The trip took all afternoon, not because it was far as the crow might fly, but because the tracks wound around hairpin turns and the engine fought some impossible grades. Marie Chambrun was dozing with her head against Captain Gringo’s shoulder as they crested the Culebra Mountains and began the zigzag descent to the Pacific shore. Now that he’d seen the proposed canal route, he was sure everyone involved in the scheme was either crazy or had never seen the place.
The Indian attack hadn’t materialized. Captain Gringo knew better than anyone that the San Bias were really on the mainland, but he nodded in agreement when Sir Basil decided it had only been another rumor.
Captain Gringo asked, “Aren’t you going to put that Mauser away? We’re not in jungle anymore. This slope seems to be mostly waist-high brush and we’ll be coming into civilization soon, if I’m right about the timetable.”
Hakim smiled thinly and got to his feet with the gun cradled in his hands. He was shorter than Captain Gringo had thought. The old arms merchant was just too tall to call a dwarf and just too short to call a grown man. It was easier, now, to see why he liked guns and acted so openly sinister. The poor little bastard had probably led a rough life until he got hold of his first equalizer.
Hakim said, “Watch the brush on this side. I’m going forward to cover the other side from the gap between the cars.”
“Are we talking about banditos?”
“As they say down here, ¿quien sabe? It’s getting dark, there’s plenty of cover, and we’re miles from any constabulary post.”
Hakim left. Captain Gringo found himself alone with the sleeping Marie and the silent redhead, Jenny, who hadn’t said a word since he’d met her.
The tall American smiled and said, “I think he means it. If I open up with this scattergun, I won’t have to tell you to hit the floor, will I?”
The redhead nodded without answering. But as he rested the barrel of the Browning on the wooden window-sill, she licked her lips and asked, “Are you on the run, Richards?”
“Come again?”
“Let’s not screw around. You know what I am and I’ve met you before. Sometimes you’ve been shorter and uglier, but I’ve met you in a dozen mining camps and a couple of big cities. Once your name was Marcel and you hid out with me in Paris for a month. It’s something about the eyes, I think. You don’t look like you’re very interested in anything, but the eyes don’t miss a thing. He knows it, too.”
“Who, Sir Basil? Who is he, Jenny, and what is it he’s supposed to know?”
“Hey, don’t bullshit a lady who lives by her wits, handsome. You’re overdoing the innocent act. Every knock-around guy in this part of the world knows Basil Hakim. That’s why he was so surprised when you defied him. That part about forgiving you was bullshit, too. Basil is not the forgiving type.”
“You mean he’d knock off a man for sitting next to him on a train?”
“He doesn’t do it himself. He hires people. He has a dozen men up the track a ways who’d kill you if Basil said you fatigued him. That’s how he has people killed. He says they fatigue him.”
“What is this, Jenny, a test?”
“Test? What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been around this block before. The first time it was a cute senorita in Nuevo Laredo. She asked me if I’d save her from a brutal boyfriend and I was young. They damn near kicked the shit out of me when she told them I was after the guy.”
Jenny nodded and said, “Yeah, you’ve been running a while. Do you want a job? I mean a job that includes a Maxim gun, Captain Gringo?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. Then he smiled crookedly and said, “I might have known he’d have a silent partner. I was told about Old Hakim by British Intelligence. Who told you about me?”
“You sort of stand out in a crowd, in this neck of the woods. We’d heard you were in Panama. Once a big blond moose bulled his way in on us with a riot gun the rest just fell into place.”
“What was that crap about Hakim wanting to have me killed?”
“Like you said, a test. There are hired guns and there are hired guns. If you’d been dumb enough, my next move would have been to hire you to kill Sir Basil. I usually say he’s holding me as his white slave and I’d do anything to be free of his lecherous embrace.”
“Kee-rist! Has anyone ever bought that old story?”
“You’d be surprised. You have a nice little ball of fluff, there, but I’m not bad, myself, and a few hairpins have decided to rescue me by double-crossing the boss.”
“Don’t tell me who they were and I won’t guess where they’re buried.”
Jenny laughed and rapped on the inner glass of the compartment with her ring. Sir Hakim came in and she said, “We’re among friends, Basil. He’s as cool as they say he is.”
Hakim resumed his seat, gun in his lap, and said, “I see the young lady is asleep. Is she in with you, Captain Gringo?”
“No, and let’s talk about it when she gets off. I don’t like to toss off names so casually.”
Jenny peered thoughtfully at the French girl and said, “Right. I’d swear she’s really sleeping, but if you don’t know her—”
Then Marie and everyone else was wide-eyed and bolt upright as Sir Basil yelled, “Zounds!” and shoved the muzzle of his Mauser out the window as he fired!
Captain Gringo shoved the dazed and disoriented Marie away from him as he swung his Browning out the other open window and squeezed off a round at a mounted bandit right outside. The rider blew out of his wooden saddle as Sir Basil hem-stitched another, horse and all, with a burst of machine-pistol fire.
Captain Gringo pumped another round in the chamber, but it was over as it had started. The train picked up speed with a wail of its whistle as, outside, the empty brush whipped by in the gloaming orange of a Pacific sunset.
A confused-looking conductor came to the door and looked in, asking in Spanish if anyone had been hit. Jenny shoved Marie off her own recumbent curves and as the girls got back on the seats Sir Basil said, “We are quite safe. But we got two of them.”
The conductor grinned and said, “I know. I saw them fall from the car behind. Is it possible all that, shooting came from two men?”
“We bring the blessings of modern science to this benighted part of the globe. You know who I am. The gentleman with the shotgun is my young protégé, Sir Richard.”
The conductor told them they’d be arriving in a few minutes in Panama City and left to see if any other passengers had been hurt by the terribly mistaken bandits.
As they slowed for the outskirts of town, Sir Basil took his machine pistol apart and started putting it away, saying, “You’ll be staying with us at my villa, ah, Sir Richard. The few hotels in town are a bit grim.”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Thanks, but I have friends in Panama City. I’ll chance the hotels.”
“You won’t be comfortable. I thought you were working for me, now.”
“Hardly. I said we’d talk about it later.”
Sir Basil shot a knowing look at the French widow and nodded, saying, “But of course. Our paths will surely cross again in such a small community. May I ask if Madame has a place to stay in the city? We have scads of room at my villa.”
Marie dimpled prettily but said, “M’sieu is most kind, but I have engaged my own quarters in advance.”
Further conversation died away as the train pulled into the station at the end of the line. Captain Gringo picked up Marie’s bag and his shotgun, wishing there was a less interesting way to appear on the platform, but not ready to abandon his weapon just yet. He led the way as the four of them moved to the vestibule and down the steps.
As he was helping Marie down, something cold and hard as the steel barrel of a pistol figured to be nudged his spine, between the shoulder blades, and a friendly enough voice said, “If you move you die, Captain Gringo!”
He froze and sighed, “shit” as Marie stared wide-eyed at the man in uniform holding a revolver to her escort’s back. Another soldier stood a few feet away, with a second gun trained on the tall American they’d obviously been waiting for.
Sir Basil and Jenny came down and the dapper little man snapped, “What is the meaning of this, sergeant?”
“This man is a wanted criminal, Don Hakim.”
“Ah, you know who I am? Good. Unhand Sir Richard at once.”
“But Don Hakim, this man is the notorious revolutionary, Captain Gringo! They wired us about him from Colon.”
“What in the devil are you jabbering about, sergeant? This man works for me!”
“You have hired Captain Gringo, Don Hakim?”
“By God, I’ll hire anyone I wish to, but I’ve never heard of your asinine Captain Gringo. You’re threatening the very liver and lights of my devoted valet, Richard. I’ve had him since he was a pup.”
“But Don Hakim, the description they sent us—”
“Zounds, could you really be as stupid as you seem? My valet is tall and blond. What of it? My secretary, here, has red hair. Does that make her the late Queen Elizabeth of England? Or could I be Napoleon because I am shorter than either?”
“But Don Hakim, they say he broke jail and took a Browning riot gun, and he was wearing an English shirt, and—”
“What is your full name and serial number, sergeant? You’re becoming most fatiguing and I want to be home in time for dinner. Some rather important guests, officers of your Army, will be very disappointed if we arrive late.”
“I understand, Don Hakim. If this caballero would simply come with us to explain a few small matters—”
“Damn your small matters. I need him to help me with my dinner jacket and studs. He has a shotgun because I gave one to him! If you ask the train crew, they’ll tell you why. We had to defend our very lives against your perishing bandits because you troopers spend your time annoying travelers instead of patrolling the country as you should.”