Десмонд Бэгли - The Vivero Letter

I saw. I saw that this man used cruelty as a tool. He had no human feeling himself but knew enough to manipulate the feelings of others. If I really had made an arrangement with Fowler I’d have dropped that matchbox there and then and taken my chance on being killed as long as he was eliminated. And I cursed my thoughtlessness in not bringing a pistol to shoot the bastard with.

I caught my breath and strove to speak evenly. ‘In that case you must be careful not to kill me,’ I said. ‘You’ve heard of the goose and the golden eggs.’

His lips curled back from his teeth. ‘You’ll wish I had killed you,’ he promised. ‘You really will.’ He turned and strode away and I went back to the hut — fast.

I tumbled in the door and yelled, ‘Shoot the bastard!’ I was in a blind rage.

‘No good,’ said Fowler from the window. ‘He ducked for cover.’

‘What gives?’ asked Rudetsky.

‘He’s mad — staring stone mad! We’ve balked him and he’s done his nut. He can’t get his loot so he is going to take it out in blood.’ I thought of that other madman who had shouted crazily, ‘Weltmacht oder Niedergang!’ Like Hitler, Gatt had blown his top completely and was ready to ruin us and himself out of angry spite. He had gone beyond reason and saw the world through the redness of blood.

Rudetsky and Fowler looked at me in silence, then Rudetsky took a deep breath. ‘Makes no difference, I guess. We knew he’d have to kill us, anyway.’

‘He’ll be whipping up an attack any minute,’ I said. ‘Get everyone back in the hut by the cenote .’

Rudetsky thrust a revolver into my hand. ‘All you gotta do is pull the trigger.’

I took the gun although I didn’t know if I could use it effectively and we left the hut at a dead run. We had only got halfway to the cenote when there was a rattle of rifle fire and bits of soil fountained up from the ground. ‘Spread out!’ yelled Rudetsky, and turned sharply to cannon into me. He bounced off and we both dived for cover behind a hut.

A few more shots popped off, and I said, ‘Where the hell are they?’

Rudetsky’s chest heaved. ‘Somewhere out front.’

Gatt’s men must have gone on to the attack as soon as Gatt had gone into cover, probably by prearranged signal. Shots were popping off from all around like something in a Western movie and it was difficult to tell precisely where the attack was coming from. I saw Fowler, who was crouched behind an abandoned packing case on the other side of the clearing, suddenly run in the peculiar skittering movement of the experienced soldier. Bullets kicked up dust around him but he wasn’t hit and he disappeared from sight behind a hut.

‘We’ve gotta get outa here,’ said Rudetsky rapidly. His face was showing strain. ‘Back to the hut.’

He meant the hut by the cenote and I could see his point. There wasn’t any use preparing a hut against attack and then being caught in the open. I hoped the others had had the sense to retreat there as soon as they heard the first shots. I looked back and cursed Rudetsky’s neat and tidy mind — he had built the camp with a wide and open street which was now raked with bullets and offered no cover.

I said, ‘We’d better split up, Joe; two targets are more difficult than one.’

‘You go first’ he said jerkily. ‘I might be able to cover you.’

This was no time to argue so I ran for it, back to the hut behind us. I was about two yards from it when a chiclero skidded around the corner from an unexpected direction. He was as surprised as I was because he literally ran on to the gun which I held forward so that the muzzle was jammed into his stomach.

I pulled the trigger and my arm jolted convulsively. It was as though a great hand plucked the chiclero off his feet and he was flung away and fell with all limbs awry. I dithered a bit with my heart turning somersaults in my chest before I recovered enough from the shock to bolt through the doorway of the hut. I leaned against the wall for a moment gasping for breath and with the looseness of fear in my bowels, then I turned and looked cautiously through the window. Rudetsky was gone — he must have made his break immediately after I had moved.

I looked at the revolver; it had been fully loaded and there were now five shots left. Those damned thugs seemed to be coming from all directions. The man I had shot had come from behind — he had apparently come up from the cenote . I didn’t like the implications of that.

I was wondering what to do when the decision was taken from me. The back door of the hut crashed open under the impact of a booted foot. I jerked up my head and saw, framed in the doorway, a chiclero just in the act of squeezing off a shot at me with a rifle. Time seemed frozen and I stood there paralysed before I made an attempt at lifting the revolver, and even as my arm moved I knew I was too late.

The chiclero seemed to flicker — that movement you see in an old film when a couple of frames have been cut from the action producing a sudden displacement of an actor. The side of his jaw disappeared and the lower half of his face was replaced by a bloody mask. He uttered a bubbling scream, clapped his hands to his face and staggered sideways, dropping his rifle on the threshold with a clatter. I don’t know who shot him; it could have been Fowler or Rudetsky, or even one of his own side — the bullets were flying thick enough.

But I wasted no time wondering about it. I dived forward and went through that doorway at a running crouch and snatched for the fallen rifle as I went. Nobody shot at me as I scurried hell for leather, angling to the left towards the edge of camp. I approached the hut by the cenote at a tangent, having arrived by a circuitous route, and I could not tell if the door was open or even if there was anyone inside. But I did see Fowler make a run for it from the front.

He nearly made it, too, but a man appeared from out of nowhere — not a chiclero but one of Gatt’s elegant thugs who carried what at first I thought was a sub-machine-gun. Fowler was no more than six paces from the hut when the gangster fired and his gun erupted in a peculiar double booom . Fowler was hit by both charges of the cut-down shotgun and was thrown sideways to fall in a crumpled heap.

I took a snap shot at his killer with no great hope of success and then made a rush for the door of the hut. A bullet chipped splinters from the door frame just by my head, and one of them drove into my cheek as I tumbled in. Then someone slammed the door shut.

When I looked out again I saw it was useless to do anything for Fowler. His body was quivering from time to time as bullets hit it. They were using him for target practice.

The rifle fire clattered to a desultory stop and I looked around the hut. Fallon was clutching a shotgun and crouched under a window; Smith was by the door with a pistol in his hand — it was evidently he who had shut it. Katherine was lying on the floor sobbing convulsively. There was no one else.

When I spoke my voice sounded as strange as though it came from someone else. ‘Rudetsky?’

Fallon turned his head to look at me, then shook it slowly. There was pain in his eyes.

‘Then he won’t be coming,’ I said harshly.

‘Jesus!’ said Smith. His voice was trembling. ‘They killed Fowler. They shot him.’

A voice — a big voice boomed from outside. It was Gatt, and he was evidently using some sort of portable loudhailer. ‘Wheale! Can you hear me, Wheale?’

I opened my mouth, and then shut it firmly. To argue with Gatt — to try to reason with him — would be useless. It would be like arguing against an elemental force, like trying to deflect a lightning bolt by quoting a syllogism. Fallon and I looked at each other along the length of the hut in silence.