They all seem to work from the same corny script by the same lousy writer. This Sigma character seemed to be reading his part from a Xerox copy lent him by Ramón’s executive officer, Captain Luís Alemán, who’d played the same Torquemada role opposite a different leading lady a week or two back. The only change, hardly demonstrating great creative originality, was that Sigma, or Saturday, or Sábado, was using fire with his threats, while the brave captain had employed steel.
I found the rifleman in the telescopic sight. I waited until he leaned a bit to the right to look at something below. I added pressure to the trigger, gradually, the way you do, until the rifle fired. Although the report was sharp, the recoil of the .243 was surprisingly light; I guess there’s something to be said for the smaller calibers. I only lost my target out of the scope for an instant, the time it took me to work the bolt and chamber a fresh round, but it wasn’t needed. I was aware that, at the shot, the sharpshooter—well, the would-be sharpshooter—had lurched up and out of his brushy place of concealment. Now he was standing unsteadily among the rocks below it, still holding his rifle; then he dropped the weapon and stumbled away down the open slope in an odd, aimless fashion. I could have put another one into him, but the second shot would have located me definitely for anybody still uncertain as to the source of the first, and I was fairly sure that the first had been good enough. I saw that his camouflage cap was missing.
I knew him now; that is, I’d seen him once before, in that Safeway parking lot in El Paso. He was the other half, the smaller half, of the Mutt-and-Jeff team that had arrested Horace Cody. After three uncertain steps, his knees folded and he pitched forward and rolled a few yards down the hillside and lay sprawled there, unmoving. I noted that his pants carried the same camouflage pattern as the shirt and the missing cap. The cap worried me a little, since its disappearance could indicate that I’d made a head shot, and I’d aimed considerably lower than that.
A voice I didn’t recognize spoke without expression: “Sigma, Sigma, this is Delta Five. We just lost Georgie Peterson, I mean Lambda. At least he looks dead from here. A long rifle shot from somewhere on the ridge above and behind him.”
“Helm, you murdering maniac…!” It was a screech in the little walkie-talkie. Sigma must have continued to hold down the transmit button in his fury although the next words were not addressed to me, or maybe they were in a way: “Pull her boots off, Rutherford… All right, all right, just the right one will do. And the sock. Now, hold her like that!”
I told myself that lots of people had had their tootsies toasted; it had even happened to me. A scar or two down there wasn’t a lifelong trauma. Nevertheless, it was with a certain vengeful satisfaction that I swung around to pick up the man below me in the scope; I could hurt people, too. He made it simple for me; he’d stepped out from his cottonwood to look up at the ridge, trying to figure out exactly where my first shot had come from, but it isn’t easy to locate the source of a single reverberating report in rocky terrain. I centered the crosshairs low, about six inches above his belt, and held a little to the right since I was now shooting across the wind. I waited for the radio to transmit Jo’s next cry. When it came, as my answer, I pressed the trigger gently and the .243 fired again.
The man below responded in a very satisfactory manner; he let out a strange bubbling howl that was clearly audible even three hundred yards away. He clapped his hands to his face and fell forward, rolling back and forth on the ground, still shrieking with gradually diminishing vigor. Under normal circumstances, I prefer a clean and instant execution; but here, as I say, the gruesome result of my shot was satisfactory—it should impress the troops—except for the fact that it indicated that the rifle was, as I’d guessed, shooting much higher than I’d figured, even taking into account the fact that downhill shots always tend to go high.
Sigma’s voice screeched tinnily: “Helm, you madman, I’ll make this bitch wish she’d never met you.”
She was undoubtedly wishing that already, but you can’t run an outfit like ours if you’re going to be at the orders of every creep with a prisoner and a butane lighter. I took the walkie-talkie from my belt at last. I pressed the transmit button and spoke into the mike, slowly and clearly.
“Mondragon, Mondragon. This is Matthew Helm calling General Carlos Mondragon. Don’t bother to answer, sir, just listen. We don’t want you or your men, and there are certain people coming who’d hate to find you here and have to figure out what to do with you. Get your boys to hell away, right now, please, while we’re closing out this rogue Yankee agency that’s been using you for its own purposes. In other words, sir, please be so good as to vamos pronto, or as we say in America, haul ass soonest. Understood?”
I thought it was a pretty good speech, hinting at limitless forces at my disposal.
“Yo comprendo,” the radio said softly. Whether it was Mondragon himself or a spokesman, I didn’t know, since I’d never been closer to the self-styled general than a quarter of a mile or heard him speak.
Sigma’s voice came out of the little speaker: “General Mondragon, don’t be stupid, your revolution hasn’t got a chance without our help. Sit tight, we’ll have this little problem solved in a minute.”
There was no answer from the revolutionary camp. I could no longer hear anything from the last man I’d shot; a glance that way told me he’d stopped thrashing around and lay quite still, facedown in the dirt down there, with a dark area surrounding his head. Forbearance is not a virtue, Mac had said. It was time to depart. I’d almost left it too late. As I slipped away, crouching, there was a chatter of automatic fire from up the ridge, and a single bullet glanced off the stony hillside to my left and headed off into space with the nasty wavering sound of a ricochet. Somebody’d cut loose with an M-16 burst at several hundred yards, probably not even hoping for a hit, just letting his friends know he’d seen something to shoot at. I heard a faraway shout.
“There he goes! Heading down the east slope. Cut him off below!”
After all the scratchy electronic verbiage I’d been listening to, it was kind of nice to hear an honest-to-God human voice for a change. I let the man above catch a few glimpses of me as I slipped and slid down the slope—once I showed myself long enough for him to try another burst that took some leaves off a nearby bush—then I went flat in the brush and crawled back upward again by a slightly different route. It took me five careful but breathless minutes to return to the friendly rock from which I’d done my previous shooting, making it on my belly where the cover was poor and on hands and knees when it was better.
As I hid myself where I’d have a clear shot at him as he passed, I saw movement far off across the basin; a small blue pickup truck nosed out of a cleft in the jumbled black rocks followed by a brown van that I recognized: Mondragon was pulling out. I’d thought he wouldn’t stick, not with people dying all around him. Well, he was no business of mine now; Antonia was on her own, which undoubtedly suited her just fine. Vengeance isn’t something to be shared. I set the Ruger in a safe place. It was going to be close work here, too close for a telescopic sight. I took out one of the revolvers I’d liberated. I knew just about where the man would have to be taken, and with a four-inch barrel, the liberated .38 was a little better suited to the range than my own two-incher.
I heard him coming; he was taking few precautions and making no real effort to be silent. After all, there was no danger, he’d seen me running away, down the side of the ridge; I was probably close to the bottom by now. Of course, there was supposed to be a girl with me, and he didn’t have her located; but either he’d forgotten her, or he was chauvinist enough to figure he could handle any dames dumb enough to get in his way. Crouching in the brush, I saw him stop to check his bearings: yes, this was the spot. He approached my rock and bent over to pick up something that glinted in the sunshine: an empty .243 cartridge case, confirming the fact that he’d found the right trail. Sticking it into his pocket, he studied my tracks briefly and started downhill af
ter them.
I had the confiscated revolver cocked, waiting. He was in canvas combat boots, jeans, and a camouflage shirt and hunting cap; a stocky gent with a round, red face and a scraggly red beard. He made it easy for me again; everybody was cooperating very nicely. First, he bent over to pick up and pocket a second cartridge case; then he straightened up and stood quite still, listening. The sound of automatic rifle fire reached us from the other side of the ridge; apparently Antonia had seen her man—I hoped she’d let him come well within range—and opened up. My man was a perfect target, standing there; he was dead, and it was time to go on to the next, only the damn gun hadn’t fired and wouldn’t fire. I don’t mean there was anything wrong with the mechanism. There was something wrong with me. That week-old crack on the head, I suppose. But it was getting to be too much, dammit. I don’t mind a little killing in the line of business—you might even say it is my business—but this was getting ridiculous, if I may use the word in such a gory connection.
I’d taken the precaution of turning off my walkie-talkie so it wouldn’t betray my presence; but I heard the one on Redbeard’s belt clear its throat.
“Kappa, Kappa, this is Theta. I think I’m just about below you. What’s that shooting I hear? Over.”
Redbeard freed the radio and held it to his mouth, speaking softly but not inaudibly. “It’s on the west side of the ridge, I don’t know what the fuck it is.”
“Somebody’s surely raising hell with an M-16. Over.”
“Never mind that,” said Kappa. “Any sign of our man down there? Or the girl?”
“Not any.”
“Well, watch yourself, the guy’s probably gone to cover. The bastard’s slippery as a snake. I didn’t see the dame, maybe they’ve spilt up and somebody’s got her cornered over there, I hope. Don’t get trigger-happy now; I’m coming your way.”
“To hell with you, Buster. You worry about your trigger and I’ll worry about mine. Theta out.”
Redbeard, alias Kappa, started to clip the little radio back onto his belt; then he saw me, because I’d stood up to let him, and froze. I could see him consider his chances with the assault rifle, but he was holding it carelessly by the sight that looks like a carrying handle—maybe it is; they do funny things in the military—and there was no way he could get it into action before I shot him to pieces.
I said softly, “Lay down the radio and don’t dream of touching the transmit button. Place the M-16 and your Colt beside it. I’ve already killed three men today and a fourth won’t bother me a bit, so any games you want to play, have at them.”
He followed instructions very carefully and straightened up. “Listen, you murdering bastard…”
I said, “I don’t burn women with blowtorches and I don’t work for anybody who does. Or for a megalomaniac who thinks he knows better than Washington what my country’s foreign policy ought to be; a wild-eyed character who, when he’s caught playing Secretary of State without a briefcase, tries to kill and torture his way clear. Don’t talk murdering to me, Buster. Including this elaborate rattrap, there have been three attempts on my life since I left the U.S. I figured that since you boys are so useless at killing—hell, you can’t even finish off an old man with a big, bleeding hole in his back—you’d like to have an expert show you how. Come over here and sit on that rock. I suppose you’re going to be brave and refuse to get on the two-way and call in your pal below.”
“Fuck you, mister.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “When you don’t come to him and don’t answer the radio, he’ll come to you. While we wait, you might as well get out the handcuffs you characters seem to carry and snap them around your wrists. In front is okay. That’s a good boy. Squeeze them good and tight and let me hear them click. Now tell me how the hell we’re going to stop this nonsense.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the guy a guy named Rutherford tried to trap and kill, with Mexican help, near a little town called Cananea. I’m the guy a guy named Rutherford tried to kill, with Mexican help, in a bigger city called Hermosillo. And now he’s got you boys trying it here, and I’m getting kind of fed up with it,” I said. “You’re in a bad spot, amigo. You’ve got me on one side and I’m not a very nice fellow when I get mad. And on the other side you’ve got the Mexican authorities, and you know how they are. The old ley de fuga still works down here, Mr. Kappa. They’ll give you a running start and use you for machine-gun practice and report that you were shot trying to escape. If they bother to report. Probably they’ll just throw you on the garbage heap with the other stiffs over there and forget all about mentioning you officially.” I hoped Ramón and his fellow countrymen would forgive my slanderous statement. I went on: “The buzzards will love you, Mr. Kappa. They’ll come sailing in to feed in swarms like the bombers over Berlin. The poor hungry things are getting pretty damn tired of picking over the same old human bones; they want some fresh meat.”
I noted that the distant firing had stopped after some final, desultory pop-pop-popping. I hoped the kid had got clear unhurt; if she had, they’d never catch her. If she’d accomplished what she intended, and I was willing to bet she had, they probably wouldn’t even chase her very hard with Mondragon dead. And with the arms located and Mondragon dead, that was two-thirds of my job done.
“Kappa this is Theta, what’s keeping you?”
Redbeard glanced at the radio on the ground ten feet away. I shook my head. He looked at my gun and licked his lips. “What the hell are you trying to say?”
I said, “Bail out, friend. Take a running jump out the door and pull the ripcord. This plane is going down in flames… Shhh, here comes your buddy looking for you as I told you he would. If you warn him, you’re dead, and I’ll hunt him down, too; more meat for the zopilotes. Let him come in, talk it over with him. You can both walk away from this, if you walk in the right direction. Otherwise you’ll stay here for good.”
He had one of those red faces that always look like a bad sunburn, and those orangey whiskers, and small blue eyes that didn’t look very trustworthy, but I couldn’t guess who had more reason to mistrust him, Sigma or I. Probably I did. Probably, even if he did say he’d play along, he’d be lying. There’s always loyalty to the organization to consider even if the top man is no prize; in any war, more men fight for their ships or units than for their country, and very few fight for their officers.
The man below clattered another pebble; he was closer than he had been. I picked up the gear Kappa had laid down at my request, emptied his revolver and stuck it back into his holster, and turned off his walkie-talkie and hung it on his belt. I checked the condition of his M-16, ready, and stuck the .38 I’d been holding, long since uncocked, under my belt. The assault rifle was the more impressive weapon; a man might be reckless enough to charge a lousy little revolver, but he’d at least hesitate a bit when confronted with the ugly black military killing-machine.
I looked for a suitable spot in which to lie in ambush this time. The other side of the little clearing looked good. As I stepped forward a bit and paused to check it out from that angle, something struck me hard in the back, on the left side. I was even aware of blood, spraying out of the exit wound just above my belt. Everything was suddenly very remote, the ratty brush around me, the stony slopes, the blue sky, the bright sun. It seemed as if I were moving in slow motion as I threw myself down—threw, hell, I kind of floated to the ground. I was aware of a very distant report as I fell, and I heard a second bullet go past, and I knew that I’d made the mistake you seldom survive, the error of overconfidence. I’d thought I had it all figured out. I’d decided that the guy running this show was a creature of habit; all his men packed M-16s with twenty-round magazines and .38 pistols with four-inch barrels. All except the snipers, who carried .243 bolt-action rifles with 3x-9x telescopic sights.
But the son of a bitch had loused me up. In addition to the toy .243s, he’d brought one real rifle, probably a .30 Magnum, and he’d given it to a man who
knew how to use it and stationed him on the point of rocks to the north, on the other side of the entrance, from which he could cover most of the action area including—if his range tables stretched well past six hundred yards—the spot from which I’d chosen to do my shooting. This marksman must have spent a frustrating half-hour while his colleagues died, as he watched me through his big scope and waited for a clear target. He’d probably cursed savagely when I headed down the slope, wishing he hadn’t been quite so perfectionist and taken a hope shot, but I’d come back and finally given him the motionless, unobstructed aiming point for which he’d been waiting.
The man with the red beard was running for cover, awkwardly because of his handcuffed hands. It was too bad, I’d tried to save his life, but we give no freebies. If they wanted me, they’d have to pay the full price on the tag. I cut down Kappa with a lengthy burst; my trigger finger took a long time to react to the cease-fire command. Then I lay there waiting for Theta, but he never came, at least not as long as I remained conscious, which wasn’t very long.
31
I’d worried a bit about penetrating Sigma’s headquarters, but it turned out to be no problem at all. They took me right to it. The only problem was surviving the ride. Unfortunately my unconsciousness, presumably a reaction to the shock of the bullet wound, didn’t last long enough to help. I awoke, in a dim sort of way, aware of little else than the pain, when Theta rolled me over to disarm me; I heard him comment happily, to the driver of the Japanese jeep that had managed to grind its way up to us, on the number of weapons he found. I was glad I’d acquired enough to please him.
Then the two of them grabbed me under the armpits, dragged me roughly to the vehicle, and hauled most of me aboard, leaving my legs dangling. The little pickup-type bed wasn’t long enough for all of me, particularly since I had to share the space with the late Mr. Kappa. As an afterthought, they took the handcuffs off him and put them on me, just in case, as they said, the sneaky son of a bitch was playing possum. Getting back down the hill was tricky for the driver but not too bad for me since he had to back down the steep grade very slowly so as not to lose control. At the bottom, we acquired another limp passenger, the second victim of my .243.
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