Twisted Path te-121

by Don Pendleton

  The terrorists were poised now on the lip of the last pass before they would enter the regional capital. The city was spread before them, the most notable feature being the spires of nearly thirty churches.

  Their entry into the city would be the most difficult part of the journey thus far. Ayacucho was the center of the main movement of the Shining Path, and consequently the military was present in force. It was likely that the truck would be checked at a roadblock before they would be allowed to proceed, as it was known that the escaped terrorists would eventually make for their mountain stronghold.

  Bolan and Stone were ordered into a small box welded just below the high bed of the truck and each was given a pair of cracked goggles to shield his eyes. Barely able to squeeze in, the two Americans almost choked from the dust kicked up from the roadway as they rumbled down the mountainside.

  The Indians would be safe enough. There was nothing to link them to the prison breakout, and police methods were too unsophisticated for there to be much chance that they would be identified. However, the Americans would be conspicuous in an area visited by only a few white tourists, and might be shot on sight if they were captured.

  Given the alternative, Bolan and Stone weren't about to complain too loudly about a little dust.

  They were stopped for inspection at the foot of the slope, just before the main highway into the city divided.

  The warrior saw heavy combat boots below jungle camouflage clothing circling the truck.

  To Bolan's relief, the troopers didn't bother with a search, and only asked the driver a few routine questions in a bored and disinterested tone before waving them through.

  "That was pretty lax," Bolan shouted to Stone above the grinding of the engine.

  "These soldiers are strictly amateurs, uneducated farm kids given a uniform and a gun. They are also highly unpredictable, so any checkpoint is a danger even for innocent travelers. The troops don't really care about finding the Path. If they are determined to kill someone, it makes no difference whether they are terrorists, or whether there is any evidence to link them to the Shining Path. The army has become a worse menace than the guerrillas they are trying to suppress. We're a long way from Lima here in the mountains, and the army treats the area like its private hunting preserve."

  Stone was bitter, having seen firsthand the destruction that the so-called protection forces had wrought among the native people he had come to like. In the years he had spent in prison, the situation had deteriorated considerably.

  Violence by the left bred a more violent reaction by the right. Death squads from both sides roamed the hills, fighting for the hearts and minds of the ignorant villagers, and destroying everything in their path at the least suspicion of opposition or treachery.

  The peasants were the losers no matter which way they turned. They either supported the Shining Path guerrillas in their demands for food and shelter, or they were killed. If they aided the guerrillas, then the army exacted a heavy price.

  The escaped prisoners didn't linger in the city.

  The place was crawling with the drab uniforms of army and police units, many wandering the streets aimlessly in search of some excitement to relieve the boredom of garrison duty.

  Many others stood alert in front of public buildings, submachine guns ready for instant action.

  They paused briefly in a working class district for Libertad to call his superiors with Bolan's request for a meeting while Bolan and Stone stretched cramped limbs in the shelter of a Shining Path safehouse.

  The warrior stewed as he waited for news. He knew that his cache was hidden somewhere within the city limits, the address committed to memory before he had left Los Angeles. At least he expected that it would be here now. His unplanned stop at Lurigancho had prevented him from contacting the shipping company with alternate instructions, so that his standing order should have resulted in the arms being shipped to this mountain town.

  He had the bait. Now it was only a matter of building the trap.

  Bolan was forming his game plan as he went along. Delivering the arms right here would have been a possibility, but with this many men around there was a good chance that he would be eliminated as soon as the terrorists had their hands on the weapons.

  By getting into Shining Path territory, he could take advantage of any slip on their part to do some eliminating of his own. If nothing favorable transpired, he was no worse off than he was right now.

  Bolan felt more at ease when Libertad informed him that a meeting had been agreed to. Things were finally falling into place.

  Outside of Ayacucho, the hills began a remorseless climb once again. A short way beyond the town, Bolan and Stone took their seats in the truck, a welcome change from the dust-clogged hiding place.

  Every dip to a shallow valley led to a steeper ascent on the other side. They were gaining hundreds of feet of altitude every hour. Each climb brought back the symptoms of soroche with increased severity. The Peruvian Andes soared up to more than twenty-two thousand feet, nearly two thousand feet higher than the loftiest peak in North America. And at the moment, Bolan was feeling every inch.

  Stone assured him that he would feel better in about twenty-four hours unless he was one of the unfortunate few that never adapted to the altitude. Bolan knew that this was not the case, having experienced high altitudes before. Still, the waiting time until he adapted was no more pleasant than it ever was.

  After about five hours' travel, the engine started to emit a clunking noise, which was completely different from the wheezing growls they had become accustomed to. Ten minutes later, the engine died completely. The truck coasted to a stop on a roadside shoulder above a small town that was huddled around a tiny church nine hundred feet below.

  They got out and began to walk.

  A half hour later, the group of men came to a dirt track that led to a collection of hovels hunched between a towering peak and the narrow road.

  Llamas roamed through the rough lanes of the village, cropping the rough puna grass. Outside one shanty, a boy played the haunting notes of the guena, a wooden flute whose origins could be traced to the days of the Inca empire.

  The small mountain villages of the Andean altiplano represented the heartland of the Shining Path movement. Here the ancient Indian culture existed in an isolated community, remote, poor and primitive. Many of the Indians, inspired by the fantasies of the Shining Path, dreamed the irrational dream of a restored empire, of an ideal communism without want or exploitation.

  Several of the decrepit huts still held washed-out remnants of the mark of the Path — the Communist red hammer and sickle with the slogan Shanghai Gang of Four scrawled below it, harking back to the most radical days of Red China, when the Red Guards idolized the peasants and declared the intellectuals their enemies.

  But there were few friendly faces peering from the doorways of the scattered homes.

  A movement that had been born of a will to freedom had turned into a vicious parody of the system that it proposed to overthrow. The road to freedom had become a twisted path to an early grave.

  Support for the Shining Path was now achieved at the price of fear. Lack of cooperation was savagely punished, and the Path replaced local leaders with their own supporters, defying the traditional Indian respect for their elders. Children were frequently kidnapped for indoctrination.

  And yet to many the terrorists were preferable to the random violence of the army.

  As the small band straggled into town, the attitude of suspicion, pent-up oppression and fear was so strong that it was almost palpable to Bolan in the thin air of the small Andean community. There was no way to predict what might happen, or who might be friend or foe.

  Trust or treachery; it was impossible to tell what the reaction would be from the closed and cautious expressions on the faces of the few natives who had shown themselves.

  The tense atmosphere didn't appear to bother Libertad.

  He took center stage behind a hand-operated w
ater pump in the minuscule square of the village. He rang a solid iron bell on a tripod repeatedly, the tocsin summoning the hidden villagers slowly. The terrorist leader called for attention.

  "My people, my brothers in arms and in our struggle for justice and liberty, we have come to you in an hour of need knowing that you will not fail us.

  "As we aid and protect you at all times from the oppression of the capitalists and the imperialists, you shall now be able to assist your liberators in the great struggle against the Spanish conquerors.

  "Remember, without power all is illusion. We must wage war without quarter against the money-loving city dwellers. We are your sword and your shield, and together, comrades, we will strike our enemies dead.

  "So listen and hear our plea, and answer from your heart."

  From the stolid looks of the watching natives, Bolan guessed they weren't too impressed with the oratory. Fancy words and expressions of brotherhood sounded fine when the army was on the other side of the mountain. But everyone knew that the only reason why the soldiers didn't destroy the Shining Path was that they couldn't find them. Apart from the occasional hit-and-run attack, the Path avoided the well-armed troops.

  When the army returned on their next patrol, they would exact their revenge if the villagers gave any assistance to the guerrilla band. And the Shining Path would by then be long gone.

  A small man built like a fire hydrant spoke from the front of the crowd. His clothes were a bit better than those of the rest of the villagers, who all wore rough homespun and bright-hued cloth. Many of the men sported the chullo, a knitted cap with earflaps. Often a felt hat perched on top of the chullo.

  "Do not try to fool us with your banal and false promises. We know by now that your words are lies, that they are traps for the unwary, as the crocodile lies in wait for the man who steps thoughtlessly into a strange river. Leave us now and seek out some ignorant and backward village where they have never seen evil and do not know you for who you are. You have the stench of death about you, and you offend our noses. Begone!"

  From the number of nods Bolan observed, he could tell that the little man had his finger on the pulse of the community. His words had hit home in a way that Libertad had completely missed.

  The terrorist looked carefully at every face in the crowd. Most turned away, but the spokesman held the hardman's gaze unflinchingly.

  "You speak very bravely," Libertad remarked almost conversationally. "Who are you?"

  "I am Ferdinand Haya de la Torre, mayor of the village of Andahuaylas," he answered proudly and pugnaciously. If the mayor was intimidated by the unwashed and savagelooking group that had invaded his small town, he certainly wasn't showing it.

  Bolan could only admire the man's bravery without being in a position to render any assistance. The warrior had a bad feeling, looking at Libertad's closed and angry face, that the small man was going to need all the help he could get.

  "PCP?" Libertad asked, naming the Peruvian Communist Party. The Shining Path had marched far to the left of the Communists, and the two groups had no love for each other.

  The mayor nodded assent.

  "And a Spaniard?"

  "Yes, I have that honor. And a true friend to the people, not a bloodsucker who will cast them to the dogs at the first sign of trouble."

  "Seize the traitor."

  Two of Libertad's men responded, grabbing the small man and hauling him in front of the crowd.

  None of the villagers ventured forth to intervene in the face of the intimidation of the Path.

  De la Torre was temporarily struck dumb, realizing that he had overplayed his hand badly.

  Bolan knew that a tragedy was about to unfold, one that he couldn't do anything to prevent.

  The terrorist addressed the crowd. "Comrades, you have been duped unbecoming slaves of the unjust state. We will now stage a popular trial to probe the errors of your ways." He turned to the captive mayor. "I suppose you were elected?"

  "Yes, by a free vote of these honest villagers," the mayor responded.

  "Guilty! He is guilty of parliamentary cretinism," Libertad shouted to the impassive gathering. "He believes that a vote can determine the best interests of the people." Then he addressed de la Torre again. "I suppose you are an educated man?"

  "I have finished high school in Ayacucho. I can read and write. Can you say the same?"

  "I do not need to justify anything. I am a warrior of the Republic of New Democracy, the only true representatives of the people. What the great Gonzalo says is law, and I must carry out his work of crushing counterrevolution everywhere I find it." Libertad paused, examining the community.

  They had subsided into sullen acceptance, knowing that their fate was to endure like the Andes, to suffer the shifting patterns of the unended war. "Don't think about tomorrow" had to be their watchword. "Just live through life one day at a time." The Incas, the conquistadores, parlia meets, juntas, dictatorships had all come and gone without making much impression on their way of life.

  The Shining Path was only one more natural disaster, like an epidemic among the sheep.

  Libertad read acquiescence in the crowd. "This man is guilty once again, this time of being an intellectual planted among you to lead you falsely from the road to the utopian Communist state. Where there is guilt, there must be punishment."

  He moved slowly to the captive, drawing his knife. The late-afternoon sun caught the blade, sending shimmers of orange fire crawling along the steel.

  The mayor didn't protest, mesmerised by the flashing weapon that would be his death.

  The terrorist grabbed de la Torre roughly by the hair, pulling his head back. The mayor snapped out of his spell and began to pray feverishly.

  Libertad silenced the pleas to heaven, drawing the sharp edge almost leisurely across the man's throat.

  The terrorists holding the body let go, allowing the corpse to collapse face first onto the blood-drenched square.

  "Now you will aid us," Libertad told the gathered peasants in a commanding voice.

  No one disagreed this time.

  15

  The Path left the little community the next morning after they had fed themselves from the locals' meager supplies. They traveled in a small convoy of four old cars commandeered from the villagers.

  An hour's drive ahead was a small pass, one that alternated direction on a daily basis.

  Today they would be able to travel through it away from Ayacucho, which was the only reason the terrorists had remained overnight in the hostile town.

  Bolan had been glad for the delay. Now he seemed to be over the worst of the soroche, although he still had a headache. However, he was careful not to let his well-being show. He didn't know what was coming and would rather save his renewed energy for a surprise.

  Libertad paid Bolan no real attention, merely gesturing him to the third car in line, which was a battered Honda. The terrorist leader slid into the front passenger seat and stared stonily out the window, as did Bolan.

  The Executioner could never hope to understand the terrorist mind. Their fanaticism was total, requiring a dedication that embraced their entire lives. They weren't in it for the money they were after power pure and simple. If they ever achieved it, Bolan suspected that the bloody purges of Joseph Stalin would seem like a spring cleaning in comparison.

  They killed easily and without conscience or regret; Libertad had demonstrated that yesterday, if Bolan had had any doubts. For the Shining Path, the world was a simple place. It divided evenly along the lines of good and evil, the good being their supporters. Evil embraced everyone else.

  In any situation there was only one course of action: do as their leader Gonzalo commanded through his writings, or die.

  They were totally beyond rational thought. It was incredible to see how they had warped every perception around the distorted thoughts of some reclusive madman.

  There was an ugly fascination in studying these men, much like watching cancer cells divide and
multiply through the lens of a microscope.

  The answer to their bizarre zealotry was equally clear to Bolan. He would crush the Shining Path and all they stood for at the first opportunity.

  The convoy ran into trouble just as it left the ten-mile section of one-way road, no wider than one car, that crept along the edge of the deep mountain cleft. If the driver had sneezed and jogged the wheel, they would have dropped one mile into the swift mountain stream below.

  The lead car eased around the first curve beyond the widening of the road and ran into a hornet's nest.

  A line of troops was concealed behind a pair of tree trunks that had been toppled across the roadway. How the ambushers had known to expect the Path was a mystery. There might have been a radio hidden in the village, or possibly a peasant had trekked overland to the nearest government outpost.

  Any way it happened, the infantrymen spelled disaster. They opened fire with an array of automatic weapons, peppering the thin skin of the car with high-velocity slugs.

  The driver slumped forward over the wheel, his brains sprayed over the three passengers behind. As he collapsed, he rode the wheel to the left, sending the car speeding over the cliff The four terrified survivors screamed every second of the long drop, before the plunging vehicle hit the ground below with the force of a dynamite explosion.

  The second driver slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt thirty yards from the roadblock. The gunman in the passenger seat, who was the only one armed with anything deadlier than a knife, provided covering fire from behind his door while the others made a break for the grassland and hills that edged the highway.

  None of them made it to the edge of the grass before being chopped down by the flying parabellums.

  Screened behind the door, the surviving terrorist screamed in anger, loosing off the last rounds in his captured SMG. A lucky shot caught one of the crouching troopers in the bridge of his nose, turning the face into an unrecognisable red mass.