Night Over the Solomons (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Runnels and Winkler were both skilled atomic specialists. Panola was the record man whose task it would be to compile and keep the records of the trip and of the secret experiments, if they were able to observe them. Shan Bao, the Manchu, was Madden’s own Man Friday, a hard-bitten North China fighter whom Turk had met in Siberia.

  Turk, Winkler, and Runnels went ashore first. “We’ve got to set up a shelter,” Winkler suggested. “And the sooner the better, as it may rain.

  What would you suggest, Madden? You’ve had more of this sort of experience than I.”

  “Back in the woods,” he said instantly.

  “Find four living trees for the corner posts.

  Clear out under them and build walls of some of these dead logs we see around. If we cut trees, the white blaze of the cut will be visible from the air.

  You can spot ‘em for miles in the right light. But there’s enough brush here, and we, shouldn’t have to cut anything except under the four trees.” The place he selected was four huge trees with wide spreading branches near a huge, rocky outcropping. There was nothing but brush between the trees, and it was a matter of minutes for the five men to clear it away. Then they began hauling up logs from the beach. Several of them were large enough to split into four timbers. By nightfall they had the walls erected and a peaked roof of interwoven bows with fir limbs covering it. All was safely under the spreading branches of the trees.

  Turk paced the beach restlessly, and his eyes studied the low hanging clouds. The whole thing had been too easy, and he was worried. The ship that had brought them south had heaved to on a leaden sea, and the amphibian had been put into the water. Then, with their equipment and supplies aboard, they had taken off.

  The whole process, planned and carefully rehearsed, had taken them no more than minutes. On the flight to the mainland they had seen no one, no ship, no boat, nothing remotely human. Yet even on this lonely shore, it seemed too easy.

  It was miles to the nearest port. The country inland was wild and broken, no country for a man to live in.

  Yet here and there were Patagonian savages, he knew. And there might be others. Knowing the cold-blooded ruthless tactics of his enemy, and their thoroughness, he could not but doubt.

  When the logs had been moved from the beach, he carefully picked up any chips and covered the places where they had laid with as much skill as possible.

  A spring flowed from the rock outcropping near the house they had built. They could reach it without going into the open. They had food enough, although he knew there had once been a few deer in the vicinity. Otherwise, there would be nothing except occasional sea birds, and perhaps a hair seal or two.

  Runnels, a heavyset, brown-faced man who had been working with atomic scientists for ten years, walked toward him.

  “Beastly lonely place, isn’t it? Reminds me of the Arctic. I hunted in Dawson once.”

  Madden nodded. “Seems too good to be true,” he said thoughtfully, was I smell trouble)”

  “You’re pessimistic)” Runnels said. His face grew serious. “Well, if it comes we can’t do a thing but take it. We’re on our own. They told us if we got caught, we couldn’t expect any help from home.”

  “What’s the dope on this experiment?” Turk asked. was I don’t know much about it.”

  “They’ve got two old German warships.

  Ships that got away before the rest were surrendered.

  They are in bad shape, but good enough for the experiment.

  They are going to try sinking them with an atomic bomb about two hundred miles off shore. Then, they are going to try an experiment inland, back in the waste of the plains.

  “Our job is not to interfere, only to get information on the results so we can try a comparison with our own.”

  Turk Madden nodded. He had his own orders.

  He had been told to obey orders from Winkler up to a point, beyond that his own judgment counted most as he was the most experienced at this sort of thing. Also, if it were possible, he was to try to destroy whatever equipment or bombs they had. But that was his own job and was to be done with utmost skill, and entirely without giving away his presence or that of his party. A difficult, almost impossible mission, but one that could be done. After all, he had blown bridges right under the noses of the Japanese. This could scarcely be more difficult.

  He walked toward the ridge and, keeping under the trees, climbed slowly toward the top. Now was the time to get acquainted with the country. There was one infallible rule for warfare or struggle of any kind-know your terrain-and he intended to know this.

  There were no paths, but he found a way toward the top along a broken ledge, a route that he noticed was not visible from below, if the traveler would but move with reasonable care to avoid being seen.

  There were broken slabs of rock, and much undergrowth.

  He was halfway up before the path became difficult, and then he used his hands to pull himself from handhold to handhold. Yet, before he had reached the top, he slipped suddenly and began to slide downward with rapidly increasing momentum.

  Below him was a cliff which he had skirted.

  Wildly, his hand shot out to stay his fall. It closed upon a bush, and-held. Slowly, carefully, fearful at each instant that the bush would come loose at the roots, he pulled himself up until he had a foothold. Then a spot of blackness arrested his eye. It was a hole.

  Moving carefully, to get a better view, he found it was a small hole in the rock, a spot scarcely large enough to admit a man’s body.

  Taking out his flashlight, he thrust his arm inside, and gasped with surprise. Instead of a small hole, it was a large cavern, a room of rock bigger than the shelter below, and with a black hole leading off into dimness beyond the reach of his light.

  Thoughtfully, he withdrew his arm. Turning his head, he looked below. He could see the pool where the plane was, and he could see the lake. But he was not visible from the shelter. Nor, if he remained still, could he be seen from below.

  He pulled himself higher and began once more to climb. Why, he did not know, but suddenly he decided he would say nothing of the cave. Later, perhaps. But not now.

  When Madden reached the crest of the hill he did not stand up. He had pulled himself over the rim and was lying face down. Carefully, he inched along the ground until he was behind a large bush. He rose to his knees and carefully brushed off his clothes.

  Then he looked. He was gazing over a wide, inland valley. About two miles away was another chain of hills still higher. The valley itself led away inland, a wide sweep with a small stream flowing through it. A stream that was obviously a tributary leading to the Rio Negro. North along the coast were great, massive headlands, brutal shoulders of rock of a gloomy grandeur but rarely seen elsewhere. The hills where there was soil were covered with evergreens and with antarctic beeches in thick growth.

  Under those trees moss grew heavy, so thick and heavy that one could sink knee deep into it, and there was thick undergrowth also. Yet, a knowing man could move swiftly even in that incredible tangle. Turk started down the ridge upon which he had lain, sure now that nobody was in sight. Indeed, there was scarcely a chance that a man had been in this area in months, if not in years. He walked swiftly, headed for a promontory not far away where he might have a better view up the coast.

  He had dropped from a rocky ledge and turned around a huge boulder when he saw something that brought him up short. For an instant, his eyes swept the area before him, a small, flat plain leading to the foot of the bluff toward which he had been going. There was nothing. Nothing now. Yet there upon the turf of the plain were the clear, unmistakable tracks of wheels! Turk walked swiftly to the tracks, yet careful to step on stones, of which there were plenty, and thus leave no track himself. Then he stopped, staring at the tracks.

  A plane. A fighter craft by the distance between the tires, and the weight at indicated by the impression left on the turf. If not a fighter, then a small plane, heavily loaded. More likely, a
fighter. The landing here would not be bad.

  Yet why here?

  Carefully, and with infinite skill, he began to skirt the plain, examining every nook every corner. Finally, he found a dead fire. He touched his hand to the ashes. There was, he thought, a bare suggestion of warmth.

  He looked around at the camp site. Someone had stopped here, picked up wood, and built the fire.

  They had warmed a lunch, eaten, and then flown away.

  Four small logs had been placed side by side, and the fire built upon them, thus the fire was kept off the damp ground. One of the men, and there had been two, had known something. He was a woodsman.

  At least, he was not unfamiliar with the wilds. That meant even more care must be exercised. He shifted his carbine to his left hand and studied the scene thoughtfully. Was the visit here an accident? Had there been a mere forced landing? Or was it by intention?

  Squatting on his haunches, he studied the ends of the sticks the fire had left unburned. Several of them were fresh, white and newly cut. But several were older, older and yet as he dug into the bark with his thumbnail, he saw they were still green.

  It could mean but one thing. Someone had been here more than once. Someone had built a fire here before.

  Turning, he walked back to the tracks, and working carefully, he moved across the plain. He found two more sets of tracks.

  So that was it. A patrol plane. A plane that flew along this bit of coast, stopped here occasionally while the pilot and his companions cooked and ate a warm meal, probably loafed awhile, and then took off again.

  It meant more than that. It meant the Americans had slipped in but a short time after the patrol plane had left. That the fact they were alive at all was due to the fact that Turk Madden had touched the coast south of the San Tadeo River. Had he come right in over the coast they would have met the fighter plane! Or have missed it by the narrowest of margins! Turk turned quickly, but even as he turned, something whipped by his face and hit the tree behind him with a thud!

  Madden hit the ground all in one piece and rolled into the brush. Instantly, he was on his hands and knees and crawling. He made a dozen yards to the right before he stopped behind the trunk of a huge beech and stared out across the open.

  Almost at once there were four more quick shots. Four shots openly spaced and timed, and Turk heard one of them clip through the trees on his left, and the second flipped by him so close that he dropped flat and hugged the ground, his face white and his spine chilled by the close escape. The other two shots clipped through the woods some distance off: “Smart guy, eh?” Turk snarled. “Two shots evenly spaced on each side of where I hit the brush! You’re not so dumb!”

  Straightening up, he stood behind the tree and studied the situation. It was late, and it was cloudy.

  By the time he had skirted the plain it would be pitch dark, and he could find no tracks, while he was certain to make some noise and the chances of his being shot, if his assailant waited, would be great.

  Walking back over the country between the campfire and the hidden base, he scowled over the problem. Who could be in the vicinity? Had one of the men with the plane remained behind? But if so, why? That didn’t make sense, for even if the enemy were expecting something of the kind, they would never expect it right here. Quite obviously, the entire coast was patrolled, probably as much against their own people, if any, as against foreigners.

  If someone had remained behind in that vast and lonely country it could mean but one thing: They had been betrayed.

  And if it wasn’t a stranger, it could be only one of the men of his own party! Yet, if so, why shoot? They were anxious to keep their presence concealed. Could there be a traitor in his own group? When he stepped through the door into the shelter under the trees, they were all there.

  Shan Bao was stewing something in a kettle over the fire. He glanced up, but said nothing.

  Runnels grinned at him. “Well, we beat you back, but not by very long!” Turk looked at him for a moment. “You were out, too?” “Yeah, all of us. We decided it was as good a time as any to have a look around. We just got back. I went south along the river. Nothing down there.”

  “I didn’t find anything either,” Panola said.

  “Not a thing but some marshy, wet country.”

  “That seems to be the consensus,” Winkler agreed.

  “Nothing around.” “I wouldn’t say that,” Turk said slowly. Was there a traitor in the crowd? There was no telling-now. They had each gone a separate way. “I found plenty]”

  Winkler got up, frowning. “You found something?

  What?” “The tracks of a patrol plane-a fighter. Evidently this region is carefully patrolled. The plane lands over in a little plain across the ridge. It has landed there more than once.”

  “How could you tell that?” Panola demanded. “By the tracks. Also by the ends of the sticks used to make a fire. A good woodsman,” he added, and he knew if there was a guilty man here he would sense added meaning in what he said, “can read a lot of things where the average man can see nothing.”

  Turk Madden sat down suddenly. He was mad all through. Maybe one of them had taken a shot at him, but if he had, there was no way to prove it.

  He would just have to wait. He felt the weight of the .45 automatic in his shoulder holster, and liked the feel of it.

  Winkler stared thoughtfully into the fire. “So they are patrolling the coast? That means we’ve got to go very slow.”

  “Well,” Panola suggested, “the attack comes off in three days. When the plane comes back, let’s knock him off. It would be at least two days before they’d be able to get down to investigate, and by that time, we’d be gone. “Why two days?”

  Runnels asked. “They might have a radio on that ship. Probably have, in fact.”

  “Even so, I doubt if there would be any search organized for a couple of days. You know how bad the storms are down here. It would be all too easy for a plane to get caught in one of those terrific blasts of wind.” “It won’t do,”

  Winkler said. “We’ve got to keep out of sight.”

  “That’s right,” Runnels said. “Our job is not to bother with these fellows. We’re to get our information and get out, and if we can do it without them having even a suspicion, so much the better.”

  “Well, the first thing will be for nobody to do any wandering about,” Winkler said. “If we do, we’ll be seen. So everybody sticks to this side of the ridge and keeps under the trees. We’ve got the plane camouflaged, so that won’t have to be worried about.”

  That made sense. And yet? Suppose Winkler was the one? Suppose it was also a method of keeping them from finding anything more? And what about Panola? , “As though we were at the end of the world here,”

  Runnels remarked. “Everything still as death except for that wind. A man would starve to death if lost on this shore.”

  “Yeah, and we’re not so far as the crow flies from Buenos Aires. And what a town that is!”

  “Have you been there?” Turk asked. “I thought I was the only one who knew South America?”

  “Been there?” Panola grinned. “Shucks, man, I lived there for three years! Runnels has been here, too! Weren’t you here during the war?”

  “Uh-huh. I was on duty as military attache for a couple of months.” Turk ate in silence. So Panola and Runnels had both been to the Argentine? It was easy to be influenced by all that wealth and glitter. The sixteen families or so that dictated the life in the Argentine could entertain very beautifully. Perhaps one, or both, of the two men had been influenced? Persuaded?

  Morning came, and he went down to the ship. Shan Bao joined him after a few minutes. He looked thoughtfully at the Manchu, then glanced around to make sure no one heard him.

  “You keep your eyes open, Shan,” he said softly. “You savvy? You watch everybody. Anybody do anything wrong, you tell me.” He was working over the plane when he saw Runnels and Winkler come out of the shelter. Turk turned and swung as
hore.

  Panola was taking some weather observations, checking his instruments atop the ridge. It was as good an idea as any.

  Stepping quickly over the logs, he got to the shack. None of the men had taken their carbines, and he picked up the nearest one, that of Winkler. A quick examination showed it clean. Runnel’s checked the same. Then he picked up Panola’s carbine.

  A quick glance into the barrel. It had been fired.

  Panola.

  Turk went back outside and returned to the plane, his mind rehashing everything he could remember on Panola. All of them had been checked very thoroughly by the FBI, yet something had been missed.

  Panola was of Italian. parentage. He had been born in Brooklyn raised there, had gone to college, and his war record had been excellent.

  He knew nothing beyond that, that and the fact that Panola had lived in Buenos Aries for three years sometime during this period. Another thing remained. How had Panola, if he was the marksman, returned to the shelter so quickly the night before? There must be another route than that over the ridge.

  “I think,” he said musingly, “a little trip around by plane would do more good than anything else!”

  Major Winkler was coming down through the trees.

  “Major,” he said, when the tall, narrow faced man had come closer, “I think I’ll take a cruise around. This country needs some looking over.” “You think it’s wise?” Winkler asked thoughtfully. “Well, go ahead, but be careful!”

  A half hour later, when Turk taxied the ship out from under the overhanging trees and the camouflaged shelter built for the plane, Shan Bao was ashore.

  Madden turned the ship down the pool and, after a run, lifted it into the air, banked steeply, and swung away up the coast. After a few minutes he lifted the plane into the mists under the clouds. As he swung back and forth up the coast, he studied the terrain below. Suddenly, he saw a housel it was a huge, gray stone building, back of a little cove with a black sand beach. A yacht was anchored in the cove, and a motor launch was at the small wharf.