by Len Levinson
He made his way across the base. As dawn broke he approached the white stucco building where the delegation from the Noble Oil Company was staying. The same sentry was standing by the door at the end of the building.
“Hello, amigo,” Butler said, waving to him.
The sentry nodded but did not smile.
Butler entered the building and climbed the stairs to the third floor. He walked down the corridor, opened the door to his room, went inside. The blinds were drawn and it was pitch black, so he flicked on the light switch.
The room became bright and he swallowed hard because, sitting on his bed, was Kurt Leiberfarb pointing a gun at him.
“Welcome home, Butler,” said Leiberfarb with a vicious smile.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Butler thought fast, decided that the best defense was offense. “What are you doing in my bedroom?” he demanded.
Leiberfarb narrowed his eyes. “A more interesting question might be where were you all night?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“Oh yes it is my business, Mr. Butler. I’m your superior; and, more important, I have the gun.” He wiggled the gun significantly. “I can kill you if I feel like it and nobody would ever reproach me. Nobody would ever know, in fact. We’d merely throw your body in a nearby furnace and that would be the end of you. Now my question was: where were you last night?”
“I couldn’t sleep so I went into town for a package of cigarettes.” Butler reached toward the pocket where he’d put the cigarettes.
Leiberfarb twitched the gun. “Hold it right there, Mr. Butler.”
“I just want to show you the package of cigarettes.”
“Turn around and put your hands against the wall, please, and don’t try my patience any further. I don’t like you, I’ve never liked you, and I would be happy to have an excuse to kill you.”
Butler turned around and leaned against the wall. Leiberfarb slapped him down and removed the Walther from his belt, then the package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. But Leiberfarb didn’t take the laser gun camouflaged as a fountain pen, and Butler realized that the security chief wasn’t as sharp as he’d thought.
“These are the cigarettes?” Leiberfarb asked.
“That’s right.”
“You went all the way into town for a package of cigarettes and then didn’t smoke any of them?”
“I bought two packages of cigarettes and already finished one pack. In fact I could use a cigarette right now. Mind if I have one?”
Leiberfarb opened the pack of cigarettes and sniffed the contents. He felt the pack to make certain nothing strange was concealed inside. “Turn around,” he said.
Butler turned around and Leiberfarb tossed him the pack of cigarettes. Butler took one out, lit it with a match, inhaled, coughed. “These are lousy cigarettes,” he said.
“Well, what can you expect from these ridiculous little countries? Let’s go downstairs to see Mr. Noble.”
They left the room, walked down the corridor and descended the stairs. Leiberfarb walked behind Butler, his gun at Butler’s neck.
“What are you doing down here anyway?” Butler asked.
“I decided you hadn’t been with the company long enough to have responsibility for security on an operation like this, so I flew down in one of the company’s small jet planes. I arrived only an hour ago, proceeded directly to your room, and found you gone, thus confirming my worst suspicions.”
They approached the door of the meeting room.
“Go in,” Leiberfarb ordered.
Butler entered the meeting room. Around the table sat Phillip Noble, President Santiago del Pisco, various generals and admirals of the republic of Halvados, and Ambassador Snell. CIA chief of station Putney Wilson was conspicuous by his absence.
“What’s going on here?” Noble demanded, seeing Leiberfarb’s gun pointed at Butler’s back.
“Your bodyguard has been missing for most of the night,” Leiberfarb said.
Butler shrugged. “I only went out for a package of cigarettes.”
Noble’s eyes widened. “A package of cigarettes. What is this nonsense?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I went into town for some cigarettes.”
Leiberfarb snorted. “A likely story.”
“Why else would I go to town?”
Leiberfarb jutted his jaw forward. “That’s a very interesting question.”
Noble looked at Butler. “How’d you get to town?”
“I borrowed somebody’s car.”
“Whose?”
“Damned if I know.”
Noble’s face creased into a smile. “You mean you stole somebody’s car?”
“That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”
Noble laughed, clutching his fat rolling belly. Everyone stared at him, not certain if they should laugh too. Some did, others didn’t. One of those who didn’t was Kurt Leiberfarb, who kept his gun aimed at Butler.
“I think that’s just the funniest goddamn thing I ever heard,” Noble said, recovering from his fit of laughter. “You got a lot of balls, you know that, Butler?”
“Yes sir.”
“I think he’s a spy,” Leiberfarb said,
“Oh horseshit,” Noble said. “You think everybody’s a spy. You probably even think I’m a spy.”
“I don’t think you’re a spy, sir, but I think Butler definitely is a spy.”
“Oh come on; Butler’s just a good old boy, that’s all he is. He needed some cigarettes. Put your gun away, Leiberfarb. Come on over here and sit next to me, Butler.”
“I think you’re making a big mistake, sir,” Leiberfarb said in a quavering voice.
“I said put your damned gun away, you horse’s ass.”
Leiberfarb sheepishly put his pistol in his shoulder holster.
“Can I have mine back?” Butler asked.
Leiberfarb reluctantly gave him the Walther.
Butler tucked it in his belt and sat beside Noble at the table. Noble put his arm around Butler’s shoulder.
“Did you find any strange pussy while you were in town?” Noble asked.
“Didn’t have time,” Butler replied.
“When all this shit is over, you and me are going to go into town and raise hell, Butler. How do you like that idea?”
“Sounds good to me, sir.”
“We’re gonna kick ass and fuck whores.”
The phone rang and President Pisco picked it up. He listened to someone talking, a smile on his face. Slowly his smile wilted, turned down and became a frown. He slammed the phone on the cradle. “We’ve been betrayed!” he screamed.
“What’re you talking about?” Noble asked, as everybody stared at President Pisco.
“Everybody’s gone!” Pisco said. “The troops arrived to make the arrests and all the suspects had disappeared! Somebody must have warned them last night, after our meeting! The suspects have all fled to the hills! The rebel army will be stronger now than ever!” Pisco looked imploringly at Noble. “What are we going to do now?”
Leiberfarb pointed his finger at Butler. “I told you he was a spy!”
Butler snorted. “It could have been anybody who was at the meeting last night, or any one of the thousands of soldiers who were taking part in the raids. What the hell are you always pointing your finger at me for? All I wanted was a package of cigarettes.” Butler took out his package of cigarettes, selected one, put it in his mouth and lit it.
Noble looked at the two of them. “Butler’s right. It could have been anybody.”
Pisco shook his head. “Not exactly, because nobody was supposed to leave the base last night after the meeting, and all telephone contact with the outside world was broken off. I think I’d better call my security office and see if there were any violations of my orders.” He picked up the phone, asked for an extension, barked out a few orders and hung up. “We should have all the information we need on the leak within fifteen minutes.”
“Well,
” said Noble, taking out a cigar, “there won’t be any more leaks because everybody who’s in this room is going to stay in this room until this rebellion is put down.”
Admiral Zamoro, who wore a white uniform festooned with medals, guffawed softly. “Then it looks like we’re going to be in this room together forever.”
“That’s defeatist talk!” Noble said.
“Maybe so, but there’s no way to get the rebels out of the mountains. You can’t bomb them out. You can’t starve them out. Our tanks can’t get at them, and our troops have always been slaughtered whenever they go into those mountains.”
Noble ground his teeth together and his face turned red. “There has to be a way!”
Admiral Zamoro smiled. “Then tell us what it is.”
Noble raised his forefinger in the air. “Poison gas!”
“Poison gas?” asked President Pisco.
“That’s right. We’ll drop poison gas on the bastards.”
“But Mr. Noble, the rebels are dug deep into the mountains. The poison gas won’t reach them; and besides, it’s very windy in the mountains. The wind will blow the poison gas away almost immediately. By the way, the wind blows in a westerly direction, which means that the poison gas will be here at the Santiago del Pisco Air Base within an hour after it’s sprayed.”
Noble gnashed his teeth. He arose and paced the floor, puffing his cigar. Butler thought he looked like Groucho Marx. Back and forth he went in front of the map of Halvados.
“A bunch of goddamn commie guerrilla rebels can’t stop me!” Butler said, waving his arms in the air. “There must be some way to get them. If we don’t they might sabotage my oil wells.”
“I think we can count on that,” Pisco said. “Our declaration of martial law will probably make them very angry and spur them to action.”
Noble snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it!” he shouted. “I’ll have my associates in the States round up a whole mess of Cubans—not the Castro commie Cubans but the ones who still want Batista back. Now there was a great man for you, Fulgencio Batista. A great world leader. Too bad about what happened to him. Anyway, we’ll get together a few thousand of these Miami Cubans and drop them into those damned mountains. The Miami Cubans hate communists. They’ll rip up those mountains and kill them all and drink their blood. They’ll do anything to kill communists. They even kill people they think are communists. Just give them guns and turn them loose and they’re regular little devils.”
President Pisco shook his head. “The mountains are very treacherous, Mr. Noble. There are paths that lead off cliffs. The sides of the mountains are very steep and the valleys are very deep. The only people who can get around in the mountains are the Indians who’ve always lived there, and the guerrilla rebels.”
“Then we’ll use the Indians as guides.”
“The Indians have all gone over to the rebels.”
“They were the first to go over to the rebels,” said Brigadier General Tomas Cabruta of the Army. He wore a brown uniform covered with medals and wore a monocle in his eye.
Noble smashed his fist into the palm of his hand. “We’ll bomb them back to the Stone Age.”
President Pisco shook his head again. “I told you that bombs don’t do any good in the mountains. Bombs just move the rocks around a little bit. The rebels are dug deeply into the mountains. They probably don’t even hear the bombs.”
Noble stopped pacing and faced them. He narrowed his eyes and puffed his cigar. “How about an atom bomb?” he asked in a deadly voice.
“An atom bomb!” everybody exclaimed in unison.
“Sure, why not? We’ll drop one atom bomb and by god it’ll melt all those mountains. All you’ll have left out there will be a big hole in the ground. You won’t have any more trouble with rebels because you won’t have any more rebels. They’ll all go up in a puff of smoke.” To illustrate his point, Noble blew a puff of smoke at the ceiling.
“Atom bomb?” asked President Pisco, his face drained of blood.
“But the Russians…” said Brigadier General Cabruta.
“And the Chinese…” said Admiral Zamoro.
“To hell with those sons of bitches!” Noble yelled. “I’ve been thinking about something like this for a long time. If they want atomic war we’ll give them atomic war. We’re stronger than they are right now anyway. Why wait until they’re stronger? Why wait until they have as many nuclear weapons as we do? I think the time has come for us to have a showdown with those bastards, and it might as well be here in Halvados. Yes, gentleman, your country has been chosen by destiny as the battleground of the great war between the free world, which is us, and the slave world, which is them. We’ll bomb those mountains, and if the blood-soaked dictators of the Soviet Union and China don’t like it, we’ll bomb them too!” Noble clasped his hands together and rolled his eyes. “Oh how I love bombs. I can just see communist cities exploding in great mushroom clouds.”
Ambassador Snell cleared his throat. “How about atom bombs falling on New York, Chicago and Los Angeles?”
“If the Russians and Chinese make a fuss about our bombing of the Sierra Chorino Mountains, we’ll merely bomb them before they bomb us. We’ll saturation bomb their entire countries. That ought to give them something to think about.” Noble puffed his cigar and winked at Snell.
“They’ll probably strike back,” Snell pointed out.
Noble waved the objection aside. “They won’t have very much to strike back with, but so what if they bomb a few cities? What the hell: you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. Some Americans will have to be sacrificed in the great Crusade against Communism. That’s the way it goes. But then the world will be free, and my associates and I won’t have anybody trying to take away our oil fields and other holdings.”
President Pisco raised his hand. “Mr. Noble, do you think you could start this in another country besides Halvados, like maybe Venezuela or Ecuador?”
“Nah, we might as well do it here. You should feel honored that your country has been selected to strike the first blow against International Communism.”
The phone on the desk rang. President Pisco picked it up, and as he listened a twitch developed in his left eyebrow. He sputtered and shouted into the phone for a few moments, then slammed it down on its cradle and looked at Noble.
“The rebels have just captured the Guajira Barracks in Santa Leopoldina Province!” he screamed hysterically.
The various generals and admirals looked at each other in alarm. You could hear a pin drop in the room. Butler decided he needed another cigarette. He was still trying to digest Noble’s proposal about plunging the world into nuclear war.
Noble put one hand on his hip and held his cigar at his lips with his other hand. “The situation is deteriorating badly,” he said gravely; “The country is in the grip of Communist Terror Squads. I think I’d better fly to Washington immediately to confer with the Pentagon about sending an atom bomb down here. Or maybe one of those new cobalt bombs.”
The phone rang again. President Pisco picked it up. As he listened he turned his gaze to Butler, who puffed his cigarette and expected the worst.
Pisco hung up the phone. “That call was from the commander of the intelligence unit on this base. He said that all telephone lines with the outside were broken last night as per my orders, and that only one person left the base. This person was male, approximately thirty-two years old, was dressed in a blue suit, drove a silver Corvette, and resembled a young Clark Gable without a mustache. This was the only person who could have alerted the opposition that mass arrests would be made this morning.”
Everyone turned and stared at Butler with hostility and contempt.
Noble shook his head sadly. “Well I’ll be damned.” Butler grinned and tried to look like a nice guy.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The stockade at the Santiago del Pisco Air Force Base was located near the northernmost part of the installation and occupied a parcel of land about f
ive hundred yards square. It was surrounded by barbed wire, guard towers and patrols of vicious Doberman pinschers. Within its boundaries were barracks, an exercise yard, administration buildings and the notorious solitary confinement cells.
These cells were in long narrow buildings set on pedestals four feet off the ground. The most dangerous people in Halvados were locked in these cells and were slowly starved to death.
It was to these cells that Butler was marched by three soldiers with their submachine guns pointed at his back. It was ten o’clock in the morning and the sun was a huge molten ball in the sky. A group of prisoners were milling about in the exercise yard, and screams could be heard coming from the direction of the administration buildings, where interrogations were held.
Butler wore his blue suit and had some bruises on his face from the scuffle that ensued when he’d tried to escape from the meeting room. A platoon of guards had beaten him to the ground and taken away his Walther, his cigarettes and his book of matches from the Hilton Hotel. However they had neglected to take away his fountain pen, unaware that it was a deadly laser gun, and this would prove to be a serious mistake. His hands were cuffed behind his back.
The soldiers marched Butler up the stairs of one of the solitary confinement buildings and pushed him into the orderly room, where a group of enlisted men sat around smoking and joking. A sergeant sat behind the desk, and there was a rack of rifles in the corner.
“Who’s this bird?” asked the sergeant behind the desk, who shaved his head every morning.
“A traitor.”
“What’s his name?”
“Butler.”
The sergeant behind the desk signed a receipt for Butler and gave it to the soldiers who’d delivered him to the stockade. The soldiers took their handcuffs and departed.
“Lock him up,” said the sergeant.
Two of the guards took out their pistols and ordered Butler to stand by the door. Another guard unlocked the door, and Butler saw a long dark corridor lined with iron bars.
