Ник Картер - War from the Clouds

And what next? When the warrior had first run into the scorpion nest, I had considered using one of my gas bombs to rout them. But the plan had some unpleasant ramifications.

For one thing, in that closed area the gas would spread out in a cloud and engulf us all. I knew from experience that no man could hold his breath long enough for the gas to disperse. Secondly, the gas might linger in the tunnel above us, especially if there were level areas up there. And a third thing: gas would escape at the top of the chimney, and might be detected by forces up there, forces who would know immediately that someone was coming up the chimney.

A plan began to hatch in my head as I rested there and felt a soft breeze waft upwards past my body. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but no plan is.

“Move back down the chimney,” I said to Elicia and the two remaining warriors. “Go down about a hundred feet and wait for me.”

“But there’s no time,” Elicia protested.

“I know. We’re not interested in stopping Don Carlos any longer. We’re interested in survival. Forget the time.”

Even as they moved back down the chimney, though, I knew that I hadn’t meant that about not being interested in stopping Don Carlos. That was the main objective and my years of training wouldn’t let my mind forget it, not even for the moment, for self-survival.

When Elicia and the two warriors were out of sight, I took a smooth, sleek little Pierre from a pouch on my thigh and tied the end of the nylon rope to the pin. I worked the bomb into a niche in the rocks, tested to make sure it wouldn’t come away easily, then moved back down the chimney. When I had gone fifty feet, I found a small ledge and began to load the contents of my pocket onto it. I crumpled up all the money in my billfold into a heap. I took out my passport and my identification card and a bunch of other cards I carry around for a number of reasons: my blood donor card to remind me that I am also human; my library card to remind that civilization really does have its finer side; my credit cards to remind me that civilization has another side; my health insurance card to remind me that I’m not (as Hawk’s friend suggested) invincible; some receipts and notes to remind me that life has a quiet aspect to it at times. I put the wallet itself on the pile.

I remembered that my notebook had been put in the pouch with Wilhelmina. I recovered it and tore out the page containing the map I’d drawn of Alto Arete’s fortifications. I then tore out all the other pages, crumpled them up and put them on the pile. I tucked the folded map back into the pouch.

Next, I took out Hugo and began to slice long splinters off the butt of the Russian automatic rifle. It was soft wood and I thanked the Russians for cheapening up in such a way. The wood had a fragrance to it, like cedar. It would burn well. I cut several short lengths of nylon rope and added them to the pile, then took apart a half dozen bullets and shook gunpowder over the whole thing. I found two extra books of matches and, only as a last resort when I was certain they were needed to make the fire more effective, I added my last box of goldmonogramed Turkish cigarettes.

When I had eased below the ledge to keep the gunpowder from flashing in my face, I lit a match and flipped it up onto the pile. The flash was instant and blinding. I moved back down the chimney and watched as the flames built and set up eerie shadows in the space above me.

It took less than a minute before I felt an increase in the wind moving up past me. The fire was creating a fine draft, as I expected it to in this narrow chimney. I watched, waiting for the flames to reach a peak, but carefully watching to see that it didn’t burn the length of nylon rope that I had tied to Pierre and snaked down past the ledge holding the fire.

When I was certain that the upward draft was at optimum force, I yanked on the nylon. I heard the familiar pop as Pierre burst open in the closed space well above the fire. I sucked in my breath and held it, still watching the fire on the ledge a dozen feet above. There was hardly a flicker in the flames from the explosion of the gas bomb and I knew I was safe.

The draft created by the fire, had swept all the gas upward. The draft would also clear the gas out of level tunnels and other pockets where it might otherwise collect.

Best of all, the gas would infiltrate that nest of scorpions and, unless they were capable of holding their breaths for the next few minutes, wipe the nest clean of life.

But I was still worried about what might happen on top of the mountain when they saw the blue cloud of gas and the white smoke. As I said, the plan wasn’t perfect.

I gave the fire another five minutes, then called down to Elicia and the warriors. Even as Elicia responded, I felt something soft and furry land on my shoulder. I started to brush it off, then realized what it was. I shone my flashlight on it and saw that it was a scorpion.

It was deader than hell.

“What did you do?” Elicia asked as she drew up behind me. I was putting out the fire so we could go past the ledge without being burned.

“Made a few sacrifices of my own” I said, thinking of the lost money and library card. They represented a small loss compared to Pico’s daughter and all those other victims of Don Carlos Italla’s idiocy, but a sacrifice, nonetheless.

As we moved upward, brushing aside dead scorpions from the now defunct nest, I explained to Elicia what I had done and she showered me with so many compliments that I began to wonder what David Hawk would say when he heard my report on the clearing of the scorpions. I knew what he would say, to the word:

“Standard operating procedure, N3. Why did it take you so long to think of it?”

It is sometimes depressing working for a man like David Hawk. But only sometimes.

Our only obstacles now were time and a flagging of strength. As we continued to climb the chimney, knocking away more nests of dead scorpions and spiders and other denizens of the dark chimney that runs straight up through the mountain to Alto Arete, the air seemed thinner and less satisfying to breathe. But it was clean air now, thanks to the draft from the fire; and the tunnel was clear of life-threatening creatures, thanks to Pierre’s lethal draft.

We no longer could inch our way up by using our backs and knees against opposing walls. The hole had narrowed so much that my shoulders barely cleared its sides. We used tiny notches and ledges and, in some stretches, found the walls so smooth that we actually wriggled like snakes to gain upward purchase.

We did run across several level areas where we could rest, but I kept looking at my digital watch, seeing the minutes flick away. The numbers seemed to be constantly changing. 7:45. 7:59. 8:05.

I lost all sense of place and had no idea how far we had come from the cave. It could have been five hundred feet, or five thousand. I knew only that sundown was rushing across the island and that Don Carlos would soon step onto a balcony of his palace up there on Alto Arete and fire his flare, signalling the beginning of a bloody revolution that would rock the island from end to end, side to side. Once that started, I would not have an ally in the whole country. All the Ninca Indians would be dead, as would the guerillas who opposed Don Carlos.

Without allies, I knew, there was no way for me to get off the island country of Nicarxa. There would be no report to David Hawk or the President because there would be no one to report.

“What time is it?” Elicia asked as we rested in a narrow tunnel that angled upwards at about forty five degrees.

“Almost eight o’clock,” I lied. I had been lying about the time for the past two hours. Even though I’d told her earlier that we were no longer concerned with Don Carlos Italla’s plans but with our own survival, I knew she didn’t accept that anymore than I did. She still hoped to stop the maniac and save her country from a bloodbath. I had tried once to shatter that hope, when my own hope was at rock bottom — I wouldn’t do it again. But I looked at my watch and saw that the numbers were clearly at 8:12.