"Come on," Gonzalez told Phillips. "You too." He gestured toward the Mexican police officers and then repeated the order in Spanish. "Vamos!"
Phillips spoke directly to the boys. "You two are going to stay right here-and I mean it! Get in the sedan and keep out of sight!"
The guide had already started to move around the edge of the quarry. Gonzalez and the officers were trotting after him. Now Phillips joined them.
Ken and Sandy stood alone in the darkness. They had known better than to argue with Phillips in his present mood. If they had followed him, he would have turned back to see that they carried out his orders. And they had no right to make him turn back from the job that awaited him at the top of the cliff.
Silently they watched the jiggling beams of the flashlights grow smaller as they rounded the edge of the quarry. And then the beams slanted upward and they knew that the party had begun to climb the cliff along what must be a slanting path toward its top.
The helicopter had pa.s.sed over them now-had gone beyond the cliff and was slowly circling back. Once more it flashed its green signal light, three times, and once more the green light on the cliff answered.
"A fine business," Sandy said disgustedly. "We get all the way here, and then-"
Ken broke in on him. "They"ll never make it," he said. "Look."
The light from the plane and the light on the cliff had started a rapid exchange, flashing alternate signals 86 .
in quick succession. Twice the beams formed a vivid green cross in the sky. The size of the cross showed that the ship was already close to the ground and descending at the rate of several feet a second in an almost perpendicular line.
"It"s about to land!" Sandy breathed.
The slanting row of bobbing flashlights was still many long yards below the top of the cliff. And the boys knew that Phillips and Gonzalez, unable to see past the upper reaches of the cliff, had not yet realized the futility of their errand.
The green light on the cliff fastened firmly and steadily on the helicopter. No longer did it blink on and off. Now it held the hovering plane at the tip of a blunt shaft of light, painting its underbody a pale emerald. The shaft of light grew shorter. The helicopter was close to the ground.
And then the shaft of light disappeared altogether, transforming itself into a widespread pale-green blur. The helicopter had landed. The light blacked out entirely.
Faintly, from the cliffside below the plane, the boys could hear an enraged shout. One flashlight topped the edge of the cliff, and then another. Both swung to the right, where the green glow had showed a moment before, and then began to move rapidly toward that spot, still several hundred feet away.
Suddenly the helicopter"s motor roar increased. It was impossible to see the plane actually springing up into the air, but the boys were clearly aware that it was already doing just that. And then one of the flashlights caught its whirling rotor for an instant and sparks of light glinted in the sky.
CONTACT BROKEN 87.
A spurt of fire flashed from the vicinity of the flashlights, and the sound of a shot reached the boys" ears. Another followed, slanted upward. Loud and sharp in the night, three more shots streaked after the first, each at a steeper angle than the last.
But the roar of the helicopter"s motor remained steady. The darting flashlight beams ceased their frantic searching of the overhead darkness. One last shot barked out, and then silence fell.
"They got away!" Sandy"s voice was a groan. "Two minutes sooner and-" He broke off with a gasp. Ken"s fingers had closed around his arm with the grip of steel pincers.
"Quiet!" Ken breathed.
Sandy bent his head and caught the distant murmur of angry frustrated voices from the opposite side of the quarry.
"No," Ken breathed against his ear. "Nearby-something moving."
Then again, more clearly, he heard the sound that had first caught his attention-the sound of a hard-soled shoe coming down on loose gravel.
Sandy took a single cautious step forward, in the direction of the noise. Ken moved beside him. He remembered, grimly, that Mort Phillips had ordered them to get into the sedan. They had been too interested in watching the helicopter to obey, but Ken wished now that they were behind the protection of the sedan"s metal body.
They were heading for the sedan now, and for the jeep that was parked in front of it. Another footstep sounded up ahead of them. But their own progress, over the soft dust of the loading area, was completely silent.
00 .
Ken tried to estimate their position in the darkness. He thought they must be very close to the jeep. He was certain that they had already pa.s.sed the gray coupe.
Suddenly his outstretched hand touched cold metal. They had reached the jeep. Its front right fender was under his fingers.
One more footfall sounded, closer this time and to Ken"s right. There was no doubt now. Someone was moving through the darkness, across the level s.p.a.ce just in front of the jeep.
Guiding himself by his hand, and aware of Sandy"s bulk close beside him, Ken moved a few feet until he could reach in toward the jeep"s dashboard.
He couldn"t afford to make a mistake. The slightest noise would reach the ears of the mysterious stranger who shared with them this level stretch of ground between the quarry and the steep-walled ravine.
Ken"s fingers touched one b.u.t.ton and hesitated. Cautiously, forcing himself to take his time, he felt above and below, to the left and to the right of it.
Yes, he told himself, this must be it.
He gave the b.u.t.ton a sharp jerk and it moved away from the dashboard.
Instantly the jeep"s headlights blazed alive, tearing a blinding white hole in the night.
Caught in their glare, heading across their path, was the figure of a man. He turned in mid-step and faced them, off balance for an instant. His face was dark and his black hair grew low on his forehead.
Ken recognized the man he had seen early that morning at the wheel of the gray coupe.
And then the man lifted his arm in a violent gesture and the gun in his hand spurted flame.
CHAPTER VIII.
DEFIANT PRISONER.
BLINDED by the glare, the man shot wild. Ken could sense dust billowing into the air somewhere behind him as he dragged Sandy toward the rear of the jeep. Close together they crouched in the narrow s.p.a.ce between the jeep"s back wheels and the big sedan"s radiator.
Even as they reached that dubious shelter a second shot spat out, and this one pinged shrilly against metal. The third hit its mark. The tinkle of gla.s.s and the glitter of flying shards told Ken, peering cautiously past the jeep"s left rear fender, that die headlight on that side of the car had been shattered.
Thudding footsteps sounded then. Ken realized that the man was finally moving from the spot to which panic had momentarily rooted him. Now he was trying to escape the beam of the remaining light, instead of standing exposed in its glow while he tried to extinguish it by gunfire. He was moving to the left, Ken thought, into the area that had been illuminated a moment earlier by the now-shattered headlight.
Then two more guns spoke. Their roar was far away, but an instant later Ken heard the small dull plop of bullets striking dust-covered stone nearby. Phillips and
89.
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Gonzalez, on the far side of the quarry pit, were reacting to the unmistakable danger signals of light and noise.
The thudding footsteps stopped long enough for a single answering shot, aimed toward the cliff. But almost immediately, as if recognizing the futility of finding such distant targets, the man started to run again.
"Don"t let him get away!" Ken didn"t know if Sandy had said the words or if he had shouted them inside his own mind. But he knew the big redhead was crouched behind him, ready to spring, as he got to his own feet.
His eyes were accustomed to the darkness now. He leaned boldly past the fender to watch the man sprinting toward him. The running figure wavered and slowed its pace when it left the glow of light and plunged into complete darkness. It angled away from the jeep and then angled slightly toward it again, as if the man were uncertain of his bearings. Obviously he was trying to escape the enemies which he must realize lurked in the neighborhood of the jeep, and at the same time arrive at the trail gouged out of the bank of the ravine. If he tried to reach the shelter of the ravine by any other route he would plunge headforemost down the steep bank.
Ken forced himself to wait until the shadowy figure was almost opposite him. Then he moved. His body catapulted forward, like a sprinter rising at the sound of a starting gun. He hit the man at the knees.
For a split second his momentum neutralized the forward drive of the runner. Motionless, they held their pose, the upright body arced over the nearly p.r.o.ne one, Ken"s arms clamped around the other man"s legs. Then the man gasped a single unintelligible Spanish word and raised the gun in his hand as if it were a club.
The man toppled sideways like a falling tree.
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The heavy firearm was beginning its downward swing when Sandy"s two hundred pounds struck home under the descending arm. The man toppled sideways like a falling tree. The gun flew out of his hand in a wide arc.
His head and shoulders struck the ground first, with a bone-jarring thud, just as the gun crashed on the jeep"s hood. Then Sandy"s weight landed astride his chest. Ken, groggy from the glancing blow of Sandy"s knee, still clung grimly to the struggling legs. But he knew his grip was loosening.
"Hold him!" Ken gasped. The choking dust in his throat blurred the words.
"I"ve got him!" Sandy pinned the outflung arms to the ground, clamping a big hand at the angle of each elbow.
Thundering footsteps pounded toward them. A battery of blazing flashlights found the boys and their captive.
Phillips and Gonzalez reached them first. The police officers and the guide were directly behind. Through the murk of the dust they loomed like an approaching army.
"O.K.," Phillips panted. He glanced at Gonzalez. The Mexican policeman"s gun was at the ready and he was already gesturing to the two officers. Phillips concentrated his own attention on the boys. With one hand on Sandy"s shoulder and one on Ken"s, he dragged them off the p.r.o.ne body. "You two all right?" he gasped, still breathless from his wild dash down the cliffside path.
"Sure," Sandy told him.
The two officers were hauling the captive upright, one on either side of him.
Ken stumbled getting to his feet but he managed to say, "Sure. We"re fine. That"s the driver of the gray coupeY" he added.
DEFIANT PRISONER 93.
"I thought so," Gonzalez said grimly. He handed the two officers a pair of handcuffs.
Until now the driver of the gray coup6 had not looked at any of the newcomers. Head down, dust-streaked face impa.s.sive, he had let himself be pulled erect without protest. But when one of the officers started to clamp the handcuffs around his wrist he jerked his head up, as if enraged at the indignity. And his glance lighted on Gonzalez.
His jaw fell and his eyes widened in panic. He babbled a few broken words in Spanish.
Gonzalez smiled. "Our friend here seems to think that I am a ghost. Apparently he believes the minor accident I suffered today could have had a fatal effect. Perhaps he hates to face the fact that he is a bungler."
But the driver of the gray coup6 had recovered. He clearly surprised even Gonzalez when he said, in English, "You mistake me. You look much like a friend who died many years ago. And because I have just been attacked and beaten-"
Gonzalez interrupted him gruffly. "Take him to my car. We shall return to the post at Antiguo Morelos," he told the two officers. "One of you drive his car. The other can follow us in the jeep."
The clock in the police station said ten fifteen when they all entered the brightly lighted room, where, less than two hours before, the guide had showed them the location of the quarry road. Phillips, who had guarded the captive in the back seat of the sedan, during the return drive, handed him over to the two police officers.
Gonzalez directed them to take the man into a back room temporarily, until Phillips and he were ready to interview him. In the meantime, he ordered that the man"s fingerprints be checked and he and his car 94 .
searched thoroughly. Gonzalez added that he wished to see the contents of the prisoner"s pockets as soon as pjssible.
Then he conferred briefly with the chief of police and finally he conducted Phillips and the boys into a small room whose door he shut behind them. They all sat down wearily on the stiff wooden chairs drawn up around a table beneath a single electric light bulb.
Gonzalez sighed. "Inquiries will be made in an effort to trace the helicopter through the aeronautics bureau. But I doubt if we can expect much help from that lead. However," he smiled faintly, "I have inaugurated another plan of which I am more hopeful."
"What"s that?" Phillips leaned forward.
"I have sent word to the nearest restaurant to bring us arroz con polio as soon as possible."
Sandy, busy dusting his trousers, looked up with mingled interest and confusion. "A rose? From a restaurant? They wouldn"t have anything more substantial there, would they?"
"Arroz con polio," Philh"ps told him, "is about as substantial a meal as even you could want, Sandy. In fact, it"s almost a fitting reward for that little performance you two put on back at the quarry-despite my orders to stay in the sedan. It"s chicken and rice, to be precise. The rice is done with saffron. The chicken-"
"Stopl" Sandy pleaded. "Don"t tell me any more until I can see it right in front of me."
"And that should be in about twenty minutes," Gonzalez promised. "In the meantime-"
There was a knock at the door and one of the policemen entered with the items that had been removed from the prisoner"s pockets. The moment he departed, Gonzalez spread them out on the table-a wallet, a DEFIANT PRISONER 95.
ring of keys, a handful of coins, a pocket comb, a package of cigarettes, and a cigarette lighter.
When Ken"s eyes fell on the last item he leaned forward eagerly. Weariness and the lingering effect of Sandy"s accidental blow vanished from his face as he said, "Let"s see if that lights with a green flame."
Gonzalez picked it up and pressed the lever. The flame that leaped up from the wick was a clear golden yellow. Ken sank back in his chair.
Gonzalez smiled at him. "You are young," he said. "You expect too much." He fingered the lighter. "This proves nothing. Perhaps it is only the guide who carries a green-flamed one." Then he opened the wallet and one by one laid out the items it contained. "Eighty-six pesos in bills. A calendar. An identification card." He read the last carefully. "According to this card our friend is a Luis Mendoza, of Avenida del Norte, number two hundred and twelve, Mexico City."
Immediately he summoned a policeman and issued instructions that the police in Mexico City be asked to check on Mendoza at that address. And he added that now he and Phillips wished to interview the prisoner.
Mendoza had completely recovered from the shock of seeing Gonzalez alive and well. He stood at ease before the table, hands in his pockets, a half-smile on his face.
"Since you are so proud of your English, that is the language we will speak," Gonzalez told him. "You do not seem so nervous now, Mendoza," he added.
Mendoza shrugged. "Why should I be nervous? I realize now that I am in the safe hands of the police. When I first tried to defend myself, back there, I think it is bandits who attack me."
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"I see," Gonzalez said noncommittally. "And what were you doing at that old quarry?"