The Inca Con: A Rex Dalton Thriller

by JC Ryan

He felt Luciana stir beside him, grabbed her hand, and gave it a slight squeeze, hoping she would get the urgent mental message to go along with whatever he said. Apparently, she did, because she kept quiet.

  “Listen gringo, we will be back in three days. You’d better have ten-thousand dollars ready when we come, or you will die without illness.”

  “All right. We will try.”

  “Well, if you know what’s good for you, you won’t try, you’ll make sure.”

  The men melted into the darkness, and the last thing Rex saw was the shine of the quarter-moon’s light on the barrel of one of the men’s rifles. He sighed in relief and turned to the others.

  “That went fairly well, I reckon.”

  “What are we going to do?” Flo asked.

  Rex could hear her effort to say it calmly, not quite succeeding. He gave her props for not wailing the question.

  When he answered, his voice had taken on a self-assured tone none of them had heard before. “We’re going to prepare for their return…”

  “What! Are you out of your mind? We must get out of here. That’s what we should be doing right now!” Barry snapped.

  Rex held his hand up and stopped Barry from launching into a tirade. “As I said, we’re going to prepare for their return, and what I was about to say was, and then we are going to kick their asses for them. Those that are fortunate enough to survive what I have in mind will never want to get within a hundred miles of this place ever again.”

  Into the stunned silence that followed, Luciana said, “I should have seen that coming.”

  “What?” Barry asked.

  “They were probably Shining Path,” she answered. “An insurgent group you three would have no reason to know about. When I approved Ray’s plan, I should have known the publicity would bring them out. I blame myself. Maybe we should just pay them off.”

  “I don’t pay extortionists, never have and never will.” Rex spoke measuredly.

  Luciana stared at Rex, puzzled. The Markses stared at him, bewildered.

  “If any of you want to pay them, you’re welcome. I suggest you pack your stuff, go to Santa Teresa, and get the money. I’m not doing anything of the kind. I’m going to teach these hooligans a very painful lesson. And when I’m done with them, if you still feel like paying them, then you can do so to those who you can find and who still want money.”

  The three of them were silent for a while. Then Barry spoke. “I guess you’re right, they have to be stopped from doing this, not encouraged to continue by paying them. Pay them once, and they’ll be back for more.”

  “Yes, dear, that’s all nice and dandy, but how are you—we—going to do it? We only saw four of them. How many more are there? If they’re terrorists, as Lucania said, they’ll be armed. How exactly are the four of us going to take on an army of revolutionaries?” Her gaze moved between Barry and Rex while she talked.

  Barry looked at Rex and said, “How?”

  “I’ll tell you in the morning. Let’s turn in. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow. Those of you who want to go and get money will need an early start. It’s a long way there and back. Those of you who’ll stay and help me sort this out will also need an early start.”

  Rex was in a foul mood. There was nothing in this world that could put him in a bad mood as quickly as terrorists, drug dealers, human traffickers, arms dealers—in short, all scum had that effect on him. He didn’t have time or mental energy to comfort his three friends—he had a war to plan.

  He was wakeful all night, cataloguing what resources he had and how he could deploy them under several different scenarios.

  To the best of his knowledge, there were just two firearms in the village – his Sig Sauer P226, and the hunting rifle he’d brought with him. It wasn’t much against automatic weapons. But in his line of work, he’d learned that necessity is the mother of invention. He’d seen no weapons of any kind in the village, but there’d been no reason he would. Maybe they had something. He’d ask in the morning.

  How many of the insurgents would come? Did his apparent cooperation buy them enough trust that the same four would come, or would they come with a larger force?

  As far as troops were concerned, Rex had the villagers and his companions. He doubted Flo and Barry would be any help. Although Barry’s mettle had surprised him over the last few weeks. Luciana was an unknown, but he had watched her closely and suspected she had some useful skills. Maybe even a firearm. Of the hundred or so villagers, excluding the children, more than half were women. He’d need some of them to herd the children to safety before the shooting broke out. That there was going to be a shootout he didn't doubt.

  In the absence of weapons, there were a few tricks up his sleeves, but some required material he wasn’t sure was available. The rest, he could teach the villagers to prepare.

  He’d been right. They’d have a busy day tomorrow. Before the first light of approaching dawn pinked the sky, Rex closed his eyes and went to sleep with a final comforting thought when his secret weapon, Digger, sighed and snuggled up to him seemingly sensing that Rex had worked through the plan and he could also get some rest now.

  Rex and Digger rose only two hours later as the noise in the room indicated Flo was at work fixing breakfast. But when he opened his eyes, he discovered it wasn’t Flo but Barry bustling around to get the fire in the stove going.

  “Hey, Barry. How did you sleep?” he asked, wriggling into his pants inside the sleeping bag.

  “Not a wink. I’m thinking we should pack up and hightail it back to civilization. We’re in over our heads.”

  Rex nodded thoughtfully. “You know, that might be a good idea for you and Flo. Luciana, too. I’m sure she could guide you back.”

  “We wouldn’t go without you,” Barry answered. “We got you into this.”

  “Not really. I asked to join you, remember? And I already told you, I have a different idea about how to handle this.” Rex kept his tone neutral, but Barry took issue with his statement anyway.

  “You reckon just because you’re forty years younger you can handle this kind of danger, and we can't?” He bristled like a wet hen.

  “Yes, there's that, and the fact that I've had military training, as Flo probably would've told you.”

  “Yeah, she told me. But that doesn’t mean you can take on an insurgent group by yourself.”

  Rex was out of the sleeping bag by then, pulling on a shirt. He padded over to the stove in his stocking feet and set a kettle of water over the fire to start some coffee.

  “I wouldn’t be by myself. And I can’t leave the villagers to face the threat alone. It’s our fault – my fault – they’re in the middle of the situation.”

  “How is it your fault?” Barry asked.

  “My cockamamie plan to reverse the sting – my fault.”

  “Okay, I can see I won't change your mind. What's your plan now?”

  Rex was still explaining his plans for fortifying and arming the village, with Barry loudly scoffing at some parts of it, when Flo came in, her hair awry from not having been brushed yet. “Why are you two making all this racket?”

  As soon as she’d heard Barry’s case for leaving the village and Rex’s for not leaving, she made her pronouncement. “I’m staying right here. Rex is right, honey. We can’t leave the villagers.”

  Rex and Barry answered hotly at the same time.

  “I never said we,” Rex said.

  At the same time, Barry said, “I don’t want you in danger, woman. Can’t you understand that?”

  Flo looked at them, each in turn, put her fists on her hipbones, arms akimbo, and said, “Which one of you thinks you can make me do or not do anything? I’m not leaving. Deal with it.”

  Luciana poked her head through the door hangings just in time to hear Flo’s announcement. She started laughing.

  “What did I miss? Sounds entertaining.”

  Later, after they’d eaten and cleared away the dishes, with Digger helping take care of
the leftovers, Rex had to repeat his litany of makeshift weaponry and booby traps. Luciana confirmed she had a sidearm, with a spare clip, thirty bullets in total. They finally came to the consensus that Rex should enlist the villagers to set up what they could, and that it wasn’t any safer for Flo or anyone else to leave the village before the insurgents came back.

  Luciana summed it up. “They’ll just kill you on the trail. They probably have the place surrounded.”

  With that decided, Rex and Luciana, who also spoke Quechuan, divided the town between them and went to speak to the villagers. They met again for a noon meal and to report their findings.

  Rex had turned up two ancient rifles in his half of the village, but there wasn’t much ammunition for either, and they weren’t the same caliber. Luciana’s half yielded three more with the same issues. The villagers used them for hunting when the alpaca herd wasn’t adequate for their needs.

  Despite their haste to get ready, both had been subjected to lengthy explanations about the reason there were guns in the village. To Rex’s annoyance, Luciana decided to explain it to the Markses. Baby alpaca, or cria, were carried for eleven to eleven and a half months, so the hembras, or females, were off-limits. Every year, most of the males born that year were wethered, leaving only a handful of the strongest for breeding purposes. If more females than males were born, the harvestable males of the herd became too few to support the village for a few months in late summer. In that case, the owners of the rifles went out to hunt the wild camelids, such as guanacos and vicunas, along with the rarer taruca, a species of deer, to supply them all with meat. And as if the villagers' and Luciana’s insistence to repeat the explanation was not enough irritation for Rex, who understood the urgency here, Flo started her own thread. She was appalled to learn that their presence had put more pressure on the alpaca herd, since it was only late spring, and spring-born alpacas were less hardy than those born in the fall. The hopes of the village were pinned on the almost-yearlings from the previous fall and the cria that would be born in a few months.

  At another time, Rex would've been very interested to learn all about it, but now was not the time. He was only interested in how much firepower they had, and after pooling their information, he and Luciana concluded it wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough.

  They’d have to get creative.

  Because the village was above the tree line, there was no cover to speak of, other than the stone houses and occasional boulders deposited in the valley by ancient glaciers now played out. Rex’s usual traps – tripwires, underground pit blinds, and shooting holes – would be spotted instantly unless the attack came at night. He had none of the ambush-type munitions that he and a team would usually rely on. To defend this village, he’d have to resort to his knowledge of methods that were used in the Middle Ages and whatever the oldsters could remember of Inca warfare. Getting it all ready would be a mammoth undertaking.

  After their meal, Rex went to talk to the old men about Inca weapons and methods of war, while Luciana inquired of the women where they could find ingredients for some of the thermal devices Rex had described, and to solicit volunteers to construct methods of deployment.

  When Shining Path returned, it was as Rex had feared, though he didn’t know it yet. They came in numbers. However, one of his scenarios, and the one he and Luciana thought most likely, and the one Rex preferred, if he had a choice, was that they would attack at night.

  The bandits didn't disappoint - they arrived at night.

  Their first indication they were there came from Digger, who gave one sharp bark that was answered by gunfire. Rex, who’d been sleeping in his clothes since the morning after the first Shining Path visit, rolled out of the sleeping bag, instantly alert.

  “Get Luciana,” he whispered to Digger. The black dog would be impossible to see, since the moon hadn’t risen yet. Digger left his side, and Rex did a quick mental review of his plan.

  The villagers had helped to dig a few trenches just outside the village, where the trail ended, and the well-worn paths of the village began. If the insurgents had approached from that side, he’d see and hear the evidence any minute, as the oncoming insurgents fell into the trenches filled with brush and pine resin they’d collected from the forest below them. One match, lit by an insurgent to see what he was up against, or thrown into the trench by a villager who would be creeping toward the trench for that purpose, would ignite the brush as if it was soaked in gasoline.

  If they’d come from another direction, the trenches would be a liability, because once the designated villager lit it, it would backlight the entire village and anyone moving within it.

  Rex barely had time to think through all of it before the flames erupted on the other side of the village from his location, and inhuman screams confirmed a few of the insurgents had fallen in and been trapped by the fire.

  Digger was back, with Luciana in tow, her sidearm in hand. “How many?” she said.

  “Not sure, but there are definitely already a few less than they came with,” he said grimly.

  “Where are Flo and Barry?”

  If they’d done as planned, they would’ve belly-crawled to the nearest houses and begun alerting people. The whole village should be alert by now. “They’re telling the villagers to light the torches. We’ll soon be able to see what we’re up against.”

  The torches they’d prepared with scraps of wool, fat from the Peruvian chinchilla known locally as vizcacha, and aged deadfall from the forest, were a double-edged sword. They’d reveal the insurgents, but they’d also reveal the villagers. Rex had taught the villagers to stay low as they made their way to their assigned torches, already set up in holes in the ground to support them upright, and then drop low again after lighting them with the matches he provided.

  Those who had guns were to use the oil lamps inside their homes to adjust to the light, then rush outside and surprise the insurgents caught unawares when the torches lit them up and blinded them at the same time. There’d be a few seconds at most when it would give the riflemen an advantage. Right on cue, Rex watched as torches all over the village flamed into life, followed by gunfire.

  Okay, so far so good.

  Now it was time for the surprise Rex had arranged, something that ought to strike terror into any insurgents that hadn’t already been wounded or killed. Before he resorted to his rifle or his Sig, which would be useless against a charging enemy once he ran out of ammo, he’d use a cross-bow one of the villagers had produced during the weapons inventory.

  It had six bolts, and Rex intended to make each one count.

  He’d prepared the bolts like fire-arrows, but instead of merely tipping them with ordinary flammable material, he’d collected the limestone and guano he needed to fabricate quicklime and calcium phosphide. He’d added pine resin to hold the mixture together and ignite it. And voila! Greek fire. Any insurgent hit by the bolt would die horribly as the unquenchable fire burned right through him. Rex would aim for center mass, the torso and belly.

  Meanwhile, Flo and Barry would separate and make for the berms of mixed animal fat and sand that surrounded the rest of the village. They’d been quicker to construct than the trenches at the head of the trail, so he’d had the villagers place them around the rest of the area. Flo and Barry would light them and then retreat to the nearest stone house to take shelter for the duration of the fight.

  As Rex went over the defenses in his mind while waiting behind cover for the approach of an insurgent leader, he noticed a dark figure holding what could only have been a rifle darting from house to house, backlit by the numerous fires now burning. He whispered to Digger, “Heads up, here we go.”

  He quickly lit the Greek fire at the tip of the bolt already seated in the cross-bow and took aim at the next place he’d be able to see the approaching man silhouetted by the fire.

  There!

  He pulled the trigger.

  The bolt flew true, and Rex watched dispassionately as the insurgent’s b
elly bloomed with flames. The man fell, screaming, and two others ran toward their fallen comrade. Rex put the next bolt in one of them.

  Luciana’s handgun barked just a split second before the other reached the first man. Her target fell next to the screaming human torches. He had a merciful exit from this world compared to the two he wanted to help.

  In the next few minutes, the first fallen man became the foundation of a funeral pyre with several more falling on top of him. Rex hit four more with his remaining bolts, six out of six—a perfect score. Others tripped over sprawled limbs of Luciana’s kills and fell into the flames, which caught and consumed them indiscriminately. By the time Rex was out of bolts, he’d counted nine insurgents down between them. For the couple of minutes that took, Digger sat quivering beside Rex, who would have recognized the dog’s eagerness to get into the action if he’d had time to notice. But he hadn’t commanded Digger to do anything, so the dog waited for instructions.

  Gradually, the noise of combat died down and it became apparent the insurgents had enough. They were obviously not prepared for such a welcoming party. It was impossible to tell how many of them arrived, how many were killed and wounded, and how many escaped.

  Rex considered it prudent to wait for morning before they attempted a pursuit, even if that meant losing the trail. He didn’t want to risk them walking into an ambush. He told everyone to go to bed and try to get some sleep, knowing that no one would sleep.

  The attack had been too swift to execute the escape plan he’d devised for the children and a few women to shepherd them to safety, so he and Luciana once more divided the town and went door to door to be sure everyone was okay.

  Sadly, two of the oldest village men had succumbed to gunfire. Miraculously, those were the only casualties on their side. The casualties on the enemy’s side would be revealed when the sun came up. For the moment, Rex was deeply in need of sleep.

  “Digger, guard.” The dog would know that meant ‘stand guard’ instead of ‘guard someone’. Rex didn’t know how he knew it, but he did. Rex had used the command before when he should have stayed alert but needed sleep.