The Kremlin File

Five

We breakfasted in bed, Tara on tropical fruits, me on oysters, two dozen of them. I was still lingering over my meal when she finished and left me for a shower and fresh clothes in her suite. I had the whole day to play.

I was in the shower myself when the faint ring of the phone came through the noise in the stall. I tried to ignore it, but the caller was insistent. Made me think of Hawk. I left the water running and dripped across to the instrument.

The whispery voice from the receiver sounded conspiritorial. “Good morning, Mr. Carter. This is Carib Jerome. May I call on you for a few minutes?”

Well, yes. I’d been warned about Jerome by AXE; he could be the Russians’ man on the island. Or it could be simply a protocol visit and I shouldn’t offend him.

“Give me ten to dress,” I said.

I called room service for hot coffee and another cup, turned off the shower, toweled down, strapped on the sheath with the stiletto, got into clean clothes and was buttoning the jacket over the holster when the Colonel and the coffee arrived. My mind had been reviewing what Hawk had given me on the man.

Jerome was thirty-six years old, a member of a prominent Out Island family. Educated at Oxford. With a special course at Sandhurst. Came home after school, joined the native constabulary and made a name as a law officer. When Randolph Fleming was first elected president and the British troops left, Parliament thought Grand LaClare needed an army of its own. The doctor had appointed the chief of police — Hammond — general of the new force and made Jerome chief of staff.

Hawk had said: “The Colonel surprised us. CIA. had him tabbed as politically ambitious and looked for a power grab by him when Hammond went down. Instead Jerome immediately asked Fleming to come back.”

The AXE think tank had speculated on his motives. Why did an ambitious man, who had the opportunity to put himself into power, call instead on the one opponent he had helped run off the island? Our experts thought Jerome was intelligent enough to recognize his own unpopularity, to realize that the Parliament would fight him. That he believed if he put Fleming in as president, he could make himself the strong man behind the throne.

I had asked Hawk if Jerome had any idea of my real identity. He didn’t. As far as he was concerned, I was only Thomas Sawyer s representative.

The Colonel came through the door ahead of the coffee boy and stood rigid, unsmiling, until we were alone. Only his dark eyes moved. They scurried. Through the open bedroom door. To the big bed with the covers on the floor. To the Scotch and glasses on the bureau. He made a long study of me as I brought him coffee, black. Still no smile.

I decided on caution. The door closed behind the boy. Jerome settled himself in a deep chair and tasted his brew.

“Nice quarters,” the husky voice said without inflection. But there was a question somewhere in it.

I should have thought of it when I first saw the suite. This was VIP country. What was a hotel cop doing here? I passed an admiring, envious look at the expensive furnishings and tried a short laugh.

“How the upper class suffer. I get one taste of it because the hotel’s full. They’ll have me in the basement soon.”

At that season, the place would be full and the Colonel would know it. In countries like Grand LaClare, hotels must file their guest lists with the police.

“Pity.” He held my eyes. Then he raised his brows and dropped the subject. “I wanted this opportunity to thank you in person for aborting the hijack. Extremely fortunate for President Fleming — and for me — that you were aboard. And armed.” A puzzled frown. “Was it known that you carried a gun on the plane?”

I didn’t blink. Gave him a smile that shared a secret. “My employer knows I like my own tools. He has some influence.”

“Of course.” His first smile came then, brought forth by the thought of my special privilege. “Again, fortunate. President Fleming would be dead today, or in Communist hands, but for your quick thinking. You must be a very accomplished security officer to react so rapidly.”

It was a question. How much more than a hotel dick was I? I stayed cautious.

“I was escorting Miss Sawyer. She could’ve been hurt or killed, and my reflexes react when a gun is aimed toward me.”

“Oh?” Was that really surprise? “You weren’t aware our president was the target? But, of course, in your position you could not know he was going to be kidnapped to Cuba.”

“Is that a fact?” I sounded incredulous. “Did the stewardess confess the plot?”

His eyes, his hoarse voice were flat. “We have the information from other sources. The girl escaped before I had the time to question her.”

Escaped from the jail I’d been in? I thought about scared little dupe. Or was she an agent, good enough to sell me that act? Jerome appeared to read my mind.

“Her innocence act took the matron in. She used karate, knocked the woman out, stole her clothes and simply walked away.”

We were on an island with an abundance of police. I said, “Where could she go?”

An impatient shrug. “Cruise boats come and go. I understand she was artful enough to have won her way aboard one of them.”

It was hard for me to buy. But then I wouldn’t have believed a stewardess could bring a pair of guns on a plane. The Colonel waved the incident out of mind and sank back, complacent.

“No matter, really. Thanks to you our president arrived safely and is taking up the reins of government. The army is convinced it is in its best interest to give Dr. Fleming its full support, so our problems are resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. I hope your transition into the job here will be as smooth as ours.” He finished the coffee and stood up. “If I can help you with anything, you’ll find me at the Palace.”

I took the hand he offered and saw him to the door. He knew more about me than he’d admitted. That was clear from his assurance to me that the lid was on the army. Simple gratitude about the skyjacking didn’t require that he discuss political maneuverings with a hotel dick. I suspected he was telling me that the undercover job was no longer necessary.

I gave him time to get clear of the hotel, then left the room. The soldiers were gone from the top floor. So were Lewis’ men. But the Mafia boys still pored over the racing form beside the elevators.

I dropped down to Fleming’s floor. Only the syndicate’s crowd was represented. They said the doctor was still asleep. I walked down to the next flight and found the same personnel. Strange.

I decided it was time to move on to my next stop. The Casino. I was looking for some answers and they might be there.

Roulette tables, faro banks, and crap tables made a rectangle around the pit, connected by velvet wrapped chains. No one except the dealers and pit bosses was allowed inside. Only the chained-off area offered a modicum of clear space. The rest of the floor crawled with humanity.

There were no windows beckoning to the outdoors. No clocks to tick off time. There was only the clatter of chips and glasses and hoarse pleadings that dice, balls, cards fall this way or that. Not my kind of gambling. Mine is a bet every day that when I get out of bed in the morning, I’ll make it back in one piece at night.

Trying to make my way through this raucous crowd, I got bogged down in the crush of milling flesh as it stampeded toward a jackpot winner. Bells rang for the lucky dope, singled out as a come-on to keep the other slots hot. Bells rang for me too. A redhead stood ten feet away, lips curled in scorn, brows arched at the madness.

She stood out like a spotlight. Five nine or ten, sleek shining nipple-length hair, a pantsuit swelled in all the right places.

While I waited for the herd to pass, the space around her cleared. She turned and escaped to the uncrowded pocket around the cashiers’ cages, paused at the end grille for an instant, then shoved open an unmarked door and went through. I was headed that way myself. She added urgency to my visit.

A man whose luck held beat me to the cage. I waited while the clerk racked the chips, then shoved stacked silver to the winner. When the man moved off, the clerk flicked a look at my empty hands and said in a bored voice, “Help you, friend?”

I don’t like being called friend by someone I never saw in my life. “Chip Cappola. I want to see him.”

The blank face went blanker. “Never heard of him.”

I put my new ID card on the counter. It said I was security chief for the Sawyer Grand LaClare. The swarthy clerk sneered and gave me empty eyes. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“You didn’t ask. Mr. Sawyer expects courtesy to the guests from the staff. What’s your name?”

He didn’t like that. But he was the sort of bully who deflates when authority’s pin sticks him.

“Tony Ricco.” It was a mumble.

I said, “You get one warning. Not a second. Don’t let me hear a complaint. Now, Cappola.”

“Right through this door.” He was in a helpful sweat now, indicating the way the redhead had gone, buzzing the electric lock under his counter.

The thick metal door folded back on silent hinges at my shove. I went through to a blind passage. Back here the building looked like a vault and was used as one. A huge black man sat at a desk studded with unidentified buttons along its back edge. He wore a khaki uniform, no insignia, and could have been either island or hotel police. He was just as cordial as the cashier. The cold eyes watched me come toward him.

I said, “Cappola,” and dropped the ID.

He bent toward a speaker that was set flush in the desk, flicked the switch, and said in a deep growl, “A Mr. Carter. New security guy.”

An answer grated back, fuzzed by the intercom. “Shoot him through.”

The man dipped his head, thumbed a button and a panel across the corridor slid aside without sound. Beyond it was a large room, with bare yellow walls, a desk with nothing on it, some empty chairs and a deep couch with the redhead draped against its back. A cigarette set in her mouth, sending blue smoke in a thin straight rise past half-lowered eyes. She showed no surprise to see me.

Chip Cappola tilted his chair back behind the desk, looking like George Raft hoped he did thirty years ago. Dark straight oiled hair plastered flat, deep olive skin over a tight face that was still sleek but would be creviced and jowly in a few years. The coat of his white silk suit hung on a hanger against the wall. His lavender shirt with a maroon monogram on the sleeve was the bright spot in the drab room. His tone was drab too.

“The geese came south early this year.”

“They didn’t stop in Miami,” I told him.

I don’t know who dreams up the recognition signals we use to make a new contact. They’re supposed to sound innocuous and yet not likely to have been spoken by accident, although agents have been known to make mistakes with outsiders. Cappola looked me up and down, a sardonic twist on his brown lips.

“Nick Carter, huh? Killmaster, huh? You don’t look like any hit man I ever saw. That kind of job takes guts.”

I winked at the redhead and asked him, “You like to inspect mine?”

He shrugged. “Not unless you got ’em with polka dots. You see one, you seen them all.”

The girl chortled, and the man at the desk threw a thumb her way “Mitzy Gardner there. Maybe you heard of her.”

I had indeed. But she wasn’t the Mitzy type. She was a bomb, and notorious in her own right. Her rap sheet said she’d been mistress to a long list of top echelon hoods, four of them now dead. An educated guess put her as a bag girl for all of them, trusted to carry Mafia money to Miami, to be moved on to the Bahamas for laundering before it went to Swiss bank accounts.

Chip Cappola now headed her list, a man high in gangster ranks, wanted in the States and unable to go to the mainland. It was a laugh that with his record he was presently up to his thick neck working for AXE.

Cappola wasn’t interested in national security. His loyalty was exclusively to the nation of the underworld. But he decidedly did not want the Communists taking this casino away from him and so it was to his advantage to have Randolph Fleming as president. With Fleming in the saddle, Cappola’s business on Grand LaClare could continue as it had under Hammond.

Cappola waved at a chair and I took it. He said, “I’m damned glad you lucked in on the flight with Fleming. We lose him, we’ll get our throats cut. The casino goes down the drain and Sawyer’s out another hotel.” There was undisguised worry in the flat, rasping voice.

“We didn’t loose him,” I reminded the gangster. “He’s president and Colonel Jerome says everything’s quiet.”

The front legs of his chair hit the floor hard. “You talked to Jerome? Tell him who you are?” He spat the words out. There was fury in his voice.

I said. “Why are you so mad?”

“Did you tell him?”

“Of course not. What have you got against him?” He put both hands flat on the desk and leaned over them. “Carib Jerome ordered Fleming kidnapped.”

I kept a straight face. “What gave you that idea, Cappola?”

“Idea? We know. You think nobody but AXE keeps track of what’s what? We got an ear in Cuba. He’s like this with Fidel.” He held up two fingers tight together. “Jerome wants Fleming out of the way for good.”

“Uh-uh.” I wasn’t impressed. Whatever information the Cosa Nostra had, it didn’t match with ours nor did it fit with the Colonel’s behavior. “Fleming was out of the way in the States. Jerome called him back.”

Cappola had a wicked grin. “Because you pulled the rug. Listen to me, buster. As long as Fleming was loose on the mainland, Jerome couldn’t make his power play and bring the Reds in here. The U.S. would have put the Doc in the front boat, shipped him over and supervised the election. Jerome would’ve been booted off the island. But with Fleming in a Cuban jail, Jerome could yell that if he was running the country, he could bail out the Doc. He’d be put in the Palace in a blink and that would be the last anybody ever heard of Randolph Fleming.”

I’ll listen to anything that makes sense. What Cappola was saying might. But I wasn’t jumping on the Mafia bandwagon yet. Even if all this was true, Jerome’s hands were tied now.

A buzzer sounded like a snake, three quick hisses. Cappola rammed to his feet, read the doubt in my face, and said across my shoulder to the redhead, “Take him out of circulation and tell him the rest of it.” He went out of the office fast.

Mitzy Gardner got off the couch and slung a bag over her shoulder without hurry, watching me, appraising, mocking.

“Heart attack in the casino,” she said without interest. “Happens once in awhile, a big winner or a big loser.” She had a scorching voice that came clear from her chest. “Let’s take a ride, lover.”

“The security chief walk out on trouble? If you really think Jerome made a try for Fleming, it’s my job to see a second grab doesn’t come off.”

She shrugged lightly. “The casino has its own staff apart from the hotel’s. Fleming’s safe for the day. Chip has him bottled up in bed, doped. He’s not going anywhere and you need to hear and see a few things.”

She touched the door control and led me through, telling the black lackey with easy familiarity, “We’re going down, Duke.”

He stretched a white grin for her. Liked her looks better than mine. The button he chose opened an elevator at the opposite end of the hall from the casino entrance. It took us to a four-car basement garage with a Volks station wagon and a long lavender Cadillac. Nice privacy for visitors who didn’t want to be seen. I commented on that.

Her smile was wry. “The elevator goes to Chip’s roof penthouse too. That’s where Fleming is.”

She slid under the wheel of the Caddy. I sat beside her.

“On the floor until we clear the hotel,” she told me. “Jerome would have a tail on you if you showed.”

I played along, let her try to spook me, doubled down on the floor as she pushed a button. A steel partition sighed up. She kicked the big motor to life and we purred under the door. The hollow echo beyond indicated a larger garage with the grease smell of a service section, then we nosed up a ramp to ground level. The shell drive whispered under the tires. She made the turn toward town at the boulevard and half a mile later beckoned me up. The litter from yesterday’s celebration was being swept up and the street was back to its normal quiet.

“Jerome,” I said. “If there was anything to Cappola’s suspicion, the obvious way to remove Fleming would have been to kill him. Why send him to Cuba?”

She didn’t even glance at me. “A corpse is of no use to anyone. Fleming alive might be used as a bargaining point against Russia.”

“Possibly. Now about me, why would Jerome want a tail on me?”

Her look withered me. “He stumbled over you once. That business with your gun didn’t just happen. He wanted you out. How many times do you have to be hit on the head to wise up?”

I put it all on the back burner to cook. With Fleming safely in Cappola’s cocoon for the coming hours, there was time to think ahead and plan moves, things best done in relaxation. I relaxed.

We drove past the open market and through Government Park where the Palace dominated. Beyond that, alone on a hilltop, crouched a great time-blackened fort from the early days. Its base would be honeycombed with dungeons for government prisoners. Ugly place. At the bottom of the hill on the bay side was the cluster of the old town. The road narrowed there. Mitzy crawled past donkeys, carts, native women in bright skirts and kerchiefs toting loads on top of their heads. The color, old charm and history of the island was on parade here, where tourists didn’t venture.

The houses petered out. Mountains rose from the side of the highway away from the water. Against the bay, in lonely isolation, an old resort hotel rotted away silently. Gingerbread dripped from roofs and balconies, wide verandas sagged into the blooming lawn gone wild in a tangled riot. Doors and windows were boarded with plywood. In Victoria’s time it had been elegant.

“The old Poinciana,” the redhead said. “Finest place in the Caribbean when it was built. Termite paradise now. I looked at it once for a Miami friend with a notion he could revitalize it. Huh-uh. But it’s still used. The mountain people camp there when they want to stay near town.”

A couple of things about her seemed odd. She didn’t speak like a moll. Her well-modulated voice held intelligence and breeding. And for a mere bag girl, her opinions appeared to carry weight among the Mafia. She was obviously something more than a carrier of unlawful money. She had even been told my true identity. That made me curious. I asked her how come. She gave me a Mona Lisa smile.

“When Chip got scared he could lose the casino, I called Davey and told him to shoot you down here for the rescue.”

Davey? Davey Hawk?

Hawk taking orders from this broad? It hit me right between the eyes. Was Mitzy Gardner an AXE agent? Was Hawk playing games, letting me dig it out by myself?

“Honey,” I said, “fun and games are fine, but who the hell are you?”

My question got a counter question. “Which one of my hats would you like me to put on?”

I damned her under my breath and leered to even the score. “I’d rather see you take them all off.”

She didn’t lose her cool. “You’re in luck. Were on our way”

We continued into open country with jungle growing thick down to the road on both sides. Then there were patches of sugar cane and small banana plantations. The girl talked about the changing economy of the place. Bananas brought more profit than sugar cane — green gold she called them. Mace, cloves, cinnamon, and the fragrant tonka beans were also becoming popular crops. She said she had a small plantation on the far side of the island. A nest egg for a rainy day I assumed.

The road was anything but straight. It followed the shore for awhile, then it bent toward the mountains that formed a spine down the middle of the island.

When the plantations were behind us, the ground roughened into swamp jungle on the sea side and wrinkled into hogbacks and canyons the other way, heavily timbered and tangled with vine. We were about twelve miles from town when Mitzy swung the heavy car away from the road into two sand ruts, wallowed a quarter of a mile down that and stopped where the trees did, at the back of a lagoon.

She killed the engine, kicked out of her sandals, and opened her door. I sat admiring the view. The shore cupped around deep blue water to a horn half a mile away. There the land rose abruptly to a high nose with the hint of an ancient fortification still visible.

The view in front of me was even better. Mitzy was out of the Caddy, running, shucking off jacket and pants, briefs, streaking for the water. She turned and flung an arm to wave at me. I didn’t need a second invitation. I dropped my own clothes and went after her, but she’d had a head start and hit the water well before I did.

There was only a low swell of lazy surf and the lagoon was warm as new drawn milk. The girl struck off with a strong, fluid stroke and was far from shore when I caught up with her. I couldn’t touch bottom but we treaded. Her skin was sleek under my hands. I reached for her hips to pull her to me. She flung herself backward, her body sinking and circled her legs around me. Neither of us was quite ready when she raised her head and gasped, using her arms in a stroke to drive herself on me.

In that deep water I had no leverage. I didn’t need it. She had enough for both of us. Her timing was great.

When it was over, she loosened her legs, and floated to the surface. I floated up beside her and we rested. In the warm stillness I went to sleep. I didn’t know it until my head went under and I swallowed lukewarm salt water.

The girl was gone. Sputtering, I looked around. She was lying on the beach on her stomach, brown against the white sand, her back unmarked by swimsuit patches. I swam in, stretched out beside her and went to sleep again. The next thing I knew her throaty voice was saying, “Rise and shine, Carter. You’re about to meet a friend.”

I clawed back to consciousness. The sun was low in the west. I couldn’t see anyone on the beach except the pair of us. Nothing moved but a few sluggish crabs. Then she pointed along the cove toward the headland. Something was advancing across the water, and it wasn’t a boat.

It looked like a human figure. I was groggy but not that groggy. I blinked, shook my head and looked again. It was still there. A thousand feet away and out at the depth where I hadn’t been able to find footing, a man was walking. Tall, blue-black, thin, in a long white robe that billowed out like dry cloth. He came toward us dignified but purposeful. It was unbelievable.

The girl stood up casually and waved, went to gather her clothes and got into them without hurry.

Was it voodoo? Or had she mainlined me with valium while I was out? I knew it was hallucination. I knew the cove water was salty. Floating on it was easy. I knew it felt like syrup. But even so it didn’t keep me from sinking when I fell asleep on it.

The man kept coming. About ten feet from the shore, he lifted his robe to his waist, above a twist of loincloth, sank slowly in the water to his thighs and rose again in a stride up the beach.

He looked to be seven feet tall. He was old and his long beard and hair were white. His frame was skinny, but taut with muscle.

I sat naked on the sand and I looked up at the high brow, the somber eyes, the wide mouth that smiled at Mitzy Gardner. She was beside me again and he took her hand in fingers that would span a basketball, holding it gently as if it were an uncooked egg. She spoke to him in a language I didn’t know and they laughed. She looked down at me and said in English, “Meet Noah, Nick. He’s lived here since heaven knows when. And he’s another who doesn’t want Red missiles on his island.”

I stood up. What else?

Noah studied me, fingering on my middle section, then offered a hand. Mine disappeared in his palm, but his pressure was only enough to be a solid, honest grip. It was real flesh I touched, warm, with blood inside, alive.

“My admiration, Mr. Carter.” The accent was impeccably British, the tone a muted baritone that would thunder if he chose. “Mitzy claims accomplishments for you that strain my credulity.”

“Your credulity?” I swallowed. “At least what I do is possible. I’m afraid you’re impossible to believe.”

His eyes went to Mitzy and held hers. There was a bond between them, a bond of respect, friendship, understanding. Then he brought his attention back to me.

“I must apologize, Mr. Carter. I asked Mitzy to bring you before you became too involved with your duties. Unhappily, a problem has developed up there.” He gestured toward the mountain. “There is a serious illness I must exorcize. I will not be able to stay now, but I felt I should meet you at least and promise you our help should you need it. You will visit me again, I hope.”

He bent, kissed the girl’s forehead lightly, nodded to me, walked back to the shore, hiked up his robe, waded out, stepped up to the surface and walked away across the water.

I gawked after him. Mitzy giggled.

“What happened to your cool? The egg on your face is drying.”

I pointed after the apparition. “How?”

She sobered, gave me a long, speculative look and said, “Don’t question too much, Nick. I’ve seen some very unsettling things since I met that man. You will too. Now we’d better get back to Fleming before he wakes up and wants to hit the street.”

I got into my clothes. Slowly. I kept watching the tall black figure until it disappeared among the rocks at the base of the hill.

“Give,” I told the girl. “What’s the story on your friend?”

She lifted a brown shoulder. “You heard me before. Just be prepared for surprises. Noah’s full of them and I’m sure I haven’t seen or heard them all.”

She ran away from me toward the car. The engine roared, full-throated, before I got there. As soon as I was in the seat, she spun the wheels on the hard sand and headed out to the road.

I didn’t for one minute buy the story that Noah had some special magic up his sleeve. He struck me as particularly sane and shrewd.

“Is he a hermit?” I asked Mitzy.

“Anything but. He rules a tribe of over a hundred people up in that old fort. He says his people hold up there a couple of hundred years ago, after a slave rebellion. They’re a spooky lot. They can be all around you in the jungle and you won’t see one unless he intends you to.”

“How did you get acquainted?”

The full lips pursed and she faced me. “Funny about that, too. I was at the cove for a swim one day and he came down to give me a message. Chip’s second in command at the casino had been shot and Chip was looking for me to take the word to Miami. The guy was killed at 3:10 in the afternoon. It was a quarter after three when Noah told me.”

That was easier. I was back on solid ground. “Jungle drums.” I laughed. “Bamboo telegraph.”

“Probably. But later I saw him cure a very sick woman with voodoo. He claimed to have exorcised her devils into the sea. She got up right away.”

My scalp prickled. The girl beside me was tough enough to survive in the tough world of the Mafia. That takes pragmatism. Now she was talking about voodoo and black magic, almost believing it. I didn’t ask any more questions.

We rode in silence for five miles. Suddenly there was a black man standing in the middle of the road, a hand raised to stop us. Mitzy pulled up beside him. He sounded excited; she asked him something in the native dialect and he shook his head. She looked worried, whipped the car in reverse, made a U-turn and kicked the accelerator to the floor.

“Noah wants us in a hurry,” she said. “Something’s happened, but he didn’t say what.”

I glanced at her, then looked back toward the messenger. The road was empty. When we passed the next turn, the road deteriorated badly and we should’ve had a jeep to bounce up that climb. I winced for the Caddy. Halfway to the top, the track ended at a pothole two feet deep.

“We walk from here,” the girl said.

We didn’t exactly walk. We clambered like mountain goats through the trees. We came out of the timber at a high wall built of limestone.

The fortress covered the whole headland and looked impregnable. Beyond the gate the courtyard was set in the same limestone. Stone buildings backed against the wall faced inward, some crumbling but others in good condition, forming a platform with their roofs.

The population was gathered around Noah. They were very dark with Indian faces, men in loincloths, women wearing only short, brilliant skirts, naked spidery children, all silent and solemn.

Noah came through them as we walked in, his face grave, drawn, his eyes fierce.

Without preamble he gave it to us. “Dr. Fleming has been kidnapped. Chip Cappola was killed trying to prevent it. Jerome has occupied the hotel. All Americans and Europeans on the island are being evacuated on the cruise boats.”

“Where’s Tara Sawyer?” I asked.

Not until later did it dawn on me that I had simply accepted the information out of hand. Through my silent five-mile ride with Mitzy, I had heard not a single beat of drums.

“The message did not mention her,” Noah told me.

At least there had been a message. He wasn’t conjuring up visions.

I said, “How did you hear about this?”

He cast a look at the people crowding around us and his lips turned up at the corners.

“Do not doubt me, Mr. Carter, there is not time. The doctor is being held in the dungeons under the old fort and must be rescued. Your Miss Sawyer is probably being sent home on one of the boats.”

“Not likely. I can’t see Jerome letting her go when he could hold up her father for ransom.”

“You have a point there. There is other news. Descriptions of you both have been broadcast and a reward, a thousand dollars each, is offered for your capture.”

I swore aloud. “I go joyriding and the sky falls down...”

“As well you did,” Noah interrupted. “Had you been in the hotel, you would be dead now and could do nothing. As it is, you can fight.”

“Well, I’d better do something.” I touched the girl. “Stay here; you’ll be safe. I’ll borrow the car.”

“No dice. You don’t know the territory. I do and I’m on this job, too.” There was a metallic hardness in her voice, a hint of the strength that had gouged her a place in the Brotherhood.

“She is right,” Noah backed her up. “You cannot return to Port of Spain by the coast road. Jerome has it blocked. You’ll have to go through the mountains and you’ll need help.” He pointed a long finger at one squat, dark man, then another. “Pants. Shirts. Guide them.”

The men ran for the buildings.

While we waited, Noah added, “They speak English and are intelligent. Go down to the car and they will meet you there.”

I didn’t like this. How did I know Noah’s story was true? And who wanted his escorts on a trip that could end God knew where? But I had no choice. I was outnumbered by Noah’s boys and even Mitzy was on his side. So I went along — at least for now.

By the time we reached the Caddy, the pair were there, grinning. Our guides now wore knee-length white cotton pants and white shirts with the sleeves tom out. Machetes were stuck under their rope belts. They swung into the back seat of the car, giving directions.

There was enough turning room for a donkey cart. The girl rocked the car back and forth for five minutes before we were headed downhill. The main road had been bad. This one hardly existed. We took it in low gear over a Swiss cheese of holes, and for added pleasure came abruptly out of the trees on a sheer cliff on the far side of the mountain spine. We turned to follow a narrow lane downward. The fenders scraped the wall on one side and on the other I looked straight down to a canyon bottom. I didn’t say a word — talking might distract Mitzy, who was driving.

There was half a mile of that, then we were in timber again with a fence of trunks on either side. I started breathing again.

“So you know the territory,” I said to Mitzy. “How do we get into Jerome’s dungeon?”

She shook her head. “We’ll have to work on that. Our first stop should be that old resort hotel I showed you on our way to meet Noah. We can get ourselves together there and consolidate our plans.”

I said it was O.K. with me and she drove towards Noah’s hotel. It was getting dark when we reached a road wide enough for a car. We caught glimpses of lights below us through the trees so we were close to town. Mitzy flipped on the headlights to enter the highway.

The beam picked up a man in uniform with a rifle leveled on us. The girl hit the brakes fast, threw into reverse and backed up. On a hunch I looked behind the car. The rear lights showed another soldier raising a rifle. My Luger was up and blasting before his gun was high enough. At the same time the windshield exploded. Glass showered over the girl but she kept driving. Then I fired through the windshield frame and the man in front of the car fell.

Mitzy stopped the Caddy and I had time to look at our guides. They were crouched behind the front seat. I thought they might have been hit by the shots, but both of them straightened. They’d been frightened — and cautious. I got out for the presents Colonel Jerome had handed me. Both his soldiers were dead. I took the uniforms, tossed them in the rear seat, then brought in the rifles. Noah’s men grabbed them like professionals.

I said, “You know how those work?”

They did. They’d been in the palace guard when Fleming was president. That knowledge might come in handy some time. For now, I hung onto the weapons while they dragged the bodies into the brush and left them for whatever hungry cat came along.

The roadblock proved Noah’s information. There was more to the old man than I’d been willing to admit. So Jerome had taken over, just like Noah’d said. I’d better get my thinking gear together and figure out a way to free Fleming. Noah’s credibility also gave me new faith in his guides. Since they’d signed up for the trip anyway, and since they could handle firearms, they might come in handy later, when I had to face down Colonel Jerome.

We made the hotel without being jumped again and Mitzy pulled the Caddy into a ramshackle shed at the back. We went from there to the broken-down lobby.

Mildew and rotting wood stank up the air. Our guides crossed the lobby floor and led us down stairs that creaked and sagged, into the kitchen, a big one with a long wood range against one wall and a work table in the middle. We were not alone. A candle burned on the table and three black men were eating an iguana, a delicacy that made my empty stomach snarl.

There was a lot of fast talking, the exhibiting of the guns and uniforms, congratulations all around, and, finally, introductions. When all the hands were shaken, I found a pan of water in the sink, rinsed the blood off the uniform fronts, then joined the supper party. With the edge off my hunger, I felt a little less like a yoyo at the end of a string of astonishments and disasters. My plate was still half full when the three tribesmen left. I was thankful to see them go. We had battle plans to go over and I didn’t relish unwanted company.

Noah had given me our guides’ names when we first got together, but since I didn’t know the language, I couldn’t remember them. It seemed to me they ran long, with a great many syllables. I didn’t want to offend these men by calling them Tom or Harry, so I explained the problem and asked for help.

The taller one laughed and said, “You can call me Lambie.” He pronounced it with a hard “B.”

Mitzy leaned close to my ear. “Lambie is a big salt-water conche. They eat the meat as an aphrodisiac.”

“It has flair.” I smiled. “Says a lot more than N3 by way of a nickname. And you?” I looked at the other guide.

His lips stretched wide. “Caco.”

“Short enough,” I approved. “What’s that mean?”

He smiled. “A bird of prey. Very fierce.”

“Fine.” I beamed. They were sharp. And they could joke even in the face of taking on the whole island army. Maybe we had some kind of chance.

“You understand that we have to get inside that prison, find Dr. Fleming and take him out alive. But first we must get inside. Does anyone know of any old escape routes prisoners may have dug in the past?” I looked around.

The answer was no. There had been one. They described it. A slender mole hole that ran from a cell to the face of the hill below the foundations. It had been too narrow to turn around in and too steep to allow anyone to crawl backwards to the cell. There was an iron grille across the hillside where the passage opened. A bleached skull pressed against the bars inside and finger bones still wrapped around them. So much for that. I would have to play it by ear and it could be messy.

I said so. “Are you ready to tackle it?”

I got two elaborate shrugs, fatalistic. Caco said quietly. “If Fleming dies, we die anyway. Jerome wants our mountain for his missile station. He will come for it and we have not enough men and too few weapons to stop him.”

More and more I liked Noah’s men. There was no guessing their ages, but their skin was sleek, with good muscle under it, and there was nothing wrong with their coordination. They moved with the grace of jungle cats. I pointed at the uniforms.

“Climb into those. You’ll play the part of soldiers. You’ve captured Mitzy and me and you’ll deliver us at the fort. You’ll tell them Jerome has ordered us locked in with Dr. Fleming, in the same cell.”

The girl’s eyes slitted. I didn’t like putting her life in jeopardy, but our “capture” would be more convincing if she was with us.

Caco and Lambie peeled out of the shirts and pants, hesitated over the loin clothes, then shyly turned their backs and unwound those. Both were wearing ouanga, battle charm sacks on thongs around their necks. Rifles were fine, but I guess they felt it didn’t hurt to take along a little extra protection. They buttoned the uniform jackets over the charms, hiked up the army trousers, and squared to attention.

We went back through the tunnel to the shed. Mitzy still drove, with me beside her in front. The two men stood up in the rear with their rifles against our necks.

The girl backed out and headed for the fort, using rear alleys. Tonight the streets were empty, everyone keeping indoors behind drawn blinds. The shops were dark and barred against looters. Port of Spain was a silent, grim city, altogether different from the gay place of the night before.

We climbed toward the fort on the low hill. A green lawn in front of the building tried to make it look innocent, but the iron fence surrounding it and a cannon bristling midway spoiled the effect. So did the sentry box outside the fence.

A corporal and two privates saw our climbing lights and walked into the road with rifles ready. Mitzy slowed and stopped short of them. Behind me Lambie cried out:

“Corporal, come see what we have. The fat prize.” He shoved my head forward with the rifle barrel, giving a high laugh.

The corporal came near with caution. Both our boys broke into a hairy story of the battle they’d had to take us. They made it good and convincing. The corporal was impressed. While our guys were still bragging, he raised his rifle, centering it on me.

My stomach tightened. He wouldn’t shoot Mitzy, I was sure, because of the possible ransom. But what Jerome had in mind for me might be something else. The corporal let me stew while he took the pleasure of watching me through his sights. Then he barked a command. The privates moved out of the road. The corporal climbed into the rear seat and ordered Mitzy to drive up to the fort.

It was a grisly looking building, no windows and only a single, center door like an open mouth. It made me think of a blind beast that ate people who displeased its master. It even had a plank tongue protruding from it. Mitzy stopped on the paved parking lot in front, and I saw that the planks were a drawbridge across a moat. It was weed-choked now, but in times past there would’ve been a line of slaves hauling sea water to fill it. Any attack would’ve had a wet crossing.

A private held the center of the bridge and the whole area was floodlighted. Our corporal got out and leveled his rifle again.

“Get them to the ground while I cover the man.”

I was prodded again and stepped out. Mitzy got out on the other side. Caco and Lambie kept their guns in our backs. The corporal gloated for a bit, then left us to cross the drawbridge and enter the fort. Minutes later he strutted back with a lieutenant. The private on the bridge presented arms smartly and the new man’s austere bearing tipped me he was in command.

The corporal chattered with excited gestures, hopping around until the officer slashed a hand to shut him up. From the glitter in the lieutenant’s eyes, I thought I knew who would collect Jerome’s reward, if this had been the real capture.

Lambie said smartly, “Colonel’s orders, sir. These two are to be locked up with Fleming. All the netted birds together.”

“Understood,” the lieutenant snapped. “Bring them into the guard room.”

He about-faced and we were walked into the old building along a stone passage, a place of chill echoes, a nightmare for a claustrophobiac. In the guard room the lieutenant flicked a hand that ordered us searched.

Caco chirped, “We did that when we caught them, sir. Stripped them clear down.”

“You did well.” The lieutenant turned a smirk on me. “Nick Carter, is it. Very dangerous, the colonel said. Tonight your teeth are going to be pulled, I think.”

I let my shoulders slump and put on a hangdog look. He swung his attention to Mitzy. Even with tears in her eyes and huddled like a frightened kitten she was a lot to see. Maybe he even liked her better submissive. His hips swayed and he pried her chin up with a forefinger.

“You, there. The colonel says you are valued by the Syndicate, that they will pay well to have you back. We will ask.”

Mitzy cowered further, pressed a hand over her mouth and whimpered. “Please, sir, please don’t send me there. They’ll kill me.”

The man’s brows climbed. “If you have value, why would they do that?”

She chewed her lip, holding back, then as though she saw that he had the power to make her talk, she whispered, “I was carrying some money for them. I didn’t deliver it...”

Dollar signs pinwheeled in the dark eyes. He sounded eager. “Where is it now?”

Suddenly looking hopeful, her words pounced. “I could show you. I couldn’t describe where... But if you turn us loose, I’d...”

His laugh was nasty. “No need for that, is there? As for Carter, the colonel would chain me in his place if I lost him.” He shrugged. “For some reason, Jerome is very impressed.”

The girl twisted her fingers together, held them toward the man, moved toward him, supplication and sensuousness in every step.

“Just me then? You and I?”

Lust fit up his face. Without taking his eyes off her, he spoke to our two men.

“One of you stay here, the other take Carter to the cell.”

I had a bad minute while I thought the lieutenant meant to stay with the girl. Then I realized he was sending me below with a single guard. I moved a few muscles as if I liked the idea and would try to jump the guard along the way. I thought Mitzy could handle the officer all right, but there might be a fight, noise, and I didn’t want a fracas to bring in more soldiers. The lieutenant caught my movements, smirked, and decided to go along with me, after all. He started out the door ahead of me and Lambie. Mitzy called after him, sugar sweet.

“Lieutenant... I’ll be waiting...”

He marched down the corridor more jaunty than military. I glanced over my shoulder as we left. The lieutenant’s mind would not be, entirely on duty while he took me to the cell.

At the end of the hall he opened a door, a stone slab, waved us ahead and pulled it closed after him. With that granite shut tight, no sound from the dungeons would be heard above ground. We went down a circular stone stairway to another passage. Down here water dripped from limestone stalactites on the arched ceiling, winking in the light of the officer’s lantern. There was no other illumination. He took the lead again, past about twenty grilled doors on either side of the stinking passage. At the far end he fished a brass key six inches long from a pocket, unlocked the grille and preceded me into the cell.

Dr. Fleming was against the back wall, one knee drawn up, the other leg stretched out badly swollen. He was sitting on the green slime that covered the stone floor, one hand held above his head by a thick iron cuff on a chain stapled into the wall.

He raised his head, blinked against the light, saw me at the edge of it and straightened. Then he saw the guard with the rifle and finally, the lieutenant.

Fleming’s shoulders dropped again and he let his head fall. The officer stood above him, smiling. He unbuttoned his holster, lifted out his gun and stepped aside where he could watch both Fleming and me, raising the gun slowly toward my middle.

“Doctor.” The voice was oily. “Did you hope you had an effective ally on the island? A man who saved you once and might again? I present him to you now. I will leave him with you. After I have assured myself that he will stay here to answer Colonel Jerome’s questions.”

Behind me Lambie’s breath stucked in, loud and wet.

I had several choices: I could step aside and let my man shoot the lieutenant. But the officer might be faster on the trigger and I was becoming very fond of Lambie. Or I could try for a distraction and go for my Luger.

While I was debating a rat as big as a house cat, flushed out of hiding by the lantern, scuffed across the cell, over the lieutenant’s boots. He saw the dark ugly shape from the corner of an eye, jumped away, and shot it. That took his gun off me long enough. Mine was in my hand. I fired through his eye. The lantern sailed into the air. I caught it with my free hand, burned my fingers on the hot globe, but set it down without breaking it. The lieutenant fell on his face, staining the green slime with red.

Lambie made a pleased sound. I was pleased too that my movement hadn’t surprised him, causing him to contract his trigger finger. I gave Lambie a fist of thanks on his shoulder, then we looked to the doctor. Fleming squinted, not yet accustomed to light. He looked up bewildered.

“I don’t understand,” he quavered. “Colonel Jerome asked me to return to lead the government. Why have I been arrested? Why were you brought here? Why are you so friendly with this soldier?”

“Later,” I told him. “We’ll talk about it.”

Both David Hawk and Tara Sawyer had been emphatic about the doctor not discovering that we were involved in his being made president. I cursed them both. After Jerome’s doublecross, I was tempted to tell the truth. But if they were right, if Fleming turned sulky and wouldn’t play any more, who was going to keep the enemy off the island? So I lied my eyeballs off. If I could get Fleming to Noah, maybe the black patriarch could explain things to him.

I pointed to his foot. “How badly are you hurt?”

He still looked puzzled but I wanted him thinking of something other than politics.

He sighed. “My leg’s broken.”

I left Fleming to search the lieutenant’s pockets for a key to the handcuff. It wasn’t on him. I took the lantern to the chain and examined it. I could shoot the chain off, but I didn’t have too much ammunition with me. I might need my bullets upstairs. A shot wasted here could make a difference in whether we made it away from the fort.

The mortar between the stones where the staple was anchored was a couple of centuries old, weakened by water seepage. I braced a foot against the wall and pulled. The chain was loose and moved a fraction of an inch, but it wouldn’t come free. I tried a couple of times, but, it was no go. We’d have to dig it out.

I snapped my arm and the stiletto dropped out of the chamois sheath into my curved fingers. The razor-sharp point bit into the mortar, chipped away a pebble at a time. Lambie worked the staple. It took more time than I liked. In spite of the cold, I was sweating. If the lieutenant didn’t show upstairs soon, somebody would come looking, several somebodies.

I cut around one side of the staple. Then, with both Lambie and me hauling on the chain, the tired old metal broke. We stumbled back, slipping in the oily slime. Fleming was yanked forward, but the chain kept us from falling. When I caught my balance, I stuffed the loose end of the chain in the doctor’s pocket and Lambie and I lifted him to his good foot. He was wobbly from the ordeal. I left Lambie to support him while I stripped off the lieutenant’s gold-braided coat. I also took the dead man’s belt and gun, handed them to Lambie and held the Doctor’s arm.

I told Lambie, “Get out of that jacket and into this. You’re being commissioned in the field.”

Lambie complied. Carrying Fleming between us, we went back to the guard room.

Mitzy Gardner’s handsome chest heaved in relief. She turned a chair for the doctor, saying as he sank into it, “What kept you so long? We were just about to come looking. God, what did they do to him?”

I snapped my fingers at Caco.

“Keys. Look in the drawers.”

He opened the top drawer and tossed me a handful. I tried several before I found one that fit, then the lock was so rusty I had to slam it with a paper weight until it released. When the handcuff fell away, I saw the spikes inside and the drying blood around deep gashes on Fleming’s wrist. Rust from the old handcuff was embedded in the cuts, but there was no way to wash them, no medication in the office. It would have to wait.

I explained my plan for leaving the fort. Lambie in his new uniform would stand with his back to the door. Caco was to tell the private on the drawbridge that the lieutenant wanted him inside. When he came, we would disarm him, then tie and gag him.

With the door cleared, Mitzy would go for the car, head it downhill close to the drawbridge while we brought Fleming across. He and I would curl up on the floor of the rear seat, Lambie in his braid would ride in the front between Mitzy and Caco.

At the sentry box Lambie would hold the lieutenant’s gun on Mitzy, turned to face her. Caco would tell the corporal Jerome had ordered the girl brought to him. If it worked, fine. If it didn’t, I had my Luger and Lambie and Caco were also armed. Three against three are very good odds.

We made it to the Caddy without trouble. Mitzy flipped on the headlights and drove downhill. The sentries saw us coming and moved out to the road, but not blocking it. They didn’t expect a jailbreak. The corporal raised a hand to make a routine check and Mitzy stopped abreast of him. Caco leaned forward to screen Lambie from the soldiers and sounded disgusted.

“Colonel changed his mind. He wants the girl brought to him. Now.”

The corporal looked worried. “Lieutenant, if you take her over yourself, who’s in charge here?”

“You are,” Lambie barked. “Don’t pass anyone through until I come back. Drive on.”

The corporal jumped back. Lambie’s voice didn’t match the real lieutenant’s. “Hold on... you’re not... What is this?”

I heard a gun explode and came to my knees. Caco had shot the corporal. The privates were caught off guard, but as Mitzy slammed the car ahead, one still grabbed at the door handle. I broke the hand with the snout of the Luger, then shot him. The other’s rifle was whipping up when I put a bullet in his stomach. His rifle went off and plowed a hole in the door.

Then we were clear, swerving headlong down the drive. We were near the bottom when the Caddy sputtered and died. I knew the sound. We were out of gas. Mitzy coasted to a stop, looked around at me and shrugged. With the town under martial law, gas stations were closed. And Fleming was in no shape for a hike of more than twenty miles through the mountains.

We might carry him as far as Noah’s hotel, but what then? He wouldn’t be safe anywhere near Port of Spain when Jerome learned he was gone. We needed another car. We were still high enough so that I could see along the beach road. Out beyond the old town a jeep was parked. Dark figures passed nearby, in front of lanterns set across the highway, one of the colonel’s roadblocks. I pointed it out to our group.

“There’s our transportation. I don’t know how many we have to take it away from, and we can’t risk gunfire to bring more troops swarming over us. You two wander down there, get them bunched while I cut around behind them. Mitzy, do you have a gun?”

The girl looked insulted. “Do I look undressed?”

“Stay here with the doctor. If anyone comes, shoot if you have to, but try a con first.”

Lambie and Caco vanished along the dark road. I went down beyond the houses that faced the hill. The cottages were jammed against each other, with another row backed up to them. When there weren’t any more houses, I was in jungle, the lanterns blinking farther ahead. Fern and green creepers cushioned any sound I might make. I flanked the jeep and eased out until I could see the patrol. I couldn’t understand the words but whatever Lambie and Caco were saying must have been hilarious. The soldiers, four of them in a tight group, were doubled over, laughing, their backs toward me. I moved fast, before they turned, the Luger leveled. From close behind them, I said sharply, “There’s a gun on all of you. Don’t move.”

The laughter stopped abruptly. They froze. Lambie backed away, raising his rifle, the gold braid shining in the lantern glow. Caco made a jump for the jeep, tilted into the back and came up with rope. The soldiers’ heads followed him and I had a look at four astonished, frightened faces. Caco tied and gagged the soldiers. As he worked over the last one under Lambie’s rifle, I checked the jeep for gas. It was a relief to find it full.

“Lose them back in the bush while I go for the doctor,” I said. “And get the lanterns out of the road.”

I drove the little vehicle back to the Caddy, wishing for a length of small hose to siphon fuel into the big car. And wishing for light. The headlights on the jeep didn’t work. Mitzy had the rear door of the Cadillac open and Fleming on the edge of the seat ready to be moved. I picked him up and lifted him into the smaller car.

“Going to be a full load in this nutshell,” I told the girl.

She climbed in beside me as I got behind the wheel again and said as I started downhill, “Lambie and Caco can ride the fenders as far as the hotel. Then they can get home by themselves.”

It would have to be that way, but it wasn’t good. Without headlights and without guidance, I couldn’t follow the mountain road. The idea of trying to drive those winding curves in the dark made me shudder. I would have to run the gauntlet of the shore highway.

Lambie and Caco didn’t want to be left behind, but finally gave in.

When they left, I started the jeep again. It was the first chance I’d had to ask Fleming more than the moment demanded. I called over my shoulder to him.

“Do you know what happened to Tara Sawyer? Did they let her leave?”

A groan answered. “No, they did not. The soldiers who took me to prison said she would be held for a million-dollar ransom. Where are you taking me?”

“To Noah.”

Pain and anxiety filled his voice. “Yes, that first. Then I must come down again. The people will listen to me.”

I let him kid himself. I had problems aplenty without arguments and explanations at this point. Not the least of my troubles was Tara Sawyer. I couldn’t let anything happen to her.

I pushed the jeep, the throttle on the floor. The quicker I delivered Fleming and Mitzy, the sooner I could get back to town. I skidded a curve and saw lanterns ahead. A second roadblock.

“Duck,” I told Mitzy. “And hang tight.”

I slowed. I wanted the men ahead to think we would stop, to let me get close enough without arousing their suspicions. Then I could gun through them before they started shooting. After driving in the dark, the lanterns blinded me. I was only thirty feet from the soldiers when I saw it — a massive truck sprouting a small, rapid fire howitzer at the rear. It was parked crosswise and filled the whole road. I was not going to gun through that.

On one side of us the oily waters of the swamp reflected the lanterns. I wouldn’t get far that way. On the other side were palm trees. Palms don’t grow in water so there would be solid ground, but the trees were too close together for comfort, in a staggered pattern up a slope. The jeep could jam between them. But of the choices, this was the only one possible.

I whipped the wheel and kicked the accelerator, bouncing off the road. I heard them yell for me to halt, then a rifle fired. The bullet clicked through palm leaves, high, a warning shot. Mitzy was twisted in the seat, shooting back. I didn’t look. I was dodging trees, dancing that jeep like a Virginia Reel. I sideswiped one tree, bounched off with two wheels off the ground, nearly tipping over. Then the car dropped back and I slammed through a gap, grinding metal on all four fenders. Guns tracked us by sound, but the soldiers couldn’t see us. Beyond the truck I fought back to the road and found another surprise.

They had a jeep there and four men running to it. I cut in just past it with a glimpse of the army piling in. Loud gasps of pain came from Fleming. It was a rough ride until we leveled out. Mitzy fired over Fleming while I got as much speed as possible out of the little car. It wasn’t going to be enough. One of our tires had blown.

Mitzy yelled, “Nick, they’re coming up on us.”

She didn’t need to tell me. Their bullets stung past us almost as soon as I heard the shots. I passed her the Luger.

“Try for a tire. Draw a line across it and keep pumping lead.”

She used both hands, but shooting at a moving target from a moving station doesn’t allow much aiming. This was one of those times when I wondered if my name was about to be added to the list Hawk keeps in his safe, a star beside each line to signify deceased.

Mitzy yelped. I thought she was hit, but she had sat back on her knees, straight up. In the rear-view mirror I saw why. I was just in time to catch the car behind us go into a drunken swerve at full speed. It spun and went tail down in the swamp. As it sank, marsh gas boiled up around it in bursting bubbles. The headlights glittered on just before they blanked out.

Mitzy put the Luger on the seat then squared around. We limped ahead on the broken tire. It wasn’t the only sound in the night. Off in the jungle there was a rattle of bamboo rods beating against a log drum.

It was a dim sound, eerie in that it seemed to fill the air as light fills it and is part of it. I wondered if Caco and Lambie were getting out a wireless message to the tribe, or whether it was a progress report on us, sent ahead by dark figures invisible in the jungle forest.

The tempo quickened. I sensed an urgency. From the back seat Dr. Fleming spoke, his voice weak with pain.

“We are being followed, and they’re coming on fast.”

I leaned on the jeep, wheedling the last jet of speed it had left.