Montezuma’s Revenge

The CIA man needed no urging. The big car flew down the slope, hurling itself around the sandy curves, negotiating with a great grinding sound the last turn that brought it back in the direction of the beach below. A pink jeep was parked where the road debauched onto the beach and there was no way around it. Scarcely slowing, the Coronel Glanders Chicken wagon smashed into it with a great crashing of glass and screech of torn metal. The jeep bounced forward, its rear wheels locked by the handbrake, skidding in the sand but urged on by the churning horsepower behind it. Once it had been pushed out onto the beach, Higginson spun the wheel and shot around it.

Other than a few discarded suitcases, the shore was empty. The dinghy was halfway back to the boat, low in the water with its heavy load, paddles flashing brightly in the sun.

“We must stop that boat!” Tony shouted.

“If y’ll let me out ah’ll be glad to,” Stocker said. He had dug a long-barreled revolver from an inside pocket and was now removing a plastic stock from a sling under his arm. This clicked into a slot in the revolver’s butt to make a short but sinister-looking rifle.

Stocker jumped from the car, cracking open the revolver as he went, jamming in a long-nosed bullet. “Armor piercing,” he said as he leaned his elbows on the hood. Someone in the dinghy was firing a pistol at them now but the aim was erratic, though one bullet hit the sand close by and screamed away. Stocker ignored this completely, letting his breath out, sighting, squeezing off a round.

It had no apparent effect. The dinghy was almost to the fishing boat now, waiting hands reaching down, when he fired again. And again.

Angry shouts could be heard as the thudding of the engine slowed and grated into silence. Stocker was not through, however. From another of his lumpy pockets he extracted a canister a the size of a beer can which slipped over the muzzle of the gun. This time he dug the butt into the sand and, estimating the distance, aimed the gun barrel into the air almost vertically. There was a dull bang and the canister shot into the sky in a high arc to splash into the water beyond the boat. There was a much louder explosion and a geyser of water shot into the air; the boat rocked dangerously.

“A mite over. Just correct by a hair.”

“You’re not going to blow them up?” Tony asked, wide-eyed.

“First shake em up. Now some tear gas to quiet em down.”

“But how do we get them back. Look—they’re beginning to row.”

“That headland, those rocks,” Billy called out, pointing, “They’re beyond the boat. We can swim in from there, head them off.”

“I don’t swim,” Higginson said.

“Tony and me will be enough,” Billy said. “Let’s go.”

“Hand tuh hand,” Stocker said. “Take this.” He produced a combat knife which he handed to Tony, and a second for Billy Schultz. They were triangular bladed, very sharp, with knuckleduster hilts studded with sharp spikes.

“Get that tear gas in and keep us covered,” Higginson ordered, gunning the car to life.

“Clothes off,” Billy ordered, and they did a struggling Laocoon disrobement in the back seat as the Lincoln bounced down the beach. Higginson did not spare the car, going at full speed over the gravel and boulders, dodging the largest so that the men in the back fell into each other, pants caught on feet, shirts flapping, revolvers tumbling. With a final last grinding thud the Lincoln impaled itself on a fang of rock and would go no further.

Billy led the way, bounding from rock to rock like a demented mountain goat, tastefully clad in orange undershorts and combat knife. Tony followed, wincing at the sharp ridges, peeling down to more proletarian white shorts as he went. There was much shouted activity from the boat as well as a number of shots, some of which came close. Another explosion showered water on the craft as well as engulfing it in a white cloud. Billy seized the knife between his teeth, pirate fashion, and dived into the water. There were rocks under the surface that he barely missed so Tony entered more hesitatingly, climbing in, then biting onto the knife which promptly cut the corner of his mouth, swimming after Billy’s muscular back and thrashing arms.

A great deal of coughing and multilingual cursing could be heard from the boat as they came close, a metallic hammering followed by the sound of an electric starter. The engine gasped twice, then subsided. The high wooden side rose above them and Tony followed Billy around to where a ladder was built into the stern. Billy Schultz surged up it—then dropped quickly back as a bullet dug a chunk of wood out of the transom.

“Stay here for a diversion,” he whispered to Tony. “I’ll go around behind and over the side. If I can reach the rail I can pull myself up.” He bulged a massive biceps to prove it, then churned away.