The Second Saladin

“Paul, I know you think I’m just a cop. Right? A cop here to horn in on a wobbly Agency operation, a red- hunter, a security goon hungry for a bust. That’s what you think.”

“I don’t know what your game is. I just don’t want fifty guys crashing in on me. I have to work this thing out on my own. I really do. You want to recruit me? Sorry. I’m working strictly for myself.”

“Let me ask you, Paul, you think that kid can hack it down there? That’s bandit country. A cowboy like you, maybe. But that kid? That’s some first string you’re running. A beat-up old cowboy and a kid four years out of college, held together by a nun in Illinois, and up against you don’t even know what, except that you know people keep getting dropped, and nobody can get a line on Ulu Beg. You’re the one with the imagination if you think you’re going to get anything out of it except what Speight got. Here, let me show you something. Take a look at this.”

He handed Chardy a typescript with several lines underscored in red.

Chardy read it.

“Where the hell did this come from?”

“Came into Johanna’s apartment long-distance, the day after she died. We’ve managed to track down the guy that answered; he’s a Boston cop who was there as part of the civil investigation. He didn’t know anything about you or Ulu Beg or the Agency. He said he’d take the message in case he ran into you. But he never did. He must have forgotten. Cops — you can’t trust ’em.”

It was a wiretap transcript of Sister Sharon trying to reach Chardy with a message from Trewitt.

“He sounds like he’s onto something. And he’s in trouble,” Chardy said.

“We got it two days ago from one of your Technical Services people up in Boston who was closing down the tap on her phone. And our next step was to put an intercept on any Western Union messages that came through to you care of your old school. This just came through and it’s why we decided to bring you in tonight.”

Chardy read:

UNC WHERE YOU? HAVE JEWELS NEED HELP BAD BANDITOS ABOUT EL PLOMO MEX NEPHEW JIM

“El Plomo’s a town in the Carrizai mountains, west of Nogales, just over the border. The message was sent Tuesday by a Mexican national. It looks like Nephew Jim’s out on a very dangerous limb. Now we could go to the Agency about this, go to Miles Lanahan ano!—”

“No,” Chardy said.

“No, of course not. So what we’re going to do, Paul, is we’re going to go down there, yes we are; we’re putting together a little party tonight just for that. You see, Paul, we do like you. We want you to come along.”

“Then let’s go,” said Chardy.

45

Dawn was coming.

Trewitt forced his tongue across his dry lips, scanning the rocky slope before him. He could see nothing except scrawny grass, the spill of boulders, the crumbling mountainside itself.

“Hey? You okay?” Ramirez called.

“Okay, I guess,” Trewitt said.

But he was not. The wound no longer hurt and the bunched shirt pressed hastily into it had at last stanched the bleeding. But he felt like he was going to fall out of his head. He’d vomited twice during the night too, whether before or after he was hit he was not sure. But at least with the sun would come some heat and perhaps he could stop shivering.

“They coming pretty soon now, Jesus Mary. Hey, you got any bullets left?”

Trewitt thought he did. Somewhere. In a pocket. He thought he’d look for them in a little while. What was the rush?

“Kid, hey, kid. Kid! You all right?”

“Fine. I’m fine.”

“’Cause, goddamn, it look like I almost lose you there, and Ramirez don’t want to be on this mountaintop alone.” He laughed. He seemed to see something funny, insanely humorous, in all this.

Trewitt tried to concentrate on what was swimming out of the night before him: the slope and, three hundred feet down, a line of crippled oaks and pines.

And behind him? Nothing but blue space and miles of worthless beauty. They had run out of mountain. They were at its top, backed to the edge of a sheer drop-off. Hundreds of feet of raw space lay just beyond the crest.

Trewitt became aware of a warm, wet sensation near his loins. He thought he was bleeding again. No, it was his bladder, emptying itself unaccountably. He was surprised he had anything left to piss and disgusted and ashamed for having lost control until he realized the bullet had probably wrecked the plumbing, the valves and tubes down there — it had hit him in the back, just above the waist, and not come out.

“You gonna die, kid?”

Trewitt thought, probably.

He rubbed his hand across his face and felt his matted beard. He sure wished he had a drink of water. He could smell himself — and he’d always been so clean. He wished he could get warm. He wished he didn’t feel so doped up. He mourned the child. Why did they have to hurt the child? It was terrible about the child. Trewitt began to cry. A tear wobbled down his nose; it was so close to his eye it seemed huge and luminous, a great light-filled blur refracting the world into dazzle. But it fell off. The scrawny grass, the rocky slope, the dusty mountains all returned, lightening in the rising sun, under a mile of gray-going-silver sky. The sun rose like an abundant orange flare to the east.

A shot rang out, kicking up a puff of dust nearby.

“Wasn’t even close,” said Ramirez. “Come on, whores,” he screamed in his richest Spanish, “you can do better than that.”

Through his cracked lips, Trewitt again offered his one question:

“Who are they?”

“Who cares?” Ramirez answered. “Evil men. Bandits. Gunmen, gangsters. Mother of Jesus, I’d like to kill me one. Mother of Jesus, send Reynoldo a present so that he will not die with a curse for you on his lips.” He threw the rifle suddenly to his shoulder, and fired.

“Missed. Virgin, you disappoint me. He drew back. Son of a whore.” He recocked, the spent shell popping out and rolling down to Trewitt, who hid beneath him in a gathering of rocks.

“I think maybe they’re going to rush us now. Why not? It’s light; they won’t shoot each other up. I’ll introduce you to them in a few seconds, Mr. Norteamericano. I’ll introduce you to Senor Machinegun and his friend Senor Other Machinegun, and his friend Senor Still Another Machinegun. And there’s Senor Telescope Rifle. I want them to meet my good friend over here, Senor Gringo Crazy Fool Who Wanted Adventures — Hey, what is your name? You must have a name?”

“Trewitt. It’s Trewitt,” Trewitt said, anxious to get the information into Ramirez’s brain for some reason.

“Mr. Crazy Gringo Trewitt Who Wants Adventures. Well, he sure got himself a hell of a one, didn’t he? In Old Mexico. Hey, Mr. Crazy Gringo Trewitt, I think they going to come any second now, oh, yes, any Mother-of-Jesus moment, and then we’ll see who the whores are, Hey you whores, come on, get it over with, whores, ha, they ain’t gonna stick their heads up, no sir.”

He carried on like that crazily for a while, imploring them to come at him, begging them, blaspheming their mothers and their fathers and their children and their pets. He finally seemed to run out of energy.

“Oh, Jesus,” moaned Trewitt.

“He won’t help you now, Mr. Crazy Gringo, no He won’t I don’t see no Jesus around. I don’t see no Virgin, I don’t see no priests, no sister, no nothing. No church up here, no Holy Mother. I’d like to get me that black whore’s abortion with the telescope rifle. Oh, Holy Mother, give him to your sinning child, Reynoldo, just give him to me so I may shoot his balls off, please, I’ll go to mass every day for the rest of — Hey!”

“Huh? Oh, I must have dozed off.”