The Viper Squad (29 page)

As Harvey Waller saw Joe brush aside the Salvadoran’s rifle muzzle from his face, he went for the one with the flashlight.
Harvey had been using a stave, twice as long and twice as thick as a baseball bat, to feel his way in the dark. He brought
the stave down with all his strength and poleaxed the Salvadoran who had the light. He kept thumping the man’s body with the
length of timber, raising the stave high above his head and bringing it down in mighty strokes that made a sound as if they
were hitting a wet burlap bag. As the others moved out, before joining them Harvey took his time about enjoying one last tremendous
whack with the stave.

Campbell looked through the Star-Tron night-vision system at the camp beneath them. The optical device consisted of a hand-held
tube, which could also be mounted like a telescopic sight on a weapon, with a cameralike lens on one end and a binocular-style
eyepiece at the other. The lens focused all the available light onto an intensifier tube, and the tube amplified the light
to give an image with maximum contrast. The device could work at levels that seemed pitch-dark to the unaided eye, utilizing
starlight and other forms of illumination available at night. All the oil lamps made it child’s play for the device, and Mike
could plainly see the features of the people in the camp beneath him, even of those outside the pools of light made by the
lamps. He watched in vain for a blonde. It occurred to Mike that Sally’s hair might have been dyed black by this time in order
to make her less noticeable. He remembered her features from the photos he had studied, and no woman he had seen so far looked
even remotely like her. Mike took the Star-Tron from his eye.

“That near bunkhouse is for women only,” he whispered to the others. “That’s where she’s got to be. Bob and
Lance, sneak down behind the farthest of the four men’s bunkhouses, steal a few oil lamps, pour the fuel on the back wall
of that farthest bunkhouse, light it and get back here fast as you can without being seen. I’m betting on all the women in
their bunkhouse rushing out to help quench the fire, except Sally. She must be disillusioned by now, unless she’s gone totally
commie. Who knows? Main thing is, Lance and Bob, make it look like an accident. Chuck away the lamps so that no one will know
right away what started the fire. That will give us a little extra time to get away if all goes well; and it won’t blow everything
if things don’t work out right away. Any questions? No? Okay then, good luck.”

Murphy and Hardwick crept stealthily into the dark. It never ceased to surprise Mike how silently Murphy’s bulky body could
move.

Campbell handed the Star-Tron to Andre Verdoux. “You take charge while Cesar and I go to the women’s bunkhouse. Keep scanning
the compound. If you see Sally somewhere else and think she can be grabbed, send Joe and Harvey after her. We all rendezvous
here with you. Watch your back for roving sentries.”

Mike stayed where he was for the moment, and in a little while they saw a wide orange tongue of flame lick up the back wall
of the farthest bunkhouse. The wooden buildings in the clearing were military style—built of plywood and two-by-fours, with
pitch-coated roofs—rather than being peasant-style structures of bamboo with banana—leaf thatch. But the wall burned just
as well. Except that nobody noticed it.

They heard muffled shouts from inside the burning bunkhouse. The flames had by now taken hold on one corner of the tarred
roof, as well as having spread along the back wall. Men emerged from the bunkhouse door. They shouted. Others gathered. They
started running back and forth.

Mike held Cesar back. “Give ’em time.”

The flames on the roof far outshone the feeble lanterns, and they could see large numbers of men and women passing buckets,
basins and cans and throwing water on the flames.

Bob and Lance returned and gave the thumbs-up to Mike and Cesar as they moved out.

The women’s bunkhouse had emptied as Mike had predicted. Using the Star-Tron, Andre had not been able to spot Sally anywhere
in the moving throngs, and Mike considered that no one had a sharper eye for ladies than Andre.

This end of the camp seemed deserted, but Mike and Cesar proceeded warily. A fire like this would be a tipoff to a really
experienced man that the rest of the camp was worth keeping tabs on. Mike considered that the really amazing thing about obvious
diversions was how often they worked.

Mike held up a hand, and Cesar stopped. He had seen something. Just a slight movement up ahead. In the darkness next to one
of the small wood huts. Mike had seen only a shadow. Maybe only a flicker caused by an oil lamp. Maybe nothing.… Then, by
the light of the distant flames, both he and Cesar saw a man come toward them. He had an automatic rifle slung on his right
shoulder and was padding around watchfully. This was one man who had not been fooled by the fire. He hadn’t seen them yet.
Maybe he just sensed something.…

He stood at the corner of an unlit hut. Silent. They could hear the shouts of the firefighters, and every now and then they
could see the face of their adversary in an orange glow of flame.

An oil lamp was suddenly hung outside a hut not far away, and they heard footsteps running in the direction of the blaze.
The man scowled at the light for illuminating his position and temporarily spoiling his night vision.

Mike held an eight-pointed throwing star before his face by its central disk. He flicked it backhand so the points
rotated rapidly from top to bottom as it whirled through the air toward the lone man’s head.

The star embedded itself in his temple above his left eye, with a sound like splitting wood.

Mike and Cesar rushed to the women’s bunkhouse. It was empty. They wandered out again, at a loss what to do next.

About a hundred yards off, a door of a lighted hut swung open and a man came out, buckling his belt.

“It’s a fire!” he yelled back into the hut through the open door. “A bunkhouse is on fire!”

“He’s Cuban,” Cesar hissed.

A big burly man came to the lighted doorway and looked across the compound at the flames. Then he turned his head to speak
to someone inside the hut, and they could see his face.

“Paulo Esteban!” Cesar practically exploded.

Mike had to hold him forcibly back. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

“I’ve seen fifty photos of that bastard,” Cesar whispered back. “It’s him!”

“Let him go.” Mike dug his fingers hard into Cesar’s shoulder, and when that didn’t work, Mike nudged him in the ribs with
the muzzle of his Uzi. “First we find the girl.”

Cesar was reluctant to hold back, but he knew he was up against Mad Mike and that crossing him now would be a very risky bet.
So Cesar controlled himself. Though the likes of Esteban was what he had come for. Not for money, and certainly not for the
fool girl.

The two Cubans ran past them on their way to the fire.

“Keep watch,” Mike said and ran toward the hut.

Uzi ready, he cautiously peered into the open doorway of the lighted hut. A very sad looking, very pretty blond girl sat naked
on the edge of a camp bed. She looked at him, frightened.

Mike said, “Sally Poynings, I presume.”

“H
OLY
shit!” Lance said. “I don’t believe what my eyes are seeing!”

Lance Hardwick’s eyes were seeing a naked blonde running hand in hand by lamplight with Mike Campbell across the compound,
as if they were gamboling in some nudist movie—only, of course, Mike had on his fatigues and boots and guns, which kind of
spoiled the effect or maybe increased it. Anyway, Lance decided, it looked weird.

Mike and the girl disappeared out of the lighted area, and soon after Lance heard them approach. He could feel her naked presence
close by and wondered what she would do if he reached out and touched her warm skin.

“Here are your clothes and sneakers,” Mike said to her. “Get them on quick. Andre, you take her and everyone else back the
way we came. I have some business here.”

Mike spoke in a rapid, impersonal voice, signifying he wanted no arguments. That didn’t impress Bob Murphy.

“Where’s Cesar?” Bob asked.

“He found some Cubans in the camp, deserted us and went after them,” Mike said matter-of-factly. “He was
with me, so it’s my job to go get him back. Now move out.” He pulled out his compass and waited for Andre to do the same.
They consulted the luminous dials. “Take a bearing north-northeast and stay with it as best you can. If I don’t catch up with
you, Andre, keep going. Cross that border by dawn.”

“I’ll stay with Mike,” Bob told Andre.

“I agree,” Andre said, for once with a note of friendliness for Bob in his voice.

“I got no time to argue,” Mike snapped. “Rest of you, move out. Now! Move it!”

He had no need to keep his voice lowered anymore, because of the pandemonium in the camp below them. Sparks from the burning
bunkhouse had set fire to the roof of the next bunkhouse. The firefighters had abandoned the first building to the flames
and sought now to save the second.

Mike and Bob descended the slope and made their way through the deserted part of the camp to approach the firefighters from
behind.

Mike whispered to Bob, “’Preciate you coming along. My guess is that Cesar has already made the approach we are taking. He’ll
watch and wait till he gets a crack at Esteban—none of the other Cubans will distract him from that. He’ll shoot, and then
run for it.”

“Jeopardizing our whole getaway,” Bob whispered back. “Why not leave him behind and go on with the others?”

Mike did not answer right off, looking in the pools—of light and the shadows. “Cesar has done a lot for all of us up till
this happened. I’m not sure we’d have made it this far without him. It was my mistake. I should have foreseen that the chance
to nail Esteban would prove too tempting for him at close quarters. He would have been okay if I’d left him back with Andre
and took someone else with me to get the girl.”

“So you blame yourself?”

Mike shrugged. “What’s goes wrong is always the leader’s fault.”

Paulo Esteban had Manuel put men on the bunkhouse roofs to extinguish sparks and sent others to quench grass fires. When Esteban
ascertained that everything was fully under control, he turned to leave, and for an instant, by the light of an oil lamp by
the corner of one bunkhouse, he saw a face he recognized.

It was not the face of someone he was acquainted with. It was a face he had seen before somewhere. After a moment’s thought,
he had it.

“Manuel!” he called urgently, hauling out his revolver. “I’ve just seen someone up this way. I’d swear I know him from that
pamphlet of photos of Miami Cubans active against us. The fire”—it suddenly occurred to him—”it’s a diversion! Quick! Back
to the girl!”

As they ran, Paulo came across three Salvadorans with Kalashnikovs and he ordered them along, too.

Cesar Ordonez stalked them. He knew he had been seen by Esteban and spotted as a stranger. Esteban had been too far off for
Cesar to kill him at that time. Then Esteban had thought to check on the girl—Cesar knew where he was going
and
why. Cesar had to get Esteban now, or Mike and the others might not get away. Cesar cared nothing for his own safety. If
he could kill an international communist provocateur of Esteban’s status, his own life would be worth sacrificing. Mike Campbell
had his priorities, and Cesar knew he might be fouling up things for him; but the importance of Cesar’s own priorities outweighed
those of Mike, which were only to rescue a spoiled rich bitch who, had she been poor and from an unknown family, would readily
have been abandoned to pay for her mistakes. Cesar said to himself that he would never have broken off from Mike’s mission
and endangered it for the sake of an ordinary Cuban communist. But Paulo Esteban was too big a fish to let slip through his
nets. No matter what the
consequences, Cesar had to kill him. He was duty-bound. For a proud and free Cuba once again.

Esteban and his fellow Cuban now had three men with Kalashnikovs along with them, but that was not going to save Esteban.
Cesar was dedicated to kill only one man here; the rest were immaterial. He personally was going to rid the world of Paulo
Esteban.

Cesar ran from shadow to shadow, staying out of the circles of feeble light given off by the oil lamps. Esteban was easy to
tell from the others, since he was a foot taller and twice as broad across the shoulders. Cesar knew he was headed for the
small wooden hut where Mike and he had found the girl. Cesar ran at full speed and got to a place where he thought he would
have a clear shot at Esteban as he passed through an area lit by three lamps. He checked that the selector switch of his Uzi
was on full automatic. He could hear them coming.

The other Cuban was first through the lighted area. Cesar held his fire. He would get that one later. Then the three with
Kalashnikovs. But not Paulo Esteban.

Cesar heard a sound immediately behind him.

“Don’t turn around,” an amused Cuban voice said in his ear.

Cesar felt the barrel of a gun pressed into the back of his neck.

“Keep still,” the Cuban told him.

Cesar clutched his Uzi, finger on its trigger, wondering if he whirled about would he get off a burst of fire and catch Esteban
with a fatal bullet, in spite of the almost certain bullet in his own neck. It would be worth it.

“She’s gone! Gone!” Manuel was shouting at the small wood hut.

“I thought so,” Esteban said calmly in Cesar’s ear. “But taking her wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to come after me
also. You know who I am. Paulo Esteban. I know your face.”

“Cesar Ordonez.”

“Of course. Forgive me, I should have remembered. There are people in Havana who would give their eyeteeth to spend a few
hours with you, alive and talkative, Cesar. You would be a big prize for me to deliver in ordinary times. But unfortunately,
losing Sally Poynings would hurt my reputation more than capturing you would build it. So I am forced to offer a deal. You
for her.”