May There Be a Road (Ss) (2001) (23 page)

"Sorry gentlemen," Mayo repeated. "That plane is one of my most prized possessions."

"You'd better take what you can get," Busch said harshly, "when you can get it."

Ponga Jim measured the German. "I don't like threats, friend. Now, if you'll excuse me--"

Valdes halted him. "Think it over, Captain," he suggested. "We can turn a lot of business your way. Especially," he added meaningfully, "after the war."

Ponga Jim's fists balled in his coat pocket. "I'll take my chances, Valdes," he said coldly. "I don't like the odor of your friends."

Seorita Montoya was dancing. For once Mayo would have liked to cut in. But it was a practice he had never cared for, and everywhere, but in the United States, was considered grossly impolite.

He had taken but a few steps when she was beside him. "Have you forgotten our dance, Captain?"

Ponga Jim looked at her and caught his breath.

She was radiantly beautiful. Too beautiful, he thought, to believe. He remembered that again, a moment later.

"I hope you made the deal, Captain," she said, "it would be wise."

"Why?" Over his shoulder he saw Von Hardt talking to Don Pedro. The big Spanish-German was a powerful man physically with a domineering manner thinly veiled by a recent layer of polish.

"Because I like you, Captain," she said simply, "and these are dangerous times."

His eyes narrowed. Another threat? Or a warning? "Think nothing of it," he said, smiling again.

"All times are dangerous in my business. I play my cards as they fall, the way I want to play them. I'll make my own rules and abide by the consequences."

He knew Busch, at least, was a full-fledged Nazi. Von Hardt probably was. Scanning the room, Mayo noticed at least a dozen others with a pronounced military bearing.

Don Ricardo, he knew, was hand in glove with the Falange. Just before the war, on a visit to Spain, the man had spent much time with Suner, the pro-Nazi foreign minister. If ever a room was filled with Nazi sympathizers, this was it.

He was startled from his meditations by a sudden stiffening of Carisa's body under his hand. Her eyes were over his shoulder, and turning, he glanced toward the French doors.

A slender, broad-shouldered man stood there alone. He was undeniably handsome, but was only a trifle over five feet tall. One hand touched the neatly waxed mustache, and the other was in his coat pocket. He surveyed the room with all the sangfroid of a ringmaster watching a group of trained horses perform.

A subtle change had come over the guests. Men had stopped talking. Faces had stiffened. Mayo glanced at Norden and saw the multimillionaire's face slowly change from rage to a cold, ugly triumph. All evening he had felt the charged atmosphere of danger at Castillo Norden. Now for the first time, it had centered on one object. However, the small man in the door was undisturbed.

Then Mayo saw something else. A dark form flitted past the French doors behind the man and faded into the shadows beside the window. Then another.

Two more men, hard-looking customers in evening clothes, were walking toward the window, talking quietly. Another man left his partner and lit a cigarette.

They were coming, closing in. Slowly, casually, as in a well-rehearsed play. And the little man kept watching the room with an air of blase indifference.

Carisa's face was deathly pale. "Please!" she whispered. "Let's go to the conservatory. I feel faint."

He was fed up with wondering who was on what side and pretending that he had an open, cosmopolita. attitude about such things. He had been invited here so that he could be conned into selling his aircraft by a bunch of Nazis and he was expected to politely not notice.

"Sorry right-brace was he said. "You go. I want to talk to that man." He was startled by the fear in her eyes. "No!" she whispered. "You mustn't.

There's going to be trouble."

He laughed at her. "Of course," he said, "that's why I'm going."

Casually, he walked over to the man standing by the windows. The musicians were playing another piece now, a louder one.

"Hi, buddy" Mayo said softly. "I don't know who you are, but you're right behind the eight ball.

There are four or five men on the terrace and more here in the room."

The smile revealed amazingly white teeth. "Of course." The little man bowed slightly. "They do not like me here. I am Juan Peligro. Your name?"

"Mayo. Jim Mayo."

Peligro's eyebrows lifted. "So?" He looked at Ponga Jim thoughtfully. "I have heard of you, Captain. Have they made an offer for your amphibian yet?"

Ponga Jim glanced at Peligro quickly.

"How did you know?"

"One learns much. They need planes, these men."

A burly man with a square, brutal face suddenly stood beside Mayo. "Captain Mayo?

Don Ricardo wishes to speak with you."

"Why not let him come here?" Ponga Jim said.

"I like it in this room."

The man's face darkened. "You'd better go," he insisted. "This man does not belong here. He is going to be dealt with."

Ponga Jim grinned suddenly. He felt amazingly good. "I like him," he said. "I like this guy. You deal with him, you deal with me."

The man hesitated. Obviously, they wanted no outward disturbance. "We don't want any trouble," the man said, "you--"

His right hand dropped to his pocket too slowly.

Ponga Jim's left hand closed on his wrist, and his right moved also, in the form of a fist. That punch struck the man in the solar plexus and knocked every bit of wind out of him.

As he started to fall, Ponga Jim caught him by the shoulders and spun him around. Using the man as a shield, he started for the door. "Let's go," he said over his shoulder.

Don Pedro Norden and Dr. Von Hardt were standing at the door. Von Hardt's expression was stiff. Norden was purple with rage. "You fool," he snarled angrily. "I'll have you bull whipped "Try it," Ponga Jim said, smiling.

At the outer door, the man Mayo was holding made a sudden lunge. Instantly, Mayo pushed him hard between the shoulders. As the man fell down the steps, the two made a dash into the shrubbery beyond the drive.

Running swiftly across the grass, Peligro spoke to Ponga Jim. "Gracias, amigo. But you make trouble for yourself."

"What would I do? That gang was tough."

Behind them Mayo heard running feet. Somewhere a motor roared into life, then all was still. But he was under no illusions. The pursuit would be swift, efficient, and relentless. Worst of all, it was more than ten miles to Fortaleza.

They had started across another curve of the drive when a car rounded a bend and they were caught dead in the headlights. Before they could get off the drive, the car swept alongside.

"Quickly!" It was Carisa Montoya at the wheel, and Ponga Jim did not hesitate.

Peligro was in beside them and the car rolling almost as soon as she had spoken.

Miraculously, the gate was unguarded. The broad highway to the port lay open before them. Yet before they had been driving more than two minutes, Carisa slowed and sent the big car into a side road that led off down a steep grade through clumps of trees.

She slowed down. The car purred along almost silently. Huge boulders loomed up and were passed. Trees cast weird shadows over the road. Then they turned again and swung in a narrow semicircle back toward the hacienda.

"The highway is a trap," Carisa explained swiftly. "Don Pedro has five guards between the Castillo Norden and Fortaleza. No one can approach his place without permission."

"You'd better drop us and get back," Mayo warned. "This is all right for us, but for you it might be bad."

"Yes, please," Peligro said suddenly.

"Let us out. The stable road will take you back without their knowledge. Then instantly to bed. We can go on from here."

The car slid soundlessly away. Ponga Jim Mayo looked after her. "That woman's got nerve," he said. "But not the best of friends."

Peligro was already moving, and before they had gone a hundred yards, Mayo knew that he was not walking blind. The little knew where he man was going.

"They will scour the country," Peligro said.

"Don Pedro will be angry that I came here tonight."

"Will the senorita be able to get back all right?"

Mayo asked.

Peligro shrugged. "She? But of course. The stable road, it is most safe. The peons are there, but then, they see what they wish to see."

"Would Norden kill a woman?"

Peligro chuckled without humor. "He would kill anyone. He lives for power, that man."

"Is he a Nazi? Busch looked it."

"Si, Busch was a storm trooper. Von Hardt is also a Nazi. But Don Pedro Norden? He is a Nordenista, amigo, and that is all. He uses the Nazis as they use him."

"What about you?"

"I?" Peligro chuckled. "Let us say I love what Don Pedro hates. Perhaps that is sufficient. But then, I am a Colombian."

"The fifth column is strong in Colombia."

Mayo studied the figure ahead of him.

"Naturalmente. Everywhere. But my country could never be a Nazi domain. There are more book shops in Bogoti than cafes. Think of that, amigo.

Men who read are not Nazis."

Peligro stopped suddenly, then deliberately pushed through a thick wall of brush beside the path. After a few minutes, they stood in a small clearing. Under the arching branches was an autogyro, the outline of its rotating wing lost in the shadows.

Ponga Jim looked at the Colombian with respect. "Well, I'm stumped," he said. "You think of everything, don't you?"

Juan Peligro winked. "One does or one dies, my friend."

Chapter
2

It was still dark when Ponga Jim Mayo came alongside the ship. Only a dim anchor light forward, and the faint glow over the accommodation ladder.

He paid the boatman and watched him start for the Custom House Pier. For some reason, he felt uneasy.

He glanced forward at the bulking stern of the freighter that lay a ship's length beyond the Semiramis. She was a Norwegian ship, the Nissengate.

Mayo had mounted the ladder and was just stepping to the deck when a dark figure hurled itself from the blackness beyond the light. A shoulder struck him a terrific blow in the chest, and he was knocked off balance into the hand-line.

It caught him just at the hips, and overbalanced, he fell headfirst into the sea. He hit the water unhurt and went down, deep, deeper. He caught himself and struck out for the surface.

A dark body swirled by him, and a knife slashed. Avoiding it, he shot through the surface, and an instant later his attacker broke water not six feet away. Ponga Jim dived and grabbed the man's wrist, wrenching the knife from his grasp. Then closing with him, Mayo began to smash powerful blows into his body.

The man sagged suddenly. All the breath had been knocked from his body. The platform of the accommodation ladder seemed only a few feet away. Ponga Jim struck out, reached it, and crawled up. He dragged his prisoner with him.

He lay still, getting his wind. Then he got up and pushed the stumbling man ahead of him up the ladder.

"What iss?" A big man with a childlike pink face stepped out of the dark.

Instantly, Ponga Jim knew his mistake.

Fighting and swimming, they had worked their way forward until alongside the Norwegian ship, boarding it by mistake. Glancing back toward the other ship, he could see they had swung nearer on the tide.

"Sorry," Mayo said. "This fellow jumped me as I came aboard my ship. I'll call a boat and we'll go back."

The seaman stared at him warily. He was carrying a short club and a gun. He looked like a tough customer. "How I know dat's true?"

The man who had attacked Ponga Jim came to life. "It's a lie," he burst out. "He attacked me."

"Aboard my own ship?" Mayo laughed.

"Hardly." He swung the man into the light. He was short and thick, almost black. There was an ugly scar over one eye, another on his cheek. He glared sullenly at Mayo, then with a jerk, broke free.

Ponga Jim grabbed at him, but the watchman stepped between. "How do I know yet which iss lyin'?" he demanded.

"Ask the men aboard my ship." Ponga Jim gestured aft. "The Semiramis."

The man peered at him. "Dot iss not der Semiramis. I heifer see no ship by dot name.

Dot iss der Chittagong, of Calcutta."

"What?" Mayo stared aft. The dark loom of the ship was unfamiliar. Her bridge was too high, and there were three lifeboats along the port side of her boat deck, not two as on the Semiramis.

"You come aboard der wrong ship, mister," the seaman told him. "I t'ink you better go ashore now."

The man with the scarred face leered at him, his yellowish eyes triumphant. Ponga Jim looked from one to the other, but their expressions did not change. Dripping with water, he turned and went down the gangway.