Backlash

by Don Pendleton

  The screen went blank for a moment, and when the picture returned the vantage point was far closer to the house. A statue, formerly a nymph pouring water from an urn into a fountain, occupied the left of the screen now, and Rivera remembered how often he had sat on the grass beside the fountain, reading, listening to his tutor, even playing chess with his grandfather, who had built the house and had mortared the fountain with his own hands.

  The nymph no longer had the urn. She no longer had arms with which to hold it, no longer had a head. The wistful smile with which she had watched the cascading water had been replaced by an ugly stump of broken stone, all that was left of her neck. Such destruction made Rivera shake his head. But he went livid when the camera pulled back and the cameraman moved left to reveal the graffiti spray-painted on the delicate breasts of the ruined statue. Even under the paint it was easy to see that some animal had defaced them, too, had chipped away the nipples, leaving lunar craters where the mounds had been. But the graffiti was the worst. In crude letters and cruder Spanish it said, "Fuck you, and your mother."

  Rivera, his hands shaking so that he could hardly control them, pressed the freeze-frame button. Who had done this? And who had sent him the tape? Were they one and the same? But more than any other question, the ones that raced around his head again and again, like daredevil motorcycles in a wire basket, was why? Why do it and why tape it?

  He closed his eyes and leaned back. He grasped one shaking hand in the other, as if the trembling of each would cancel that of the other. The music seemed a distraction now. He ripped off the headphones and tossed them across the room. Arrested by their wire, they stopped dead in the air, then fell to the floor with a crack.

  Slowly Rivera allowed his eyes to reopen. He peered at the screen through a haze, not knowing yet that it was tears. Fluttering his lids, he felt the water collect in the corners of his eyes and wiped at it with the back of his hand. He clicked the play button.

  A small yellow smear appeared in the background. The lens twisted and the blur sharpened, catching the arsonist in the act of withdrawing. The sudden rush of flame held Rivera's eye. He leaned toward the screen, holding his breath as the portico was bathed in a ghastly orange. The cameraman was shrewd. As if he had known Rivera's reaction, he zoomed closer, fixing first on the walnut doors, then on the hand-carved lintel, pulling back, lingering on the Doric capitals a moment, then pulling back farther. The entire house was awash in flame now. Presoaked and just waiting for the match, it went up like a refinery, soon all but hidden behind the inferno that consumed it.

  Rivera searched backward, watching intently as the flames grew smaller and smaller and the house emerged once again intact from the flames. Again and again he watched as the holocaust devoured the last link to his homeland, then rematerialized as if refusing to die. Over and over again the house defied physics, defied time itself as it grew from the ashes without benefit of carpenters or masons then, in the blink of an eye, was reduced once more to a swirl of orange and a wreath of black.

  He watched until he could stand to watch it no more, all the while wondering who had done it with such delicious malice and such deliberate cruelty, filming the entire thing. He froze the picture again, at the very moment when the last vestige of the stately mansion vanished in smoke and flame. The fire, even in its motionless state, seemed to flicker and swirl, the smoke to billow toward a heaven for which there was no room on the screen. Who had sent him the tape? He had to know.

  The two questions swirled in his head like the flames that transfixed him, whirling faster and faster until they joined into a seamless blur of confusion. Without realizing it, he began to scream the questions aloud, over and over in an unintelligible howl. The door to his study burst open, but Rivera didn't notice. Two men, their fatigues smartly pressed, their weapons held at the ready, stood frozen in the doorway as their general slowly rose, still screaming words they couldn't understand.

  Rivera shook his head, slowly at first, then faster, harder. Her hurled the remote control at the television, showing the final horrific throes of the ancestral mansion. The control shattered, bouncing off the glass screen. He wanted the screen to shatter, to fill the room with a sudden, acrid smoke billowing from a yawning hole in the set like the last breath of a dying man. He wanted to smell the flames, to feel their heat on his skin, to feel himself consumed with the same fury. Instead, he watched helplessly as the pieces of the remote control bounced soundlessly on the rug.

  In helpless fury he kicked at the wreckage of the control, catching his foot in the wire of the headphone and pulling the jack loose. As if by the filmmaker's own design, the third movement of Chopin's sonata, the Funeral March, began to swell from the speakers, booming out at him in all its luxurious solemnity. He stared in disbelief at the headset that had given way, raised a booted foot as if to crush the offending device, then held his rage in check. Slowly he bent to retrieve the headphones, placed them back on his head, plugged them in again and sank back into the chair.

  He reached for the CD player remote, then looked at the two men in the doorway. They stood stock-still, uncertain what to do. Then, as Rivera continued to stare at them, they began to fidget. He said nothing, his arm extended, the fingertips just pressing the metal remote.

  Realizing that he wanted them to leave, but that he didn't wish to say anything, the taller of the two lowered his weapon and took a step backward, then another. The second man turned his head and watched his companion back slowly out of the room. When the first guard was gone, the second snapped a crisp salute, turned smartly on his heel and closed the door as he passed through.

  Only then did Rivera pick up the remote control. It was as if someone watching him had punched a freeze-frame, trapping him there in all his pain, frozen forever in the agonizing moment. Then, freed momentarily, he moved quickly, uncertain whether he might yet be suspended in that hell another time.

  He punched up the third movement again, then increased the volume, sinking back into the soft leather to enjoy the exquisite melancholy of Chopin's masterpiece.

  The television screen was blank now, the freeze-frame long since having automatically shut down. He got up, not bothering to straighten, and took a second remote control from the television cabinet. He rewound the tape and started it over, watching one more time. This time, when the house was gone, he didn't try to make it reappear. He let the fire burn, as out of control as the fire in his blood.

  And then, as if by magic, the smoke and flames were gone. On the screen, seen as if from a mountaintop, a figure moved in from the left, so small that it was impossible to tell whether it was that of a man or a woman.

  The camera began to zoom in one more time, closer and closer, until the figure grew larger and then the focus shifted and zoomed again, this time zeroing in on the face. And all his questions were answered in a single instant as the lips moved and a hand waved a casual salute before the screen went black.

  Then, the last notes of the piano fading away, he tossed the earphones aside and reached for the telephone. He had plans to make.

  And vengeance to exact.

  Chapter Ten

  Byron Wade was a fountain of information. Unfortunately most of what he had was more suggestive than conclusive. He had tantalizing hints and fascinating coincidences, but nothing more than that to go on. Hampered by a lack of manpower, constrained by laws designed to protect the best of society and easily abused by the worst of society, he was more than happy to share his information — sketchy as it was — with his visitor.

  Mack Bolan was back to square one. The warehouse wasn't exactly a dead end, but it would take a few days to unravel the tangle of notes and coded entries. Until that had been done all he could do was troll.

  "So what can you tell me about this guy Pagan?"

  Wade laughed. "Oh, hell, I could play Scheherazade, if you want. There's a thousand and one stories, easy. Let's start with the bare bones. Pagan was a colonel in the National Guard under Somoza. Sometimes
I think half the people in Miami have some connection to Somoza. 'Somocistas, they call 'em. Animals would be more appropriate. I watch the tube, I see these revolutions all over the globe, and you know what? Half the time I don't blame the people. Anyway, Pagan got here around 1980, maybe early 81."

  "Why would he have all those arms in the warehouse? It looks more like something for a war than drug running."

  "First of all, running drugs in this part of the country is a war. We've got factions and splinter groups. We've got the boys from Medellín. We've got the Mafia. Hell, we've got Panamanians, Colombians, Bolivians, Salvadorans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Uruguayans, Paraguayans. Stop me before I forget somebody. We call it the OAS, the Organization of American Smugglers. Pagan's a shark, but there are lots of sharks, so you protect yourself. If you're in Pagan's shoes, you don't trust anybody."

  Bolan sipped at the coffee. "I think there's more to it than that, Lieutenant."

  "Why?"

  "It's the kind of weapons. Sure, assault rifles, submachine guns, maybe even a few rockets of one kind or another. That I can buy as a smuggler's arsenal. But case after case of grenades, assault rifles by the hundred, hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunitions? Come on, Wade, you don't believe that's just an ordinary stockpile any more than I do."

  "Wade stood and walked to a cupboard over the sink. He opened the door and moved a few items around on the shelves, looking for something. When he found it, he turned back to the table. He sat down heavily, unscrewed the cap from the bottle and poured about an ounce of J&B into his coffee. He held the bottle out to Bolan, who declined.

  "All right, look, I have my suspicions, same as you. But I can't do anything about them. Policy, you see."

  "Whose policy?"

  Wade shook his head. "I don't know."

  "But you can guess."

  "Yeah, I can guess. We're talking mid-Atlantic here, Delmarva Peninsula."

  "CIA?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. Look, there's more subterranean types running around this city than you'd believe. When I worked vice, every time I got close, some asshole with a federal shield would show up, flap his leather in my face and walk off with the perp — and the dope and the guns. You name it. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if one of them was working on a nuke, for Christ's sake. I got fed up and asked for a transfer. By that time, they were more than happy to oblige me. I guess I was getting to be a pain in the ass."

  "You ever find out what was really going on?"

  "Not for sure, but I got a hunch or three. Now let's focus on Willie boy. That's who you're after, anyway. See, he's got some juice in D.C. I don't know how much, and I don't know what kind. But I know it's real juice. Because I had my wrist slapped the one time I went nose to nose with him. And I'll tell you this… that scumbag's got a rep for nasty shit. Barbaric, inhuman actually."

  Bolan took another sip of his coffee. "You were telling me about Pagan."

  "Look, the guy you took down, or ripped off or whatever the hell you did to him, was a Pagan gofer. He had one foot in Pagan's camp, one in free-lance and a hand in Langley's pocket. I don't know what he did with the other hand. Counted his money, I guess. Anyway, I did some digging, rattled a few cages, called in a few chits. Whatever. Seems your boy McDonough was a regular courier for Pagan and was wired to a bunch of spook types for years. I don't know whether he was spying on Pagan for Langley, or watching Langley for Pagan. Maybe both. So some asshole from Uncle shows up and tries to pick my brains. He was curious about what happened, but he didn't seem surprised. If I had to guess, I'd say he knew more than he let on, but you can't always tell, because they try to make you think that whether they do or not. It gets on my nerves."

  "Lieutenant, I'd appreciate any help you could give me on this."

  "Look, Belasko, I don't know why I should help you, but I'm already doing what I can. I been looking through files, checking where I could, that sort of thing, but I can only do so much. I know you're plugged in up north, and that's great. You take a little scum off the pond, that's even better. But there's just so much I can do to help without getting my own ass in a sling. And I know your clout doesn't extend far enough to catch me when I fall. I've got a family, and they come first. Anything I can do, I will. But you've got to be patient, and you've to let me decide how far I can go."

  "Fair enough."

  Bolan stood to go. Wade poured a little more booze into his coffee, finished the cup and walked Bolan out to the front yard.

  * * *

  Standing in the full-length window overlooking his garden, Guillermo Pagan ran a hand through the tangled black curls cascading down the back of his neck. He was on edge, and his head ached. It was always like that for him. The ache would come when things got rough. It had been that way as long as he could remember. In the old days there was something he could do about it. Now it wasn't so easy.

  He knew, deep inside himself, that getting to that place again, where he had that kind of power, was the only thing that mattered. He was getting impatient, but he was afraid of overplaying his hand. He had the fools right where he wanted them. All he had to do was wait. Everything was falling into place.

  Turning away from the window, Pagan sat down at the huge mahogany desk set well back away from the window. The glass was bulletproof, of course, but he still didn't like to sit too close. He opened the draperies only at night when it was too dark to see inside, and he never put the light on when the draperies were open. He knew that some people called him paranoid. They whispered behind his back that he was too suspicious, that he trusted no one but himself.

  It was all true, but it wasn't paranoia. It was wisdom. It had been a long time coming for him, but it had arrived, and he wasn't about to forget a lesson so painfully learned. He had trusted others before, and look what had happened — he was a thousand miles from home, a stranger, at the wrong end of the power, dependent on its indulgence instead of exercising it, dispensing it with a stingy hand or a gracious largesse, as the spirit moved him.

  But all that would change soon. He could feel it in his bones, the way an arthritic senses a coming rain. It was coming, and he was determined to be ready. This little misfortune with McDonough was too bad, but it wasn't fatal, not by a long shot. What disturbed him was not knowing who had done it. Usually he was able to obtain such information. But not this time, and he didn't like that at all.

  Pagan leaned back in the huge leather chair and touched a button set in one of its arms. The draperies closed with a soft whirring sound. He touched another button and a light went on. It was too low at first, and he pressed another button to make it brighter. Slowly the room came into focus, and he jabbed the button once more to bring the light up another notch.

  On the left-hand wall a map of Central America glowed under a pin spot. Pagan spent long hours in this chair, staring at the map. He wondered what was wrong with him, why he would want to go back to such a backward place as Nicaragua. He had it soft here, more money than God and anything he wanted. But somehow it wasn't enough. Somehow he felt as if he had been cheated out of something that was rightfully his.

  Somoza had always told him that he would one day be in a position to take control of the National Guard, and he had looked forward to that day with great pleasure. It would have been a dream come true to have total control of such a machine. But Somoza, the clown, had screwed up. Unable to read the handwriting on the wall, he had dragged his feet too long and ruined everything.

  If he had been willing to let go, to step aside and let a better man take charge, he could have kept his prestige and his money. All he would have lost was the power. But Pagan understood now — that was the rub. Power was more important than money to some men. Somoza had been one of those men, and he knew that he was one, too.

  But there were still some things to be attended to. He had a business to run, after all. And there were things to arrange, plans to make. He was getting impatient, and his headaches were getting worse. He couldn't wait much longer. Arledge kep
t saying to go slow, to hold his horses. Warning him that too fast would ruin everything, Arledge kept dragging him down. The man was a deadweight. But for the time being he was useful. One day he wouldn't be, and then… with an edge in his voice, as if Banazak had a lot of gall to bother him.

  "What now, Pete?" he snapped.

  "You got anything on that chopper yet?"

  "Negative… I'll let you know. See anything interesting?"

  "Nope."

  "Not even the señorita! It's long past show time, isn't it?"

  "Maybe she takes Monday's off."

  "Too bad. That tree's a bitch. That stuff I gave you do anything for the ants?"

  "I think it just pissed them off."

  Weston laughed. "I'm glad I let you try it first."

  "You son of a bitch. You mean you haven't used the stuff yet?"

  "Hell, Pete, the head of the FDA doesn't try anything on himself until somebody tests it first. Why should I?"

  "Fuck you."

  "Talk to you later."

  Banazak grunted into the mike, then clicked off. He lifted the glasses again and trained them on the chopper. He didn't see anything he hadn't already seen a hundred times. He swept the house from end to end. Most of the windows were dark, and it looked as if everyone had gone to bed.

  He wondered how Pagan could sleep with that racket. He thought maybe it was something you could get used to, but he knew he never would, and he doubted if Pagan would, either. There were times when he wished he was back home in Maryland, working the bay for clams. Hell, it was good enough for his old man, why did he have to be different?