Donald Hamilton: The Ambushers

She straightened up, and we faced each other briefly in silence. The sky gave enough light that I could see her fairly well. With her blonde hair loose and untidy about her face instead of piled elegantly on her head, without the flashy lipstick and iridescent eye make-up, she was a different person. I was surprised to realize that she was really rather a plain girl.

"Your little friend," Catherine murmured. "She is on top of the cliff with the rifle?"

"Yes."

"Can she really shoot?"

"Don't worry about Sheila," I said. "She'll do her part."

"I'm sure she will. For your sake. Because she loves you. it is very touching."

"Yeah, touching," I said. If women knew how they sounded, sniping at each other, we might have to put up with less static of this kind. "I'll make a deal with you,"

I said. "The job has developed ramifications. I'll fix von Sachs-Sheila and I-if you'll fix the bird."

"Bird? Oh, the missile." She glanced upstream at the blackness of the cottonwoods. Then she looked at me and smiled. "So that is it. I was wondering if you would really come, when I saw how easily you could shoot him from above. That is why you came?'

"That's it," I said.

"It is nothing to me," she said. "It has nothing to do with my job."

I said, "I've got to sabotage that gadget somehow. Of course Washington would love me to deliver it intact, but they'd rather have it busted than take a chance of losing it again. You take care of it for me and I'll guarantee von Sachs. You get stubborn and I'll go for the missile and you can die heroically doing your goddamn job alone."

She hesitated; then she moved her shoulders in a resigned way. "All right, but how do you expect me to do it? It is such a big thing-"

"The truck," I said. It had taken me a long time to come up with the obvious solution. "I wouldn't know how to gimmick the bird itself, but the control truck is easy. All you have to do is shoot a hole in the gas tank and light a match. I doubt if they have enough electronic talent in this hole to rig up anything that'll fire the missile once that console is a mess of melted wire and plastic." I frowned. "What about the Volkswagen? Who's got the key?"

"It's still in the lock."

"Good. Whichever of us is closest makes for it afterward and picks up the other. Sheila'll be covering us from above, with the rifle. Anything else?"

She hesitated. "Yes. One thing. We are partners here, Henry Evans. But afterward, one day, you will pay for Max. I do not pretend to forgive you."

She turned and went silently back to the tent and slipped inside. I glanced towards the north rim of the canyon. It made me uneasy to know that Sheila's life, as well as mine, was at the mercy of a woman I had no reason to trust, a woman who'd just made a point of reminding me that she owed me something. But there was nothing to be done about it now.

I looked at the machete in my hand and felt the edge. It was a bastard weapon really, too long for a knife, too short for a sword. Well, it would do for what I had in mind. I glanced at my watch. The luminous dial read three thirty-five. I sat down to wait.

At four-thirty it was light enough to start the action. I got up and walked openly towards the tent. A man was building up the fire for breakfast. I saw him stop his work, stare at me, glance up at the cave where I was supposed to be, and reach for a rifle leaning against a nearby tree. I stalked up to the front of the tent, kicked the drugged sentry out of the way, and slashed away the canvas door with a stroke of the machete. I then proceeded to say one of the silliest things I ever said.

"Come on out, Quintana!" I yelled in the quiet dawn. "Come on out and fight like a man!"

IT HAD SEEMED reasonable as a theory. Now that I was putting it into practice, it sounded so ridiculous I couldn't believe it would work. I was taking a long chance on a dueling scar a man had picked up in his 'hotheaded youth, and on that lifelong preoccupation with 'honor and edged weapons that went with a certain Teutonic mentality, I hoped.

"Come out of there!" I shouted. "Cobarde! Schweinhund! Come on out and fight, you slaughterhouse general. What are you stalling for? I suppose you figure if you hide under the bed long enough somebody'll shoot me and save your yellow hide."

It wasn't exactly brilliant invective, particularly since I 'had to deliver it more or less in Spanish for the sake of the gathering audience. But they were gathering, that was the important thing. They were peering curiously out of the caves and sliding down the ladders and forming a circle around me and the tent. There were several rifles aimed at me as I stood waving my stolen machete dramatically, and the tough little sergeant had come up behind me with his fancy burp-gun, but nobody'd killed me yet.

I called, "Okay, you can relax now, Quintana, and stop shaking. Your boys have me covered. Nobody's going to hurt you. But before you give the word to shoot, let me tell you-,'

I told him, in my clumsy Spanish, how his mother was a drunken whore who got impregnated one night by a garbage-eating mongrel dog while lying unconscious in a Berlin gutter. I elaborated on this concept for a while. Then I described his bastard childhood in detail, and went on to tell how he got the scar on his face from a broken beer bottle wielded by a jealous homosexual companion, since everybody knew the Nazis were all fairies; it was a matter of record.

I got a little more fluent as I went along, and out of the corner of my eye I'd catch an occasional faint grin of appreciation. Mexico is a land where the art of vituperation is still respected for its own sake. I was doing okay for a mere gringo. It would be a pity to shoot me while I was affording the camp a certain amount of low-quality entertainment.

One who apparently was not amused, however, was the little sergeant with the machine pistol. I felt his weapon touch me in the back, and I heard the faint click as he released the safety catch.

"That's right, amigo," I said over my shoulder. "That is brave and correct. Shoot me in the back. Save your cowardly chief-"

A stir made me look towards the tent again. Von Sachs stood there, buckling on the belt with the machete and the.45 automatic. There was a certain amount of saluting among the men, to which he responded with an impatient outward thrust of his hand. He looked hard and tough in the growing light. If he felt any effects from the beer, and the mickey Catherine had slipped him, he didn't show it.

"What transpires here?" he demanded in Spanish. "Why is this man loose? Why am I awakened by his crazy bellowing? Disarm him!"

I stepped forward before anybody could grab me. "That's right!" I sneered. "That's the way, Quintana! Take the machete away from the terrible man before he cuts somebody! In a camp of men with firearms he must not be allowed to keep his little knife, it is too dangerous!" I threw back my head and spat in his direction. "You've got one of your own, right there on your belt. Why don't you take mine away from me? Are you afraid?"

Behind me, the sergeant spoke softly, "Jefe, con permiso-" He was asking for permission to shoot. There was a disapproving murmur from the other men.

Von Sachs noted it. There were other things on his mind, of course, like the question of how I came to be standing there free and armed. He wasn't dumb. He glanced quickly towards the tent doorway where Catherine had just appeared, pushing her hair out of her eyes, with 'her crumpled blouse hanging loose outside her shorts, like an open jacket. Von Sachs spoke quickly, and two men took her by the arms.

"Hold the treacherous slut while I dispose of her accomplice!" He swung back to face me. "So you still wish to die quickly, Mr. Evans. But if I were stupid enough to fight you, I would disappoint you. I would cut you to pieces very slowly."