Assassin: Code Name Vulture

by Nick Carter

  I moved into the room and looked it over. It was larger than mine, and I found myself wondering whether Zach shared it with her.

  "Would you like a brandy? I have an unopened bottle, and it's the best you can buy in Rio."

  "That sounds good," I said.

  She poured two drinks into balloon glasses. As I took my glass, I let my eyes caress her lovely face. "You were always a girl to demand the best."

  "And I generally get it," she said. "Do you?"

  "I had you in Tel Aviv," I said quietly and with a smile.

  The long lashes fluttered as her eyes avoided mine for a moment. When she looked back up she was smiling. I reached out and touched the softness of her cheek. She took a sip of the brandy. I put my arm around her slim waist and drew her to me. She smelled sweet and felt soft.

  "Remember that night, Nick?" she breathed into my ear. "Do you really remember it as I do?"

  "I remember."

  "It was very good, wasn't it?"

  "Very."

  We set our glasses down on a nearby table. I pulled her close to me and touched her lips with mine. Her tongue snaked inside my mouth.

  "God, Nick," she mumbled.

  I was moving my hands over her backside, feeling the curves that swept down to her thighs. Her hips had begun to undulate slowly under my touch.

  She pushed me gently from her and snapped the light off. Then she began to undress slowly and gracefully. Under the robe she wore only small bikini panties. Her breasts thrust eagerly toward me as she took the robe from her shoulders. Her bosom was full and ripe and milky white. In another moment the small piece of underclothing was slipped down over her hips and thighs, falling to the floor in a wispy heap.

  Erika stared openly at me, letting her eyes travel over my naked body in the dimness of the room.

  "Beautiful," she purred. "So much hard muscle."

  I drew her to me, feeling her nakedness against mine. She ran a hand over my chest and shoulders working her way down on my body. She stroked me, caressed me, made love to me with her hands as my fingers explored her. Her thighs parted at my touch, and she moaned.

  There was a soft, thick carpet beneath us. Erika slipped to her knees on it, letting her hands slide along my body as she went down. She knew all the ways to arouse a man and she had no hesitancy about using them. In a moment I slid down beside her and pushed her roughly on her back on the thick shag of the carpet. I knelt over her, moving my hands over her breasts. She gasped. The long thighs hugged my sides. I moved a hand along one silky inner thigh.

  "Oh, yes," she purred. Her mouth was partly open, the lovely, green eyes heavily lidded.

  As I entered her, the full mouth went wide for a moment and a small shudder passed through her body. Then she began to move with me, her fingers gripping my shoulders, her thighs locked around my waist. I don't know how long we stayed locked together before it was over for both of us.

  Afterward I lay with her for a long time, not wanting to move. A warm relaxation gradually seeped into the outermost fibers of my flesh and the innermost depths of my soul.

  Later we dressed and sat on a small sofa together and finished our brandy. Erika had combed out her long red hair and she looked just as fresh as when I had walked into the room.

  "I'm glad Zach didn't come pounding on the door," she remarked.

  "He seems very jealous, Erika. Have you been intimate?"

  She looked at me. "Once. His idea, not mine. And he was very inept. I told him there would never be anything physical between us again. He's bitter about it. I didn't want him on this case, but I was overruled. He's very good with a gun."

  "He will have to be on this assignment, won't he?"

  She regarded me thoughtfully. "Yes."

  "Erika, I guessed why you are in Brazil. It seems we are after the same man. I had my supervisor communicate with yours and he confirmed what I thought. We're to discuss our separate assignments and cooperate with each other if it seems feasible."

  The green eyes narrowed a little. "Giroux has not been in touch with Zach and me."

  "You'll receive a cable in the next few hours. In the meantime, I've been given a code word that is supposed to allow you to take me into your confidence. The word is Goliath."

  She stared in surprise. "That is the right word!"

  "Giroux sent it."

  She poured herself another brandy. "All right, Nick. But I'll wait for the cable to tell me just how free I'm supposed to be with you." She smiled and kissed my cheek.

  I had to expect her to be cautious. She was a good agent. "That's fine. I'll just tell you some of my ideas. You don't have to talk at all."

  "That's fair."

  "We're both looking for Adrian Stavros, but for different reasons." Her face was expressionless. She wasn't giving away a thing. "You want him for the assassination of Ben Canaan. What we want him for is not yet quite clear to us, but it may involve Greek politics and the abduction of Nikkor Minourkos."

  "The Greek shipping magnate?"

  "That's right. He may be at Paracatu, being held against his will. Stavros is in Athens, so you'll either have to await his return or go to Europe after him. But I think the way to him Is through whatever we can learn at Paracatu. I have to talk with Minourkos.

  "If you're interested, I'll take you two to Paracatu with me. It might raise the odds of getting into the place. Talk it over with Zach and let me know tomorrow after you've received your cable."

  "If we were indeed after Stavros," Erika said, "wouldn't it be better for us to go directly to Athens?"

  "Stavros is believed to be making his temporary headquarters there in Minourkos' penthouse, which is a veritable fortress. You can't just storm the place, you and Zach. And getting past his bodyguards on the rare occasions he leaves the place might be just as difficult But Minourkos can tell us how to get to Stavros."

  She was suddenly quiet as she considered my suggestion. When she looked up at me, there was a slight smile on the full lips. "I'll be in touch with you tomorrow morning, Nick darling."

  I leaned over and touched her lips with mine. "You do that." I rose, reached for my weapons, and strapped them on. Then I put my jacket on over them. "And keep Zach on a short chain, will you?"

  She liked that. She was still laughing when I left the room.

  Four

  My mind was on Adrian Stavros as I left Erika's hotel. It was late evening by now, and there were no taxis in sight. I walked cautiously along the Avenida Rio Branco. Getting into the headquarters of Stavros at Paracatu, even with its reduced force of guards, might prove quite a challenge. Stavros' little group had a bad reputation. He had collected the dregs of society around him at Paracatu. These were essentially like himself, but without his leadership abilities. Thinking back on it, I decided that Adolf Hitler must have started out in much the same way. There must have been few people in the Germany of the 1930s who took the ex-corporal seriously. This example was a lesson to be learned, but the world never seemed to learn it.

  I walked several blocks without seeing any sign of a cab. I was getting into an area of store fronts and businesses of the street. When I turned into a side street to start off toward my hotel, having given up on transportation for the moment, I had a surprise in store for me. At the third shop front, a dark figure stepped out of the shadows and swung a fist at me. There was a knife in the fist.

  I had gotten almost past the entrance when the attack came. If he had waited another second, I would not have seen him at all, the attack would have been successful, and the knife would have sunk into my back. But in his anxiety to get the job done, he moved just a bit too fast, and I caught the movement in my peripheral vision.

  As the knife came at my back, I twisted sharply and threw my left arm out to block the thrust I succeeded, but the blade cut through the cloth of my jacket and shirt and slashed my forearm in a shallow gash. I let the weight of the man carry him to me. Then I turned with him in my grasp and slammed him up against the building besi
de us.

  For a moment I thought it was Zach, his jealousy having gotten the better of him, for the man was stocky and strong. But when I got a better look, I saw that he was bigger than Zach and that he had dark hair. He looked Brazilian, and he was a real thug.

  I reached for Wilhelmina with my free hand, but my assailant was not about to let me gain that advantage. He slashed out wildly again with the knife, this time aiming at my face. I ducked aside and partially deflected the blade, but it nicked my ear. He raised the weapon a third time and threw his weight against me.

  His momentum was too much. He knocked me down and we hit the pavement together. I punched at his jaw with a short right, but he didn't even seem to notice. We rolled over once while I tried to keep the jabbing knife from my body. I wanted Hugo, my stiletto, but I could not free my hand and arm even for a moment to allow the knife to slip into my palm.

  For a brief moment the big man was on top of me. He swore in Portuguese and stabbed down viciously at my chest. The knife wasn't a long one, the blade being quite wide, but the edge was honed to razor sharpness. It glowed dully in the night as I grabbed his knife arm at the last moment before the blade reached my chest. Our arms trembled there for a moment while he struggled to sink the blade home. I got my right hand free and grabbed blindly for his face, I felt his eyes and dug my index and middle fingers into them. I raked the left eyeball with my middle finger and gouged into the right one with my index finger. The eyeball popped, and my finger came away wet.

  "Ahhhh!" the assailant yelled, grabbing at his eyes with his free hand and forgetting the knife in the other. He yelled again and partially fell off me.

  Hugo finally slipped into my right hand during this brief rest. I had just gotten a good grasp on it when the big man yelled insanely and raised the knife again to smash out blindly with it. I swung the stiletto in under his upraised arm, and the blade entered his side just below his ribcage and sank to the hilt.

  Then I saw the assailant's remaining eye staring out over my head into the blackness, and in that moment I distinctly saw the gray wetness on his right cheek under the destroyed eye. I pulled the stiletto from his side, and he fell heavily across me, his own knife clattering to the pavement.

  I shoved the body off me and got to my feet. Looking about me quickly, I saw that no pedestrians were around to see what had occurred. I went through the man's pockets and found some identification in a billfold. One of the cards showed him to be an employee of the Apex Imports Company.

  It appeared I had made more of an impression on the man named Ubeda than I had thought. Or maybe he had telephoned Stavros in Athens, and Stavros had denied ever hearing of me. Probably Ubeda had figured I was a cop of some kind who was nosing into the business of Apex Imports. Or a CIA man who was getting too curious. Whoever Ubeda thought I was, he obviously had had me tailed and knew where I was staying. It would be in my best interest to leave for Paracatu at the earliest opportunity.

  I left the dead Brazilian and walked quickly back to my hotel. There was no further incident that night, and the morning came uneventfully.

  Erika Nystrom, Zach, and I met at nine A.M. at a small cafe on the Avenida Presidenta Vargas with a view of the hills behind downtown Rio and the colorful favela hillside shacks above the city. Zach had guessed my intimacy with Erika and was unhappy about the prospect of working with me for even a short period of time. He was even more hostile than he had been before. Erika had received the coded cablegram from Jerusalem that carried orders for her and Zach to cooperate with me in any way necessary for the success of our common goal, stopping Adrian Stavros.

  "If you need information from Minourkos, you go to Paracatu," Zach said tightly to me, his blue eyes flashing anger. His coffee on the table before him was untouched. "Our mission is to find Stavros and eliminate him. We obviously will not find him at Paracatu."

  His hard eyes bore into mine. I turned from him to Erika. She was obviously distressed with his behavior. "What do you say, Erika?" I asked.

  "I've told Zach already. I think your approach is right not only for you, but for us as well."

  "Your brain is clouded with sex!" Zach hissed at her. "This man is obviously your lover. Anything he says seems reasonable to you."

  "Please, Zach!" Erika said harshly.

  "Oh, Christ," I mumbled, shaking my head. "Look, I don't need any sophomoric love antics getting in the way. Maybe I was wrong about our being able to work together. I can get help from Hawk just by asking. Or maybe the CIA. But I'm not going to get mixed up with some trigger-happy gunman who can't keep his personal feelings under control."

  Zach's face suddenly grew beet red, and he started out of his chair. "Listen, Carter…"

  "Sit down!" Erika ordered in a quiet but authoritative tone.

  Zach shot a hard look at her, then settled back into his seat. He grumbled something under his breath, but avoided my eyes.

  "If there is another outburst like that, we're going to have to have a talk," Erika said. "Do you understand, Zach?"

  He hesitated. When he spoke, he snapped the word out. "Yes."

  "There is nothing between us, Zach. Are you listening to me?"

  He flashed a hard look at her. "Sure."

  "There is nothing between us and never will be. So whatever passes between Nick and me is irrelevant to you. If we are to work together you must understand that."

  He seemed to have relaxed a little. He glanced at me and then at Erika. His fists clenched on the table. "If you say so."

  "I do say so. Now, I'm going to Paracatu. If you think such a plan is ill-advised, I'll try to get you taken off this assignment."

  He looked at her, and his face changed and softened. "You know I wouldn't let you go without me." His eyes met mine again. "You and Carter are running the show, it seems. If you go, I will go."

  "And can we lay off the courting competition until this is over?" I asked.

  "You heard her," Zach said sullenly. "There is no competition." He looked down at his coffee cup.

  "I'm sorry, Zach," Erika said.

  He hunched his shoulders. "When do we leave for Paracatu?"

  I studied him for a moment. Maybe it would work out after all. "The sooner the better."

  "I know where we can rent a car," Erika said. "We can take the Brasilia road which passes through the Tijuca forest most of the way."

  "That's right," I said. "If we can get the car today, I suggest we leave this evening. It would be best to drive during the night through that hot, sticky jungle."

  "That is fine with me," Zach said.

  "Then it's settled," Erika added. "Zach, will you help me pick out a reliable automobile?"

  He glanced at her. A small grin moved his face. "From what I read about Carter, he's the car expert. Why don't we all go?" He looked over at me inquiringly.

  I held his gaze for a moment. Yes, he would work out. "I'll get us a cab," I said.

  * * *

  We were under way that evening. On my recommendation, Zach had picked out a black BMW 3.0 CS sedan for the trip. Its handling characteristics were tops, and it had a gearbox that was a pleasure to operate. Zach drove until almost midnight, and then I took over. The road was not what could be considered well-traveled, even though it was the highway to Brasilia and the interior. Maintenance was generally bad and at certain places the jungle seemed about ready to recapture the narrow strip cut through its heart.

  We had rested part of the afternoon in preparation for the drive, but the monotony of the trip soon wore on all of us. We drove through the night and slept twice the next day during the hottest time: once in the car sitting up, which didn't work because of the mosquitoes and the heat, and again in a dirty hotel in a small village. We drove again that night and arrived at Paracatu the following morning.

  It was a whitewashed village of several thousand people that had a town square and numerous cantinas. We didn't stop there because we didn't want to attract attention. It would be logical for Stavros' men to enterta
in themselves by visiting the village, and one of them might become suspicious of white strangers.

  The road to the plantation, if it could be called a road, was five miles beyond Paracatu. It was a dirt road with deep ruts that cut into the jungle almost imperceptibly at a ninety-degree angle to the highway. The car moved slowly along with Zach behind the wheel. Branches from undergrowth scratched and pulled at the car and jabbed at us through the windows. Because we had to drive slowly, mosquitoes swarmed into the car and bit us on any exposed flesh. CIA's Thompson had informed me that the plantation was almost ten miles off the road. We intended to drive about halfway up the road, and it took almost an hour to get that far. Luckily, we didn't meet any vehicles coming out, for we didn't want any open confrontations at that point.

  At about six miles in from the highway, we found a place where we could pull the BMW off the tiny road and into the undergrowth so that it was quite well hidden. As soon as we got out, we were attacked by the insects. We sprayed on some repellent and started walking.

  There was a tall eucalyptus tree about a half mile from Adrian Stavros' rambling ranch-style mansion. The tree stood on the perimeter of the cleared land very near a high wire fence in an area that had apparently once been part of the grounds but which had since been reclaimed by the jungle. The tree had been used by the CIA as an observation post for some time. It was this tree to which I was leading Erika and Zach as we trudged through the damp, sticky heat. We moved at about the same speed as the car had and arrived there in less than an hour. Up in the top of the tree, hidden from view from the plantation, was a bamboo platform secured to the branches with pandanus strands. There were bamboo steps attached to the trunk and branches at various points to make the climb easier.

  "Are we going up there?" Erika asked.

  I slapped at a mosquito. "If it's any consolation, there probably won't be any bugs that high."

  "Then let's go up and stay a week," Zach said. His blond hair was matted on his forehead, and his khaki shirt, like all our clothes, was stained with sweat.