Warren Murphy - Balance of Power

He walked over to the nearest dead man, who lay on his back, an expression of benign surprise on his face. His stomach was covered with blood, already congealing in the ferocious swampy heat. Barney kicked him.

Silence. They were all dead. Only three men. Then he knew it was a trap.

He could feel the eyes now, dozens of them, waiting in silence for Barney to empty the rest of his bullets into dispensable recruits. It was a trap, but he didn't care.

He fired three times into the air, then tossed the revolver to the side. "Come get me, you bastards!" he called.

"Bastards... Bastards... Bastards," the jungle echoed all around him.

"This is Bernard C. Daniels of the United States of America, and I am going to kill your president, so you had better come and take me to him," he called in Spanish.

"Gladly," a voice answered in English. A fat man gaudily dressed in a fairytale uniform of blue and gold and a feathered tricorn hat straightened his knees with great difficulty and rose from behind a eucalyptus tree. "You will come with me, Mr. Daniels of the Central Intelligence Agency," he said.

The officer snapped an order to the bushes and trees around him, and twenty-odd men, their bodies barely covered by ragged shards of cloth, appeared from nowhere. They were all young men, Barney noticed. Hungry men. They avoided his stare. Many of them had known Denise, he guessed. But hunger is a greater motivation than friendship.

He spat in the face of a young man who tied his wrists together with thick rope. The man said nothing.

"I curse your wife and child," Barney said softly in Spanish. He could feel the man's hands trembling as he completed the knot. 'They will die as my wife has died."

The man backed away, fear gripping his features.

"Get him moving," the officer ordered. Someone shoved Barney ahead. The man who had tied the rope around his wrists stood rooted to his spot, shaking.

"You. Move," the officer called. The man did not move.

The officer drew a gigantic magnum from a holster strapped to his thigh and fired point-blank at the young soldier. His chest opened up like a red, smoking mouth as he was thrust backward by the force of the bullet, his legs stretching out in front of him. The blast propelled his dying body into the ranks of the other soldiers. One screamed. "The cursed one," he screamed. "I have been touched by the blood of the cursed one!"

Quickly the other soldiers ran ahead, leaving him isolated and panicked, trying desperately to wipe the dead man's blood from his hands and chest.

The officer fired another shot and dropped him in his tracks. "Stupid jungle beasts," the officer said. "Move the prisoner along."

Mumbling to one another, soldiers guided Barney to the mountain cave. At the entrance they dropped behind as the officer grabbed the rope around Barney's wrists and raised his magnum to Barney's temple. "Blindfold him," he commanded, and a man rushed forward with a scrap of roughly woven cloth to tie around his eyes.

Barney stumbled in darkness around the cave, noting its enormous size from the distance of sounds inside. There was almost no human noise within the installation, he noticed. Either none of the soldiers recruited from Puerta del Rey was permitted inside, or the discipline of De Culo's army was tremendous. The noise all originated from machinery, vast amounts of it, some small and whirring, some huge and powerful, belching with the drone of earth movers. The place was still growing, still making room for more equipment and ammunition... or for something even bigger.

He was shoved into a room to the left of all the noise, where the air was drier and more welcoming. A door sealed precisely behind him. He was pushed downward into a hard wooden chair. The blindfold was removed.

In front of him sat a small man behind a desk. His thin hair was combed forward in neoclassical curls. His uniform, like that of the officer who brought Barney to this place, was blue and white, and of antique military design. Yards of gold braid adorned his epaulets. A jeweler's case of ancient military decorations gleamed across his chest. A silken banner of red, white, and blue slashed a diagonal line from shoulder to waist. On a table beside the desk rested an exact replica of Napoleon's battle headdress, trimmed with ostrich plumes.

As the slight, round-faced man rose from behind his massive desk, he slid his right hand into the closure of his coat, just beneath the second button. He smiled, his hard, intelligent eyes sparkling.

"I am El Presidente Cara De Culo," he said, his neck craning to posture in an aristocratic profile. "And this is General Robar Estomago, chief of the Hispanian police. The general informs us that you seek audience."

"I'm going to kill you, pig," Barney said.

"Said like a true American, Mr. Daniels. In truth, it is I who seek audience with you. I sincerely hope you will be able to spare a small amount of time to speak with me and my men about your — shall we say — activities in our island paradise."

He opened a drawer of his desk and produced Barney's camera. He opened the back of it and extracted the film.

"I am given to understand that this contains photographs of this installation," he said, holding the roll daintily between forefinger and thumb. "I am flattered that a representative of such a technologically advanced nation as yours would exhibit an interest in our small makeshift enterprise. However, I regret to inform you that we are not yet prepared for publicity pictures. They would not convey the correct impression of the base. Dirt in the corners, incomplete molding, that sort of thing. You understand. Bad public relations. No, unfortunately, these cannot be shown to your friends in Washington." His smile froze on his face, he yanked the film from its cylinder. "Alas," he said softly, "the pictures are spoiled." He swept the camera to the floor with a flick of his hand.

Slowly, De Culo circled his desk to stand in front of Barney. He folded his arms in front of him. He rested his chin on his fist. He stared into Barney's eyes.

"So you see," he said in his quiet, brooding voice, "now that the film you took has been destroyed, the only evidence the world will have that our installation exists will be based on your testimony. I presume you intend to inform your superiors about the events of the past several days, Mr. Daniels?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"I amend my question. I do not presume you will return to America with this information. In point of fact, Mr. Daniels, I do not believe you will return to America at all. If I may hazard a guess, I predict that you will be quite dead in rather a short tune." He smiled again, a chilling, humorless smile. "Or a longer time. That will be up to you. Of course, my men will welcome the opportunity to converse with you first. We wish to know to what extent your government is aware of Hispania's relations to other world powers." He held up a hand quickly. "Now, Mr. Daniels, I'm sure you do not wish to be pressed on this matter, so I would not think of asking you to reveal this information to me immediately. You will have ample opportunity, as our guest, to talk with us whenever you wish."

In the corner, General Robar Estomago snickered.

"Silence, jackass," De Culo hissed.

The general snapped to attention.

"Before you retire to our guest room, however, I would like to tell you that we have been aware of your actions for some time. Through the initiative of General Estomago here, we learned that you had probably seen a map detailing some information which was not for public perusal. We also knew about your photographic expedition here, about your desire to leave the country. My, my. The very walls have ears. We even knew about your pitiful little wedding to the village whore."

Barney leapt to his feet, "You pig-sucking murderer!" he screamed. Estomago knocked him into the chair again and pulled Barney's blindfold tight around his throat. "I'll-kill-you," he gurgled in spite of the pressure around his neck.