Any gunfire now would be a pointed announcement and Corbett battered at the man’s temple with the barrel of his sidearm, tearing the man’s trigger hand from the Uzi with his free hand. Both men went down, the lean latino grunting as Corbett’s elbow slammed into his diaphragm. The Uzi clattered onto sandy soil and, now using both hands, Corbett rained punishment against the man’s head. Corbett finally connected with a clean, unimpeded blow on the point of the man’s chin and then watched him lapse from consciousness.
He had no time for niceties, kneeling within a hundred yards of the shed. The man’s bootlaces took an infernally long time coming out, but they were sturdy enough to bind wrists and ankles. Corbett wrenched one of the loose boots off, then a sock that had seen better days, and stuffed that sock into the man’s mouth. When Corbett moved forward to scan the airstrip again, he could see the blond man standing in the open, calling orders in Spanish and waving his assault rifle toward the distant smoke with an air of command. Corbett did not see another man at first, but finally spotted a small figure on the other side of the airstrip in the edge of the brush as it set off toward the flames at a dead run.
The blond still seemed preoccupied with the sky but did not take Corbett’s diversionary bait himself, moving instead until he was striding back and forth in front of the shed as if unconsciously guarding a command post. Well, I’ll just have to come to you, Corbett decided, tucking the Glock away, holding the Uzi at his side as he moved around to keep the shed between himself and the sentry. He needed precious minutes to cover the distance without snapping a branch, but as he stepped to the rear of the shed’s salt-corroded tin wall, he heard the blond curse aloud, not in Spanish or English. The man took several paces toward the airstrip, shading his eyes with one hand, an Uzi cradled across his chest as he turned his back to the shed.
Corbett said it in Spanish because the blond had given orders in the same tongue: “If you move, you are a dead man.”
The blond moved, but only to flinch, his shoulders drooping slightly. He did not look around. “I should have known,” he replied in Spanish.
Corbett stayed behind the shed, stepping into shadow, knowing that at any moment the man investigating the fire might come within sight. “Hold the gun by its barrel and put it over your shoulder,” he demanded. “No whistles, no sudden moves.” As the blond obeyed, Corbett could see him trying to eyeball his captor from the edge of his vision. “No, look toward the fire. And show me the money.”
The blond shrugged. “It is on the runway, where your pilot could see it,” he said.
“How far?”
“Four hundred meters.”
Corbett hesitated. He needed a car for an immediate escape, but he would have to pass at least one armed man who could shoot from cover. And the instant a car started up, the sound could be as revealing as gunfire. Better if he collected the money before that happened, but only an idiot would expect this stalwart blond to simply go and retrieve the money for him. “Put your gun down by its barrel. I’m going to walk with you to the money, and you’re going to stay between me and that smoke.” As the blond eased the rifle down, placing it flat on a tuft of grass, Corbett came forward, holding his own rifle in a way that might not seem threatening to a distant watcher.
As the blond began to walk toward the airstrip, Corbett strode two paces wide of him, cradling the rifle so that he need only move it slightly to bear on his captive. “And where is my team now?” the blond asked rhetorically, glumly.
“They’re around,” Corbett said. “Walk faster. If you get me into a gunfight you’ll be the first one to go down.” The pace picked up. Corbett’s eyesight was as good as any man’s but he could not see a telltale lump that might be cash among the dirt and wiry tuftgrass ahead. Presently, when they had covered three hundred paces: “Point to the money, damn you,” he insisted.
The blond hesitated, then pointed ahead. “There, I think,” he said, not sounding any too certain. “Near the end of the runway. It would be obvious from the air,” he added and then, in genuine anxiety: “Did your pilot crash the aircraft?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Corbett said. “I’m the pilot. I’m the guy who dropped those notes on the cardboard from a box of Hi Ho’s. Medina had a little trouble. What the fuck do you care? What you’d better care about is that it’s getting late, and I’m getting jumpy, and I don’t see the goddamn money.”
“All this is unnecessary,” said the blond, “if you have the aircraft. I expect you to take the money. It is planned,” he insisted.
“You bet it is,” Corbett said. After another minute he quit walking. “Stop right here.” Unbidden, the blond turned to face Corbett with a gaze of frank assessment. Corbett’s accusation was equally frank: “The money isn’t out here.”
“Maybe it is,” shrugged the blond in a way that was almost pure Mexican.
The man’s feet were planted just so, and Corbett judged the moment correctly. “Don’t. I’d just as soon kill you as not,” he warned.
The man released a carefree sort of smile. “The money must be somewhere out here,” he said, seeming to relax as he turned away. From somewhere in the distance a thin, two-note whistle floated on the breeze.
“You’re too damned sure of yourself,” said Corbett. “Put your thumbs in the back of your belt and keep looking away.” As the blond did it, Corbett unholstered the Glock and put down the Uzi. He stuck the sidearm’s muzzle into the man’s ribs and began to pat him down; sleeves, jacket pockets, beltline, trouser pockets. No firearms. “Well, you sure keep up a cheerful front, I’ll give you that much,” Corbett said. “Now get back to those cars on the double.” I slipped up, this fucker was just buying time. But I did see the money out here! Shit, shit, shit…
They were three hundred paces from the cars when two figures stumbled from the brush behind the shed. Only one was armed. The blond cursed and began to limp, Corbett falling in line behind him, doing his own cursing in English. The blond staggered and fell on hands and knees, Corbett dropping to a crouch because it was now obvious that he needed a hostage.
“Twisted it,” grunted the blond, sitting now, rubbing an ankle.
“Stay right there,” Corbett snarled. “Tell those men to walk away with their hands in the air or I’ll kill you. I mean it.”
“I am sure you do,” said the blond, turning, an ugly little snub-nosed revolver coming out of its ankle holster like a melon seed pressed between fingers. “But in dying, I could not miss you.”
Corbett said nothing at all, but continued to point the Uzi. Without refocusing his eyes he could see two men fanning away from the shed in a flanking maneuver, and now they both carried weapons.
“You were already in place,” said the blond, “when that diversion went off. And since you are the pilot, it was not an airplane crash.”
“Tell them to stop or I’ll blow you away,” Corbett said tightly.
“And if I only wound you, still you must deal with my veterans,” the blond said, very quietly, not moving. “No wounded man could do that.” Then, in tightly controlled passion, “It is expected that you take the money! You are throwing your life away, second by second.”
Why doesn’t the bastard shoot, if he’s lying? Because I’d kill him too. But he’s right about one thing, I don’t have a prayer out here in the open. Still Corbett cudgeled his mind for another option, the seconds ticking away.