"032 (B032) - Dust of Death (1935-10) - Harold Davis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The section of the city in which the presidential palace stood was now in an uproar. Machine guns had been erected in the streets. Lines of soldiers blocked the thoroughfares. No one was allowed to enter or leave.
Squads of soldiers were searching houses regardless of whether the occupants wanted it or not. President Carcetas dashed here and there. He waved his arms; he shrieked. His demeanor was altogether that of a man on the verge of going to pieces.
This was surprising. President Carcetas was ordinarily a taciturn man who kept his temper. Ordinarily, he never flew into rages, and because he kept his head level his decisions were usually just. This was what made him probably the most genuinely respected president Santa Amoza had ever had.
Now, however, President Carcetas was a different man. The seizing of his daughter had done that. If he remained in his present condition, he would be unfit to guide the destinies of the republic. He was, in fact, liable to commit all kinds of blunders.
"Why should the Inca in Gray seize my daughter?" he screamed repeatedly.
Count Hoffe took pains to shake his own head sorrowfully. If he had any ideas on the subject, he did not voice them.
President Carcetas snapped frightfully at those who tried to comfort him; even when an officer brought a sentry who claimed he saw a strange figure escaping the grounds.
"Did you see the individual's face?" roared President Carcetas.
"I am not sure," spoke the sentry. "But I thinkЧ"
"You think what?" Carcetas was frankly frantic.
"I think it was Seёor Don Kurrell, the oil man," said the sentry.
THE EFFECT of the soldier's words was that of a minor explosion. Ominous mutters went up.
Count Hoffe, disbelief on his militaristic features, shouted, "That must be a mistake! It must have been Ace Jackson!"
"It resembledЧDon Kurrell," insisted the sentry.
If President Carcetas had been imitating a madman before, he put much more zest in the performance now. He all but bowled his chief of staff over, shouting, "Get Don Kurrell! Have him brought here at once!"
Soldiers scampered out, entered fast official cars, and these roared away. It was well known that Don Kurrel maintained a suite in Alcala's finest hotel.
Within twenty minutes, the officer in charge of the soldiers sent to get Don Kurrell telephoned. He was speaking from Kurrell's hotel.
"Don Kurrell has not been seen all evening," he reported.
President Carcetas went into a fresh spasm at this. He ordered guards all over the city quadrupled. He directed that the airport be watched, the trains be searched, that all automobiles be stopped and thoroughly examined.
Official cars had been making a great deal of noise in their going and coming, but this was nothing to the uproar of sirens which now accompanied the arrival of an expensive foreign limousine, trailed by four military automobiles bearing a personal bodyguard of soldiers. There was a coat of arms on the foreign limousine for every one to see and thereby know who rode within.
Seёor Junio Serrato, minister of war, commander in chief of the armies of Santa Amoza, was the man who was second in power to President Carcetas. War minister Serrato's face wore a worried look as he alighted and dashed into the presidential palace.
He got a jarring greeting from President Carcetas.
"Where have you been?" howled the chief executive of Santa Amoza. "When I need you, you are not around!"
"Shut up!" said war minister Serrato, with equal brusqueness. "Read this. It was shoved under the door of my home."
Serrato presented a folded paper for the other's inspection.
To be delivered to President Carcetas:
Your daughter is by now in my hands. In the room next to her a firing squad will be oiling rifles. Whether or not the girl stands before this firing squad depends on President Carcetas. If Santa Amoza surrenders to Delezon, the girl will be released unharmed. If there is no surrender, she will, I can assure you, be shot.
General Fernanez Vigo,
Dictator General of Delezon.
President Carcetas' hands seemed to die in a limp way. The paper dropped from his hands to the floor.
"VigoЧhasЧAnita!" he gasped.
War minister Serrato, his Latin handsomeness somewhat stark, made a grim mouth. He rubbed a fingernail over the thin line of his black mustache.
"What moves shall we make?" he asked.
President Carcetas drew himself up. He was very pale as if about to faint.
"Order an unconditional surrender immediately!" he snapped.
War minister Serrato's mustache jerked a little. Determination came over his face, settled there so heavily that it made his features almost ugly.
"No!" he snarled. "Santa Amoza will never surrender!"
TENSION CAME into the room, a tension which was as real and which affected every one as if it had been a cold wind. There were present a number of old generals who had been through revolutions before the day of President Carcetas. These canny old fellows drew to one side and dropped hands to the guns which they wore at their belts. They became expectant, tense.
President Carcetas was glaring at war minister Serrato. The chief executive of Santa Amoza looked somewhat stunned, and, for a moment, his calmness was almost deadly.
"You heard my orders," he said grimly. "We surrender."
"I heard your orders," minister Serrato told him. "We do not surrender!"
President Carcetas blew up.
"You are no longer a war minister!" He turned to the soldiers and screamed, "Arrest this man!"
The officers present had obeyed President Carcetas for a long time. Habit got the best of them. They moved forward.
War minister Junio Serrato drew himself up. His little mustache was a straight line, and he now made a speech that went down in Santa Amoza history.
"Wait!" he said. "The future of Santa Amoza depends on what we do within the next few moments. The situation which confronts you has behind it, I believe, more than meets the eye. I refer, of course, to the sinister depredations of this mysterious fiend known as the Inca in Gray."
War minister Serrato paused to look over the assemblage. They had stopped, were listening to him.
"The Inca in Gray has seized Seёorita Anita Carcetas," Serrato continued quietly. "There was a purpose behind that seizure, a purpose that is plain. The purpose is about to be accomplished. President Carcetas is a man whom we all love and revere and respect, but he is not himself now. He is a man driven insane by danger threatening the one he loves. I do not censure him for that. No one can. But I do not think you, the generals who have fought with me, or I, should permit the surrender of Santa Amoza. For that is obviously the thing the Inca in Gray intended to happen."
That was all he said, but it was enough to make the others think. It was a crucial moment. President Carcetas did the thing which really swayed the course of action.
Waving his arms, screaming shrilly, President Carcetas shouted, "Santa Amoza must surrender! The life of my daughter depends upon it!"