The Death’s Head Conspiracy

by Nick Carter

  I pulled the spear from the ground then, and holding it in the same position as Tihoc, advanced to the center of the clearing. There we touched spear points in a salute oddly like that used in the art of quarterstaff. A deadly difference here was the twelve inches of steel blade that tipped our spears, a blade capable of impaling a man or slicing a limb from his body.

  I backed off a step in the ready stance, and Tihoo attacked at once with an upstroke of the butt of his spear. I dropped my spear to block the blow, then raised it swiftly to fend off the downward slash of the blade that would have cleaved my skull.

  My riposte was an upstroke of my own, which the Mayan anticipated and blocked. He moved then to counter the blow he expected, but I merely feinted with the blade and wheeled the butt in a side stroke to his rib cage. Tihoc grunted in pain but adroitly crossed his spear, ready to block a fatal thrust.

  We backed off, resumed the ready position, and the combat began again.

  The art of quarterstaff is in many ways as formalized as fencing or even dancing. Every blow has a block, every block moves to a counter. The only sounds in the Yucatan clearing were the clack of the shafts and clang of the blades, punctuated by the huffing breath of Tihoc and myself. More than once I had seen an opening to drive home the spear point, but slowed my thrust just enough to allow the young Mayan a block. I had so far managed to keep his own blade away from me except for a crease along my side that left a crimson stain on my shirt.

  The break came when I knocked the spear out of one of his hands with a double upstroke when he had expected the usual upstroke-slash attack. With his spear dangling uselessly in one hand, Tihoc’s throat was exposed to my blade. I pulled my thrust a fraction of an inch to the side, barely slicing the skin. I saw in a flicker of the Mayan’s eyes that he knew what I had done.

  Regaining control of his spear, Tihoc now went to the attack with a deadly ferocity. I gave ground before his battering charge and began to fear that the contest could only end with Tihoc’s death or mine.

  The end came, with startling suddenness. Tihoo feinted me high, then dropped to a crouch and swung the butt like a baseball bat, catching me just above the ankles and knocking my feet out from under me. I crashed to the ground and rolled to my back just in time to see the blade of Tihoc’s spear thrust into my face. At the last second it bit into the ground so close to my ear I could feel the heat of it.

  I flipped to my feet, spear again at the ready, and faced my opponent. A new message was in his eyes— the camaraderie of battle. We were even now. I had spared his life, a thing he could not forgive until he had spared mine.

  I gambled. Taking a step forward I tilted my blade toward Tihoc in salute. He dipped his own spear to meet mine, and the battle was ended. We dropped our weapons and clasped hand-to-wrist in the Mayan style. The villagers chattered their approval, and for the first time I saw smiles on the dark Indian faces.

  The old chief approached us and spoke in Mayan to Tihoc. Then he turned to me and said, “I have told my son that he fought bravely and with honor. I say the same to you, Nick Carter. Vigia Chico can be reached within an hour. Two of my strongest men will take you there by canoe.”

  He handed me a package wrapped in a waterproof fabric. “You must clean and oil your pistol before the salt water dries, or it will be of no use against the evil men you seek.”

  I thanked him and retrieved Hugo from the door of the hut. Then I followed the two muscular men who were already waiting to take me to the canoe.

  Thirteen

  The canoe trip up the coast was swift and silent. The two Mayans stroked us powerfully along just outside the tumbling surf. Neither of them spoke.

  We came ashore at Vigla Chico, a settlement three times the size of the village we had left. The dwellings seemed more permanent, and a railroad track from the east terminated at the outer limit of the town. My oarsmen took me to what appeared to be the house of the local headman, talked with him briefly in Mayan, and left me abruptly without a glance.

  I asked for a telephone, and was taken to an all-purpose building that apparently served as school, general store, meeting hall, warehouse, and what-have-you. The telephone was an early model in a scarred wooden frame with a crank on the side.

  The next two hours were spent getting through to Merida, the capital of Yucatan, and from there through a maze of relays and intermediate operators until the familiar voice of David Hawk Anally crackled over the line.

  I told him where I was and gave him a condensed version of how I got there, talking fast for fear we might lose the connection at any moment.

  “I need a fast way out of here,” I told him. “There’s a railroad, but from the looks of it, the train must run once every total eclipse of the sun.”

  “I’ll get a helicopter in to you. What’s the mission status?”

  “The suitcases are coming aboard the Gaviota from a launch out of Curasao. Fyodor Gorodin seems to be the field man for the operation with Zhizov apparently stationed at their headquarters and making only an occasional appearance outside. No confirmation that Knox Warnow is the key man, but the evidence is strong enough that we can consider it a certainty.” I hesitated, then added, “We lost Rona Volstedt.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Nick,” David Hawk said. I knew he meant it. As director of AXE, he was familiar with death, yet the loss of an agent hurt him more deeply than most people would believe. “Can you work alone from here?” he added.

  “I can, but it would be a help to have someone familiar with the territory along. It’s getting dark here now, and I don’t have to remind you we’re fighting a deadline.”

  “You certainly don’t,” Hawk said drily. “Hang on a minute.”

  The telephone crackled emptily in my ear for several seconds, and I knew Hawk was punching information into his desk-side computer. Then he returned with the answer:

  “The CIA has an agent stationed in Veracruz, code name Pilar. She will contact you there at the Hotel Bahia Bonito.”

  “She?”

  “Yes, Nick, your incredible luck seems to be holding. I am told this one is a redhead well equipped with . . . uh . . . all the extras.” Hawk cleared his throat, then went on in another tone. “Can you make arrangements for a helicopter landing at Vigia Chioo?”

  “There’s a clearing just beyond this building. How soon can you send a chopper?”

  “I’ll have to work through the State Department. If they’re on the ball, you’ll have your bird in three to four hours.”

  “Fine. I’ll arrange to have flares or fires laid out to mark the landing area.” As we discussed these details, it occurred to me that under normal conditions such information would never go out unscrambled over public telephone lines. The circumstances, however, were anything but usual, the conditions primitive.

  “You’ll need money,” Hawk said. “I’ll have it waiting at your hotel in various Central American currencies. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes. My Luger took a salt water bath, so I’ll want to have a gun cleaning kit handy. Also 9mm. ammunition.”

  “It will be waiting.” There was a pause on the line, as if Hawk wanted to add something more. But then he said merely, “More than luck to you, Nick” and rang off.

  I had a Job persuading the local head man to get the signal fires going to guide in the helicopter. He was not eager to help me. The natives of Vigia Chico were a little less hostile to the outside world than the Mayans had been in the village down the coast, but their ties to the old ways were still strong. White men had seldom come to Yucatan on peaceful missions, and the people were not eager to bring in one of their flying machines.

  I finally got their reluctant cooperation through an age-old method. By promising them money. Privately, I had hoped the State Department CIA pilot would bring some cash. It might be a little sticky getting out of Vigia Chico if the villagers thought they’d been conned.

  For the next couple of hours such worries were tucked away in the back of my mind
as I directed the placement of the signal fires. There was plenty of dry brush around, and I had six fires set in a circular pattern to outline the landing area.

  Once the fires were burning well and the clearing illuminated, I sat down to wait. And wait. And wait.

  With the State Department involved, I should have known it wouldn’t go smoothly. By the time I heard the sound of the helicopter rotor, dawn was breaking and my crew of fire-builders were definitely unhappy with the delay. The pilot spotted our little party and brought his craft in, raising a great cloud of thick red-brown dust.

  The pilot’s name was Martin. He was a thin young man with a sharp nose. We exchanged identification while the villagers clustered around, eying the helicopter with intense suspicion.

  “I hope they sent some money with you,” I said.

  “Money? What for?”

  “To get help with the signal fires I had to promise these people some payment.”

  Martin squinted up at the brightening sky. “I don’t know what you needed signal fires for; it’s almost full daylight.”

  “When I asked for a helicopter,” I said coolly, “it was dark. I had hoped that the State Department would respond with a fair amount of speed and get me out of here before dawn. I’m on rather a tight schedule, old pal.”

  “Nobody said anything about bringing money,” he grumbled.

  There was an uneasy muttering from the people standing around us, and I was afraid they were catching the gist of our conversation.

  “Did you bring any money of your own?” I asked.

  “Well. . . some,” he said cautiously.

  I was losing my temper. “So get it out, goddammit! I promised these people money, and I have a hunch they’ll break your bones if they don’t get it.”

  Looking pained, Martin dragged a battered wallet out of his hip pocket and began leafing through the bills. In exasperation I grabbed the wallet away from him and stripped out the greenbacks. It added up to a little over fifty dollars in U.S. bills. I handed it to the head man who counted it solemnly then nodded without smiling. He spoke to the villagers, who moved away, clearing a path for us.

  As we got into the helicopter, Martin said, “Did you have to give them all of it? Those Indians would probably have been satisfied with half.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “And maybe they would’ve been unhappy—until they put a spear through your throat. Would that be worth twenty-five bucks to you?”

  He kicked the engine to life without comment

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ll make a full report of your contribution, and you’ll be reimbursed through the usual State Department channels. If you’re lucky, you’ll get your money back by Christmas. Maybe not this Christmas . . .”

  For the first time, Martin relaxed a bit and even managed a small grin. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got to admit it’s cheaper than a spear in the gullet. Where to?”

  “Veracruz,” I told him, and we sprang into the air.

  Fourteen

  Hernando Cortes came ashore at Veracruz in 1519, the first Spaniard to set foot on Mexican soil. Since then, the city has been captured in various wars by the Americans and twice by the French.

  As we skimmed in over the Gulf of Campeche and I squinted down at the sunlit city, it was plain that Veracruz was now, at least, a prize worthy of all that blood and thunder.

  We settled onto a pad behind the American Consulate, where I turned down an invitation to stay for lunch. I was feeling stiff and sticky from my exertions, wiped out for want of sleep, and I didn’t feel like making small talk over martinis with some of our foreign service types. I shook hands with Martin, assured him again that he’d get his money back, and used an outside telephone to call for a taxi.

  The cab ride to the Hotel Bahia Bonito twisted through some of the city’s ancient cobblestone streets lined with quaint old houses, and zoomed along the wide modern thoroughfares next to steel and glass skyscrapers.

  My hotel was antiquated but comfortable, the kind with a big center courtyard open to the sky and three tiers of rooms around it I told the driver to wait and went inside. When I gave my name, the man at the desk handed me a room key, a thick, sealed envelope, and a package the size of a clarinet case. I slit the envelope and found, in various sizes and colors: dollars, pesos, quetzales, cordobas, colons, lempiras, balboas, bolivars, gourdes, pounds, francs, and guilders. I pulled out the pesos, paid the driver, and with the package under my arm, went up to my room on the third floor. There wasn’t any message from Pilar or from anyone else.

  I took a long, steamy bath followed by a cool shower, then unwrapped the package of gum-cleaning equipment and went to work on the Luger. I could have asked Hawk to get me a new pistol, but Wilhelmina was an old and reliable friend.

  I stripped the Luger down and examined all the parts. Since it had been well-oiled and protected by the waterproof covering, the salt water hadn’t yet cor-roded the metal. I used solvent on every part, even the tiny screws, and ran patches through the bore until they came out virginal white. I dried the disassembled gun with the lint-free cotton wiper, touched the critical parts with low-viscosity lubricating oil, and put the Luger back together. I filled the eight-cartridge clip from the box of shells Hawk had provided, and slipped Wilhelmina into my belt holster.

  My body needed sleep, but my mind wouldn’t give up. There were plans to make, loopholes to close. And whenever I gave my brain a rest, the picture of Rona swam into view. The blonde girl whose slender, supple body had been so many nights in my embrace, could not be dismissed as Just another working partner lost.

  They don’t allow the time or depletion for sorrow, I thought bitterly, and banged out of my room. Down at the desk I asked if there was a store nearby where I could buy clothes.

  “Yes, senor. Aguilars, just across the street, has an excellent selection,” the clerk said.

  “Gracias. I am expecting a visitor. If she arrives, tell her where to find me.”

  I crossed the street and spent a fistful of Hawk’s money on clothes. Dressed in a new suit with all the appropriate accessories, I checked with my desk clerk again, then sauntered up the street to a sidewalk cafe. I took a table where I could watch the entrance and ordered a bottle’ of local brandy, which burned like fire but didn’t taste bad. Sipping the brandy, I wondered how long I should wait before deciding that my contact, Pilar, was not going to show.

  Just then a dark girl in a low-cut blouse that barely contained her magnificent breasts, swayed between the tables and came to a stop at mine. Her hair was black and thick, with a slightly tousled, fresh-from-bed disorder. She had black-coffee eyes that promised exotic pleasures.

  “Can you spare a match?” she asked with a bare trace of accent.

  “Sorry, I don’t keep them since I quit smoking.” I clued her.

  “I tried to quit last year myself, but I only lasted two weeks,” she answered correctly.

  “You must be Pilar.”

  “Yes. And you are Nick Carter . . . called Killmaster. Your reputation has preceded you.” “I don’t know if I should play modest or apologize.”

  Her full lips curved into a smile. “One should never apologize. May I sit down?”

  “Of course. My manners are a bit worn today, like the rest of me.”

  Pilar eased into a chair across the table from me. “You look as though you could use some sleep,” she said.

  “Business first,” I said with an insinuating smile. “Can we talk here?”

  Her lovely eyes drifted over the idlers in the cafe and the pedestrians strolling by on the sidewalk. “It’s as good a place as any,” she told me with a shrug.

  I signaled the waiter for another glass and poured brandy for Pilar. Then I asked abruptly, “What did you do to your hair?”

  Instinctively, her hand went to her head in momentary confusion, then she smiled. “You must have been told I was a redhead. As you know, it often becomes necessary in our business to change one’s appearance. Do y
ou like it black?”

  “Love it. Bet you were a knockout as a redhead, too.”

  “Why, thank you,” she said and peered at me mischievously from under her long lashes.

  For an instant Pilars features seemed to fade and shift into the fine-boned face of Rona Volstedt. I took a gulp of the powerful brandy and the image vanished.

  “The only lead we have,” I said, “is the launch that put the suitcase aboard the Gaviota. I couldn’t spot a name or identifying numbers in the dark. It rode too low in the water and was powered by twin outboards.”

  Pilar chewed on her lip and shook her head.

  “That’s not much to go on. Did you get a look at any of the men in the launch?”

  “The man in charge was short, thickly built, and completely bald.”

  She held up a hand to stop me. “A stocky, bald man?”

  “That’s right. Do you know him?”

  “I think so. There is such a man who leads a band of smugglers on Curasao. He is called Torio.”

  “Can you tell me where to find him?”

  “I can take you there. I know Curasao, and we’ll be able to move quickly.”

  For a minute I was going to object. I didn’t want her to end up like Rona. But Pilar was right, I could waste precious time blundering around Curasao without a guide, and time was the all-important factor.

  “How soon can we leave?” I said.

  “We can catch an early flight tomorrow morning. I will make the arrangements.”

  “Can we get started sooner?”

  “No. And it is important that you rest tonight. Tomorrow you will have to be strong and alert.”

  My aching muscles agreed. We drank another glass of brandy, and she walked with me to my hotel.

  “I will come for you in the morning,” Pilar said, “and we will go to the airport.”

  I left her in the courtyard and wearily climbed the stairs to my room.