Ник Картер - War from the Clouds

She came around slowly and finally sat up on the couch. Intenday, still standing on ceremony, retreated a few steps, but stood implacably with his arms folded, his face clearly revealing that he had more to say and wouldn’t leave until he said it.

“I’m sorry for fainting,” Elicia said in a soft voice. “I meant to be strong, but so much had happened. I couldn’t help it.”

“What happened to you?” I asked. “How did you come through all this alive? And the explosion...”

Elicia interrupted me by holding her finger across my lips. That finger, dirty as it was from her ordeal, tasted sweet to me.

“I will tell you, slowly. First, a drink. I need something to drink.”

Uturo brought a bottle of wine from under his shirt and, with a wink, popped off the cork. Elicia took a long draught and sat up straighter on the couch. We all listened to her story of terror and eventual success.

When the four guards had come to the cellar to steal wine and we started the shootout with them, Elicia had dashed into the corridor leading to the arsenal. She found the door open and dashed inside. When she closed the door behind her, it jammed in place and she couldn’t get out again. She had banged on the door until her hands were raw, but we hadn’t heard a thing.

The air in the closed arsenal was scarce and she began to gasp for breath as the minutes went by. She was nearly unconscious when the door finally opened. It was opened, I knew, by the man Don Carlos had sent to find her body.

“When he saw that I was alive and not wounded,” she said, a catch in her voice, “he decided to take me, the way those Cuban Marines had been taking me before you came along to save me. He said Don Carlos was ready to send the signal, that the clouds had gone away, and that you and Uturo and Niko were prisoners.”

“Niko? Who’s Niko?”

“The other warrior,” she said. “Uturo’s friend. Anyway, he said it was all over for us and he might as well enjoy my flesh one more time before Don Carlos threw us all over the mountain. Oh, Nick...”

She started to cry and I massaged her hands and told her to take it slow and easy. She took another swallow of wine. Intenday moved a step closer, seeming ready to speak again, but I held up my hand to stop him. Elicia went on.

“I fought this man,” Elicia said. “He was strong and I was nearly dead from lack of air, but I have been abused enough by animals. I fought as I have never fought before — as I should have fought when the Cuban Marines came. He nearly overcame me, but I got his gun away from him and killed him.

“I knew there wasn’t time to rush to the palace to save you and Uturo and Niko, even if I could have done so. But I had to do something. I remembered looking at the map you had drawn of the fortifications. I remembered that the arsenal was directly under the rear of the palace.”

“So you blew up the arsenal,” I said. “How on earth did you do that?”

“I used the nylon rope you used to bring us up the chimney,” she said. “I soaked it in brandy and ran it along the floor of the wine cellar and up the steps to the guard room. After I had lighted the fuse and was hiding in the guard room, the explosion came and I saw fire shooting from the top of the palace. I thought I had killed all of you. And then more shooting started in the courtyard and this man, this Apalcan religious leader, and his monks came rushing into the guard room for protection. I still had the gun I had used to kill the man who had found me in the arsenal, so I held them at bay until — until...”

She passed out again, more from the wine than from exertion. I eased her back on the couch to let her sleep this one off. She would wake up soon enough. She would wake up to the horror of knowing that her countrymen were being slaughtered in a useless revolution begun by a maniac.

I looked around the destroyed guard station, at Uturo who still held the bottle of wine; at Intenday, the Apalcan religious leader who learned too late that Don Carlos was a fiend. I shook my head and muttered:

“So much waste. Such valiant efforts by so many brave people and it all comes to waste. And there’s no way to stop it, is there?”

Intenday moved a step closer and I was prepared for a sneak attack. He could have a weapon beneath that full red robe. Even though he’d confessed that he no longer was loyal to Don Carlos Italla, he still had to be considered the enemy.

“There is no need,” he said in a sing-song voice of a man who has sung many prayers, “to stop what has not even begun.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The revolution,” he said. “It has not begun. In fact, it will not begin. Already, the Cuban Marines are starting their evacuation, and the insurgents are surrendering to government forces.”

I was skeptical, still watching his hands to make sure they didn’t snake a weapon out of his smock while he had me off guard with his cockamamie story about the revolution not having begun, about the Cubans evacuating Nicarxa, about the surrender.

“Just how would you know all that?” I demanded. “Do you have a radio hookup to someone down below?”

“No,” he said. “Nothing so sophisticated. Tell me, how many flares did Don Carlos shoot into the air above Alto Arete?”

“One,” I said, “but you already know that. You must have seen it.”

“Yes, I saw it, and my heart rejoiced. I wanted to explain to this young woman when she came in here waving her weapon, but her eyes were so wild and she was in no condition to listen.”

“I’m in a condition to listen,” I said. “Perhaps you’d better explain.”

“The plan,” he said, “called for Don Carlos to send up three flares if we were in agreement, if my people in Apalca would join the revolution. Without my help, Don Carlos knew that he could not succeed. Three flares, Mr. Carter, to start the revolution. If there had been no agreement, Don Carlos was to fire only one flare. One flare would mean no support, it would mean defeat. But the arrangement was only what you Americans call window dressing. Don Carlos intended all along to fire three flares, no matter what I and my group decided.”

“One flare meant it was all off?”

“Yes, but he intended all along to fire three. I tried to dissuade him, but couldn’t. When he made us prisoners, I sent an emissary to steal his extra flares. The emissary was found and killed. Believe me, sir, I did all possible to halt the revolution. Now I find that it was halted quite by accident.”

“No,” I said, “not by accident.” I was remembering how Don Carlos had scrambled for those extra two flares when his very life was in danger. I had wondered why he hadn’t gone ahead and fired that damned flare gun. Now I knew.

“I didn’t know the rules when I was out there butting heads with Don Carlos,” I said, “but you can’t convince me that what happened was an accident. Too many people were involved in stopping that man to call success an accident. Too many people died stopping him. Those deaths weren’t accidental. Do you know what they were, what all this was?”

“No,” the Apalcan religious leader said.

“Fate, my friend. You believed that God was on you side, that you were fated to win. Well, you lost, so take a lesson from it and don’t get tangled up with fanatics like Don Carlos Italla again. And don’t become more of a fanatic than you already are. If the people of Nicarxa let you out of the country alive, learn your lesson well, Intenday, and resolve your future problems with help from the God you say you believe in. And — oh, the hell with you.”

“One thing I fail to understand,” he said. “Don Carlos was a fanatic, devoted to this revolution. Why would he fire a single flare, knowing that it would signal the death of the revolution?”