by Nick Carter
Carter noticed the boy did not speak the usual street jargon, and glancing at the book-lined walls, he could see why. Although his phrases were trite, they were well spoken.
"If the speechmaking is over, I came here for information," Carter said. The boy and the priest exchanged glances.
"What do you want to know about the pig Hauptmann? He has disappeared," Braga snapped.
"I killed him." Carter said.
Braga's eyes widened. "No one deserved death more than that maniac. But why did you do such a thing?"
"He tried to kill me."
The boy's eyes narrowed. "And now you want more information about him. What sort of information?"
"Where was he six months ago?"
"In jail. Salto, Uruguay. He had a profitable little gun-running business across the Uruaguay River into Concordia until his boat developed troubles and he was stranded."
"I have looked at the police files. That wasn't included."
Braga shrugged. "Communications are not always good with the provinces. And relations are somewhat strained with Uruguay at the moment." He smiled as though he'd had a hand in straining the relations himself.
"How do you know this, about Hauptmann?"
"You doubt my word, señor?"
Carter held his silence.
"We sent a man to Salto with orders to kill Hauptmann. He has been a thorn in our sides. He was to be arrested and put into the cell next to our man. Then a knife was to be slipped between the pig's ribs while everyone slept. It was all arranged. But then Hauptmann escaped."
"How? Did he have help?"
Again the boy shrugged, a loose, careless gesture that Carter was beginning to find irritable. "The man with the monocle."
"Who?"
"He is a European. He is always there when Hauptmann or men like him need help. Buys their way out of jail if possible, or shoots their way out."
This was something new. Carter had not seen anything about such a man in AXE files.
"I've never seen the man, but others have. They said his eye behind his monocle is as cold as the winter wind. He is said to have no heart."
"A name?"
Braga shook his head.
"How about your man… the one you sent to Salto to kill Hauptmann? Perhaps he saw this European? Perhaps he can give me a description?"
The priest crossed himself. "Pepé Morales is dying. Cancer. There is not much time."
"Did he see him?"
"I don't know," Braga said. "When he came back he was sick. He didn't say anything. We didn't ask."
"I would like to ask him. It is very important," Carter said.
Braga started to say no, but the priest held him off. They went out into the corridor for a minute or two, and when the door opened again, the boy was gone.
"It is best this way," Father Wilfredo said.
"That was easy money," Carter said bitterly.
"It was all he knew, believe me. But I will tell you how to get to Pepé. Perhaps he will be able to help you," the priest said. "He is back in Salto, there is a cantina…"
* * *
During the cab ride back to his hotel, Carter vacillated between wanting to disbelieve what he had been told and wondering if Braga hadn't been straight with him after all. It was possible that neither AXE nor the CIA, nor Interpol, nor even the Argentine Federal Police had any idea Hauptmann was in jail. It was also possible that another organization could have found out — if Hauptmann had sent out word — and decided to buy Hauptmann's freedom in return for services rendered.
When he reached his hotel he made arrangements to rent a car. Twenty minutes later they brought it around, a white 67 Chevrolet with eighty thousand miles on the odometer. It looked rough, but the tires were good and it was reasonably clean.
Another half an hour of haggling produced the necessary insurance and registration papers, and he was on his way northward on the Avenida Eduardo Maredo with a road map open on the seat beside him.
Salto was a two-hundred-mile trip, but the roads were good, and by five forty-five that afternoon he had stopped for directions to the cantina the priest had told him about. By six he was parking in front of the place, which was just off the square in a very sleepy, dusty little village with only one main street. The square held an open-air market.
There were very few people about, and the cantina seemed to be closed, so Carter went over to one of the stalls in the market, where a man was just bundling up his pots and pans.
He looked up hopefully.
"Do you know a man who is very sick named Pepé Morales?" Carter asked. He pulled out a few pesos.
The man looked Carter over. He eyed the money, but he made no move to reach for it.
Carter sensed the mistrust. "Father Wilfredo from St. Dominic's in Buenos Aires sent me. He said I could find Pepé here."
The man nodded slowly and pointed down a side street. "The last house," he said. "In the back." His Spanish was very thick, very difficult to understand.
Carter handed him the money, then went back to his car. From his things in the trunk, he pulled out a thin, black briefcase containing a portable Identi-Kit. He had brought it along on a hunch, and he hoped it was about to pay off. He drove up the narrow street.
The house was little more than a dirt-floored shack. Carter knocked at the door.
"Who is it?" a woman asked impatiently.
"I have come to see Pepé."
"Go away!"
Carter gently pushed open the door. The light was dim, but in the darkness he could make out a mattress on the floor. A man was lying there, an old woman bent over him. The whites of her eyes flashed up at him.
"Go away!"
"I am sorry, but I must speak with him. It is very urgent."
The woman began to struggle to her feet, but the man reached up, gently laying his hand on her arm, stopping her. "It doesn't matter," he said softly.
The woman stood, and with a furious look retired to the other side of the room.
Carter crouched beside the man on the mattress. "Are you the one they call Pepé?"
"Yes," the man said, his voice hoarse and soft.
"José Braga sent me. He says you were the man in prison with Victor Hauptmann."
Pepé nodded. His breathing was labored. He was obviously in great pain.
"A man came to get him out of the prison. The man with the monocle. Did you see him? Did you see his face that night? Clearly?"
Pepé nodded again.
"I must find this man with the monocle. Hauptmann is dead, but I must find his friend. Do you understand?"
Tears leaked from the man's eyes. But once again he nodded his understanding.
"I need this man's description, and I have something with me that will help." Carter opened the briefcase and took out a notebook with interchangeable plastic pages. The overlays were divided into sections, each section containing a facial feature of a different type. By flipping the various pages back and forth, and by interchanging the proper overlays, one could put together almost any combination of features.
"Do you feel up to helping me?"
Pepé's face was grayish-white. He lay with his mouth open, his lips white and dry, his eyes narrowed to slits. "Yes," he whispered.
"Do you have a lamp?" Carter asked the woman.
She lit a kerosene lamp and brought it over. Carter set it on the floor and propped the notebook on his knee. "Was he bald?" he asked. "Short hair? Shorter than this? And the nose, long or short?"
The process took three-quarters of an hour. Carter worked steadily, not wanting to rush the dying man but fully aware that the man's strength was limited. What began as nods and shakes of the head became, after a time, little more than eye movements and an occasional grunt toward the end. Nevertheless, a picture began to take shape.
Carter's quarry turned out to be apparently a large man whose head was either shaved or naturally bald. He was thickly built with ridges of muscle along his bull neck. His face was squarish, the mo
uth grim, the eyes blue and penetrating. He was about sixty, perhaps a bit more or less.
When they were done, Pepé was completely exhausted. He lay with his eyes closed, his breath coming more irregularly than before. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words were too faint to be heard.
"Do you know what he's trying to say?" Carter asked the woman. He felt a great amount of pity for these people, but there was little if anything he could do for them.
She came over and knelt down beside the mattress. Pepé spoke again. She looked up. "He wants to know who you are," she said. "He wants to know if you will kill this man."
Carter crouched back down and looked into Pepé's eyes. "I think this man is trying to have me killed. I may have to kill him."
"Good," Pepé croaked. Then he closed his eyes and appeared to fall asleep.
Carter got slowly to his feet. "Has he seen a doctor?"
"Who has money for such things?" the woman snapped.
Carter put the Identi-Kit composite back in the briefcase. Then he pulled out several hundred dollars and held it out to the woman. But she did not reach out to take it, so Carter put it on the floor beside Pepé.
"When he wakes up, thank him forme. He has been a very big help."
"Swine!" the woman hissed.
Outside, the sun was low in the sky, and shadows around the little hut were beginning to lengthen. He walked to the car and was about to pull the door open when he noticed a small smear of grease near the front wheel well. Odd, he thought. He'd inspected the car thoroughly before he'd driven up here. He didn't remember any grease.
He got in, put the key in the ignition but didn't turn it. Directly ahead, through the windshield, the rutted mud road that led back to town lay silent in the gathering haze of twilight. A pair of trees bobbed at the end of the lane. To his right were the cluttered backyards of several neighboring families. They had been busy centers of activity when he came — children playing, women hanging wash. Now the children were gone, and the wash was down. Not dry. Not yet.
Quiet, he thought. Much too quiet.
Slowly he reached down and pulled the door latch. As the door popped, he hit it with his shoulder and dove headfirst into the dirt. He'd no more than cleared the seat when a shot sounded. The windshield went white with cracks, and there was a saw-toothed hole where his head had been.
An automatic weapon opened fire from a hedge about sixty yards down the road. Carter rolled frantically back and forth as the chattering slugs kicked up dirt all around him.
Carter rolled under the car as the barrage continued. The bullets clattered into the metal on all sides, and he could hear the windshield breaking up.
The hedge was located directly down the road from the car. Carter drew his Luger and pumped a few rounds toward the spot, but the firing continued. Whoever it was seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of ammunition.
Then he saw two wires leading down from the engine compartment, and he suddenly realized what he should have understood earlier. The wires ended in a lump of plastique directly beneath the seat on the driver's side. The machine gunner had been nothing more than insurance.
The bullets kept coming, pinning Carter down. It was as if the gunman were trying to pick the car apart and detonate the bomb himself.
The first two wires were connected to the ignition switch. He pulled down one, then the other, being very careful not to let their ends make contact. Then he wrapped the first wire around the coils of the right front wheel spring, leaving its end exposed. He did the same with the second, wrapping it around a lower coil in the spring and fanning its end; when the spring was compressed, the ends would meet and the bomb would explode. Then he pulled himself on his elbows out from under the car's rear bumper.
The firing stopped for a moment or two, and Carter ducked around to the passenger side of the car, threw open the door, and scrambled inside.
The firing did not resume.
Carter reached up and put the car in neutral, then turned on the ignition. The wires on the springs below were hot now, the bomb activated.
Making sure the steering wheel was straight, the car pointing directly at the line of hedges. Carter turned the ignition again, starting the car. He slipped the gear lever into drive, and as the car began to move, he slid backward out of the car and rolled away from the rear wheels.
The firing started again as the car gathered speed, lumbered down the road, and hit the ditch near the hedges. The explosion blew out its doors like a pair of wings, and the car burst into flames, glass, bits of hot metal, and burning upholstery raining down.
Carter leaped up and ran toward the hedges, expecting to see the gunman making a run for it. But the area around the car was burning, making it impossible to see much of anything beyond.
A motorcycle engine kicked into life, and Carter turned in time to see a man with an automatic rifle strapped to his back bouncing over the terrain. Carter brought up his Luger and fired twice, but it was no use; the figure was well out of range.
He holstered his gun after a bit, then went back to the house to check on Pepé and his woman, who had been badly frightened by the barrage of gunfire. Once again, the little street was silent.
Five
Twenty-four hours later, Carter was back in Buenos Aires in the suburb of San Isidro, sitting at the dinner table in Juan Mendoza's apartment. Mendoza, his wife Evita, and Carter had just finished eating a thick slice of Argentinian Pampa-bred tenderloin. During the meal, Carter had described the murder attempt in Salto. He had checked on Pepé, who was sleeping peacefully, and then had gotten out of there on foot before the police came. It wasn't until early morning that he was able to hitch a ride from a farmer to the border and then to a railway station.
The cook came in to clear the dishes, and Evita Mendoza excused herself to follow her back into the kitchen to see about dessert, leaving Carter and Mendoza alone at the table. Mendoza pulled his chair back, pulled out two thick Panatellas, and offered one to Carter.
"What makes you so sure it wasn't simply a random act of terrorism against a Yankee?" Mendoza asked, reaching over with a match to light Carter's cigar.
Carter puffed several wisps of pale smoke. "Terrorists might have planted the bomb, but they would not have waited around with a gunman to make sure the bomb did its job. It was definitely a determined killer. A man with a very specific target: me."
"You think the attack was connected somehow to this business in Iceland?"
"Whoever it was, knew I had just come in. They followed me up to Salto."
"But how?"
"A leak. Maybe in your organization here. Maybe in the CIA's. It may be Captain Vargas in the Federal Police. I borrowed one of his files."
Mendoza thought a moment. "It would take quite an organization to keep tabs on you from Iceland to Washington and then down here."
"Yes."
This last prospect seemed to make Mendoza uncomfortable. "All right," he said, pulling his chair in closer and spreading his hands palms-down on the table. "Let's examine what you've come up with so far. Someone in Iceland, you say, is manipulating things so that a nuclear power plant will be built up there. Why? What would that get them?"
"I don't know," Carter said. "That part's got me stumped."
"At this moment whoever is running the show has ties here in Argentina. They hired a local to make a try on you in Iceland, and now that you're here, they've tried again."
"They've been watching me, and they want me dead. They'll try again."
"But who? I keep coming back to that, Nick. No one in Argentina has the resources to build a nuclear power plant under such secrecy. We would have heard about it by now. It takes a very big organization and a lot of capital to keep something like mat so totally private."
"Maybe the man with the monocle has the answers."
"Him." Mendoza spat the word. "Do you still have the sketch?"
Carter unfolded the sheet on which he'd transferred the features of the portrait Pepé ha
d helped him put together in Salto and handed it across to Mendoza.
Mendoza studied the rendering for several silent moments. Then he looked up. "This almost looks like Marc Ziegler."
"Who is that?"
"A friend of mine from the San Isidro Tennis and Sport Club. He lives not too far from here."
"What does he do?"
"He's head of a very large conglomerate. Hemispheric Technologies. They have their headquarters south of the city."
Carter didn't say anything.
Mendoza glanced again at the picture, then up at Carter. "You're not suggesting…"
"Why not?" Carter said.
"He's a good man, Nick. I can't imagine he'd be mixed up in murder. Besides, his company is involved with computers, not reactors."
Carter shrugged. "Ziegler is German, I assume. Josepsson was dealing with Germans. I met two of them in Iceland."
"That's not fair, Nick. There are a lot of Germans here in Argentina."
"Some of them former Nazis on the run. In Hauptmann's file there was a notation that his father had been in the S.S. I wonder what Ziegler's file looks like?"
"The police wouldn't have one on him, I wouldn't think. We surely do not."
Carter sat back, puffing his cigar as he tried to think this out. There was every possibility that he was chasing wild geese. Yet… He looked up. "Who's the Israeli ambassador to Argentina?"
"David Lieb."
"Do you know him?"
Mendoza nodded. "As a matter of fact I did an article on him and his family. 'The Changing Face of Israel' it was called."
"Will he remember you?"
"Certainly. The article appeared not very long ago. He sent me a case of Dom Perignon."
"Call him. Tell him you may have come across some information on Nazi war criminals, and you want to know to whom you should pass it."
Reluctantly Mendoza made the call. Lieb was just getting home from an evening at the theater. He was not happy about being disturbed, but when Mendoza made it clear what he wanted, Lieb's attitude suddenly changed.
"Roger Seidman. He is my political consul. He would be most interested to hear what you might have." He gave a telephone number.