The skill of a bullfighter is judged by how slowly he can turn a fighting bull around himself. I pushed the jeep as fast as it could go, tearing great ruts in the ground as it bounced along. Another kind of rut followed me too, the one put down by the cannon and meant to be my grave. Then, instead of trying to cut inside his path, again I widened my circle until it was large enough that the plane could turn with me, making it as easy for him as I could. Behind me the Starfighter's great engine throttled back again — and again. The cannon caught up with the jeep. A second tire went, blown out. I lurched on until another shell flew past my head and cracked open the hood. Smoke billowed out within seconds and I rode the tortured jeep to its death at ten miles per hour. When it came to a complete halt, I sat at the wheel and waited.
The cannon ceased their activity too and there was an eerie silence. Then the Starfighter flashed overhead, its powerful engine quiet. The whistle of the wind around the wings created a doleful cry. I dove out of the jeep and covered my head.
I don't know what went through the pilot's brain during that last, long second of flight. He must have realized that he had made the fatal error of dropping his speed below the necessary two hundred twenty mph necessary to keep the missile-like Starfighter airbound. When he switched on his afterburners and flamed out. The Starfighter turned from a weapon into a coffin. He was too low to eject — and the only way to re-ignite a jet engine is to dive for speed.
Whatever his thoughts were, brain, trigger finger, cannon and a million dollars' worth of Starfighter flared into a bomb that rocked the Atacama, sending forth a black and red ball of fire that rolled upward a thousand feet. As secondary explosions erupted into new fireballs, I wearily picked myself off the ground and hobbled back to what was left of the camp.
The bullfight was over, and in bullfights the bull never wins.
Chapter Twelve
The military train pulled into Santiago's Mapocho Station and I saw that the government officials were fined up on the platform to welcome that returning hero, Alexander Belkev. Soldiers in steel helmets paced the catwalks in the old Victorian-style station, keeping a wary eye on every person in the crowd. At first I thought their presence was for Belkev's protection but then I saw the confident figure of President Allende marching down the platform toward us.
Belkev stepped forward and received his reward, an Allende kiss; then, arms around each other, the two men walked down the platform, leaving us behind. The only one of our entourage to follow was the chief bodyguard, his arm in a sling.
When the platform was finally cleared of all the bureaucrats, Belkev's girls departed too. I went down the ramp to the baggage area. There a hydraulic lift was lowering a metal coffin carrying the remains of the bodyguard who had been killed in the desert. The baggage master was looking around for someone authorized to sign the delivery receipt.
"I'll take that," I said.
"Have you identification?"
"I'm with the KGB, can't you tell?"
I signed "Nikita Carter" with a flourish and added the address of the Russian consulate. It was the least I could do for a man who had taken on a Starfighter with a handgun.
From the station I went to a "safe" doctor and had my wounds stitched up. None of the plane's bullets had reached me but I had soon discovered that the armored vest was so badly battered that its framework had dug into my chest in a dozen places. Afterwards I wandered out for a stroll on Santiago's avenues and later wolfed down a meal of rare Argentine steak and good Chilean wine. It made me feel almost human again.
I was lingering over some espresso with lemon peel when two hands softly crept around my throat.
"Rosa."
Smiling, she released me and sat down.
"How did you know?"
"Just be happy that I did. I thought you and Bonita had been shepherded back to the hotel."
Instead of replying, she stared at my plate. I waved to the waiter and signaled for another steak. It came hot and rare from the grill and after she'd devoured most of it, I was able to get some response from her.
"No more of this. You simply have to take me and my sister back to the United States, to New York. I am not going to spend one more day with that pig and his canned goulash."
"You know I can't do that, Rosa."
Her limpid dark eyes gazed at me imploringly. Sure, she was acting — but not without valid motivation.
"You have to. You will. I know you, Nick. Bonita and I risked our lives for you in that jeep. My ears still hurt and I am bruised all over my body. I did it for you — and in return you will take me back to New York."
She spoke with finality and then turned briskly to dessert, a caramel custard liberally dosed with rum. The trouble was that she was right; she had risked her life for me. I would be pretty low if I weren't willing to go out on a limb for her now.
"Rosa, how on earth am I going to explain it when I turn up with two Cuban bathing beauties?"
"We can be your interpreters."
"I speak Spanish."
"You could forget. Oh, thank you, Nick. Thank you. I knew you would do it."
"I didn't say I would, damn it." I lit a cigarette and literally fumed. Then, knowing when I'm being made a sucker of, I sighed. "Okay, I'll work out something."
"I know," she crowed triumphantly and gulped her last spoonful of custard before standing up and taking my hand. "Now I have a treat for you. Once you saw me dance at a dull diplomatic reception. It was nothing. This time you will see me dance the real thing."
We caught a cab and left the wide avenues of Santiago behind as we entered a district of narrow, twisting streets and close-together houses built in another century. We went into a corner cafe that was festooned with soccer and bullfight posters. Clusters of old Spanish guitars hung from the ceiling beams. Obviously Rosa had been busy during the afternoon for the proprietors welcomed her with enthusiasm and a white-haired man immediately took down one of the guitars and started to tune it.
This time there was no thought of politics, no trade minister from Russia, to poison the scene. Rosa danced while the old man sang, her grace drawing his voice back to its former powers of youth and vibrancy. I clapped out the rhythm, joined by the rest of the impromptu audience. I had no doubt in the world now but that Rosa would attract customers by the hundreds at New York's Chateau Madrid.
Flushed and giddy, she flew to my arms and I could feel every heartbeat of her excited body against my chest. We left the cafe and went straight to the hotel, straight to my room. Her ruffled flamenco dress dropped to the floor like a fluttering bird and I carried her over to the bed.
Our lovemaking echoed her dance, passionate and wild. She savored the last drop and fell asleep on my chest, her legs still wrapped around me, a smile on her lips.
A knock on the door woke us up.
"Nikita, it's me, Lilya."
"Not now, Lilya. I'm sleeping."
"You don't understand, I have to see you."
"I'm busy."
"You're sleeping and you're busy? Ah, I understand," she said, her voice accusing. "Then you better get rid of her, whoever she is. Belkev is missing."
Rosa and I sat up as one. I wrapped a sheet around her quickly and shoved her into the bathroom. Then I dressed and let Lilya in.
"Where is she?"
"Never mind that. What do you mean, he's missing?"
"Is it one of those Cuban girls? I'll kill her."
"Belkev, remember? What happened?"
Lilya's red hair flashed as her eyes searched the room. Reluctantly she got down to the subject.
"There was a welcome-back reception at the Ministry of Trade. There were a number of students in attendance from the University. Some of them were girls. They were a little bit pretty. At least Belkev seemed to think so, judging by the way he was making up to them, inviting them to join him here at the hotel. I told him it wouldn't be allowed, that we would have to first check to see whether they were MIRistas or not. He said none of the girls wou
ld have been allowed at the reception if they were."
Go on.
"Well, I thought he was going to follow orders but we became separated in the crowd and when I tried to find him, he was gone. A soldier who was on guard outside the Ministry said he saw Belkev get into a cab with two of the girl students."
I started to unbutton my shirt.
"Aren't you going to do anything?" Lilya asked, indignant.
"Look, I've done my job. One way or another I managed to keep this pervert of yours alive all across the whole nation of Chile. I got him back to Santiago and delivered him safe and sound into the hands of your security apparatus here. If he's so anxious to get himself killed, that's your headache. I'm finished."
"I'll put every agent we have at your disposal."
"I know. I know how you work. Thugs running up and down the streets like madmen and getting nowhere. I bet you don't even have the cab driver.
"We will."
"By that time Belkev will be feeding the sharks in the ocean."
She slammed the door on the way out. Rosa emerged from the bathroom.
"Nick, I thought you were staying here with me. Why are you putting on your gun?"
I strapped the knife sheath to my wrist and tested it. The stiletto slipped into my palm.
"You told her you weren't going to help. Now you've changed your mind? You must be crazy."
"I'd be crazy if I wanted to have the whole KGB trailing after me." I kissed her on the forehead. "Don't wait up."
I caught a cab on Bernardo O'Higgins Boulevard and gave the driver an address that was a block away from the Ministry run by my AXE contact. There never had been any question as to whether or not I was going after Belkev. The problem was how to do it without involving the KGB with AXE's setup in Chile or giving the Beds a chance to blow the rescue operation with one of those shootouts where everyone ends up dead, especially the hostage you're trying to save. The coup conspiracy had to be stopped no matter what my personal feelings were about Belkev. The way I felt about Lilya had something to do with it too. You can't sleep with a woman, even if she is your enemy, without becoming a little bit involved. Belkev's death was automatically her sentence when she returned to Moscow.
I found that the Ministry's back door was beginning to open even before I knocked. There stood the minister himself, a little disheveled and obviously upset. It was nearly ten p.m., and Belkev had been missing for more than an hour.
"I've been waiting for you," he announced. "This is very bad news indeed about the Russian. We were on the verge of arresting the ringleaders in all three countries. They can still defeat us if they assassinate him tonight."
"Can't you move the raids up?"
"Impossible. Everything is already set. Do you have any idea of where he might be?"
"That's what I was about to ask you. Don't you know where the people who took him live?"
He shook his head.
"They used false names in order to get into the reception. It was all done very cleverly, using those girls to take advantage of his primary weakness, and at the last hour too."
The minister looked suddenly old, old and beat, as he paced the bare floor where I had not so long ago put together the charred pieces of the Chinese messenger's papers.
"Okay, the MIRistas aren't idiots," I began. "Let's even say they're cleaver, in which case Belkev is probably still alive. That's the way clever amateurs work. Their sense of timing is all off and they're too cute."
"What does it matter? They have him and it's only a matter of hours before he is dead."
"We'll have all the answers — and a lot more too — when I find him."
Ten minutes later I was back in a cab, skimming over a list of addresses where MIRista agitators were known to hang out. The first address was that of a discothèque, a playpen for poor little rich boys whose daddies paid for their Marxist games. When I entered the place, I felt everybody's eyes follow me. I went across to the espresso machine and then asked the counterman if a Russian had been in earlier with two girls.
"No, nobody like that has been in, Señor. Espresso o con leche?"
The hostility was thicker than the coffee. I heard the sound of a chair being pushed back as I left. Instead of hailing a cab, I sauntered down the avenue and when I reached the corner, I turned abruptly and slipped into a doorway.
Then I saw the young man with big shoulders standing there, his back to me. He pulled out a lead bar hidden under his vicuña sweater and looked around cautiously. I waited and just as he was walking by the doorway, my arm shot out.
"Que…"
I threw him up against the peeling plaster of the wall and drove a fist into his stomach as he bounced back. His fingers dropped the bar and I caught it before it hit the ground. While he was still sucking for air, I pressed the lead across his throat.
"Where are they?"
I eased the pressure a bit so he could answer.
"I don't know who you mean."
The bar pressed his head into the wall then while he flailed like a hooked fish.
"Otra vez, chico. Where are they?"
"Do what you want, pig. I won't tell you anything."
It's funny how they always think that way. They haven't learned that courage, like money, is not something you get by wishing for it. In this case the boy saved an arm from being slowly, excruciatingly broken when he told me that Belkev and the girls had dropped in at the cafe and then left for another one. The way to verify such information is to tell your informant that he's coming with you and if the information proves to be wrong, both arms will be broken. I followed this procedure.
"It's the truth!"
"All right, you don't have to come with me. But you should be more careful when you carry a bar like this. You could drop it on your foot and hurt yourself."
The second cafe was more blatantly political. It was a dingy, "atmospheric" place that was decorated with anti-American graffiti and populated by sullen types who hadn't yet learned that you can't hide a .38 revolver inside a turtleneck pullover. Catching sight of a phone on one wall, I was sure they'd been warned of my arrival. As I was moving toward the wine-stained counter, I saw one of the bearded patrons ease his hand out of his pullover.
I turned and kicked the gun out of his grip. As I had hoped he would do, he lunged from his chair with a roundhouse swing at my jaw. I slipped under it, grabbed him from the back and leaned him against a poster that read, "Death to Yanqui Imperialists and their Running Dogs."
By this time his compatriots had their guns in hand, each angling for a clear shot at me. I shook my arm and the stiletto spilled into my fingers. I put its point at the bullyboy's throat.
"You can shoot if you want to," I told them. "Either you'll kill him or I will if you don't."
"Any of us are willing to die for the cause," a girl yelled from the other side of the cafe.
"Really? Ask your pal here. It's his life you're playing with. Ask him if he's willing for you to shoot him."
The man in my grip said nothing. I'd call him a boy except that I'd noticed that a lot of the "students" were in their thirties, which is a little too old to expect pardon for adolescent dreams of grandeur. Besides, these characters were responsible for a reign of terror that had included murder, kidnaping and sundry other atrocities.
"We won't shoot," one of the older men finally said. Ostentatiously he put his gun down on a table top. "We won't shoot but neither will we tell you anything."
At his words the others put their guns down next to his. I saw his point all too clearly. Time was working against me and so would any stalemate.
"We know who you are and we know your reputation for brutality, Carter," the spokesman went on. "But even a man such as you wouldn't torture one of us in front of the rest." He looked around for assent. "So you might as well pack up your tools and get out of here."
For a split second I weighed the pain I could inflict on the man I held gripped in my hands now against the nuclear holocaust tha
t would ensue if I didn't move on him. He lost. I yanked his hair back hard and exposed his white throat to the eyes of others in the room. The stiletto was honed to needle fineness. I slid it in a semicircle above his gulping Adam's apple, cutting only the skin but drawing a curtain of blood.
"The Bolivar apartment house," a girl screamed. "They took him to…"
He leader muffled her mouth as I edged toward the door, my hostage as shield.
"You can thank your girlfriend for your life," I whispered in his ear. Then I threw him back inside, to the floor, kicked my foot backward to shove open the door behind me and bowled over the first men to come after me.
The Bolivar Apartamientos was a high-rise apartment house located between the university and Santiago's wealthiest section. It rose ten stories high over a modern boulevard, ten stories of glassed-in apartments and gleaming balconies. Belkev and I had somehow survived the attacks of vicious Incas from Chile's pre-Colombian past and the death-spraying cannon of a jet plane in the desert — only to arrive for the last battle at an apartment house that might have been found in Rome, Paris or Los Angeles. The sidewalks undulated in an expensive, multi-colored mosaic, the grass was green and freshly mowed and the doorman's uniform was new.
"It's very late," he complained. "Who did you want to see?"
I slouched drunkenly and when I spoke, it was with a slurred Cuban accent.
"All I know is I'm supposed to be at a party. They said to come right over."
"Who said?"
I fumbled in my pockets for a nonexistent piece of paper.
"I wrote the name down somewhere. I don't remember. Oh, yeah. They said to go right to the penthouse."
"Ah, of course." He gave me a wry smile. "That's where they all are tonight. Everybody's partying. It must be the full moon." He moved to the intercom. "Who shall I say is coming?"
The Inca Death Squad Page 10
