“What is going on here?” she chattered in Spanish. “What do you want of me? I have nothing to do with any of this. I am just trying to earn a living. I never saw this man before. I have never been here before. Leave me alone. Let me go.”
“Sorry,” Foster apologized as he tied her. “But don’t worry. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“You treat me good, I treat you good.” She tried another approach. “I can do lots of things you like when I’m not tied up.” She tried to catch Foster’s hand to press it to her breast.
“What is it makes you so irresistible?” I asked him, grinning.
“Don’t be funny.” He scowled back at me. “Some other time,” he told the girl. He stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth and secured it there to cut off any further protests.
Now, cautiously, with Foster in the lead and me bringing up the rear, we started up the stairs. The door at the top was closed. The other CIA man and myself covered Foster as he kicked it open.
The men inside reacted faster than their confederate downstairs had. There were four of them, plus another girl. One of the four men was elderly and had the bearing and features of a Prussian. I guessed him to be the German scientist we were seeking.
One of the Cubans, and the girl, were on the bed, naked. We’d interrupted them at what was obviously a most inopportune moment -- for them. The girl, large-busted and moist with passion, had just been poised to alight on the aroused Cuban. Stretched out horizontally, his back had been arched and his manhood quivering to welcome her. Now, startled, she came down hard and the man grunted as her weight crushed the pouch of his passion beneath him.
The other two Cubans and the German, their backs to us, laughed aloud at the expression of pain that crossed his face. Then, noting his eyes, they swung around and saw us. The German merely shrank away. But the two Cubans sprang into action.
They were as fast as greased lightning, and their guns came out blazing. Foster dived, sprawling flat as he fired back. I ducked outside the door to the room as I fired, getting the wall between myself and the Cuban fusillade. But the other CIA man with us wasn’t so lucky. The first shots blew his face apart and he fell forward spouting blood. He was dead before he hit the floor.
The third Cuban, on the bed, was using the girl as a shield now. With his arm around her neck in a half- nelson, he’d pulled her backward to where his clothes were and managed to pull a gun from a holster there. Still holding the girl, he was pointing the gun at the German and trying to get him out a door on the other side of the room.
Foster was pinned down behind a large armchair, using it as cover as he swapped shots with the other two Cubans. That left it up to me to stop the third one from escaping with the prize. I lunged from the doorway, bullets whistling past my ears, and found myself wrestling with two armfuls of naked Colombian whore. He’d thrown her at me as I came, and steadfastly kept retreating toward the exit with the German. I straight-armed her to get her out of my way, swiveling like a Notre Dame ball-carrier eluding a tackler.
The maneuver not only worked, it saved my life. Just as I reversed positions with the girl, a well-aimed bullet had been coming my way. It caught her just below her left breast. She gave a surprised little whinny and crumpled to the floor behind me.
I lunged for the Cuban now. It was too close a risk a shot. I couldn’t take a chance on hitting the German. He swung his revolver and I twisted so that it just glanced off the side of my head. Then we were wrestling as the German shrank against the wall behind us.
The Cuban was tough, smaller than me, but lithe and wiry. The way he used his body told me he was well-versed in such murderous Japanese arts as valli tudo16 and karate. Fortunately, I had some experience along these lines myself. We were well-matched.
His hands slugged away at my kidneys and his knee was a hammer pounding away at the anvil of my groin. I tried to push him away. I kept the fingers of one hand in his eyes and with the other hand I was trying to chop at his throat and neck. But he was too fast for me to get in a really telling shot. And although I was counter-pointing his knee action with solid kicks to his shins, they might have been made of pig iron for all the effect my efforts were having.
It was a tangled clinch with both of us afraid to let go, and I don’t know how long we would have gone on waltzing like that if one of his buddies hadn’t tried to come to his aid. The other one was pumping bullets at Foster, still keeping him pinned, when this bozo jumped me from behind. My original dancing partner sprang backward and raised his gun, smiling as he pointed it at my heart, and started to squeeze the trigger.
It would have been curtains if not for the German. All this time he’d been standing by passively, crouching back like a scared rabbit. Now, suddenly, he sprang into action. He grabbed up a lamp off the nightstand and smashed it over the Cuban’s head just as he fired at me.
The bullet grazed my ribcage, searing the flesh. I heaved with all my strength, falling forward so that the weight of the second Cuban was on my shoulders. Then I swung around fast so that his head cracked into the corner of a bureau. The third Castro-ite started for me, but he didn’t get very far. Foster nailed him with a fatal shot before he’d taken more than a step or two.
We stood panting and looked at the carnage around us for a moment. Foster examined the CIA man, determined that he was past help, sighed, and turned to the German. “Brother,” he told him, “I sure hope you’re worth all this.”
“Lay off him,” I told Foster. “He saved my life.”
“Did he now?” Foster said. “I wonder why.”
“I never ask why somebody saves my life,” I said drily. “I just thank them.” I turned to the German. “Thank you,” I told him.
He just nodded and didn’t say anything. He didn’t look frightened any more. But his eyes were cautious and shrewd like a man who’s waiting to see which way the wind blows so he can sail along with it.
“I’m Steve Victor,” I said to him, still feeling grateful. “What’s your name?”
“I am Dr. Hans von Koerner.”
“Is that your real name?” Foster asked sarcastically. He’d obviously taken a dislike to the German.
The German didn’t answer.
“Let’s get going,” I said to Foster.
“Wait a minute.” He was standing at the window and looking out. “Here comes trouble.”
I joined him and looked in the direction from which we’d come. There were half a dozen armed men moving cautiously down the hillside toward the house.
“Who—?” I started to ask.
I was interrupted by Von Koerner at my elbow. “It is the Chinese,” he said. “They”—-he waved at the three horizontal Cubans—“were afraid the Chinese might track us down. They thought they had thrown you—the Americans and the English-—off the track. But they were most apprehensive about the Chinese. It seems they were right.”
“What’ll we do now?” I asked Foster.
“Well, we could hole up here and stand them of. We could probably do that for a long time. Now that we’ve got them spotted, we could probably pick most of them off right away. Then, the way this lodge is built, we could defend it like a fortress. It would take a lot of them to force their way in here once we’re alerted.”
“But we couldn’t get out, either,” I pointed out.
“That, unfortunately, is true.”
“So all they’d have to do is wait us out.”
“Right. I don’t think we can anticipate any reinforcements,” Foster admitted.
“Then we ought to make tracks while we can.”
“Check. They’re more likely to nail us out in the open, but we’ll just have to chance it. Let’s get moving.”