Tanner’s Tiger

“I know.” If only there had been a way to bring along the Bertons’ machine gun.

“Still, when they don’t know you’re coming, they won’t have the table set, will they now? The old element of surprise. Sneak in fast and spirit out the woman and Devil take the hindmost. Then you’ll want me to put you over the border, eh? Would it do to set you down just over the Vermont line?”

“I think so. Will you have enough fuel?”

“Might or might not. Could be close, but if it runs tight, we’ll just set her down somewhere and fill up with gasoline. Silly thing doesn’t fuss about fuel. Would run on rock salt if you could get it to burn. Whoa, now, where have they gone to? Did you spot it?”

“Yes.” I pointed. “They swung left just past those trees and cut the lights.”

“Got it. Got the spot fixed firm enough and won’t forget it. Off we go.”

He took us around to the right, explaining that he would give them time to leave their cars and go wherever they were going before coming in tight for an aerial survey. We sailed off to the right, spun lazily around, and headed back. I had already lost my bearings, but he seemed to remember the spot I’d pointed to. He brought us down low and let the copter skim over the tops of the trees. For a while we saw nothing but trees. Then the trees came to an abrupt halt and we were out over a long, flat clearing. I made out the four cars, a truck, a long low building of concrete block with a flat roof.

“Well, now,” he said suddenly. “A flock of cars is one thing, but you can’t expect a little egg crate like this to trail one of those.”

I didn’t understand at first. I thought he meant the truck, and wondered if he might be making a joke, and if I perhaps ought to laugh at it.

Then I looked out at the clearing and got the joke but didn’t laugh. Because it wasn’t just a clearing. It was an airstrip, and there was one hell of a big silvery jetliner perched on it.

“Now in this particular sort of water,” said the Jolly Aviator, “I don’t know that I’d use bait at all. I think I’d drop some dynamite and see what came to the surface.”

“Shhh.”

“Did you see the size of that bird, though? You could put the chopper in its luggage compartment.”

“Shhhh.”

We had landed the chopper about a quarter of a mile from the landing strip, and now we were walking back along the dirt road in a reasonable facsimile of silence. Arlette’s entrance had shaken them up, all right. Unless I was very far off the mark, they were about to fill up the plane with all the people they had snatched and beat it out of the country in a hurry. If we didn’t do something, Arlette and Mi

It wasn’t surprising that they were shook up. Arlette and I had dropped in on them once when nobody was home, and whatever traces we had left behind was enough to put four men on guard duty all night. Arlette’s second visit, combined with the general hysteria we had created throughout Montreal, must have nudged them over the edge. They wouldn’t be kidnaping anybody else now. They’d just put the last load of prisoners on the plane and send all the evidence home to Fidel.

“We’ve got three guns,” I told them. “Mr… uh, the captain here, he’ll use his own. I’ll hang onto the thirty-eight. That leaves one of you fellows for the thirty-two automatic. It’s the lightest of the lot. Have either of you had any experience with handguns?” They hadn’t. “Well, which of you is best with a rifle? Who’s done the most shooting?”

Neither of them had done any shooting. Seth remembered that he had been fair with an air rifle at a shooting gallery on Times Square some years back. That put him one up on Randy and earned him the gun.

“There’s a lot to be said for basic training,” I told them. “If only there was a way you could do your eight weeks and then cop out-”

“They don’t approve of that,” Randy said.

“They call it desertion,” Seth said, “and frown on it.”

“It’s a shame. Maybe you won’t have to shoot anybody. If you do, just point the gun at the person you want to shoot. And squeeze the trigger. If you jerk it, you’ll hit something else. Here-” I took the clip out and showed him how to aim and fire while we walked along.

Randy, the unarmed one, must have read Mao’s book on guerrilla warfare. He bent over from time to time, picking up throwing-size stones and filling his pockets with them. He also got hold of a stick about five feet long, which he said would be useful for hitting people over the head. All in all, I figured he would be capable of doing more damage to the enemy than Seth, and perhaps as much as the rest of us, too.

We walked a little farther, and I put my finger to my lips, then motioned to the others to follow me in the rest of the way at twenty-yard intervals. We would make less noise that way. I picked out a cluster of trees on the perimeter of the landing strip, some thirty yards from the plane, perhaps twice that distance from the concrete-block structure. I crouched there in the shadows and waited until they joined me one by one.

I watched the plane and the building. The aircraft, as far as I could tell, was empty now. There were guards flanking the doorway of the building and three more guards, rifles slung across their shoulders, were smoking cigars down at the far end. I had no idea who was inside the building or what was going on there. It had no windows.

The guards were a far cry from the ones who had done duty at the pavilion. These were old line barbuda types, with full Fidelista beards and loose-fitting khaki fatigues. There was something extremely effective about those uniforms. The men gave off an aura of insolent competence, and I matched the four of us against the five of them, balanced our three guns (and one stick, and a few rocks) against their five rifles, and I hoped Mi

My mind was starting to do that again. I shook my head, hoping the motion might rearrange some of the cells. There had to be a way. If we could get the jump on one or two of the guards, that would make a big difference. We would have the use of their rifles and lower the odds against us. Arlette could call to them, coax them aside with the promise of sexual delight-

Not very likely. Arlette was inside the goddamned building.

I took a deep breath and plunged right back in again. One way or another, we could split up the guards and bump two of them. Then, armed with their rifles and our own pistols, and shooting from ambush, we could probably gun down the other three.

Then what?

Then we would have the building under siege, for whatever good that might do. With our guns pointing at the only door of a windowless building, we would at least be in a strong bargaining position. We couldn’t get in, but they couldn’t get out, and it would be to their obvious advantage to work a deal. At the very least, we could get them to release Mi

I went on figuring out other minor details because they were more easily resolved than the major one – namely, getting to the first two guards to start the game. Or did we really have to do it in stages? We did have three guns, and we were hidden and they were in the open, and-

And we were sixty yards away from them. I wasn’t sure the.32 would carry thirty yards, not to mention accuracy. And I knew the Magnum, with all its power, could barely be sure of hitting the building, let alone the guard in front of it. The.38 came closest to what we needed, and if only it had a longer barrel, it might have been accurate enough for plinking at people sixty yards away. In someone else’s hands, that is. Not mine.