Blood Of The Falcon

Seventeen

This morning, the falcon was restless. It started violently at slight sounds. Its talons tore long slivers from the thorny branch where it perched, building a mound of wood shavings on the ground beneath it. Head bobbing, beak clicking, feathers ruffling, it communicated its unease.

Reguiba stroked its head, but the creature would not be easily soothed. Its close-packed feathers were as fine to the touch as fur.

"The helicopter is late," Idir said.

Reguiba shrugged. He was schooled in patience. All things came in their own time.

Presently, a lookout atop a rock cliff waved his arms. Idir said, "Here it comes!"

Water, camouflage, and weapons were the keys to the Crime Police camp. The camp was pitched at the site the Nefrazi called Ayn al Dra, the Spring of the Arms. Not long ago, it was a Nefrazi watering hole. Reguiba took it from them. Desert-born himself, he knew its value.

It was too bad that the tribesmen and his Crime Police were enemies, but how else could it be? There was not enough water for both. Somebody had to go to the wall.

The site was on the western side of a ridge, protected from creeping desert sands by twin rock spurs that curved far out, almost touching, forming a natural barrier. The spring itself was a bubbling pool of fresh, clear water sheltered by rock overhangs. A hundred feet above it was the hanging, house-sized boulder that some camp wit had named Nasser Rock because of its uncanny likeness to the profile of the late Egyptian leader. At the far end of the camp, directly opposite the spring, a flat stony oval served as a landing pad for the helicopters.

Covering nearly half the site was a complex network of tented tarpaulins, raised on poles and strung with lines, done up in camouflage patterns. It masked troops and supplies from the prying eyes of recon planes and spy satellites. It could shelter over three hundred Crime Police.

Reguiba enjoyed the thought that the onetime minions of the law were now his creatures. The desert and the Nefrazi had toughened them up. Soon they would be ready for big things.

He began the camp a long time ago as a project for the Libyans, who dearly wanted to destabilize Egypt. They had put him forward in Qom as the man who could lead Ifrit. They supplied his Crime Police with food and guns.

The troops were busy now, drilling, training, taking advantage of the short-lived morning coolness. Presently it would be too hot to move. Too hot for the fellahin city-dwellers, but not for Reguiba. He was a man of the desert.

The supply line was a long one. It began at Ayn al Ghazal, at the southeastern tip of Libya. Trucks ferried materiel across northern Sudan, by way of Selima Oasis, then over to Wadi Haifa. From there, it was barged down the Nile to El Diwan. Libyan agents and Egyptian traitors oversaw the last lap, bringing the supplies north by northwest in helicopters.

A fragile line. Without it, his Crime Police would quickly wither up and blow away.

Diversions in camp were few. The helicopter's arrival never failed to generate great interest.

The duo-rotor wide-bodied supply ship touched down on the flat like a bee settling on a flower.

Noncoms formed up men to off-load the supplies. The delivery crew didn't like to stay long. Reguiba was mildly surprised when a half-dozen of them got out of the copter and approached his tent.

They had guns. But why should that disturb him? Everyone had guns. Perhaps a higher-up in the chain of command was paying him a visit, and his men were trying to look sharp. Reguiba smirked at such foolish vanity.

The fellow in the middle of the group was familiar. Where had he seen him before? By the time he recognized the newcomer, his guards had leveled their rifles at the man in black.

Sadegh Sassani, the Iranian!

Sassani's left arm was in a cast and a sling. Come to think of it, Reguiba did recall that he had fired a little too far over to the left when he shot Sassani. He'd been aiming for his heart, but Sassani must have moved.

Sassani savored his moment of triumph. "Yes, it's me. No, don't move, not even a little. My men would like to shoot you, so please don't give them the chance.

"It gives me supreme pleasure to put you under arrest, Reguiba. You will be relieved of your command and taken to Qom to answer for your treachery to the Supreme Council, who will mete out the punishment that seems fit. If I had the least doubt about their executing you, I would do the job myself, now."

Neither Lotah nor Idir were in sight. Trust those fools to absent themselves the one time they were needed, thought Reguiba.

He said mildly, "What about the mission?"

"The mission will continue under the direction of Captain Wayyanid, here." Sassani indicated a glowering ramrod-straight individual standing at his side. "Captain, do your duty."

Wayyanid told his men, "Take that dog's guns and throw him in irons."

And then the helicopter blew up.

Taking in the forbidding desert scenery on all sides of him, Stanton said, "This is a hell of a place for a frogman!"

"You're liable to stay here if you didn't set those charges right," Carter said.

"They're right." If there was one thing Stanton knew, it was demolitions. He and Griff had trekked into the Sawda Hamadi with a pack train loaded with explosives. Their guides got greedy and tried to take it, so they had to die. But that left the two AXE agents lost in the wasteland. The Nefrazi found them, taking them by surprise. Those Gray Raiders had sneaked up on them in the middle of nowhere. They were good at what they did.

So was Andy Stanton. For the last two nights, under Carter's supervision, he and a team of Gray Raiders had skulked on the cliffs above Ayn al Dra, planting explosive charges in all the right places. It was a back-breaking, nerve-racking task, but it was done and the work was good.

When the radio-controlled master kill switch was hit, the charges would simultaneously detonate. The big bang would be something to see, but the immediate aftermath would be even better.

One of the toys he and Griff had carried in on the back of a camel was a medium-size mortar with incendiary shells, half napalm, half white phosphorus. Griff was in place on a high spot now, ready to lay his lethal eggs in the enemy camp.

When he and Griff had been taken by the Nefrazi, Stanton was sure they'd get their throats cut at the drop of a hat. They probably would have, too, except the tribesmen were stumped by some of the fancy hardware and wanted to keep them alive long enough to learn how to use it.

Now they were all pals. The Gray Raiders were some pretty great guys, in their own way. They sure had balls aplenty. They could move and hide like ghosts.

Why, there must be over a hundred of them among the horseshoe-shaped rocks around the Ayn al Dra. He knew they were there, but unless he looked really hard, they just seemed to be part of the landscape. A well-armed part. After the big bang, they'd be there for the mop-up. Should be a hell of a show.

Carter was hunkered down beside Stanton, cradling the electronic detonating device known as the kill switch. It was the Killmaster who'd come up with the capper, and it was going to be a beaut. When he laid his big plan on the Nefrazi, they loved it. It really appealed to their pride of tradition.

It was very hot. Stanton took deep breaths and let them out, but they didn't relieve any of the tension. He was all keyed up.

Carter studied the kill switch. He'd never worked in the field with Stanton before, but Griff vouched for the kid, and that was recommendation enough. Still, he couldn't help asking, "Are you sure everything's rigged right?"

"Sure I'm sure."

"You're positive?"

"Aw, for chrissakes…"

"Never mind. Here." Carter handed him the kill switch. "You can throw the switch."

"You mean it?"

"But not yet," Carter said. "Wait until I say go."

"Thanks. Thanks a lot."

"Have yourself a good time."

"When do I give it a go?" Andy asked. "Wait until Major Namid takes out the copter," Carter said. "I want a clean sweep."

Major Namid finally worked himself into position. He had a grenade launcher, a satchel full of grenades, and a nice shady spot from which to shoot them.

The helicopter made a marvelous target, it was so fat and sassy. Time to fire the starting gun.

The launcher made a nice popping sound. The sound of the grenade hitting the copter was even nicer.

The blast blew the whirling rotors clean off, transforming them into flying guillotines that decapitated and dismembered twenty of the loading crew.

Sadegh Sassani, Captain Wayyanid, and the four rifle-toting guards had their backs turned to the copter when it blew up. There was no way that they wouldn't turn to see what had happened.

And they did. AH but Sassani, who was caught up in a nightmare vision.

Sassani thought he was dead and in hell. The Moslem hell is a circular one, where the sinner is forever doomed to repeat his crime again and again for all eternity. He didn't look because he was frozen in place, knowing exactly what was going to happen next.

While Captain Wayyanid and his men were looking at the blast, Reguiba was looking for the main chance. He pulled his.45s and started blasting, cutting down the captain and his men before they realized they were being shot dead.

All except for Sassani. His arm was in a cast and he didn't have a gun and even if he did he couldn't draw it.

The last and only time he'd seen Reguiba smile, the man shot him.

Reguiba was smiling again.

He shot Sassani right between the eyes, and then he didn't have any eyes, and not much of the top of his head, either.

Griff had humped a mortar through the jungles and the rice paddies of Nam. He was a mortarman from way back, and it felt just like old times as he popped a shell down the tube and it jumped back out, right smack into the middle of three hundred stampeding Crime Police.

It blew up in a red and yellow fireball, spewing that good hot sizzling incinerating napalm. Even from high up in his perch, he felt the heat of it. He fired off some more and he had a nice roaring inferno going down there.

Hell, he'd fire off all the shells. It wasn't as if he'd get a bonus for bringing any back home. Besides, he was having too much fun.

Just like old times.

Except that this time, he was going for a win.

While all the fireworks were going off, Andy kept asking Carter, "Now?"

"Not yet," the Killmaster said.

Griff laid down a barrage at the place where a big gap opened between the two rock spurs. A sizzling, seething wall of hellfire now blocked off the main exit from the Ayn al Dra, boxing the Crime Police masses into a cul-de-sac.

They were scrambling like termites whose mound has been fired with burning gasoline, trying to get out by the sides. They ran smack into the deadly accurate rifle fire of the Nefrazi.

Reguiba wasn't panicked. He had found Lotah and Idir and they were all sheltered at the pool of the spring, in a cool rock grotto at the base of the ridge. The hellish fire shells hadn't reached there, or even near there, though it was getting very warm. Any second now, they would make their break…

Now!

A long living shadow in fast motion, Reguiba darted out of the grotto, his men at his heels. Leaping from rock to rock, showing themselves briefly, using their heads instead of running into the fire or the meat grinder of Nefrazi fire — why, they just might get out of this alive!

The Killmaster told Stanton, "Give it the go."

Stanton pressed the kill switch. There was a horrible instant when nothing happened, and Stanton felt as if he was going to vomit.

Then suddenly all the explosive charges shaped around the boulders and overhangs of the ridge went off at once. Nasser's Rock bowed its hundred-ton head and dropped off the edge, an inexorable juggernaut pulping Crime Police by the score. Other charges loosened huge slabs of rock and dirt, a man-made avalanche that showed no mercy.

It was all over but the shouting, and the triumphant Nefrazi did plenty of that. As did Major Namid and the AXE agents.

Awed, Andy said, "What a way to go! Buried under a mountain of rock!"

Carter just grinned.

The dust hadn't quite settled when a shadow flitted over Nick Carter. He looked up to see what had cast it.

High up.

It was a falcon, a swift bird with a huge wingspan. It flapped between two mountain peaks and out of his sight.

An icy tingle touched his spine.

As abruptly as the mood had come, it went. Why, falcons were the least of his worries. His main concern was a hawk — David Hawk.

The head of AXE was going to hit the ceiling when Carter showed up late for debriefing, ten days from now. Ten days, during which he'd be enjoying a luxurious cruise down the Nile with the lovely Professor Khamsina Assaf.

And he was going to stick the tab for the trip on his expense account too.