The Aztec Avenger

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was daylight when I reduced power and came down over the mountains to the brown, bare hills somewhere in the area bounded by Durango, Torreen and Matamoros. We were flying now at less than five hundred feet, with Ortega peering out the starboard window, giving directions to me.

I made a landing on a strip to the north of an isolated ranch house. There was only a wooden shack to mark the end of the strip. I taxied the big Aztec twin up to it and killed the engines.

A surly-faced Mexican in worn chino trousers came out of the shack to meet us. He didn’t speak to us as he began to service the aircraft, topping off the tanks and checking the oil.

We all got out of the plane. I spread out the sectional air charts on the wing of the plane and Carlos drew in the route for me to follow, marking the point where we would sneak across the border into the States.

“Here’s where we cross,” he said, pointing to a spot on the Rio Bravo just south of the Texas railroad town of Sierra Blanca. “Beginning here”— he pointed again, this time to a place more than a hundred miles inside Mexico—”you’ll have to fly as low as you can. You cross the river at no more than treetop height, make an immediate turn to go around Sierra Blanca to the north, and then, at this point head northeast.”

“And from there?”

Carlos straightened up. “From there, I’ll direct you again. Remember, minimum altitude until we are well across the border.”

I folded the charts and stacked them in the order I’d use them. The Mexican had finished refueling the aircraft. Doris came back with Susan and the old man. They climbed aboard the aircraft, Susan ignoring me as if I did not exist, Dietrich walking stiffly like a man in a trance. Carlos got in after I did.

He shut and locked the door and fastened his seat-belt. I sat there a moment, rubbing the bristles on my chin, my eyes tired from lack of sleep, my right arm aching.

“Shall we go?” Ortega prodded.

I nodded and started the engines. I swung the big Aztec around into the wind and fed in power as we raced down the dirt field and took off into the crisp, blue Mexican sky.

It takes several hours to fly from Torreon-Durango to the Rio Bravo. I had plenty of time to think and the vague ideas that had begun to form in my mind the evening before — wild, almost impossible thoughts — began to crystallize into a hard suspicion that grew more and more solid with every passing minute.

Following to Carlos’ instructions, I came in low and crossed the border at treetop height south of Sierra Blanca, and then swung around the town in a pant curve far enough to be out of sight. Ten miles to the north, I turned the aircraft to a northeasterly heading. As the minutes passed, the suspicion in my mind began to jell and became more than just a vague, uncomfortable stirring.

I picked up the airway chart again. El Paso was to the northwest of us. I projected an imaginary line from El Paso at a heading of sixty degrees. The line went into New Mexico, coming close to Roswell. I looked at the compass on the panel of the aircraft. On our present heading, we’d intersect that line in only a few more minutes. I watched the clock.

Almost as if he, too, had been looking at the chart and watching for the imaginary line, Carlos said, at just the precise moment, “Please take up this heading,” and put his finger on a spot that lay to the north of us in the valleys of the Guadelupe mountains.

It was now no longer a suspicion. The thought became a certainty. I followed Carlos’ instructions until we finally flew over a ridge and there was the valley and Carlos was pointing down at it and saying, “There! That’s where I want you to land.”

I pulled back on the throttles, pushed the mixture controls to full rich, dropped flaps and gear, and set up for the landing. I turned the twin-engine aircraft into a tight bank, straightening out on final approach with full flaps at the last minute.

I wasn’t surprised to see the big Lear jet at the far end of the airstrip or the Bonanza single-engine plane beside it. I put the Aztec down nose high and let it settle gently onto the dirt strip, applying just a shade of power to extend the rollout, so that when I finally turned the aircraft off the runway, it came to a stop only a short distance away from the other two planes.

Carlos turned to me.

“Are you surprised?” he asked, with a faint smile on his thin lips and a glint of amusement in his dark eyes. The gun was once more in his hand. At that short distance I could see that each chamber in the cylinder “Was loaded with a fat, copper-sheathed bullet.

I shook my head. “Not really. Not after you gave me the last heading. I’d have been surprised if it had turned out any other way.”

“I think Gregorius is waiting for us,” said Carlos. “Let’s not keep him waiting any longer.”

In the blazing heat of the New Mexico sunlight, I walked slowly beside Gregorius’ bulky figure. Carlos, Doris Bickford, Susan Dietrich and her father were in the air-conditioned Lear jet. A muscular, acne-scarred gunman walked a dozen steps to our rear, never once taking his eyes off me.

Gregorius strolled in slow deliberation, with his hands held behind his back and his head lifted toward the brilliant, cloudless sky.

Casually, he asked, “What made you suspect that I might be involved?”

“Carlos knew too much too soon. I just couldn’t buy the idea that his men had me under such tight surveillance that they knew every move I made. Sure, the first time I met with Stocelli, I wasn’t on my guard. What I couldn’t accept was the idea that Ortega’s men had followed me the night I saw Dietrich — or that they’d heard our entire conversation. It was too much of a coincidence. Carlos kidnapped Dietrich within hours of the time I made my report to Denver — and that report was for your ears only! Except for myself, you were the only man in the world who knew what Dietrich had discovered and how valuable it was. So, Ortega had to be getting his information from you.”

“Well,” said Gregorius, “the question is, what are you going to do about it?”

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I said, “Let’s see if my guesses are right, Gregorius. First, I think you made your original fortune smuggling morphine base out of Turkey. Then you changed your name and became legitimate, but you still never really got out of the racket. Right?”

Gregorius nodded his large head without speaking.

“I think you helped finance Stocelli. And now I know you’re the money man behind Ortega.”

Gregorius looked sharply at me and then turned his eyes away. His meaty lips pushed out as though he were pouting. “But you also knew that Ortega couldn’t handle Stocelli.”

“You can handle Stocelli,” Gregorius observed calmly.

“Yes, I can. That’s why you instructed Ortega to bring me into the deal. He’d never have done it himself. Too much pride. Too much hatred because I killed his nephew.”

“You’re thinking very clearly, Nick.”

I shook my head. I was tired. The lack of sleep, the strain of flying the aircraft for so many hours, the slash on my right arm — all were beginning to tell on me.

“No, not really. I made a mistake. I should have killed Dietrich once I’d learned about his formula, There’d have been an end to the affair right then—”

“But your compassion for the old man wouldn’t allow that. And now I’m giving you the same options that Ortega gave you. Only remember, you’ll be my partner, not his, and I certainly will not give you a full fifty percent share. However, it’ll be enough to make you a very rich man.”

“And if I say no?”

Gregorius gestured with his head toward the pock-faced gunman standing a few yards away watching us. “He’ll kill you. He’s impatient to show how good he is.”

“What about AXE? And Hawk? I don’t know how you’ve managed to fool him this long into thinking you’re straight, but if I go in with you, Hawk would learn why. And my life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel! Hawk never lets up.”

Gregorius put his arm around my shoulder. He squeezed it in a friendly gesture. “Sometimes you amaze me, Nick. You’re a killer. Killmaster N3. Didn’t you try to run out on AXE in the first place? Wasn’t it because you were tired of killing for nothing but a vague ideal? You want to be rich, and I can give that to you, Nick.”

He took his arm away and his voice turned frosty.

“Or I can give you death. Right now. Ortega would love to blow your head off!”

I said nothing.

“All right,” said Gregorius abruptly. “I’ll give you time to think about your scruples and about the money that can be yours.”

He looked at his wristwatch. “Twenty minutes. Then I’ll expect an answer.”

He turned and walked back to the Learjet. The gunman remained behind, keeping a careful distance from me.

Up to now, Td been sure that Gregorius would not have me killed. He needed me to cope with Stocelli. But not if I told him to go to hell. Not if I turned him down. And I was going to turn him down.

I stopped thinking about Gregorius and turned my mind to the problem of getting out of this mess alive.

I glanced over my shoulder at the gunman following me. Even though he carried his gun in a shoulder holster instead of in his hand, he wore his sport coat open So he could draw and fire before I could get anywhere near him. He walked when I did and stopped when I stopped, always keeping at least fifteen to twenty yards away from me so that I had no chance to jump him.

The problem wasn’t just how I could escape, either. In one way or another, I could probably manage to get away from this goon. But there were the Dietrichs. I couldn’t leave them in Gregorius hands.

Whatever I decided to do would have to work the first time, because there wasn’t going to be a second chance.

Mentally, I checked out what I had on me that I could use as a weapon against the gunman behind me. A few Mexican coins. A handkerchief and a wallet in one hip pocket.

And, Luis Aparicio’s switchblade knife in the other. It would be enough — it had to be enough, because that was all I had.

I paced down the long dirt strip for almost two hundred yards. Then I turned and walked back in a wide arc so that, without his being aware of it, I managed to get the big Aztec between us and the Learjet.

By now, the sun was almost directly overhead and the heat of the day sent shimmering waves reflecting upward from the bare ground. I stopped behind the plane and took out my handkerchief, mopping the sweat from my forehead. As I started to move on again, the gunman called out to me. “Hey! You dropped your wallet.”

I stopped and turned around. My wallet was lying on the ground where I’d deliberately dropped it when I took out my handkerchief.

“So I did,” I said, pretending surprise. “Thanks.” Casually, I walked back and picked it up. The gunman didn’t move. He was standing by the wingtip of the Aztec, out of sight of anyone in the Learjet, and now I was only ten feet away from him. He was either too cocky or too careless to move back.

Still facing him, I put my wallet back into the other hip pocket and closed my fingers around the handle of Luis Aparicio’s switchblade knife. I took my hand out of my pocket, my body hiding my hand from the gunman. Pressing the little button in the handle, I felt the six-inch blade leap out of the haft and lock into place. I turned the knife in my hand, grasping the blade in a throwing position. I started to turn away from the gunman and then, suddenly, I whirled back. My hand went up and my arm shot forward. The knife whipped from my hand before he knew what was happening.

The blade took him in the throat just above the point where the collarbones join. He let out a gasp. Both hands went up to his throat. I made a running dive at him, tackling him at the knees and brought him crashing to the ground. Reaching up, I grabbed at the handle of the knife, but his hands were already there, so I wrapped my own fist around his hands and pulled hard in a sawing motion.

Blood gouted from the ripped flesh and cartilage of his heavy neck. His pocked face was only inches from mine, his eyes glaring at me with mute, desperate hatred. Then his hands fell away and his whole body went slack.

I squatted back on my heels, blood on my hands like a sticky, crimson lotion. Carefully, I wiped my hands on the cloth of his jacket. I got a handful of sand and scrubbed away what was left.

Finally, I reached inside his jacket for the gun he’d so foolishly carried under his armpit instead of in his fist ready to fire.

I pulled out the weapon, a huge Smith & Wesson .44-caliber Magnum revolver. It’s an enormous handgun, made especially for accuracy and for shocking power, even at a distance. It’s really too much gun to carry around. Only a show-off would pack one.

Holding the gun behind my back in one hand, I rose and walked quickly around the Aztec to the Learjet. I went up the steps into the cabin.

Gregorius was the first to see me.

“Ah, Nick,” he said, with a cold smile on his face. “You’ve made up your mind.”

“Yes,” I said. I brought the heavy Magnum from behind my back and pointed it at him. “Yes, I have.”

The smile slid off Gregorius’ face. “You’re making a mistake, Nick. You can’t get away with this. Not here.”

“Perhaps.” I looked at Susan Dietrich. “Outside,” I ordered.

Doris lifted her gun and held it to Susan’s head. “You just sit still, honey,” she said, in her small, sharp voice. My hand moved a fraction and my finger pulled the trigger. The heavy .44 Magnum slug slammed Doris back against the bulkhead, tearing half her head away in an explosion of white bone, gray brain matter, and red, spouting blood.

Susan put her hands to her mouth. Her eyes reflected the sickness she felt.

“Outside!” I said to her, sharply.

She got to her feet. “What about my father?”

I looked over at where Dietrich was lying stretched out in one of the large leather armchairs that had been placed in its full reclining position. The old man was unconscious.

“I want you out first” Susan moved carefully around Gregorius. I stepped to one side so that she could cross behind me. She went out the door.

“How are you going to get him out?” asked Gregorius, gesturing at Dietrich. “Do you expect us to help you move him?”

I made no answer. I stood for a moment, looking first at Gregorius and then at Carlos and finally at the old man. Without saying a word, I backed out the door and went down the steps.

There was a sudden flurry of activity inside the Learjet. The steps swung up, the door closed, slamming shut Susan came running over to me, catching me by the arm.

“You left my father in there!” she cried out.

I put my arm around her and backed away from the aircraft Through the small cockpit window, I could see the pilot slip into his seat. His hands reached up, rapidly flicking switches. In a moment, I heard the engines begin to whine as the rotor blades spun.

Susan pulled away from my arm. “Didn’t you hear me? My father’s still inside! Get him out! Please get him out!” She was screaming at me now over the blasting roar of the jet engines. Desperation was written all over her face. “Please! Do something!”

I ignored her. I stood there with the heavy revolver hanging down in my right hand and watched as the Learjet, both engines now fired up, turned in a clumsy waddle and began to trundle away from us.

Susan clutched at my left arm, shaking it, crying out hysterically, “Don’t let them get away!”

It was as if I were standing apart from both of us locked into a lonely world of my own. I knew what I had to do. There was no other way. I felt cold in spite of the heat of the New Mexican sunlight. The coldness reached deep inside me, chilling me to the very marrow of my soul.

Susan reached up and slapped me across the face. I felt nothing. It was as if she hadn’t touched me at all.

She screamed at me. “Help him, for god’s sake!”

I watched the jet move to the far end of the runway.

Now it was several hundred yards away from us, its engines blasting a whirlwind of dust behind it. It turned onto the strip and began its takeoff roll. The twin jets were now at full scream, a high-pitched hurricane of noise that battered deafeningly at our eardrums, and then the plane picked up speed and was racing down the dirt strip toward us.

I pulled my left arm away from Susan’s grip. I lifted the .44 Magnum and grasped my right wrist with my left hand, bringing the gun up to eye level, lining up the bar of the front sight in the vee notch of the rear sight.

As the plane came abreast of us, it was almost at maximum takeoff speed, and in that minute before the nosewheel began to lift, I squeezed off a shot. The left tire exploded, blown apart by the heavy slug. The left wing dropped. Its tip caught the ground, cartwheeling the plane around in a great, tortured scream of metal breaking apart. The wingtip tanks split open, spewing fuel into the air in a black, greasy spray. Almost in slow motion, the tail of the plane lifted higher and higher and then, as the wing broke off at the root, the plane went up and over onto its back, twisting down the runway in a cloud of black fuel spray and brown dust, broken bits of metal wildly flinging themselves out in bright fragments.

I fired again at the aircraft, and then a third time and a fourth. There was a quick flash of flame; a ball of orange-red fire expanded outward from the broken, crippled metal of the fuselage. The plane came to rest, flames shooting out from it as a thick, oily black smoke poured out of the holocaust of leaping fire.

Still without the faintest sign of emotion showing on my face, I watched the aircraft destroy itself and its occupants. I lowered the gun and stood there on the floor of the valley, tired; lonely. Susan slipped to her knees beside me, her face against my leg. I heard a whimpering sound of despair creep from her throat, and I reached down gently with my left hand and touched her softly on the top of her golden hair, unable to speak to her or to comfort her in any way at all.