by Nick Carter
"That's enough," Mertens said. "He's really unconscious. I have no desire to cremate him here."
"I'm still not sure. We can try another way, we can start on her."
I didn't see Schroeder come into the room. His gutteral voice suddenly boomed out. "Doctor, we have fifteen minutes to begin the count down. You are needed."
"There will be no launch until we get what we want here," Mertens said.
"But the programming is set, all the data fed in."
"I know, I know. You will have to hold until I come."
"That cannot be for long. There is no provision for delay beyond the set time for launch."
"I will come as soon as I can!"
"Jah! I said your plan with him is no good, and it is no good." He departed muttering.
"He's an ass," Mertens sighed, "all he wants to do is blow up Sevastopol."
"Let that sadist Doosa start on her with the knife, and we'll see if that brings him around." Villa was speaking in German for the moment, and I hoped Paula wasn't reading him.
My fingers were short on strength and less on feeling, but I could detect the lump of Hugo's haft. By twisting my hand I was able to fasten three fingers over it. I began to try to ease it into the palm of my hand. The pressure was structured to release the band that held the blade strapped to my forearm. But it didn't release, not by the time Villa was back with Doosa.
"I don't know whether you've rendered him inoperative, Colonel," Mertens snapped. "If you have, you'll be executed. Dr. Villa thinks he could be bluffing. If he is, you live. You like the girl so much, you can start on her with this."
"I don't understand." Doosa's voice was low and seething.
"It's perfectly simple. You're experienced at it. Start on her arm or her breast or anywhere you like. But get to it now!"
"Wh-what are you going to do!" Paula's voice was high-pitched now, near the breaking point. My fingers lacked the strength to free Hugo.
"I've never done this to a woman," Doosa's voice faltered.
"You will now, or you'll be dead." Mertens sounded like a plucked wire ready to snap.
I kept my head down, fingers straining. All I could hear was heavy breathing. Paula whimpered, "Please, no!" and then she began to scream.
The strap gave way and the haft of Hugo was in my palm. I moved it and the blade cut through my shirt. Now it was a matter of working the stiletto against the cords without dropping it. I shut out Paula's screaming and concentrated. I was sweating blood, and blood was making my fingers sticky when I was finally satisfied I'd loosened my bonds.
"Wait! Stop!" I gasped.
That brought them running.
"You were right, Dr. Villa, you were right!" Mertens chortled.
"Leave her alone," I mumbled.
"Of course, of course! We won't touch another hair on her head if you play your part."
Paula had fainted. Her left arm was blood covered. The truth was, if it had been necessary to sacrifice her to prevent the launch I would have kept my mouth shut no matter how bad the scene.
Getting Doosa to beat me up had bought me some time. Paula had bought me some more. One tug and my hands would be free. If my feet had been free I wouldn't have waited. As it was, with three of them, I had to play along.
"Dr. Villa, the tape recorder please."
"Water!" I croaked.
"Señor Carter will stop the pretending or the Colonel will return to the girl." Villa checked the portable Sony as Mertens produced my confession.
"Read it through," he said, holding the paper in front of my eyes.
"Can't read anything without water."
There was still a bit left in the bucket, and Doosa held it while I choked and guzzled.
"Now read it, and no more tricks," Mertens ordered. He was shook up from the excitement of it.
"What about the girl?"
"You have my word she won't be touched again." He put his hand over his heart.
She wouldn't be touched, she'd be shot just as soon as I was out of the way.
"Read Carter! Read!" The paper shook in my face as Villa stuck the microphone up to my mouth.
They'd kill me once the confession was taped. With both of them in close I could get them with Hugo. That left Doosa, who was out of reach. Aside from his own holstered .45, he had managed to confiscate Wilhelmina and had her stuck in his belt. If I could get him closer, I'd go for the Luger and take them all.
I managed to screw up the confession three times before Villa warned me that if I didn't project properly, Doosa would start whittling again on Paula.
On the fourth take I was ready. When I reached the line, "I have no time to give details," I was going to supply a few of my own. I didn't get the chance. As I read, "Behind this act of nuclear genocide there is a two-fold plan," Schroeder stuck his head through the entrance and ruined my performance.
"Mertens!" he barked in German. "We cannot hold the count down. You must come at once!"
"In a minute," Mertens yelped. "Now you've spoiled it!"
"There's no time to argue. You're both needed at once, otherwise, we'll have to abort."
He was gone before Mertens could stamp his foot.
"The Colonel can handle the recording, Doctor." Villa suggested, handing the recorder and mic to Doosa, heading for the doorless entrance.
"All right, all right! Colonel, start the recording from the beginning. I want him alive when I come back. When his body's found in Stuttgart, I want it to be recognizable." He went scuttling away.
Paula was conscious again, but her eyes were glassy with shock. Her head kept rolling around as though she wasn't able to understand what was going on. Doosa was grinning at me as he stepped up with the paper in one hand the mic in the other.
I spit on his new uniform. As he reacted, looking down, I snapped the last strand holding my wrists. My arms, released from the pole came around like springs. I fastened my left hand on the back of his neck, and as I slammed him in close, my right drove Hugo in low and piston-like.
His shriek was one of agonized disbelief. He fought to pull away from the killing blade, but my arm was around his back now. His neck arched, his head went back, eyes and mouth open to Allah, his hands trying to fasten on my wrist.
I had no mercy. He deserved none. I gutted him as I would a fish from belly to brisket and flung him away. He went down mewling, legs pulled up in the fetal position. As he thrashed around, heels kicking, trying to hold in his innards without much luck, I cut away the rope and those holding my feet. Then finally my hand went to the homing button. Sixth Fleet monitors would be picking up my signal.
Paula wasn't sure what was happening, and I didn't have time to tell her. Her eyes were like agates as she watched the colonel trying to kick his way into paradise. He was still scrabbling around in a sea of his own blood and gore as I cut her loose. I saw she had fainted again, which in the circumstances wasn't a bad idea.
I recovered Wilhelmina from the floor, worked loose by Doosa's Danse Macabre. I also relieved him of his .45 and found in his pocket my clip of incendiaries.
"Where you're headed, you might just as well travel light," I said to him. He didn't hear me. He was already on the way.
Chapter 20
I found no one on guard in Mertens' office complex, nor did I expect to. The action was at the launch site. The fifty would be at mission control or out on the walls supplying precautionary security. Those in the control room would be locked in. There'd be no chance of stopping the launch from there. I had to get the Cockeye itself.
I hadn't gone ten feet beyond the complex, following the main street, when a search light on a promotory of ruins, knifed out its beam and a voice shouted for me to halt. I went down behind a low wall in a crouch and began to run. The light attempted to follow. A machine gun began to chatter, blasting the ancient bricks.
I went around a corner, cutting down a rock strewn alley. The light had gone out, but I could hear whistles sounding and the pound of running feet. In the
moonlit darkness I spotted an arch. I went through it and hit the ground behind a length of Doric pillar. A couple of pursuers went pounding by. Then I was up and over a back wall, trying to angle toward the main street again. In the maze of ruins my progress was too slow. A wall higher than the rest fronted me. I took a running jump and lying on its ragged top I spotted the high ground. Once I reached it I'd be in better position to zero in on the coliseum.
Going cross lots, I ran into another search light. This time there were grenades to go with the automatic fire. I made a note to congratulate the Romans on the solid construction of their walls. I made an end run behind one and got clear of the noise and confusion.
It became a helluva game of hide and seek. I couldn't take the chance of returning fire; it would only pinpoint me. As long as they didn't catch me in their lights or actually see me, they couldn't be sure where I was, or where I was headed. When I finally saw the hump on one side of the coliseum against the sky, I also saw lights winking along its top. The pursuit had either gotten ahead of me or whoever was in command was smart enough to know it was pointless to chase me around in the rubble when the only thing they had to guard was the Cockeye and the RPV.
I knew there could only be a few minutes to launch, and I had to spend too many of them reaching the amphitheater of the coliseum without being spotted. At the end, I ran into an ambush. A falling stone, as I came over a wall, alerted them. But instead of waiting, they began shooting. I let out a scream, and then ducking and running, I reached an entrance portal and dove into its tunnel.
Three of them came after me. Bellied down, I let Doosa's .45 finish their run. The tunnel echoed to the roar of gunfire, and before the sound had faded I was at the amphitheater entrance of the passage-way, looking for the star of the show.
The camouflage hid it. I started down the crowd-worn steps. Almost immediately there was a shout of warning. A light probed from above. Automatic fire began to stutter and echo from behind me and on three sides. I let out a cry and took a header. After three summersaults I put on the brakes and managed to halt my descent before I made it too real. I went on hands and knees to the next aisle. Then I was up and racing down again.
They spotted me, and their fire sought me out. A slug burned against my leg. Another furrowed my side, the brushing impact twisting me, nearly leveling me. Below was a pool of black. Its oblong marked the boundary of what had once been the coliseum's floor. The black was the camouflage netting. I dove, arching out over it, then dropping straight down.
My hands hit the mesh netting. I felt it flex to the weight of my plunge and then start to snap. My legs swung down, ready to absorb the impact. I hadn't expected the netting to hold me up, just to check the final fall. I hit in standard paratroop style, going down on hands and knees and into a roll. The camouflage would conceal what was under it, but it could not black out light beamed through, particularly now that I had torn a hole through it. Three powerful beams from above fingered after me. There were shouted commands and the sound of troops assembling on the double. They had come not to bury Caesar but Nick Carter. And I had come not to fight lions barehanded but to take on a Cockeye and its RPV. The latter was my target. I had Wilhelmina, primed with a magazine of incendiaries.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't have carried such exotic ammunition. A slug will do the job without the need of added fireworks. Except when the target is a tank full of JP-4. A standard Luger round would not ignite jet fuel.
I was not reflecting on the fact, or how in my profession you learn to size up and prepare for eventualities before they get flung at you. I was busy trying to find enough cover to prove that I had prepared well before the gunners above found the range and target.
Before me was the black silhouette of the RPV on its launching track with the Cockeye on its back. It was primed to raise more global hell than its makers had ever dreamed. Behind this still life of death, along the far rim of the enclosure, was a pencil of bluish light, marking the viewing window of Mertens' mission control.
From where I lay directly across from mission control, it was too distant for accurate shooting with the Luger. I knew as soon as I started to shoot I would draw fire. I had no choice, no time. I broke from cover, running directly toward the RPV. I got off three shots before the lights caught me and the slugs began to bracket. I went down in a shoulder roll and got off four and five on the ground and seven as I came upright.
Then I didn't have to shoot anymore. The RPV broke out in a sudden rash of flame. It shot upward, making an angry huffing sound. I hit the dirt again, and this time when I came up I ducked around the back of the launch track and headed toward the blue light.
The searchlight beams got stuck on the flaming RPV and held. The shooting snapped off. In its place there were multi-lingual shouts. They all added up to: Run like hell! I could hear the action being taken. As seasoned terrorists, the gang above was tough and well trained, great for hijacking a plane, massacring hostages or even stealing a nuke. But their scientific education ended there. They were running like they had never run before because being atomized was not a part of the contract.
The next two sounds were mechanical. There was the low whine of the RPV's turbine starting to rotate and the clang of the lock on a metal door. The door was beside the blue window light and out of it came Dr. Cornelius Mertens, KGB (Ret.). He was gibbering like an enraged ape. In the mounting light of the flames and the unmanned lights, he resembled one, as he scrambled toward the launch pad. Eyes bulging, arms waving, he went by me oblivious to everything but his prize. He attacked the flames with his coat, trying to beat them down, a man gone berserk.
Unable to make progress from the rear, he ran to the front of the track and climbed up on it, flailing and ranting. Then his outcry checked for a second, and when he gave cry again it was a piercing shout of terror.
I didn't have to move to know what had happened. I saw him with his head thrown back, his arms no longer waving, but thrust straight out against the RPVs intake vent, trying to get loose from the clutch of his pride and joy.
But it wouldn't let him go. It wanted him, and as he fought and pleaded and screamed, it slowly sucked him into its turbine until it choked itself to death on what I suppose could be called Mertensburger. It seemed a proper way for him to depart.
Even before he'd gurgled his last, I was on my way to tie up some loose ends. The metal door stood open. It led to an entry-way to the main door of the control room. It, too, stood open. Through it I saw the room and its occupants. There were ten of them, including Villa and Schroeder. They were all staring at their launch screen, watching in frozen wonder the departure of their leader. They weren't far behind him, nor did I take time to bid them a pleasant journey.
I bowled Pierre into their midst. Then I pulled the door shut and spun the locking wheel.
Chapter 21
The flames from the RPV set fire to something flammable in the camouflage netting, and the whole thing had gone up in a brief but dramatic torch. It gave the Huey pilots of the Ranger team more than an electronic beep to home in on.
Seen from Lamana, it also brought Tasahmed on the run. He had known the hour of launch. The sudden pyrotechnics signaled something had gone wrong, and in his position he couldn't ignore it. Nor under the circumstances would he send someone else to investigate.
He came with a force of twenty who were quickly disarmed by the Rangers, but the General's arrival put the team's CO., Colonel Bill Moore in what he considered a political spot. His orders were — recover the stolen goods and get the hell out. His force was invading sovereign territory. An international incident was to be avoided at all costs. If he had to fight to recover the Cockeye that was one thing, but beyond that, even if attacked, he was not to respond. Typical.
In the first moments of our meeting under the fan of the command chopper, I had filled him in and told him he should be prepared for the General's arrival. I knew if Tasahmed did not show up, I would be going into Lamana to find him. As it was, the
mopping up operation took longer than anticipated. The physical end of it consisted of tending to Paula — which a couple of medics handled neatly — and making sure Mertens' commandoes either surrendered or kept on moving into the desert. It was the technical part that took time. With all of Mertens' fancy electronic diddling, Moore's technicians had to make sure that the Cockeye was immobilized and safe.
Moore was a solid unflappable type, short on words, direct on orders — the kind whose men are ready to follow him anywhere. The General had recovered most of his composure when he was brought before the colonel at the launch ramp.
"Who are you, sir? What are your troops doing here?" Tasahmed blustered in French.
"Colonel William J. Moore, United States Army"! he answered in English. "We're taking that nuclear missile out of here. It belongs to us."
"You are trespassing! You are an imperialist invasion force! You…!" He had switched to English.
"General, you take it up with my Government. Now please stand clear."
"And my countrymen whom you have butchered," he pointed to the neat row of bodies that had been collected and laid out in front of Mertens mission control, "I'll take that up with more than your government!" He was working himself up into a lather.
I stepped out of the shadows. "How much time, Colonel?"
"Seven minutes and we're airborne."
"The General and I will be in the revetment. I'll be going with you."
"Seven minutes," the Colonel repeated and moved away to watch his men slowly easing the Cockeye off the burned out RPV.
"Who are you?" Tasahmed studied my messed up face in the arc light.
"The man with the gun," I said, letting him feel Wilhelmina's snout. "We're going in there with the DC-7 right now."
He didn't argue. I sat him in the chair I had occupied earlier, and I sat at the table, the luger resting on it.
"You have two choices," I said. "Either, you can join that row of your friends out there… or you can ask for asylum."
That brought him up straight, black eyes glittering. "Asylum!"