“Automatic warning signal,” Paula said. “We stepped on it.”
All very ingenious, Nick told himself. Marvelous what automation could do. Among other things, it left plenty of room for human error. His hand clamped over Wilhelmina’s butt.
Paula was talking to the face behind the opening.
“Open,” she said. “All is well. He is a friend.”
“Enter, then. All here is well.”
The heavy stone door swung inward. Paula hurried in and drew Nick after her.
“Luz!” she said happily, as the small dark-haired girl in the foyer swung the great door shut behind them. “You are safe, then?”
“Of course.” The girl slid a vast bolt across the door and turned to face them. Nick thought she looked unhealthily pale, and there were beads of perspiration on her upper lip. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
“We’ll talk about that a little later,” Paula said. She was looking rather oddly at the girl, Nick thought. “It is Alva’s turn for duty, is it not? Why are you at the door?”
“She was very late coming in,” said Luz, looking at the floor, “and very tired. So I said I would take her first two hours.”
“Oh.” Paula was still staring at her. “Are you sure that all is well?”
“Yes, yes!” Luz said.
But she was shaking her head from side to side and her eyes were wide with fear.
The Inquiring Cubans
Carter moved fast, but he wasn’t fast enough. He was taut with readiness at Luz’s signal, but it was one thing to be ready and another to cover all the dark corners of an unfamiliar place. He spun toward a movement in the shadows and fired rapidly into a stone wall. The stone wall seemed to fire back at him with enviable accuracy, because there was a tiny spurt of flame from it and Wilhelmina flew away from him with a loud complaining clank. He was ducking and groping for Hugo when the swooshing sound sang toward his ear and exploded against his skull.
Nick dropped to his knees in a blaze of light that was all inside his head. The moments stretched out as he struggled to rise, and he heard a sudden groan of pain from Paula and a low cluck-cluck of human sound.
“Ah, shaking the head was naughty, my little Luz,” a pleasant baritone voice said in Spanish. “Alonzo would not approve, I know. Tch!” Then something cannoned into Nick’s gut like a battering ram and doubled him into a groaning, puking heap. He clawed out with his hands and found a trousered leg which he tugged with all his might. There was a loud curse and a heavy masculine body sprawled on top of him.
“Tch, careless, Ernesto,” the pleasant voice clucked, and again there was that swoosh and the explosion in Nick’s head. But this time the coruscating lights inside his cranium blurred into one agonizing sheet of pain and then went out altogether.
He heard a man groaning and it took him a while to realize it was himself.
Nick kept his eyes closed and peered out from beneath the shutter of his lashes. He was in a room of almost sybaritic splendor compared with anything he had seen since leaving Washington. There were rugs, chairs, drapes, pictures, book-shelves; and there were three men whose forms were still a little blurred but who were rapidly becoming clearer. They all looked very much like himself, except that they had their fatigues on and he was in his underwear. And they were sitting comfortably in chairs, while he way lying on the floor with cord around his wrists and ankles.
There was a soft chuckle and the pleasant voice spoke gently.
“You can open your eyes, amigo. You have rested long enough.”
Nick opened them and shook the mists away. He was throbbing painfully in half a dozen places but nothing seemed to be broken. Except — he grunted suddenly as he tried to sit — maybe a rib or two. His eyes slowly swiveled around the room as he tested the cords that bound him. It was pleasantly feminine rather than luxurious, but it was spoiled by the three bearded men who were sprawled in the best of chairs.
“Where are the women?” Nick demanded.
The man in the middle, he of the pleasant baritone, laughed.
“What a time to think of women,” he said with mock reproach. “But you must not worry about them. They are… taken care of.”
“What do you mean, taken care of?” Nick made himself look outraged and alarmed. He was both, but not as much as he seemed. What he needed was time to clear his head and size things up.
“Oh, nothing terrible,” the man said easily. “A tap on the head for each, binding and gagging, things like that.” His smile widened. “It was not at all unpleasant, I assure you. All those lovely women!”
Nick’s eyes flicked around the room. Furniture. Rugs. No windows. One heavy door. Locked? Probably. No key in it, though.,
“All?” he asked vaguely, as though still stunned.
“But of course. It would have been most imprudent not to have immoblized them all.” He laughed. “Eight silent women, all together in one room! Is that not miraculous? And they are silent, I assure you.” His merry face suddenly became serious. “Of course, the little Luz does not feel too well. We followed her, as you must realize, when she came looking for a missing comrade of ours. And then the lovely Alva at the door was somewhat difficult about letting us come in, so I’m afraid we were forced to be a little rough with her. She will get better, probably. No doubt she will make a fine addition to our camp up in the hills.” He gave his merry little laugh again and groped in his pocket for a long Churchillian cigar. “Of course Luz did not take too kindly to our questioning, so there again we had to be persuasive. I am sure she had even more to tell us, but… um… our questioning of the lovely ladies led me to believe that we did not have too much time before company arrived. And here you are. How very nice. Welcome amigo.” He chuckled hugely and applied a match to his cigar.
“Enough of that, Hector,” one of the others growled. “Let me go back to headquarters and tell them where we are. Question the fellow — don’t tell him your life story!”
The man called Hector puffed succulently on his cigar.
“All in good time, Felix,” he said genially. “The more background we can give our friend, the more intelligently he can answer us. For instance, we must make sure he understands what we are likely to do to all his lady friends if he does not cooperate. To his leading lady in particular. What was her name again? Ah, yes. Paula. Delightful name. A wildcat, too. Delicious.”
“Paula,” Nick breathed, loathing the man. “What have you done to her?” He took a deep breath, as if fearing the worst, but it was a Yoga-trained breath exercise that sparked his lethargic system back to life.
“Oh, nothing much,” said Hector. “She is a little bruised, and now she sleeps. The rest will do her good.” He chuckled. “Eight women for our camp in the hills, if they all live. And Paula of the long and lovely legs will surely be the most… ah… popular. A fate worse than death, you think? Ah, no. You would not think so if you can begin to imagine the death we will prepare for them.” His bearded face suddenly hardened into an ugly mask. “So start imagining, my friend, and tell us why the Americans sent you here. And don’t try to continue with that fiction that you are a fellow Cuban. We know better than that. Ernesto here found certain tools in the supply room, so well-equipped by the ladies of the house, and he will use them on you if you do not sing the tune we want to hear. And if you are so fortunate as to faint, then remember before you slide into forgetfulness that there are eight women for us to play with before you all die.” He smiled benignly and looked across at Ernesto.
Ernesto, brawny and pig-eyed, was toying with his tools. They were simple — a hammer and a handful of sharp nails. Nick pictured them beneath the quicks of his fingertips and did not like the thought. Ernesto put his playthings on an inlaid coffee table and in doing so moved a low bowl to reveal Wilhelmina and Hugo. But Pierre wasn’t there.