The Mark of Cain

by William J. Coughlin

  Using the same tactics, he was able to kick away the metal covering over the hot chimney pipe. He crawled back and examined the shafts protruding from the ground. The smell of burning metal coming from the hot pipe was blown away on the wind. Cain fished into the canvas bag he had slung around his neck until he located a smoke grenade. He put the grenade cylinder over the hot pipe. But it was too big. He tried it over the air shaft, which was larger, and it fitted. Cain reached into the canvas bag and pulled out an antipersonnel grenade. It, too, fitted the air shaft.

  Cain wondered if it was his imagination, but the wind seemed to become even more violent. Its shriek was now high and continuous, a sound driving all others out of existence.

  Cain wiggled close to the air shaft and pulled the pin on the antipersonnel grenade. He carefully placed it into the air shaft and dropped it. He thought he heard an explosion from below, but the wind was so loud, he could not be sure. He followed it with the smoke grenade. He hoped the smoke would make the caves below uninhabitable. He thought he saw a wisp of smoke at the top of the pipe, but it was whipped away by the wind before he could be sure. Cain dropped down two more antipersonnel grenades. He had two grenades left in his canvas satchel but decided to save them in case he needed them later.

  The presence of the machine gun would always be a possible danger to them, so Cain decided he had to get rid of it. He crawled back to the gun pit and lifted the gun up, unscrewing the supports holding it to the tripod. Then he shoved it, half throwing it down the hill. The wind seized it, and it blew away, end over end, like a straw.

  That same wind pushed Cain. He rolled over trying to escape its clutches but found he could not stop rolling. He was in the grip of the wind. The strap on the canvas bag twisted around his neck, and he was choking, but he could do nothing to help himself as the wind spun him down the side of the hill, smashing him against the ground with every turn. He crashed into an obstacle with an agonizing jolt. Cain fought to remain conscious; he tore at the canvas strap, unwinding its strangling hold from his neck. Then he breathed deeply, fighting to suck air into his empty lungs. It was difficult to breathe against the power of the roaring wind, but he managed.

  Cain waited until his head cleared, then looked around him. He was pinned against one of the large posts that had anchored the long dock to the shore. But the dock was gone, and with it the three boats that had been secured to its metal cleats. Cain squinted against the rain. He could see one of the boats had been driven up on the far shore of the small harbor. Both of the other craft had been sunk. One had turned over, its round hull bobbing in the turbulent waves. Only the tip of the other boat remained above water, like a grave marker. Cain could not make out which boat had been driven up on the far shore. The screaming storm and the angle of the hull made it impossible to identify. It lay there, held by the wind, a round shape surrounded by the broken boards of what had been the dock.

  He looked up to find the source of a whining sound. A frayed length of Manila rope hummed above him, held out straight in the air like an arrow by the force of the wind.

  The wind made the large post wobble, threatening to send it into the small harbor. Cain knew that if he went with it, he would face certain death. The wind was increasing, and the rain stung his hands and face like a million needles.

  Squinting, Cain tried to penetrate the driving sheets of rain. He could see a form, apparently a man hunched over, clinging to the protection of the base of the hill. He braced himself, reluctant to leave the dubious security of the trembling post but steeled by the knowledge that he had to move away in order to survive. He tried to identify the form. If it was not Soldier, he would be dead as soon as he approached.

  He clung to the post, hoping to detect a lessening of the wind, even if only for a moment; hoping for a pause long enough to allow him to dash for the base of the hill.

  Cain did not consider himself introspective—he seldom questioned the motives for his actions, preferring to devote his thoughts to solving existing external problems. But as he waited for a break in the violence of the wind, he wondered what inner force had propelled him to drive himself and the others forward in the face of danger to this barren island. He was no longer a policeman. The men inside the camouflaged building meant nothing to him. They were murderers, thieves, and a part of a machine feeding poison into the veins of the world, but it was not his function to roam the world seeking to do justice; such an impossible quest would be fit only for fools. He had his orders, instructions given by an old man, orders calling for a demonstration rather than an actual mission. Other men, he knew, would have seized the opportunity for a Caribbean holiday, an adventure for pleasure with only a token effort toward finding the trail of the old man’s great-grandson. Nothing more would have been expected. Yet here they were, face-to-face with death. Cain wondered if he was still a cop at heart, and he wondered whether deep within him he carried some sort of half-baked crusader complex. And if he did, that would explain his motivation but not the reasons Slick and Soldier followed him. He wondered if the three of them had become avengers of a sort, without spoken agreement, but with mutual consent nevertheless. Somehow they always seemed to end up in confrontation with various merchants of evil, risking death and exceeding the limits of their original mission. Cain knew, with the insight given to men facing destruction, that it was more than a mere coincidence.

  But he shook such thoughts from his mind and reminded himself that his only concern now was survival. He squinted and tried to measure the distance from his wooden post to the figure hunched against the hill. It looked like fifty feet, and in this wind fifty feet was equal to fifty miles. He felt his post lurch as it slowly pulled loose from its slimy foundations beneath him. The decision was made for him. He had to try.

  He drew his heavy-bladed hunting knife from his belt sheath and lay facedown. Stabbing the knife into the ground and using it as a handhold, he pulled himself along the ground like a mountain climber scaling a cliff. He repeated the process over and over, feeling the invisible hand of the wind pulling at him, trying to lift him and send him flying into the blackwater grave behind him.

  As he neared the base of the hill, he was surprised to see that there were two men huddled against the wind. He recognized Soldier as the big man reached out, grabbed the top of his shirt, and pulled him up next to them. Johnson shifted his position, making room for Cain.

  “Where are the others?” Cain yelled, but his words were blown away as if they had never been spoken. He put his lips to Soldier’s ear. “Where are the others?”

  Soldier pointed at the remains of the boats, barely visible, on the other side of the harbor. He put his wet face close to Cain. “Slick and Eddy were aboard the boat when they all pulled loose. I think that’s our boat up on the ground over there, but I’m not sure. There’s no way we can get over there; that damn building is in the way.”

  Soldier had to shout to be heard above the rising howl of the storm. “I think you might have killed a few of them in there when you dropped those grenades. I thought I heard screams after the explosions, at least I think I did. After that five of them came out on the other side of that building and started up the hill. I nailed all of them.”

  Cain looked into Soldier’s eyes. There was no sign of pride or regret; the man had merely reported a fact, nothing more.

  Cain looked at Johnson. The boatman looked as if he might be nearing a collapse. Deep exhaustion twisted the contours of his face. His dull eyes gave no indication that he even noticed the water cascading down his features. Johnson loosely held an automatic rifle in his arms, the barrel slanted down to protect it from the rain.

  Soldier tapped Cain and put his lips close by his ear. “We will have to get inside somehow,” he shouted. “We can’t last out here much longer.”

  Cain pointed to the long barrel of the recoilless rifle. Soldier had it wedged between him and the hill. “How many rounds do we have for that thing?” Cain yelled.

  Soldier opened his
big hand twice, indicating that he had ten rounds of shells.

  Cain shouted into Soldier’s ear. “We might as well try to open them up with the cannon. Then we’ll rush the door.” He paused to take a breath. “It might work.” Cain realized there was no need to add the last thought. Soldier was a professional. Considering the odds, it would be a miracle if they succeeded.

  Soldier handed his machine gun to Johnson, indicating that the boatman should remain where he was. Then he lifted the long, tubelike rifle and let the water and mud spill out of it. Even with the strength of his huge hands the wind almost plucked the weapon away from him, but he managed to hold it up and lift it to his shoulder. The tip swung back and forth madly in the wind. Just getting off a shot would be a major achievement. And if they were unlucky and the shell exploded into the hill just in front of them, they would be ripped to pieces by the metal fragments of the antipersonnel shell.

  Cain extracted one of the long rocketlike shells from the ammunition bag and inserted it into the loading breech. He armed the firing apparatus and then tapped Soldier on the back, indicating that all was ready.

  The big man fought the wobbling weapon and then squeezed the trigger. Only a hint of sound was left by the wind, but Cain saw a flash within the building. Soldier, despite the difficulties in aiming, had put a round right through the half-opened door.

  Cain struggled with another shell and repeated the process. The second round went a bit high, making a round hole through the top part of the structure. The scream of the wind was the only sound.

  The third round found the mark and flashed inside.

  Cain was about to insert the next round when Soldier lost his balance. Only momentarily but long enough for the wind to snatch the long weapon from his hands as if it were no more weighty than paper. They watched the heavy weapon fly away, rolling in the wind until it disappeared into the boiling waters of the harbor. Soldier looked up at Cain and shrugged.

  Then he took his machine gun back from Johnson. He pointed the weapon at the structure and fired a short burst. He grinned, pleased that the weapon worked despite the soaking it received.

  Cain motioned Johnson to follow them. They moved slowly along the base of the hill, staying close to the small bit of protection it offered, working their way toward the door of the structure.

  The door was still wedged open against the wind by the bodies. The light inside the building had dimmed, but the lamps still worked despite the storm.

  Cain drew his big pistol, watching the water pour from it. He snapped open the cylinder and reloaded the empty chambers. He flipped the cylinder back into position and made sure it locked securely. He hoped the gun still worked. He snapped a shot through the door. It worked.

  He was ready.

  FOURTEEN

  Soldier crouched down, his legs flexed like two steel springs. He looked back at Cain. Cain nodded and Soldier dived through the wedged-open door. Cain was almost blown away by the wind, but he grabbed the door and followed Soldier inside.

  Like Alice’s mirror, stepping through the doorway seemed to Cain like a trip into a new dimension. Without realizing it, he had become accustomed to the driving rain, accepting the pain to face and hands as a normal condition. His ears had known only the scream of the wind, and now that he was inside, the rattle of Soldier’s chopper produced a sensation in him as if he had just been cured of deafness.

  The line of tracers, flowing like a stream from Soldier’s machine gun, cut down three men trying to run for the safety of a cave entrance.

  Cain saw a man leveling a rifle at Soldier, and he fired without consciously aiming, letting instinct do the job. The rifle flew up and the man fell backward. Soldier kept firing as he raced toward one of the lower-level caves. Answering shots came from the second level, muzzle flashes winking in the dark mouths of the caves above. Bullets spurted the dust at Cain’s feet. He snapped off several rounds at the second-level caves as he ran to join Soldier in the lower cave. Johnson’s feet pounded the ground as the man sprinted behind him.

  Soldier crouched against the mouth of the cave, his machine gun ready, protecting the opening. Cain and Johnson sped by him, almost running into the rocky back wall of the short cave. It was some sort of storage area filled with shelves of boxes and piles of motor parts and supplies. Several bodies lay near the entrance. Cain guessed that the caves above served as the living quarters for the pirates.

  Cain kneeled next to Soldier and surveyed the work yard. Although the wind had sucked the smoke away, he could still smell a lingering trace clinging to the walls of the cave. Bodies were scattered around the work yard and the boat. A large forge stood several yards away, occasionally sending up sparks of flying metal from its huge pot like top. Cain presumed they used it to melt and reform metal to disguise the boats they had captured.

  The large boat rolled in its well, reflecting the terrible turbulence in the water outside. The bloody arm of a dead man dangled down the side of the craft, swinging like a red pendulum with each motion of the boat.

  The structure above them shook continuously as if a giant hand was trying to rip it away from the hill. The scream of the hurricane outside was like the last cry of a million damned souls. The sound grated against the nerve ends—it was the noise of doom and destruction.

  “We had better barricade this cave,” Soldier said. “If they drop a grenade down, we’ll need protection.”

  “If they had grenades, we would have gotten one long before this,” Cain said. “But it’s not a bad idea anyway.”

  Cain kept watch as Johnson and Soldier wrestled heavy boxes from the shelves, building a waist-high wall in front of the cave mouth. When they were finished, Soldier gathered pistols from the dead men and took up the watch. Cain stepped back in the cave and took his long-barreled pistol apart, carefully drying each part with a clean cloth he had found. He put the weapon back together, keeping his eye on Johnson.

  The boatman sat on the floor, his back against the wall. But after a moment his head bobbled forward, and he slumped over in dreamless sleep. Johnson, aided by exhaustion, was developing the ability to sleep in the face of danger, an ability prized among combat soldiers. It was a short refreshing sleep, clearing the mind and responses and assisting in warding off mistakes that might make sleep a permanent condition.

  “I’ve been in sandstorms in the desert,” Soldier said quietly, his words almost lost in the noise of the wind outside, “but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “It’s bad.” Cain carefully loaded his pistol. “How many do you think might be left up there, Soldier?”

  The big man’s scarred face crinkled into a wry grin. He gestured toward the bodies lying about the working area. “Damned few. No more than half a dozen, if that.”

  Cain nodded. “That’s about what I figure too.” He stopped for a moment as a violent blast of wind seemed about to collapse the building. Then it passed. Cain pointed. “Their electrical generator is over there on the other side of the boat. We can’t get to it and neither can they. My guess is that it will run out of gasoline pretty soon, and then we will be left in the dark.”

  “If this place doesn’t blow down first,” Soldier grunted.

  “That’s a possibility. But we stand a better chance if we go up against those people while we can still see what we’re doing.”

  “How do you figure that, Cain? They are above us. The advantage is with them.”

  “How many grenades do you have left?”

  Soldier reached into his canvas bag. He fished around and then came up with two grenades.

  “If I pop out of here far enough to see above that walkway and shoot everything that moves up there, you’d have enough time to toss those things in at least two of the three caves up there.”

  Soldier frowned. “It’s a big gamble, Cain. If they hit me, the grenades will explode and kill all of us down here.”

  “Life is just one big risk after another, Soldier.” Cain tried to say it in a lighthearte
d fashion, but the words came out tense and strained.

  The two men climbed over the barricade of boxes. “Ready?” Cain asked, his pistol in his hand.

  Soldier pulled one pin with his teeth, spit it out, and then pulled the other. He kept the safety levers compressed in his huge fists. “Ready,” he said.

  Cain sprinted out. He passed underneath the walkway and into the open work area. Leaping over a body, he skidded as he turned. A man on the walkway was swinging a rifle or machine gun at him, he couldn’t tell which. Cain fired. The slug hit the man in the head and he staggered backward but with his weapon still swinging dangerously. Cain fired again. The big hollow-point bullet slammed the man back into one of the caves.

  As Soldier arched the grenades over the walkway, Cain snapped off three more shots, one into each of the caves. A bullet whined by him and Cain felt a tug at his ear. Soldier was running hard for the protection of their barricaded alcove.

  Cain fired again at movement, and then he too sprinted back to safety. He rolled over the boxes just as the grenades exploded above them. The noise of the explosions seemed muted, but thick clouds of dust and dirt floated down from above.

  “Which caves did you get?” Cain asked.

  “The one just above us and the one in the middle. I didn’t hit the one above the furnace over there. Did you get any?”

  “One.”

  “That makes one less.”

  They listened. Rising even above the howling wind was the belly-clutching sound of a man screaming in pain. The cries were hysterical with fear.

  “Well, he won’t be any trouble,” Soldier said. “From the sound of him, he won’t last long. There can’t be many of them left.”

  “If I’m right,” Cain replied, “it should be almost even by now.”

  Soldier nodded. He looked at Cain. “They nicked your left ear.”