The Terrible Ones

A Brightness in the Night

Paula groaned with anguish. “She’s gone!” she whispered.

“She’s not.” Nick bent swiftly and cradled Evita in his arms as though she were a child. “Passed out, and just as well. Kill that lantern out there and follow me like a leech. Don’t lose me — but if anything happens, it’s two lefts and a right, another left and a right, and run like hell. If there’s trouble, don’t wait for me. I won’t wait for you. Understand? Let’s go.”

He carried his slight burden into the anteroom, stepped over the trunklike legs of the mangled Shang, and waited briefly in the doorway while Paula doused the light. Then he padded swiftly into the corridor, probing the darkness with the eyes of his mind and keeping close to the wall. The back of his neck bristled with warnings but he had no choice of action. It was go and keep going, and that was all, until something stopped them.

Dr. Tsing-fu Shu stood in the darkness at the corner of the corridor leading to his office. He had heard something; he was sure of it. And the men were not responsible. They were working with their usual impassive silence, hammering and digging, but not talking.

Shang? Impossible. Nevertheless…

hen there was that word “Fidelistas.” It kept whispering in his mind, and echo of the girl’s cracked voice. Fidelistas…?

Now, right now, he would get the truth from her.

His thoughts were full of Fidelistas as he snapped on his flashlight and jabbed its beam into the cross-corridor ahead, the one leading to her cell. He gasped involuntarily.

Crossing the broad beam of light and disappearing into the shadows beyond was a tall, bearded man in Castro-like fatigues — carrying the girl!

A cry of outrage and alarm rose in his throat as he sprang forward and grasped the gun he so seldom had to use.

Light blazed across Nick’s face. He shifted the girl’s weight to one side and half-turned on the balls of his feet to kick out sideways at the figure behind the light. His foot connected with the hidden shin and at the same time he heard a plop! of sound and the light went out. The shriek of rage curved downward to the floor and then there was another splat of sound and a crumpling thud. Paula was busy with that little silencer, he thought with grim satisfaction, and paused to prod the dark shape with his foot. It lay still.

“C’mon!” he whispered urgently, and padded on.

Paula hesitated for a moment and then followed him.

The digging sounds had stopped. Someone was shouting. from a corridor nearby. Nick made a swift left turn, ran on, made another.

“Paula?” he hissed.

“Coming!”

He turned right. There were running footsteps after him, and they weren’t only Paula’s. They were close — too close. He made the next left and they faded, all but Paula’s. The girl was getting heavy. Nick shifted his grip and made the last right turn. The footfalls were loud again and another voice was shouting.

He ran full-tilt into the stone corner of a doorway. The girl moaned and Nick cursed. Paula brushed past him and he could hear her moving the loose trapdoor they had opened an hour or two before.

“Lower her to me!” she breathed. “Lower her— I’ll get her down the ladder.”

The trap was wide open and the girl was halfway down when the two men burst into the cellar. Nick ducked into the hole and lunged for Wilhelmina. A light shone full into his face and blinded him but he trained the Luger to the right of the reflector and above it and fired three shots in succession. Bullets slapped the stone around him and one skimmed past his ear. Wilhelmina’s answering volley splintered the bobbing flashlight and kicked the flashlight’s owner in the chest. The second man held fire. Behind him, Nick could hear Paula easing the tortured girl down the narrow ladder. A shot tore through his sleeve and he fired back at the little tongue of flame and then again and again at where he thought the head and chest must be. Something dropped heavily and he waited for a moment. Footsteps thundered dully in the passages beyond. But there was silence in the room with him. He slid quickly down the ladder and pulled the trapdoor shut above his head.

He flicked his pencil flashlight on for just long enough to see Paula struggling in the low-ceilinged passage with the girl’s dead-weight.

“I’ll take her,” he breathed. “Get going and get those nags unhitched. But fast!” He clutched Evita’s limp form as gently as he could and draped it over his crouched back. Then he crawled — crawled as fast as a man could crawl on a floor of dried moss and worn stones, with a low ceiling over his head and a half-dead woman weighing him down. In front of him he could hear Paula scrabbling over the rough floor and heading for the conduit exit. And behind him there was a blessed silence.

Tsing-fu staggered to his feet and clasped his aching head. His hand came away sticky with blood. His dazed mind could not at once grasp what had happened but he knew that it was catastrophic. He opened his mouth to scream but no sound came. His hands groped about on the floor beside him and found a broken flashlight. Then a gun. He clawed at it, found a trigger, and fired. The sound rocketed against the walls. Then he sank back into unconsciousness. But before the curtain dropped over his mind he heard someone running toward him, and a voice shouting in Chinese. Hurry, you swine! he thought vaguely, and blacked into a nightmare of escaping Fidelistas.

Tom Kee dismounted in the palm grove and hastened toward the tunnel entrance. And stopped. Something was stirring in the mahogany stand. He froze where he stood, hearing leaves rustling in the windless night and the soft stomping of horses that should not have been there, and he turned toward the tall trees on his cat-burglar’s feet. For a moment he forgot all about the urgency of his message to Tsing-fu, and the doctor’s need for his help with the metal-detector. All he could think of was that there was movement in the mahogany grove, dangerously close to the castle. He flitted through the trees and pulled up short to stare into the gloom.

Two figures were helping a third one onto a horse. One of them mounted the same horse and held the limp figure in a close embrace. Then the other mounted the second horse, and the two horses started moving quietly through the trees toward the trail downhill.

There was no moon, but there was some starlight. And as the two horses moved through a narrow clearing toward the path Tom Kee caught a glimpse of the girl Evita. He also saw the two riders before the branches hid them, and though he did not recognize them he knew they were not Tsing-fu’s people.

Hooves clip-clopped lightly on the trail and picked up speed. He turned and raced back to his own mount and led it to the path. Then he followed, first at a careful distance because there were few other riders about and then more closely as he began to meet pedestrians and peasant carts further down the slope. Once in a while he held back and drew off to the side of the road so that the sound of his hoofbeats would not be so constant that the riders ahead would notice him. He thought he saw one of them turn occasionally to glance back over his shoulder, but they went on riding at a steady pace. Now they were galloping. Tom Kee slouched low on his horse with his head bent down, as he had seen the peasants do, and he began to gallop too.

“Got a spare bed, Jacques?” Nick tramped in with his burden and Paula quickly closed the kitchen door behind them.

“You found her!” Jacques’ eyes gleamed with pleasure in his dark face. “But mon Dieu! She has been most terribly treated! Bring her in here at once. Marie!”

His pretty young wife appeared in the doorway and took in the situation at a glance. “The bed is ready,” she said crisply. “Bring her this way, please. Paula, you help me undress her and we will see what she needs first. Jacques, you light the stove. Monsieur, put her down right here. So. Now leave, please.”

Nick left the girl on clean sheets and soft pillows, grinned at Paula, and went back to Jacques.

“Soup? Coffee? Drink?” Jacques offered.

“All, thank you, but a little later,” Nick said, and his eyes were worried. “We were followed here, Jacques. One man on horseback, who rode on by as we stopped here. How secure are we — and you?”

Jacques shrugged cheerfully. “Against one man, invincible. It was not Haitian officer, I suppose?”

Nick shook his head. “Chinese, I’m also sure. I tried to shake him off, but it was impossible with the girl. And Paula and I will be leaving some time before the dawn. I hope he tries to follow us again and I hope I’ll get him next time. But if not, you better watch out for reprisals. And get the girl moved out of here as soon as you can so her presence doesn’t compromise you.”

The Creole smiled and jerked his thumb at a bolted inner door. “That is full of arms and ammunition. I am surrounded by friends who will run to my aid at the slightest sign of trouble — so long as they do not have to deal with the Tontons Macoute, the secret police. There are double locks and heavy shutters. All are closed now, as you see, and all have curtains across them. So we cannot even be heard, much less attacked. And while the house itself is but of wood and mud, it is of a wood and mud most solid. No, my friend. We have no need to worry.”

“Still, I think I’ll take a look around outside,” said Nick. “Turn the light off for a moment, will you?”

Jacques nodded and clicked the kitchen switch. Nick eased open the door and stepped outside. He glided stealthily around the house and stared into the shadows. There was no hiding place for any man within at least a hundred yards, the boundary of the nearest neighbor’s garden, except for the barn and the horses’ stalls. He investigated, and found nobody. Drums still pounded far away and faint sounds drifted down the village street, sounds of people chattering and laughing. But there wasn’t a sign of a horse or a listening man.

Nick went back into the house and took the refreshments Jacques offered him. Paula joined him a few minutes later and reported that Evita was resting comfortably.

“She has eaten a little and she is drowsy,” she told Nick. “But she wants to talk to us before she sleeps. And she thanks you.” It seemed to Nick that Paula’s tone was a whole lot friendlier now, and he was glad of it.

“She has you to thank, not me,” he said, sipping Jacques’ cognac appreciatively. “You Terrible Ones are a bunch of gutsy girls, judging by what I’ve seen. Think she can talk to us now?”

Paula nodded. “It must be now, because I think that we must leave soon. Marie will let us have five minutes, no more.” She gave him a ghost of a smile that twitched the corners of her lips and showed the trace of a dimple in one cheek. “Even though you are, she says, worth a whole squad of Marines.”

“Aw, shucks!” Nick said kiddingly, and shuffled his feet. “Okay, let’s go listen fast so Evita can rest.” He rose and followed Paula into the little room Marie had made into a bedroom for Evita. Jacques made a quick check of the door and window locks and went in after them.

It was almost midnight. All was quiet in the village.

The night was cool and Tom Kee was getting stiff. But the sounds coming through his earphones kept him glued to his post. From the side wall of a house more than two hundred yards away but almost directly opposite from the LeClerqs he could hear every word that was being said. His horse was tethered to a tree in a little parklike grove nearby and he himself was plastered in the shadows of the darkened house. The little telescope-like transistorized device in his hands was aimed directly at a window in the place that he was watching. It was one of the tricks of his trade, and he used it well. He chuckled grimly and adjusted a small dial. The voices were coming to him loud and clear. The girl’s voice was cracked and whispering but every word was audible.

“.… It made no sense to me,” she whispered, “but that is what he said. His clue was — The Castle of the Blacks. He told me when we… when we…” she turned her head away from them and closed her eyes. “He told me when we were in bed together, only minutes before the men broke in and fell upon us. He tried to get away through a window but they shot him in the back. Then they must have hit me, I suppose, because… because the next thing I knew I was in some sort of house, and I had my clothes on. There was a smell of food — a lot of food, as if there were a restaurant below. And then this man…” She sighed heavily. Marie gave her a sip of rum-laced tea and glared at the others reprovingly.

“Only the essentials, Evita,” Nick said quickly. “Did you know him? Did he give anything away? Did you tell him anything?”

Evita pushed the cup away and nodded. “I knew him. Paula, he was the one we joked about, and called him Fu Manchu. The owner of the Chinese Dragon in Santo Domingo. The one we always thought was following the same leads we were, looking for the treasure.”

“Tsing-fu Shu,” said Paula softly. “I thought it might be he, there in the dark.”

“And… and there was a creature.” Evita shuddered and sucked in her breath. “But that was later. He kept at me and kept at me and tried to find out if there was anything else I knew. I told him I knew nothing. Then he talked to another man I could not see… and they decided that the Castle of the Blacks must be the Citadelle. And then he stuck a needle into me and — and I woke up in that cell. With that monster guarding the door.”

“This Padilla,” said Nick. “You said he told you something else. What was it?”

“That was when we first met,” Evita whispered. “Before we went to his apartment. I made him tell me something before… I agreed to go. And he said it was under all our noses, if we only knew where to look. He didn’t know where, or he would have been there himself. But he knew it was within a morning’s drive of Santo Domingo. And Trujillo had laughed when he told him. He said — he said with a joke it would be on La Trinitaria. And he repeated this several times, Padilla said. There was something very funny to him about La Trinitaria.”

“La Trinitaria!” Paula’s face had suddenly gone white and pinched. “That is the name of the resistance group that all our men belonged to! What kind of joke can that be, when all the men are dead?”

“Paula, I think he did not even understand himself, Padilla. But I believe it was not just a joke. I think it may mean something for us. I do not know what.” Evita heaved a tired sigh and licked her lips. “Enough, now!” Marie said sharply. “She must rest.” “One more thing,” Evita breathed. “This Chinaman, Tsing-fu…. He kept saying something about Alonzo, that he had seen Alonzo. He said Alonzo had given him information. About us. I think he did not know much, but he kept saying something about Alonzo. And there was something about the way he talked that made me think he was working some way with the Fidelistas and that he had come to doubt them.” Nick shot a glance at Paula. “My Cuban?” he murmured. Her face was even whiter now. “Yes. We thought he was a friend of ours. Of one of us, especially. We must get back at once. Marie? You will look after Evita?”

“But yes, of course, of course! Now finish your talking somewhere else.”

She chased them briskly out of the room and settled them in the kitchen with a pot of coffee.

“The boat is always there,” said Jacques, when Marie had left them. “In an abandoned boatshed in Toury. Paula knows. Henri Duclos will take you there and back. The arrangement is that he is there at two o’clock each morning, so he will be there quite soon. You have a little time to rest, though, if you wish.”

Nick shook his head. “The sooner we leave here the better for everyone. We can walk there in an hour, wouldn’t you say?” Jacques nodded. “Then we can leave the horses here,” said Nick, glancing at his watch. “It will be quieter that way. All right with you, Paula?”

“Yes.” She rose abruptly from the table. “I think we are ahead now, and we must stay ahead.”

“Jacques.” Nick’s voice was quiet but compelling. “Take care. I still think we were followed. And if they don’t get me and Paula they may come after you. Don’t let them reach you.”

Jacques clapped him on the shoulder. “I won’t, my friend,” he said quietly.

Tom Kee was in a quandary. It was vital that he get word to Tsing-fu Shu, but it was equally vital that these people be stopped. All of them. Not only the two who were heading for the boatshed at Toury, but also those remaining. They knew far too much. He was still wondering what to do when his earphones picked up the last goodbyes and the sound of the back door opening. The door closed quietly and a bolt slid into place. Then he heard nothing. But he vaguely saw two indistinct figures dart across the open space between the houses opposite and disappear into the shadows.

Should he No, he decided. By the time he got his message to Tsing-fu it would be too late. He must act, himself, and quickly. From within the house came the small sounds of people preparing for bed. He grinned to himself in the darkness as he removed his earphones. There were two or three aces up his sleeve that would send his stock soaring in Peking if he played them right. First, he knew the way to Toury without having to be led. Second, the man and the woman were walking, and that gave him time. And finally, he had certain equipment in his saddlebag that he had always known would be useful to him some day.

He stole quietly to his saddlebag and took out what he needed, checked it in the darkness with his expert fingers, then waited in silence for a full ten minutes before making his next move. Then he mounted his horse and guided it toward the house of the LeClerqs at a slow and almost noiseless walk. There was a faint light glowing through a heavily curtained window, and it made an excellent target.

Tom Kee raised his right arm and aimed a device that looked much like a flare pistol. It acted like one, too, but its flame was contained in a miniature rocket and its head was deadly. He squeezed the trigger and rammed a second projectile into the barrel. The first landed on the thick thatch of the roof and dug in like a bullet before shattering and spewing out tongues of white-hot flame. The second soared straight toward the window. He watched it blast its way in while he slammed a third one after it, and then another at the thatched eaves over the front door. The blazing thermite compound streamed and spread into rivers of fire, clawing voraciously into the heart of the thing it was attacking. A series of small explosions ripped through the silence as the flame bit into Jacques LeClerqs’ useless store of ammunition, the little armory that was supposed to have kept them safe from all attack. It only added, now, to the holocaust.

Tom Kee lowered his grenade-thrower and gathered the reins of his startled horse. He felt a warm glow of triumph and satisfaction. His little toys were blindingly effective. Within seconds that house of mud and wood and thatch was an inferno, a blaze of unbearable heat and searing flame. It was like napalm on sun-dried timber, like a giant flame-thrower on a gasoline dump. A sheet of fire draped the walls from one end to the other.

No one came screaming out of the house. After the very first moment, no one screamed at all. The flames ate hungrily into the thatch and woodwork and clawed in savagely, looking for more.

Tom Kee nudged his prancing horse into a trot and then into a gallop. The sky was red behind him.

He could still make Toury well ahead of the others and lie in wait for them. There could not be many abandoned boatsheds in that tiny fishing village.