Not With a Whimper

by Peter A W Kelt

  Mac was behind Félix and he came straight to me, lifting me up to a sitting position and started work on the cords round my wrists. “They’ve been giving you a rough time,” he said in my ear. His breath was warm and dry.

  Félix looked as though he wanted to use the Colt and the three Spaniards knew it. They were absolutely motionless and held their arms away from their sides. The first man through the door was reloading the shotgun and grinning. He snapped the barrel and said: “That did me good.”

  “Watch them.” Félix turned to me. “How are you?”

  “They broke two of my toes.” I could feel the pain now and whispered, “Jesus.” I was sweating and weak as a kitten. “Help me up, Mac, will you?”

  Mac put an arm round my back and under my armpit and lifted me gently to my feet. He watched me anxiously. Félix frowned. I tried putting my weight on the foot. Pain rippled through my body and the room swayed out of focus. Iron man, right enough. Mac steadied me. Félix turned a look on the three Spaniards that would have shattered a headstone. They shrivelled. I used a fingertip and wiped the sweat from my eyelids. I’d live. Mac eased me down onto the chair.

  “What did he tell you?” Mac said quietly. They were too paralysed to speak.

  The man with the shotgun pushed it into the stomach of one of them and said, “That will still leave two.” He had the same grin on his face. Here was a man who enjoyed his work. A good man to have on your side. Like Félix and Mac. Some team.

  “Nothing, he told us nothing,” the man coughed out. Sweat pebbled his brow.

  Félix ran the Colt down the cheek of one of the others.

  “He wouldn’t talk.” Saliva ran from the corner of his mouth and he suddenly doubled up, clutched his groin and moaned.

  “That is good. We may not have to kill you.” Félix looked disgusted and Mac laughed. The man with the shotgun made a play about looking disappointed.

  “How did you know I was here?” I managed.

  “We take no chances. You were followed.” Félix looked round the room. “What is this place?”

  “A fallout shelter.” Félix scowled and I explained what it meant.

  “They must be expecting an atomic explosion.”

  “They are going to blow up the base?”

  “I don’t know. That doesn’t make an awful lot of sense.”

  It didn’t. And according to Erik, there were fewer than four hours to make sense of it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It only hurt when I put my weight on the foot. I asked Mac to find the first aid. I was going to need splints.

  Félix waggled the Python and asked them where they kept it. They didn’t know. It was the driver who talked. “We know little. We only do what we are told. This was a hiding place in case things went wrong. We know nothing about an atomic explosion.” Sweat was running into his eyes. He took no chances. He let it run.

  “We can make them talk.” The man with the shotgun jiggled it. His thumb tickled the hammer. He grinned meanly.

  “We haven’t time,” I said.

  One of them moaned and still clutched himself and tried to turn away from us but not too far. We could smell him now.

  The third stared over our heads. There was a black edge of blood on his lips.

  “Here it is.” Mac lifted a roll of bandage and a couple of spatulas out of a black metal box. He broke the spatulas in two. “Doctor Crawford.”

  I sat on the bunk while he strapped up my toes and he did a nice gentle job of it, not hurting me more than he could help but they didn’t feel too bad when he had finished. Canvas shoes helped. I talked my thoughts out loud while I tested my feet. “The man you came in with, he was coming for something they needed, something to do with a ship sailing. Erik mentioned that. Tide tables? I don’t know, it can’t be that, not in the Med. I don’t know what the hell it can be.”

  Félix weighed up the room, then started on the drawers.

  “The ship sailing is important. Seven Germans arrive from Paraguay, complete with US naval uniforms. They don’t need to get into the base to launch a rocket attack. So is it a ship they are going to attack? But why the uniforms? And what ship? A nuclear submarine?”

  Then I made sense of it.

  “They don’t need uniforms for that but they do if they are going to board it. They’re going to hijack a nuclear submarine.”

  Mac pouted and frowned. He didn’t think much of the idea. “What the hell for, Alan?”

  Yes, what for? “One of the commanders is in with them, Miguel said that.” I tailed off and let my mind play with my thoughts. It made sense. A terrible, crazy sense. “World War Three.”

  Mac yelped, “What!” and looked at me as though I were mad. Félix was still going through the drawers methodically but he was listening.

  “This is a fallout shelter. It won’t be the only one. They will have them all over the world, everywhere there’ll be a group of Nazis. South Africa, South America, Spain, England, I don’t know. Uh-huh.” Félix had stopped looking. He squatted on one knee and his face was still. Mac had his mouth open. “Both Americans and Russians have nuclear submarines circling the world twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year – and stratospheric bombers. Even if their country is wiped out they can still strike back. That is what they mean by the nuclear deterrent. So, an American submarine – it must carry twelve warheads at least – launches an attack on Russia, Moscow, Leningrad, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, the major centres of population. Russians reply. That’s it. Bye-bye world. And after six months or whatever they crawl out of their holes in the ground and the world is theirs – what’s left of it.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.” Mac was bug-eyed.

  “So that’s the way the world ends, not with a whimper but a bang. Eliot was wrong.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Here’s something.” Félix levered himself to his feet. He unfolded a stiff piece of paper, then gave it to me. It had tomorrow’s date, March 25th. And the time, 02.30 hours – less than four hours, and 36:54 degrees North, 6:39 degrees West. Lines of latitude and longitude that made it not far from Rota. The rendezvous point. More papers, the top one headed the Seagull and several cut-away drawings of the interior of a submarine and what looked like a lot of technical data. It was all in German. The last two pages made me right. An outline map of the USSR with fifteen numbered circles on it. The bearings and other technical data were given for each number.

  So that was it. The Seagull – La Gaviota. La Casa de las Habas on the beach. They sail from there to meet the Seagull and their tame commander, rendezvous 02.30 hours at 36:54 degrees North, 6:39 degrees West. With his help and wearing uniforms, it wouldn’t be too difficult to take over the Seagull.

  There were more lines of latitude and longitude: 33:21 degrees North, 33:47 degrees East. The eastern end of the Med. Time 13.59 hours. Date, Monday, 27th March.

  So that was when it was scheduled. The big bang on Easter Monday. What a day to pick. Not that it mattered. So come Easter Monday, breakfast time, all the good little Nazis will be pattering down to their fallout shelters wherever they might be. I laughed at the thought.

  I guess I was getting on the edge of being hysterical and Mac snapped, “For Chrissake, Alan, what’s funny?”

  It checked me. “Hell, nothing, Mac, nothing at all.” And then I realised we were going to have to stop them. “Have you any more men in El Puerto, Félix?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  I told him. He scowled and listened. “And I want a sailor, someone who can navigate. We must meet La Gaviota in case he’s mad enough to try it on his own.”

  Félix sucked his lower lip. “I know of no-one who understands these numbers, no fisherman.”

  “A fisherman with a map of the bay. I can show him where it is on the map.”

  “Yes, yes, I can arrange that. Five men. Pablo Lartajigo will take you.’ He pivoted. “Jaime, will you be alright?”

  “Ah, Sí, but not
Pablo. He is as nervous as a mouse.”

  “Five men, that will be enough.” He slapped his palm with the Python. “Pablo can sail well,” he said softly and equally softly, “You know what to do if they are any trouble, Jaime.” He smiled at the three Spaniards. It was the second time I had seen him smile. It was a very cold distant smile, the smile a shark might have after a good meal. If sharks smiled.

  Jaime waved his shotgun. “Down on the floor, face down.” They looked at each other and then silently lay down. Jaime dragged over a chair and sat looking at them. “I would rather be with you,” he said.

  We climbed the stairs up into the bodega and my foot felt fine. Félix led the way.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  We turned left off the El Puerto-Rota road down a newly-laid white-edged tarmac road. There was an orange grove on our right, wild pines and oaks on our left.

  There were five of us in the car. Félix had overestimated his resources. I sat in the front with Félix, nursing a Luger I had taken from Erik. It looked like a well-used weapon and sat cool and comfortable in my hand. I had a spare clip in my hip pocket.

  Félix concentrated on driving, keeping the revs just within gear ratio to keep the 1500 as quiet as possible. He whistled silently, lips pursed and the tips of his teeth showing.

  Mac sat in the back with the two others, a fisherman called Pablo and a docker called Juan. Juan was square-built, big-bellied and solid as a rock face. He had thinning black hair brushed straight back and a wall eye. He wore an open-neck denim shirt stretched tight across his chest. Enough hair to make a wig showed over the top button. He and Mac held shotguns, butt down between their knees. Pablo sat between them. He was going to stay in the car and even that stretched his courage to the limit. He was wiry and nervous, looking at his hands, clasping and unclasping them between his knees and muttering saints’ names.

  Las Habas was on the seafront. It was part of a villa development billed as typically Andalusian which meant the houses had terracotta roofs, lots of angles to the walls and split levels for character and concrete “Moorish” trellis work. The “For Sale” signs were in Swedish, German, Dutch and English.

  We hit a T-junction at the seafront and Félix braked gently.

  I peered left and right, then pointed left past Félix. “Three houses up. The only one with the light on.”

  He shifted round, back to me, to look at it. His finger drummed the steering wheel. “We have to be certain it is the right house.”

  “I’ll take a walk and have a look,” Mac said. He passed his shotgun to Pablo who ran through another quick half dozen saints and gently slipped the catch on the door.

  “They might have a look-out posted,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Hell, man. I’ve got degrees in backyard prowling,” he said in English. “There ain’t nobody going to see me. Besides, ain’t I the best colour?”

  “Well, don’t smile then.”

  Félix snapped his fingers irritably. Mac thumped me playfully on the shoulder and eased out of the car. He closed the door without shutting it and walked back up the road. He stopped, looked round then vaulted over the back garden fence of the end house and disappeared.

  We were all silent. I kept looking at my watch but it didn’t make the time go any faster. It was ten minutes before Mac reappeared. He slid in the back, panting.

  “It’s Las Habas.”

  “You were a hell of a time.”

  “Wanted to be sure there was no guard.” He shook his head. “Man. I’m outta shape. There ain’t one outside, maybe at the window but he wouldn’t see much. My guess is there ain’t no lookout.” He turned his knees towards the door and picked at his leg. His trouser was torn. “Prickly pear,” he complained. “Nearly made me yell. What a stupid dangerous thing to have in your backyard. Suppose you had kids, huh?”

  “Alright, Mac. Sure you can kick the back door in?”

  “These houses? I could do it with my pinky.” His grin showed half a yard of teeth in the darkness of the car. He took his shotgun from Pablo and patted him on the knee. “Say a few for me, amigo.” He slipped out of the car and stood waiting on the pavement.

  We followed. Pablo was left alone on the middle of the back seat. He looked sick.

  “We all know what to do?” Félix didn’t wait for an answer. “Juan, the window. Alan and I ring the front door bell. As soon as they answer the door, you smash the window with your gun and fire one shot over their heads. You, Mac, come in the back then.”

  “Six guns blazing. I know the scene.” He showed his foot and a half of teeth again. “I ain’t had so much fun since I was a kid knocking off liquor stores back in Watts.”

  Félix frowned at him, not understanding the English. “Qué dices?”

  “Nada. Pues, verás en un minuto.” He vanished into the darkness down a flight of steps onto the beach between two houses.

  Félix put his hand on his Colt. He flexed his wrist and his jacket flapped. We looked at each other and we knew it was time to go.

  We sneaked past the first two houses, stopping at the third. It was long and low and somebody’s idea of £25,000 worth of holiday home. There was a four-foot plastered breeze block wall and the usual wrought iron gate in a brick archway. The garden was set out with shrubs and small palms. The sweet smell of Japanese honeysuckle filled in the air. A patio ran the full length of the house, lined with smooth concrete urns filled with geraniums. Light leaked from the window next to the door. We could hear male voices but not what they were saying. The other windows were blank.

  Juan shrugged and handed me his shotgun, jimmied himself stiffly over the wall, took it back from me and kept close to the boundary wall up to the house. Leaves rustled dryly and Félix hissed once. Juan slid over the patio and was under the window. He looked back at us and nodded.

  Nothing had happened.

  I opened the gate and we walked up to the front door. It was no more than six or seven yards but it was longer than any trip down a pier. My hands were wet so I wiped them. Félix saw me and did the same. There was a faint click: Juan’s safety catch. I held my pocket in one hand and teased out the Luger with the other. I looked at Félix. We were as ready as we were ever going to be. I rang the bell.

  It chimed distantly and there was silence in the room, then a lot of hurried movement. Furniture moved. Drawers opened and shut. I pressed the bell again. Somebody coughed and the door handle turned.

  As it started to turn I yelled “Right” and banged past it. My shoulder slammed the man against the wall. He was Félix’s pigeon. There was the sound of breaking glass, clear as ice, and the explosion of the shotgun like a quarry blast. Smoke bellied from the window and plaster drifted down from the ceiling where the shot had gone. The back door crashed and Mac appeared, shotgun just above his hip.

  The men in the room hadn’t moved.

  “Geronimo,” Mac said softly. I laughed. The man who had answered the door stumbled past me. He held his hand to the side of his face and blood trickled through his fingers. Someone moved and I crackled, “Setzen Sie sich.”

  He sat.

  Then one of them started to protest. I told him to shut up and added, “Right, on the floor.” Nobody moved and Mac rammed the muzzle hard into the neck of the man sitting in front of him and pushed. The man slid off the chair onto his knees and Mac leant over the chair and prodded him between the shoulder blades. He knelt on hands and knees, looked beseechingly at the rest. The spokesman started again.

  I let him talk as I sauntered over to him. He stood up. He was nearly as tall as me, solid, with no spare flesh and looked as fit as a hurdler. He had clear blue furious eyes.

  Take out the leader and the rest are no trouble.

  I lifted the Luger chin-high, letting the wrist flop backwards, holding the butt loosely. The German watched it and my left hand flashed for his throat, digging the fingertips in either side behind the windpipe. I could feel the gristle bending under them. He starts to choke and his hands com
e up for my wrist but I slash him across the temple with the Luger barrel, not hard but enough to rip the skin, carrying it down onto his shoulder where I use all the force I can get, spinning him round backwards and kicking the legs from under him.

  He fell backwards and the floor shook when he hit it. I put a toe under his shoulder and turned him over. That hurt but I kept my face stiff.

  Mac reached forward and prodded the man in front of him again. He stretched out. The others followed.

  “You’re a mighty tidy man close up,” Mac said. I grinned.

  Juan stood in the doorway. He uncocked the gun, took a fresh cartridge from his pocket and reloaded. He snapped the barrel shut. He was grinning too. We were all grinning. Then Juan said, “Do we shoot them here?”

  It was the first time he had spoken. “No,” I said. “They came in a van. You can take them to the room in the bodega.”

  “And there do we kill them?” Juan sounded cheerful.

  “This is war, hombre,” Mac said. “That gets my vote. I don’t feel like taking prisoners.”

  That made two of them. They both looked at Félix. He looked at me. It didn’t get my vote.

  “Sprechen Sie spanisch?” One of them gulped and nodded. “Tell them what they said. I want the keys of the van. Otherwise …” He knew what I meant.

  He repeated it and two or three of them turned to look at the man I had hit. He was a brave soul. “Nein,” he said, but there was nothing he could do about it. I knelt down beside him and patted his trouser pockets. The keys were there. I slipped my hand in and pulled them out by my fingertips. His breathing sounded as though it were being filtered through wet leaves. His eyes looked me over with a dull hatred. I patted his shoulder and stood up.

  “We’ll lock them up with the others and turn them over to the police.”