Earthfire North

by Nick Carter

  "Thank you," she said. "You worked hard chasing me; I thought I might try the same."

  Roberta seemed even more enchanting by candlelight. Carter was finding it suddenly very difficult to keep lying to her, to remain in his Texan role. Gradually, he allowed his drawl to slip away.

  You never did explain why you picked me. You didn't see me at Armando's. You've never been there. I'm sure you don't even know where it is. So why me? I can't be that special."

  He held his wineglass up so that the candle flame sparkled in it. Next to her face the crimson points of light made a beautiful contrast with the delicate smoothness of her complexion. "You're wrong there, Roberta," he said. "Very wrong." And as soon as he'd said it, he knew he'd spoken the truth.

  They finished dinner, and after another glass of wine and some light conversation, mostly about life in the States, they moved to the couch. She put on some soft music, then came back to him.

  They lay back, arm in arm, her eyes half-closed, her breasts rising and falling with her breathing. For a long time they listened to the music, luxuriating in the comfort of the moment.

  She finally broke the silence.

  "Why did you really come up to the office, Nick?"

  "You don't believe me?"

  "Not really," she said. "You came up there for something, saw me, and decided I was the means to your end. What was it you were looking for?"

  There is no such thing as the perfect job. Every endeavor has its not-so-pleasant aspects. This was one of the worst. He hated lying to an innocent.

  "What if I told you the truth — and it would make your position difficult?"

  "Try me," she said languidly.

  "What if it could make your life here… untenable?"

  She opened her eyes and looked up into his. She reached up and drew him down to her. They kissed, deeply.

  When they parted, there was a lot of color in her cheeks. "Try me," she said.

  "I didn't follow you up to your office. You know that. In fact you came as a complete surprise to me…a pleasant surprise."

  "You came up to see Mr. Ziegler?"

  "I came up to find out whatever I could about him, and to… to make him nervous."

  "I don't understand, Nick. Has Mr. Ziegler done something to you?"

  "Someone tried to kill me several days ago in Iceland. Another tried up in Salto the day before yesterday. Both of them worked for your boss."

  "But why?"

  "Because I'm getting very close to uncovering something he's doing in Iceland. Something he wants to keep secret because it is illegal." Carter hesitated a moment, then smiled at her. "I thought I could charm the information out of you, but the reverse has happened."

  She smiled and drew him down again. They kissed for a very long time. She combed back a lock of his dark hair with her fingertips. "You really mean that?" she asked, her voice very husky.

  "Yes," he whispered, and he untied the drawstring at the neckline of her blouse. She wore no bra. Her breasts were small and firm, the nipples hard. He kissed them lightly, and a moan escaped from her lips.

  Her hands and lips were all over him, and soon they slid slowly to the thick pile carpeting. They were nude, in each other's arms, making love with a barely restrained violence.

  Afterward she lay in his arms, her eyes closed, a gentle smile on her lips. He sat above her, watching the candlelight dance on the perfect smoothness of her back, tracing its outline with his finger.

  "What is it you're trying to find out, Nick?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "About Mr. Ziegler. What are you looking for?"

  Carter had to bring his mind back to the present. "You said he's always busy. Doing what?" he asked lamely.

  Meetings. Telephone calls. Traveling. That sort of thing. There's always a lot of work in the mornings when i come in. Work that had to have been generated the previous evenings."

  "Such as?"

  "Inventory a lot of the time. Bills of lading, bills of transport, new numbers to put in the materials file."

  "The president of a big concern handles that?"

  "It's always been that way," she said.

  "He's gathering up a new inventory, then. But what? And where's it coming from?"

  She shook her head. "It's just numbers on a page to me, Nick. I don't know what the actual inventory is. I'm sorry. Do you think it's that important?"

  "It might be."

  "Once I remember sending a series of letters to a factory in Germany. I remember that specific incident because Mr. Ziegler seemed to be very worried about it."

  "To Germany?"

  "Yes, Mainz. It was something about a shortage of some items on a shipment."

  "Where was all this shipped?"

  "I don't know, Nick. It could have been anywhere. We have warehouses in sixteen different countries."

  "Iceland?"

  "No," she said. "Mostly in Europe, and here in South America."

  "Here in Buenos Aires?"

  "We have a lot of warehouses here."

  "Where?" Nick asked. "Where specifically?"

  "It depends upon what's being stored. I mean if it's paper goods, or hardware, or…"

  "Something bulky, let's say," Nick interjected. "Something perhaps that might come in from Germany, and then would be immediately shipped out."

  "Warehouse number four," she said without hesitation.

  "What?"

  "Number four. Avenida del Libertador. The Riacheulo District. It's the main clearinghouse for anything incoming or outgoing."

  "Terrific," he said, sitting up. If Ziegler was supplying Iceland with anything — anything at all — it would probably go through this shipping point. It was worth a try.

  Carter disengaged himself from Roberta and got up.

  "You're not going out there now?"

  He started getting dressed. "I have to find out what's going on there," he said.

  She sat up. "But it's after one in the morning. And if they find you there, there's no telling what might happen."

  Carter pulled her up to him and held her in his arms for a long moment. "I'm going to have to do this, but you're going to have to promise me something."

  They parted, and she looked into his eyes but said nothing.

  "I may have screwed things up for you at work. I don't want you going in until you hear from me. Do you understand?"

  "No," she said, shaking her head.

  "Your boss tried to kill me. Twice. Now he knows that you and I have spoken. He may know that we've had lunch, and that we've… been here together. Just stay here."

  "All right," she said in a small voice.

  He finished getting dressed, his weapons hidden in his jacket pockets.

  "I get the terrible feeling that I'll never see you again. That I'm just going to have to hang around here in limbo for the rest of my life," Roberta said. Her eyes were glistening.

  He kissed her. "I'll be back one way or the other," he said. "You can count on it."

  They kissed again, and he left the apartment. In the elevator on the way down to his car, he promised himself that when this thing was over, he would take her somewhere. Perhaps the Bahamas. Hawk would have to give him the time off.

  Downstairs in the Audi he strapped on his weapons, then studied the car agency's city map. The Riachuelo District was on the city's far south side. When he had some idea where to go, he started the engine and left.

  He stopped at his hotel to pick up a few items from his suitcase — a camera and a packet of tools — then he continued on to the docks.

  When he arrived he found the banks of the Rio de la Plata shrouded in fog. He turned left off the main street, up a cobblestone lane, and then bumped along, his headlights narrowed to cones, looking for the proper warehouse.

  The numbers, for some reason, did not run consecutively, and it was only by accident that he finally came upon number four. The building was very large and well lit. The main dockside doors were wide open, with a lot of acti
vity coming and going.

  A ship was being unloaded. And everyone seemed to be in one hell of a hurry.

  Carter continued past the warehouse, finding a spot for his car a block beyond the building. He hurried back on foot to a point just down the dock from the warehouse where he could watch what was going on.

  Men drove forklifts in and out of the warehouse as loads of cargo were lowered from the ship. The cargo was mostly very large crates, but occasionally there were bundles of large-diameter pipe — apparently plastic pipe of some sort.

  As he continued to watch, a security guard with a vicious-looking German shepherd watchdog at his side and an automatic rifle — what appeared to be an AK-47 — over his shoulder stepped into view in front of the doors. He nodded to one of the workmen, then walked to the other side of the building and disappeared around the corner.

  Whatever was being unloaded must have been very important. They were taking no chances with its safety. Carter wondered if the armed guard was in any way a reaction to his visit to the company headquarters.

  He slipped back into the shadows and, keeping low, raced across the narrow alleyway to a neighboring building.

  The warehouse was dark, its service door at the side padlocked. It took him less than a minute to pick the lock and slip inside.

  Even in the dark it wasn't hard to find the freight elevator and take it to the roof, but once he was outside he realized that the fog was thicker up here than at street level for some reason. The roof of number four appeared as nothing but a gray hulk lit from below. It was difficult to judge the exact distance from this roof to the other.

  At the edge of the roof he looked across. It was fifteen feet, at least, to the roof of the next building. If he missed, it was at least fifty feet to the alley below. He'd end up as dog food for the German shepherd if he miscalculated.

  Carter stepped back, counting off his paces until he was twenty yards away from the edge. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he raced toward the edge, putting everything he had into building up his speed.

  There was no parapet on the roof, so one moment he was running and the next found him launched across the gap between the buildings.

  His motion through the air seemed unreal in the dense fog; it seemed as if he were flying forever. But then the edge of the opposite building came up at his face, and he had just enough time to reach out with his arms to block his fall and hang on to the edge of the roof.

  The impact nearly tore his arms from their sockets, but in the next instant he had heaved himself up onto the edge and lay there, his chest heaving.

  The dog barked below, and seconds later Carter could hear the guard screaming at the animal to keep quiet.

  He rolled over, got up, and moved silently to the nearest skylight. Below, in the warehouse, the crates were stacked nearly to the ceiling. He had to break one of the windowpanes in the skylight to get at the latch, but then it swung open easily, and he lowered himself inside atop the stack of crates.

  He was near the rear of the warehouse. Most of the work being done now was toward the from. He flipped on his tiny penlight and examined the crate on which he was perched. Stenciled on the lid were the words FABRIZIERT IM DDR — Made in West Germany — giving Mainz as the point of origin. The logo was two lions holding up a shield with STEUBEN UND SOHNS lettered beneath it. He pulled out his miniature camera and took a photograph of the labeling, then let himself down crate by crate until he reached the floor at the rear of the building.

  Wide aisles had been left between the tall stacks, and by keeping to the rear of the building, Carter could remain out of sight of the activity in the front.

  His tiny camera was loaded with ultra-high-speed film, and as he worked his way past the stacks, he took photographs of the markings and numbers on the crates. Occasionally a piece of equipment was too large to be crated and instead was covered with plastic sheeting. He took photographs of these pieces of equipment as well.

  At the end of one aisle he found a particularly large piece of gear covered in plastic. Careful to make as little noise as possible, he pulled back some of the plastic to get a better look. He'd ripped away a large section when he heard a low, menacing growl in the darkness behind him.

  He spun around in time to catch no more than a blur as the dog charged him. He threw up his arm to protect his face as the dog hit, then went down under the force of me impact, the camera skating across the concrete floor.

  The animal had been trained to go for the face and neck of its victim, and it was very strong and very quick.

  He managed to shove the animal back far enough so that he got his left arm free. He pulled out his stiletto, and when the animal came at him again, he jabbed up into the beast's belly and sliced hard and to the left.

  The animal whimpered in mortal pain, leaped away from Carter, and ran around in tight circles snapping at its own entrails.

  Someone was shouting from the front of the warehouse, and he could hear other dogs barking, and he scrambled to his feet. The camera had evidently slid under one of the pallets, but there was no time to search for it now.

  He dashed down the nearest aisle, then through a gap in the crates to the next aisle over, and halfway down that one until he found a nest of cardboard boxes on the second tier up. He hurried up the crates and shoved his way behind the cardboard boxes, hidden from view from below.

  He was covered with blood — the dog's as well as his own. The animal had bitten his left hand, puncturing the skin and tearing the flesh. It was very painful. He pulled out his handkerchief and wrapped the wound, tightening the knot with his teeth.

  From the rear of his perch he could just see a section of the area where the dog had attacked him. The animal lay dead. A forklift came into view and stopped. Then two guards with dogs hurried up. They all were armed with AK-47 Russian assault rifles.

  "He's probably still in the warehouse," the tallest of the three men barked in German. He gave instructions to the other two to spread out, and they started back along the aisle.

  Carter glanced up the stack of boxes toward the skylights in the ceiling. It was a long way up there, and he would be exposed. There was no way in hell he'd get out the way he'd gotten in.

  He pulled out his Luger, checked the clip in the dim light, and levered a round into the chamber. Before he left he was going to have to retrieve the camera. It was the sole reason he had risked coming here in the first place. Without it, he would have all but wasted his time here tonight.

  He eased himself down from his hiding place and hurried down the aisle, keeping to the shadows, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the guards with the dogs.

  Gradually he worked his way around so that he was on the opposite side of the aisle where the camera lay. He could see the entire area clearly. The dog that had attacked him lay dead, sprawled against a crate, There was blood everywhere.

  A dog suddenly began barking in the next aisle over, and Carter could hear the sounds of forklifts at the front still working.

  He stepped out from behind the crate he had been watching from and started toward where he thought the camera might have slid when a second dog barked, this one much closer and directly behind him.

  Carter spun around in time to see the animal charging at him from fifteen yards down the aisle. He leaped forward to the stack of crates and managed to pull himself halfway up when the animal had him by his left leg. He turned back, pointing Wilhelmina directly at the beast's head, about to pull the trigger, but then he stopped. Two men, both with AK-47s, stood looking at him.

  "Hans! Back!" one of them snapped. The animal backed down, whining.

  For just a moment Carter considered shooting it out with them, but then he decided against it. There was no way in hell he had a chance against their firepower.

  He tossed his Luger down to the nearest guard, jumped down to the floor, and raised his hands.

  "We'll take the knife you used to kill the other dog," the guard said in Germ
an.

  Carter handed over Hugo, and the guard motioned toward the front of the building with the stiletto.

  In front, the workmen were taking a break. They sat on boxes and machinery with their lunch pails open. They stopped and looked up when Carter and the guards appeared, then laughed and pointed. Some money changed hands.

  "This way," one guard ordered, nudging Carter to the left with the barrel of the automatic.

  They crossed the main entryway and went into the small front office equipped only with a couple of desks, a few swivel chairs, and a few file cabinets. One of the guards pulled out a chair and shoved Carter into it, while the other knocked softly at a rear door.

  "Kommen," a rough voice commanded.

  The guard opened the door and just stuck his head inside. "We have the spy, Herr General," he said.

  The man in the back room came out. He was tall, completely bald, and wore a monocle in his right eye. It was Ziegler. There was no mistaking him. His thin, bloodless lips parted in a smile.

  "Tie him to the chair," he snapped.

  Quickly the guards produced some rope, and expertly bound Carter's arms and legs as well as his waist and chest.

  "It is a long journey from Iceland to this place," Ziegler said in German, perching on the edge of one of the desks. "Who sent you?"

  Carter just looked at the man, a slight smile on his face.

  "You are going to die, Herr Carter. There is no question of that. However, how painful your death may or may not be is entirely up to you."

  "Did you personally handle Lydia Coatsworth's death as well?" Carter asked. "You torture women too?"

  "Break his fingers," Ziegler said nonchalantly to the guards. "Start with the pinky on his injured hand."

  One of the guards roughly grabbed Carter's hand, but Ziegler held him back.

  "Not so fast, Wilhelm. With care. Slowly, with care. We want Herr Carter to enjoy this."

  The guard carefully began prying back the little finger on Carter's left hand, the pain shooting up his arm.

  "Now," Ziegler said. "Who is it you work for? The CIA, perhaps?"