"Idiot," he snarled. "Move this wreck."
Figueroa shook his fist in the Russian's face. "I'll go when my countryman tells me to."
"Please, please," Jessie pleaded, shaking Figueroa's shoulder "We don't want any trouble."
"Discretion isn't a Cuban virtue," Pitt murmured. He cradled the assault rifle in his arms with the muzzle pointed at the Russian and eased the door open.
Jessie turned and peered cautiously through the rear window at the limousine, just in time to see a Soviet officer, followed by two armed bodyguards, climb from the backseat and gaze with an amused smile at the shouting match taking place beside the taxicab. Jessie's mouth dropped open and she gasped.
General Velikov, looking tired and haggard, and wearing a badly fitted borrowed uniform, approached from the rear of the Chevrolet as Pitt slid out of his seat and stepped around the front end before Jessie could warn him.
Velikov's attention was focused on his driver and Figueroa, and he paid scant notice to what appeared to be another Cuban soldier emerging from the other side of the car. The argument was heating up as he came alongside.
"What is the problem?" he asked in fluent Spanish.
His answer did not come from his driver, but from a totally unexpected source.
"Nothing we can't settle like gentlemen," Pitt said acidly in English.
Velikov stared at Pitt for a long moment, the amused smile dying on his lips, his face as expressionless as ever. The only sign of astonished recognition was a sudden hardness of the flat cold eyes.
"We are survivors, are we not, Mr. Pitt?" he replied.
"Lucky. I'd say we were lucky," Pitt answered in a steady voice.
"I congratulate you on your escape from the island. How did you manage it?"
"A makeshift boat. And you?"
"A helicopter concealed near the installation. Fortunately, your friends failed to discover it."
"An oversight."
Velikov glanced out of the corner of his eye, noting with irritation the relaxed stance of his bodyguards. "Why have you come to Cuba?"
Pitt's hand tightened around the rifle's grip, muzzle pointing in the sky just above Velikov's head, finger poised on the trigger. "Why bother to ask when you've established the fact I'm a habitual liar?"
"I also know you only lie if there is a purpose. You didn't come to Cuba to drink rum and lie in the sun."
"What now, General?"
"Look around you, Mr. Pitt. You're hardly in a position of strength. The Cubans do not take kindly to spies. You would be wise to lay down your gun and place yourself under my protection."
"No, thank you. I've been under your protection. His name was Foss Gly. You remember him. He got high by pounding his fists on flesh. I'm happy to report he's no longer in the pain business. One of his victims shot him where it hurts most."
"My men can kill you where you stand."
"It's obvious they don't understand English and haven't got any idea of what's being said between us. Don't try to alert them. This is what's known as a Mexican standoff. You so much as pick your nose and I'll put a bullet up the opposite nostril."
Pitt glanced around him. Both the Cuban checkpoint guard and the Soviet driver were listening dumbly to the English conversation. Jessie was crouched down in the backseat of the Chevy, only the top of the fatigue cap showing above the side window. Velikov's guards stood lax, their eyes and minds turning to the landscape, automatic pistols snapped securely in their holsters.
"Get in the car, General. You'll be riding with us."
Velikov stared coldly at Pitt. "And if I refuse?"
Pitt stared back with grim conviction. "You die first. Then your bodyguards. After them, the Cuban sentries. I'm prepared to kill. They're not. Now, if you please. . ."
The Soviet bodyguards stood rooted and looked on in rapt amazement as Velikov silently followed Pitt's gesture and entered the front passenger's seat. He turned briefly and gazed curiously at Jessie.
"Mrs. LeBaron?"
"Yes, General."
"You're with this madman?" I am.'
"But why?"
Figueroa opened his mouth to interrupt, but Pitt roughly shouldered the Soviet driver aside, firmly gripped the friendly Cuban's arm, and pulled him from the car.
"This is as far as you go, amigo. Tell the authorities we abducted you and hijacked your taxi." Then he passed his rifle to Jessie through the open window and angled his long frame behind the wheel. "If the general so much as twitches, shoot him through the head."
Jessie nodded and placed the gun barrel against the base of Velikov's skull.
Pitt shifted the Chevy into first gear and accelerated smoothly as if he was on a Sunday drive, watching the figures at the checkpoint through the rearview mirror. He was gratified to see that they milled around in confusion, not sure of what to do. Then Velikov's driver and bodyguards finally woke up to what was happening, ran to the black limousine, and took up the chase.
Pitt skidded to a stop and took the gun from Jessie. He fired several shots at a pair of telephone wires where they ran through insulators at the top of a pole. The car was burning rubber on the asphalt before the parted ends of the wire dropped to the ground.
"That should buy us half an hour," he said.
"The limousine is only a hundred yards behind and gaining." Jessie's voice was high-pitched and apprehensive.
"You'll never shake them" said Velikov calmly. "My driver is an expert at high speeds, and the car is powered by a seven-liter 425-horsepower engine."
For all of Pitt's offhandedness and casual speech there was an icy competence and an unmistakable air about him of someone who knew exactly what he was doing.
He offered Velikov a reckless smile and said, "The Russians haven't built a car that can take a 'fifty-seven Chevy."
As if to hammer home the point he mashed the gas pedal to the floor and the tired old car seemed to reach into the depths of her worn parts for a burst of power she hadn't known in thirty years. The big roaring lump of iron could still go. She gathered speed and ate up the highway, the steady roar of her squat V-8 meant business.
Pitt's entire mind was concentrated on his driving and on studying the road two, even three turns ahead. The Zil clung tenaciously to the smokescreen that poured from the Chevy's tailpipe. He threw the car around a series of hairpin turns as they climbed through forested hills. He was skirting the fine edge of disaster. The brakes were awful and did little but smell and smoke when Pitt stood on them. Their lining was gone and metal ground against metal inside the drums.
At ninety miles an hour a front-wheel wobble set in with eyeball-rattling proportions. The steering wheel shuddered in Pitt's hands. The shock absorbers were long gone and the Chevy sponged around the bends, leaning precariously, tires screeching like wild turkeys.
Velikov sat stiff as wood, his eyes trained straight ahead, one hand gripping the door handle with white knuckles as if ready to eject before the inevitable crash.
Jessie was frankly terrified, closing her eyes as the car drifted and swayed wildly along the road. She braced her knees on the back of the front seat to keep from being thrown from side to side and steadied the rifle aimed at Velikov's lower hairline.
If Pitt was aware of the considerable anguish he was causing his passengers, he gave no sign of it. A half-hour head start was the most he could hope for before the Cuban sentries made contact with their superiors and reported the kidnapping of the Soviet general. A helicopter would be the first sign the Cuban military was closing in and preparing a trap. When and how far ahead they would set up a roadblock was a matter of pure conjecture. A tank or a small fleet of armored cars suddenly appearing around a hidden curve and the ride would be over. Only Velikov's presence forestalled a massacre.
The driver of the Zil was no lightweight. He gained on Pitt in the turns, but dropped back in the straights as the burning acceleration of the old Chevy took hold. Out of the corner of one eye Pitt caught a small sign indicating they were appr
oaching the port city of Cardenas. Houses and small roadside businesses began to hug the highway and the traffic increased.
He glanced at the speedometer. The wavering needle hovered around 85. He backed off until it dropped to 70, keeping the Zil at bay as he weaved in and out of the traffic, one hand heavy on the horn. A policeman made a futile attempt to wave him to the curb as he careened around the Plaza Colon and a high bronze statue of Columbus. Luckily the streets were broad and he had little trouble staying clear of pedestrians and other vehicles.
The city lay just inland of a shallow, circular bay, and as long as he kept the sea on his right he figured he was still heading toward Havana. Somehow he managed to stay on the main road, and less than ten minutes later the car was flying from the major portion of the city and entering the countryside again.
During the high-speed run through the streets the Zil had closed to within fifty yards. One of the bodyguards leaned out the window and fired his pistol.
"They're shooting at us," Jessie announced in the tone of someone who was emotionally washed out.
"He's not aiming at us," Pitt replied. "They're trying for our tires."
"You're as good as caught," said Velikov. Those were the first words he had uttered in fifty miles. "Give it up. You can't get away."
"I'll quit when I'm dead." Pitt's cool composure was staggering.
It was not the answer Velikov was expecting. If all Americans were like Pitt, he thought, the Soviet Union was in for a rough time. Velikov prided himself on his skills in manipulating men, but this was clearly one man he would never dent.
They soared over a dip in the road and landed heavily on the other side. The muffler was torn away and the sudden thunder of exhaust was startling, almost shattering in its unexpected fury of sound. Their eyes began to water from the fumes, and the interior of the car became a steam bath under the combined onslaught of the heat from the engine and humid climate outside. The floorboards were almost hot enough to melt the soles of Pitt's boots. Between the noise and the heat, he felt as though he were working overtime in a boiler room.
The Chevy was becoming a mechanical bedlam. The teeth on the transmission were ground down to their nubs, and they howled in protest at the high revolutions. Strange knocking sounds began to emanate from the engine's bowels. But she was still vicious, and with that old deep-throated Chevy sound, she barreled along almost as if she knew this would be her last ride.
Pitt had carefully slowed ever so slightly and allowed the Russian driver to pull up within three car lengths. Pitt swung the Chevy back and forth across the road to throw off the bodyguard's aim. He eased his, foot off the accelerator a hair until the Zil had come within twenty feet of the Chevy's rear bumper.
Then Pitt stood on the brakes.
The sergeant driving the Zil was good, but he wasn't that good. He snapped the steering wheel to the left and almost swung clear. But there was no time and even less distance. The Zil crashed into the rear of the Chevy with a scream of steel and an eruption of glass, crushing the radiator against the engine as the tail end whipped around in a corkscrew motion.
The Zil, madly out of control, and now nothing but three tons of metal bent on its own destruction, sideswiped a tree and caromed across the road to smash into an empty, broken-down bus at a speed of eighty miles an hour. Orange flame burst from the car as it flipped crazily end over end for over a hundred yards before coming to rest on its roof, all four tires still spinning. The Russians were trapped inside and had no hope of escape as the orange flames transformed into a thick cloud of black smoke.
The faithful, battered Chevy was still running on little but mechanical guts. Steam and oil were streaming from under the hood, second gear was gone along with the brakes, and the twisted rear bumper was dragging on the road, throwing out a spray of sparks.
The plume of smoke would draw the searchers. The net was closing. The next mile, the next curve in the highway, might reveal a roadblock. Pitt was sure a helicopter would appear any minute over the treetops bordering the road. Now was the time to ditch the car. It was senseless to play on his luck any longer. Like a bandit running from a posse, the time had come to trade horses.
He slowed down to fifty as he approached the outskirts of the city of Matanzas. He spotted a fertilizer plant and turned into the parking lot. Stopping the dying Chevy under a large tree, he looked around, and not seeing anyone, killed the engine. The crackling of burning metal and hissing steam replaced the ear-blasting drone of the exhaust.
"What's your next scheme?" asked Jessie. She was coming back on balance now. "You do have another scheme up your sleeve, I hope."
"The Artful Dodger has nothing on me," said Pitt with a reassuring grin. "Sit tight. If our friend the general hiccups, kill him."
He walked through the parking lot. It was a weekday and it was filled with the workers' cars. The stench from the plant had a sickening smell about it that filled the air for miles. He stood near the main gate as a stream of trucks loaded with ammonium sulphate, potassium chloride, and animal manure rumbled into the plant and trucks carrying the processed fertilizer in paper bags drove out. He had an idea and strolled casually down the dirt road that led to the highway. He waited for about fifteen minutes until a Russian-built truck filled with raw manure turned in and headed for the plant. He stood in the middle of the road and waved it to a stop.
The driver was alone. He looked down from the cab questioningly. Pitt motioned him out and pointed vigorously under the truck. Curious, the driver stepped to the ground and crouched down next to Pitt, who was staring intently at the drive shaft. Seeing nothing wrong, the driver turned just as Pitt chopped him on the back of the neck.
The driver went limp and Pitt caught him over a shoulder. He heaved the unconscious Cuban into the truck's cab and quickly climbed in. The engine was running and he shifted it into gear and drove toward the tree that shielded the Chevy from the air.
"Everyone climb aboard," he said, jumping down from the cab.
Jessie shrank back in disgust. "God, what's in there?"
"The polite word is manure."
"You expect me to wallow in filth?" demanded Velikov.
"Not only wallow," Pitt replied, "you're going to bury yourselves in it." He took the assault rifle from Jessie and prodded the general none too gently in the kidneys. "Up you go, General. You've probably rubbed many a KGB victim in slime. Now it's your turn."
Velikov shot Pitt a malignant look, and then climbed into the back of the truck. Jessie reluctantly followed as Pitt began stripping off the driver's clothes. They were several sizes too small and he had to leave the shirt unbuttoned and the pants fly unzipped to get into them. He quickly slipped his combat fatigues on the Cuban and dragged him up into the back with the others. He handed the rifle back to Jessie. She needed no instructions and placed the muzzle against Velikov's head. He found a shovel in a rack beside the cab and began to cover them.
Jessie gagged and fought to keep from retching. "I don't think I can take this."
"Be thankful it came from horses and cattle and not the city sewer."
"That's easy for you to say, you're driving."
When they were all invisible but could still breathe, Pitt returned to the cab and drove the truck back to the highway. He paused before turning as a flight of three military helicopters whirled overhead and a transport convoy of armed troops sped in the direction of the wrecked Zil.
Pitt waited and then turned left onto the highway. He was about to enter the city limits of Matanzas when he came to a roadblock manned by an armored car and nearly fifty soldiers, all looking very grim and purposeful.
He stopped and held out the papers he had taken off the driver. His scheme worked even better than he had imagined. The guards never came near the obnoxious-smelling truck. They waved him through, glad to see him on his way and happy to breathe fresh air again.
An hour and a half later the sun had fallen in the west and the lights of Havana twinkled to life. Pitt arriv
ed in the city and drove up the Via Blanca. Except for the truck's aroma, he felt safely anonymous in the noisy, bustling, rush-hour traffic. He also felt more secure entering the city during the evening.
With no passport and no money his only option was to make contact with the American mission at the Swiss Embassy. They could take Jessie off his hands and keep him hidden until his passport and entry papers were sent by diplomatic courier from Washington. Once he became an official tourist, he could search for the riddle of the La Dorada treasure.
Velikov presented no problem. Alive, the general was a dangerous menace. He would go on murdering and torturing. Dead, he was only a memory. Pitt decided to kill him with one quick shot in a deserted alley. Anyone curious enough to investigate would simply chalk the blast up to a backfire from the truck.
He turned into a narrow road between a row of deserted warehouses near the dock area and stopped the truck. He left the engine running and stepped to the rear of the truck. As he climbed over the tailgate, he saw Jessie's head and arms protruding from the load of manure. Blood was seeping from a small gash in her temple and her right eye was swelling and turning purple. The only signs of Velikov and the Cuban driver were hollowed-out indentations where Pitt had buried them.
They were gone.
He eased her out of the muck and brushed it away from her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered open and focused on him, and after a moment she slowly shook her head from side to side. "I'm sorry, I messed things up."
"What happened?" he asked.
"The driver came to and attacked me. I didn't yell to you for help because I was afraid we might arouse suspicion and be stopped by police. We wrestled for the gun and it was lost over the side of the truck. Then the general grabbed my arms and the driver beat me until I passed out." Something suddenly occurred to her and she looked around wildly. "Where are they?"
"Must have jumped from the truck," he answered. "Can you remember where or how long ago it took place?"
The effort of concentration showed on her face. "I think it was about the time we were coming into the city. I recall hearing the sound of heavy traffic."
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