The Golden Serpent

Chapter 6 El Tigre

They came upon him while he was using the latrine. A sly move on their part. A man with his trousers down is at a great disadvantage. Nick had put the Webley beside him on the ground. As the four bandits stepped out of the shelter of the little clump of yucca trees he reached for it, but halted the motion in time. Four carbines covered him.

The youngest of the bandits — he was little more than a boy, with a flashing white smile — said, “Buenos dias, Señor. Or should I say good evening? Anyway, Señor, please to put up the hands. Do not fear. We do not intend you harm.”

Nick Carter scowled at them. “Is it all right if I fasten my belt first?”

The youth nodded. He was evidently the leader, despite his tender years. “Please do, Señor. But please to try no monkey tricks — I would not like to shoot you. Jose! Get the revolver.”

Nick, on the opposite side of the latrine, watched in disgust as one of the bandits picked up the Webley and handed it to the boy. To be taken so easily was humiliating. He had been deep in thought, pondering about Gerda von Rothe, the castle, and the strange turn that events were taking. He had not been alert. Sometimes it was an error to think.

He said: “You’re making a mistake, you know. I haven’t got anything worth stealing, unless you consider a few cans of food and a mangy burro worthwhile.”

The young man laughed, his teeth flashing in the thickening dusk. “We know that, Señor. We do not come to rob you. But no more talk — my brother, El Tigre, awaits you impatiently. You were a long time coming, Señor, I think. You gringos do not keep your promises well.”

Nick was prodded back into the Joshua trees where a single mule was waiting. The bandits were walking, it seemed, and the mule was for him. He soon found out why. He was blindfolded and made to mount the mule. The beast had a bony spine that dug into Nick like — a saw. His feet were bound beneath the mule’s belly, but his hands were left free.

Before the blindfold was secured he had a good look at them. The three older men had flat, impassive Indian faces the color of old pennies. They were all dressed alike in the classical uniform of Mexican bandidos — loose pajama-like suits that had once been white but were filthy now, and tall wide-brimmed sombreros. All wore thonged sandals. Each carried two leather bandoleers criss-crossed over the chest. All had pistols and knives in addition to the carbines. And, Nick thought, as cutthroat a crew as you were likely to find anywhere in the world. You had to be tough to survive long as a bandit in Mexico. It was usually a short life, if not a merry one, and when they were caught the authorities did not bother to give them a trial. The bandits were made to dig their own graves, granted a last cigarette, then the firing squad did its work. He could not help wondering how, in this year of 1966, El Tigre had managed to survive. The Mexican government was loud in its claims that banditry had been wiped out.

Was there, perhaps, some kind of a deal? Again Nick had the feeling that he was stumbling around in a dream, groping in a labyrinth. New corridors kept appearing. What had Hawk called the mission? A many-faceted sonofabitch! Nick was beginning to agree with his boss.

He tried to memorize the path they took. He knew when they reached the dead end of the barranca and the mule lurched up the narrow steep winze. If they kept straight on now they would be on the mesa. But the mule was pulled to the right, toward the mountain from which he had spied, had been shot at, the night before. Nick waited for the climb to begin, but instead he went down a steep grade, the mule slipping and sliding on its rump in shale, and he could tell by the sudden change in acoustics — the bandits bantered among themselves constantly — that they were in another canyon. They kept going down, always down. Nick gave it up. He was hopelessly lost.

During the hour-long trek he had plenty of time to think. Slipping and sliding around on the mule, tormented by the bony spine of the creature, still he managed to concentrate. Perhaps the blindfold helped him. He struggled fiercely to keep his thoughts in orderly flow, in logical sequence, trying to make some sort of sense out of a decidedly weird concatenation of events.

Gerda von Rothe had been expecting the ex-Nazi, the SS man, whose body Nick had found and buried. The man probably had come from Brazil. Obviously he had been a killer sent to do a job for Gerda. A job that Nick was now taking over. Or so Gerda thought. He made a shrewd guess that one of the men she wanted killed was Maxwell Harper, the public relations man. Why? Nick gave that up for the moment. He hadn’t the faintest idea, except that Gerda had given the impression of a woman who was a prisoner in her own castle. Possible...

Who was the other man? — Or men? — whom she wanted killed? The mestizo, or Chinese, he had seen in the village? Again possible. The mestizo and Harper appeared to be working closely together. But again — why murder? And how did the Chinese Reds and Nazis spin in the same plot, if they did? Nick Carter shook his head and nearly groaned aloud. Wheels within wheels!

Now on to the next baffling factor in this crazy skein. El Tigre was expecting him! Had been for some time, according to the young leader of the bandits. The muscles knotted in Nick’s lean jaw. Hell’s fire! The CIA man had skimmed lightly over the bandit situation. Too goddamned lightly. The bandits were not likely to bother him. So he had been assured. Yet here he was bouncing around on this razor-backed obscenity of a mule, a captive of bandits.

His thoughts flashed back to Gerda von Rothe and the first words she had spoken to him.

“Der Tag kommt.”

The day is coming! What day? When? Why? How? Who? And where did the Chinese, the counterfeit money fit in? This time Nick did groan aloud.

The bandit leader, who must have been riding close behind him, was immediately solicitous. “You are in pain, Señor?”

“This screwing mule is killing me,” Nick said harshly. His temper was fraying badly and he told himself to watch it. This was a time for the icy imperturbability he was capable of at his best. He was not at his best just now. He had to admit that. And not only because of his poor posture at the moment. He had the sickening feeling of a blind man groping in a tar pit. There were things, events, trains of motion, of which he had no inkling. He was convinced now that information, important information, had been deliberately withheld from him by the CIA. Even if their lapse was not deliberate, if it had been a mistake, an oversight, it was still just as bad.

His silent curses were searing, vitriolic, and had he been confronted with the CIA Director at that moment his language would have earned him a court-martial at the very least. CIA was just too blankety-blank big, with too many irons in the fire, to function efficiently. Thank God for AXE. Then Nick included Hawk in his maledictions for ever getting him into this.

“I am sorry we have no saddle, Señor,” said the young bandit. “But be of hope — it is not far now.”

To clear his mind, and take his thoughts off his woes, Nick asked, “Which one of you bastards shot at me last night?”

The bandit laughed. “I am sorry about that, Señor. My brother was muy colérico about it. Very angry. It was one called Gonzalez who is not all there in the head, perhaps. He was making the joke, the prank, you understand. He wished to give you the fright.”

“He succeeded,” said Nick sourly.

Ten minutes later he was helped off the mule. The blindfold stayed on. He was led carefully down what he knew must be a mine shaft. That figured. There probably were scores of derelict mines in the area, perfect nests for bandits. The thought returned — why hadn’t the Federal police smoked them out and killed them?

The blindfold was taken off. Nick blinked in the yellow light of oil lanterns hanging from the low ceiling. It was a mine shaft, all right. Moisture dribbled from the ceiling, which was supported by huge timbers, and ran down the sides of the shaft. Rust-eaten rails were embedded in the floor of the shaft.

The young bandit smiled at him. “Come. I will take you to my brother.” He strode off down the shaft. Nick shot a glance behind him. He saw perhaps a dozen men lounging about the shaft. There were blanket rolls and sleeping bags — the latter no doubt stolen and the owners buried or left for the vultures — and some of the men were cooking over small fires. There was a draft through the shaft that kept it free of smoke.

The young bandit stopped before a large ragged tarpaulin that screened a gallery off the shaft. “Hermano — here is the gringo. He is angry and he has the sore ass, but he is safe. You wish to see him now, sí?”

“Let him enter, Pancho. He alone.” The English was good and almost without accent. It was the voice and tone of a man of some culture. Probably turn out to be a Ph.D., Nick thought. Nothing about this crazy mission could surprise him now.

The young bandit put a hand on Nick’s shoulder and bent close to whisper. “My brother is a great man, Señor — but he is also un gran borrachón. My advice is to drink with him if you have the head for it. He does not like or trust men who do not drink.”

Nick nodded his thanks, Pancho pressed his shoulder again and pulled the tarp aside and Nick entered the gallery. It had been blocked off and fitted out as crude living and sleeping quarters. A lamp dangled from the ceiling. Another lantern stood on a desk which had been made out of old crates. Behind the desk, staring at him now, was the man they called El Tigre.

The man stood up. With a courtly gesture he indicated a box near the desk. “Please sit down, sir. You will have a drink, of course? You must be in need of one after that trip by mule, yes? I have made it myself, and it is not comfortable.”

“That,” said Nick Carter, “is the understatement of the year.” His eyes were busy, flicking around the little room, taking in everything. There were books everywhere. Shelves of them. Piles of them on the floor. Hard-cover and paperbacks.

El Tigre came around the desk and handed Nick a tin cup. “You will not mind,” he said, “if we do not shake hands just yet? I am not sure that we are going to be friends, you see. If I have to kill you later, which I should regret enormously, it will be a little easier if I have not shaken your hand. Do you understand?”

“I think I do,” said Nick. “Though I cannot think of any reason why you should want to kill me.”

“That could be,” said El Tigre. “That could well be, but we will talk of that later.” He lifted his own cup. “Salud y pesetas, Señor.”

Nick drank. His throat contracted and his stomach churned. Mescal! Pulque! Call it murder and be done with it. He was aware of the man’s eyes on him as he drank. He kept his face impassive and handed back the cup. “A little more, if you please.”

El Tigre picked up a bottle and poured. Nick thought he detected a hint of approval in the dark eyes. El Tigre was a tall man, sturdily built, with a thick black bush of beard that gave him a Castroesque appearance. The beard was neatly trimmed and, as Nick took the cup again, he noted that the man’s hands were clean and well-kept. El Tigre was not wearing the usual bandit uniform; he wore green fatigues, U.S. Army issue, and a flat, kepi-like cap. Something glinted on the cap. Nick looked closer and saw that it was a metal pin in the form of a mountain lion, or cougar, the “tiger” of Mexico.

They drank again, this time in silence. The mescal was already kindling a blaze in the AXEman’s belly. All I need now, he told himself, is to get really blasted. Roaring drunk. That would just about cap things. He wouldn’t, of course. He must stay sober and get on with the job. He had a premonition that it wasn’t going to be easy. And he had not a single illusion — El Tigre would use the heavy pistol at his belt if the mood struck him. Nick was walking a very thin line betwixt life and death.

El Tigre went back to his desk. He clasped his hands and looked at Nick, who was wondering just how drunk the bandit chief was. More than a little, he guessed, though he carried it well.

“Now,” said El Tigre, “we can get down to business. And let us begin with the thought that I am most angry with you people! You have not kept your word. You promised much and have delivered nothing. I spit in the milk of the CIA!” And he spat on the floor.

Nick Carter closed his eyes for a moment in silent supplication. Here it was. Goddamn those fumble-fingered bastards to hell! What have they gotten me into this time? His mind raced furiously. He had to make a decision as to how to play this thing, and he had to be right the first time. He decided.

“There has been some mistake,” he said. “I am not of the CIA, though at the moment I am working for them.” There went his cover. He could see no help for it.

El Tigre stared at Nick for a long time. Then, “Let me understand you clearly, Señor. You are not of the CIA, yet you work for them. Bueno. It is the same thing, yes? You have brought me instructions and money, no? And no doubt the supplies promised me will soon be along?”

He was walking on eggs now. “I have brought none of those things,” Nick said. “I know nothing of any of this. I swear it, amigo.” He made a further decision and added, “Can I stand up and show you something without being shot?”

El Tigre took a drink from the bottle of mescal. He loosened the flap of his holster and took out his pistol and laid it on the desk. “It is permitted, Señor. Be very careful. I am beginning to dislike you very much.”

Nick rolled up his left sleeve and thrust his arm into the ring of light from the lantern. The little blue hatchet tattoo glinted in the soft radiance. For the moment Nick took back his recent evil thoughts about the symbol.

“I belong to an organization called AXE,” he told El Tigre. “Ever hear of us?”

El Tigre stroked his beard. He nodded. “I have heard of you. You are a murder organization, yes? Executioners.”

No use denying it. Nick had decided to play it absolutely straight. Lies would only get him killed.

“Among other things,” he admitted. “This may or may not be a kill mission. I do not know yet. There are too many damned things I don’t know. Among them is the tieup between you and the CIA. I know absolutely nothing of this, El Tigre. If you will tell me, and if you will trust me, perhaps we can be of some use to each other. Just whom were you expecting?”

El Tigre picked up the mescal bottle and found it empty. He took another from a case near his feet and filled their cups again. Nick sipped at his, put it down, and waited. The other man drank off the mescal in a single gulp. He refilled his cup. He suppressed a hiccup with his fingers and stared at Nick. Slowly he moved the finger around the little gallery, from wall to wall.

“You see how I must live, Señor? Hiding in a mine like a rat. It is not good, it is not fitting, that El Tigre should live so. I am a college graduate, Señor, of the famous University of Mexico. Where, I admit, I majored in banditry.” White teeth glinted through the beard in a smile. “That is a joke, of course. I was a philosophy major.”

Nick could not resist the question, though he knew it was taking them away from the tack he wished to pursue. “Why, then, did you become a bandit?”

“Why indeed?” El Tigre filled Nick’s cup and pushed it toward him. “Drink!” It was a command. Nick drank. He was, without doubt, starting to get a buzz on. Have to watch it, he told himself. Just have to watch it, boy.

El Tigre hunched his big shoulders. “I do not know why I became a bandit. My mother loved me and I had no suppressed desire to go to bed with her. Not a trace of an Oedipus Complex did I have, Señor — by the way, what is your name?”

Nick told him his real name and added, “My cover name is Jamie McPherson. I’m supposed to be a gold bum, panning for a stake. Your brother will vouch for that, I think.”

“Nick Carter! I have heard of you, sir, in an underground sort of way. You are quite famous, I believe.” Nick could detect a glint of respect in the dark eyes. Respect and something else? Calculation? Was this character really as drunk as he seemed?

El Tigre picked up the pistol from his desk and pointed it at Nick in a loose, floppy sort of way. “But let us get back,” he said, “to why I became a bandit. A most interesting question and, as I said, I cannot really answer. I suppose a psychoanalyst (I spit in the milk of all psychoanalysts) would say that it is because someone stole my little red wagon when I was a child. Some such nonsense. But I never had a red wagon and if I had one and someone stole it, I would have killed him. No, Señor Carter, I had a most happy childhood. My people were well off and my mother, God rest her, was a saint. My father was not exactly a saint, but a good man nonetheless and I—”

El Tigre leveled the pistol at Nick’s feet and pulled the trigger. It was a .45 automatic and the roar filled the tiny gallery. Nick half started from the chair, sweat pouring from him, panic grabbing at him. He could not understand why he felt nothing. No shock, no pain, nothing.

Then he saw the huge rat. It was kicking in its death throes about three feet from the chair. The heavy slug had torn out its guts. Blood smeared the earth.

El Tigre was blowing smoke from the muzzle of the pistol. He grinned at Nick. “I hope I didn’t startle you, Señor? I hate rats. I shoot them all the time down here. There must be millions of them.”

The AXEman dug out his cruddy handkerchief and wiped sweat out of his eyes. His nerves were thrumming. He began to wonder if El Tigre was crazy as well as drunk. He picked up his cup and drained the rest of the mescal.

“You did startle me a bit,” he said. “But let’s get on with it, shall we? About the CIA.” He glanced at his watch. The hour hand was doing its regular job, on the regular course. It was five after nine. The Bitch would be waiting for him at the postern gate at midnight. Hah! There was about one chance in a thousand that he could keep that date.

But El Tigre, as he stood up now, did not sway or stagger. He seemed to shake off the effects of the deadly mescal with ease. “You will excuse me for a few moments, Señor. I must speak with my brother.” He thrust the pistol into its holster and left the room.

While he was gone Nick examined the books. History, philosophy, political science, biography — El Tigre was a great reader, an educated man. Therein, the AXEman thought, lay his best hope. He was not dealing with a mindless peasant consumed with greed and blood lust. Nick Carter’s sharp mind began to formulate a plan. A devious plan, one which entailed going against orders, but Hawk would understand. The situation had changed since his briefing in San Diego — how it had changed!

El Tigre came back. He seated himself at the desk again and poured mescal for both of them. Nick was aware of a pleasant euphoria now — watch that! — and the little gallery tilted every now and then. He was not yet drunk — but verging on it.

El Tigre selected a long maduro cigar from a box and handed the box to Nick. The AXEman lit up, then coughed. The stogie was strong enough to stand by itself.

“Pancho tells me you have been talking to La Perra, The Bitch from the castle, Señor?” El Tigre let blue smoke leak from his nostrils as he stared at Nick.

Nick nodded. They had been watching, of course. “Yes. We had a most interesting conversation. I am to be a guest at the castle — in fact I am to go there tonight at midnight.” He glanced at his watch. It was now nine-thirty. “With your permission, naturally. And I will need a guide. I do not know where I am.”

To his surprise El Tigre inclined his head a bit. “It is possible that you may keep that appointment. We shall see. I have much interest in The Bitch. You might say it amounts to an obsession. I wish to rape her. Rape her and loot her castle. I would have done it before this, but I have been behaving like a good boy because of the CIA promises. But now my patience is at an end — but let us take it in the proper order, Señor. Then, as you say, we may be able to help each other. Here, drink!”

Nick drank. The dead rat seemed to move, and a red and blue cloud was hovering in the squalid little room. Grimly he hung on to an inner sense of sobriety.

He leaned toward El Tigre, grinning. He felt wonderful.

“Tell me,” Nick said. “Tell me all about your deal with the CIA.”

El Tigre stared at the ceiling. His red lips pursed beneath the fringe of black beard and he blew a perfect smoke ring. “A pleasure, Señor. But first I repeat — I think they have this time fumbled the ball!”

“You’re telling me!”

Nick said it bitterly, and with feeling.