Десмонд Бэгли - The Vivero Letter

‘I’m sorry I kicked off like that Mr. Fallon,’ said Smith awkwardly, ‘I guess I went nuts for a while.’ He stooped and picked up the pistol, took out the magazine and flipped the action to eject the round in the breech. ‘I just want to take as many of those bastards with me as I can.’ He examined the magazine and inserted the loose cartridge. ‘Five bullets — four for them and one for me. I reckon it’s best that way.’

‘You may be right,’ I said and picked up the revolver. I wasn’t at all certain whether I’d have the guts to put a bullet into my own head if it came to the push. ‘Keep a check on what’s happening outside. Gatt said he’d give us an hour but I don’t trust him that far.’

I crossed over to Katherine and dropped to my knees beside her. Her eyes were now dry although there were traces of tears on her cheeks. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I broke down — but I was afraid — so afraid.’

‘Why shouldn’t you be afraid?’ I said. ‘Everyone else is. Only a damn fool has no fear at a time like this.’

She swallowed nervously. ‘Did they really kill Rudetsky and Fowler?’

I nodded, then hesitated. ‘Katherine, Paul is dead, too. Gatt told me.’

She sighed and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. ‘Oh, my God! Poor Paul! He wanted so much — so quickly.’

Poor Paul, indeed! I wasn’t going to tell her everything I knew about Halstead, about the ways he went in getting what he wanted so quickly. It would do no good and only break her heart. Better she should remember him as he was when they married — young, eager and ambitious in his work. To tell her otherwise would be cruel.

I said, ‘I’m sorry, too.’

She touched my arm. ‘Do we have a chance — any chance at all, Jemmy?’

Privately I didn’t think we had a snowball’s chance in hell. I looked her in the eye. ‘There’s always a chance,’ I said firmly.

Her gaze slipped past me. ‘Fallon doesn’t seem to think so,’ she said in a low voice.

I turned my head and looked at him. He was still sitting on the floor with his legs outstretched before him and gazing sightlessly at the toe-caps of his boots. ‘He has his own problems,’ I said, and got up and crossed over to him.

At my approach he looked up. ‘Smith was right,’ he said wanly. ‘It’s my fault we’re in this jam.’

‘You had other things to think about.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Selfishly — yes. I could have had Gatt deported from Mexico. I have that much pull. But I just let things slide.’

‘I don’t think that would have worried Gatt,’ I said, trying to console him. ‘He would have come back anyway — he has quite a bit of pull himself, if what Pat Harris says is correct. I don’t think you could have stopped him.’

‘I don’t care for myself,’ said Fallon remorsefully. ‘I’ll be dead in three months, anyway. But to drag down so many others is unforgivable.’ He withdrew almost visibly and returned into his trance of self-accusation.

There wasn’t much to be done with him so I arose and joined Smith at the window. ‘Any sign of action?’

‘Some of them are in those huts.’

‘How many?’

He shook his head. ‘Hard to say — maybe five or six in each.’

‘We might give them a surprise,’ I said softly. ‘Any sign of Gatt?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Smith. ‘I wouldn’t even know what he looks like. Goddamn funny, isn’t it?’ He stared across at the huts. If they open fire from so close, the bullets will rip through here like going through a cardboard box.’

I turned my head and looked at the plunger box and at the wires which led to it wondering how much explosive Rudetsky had planted in the huts and whether it had been found. As a kid I’d always been overly disappointed by damp squibs on Guy Fawkes Night.

The hour ticked away and we said very little. Everything that had to be said had been torn out of us in that explosive first five minutes and we all knew there was little point in piling on the agony in futile discussion. I sat down and, for want of something better to do, checked the scuba gear, and Katherine helped me. I think I had an idea at the back of my mind that perhaps we would give in to Gatt in the end, and I would have to go down into the cenote again. If I did, then I wanted everything to work smoothly for the sake of the survivors in Gatt’s hands.

Abruptly, the silence was torn open by the harsh voice of Gatt magnified by the loudhailer. He seemed to be having trouble with it because it droned as though the speaker was overloaded. ‘Wheale! Are you ready to talk?’

I ran at a crouch towards the plunger box and knelt over it, hoping that our answer to Gatt would be decisive. He shouted again. ‘Your hour is up, Wheale.’ He laughed boomingly. ‘Fish, or I’ll cut you into bait.’

‘Listen!’ said Smith urgently. ‘That’s a plane.’

The droning noise was much louder and suddenly swelled to a roar as the aircraft went overhead. Desperately I gave the plunger handle a ninety-degree twist and rammed it down and the hut shook under the violence of the explosion. Smith yelled in exultation, and I ran to the window to see what had happened.

One of the huts had almost literally disappeared. As the smoke blew away I saw that all that was left of it was the concrete foundation. White figures tumbled from the other hut and ran away, and Smith was shooting fast. I grabbed his shoulder. ‘Stop that! You’re wasting bullets.’

The plane went overhead again, although I couldn’t see it. ‘I wonder whose it is,’ I said. ‘It could belong to Gatt.’

Smith laughed excitedly. ‘It might not — and, Jeez, what a signal we gave it!’

There was no reaction from Gatt; the loud voice had stopped with the explosion and I desperately hoped I’d blown him to hell.

It was too much to hope for. Everything was quiet for another hour and then there came a slow and steady hail of rifle fire. Bullets ripped through the thin walls of the hut, tearing away the interior insulation, and it was very dangerous to move away from the cover of the thick baulks of timber Rudetsky had installed. The chief danger was not from a direct hit but from a ricochet. From the pace of the firing I thought that not more than three or four men were involved, and I wondered uneasily what the others were doing.

It was also evident that Gatt was still alive. I doubted if the chicleros would still keep up the attack without him and his bully boys behind them. They wouldn’t have the motive that drove Gatt, and, besides, an unknown number had been killed in the hut. I was reasonably sure that none of the men in that hut could have survived the explosion, and it must have given the rest a hell of a shock.

The fact that the attack had been resumed after an hour also demonstrated that Gatt, no matter what else he was, could lead — or drive — men. I knew personally of three chicleros that had died; say another four, at a low estimate, had been killed in the hut, and add to that any that Fowler or Rudetsky had killed before being slaughtered themselves. Gatt must be a hell of a man if he could whip the chicleros into another attack after suffering losses like that.

The aircraft had circled a couple of times after the hut blew up and then had flown off, heading north-west. If it belonged to Gatt then it wouldn’t make any difference; if it belonged to a stranger then the pilot might be wondering what the hell was going on — he’d certainly been interested enough to overfly the camp a couple of times — and he might report it to the authorities when he got to wherever he was going. By the time anything got done about it we’d all be dead.