Special Deliverance

by Special Deliverance (retail) (epub)

  Second hope, though: that with the sentries as half-baked as they seemed, more useless than ever in these conditions, they wouldn’t see footprints if you rubbed their noses in them.

  Back to the question of timing — the importance of getting the job done before the pre-dawn flying circus got going… In the back of his mind — this was primarily what he’d needed to sort out — had been the possibility of the base coming to life even earlier than usual, if the postponed helo lift was also going to be resumed before dawn. But the snow might be a new factor too, might delay them even more, might induce them to cancel the early flying…

  Hope for that, then. Hope, but of course not count on it. Meanwhile, except for putting more muscle on the drill you didn’t really have much choice. The job had to be completed even if it took longer than you’d have liked, even if finishing it meant you’d get trapped here. One AM39 left in working order might take a hell of a lot more than three lives. It could even — if it sank Hermes or Invincible, for instance, the Harrier platforms — lose the war.

  But — four and a half hours, say. From 0244 — quarter to three, the time it had been five minutes ago when they’d finished the first pair — well, you’d complete at 0715.

  His nerves were on edge. He wasn’t used to it, and disliked it. It was unproductive and — he told himself — unwarranted. Things were a lot better than they might have been. At least you were in here, getting on with it — and you could have been still sitting in the OP watching helos fly in — missiles fly out… He went back to the others. Hosegood was drilling, Beale standing by for the next shift. Cloudsley put a hand on Beale’s shoulder: ‘Listen, we have to get this moving faster. The last pair took four hours forty minutes, these we’ve got to do in four hours no minutes. Lean a bit harder on the drill, Geoff. Let up right at the end, just the last few minutes of stage two.’

  Hosegood shifted his feet, adjusting his posture and then bearing down on the drill. Eyes narrowed, fixed on the dazzling spot of light which most of the time was the only point of illumination in the hangar’s icy darkness. Cloudsley told Beale, ‘I’d like to be out of here by seven, Tony. But we’re here until we finish, no matter what.‘ He added as he turned away, ‘It’s snowing, out there.’

  *

  They’d brought him to the meathouse and pushed him inside. Three sheep’s carcases hung in the main working area, the big outer room with its blood-stained concrete floor. Huyez nudged him forward, through that part and into the storeroom at the back that had no window. Juan Huyez was standing in the doorway now with his Winchester levelled, Paco Huyez behind his father with the flashlight shining past him into Andy’s face.

  When they’d jumped him he’d been so completely taken by surprise that he’d forgotten he had a knife on his belt and had been taught how to use it. By the time he’d begun to think coherently Paco Huyez had switched on that torch, a probe of light blinding him through the dense curtain of falling snow while the rifle barrel prodded from behind. If the barrel had been pressed against him steadily he’d have known for sure where it was, might have been able to duck round and tackle the man holding it, but he’d guessed the mayordomo was holding back, reaching forward with it now and then to let him know how things were.

  But also, in the first seconds he’d assumed it must be a mistake, that when they saw who he was they’d apologise… ‘Take the horse, Paco. Turn to your right, Don Andrés. To the carnicería, if you please.’

  ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘We speak when we are inside. Your hands high, now!’

  A jab with the gun; and Huyez had only just thought of the ‘hands up’ bit. All parties concerned in this were amateurs, Andy realised. But his brain was beginning to tick over and he was remembering that the Royal Marine instructors bad taught him a few tricks.

  ‘Are you under some impression you’re protecting the señora?’

  ‘I am doing what has to be done. In…’

  Facing him now, in the square, windowless store, with the searchlight outlining the mayordomo’s wiry, slightly stooped figure… ‘Don Andrés. I am authorised to kill you, if necessary. If you make no sound and no trouble, it should not be necessary. If others do not get to know you are here, you will have a better chance to stay alive than if you were so misguided as to shout for help or try to escape… Do you follow me?’

  ‘I’d better warn you, before you go any farther—’

  ‘I warn you… I will take the key of this door, so nobody can enter. You may hear some person try to open it, not knowing it has been locked, or why. If you call out to them’ — the rifle moved — ‘you get this, and a hole in the ground. Understand, Don Andrés?’

  ‘I’ll freeze, in here.’

  Paco laughed. Paco’s father nodded. ‘You’ll be cold, sure.’

  ‘I’ll die of cold. You know it.’

  ‘I may provide a blanket. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Why?’ Paco spoke close to his father’s ear. ‘What does it matter if he’s so cold he dies?’

  ‘Why are you doing this, Don Juan?’

  His guess was they must have overheard Francisca’s radio call to him. They’d either be acting on their own initiative, guessing what Robert would have wanted them to do, or they’d reported to him and this was being done on his orders. That was the likely scenario: Huyez had said, I am authorised…

  ‘I have a question to ask you, Don Andrés.’

  ‘Ask it, then.’ Might dive under the gun’s barrel. Pulling out knife en route. Drawing the knife would be a clumsy business, though, since it was under the heavy poncho. And there’d have been a better chance if Paco hadn’t been so close up behind his father. On the other hand, Juan Huyez’s reactions weren’t likely to be very quick. He put his question now — the obvious one — ‘What have you come here for?’

  ‘To see the señora, of course. You must know that. You were waiting for me , obviously you heard her call me on the radio.’

  ‘The señora called him.’ Glancing back at his son. ‘From Buenos Aires she calls, to invite him here!’

  They both laughed: Huyez senior in a low, rough chuckle, Paco rather hysterically.

  ‘Summon him here, calling from the residence in Buenos Aires of Alejandro Diaz! And he comes running like a little dog to a bitch on heat!’

  Or a little vizcacha?

  ‘Don Andrés — can it be that you have come all the way from England to visit the señora?’

  That other bit, about BA, her being at her father’s house, was beginning to sink in. It felt as if the world was in the process of turning upside-down. If she’d called from BA, pretending to be here, she’d set him up for this. Or helped in it. Presumably at Robert’s insistence. Or ‘instigation’ might be a better word, maybe Robert hadn’t needed to insist. She’d certainly made it sound good.

  Christ. Of all the bloody fools…

  ‘From England, by avion —so far, to visit her?’

  Paco sniggered: ‘Or lie with her.’

  ‘Señor, this is the truth?’

  He nodded. Mind already beginning to firm up to this, to harden. ‘She wrote imploring me to come.’

  Paco giggling again. Huyez had his finger inside the trigger-guard of the Winchester and its barrel lined up on Andy’s gut. Paco sneered, ‘Implored him, so she could deliver him to her husband? Could it be the patron instructed her to write such a letter to his brother?’

  Huyez said, ‘You have come a long way at huge expense to accomplish your own destruction, Don Andrés.’

  ‘Destruction? I thought you said—’

  ‘Papa.’ Paco pawed at his father’s shoulder. ‘You have the information the patrón said he wanted, so why not finish it? It would be less simple to keep him here, and no risk at all, if tonight he can disappear?’

  Huyez was thinking about it. Paco, encouraged, gabbling an, ‘Better not with a bullet. A knock on the head — then into he river. A peón from nowhere, drowned…’

  Andy could see Ju
an Huyez liked it. He asked him, ‘What do you stand to get out of this, Don Juan?’

  ‘Can you not guess?’

  ‘I suppose what you always wanted, what the old woman promised.’

  Old family intrigue, to result in murder this long after? He had a sudden sense of total unreality; as if this couldn’t possibly be happening. On the other hand it was happening, and it fitted the family background, a postscript perfectly dovetailed to everything that had gone before… Paco had prompted, ‘Papa?’ and Huyez was shuffling backwards through the doorway, rifle still aimed and steady. ‘Come. Out here.’

  Intending, obviously, to kill him here. But in fact there’d be a better chance in that larger room, more room to manoeuvre.

  ‘I’m to ride with you to the river, that it? So you can bash me on the head and throw me in?’

  Paco said, ‘Right here would be best.’ He’d whispered it. Moving forward, watching the gun, Andy decided he disliked Paco profoundly. Despite the fact that hatred had never been an emotion he’d gone in for. He’d never hated even Robert, or his grandmother. Disliked, and feared; not hated. Perhaps it was Francisca he really hated, but right now it looked like Paco Huyez. Who’d turned, going to the outer door. He guessed they’d do it here, not risk him getting away from them in the open and with the cover of a snowstorm to help. Paco shut that door; Juan Huyez was backing round, with the gun on him, motioning with his head that he should pass him, approach the door. It would put him between them, of course. But also it would involve his passing between two of the slung carcases, through a gap between them where there must have been another quite recently; an unoccupied meathook hung there, its S-shaped steel gleaming dully in the light of Paco’s torch.

  ‘Ride to the river? Moving me as it were on the hoof?’ Moving the way Huyez had told him to move. ‘Ever murder anyone before, Don Juan?’

  Paco said, ‘You present us with a wonderful future. We are grateful to you.’ He smirked. ‘And to the señora, of course.’

  ‘Will you give her a message for me?’

  He was sure this would hold them for a few moments. Whatever the message might be, for these two there’d be a joke in it. This was vizcacha country, all right. Moving with his hands up towards Paco, between the hollow, bloody carcases of the sheep, his right hand was about to pass within inches of that hook. Double-ended, S-shaped, each end a curve of spike kept sharp to penetrate carcases or hunks of meat.

  ‘What should I say to the señora, your brother’s wife?’

  ‘First, that I was fool enough to love her—’

  ‘Si.’ They both smiled. ‘It has not been entirely a secret. But surely, Don Andrés’ — Juan Huyez put it to him — ‘the foolishness was in believing the señora might love you?’

  ‘That could be so; and I want you to tell her that now I’ve woken up to the truth, that she’s a cold-blooded, murderous bitch—’

  On the word ‘murderous’ he’d lifted the hook smoothly from the bar on which it hung, ducked around the carcase on right and swung the heavy steel implement into the mayordomo’s face. Huyez reeled back, off-balance, dropping the Winchester as his hands went to his bloodied face. The hook was so light in Andy’s hand it felt virtually weightless as he swung it again but this time with one of the spiked points leading, slashing downwards — as Paco rushed forward, going for the rifle, the hook’s point embedding itself in the side of Juan Huyez’s scrawny neck, blood spurting in a fountain as it skewered through into his throat. Andy unsheathed his knife as he went after Paco — who’d let out a high, womanish scream, having failed to reach the Winchester, met Andy’s foot instead and turned to run, Juan Huyez convulsing in death throes and gushing blood, Andy close behind Paco slamming him against the door and pushing about an inch of knife-point through the boy’s poncho, puncturing flesh in the region of his kidneys. Paco screamed again — twisting round, a vain attempt to see his father…

  ‘Be quiet!’ Mouth close to an ear… Then: ‘Tell me all about it, Paco.’

  ‘Señor, I beg you—’

  ‘But a minute ago you were so happy.’ He slammed his face against the door again. ‘Get your hands right up, palms against the wall.’ Paco obeyed, whimpering. ‘I’ll give you a start, then you go on. You saw me at Señor Strobie’s, and you told your father about it. What then?’

  ‘My father radio’d to the patrón—’

  ‘Where was the patrón?’

  ‘At the airbase, señor!’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He told him that you were here. He had to, it was his duty—’

  ‘What did the patrón say?’

  ‘That he would arrange for you to visit this estancia. He said you would come either tonight or tomorrow.’

  ‘How was he intending to arrange this?’

  ‘I think he did not say, señor.’

  ‘I see.’ It would have been difficult not to see. ‘What were you to do when I arrived?’

  ‘We were to keep you until he could come. For weeks, he said it might be. But, if necessary, to kill you.’

  ‘What kind of necessity?’

  ‘He said if there was — an accident — my father would not be blamed for it. This was the patrón’s order, señor — my father believed his true wish was that you should be killed.’

  ‘Your father was most likely right, at that.’

  He withdrew the knife and sheathed it, picked up the rifle, Seeing it all clearly enough now — except for Francisca’s degree of involvement, degree of either willingness or compulsion. But she’d managed to act it out pretty well, managed to stifle any compunction she might have felt; so count her in, right in…

  It was still like the old world having gone, a new one forming round him.

  ‘Señior, I personally had no wish at all to harm you or—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Thinking it out. Putting his mind to an entirely new situation, trying to do it urgently but also logically, the way he’d seen certain others operate in recent weeks. But feeling, also, like a stranger to himself… ‘Who else knows what you were doing, Paco?’

  ‘Nobody. My father wished it to remain secret.’

  ‘So no one would ever know I’d been here.‘ It made sense and he thought he might build on it… ‘Where does your mother think you are at this minute?‘

  A sigh… ‘At the estancia El Lucero — there is a young lady—’

  ‘Check. Where would your mother think your father might be?‘

  ‘Maybe in the office, or the big house. He works sometimes on accounts at night…’

  He had one dead Huyez and one live one. His own presence known only to this snivelling boy and to Robert and Francisca. They wouldn’t admit having conspired to murder, so could hardly admit knowing he’d been in the country. In fact his having been here was a secret that would have to be kept both for his own sake in the long term and right now for the sake of Cloudsley and the others and their operation, including their safe withdrawal. But if he killed this boy — who did undoubtedly have to be silenced — then no one could doubt there’d been a third party here tonight. There’d be a country-wide hunt despite the fact they wouldn’t know it was Andrés MacEwan they were hunting; it would be a disturbance of a major and — for the SBS team — highly unwelcome kind.

  Patrols on the roads, for instance. Roadblocks…

  He saw the beginnings of an answer.

  ‘Señor, please—’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Paco standing with his face against the door, arms straight to with their palms against the timber above his head, no deathook within ten yards. One vizcacha was as good as another, Andy thought. In fact this one was quite deserving. Roberto wouldn’t have baulked at it; and Francisca, if she’d seen it as contributing to her own interests, wouldn’t have hesitated to connive at it. Come to think of it, what Francisca had demonstrated tonight from a distance of about a thousand miles was a quality that had always been visible in her. Until now, he’d mistaken it for strength of char
acter, a kind of directness and élan which he himself, he’d felt, sadly lacked. But he could see now that what he’d admired in her had been only a working combination of self-interest and amorality.

  And — when in Rome…

  ‘Paco. Grab hold of the legs, drag the body in there.’

  Into the small storeroom where they’d intended keeping him — until Paco had come up with a better idea. He was weeping now, crossing himself…

  ‘Get on with it!’ Lifting the rifle… ‘No — by the feet…’ Watching him do it; with head averted, eyes streaming… Now clean up, with the hose.’

  It was a convenient place for murder, with a drain in the floor and a hose for sluicing the blood down it. Juan Huyez had bled profusely, the hook having ripped through his jugular. Watching the boy carry out his orders, sick-looking and shaking violently all over, Andy deliberately recalled to mind his laugh and the question, What does it matter if he dies? Even then, you had to suppress what might have been — described as ‘finer feelings’. Euphemism, he told himself, for the streak of softness, the soft core he’d always been scared Francisca might see and sneer at; which perhaps she had seen, and in consequence preferred Roberto… He’d need to suppress it now, all right, because there was a long, long way to go yet.

  While Paco was using the hose, Andy locked the storeroom door and pocketed the key.

  ‘All right, that’ll do.‘ Even to start with the floor hadn’t been exactly immaculate. ‘Where’s my horse?’

  A nod towards the door. Paco in tears still, shuddering with the sobs. Andy kept the rifle aimed at him, opened the door and saw Strobie’s bay mare tethered close to it, already plastered in snow although this was the sheltered side. He turned back to Paco. ‘We’ll need a horse for you too. Is the nochero in or out?‘