War From The Clouds

Chapter Ten

The gunfire was murderous. It seemed that every gun in the possession of Don Carlos Italla was being aimed and fired at the guard station where Uturo, his fellow warrior and I were hiding.

All the windows were blasted into glass confetti in the first few seconds, and the rain of bullets were chipping away stone and splintering wood so fast that the station wouldn't be standing in another-couple of minutes.

It was then, when the gunfire seemed at its peak, that I decided to act. I cradled an automatic rifle in my right arm, clutched Wilhelmina in my left hand, clamped Hugo in my teeth and, with a jerking motion for Uturo and his friend to follow, dashed into the courtyard.

It was the last thing the enemy expected. While all guns still blasted away at the empty guard station, we zigzagged our way across the courtyard. Our guns blazed away at the pinpoints of fire indicating enemy gunmen. It was a suicide dash and we knew it, but remaining in the guard station was equally suicidal.

We reached Sagacio's body without incident, although I was certain that my luger had picked off at least two or three gunmen in the swirling cloud. From screams in other directions, I knew also that Uturo and his friend were having similar luck. They had come a long way from their fear of the cave's curse.

We regrouped in the center of the courtyard and I jammed a new clip into Wilhelmina and pointed toward the gate to the palace grounds.

"If we can make it inside, we may have a chance," I hissed through the blade of the stiletto. "They won't dare turn that withering fire on the palace itself. Let's go."

Bullets were already dancing in the courtyard when we started our final dash toward the gate. I emptied the automatic rifle and threw it away. I took the luger in both hands and, instead of firing wildly, began to pick out specific targets on the roof of the palace.

My first shot got results. A scream ripped through the muffling fog and I saw a man with ammo belts all over his body come tumbling down the side of the white stone building. He crashed into the bushes near the main door of the palace. Another shot and another heavily armed man plummeted from the roof.

And we were at the gate, all three of us still alive and still firing.

I skipped inside the gate and plunged behind a clump of bushes alongside the stone fence. I felt Uturo land just behind me. On the other side of the path, the other warrior took refuge behind a stone fountain. As I had expected, gunfire from other areas stopped immediately. We had only the fire from the roof to contend with.

I shoved in a new clip and methodically went along the roofline, picking off guards as I went. When five of them had fallen into the gloomy darkness at the front of the castle, the night went suddenly quiet.

There was no chance, though, that we had destroyed them all, or that we could expect those outside the palace to continue to hold their fire. The only thing to do, then, was the unexpected. They expected us to remain hidden inside the stone wall alongside the gate.

"Let's rush the door," I snarled. "Now."

Both warriors leaped to their feet, their rifles aimed and ready. We took two steps toward the door and I heard a whistling sound from above, felt a fluttering of the wind around my face. The net dropped so neatly into place that we were entangled in it before we even knew what was happening.

I was struggling to take aim on an immense tall guard who had opened the palace door when I felt the net tightening around me. I saw Uturo and his friend fighting the tightening net. I fired, but a sudden jerk of the net spoiled my aim and the bullet bounced harmlessly off the white stone of the palace wall. The net closed in, so tight now that it was cutting off circulation to my arms and legs.

A strand of strong nylon encircled my neck and I could feel it tightening even more. I was strangling. Even so, I rammed the luger between two strands and took aim on the huge guard standing in the open doorway. I was preparing to fire when the pet jerked swiftly against my wrist and I found the luger pointing at the ground. The strand about my neck went tighter and I felt myself passing out.

"Leave go of your weapons," a voice boomed in the silence, "and the net will be released. Keep them and you will die of strangulation."

I tried to look around to see who was talking, but the net was cutting into my skin now. I couldn't move, and I could tell that Uturo and his friend had also stopped struggling. I heard their rifles clatter to the pavement. I tried once more to aim Wilhelmina at the guard in the palace doorway, but the breath of life went out of me. The stiletto fell from my teeth. I went momentarily unconscious, awakening to feel someone taking the luger from my hand.

Guards seemed to come from everywhere now. The net began to loosen and circulation began to return to my aching limbs. My neck felt as though someone had lashed it with a whip. As guards began to pull us from the net, the gigantic guard who had stood so brazenly in the open doorway began to walk down toward us. He got bigger and bigger as he came near.

I saw then that he wasn't merely tall. He was immense. I guessed him at seven feet in height, perhaps three hundred pounds in weight. And I could tell by his uniform that he was no mere guard. He had enough brass and medals on his cap and chest to have subdued a lesser man. Even before he opened his mouth, I knew who he was.

"I am Don Carlos Italla," he said, striding up to us and looking down with something akin to disdain. "Welcome to my humble abode in the clouds."

"Some humble," I muttered, sitting up and massaging my neck and limbs where the nylon netting had cut into them. "You've come a long way from Ninca land, Ancio."

The use of his original name had a violent effect on his face and body. He went rigid, drawing himself up to his full seven feet of height. His eyes narrowed and I saw the red glint in them, indicating remembered hatreds. In that moment, he was the epitome of the description given to me by old Jorge Cortez:

A giant of seven feet, a mountainous specimen of three hundred pounds, eyes like ingots of burning phosphorous, hands that could shred stainless steel slabs. A fury of a monster with a booming voice like the rumble of thunder.

The image faded when Don Carlos tried a smile. But only faintly. It came off like a caricature of Death regarding his next victim. His eyes, dark with the red glow still at their centers, flickered around at the assembled guards.

"You will henceforth refer to me as Don Carlos," he ordered. "All that Ancio business is in the past. I am no longer Ancio, no longer a Ninca. You will do well to remember that."

I was about to ask what the hell worse he could do to us if we persisted in calling him Ancio, but I got no chance. He snapped his fingers at the guards and ordered them to take us to his inner chamber. We were hustled to our feet and, even though it was difficult walking, we weren't given a chance to dawdle. I rambled along on aching legs, down corridors, up sweeping — staircases, through spacious galleries and, finally, into an honest-to-goodness throne room at the rear of the palace.

If nothing else, Don Carlos had good taste in decor. The parquet and mosaic marble floors were enhanced by colorful Persian rugs that would have gone for a fortune in New York or Washington. The white marble walls were graced by original paintings by Dega, Monet, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Manet, de Vriess — even a few Picassos. Silk draperies covered every window and alcove.

The throne room was immense, befitting its main occupant. Persian rugs, draperies, paintings and fluffy pillows were everywhere. The throne itself sat on a marble pedestal. It looked like a monument to hugeness and importance, yet it had enough silk and velvet upholstery to look almost gentle.

Behind the throne, on a section of wall between two doorways to open balconies, hung da Vinci's painting of The Last Supper. For a moment, I was convinced that it was the original, but I knew that the famous painting actually was in the Vatican. It was, to say the least, the most precise and perfect copy imaginable.

Don Carlos took one hefty step to the pedestal and settled himself in his uniformed and decorated glory directly under the famous scene of Jesus and his disciples breaking bread for the final time. If Don Carlos took one hefty step to the pedestal and settled himself in his uniformed and decorated glory directly under the famous scene of Jesus were soft and compassionate; Don Carlos Italla's eyes still glowed with demonic intensity.

The throne room gradually filled with monks and guards, all keeping a respectful distance from the throne. Don Carlos had me, Uturo and the other warrior led to a small couch directly below his pedestal. We had to crane our necks to look up to him, and that was what he wanted.

"And now, Mr. Nick Carter," Don Carlos said in that booming voice of his, "I must say that I'm pleased you weren't killed during your foolish journey to my humble abode. Oh, I have known of you for some time, ever since your imperialistic masters placed you on the sacred soil of Nicarxa. I have kept track of your exploits with interest. I have issued orders for your death, and have executed many who have failed to carry out those orders."

He took a breather then, belched a few times, swigged from the bottle of wine Sagacio had recently brought him, and glared down at me with those fiery-red eyes.

"Now," he said, settling back in his velvet-padded throne as though he had a long and interesting tale to relate, "I must say that I had begun to engender a certain amount of respect for your skills and for your persistence and for your successes. But you were doomed from the beginning. You see, I knew that if all else failed you would somehow find the natural chimney leading up from the sacrificial cave. On the off chance that you would succeed in reaching and breaching my wine cellar, I was prepared for that. I knew of Sagacio's penchant for trying to remove that stone from the wall leading to the chimney. I was aware also of the efforts of his fellow tribesmen to use that as a route of escape. I sent Sagacio for wine at just a time when I knew that you would be at the mortared stone, if you, indeed, had succeeded in traversing the chimney.

"I would like to say that Sagacio, in the end, betrayed you out of loyalty to me. But I am a religious man, Mr. Nick Carter. Truth is important to me. Sagacio betrayed you, but not out of loyalty to me. He betrayed you by the look of ecstasy on his face when he brought me this final bottle of wine. I knew then that he had located you and had let you into the wine cellar.

"It was then that I let him return to you, but not before I had ordered the guards to vacate the guard station and set up positions in other areas to annihilate you and your friends — my former fellow tribesmen — when you emerged from the wine cellar. As I said, you were doomed to failure from the beginning. But I have one question, Mr. Nick Carter. There was a woman with you, a girl, actually. There were others, including Pico the old hermit and Purano, the son of Botussin. There were other warriors as well. Might I prevail upon you to tell me what has happened to them?"

I told him about our journey to the cave entrance, our battle with his guerillas, the killing of eight of our warriors, the wounding of Purano and Pico. I told him of our ordeal with the bats and how the first warrior had fallen to his death when the bats attacked him. I told of how the second warrior had been killed when he encountered the nest of scorpions, of how I had eliminated the scorpions and had eventually found the square stone and had loosened its mortar.

"And the woman — the girl? I believe her name is Elicia."

I had told him the truth all along. I saw no reason to tell him that Elicia was still at large, perhaps in the winecellar. Besides, I still had the ominous feeling that she had been killed in that exchange of gunfire with the wine-stealing guards. When I lied to Don Carlos, it was only a half-lie. I believed it to be possibly true.

"She died when four guards entered the winecellar to steal your wine," I said. "There was gunfire and a stray bullet killed her."

He stared at me for a long moment, then made a small gesture with his right hand. I noticed that he had huge diamond rings on each finger, including his thumb. I turned and saw that a guard was leaving the throne room.

"If you speak true," Don Carlos said, "the girl's body will be located and brought up for burial. We are not animals here, Mr. Nick Carter." He got up and went down the back side of his pedestal. He opened the drapes to a balcony and stepped through. He was gone for only a few seconds, then returned with a wicked smile on his broad face.

"The clouds are clearing away," he announced. He snapped his fingers at an old monk who stood nearest the throne. "Fetch the case bearing the flares and flare gun," he ordered. "In a minute or two, the clouds will be gone and I shall send the signal. The battle is long overdue."

"I don't suppose," I said, trying to decide whether to set off one of my gas bombs and wiping out everybody in the throne room, including myself, "you'd like to discuss sending that signal, would you?"

Don Carlos stared at me for a long time, his face impassive, his eyes only barely glowing red in the centers. Then, obviously convinced that I was making a joke, he leaned back in his throne and let out a series of guffaws that actually made the painting of The Last Supper rattle against the wall. There was dead silence from the monks and guards behind me. Apparently, when Don Carlos laughed, he laughed alone, unlike other bosses who insisted that underlings share their warped sense of humor. Don Carlos finally wound down and the famous painting stopped rattling against the wall.

"Along with everything else," the fanatical giant said, his face set like cement, his eyes glowing again, "you have an abominable sense of humor, Mr. Nick Carter. There is, of course, nothing to discuss. My people await the signal and I'm certain they've grown impatient by now. We will not even discuss what is to happen to you, to your two Indian friends and to those others on this mountaintop who have continued to show disloyalty to me. Once the revolution commences below, all of you will be dispatched. In case you are interested in the method, it will be a simple death. You will all be thrown from the summit of Alto Arete. If the fall doesn't kill you, the poisoned bits of metal will rip your flesh to shreds when you try to descend. If you survive that, Cuban Marines await you below. This time, no miracle and no ally will come to your rescue. Ah, the signal flares have arrived."

The monk bringing the leather case containing the signal gun and flares approached the throne, bowed and handed the case up to his master. I entertained a faint hope that the man was a Ninca, one of Sagacio's friends, and that he had booby-trapped the damned case. But that wasn't to be. Don Carlos opened the case and took out the flare gun. I naturally wanted to stall him as long as possible, not knowing what a stall would do to help, but there was something else that bothered me. Something the President had told me when he had sent me on this assignment. "There's a rumor that someone in the country once did something rather atrocious to him or to his family." I had asked Chief Botussin about it, but he had no knowledge of anything atrocious ever having been done to Don Carlos. I had to find out the story there — I hate dying with a mystery lingering in my brin.

I asked Don Carlos Italla about it. He slumped back in his throne, the flare gun on his lap, the case of flares beside him.

"You are the first man who has shown an interest in that travesty of justice," he said. "The clouds haven't fully cleared, so I will take the time to reply."

When he was sixteen, he said, his voice getting tight as he remembered, he and a group of his Indian friends went into the capital to see the sights. There, because he happened to smile at a young woman (not an Indian), a priest who was half drunk slapped him around until his face was bloody. Police and others stood by and watched, then chased Ancio and his friends from the city.

"I developed then a hatred for all Indians because the persecution stemmed from the fact that I was Indian. I developed a hatred for non-Indians because they were the ones doing the persecuting. But I learned an important lesson about the power of priests, of holy men. I decided to become a priest and to someday avenge the wrong that was done to me, the shame that was put upon me in the presence of my friends."

He stopped and I waited for him to go on. But that was it, the whole bag. All this — this whole bloody revolution and all the killing that had already taken place, plus the distinct threat of a third world war — had come about because a 16-year-old boy had been flogged by a stupid and drunken priest on the streets of the capital. That event had festered in the brain of this evil giant. Nothing atrocious had happened to the young Ancio, except in his own mind, and I knew that no power on earth could reverse the course of that demented mind.

"Detain them while I give the signal," Don Carlos said, standing suddenly and stepping from the throne. "If they so much as move an eyelash to stop me…"

He got no further. A thunderous explosion ripped through the bowels of the earth beneath us. The whole palace shook like a treehouse in a hurricane. The painting of The Last Supper clattered to the floor. Vases and goblets and other knick-knacks crashed and shattered on the marble floors all around us. The silk draperies flapped in the breeze.

Don Carlos was still standing there, looking puzzled, when a second explosion came. It ripped up through the front of the throne room, near the door behind Uturo and me and the other warrior. I turned to see the door itself disappear in a pillar of rising flame. The guards and monks standing there were knocked about like pins in a bowling alley, their clothing on fire.

I spun back around in time to see Don Carlos disappear through the draperies to his balcony. I leaped onto the pedestal, dashed past the throne, jumped down the other side and was through the drapes just as Don Carlos had primed the flare gun and was raising it above his head.

As he had said, there was nothing to discuss anymore. I didn't say a word, not even a shout or a grunt. I made a flying leap, hit the giant squarely in the back and felt us both plunging forward against the low outer wall of the balcony.

In seconds, we were flying through space. The main thought in my mind was that it was no longer foggy. The clouds were indeed gone and that flare would have been seen all the way to Florida. I hadn't given a single thought to what might have caused that explosion, but it couldn't have come at a better time. My main interest, in that moment, was to land in such a way that I didn't break every bone in my body.

Fortunately, the throne room was on the second floor at the rear of the palace. There was a soft flower garden below instead of a cobblestoned courtyard. And I landed smack on top of Don Carlos. That excess fat around his middle not only provided a cushion for me, but kept him from being killed in the process.

For a big man, he was swift. He lay on the ground no more than two seconds before he was up, the flare gun raised again. I had no weapons other than the gas bombs. So I rushed him again and reached for the outstretched hand holding the flare.

Don Carlos saw me coming. He lashed out and swept me aside like a pesky gnat. I quickly regained my bearings and took dead aim on the middle of his back. I hit him with all my strength, my legs churning like pistons. Don Carlos let out a bellow of rage, but my charge had the desired effect. I pushed him halfway across the garden and made him lose his grip on the flare gun. The gun flew toward the rear wall and landed beside an open gate. It was dark beyond that gate, but I knew from Luis Pequeno's description of the mountaintop that the gate opened up to a narrow ledge overlooking a sheer drop of a thousand feet.

Don Carlos ignored me now, and rushed headlong toward the gate and the flare. He still carried the case with the other flares and I wondered why he was so protective of it. I rushed after him. We both reached the gate at the same time. Don Carlos started to stoop for the flare gun, saw me rushing toward him, and lashed out with the flare case.

He caught me square in the face and I went down at his feet like a rock. I felt woozy, but turned over in time to see him bringing the case down in a slam that would have knocked all the juices out of my head. I spun over on the ground and Don Carlos struck a spot where my head had been. The case broke open and two flares popped out onto the ground. They rolled through the open gate and lay near the edge of the mountain.

"You bastard," Don Carlos swore. "I will make your death a slow and painful one for this."

He kicked out at me, but the blow was a glancing one. I was starting to my feet when Don Carlos dashed through the gate to retrieve his errant flares. Why was he so protective of those damned flares when he had the loaded flare gun in his hand? He could send the signal anytime he pleased.

No matter, I thought. Stop him while he's preoccupied with those extra flares. I rushed through the gate, careful to time my leap so that I didn't go over the side of the hill with the giant. Don Carlos was stooping over, his hand scooping up one of the flares, when I hit his wide buttocks with my shoulder.

He stumbled forward, both hands outstretched, a flare in one hand, the flaregun in the other.

I waited, knowing that he had lost his balance and was teetering on the edge of the precipice. Even as his arms were windmilling, trying to regain balance, I heard a staccato burst of gunfire from beyond the palace. Obviously, Uturo and his friend weren't idle during this critical time. I hoped they had recruited enough fellow tribesmen whose hatred for Don Carlos overcame their loyalty, but that might be too much to hope for.

Right now, it looked as though Don Carlos was winning his war with balance. He was doing less windmilling with his arms. He was about to settle back on his heels, safely back from the ledge.

I paused only a short time, considering letting the man live now that he was obviously losing this battle in the clouds. But I had learned from bitter experience that an enemy is never vanquished by those who show premature mercy. If he fired that flare, it would be all over, no matter what happened up here.

I reached out and gave him a push. A hard one.

He went over. A combination scream, bellow and final order burst from his lips, but not even the fates were any longer listening to orders and appeals from Don Carlos Italla.

It was all over, I thought.

And then I heard the soft whoomp and saw the flare arc high in the dark sky. Even in his moment of death, Don Carlos had sent the signal for the bloody revolution to begin.

Damn, I cursed myself. I shouldn't have pushed him, not yet. I should have yanked him back from the precipice, wrestled the flare gun from him and then pushed him over. But then, I decided, I might not have had the option. He might have prevailed in the battle over the gun, pushed me over the side and then sent the signal.

With a sick feeling, knowing that bloodshed had already begun far below as a result of Don Carlos's signal from Alto Arete, I turned back to the palace. I had no weapon, except spare gas bombs, but I fully expected to pick one up from the first dead man I came across. I hoped against hope that that first dead man wouldn't be Uturo or his friend, or anyone else friendly to our cause.

At the side of the palace, I found a dead guard, one I had shot from the roof earlier. I took his rifle and ran to the front of the palace. Sporadic gunfire was taking place in the courtyard and I rushed up to the porch for a better view, ready to add to Uturo's gunfire.

I wasn't really needed just then. As I searched the courtyard for an enemy to shoot, I saw several guards emerge from a barracks with their hands up. They were shouting:

"Stop shooting, stop shooting. We give up."

Other guards emerged from bushes and from behind stone fences around the courtyard. When a couple of dozen of them had assembled, still holding up their hands, Uturo, his fellow warrior and a number of armed monks emerged from other buildings. Uturo had found the friendly monks without Sagacio's help.

We had won the war on top of the mountain, but it must be a far different story down below, in Nicarxa. And I was certain that I had lost Elicia, that she had been killed in that exchange of gunfire with the wine-stealing guards. If not that, she'd been killed by the guard Don Carlos sent to find her. If not that, the explosion surely had torn her to shreds.

I had already guessed that the explosion had come from the arsenal alongside the wine cellar. Why it had been blown up, I didn't know, but I did know that anyone in or near that wine cellar had to be a sure goner.

There was no feeling of victory as I marched into the courtyard where Uturo and his friends had rounded up all the guards who had remained loyal to Don Carlos. They all turned to look at me.

"Don Carlos Italla is dead," I whispered to Uturo, "but he lived long enough to send the signal. I'm afraid our victory up here is only temporary. Unless we can convince these people otherwise and keep the word to ourselves that Don Carlos is dead. In time, maybe we can use his headquarters in the clouds to mount a counter-offensive and throw out the Cubans. It'll be a ticklish business, though."

Uturo looked as defeated as I felt. He eyed the collection of guards in the courtyard and shook his head sadly.

"Such a good fight," he said sadly. "We did well, under your leadership. And it goes for nothing."

While we were standing there trying to figure out what to do next, the door to the guard station opened and a whole group of monks came strolling out. I recognized them as the religious followers of Intenday, the fanatic from Apalca, Don Carlos Italla's ally.

Uturo spun around, preparing to shoot the monks, but I stopped him. I don't know why — a feeling, a hunch. I had seen a familiar figure behind the monks, and that figure was carrying a Russian automatic rifle. That figure had herded the monks outside. That figure was Elicia.

My heart took an extra leap when I finally recognized her. I strode around the assembled monks and went to her side.

"I thought you were dead," I said. "My God, how did you come out of all that alive? How did you capture these Apalcan monks? How…"

"In time, Nick," she said. "Right now, I think I'm going to faint."

She was true to her word. She passed out even before the last word had passed her lips. I caught her and carried her into the guard station. I put her on a bullet-riddled couch and looked around for something cold to put on her forehead. She was as pale as death and I was about to tear off her clothes to look for wounds when Uturo and the Apalcan religious leader entered the guardhouse.

"This man says he has something important to tell you," Uturo announced. "He is Intenday. Perhaps we should listen to him."

I looked up and saw the wiry little man with the brown bald head and enormous eyes. There was no mistake; this was Intenday, the Apalcan religious leader I had seen that morning on the trail when he had come out of his tent for breakfast. I gazed past him, at his fellow monks and, sure enough, there was the fat monk who had been the fellow fire-tender of Nuyan, the man I had killed to infiltrate the ranks of the monks. He didn't seem to recognize me, but then how could he? He had never seen my face.

Intenday was a man who still stood on ceremony. As I rubbed Elicia's wrists to bring circulation around, he stood regally at the head of the couch and spoke in a soft, measured way:

"We had reached agreement with Don Carlos to commence the holy war at sundown and to purge both our nations of corrupt leaders. I thought it the best way — the only way — to accomplish what all holy men desire. I sought an end to corruption, to disease, to poverty, to tyranny. I believed I was right. I believed Don Carlos Italla was right."

That's the trouble with this world," I said, rubbing Elicia's arms and peering anxiously into her too-pale face. "Everybody thinks their side is right and they always resort to the wrong ways to prove it. And Don Carlos was a worse tyrant than the men who now rule Nicarxa and Apalca."

"This I learned too late," Intenday said. "When I knew just how much of a monster Don Carlos really was, it was too late to change my mind about the agreement. We became his prisoners here on the mountain and against our will he was to send the signal that we were in agreement. But you must Know…"

Elicia stirred on the couch and I held up a hand to shush the rambling religious leader. I was no longer interested in what he had to say. It was too late for that, too late for anything but to try to survive on this mountain while bloodshed reigned below.

"Elicia, come out of it," I said, slapping her face gently. Her head rolled back and forth and I saw faint color returning to her cheeks. My heart leapt for joy, but it was muted joy, knowing that her people below — and all the Ninca Indians — were being massacred by the hundreds.

She came around slowly and finally sat up on the couch. Intenday, still standing on ceremony, retreated a few steps, but stood implacably with his arms folded, his face clearly revealing that he had more to say and wouldn't leave until he said it.

"I'm sorry for fainting," Elicia said in a soft voice. "I meant to be strong, but so much had happened. I couldn't help it."

"What happened to you?" I asked. "How did you come through all this alive? And the explosion…"

Elicia interrupted me by holding her finger across my lips. That finger, dirty as it was from her ordeal, tasted sweet to me.

"I will tell you, slowly. First, a drink. I need something to drink."

Uturo brought a bottle of wine from under his shirt and, with a wink, popped off the cork. Elicia took a long draught and sat up straighter on the couch. We all listened to her story of terror and eventual success.

When the four guards had come to the cellar to steal wine and we started the shootout with them, Elicia had dashed into the corridor leading to the arsenal. She found the door open and dashed inside. When she closed the door behind her, it jammed in place and she couldn't get out again. She had banged on the door until her hands were raw, but we hadn't heard a thing.

The air in the closed arsenal was scarce and she began to gasp for breath as the minutes went by. She was nearly unconscious when the door finally opened. It was opened, I knew, by the man Don Carlos had sent to find her body.

"When he saw that I was alive and not wounded," she said, a catch in her voice, "he decided to take me, the way those Cuban Marines had been taking me before you came along to save me. He said Don Carlos was ready to send the signal, that the clouds had gone away, and that you and Uturo and Niko were prisoners."

"Niko? Who's Niko?"

"The other warrior," she said. "Uturo's friend. Anyway, he said it was all over for us and he might as well enjoy my flesh one more time before Don Carlos threw us all over the mountain. Oh, Nick…"

She started to cry and I massaged her hands and told her to take it slow and easy. She took another swallow of wine. Intenday moved a step closer, seeming ready to speak again, but I held up my hand to stop him. Elicia went on.

"I fought this man," Elicia said. "He was strong and I was nearly dead from lack of air, but I have been abused enough by animals. I fought as I have never fought before — as I should have fought when the Cuban Marines came. He nearly overcame me, but I got his gun away from him and killed him.

"I knew there wasn't time to rush to the palace to save you and Uturo and Niko, even if I could have done so. But I had to do something. I remembered looking at the map you had drawn of the fortifications. I remembered that the arsenal was directly under the rear of the palace."

"So you blew up the arsenal," I said. "How on earth did you do that?"

"I used the nylon rope you used to bring us up the chimney," she said. "I soaked it in brandy and ran it along the floor of the wine cellar and up the steps to the guard room. After I had lighted the fuse and was hiding in the guard room, the explosion came and I saw fire shooting from the top of the palace. I thought I had killed all of you. And then more shooting started in the courtyard and this man, this Apalcan religious leader, and his monks came rushing into the guard room for protection. I still had the gun I had used to kill the man who had found me in the arsenal, so I held them at bay until — until…"

She passed out again, more from the wine than from exertion. I eased her back on the couch to let her sleep this one off. She would wake up soon enough. She would wake up to the horror of knowing that her countrymen were being slaughtered in a useless revolution begun by a maniac.

I looked around the destroyed guard station, at Uturo who still held the bottle of wine; at Intenday, the Apalcan religious leader who learned too late that Don Carlos was a fiend. I shook my head and muttered:

"So much waste. Such valiant efforts by so many brave people and it all comes to waste. And there's no way to stop it, is there?"

Intenday moved a step closer and I was prepared for a sneak attack. He could have a weapon beneath that full red robe. Even though he'd confessed that he no longer was loyal to Don Carlos Italla, he still had to be considered the enemy.

"There is no need," he said in a sing-song voice of a man who has sung many prayers, "to stop what has not even begun."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The revolution," he said. "It has not begun. In fact, it will not begin. Already, the Cuban Marines are starting their evacuation, and the insurgents are surrendering to government forces."

I was skeptical, still watching his hands to make sure they didn't snake a weapon out of his smock while he had me off guard with his cockamamie story about the revolution not having begun, about the Cubans evacuating Nicarxa, about the surrender.

"Just how would you know all that?" I demanded. "Do you have a radio hookup to someone down below?"

"No," he said. "Nothing so sophisticated. Tell me, how many flares did Don Carlos shoot into the air above Alto Arete?"

"One," I said, "but you already know that. You must have seen it."

"Yes, I saw it, and my heart rejoiced. I wanted to explain to this young woman when she came in here waving her weapon, but her eyes were so wild and she was in no condition to listen."

"I'm in a condition to listen," I said. "Perhaps you'd better explain."

"The plan," he said, "called for Don Carlos to send up three flares if we were in agreement, if my people in Apalca would join the revolution. Without my help, Don Carlos knew that he could not succeed. Three flares, Mr. Carter, to start the revolution. If there had been no agreement, Don Carlos was to fire only one flare. One flare would mean no support, it would mean defeat. But the arrangement was only what you Americans call window dressing. Don Carlos intended all along to fire three flares, no matter what I and my group decided."

"One flare meant it was all off?"

"Yes, but he intended all along to fire three. I tried to dissuade him, but couldn't. When he made us prisoners, I sent an emissary to steal his extra flares. The emissary was found and killed. Believe me, sir, I did all possible to halt the revolution. Now I find that it was halted quite by accident."

"No," I said, "not by accident." I was remembering how Don Carlos had scrambled for those extra two flares when his very life was in danger. I had wondered why he hadn't gone ahead and fired that damned flare gun. Now I knew.

"I didn't know the rules when I was out there butting heads with Don Carlos," I said, "but you can't convince me that what happened was an accident. Too many people were involved in stopping that man to call success an accident. Too many people died stopping him. Those deaths weren't accidental. Do you know what they were, what all this was?"

"No," the Apalcan religious leader said.

"Fate, my friend. You believed that God was on you side, that you were fated to win. Well, you lost, so take a lesson from it and don't get tangled up with fanatics like Don Carlos Italla again. And don't become more of a fanatic than you already are. If the people of Nicarxa let you out of the country alive, learn your lesson well, Intenday, and resolve your future problems with help from the God you say you believe in. And — oh, the hell with you."

"One thing I fail to understand," he said. "Don Carlos was a fanatic, devoted to this revolution. Why would he fire a single flare, knowing that it would signal the death of the revolution?"

I thought about that. The man was falling and knew that he would have no chance to fire two more flares, even if he had them on his person. Why, then, did he fire? Ah, it was simple.

"It was a case of the drowning man grasping at straws," I told Intenday. "Don Carlos was falling to his death. He would have grasped at anything to save himself. The gun was in his hands and, in panic, he clutched it and pulled the trigger. And I'm afraid that's about all the explanation we'll ever get because Don Carlos is no longer among us."

"Thank God," Intenday said, crossing himself.

I picked Elicia up from the bullet-riddled couch and walked out of the guard station into the square. The guards were sitting in a bunch in the center and the monks and Niko were still standing above them with guns. I walked past them and went up the steps and into the palace. A frightened servant approached, wringing his hands.

"Show me to the master bedroom," I said. "Give me ten minutes to get this lady on her feet, then bring us something good to eat and drink. After that, we're not to be disturbed. Is that understood?"

He nodded and dashed up the main staircase like a dog leading his master to the hunting grounds.

I knew I should be spending this time in another way. I should go directly to the radio room on Alto Arete and get a message out to AXE and the American President that the mission was completed, successfully. I should get a message to the Nicarxan president that his enemies had lost, that he could easily round up dissident guerillas at will. I should…

To hell with all that. The Presidents could wait.

One more night wouldn't make any difference to anybody in the whole wide world.

Except to me.

And to Elicia.