The Lazarus Drop

by Paul Moomaw

  “You're a fool, Blue,” she shouted across the water. “I'll find Nordeen, and then the two of us will find you, and....” She slashed her index finger across her throat in a chopping motion.

  I gave her the finger and turned my attention to the water around me, shuffling my feet across the sandy bottom, hoping to find Sister Bergstrom's gun. Imry walked into the river behind me, and suddenly bent down. He reached under the surface and then stood up, holding the pistol. “If this is what you were looking for, please take it,” he said. “I hate violent things."

  “You bet,” I said. I climbed back out of the water, and we both sat down on the sand, letting the sun warm us. I was developing more respect for Imry all the time.

  “When you have to be, you're a fighter, aren't you,” I said.

  “Even impractical eggheads prefer life to death,” Imry responded.

  “So do impractical dummies like me,” I said. “I owe you one. You and that oar."

  “You are welcome,” Imry said. “What do we do now?"

  “You stay right here,” I said. “I'm going after Nordeen and Sister Bergstrom."

  “Would it not be simpler just to start walking back to Morelia? It can't be that far."

  I shook my head. “They will come here, and then they will follow, and they have the boat. They'll have Nordeen's aircraft, for that matter, and I'm sure Nordeen will be armed. We would be easy targets. This offers us a better chance.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt. “I should be able to get to the rendezvous site not too long after Sister Bergstrom. I'll have the advantage of surprise.” And I'll need it, I added to myself. I stood up. “With any luck, I might even catch them out on the river. That little boat isn't very tough, and this gun throws a heavy bullet. Even if I miss them, I can hit the boat and put them into the water. That will level the playing field,” I motioned toward the trees.

  “Stay under cover,” I said. “If you don't see me by dark, start walking back upriver. Walk. Stay hidden. If you can't get back to Morelia by dawn, hide out again until it's dark again. Nordeen can't kill someone he can't see. Find Cruz. Tell him Nordeen got me, and ask him to get you to somewhere safe."

  I started trotting down the beach.

  “Remember, find Cruz,” I called back over my shoulder. “Don't trust anybody except Cruz."

  I was closer than I thought. I stayed in the trees as much as possible, which slowed my progress some, but I had not been moving more than half an hour when I saw my goal.

  A few hundred meters ahead of me the river channel narrowed, and on the point of land which jutted into the water a battered, old-fashioned power transmission tower stood, bent and twisted, a relic from a united, if somewhat primitive, Mexico, the remains of high tension lines still dangling from some of its arms. To me it was a stark omen of death—mine or Nordeen's. Beyond the tower stretched a bend in the river, and within that bend should lie a small, sandy beach. That was where I was supposed to land.

  I ducked deeper into the trees, moving as silently as I could. I patted Sister Bergstrom's gun for reassurance, and wished to hell I had heavier artillery than that. I was sure Nordeen would be armed, but I hoped not heavily. He would have had no reason to expect a battle. On the other hand, Nordeen was Nordeen.

  I reached a large clearing, edged around it, and continued through the trees, trying to move silently through the winter-dry undergrowth which clawed at my feet and occasionally gave way with a snap and crackle that I thought had to be audible everywhere. Ahead of me I could make out the light, open space of another clearing, a larger one, right at the beach where Nordeen should be waiting.

  I moved more slowly, shadowing the trees, edging from one to the next, then pausing to look as more of the clearing became visible between tree trunks. It was the right place, for sure. A bright yellow shelter dome came into view; then, as I continued to move, I saw a small aircraft, painted a dull, mottled gray and black, squatting in the grass. It looked military, the kind that gets used for reconnaissance, and for secret little trips like this one, barely big enough for three or four men, with fans in the wings to float it straight down to a landing, and lift it straight back up again. I turned my gaze to the shelter dome again. A mound that looked almost like someone's bag of dirty laundry lay in the grass next to the dome. I squinted and blinked, and took another look, and realized that the laundry bag was Sister Bergstrom, looking very dead.

  What I didn't see was any sign of Nordeen, or anyone else. I dropped to a crouch and moved closer to the edge of the clearing. Still nothing. I crawled as close to the open space as I dared, started to pull the pistol from my belt, and lifted my head, slowly, cautiously, to look around.

  Then I dropped flat as the unmistakable stutter of an automatic rifle jarred the trees, and an angry swarm tiny messengers of death whined past my ears.

  “Come on out, Blue,” Nordeen's voice was a little weak, buffeted by the breeze, which was increasingly a wind, and which blew from behind me. I started crawling backwards on my belly, trying to put some distance between us, but afraid to stand, or even crouch.

  Nordeen fired again, and bullets stitched holes in the dirt and leaves right where I had been. I doubled my speed, which still doesn't amount to much when you're moving backwards on your navel. I couldn't understand how the bastard had gotten such a clear line on me.

  Like a kindly mind reader, he told me.

  “Come on, Blue. I've been watching you for half an hour. I was sitting right up in that old tower, just staring at you. If you didn't have shit for brains you might have looked up and seen me."

  He fired again, high this time. Either he had lost me, or he didn't want to hit me. Not yet.

  “Where's Imry, Blue?” he shouted.

  I kept my mouth shut and kept on crawling. I may have shit for brains, but I'm not suicidal. As I got deeper into the trees, I started angling off to the right.

  “Come on, Blue. You're acting even more stupid than I gave you credit for. We still have a deal, unless you insist on fucking it up. Give me Imry, and then go back to California and collect that second $75,000."

  I kept crawling, trying not to sneeze as dirt got up my nose.

  “Shit, Blue, what kind of American are you, anyway? You really want to let the fucking Brazilians have this guy. Don't you understand what that means? What if Imry really has something. Then they'll be on top. You want to have to kiss ass for a bunch of nigger spicks?"

  Suddenly I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I froze and waited, the pistol extended. The movement came again, just a shadow among shadows. Then I saw a piece of tan forehead and an eye. I held my breath to calm the pistol barrel, aimed as carefully as I could, and squeezed off a shot, then fired again just to be sure. A loud yelp told me the first bullet had found a target. A loud click told me there was no second bullet.

  “Shit,” I muttered, then squeezed my eyes shut and whined like a frightened puppy as another cluster of shots this time tore up the bushes to my left. Whatever part of Nordeen I had hit wasn't going to be enough to finish the job. I opened my eyes and started crawling again, angling away from where I had spotted Nordeen.

  “....Blue ... later....” was all I heard the next time Nordeen yelled. The breeze had become a dry wind that blew his words away. I raised myself to a crouch and took off in a widening circle, wanting to get downwind, or at least across the wind, from Nordeen, to give myself some breathing space while I decided what to do next. When I sensed I was far enough away, I settled myself on a fallen tree and took a look at the pistol, hoping it had simply had a misfire. I released the magazine, and fell into my hand. It was empty. Now what, I thought.

  I couldn't shoot the son of a bitch, and I couldn't start heading back toward where I had left Imry, because my circling around had left Nordeen stationed between me and freedom.

  I took off my belt pouch and rummaged through the contents. What was there wasn't very hopeful—a sharp but light and flexible knife, not worth a damn for throwing even i
f I were worth a damn at throwing; some dehydrated food sticks, except I wasn't in the least hungry right then; and a packet of magnesium flare tablets—the kind with the little plastic strip you pull up on before you toss the tablet down and get the hell out of the way—useful for starting cook fires and signaling rescuers. But I don't like to cook, and there were no rescuers to signal.

  I stuffed things back into the belt and thought some more, and almost as if the wind, which was gusting harder, floated it to me, I heard good old Alfred's voice offering one of his favorite sayings: “A weapon found is a weapon made,” Alfred always made a big point of that. The world was full of weapons, he would say. “Your million-times great grandfather didn't have a munitions dealer. He took what the good earth provided, and must have done quite well with that, thank you, or you wouldn't be standing here right now, whining and feeling sorry for yourself."

  I tried to think like a cave man. They had spears and spear throwers. But I wouldn't know how to use one even if I knew how to make one. And besides, they were going up against big, dumb animals. This was more like David and Goliath.

  A dim light went on in the recesses of my mind. David and Goliath. David used a sling. I know how to use a sling. My grandfather, who had tried to raise me after my parents were murdered, lived on the edge of what had once been farm country, but had long since been allowed to return to grassland. One of the skills he had taught me was hunting prairie dogs with a sling.

  I got the little knife out and took off my shirt. A couple of minutes later, with some judicious tearing and cutting, I had a cloth sling, long and wide enough to toss a sizable stone with killing force.

  Stones were no problem; the mountains are full of them. I picked one up, tucked it into the cloth, gave it a few, tentative vertical spins, and let go. The rock shot straight up in the air. I had to dodge when it came back down. I tried another, and another, and soon had a decent direction going. I picked a tree for a target and started practicing. I must have launched a couple of dozen rocks, and I was having so much fun I forgot momentarily why I was doing all this.

  Best of all, I discovered the truth, once again, of another of Alfred's teachings: “If you want to learn something for keeps, you do it over and over again until you can do it in your sleep. Then you'll never lose it.” He was right. I had not slung a rock in forty years at least, but my arm and eye still remembered how to work together.

  There was a small hitch, however. I discovered that I could have either accuracy and smashing force, or distance, but not both. I could fling the damn rock a hundred meters with no trouble, but if I wanted to hit something, and hit it hard, ten meters was tops.

  Hey, Nordeen, I thought, stand by that tree, will you? A little closer, please. Oh, thanks so much. They do say a sense of humor is useful in hopeless situations.

  Then I started thinking like a cave man again, and I knew how I would drive Nordeen to me.

  I cut another strip, as skinny as possible, from the remains of my shirt, and started circling the clearing again, staying as far back from it as I could, until I was downwind. Then I got as close as I could without exposing myself. I could see the shelter and the aircraft, but Nordeen was out of sight. I located myself so that there was an avenue of space in front of me, then sat in the grass. I retrieved one of the magnesium flares and wrapped it to a rock with a strip of cloth, so that the little tab was just exposed. Then I picked up another rock, slipped it into the sling, and stood up. I spun the sling a few times to get a feel for the rock, then let it fly. It sailed across the meadow in a high, graceful arc, and landed in the trees on the other side.

  Before I could congratulate myself on getting the distance, Nordeen popped up from the meadow grass. I hadn't realized how tall the grass was; that would be all the better if this thing worked.

  But first I got busy ducking as Nordeen laid down a hail of fire in my general direction. I glued myself to a tree, and still got splinters in my leg as a bullet sliced through the bark.

  “I thought you were smarter than that, Blue. You think I'm too blind to see a fucking rock? All you did was show me where to look for you.” Nordeen started walking cautiously in my direction, stopping to look—and to listen, I realized, as I got a better view of him. He was wearing bigears, scanning the area for sound. If he got much closer the fucker would be able to hear me breathing.

  I crossed metaphorical fingers, took a deep breath, and put the other rock, the wrapped one, into the sling. I pulled the little tab. Then I stood up, gave the sling two fast swings, let go, and hit the ground as Nordeen swiveled quickly toward me and started firing.

  I was too busy eating dirt to see where my homemade bomb landed, but in an impossibly brief period of time, I knew I had managed to give Nordeen a distraction. Even I could hear the crackling of flames as fire, starting small and then swelling as the wind pushed it out of the trees, began to eat the dry, winter grass of the meadow. To Nordeen, wearing his bigears, it must have sounded like the roar of a jet.

  I risked a look. The flames had spread with incredible swiftness; half the meadow was burning. Nordeen began running in my direction, all caution gone. He still held the business end of his rifle more or less in front of him, but his eyes were rolling, and I guessed he was a hell of a lot more worried about the fire than he was about me.

  I reached for my third rock, slipped it into the sling, and waited behind my tree. I tried to visualize Nordeen, to see him moving, watch him in my mind's eye as he moved across the meadow, while I let the rock swing back and forth, getting a feel for it. A soft sound, somewhere between a whoof and a boom, told me the fire had reached Nordeen's airplane. I waited another three-count, took a deep breath, let it out, and stepped out from behind the tree.

  Nordeen and the fire had both started moving a lot faster. He was so damn close I almost blew it, but my arm corrected automatically. Nordeen saw me as the stone released. He skidded to a stop, tried to train his weapon on me, a look of disbelief on his face. Time slowed to a crawl as Nordeen's eyes got bigger, and the rock raced his rifle barrel.

  “The sinuses around the eyes are actually quite fragile,” Alfred always used to say. “Your elbow is much harder."

  So is a rock. Nordeen screamed in pain and staggered, dropping the rifle and grabbing at his face. I raced into the grass and picked up the gun. I aimed carefully for the heart, and pulled the trigger. I still didn't like him worth a damn, but nobody should have to burn to death. I didn't worry about Sister Bergstrom. She was pretty obviously dead. And, what the hell, Bergstrom is a viking name isn't it? She could have a real viking funeral pyre.

  Then I ran like hell, trying to out race, out circle the flames, and get to the river.

  The boat lay tied securely to a tree. I released it, jumped in, and pushed out into the river. I got the little engine going and headed upstream, only looking back once at the billow of smoke behind me. Imry was where I had left him, sitting under a tree, looking for all the world like he was on a goddamn picnic. I couldn't tell if he was surprised to see me or not.

  “I seem to smell smoke,” was all he said as he climbed into the boat.

  “Yes, you do,” I replied. I nosed the boat downstream and into the current, started the engine, and turned us upriver, toward Morelia.

  “Tell me about Brazil,” I said.

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  Chapter 20

  Not surprisingly, I didn't get the second installment of my fee from the feds. On the other hand, they haven't asked for a refund of the first $75,000. They haven't said a word, in fact, and the quiet is unsettling, considering what happened. Stuart says not to worry, what's done is done, and the government is perfectly willing to forget my sins as long as I'm willing to forget Nordeen's—and to keep my mouth shut, he adds, with that faint, quiet emphasis which I have learned to translate as a non-negotiable ultimatum.

  So I am keeping my mouth shut, and enjoying spending my fee and being idle until I have to take another job. That's the best part
of this line of work. Things can get pretty crazy when I'm wrestling with an assignment, but in between I have complete freedom to exercise my not inconsiderable capacity for sloth.

  I have spoken with Cruz twice. He reminded me of my promise to return for a visit. “They have already started restoring the hovertrain route, and we already have a small hospital,” he told me. “No doctors yet, but two real nurses. We have some power now, transmitted from the General's complex on Janitzio, and in another two months they will have completed a big solar generator that will provide electricity for everyone. They are building it right in the middle of town, and it's ugly as hell, but nobody cares about that. And when you come, you can stay in true luxury. The General's old palace on the island is being converted into a first-class hotel."

  I asked about Pilar, and Manolo, and Cruz said both were well, although Manolo would still need more reconstructive surgery for his scarred skin.

  “Please give Pilar my best wishes,” I said. Cruz said he would, and when we talked the second time he told me he had done it, but there was no reply from her.

  I did get a scare a few days ago. I was sitting at my usual spot on the Pavilion of Strangers, soaking up sunshine and a little whiskey, and watching the boats play on the ocean. A man who could only be Chandra Beg let himself into the pavilion and headed straight for me. It was like seeing a ghost, or a golem. It was Beg, from the glittering black eyes and huge overhang of a nose, right down to the mincing way he walked.

  But it wasn't Beg, of course, which meant it had to be a relative. I sat and looked at him while old tales of blood feud and revenge percolated through my mind. The man hesitated a dozen meters from my table. Before I could decide whether to toss my chair at him and run for the entrance, or just jump straight off the Greenhouse Wall into the water, the man began to walk again. He had the same surprising quickness Chandra Beg had demonstrated earlier, and closed the distance between us in no time.