Renegade 15, p.1
Renegade 15, page 1
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CAPTAIN GRINGO dodges bullets in Belize!
Leading a handful of raiders on a stolen schooner, Captain Gringo sails up the Mosquito Coast in British Honduras toward a remote, thickly guarded jungle fortress. His job: to bag a fearsome butcher who hunts human prey for sport. And he must play with ladies, too – a shrinking Victorian violet in distress and a sensual señorita who holds the secret to his happiness.
RENEGADE 15: TERROR TRAIL
By Lou Cameron, writing as Ramsay Thorne
First Published by Warner Books in 1982
Copyright © 1982, 2016 by Lou Cameron
First Smashwords Edition: September 2016
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Cover image © 2016 by Tony Masero
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Mike Stotter
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
Roaming in the gloaming could get spooky in the tropics. As Captain Gringo strode along the nearly deserted cobbled quay, the harbor waters of Corozal lay quiet as a mill pond, reflecting the ugly sunset sky above. The setting sun to the west was a dull pumpkin pie and the sullen sky had a bad case of gangrene. Purple clouds edged with greenish mustard were moving seaward against the usual trade winds. At sea level, the air was heavy, humid, still, and smelled like the breech block of an overheated machinegun. Captain Gringo hadn’t fired a machinegun in recent memory, so he knew the only other answer was a pending visit from the Great Carib Sky God, Hurikan.
He squinted out across the harbor, cursing under his breath. The native fishing boats had been hauled up on the quay as the native fishermen headed for higher ground. So where in the hell was that effing Greystoke’s yacht and, more important, where was his effing money? Captain Gringo and his sidekick, Gaston, hadn’t hacked their way all the way down to the coast through all that spinach to admire the ugly little town of Corozal under an even uglier sunset. They’d done the job British Intelligence had hired them to do up in the highlands, and Greystoke had said he’d be waiting here with the pay-off. Unless the sardonic Englishman enjoyed putting out to sea in hurricane weather, it looked like a kiss-off instead of a pay-off!
As he moved along the quay, Captain Gringo noticed an out-of-place feminine figure seated pensively on a mooring stanchion, gazing out to sea. Even a native girl would have seemed out of place there with a hurricane about to blow over the horizon any minute. This particular addition to an otherwise dull landscape looked like she’d been drawn by Charles Dana Gibson. But Captain Gringo didn’t stop to ask her what a blond Gibson girl was doing in Corozal. It seemed logical enough to see a girl with Anglo-Saxon dress and features in a British Honduran port, once you thought about it. Her sporty middy and simple skirt indicated she was as modem a miss as the other Gibson Girls and he wasn’t up to explaining the facts of Latin American life to her right now. With the quay deserted, it hardly seemed likely any local Lothario would take her lack of an escort as an invitation and, what the hell, if she didn’t have enough sense to head back to her hotel or whatever before those storm clouds up there burst, she deserved to get wet.
He was more interested in another figure coming down the quay to meet him: Gaston. The dapper little Frenchman had obviously completed his own sweep from the far end of the harbor when Captain Gringo stopped and took out a Havana Claro. He noticed how damp the air was when he had to thumb the match head more than once to light it.
Gaston Verrier, late of the French Foreign Legion, joined Captain Gringo to say, “Merde alors, we have been crossed double, Dick. I just spoke to a certain rogue I know, up at the chandler’s shop near the far end of the quay. That species of an Englishman weighed anchor two days ago, while we were toiling our way through the thrice-accursed jungle!”
Captain Gringo snorted smoke out his nostrils like a bull looking for someone to gore before he replied, “So Greystoke hasn’t put out to sea because of the storm warnings. Goddamn it, I knew he was going to cross us when we took the fucking job. Why do I do things like that, Gaston?”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Perhaps you have a glandular problem. To be just, Greystoke may have thought we were not coming back, hein? We were in the highlands quite some time. I warned you those extra weeks you spent with the trés grateful Spanish widow might discourage our British business associates from waiting about for us, non?”
Captain Gringo grinned sheepishly and answered, “What can I tell you? She wasn’t just grateful, she was great. Besides, we needed the vacation to steady our nerves after smoking up those chocolate soldiers, right?”
“I enjoyed the native girls I shacked up with, too. But enough of this ancient history, my old and horny. Obviously we are not about to be paid for the more fatiguing parts of our mission and, just as obviously, we can’t linger here in British Honduras too long before some trés fatigue official asks annoying questions. It’s one thing to be working under the wing of an understanding British Intelligence but if s another to explain all those tedious reward posters to the colonial constabulary, non?”
Captain Gringo nodded, blew a thoughtful smoke ring, and watched it hang in the breathless brassy air as he said, “When you’re right, you’re right. We don’t know where in hell Greystoke’s gone with our money, and we probably don’t have enough ready cash to follow him if we did. Do you think we have enough between us to make it back to Costa Rica?”
Gaston looked wistful and replied, “Ordinary passage to Limon, oui. The undivided loyalty of a purser who doubtless has our reward posters on his cabin bulkhead, non. We are going to have to pick up more work, somewhere closer, Dick.”
Captain Gringo glanced landward with a thoughtful frown. The sun was down behind the tile roofing of Corozal now, so it would soon be dark. “The British colonial cops are a pain in the ass about guys they don’t know on the streets at night,” he volunteered. “The first thing we’d better think about is a place to hole up.”
“Oui, what about the hotel we stayed in the last time we were here?”
“No good. I made some enemies at the hotel and our only friend in high places seems to have skipped out on us. Don’t you know anyone in town we can trust for a night or two?”
Gaston shrugged and answered, “I know lots of people along the Mosquito Coast, Dick. As for trusting any of them, don’t be silly. I know a semi-retired lady of the evening in Belize who would doubtless shelter us for old times’ sake. She admires the way I make love and she must have a friend for you. Alas, Belize is over sixty of your Yankee miles down the coast.”
Captain Gringo looked the other way: the seaward horizon was greenish black and the overhead green and purple clouds were moving faster to meet it. He said, “I don’t know about you, but a sixty-mile stroll along the beach in a hurricane doesn’t sound like much fun!”
“I agree. It won’t be safe here in an hour or less. But regard that trés strange English type, back there. What on earth could she have in mind?”
Captain Gringo turned and regarded the Gibson Girl as she stood poised on the edge of the stone quay, eyes closed.
Gaston murmured, “She’s going to jump.”
And Captain Gringo agreed with him, but didn’t answer. There wasn’t time to as he dashed back along the quay and hooked her slim waist like an express train picking up a mail bag on the fly!
“Let me go!” she sobbed as his momentum carried them both to safer ground and he steadied her on her feet. Her eyes were still closed and tears ran down her cheeks in the dim light as she weakly struggled in his arms.
He shook her gently and said, “Tell me about it. I’ve a .38 to lend you if you have a really good reason to die. I’m not about to let any lady drown herself in that filthy water. We’re just downstream from a sewer outlet.”
The incongruity of his remarks opened her eyes, but she still looked unhappy as hell and insisted, “Let me go. It’s my life that’s been ruined. It’s my right to end it any way I see fit.”
“Hey, I said I’d lend you a gun. But let’s talk about it first, okay?”
By this time Gaston had joined them. The girl sobbed, tried to pull away again and then, realizing the struggle was useless, buried her face against Captain Gringo’s linen-clad chest and began to bawl like a baby.
He held her, patting her trembling shoulder reassuringly as he waited for her to get it all out. Gaston asked if she was pregnant or just broke. Captain Gringo shook his head warningly and muttered, “Don’t pester her. She’ll tell us what’s eating her when she’s good and ready.”
“I can’t,” the girl sobbed. “You’re sweet to try, but I’m in enough trouble as it is. They’d kill me if I told anyone else about it!”
Captain Gringo laughed gently, and asked, “Back up and think about what you just said, honey. You’re not making a hell of a lot of sense.”
Gaston said, “Oui, one who is in fear of her life has no business leaping into the Caribbean, hein?”
The pretty would-be suicide didn’t think it was funny. She shuddered in Captain Gringo’s arms and insisted, “There’s no hope left f or me. I am done for. I may still hope for a cleaner death than the one El Cazador plans for me. I have no right to involve others in my doom!”
Captain Gringo frowned over her shoulder at Gaston, who nodded and said, “Oui, that means The Hunter. One gathers this El Cazador, whoever he may be, takes a dramatic view of life.”
“I’m Dick Walker,” Captain Gringo informed the girl, “and this is Gaston Verrier and we’re on your side, Miss ...?”
“Harlow, Morgana Harlow. Originally from Mayfair.”
“I didn’t take you for a señorita. Look, it’s going to start raining and blowing pretty good any minute, Miss Harlow. What say we all get to high ground before we talk it over, eh?”
“I’m tired of running. I’ve run so far, and so far he’s always caught up with me.”
“Yeah. Meanwhile we’re about to get blown away in a hurricane. Do you have a place of your own here in Corozal?”
She nodded and answered, “I’ve rented a private house, but we can’t go there. I think El Cazador knows where I’ve been staying!”
“You think? Hell, things are looking up. I know for sure this quay’s about to get hit with at least a twenty-foot tide any minute. We’ll take our chances on a jerk-off with a gun!”
~*~
Morgana Harlow kept insisting it wasn’t safe for them to take her home but they did it anyway. By the time they reached her one-story, rented house, wrapped around a small patio, the sky was black and the wind was howling like hungry wolves. At ground level the air was going the other way, picking up trash and dust and spitting big gobs of warm rain ahead of it. The house was on a hillside Captain Gringo hoped was high enough. The stout oaken gate was barred on the inside and they had to pound a while before a frightened looking housekeeper opened up for them. As they ducked in and locked the gate behind them, again the chica sobbed, “Oh, señorita, I was so worried about you. I fear we are about to have a most terrible storm!”
The English girl was still confused. So Captain Gringo asked the native girl if there were any other servants and if anyone had come calling on La Señorita while she was out. The chica shook her head and said, “No to both questions, señor. I was so frightened at the thought of spending the night here all alone! Forgive me, I am trying to be brave, but when I was little, a hurricane swept through my home village and many of my people died. Do you think we shall die, here, tonight?”
It was a good question. Captain Gringo smiled reassuringly and said, “We’re behind stout walls on high ground. But we could all wind up with the ague if we don’t see about drying things out a bit. Which way is the room with the biggest fireplace? I don’t usually take charge this way, but you can see your señorita is not herself this evening.”
The chica nodded and led them around the patio arcade to a drawing room whose walls were thick stucco, and the furnishings were spartan. But the room was cozy, for the little housekeeper had already kindled a blaze in the baronial baroque plaster fireplace. There was no other illumination and the flames were acting funny as the wind above whipped across the flue. As he sat the lady of the house down on a leather sofa near the fire, Captain Gringo noticed the native girl wasn’t bad, either. She was maybe half Indian with various white and Negro genes making up the difference to give her that oddly raceless, exotic look you saw down here in bananaland. She was a little plump for Captain Gringo’s taste. Gaston took her arm as he asked her if she’d started fires in the other rooms and, if she hadn’t, offered to help. Captain Gringo didn’t comment as the sly old dog left with the pretty little wench. Morgana Harlow seemed not to notice or, if she noticed, not to care. She sat upright, tensely staring into the flickering flames as if she saw something there that made her nervous as hell.
Captain Gringo sat beside her, placing his planter’s hat on the end table and opening his jacket to leave the grip of his shoulder holstered .38 free for any action that might arise. He asked, “Is it all right for me to smoke, ma’am?” and the English girl nodded but said, “You must leave as soon as you finish one cigar. You and Gaston are in terrible danger here.”
He struck a light and got his Claro going before he answered calmly, “You’re wrong. Aside from a hurricane blowing outside, Gaston and I have guys hunting for us, too. If I tell you my story, will you tell me yours?”
She didn’t answer. He blew a cloud of smoke at the fire, nodded, and said, “I’ll make it short and sweet. I used to be a U.S. Army officer until I got in trouble. They court martialed me and sentenced me to hang – up in the States. I didn’t like the idea too much. I had to kill a good-for-nothing fellow officer as I escaped from the guardhouse. I jumped the border and met up with Gaston in a Mexican jail. The Mexicans wanted to execute us both although we’ve never quite figured out why. We smoked up a mess of guys as we escaped from there, too. Since then we’ve been knocking around Latin America, doing odd jobs for people. We’re what that reporter, Richard Harding Davis, likes to call ‘soldiers of fortune.’ In other words, we fight people for a living or, sometimes, just to keep on living. I’m a trained machine gunner and a fairly good all-around gunfighter. Gaston’s older and shorter, but he's fairly good in a scrap, too. We’re on your side because, frankly, it’s the only offer we’ve had all day. We need a place to hole up and you obviously need somebody to protect you. Do we have a deal?”
She sighed and: answered, “I don’t seem to have much choice. I told you not to meddle in my affairs. But you insisted, and if El Cazador’s men have spotted you two gallant fools in my company – and they probably have – he has you and Gaston on his death list too, now!”
“Okay, I’ll just put the son-of-a-bitch on my list, as soon as you tell me who on earth we’re talking about. Who, or what, is El Cazador?”
She grimaced and replied, “Among other things, he’s my husband. At least, he’s my legal husband. I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you the marriage was never consummated?”
He leaned back and stared thoughtfully at her. Morgana’s cameo profile was turned to him, so he could examine her at leisure: she looked pretty good. Aside from having a beautiful face, her modem attitude about corsetage and her thin damp middy blouse revealed a figure that made one doubt the sanity of any man married to such a dish in name only. That twenty-two or three inch waistline was real, not whalebone, and he made her about thirty-six, firm, around the chest.
She apparently took his polite silence for disbelief, for she said, “It wasn’t my idea. I’ll confess I didn’t come to my marriage quite a virgin. I didn’t love Roderico when I married him in London a few months ago. But I married him in good faith and I would have been willing to play my part as the wife of a reasonably attractive man with, well, a lot of money.”
“Is that why you married the guy?”
“Yes. I told him so from the beginning. You see, he started paying court to me as I was breaking up with a former lover who hadn’t treated me very nicely, either.” She suddenly blushed and said, “Oh, dear, all this raking over old embers does make me look a bit low, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged and said, “If you were really low, you wouldn’t feel low. I just got through telling you I’m wanted in the States for murder and I feel fine about my conscience. But leaving value judgment aside, you’re confusing me pretty good. Why don’t you just start at the beginning? I’ll shoot anybody who busts in to interrupt your tale.”
Morgana turned to him with a sad little smile and said, “I think you would but El Cazador is very dangerous and—”
“Let me be the judge of that,” he interrupted, adding, “First of all, you have to tell me who the hell he is and why you call him some macho nickname when he’s still your darling hubby, Roderico, on paper.”
She nodded and explained, “I didn’t know he was El Cazador when we met in London. Now that I do know, I can’t think of him as anything else.”
“The beginning, babe. Start at the beginning.”
She looked away, cheeks flushed, as she said softly, “That’s the hard part. My story is all too familiar. It starts with an innocent Essex country girl who’d been told, too often, she was the prettiest young thing in a sleepy English village. She could have had her pick of the honest rustic lads she met at the grange dances, but she thought she was too pretty.”
