by Lou Cameron
Captain Gringo sighed and said, “The Brits seem to think so. They’ve moved some muscle into Guiana and sent a couple of diplomatic battle cruisers into Trinidad. So we’ll all know, any minute, who’s bluffing whom.”
Gaston whistled softly under his breath and said, “Ah, running away from this fight no longer strikes me as such a bad move, my old and rare!”
Captain Gringo nodded grimly, and said, “Yeah. I’m a machine gunner, when I have a machine gun. I can’t think of a fucking thing anyone down here would want with our usual services. If the Brits invade Venezuela nobody’s about to stop ’em with anything I’ve ever fired! If The States back down, the Brits will win in a walk.”
“And if your truculent Grover Cleveland is not bluffing, Dick?”
“The U.S. goes to war with the British Empire and it gets noisy as hell down here. Uncle Sam’s navy is smaller but his army is better. I ought to know, since I used to be in it. The Yanks won’t be dumb enough to run a smaller fleet between two British colonies, but they’ll land a full sized army somewhere near Caracas and march south across the llanos. I mean, with infantry and cavalry and the best damned field artillery on earth. The Delta, here, will be the battleground. Do you really figure on being here when those two major forces smash head on into one another?”
Gaston grimaced and said, “You’re right. Bubbles was either fibbing or insane. Neither side would hire soldiers of fortune. Both will swat any armed irregulars they meet like flies. You’ll hang if the American Army captures you. Maybe the British would hire us as scouts?”
“Hey, Gaston, I’m an American, damn it!”
“Ah, oui, one forgets idealism as one gets older. I confess I would not enjoy shooting Frenchmen, even though they put a very rude reward on my head when I deserted the Legion years ago. Fortunately, we are too far from French Guiana to worry about that, but for your own peace of mind, I agree we should, how you say, get the hell out of here?”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “We’ll wait ’til it cools off a bit and then we’ll raft ourselves across that channel. The grassy llano on the far side should offer easy walking after, dark. There’ll be a full moon and the land’s dead flat.”
“Dead flat where it is not water, you mean! What if we run into yet another triple-titted stream that has a mind of its own, Dick?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Shit, we’ll cross it when and if. I told you I looked at the map, Gaston. Once we get away from the flood lands it’s open llano almost to the north coast.”
“Perhaps. I look at maps, too. Forgive me if I seem less active, but I make it over a hundred of your miles to the Caribbean, Dick.”
“So?”
“So, merde alors, that is one trés formidable walk, even with nothing in the way, and you just told me this triple-titted country was about to explode in a most alarming major war!”
~*~
At the steamboat landing in Tucupita the one-eyed Hungarian was tight-lipped as the last of the passengers left the area, and the deck hands prepared to cast off again. The machine gunner wiped his face with the back of his hand and muttered, “That dame in the big picture hat was Bubbles, right? I didn’t see anybody get in that hotel hack with her, boss.”
The leader of the hired killers swore softly in Magyar and said, “Be still, I’m thinking. She looked nervous, even if she didn’t spot us up here. Something’s gone wrong.”
He turned as he heard movement behind him. The team member he’d sent down to check things out came across the flat roof to say, with a shrug, “He’s not aboard, Chief. I checked with a deckhand at the cantina over there. Soon as they finish unloading, they’re going back up to Barrancas. That’s their home port. Deckhand said everybody got off here.”
The one-eyed Hungarian shook his head and said, “Impossible. There’s no way we could have missed Walker and Verrier in that small crowd. They disembarked on one narrow gangplank. Everyone who left that vessel walked right through our gunsights!”
The man who’d scouted shrugged and insisted, “He got off somewhere else, then. Neither Captain Gringo nor the Frenchman are on board now. We’ll just have to tell the big boss this set-up didn’t work.”
The one-eyed Hungarian repressed a shudder as he considered that. At least, he tried to repress a shudder, but the man he’d hired to man the Browning was an old pro, and he’d been thinking. He glanced at his sidekick, the only man in the team he knew enough to trust. The sidekick was an old pro, too. He nodded and said, softly, “Yeah, that’s the way I see it, too.”
As the hired gunner glanced around .below to see the waterfront starting to clear, another pick-up member of the team asked the one-eyed Hungarian, “Hey, we’re still going to be paid off, aren’t we? I mean, it ain’t our fault the guys we were after slickered us, right?”
The Hungarian snorted, “Are you crazy? The people I work for don’t allow for failure!”
The semi-pro who’d asked didn’t notice the signal the Hungarian gave one of his bodyguards. But the machine gunner had been expecting such a kiss-off ever since he’d heard how casual they were about ladies who fingered people for them. His belt-feeding partner had, too, so they moved as one when he crabbed around to the far side of the tripod mount, swinging the muzzle just as the body guards were going for their own guns. The results were spectacular.
The one-eyed Hungarian went down, torn to bloody shreds in the cross fire as the quicker-thinking hired gunslicks drew down on the machine gun crew without waiting for an order. The machine gunner opened up with his clumsier but far deadlier weapon at the same time and proceeded to make hash out of everyone on the rooftop even as he died in a hail of pistol rounds! The Browning fell silent as the gunner died with his hands on the grips and his wounded partner started crawling away, sobbing and trailing blood. A bullet-riddled rifleman, totally confused but still upright on his knees, fired instinctively at the only moving target left and blew the beltman’s head to bloody froth before he, in turn, fell forward on his smoking rifle to die with a defeated little sigh.
There are certain limits to La Siesta, even in the tropics, so after a time a couple of Tucupita police officers got around to investigating the most astounding noise coming from the waterfront. A deckhand from the still standing steamboat pointed up at the smoke haze hanging above the flat-topped warehouse, and so the cops went up a side ladder, gasped, and hurried back to headquarters to report the massacre.
As is the case in most police departments, most of the men on the Tucupita force were just doing their job and were as confused about the bloody mess on the roof as anyone else might have been. But the people who’d hired the one-eyed Hungarian hired lots of people, and so, as soon as he had a chance, a certain police sergeant made a phone call.
In a luxurious plantation house outside of town the man who took the call listened bleakly, interjecting a question now and then as the other rather sleek men in the fan-cooled room tried to follow the one way conversation with worried glances at one another. The conversation didn’t take long. The plantation owner cradled the telephone, sighed, and said, “Well, señores, I told you this Captain Gringo was good. You’ll remember it was my suggestion we try a gentler approach. But I was outvoted, eh?”
A fatter, oiler man brushed a fly from his face and asked, “Get to what happened, damn it!” and the man by the phone said, “They got our executioners. Don’t ask me how. No witnesses report even seeing a tall blond gringo and a small dapper Frenchman. Nobody remembers them even coming ashore from the damned boat. But they most obviously did! Don’t ask me how.”
Another man in the room frowned and asked, “Madre de Dios, you say they got past the Hungarian?”
The man who’d taken the call smiled thinly and said, “You weren’t listening. They didn’t get by the Hungarian. They got the Hungarian! He and his whole damned team. Seven of them, señores! Seven picked killers, waiting in ambush and well hidden. The policeman I have on the payroll says it looked like a slaughterhous
e up there, and the people who reported the shootout say it was over in one short furious burst. Our own machine gunner seems to have gotten off a few rounds, but if he hit that big blond or the Frenchman he didn’t slow them down very much, since they are nowhere to be seen and there wasn’t so much as a drop of blood anywhere but atop the roof of my warehouse. I warned you something like this might happen, remember?”
The fat greasy man stuck out his lower lip and said, “It must have been a double cross. They had friends here in the delta, or maybe the killers you hired had a falling out and—”
“Damn it,” the planter exploded, “nobody but us had any way of knowing he was in the damned country! Our female agent met him aboard that steamboat and contacted us at the next landing. You voted liquidating him as the safest way to deal with a wild card and I reluctantly agreed. I agree he must be heading this way to get in on the war we seem to be about to have. I sent my best man to kill him before he could contact anyone else in Venezuela, and we know he didn’t use the phone, once, upstream. So forget about confederates here in the delta. The big bastard most obviously didn’t need them! As for our men having a disagreement, I can count. I sent seven to assassinate Captain Gringo and all seven are dead. Santa Maria, do I have to draw you a picture? The big Yanqui is on to us and he plays just as rough as everyone told us he did!”
A cooler man in a corner regarded the tip of his cigar, thoughtfully, and asked, “Es verdad, we underestimated this Captain Gringo, or perhaps we overestimated the Hungarian. But what’s done is done. What’s our next move?”
The man who’d taken the call grimaced and said, “I was hoping nobody would ask that. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m about to pay a visit to my hacienda on the llanos, far upstream.”
“Your cattle spread is rather far from here where the action promises, no?”
“That’s what I just said.”
~*~
There was more than one telephone in the delta area and more than one Venezuelan public servant taking money on the side, so on the far side of Tucupita another man was hanging up with a puzzled frown. His name was Greystoke and he worked for British Intelligence, although he didn’t announce this very often. The cool blond buffing her nails in Greystoke’s study looked up and asked, “Trouble, darling? You look like you just met a ghost in the loo.”
Greystoke smiled fondly down at her, running wistful eyes over her nude curves, as he said, “I think I know who the ghost is. Pity, I was rather looking forward to the rest of this siesta, but duty calls and all that rot.”
Greystoke was one of those Oxford types who managed to look dignified stark naked, but as he reached for his pants the blond looked startled and asked, “You’re not going out in this heat?”
“Have to, old girl. No phone line to Her Majesty’s flagship off the coast and even if there were, the perishing Yanks would have it tapped. I’ll try to get back by midnight. But I might be tied up with this bloody little war business, so, if I don’t make it, start without me.”
The blond ran a hand over her own flesh, teasingly, and laughed. Then she said, “Honestly, I wish you weren’t so eternally secretive, darling. You know I work for Whitehall, too.”
Greystoke smiled and added, “Quite. Never do for me to talk in my sleep with anyone else, eh what? I’m not being sneaky, Pamela. It’s that damned Yank, Captain Gringo, again.”
The cool-looking blond, who wasn’t as cool as she looked, raised an eyebrow and said, “Oh, is he going to play the Great Game with us again? I didn’t know he was anywhere near this soggy place.”
Greystoke started dressing as he replied, “I didn’t, either. But I just got a report that’s changed my mind. Dick Walker apparently ran into a rather good hired killer called The Hungarian and I must say he did a lovely job on the bugger.”
“Really? How do you know it was your old chum, Walker?”
“My informants tell me The Hungarian had been sent to kill Captain Gringo, and now The Hungarian is in the morgue full of machine-gun bullets. Simple deduction, my dear Watson.”
“You had Captain Gringo working for you one time, didn’t you, darling?”
“I suppose one might say that. Walker tends to be a free thinker and one just never knows how things will turn out. But what’s all this sudden interest in a wandering gun thug, Pam? You don’t know him, do you?”
The cool-looking blond rubbed herself hotter than Greystoke thought she should as she replied, “Can’t say I have, but I did meet another spy who spent a night with him. She’s still rather awed by the experience.”
Greystoke grimaced, reached for a tie, and said, “No doubt. But I fear I’m sending you on another mission, dear girl. Try to think of it as a sacrifice for Queen and country, eh what?”
He chuckled as he knotted the tie and added, “I say, that would be something for the books, eh what? You seem to be insatiable and Dick Walker’s said to be a sex maniac. Pity you’ll never meet, eh what?”
“Don’t be bitchy, darling. A girl can’t help her appetite and I told you you were quite nice. I’m not sure I’d enjoy this renegade American in any case. He sounds a bit uncouth and I do like manners in a lover, even if what that other girl told me about his anatomy could be true.”
Mollified, Greystoke said, “Oh, Walker’s as much a gentleman as those bloody yanks ever manage to produce. I rather like the chap—when we’re not trying to kill one another. Have to go now, Pet. The admiral will have a fit when he hears Captain Gringo’s in this game.”
He was in a hurry, but Pamela was a curious professional as well as a nymphomaniac, so she insisted. “Wait, there’s something I don’t understand about this business, darling. You did say Dick Walker is a deserter from the American army, right?”
“Of course. It’s in his dossier. He was a white cavalry officer with the colored U.S. Tenth, fighting Apache and all that rot, when he got in trouble with his superiors and had to leave the States one jump ahead of an army hangman. Some say he was brought up on a false charge by enemies, but that’s neither here nor there now. He killed a fellow officer as he was escaping and so the fat’s in the jolly fire if and when they ever catch him. Listen, Pam, this is all terribly interesting, but I have a bloody admiral waiting to fight a bloody war and—”
“Stop and think a moment, Darling. No matter how interesting this Captain Gringo may be in or out of bed, he can’t be here to work for the other side, this time, can he?”
Greystoke started to object, frowned, and spoke: “I say, you’re right. The other side, here in Venezuela, is the bloody perishing Yanks! And the bloody perishing Yanks have a rather large reward on Captain Gringo’s bloody head!”
Pamela laughed, “There, you see? He has to be on our side if he’s on any side at all. Who was this Hungarian person, and why was he trying to kill Captain Gringo?”
Greystoke frowned. “The Hungarian was working for certain Venezuelan rebels against the established government who happen to feel they’d get a better shake living under the Union Jack.”
“The Hungarian was trying to kill Walker for the Queen?”
“Not exactly, but close enough. Strictly between us, Venezuelan traitors, to give them their right name, heard Walker was coming and thought that all in all it might be best to eliminate him from the game no matter who he may be working for, see?”
“No, I don’t see. I think it was rather rude as well as foolish. I think we might have been able to make a deal with him, since he’s a soldier of fortune who’d worked for Britain in the past.”
Greystoke shrugged and added, “I doubt he’d fight his own countrymen, bitter as he may be. But it’s too late, now, in any case. Walker has a bit of a temper. He’ll never join the side that just tried to kill him. If he finds out they were tied in with British Intelligence, he’ll no doubt be most annoyed with us, as well, and you can see how unsettling it can be to have Captain Gringo mad at you.”
“Oh, dear, what do you intend to do about it, darling?”
/>
Greystoke shrugged. “Only thing I can do, I fear. We’ll have to kill him ourselves.”
“I hope you’re not serious, darling. It sounds rather beastly, if you ask me.”
Sighing, Greystoke said, “Nobody’s asking you, Pam. Nobody’s even asking me. The lad’s a wild card in a very serious game of power politics and you know very well that Whitehall would kill you or me, if it meant winning the Great Game.”
~*~
As the capybara approached the tree-shaded hammock, Gaston reached for his pistol and observed, “Regardez, here comes the biggest rat on the face of the Earth, but it’s our supper, anyway.”
Captain Gringo grabbed Gaston’s arm and said, “Hold your fire, damn it. It’s not a rat, it’s a capybara, and they’re harmless vegetarians.”
Gaston smiled and insisted, “But I am not, my old and rare. The overgrown rodent looks plump and juicy and I intend to have it for supper, as I said.”
“It’s early, yet. I don’t want to build a fire out here on the open llano ’til we have a better idea who might be watching.”
“Merde alors, I am hungry, Dick!”
“Oh, for Chrissake, it’s not even three yet. Don’t you ever think about anything but your Goddamn stomach?”
“Mais oui, I have other appetites as well, but that creature does not appeal to me as a sex partner, even if it was a bit larger. One must draw the line somewhere, hein?”
He started to raise the pistol as Captain Gringo shook his own head and Gaston’s arm as he said, “I mean it, Gaston. No shooting, no smoke, no nothing in this exposed position.”
Gaston stared morosely around as he tucked his gun away, but observed, “You are becoming trés wary, even for a man on the run, Dick. Regardez, we are in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing to be seen between us and- the horizon on all sides. How far could the sound of a discreet shot carry across all this sawgrass, hein?”
Captain Gringo said, “Look again. It’s not all open llano. There are other islands of trees, like this one, and your friendly neighborhood capybara just came out of that tangle of high reed, over to our left along the river bank. Isn’t that more interesting than what the critter might taste like?”