Avenger (38 page)

"I think I believe you," said McBride. "This loner doesn't have a chance, does he?"

"Told you so, Mr. CIA-man. He's chickened out."

He had hardly finished when the communicator crackled again. His brow furrowed as he listened to the report.

"What kind of flap? Well, tell him to calm down. I'll be there in five minutes."

He replaced the set.

"Father Vicente, at the church. In some kind of a panic. I'll have to drive by on our way to the mountains. A delay of a few minutes no doubt."

On their left they passed a row of peons, aching backs bent over mattocks and hoes in the raging heat. Some heads lifted briefly to watch the passing vehicle bearing the man who had power of life and death over them. Gaunt, stub bled faces, coffee-brown eyes under straw brims. But one pair of eyes was blue.

Chapter THIRTY

The Bluff

HE WAS HOPPING UP AND DOWN AT THE TOP OF THE CHURCH STEPS by the open door, a short tubby man with porcine eyes and a none-too-clean white soutane. Father Vicente, pastoral shepherd of the wretched forced labourers.

Van Rensberg's Spanish was extremely basic and habitually only expressed abrupt commands; that of the priest attempting English was not much better.

"Come queek, coronel," he said and darted back inside. The two men dismounted, ran up the steps and followed him.

The soiled cassock swept down the aisle, past the altar and on to the vestry. It was a tiny room, its main feature a wall cupboard of basic carpentry, assembled and screwed to the wall to contain his vestments. With a theatrical gesture he threw the door open and cried: "Mira."

They looked. The peon was still exactly as Father Vicente had found him. No attempt had been made to release him. His wrists were firmly bound with tape in front of him; his ankles the same; a broad band of tape covered his mouth, from behind which came protesting mumbles. Seeing van Rensberg, his eyes indicated that he was terrified.

The South African leaned forward and tore away the gag without ceremony.

"What the hell is he doing here?"

There was a babble of terrified explanation from the man, and an expressive shrug from the priest.

"He says he not know. He says he go to sleep last night, he wake up in here. He has headache, he remember nothing more."

The man was naked but for a pair of skimpy shorts. There was nothing for the South African to grab but the man's upper arms, so he seized these and brought the peon to his feet.

"Tell him he'd better start remembering," he shouted at the priest, who translated.

"Major," said McBride quietly, 'first things first. What about a name?"

Father Vicente caught the sense.

"He is called Ramon."

"Ramon what?"

The priest shrugged. He had over a thousand parishioners; was he supposed to remember them all?

"Which cabin does he come from?" asked the American.

There was another rapid interchange of local Spanish. McBride could decipher written Spanish slowly, but the local San Martin patois was nothing like Castilian.

"It is three hundred metres from here," said the priest.

"Shall we go and look?" said McBride. He produced a penknife and cut the tape from Ramon's wrists and ankles. The intimidated worker led the major and the American across the plaza, down the main street and thence to his alley. He pointed to his door and stood back.

Van Rensberg went in, followed by McBride. There was nothing to find, save one small item which the American discovered under the bed. It was a pad of compressed cotton wool. He sniffed it and handed it to the major, who did the same.

"Chloroform," said McBride. "He was knocked out in his sleep. Probably never felt a thing. Woke up bound hand and foot, locked in a cupboard. He's not lying, just bewildered and terrified."

"So what the hell was that for?"

"Didn't you mention dog tags on each man, checked when they went through the gate to work?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Ramon isn't wearing one. And it's not here on the floor. Somewhere in there I think you have a ringer."

It sank in. Van Rensberg strode back to the Land Rover in the square and unhooked the walkie-talkie on the dash.

"This is an emergency," he told the radio operator who answered. "Sound the "escaped prisoner" siren. Seal the gate of the mansion to everyone except me. Then use the PA to tell every guard on the estate, on or off duty, to report to me at the main gate."

Seconds later the long, wailing sound of the siren rolled over the peninsula. It was heard in field and barn, shed and orchard, kitchen garden and pigsty. Everyone out there raised their head from what they were doing to stare towards the main gate. When their undivided attention had been secured, the voice of the radio operator in the basement beneath the mansion was heard.

"All guards to main gate. Repeat, all guards to main gate. On the double."

There were over sixty on day shift and the rest on lay-over in their barracks. From the fields, riding quad-bikes from the farthest reaches, jogging on foot from the barracks a quarter of a mile from the main gate, they converged in response to the emergency.

Van Rensberg took his off-road back through the gate and waited for them, standing on the bonnet, bullhorn in hand.

"We don't have an escape," he told them when they stood in front of him. "We have the reverse. We have an intruder. Now, he's masquerading as a labourer. Same clothes, same sandals, same sombrero. He's even got a stolen dog tag. Day shift: round up and bring in every single labourer. No exceptions. Off-duty shift, search every barn, cow shed stable, workshop. Then seal and mount guard. Use your communicators to stay in touch with squad commanders. Junior leaders, stay in touch with me. Now get to it. Anyone in prisoner uniform seen running away, shoot on sight. Now go."

The hundred men began to fan out over the estate. They had the mid-section to cover: from the chain-link fence separating the village and airfield from the farmland, up to the mansion wall. A big territory; too big even for a hundred men. And it would take hours.

Van Rensberg had forgotten that McBride was leaving. He ignored the American, busy with his own planning. McBride sat and puzzled.

There was a notice by the church, right next to the door. It said: "Obsequias por nuestro herma no Pedro Hernandez. Once de la manana."

Even with his laboured Spanish, the CIA man could work out that meant: "Funeral service for our brother Pedro Hernandez. Eleven in the morning."

Did the manhunter not see it? Could he not work out the sense? It would be reasonable that the priest would not normally visit his vestry until Sunday. But today was different. At exactly ten to eleven he would open his vestry cupboard and see the prisoner.

Why not dump him somewhere else? Why not tape him to his own cot where no one would find him till sundown, or not even then?

He found the major speaking to the airfield mechanics.

"What's wrong with it? Sod the tail rotor. I need it back up in the air. Well, hurry it up." I

He flicked off his machine, listened to McBride, glared and snapped: "Your fellow countryman simply made a mistake, that is all. An expensive mistake. It's going to cost him his life."

An hour passed. Even without field glasses McBride could see the first columns of white-cotton-clad workers being force-marched back to the double-gates to their village. Beside the lines of men the uniformed guards were shouting them on. Midday. The heat was a hammer on the back of the head.

The milling crowd of men in front of the gates grew even bigger. The chitchat on the radio never stopped, as sector after sector of estate was cleared of workers, its buildings searched, declared clear, sealed and manned from inside.

At half past one the number-checking began. Van Rensberg insisted on the five checkers resuming their places behind the tables and passing the workers through, one after another, two hundred per column.

The men normally worked in the cool of the dawn or the evening. They were baking alive in the heat. Two or three peons fainted and were helped through by friends. Every tag was checked until its number matched one passed through that same morning. When the last white-bloused figure stumbled towards the village, rest, shade and water, the senior checker nodded.

"One missing," he called. Van Rensberg walked to his desk to peer over his shoulder.

"Number five-three-one-oh-eight."

"Name?"

"Ramon Gutierrez."

"Release the dogs."

Van Rensberg strolled across to McBride.

"Every single technician must by now be inside, locked in and guarded. The dogs will never touch my men, you know. They recognize the uniform. That leaves one man out there. A stranger, white cotton pants and floppy shirt, wrong smell. It's like a lunch bell to the Dobermanns. Up a tree? In a pond? They'll still find him. Then they will surround him and bay until the handlers come. I give this mercenary half an hour to get up a tree and surrender, or die."

The man he sought was in the middle of the estate, running lightly between rows of maize higher than his own head. He judged by the sun and crests of the sierra the direction of his run.

It had taken two hours of steady jogging earlier in the morning to bring him from his allotted work patch to the base of the mansion's protective wall. Not that the distance was a problem for a man accustomed to half a marathon, but he had to dodge the other work parties and the guards. He was still dodging.

He came to a track across the maize field, dropped to his belly and peered out. Down the track, two guards on a quad-bike roared away in the direction of the main gate. He waited till they were round a corner, then sprinted across the track and was lost in a peach orchard. His study of the layout of the estate from above had given him a route that would take him from where he had started near the mansion wall to where he wanted to be, without ever crossing a knee-high crop.

The equipment he had brought in that morning, either in his supposed lunch bag or inside the tight Y-front underpants he wore beneath the boxer shorts, was almost expended. The tough dive-watch was back on his wrist, his belt round his waist and his knife up against the small of the back, out of the way but easy to reach. The bandage, sticky plaster and the rest were in the flat pouch forming part of his belt.

He checked the peaks of the hills again, altered course by a few degrees and stopped, tilting his head until he heard the gurgle of the flowing water ahead. He came to the stream's edge, backtracked fifteen yards, then stripped to the buff, retaining only belt, knife and Y-fronts.

Across the crops, in the dull, numbing heat, he heard the first baying of the hounds pounding towards him. What little off-sea breeze there was would take his odour to the muzzles of the hounds in a few more minutes.

He worked carefully but fast, until he was satisfied, then tiptoed away towards the stream, slipped into the cool water and began to let the current take him, slanting across the estate towards the airfield and the cliff.

Despite his assertion that the killer dogs would never touch him, van Rensberg had wound all the windows up as he drove slowly down one of the main avenues from the gate into the heartland.

Behind him came the deputy dog-handler at the wheel of a truck with a completely enclosed rear made of steel-wire mesh. The senior handler was beside him in the Land Rover, head stuck out on the passenger side. It was he who heard the sudden change in pitch of his hounds' baying, from deep-throated bark to excited yelping.

"They have found something," he shouted.

Van Rensberg grinned.

"Where, man, where?"

"Over there."

McBride crouched in the rear, glad of the walls and windows of the Land Rover Defender. He did not like savage dogs, and for him twelve was a dozen too much.

The dogs had found something all right, but their yelping was more from pain than excitement. The South African came upon the entire pack after swerving round the corner of a peach orchard. They were milling around the centre of the track. A bundle of bloody clothes was the object of their attention.

"Get them into the truck," shouted van Rensberg. The senior handler got down, closed the door and whistled his pack to order. Without protest, still yelping, they bounded into the rear of the dog-lorry and were locked in. Only then did van Rensberg and McBride descend.

"So, this is where they caught him," said van Rensberg. The handler, still puzzled by the behaviour of his pack, scooped up the bloodstained cotton blouse and held it to his nose. Then he jerked his face away.

"Bloody man," he screamed. "Chilli powder, fine-ground green chilli powder. It's stiff with the stuff. No wonder the poor bastards are screaming. That's not excitement. They're in pain."

"When will their muzzles work again?"

"Well, not today, boss, maybe not tomorrow."

They found the cotton pants, also impregnated with chilli powder, and the straw hat, even the canvas espadrilles. But no body, no bones, nothing but the stains on the shirt.

"What did he do here?" van Rensberg asked the handler.