Ник Картер - War from the Clouds

We were defeated and we all knew it as we started back down the old trail that had brought us here. Even the spearchuckers walked with a sullen gait as we started back down the mountain. My mind raced with thoughts and ideas, none of them worth a damn. Somewhere in my memory, though, was a key to all this. Someone, somewhere had said something to me to indicate that someone other than Ancio, now known as Don Carlos, knew how to decipher those damned hieroglyphics. But who? And where had I met him? Or had I merely overheard it or read of it? As we trudged along, disconsolate, not only were our spirits at low ebb, our vigilance was non-existence.

We had no idea that danger lurked until one of the Ninca spearchuckers, heading our small procession and walking far out ahead of Purano, suddenly fell in his tracks. Purano might have been silent, but he made up for it in swiftness. Even before the man was flat on the ground, Purano was off in the bushes.

The rest of us scattered, plunging into the wall of jungle on either side of the scant trail. I had my luger in my hand and lay still in the bushes, studying the trail below. I could see the Indian lying on his back, a huge throwing knife protruding from his chest.

We waited, patient, expecting an all-out attack, not even knowing who our attackers might be. In the stillness, we heard someone move in the brush far down the trail. A man in peasant garb and carrying a rifle over his shoulder, stepped into the trail and walked boldly up to the dead spearchucker. He looked around, saw nothing threatening, then bent to pull his knife out of the Indian’s chest.

A spear came flying from out of the jungle and caught the man in the throat. He fell back, clutching his wound and the spear with both hands. His eyes bulged and he kept coughing like a consumptive. Soon, though, he gave up the struggle and fell across the body of the dead Indian.

The jungle was quiet again. I waited perhaps five minutes, then went down to check the dead bodies. I turned the peasant over and saw that he was one of the guerillas we had seen in the camp at the mouth of the first hollow. Danger bells jangled all through my head. The others were coming out of their hiding places, but I waved them back and plunged once again into the jungle. Not a moment too soon. I had just turned to peer back at the trail when I saw six more guerillas, their automatic rifles at the ready, creep up the trail. They stopped when they saw the two dead men and I knew they were about to open fire on the surrounding jungle. I opened my mouth and let out a single word, loud, raucous and anxious:

“Attack.”

Antonio and I opened fire at the same time. A split second behind us, Purano and his spearchuckers let go their lethal weapons. Purano himself leaped into the trail and started after the guerillas, knife in hand. Antonio and I stopped firing, to avoid hitting him.

The remaining guerillas, seeing the tall, strong apparition coming down on them with teeth bared and knife flashing, took off running. A new volley of spears sailed accurately past Purano and found marks on the backs of the fleeing guerillas.

Only one of them remained alive, none got away. It wasn’t necessary to torture the poor devil to get information. He looked around at his massacred friends and talked as willingly and as profusely as that Cuban Marine sergeant had talked back there in the Cortez stable the night I had literally strung him up by his balls.

He said guerillas at the mouth of the first hollow had quickly missed their sentries. Rather than send for help from an adjacent hollow, they had split up in squads and had set out to find out what had happened to their sentries. This squad had been searching for two hours, finally locating this old trail but not expecting to find anyone. One of the guerillas had run on ahead. He was the one who had spotted the Indian and had killed him by throwing his knife at him. The others hadn’t known what was happening up ahead and had walked into our trap.

By now, the guerilla said, the other search teams had probably sought help from others. The hill would soon be swarming with search teams, leaving the valleys unguarded. It seemed to be our grand opportunity to search for the ancient cave. But I looked at my watch and saw that it was well past noon. In about eight hours, it would be dusk and Don Carlos would send up the signal from the top of Alto Arete.

The guerilla, of course, had no idea where the cave entrance was. He had merely been given orders not to let anyone pass up the hollow; he wasn’t even to go up the hollow himself. That was why the search teams had gone up the ridge, and had unhappily stumbled onto us.

After conferring with Purano and Antonio, I found the future prospects dimmer than I’d previously thought. It would take at least an hour to check out each of the seven hollows. Unless we hit the cave on our first two or three tries, it would be too late to stop Don Carlos. Even after we found the cave, Purano pointed out as succinctly as possible, it would take many hours to scale the natural chimney. It was, after all, more than two thousand feet long.

For the first time in many years, it looked rather conclusively that Nick Carter, N3, Killmaster for AXE, would fail in an assignment. Not only fail, but be lucky to get out of it alive.

But there was an answer somewhere in my mind, something that could shorten the time considerably, enable us to find the cave in a matter of an hour or two, giving us ample time to scale the chimney and reach Don Carlos Italla’s lair in the clouds.

But what was the answer, and who had it?

We dragged all the dead bodies off the trail and, with the sole surviving guerilla securely tied, we started off down the trail again. This time, we moved with more caution, keeping our eyes and ears peeled for the search teams. It wasn’t likely they’d all cover the same ground, but with our luck one team could get lost and accidentally stumble across our path. It was a possibility we couldn’t overlook.

We were near the mouth of the hollow when Purano suddenly stopped and held up his hand. We all took to the brush, weapons ready. We could all hear it then. Someone was thrashing his way up the hill, ignoring stealth, coming hell bent for election.

I crouched in the brush, my hand gripped tightly around Wilhelmina’s butt. The thrashing became louder and it sounded as though a whole troop of Marines was making its way up the faint trail, knocking aside trees, vines and brush, kicking fallen logs.

I saw a flash of cloth and raised the luger. I was sighting down the barrel, tightening my finger on the trigger, ready to fire as soon as I had a clear shot at the target. I would get the first in line and let the others concentrate on those behind.

I had just about reached the point of no return on Wilhelmina’s trigger when I saw who was coming. I damned near threw the luger away then.

In another fraction of a second, I would have killed Elicia Cortez.

She was alone and in a hurry. She had forgotten all I’d taught her about traveling in the jungle when there were enemy troops about. She had been in such a hurry to find us, to be with us, she had ignored danger. And she had almost paid for that ignoring with her life. I was trembling when I came out of the brush and saw her still plunging up the trail.

“Senor Carter,” she cried. “Oh, Nick, I thought you were dead. I thought you were all dead.”

She was crying as she lunged into my arms and began to shower my face, grizzly now with several days’ growth of beard, with sweet, wet kisses. I held her loosely and glanced back over my shoulder at Purano, who had been smiling at her arrival. He was now scowling at us both. Jealousy. It can work wonders, even among the best of allies.

Elicia saw him, too, but her response was quite different. She leaped back out of my arms and suddenly turned darker in a blush. She glanced at Purano’s eyes, then her eyes fell and she looked at the ground near his feet.