The Annihilators (31 page)

I said, “You do it. You don’t have to worry about our local guard, but watch out for the guy up on the pyramid.” When Putnam hesitated, clearly annoyed at having his orders countermanded, I said, “Excuse me, but I’ve got kind of a hole in my back and I’d rather have it tended by a pretty girl.”

“Serious?”

I didn’t flatter myself that the quick concern in his voice was due to affection for me. He had plans for using me in the approaching campaign and didn’t want me disabled.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “It happened almost an hour ago and it hasn’t killed me yet, but it’s still bleeding.”

“I’ll get out the first-aid stuff, what little we’ve got,” Gloria Jean said. I felt her pull my blood-soaked shirt out of my pants, behind. “Sam, turn a little, please… It isn’t very big, but you’d better ask if any of the others have a sterile dressing, say four by four, and some peroxide, Jim. Bring it back with you. We do have some tape.” Then Putnam was gone and she was rummaging in a suitcase behind me. Her soft voice reached me. “Was it bad, Sam?”

I said, “Like the flyboys say, you never really mind the ones you can walk away from. But the weather got kind of gory out for a while, I will admit.”

“Tell me if I’m hurting you. I think even without a light I can see it well enough to clean it up a little, if you keep your back to the doorway. I’ve got some water in a bottle if I can find… Ah.” I felt the water cool against my skin. Presently she spoke again. “It’s not a hole, really. Just a kind of furrow about three inches long, but it seems to have got burned…”

“The muzzle blast did that,” I said. “Probably cauterized it nicely. Ouch!”

“Sorry… I won’t even ask how you got yourself shot with the gun poking into your side like that.”

“It’s just as well. It’s nothing you want to hear about.”

“Sam.” Her voice was hesitant.

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you to look after him? Please. He’s in a crazy mood; please try not to let him get hurt. Maybe… maybe some day everything will be all right with us again, but it won’t ever happen if he gets himself killed trying to prove something to me, something I don’t give a damn about, but I can’t make him see that.”

“I’ll try if I get the chance,” I said. I glanced around, but I couldn’t read her expression in the dark. I said, “So the problem isn’t on your side? If you don’t mind talking about it.”

She said, “Oh, I feel a little… tarnished, of course, a little… used; but I can live with it if he can. But he feels that he failed me. He thinks I feel that he failed me. My God; all I wanted was for him not to do anything stupid and protective that would get him shot! I
wanted
him to do just what he did. Hell, I’m not made of glass, Sam, I don’t break that easily. But now he’s made such a big thing of it, and we can’t seem to talk about it sensibly. I don’t know what to do, Sam. Well, it’s not your problem, but please, please, do what you can tonight to keep him from doing something brave and glorious and… and fatal to justify himself in my eyes. Who the hell needs his lousy justification? All I need is him. Alive!” Then she said, “I’m sorry. I just haven’t been able to talk with anybody else about it; I didn’t mean to pour it all out like a hysterical little—Oh, here they come.”

There was a scuffling sound outside, and Olcott slipped in, and after a minute or two, Henderson and his wife. It seemed unlikely that Mrs. Henderson had received an official invitation to our council of war, but she came anyway. Jim Putnam joined us, and we passed him the mattresses, and he secured them across the opening. Gloria Jean was handed some sterile gauze pads and a bottle of peroxide.

With Mrs. Henderson holding the penlight for her, she did a quick and competent job of patching me up. I said, as I tucked my shirt back in, “Jim, if you don’t mind, I have a suggestion to make. We need time, and that guy up at the Citadel may get a little nervous if hours pass and he sees no sign of his buddy down here, who happens to be dead.”

“What’s your idea?” Putnam asked.

I spoke to his wife. “How strong a stomach have you got, Gloria Jean? He was a smallish man and you’re about the right size. He’s lying in the entrance to the men’s john. Can you strip him and get into his clothes and take one of these Ml6s and bandoliers to complete the costume? Be sure to tuck all that hair into the cap. But before you answer, let me remind you that he didn’t die a natural death. It’ll be a little messy.”

She hesitated, and spoke very carefully. “Is it all right if I throw up?”

I grinned. “Puke all you want, as long as you do it where the Citadel boy can’t see you.”

“Glory…” That was her husband.

She said quietly. “It’s all right, Jim. I can’t be much help with the fighting; but this is something I can do. I’ll be all right.”

Somebody handed her the necessary props, and the doorway was cleared enough for her to slip out into the night, after waiting for the sentry on the pyramid to make his turn.

After a little pause, I said, “I don’t want to hog the floor, Jim, but I’ve just been out there and maybe you’d like my report. You now have eight men to worry about. One whom you don’t have to worry about is Col. Ramiro Sanchez. You can plan accordingly.”

There was a lengthy silence. We were on a military footing now, I realized, with Olcott the lone civilian—Mrs. Henderson would have been the first to say that she was as military as anybody. Only Olcott regarded me a bit strangely, therefore, as he made the subtraction in his head: Eight live men from twelve live men was four dead men. General Henderson nodded slowly, and his wife inclined her head in royal approval. Putnam whistled softly.

“You’ve been a busy little fella, fella.”

“You have no idea,” I said. “Now, you’ll want the layout of their headquarters down there. I got it from Frances…”

“Where is Frances?” Putnam asked.

“She’s… waiting down by the Arch of the Emperors where we had a little hassle with Sanchez, never mind the details right now. I saw no sense in her coming back here to get shot at.” I still hadn’t decided exactly what to tell them about her; but at least now they’d know where to look for her if I fell in battle. I went on: “Anyway, according to her, that temple they’re using, the Chapel, is divided by a heavy masonry wall, no connecting doorway, making one large room at the end where they make their cook-fire, and one small one at the end where they park the Jeep. The small one is officers’ country. There’s a tarp hung to give a little privacy to Sanchez’s cot; Barbera sleeps in the other half of the room. A folding table and a couple of chairs. A rack of machetes. Some spare weapons and ammo. So much for the colonels and lieutenants. The men all sleep on the floor of the larger room, the barracks room. Frances couldn’t tell me much about that; she was never inside.”

“Nice clear report just the same,” Putnam said approvingly. “Carry on.”

“That’s headquarters,” I said. “As for the rest, well, you can see that our major problem is the Citadel sentry with a bird’s-eye view of everything from the top of his pyramid. We’re lucky that he’s up there not only for prison-guard purposes, but also for military purposes—to spot any rescue teams or Costa Verde army patrols heading this way—so that he needs a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view. If he stayed entirely on this side of the temple, we’d have real trouble. We’re unlucky, however, in that we seem to have got us an Eagle Scout up there tonight; that boy takes his duties seriously. The other remaining sentry, when last seen, was parked by a big tree with a kind of whitish trunk where the Copalque road enters the clearing. He’s a sleepy and unobservant chap. I’ve passed within fifty yards of him twice and he’s failed to spot me. He should be easy to sneak up on. Any questions, Jim?”

“There will definitely be no interference by any of the four you’ve dealt with?”

“Not unless they’ve learned the secret of instant resurrection,” I said. “Which brings me to a final point I’d like to make, if I may, Captain Putnam, sir. Let’s keep in mind that what we have to have here is, not just victory, but total annihilation. No crips, no captives. Don’t you agree?”

I saw him start to nod, but Olcott said quickly, “But we can’t just massacre…”

It was Henderson who spoke, in a crisp, cold voice I’d never heard him use before. “If you can’t, you’re in the wrong church pew, son.”

I explained what was self-evident to everybody but Olcott: “We not only have to win here, Paul, we have to get clear away before Montano hears about it and sends a couple of hundred of his guerilla fighters to round us up. We can’t afford to let a single one of these men get away to spread the word. And the catch is, we have a bunch of sentimentalists in the party who’ll be bound to scream cruelty if we tie up a prisoner too tightly or tie up a wounded man at all. I wouldn’t put it past some of them to speak up and loosen the bonds in the name of humanitarianism—oops, there goes one prisoner and fourteen lives, our fourteen lives. I’m not kidding one little bit. Some people do think like that, and we’ve simply got to avoid giving them a chance to louse us up. Pat Tolson, for instance, has already betrayed us once for undoubtedly very idealistic reasons of her own; she came damn close to getting me killed tonight.”

“Oh, my God!” Olcott’s voice sounded sick. “Elspeth said she was asking a lot of questions. Is that how she learned?…”

“I’m afraid your wife is a bit too trusting, but it doesn’t matter now. The point is, if those men are all dead, there’s no problem, right? So if you can’t bear to finish one off, call one of us homicidal characters and we’ll be happy to do the job for you. But don’t for Christ’s sake let any of them get away. There’s plenty of ammunition. Use it.” I drew a long breath. “Okay. Over to you, Jim.”

Putnam said, “Paul, you heard the man. Are you in or out?”

Olcott swallowed. “Sorry if I seem naive. I’ve never done anything like this before. But I’m in if you’ll have me.”

Jim Putnam said, “We’re not only happy to have you, we’re going to hand you the toughest assignment of the lot. As Sam said, our big problem is the man up by the Citadel. Not only can he spot everything that goes on down here; with his assault rifle he can raise hell with anything we try. It’s long range for an Ml6, but if he knows how to use it, and we’ve got to assume he does, he can make life damned uncomfortable, and probably very short, for anybody he catches out in the open. Ideally, he should be taken out before we even start operations. However, our one professional take-out specialist—I used to know something about it myself, but I’m way out of practice—is wounded and doesn’t much like climbing pyramids anyway, as we’ve all seen.” There was a ripple of laughter at my expense. Jim went on: “So that alternative is out. Which means it’s up to you, Paul. You’re the stalker and mountain climber and you’ve been up that pyramid once. Can you get into position up there without being spotted, and nail him when the action starts, before he has a chance to zero in on us?”

Olcott nodded slowly. “Yes. I should be able to manage that.”

“Remember, this Ml6 isn’t designed for the kind of one-shot kills you probably like to try for, hunting. You’ve got fifty-five grains of bullet instead of a hundred-and-eighty or whatever you’re used to. So use it on automatic and keep pumping lead into him; and if he should manage to crawl into cover anyway, don’t feel too bad about it. Just slap in a fresh magazine and give him a burst every time he sticks his nose out. Keep him pinned down, keep him busy, don’t let him get to where he can shoot at us, don’t let him get away, and you’ll be doing fine. And if he does hole up, don’t try to go in after him. You don’t know how. Wait until we’ve cleaned up down here, and yell for reinforcements. Sam and I will come up and ferret him out for you. Questions?”

“Somebody’s going to have to show me the buttons and levers; I’ve never used an M16.”

General Henderson said, “Yes, I think a little demonstration is in order, Captain. It’s not a weapon with which I’m familiar, either.”

Putnam nodded. “Wait until I check the doorway… All right, if you’ll hold this flashlight, sir. This is the charging handle. Pull it straight back until it locks, but it won’t pull unless you hold it so you’re depressing this catch, here. The weapon also remains open after the last round is fired. Bolt release here. Magazine release here. Three-position safety here: SAFE, SINGLE, AUTO. Questions?”

Olcott and Henderson each checked out a weapon with the aid of the flashlight. Both knew firearms and needed no further instruction. No questions.

Jim Putnam said, “General, the low-level sentry over by the Copalque road is yours. Find yourself a spot over there from which you can nail him no matter where he goes. Your signal is gunfire up at the Citadel. The minute Paul opens up or his man does, you wipe out your target. And Paul opens up the minute his target spots Sam and me as we go for the Headquarters temple.” He looked at me. “There’s no cover at all between the Nunnery and HQ, Sam, so there’s no sense in us trying any sneaky belly-crawling. We have to make it while old Eagle-Eye up there is on the far side of the Citadel. I suggest that we make a straight run for it, hoping that even if he does spot us, we can get a grenade or two into each end of the building before the shooting wakes them and they come boiling out like hornets. I think we can make it if Paul can keep us from getting clobbered from above.”

I realized that this was why Putnam had chosen me for his partner here. The old general could have done as well, or maybe even better, once he reached the target area, but at his age he couldn’t be expected to manage a hundred-yard dash. I hoped I could.

“You call it,” I said.

“I’m going to have to shortchange you,” he said. “You’ll be hitting the officers’ end of the temple, and you can have half the grenades, but I’ll have to ask you to use either your revolver or the Browning for the clean-up work. You’re not likely to have more than one or two to deal with and if you get a grenade in there right away, they shouldn’t cause you too much trouble. I’m sorry I can’t tell you if Lieutenant Barbera is in his quarters. They were kind of milling around earlier, and I lost track of who was going in and out. Sometimes an enlisted man stands guard over the stuff in there when both officers are out. Hell, for all I know Barbera sleeps with a kid soldier when his commanding officer’s away and other men’s wives aren’t handy.” His voice was totally without expression. “But I should say that the most you’ll have to handle is two, and the place may even be empty. The other room is larger, I’ll be dealing with more men, and the grenades may not be as effective in the larger space, so I’d better have the remaining M16 to handle the overflow. And whichever pistol you take, Mrs. Henderson should have the other, just in case somebody slips by us and heads this way.”