapons without pay. But when they opened the trucks, they were empty. Fearing such treachery, your agent, Jorge Medina—you see, we know much about your clandestine operations—had hidden the cargoes before proceeding to the rendezvous.”
“Medina?” I said. “I don’t know any Medina.”
“That is strange, since his lady friend watched you visit him and arrange the smuggling. She is very bitter about the way you involved him in your criminal activities and sent him to his death.”
“They killed him?”
“You know this very well. Yes, they questioned him, but they were rough and clumsy. Medina died at their hands, apparently without giving them the information. But do not try to make me believe that he was not operating under your instructions and that you do not know where he concealed the materiel!” Alemán shook his head sharply. “No, do not waste my time with more denials! Obviously the rebels learned that much from your man, that you also knew the location. That is clearly why they have turned their attention toward you. They tried to intimidate you, first by killing your partner, Pierce, and his woman, and then by attempting the life of his daughter, for whom you obviously have a certain regard since you just married her. Finally, when you would not yield to this manner of pressure and tell them what they wished, they tried to capture you for interrogation.”
He was talking to intimidate me by showing how well-informed he was, which was fine for me, since he was telling me useful stuff I hadn’t known. But I had a problem: I’d been sent down here by Mr. Somerset to die as Horace Hosmer Cody; could I do anybody any good by continuing to live as Horace Hosmer Cody? I decided that I might as well stick with the impersonation for the time being, since Alemán wasn’t likely to believe he’d got the wrong man and stop beating on me, no matter who I claimed to be.
I said, “Oh is that what they were doing? The way they were brandishing those machetes, I thought they had the same treatment in mind for us that they’d already applied to my partner, Will Pierce, and his lady friend.”
“You know quite well what they were after!”
“Look, you-all are barking up the wrong tree!” I reflected that I was sadly underqualified for this assignment; I wasn’t any better at talking Tex than I was at talking Mex. “I never arranged for any shipment of arms, hell, no! I’m a respectable businessman; where would I get arms? I never knew anybody named Medina, and I sure God don’t know where any guns are hidden…”
All of which was the exact truth, of course, except for my being a businessman and respectable; but it didn’t help me much. Alemán stepped forward and kicked me in the side as I crouched there in abject terror. Fortunately he was wearing reasonably flexible jungle boots instead of rigid military brogans, but while I didn’t think any ribs were damaged, it drove the breath out of me for a little.
“You force me to take measures I do not like!” he snapped. “I think you will be less stubborn in a moment… Bring her in!”
The tent flaps parted, showing three figures silhouetted against the outside light. The outer two were soldiers or whatever they called themselves here. The middle shape, supported between them, was feminine and familiar, but it seemed to be considerably more tattered than I remembered it.
The two men bore Gloria forward and dumped her onto the canvas floor of the tent and marched out again. With my hands still tied behind, I kneed my way clumsily to her side, as she struggled to sit up and made it. She wasn’t in very good shape.
For a moment, looking at her, I thought she’d also suffered a beating. Then I realized that her scratches and scrapes were not attributable to fists or clubs; she’d just been forced to do a lot of heedless scrambling through rocky and thorny places by people who hadn’t been as careful to pick the easy routes as I had. My jacket seemed to have got left behind, but she was wearing my Buff Cody hat. Too large for her, the big Stetson should have given her a comic look; but she was too dirty and battered and nearly naked to be funny. I was relieved to see her pull at her rags in an effort to cover herself as she sat t
here. Not that I was greatly affected by what showed and what didn’t—I’d already made its acquaintance—although Alemán, behind me, was undoubtedly licking his lips salaciously; but if she could worry about modesty her condition couldn’t be too serious. Still, while the big hat had protected her from painful sunburn, her face had a haggard look I didn’t like, and her lips were dry and cracked.
“Easy,” I said. “Easy, Mrs. Cody. Who let you out in that skirt?”
I’d been afraid she’d call me by the wrong name, but she got the message. She managed a weak smile. “Who let you out in those pants, Mr. Cody, dear?” She tried to lick her parched lips, as she regarded me more closely. “Horace! You’re hurt!”
“What’s a little nosebleed between friends? Are you all right?”
There was awkwardness between us now that we were no longer alone in the wilderness; we’d spent a day and a night together and had learned to know each other a little too well in some respects and not at all in others.
“Now there’s a really stupid question!” she said. “Do I look all right? If you really want to know, aside from being utterly destroyed, I’m simply dying of thirst. They wouldn’t give me…” She drew a long, shuddering breath. “I was watching the road, waiting for you to show, and suddenly they were just there, behind me, waving guns at me; and then they made me walk so fast! It was miles and miles through that barbed-wire brush, and I kept falling down in these crazy shoes, God, I’ll never wear another pair of high heels as long as I live! I tried to break them off like you offered to once, but you were talking through your hat, mister. It’s some kind of crazy space-age plastic that King Kong couldn’t break and they wouldn’t lend me a machete to chop… They’d just yank me back to my feet and order me to keep up and drag and shove me along when I couldn’t. I’d used up all the water hours before, well it seemed like hours, and they wouldn’t give me…”
The Frighteners Page 11