Free Lone Wolf #5: Havana Hit by Mike Barry

and got a grip on the shoulders, then hoisted him, gasping. Wulff backed down the ramp, the body swinging in their clutch like a tent, ballooning slightly, streaming blood again, and they staggered downrange a hundred feet or so to a small raised hill, little strips of tar clinging to it. “Dump it,” Wulff said. Stevens dropped the body convulsively, the full weight of it rearing into Wulff momentarily and he lost his balance—the dead feet prodding deep into his chest—and he fell heavily in the ooze, still embracing the policeman. Stevens stood with his hands on his hips, looking at this expressionlessly. Wulff got to his feet, little strips of mud and tar clinging to him and said, “He’ll keep for a while. How far are we out of the capital?”
    “About ninety miles.”
    “Where are we?”
    “It’s hard to judge. We’d need a map.”
    “You used to flying blind, Stevens?”
    “I follow instructions,” Stevens said expressionlessly. “I do what I’m told to do and don’t think much about it and at the end of the day or week I get some money. I was told to fly south until ordered otherwise. I assume that I would have heard from our friend down here but he had an accident before he could have a chance to talk to me.”
    “You’re serious,” Wulff said, “aren’t you Stevens? You’re really serious about this. You don’t think, you just follow orders. Something must have happened to you a long time ago.”
    “Nothing
happened
to me,” Stevens said, “I’m not getting into personal details at all. I’m not serious. You’re the one who’s serious, Wulff. You’re the one who goes around killing people. Me? I just work here.”
    He turned toward Wulff then, a precise, neat man dressed in slightly stained flight clothes, only the curl of his lips showing fear and that in such a well-controlled way that Wulff could only admire him. The man was doing well. He was doing far better than almost any of them he had faced with death so far. “Well?” he said, “are you going to kill me?”
    “I don’t know,” Wulff said honestly. “I haven’t decided yet.”
    “You seem to kill everyone sooner or later. You’re reputation gets around. Even a guy like me hears about you sooner or later.”
    “I can’t decide,” Wulff said, “I have to get back to the capital, you see, the fastest and easiest way and I really don’t know how to fly one of these things. I can fake it but it’s not my area.”
    “Let me fly it then.”
    “I’m thinking of that,” Wulff said, “but I don’t know whether or not I can trust you.”
    “You can trust me,” Stevens said. “I just work here. I go for bids. I don’t have anything against you at all; in fact I rather admire what I think you’re trying to do.”
    “Sure you work for bids,” Wulff said. “The question is what you think they’re bidding now.”
    Stevens motioned toward the corpse. “That’s what they’re bidding,” he said. “I think I get the message. I live in a hotel room and I drink a lot. This year I’m in Havana but next year I’ll be somewhere else. The way I figure, there’s always corruption and troubles and room for a man with certain biddable skills. It has nothing to do with ideology.”
    “Where does Delgado live?” Wulff said.
    “I don’t know where he lives. You saw where he works. Somewhere in Havana I suppose. Maybe he lives in his offices. How the hell do I know? You want to find out where he lives I’ll put you there in a three-point landing. I don’t give a shit, Wulff. You’ll reach that point sooner or later but you don’t really believe that now.”
    Wulff looked at his pistol and then at Stevens. Easy. It would be so easy. The thing about the power to bring death is that after a while it can get to you, almost demand application. It starts small and then it grows; it begins in an alley somewhere or in some secret room and then it spreads out, moves to larger and larger stages and eventually you can end