Marchand Woman

by Brian Garfield

  Madness, she thought. Sheer utter madness: I belong in a rubber room. Stupid lunacy. But then if you figure to get killed anyway what’s the point of beating around the bush?

  She felt momentarily proud of herself for that thought because it sounded like something of Harry’s.

  She went dizzy for a moment but she didn’t faint; she only stumbled a bit and reached for a tree trunk for support. Its surface was slimy and repulsive to her touch. She took the disposable plastic cigarette lighter out of her pocket. Harry: I don’t care if you don’t smoke. It’s a survival weapon: Always carry fire with you.

  The rags she’d torn from her blouse and stuffed into the necks of the bottles were soaked with rain and she didn’t know whether that would destroy their capillary ability to soak up gasoline from the bottles. She’d wrung them out as dry as she could but what if they refused to catch fire? In this weather it was possible to imagine that nothing would burn.

  She put the lighter back in her pocket. It wasn’t time for it yet. Then she gingerly shifted two of the bottles to her left hand, winced when she scraped a raw wound, and crept to the next tree. Her boots sank ankle-deep into the mud. She was in the jungle now and she couldn’t see out past the dark thickness of trees and bamboo and lush creeping things; that man on the cliff must be halfway to the bottom by now and she didn’t have much time at all.

  Madness, she thought again.

  And moved toward the huts.

  See, ducks, the thing is, guerrilla warfare’s got nothing to do with the kind of thing they teach at Sandhurst and West Point. That’s what the American Army never learned in Nam. You want to stay alive, you learn to think like a magician—the kind you see doing tricks with scarves and coins and cards in cheap dives in Brighton and Sausalito. You wave the right hand around to get everybody’s attention and in the meantime behind your back your left hand’s pulling the pin on the grenade and they don’t even see it when you roll it under their table. Simple misdirection—diversion’s the whole thing, you get their attention by making a big noise to the right and then you sneak up on ’em from the left.

  All she could do, really, was provide Harry with his diversion.

  She’d made it as far as the first Jeep and she was crouched beside it peering up through the mud-stained windshield: Four or five men were coalescing at the top of the cliff and starting down the narrow shelving path; the man who’d started earlier was down out of sight now but when she turned her head she could still see the man in the cave, standing up now, watching the jungle, rifle held ready across his chest.

  She dropped a bit lower and looked across the seats toward the big hut. She’d seen Harry go inside that one; she had to assume he was still in there, even though she’d been out of sight of it.

  She set the three bottles on the muddy clay by her feet and dug the plastic lighter out of her pocket.

  Crobey was playing the ten of clubs on the jack of hearts when concussion from the blast knocked him off his chair and drove the woven-bamboo door into the room like a projectile. It caromed against the table, knocking it down across him and spilling cards all over him.

  The deafening racket echoed inside the hut and he had quickly-glimpsed impressions of everybody in action—Vargas peeling himself off the radio and groping for his Kalashnikov; Emil ducking, arms over his head, then straightening and searching wildly for a weapon; Julio Rodriguez wheeling toward the door lifting his Uzzi; Cielo scowling in that baffled I-knew-it way of his, lifting the revolver in his hand as if he considered it a futile gesture demanded by protocol.

  Crobey’s ears were still ringing when his mind focused on one object and he rolled toward it—the knapsack they’d taken off him when they’d captured him. It lay open beyond the radio, its contents exposed. Vargas was tramping toward the doorway through which the explosion had burst; flames were climbing both sides of the doorframe now, erupting very fast, and the Cubans began to shoot—spraying ammunition blindly through the fire and smoke. Emil was yelling at the top of his voice and for a moment none of them was looking at Crobey and he pounced on the knapsack. He did all the rest of it in a continuous fluid motion: Plucked a gas grenade from the open bag, jerked the pin out, slid it across the floor toward the Cubans, got his good leg under him, and launched himself back into the shadows behind the bulk of the radio. There was a back door in that dark wall—you never built a military hut without a back way out—but it was bolted on the inside and he wasted precious time trying to find the bolt in the bad light. Gas exploded through the room and he began to choke on it, tears streaming, but then he had the damned thing open and he plunged outside, fell three feet into the mud and rolled fast.

  He heard them coughing in there and then the second explosion knocked him about and something stung his cheek, laying it open—he felt the sudden warmth of spouting blood before the pain hit. A great blaze of fire erupted at the far corner of the hut and Crobey scrambled to his feet and wheeled to run for it. Then he heard Carole:

  “Harry. Over here!”

  He heard himself mutter: “Good grief.” Then he was running toward the Jeep, bent over, weaving from side to side. Bullets were still flying through the flames from inside the hut but that dwindled fast—the gas would be disabling all of them now but then the shooting picked up again and he realized it was coming from elsewhere. A string of bullets from an automatic weapon sewed a swift stitch along the mud in front of him, little geysers spouting, and he threw himself flat, skidding in the muck, sliding behind the Jeep and aware that there were men on the cliff shooting down through the flames.

  She stared at him, not moving, and he took the blazing Molotov cocktail from her hand and heaved it mightily. It exploded in the air and rained shards of blazing petrol over the camp. Bits of gravel and shattered glass banged against the Jeep and he realized that was what had cut his cheek—a sliver of glass from the previous bomb. He gripped her hard, by the wrist, yanking her away. “Run for it!” And hurled her into the trees ahead of him.

  She tumbled into a rotting moist pool that stank of compost; she flailed weakly in protest when Harry hauled her out of it.

  His face was ghastly—a long ragged slit below the cheekbone, blood matted everywhere. But a smile came into his eyes. Feeling nearly burst her throat.

  “Hello ducks.”

  “Harry—”

  “Come on, keep moving, keep moving.”

  He propelled her through the morass. She nearly left a boot behind in it. He was half carrying her—bullying her along: “Get your goddamned ass in gear, woman.”

  Smashing through twigs, stumbling against trees. He reached for a hanging vine and hauled them both up over a tangle of roots. Then the way was blocked by a stand of bamboo, its trunks as thick as drain pipes—a solid wall of it, looming into the sky. Harry pushed her to the left and she resisted. “Not that way. The cliff—we’ll be trapped.”

  “Only place to go now, ducks.”

  “But—”

  “Shut up. Come on.” He gave her a violent heave and she lurched wildly, spinning her arms; he caught her by the elbow and then they were running, Harry gasping in her ear: “Have you got a gun or anything?”

  “No.…”

  “It’s all right, never mind.”

  She couldn’t see a thing but tree trunks and creepers; she’d lost her bearings and went helplessly whichever way Harry’s arm guided her. She ran awkwardly, her body in agony, legs protesting but Harry’s hand was like a tow rope. Vaguely she was aware of it when the shooting dwindled back there—a single ragged aftervolley, then no more guns, just voices hollering in confusion.

  Then abruptly he jerked her to a stop. He tipped her against a tree. “Stay put a minute.”

  “What?”

  But he was leaning away from her and she stood half blind, heaving with the effort of getting air into her lungs. Her head spun and her knees had gone loose and she choked on her own saliva and began to retch. She tried to stifle it but she was drowning and she put her head do
wn and sucked air with panic-stricken greed. Then something pummeled her between the shoulder blades—Harry, and her throat popped clear and she whooshed in a grateful breath.

  “He’s gone to find out what’s happening. Come on.”

  “Who?”

  “Bloke from the cave.” Harry hauled her forward and in a moment they were out of the trees and the edge of the big cave was right there; Harry was saying something—“This is right where the bastards caught me. Clumsy fool, getting too old for this shit.” He pulled her into the cave and she felt him push her away toward the interior: “Get back in there out of sight. Pick something to hide behind—something that doesn’t look too much like a tombstone.”

  “Harry, we’re trapped in here!”

  “Go on, disappear. I’ll be right with you.”

  But she stayed and when he started to wrench at the boards of a crate she helped him pry it open. He didn’t object again. He tugged with frantic haste at the Cosmoline-soaked wrappings and finally tore the oilpaper away from a stubby black weapon of some kind and thrust a magazine into it and then went around the cave peering at stenciled heiroglyphs on crates until he exclaimed, “Ha!” and kicked at the edge of a lid until it splintered; he got his fingers under it and peeled boards back on their nails and she saw the ugly serrated pineapple shapes of hand grenades. Harry began to force them into his pockets.

  Then he ran to the front of the cave and peered out. She stumbled along behind him, afraid to be separated from him by more than an arm’s length.

  The camp was in flames and the smoke had turned black; there wasn’t much to be seen through it. “God knows what they’re up to,” Harry grumbled. He turned then; his big hands slid around her. “You looked like the bloody cavalry, ducks. Christ, I’d given it up. Mostly they didn’t particularly want to kill me but we were getting to the point where it was the only thing they could do with me. Old Harry was dead—and then you dropped in. The last bloomin’ thing I ever—”

  “Did you think,” she said softly, “I wouldn’t come for you?”

  Around the perimeter of the camp the angry rifles stirred. Cielo kept wiping at his eyes and coughing in spasms; the rolling smoke didn’t help.

  Emil loomed in the smoke, outlined against the burning hut; somewhere he’d found a weapon—one of the Uzzi automatic rifles. “It was the woman. A couple of Molotovs and Crobey threw tear gas—that’s all it was. I just spotted them going into the cave.”

  Cielo gasped stupidly at him. He kept doubling over, coughing, and couldn’t focus on what Emil was saying.

  “You’re all through,” Emil said with grating scorn. “You’re used up. I’m taking command here—you want to dispute it?” The Uzzi stirred toward Cielo.

  He only coughed and rubbed at his eyes. Emil was walking away bellowing orders and he saw some of the men go trotting along after him.

  They went away through the smoke and Cielo didn’t move. To hell with it all.

  After a little while he heard them start shooting.

  Far back in the cave they lay behind crates of rifles. Bullets crashed around, caroming, whining, smashing things up. Crobey pulled the pin from a grenade and hurled it out of the cave and she felt him drop on top of her, shielding her; the racket drove her half crazy and shrapnel pelted off the walls and ceiling. Something cracked the heel of her boot, hard. Crobey said, “Probably didn’t hit anything but at least it’ll keep them back.” Then he resumed prying at the stubborn lid of the crate beside him. By the stenciled label it contained mortar rockets.

  She said, “Sooner or later the ricochets will get us or their bullets will set off something explosive in here. We haven’t got a chance, have we, Harry?”

  “Might cool them off if I can get to that mortar and lob a couple into them. There aren’t but eight or ten blokes out there.”

  He tossed another grenade and they ducked again and the noise seemed to explode inside her. Sudden tears rushed from her eyes and she clutched at him. “Harry, oh Harry.…”

  “Come on, ducks, we ain’t licked yet.” He kissed the top of her head and then he dived away, cradling two of the mortar rockets in his arms, skittering across the stone floor toward the uptilted mortar out front. Bullets began to spang around the place again but she followed him forward, yanking the pin from a grenade and throwing it with all her strength and watching it soar out of the cave before she threw herself flat and heard its devastating bellow.

  Harry, she thought. Reckless indomitable Harry. She crawled behind boxes to reach him. He’d dragged the mortar back to cover and somehow hadn’t been hit but the Cubans were invisible out there in the trees and their bullets were crashing all over the cave, bouncing around like stones in a tin can, and it was only a matter of time.

  “I’m scared, Harry, but I’m not sorry.”

  “Right, ducks. Never apologize. Here, hold this a minute.”

  Weak in all his fibers, Cielo leaned against the Jeep listening to the noise of battle. Julio came in sight, then Vargas; the two of them trudged forward batting smoke away from their faces.

  Cielo said drily, “He’ll shoot both of you for desertion.”

  It made Julio grunt. “Let him try.”

  Something blew up—louder than a grenade this time and Cielo’s head rocked back as he tried to identify the sound. Vargas murmured, “Harry’s got one of the mortars working.”

  “Christ he’ll kill all of us,” Julio complained, and glowered petulantly toward the cliff.

  Cielo drew himself upright. “Let me have that.” He reached for Julio’s submachine gun.

  Julio relinquished it without objection. “What are you going to do?”

  “What I should have done at the very beginning. If I’d been young enough I wouldn’t have taken so long to make the decision.” He started to walk uphill, then looked back: “Wait for me here. If I don’t come back, I depend on you to look after Soledad and the girls.”

  Vargas and Julio began to follow him but he waved them back. He took a deep breath and held it in his lungs while he walked between the burning huts. When he came out of the smoke he started to breathe again.

  The mortar whumped again and the explosion chewed up some timber. He headed that way, assuming Crobey wasn’t shooting entirely blind.

  He made his way with care the last hundred feet or so. He could tell where the men were easily enough—their guns made a steady racket for him to guide by—but he didn’t want to get nailed by one of Crobey’s mortar bursts. He heard one of them coming in, dropped flat behind a tree and felt the earth shudder when it impacted. Leaves and twigs rained on him. Then he got up and went forward again. Presently he found Emil, squatting behind a tree fitting a fresh-loaded magazine into his Uzzi.

  Emil looked up and found Cielo there, and Cielo watched him for a moment, trying to think of the right words. They didn’t come to mind, and after a brief moment he simply pulled the trigger and killed Emil without fuss.

  Crobey had a wicked-looking bullet burn across the back of his hand. Carole had a new bruise on top of an old one on her thigh. Pretty soon, she thought, they’d both be picked apart to splinters this way. But she handed another mortar round to him and put her hands over her ears waiting for him to drop it down the spout.

  Crobey began to lift it toward the muzzle but then he paused.

  The shooting had stopped. She heard somebody yelling in Spanish. Crobey slowly lowered the shell to the ground and reached for the submachine gun on the stone beside him. He was scowling, listening to the voice.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “I can’t make it out.”

  “Harry Crobey! Hold your goddamn fire a minute. Want to talk!”

  She reached for a grenade and put her finger through the pin ring. “Don’t trust the bastard, Harry.”

  “Nothing to lose,” he replied. Then he let his call sing out: “Come ahead and talk!”

  She saw the man emerge from the smoke dragging something heavy along the ground. The man had a we
apon in his free hand but it was down at his side and not aimed anywhere in particular. He had a wild hard face, very primitive, huge cheekbones, a look of savagery.

  “Is that him?” she whispered. “Rodriguez?”

  “Yeah.” Crobey didn’t lift his weapon. He only watched Rodriguez struggle upslope, dragging whatever it was.

  “Maybe they want to make a deal,” Crobey said sotto voce.

  “Don’t listen to him, Harry.”

  Rodriguez was halfway between the trees and the cave—perhaps forty feet away from them. He stopped there, out in the open. With powerful effort he lifted the object he’d been dragging. She saw it was a man—then she recognized Emil Draga. Rodriguez propped Emil Draga more or less upright, holding him in both arms, the submachine gun loose on its sling over his elbow.

  Rodriguez shouted, “We’ve got Glenn Anders. They just brought him in.”

  Crobey gave her a long look. She had nothing to say; she felt helpless. Crobey looked at the heaped ordnance and then lifted his voice: “No trades, Rodrigo.”

  “The hell with trades. This is the one who killed the Lundquist boy.” Rodriguez dropped Emil and Emil fell like a stone, quite obviously dead by the way he collapsed. “I guess we’ve had enough of this, Harry,” Rodriguez shouted. He flung his submachine gun away into the mud and shoved both hands in his pockets. His stance was defiant. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the smoke that poured up from the camp. “That’s my goddamn fishing boat you just burned up, you know that, Harry?”

  She said, “What’s he raving about?”

  “Shush a minute, ducks.”

  “Listen, Harry—you hear me?”

  “I hear you fine, Rodrigo.”

  “You can have Anders, you’ll find him back in the trees there. And you can keep that stuff in the cave, Harry, it’s a gift from me to you. We’re taking both Jeeps. You’ll have a long walk down and you’ll have to backpack Anders but I need a half day’s jump on you. Time to get my wife and my girls out. All right?”

  She murmured suspiciously, “It’s too easy.”

  Crobey shook his head. He yelled, “Fair enough. Go on, Rodrigo, beat it.”