The Fracas Factor Read online

  He got back into the car, still scowling.

  Max said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Zen if I know,” Joe growled. He brought forth his pocket transceiver with the intention of calling the nearest repair facility. He didn’t like to do it. It would mean that he’d have to use his credit card and that would mean a recording in the computer data banks that he had expended credit. That would mean that anyone checking, for whatever reason, would know he had been traveling through this part of the United States of the Americas.

  The transceiver was dead.

  Max said, “Here come a car down the road. We can hail them.”

  Joe Mauser had not lived in the world of the Category Military, the world of the fracases, without an instinctive something that combat men need to survive. He snapped open the dashboard compartment and snatched out his Smith & Wesson.44 and a box of cartridges.

  “Come on,” he snapped to Max. “Somebody’s got an electronic damper on us.”

  He pushed the door open and headed for the field, calling back over his shoulder to Max, “Are you heeled?”

  Max was scrambling after him. “You mean, have I gotta gun? Hell no. You’re an Upper, you can carry a gun, even when you’re not in a fracas. But I’m a Lower. They throw the book at you.”

  “Oh, wizard,” Joe groaned.

  Chapter Two

  The country was semiarid. Vegetation consisted of cactus, maguey, and an occasional dwarfed mesquite tree. The fauna, Joe knew, consisted almost exclusively of lizards, rattlesnakes, and an occasional Gila monster. Rabbits were few and far between. It was the kind of country in which a sensible man preferred to be on horseback.

  Crouched low, Joe, followed by Max Mainz, plowed as fast as he could go through the sand and gravel. He got about one hundred feet from the car and plopped down behind a clump of maguey, that desert plant of Mexico from which pulque is fermented and tequila distilled. There was a slight depression in the ground and he flung himself into it. Max sprawled down on the flat area beside him.

  “What in the Zen’s going on?” he complained breathlessly.

  “Get into the deepest depression or behind the highest ridge you can find,” Joe Mauser snapped. Max was typical of the tyro in combat. He couldn’t see cover unless it was a foot or so high.

  Max obeyed orders, mystified.

  “But what in hell’s going on?” he said.

  Joe checked the load in his long-barreled military pistol. All six chambers were full. He opened the box of cartridges and emptied them into the pocket of his sport jerkin.

  He said, “Somebody’s out to get us, Max. They’ve put an electronic damper over this vicinity and knocked our car out and my transceiver along with it. We can’t travel and we can’t communicate. I suspect that whoever it was is coming down the road in that car. You seldom see a car on a Military Reservation, even when no fracas is in progress. There’s no reason to be here. No population, no agriculture, inadequate roads. No nothing. I hope the hell they didn’t spot us.”

  It would seem that the occupants of the other vehicle hadn’t. As they approached Joe’s sport hovercar they slowed considerably. Even at this distance, Joe Mauser could make out that the black sedan was full of men. It slowed, something black detached itself from it and rolled under Joe’s car. Then it speeded up and took off down the road in the direction of San Miguel de Allende at a clip.

  The explosion was such that it deafened Joe and Max momentarily and after a minute or two sprinklings of debris fell in their vicinity.

  “A bomb!” Max blurted.

  Joe grunted and took in his all but completely destroyed car. He said, “We’re lucky we’re not in it.” Which, on the face of it, was obvious.

  Down the road, the black sedan quickly turned and headed back. It came to a halt near the ruin, and five men issued forth. Even at this distance, they didn’t look like locals, even if there had been any local folk. They were dressed like city people, and four of them carried pistols. But it was the fifth one that caused Joe to suck in breath. He was carrying a submachine gun. A Sten gun, by the looks of it from this distance. An old World War Two British Sten, illegal by the provisions of the Universal Disarmament Commission, backed by the New World Court which had ruled that no weapon invented since the turn of the Nineteenth Century could be manufactured, sold, used, or even possessed. Penalties for violating the Pact were stiff.

  It was what had ruined Major Joseph Mauser, so far as his position in the Category Military was concerned. In a fracas in which Joe had served under Marshal Stonewall Cogswell, Joe had flown a glider for reconnaissance. He had claimed that the glider predated the year 1900, and it did, but not the advanced type sail-plane he was flying. Military observers from the Sov-world and the Neut-world hit the ceiling and brought the violation up before the International Disarmament Commission. Joe was stripped of his rank and of all his financial property, save the Inalienable basic Common Stock which had been issued to him by the government upon his birth and which was the right of every American citizen. He was also forbidden to ever again participate in a fracas, those battles between competing corporations, a corporation and a union, or two unions fighting for jurisdiction. Even the famed Marshal Stonewall Cogswell was court-martialed, in spite of the fact that he hadn’t been aware of what Joe was up to. He had been demoted to the rank of Brigadier General, a hard blow for a man of his stature and pride.

  But now one of the five cautiously approached the bombed-out hovercar. He was the one carrying the submachine gun. And Joe was far from happy about it. The others, with pistols, were bad enough, outnumbering him four to one. Max was less than useless, he was a detriment, unarmed and not even used to this kind of terrain. But the Sten gun outranged Joe’s revolver, in addition to its greater firepower. Joe was going to have to do something about it.

  The bearer of the automatic weapon in question stepped to within about ten feet of the ruined car and cut loose with the gun, spraying the vehicle from one end to the other. They must have thought that Joe and Max were still inside and that possibly one of the other of them had survived. There was precious little chance of that, but evidently the assassins were taking no chances whatsoever.

  Something came to Joe. A submachine gun was so rare in this day and age that possibly the man who bore it was the only member of the group who knew its operation. Joe had read somewhere that there were tricky aspects to a submachine gun. You had to learn how to shoot them. The barrel would climb on you when you cut loose with a burst.

  He leveled his Smith & Wesson over his left arm and took careful aim.

  “Holy Zen, Joe!” Max whispered in protest. “You’ll give us away.”

  “When they find out that we’re not in that car, they’re going to come looking,” Joe growled back. “And our footprints aren’t exactly invisible. Get ready to run for it.”

  His target had stopped spraying the hovercar and stood still for a moment, peering at it. Joe ever so gently squeezed the trigger and shot him squarely in the belly. The machine gunner dropped his weapon and fell like a burlap bag of feed. The others stood there, gaping at him in astonishment.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Joe rapped, immediately on his feet. He knew that the others would take a few moments to get over their surprise and another moment or so to decide on the direction from which the shot had come. Possibly Joe and Max could be out of accurate pistol range by that time. The handgun, except in the hands of an expert, isn’t the most accurate weapon in the world.

  He could hear Max plodding through the sand and gravel behind him. Joe had experienced country similar to this before. In fact, on this self-same Guanajuato Military Reservation. But city-bred Max Mainz was having his work cut out for him.

  Joe rounded a larger than average mesquite, reached out, and grabbed the stumbling Max and drug him behind it too. Max was already panting with exertion.

  Born a Low-Lower and probably used to taking trank and spending long hours sitting before the telly, rat
her than getting much in the way of exercise, he was in poor shape compared to Joe Mauser, in spite of his fewer years.

  Joe peered around the gnarled bole of the tree.

  The four were coming and Joe swore inwardly to see that one of them bore the Sten gun. He had been right; they were city dwellers and no more used to travel over this desert terrain than Max was. That was at least one advantage. But they were wise enough in the ways of combat not to bunch up. They had spread out in a row, about thirty feet between each man. There was no chance that Joe could wing a shot at one of them, miss, and have the bullet hit one of the others.

  They were a bit far off and moving targets, but Joe fired two more rounds just for luck and also on the off-chance of giving them second thoughts about closing in.

  But no, they kept on coming and his fire had given them indication of the location of the two fugitives. The one with the Sten gun paused momentarily and cut loose with a short burst which dug up the dirt about fifteen feet to the right of Joe and Max.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Joe said. “We can’t let that funker get close enough to get a good bead on us or we’ve had it.”

  “Right behind you,” Max puffed.

  They took off again and heard several pistol shots, as though at least some of their pursuers must have spotted them. But they were as ineffective as Joe’s fire had been.

  As he ran, he dug into his pocket and brought forth three of the.44 cartridges. He swung out the cylinder of the gun, ejected the three spent shells, and reloaded.

  He looked up ahead, hoping for some indication of a place where they could elude the gunmen, at least some area where the ground would be hard enough that it wouldn’t show footprints. He doubted that the enemy was up on trailing. But no. Ahead was no sign of gullies, broken ground, or arroyos. In all directions spread the same semi-desert.

  He looked back over his shoulder, past the heavily panting Max Mainz. The others were at approximately the same distance, just out of effective handgun range. He might as well conserve his ammo. The machine-gunner fired again, and again missed. Had he been a better shot he would have nailed the two fleeing men. He was probably not well acquainted with his light automatic. But it was just a matter of time before he succeeded, particularly if he closed the gap between them. Joe Mauser wondered if the killer had more than one clip for the gun. As he recalled, those World War Two submachine guns usually carried a clip of twenty rounds. If the funker had only the one clip, he’d soon have a worthless gun on his hands. He was expending bursts of four or five slugs at a time.

  Joe considered going to ground and shooting it out. He suspected that he was a better, more experienced shot than any of them. But no. There was always the Sten gun to consider. And, besides, he had no way of knowing whether or not they had more bombs on hand. Even if he could find a protective hole for him and Max, one of them might crawl near enough to lob a grenade, or whatever kind of bomb they were using, into their shelter.

  He looked back at Max.

  The little man tried to grin, but he was obviously having a hard go of it. Sweat was pouring down his wizened face, and his shirt was sopping. He had long since shed the light jacket he had been wearing.

  If it hadn’t been for Max, Joe could have increased his pace and perhaps have pulled away from the others, eventually to shake them entirely.

  But he had to think of something. He couldn’t let the others get near enough that his pistol could be used, due to the Sten gun. Besides, shooting it out with four men, all armed at least as well as him, didn’t make sense. Joe Mauser hadn’t survived fifteen years of combat by thinking of himself as a bulletproof hero.

  Four to one! He had to cut those odds down some way or the other.

  He slowed a bit so that Max could come up abreast of him. His own breath was coming more laboredly now, but he said, “Max, this is what we’re going to have to do. We’re going to have to split. You go one way, I go the other.”

  His companion’s eyes widened. “Joe! You’re not going to leave me! I don’t even have no gun.”

  Joe said, “Two’ll most likely follow me and two’ll follow you. It’ll give me a chance to finish off my two, then we’ll get together again and see what we can do with the remaining.”

  “Get together again! Where? I’m lost already. Even if I got away from these funkers, I’d die of thirst out here. My tongue’s already swollen up like cotton.”

  Joe Mauser suppressed a sigh. “No, you’re not lost. We’ve been going very slightly up hill since we left the car. If you look back, you can see the San Miguel de Allende-Queretaro road. And you can see two spots on it that are the two cars. Now what we do is this. You head for the right, I’ll head for the left. The machine-gunner is the one far to the left, so he’ll undoubtedly follow me. Two of the pistol men will be after you.”

  “What’ll I do? Where’ll I meet you, Joe?”

  “You’ll slowly circle around, completely circle the cars, and meet me on the other side of them. I’ll be able to find you. I fought in this country.”

  “If you say so,” the other panted in resignation. “But I’m just about pooped, Joe. I can’t keep going much longer.”

  Joe said, trying to keep impatience from his voice, “So are they. By the looks of them, they aren’t any more familiar with this kind of country than you are. And I suspect that you’re a bit younger than any of them. Damned if I know why they’ve kept coming after us this long. They must have one hell of a reason.” He took two or three deep breaths. “Like lots of money.”

  “Okay, Joe,” Max said. But he obviously didn’t like it.

  Joe said, “Keep ahead of them, just about as far as you are now. You’re out of pistol range. If they slow down a bit, you can slow down too. If they stop to rest, you can stop to rest. You’re not trying to completely escape from them. I doubt if you could. All you’re trying to do is stay far enough ahead that they can’t hit you. Somehow or other, I’ll get rid of my two and then, when we get together again, we’ll take on yours.”

  “Okay, Joe,” the little man repeated.

  They headed right and left.

  Joe had been correct. Their pursuers divided two and two to continue the chase. In actuality, he thought, that was foolish. They should have divided three for him and one for Max. They must have discovered by now that Max had no gun. In the hour or so that had passed since first the pursuit had begun, there had been no fire from the little man. And Joe suspected that because he himself had fired only three times they believed he had only the six rounds that his gun would hold. They didn’t know about his extra shells. Well, that was one small advantage. Let them think that. He’d started with twenty-six cartridges. He doubted that he’d need them all.

  He could speed up now that his semi-exhausted companion was headed off in the other direction. In spite of his chosen profession, Joe Mauser had never liked combat, unlike other mercenaries, including his long-time sidekick, Jim Hawkins. But he did experience a certain exhilaration in it. A quickening of the emotions, a tensing of muscles, a sharpening of wits. And that was upon him now.

  He put a little more distance between himself and the two still following, but didn’t attempt to shake them entirely. He might have been able to do so and even bring himself to eventual safety. But that would leave Max to take care of himself.

  Joe Mauser didn’t have any plan. He couldn’t figure out any way of getting to that machine-gunner without exposing himself. The area was almost flat, only a slight continuing rise. He was in open sight. There was no way he could ambush and bushwhack the others.

  He continued on, slowly circling, as he had instructed Max to do, a circling that would eventually end in their meeting on the other side of the road, and on the other side of the cars. But damn little would be accomplished unless he could come up with something by that time. Something to eliminate his two men, especially the one who bore the submachine gun.

  He was nearly back to the road, the others doggedly plodding along behind,
the one with the Sten gun occasionally letting off a burst at him. Then he suddenly froze.

  There to the right of him and not more than ten feet off was a diamondback rattlesnake. He had never seen a larger one. The deep-pitted head was drawing back into the beautiful coils and the tail, so fast moving, was not quite visible. It was making an exotic blur in the hot, still Mexican air. The skirling of the rattle was that which man, even though he has never heard it before, instantly recognizes.

  Since Eden, here was man’s enemy. Though the one in Eden was reputedly soft-spoken, this one was not soft-spoken.

  Old pro Joe Mauser had made a point, in his studies, usually in hospitals, or in barracks between fracases, of learning every aspect of his trade that might possibly apply to him. He had learned as much of the medic’s profession as he could assimilate that applied to a man in the field. He had studied assiduously the field stripping of any weapon that he might ever use. He had studied the engineering of combat; the building of entrenchments, the sappers’ know-how, the destruction of, and repair of, bridges. On vacation, between fracases, he had learned the art of climbing mountains, of swimming in rushing rivers and frozen lakes, of enduring extended hikes, without food or water. And he had studied up on running into other enemies, such as Gila monsters, large cats, wolves, bears and … rattlesnakes. His studies made the difference between living a year or so in the fracases and living the fifteen years that had been his.

  Thus it was that Joe Mauser knew that the diamondback could only strike one third of its length, that it could only strike when in coil, and that it could only hit low. Those who customarily wore heavy high boots in rattlesnake country were going beyond need. He also knew another thing. The rattlesnake’s attention span is short. If he can’t strike you, very shortly he gets bored with you and forgets about it. Joe was hoping for that.

  Out of immediate striking range, he froze. He looked carefully about. He spotted another snake under an outcropping of rock. And then another. And suddenly he knew where he was, what he had stumbled into. Too much of his attention had been diverted to his pursuers. He was in the middle of a desert rattlesnake den. Even as he winced at that thought, he saw still another snake, a considerably smaller one slither into a hole.