He slipped back into hiding, gathering himself for another dash; this time, however, overconfident, he ran straight when he emerged and not so fast. Maybe he was getting tired. I led him by roughly two feet and pressed the trigger of the Luger. He fell headlong and pushed himself to hands and knees. I took careful aim and fired again, and once more, and a third time. There was nothing to be gained by saving ammunition. After all, the guns should be pretty well empty when the time came to surrender-all the guns but one.
The man just stayed there on hands and knees, head down, unmoving. I was reaching back for the gun I'd lent to Carol when he finally collapsed and lay still. Well, no pistol has the instant knock-down power of a good rifle.
I said, "Okay here. How are your people coming?" I got no answer, and turned to see Carol staring at me, very pale. "What's the matter?" I asked.
"You… you killed him!"
"Wasn't that the idea?"
"But you deliberately kept shooting even after he was wounded! He was just crouching there, and you kept shooting!"
I looked at her and knew I'd done it at last. She'd forgiven the brutal murder in the sky, perhaps because of the harrowing circumstances, but this was too much for her sensitive nature to bear. It was all right, presumably, to kill a man with one powerful rifle shot, but to do the same thing with four feeble pistol shots was not to be tolerated.
I said, "Do we have to go into all that again, doll? Wounded men have been known to fire guns, but it has never happened with a dead man. I'm not going to get myself shot in the back by a guy I forgot to finish off, like a sentimental TV hero, or something. Okay?"
"No!" She licked her lips. "No, it's not okay! I-" I was getting a bit fed up with her moral judgments, not to mention her incessant gasps of surprise or dismay. I said, "Damn it, if you don't like it, go out there and surrender like I told you in the first place… Down!"
I threw myself on top of her, as Tony Hartford opened up with his squirter from a nearby sandpile. The submachine gun burst threw sand all over us.
I said, "Goddamn all amateurs! You were supposed to be watching them, not me! Give me that Browning!"
I rolled to the side, and tossed some sand back at friend Tony with Vadya's.380. There was a man missing, and that worried me, but there wasn't anything I could do about it, pinned down by the rapid-fire weapon across the way. Then Carol screamed, and I saw a man aiming a rifle down at us from the knoll that was the highest point of the island.
I rolled aside again, and emptied the.380 fast enough to make him take cover temporarily. This gave us a chance to wriggle farther down into the hollow we occupied, but there was obviously nowhere to go from there, except into the path of somebody's bullet. Well, that was exactly the way I'd wanted it, wasn't it?
I looked at Vadya's empty automatic, and tossed it aside. I'd once had some notion of keeping it for a sentimental memento, or something, but it was a silly idea. I took out Solana's pistol, and glanced at Carol, huddled down beside me.
"Forgive the imprecations," I said. "Everything's working out fine, just fine. We hope."
Tony Hartford's voice called: "Helm!"
"Right here," I said. "Where would I be going?"
"I think you see the situation. If you raise your head, my man will shoot it off. Throw out your gun."
I hesitated long enough to make it seem as if I were having a big struggle with myself. At last I called back, "It's empty. They're all empty."
"Toss them out anyway."
I reached for the Browning and lobbed it over the crest of the dune. I pitched the.38 Colt after it, and waited.
"Harsek carried a Luger," Hartford called. "Let's see it." I tossed out the Luger, and he said: "And one more."
He was trying it on for size; he couldn't know I had a fourth weapon. I let him wait some more. Then I picked up the Solana gun, kissed it once for good luck, and threw it after the rest. I heard sounds of movement on the other side of the dune.
"So they were all empty!" Hartford's voice said sarcastically. "Not a bullet in the lot-except for one automatic fully loaded! I ought to shoot you, Helm, just for that!"
I winked at Carol. Our electronic baby had found a home.
"All right," Hartford called, "all right, send the girl out." I nodded at Carol, and she got to her feet and walked out there, slipping in the sand. Hartford's voice came again: "Now you, Helm. Hands up, remember. Way up!"
I stuck my arms into the air and climbed over the ridge. Carol was standing in front of Hartford, looking small and disheveled and scared, with sand clinging to her soggy sweater and skirt. The rifleman was coming down the hill to join us. Hartford swung his ugly little squirt-gun to cover me.
I saw him smile slowly, and I knew.he was going to shoot. I could hardly complain. It was the logical thing for him to do; it was exactly what I'd done to Priscilla, for exactly the same reasons. They were still valid. There was nothing he needed me for. Any questions he had to ask, he could ask Carol.
I was just a threat, a potential danger to him and his operation as long as I was alive. Any sensible man would kill me now, and young Hartford, whatever his real name was, whatever his sexual attitudes might be, undoubtedly prided himself on being eminently sensible.
I saw the submachinegun swing and steady, and I braced myself for a last-minute dive to somewhere, not that there was any hope of escape, but I might as well take it moving as standing still. Then there was a single sharp report from down near the shore, and Tony Hartford went to his knees and pitched forward on top of his weapon. The man, with the rifle stopped and looked in the direction of the shot. He dropped his gun and raised his hands.
We turned to watch Seсor Ramуn Solana-Ruiz approach, accompanied by a couple of Mexican soldiers in khakis, one carrying a rifle with a telescopic sight.
23
"I'm VERY Sorry to have annoyed you by saving your life, Seсor Helm," Ramуn said in his stiff Mexican way. They insult very easily down there. "I will endeavor not to make the same mistake again."
I said, "Privately, I am very grateful, Seсor Solana. Publicly, all I can say is, it's a hell of a sentimental way to run a secret service or whatever you're running." I walked over to Tony Hartford's body and retrieved the trick automatic. "Here's your gun back. I went to a lot of trouble to plant it on that guy, so it would lead you to the right place. I hope you have an alternative solution to our problem."
He took the pistol and glanced from it to me. "So that is what the fireworks were about."
"That's what."
"You are a brave man."
I said irritably, "Jesus Christ, what is this anyway, a mutual-admiration society? So I'm brave or stupid or something, who cares? And you're a great guy, too, and in spite of how wonderful we both are, we still don't know where the hell these people are going to pull off their big show, whatever it may be."
"We have this man, here, and the pilot of the boat. A little questioning-" I said, with a glance at the lagoon, "You won't have the pilot long. He's making for the open sea at flank speed."
Ramуn laughed. "Give me a little credit, friend. There's a patrol boat hidden behind the next island that can outrun him by ten knots. As for the rest, I could not have an American agent killed before my eyes. The reports I would have had to fill out would say 'Interfered with my work for months. Besides, I had promised Mrs. Lujan that if she cooperated, she would be safe, and I was not sure how many people the man was going to shoot down, once he started. Those automatic weapons intoxicate some people." He glanced out to sea. "Here comes the patrol boat now. You see, the other boat is stopping to surrender. The pilot knows he cannot escape."