by Nick Carter
“Well,” said Gregorius, “the question is, what are you going to do about it?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I said, “Let’s see if my guesses are right, Gregorius. First, I think you made your original fortune smuggling morphine base out of Turkey. Then you changed your name and became legitimate, but you still never really got out of the racket. Right?”
Gregorius nodded his large head without speaking.
“I think you helped finance Stocelli. And now I know you’re the money man behind Ortega.”
Gregorius looked sharply at me and then turned his eyes away. His meaty lips pushed out as though he were pouting. “But you also knew that Ortega couldn’t handle Stocelli.”
“You can handle Stocelli,” Gregorius observed calmly.
“Yes, I can. That’s why you instructed Ortega to bring me into the deal. He’d never have done it himself. Too much pride. Too much hatred because I killed his nephew.”
“You’re thinking very clearly, Nick.”
I shook my head. I was tired. The lack of sleep, the strain of flying the aircraft for so many hours, the slash on my right arm—all were beginning to tell on me.
“No, not really. I made a mistake. I should have killed Dietrich once I’d learned about his formula, There’d have been an end to the affair right then—”
“But your compassion for the old man wouldn’t allow that. And now I’m giving you the same options that Ortega gave you. Only remember, you’ll be my partner, not his, and I certainly will not give you a full fifty percent share. However, it’ll be enough to make you a very rich man.”
“And if I say no?”
Gregorius gestured with his head toward the pock-faced gunman standing a few yards away watching us. “He’ll kill you. He’s impatient to show how good he is.”
“What about AXE? And Hawk? I don’t know how you’ve managed to fool him this long into thinking you’re straight, but if I go in with you, Hawk would learn why. And my life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel! Hawk never lets up.”
Gregorius put his arm around my shoulder. He squeezed it in a friendly gesture. “Sometimes you amaze me, Nick. You’re a killer. Killmaster N3. Didn’t you try to run out on AXE in the first place? Wasn’t it because you were tired of killing for nothing but a vague ideal? You want to be rich, and I can give that to you, Nick.”
He took his arm away and his voice turned frosty.
“Or I can give you death. Right now. Ortega would love to blow your head off !”
I said nothing.
“All right,” said Gregorius abruptly. “I’ll give you time to think about your scruples and about the money that can be yours.”
He looked at his wristwatch. “Twenty minutes. Then I’ll expect an answer.”
He turned and walked back to the Learjet. The gunman remained behind, keeping a careful distance from me.
Up to now, Td been sure that Gregorius would not have me killed. He needed me to cope with Stocelli. But not if I told him to go to hell. Not if I turned him down. And I was going to turn him down.
I stopped thinking about Gregorius and turned my mind to the problem of getting out of this mess alive.
I glanced over my shoulder at the gunman following me. Even though he carried his gun in a shoulder holster instead of in his hand, he wore his sport coat open So he could draw and fire before I could get anywhere near him. He walked when I did and stopped when I stopped, always keeping at least fifteen to twenty yards away from me so that I had no chance to jump him.
The problem wasn’t just how I could escape, either. In one way or another, I could probably manage to get away from this goon. But there were the Dietrichs. I couldn’t leave them in Gregorius hands.
Whatever I decided to do would have to work the first time, because there wasn’t going to be a second chance.
Mentally, I checked out what I had on me that I could use as a weapon against the gunman behind me. A few Mexican coins. A handkerchief and a wallet in one hip pocket.
And, Luis Aparicio’s switchblade knife in the other. It would be enough—it had to be enough, because that was all I had.
I paced down the long dirt strip for almost two hundred yards. Then I turned and walked back in a wide arc so that, without his being aware of it, I managed to get the big Aztec between us and the Learjet.
By now, the sun was almost directly overhead and the heat of the day sent shimmering waves reflecting upward from the bare ground. I stopped behind the plane and took out my handkerchief, mopping the sweat from my forehead. As I started to move on again, the gunman called out to me. “Hey! You dropped your wallet.”
I stopped and turned around. My wallet was lying on the ground where I’d deliberately dropped it when I took out my handkerchief.
“So I did,” I said, pretending surprise. “Thanks.” Casually, I walked back and picked it up. The gunman didn’t move. He was standing by the wingtip of the Aztec, out of sight of anyone in the Learjet, and now I was only ten feet away from him. He was either too cocky or too careless to move back.
Still facing him, I put my wallet back into the other hip pocket and closed my fingers around the handle of Luis Aparicio’s switchblade knife. I took my hand out of my pocket, my body hiding my hand from the gunman. Pressing the little button in the handle, I felt the six-inch blade leap out of the haft and lock into place. I turned the knife in my hand, grasping the blade in a throwing position. I started to turn away from the gunman and then, suddenly, I whirled back. My hand went up and my arm shot forward. The knife whipped from my hand before he knew what was happening.
The blade took him in the throat just above the point where the collarbones join. He let out a gasp. Both hands went up to his throat. I made a running dive at him, tackling him at the knees and brought him crashing to the ground. Reaching up, I grabbed at the handle of the knife, but his hands were already there, so I wrapped my own fist around his hands and pulled hard in a sawing motion.
Blood gouted from the ripped flesh and cartilage of his heavy neck. His pocked face was only inches from mine, his eyes glaring at me with mute, desperate hatred. Then his hands fell away and his whole body went slack.
I squatted back on my heels, blood on my hands like a sticky, crimson lotion. Carefully, I wiped my hands on the cloth of his jacket. I got a handful of sand and scrubbed away what was left.
Finally, I reached inside his jacket for the gun he’d so foolishly carried under his armpit instead of in his fist ready to fire.
I pulled out the weapon, a huge Smith & Wesson .44-caliber Magnum revolver. It’s an enormous handgun, made especially for accuracy and for shocking power, even at a distance. It’s really too much gun to carry around. Only a show-off would pack one.
Holding the gun behind my back in one hand, I rose and walked quickly around the Aztec to the Learjet. I went up the steps into the cabin.
Gregorius was the first to see me.
“Ah, Nick,” he said, with a cold smile on his face. “You’ve made up your mind.”
“Yes,” I said. I brought the heavy Magnum from behind my back and pointed it at him. “Yes, I have.”
The smile slid off Gregorius’ face. “You’re making a mistake, Nick. You can’t get away with this. Not here.”
“Perhaps.” I looked at Susan Dietrich. “Outside,” I ordered.
Doris lifted her gun and held it to Susan’s head. “You just sit still, honey,” she said, in her small, sharp voice. My hand moved a fraction and my finger pulled the trigger. The heavy .44 Magnum slug slammed Doris back against the bulkhead, tearing half her head away in an explosion of white bone, gray brain matter, and red, spouting blood.
Susan put her hands to her mouth. Her eyes reflected the sickness she felt.
“Outside!” I said to her, sharply.
She got to her feet. “What about my father?”
I looked over at where Dietrich was lying stretched out in one of the large leather armchairs that had been placed in its full reclining
position. The old man was unconscious.
“I want you out first” Susan moved carefully around Gregorius. I stepped to one side so that she could cross behind me. She went out the door.
“How are you going to get him out?” asked Gregorius, gesturing at Dietrich. “Do you expect us to help you move him?”
I made no answer. I stood for a moment, looking first at Gregorius and then at Carlos and finally at the old man. Without saying a word, I backed out the door and went down the steps.
There was a sudden flurry of activity inside the Learjet. The steps swung up, the door closed, slamming shut Susan came running over to me, catching me by the arm.
“You left my father in there!” she cried out.
I put my arm around her and backed away from the aircraft Through the small cockpit window, I could see the pilot slip into his seat. His hands reached up, rapidly flicking switches. In a moment, I heard the engines begin to whine as the rotor blades spun.
Susan pulled away from my arm. “Didn’t you hear me? My father’s still inside! Get him out! Please get him out!” She was screaming at me now over the blasting roar of the jet engines. Desperation was written all over her face. “Please! Do something!”
I ignored her. I stood there with the heavy revolver hanging down in my right hand and watched as the Learjet, both engines now fired up, turned in a clumsy waddle and began to trundle away from us.
Susan clutched at my left arm, shaking it, crying out hysterically, “Don’t let them get away!”
It was as if I were standing apart from both of us locked into a lonely world of my own. I knew what I had to do. There was no other way. I felt cold in spite of the heat of the New Mexican sunlight. The coldness reached deep inside me, chilling me to the very marrow of my soul.
Susan reached up and slapped me across the face. I felt nothing. It was as if she hadn’t touched me at all.
She screamed at me. “Help him, for god’s sake!”
I watched the jet move to the far end of the runway.
Now it was several hundred yards away from us, its engines blasting a whirlwind of dust behind it. It turned onto the strip and began its takeoff roll. The twin jets were now at full scream, a high-pitched hurricane of noise that battered deafeningly at our eardrums, and then the plane picked up speed and was racing down the dirt strip toward us.
I pulled my left arm away from Susan’s grip. I lifted the .44 Magnum and grasped my right wrist with my left hand, bringing the gun up to eye level, lining up the bar of the front sight in the vee notch of the rear sight.
As the plane came abreast of us, it was almost at maximum takeoff speed, and in that minute before the nosewheel began to lift, I squeezed off a shot. The left tire exploded, blown apart by the heavy slug. The left wing dropped. Its tip caught the ground, cartwheeling the plane around in a great, tortured scream of metal breaking apart. The wingtip tanks split open, spewing fuel into the air in a black, greasy spray. Almost in slow motion, the tail of the plane lifted higher and higher and then, as the wing broke off at the root, the plane went up and over onto its back, twisting down the runway in a cloud of black fuel spray and brown dust, broken bits of metal wildly flinging themselves out in bright fragments.
I fired again at the aircraft, and then a third time and a fourth. There was a quick flash of flame; a ball of orange-red fire expanded outward from the broken, crippled metal of the fuselage. The plane came to rest, flames shooting out from it as a thick, oily black smoke poured out of the holocaust of leaping fire.
Still without the faintest sign of emotion showing on my face, I watched the aircraft destroy itself and its occupants. I lowered the gun and stood there on the floor of the valley, tired; lonely. Susan slipped to her knees beside me, her face against my leg. I heard a whimpering sound of despair creep from her throat, and I reached down gently with my left hand and touched her softly on the top of her golden hair, unable to speak to her or to comfort her in any way at all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I made my report to Hawk via telephone from El Paso and finished by telling him cynically that he’d been fooled by Gregorius for years. That he’d had me out on loan from AXE to one of the master criminals of the world.
I heard Hawk’s dry chuckle over the line.
“Do you really believe that, Nick? Why do you think I violated all the rules and let you work for him? And let you know you couldn’t call on AXE for help?”
“You mean—?”
“I’ve wondered about Gregorius for years. When he asked for you, I thought it was a great opportunity to smoke him out in the open. And you did it. Nice work, Nick.”
Once again, Hawk was a step ahead of me.
“All right,” I growled, “in that case, I’ve earned a vacation.”
“Three weeks,” Hawk snapped. “And give my regards to Teniente Fuentes.” He hung up abruptly, leaving me to wonder how he knew I planned on going back to Acapulco again?
So now, wearing beige slacks, sandals, and an open sport shirt, I sat at a small table beside Teniente Fèlix Fuentes of the Policia Federal de Seguridad. The table was on the broad terrace of the Hotel Matamoros. Acapulco had never been prettier. It glistened in the late afternoon tropical sunshine, washed clean by a rainstorm earlier in the day.
The waters of the bay were a rich blue, the town on the far side, almost hidden behind the palm trees that lined the malecon and the park, was a smudge of gray along the base of the brown ridged hills.
“I’m aware you haven’t told me everything,” Fuentes remarked. “I’m not sure I want to know everything, because then I might have to take official action, and I do not want to do that, Senor Carter. However, I do have one question. Stocelli?”
“You mean, has he gotten off scot-free?”
Fuentes nodded.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Do you remember what I asked you to do when I telephoned from El Paso yesterday afternoon?”
“Of course. I personally notified Stocelli that my government considered him persona non grata and re-quested him to leave Mexico no later than this morning. Why?”
“Because I telephoned him right after I talked to you. I told him that I’d taken care of things for him and that he could go back to the States.”
“You let him off?” Fuentes frowned.
“Not quite. I asked him to do a favor for me and he agreed.”
“A favor?”
“To bring my luggage back with him.”
Fuentes was puzzled. “I do not understand. What was the purpose of doing that?”
“Well,” I said, looking at my watch, “if his plane is on time, Stocelli will be arriving at Kennedy airport sometime in the next half hour. He’ll have to go through Customs. Among his luggage is a black fabric suitcase with no markings on it to indicate it belongs to anyone except Stocelli. Now, he might claim it’s one of my bags, but there’s no way for him to prove it. Besides, I don’t think Customs will pay much attention to his protests.”
Comprehension lit up Fuentes’ eyes.
“That is the suitcase Dietrich sent to your room?”
“It is,” I said, grinning, “and it still contains the thirty kilos of pure heroin that Dietrich packed into it.”
Fuentes began to laugh.
I was looking past him at the doorway that led in from the lobby of the hotel. Consuela Delgardo was walking toward us. As she approached, I could see the expression on her face. It was a mixture of joy and anticipation, and a look that told me that somehow, somewhere, in some way she would get back at me for what I’d done to her at Garrett’s hacienda.
She came up to the table, a tall, regal, full-bodied woman, her oval face never looking more beautiful than now. Fuentes turned in his chair, saw her, and got to his feet as she reached us.
“Senora Consuela Delgardo, Lieutenant Fèlix Fuentes.”
Consuela held out her hand. Fuentes brought it to his lips.
“We’ve met,” Fuentes murmured. Then he straigh
tened up. He said, “If you are going to be in Mexico for any length of time, Senor Carter, I would appreciate it if you would both be my guests for dinner some evening.”
Consuela slid her arm possessively through mine. Fuentes caught the gesture.
“We would be delighted,” said Consuela in her husky voice.
Fuentes looked at her. Then he looked at me. The faintest flicker of some unreadable expression glowed for a moment in his eyes, but his face remained as stolid and severe as ever—a nut-brown carving of an ancient Toltec god.
“Enjoy yourself,” Fuentes told me drily. And then he closed one eye in a slow, lascivious wink.
The End
Table of Contents
Copyright Notice
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
