With Molly and Paris in back, Jim Phelps drove the rented car out of Chiguanada on a westerly route. He'd picked them up at predesignated spots---Paris two blocks from the hotel, Molly three blocks farther on.
The lights of the capital were falling behind, traffic and urban noise giving way to a calm and peaceful tropical night.
Jim flipped a smile at the rearview mirror. "Did you have to make her so ugly, Paris? I almost passed her by."
"Traitors!" Molly accused with a laugh. "You two have conspired against me."
Talk dwindled while Paris and Molly peeled off and wiped away their facial alterations. Jim turned into the south autopista, and the countryside became a serenely unfolding scene, softened by the caress of darkness. The road was theirs in almost total privacy. Now and then the bright headlight beams reflected from small, wide eyes as furry creatures scurried across.
La Junares lay in rural drowsiness. The uncertain, ancient streetlamps comprised with splashes of shadow in the vacant village square.
Jim made the turn out of the village, and in moments the blocky silhouette of the old mission appeared on the heights to their right. A little later they passed the spot where Molly and Paris had used the convertible for a roadblock. The car had been towed off and impounded hours ago.
Paris leaned forward, reaching into the front seat. Phelps had brought along an overnight case, which was riding beside him. Paris lifted the case, settled back, and rested it on his knees. With 1 flip of the latches, he raised the lid, removed a small electric torch, and turned it on. The soft glow limned his and Molly's features.
He studied the disguise materials inside the case briefly. Brushes. Tubes. Plastic containers. A hippie wig for Molly, a handsome false beard for himself.
He could feel his heart beating more rapidly; the moment of truth, the masquerade, was rushing at him. His usual, all-out rest was tempered by the thought of settling for something less than sheer perfection.
He clicked off the flashlight and watched the boulder-strewn shoulder vanish as the road skirted a steep cliff. A long vista of moon-etched mountains guarding jungle valleys swirled past. Jim was easing the car over an ever worsening road with the cool caution of an expert.
Paris was conscious of the weight of the case on his knees. He must work from memory, but that didn't bother him. His memory was photographic. He could study a man from a London window and emerge hours later as his twin.
The trouble was that this time memory consisted of a not very clear picture. Two people, Pau and Angela Saldana, in a flat, two-dimensional freeze. No chance to study the little mannerisms and movements that added up to a personality.....
At least, Paris consoled himself, the darkness is on our side.
Jim slowed the car and turned off the headlights. The springs protested with a slight jounce as he eased off the road. Paris and Molly pressed forward, sharing the view through the windshield. The moonlit trail snaking down toward the shadowy blotches of undergrowth and timber was barely discernible.
They crept along for a few yards; then Jim coaxed the car off across a flat shale. In the shadow of an arch of buckled stone, he halted the creeping pace, killing the engine and setting the parking brake.
Nobody spoke. The sense of calculated, controlled urgency was pulled a notch tighter.
Paris peeled off an inch-thick layer that had been attached like a liner to the overnight case lid. As he handed it over to Jim, it emitted a plastic rustling in the darkness.
Jim was an indistinct shadow detaching from the car. Working fast, he began to unfold the black plastic sheet. Its folds offered soft resistance and winked a few sparks of static electricity as it piled up at his feet. He stepped back, lifted the edge high, and shook out the last wrinkles.
Like a fisherman casting a hard seine, he flung the sheet over the car. It settled slowly, with the elephantine awkwardness of a collapsing balloon. But when it touched, it clung to metal and glass. It sealed windows and windshield. In its protection, Paris could fill the car with a blaze of essential light while he remade his and Molly's appearances. Never a glimmer would be seen from outside.
Jim stepped back. Nothing for him now but to keep a sharp vigil while Paris worked his near-magic transformations.
A soft nighttime breeze touched his face. The day's heat was seeping from the vales and hollows. The breeze carried the faintest musk of moist, tangled vegetation.
He watched the darkness. Distant trees were swaying gently, forming, breaking, then reforming reefs of darkness. Now and then, as whispering fronds and branches moved, Jim would cast a distant wink of light.
Quite a campfire, he thought. After Menendez's news today, a bonfire is in order. The guerillas will be laughing it up and dining this night on any remaining fatted calves.
A rustling sound brought Jim's head around. He watched the black blob waft out as a car door was opened beneath. He sprang to assist, whipping the plastic sheet clear and wadding it up under his arm.
Standing aside, he watched the two figures get out. The moonlight, intensified by reflection from the shale, revealed them fully.
Jim paid a compliment with a brief shock of silence. Paris had several talents. He was adept in a variety of fields. But this particular wizardry was forever amazing. Jim almost needed a pinch to remind him that he wasn't actually looking at Pau and Angela Saldana.
"Will do?" Paris's beard twitched to a grin. The tone was more liquid than his own. During the submarine ride to San Gonzalo, he had run a short sound tape over and over again, to the point of weariness for the Seaview crew and his fellow IMF operatives. The fragment was a Pau Saldana statement, monitored from a broadcast during the anti-Rodriguez propaganda blitz that had preceded the San Gonzalan elections. It'd been an item among the carefully selected supplies and equipment awaiting the IMF team upon boarding the Seaview. From it, Paris had built the intonations and delivery of Saldana.
"You know damn well it'll do, especially at night," Jim said.
"Then we're off---to see what's cooking with the world this evening." As she spoke, Molly tossed her head. Her black mane---surely not that wig from the overnight case, Jim thought--was gathered in two loose ropes, swishing about her denim-clad shoulders.
Her voice was an echo, a reproduction from memory of a younger Angela she'd once met in Washington's best circles.
Jim walked with them to the rocky trail. There they paused. Their eyes held his. For one instant, Molly wasn't Angela Saldana at all; she was herself, giving Jim her own little grin.
"Go do your thing!" Jim ordered roughly.
Molly said, "Aye, sir!" and Paris knuckled him lightly on the shoulder.
Then Jim was standing, with a tight throat, watching them melt into the darkness.
Molly was no girly nuisance during the hike. She took the rough terrain as she did a booming surf or a sun-scorched tennis court. Scrambling across a ravine, she was as surefooted as a kitten.
Like a distant firefly, the campfire was a beacon that indicated the far end of the shortest route---as effective out here as radar.
Their descent was steady and rapid. They were supple specters flitting through fields and woodland. Soft sounds marked their passage, a spill of gravel on a rocky slope, the swish of chest-high wild grass, the flutter of a dislodged vine among the trees.
A 1/2 hour sped past. They pressed on, hearing the sounds of a noisy celebration. A guitar poured forth the energetic, arrogant rhythms of old Castile. Hands were clapped in tempo, and words of encouragement and approbation were shouted to flamenco dancers.
With Molly close behind, Paris stealthily picked a pathway through the last yards of mangrove tangle. The guerilla hootenanny helped. The music and laughter minimized the risk of a twig's cracking being heard.
Paris eased to a crouching halt, Molly beside him. They were at the very edge of the compound, glimpsing it from a cover of wild palmetto. Paris slowly parted the tough green fronds, widening the view of the parade grounds.
They had arrived at a point near the upper end of the camp. The main concourse and much of the surroundings were silent and almost deserted in the rose-tinted backwash of the bonfire.
Log-fed flames several hundred yards away at a cookout spot marked the center of activity. From their numbers, Paris guessed that most of Saldana's followers had gathered there. Several were lounging at the plank tables, eating, talking, laughing.
Most had joined in the folk dance. Hands clapping, the swaying lines swirled in age-old but ageless patterns borrowed from nature: the wheeling flight of a bird, the nodding of a palm to the breeze.
As if controlled by a single source of thought, the flowing lines turned into a circle. Dancers spun to the center for strenuous solos, responding to the rhythmic guitars, castanets, and tambourines. High leaps and pirouettes of particular excellence were rewarded with unison shouts.
It was fun, simple self-expression, Paris reflected. A rare moment in which thoughts of greed and violence were banished. Too bad the effects couldn't be more lasting....
Paris inched his head forward, rustling the palmetto softly. His eyes picked out details.
At the compound's far end, the flat top of the Incan pyramid showed blackly against the paler, moonlit sky. Beside it stood a clapboard shanty. A flagpole with a drooping standard rose from the low-peaked roof. A shadowy guard slouched against the porch railing.
That had to be the command post, Paris decided.
His gaze moved on, taking in the dark huts and the rock cairn that was possibly an ammo dump.
The motor pool held his attention. He wished the lighting were better. The background of trees shadowed the dusty vehicles. He studied them with eyes straining to increase the glow from bonfire and moon. They'd need to buy a reasonably close duplicate of one of those trucks from a secondhand lot in Chiguanada.
This, of course, assumed several things, the first being that he and Molly would get in and out of there tonight.
He turned his head slowly, his sharp eyes missing nothing. He made out the forms of 2 guerillas lazily guarding the mouth of the road that broke the perimeter of the compound's upper end.
Molly touched his shoulder. He swiveled his head, following her pointing index finger. A lighted shack, partially obscured from his position, sat in the shadows far to his left. He hunched forward a few inches. His heart skipped 1 beat. It was their destination, the radio shack, it's antenna silhouetted sharply above the treetops.
On guard was a fellow forced to pass up the fun. Rifle slung across his shoulder, he ambled back and forth, throwing sour looks at the noise and laughter across the compound.
From within, a gangling man appeared and leaned against the frame of the open, lighted doorway. He stood snapping his fingers and patting a straw-sandaled toe in time to the music.
The guard strolled over, peeled off his rifle, and leaned it against the building. The radio operator stepped out. He and the guard dropped to side-by-side seats on the plank steps. They groused a bit, sharing the misery of pulling guard duty while the party went on. Then the talk grew more animated and satisfying as it switched to the imminence of victory and its spoils.
"We won't have a better chance," Paris suggested to Molly. "All set, Angela Menendez Saldana?"
"Si, Senor Saldana."
"Then I make it H-hour. Let's go."
They melted back and disappeared. 5 minutes later they were shadows materializing a few yards away from the ammo depot. Then the shadows took the forms of 2 people walking along the edge of the parade ground toward the radio shack.
The guard saw them first. He was describing iron-handed methods with which he would settle old scores when he returned as commandante to his native village. He glanced up and choked off in midsentence. He was off his seat with a leap, grabbing his rifle and pulling the strap over his shoulder. He came to attention with a nervous salute, eyes flicking between the suddenly appearing Pau and Angela.
The radio operator was also on his feet, with the vigor of an eel, standing at attention.
Paris stabbed the ground with a look and, without bothering to return the salute, stomped inside.
The operator and guard swapped a quick, stunned look as the operator jumped inside in the wake of the image of his leader.
Paris admitted inner admiration for the jungle-based radio station. Banked along one wall, the equipment was more complete and modern than he'd expected. Cidd Menendez had investigated heavily---or there had been final acts of grand larceny in La Junares and Chiguanada just before President Rodriguez's inauguration.
The radioman was a tall, skinny youth who had probably learned his rudimentary electronics in a trade school.
He stood uncertainly. "Capitan, I didn't see you during the celebration."
"You and the fool on guard couldn't see anything---you were too busy whetting your appetite for the future!" The tone of voice, the twitch of the beard belonged wholly to Pau Saldana. As if a switch had clicked, Paris was immersed in the masquerade, a stranger for the moment to himself.
"Si, Capitan."
"How is your hearing, blind one? That's what interests me."
"Excellent, Capitan."
"Then sit down and display your talents. Raise the Haigui. I want a radio check made."
The operator looked up from his barrel-backed chair. "But Capitan, we made a check..."
The face behind the beard flamed with impatient, Latin temper. "And we'll make a dozen more, run a constant check if it takes that, to satisfy me our communications are continually perfect. Is that quite clear?"
"Certainly, Capitan. By all means." The operator was already fumbling for switches and microphone.
From outside drifted the talk between Molly and the guard who thought was finding an ally in Angela Saldana.
"Well," Molly was saying, "it's serious, you know, shucking your gun even for a minute on duty. But it's a night of nights. Soon we'll be finished with this dreary place. I'll put in a good word for you."
The guard murmured heartfelt thanks. Clearly Saldana's ideas of discipline matched his other instabilities, one minute lax, the next overly harsh. A rule breaker never knew when he'd be made an example for the others to think about. Maybe it was the only way to rule such a roost.
The voices of Molly and the guard faded. Paris caught a word or two and knew that the fellow had resumed walking his post, with Molly casually strolling beside him.
Paris crossed mental fingers. It was Molly's job to find out when the counterfeit money would come ashore. If the guard knew, she would pick it out of him. If not, she'd face the risky alternative: to cross the compound, mingle in the celebration, and casually extract the information from a Saldana lieutenant.
Arms cocked and hands on hips, Paris stood slightly behind and to one side of the radioman. He had a clear view of the control panel.
The operator's hurrying fingers passed up the tuner dial. It was still set, Paris surmised, from the previous radio check. He stamped the frequency calibration on his memory: 102.6 megacycles.
"Midas to Banker." The radioman leaned toward the mike. "Midas to Banker. Come in. Over."
The code names slipped into Paris's mental file alongside the frequency number.
The radio speaker hummed emptily. The operator flashed a look up at Paris.
"He does not answer, Capitan."
"Am I deaf, idiot?" The living mask of Pau Saldana sneered. "It may be that the Haigui is submerged, perhaps cruising near the bottom of the Ybytecto Trench. But he won't be out of earshot of an incoming call signal. Law isn't saddled with lazy bums, like some leaders I could name."
As if in corroboration, a voice leaped from the speaker. "Banker to Midas. We read you. Over." The words were intoned with a thick accent.
"Radio check, Banker. How do you read?"
"Loud and clear. Fetch your captain."
"He is here, Banker, standing beside me."
"Good. Senor Cidd Menendez has come aboard. He has some news. He is with Comrade Law. I will switch you to the comrade's quarters."
A pause. The Haigui radioman was punching a button. The communication became a round table conference call.
Paris spoke as little as possible to avoid the inherent danger of a slip in a lengthy conversation with a father-in-law.
Law Zongxian's cool, calm voice now and then underscored a point. He managed these interruptions courteously, without offending Menendez.
Menendez's cultivated voice had a tight ring as he related the news: On his return to the capital, he had learned that two NATO agents were under house arrest at the Parador Nacional. A remaining contact inside the government, a minor minister, had phoned Menendez's villa with the information. "NATO...." lamented Menendez. "I don't like that!"
"None of us do," Paris growled in Saldana's surliest tone. "But if Rodriguez has restricted them..."
"A trick! It must be a trick!" Menendez's anxieties borrowed trouble.
"Perhaps," Law suggested. "But one thing is clear. Right now, they're fishing. It means we must redouble every precaution, Comrade Saldana."
"Of course!" Paris threw the words rather shortly at the microphone.
"We shall land the big one before they discover the fishing grounds," Law promised. His voice soothed. He was the steady hand on the tiller, bracing, encouraging. At the same time, he was silkily insisting that everybody snap to and function smartly. Coolly objective, he underrated none of his headaches, be they democratic president, NATO, or a pair of incompatible Latin hotheads.
Paris was tempted to draw out Law, to use the chance to pinpoint the exact times and places in their schedule, but he held back. He could easily spill the peck he was picking in a dangerous grab for a bushel. The need to know the time and place was the reason for Molly being outside right now, risking her neck in the role of Angela Saldana. Have a little of the usual faith in Molly, Paris admonished himself.
The radio speaker was pouring out Menendez's foresight of difficulties. He recited various miserable possibilities, now that the ghost of NATO hovered over the scene.
"We planned the money crisis," he pointed out, "to open up the country to one source of help---Law's country---through us. Although if NATO doesn't learn the truth until the money explodes, can't we still be defeated by a backfire? Rodriguez could turn to the NATO countries, not ours, to stabilize his government!"
"They're not prepared to do so," Law assured him. "We are. My people can move before NATO lifts a finger."
"Yi, yi, yi," Menendez said in some pain. "What a heartburn!"
"I think"---Law's patience was thinning---"a stiffened spine would help your stomach more than a pill, Comrade!"
The speaker hummed for a silent moment. Paris had nothing to say. Menendez nursed his rebuff.
"I'm the man whose skin will be in the capital," Menendez defended himself in a ruffled tone, "not yours."
"I know," said Law. Paris had a mental picture of the cool foreign agent displaying a surface mood change, throwing a comradely arm around Menendez's shoulders. "Indeed." Law was all sympathetic agreement. "It's easy for the rooster outside to tell the one in the pen to keep a stiff upper lip."
"I'm glad you understand." Menendez's voice relented a little, and when he resumed he spoke softly.
"Just hang on to the certainty that we'll be coming into the pen also, Comrade, to help you."
And how they'll come in, Paris thought. Like vultures around a bleeding impala on the African veldt!
"Anyway," Law continued, "i think we've cleared up one little point that's bothered me. I think our sonar really did pick up a submarine---not just an old wrecked galleon--as we brought the Haigui toward harbor. I think that's how these NATO people got in. I think they must be planning to get out the same way." Law paused, and Paris imagined the youthful smile suffusing the boyish face.
"I think, also," Law added with ironic pleasantness, "the we may arrange a surprise party when they try to take that submarine out. There is no submarine anywhere in the world that can outgun, or outrun, my Haigui."
Paris emitted a cruel Saldana chuckle. "Pity I won't be able to see that, as I'm sure you'll be submerged."
"I'm counting heavily on you where you are, Comrade Saldana. I look forward to our face-to-face meeting in the near future---the very near future."
Paris let his borrowed Saldana ego swell his chest. "Everything is ready here. Believe that."
"I do, Comrade. And for now---over and out."
The Haigui radioman took the cue and switched off.
Paris gave the guerilla operator a self-satisfied nod, turned, and swaggered out.
Molly, laughing at something the guard had said, saw Paris stepping down from the radio shack doorway. She patted the guard's forearm. "Don't worry about a thing."
She drifted over, meeting Paris with a brief nod that snapped a little wire of tension inside of him. She had the information.
They strolled off in the direction of the command post, Paris throwing a threatening look at the guard, and Molly suggesting clemency for a good comrade's one lapse during duty.
They passed into the heavy shadow of a Banyan tree at the edge of the compound. Had anyone been watching, he would've doubted his eyes, for they didn't come out again.
Instead, 1 hour later, they were back in the rented car, Phelps at the wheel, driving back toward Balgas and the south road.
"Molly?" Phelps began the debriefing, not taking his eyes from the road as he expertly guided the car around a curve.
"The money will come ashore at Carcayos." Beside Paris in the backseat, Molly was relaxed, breathing deeply, letting the strain flow out.
"How?"
"Small boat. The Haigui's launch. It's to be loaded and lowered and make the run. The Haigui will submerge so it can stay out of sight beyond the point."
"When?"
"Thursday night. 10:00."
Jim's lips emitted a soft whistle. "Tomorrow night! That doesn't give us much time."
"How much time do we need?" Paris put in. "The sooner the better."
"Right," Jim agreed. "What's the onshore signal, Molly?"
"Three winks of a flashlight. Long, short, short."
Jim thought it over as rocky badlands swept past the car. "We'll need to buy a launch, then, as well as a truck."
"If," Paris interjected, "if Willy and Barney can pull off the job aboard the Haigui, and if, later on, we can be both guerillas and Red agents in the same evening, without getting our accents mixed up."
"Worried?" Jim formed the word with a tight grin, throwing a look at the rearview mirror as he spoke.
"I always am---just a little," Paris admitted. Then he grinned. "A healthy touch of tension is what makes a guitar string respond."
Jim directed another question at Molly. "Any chance of that guerilla thug being wrong?"
"I don't think so," Molly said. "I got it out of him indirectly, just giving him the chance to talk. It's all anyone in the camp can talk about---the big action."
"Paris?"
Paris straightened a little as he repeated. "Item: radio frequency between base camp and Haigui, one-oh-two point six megacycles. Item: code names are Midas for guerilla camp, Banker for sub. Item: Presence of two NATO agents in country of San Gonzalo noted and reported to all interested parties. Law Zongxian adds two and two and almost comes up with 4. He knows another submarine was prowling San Gonazalan waters and correctly deduces that it puts agents ashore and is standing by to recover them."
"Bully for that guy," Jim said. "He's gobbling up every crumb."
"And he's got plenty strong digestive juices," Paris reminded him. "The minute he puts the money ashore and thinks he sees it safely on its way, his next move is sure. He'll rev up the Haigui, and the nasty monster submarine will show its teeth. Law will submerge and begin a sub hunt, a sonar sweep. He'll do everything possible to flush out the Seaview and kill it."
"And neutralize the NATO agents," Molly added.
"He's got to try," Jim agreed. "He won't leave any potentially dangerous loose ends. His kind survives only from one success to the next. His career is always staked on the current operation. Law's career is proof of his thoroughness."
"He really is a devil," Molly said, tight-lipped, "who should be permitted to burn in his own hell."
"That's what we came for." Paris flopped back. "Admiral Nelson's Seaview is a very nice submarine, a vessel ahead of its time---and our only way home."
"We could always confess before the world," Jim suggested lightly.
"And blow the whole future of the IMF?" Paris reared up. "Hell no, Jim!"
"Or, suggest to Nelson that he abandon Seaview," Jim's voice drifted back.
Paris punched the back of Jim's shoulder with a stiff forefinger. "Listen, brother, if you have a reservation on Seaview, so have I!"
"They say a fool and her money are soon parted, but never her company." Molly sighed. "How would you eat---if I didn't help Chef Hinton out in the galley?"
"Raw fish, little one. Raw fish." Paris patted Molly's slender hand. "Law Zongxian's torpedoes should kill three schools of them, any variety you might prefer...."
ns 15.158.61.20da2
