The Kremlin File

Six

Ahead on the road a torch was being held high, waving us to a turn. I didn’t stop to ask questions. I took the angle. I fought the car through the sand toward another torch down at the shoreline, skidded to a stop and cut the engine.

Noah was there, tall, scrawny without his white robe, wearing only a narrow cloth around his groin. In the silence, as the motor died, I heard a full-throttled roar on the highway. We were out of time. Out of running room. Our back was to the sea. And my Luger was empty. I didn’t think the stiletto was a match for the rifles bearing down on us. Mitzy was already out of the jeep, kicking off her sandals, beckoning to me. Noah bent into the back, scooped Fleming into his long arms, and lifted him out.

Noah said calmly, “Come along, Carter. Take Mitzy’s hand, don’t let go. Keep behind me.”

I shoved the Luger under my belt, took the girl’s hand and followed. Noah walked into the water.

What was to argue? There wasn’t an alternative left that I knew of. We were going to be dead in a short time anyway. And maybe, if we could swim far enough before our pursuers hit the beach, our heads wouldn’t be seen if we kept them low enough in the dark swells.

The bottom sand gave under my feet, slurring away. Noah moved deliberately, cradling Fleming against his chest with ease. The sea surface rose around the big man’s legs, halfway up his thighs, then he began rising in short lurches, a foot at a time. Behind him Mitzy Gardner sank to her breasts. Then she began to rise too.

With my next step my toe stubbed against rock. I stumbled, almost pitched down, then raised my foot, scraping it against the stone while the two people ahead of me stopped, waiting while I caught my balance. I moved my foot forward and found a step, put my weight on it, straightened my knee and felt a second step above the first. We climbed four of them, then leveled off, walking on a rough, flat top of something six inches below the water.

I had a belly laugh. This kind of magic I understood. This was the straight path on which I’d watched Noah come to us the first time. Now I realized there was some old structure here, probably an ancient breakwater that had sunk in an earthquake long before the memory of the present inhabitants. I didn’t think Noah was old enough to have seen it above water. He had probably discovered it accidentally, swimming, and wily old showman that he was, had made capital of it to spook his superstitious tribe.

Ahead of me Mitzy giggled. “You’re being honored, Nick. Let in on the secret nobody else knows. Just watch for slippery spots and don’t wander. The top is only two feet wide.”

I squeezed her hand hard enough to hurt. She had it coming.

“You knew it and tried to snow me, ratfink. How did you find out about it?”

“Swimming. I butted my head against it good, knocking myself out. I was half-drowned when Noah hauled me ashore. He didn’t tell me what I’d hit until I said I was going to find out anyway, then he made me promise not to blow it to anyone else.”

We were almost at the headland when two light beams swept across the water and shouts came to us, angry and frustrated. The jeep had been found but the prey was gone. We were beyond the reach of the beams and couldn’t be seen.

The breakwater ended against a sheer limestone cliff. A flight of steps had been cut out of the wall. Narrow. Only one person at a time could go up. The builders of that fortress had sat up there and thumbed their noses at the king’s ships when they tried to penetrate the cove.

It was a long climb but Noah was not winded when he took us past the top step and dropped five feet to the flat platform that did double duty as footing for defenders and roof for the lower rooms. I thought he ought to be teaching AXE’s physical fitness course. He handed Fleming down to reaching arms and the doctor was hurried into a room.

When we followed, I saw it was already prepared for him. Torches burned in brackets around the stone walls. A thick pallet of aromatic leaves was waiting in the center of the floor. We had walked through an aisle of silent tribesmen, people who reached to touch the doctor lightly as though offering him their strength.

As Fleming was lowered onto the pallet, I said, “He has a broken leg and a wrist full of rust. There’ll be blood poisoning and I didn’t have time to stop by the corner drugstore. He needs antibiotics right away. Any chance of having them brought up here?”

The tall black man moved his head sideways, unconcerned as far as I could tell. Fleming sounded weaker but he was smiling.

“Thank you for your concern, Mr. Carter, but I am in the best possible hands. Ill trust Noah’s medical know-how over the biggest Park Avenue specialist.”

The patriarch said softly, “We had word of the injuries in advance and are prepared.”

He indicated a row of bowls beside the pallet. They held liquids and bandaging cloths. Two women pull off Fleming’s clothes leaving only his shorts, then Noah knelt by him, dipped a sponge in the liquids, washed the rust out of Fleming’s wrist and plastered it with a greenish mess.

“This is a hot poultice of cochan leaves cooked with yellow soap,” Noah said to me. “We bind it on so, with cloth. It will draw the poison and the arm will soon heal.”

For the broken leg the treatment was more intricate. Noah set the bone, laid out splints, dipped a finger in a bowl of dark red cream-thick substance, drew a circle over the break, made an “X” inside it, and smiled at me.

“Cock’s blood,” he said, “to absorb the devil from the leg. Now a thick coat of sureau and barrachin leaves, over that a cast of hot com meal and a tight bandage.”

On top of it all he bound the splints. How much of the act was old tribal herb medicine, proven effective through ages of trial, how much was psychological faith healing, I didn’t know. But Fleming was their boy, one of them, and if he really believed in this mixture of native cures and sorcery, maybe he would come through. Like many highly educated men of all races, I suspected he nursed a hard core of religiousness. And I also suspected that though he might not profess it in public, his heart accepted the banned mystique of voodoo. But I couldn’t stay here to see how it all went.

I drew Noah aside and asked, “Did the drums tell you Fleming wants to go back and make speeches?”

“They told me.” The tall man’s smile was twisted. “The doctor is an idealist and stubborn in his beliefs. But after he is out of shock, I will make him understand the truth. You, I assume, are returning for Miss Sawyer?”

I had not said so, hadn’t mentioned the hotel tycoon’s daughter. He appeared to know one whale of a lot for somebody isolated on top of this hill. It could be the drums that kept him alerted, of course, combined with a very sophisticated power of reasoning that gave meaning to the scraps of information coming through the jungle.

My face felt a little stiff as I said, “If I don’t bring her out in one piece, I won’t be in one piece myself for long.”

Mitzy had listened in. Now she said, “You’re nuts to try that, but if you do, I’m going along. Us girls ought to stick together.”

“Wrong guess,” I said. “You’re a distraction I can’t afford. Noah, keep her here.”

He surprised me by nodding. “I’ll send a guide down the trail with you...”

“No dice,” I cut in. “The jeep’s way up at the cove, it’ll take too long that way. I’ll go the way we came.”

He raised his eyebrows high, not arguing. He knew he couldn’t change my mind. With a lift to his shoulders, he took Mitzy’s arm and went back to Fleming.

I headed down the steps, leaving behind me a rising chant from the tribe. I supposed it was a call to the gods to speed the Doctor’s healing. At the bottom I stepped on the breakwater, took a bearing on the jeep I could barely make out as a dark blob against the lighter sand, and went straight toward it. The car seemed to be alone; the soldiers were gone.

Concentrating on direction, I was halfway across when my foot came down on a slimy patch of sea grass growing in the rock and I skidded off, over my head. I came up sputtering, climbed on top again, lined up once more with the headland and the jeep, and went on more carefully. I got wet again where the breakwater ended, then I was ashore, soaked through.

Stripping, I wrung out my skirt, dried the Luger as much as the damp cloth would allow me to, dried the bullets in my ammo belt and dropped them on the front seat. The clothes I spread on the hood where the heat from the engine would dry them after a couple of miles. I kept my boots on. They squashed as I walked, but I needed them for driving.

I figured I’d have a drunken ride on the wobbling flat tire and wasn’t disappointed. As I neared the site where the other jeep had gone down in the swamp, I braked and loaded the Luger. There was activity at the spot, three or four figures standing at the edge of the road. I figured the men who had been in the car had escaped drowning, but I couldn’t see what they were doing.

One of them stepped into the middle of the road, waving me on. I almost shot him before I saw the loincloth and knew he and the others were not soldiers. I kept hold of the gun anyway, leveled, easing forward. I heard laughter, a grunting chant, then from the dark swamp the nose of the jeep surfaced like some dripping monster. They had a line on it, lifting it clear, throwing another line to pull it sideways onto the edge of the road. It was empty, no soldiers in it.

Noah’s little jungle helpers were taking the wheel off the axle, rolling it toward me. Here was my fresh tire with air in it. I climbed down and watched while two of them picked up the nose of my jeep, changed the wheels and set it down with wide grins that told me all was well again. Then they disappeared into the palm trees. If I had blinked, I’d have missed seeing it, the way they melted among the palms.

I rolled on fast, wondering what I’d find further on, where the big truck had blocked the road. Noah’s people were working there too, but the truck was too heavy for their vine ropes and wouldn’t budge. I got down, shoved through them, climbed behind the wheel and started the motor. I waved them out of the way and threw the truck into reverse, then jumped to the ground. It backed into the swamp, sinking out of sight except for the last foot of the long gun. The men were gone when I looked away from the bubbling gas.

I saw nobody else between there and the old resort hotel. In the kitchen a couple of men were gambling. The game was new to me. Each man had a polished bone shaped remarkably like a human finger. Taking turns they rolled their bones across the table. Whichever stopped closest to the center crack won the round, to judge by the excitement. Caco was the last to try his luck and when his joint landed in the crack itself he made a low, happy shout. The losers paid him double.

He and Lambie dropped out of the game to listen to me explain our next target. When I said I wanted them to take me inside the Sawyer hotel, they were notably unenthusiastic.

Lambie coughed apologetically. “It’s one thing to have trapped the lieutenant at the fort,” he said, “But fool the colonel? I don’t think so.”

I needed these two, needed them willing and confident for a delicate operation, not nervous and doubtful.

“Noah knows where we’re going,” I told them. “And he’ll help.”

That did it. If Noah thought it was all right, it was going to be all right. We went out to the jeep in high spirits.

The downtown streets were still empty, only about a half dozen people out. When they heard the jeep, they ducked inside like mice. There was no traffic and all the buildings were closed up, their windows blank — all except the lower floor of the Sawyer Grand LaClare hotel. I drove into the crescent drive with Caco’s rifle against the back of my neck and “Lieutenant” Lambie sitting beside him, a short gun in his lap. We stopped in the rectangle of light before the open front entrance. A sentry in the shadow beside the door watched us. Lambie got out and leveled his gun on me while Caco dropped out on his side, stepped away and ordered me to the ground with a jerk of his muzzle. With a soldier on either side, we marched forward. The sentry blocked our way.

“Sorry, sir. Colonel says nobody goes in tonight.”

Lambie drew himself up with military ferocity. “We go in or you’ll be stood against the wall. This prisoner is the Nick Carter Jerome will give a thousand dollars for. Stand aside.”

“Oh.” The sentry swung his rifle on me and licked his lips. “In that case I’ll take him in, sir.”

Lambie roared. “Oh, no, you won’t. I deliver him myself. Don’t think you can grab off that reward. Move.”

The sentry looked guilty and didn’t move fast enough. Caco stepped past me and lashed his gun barrel against the man’s ear, knocking him down. Caco’s finger snapped against his trigger. The shot went between my legs, too high for comfort. The action was getting a little too real. Lambie roared again.

“The colonel. Where is he?”

A very frightened sentry scuttled on his butt against the wall, stammering, “Yes, sir, in the casino, sir. Shall I show you, sir?”

“I believe we can find it ourselves.” Lambie’s voice was a dry threat. “Stay at your post.”

Caco prodded me past and into the lobby. Thomas Sawyer would go through the roof to see it now, a wreck. The big sofas were slashed, spilling stuffing and springs, newsstands were overturned, papers and magazines tom and trampled on the floor, trinkets and candies were looted. The glass fronts of the shops were broken in, racks and shelves emptied, walls stripped of the exotic baubles, “native” mats and masks manufactured by the ton in the cheap labor ports of the world. What a mess! Colonel Carib Jerome might be a class conspirator, but he was one hell of a lousy commander to let his army take the place apart. He could’ve made a bundle out of it later, after he won his game.

The casino looked worse than the lobby. Gambling tables that cost in the thousands were knocked over, broken. Roulette wheels were smashed so their rigging and magnets spilled among the tumbled chips. The painting of cavorting nudes above the long bar was carved up, the figures cut out like paper dolls. Caco and Lambie whistled.

“Some jump-up we missed.”

Under the painting the rows on rows of glasses had been swept to the floor. A few empty liquor bottles lay shattered against the front of the bar. The rest were gone. I mentioned that.

“Jerome’s liberation army has got itself liberally loaded.”

My men looked around the cavernous, empty rooms uneasily. “Where’d they all go? Where’s the colonel?”

“In bed. Where else, with three hundred rooms here? Except for Jerome. I bet he’s tucked himself away in Chip Cappola’s office to count the loot from the tables. Let’s go visit him.”

We went on to the cashiers’ booths. These alone were unviolated, pristine; there were no stacks of coins behind the glass partition, no trays, no bills in the open drawers. The soldiers had been kept away from here and the temptation of the till. I borrowed a knee from Caco to step up on the counter, bent over the glass partition and unlatched the door to the inside hall. The boys walked me through.

Jeb, the burly black guard, was still at his bank of control switches. Maybe he had changed sides, but it was more likely he was Jerome’s man to begin with, with eyes and ears trained to report on the hotel. We surprised him. He made a grab for the gun in his desk, saw Caco’s rifle in my spine, recognized me and laughed.

“Upon my word, Mr. Carter. Where’d you find him, Lieutenant?”

Lambie swaggered, waving his gun airily. “Picked him up at a roadblock. Tell the colonel we’re here.”

Jeb lifted a finger. He wasn’t ready to announce us. “Miss Mitzy left here with Carter. Where’s she?”

Lambie shrugged eloquently. “Wasn’t anyone with him tonight. Maybe she cleared out with the mob.”

“Well, she don’t count.” Jeb stabbed the intercom to Cappola’s office and purred into it. “Colonel, you have guests.”

Annoyment rattled back. “I said nobody...”

“Mr. Nick Carter and two soldiers bringing him.”

The voice from the office changed to a bark of satisfaction. “That’s different. Send them along.”

Jeb buzzed the office door, it slid back and we went in. Carib Jerome was at Cappola’s desk, bundles of paper currency and trays of coin filling the top of it, more of the same stacked on the floor. All the operating cash of the casino, plus the day’s receipts from the hotel and the shops around the lobby, was here — one hell of a lot of Syndicate and Sawyer money. The colonel had a computer to count it. I smiled at him.

“Found a system to beat the wheels, Jerome?”

He returned the smile, but it was chillier than mine. “The very best, you must admit.” He looked beyond me at Lambie. “Lieutenant, where is the girl who was with this man?”

I threw it out flat. “Dead. Drowned.”

The black eyes narrowed and the ebony head moved slowly, side to side, the voice gliding from lips that barely moved.

“She swims like a dolphin, Mr. Carter. Do not try to deceive me. She is a valuable property in Miami.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the door, still open, Jeb an interested audience in the hall. With him behind my men, I couldn’t pull the Luger on Jerome. I’d get Caco and Lambie shot. I wanted that door closed and the quickest way was to make the colonel wary of the guard.

I told Jerome, “You might get a ransom for Mitzy, but I bet this lieutenant never sees his reward for me from your sticky fingers.”

The door slid shut on Jeb. Jerome dropped his eyes on the table, reaching for a packet of bills. When he held it forward and raised his head, he looked down the barrel of the Luger.

“Take what you want, help yourselves,” I told Caco and Lambie. Then, as Jerome’s hand edged toward the intercom to call Jeb, I said, “No, colonel. Roll the chair back.”

He didn’t move, but his hand dropped to his side. He looked from Lambie to Caco as their guns veered from me to him and his face tightened.

“Treachery, Mr. Carter? Bribing soldiers? They’ll be courtmartialed as soon as I...”

He was fast. I knew he would be. Dropping behind the desk, he swept his fingers toward his holster. I was a little faster, swapping the Luger to my other hand, snapping out the stiletto, flipping it. It pinned his cuff against the holster and spoiled his draw.

He wasn’t chicken, I gave him that. He’d taken a big risk and if he’d gotten a shot in, the noise would’ve brought Jeb with a shotgun. But he hadn’t and he knew when to stop. For the moment anyway. He straightened in the chair, his hands loose, and relaxed to wait for another chance. I cocked the Luger and told him to lean against the wall so we could see what he had on him.

His eyes fired hate at me but he stood up, carefully, and assumed the position. Lambie laid his short gun on a pile of bills and went over the colonel, from neck to boots. He tossed me my knife, the holstered gun, and found a little holdout in a pocket that he dropped in one of mine.

“Now, sit down on the couch and be comfortable so we can talk. Where’s Tara Sawyer?” I said.

Jerome didn’t bat an eye. He sat back, one arm over the top of the couch, and crossed his legs. He curled his lip and said in an easy voice. “Where is Mitzy Gardner?”

I didn’t have time for question-and-answer games, nor to search the whole hotel, for it was logical he would keep Tara here. I couldn’t be sure Jerome’s entire army was in drunken sleep upstairs, so I could be trapped searching for my girl. I stood over the colonel and raked the front sight of the Luger down his cheek. It left a bleeding gash and made him wince. I didn’t want to kill him; he was the only man who could control the military, and I’d still need him and them. But before I went into that, I wanted to be sure of Tara’s safety.

I told Jerome that, adding, “But I don’t mind spoiling your face if I have to.”

He was a handsome man, knew it, and was vain of it. “Very well,” he said. “I doubt you could take her anyway. Miss Sawyer is in her suite on the top floor. There are 600 men between here and there.”