Renegade 21 Read online

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  About the Book

  River of Revenge

  Copyright

  About Piccadilly Publishing

  About Lou Cameron/Ramsay Thorne

  The Renegade Series

  El Generale Portola, the ‘Butcher of Leon’ waved money in Gringo’s face. The message was clear—he had to blow up the new dam on the Dorado or be sliced up in little pieces himself.

  The construction company building the dam sent a counter-offer, via a lady who was blonde, beautiful and very smooth. She had a way of communicating between the lines—and the sheets—that really reached him.

  But no matter whose side he was on, Gringo was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t … and probably stone-cold dead, too!

  El Generale Hernan Portola, Liberator of the South, or Butcher of Leon, depending on whom one asked, stood in uffish thought atop a pile of coral block rubble as he regarded a scene of almost total devastation.

  According to the ordnance map of Nicaragua, there was supposed to be an old Spanish fort here. According to one’s own senses, there was only a flat plain of shattered masonry and glass that smelled just awful. The sea-scented trade winds from the Mosquito Coast to the east helped a little. But the sickly sweet stench of death and the acrid reek of detonated high explosives still clung to the razed fortifications.

  El Generale’s men poked here and there amid the chalky rubble in hopes of salvageable weaponry. An army on the march needed all the spare parts it could find. As they moved about, wispy clouds of buzzing blowflies rose like smoke from where they’d been feeding—on charred lumps of human flesh, embedded like raisins in the debris. The soldados wore damp kerchiefs over their faces. It didn’t really help. But orders were orders, and when one marched with El Generale Portola, one expected to smell death.

  A pair of junior officers approached El Generale across the razed ruins. They marched in step, waist-high in flies, until they stopped, within easy conversational distance, saluted, and hit a brace as one.

  El Generale stared down at them without expression as he asked, “Well?”

  His senior aide answered, “We have spoken to the Indios in the village to the south, as you commanded, El Generale. As we suspected, it was the work of that Yanqui maniac, Captain Gringo. Los Indios say they were most grateful he warned them in time to escape the explosion here. They say they all ran well clear in time, and it only took them a day or so to put new thatch roofing on their miserable shacks.”

  El Generale stared pensively out across the ruins for a moment before he observed, “It’s a waste of time for our muchachos to poke through the ruins for salvage, if those miserable Mosquito Indians have had all this time to pick over the rubble. On the other hand, it keeps the troops from plotting mischief if one keeps them busy.”

  He turned back to his aides with a slight frown and added, “So, the renegade, Ricardo Walker, is responsible for this mess as well as the carnage a good day’s march to the west, eh?”

  The senior aide said, “Si, my generale. As we figured his latest rampage, Captain Gringo and that loco little Frenchman he rampages with wiped out a whole column of guerrillas on our side, another column of guerrillas fighting for the other side, then shot up a river steamer before marching over here and blowing up all these European gunrunners.”

  The other aide pointed out across the ruins and said, “The Indios say he did this all by himself, without the help of even the loco little Frenchman! In God’s truth, I have heard of homicidal lunatics in my time, but this one seems a one-man Horde of Attila!”

  El Generale nodded thoughtfully and said, “He certainly did a job on this place, and you say he did it all by himself? Madre de Dios, what manner of man can this Captain Gringo be?”

  The less excitable aide shrugged and said, “He is supposed to be a dead man, my generale. They keep trying to kill him. Yet he lives. It is said he became a Yanqui renegade when the Yanqui army court-martialed him and sentenced him for to hang. It is said the Mexican Rurales tried to execute him too, when he escaped across the border from los Yanquis. Since then he has bounced all over Latin America as a soldado of fortune and most hot potato. Naturally, responsible people like ourselves wish to see him dead. But, the lousy pobrecitos who do not see the advantages of sensible government tend to lie to us about his whereabouts and—”

  “Silencio!” El Generale cut in with an imperious gesture, adding, “I am not interested in the soldado of fortune’s biography. I wish for to know his whereabouts at this moment. Did any of those Indios say they knew which way the Yanqui and his French associate went after blowing up this place, or do we have to beat it out of them the hard way?”

  The senior aide shook his head with a smile and replied, “We already pointed out the advantages of behaving as public-spirited citizens of Nicaragua, my generale. In truth, more than one seemed somewhat displeased at the ringing Captain Gringo left in everyone’s ears as he left. They say Captain Gringo, the Frenchman, and their harem of adelitas left for that British navy base at Greytown, just down the coast.”

  The other aide shrugged and said, “By now they will have made it. It’s been several days since they destroyed this gunrunners’ nest. I don’t know why, but our central government won’t let us invade that damned British colony squatting on Nicaraguan soil.”

  El Generale said, “We’re working with Washington on that. Meanwhile, there are many ways to skin the cat, no? Captain Gringo and his friends could not have been invited to Greytown by Queen Victoria. So if he is in Greytown, it is as an illegal visitor the British do not know they have. I see no reason why two or more can’t play the same game, do you? I need a couple of volunteers, muchachos. You, and you, will don civilian clothing and pay a visit on this Captain Gringo for me, no?”

  The two aides exchanged glances. The more sensible one said, “We shall arrange the matter at once, my generale. I see no difficulty in slipping into Greytown disguised as what the British tend to dismiss as mere natives. Finding a fellow tourist in Greytown may be more difficult. But rest assured, my generale, if he is there, we shall track him down and kill him for you as you wish!”

  El Generale rolled his eyes heavenward and groaned, “Listen to them, God! Am I really the only officer in this army you created with enough sense to unbutton his pants before he takes a piss?”

  He glared down at his subordinates and roared, “Idiots! Captain Gringo has left Nicaraguan soil after proving to everyone with the brains of a mosquito that it’s suicide to tangle with him! He’s obviously trying to get back to his hideout in Costa Rica, where he presents no danger to either side in our civil war. Yet you think I’m about to throw away even your miserable lives in an almost certainly futile assassination attempt?”

  They stared, bemused, afraid to speak, since El Generale had obviously gone loca en la cabeza at the mere mention of the renegade’s name. Finally one of the aides screwed up the courage to ask, “If you do not wish the Yanqui dead, my generale, for why you are sending us to look for him?”

  El Generale waved an expansive hand out across the rubble as he replied, “To proposition him, of course. Look at the mess he made of this place all by his little self! Madre de Dios, I couldn’t have done a better job with my whole army! I don’t want to kill Captain Gringo, muchachos, I want to hire the crazy bastard!”

  The British protectorate of Greytown looked like someone had built a little bit of England, cheap, and marooned it on the Mosquito Coast.

  The hotel Captain Gringo and his sidekick, Gaston, had checked into under false pretenses was pretending to be an English coaching inn that had somehow wandered into a mangrove swamp. The roofing was corrugated tin instead of thatch,
and any paint they’d ever applied to the outside had been stripped by the muggy heat and constant trade winds. But at least the outside had weathered to a reasonably dry shade of silvery gray. It was more quaint inside. The wallpaper in Captain Gringo’s corner room was fuzzy green with mold, and mushrooms sprouting from the rug in one corner. The brass bedstead, despite the smell of polish, was cheap-wedding-ring green in the cracks, and the room had cross-ventilation.

  Gaston had said it was one of the better hotels in town. Captain Gringo didn’t want to think what conditions in the native quarter could be like. As old hands at the knock-around life, the two adventurers had ditched the native girls they’d started out with and checked in here as a pair of traveling banana brokers from New Orleans. It didn’t really matter if the management believed that, as long as their money held out. Gaston was out trying to scout up passage down the coast in his usual furtive gray way. So the tall blond American lay, hot, sticky, nude, and bored, across the fresh but already wilting linens on the bed, smoking a claro as he studied the ceiling. He was trying to decide whether the cracks in the plaster looked more like a map of Africa or of South America. He had decided it didn’t really matter by the time he heard a discreet rap on the door across the room. It wasn’t Gaston’s rap. It was too polite to be a cop out there in the hall. So he guessed it was the maid. He got up, wrapped a towel around his middle, pulled his double-action .38 from its shoulder rig draped over a chair near the bed, and moved over to ask, “Yeah?”

  A feminine voice replied from the other side, “I have to speak with you, Captain Gringo.”

  He didn’t answer as he thought about that. The hotel help hadn’t gotten his professional title from anything he’d signed downstairs.

  He moved to one side and unlatched the door as he said, “Come right in.” So she did, as he shoved the muzzle of his .38 against her ribs and slammed the door shut behind her with his bare heel, saying, “Don’t turn around. Walk over to the bed and put both your hands on the brass. If you know who I am, you must know the form, toots.”

  His feminine visitor protested, “This is silly!” but did as anyone else with a .38 poking them in the ribs would do. As she moved to the foot of the bed and clasped the rail with both hands, he saw that she was a strawberry blonde with a silly little straw boater perched atop her pinned-up hair. She filled her Gibson Girl summer outfit—a thin white blouse and khaki whipcord skirt—rather nicely. She wore her skirt “Rainy Susie”—an inch or so higher around the ankles of her high-button buff kid shoes than Queen Victoria might have approved. He said, “Okay, move your feet back and spread ’em.

  She did, but protested. “I’m off balance, you mean thing.”

  He said, “That’s the general idea,” as he started patting her down with his free hand. Up until then, he’d been using said hand to hold the towel around his waist. But modesty was less important to a man with a price on his head than making sure nobody figured to collect it. So as he searched her, standing behind her, he was nude. As he made sure she wasn’t packing a rod between her thighs, she gasped, “My God, that’s me you’re grabbing there, Captain Gringo!”

  He grinned and stepped back, saying, “Okay, only one of us has a gun. Just let me get my towel back and …”

  She turned before he bent to pick up the towel. She was pretty as hell, considering the startled expression on her face when she saw what else he was pointing at her.

  He laughed, picked up the towel, and said, “Sorry about that. Feeling pretty ladies up always does that to the little basser. Sit down, if you like, and tell me what the pitch is, miss, ah …?”

  “I’m Gloria. Last names don’t matter, in my line of work.”

  “Oh? What kind of work are you in, Gloria? It’s only fair to warn you I’m too romantic-natured to pay, no matter what you just noticed before I got this towel back in place.”

  She lowered her lashes with a becoming blush and said, “I know all about your reputation as a lover, Captain Gringo. That’s not what I came to see you about.”

  “Oh, hell, it’s starting to cool off a little, too. Okay, you’re not a hooker and you’re too pretty to be a house detective. But you keep using my name in vain. Who sent you, Gloria?”

  “I’m, ah, not at liberty to tell you just yet. Do you have anything to drink? It’s true that the trades are picking up now that the sun’s moved to a less beastly angle, but it’s still bloody hot and I’m perishing with thirst.”

  He nodded and moved to the dresser where he’d left the water olla, rum, and hotel tumblers. He could see her in the mirror, so he put the gun down. And still needed two hands to mix drinks, so he let go of the towel again. As it fell, exposing his bare buttocks, she repressed a smile and asked, “Do you often pose for sculptures, Captain Gringo? I mean, you do have a nice body, as well you know, but really—”

  “What can I tell you, Gloria? I can see by your outfit that you’re an old tropic hand, so don’t try to tell me you don’t lay around in the buff during la siesta, too.”

  She fluttered her lashes at his bare ass and replied, “Of course, but I almost always dress for company!”

  “I wasn’t expecting company. You want water with a little rum or rum with a little water, Gloria? I used to have some ice, but not since I found myself south of Mexico.”

  “We British don’t share your Yankee madness for ice. Make mind half and half, please.”

  He did. It was a point in her favor that she admitted being a Brit. He’d picked up on her educated English accent already, of course, but some dames lied even when the truth was in their favor. She was dressed sort of Yank, or at any rate more like American girls dressed in hot weather. He picked up the tumblers, thought about the towel on the rug at his feet, and wondered what the hell he had to hide that she hadn’t already seen. So he just turned around and walked over to the bed with the booze.

  She politely avoided looking down as she accepted her drink with a nod of thanks. He decided he’d look less naked sitting beside her than on the chair across from her. She repressed a flinch as he sat beside her, raised his own tumbler, and said, “Mud in your eye.”

  He let her take a good belt before he said, “Okay, are we going to get drunk or did you have a tale to tell me, Gloria?”

  She took another sip of her drink and said, “Let’s start by telling about you, Captain Gringo, alias Dick Walker. We know about the naughty things you just did up the coast, and we heartily approve. Both sides in that silly civil war are a bore.”

  “I found them sort of tedious. Who’s we?”

  “I’m not finished, Dick. At the moment your little French friend, Gaston Verrier, is under observation. Don’t get excited. He’s in no danger. I only mention him because you ought to know he’s not going to be able to book passage out in the near future. It’s the hurricane season and only the bigger steamers will be putting out to sea, for important reasons.”

  As if to prove her point, something tapped on the tin roof above like a ball-peen hammer. She blinked and asked, “Good Lord, what’s that?”

  He got to his feet and walked naked to the window to hold his glass of tepid rum and water outside as he said, “Hail. Looks like we’re in for a real thunder-buster. Sure you don’t want some ice in your glass?”

  She sniffed primly and said, “No, thank you. Do you have to expose yourself like that?”

  He let a few hailstones plop into his drink as he replied, “I’m not exposed to anyone outside. If you don’t like the way I dress in the privacy of my own digs, you can always leave. It’s too hot to argue about formal attire, dammit.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, sit down again and stop waving that … you know, around. Be serious, Dick. I have important business to discuss with you.”

  He sat back down beside her, tasted the drink, and said, “Not bad. Okay, let’s get to the good parts. Who sent you and who do they want Gaston and me to shoot up?”

  The hail was really coming down now. It sounded like a couple of skele
tons were making mad gypsy love on the roof, using a tin can for a rubber. Gloria raised her voice and almost shouted, “Lean closer, dammit. I don’t want the whole hotel to hear this.”

  He moved until his bare hip was against her skirt, but said, “Don’t worry, doll. The way it’s hailing, we couldn’t be overheard if your husband was under the bed.”

  She laughed, unbuttoned her collar, and said, “I can’t understand how it can be so bloody hot with ice bouncing off the roof! Would you mind if I, ah, got a bit more comfortable?”

  He reached up, unpinned her straw boater, and said, “Hey, you can strip to the buff for all I care. When in Rome and all that rot, right?”

  “Down, boy! I only mean to, ah, loosen up a bit,” she warned, as she took another healthy swig of rum and water. He went on unbuttoning her blouse. The rum seemed to be loosening her up pretty good, but it was still hot and muggy in the room. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care as she said, “The people I work for don’t want you to do anything particularly violent, Dick. It’s a straight security job for an, ah, international trust; and speaking of trust, that’s all the buttons I think we’d best unbutton until we know each other a lot better, dear.”

  He’d already known from having patted her down that she was too smart to wear underwear on a tropical afternoon. So he stopped undressing her and didn’t comment on the perky pink nipple peeking out at him from her open blouse as he asked, “Where is the job, and, again, who’s paying to have it done?”

  “The engineering works you’ll be guarding is up the San Juan, about halfway to Lake Nicaragua, Dick. There’s been a little, ah, trouble with the natives. But if you were there with a machine gun or two —”

  “Stop right there!” he cut in with a frown. The hail pounded hard enough almost to drown him out when he continued, “Trouble is all they grow in Nicaragua, and we’re not about to go back for more, doll!”

  She had to lean closer to be heard as she insisted, “It’s not in the war zone, Dick. My company has paid off both Granada and Leon, so no regular troops from either side will bother you!”