The Annihilators (32 page)

“Sure,” I said.

I freed the Smith and Wesson, holster and all, and handed it over to the general’s lady. I preferred it as a weapon—I was brought up on revolvers—but with its sawed-off barrel it was strictly a short-range proposition, and it only held five cartridges against the thirteen that still remained in Sanchez’s automatic. (I had no trouble at all in remembering where the fourteenth round had gone.) I tucked the big Browning under my waistband after rechecking the loads. I saw Jim Putnam glance at his luminous watch dial.

“Paul, how much time will you need?”’

“I’ll have to go around the south end of the clearing so I can approach the pyramid from the jungle side. Can you give me an hour?”

“Just about. We want to get it over with before they start stirring around to change the guards at midnight. Very well, at twenty-three-oh-five Sam and I will assume you’re in position and stage our heroic attack against fearful odds. Ready? It is now twenty-two-oh-five… Mark!”

“I might as well go now, too,” General Henderson said. “I don’t move as fast as you young sprouts these days, and I don’t mind sitting under a tree until the action starts. Captain, it is a pleasure to serve under you. I’ll deal with my man and then wait at that end of the field to shortstop anything that gets loose and comes my way…”

Then they were gone. In the silence, we could hear the footsteps of Gloria Jean outside, pacing her beat—well, it was hers now. Jim Putnam let out a long breath.

“It’s not the fighting that gets you, it’s the goddamn briefing,” he said. “And the goddamn waiting. No sense in our getting out there yet, Sam. We can be at our jump-off position in five minutes.” He hesitated. “I’m rather curious about how you and Frances cleaned up on Colonel Sanchez and his cohorts.”

Mrs. Henderson said placidly, “Yes, I’ve been wondering about that, myself.”

I said, “Well, you see, I had that .38 hid out…”

They appreciated the story I told them just as much as if it had been the truth.

The path seemed longer this time, which was odd. Usually a trail you’ve traveled a few times and got to know after a fashion goes by faster than it did when you were exploring it for the first time and didn’t know how much of a hike it was going to be. However, I’d experienced a certain amount of blood loss earlier; and since then, I’d done some more fighting and my ears were still ringing with grenade blasts and gunfire. I was only carrying one Ml6 on this trip, plus my little revolver, returned unused by Mrs. Henderson; but I also had a machete, a full canteen, and a haversack.

On the plus side was the fact that I was reasonably clean and presentable for a change, having been sponged off and rebandaged by the general’s formidable spouse; I’d even got to exchange my bloodstained clothes for fresh ones. Nevertheless it seemed to take me a long time to raise the loom of the Monastery against the sky, and longer still before I found myself on the cleared Melmec road with the Arch of the Emperors darkly visible ahead.

A sudden rustling and scurrying noise had me unslinging the assault rifle hastily, ready to hit the ground; then I heard the low, snarling sound of a four-footed scavenger standing its ground against the two-footed predator approaching. Clearly the bodies had already been found by the Eaters of the Dead, as the Melmecs had called them.

I made a cautious detour, not knowing what the hell was there, only that it sounded sizable and brave; it could be anything from a coatamundi to
El Tigre
himself—or maybe just a pack of dogs from a native village. In any case, I wasn’t looking for more combat; but the encounter put a sudden fear into my mind. I hurried on and was relieved to find Frances lying at the side of the arch where I’d left her, alone and apparently unharmed.

She didn’t speak. I got rid of my load and knelt beside her. “Roll over a bit so I can get at your wrists,” I said, and cut them free. “All right, now the ankles.”

She sat up, rubbing her wrists. Rising, I helped her to her feet.

She looked at me for a moment and spoke without expression: “Teacher, may I leave the room?”

“Yes, Frances,” I said. “You may leave the room.”

She disappeared around a corner of the arch, moving a little uncertainly after the long hours of immobility. Presently she returned, buckling the belt of her jeans. She smoothed down her shirt and brushed herself off a bit and pushed her hair back from her face with both hands, standing in front of me.

“It’s a funny thing,” she said in an odd, thoughtful voice. “It’s a very funny thing. I’ve probably lost a husband I loved very much. When all this comes out, I’ll probably lose a university position I worked very hard to get. I’ve probably wrecked a very promising academic career. It’s quite possible that I’ll be sued for every cent I own and wind up penniless, jobless, disgraced, and ruined. If a certain individual cares to press charges, I may even wind up in prison for attempted murder. And as if all that was not enough to think about, I could hear the carrion-eaters working out in the dark, and I wondered when they’d get around to ripping me into little bloody pieces, and eating the pieces. But what was I
really
worrying about, lying here helpless, Mr. Helm? I’ll tell you, the only thing on my mind for the last hour or so has been whether I should urinate in my clothes immediately or hold out a little longer. Silly, isn’t it?”

I wasn’t going to apologize for leaving her here so long, if that was what she was hinting at. I said, “I have water and beer. And some soggy crackers.”

She said, “Warm beer at three o’clock in the morning is positively indecent, isn’t it?”

I said, “Actually, it’s closer to four, but there’s no sense in trying to move until it gets light. They won’t start from Labal until they can see. When we hear the Jeep we can cut straight across to the road and join them. It can’t be more than a quarter of a mile through the jungle, and I brought a machete.”

I gestured toward the steps of the arch, and we sat down side by side. I opened the haversack, set the carton of crackers between us, and got the cap off two bottles of beer. She picked hers up and drank thirstily.

“Like I said, indecent,” she said. She threw me a sideways glance. “I suppose you killed them all, just as you did here.”

“Of course,” I said. “Where Helm has been, no living thing remains.”

She shivered. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Do you want to hear about it?”

She nodded. “In a way I’m responsible, so I should know about it, shouldn’t I?”

“It was a very professional operation,” I said. “Jim Putnam and I went for different ends of the headquarters temple. We were almost there when we were spotted by the sentry up on the Citadel. He got off a hasty burst that missed; but Paul Olcott was in position and cut him down. At the same time I heard the old general open up at the far end of the clearing and I knew he had his man. Then I pitched a grenade into the officers’ end of the building, and Jim got two into the barracks end, and nailed a man who came staggering out, but another got around the corner. I heard him coming my way and dropped him with my Browning. Jim stepped out into the clear and finished him off with his .223; but in the meantime another had stumbled out and was limping down the field toward the escape road. We didn’t dare fire that way because we didn’t know where Henderson had taken cover over there. Then we saw something flicker among the trees—those flash-hiders leave something to be desired—and heard the general’s careful five-shot burst. The running min went down, and that was just about it. Except that later we had to climb the pyramid and dig out Paul’s man, who’d managed to crawl into a hole up there. But he’d lost too much blood to present a problem. No casualties among the good guys.”

It hadn’t been quite that simple, of course. There had been the inspection of the blasted headquarters temple afterward, and the discovery that my grenade had been wasted on an empty room but Jim’s double explosive present had done a thorough and very messy job on three of the occupants of the barracks, no coups de grace required. Jim had sent me up to see if Paul Olcott needed any help at the Citadel while he reassured the rest of the party and got them started on preparations for pulling out.

I’d found an undamaged M16 in the wreckage of the officers’ room. Climbing the pyramid with it slung across my back, in the dark, hadn’t been my idea of recreation, particularly since no matter how I hung it the damn gun kept bumping me where I hurt. Paul Olcott signaled me over to a mass of unassembled masonry that was presumably awaiting further restoration. They put those old fallen-down buildings back together like jigsaw puzzles.

“I’m sorry; I goofed,” Olcott said when I reached him, panting. “I hit him a couple of times, I’m sure, but I guess I was a bit nervous, and I didn’t know the gun, and the shots went low. He managed to find cover over there in the corner behind the fallen pillar. He did a little shooting earlier, and I fired back; but there’s been no sign of life for a while. I didn’t want to go in after him until somebody else got here, for fear he was playing possum; but if you’ll cover me…”

I shook my head. “Let’s not be hasty. I’ll take a look; you stay here and watch the rat hole.”

He said stiffly, “It’s my job, Sam. You don’t… wound a lion and let somebody else go into the brush after it, dammit!”

I said, “Any lions you wound you can have, with my compliments. This is a man; and men are my business. You did your job, you kept him off our backs when it counted, now let me do mine, okay?”

But after all the heroic arguments, there was nothing to it. Approaching cautiously, I found an angle from which I could see the dark shape of the wounded man behind the pillar, lying belly-down, unmoving. He seemed to have a smashed thigh. There was a black pool of blood beneath it, and the leg lay at an angle that was just slightly wrong. There was an assault rifle on the ancient stone paving by his right hand.

I could have made sure of him from where I was crouching, of course; but something made me close in warily, watching the hand. At the last moment, it moved to grasp the Ml6, and the prone man tried to roll over to shoot me, but he was too weak and slow. I stepped in quickly and kicked the gun away. He sank back with a groan. When I turned him over with my foot, he choked back a scream of pain. I reached down and added another Browning, and another knife, to our arms collection.

I called, “It’s okay, Paul, but get Jim up here, will you?” Putnam had apparently been coming to join us, anyway; he appeared almost immediately. I said, “I thought you might like to have this one for your very own, amigo.”

We stood regarding the overly conscientious sentry who’d been so much trouble to us. Then Jim Putnam looked down at his M16 and set the selector very carefully to single fire. I touched his arm. He glanced around quickly, annoyed by the distraction.

I said, “You know her better than I do. But some women are kind of unreasonable about being raped. I knew one who bought a little knife and, with some help, personally castrated both characters who’d done it to her. Really kind of a nice girl, too.”

He hesitated, and turned his head. “Paul. Would you go on down and ask Gloria Jean to come up here, please?”

Lt. Julio Barbera lay looking up at us with hating eyes, saying nothing. At last we heard footsteps and the girl appeared. She’d shed her borrowed sentry costume; and she was wearing a short-sleeved black knitted shirt and snug jeans tucked into her boots. The boots did not seem as big and clumsy with pants as they had with skirts. Even in the dim light I could see that she looked sturdy and attractive and very durable; a girl designed to last the right man a lifetime. She stepped forward and looked down at the wounded officer. I couldn’t make out her expression. Perhaps it was just as well.

I turned and walked away, but I heard her voice behind me speaking softly but quite clearly: “No, I’ve never used one. You do it for me, please, darling. You know how.” A weapon offered and refused. And the crack of a single shot…

But there was no need for Frances to know these details. We sat under the massive arch, listening to the ugly noises of the scavengers feeding back along the ancient road. I thought the sky was getting faintly lighter in the east, but it was hard to be sure.

“Yes,” I said, “a very neat and professional operation.”

“Modesty is clearly not one of your many virtues.”

I said, “It wasn’t my operation. I asked Jim Putnam to run it. Big military maneuvers are out of my line.”

She glanced at me. “I rather doubt that you felt incapable; it doesn’t seem like you. What was your real reason for turning it over to Jim?”

I said, “Clever women make me sick. All right. He needed it. I didn’t.” When she didn’t speak, I went on; “It was kind of pitiful, a good man, a good fighting man with a fine record, running around in a ridiculous hippie suit because, goddamn it, if they disapproved of him because of what he’d done in the army—in Vietnam—he’d give them a life-style to
really
disapprove of, and fuck them all. I had to remind him who he really was. What he really was.”

“And what was he?”

“Basically he was, and is, a killer, just as I am. Very handy fellows to have around, we killers. You can feel fine and self-righteous about disapproving of us when you don’t need us; and you can feel fine and self-righteous about handing us. medals when you do. And in the meantime we keep you safe and do your dirty work for you; and you keep your hands clean and nobody ever, ever shoots at you.”

“You sound bitter. And are you sure you’ve done Jim Putnam a favor, reminding him of his true nature, if that’s what it really is. I doubt Gloria Jean will love you for it.”

“No bitterness, but perhaps a slight touch of cynicism,” I said. “And Gloria Jean is a very smart girl who will love anybody who’ll give her back a live proud man for a husband instead of a brooding zombie. I think she’s been waiting for years for something to shake him up. Wake him up. Well, he came awake tonight and did a good job, a very good job indeed. I think with her help he’ll make it from here.”

“As a killer?”