The Vivero Letter

Privately I didn't think we had a snowball's chance in hell. I looked her in the eye. 'There's always a chance,' I said firmly.

Her gaze slipped past me. 'Fallen doesn't seem to think so,' she said in a low voice.

I turned my head and looked at him. He was still sitting on the floor with his legs outstretched before him and gazing sightlessly at the toe-caps of his boots. 'He has his own problems.' I said, and pot up and crossed over to him.

At my approach he looked up 'Smith was right.' he said wanly. 'It's, my fault we're in this jam.'

'You had other things to think about.'

He nodded slowly. 'Selfishly -- yes. I could have had Gatt deported from Mexico, I have that much pull. But I just let things slide.'

'I don't think that would have worried Gatt,' I said, trying to console him. 'He would have come back anyway -- he has quite a bit of pull himself, if what Pat Harris says is correct. I don't think you could have stopped him.'

- 'I don't care for myself,' said Fallon remorsefully. 'I'll be dead in three months, anyway. But to drag down so many others is unforgivable.' He withdrew almost visibly and returned into his trance of self-accusation.

There wasn't much to be done with him so I arose and joined Smith at the window. 'Any sign of action?'

'Some of them are in those huts.'

'How many?'

He shook his head. 'Hard to say -- maybe five or six in each.'

'We might give them a surprise,' I said softly. 'Any sign of Gatt?'

'I don't know,' said Smith. 'I wouldn't even know what he looks like. Goddamn funny, isn't it?' He stared across at the huts. If they open fire from so close, the bullets will rip through here like going through a cardboard box.'

I turned my head and looked at the plunger box and at the wires which led to it, wondering how much explosive Rudetsky had planted in the huts and whether it had been found. As a kid I'd always been overly disappointed by damp squibs on Guy Fawkes Night.

The hour ticked away and we said very little. Everything that had to be said had been torn out of us in that explosive first five minutes and we all knew there was little point in piling on the agony in futile discussion. I sat down and, for want of something better to do, checked the scuba gear, and Katherine helped me. I think I had an idea at the back of my mind that perhaps we would give in to Gatt in the end, and I would have to go down into the cenote again. If I did, then I wanted everything to work smoothly for the sake of the survivors in Gatt's hands.

Abruptly, the silence was torn open by the harsh voice of Gatt magnified by the loudhailer. He seemed to be having trouble with it because it droned as though the speaker was overloaded. 'Wheale! Are you ready to talk?'

I ran at a crouch towards the plunger box and knelt over it, hoping that our answer to Gatt would be decisive. He shouted again. 'Your hour is up, Wheale.' He laughed boomingly. 'Fish, or I'll cut you into bait.'

'Listen!' said Smith urgently. 'That's a plane.'

The droning noise was much louder and suddenly swelled to a roar as the aircraft went overhead. Desperately I gave the plunger handle a ninety-degree twist and rammed it down and the hut shook under the violence of the explosion. Smith yelled in exultation, and I ran to the window to see what had happened.

One of the huts had almost literally disappeared. As the smoke blew away I saw that all that was left of it was the concrete foundation. White figures rumbled from the other hut and ran away, and Smith was shooting fast. I grabbed his shoulder. 'Stop that! You're wasting bullets.'

The plane went overhead again, although I couldn't see it. 'I wonder whose it is,' I said. 'It could belong to Gatt.'

Smith laughed excitedly. 'It might not -- and, Jeez, what a signal we gave it!'

There was no reaction from Gatt; the loud voice had stopped with the explosion and I desperately hoped I'd blown him to hell.

III

It was too much to hope for. Everything was quiet for another hour and then there came a slow and steady hail of rifle fire. Bullets ripped through the thin walls of the hut, tearing away the interior insulation, and it was very dangerous to move away from the cover of the thick baulks of timber Rudetsky had installed. The chief danger was not from a direct hit but from a ricochet. From the pace of the firing I thought that not more than three or four men were involved, and I wondered uneasily what the others were doing.

It was also evident that Gatt was still alive. I doubted if the chicleros would still keep up the attack without him and his bully boys behind them. They wouldn't have the motive that drove Gatt, and, besides, an unknown number had been killed in the hut. I was reasonably sure that none of the men in that hut could have survived the explosion, and it must have given the rest a hell of a shock.