Chapter 43

AS THE DRONE OF BOMBERS grew louder, the two thugs, Juan and Felipe, broke their trance and jumped through the window of the office. They both raced across the landscape, weaving between wheat silos and ornamental farm machinery.

Smith stared at the ceiling of the missile base, then also turned to run.

“Halt — you running dog capitalist pig!” Colonel Ivan shouted as Smith made for the door.

“I’ll get him!” Enrique said as he lunged toward the redheaded lieutenant.

Seeing no other weapon handy, Ivan threw the heavy gold-filled attaché case, which struck Enrique squarely in the head. The Cuban colonel went down like a sack of Hungry Mouth wheat. The attaché case skidded across the floor, one step ahead of Smith.

Ivan dashed after Smith, but tripped on the Cuban’s body and went down, smacking his head on the corner of the desk.

Smith snatched up the attaché case. “What luck! This must be their secret plans!” He rushed out the door, nearly bent over double, trying to lug the heavy case with him.

Overhead, the falling bombs whistled, directly on target. The stealth missiles beside them whistled more quietly.

Smith ran for the jeep that Juan and Felipe had abandoned. The first bomb hit nearby, knocking him flat onto the ground.

The second bomb hit one of the wheat silos, blowing it sky high. The missile inside toppled.

Smith grabbed up the gold-filled case again and sprinted the rest of the way to the vehicle, jumping in.

* * *

Shaking their heads, the two dazed colonels picked themselves up from the office floor. They scolded each other for being so clumsy, then ran out the headquarters’ front door. Another explosion knocked them flat again.

“Oh, my head!” Enrique moaned.

Ivan pointed frantically at the escaping jeep and scrambled to his feet. He grabbed his partner by the elbow. “We must stop him — he’s got my expense account.”

They raced toward a tarpaulin-covered Land Rover hidden beside a brand-new tractor in the compound.

* * *

High overhead, the bomb-bay door on the underbelly of the bomber opened. “Targeting confirmed,” said the squadron commander. “You might as well drop the whole load so we can get back home. I forgot to set my VCR for tonight. Wouldn’t want to miss the X-Files.”

Stream after stream of bombs fell screaming through the air.

Another missile silo blew up. Some of the jets overshot their target and dumped bombs on the nearby mountaintops instead. The pilots didn’t mind, and the explosions looked very pretty from up there in the air.

* * *

Smith flinched and tried to hide behind the windshield as he crashed through the closed gate of the secret missile compound. The jeep raced away, but Smith had no idea where he was going.

As the bombs continued to fall, another silo went up. The compound office exploded in a geyser of flames as a well-placed bomb hit its target. Colonel Enrique looked behind him in dismay, thinking of all the vodka and cigars he had left behind in his desk drawers.

Ivan, though, drove the Land Rover like a fiend through rolling black smoke. The front gate was already wrecked, thanks to Smith’s escape. The Land Rover rushed through the smoke and over the broken fence.

* * *

Smith took the main mountain road at high speed, hoping he didn’t run into a mule train or a herd of wild llamas on the way. He risked a glance back just in time to see the whole missile compound go up in a firestorm. The resounding explosion made his ears pop.

Smith stamped down on the accelerator. “I guess I lost them,” he said, looking proudly at the attaché case he had taken from the colonels. He was getting the hang of this spy business.

Behind him, the Land Rover raced along the twisting mountain road. Colonel Ivan clutched the wheel, gritting his teeth as he concentrated on the treacherous curves. Enrique repeatedly gesticulated toward Smith’s fleeing vehicle, as if the Russian could not see their quarry right ahead of them.

“We’ve got to catch him!” Enrique said. “Smith should have been killed back at the U.S. Embassy in Santa Isabel — he never should have lived this long, and now look at the mess he’s caused.”

* * *

Back in the rounded hill beneath the ominous satellite dishes, a guide in a serape and straw hat wandered about the CIA Centrale control room, as if he belonged there. Under the flickering lights, he poked beneath consoles, searching for something. His expression was bland, his facial features dark and exotic.

Bolo went to the closet door and opened it. O’Halloran slouched on the floor against an old mop. The CIA man was out cold, still tied up with Smith’s scavenged wire.

Bolo dragged O’Halloran out of the closet with a grunt. He tugged the straw hat down to obscure his features, then knelt to unwind the wire from the CIA man’s wrists.

O’Halloran stirred and grumbled. “Who’s that?” he finally groaned, groggily blinking his eyes. Then he struggled as if trying to punch someone.

Bolo danced out of O’Halloran’s view and exited stealthily before the CIA man could figure out where he was or what had happened. . . .

* * *

On the Andes road Smith yanked the jeep right and left. Steep volcanic mountains towered around him, black and sheer. A few peaks were graced with snow or belched steam from long-dormant thermal vents. Flames and black smoke curled up from where the bombers had dumped their explosive loads on the mountaintops instead of the secret missile base.

Smith knew he was going too fast for the curves, but he didn’t see a posted speed limit, so he supposed it must be okay. On the driver’s side, a gorge plunged half a mile straight down, cluttered with the rubble from ancient avalanches. He swallowed hard, then turned his attention back to the rough road, whereupon he swallowed hard again as he saw himself hurtling toward a tight new curve.

Behind him, the two colonels in the Land Rover raced from right to left. Ivan twisted the wheel violently to keep the vehicle on the road.

“Faster!” Enrique cried. “Faster!”

Smith braced himself to whip around a hairpin curve that turned around a steep spur. Beyond the curve, the precipice looked a mile deep. The jeep skidded into the hairpin, keeping only two wheels on the road.

In the jagged slopes above, a stampede of blasted rock from the accidental bombing raid tumbled down the mountain, picking up speed and dust. More boulders sloughed down with an ever-building roar. Smith looked up, saw it, and increased speed.

“An avalanche!” Enrique cried. “Watch out!”

“This has been quite a difficult day,” Ivan said. “But it’s just another obstacle for us to overcome in the name of the revolution. Now let’s catch up with Smith.”

As the colonels drove toward the tight hairpin, a cascade of displaced rocks thundered onto the road, blocking part of the lane and leaving only a treacherous strip clear next to the precipice.

Smith felt the jeep shaking, and he wrestled to keep the tires on the road as he raced away from the avalanche. More stone slid down the mountainside, and he swerved, dancing his foot on the brakes. The outside wheel of the jeep ran off the edge of the precipice, throwing gravel. Smith violently yanked the wheel to the right, and the jeep accelerated uphill where the road was a little wider, a little clearer and a little farther from the rockfall.

Behind him, the Land Rover roared into the tight hairpin in hot pursuit as the avalanche pounded around it. Sitting in the passenger seat, Enrique said in sudden horror, “When I was young an old gypsy fortuneteller warned me that I would be killed during an avalanche while I was driving along a steep Andes road beside a Russian colonel.” His eyes widened. “Sweet hindquarters of a rat! Do you think this could be a coincidence?”

“I don’t believe in that superstitious stuff.” Ivan spun the wheel and saw the mound of rocks in the road and the endlessly deep precipice off the edge. With the trembling movement of the earth, the road cracked open.

The Land Rover shot out from behind the rocks and into the air. Like a projectile, the vehicle arced downward in a perfect parabola, plunging into open space without even touching the side of the mountain.

Still seat-belted in, Enrique cried, “Viva la revolución!”

“I hope Moscow never hears of this,” Ivan said, thrusting his chin out in a stalwart manner as he lit a fine Cuban cigar and took a puff. “It could ruin my career.”

The Land Rover crashed into the bottom of the gorge far, far below.

* * *

Smith stopped his jeep on the inside slope. The avalanche had missed him and the earth had stopped shaking. He was safe.

Steam geysered from the jeep’s radiator, though. Smith sat there, frowning. “Curse the luck!”

He climbed out from the driver’s side, walked over to the cliff and looked down to see the smoldering wreckage of the Land Rover. He glanced down at his own torn clothes and dirty hands. “You sure can get messed up in this spy business.”

He decided to go back to his hotel and get some fresh clothes. A shower would be nice, too. He wondered if Yaquita had left any of that rum in the rucksack.

Driving off, he glanced nervously over the precipice again and sighed with relief. At least now he was in the clear.