President Rodriguez chafed through a routine morning, signing letters and memoranda and discussing minor administrative hassles with the ministers of agriculture and education.
Just before noon, the President's aide announced Security Minister Paco Zamora.
The tall, ornate door opened to admit Paco. The sight of the cool little guy brought Rodriguez to his feet.
The President's eyes flicked impatience as Paco crossed the long stretch of waxen floor and took the time to bow, say buenos dias, and ask how his president was feeling this morning.
Rodriguez sighed. There was no getting around Paco's sense of propriety.
"I slept well and ate a hearty breakfast, mi amigo. And you?"
"Satisfactorily. My usual, Senor Presidente. A nap and an empanada."
"You thrive as the parrot, Paco." A fond smile creased the President's face. "I hope this little bird has much to tell me."
"All is quiet, Senor Presidente."
"Is it?"
"But I feel the lull, like the hush when the barometer is falling and the elements are gathering. We've kept hands off the whole situation and let the passing hours convince Cidd Menendez that we suspect nothing."
"Good," Rodriguez nodded. He rubbed his leathery jaw. "You know, Menendez had a chance to use the same tactic on us but passed it by."
Rodriguez noticed Paco's slight frown. "When we made our amnesty offer," the President explained, "Menendez was too blindly greedy in hanging onto every thug in his guerilla army. If a few of those men had responded and drifted in, we would have let our guard down."
"We don't know right now what we are guarding against," Paco reminded him.
"So we must have eyes in the backs of our heads."
Paco allowed himself a faint note of humor. "That's a trick we constantly practice here."
Rodriguez turned and walked to the French doors. He squinted against the sunlight when he stepped onto the balcony.
The lovely day harbored not the slightest hint of intrigue or danger. Below, the floral gardens lay as peaceful as a little Eden without a serpent. The buildings of the government complex shone like blocks of chalk. In the distance, Bahia La Junares reflected the blue of the sky. There was little traffic on the water.
"The Hangui is submerged now," Paco spoke at the president's elbow. "One of our trawlers reports Law has begun his exploration of the Ybytecto Trench.."
"And Menendez?"
"Leisurely breakfast. Then to the country club. I think he was taking plenty of time to make sure a finger wouldn't tap him on the shoulder."
"Whom did he meet?"
"Three of his old cronies," Paco said. "They played nine holes of golf. One of the caddies happened to be a pair of those eyes in the backs of our heads."
Rodriguez glanced at Paco. "Only nine holes? That's odd, isn't it?"
The little man pursed his lips. "Menendez said he had to drive to his plantation, where the overseer had reported some problems. It would explain and cover his absence from the capital a little too nicely, I would think."
A quickening of feeling was visible in the President's broad face. He jerked his head, his eyes stabbing a silent question.
"Don't worry," Paco said. "When Menendez left the club, he returned to his villa. We'll know the minute he leaves."
A growl of eagerness rumbled from Rodriguez. His eyes met Paco's. Each knew they were sharing the same thought----the hope that Menendez would unwittingly lead them to the guerilla base camp somewhere in the hinterlands.
Efforts to locate the hidden hornets' nest so far had failed. Rodriguez had abandoned the idea of sending out lone secret agents after the first had been murdered, and armed patrols were too easily spotted by the elusive guerillas.
Even the courier with the amnesty message had never reached the base camp. He'd had to circulate the word and meet one of Pau Saldana's lieutenants outside a village.
Rodriguez drew a heavy breath and spoke, as if to reassure himself. "Unless we've guessed wrong from the start, Menendez will brief his people, now that the Hangui has arrived."
"Let's hope the importance of it inspires him to see to it personally," Paco murmured somewhat dryly to the President.
The little man, having completed his briefing, excused himself and departed for Communications. He would hover there, a silent shadow, until a report was radioed in by the man watching Menendez's villa.
Rodriguez returned to his desk. He tried to study a proposal by a large American fishery to build a processing/freezing plant in San Gonzalo. He couldn't give the folio the concentration it deserved.
He lunched at his desk, on broiled cobia, hot crusty bread, and a salad with a creamy, bright orange mango dressing. The food was excellent, and the president took time to say so to the white-jacketed chef who'd brought in the tray.
Rodriguez ate with a display of calm, hearty appetite. He'd long ago immunized his stomach to tensions, excitement, anxiety. A young ex-journalist, with a few followers in the back country, ate when he could and what he could get.
Time squeaked by. Then at 2:00 a light linked on the communicator. Rodriguez stabbed a finger on one of the buttons in a small panel set into the corner of the desk.
"Si?"
"Paco here. The condor has left the nest. I'm on my way now to the garage to requisition a car from the motor pool."
"Call for the gray Chrysler Dart," Rodriguez instructed. "I'll meet you on the concourse."
Rodriguez shoved back in his chair. He rose as if the prospect of activity had put oil in his ligaments. His eyes were burning, but not with any hint of cruelty or hunger for personal vengeance. he was hotly angered by the thought of the time and energy Menendez was siphoning from constructive channels.
The President's footsteps clicked rapid echoes from the long stretch of waxen floor. He yanked open the heavy door, snapping the guard to attention. His presence swept through the corridors, leaving behind a wake of startled office workers.
He burst onto the flagstoned courtyard from a side entrance. The long, low building that housed the garages and scanty motor pool was 50 yards to his left.
As the President neared, an old gray Dart nosed out of the shadowy garage interior and crept into the sunlight. Judging by appearances, the car might have occupied a slot in the back row of an American used-car lot. The paint was faded, the chrome flaked on bumpers and hood.
But the Dart was Rodriguez's favorite. He was never comfortable in the official, chauffer-driven limousine, a big brute of a Mercedes with a bulletproof passenger compartment.
Under its drab shell, the old Dart had an overhead-cam engine, torsion suspension, a high-speed transmission, a 2-way radio, and a submachine gun the President hated to touch and never wanted to use.
But these features were secondary, as far as Rodriguez was concerned. With its beat-up look, the car was a means of getting about without attracting unwanted attention.
He could study a crop or a herd of cattle as he ambled past in the nondescript Dart. He could not changes which had place during the short time he'd held office. He could compare the activity and appearance of a village to the look of it the last time he'd seen it.
Now and then he would stop at a peon's adobe. By the time the astonished adults found their voices, Rodriguez might be sitting on the stoop, drinking cool well water from a gourd, teasing with the children that had gathered around.
The President's peasant heritage had a way of communicating itself, and the peon quickly sensed the overwhelming sincerity of this tough but compassionate man.
The talk would loosen up as the barriers fell. The results of government policies and actions would be totted up at a level where they really counted. The peon felt he could criticize without fear of harsh reprisal, or express approval without adopting the role of an inferior fawning before an overload. Sometimes a peon's simple and forthright response to a question was more relevant to the country's needs than the beautifully turned phrases of professional theorists.
The Dart was coming smoothly across the courtyard, Paco at the wheel. Rodriguez stood aside, and the car stopped when it rolled abreast of him.
Paco jumped out and held the door for Rodriguez to get in on the driver's side. The security minister hurried around and slipped into the seat beside the one the President was occupying.
Rodriguez meshed the gears. The Dart moved with a whispered sigh of power.
"Menendez took the south road from the villa," Paco directed.
The President's fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He pushed back a shadow of disappointment. Menendez's starting route could mean he was really on his way to an innocent conference with his plantation overseer. Rodriguez doubted that Menendez would have Pau Saldana come to the luxurious plantation hacienda. The guerilla chieftain was too near the top of the government's list of ten-most wanted criminals.
Ahead, the courtyard wall was broken by a graceful, sturdy, wrought steel-gate. A gray-uniformed guard, seeing the Dart approach, had entered the steel blockhouse and closed a switch. The gate was parting in the middle, swinging open electronically.
"Well," the President mused, chiefly to himself, "we'll just have to see if our fox doubles back off the south road."
Paco moved a little as if his seat were uncomfortable. "Of a truth, I'd feel better if you'd wait here."
The President's eyes glinted. "Certainly not."
"I know," Paco complained. "The big, fancy office annoys you. But...."
Rodriguez laughed. "Relax, old friend. Whatever Cidd Menendez is up to, I don't think he's ready to try assassination. The country might blow up in his face. He likes to play it safe. He doesn't mind sticking a neck out---if it's not his own."
The President nodded a friendly salute to the guard as the sedan purred through the gateway and onto the Sendero Esmeralda, melting into the rush of traffic on the broad avenue. The government buildings fell behind, and the sidewalks were walled by the concrete and glass fronts of offices and modern department stores. Much of San Gonazlo's wealth and power were reflected here, and the sights about him never failed to remind the President of how much needed doing in the back country.
The scenery changed rapidly as the sedan raced from the heart of the capital. On the outskirts, the scars of poverty met the President's gaze. Ramshackle buildings were separated by junk-littered lots. In a distant parched field, a peon trudged behind a team of yoked oxen. A mud hut flicked by, set close to the highway. Three ragged children and a bony, flop-eared dog were playing in the bare yard.
But the scene wasn't unchanging, as it had been under old regimes. Dust rose from a site being cleared for cheap housing. A crane was lifting a girder to add to the skeletal steel of a new schoolhouse. Farther on, a crew of men and big, American machines were paving a newly cut side road that snaked toward a construction site half a mile off the highway. A sign behind the access road announced (translated from Spanish): FUTURE HOME OF CAROLINA TEXTILES CO, SAN GONZALAN DIVISION, AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER.
As the Dart rounded a long curve, the President focused his attention on the intersection ahead. He braked, slowed, reversed gears, and backed the sedan off the highway. He stopped in a small, sandy clearing screened from view by a drab tangle of wild palms and undergrowth.
Paco bent toward the radio, the first etchings of a frown on his lean, brisk face. Then the radio bleeped, clearing Paco's shadow, of concern. His pencil-thin moustache twitched. "Mendendez's right on schedule, Senor Presidente."
"What is he driving?"
"His new black Porsche," Paco suggested. "But it wouldn't have mattered. One of Menendez's peon yardmen bugged all four cars at the villa. It wasn't hard. The electronic beeper is smaller than my thumb and can be stuck under a fender, behind a bumper, even dropped into the gas tank."
"Range?"
"Four miles."
Rodriguez nodded, straining forward to watch the highway intersection through bare spots in the foliage.
The beeps strengthened, chirping at 10-second intervals. A farmer's old truck, sagging in every line, jounced across the intersection. It coughed its way toward Chiguanada with a load of melons.
Rodriguez caught glimpses of a car moving on the south road beyond the underbrush. But it wasn't Menendez's. The President got an impression of a rather old convertible. The top was down, and Rodriguez had a quick look at 2 people who might have been Americans---a dark-haired man driving, a girl beside him with a bright yellow kerchief about her head.
Tourists no longer shunned the country, and Rodriguez assumed the American couple were on their way to brows the marketplace at Balgas and sightsee at the village and old Spanish mission jut a few miles south. Whisking from sight, they promptly dissolved from the President's thoughts.
Paco cocked his head to listen. With his keen peasant's hearing, Rodriguez had already caught the restrained throb of a finely tuned engine.
Rodriguez first saw the Porsche as black flashes beyond the verdant triangle. The car was briefly in view, skimming through the intersection and continuing south. Menendez was alone in the car. His speed was moderate, and casual observers would have attached no more suspicion to him than to the tourists in the convertible, who would brake in the dusty village square mere minutes ahead of him.
Still watching the empty intersection, Rodriguez waited. He had two reasons for doing so. He wanted to make sure a second car wasn't covering Menendez's trial, protecting the rear, although he doubted Menendez would trust very many people with the location of the guerilla base camp. But his primary thought was to keep at least 2 miles between his Dart and the Porsche. The nature of the country road would then provide cover for the Dart. Like so many other roads, it had evolved from old burro-cart and drovers' trails, its windings following the paths of least resistance through the wilderness, and rank, mosquito-infested vegetation shortened the view from one grove to the next.
Mentally measuring the ground Menendez must have covered during the passing seconds, Rodriguez eased the Dart into gear, coaxed it out of the sandy clearing, and turned left in the intersection. Neither the president nor Paco spoke. The tires rumbled with sounds like wet slaps on the hot, gravelly macadam. The radio emitted steady bleeps.
Reaching the outskirts of Balgas, Rodriguez braked for a goatherd in a tattered serape who was urging a small, bleating flock across the road with his staff and the help of a happy, wooly brown dog.
The village was a cluster of drab brown buildings about a dusty square. Rodriguez cruised at 10 miles and hour, with Paco's bright, darting eyes sharing the lookout.
Less than 1 mile south of the village, the telltale electronic impulse beeping in the radio speaker began to weaken and fade.
"We were correct!" Paco's eyes snapped. "Menendez is no longer on the south road."
Rodriguez had already put the car into reverse. He thrust his head out the window, looking back to the widened, sandy area where he could jockey the car around.
He spun the wheel. The tires sank a little. The nose rocked up as he braked and slipped the car into forward gear. He spun the steering wheel, and the tires cried softly on the heat-shimmering paving as the car slowed its nose back toward the village.
"He didn't turn around to Balgas and double back," Paco said.
The President nodded. He knew the countryside even better than the brisk little man. His own mind had mapped Menendez's movements, even as Paco had assembled the implications.
Besides the north-south road, there were two other roads in or out of Balgas. An easterly road struggled through wilderness and past little farms to its eventual termination at a small fishing village on the coast. A second rocky road strained toward the interior and the climbing, jumbled, increasing barrenness of the hill country.
The President quickly made his choice. He doubted that the guerillas would locate an important main base where their backs could be forced against the sea.
Rodriguez retraced his route across the village square as rapidly as safety permitted. Beyond the cobble-walled well, where a lean old man was drawing water, he turned left.
The road to the hills snaked out between a rambling general store and a small, uninviting cafe. The Dart stirred a faint dust streamer as if flicked between the weathered walls.
Ahead, the narrow road coiled up and around a hill. On the crest, as if stamped against the sky, the old mission stood, its hard-baked brick and heavy-hewn timber raised in Spanish lines and surmounted by a simple wooden cross. The guns of the conquistadores were hushed in the silence of centuries past, but the Misión Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia still functioned as a church, school, and hospital for the sick of the village. A half mile away crews were working overtime to raise a small new hospital that would assume some of the load.
Rodriguez slipped his foot from the gas pedal and dipped his head for a sweeping look at the grounds about the arches and shaded porticoes of the mission.
"Que?" Paco inquired.
"It just struck me," Rodriguez mused. "The American couple in the old convertible----They seem to have disappeared. I don't remember seeing their car in the village. And they haven't come up here, apparently."
"Americans! Pah! Who can predict them?" Paco shrugged. "I respectfully suggest, Senor Presidente, that we recover the signal from the Porsche quickly---or Menendez will lose himself in the hills."
Paco was right, of course. Rodriguez stepped down on the gas pedal, and the mission whipped from view.
The road dropped, cut through a green finger of a meadow, and wriggled up a steep hillside. Over the crest, the narrow, rocky lane twisted out of sight around 1 shoulder of the hill. The President tapped the brake. It was just as well that he did; the convertible loomed immediately beyond the blind curve. It had halted at a crazy angle, a front tire flat, the rear wedged against a boulder at the road's edge.
The American man and woman were struggling against the rear bumper. Rodriguez had a swift impression of their faces as the Dart, its brakes locked, skidded toward them. The dark-haired man shouted an unceremoniously shoved the girl away from the convertible, leaping down the hillside after her.
The gray Dart showered a dirty plume of dust and gravel. The steering wheel struggled under the President's powerful hands. He fought the hurtling weight, bringing the Dart to a rocking stop almost bumper to bumper with the convertible.
He and Paco leaped out and rushed to the road's edged. A few yards below, on the precipitous slope, the man was giving one-handed assistance to the dark-haired girl as they struggled back up.
"Are you all right?" The President's voice was filled with worry as he and Paco crouched, hands extended to help the couple up the last few feet.
The pair scrambled upright, and the girl managed a rueful smile as she began to dust off her lightweight gray slacks. The knotted kerchief had slipped from her head and was dangling from her neck. "It was a bad moment when you appeared around the curve," she admitted, a faint edge of fright lingering in her musical voice. "But we're fine now."
The man regarded the stalled cars. Then he bowed slightly. "Please accept our apologies for coming a cropper right where we did. I guess you had a bad moment yourself."
Assured that the Americans were all right, the President concentrated in other directions. He scrutinized the Americans sharply, then turned to examine the car.
Paco had dropped to one knee beside the rear wheel. He glanced up as the President's shadow fell across him. The little man's lips thinned to nothing. "They've wedged the axle on a rock. It's going to take some time to pry the car out of here and reopen the road."
Rodriguez clenched his teeth. HIs hands knotted at his sides. He turned toward Paris, his movements were stiff from muscles that were tight with the effort of self control.
Paris was calmly wiping hillside dirt from his hands with a handkerchief. He looked up, meeting the President's smoldering Latin temper with a bland smile.
"Seems you can't go on until the convertible is moved," he mentioned.
"Obviously, senor!"
"Then, perhaps we should all get started back in your car."
The President's face reddened yet another shade. "You," he pointed out in a choked tone, "are hardly in a position to tell us what to do!"
Paris's brows lifted. "What do you suggest?"
"What I suggest, senor, is that you start out by explaining yourself!"
"It's really quite simple," Paris assured him. "The young lady and I happen to be neighbors in a La Junares hotel."
"We turned up in rooms just down the hallway from each other," Molly put in. "We met in the lobby today."
"And decided," Paris added, "to pitch in, buy a used car, and resell at a modest loss when we'd finished our stay in your lovely country."
"How interesting!" The President's subdued words had an icy quality that caused Molly to edge closer to Paris.
"You preceded a black Porsche into Balgas," Rodriguez continued. "You've now enabled the Porsche to lose itself in the hill country, ruining more than you can realize!"
The American accepted the charge with a cool lifting of his eyebrows.
Paco had scurried all about the convertible, examining it with the thorough, bright-eyed intensity of a chipmunk. He coughed loudly for the President's attention.
Paris and Tracey stood with shoulders brushing, intently watching Rodriguez and Paco holding a whispered conference beside the convertible's front fender. Twice Paco flicked a finger at the flat tire.
Rodriguez turned, crossed the road, and thrust his anger-dyed face close to Molly and Paris. For a moment, he seemed tempted to the point of taking their necks in his hands and cracking their heads together.
"The convertible and Porsche traveling the same route, your accident conveniently blocking the way----not at all simple coincidence, senor and senorita!" Rodriguez dragged in a breath. "You stopped in Balgas and watched for the Porsche. You saw the road it took out of the village. You followed the Porsche, and you turned the convertible into a roadblock when the moment seemed right."
Pinpoints of sweat glittered at the corners of the President's accusing eyes. "But you slipped up on one detail, mis amigos. You didn't have a blowout and accidentally skid across the road. The valve core has been loosened. The air was let out from the tire after the car was in place."
"You tune in great." A thread of tension snapped in Paris's shoulders. "You've got part of it right. We did watch for Cidd Menendez so we could follow him and cut you off with a roadblock.
Rodriguez didn't trust himself to move during the moment in which he absorbed the admission.
Looking at the scary change in Rodriguez's already angry face, Molly couldn't control a soft gasp. The President's eyes suffused with red until they were for all the world like those of a big, dark creature in a bullring.
"Muy bien," Rodriguez managed to say. "But I can promise you one thing. You won't enjoy spending Menendez's filthy wages in San Gonzalo!"
"Don't jump to conclusions," Paris said coolly. "We don't happen to be part of Cidd Menendez's team."
Paco was taut at the President's side. "Watch your tone of voice! You're speaking to..."
"The Honorable Fulco Rodriguez, President of the Republic of San Gonzalo," Paris broke in. He bent his waist in a courteous little bow. "Mr. President, my apologies. We just arrived and hadn't the chance to contact you in a more proper way."
Rodriguez mulled over this unexpected wrinkle with a skeptical tightening of his brows. "Just who are you?"
Molly's pleasant voice chimed in. "Why don't we all return to La Junares and talk it over? We can arrange for someone in Balgas to tow in our car and take care of it."
Rodriguez drove a dour look at her. "I wouldn't trouble my heart about the car. It may be the least of your worries." He turned his head for a study of the empty road ahead. "Since you've let the rooster out of the coop, there's little to keep us here."
Paco interpreted the command in the President's words. The little man took a side step as an ugly automatic pistol seemed to jump from his hidden shoulder holster into his hand.
"You'll return to La Junares," Paco promised. His tone hinted that the jails of San Gonzalo weren't exactly comfortable.
ns 18.68.41.179da2
