Law of the Lion

Eight

Nick Carter's head felt as though it had been stuffed with the small plastic chips used to insulate shipping cartons. He tentatively flexed his hands, finding them stiff and numb. A tortured sound appeared to come from outside, but Carter quickly realized it had been the sound of his own groan. His head was tender to the touch and his mouth seemed dry and thick.

"Here, try this, Carter," a sympathetic voice said, handing him a clay drinking cup. "Go ahead, it's rather sweet well water."

Carter drank gratefully, then turned to regard his companion. "Who…?" he began, but stopped when it came out sounding like a barking seal.

"Zachary. Sam Zachary. CIA. Sorry we couldn't get here any sooner. Some horrendous winds developed and they naturally slowed us down. But I don't think any serious harm's been done."

Carter heard a burst of automatic fire from the near distance.

"We've got your friends hemmed in up toward the draw."

"We?"

"Two associates of mine and a lad who's interested in meeting you. Cuban, but he spends a good deal of time with us."

"The woman?" Carter asked.

"She had a bad scare, but she's all right." Zachary poured more water for Carter, then poured two cups of coffee from a stainless steel Thermos on the table. "I might be able to scrounge up some sugar, but if you like your coffee with milk, you're out of luck."

"I'll take it any way I can get it," Carter said, accepting the hot, steaming mug from Zachary and guiding it to his lips with both hands. The robust flavor immediately cheered him. "This is Jamaican blue mountain."

Zachary nodded. "Coffee is such a vile concoction that you might as well drink the best if you drink it at all."

Carter sipped appreciatively, watching the CIA man, an agreeable sort, slightly taller than himself. Hand-tailored blazer, sturdy twill chinos, and a crisply laundered cotton shirt in muted stripes. "I know you from somewhere."

"I should think so." Zachary said. "I saw you briefly about two years ago at a David Hawk meeting to discuss ethics in intelligence gathering, but more recently" — Zachary reached into his pocket, removed a convincing false mustache, and plastered it on his upper lip — "the Green Angels, at your service."

The driver of the chicken truck?"

"Ah, yes. Chepe Munoz. Good man. Wanted to meet you and — well, you know the drill in this business. Now, as the saying goes, you owe him one."

By now Carter was taking larger sips of Zachary's excellent coffee and (he fogginess in his head was beginning to recede. "It makes sense now. All that business with the kicking and (humping was a blind to let you put beepers on both vehicles. Then you tracked us with choppers."

"You have to admit, Carter, it worked. It would have been even sooner if not for that damned wind. I keep telling them to buy us the Hueys. A nice, substantial chopper. So what do they do? They have to get these little pipsqueak AF-sixes." Zachary shook his head. "Everyone's so damned cost-conscious since Cap Weinberger got caught with those expensive ashtrays and toilet seats."

Carter lowered his voice. "I'm not sure we can trust Margo Huerta."

Two exchanges of automatic weapons fire, one distant, the other considerably closer, punctuated his comment.

"Why not? Why wouldn't you trust her?"

"I think she's a radical groupie. But that's a possible cover for some other things."

Zachary smiled. "I know for a fact she propositioned Chepe Munoz, and I've seen her at some conspicuously liberal parties, but we don't have anything of value in our field reports to suggest anything fishy."

"Just a hunch, so far." Carter finished his coffee, feeling measurably better. He got tentatively to his feet, did a few slow torso stretches, and allowed Zachary to pour more coffee.

"I almost feel I can cope again," Carter said.

Zachary smiled. "Excellent. We'd better give the others a hand. We can talk later."

The CIA operative led Carter outside, where two AF-6 choppers were moored. Zachary tossed Carter an FN-FAL, which Carter checked quickly and with respect. It was an excellent weapon. He fired a burst, liked the placement.

"We got one of the PLOs when we came in," Zachary said, "but there are four left and we'd very much like to get our hands on the leader."

"Abdul Samadhi."

Zachary beamed. "You're sure?"

Carter nodded.

"We thought it might be him, but we lost him between Paris and here. Yes, we'd definitely like to have a few words with him."

As they started up the draw, Carter could see two of Zachary's colleagues, nicely positioned behind clumps of rock. "Munoz is further up and to your left."

One of Carter's captors appeared suddenly and sprayed a blast, drawing return fire. Carter watched another Palestinian scrabble up a segment of rock, take a hard leap, then disappear. Carter thought he saw a grenade launcher. They would have to be careful about letting the PLO get close to the choppers.

Zachary and Carter quickly agreed on assignments and moved off into position. As he broke into a running crouch, Carter noticed Margo Huerta, protected by a small boulder, smoking a cigarette, hugging her knees to her chest. She waved a vulgar gesture to Carter. "You still think I set this up, you pig."

Carter's response was blunted by a stitching of shots directed at Sam Zachary, who zigzagged into his assigned position. Now a spray of shots forced the Killmaster down, but he took the chance after waiting a few moments and broke for the protective cover of a large tree stump.

A thumping sound warned Carter that the grenade launcher had been tired.

The blast from the explosion felt like hands being clapped over both ears. A spray of debris erupted between Carter and Zachary. Up ahead, the bearlike man in camouflage trousers and a blue sweat shirt took a risk, but made it pay off. He broke from cover and angled toward the position of the grenade launcher, opened another stitching of fire across the face of the rocks, scrambled up an outcropping, paused, took deliberate aim, and squeezed a short burst. "The unmistakable sound of a hit came. A man yowled, staggered forward, and fell.

Wanting to contribute more than backup to his rescuers, Carter took off at a crouch, slamming a new ammo clip into place and doing a side roll on his good shoulder when one of the PLO opened up on him, and got to another portion of the outcropping. He took a spring up toward a new plateau and, as he'd suspected, bought himself a clear shot.

His burst caught the man who'd been driving the Toyota earlier. Chepe Muñoz, the bearlike man in the camouflage trousers, gave Carter a high sign of appreciation and motioned him forward. Both men were angling toward a gully that alternately rose and fell.

After about five minutes of running and probing. Munoz let out a loud curse in Spanish and started back at a run toward the choppers, calling after one of Zachary "s assistants.

After a hurried conference. Munoz and Zachary's assistant tired up one of the choppers, gained altitude quickly, and moved off along the fault line of the ravine.

"Samadhi probably grew up in terrain just like this," Zachary said. "We account for all the others now but him, and he's the one we want, dammit."

Zachary drew some water from the well, took it inside the building, and put it on to boil. From his war chest he brought forth a battery-powered coffee grinder and enough of the Jamaican beans for another Thermos full of the pungent brew.

"I don't think we've seen anything like the last of him," Carter said. "I get my best results when I back off for a while. Samadhi's had his early rounds, but we'll get him. Meanwhile, why don't you brief me on your aims in all this."

The CIA man nodded at Carter's wisdom. When the coffee was brewed, he brought Carter up to date. "I was brought in on this play of yours because we've apparently been burned for a good deal of cash lately." Responding to Carter's raised eyebrows. Zachary continued. "Someone's nicked us for over a million and it's been heading down this way and father south."

"El Salvador? Nicaragua?"

The affable CIA man shook his shaggy head. "Not quite that far south, and not anything so obvious. Of all places, Belize. This makes it really sensitive because we — that is, the United States — are not as favored as we once were in Guatemala, and guess who has their cap set on having Belize returned to them."

Carter sipped his coffee, nodding.

"It is also widely believed, by no less than your own David Hawk, that we — that is, the CIA — are responsible for the precipitous removal of a certain cadaver from Covington, Kentucky. Mr. Hawk was all over my supervisor on that."

"You have to admit," Carter said, "there's reason to suspect your motives."

"As a consequence of that and some healthy skepticism from your leader, I was sent to Covington to question the local sheriff and the manager of the resort where the Grinning Gaucho's heart took its last pump. They still believe it was the Justice Department who questioned them."

"Have your people checked with NSC?" Carter asked.

Zachary smiled. "That's a rather touchy suggestion, and it convinces me you still have your doubts about us." Before Zachary could explain any further, the sound of the returning chopper began to intrude.

They went outside to watch the small craft dropping to a landing some fifty yards from the house. The side door sprang open and Chepe Munoz jumped out, a look of disgust on his face.

"Son of a bitch got away," he said. "He is one smart cookie." Springing toward Zachary and Carter, the burly Cuban held out his hand.

"I've looked forward to this, Carter'" The Cuban's grip was firm and powerful, his eyes taking in the terrain with steady sweeps. A man used to living in some dangerous climates, politically and physically, Carter thought. "My compadre here tells me you like to talk about stuff like the civil society and how those concepts go all the way back to the seventeenth century and in the works of dudes like Hobbes and Lock."

Carter agreed. "It's always important to keep up on history of important movements, and the civil society is important."

"But you don't think people are subordinate to philosophies, do you?" the Cuban pressed.

"I think," Nick Carter said, "that philosophies should help people lead the lives of highest moral quality, otherwise they're useless."

Chepe Munoz nodded approvingly at Zachary, then gave Carter a big, warm embrace. "We're going to work well together, hombre."

"This is starting to remind me of that old Marx Brothers movie with all the people being jammed into the one small stateroom of a luxury cruiser," Carter said.

"Hey, man, ain't it the truth," Munoz agreed. "Lot of people popping out of the woodwork in this caper. I sure didn't expect to see my buddy Zachary in on this one, and I sure didn't expect you. What did they sting your people for?"

Carter merely smiled.

"Then you're the only ones," Munoz said. "They got Zachary 's people good. They got my people. They got the Red Brigade. I hear, round about through Havana, that they even got the Chinese."

"Not to forget the South African diamond cartel," Carter said, deciding to throw in a bit of intrigue and perhaps get Zachary or Munoz to open up further. Also, it would be an excellent way of checking his suspicions about Margo Huerta.

Munoz grabbed Carter's arm. "Hey, are you serious? The diamond cartel?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Nobody stings those guys."

Carter studied Munoz's reaction and decided to trust the stocky Cuban. He was also beginning to think he might have been hasty in his judgment of Margo. She'd known who Piet Bezeidenhout was and both Munoz and Zachary had been surprised to learn of the South African connection. Even though she'd said she'd take Carter to meet Munoz, she hadn't shared this information with the Cuban.

Inside the house, as Zachary began his ritual of making more coffee, Carter thought it best to strike while the sense of camaraderie among them was warm. "All we need to do now is find out who they are and what they want. I have a theory, but it's all circumstantial."

"That's as good if not better than anything we have." Zachary said, dealing out the coffee.

While Carter spoke. Zachary's assistant, at Zachary's gestured orders, went into the war chest and came out with several freeze-dried packets and a few canned and bottled items, humming to himself as he looked about the crude kitchen where he'd be working on their next meal.

"Let's assume that there is an individual at the top of the organizational chart of Lex Talionis, a man or woman with the financial background and audacity of an Ivan Boesky. Perhaps this person has already brought a great deal of money into the picture, thinking of it as venture capital." Carter could see that he already had their attention. "Very well, now instead of organizing along strictly political lines like, say, PLO against the Mossad, KGB against the CIA. or even along divisions within a country like the infighting between the FBI. the CIA, the State Department, the Justice Department, and the NSC every time we elect a new president — instead of that, we see the concept of a multinational organization based on the lines of strict profitability."

"I'm with you in principle," Zachary said. "But what's the inducement? Why, suddenly, would dogs and cats begin to cooperate?

"Pure capitalism and a bit of Japanese-style management concepts. All the top-level people who come in have to have two kinds of credentials," Carter continued. "They have to have a street reputation, as it were — connections with some military or political power — and something else to throw in the pot."

"Money!" Munoz said, getting the picture.

"Arms!" Zachary said.

"Industrial and commercial diamonds," Carter added, reminding them about the diamonds Prentiss had tried to pass along and also adding his account about the small bag of diamonds at the Sichi murder.

Zachary's assistant served a large bowl of pasta with a piquant sauce and called Margo Huerta to join them. "So you're suggesting an operation that runs like a franchise, one of these multilevel marketing organizations?" Zachary ventured.

"Right," Carter said. "And the incentive is profit."

"Which means," Zachary said as Margo entered the room, "that they're going to start wanting a return on their money quite soon."

Munoz plunked a hairy fist on the table. "They sent me for a crash course at the London School of Economics," he told them, "and that confirmed most of my suspicions about what pendejos, what pubic hairs those large multinational organizations are, but this" — he looked at Carter — "this beats all. I hope you're wrong, amigo."

Carter started in on his pasta. "That's why I need your help. Zachary stood to make room for Margo, but she seemed preoccupied, looking about the room for a moment while the men fell to their meal. As they ate, the conversation fell off, staying with compliments for the man who had prepared it from the seemingly inexhaustible war chest Zachary carried with him.

"I'm afraid this is it," Zachary said. "If we stay here any longer, it's either that lamb or nothing."

"What is there to keep us?" Munoz asked.

"We should do a thorough check on those corpses and then we should bury them," Carter advised. He was aware of the others nodding agreement. "Then we need a working plan — which I've just been formulating. I think it's time to get back to Mexico City, check in with my source, and try to pick up Piet Bezeidenhout's trail. If this is the parting of the ways for us right now. I think we'll be in touch on this very case not too far down the line."

As they sat waiting for him to give more details, Carter suddenly felt a searing, jagged sensation at his neck, literally causing his right hand to twitch and drop the crude fork it held.

"There. Mr. Nick Carter," Margo Huerta said.

Turning, Carter saw her holding the electrodes from the battery and coil that had been used to torture her.

Fiercely, Margo touched the leads together, producing a series of sparks and a burning smell. "There," she said. "I suppose you'll tell your friends here that this is still some phony device that can't possibly work."

She touched the electrodes once again to Carter's arm. He jerked reflexively away from them. "I could have cooked your lousy dinner with this contraption, Carter."

Carter nodded, stood, extended his hand. "I was wrong to think the way I did."

"Goddamn right," Margo said, setting the contraption down with a bang, then suddenly beginning to shake with emotion.

"We're all uptight and frustrated right now," Zachary said. "Let's get those bodies buried and get the hell out of here."

An hour later, the dead PLO guerrillas buried, Chepe Munoz and Margo Huerta climbed into the first helicopter while Carter and Zachary checked the buildings one more time for leads to Abdul Samadhi's base in Mexico. They found nothing except a stack of leaflets for a poetry reading by James Rogan of the U.S.A., the Pennsylvania Powerhouse, next day in Mexico City, and a brochure describing Rogan's arts center and festival of performing arts in Belize.

Carter looked at Zachary. "You see Samadhi and his gang going to poetry readings?"

"About as much as I see myself," Zachary snorted.

"I think it's worth the effort to check out this Rogan character. We…"

It was as far as the Killmaster got.

Heavy firing suddenly exploded outside. The two agents grabbed their weapons and ran to the windows. A helicopter engine roared into high. The chopper carrying Chepe Munoz and Margo Huerta rose into the air, and swung away at a sharp angle almost hitting the trees as bullets ripped through the rotors. Carter and Zachary held their breaths as the chopper dipped, almost hit a low ridge, then picked up speed and vanished, climbing over the surrounding mountain peaks.

"They made it," Zachary exulted.

"But I don't think we're going to," Carter said grimly.

Outside, at least a company of federales emerged from the brush and surrounded the buildings. A spit-and-polish lieutenant held up a bullhorn:

"You are completely surrounded. There is no escape. I give you the option to come out with your hands up."

The Killmaster shrugged.

"Sometimes you have to know when to fold your hand." He dropped his weapon and stepped out of the building with his hands up.