War From The Clouds (22 page)

"Sagacio, you take the lead. When you're halfway across the courtyard, we'll follow."

The chubby monk took one fearful look at the empty courtyard and the swirling fog, hitched up his smock and marched through the doorway. I watched as he strode across the cobblestones and wondered where he was keeping the Russian rifle I had given him earlier.

The shot rang out clear and loud, only slightly muffled by the thick cloud. I looked around to see where the shot had come from, but it was dark and silent out there. When I looked back Sagacio, he was stopped in the center of the courtyard, his face peering up through the cloud at the upper stories of the palace.

Another shot came. I saw the pinpoint of flame this time. It was from the roof of the palace.

This time, Sagacio didn't merely stand in the courtyard. He turned toward us, his face writhing in pain. He held up pudgy hands in a kind of supplication, begging us to understand that he hadn't betrayed us. Then, he spiraled to the ground, his smock settling about his fat dead body like a shroud.

Even as I was feeling sorry for the hefty little monk and trying to decide what to do next, the rain of bullets began.

Thunder seemed to break out on the mountain-top. Bullets crashed through the windows of the guard station. The courtyard filled with rushing, running shapes, all firing rifles. At us.

A kind of hell had come to the mountaintop, and we were at the core of that hell.

The gunfire was murderous. It seemed that every gun in the possession of Don Carlos Italla was being aimed and fired at the guard station where Uturo, his fellow warrior and I were hiding.

All the windows were blasted into glass confetti in the first few seconds, and the rain of bullets were chipping away stone and splintering wood so fast that the station wouldn't be standing in another-couple of minutes.

It was then, when the gunfire seemed at its peak, that I decided to act. I cradled an automatic rifle in my right arm, clutched Wilhelmina in my left hand, clamped Hugo in my teeth and, with a jerking motion for Uturo and his friend to follow, dashed into the courtyard.

It was the last thing the enemy expected. While all guns still blasted away at the empty guard station, we zigzagged our way across the courtyard. Our guns blazed away at the pinpoints of fire indicating enemy gunmen. It was a suicide dash and we knew it, but remaining in the guard station was equally suicidal.

We reached Sagacio's body without incident, although I was certain that my luger had picked off at least two or three gunmen in the swirling cloud. From screams in other directions, I knew also that Uturo and his friend were having similar luck. They had come a long way from their fear of the cave's curse.

We regrouped in the center of the courtyard and I jammed a new clip into Wilhelmina and pointed toward the gate to the palace grounds.

"If we can make it inside, we may have a chance," I hissed through the blade of the stiletto. "They won't dare turn that withering fire on the palace itself. Let's go."

Bullets were already dancing in the courtyard when we started our final dash toward the gate. I emptied the automatic rifle and threw it away. I took the luger in both hands and, instead of firing wildly, began to pick out specific targets on the roof of the palace.

My first shot got results. A scream ripped through the muffling fog and I saw a man with ammo belts all over his body come tumbling down the side of the white stone building. He crashed into the bushes near the main door of the palace. Another shot and another heavily armed man plummeted from the roof.

And we were at the gate, all three of us still alive and still firing.

I skipped inside the gate and plunged behind a clump of bushes alongside the stone fence. I felt Uturo land just behind me. On the other side of the path, the other warrior took refuge behind a stone fountain. As I had expected, gunfire from other areas stopped immediately. We had only the fire from the roof to contend with.

I shoved in a new clip and methodically went along the roofline, picking off guards as I went. When five of them had fallen into the gloomy darkness at the front of the castle, the night went suddenly quiet.

There was no chance, though, that we had destroyed them all, or that we could expect those outside the palace to continue to hold their fire. The only thing to do, then, was the unexpected. They expected us to remain hidden inside the stone wall alongside the gate.

"Let's rush the door," I snarled. "Now."

Both warriors leaped to their feet, their rifles aimed and ready. We took two steps toward the door and I heard a whistling sound from above, felt a fluttering of the wind around my face. The net dropped so neatly into place that we were entangled in it before we even knew what was happening.

I was struggling to take aim on an immense tall guard who had opened the palace door when I felt the net tightening around me. I saw Uturo and his friend fighting the tightening net. I fired, but a sudden jerk of the net spoiled my aim and the bullet bounced harmlessly off the white stone of the palace wall. The net closed in, so tight now that it was cutting off circulation to my arms and legs.

A strand of strong nylon encircled my neck and I could feel it tightening even more. I was strangling. Even so, I rammed the luger between two strands and took aim on the huge guard standing in the open doorway. I was preparing to fire when the pet jerked swiftly against my wrist and I found the luger pointing at the ground. The strand about my neck went tighter and I felt myself passing out.

"Leave go of your weapons," a voice boomed in the silence, "and the net will be released. Keep them and you will die of strangulation."

I tried to look around to see who was talking, but the net was cutting into my skin now. I couldn't move, and I could tell that Uturo and his friend had also stopped struggling. I heard their rifles clatter to the pavement. I tried once more to aim Wilhelmina at the guard in the palace doorway, but the breath of life went out of me. The stiletto fell from my teeth. I went momentarily unconscious, awakening to feel someone taking the luger from my hand.

Guards seemed to come from everywhere now. The net began to loosen and circulation began to return to my aching limbs. My neck felt as though someone had lashed it with a whip. As guards began to pull us from the net, the gigantic guard who had stood so brazenly in the open doorway began to walk down toward us. He got bigger and bigger as he came near.

I saw then that he wasn't merely tall. He was immense. I guessed him at seven feet in height, perhaps three hundred pounds in weight. And I could tell by his uniform that he was no mere guard. He had enough brass and medals on his cap and chest to have subdued a lesser man. Even before he opened his mouth, I knew who he was.

"I am Don Carlos Italla," he said, striding up to us and looking down with something akin to disdain. "Welcome to my humble abode in the clouds."

"Some humble," I muttered, sitting up and massaging my neck and limbs where the nylon netting had cut into them. "You've come a long way from Ninca land, Ancio."

The use of his original name had a violent effect on his face and body. He went rigid, drawing himself up to his full seven feet of height. His eyes narrowed and I saw the red glint in them, indicating remembered hatreds. In that moment, he was the epitome of the description given to me by old Jorge Cortez:

The image faded when Don Carlos tried a smile. But only faintly. It came off like a caricature of Death regarding his next victim. His eyes, dark with the red glow still at their centers, flickered around at the assembled guards.

"You will henceforth refer to me as Don Carlos," he ordered. "All that Ancio business is in the past. I am no longer Ancio, no longer a Ninca. You will do well to remember that."

I was about to ask what the hell worse he could do to us if we persisted in calling him Ancio, but I got no chance. He snapped his fingers at the guards and ordered them to take us to his inner chamber. We were hustled to our feet and, even though it was difficult walking, we weren't given a chance to dawdle. I rambled along on aching legs, down corridors, up sweeping — staircases, through spacious galleries and, finally, into an honest-to-goodness throne room at the rear of the palace.

If nothing else, Don Carlos had good taste in decor. The parquet and mosaic marble floors were enhanced by colorful Persian rugs that would have gone for a fortune in New York or Washington. The white marble walls were graced by original paintings by Dega, Monet, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Manet, de Vriess — even a few Picassos. Silk draperies covered every window and alcove.

The throne room was immense, befitting its main occupant. Persian rugs, draperies, paintings and fluffy pillows were everywhere. The throne itself sat on a marble pedestal. It looked like a monument to hugeness and importance, yet it had enough silk and velvet upholstery to look almost gentle.

Behind the throne, on a section of wall between two doorways to open balconies, hung da Vinci's painting of The Last Supper. For a moment, I was convinced that it was the original, but I knew that the famous painting actually was in the Vatican. It was, to say the least, the most precise and perfect copy imaginable.

Don Carlos took one hefty step to the pedestal and settled himself in his uniformed and decorated glory directly under the famous scene of Jesus and his disciples breaking bread for the final time. If Don Carlos took one hefty step to the pedestal and settled himself in his uniformed and decorated glory directly under the famous scene of Jesus were soft and compassionate; Don Carlos Italla's eyes still glowed with demonic intensity.

The throne room gradually filled with monks and guards, all keeping a respectful distance from the throne. Don Carlos had me, Uturo and the other warrior led to a small couch directly below his pedestal. We had to crane our necks to look up to him, and that was what he wanted.

"And now, Mr. Nick Carter," Don Carlos said in that booming voice of his, "I must say that I'm pleased you weren't killed during your foolish journey to my humble abode. Oh, I have known of you for some time, ever since your imperialistic masters placed you on the sacred soil of Nicarxa. I have kept track of your exploits with interest. I have issued orders for your death, and have executed many who have failed to carry out those orders."

He took a breather then, belched a few times, swigged from the bottle of wine Sagacio had recently brought him, and glared down at me with those fiery-red eyes.

"Now," he said, settling back in his velvet-padded throne as though he had a long and interesting tale to relate, "I must say that I had begun to engender a certain amount of respect for your skills and for your persistence and for your successes. But you were doomed from the beginning. You see, I knew that if all else failed you would somehow find the natural chimney leading up from the sacrificial cave. On the off chance that you would succeed in reaching and breaching my wine cellar, I was prepared for that. I knew of Sagacio's penchant for trying to remove that stone from the wall leading to the chimney. I was aware also of the efforts of his fellow tribesmen to use that as a route of escape. I sent Sagacio for wine at just a time when I knew that you would be at the mortared stone, if you, indeed, had succeeded in traversing the chimney.

"I would like to say that Sagacio, in the end, betrayed you out of loyalty to me. But I am a religious man, Mr. Nick Carter. Truth is important to me. Sagacio betrayed you, but not out of loyalty to me. He betrayed you by the look of ecstasy on his face when he brought me this final bottle of wine. I knew then that he had located you and had let you into the wine cellar.

"It was then that I let him return to you, but not before I had ordered the guards to vacate the guard station and set up positions in other areas to annihilate you and your friends — my former fellow tribesmen — when you emerged from the wine cellar. As I said, you were doomed to failure from the beginning. But I have one question, Mr. Nick Carter. There was a woman with you, a girl, actually. There were others, including Pico the old hermit and Purano, the son of Botussin. There were other warriors as well. Might I prevail upon you to tell me what has happened to them?"

I told him about our journey to the cave entrance, our battle with his guerillas, the killing of eight of our warriors, the wounding of Purano and Pico. I told him of our ordeal with the bats and how the first warrior had fallen to his death when the bats attacked him. I told of how the second warrior had been killed when he encountered the nest of scorpions, of how I had eliminated the scorpions and had eventually found the square stone and had loosened its mortar.

"And the woman — the girl? I believe her name is Elicia."

I had told him the truth all along. I saw no reason to tell him that Elicia was still at large, perhaps in the winecellar. Besides, I still had the ominous feeling that she had been killed in that exchange of gunfire with the wine-stealing guards. When I lied to Don Carlos, it was only a half-lie. I believed it to be
possibly
true.

"She died when four guards entered the winecellar to steal your wine," I said. "There was gunfire and a stray bullet killed her."

He stared at me for a long moment, then made a small gesture with his right hand. I noticed that he had huge diamond rings on each finger, including his thumb. I turned and saw that a guard was leaving the throne room.

"If you speak true," Don Carlos said, "the girl's body will be located and brought up for burial. We are not animals here, Mr. Nick Carter." He got up and went down the back side of his pedestal. He opened the drapes to a balcony and stepped through. He was gone for only a few seconds, then returned with a wicked smile on his broad face.