The Ransom of Black Stealth One

FORTY

Mateo Carranza leaned against a corner post of the sheet-tin shed to escape midmorning sun. Karel Vins thought that he seemed more comfortable lolling in dirt than sitting in one of the two Ford Escort rentals that were parked under the salt-corroded metal roof. “I might as well be on garrison duty,” Mateo muttered.

Vins, leaning against the blue Ford Escort, lowered his newspaper and leveled an emotionless gaze on the man. And you were always troublesome when idle in a garrison, he thought. “If you were, I would have you cleaning the trash out of here.”

Mateo turned his idle gaze toward the empty oil cans, the faded and torn cardboard boxes, the ancient fragments of doped fabric that men had discarded during emergency repairs, perhaps years before. “The next contrabandistas who use this miserable hovel will only leave more,” he said, yawning.

Vins knew that it was true. Corrugated cardboard remnants lay pressed between the noses of their Fords and the decayed sheet-tin siding. In another few years the accumulation of trash would make it impossible even to park a small car inside, let alone a damaged aircraft. The amazing thing was that the shed had lasted this long, eaten by salt air, sandblasted by storms, its corner posts sunk into dirt that was itself half sand. Most likely, he thought, the roof will meet the garbage halfway. “You need not keep me company, Mateo. Our cover is as fishermen,” he said. “You might consider actually fishing, as Jorge does. We will soon grow tired of canned food, and we bought more fishing tackle than three men will need.”

Mateo pushed up the bill on his baseball cap and stared indolently toward the salt marsh, half a kilometer distant. “Have you ever eaten a marsh fish, lobo? They are not called bonefish for nothing.”

“For all I know there may be none of those here on the Pacific side,” Vins replied, folding the paper. “And I do not intend any of us to leave this miserable excuse for an airstrip, for food or anything else, until our man arrives. You may crave fresh fish soon, if he is delayed.” He tapped a third-page headline on his day-old Mazatlan newspaper.

Mateo, whose taste in reading ran to a particularly virulent sort of comic book, leaned back and tilted the bill of his cap over his eyes again. “What does it say?”

“That his hostage has been recovered in Texas, and also it implies that Seńor Medina falsified his identity very nicely before stealing the airplane. The yanquis believe him to be some other man. Or so they say; who believes the news anymore?” I believe this: Medina and his airplane must be true boyevaya to escape the kind of gauntlet the Americans seem to have put in the air. Aloud, but softly as befitted a hunter near the end of a stalk: “We must not underestimate a man of Medina’s determination, Mateo.”

Mateo stood up abruptly, brushed dirt from his trousers, and walked outside to relieve himself, urinating onto the sandy soil. Over his shoulder he remarked, “What I do not understand is how this Medina expects to simply disappear afoot from here with fifteen kilos of money.”

That had bothered Karel Vins too. They had covered several square kilometers nearby, the latinos afoot and he in one of their rented cars, searching for—a hidden car, motorbike, boat, anything. Aside from the ancient Chevrolet rusting into debris near the road, they had found nothing. I would have sunk a small boat in the shallows somewhere, not readily found by accident and not too near this primitive dirt landing strip or its sheet-tin shed. And if I were Raoul Medina, I would arrive at sundown. Or I would radio confederates who could show up in a most unlikely way. Perhaps by air, thought Vins, and certainly armed.

Mateo buttoned his fly, gazing past the low, stunted trees to landward and then scanning the scraps of cirrus that rode the stratosphere winds. It was not so much his question as his insolent air that set the vawlk’s teeth on edge: “Well? What do we do, Lobo, when a carload of his friends arrive?”

You’re scum, but you aren’t stupid, Vins thought.

“We welcome them, offer them chocolate, and kill them. All but one—it does not matter which one,” Vins said evenly, putting the paper down at last. “He will take the money, and we must catch him later. We could have several days to recover the money and become desaparecidos before a search is mounted for us.”

But Mateo’s mind ran in more direct channels. “It seems to me we could merely bury him immediately and then tell your superiors we are chasing him,” he said, sliding down that corner post until his rump reached dirt.

“Mateo, it is impossible for us to know all the ways that my superiors might employ to check on our progress here,” said Vins with a sigh. “They could have been watching you from orbit as you pissed into the sand. They may have another team well hidden, perhaps frogmen, checking the number of Medina’s friends as they arrive. If such friends arrive. So, we must release one man with the money. He is our reason for disappearing.”

“And then he escapes,” Mateo said sullenly. “And we get to be poverty-stricken heroes.”

“Not if we are on our toes,” Vins replied. “I have means of signaling that we have succeeded in ransoming that airplane. The money itself is bugged, and we have direction-finders. You two will follow our quarry, but not too closely. The moment I am relieved here, I will set out after you in the other car. With our radios, and our training, we should have no difficulty.”

“If he wants to buy one of the cars?”

“They are not for sale,” Vins shrugged. “And if he leaves on foot, he can be followed on foot.”

Lazily, almost dreamily, as if Mateo did not really care: “Then why did we rent two cars?”

“Collate, shut up,” Vins spat, “enough of your cross-examination. If he has a vehicle nearby that we have not discovered, that question will answer itself, yes?”

“So much for our brotherhood of equals,” Mateo said cynically, scratching his armpit.

We are still far from soviet man, the perfect, selfless product of world revolution, Vins told himself as he regained his poise. But at least I will satisfy my country before I satisfy myself. “My apologies, Mateo; my temper grows short as the time grows near. Do you have any further questions?” His tone conveyed, nonetheless, that he would tolerate very few more such questions.

Mateo Carranza grunted and waved a languid hand to acknowledge the apology. Then, “I know something of the way your GRU works, Lobo. And unlike that poor fool Jorge Ocampo, I have given this much thought. It seems to me they would not weep if they arrived here for the airplane and found the pilot dead. I should think they would insist on it. And then they would demand the money.”

“And if that happens, we must give it to them,” Vins said. “That could be a part of the plan they kept from me, and that is another reason why I will not take one step out of line until the airplane is secure in the proper hands. But I think it is not part of their plan, because it is the Soviet Navy, not the GRU, which will take that airplane from us. The GRU may have a man on that team, but most naval men are a different breed, Mateo; they are not trained for wet work like ours. It would not be good for their morale if they knew some of the things we must do.”

“So,” Mateo said, with a grunting that could have been laughter, “we must appear to deal fairly with a turncoat thief, because your sailors think of themselves as honorable men.”

Now Vins stood up and stretched, scanning the edge of the marsh for Jorge Ocampo. “You may ask them if you like,” he said with easy sarcasm.

“I would rather count the money again,” said Mateo Carranza.

“You have counted it twice already,” Vins said, and strode toward the marsh where Jorge was dutifully plying his cover with a fishing rod. He did not see Jorge for several minutes and, when he did, for an instant he did not recognize the swarthy little man with the battered hat and saltwater lures festooning it. It really might have been someone else, he admitted silently as his heart settled down to its usual steady rhythm.

It might have been Sretsvah, or some young captain I have not met, sent to keep tabs on me. There may be one hiding nearby, and it is barely possible that Maksimov sent him. But he would not show himself so openly. And if I found him, would I kill him? More to the point, would he beat me to it? A man does lose his muscle tone, given enough years. I will be well out of this business, and the sooner, the better. Right after we chase down our rabbit, and I kill my two hounds.

When Jorge Ocampo turned toward him, el lobo was doing deep knee bends.