Assassin: Code Name Vulture

Five

We drove the last fifty yards to the gate slowly. The man on duty there was already watching our approach. He was dressed in khakis like us, with a folding, automatic rifle slung on his shoulder. He took it off and readied it for action as he watched us come.

"If we don't get past this fellow, the ball game is over," I said to them. "So play it cool." Erika nodded.

"Yes," Zach added. He had his lightweight bush jacket back on, as I did, to hide his weapons. Mine were the usual, but Zach had an assortment that was incredible. In addition to the.38 revolver, he carried a small Sterling.380 PPL automatic in his pocket and had also secreted a throwing knife and garrote on his person. He was a walking arsenal. I hoped it kept him alive.

We stopped just ten feet from the guard. I was behind the wheel, so I spoke to him loudly and forcefully in English. "Hello, there!"

The guard came over near my window. He was a mean-looking young man with a heavy scar across his left jaw. He didn't return my smile.

"What is it you want here?" he demanded, looking into the car suspiciously. "You are trespassing on private property."

"Hey, really!" I said. "Don't use that on us. We're friends of Adrian Stavros."

He studied my face carefully. "I have not seen you before. Who are you?"

I gave him our made-up names. "We're from Rio" I said casually. "The Brazilian League." The League was an underworld group in Rio that rivaled Stavros with its smuggling activities. AXE had reason to believe that Stavros had tried to consolidate them into his group recently, with Stavros heading the whole thing.

"If you're from the League, what are you doing here?" the guard asked.

"Stavros invited us," I said. "And you're making me very impatient I'll mention that to Stavros."

He gave me a look. "Stavros is not here at the plantation. He is on a business trip."

"He said he might be. He told us to see Heinz Gruber."

My knowledge of Stavros' lieutenant's name impressed the man. He rubbed a hand across his chin thoughtfully. "All right, wait here."

He returned to the gate while we watched his every move. Under a small canopy, he picked up what looked like an army surplus walkie-talkie from a wooden table. He spoke into it for a couple of minutes, listened, and then put it back down and returned to the car.

"You may enter. Drive to the area just in front of the house and park. You will be met outside."

"Very well," I said.

The guard opened the wire gate. I took a long look at the gun under his arm. That might have to be reckoned with yet. He waved me through the gate, and I put the car in gear.

"Here we go," I said to Erika and Zach.

We drove through the gate, and it was closed behind us. Zach grinned as he watched the gate being locked. I drove along a dirt drive to the compound. It was quite a place, all archways, red tiles, and bougainvillea. I pulled to a stop in front of the sprawling adobe house, and we got out of the car just as four men came out. We put the car between us and the guard at the gate.

The men who confronted us were a rough-looking lot. Three of them, the ones who emerged first, wore khakis and each wore a gun openly on his hip. One was a stocky, dark-complexioned man who appeared to be Brazilian. The second was a tall, thin fellow with a young John Carradine look, and the third looked like an American hippy with long hair and a beard. I didn't like his face. The fourth man was dressed in an open white shirt and tailored trousers. He was a tall, well-built man with graying hair and a square, hard face. He had to be the ex-Nazi, Gruber.

The three underlings fanned out, so they pretty well flanked us. I was glad we had placed the car between ourselves and the guard at the gate who was about thirty yards away.

"Herr Gruber?" I motioned my head to the white-shirted man.

"That is correct," he answered haughtily in a thick accent. He wore a Luger like mine in a belt holster. "And what is this about seeing Adrian Stavros?"

Zach and the longhair were sizing each other up. The stocky Stavros man appeared to be itching to draw the gun on his hip, and the tall, slim fellow couldn't take his eyes off Erika.

"He invited us here," I answered casually. "We offered him a load of uncut heroin. A couple of our dealers are in trouble and can't handle it. Surely he mentioned it to you?"

Gruber studied me for a moment. "No," he said. "You are an American. I did not know there were any Americans working for the League."

"You live and learn," I said.

"And what are you?" he asked Erika.

"A Jew," she said flatly.

His eyes narrowed on her, and he grinned harshly. "Very interesting," he remarked, looking from Erika to Zach. "Well, perhaps we might deal. We will get out of the sun, ja?"

"That sounds like a good idea," I said. I hoped somehow to separate Gruber from the others once we were inside.

But that was not the way it was to be. Suddenly a fifth man emerged from the house; our eyes met, and we recognized each other immediately. It was Ubeda from the Apex Imports office.

"What is going on here?" he asked Gruber. "That is the man who came snooping around in town. I sent a man after him who did not come back."

Gruber's eyes narrowed on me as the longhaired fellow cautiously drew his revolver. "Ach, so," Gruber said to himself. His eyes flicked from my face to the tense ones of Erika and Zach, then back to mine. "Who are you really?"

I looked from Ubeda to Gruber. The other gunmen hadn't drawn their weapons yet. "I'm who I said I was. So are we all. Now, do you want to deal or not?"

"Why did he come to Apex posing as a legitimate importer?" Ubeda asked. "Does he still say he wants Japanese cameras?"

"No," Gruber said slowly. "Not exactly. You may come inside, Mr…."

"Johnson," I said.

"Mr. Johnson. But we must check first to see whether you are armed."

From the corner of my eye I could see the hard look Zach shot at me. He wasn't about to let these men disarm him, and I was of the same inclination. If they succeeded in doing so, none of us would probably ever leave the place alive. I gave Zach a glance that I hoped told him I was with him.

"All right, Herr Gruber," I said. I started to reach for Wilhelmina, my 9mm Luger.

"Ahh!" Gruber said, stopping me. "I will take it, Mr. Johnson."

That was the way I had hoped he would do it Just as he reached into my jacket, I grabbed him and twisted him around in a tight grip under his chin. Longhair aimed at my head, and Zach drew his.38. Longhair shifted his aim from me to Zach and fired just as Zach dropped into a crouch; the slug zinged off the BMW behind us. Zach's gun answered in a staccato roar and hit Longhair full in the chest, driving him back against a stucco column that supported an archway at the entrance of the building. He gaped widely for a brief moment and died before he hit the ground.

Then a lot of things happened simultaneously or in rapid succession. I yelled at Zach to hold his fire, but it was too late. He had set everything into violent motion. The stocky man and the tall one went for their guns, as did Erika. Ubeda turned and started running for the house, and Zach fired, hitting him in the spine. Ubeda yelled and fell on his face in the dust.

"Hold it or I'll kill Gruber," I threatened to the other gunmen. I had let Hugo, the stiletto, slip into my hand and now held it tight against Gruber's throat. I could hear a loud yell of excitement from the gate guard behind me.

The tall thin man stopped his draw, but the stocky one had his revolver already out and had Zach beat. Kneeling low beside the sedan, Erika was bringing the snub-nosed revolver from her purse. The stocky gunman fired and hit Zach in the chest. Zach spun around in a tight circle and hit hard against the back fender of the car.

Erika aimed and fired the Belgian snub-nose, and the stocky gunman grabbed at his abdomen and screamed. His revolver went off twice more into the dirt as he pitched sideways onto his shoulder to the ground.

Gruber gained confidence from all this and, while my attention was diverted, grabbed at my knife arm and managed to pry it away from his throat. In the same movement he kicked backwards at my left leg and connected on my calf and shin. I grunted and my hold on him weakened. Then he was sliding from my grasp, twisting the knife arm as he went Hugo slipped from me as we both fell to the ground beside the car.

Seeing all this, the tall man hit the ground as he drew his weapon. Erika fired at him, but the shot went wild. He returned the fire and dented metal on the car beside her shoulder. I saw that she was in trouble. I slugged Gruber and he fell on his back away from me. Grabbing the stiletto from the dirt behind us, I hurled it in an underhand motion toward the tall man as he aimed at Erika again. The stiletto hit him in the chest, thudding into him almost silently. His eyes went big and the gun went off and dug up dirt between us. He fell down, grabbing at the hilt of the knife.

I could hear the gate being opened behind us as Gruber's hands clawed at my face. I hit him hard again and heard bone snap in his jaw. My other fist rammed into his face and broke his nose. He fell unconscious underneath me.

"Look out!" Zach's weak voice came to us. I turned and saw that the shot had not killed him. He was struggling to his feet and looking toward the gate.

"Get down!" I ordered Erika, who was very near me beside the black sedan.

The guard aimed the submachine gun our way. Zach got up and pointed his weapon at the man, but the guard beat him. A fusillade of shots clattered from the automatic gun, digging up dirt beyond Zach and then hitting him in the chest before they began careening off the metal of the car. Erika and I kept low as Zach hit the dust on his back, dead.

I rolled over twice to the end of the car, to a position up under the front bumper, pulling out my Luger as I went. When I got there, the guard was just starting to rake back the other way with the gun. I fired three quick shots at him, bracing my gun hand with the other. The slugs from the Luger struck the fence in back of him, the guard's groin, and his chest, in that order. The automatic weapon blasted at the cobalt sky as he pitched backwards into the dust. Then, suddenly, there was silence in the compound.

I lay there getting my breath. In the jungle somewhere a bird shrieked its outrage at the noise we had made. I was covered with dust and dirt. I rose slowly and helped Erika to her feet. She was gazing at Zach bewilderedly; her face was white.

I turned to Gruber and saw that he was coming around. I bent down and slapped him a few times, and he gazed up at me drunkenly. He groaned. I stuck the Luger into his face. "How many men in the house guarding Minourkos?" I demanded.

He tried to speak but found it difficult with a dislocated jaw. "I… an't…"

I stuck the Luger up under his chin. "How many?"

Weakly he held up two fingers. I turned to Erika. "Stay here and watch him."

She nodded numbly.

I went to the entrance of the house. The wide, arched doorway was open. I stepped into a large entrance foyer just in time to run head-on into a dark-faced man with an automatic in his fist I fired my Luger, and it roared in the hall. The man smashed up against the wall beside him. He then fell in a cumbersome heap across a small table, demolishing it as he hit the floor.

The man had come from a long corridor to my left. I went down the hallway quickly but cautiously. I couldn't delay in finding Minourkos, or he would surely be dead when I finally did. It might be that they had already killed him.

The doors off the corridor, which I presumed were bedrooms, were all open except one at the end. I heard a small sound inside as I stopped in front of it. Taking a deep breath, I stepped back and kicked the door savagely. It crashed inward, and I went through the opening.

A very skinny, ugly man stood over Minourkos, who was bound to a straight-back chair, aiming a gun at his head. His finger on the trigger, he whirled to face me when the door crashed open. He fired first, but wildly, and the slug chewed up wood in the door casing beside me. I fired the Luger and hit him in the chest. He spun off his feet and dropped to the floor. But he hadn't lost his gun. He aimed at me again. I beat him that time and hit him in the face, the slug blowing the side of his head away.

Minourkos stared at his dead captor with a dazed expression as I holstered my Luger. Slowly he looked over at me.

"Nikkor Minourkos?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered quietly. "Who are…"

"We have come to free you, Mr. Minourkos," I said.

He let out a shaky breath. "Thank God. He was going to…"

"I know." I untied him and he rose from the chair, rubbing his wrists.

"Are you all right?" I asked, concerned.

"Yes, I will be fine." He shook his head and muttered something in Greek. "I can't believe it is really over."

"Well, most of it is."

I was starting to ask him to tell his story when I heard the shot from the compound. I remembered Erika out there with the German. I turned and rushed into the hall. "Erika!"

In a moment she answered me. "I'm all right" Before I could move toward the front foyer, she suddenly rounded the corner and walked casually toward me, stuffing the Belgian revolver into her purse.

"What the hell happened?" I asked.

"Gruber met an untimely demise." Her eyes avoided mine.

"You shot him?" I asked, almost unbelievably.

"He started mumbling with his dislocated jaw. When I asked him what he was saying, he called me a dirty Jew and said I should have been with the others he saw die at Dachau. He did not think Jews should be allowed to live in the same world with people like himself. So I sent him to another world. I hope it is warm enough for him down there."

Finally the green eyes looked up into mine, defiantly, daring me to say something. I remembered that relatives of her parents had been put to death by the Nazis at Buchenwald. Somehow I could think of nothing to say in defense of Heinz Gruber.

"Come on in and meet Mr. Minourkos," I said.

We went into the room, and Erika stared at the corpse on the floor. Minourkos was leaning against a nearby wall. He straightened when he saw Erika.

"Miss Erika Nystrom," I introduced them. "Of Israeli intelligence."

Minourkos' eyes narrowed. He looked over at me. "And you?"

"The name is Carter. Nick Carter. I'm employed by the US government in the same capacity as Miss Nystrom. We came here to free you and to get Adrian Stavros."

Minourkos moved away from the wall. "I see. Well, Mr. Carter, the first thing I want as a free man is contact with the authorities." His tone had taken on that of a business tycoon speaking to his subordinates. "Then I will deal with Adrian Stavros in my own way."

"Mr. Minourkos," I said slowly, "there is absolutely no reason for you to do anything at this point. All that can result is a bundle of red tape and delay. I would prefer that you let us handle it."

"How do I know you are who you claim to be?" He sounded annoyed.

"You know that we risked our lives to free you. As a matter of fact, we lost a man," I answered acidly. "I would think that would give us the benefit of the doubt."

His face sagged from sudden weariness. "You're right. Please forgive me. I have been through a great deal."

"As for your handling Stavros alone, Mr. Minourkos," I continued, "that's pretty impractical. The man has an army around him."

Minourkos raised his eyebrows and blew his cheeks out "All right, all right, Mr. Carter. I will go along with you and the girl. But if I see, at any point along the way, that your methods are not working I will take command of the situation."

I smiled briefly. "That sounds fair," I replied. "Were you abducted from Athens by Stavros?"

Minourkos got the straight-back chair he had been sitting on when I broke into the room. He sat down on it, facing us.

"You would not believe the cleverness of the man," he began slowly. "I do not consider myself an innocent, Mr. Carter, but I have never met anyone like Adrian Stavros. I had been pursuing the idea of building a fleet of computer-run, underwater oil tankers. Stavros found out about this and wanted to help me with it — or so he said.

"At first I would not even see him, but he sent me a letter outlining some very good ideas. I finally invited him to my penthouse in Athens. We had a long talk.

" 'Mr. Minourkos, I recall him saying to me, 'I have the same plan as you. If you will just allow me, I will make you immortal in the annals of shipping history. He was very persuasive.

" 'But, Mr. Stavros, I said, 'there are complex engineering problems to be solved.

" 'I have two engineers who can do it, he told me. Underneath the charm, even then, I saw something else in the man's face, something I did not like, but I passed it off as undue excitement about the project."

"Did he bring the engineers to you?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. They had imaginative ideas, too. I was convinced that they might have the skills to make it all happen. At that point, Mr. Carter, I let my guard down. He asked for a private meeting at the penthouse and I granted it. There were only my personal secretary and another aide present. He brought two men with him that I had not seen previously."

"Is that when it happened?" Erika asked.

"Well, at first I suspected nothing," Minourkos said, his face ashen as he remembered. "Then, almost without warning, Stavros asked my aides to go into another room. One of Stavros' men followed. There were two gunshots." Minourkos fell silent.

"He murdered them right there?" I asked.

"In cold blood. His henchmen knocked me down and kicked me almost unconscious. They took me into that other room and made me look at the bloody bodies. I will never forget it.

"Salaka, my secretary, lay in a pool of his own blood. The other fellow's face was blown off. Stavros said I could expect the same thing if I did not cooperate."

"What happened after that?"

"The next day they brought in a man who looked exactly like Salaka Madoupas. The man even spoke like Salaka and affected all his mannerisms. It was incredible, really incredible. It was like an awful nightmare."

"Did they have a man to impersonate you?" Erika asked.

"No, they did not have to. I am rarely seen, except by close business associates. They brought in a recorder and played several tapes of my voice that they had recorded without my knowledge at previous meetings. Stavros pointed a gun at my head and said he could kill me right there and nobody would know for a very long time. But, he said, I would live if I did not give them too much trouble. They needed me, he said, for further recordings and for putting letters and such into my own words and thoughts. So they put me aboard a private plane and abducted me to this Godforsaken place."

"Did Stavros tell you what he was going to do?" Erika asked, perplexed.

Minourkos grunted out a dry laugh. "He was quite candid. He said that they intended to overthrow the government of Greece in my name, that they would call upon my friends in the military and other fields by using the man who was impersonating my secretary to make phone calls and personal contacts. Because I have been a private person, nobody would think it unusual that I did not meet personally with them. And if someone insisted on seeing me, they might fly me to Athens and force me to meet with him and say things that they wanted me to say.

"They showed me another man who could forge my signature exactly. This man would write checks on my various accounts and spend my money for military coups that they were going to organize."

"Did he give you any details?" I asked.

"Mr. Stavros, whom I am ashamed to admit has Greek ancestry, spoke freely to me, both in Athens and here. He said his plan is divided into three parts. First, he intends to get rid of the ruling junta and place men in power who feel an allegiance to me. They will feel this allegiance not because they are friends, for most of them will not be, but because Stavros will have promised them power and glory in my name."

"Very clever," I remarked.

"Secondly, his plan will involve forcing these new generals and colonels to demand that I, Nikkor Minourkos, be named president with full power over the junta. Stavros indicated that I might be used for this part of the plan, since my privacy would have to be abandoned at that point That is, I would be used if it was clear that Stavros could trust me to keep quiet about what was really going on. If not, he would find another imposter, this time for me."

"It would work, too," Erika commented. "Very few people know your face well enough to detect a slight difference between your features and those of an imposter."

"Exactly," Minourkos said. "It's incredible that my pursuit of privacy has contributed to this horror. Anyway, the third phase of the plan would involve using me or the imposter as president of Greece for a short time, during which period I would appoint Stavros vice president He would be a citizen by then and his name would have been gradually introduced to the people of Greece. He would then be seen as the hero behind the coup. Then, announcing ill health, I would step down in favor of Stavros as president."

Minourkos fell silent "It's wild," I said. "What makes Stavros think that the Greeks will stand by and watch something like that happen?"

"Why not?" Minourkos asked, his face lined with fatigue. "Remember what happened in April, 1967, when the junta was formed? That was not a bloody coup, but it was a coup. The government of the king was overthrown by force. Many articles of the constitution were suspended by the junta's decree. It is ironic, is it not, that a man like this appears just when the constitution has been restored and when the junta has become more moderate and is setting up general elections for next year. If Stavros' plan to grab power succeeds, Greece could end up with a tyranny more complete than Hitler's or Stalin's."

Erika looked from Minourkos to me. "Then we must stop him, mustn't we?"

Minourkos studied Erika's face. "Yes. We must!" The stout Greek stood up and thrust his square chin forward. "This man is even using my family against my homeland. He boasts that my brother-in-law, General Vassilis Kriezotou, thinks I am behind this ugly plot and has thrown his support behind it because he thinks I want it. Yes, I will help you in any way I can. What do we do first?"

"We go to Athens," I said. "That's where we find and stop Stavros."