Operation Stranglehold

by Dan J. Marlowe

  I closed the door from the inside and bolted it again. I climbed up on the boxes under the window and eased myself out, feet first. Walter Croswell materialized beside me as my heels hit the ground outside with a soft thud. “God, you were a long time inside there!” he mumbled. “Let’s get the hell out of here right now!”

  “One more thing to do first,” I whispered. I went to the nearby well and made a mud pie mixture from the wet earth around it. I carried a double handful back to the open window and motioned for Walter to close it. I dumped the mud at the base of the wall below the window, then once more stepped up onto Walter’s cupped hands when he realized what I was doing.

  I replaced the chain-latch bolt, working through the removed pane. I smeared it with the gooey mud, leveling it off with the surrounding plaster or clay. It wouldn’t hold for more than one more opening or two, but that would be time enough. It would appear as though natural wear-and-tear had taken place.

  On the ground again, I replaced the window pane and smeared more mud around its edges to hold it in place until the mud dried and disintegrated. I kicked the remaining mud away from the wall and scraped loose dirt over the spot where it had been. It would take a fairly close inspection to determine what had happened, and by that time we’d be out of the territory. If we weren’t, a little B&E would be the least of our problems.

  Walter had both canvas carrier sacks shouldered by the time I turned away from the window. I picked up the crate and we took off, keeping to the least populated area of the village as I remembered it from my reconnoitering from the hilltop that afternoon. The dogs picked us up, but they weren’t barking. They flitted around us, begging for food. When we were 500 yards from the village, I stopped and took out the sausage from one of the sacks Walter was carrying. I broke off pieces and scattered them around, and once again the dogs left us immediately to snap and snarl over the cherished meat.

  Our only other stop was at the foot of the hill before we began the ascent, and Walter called that halt. I thought he wanted to rest before we began the climb, but he had something else on his mind. “I want to talk to you, Drake,” he said.

  “You’re talking,” I returned.

  “You’re still thinking of dumping Lisa, aren’t you?” he went on.

  “She has no papers,” I pointed out. “If we get on that train tomorrow, we’re sure to have to show papers.”

  “I just want you to know that if she doesn’t go, I don’t go,” he said doggedly.

  “Don’t be a damn fool! Just because you’re intrigued by her underwear content right now doesn’t mean—”

  “Shut up, you bastard! I’m going to marry her!”

  “Oh? What do you think your old man will have to say about that?”

  “Do you think I’m slumming? She has a better education than I have, and probably a better background. But I wouldn’t give a damn if she was a leper, you understand? My old man won’t have a thing to say about it even if he should be inclined to, which I doubt. What I’m telling you is hands off, Drake. You can wave that gun in your belt all you want, but the minute I catch you trying to unload Lisa you’ve got me to fight.”

  “But our chances now are about zero minus, goddammit! We—”

  “You heard me,” Walter cut me off. He picked up the canvas sacks and started up the hill.

  I followed him, boiling.

  Halfway up the steep ascent Walter stopped so suddenly I almost walked into him. “How would you feel if I suggested dumping Hazel?” he demanded. The intensity of his question indicated that he was doing a little boiling himself. He waited while I stared at him wordlessly. “All right then,” he continued triumphantly, “don’t give me any more horseshit about dumping Lisa.”

  We continued the climb in silence. The kid’s last remark had put things in a different perspective, but common sense still dictated that the girl not accompany us. Without her, once aboard the train we’d be free and clear. Of the mountains, anyway; there was still the matter of getting out of the country.

  Hazel met us in front of the cave. The burdened climb had been brisk enough that I was winded and sweaty. “I couldn’t sleep, knowing you were down there,” she said, kissing me impulsively. It was a warming touch that had nothing to do with passion. Long-sustained familiarity breeds its own special camaraderie.

  We displayed our booty while Lisa built up the fire again. I tried to assess the girl from Walter Croswell’s standpoint. She was good-looking if not beautiful. She was quiet, always a virtue in a female. And she had courage, or she wouldn’t be here. But marriage? To a European for one of his background in the States? I shook my head.

  Hazel heated canned soup while we all ate sausage and nutty-flavored bread. She tried to coax some soup into Erikson, but he had no interest in it. I’d given him aspirin immediately upon my return, but he remained hot to the touch. “Earl,” he said to me hoarsely when I removed his untouched soup so he could stretch out on the rope-bed again.

  “Yes, Karl?”

  “You can’t move—the way you have to—with me along. You’ve got to—leave me here.”

  He had saved me the trouble of saying it to him, as I might have expected where he was concerned. There was no point in trying to pretend any longer that there was hope for immediate improvement in his condition.

  Erikson nodded toward a corner of the cave where Hazel and Lisa were trying on the skirts, shawls, and head scarves I’d liberated from the village store. “Two Spanish-looking couples—will be a lot less conspicuous than—a group of five people including—an extra-tall blonde Swede with—a damaged arm.”

  I didn’t even make a pretense of arguing the correctness of his statement. Erikson and I had worked too many times together for false protestations to be necessary. “I’ll send help as soon as we reach Madrid, Karl,” I said. “Unofficial help.”

  “What are you going to—do in Madrid?”

  “Use Croswell Industries’ facilities to get us out of the country.”

  He shook his head. “Can’t keep lid—on something like this forever. Best have—alternative.” He began to shake with another chill. “We have standby system—set up long time ago—never activated.” He struggled to keep his teeth from chattering. “Hope you don’t have to use it because—all working parts might not still be in—place.”

  “Take it easy, Karl.”

  “Listen!” he said more strongly. “I checked before—I left Washington. First contact—okay. Name’s Guardoza, Mañuel—Guardoza. In Oficina de Correos—that’s Branch Post Office—on Calle de Dedillo. Little—Finger Street. Tell him you—want to buy Italian—brass candlesticks stored—in his Aunt Sophia’s trunk.”

  “Corny,” I said. “Does he speak English?”

  “Enough—to understand.”

  “You’re sure he’s still there?”

  “He’d—better be there.” Despite his illness, Erikson said it grimly. “He’s been paid—like clockwork every month—from department’s—special fund.”

  He sank back on the bed, grinding his clattering teeth.

  I called Hazel outside the cave.

  CHAPTER VII

  “No!” Hazel exclaimed violently when I gave her the word that we’d be leaving Erikson behind in the morning. She was still wearing a rebozo and head scarf, and it was surprising how different she looked, despite her pale skin. “We can’t leave him here, Earl!”

  “We can’t do anything else, baby,” I told her. “It’s his own idea.” She looked doubtful. “It really is.”

  “But what will happen to him? Suppose someone finds him here?” She paused for a second. “Suppose nobody does find him?”

  “It’s only the first day or two that we’ve got to worry about,” I tried to placate her. “When we reach Madrid, you’ll call Consuelo at Croswell Industries. I’ll give you a message for her brother, Julio, so he can find Karl and get him out of here. Legally or illegally, Julio will know how to handle it.”

  She wasn’t satisfied, but she was
intelligent enough to know it was the best we could do in the situation. “What about Lisa?” she wanted to know.

  “We’ll try it as two couples,” I said without elaboration. I still hadn’t changed my mind about the priorities of the situation. “Now let’s get some sleep. We’ll need all we can get before tomorrow’s over.”

  We went back inside the cave.

  • • •

  We got off to a slow start in the morning. Not that there was any hurry: Erikson had said the once-a-day train arrived in mid-afternoon to discharge its mostly tourist passengers and pick up natives doing business or visiting friends in the little towns along the rail line.

  We had all discarded our hiking costumes. Lisa and Hazel were completely outfitted in the Spanish clothing from the village. With her coloring and her raven-black hair tucked under a head scarf, Lisa looked typically Spanish. I’d watched her help Hazel plait Hazel’s long red hair into braids which Lisa wrapped around Hazel’s head before placing a purple scarf over them and knotting it under Hazel’s chin. Both girls’ skirts had to be bunched at the waist, not too surprising with Lisa, but even with Hazel’s size she was evidently a good bit slimmer around the middle than the Spanish girls who ran to fat in many cases before youthfulness departed.

  Walter and I wore the coarse, creaseless trousers that were short in the legs and baggy in the seats. The floppy-brimmed hat on my head gave what promised to be welcome relief to my wind-and-sunburned face which was still sensitive from the plastic surgery. After seeing us all in costume, I was more hopeful than I had been previously that our appearance would shield us from undue attention. If not, perhaps a liberal distribution of the thickly-folded-over bills jammed deeply into my pocket would do the trick. And there was the Luger as a last resort.

  Walter and I carried Erikson’s rope-bed over near the fireplace when we were ready to leave. Walter and Lisa had spent the morning gathering firewood and stacking it beside the fire. We left all but a minimum of the food also, and Hazel left every utensil—since we would no longer be maintaining the backpacking, mountain-touring facade—filled with water.

  I had already stationed Walter and Lisa at the first bend in the path leading down to the village where they could watch for the arrival of the train. “Join the others,” I told the redhead. “I’ll be right along.”

  She hesitated, but only momentarily. She knew I was going to have a final word with Karl Erikson, and despite her misgivings, her practicality told her we were doing the only logical thing. She walked down the path without looking back, and I reentered the cave for the last time.

  I had already cleaned it up inside so that no evidence of his traveling companions existed to compromise him if he were discovered before the arrival of help. If he were identified, of course, he had problem enough. He had food, blankets, the aspirin, and the liniment. More than that it wasn’t possible to do.

  He had been expecting me. “Sure you’ve got—it all?” he asked in reference to his instructions.

  “I’ve got it, Karl.”

  “Good,” he said. “Hasta la vista.”

  “Hasta la vista,” I echoed. We shook hands awkwardly, his left in my right, and then I left the cave. Sentimentality is not a basic part of the makeup of either of us. It was why we’d been able to work together successfully before. Still, I’ve done easier things than leaving that cave under those circumstances. I knew that Hazel’s own farewell previously had been moist-eyed.

  I joined the others at the first bend in the trail, and we settled down to wait. No one said anything. The mood was somber. There was not only the unpleasant past immediately behind us, but the uncertain future ahead. We had roles to play before the eyes of the village, and there would be no opportunity to change the script once we were on stage with an alien population as the critical audience.

  Lisa’s knapsack was now our only item of baggage. Like her well-guarded newspaper, our best chance was to blend in with the local scenery. Boldness and ingenuity would have to offset our language handicap. Walter and Hazel would have to be our spokesmen. He had an edge on her in vocabulary, but she knew useful colloquialisms, having learned her Spanish from field hands working on the ranch.

  “There it is,” Walter said quietly.

  We all looked.

  Toylike in the distance a four-car train steamed toward the sun-washed village. We pushed off down the hill. I had wanted our arrival in the village to coincide with the arrival of the train as nearly as possible to reduce our exposure time while waiting in the village.

  Walter set a brisk pace. I had put him in the van because of his language facility. Lisa turned red in the face from her effort to keep up. Hazel managed with less difficulty. I brought up the rear.

  We could hear the train’s approach as we entered the village outskirts. Walter slowed it down since we were in plenty of time. It seemed that half the villagers were moving toward the train platform. We fell in behind a trio of farm folk and matched our pace to theirs.

  There were two women and an elderly man. The older woman carried a satchellike bag in one hand and a hand-woven cage containing two squawking pullets in the other. The other woman, her daughter from her looks, had a string-tied box under one arm and a paper-wrapped bundle under the other. The man carried only a small mesh bag that looked as if it contained food.

  We arrived at the station, and I was amazed at the number of people milling around. I wouldn’t have thought there were that many in the town. Walter went at once to the small shed serving as the train station amid a cacophony of mechanical and human sounds announcing the train’s arrival. He returned almost immediately. “No tickets sold here,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “We pay the conductor aboard the train.”

  Mistake number one. And there would be others, I thought grimly. Nowhere in Spain had I felt more like a foreigner. Everyone was shouting; no one spoke in a normal voice. The “train” arrived in a crescendo of sound; four tiny boxcars resembling relics of the famous 40 and 8 rolling stock that supported France’s commerce during World War I. Two burly men with two-wheel hand trucks loaded with farm produce pushed them up a sloping wooden ramp to the platform and then deposited their goods aboard one of the cars.

  The small, leaky-looking steam locomotive looked like a Disneyland reject, and it made less noise than the passengers in the single, stubby car for humans. Their inquisitive heads projected from raised car windows as they chattered volubly to the people on the platform.

  We boarded the passenger car, Walter again leading the way. We found only one seat where two of us could sit together. I motioned for Lisa and Hazel to take it with Lisa in the window seat. I sat across from Hazel but also in the window seat, alongside a city-type hogging the aisle seat. He was the only man I could see wearing a buttoned-up shirt, tie, and matching coat and trousers. After brightening at the sight of Hazel and Lisa, he looked down his nose at me when he realized I was with them. He was the reason I’d seated Hazel on the outside. I knew she could handle this traveling-salesman type. I hoped Lisa and I would be ignored.

  Walter sat down two or three seats away. He was poised to make our ticket purchases as soon as the conductor came along. He made a good-looking Spaniard although a good deal more fair than the majority. The train started off with a jerk which temporarily silenced the high-pitched conversations all around us. The ride was atrocious, a rattling, tail-pounding progress over a lumpy roadbed.

  The conductor arrived, and I became uneasy at the length of Walter’s conversation with him, although I could see money and tickets changing hands. I stewed about it for twenty-five minutes until the train stopped at a town identical in appearance to the one we’d left. Walter tapped my arm and indicated we should leave the train. We got off and walked thirty feet beyond the last car. Walter gestured toward the horizon with a wide sweep of his arm; anyone watching him must have thought he had an option on half the barren-looking land in sight and a red-hot prospect.

  “We have to change trains a
t a place called Quebarro,” he said softly. “There’s no direct route to Madrid. And there’ll be a one hour wait in a fairly large station.”

  I knew he was thinking the same thing I was: a large city meant police. “How far away is this Quebarro?”

  “Three hours.”

  “We’ve got to get onto the Madrid train without showing identity papers, Walter. Don’t ask too many questions aboard this one. It points us out as strangers.”

  The engine whistled sadly, announcing the end of its five-minute stop. We reboarded the passenger car. There was a long run to the next stop. The scenery was spectacular, but I was in no mood to appreciate it. Some of the passengers broke out lunches, and there was an immediate strong odor of garlic. Accumulated body heat induced even less pleasant odors in the car.

  Most of the passengers dozed off after eating. Even on a train, the siesta hour in Spain was inviolate. I almost expected the engineer to pull off on a siding and join in. I pulled my wide-brimmed hat down over my eyes and gave thought to Quebarro and its potential problems.

  At the next stop I signaled Walter to join me outside on the platform again. Hazel was carrying on a flirtation with the traveling-salesman type who glared at me impatiently when I stepped on him while moving into the aisle. The place looked like a ghost town. The street along the railroad track was deserted. Shutters were pulled down in front of shop entrances. A taxi driver was asleep in the front seat of his cab, his sandaled feet sticking out one window.

  “Why couldn’t Quebarro be like this?” I asked, surveying the desolation.

  “The conductor said it’s much larger,” Walter answered my rhetorical question literally.

  “When we arrive there, put us into a café while you check out the procedure for getting onto the Madrid train. And just remember that Lisa can’t stand—”

  “Don’t remind me,” he cut me off.

  I had been about to say that Lisa couldn’t stand even a five-second turnout. The papers for Hazel and Walter and me would be good for a cursory inspection but not a thorough one. Our only real hope was to dodge all inspections while attracting no attention to ourselves.