The next man turned the bend and stopped, eyes following the trail up. He looked startled when he saw the blood in the dirt. His head lifted higher, turned, and he looked into my face. He carried a machine gun across his belly. It swung toward me. This one was not for knives. I snapped out the Luger and blew his head apart.
He fell only three or four steps from the blind bend in the road. But I wanted that machine gun. With the Luger in my hand, I dropped down, sprinted to the body and, my eyes on the path, worked quickly. He not only had the ammunition loop in the gun but two more over his shoulders. A gold mine. I slipped those off, rolled the soldier over the edge into the brush, gathered up my prizes, and ran.
Nobody came around the bend. Not while I was on the trail. Not while I settled down to wait for another target. Time ran on. They must have stopped when they heard the Luger. I stayed on for fifteen more minutes, but no one had showed. I went up to Mitzy with my load. From there I looked down on the truck and the jeeps. The soldiers were straggling down the trail, gathering around a man with a walkie-talkie who was looking uphill. He wanted new orders from somebody higher up in the chain of command. Mitzy whistled in appreciation of our new guns. I grinned at her.
“They won’t stop everything Jerome can throw at us, but they’ll put a dent in the front. This army will know it’s been somewhere.” I indicated the group at the bottom. “They’re changing plans. The trail’s too tough and I think they won’t try a frontal advance again. Stay here and watch and come tell me if I’m wrong.”
Her tongue darted out and around her lips. She said, “Leave me the rifle, will you? I may get a chance to do some hunting. Head hunting.”
I left her the rifle and the cartridges. I went off in a hurry, hearing another sound — a sort of growl on the shore highway. It was time to get ready for more dynamite.
I was ready with the fuses when the new cars stopped at the road’s end and men tumbled out. A walkie-talkie was being used in the lead car, so these soldiers wouldn’t advance in a bunch. I didn’t wait for them to separate but got the first charge on its way. It went off under a jeep and took two carloads with it. When it was quiet, I poured a burst from the machine gun into the next row of cars. Those still functioning slammed into reverse for a discretionary retreat, out of range. It looked as if they’d stay back awhile, so I headed into the fortress.
It was noisy on the roof. Everybody kept down while bazookas and long-range guns raked the parapet. Noah beckoned to me for a look through his bamboo peeper. By now the soldiers had discovered the breakwater, found where it ran under the surface, and were nursing men from along it toward the steps. Some of these had reached the wall and were starting up. Noah’s mouth turned down.
I used the viewer again. Under cover of the heavy barrage, a line of soldiers was climbing toward us. In a few minutes the boats would be picking off their own people if they kept shooting. But at the moment the firing was too heavy for another rock party. I patted the machine gun and told Noah, “Tell me when they’re near the top.”
I needn’t have asked. The covering fire quit abruptly so it wouldn’t hit the men on the stairs. That was all the cue I needed. I heard a rush of boots as I stepped through the crenel. There was a rifle almost in my face but it wavered as the soldier humped for the next step. A burst from the machine gun blew him back into the man below. Both of them went over the edge. I sprayed the stairs, cleared it and the breakwater within range. The men beyond turned, headed back to the boats, slipping, falling, tumbling into the crafts. There wasn’t any more shooting. The flotilla withdrew around the far end of the breakwater and beached in the part of the cove where Mitzy and I had discovered each other in the salty water. It seemed a lifetime ago. I went back to Noah, crouched and lit a cigarette, one of those long, thin, good tasting joys made for me in Istanbul.
“That’s act one,” I said. “We can rest for awhile.”
“You may rest, Nick. My thanks for all you’ve done. But the siege is not broken, only halted for a short while. Jerome’s army will be back. I know my people think they have won and they expect a celebration. If they do not have one, they will accuse me of neglecting to thank the gods so that they abandon us. Then they’ll lose the will to fight again, and other battles are coming.”
Noah left me for the “victory” party, with sacred fire, drums, dancing. I divided my time between watching the ritual and checking the cove. Most of the boats were beached; it surprised me to see that the soldiers kept close to them and didn’t head for the fortress. The walkie-talkies must be burning the air with orders and counter orders.
I was looking down toward the water when a hand crept into mine, smooth, warm, tightening on my fingers. I turned my head. A girl bent over me, naked from the waist up, skin shining from the celebration dance. Her breasts swayed against my face. My breath became ragged. That wasn’t all that happened to me.
I ought to stay on watch. Nobody else was. But those damn drums were pounding in my skull. And besides, there was no action from the boats. I climbed down the ladder behind her. We came together on a soft couch of leaves, just beyond the gate.
Then it was over. Now the drums were muted. I heard a prayer in them and I felt a strange peace. I lifted the girl to her feet and we walked back, hand in hand. I left her to climb the ladder and looked through the crenel again.
The fleet was moving out into the open sea. Only one straggler was still inside the harbor maneuvering through the channel entrance.
Nuts. What the hell was happening?
I went down to talk to Noah who stood with Fleming and Tara. I gave them the news.
“Now we can spirit the doctor and the girls out of here,” I said. “With some muscle, we can run for another island where I can get word out to America to send us a plane. That way at least the doctor can stay alive for another try. And I can come back later to liquidate the colonel.”
But Fleming wouldn’t hear of it. He dug in his heels and said he’d never accept a post he owed to the United States. No planes. And no me to get rid of Jerome. I gave up, said sourly that it was his business. Mine was only to save all our hides. He and Noah could have it out while I got the wrecked boats off the rocks.
Noah chose some men to help me. The best swimmers, he said. I didn’t need swimmers. I needed a floating crane. I asked the old giant to have his men cut strong poles, and he sent them out with machetes. I used the time to learn how Mitzy was doing.
Mitzy sat where I left her, but the jeeps below were gone. Only the truck was still there. She said they’d pulled out in a bunch; the timing would make the withdrawal about the same time that the cove had emptied. I told her the boats left and so had the force on the shore highway. She looked skeptical.
“You don’t think Jerome is really giving up, do you? What’s he doing?”
I hadn’t mentioned to Noah and Fleming what I really thought. But I could talk to Mitzy.
“I’d say he’s yelling for help from Castro. You’re going to see bombers and gunboats and whatever else Russia can send by way of Cuba. I hope we won’t be here by then.” I also told her about the boats on the breakwater and that I would advise Noah to send his tribe for a vacation somewhere else as soon as we left.
She gave me a sidewise look. “Mission impossible. Good luck.”