Law of the Lion

Eleven

Carter felt a chill and a surge of passion at the same time. He did not know Consuela Silver, but just as she had felt a kinship with him, so did he know her well enough to know she meant what she'd said.

As if reading his thoughts, she said, "I am quite serious. If it had merely been that he lost control and hit me, you and I would not be here like this now. I am not doing this to get revenge on him or, how do you say it, put the horns on him. I do this to purge myself of a truly evil presence in my life."

She began to make it difficult for him to concentrate on anything but hen The gentleness of her touch and her obvious desire to make this a shared experience overrode any thought Carter might have had at being merely a part of some insensitive individual's personal sexual ritual.

After several moments. Consuela Silver began whispering questions to him, telling him places where she wanted him to touch her, then taking his hands and guiding them to her breasts, her legs, her hips, and beyond. "You know this was what you wanted from the moment you saw me," she said.

Then she kissed him hungrily. "It's true, this is what you wanted, and you made me want it too." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I didn't think you were ever going to get out of there so we could be doing this."

"This is something I want," Carter whispered.

Before he could respond, she nodded and smiled. "Yes," she said, "I know what you want." She pulled two tortoise shell pins from her hair and the long twists and braids of it came tumbling down, splashing over her face and shoulders. Her mocha-colored skin was bathed in the glistening silkiness of that heavy raven hair.

His hands played over her body, enjoying the feel of her waist, her hips, her powerful legs. Soon she whispered a specific request to him. "Please! * she breathed. And Carter unbuttoned her blouse and began to softly caress her breasts, causing her to close her eyes and groan.

All the while Carter was caressing her, she was busy with him, making it possible for their bodies to join. As they did, Carter felt her stiffening momentarily and then, almost immediately, the complete giving of herself to their lovemaking. "You are the first man other than my husband," she said. "He had suggested others — other things, but you are the first. I have chosen well."

As Carter began to control their movements, Consuela cried out several times, her back arching. Then, her hands digging at his neck and shoulders, she said, "I want you, now, then I will be complete."

Although Carter still tried to be in control, her movements and the great sense of being joined to so intense and attractive a person became more than he could endure.

"Please!" she cried. "Now!"

She whispered surprising things in Carter's ear, moving with a frenzy that brought him to the state she wanted. As Carter experienced the pure, driving response of excitement, he was aware of her being raised one more time to that point herself.

For some time she held him tightly, caressing him as the full sensation swept over both of them. Once again it seemed to Carter that Consuela had been with him every moment of their lovemaking, that she was one of the most responsive women he'd ever known.

After a time in the dark car, her voice seemed to come from a distance. "This has been very important to me. I do not know what will happen to me or where I will go after I leave you and do what I must, but no matter what, you have made me understand things that will stay with me and comfort me."

Even when she gently lifted herself from atop him and sat for a moment, she reached for him and touched his face gently, continuing the intimacy.

"Bezeidenhout is a completely amoral man," she said. "He must be stopped. My husband and some of his friends have put up money. I do not know the exact details, but when I was in the room with all of them, I heard this pig of a man speaking of what he called the sensible solution. If a few innocent people are caught by them, it is of no matter, they were most likely the sort of people who were natural victims in any case. He spoke of a natural order of things. He spoke of Charles Darwin, and Malthus, and Friedreich Nietzsche."

Carter could feel his blood begin to rush. Why was it that people who spoke of these great men of ideas and beliefs almost invariably did so incorrectly, attaching their own meanings and justifying their own pilosophies?

"Did he," Carter asked, "speak of LT, the law of the lion?"

Consuela nodded. "He spoke of that, and when I looked at my husband, there was an expression on his face that I have tried for years to achieve in a loving way. Not once did he ever respond to me the way he responded to the words and concepts of Piet Bezeidenhout. I have come to realize that my husband and his friends have become completely amoral. The word corrupt no longer applies."

He lit a cigarette and shared it with Consuela.

"Anything else? A place, maybe? Some little detail. I use everything."

"Yes! I forgot. Bezeidenhout mentioned an arts festival in Belize. Run by an American, I believe." He could feel her anger and outrage mounting. "Those men have gone beyond mere accumulation of material wealth. Even more than power, they are attracted to the belief that their sense of justice is of great importance." She took the cigarette from Carter and inhaled. "Their awareness of justice is as remote from real justice as military music is from the work of a man like Bach."

Carter rolled down his window to let in some of the night scents, the perfume of jasmine, frangipani, and gardenia.

When the cigarette was done, she took his face in her hands and gave him a lingering kiss.

She began to button her blouse and for a few moments they laughed at the contortions of her getting back into her skin, finding her underthings, and locating one of her sandals that had become lost. One of the tortoiseshell pins had fallen from the dashboard to the floor and when they felt along the matting for it, their hands touched and they both experienced another electric moment.

Slowly, almost sadly, Consuela pulled away and began twisting and knotting her hair, pinning it in place.

"I would like to give you this," she said, "as a souvenir of what we have found in each other." She pressed a small round piece of jade into his hand, smaller, thinner than an American dime. Even in the dimness of the car, he could see the piece being like the foamy, clear ocean, green, inviting.

They did not speak again.

She left Carter at a taxi stand.

Back at his hotel, Carter checked the room carefully to see if anyone other than a maid had been poking around. He carefully swept the room for bugs, picked up the telephone, and dialed a series of digits that would cause any tape-recording device to pick up a long, high-pitched tone and little else. Satisfied that the room was clean, he made a final check on invading lasers, then kicked off his shoes and began shucking off his pants while dialing Margo Huerta's number.

"Checking in according to plan," he said without mentioning her name or his. "Mission completed. It appears we're on the right track. In all likelihood, the one I saw is no longer among the living by now. You might check the morning papers."

"Suicide?" Margo said.

"That's a negative," Carter told her.

"It's been a busy night," Margo reported. Using the Mexican expression for "the big fellow," by which she meant Sam Zachary, she said, "El Grandote has reported in as well and confirms your findings. He also brings the news that our other colleague has been taken."

"A trap?" Carter asked.

"Yes. El Grandote used the word setup"

"I see," Carter said.

He was about to hang up, but Margo exploded: "They made a big mistake in doing this. They forgot that I know them. They have compromised me, but I'll get them for this."

"Be very careful," Carter cautioned her. "They may not have forgotten at all. They may be planning something for you even now."

He ran a hot shower and got in, letting the water ease the fatigue that had invaded him. He knew there'd be more fatigue up ahead. At the very least, he'd have to spend some time watching Margo's place, just to make sure no one did make a try to get to her.

The thirty-six-hour deadline for leaving Mexico began to look better to him. Things were definitely growing hot and explosive in this country.

Running the needle spray over his aching body, he realized he'd begun to admire Chepe Munoz. The burly Cuban had style. But there was very little you could do when someone following the same goals as you became a fatality in the line of some enquiry. You found yourself using words or expressions to minimize the death. Chepe was taken out. Chepe bought it. Chepe's number finally came up.

You could vow to make it up for such a person, and even if that smacked of things like revenge or, in this case, the law of the lion, so be it: someone would pay for setting up Munoz.

He toweled himself dry, managed to rig a clean dressing for his shoulder, and found a cotton turtleneck and some clean trousers. On the way to Margo Huerta's, he bought a large container of coffee and moved along the street until he found a good vantage point, then sat, sipping the hot brew.

He shifted his mind into a focus where he could spot anything unusual, any furtive movements, any attempts to get at Margo's apartment.

Margo's lights went out shortly after midnight and Carter finished the last swallow of coffee about half an hour later.

In this part of Mexico City, things never shut down completely. There was still traffic, and people were still out on the streets. It was essentially a twenty-four-hour city. From time to time a stray noise or movement would engage his attention and he would watch until satisfied that what he'd seen was merely a random part of the street life.

The coffee held him until nearly one-thirty, then he began to feel waves of drowsiness overtake him.

At about two, Carter was alerted by movement behind him. He jerked awake, aware that he'd been dozing for a while. He quickly stood and prepared for an attack.

Sam Zachary stepped out of the shadows, holding a newspaper and a paper cup of coffee. "My turn. You've been on long enough. The watch changes officially at two."

Carter stayed long enough to have a cigarette and get Zachary's details about Chepe Munoz.

"I got through with my interview after an hour or so and thought I'd stop by and check on Chepe since I was more or less in the neighborhood," the CIA man said. "I had no real reason to worry except that I was met with a lot of hostility and it made me suspicious. Three of them — whoever they were — went in shortly after I arrived, and about half an hour later, they came out carrying a rolled-up rug. I know I have a vivid imagination, but somehow I just couldn't believe that those men were rug cleaners."

"Were you able to follow them?" Carter asked.

"They had a car and I didn't. They lost me, and it appears we lost the Cuban."

The Killmaster ground his cigarette on the pavement.

"You might want to have a look at this," Zachary said, handing him the early-morning edition of the English-language newspaper. The front page bore a headline, LA. Shopping Center Rocked by Blast. The story went on to describe damage caused to stores, parking structures, and escalators in the Beverly Center at Beverly and La Cienega in the northwest part of the city. According to the story, there were only minor injuries sustained by less than half a dozen persons, but the damage to property was listed as close to half a million dollars. Investigators were said to be trying to determine the cause of the explosion. At the moment, the thought was that the explosion was the result of a broken gas main.

"My people," Zachary said, "believe the cause of the explosion was a powerful bomb, carefully placed in a maintenance room. You might want to try David Hawk and see what he's got on it. But I'll bet you a first-rate dinner that it was no accident and had nothing whatever to do with a broken gas main. L.A. is doing something to cover the source because they don't want to mess with the tourist season and they don't want to become the first American city of consequence to be the victim of terrorist activity."

"Sounds like our friends are trying to make a name for themselves and show what they can do," Carter mused.

"Show who?" Zachary said. "That's what we've got to find out."

"The world, I think." Carter took a sip of Zachary's coffee. "Instead of advertising in the Yellow Pages, our friends in LT are advertising in heavily populated cities of North America."