12 Rounds and Down

This is what I’ve got so far for my next writing project. Things are getting out of hand, fast.
August 29, 1957

Just as he started to fantasize about what he’d do with all the money he was about to earn, the bright crackle of machine-gun fire startled him and he tripped, stumbling off the narrow path’s edge. Grasping wildly at air, Danticat Balantine felt the sickening sensation of total freefall tug at his stomach as he dropped into the inky blackness below.

–

One week earlier

The fan above Danticat Balantine’s head twirled lazily in the oppressive summer heat, providing the faintest wisp of cool breeze as small beads of sweat gathered and slowly inched down his forehead. It was a wretched day, yet one more in a long succession of them. Balantine propped his feet upon his careworn desk and poured himself another slug of whiskey into a well-used glass. He was tired and yawned loudly, wishing the day were over. The only thing keeping him from knocking off early was the continually fading hope that someone would walk through the door of his one-room office with a job offer.

Last week, someone had called on the sad little office, but it was a bill collector. Balantine screamed him out of the room and chased him down the hall, waving his unloaded .38 caliber pistol like a man possessed as the collector retreated in abject horror.

Balantine was poor—the kind of poor where the next stop is bankruptcy and homelessness. When he was younger he was a reporter for United Press International, but he was fired after the war. Mostly it was because he was a hack. Or a drunk—it didn’t matter, really. He’d only been hired in the first place because of a strange willingness to report on the war from the very front of any attack. But seeing the human wreckage of frontline combat been too much, even for a man like Balantine. With no career and few prospects, Balantine did odd jobs for three years after the war until someone asked him for help in looking up an ex-wife.

It had struck him immediately: He’d become a private dick. It worked out for a while, and even though it hadn’t made him rich, by 1951 he had a two-room office with three employees. Those were the good old days, six long years ago, he thought ruefully. Shaking a rapidly emptying pack of cigarettes, he snagged one and lit it, inhaling slowly. The nicotine provided only temporarily anesthetized his frayed nerves. Balantine soon nodded his head and felt sleep slowly tugging his eyelids downward.

“Well, God damn,” he mumbled to no one in particular. A year ago he would have been hitting on his secretary, Rebecca, or bossing around one of his lackeys, but he had to fire all of them after business slowed. Lately his days consisted of the same unfortunate routine: He’d wake up in his tiny Brooklyn apartment, usually in some state of hangover, shower, select one of three suits (black, brown or grey, only one of which wasn’t coming apart at the threads), arrive at his office by nine in the morning and then spend the rest of the day hoping a lead on a job would turn up, somehow.

The phone rang, eliciting a momentary flash of excitement. He briefly considered letting it ring out, but picked up after the fifth trill.

“Yes, hello?” As he talked, Balantine thumbed through some paperwork from old cases. He’d named them haphazardly. There was “The Case of the Missing Tooth,” or “The Case of the Fat Old Lady.” He remembered little from either, except what he could discern from their titles.

“Yes, is Mr. Balantine there?” A man’s voice interrupted Balantine’s hazy remembrances. He had an accent Balantine couldn’t quite place. Not foreign, but certainly not from the Eastern seaboard.

“Who is this?” Balantine demanded.

“Mr. Balantine, do not go to Miami. It would be…an unfortunate mistake.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Listen pal, I pay for this phone by the minute. You’re wasting my time.”

“Do not go to Miami,” the voice repeated. “You’ll regret it.” Then, the familiar drone of the dial tone.

“You’re the mistake, you ignoramus, you! Dammit!” Balantine swore into the handset before replacing it violently upon the receiver.

Tired and cranky from the mysterious phone call, Balantine sorted through a pile of unopened mail, but it was mostly more bills, a couple of advertisements and one large manila envelope with no return address. He stuffed the rest of the pile in the overflowing trashcan at his feet and tore the top off the manila envelope. Inside there was a train ticket.

He sighed and examined the ticket. It was a one-way ticket to Miami. Miami! Just what the hell was going on here, he wondered. Attached was a note: Meet in two days at the Blue Light, 5 PM. It was signed: —L. He turned the envelope upside down and gave it a brisk shake. Nothing else came out.

–

Five hours later Balantine found himself plopped in a window seat, listening to the calming chuffa-chuffa-chuffa of the Miami 215 Express as it snaked its way down the eastern seaboard. He smiled as cool air filled the train car, but soon found himself depressed as he noticed his ever-graying hair and puffy eyes in the window’s reflection. Could he really be just thirty-four years old? Smoking again—a near-constant affliction—Balantine wondered what lay in store for him in this mysterious city so far from his home.

The only reason he’d decided to use the ticket was to escape the hellish summer heat and the stench of the city. As he watched the landscape blur by, Balantine started to feel a pain in his stomach. It was dull at first and then much sharper. Suddenly realizing he hadn’t bothered to eat since breakfast, Balantine rose, and with some concentration, found his balance and headed for the dining car for a bite to eat and a nightcap.

Balantine ordered a whiskey rocks and a stale ham and cheese sandwich. He sat, almost motionless save for the occasional sip or bite, and stared out the window. Finally, the dining car closed and Balantine was ordered back to his seat. Balantine flopped back down in Row 15, Seat B and folded his arms tightly around his chest, slumping against the window. He was drunk and fell asleep immediately.

–

He woke abruptly to the sound of the conductor clapping his hands mere inches in front of Balantine’s face. The train had arrived and Balantine was the only remaining passenger. Attempts to rouse him the past twenty minutes had been largely unsuccessful spare a hiccup that proved to be a false alarm. He had been asleep for more than seventeen hours.

“Where am I?” he asked, suddenly wide-eyed and at least somewhat cognizant.

“We arrived at Miami Central Station twenty minutes ago, sir,” the conductor said, barely containing his displeasure. “You’ve been…ahem…asleep.”

“You’re not kidding, pal,” Balantine replied cheerfully, not oblivious to the conductor’s volcanic ire and reddening face. “I’ll be on my way now.”

Managing to not make a bigger ass of himself, Balantine gathered his belongings and stepped onto the massive Central Station platform. He was already a bit hung over and there was no comfort in the cold, grey concrete or the throng of faceless passengers engaged in an intricate dance of entrance and egress.

Instead, there were three flights of stairs leading to the station’s elegant main terminal overlooking the ocean. Balantine slung his bag over his right shoulder, and with great effort, huffed his way up the stairs. He silently pined for the comfort of a warm bed and the solace of dreamless sleep.

Pushing his way through the crowded station plaza, our hero barely noticed dozens of immense crystal chandeliers lining the ceiling above. Nor did he appreciate the intricate geometric patterns etched into the ebony marble beneath his feet. Suppressing a yawn, he was surprised to see that the station clock read just twenty-eight minutes past eight o’clock.

A solitary chime echoed throughout the station, marking the half hour as he stepped into the warm night air. Balantine flagged down a cab and climbed in. The city thrummed with an energy he found refreshing after so many months in dreary Brooklyn. He asked the cabbie, a rail-thin Cuban man with wooly tufts of white hair forming a crown on his otherwise bald head, where he could find an inexpensive hotel somewhere quiet.

“Somewhere cheap,” Balantine said. “And by the beach.”

The driver chuckled mirthlessly and after a quick ride he left Balantine in front of the Veritas Grand Hotel, scowling as Balantine tossed him a handful of change as a tip.

For all the elegance Balantine missed walking through Central Station, he took in the Grand’s every sorry detail. Once Miami’s premier resort hotel, the Grand Hotel teetered on the edge of becoming complete rubble. But it wasn’t rubble quite yet, and when Balantine pushed his way through the lobby doors he imagined the hotel how it must have been thirty or forty years ago and the state of disrepair saddened him. He trudged to the main desk and was somewhat surprised to find someone waiting to greet him.

“I need a room,” Balantine said. “Cheap.”

The slender man behind the counter extinguished his cigarette. He wore a vest, hastily fastened so that each button missed the proper hole by one spot, and a pained expression that appeared to be a grimace. Balantine suspected it might have been the man’s attempt to smile.

“Yes, plenty of those. Ten dollars a night.”

“That’ll be fine,” Balantine replied. He pushed three nights rent onto the counter and grabbed the key to room 902.

The hotel had one elevator, which strained and creaked as it carried Balantine to his room on the ninth floor. It came to rest with a grinding halt and Balantine peered into the dimly lit hallway with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. The room wasn’t that bad, actually. Balantine dropped his bag on the sagging bed and plopped down beside it. Looking in the mirror, he noticed with a measure of vanity that surprised him just how old he had started to look. He felt hollow. Exhausted, Balantine quickly fell asleep, despite a nagging worry that he wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing.

–

The next day he woke up with a jolt. The events of the past two days flooded back to him as the haze of his perpetual intoxication cleared and he suddenly regretted leaving New York. Balantine had fought off three murder attempts in the past five years and he had learned to be wary. But here he was in Miami, with almost no money and little hope that this small adventure would lead to a case.

He climbed out of the disappointingly familiar hotel bed and made his way to the washroom. Balantine wondered if he should shower, and the decision tugged at him for several moments before he found himself naked, sprayed by frigid water, regretting his choice. After an icy minute or two he toweled himself off and dressed slowly. His body ached, and his suit reeked of cigarette smoke and dried sweat.

He grabbed his keys and wallet and ambled down the hall to the elevator. As the elevator car opened with a shrill clang, Balantine glanced at his watch and was horrified to discover it was already fifteen minutes past four o’clock. His meeting was in forty-five minutes, and Balantine hadn’t a clue where he was headed.

With a grunt, he expended a concentrated burst of energy as he hustled up to the concierge desk and looked around for the skinny fellow from the night before. Instead, he found a young woman, smiling brightly. In fact, the hotel didn’t so much look like the dump it had just fifteen hours ago at all. How much had he spent?

“Excuse me, sweetheart,” Balantine grumbled. “I’m looking to get to the Blue Light. Do you know the way?”

“I’d be happy to ring you a cab, sir.”

“Thanks, sister,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, suppressing a sigh of relief. This would be easier than he thought. After five minutes, a boxy cab pulled up to the curb. Balantine walked outside, breathing in the salty sea air. He felt refreshed and suddenly far more alert than he had in ages. “Take me to the Blue Light,” he commanded the cabbie.

Balantine smiled as the car sped south along the coast. It was the perfect temperature, and he had only one moment of near panic when he wondered whether he had bothered to pack his insurance policy. The bulge of his .38 caliber pistol against his ribcage was reassuring. Come heavy—Balantine had learned that early on. He didn’t suspect he was walking into a trap this time, but taking unnecessary chances was stupid, even for a brazenly foolhardy reporter turned professional private investigator.

The cab pulled up to an immense, modern structure shimmering with glass and steel and Balantine leapt out, flicking a wadded single indiscriminately at the driver. Without a word, he headed into the building and encountered a doorman.

“Where’s the Blue Light?” he asked the man, who stared back vacantly.

“What?”

“The Blue Light, my good man!” Balantine roared with boiling frustration. “Where is it?”

“Oh,” the doorman said sleepily. “Top floor. Take the elevator.”

“Why thank you,” he said dryly, eyeing the lazy doorman coldly. Balantine headed inside and was impressed to find an enormous tree totally encased within the building’s walls. He found his way to the elevator and punched the button for floor fifty-eight. The doors opened to reveal an opulent room with a panoramic view of the city and coastline. “Impressive,” he mumbled as he approached the hostess.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked.

“Yes, I think,” he said. “I’m meeting someone. Do you know someone who goes by ‘L’?”

“Oh…you’re meeting her,” the hostess said with a certain tone Balantine wasn’t sure he appreciated.

“Who, may I ask, is that?”

“You don’t know Laura Franklin? The daughter of James Franklin, the owner of this building? One of the richest families in the country?”

“I’m from out of town, lady,” Balantine seethed. “Where is this woman now?”
“In the private suite. I’ll take you there now.”

Balantine trailed behind the hostess, glancing at her ample posterior and thinking that he wouldn’t much mind a quick roll in the hay with her. His thoughts were interrupted as the she opened a large glass door.

“Danticat Balantine,” said a woman, still facing the large window in front of her overlooking the ocean. Her strawberry hair glistened in the fading sunlight. Balantine pursed his lips. “I suppose I’m surprised you’re even here.”

“I’m sure you are, ma’am,” he said.

“Don’t call me ma’am!” the woman shrieked in mock horror. “It makes me feel so old, and I’m only twenty-six.” As she turned, Balantine knew he was in trouble. The woman wasn’t a woman so much as a girl, untouched by the ravages of time. She was beautiful, but there was a frailty in her delicate features that lent her an ethereal quality Balantine found himself lusting after.

“You must be Laura Franklin. I’ve heard of you,” he lied. “I understand your family is one of the richest in the country. What could you want with me?”

“I think you can help me solve a matter, quietly,” she said. “They tell me you’re good.”

Balantine beamed at the compliment, however disingenuous it may have been. “Do they, now? That’s preposterous!” he harrumphed in false modesty.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Laura said, flashing a toothy smile that Balantine figured was meant to charm him. It was working. “Look, this is an easy case for you. I’m trying to find my brother, Andrew. I’m worried about him.”

“When was the last time you heard from him,” Balantine asked, pressing his arms tightly to his chest.

“Two months ago,” she said. Balantine could sense genuine concern behind her crystalline blue eyes. “My father thinks he’s at a religious retreat in Montana, but he’s not there.”

“So where is he, then?”

“I have reason to believe my brother has traveled to that horrid little island country a hundred miles off the coast. They say the Reds are plotting a coup. He’s…he’s joined up with them.”

“You mean Cuba? Your brother joined the Cuban rebels? You’ve got to be kidding me, lady. How the hell do you think I’m going to find him in that damn hornets’ nest?”

The pair bickered over the logistics of finding Andrew. She told him it would be easy, that she had an in. Some old flame was with the Central Intelligence Agency and worked in Cuba. Apparently the CIA had been supporting the rebels with cash for some time now, but Laura wasn’t supposed to know that, and wouldn’t have if not for a particularly loud-mouthed field agent that she had…charmed a few months back.

“I could get killed for knowing that, you know,” he said. “Thanks.” He sighed loudly at her, narrowing his eyes into angry slits.

“Don’t worry. Felix can get you in. He owes me.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” he said with a lascivious chuckle, pausing for effect. Her pretty lips twisted into a scowl. “But what’s in this for me?”

“My everlasting affection and appreciation?” She smiled that smile again.

“Try again.”

“Okay, how about $50,000 in cold, hard cash?”

“That’s a lot of money. You must be desperate. But I still don’t think this plan of yours is going to work. In fact, I think it’s very likely to see my untimely death.”

She smiled again, but there was a steely edge to her eyes that told Balantine maybe this girl wasn’t as young or innocent as she looked. “Look, Mr. Balantine…I have it on good authority that the creditors are after you. After all, my father’s company is one of those creditors that you owe money to. Lots of money. This reward would erase your debt and leave you with plenty to mete out a living for years. Make a decision. Now.”

“Fine, lady. We’ll do it your way. How does this work?”

Balantine had a hard time swallowing her story. She wanted him to get on a boat immediately and meet Felix in a remote town at the base of the Sierra Maestra mountain range. The arrangement was to meet two Cuban rebels who would lead him to a base camp where Andrew might be located. Might.

“What the hell am I supposed to say to your brother if I find him?”

“That’s up to you, Mr. Balantine. I fear I’ve already tried my best and failed. You might not understand this, but you are the last resort…the only resort.”

“Okay, if that’s the way it is. Let’s go,” he said with conviction, unsure whether he really felt it. “No sense wasting time.”

“Good. Thank you,” Laura said. “Eat something in the restaurant and then you can leave immediately.”

“Why don’t you join me?” he asked, trying to remove some of the gruffness from his voice. “I haven’t had company for a meal for…a long time.”

“Alright. I’d like that.” She smiled her smile and gestured toward the door. “After you, Mr. Balantine.”

“You can call me Dan,” he said. As one might imagine, no one called Balantine “Dan.”

“And you can call me Laura.”

They walked to the elegant dining room with the panorama view of South Beach. The hostess whom Balantine was ogling earlier showed them to a private table at the window.

“Quite the place your father has built,” Balantine said, marveling at the stunning view. “I can’t imagine many people have enough money to eat here.”

“Perhaps not,” Laura said. “But the room is always full.”

“With your father’s cronies, no doubt.”

“Maybe that’s true. But does it really matter?”

Balantine paused. Didn’t it matter? Laura stared into his eyes, and he suddenly felt his tongue thicken and his pulse race.

“No, I guess not,” he blurted. “So what kinda food does this place have, anyway?”

“The food here is amazing. Our chef is world-renowned. Order whatever.”

Nice, Balantine thought. He hadn’t had a good meal in quite a while, and the last thing he’d eaten might just have been that old ham sandwich in the dining car all those hours ago. The thought made him a little sick.

“I think I’ll try the filet mignon and the swordfish,” he said, barely glancing at the menu. Soon the food arrived and in between bites, Balantine offered as friendly banter as he could muster. Laura, it turned out, was quite smart and held an English degree from Sarah Lawrence. She sometimes felt guilty about how much money her family had, but not really enough to do anything about it. She was mostly concerned with finding her brother, and finding out why he’d become a Red. Balantine revealed little about himself; a strategy he found was usually the most prudent.

“It’s just a short drive to the marina,” Laura said as they finished their meals and polished off their glasses of wine.

“Let’s get this over with,” Balantine said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“Nonsense,” Laura said. “You will be perfectly fine.”

“Fine don’t cut it, lady,” he snapped, momentarily forgetting that he had designs on getting her in the sack. “I don’t want to come home from this…missing anything, got it?”

“Fingers, toes and all other extremities will be accounted for,” Laura said. “Stop worrying, Dan.”

“Who’s worried?”

“If you aren’t, then no one is,” she replied with a smile. “Now, shall we?”

Ten minutes later Balantine found himself staring at the craft that would be taking him to Cuba. Balantine was unimpressed with the tiny fishing boat.

“That thing?” He stared at Laura. “You have got to be kidding me, here. I am not getting in that boat.”

“Not that one,” she said. “This one.”

“Oh.” Balantine looked to his right and saw a U.S. Navy PT Boat. A couple of marines smiled at him from the cockpit.

“Someone in the Marine Corps owed Felix a favor. And since Felix owed me a favor, they’re your ride,” Laura said. “Good luck.”

She leaned in and pecked Balantine on the cheek. He flushed.

“Thanks. See you soon. I hope.”

Balantine climbed on the boat and, despite his lack of faith, said a small prayer that he might get out of this alive.

–

The water was choppy and Balantine was seasick. The Marines gave him some pills for the nausea and despite the feeling that he should probably remain alert, he soon passed out. When he awoke, the boat was moored on a wooden dock. Something didn’t feel right. The trip felt too fast. Balantine glanced at his wrist but found no watch.

“Are we there?” Balantine asked the Marines. “How long was I out.”

“Long enough,” one of the Marines replied. “Get out.”

Balantine climbed out of the boat and up onto the dock. A man in a linen suit stood on the beach. He called out to Balantine.

“Over here, Mr. Balantine,” the man said. “I am Felix Mitchell, your contact. Let’s go.”

Balantine walked over to him and stared him down. Felix had a natty mustache, a .45 tucked in his belt and looked unhappy to be interacting with Balantine.

“I don’t like this, Felix,” he said. “What the hell is happening here?”

“Calm down,” Felix replied. “The seasickness pills have made you agitated. It’s a common side effect. We need to hurry. It’s getting late.”

“Let me guess: I’ve got no choice. Alright, this is your show, Felix. I am at your mercy.”

They walked a half-mile up the beach and met two sinister-looking men with machine guns. Balantine eyed them warily.

“Balantine,” Felix said, gesturing. “These men are genuine artifact. They know where Andrew is located. They’ll take you there. Thankfully, this is where we say goodbye.”

“This is insane,” Balantine said. “I don’t even speak Spanish.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Balantine.” Felix turned and started walking back toward the dock. Balantine got the sick feeling in his stomach that he was being set up somehow, but he was committed.

“Well, boys,” he said to the two Cubans. “Take me to him.”

One man, who identified himself as Jorge, handed Balantine a blindfold and motioned for him to put it on. Once the mask was secured, they started marching with nary a word exchanged. Balantine was having trouble walking without seeing where he was going. He kept tripping, each time calling out a more frustrated, biting oath.

“Just where in the hell are we going?” he muttered to himself. He tried to fight off the feeling that something was about to go very wrong.

They hiked ever deeper into the Sierra Maestras marching in solemn silence. Balantine chewed nervously at his inner lip, wondering if he had made a deadly miscalculation. They had been hiking for hours. Where was this base camp? If he could see at that moment, he would have been slightly terrified of the precarious path they were traversing and the steep drop into a seemingly bottomless canyon.

Any fear welling inside Balantine remained mostly lodged in his throat. Despite the fact that everything felt had wrong from the moment he’d stepped onto the PT boat, he hadn’t come all this way to limp back to Miami empty handed. Besides, it wasn’t just pride at stake. There was the matter of the $50,000. He needed that cash, and quick.

Just as he started to fantasize about what he’d do with all the money he was about to earn, the bright crackle of machine-gun fire startled him and he tripped, stumbling off the narrow path’s edge. Grasping wildly at air, Balantine felt the sickening sensation of total freefall tug at his stomach as he dropped into the inky blackness below.

The fall was shorter than he expected. Much shorter. He landed with a soft thud and suddenly felt a hand clamping his mouth.

“Keep your goddamn mouth shut if you want to live,” said the hand’s owner.

Balantine pushed the hand away. He’d had enough.

“I should be dead right now,” he whispered fiercely, ripping his blindfold off and finding to his great surprise that Felix was in the pit with him. “Felix! What in Hades is going on here?”

“You weren’t supposed to fall,” Felix said tersely. “That machine-gun fire was for your benefit. To help convince you.”

“Convince me of what?” Balantine collected himself and rose. Felix’s suit was clean and unrumpled, and Balantine noticed the bulge Felix’s .45 in a shoulder holster.

“As you likely have figured out, this is not Cuba,” Felix said. “Not even close. This is a secret government installation. Right now, it’s being used to extract information out of one Andrew Franklin.”

“I don’t get it. Are you torturing him?”

“Far from it,” Felix harrumphed. “No, don’t you see? Franklin believes this place really is Cuba. At least he was starting to. But some unfortunate inconsistencies with some of our Cuban actors led him to start questioning what was really happening.”

“So whaddya need me for? I was perfectly happy, minding my own business in New York. Well, maybe I wasn’t minding my business…such as it is…” he trailed off, suddenly feeling a renewed nervousness.

“You were supposed to come in here and try to convince Franklin to leave. Just what his sister hired you for. The hope was that Laura’s effort to bring him home would convince him he really was in Cuba.”

“Does she know?”

“Of course not. Don’t be a fool. It was me pulling the strings all along. Who do you think suggested your name, a disposable civilian that no one would miss if things went sour?”

Balantine stiffened.

“But there’s no need for that, is there? Let’s just get you dusted off and on your way,” Felix smiled at him, but then turned serious. “But if you fail, we’ll put bullets in both your heads.”

“Charming.” Balantine turned away from Felix and started calculating the odds of survival if he tried escaping. “So how do we get out of this ditch?

“Effective optical illusion, isn’t it?” Felix said, beaming. “It looks a hundred feet deep from the pathway. There’s a ladder hidden in the earth. One sharp tug and it’ll be ready to use. The base camp is just a half mile ahead.”

“Good.” Balantine whipped around and dug into his shoulder holster for his trusty .38 special. Before Felix knew what was happening, Balantine squeezed the trigger and discharged in rapid succession all six shots, landing four of them in Felix’s chest and another square in the middle of his throat. The bullet that hit Felix’s neck tore open a large wound, and Balantine grimaced. Felix gurgled frothy blood and shot one last look of contempt and accusation at him before collapsing into a bloody heap.

“Effective optical illusion, isn’t it?” Balantine said, chortling quietly as he found Felix’s gun and shoved it into his waistband. He was breathing hard and his heart raced. He hadn’t killed a man in quite some time. But getting rid of Felix wasn’t even a third of the battle. Laura wouldn’t pay up if he came back empty handed, he was almost sure of that fact. He had to get to Andrew.

It was getting dark, so Balantine hustled up the ladder and cautiously peered around. Why had those Cubans or whoever they were disappeared like that? Balantine figured they would have helped their boss. But there was nobody in sight, so he climbed out and reloaded his pistol. The base camp was less than ten minutes away. No wonder they had blindfolded him; any fool could tell this place wasn’t the Sierra Maestras. In fact, they were probably still in Florida. He wondered why Andrew couldn’t tell.

Soon Balantine heard men’s voices and slowed his pace. From the path he could see into a massive compound. How Andrew believed that to be the Reds’ base was beyond Balantine. There were rows of tanks, jeeps, heavy trucks and even a couple of helicopters, far too many to belong to a handful of under-funded Communists hiding in the mountains.

There was still the matter of actually getting into this base camp. The place was crawling with men in uniforms with machine guns. Balantine was no spy and he had no idea how he was going to gain entrance. He decided to wait until it got a little darker, so he climbed off the path and hid himself as best he could. He hadn’t seen any patrols on the path, and he hoped the guards would keep themselves sequestered within the walls of the base. The day’s events had been overwhelming, and Balantine soon felt himself nodding off.

No. He couldn’t be doing that now. He had to force himself into alertness. He tried a hard slap across the face. That didn’t seem to do the trick. Maybe something to drink, just a sip or two. He reached into his hip for the small flask he kept there and prayed that it wasn’t empty.

“Aha,” he murmured to himself, inhaling the unmistakable aroma of whiskey. “Well done, old man.”

He downed every last drop in an instant and suddenly felt more alert than he had in several hours. It was dark enough now to attempt to gain access to the compound, but just how that was going to happen had yet to occur to Balantine. He crept closer to the main entrance and noted the guard tower and at least fifteen soldiers milling around. Going in through the front was not an option.

He snuck up to the barbed-wire fence that made up the base’s first line of defense. Moving slowly away from the main entrance, he found a section of the fence obscured by a large building. Perfect, he thought. The dirt was soft and he started digging. Despite the loose soil, it took Balantine the better part of an hour to dig a hole that he thought he might be able to sneak under. He suddenly wished he’d kept a better diet, but the life of a private dick didn’t lend itself to healthy living.

“And here goes nothing,” he mumbled, lowering himself under the fence. It took a couple moments for him to maneuver himself to the other side of the fence, but to his surprise, the plan had worked. Balantine was inside the compound. Unfortunately, getting inside was the entirety of his plan. He still had no idea where Franklin was being kept or what to say to the man if he actually found him.

In a stroke of luck, it seemed as if most of the guards were going to bed. Only a small group remained to patrol the compound, and Balantine thought he counted just five or six soldiers. Still, if just one of those men noticed Balantine he could sound the alarm or simply shoot him dead with no questions asked. Despite the obvious fact that he would lose in a firefight, Balantine drew Felix’s .45 and pressed his back tightly against the large building that had thus far effectively been giving him cover. Sliding his way to the corner to his right, he dared a quick peek around the corner.

He saw the compound’s entrance, far to the left, and the rows of vehicles. Fifteen feet out along the adjacent wall he noticed a door, just slightly ajar. The guards seemed to be massed at the guard tower near the gate. Now or never, he thought, hurling himself toward the door without hesitation. As he reached it he flung it open and dove in.

He found himself in a long hallway, empty save for three hanging light bulbs. The hallway led to another door. Balantine thought he heard voices. As quietly as he could manage, he approached the door and pressed his ear to it.

“This is your last chance, Franklin,” said a voice, gruff and angry. “Tell us about the bank accounts. How were you supplying the Reds? What is your account number?”

“I don’t have anything to tell you.” That voice was much weaker, almost boyish. Franklin.

“We don’t really need you anymore. Now that you know the truth you are useless to us. I’m going to count to ten, and then I will start cutting your toes off, one at a time.”

“I am an American citizen!” Franklin cried. “You have no right.”

“I have every right. You are a Communist traitor and I’ll see the only way you leave this place is in a pine box. One. Two. Three…”

So Franklin was about to get his toes chopped off. His sister wouldn’t like that one bit, Balantine thought. There was only one course of action. He had to intervene, and quick. Without much more thought, Balantine popped open the door. Andrew Franklin was just a kid, maybe twenty years old. He was tied to a chair and looked like hell. There was just one other person in the room, the interrogator. He had gray hair and wore Army fatigues. From what Balantine could tell, the man was unarmed save for a pair of nasty looking garden shears. Perhaps he figured he didn’t need a gun when dealing with a scrawny chap like Franklin, who looked even more non-threatening with the white T-shirt and khaki slacks he had on.

“Alright!” Balantine hissed at the interrogator. “Keep your mouth shut. Not a peep or I start firing.”

“You’ll die if you shoot me,” the man replied. This was probably true, Balantine conceded silently.

“Not before I watch you take your last breath,” Balantine said. “Untie him.”

“This man is a terrorist. Do you really want to free a known criminal?”

“Do it.” Balantine was surprised at how calm he was.

The man untied Franklin, who didn’t look so bad considering the beating he had likely endured.

“Kneel down,” Balantine commanded the interrogator. “Kneel!”

Without hesitation, the man kneeled, but continued to speak. “You are making a drastic mistake, Mr. Balantine.”

“What? How the blazes do you know who I am?”

“I think I’ve said enough,” said the interrogator.

“Oh no, you’re going to keep talking. I want to know exactly what’s going on, here.”

Franklin spoke up. “This really is my fault, Mr. Balantine. But trust me, we want to get out of here as quickly as possible. You are here to rescue me, aren’t you?”

“From the U.S. military? What do I look like to you, kid? A Commie spy? I thought that was your problem.”

“I’m no Commie. I’ll tell you all about it, but we need to get going. Now,” Franklin said, his voice strained with urgency.

Balantine walked up behind the interrogator and slammed the butt of his pistol into the back of the man’s head as hard as he could. He fell with a dull, satisfying thud.

“Just like the good old days,” Balantine said, grinning at Franklin.

“Let’s go!” Franklin said.

“Not so fast, kid. I want to know what the hell is going on here.”

Franklin started to make another excuse, and Balantine cut him off. “No. We’re staying put until I get some answers. If not from you than from the unconscious chap when he wakes up.”

“Okay. But it’s a long story.”

“Give me the short version.”

“The short version is that I’m not a Communist. Come on, we really need to be leaving.”

“Alright, but this isn’t over. Too many things aren’t adding up.”

“Before we go, we have to free one of the prisoners here.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, buddy,” Balantine hissed, his temper boiling. “Who’s so important that I gotta risk my neck?”

“Felix Mitchell, my CIA contact.”

“I blew a hole in Felix’s throat a couple hours ago. He, uh, didn’t make it. Sorry.”

“That wasn’t Felix. Look, he can fill you in if we can just rescue him and get the hell out of here.”

“If I get out of this alive, I’m going to kill that sister of yours,” Balantine grumbled. “All right, let’s go. Where’s Felix being held?”

“He should be in this same building. I’m not sure. We’re going to have to poke around.”

“Okay. Take this,” Balantine said, handing Andrew his .38 special. “I have a funny feeling that you’re going to need it.”

“Past this door there should be a hall that’ll lead us to the holding area,” Franklin said, checking to make sure the weapon was fully loaded. “There should be just one guard. We’ll need to find a way to take him out quick.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Let’s go.”

Balantine cautiously opened the door and the two men took off down the hall and around the corner. Balantine could see the prisoner containment area and a lonely guard smoking a cigarette on the other side of a barred door.

“We need to move quickly,” Franklin whispered.

“Stay here, out of sight, and cover me,” Balantine said.

Balantine moved in a stealthy crouch and approached the door, careful to keep himself below the door’s window. He rapped on the door twice and the door opened toward him. He flattened himself against the wall as the guard stepped out into the hallway.

“Hello?” the man asked, cocking his machine gun. “Who’s there?”

One more step, Balantine thought. Come on, you bastard, just one more step.

The guard took another step into the hall, then another. He was completely in the hallway now, and Balantine took this opportunity to wrap the man in a chokehold. After a brief struggle, he crumpled to the ground and Balantine motioned for Franklin to join him.

“Okay. The Felix I knew was a queer looking fellow with a mustache and a linen suit. Which one of these jokers is the real McCoy?”

“I am,” said a prisoner in cell 1B. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Balantine.”

“Why does everyone know my name, dammit?” Balantine roared indignantly.

“I told you not to come to Miami,” the man said, stepping into the light. He was six feet tall, blond and handsome in an All-American sort of way—chiseled jaw, piercing blue eyes, strapping. His black suit was slightly rumpled, but other than that, there was nary a hair astray. Felix smiled slyly and Balantine scoffed.

“You? You called me in New York? Where the hell are you from?”

“San Diego. But I work in Washington. Obviously.”

“And your name is Felix? Really? You look like a Rick to me. Or a John. It’s really Jack, isn’t it? You can be honest. It’s Jack, right?” Balantine was enjoying himself despite figuring there was a good chance he wouldn’t leave the building alive.

“Come on Balantine, we need to get ‘Jack’ out of here,” Franklin said, looking around nervously.

“I hate to rush you, but the boy is right. That guard should have the key to my cell on his person,” Felix said.

Balantine walked over to the guard and found the key. “Alright, let’s go. Hopefully the guards haven’t noticed that hole underneath the fence and we can just slip out of here.”

“Agreed,” Felix replied, grabbing the guard’s machine gun.

The three of them raced back down the hall, into the interrogation room and out into the cool night air, where they were greeted by what seemed like the entire regiment guarding the base.

“You didn’t think the three of you were going to just waltz out of here, did you Felix?” asked a man Balantine instantly recognized as the interrogator he had knocked out earlier. “And Mr. Balantine, I think I owe you this.”

A fist, the sickening impact of bone against nose, then darkness. Balantine woke up on the floor of a dirty cell, probably the same one they had rescued Felix from. Sitting across from him were Franklin and the G-Man operative. Both of them looked like they’d received a similar beating but were awake and alert.

“Okay, Felix. It’s time for you to start talking, because I’m confused as hell right now,” Balantine said, eyeing Mitchell.

“It’s a long story Mr. Balantine. And top secret.”

“Well, pal, it looks like we’ve got some time. And it’s too late for secrets, considering that we’re all about to get lined up against the wall.”

“He’s right,” Franklin said, turning to look at Felix. “He needs to know.”

“Yeah. I’m getting tired of this cloak and dagger—“

“What I’m about to tell you could get you killed,” Felix said, cutting Balantine off. “But it might be the only way that the three of us make it out of here alive.”

“Well, then, spill the beans,” Balantine said. “Pretty please?”