Assassin: Code Name Vulture

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 beside 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 entertain 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.

I grinned at him. His whole attitude had changed since Erika had set him straight, and he seemed to accept the fact that she was not attracted to him physically. I looked at the Smith & Wesson.38 revolver resting in its belt holster on his waist and was glad I had him along. Erika was a smart agent, but Zach was muscle. He was a gun expert and had brought a case of assorted weapons along with him in the car.

We climbed the tree. About halfway to the top, I began having a new respect for the CIA agents who had had to do this regularly during their recent concentrated surveillance. When we arrived at the platform, we were exhausted. Erika was still nervous from the climb and from the height at which she now found herself.

"God, was it worth it?" she gasped.

I grabbed a pair of high-powered binoculars from around my neck and looked through them toward the plantation. Then I pointed to it. "What do you think?" I asked.

She looked at what Zach and I had already seen — an open view through the leaves of the entire farm area. From this point an observer, with the help of binoculars, could see what was going on anywhere on the plantation. Besides the main building, which was the ranch house, there was a cluster of other buildings around it, most of them to the rear, which looked like barracks structures and service buildings. It was an impressive set-up. The fenced area was entirely planted with trees and shrubs, and there were dirt drives and parking areas. Outside the fence lay an area that used to be planted with rubber trees when a previous owner had lived there, but the jungle had strangled them.

Erika had the binoculars and was scanning the place. "You were right, Nick. The mosquitoes can't fly this high." She sighed happily.

"Maybe we're going about this all wrong," Zach said after a while. "With that scope-sighted rifle I have in the car, I could sit up here and pick off Stavros' men all day. With you down at the fence pitching in, as you Americans say, we might be able to demolish them before we ever get inside."

"How are you going to get them all outside?" I asked. "And, having gotten them out, how do we keep them out there while we're picking them off?"

"Also," Erika added, "if we attack from outside, there is every chance they will get to Minourkos before we do and kill him."

"That's true," I said. "And if they kill him, we may not learn anything here."

"It's true that we can't jeopardize Minourkos," Zach agreed. "But I could make excellent use of the rifle up here. It seems such a pity."

Zach was just a little too eager to kill, I thought. It was too much like a hunting trip to him. I intended to dispose of anybody who really got in the way, but I saw no point in killing unnecessarily. You could not judge, sentence, and execute every man down there just because he happened to work for Stavros.

We watched the plantation for the next several hours, until mid-afternoon, taking turns with the binoculars. The CIA had estimated the small force at the place to be about a half dozen and no more than eight From spending those hours on the platform, seeing men come and go, our own observation confirmed that conclusion. We would be outnumbered by at least two to one when the confrontation developed.

We didn't see Minourkos until just before leaving the platform. Then his presence at the place was verified. He came out of a barracks building with another man, walked to the front entrance of the ranch house and went in. I had the binoculars on him all the time, and when he disappeared inside there was no doubt in my mind that the man I had seen was Nikkor Minourkos. At least we had not come here on a wild goose chase.

Just before we climbed back down the tree, I reiterated our plan of entry.

"All right," I said, "We'll go back to the car and drive right up to the place as if we're Stavros' best friends. Let me do the talking to the man on the gate. We'll say we're from the Brazilian League, and when we get inside we'll insist on seeing Heinz Gruber, the man in charge during Stavros' absence. I just hope they don't already know what I look like here at the plantation."

Erika opened a shoulder purse and removed a small snub-nosed Belgian revolver, a.25 caliber. It was a beautiful little gun with a pearl handle and fancy engraving. I knew she could shoot it from my past association with her. She checked its cylinder and replaced it in her purse.

"Everything will go all right," she said.

Zach was eager to go. "We will handle them," he said.

"Yes," I agreed. I wished I were all that sure.