War From The Clouds Read online

In seconds, we were flying through space. The main thought in my mind was that it was no longer foggy. The clouds were indeed gone and that flare would have been seen all the way to Florida. I hadn't given a single thought to what might have caused that explosion, but it couldn't have come at a better time. My main interest, in that moment, was to land in such a way that I didn't break every bone in my body.

  Fortunately, the throne room was on the second floor at the rear of the palace. There was a soft flower garden below instead of a cobblestoned courtyard. And I landed smack on top of Don Carlos. That excess fat around his middle not only provided a cushion for me, but kept him from being killed in the process.

  For a big man, he was swift. He lay on the ground no more than two seconds before he was up, the flare gun raised again. I had no weapons other than the gas bombs. So I rushed him again and reached for the outstretched hand holding the flare.

  Don Carlos saw me coming. He lashed out and swept me aside like a pesky gnat. I quickly regained my bearings and took dead aim on the middle of his back. I hit him with all my strength, my legs churning like pistons. Don Carlos let out a bellow of rage, but my charge had the desired effect. I pushed him halfway across the garden and made him lose his grip on the flare gun. The gun flew toward the rear wall and landed beside an open gate. It was dark beyond that gate, but I knew from Luis Pequeno's description of the mountaintop that the gate opened up to a narrow ledge overlooking a sheer drop of a thousand feet.

  Don Carlos ignored me now, and rushed headlong toward the gate and the flare. He still carried the case with the other flares and I wondered why he was so protective of it. I rushed after him. We both reached the gate at the same time. Don Carlos started to stoop for the flare gun, saw me rushing toward him, and lashed out with the flare case.

  He caught me square in the face and I went down at his feet like a rock. I felt woozy, but turned over in time to see him bringing the case down in a slam that would have knocked all the juices out of my head. I spun over on the ground and Don Carlos struck a spot where my head had been. The case broke open and two flares popped out onto the ground. They rolled through the open gate and lay near the edge of the mountain.

  "You bastard," Don Carlos swore. "I will make your death a slow and painful one for this."

  He kicked out at me, but the blow was a glancing one. I was starting to my feet when Don Carlos dashed through the gate to retrieve his errant flares. Why was he so protective of those damned flares when he had the loaded flare gun in his hand? He could send the signal anytime he pleased.

  No matter, I thought. Stop him while he's preoccupied with those extra flares. I rushed through the gate, careful to time my leap so that I didn't go over the side of the hill with the giant. Don Carlos was stooping over, his hand scooping up one of the flares, when I hit his wide buttocks with my shoulder.

  He stumbled forward, both hands outstretched, a flare in one hand, the flaregun in the other.

  I waited, knowing that he had lost his balance and was teetering on the edge of the precipice. Even as his arms were windmilling, trying to regain balance, I heard a staccato burst of gunfire from beyond the palace. Obviously, Uturo and his friend weren't idle during this critical time. I hoped they had recruited enough fellow tribesmen whose hatred for Don Carlos overcame their loyalty, but that might be too much to hope for.

  Right now, it looked as though Don Carlos was winning his war with balance. He was doing less windmilling with his arms. He was about to settle back on his heels, safely back from the ledge.

  I paused only a short time, considering letting the man live now that he was obviously losing this battle in the clouds. But I had learned from bitter experience that an enemy is never vanquished by those who show premature mercy. If he fired that flare, it would be all over, no matter what happened up here.

  I reached out and gave him a push. A hard one.

  He went over. A combination scream, bellow and final order burst from his lips, but not even the fates were any longer listening to orders and appeals from Don Carlos Italla.

  It was all over, I thought.

  And then I heard the soft whoomp and saw the flare arc high in the dark sky. Even in his moment of death, Don Carlos had sent the signal for the bloody revolution to begin.

  Damn, I cursed myself. I shouldn't have pushed him, not yet. I should have yanked him back from the precipice, wrestled the flare gun from him and then pushed him over. But then, I decided, I might not have had the option. He might have prevailed in the battle over the gun, pushed me over the side and then sent the signal.

  With a sick feeling, knowing that bloodshed had already begun far below as a result of Don Carlos's signal from Alto Arete, I turned back to the palace. I had no weapon, except spare gas bombs, but I fully expected to pick one up from the first dead man I came across. I hoped against hope that that first dead man wouldn't be Uturo or his friend, or anyone else friendly to our cause.

  At the side of the palace, I found a dead guard, one I had shot from the roof earlier. I took his rifle and ran to the front of the palace. Sporadic gunfire was taking place in the courtyard and I rushed up to the porch for a better view, ready to add to Uturo's gunfire.

  I wasn't really needed just then. As I searched the courtyard for an enemy to shoot, I saw several guards emerge from a barracks with their hands up. They were shouting:

  "Stop shooting, stop shooting. We give up."

  Other guards emerged from bushes and from behind stone fences around the courtyard. When a couple of dozen of them had assembled, still holding up their hands, Uturo, his fellow warrior and a number of armed monks emerged from other buildings. Uturo had found the friendly monks without Sagacio's help.

  We had won the war on top of the mountain, but it must be a far different story down below, in Nicarxa. And I was certain that I had lost Elicia, that she had been killed in that exchange of gunfire with the wine-stealing guards. If not that, she'd been killed by the guard Don Carlos sent to find her. If not that, the explosion surely had torn her to shreds.

  I had already guessed that the explosion had come from the arsenal alongside the wine cellar. Why it had been blown up, I didn't know, but I did know that anyone in or near that wine cellar had to be a sure goner.

  There was no feeling of victory as I marched into the courtyard where Uturo and his friends had rounded up all the guards who had remained loyal to Don Carlos. They all turned to look at me.

  "Don Carlos Italla is dead," I whispered to Uturo, "but he lived long enough to send the signal. I'm afraid our victory up here is only temporary. Unless we can convince these people otherwise and keep the word to ourselves that Don Carlos is dead. In time, maybe we can use his headquarters in the clouds to mount a counter-offensive and throw out the Cubans. It'll be a ticklish business, though."

  Uturo looked as defeated as I felt. He eyed the collection of guards in the courtyard and shook his head sadly.

  "Such a good fight," he said sadly. "We did well, under your leadership. And it goes for nothing."

  While we were standing there trying to figure out what to do next, the door to the guard station opened and a whole group of monks came strolling out. I recognized them as the religious followers of Intenday, the fanatic from Apalca, Don Carlos Italla's ally.

  Uturo spun around, preparing to shoot the monks, but I stopped him. I don't know why — a feeling, a hunch. I had seen a familiar figure behind the monks, and that figure was carrying a Russian automatic rifle. That figure had herded the monks outside. That figure was Elicia.

  My heart took an extra leap when I finally recognized her. I strode around the assembled monks and went to her side.

  "I thought you were dead," I said. "My God, how did you come out of all that alive? How did you capture these Apalcan monks? How…"

  "In time, Nick," she said. "Right now, I think I'm going to faint."

  She was true to her word. She passed out even before the last word had passed her lips. I caught her and carried her into t
he guard station. I put her on a bullet-riddled couch and looked around for something cold to put on her forehead. She was as pale as death and I was about to tear off her clothes to look for wounds when Uturo and the Apalcan religious leader entered the guardhouse.

  "This man says he has something important to tell you," Uturo announced. "He is Intenday. Perhaps we should listen to him."

  I looked up and saw the wiry little man with the brown bald head and enormous eyes. There was no mistake; this was Intenday, the Apalcan religious leader I had seen that morning on the trail when he had come out of his tent for breakfast. I gazed past him, at his fellow monks and, sure enough, there was the fat monk who had been the fellow fire-tender of Nuyan, the man I had killed to infiltrate the ranks of the monks. He didn't seem to recognize me, but then how could he? He had never seen my face.

  Intenday was a man who still stood on ceremony. As I rubbed Elicia's wrists to bring circulation around, he stood regally at the head of the couch and spoke in a soft, measured way:

  "We had reached agreement with Don Carlos to commence the holy war at sundown and to purge both our nations of corrupt leaders. I thought it the best way — the only way — to accomplish what all holy men desire. I sought an end to corruption, to disease, to poverty, to tyranny. I believed I was right. I believed Don Carlos Italla was right."

  That's the trouble with this world," I said, rubbing Elicia's arms and peering anxiously into her too-pale face. "Everybody thinks their side is right and they always resort to the wrong ways to prove it. And Don Carlos was a worse tyrant than the men who now rule Nicarxa and Apalca."

  "This I learned too late," Intenday said. "When I knew just how much of a monster Don Carlos really was, it was too late to change my mind about the agreement. We became his prisoners here on the mountain and against our will he was to send the signal that we were in agreement. But you must Know…"

  Elicia stirred on the couch and I held up a hand to shush the rambling religious leader. I was no longer interested in what he had to say. It was too late for that, too late for anything but to try to survive on this mountain while bloodshed reigned below.

  "Elicia, come out of it," I said, slapping her face gently. Her head rolled back and forth and I saw faint color returning to her cheeks. My heart leapt for joy, but it was muted joy, knowing that her people below — and all the Ninca Indians — were being massacred by the hundreds.

  She came around slowly and finally sat up on the couch. Intenday, still standing on ceremony, retreated a few steps, but stood implacably with his arms folded, his face clearly revealing that he had more to say and wouldn't leave until he said it.

  "I'm sorry for fainting," Elicia said in a soft voice. "I meant to be strong, but so much had happened. I couldn't help it."

  "What happened to you?" I asked. "How did you come through all this alive? And the explosion…"

  Elicia interrupted me by holding her finger across my lips. That finger, dirty as it was from her ordeal, tasted sweet to me.

  "I will tell you, slowly. First, a drink. I need something to drink."

  Uturo brought a bottle of wine from under his shirt and, with a wink, popped off the cork. Elicia took a long draught and sat up straighter on the couch. We all listened to her story of terror and eventual success.

  When the four guards had come to the cellar to steal wine and we started the shootout with them, Elicia had dashed into the corridor leading to the arsenal. She found the door open and dashed inside. When she closed the door behind her, it jammed in place and she couldn't get out again. She had banged on the door until her hands were raw, but we hadn't heard a thing.

  The air in the closed arsenal was scarce and she began to gasp for breath as the minutes went by. She was nearly unconscious when the door finally opened. It was opened, I knew, by the man Don Carlos had sent to find her body.

  "When he saw that I was alive and not wounded," she said, a catch in her voice, "he decided to take me, the way those Cuban Marines had been taking me before you came along to save me. He said Don Carlos was ready to send the signal, that the clouds had gone away, and that you and Uturo and Niko were prisoners."

  "Niko? Who's Niko?"

  "The other warrior," she said. "Uturo's friend. Anyway, he said it was all over for us and he might as well enjoy my flesh one more time before Don Carlos threw us all over the mountain. Oh, Nick…"

  She started to cry and I massaged her hands and told her to take it slow and easy. She took another swallow of wine. Intenday moved a step closer, seeming ready to speak again, but I held up my hand to stop him. Elicia went on.

  "I fought this man," Elicia said. "He was strong and I was nearly dead from lack of air, but I have been abused enough by animals. I fought as I have never fought before — as I should have fought when the Cuban Marines came. He nearly overcame me, but I got his gun away from him and killed him.

  "I knew there wasn't time to rush to the palace to save you and Uturo and Niko, even if I could have done so. But I had to do something. I remembered looking at the map you had drawn of the fortifications. I remembered that the arsenal was directly under the rear of the palace."

  "So you blew up the arsenal," I said. "How on earth did you do that?"

  "I used the nylon rope you used to bring us up the chimney," she said. "I soaked it in brandy and ran it along the floor of the wine cellar and up the steps to the guard room. After I had lighted the fuse and was hiding in the guard room, the explosion came and I saw fire shooting from the top of the palace. I thought I had killed all of you. And then more shooting started in the courtyard and this man, this Apalcan religious leader, and his monks came rushing into the guard room for protection. I still had the gun I had used to kill the man who had found me in the arsenal, so I held them at bay until — until…"

  She passed out again, more from the wine than from exertion. I eased her back on the couch to let her sleep this one off. She would wake up soon enough. She would wake up to the horror of knowing that her countrymen were being slaughtered in a useless revolution begun by a maniac.

  I looked around the destroyed guard station, at Uturo who still held the bottle of wine; at Intenday, the Apalcan religious leader who learned too late that Don Carlos was a fiend. I shook my head and muttered:

  "So much waste. Such valiant efforts by so many brave people and it all comes to waste. And there's no way to stop it, is there?"

  Intenday moved a step closer and I was prepared for a sneak attack. He could have a weapon beneath that full red robe. Even though he'd confessed that he no longer was loyal to Don Carlos Italla, he still had to be considered the enemy.

  "There is no need," he said in a sing-song voice of a man who has sung many prayers, "to stop what has not even begun."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The revolution," he said. "It has not begun. In fact, it will not begin. Already, the Cuban Marines are starting their evacuation, and the insurgents are surrendering to government forces."

  I was skeptical, still watching his hands to make sure they didn't snake a weapon out of his smock while he had me off guard with his cockamamie story about the revolution not having begun, about the Cubans evacuating Nicarxa, about the surrender.

  "Just how would you know all that?" I demanded. "Do you have a radio hookup to someone down below?"

  "No," he said. "Nothing so sophisticated. Tell me, how many flares did Don Carlos shoot into the air above Alto Arete?"

  "One," I said, "but you already know that. You must have seen it."

  "Yes, I saw it, and my heart rejoiced. I wanted to explain to this young woman when she came in here waving her weapon, but her eyes were so wild and she was in no condition to listen."

  "I'm in a condition to listen," I said. "Perhaps you'd better explain."

  "The plan," he said, "called for Don Carlos to send up three flares if we were in agreement, if my people in Apalca would join the revolution. Without my help, Don Carlos knew that he could not succeed. Three flares, Mr. Carter
, to start the revolution. If there had been no agreement, Don Carlos was to fire only one flare. One flare would mean no support, it would mean defeat. But the arrangement was only what you Americans call window dressing. Don Carlos intended all along to fire three flares, no matter what I and my group decided."

  "One flare meant it was all off?"

  "Yes, but he intended all along to fire three. I tried to dissuade him, but couldn't. When he made us prisoners, I sent an emissary to steal his extra flares. The emissary was found and killed. Believe me, sir, I did all possible to halt the revolution. Now I find that it was halted quite by accident."

  "No," I said, "not by accident." I was remembering how Don Carlos had scrambled for those extra two flares when his very life was in danger. I had wondered why he hadn't gone ahead and fired that damned flare gun. Now I knew.

  "I didn't know the rules when I was out there butting heads with Don Carlos," I said, "but you can't convince me that what happened was an accident. Too many people were involved in stopping that man to call success an accident. Too many people died stopping him. Those deaths weren't accidental. Do you know what they were, what all this was?"

  "No," the Apalcan religious leader said.

  "Fate, my friend. You believed that God was on you side, that you were fated to win. Well, you lost, so take a lesson from it and don't get tangled up with fanatics like Don Carlos Italla again. And don't become more of a fanatic than you already are. If the people of Nicarxa let you out of the country alive, learn your lesson well, Intenday, and resolve your future problems with help from the God you say you believe in. And — oh, the hell with you."

  "One thing I fail to understand," he said. "Don Carlos was a fanatic, devoted to this revolution. Why would he fire a single flare, knowing that it would signal the death of the revolution?"

  I thought about that. The man was falling and knew that he would have no chance to fire two more flares, even if he had them on his person. Why, then, did he fire? Ah, it was simple.

  "It was a case of the drowning man grasping at straws," I told Intenday. "Don Carlos was falling to his death. He would have grasped at anything to save himself. The gun was in his hands and, in panic, he clutched it and pulled the trigger. And I'm afraid that's about all the explanation we'll ever get because Don Carlos is no longer among us."