War From The Clouds

by Nick Carter

  Elicia was crying softly now, but my mind was too busy with the new puzzle to give time to comfort her. I had nothing yet with which to comfort her — perhaps I never would.

  I probed the wall and traced the lines that ran parallel about eighteen inches apart. I found corners, then began to trace lines that ran vertically. It was a square. A square of lines filled with what might be mortar. A sealed opening or door? Impossible? Yes, impossible. My mind in its desperation was playing morbid tricks on me.

  In a tiny part of my mind, I had retained hope that there would be a kind of door or other man-made opening at or near the top of this natural chimney. Of course, the same part of my mind that hoped for the opening also held out the distinct possibility that that opening would be heavily guarded.

  What lay behind this square of stone sealed with crumpling mortar? Or, my mind swerved from that grim possibility, what made me think I'd be able to break the seal and get this stone unseated? How thick was the stone and did they have something even heavier and thicker directly behind it?

  Relying on that thin hope, I took Hugo from his sheath and began tracing the thin point of the stiletto around the squared lines. I had given up using the sharp weapon to get myself and the others out of this predicament. I made a silent apology to the vicious little knife.

  "Nick, what are you doing?" Elicia asked, between sobs. "Are you trying to cut your way through solid stone?"

  "That, my sweet," I said, chuckling as renewed hope rose to a crescendo in my soul, "is a fairly adequate description of precisely what I'm doing."

  I heard one of the warriors mutter something that sounded like "loco," but I went on slashing at the" cracks. Mortar by the handful fell past me and showered Elicia and the two warriors. I knew I would be able to loosen the mortar and possibly push the square stone out of its socket in the wall, but what then?

  Even if there were no guards behind this wall and even if Don Carlos hadn't yet signalled for the revolution to begin, what chance had one exhausted gringo, a sobbing girl and two disconsolate and disenchanted Indians against the formidable bastion described by Luis Pequeno, the Cuban Marine whose story had set me on this fantastic voyage up through the center of the mountain?

  No matter, I thought. One thing at a time. If I were concerned about how to stop Don Carlos once I reached his lair in the clouds, I should have resolved the matter long ago, not now. Now was the time for action, any action, to get out of this dark trap and to do all that was humanly possible to complete the mission.

  When Hugo's thin blade could find no more loose stone and mortar to unseat, I put him back in his sheath and leaned as far away from the square as possible. I put the palms of both hands against the stone and gave a push. It didn't budge. I pushed harder, grunting like an animal in heat, but the stone was unmovable. I rested, took time to look at my watch — it stood at 8:20 now — and explained to Elicia what I was trying to do, then gave the one final shot of my strength. It still didn't move. The watch numbers flicked to 8:24. Sweat, spurred by physical exertion and growing panic, mixed with the soot, spider webs and mortar on my face and hands.

  I had no energy to give the stone much of a push now. I had used it up. Perhaps a rest of five minutes or so would restore it, but each passing minute meant a greater risk of failure, if we hadn't already failed.

  It was then that I heard the faint clanking sound from behind the stone. I felt the stone move against my chest. I put my palms against it, took a deep breath and willed my strength to return without a proper rest.

  I pushed as hard as I could. The stone moved a fraction of an inch and I felt that it wasn't me that had moved it. Someone was tugging from the other side. I understood the clanking sound then. Don Carlos had undoubtedly fitted the stone with a metal handle of some sort, in case he needed to remove it and use the chimney as an escape route. Someone was in there tugging on that metal handle. That someone was obviously not a friend, but an enemy who had heard me scraping away with Hugo and was curious to see what was happening in the chimney.

  Again, I thought, it's no matter. Friend or foe, I'm coming through.

  I heard the clank again, felt the stone start to move. I timed my final push with that, gave it all I had, and the stone popped out of that square like the cork from a bottle of exquisite champagne.

  Even as the stone was falling away and I was peering into a dimly-lit chamber beyond, I had Wilhelmina in my hand. The stone plummeted to the floor of the chamber and I saw a short man in monk's garb scrambling out of its way. He still had his hand on the metal handle he'd been tugging on.

  I leaped through the opening and stared at the startled monk. I took a look around and saw that we were in an enormous wine cellar. The monk had let go of the handle and was lying on his backside, staring up with wide eyes at the big pistol in my hand.

  "El diablo," he gasped.

  "No," I said, "not the devil, but somebody just as determined. And if you don't cooperate right now, my friend, this someone is determined to blow your head off. Tell me, has Don Carlos sent the signal yet?"

  I could hear Elicia and the two warriors coming through the hole behind me, and could tell by the monk's face that they were entering the room. His eyes grew wider, as though he had seen more devils. We must have looked terrifying with our faces, hands and clothing smudged with soot and other assorted debris from the chimney.

  "What signal, senor?" the monk asked.

  I put the cold muzzle of the luger to his forehead and slid back the ejection chamber. I tightened my finger on the trigger.

  "This devil isn't kidding around, pal," I said. "You know what signal. I'll give you one more chance, then I pull the trigger."

  He sweated and squirmed a little, then he seemed to recognize one of the warriors with me. He squinted at the warrior and a smile played at his lips.

  "Uturo?" he said.

  The warrior nodded. "I am Uturo. Who are you?"

  "Sagacio," the monk said. "I am your father's brother. I am your uncle."

  "No," the warrior said. "Sagacio was killed when I was ten years old."

  "So they told you," the monk said. He was smiling openly now. He started to get up, looked cross-eyed at the business end of Wilhelmina and changed his mind. "I got drunk one night on wine," he went on, "and fell in with some of our tribe that had already joined Don Carlos and his rabble. When I sobered up, I was their captive. I was brought here a dozen years ago and have been here ever since."

  The warrior studied the chunky monk for a time, then leaned down and took the man's hand. He slid up the coarse robe and peered at a wide scar just below the biceps. He smiled then and looked at me.

  "It is Sagacio. It is my uncle. He got that wound on a boar hunt. I remember it."

  Old Sagacio began to ramble on then, about other mutual memories, but I had to put a stop to it. I had already put the luger in my belt and the old monk had raised from his undignified position, no longer afraid of the devils from the chimney.

  "Has Don Carlos sent the signal?" I asked again.

  "No," the monk said, shaking his head. "There is a storm and the entire mountain is covered with clouds. Don Carlos is furious with the weather, even though it is passing to the southwest. The clouds will be gone in a few minutes and he will send the signal then."

  "And what are you doing down here?" I asked, looking around the wine cellar again. "Planning to get drunk again?"

  "No, I was sent to fetch more wine for Don Carlos. As I said, he is furious with the storm and has been drinking steadily ever since it started."

  A thought struck me.

  "If you came for wine for your master, knowing that he's furious and will probably be even more pissed off if you don't hurry, why did you take time to pull on that stone?"

  Sagacio looked sheepish, then the look turned to one of shrewdness.

  "I have sought escape ever since I was brought here," he said. "Many of Don Carlos Italla's earlier followers and all of his captives despise the man now. He is no
t a man of god, but a man of satan. We all look for ways of escape."

  "And they all know about the sacrificial cave and the legendary chimney?"

  "Yes. When we are sent for wine, we each keep trying to pull out that stone. Don Carlos says that the area behind it is inhabited by devils who will cut out our tongues and lead us to hell. Still, we chance it. When I heard you digging, I felt that my chance had come. I pulled and pulled, and it finally came out."

  I had another thought. It was the constant pulling by the monks that had loosened the mortar at the back end of the stone. If not for them, I would never have found those depressions, those squared lines. Such things are not accidents, I realize. Fate, perhaps, but not accidents. Perhaps fate had other good things in store.

  "How many of Don Carlos's people feel the same as you? How many can we count on as allies?"

  "Allies in what?" Sagacio asked, his face screwing up with puzzlement.

  "We've come to stop him," I said, "to stop the war, to end his reign from this cloudy mountain-top."

  Sagacio looked at us, mentally counting our forces against those of his master.

  "We started out with a larger force," I told him, "but things happened along the way. Now, will you help us? Are there others who will help?"

  "What is it you wish from us? We will help."

  I took out the map I had drawn with Luis Pequeno's assistance, and spread it on the ground. Sagacio took a torch from a distant wallhanger and brought it close.

  "Is this an accurate map of what's on top of the mountain?" I asked.

  "As far as it goes," he said. "Below ground here are the wine cellars which are extensive. Off that way, down that tunnel, is the central arsenal." He pointed to a corridor cut into the stone. "Don Carlos has Russian munitions there, much TNT and dynamite. Up that way…" he pointed to a stone staircase — "is the main guard station where a dozen armed men are on duty at all times."

  "Are they from your tribe?"

  "No, they are guerillas from the regular population. Some of them hate Don Carlos, but I'm not certain of which would be a friend or which would be an ally."

  "All right," I said. "Here's what you do. Take the wine to Don Carlos, then return to the guard station. If you recognize any guard that might be a friend, take him aside and tell him to distract the other guards in some way. Get them away from the station. We'll go past the station, make our way to the palace and see if we can take Don Carlos hostage. If we succeed, his friends will be helpless and you can start organizing his enemies to keep his friends from rushing us. Can you do that?"

  "If I have a weapon."

  I gave him the Russian rifle I'd been whittling on to make my fire down there on that ledge, when Pd set off Pierre to kill the scorpions. He grinned shrewdly and slipped the rifle up under his smock. I looked at my digital watch. It stood at 8:37.

  "We'll come up in ten minutes," I said. "Make sure you've done your work then."

  "I will make sure."

  When he was gone, I went over the plan with the two warriors — Uturo and the man whose name I still couldn't remember. It was a simple plan. We'd move past the guard station, across the main plaza to the palace, circle to a side door, kill the guard with Hugo, slip into the palace and make our way to Don Carlos's quarters.

  "And what will I do?" Elicia asked.

  "Stay down here," I said. "The three of us can do it, with help from Uturo's uncle."

  A door slammed behind us and we all four nearly jumped out of our clothes. We heard heavy boots on stone steps, heard the coarse laughter of half-drunk men. We scattered among the shelves of wine. I stood with my back to a row of dusty bottles, hoping I wouldn't knock one loose and give away my position.

  Four guards with rifles slung over their shoulders bounded into the cellar and began to examine bottles on the nearest shelf. I could see Uturo in the aisle next to mine, but the other warrior and Elicia were out of sight. I held my breath and waited.

  "This is the cheap stuff, for the neophyte monks," one of the guards snarled. "Look around and find the bottles reserved for our esteemed leader."

  They started looking around, coming closer and closer to the aisles where Uturo and I were hiding. I kept wondering where Elicia and the other warrior were hiding, hoping the guards wouldn't stumble across them first.

  I didn't have to worry about that. The guard who'd complained about the cheap stuff was heading directly for my aisle. I moved down a few feet, to position myself out of range from the other three guards, held Wilhelmina at the ready and waited.

  He turned into the aisle and I squeezed the trigger. I saw a portion of his head blow away, saw the smile of anticipation turn to one of horror. In the quiet cellar, the boom of the luger was like a dynamite blast.

  In that same instant, Uturo stepped from his aisle and began shooting at the other three guards. Another automatic rifle from the right began to chatter. Two other guards fell and I stepped out of the aisle to see the fourth guard charging up the stone steps toward the guard station. I aimed and fired, but he disappeared behind a wall. I was certain I hadn't hit him.

  "Come on," I yelled. "Let's go before they gather their senses."

  Knowing that we had been pressed into acting too soon, long before Sagacio could have done us any good, we went charging up the steps.

  I was fully prepared for a full-scale shootout with the remaining guards at the station. As I neared the top of the stone staircase, I looked back to see that Uturo and the other warrior were right behind me. Elicia was nowhere to be seen and I had a kind of gut fear that perhaps she'd been hit by a stray bullet. There had been an awful lot of shooting down in that wine cellar.

  At the top of the stairs, two doorways led off a narrow corridor. There was a torch burning in a holder at the end of the corridor and, near one of the doors was the fourth guard, crumpled up like a piece of foil.

  I had hit him with that last shot as he had rounded the corner of the staircase. He had made it this far and had died before he could warn the others. And the winecellar was so deep and so well insulated with stone that the shots apparently hadn't been heard in the guard station. I held up my hand to stop the charging Uturo and his friend.

  "Time for a bit of discretion instead of foolhardy valor," I said. "Let's go below and set up a plan. Uturo, grab an arm and let's take this dead guard with us."

  Quietly, we retreated, dragging the dead guard down the staircase into the cellar. Wine from broken bottles now covered the floor. I called out to Elicia, but got no answer. Time was running out for us, but still I made a quick search among the aisles. No Elicia. I was starting down the corridor toward the arsenal when footsteps sounded on the stone staircase.

  The warriors and I went into a defensive stance behind the racks of wine bottles. I aimed the luger at the base of the steps and waited, my finger itching to blast away at more guards. Sagacio's bulky frame appeared in my sights.

  "Don't shoot," he said, gazing fearfully around at our leveled guns, at the four dead guards and at the broken wine bottles.

  "What are you doing back down here?" I demanded. "You were to create a diversion among the guards."

  "The station is empty," he said, the look of puzzlement back on his pudgy face. "I took the wine to Don Carlos and found him even more furious than ever. The storm has passed, but the whole of Alto Arete is still swathed in clouds. The wind seems to have died and the clouds aren't moving away. The signal wouldn't be seen. If they don't clear soon, Don Carlos will use his radios to call for the revolution."

  "That means we don't have any time to fool around," I said. "We'll put on the uniforms of the dead guards and you can lead us out of here. Do you know where the guards are — the ones from the guard station?"

  "I have no idea. When I returned from the palace and found the station empty, I thought perhaps you had killed them all. These four," he said, indicating the dead guards whose uniforms we were stripping, "aren't on duty now. They must have found the station empty and come down
to steal wine."

  That much was obvious, but I was still puzzled by the absence of guards at the station. And I was worried about Elicia. But, again, I thought, there's no time for anything but action. We donned the uniforms of the dead guards and, with Sagacio going ahead to make certain the way was clear, we went up the steps again.

  The guard station was indeed empty. I checked the cabinets of rifles, grenades and mortars, pocketed a couple of grenades, and peered out into the courtyard.

  In the dim distance, the palace loomed like a fairyland castle in swirling fog that was the immense cloud resting on top of Alto Arete. Lighted torches fought vainly against the darkening cloud, but I could see the main gate of the palace, see that no guards stood in the courtyard or near the gate. I opened the door leading to the courtyard and held up my hand as a signal to those behind me.

  "Sagacio, you take the lead. When you're halfway across the courtyard, we'll follow."

  The chubby monk took one fearful look at the empty courtyard and the swirling fog, hitched up his smock and marched through the doorway. I watched as he strode across the cobblestones and wondered where he was keeping the Russian rifle I had given him earlier.

  The shot rang out clear and loud, only slightly muffled by the thick cloud. I looked around to see where the shot had come from, but it was dark and silent out there. When I looked back Sagacio, he was stopped in the center of the courtyard, his face peering up through the cloud at the upper stories of the palace.

  Another shot came. I saw the pinpoint of flame this time. It was from the roof of the palace.

  This time, Sagacio didn't merely stand in the courtyard. He turned toward us, his face writhing in pain. He held up pudgy hands in a kind of supplication, begging us to understand that he hadn't betrayed us. Then, he spiraled to the ground, his smock settling about his fat dead body like a shroud.

  Even as I was feeling sorry for the hefty little monk and trying to decide what to do next, the rain of bullets began.