At the opposite end of the room was another door. Carter arrived just in time to see Reguiba slam it shut behind him.
The dazed thug sat up, cleared his head, and saw Carter. He grabbed for his pistol, which lay on the floor not far from his hand.
Carter slammed him with a front snap kick, powering the ball of his foot into the fellow's jaw. He wouldn't be getting up for a while, if ever.
Carter broke stride long enough to pick up the thug's pistol. He felt better now that he was packing two guns.
He approached the closed door from the side instead of straight on. Back to the wall, he turned the doorknob.
Three slugs came crashing through the door panel at chest height. The bullet holes clustered in a tight circle, outstanding shooting with a.45.
Carter threw open the door, clearing the way with a deafening blast from the.357. There was no answering fire.
He ducked into a narrow hall no more than ten feet long. At its far end was a wide, spacious room, racketing with gunfire, none of it directed his way.
Girotti's men were making a battle of it. Two of them crouched behind overturned furniture barricaded up close to a gaping hole where a picture window used to be. They fired rifles at commandos rushing the house.
They were startled by the apparition of Reguiba loping through the room. Before they could react, he vanished around a corner.
They saw Carter, though. He dove for the floor and shot them from there.
Before he could rise, machine-gun fire from outside ripped into the room, whizzing over his head, hammering holes out of the wall in bursts of white plaster that fell like fine powdered snow.
In this fire fight, he was as much of a target for his allies as he was for his enemies.
He crawled on his belly the rest of the way out of the room, rising when he was out of the line of fire. He was in a small tiled anteroom, thick with the smell of chlorine.
Reguiba's black-clad figure darted through the wing housing the indoor swimming pool. Carter shot at him with the pistol in his left hand, and missed.
Reguiba whirled and snapped off a shot. It imploded a beautifully engraved glass panel two feet to Carter's right.
Reguiba went down a stairwell, out of sight.
Carter followed. Metal-treaded concrete stairs tilted down into a musty storeroom below the pool. The air was so oppressive that Carter could hardly draw a breath.
The vault muted the sounds of battle. A few low-watt bulbs shed a twilight dusk over what was a kind of underground attic. Mounds of boxes, crates, and cartons were jumbled about, as well as several pieces of monumental sculpture, poor imitations of Classical statuary.
The dust was thick and that was good: it betrayed the route taken by Reguiba through the crates and curios.
Too good to be true, perhaps. Reguiba could be lurking just off the path, waiting for Carter.
Carter kept going.
Suddenly he heard a clang, like a manhole cover dropping into place. The sound was so close, Carter nearly jumped out of his skin. He continued on, scrambling in a low crouch over the tops of crates, dropping down to a clearing amidst the antique junk.
Not even the dim light could obscure the outlines of a hatchway set in the floor. In its center was an iron ring wide enough to accommodate a gripping hand.
Carter heaved open the heavy hatch.
A steep narrow flight of stone stairs dropped down to a small square chamber. The gloom cloaked Reguiba's dark body except for the pale oval of his face and his hands. He hunched over a piece of modern machinery, bent like a human question mark, making quick, furtive adjustments to what looked like switches and levers.
Firing a.45, he emptied a clip at Carter. The Killmaster was pinned down until the shooting stopped.
When Carter looked again, Reguiba was off and running.
Carter went down the stairs. The air, while thick, was moving, circulating. At the far side of the shaft, a tunnel mouth gaped. It was carved out of the living rock of the promontory. It was old, very old. Carter guessed it wormed its way through the guts of the rock to a hidden exit.
The kings of old were known to dig escape routes under their palaces and castles, and this land had been occupied since the beginning of recorded history. Who dug this tunnel? The Crusaders? The Old Testament Hebrews? The Canaanites? Or some even more ancient people?
No wonder Reguiba was able to slip through the cordon at will!
The fact that the tunnel was not the scene of a mass exodus by Girotti's cohorts proved that its existence was a closely held secret.
The square metal box bolted to the wall beside the stairs was as new as the tunnel was old. It looked not unlike a fuse box, but the fuse it contained was no circuit breaker; it was an arming device. Metal-sheathed cable sprouted from it, running vertically up the wall to disappear through a hole bored in the ceiling. Unless Carter missed his guess, the unseen end of the cable terminated in a load of explosives.
The switch inside the box was thrown to the ON position.
A delayed reaction — but how long? A second? Ten seconds? As much as a minute? It couldn't be more than a minute, Carter figured, and he wasn't going to stick around to find out.
He did what he could. He threw the switch back to OFF, grabbed the metal-sheathed cable, and tore at it. It was too tough to break with his bare hands. He doubted Hugo could saw through it. He shot it in two, recoiling from a ricochet that came dangerously close, making a crater in the rock wall not far from him.
It might be too late to stop the machine, but at least he had tried. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks that Hawk and the AXE men had been relegated to a back seat for this show.
And Eva? She would just have to take her chances.
Carter went into the tunnel after Reguiba.
It sloped downward at a fairly steep angle. The ramp did not go straight down, but made a right-angled turn every forty feet, describing a corkscrew shape as it wound its way downward.
Rubber-insulated power lines were strung along the low ceiling, held in place by metal staples, supplying current to the dim bare bulbs jutting from metal sockets at irregular intervals. There was barely enough light to see by.
Carter went down sideways, in a basketball player's stance, presenting the smallest target profile. The side stance was murder on the thigh muscles, but provided good maneuverability.
The walls glided past. The neatly square-cut section of the tunnel played out, replaced by a still older excavation crudely gouged from the rock. The walls pressed inward, narrowing, the ceiling dropping until he had to take care not to dash his brains out against low-hanging knobs.
The lights were fewer and far between, causing him to traverse long stretches in near darkness. Carter felt as if he were creeping through some giant intestine of stone.
Abruptly, that stone intestine quivered.
The explosives armed by the switch reached criticality. The villa on the bay destructed like a volcano blowing its top.
Even here, with dozens of feet of stone serving as a buffer, the impact was considerable. Carter was knocked to the floor as the lights went out.
The image of Eva, lovely Eva being obliterated in the blast flashed through Carter's being with a wrenching pang. Maybe she deserved her fate, but…
A few heartbeats later, Carter was galvanized by a choking cloud of dust and debris that gusted over him. On hands and knees, his pistol hopelessly lost, he crawled forward, following the downward slope.
It would be a hell of a note for him to get this far, only to be asphyxiated in a rocky tomb, he thought grimly.
He hadn't gone far when the floor leveled off, then began to rise. Air currents played over him. The dust clouds kept coming, but he was able to breathe.
And there was light of a sort, the faintest luminescence ahead.
Carter kept low. If Reguiba launched a bullet in his direction, it would pass overhead.
There was the click of a spring and the soft slap of Hugo's hilt slidin
g into his open palm. The long stiletto was a divining rod seeking not water, but blood.
The blood of Reguiba.
The tunnel ended in a cleft in the base of the hill which turned sharply right, then left. Fresh air revitalized him, making him aware of how much the fine-grained choking grit had filled his lungs, the very pores of his skin.
Carter worked his way through a thicket of tight-packed, thorny scrub, and eventually emerged on the apron of dirt and loose stones at the base of the hill.
He was on the north face of the rock knob, lonely and desolate terrain. The promontory's bulk stood between him and the city lights of Lulav, but he could see well enough. Firelight from the burning villa shed red glare and macabre shadows on the lower slopes.
There was nothing for Carter to do but watch the fire.
Reguiba had made his escape.
The Killmaster had crossed paths with a master killer.
Nine
The next day found Nick Carter en route to the quasi-independent emirate of Al Khobaiq, Saudi Arabia. He had plenty to think about during the flight.
Bar-Zohar's SB action team had one dead, two critically wounded, and a number of minor injuries. Only the stiff resistance offered by Girotti's men kept the Israeli body count as low as it was. The villa's defenders held the attackers at bay right up until the all-consuming explosion.
The self-destruct mechanism demonstrated that Reguiba was a man who tied up loose ends. It had probably been installed to serve as a surprise ending to one of Girotti's famous parties, wiping out a crowd of important and influential guests at one stroke. Faking his own death, Girotti then could have surfaced with a new identity.
Instead, Reguiba used the hellish setup to wipe the slate clean. Only two survivors were pulled from the smoking rubble, and they were what Eva had called "playmates," sexual lures, mere pawns holding no important information.
The night produced one more casualty, Lieutenant Avi Tigdal, who shot himself in the head less than one minute after the villa blew. A confession was found among his personal effects, a tragic account of how he had been forced into treason in the vain hope of saving his sister. Deborah Tigdal was never seen again, and was presumed dead.
Carter underwent an intensive debriefing session lasting well into dawn. Thanks to his description, an identikit portrait of Reguiba was constructed, the first time that his likeness had ever been captured. Capturing the likeness was easy compared to capturing the man, but thousands of copies of the composite image were circulated to every police and military unit in Israel.
Reguiba was the object of one of the most extensive manhunts in the nation's history. A small army of searchers all but turned the country upside down, but they came up empty-handed.
"There's every reason to believe that he's left the country as easily and undetected as he entered it," Bar-Zohar said. "This man moves across international boundaries as if they didn't exist."
His investigators managed to dig up the first piece of solid information relating to Reguiba. Early in the morning, a grizzled old man named Salahuddin Yizkorou — «Salah» — was brought to Shin Bet headquarters to tell his story. A translator rendered his Hebrew into English for the benefit of the AXE men.
Salah was a Moroccan Jew who had lived an adventurous life, spending a good part of it serving in the military police in the southern desert not far from the Mauritanian border. It was a harsh, forbidding land of mountains and bone-dry, flinty plains infrequently broken by oases and water holes. No less rugged were its people, nomadic tribes who still lived by the age-old traditions of raiding and blood feuds.
Most feared among the desert dwellers were the tribes of the Reguibat. Their uneasy neighbors had a saying: "The Reguibat is a black cloud over the sun." This referred not only to the tribal custom of wearing all-black garb, but also to their prowess in the arts of raiding, robbery, and murder.
The last post held by Salah before retiring from the service some twenty years ago was in the town of Goulimine, where the Reguibat came to trade. Here he heard a curious story.
A clan of the haughty Yaqbah Reguibat banished a young warrior for violating some sacred taboo. This nameless youth's unknown crime was so grievous that the tribal elders had him shorn of his manhood, that his seed would not spawn to pollute the earth.
The mutilated youth abandoned the desert for the cities, where he quickly made a name for himself as an enforcer and assassin for slave and drug syndicates. He was known only as "the Reguiba," or simply "Reguiba," the singular of the tribal name. He was a most singular character.
Feral and fearless, in no time at all he had shot his way to the top of the Moroccan underworld. Little more was known about him save that secrecy, falconry, and murder were his ruling passions.
As for the clan that had castrated and expelled him, they had ceased to exist. Most of the males died in a single night, victims of a mass poisoning at a banquet. Nor were the women and children spared. One by one, they were rooted out and exterminated by a relentless stalker, until only Reguiba remained alive of all his clan.
* * *
"There is work for you in Al Khobaiq."
That was one of the last things Reguiba had said to Girotti. It meant there was work there for the Killmaster, too.
A U.S. Air Force jet could have delivered him quickly to the emirate, but it would have attracted too much attention. No commercial flights were available on a direct route from Israel to Saudi Arabia. A quick hop by helicopter delivered Carter to Beirut International Airport, where he caught a jet to his destination on the Persian Gulf.
He was not traveling alone. With him was the 9mm antidote to the Reguiba problem, his trusted companion of countless missions, Wilhelmina.
Hawk surprised Carter with the Luger while seeing him off at the airport. "This package was just delivered by special courier, Nick. I sent for it when you turned up like the proverbial bad penny."
The package contained Wilhelmina holstered in a fast-draw holster rig. Carter did not bother to hide his pleasure as he hefted the precision-tooled pistol, savoring its solid weight and satisfying balance.
"Thanks, sir. Thanks a lot."
"I'm sure you'll put it to good use."
"You can depend on that," Carter said.
With a foul-smelling black cigar wedged in the corner of his mouth, laying down a literal smoke screen, Hawk was in an expansive mood.
"Back in the thirties, before your time, a hoodlum named Lepke got the bright idea of specializing in murder. He formed a mob of hit men dealing exclusively in assassinations for the national crime syndicate, an outfit called Murder, Incorporated."
"I've heard of it," Carter said.
"Reguiba's come up with a modern variation on that classic theme. He's put terrorism on a businesslike basis. Call it Terror, Incorporated."
Carter smiled thinly. "As I recall, Lepke ended up frying in the electric chair. I don't have one of those, but I'll put plenty of heat on Reguiba."
Hawk expected no less. "There's every possibility that Reguiba is conducting an action in the emirate, as part of Operation Ifrit. Hodler's presence there would seem to confirm it."
Karl Kurt Hodler was East German, a blond giant, a former Olympic athlete turned liquidator. A one-man mob. Hodler had worked in conjunction with Girotti in northern Italy, spearheading a wave of kidnappings, kneecappings, and killings.
"I'll smoke out Reguiba through Hodler," Carter said.
"You'd do well to keep in mind that our man in Al Khobaiq dropped off the board shortly after sighting Hodler. Don't underestimate the East German. You'll have your hands full with him even if Reguiba doesn't show up."
"I think he will, sir, especially when he finds out that I'm on the scene. I've given him a bloody nose, and Reguiba isn't the type to let bygones be bygones."
"That's the plan, Nick. You're live bait. You're one of the few who've seen Reguiba's face and lived to tell the tale," Hawk said. "At least you won't be working entirely on your own. Emir
Bandar is cooperating a hundred percent with us. Apparently he's not too fond of the idea that a gang of thugs is plotting to steal his kingdom out from under him.
"Your local contact is Prince Hasan. From what I've heard, he's quite a character. Bon vivant, racing car enthusiast, ladies' man."
"Sounds like we have a lot in common," Carter said with a grin.
"Except that he's a member of one of the richest families in the world, while you're on an expense account," Hawk growled. "So try to keep the expenditures within reason, okay?"
"I'll do my best, sir."
* * *
A specially designed and AXE-made attaché case allowed Carter to board the plane in Beirut with his menage a trois of Hugo, Pierre, and Wilhelmina. He'd put the trio on his person once he landed. He was freshly showered, clean-shaven, outfitted in clean new clothes, and had even had time to get a trim at the airport barber shop.
A pretty flight attendant turned her warm dark eyes his way, but Carter was too bushed to do more than a little casual flirting. He dozed for a good part of the flight, catching up on his rest.
He awoke for the last leg of the trip, as the jet made its final approach. The tiny, oil-rich emirate lay on the east coast of the Arabian boot, located midway between the Shatt-al-'Arab and the Strait of Hormuz, bordering the province of Hasa.
The seemingly endless expanse of sun-baked land gave way first to the coastal marshes, then to the silver-blue Persian Gulf.
The plane swooped in for a landing at one of the many runways at Dharbar Terminal, which petrodollars had transformed into one of the most modern and extensive facilities of its kind in the world. Limitless blue space became bounded by the horizon as the jet touched down, the landing gear contacting the tarmac with a bump and a squeal.
As he prepared to disembark, Carter recalled the last thing old Salah had said. He had quoted another old desert proverb:
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