Two
I
Montes looked ill. He was worse than he had been in the air. His chest heaved violently as he sucked in the thin air and he had a ghastly pallor. As he opened his mouth to speak again the girl said, ‘Hush, tio, be quiet. I will tell them,’
She turned and looked across the cabin at O’Hara and Forester. ‘My uncle’s name is not Montes,’ she said levelly. ‘It is Aguillar.’ She said it as though it was an explanation, entire and complete in itself.
There was a moment of blank silence, then O’Hara snapped his fingers and said softly, ‘By God, the old eagle himself.’ He stared at the sick man.
‘Yes, Señor O’Hara,’ whispered Aguillar. ‘But a crippled eagle, I am afraid.’
‘Say, what the hell is this?’ grumbled Peabody. ‘What’s so special about him?’
Willis gave Peabody a look of dislike and got to his feet. ‘I wouldn’t have put it that way myself,’ he said. ‘But I could bear to know more.’
O’Hara said, ‘Señor Aguillar was possibly the best president this country ever had until the army took over five years ago. He got out of the country just one jump ahead of a firing squad.’
‘General Lopez always was a hasty man,’ agreed Aguillar with a weak smile.
‘You mean the government arranged all this — this jam we’re in now — just to get you?’ Willis’s voice was shrill with incredulity.
Aguillar shook his head and started to speak, but the girl said, ‘No, you must be quiet.’ She looked at O’Hara appealingly. ‘Do not question him now, señor. Can’t you see he is ill?’
‘Can you speak for your uncle?’ asked Forester gently.
She looked at the old man and he nodded. ‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked.
‘What is your uncle doing back in Cordillera?’
‘We have come to bring back good government to our country,’ she said. ‘We have come to throw out Lopez.’
O’Hara gave a short laugh. ‘To throw out Lopez,’ he said flatly. ‘Just like that. An old man and a girl are going to throw out a man with an army at his back.’ He shook his head disbelievingly.
The girl flared up. ‘What do you know about it; you are a foreigner — you know nothing. Lopez is finished — everyone in Cordillera knows it, even Lopez himself. He has been too greedy, too corrupt, and the country is sick of him.’
Forester rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘She could be right,’ he said. ‘It would take just a puff of wind to blow Lopez over right now. He’s run this country right into the ground in the last five years — just about milked it dry and salted enough money away in Swiss banks to last a couple of lifetimes. I don’t think he’d risk losing out now if it came to a showdown — if someone pushed hard enough he’d fold up and get out. I think he’d take wealth and comfort instead of power and the chance of being shot by some gun-happy student with a grievance.’
‘Lopez has bankrupted Cordillera,’ the girl said. She held up her head proudly. ‘But when my uncle appears in Santillana the people will rise, and that will be the end of Lopez.’
‘It could work,’ agreed Forester. ‘Your uncle was well liked. I suppose you’ve prepared the ground in advance.’
She nodded. ‘The Democratic Committee of Action has made all the arrangements. All that remains is for my uncle to appear in Santillana.’
‘He may not get there,’ said O’Hara. ‘Someone is trying to stop him, and if it isn’t Lopez, then who the hell is it?’
‘The comunistas,’ the girl spat out with loathing in her voice. ‘They cannot afford to let my uncle get into power again. They want Cordillera for their own.’
Forester said, ‘It figures. Lopez is a dead duck, come what may; so it’s Aguillar versus the communists with Cordillera as the stake.’
‘They are not quite ready,’ the girl said. ‘They do not have enough support among the people. During the last two years they have been infiltrating the government very cleverly and if they had their way the people would wake up one morning to find Lopez gone, leaving a communist government to take his place.’
‘Swapping one dictatorship for another,’ said Forester. ‘Very clever.’
‘But they are not yet ready to get rid of Lopez,’ she said. ‘My uncle would spoil their plans — he would get rid of Lopez and the government, too. He would hold elections for the first time in nine years. So the communists are trying to stop him.’
‘And you think Grivas was a communist?’ queried O’Hara.
Forester snapped his fingers. ‘Of course he was. That explains his last words. He was a communist, all right — Latin-American blend; when he said “vivaca” he was trying to say “Viva Castro”.’ His voice hardened. ‘And we can expect his buddies along any minute.’
‘We must leave here quickly,’ said the girl. ‘They must not find my uncle.’
O’Hara suddenly swung round and regarded Rohde, who had remained conspicuously silent. He said, ‘What do you import, Señor Rohde?’
‘It is all right, Señor O’Hara,’ said Aguillar weakly. ‘Miguel is my secretary.’
Forester looked at Rohde. ‘More like your bodyguard.’
Aguillar flapped his hand limply as though the distinction was of no consequence, and Forester said, ‘What put you on to him, O’Hara?’
‘I don’t like men who carry guns,’ said O’Hara shortly. ‘Especially men who could be communist.’ He looked around the cabin. ‘All right, are there any more jokers in the pack? What about you, Forester? You seem to know a hell of a lot about local politics for an American businessman.’
‘Don’t be a damn fool,’ said Forester. ‘If I didn’t take an interest in local politics my corporation would fire me. Having the right kind of government is important to us, and we sure as hell don’t want a commie set-up in Cordillera.’
He took out his wallet and extracted a business card which he handed to O’Hara. It informed him that Raymond Forester was the South American sales manager for the Fairfield Machine Tool Corporation.
O’Hara gave it back to him. ‘Was Grivas the only communist aboard?’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m getting at. When we were coming in to land, did any of the passengers take any special precautions for their safety?’
Forester thought about it, then shook his head. ‘Everyone seemed to be taken by surprise — I don’t think any of us knew just what was happening.’ He looked at O’Hara with respect. ‘In the circumstances that was a good question to ask.’
‘Well, I’m not a communist,’ said Miss Ponsky sharply. ‘The very idea!’
O’Hara smiled. ‘My apologies, Miss Ponsky,’ he said politely.
Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin; now he stood up. ‘This lady is dying,’ he said. ‘She has lost much blood and she is in shock. And she has the soroche — the mountain-sickness. If she does not get oxygen she will surely die.’ His black eyes switched to Aguillar, who seemed to have fallen asleep. ‘The Señor also must have oxygen — he’s in grave danger.’ He looked at them. ‘We must go down the mountain. To stay at this height is very dangerous.’
O’Hara was conscious of a vicious headache and the fact that his heart was thumping rapidly. He had been long enough in the country to have heard of soroche and its effects. The lower air pressure on the mountain heights meant less oxygen, the respiratory rate went up and so did the heart-beat rate, pumping the blood faster. It killed a weak constitution.
He said slowly, ‘There were oxygen cylinders in the plane — maybe they’re not busted.’