Sable reached down and helped me to my feet. I felt for the grenades on my belt and checked the.45, then put it away, the metal a warm friend against my side. He looked at his hand and wiped it on his coat. “You’re hurt.”
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“You may need attention.”
“Later,” I said. “There isn’t time now.” I pulled him toward the Volvo, waited until he was in and turned the key in the ignition. All I could think of was, Damn, it may work yet!
Holding the speed down was almost painful, but to rush would be fatal. The headlights picked up the two guards on patrol who flanked the road, their rifles ready. I tapped the low-beam switch to get the light out of their eyes and leaned out of the window and called them over. I held up two of the bills I flicked from my pocket and said, “The captain told me to give you this and that he appreciated your services.”
The denomination was too much for them. One even rested his rifle up against a tree to inspect the bill in the glare of the lights and the hardest part was keeping them from shaking my hand in gratitude. Anybody else would have pocketed the money and to hell with them. The one on the barricade that led to the road was a little more suspicious until I chewed him out enough to take the money out of my hand; then he was all smiles and bewilderment, but shrewd enough to know what that single bill represented in his present economy.
When we were clear, Sable turned to me with a slight smile and said, “Does your country always prepare you so well for an emergency?”
“This was my own idea. Nothing motivates the impoverished more than the sight of riches.”
“You are difficult to understand, my friend. I wonder what motivates you.”
“Sometimes I wonder myself,” I said. “For the time being, call me a sucker.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“What do you think, then?”
“Most likely I could tell you, but most likely you wouldn’t accept it either.”
“And that I appreciate,” I said.
I saw their headlights bouncing off the treetops in the distance, the glow diffused by the low night clouds overhead. I touched the brake pedal and skidded to a stop before I reached the curve in the road, slammed the Volvo into reverse and sent it smashing into the bushes off the shoulder, angling it toward the oncoming cars so their lights wouldn’t pick up any reflection from the glass in ours. I told Sable to stay put until I got back, then climbed out my side and ran back the way we had come about fifty yards, picked my spot and waited.
Leaders never lead anymore. They send their troops out ahead to pick up any itinerant fire and stay safe on the excuse that their services are too valuable to be exposed to enemy destruction. I pulled the pins from two of the grenades and held the handles down under my fingers, judging the speed of the oncoming column. A hundred feet separated each of the vehicles and I let the first two trucks loaded with soldiers roll past, released the handle of a grenade and heard it pop into life, then let it go with an overhand swing into the path of the command car in the rear.
I was off on my timing, but I wasn’t off on my aim. The grenade, momentarily lost in the darkness, slashed through the beams of the headlights and wiped out the windshield with its crashing impact as the vehicle swerved wildly when the driver reacted to his surprise. But he tried too hard and overcontrolled and the car whipped around, hit the soft shoulders of the road and toppled slowly and ponderously on its side.
The damn fuse had a longer delay than I anticipated and they almost had time to get out. The door opened upward, the interior light winking on so I could see both Carlos Ortega and Russo Sabin fighting madly for escape. Only the driver had guts enough to scream, “Grenade, grenade!” and scrabble for it someplace in the car.
Then it blew and Ortega and Sabin were lifted in disjointed pieces from the wreckage and scattered through the night with a lovely orange blossom of flame to send them off with a final salute.
Up ahead the other trucks had stopped and had started backing up. I let the other grenade go rolling down the road and ran like hell back toward the car. I barely reached the Volvo when it went off and I didn’t bother to check the damage it did. Those troops would be scrambling for cover, waiting for another attack, and weren’t going to be watching for me driving off in the dark.
I felt my way along the road, turned on the dims when I rounded the turn, having barely enough light to see the road. When I was far enough away I switched on the low beams, hit the gas pedal and headed toward the highway.
Only then did I have a chance to notice Victor Sable in the seat beside me. He looked like he was frozen there, his face pale and drawn. “Relax,” I said.
The sound of my voice seemed to startled him back to reality. “They are…?”
“Dead,” I told him. I glanced in the rear-view mirror. We were still alone on the road. I looked at my watch and grinned to myself. We just might make it at that.
Sable’s hands were folded into tight knots in his lap. “This killing,” he said. “All this terrible killing…”
“Save your sympathy,” I told him. “That’s how they got on top.”
The Volvo careened around a curve, straightened and slowed as the intersection I was looking for came up. Ortega might have given orders to have roadblocks set up on the highway and I didn’t want to take any chances of running into them. The back route I had taken to the Rose Castle was longer, but less likely to be patrolled. I swung onto the dirt road and tramped on the throttle again.
Ahead of us the revolving beacon of the airfield still probed the sky with its finger of light and I was sure of my direction. I was pushing for time and almost pushed myself into the wreckage of the trap that I had laid myself.
Sable saw it the same time I did, let out a hoarse yell and was reaching for the wheel when I batted his arm away. Right in the center of the road an old Chevvy that had been parked next to the Volvo in the hotel lot was upside down in the midst of the wreckage of the cart I had dragged into its path.
I stopped, pointed the lights of the car at the mess, got out with the.45 cocked in my hand and looked inside it. The steering wheel was bent in half and blood was flecked over the cushions and broken glass, but nobody was there. The door on the driver’s side gaped open and I didn’t like standing there in the light making a target of myself for anybody who still might be in the bushes, even though the chances were he had long since gone. I got back in the Volvo, skirted the wreck and stayed on the road until it bent around the perimeter of the airfield.
From there it was a straight run to the north end and I cut the lights, letting the occasional glow from the beacon spot my way as I lined up on the windows in the tower a mile away. The wind was at our backs now, whistling past the window in furious gusts that rocked the car. Hurricane Frances was getting her back up, ready to move in for the kill.