Ruby Red Death

Eleven

Carter was the first one down the next morning. Young-and-lean and short-and-chunky were waiting for him in the lobby. They looked tense, so Carter was sure they had gotten the word on Bourlein and his busty brunette friend.

The young one grabbed Carter’s bag. “The car is in front, Senhor Huzel. The hotel bill has been taken care of by Senhor Bolivar.”

“Nice of him.”

Carter followed him out the door. The little sedan had been replaced by a Mercedes limo. Carter crawled in the back. Seconds later, short-and-chunky emerged with Verna Rashkin. She joined Carter in the rear with a smirk on her face.

“I didn’t notice your face last night. You look like hell.”

Carter smiled. “I feel fine.”

Actually, he was sore as hell. The crack across the bridge of his nose had blackened both his eyes, which were a puffy lavender-brown. His lips had swollen, giving his face an even more prognathous look than normal. The tape above his cheekbones, over his eye, and at his ear made him look like the comic-strip caricature of a man lately thrown out of a beer hall.

The limo pulled into traffic and they were silent all the way to the airport.

The plane was a twin-engine Bonanza, not new but in excellent shape. The bags were loaded and Carter buckled himself in. He was surprised when the woman seated herself as far from him as possible. He wasn’t surprised when the two watchers crawled in and took seats in the rear.

The pilot didn’t even turn around. He already had the off-side engine humming. The hatch was barely secure when the second engine burped to life and the tail swung around.

In no time they were in the takeoff area and turned into the wind. He spoke into his headpiece and advanced the throttles.

The takeoff was smooth and they climbed about five hundred feet per minute. The pilot began a 90-degree left turn, followed by a 45-degree right turn, in order to leave the traffic pattern. He leveled off at three thousand feet. The green and brown earth dropped away below, and they headed toward the never-ending blue sky.

The Bonanza followed the ribbon of coastline below. From this altitude it looked like a chemist’s bizarre experiment — browns, greens, blues, and grays moving between sunlight and shadow. The shoreline itself often became obscured by mountains dropping into the water.

About twenty minutes after takeoff there was another bank to the right and they headed inland. Carter looked down at the dense jungle and shuddered slightly. He hoped he wouldn’t have to come back out on foot.

Short-and-chunky played steward. Verna Rashkin wanted a Bloody Mary. Carter declined anything and leaned back on the headrest. He forced himself to half-doze for the next hour, until he felt the plane start its descent.

The flaps came down. They banked 45 degrees into the wind and swooped over the shimmering asphalt runway. Mountains and water diminished as the plane descended. The landing gear dropped the wheels down, and then the plane was bumping and squeaking along sun-softened pitch seams. The pilot taxied right down the runway to the first Quonset-style hangar. The crackling, robotlike voice from the control tower ceased.

The pilot turned in his seat. “This is Paranavi. The helicopter will take you the rest of the way.”

They scrambled down the steps and under the wing of the Bonanza toward a blue-and-red helicopter whose rotor was already beginning to turn.

Once inside, Carter removed a pair of dark glasses from the pocket of his jacket and put them on against the glare in the helicopter’s bubble.

“Is it far?” he asked the pilot.

“Not far,” the man replied, pointing toward the mountains. “Up there, maybe twenty minutes.”

It was nineteen. The chopper swooped low, flying over a large estate surrounded by mountains. There were several barns, fields of grazing horses and cattle, small barracklike houses, and a lake.

The chopper roared over the outbuildings and Carter heard a gasp from across the aisle. He looked, and saw why Verna had gasped.

The house was awesome, a huge, rambling affair built of stone and glass. It was set directly against a jut of mountain rock that provided perfect protection from the rear. To the right were the garages, servants’ quarters, and accommodation for guards, ten of whom Bolivar kept in permanent residence, on a rotating basis. The stables for the horses were to the left, where there was more land available. The center of the huge winding drive was permanently watered, and therefore green, garden area, with a playing fountain and a blaze of flowers.

“He must own the whole valley!” Verna exclaimed.

“Probably,” Carter replied dryly, “and most of the mountains as well.”

The helicopter landed on the lawn and the engine was killed at once. They stepped to the ground to be met by a striking blond woman, so tall that her eyes were level with Carter’s. She sported a voluptuous, hourglass figure in a white crocheted sweater of an open-weave stitch, and jade green, silk slacks. A matching green cardigan draped over her shoulders obstructed most of the view. The only jewelry she had on was a large square-cut emerald on the third finger of her left hand. Its color matched almost exactly the color of her eyes. She was beautiful — ten years and twenty pounds less and she must have been spectacular.

“I am Eva, Senhor Bolivar’s housekeeper. Anything you need while you are here, do not hesitate to ask me. Senhor Bolivar is hunting at the moment. He will join us for dinner. This way, please. I will show you to your rooms.” Her accent was Bavarian and it was heavy.

They moved obediently behind her, Carter expecting at any time to hear The Ride of the Valkyries.

Up close, inside the house was even more immense and awe-inspiring. It was two stories high and shaped like an L, with the short arm cantilevered out over a sloping landscaped hill. The short arm was only a single story, and comprised the living room, with the terrace right alongside; at right angles was the long arm, two floors of bedrooms, a dining room, and probably a study as well. Carter’s room was on the second floor, near the bend in the L.

The entire building was constructed from glass and stone, and inside and out, it was sharp, clean, bare, and smooth. The unsparing, almost harsh quality of the lines was broken by the occasional use of bricks to add texture, and the low stone walls that ran around the house, screening it from the view of anyone for miles.

“This is your room, Herr Huzel. You, Fräulein, are across the hall. Your bags will be up shortly. The pool is in the center courtyard, if you care to swim.”

She clomped back down the hall and disappeared.

Carter looked at Verna. Her mouth was open. “Awesome, isn’t it, in the middle of nowhere?”

“It is that.”

“Care to pool it?” Carter asked.

“I think I’ll sit in a tub.”

“Suit yourself.”

Inside the room, Carter went over it. In ten minutes he found three bugs. From his window he could see a brace of four armed guards patrolling beyond the walls around the house.

Short-and-chunky entered the room without knocking and dropped Carter’s bag on the bed.

“I searched your luggage,” he grunted.

“My God, it talks,” Carter exclaimed.

“And took your gun.”

“I figured you would,” the Killmaster said with a smile.

Much to Carter’s surprise, the swimming pool was highly populated, all women. They were predominantly blond, and German was the common language. Only the bottoms of bikinis were worn.

He dived into the pool and after five fast lengths got rid of the kinks from the previous night’s fight. Feeling better, he climbed out and sat on a stool at the outdoor bar.

“A drink, mein Herr?” Carter turned. He was tall, built like a tank, and very Aryan. “My name is Bernard.”

“Yeah,” Carter replied. “Ein Bier. All these lovelies Bolivar’s guests?”

Bernard shrugged. “In a way. They are flown in for a month at a time, two or three times a year. They liven up the parties and keep the guards happy.”

Carter sipped his beer. Bolivar, he thought, probably got a lot of loyalty out of his troops.

A well-built girl parked a well-built thigh on a stool two along. She ordered an orange juice and smiled at Carter.

“You should try it with vodka. It brightens the day,” he suggested.

“I don’t drink. You’re German?”

He nodded. “But I live in Amsterdam.”

“I live in Bremerhaven. I went to the university.”

“Went...?”

“I ran out of money.”

“Oh,” Carter said. “And that’s why you’re here?”

“That’s why I’m here. See you.”

She walked around the pool and Carter watched her until she entered the house. He turned back to Bernard.

“I understand Senhor Bolivar is hunting. What’s good up in the mountains?”

“Men,” Bernard replied calmly. “Rebels. It’s been a good week. He has bagged five.”

“Good sport,” Carter said, managing a smile.

He watched the bevy of beauties a while longer, and then wandered into the house. There was a maid here and a maid there, but no one seemed inclined to stop him so he kept wandering.

At the far end of the first floor, he heard radio chatter and a teletype. That would figure. If Bolivar never left the place, he would need some kind of constant communication with the outside world.

He climbed to the second floor and continued to move around until he found a trapdoor that went up to the roof. He had already guessed that there would be access to the roof from the inside, and was elated he had found it so soon.

He moved on through the rest of the rooms until he entered what he assumed was Bolivar’s office. It was book-lined, the desk a fine piece of English walnut, a fireplace mantel adorned with carvings of horses. The top of the desk was clean save for the usual ashtrays and pens. The top drawer was locked. He found a letter opener and, working crudely, snapped the lock open and yanked the drawer out. He sat down in the chair and began to rifle through the papers and file folders, moving from the top drawer to those at the side.

What he found was enlightening. Bolivar was rich, but he was also very overextended. Vinnick had been wrong about the man’s reason for wanting to liquidate the jewels.

Bolivar needed the cash.

Carter replaced the desk as he had found it and turned to the wall. A large print of a steeplechase hung on the wood-paneled wall. He lifted up one corner, his eyes narrowing, lifted again, and removed the entire print.

The wall safe, neat and flush to the wall, stared back at him. It was an old one, he saw, a combination lock. It would take time and patience to open, he thought ruefully, more than he had now. He put an ear to the dial, turned it carefully, played with its clicks, counting, making mental calculations.

After another minute he knew that, given time, he could crack it.

Just as he replaced the print, he heard footsteps in the hall. He tugged a book from the wall and opened it.

Big Eva came through the door, saw him, and came up short. “You are looking for something, Herr Huzel?”

“Ja, a good book to read,” he replied, glancing down at the book and then back up to her with a smile. “But everything in here seems to be in Russian.”

Eva-the-Amazon had informed them that drinks were at eight, dinner at nine. At eight sharp, Carter descended the stairs. From the great room he heard the sound of music, guitars, drums and marimbas.

He entered the great room to see a three-piece band in a far alcove, and preparations for a huge buffet being made along the opposite wall. There were about twenty people, mostly the young women he had seen by the pool that afternoon. Interspersed among them were a few young, unsmiling men in gray trousers and dark blue blazers. Besides the clothes, each of them had a hard, alert quality to his darting eyes.

Then Carter realized. This was part of the security force, the new stormtroopers. They had no brown shirts or Sam Browne belts, no jackboots, but stormtroopers they were.

He was working his way toward the bar when he saw Sergeant Boris Glaskov alias Enrique Bolivar. He was a bull of a man, with shoulders and arms that stretched his dinner jacket. Despite his relatively short stature, he was a commanding presence, with cropped white hair, the sharp eyes of a condor, and thick, cruel lips.

He was deep in smiling conversation with a woman whose back was partly to Carter. She had a long, lithe figure in a sleeveless, backless, almost frontless white gown, eyes that were black-olive moist and deep. He saw skin, browned and burnished as if dusted by gold, long black hair and a straight nose, full, sensuous lips. He saw a woman who glowed outside and inside, smoldered with a throbbing, pulsating earthiness.

Then he recognized her as the girl from Bremerhaven he had met by the pool that afternoon.

A little makeup, a change of hairstyle, and clothes, he thought, can make a hell of a difference.

He had just reached the bar when Bolivar spotted him and started over.

“What would you care to drink, Herr Huzel?” It was big blond Bernard.

“You have long hours, Bernard.”

A shrug. “The compensation is good. Scotch?”

“A double, one cube.”

“Herr Huzel, we meet at last.” Bolivar didn’t offer his hand. He bowed sharply from the waist.

“Senhor Bolivar,” Carter said, executing the same bow, “a pleasure.”

“We must talk, privately.”

“Of course.”

“There is a sitting room, this way. Bring your drink.”

Carter followed him from the room. Just outside the door they were joined by another man.

“Umberto Grossman,” Bolivar explained, “my head of security.”

Grossman was tall and athletic, handsome in a heavy way, with slick black hair and an arrogant mouth. He took Carter’s measure and then seemed to dismiss him with a nod.

They entered a small sitting room with chairs around a fireplace and not much else. Bolivar waved Carter to one of the chairs, and took the other. Grossman became a statue by the door with his hands in an at-ease position over his crotch.

“I am disappointed, Huzel. I asked you here to negotiate a fortune, and you attempt to do business with two petty thieves.” The way he sat in the chair, slightly forward, his hands on the armrests, made him look like a predator.

“You mean Perrez and Raffini, of course.”

“Yes.”

“I do business wherever there is business. There is always the chance I would lose the bid here, so I thought I might pick up a few baubles from those two for my trouble.”

Bolivar accepted this with a scowl. “That brings us to something else. What happened to Bourlein? I know you had something to do with it.”

Carter lit a cigarette and let the smoke slide slowly from each nostril. “I had everything to do with it. He offered me a deal. I turned it down.”

“What kind of a deal?”

“A five-million buyout, and I go away. When I refused the deal, he paid to have me hospitalized so I couldn’t be here to bid. Really, I think his three hired thugs would have tried to break me up even if I had agreed to the deal. As it turned out, I told him to go away.”

“That, too, is interesting,” Bolivar said. “Ravel Bourlein is a hard man, ruthless. He doesn’t give up easily. How did you convince him?”

Carter glanced at Grossman to make sure he was listening. “I stuck a Beretta down his throat and told him if he showed up here, I would kill him.”

“Just a threat like that, and he went away?” Bolivar scoffed.

Carter leaned forward, set his jaw, and lowered his voice. “He knew I meant it. Now, since I am the only bidder, suppose we get on with it. I have to get back to Amsterdam.”

Bolivar’s eyebrows shot up. “The only bidder...?”

“The Rashkin bitch doesn’t have the financing for the entire collection. She wants to rig the bid with me and take half.”

From the look on the old man’s face, Carter knew Bolivar had not done his homework. It was also a pretty good bet that Bourlein had. Bolivar tried to bluff it through.

“There are other brokers,” he said, and shrugged.

“Bullshit,” Carter growled, “not for the kind of merchandise you have.” From the corner of his eye he saw Grossman take a step forward. He whirled on Bolivar. “Tell your personal goon that if he takes another step I’ll rip off his arm and shove it up his ass.”

Grossman puffed up like an adder. Bolivar held up a hand to calm him, and then leaned back in his chair, suddenly relaxed. He even smiled, something Carter was sure he did rarely.

“You live up to your reputation, Herr Huzel. I admire a man who has no qualms about achieving his ends. Tell me, would you have actually killed Bourlein?”

“Without a thought.”

The black eyes narrowed. “Yes, I believe you would. How much are you prepared to pay?”

“I’ll make an offer when I see the collection.”

“Fair enough.” Bolivar struggled to his feet, using the stick. He commented on it. “Would you believe? Arthritis. I never thought I would grow old.”

“Is that why you surround yourself with youth?”

Bolivar’s hard eyes bored into Carter’s. “Yes, that is part of it. I am a very rich man. But like so many Europeans in South America, I cannot venture too far from this fortress I’ve built.”

“You mean, prison?”

Again Bolivar smiled, but, like the clown, the corners of his mouth turned down. “A way of putting it. So I bring the world to me. The buffet should be served by now. Shall we?”

“Fine,” Carter said. “Will I be able to see the collection tomorrow?”

“Perhaps.”

They moved into the hall. Just before they entered the room, Bolivar paused.

“By the way, in your travels, have you come across a man named Goldolph... Otto Goldolph? He has a daughter named Magda. She is an older woman, I’m told quite beautiful still.”

“No, I’ve never heard the name.”

“What about Bittrich... Erwin Bittrich?”

Carter stopped, forcing his face into a mask of stone. “I would think that you, of all people, would know that name.”

Bolivar matched Carter’s look. His hand came up like a claw and grasped the Killmaster’s lapel with surprising strength. “Why, Huzel? Why should I know that name?”

Carter became flustered. “Why, because...”

“Why?”

“I assume, mein Herr,” Carter said, “because of the old days, the glory days.”

Bolivar got hold of himself. Vinnick had been right. The man, without stating anything specific, had passed himself off in the South American German community as one of them.

“Yes, the old days, of course. But what of Bittrich?”

“I deal with a great many people,” Carter replied. “As you know, discretion is imperative.”

“But you know who is who?”

“Yes.”

“About Bittrich. Tell me about him. I would consider it a great favor.”

Carter gave him a quick rundown of Erwin Bittrich’s Nazi career, and ended with, “...his last command was the Twenty-first Panzers, stationed in Romania.”

If it was possible with his sun-burnished skin, Bolivar’s face became flushed and then seemed to lose all color. He swayed slightly on his stick until Grossman grabbed his elbow.

Carter knew why.

Graf von Wassner was intelligence security for the Twenty-first Panzers. As such, he would have reported directly to General Erwin Bittrich.

The ball was rolling, and soon it would gather speed.