Blood Of The Falcon

Nine

The next day found Nick Carter en route to the quasi-independent emirate of Al Khobaiq, Saudi Arabia. He had plenty to think about during the flight.

Bar-Zohar's SB action team had one dead, two critically wounded, and a number of minor injuries. Only the stiff resistance offered by Girotti's men kept the Israeli body count as low as it was. The villa's defenders held the attackers at bay right up until the all-consuming explosion.

The self-destruct mechanism demonstrated that Reguiba was a man who tied up loose ends. It had probably been installed to serve as a surprise ending to one of Girotti's famous parties, wiping out a crowd of important and influential guests at one stroke. Faking his own death, Girotti then could have surfaced with a new identity.

Instead, Reguiba used the hellish setup to wipe the slate clean. Only two survivors were pulled from the smoking rubble, and they were what Eva had called "playmates," sexual lures, mere pawns holding no important information.

The night produced one more casualty, Lieutenant Avi Tigdal, who shot himself in the head less than one minute after the villa blew. A confession was found among his personal effects, a tragic account of how he had been forced into treason in the vain hope of saving his sister. Deborah Tigdal was never seen again, and was presumed dead.

Carter underwent an intensive debriefing session lasting well into dawn. Thanks to his description, an identikit portrait of Reguiba was constructed, the first time that his likeness had ever been captured. Capturing the likeness was easy compared to capturing the man, but thousands of copies of the composite image were circulated to every police and military unit in Israel.

Reguiba was the object of one of the most extensive manhunts in the nation's history. A small army of searchers all but turned the country upside down, but they came up empty-handed.

"There's every reason to believe that he's left the country as easily and undetected as he entered it," Bar-Zohar said. "This man moves across international boundaries as if they didn't exist."

His investigators managed to dig up the first piece of solid information relating to Reguiba. Early in the morning, a grizzled old man named Salahuddin Yizkorou — «Salah» — was brought to Shin Bet headquarters to tell his story. A translator rendered his Hebrew into English for the benefit of the AXE men.

Salah was a Moroccan Jew who had lived an adventurous life, spending a good part of it serving in the military police in the southern desert not far from the Mauritanian border. It was a harsh, forbidding land of mountains and bone-dry, flinty plains infrequently broken by oases and water holes. No less rugged were its people, nomadic tribes who still lived by the age-old traditions of raiding and blood feuds.

Most feared among the desert dwellers were the tribes of the Reguibat. Their uneasy neighbors had a saying: "The Reguibat is a black cloud over the sun." This referred not only to the tribal custom of wearing all-black garb, but also to their prowess in the arts of raiding, robbery, and murder.

The last post held by Salah before retiring from the service some twenty years ago was in the town of Goulimine, where the Reguibat came to trade. Here he heard a curious story.

A clan of the haughty Yaqbah Reguibat banished a young warrior for violating some sacred taboo. This nameless youth's unknown crime was so grievous that the tribal elders had him shorn of his manhood, that his seed would not spawn to pollute the earth.

The mutilated youth abandoned the desert for the cities, where he quickly made a name for himself as an enforcer and assassin for slave and drug syndicates. He was known only as "the Reguiba," or simply "Reguiba," the singular of the tribal name. He was a most singular character.

Feral and fearless, in no time at all he had shot his way to the top of the Moroccan underworld. Little more was known about him save that secrecy, falconry, and murder were his ruling passions.

As for the clan that had castrated and expelled him, they had ceased to exist. Most of the males died in a single night, victims of a mass poisoning at a banquet. Nor were the women and children spared. One by one, they were rooted out and exterminated by a relentless stalker, until only Reguiba remained alive of all his clan.

"There is work for you in Al Khobaiq."

That was one of the last things Reguiba had said to Girotti. It meant there was work there for the Killmaster, too.

A U.S. Air Force jet could have delivered him quickly to the emirate, but it would have attracted too much attention. No commercial flights were available on a direct route from Israel to Saudi Arabia. A quick hop by helicopter delivered Carter to Beirut International Airport, where he caught a jet to his destination on the Persian Gulf.

He was not traveling alone. With him was the 9mm antidote to the Reguiba problem, his trusted companion of countless missions, Wilhelmina.

Hawk surprised Carter with the Luger while seeing him off at the airport. "This package was just delivered by special courier, Nick. I sent for it when you turned up like the proverbial bad penny."

The package contained Wilhelmina holstered in a fast-draw holster rig. Carter did not bother to hide his pleasure as he hefted the precision-tooled pistol, savoring its solid weight and satisfying balance.

"Thanks, sir. Thanks a lot."

"I'm sure you'll put it to good use."

"You can depend on that," Carter said.

With a foul-smelling black cigar wedged in the corner of his mouth, laying down a literal smoke screen, Hawk was in an expansive mood.

"Back in the thirties, before your time, a hoodlum named Lepke got the bright idea of specializing in murder. He formed a mob of hit men dealing exclusively in assassinations for the national crime syndicate, an outfit called Murder, Incorporated."

"I've heard of it," Carter said.

"Reguiba's come up with a modern variation on that classic theme. He's put terrorism on a businesslike basis. Call it Terror, Incorporated."

Carter smiled thinly. "As I recall, Lepke ended up frying in the electric chair. I don't have one of those, but I'll put plenty of heat on Reguiba."

Hawk expected no less. "There's every possibility that Reguiba is conducting an action in the emirate, as part of Operation Ifrit. Hodler's presence there would seem to confirm it."

Karl Kurt Hodler was East German, a blond giant, a former Olympic athlete turned liquidator. A one-man mob. Hodler had worked in conjunction with Girotti in northern Italy, spearheading a wave of kidnappings, kneecappings, and killings.

"I'll smoke out Reguiba through Hodler," Carter said.

"You'd do well to keep in mind that our man in Al Khobaiq dropped off the board shortly after sighting Hodler. Don't underestimate the East German. You'll have your hands full with him even if Reguiba doesn't show up."

"I think he will, sir, especially when he finds out that I'm on the scene. I've given him a bloody nose, and Reguiba isn't the type to let bygones be bygones."

"That's the plan, Nick. You're live bait. You're one of the few who've seen Reguiba's face and lived to tell the tale," Hawk said. "At least you won't be working entirely on your own. Emir Bandar is cooperating a hundred percent with us. Apparently he's not too fond of the idea that a gang of thugs is plotting to steal his kingdom out from under him.

"Your local contact is Prince Hasan. From what I've heard, he's quite a character. Bon vivant, racing car enthusiast, ladies' man."

"Sounds like we have a lot in common," Carter said with a grin.

"Except that he's a member of one of the richest families in the world, while you're on an expense account," Hawk growled. "So try to keep the expenditures within reason, okay?"

"I'll do my best, sir."

A specially designed and AXE-made attaché case allowed Carter to board the plane in Beirut with his menage a trois of Hugo, Pierre, and Wilhelmina. He'd put the trio on his person once he landed. He was freshly showered, clean-shaven, outfitted in clean new clothes, and had even had time to get a trim at the airport barber shop.

A pretty flight attendant turned her warm dark eyes his way, but Carter was too bushed to do more than a little casual flirting. He dozed for a good part of the flight, catching up on his rest.

He awoke for the last leg of the trip, as the jet made its final approach. The tiny, oil-rich emirate lay on the east coast of the Arabian boot, located midway between the Shatt-al-'Arab and the Strait of Hormuz, bordering the province of Hasa.

The seemingly endless expanse of sun-baked land gave way first to the coastal marshes, then to the silver-blue Persian Gulf.

The plane swooped in for a landing at one of the many runways at Dharbar Terminal, which petrodollars had transformed into one of the most modern and extensive facilities of its kind in the world. Limitless blue space became bounded by the horizon as the jet touched down, the landing gear contacting the tarmac with a bump and a squeal.

As he prepared to disembark, Carter recalled the last thing old Salah had said. He had quoted another old desert proverb:

"Should you meet a cobra and a Reguiba, spare the cobra."

"Welcome to Al Khobaiq, Mr. Fletcher. I'm Wooten. Greer sent me to drive you into town."

"Pleased to meet you," Carter said.

This time out, he was under light cover, posing as one Lewis Fletcher and carrying ID to match. His papers identified him as a high-ranking CIA official to whom every assistance would be rendered. He outranked Greer, who was the Company's representative in Al Khobaiq. Only the CIA's Director of Operations and a handful of his most trusted aides knew that AXE used their agency to provide cover for agents on special assignment, such as Carter.

They weren't happy about that use, but they accepted it as one of the unfortunate facts of life in the current political climate. The difference between the CIA and AXE was like the difference between a big-city police department with its thousands of employees, and a SWAT team.

AXE was no intelligence collector, though that was part of its mission. AXE was an enforcement arm, carrying out the covert activities that the CIA could no longer undertake. The CIA was a sieve, leaking like crazy.

In all fairness, Carter often wondered how enthusiastic he would be about carrying out his assignments if he, like his CIA counterparts, had to worry about his actions being the stuff of congressional hearings and front-page headlines at some future date.

Therefore, he was Lewis Fletcher, CIA, for as long as the guise proved useful.

Carter bypassed customs courtesy of Emir Bandar al Jalubi, the absolute ruler of the tiny state, whose servitors had arranged for the Killmaster to be waved through the time-consuming red tape afflicting ordinary visitors. Emir Bandar liked to think of himself as all-powerful, but if he really were, he wouldn't be sweating the threat of Reguiba.

This was Carter's first visit to Al Khobaiq, though it was far from his first encounter with the Arabian peninsula. Technically, the emirate was independent of, though closely allied to, the House of Saud, but they shared an identical culture. It was a strange land to a Westerner, a puritannical land where customs officials tore out photographs of bikinied beauties in American news magazines, yet where executions by beheading were broadcast live on state-controlled television. Like other sexually repressed cultures, it seethed with torrid passions that could boil over into outbreaks of frightful violence.

Carter met Wooten under a big sign proclaiming in English and Arabic: WARNING! DRUG SMUGGLERS WILL BE EXECUTED!

Wooten was in his mid-forties, big, beefy, red-haired, broad-shouldered. He wore a sweat-stained khaki shirt and slacks, red bandanna, and thick-soled boots.

They shook hands. Carter typed Wooten as a macho man who'd put all other males to the test, so he was braced when Wooten tried to apply a bone-crushing grip.

Wooten felt as if he'd caught his hand in a hydraulic press. Carter continued smiling blandly as he applied the pressure, making the burly man squirm. Past experience had taught him that it was best to establish his dominance at the start with Wooten's type of aggressive he-man. When he thought the lesson had been learned, he let go of Wooten's hand, now red and throbbing.

"No, don't bother, I'll carry my own bag, thanks," Carter said.

Wooten hadn't offered; it was just Carter's way of giving him the needle.

"Quite a grip you've got there," Wooten said. When Carter wasn't looking, he flexed his numb hand to restore its circulation.

Suitcase in hand, Carter followed Wooten across the broad expanse of the terminal, out the front doors. It was like stepping into an oven.

Now it was Wooten's turn to grin. "Mild day. Shouldn't reach more than a hundred degrees in the shade. Of course, there's no shade to speak of."

Carter wore a lightweight safari-style jacket, open-neck short-sleeved shirt, loose-fitting tan trousers, cotton socks, and desert boots. When he stepped into the sun, it was almost like a physical blow. At least his tropical clothes would trap the sweat and keep it from evaporating too fast. Dehydration and heatstroke could easily afflict an unacclimatized man, and not even the hot sun of the Mediterranean could prepare a man for this heat.

Not to mention the fact that the safari jacket hid Wilhelmina in her shoulder harness.

The car was a long pearl-gray limo with tinted windows. Making a show of service, Wooten opened the rear door for Carter. "Your chariot awaits."

Carter tossed his suitcase in the back, then went to the front door on the passenger side. "The Arabs reserve the back seat for their womenfolk, I believe. The men always sit up in front."

"Right you are, mate. But we're not Arabs."

"Still, I wouldn't want to lose face among the locals." Carter climbed in the front seat.

Wooten slammed the back door. "Anything you say, Fletcher. You're the boss. That's what Greer told me, anyhow." He got behind the wheel, started the car, and drove off.

An eight-lane superhighway connected Dharbar Terminal to the seaport city of Al Khobaiq, the provincial capital and only real city of note. The impressively engineered ribbon of road had little traffic to speak of. A fraction of the population owned cars, but those few who did drove big twelve — and sixteen-cylinder tanks like the limo. It took a mighty motor to power a heavy vehicle with the air conditioner roaring at full blast.

The only speed limit was how fast a car could go. Wooten took brutal pleasure in manhandling the machine at high speeds over the roadway's long, banked curves. If he thought to make Carter nervous enough to request that he please slow down, he was crazy. The Killmaster was in a hurry himself.

The roadside was dotted with the burnt-out, ruined wrecks of crashed cars. "The Khobaiquis haven't quite gotten the hang of safe driving yet," Wooten said and grinned.

Nearing the city, they passed shapeless, black-clad figures, barefoot females leading mules and camels. In a land that jealously guarded its females, women were completely veiled.

They rolled through the rugged mountain ranges west of the city, which served to trap moisture blown in from the Gulf, accounting for the pale green scrub of the coast. Between the ridge and the city, the plain was covered by a sprawling shantytown, looking like a collage made from bits of rubbish, teeming with the desperately impoverished.

There was a potential trouble spot for the Emir, thought Carter. One of many.

Then they were in sight of the Gulf and the city fronting it, a city that had existed since the days of the frankincense trade over two thousand years ago.

Al Khobaiq looked like an illustration from Tales of the Arabian Nights. A dazzling cluster of white cubes, bristling with spiked domes and minaret spires. A cat's-cradle of telephone and power lines threaded the seaport.

A closer approach revealed the intricate detailing of broad market squares, souks, bazaars with countless tented booths offering their wares. If you wanted to look for Aladdin's lamp, that was the place to do it, thought Carter.

The harbor was crowded with boats of all types, from oil tankers to dhows, with their graceful triangular lateen sails, unchanged since the days when Sinbad set forth on his legendary voyages.

A closemouthed man, Wooten unbent enough to allow, "Quite a sight, huh, Fletcher?"

"Quite."

Unlike CIA men in mellower political climes, Greer was not attached to the U.S. embassy in Al Khobaiq. Ever since the original Iranian hostage crisis, the word had gone out to Islamic radicals that a sure source of American spies could be found at the local diplomatic mission.

Greer's cover job was a suitably vague position with a dealership supplying pricey consumer goods to wealthy Arabs and the PXs and commissaries operating in Petro Town near the oil fields.

Greer's office was located in the newly built business and governmental district north of the city proper, planted on a hillside some distance from the waterfront.

"The air's a whole hell of a lot cleaner up here," Wooten said. "You get the sea breezes but not the stink of the city."

The hilltop had been flattened and covered with concrete. Rising around the central square was a collection of modernistic office buildings that would have looked at home in any industrial park in the world. Surrounding them were parking lots crammed with cars, few of them American-made, Carter noted.

The construction was new, but it showed much pitting from wind-blown sand scouring the surfaces. Greer's office windows were sand-blasted to near opacity, spoiling what otherwise would have been a spectacular fourteenth-floor view of the city.

The office was standard issue. There was the same desk and furniture, lighting, neutral pastel walls, and mediocre abstract art that Carter had seen in scores of similar offices worldwide.

Greer was in his mid-thirties, with thinning brown hair, a round pink face, and a trim sandy mustache. He met with Carter while Wooten cooled his heels in the outer reception area.

After the ritualized formality of exchanging recognition codes, Greer said, "You're a heavy hitter, Mr. Fletcher."

"What makes you say that?" Carter asked.

"One of the emir's people called, asking if there was anything they could do to expedite your mission. Very impressive! I've been here for over eighteen months now, and I can't even get the undersecretary to the vizier to return my phone calls. By the way, he didn't say just what your mission is."

"Then I won't either," Carter said.

Greer was not offended. "All very hush-hush, hmmm? Fine. In that case, I'll ask no questions so you won't have to tell me any lies. Regional Control says I'm to extend full cooperation. You must rate pretty high in the Company, too. So, what can I do for you?"

"I'd like to talk to Howard Sale, please," Carter said.

Greer looked blank. "Who?"

"Howard Sale. He's the local dealer for Securitron. He supplied the security system for this layout."

"Oh, you mean Howie!" Greer smiled. "Sure, I know Howie! It just took me a minute to connect the name with the face. Howie Sale, sure! He's a green kid, but I like him. Haven't seen him since the fire."

"What fire?"

"There was a pretty bad fire in his office last week," Greer said. "I haven't seen Howie since then, so I thought he got recalled home by the Company. I don't mind telling you, it made me nervous. The fire, that is. I hope the system he installed in here doesn't short out and burn the place down."

"I'd really like to get hold of Howard Sale. Do you have his office address?"

"Sure. You won't have to go far, either. It's right across the square."

"I'd also like his home address. And the names of any of his friends and associates."

"Can't help you on that last," Greer said. "Howie's a one-man operation, and he held down that office by himself. As for who his friends might be, that's a mystery to me."

"Maybe you could ask around."

"I'll do that. As for his home address, I know he had bachelor quarters over in Petro Town. I can give them a call over there and nail it down for you if you'd like."

"I'd like," Carter said.