It was siesta, and in his shaded hammock strung between two posts supporting the rickety roof of his clapboard headquarters, Pau Saldana slept.
Even in repose, his lean hundred and seventy pounds suggested sinewy power, dynamic physical reserves equal to the jungle. He was dressed in knee-length khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt, open halfway down his muscle-ridged chest. Stacked on the rough, gritty planking below the hammock were his scuffed buckskin chukkas, garrison cap, and belted leather holster with its wicked Magnum Special.
His black-bearded cheeks and Roman nose twitched now and then, discouraging sand gnats and mosquitoes drawn to feast on sweat-damp, tanned flesh. A few strands of his curling, thick black hair were plastered wetly to his sloping forehead.
In the crinkly mass of beard, his red lips smiled. He murmured in his sleep.
In his dream, he was living months in the future. It was he, Pau Saldana, who sat behind the large desk in the presidential palace. Many people were assembled before him in the great hall, reverently silent, awaiting his pronouncements.
In the forefront of the crowd was a an indistinct image that nevertheless possessed a name---Law Zongxian. Saldana rose tall, and the shadowy symbol of the world power in the Far East bowed respectfully.
"I will help add up the score for you, Comrade." Saldana's words rang through the vaulted room. "Cidd Menendez, my beloved father-in-law, did a great work, with your help. It was climaxed by the execution of that imperialist puppet, Fulco Rodriguez, who brought only economic chaos to la republica."
"Viva Saldana! Viva Menendez!" the crowd roared.
Saldana spread his arm high. The cue to the mob brought instant silence.
Still addressing a half-seen Law, Saldana said, "For weeks the firing squads haven't slept. La republica has been hammered back together. During the demoralized times, it was my patriotic duty to assume more and more the burden of leadership. Today, my father-in-law awakens to find that I have supreme control of the army, therefore of the country."
"Viva Saldana!" the ecstatic crowd howled.
Because his name alone was on their lips, Saldana let the outpouring continue. Washed by the swells of sound, he stood before them, feeling beautiful.
He silenced them finally, returning his attention to Law. "My father-in-law is retiring, Comrade. He will take a well-deserved rest in the resorts of Europe. From this moment on, you and your people will bring your requests to me, El Capitan of the Popular People's Republic of San Gonzalo. Is that quite clear? You will...."
The joyous tumult of the crowd drowned him out. The sound rose in fierce volume. The very building began to shake. The great chandelier was swaying wildly. The walls and roof were tumbling.....
Saldana made thrashing efforts to stop the collapse. In so doing, he tangled and almost pitched himself from his hammock.
He woke with a garbled outcry, rearing up, swinging perilously as his eyes popped open.
He blinked and squinted. It took him one second to transfer from the delightful dream to the muggy reality of the command post and the ancient pyramid nearby.
Saldana swung his feet down, sitting on the insecure edge of the hammock. A sudden thought scared him. Had he talked in his sleep? Revealed his most secret plans?
He glowered and snapped his fingers at a subordinate who had seen the whole thing. "Answer me!"
"Answer? Capitan, I don't understand."
"Don't stand with the look of a burro on your face! I was speaking as I awoke---and I expect a response from you!"
"But, Captain, how can one respond to one muffled utterance?"
Saldana studied the skinny face, the cautious, hyena-like eyes. Satisfied, Saldana glanced down, felling for his shoes with his socked feet. "Well, what is it?"
The soldier's pinched, greedy face showed something approaching animation. "He's come, Capitan! I ran to tell you the minute I spotted his little black car!"
The news locked Saldana's limbs. Then he jumped up with a motion that set the empty canvas hammock pitching.
He spun about and saw the Porsche, the focus of a small, motely gathering, come creeping into the far end of the compound.
"Of a truth!" He stamped a foot, shouted a laugh, slapped the suddenly grinning guerilla on the shoulder. "Quickly! My shoes, gun, cap!"
Saldana buttoned, smoothed, and tucked in his shirt as the soldier dropped to one knee and held the chukkas spread for the groping feet.
"Finally, Capitan, finally!" The guerilla chuckled.
"Yes, after all these days of waiting...." And not a moment too soon, Saldana added to himself. Guerillas in idleness become rabble, hard to control, cussed and took out the cussedness on each other.
Only the cynics remained, the vicious, the ones who must have had bloodthirsty pirates for ancestors. The unselfish patriots had dropped away when the Rodriguez administration had shown honest evidence of keeping its tough campaign promises. Even these remaining had been tempted by the Rodriguez offer of amnesty---until Saldana's clever tongue had rekindled their greed, their lust to rule a village, a collective, a province.
He had harangued, cajoled, scorned, and flattered them. He had anchored all on 1 assurance: "We, my comrades, are the jaguar that hunts at night, under the cover of darkness. The darkness conceals her from her prey, and once she has subdued her prey, she kills it with a bite in the head. We will kill our enemies with a bullet to the head!"
"Viva Saldana!" the assembled guerillas roared.
"And we will not hunt alone," Saldana continued. "Cidd Menendez has a plan. He is making arrangements with a worldwide power which insists on helping us---but perhaps you are not the jaguar after all. You know something the so-called politicians do not? You shiver with doubt---while they believe? Then turn back now---and envy us when the great day comes---if you can envy with our foot on your neck...."
Saldana combed back his thick, black tousle with his fingers and snatched his cap for the soldier's extended hand. "Where is Angela?"
"Gone to the river with two other wives, Capitan, to do some washing."
Saldana scowled. Why did she punish herself with the most menial tasks? He had told her time after time that she should act like the wife of a leader.
"Fetch her!" Saldana growled. "Tell her that her father is here. Tell her that I strongly wish and urge her to be on her best behavior."
"At once, Capitan." The guerilla scurried off.
Saldana adjusted his cap jauntily and stepped from the sagging, rotted porch.
He started across the dusty compound at a suitably brisk military pace.
A few hundred yards away, the Porsche was all but smothered in the crowd of ruffians. Taking new life and enthusiasm, they surged and milled, their long-held emotions breaking loose.
Laughing and shouting, they jostled to get close to the car. One man was riding the hood as if it were a small, black bull. Another ran near the rear bumper, waving a tattered straw hat and yelling Menendez's name.
Menendez was taking it all with calculated, hail-fellow diplomacy. He had thrust out his left hand for their touch. His beaming voice called some of them by name.
Hurrying about, Saldana took a look at surroundings he'd grown damn sick and tired of.
The shanty he'd claimed for himself and Angela faced the 1/2-mile long quadrangle. It was little better than the other other living quarters, dreary thatched huts that dotted the perimeter.
Beyond the radio shack and the generator housing, was the rock cairn serving as a munitions depot. Off to the other side of the concourse, the motor pool occupied a smaller clearing. Partially concealed by trees were 6 battered trucks, three American made cars stolen from parking lots in Chiguanada, a machine-gun mounted on a halftrack of World War II vintage, and a decrepit diesel bus with a flat front tire and most of the windows broken.
Not far from the motor pool was the area of rock fireplaces and slab tables where the community prepared and ate most of its primitive, gamy food.
Saldana sighed. Regardless of the cost to anyone else, he vowed, he would never return to this.
He barked a sudden order for attention.
Grudgingly his followers obeyed. They spilled from the slowly moving Porsche and formed parallel ranks facing each other. The formation had some semblance of a military honor guard.
Menendez stopped the car. A burly sergeant in dirty fatigues lurched forward, saluted loosely, and opened the car door.
Exuding energetic confidence, Menendez burst out with an alacrity he didn't quite feel. The trip along the terrible road had worn him down, brought an acid sear to his stomach. But he must let down later, in private. Wolves, he reminded himself, were quick to despise a hint of weakness in the pack leader.
Against the backdrop of the beggarly camp, he cut an otherworldly figure in spotless white suit, pastel blue shirt, deep blue necktie. The afternoon sunlight glowed on his patrician features and silver brushings at his temples.
Teeth flashing like white pearls, Menendez accepted Saldana's salute and formal word of welcome. His clever eyes flattered the ranks as though they were spit-and-polish elite.
"Mis amigos, you know the meaning of my appearance. We have entered a partnership with a great power. Our promises to you are never broken." He paused a moment for effect. "The worst is behind us. Your loyalty and courage will soon be rewarded. San Gonzalo will be ours!" His voice had risen gradually to a ringing note.
Faces in the assembled ranks--swarthy, bearded, sweating, greedy-eyed---twitched eagerly. A delusion of excitement swept through and strained their discipline.
"Now," Menendez said coolly. "I discuss details with Comrade Saldana. He will later tell you which part each is to play."
He strode through the formation, Saldana about-facing and falling in behind him.
Behind them, the sergeant bellowed the order to fall out, and a volcano of sound erupted over the compound. The men laughed and pummeled each other, boasting and swaggering as they tasted thoughts of a future that now seemed at hand.
Nearing the shadows of the weathered pyramid and the command post huddling forlornly nearby, Menendez eased the hard grip he had kept on himself. His shoulders sagged a little, and a shadow of fatigue crossed his face.
"Where is Angela?" he hissed.
"I've sent a man to bring her."
"She should have run out to meet her own father," Menendez accused. "It didn't look good to the people."
"They didn't notice," Saldana shrugged. "Anyway, what are the people?"
Menendez let it pass, but he tucked the statement in a mental file normally reserved for the faults of his son-in-law. Over a period of time, the file had grown rather thick. The present instance illustrated Menendez's tendency to slough off annoying details. In his immature, daydreaming imagination, Saldana was always far ahead of his peasant moment. His ego was a kite tugging at its string.
The self-image went hand in glove with hungry, impatient ambition. Menendez knew damn well his son-in-law would be a problem after he marched into Chiguanada. he would deal with it when the time came, with all the gentleness and generosity that circumstances and Saldana himself would allow.
The short flight of sagging wooden stairs creaked as Menendez mounted to the command post porch.
Oddly enough, he reflected, the very qualities that raised questions had rocketed Saldana to leadership out here in the jungle. He assumed command as his rightful, destined place. He couldn't imagine defeat. Menendez credited his son-in-law with a certain brand of courage, but he sometimes seemed a brash fool. In action, he was the first to move, always out in front, leading. His contempt for the other side was contagious.
Saldana was as durable as the fierce wild bears of the northern Andean crags. Irked by administrative detail, he settled disputes and breaches of orders on the spot, with judgments and punishments that were harsh and swift. So long as he was the strongest, the wolves of his pack tolerated him as the leader.
But, Menendez summed it up to himself, the ways, means, and methods are smelted and refined, when one leaves the jungle. Saldana would have to learn that and learn to live with it.
Saldana was holding open the rusty screen door, a small and studied act of courtesy. His covertly searching eyes found the first blurring signs of creeping age in his father-in-law's passing profile.
He tried to recall---and couldn't---the awe he'd once felt in the presence of this elegantly cut and politically experienced man. He's just a tired old hombre, Saldana thought. No real obstacle, although it was galling to have to await the right moment....
The interior was a gray curtain after the outside glare. Menendez blinked his eyes into focus. Before him was a big room. Cracks of daylight showed through the rough plank walls. A scarred desk cluttered with dusty papers was to his left. Near it stood a covered 1950s Royal typewriter on a rickety stand and a battered filing cabinet. A big plank table near the front windows was strewn with folded maps.
Scattered about where six cred chairs made of material salvaged from packing crates. 2 lumpy, dirty seats from the diesel bus, set flanking the desk, served as VIP chairs when Saldana held his staff meetings or endless, time-killing debates.
The philosophical and political discussions often turned into angry shouting sessions, but they always broke up on a note of agreement: Only the communists knew how to run the world: all the rest should be taught the errors of their ways by whatever means of coercion necessary.
Saldana bounded behind his desk, bursting with questions. "When do we begin? What's Law like personally? Is the Haigui really a powerful submarine-cum-floating armored palace?"
Before Menendez could reply, his attention was caught by the slender figure that had appeared in the inner doorway, which opened into Saldana and Angela's living quarters.
Menendez clamped his teeth at the sight of his daughter. A mixture of conflicting feelings ripped through him. He was mad, hurt, sickened. He felt the urge to thrash her. At the same time, he wanted to weep for this caricature of his once sparkling, daintily groomed, and very lovely daughter.
Her slender feet had only dust to cover their bareness. Her jeans were ragged; her denim shirt was clean, but it looked as if it had never been ironed.
Her thick black hair hung in two tangled ropes to below her shoulders. Her face, with slender patrician features inherited from her dad, was thinner than Menendez like to see it. Her large, expressive dark eyes, under full, even brows, regarded her father coolly during the wordless moment.
Menendez swallowed against the dryness of his throat. "Como estas, Angela?"
"Bein, Papa." She slouched past him, moving to the desk. She flopped into one of the bus seats, her hands dangling over the rusty curve of the steel tubing armrests. "So we're about ready to move into the suit in the presidential palace. Shall I start deciding on a decorator to wash up the bloodstains, Papa?"
Saldana made a sound as if he were biting through sandpaper. "Angela, please!"
She brushed her husband's words aside with a careless wave, not taking her eyes from her father.
"Don't worry, Pau," she chided. "Papa and I understand one another. We're lucky; we don't have a generation gap. We communicate."
Menendez drew a tough breath. His stomach burned, an acid warning.
The way Angela was looking at him caused him to defensively flinch. Then she reacted. Who was she to sit there, aloud and superior, and judge him? A tightness pulled through his face. "I wish we really could communicate, Angela. But right now you seem to have all the answers."
"Why, that's true, Papa. You see---we're vibrating, even if you don't think so." Her voice was soft and gentle---and a stinging goad. "I've come full circle, Papa, all the way from a blind belief in the beautiful double-talk."
Saldana was shooting glances of angry impatience his way.
Menendez stood very still, holding himself in check. He tried not to see the depths of her disdain for herself, him, and the things that they stood for.
She stretched and then pointedly stilled a bored yawn. "Yes, Papa, the shiny golden egg was my religion---when I was young and stupid."
"I wish," Menendez said grimly, "that you were half as smart as you believe yourself to be!"
She wriggled straighter on the seat. A thick tangle of black hair swept across her shoulder. "Oh, I didn't grow old and wise in a blinding moment of revelation, Papa. I tried to hang onto my illusions for a long time. I made excuses---even for some of the things that went on in the Rodriguez election."
She gave him a tolerant little smile. "You know, I had an educational advantage. I could smell the stench of the golden egg when it was cracked in private, when the politburó decided who would get the shells and who the yolk."
She breathed a sigh of mock repentance. "But I tried hard, Papa. I held my nose as long as I could. But now"----she thrust out her hands---"isn't it nice I've got both hands free to do our work?"
A vein was pumping in Menendez's neck. He jammed his hands into his trouser pockets as if to control their shaking. "Obviously I spared the rod too much with you, hija. I tried to give you everything. It was my mistake as a father."
"I didn't know you made mistakes."
"Basta!" The word was a warning between his teeth.
She clasped her hands about her knees, rocking forward slightly. "Your proportions were godlike to a little girl, Papa. You were the source of knowledge and inspiration. Why are you surprised when I follow in your footsteps?"
He studied her for a long moment. She returned his stare, her eyes steady and unwavering.
"I appreciate your thanks for all I've done for you," he said heavily.
"Really, Papa, I'm going out of my way to show my gratitude. I'm one revolutionary you can really count on."
Her arrogance rejuvenated his ire. He glared, as if about to reach out and give a truant child a good, hard shake. "Everything I've done," he bit out, "has been for you and Pau and the future of the family!"
She rustled, breaking her twined fingers apart and settling back in the seat. "Oh, come now. A bandido might as well claim he's just trying to set up a trust fund for his grandchildren. Remember, Papa, this is part of the politburó. Let's leave the hypocrisy out there in the compound. You want to be jefe of San Gonzalo. So, all right. Why don't we get on with it?"
Menendez broke off his stare with a baffled shake of his head. "Pau, do something with her, por favor!"
"The waiting and tension have been good for some of us," Saldana suggested, jabbing an old-fashioned stick pen into the frayed and grubby desk blotter. He was anxious to get out of the area of family relationships and down to business. "She'll be all right when this is all over and we're in the capital for good." He glanced at her. "Won't you, Angela?"
She ignored both of them, staring at a patch of distant sky through the window.
While he had this chance, Saldana steered the meeting in the direction he preferred. "When do we move?" he asked hurriedly, before the father and daughter could resume their arguing.
With a lingering side glance at Angela, Menendez eased himself into the vacant bus at the far corner of the desk. He marshalled his thoughts, focusing his attention on Saldana.
Menendez saw the way his son-in-law was eagerly pressing against the desk. Saldana, Menendez suspected, was delightedly imagining the whole affair in quick, simple scenes. Law Zongxian. and the counterfeit millions were still off yonder in the harbor, but in Saldana's imagination, San Gonzalo was already as good as theirs.
"Pau," Menendez said, clearing his throat, "there is one thing that I cannot stress enough. This is the time when every detail, no matter how small, must be attended to as though it were the most vital thing in the world......which it might well turn out to be."
Saldana was a trifle amused by what seemed to him the caution of a basically timid man. "Don't worry about a thing, patron. I'll take care of it all. We shall have our moment, when the opposition is totally confused and chaotic, and we are totally prepared. What can go wrong?"
Menendez groaned inwardly. If only, by some magic, he thought, I could impart to this bombastic son-in-law a few of Law Zongxian's or Paco Zamora's traits.
"I'm not talking about the actual point of crisis," Menendez explained patiently. "Every detail has been readied for that: seizure of key points, propaganda barrages, emergency loans, and material aid from beans to bullets coming in from Law's country. Once the crisis is made, nothing can stop us or turn us back."
"We cannot fail," Saldana agreed promptly. "So why are you worrying?"
The indirect questioning of Menendez's courage tinted his cheeks with pink, but he said nothing. He rested his clasped hands on the desk and seemed to study the soft gloss of his manicured nails.
"Pau," he pointed out, after a moment, not unkindly, "a first-rate British, Israeli, or American agent, for example, would instantly put his finger on the one weak link in our whole plan."
"So? None of them has bothered us---and that peon in the presidential palace doesn't know the time of day when compared to us."
"Don't underestimate Rodriguez," Menendez cautioned. "He's very smart---and dedicated. A doubly dangerous combination."
Saldana threw the stick pen onto the desk. "My father," he began, his tone wearing thin, "I'm not quite the burro you imagine. I've thought of the critical phase. It will happen while the money is in motion. On the Haigui, the money is secure. Once it reaches its various destinations, nothing can stop its efforts."
Menendez's brows lifted. "You've summed it up."
Saldana rocked back. "You borrow ghosts, my father. You think of slips that could blow the deal sky-high. You imagine a fellow being arrested and the money being found on him, or another spending it too soon or deciding to salt away a million for the future and then tipping off the government."
"They are distinct possibilities, yes."
Saldana's beard almost hid its cocksure smile. "Not at all. Remember that our men our the hard core, sticking it to the end. I've lectured them well. They know the fate reserved for traitors and fools. Furthermore, I've briefed them singly, in private. They will travel in pairs as they carry the money throughout the country. Each will be a safety measure, spying secretly on the other."
Saldana burst forward, resting his elbows on the desk. A glint of amusement slipped into his eyes. "Any further misgivings?"
"You have done your homework well." Saldana dropped the compliment with a stiff little nod.
"Gracias, padre." Saldana idly scratched his beard. 'When does the money come ashore?"
"Thursday day night at 10:00," Menendez answered. "By dawn you will be well into the interior with the pickup."
Saldana's eyes suffused with eager fire. "Not much time, but the sooner the better. Where do we meet Law?"
"I've suggested La Enlay as the place of delivery."
"Bueno! It's isolated, but there are old logging trails crossing the mountains."
"We must keep everything flexible," Menendez pointed out.
Saldana nodded. For once he agreed with his father-in-law's caution. With so much at stake, it was wise to keep a back door or two open.
"Radio?"
"You and Law will communicate---if need be---on a radio frequency of 101.5 megacycles."
"Code?"
"Law and the Haigui will be known as"----Menendez permitted himself a brief smile---"Banker. The radio here at the base will answer to the code name of Midas."
Saldana chuckled. He was sure his father-in-law hadn't the imagination to suggest the code designation. It was a clue to the character of Law Zongxian.
Angela stirred, rising languidly. "Papa and Law have also done their homework while they nibbled moo-goo-gai-pan aboard the Haigui. So I suggest we adjourn the meeting."
Her bare soles padded toward the inner doorway.616Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8mZsg7qbL3
Menendez got up quickly. "Angela....."
She stopped, resting her head lightly on the door casing, looking at him across her shoulder. "Save your breath, Papa. There's really nothing more to say. See you in the capital."
Menendez continued to look at the open doorway after she slid from sight. He then felt Saldana's presence beside him. He looked at his son-in-law, and for one moment there was a mutual bond between them.
"Don't fret on her account."
Responding to an inner torment, Menendez said bitterly. "Still still a little girl to me, Pau."
"That's where you're wrong."
"I've hurt her."
"No, you haven't. You're a convenient whipping boy, a ready-made excuse for her to do what she really wants to do. It's an old trick children sometimes pull on their parents---and on themselves."
Menendez turned away. Saldana walked with him to the outside doorway. "She has a mind and will of her own---like all the rest of us. She's strong. In any circumstance, she will survive."
Menendez knew it was true. She would survive, exercising a choice of values offered to all human beings.
Menendez paused for a final look across the empty room. Then he stepped out onto the rickety porch. His shoulders braced. A smile of vigor and confidence boldly rearranged his face for the benefit of the wild crowd in the compound.
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