Balance Of Power td-44

by Warren Murphy

  "Leave us alone," she said quietly, and the kitchen became vacant hi an instant.

  "I hate agents, policemen, assassins, extortionists, soldiers, and pimps," she said. She made the coffee from fresh ground beans in a copper pot.

  Barney sat on a cutting board, dangling his legs, feeling his butt getting moist from recently butchered meat. He didn't care. He was watching Denise. For some reason, the sight of this woman making coffee was more thrilling to Barney than a forty-girl chorus line of nude beauties.

  "You know, I don't find you at all attractive," she said.

  "You don't appeal to me either."

  Then they laughed. Then she served the coffee.

  They talked a lot that night, Denise about the financial problems of payoffs, the difficulty she had in selecting bed partners, Barney about the boredom of his business, only kept interesting by its stakes, his success with women which somehow was never success, and the state of Hispania which neither of them cared very much about.

  With the dawn, Barney left to escort the executive to a hotel and then a conference. They walked

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  through streets of almost naked children. "One drop of nigger blood," the executive said, "and it destroys a race."

  "I guess they become perverts," Barney said. He could see the executive contemplating a complaint to his superiors.

  He returned to the whorehouse and Denise Sara-vena for three beautiful weeks.

  One night, she said: "Barney, I want your baby. I could have it if I wanted without telling you. But I want you to know when we make love that I'm trying to conceive your child."

  Barney didn't know why he couldn't speak. He tried to say something, anything, but all he could do was cry, and tell her that he could never be a father to her baby because he wasn't going to be around much longer. He wanted their baby to have a father.

  Then Barney said that they were going to get married very soon because he did not want to do it without marriage anymore.

  She laughed and told him he was romantic and foolish and lovely, but no, marriage was impractical.

  Barney told her she was right, it would be highly impractical, and that they wouldn't make love any more until they were married.

  Denise pretended to think this was very funny, that he sounded like a young girl waiting for a ring. That night she tried to seduce him as a game. It did not work. The next day they knelt before a priest in a small church near the American embassy and became husband and wife.

  So he found himself, standing near a window on a bright morning, dressed in shorts and a shoulder holster, listening to the magnificent words of his complaining wife and loving every minute of it.

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  "They all know we're married, Barney. Everyone does. Sooner or later, even the CIA will find out."

  Barney had savored the pleasure of gazing upon Mrs. Denise Daniels long enough that day. With a firm pirouette, he wheeled to embrace his wife, and, still holding his coffee, kissed her. Morning mouths and all, it was wonderful.

  "Darling," she said, escaping long enough from his lips to talk, "I know this country. The moment you are without your country's protection, President De Culo and his gang will close on you. Darling, listen to me," she urged as he waved her worries aside like so many annoying flies. "He permitted your interference with the banana shipments only because he had no choice. This regime does not wish to be under American influence. De Culo rose to power from nothing, by offering money and food to his army."

  "American money."

  Denise shook her head. "For one" so intelligent, my darling, sometimes you look no further than your own CIA does. The money De Culo uses now for his army is American money. Some of it."

  Barney screwed up his face. "What are you talking about?"

  "Some of the money is American," she repeated quietly. "Not all. What the United States cannot understand is that no population on earth outside of the American people require so much money for minimal subsistence. What you Americans call 'poor' is colossal wealth for us, and for every other people in the world. De Culo's money from the American government is a far greater amount than what is needed for the maintenance of his troops, and certainly more than necessary for De Culo's civil programs, since he gives nothing to the people

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  to keep them from starving. All the money goes to the army. And there is more, much more."

  "Like what?"

  "Ammunition. Arms. Guns, grenades, food supplies. They are all stored underground, deep in the jungle. I know these things, Barney. My girls tell me. They are offered many presents in the course of a drunken evening with De Culo's swaggering officers, most of whom were starving and ragged as the rest of us before De Culo's mysterious appearance with enough money to organize an army and take over the government."

  "We don't give arms to Hispania."

  "No, you do not. You give money. De Culo buys the arms with American money. His general, Robar Estomago, makes the arrangements with the Russians."

  "But there aren't any Russian installations here," Barney said stupidly. "No treaties, no pacts . . ."

  Denise smiled and shook her head. "No, there are no official agreements with the Russians," she said sadly. "De Culo could not get the American money if there were. Hispania is too small and poor a country to be considered dangerous by the powerful United States. And so your CIA never looked for the Russian installation. And never saw the Russian guns. They have been well hidden. Your^people wanted only to see the banana shipments, and so you saw bananas only."

  "Jesus," Barney whispered. "I suppose De Culo's original money to start his army came from the Russians."

  "Of course. And your government, which views Hispania as harmless and impoverished, viewed what they saw of De Culo's ragged little army, without uniforms and made up of the village poor, as a

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  feeble attempt at pride. They did not see the guns. They did not even look at a map."

  She walked over to a battered cypress wood chest in the corner of the room and took from it a world map, its creases worn to holes from folding and refolding. She opened it flat on the table in front of Barney. On the map was drawn a network of fine red lines originating from Moscow and fanning out into the Middle East, Europe, Asia and South America, with a separate series of blue lines to Cuba. From Cuba, other blue lines emanated toward Puerta del Rey.

  Barney sucked in his breath as he traced each line from Moscow to known Russian military installations around the globe. Although there were no codes on the map, there could be no mistaking the meaning of the lines. Broken red lines to France and Italy indicated peace treaties and possible allies in the event of full-scale nuclear war. Broken blue lines leading to strategically advantageous areas in the Middle East had to mean possible installations, or partially completed installations, in countries where the Russian army could seize the government by force when it decided to. Iran was a broken blue line. So was Afganistan. And so was Hispania.

  But the most prominent line on the map was a hand drawn wobbling, drunken line orignating with a small ink blob on an uninhabited jungle border of Hispania, no more than three hours on foot from the spot where Barney and Denise were sitting at that very moment, and leading directly on a straight course over Cuba to Washington, D.C.

  "I took this from one of the girls here," Denise said. "General Estomago's favorite. It had fallen under the bed. I found it after they had both left the room. The next day, one of Estomago's men came

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  -around to ask if I had found a map outlining potential banana routes. Estomago must have thought I was stupid. Hispania has no reason to ship bananas to Cuba."

  "This is a military map," Barney said. "Some of this information is so classified that the CIA doesn't even have it on file yet."

  Denise nodded. "Yes, that line to Hispania is new. And so is that line from Hispania to Washington."

  "You know what it means?" Barney said.

  "Yes. It means that the Rus
sians have waited for the right time and now have built a military installation on Hispania. A nuclear installation which they will unveil at the right moment and use to intimidate the United States. El presidente De Culo and General Estomago have been working on this for two years. Everybody knows about it."

  Barney fingered the old map. "If everybody on this island knows about the Russian installation, why hasn't any word leaked out by now?"

  Denise sighed. "You still do not understand," she said. "Hispania is a poor country. We do not care whether the Russians control our bananas or the Americans control our bananas. Whoever is on the dicator's throne at the moment will see to it that we do not get money for our bananas anyway, no matter what country he is allied with. We do not care about politics, because we are hungry. De Culo is a wicked man, but every dictator who has come to govern Hispania has been a wicked man. He is no more wicked than the rest. And in his army he feeds many of the young men of our villages. These are men whose families would starve, were it not for the scraps of American and Russian food supplies which they are able to steal and bring home to their

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  people. It is the only way we live. No, we will not talk about the Russian installation. Starvation of our entire country is too high a price to pay for one conversation with a drunken American ambassador."

  "You said Estomago has a favorite girl here," Barney said. "Who is she?"

  "She is a strange one. An American. I do not trust her."

  "Why'd you take her on?"

  "Estomago told me that I was to give her shelter and employment to customers of his choosing. She is not a regular working girl here. She is only for Estomago. And for others whom he selects."

  "Like who?"

  "The most prominent of your CIA men, usually. At first I thought she was a CIA agent herself, but I do not believe that is so. Her hatred for America is very deep. She slashed a young American visitor with a knife once."

  "An agent?"

  "No. Fortunately, he was a runaway soldier from the American army, so I was able to cover up the incident. But the girl is vicious. I dismissed her after the stabbing, but Estomago insisted that I take her back. He said he would close my house if I didn't. So she remains."

  "I want to talk to her," Barney said, rushing to throw on a shirt and a pair of pants. "I want to see her right now."

  "Be careful, darling," Denise warned. "She is Es-tomago's woman. And you are already being watched here, since you are the last American agent on the island. If she suspects that you know anything, Estomago will kill you."

  "Tell her I'm on my last fling before heading home to the bad old USA."

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  "But she must know that we're married."

  "That's perfect. Say you married me to get a passport out of this stinkhole, and you'll be leaving with me, just as soon as I have my fill of young poon-tang."

  Denise led him upstairs to the girl's room. The door was closed.

  "She is very private," she said. "This one never chats with the other girls or even dines with us. Always alone."

  She rapped sharply on the door. After a few minutes, it was opened by a young, platinum-haired, thin-faced girl dressed all in white, her thin lips stretched taut against her teeth to resemble a skull.

  "Yes," she drawled sullenly, the hint of the American South drawing out her word.

  "I have a visitor for you," Denise said crisply. The girl turned her back on them and walked wordlessly toward the bed, unbuttoning her blouse.

  Denise closed the door behind her as she left. "What's your name?" Barney asked, still standing inside the door, his hands in his pockets.

  "Gloria," the girl said with a bored half yawn. "Come on. Get this over with."

  "Gloria what?"

  "Sweeney," the blonde said. "You come here to talk or screw?"

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  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Barney Daniels's arm jerked upward with such force that it shredded the gauze wrapping which held it to the I.V. board bolted to the side of the bed.

  The lone nurse monitoring the small section of the clinic rushed over. She pressed a button over the bed that rang a bell in Dr. Jackson's office.

  "It's Barney," Jackson said to Remo as he took off at a run.

  "Let me talk to him, Doc. If he's conscious, I want to talk to him."

  "I don't want you aggravating my patient with any CIA bullshit," Jackson said as he burst through the double doors into Barney's room.

  Thrashing under the hands of the nurse, his plastic bag of plasma jiggling precariously above him, Barney Daniels screamed.

  It was an unconscious scream, wild and frightened. "The map," he shrieked, his voice breaking. "The map."

  The night nurse watched the video monitors frantically as Barney's life signals peaked in jagged, uneven mountains. "There, there," she said uncertainly.

  "Move aside," Jackson said as he approached the

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  bed. "Nurse, prepare two hundred thousand CC's of thorazine on the double."

  He grabbed Barney by both flailing arms. "Settle down, Barney. It's Doc. I'm here."

  "The map," Barney shrieked.

  "Shut up, I said "

  The nurse swung around to retie the gauze strips around Barney's arms as Doc's hands held them in place. Barney's hospital gown was drenched with sweat. His hair was matted with it, and it poured down his face in shiny streams.

  "He's undergoing some kind of intense mental activity," the nurse said. "It's almost like a pentathol reaction."

  "It's the curare," Jackson said as he accepted the needle from the nurse.

  "No, Doc," Barney panted, his eyes rolling. "Listen to me. Listen . . . liss . . ." He forced his eyes to work.

  "Let him talk," Remo said. "He could tell us something important."

  Jackson looked over to Remo, his hypodermic poised in the air. "All right," he said. "Go ahead."

  Remo touched Barney's arm. "The map,-Barney."

  "Map," he croaked.

  "What map?"

  "Gloria's map." He licked his cracked lips slowly. "Gloria's apartment. The mosque. Gloria in His-pania."

  He smiled slowly, his eyes closing. "I remembered, Doc."

  "You're better off forgetting all that, Barney," Jackson said quietly. "Whatever it was, it hasn't done you any good."

  "I ... remembered."

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  "Who is Gloria?" Remo asked. "What's her name?"

  "Gloria . . ."

  Jackson checked the monitor. Its lines were still peaking dangerously.

  "Gloria who?"

  "That's enough," Jackson said. "He's going to go into shock if you don't stop." He moved forward to press the needle into Barney's intravenous tube.

  "Gloria . . ." Barney's chest heaved. His nose ran. Tears streamed from his eyes. "She was one of them, Doc. She helped kill Denise." He sobbed.

  Jackson shot the last of the hypodermic into the tube. "It'll just take a second, Barney."

  "Gloria who?" Remo demanded.

  "Get out of here!" Jackson raged.

  The nurse tugged at Remo's arm. He didn't move.

  "Gloria . . ." The drug started to take effect. Barney's muscles relaxed. The monitor began to resume its normal wave pattern.

  Got to tell him, a voice deep inside Barney prodded. Tell Doc. Try. Try for Denise.

  "Sw- Sw-" Barney whispered. It was so hard to move his lips. So hard. Swimming so low, circling the bottom . . .

  "Don't talk," Jackson said.

  Tell him for Denise. If you die, she deserves that much.

  "Sweeney," he gasped, hearing his own voice so far away that it sounded like an echo. Then he gathered together all the strength in his body and tried again.

  "Sweeney," he shouted, so that Doc could hear him, so the world could hear, so that even Denise, or what was left of her in her unmarked grave, could hear.

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  "Sweeney!" he screamed again, as if by pronouncing the name he could expiate all the sins of th
e past and return to that time in his wife's kitchen when the sun was shining and the world was beautiful.

  Then the thorazine took over, and he was back.

  The installation had been carved out of mountain rock, lined with lights, floored with tile, heated by a vast steam system and camouflaged by the exterior of the mountain. The Russians had planted a new forest of trees in layers surrounding the entrance to cover the traces made while constructing the site. There was no road, however; since all of the equipment used for setting up the installation had been carefully hauled in by sea. It was a magnificent station, and undiscoverable.

  "Mother of God," Barney whispered as he snapped a roll of film. He and Denise sat crouched in the jungle forest in front of the brilliantly illuminated installation where hundreds of Hispanian and Cuban soldiers worked.

  "Now that you have seen it for yourself, we must leave quickly," Denise said. "It is very dangerous for us to remain here."

  Barney looked at the sun licking through the trees above their heads. "It's hard to believe that this little island has the capability to blow up half the world," he said almost to himself.

  "But of course these bombs never will have to be used," Denise said.

  Barney nodded. He understood well what she meant. For years, America had maintained a rough equivalence with the Soviets in nuclear might and by this standoff had maintained an uneasy peace in

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  the world. Each side knew that it faced almost total annihilation in the event of war. There had been an unspoken agreement between the superpowers not to try to expand their nuclear influence into areas where they had no real geographical or historical stake. The Russian attempt to move missiles into Cuba was a flagrant violation of this rule, and President Kennedy had backed the Russians down.

  But times had changed. Kennedy had owned the military muscle to force the Russians to blink. Too many years of a White House that thought America could be guarded by good intentions had since reduced the country to a poor also-ran in the military might department, and there would be no forcing this installation out of Hispania just by words. It would stay there. And the balance of power in the world would forever have shifted. Missiles could be launched from Hispania anywhere in the United States or Caribbean and the Russians could say, "Who? Us? We didn't do it. Hispania did it on its own," and an American president, faced with an inadequate arsenal of his own, would have to decide: would he attack Russia in retaliation, knowing that the result would be the United States' destruction?