Lone Wolf #5: Havana Hit (6 page)

Wulff moved away. It was a calculated gamble, everything in or out of this world was but he trusted Stevens. The man visibly had nothing more to lose nor did he have anything to gain by setting the machine anywere but straight down. A box on a plank above the controls beeped and began to make sounds, very casually Stevens extended a palm and knocked the box to the floor. It smashed.

“Sons of bitches are trying to get through,” he said, “this is a hell of a time.”

“They’re in radio communication?”

“Of course they are,” Stevens said. “I suppose they’re giving final orders or something like that.” He hit a lever; the copter began to move down vertically as if it were descending an elevator shaft. “I don’t give a shit.”

“You just work for them.”

“I’m a so-called mercenary,” Stevens said. “I go where they pay me but I drew a real piece of shit this time around, didn’t I? That’ll teach me.”

Wulff looked out toward the floor of the cabin. Everything was as he had left it except that the corpse was visibly exploding with blood; the blood released in death had coated the body and was pluming toward the sides in little rivulets. He had seen death in many ways before but never, in one body, so much of it. Some died quietly and some like this one disgustingly. You just never could tell…. In that sense death was like sex; you could not tell from appearances how the person would take to it. “What I’d like to know,” Stevens said, working the helicopter in its delicate descent, “is exactly what your plans are from here on in.”

“That’s no concern of yours,” Wulff said.

“I didn’t say it was … I didn’t say it was, friend. I just wonder if you plan to kill me when we get down.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Wulff said, “I hadn’t thought of it.”

“Because if you’re going to, I’d appreciate if you’d make it quick and clean. I can’t stand suffering. I have a horror of physical pain as a matter of fact—which really makes me a bitch of a mercenary, doesn’t it?”

“Fear has nothing at all to do with it. The more scared some men are, the better.”

“Yes,” Stevens said nodding, “that’s surely true but I don’t know if it applies in my case. Well, that’s hardly the point, it it?” They were about five hundred feet in the air and settling toward a clearing now in what appeared to be a light forest of some sort. Neatly, Stevens headed the copter toward a part in the trees, his hand now working over the controls with assurance and accuracy. He was good, Wulff thought, no question about that. Good enough to do his job without even thinking about it which was the mark of the professional in any line. “I’m sorry about your valise,” Stevens said, “I didn’t know anything about it.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“That’s the key, isn’t it? The valise.”

“Don’t ask questions. Don’t think.”

“I’m not thinking,” Stevens said, “I’m just making conversation, just idle, casual conversation.” He peered out the window, located some point which apparently satisfied him, nodded once and then dropped the copter into a shallow, straight drive: one moment they were looking down upon trees, the next they were amidst them and then they hit ground with a rolling bump, dodged through the clearing still rolling and came to a stop in what appeared to be a shallow, abandoned strip of farmland just outside the wooded area. Stevens shook his head and cut off the engine, closing switches one by one. “Closer than you think,” he said.

“You did well.”

“Mostly I just try to get through,” Stevens said. With the machine now out of gear he seemed to have lost intensity or even a sense of purpose. He slumped over the controls, propping his chin on an elbow. “Now what?” he said.

“We’ll see,” Wulff said. “Sit tight.”

“You going to kill me, too?”

“Not unless it’s strictly necessary.”

“You know,” Stevens said, almost offhandedly. “It’s interesting, the things that you learn about yourself when you go under the gun. Two hours ago I would have told anyone who listened that I didn’t give a shit about dying; I didn’t care what happened to me; that I was already a dead man and it couldn’t happen twice.”

“Yes,” Wulff said, “I know what you mean.”

“But you want to know something?” Stevens said inquiringly, looking at him, his features open, neither defiance nor irony in the small eyes. “That’s all a lot of bullshit. It’s crap. I’m as afraid of dying as anyone; the idea of death terrifies me. I can’t stand even thinking of it and I’m terrified that you’re going to kill me like you killed that cop out there. Now isn’t that interesting?”

“It’s interesting,” Wulff said, “everything is interesting. Where’s my valise?”

“What valise? What’s that?”

“Delgado said that we were going to go airborne with the valise.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Stevens said, “All I do is take orders and carry them out. They didn’t tell me anything about a valise and there’s certainly none aboard this copter.”

“Then that explains everything,” Wulff said and indeed it did, it made everything come clear, not that there was any satisfaction in this or that knowing what Delgado had been tracking from the first made the situation here any less difficult. But he knew now what the man had been trying to do; saw the outlines of the plan. The only question—and Wulff supposed that it did not matter particularly—was whether Delgado was freelancing this one out or whether he was acting as a government agent. Did the regime itself want the valise? This was doubtful; Delgado’s remarks about the new puritan-ism, the self-righteousness of the regime were probably well-taken. At the hightest levels they would not want to deal in drugs; would probably not even want knowledge of them. That brought it right down to Delgado, then, who was walking a very tight line indeed; on the one hand he had to carry out his official capacity, on the other there were a million illegal dollars to be made. Wulff could feel a certain sympathy for the man; he was in a difficult spot and needed all of his courage and diplomatic abilities to get through. On the other hand, this sympathy was not going to make it easier for Delgado if they ever met again. Which he suspected they would. Which he was going to make happen.

Wulff said, “Stay here,” to Stevens and walked through the canvas into the passenger compartment. The man in the uniform was still in the process of dying but dying had already shifted toward decomposition; the bleeding had at last slowed and his face had tensed into the first signs of rigor mortis. He looked somewhat like a dog taking a scent, the staring eyes considering the ceiling, the mouth pursed, the long nose pointed straight upwards. Wulff had seen and touched many a dead man in his time but this one gave him a stab of revulsion; he had never seen a corpse that so
actively
bore the signs of death. Be that as it may, be everything as it may, the first thing to do was to dispose of the body.

He went over to the hatchway and kicked it open. The metal fell away; smells of woods and fields drifted into the cabin, overtaking the deeper, richer odor of the corpse; they mingled with the smell of flesh and rotting blood and the end compound of odors was almost of a kind of gaiety; all they needed, Wulff thought, were a few grazing animals, perhaps a shepherd or two and there would be a delightful pastoral scene. Of course there would be. He looked out over the terrain, then cautiously stepped from the copter, prodding at the grass and feeling its resiliency, under that first springing response corruption and ooze, of course, that was Cuba for you, that was the whole damned world but what were you going to do? In the world or out of it everything was corrupt but maybe things had come a little further since the regime because in the good old days Delgado would have shot him right in the office and had the guards carry him out but now Delgado had gone to the trouble of getting a copter to take him out of there … which was the best indication, after all, that the man was freelancing. It was not really government policy to mingle in the drug trade; in the old Battista days everybody was into it just about the way that they were into torture but things had changed a little. They had moved along.

Well, that was progress for you; no reason not to be optimistic. Now they did it under the table, the officials worked their operations on the side and bowed to policy in the capital. Not only did it show that government was turning around, it also gave an enterprising man like Delgado the opportunity to make a few dollars on the side and that was important. Why not? all of the tourist trade was out of the island, the great casinos were closed, the tree drug lines had been cut off and the least that a man could hope for was a little private enterprise. That left him squarely up against it then. It was just him and Delgado
mano a mano
; he would not have to take on an entire government, lines of militia, the premier himself to recover his valise. Just a nice, tight simple operation: probably fifty hired hands and an arsenal. Well, that was better than the entire Cuban army. Maybe not though. Maybe not. You could never be sure.

Wulff walked back to the copter, peered in the hatchway and took the corpse firmly by the ankles. He pulled and the body came loose, sliding on blood and then jammed, stalled in the doorway. “Come on,” he said, “help me get this guy out of here.”

Stevens looked out from the compartment. “I’m squeamish,” he said. “I’m not only afraid of death, I can’t bear to look at it. I—”

“You’re going to help me,” Wulff said. “You’re living from moment to moment right now, friend. You understand that? You’re living on my indulgence.”

Stevens shrugged wryly, a man, it seemed who had come to grip with vast weaknesses in the last hour and having known them, found he could never be touched by anything again. “All right,” he said. He came out cautiously, stood behind the policeman and got a grip on the shoulders, then hoisted him, gasping. Wulff backed down the ramp, the body swinging in their clutch like a tent, ballooning slightly, streaming blood again, and they staggered downrange a hundred feet or so to a small raised hill, little strips of tar clinging to it. “Dump it,” Wulff said. Stevens dropped the body convulsively, the full weight of it rearing into Wulff momentarily and he lost his balance—the dead feet prodding deep into his chest—and he fell heavily in the ooze, still embracing the policeman. Stevens stood with his hands on his hips, looking at this expressionlessly. Wulff got to his feet, little strips of mud and tar clinging to him and said, “He’ll keep for a while. How far are we out of the capital?”

“About ninety miles.”

“Where are we?”

“It’s hard to judge. We’d need a map.”

“You used to flying blind, Stevens?”

“I follow instructions,” Stevens said expressionlessly. “I do what I’m told to do and don’t think much about it and at the end of the day or week I get some money. I was told to fly south until ordered otherwise. I assume that I would have heard from our friend down here but he had an accident before he could have a chance to talk to me.”

“You’re serious,” Wulff said, “aren’t you Stevens? You’re really serious about this. You don’t think, you just follow orders. Something must have happened to you a long time ago.”

“Nothing
happened
to me,” Stevens said, “I’m not getting into personal details at all. I’m not serious. You’re the one who’s serious, Wulff. You’re the one who goes around killing people. Me? I just work here.”

He turned toward Wulff then, a precise, neat man dressed in slightly stained flight clothes, only the curl of his lips showing fear and that in such a well-controlled way that Wulff could only admire him. The man was doing well. He was doing far better than almost any of them he had faced with death so far. “Well?” he said, “are you going to kill me?”

“I don’t know,” Wulff said honestly. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“You seem to kill everyone sooner or later. You’re reputation gets around. Even a guy like me hears about you sooner or later.”

“I can’t decide,” Wulff said, “I have to get back to the capital, you see, the fastest and easiest way and I really don’t know how to fly one of these things. I can fake it but it’s not my area.”

“Let me fly it then.”

“I’m thinking of that,” Wulff said, “but I don’t know whether or not I can trust you.”

“You can trust me,” Stevens said. “I just work here. I go for bids. I don’t have anything against you at all; in fact I rather admire what I think you’re trying to do.”

“Sure you work for bids,” Wulff said. “The question is what you think they’re bidding now.”

Stevens motioned toward the corpse. “That’s what they’re bidding,” he said. “I think I get the message. I live in a hotel room and I drink a lot. This year I’m in Havana but next year I’ll be somewhere else. The way I figure, there’s always corruption and troubles and room for a man with certain biddable skills. It has nothing to do with ideology.”

“Where does Delgado live?” Wulff said.

“I don’t know where he lives. You saw where he works. Somewhere in Havana I suppose. Maybe he lives in his offices. How the hell do I know? You want to find out where he lives I’ll put you there in a three-point landing. I don’t give a shit, Wulff. You’ll reach that point sooner or later but you don’t really believe that now.”

Wulff looked at his pistol and then at Stevens. Easy. It would be so easy. The thing about the power to bring death is that after a while it can get to you, almost demand application. It starts small and then it grows; it begins in an alley somewhere or in some secret room and then it spreads out, moves to larger and larger stages and eventually you can end up being a Louis Cicchini. A Marasaco. Or a Delgado. He could see that in himself now: a vivid picture of what he could do to Stevens. It would take so little out of him; it would be virtually effortless. The gun raised, the shaking terror of the man, the slow desertion of life then as the realization hit him, that realization which always took them, even those killed in surprise, then the explosion, the powder, the impact, the small, neat hole or the ragged one, blood pumping through, kicking limbs, a flurry of collapse … and Stevens would be lying next to the policeman on the grass and tar, his body stained by blood and earth, transported from the life that until thirty seconds ago had been as much his as Wulff’s. The mystery of this deliverance; death as something co-existent with life, so near that it could be brought about casually. And yet men would reinforce that separation forever, do everything they could to deny the reality of death, build and destroy people or cities merely to prove that death could not overtake them.