Circle of Scorpions

by Nick Carter

  Carter glanced forward. He could see that Jason Henry was seething.

  Quickly, he stood and moved around Amani into the right seat. While he was buckling in, he flipped the radio toggle to «headset» and whispered, "Cool it!"

  Henry's eyes widened and then narrowed. "That bitch," he whispered. "She screwed us!"

  "No, my friend. The game is being played quite nicely."

  Thirteen

  The strip was little different from the one they had taken off from in France: a wide patch of cleared ground in a fanner's field.

  Just before landing, Amani had given instructions to Henry: "Radio Cordoba that you are having engine trouble!"

  Henry radioed the message twice, along with the coordinates that Amani gave him. Then the old Italian had leaned forward and ruptured the radio jacks with a screwdriver.

  "Now you may land. The coordinates are miles from here, near the Portuguese frontier. That's where they will look for you!"

  Henry landed the plane with only a couple of hops on the rutted, hard-packed dirt, and taxied to the end of the makeshift runway.

  There was no hangar, just a couple of olive sheds, and between them stood a strutless Cessna 210 with an Arab-looking pilot lounging against the fuselage.

  "Our new chauffeur is waiting, Carlotta," Amani chuckled.

  Four men with machine pistols surrounded the plane as Henry rolled to a stop and cut the engines. Three of them were Spanish or Arab, dressed similarly in black leather jackets and dark trousers. The fourth was in a baggy dark suit and looked to be Scandinavian or Slavic.

  It was Slavic.

  Carter detected the Russian accent in the man's English when he embraced Amani and they exchanged greetings.

  The Russian gave the same greeting to Carlotta when Amani introduced them. Then, one by one, Amani shook hands with the three leather-jacketed gunmen.

  It didn't take a genius to figure out that they were Basques from the north, probably members of the ETA's renegade terrorist arm.

  Amani went into a subdued, heads-down conference with all four of them. After a lot of head-shaking and a few smiles, the Italian walked back toward Carter and Henry.

  "Signore Kashmir, you have proved invaluable. But as I told you, I cannot let you accompany me on the last leg of my journey."

  "So they waste us," Carter growled, nodding his head toward the four men.

  "Quite the contrary," Amani replied, chuckling. "They will merely hold you here until I have landed at my destination. It should not be more than four hours at the most."

  "And then?" Henry asked between clenched teeth.

  "Then you will be released to continue your flight to Cordoba. What both of you do then is your own business. Your money, Signore Kashmir, has already been transferred in Switzerland. You see, I am a man of my word."

  "One of those men is Russian, Amani," Carter said. "Is that who you're dealing with now?"

  Amani frowned, but only for a second. Then his lips spread in a wide grin. "I have made my peace with my Russian comrades. With their help, I will have Italy. It is what I have always wanted."

  The three leather jackets stepped forward and motioned Carter and Henry toward one of the olive sheds with their guns.

  Carter grabbed his flight bag, and the Russian started squawking, "Nyet, nyet!"

  Carter looked quizzically at Amani. "I'm as wanted as you are. I'll need my disguises and a change of clothes to go through Spanish Customs in Cordoba."

  Amani nodded and calmed the Russian's fears. "The lady and myself removed all their arms before we left France. The bags have also been searched."

  The KGB man nodded reluctantly, and they were hustled to one of the olive sheds.

  When they were inside and the door was locked behind them, Henry whirled on Carter.

  "What the hell is going on?"

  "No more than I expected," Carter replied. "Did you get a good look at that Russian's eyes while Amani was talking to us?"

  "You bet your ass I did."

  "And what did you see?"

  "He's going to waste us the minute Amani and the woman are gone!"

  Carter nodded, watching the activity outside through a crack in the boards that had been nailed over the single window. "My sentiments exactly. And I'll go you one guess further. I'll bet they plan on burying us up here in the mountains somewhere and using your Beechcraft themselves."

  There were olive crates scattered around the shed on the hard-packed earth floor. Henry flopped down on one of them and sighed.

  "You know, Carter, this is really not the way I figured to go."

  "You're not going anywhere but out of here." Carter sat on another crate and began digging in his flight bag. "Get up to the window and tell me how they're moving outside. My guess is they'll come for us as soon as the Cessna is off the ground."

  Henry moved toward the window, but he seemed not to hear all of Carter's words. "And that little bitch, Carlotta… I thought you said she was Italian SID!"

  "She is," Carter replied, lifting a heavy camera case and tripod from the bag. "And she's a damned fine actress."

  "She's a bitch! They're warming up the Cessna."

  "We had to play it this way because we didn't know the final place of the meeting… exactly where Amani was going."

  "We still don't."

  "We will. And when we do, I've already set up a way to contact Carlotta. You see, Henry, Amani now trusts her. With her on the inside, I can get the exact information I need."

  "Which is…?"

  "Breaking up this little get-together is important, yes. But more important is getting the facts and proof that the KGB plans on aiding and abetting. If we have that, we can tie all their hands!"

  Henry turned back from the window to face Carter. A light bulb seemed to flash on behind his eyes.

  "And you think Carlotta can get close enough to get that proof?"

  Carter smiled. "She's very experienced and very beautiful. Yes, I think she can. And when we find out what the proof is — and where it is — you and I will figure out how to get it."

  Henry suddenly realized that Carter was pulling an expensive Rolleiflex camera apart and deftly reassembling the pieces in his lap.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  "It's a specially altered 9mm parabellum model 951 Italian Beretta. Its operation has been redesigned from delayed blowback, semiautomatic, to full automatic. The barrel length has been shortened to three inches but beefed up to handle drilled, semimagnum loads. Its muzzle velocity is still better than a thousand feet per second, and the four-load magazines can be chain-locked, end to end, up to five, so they will spring-feed twenty shells. These sections of the tripod are actually loaded magazines."

  Carter linked the magazines together, snapped the top one into the butt, and sharply pulled the slide to jack a live shell into the chamber. Then he held it up so Henry could see the final result.

  "And voilà! It becomes a minisubmachine gun weighing less than a pound and a half!"

  "I'll be damned."

  Outside, the Cessna's engine roared and the plane began taxiing. From the alternating sounds, both men could tell when the little plane had lifted off.

  "Okay, the goons will be coming soon," Carter hissed. "Stand directly in front of me when they come in. Roll when you feel the barrel of this baby in your back!"

  Carter explained the rest in short, biting sentences, with Henry nodding his understanding.

  A key in the padlock outside the door brought them quickly together.

  "Ready?"

  "Ready," Henry whispered.

  The door opened. Two of them came in single file and then spread out, one covering with his machine pistol, the other advancing to get behind them.

  Carter waited until the advancing man was just in front of Henry, then he grazed Henry's back with the Beretta's short barrel.

  Henry dropped like a felled tree and rolled as the Beretta began to chatter. Neither of the men had time to blink before t
hey met their Maker.

  Six 9mm slugs caught the first one in the chest. As he reeled back and down. Carter kept firing. One slug took his chin away on the way down, and five more slugs went over his falling body to make a corpse of the second one.

  He had barely hit the dirt before Henry had his machine pistol, then Henry and Carter were out the door and running.

  The third leather jacket was pumping fuel into the Beechcraft. Henry went at him full tilt as the man made a dive for his gun ten feet away on the ground.

  He never made it.

  Henry cut him in half vertically, from crotch to sternum, just as his fingers found the gun.

  "Where's the other one? The Russian?"

  "You got me," Henry shouted in reply, dropping to his belly, foot to foot, with Carter.

  Both of them played their guns in an arc in their halves of the circle.

  They were about to stand, when an engine roared to life and a small Seat sedan flew toward them from behind the second olive shed.

  "Turn him before he gets the plane!" Carter yelled, coming to one knee.

  Both guns chattered. Slugs ripped across the front of the fenders and the radiator. Steam immediately engulfed the front of the car. But now they had the range.

  The windshield shattered, held for a second, and then flew completely apart. Behind it, the KGB man lay back in the seat, his arms wide, half his face gone.

  But the car came on.

  "Get the tires!" Carter shouted.

  Both guns sprayed the front end again until the car slumped and started to swerve. It teetered on two wheels, then rolled completely over to its side, to the roof, and back to rock on its wheels.

  "Finish gassing the plane," Carter growled. "I'll clean up this mess!"

  He dragged the two bodies from the shed and stuffed them into the Seat, then joined them with Henry's kill.

  By the time he had finished, the Beechcraft was fueled and Henry was rolling the portable tank out of the way.

  "Don't shut it off," Carter said, taking the hose from his hand. "Get aboard!"

  Henry nodded and headed for the plane. Carter dragged the portable tank to the Seat and drenched the car. He then made a twenty-yard trail of gasoline away from the vehicle and pushed the portable tank back close enough to the Seat so they would both go off together.

  He made a makeshift fuse out of a gas-soaked handkerchief and a book of matches, and raced for the plane.

  "Jesus, you're thorough," Henry said, jamming the throttles forward.

  "Less explaining to do. Think we can catch them?"

  "No problem. We're pretty sure they'll head south over the Med, right?"

  "Right," Carter agreed.

  "Okay, I can triple their speed, and probably more than that on altitude. They're probably flying low to go in under radar. Fix one of those jacks and get on the radio to Cordoba tower."

  "New flight plan?"

  "Right," Henry said, banking the plane into the wind. "We'll file for Marrakesh. That's far enough south in Morocco that we can probably go anywhere legally, while they have to play games."

  They were just lifting off when the Seat exploded behind them.

  * * *

  "There he is!"

  Carter leaned forward. It took him several seconds to spot the gun glinting off the Cessna's silver skin.

  "He's banking."

  "I got him," Henry said, throttling back and trimming after setting his rpm.

  They watched the smaller plane roll toward the foothills of the Atlas Mountains where they met the sea. Suddenly the banking stopped, and the Cessna was literally hedge-hopping the low-level mountains.

  "Well, we know one thing," Henry declared. "It's Morocco. That is, if that crazy bastard doesn't fly into the side of a mountain!"

  Both men held their breath as the Cessna pilot rolled over the edge of a plateau, let his air speed build going into a valley, and then trimmed again as he barely made the next peak.

  "What do you think?"

  Henry shrugged. "It's all desert. He could land anywhere, once he gets over these mountains."

  "But it's going to be near Fez or Marrakesh, right?"

  "Has to be. That's all there is between the ocean and the mountains."

  Henry climbed a little more to make sure they weren't spotted, and they both settled back in their seats to play cat and mouse.

  The old capital of Fez dropped away far below and to their right. Then it was endless sand for another half hour until, on the distant horizon, they spotted the red city of Marrakesh.

  "They're landing!"

  Carter craned his neck, pasting his eyes to binoculars.

  The Cessna set down on a ribbon of red clay road that wound down from the foothills of the Atlas and on into the desert. With the prop still turning, Amani and Carlotta alighted from the plane.

  "Can they see or hear us?" Carter asked.

  Henry shook his head. "We're too far away for them to hear over the Cessna engine, and we're right in the sun."

  Carter nodded, and watched a car scoot forward from a small Berber village about eight miles from where the Cessna had come down.

  By the time the plane was taking off again, the car had reached the couple.

  "Follow the plane for a little," Carter commanded.

  Henry did, until they were both sure of its direction and probable destination.

  "Algeria?" Carter asked.

  "Looks that way. The guy can really fly, and he obviously knows these mountains. He's probably been running a taxi service around here for years. Why Morocco for this big confab?"

  "My guess is easy access from Algeria, Libya, and the sea. Also, it's neutral ground and a melting pot for tourists. Any nationality can blend without standing out. Let's get back to the car!"

  From a long distance, they followed the dust trail of the little sedan until they were sure of its destination.

  "I'd say Marrakesh," Henry said.

  "I'd say you're right. Double back to Fez and land there, just in case. We'll drive down. You have any Moroccan connections?"

  Henry laughed. "Friend, I've got connections everywhere."

  "I figured," Carter said. "Get me on the ground. I've got to find a telephone!"

  Fourteen

  The peaks of the High Atlas Mountains were snow-covered in the far distance. It was dusk, and as the sun dropped farther below the horizon, the sky turned a glowing orange. Flights of egrets and other birds swooped low over the red roofs of the city, coming home to roost for the night.

  Carter, wearing dark glasses and a set of small-power binoculars, sat on the roof of the Cafe des Mille et Une Nuits. He sipped a glass of mint tea and watched the five o'clock rush of tourists and natives in the square below him.

  He rested his arms on the parapet and looked down onto the multicolored human carpet that covered the huge open marketplace of the Djemma El Fna.

  The square was packed. Besides the vendors' open stalls, there were the fortune-tellers, the fire-eaters, the snake charmers, and the storytellers, each surrounded by a rapt audience.

  And in the center of it all was the backdrop and the stage of the Conjuror.

  Carter adjusted the glasses to a snake charmer and his helper working just at the edge of the Conjuror's stage. The helper looked like a light-skinned Berber from the mountains. His robes were multicolored: saffron, blue, and gold. They covered his entire body and half of his face, and above the cloth that draped the bridge of his nose, Carter could see the alert eyes darting everywhere — much as Carter's were — examining each passerby.

  The snake charmer's helper was Jason Henry.

  The man had proved to be more than up to any task Carter put before him.

  It was the fourth day since they had arrived and set up shop in three rooms of a cheap hotel on the Avenue Mohammed V.

  Local CIA and AXE people had been brought in from Casablanca to do the legwork. But when it came time for the tricks to start, it was Henry who knew how to recruit.


  Carter hadn't been surprised to find that Amani had taken rooms in the poshest resort hotel in Marrakesh, the Mamounia. The man might be struggling for socialism, but he hadn't completely given up his taste for capitalist comfort.

  KGB locals were everywhere, but it had been a simple matter to slip the means of contact to Carlotta on a breakfast tray the second day.

  That afternoon, she had avidly watched the snake charmer after leaving the door of the tailor shop on the far side of the square.

  Every evening, over a hundred pickpockets moved through the square, preying on the tourists. Two of them now worked for Henry.

  After a nod from Henry identifying Carlotta, the youths went to work.

  Carlotta never felt so much as a tug on the purse slung over her shoulder.

  Ten minutes later, several dirhams passed from Carter's hand to the youths, and the Killmaster was reading her note:

  There are over forty of us, and three KGB representatives. We are staying all over the city, some outside the city. We will be given a new route each day, but the meetings are always in the same place. Beneath the shops on the west end of the square is a huge cellar warehouse. It belongs to a rug merchant. It is there. Every word is carefully recorded, and if any settlement is eventually reached, I think it, too, will be recorded and signed. I think these documents are taken to the same place each night and locked away. I hope to find out soon where.

  Wherever it was. Carter guessed there would be a safe and a vault. That night after dinner, he gave Henry a complete list of materials he might need.

  The man was a genius.

  By midnight, everything was safely gathered and hidden away in their rooms.

  The next day, the communication process was repeated. This time, notes were exchanged. Carter had written out, in exact detail, what Carlotta was to do when the time came.

  The boy took only minutes to make the trade and return to Carter's side.

  "Merci."

  "Very pretty lady. Yours?"

  "Not really."

  "Too bad. You want woman tonight?"

  "Not tonight."

  "Too bad."

  The boy shrugged and left, and Carter unfolded the note.