Operation Fireball (14 page)

I was watching Erikson. He had slipped out of the straps supporting the backpack radio and was looking at the unit. The combined weight of the two men had smashed the radio like a two-dollar watch. Erikson started to drop the mangled remains on the floor, then changed his mind.

The sound of Ramirez’ body hitting the floor had brought a wave of big-eyed, transparent-shirted girls into their open doorways. I raised an arm threateningly and the girls scattered like crows at sight of a shotgun. Slater rose to his feet and handed Erikson a key. Erikson gave it to Melia. The girl moved around him, placed her high-heeled shoe upon Ramirez’ upturned face, put her considerable weight on the shoe and face, and made a 180-degree turn. Slater grunted as blood spurted from under the shoe.

Melia moved along the corridor without a backward glance at the man whose face she had destroyed. She inserted the key into an almost invisible lock in a wallpapered panel that gave no sign of being a door. She motioned us through it and, when we were inside, threw over a barred arm, which would block pursuit for a time.

We were standing in a rough-framed passageway that had obviously been built for the sole purpose of providing a bridge to the next building. Melia again took the lead. Despite the semidarkness between the walls, I could see tiny dots of red left by her heel on the planking.

She used the key again on a door at the end of the bridge. We entered an apartment damp with the humidity of disuse. “Down these stairs to the alley,” Melia said. “But carefully. They may have posted a guard behind the other building, and he would hear us.”

Ahead of me, Erikson quietly lowered the shortwave radio into a corner and went on without it. It confirmed my worst fears. Slater didn’t notice. “Listen!” the girl said. A dull pounding echoed from the bridge behind us. “We must go. They will not follow us out onto the street.”

“Go ahead, Melia,” Erikson ordered.

At the bottom of the stairs the girl paused with her hand on another door. “There is thirty feet of alley, then an open space to cross,” she whispered. “That is the danger. Beyond the open space we will be safe from those in the house.”

Erikson moved her to one side and opened the door an inch at a time. He stepped down onto a cobblestoned alley whose bricks were damp with moisture. We followed him as he crept along the side of the building until he came to the open space. “I’ll go first,” he breathed when we joined him. “Melia next, then Slater, then you, Drake.”

He crouched low and was gone into the shadows. No sunlight ever penetrated the dankness of the alley. Melia slipped out of her shoes, picked up her skirt, and flitted across the cobblestones like a long-legged ghost. Slater hesitated before he started. Halfway across he skidded on a wet spot and almost went down. His boots sounded noisily as he righted himself and finished the crossing at a dead run.
“¿Que pasa?”
a voice inquired to my left.

There was the sound of more running feet. A soldier dashed into the open space, between me and safety. His rifle was held out in front of him, poised to swing in any direction.
“¿Que pasa?”
he repeated, trying to penetrate the shadows. I lined up the .38 on his throat to quench his scream when the bullet hit him. A pistol shot in the dark is directionless. A scream is not.

Before I could pull the trigger, there was a thunking sound. The soldier’s knees sagged, and he started to pitch forward. Karl Erikson’s big hand shot out and captured the falling rifle before it could clatter to the cobblestones. Erikson had come back from the safe area to take out the soldier. I knew damned well that Slater wouldn’t have done it.

We pulled the body out of the open area before abandoning it. We left the rifle farther up the alley. Slater and Melia were a hundred feet away when we emerged onto a sidewalk a block away from the whorehouse. “Please,” the girl was pleading as we caught up to them. “More slowly. A patrol jeep might investigate on suspicion anyone in too much of a hurry.”

Erikson grabbed the back of Slater’s belt, bringing him to a sudden halt. Slater snarled and spun around. Erikson froze him with an icy stare. “Do it right, Slater,” Erikson said in a coarse, sandpaper tone. “Or I’ll leave you here in the gutter.”

Slater’s eyes fell before the big man’s glare. He began to walk at a slower pace. “Only eight blocks,” Melia said. She was still carrying her shoes in her hand. She walked inside us, so that we shielded her somewhat from passing traffic. “But I have just remembered that my aunt’s apartment is locked and I have no key.”

“No problem,” I said.

“Drake will open it,” Erikson explained to her. He was staring across the street at an open space in the ranks of buildings fronting the sidewalks in each block. “What’s that place?”

“That is where they keep the Russian tanks,” Melia replied. “No one goes near it.”

“Wilson and I passed it on the way back from the museum,” I said.

“A tank park,” Erikson said thoughtfully.

“In two blocks we come to the old city prison,” Melia said. “Then we turn left and the apartment is in the next block.”

“Is that where Wilson is now?” Slater demanded.

“Probably.” The way she said it indicated she didn’t think he would be in any prison for very long. We made a left turn as the dark bulk of what looked like a fortress loomed up across the street from us. Before I expected it, the girl turned into a doorway.

The building had seen better days. The floor had been polished tile but was now cracked and chipped. The walls had been scribbled on by generations of toddlers. “Fifth floor,” Melia said. “There is no elevator.”

I pulled out my shirt as we climbed and removed a thin steel pick from my money belt. Slater was puffing when we reached the fifth-floor landing. Melia silently indicated a door with a red star pasted on it. I settled the pick into the lock and opened the door in ten seconds.

“Why the red star?” Erikson asked as we entered.

“To show it is proscribed,” Melia said soberly. “No one can live here now. We cannot risk lights, and we cannot stay long.”

“A day will do it,” Erikson said.

The musty odor in the place was overpowering as I lowered my haversack to the dusty floor.

“
GET THE FLASHLIGHT
from your pack,” Erikson said to me.

I took out the square-faced battery lantern and handed it to him. He set it on the floor, beamed away from the windows, and turned it on. Its pale light disclosed that the apartment had two rooms, a bedroom and a sitting room with a curtained alcove beneath which could be seen the enameled legs of a stove. Drawers stood open with household belongings tumbled out of cabinets and closets as they had remained since the aunt was taken away.

“I will go to a friend’s and bring back food,” Melia said.

“Is it safe?” Slater asked.

“When is it ever safe?” she returned. “But they will give me food. Shelter is another matter.”

I gave her money. Slater walked into the bedroom and flopped on his back in the bed. Even in the poor light I could see dust fly in all directions.

“We need a truck and a driver for tomorrow night,” Erikson said to Melia. I unzipped my money belt again, separated half the bills in it by guess, and gave them to Erikson. He handed them to the girl. “A house painter’s truck, if possible. One with a ladder. And a driver who speaks a little English.”

“I will try,” the girl said. “If I do not return in an hour, you had better not remain here.”

“I’m glad to see you’re not curling up after losing the radio, but how are we going to signal Hazel?” I asked Erikson after Melia had left and he had bolted the apartment door again.

“We’ll slip into that tank park we saw. There’s bound to be a command tank with a liaison radio I can set on the frequency that Hazel’s monitoring.”

He said it as though he were talking about a walk to the corner drugstore. “With guards all around? And if we had to pack a special radio with us, why will a tank radio reach Key West?”

“It will. If you have a better suggestion, I’m listening.”

I had no better suggestion. “What about the girl when we leave here?” I continued. “What happens to her?”

“She’s no angel-child. That job she did on Ramirez was worthy of a professional. Don’t get sentimental on me, Drake. We’re here to recover the money. That and nothing else.”

He had turned out the lantern when Melia left, so I couldn’t see his face. We sat in darkness and in silence until there was a quiet tap-tap at the door. I drew the .38 while Erikson opened the door. Melia entered carrying a small package. “I could get only a few tacos and beans,” she apologized. “Food is a problem. And the stove is not connected, so we will have to eat them cold.”

“What about a truck?” Erikson asked.

“My cousin took me to a window washer who has a truck with a ladder. He agreed to meet us tomorrow night at first dark. I showed him the money, but I did not leave it with him. That way he will be sure to meet us. I have bad news of Wilson.” In the next room I heard the creak of the bed as Slater sat up. “The People’s Republic Radio is announcing the capture of a Yankee spy. They promise a quick military trial.”

“If he talks—” Slater exclaimed from the bedroom.

“The only thing he can talk about that can hurt us is the museum,” I said. “And one swing around it tomorrow night should let us know if there’s extra guards.”

The bed springs creaked again and Slater’s bulk appeared in the doorway. “You damn fools think I’m gonna stick my head in that rattrap? Screw the money. I’m savin’ my ass.”

Erikson crossed the room in two strides and picked up Slater by his shirtfront. I heard Slater’s grunt as Erikson pinned him to the wall. “You’re in this with the rest of us,” Erikson told him coldly. “And the first sign I see of your cutting out, I’ll personally see to it your ass goes nowhere.” He released his hold, and Slater slid halfway to the floor. He went back into the bedroom rubbing his chest.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Erikson said. “We’ll save the food for the morning.”

No one joined Slater in the bedroom.

Erikson, Melia, and I stretched out on the floor using the compactly packed one-man life rafts for pillows. I laid the .38 on the floor beside me.

It was a long time before I closed my eyes.

• • •

I had my hand on the Smith & Wesson before I realized that something had wakened me.

Melia was bending over Erikson, whispering to him. Erikson followed her to a window at the edges of which I could see both daylight and sunshine. I rose quickly and joined them. Erikson gave me one quick glance, then moved to one side.

I could see why Melia’s aunt had found the apartment an ideal location for spying on unannounced Fidelista activity. The window looked down over the high prison walls into a part of the compound. In one corner, a squad of soldiers stood with rifles at the ready. Across the way, two more soldiers half-led, half-dragged a limping figure to a post against a scarred wall. They tied him roughly to the post.

I knew, but I had to ask. “Wilson?” I said.

“Yes.” Erikson spit it out as he continued to stare down into the prison yard. His face was set in harsh lines. An officer stepped up behind Wilson and tried to blindfold him. Wilson jerked his head from side to side until the officer stopped trying. He moved to one side and made a downward sweep of his arm.

Puffs of smoke rose unevenly from the leveled rifles. Although it was only a block away, some freak of acoustics kept the sound from being heard. Wilson jerked left, then right as the ragged volley struck him. The officer walked in close again, placed a revolver against Wilson’s head, and fired.

The whole thing hadn’t taken three minutes.

It took only another thirty seconds for the same two soldiers to cut Wilson’s body loose from the post and drag it away.

Erikson put his hand on my arm. “Nothing about this to Slater,” he said.

I didn’t answer him. We all moved away from the window. Melia had made no comment from start to finish.

I settled down to wait out what I knew was going to be a long day.

Chico Wilson had not been an easy man to like, but the callousness of his death made me ask myself what I was doing there.

In view of what I’d just witnessed, there was no sensible answer.

• • •

Erikson repacked the haversacks in the late afternoon. Once again he discarded all but the essentials. These consisted mainly of the one-man life rafts, the plastic explosives, personal gear, and a small, oilskin-wrapped item about the size of a hand compass which I had watched Erikson stow carefully during each of the previous repackings. Melia sat on the floor as motionless as an Indian idol. Her dark eyes were fixed broodingly upon space.

Slater came out of the bedroom once to complain about the lack of food. Erikson shut him up brusquely, and Slater returned to the bedroom grumbling under his breath. For once I sympathized with him. I was hungry myself, and once on the street, I knew we couldn’t risk a food stop.

At sundown Erikson rousted Slater and checked the appearance of Slater’s uniform. Melia had found a shapeless black dress of her aunt’s in a closet. She changed into it, leaving behind the more conspicuous dress in which she had escaped from the brothel with us. Erikson and I took five minutes to run through the action we’d planned when we reached the museum.

Then we waited for darkness.

There was the same conspicuous absence of pedestrians when Melia led us from the apartment. In the second block the girl turned into a passageway between two buildings. It was far too confined to be called an alley. On the next street, an ancient, rust-pocked truck was parked. Ladders on its roof overhung both front and rear. Melia spoke familiarly to a man standing just inside the edge of the passageway.

He replied volubly in a staccato burst of language. “What’s his beef?” Erikson demanded, interpreting the tone as I had.

“He says that after what happened this morning you have not offered enough money,” Melia replied.

I saw Erikson’s right shoulder drop. “Hold it,” I said. I knew he intended to leave a body in the passageway and take over the panel truck. “We need someone who knows the city better than we do.” I pulled up my shirt, unzipped the money belt, and cleaned it out. I turned up the pouch to show that it was empty, then gave the bills in my hand to Melia. “You can get that from her when the job is done,” I told him. “Understand?”

“Si,”
he grunted. “I unnerstan'.” His pig eyes rested greedily on the money disappearing into the front of Melia’s dress.

“Good luck,” she said to me.

“Good luck yourself,” I returned.

She was walking back through the passageway even before we boarded the truck. Slater got in beside the driver. Erikson and I rode in the back with a collection of dented buckets and dirty sponges. There were small windows in each side panel. The night sky had a luminosity that made it by far the brightest night since we had been on the island.

The ladders on the roof creaked as the truck started with a jerk. “Where are you taking us?” I asked the driver.

“She said the National Museum, no?” he said in surprise.

“Yes. Just checking. Circle it when we get there.”

“Now,” he said a few moments later. I looked out a side panel window at the museum’s stone massivity. Two night-lights burned steadily inside the front entrance. There was no light in the rear.

“Drive up on the sidewalk and across the lawn behind the tamarind trees,” I told the driver. “Put out your lights.”

He half turned to look at me.
“Por favor, señor
. It is agains’ the law”—he stopped as the ridiculousness of what he had been about to say became apparent to him. The truck bumped over street and sidewalk curbs and rolled across the burned-out grass to the shelter of the trees, which hid us from the street.

We piled out of the truck. The driver and Slater wrestled an extension ladder from the roof. Its ratchets clicked loudly in the stillness as they ran it up the side of the building almost to the top of a second-story window. “When I get inside, you two come up the ladder,” I told Erikson and Slater.

I swarmed up the ladder rungs and came to a stop head-high with the window. Once more I pulled up my shirt and unzipped my money belt. I removed the last item it contained, my compact tool kit with no item in it longer than eight inches.

With a roll of adhesive I taped a square on the window glass, mitering the corners. I took a pencil-shaped, diamond-tipped glass cutter and traced the outline of the tape. When I punched the square of glass, it fell inward, prevented from falling to the floor and shattering by the restraining tape.

I took from the kit what looked like a large fountain pen. It was a miniature torch good for a three-minute burn. I burned off the window lock, shielding the glow from the street with my body. I tried to raise the bottom section of the window, but it was frozen in its tracks from disuse. I reached in through the cut-out square of glass, took hold of the bottom edge of the upper section, and pulled it down. It made only a faint squeaking noise.

I joggled the top of the ladder along the face of the building to clear a space at the window, then put my head inside and waited until my eyes adjusted to the different kind of darkness. A well of dim light came up from below. The second floor was a mezzanine which looked down on the first floor.

I climbed higher on the ladder and inched my way inside through the open top section of window. When I lowered myself gently to the floor and looked out, a dark figure was already moving up the ladder. Slater dropped down beside me with a disturbingly loud grunt, followed in a few seconds by the catlike Erikson.

“We’ll pick the guards off inside the front entrance,” I whispered. I put the beam of a pencil flashlight on the floor so we wouldn’t stumble over anything, then led the way to the balcony railing. We could see about two-thirds of the ground-floor lobby. A whitehaired man was drinking a cup of coffee. Another man was sitting in a booth that contained two chairs and a coffeemaker on a burner.

I led the way along the mezzanine, aiming the thin beam of light in quick blips. I found the fire door, and we crept down the iron stairway, passed through another fire door, and emerged into the lobby. Erikson moved toward the guard post, circling the lobby to take advantage of the deepest shadow. I followed behind him.

Both guards were outside the booth, talking. Erikson was within ten feet of them before one man saw him. The guard’s eyes widened, and he tugged wordlessly at his colleague’s sleeve. Erikson’s big hands clamped down on him, then passed him back to me while he aborted an attempt by the second guard to run back inside the guard post.

There was no fight in either old man. We tied them like cordwood and dumped them inside the booth. Erikson paused in the act of gagging his man. “Where’s Slater?” he asked. We both looked around the deserted lobby. “Where the money is,” Erikson answered his own question grimly. He sprinted across the floor.

I finished the gagging and hurried to the basement fire door. My flashlight’s thin beam failed to illuminate much of the airless blackness on the stairs. I came to another metal door, which I opened cautiously. Lights and voices were evident inside. Slater’s voice was raised angrily. I picked my way through a jungle of crated and uncrated pictures and statuary to the source of light. Erikson’s lantern was shining upon a shelf in a niche in the basement wall containing a number of large jars discolored by humidity-drippings. Three of the jars were at Slater’s feet. One had been dumped so that loose earth was scattered on the floor.

Slater was pulling packages of cellophane-wrapped bills from his uniform and slapping them resentfully into Erikson’s outstretched hand. “Goddamnit, Karl,” Slater complained, “you don’t need—”

“Shut up!” Erikson ordered. “Dump the other jars.” He took Slater’s haversack and began to pack the money in it.

I watched as Slater kicked through the clotted dirt of the second and third jars to disclose more wrapped bundles of money. “Is that all?” I asked. “It doesn’t look like enough.”

“It’s not bulky in thousand-dollar bills,” Erikson replied. He hefted the haversack. “There’s about four hundred fifty bills to the pound.”

“Each of us ought to carry some of that, Karl,” Slater tried again. “Suppose somethin’ happens to you?”