The Terrible Ones (7 page)

He slapped her derriere briskly and propelled her toward the stone staircase. His pride was ruffled. But he was thinking that she might be useful, after all.

“Shang! You devil’s bastard! Did I not tell you that we might need her yet?” Tsing-fu Shu’s tall body quivered with rage. It had all been too quick, much too quick! “You pig, you will be punished for this!”

The hairless man-ape turned to him. Shang’s face was a study in animal bewilderment.

“I did nothing. Master. I touched her only, and she fought me. You saw—you must have seen. I did nothing to her, Master.”

Tsing-fu pulled furiously at his cigarillo and strode over to the silent figure on its bed of stone. He reached for the thin shoulders and shook them angrily. The girl’s body was limp and unresisting; she was like a rag doll with half the stuffing gone. Her head flopped back and forth as though her neck had snapped.

He felt for her pulse. It was faint, but it was beating.

“Get out, Shang,” he grated. “Get back to your place.”

Tsing-fu heard the low growl behind him as he reached into his pocket for the small case with the vials and hypodermic. His flesh crawled. He knew the brute strength of his pet monster and respected it. He knew Shang’s rages, too, far more violent than his own, and had seen the beast in action with his crushing holds and deadly karate blows. Shang was practically his own creation . . . but one never knew when a half-tamed beast would turn.

He made his voice gentle as he filled the needle.

“You will have your chance, my Shang,” he said. “It will be later, that is all. Now go.”

He heard Shang’s padding footsteps retreat while he sought the vein and found it.

She would be good for at least another round, this girl. And next time he would be more careful.

None of the tourists noticed Nick and Paula hanging back from the rest of the group and stealing into the grove. Jacques had been right; there was no way of reaching the heavily barred inner recesses of the castle from within, so they would have to re-enter from outside. But at least they had a good idea of the general layout, which matched the old pictures and the chart.

The horses were waiting in the grove, as Jacques had promised. In the deep shade offered by the mahogany trees Nick changed quickly into his dark green fatigues of the night before and dusted the gray powder from his beard. The thin evening air carried back to him the sounds of the tour party clattering homeward down the trail a half mile or so away. It was a long descent and the last rays of the sun would be dying by the time they reached Milot at the bottom of the slope.

Paula was still changing behind the cover of a low-hanging branch.

There was time to kill before it got dark enough to go to work; too much time for a man of Nick’s impatience. And Paula, withdrawn and angry by turns, was not the sort of woman to help him while away the twilight hours in the manner of his choice.

Nick sighed. It was a pity about her. So cold, so uncommunicative about herself, so beautiful in her lean and catlike way, so unapproachable. . . .

He padded quietly to the edge of the mahogany grove and looked about him, visualizing the old chart shown to him by Jacques and fitting the scene to the pictures he had seen. The Citadelle loomed above him, vast and impregnable. To his left, beyond the edge of the mahogany stand, lay a grove of palms. To his right, pomegranates, and beyond them the trail leading into town. Almost directly ahead of him, between him and the tall iron-studded outer walls, was a mound of rock topped by thick bush. He stood and listened for a moment, still and silent as a mahogany trunk, watching for anything that might betray another presence. Then he moved, slowly and stealthily like a panther on the prowl.

It took him some minutes to find the opening of the conduit and clear it of the overgrowth, but he was pleased with what he saw when he had uncovered it. They would have to crawl, but unless there was fallen masonry or some other blockage within there would be room enough for anyone moving at a crouch.

Nick glided back to the shelter of the mahoganies and sat down on a fallen log. Through the trees he glimpsed the vague outlines of the horses and the woman, standing motionless and waiting.

He chirruped twice into the tiny microphones beneath his shirt and heard the answering chirp.

“AXE J-20,” a small voice whispered from his armpit. “Where are you, N?”

“Outside La Citadelle,” Nick murmured. “With the woman, Paula.”

He heard a tiny chuckle. “But naturally,” said Jean Pierre. “Carter lands as usual with his bottom in the butter. So The Terrible Ones are all women, yes? Hawk is livid! I believe he thinks you planned it just that way. But how do you progress?”

“In a strange and devious way,” Nick muttered, keeping his eyes peeled for any movement in or near the woods. “Shut up and listen, and spare me your sly cracks. I met the woman, as you heard. I still don’t know anything about the Cuban character but I think Paula’s holding out on me. Anyway, we had a little incident with a Haitian Dog Patrol and left the cave in something of a hurry. She took me to a village called Bambara where she has friends, name of Jacques and Marie LeCIerq. Check them, if you can. We spent the night with them and most of the day. Seems that Jacques is a local rebel leader—plans an uprising against Papa Doc Duvalier some day. Nothing to do with this mission, except that he keeps in contact with Paula and exchanges information.”

“So? Why should he?” Jean Pierre’s thin voice inquired.

“Because he and Tonio Martelo, Paula’s late husband, were lifelong friends. Because they’re both rebels, in their own way. And because Jacques doesn’t like the Chinese any more than we do—or so he says.”

“Chinese? They
are
there, then?”

“He says so. Claims they had an ammunition cache up in the mountains, says he and a couple of friends have been watching them for weeks. Small group, perhaps six men, apparently doing nothing but guarding the supplies. He also says he’s seen them on small-scale guerilla-type maneuvers, as if training for something. Or else staying in training so they can train others.”

“Operation Blast, you reckon?”

“Maybe. Jacques and Paula think so.” Nick stopped for a moment to listen. Crickets and birds chirped back at him and a horse neighed softly from where Paula waited. That was all right; the sound of a horse was common enough around here. Nothing else stirred. But the shadows were lengthening and it would soon be time to move.

“He says the Chinks moved about two weeks ago,” he went on softly. “Started tunneling their way into the Citadelle and carting in all their supplies. Did it all at night, so Jacques and friends couldn’t see as much as they would’ve liked. But their impression was that three or four new-comers had joined the original group and the whole lot of them were moving into, the Citadelle, ammunition and all. At the same time Paula the Terrible discovered that one of her own gang of female avengers had turned up missing—and a couple of familiar Chinese faces had vanished from Santo Domingo. So she got worried.”

He told the rest of the story briefly, how he and Paula and the LeClerqs had sat around the rough-hewn kitchen table in the village of Bambara going over past events and making plans.

Jacques’ stubby dark finger had traced a path over the chart in the tattered old book.

“It is not impossible to get into the Citadelle,” he said. “Here, you see, are several conduits that used to take water from the mountain stream into the castle. They have been dry now for many years, but as you see they are quite broad. The tunnel used by the Chinese is not marked here, but that does not surprise me. Old King Christophe would have wanted a secret escape route. One of the conduits would be better for your purposes, I think. They cannot guard them all. Still, it will not be easy. But you understand that I can only help you with arrangements; I cannot myself go with you.” His liquid brown eyes had gazed at Nick appealingly. “My own freedom of movement must not suffer for this business of the treasure.”

“It is not only the treasure,” Paula had said sharply. “We must find out what has happened to Evita. Obviously she found out something from Padilla and they got onto her somehow. If she is there—”

“Paula, Paula.” Jacques shook his head sadly. “They killed Padilla; why not her?”

“No!” Paula struck the tabletop so that the coffee cups rattled. Marie clucked quietly in the background. “They would only kill her after she had talked, and she would not talk!”

“But perhaps they already knew all they needed from Padilla . . . .”

The conversation had become a storm, and then finally settled down into a more reasoned discussion of how to broach the Citadelle. But at least Nick had learned a few basic facts. The Terrible Ones was an outfit consisting of women whose loved ones had been killed for political reasons by the former dictator Trujillo. Paula Martelo was their leader. Together they were trying to locate a cache of treasure that Trujillo had intended to ship to Europe but had never gotten a chance to. It was still hidden somewhere on the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Chinese had learned of its presence and were trying to locate if for their own purposes, something to do with a project called Operation Blast. There were certain clues to the location of the treasure and Evita Messina had found a Dominican who knew one of them. Now the Chinese were in Haiti and Evita was missing. Immediate mission: verify the presence of the Chinese, and find Evita.

“So that’s the story,” Nick finished quietly. “It’s almost dark now. We’ll be going in soon. What about your end— Hawk hear anything more about Operation Blast?”

“Nothing. No more than that first rumor. Your Paula’s been our only confirmation to date that such an operation exists. She say anything more about it?”

“Not yet.” Nick frowned in the gathering gloom. “She’s holding back, for some reason. But I’ll get it out of her.”

There was a quiet chuckle. “I’ll bet you will,
mon ami.
Where the women are concerned—”

“That’s enough out of you, bud. I’m on my way. Greetings to Hawk.”

He signed off briskly and made one more rapid survey of the immediate terrain. Darkness now; still silence; still no moon. Nick padded back to Paula and the horses, almost invisible between the trees. He whistled softly and she came to him at once.

“Did you find it?” she asked him almost soundlessly.

“Yes. It’s going to be as black as a hole in hell, but try to keep track of where we’re going. Just in case we have to get out in a hurry. This way.” He touched her arm lightly and led her through the trees toward the mound and the outer opening of the conduit.

“Breathe while you have the chance,” he muttered, and slithered in on his belly. She came in close behind him with the stealth of a jungle cat.

The air was thin and stale with age but it was breathable. Nick paused and groped around. The duct was a good three feet in diameter and the floor was dead moss and rough stone. It wasn’t ideal for an innocent evening’s stroll, but it was fine for a couple of prowlers in the night.

He reckoned they had about a hundred feet to go according to the building plan in Jacque’s old book. Nick quickened his pace and moved on in the stifling darkness, hearing the girl’s soft movements following along behind him.

Slap!

Tsing-fu Shu’s lean hand drew back and struck again, this time against her other cheek.

“So you did not like my Shang, eh?” Slap! “But I see you are almost ready now for another meeting. Good!” He slapped again and watched her eyes flutter open. “Unless you would prefer to talk to me instead?”

Evita cringed away from him, eyes wide with fear and horror.

“Not . . . that . . . animal . . . .” she whispered. “Talk. But . . . water . . . .”

Her words sounded like the rustling of dry leaves through her parched lips. Tsing-fu could barely make them out, but he could see the swollen tongue working feverishly.

“A little talk first,” he said persuasively. “Then your reward. Tell me who you are working for. That will be a good beginning.”

Her mouth worked and a tiny sound came out.

Tsing-fu leaned closer.

“What?”

“Fi-fidelistas . . . and the sound trailed off into a strangled croak.

“What!” Tsing-fu shook her furiously. “Who?
Who?”

Her mouth worked earnestly but the sounds that came out were not words. It was obvious even to Tsing-fu that she was incapable of speech.

“Shang! Shang!” he bellowed. Evita shrank away and shuddered.

There was a low growl from the anteroom. “Master?”

“Bring water!”

Evita sighed and closed her eyes.

“Your reward,” Tsing-fu told her pleasantly. “Then the full story, yes?”

She nodded, eyes still closed.

Dr. Tsing-fu prepared another needle while he waited. This time he was going to have the true story. Of course she was still going to try to lie. But he, in his turn, still had the Shang treatment in reserve. And he was not going to cheat himself of that.

Nick flicked the pencil flashlight on for long enough to see that they were in a stone cellar thick with cobwebs and dead leaves. A broken wooden bucket lay beneath a broken rope beside a flight of steps leading to a trapdoor. It was bolted from within. But the hinges were loose and rusty with age. He doused the light and put his Lock picker’s Special to work.

“I hear something up there,” Paula whispered. “Hammering. Digging.”

“So do I,” Nick murmured back. “Not near us, though. But if we walk into a roomful of people—”

“I know,” she said. “You told me. Hurry, please!”

“Hurry!” Nick muttered. “Two weeks they’ve been here, and now I have to hurry.”

He could almost see her lips tighten in the darkness.

“I only heard about this when Jacque’s message—”

“I know,” he said. “You told me. And cut out the female gabbing, if you don’t mind.”

Her silence was almost loud. Nick grinned to himself and went on working.

The ancient hinges parted from their moorings.

Tom Kee cantered up the slope on his spavined mount. It was a slow canter, more like a determined plod, but it was getting him there. He had news for Tsing-fu Shu. The Cuban Comrades had not sent Alonzo into Haiti. How could they? They had not even known that Tsing-fu and his men were there. Alonzo must have done it on his own, they said. They had no idea who might have killed him.