Renegade 25

by Lou Cameron

  There was no tub and the tap water in the sink, of course, was cold. But there were plenty of washrags and towels, so what the hell. He washed and dried and went back to put on the new outfit. He put his money belt on under the khaki shirt and wore the gun rig over it, under the light whipcord jacket. Then he put on the felt hat, picked up the carpetbag the change of duds had been delivered in, and blew Sarah’s bare ass a kiss as he went out to the parlor to wait for Gaston.

  He didn’t have to wait. Gaston was seated on the settee, fully dressed. The Frenchman said, “Ah, there you are, mon sleepy head. Why the luggage?”

  Captain Gringo hefted the carpetbag and said, “A guy attracts less attention boarding a train with a bag in his hand.”

  “Merde alors, what train? We are armed and once more in the money, with a coast of clearness, non?” “Non. Too many people looking for us here in San José. If Hakim’s ruse worked, they’ll be looking for us in Puntarenas, too. That leaves the east coast. So get off your duff and let’s get the fuck out of here!”

  Gaston rose and followed. But as Captain Gringo locked the spring latch of the front door after them, Gaston frowned and said, “I thought we agreed to cross everybody double, Dick.”

  “Them was the good old days. Last night somebody tried to get us, and it wasn’t Hakim’s people. That makes them even bigger bastards in my book. So I think we’d better go along with the bastard we know until we at least figure out who’s gunning for us.”

  *

  They did. Nobody had the railroad station staked out and the train ride down to the jungle-covered lowlands was as uneventful as it was uncomfortable. But by the time two more of Hakim’s people had met them at the Limón station and whisked them away to another hideout in the favilla slums above the waterfront, secret-service agent Purvis was getting pensive up in San José. As his assistant, Rumford, entered the office, Purvis said, “Just got a long-distance call from Puntarenas. We’ve been slickered. Neither Walker nor that little Frenchman were really aboard that train last night.”

  Rumford protested, “They must have jumped off somewhere along the way then, sir. My boys tailed them to the station and saw them get on board.”

  Purvis shook his head and said, “I listen in on other people’s telephone conversations. Two British agents did more than follow them to the station. They bought hasty tickets and got on the train after them. They just called Grey stoke from Puntarenas and, you think our guys are confused? The Brits lost them aboard the train! One minute they were there, drinking gin and tonic in the club car. Then they apparently headed back to the coach cars. The Brits finished their own drinks and followed, casually. But guess what, neither seemed to be seated anywhere in the coaches. Greystoke’s men looked. In every seat of every coach. How do you like them apples, son?”

  Rumford frowned and answered, “Like I said, sir, they must have jumped off.”

  “Going downhill, through the mountains, fast, with a sheer drop on one side and a solid wall of whizzing rock on the other? They didn’t jump. Both us and the Brits were slickered.”

  “But how, sir?”

  “Try her this way. What if Captain Gringo and Gaston Verrier never got on in the first place?”

  “But we saw them board the train, sir!”

  “You mean you thought you saw them board it. It was dark. The station is illuminated by faith and a firefly or two at night. Two guys about the same size and wearing the same outfits left the posada we knew they’d been staying in. So everyone assumed they were tailing the renegade and his sidekick. But they were tailing a couple of other wise-asses, who simply changed clothes somewhere on die night train and simply sat down to enjoy the ride with their bare but unknown faces hanging out. I can’t prove it. But it works better than anything else I can come up with.”

  Rumford nodded. “Anything else won’t work at all, sir. So what are your orders, now that we’ve lost them?”

  Purvis growled, “Who says we’ve lost ’em? They’re not here in San José, unless my street people lie for no reason. They never went to Puntarenas, so that note Walker left about El Salvador was a crock. He wouldn’t have said he was going there if he really was in any case. That leaves what, Rumford? You’re supposed to think once in a while, too, you know.”

  Rumford did, and said, “East coast, of course. That’s all that’s left, and we did pick up that rumor about a mysterious Spanish naval vessel stranded somewhere along the Mosquito Coast, remember, sir?”

  “I remember. It’s good to see you’ve been paying attention, too. So do you really need a diagram on the blackboard, Rumford?”

  “Nosir. With your permission, I’ll take a team of field agents down to Limón and see if we can locate those rascals again.”

  “You do that, son. But be careful. Walker and Verrier are dangerous as hell, as a German agent found out to his sorrow last night.”

  Rumford frowned and asked, “Where do German agents enter into this case, sir?”

  Purvis said, “I wish I knew. Obviously our boys and the Brits weren’t the only ones watching that posada. This morning the local police picked up the body of what they thought was a native cabdriver near the German legation. I took the liberty of staking out the San José morgue, and guess what, about an hour ago, Jager, the Kaiser’s top Latin American troubleshooter, checked said stiff out for a proper burial. He told the guys at the morgue the guy was related to a Costa Rican cook at his legation and he wanted to do the right thing.”

  “Naturally he didn’t send the dead man to any local undertaker we have on the payroll, sir?”

  “Naturally. We do spread a little cheer among the underpaid help at the morgue. So we know the cabdriver, who didn’t have a local coach license, by the way, was shot with a .38. Neatly, between the eyes.”

  Rumford nodded and said, “The renegade packs a double-action .38 and used to win pistol-shooting contests regularly when he was a troop leader back in the States.”

  Purvis nodded and said, “So don’t let him get the drop on you, and watch out for the throwing knife the Frenchman carries at the nape of his neck. The next eastbound train leaves in less than an hour. What are you waiting for?”

  “Full instructions, sir. Are my orders to pick them up or just keep them under surveillance for now?” Purvis said, “By now they know what the hell the deal is. So, yeah, you’d better pick ’em up. Alive, if possible. But take no chances.”

  *

  The reason most of the population of Costa Rica had settled in the highlands to the west was that the coastal lowlands were hellishly hot and buggy. The squalid shacks of the Limón favilla had been thrown together from salvaged crates, palmetto matting, and flattened tin cans and oil drums. There was no street lighting because there were no streets in the favilla. Just a maze of narrow muddy lanes running crookedly between the casually constructed shacks, with a ditch here and there to carry rain water and shit that hopefully floated somewhere else. The resultant stench was enough to gag a pig. But it failed to keep away the flies, mosquitoes, rats, and tropical cockroaches almost as big as rats.

  The air was a little better, albeit still eye-watering, inside the hideout the two soldiers of fortune were holed up in, with two sleepy-eyed mestizo gunslicks and an old black crone in one corner who kept cooking plantains and red peppers in deep fat for some reason. No human stomach could have eaten such an awful mess. But perhaps destroying the appetites of her temporary boarders was her idea of home economics.

  Captain Gringo and Gaston couldn’t do much plotting behind Hakim’s back with two of his guys in the same one room with them. The mestizos, in turn, answered every question anyone asked them with a sleepy, “¿Quién sabe?” So it was shaping up to be a long night.

  Things got worse when it started to rain. The warm tropic rain on the tin roof didn’t cool the air enough to matter but filled the shack with steam room mist and mosquitoes seeking shelter. Gaston slapped his own face, reflexively, and said, “Mon Dieu, I can’t remember when I last spe
nt such a lovely evening.” He turned to the old black woman and asked when or if she intended to produce something they could sleep on, hopefully drier than her mud floor. She cackled like a witch and went on stirring her deep fry. Gaston sighed and said, “Merde, that’s what I thought. Eh bien, why don’t we trim the lamp and just jack off in privacy, hein?”

  Captain Gringo told him to shut up and took out his watch. He said, “It’s early yet. I think they just brought us here to make sure nobody tailed us from San José.” He smiled a question at one of the guys who’d brought them this far and the mestizo yawned and said, “¿Quién sabe?”

  Actually Captain Gringo was right. For, though things were dull as hell in the squalid shack, all sorts of people were up to all sorts of things out in the rain.

  Secret-service agent Rumford and his five-man team had no way of knowing just where in the favilla Captain Gringo and Gaston might be, of course. But Rumford ‘ was a pretty good field agent, so it had only taken him an hour or so to establish that, since the men they were looking for were not holed up in any of the regular hotels and posadas along the waterfront, they had to be holed up somewhere in the slums of what was, after all, little more than a village.

  U.S. secret agents weren’t supposed to annoy the local natives if it could be avoided. But could it hurt to move from shack to shack in the dark to press a discreet ear against a paper-thin wall? It was time-consuming as well as soggy work. But Rumford and his men had plenty of time, and plenty of guns, so what the hell.

  On the far side of the favilla, another secret agent, named Wolfgang Vogelshorst, had the same idea and a couple more men than Rumford as he carried out the orders of his superior, Oberst Jager of Der Kaiser’s intelligence service. Vogelshorst had been told not to come back without Captain Gringo and Gaston, dead or alive. He wasn’t as worried about local feelings. People just had to understand that the fatherland had a mandate from a German-speaking Gott. So his team was moving faster, simply barging in on bewildered favilla dwellers for a quick look, a click of the heels, and a move next door.

  Meanwhile, Greystoke of British intelligence had known for some time about Sir Basil Hakim’s way station in the Limón favilla. Greystoke had been trying to put the Merchant of Death in Dartmoor for some time, and it wasn’t really all that hard for British intelligence to infiltrate an arms combine based in England. But the team of agents Greystoke had sent had been ordered to proceed with caution and see if they could find out what in the devil Hakim had hired Captain Gringo for before they moved in on anybody.

  So as British agents watched the shack and German and American agents moved in on it from north and south, the two soldiers of fortune swatted mosquitoes in blissful albeit bored unawareness of the more serious troubles closing in on them. Gaston said, “It must be getting late. That disgusting mess that disgusting crone is cooking is beginning to smell good. It couldn’t be fatal to eat just a little of it. She eats it all the time, and she must be at least a hundred and ten, non?”

  He’d spoken in his version of English. But Captain Gringo told him to watch his big mouth anyhow. One never knew how many languages a lady that old might have picked up in her considerable years on earth. Captain Gringo’s stomach was starting to growl, too. But in the end they were saved from having to try deep-fat-fried plantains and peppers.

  The packing-case door of the shack popped open, and as the four men inside all went for their guns at the same time, the slim youth in wet poncho and dripping straw sombrero said, “Papadakis sent me. The Peirene is ready to weigh anchor and the coast is clear, I think.”

  Captain Gringo put his .38 away but asked, “Who the hell is Papadakis and what do you mean you think the coast is clear?”

  The younger stranger said, “Skata, do you want to sail with us or do you want a soapbox lecture? Spyros Papadakis is the skipper of the sponge schooner Peirene. I am Kantos, ship’s cook and interpreter. What else do you need to know right now? Let’s get out of here. My skipper likes to sail with the tide and he has a temper!”

  The two soldiers of fortune rose to their feet. The local hired guns didn’t. So Captain Gringo knew they weren’t going along. This wasn’t what was making the hairs on the back of his neck tingle as he said, “You said you thought the coast was clear? Run that past me again, Kid.”

  Kantos shrugged and said, “I spotted someone crouched behind the shack across the way just now. But it may have just been some native peeping Tom, eh?”

  Captain Gringo frowned and answered, “In this rain? What do you think, Gaston?”

  Gaston said, “I think it would be most stupid to leave by the front door when the back wall is nothing but palmetto matting, non?”

  Captain Gringo nodded grimly, reached into his pocket, and took out a few coins and his jackknife. He tossed the coins to the old woman in the corner and told Gaston, “Trim the lamp,” as he slashed the back wall down one side.

  Gaston, Kantos, and the two mestizos thought it was a good idea, but as Gaston plunged the shack into darkness, save the glow of charcoal under the deep fat fryer, the old woman screamed like a banshee and leaped to her feet to stop what she regarded as a shocking vandalism, to hear her tell it.

  Kantos grabbed the old woman and held her as Captain Gringo cut an L-shaped flap and said, “Bueno. Let’s go!” So Kantos dumped the wailing old woman on her duff and followed the two soldiers of fortune out into the driving rain, downslope between other close-spaced shacks.

  Behind them, the old woman still rent the soggy air with outraged wails. They weren’t the only people who heard her. The German team had worked its way close in any case, and Vogelshorst heard the old woman shouting, “Damn you, Captain Gringo!” So he hissed, “Los, that shack we just saw the peon in that poncho enter! Follow me!”

  They did, as Vogelshorst charged the shack, shooting his Mauser with more noise than effect until one of the surprised mestizos still in it cracked the front door, aimed at the German’s gun flashes, and blew out the charging German’s brains.

  His more-cautious followers flopped belly down in the mud and proceeded to smoke up the shack with stolid Teutonic thoroughness. A Mauser slug through the thin front wall sent the old woman headfirst into her deep fat, spilling her and scalding hot grease all over the floor. So the two triggermen still on their feet had hot feet indeed as they charged out, screaming and shooting wildly, one leaving by way of a thin spot in the south wall instead of following his comrade out the front door.

  The one who’d charged out the usual exit, bellowing in pain, was of course hit twice before he made it across to the shack in his line of unplanned evacuation. But he was still on his feet and firing ahead of him, dazed from his pain and wounds. So when one of his .45 rounds took a British agent behind said shack in the chest, the Brit he’d just missed growled, “Oh, I say!” and dropped the mestizo in the middle of the path with a well-placed Webley round.

  Then he winced and hit the wet dirt as a German, firing at his muzzle flash, spanged a bullet off the corner of the shack near his head. So he was more than a little ticked off when another Brit crawled over to him and asked, “What’s up, Mate?”

  He fired in the general direction of the German team before he replied, “Don’t know. But some beggers seem to be shooting at us!” So the second British agent, and then the whole British team, was soon pegging shots at the Germans, who of course returned their fire, not knowing what else to do, with their leader dead.

  Meanwhile, Rumford and the U.S. secret-service team had been taught that when in doubt, one should always advance on the sound of the guns. So they were running up the crooked path between the shacks to find out what the hell was going on, when the mestizo gunslick who’d charged out the side wall and may have been a bit overexcited came around a corner , spotted them, and fired from the hip.

  Rumford grunted, said, “Shit!” and went down with a .45 slug in his thigh, adding, “Get ’em!” even as his men were blowing the mestizo away with their own smoking guns. The
n they reloaded and moved on, grim faced and thoroughly pissed, even if they weren’t sure why.

  It was too good to last, of course. Once the secret-service men charged in to fire at every muzzle flash they didn’t know personally, the casualties on all three sides began to get too serious for sensible people to accept. So all three teams began to fight what each thought a strategic withdrawal, dragging their dead and wounded with them.

  Obviously, Captain Gringo had a bigger gang than any of them had expected, damn his renegade soul!

  *

  The real Captain Gringo and Gaston of course had heard and been somewhat bemused by the sounds of the mysterious firefight behind them as they followed Kantos through the quieter parts of the favilla to the darker end of the Limón waterfront. There, Kantos showed them to a longboat held against the quay by other Greeks manning it. They all piled in. Kantos snapped something that was Greek to Captain Gringo, and they rowed out through the darkness to a big dim shape that might have been a schooner and smelled just awful.

  “What’s that stink?” asked Captain Gringo.

  Kantos said, “Sponge. Haven’t you ever smelled sponge before?”

  “Sure, but no sponge I ever scrubbed with smelled like … let’s see, battlefield and cesspool, with spoiled fish thrown in?”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Kantos replied, adding, “The sponges you bathe with are just the soft skeletons of the creatures we dive for. We let them rot until their meat can be rinsed out of the odorless framework, see?”