Two men came into view on the trail. Both carried tommyguns. One held a pistol at the ready in his other hand. “. . . wearing a raincoat,” one of them was saying. “An American Señorita. A redhead, blondish. Beautiful, they say. But a traitor all the same. She informed on the bakery to the Beast!”
“Then she will make a beautiful corpse,” the other replied. “If we can but find her before she reaches the airport.”
They passed out of sight. Regina waited a long time before she continued down the path. Then she went quickly, stopping only when she came to the barbed wire fence.
“Follow the fence,” she’d been told. But which way? She squinted through the haze. It extended out in both directions from the path as far as she was able to see.
Regina guessed and set off to the right. About five minutes later she tripped and went to her knees. The hand she’d flung out for support sank into naked flesh.
There was a grunt. From somewhere under the grunter there was an immediate giggle. By then Regina realized she’d grabbed hold of a man’s bare behind.
The haze lifted for a moment as the man rolled over, cursing. Regina saw the uniform shirt of a Spanish soldier. The pants that went with it were bunched down around his ankles. The skirts of the still giggling girl were up around her Waist. It was obvious to Regina that she’d interrupted them at an inauspicious moment.
“Caramba!” The soldier had gotten a good look at Regina. “It is the American Señorita, the one we are supposed to shoot on sight!” Saying which he started for the rifle he’d left propped beside a nearby tree.
Luckily for Regina, he moved too fast. He’d forgotten about the pants tangling his feet. He tripped and fell and Regina beat him to the gun.
She aimed it at the two of them. Then, without a word, she backed away. The girl was still giggling.
Carrying the rifle, Regina retraced her stops back to the point where the fence met the trail. Then she set out in the other direction. Finally she came to the break in the fence.
Once through it, she quickened her pace, eager to reach the terminal. Even through the thickening fog the lights were a good deal closer when a figure loomed up in front of her. It was a very stout figure.
“Informer!” It was the plump girl rebel with whom Regina had been arrested. She dived at Regina with a long knife.
Regina raised the rifle and the muzzle caught the Basque girl in the breadbasket. A whoosh of air went out of her and she sat down hard. The knife was still clutched in her hand but, momentarily at least, the fight had gone out of her.
Regina pointed the rifle threateningly and once again backed away, disappearing into the darkness. Once the girl was behind her, she started to run. The result was that she ran smack into the other girl with whom she’d been arrested.
“Traitor!” The rebel girl jerked up her pistol and fired!
She missed. Before she could fire again, Regina had straight-armed her and kept running. But when a second shot whistled past her ear, she whirled around, aimed the rifle at the girl and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened! Only then did Regina realize that she never had cocked the rifle! The chamber was empty! Cursing to herself, she struggled with the bolt.
Before she could work it, however, her adversary fired again. The bullet shattered against the firing mechanism of the rifle. If it hadn’t been there, the bullet would have gone right through Regina’s heart. The impact sent the gun spinning from her hands. Not about to give the girl yet another shot, Regina took off at top speed!
Perhaps a quarter-hour later, Regina slipped into the terminal by a side entrance. She purchased a ticket on the next plane leaving for Barcelona. There would be about an hour wait before it was scheduled to depart.
It occurred to Regina that the clothes she’d bought were back in her hotel room and once again she was left with only what was on her back. She went into the Ladies’ Room, stripped off her raincoat, skirt and blouse, and tried to scrub off the grime she’d accumulated during her escape. She soaped her face, filled the basin with warm water, and bent low over it to rinse off the lather. She was in that position when she heard the door to the lavatory open and close, signifying that another woman had entered.
“Traitor!”
“Informer!”
There was a sudden steel band of pressure on the back of Regina’s neck as her head was shoved down in the basin, under the water, and held there. Her karate and judo training made Regina’s reaction automatic. Her foot shot back and hooked the leg planted behind her. Both her elbows snapped into reverse, slamming into the ribs of her assailant. The woman was jerked off balance and thrown sidewards. By the time she straightened up, Regina had turned around. A karate chop to the throat sent the woman spinning and gasping to the tiled floor. A short kick to the temple knocked her unconscious.
Regina dressed quickly and left the Ladies’ Room. Outside she straight-armed another Basque girl who pulled a pistol on her. A few moments later she was running a zigzag course across the terminal with two Spanish soldiers in hot pursuit. When she finally lost them by circling the building and reentering it, a rebel leaped on her from behind with a garrote. Regina kicked him in the groin, took away his strangler’s cord, and registered the fact that the p. a. system was announcing that her plane was boarding.
She raced up the ramp, entered the cabin of the airliner, and slipped into a window-seat, panting. The other passengers filed on board and the section filled up quickly. Soon the door was closed and the craft was taxiing down the field for takeoff.
Two American tourist ladies, schoolteacher types, were seated beside Regina. “Isn’t Spain lovely?” one of them was saying. “So peaceful.”
Glancing out the window, Regina saw a Basque rebel chasing the plane with a hand grenade. He pulled the pin and threw it. Fortunately it fell short.
“I know what you mean,” the other lady replied. “I just hate to go home to all the violence.”
A squad of Spanish soldiers piled out of a truck further down the field and began shooting at the bomb-thrower. Regina saw the two soldiers who’d been chasing her in the terminal run up to them and gesticulate wildly towards the plane. The riflemen swung around and began shooting at the jet as it rose in the air.
“N ext year let’s go to Greece,” the first lady said. “I understand it’s even more relaxed than Spain.”
“Let’s. . . . There’s so much we Americans could learn about serenity from the Old World,” the second lady sighed.
Regina echoed the sigh. As the plane climbed, she settled back in her seat. She told herself that at least she’d accomplished her objective. She’d narrowed down the list of suspects. Next stop Barcelona, then on to New York, a hot bath, and a good night’s sleep. After which she’d be ready for the next name on the list: Zelda Quinn.
Zelda Quinn, the most forgettable character she ever met!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cranks for the Memory
Every few years, a girl who’s smart enough to be convincingly dumb makes it big on the boob-tube. First there was Dagmar, whose luscious bosom and pur- poseful bloopers sent the ratings of the Jerry Lester Show skyrocketing in the early days of television. More recently there was Goldie Hawn, who parlayed a nymphette figure and a twisting tongue from top Laugh-In billing to Oscar-winning stardom. And now there was Zelda Quinn.
Zelda Quinn’s face was too small. When it peeped out from behind her mouse-brown, long, scraggly, ever disheveled hair, it seemed even smaller. It was the face of a gamin, a magnet for pathos. The snub nose and over-large eyes communicated a mixture of trust and skittishness reminiscent of a tame deer. Zelda seemed always about to nuzzle and bolt.