War From The Clouds (12 page)

Once again, my efforts to head off trouble had only fueled the fires of war and made my own task more difficult. Perhaps I'm a firetender by nature.

While I was resting at my last point, thirty feet above the trail, I heard a terrible hubub below and looked down to see Colonel Vasco and a whole company of Marines scrambling up the trail. The final passage to the trail was a gradual slope. I wouldn't have to jump it. If it weren't for the metal slivers and the Marines coming up the trail, I could slide down it and run like hell for a time. Eventually, though, I knew I would have to come face to face with the Marines. Unless I wanted to take an even bigger chance with the metal scraps and hotfoot it down the mountain slope to the west.

I crammed myself back against the wall at the back of my last ledge and let the Marines go streaming past below. Soon, I knew, they would have the monks lower the basket, put an armed Marine in it and winch him up to the ledge where I'd gotten off. At that time, the search would fan out and they'd find me. There were more than a hundred of them up on the trail now, and I couldn't be more than two hundred yards from the station at the gap in the trail.

I remained hidden, not even watching the Marines at their latest activity. After ten minutes, I heard one of them trudging back down the trail, apparently going after climbing equipment to supplement the winch. I waited another five minutes, surveyed the slope beneath me for metal scraps and then went over.

Five metal scraps caught in the wrappings, but I plucked them out and sent them flying over the trail. I reached the trail, undetected I was sure, and began running down toward the base camp. It had taken us two hours of climbing to reach this point; I figured I could run back down it in about fifteen minutes. I figured wrong.

As I made a turn around the side of the mountain, I came face to face with Col. Ramon Vasco. He was leaning against the mountain, smoking a cigarette. The cigarette dangled untended between his heavy lips. Across his middle, pointing directly at me, was a loaded Volska automatic rifle.

"We meet again, Senor Carter," he said, spitting out the words and smiling with a ruthlessness that made my bowels churn. "This time, I know who you are. You can't fool me with stories about being on special assignment for Captain Rodrigues. And this time, you will not squirrel away into thin air."

"It would seem that way," I said, retaining my outward glibness. Inside, I was in riot, trying to decide which of my weapons to go for first. It had to be Wilhelmina, the luger. I was too far away to be effective with Hugo, and poor old Pierre would be too slow for his quick trigger-finger. "What's keeping you? Why don't you shoot?"

His smile broadened and became even more ruthless looking, if possible.

"Patience, Mr. Carter," he said. "You've exhibited a great deal of it in infiltrating my ranks and then concealing yourself among these humble men of God. I will be the one to kill you, make no mistake about that. First, I wish to ask you a few questions."

"Go ahead." I was inching forward, hoping he wouldn't notice but knowing he would. He did.

"Don't move any farther," he snapped, "or we forget the questions and toss your body over the side of the mountain. When you are questioned, it will be by experts. Take my word for it, Mr. Carter. When they are finished with you, we will know everything you know, and more. You will talk as you have never talked before."

"You have ways," I said, using the old cliché in a mocking manner.

"Many, many ways. Now, move to the outer edge of the trail and pass by me. We will go down to the base camp now."

"How did you know I wasn't still up on that ledge?" I asked as we trudged along single file down the trail.

"I didn't. But I have witnessed your miracles before, Senor Carter. This time, I decided to detach myself from the scene and hope that the thin air you disappeared into would be occupied by me. And it was, much to your misfortune."

At a turn in the trail, I saw a squad of Marines far ahead. We would catch up to them in a matter of seconds. Thirty or forty at the most. It would surely be all over for me then. I might have a chance against one armed man, but not a squad of them. I stumbled and stopped. Colonel Vasco stopped behind me.

"What is it? Why do you stop?"

I turned and showed him the blood on my chest. It was Nuyan's blood, but the colonel didn't know it. I leaned against the side of the mountain and let my body sag as though weak. I put my hand to my face and bent over.

"A piece of metal," I said, gasping out the words for effect. "When I dropped down on a ledge up there, a piece of metal cut through my clothes. I feel sick. Weak."

The last words had come slowly, far apart, in a slurred voice. I heard the colonel swear and knew that he was certain the poisoned metal would cheat him out of his brutal interrogation and final disposition of my body. He wanted me for his own, wanted the pleasure of seeing me tortured, the pleasure of pulling the trigger to blast the last remnants of life from my body.

I sagged further and reached out my hand, as though seeking relief from my building agonies.

"Son of a bitch," he grumbled, as he moved forward to take my outstretched hand. "You can't die here. You…"

Hugo flashed in the air and caught the colonel in the throat. His automatic rifle plummeted to the ground and he let out a cry that could have been heard all the way to Miami. When I had wrapped my right hand, I had kept the stiletto clutched in my fingers. But my aim hadn't been as accurate as it should. I withdrew the weapon and plunged it in again, this time in his chest, hoping to pierce his heart.

He fell, slowly, just as the squad of Marines down the trail broke into a run. They had seen me attack the colonel. Two of them had veered off to one side and were on their knees, taking aim to kill the colonel's attacker.

I had no choice, I leaped over the side of the trail and slid on my belly down into the jungle thicket, knowing that it was full of poison-coated metal.

Bullets swept the hillside like a wave of water before a high wind. I leaped to my wrapped feet and made a twisting, turning dash down the mountain. Although I was out of sight from the Marine squad above, their weapons were sweeping the underbrush that was no protection from steel-jacketed bullets.

Small trees, limbs and bushes all around me were cracking and flashing from the rain of bullets. Clusters of leaves literally exploded in my face. I could see the bits of metal that obviously had been dropped on the mountainside by an aircraft, and knew that I was stepping on those bits as I ran helter-skelter down through the thickening jungle. I could only hope that the wrappings would hold out, would absorb the penetrating shards.

Ironically, it was the existence of the poisoned metal bits that enabled me to get away from the squad of Marines on the trail above. They didn't have their lives at stake, weren't as desperate as I was, so they had no intentions of following me into that sea of death and danger. I zigzagged across the downward slope, found an old Indian trail and made a beeline straight to the valley floor.

When I was out of the area that had been seeded with the poisoned metal, I found a stream and sat down to rest. The wound in my side had come open during the flight and the pain of it was growing unbearable. There was also something in the wrapping on my right foot, a pebble perhaps that was pressing against the sole of my foot.

I washed the jungle dirt from my face and took off the filthy bindings. I checked the bandage over my side wound, found it soaked in blood, but didn't dare remove it. Pico's healing herbs and mosses were still there, doing their magic.

When I had finished washing, I lay on the bank to rest and let my side stop bleeding. I hadn't found a pebble in the wrapping on my right foot, but I soon forgot about that. After resting, I got up and continued on down the Indian path until it faded into jungle. I picked lines of least resistance and, following the sun which I could see at uneven intervals, made my way ever westward toward Ninca lands. With luck, I would be there by dusk. Perhaps now I'd be able to convince Chief Botussin that he'd better lend help with his full complement of warriors. We could at least get to the capital, warn of the coming revolution, and stir up enough action among rebels and government forces there to put a crimp in Don Carlos Italla's plans. If we did our work well, his signal from the cloud-wreathed summit of Alto Arete might not have its full sting; the revolution might fail.

It was a slim hope, but my only one right then. I had thought of going back up to where I had stashed my radio and remaining supplies, where I could hopefully impress on David Hawk, or others at AXE that, unless they came through with support, two more third world nations would slip out of our grasp to the tune of a great deal of bloodshed. Recalling my last effort, I gave up on the idea. It would take too many precious hours and, I was convinced, would prove fruitless.

I hadn't gone a mile through the jungle, though, when I began to feel a throbbing in my right foot. I ignored it for a time, but stopped when I came to the stream where Elicia had taken her bath and had sung her sweet song. I sat on the bank and twisted my foot around to look at the bottom. It was filthy from black jungle dirt, so I dipped it into the stream to wash it off.

The sting of the water was like a hot poker on my foot. I pulled my foot up again and saw the tiny pinprick in the soft part of my arch. The redness and the swelling told me the worst. There had been no pebble in that wrapping.

There had been a piece of the tainted steel, and it had punctured my skin.

I nearly panicked then, knowing from what I'd been told that I probably had little time to live. First, I would grow woozy and weak, then I would become faint, finally going into delerium, then coma, then death.

With all the strength I had, I pulled the foot to my mouth and began to suck blood from the pinprick wound. Not much came out, but I spat it into the stream. An idea hit and I used Hugo to cut an X-mark through the wound. Blood flowed copiously and I sucked and spat until I began to feel nausea. It wasn't enough. The poison had already started working its way up my leg.

The second idea hit and, even though I didn't hold out much hope for it, it was certainly worth a try. I removed the bandage from my side and scooped out a portion of the now putrid poultice Pico had applied to my bullet wound.

Working patiently and diligently in spite of growing panic, I worked the grisly concoction of moss and herbs deep into the wound on my foot. I wrapped it with my handkerchief, rested for another fifteen minutes, then tested it out. The foot hurt like hell when I stood on it, but I no longer felt wooziness. I knew that, for the poultice to work — if it had any power left — I would have to rest there several hours and let its healing powers seep into my blood along with the poison, but there was no time for that. I had to find Botussin and convince him of the need for hasty action, for a small-scale war, if possible.

The more I walked, the greater the foot hurt. By the time I was within sight of Ninca lands, I was more than exhausted. My side wound was bleeding profusely and the poison had worked its way to my hips. I felt a kind of paralysis setting in there. But I plugged along, stumbling, falling; passing out for short stretches. At times, my mind drifted and I could see myself plunging headlong down another ravine. This time, I knew, Pico wouldn't be there to rescue me. I was miles from his hermitage up on the side of the mountain.

It was late afternoon when I found the final trail leading to Botussin's camp. In just over twenty four hours, at dusk tomorrow, Don Carlos Italla would walk to the edge of his lair in the clouds and send the signal to start the revolution. There was no doubt in my mind that he'd gain the full support of Intenday and his followers from Apalca.

I literally crawled into the Ninca encampment and, just before passing out, saw Purano and two of his warriors coming toward me. The two warriors had spears in their hands and I thought then that something had gone wrong and they were now ready to turn me over to the spear chuckers.

At that point, I really didn't give a damn. In fact, I would welcome the sweet rest that would come from death by any means.

It was dark when I awoke in the now familiar hut. I opened my eyes and saw one lighted torch on the opposite wall. I swiveled my eyes to my right and there was Elicia, sitting cross-legged beside me, a damp cloth in her hands. She had been applying the cloth to my fevered brow. Near her stood Antonio and Purano, watching anxiously to see if I would speak or merely give out a death rattle.

But Pico's poultice had done its job, in spite of my failure to cooperate with its healing powers. I felt a bit stronger, but still was unable to rise on my own. Antonio and Purano, against Elicia's wishes, helped me to a sitting position. Botussin entered then and sat on his familiar stool.

With great effort, I told of what had happened to me since leaving the Ninca lands in the middle of last night. When I was finished, they were all convinced that we had lost. There was no way to penetrate Don Carlos Italla's fortress, no way to halt the revolution that would come at dusk tomorrow, about twenty hours away. Antonio had news that had excited them all during the day, but now he wasn't certain.

"I understand some of the symbols on the map," he said, "but most are so faint that none of us could read them. With Purano's help, and a few of his warriors, we made it to the general vicinity of the cave's entrance, but it could be in one of several hollows on the side of the mountain. And there are guerillas and Cuban Marines scouting that area. We were nearly discovered a half-dozen times, and escaped just in time. I'm afraid…"

He sounded so defeated, so desolate. I had no ideas to cheer him, so I said nothing, unwilling to let them hear the note of defeatism in my own voice. I lay back down, wanting sleep and rest, but afraid to waste anymore time.