The Annihilators (5 page)

There was a dangerous pause; but when he spoke his voice was less harsh. “I see. A sentimental gesture, Eric?”

“Call it that, sir. I’ve had a couple of days to think it over. It will be done, I promise you that; but it’s going to be done the way she’d want it done, sir.”

When you’re bucking him, it’s always well to go heavy on the “sirs.” He’s not fool enough not to see through the phony respectful smokescreen; but it kind of amuses him and he’s somewhat easier to influence when he’s amused. It was an odd reversal of our usual relationship, I reflected wryly, for me to be acting as the advocate of caution and restraint.

When he didn’t speak, I went on: “As we both know, Elly wasn’t a turn-the-other-cheek girl. She believed in giving as good as she got, or as bad as she got. But I don’t think she’d have wanted us to indulge in a mindless vendetta on her behalf. She was, well, concerned about the state of the world. She wouldn’t have wanted to be avenged to the last drop of blood if total vengeance could only be achieved at the expense of innocent people.”

“The innocent people of Costa Verde, you mean,” Mac said dryly.

“That’s right.”

“So you do not think Miss Brand would have favored the obvious: instant and complete annihilation of the organization by whose members she was murdered?”

I said, “What’s the real hurry, sir? I’m going to wipe out that goddamn junior-grade zoo of Jimenez’s: the lioness, the wolf, and the bear. Don’t worry. They’ll be taken care of. But as for the colonel himself, we don’t really know the extent of his responsibility. Maybe those bloodthirsty kids got out of hand and exceeded their orders. I’ve got to remember that Jimenez was a good man once. I fought beside him, remember: a very tough little gent, a highly competent soldier with all the guts in the world and lots of compassion for his people.”

Mac said, “But he’s older now, and he’s known what real power is. Even good men, elevated to high political office, tend to start thinking that they are so indispensable to their countries that they are justified in using any means whatever, no matter how brutal, to keep their positions, or to regain them if lost. At that point they become the same bloody tyrants we’ve known since the dawn of history, and the world is better off without them.”

It was an echo of my own thoughts of a couple of nights ago. “Yes, sir,” I said. “That’s exactly what I have to find out, what I’m heading down there to find out. Just how bad a president is this Rael? And how good was Jimenez while he was in? If he’s really what his country needs, I think… I think Elly would prefer to settle for the three immediately involved in her death, and leave Colonel Jimenez himself alive to ride into Santa Rosalia on his big white horse, the glorious savior of Costa Verde. That way… that way, in a sense, she won’t have died for nothing.” There was a little silence. At last Mac said, “Remember that official government policy favors Rael.”

“I’m not forgetting,” I said. “But official government policy can change, or be changed.”

Mac said, “I didn’t hear that, Eric. There must be something wrong with our connection.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well, I’ll authorize the delay. The information you requested will be sent as soon as available. And you can leave the rifle, and whatever arms you’re carrying at present that you don’t want to take on the plane, with the courier who brings your travel documents; he will know where to store everything until you need it. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Be careful. The climate of Costa Verde is rumored to be moderately unhealthful at the moment.”

“Yes, sir.” I hesitated. “Oh, there is one more thing. A wild stab in the dark. Since Jimenez has thought of recruiting a professional like me to deal with Rael, it’s just barely possible that Rael may have thought of recruiting a professional like me to deal with Jimenez. Ideas like that are contagious. Could you have somebody check to see if anybody we know, either in the private or public sector, is moving around that part of the world in a purposeful manner?”

“Request noted.”

“And please tell the surveillance team out in Lake Park to be careful. People living under the constant threat of a sniper’s bullets tend to get slightly desperate; another good reason for delay. Let’s let them feel the pressure for a while, until they mess their pants or panties every time a door slams. But the boys should be prepared to deal with the cornered-rat syndrome… no, never mind. I’ll warn them myself. Eric out.”

I sat there for a moment after hanging up, looking around the bleak motel room and, I suppose, comparing it subconsciously with the warm and friendly little North Side apartment in which I would have been staying now, in pleasant company, if certain things hadn’t happened.

I picked up the phone again and called the surveillance number and asked a question. The answer was that the subject in question, the male Jimenez senior, was still in residence and had just been seen driving in and, yes, they did have his telephone number. I gave my warning and broke the connection and called the number. I was answered by a very familiar voice, feminine, young, with a strong and unique Spanish accent. I’d wondered how I’d feel if I’d heard that voice again. I felt nothing but a mild regret. Dolores Anaya Jimenez had been a reasonably intelligent and quite good-looking kid with lots of potential. She could have become a happy wife and mother; she could have become the first lady president of Costa Verde. It was too bad that she had chosen to commit suicide two nights ago, a pretty young girl like that.

“Señor Hector Jimenez, please,” I said.

“Who ees thees, please?” Then I heard her breath catch. “Señor Helm, I want to tell you—”

I said, “Señorita, I hold no conversations with the dead. Well, I will ask one question. Did I or did I not watch you pass the sentence of execution over the phone the other night?” Her silence was an answer. I said, “Very well. I gave you a choice and you chose the bullet. Now put your daddy on, please.”

There was a little pause; then I heard high-heeled shoes recede across a hard floor of some kind. Presently other, heavier, duller footsteps approached and Jimenez’s voice spoke in my ear. I was surprised at how familiar it sounded after all the years that had passed.

“Matthew?”

“Long time, Hector,” I said. “That was a very stupid thing you just did. If you’d made mistakes like that back when we were stalking
El Fuerte
through the jungle, we wouldn’t be here, either of us. A question.”

“Ask.”

“Did you really give those jackass kids those jackass orders?”

He hesitated. “The basic idea was mine, amigo. The execution of it… well, the commander is responsible for the actions of his troops. Matthew?”

“Yes?”

“Your quarrel is with me. My daughter, in particular, is very young.”

“Bullshit!” I said sharply. “Your homicidal daughter is old enough to tell her brother to use a knife, and your homicidal son is old enough to do it. And what’s this ‘amigo’ crap, anyway? If we’d really been amigos, you’d have picked up a phone and called me when you needed help, instead of what you did.”

“And you would have said no, most regretfully, because it would have been against the policy of the government for which you work, which favors the butcher Rael.”

“Correct,” I said. “But it would have been handled in a friendly and civilized fashion and nobody would have got hurt.” I drew a sharp breath. “Jesus Christ, man, we sneaked through the boonies together with that tough little task force of yours; we stood off the mass attacks of
El Fuerte
’s ragged-ass army on that lousy ridge; we ran for the coast together hauling that beat-up agent of ours your people had rescued from the camp; and after all that you still don’t know any better than to try me with a stunt like this? If that’s the kind of decisions you made in office, your people must have been damn glad to get rid of you. Well, I have orders to see they’re not bothered with you much longer.”

He was silent for a little; then he said, “It is very unfortunate that we should come to this. Of course, men have tried to kill me before and I am not yet dead.”

I said, “I guess I just called up to say good-bye, for old times’ sake. However it goes, it seems unlikely that both of us will survive. Adios, Hector.”

“
Vaya can dios
, Matthew.”

Hanging up, I decided that it had been a mistake to call. He’d sounded exactly like the man I’d known and fought beside all those years ago. The conversation had settled nothing in my mind; it wasn’t going to be that easy. I decided that it was a good thing I was going to Costa Verde. Maybe what I learned there would help me find an answer Elly would have approved of.

“Bultman,” said the voice in the phone.

It was Mac’s voice; and I stood in a booth in the airport in Houston, Texas, listening to it. A little distance away the rest of our happy tour group stood around and sat around on the cushioned benches—well, most of the rest of it. I gathered that there was one member of the party still to come, a guy with the good Scandihoovian name of Anderson, according to the list, who’d be joining us here; but he hadn’t shown up yet.

However, it was a three-hour connection, and our plane from Chicago had been on time for a change, so the missing would-be archaeologist could still make it, and it wasn’t my problem anyway. Our efficient lady tour guide was taking care of everything, including the boarding passes for the next leg of our journey, from Houston to Mexico City, where we were scheduled to spend a couple of educational days improving our minds in the well-known
Museo Anthropologia
, and a couple of enjoyable nights sampling the after-dark entertainment of the great urban sprawl that now occupies the ancient valley of the Aztecs and holds, I believe, the world number-two spot in population, behind New York, but ahead of Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Shanghai.

Then we would fly to Santa Rosalia, the capital city of Costa Verde, which also had a museum that required a day of our attention. The final leg of our journey, from Santa Rosalia to the jungle site of Copalque, where our archaeological education would begin in earnest, would be accomplished by bus.

“Bultman is in Costa Verde?” Lounging in the booth, I was watching hard for surveillance but hadn’t spotted any yet. It was beginning to look as if I’d managed to slip away from Chicago without a tail. I said, “So the reports of the Kraut’s death in Cuba were slightly exaggerated. Do we know yet what optimist paid him to make the touch on Fidel?”

Popularly it’s referred to as a hit, but in our outfit, for some reason, we always call it a touch.

Mac said, “Various sponsors have been suggested, including of course our ever-hopeful friends of the CIA, but there seems to be no firm evidence pointing to any particular individual or organization.” He paused, and went on: “To answer your question, Bultman is not in Costa Verde, at least not yet, not as far as we know. But he was seen not too far away in Guatemala City, in earnest consultation with a man identified as Enrique Echeverria, fondly known as Enrique Rojo, or Red Henry, the head of the Costa Verde
Servicio Seguridad Nacional
, Armando Rael’s secret police force. The subject under discussion could not be determined. You’ll be interested to hear that Bultman was seen to favor his left leg, leaving; and that an informant, usually reliable, states that he did not wholly escape from Cuba after his unsuccessful attempt on Castro’s life. One foot remained behind, severed in the crash of the getaway vehicle in which he was thought to have died; apparently he has not yet fully mastered the artificial one.”

I said, “If that’s true, unless it broke him altogether, he’s going to be hard to handle. What have we got on him?”

I heard paper rustle half a continent away. Mac read off the dossier: “
Bultman
, given name(s) unknown, aliases employed…” He ran through a string of them, with no discernible pattern, and went on: “Forty-three, five-eleven, one-ninety, blond, blue. No distinguishing marks on record, no fingerprints. 1973 passport photo (Minox copy). 1978 telephoto series (five exposures, poor). Competent short, long, expert auto. Adequate edged. Adequate unarmed. No explosives experience on record. Hetero, sadistic tendencies, not compulsive. Alcohol usually in moderation, no tobacco, no record of drugs. Team player, seldom operates alone. Varshavsky 1967. Lindermann 1969. Smith-Watrous 1972. Eladio 1974. Marais 1977. Castro 1980 (failed). Suggested from MOs but unconfirmed: Hernandez 1971, Lagerquist 1975. Unreported since 1980, believed dead.” Mac cleared his throat. “The dossier has not yet been updated in the light of our most recent information.”

There was a little silence while I digested all this. Five confirmed kills and two possible in ten years. The top of the heap. One of the select few you’d consider for a really tough one, if you could afford him. Then crippling disaster. As I’d indicated, he’d either be a broken man now, or a real tiger eager—perhaps overeager—to wash out his defeat with blood and reestablish himself at the summit of his chosen profession.

According to the dossier, we had only the most general physical characteristics to identify him by; and a small-film copy, probably snapped in haste, of an old passport photo; and some fuzzy long-range tele shots. However, that was not a real problem now. A killer with a brand-new tin foot to which he was still unaccustomed shouldn’t be too hard to spot. In other respects the record revealed the man: A man who didn’t really favor the face-to-face stuff either bare-handed or with edged implements, who could handle a pistol or rifle okay, but who really excelled with the fully automatic weapons.

Well, that agreed with his description as a team player; more accurately, as I recalled, a team leader. Mostly you don’t need a regiment—although I’d used Jimenez’s assault group the last time I’d been in Costa Verde—to slip a sniper into position, or sneak a pistolman within range of his target; but if your habit is to blast through the opposition by brute force, a well-trained unit equipped with rata-tat guns can be very useful.

It wasn’t really my cup of tea, as the British would say, but it was Bultman’s, and I gave him full credit; although he had a reputation for arrogance, he must have something that inspired loyalty or his boys wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of getting him away, disabled and bleeding, after the Cuba fiasco. Of course it was also a weakness of sorts and our rules read differently. We’re not supposed to jeopardize our important missions, or even our valuable government-trained selves, performing heroic rescues of one-footed comrades (or of small girl hostages either, memory said; and I wished it would shut up and leave me alone).