The Black Death

Chapter 14

Fine rain pelted down at me as I climbed. The iron rungs were slippery. Craning up, I could see a manhole slice of gray light, a dull slab of dawn. There was a riffle of gunfire, spastic in the morning, and cracking little sonic booms slashed the air.

I stopped just below the circular opening. I listened and identified; four or five submachine guns chattering, the dullish crump-banging of grenades, a spatter of rifle fire. The ball was waxing hot. I didn’t know what it was all about, and I really didn’t want to find out, but I knew I had to. I had to run for it and now was as good a time as any.

I leaned far back on the iron ladder and craned up, an angular view,and saw a long mound of rusty cannon balls. Part of an ancient cannon muzzle with a belled flare. The main gun platform of the Citadel.

Lead whispered above me. I said to hell with it and pushed myself up and out of the hole. Ducking, crouching, I ran for the shelter of a crumbling wall to my left. It opened into a court. Someone shouted and I heard a familiar voice and lead slashed in front of me. Shards of stone nicked my face. I gave up on the court and took a headlong dive into an arched casemate. I lay with my face in stone and dust and thought about that voice. Duppy!

Gunfire kept crackling away. I wormed around and stuck my nose out the casemate’s arch. WHAM—a 32-pound cannon ball smacked the stone two inches from my face. I made like a turtle, cursing. From somewhere over me I heard Duppy laugh.

“Good morning, Carter. You stepped into it this time my friend. That casemate is blocked at the far end — no way out for you.”

I squirmed back a little. I yelled. “What happened to your accent, Duppy? Or, since we’re playing truth this morning, Diaz Ortega? My brain was running around like a mouse in a cage, trying to figure a way out.

He laughed in basso. “Yes, Carter. Looks like the masquerading is over, huh? Where are P.P. and Valdez?” I allowed myself a sneer. “Why should I tell you, Ortega?”

“Why not, man? You’ll be dead soon. Ease your conscience, maybe. That information won’t do you any good in the grave.”

He was right. “Dead. Both of them. Old P.P and the phony Valdez. The second phony Valdez — the one you planted on P.P. and Papa Doc.”

Another cannon ball creamed the stones just in front of me. A flying splinter slashed, my face. I moved back instinctively and felt a stab of pain in my side where the slug had nicked me. My tee shirt was crusty with blood under the heap-uniform coat and I was sweating. I began to twist out of the coat. I was resigning as a major general in Papa Doc’s Army.Another spate of gunfire, then silence. Ortega said “So you know about that, too. I underestimated you, Carter Careless of me. Of course I didn’t know you were Nick Carter until a few hours ago. Not that it matters now You can’t get out of your hole and as soon as my people clean up P.P.’s men, and a few of the Tonton Macoute, we’ll take care of you. All we have to do is unblock the tunnel and come into the casemate after you. You can’t run away.”

I surveyed the rain-swept gun platform with its rusty old cannon and the piles of moldering balls. Beyond, like frozen surf, the green, mist-topped hills marched away to the sea Maybe he was right, at that. I had put my head into it. He had me trapped pretty good.

I was thinking fast and getting nowhere. I believed him about the casemate being blocked behind me. If I stuck my head out, or tried to make it across the gun deck and over the parapet, I would be a sieve before I had gone six feet.

At least I could keep him talking. That way I would know where he was. I wondered how many men he had, and how he had managed to infiltrate them in with P.P.’s and Papa Doc’s men.

I cupped my hands and yelled up at him. Lyda tell you about me?” She had, of course. I took a fragmentation grenade out of the musette bag.

“She did, Carter. The lady is a little disappointed and angry with you at the moment. I’m responsible for that, I’m afraid. As you Yanks say, I sold her a bill of goods.”

“I bet you did.” I pulled the pin of the grenade and started wriggling to the mouth of the casemate.

“I convinced her that P.P.’s decoy was the real Valdez and that you and the CIA tricked her, played her for a sucker, and one of you killed him. She believed me.”

It was my turn to laugh. “You did a little sweating, didn’t you? When you thought that Lyda and your phony Valdez might have to meet face to face? That would have loused up your plans pretty good, huh, Ortega?”

I turned over on my back with my right hand extended, the grenade plump and secure in my fist.

He laughed. “I admit it. I was worried for a time. I need that invasion of hers to distract Papa Doc. But that’s all right now. Swan is on her way back to the boat, and the invasion is on again. I let her and Papa Doc knock themselves out, then I take over.”

“But without your phony Valdez as a figurehead. How do you explain that to the blacks and mulattos?”

He said a very nasty thing to me. I laughed and slid out of the embrasure on my back and tossed the grenade up in a long arcing loop. Lead spanged around me as I ducked back. Ortega screamed a curse. But the bastard had guts. He tossed the grenade back down at me. It exploded in the air six feet from my hole and the concussion rocked me and fragments sang and pocked the casemate. Nothing hit me.

His laugh was a little weak. “I admire your guts, Carter. I hate to kill you. I really do. If you give up, we might be able to work something out.”

I blinked stone dust out of my eyes. “That might be fun, 1 agreed. “What would we work out — how to run Haiti together?”

He didn’t answer. I could hear him snapping orders to someone. The firing had dwindled now and I figured that Ortega had just about made it, was in possession of the Citadel. I studied the clouds over the distant hills. They had lifted a bit. And it had stopped raining. I listened, straining my ears. Nothing. Nothing yet. I reached for another grenade.

I wanted his attention. Wanted to know where he was. I said: “You’ll have to rule without your Queen, Ortega. I killed her. Was that her real name, Bettina Smid?”

Silence. Then: “You killed Bettina?”

“You hard of hearing, Ortega. Or is it the acoustics in this place? I said I killed her. Had to break up a little pornography party with P.P. to do it. She died like a lady, Ortega, which I doubt she was.”

He had a foul mouth on him. I hadn’t known how foul. He came near to shocking me. I listened and could tell that he had moved closer to the parapet. I thought about the grenades being short fused, but I had to risk it. I let the handle spring away and I counted—1–2—3—4–5.

I reached out and lobbed it up.

It must have exploded level with the parapet up there. Ortega screamed in pain and rage. More rage than pain, for he kept yelling orders and cursing me and I hadn’t gotten him.

After that he wouldn’t talk to me, though I tried to bait him.

“Were you in love with the Smid woman, Ortega? How was she? From the little I saw she knew her way around a bed. All in the line of duty? Anything for good old KGB?”

I couldn’t draw him. No gunfire now. I heard the clink and rattle of tools at the far end of the casemate tunnel. They were opening it up. When they had it open all they had to do was stick a couple of machine guns in and hose me down. I was covered from the front.

Just to see how covered I was, I stuck a hand out and flapped it fast and grabbed it back. Lead sang into the arch from three directions. I swore and scrunched back as far as I could. No place to hide, Carter.

I heard it then. A faint mosquito buzzing. A light plane, a spotter. It came down out of the clouds and nearly scraped a mountain and came humming toward the Citadel. In an effusion of love I blessed Papa Doc and his DF stations. They were on the ball.

Over me Ortega was bellowing orders. Quiet. Stay out of sight. Don’t fire. Everything must appear normal. He promised to shoot the man that made a revealing move.

I grinned. He had already decided to kill me and I had nothing to lose. I started pulling pins and hurling grenades as fast as I could. I rolled them out on the gun deck and heard them bang and spatter just as the spotter plane swept low over me. I could see the pilot craning and speaking into his mike. I rolled out of my hole and emptied a clip at him from the Luger, being careful to miss. I dived back, cold and sweating at the same time and with mush where my spine had been. A hell of a chance but I had gotten away with it.

The spotter plane swung away and made for the clouds again. He had seen enough, I hoped. I kept hoping for the next ten minutes while nothing happened. They had stopped work on the tunnel behind me.

I yelled into the silence. “Better run for it, Ortega! Papa Doc’s air force is going to be here any minute now. I promise you. I tipped off his DF stations in plain code.”

A breeze swept the gun deck and brought his answer from afar, foul and full of hate. I couldn’t blame him. I had monkey-wrenched his plans in every way.

The fighters came in and I went to worrying about my own ass. There were four of them, old and obsolete jets, but plenty good enough for this job. They came down one at a time, snarling out of the clouds and making their pass the length of the Citadel, machine guns spitting and cannons pounding and, just as the first jet finished its run and climbed again, it dropped a pair of light bombs. Papa Doc might be a little confused, might not know exactly what was going on, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

For once I said a real little prayer — that Lyda Bonaventure would have second thoughts, think it out, break a leg — anything to keep her from getting back to Sea Witch and starting a half-cocked invasion. Papa Doc would murder her.

A bomb hit a stack of cannon balls and the air was dark and filled with solid whistling death. I cringed in my hole and somehow survived it. A foundry started up in my skull. I lay and shivered and shook and cursed and the blood started running down my side again. The planes came back for another run.

Cannon and .50s pocked and chewed and ravaged the Citadel. A bomb lifted one of the old cannon and swept it toward me like a toothpick in a hurricane. I watched a couple of tons of ancient iron float toward me and I froze and told myself that at least it would be quick. The berserk cannon missed me and sheared off the top half of the arch and kept going through twelve feet of stone and mortar.

The last jet fighter made his pass and climbed away and left the quaking ruins. Namely me. I had a feeling that I was Adam, the only man alive in this devastated “paradise. I tottered to my feet and had sense enough to jam another clip into the Luger and take my last grenade from the musette bag. I was in shock and rubbery legged, and my head wanted to float away. At first, when I heard the blatting of the helicopter, I didn’t believe it. I stared at it, unable to react, as it came fluttering in and, crazy — crazy — settled down on what was left of the gun platform. I think I made a little bow and said something stupid. Like: “Welcome to my mountain top. Pull up a bomb crater and rest a spell. Don’t mind me, I am always this green, and do you happen to have a strait jacket on you?”

The rotors flapped. A man — not a thing from Mars, but a real man — leaned out and screamed at me.

“Bennett! Bennett! Get in, man. Come on — come on— come on!”

“Hank Willard! Scrawny, dirty, ginger-bearded and broken-toothed Hank. I nearly wept as I ran. I got in. He pushed something and the egg-beater lifted and tilted. The rats came out of the stone work again. You never really kill all of them in a bombing attack.

Slugs began to zip through the plexiglass. Hank ducked and said, “Now what the screwing hell? I thought the shooting was over.”

I came back from that limbo where I had been floating. I grabbed his arm and pointed down. “There. Over there! Make a pass at him. Just one pass.”

Diaz Ortega was standing on a hillock of shattered stone and firing at us with a rifle. His head was bandaged and his huge black chest was red with blood and his teeth flashed as he screamed.

Hank Willard shook his head. “No! Crazy — it only takes one slug to knock us down. I won’t—”

I put my fingers on his skinny arm and squeezed. I shoved the Luger in his face. “Make a pass at him!”

He nodded and flipped the wheel and we went slanting down toward Ortega in a long glide. I leveled the Luger, steadying it on my left forearm, and started squeezing off the clip. The black man, in a wide-legged stance, stood his ground and gave me shot for shot as we swooped at him. The cockpit was full of metallic bees. I squeezed off my last shot. Ortega dropped his rifle, clutched at his chest, fell, got up and began to run. I flung my last grenade. As we tilted and climbed I saw a red blossom grow out of the small of his

“Jesus Christ — Jesus Christ—” Sweat was streaming into Hank’s beard. I patted his arm and smiled at him. I loved him like a brother. I pointed toward the coast. “Take her away.”

Hank took her away. He eased the ‘copter over a mountain and into a valley and started tree hopping. A couple of times I didn’t think we were going to make it.

The last one scared the hell out of me and I yelled, “Pull her up, for God’s sake. I don’t want to get killed now. I just crawled out of a grave.”

Hank shook his head and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Can’t. They’ll cream us. Those bastards are knocking down everything in sight and asking no questions.”

Two of Papa Doc’s fighters were dogging us.

“Long as we stay on the deck we’re all right,” Hank said. “Those fighters can’t pull out of a dive fast enough.”

We brushed a hilltop, and I closed my eyes. I distinctly saw a bird’s nest with three brown eggs in it.

I must have groaned aloud, because Hank gave me a hurt look. “Don’t be so screwing critical, Bennett, or whatever your screwing name is. I only had two lessons on these damned things.”

I stifled my reply. Better not to upset him.

The jets turned back. They were low on fuel and running for base. I breathed a little easier and started looking for the — old U.S. Fruit dock and buildings and praying that Lyda was there and we could make a run for it before Papa Doc got his coastal patrol into action. I wasn’t kidding myself that the helicopter would go unnoticed. Papa Doc was alerted now— and how he was alerted — and the fun had just begun.

We hit the coast. I saw Tortuga lying on the horizon off shore and knew we were too far west. I gave Hank the bearing and we started east, buzzing low over the beaches and coves. Now and then a black face stared as we swished by. No one shot at us.

Aware of a great craving, I bummed a cigarette off Hani and tried to relax. With luck, a lot of luck, we might make it yet.

“Where did you get the chopper?” I asked.

“Stole it. There was a pad in P.P.’s backyard and there she was, just sitting and asking to be used. That was after I came back.”

I craned out the window. That damned dock couldn’t be far now. “Came back?”

Hank gave it to me briefly. He had passed on my instructions and Duppy, though in rage, had still agreed to the covering fire. When things got too hot they had all three cut out and started back for the coast. Then Duppy left them.

“Just vanished,” Hank said. “One minute he was there, the next he wasn’t.”

I smiled. Yes. Duppy — Ortega — had known I was about to tear down his playhouse and he had to try and stop me. He had guessed that I would get to the Citadel and had gone there to wait for me. I had forced his hand, all right.

“That left you and the girl,” I said. “What then?”

Hank gave me a sidelong glance and pulled at his beard. “We talked. She was gonna go back to your boat and get her people and start the invasion. I talked her out of it. I think.”

“You think?” He had me worried.

“I said I would go back and hang around and look for you. I said we should hear your side before she did anything fatal.”

“That was pretty good thinking, Hank.”

“She was already having second thoughts. I knew you didn’t trust that Duppy, so I didn’t, and when she had a chance to think it over I don’t think she did either. She was convinced at first, though, that you had set up this Valdez guy for murder. The guy they killed on the road. She was pretty mad and Duppy handled her pretty good. But later—”

The sun had been shining for some time. It was a bright, beautiful, clear-cool day. I remembered and glanced to my right, to where the Citadel was a massive purple blur on its mountain top.

Suddenly the blur dissolved into streamers of red and yellow. Jagged rockets of stone soared upward in curving trajectory, hung in midair, plummeted downward. Black matchsticks that could only be cannon went into brief parabola and vanished into the gaping hole in the side of the mountain. A pillar of smoke began to build and sway in the wind. Sound and blast reached us and shook the helicopter like a giant terrier killing a rat. We sank and rose and brushed the tops of a stand of tall trees.

Hank Willard fought the controls and stared in awe. “What for Christ’s sake was that?”

I took a long look. The Citadel still stood, but it would never be the same. “Little thing called a barometric fuse,” I told him. “Don’t let it worry you, pal. Let Papa Doc try to figure it out.”

He shook his head and the ginger beard fluttered like a tattered ensign. “So much screwing stuff that I don’t understand,” he muttered. “Maybe if we get out of this you’ll explain, huh?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Not now, though. No time. Look down there. We’ve got another problem.”

We flapped along toward the old dock and the rotting outbuildings. There was no sign of Sea Witch and I hoped that meant she was still under the dock. It was a good bet, for a moment later Lyda Bonaventure came running out of one of the buildings, looking up and waving a scarf. She seemed glad to see us. I was glad to see her, but at the moment I was wondering what in hell a Russian submarine was doing in this part of the world. Just off Papa Doc’s shore, her black hull glistening in’ the sun as she surfaced, water streaming from her jutting sharp sail on which was emblazoned, in red, the hammer and sickle.

“Now what the screwing hell?” exclaimed Hank. “This is turning into a screwing nightmare!”

I couldn’t have agreed with him more.