“SOSO! Chino! Get flashlights and head down!” Guido had ordered, and the two men designated took large waterproof electric torches from the Sikorsky and set off downhill towards the plain. “Cheyenne,” said Guido, “show us what you can do.”
Cheyenne was a tall young man with light ginger hair, very pink skin and clear green eyes. He proceeded to survey the perimeter of the clearing, carefully examining the ground. For the moment night had not fallen. Ivy and Negra were on their way west, having not yet halted, still not gone to sleep. Cheyenne stood up and rejoined Guido. The three other mercenaries remained at different spots at the forest edge. Two of them had slung their M1s over their shoulders and were smoking cigarettes.
“There are three routes out generally taken by people who camp up here,” said Cheyenne. “West along the crest of the mountain, north down to the plain, and east, that way.” He pointed with an outstretched right arm; in his left hand he held his carbine, barrel pointed to the ground. “Over there to the east is a branch that was broken today.”
By this time the whole clearing was in shadow. The pilot of the helicopter leant out of his door and hailed Guido: “Hey!” Guido gestured to him to hold on for a moment.
“Among the people we are looking for,” said Guido to Cheyenne, “the man is really very dangerous. You make a bit of a push that way.” He pointed eastward. “Move very slowly. Don’t go far. And come back soon. We’ll stay here. I’m sending the helicopter back. That idiot is scared stiff of instrument flying.”
Cheyenne nodded twice, smiling, as though he had a nervous tic. Then he turned away from Guido and set off cautiously into the forest in an eastward direction. Guido went over to the helicopter and told the pilot he could go back to Havana and come back the next morning. The Sikorsky started up, lifted off and banked away in the mauve sky to the northwest.
“Build a fire,” Guido told the three men still with him. “And get the tent back up, so we can find some sleeping gear.”
After that night fell quickly.
Around their fire the four men ate survival rations, with Guido casting anxious glances into the shadows until Cheyenne reappeared. He slipped into the firelight slowly for fear of being fired upon by an overexcited comrade. Then he came and sat down with the others.
“I followed the signs. There are quite a lot. Someone went that way not long ago, about a meter seventy and sixty kilos. A woman, at a guess. She was running. There is an arroyo to cross, and she splashed a great deal, very recently. I fancy she saw us arrive.”
“I fucked up,” Guido broke in tonelessly. “There was one hour of daylight left and I wanted to come down on them. We should have come back tomorrow morning and taken them by surprise, and then if need be pursued them. Gentlemen, you have my apologies. Carry on, Cheyenne.”
“I came to a shack made of branches and mud,” said Cheyenne. “Two camp beds inside. A Lyman optical viewfinder. Arrows. No bow.” Guido shuddered and cast a glance behind him. “I wasn’t able to make a thorough search because night was coming on,” Cheyenne went on. “I would say that two people live there and one is a tall, highly muscled man.”
“Hold on, Cheyenne,” laughed one of the mercenaries. “How can you possibly know all that?”
“The arrows,” said Cheyenne good-humoredly. “The size of the arrows tells you the size of the bow and the size of the guy able to bend that bow, or as near as dammit.”
“Is that why they call you Cheyenne?” asked another mercenary. “Because you’re like an Indian tracker, like the ones in the movies?”
“No, Richard Cheyenne is my real name. I have far distant Arab ancestors, and one of them was probably named Chahine, which was deformed into ‘Cheyenne.’”
The mercenary who had asked Cheyenne the question glanced at Guido’s face. Guido seemed to be thinking, and in no way irritated by the conversation.
“In that case,” said the mercenary, “how come you got to be a tracker?”
“When I was a kid, I used to read Jack London, and I was fascinated,” Cheyenne started to say, but he immediately flung himself to one side, jostling Guido, because the mercenary facing him had just received an arrow in the throat, the tip emerging from the nape of his neck.
“Get away from the fire!” yelled Cheyenne as he took off and disappeared into the shadows. Guido and the two unwounded mercenaries fled likewise into the darkness.
The twang of a bowstring made itself heard and another arrow traversed the firelight and vanished. The mercenary struck by the first projectile was lying on his back with his knees drawn up, rolling from side to side, groaning and trying to touch his throat. The arrow had severed the thick carotid artery which runs directly from the throat to the heart, and a great deal of dark blood was flowing from the wound. Very soon the weakened victim fell into a torpor and stopped moving and groaning, and only his gravelly breathing could be heard. Suddenly Cheyenne opened fire and sent five .30 caliber bullets in the rough direction of the invisible archer, then he moved very fast, trying to reach his companions. Bumping into someone, he flung himself flat on the ground.
“Cheyenne?” came the unmistakable voice of Guido.
“Yes. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. But I’ve botched this operation.”
“One dead is nothing.” The wounded man had stopped breathing. “We have to hold on until morning. I saw much worse in Korea.”
Soso and Chino, the two men Guido had dispatched to the plain, were now making their way down guided by their flashlights. About eleven o’clock, panting, they reached Las Mercedes: a dirt main street, whitewashed houses, a Spanish colonial-style church. Everything was in darkness except for Ignacio Chaumón’s shop, from which a sliver of light escaped even though it seemed closed. A rented Studebaker Commander, its roof cream and the rest tomato-red, stood in front of the store. Soso and Chino drummed on the door of the place. After a moment the shopkeeper Ignacio Chaumón opened up a crack with a suspicious expression.
“We’re closed.”
“We only want a little drink.”
Ignacio Chaumón thought about it and assessed the pair.
“Nice carbines you have there.”
“Yes, we’re very fond of them.”
“I have nothing to do with politics,” declared Ignacio Chaumón.
“Nor do we.”
“People have been fighting with the police in Santiago,” added Chaumón. “It’s none of my business.”
“Nor ours.”
Ignacio Chaumón ran his tongue over his lips and sighed.
“All I have is Coca-Cola and rum and beer.”
“That will do fine.”
Ignacio Chaumón sighed again, opened the door wide and backed away, not seeming happy. Soso and Chino entered, weapons slung over their shoulders. They saw the counter over which merchandise was sold but their attention was immediately drawn to the side of a long narrow table where a man of European type was sitting with a bottle of Coca-Cola in front of him. He had a high broad forehead, thinning fair hair, blue eyes, a large hooked nose, a fine blond moustache and a rumpled beige tropical suit over an open-necked red shirt.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” said the man politely.
Soso and Chino mumbled niceties, ordered rum-and-cokes from Ignacio Chaumón and went over to the table. The man sized them up with their camo jumpsuits, the black bandanas on their heads and their M1 carbines. With a gesture Soso asked permission to sit, which was granted, and the two mercenaries sat, slipped off their weapons and laid them against the table, barrels pointed up towards the smoke-browned ceiling. The storekeeper served them their drinks and withdrew behind his counter.
“Tourist?” asked Soso.
The Coca-Cola drinker nodded.
“And you?” he asked. “Hunters?”
“Hunters,” Soso agreed. “Is it yours, the Stud?” Another nod. “Did you come from Santiago today?”
“From Manzanillo.”
“Did you see any Europeans on the road?”
“Didn’t notice.”
“Possibly a woman, a tall blond man and a very young girl?” suggested Soso. “Heading north?”
“I saw nobody like that.” The man rooted slowly and placidly in one of his pockets; the muscles of Soso and Chino tensed; the man pulled out a large red silk handkerchief and blew his nose; Soso and Chino relaxed; the man put his handkerchief away and produced an M1934 9 mm Beretta semiautomatic, which he pointed at Soso.
“No one moves,” said Samuel Farakhan.