Chapter 11
Working with great speed, the two men went to the office safe and, straining with every muscle in their bodies, managed to turn it over on its back so the door was on top. Then Cheyenne took a metal canister from his pocket. From it he poured onto the safe what looked like finely-ground iron filings. It was thermite, a mixture of magnesium and iron filings, the combustible that was impossible to extinguish once it started burning because it produced its own oxygen and fed from it. When Cheyenne had first told Clint about it, Clint didn't believe him, until he remembered the stories of college kids using it to weld streetcar wheels to their steel tracks, disrupting an entire city street, so that the streetcar had to be removed by crane and the rails torn up from the street.
Taking the small blowtorch, Cheyenne pushed the silvery dust around the hinges of the safe and then applied the flame. There were a few seconds of silence as the hissing flame glided over the stuff. More silence, and then Cheyenne, sweating now, adjusted the torch to its hottest flame. The thermite went from a powder to a fluid state, melding itself together under the intense heat. It began to glow, and then became more fluid, changing color and clinging with superheated plasticity to the hinges of the safe. Cheyenne bent more intensely over his work. And then, at last, there was a distinct sputtering. He took the torch away, and Clint saw that the stuff seemed to be shimmering, burning away with a heat of its own now, a destructive heat that could be matched only by that of an arc-welder.
Cheyenne spread the stuff around the edges of the safe's door, and they waited. Before their eyes, the almost indestructible metal of the strong-box dissolved under the fierce combustion produced by the stuff. The hinges eroded away and the door sagged as its supports disappeared. Cheyenne took two short wrecking bars from his kit, and, handing one to Clint, went to work on the door. Keeping their tools away from the thermite, which produced more and more heat as it fed upon itself, they pried the door up from the safe. Quickly, grunting with the effort, they wrenched it off the safe and laid it on the floor. Then Clint nearly dove into the open safe, pulling packets of papers and records out. He disregarded the money and securities he found there. And as Cheyenne helped him by laying the material out on a table, Clint's camera began working overtime, recording on film the most secret of secrets concerning the workings of the Caribbean empire.
"That's it," Clint nodded to his accomplice. They chucked all the papers back into the safe, whose sides were being eaten away now by the thermite. Cheyenne took the canister and emptied more of it into the safe. Being careful to keep away from any contact with the fiery stuff, they laid the door back over the distorted safe. Then Cheyenne emptied the rest of the canister's contents on the floor in careful trails that led in every direction, to the furniture and walls of what appeared to be such a fireproof chamber. The glowing, incendiary sputtering spread where Cheyenne led it. As Katrina and Clint both watched fascinated, it became clear what Cheyenne's real intention was.
"Let's get out of here," the islander said, putting the empty canister, the blowtorch and the tools back in his knapsack. The three of them filed into the conservatory tower, where Cheyenne took his jersey from the jaws of the sleeping dog and put it back on. They went up, over one another, to the window and out onto the tower, dropping down to the roof.
"Wait a minute," Katrina said, and the men paused while she rushed over to the sun terrace. They watched as she stripped the bag-like cloth covering from one of the pads lying there. Tearing a hole in the end and two in the sides, she fashioned a garment for herself and came smiling back to them, resembling a potato sack with hair and feet and hands.
Carefully they worked their way down the sides of the villa, dropping down the three balconies and then clambering down the buttress they had scaled the night before. Cheyenne gave a signal to Clint to halt, and the islander crept out into the garden. Clint was ready when the dog rounded the villa and came loping toward Cheyenne, who froze in place. When the dog was within range, Clint let fire with another of the drugged projectiles, felling the ferocious animal the way they had the others, without any noise.
Then he and Katrina joined Cheyenne, and the three of them raced down the hills of the estate, not once pausing to look back. Panting with their exertions, they made their way along the fence, looking for the breaks they had sealed over when entering the closed world of the syndicate.
Clint heard it first, but it only took a split-second for the other two to stop in their tracks. From somewhere came the sound of an engine. They ducked into the brush near the fence, and then Clint and Cheyenne saw it at the same time the jeep coming along the fence toward them. The driver was standing almost erect in his seat, searching the terrain his vehicle was bouncing over. In the passenger seat there was another fierce-looking dog, growling low in its throat. Clint could see its fangs bared to the moonlight. He took the knife out of the knapsack and laid the kit on the ground. Cheyenne had disappeared through the brush, and Clint knew in advance how it would be.
When the jeep rolled to a few feet of where they crouched, the dog started barking violently. The machine ground to a halt, and the driver leaped out of it, the blued metal of a deadly-looking pistol in his hand.
No sooner had he hit the ground, though, when Clint sprung from behind him, out of the brush. It was an old exercise, and he followed it through with precise instinct, crooking one arm around the man's neck and plunging the other arm, with its silent steel blade, into his back. The man gurgled and contorted in Clint's embrace as he twisted the knife home, and then went limp in his arms.
All this had taken only a couple of seconds, but already the dog was on Clint, snarling and trying to sink its sabre-like fangs into Clint's throat. But then, out of the dark brush, came the islander. This time there were no projectiles and no drugs. Seizing the confused and vicious animal by the scruff of his neck and a hind leg, Cheyenne raised its entire furious bulk into mid-air and then brought his burden down against the side of the jeep.
There was an awful cracking sound, and Clint heard a little cry as Katrina finally gave vent to her feelings. But when Cheyenne dropped the dog on the ground, it was all over. The dog's paws dug feebly at the turf as its twisted, broken body writhed its last.
Cheyenne turned away from the scene of carnage and went to work on the fence. In minutes he had applied the tops, and the three of them had cautiously passed between the high-voltage cables. As Cheyenne was repairing the fence, Clint looked toward the villa, which sat like a far-away brooding cancer on the top of the magnificent estate.
Lights were appearing in the windows now, and as he and Katrina waited for the islander to patch over the last evidence of the fence, which merely cutting through would have sounded the villa's alarm system, he knew that the thermite had done its work. Up against the clear night sky, he caught sight of a trail of smoke rising against the brilliant backdrop off the tropical constellations. More lights came on, and the villa seemed to come alive in the night, although from where they were, they could hear nothing.
Instinctively, the enormity of what they had accomplished and what had just taken place swept over Clint. He pulled Katrina to him. Only when he had hugged her to his chest did he feel the shuddering of her body, and realized that she was silently sobbing with the strain of it all.
The smoke became more apparent, and Clint marveled at the work of his companion. For thermite was impossible to extinguish. Foam, chemicals, sand nothing would smother the oxygen-bearing combustible. It would burn until it had consumed itself every last trace of itself in doing so melting through wood and iron and steel, spreading its impossible mischief to whatever it came into contact with.
The fence was repaired. Now there were sounds coming from the villa a scream and distant shouts and the sound of more motor vehicles. "C'mon," urged Cheyenne, even as a set of headlights appeared, coming down along the luxurious grounds of the estate. The trio faded back into the darkness, and with tired but elated bodies, they padded through the thick island jungle, following the slender and obscure thread of a trail that led back to the other half of the schizoid little world of San Dozes.
When they reached Cheyenne's bar, it was almost morning and the sky was already streaked with the first pink and orange hints of the rising sun. Moored to the rickety pier on which Cheyenne's bar was perched was a small launch. Cheyenne called down and two natives appeared, dressed in the simple whites of the island's fishing colony. They stepped into the launch, and in a few seconds, the still of the morning sea was echoing to the putting sounds of the engine.
"Amigo," said Cheyenne as they made their way down to the boat. "When you get back, get far away from the States. Go to Europe, anywhere, but don't be around when your stories start appearing."
"Don't worry," Clint assured him. "I've got it all figured out. I'll be communicating by diplomatic pouch from some never-never land. Maybe an island in the Mediterranean. I've always wanted an island vacation, you know."
"Well, I will be reading the air edition of the New York Times with interest from now on," smiled Cheyenne. "If you really have everything you need on that film of yours, you're going to make a bigger dent in this part of the world than Castro and the Alianza para Progreso put together."
"When I get my Pulitzer money, I'll fly back down we'll fly back down," Clint altered his reply, his arm tightening around Katrina's waist. "And we'll hit that old jug of yours for real."
"It's been good, amigo," said Cheyenne, as Clint and Katrina stepped into the boat. "Take care of yourself and the lady. I will look to see you again when the last of these vermin have disappeared. Buena suerte."
"Buena suerte," called Clint softly, releasing his grip on the islander's arm. "Recuerdate, el perro que no anda no halla el hueso!" he added, as their two-man crew cast off from the pier and the launch's engine dropped down to its working pitch.
"You have learned," called Cheyenne. "Va con Dios!"
"Que puedo decir?" said Clint, standing in the launch as it swung away from the pier. "Thanks. Thanks, amigo," he called, as the pier and the shack and the man who owned them receded in the distance until they were specks against the sun-spotted outline of the island.
The engine purred along as the island itself faded back against the sea, which had been set afire by the morning sun. Then it rose in pitch and the stern of the launch sank into the water, and they were on their way for real.
Making a sort of nest out of a couple of tarpaulins, Clint settled down in the prow of the boat, drawing Katrina down near him. Her eyes were still faintly red and moist from her crying, and she snuggled up against him. The aches began to go out of both their bodies as the boat chunked its way over the rippling Caribbean. Clint drew her closer to him, feeling the warmth of her flowing through her improvised garment and his clothes to his body. His mind spun back to a week or so ago, remembering the total feel and image of her feminine lushness as they romped with frank and loving intimacy.
The two crewmen kept their eyes tactfully averted as Clint turned and kissed the last of her tears away. Katrina opened her mouth to speak, but Clint silenced her with a gentle kiss, brushing his lips to hers. Her sensuous mouth, which had shut in surprise, opened to him as their tongues came together. Clint turned on his side and Katrina nestled more closely to him. He felt the resilient swellings of her body flow against him felt her thighs intertwine with his, establishing an unhurried embrace of security. His nostrils were filled with the musky smell of her bountiful black hair. And all his senses seemed to lock into place, in a coordinated and natural physical response to her presence.
There would be time for the stories they had to tell each other, he thought, as they lay there, being gently rocked against one another by the motions of the launch. All the time in the world, he knew, to explain about mistakes, and assumptions, and fears, and their fantastic adventures.
So he did not let her talk as they cruised throughout the day, heading for one of the larger islands, where the syndicate, which would be fully aroused by now, didn't control the airport with absolute authority. By tomorrow they would be in the States, and a few days after that, where? he wondered. Then he knew.
"What do you want for your wedding?" he asked her quietly, letting the words fall in her delicately sculptured ear, which glowed with the warmth of the tropical sun overhead.
"You," she answered, her arms tightening around him and her head burrowing farther into the crook of his shoulder. "You and you and you."
Clint's heart seemed to dissolve in him. It was all over now the years of anxiety and frustration and heartbreak; of tending to poor Shirley, and living in a precarious, empty, two-dimensional shadow world.
Somehow, against odds which had seemed unbeatable such a short time ago, when the cruise boat had docked at San Dozes, he had won. Won against self-defeat and a twentieth-century conspiracy of darkness. There were problems ahead, like that of finding a newspaper or wire service that would run the stories he would compile for the next few months after the microfilm was developed. But there were open-ended, limitless vistas beyond these small hurdles. The reality of what he was, and what life could be with the beautiful girl who lay by his side, was here to stay.
No more of the two worlds of fighting reality and supporting appearances. No more closed doors or evasions of the truth. . When Clint looked down at Katrina, surmising without being told what her story of the last few days would indicate about her own strength and determination, he knew that his life had changed forever; that there was only one rewarding reality ahead of him; that he had indeed he thought, embracing Katrina more fully to himself in symbolic union just been through the time of his life.