“Where—when those that got away have gone?”
Everard nodded. “The ringleader, name of Merau Varagan, took a bad sword wound when Castelar fought free. A couple of his men were about to whisk him off to a destination he alone knew to tell them, for medical care. So they were in a position to scram with him when we showed up. Three more managed it too.”
He straightened. “Ah,” he said, “we succeeded as well as could be looked for. The bulk of the gang are dead or under arrest. The few who escaped must have scattered randomly. They may never find each other. The conspiracy’s broken.”
Motonobu’s tone was wistful. “If only we could have come earlier, arranged a proper trap. We’d have bagged the lot.”
“We couldn’t because we didn’t,” said Everard sharply. “We are the law, remember?”
“Yes, sir. What I also remember is that crazy Spaniard and the havoc he may yet make. How’re we going to track him down . . . before—it’s too late?”
Everard made no reply, but turned toward the esplanade where the vehicles were parked. To the east he saw the Gate of the Sun on its ridge, etched black against heaven.
24 May 1987
Wanda let him in when he knocked on her door. “Hi!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “How are you? How’d things go?”
“They went,” he said.
She took both his hands. Her voice softened. “I’ve been so worried about you, Manse.”
That felt almighty good to hear. “Oh, I take care of my hide. The operation, well, we nabbed most of the bandits without loss to ourselves. Machu Picchu is clean once more.” Was clean. Was left in its loneliness for another three centuries. Now tourists halloo everywhere. But a Patrolman shouldn’t pass judgments. He needs to be case-hardened, if he’s to work in the history of humankind.
“Marvelous!” Impulsively, she hugged him. He hugged back. They retreated in a slight, shared confusion.
“If you’d come ten minutes ago, you wouldn’t’ve found me,” she said. “I couldn’t sit and do nothing. Went for a long, long walk.”
Dismayed, he snapped, “I told you not to leave this place! You aren’t safe. We’ve planted an instrument here that’ll warn of any intruder, but we can’t trail around after you. Damnation, girl, Castelar’s still at large.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Better I should climb these walls? Why would he chase after me again?”
“You were his single twentieth-century contact. You could possibly give us a lead to him. Or so he may fear.”
She grew serious. “As a matter of fact, I can.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
She tugged his hand. How warm hers was. “C’mon, relax, let me fetch us a beer, and we’ll talk. That hike I took cleared my head. I started thinking back, reliving the whole business, except free of terror and, and unfamiliarity. And, yes, I believe I can tell you what point Luis is bound to make for.”
He stood where he was. His pulse slugged. “How?”
The blue eyes searched him. “I did get to know the man,” she said low. “Not what you’d call intimately, but the relationship sure was intense while it lasted. He isn’t a monster. By our standards he’s cruel, but he’s a son of his era. Ambitious and greedy—and in his heart a knight errant. I searched my memory, minute by minute. Kind of stood outside and watched the two of us. And I saw how he reacted when he learned the Indians would rebel and besiege Francisco Pizarro’s brothers in Cuzco, and the troubles that would follow. If he appears as if by miracle and raises the siege, that’ll put him straightaway in command of the whole shebang. But over and above any such calculations, Manse, he has got to be there. His honor calls him.”
6 February 1536 [Julian calendar]
In the upland dawn, the imperial city burned. Fire arrows and rocks wrapped in blazing oil-soaked cotton flew like meteors. Thatch and wood kindled. Stone walls enclosed furnaces. Flames howled high, sparks showered, smoke roiled thick on the wind. Soot dulled the rivers where they met. Through the noise, conchs lowed, throats shrieked. In their tens of thousands, the Indios seethed around Cuzco. They were a brown tide, out of which tossed chieftainly banners, feather crests, copper-edged axes and spears. They surged against the thin Spanish lines, smote, struggled, recoiled in blood and turmoil, billowed again forward.
Castelar arrived above a citadel that brooded north of the combat. He glimpsed its massiveness filled with natives. For an instant he wanted to swoop down, kill and kill and kill. But no, yonder was where his comrades fought. Sword in right hand, left on the helm board, he rushed through the air to their deliverance.
What matter if he had failed to bring guns from the future? His blade was sharp, his arm strong, and the archangel of war winged over his bare head. Nonetheless he kept wholly alert. Foes might lurk in this sky or snap forth out of nowhere. Let him be ready to jump through time, evade pursuit, return to strike swiftly again and again, as a wolf slashes at an elk.
He swept above a central square, where a great building raged with conflagration. Horsemen trotted down a street. Their steel flashed, their pennons streamed. They were bound on a sally, out into the enemy horde.
Castelar’s decision sprang into being. He would veer off, wait a few minutes, let them become engaged, and then smite. With such an avenging eagle on their side, the Spanish would know God had heard him, and hew a road through foemen smitten with panic.
Some saw him pass over. He glimpsed upturned faces, heard cries. There followed a thunder of gallop, a deep-toned “Sant’Iago and at them!”
He crossed the southern bounds of the city, banked, swung about for his onslaught. Now that he knew this machine, how splendidly it responded to him—his horse of the wind, that he would ride into liberated Jerusalem—and at last, at last, into the presence of the Saviour on earth?
Ya—a—a!
Alongside him, another flyer, two men upon it. His fingers stabbed for the controls. Agony seared. “Mother of God, have mercy!” His steed was slain. It toppled through emptiness. At least he would die in battle. Though the forces of Satan had prevailed against him, they would not against the gates of Heaven that stood wide for Christ’s soldier.
His soul whirled from him, away into night.
24 May 1987
“The ambush worked almost perfectly,” Carlos Navarro reported to Everard. “When we spotted him from space, we activated the electromagnetic generator and jumped to his vicinity. The field it projected induced voltages that caused his machine to give him a severe electric shock. Disabled it, too, scrambled the electronics. But you know this. We gave him a stun shot to make sure and plucked him out of the air before he hit the ground. Meanwhile the cargo carrier appeared, scooped up the crippled vehicle, and made off. Everything was complete in less than two minutes. I suppose a number of men glimpsed us, but it would have been fleetingly, and in the general confusion of battle.”
“Good work,” said Everard. He leaned back in his shabby old armchair. His New York apartment surrounded them, comfortable with souvenirs—Bronze Age helmet and spears above the bar, polar bear rug from Viking Age Greenland on the floor, stuff such as would not cause outsiders to wonder much but did hold memories for him.
He hadn’t gone on the mission. No reason thus to waste an Unattached agent’s lifespan. There had been no danger, except that Castelar would be too quick and get away. The electric gimmick prevented that.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “your operation is part of history.” He gestured at the volume of Prescott on an end table beside him. “I’ve been reading that. The Spanish chronicles describe apparitions of the Virgin above the burning hall of Viracocha, where the cathedral was later built, and of Saint James on the battlefield, inspiring the troops. That’s generally taken to be a pious legend, or an account of hysterical illusions, but—ah, well. How’s the prisoner?”