by John Benteen
“We have some whiskey. But, Fargo, you don’t understand—” Then a motorcar rattled and coughed outside. “Oh, God, Fargo, that’s Ward now. What will he say when he finds you here?”
Fargo raked his eyes over her. Even in her fright, she was lovely. The dress she wore was cut low and must have been very, very expensive. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, and he drew his pistol.
Kane’s footsteps sounded as he mounted to the porch, pushed open the screen, came into the house. He wore khakis that were sweat soaked and, Fargo saw immediately, carried no sidearm. At the sight of Fargo with the gun trained on him, he halted, eyes widening in his square face. “You,” he whispered. “What are you doing here?” His gaze shot past Fargo to his wife. “Myra,” he rasped. “You promised me that—”
“I didn’t come here to sleep with Myra,” Fargo said. “I came here to talk with you, since Goethals is gone. And you’re going to listen to me and listen good. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you, so help me God.”
“Listen to you?” Kane blinked. “About what?”
“About something important,” Fargo said. “The most important thing you ever heard.”
The confusion left Kane’s face. Suddenly his eyes were almost alert, and he was authoritative, competent. “If it’s that important, maybe you’d better start talking.”
“Yes,” Fargo said, and he began.
Fifteen minutes later, Kane shook his head. “It’s incredible,” he whispered, “Simply incredible. But, my God, if it’s true, if there’s any chance at all of it’s being true, we’ve got to do something right away.”
Fargo still kept him covered with the pistol. “The first thing to do is to get military forces into place to meet any attack. Triple guards around the locks. Then we’ve got to comb Gold Hill back of Culebra Cut for those charges.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’ve a telephone here. I’ll ring Colonel Withers, he has direct command of the defenses. We’ll get onto this right away.” Kane went to the instrument on the wall. He turned the crank; when the operator answered, he asked to be connected with the headquarters for Zone Defense. After a moment, he said, “Thank you. This is Major Kane; I’m at home. Ring me back as soon as you can, will you?” He hung up, turned to Fargo. “The lines are busy. The operator will ring me back in not over five minutes.” His mouth thinned. “Whatever the personal dislike we have for one another, we can’t let it endanger the security of the Canal.”
Fargo let out a long, shuddering breath of relief. “You’re smarter than I thought, Kane. I figured it would take a hell of a lot to get the whole idea through your head. Maybe Goethals was right in making you his Exec.” He lowered the pistol; then he holstered it.
“I’ll admit I’m shaken,” Kane said. “I’d like a drink. You, Fargo?”
“Yes.”
Kane went to a cabinet in a corner of the room. “Bourbon? Gin?” He opened its door, reached inside.
“Bourbon,” Fargo said.
“All right,” Kane said. “I’ve got some fine Kentucky stuff just came in on the last ship.”
Then he turned around. But his hand held no bottle. It held instead a Colt .45 service automatic, trained squarely on Fargo. And there was a light in Kane’s stolid eyes that Fargo could never have imagined they could contain. Kane’s lip curled. “Fargo, you made it easy for me, didn’t you?” And in that instant, Fargo understood; he understood it all; and he cursed himself for a fool.
“I should have known,” he said. “The complete plans on all the locks. The surveys of the hill above the Cut. Of course. You’re Buckner’s inside man.”
Kane nodded. “That’s right. And after all the trouble you went to getting away from Cleve, you walked right in here, didn’t you? Well, you won’t walk out, Fargo. You’ll go out feet first.” He laughed softly. “You’ve got it coming to you anyway. You slept with my wife. It won’t even be murder. Nobody will blame a man who comes home and finds another man with his wife and kills him.” His eyes shifted to Myra. “Of course, she’s slept with half the men on this post already. But you’re the unlucky one. You’re the one who got caught, understand?”
“Ward—” Myra said, her voice trembling.
“Shut up, you bitch,” he said fiercely. “You slut. You whore. You’ve cuckolded me with enough men; you’ve got to figure that one of ’em’s going to die from it.” His voice shook, but the gun was steady.
“She’s a dangerous woman to fall in love with, Fargo. I found that out a long time ago. She likes the high life, she’s got expensive tastes. And a Captain’s pay in this lousy army—even a Major’s—doesn’t pay for the kind of things she likes.”
His voice rose a little. “I’ve served my country in this lousy Army for twenty years, and I make less than a steam shovel operator out there in Culebra Cut. So when Buckner approached me ... Yeah, I’m his inside man. It pays a hell of a lot better than soldiering. And tomorrow night the payoff comes. I’ve waited a long time for that payoff, Fargo. My share of the gold from the pay cars will be more than I could earn if I stayed in the Army for a hundred years. It’ll buy a lot of pretty things for this bitch here ... Maybe so many that she’ll be faithful to me for a change ... Anyhow, I’m not going to let you spoil it now. In about one minute, I’m going to put a bullet through your gut. It might take you a while to die. But you’ll have time to regret things, Fargo; you’ll have time to regret sleeping with another man’s wife and playing spy and ...” His eyes shuttled to Myra. “Stand aside, slut,” he said. “Get out of the—”
Myra screamed. Fargo’s body, thrown sideways, crashed into her. In the same instant, his hand knocked the shotgun around, the barrels came up under his arm, and he fired, blindly, with no time to aim. The Colt roared simultaneously, and he felt the burn of its slug across his flank. Then Myra was screaming louder at the sight of what the eighteen buckshot had done to Ward Kane. At such close range, most of them had caught him; and the thing that had been thrown back against the living room wall hardly looked human. Fargo regained his balance, breathing heavily.
Still screaming, Myra looked at him wildly. Then the screaming broke off. “You’ve killed him,” she whimpered.
“No,” Fargo said coldly. “I only pulled the trigger. It was you that killed him.”
She began to scream again. “No! No!” Fargo slapped her, hard. “Shut up.” She broke off, staring at him with terror. “Shut up,” he said, again. “You’ll have plenty of chance to talk later. You’re going to tell the truth about this to Colonel Withers, you understand? You’re going to back me up.”
Myra shook her head. “No,” she whispered almost soundlessly. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Fargo said, and his hand jerked out the Batangas knife and flicked it open. “People will be here in a minute. You’d better make up your mind. You either back me up or I’ll carve you in such a way that no man will ever look at you again.”
Her eyes, wide, terrified, held disbelief. “You wouldn’t.”
Fargo said coldly, “Wouldn’t I?” and he thrust the knife point toward her face. There was no doubt in either her mind or his, then, that he would carry out his threat. Myra staggered backward, sank into a chair. There were already running feet on the front steps.
“All right,” she managed hoarsely. “I’ll say whatever you tell me.” Then she looked at the body of Ward Kane, and suddenly her voice was full of contempt. “He was a fool, anyhow.”
“Yes,” Fargo said. “For marrying you.” Then the door burst open and the others—the neighbors and the guards—were there.
Chapter Nine
Fargo sat on an iron cot in the brig of the battleship Vermont, lying at anchor in Colon harbor, and smoked, staring through the steel bars of the cell door, waiting. Two hours lost, he thought sourly, all because of the pigheadedness of the military mind.
And yet, he’d not expected Colonel Withers to accept his story without question. It was too wild, too monstrous. The simple way to prove it, of course,
would have been to locate those dynamite charges on the back of the hill above Culebra Cut. But Withers had to go all the way around his elbow to get to his thumb; and at last, even with Myra testifying that Kane had indeed admitted to the scheme, it had been necessary to use the name of the man at Sagamore Hill. But that had to be verified, too, and now Fargo waited while the ship’s wireless equipment did its work. The message had to be sent from the Vermont to another battleship in New York harbor, for the Navy was not as yet generally equipped with wireless devices; then word had to be gotten to Oyster Bay and an answer returned. Hell, Fargo thought, he could almost have rowed a boat to Long Island in the time they were taking ...
Then brisk footsteps sounded in the companionway. The guard before the cell snapped to rifle salute. Fargo stood up eagerly as a key turned in a lock. Then Withers was there, a sheet of paper in his hand. He was tall, ramrod straight, with gray hair and a bristly gray mustache and eyes like gimlets. “Fargo,” he said. He held out the paper.
Fargo took it, read: “Vouch for Fargo without reserve. Rely on him totally.” It was signed: TR.
“Sorry for the delay.” Withers’ voice was harsh, clipped. “You have my apologies for the inconvenience. Now, will you please come with me to my office? I’ll give you back your weapons. I imagine that, after all this, you could use a drink, too.”
He made his headquarters aboard the battleship. Maps were spread out on his desk, aides were at hand. One of them was introduced to Fargo as Captain Venters, an engineer.
An orderly brought Fargo a stiff drink from the wardroom. He was given back his gear, and he buckled it on. “Now,” said Withers, “let’s have this all again, to make sure we understand it thoroughly.”
“Right,” Fargo said. “Tomorrow’s the day before payday. You spot pay cars at four places along the railroad.”
“Yes,” Withers said. “The Zone Command does.”
Fargo nodded. “Buckner wants the gold in those cars, and he’ll come for it. His signal is the blowing of Culebra Cut. The entire hill is supposed to cave in and bury the shift working there. Then Buckner hits with a multiple attack, while everybody’s drawn off to the trouble in the Cut. Seven strong units—four to blow up the pay cars and everybody in them and get the gold; three to blow up the lock machinery. Half his men to be held in reserve to be shifted where needed and to cover the attack.”
“Well,” Venters said, “the men in Culebra Cut need have no fear. I’m familiar with the survey; I know where Kane would have planted those charges for maximum effect. I can go straight to them and dismantle them.”
“All right,” Fargo said. “But you’re still going to have to blow a hell of a lot of dynamite in the same area. Somewhere on Gold Hill.”
They all stared at him. Then Fargo said, “Dammit, don’t you see? Buckner won’t attack until after the dynamite’s gone off. He’ll be waiting for the explosion. Not only for the explosion, but for all kinds of alarm and turmoil. You’ll have to set off charges and raise all sorts of hell to make him think there’s a first class disaster. Then he’ll hit—and we can be waiting for him.”
“He has three hundred men, you say,” Withers inquired.
“Right.”
“We have only two hundred Marines. Of course, there are engineering troops, infantry and a little cavalry in the Zone, but ...” his lip curled “... they’re only Army.”
Fargo stared at that proud, ramrod straight figure. “Listen,” he said. “I’m Army myself. I’ll go up against any goddam leatherneck you got in your outfit. Either you work with the Army or Buckner screws up the Canal.”
“Oh,” Withers said hastily, face reddening, “we’ll work with the Army, of course. I was only thinking out loud.”
“You’d damn well better,” Fargo said. “Buckner’s no amateur.” Then he said, “I want Buckner. I want him for myself.” Withers stared at him. “I can’t promise you that. He’s a deserter from the Army. He has to be tried—”
“He has to be killed,” Fargo said. “He’s a mad dog. I want him.” He ground out his cigarette. “You’ll put out ambushes at every point he’s to hit, and at all the railroad trestles. He’s going to have to hit all along the line, which means he himself will have to command from a central point. I’m willing to gamble that he’ll go for the pay car at Culebra Cut. That’s where the worst opposition might be, with everybody centered there, and he’ll want to see for himself that the Cut’s been blown. On top of which, it’s right in the middle of his line. I want to be the one to blow the dynamite at Culebra Cut, and I want to be in command of the ambush there.”
Withers looked at him. “You’re taking a lot on yourself for a civilian.”
Fargo lifted the wireless message and let it drop. “Does this give me sufficient authority?”
“He no longer has any legal authority himself.”
“He used the Marines in a way no other President ever has.”
Withers drew in a deep breath. “True. Even though he’s Army, we have a soft spot for him. Yes. Well, all right. You’ll be in charge of blowing the dynamite at the Cut and you’ll have command of the ambush there. How many men do you want?”
“I want fifty. And, before the charges blow, I want everybody cleared from the Cut.”
Withers rubbed his chin, then nodded. “All right. Now, shall we work out everything in detail?”
It was nearly dawn when Fargo returned to the Hotel San Leon. The cantina was still open; he went in and Vargas was there behind the bar, his lids heavy. But they lifted when they saw Fargo.
“Amigo! Where have you been and what have you been up to?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Angel.”
“Knowing you, probably not.” Then Vargas grinned. “Someone waits for you in room twenty, upstairs.” He reached under the bar, brought out a bottle and passed it to Fargo. “On the house. I told Consuelo that you were back. She has not gone to work tonight. All night, she waits.”
Fargo made his wolf’s grin and took the bottle. “Room twenty. Thanks, Angel.”
Climbing the stairs, he put out of his mind the long and intricate conferences, the disposition of forces, the talk, the endless talk. Soldiers and Marines who had hired out to fight were so glad when they had the opportunity to do so that they nattered and carried on about making their plans like children. To Fargo, it was all ridiculous. He had a mind that grasped the issues, disposed of them immediately, made decisions and rested. The excited talk had bored him. The thought of Consuelo did not.
He found the room and knocked on its door. Nobody answered and he knocked again. Then a breathless voice said: “Who’s there?”
“Fargo.”
The door swung open at once. “Oh, God, Fargo! I have missed you so much! Where have you been? What have you been doing?”
Fargo ran his eyes over her. She wore a short, white cotton nightgown. Her big breasts made a shelf of it, and her olive-skinned legs were naked below it. “I’ve been away, doing things,” he said. “But I’m back now.” He went on into the room, closed the door behind him and locked it. “I’ve got a few hours. Then I’ve got to go out again.”
She came to him, pushing the big cushions of those breasts hard against him. Her nails dug into the flesh beneath his shirt. She rubbed herself against the hard cartridges in the bandoliers. “If you have only a few hours,” she whispered, “we’ll have to make the most of them.”
“That’s right,” Fargo said, his hand slipping around behind her, caressing the silken smoothness of her back, the rounded curve of her naked buttocks. She was only a whore, he thought, and doomed to be a whore for the rest of her life unless somebody managed to work a miracle for her. He stroked the silken young flesh and squeezed it and thought that maybe he might work that miracle: in Panama, a few hundred dollars in gold was a miracle; she could set herself up in a sort of business, buy a store, become something better than she was now, maybe even make a good marriage. He could spare a few hundred dollars in gold.
Then he quit thinking. “Get out of that nightgown,” he said; and he began to unbuckle the bandoliers and cartridge belts.
He watched as she stripped off the simple garment. Then she was unashamedly naked before him: the big breasts with their hard, pointed nipples; the curved belly with its dimpled navel; the dark vee of eager loins; the short, plump legs ...
He threw the rest of his clothes aside, pulled her to him. Her mouth was greedy under his, lips opening, tongue desperately seeking. He felt the marvelous texture of her skin against him as he forced her down on the bed, and as his mouth sought her lush breasts, her thighs locked around him. She groaned, deep in her throat.
“Fargo.” She made a sort of chant out of his name. “Fargo, Fargo, Fargo, ahh, Fargo ...”
Her body rose to receive him, and the chant went on and on; and Fargo forgot Buckner and the combat ahead. Making love and fighting; this was what a man was for. He had fought and would fight again. But for now, he needed this woman—
The next day, Fargo lay sweating in the brush, body festooned with bandoliers freshly crammed with new ammunition. Not far away, beyond the line of scrub, yawned the enormous maw of Culebra Cut. It was like a giant open-pit mine, stratum after stratum of earth gouged away by steam shovels, loaded on the special Lidgerwood cars, hauled out of the huge manmade canyon and dumped to fill the swamps.
Now it was deserted; the hundreds of workmen who normally labored there in the mud and dirt had been pulled out.
Fargo was on the back of Gold Hill, above the Cut. From here, he could see to its bottom. He could see the railroad that crawled along its edge. And, a quarter of a mile away, he could see the headquarters of the Culebra work, a cluster of wooden buildings spotted around the sidings and switches that served the Cut. Parked on one of those sidings was an armored pay car that had been put in place last night. Patrolling around it alertly, as they did every payday, were ten men armed with rifles and pistols, under the command of a lieutenant.
