Ник Картер - War from the Clouds

As the Marine slung his trousers against a far wall and began unbuttoning his tunic, I edged my hands up to the window frame. Hugo was clamped tightly in my teeth. The window wouldn’t budge from slight pressure, so I gave it a healthy shove. Nothing.

The tunic was off, going the way of the trousers. The Cuban Marine was a husky one. His light brown muscles rippled in the kerosene lamplight as he whisked off a grimy white tee shirt and snaked his thumbs under the waistband of his shorts and jerked down quickly. His back was to me, so I couldn’t tell what was going on in front until I saw the girl’s eyes widen. She was staring at his crotch. What she saw brought new terror.

It was then that she gave me the opportunity to act without alarming the local Marine detachment or getting my head blown off. The man’s rifle was leaning against the foot of the bed and the girl made a lunge for it.

She moved fast. The Cuban was late in responding, but he flipped away his shorts and dashed for the rifle just as the girl closed her hands on the barrel.

I hit the window frame with the heels of both hands, the lock broke and the window went up with the jerking swiftness of a killer carnival ride.

The girl was squealing, the man roaring, so the sound of the rising window was lost on that. I leaped in headfirst, ducking my head low to bring my feed around. I landed in the middle of the room on my heels and buttocks, then flipped up to my feet. The Cuban, his hands grasping the stock of the rifle, turned abruptly and glared at me, teeth and gums bared like a trapped animal’s.

“Quien es? ” the man hissed in Spanish. “Que pasa?”

“Just a little disturbing of the peace,” I said, unable to resist that horrible old pun. Too bad he didn’t understand English. As it was, I caught a tiny crinkling around the corners of his mouth. By God, he did understand English.

I was in my if-you-don’t-attack-me, I-won’t-attack-you crouch, Hugo glistening in my outstretched right hand.

The girl suddenly let go of the rifle and flipped back on the bed. Another display of streaking goodies until she yanked a sheet up around her.

The Cuban’s eyes had followed her. My eyes had followed her. Now we were eyeball-to-eyeball. He had the right end of the rifle. I had the right end of Hugo.

“Quien es?” he said again in Spanish, asking me who I was.

“My name is Carter,” I said politely, inching Hugo a bit nearer his now flaccid member. “I’m also known as N3, also Killmaster, the numero uno agent for AXE. Does that clarify things?”

He began moving his hand toward the trigger guard. His large blue eyes were on my large brown eyes, although both of us were being torn apart by an urge to see what the beauty was doing on the cot.

“Lower the rifle,” I said, “or I remove your manhood.”

“No hablo engles,” he said.

If he did speak English. I thought, he’s taking one hell of a chance. His manhood was on the line. His hand moved another quarter of an inch on the stock.

I lunged forward. The man leaped backward. The girl screamed. I made a light swipe with the stiletto, drawing only a few drops of blood right at the stump of his penis where it disappeared into crinkly black hair. He yelped in the universal language of pain.

His finger found the trigger and I aimed Hugo to another place. It was a good aim. The vibrating point of the stiletto caught the fingernail and sliced through it as through icing on a baby’s birthday cake. I felt the blade grind against bone as I whipped the stiletto up, nearly severing his trigger finger.

The rifle went flying, as I knew it would. The girl screamed again, as I knew she would. The Cuban had both hands on his bleeding manhood, as I knew anyone would.

And it was over. So easy. Talk sense to any man in any language and he’ll get your point. Hugo is tops in his field at talking sense and making points.

What I learned during the next few minutes lade me sick to my stomach.

After untying the old farm couple and using the ropes to tie up my Cuban jock-commando-makeout artist-Marine, I learned that the people were Jorge and Melina Cortez. The daughter was Elicia, age seventeen. A son, Antonio, age nineteen, had been conscripted into the Italla guerilla band a year ago, hadn’t been heard from — or of — since.

Elicia had lost her virginity three months ago when the Cuban Marines arrived. She had lost it the same way she was about to lose her free will tonight. A Marine had stopped by on his way between the village and the garrison, after having seen the girl riding her horse in the fields. Drunk, he had decided to test the wares, had found them suitable and had brazenly told his fellows.

For three months, Elicia had had callers almost nightly. Even though her parents knew the routine and never fought, the routine was always the same. Elicia screamed when a Marine appeared, the Marine tied up the old folks and ripped the girl’s clothing from her body.

After three months, she still fought. Her hatreds were gestating like laboratory cultures.

Why didn’t the old man get a gun and shoot the next bastard who came to entertain his daughter? Threats, that’s why. A roll in the sack would be the least the girl could expect if the old man fought back.

The visits may not have been under the sanction of Don Carlos Italla, but he had been told of them, had said nothing. He needed the Cuban Marines; he didn’t need that old farm couple and their lovely daughter.

“But why is Don Carlos continuing his battle when both governments want peace?” I asked the old man. I had asked Hawk and I had even asked the President that same question. Their answers had been couched in protocol, political guessing, rumor; much flim-flam. The old man’s answer was the only true answer.

“Because he is a man of Satan, not a man of God.”

What wasn’t true, I hoped, was the old man’s description of Don Carlos Italla. A giant of seven feet, a mountainous specimen of three hundred pounds, eyes like ingots of burning phosphorous, hands that could shred stainless steel slabs. A fury of a monster with a booming voice like the rumble of thunder.

Obviously, Don Carlos Italla was the local dragon, a creature to rival Tolkien’s Smaug, hidden away on his evil mountaintop where no woman had ever gone, where Satan was welcome, where wars were planned, but never fought, in clouds.

Well, it was time for a few changes.

If Don Carlos would not come from his cloudy retreat to wage war with me, I would take war to him. My brand of war, on my terms.

Wizards and giants and men of Satan have always given me a royal pain in the ass.

Elicia had gone into shock after the little scrap between me and her would-be lover. Her mother bathed her, bundled her up and sat in the back bedroom rocking her on her lap, singing in a low, mellow voice of lost Spanish princes and faraway castles. The proper nursing for children. And she was a child, not equipped mentally or physically for the kind of abuse that had come to her from across the Caribbean.

Anger was building in me with every word the old farmer spoke. And the filthy soldier sat listening to those words, still holding his crotch. I couldn’t be cruel enough to tie his hands behind him, but they were tied nonetheless. After listening to the old man, and learning also that this was the third visit for this bastard, I wished I had cut off his hands altogether.

“All right, up,” I said, looming above him.

“No comprendo,” he said, looking up with what I interpreted as disdain.

Good, you son of a bitch, keep it up. I’m only pissed off right now, you just wait until I get mad.

“You understand,” I said.

He stood, but I had made a rising gesture with my hands as I talked, so it could have been from that. Maybe he didn’t speak English. I knew that my Spanish wasn’t adequate for the details I needed from this jocko. In time.