The pale illumination from outside the window curved over her face and streaked down her breasts and belly. In my hands her hips twisted and surged, nearly driving me off the bed yet drawing me deeper and deeper into her.
"Make it last. Make it last forever," she begged.
Her thighs suddenly engulfed me and a hot, searing sensation spread through me. Blindly I released into Rosa all my pent-up fury. And in the act of love the tension and the anger was changed into something else, something sweet and thirst-quenching, something that both of us needed badly.
Later the night air cooled our bodies. My head rested on one of her thighs and we shared a glass of Scotch that was balanced between her breasts.
"You cannot believe how good that was for me, Nick." She said it so softly that it was almost as though she were talking to herself. "When a girl travels with a man like Belkev…"
I turned my head and looked past the valley between her breasts, past the glass and to her face.
"You don't have to say any more, Rosa."
She reached down to touch my cheek.
"I'll dance for you anytime, anyway you like. I could love a man such as you."
"Shhh."
She laughed easily, good-humoredly.
"You're very kind for a man with the name of Killmaster. I hope that sometime you will come to Cuba."
"I don't know when, but I'll drink to that."
I lifted the glass from her chest. It left a wet ring between her breasts and I leaned over to kiss the spot. Rosa's arms went around me.
"Would you mind doing it again?" she asked. "If it would cause you too much discomfort…"
"Occupational therapy," I averred. "My boss is a firm believer in it."
Chapter Six
The plane that was waiting for me at the military base outside Santiago was a Chilean Air Force Shooting Star. I expressed some surprise about this but since the pilot had the right password, I accepted the pressure suit and helmet and climbed into the back of the jet.
"I thought an American plane would be waiting for me," I remarked through the intercom.
"There were rumors that something had happened to an American at the palace last night. If you leave in this way, no one will notice. I have to cut off now and talk to the tower."
The staccato conversation between pilot and control tower sounds the same in any language. I listened just enough to catch that we had a flight path for a Pacific patrol, which meant that the plane would probably touch down a little way up the coast where I would meet my regular contact.
"Azul Número Cinco Cinco Tres, tiene permission…"
The last words of the voice in the tower were wiped out by the roar of the jet's engines. The Shooting Star's wings undulated as we rolled out onto the strip. Like the weaponry of every Latin American nation, with the exception of Cuba, it had been bought secondhand from the United States at cut-rate prices. Unlike some other nations, though, the Chileans kept their planes polished to a high gleam inside and out.
My head snapped back as the jet rocketed down the airstrip. For a moment the friction of the earth held us and then we were climbing into the blue skies that Chile's national anthem sings about. At 10,000 feet the pressure eased a bit and the plane's nose ducked low enough for me to see that we were making a pass directly over the capital.
"Callampas, mushroom huts," the pilot said as we approached a thick, dark fringe of hovels at the edge of the city. "We call them that because they sprang up overnight. When Allende became president, all the poor people from the villages came to Santiago because they thought he would give them money and land. They've been living there for two years now because there is no money to hand out."
One wing dipped and we banked over the old-fashioned buildings of Santiago's business district.
"The rich people either ran away with their money or sent it to Argentina or Uruguay. This was a very rich country seventy years ago. You know what made us rich? We were the world's greatest supplier of nitrates. Fertilizer. Manure. Then artificial fertilizers were invented and the market collapsed. So look at us, drowning in our own manure."
The wing dipped again and I saw that we were over a prosperous upper-class section of the city.
"Our new president said that he refused to five in the Presidential Palace because it was too grand for a Communist president. So he stays here in the Providencia district."
He pointed out a small, elegant townhouse. I caught sight of the upturned faces of bodyguards, squinting at the plane. We finished our pass of the city and slid on out toward the ocean, the Pacific looking as calm as its name.
We picked up speed until the coastline could barely be seen. Fishing boats bobbed in the waters underneath us. Then the jet made an abrupt wheel from north to south.
"What's going on?" I asked. "I thought you were taking me to my contact up north."
"I have other orders."
Orders? I checked the fuel gauge on the panel. It was full. At least he wouldn't be able to eject and leave me in a flying coffin.
"Orders from whom?"
"Don't worry, Señor Carter. I'm not about to play games inside a cockpit with a man of your reputation. We are going south because that is where AXE wants you. The only radar that can pick us up now is Air Force operated and we are cooperating. I don't know why you are wanted where I'm taking you and I don't want to know."
I understood. While the usual soldier in the Chilean Army served for only one year, the pilots in the Air Force were professionals. The Reds had just started infiltrating their men into its ranks.
The long coastline seemed to be endless, but finally we started to lose altitude and down below I saw the southernmost spot a man can go unless he swims or is in Antarctica; it's the crooked tip of South America that's called Tierra del Fuego. We landed at the Air Force base at Punta Arena. The frigid air cut right through our pressure suits as we emerged from the plane.
The air itself was gray with the cold that was sweeping up from the polar cap. Some officers threw a sheepskin coat over my shoulders and drove me by jeep to the Army headquarters nearby.
"Welcome to the Division del Sud," a small, wiry general greeted me when I was delivered to his Spartan office. There was a potbellied stove in the corner of the room but the snifter of brandy he offered me afforded more immediate warmth.
"This isn't quite where I'd planned to be," I commented.
"Frankly, it's not where I want to be either," he replied, "but Señor Presidente decided to send some of us officers from Santiago down to this forsaken end of the earth. We call it Siberia," he winked. "A soldier's lot is not a happy one, eh? And the winter is just beginning."
An aide-de-camp entered bearing an earthenware pot of stew and a loaf of bread.
"It's not very good fare for someone who has been entertained at the Presidential Palace," the general suggested.
"But you never know just what you're going to get there," I said as we sat down at the table.
"So I hear." He broke the loaf of bread in two and gave me half of it. "Forgive me for not introducing myself but I think it's best if we not use names. You're not supposed to be here. If you were, I'd have to arrest you. Officially, of course."
The stew was plain but good and we finished it off with a bottle of red Chilean wine.
"Suppose you do tell me why I am here," I proposed at the end of our hasty meal. "I'm beginning to feel like a soccer ball, bouncing from one end of the country to the other."
"Perhaps on a wild goose chase," he speculated. "But it may be a Peking goose. You are a good horseman, I'm told."
"I can manage to stay on."
"We will need every experienced hand available and I am told there is no one more able than you. Consider this exciting event a routine part of your special assignment on behalf of our two countries. As planned, together we will engage with the enemy.
I wondered if Hawk had authorized this little foray on my part. If he had or hadn't, there was nothing I could do but mak
e, the best of the situation and join in.
We went from the general's office to the radio room. It was full of officers, their attention turned to the reports that came intermittently from the receiver.
"…heading to the Boca del Diablo… fifteen, twenty at the most now…"
"The nation is divided into four military districts. There is a nominal division in each one," the general informed me. "Of course all the divisions are undermanned because the government has so many troops guarding the mines. But no one is as undermanned as we are. The government doesn't think we can do anything here with just a cavalry regiment but freeze to death. Maybe we have a surprise for it."
"…slowing down now… definitely coming near their camp."
"What kind of a surprise?" I asked the little general.
"You'll see."
The aide-de-camp reappeared with a pair of fur-lined campaign coats. The general put one on with open glee, and I saw that the other officers were watching me with envy.
When we ran out onto the barracks ground, I saw that an olive-green helicopter was waiting, its rotors turning slowly in the wind. We climbed into it and as soon as we had our legs folded in, the copter lifted off the ground, pulling backwards and up hard.
Tierra del Fuego is a rocky promontory fit for little else than the raising of sheep. Wisps of fog drifted straight up in the sky and we sliced through them, never any higher than fifty feet above the ground. We sheared over craggy cliffs, scattering sheep as we swooped down through valleys.
"We knew something was up when the MIRistas appeared," the general shouted over the noise of the rotors. "They have been busy seizing farms up and down the countryside — except for here, because what is there to take? Here everyone is equal and gets his full share of cold and rocks. So we have been keeping an eye on them, thinking they might try to blow up some planes or try to raid our armory for guns. Instead, they have vanished again."
A downdraft sucked us toward a cliff. Coolly the pilot let the plane fall into the stone face until the natural turbulence around the promontory kicked it up and out of danger. This man knew his stuff.
"Then we got a report saying that a freighter had anchored off our coast. There was nothing ordinary about that because storms come up so fast around here that a captain would be mad to come close to these rocks. We traced the freighter. It was Albanian, its last port of call was Shanghai. Now why would a freighter from China anchor here without sending a distress signal?"
The copter fluttered down to the valley floor. As soon as we stepped out, a troop of mounted soldiers emerged from behind boulders, submachine guns strapped to their saddles. The breath from their horses steamed in the freezing air. The captain in charge saluted and dismounted.
"You can see that in this place cavalry doesn't mean tanks," the general told me before we reached the troops.
The captain spoke briefly to a soldier carrying a radio and then, without preamble, to us.
"They're in their camp, General, just as you said they'd be. The scout says their gear is spread out as if they plan to leave early in the morning."
"Very good," the general replied. "Ask him how we should go about entering this camp of MIRistas."
The man on the radio-phone relayed the question.
"He says there is a path up the canyon and they are watching it. But they aren't watching the cliffs behind nor the fire swamp."
The general nodded with satisfaction. He was a man of action and he was obviously relishing every second.
"Then they are dead," he announced.
There were extra horses provided for us. I found myself on a big bay gelding, no doubt a descendant of horses brought over by the conquistadors. The general ordered one of the men to remove the machine gun from my saddle strap.
"I'm sorry, but if worst comes to worst, I will have to report you as an observer. I can't give you a gun. If you object to the condition, you don't have to come."
"You couldn't keep me away." I still had a thing or two up my sleeve, but I didn't mention any of it to the general.
There were twenty of us climbing through gray-green underbrush on our horses. The air, already freezing, became colder and thinner. Sooner than I'd expected, we were on a ridge with a thousand-foot drop on each side, stiff gusts of wind trying to knock us off the narrow trail. From time to time the gale would drive a whole cloud into our midst and we would have to stand stock-still, blinded until the mist moved off.
"It would be safer to use the canyon trails, of course," the general said with a happy shrug, "but that would deprive the MIRistas of the joy of our surprise."
Finally we began to descend and a man in shepherd's garb stepped out on the path. He lowered the submachine gun in his hands when he was sure of who we were. In his pack I saw the antenna of a radio. Obviously he was the captain's scout.
"Two guards," he said. "Each watching the canyon. I can show you the way to come over the cliffs."
"How long would that take us?" the general wanted to know.
"Seven, eight hours."
"In which time they may be gone. That's no good. We'll go the other way."
The other way was through the swamp, one of those strange phenomena that gives Tierra del Fuego its name — Land of Fire. I saw why the prospect of crossing it chilled the soldiers more than did the wind and why the scout had not suggested it even though it would bring us to the MIRistas' camp within an hour.
A solid, seemingly impenetrable field of fumes lay in front of us, the ghostly exhale of vents in the earth. Mile after mile of weird landscape stretched between us and our adversary, a lifeless minefield in which one wrong step would pitch horse and rider into a bubbling hot spring from which no one was ever rescued. The horses themselves danced nervously at the sight of the fuming barrier.
"Please don't think the Chilean soldier is such a coward that he fears a little hot bath," the general said. "This is just the start of the swamp. There is more."
More what, he didn't say. The scout went to the head of the fine on his horse, a surefooted pony. The rest of us followed in single file, each trying to control his own reluctant mount. One by one we slipped into the eerie curtain of smoke.
The sound of hooves was lost in the steady hissing of steam. The ground was as firm as rock at one time and suddenly it would crumble and invite a rider into a fatal misstep. Then I'd heard a desperate whinnying as a soldier pulled for his life on his reins. At other times the ground would shake with the belch of escaping steam; rocks would hit us and a geyser a hundred feet high would appear where a second before there was nothing.
I looked at my watch. Fifty minutes had passed since we entered the swamp. We must be close to the camp. What more could there possibly be?
Then I saw it. First the flickering of one blue flame and then another. With every step through the shroud of steam I could see fifty more darting flames licking the ground. "Fire swamp," the man with the radio had said. We were entering a natural gas field, a gas field that was on fire.
The general glanced back at me grimly and tied a kerchief over his nose. Everyone did the same, including me. The fumes were nauseating now, acrid and penetrating, but what could you expect? This was no haunting landscape anymore, this was a descent into hell. Instead of a geyser of steam, a fiery tower of flaming gas erupted thirty feet away, sending long shadows of our rearing horses over the terrain. Now I knew what the soldiers were really afraid of. If we were observed by the MIRistas before we emerged from the fire swamp, no one would live to tell the tale for they needed only one grenade to make the whole area blow like a volcano.
Each minute was an hour, every step a gamble with the devil. Behind us a new pillar of fire reached to the sky, covering over the trail. There was no turning back now. The man in front of me slumped in his saddle and started to fall off his horse. I squeezed my gelding in close to him and caught him. The fumes had knocked him unconscious; his skin was a sickly green. Still, we moved on like couriers against Armageddon.
The general raised his arm and the column halted. There was just one more screen of fire left and beyond that we could see a border of rocks and the camp itself. The steady hissing sound of the flaming gas covered the metallic sounds of submachine guns moving from saddles to hands. With silent signals, the general and the captain divided the soldiers into two groups that would sweep from north and south in order to eliminate escape. I gave myself my orders. If there were a Chinese representative in the camp and if he saw capture inevitable, he would kill himself; even if he didn't, the general's machine guns might do it for him. My job would be to dash into the midst of the surprised MIRistas and snatch the Chicom before it was too late. My thoughts were that, had anyone else given me those orders, I would have told him to go to hell.
The mounted soldiers gripped their guns with a mixture of relief and anticipation. The general's arm came down. Two lines fanned out at a canter, increasing their speed to a gallop as they separated. From where I was, just inside the swamp, I could see the nearest sentry; he was nervously staring down the canyon trail trying to locate the horses that sounded so close. Just as he turned and saw the troops, two submachine guns sounded and he did an involuntary dance of death.
The men in the camp were jumping to their feet, firing with sleep-dulled eyes at the two waves of cavalry coming in from each side. I whipped my horse on out of the flames, racing to the center of the trapped MIRistas. As I'd expected, they were too busy coping with the wings of the main attack to notice a lone rider bearing down from a third side. They were surprised and terrified, and I'd closed within ten yards before the first terrorist wheeled his AK-47 on me. I fired my Luger just as he pulled the trigger on his fight machine gun and then I was pitching onto the ground, rolling clear of my dead horse. I came to rest on my stomach, ready for a second shot, but the MIRista was on his knees, propped by the rifle he still held. There was a dark hole in the middle of his forehead.
The general's attack was closing in strong and the defenders were crumbling. At least half of them were casualties or they were dead. The rest were snapping off shots from prone positions. Only two were apart, busy beside the campfire, and in the fire's glow I caught sight of the large, angular cheekbones of one of Mao's messengers. He was rapidly feeding scraps of paper to the fire's coals.
The Inca Death Squad Page 4
