Circle of Scorpions

by Nick Carter

  "So that leaves…?"

  "Over the Swiss and Austrian Alps to here, just short of Vienna… or over the Pyrenees to here, southern Spain."

  Carter remembered the cable to Cordoba. "Try Cordoba."

  Henry did some quick figuring, looked up, and nodded. "It would fit. Also, we're only crossing one frontier… much less risky."

  Carter mulled over the charts, then shook his head. "If it is Cordoba, I would guess it's a jumping-off place. That many high-flying terrorists coming into Spain would be spotted."

  "Then my guess is he's setting himself up some secondary transportation, to here."

  Carter watched the point of Henry's pencil fall on the northern tip of Algeria, and nodded. "That would sure as hell fit."

  "And if that's the case, Amani has already called ahead for a welcoming party for us in Spain."

  "It would seem so." Carter stood and stretched.

  "So what do we do?"

  "We go," Carter said. "It's all we can do."

  He hefted the briefcase to the bed and opened it.

  "There's your payroll… plus."

  "Pretty," Henry sighed. "Very pretty."

  "How far can you trust the guns you hired?"

  "With the Crown Jewels, as long as they get paid."

  "Okay," Carter said. "We leave at ten tomorrow night."

  Twelve

  Carlotta and Amani left by the rear door of the apartment house. They were picked up three blocks away by Jason Henry in the van.

  Carter went over the roofs and dropped down into a small back street a block away. The big black Citroen was waiting with its motor running.

  "What's your name?"

  "Maurice."

  "Do you know the route?"

  "Oui."

  They rendezvoused just past the Bois with four more guns in a Renault sedan. Just south of Paris, they turned off the A10 and found the old road to Orleans, Route 20.

  "Where will the van be?"

  "Just short of Arpajon. There is a rest stop."

  Just outside Paris, a misty rain turned to sleet. When Maurice the driver turned off the highway, the sleet was quickly becoming snow.

  Carter noted that the Renault had sped on by the cutoff.

  There were two cars besides the van in the rest area. When the car stopped. Carter slid from the passenger seat and entered the building.

  Jason Henry was already at a urinal.

  "Any trouble?"

  "None. You?" Carter asked.

  "We're in business. I'll lead you out."

  "Good. What about the other two cars out there?"

  "Couples… kids who can't afford a hotel room," Henry explained with a grin.

  Going out, Henry climbed into the driver's seat of the Citroen, and Carter veered to the van.

  Amani was on the passenger side, his Beretta in his lap. Carlotta was at the rear doors, cradling an Uzi. In the driver's seat was another Beretta, compliments of Henry. Carter shoved it in his coat pocket and climbed into the van.

  No one spoke as Carter pulled in behind the Citroen and they headed south. About three miles on, the Renault pulled in behind them to form the caravan.

  Halfway between Arpajon and Etampes, it started snowing heavily.

  "Can he fly in this?" Amani asked.

  "We have a check stop at Angerville," Carter replied. "We'll make a weather call."

  He flipped the wiper switch to high, and they settled back in silence. Carter could hear Carlotta's long nails in the rear of the van tapping the barrel of the Uzi.

  There were few cars on the road, and everyone was driving cautiously. Carter himself had slowed down, taking the curves at a slower speed and accelerating less as he pulled out of them. A wall of snow seemed to settle around the van, isolating them in a cocoon of white. Even the alternating forests and open fields on each side of them seemed distant as the car carved a cave through the falling flakes.

  "Goddamned idiot!" Carter snapped as another van, dark blue with blacked-out windows, whirled around them and cut back to the right lane in front of them much too soon.

  There was a tense moment as Carter saw the other van charge the tail lights of the Renault. For a brief second, he thought that the driver of the van — even though he was closer — didn't see them.

  Then the van swerved out and was around the Renault, speeding much too fast down the highway.

  They passed through Etampes, and just south of the town, Carlotta crawled forward.

  "Ali…?"

  For a bare second. Carter didn't respond to his alias. Quickly his eyes darted to Amani to see if the old man had caught it. He was napping.

  "Yes?"

  That van was parked in Etampes, outside a bistro."

  "I saw it. Did you notice the woman in the passenger seat?"

  "Yes, but I couldn't tell if it was Sophia. But she does wear a blond wig."

  "We'll compare notes when we stop in Angerville."

  * * *

  When Carter emerged from the restaurant, the snow had receded a little but still fell in a steady pattern. The cold, now damp air was heavy with the reek of gasoline fumes and the smell of coffee from the sack in his hand. Now and then the heavy rumble of a truck reached his ears from the highway.

  The Renault had already gassed up and moved to the south end of the drive. The van was still at the pumps, and the Citroen was at the north end of the drive, near a phone booth.

  Jason Henry was in the booth.

  Carter passed the coffee through the window of the van. "Stay alert. I'll be right back."

  Fingering the Beretta in his pocket. Carter walked toward the parking lot at the edge of the building.

  He walked all the way around the restaurant building to the adjoining gas station and stood, out of the snow, in the lighted bay. The second parking lot was also devoid of anything suspicious.

  "May I help you, monsieur?"

  It was a young boy fixing a tire in the bay.

  "Non, merci," Carter said, and then changed his mind. He pulled a pencil and the Michelin road map that he and Henry had pored over in the restaurant from his pocket, and approached the boy. "Perhaps you can at that. Do you live in this area?"

  "Out, monsieur."

  Ten minutes later. Carter approached Henry just as the other man stepped from the phone booth.

  "Well?"

  "It had better be Spain," Henry replied. "This mess is moving in a blanket north and northeast. If we get off the ground, the only way to go is south."

  "Okay. Get your artillery out of the Citroen, put it under your coat, and join us in the van."

  "Something wrong?"

  "Just a hunch," Carter replied. "There was a CB antenna on that van that passed us and stopped at Etampes. They haven't passed again, but they could be tracking us. If anything pops on down the road, I think it would be best if we were all together."

  As they walked to the van. Carter played a penlight over the map. Besides the published routes, there were now penciled lines crisscrossing back and forth across Route 20 and the nearby A10 superhighway.

  "What's up?"

  "Who knows?" Carter said and shrugged. "But remember what you said about being spotted if we stayed in Paris too long?"

  "Yeah?"

  "We might have stayed too long. You drive!"

  Henry gunned the engine and steered from the parking lot. He flashed his lights, and once again the Renault took the lead, with Maurice and the Citroen close behind. On the highway, they quickly gained speed and the Renault's tail-lights faded in the snow.

  Suddenly a small sports car whirled around them and immediately slowed.

  "Bastard!" Henry hissed and hit his horn.

  "Can you pass him?" Carter said.

  "Not in this crap. We're losing the Renault!"

  Carter leaned his eyes to the back windows. He couldn't see the headlights of the Citroen.

  "I don't like it," he growled, jacking a shell into the chamber of the Beretta. The sound was answered by
a similar click as Carlotta readied the Uzi.

  "There's something ahead! "Henry shouted. "Christ, it's a roadblock!"

  Carter scrambled forward.

  There were no cars in sight, but two stanchions had been raised on their lane of the road, with red lights atop them and a gate between. Three uniformed men were beside the road, but through the snow it was impossible to tell what uniforms they wore.

  The sports car was already stopped at the gate. There was no sign of the Renault.

  "Amani, get in the back!"

  "Do you think it is the police, looking for us?"

  "Move!" Carter barked. He could hardly tell the man that he knew damned well it wasn't the police.

  Just as Carter slid into the front, Henry stood on the brakes.

  "Look, there in the trees!"

  Carter looked. It was the ass end of the Renault sedan. At that second, the sports car took off and then skidded sideways in front of them. Two of the three uniformed men drew their guns and started running toward the van.

  Carter took one of them out right through hi s side window, and Henry wrestled the steering wheel. By the time the van was all the way around, Carlotta had the rear doors open and the Uzi was barking.

  "in the little sports car…?"It was Amani at Carter's shoulder.

  "Yeah?"

  "Sophia Palmori!"

  "Let's hope the Uzi nails her," Carter said, already running his penlight over the map. "There's a side road up here about two miles. Take a left!"

  The words were barely out of his mouth when twin headlights hurtled out of the snow directly toward them.

  "It's the blue van!" Carter shouted.

  "Dammit, they must have gotten Maurice!" Henry cried, managing to swerve just in time to avoid the other vehicle.

  He took the comer in a skid and saw a clear ribbon of unmarked white leading to the A10.

  "Jesus, I hope there's a road under that," Henry muttered, then dropped the van into high gear as he floored the accelerator.

  There was, and it was solid under the white powder.

  "What now?"

  Carter consulted the map. "There's an underpass. Just on the other side of it, take a left. It's an on-ramp to the A10."

  Carter hung on to the seat and the door handle until he was satisfied with Henry's driving ability and they were skittering half sideways up the on-ramp. He then screwed his body around in the seat and looked between Amani and Carlotta. He saw light at the bottom of the on-ramp, and then the hazy yellow of the other van's two fog lights.

  "What's that?" Henry asked.

  "Them," Carter replied. "They're coming after us."

  They hit the A10 south at sixty miles an hour, and Henry did everything he could to urge more speed out of the vehicle. Beside him in the passenger seat. Carter was again consulting the map.

  "They must have a supercharger in that thing," Henry said. "They're gaining by the second!"

  "I know," Carter said, looking up at a passing sign and quickly back down at the map.

  "Wonderful. So now we're in up to our ass!"

  "Watch the road and drive, Henry."

  Again, Carter peered through the back windows. The distance between the two vehicles was growing shorter by the second.

  "He's good," Henry said. "A little too good. We'll never outrun him."

  "I told you I know that," Carter replied.

  He slid from the passenger seat and made his way to the rear of the van. He took the Uzi from Carlotta's hands, ejected the magazine, and jacked in a new one.

  "Carlotta, you and Amani swing open the doors and hold them open when I tell you! Henry…"

  "Yeah?"

  There's a sharp curve just ahead. When you get beyond it, slow down!"

  "Gotcha!" Henry replied with a resounding laugh, already seeing Carter's intent.

  They started into the rum and. halfway around, caught a patch of ice. Luckily Henry was already gearing down, so it was easy for him to right the van and make the turn.

  "Now!" Carter cried just as he saw the fog light beams come around. Amani and Carlotta threw the rear doors open and held them with their legs.

  At the same spot in the turn, the other van caught the sheet of ice. But its speed didn't allow for the same reaction Henry had been able to make.

  Carter narrowed his eyes against the gusts of cold air and swirling snow that filled the back of the van, and started spraying with the Uzi. He caught the left front headlight, and saw the slugs stitch a path across the fender, the door, and then shatter all the windows of the van.

  There was a screaming cry of metal as the van hit the guard rail and careened by them on the shoulder.

  By this time, Henry was crawling. When he came to a complete halt. Carter rolled from the back of the van, with Amani directly behind him and Henry pouring out the driver's side.

  Just as Carter had hoped, the sudden reversal to an offensive position had left the other van's occupants stunned. He was ten feet from the rear of the van and running, when the doors suddenly opened. A monster crouched behind them, the magnum in his two hands looking like a toy. He got off one slug before Carter sprayed with the Beretta.

  He was looking right into the big man's eyes just before they disintegrated.

  The passenger side door of the van opened, and two men tumbled out as Carter fired another burst. To his left, he heard feet pounding on the snow-covered pavement. It was Henry, already firing his own Beretta. He nailed the driver right through the side window and hit the front fender as Carter cleared the back of the van.

  Less than half a minute had elapsed since the initial crash.

  There was a bank beyond the guard rail, with a drainage ditch at the bottom of it. Carter jammed a fresh magazine into the Uzi, took the guard rail in a dive, and rolled.

  He drew no fire by the time he hit the ditch, so he chanced a look over its edge into the woods beyond.

  Still no fire.

  He rolled over the embankment and crawled into the trees for about twenty yards. The thick fall of snow had been hindered by the heavy foliage of the trees above. Those same trees now blocked out any light from the van's headlights above.

  Carter took two steps forward, and a boyish-looking man with a claw for a right hand rolled around a tree ten yards in front of him.

  The claw was across the trigger of a machine pistol.

  Carter stitched him across the chest just as a blur of movement drew his eyes to the right.

  It was Amani, and the barrel of his Beretta was pumping saffron flame. He emptied the whole clip into the second man who had been crouching in a praying position twenty yards behind Carter's victim.

  The man groaned once and folded. When Amani reached him, he kicked him in the side as though he were still alive.

  "Bastard," he hissed, then reloaded the Beretta.

  "Wombo is in the van, dead. That was Pocky you just killed."

  It was Carlotta at Carter's elbow. "And the other three?"

  They look like French, probably locals that Sophia hired in Paris."

  "And Sophia?"

  Carlotta shook her head. T tried at the roadblock, but I think I missed her."

  Carter shrugged and moved back up the bank. "Henry!"

  "Yeah?"

  "Will their van move?"

  "I think so."

  "Knock out the other headlight and drive it over the embankment, through the hole they already knocked in the guard rail."

  "Gotcha!"

  Carter moved back toward their own vehicle, Carlotta and Amani close at his heels. He slid into the driver's seat as they climbed into the back.

  The sound of grinding metal had barely subsided before Henry was settling into the passenger seat.

  "Let's go!"

  They moved, and five minutes later found themselves hurtling south on the A10 toward Orleans as fast as the van could carry them.

  Past the city, Henry gave Carter directions to the airfield. It was little more than a dirt strip cut into a smal
l farm field. The hangar was an open barn.

  Carter rocked the van to a halt and turned to Amani. "Okay, now we have to know where the hell we're going, because we might not be able to go. Tell him, Jason."

  This storm is going north and east. If you're thinking about Switzerland, Austria, or Germany, forget it."

  Amani smiled. "We'll be going south, gentlemen…to Spain."

  "Where in Spain?" Carter asked impatiently.

  "Near Cordoba," the Italian replied, then leaned forward, placing the Beretta just behind Carter's left ear. "I assure you, Signore Kashmir, I have trusted you up until now… but — just in case — I want you and Henry to pass your guns to Carlotta."

  Carter barely managed to suppress a smile as he passed the Uzi and the Beretta over to Carlotta Polti.

  The last words she had whispered to him before she and Amani had slipped from the Paris apartment were rattling around in his head: He's not going to kill you or Jason, but he's going to have you held while the two of us go on.

  And when you go on, Carter thought, I'm going to be right behind you!

  At Amani's orders, Carlotta buried all the guns except the Beretta he held. Henry checked out the plane while Carter transferred the bags.

  "Believe me, Ali Kashmir, I am not double-crossing you. I am just unable to take you all the way with me. You and Henry will be completely paid when we reach Cordoba."

  "And the other half of our agreement? The introductions to certain people?"

  "Ah, I fear that was a little white lie. You see, one day soon, those certain people I spoke of will not need to buy their arms from you."

  The plane was a twin-engine Beechcraft. It would carry six easily.

  Henry was already in the cockpit and had the propellers turning when the rest of them climbed inside.

  "I am sorry we must soon part on a sour note, Ali," Carlotta said loudly enough for Amani to hear.

  Carter shrugged. "As long as I get paid. And I've always enjoyed Spain… particularly on a paid vacation." He leaned forward and patted his canvas flight bag. "I even brought my camera along!"

  Carlotta smiled. It was she who had slipped the camera into the flight bag early that afternoon, after an AXE agent had draped it over her shoulder in a metro crowd with Amani not twenty paces in front of her.