by Nick Carter
Carter walked until darkness began to fall. He came to a large bunker that served as a jungle supply dump. It was chained shut, locked in place. Carter took care of the lock with one silenced shot from Wilhelmina. In the process, he found an automatic weapon and several clips of ammunition. He also found rope and bandoleers for carrying ammunition.
A new carton of bayonets left him uninterested. Breaking one out of its Pliofilm and grease preservative, Carter found it all but useless. Even though a knife was a treasure in terrain like this, these would require hours of honing and treating.
Set off in the corner against a wall of canned foods, grenade launchers, and an obsolete mortar, Carter saw a little NR-6 two-banger motorcycle with the heavy-treaded wheels needed for this kind of road. There was a small amount of fuel in the tank, but searching around the bunker, he found a large metal can of gas. He filled up the NR-6 and started kicking at the pedal.
The cycle flooded. Carter had to drain and then prime it, but finally it began with a steady roar. So much for any secrecy, but he'd take care of that when the problem arose.
Riding the NR-6 for another twenty minutes, Carter came to the top of a rise where he saw the area where Zachary and Munoz had undoubtedly been taken. There were several large barracks-type buildings, a motor pool, and one large Quonset hut with two pumps in front, probably one diesel, the other gas.
He left the cycle and continued on foot, stopping from time to time to check on a suspicion that was growing. Someone was tracking him. He already had an idea who, but not why.
Hacking off a generous length of rope, he made a noose trap in a grassy glade, triggering the device with a young sapling. He led his tracker in a circle, back through the glade, carefully retracing his own tracks.
After a few moments, he heard a voice swear in the guttural street Arabic of Beirut. "Shit! Oldest damned trick in the world and I fall for it!"
Carter found his quarry hanging by his left foot, trying to reach his knife. The Killmaster quickly intercepted the knife and stuck it in his own belt. The man's gun had fallen well out of his reach.
He found himself looking at a sullen young man, barely twenty. "I thought I was pretty good, surviving a lot of stuff with the Israelis and those goddamned militiamen, and so what do I do but walk into the classic trap of all time."
"Happens to all of us," Carter said in Palestinian Arabic.
"You?" the kid asked.
"No," Carter said. "Luck, I guess."
"Sure! Luck!" The young man spat. He had lost considerable face but was smart enough to know that in his current position, no amount of posturing or swearing was going to make things any better for him.
"How many of you are there with Samadhi?" Carter asked.
The kid shook his head. "You're so good, you tell me."
"Six or eight."
The kid nodded.
"How'd you get over?"
"Abdul sent for us. The others were taken out in Mexico. Some action in the mountains."
"Are there more of you on the way?"
The kid nodded. "Every time Abdul gets money, he sends for more."
"So Abdul has a jihad against LT?"
"Are you going to kill me?"
"No," Carter said, "not if you answer my questions."
Carter tossed the kid his own knife. By the time he got himself free, he was grateful to accept a cigarette. "These Lex Talionis pigs, they burned the PLO for a lot of money. Abdul says they'll pay for it. He means to get it back."
"You guys did the bombs back at the arts center?"
"Those were good, weren't they? I made those."
"Someone could have been hurt," Carter said.
"I'm telling you, I know what I'm doing." It suddenly dawned on the kid that Carter was probably American. "Who do you work for?"
"You never heard of them," Carter said. "For the moment, we're on the same side."
"We're not on anyone's side," the kid said, "except our own."
"I want you to take a message to Samadhi for me. Will you do that? Will you tell him it's from the Killmaster?"
"Is that your street name?"
"You could say that, yes. I want you to tell Samadhi that Lex Talionis took three hostages, Japanese."
"Hell, we know that."
"Yes, but do you know I let them go?"
"You got a huge ransom."
Carter shook his head. "I got nothing."
The kid looked at Carter, unbelieving. "You let hostages go? For nothing?"
Carter nodded. "There is now a fifty-fifty chance that Lex Talionis thinks you guys did it."
"We wouldn't have let them go. That's big money. Weapons. Political pressure."
"I'm warning you," Carter said. "Be careful. And one more thing. Stay out of my way. Can I trust you to tell these things to Samadhi?"
"Sure," the kid said, feeling full of himself again.
"How do I know you'll tell him?"
"An American who speaks Arabic like you, you think I'd miss a chance to tell about that?"
"I think you might be more likely to have to explain if I took your Nikes."
The kid looked down at his shoes.
Carter made a motion with Wilhelmina.
The kid had to show Carter it was no big thing. He took off his Nikes and scornfully tossed them off to the side.
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"You're not sixteen."
"Well, they all take me for sixteen."
Probably closer to fourteen, Carter thought, giving the kid his gun back. The world was tough in a lot of places. Lebanon. Nicaragua. Peru. But Carter still thought fourteen was too young for that kind of growing up. "Get going," he said, "and watch out for snakes."
The kid's eyes met Carter's as if to say he'd been in worse scrapes in Beirut, and Carter believed he actually had, but the Killmaster had worried him with the bit about the snakes.
Carter waved Wilhelmina at him and he started off gingerly through the forest. Carter knew that before long, some young Lex Talionis recruit was going to be minus a pair of boots and this Arab kid was going to show up with a pair of field shoes that stood out from the Nikes and Reeboks of his companions. All of which was exactly what Carter was counting on.
Two hours later Carter penetrated what he thought was the main LT compound. A series of barracks-like buildings was grouped around a large outdoor amphitheater. By working his way past the sentries on post, Carter moved from building to building until he heard Chepe Munoz's voice. Rubbing dirt on his face, Carter risked a look in the window. There was Muñoz, seated at a table, smoking a cigar. In the room with him was a blond man of medium height wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He wore olive drab pants and shirt, and a duck-billed cap. Carter could tell by his high, nasal accent that he was a South African.
Piet Bezeidenhout.
Pulling one of the flat, miniaturized devices from his wallet, Carter was able to get a good fix on the conversation inside without having to risk showing himself.
"I know you, Munoz. I know your work, your ability to inspire men. Think what it could do for our operation if you would come over and join us."
"Hey, man," Munoz said, "twenty-five years of Cuban revolution may not be the most stable kind of job security in the world, but you cats are just starting and you've got nothing solid to hold you together."
"Ah, but that's the beauty of it," Bezeidenhout insisted. "There is everything a man like you could want. Incentives. Opportunities. My plan is the essence of capitalistic invention. There have been some enormous companies based on the so-called multilevel structure. We are beholden to no creed or political calling except our own. We are the fighting man's equivalent of the think tank. In what army can a man reinvest his own earnings? Be one of my captains, Chepe, and by year's end, you will be a wealthy, satisfied man."
"Where is all this money coming from?" Munoz asked.
"Good you ask. That is practical. I have a client list."
"Clients?"
"People. Groups who are willing to pay large sums of money to have events take place."
"Terrorist events, Bezeidenhout?"
"Events of magnitude. Events that will draw the attention of the rest of the world. Soon there will be thousands of men in an elite corps. The finest from around the world. Men living and working here, working under the brotherhood of power. Lex Talionis. The law of the lion. It will be outlaw and it will be fitting because we are located in the jungle. But in the jungle there will be condominiums. Each who joins us will own his own home. There will be all the amenities appropriate for such a good cadre."
"In this brotherhood of yours, Bezeidenhout, will there be any black leaders?"
"Why do you dwell on such foolishness?"
"Because you come from a place where there's a lot of that very kind of foolishness."
"In Lex Talionis, my men will advance strictly on merit. If a black man brings in significant customers, he will surely profit. If he is willing to take great risks, he will be given greater rewards."
"I've been in politics a long time now," Munoz said, "and it's my observation that you sound like one of these operations where you've got maybe two, three barracudas and a goldfish in the same tank. With all that tension and pressure, someone's going to get the goldfish for dinner, but as far as you're concerned, the barracudas can knock each other off for the privilege."
"Bah, don't be so stubborn with your talk of politics and folk-tale wisdom. Listen to me, Chepe Munoz. Here is my offer. Choose your currency. Swiss francs. Japanese yen. Dollars. Krugerrands. I guarantee you two thousand a month as a base cover. Even if you do nothing, you bring in that much. But when you, as one of my captains, bring in other income, you will have a seventeen-and-a-half-percent share. You see how it works?" Bezeidenhout began reading off a list. "Taking hostage an oil sheik from OPEC. Mining the harbor at Sydney, Australia. Placing bombs in the Boulder Dam in Nevada. Ah, here, mining the dikes in the Netherlands. These are all lucrative offers, made by people who stand to gain something from them."
"I see that you gave up your position with the diamond cartel for the opportunity to work with a bunch of losers and bozos."
"Bozos?"
"An expression, Bezeidenhout, that shows a lack of thinking at crucial times."
"So you are refusing my offer?"
"Hey," Chepe Munoz intoned, "did I say that, man? You just got to give me more time to think about it, right? Tell you what, I'll head back to Cuba, chew it over with Doc Fidel, okay?"
The South African looked at him coldly. "Your humor is as twisted as your politics, Munoz. Guards, here! Take this man away and lock him up. Tomorrow, after we deal with Zachary and Carter, we'll decide what to do with him."
Smiling, Chepe Munoz was marched out of the room. Carter slipped into the night and-lay waiting. When the squad of baby-faced LT soldiers marched the burly Cuban out and turned toward a stout cinder-block building, Carter opened fire. He picked off two of the guards before they were aware they were being fired upon. The other four, as he'd expected, hit the ground in panic, leaving Chepe Munoz momentarily forgotten. The big Cuban moved like a scalded cat and was almost to the cover of the first building before the guards knew he'd moved.
"The prisoner!"
"Get him, you jerks!"
All four scrambled up to chase the Cuban, forgetting Carter. The Killmaster cut down two more with two slow shots. The remaining two clawed for the dirt again. Before they even raised their heads, Munoz vanished into the shadows, and Carter was a hundred yards away on his original quest. Chepe Munoz would take care of himself. It was time to find Zachary. He continued his survey of the buildings in the compound but was not successful in locating the shaggy-browed CIA man. Had they finished him off? Carter wondered. Taken him to another compound?
He started due east, looking for the site of another reservoir on the Mossad map. It might give him a good idea when the time came to take this place off the map. It also gave him an opportunity to estimate the number of LT forces in the area. So far, he figured close to six hundred.
There was indeed another compound and Carter saw the outline in the dark. He started making his way toward it, but he was stopped by the sound of shooting.
The shooting was coming from the south, handguns and automatic weapons. Carter had no idea who the combatants were. For all he knew, it could be the young Arab kid from the Samadhi group, trying to win his honor and some shoes back.
Carter got as close to the exchange of fire as possible, moving from the shelter of trees and low shrubs. He got out his infrared scope and tried to get a fix, but he was too far away to see anything.
He moved in closer, using the sounds of the gunfire to cover his less controlled movements. Taking out the scope again, he got a fix on two Lex Talionis soldiers with automatic weapons.
They had someone pinned down who was nevertheless doing a good job of keeping them hopping, driving them back, forcing them to move away from higher ground.
One of the LT soldiers tried to do a flanking maneuver and got grazed on the left shoulder for his efforts.
Carter tripped over a snag and drew fire himself from the individual the LT men were shooting at. He decided it was time to get out of there, circle back, and see if he could discover who it was these LT were after.
Moving in a low crouch, he heard a familiar voice he could not place, swearing in the night, then there was another furious burst of fire and a scramble of feet over gravel and rocks. Carter heard two more LT men arriving from a westerly direction. They were counting on surprise, moving on their stomachs, looking as if they'd done two, three hundred hours in some commando course. They gained their position by stealth, but when they opened up fire, all they did was tear a tree to shreds. Their quarry had evaded them, done a half circle, and gained some high ground over the other two LT. A barrage of shots caught one of the surprised LT men and dropped him cold.
Whoever it was they were after, he knew his way around in a fight, and it was beginning to look as if he might be able to take all four of the LT.
Then Carter heard the familiar, guttural voice swear and saw a handgun thrown in disgust. The three surviving LT figured they had their prey trapped. They opened up on him. One of them, a big guy with a pencil-thin mustache, was surprised beyond measure. Another handgun sounded, catching Mustache in the chest. The LT boys were down to two, nervous and frustrated. They had a lot of shells and didn't mind shooting it up.
Carter got in close enough to get his scope out and see what was happening. The LT men were equipped with Kalashnikovs. They had the quarry at bay now, although the way they were going at it, there was a good possibility they'd get each other in their carelessness.
They opened fire, wasting a lot of ammo. Carter saw their quarry and admired the fight he'd put up. Even while taking a hit from one of the assault rifles, he raised up, used a two-handed grip, and popped off two quick shots that took one of the LT men.
The surviving LT was really caught up in it, stitching fire back and forth over everything in sight. Then it was all over. One young LT soldier was left, panting, charged with adrenaline and fear, already thinking how he was going to present his story. It had taken four of them to get Chepe Munoz.
Still panting, the surviving LT came charging down to where Chepe lay and began pulling out his knife.
Carter used the infrared scope to take careful aim with Wilhelmina. It was by necessity a one-handed grip. Carter held his breath, and pulled off one shot. Wilhelmina barked sharply in the night.
The LT man's howl of rage and surprise rang out as he went pitching facedown near the man whose corpse he'd been about to mutilate.
Carter couldn't tell if there was any life in Munoz or not. He stood near the Cuban for a moment. "Good to know you, amigo," he said. "I haven't forgotten our pact. I'll get them."
Now Carter had enough weapons and ammunition. He didn't have to bother checking the LT corpses.
Twenty
Nick Carter was carefully examining the buildings in the next compound, hoping to find a trace of Zachary.
Bezeidenhout could have made it a major goal to get the CIA man to come over to Lex Talionis. LT could have made Zachary an offer. And Zachary, wealthy in his own right, would have laughed and that apparently was something you did not do with Bezeidenhout. You didn't laugh at him, and you didn't ignore his offers.
Carter could be in this by himself now.
He got past a patrolling sentry and made a bolt for a place about a hundred yards from some buildings. There were three or four trees including one rotted stump, which was just right for Carter's purpose. Cupping his hands carefully, he lit a cigarette and let the smoke run in the stump. He'd covered half the buildings in the compound and had decided which one he'd look at next before he moved out.
When he heard the whistling sound, he nearly laughed aloud. He took one last puff of his cigarette, ground it out, and carefully destroyed all traces of it. By that time, a loud thump had landed on one of the buildings Carter had already checked. The thump caused a small explosion and a lot of thick, white smoke. Another whistle and another projectile hit the building.
Carter was positive it was Samadhi and his boys, hitting at the LT camp.
Men ran from the shed, waving away smoke, grabbing at weapons. One more shell arced from its firing position, slammed into the shed, and caused the biggest explosion so far.
Carter heard a good deal of yelling in Spanish, French, and English. Lex Talionis men were trying to form a group and start some kind of counterattack.
A shell hit another building in the roof and got enough of a fire going so that Carter thought he'd better get some distance. Even though there was general confusion, it made no sense to take the chance of being seen by patrols. He headed down to the farthest of the sheds he'd wanted to check out. Gunfire erupted and for a moment he found himself caught in a hail of shots, but a last shell took a building squarely on the roof, filled it with smoke, and produced a shattering blast.
Carter could see as many as twenty LT men, weapons out, firing at everything that moved. To his right, someone yelled, "Here it is! Those pigs had a grenade launcher and a bazooka!"