Balance of Power

Chapter Eleven

Barney Daniels's arm jerked upward with such force that it shredded the gauze wrapping which held it to the I.V. board bolted to the side of the bed.

The lone nurse monitoring the small section of the clinic rushed over. She pressed a button over the bed that rang a bell in Dr. Jackson's office.

"It's Barney," Jackson said to Remo as he took off at a run.

"Let me talk to him, Doc. If he's conscious, I want to talk to him."

"I don't want you aggravating my patient with any CIA bullshit," Jackson said as he burst through the double doors into Barney's room.

Thrashing under the hands of the nurse, his plastic bag of plasma jiggling precariously above him, Barney Daniels screamed.

It was an unconscious scream, wild and frightened. "The map," he shrieked, his voice breaking. "The map."

The night nurse watched the video monitors frantically as Barney's life signals peaked in jagged, uneven mountains. "There, there," she said uncertainly.

"Move aside," Jackson said as he approached the bed. "Nurse, prepare two hundred thousand CC's of thorazine on the double."

He grabbed Barney by both flailing arms. "Settle down, Barney. It's Doc. I'm here."

"The map," Barney shrieked.

"Shut up, I said "

The nurse swung around to retie the gauze strips around Barney's arms as Doc's hands held them in place. Barney's hospital gown was drenched with sweat. His hair was matted with it, and it poured down his face in shiny streams.

"He's undergoing some kind of intense mental activity," the nurse said. "It's almost like a pentathol reaction."

"It's the curare," Jackson said as he accepted the needle from the nurse.

"No, Doc," Barney panted, his eyes rolling. "Listen to me. Listen... liss..." He forced his eyes to work.

"Let him talk," Remo said. "He could tell us something important."

Jackson looked over to Remo, his hypodermic poised in the air. "All right," he said. "Go ahead."

Remo touched Barney's arm. "The map... Barney."

"Map," he croaked.

"What map?"

"Gloria's map." He licked his cracked lips slowly. "Gloria's apartment. The mosque. Gloria in Hispania." He smiled slowly, his eyes closing. "I remembered, Doc."

"You're better off forgetting all that, Barney," Jackson said quietly. "Whatever it was, it hasn't done you any good."

"I... remembered."

"Who is Gloria?" Remo asked. "What's her name?"

"Gloria..."

Jackson checked the monitor. Its lines were still peaking dangerously.

"Gloria who?"

"That's enough," Jackson said. "He's going to go into shock if you don't stop." He moved forward to press the needle into Barney's intravenous tube.

"Gloria..." Barney's chest heaved. His nose ran. Tears streamed from his eyes. "She was one of them, Doc. She helped kill Denise." He sobbed.

Jackson shot the last of the hypodermic into the tube. "It'll just take a second, Barney."

"Gloria who?" Remo demanded.

"Get out of here!" Jackson raged.

The nurse tugged at Remo's arm. He didn't move.

"Gloria..." The drug started to take effect. Barney's muscles relaxed. The monitor began to resume its normal wave pattern.

Got to tell him, a voice deep inside Barney prodded. Tell Doc. Try. Try for Denise.

"Sw... Sw..." Barney whispered. It was so hard to move his lips. So hard. Swimming so low, circling the bottom...

"Don't talk," Jackson said.

Tell him for Denise. If you die, she deserves that much.

"Sweeney," he gasped, hearing his own voice so far away that it sounded like an echo. Then he gathered together all the strength in his body and tried again.

"Sweeney," he shouted, so that Doc could hear him, so the world could hear, so that even Denise, or what was left of her in her unmarked grave, could hear.

"Sweeney!" he screamed again, as if by pronouncing the name he could expiate all the sins of the past and return to that time in his wife's kitchen when the sun was shining and the world was beautiful.

Then the thorazine took over, and he was back.

The installation had been carved out of mountain rock, lined with lights, floored with tile, heated by a vast steam system and camouflaged by the exterior of the mountain. The Russians had planted a new forest of trees in layers surrounding the entrance to cover the traces made while constructing the site. There was no road, however; since all of the equipment used for setting up the installation had been carefully hauled in by sea. It was a magnificent station, and undiscoverable.

"Mother of God," Barney whispered as he snapped a roll of film. He and Denise sat crouched in the jungle forest in front of the brilliantly illuminated installation where hundreds of Hispanian and Cuban soldiers worked.

"Now that you have seen it for yourself, we must leave quickly," Denise said. "It is very dangerous for us to remain here."

Barney looked at the sun licking through the trees above their heads. "It's hard to believe that this little island has the capability to blow up half the world," he said almost to himself.

"But of course these bombs never will have to be used," Denise said.

Barney nodded. He understood well what she meant. For years, America had maintained a rough equivalence with the Soviets in nuclear might and by this standoff had maintained an uneasy peace in the world. Each side knew that it faced almost total annihilation in the event of war. There had been an unspoken agreement between the superpowers not to try to expand their nuclear influence into areas where they had no real geographical or historical stake. The Russian attempt to move missiles into Cuba was a flagrant violation of this rule, and President Kennedy had backed the Russians down.

But times had changed. Kennedy had owned the military muscle to force the Russians to blink. Too many years of a White House that thought America could be guarded by good intentions had since reduced the country to a poor also-ran in the military might department, and there would be no forcing this installation out of Hispania just by words. It would stay there. And the balance of power in the world would forever have shifted. Missiles could be launched from Hispania anywhere in the United States or Caribbean and the Russians could say, "Who? Us? We didn't do it. Hispania did it on its own," and an American president, faced with an inadequate arsenal of his own, would have to decide: would he attack Russia in retaliation, knowing that the result would be the United States' destruction?

And so Russia would have conquered the world. Without a shot.

"Come," Denise said to Barney.

Taking him by the hand, she led him through the tangle of jungle rain forest toward their home in Puerta de Rey. Just as the two of them were approaching the outskirts of the lush, steaming jungle, silent but for the screams of exotic birds and chattering monkey noises from the heights of the tall banana trees, Barney whirled around, managing in one swift motion to knock Denise to the soft ground with one hand while drawing his .38 with the other.

"Don't fire," Denise hissed, clutching at his shirt. "One sound, and they will kill us without question."

Barney wasn't listening to her. His ears were trained on another sound, a soft rustling of leaves, a third set of footfalls. He had heard it only momentarily, but to Barney's well-honed senses, once was enough verification. He stalked.

"Barney, no!" Denise called to him, trying to keep her voice at a whisper. "It is almost dawn. Someone will see us returning. De Culo's men will report us. Come," she pleaded. "Please."

There was no one in the immediate vicinity, although Barney knew that the dense, water-laden earth and the starless night could twist and change sounds like a ventriloquist so that you couldn't pinpoint a noise with any exactitude, no matter how carefully you listened. For all he knew, the vague rustling of heavy leaves he heard could have originated a mile or more away.

As he stood helplessly, listening for another noise, Denise came over to him, her eyes sad and frightened, her legs and patterned skirt smeared with black mud. She put her hand on his arm. "Let us go, my husband," she said. "Before it is too late."

Reluctantly, Barney replaced his pistol hi its holster and followed her out.

Then, deep in the jungle, a voice sighed, a tangle of rubber plants rustled freely, a small white hand wiped a band of beaded perspiration from beneath a white-blonde brow, and then Gloria was running in a straight, familiar course toward the gleaming mouth of the mountain installation.

Safe again in her kitchen with the dawn pouring through the wavy glass of the windows like a rainbow, Denise wrapped her arms around her husband and kissed him on his mouth.

"I am glad you came back with me," she said, smiling. "I was afraid for a moment that our son would be without a father before he was even born."

Barney felt his heartbeat skip. "Our son?" he asked quietly.

She took his hand and led it lovingly to her belly. It was still taut, but when Barney looked into her eyes, he could see that they were glowing and full of promise and new life.

"Denise," he said, laughing as he picked her up in his arms like a doll and twirled her around the room. "Oh, Denise. I didn't think I could ever love you more than I did yesterday morning. Now I love you twice as much."

"He is still so tiny," she said, kissing his neck as a tear slid down her cheek and into her mouth. Then she laughed. "Oh, look at us, kissing like two street beggars. We are as dirty as the banana pickers during the big rains."

"You're the cleanest, most perfect thing that's ever come into my life," Barney said. And he led her to the bedroom they had shared for love many times before. He set her on the edge of the bed and knelt to kiss her face and unbuttoned her ruffled blouse. It fell off one shoulder. He brought his lips to her creamy, golden skin and brushed them against her.

This woman, he thought, so good, so warm and ready, all the woman he would ever want. This woman was his.

He loved her then, on the big squeaky bed, this clean woman who carried his baby and would love him for all time. He loved her between her strong legs and counted himself among the richest men.

When they were finished and she lay flushed and satisfied in his arms, he kissed her closed eyes and said, "Aren't you going to ask me what I did with the girl yesterday? The blonde?"

"No. I am not going to ask."

"Afraid, huh?" he teased.

"Not afraid. I knew you had business to do. You would not stop loving me for a whore."

He pressed her hand in his. "I couldn't stop loving you for anyone or anything," he said. "I couldn't if I tried. But I want you to know I didn't do anything with her."

"Why not?" she asked, new worry lines creasing her face. "Now she will be suspicious."

Barney shrugged. "I found out what I needed to know. Besides, she was too repulsive. Something pale and snaky about her." He shuddered. "I don't know. I just couldn't do it. It would have been like rubbing up against a disease."

"That was very stupid of you. You will have to leave Hispania immediately."

"Not without you, I won't."

"I've got to sell the business."

"To hell with the business."

"It's worth $20,000 American."

"To hell with $20,000 American."

"Oh, you are so stupid, Barney."

"Yeah? Well, I happen to think I'm the smartest guy in the world." He tickled her. After all, I ended up with you, didn't I? I think that qualifies me for some heavy honors."

"Barney," she giggled. "Stop that."

"I must be the smartest, luckiest, happiest guy who ever lived, and you are coming with me to Washington tomorrow, where I will turn in my picture and get a nice, boring job that will keep me alive long enough to see our son grown and making his own mistakes. How does that sound?"

She hugged him hard. "Barney," she said, her eyes flashing sparks of gold.

"What?"

"I will go."

"You better. You're my wife."

"I will make coffee."

"What for? Get us packed. I'll go into town and make the arrangements."

"First we will have coffee," she said.

There were no beans for coffee in the kitchen.

"Forget the coffee," Barney said.

"No. I will buy the beans."

"Send someone for them."

"No. I know the right beans."

"You're the most stubborn woman I've ever met," he said as she wrapped a light shawl around her shoulders.

"Are you sorry you married me, my husband?"

Barney smiled. "No. I'm not sorry."

"Then I will get the beans."

Barney shook his head as she walked out the door. He set two cups on the table in preparation. He brought out two spoons. He poured milk into a colorful ceramic pitcher, which Denise said her mother had given her. He spooned the brown, coarse sugar into a thick bowl.

He waited.

An hour later, he walked into the garden to pick an orchid for the table. He placed it in a miniature vase Denise had bought a few days before.

He lit a cigarette. He waited.

Within another hour, Barney knew he would never see his wife again.

Instead, someone hurled a piece of her cotton shawl, torn and bloodied, through the window. Smeared on the shawl was a small brownish-red pulp. There was a note attached: "This is your wife and child."

The reddish pulp turned out to be tissue from Denise's uterus. Whoever had killed her had ripped open her belly to kill her baby. Barney's baby.

With a scream of vengeance, he worked his way through the house, destroying everything in his path. He saved the blonde girl's room for last. She was not there. As punishment for her not being there, Barney smashed every item in the room until every shred of furniture, of clothing, of glass was indistinguishable from every other.

Then he began.

He walked the streets quietly, looking, searching, hoping no stranger would approach him to talk, because he would kill anyone who came within killing distance of him. No one approached.

He entered the rain forest.

This time, when the sound came, he was ready. It was a clumsy sound, deliberate. If Barney were thinking, he would have known it was a trap. The sound had been too careless for a mistake. But the rage inside Barney heard the sound before his intellect did, and his rage responded eagerly, wantonly. He wanted to kill. He wanted to die.

The first man to show himself, a dark, squat young man who teetered out of the bush hesitantly, got a bullet square in the abdomen. The second caught one in the middle of his face.

Barney's rage fed on it. The sight of the man's features exploding into a fountain of blood drove him forward, wanting more.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a curved killing knife, the kind the jungle natives carved from gypsum found deep in a mountain's interior, flying above him in an arc. He ducked and rolled at just the moment when it would have sliced off the top of his head, and fired randomly into the bush. A wayward arm popped into view, then dropped heavily to the ground with a dying scream. It rang out in the wet forest, a fading echo that came from every direction and mingled with the frightened bird sounds before surrendering to the vacuum silence.

He walked over to the nearest dead man, who lay on his back, an expression of benign surprise on his face. His stomach was covered with blood, already congealing in the ferocious swampy heat. Barney kicked him.

Silence. They were all dead. Only three men. Then he knew it was a trap.

He could feel the eyes now, dozens of them, waiting in silence for Barney to empty the rest of his bullets into dispensable recruits. It was a trap, but he didn't care.

He fired three times into the air, then tossed the revolver to the side. "Come get me, you bastards!" he called.

"Bastards... Bastards... Bastards," the jungle echoed all around him.

"This is Bernard C. Daniels of the United States of America, and I am going to kill your president, so you had better come and take me to him," he called in Spanish.

"Gladly," a voice answered in English. A fat man gaudily dressed in a fairytale uniform of blue and gold and a feathered tricorn hat straightened his knees with great difficulty and rose from behind a eucalyptus tree. "You will come with me, Mr. Daniels of the Central Intelligence Agency," he said.

The officer snapped an order to the bushes and trees around him, and twenty-odd men, their bodies barely covered by ragged shards of cloth, appeared from nowhere. They were all young men, Barney noticed. Hungry men. They avoided his stare. Many of them had known Denise, he guessed. But hunger is a greater motivation than friendship.

He spat in the face of a young man who tied his wrists together with thick rope. The man said nothing.

"I curse your wife and child," Barney said softly in Spanish. He could feel the man's hands trembling as he completed the knot. 'They will die as my wife has died."

The man backed away, fear gripping his features.

"Get him moving," the officer ordered. Someone shoved Barney ahead. The man who had tied the rope around his wrists stood rooted to his spot, shaking.

"You. Move," the officer called. The man did not move.

The officer drew a gigantic magnum from a holster strapped to his thigh and fired point-blank at the young soldier. His chest opened up like a red, smoking mouth as he was thrust backward by the force of the bullet, his legs stretching out in front of him. The blast propelled his dying body into the ranks of the other soldiers. One screamed. "The cursed one," he screamed. "I have been touched by the blood of the cursed one!"

Quickly the other soldiers ran ahead, leaving him isolated and panicked, trying desperately to wipe the dead man's blood from his hands and chest.

The officer fired another shot and dropped him in his tracks. "Stupid jungle beasts," the officer said. "Move the prisoner along."

Mumbling to one another, soldiers guided Barney to the mountain cave. At the entrance they dropped behind as the officer grabbed the rope around Barney's wrists and raised his magnum to Barney's temple. "Blindfold him," he commanded, and a man rushed forward with a scrap of roughly woven cloth to tie around his eyes.

Barney stumbled in darkness around the cave, noting its enormous size from the distance of sounds inside. There was almost no human noise within the installation, he noticed. Either none of the soldiers recruited from Puerta del Rey was permitted inside, or the discipline of De Culo's army was tremendous. The noise all originated from machinery, vast amounts of it, some small and whirring, some huge and powerful, belching with the drone of earth movers. The place was still growing, still making room for more equipment and ammunition... or for something even bigger.

He was shoved into a room to the left of all the noise, where the air was drier and more welcoming. A door sealed precisely behind him. He was pushed downward into a hard wooden chair. The blindfold was removed.

In front of him sat a small man behind a desk. His thin hair was combed forward in neoclassical curls. His uniform, like that of the officer who brought Barney to this place, was blue and white, and of antique military design. Yards of gold braid adorned his epaulets. A jeweler's case of ancient military decorations gleamed across his chest. A silken banner of red, white, and blue slashed a diagonal line from shoulder to waist. On a table beside the desk rested an exact replica of Napoleon's battle headdress, trimmed with ostrich plumes.

As the slight, round-faced man rose from behind his massive desk, he slid his right hand into the closure of his coat, just beneath the second button. He smiled, his hard, intelligent eyes sparkling.

"I am El Presidente Cara De Culo," he said, his neck craning to posture in an aristocratic profile. "And this is General Robar Estomago, chief of the Hispanian police. The general informs us that you seek audience."

"I'm going to kill you, pig," Barney said.

"Said like a true American, Mr. Daniels. In truth, it is I who seek audience with you. I sincerely hope you will be able to spare a small amount of time to speak with me and my men about your — shall we say — activities in our island paradise."

He opened a drawer of his desk and produced Barney's camera. He opened the back of it and extracted the film.

"I am given to understand that this contains photographs of this installation," he said, holding the roll daintily between forefinger and thumb. "I am flattered that a representative of such a technologically advanced nation as yours would exhibit an interest in our small makeshift enterprise. However, I regret to inform you that we are not yet prepared for publicity pictures. They would not convey the correct impression of the base. Dirt in the corners, incomplete molding, that sort of thing. You understand. Bad public relations. No, unfortunately, these cannot be shown to your friends in Washington." His smile froze on his face, he yanked the film from its cylinder. "Alas," he said softly, "the pictures are spoiled." He swept the camera to the floor with a flick of his hand.

Slowly, De Culo circled his desk to stand in front of Barney. He folded his arms in front of him. He rested his chin on his fist. He stared into Barney's eyes.

"So you see," he said in his quiet, brooding voice, "now that the film you took has been destroyed, the only evidence the world will have that our installation exists will be based on your testimony. I presume you intend to inform your superiors about the events of the past several days, Mr. Daniels?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"I amend my question. I do not presume you will return to America with this information. In point of fact, Mr. Daniels, I do not believe you will return to America at all. If I may hazard a guess, I predict that you will be quite dead in rather a short tune." He smiled again, a chilling, humorless smile. "Or a longer time. That will be up to you. Of course, my men will welcome the opportunity to converse with you first. We wish to know to what extent your government is aware of Hispania's relations to other world powers." He held up a hand quickly. "Now, Mr. Daniels, I'm sure you do not wish to be pressed on this matter, so I would not think of asking you to reveal this information to me immediately. You will have ample opportunity, as our guest, to talk with us whenever you wish."

In the corner, General Robar Estomago snickered.

"Silence, jackass," De Culo hissed.

The general snapped to attention.

"Before you retire to our guest room, however, I would like to tell you that we have been aware of your actions for some time. Through the initiative of General Estomago here, we learned that you had probably seen a map detailing some information which was not for public perusal. We also knew about your photographic expedition here, about your desire to leave the country. My, my. The very walls have ears. We even knew about your pitiful little wedding to the village whore."

Barney leapt to his feet, "You pig-sucking murderer!" he screamed. Estomago knocked him into the chair again and pulled Barney's blindfold tight around his throat. "I'll-kill-you," he gurgled in spite of the pressure around his neck.

De Culo laughed.

The pressure eased. "What have you done with my wife?" Barney demanded.

De Culo shrugged. "Why, haven't you heard, Mr. Daniels? She met with a dreadful accident."

"The body," Barney managed. "Where is the body?"

"Nowhere special. A ditch, perhaps, or a swamp. Where she belongs."

This time, Barney moved before Estomago could restrain him. With one leap, he hurled himself toward De Culo and placed an expert kick at his head. But the president ducked in time and took the blow in the meaty part of his back. Still, it staggered him and he reeled crazily into the corner of the room. Barney didn't have another chance. Estomago's magnum was drawn and lodged inside his mouth before he could rise from the spot on the floor where he had fallen.

"Take the American scum away," De Culo said, doubled over from the pain in his back.

Estomago yanked Barney to his feet.

"Wait," De Culo shouted as the two men reached the door. "There is one more thing I wish to give our guest. A welcoming gift." His eyes vicious, he stumbled over to the desk and threw open a drawer. "I was saving this for later, but I think that now would be perfectly appropriate."

He reached deep into the drawer and pulled out something soft and ashen. He tossed it toward Barney. It hit him on the cheek, feeling Mice a cold leather bag, then dropped to the floor.

And there, at his feet, rested Denise's severed hand, its thin gold wedding band still encircling the third finger.

"She wouldn't take the ring off," De Culo spat. "So we took it off for her. Get hinrout of my sight."

Dazed, Barney allowed himself to be dragged out of the room where De Culo's laughter grew louder and louder, where the little hand with its cheap ring lay on the floor.

She wouldn't take it off, Barney said to himself as he felt himself being shoved into a small stone cell dripping with cave water. Two rats scurried into the corners at the intrusion. A solid door closed slowly and finally, first narrowing the light to a thin line and then obliterating it.

He sat on the cold stone floor in the darkness, with the squealing of the rats behind him, and thought only: She wouldn't take my ring off.