“Hands up!” Connie’s voice was somewhat unsteady, but she was very businesslike in pointing the German rifle at the head of the lieutenant.
“Throw down your guns!”
Ritter turned in dumb surprise from where he stood over Kaplan. He held his bloody fist out in front of him like a chunk of raw meat. The second rifleman started to turn. The lieutenant looked back over his shoulder into the muzzle of Connie’s gun and spoke rapidly in German. The weapon he held and that of the angular rifleman clattered to the floor.
Instantly, Hooker was out of his chair to pick them up. Buzz got up a little unsteadily and wiped the blood from his eyes. He walked over to the burly Ritter.
“Let me show you how to hit, Kraut head.” Kaplan’s big fists slammed Ritter in the face half a dozen times before the German hit the floor.
While the lieutenant and the other enlisted man watched in shock, Hooker slipped around behind them and put them both down with blows from a rifle butt.
He tossed the second rifle to Buzz, who caught it in the air, and both men stumbled out the door. They stood poised for a moment outside the building, waiting for some alarm to sound. The night remained quiet. They hurried around the corner to where Connie stood by the broken window clutching the rifle. She was shaking violently.
Hooker put his arms around her and held her close until she stopped shivering.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said in a whisper.
“L-like you said, I was watching your rear. I saw the three guys grab you and march you over here, so I got down as fast as I could.”
“I love your dialogue — ‘Hands up! Throw down your guns!’”
“I went to cowboy movies a lot when I was a kid.”
He gently removed the rifle from her hand. “Uh, where did you get this?”
“I saw where you tossed it when Buzz cold-cocked the sentry. I thought you were crazy at the time, but it worked out pretty well, didn’t it?”
“Honey,” Buzz began, “there’s something you maybe ought to know….”
Hooker touched Buzz’s arm and shook his head. “You did great, Connie,” he said. “Just great.”
She smiled up at him. “Thanks, Hooker.”
“Now, let’s see about getting the hell out of here.”
Buzz said, “You don’t think we could maybe still give it a try?”
“Be serious, buddy. Captain Submarine will be back any minute, and when he finds his pals asleep, there’s going to be hell to pay around here. Let’s arrange to be as far away as we can.”
“Okay,” Buzz said reluctantly. “I guess we did the best we could.”
“Bet your ass we did. Come on; let’s head for the hills.”
• • •
The three of them took off for the perimeter of the base and the trail that led up to the top of the bluff. Connie went first; Buzz limped painfully along after her. Hooker came last, taking the first opportunity to drop the sentry’s empty rifle into the brush.
At the boulder where Connie had waited and watched, they paused to catch their breath.
“Still nothing stirring down below,” Buzz said.
“We’re lucky,” Hooker said. “There soon will be.”
“What do we do when we get to the top?” Connie asked.
“Use the raft to cross the river,” Hooker said. “Then head up the beach the other way like I wanted to in the first place.”
“Why don’t we use the bridge?”
“Too hard to find it in the dark, and the Germans’ll be looking for us soon.”
“What do we do if they catch us?”
“We don’t let them catch us.” He gave her a shove to start her up the trail, and the three of them scrambled on.
The night was black and moonless when they reached the top. Hooker was the first to pull himself up over the lip of the bluff; then he turned and helped up first Connie, then Buzz.
He stood back for a moment to draw a breath and heard Buzz go “Huff!” as the air went out of his lungs.
“What — ” he began, but never finished the sentence as something hard and thick as a fire hose wrapped around his chest and lifted him off the ground. His ears rang, and his lungs pumped vainly for air. He felt the German rifle plucked from his hand like a toy from a child.
A torch flared in the darkness. The pressure on Hooker’s chest eased enough for him to pull in a small breath. He pawed ineffectively at the bare brown arms that held him motionless. A few feet away, he saw Kaplan also fighting for breath in the arms of a mueratero. Another of them held Connie.
The light of the torch bobbed closer to them. Behind it, Hooker recognized the face of the Mayan chief, Holchacán.
“It has been an interesting chase, Hooker. But now it is over.”
Below them, lights blinked on and voices shouted.
“If you want to save your own ass, you’ll get us all out of here,” Hooker gasped. “Do you know what’s down there?”
“A German submarine base,” the Mayan chief said.
“I’ll be damned. You do know.”
“Of course. You were curious about where the money came from to restore the city of Iztal. Much of it came from the German government. Payment for keeping people away from this base. Few people knowing the legend of the muerateros would even enter the jungle of Quintana Roo. You are the first to get this far.”
“That won’t look too good on your record,” Hooker said.
“I don’t think we need worry about that,” said Holchacán. “By the time the Germans get up here and see what is left of you three, they will know their money is well spent.”
CHAPTER 35
There was a rustling and shuffling back in the shadows, and more figures walked into the light cast by the torch. There were two separate groups. On one side, ranged behind Holchacán, were his Mayan warriors. They were armed with swords and the short, deadly spears. On the other, moving in nightmarish silence, were the muerateros.
“Nice crowd,” Hooker said. The heavy arms tightened their grip around his chest.
“I want your fate to be an object lesson,” said the Mayan chief. “Word will spread rapidly of what happens to those who challenge Quintana Roo.”
Through the ranks of the muerateros moved one who was taller and more pale than the rest. Patchy gray hair grew like fungus on his head. There was something different about his eyes — a light that was not quite extinguished.
“Nolan!” Connie cried. “Oh, God, Nolan!”
If the tall, pale creature showed a flicker of recognition, it was too faint for Hooker to catch.
“I see you recognize your husband, Mrs. Braithwaite,” said Holchacán. “Perhaps I should say your late husband. He has undergone changes, as you can see.”
“You bastard,” Connie said in a dull voice.
“Actually, he turned out quite well. He has already survived beyond the usual time for these creatures. I’m quite proud of him.”
Holchacán came closer with the torch and peered into the faces of Hooker and Kaplan. “It’s a pity I was not able to finish the job on you two. Both of you have strong constitutions. You might have outlasted them all.”
Hooker said nothing. He had to fight even to breathe.
“Now your value as subjects is destroyed. To satisfy the Germans, I will have to show them your dead bodies. But there will always be fools who venture into the jungle.”
The clamor from down on the beach grew louder. Lights could be seen starting to move up the trail as the Germans organized their search.
“It is time,” said Holchacán. He fixed his eyes on the muerateros, who held the three captives. “Kill them.”
Hooker felt the arms clamped around his rib cage begin to tighten. He put all he had left into a struggle for life, but his blows had no more effect than a baby’s.
From somewhere in the darkening world that closed in on him, Hooker heard a howl that was not quite human but was unlike any animal he knew. The crushing pressure o
n his chest gradually eased. As the torch-lit scene swam into focus, he saw Nolan Braithwaite, or what was left of him, standing in front of the motionless muerateros. His arms were outstretched in a gesture of command. His mouth gaped. The torchlight glittered in his unblinking eyes.
“What are you doing?” The voice, high and hysterical, was that of Holchacán. “Kill them, I said!” He barked an order in the old Mayan language.
The howl came again. It came from the mouth of Nolan Braithwaite. Into that terrible cry was packed more rage and pain and hatred than any one man should know.
Without warning, the powerful arms around Hooker let go. He collapsed on the ground and gasped for air. Beside him lay Connie and Buzz.
The pale mueratero gestured to the others. The sounds that he made were not words, but they had a pattern, and they brought a response.
Slowly at first, then with more purpose, the walking dead men advanced on Holchacán and his warriors.
The Mayan chief shouted an order. The empty-eyed muerateros did not falter.
“Back!” cried Holchacán in English. “Damn you, get back!”
But it was his own warriors, not the dead ones, who gave ground. The stink of fear was in the air.
Buzz crawled over next to Hooker. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Hooker said, “but I think we better stay out of it.”
Holchacán turned toward his men, who were edging away toward the jungle. He spat out orders in the old Mayan dialect while gesturing toward the muerateros. It was not difficult for Hooker to get the drift: destroy them!
To the credit of the Mayan warriors, they fought bravely. They walked into the advancing army of dead men, slashing at them with their swords and shoving their spears through the unfeeling bodies. Hooker could have told them that the mueratero is hard to hurt.
The scene was like a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. the Mayan warriors inflicted terrible wounds on the muerateros, slicing them open, hacking off limbs, and still the dead ones came on as long as they could drag themselves. When they reached the Mayas, they tore the Indians apart with bare hands. Hooker watched one of the muerateros, with his stomach laid open and a bloody mess of entrails dragging on the ground, crush the throat of a warrior, then fall on top of his victim, truly dead at last.
Hooker turned at the sound of weeping to see Connie Braithwaite hugging herself, staring dazedly at the battle. He put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. She looked at him. In her eyes, the horror dimmed a little.
“Let’s get out of here,” Hooker said. “Where’s Buzz?”
“I-I don’t know. He was here a minute ago.”
“Damn, I hope he didn’t get himself into the fight.”
“Wait!” Connie said.
She was no longer looking at him. Hooker followed her eyes and saw Holchacán, his face twisted in terror, holding the torch out like a fiery sword. Walking toward him, fingers bent into claws, was Nolan Braithwaite.
Holchacán thrust the flaming torch into his face. Hooker could hear the sizzle of flesh all the way over where he crouched next to Connie.
Braithwaite swatted the torch to the ground. Holchacán stepped back and drew his sword. He swung it in a vicious arc. Braithwaite raised an arm to ward off the blow. The blade sliced cleanly through his wrist and the severed hand flopped to the ground.
The Mayan chieftain lunged with the sword, sank it deep into Nolan Braithwaite, and heaved upward on the hilt. Something spilled out of Braithwaite’s stomach. Hooker moved in front of Connie so she couldn’t see.
Braithwaite’s body shuddered. With the sword still in him, he stumbled forward, reached out with his remaining hand, and seized Holchacán by the face. Two of his fingers went into the eye sockets, the thumb into the mouth, strangling the scream of the Mayan chieftain. Braithwaite used his ruined arm, with blood still running from the stump of the wrist, to encircle the Indian’s back. He hugged the body of Holchacán to his own while bending the head backward. The Maya’s neck snapped.
Nolan Braithwaite released the body of the Mayan chief, letting it crumple at his feet like a broken marionette. He turned slowly toward Hooker and Connie, who was now on her knees, staring at him. Braithwaite used his one hand to pull the Mayan sword from his body and drop it to the ground. Then he half raised the hand in a clumsy gesture of farewell and collapsed.
Connie lurched to her feet and started toward him.
Hooker put a hand on her arm, restraining her. “Let him be, Connie. He’s finished now.”
The remaining Mayan warriors, seeing their leader go down, gave up the battle and melted back into the jungle. The muerateros, maimed and mutilated, started to move toward the bluff where the trail led up from the beach.
Hooker yanked Connie to her feet and pulled her in the opposite direction. “I’d love to see how the Germans handle this, but we can’t stay.”
He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted “Buzz!” If there was an answer, he could not hear it over the growing commotion at the top of the trail. He called again without response.
Hooker waited until he heard the first shots fired by the Germans as they met the muerateros. Then he took a firm hold of Connie’s hand and ran for the river.
CHAPTER 36
It was a long, dark, terrible night.
Hooker and Connie Braithwaite spent it in a rocky niche between two boulders at the foot of the bluff on the other side of the waterfall.
After finding the raft and paddling it across the river by hand, they scrambled, half falling, down the bluff to the beach. Hooker decided it would be foolish to try to travel any farther over unknown terrain in the dark. The two boulders at least offered shelter.
The cries and the gunfire from the Germans’ battle with the muerateros had continued for an hour. When at last it was quiet, Hooker was almost sorry. The noise had kept him from hearing phantom voices in the wash of the waves. There had been no sign of Buzz Kaplan.
Gradually, reluctantly, the night retreated. Hooker disentangled himself from Connie, who had dozed fitfully, her head against his chest.
“Where are you going?” she said, her voice still blurred with sleep.
“To take a look around.”
He eased out from between the boulders and stretched his muscles. Everything ached. His stomach growled. His mouth tasted like old socks.
The dawn was a peaceful one, all baby blue and pink. There was no movement up on the bluff. No sounds other than the shush of the waves and the muffled roar of the waterfall. He could not see the German submarine base because of a hillock tufted with saw grass that rose between them and the rest of the beach in that direction.
Connie came out to join him. She used her fingers to rake twigs and sand out of her hair. When she reached his side, she ran a hand across his shaved scalp.
“Morning, baldy. You look terrible.”
It was not the first time Hooker had been amazed by the recuperative powers of the so-called weaker sex.
“I can’t imagine why,” he said. “You look swell.”
She cocked her head. “Do you hear something?”
“The waterfall.”
“No, besides that. A kind of buzzing.”
He held his breath and listened. “Yeah.” Shading his eyes against the sun and its reflection from the water, he peered at the sky. To the north of them was a moving dot. The dot came closer, and he saw it was an airplane.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
The two of them ran down to the edge of the water and jumped and flapped their arms and shouted like a couple of kids.
The airplane, a high-wing cabin job, flew overhead, then circled back out across the water. The dazzle of the sun made its flight difficult to follow, but the drone of the engine told them it was coming lower.
“Do you think they saw us?” Connie said.
“Yeah.” Hooker was thoughtful.
“Something the matter?”
“I have a funny feeling about that airp
lane.”
Connie was jumping up and down again. “Hooker, I think he’s going to land!”
The plane banked down out of the sun and over the German base, heading directly at them. It dropped out of sight beyond the hillock. They heard the wheels hit the ground. The engine coughed and quit.
“Come on,” Connie said, tugging at Hooker’s hand. “Let’s go get rescued.”
There was a cold lump in the pit of his stomach, but Hooker blamed it on not having eaten properly for days. He followed Connie up to the top of the hillock, where they both stopped and stared down at the familiar red and white Stinson Detroiter.
“I don’t believe it,” Hooker muttered.
The cabin door opened, and Klaus Heinemann jumped down to the hard-packed sand. He was handsome and immaculate in a leather flight jacket and whipcord pants, a silk scarf at his throat. His fine blond hair ruffled in the sea breeze.
Connie ran to meet him. Hooker followed more slowly. Heinemann accepted her welcoming embrace, then set her gently to one side as Hooker approached. His right hand slipped casually into a jacket pocket.
“Hello, Hooker,” he said. “You seem to have lost your hair.”
“That’s not all I’ve lost,” Hooker said.
“No. I am afraid it isn’t.”
Connie moved away from Heinemann, looking puzzled. “What’s going on?”
Heinemann removed his hand from the pocket. It held the Luger pistol he had used in Campeche.
“Stand over by Hooker, please,” he said to Connie.
She hesitated. He gestured with the pistol, and she did as she was told.
“You had to come, didn’t you?” Heinemann said. “With all the warnings you received about Quintana Roo, with all the people who advised you to stay away, you had to come. Very stubborn, Hooker. And very foolish.”
“I presume,” Hooker said, “that we are talking to the commander of the Nazi U-boat base.”
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