The Terrible Ones (16 page)

“Weill AH this talk, and all the time he has a treasure map,” Lucia said, giving it her penetrating stare.

“That’s not what it is,” said Nick, smoothing it out. “It’s probably even more important. I’d say it’s the blueprint for Operation Blast. Take a look and tell me what you think.”

Eight well-formed bodies crowded around him, and eight attractive faces gazed down at the map. The perfume they had dabbed behind their ears especially for Nick’s benefit enveloped him in a soft cloud of sweet femininity. Delectable! he thought, and inhaled luxuriantly. He felt like a sultan in his harem. Except that a sultan wouldn’t have been putting business before pleasure.

“But so many markings!” Paula said, surprised. “I thought that Blast would be something to do with a bomb project, perhaps a missile site. But why should there be so many? Look, six around Haiti and Santo Domingo. And one on Cuba. Even one on Puerto Rico. Are you sure this is for Operation Blast?”

Nick nodded. “I have the advantage of you. There was a letter from Fidel himself to our pal Tsing-fu. It didn’t give away nearly as much as I could have wished, but it did whine about the need for capital and it did mention the eight initial installations to be provided for Operation Blast. And it said that his base, the one in Cuba near Guantanamo here—” his finger jabbed the map, “—is ready. It didn’t say for what, but look where it is in relation to the others.” They looked as he traced his finger around the island coasts.

“See? It’s right opposite a corresponding base on Haiti. Between the two of them they would control the Windward Passage, not to mention the help they’d get from the other two down here. And look at the one on the easternmost point of Santo Domingo. Between that and its counterpart on Puerto Rico, the Mona Passage could be completely closed to U.S. ships. Even without the one on Puerto Rico they could manage, with the help of these back-up bases to the north and south.”

“But they can’t build bases on our soil!” Isabella said hotly, and her mane of red hair flicked against Nick’s face.

“Not yet, they can’t,” said Nick. “But they can when they take over, as I’m quite sure they mean to do. Haiti’s ripe for the picking; Domingo’s not so far behind. I think the base on Puerto Rico is a pipe dream, but even a Red can dream.”

“I don’t understand,” Luz said bluntly. “You mean this has nothing to do with bombs or test explosions or even ICBMS?”

“Ballistic missiles, yes, but short-range. And who needs bombs when you can cut the whole of South America off from the U.S. with a few short-range missiles, land-based planes and coastal batteries? Look, take over these islands, and you’ve got a fortified landbridge right across the Caribbean. U.S. ships couldn’t get through these passages without being blasted out of the water by nothing more sophisticated than shore-fire and a couple of antiquated planes. And that’s Blast. I think. But takeovers don’t just happen—they’re permitted, sometimes even encouraged. That’s one reason you have to get those tongues wagging loud and fast. The more that’s known about what’s going on, the better. And don’t let anyone kid himself that the Commies of either camp are out to help anyone but themselves.” He rolled up the map and plugged it back into the tube. “They’ll liberate you right into hell, and if there’s anything Trujillo forgot to do to torture you, they’ll make up for it.”

“And what does all this have to do with the treasure?” Lucia asked. “It’s not that I’m not suitably appalled by all you say, but why should they be indulging in a treasure hunt—
our
treasure hunt—when they have such elaborate plans to keep them busy?”

Nick pushed back his chair. “They have more elaborate plans than they have capital to spare. You can do a lot with a hundred million dollars of someone else’s money.” He rose and grinned cheerfully around the table. “I thank you all for your attention, and for being—all of you—so beautiful.”

“It’s so nice to have a man around the house,” Alva said dreamily.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Paula agreed. “It would have been even nicer if we’d had a whole platoon.”

He had a two-day growth of stubble on his face, ill-fitting, ill-matched clothes upon his back, and he tramped about the Dominican countryside looking like a peasant farmer hunting for a missing steer. Neither OAS troops nor the local populace gave him more than a passing glance.

But hidden in the farmer’s shapeless clothes were a Luger, a stiletto, and a replacement for Pierre, along with a few other devices appropiate less to a farmer than a man called Killmaster.

Nick tramped into his third valley of the day, thinking hard. Maybe he was looking too far afield, or not far enough. Maybe he was taking the words of the Twenty-third Psalm too literally, and it was only the first phrase he should be concentrating on. ‘Trujillo es mi pastor’ ‘Pastor.’ Shepherd.

Herdsman. A farm? There was the late dictator’s own farm,
Fundacion,
at San Cristobal, only eighteen miles from Domingo. He supposed he’d better take a look at it, but it seemed unlikely that it hadn’t already been searched to its foundation. Some other farm? Or was ‘pastor’ supposed to be interpreted as clergyman, or parish priest? Church . . . cathedral . . . mission house . . . but
Castle
? Monastery? Teresa had given him a list. He had shuffled into each one of them with a hard luck story and emerged none the wiser.

‘Green pastures,’ he thought again. ‘Still waters.’ He had seen plenty of both, but not together. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be together. Or maybe he was barking up the wrong tree entirely.

He tramped on determinedly. There was a little farming community in the valley below him, and the spire of a small church showed above the trees. It was to be his last stop of the day before heading back to meet Paula and the jeep, and he hoped fervently that it would pay off in some way. Even a pot shot from the rear as he asked his subtly probing questions would be a welcome sign that he was getting warm.

There were no shots; there was nothing. The little church was dated 1963 and its young pastor told Nick proudly that he and his parishioners had cleared the virgin ground themselves.

Nick drank the proffered glass of water, thanked him and turned away.

Another wasted day.

Dr. Tsing-fu cursed inside himself. Everywhere he went there was some damned Cuban hanging on his heels. He had been so careful with the business of disposing of those mysterious bodies, yet somehow something had leaked out. In any event, there had been a police investigation of his premises —fortunately after he and Mao-Pei had finished their gruesome task—and people on the streets were eyeing him oddly. He had closed the Chinese Dragon, “for repairs,” he told whoever asked him, and was devoting himself to business affairs until re-opening day.

He did not, of course, tell them that his business affairs consisted of tracking down ex-Trujillo supporters and going to work on them with bribery and blackmail. He was also prepared to torture and kill if that would help, and he rather thought it would. In fact, he had already killed one man who had threatened to complain to the authorities about his blackmail threat.

“Mao-Pei.” He leaned over and touched his driver on the shoulder. “Stop at the library. I wish to look at old newspaper files.”

Mao-Pei grunted, and then suddenly remembered his manners.

“Yes, sir,” he said smartly.

Tsing-fu leaned back and peered over his shoulder. Damn! The motorcycle was still following them.

He glowered and took out a cigarillo. The wildest stories were going around town, and he knew there was no truth to half of them. But he was damned sure that it
was
true that the Cubans were out to bitch up his carefully laid plans. Everything pointed to it, especially this never-ending tailing. Yet he could not understand how the rumors had started, who had dumped the Cuban bodies on him, who had taken the blueprint for Operation Blast. Not the Cubans, surely. They had their own copy. There was a third party in this thing somewhere.

The Terrible Ones. Who in the name of all the Chinese devils were they?

Whoever they were he would beat them at their game. He had lost a few men, including that abominably stupid bodyguard-cook, but he still had a squad of men who were trained in search and interrogation techniques. They were deployed all over town at this very moment, and he had no doubt that there were screams of agony coming out of several throats. If there was the slightest chance that they knew someone who knew someone who knew something, then they were grist for his torture mill.

He smiled grimly and puffed his cigarillo. When the hunt was over there’d be some changes made in Operation Blast.

Damn those Cubans and their pockmarked, treacherous hides! He was getting on very well in spite of them.

His evil mood switched suddenly to chuckling optimism. He
was
getting on well. His inquiries were yielding fruit. Success was in his grasp.

On the Treasure Trail

“Maybe we’d have done better to follow Tsing-fu ourselves,” Nick growled.

It was conference time in the shuttered house and his spirits were low. Tsing-fu had been seen here, there, and everywhere, and then he had suddenly disappeared. It seemed that the whispering campaign had been so successful that the OAS authorities had been concerned enough to investigate. They had rounded up a number of Cubans, but the Chinese had flown the coop.

“Impossible,” Lucia said firmly. “We always kept our eyes open for him, of course, but with the Cubans always after him we would have made a veritable procession if we had tried it too. It was a good idea of yours to stir up trouble between them, but it had a lashback.”

“Backlash,” Nick corrected gloomily. “I wonder what he found out in the library?”

“You would do better to wonder what Teresa found out,” said Lucia, “and the rest of us.”

“I do wonder,” Nick said, gazing at her. It struck him that there was an air of suppressed excitement about her—about all the women—that he hadn’t noticed before. “What did you all find out?”

Even Paula was looking a little smug, he thought.

“You first, Teresa,” she said briskly.

Teresa was all business. “Late this afternoon I found a reference in an obscure monograph,” she said, “to a group of Benedictine monks living in a quiet valley—unnamed, unfortunately. Apparently they took some sort of vow of secrecy many years ago and seldom show themselves. But it is known that they wear black from head to foot, black cowls with slits for eyes and rough black robes reaching to their feet. It is also said that their monastery is castle-like in its appearance, although again there is no first-hand description of it. I realize this doesn’t help us much. But what you may find interesting is that they are known as the Black Cowls. Or, more shortly, as the Blacks.”

“The Blacks!” Nick slammed the flat of his hand onto the tabletop. His eyes gleamed with interest. “But you have no idea where their monastery might be?”

Teresa shook her head. “The reference only says that it is ‘somewhere near Santo Domingo.’ Obviously it is a very secluded valley, or we would have heard of it before. And you would surely have found it. But now at least we have some basis for further inquiry. There must be people in the countryside who have heard of the black-cowled monks, possibly even seen them.”

Nick nodded. “How about people right here in town? Scholars, perhaps. Theologians. Museum curator, local priests, even the bishop. At least we know now that we’re looking for a monastery. Don’t we? Yes, I guess we do. For a while there I was beginning to think we ought to be looking for a speciality restaurant run by three fellows named Black who used to be part of Trujiilo’s flock. But monks! It figures, ties in with everything. Now all we have to do is find that valley.”

“It must be quite a place, that valley,” Paula said thoughtfully, “to have a castle tucked away so neatly that no one seems to have heard of it. It isn’t easy to hide a castle, or even a monastery. You really think we’re on the right track?”

“We have to be,” Nick said firmly. “Now we know the place exists, right? And we know that these monks were a secretive lot, so somehow they must have found a way to conceal their castle or monastery or whatever it is. We just have to keep plugging away with the questions and the search. Anybody have anything else to contribute?”

“Yes,” said Paula. “Isabella?”

Isabella pushed a little pile of papers across the table toward Nick.

“Take a look,” she said. “We can’t make head or tail of it, but there’s some kind of pattern there. We’ve been through ninety-one homes and in six of them we found—well, you’ll see what we found. But some of the same words and symbols appear on each of them.”

Nick reached for the little pile and sorted through it. A diary, with several pages marked. A laundry list with scribblings on the back. A pocket calendar with notations against several of the dates. A sheet of lined paper covered with a list of words that seemed to have no meaning. A loose leaf from a notebook with some of the same words and numbers next to them. The flyleaf of a book, covered with a scrawl of letters and symbols.

“Meeting places,” he said slowly. “With dates and times attached, I’ll bet. But coded.”

“Right,” said Paula. “How are you at breaking codes?”

“Not bad,” Nick said cheerfully. “Not bad at all.” He spread the papers out in front of him and got to work.

Killmaster was an expert in breaking codes. Dr. Tsing-fu Shu of Chinese Intelligence was an expert in breaking people. He had not done very well with Evita Messina but now he was making up for it. He missed Tom Kee, and he missed Shang, but he had other helpers. One of them was presently engaged in emasculating a man called Garcia-Galindez, and another was stifling the screams of agony.

“You see how useless it is to lie,” Tsing-fu said placidly, tapping his cigarillo ashes on Garcia’s rug. “We know who you are. A good friend of yours told us where to find you. He was also good enough to inform us that you had one of the clues. Tch, he is not very well these days, poor fellow. It took him too long to tell us.” He smiled pleasantly. “But he did tell us in the end. And you will also tell us what we want to know. Tighten the wires. Chin You. Do not be gentle with him.”