War From The Clouds (4 page)

He looked me over good, checking to see if the uniform really was mine, I supposed. The uniform fit like a glove, but the man still didn't seem impressed or convinced.

"Whom do you seek?"

"On orders from Colonel Vasco," I said, emphasizing the name of the obviously dreaded and feared military leader, "I am to locate a man by the name of Antonio Cortez and to bring him to headquarters."

The guerilla studied me much the way the colonel had studied me, trying to assess the depth of my stupidity, or my shrewdness.

"This Antonio Cortez," he said, slowly, clutching his rifle and walking through the opening of the jungle wall. I peered around him and saw that he was alone, that the thick vines and underbrush he had so easily moved rode on a wooden platform with huge rubber tires. It was an effective and ingenious camouflage. "Who is he and why is he so important to the colonel?"

I shrugged and looked as stupid as I could manage. "I am but a courier. I don't involve myself with the reasons behind the commands of my betters."

The guerilla laughed, coughed and spat up a wad of phlegm. The wad landed on my right boot. As I was studying the situation down there, trying to decide if he had done that on purpose, the guerilla swung his rifle and caught me in the forehead with the butt. I went down, my eyes watering from the blow, but still painfully conscious.

"You stupid fool," the guerilla said, shifting the rifle around and jamming the muzzle into my throat. "If you had come from Colonel Vasco, you would know the password. He gives it to the couriers the night before the change. Sometimes, they have a week of passwords in their knowledge, just in case they are on the trail when the regular troops are given the daily change. And, if you were from the colonel, you would know that Antonio Cortez is in the stockade, scheduled to be shot at noon today, along with twenty two other troublemakers and would-be deserters." He pressed harder with the gun barrel, almost cutting off my wind. "Who are you and what do you want here? Be quick and be truthful, my friend, or you will never be anything else but food for the maggots, scorpions and ants in this jungle."

I was about to ask why he would cheat the pigs out of a good meal, but decided flipness wasn't called for just now. Besides, he hadn't yet guessed that I was an American. That was good — or was it? Perhaps the truth would give me a few more minutes of life. There was no way I could reach and use Wilhelmina, Hugo or Pierre before this man pulled the trigger of his automatic rifle and reduced me to an entree for insects.

"I am the American everyone seeks," I said, corrupting my Spanish a bit to convince him of my gringo status. "I want to be taken to Colonel Vasco. I have important information for him, about an American attack being planned."

His eyes widened, but he didn't ease back on the rifle barrel. It was still jammed into my windpipe. I had spoken those words in a kind of falsetto, gasping for enough air to breathe, much less to talk. His eyes narrowed again and the grin was back.

"My instructions are to…"

"I know your instructions," I said, gasping out the words. "Disembowel all Americans and feed them to the pigs. But I have important news for the colonel. You'll be in great trouble if the news doesn't reach him in time."

He eased back on the rifle, but didn't lower his guard. "Why were you coming this way when the colonel is in the opposite direction? And what is this business about taking Antonio Cortez to see Colonel Vasco?"

I knew I couldn't do Antonio any more damage, especially since he was to be shot at noon. I would involve him more deeply in my web of truth and lies.

"Antonio Cortez is one of the key contacts for the Americans being sent to Nicarxa," I said, moving away from the rifle and sitting up on the ground.

The rifle moved back to my neck, forcing me to lie supine again. The guerilla's scowl was back.

"Cortez is just a boy," he said, sneering. "What could he know of Americans, of being an important contact. He is nothing, a peasant lad who fell into the wrong company and got himself a death sentence for his opposition to the great Don Carlos."

"Zapata was only nineteen when he set out to destroy the tyrannical rulers of Mexico," I said, drawing on my knowledge of revolutionaries.

"And he was killed for his efforts."

"But only after great successes in the field."

"True. All right. Stand up. Do it carefully. I will take you to my chief and let him decide what to do about you."

As I stood, I pressed the trigger release on Hugo and the stiletto slid easily into my hand. But the guerilla kept his rifle aimed at my throat and I had no chance to charge him. We moved through the fake opening in the jungle wall. Once that opening was Closed, I knew my goose would be cooked. This man's chief, I knew, would radio Colonel Vasco and, when the two compared notes, the colonel would know that I was the man who had fooled him. In his ire, he might well order me shot, disemboweled and fed to anyone or anything that happened to be hungry.

The bearded guerilla lowered the rifle and reached for a handle to roll the intricate gate back into place. It was my moment. I stepped in close, knocked the rifle aside and, before the man could call out, I rammed Hugo into his throat, twisted, gouged and pulled sharply upward. He died instantly and my remorse was minimal.

I pushed the opening aside again, dragged the guerilla's body through and back down the trail. I pressed my way into the jungle wall beside the trail, dropped the dead body in a thicket and arranged the undergrowth so that it didn't look as though it had been disturbed in a hundred years. It would take them days to find him, and then only by following their noses.

Once inside the compound, though, with the camouflaged gate back in place, I had no idea where to go, no idea how many more guerillas were between me and the stockade where Antonio was awaiting execution. Once again, I would have to follow my own nose and hope that it didn't lead me through minefields or up against men like Colonel Vasco.

It took only a half hour to find the stockade. Suspicion seemed to drop away from the guerillas now that I was inside the compound. It was inconceivable to them that any unauthorized person could make it this far; and the Cuban uniform kept them in awe. They were afraid to challenge the Cuban Marine sergeant who walked with a purposeful step and seemed to know precisely where he was going and what he was doing. Little did they know that I was a babe in the wilderness. A dangerous babe, but a babe nonetheless.

The stockade was recognizable by its high, barbed-wired fence, the armed guards around its makeshift gate and the scraggly, woebegone unarmed peasants peering out through the fence. I strode up to the guards and was pleasantly surprised when they snapped to attention. It was a plus gained for me by the arrogant Cubans and I decided to make best use of that plus.

"Bring the prisoner Antonio Cortez to the gate," I ordered in my best Cuban Spanish. "He is to be interrogated regarding information he may possess about an American who has come to Nicarxa to interfere with the revolution."

The guards — four of them — stared at me and at each other. They didn't seem about to follow the order with any degree of expeditiousness.

"Hurry it up, damn you," I said, being as arrogant as I knew the Cubans to be with these simple peasants. "Colonel Vasco is waiting for this information. Bring Cortez out here."

They bumped about a lot, into each other and even into the barbed wire where they snagged their already tattered clothes. But they got the gate open and, while three of them poised with aimed rifles at the motley crew of prisoners behind the fence, one of them went in to fetch a skinny, dark-haired, black-eyed boy who looked enough like Elicia to have been a twin. The build was different, though, and the height.

Antonio Cortez looked surly and uncooperative as the guard brought him to me. He seemed about to spit on my boots and I wouldn't have blamed him. If he had, though, I would have had to knock him flat for his efforts, to keep up my image as a Cuban non-com.

"Come with me," I said, palming Sergeant Pequeno's forty five and leveling it at Antonio. I glanced over my shoulder at the guards. "It's all right," I said. "I must interview him out of earshot. I will take full responsibility."

They seemed nervous about it, but the one man closed the gate again and the others lowered their rifles and snapped again to attention. It was working like a charm. So far.

When we were out of earshot, I turned to face Antonio, my back to the guards so that they couldn't read my lips if they were so inclined. That was a mistake on my part, but I didn't know it then.

"Don't say anything, Antonio," I said. "And don't express any surprise at what I have to say. Just listen and keep looking surly and angry. Do you understand?"

"Who are you?"

"A friend. An American. I was sent here by your sister." His eyes widened and a smile flickered on his lips. "Don't change expressions," I snapped. "Damn it, the guards are watching." The surly look came back.

"How do I know you speak the truth?"

"For one thing," I said, losing patience, "You have no choice. You're to be shot in a few hours. If I work it right, I may be able to walk out of here with you, pretending that I'm taking you to Colonel Vasco."

"Sure," he said, really surly now. "And once we're out of the compound, you'll kill me yourself."

"Don't be stupid. If I wanted you dead, I could fire eight now. Better still, I could leave you for your little party at noon. There's another thing." I fished the gold chain and locket from my pocket. "Your sister gave this to me. There's a note folded up in the locket. You can't take a chance on reading it now. You have to trust me. And we…"

"You bastard," Antonio exploded. "You took this from her. You killed her and took this and came trying to convince me to tell what I know of the counter-revolution."

"Again," I said, sighing more deeply as patience ran thin, "don't be stupid. I left Elicia very much alive at the home of your cousin. She gave me that chain and…"

"What is our cousin's name?"

I told him the name Elicia had given me, having never met the cousin.

"You could have gotten the name from the authorities," he snapped. "They know all my family and will kill them as soon as I'm executed. But of course you know all that since you are from the authorities."

"And you're strictly from hunger," I said, losing all patience with this bullheaded little counter-revolutionary. "Listen to me. I'll tell you how I happen to be here."

I told him about following the Cuban Marine, about stopping him from raping Elicia. I made the mistake then of telling him that it was one of a series of rapes. He exploded in rage before I finished.

"You filthy pigs," he screamed. I could hear — even feel — the guards stirring behind me. At any moment, they would open fire on Antonio, kill him and then bring the local commander to question me about what the hell was going on. I held up a hand to shush the hothead, but he was off on a tirade.

"I will kill you all for what you've done to my sister. I will not die at noon, you filthy bastard. I will live and I will lead the counter-revolutionaries to wipe every stain of you from the face of Nicarxa. You come to me with a chain and a locket that you took from my sister while you were defiling her, you fucking animal…"

The guards were rushing up behind me now. I could hear the click and slap of their rifles as cartridges were injected into the chambers. I had only seconds to act, and it would take a week to calm down the raging Antonio Cortez.

I leaped forward and knocked the slender Nicarxan flat on his ass. In the same motion, I had Wilhelmina in my left hand. I whirled as the startled guards tried to decide where they should aim their rifles — at me or at the fallen Antonio.

They hesitated too long. I let fly with both guns — Wilhelmina and the Marine sergeant's sidearm forty five. With four well-aimed shots, I downed all four guards.

But there was a hue and cry all around the camp beyond the stockade and I saw fresh guards gathering up weapons and running in our direction. I reached down and grasped Antonio's hand, pulling him to his feet.

"Follow me," I snapped. "If you do, we might have a chance of getting out of here. If you don't, then you can go to hell for all I care."

I took off running, hoping I hadn't lost my sense of direction for the trail that had brought me into this nest of trouble.

There was no way I could use the gas bomb, even if I could get to it in time. I would have killed Antonio's friends in the stockade — and there were more of them than I first thought. The sound of the shots brought dozens of them out of low, mean huts into the stockade yard.

And guerillas and Cuban Marines were streaming out of barracks beyond the stockade. Running alone wouldn't do it for us. I had to create a diversion.

"Get the guards' rifles, and sidearms," I shouted to Antonio as I sprinted for the gate in the barbed wire fence. "Come on. Make it quick."

I opened the gate and the dissident guerillas came streaming out, going for the weapons that Antonio was already assembling in a pile. Antonio himself clutched a Russian automatic Volska and was priming the chamber for an assault on the on-rushing guards.

We both opened fire at the same time, Antonio with the wicked Volska, me with Wilhelmina and the forty five. The guerillas all hit the dirt, flat on their bellies. Some of them even turned and ran. But the Cuban Marines, better trained and better motivated, kept on coming.

Just when it looked as Antonio and I would be overwhelmed by the Marines, who had already opened fire on the run, a half-dozen of Antonio's friends took professional stances to our right and opened a withering fire against approaching Marines. Their three Volskas and three forty fives thundered in the dusty compound.