Гарри Гаррисон - Montezuma’s Revenge

“No,” Timberio said, “wrong kind of coast.”

“Then to the south. A secluded inlet, a quick boarding, off to sea, no witnesses, no one the wiser. They get clear away. What do you think?”

“Hogwash,” Sones grunted, in a hoggish manner. “Just empty theory.”

“But if it’s true we have to move fast. If we don’t act now and head south and search the coast it may just be too late.”

“We cannot scatter our forces. We hole here until we have further information.”

“Makes sense to me,” Higginson said, tugging contemplatingly at his wattled neck. “I think your contract man may be right, Sones.”

“I did not kill ...”

“We hold here.”

“Your choice. But I don’t see why I can’t just mosey along up there and see what is going on.”

“I’ll go with you,” Tony said, instantly.

“Me too,” Stocker added.

Sones looked back and forth from one of them to the other, eyes red with suspicion. “This is a combined operation and leave us not forget that. Schultz, you go with them as well.”

“Take one of these,” Timberio said, digging two civilian band handy-talky radios out of the cupboard. “Let us know if you find anything. We will call you about developments at this end.”

“What is happening?” Lizveta Zlotnikova called out from the Cadillac as they passed. “I am told nothing.”

“No time,” Tony called back. “In the restaurant, ask them.”

The bright red Lincoln Continental was parked around the ner. It had a portrait of a bearded octogenarian painted on the door and was labeled in gold leaf coronel glanders Mississippi fried chicken. The engine surged to life under Higginson’s touch when they climbed in, then squealed about in a sharp turn and headed north.

“There’s the sign,” Tony called out, “to highway 200.”

They climbed up out of the port and through the reside areas on the hillside; children looking up from their play at the roadside and gaping at the great red form that hurtled through their midst. They bobbed through the craterlike potholes and veered onto the better paved highway, then picked up speed.

“Slow down when we get back to the shore again,” Tony called out.

Higginson nodded, eyes on the road, the car a carmine thunderbolt hissing around the bends, narrowly missing bullock carts and burro riders. A flicker of emerald blue was visible through the trees off to the left, then a tiny bay with jutting headlands opened up to view.

“This place looks ideal,” Tony said. “And that looks like a road leading down to the water.” He pointed to the dusty track among the trees.

“But no boats here,” Billy piped.

“We’ll go on,” Higginson decided and stamped on the accelerator.

Tony looked back regretfully as they rushed away. If his theory were true this was the ideal spot. Close to the city, yet isolated enough for clandestine arrival and departures. They should have looked closer, but there was not much time. They turned a bend and he had a last fleeting glimpse of the bay before it vanished behind the screen of trees again.

“Stop the car!” he shouted.

Higginson hit the brakes and, being power brakes, they locked and the car skidded wildly across the road, spinning uncontrollably under the cruel corrections of the power steering. Higginson fought the careening red whale every foot of the way until it ended up on the far side, its nose buried in the red earth and rich mosses of the embankment there. Higginson turned about slowly, unclamping his fingers from the wheel, and glared coldly at Tony.

“And why did you say that?”

“Just before we turned, I had a glimpse of something coming into the bay, a bow, a boat of some kind.”

With the rear wheels spinning and smoking on the tar, Tony, Billy Schultz and Stocker braced and, pushing the bumper, the Lincoln managed to pull itself back on the road. They hurtled off on the return leg and, once over the rise, saw that indeed a boat had entered the bay. A high-powered, high-bridged, pole-bedecked sports fishing boat with its name, Tiburon, prominent on its wide stern when it spun about and dropped anchor. Then the trees intervened again. Billy shouted into the handy-talky. This time they turned off onto the unpaved track through the trees, bobbing and thudding over the spring-destroying uneven surface. As they drove down, the long car scraping the brush on both sides as they negotiated the sharp turns, they had tantalizing glances of the water below.

Man climbing down from boat into dinghy.

Dinghy pushed off.

Dinghy proceeding toward shore.

Then the road emerged from the trees onto the summit of a vine-covered bluff that ran down to the beach. There, waiting on the shore for the rapidly approaching rowboat, were three men standing next to a small pile of luggage.

Until they were clear of the trees the dense tropical jungle had swallowed the sound of the engine, but when they reached the bluff the rumble of the exhaust sounded clearly on the beach. As though pulled by the same string the three heads turned about as one, staring up at the sudden apparition. Then one of the men began waving to the dinghy, a second scrabbled at the luggage, the third, who supported himself on two canes, began to hobble to the water’s edge.

“Get down there!” Tony shouted. “We have them.”

The CIA man needed no urging. The big car flew down the slope, hurling itself around the sandy curves, negotiating with a great grinding sound the last turn that brought it back in the direction of the beach below. A pink jeep was parked where the road debauched onto the beach and there was no way around it. Scarcely slowing, the Coronel Glanders Chicken wagon smashed into it with a great crashing of glass and screech of torn metal. The jeep bounced forward, its rear wheels locked by the handbrake, skidding in the sand but urged on by the churning horsepower behind it. Once it had been pushed out onto the beach, Higginson spun the wheel and shot around it.

Other than a few discarded suitcases, the shore was empty. The dinghy was halfway back to the boat, low in the water with its heavy load, paddles flashing brightly in the sun.

“We must stop that boat!” Tony shouted.

“If y’ll let me out ah’ll be glad to,” Stocker said. He had dug a long-barreled revolver from an inside pocket and was now removing a plastic stock from a sling under his arm. This clicked into a slot in the revolver’s butt to make a short but sinister-looking rifle.

Stocker jumped from the car, cracking open the revolver as he went, jamming in a long-nosed bullet. “Armor piercing,” he said as he leaned his elbows on the hood. Someone in the dinghy was firing a pistol at them now but the aim was erratic, though one bullet hit the sand close by and screamed away. Stocker ignored this completely, letting his breath out, sighting, squeezing off a round.

It had no apparent effect. The dinghy was almost to the fishing boat now, waiting hands reaching down, when he fired again. And again.

Angry shouts could be heard as the thudding of the engine slowed and grated into silence. Stocker was not through, however. From another of his lumpy pockets he extracted a canister a the size of a beer can which slipped over the muzzle of the gun. This time he dug the butt into the sand and, estimating the distance, aimed the gun barrel into the air almost vertically. There was a dull bang and the canister shot into the sky in a high arc to splash into the water beyond the boat. There was a much louder explosion and a geyser of water shot into the air; the boat rocked dangerously.

“A mite over. Just correct by a hair.”

“You’re not going to blow them up?” Tony asked, wide-eyed.