The White Vixen (55 page)

The beach, if he’d wanted to call it that, was filled with driftwood and craggy trees thrusting out from the ground at odd angles. Rocks were everywhere, creating even more of a hazard. There was a half-moon, giving them some illumination, and Hodge managed to steer the boat ashore without running into obstacles. Powers was the first man out, splashing into the surf five yards out from shore, followed quickly by Garrett and another lance corporal, Denny Henderson. The first British warriors to set foot in enemy territory during the war quickly fanned out and formed a perimeter. Sergeant Jerry Bickerstaff was next. The hulking Londoner, who had nearly made the ’76 Olympic team as a weightlifter, easily pulled the boat onto the gravelly beach.

Almost without a word, the commandos stowed their dry suits and diving gear in the boat and concealed it as best they could with brush, some of it hacked out by Bickerstaff with his Nepalese kukhari knife, its two-foot-long curved blade more than a match for any Argentine flora. Then the men set off to the north, gaining some higher ground and gratefully discovering the area was bare of any signs of habitation.

The absence of a nearby road, while good for security, made for tough going overland. They were used to a rough yomp, as they called a long trek carrying a heavy ruck, but Ian had to make sure they had adequate rest. By the time he’d done his 2230 time check, the troopers were starting to feel it, although none would admit to being tired. Even so, Ian ordered a halt to the march and the men gratefully sat down as comfortably as they could and broke out canteens and rations. Hodge detailed two men, Lance Corporal Charles Wayne and the luckless Kent, to take perimeter security about twenty meters away, one on either side of the line of march.

Even though the unit was observing radio silence, Ian kept his transceiver turned on and tuned to the SBS combat frequency. The radio had a range of about thirty miles, enough for an emergency message to reach them from the sub off-shore. He’d forgotten all about it and was chewing on a candy bar when he heard a tinny whisper. He unclipped the radio from his web belt and held it to his ear as he slightly increased the volume.

“Hello, any squaddies out there, this is White Vixen. Do you copy? Over.”

He almost dropped the radio in surprise. Next to him, Powers looked over with eyes that seemed to shine from the midst of his dark, camouflage-painted face. Ian glanced back at him and then fingered the send button. “White Vixen, this is a Poole squaddy,” he said cautiously, wondering if it could possibly be true. “Squaddy” was Royal Marine slang for a fellow trooper. “We copy your transmission, Vixen. Tell me where you’ve been.”

“Fonglan Island. I say again, Fonglan Island.”

Good God, it was her! Ian keyed the mike. “Not a good place for swimming.”

“Urgent we meet, squaddy. I am at a farmhouse, one klick north of Highway 25 and Highway 153 intersection, then due east two klicks.”

Powers handed Ian a map and a red-lensed pencil-thin flashlight. He quickly found her. Only about three klicks away. “Vixen, I have your location. See you soon. Poole squaddy out.” Just in case this was an Argentine trick, he deliberately neglected telling Jo exactly where they were.

“Pass the word to the lads, Sergeant,” Ian said. “Time to go.”

“I think I recognized the voice, sir,” Powers said. “Would that be the bird from Hong Kong?”

“I certainly hope so,” Ian said. “We move out in two minutes.”

***

Jo squatted at the base of a tree, one of the few that dotted the landscape of the Patagonian plateau, and peered through the night at the farmhouse a hundred meters away. That she had made it this far was nothing short of a miracle. She was nearly exhausted. Hunger gnawed at her, and there was only a swig or two of tepid water left in the bottle she carried in the shapeless, stolen peasant’s bag. She wiped the sleeve of the cotton shirt across her grimy forehead. One light was still on in the farmhouse. Sheep bleated from the small barn behind it and the pens flanking the buildings. An old pickup truck was parked in the yard.

Her escape from the Blitz had come none too soon. Within five minutes of her leap to the ground, she heard sirens. She scurried well off the road into the pasture, hunkering down as the first vehicles screamed past her: a police car and an Army truck, heading west, back toward the jet. She could still see it, gleaming white in the middle of the rode, nose down, nearly a kilometer behind her. She knew there’d be helicopters soon, so she did the best she could to stick to cover, using the few trees, making a zigzag course eastward. She figured she had maybe a half-hour before the soldiers discovered she wasn’t in the plane and started searching.

Her first big break came a few minutes later when she topped a small rise and saw a solitary farmhouse. A woman was going inside, carrying an empty laundry basket. Clothes fluttered from a single line stretching between the house and a small barn. Jo knew she would have to do something about her own clothing, since it was likely a description of her from Bormann’s servants was on the police and military airwaves right now. Popping sounds came to her over the wind from the west. They were at the plane. Willy was buying her that time.

Keeping the house in sight, she made her way toward the yard, using as much cover as possible. Were there dogs? She prayed there wouldn’t be. A low stone fence divided the grass of the yard and the scrub of the field. The clothesline was only ten yards away. She waited a full five minutes behind the fence, seeing no movement in the yard, barn or house, and then picked her targets, vaulted the fence, and snatched the clothes. She got only two garments, a plain light gray peasant blouse and a black, widely-flared skirt. Leaping back beyond the fence, heart hammering, she waited another five minutes before changing her wardrobe. Her hair had been in a ponytail, but now she let it come free to her shoulders. She balled up her original clothes, along with her socks and sneakers—she doubted peasant girls would be wearing shoes like these—and stuffed the wadded garments behind a loose stone in the fence.

Transportation. She estimated she was about thirty kilometers from the coast, and getting there on foot—and barefoot, at that—wasn’t an inviting prospect. She was considering what to do about that when a noise drew her attention back to the farmhouse. The back door came open and two children ran out, a boy of about eight a girl a bit younger, followed by the woman. “Carlos, Frida, wait for me!” The children laughed and ran back to her. “Come, now, if you’re good on the ride to town I’ll get you ice cream.” The children screamed with delight.

Jo watched them walk to the barn, heard an engine starting, and then a battered old Datsun pickup pulled out onto the yard, onto what passed for a driveway and down a dirt road to the main road, then turned left and headed east. Jo checked the map. The town of Comodoro Rivadavia was about forty kilometers to the southeast, with a smaller town up the coast, and then the Ninth Brigade air base. That had to be the launch point of the attack. Another airstrip, smaller, was about ten kilometers north of the base. That’s where the nuke was, had to be. Other than a small civilian airport at Comodoro Rivadavia, there was nothing else within a hundred kilometers, and she doubted they’d bring the weapon that close to a town.

Just in case someone else had stayed behind in the house, Jo hid behind the fence as she made her way to the barn. Inside she found a bench with tools, sacks of feed, a stall full of hay, and a real find: a pair of horses.

Jo’s last time on a horse had come two years earlier, during a tour at a base in Texas. A man she dated for a few months owned a stable, and he taught her to ride, something she found very enjoyable. Now, she hoped she remembered enough. She chose the female, who seemed fairly docile, and in fifteen minutes had saddled the animal with what she trusted was at least minimal competence. Looking through the items on the bench, she found a leather bag which could be used as a saddlebag or carried with a shoulder strap. Into the bag went her Luger and the extra clip, plus the radio and map. A dusty hat hung on a nail driven into a post, and although it was a bit too big for her, she took it. One more quick look around brought another break. Near the side door were four sets of well-worn boots. Thank goodness this family was fastidious. The next-to-largest pair, probably the woman’s, was just a bit large, but they’d do. With one last look out the barn door, she led the horse outside, mounted up, and headed east, through the fields, roughly paralleling the road.

The crackling of gunfire to the west had stopped, then came the sound of an explosion. They’d used a grenade. She looked back and saw no plume of smoke, so the plane must still have been intact. If the soldiers were even halfway efficient they’d find no woman inside and call in helicopters for an aerial search, and they wouldn’t take long to spot a lone woman on horseback. She spurred the animal to greater speed.

Twice over the next hour she heard helicopters in the distance, and both times she was able to find cover, once under a tree and the next time by walking the animal through a small village. Nobody paid attention to her, and she was able to draw some water for herself and the horse from a community well. Fortunately, nary a policeman or soldier was in sight, and so she mounted up and kept going.

The angle of the sun told her it was about three p.m. when she came to another village, hardly more than a few ramshackle buildings that had seen their better days long ago. A heavy-set man sat on a bench in front of what appeared to be a tavern. He was fanning himself with a rolled-up newspaper. Jo tied her horse to a post supporting the veranda. “Excuse me, señor,” she asked in Spanish, with a dazzling smile, “could you tell me how far it is to the coast from here?”

The man peered up at her, scratched a chin covered with bristly white whiskers, then looked to the east. “Oh, about fifteen kilometers, I would say.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“You are a stranger here,” the man said. “Where are you from?”

An alarm bell started ringing for her. “I am visiting my cousin’s estancia,” she said, “and I thought I would go for a ride. It is such a nice day.”

“Yes, it is,” he said. He looked at her again. “Are you Esteban’s niece, from Buenos Aires?”

She laughed. “I was told that the men in town were all handsome, but I didn’t know they would be so curious, too,” she said.
“Adios, amigo!”

Jo headed down the dirt road running east out of the village, praying that nobody there had a telephone. Half an hour later, she could smell the tang of the sea and was starting to think she just might make the coast unscathed when the road turned northeasterly, and a couple miles ahead, at an intersection, she spotted a police car. Without hesitating, she turned off the road and headed across the fields to the southeast.

Another quarter-mile brought her to within sight of the main road, running southeast-northwest, which had intersected with the village road. She’d kept an eye on the police car, and now it was heading down the road toward her. Resisting the urge to go faster, she kept the horse at a canter. The squad car, an older French Citröen, speeded up. It pulled to a stop in the middle of the road, directly in front of Jo. She pulled the reins back and slowed to a walk. Two men emerged from the car. From inside, Jo could hear a radio chattering.

“Hola, mi amiga
,” the driver said. He was short, thin, and his brown uniform shirt had sweat stains under the armpits. The other officer seemed to be younger by about ten years, and he kept his right hand near his holstered sidearm.

“Good afternoon, officers,” she said in flawless Spanish. “Isn’t it a beautiful day for a ride in the country?”

“Please dismount, señorita,” the driver said. “We must ask you for your identity papers.”

“Oh? Is there a problem, officer?” She got off the horse with a dainty jump, her skirt billowing. She caught the younger man’s eyes widening.

“Just routine, señorita. Your papers, please.”

“Well, all right,” she said. She rummaged in the saddlebag she’d taken from the barn. “Now, where are they? Oh, here.” She pulled out the Luger and pointed it at the men. The driver, quicker and more experienced, reached for his sidearm, while the younger man froze in fear. “Don’t try it,” she warned. “Now, gentlemen, very carefully, I want you to take your sidearms out of your holsters and put them on the hood of the car.”

The older man glared at her, but did as he was told. “You too, Junior,” she said, aiming the Luger at the young cop. He was literally shaking, but he was able to retrieve his weapon and place it on the car.

So much for making it to the coast undetected. Well, it had been a long shot at best. Now, Jo’s challenge was how to deal with them. She remembered the rough road she’d crossed a minute before, hardly more than a tractor-trail across the wide field, but it did pass near a copse of trees that was a good mile from the road.

Within three minutes she had tied both men’s hands behind their backs with their belts and shoved them onto the floor in back, then disabled the radio. Tying the horse to a nearby tree, she drove the police car back down the road till she found the tractor path and started following it. Ten very bumpy minutes later, she parked behind the trees, then removed the engine’s distributor cap. Leaving the windows slightly open, she left the men in the car and began jogging across the field, toward her horse. The policemen would eventually work their way free, but it would take them awhile. By the time they made their way back to the road and found their way to the nearest telephone, she’d be miles away.