Operation Che Guevara

by Nick Carter

  "She?" Her eyebrows went up. "You have a girl friend here in Bolivia?"

  "I met her when she visited Europe," I said, downing my drink. Teresina finished hers, and I poured us another round.

  "I presume it was worth the trip," she said acidly. It was hard not to smile. Women are all alike, quick to feel jealousy even without right or reason. It's always there, just below the surface.

  "Very," I said. "But then she's not the typical Bolivian girl. She's half-German, and very warm and affectionate."

  "What does that mean?" Teresina snapped.

  "I've been told the Bolivian girls are rather anemic in… everything they do," I said casually. "The high altitude thins out the blood, I'm told, keeps their… ah… passions cooled down."

  "What rubbish!" Her eyes flashed, and this time I did smile. The response had been automatic, delivered with a finishing-school indignation. Even as I smiled, I wondered again about this "peasant girl."

  Her anger died out as quickly as it had flared up, and I saw her studying me warily.

  "You said that just to see my reaction, no?" she said.

  "I wouldn't do a thing like that," I protested. She raised her drink to her lips and my eyes strayed again to the exposed lovely curve of thigh. I found myself wondering what this strange, quick-minded girl would be like in bed. Somehow, I couldn't imagine her tramping around the hills with Che Guevara, or El Garfio or whoever the hell he was. Yet she was here as an emissary of the guerrilla leader.

  She moved, and her breasts strained against her blouse. My lounging jacket came open and I saw her glance at my bare chest, as browned as her own olive skin, the muscles tight and hard.

  I decided to push and see what happened. There were things I wanted to learn, and a woman in bed is stripped of more than her clothes. Properly aroused, carried by desire to the height of ecstasy a woman in bed, like a matador in the bullring, has her moments of truth.

  "What if I told you Major Andreola has made me a very attractive offer?" I said, sitting beside her.

  She shrugged. "That is to be expected."

  "And what if I said I could be persuaded to sell to El Garfio?" I pressed her. "But something more than money would have to persuade me."

  "Why would you want to sell to El Garfio, if the government's offer is so attractive?" she asked. "To a man like you, money is money."

  I grinned at her. "And girls are girls," I said.

  "You are afraid the Bolivian government will find out," she said, ignoring that last remark.

  "No," I said. "I just think El Garfio needs my material more than the government. He would be a certain customer for more while the government can buy from many sources."

  I saw anger in her eyes. "You don't like that," I said. "Why not? All you want is for me to sell to your leader. My reasons are unimportant."

  "Reasons are always important," she shot back.

  "With my guns, El Garfio can really create a revolution," I said. "And I have many more available — for a price. I am willing to cooperate with you."

  I slid my hand gently, slowly, up her arm, up through the blouse to the shoulder. I stroked the underside of her arm. She remained unresponsive, but I saw it was a struggle.

  "I could sell to El Garfio and to the government," I said.

  "If you sell to El Garfio, you will sell to no one else in Bolivia, I promise you that," she said coldly. I kept rubbing her arm with the flat of my palm, slowly, gently.

  "That's all right with me," I said. "If he buys, it doesn't matter about the others. But at the time of delivery, I must meet El Garfio."

  She pulled her arm away and looked at me in astonishment. "Meet El Garfio?" she gasped. "I… I don't think I can arrange that."

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "It… it is not done," she stammered. "He does not permit others to make such arrangements for him."

  I got up and stood looking down at her. "Then I'll have to find another way to reach El Garfio," I said brusquely. I wondered at the sudden look of fear in her eyes, a fear mixed with anger.

  "Why would you do that, when I am here to arrange the sale, if that is what you are going to do?" she said, almost running the words together in her agitation.

  "But you say you cannot help me to meet El Garfio," I said. "And that is a condition if I am to sell to him."

  "I said it would be most difficult," she said, calmer now. "I didn't say I could not do it. If you agree to sell, I will take the next step. But first I must know that you will sell to him."

  "It's important that I deal through you, if I deal with El Garfio?" I asked.

  "Very," she said, and there was no mistaking the sincerity in that one word answer. I wondered why it was so important. Had El Garfio given her this assignment as a test? Perhaps she had to prove herself somehow. Or maybe she wanted to prove herself, on her own. All I was sure of was that she clearly wanted to be in on it, if I decided to sell to El Garfio. Why, I wondered; it intrigued me.

  I wanted to find out and I knew the one chance I had was in bed. I made a quick, self-sacrificing decision. Making love to Teresina would be a legitimate pursuit on my part, in the line of duty. I grinned to myself, knowing Hawk would just love that reasoning. Truthfully, the dark-eyed, strangely delicate creature sitting beside me could have aroused a stone statue, and I was far from that. I shifted gears.

  "Tell me about yourself, Teresina," I said, putting my hand on her shining, black hair. "How does so lovely a girl become a member of a guerrilla band?"

  She smiled and looked up at me. "How does so handsome a man become such an unprincipled seller of munitions?" she countered.

  She was extremely quick-minded, I realized once again.

  "I asked you first," I said.

  She shrugged. "There is nothing exciting about my story. I was born on a farm in the mountains. Like all the rest, it was a poor farm, and it is from such as my people that El Garfio recruits his followers. It is a change from tending animals, tilling soil, picking the cocoa leaves sometimes."

  I kept my face expressionless as I watched her sip her drink. If those hands had ever done farm work, I'd eat a bale of hay. My warning system began to buzz insistently.

  "What kind of animals on your farm?" I asked.

  "Sheep," she said, then added quickly, "goats and pigs, too."

  "What do you feed them here in Bolivia?" I asked.

  "Oh, the usual thing," she said. "The same as you'd feed them anywhere else."

  Good try, doll, I thought grimly, but not good enough. It was a smooth evasion, but a farm girl would have rattled off not only what kind of feed, but how much. But I'd kept my eyes on her as we talked, letting the desire I felt communicate itself. Now I moved over to her, the lounging jacket hanging open, and cupped her chin in my hand.

  "I think you could like me very much, Teresina," I said, "if I weren't so 'unprincipled.»

  Her eyes glowed with a dark fire. "You are a very compelling man," she admitted.

  "And you are too full of idealistic thoughts," I said. "But I could make you forget them, for a while at least."

  "Could you?" she said, and in her eyes was the unspoken word: try.

  I leaned down and kissed her, gently first, then pressing her lips open with my own. My tongue flickered across her parted lips, into her mouth. She tried to push me back, but I was holding her too tightly. I pressed my naked chest against her straining breasts until finally she wrenched herself free.

  "No," she said. "No, I… I won't."

  "Teresina, what kind of a farm girl are you?" I said, putting my hand against the back of her neck. It was a deliberate low blow. "I've never known a farm girl who didn't believe in doing what is natural."

  I kissed her again, harder this time, letting my tongue play inside her mouth while I held her head firm. She tried to struggle, but her hands were without strength and her open mouth responded with a desire of its own. Her hands were against my chest now, clenching and unclenching, as she fought against her own desire. I wa
nted this exciting girl, but I held back, determined to use every trick I could to bring her to the boiling point where naked desire would sweep away all pretensions — and precautions.

  I pulled back and held her face with one hand against my chest. "It's been a long time since you've had a man," I said, taking a shot that wasn't completely in the dark. I could sense the hunger in her.

  "Why do you say that?" she flared, and I knew I was right on target.

  "Tell me I'm wrong," I said.

  "I… I do not give myself easily," she said defensively. "Perhaps I am too particular."

  "And perhaps for the wrong reasons," I said, forcing her back onto the couch roughly, almost brutally. I didn't give her time to answer as I thrust my hand down the loose, open neck of the blouse and cupped one of her breasts. At the same instant I smothered her mouth with mine, caressing her lips with my tongue. I pulled her soft breast out of the confining blouse, and she gasped. Her arms around my neck tightened uncontrollably.

  "No, no," she gasped, while her breasts responded to my touch, their soft tips rising in eager anticipation. I rubbed my thumb gently over the nipples, and Teresina made small noises of protest that were meaningless. Her closed eyes and peaked nipples, her feverish grip on my neck, her straining abdomen — these were the real answer.

  With a quick motion, I removed her blouse, pulling it over her head. She opened her eyes, and I saw desire and fear mixed in them. I chased the fear, leaving only the desire as I bent over and took her breast in my mouth, circling the soft tip with my tongue.

  Teresina half-screamed with pleasure. She writhed and cried, and once again her lips said one thing while her body said another. Finally, she stopped protesting and turned herself to me with a surprising tenderness. She drew my head down against her breasts gently.

  "Make love to me, Nick," she said, her eyes closed.

  She was naked beside me now, our bodies pressing together. She held my face in her hands for a moment, then pressed it down to her breasts again, to the soft, sweet skin of her belly. There was grace to her movements, and a tender, gentle, sweetness as I caressed her thighs and found her warmth waiting for my touch. She sighed and a smile stole over her face.

  I caressed her very inner being, listening to the tenderness of her pleading voice, watching the graceful, delicate movements of her arms, her hands. If Teresina was a peasant girl, she was like no peasant girl I'd ever known. In this time of desire, she was a tender creature, a girl whose every gesture and movement spoke not of the farm, but of refinement and culture. But as she raised her legs for me, I put aside these calculated observations and entered fully into the pleasures of her body.

  Whatever Teresina was, I knew I'd find out eventually. Right now, she was a loving, yearning, straining girl, waiting for what I could bring to her, willing to offer me her own treasures. Teresina's eager sighs grew louder and longer as I moved in her, until with a shudder from the very depths of her soul she came to me, and moments later we lay together in the peace of sensual fulfillment.

  The things I had thought about flooded back in on me in the warm aftermath of love-making. In those moments when passion ruled, Teresina had revealed more than her body. She had been passionate, eager, but there had been a refinement, a delicacy that was inbred. A lady makes love differently from a whore. In Teresina, there was none of the earthiness typical of the kind of girl she was pretending to be. I was convinced; she was no peasant wench, no simple farm girl. I didn't know what her game was, only that she was a phony.

  I wasn't surprised, then, when her hand stroked my cheek and she said, her voice tinged with sadness, "You are wonderful," she said. "I wish we could stay this way and forget about the rest of the world."

  I cupped a soft breast in my hand, and she pressed her hand over mine. "I know what you mean," I said. "It would be nice, wouldn't it?"

  She fitted her head into the curve of my shoulder and moved her hand gently up and down my body. She lay quietly against me, occasionally moving her hand, her leg resting partly over my abdomen. But there was no forgetting the world, not for me, not for her, and finally she raised herself up on one elbow and slipped the yellow blouse demurely over her bare breasts. She looked at me soberly.

  "Now will you sell to El Garfio?" she asked.

  "You sound as if you'd be sorry if I did," I said surprised.

  "That is a foolish thing to say," she said quickly. "I just want to know, that is all, now that you've gotten what you wanted."

  The bitterness in her voice was plain. I was dammed if I could figure out why, though. She was a confusing little dish, this one.

  "Maybe I would like more," I said casually.

  Her eyes searched mine, and I saw anger tinged with sorrow in them.

  "I'm sure you would," she said. "It is too bad you desire for the wrong reasons."

  I grabbed her and pulled her down to me. "Desire is reason of its own," I said. "Didn't you enjoy it? Perhaps I can do better."

  I caressed her soft, full breasts again. At once her legs pressed against me and she writhed and moaned, fighting herself.

  "Stop!" she gasped. "Stop… please. All right, I enjoyed it… too much." She pulled free. "I am sorry it had to happen for the reasons it happened."

  "It happened because we wanted each other," I said.

  "Yes but there were other reasons," she replied, her face buried against my chest, that strange sadness in her voice. "It is too bad for those other reasons. Except for that, it would have been the most complete thing in my life."

  I knew she meant my wanting her as part of the price for selling to El Garfio. She didn't realize I'd wanted her to find out things about her she was now revealing all over again. The sensitivity she was displaying didn't go with any peasant background. More and more I was beginning to think that she was a well-schooled, dedicated revolutionary, perhaps a defector from the upper class, probably exported to Bolivia just as Che Guevara had been. Che was a man of considerable worldly sophistication; he probably reasoned that to send her as a simple peasant girl would be in character. I watched her slip on the rest of her clothes and knew one thing: whatever the reason for the masquerade, she was a lovely thing to look at and to have.

  At the door, she turned to look at me. "I will come back tomorrow. Perhaps you will have made your decision."

  "Arrange for me to meet El Garfio and then we'll see," I said. "You have a few days. I must go away again tomorrow. Give me some place where I can contact you when I get back."

  "No." She shook her head. "That is not possible. I will get in touch with you."

  She left, and I switched off the lights and stretched out on the bed. She had said something very true: under different circumstances, what had happened would have been really complete…

  8th

  It was a gray dawn, and it would be a gray day I saw. That fine Bolivian rain, the chilcheo, was coming down as I drove the battered old Ford to Cochabamba again and wheeled the 'copter out of the warehouse.

  I looked around carefully before taking off, and in a moment I was safely airborne, winging toward the mountains. This time I had no trouble finding the orange canister and the tiny clearing. I set the 'copter down and hurried down the narrow path to the tapera.

  Manuel stepped out as I came within range of the cabin, holding a carbine ready. When he saw it was me, he set the gun down.

  "Good morning, Nick," he said. "I was not sure it was you at first." No one else appeared to back him up, which surprised me.

  "You're alone?" I asked.

  "The others are in the cabin," he said. "It is not a good morning. Cesare, Eduardo, Olo and Luis are all sick. We cooked some yuca last night, and it was perhaps not cooked well enough, for today they have the big sickness. Only Antonio and I escaped."

  He turned back for the tapera, and I followed. Inside, I found them all standing, rifles ready, looking gaunt and yellowish.

  "What are you doing up?" I asked.

  "You have come. We are going with
you," Olo answered.

  "Nonsense," I said. "I will come back again."

  "No," he said. "We are well enough now. Besides, killing some guerrillas will make us feel better." I saw the determination in his eyes.

  "We have spotted another of Che Guevara's small cadres," Olo went on, his voice taking on an agitated excitement. "This group spends its time raiding the gondolas that pass through the ravine road three times a week."

  Gondola was, I knew, a Bolivian idiom for a small bus. "They take money from the passengers but, more than that, the raids spread word of their strength. It impresses the peasants and makes recruiting men easier for the bastardo."

  "News travels quickly in these mountains," Luis put in. "Word of our raid has already spread. We have heard the guerrilla leader is furious."

  "We went into a village two kilometers away," Cesare explained. "We went to investigate and maybe find a chaco with some jocos and choclo. An old woman there told us how word had traveled of a fight between two guerrilla bands."

  I laughed. "Good," I said. "Did you find anything at the chaco?" A chaco was land cultivated enough to grow vegetables or fruits. «Jocos» was the tasty winter squash, and "choclos," sweet corn on the cob.

  "We brought back both choclos and jocos," Olo said. "But now we hit this band raiding the gondolas, no? They had a camp about a day's march from here, but they may have moved it."

  "Then we won't bother looking for it," I said. "We'll take a page out of the history of the American West." I saw their eyes brighten attentively. "You say they raid the gondolas going through the ravine path. We'll strike them when they halt the next gondola. It will kill two birds with one stone. They won't be on guard against an attack, and the passengers will be sure to spread the word of our counterattack."

  "Magnifico!" Olo exclaimed, a wide grin spreading across his fined face. "We go!"

  They handed me a rolled-up poncho that would serve as a sleeping bag, and we started out. We walked, with Luis in the lead, until the light began to give way to darkness. When night made the going too slow and difficult, we halted.