The Alpha Deception (25 page)

She opened the door to the cabin and descended the three steps into it. Somewhere in the exquisitely furnished interior was the communications equipment to effect a patch-through to Moscow. Technologically, that road would be long and complicated, the transfers made in milliseconds from channel to channel and all originating here.

Like the exterior, the cabin was spotlessly clean. Except… .

The thin carpet covering the cabin floor was damp in patches, with the outlines of footprints visible. Not sneakers or boat shoes. Loafers, with thin, slippery heels. And the wet footprints had to be recent, left by men who had departed only minutes before her arrival.

Yes! She should have seen it earlier. Ivanovitch had so much as told her, not with words but gestures, tones—subtle indications she should have picked up then. But there was still time; there had to be!

The explosion came seconds later. It obliterated not just the
Red Tide
but a good portion of the dock and boats two deep on either side of it. Showers of flaming wood and steel covered the area, falling up to two hundred yards away, out to sea, onto the parking lot, and into the nearby Sidi Fredj recreational area. The nearby hospitals took in seven emergency patients suffering from lacerations and contusions.

Fire officials were reasonably quick to appear on the scene, but they could do nothing more than watch as the last remains of several ships sank into the bay dragging the dying flames with them.

Chapter 23

AFTER LEARNING THAT
the bastards occupying the town had turned his jailhouse into their armory, Sheriff Junk knew there was only one option available to him for spiriting some of the weapons out.

Much of Pamosa Springs was built over mining veins whose hidden entrances had been sealed for generations. Heep had located several as a boy, including one which lay directly beneath the jailhouse. Years later he had covered up the entrance himself so this latest generation of kids wouldn’t be tempted by it. Since the front of the jailhouse was well guarded, his sole chance for gaining access to the weapons stored in the rear was to approach the building from the abandoned mines beneath it. Once inside, he would grab as much as he could carry and then retrace his path out.

The soldiers’ new commander, like the old, agreed to let town council members move freely through Pamosa Springs during the day, mostly to keep people at ease as to what was going on. Such permission not only served to keep the leaders separated, but it also cast them in the role of being unwitting accomplices to the takeover. The other residents would resent their freedom of movement and inwardly hold it against them. Thus, subtly, their authority was undermined. If it came down to depending on their orders, the people would resist. The strategy was one of factionalization, a classic of occupational forces.

Sheriff Junk didn’t give much thought to that as he meandered through his appointed rounds. His plan was to sneak out the back of Nellie Motta’s house, which was a scant twenty yards from the covered entrance to the tunnel leading to the jailhouse. If everything went as planned, he would enter the house, exit unseen through the back, and make his way into the tunnel. After finishing in the jailhouse, he would store all pilfered weapons back at the start of the tunnel for easy access later. Junk figured if things went well he could repeat the process on almost a daily basis.

He entered Nellie Motta’s house, explained briefly what he was up to, and then moved quickly to her back door. The entrance to the tunnel was clearly in sight, and no soldiers were anywhere in view. This didn’t put Heep particularly at ease because he knew that plenty of bad things could happen in the time it would take him to cover the ground. Nonetheless, he steadied himself with a deep breath and bolted out Nellie Motta’s back door.

The short dash seemed to take forever, and his war-ravaged joints and bones creaked and cracked in protest. He plunged the final yard into the brush that camouflaged the tunnel entrance and chewed down the pain long enough to begin stripping the brush away. A few minutes later the passage into the depths of the earth was revealed. A twelve-foot descent by ladder would take him into the tunnel and then he would follow the serpentine route to its end beneath the jailhouse where there was another ladder.

Holding the flashlight in his right hand, Sheriff Junk lowered himself down the first rungs after testing the strength of the old wood. It creaked but held his spiny frame and, trembling a bit, he gave it all his weight and started down.

He was halfway to the bottom when the ladder seemed to crumble, wood snapping and the whole apparatus tearing itself from its delicate perch. The rung he was standing on gave way and his fall tore the others beneath him out as well. He took most of the impact on his lower back, but one leg twisted beneath him and a fiery pain erupted in his ankle. He located his flashlight and pulled himself to his feet to check for other injuries, cursing the ladder silently. The rest of him was whole, which was more than he could say for the ladder. He could forget all about climbing back out this same way, a reality that shot his entire plan to hell.

Heep brushed the dried dirt from his clothes and, limping slightly, pressed on down the dank corridor. The tunnel was barely high enough to accommodate his height, as if it had been constructed for the herd of children that had played here years before. In a few spots, the ceiling was so low he was forced into a crouch which placed more pressure on his twisted ankle and made the pain even hotter. The walk seemed endless, but at last his flashlight caught a dirt wall and a second ladder that would take him up into the rear of the jail. He inched his way up the rungs deliberately, distributing his weight as evenly as he could manage. He hadn’t stopped to consider just how he was going to get out yet, nor what he might do with the pilfered weapons. One step at a time, just one step at a time… .

At the top of the ladder, the floorboards forming the bottom of the century-old jailhouse rose before him, the original hatch long since covered over. They had been loose and rotting for years and he had little trouble working them free with a tire iron lifted from the back of a car with a midget spare tire. The hardest chore was balancing himself on the ladder while he worked. He had survived one fall already. Another from a full fifteen feet would be disastrous.

When the first board started to come free in his hand, Heep stilled his own breathing to listen for boards creaking nearby. The absence of that sound told him no soldiers were walking above. That didn’t mean they weren’t close enough to hear him but he had to chance it. He pushed the loosened floorboards aside and hoisted himself up through the portal.

Since he would not be returning by the same route, he covered the hole again as neatly as he could. The lighting was dim as always but there was enough to pick out just what he had come for: rows of large crates containing plenty of ammo and weapons. A quick inspection revealed grenades, Laws rockets, and automatic rifles. But what good would they do now with no place to hide them? He had to come up with a fresh plan.

Ahead, in the jail’s front section separated by a short corridor and a heavy wood door, there was stirring, and Heep pressed himself behind some crates. If they came back here and found him now… . Well, there was no sense in even considering that; he was better off not thinking about it. Sheriff Junk padded forward as lightly as he could. He had the rudiments of a plan, his eyes falling on the pair of never-used jail cells, each with moth-eaten wool blankets tossed over a pair of rusted cots. Yes, yes! It wasn’t much, but it was something. The next best thing to storing some of the weapons in the tunnel would be to store them where they might be removed at some later point.

Heep felt his back muscles spasm as he hoisted upward a box marked
GRENADES
. Careful not to drop the crate, he took it to the never-locked cell and opened the door, which squealed so loudly that Heep felt certain at that moment he was done for. But no soldiers appeared, so he proceeded to slide the crate under one of the cots and then replace the blanket to cover it. The soldiers had enough supplies stacked back here so they certainly wouldn’t miss four crates, and one beneath each of the cots was all he could safely fit. How they might be retrieved later was open to further consideration. But at least he had separated these from the main supply, and if it hadn’t been for that damn ladder… .

Sheriff Junk was ready to lift the fourth crate upward when he heard a key being turned in the door. He froze for an eternal second, was about to duck again behind the slightly shorter stack of crates when something else occurred to him. He hurried across the dusty floor and pinned his shoulders against the wall behind where the door would open, thus shielding him and perhaps offering him a way out if he moved fast enough.

The locks came free, and the door swung open. Heep saw the backs of a pair of soldiers as they started toward the stack of supply crates. That was all the time he wasted. Not looking back, he slithered around the door and into the short corridor. Almost to the front room, he heard a loud congestion of voices, four at least, and swung back toward the cells, striding down the corridor again as if he belonged.

A pair of men with one box each appeared before him.

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

“Looking for your commander,” Sheriff Junk said without missing a beat. “You know, the Latin guy who’s always playing with his mustache.”

“He’s not here.” The soldier grabbed hold of his arm with his free hand. “Come on, get out. How’d you get in here anyway?”

“Walked. How ’bout you?”

“I could report you.”

“Gaw ’head. Might be the best way I got of finding that miniature shit of yours.”

A pair of them escorted Heep rudely from his own jailhouse and Sheriff Junk waited until he was well away before letting his smile break.

The smile was gone a few hours later when Guillermo Paz summoned him and Dog-ear to the command post he had set up in the fire station.

“Gentlemen,” Paz said with a pair of fingers working his mustache, “how rude it has been of me not to get formally acquainted with you since my arrival two days ago. Contrary to what you have heard, I am a reasonable man.”

“Where’s the other guy?” Dog-ear wanted to know.

“That would be Colonel Quintell,” Guillermo Paz reported with a thick Spanish accent. “He met with an accident and had to leave.” The major rose from behind a desk and paced before McCluskey and Heep. “I would have hoped the precautions enacted upon my arrival would have rid this town of the misinformed faction that had taken to killing my men. Unfortunately this has not been the case. Two more nights have passed and three more have died. Six in all, gentlemen.”

“You’re a regular whiz with math,” observed Mayor McCluskey dryly.

Paz ignored him. “My predecessor failed to make his point with you. The leaders of any group are responsible for that group’s actions.”

“We ain’t a group, friend. We’re a town you got no business bein’ in.”

“Your point is academic. Mine is not. My predecessor was lax in his response to problems, and the problems festered. I had hoped the kind of response I had planned could be prevented in view of increased vigilance on your own parts. Obviously I was mistaken. Unless you produce for me now the man who has been killing my men, I will have no choice but to act.”

“We don’t know anything,” said Dog-ear.

“And if we did, we’d piss in our soup ‘fore telling you,” added Sheriff Heep. “Whoever it is got the only sense in this town. At this rate, a few more weeks and there won’t be no more of you bastards left.”

“Now it’s I who must compliment
your
math, Sheriff,” said Guillermo Paz, lifting his hand from his mustache to pat the taller man on the shoulder. “But since we are on the subject of subtraction, perhaps you gentlemen should follow me outside.”

Heep and Dog-ear gazed at each other as they exited, with a half-dozen soldiers following close behind. What they saw stole their breath away and set them trembling. Across the street, lined up against the front of the boarded-up K Mart, were six citizens of Pamosa Springs with their hands tied behind their backs. Fifteen feet before them stood three soldiers armed with automatic rifles.

“Six of your people,” Pax explained. “One for each of mine lost so far. But I am willing to forego this equalization if you give me the killer; at least tell me who you think he might be.”

“Damnit, we don’t know!” pleaded Dog-ear. “Can’t you see that?”

“What I see is that someone in this town is an expert at what he does. He has penetrated our security and killed without ever being seen or leaving a trace, only bodies. Such a man could not go unnoticed by men in your position.”

“But there isn’t anybody like that in the Springs,” ranted McCluskey. “Hasn’t been for years. Maybe after Korea but we all got old. Look at us. See for yourself.”

Paz cocked his head toward the six figures lined up before the building. “I’m looking at
them.
They are about to die.”

“You can’t do this!” screeched Dog-ear, starting forward until he was restrained by two soldiers.

“Tell me who is killing my men.”

“We don’t know! I swear it!”

Paz turned to the rifle bearers. “Ready!”

“Please,” begged Dog-ear, “take us instead!”

“Aim!”

“We don’t know! We don’t know!”

“Fire!”

The bursts from the rifles lasted barely five seconds, slamming three of the victims up against the store front and dropping three as they stood. Blood spread and pooled, seeming to form one splotch across Main Street. A jean-clad leg and sneakered foot kicked once more. A red-smeared dress fluttered in the breeze.

“Oh God,” sobbed Dog-ear. “Oh God, oh God, oh God… .”

“Others will die,” Paz promised. “Ten for every one of my soldiers who meets the same fate as the other six. And I think, gentlemen, I will accept your offer as well. Take them,” he ordered the men behind Dog-ear and Sheriff Heep. “And lock them in the jail.”