War From The Clouds (2 page)

Elicia had lost her virginity three months ago when the Cuban Marines arrived. She had lost it the same way she was about to lose her free will tonight. A Marine had stopped by on his way between the village and the garrison, after having seen the girl riding her horse in the fields. Drunk, he had decided to test the wares, had found them suitable and had brazenly told his fellows.

For three months, Elicia had had callers almost nightly. Even though her parents knew the routine and never fought, the routine was always the same. Elicia screamed when a Marine appeared, the Marine tied up the old folks and ripped the girl's clothing from her body.

After three months, she still fought. Her hatreds were gestating like laboratory cultures.

Why didn't the old man get a gun and shoot the next bastard who came to entertain his daughter? Threats, that's why. A roll in the sack would be the least the girl could expect if the old man fought back.

The visits may not have been under the sanction of Don Carlos Italla, but he had been told of them, had said nothing. He needed the Cuban Marines; he didn't need that old farm couple and their lovely daughter.

"But why is Don Carlos continuing his battle when both governments want peace?" I asked the old man. I had asked Hawk and I had even asked the President that same question. Their answers had been couched in protocol, political guessing, rumor; much flim-flam. The old man's answer was the only true answer.

"Because he is a man of Satan, not a man of God."

What wasn't true, I hoped, was the old man's description of Don Carlos Italla. A giant of seven feet, a mountainous specimen of three hundred pounds, eyes like ingots of burning phosphorous, hands that could shred stainless steel slabs. A fury of a monster with a booming voice like the rumble of thunder.

Obviously, Don Carlos Italla was the local dragon, a creature to rival Tolkien's Smaug, hidden away on his evil mountaintop where no woman had ever gone, where Satan was welcome, where wars were planned, but never fought, in clouds.

Well, it was time for a few changes.

If Don Carlos would not come from his cloudy retreat to wage war with me, I would take war to him. My brand of war, on my terms.

Wizards and giants and men of Satan have always given me a royal pain in the ass.

Elicia had gone into shock after the little scrap between me and her would-be lover. Her mother bathed her, bundled her up and sat in the back bedroom rocking her on her lap, singing in a low, mellow voice of lost Spanish princes and faraway castles. The proper nursing for children. And she was a child, not equipped mentally or physically for the kind of abuse that had come to her from across the Caribbean.

Anger was building in me with every word the old farmer spoke. And the filthy soldier sat listening to those words, still holding his crotch. I couldn't be cruel enough to tie his hands behind him, but they were tied nonetheless. After listening to the old man, and learning also that this was the third visit for this bastard, I wished I had cut off his hands altogether.

"All right, up," I said, looming above him.

"No comprendo,"
he said, looking up with what I interpreted as disdain.

Good, you son of a bitch, keep it up. I'm only pissed off right now, you just wait until I get mad.

"You understand," I said.

He stood, but I had made a rising gesture with my hands as I talked, so it could have been from that. Maybe he didn't speak English. I knew that my Spanish wasn't adequate for the details I needed from this jocko. In time.

Jorge Melina gave me a lantern to find our way down to the barn. I didn't want him or his wife to see what was to happen next. It's hardly something you'd take to school for show-and-tell day.

The horse, whose name I learned was Pistola, glared at us through huge, frightened eyes as we stumbled into the ramshackle barn. I walked with hard strides, barely containing my anger. I wanted to hit. I mean, really
hit.
My intentions must have been obvious to my Marine friend, because as soon as we hit the barn he began to sing.

The Marine's name was Luis Pequeno and it was not a pleasure killing him. Killing is never a pleasure, except for the hopelessly insane, even under extreme conditions when your life is threatened. I have never killed without remorse; I hope to God I never do.

What bothered me most was that my life was in no immediate danger from Sgt. Luis Pequeno. But, if I let him live, he would most certainly make his way to his unit and report my activities and purposes in the little island country. At that point, my life wouldn't be worth the sweat off Pistola's shanks.

What Luis Pequeno had told me convinced me of that.

The Cuban contingent, he said, was headed by Col. Ramon Vasco, a man who was every bit as much a maniac as Don Carlos Italla. Colonel Vasco had grown up in New York City, returning to Cuba to join Fidel Castro's revolutionaries in 1957. His experiences in the Cuban "minority sector" of Gotham had built in him a crushing hatred of Americans.

"He has told us repeatedly," Luis said when I had untied him, "that if we find any Americans interfering with our great cause here in Nicarxa we are to disembowel them and feed them to the pigs."

Even worse than Colonel Vasco's grimly-dedicated hatred of Americans were the solid military defenses he had arranged for the protection of Don Carlos and his fellow monks.

Alto Arete, Luis said, spilling his guts the way he had been instructed to spill American guts, was truly impregnable. The trail up the side of Mt. Toro was accessible only by ropes controlled from above. The gaps in the trail were the colonel's idea. He had dynamited them out to create immense chasms, and had established rescue stations above the points where the trail had been blown away.

From above, armed soldiers would ascertain if the traveler was welcome. If so, they would lower ropes and raise the visitor to the next level in the trail. If not, they would drop boulders on the poor sap. And the soldiers were so well hidden in their outposts above the trail that no firepower from below could unseat them.

Even before a traveler could start up the trail, he had to pass through a thousand Cuban Marines bivouacked in a base camp at the foot of Mount Toro. Security was tight here and, so far, no unwelcome visitor had made it past the Marines. Once, though, Luis told me, the soldiers at the first outpost — the first break in the trail — had mistaken a party of Nicarxan diplomats for the enemy and had crushed them all with boulders, then had emptied their Russian XZ47's into their wrinkled corpses.

If an unwanted visitor or enemy should penetrate the Marines and somehow make his way around the breaks in the trail, through bits of sharp metal impregnated with curare, that visitor would be greeted near the top of Alto Arete by a minefield. If he got through that in one piece, he would encounter a high metal fence charged with ten thousand volts of electricity. If, by some insane and perverse twist of reality, he should get over that fence without being fried to a crisp, he would be met by a hundred armed monks and vicious guard dogs infected with rabies.

Attack from the air was equally futile, even if I had access to a fleet of bombers or fighter planes. Computer-controlled antiaircraft guns rimmed the boundaries of Alto Arete. They had already destroyed the total air force of resisting guerillas and had shot down a number of private planes that had ventured near the sacred mountain column.

As if all that news wasn't depressing enough, Sergeant Pequeno went on to say that Don Carlos had plans to start a bloody revolution in just six days. The crazy monk, who was in constant radio contact with his agents in the capital, had arranged to have a group of Apalcan allies visit him on the mountaintop in a few days. If he gained their full support for his revolutionary ideals, he would signal the start of the war. His own guerillas, with the help of the Cubans, would annihilate all government resistance and would even kill the peace commission members already trying to work out a treaty between the two island countries.

After all the dust had cleared, Luis said, Don Carlos would be the undisputed chieftain of both island nations and would be surrounded only by fanatic believers. Together, under the leadership and guidance of these crackpots, Nicarxa and Apalca would commence a reign of terror, a crusade of conquests that could quite quickly lead the world into its third major conflict.

As far as I knew — and my information came directly from the President of the United States — I was the only American in Nicarxa. And I knew also that I was the only man outside of Don Carlos Italla's gaggle of crackpots who knew of his plans. In short, N3, Killmaster for AXE, was the only man who could stop Don Carlos. Unfortunately, I couldn't do it with the plans and weapons at my disposal. And I certainly couldn't do it if Sgt. Luis Pequeno walked free and told what he knew of me. I already had been exposed to his penchant for singing like a bird of everything he knew.

"Turn around, sergeant," I had said when Luis had finished his incredible tale. "Open the door to the horse's stall and go inside. I'm going to tie you securely and take your uniform. I have plans for it. You'll be safe here. Even the family you terrorized will feed you and bring you water."

There was a smile on the sergeant's face as he entered the stall. Pistola moved aside, her eyes glinting in the lantern light, afraid of this new incursion of her privacy. Luis was convinced of my softness, knowing that all Americans are soft and cannot summon the courage or the viciousness to do what must be done in a tough, troubled world. He felt safe because of that knowledge, and because he knew that his comrades would come by each night to see Elicia, and would free him.

I let those comforting thoughts rattle around in the sergeant's head for a time, feeling that it's bad enough to die with violence, much less with frightened and troubled thoughts. But my stalling wasn't mere stalling.

"One last favor, Sergeant," I said, taking out my notebook and a pen. "I want you to help me draw a map of the fortifications on top of Alto Arete. After that, I'll leave you to sleep and then Senor Cortez will bring you food. Will you help me?"

It took quite a while to get a suitable map drawn. I caught Luis in a number of lies, diversions from his original story, but I was finally convinced that the map was mostly accurate. I pocketed the notebook and pen, and got up. I walked around behind the Marine sergeant and slipped Hugo into my hand.

"I'll be leaving you now, Sergeant," I said softly.

He was turning toward me, a smile broadening on his face, when my hand leapt out and pressed the nerve juncture beside his neck at the top of his right shoulder.

He went instantly unconscious and I moved into the stall, Hugo in my hand. I plunged the stiletto through his ribcage, striking straight at the heart. He felt nothing and he died in a few seconds. I got a shovel and buried him in the stall. I buried him deep.

Elicia cried out in panic when I entered the house. She was still cradled in her mother's arms. She might have slept, fitfully, but now she was awake and the sight of the Marine's uniform sent her back to the depths of terror.

"It's all right," I said, hastily but softly. "It's all right, Elicia. I'm not the Cuban. I'm the man who saved you from him. I merely need his uniform."

Old Jorge and Melina were the first to come around. When they knew that it was me and not the burly Cuban, huge smiles spread across their wrinkled faces, revealing teeth that had never known a moment of dental hygiene.

"It is as he says,
niña,"
the old man said to his daughter. "It is the good man, not the bad one. Where is — what have you done with the soldier?"

I told them. It would have been no good lying to them. Their eyes widened in horror and fright. I had to calm them.

"You don't have to worry about other Marines finding him," I said. "You'd have much greater worries if he were alive. Now, it's a certainty that his buddies will come here looking for him, and for Elicia. It's important that we get you all out of here, to some safe place in the mountains. I'll try…"

"No," Jorge said, shaking his old head vigorously. "Here is where I was born, here is where I will die. You take Elicia to my cousin's house in the hills. She can show you where it is. When the soldiers come, we will pretend ignorance. They will not find the body. If they do, we are ready to die. Please, take our daughter and care for her. Find our son and he will help."

"No," the old woman said, cradling Elicia closer to her ample bosom. "My child stays here."

"
Basta
!" the old man snapped, turning on her. "We deal in our own lives now, old woman. You cannot have all you wish in life. Take Elicia, take her now."

It was settled in that manner. When the Marines came, the old couple would say that the Marine sergeant came, raped Elicia and kidnapped her. A search would be made of the premises, but I'd buried the sergeant well, was wearing his uniform, and the smell of the stable would prevent even well-trained bloodhounds from sniffing out his grave.

Ten minutes later, I retrieved my knapsack hidden near the farm. Leaving my portable radio there, Elicia and I set out on foot in the darkness, heading along narrow trails in the inky blackness of the jungle night. The girl was no longer crying, but she was still terrified — and a part of it was fear of me. I made certain not to touch her as we moved through the night. A few times, we accidentally bumped together and she recoiled as though I were a snake. It was not the happiest of situations.

An hour after we left the house, Elicia came to a stop on a ledge high above the valley. She stopped without warning and I ran smack into her warm, supple body. She didn't recoil. I felt her finger against my lip and heard her low shushing sound.

"Just ahead," she said in a melodic accent that was surprisingly soft in view of her earlier screeching and carrying on, "is an open place where we should be able to see the main encampment. We must be careful not to be seen by them."