The Delta Factor

10

Juan Fucilla entered the bar promptly at six. I timed my unsteady path across the lobby to intercept him and as I passed him, said, “Men’s room.” He was too shrewd to miss the implication or give any indication that he had heard me and continued on to the bar while I went into the john at the far end of the room. The guy in the tight tuxedo who had followed me made sure of where I was going, then went back to his original position beside the desk, scrutinizing the departing guests.

Five minutes later Fucilla joined me at the washbasins, waited until we were alone, then took the packet I had handed him. His analysis was simple but thorough, feeling the consistency of the heroin, tasting it, and inspecting it under the light through a tiny but high-powered glass. When he finished he slipped the packet in his pocket and said, “Excellent quality, señor.”

“The best,” I agreed.

His little eyes squinted at me. “My immediate superiors you will deal with directly think it will be a pleasure to do business with you.”

“How many of them?”

“Merely two, señor. Both are very reliable officers.” He coughed apologetically and fidgeted nervously with the buttons on his coat. “They, ah… approve of your direct methods.”

“What methods?”

“Elimination of someone of no consequence who might possibly, er, hamper our business relationship with the slip of the tongue.”

I didn’t let it show on my face, but I knew what he meant. The little bastard thought I had knocked off Rosa Lee to cut her out of the picture altogether! For a moment the greed in his face was tempered by respect. I didn’t bother to deny his assumption. At least it made him a little less difficult to deal with, thinking of what retribution he could expect if he crossed me. And he cleared up one more detail for me. If he thought I had killed Rosa, then he couldn’t have done it himself.

The thread holding the chain of events jerked tighter and the probables grew closer to the possibles.

I said, “You have a car?”

“Sí. A new Volvo. It is outside in the parking lot.”

“Go wait for me in it. It will be better if we are not seen together.”

Fucilla nodded his agreement, dried his hands on some paper towels and left. I gave him a couple of minutes, waited until the two men who came in to relieve themselves had gone, then pried open the single frosted-glass window that opened on the rear courtyard, hoisted myself through it, closed it carefully, then walked down the alley that led to the street.

They had built the Rose Castle of native rock on the fingertip of the island, a strategic point overlooking the natural harbor entrance whose gun emplacements could command the entire area. The dull black snouts of the cannon were still visible, curios now, but reminders of the days when this simple little island represented an almost invulnerable power.

The facing of the ten-foot-thick wall rose up sixty feet, its sheer, smooth surface barely pockmarked with the ravages of time, the imprint of old cannon shot from ships standing offshore like little dimples in its face. The primary purpose of the bastion had been to repel an attack from the sea, so except for ventilation slits, there were no openings in the sides. The cannons had been fired from the top of the wall, giving them the advantage in sighting and trajectory in long-range gunnery, the reefs surrounding the position making a landing by small boats so hazardous it was virtually impossible.

A new two-lane coquina roadbed led up to the main gate of the Rose Castle, splitting into a half-moon a fenced-off promenade that allowed visitors an excellent view of the structure. But beyond, the road narrowed to a single-lane graveled drive through a wrought-iron gate guarded by a sentry in an ornate booth.

I didn’t have to see it. The briefing Carter and Rice had given me along with recent photographs of the place imprinted the picture vividly in my mind. Nor did inanimate objects raise any problem. The only thing that could negate the situation was the security arrangement.

Juan Fucilla beeped his horn at the guard and was admitted without question, the man not even bothering to scrutinize me. Evidently the money tree had pretty long roots and they were watered right down to their very ends.

From the guard post to the walls was another two hundred yards and before we reached the gate I heard someone sneeze in the darkness and knew the grounds were patrolled.

Next to me, Fucilla said, “Ordinarily the Castle is lit with floodlights, señor. For the benefit of the visitors of course. It is quite a beautiful sight.”

“Why is it blanked out now?”

“The approaching storm, my friend. The wiring has a fault. The last time it happened a short circuit blacked out all of Nuevo Cádiz. In emergencies the Castle operates its own generator to supply immediate power.”

“Clever,” I said.

“Ah, yes. Señor Carlos Ortega has thoroughly modernized our country.”

The headlights of the car swung through a turn, then threw their beams against the vast expanse of the dismal gray structure. Unlike the other three sides that flanked the ocean, this one was not devoted to military functional-ism. No attack could be expected from this end, and the gaping mouth of the entrance and the large rectangular windows were decorated with ornate carvings and stone images of long-dead heroes set into niches in the granite. Every window was covered with iron gratings set into the rock, the main gate protected by a wrist-thick grillework that seemed impregnable.

Juan parked the car next to a battered Ford and a new Volkswagen, waved me out and we both walked up the stone path to the gate. Behind it, a pair of armed guards flashed lights in our faces, responded to his order and one moved away to trip a lever that sent the metal gate sliding upward to admit us before it clanged down again.

I was finally inside the Rose Castle.

Carter and Rice had done their research well. I matched the details of the place with those in my memory, making note of late renovations and the possible reasons for their uses. Luckily, Fucilla had a strange sense of pride and insisted on giving me a guided tour of the section previously used as housing accommodations for the officers before leading me to the large mahogany-paneled office to meet his superiors.

Captain Ramero and Lieutenant Valente were all too glad to shake hands with someone who was going to increase their personal fortunes. Each made a thorough inspection of the packet Juan handed them, asked him if I understood their language, and when he assured them I was very much just another American gangster with no such possibility, discussed how much they were going to be able to cut the stuff without losing its effectiveness and what the payoff was to be.

Both of them accepted Fucilla’s deal and even understood why I insisted on seeing the prospective customers. Captain Ramero looked at his watch and told Fucilla, “I suggest you get through with it, then. Always when these damnable emergencies arise Señor Sabin makes a personal inspection of the place and, although he takes the money, he wouldn’t approve of us having him do what he demands.”

“It will not take long,” Fucilla assured him.

The captain turned to me, an oily smile on his face. “Tell me, señor, when are you prepared to make your first delivery?”

I studied his face briefly, spotted the attention both the lieutenant and Fucilla were giving me and said, “Oh, a week, two weeks. I’m kind of on a honeymoon.”

There was a brief exchange of glances between them and I knew I had guessed it right. Their present supply was critically short.

I said, “But if you need it I can get it to you fast. In that case it had better be damn fast, because if this hurricane clobbers us there’s no telling what will happen.”

“Your supply… it is in a safe place?”

“Not against a hurricane.”

“Then perhaps it would be better if it were delivered here.”

I shook my head. “I want payment on delivery, Captain.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Good.”

“It is done. How much can you supply and at what price?”

“Two kilos and you’re getting a break. Twenty grand for the lot.” I saw the surprised expression on his face that disappeared almost before it was born and added, “Sure it’s cheap. You’ll have enough to last you the lifetime of your customers here and plenty to peddle someplace else. If you want it cold, it’s hijacked junk and the guys who carried it are dead. Nobody is left to talk and nobody knows where it went to. The only thing I want is clean, spendable U.S. dollars out of the deal and twenty thousand untaxed dollars will do me nicely.”

The captain’s smile had an even oilier slick now. His half-bow was almost gracious. And if he thought I wasn’t reading his mind he was crazy. Once he got his hands on those two kilos I was just another dead American gangster, possibly lost in the hurricane, and the twenty grand he’d have to raise to show me would stick right in his pocket along with all that lovely profit from the sale of the stuff. I had hung out a juicy chunk of bait and it was gulped down without a thought.

“An excellent arrangement,” he said. “When can we expect it?”

“I’ll have to get back to the city…”

He waved it off as inconsequential. “Señor Fucilla’s car is at your disposal. I suggest we complete our transaction immediately.”

“What about the cash?”

“It will be available upon your return.”

“You got guards outside…” I started.

“They will be instructed to let you pass.”

“Okay, sounds good. If it works out maybe we can do business again.”

His friendly laugh was as humorless as a dry bone. “Of course, señor. It is a pleasure to be engaged in a profitable trade.” But what he really meant was that he took me for a one-shot hood who came up lucky on a job and who didn’t have a chance in the world of making it on a second try. The walls of the Rose Castle were nice and high and the waters at their base were populated with enough scavenger sharks to dispose of a body quickly and efficiently.

The captain looked at Fucilla. “Now, our friend would like to see our… guests.”

Fucilla returned his bow. “With pleasure. This way, señor.”

The lights of Nuevo Cádiz threw a dull glow against the low-hanging clouds above it. I turned the Volvo off the coquina road to the narrow macadam highway that led toward it, passing the ancient vehicles rattling toward the safety of the city. The night air was more humid now, sweeping in with cough-like gusts.

Someplace out over the ocean the swirling force of the storm was gathering its forces together, getting ready to pounce. Right now it was sitting back like a gourmet surveying the delicacies he was going to eat, savoring the aroma and enjoying the excitement of the impending meal.

I ran over the layout of the Rose Castle in my mind again, positioning the guards, their attitudes, remembering the corridors and stairways dimly lit by an inadequate generating system that led to the new maximum-security section.

Whoever had contracted for the renovations had found the ancient granite walls too heavy to break through, so the aluminum conduit carrying the power lines had been laid along steel spikes driven into the masonry between the blocks.

Juan Fucilla had not noticed me tracing its course until we came to the intersection where the overhead line ran into a junction box at the top of a vertical pipe that ran through the floor. He had been too busy giving me details of the Rose Castle’s historical background, proudly pointing out features of its impregnability and talking of its reknowned prisoners in the past and the abortive attempts to rescue them.

I had played the interested tourist to the hilt and asked him what lay below the level we were on and he had smiled pompously because I was his co-conspirator and said, “Ah, señor, that is something reserved for official eyes only. It is part of the past we have brought back to life more than once. Our ancestors were very ingenious people who knew how to deal with their enemies.”

“Oh?” I made like I didn’t understand and he smiled again.

“The more naive refer to it as the dungeon… the torture chamber. We prefer to call it the interrogation section. It is very effective. Even the sight of it has eliminated the necessity of lengthy discussions with our, ah, guests.”

“Smart, buddy,” I told him. “Any chance of seeing it?” Fucilla chuckled as if he were enjoying a joke. “Well… since you are here on business that has, let’s say, official sanction, why not?” His eyes half closed, but he kept smiling. “It might even be a good idea, a reminder that our relationship should always be, say… honest?”

I grinned at his veiled threat and waved to him to lead the way.

The opening had been designed to resist a hasty search for it. Fucilla passed it deliberately to prove the point, paused and escorted me back a few yards and pointed to the space between two massive beams supporting the overhead. He reached up, partially withdrew two of the huge bolts studding the beam and pushed against the granite wall. Somewhere a counterbalance creaked on its pulleys and the slab swung in ponderously.

Modern horror movies had a basis in fact, but they had never gone far enough. The devices they had built into the Rose Castle hundreds of years ago were even more sophisticated than those the Nazis designed. Even then they had known about tolerance levels for pain and invented machines that could break any human’s endurance. There were implements whose purpose was so apparent that any woman seeing them would go into hysteria. What they had thought of to do to a male even gave me a squeamish feeling in my stomach and I was there as a guest. But they had been neat about it. Blood troughs and receptacles were all at hand to protect the interrogators, and wooden benches and tables were placed for the benefit of audience participation.

It was all very interesting and I nodded in rapt appreciation at Fucilla’s vivid description of each piece of equipment. But what I was really interested in was our progress through the rooms to the one whose heavy door muffled the steady thump-thump of a gasoline engine turning over a generator.

When we had completed the tour and the grim look on my face satisfied Fucilla, we retraced our steps and went back up the hand-hewed staircase to the landing where Fucilla pushed down a locking handle in the beam and pulled the granite slab inward with the iron ring built into its face.

“Now then,” he had said, “We will see those we came to see.”

There had been twelve of them held there, each in his own room behind solid wooden doors with an inch-wide peephole built into it to check on the occupant. The quarters had been furnished lavishly for a prison, more like one-room apartments than like normal cells. But these were political prisoners and the intent was a psychological one. It kept them from realizing their true status, allowing them to maintain a futile hope in the midst of despair. Once they were subjugated to narcotics, control was complete. Alive, they were a source of revenue or political advantage, always available for negotiation, forced to act as Ortega wished them to unless they wanted to suffer the pain and possible death of narcotics withdrawal.

Victor Sable had surprised me. Prison life had barely touched him at all. He had been sitting at his desk writing in longhand, his face in serious thought. Except for a slight balding, he matched the photos I had seen. There was no doubting his identity. The single light bulb had thrown his face into sharp relief and I had recognized both profile and front-face views.

I had deliberately taken a certain amount of time inspecting each prisoner so that when I reached Sable nothing was unusual, but once having recognized him I was more concerned with the locks on the door than I was the man inside. When I was satisfied, I had passed on to the next room and the next, without Fucilla ever realizing what I had come for.

If only the weather would hold off, I thought. Absently, I remembered Miami Advisory had named her Frances.

I parked the Volvo in the hotel lot at eleven fifteen, lost myself in the traffic that was going in and out of the main doors and got myself a place at the crowded end of the bar. It took another ten minutes before one of the casino guards spotted me, walked over and spoke hurriedly to the one near the desk, who looked my way with a confused frown and decided to see what was going on.

I made a point of ignoring him while he edged in next to me and ordered a drink. He finally turned and said, “You have been enjoying yourself, señor?”

“In a way.”

“We have missed you at the tables.”

“I was sick.” I let out a shudder to prove the point. “I got me some fresh air. Feel a lot better now.”

He was glad enough to see me back without pressing the point. “Perhaps it would be better if you slept.”

I finished my drink and put the glass back on the bar. “You may be right at that,” I said. I told him good night and reached the elevators. In the reflection of the glass over the calendar of events I could see him still watching my back, the bar phone at his ear to alert the guard on my floor that I was coming up.

As I touched the button I heard the whine of a siren clearing a path to the front door. Four of the bellboys pulled themselves away from their conclave at the desk and hurried outside. The few of us waiting for the elevator stepped back to see what it was all about and watched while the doors were pushed inward and five men followed by an assortment of crisp, efficient-looking women entered, the bellhops trailing with red-and-white foot lockers.

The man next to me said, “They finally got here.”

“Who?”

“Volunteer medics from Miami.”

“They’re setting up an emergency field hospital. One thing this place hasn’t got and that’s enough doctors. Those guys have a lot of guts.” He grinned at me. “They could have brought some better-looking nurses.”

“What are they doing here?”

“You hear a late advisory?”

“Damn right. Those slobs have been holding it back, but somebody passed the word that it’s closer than they’re letting on. I’m damn glad I’m getting out. This blow’s got trouble in it. The next flight’s the last one leaving. After that it’s storm-shelter time.”

“You sure about that next flight?”

He gave a serious twist of his head. “Check with the desk. Everything else is canceled out.” He looked at me curiously. “You on it?”

“No.”

“Tough,” he said.

I looked at the group going past me, their faces grimly professional. One was in his late twenties and three were well past middle age. All of the women were in their middle thirties. But one of the men had a grim professional look and he wasn’t a doctor. His expensive gray suit was well tailored to his hulking form, the snap-brim of the fedora half shading his eyes. He carried the trench coat over his arm in a practiced way that looked natural, but put his hand near the gun he always carried. He didn’t hurry. He didn’t have to. What he came for was still here and not about to leave.

I said his name silently, feeling it roll across my tongue, tasting the sensation of killing him. The man was Whitey Tass.

At the fifth floor I got out alone and walked down the corridor toward my room. At the other end the lone sentry trying so hard to be a part of the scenery saw me and turned away casually to resume his aimless strolling. I rapped on the door, heard a startled grunt and feet cross the room. A muffied voice said, “Yes?”

“Morg. Open up.”

Joey Jolley had almost gone to pieces. His face was drained of color and his hands were too shaky to throw the bolt in place, so I had to do it for him. Inside, the radio was blaring away with loud, cheerful music.

I looked at my watch. It was five after twelve.

“Where’s Kim?” I motioned for him to keep his voice down.

“She… did what you told her to. She’s still there.”

This time I had to take the chance that they were too busy to monitor my phone. I dialed Lisa’s room, heard it ring twice before it was picked up and a listless voice answered with a hello. I said, “Morg, kitten. Come on home,” then hung up.

I looked at my watch again and the hands seemed to be double-timing around the dial. Somehow, Kim had made her own way to Lisa’s room unobserved and somehow she’d make it back. However she pulled the guard off balance was her own affair, but I couldn’t afford the waste of even a minute.

Once more I had to hope Lady Luck was riding my horse. I picked up the phone and dialed Room 203. After it rang a half-dozen times a pleasant voice answered with “Si?”

“Luis Rondo?” I asked in English.

“Yes,” he answered, “this is he.”

“My name is Winters, Mr. Rondo. Your services have been recommended to me by a friend.”

“Ah, yes,” he said noncommittally.

“I want to indulge myself in a hobby,” I told him. “That of flying.”

For a moment there was silence and I knew he was weighing the situation and balancing it out. “Since you are in the import business I was wondering if you could order me a plane.”

“Yes, that is possible. Have you anything specific in mind?”

“Oh, something fast. One that could hold five or six people.”

“I see.”

“How quickly could it be delivered?”

“That depends on how quickly you want it.”

I laughed, faking a joke. “Like right away. Once I want something I get impatient until it’s in my hands.”

He played the game with me. “Of course, I understand. With such a customer I wish I could deliver it before the sun rose. However…”

“Do the best you can, okay?”

“By all means, sir. In fact, I have a party in Miami with a Queenaire for sale. At the earliest opportunity I will contact him for you, Mr. Winters. I appreciate your call. Will I be able to reach you at your room?”

“I’ll be here.”

“Well, I will do what I can.”

I hung up and went to the window overlooking the street. Most of the windows on street level were boarded over and only stray lines of light seeped out onto the side-walks. The clusters of people below were still milling about, not certain where to go. Since the danger wasn’t immediate yet there was a mock carnival atmosphere about the scene. The breeze had turned cool finally, a welcome relief, and they were enjoying it while they could, the sounds of guitar music and singing coming up through the happy confusion.

Joey sidled up next to me, his face drawn. “What do we do now?”

“Wait,” I told him, then grabbed the phone again and asked for Angelo. When he came on I told him to bring me a pot of coffee with a couple of sandwiches.

Ten minutes later I let him in and while he was unloading his tray said, “I need two kilo-size cardboard containers filled with confectioners’ sugar. Wrap them in plastic and seal them with tape. Can do?”

Angelo nodded. “Yes, we have such in the kitchen.”

“Outside in the lot is a new Volvo. There’s a dent in the front-right fender so you can’t miss it. Stick them under the front seat.”

He frowned, but didn’t question my motives.

“Did you get through to Jose?”

“Sí. He was reached by radio. Your boat is still waiting, but there is little time remaining.”

“Stay in touch with him. I’ll call you when I can to see how we’re going to handle this.”

“Please be careful, señor.”

I let him out, closed the door and glanced at my watch again. It was twelve twenty. Overhead I heard the throb of heavy engines that grew into a roar as the plane passed almost directly over the hotel before turning to the northwest. I said, “Luck, Lisa,” and made myself a drink, then sat down to wait some more.