The man who had splashed him tossed the empty pan at Schaefer's feet with a clatter; then he checked the wire on Schaefer's wrist, gave it a twist to tighten it further, and said, "Bueno."
Schaefer felt the metal biting painfully into his flesh, felt blood start to ooze from beneath. He growled in anger and pain.
"Perhaps the wire is too tight?" the man said in good English. "Not to worry-we're only just beginning. In a little time you won't even notice so minor a pain." He turned, leaned out the room's one and only door, and signaled to someone Schaefer couldn't see.
A moment later a taller man in military fatigues stepped into the room; he nodded a greeting to the man who had splashed Schaefer.
The first man saluted and left the room; the new arrival crossed slowly to a spot beside the chair, where he stood and smiled down at Schaefer.
Schaefer knew the face; he'd seen it before, back in the Big Apple. Seen it, hell, he'd been tempted to punch it in. This was Eschevera.
Schaefer took a certain pleasure in seeing that Eschevera limped as he walked.
"Detective Schaefer," Eschevera said. "I'm hurt you came all this long way to Central America, you passed so close to my home, and you didn't stop by to pay your dear old friend a visit?"
Schaefer grunted.
"Perhaps you sought me but were misled?" Eschevera suggested. "You made a wrong turn somewhere, someone gave you faulty directions? After all, what else could have brought you to this corner of the world but a desire to renew our acquaintance?"
"Somehow I managed to avoid that particular desire," Schaefer said.
Eschevera grinned. "The last time we met, I made you a very generous offer. Perhaps now you're sorry you responded as you did?"
"I'm only sorry we didn't meet on a taller building," Schaefer snarled.
The grin vanished. "That's very funny, Detective Schaefer," Eschevera said. "You've always had a good sense of humor, haven't you? I regret I won't be able to appreciate it for very much longer."
Eschevera turned as the other man reentered; he was holding something in one hand, something black and bright orange. In his other hand was a coil of black cable; he was paying it out as he entered.
He held up the black-and-orange object.
"Black and Decker," he said. "Very sharp."
It was a power saw, circular blade, one-half horsepower motor; the safety shield had been removed.
Schaefer didn't like that; for one thing, it meant this place had electricity, which meant it was more than just some stopover on the trail.
Eschevera smiled again. "I'll be back in a bit, after Paolo's had a few minutes with you alone. Perhaps you can entertain him with more of your amusing stories." He saluted sardonically, then turned and limped out.
The sadist with the power saw grinned. He revved it a few times, just to test, and light glinted from the spinning blade. "So little time, so much to do," he said.
He circled around behind Schaefer, put a hand on his head, and pressed, tipping Schaefer's head down and exposing the back of his neck, like a barber preparing to trim the hairs there.
Paolo revved the saw again, then clicked the switch into the lock-on position; the blade and motor settled into a steady hum.
"Yeah, I know the feeling," Schaefer said, and he leaned farther forward, pulling away from Paolo's hand.
Then he pressed his feet against the floor and stood up, chair and all. One of the back legs caught Paolo in the kneecap, hard.
"Wha . . . ?" The Colombian torturer staggered back, limping and startled.
Schaefer squatted and then threw himself backward, smashing Paolo against the wooden wall. He drove his wired fists into Paolo's belly; Paolo made a strangled noise, barely audible over the power saw's hum, and doubled over.
Schaefer dragged the sharp ends of the wire across Paolo's stomach and felt blood dripping; then he leaned forward and let Paolo fall.
The saw was still running; Schaefer twisted around and pressed the chair back against the spinning blade.
The motor howled and sawdust sprayed as the saw cut into the wooden chair, and in seconds Schaefer was able to break free and stand upright.
Paolo was stirring, struggling to get up; Schaefer kicked him in the gut, and when he'd curled into a ball, Schaefer kicked him in the head.
Blood sprayed from Paolo's nose across the scattered sawdust.
"Fun's fun, Paolo," Schaefer said, "but I don't have time for this bullshit."
He put his hands on the floor and stepped back through his arms to get his hands in front of him, then began picking with his teeth at the wire on his wrists. After a moment he managed to get one end loose; after that it was easy.
His mouth was bleeding in four separate places where the wire had cut him, and his wrists were bloody as well, but he didn't worry about any of that.
He moved the saw around, then kicked Paolo a couple of times to make sure he was out, and to provide sound effects for whoever was guarding the door. There was no reason to think Paolo and Eschevera had been alone; after all, there were the four men who had brought him in. They were probably still around, and there might be others.
Then he took a flying leap, booted foot first, at the closed door, hoping it wasn't any stronger than it looked.
It wasn't; the latch and upper hinge gave, and he tumbled through to find himself sprawled on top of a startled guard.
The guard was holding a Kalashnikov. Schaefer punched the guard in the jaw and tore the gun out of his hands, then looked around.
He was in an empty corridor with a door at each end and three doors on either side; he'd just emerged from the center of one long side.
That was bad; it meant a bigger building than he had hoped. This place was definitely more than a mere way station.
Schaefer figured that his only chance to get out of this alive was to disappear into the jungle and make his way back to somewhere civilized, somewhere he could get a plane back to the States.
That would probably take weeks.
And the bigger this place was, the harder it would be to slip away unseen in the first place.
Well, it wasn't as if he had a choice.
The guard on the floor was moaning; Schaefer brought the butt of the Kalashnikov down on his head, and the moaning stopped.
He didn't risk shooting, though; that would draw too much attention.
He looked at the seven closed doors, saw daylight under the one at the left end of the corridor, and headed for it.
The narrow strip of daylight wasn't broken by the shadows of feet; if there was a guard, he was standing to one side, not directly in front of the door.
Schaefer put an ear to the wood and heard voices, but he couldn't make out words, couldn't tell who they were, how many, or how far away.
Cautiously, he lifted the latch with one hand, weapon held ready in the other.
Nothing happened.
He swung the door inward, as quickly and silently as he could, and stepped through.
And froze.
A dozen men were waiting for him, rifles trained on him; he was facing a broad, open courtyard, with no shelter, nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. The courtyard was surrounded by solid tile-roofed buildings of stucco or adobe, separated by narrow alleys. Watchtowers stood at the corners, watchtowers equipped with searchlights and heavy machine guns.
This was obviously Eschevera's home camp, the one the DEA intelligence reports had said was staffed by over a hundred men, with equipment capable of repelling a full-scale military assault.
"It's not going to be that easy, Mr. Schaefer," Eschevera said from behind two of the riflemen. He smiled. "Paolo was careless, as I thought he might be-I know you're a resourceful man, but Paolo . . . well, Paolo was not impressed. Perhaps now he will be, if you have left him alive."
Schaefer stared at Eschevera, thinking. They obviously expected him to drop the Kalashnikov and put his hands up, and that would probably be the smart thing to do, but if they were going to kill him an
yway, why not try a dash for the gate? He wouldn't make it without a miracle, but miracles could happen, and whether he got a miracle or not, he might manage to take out Eschevera on the way.
He hesitated, though. Something felt wrong.
It was a feeling he'd had before, both in the jungle and back in New York.
Schaefer looked up at the nearest watchtower, where a man in a bush hat had a machine gun trained on him. That wasn't what was bothering him-a machine gun was worth some thought, but that wasn't what felt wrong. There was something in that general direction, though. Schaefer blinked and stared at the machine-gunner.
The man's chest exploded in blue-white fire.
Half the riflemen turned, startled, at the sound of the explosion; the other half were sufficiently well trained to keep their eyes and weapons on Schaefer.
Eschevera was one of those who turned to look, and then turned again as a second white fireball blew the head off the rifleman on his right.
"Son of a bitch!" he said, staggering on his bad leg, trying to see what was happening.
Then a real barrage began, and the riflemen scattered.
Other men began pouring from the buildings. The watchmen in the towers had swung their guns around and now began spraying machine-gun fire into the surrounding jungle, but Schaefer, remembering the dead monster's camouflage device, doubted that any of the gunners had a clear idea what they were shooting at, or where it was.
He noticed that the fireworks came from more than one direction. So the guide had been right, after all-the dead one must have had friends, and now they'd come to play.
Eschevera was shouting orders at a group of men doing something to a small outbuilding near one of the far corners of the courtyard; as Schaefer watched, the walls of the building fell outward, revealing an antiaircraft battery.
Eschevera really had been ready to fight off just about anything, up to and including a full-scale military assault--but how could he have prepared for what he was up against?
The heavy guns began firing, throwing shells randomly into the bush. "donde demonios este el?" one of the gun crew shouted.
Eschevera's men couldn't see the enemy, and it was spooking them.
And in the excitement and confusion, they'd forgotten all about Schaefer.
Still, Schaefer hesitated for a moment longer. Even if Eschevera's men were drug-dealing slime, those outer-space things had no right to treat them as playthings, animals to be killed for sport.
Then a line of white fire stitched across the courtyard, walling up to the antiaircraft emplacement, cutting men down, and Schaefer realized this wasn't sport. They weren't playing around anymore.
They were pissed.
The guide had been right. Those things didn't like losing tourists.
But on the other hand . . . they were still doing this up close and personal, they weren't just sitting back and nuking the camp from orbit, and somehow Schaefer didn't think that was because they couldn't.
It might not be sport, but it wasn't war, either, and he remembered those drunken hunters back home, long ago, pumping shells into that deer.
The heavy guns exploded then, distracting him from his thoughts; the shrapnel took down a dozen men. Eschevera had been hobbling about, trying to organize resistance, but now he fell headlong on the dirt.
After the battery went, the concerted alien fire focused on the watchtowers, and within seconds two of the four were flaming ruins.
"Jesus," Schaefer said.
It was definitely time to get the hell out of there-especially since those things had probably come looking for him, and they'd remember it sooner or later, and he still had the tracking device embedded in his neck, and they'd remember that eventually, too. And Eschevera's men weren't about to waste time on stopping him when they were under this sort of attack; they were too busy staying alive.
He turned to the right and ran for one of the alleys between buildings, hoping it led to a way out.
Behind him Eschevera looked up, dazed. He saw Schaefer running and called out, "Schaefer! His people must have followed him here, it must be them! Schaefer's doing!" He raised a hand, pointing after the fleeing norteamericano.
A bolt of blue-white plasma took his hand off at the wrist; Eschevera screamed and rolled onto his back.
One of his men, gun in hand, ran up.
"Get him!" Eschevera shouted, waving the cauterized stump. "I want him dead! He did this!"
The gunman hesitated, looked around, then charged down the alley after Schaefer.
"He's mine," he called back.
As he vanished down the alley, back in the courtyard Eschevera looked up as something crackled and electric sparks danced.
A monster appeared out of thin air, a monster that walked upright on two legs but had a face of blank metal and mottled skin a color no human being had ever had, a monster taller than any man. Something perched on its shoulder, like a parrot on a pirate captain, and swiveled about.
And there were at least three other monsters, visible now, walking calmly through the fire and smoke that blanketed the courtyard, carrying things like blades and spears; they moved with power and assurance, alert but not troubled.
"Mother of God," Eschevera gasped.
Three red dots appeared on Eschevera's forehead, weaving about for a moment before settling into a precise little triangle. The black thing on the monster's shoulder pivoted and pointed directly at Eschevera's face, and Eschevera's very last thought was to recognize it as not a pet, but a weapon, a gun of some kind.
Then it fired.
The creature looked up from the smoking corpse, and in a perfect reproduction of the dead man's voice shouted to the world, "Mother of God!"
* * *
26
In a way, Schaefer thought as he ran down the alley past the compound's latrines and out into the jungle, Eschevera was right he had been followed to the camp.
Just not by his people.
He no longer heard as many explosions, and the gunfire seemed to have stopped completely, to be replaced by the sound of men screaming.
From the screams Schaefer figured that those things were taking the time to enjoy themselves with Eschevera's surviving men. That would keep them busy for a little while, but it wouldn't be long before they remembered why they were there and turned their attention to him.
And when they did, the thing on his neck would lead them right to him.
"Goddamn dog collar!" he growled.
He ran on, trying to think.
He still had the Kalashnikov, but somehow he didn't think it was going to do him a whole hell of a lot of good against those things-not when they could take on Eschevera's whole private army.
He was alone in the jungle, didn't know where the hell he was-not even what country he was in, really-with no, supplies except a stolen Kalashnikov; he still wasn't completely over the injuries from his fight back in New York, let alone the batterings he'd gotten here. His wrists and mouth were bleeding. For all he knew the goddamn gun wasn't even loaded, he hadn't had time to check. Half the drug dealers in Colombia might be after him by now, the fucking alien monsters were after him, and Philips and his goddamn secret agents probably wanted Schaefer dead as well .. . .
He paused to catch his breath and decide which way he should go.
He looked around at the jungle and saw nothing but green in every direction except the one he'd just come from. He could still hear men screaming, but the shots and explosions had stopped completely now.
Oh, he was in great shape, he was. What was the old saying? "It's always darkest before the storm," was that it?
New Age shit, Schaefer thought, as he was knocked to the ground by a flying tackle.
The Kalashnikov went flying.
Schaefer rolled over and looked up.
He was royally pissed at himself; he hadn't heard the guy coming, hadn't seen a thing. He never used to let the bastards sneak up on him like that.
At least it wasn't one of the mo
nsters. It was one of Eschevera's men, in a leather vest, brown Levi's, and a T-shirt. He was standing over Schaefer, straddling Schaefer's legs and grinning, pointing an AK-47 at Schaefer's head.
"What the hell do you want?" Schaefer demanded. "You planning to drag me back there? Think that's gonna do Eschevera any good?"
"Eschevera's dead," the man said.
At least he spoke English-but, then, most of Eschevera's men seemed to.
"You don't sound real upset," Schaefer said.
"I'm not," the man said. "It means there's room for advancement. The Cali cartel will be seeking a new liaison for the Mangabe district-that's what Eschevera did after you drove him out of New York. And if I'm the one who brings them your head, Detective Schaefer, the choice will be obvious."
"What about those things shooting up your camp?" Schaefer asked. "If we don't get the hell away from here, you aren't going to have a chance to take my head anywhere."
"Your friends? Why should they bother about us? They have the camp, the drugs-they might look for you, but come after us into the jungle?"
"They aren't my friends," Schaefer said. "Didn't you see what you were up against?"
"Ah, the pretty fireworks," the man said. "Yes, the authorities have brought more firepower than usual, but who else could it be? It's obvious."
"You like that word. `obvious.' "
The man shrugged.
"Speaking of the obvious," Schaefer said, "lemme show you something." He brought his boot up in a sudden kick that would have done a Rockette proud, and caught the Colombian in the crotch.
The man doubled over, and Schaefer swarmed up and landed a fist on his jaw, knocking him sprawling.
Schaefer grabbed the AK 47 and tossed it away, then grabbed the Colombian up by his leather vest.
"You seem a little unclear on the concept here, pal," Schaefer said. "Those things playing laser tag with your buddies don't give a shit about your stinking cocaine. They're not human, comprende?"
"Go to hell, you lying . . ." The man was still clutching at his crotch.
"Goddamn it," Schaefer said, shaking him, "I'm telling the truth!" He dropped the man and stood over him-to the side, though, not where the Colombian could use Schaefer's own tactic against him. "Look, you son of a bitch, I'm tired, I'm sore, and I haven't had a decent cheeseburger since I left New York. So just don't push me, dig?" He turned away and picked up the Kalashnikov.
Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Predator 01 Page 16
