“Asshole,” Cassie muttered.
“You’re wrong, miss,” he said coldly, “I’m a professional who’s only trying to do his job well.” In a lower voice he added, “If I were an asshole, I’d drag you out of here by the hair and let my men have fun with you all night.”
“You touch me and I swear I’ll rip off your balls,” she said in an icy voice.
The mercenary laughed under his breath. “Well, well… the lady has character and is not afraid to show it. Maybe someone ought to teach you good manners.”
“Get fucked.”
“Better not give me ideas.”
“I see you’re a brave man,” I said, trying to draw his attention to me. “Threatening a woman whose hands are tied… What else can you do? Beat children?”
“Well, well… so here’s the knight defending the honor of the little princess,” he said between his teeth. “How charming. A pity that out there in the real world the wolf eats Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White gets raped by the seven dwarves…” He sighed loudly, feigning boredom. “I’ll leave you here with Luizao. He’ll keep you company and make sure you have a good night.”
“Wait a minute!” the professor exclaimed as Souza turned around to go. “At least, tell us what you’re planning to do with us.”
Souza’s voice had a touch of cruel humor when he said, “I liked that business about the razor. I really liked it.”
Luizao watched us in silence from twenty feet away. His flashlight was turned off, but every time any of us made the slightest movement or noise he switched it on at once and shone it on each of us. He did not open his mouth, though. All he did was turn the light on for long enough to see we were not doing anything strange. Then he turned it back off, leaving us in the dark once again.
“What now?” the professor whispered. “What do you think is going to happen to us?”
“If they haven’t killed us already” Cassandra said, “it’s because they’re planning on using us in some way.”
“How do you mean? As hostages?”
“Yeah, most likely. We’re the trick up his sleeve, in case he finally makes contact with your daughter’s group but doesn’t manage to capture them.” She thought for a moment and added, “I suppose they could threaten to kill all three of us if they didn’t hand themselves over, or something of the sort.”
The professor swallowed hard. “That would be terrible. If my daughter ended up in the hands of these bastards because of me, I… I’d never forgive myself.”
“I’m afraid if it came to that,” I said, “you wouldn’t have much time left to mourn.”
As it usually happens to me, I regretted not thinking before speaking. I was about to apologize when the professor said with unexpected force: “We can’t let it happen! We have to get out of here right away!”
“We all agree on that one,” Cassie said. “The thing is how.”
“Any ideas, Ulysses?” the professor whispered. “You’re good at this kind of thing.”
“Yeah, great,” I said, downhearted. “As recently proven.”
“If you’re thinking about the radio, you couldn’t possibly have known he’d left it there to spy on us. It never occurred to any of us.”
“And I wouldn’t put it past him to have switched it on again,” Cassie said, “so it might be a good idea to keep our voices low.”
“True,” I said. “I don’t think the guy watching us speaks a word of English, but even so, we have to make sure he doesn’t understand anything.”
“We could speak in Spanish,” the professor suggested.
“Mmm… what if he knows more Spanish than English? Then we’re fucked.”
“I don’t speak any other languages,” Cassie admitted.
“Latin?” the professor said.
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “It’s them who aren’t supposed to understand.”
“Well then, you tell me!”
“I have an idea…” Cassie said. “Do you know what Pig Latin is?
“No idea. Some strange dialect from Mexico?”
“You’re an idiot. Pig Latin is something I used to speak with my friends when I was little. A game where we turned the words around and added an extra syllable, so that our parents wouldn’t know what we were talking about. The point is if you don’t know the trick, you can’t follow the conversation.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Here, I’ll give you an example: Imay amnay isay Assandracay Ookesbray anday myay ay ubmarinesay archeologistyay.”
“It sounds fucking Chinese.”
“You simply move the first consonant to the end of the word and add “ay.” For words which begin with a vowel, just add “yay” to the end. It takes practice to speak fast, but if we keep our voices down, nobody will understand us.”
“Including me,” the professor said.
“It’s not so difficult. Come on, give it a try.”
The professor cleared his throat a couple of times and began to say very slowly, “Imay amnay isay Eduardoyay Astillocay anday imay ay etiredray rofessorpay ofay edievalmay istoryhay.”
“Órale!” she said. “Now you try, Ulysses.”
“Isthay isay otaltay onsensenay.”
“Can you think of anything better?”
“Onay.”
“Well then, that’s what we’ll do. Now we have to come up with a really good plan.”
56
We soon got the knack of it and ended up almost enjoying ourselves. More so if we imagined Souza listening to us, wondering what damned language we were speaking and why we sounded so amused.
There we were, the three of us, tied hands and feet in a deep gloomy cave, knowing our time was nearly up… and laughing every time we opened our mouths to speak. Luizao did not even bother to switch on his flashlight. He must have been sure by now that we had lost our minds.
The downside was that we had not come up with any sensible idea to carry out. Which meant we only had the other kind of ideas: the unsensible ones.
The only plan we had come up with—if you could call it a plan—was to launch a combined attack on our guard and immobilize him with our weight. In the confusion that followed we would try and grab his weapon. If we were lucky, there was even a chance we might manage to knock him senseless as we jumped on him.
“Areay ouyay eadyray?” Cassie asked in a low voice.
“Eadyray,” the professor whispered.
“Onyay ethay ountcay ofay reethay,” I said, “eway ogay orfay imhay. Oneay…”
Slowly, trying to keep as silent as possible, I bent my legs and stood up, leaning on the wall.
“Wotay…”
The image of the man we were setting out to overcome suddenly came into my mind. A mountain of muscle trained to kill, who would certainly not hesitate to do precisely that if the need arose. At that instant it suddenly became clear to me that we were making a terrible mistake, but despite that, I said in a whisper, “…Reethay.”
With my feet tied together and my hands behind my back, as blind as if my eyes were closed, I hopped toward where I guessed the mercenary must be.
I could feel the irregular breathing of the professor at my back. I assumed Cassie was behind him and hopped forward again, doing my best to keep my balance as I did so.
At that moment a bright light came on, inches away from my face. The next thing I knew was a painful blow to my right temple that threw me to the ground like a sack of potatoes and dragged my friends down with me.
“Que querem facer voçés?” the Brazilian said. His rumbling voice sounded amused and incredulous. “Voçés queré atacarme?”
My head was whirling and I hardly knew where I was but it was obvious that he had discovered us before we could get near enough.
Trying to get over the pain of the blow, I opened my eyes wide enough to see Luizao aiming his gun at us as he picked us out with his light. I could almost hear the wheels moving in his head as he tried to decide what to do.
T
he answer came with a light click followed by a sequence of metallic sounds. He had just taken off the safety catch and cocked his weapon.
“Eu so moito cansado de voçés,” he said in an oddly indifferent voice. “Adeus…”
There was no doubt in my mind that he was going to shoot.
I wanted to say something, anything. But not a single sound issued from my throat, because there was really nothing to say. The sentence had been passed and there was no appeal.
But then, as I imagined the mulatto slowly pressing the trigger, a terrible smell of something rotten reached my nostrils. I wondered whether it was the scent of death.
Then there came a muffled scream, followed by a gurgling sound, from the spot where Luizao had been. The flashlight that was blinding me stopped pointing in my direction and seemed to float toward the ceiling.
I was so bewildered that when the flashlight fell to the ground with a thump I did not even wonder why. For the fraction of a second in which the beam of light had spiraled down uncontrolled, it had lit up a scene that chills the blood in my veins even today.
Luizao’s massive body had levitated up to the ceiling of the cave as his head disappeared into a hole we had not noticed before. From this two black limbs ending in huge hands with long sharp fingers emerged.
Those hands had grabbed Luizao by the head and were now holding him in the air as he struggled, kicking in desperation.
But that image, as I have said, lasted only an instant.
From the darkness we heard a horrible rattle of agony which ended in an unpleasant crack, like a branch breaking.
Then a thick warm rain fell on my face.
And finally the dull thump of a body hitting the ground.
57
The professor was the first to dare say anything. “For heaven’s sake…” he whispered. “What on earth was that?”
I had no strength to answer him.
I did not know what they had glimpsed amid the confusion, but the image which kept playing over and over in my head had me paralyzed with terror.
Those arms holding Luizao more than a foot off the ground as he contorted in spasms…
“It looks as if he just collapsed,” Cassie said in the dark. She sounded as stunned as Eduardo. “But we never touched him. Did you see anything, Ulysses?”
“I don’t know what I saw,” I said bewildered. “It’s as if… as if… Christ, I swear I just don’t know.”
I had been staring fixedly at the dark ceiling, but now my gaze came slowly down until I saw the flashlight. It was lying on the ground about six feet away, shining uselessly on the wall.
I crawled on my side toward it, grabbed it with both hands, and aimed it up. There was a hole about three feet wide, opening in the ceiling like a sinister throat.
But there was nothing there.
“Shine the light below,” Cassandra said, her voice trembling.
I let the beam of light run along the wall down to the ground where it hit the mulatto’s big boots. He was looking up.
I ran the light down his legs, waist, torso—his arms were resting beside him in an odd pose, as if he were ready to run away at any moment—shoulders, and finally…
Cassie gave a muffled cry. The professor retched and vomited loudly. I had to squeeze my mouth tight and breathe deep to avoid doing the same.
The head was missing.
“Oh my God…” Cassie muttered. She aimed the light at the thick neck which had been brutally severed and lay in a pool of blood. “Who could have done that…? How is it possible?”
“Who… or what,” the professor said. He had taken the knife from the unfortunate mercenary’s belt and was cutting my bonds, as he had previously done with his own and Cassie’s. He raised his eyes. “You saw something, didn’t you, Ulysses?”
“I told you, I don’t know…” I said, almost in a whisper. “It was just an instant. I saw the guy with his head in that hole… kicking in the air.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.” There was no point in scaring them with something I was not even sure had been real. “It all happened very fast.”
“But—”
“Why don’t we stop worrying about what happened,” I interrupted abruptly, “and concentrate on what we’re going to do ourselves? We need to take everything useful from the body and get out of here like lightning, before his relief arrives… or worse, whatever it was that did this to him.”
“And where exactly are we going?” Cassie asked. “Let me remind you that there are still half a dozen thugs left, and they won’t be amused to find their comrade has been decapitated.”
“Perhaps if we explain what’s happened and point out that we had nothing to do with it… maybe…” the professor said.
Cassie laughed bitterly as she shone the flashlight on me.
“Oh, I see…” he said.
Not understanding what he meant, I looked down at myself. Only then did I realize that I was drenched in Luizao’s blood. This was definitely not the best way to face his comrades with a plea of innocence.
“Right,” I said, and turned toward the interior of the cave. “That only leaves one possible way.”
“Looks like it,” Cassie said. She handed Luizao’s 9 mm Glock to the professor, having first made sure the safety catch was on.
Next, and without too many scruples, she checked the body. Among other things she relieved him of his submachine gun, which was still slung across his shoulders. She put it across her own and took a couple of magazines from his side pockets. Finally she handed me the flashlight and the knife, rather as if she were handing me the keys to the city.
“Hey, wait a second… You guys keep the firearms and give me the flashlight? How am I supposed to defend myself if I need to? By dazzling?”
“You’ve got the knife…” She nodded in its direction. “Not to mention your sharp wits.”
“You were keeping that one in store, weren’t you?”
She did not answer, but in the shadows I could see the corners of her mouth wrinkle.
Just then, in that moment of silence, we heard footsteps coming from the entrance.
Without thinking twice, we began to run toward the depths of the cave.
I went first, holding the flashlight, sweeping the ground with its beam and urging my companions to keep moving. That terrible image was still in my mind, and I felt I was not leading them to freedom, but rather to some menacing darkness which might hold something a lot more dangerous than a bunch of mercenaries.
58
The beam of the flashlight swung in time with my rapid steps. My only concern was where to put my feet. Nothing else mattered. I looked down at the ground as I went, trying not to stumble, making an effort to stop myself imagining black limbs coming out of the shadows.
“Wait… a little… Ulysses.” The professor panted. He was quite a way back by now.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. I was out of breath myself, but I did not slacken my pace. “We can’t stop now. If those guys catch us, believe me, it’s going to get nasty.”
“Well, then, you keep going, because my lungs are fit to burst.”
“Come on, don’t start playing the martyr now.”
“Chale, let’s stop for a minute,” Cassie said. “It’ll be worse if we have to carry Grandpa here.”
“Go to hell, you two,” the professor said. “When you get to my age, I’d like to see if you can still—”
The reproach was cut off suddenly. There followed a thump and a moan.
Alarmed, I stopped so abruptly that Cassie bumped into me. I turned around and shone a light on the space behind us.
“Professor?” I called in a frightened whisper.
I walked back a few yards, stepping cautiously and sweeping the light along the floor of the cave. I could not help noticing as I went that it was too symmetrical to be natural. There was no sign of the professor.
“Professor,” Cassandra called. “Where are you?”
> The events of a few minutes before came back into my mind. I shone the light on the ceiling, fearing I would discover my friend’s body dangling in his death throes. But there was nothing. No threatening hole above our heads.
“But, where on earth has the guy gone?” I said to myself. By now I was more intrigued than worried.
“Maybe he took a wrong turn,” Cassie suggested.
Following this thought, I retraced my steps a few more yards. I ran the beam along every inch of the cave and stared hard into the shadows.
Cassie’s suggestion was given weight when we found an opening on the left which neither of us had noticed. It looked like the start of another passage.
We peered in carefully and saw that it looked almost identical to the one we had been following.
Cassandra stepped forward. Not daring to raise her voice, she called in a whisper: “Professor… are you there?”
Silence.
Just then and not too far away, I heard an echo of voices speaking excitedly in Portuguese.
The mercenaries had discovered Luizao’s body.
In less than one minute they would be upon us.
“For God’s sake, Doc!” I said urgently. “If you can hear me, say something!”
I was about to call him again when Cassandra gripped my arm to silence me.
“Did you hear him?” she asked. “I thought I heard him answer.”
I strained my ears, trying to ignore the other voices, which were getting closer.
“Down here…” an echo replied. It sounded very far away.
We ran quickly in the direction of the voice, but after a few steps Cassie stopped me with a hand on my stomach.
“There,” she said. She grabbed the hand I was holding the flashlight with and pointed at the ground a few yards ahead. “A hole.”
BLACK CITY (Ulysses Vidal Adventure Series Book 2) Page 24