“No, nada, never, and negative!” Captain Gringo repeated as Gaston went over it a second time. They were seated at a metal table in front of a sidewalk cantina, and the tall blonde American was attracting curious stares from the passers-by. Even in quiet repose, Dick Walker stood out in a Latin American crowd. He stood well over six feet and his whipcord and whalebone body could have been sculpted by Rodin, who’d have doubtless substituted a fig leaf for the tight linen pants and thin cotton shirt.
Captain Gringo’s .38 was less visible than the rest of his chest, tucked as it was in a shoulder holster under the open linen jacket he wore over the shirt. He usually tried to hide his blonde hair under a straw planter’s sombrero, but nobody was looking for them at the moment. Costa Rica was one of the few countries in Latin America with a stable government, and hence a safe vacation spot for soldiers of fortune without a contract. Captain Gringo didn’t want another contract at the moment. He still had some money from their last frantic job, and a date with a very nice-looking señorita, if ever the fucking sun went down.
Gaston lounged across the table from him, eating peanuts and drinking cerveza as he observed, “It sounds like easy money, Dick. I checked it out with the grapevine this afternoon. The colony is an island just off the coast of British Honduras, and the Pantropic Sugar Trust owns it all. You might call it a company island. Any law out there will be working for our side.”
The tall American growled, “That’s a switch. But Sir Basil has his grubby little paws on the strings, and when he plays puppet master, people tend to get killed.”
“True, they do not call him the merchant of death because he is a noted philanthropist. But we’ll be working for Pantropic.”
“Meaning a Goddamned bunch of Wall Street robber-barons.’’
“What are you, a Fabian Socialist? Only half the stockholders are American. The other stock, and most of the power, is in British hands. My sources tell me the Princes of Wales has a piece of the action and, while His Highness is perhaps a fat womanizer, he is said to be a gentleman, non?”
“Bullshit. He’s a buddy of Sir Basil’s and that makes him a shit in my book! He may talk a little fancier, but ruthless fat men scare me.”
Gaston nodded at the papers on the table between them, and said, “You read the offer. It seems open and above board to me. Pantropic is as ruthless as any other international company. But they have a good credit rating. I just spoke to some associates who once cleaned out some natives for Pantropic. They say they got paid, and I can vouch for them still being alive.”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “There has to be a catch. Nobody is about to pay that kind of money for a simple job. Any half-ass pro could whip up there and train the company guards like they want us to. Why us, and why does Hakim expect them to top his offer with even more money?”
Gaston said, “I told you they were in some kind of a flap about the native rebels. The Honduran guards keep running away from them. They seem to think the rebels have enlisted zombies and ...”
“Jesus H. Christ, Gaston! There’s no such thing as a zombie. And even if there was, what would a zombie be doing off the Mosquito Coast? I thought that zombie shit was a Haitian superstition?”
Gaston nodded and said, “It is. We French had certain dealings with Voodoo when we owned Haiti. It was all before my time, but I have heard strange tales from older legionnaires. As to what zombies might or might not be doing off Honduras, the British imported some West Indian Blacks to Honduras a while back. It didn’t work out too well. It is one thing to work a Negro where he can’t avoid one’s lash. Given a jungle to hide out in—”
“I know about the Maroons in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, and those Dutch slaves who ran into the bush of Surinam. Are these rebels we’re talking about Blacks?”
“Some would seem to be. Others are the usual mestizos of the Mosquito Coast. For some reason they resent the Pantropic Sugar Trust taking over their island. Blacks and mestizos have joined forces to resist progress.”
Captain Gringo frowned thoughtfully and said, “Maybe we should join the other side then. The rebels sound like my kind of crowd.”
Gaston shook his head and said, “Mais non, I checked that out, too. The rebels are not your usual idealists. Before the sugar trust took over the island and started to clear it, it had a most evil reputation among the mainland peones. The people squatting in the jungle out there were known as pirates, raiders — even cannibals.”
The tall American snorted in disbelief and said, “Oh shit, first zombies and now cannibals! Don’t tell me you buy any of that, Gaston.”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Cannibals are not as unreasonable as zombies, when one considers the Black Caribs have never been completely cleaned out along the Mosquito Coast. As to zombies, you read the reports. How would you account for those machine gun positions being overrun by natives with machetes, Dick?”
Professionally interested despite himself, Captain Gringo shrugged and replied, “Hell, there are easier answers than black magic. As a soldier you know the limitations of any weapon. Out in Arizona our army was confused as hell when the Apache lived through cannon fire a couple of times. It never occurred to headquarters that Indians might have sense enough to dig foxholes.”
“These attacking natives walked right through machine gun-fire, Dick.”
“So what? The gunners were probably poorly-trained and like most greenhorns, they thought a Maxim cuts a solid swathe through the air. A machine gun throws six hundred rounds a minute, right?”
“If you say so. A lot of lead, at any rate.”
“Back up, and think again. If you sweep the muzzle rapidly from side to side the bullets fan out three or four feet apart. More, if you panic and start hozing wildly. A man is only about a foot wide. Do you want me to draw you a picture?”
Gaston mused, “Hmm, I can see how people could walk between the bullets, although I think it would make most men tres nervous. The reports say some of the zombies, or whatever, got up again after being shot.”
“All right. A guy’s hopped up and charging. A stray round pinks him and puts him on the ground with a flesh wound. He’s in a battle frenzy, and since he’s not really hurt, he recovers to press the attack. Big deal. These rebels sound like highly-motivated fighters, or fanatics. I guarantee that none of them kept moving with a solid round in the vitals. That zombie shit was the excuse the company guards gave for punking out, period. They ran into better fighters and don’t want to admit it. People used to tell me stories about Apache being hard to kill. I found they died just like the rest of us when you shot them right.”
He took a sip of his own cerveza before he added, “Officers and men who get whipped never admit they were whipped by ordinary men. That would make them less than ordinary and the truth hurts. Good fighters always get the reputation of being mad monsters ordinary weapons can’t stop.”
“A machine gun is an ordinary weapon, Dick?”
“It’s just a gun that fires faster than usual. It’s as deadly as the man using it. No more. No less. You can’t stop a man with a Krupp siege gun — if you aim it at the wrong position.”
Gaston brightened and said, “Bien, in that case this deal is found money. We simply have to run up there and show them how to aim a machine gun properly, non?”
“Forget it. The last time Sir Basil hired us to pull his chestnuts out of the fire he neglected to tell us they were bombs with the fuses burning.”
Before Gaston could answer they were joined by a third man who sat down uninvited at their table. They both knew him. He wore the mushroom-colored uniform of the Costa Rican Guardia.
Gaston nodded and said, “Good afternoon, Sergeant. What are you drinking?”
The Costa Rican sighed and said, “Nothing, thank you. I am on duty and officially I am not here. They sent me to look for you two, but since I am not here, I haven’t seen you yet.”
Captain Gringo took out his wallet and flattened a bill on the table as he asked, “You wouldn’t by any chance know what they want with us, I suppose?”
The money vanished as the sergeant shrugged and replied, “All I know, officially, is that you are both to report in with your passports.”
The tall American placed another bill on the table and asked, “So what do you know unofficially?”
The Costa Rican glanced uneasily around and murmured, “Something to do with a request from the U.S. Consulate. Please don’t tempt me with more money. I am poor but honest. I don’t know any more than that.”
Gaston asked, “Were your orders to arrest us?” The unhappy sergeant nodded, but said, “They said to see if you boys would come quietly, but to bring you one way or another. The Yanqui from the Consulate spoke to my superiors about a reward. I, of course, recalled how seldom we enlisted men are asked to share windfalls with our officers and, besides, we are friends, eh?”
Gaston looked across at Captain Gringo and asked, “Shall I trot back to our place and pack, Dick?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No. They may have sent less friendly people there. I’ll see about the tickets and pick up some gear. You run over and see if you can shake some advance money out of Sir Basil’s cunt. Meet me by the cathedral steps in an hour.” He rose and strode away as Gaston and the sergeant remained seated for a moment. As Captain Gringo turned a corner the sergeant asked Gaston, “Did I do that right?”
Gaston reached for his own wallet as he grinned impishly and replied, “You are a born thespian, my old and rare friend. Your timing was perfection, and you remembered your lines. What more could any director want?”
The sergeant smiled, confused, and said, “Well, I did what you told me to do, but I still don’t understand what that act was all about.”
Gaston peeled off some bills and soothed, “The plot of my drama is too complicated to go into at the moment. Suffice to say, it worked.”
“You are playing a little joke on your big friend, no?”
“Oui! Sometimes I must do such things for his own good. But let us keep our little secret, hein? He’ll kill us both if he ever finds out.”