by Nick Carter
Another whistle sounded almost immediately.
Carter and Zachary responded reflexively. The Killmaster dived for the first available cover and ducked into a protective crouch. Zachary darted behind a large pillar and tucked his head down against his shoulder. Both men had their mouths open as protection against what they knew was coming.
James Rogan and the group of students in the orientation group watched them, slack-jawed.
Soon, two heavy blasts rocked the area within seconds of one another. The first blast sounded like a huge kettledrum being struck. When the second blast came, it rattled windows and actually caused a number of them to shatter.
Although the explosions came from a distance. Rogan and a number of the students were stunned by them. Some were sprayed with a sooty debris. All felt a pain from the impact, and some rubbed at their ears, trying to get the whistling sensation to stop.
Carter and Zachary moved quickly from the cover they'd taken. A number of young people in the orientation group had begun to respond with screams and expressions of surprise and fear. One woman sat on the lawn and began to giggle uncontrollably. A young blond man in a preppy-looking shirt, chinos, and Topsiders looked dazed as blood began to trickle from his nose. "What's happened to me?" he said.
Recovering his balance, Rogan looked at Carter and Zachary. "What the hell's going on here?" he said. "Who are you guys?"
Fourteen
James Rogan looked accusingly at Carter and Zachary. "You two, you ducked. Before the explosions, you both ducked. That was no accident, it was instinctive. You both ducked and protected yourselves."
"We've had experience in demolition," Zachary said blandly.
People were running in all directions, including two people with clipboards who wanted Rogan's attention.
"I'm not forgetting this," he said. "There's something going on here that I don't get. I've got to see what happened and what the damage was, but I want to talk to both of you."
"Let us come and help," Carter volunteered.
"Never mind that," the portly poet said. "We'll take care of our own stuff. If you guys are going to stick around for the festival, I'd appreciate it if you confined yourself to the buildings clearly marked on the map you were given. Is that understood?"
"I don't think you've got any problems with combustion," Carter said, sniffing the air. "Those were probably some kind of pipe bomb."
The words had a shattering effect on Rogan. "Pipe bombs? Why? Who would do such a thing here when we're trying to have a festival?"
"That's the sound of it," Carter said. "Someone was trying to knock out one of your systems or throw a scare at you. What's the source of your water?"
"What do you want to know that for?" Rogan asked, growing defensive.
"Someone might have wanted to knock out your water. Or maybe your electricity. You obviously have a generator system."
"We've never had any trouble like this before. You guys, you stick around. I want to talk to you." Rogan asked an anxious middle-aged man with a bushy mustache to show him where it had happened. The man touched Rogan's sleeve and began speaking in a whisper. Rogan nodded nervously and let the mustached man lead the way toward the direction of the explosion.
As a well-organized group of students began moving around, checking for damage and injuries, Zachary smiled broadly at Carter. "You sure put the pressure on him."
"I think that's the only way we're going to find out anything."
"Do you," the CIA man asked, "suspect the same thing I do as the source of the bombs?"
Carter started off in the direction James Rogan had taken. "I tend to suspect Abdul Samadhi is behind it, yes," he said.
Ignoring Rogan's instructions, the two men began walking toward the point of the explosion.
A number of students and older people, Belizians from the look of them, stood around trying to restore order.
"Hey, you two. You're not allowed beyond this point," a young woman said as Zachary and Carter continued on their way.
"It's all right," Carter said. "Jim Rogan trusts our expertise with explosions."
"I thought I heard him tell you two to keep back," a familiar voice said. "We've got to clean this up on our own if we're going to save the festival."
Wearing jeans, sandals, and a Center for the Arts sweatshirt was Margo Huerta. She smiled mischievously at both men, and they both understood immediately that she wanted them not to let on that they knew one another. "We try to do everything Jim asks us," she said in an authoritarian voice. "This is a very democratic place, but we've got to have some rules. You understand?"
They got the break they were looking for when the young man with the bloody nose wandered by, seemingly disoriented. He sat on the edge of a neatly manicured lawn.
"He needs help," Carter said. "We've got to gel him to the dispensary." He put enough urgency in his voice that Margo Huerta understood his intent.
"I guess that can't harm anything." She pointed to a nearby building. "Around the corner from there and about a hundred yards to your right. There's a sign that says Enfermeria."
Carter and Zachary lifted the young man under his elbows and got him to his feet. "Just a little woozy," he said. "I'm okay."
"Sorry," Carter told him with a covert wink at Zachary. "You're more than a little woozy. You've got some bone gristle showing."
"Oh, good Lord," the young man moaned.
"If we can get a doctor on it right away," Zachary said, "then there won't be any permanent damage."
By the time they reached the infirmary, the young man was in an agitated state, causing the attending nurse to respond with more than usual attention.
"You've got to get a doctor to look at this right away," Carter said. "This could be real trouble."
"We don't have a doctor in attendance except for emergencies," the nurse said. "And this looks straightforward enough. I'm sure I can handle it."
Zachary was at her, bullying, asking if she'd be willing to take the responsiblity for whatever happened to the young man. "I should think you'd want to make sure there was nothing wrong by getting a solid opinion."
The nurse caved in under the pressure. She sighed and got the young man to lie on an examining table. From her store of emergency treatment goods, she produced a chemical cold pack, which she twisted into activity. "Put this on your nose and try to relax."
The young man looked at her nervously. "Please hurry. I think I'm having trouble breathing."
"It's okay," Zachary said. "We'll stay with you."
Zachary kept up a continuous patter while the nurse was gone, keeping the young man's attention while Carter looked around, doing a quick study of the infirmary.
There were the usual boxes of sterile dressings, adhesive tapes, and Ace bandages. On one shelf, Carter found some neatly folded materials for slings and one or two braces for wrists and ankles; the Center for the Arts apparently had a program of athletics. Carter also found a great deal of topical anesthetics, sterile swabs, and the like.
Sophisticated equipment was at an absolute minimum; there were no drugs to speak of, but there were large containers of Lomotil pills, the drug of choice for the omnipresent cases of turista. It was by no means a remarkable dispensary, thoughtfully stocked but not equipped for anything out of the ordinary.
There was a container of materials next to a large sterilizer that bore a brass presentation plate inscribed A Gift from the Kit Tremayne Living Memorial. Carter poked about and found one or two scalpels and some tweezers and scissors.
The Killmaster had completed his survey of the room well before the nurse came back, followed by a man in a white smock, smoking a ropy-looking Toscani cigar, one of the types that David Hawk seemed to have going at all hours of the day or night.
The man was short, about the size and musculature of a jockey. He wore aviator-style glasses and moved with an exaggerated roll on Gucci loafers. He scarcely acknowledged Carter and Zachary's presence as he came in.
"What h
ave we got here?"
As the doctor entered the room, the young man propped himself up on his elbows and removed the ice pack from his nose.
From a distance of ten feet the man in the smock scowled. "What the hell is this? What's your name?"
"Gug-Gonder, sir," the young man stuttered. "Bub-Bud Gonder."
The nurse became distraught. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I really was led to believe…"
The doctor ignored her. To the young man, he said, "Who did that to you?"
Bewildered, the young man said, "Sir?"
"Who did that butchery on your face?"
"There was an explosion…" the young man began.
"Screw the explosion! That was nothing so far as you're concerned. Someone did a nose job on you when you were a kid, right?"
Uncertainly, the young man nodded.
"Butcher!" the man in the smock said. "Whoever it was, he really butchered you, Gonder."
The doctor was leaning over the examination table, tracing his fingertips over the young man's nose, snapping instructions for the nurse to get him some sterile wipes.
Within five minutes, the doctor had the young man's face daubed clean, then he reached into his smock and extracted an examining light which he shone into the patient's nostrils. "Oakland," the doctor said. "Right?"
"Sir?"
"You're from Oakland, aren't you? Lake Merritt?"
"We-we lived there when I was younger."
"I thought so." The Doctor projected triumph. "Lawrence, right? Ronald Albert Lawrence of Oakland. That was the man who did this to your nose. Don't try to protect him, I can tell that butcher's work."
Within a short while, the diminutive doctor had the young man up and moving around. "You'd better come with me. I want to look into this at some greater length."
"I don't understand, sir," the young man said.
"Never mind," the doctor said, leading him out into the bright noon sun. "You just come with me, Gonder. I'll take care of everything." He draped a fatherly arm over the young man's shoulder and ushered him out the door. In leaving, he did not make eye contact with Carter or Zachary; he scarcely acknowledged the presence of the nurse.
"Come on," Carter said, leaving the infirmary and heading for the large grassy commons where students and participants were carrying on conversations, playing chess, or conducting small study groups. A griddle produced a steady stream of hamburgers on buns unlike anything Carter had ever seen, made from corn flour and a gritty substance Carter guessed was ground, dried hominy. Whatever the ingredients, the results were excellent, especially when doused with a tangy salsa made of tomatoes, green chiles, onions, and tomatillos.
"You know who that little guy is, don't you?" Zachary asked.
"Yeah. I didn't want to call him on it or spook him," Carter said, "but I'll give you odds that we just saw Dr. Charles Smith, an eccentric but gifted cosmetic surgeon."
Zachary said. "What's the scoop?"
Carter paused for a swallow of coffee. "The fact that he's here at all is the biggest break I've had in some lime." He set the scenario for Zachary. "I hated to use that kid the way we did, but I know now that we're on the right track. We've got to find a way to nose around here on our own. If Smith is on the premises, there's every likelihood that he has his own operating room somewhere in the neighborhood." Carter smiled. "Things are starting to fall in place after all, my friend."
"You're thinking Smith did the reconstruct on that guy, Cardenas? The one who died at Covington?"
"Exactly," Carter said. "The Grinning Gaucho. The one you or your people were supposed to have heisted to prevent an autopsy. It makes sense now. Why would someone want an autopsy prevented?"
Zachary snapped his fingers. "To prevent the discovery of a Charles Smith reconstruction job."
"That's it," Carter said, standing. "I've got to make a phone call. I can see I let a potentially valuable piece of evidence gel through the cracks."
"Any hints?" Zachary said.
"The Grinning Gaucho himself," the Killmaster said as he moved out onto the patio adjacent to the cantina.
Because of the excitement related to the bombing, Carter had to wait a half hour before he got to one of the most private of the pay phones.
David Hawk answered on the first ring.
"I need information," Carter said. "The only major metropolitan area near Covington, Kentucky, is across the river in Cincinnati. I need to know if there were any incidents of blunt trauma corpses being found there on or about the date of the Grinning Gaucho's death. Not just any old blunt force corpses. The one I'm looking for would significantly match Cardenas in weight, height, configurations."
"In other words, Nick, you think someone may have mutilated the body and dumped it to hide a cosmetic surgery job on Cardenas."
"I'd say it's ninety percent."
"What's next on your agenda?"
"Probably." Nick Carter said, knowing in advance the kind of sputtering and fuming reaction it would produce, "I'll be going to a poetry reading."
* * *
The rooms assigned Carter and Zachary were located in a two-story arcade across a large patio from the dormitories. There were thoughtfully scattered chairs and tables in the patio, many of which were covered with the so-called little or literary magazines published by small groups and schools. The rooms of both men were on the ground floor. About ten feet wide and perhaps fifteen feet long, they held a minimum of furnishings: an institutional single bed, a modest desk and chair, and a larger, padded chair. In a small alcove was a vanity next to a sink. Each room had self-contained plumbing.
Carter put in an obligatory few minutes running a security check. So far as he could tell, no one had been in his room with the exception of a maid. His sensors picked up no recording or photographing devices.
Then, just as Zachary knocked on his door, he saw something he was intended to see.
"Come in, Sam."
The CIA man entered, clutching a sheet of paper. He saw Carter's pillow. "I see you got one too."
"Was yours on the bed?"
Zachary. "Right on the fluffed pillow." He noted they were both written by the same hand. A large circle with the letters LT. "Somehow I don't think this Lex Talionis logo has anything to do with Abdul Samadhi," the CIA operative said.
"Neither do I," Carter said.
"But someone is clearly warning us off."
Carter offered Zachary one of his cigarettes. "I don't think it has to be that way." He paused, savoring a developing thought. "I'm beginning to come up with its being something entirely different."
Sam Zachary smoked for a moment, reflecting. He snapped his fingers. "Margo Huerta!"
"Possible," Carter said, "but that doesn't make too much sense to me."
"Okay, then." Zachary said, "you're thinking way ahead of me. Tell me what you're working on."
"My line of logic goes like this: there's someone who knows what we're doing here and who we are. That person wants us to know how close we are to the big stuff."
"Then our next move is to get ourselves some space and check these grounds out in as much detail as we can."
"That's not going to be easy," Carter said. "We've got the problem of Rogan not trusting us. But let's go."
They agreed on different directions.
Carter set off toward a large ornate pink building that looked like an auditorium.
Zachary took off toward the administration building.
Each carried notebooks and made no move to look furtive.
Carter was stopped just beyond the big pink building. A man with a brown beret, rolled-up sleeves, and thick-soled shoes said, "You can't go there. Please stick to the areas located on your map." Conspicuous on his hip was a webbed belt, a leather holster, and something that was big enough to be a .45.
"What's over there?" Carter asked innocently.
"Buildings from the old days. Closed down now. In a year, maybe two, they'll be dormatories."
"Is there a library aroun
d here?"
The man nodded. "Building C-two on your map."
"Why do you need a gun?"
"Snakes," the man said.
Carter smiled at him. "You hit many snakes with that forty-five?"
"There are large areas where the public is welcomed," the man said. It was a speech he'd had to memorize to get the job. "We encourage outings and do our best to provide for your safety."
"Suppose I was willing to take the risk of going over there?"
"It's not an option, sir," the guard said.
Carter took off on a tack beyond the pink building, bringing him on a forty-five-degree path beyond the commons and cafeteria building. He left a wide gravel path and strolled leisurely across a grassy knoll and had got nearly a quarter of a mile before he heard a sharp voice commanding him to stop.
The guard this time was a woman who wore a short blue canvas skirt, ankle-high aerobic shoes, and a chambray work shirt like Carter's. She was even better armed than the last guard. Slung over her shoulder was a Kalashnikov. "Sorry, sir, my instructions are to keep you to the paths and areas marked approved on the map you were issued when you came in."
"You know how to use that thing?" Carter nodded his head at the Kalashnikov.
"That's affirmative, sir. I have three weeks training a year with it."
"Use it for the snakes, right?"
She shook her head. "Hardly any snakes here, sir. You may have noticed a large cat population. Even if there were snakes, the cats would get to them quickly."
"What do you need that heavy artillery for?"
"Uh, sir, this is part of the Center for the Arts security forces."
Carter shook his head. "You haven't answered my question. What are you protecting us from? Bandits? Contras?"
"Sorry, sir, I walk my rounds and follow my instructions. If you have questions about the center's security, you're free to take them up with the director."
Carter took off in yet another direction, with the same results. He was sent back by an armed guard.