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81-90 collection of detective stories about Nick Carter

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  Carter Nick
  
  81-90 collection of detective stories about Nick Carter
  
  
  
  81. The Kremlin case http://flibusta.is/b/663741/read
  
  The Kremlin File
  
  82. Spanish connection http://flibusta.is/b/607273/read
  
  Spanish Connection
  
  83. The Death Head Conspiracy http://flibusta.is/b/607245/read
  
  Death's Head Conspiracy
  
  84. The Beijing Dossier http://flibusta.is/b/690087/read
  
  The Peking Dossier
  
  85. The horror of the ice Terror http://flibusta.is/b/691313/read
  
  Ice-trap Terror
  
  86. Killer: Code name Vulture http://flibusta.is/b/612804/read
  
  Assassin': Code Name Vulture
  
  87. =================================
  
  88. Vatican Vendetta http://flibusta.is/b/635621/read
  
  Vatican Vendetta
  
  89. The Cobra Sign http://flibusta.is/b/671056/read
  
  Sign of the Cobra
  
  90. The man who sold his death http://flibusta.is/b/678851/read
  
  The Man Who Sold Death
  
  
  
  
  The Kremlin case
  
  
  translated by Lev Shklovsky
  
  
  in memory of my son Anton
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Hijacking an American plane is now impossible. You know it, I know it, and every jerk who ever reads a newspaper knows it.
  
  
  But why was the flight attendant of Race 709 on Grand Lachlair Island so close with a dark-skinned, black-haired passenger sitting on one around the front seats? Was she flirting with him?
  
  
  The short-barrelled thing that she kept under her uniform all the time, warming up between her breasts, which I'd enjoyed watching from the very beginning of the flight. Everyone seemed to be asleep, and at first I thought the man was touching her a little and letting the emu do what it needed to do. In good airlines, the customer is still the king. And when she opened the zipper of her tight tunic a little, she was already looking forward to a peeping tom game. Until she pulled out a shiny piece of metal that glinted briefly in the light.
  
  
  She put ego in ego's hand, turned, and walked through the door to the forward cabin. The man stood up and looked down the aisle again, the weapon clearly visible in Ego's right hand. I had a Luger in a shoulder holster under my jacket, but I knew I would immediately attract the ego's attention if I took a step toward it. The stiletto was encased in a suede leather sheath near his right forearm. It might have been used by a silent spring mechanism to release the ego into my hand without being noticed, but leaving the ego was another matter entirely. The man will see. He had a chance to shoot before her ego would, for example.
  
  
  While I was still trying to decide which action had the best chance of success in the given circumstances, the decision wasn't made by me. Everyone woke up to the sound of a gunshot in the cockpit. He could hear the surprised sounds of passengers jumping up and down in their seats all around him. Then the loud voice of solving software research problems. "Everyone stay calm. The flight direction has been changed. In Havana, you can stay safe and sound. There is no reason to panic."
  
  
  His accent was Spanish. Beside me, Tara Sawyer took a deep breath, and behind her, Randolph Fleming's breath caught in his throat.
  
  
  'Calm down.. He whispered the words without moving his lips, " Try to silence the woman."
  
  
  'Cuba? But what about the anti-hijacking treaty?
  
  
  There was no time to explain. The only people who could get away with it in Cuba were Castro's agents or the egos of a big friend overseas. But if she thinks about it and shuts up, she can find out for herself. She wasn't that stupid.
  
  
  The man's dark gaze swept over the passengers. Ego's eyes rested on us for a moment, then he raised his ih to gauge the reaction behind us.
  
  
  Her head slowly turned to the side, as if trying to talk to the girl next to me. Covered by my twisted shoulder, my hand slid under my lapel toward the Luger . The man ignored me.
  
  
  It was assumed that the passengers were not armed. He put the gun in his left hand. He was sitting in the aisle on the right side of the plane and could easily put ego down without getting up. He pulled the trigger.
  
  
  The gun flew out across the ego of the hand, and hers went off again. The front of the snow-white shirt's ego turned red. He fell backward against the door and hung there as if nailed to it. Ego's mouth dropped open at the scream that never came out. Ego's knees shook and he fell. Someone pushed the door open from the other side, but the ego body blocked the passage. Then my two First shot her, jumped forward.
  
  
  Behind him, he heard her hysterical scream of a woman. Morale began to spiral out of control. The corpse dragged her away by one leg, and the door swung open. The flight attendant's revolver went off in the doorway. Gawk whizzed through my armpit, punctured my coat, and continued on its trajectory until a shout from the back of the plane informed me that someone had been hurt. He dived, grabbed the girl's wrist, and spun her around until she dropped the revolver. She struggled to defend herself, testing her long, sharp nails on my face, and I had to drop my luger to knock her out with a karate kick to the neck. She fell limply into my arms, and I threw her onto the dead body of her friend. He took three revolvers, pawned two in a minute, and held the Luger ready.
  
  
  I didn't know what was in the cab. The plane shuddered, suddenly changed direction and abruptly began to fall into the ocean. I lost my balance and went flying through the cabin door, and I had to grab the door frame.
  
  
  The pilot was lying face down in his seat, sagging on the control stick. There was blood running around the bullet wound in his back. The navigator was standing over him. The co-pilot then makes frantic efforts to get the plane back on the straight track. The navigator pulled the pilot off the wheel and tried to stop the bleeding with a handkerchief. He might as well have tried to stop Niagara Falls. The co-pilot then took control of the plane and switched to autopilot. He turned, probably to help the navigator, saw me, and froze. Of course, he thought I was Privateer number three.
  
  
  The Luger holstered it and winked at Emu. "We can fly to Grand Laclair. They lost the war."
  
  
  The first copilot looked mimmo me at the mess in the aisle. The navigator suddenly turned, holding the pilot down with one hand, and stared at me. It was fatally powdery. "Who the hell are you, tailor?"
  
  
  «Янтье Параат». Her, nodded to the pilot. "Is she dead?"
  
  
  He shook his head. The copilot looked at me.
  
  
  "She shot Howie ... flight attendant!" Then the ego brain shifted into second gear. 'You . .. Hello there . .. what are you doing with a gun?
  
  
  Her, emu chuckled. "Aren't you glad he was with me? You'd better contact JFK Airport, ny and report back. Then you can immediately ask if Nick Carter has a permit to carry a gun on board. Tell them to consult Timothy Whiteside. In case you've forgotten, he's the president of this airline.
  
  
  They looked at each other. Then the copilot dropped into his seat, keeping his eyes on me, and made radio contact. The rheumatism came after a while. They probably had to take Whiteside out for garbage. The ego voice is absurdly agitated and furious. Hers, knew what he thought of the disturbance. He was already capable of murder if one of the ego planes arrived a minute late.
  
  
  Meanwhile, the other two flight attendants in the cockpit came home. They quickly felt that the situation was under control again, and played soothing messages through the sound system.
  
  
  The pilot took her pulse. It was irregular. He informed the navigator about this and offered to put ego in the empty seats in the back.
  
  
  Her emu still didn't like it very much, but he understood that the emu needed my help. We unhooked the pilot and hit the ego back over the corpses in the aisle. The uniformed blonde was lucky enough to stack the armrests between the three empty seats so we could lay down the ego. He wasn't exactly in a comfortable position, but I had a feeling that the ego wouldn't be bothered for much longer.
  
  
  One of the flight attendants started to give first aid, and Tara Sawyer stood next to her. She looked for a moment and then said, " Leave me alone. I can handle it. You still have a lot to do."
  
  
  The navigator and I left the pilot to the girls. We moved the still-unconscious flight attendant to an empty seat behind the pilot.
  
  
  He searched her thoroughly, but found no more weapons. He'd bound her hands, ankles, and wrists tightly, just in case she wanted to try something with her poisonous fingernails when she woke up. We put the dead hijacker in the closet so the passengers wouldn't see, ego, and headed back to the cabin. But the copilot still looked pale and worried. He asked about the pilot's condition, and my rheumatic ego wasn't happy. He cursed. - Koehler ... How could they get on board with these guns? And you?'
  
  
  "I have permission to do this, as I told you. Two revolvers were hidden under her bra. Elegant, don't you think? As far as I know, the crew is not checked for weapons.
  
  
  The two men made snorting noises as they recognized the security breach. I was wondering what it was like for the co-pilot. We still had a long way to go.
  
  
  "Do you think you can still get the plane to Port of Spain, or do you want her to take over?"
  
  
  Ego's eyebrows arched. He thought I was making fun of him. "Are you saying that you can fly this plane?"
  
  
  He pulled out her wallet and showed her her license. He shook his head. "Thank you for the offer, but I'll do it myself."
  
  
  "If you change your mind, I'll take over," I said. "I'll be right there."
  
  
  He chuckled, and she hoped he relaxed. Her, went out all over the cabin. The flight attendant served drinks and tried to calm the passengers down. The other gave oxygen to the old man. He probably had a heart attack. Tara Sawyer was still busy with the pilot. Quiet and efficient. I liked her voice more and more. Not many women were comfortable with this situation. She looked up when her husband was standing next to her. "He can't take it, Nick."
  
  
  "No, I see."
  
  
  Sitting behind the pilot, the bound flight attendant began to recover. Her eyes opened one by one, and she wanted to raise her hand to stroke her aching neck. When she noticed that her hands were tied, she tried to look around. The prick of pain caused by this movement is the only transmission of sl. 'Oi . .. ", she complained. 'My neck.'
  
  
  She looked up at me.
  
  
  "Not broken," he announced laconically. "And you don't need to take the evil eye of shooting."
  
  
  She closed her eyes and pouted. Her not going to the hotel so she lost consciousness again, and called one around the other flight attendants. He asked her to bring a glass of whiskey and water and asked her to make sure her coworker had a drink. She carefully obeyed my orders, leaning over the girl in the chair, lifting her head by the chin and pouring a drink down her throat. The girl swallowed, gagged, and gasped as the flight attendant poured the whiskey into the atmospheric air. Some of that whiskey got on her uniform.
  
  
  I asked her: "Have you ever seen her before, before this flight?"
  
  
  A tall stewardess with cerro-smoky eyes straightened her back and looked at me. Now that she had finished helping the passengers, there was a hint of restrained anger in her voice. "No, Edith, the girl who usually flies with us, called shortly before the flight to say that she was ill, and sent a friend. Check out this friend!
  
  
  "Does this happen often?"
  
  
  "As far as I know, it was the first time. Usually there are backup flight attendants at the airport, but today one of these girls did not come to us."
  
  
  Its doubtful. "Didn't anyone also think that it was more than a coincidence?"
  
  
  She just looked at me. "Sir, in the aviation mail business, you can always expect anything at the last minute. We asked the girl a few questions, and when it turned out that she understood the profession, we took her with us. What kind of cop are you anyway?"
  
  
  "The one who got lucky today. Could you throw a blanket over the pilot? All these people will think they see a corpse."
  
  
  She looked bitterly at the red-haired flight attendant, who was slowly recovering in her seat, and recoiled.
  
  
  She looked at me like a wounded bird hopping down a forest path toward a hungry cat. Her sel is next to her. It's easier for women to talk to me if I don't scare her. He tried to look as sympathetic as possible.
  
  
  "When you get out of the prison, you won't look as appetizing as you do now, Sister. A master murder charge plus whatever they're willing to give you for hijacking a plane. But on the other hand, if you work with me a little, give me a decent rheumatism test, maybe I can do something for you. What's your name?"'
  
  
  She answered, and I thought I caught something of hope and anticipation in her thin, strained voice. "Mary Austin."
  
  
  "And your boyfriend?"
  
  
  "Juan ... Cardosa ... Where is he?"
  
  
  It was said by hey, without further ado. 'It's too late to think about nen.'
  
  
  I needed to know her reaction. She could tell me if she really had anything to do with mistletoe. Her face looked like it had been ripped out by her stacking dollar bills on tel. Nah started to cry.
  
  
  He continued in a friendly tone. "Tell me more about Juan, Mary. Who was he?'
  
  
  Her voice was muffled as she spoke between sobs. "A Cuban refugee. He was all-in, and emu had to go back. He said that he was related to Castro, and that they didn't cause emu harm for it."
  
  
  I thought he looked more like a secret police officer. That was the difficulty of taking in refugees; you never know who really ran away, or who's working for the enemy ."
  
  
  "How long have you known the ego?"
  
  
  'Six months.'He looked like a child crying over a broken toy. "I met him when I was working for Eastern Airlines on a flight to Miami. Two Sundays ago, he asked me to quit my job. Em needed my help. He will inherit a lot of money in Cuba, and if he gets it, we can get married. Now ... you've killed the ego."
  
  
  "No, Mary, you killed him when you gave em the gun and shot him."
  
  
  She sobbed loudly. The passengers looked around in surprise, some of them still scared.
  
  
  "I fired ... it was an accident ... the navigator pounced on me ... he hit me ... me ... I didn't want to pull the trigger on ... her ... its just waiting for the oni to change course ... '
  
  
  Her got up, put the armrests down, and put her on the three seats. She would have been asked by Hawka to do something for nah. At the very least, she didn't know the first rule of using a weapon: never take up a revolver if you don't plan to use it. Second rule: children should not play with revolvers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 2
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When my boss, David Hawke, calls me N3, which is my official code, as the first Killmaster, I know he's going to give me an impossible mission.
  
  
  Usually, when no one is around, he calls me Nick. But when he coughs and says N3, her first thought is that I need to double my life insurance policy. Unfortunately, no company was crazy enough to insure me, so it doesn't matter.
  
  
  I came to report her. AX has the poorest headquarters-the PO apartments of all the intelligence services. The guys around the CIA and the FBI are turning their backs on it, and the secret Service members are even harder to please. They think they are the best choice because they have to protect the president.
  
  
  He was tired. He had completed a tedious task and was looking forward to a few weeks of fishing in northern Michigan. Hawk pushed the newspaper across the chair, coughed, and said, " N3, you don't understand what this means?"
  
  
  It could have been given to rheumatism before reading the headline that screamed " Difficulties."
  
  
  
  
  GENERAL HAMMOND
  
  
  KILLED IN FLYRE
  
  
  
  
  I don't think many Americans know Hammond. To do this, they need to know about the island of Grand Laclair. The general was a dictator there. The island had a complicated history. After it was conquered by the Spanish, it fell into the hands of the French, and then was captured by the British. The population was 90 percent black, descended from slaves brought around Africa to work on sugar plantations and in the dense forests. Ten years ago, the Islanders decided in a referendum to break with the British and declare an independent republic. Tam stahl must rule Randolph Fleming
  
  
  Fleming was the most gifted and popular person on the island. He made important changes and Stahl was a true father figure to his people. Then the ego was dropped. He didn't give too much to the military, and they were outraged. Fleming fled to the United States, where Emu was granted political asylum. Hammond came to power and enslaved the people, as a military dictator should. Now Hammond was dead. An accident? Maybe not. It didn't matter. He left a power vacuum. Anyone who showed signs of leadership under the dictator was imprisoned or otherwise taken out of the country during Hammond's rule, and he feared he already knew who the diplomats were looking to to help restore order to the island.
  
  
  Hawk grunted: "We have intelligence indicating that the Russians are setting up missile bases on the island. Of course, very calm, as always. So we'll also have to work quietly and undercover. To distract us, Cuba is making a lot of noise about Grand Laclair. They want to help their neighbors in need. But we know that everything is in the hands of the Russians, and that the purpose of the "help" is to install missiles on the island. So this operation ends up in the Kremlin's dossier."
  
  
  David Hawke tapped his fingers on the edge of his chair and looked at me seriously. "This is a one-man operation, N3. Our government doesn't want a second Cuban missile launch. You must get Randolph Fleming to Grand Laclair as soon as possible."
  
  
  He doubted that the military would sit still or say anything about it.
  
  
  "It's your job to make sure they don't cause harm. You must take Fleming to the presidential palace. And you will have to act in such a way that no one will know what in our country has something to do with this."
  
  
  Her sarcasm was clear: "I'm used to being shot at, poisoned, threatened in every possible way, there's nothing special about it, but I haven't found it yet: make myself invisible. How do you want to make her stahl invisible? '
  
  
  Its good at many things, but making a Goshawk laugh isn't one around them. He's completely insensitive. He didn't even smile.
  
  
  "This has already been taken care of. Lucky Fleming and Tom Sawyer are good friends ."
  
  
  "I like Huck Finn better, but how can Mark Twain's book help me?"
  
  
  Hawke doesn't like that kind of wit, so he gives me a sour look. Thomas Sawyer. You may have heard of nen. He is president of the Sawyer Hotel Group, the largest in the world. Three years ago, General Hammond gave Em a plot of land on the beach to build a hotel and casino where rich tourists could have fun and get what they would spend their money on. They both deserve it. You understand, of course, that Sawyer doesn't benefit from a takeover that immediately nationalizes the ego of a profitable company. I hope you now understand that Sawyer promised all of our help in exchange for Fleming's promise that the business's ego would not be compromised in the future. And Fleming gave his word ."
  
  
  He nodded to her. Politics makes strange companions for trash. Patriot Fleming and avid businessman Sawyer. And I'll have to put the two of them together. She left Hawke's overly austere office with the banal idea that the world was a mess.
  
  
  All Sawyer in New York City looked like all other hotels in the same price range: a small lobby surrounded by expensive shops. But one thing was different. There was a private elevator that led openly to the top floor. When I reached the top of the stairs, I stepped out onto the soft carpet of the spacious hall, where an elegantly dressed blonde was waiting for me. Expensive Zhirinovsky books on the Internet were hanging on all the walls, but the only one around them could not compare in quality with the two legs winking at me from under a narrow skirt. A small, slender hand waved at me. "Mr. Carter? I nodded to her.
  
  
  "Her name is Tara Sawyer," she said. "My father is on the phone as usual and has asked me to see you."
  
  
  She gave me her hand and led me down the hall to a room on the other side. The room we entered was one of the largest I'd ever seen her in. Glass windows gave access to a terrace filled with plants and small trees. There were no chairs for us, no cabinets for us, no folders for us, just islands of comfortable chairs and couches. And a bar. Mr. Sawyer knew how to receive guests. The girl released me and headed for the bar.
  
  
  "What can I get you, Mr. Carter?"
  
  
  "Of course, please."
  
  
  She poured me a glass of brandy and helped herself to a soda. We went to the glass patio doors and looked out at the snow in the parque below.
  
  
  "What a shame," she said. "There are so many beautiful things, and no one dares to go there at night.
  
  
  I thought to myself that I could think of a lot of places that would be unsafe for some people, not even when. For example, this room wouldn't be so safe for Tara Sawyer if she wasn't aware of her father's presence on the same floor. She was very curvy, a lot of femininity under the thin fabric that hung so loosely from her chest and hugged her hips tightly. She was given a silent toast by nah to make sure my admiration didn't slip away from nah. Then the door opened behind us and it was all over.
  
  
  Thomas Sawyer was not what I expected him to be. I imagined her as a tall, energetic man, radiating success and strength. Instead, he saw a man not six feet tall, but half a head shorter, though with quick movements. Ego's only strong point in nen was his unexpectedly low voice. He stopped a few feet away from me and looked me up and down, like someone looking at a car they're thinking of buying. "Mr. Carter?" He wasn't sure.
  
  
  He nodded modestly.
  
  
  "You're not what I imagined her to be."
  
  
  He wasn't complaining, and he knew it. Most people think that the super agent looks like a cross between Bogart and Sir Ogilvie Rennie, the unfortunate guy who was named "C" by the British department of M. I. 6, the man whose cover story was ruined by an article in the German magazine Der Stern. And its not how I look at all.
  
  
  "Her hotel would like to talk to you on table border," the hotel mogul continued. But it can wait. You and Tara have a plane to catch, and time is running out. You leave around JFK Airport, NY at five minutes past two.
  
  
  So the blonde moved on. The case was getting more interesting. He touched her elbow. "If you've already packed your things, we'd better go. My bags are already downstairs, but before we can leave, I need to talk to Lady Hema."
  
  
  She came into the other room as Sawyer escorted me to the hall. A moment later, she returned wearing a mink hat and a matching mink coat over a pale blue dress. She was carrying a briefcase, which she deliberately threw at me from five feet away. So she knew how to limit herself. Something I can appreciate. Her suitcase caught her and watched her say goodbye to her father.
  
  
  In a limousine that was big enough to make a mobster's car look like a poor Toyota, she closed the sunroof that separated us from the driver and suddenly went about her business. "Now I can enlighten you on a few things. Dr. Fleming, I have absolutely no idea who you really are, or what your real job is. He must think you were hired by my father as a security guard at the hotel. He has this strange pride, call it innocence if you will, and if he knew that others besides the ego of his own people would help him ascend to the throne, he could give up the presidency.
  
  
  'Yes?' - I watched her reaction. "Doesn't he know that your father just bought an army?"
  
  
  She twitched the corners of her mouth for a moment, and her lips seemed to put an ugly word, but she decided not to avoid the topic. "He has no idea, and he'll never know better. He thinks the military thinks he's the only one who can handle the current situation. But my father is not sure that the army command will keep its word and you will have to be prepared for unpleasant surprises from this side.
  
  
  Only then did I understand her. Dad sent his cute little daughter to make sure I was doing my job. It wasn't just Grand Laclair's army that he didn't trust. He didn't trust us Aces, us, me, and he was willing to throw his juicy daughter in as bait to make sure everything went its way. Well, it was a bait I was happy to take.
  
  
  "In that case, it shouldn't look like we belong to another friend. Of course, Thomas Sawyer's daughter wouldn't go with a minor servant. It's the same with Fleming. But you'll have to fix it."
  
  
  Her suggested that everyone take a taxi separately to arrive at JFK Airport, NY separately. Besides, hey, there was no need to know that I needed to do anything else. I was dropped off at the airline's Manhattan office, showed my documents to the airline's president, and waited while he checked the records over the phone at AX headquarters in Washington. Her hotel boarded armed and could not afford to draw attention to itself when checking passengers.
  
  
  Hawke's reaction was impressive enough that the president immediately called the chief executive officer at the airport, and when I got there, I was personally escorted to the plane.
  
  
  Tara Sawyer was already on the plane, talking to a handsome, educated-faced, dark-skinned man sitting in a row of three seats by the window. She suspected that this was Randolph Fleming, Thomas Sawyer's new jewel on Grand Laclair Island. I glanced at him as I sat down next to her and noticed that he exuded leadership and honesty. He looked at me for a moment, then ignored me again.
  
  
  They probably thought I was a necessary road necessity. Her ego could read her thoughts. Once he reached the island, he would feel safe; but as long as he wasn't in the presidential apartments, he was an easy target.
  
  
  I wondered for a moment why Sawyer hadn't used one of his private planes to transport us, and then immediately thought of the pride Tara had mentioned: Fleming would no doubt have given up on such a thing, because it might seem like a return of aftershocks. Fleming's voice was soft, his words measured, and he spoke to Tara in a matter-of-fact tone. It seemed to the passengers that they were talking about nothing. When we were in the air, the flight attendant brought pillows and blankets. Soon, most of the passengers turned off their lights, and the conversation subsided. Sleep is out of the question for me. First of all, of course, I had to keep an eye on Fleming, but besides that, Tara's seductive presence next to me didn't make my life any easier. And hers, felt that the tension was mutual. All we could do was try to think of something else. At least it kept me awake.
  
  
  I was only introduced to Fleming after the hijacking incident took control of her. He then reluctantly admitted that it was a happy coincidence that the new security officer at the Sawyer Grand Lachlair Hotel was on the same flight. He hoped that the ego of the island and the ego of the inhabitants would appeal to me.
  
  
  Then, as examples to the still restless passengers, he lowered the back of his seat and allowed himself to fall into a peaceful sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Grand Laclair Airport wasn't as big as Chicago's O'Hare Airport, but it looked like the last plane had dumped all the passengers at Grand La Clare. The airport was so modern that I wondered if Sawyer had paid for it around the proceeds of his hotel and casino. The brightly colored islanders were held back by a group of soldiers in shorts and short-sleeved shirts. Apart from their weapons, they resembled large Boy Scouts. Some around them formed a cordon around the plane and the black limousines waiting for ih.
  
  
  The flight attendant announced that we were all to stay in our seats until Dr. Fleming left around the airport. The stairs approached, and the door opened. He had already seen the huge crowd, and now he could hear the deafening cheers as the new president of the island set foot on his own land.
  
  
  Beside me, Tara Sawyer whispered:: "Look at the attitude towards him. She would like us to be at the bottom and watch him go down."
  
  
  "You'd have been shoved away by security." Be glad you're here, " I said.
  
  
  Through the windows, we saw Fleming, who was now at the foot of the plane's ramp, raise his hand to greet the islanders. A fat man in a light uniform saluted, then walked over to Fleming and shook em's hand. Fleming smiled.
  
  
  "Colonel Karib Jerome," Tara said. "Chief of the Army Staff. The man who arranged Fleming's return.
  
  
  That was my contact. Hers, looked at him carefully. Ego blackface wasn't black. He had oriental eyes, high cheekbones, and olive skin, indicating that he was a descendant of the Brazilian Indians who conquered the island in prehistoric times. He could have passed for a big Vietnamese. Jerome put his lips to Fleming's ear so that the ego could be heard in the mass hysteria.
  
  
  I could tell by the look on her ego that he'd warned Fleming about possible dangers. He took Fleming's hand and led Egos to the waiting limos.
  
  
  Fleming smiled, shook off Jerome's hand, and walked over to the crowd behind the police cordon to shake hands with the people - actions that she, like any sane police officer and security guard, hated. The applause didn't stop when he got into a large car with official flags on its wings; some onlookers managed to break through the police cordon and try to stop the moving car. We had to wait on the plane until the military police came on board to arrest the flight attendant who tried to hijack the plane. She looked at me as they led her away, anxious and questioning. He smiled and nodded. Maybe a lighter sentence could have provided it; after all, she'd fallen victim to an old trick. As she walked down the stairs surrounded by soldiers, the audience considered her a VIP and cheered loudly. The public probably wasn't informed about the attempted hijacking. Finally, we got permission to go out. The crowd was still cheering. We had with the famous Dr. Fleming flew. Tara laughed and waved to get the audience's attention. No one paid any attention to me. I was glad of that. One of the worst things that can happen to an undercover agent is to be exposed. We were taken to a relatively quiet customs office, where we waited for our luggage to arrive on the conveyor belt. Hers was Tara's luggage number and his. The suitcases were removed from the cart by customs officers and placed in front of us so that we could open them.
  
  
  The examination was extremely thorough. In the Caribbean, such customs are usually extremely common. They usually deal with wealthy tourists who they don't want to offend or frighten. And what surprised me even more was the way I was searched. They found my shoulder holster, unbuttoned my jacket,and frowned at the Luger .
  
  
  "An explanation, please." This man didn't look like he was going to treat me like a rich tourist who shouldn't be offended.
  
  
  I told them I was the new security officer at the Sawyer Hotel. It doesn't impress a man. He snapped his fingers, and then two policemen, who had been standing unobtrusively in a prominent position, stepped forward in the corner of the room. He ordered me to be taken to the police station for questioning. One of the officers was taken by my Luger. Tara looked like she was going to fight openly on the spot. I stepped on her toes so she wouldn't do anything stupid. There was no point in arguing with the authorities here. I told her I'd see her later at the hotel and went with the officers to the police van outside the airport. I was allowed to take my suitcase with me. If David Hawke had heard this, he would have died of indignation. He had a disdain for ordinary police officers. It was a ten-kilometer drive to the capital, and the road was long. The crowd was still lined up along the road, and before us Fleming's procession was moving at three miles an hour. We were moving along the last convoy of motorcyclists. The people who took me to the station were, like all the other cops around the world, meticulous and boring. Hieronymus declared a day off and organized a party that was supposed to start in the evening. For these guys, of course, it just meant more work. When we passed the mimmo of the Sawyer Hotel, people were still standing in the third and fourth rows. The large lawn in front of the hotel was filled with tourists taking photos. The hotel's architecture was sterile, designed to awe-inspiring and keep tourists from forgetting what they were here for: losing their dollars at gambling tables with the illusion that ih was being pleasantly entertained. The huge building stretched out on the boulevard along the harbor and was located on the edge of the business district. I saw three huge pleasure yachts in the harbor and thought that the casino would work well with people who could afford such toys.
  
  
  The police station was placed in an inconspicuous place, where he would not come across the sharp eyes of tourists. And it was almost as new as the airport. Sawyer paid well for his land and his rights. There was a sign in the waiting room praising ego generosity. I was brought in through the back door. The flight attendant who shot the pilot was sitting on a wooden bench. Nah was handcuffed and crying quietly with her eyes closed. She probably imagined the terrible things that could happen to her. Her sel is next to her, and stahl is massaging hey's neck. He gave me some tips, told me to just tell the truth and not try to lie, and again promised that I would try to do something for nah. After all, she was too attractive to spend her life in digital cameras. She tried to smile at me, but put her head on my shoulder and sobbed. A security guard entered the room and led her away. They didn't want her to feel comfortable.
  
  
  She had one hour left. A trick that won't make you uneasy. Her worried. I couldn't reveal my true identity, and I didn't really want to get Sawyer's help at this point. I decided to play an imbecile and see what happens around it.
  
  
  Finally, the two policemen came to the end of the waiting period. She went through a door marked administration. One was the driver of the car in which I was brought, the other was in civilian clothes.
  
  
  "I'm sorry I kept you waiting," the latter said. He sounded too excited. "Why did you hide the gun in your shoulder holster?"
  
  
  I didn't have to tell em anything. He said, " I think this is the most comfortable place for ego wearing."
  
  
  Em didn't like it. "Only local authorities have the right to bear arms, Mr. Carter, you broke the law ... '
  
  
  "As the head of security at the Sawyer Hotel, don't I have the right to carry a gun?
  
  
  'Only at your workplace. As I was about to say, you have violated our laws, which is grounds for being sent abroad as an undesirable alien.
  
  
  Her, he chuckled at the thought of Hawke's reaction if I called Emu and told her I'd been kicked off the island. I decided to apply acupuncture to the nervous system of the embodied person. Her father said thoughtfully: "Then I'd better call Tom Sawyer. Emu won't like it.
  
  
  It worked. He scratched under his shirt with one finger, as if his ego had suddenly been bitten by parasites. 'Um-m-m... we have it sometimes... Um ... a personal relationship with Mr. Sawyer?
  
  
  "We are stepbrothers. He's the oldest.
  
  
  "Ahem... I'll check it out with my superiors.... He turned to the other agent. "Howard, take ego to the cell. In the meantime, I'll see what... "He didn't finish his sentence and hurriedly disappeared through the door marked" administration ".
  
  
  None of them will ever be employed by my police force. The Luger had already confused nu so much that they didn't even bother to look any further. The stiletto I wear on my forearm has not been found. But I didn't want to cause any more trouble until it was absolutely necessary. News of my role in the hijacking story has not yet reached these officials, but at a higher level it would have been known. He followed Howard to a large cell in the basement of the building.
  
  
  The cell was oval in shape with benches facing each other in two walls. On one of the benches sat a fat man, probably an American businessman. He was tired, and he had one black eye that was getting bluer and bluer. He kept as much distance as possible between him and the other prisoner, a dodgy Black man. When Howard left, the Negro got up and grunted, and Stahl tried to walk around me. Her, turned to him.
  
  
  "Stand still," he said.
  
  
  He tried to get around me, but I kept making sure he was ahead of me. Without ego's warning, a fist caught me in the waist.
  
  
  Ego grabbed her by the wrist and flipped her over, knocking her back to the ground. He looked satisfied, as if this was what he wanted. He leapt to his feet and started to attack again, but when he saw the stiletto that he was holding out to him, he gave up on his plans, shrugged, and sold. I got the impression that he was no ordinary brawler, but emu was paid to scare his cellmates and force ih to confess everything he said to the police during the interrogation. He was going to take a nap on the digital cameras, but now he decided that it was better to stay up and look after the Negro. However, for the next half hour, he didn't do anything else.
  
  
  Then Howard reappeared, opened the door, and motioned me out. The drunk American tried to run out, but big Black grabbed ego and knocked him down. Her tired of him, and slapped his hand on ego's neck. He collapsed on the ground, and I suspected that he would get some sleep.
  
  
  "Put the ego somewhere else," Howie told her. "Or I'll talk to our consul." In any case, she was going to warn Fleming that this pigsty was going to be cleaned up forever. It seemed reasonable to Howard that he didn't hesitate to follow my order, dragging the unconscious man out in the hallway and leaving the ego there.
  
  
  Tara Sawyer was sitting at the bar. She was holding my Luger, and for a moment I thought she was crazy enough to help me out. She was quite adventurous. But then she saw the nervous expressions on the faces of the three policemen behind Nah. The guy who questioned me was sweating.
  
  
  "Your arrest was a mistake, Mr. Carter. I apologize for the misunderstanding." He gave me my suitcase.
  
  
  Tara served me my Luger. Ego put it in his shoulder holster, and together we went out the door, which was opened by two officers. Now I noticed that the camera had one advantage: it wasn't as warm as outside. Even in February, the heat rose from the paving stones and reflected off the walls of the houses. He looked at Tara questioningly. She still seemed indignant.
  
  
  "What a ridiculous sight. Her, went openly to Fleming; ego's first official action was to order your release and allow you to carry a gun anywhere, anytime. And this evening he addresses the Parliament at an extraordinary session. He gave us tickets to the public gallery, he wants you to hear ego perform. At 2: 30. So we still have time for lunch and drinks."
  
  
  'Is that all?'just asked her.
  
  
  She grabbed my arm. "Before the performance, to. I don't want to rush you, Nick. Besides, she's too hungry.
  
  
  I couldn't find a taxi. The streets were filled with people dancing, singing, and cheering. They didn't want to wait for the evening to celebrate. Trying to break through the crowd, we passed a mimmo of "homegrown market stalls" that provided tourists with souvenirs brought around Singapore.
  
  
  There was a row of business buildings between the market and the hotel, as well as a wide road that led directly to the main entrance of the hotel. The lobby was unusually large, surrounded by large windows of shops, and on the right was the entrance to the casino. He started toward the front desk, but Tara fished the key out of her bag. She's already booked a room for me. We made our way through the crowds of tourists to the elevator and got to the top floor.
  
  
  Tara showed me my room, a huge apartment with a view of the bay. He looked out at the lawn of palm trees, the white beach, and the sailing yachts covering the bright green water. Money. There was a lot of money everywhere. After a night flight and being exposed to digital cameras, she even felt too dirty to sit on expensive furniture. He walked through the bedroom and into the bathroom. The shower was large enough for two people. Tara called her. "Bring some clean clothes so we can wash another one."
  
  
  "Oh, no," she said with a laugh. "Not on an empty stomach. My room is next door, and I'm going to bathe there."
  
  
  Well, at least I tried. He heard the connecting door open and close, ordered two drinks on the phone, dusted off his clothes, and turned on the shower. He let the soothing hot water flow over me until my entire body was red, then switched to cold water. So, even without vaults, I always feel like a new person.
  
  
  By the time Tara arrived, wearing a low-cut dress that matched her gorgeous blue eyes, hers was back in her own clothes. The moment he greeted her, they brought drinks.
  
  
  They brought the Martinique punch in a tall, chilled glass, but when she finished, she still hadn't changed her mind, so we took the elevator down. Around the hotel's four restaurants, Tara chose one on the second floor. We played this game on a table under a light umbrella, and she told me that there was a famous lobster served with butter and lemon juice.
  
  
  I was wondering what lies ahead when the Russians make their next move. It was thwarted by ih's attempt to kill Fleming, leaving ego to rot in a Cuban prison, so now they would have to develop a whole new program.
  
  
  But there was no point in starving while ih was waiting for her to return the move. We savored our education, then walked hand in hand to the government building for Fleming's speech.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  
  
  -
  
  
  We shouldn't have come here much later. All the seats were already taken, except for our reserved seats, and the general gallery breathed the heat of a crowded hall. Randolph Fleming sat on the platform on one side, between the head of the Legislature and Karib Jerome's empty chair on the other. The colonel stood behind the microphone and delivered the opening speech.
  
  
  When he finished and Fleming stood up, the walls nearly collapsed in thunderous applause. Hers was also slapped, and Tara waved, her eyes moist with excitement.
  
  
  Fleming waited fifteen minutes for the applause to subside enough to completely die down, raising both hands. When it was quiet enough, an ego-warm voice rang out around the speakers. He was glad and happy to be home, and grateful that the people are once again a vast country, ego to lead the country. He presented a program that did not seem meaningful, and promised public elections within a year, so that he would make a military decree for only one year. He spoke for an hour, and it was one of the best political speeches she had ever heard.
  
  
  There was another minute's standing ovation, and a cordon of soldiers prevented Fleming from getting into the arms of the crowd. The three men, accompanied by security guards, then left the building through a side door. So far, the military has followed its agreement with Sawyer. And it seemed to me that they could not have done otherwise, given the overwhelming popularity of the new president. Tara and I waited for the panic at the exit to subside a little. Sparklers glittered in Tara's eyes. "What do you think of that, Nick? Do you know what Fleming did? General Hammond's family still lives in the palace, and Fleming told them to take their time and look for something else. He stays in the hotel for a long time and has a whole floor below ours."
  
  
  Someone meant to make my job easier. It would have been almost impossible to follow Fleming in the presidential palace, where I had nothing to do after all. And this event brought ego openly into my official sphere of activity. Then it hit me. "You didn't make ego do it by accident, did you?"
  
  
  Her smile confirmed my suspicions. "What a little conspirator!
  
  
  "Thanks to your help, I can now keep a close eye on him."
  
  
  Most of the people left through the exit, and we were leaving as well. The container was hanging from my arm. "And now the duty is done ..."
  
  
  "You've missed your chances, young lady. The debt is far from being fulfilled. My day is fully occupied. I'll take you to your hotel, vote, and that's it. The best way to respond to the bully is to fight back so that now Tara can go to the moon for once. And I really had to do a lot of things: talk to the hotel manager, visit Fleming, and get some sleep. I haven't been able to sleep for the last thirty-six hours, and I may have had a tiring night ahead of me.
  
  
  She looked at me suspiciously and pouted slightly as I said goodbye to her at the elevator. Good, I thought. The manager asked for it and noticed that Ego had already been placed in the wing. He wasn't happy with my presence in the ego state. Maybe he thought it was because of the mistakes he made. He introduced me to his chief of security, Lewis, and then led us out of the ego office as quickly as possible.
  
  
  Lewis was a tall Black man who used to play professionally on a rugby team in the United States. He was rude to me until he called her ego "express" (a nickname the press coined for him at the time) and denied emu's media reports about some of the ego's best matches. This made the ego perk up and act more friendly. He told me about the special measures he had taken to protect the president, and took me to Fleming's office to introduce me to his team.
  
  
  There were four of them, all burly American Negroes, hidden in the corner of the hall. Lewis cursed under his breath and grumbled at the arrogance of the army officers. Still, he growled, always thinking that they might set everyone aside. Ego was annoyed that the lieutenant and two soldiers were lined up in the guardhouse at Fleming's door after sending Ego's men away. In addition, they also sent away two other men who were whispering to each other across the room: fat, short, fat Italian-Americans. Thus, the mafia also protected Fleming, and with him, their interests in the casino.
  
  
  I was introduced to the people around the hotel, then to the three soldiers standing in front of Fleming's apartment. The lieutenant asked her if the president was back. He looked at me like an emu was making an indecent offer. Lewis barked that I was Sawyer's personal security detail and that they could have worked better with me. The lieutenant still didn't notice me; he just turned and knocked on the door. Ego was opened by a bodyguard on the other side. Fleming saw me over the top of the attack skill value of the others in the room and beckoned me over.
  
  
  The room was filled with all sorts of government officials wanting to be like ble licks k special ones in math. Colonel Jerome did better than anyone else. He didn't stay long, just long enough to thank Fleming and congratulate ego on his speech. He was head over heels in love with the organization of his government, but he was interested in my welfare. He hoped I wouldn't get into any more trouble on the island. Ego thanked her and left.
  
  
  In the lobby, Lewis asked me if I could keep her safe on the other floor. We went down a floor and saw soldiers, private bodyguards, and the mafia everywhere. President Randolph Fleming was well protected.
  
  
  Lewis thanked her, excused himself, and went to his room. The small traps he left for her were not affected. No one bothered to search my room. He wondered if Grand Laclair's information about the unreliability of the troops had come from the suspiciousness of some overworked soldier. He called her at headquarters and waited for Hawke's voice to come over the phone.
  
  
  He asked in a high-pitched tone why she hadn't checked in earlier, right after landing. When he told Emu about the Luger incident, he let out his bile due to overzealous customer service, and when he had vented his anger enough, he gave Emu a brief account of the events.
  
  
  "I am sure that the hijacking of the plane was arranged by the Russians," I said. "But this is done in the dark. The flight attendant didn't know she was being used. I didn't think she was very smart, or at least she panicked. Do something for nah." There was a pause as he made a note, then asked, " Fleming, didn't he suspect this when he was on board? He's not stupid.
  
  
  "I don't think he understands why she's here. In any case, all is well on the island. People act as if the new president is God."
  
  
  'Excellent. I wonder how our friends will react to this. In any case, keep your eyes open."
  
  
  I kissed the phone goodbye, put it down, and went over to the glass of whiskey they'd brought me in my room. I made a toast to my boss, called the front desk and said I wanted to be woken up at five, and flopped down on my bed.
  
  
  When my phone rang at five o'clock, a smile appeared on my face. He yawned widely and called Tara. We met at the bar at 5: 30, and before that, her ferret freshened up in the shower. It felt like a hell of a vacation. When I got to the bar, she was already there, two martinis in chilled glasses in front of her. All the men in the bar were busily undressing her with their eyes. Fantastic! She was in the mood for a seductive eagle, and hers was in a good mood. She knew a good restaurant on the other side of Sturt Bay, with a terrace overlooking the harbour. We started with shark fin soup, but I was too preoccupied with Tara to remember what else to do.
  
  
  The lights that came on after dark formed a glittering silver necklace around the beach. Sounds of celebration rang out from the banner. "Let's join in," I suggested.
  
  
  At the market, the festival was increased by the orchestra. The islanders were drunk, the tourists were enjoying the local activities, and the children were tired. We danced constantly on the way back to the hotel. The security guards on the top floor have been replaced, but my special ID card will allow you to pass quickly. Without saying anything to us, Tara stopped at the door of my room. It was opened by ego, who held it back, as he usually asked for any signs of hacking, but found nothing. Tara kicked off her ballet slippers and played with her toes in a deep pile from the wall to moan while her father poured us a warm whiskey. She tasted it, tilted her head back, and slowly poured the glass down her throat.
  
  
  "Now," she said in a hoarse voice,"I'll accept your offer to shower together."
  
  
  You don't get many of these offers on Grand LaClare, so it's always wise to take advantage of them. We went to the bedroom to get undressed, and Tara won the contest because it turned out that Nah had nothing under her dress. Nah had a long, slender, full, smooth body.
  
  
  She walked ahead of me to the shower, turned the tap on full, slightly warmer, and stepped into the shower. The room was about two meters by two meters. We could waltz there. Hey didn't care if her hair got wet, she stood in front of me, then stepped back so that hers could also get her body wet. Her started lathering her up. Ee face, throat, torso and feet.
  
  
  When she was all slippery, ee grabbed her and pressed her against me. We turned around to wash off the soap, and he pressed his lips to hers. We kissed long and passionately, and he could feel her trembling with desire.
  
  
  She was picked up by ee, and on the way to the bedroom, he grabbed a bath towel, wrapped it around Tara, and put it on the bed. He wiped it off, then tore off the towel. When it was quickly dried off, everything was ready. Her, entered nah in one quick motion as she arched her back to receive me. She was fantastic, knew exactly what I wanted, and moved smoothly with me. I don't remember how long it took, but I fell asleep almost immediately when we were done. I was completely exhausted by her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We had breakfast in the restaurant. Tara took some tropical fruit, her two dozen oysters. Before her ih arrived, Tara jumped out of bed to shower and get dressed in her own apartment. I had a full day off. While she was in the shower, the phone rang over the sound of running water. I tried to ignore it, but the person on the other end of the line was a regular. He denied the media reports about Hawk. I let it flow and ran after the phone, leaving a trail of drops behind.
  
  
  The whisper on the other end of the line was conspiratorial. "Good morning, Mr. Carter. This is Carib Jerome. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?"
  
  
  I was warned about Jerome. AX officials thought he might have been a Russian agent on the island. But maybe it was just a courtesy call. In any case, it would be as neutral as possible. "Give me ten minutes to get dressed," I said.
  
  
  I called room service, ordered a hot coffee and an extra cup, dried off, put on ballet slippers, and changed into clean clothes and a jacket to hide my shoulder holster when coffee and the colonel arrived. Meanwhile, I went through what Hawk had told me about Jerome.
  
  
  Jerome was a thirty-six-year-old member of a prominent family, though not from the island. He was educated at Oxford and took a special course at the Sandhurst Military Academy. After that, he made a name for himself as a lawyer. When Randolph Fleming was first elected president and British troops left the island, Parliament felt that the island needed its own army. Fleming appointed the Chief of Police General of the new army. Jerome rose to the position of chief of Staff. Hawk said: "Colonel, you surprised us. According to the CIA, he was politically ambitious and wanted to seize power after Hammond's death. Instead, it immediately returns Fleming."
  
  
  Hawke's thinking machine largely preoccupied itself with possible ego motivations. Why did an ambitious man who had a chance to seize power send a letter to a political opponent whom he had previously helped overthrow? Our experts believe that Jerome was smart enough to realize his unpopularity. He knew that the parliament would never support him. But if he appoints Fleming as president, he can become a strong person behind the throne.
  
  
  Hawke asked her if Jerome Mistletoe had any idea of my true identity. But as far as he knew, he was nothing more than a representative of Thomas Sawyer.
  
  
  The Colonel came out through the rooms in front of the waiter and stood openly, not even smiling, until we were alone. Only ego's dark eyes moved. They wanted to. They looked at the big bed, the blanket on the floor, the whiskey and glasses on the table. He studied me for a long moment as she poured Emu a cup of coffee. Black, no sugar. Still no smile. I decided to play it carefully. The door closed behind the waiter. Jerome sank into a deep chair and sipped his coffee.
  
  
  "You've settled in nicely," the hoarse voice sounded emotionless. There was a corkscrew behind the question. I should have thought of that much sooner. It was a suite, a VIP. What was I supposed to do as a security guard here? He looked at the expensive furniture with excessive admiration and jealousy and gave a short laugh.
  
  
  "Here you can see how difficult it is to be in the best positions. I can smell it because the hotel is full. I'm going to be moved to the basement soon. This season, everything has to be filled in, and the colonel knows it. In countries like Grand LaClare, calves must hand over their guest books to the police.
  
  
  'Very bad for you. He kept looking at me questioningly. Then he raised his eyebrows and dropped the subject. "Her hotel takes this opportunity to thank you for your work on the plane. President Fleming - and I-were very lucky to have you on the plane. And armed ." Made a frown. "Was it known on the dell itself that you had a concealed weapon?"
  
  
  He didn't blink. He smiled at emu, like a math major giving away another mystery. "My employer knows that I enjoy working with my own weapons. As you know, he has some influence ."
  
  
  Well good. Now, for the first time, he smiled at the thought of my special privilege. "I'm very happy again. If you didn't respond properly, President Fleming would already be dead or in the wrong hands. To react so quickly, you need to be a very experienced security officer." Another corkscrew about a double bottom. What was more to her than just a hotel security guard? Hers remained cautious.
  
  
  "I accompanied Miss Sawyer. She can be injured or killed, and my reflexes kick in when someone points a gun at me.
  
  
  'O? So it really was a surprise? Did you know that President Stahl was a target? But then, of course, in your place, you couldn't have known that they were trying to kidnap the ego and take it to Cuba."
  
  
  Her question was incredulous. - "What is this p/?""This flight attendant confessed?"
  
  
  Ego's eyes, his hoarse voice, were expressionless. "We received information from another source. The girl escaped before he could question her.
  
  
  Escaped through the prison she was in? He thought again of her startled appearance. Could she really be an agent good enough to deceive me after all? Jerome guessed my thoughts. "Her alleged innocence misled the female security guard. She used a karate move, stole her clothes, and just left."
  
  
  "But where could she have gone?"
  
  
  A restless shrug. "These luxury cruise ships come and go here. I guess she's smart enough to get on board one of these boats.
  
  
  I found it hard to believe. But she also never believed that a flight attendant could smuggle two revolvers on board an airplane. The Colonel waved the matter aside and leaned back in his chair. 'It doesn't matter. Thank you the president has arrived safely. The military is convinced that they will be better off if they give emu full support, so these problems have been resolved to everyone's satisfaction." He finished his coffee and stood up. "If I can ever help you with anything, you will find me in the palace."
  
  
  I shook the hand he held out and released him. He knew more about me than he admitted. It was clear from the ego of the applicants that the army would remain silent. Just being grateful for the hijacking incident wouldn't have made Jerome make political statements to a mere hotel security guard. I suspected that he was trying to let me know that I no longer needed to play my double role with him.
  
  
  He waited a moment until he realized that he had left the hotel, then left through the rooms. There were no more soldiers on the top floor. Lewis ' men also disappeared. Only it was still full of mafia.
  
  
  He went down to Fleming's apartment on the floor below. Only the syndicate's people were present. I was told that Fleming was still asleep. I found the same painting on the floor below her. Strange! I thought I'd take a look at the Casino. I would like her answers, and maybe I can find them there.
  
  
  Roulette, gambling, and poker tables formed a rectangle around the sofa, surrounded by velvet-wrapped chains. No one was allowed in here except the croupiers and cashiers. The tables were crowded with tourists. There were no windows to look at, no clock to show the time. Just the clink of coins, the crunch of chips, excited shouts and curses. This is not my game. I make my bet with her every morning: that I will return to bed safe and sound at night. As I tried to push my way through the crowd, I was half-jostled by an excited crowd heading like a herd of elephants for the jackpot winner. In addition to the car ringing, she was suddenly heard ringing in my room upstairs. The reason was ten feet away, lips curled in displeasure, eyebrows raised at the sight of all the excitement.
  
  
  It flickered like a beacon. Long red hair, and a pantsuit with bulges in all the right places.
  
  
  While I was waiting for her to pass a herd of elephants, I saw her turn and disappear through a hidden metal sliding door somewhere near the cash registers. He went to the same place. It made my visit even more urgent.
  
  
  The lucky guy got to the cash register before me. Waiting for Clare to take the chips and pay the man. When the lucky winner was gone, the servant looked at my empty hands and said in a bored tone, " What can I do for you, other?"
  
  
  I hate it when someone calls me a friend, and I've never seen this person before in my life. I need Chip Cappola. I want to talk to him."
  
  
  The unpleasant face became even more unpleasant. 'I've never heard of it.'
  
  
  I put my new ID card on the counter. The nen said that her new head of security at the Sawyer Hotel. The man just looked at me. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
  
  
  "You didn't ask for this. Mr. Sawyer expects ego guests to be polite to ego staff. What's your name?"'
  
  
  He hadn't expected this, and em didn't like it. He was all around them, who instantly cringes when he can't bark anymore. "Tony Ricco". It was nothing more than a mumble.
  
  
  "You have received one warning. Don't always count on us, for a second! Don't let me hear you complain. Now, where's Cappola?
  
  
  "Through this door." He pointed in the direction where the redhead had disappeared. He pressed a button under the counter and the thick metal door swung open. Its shell, through the blind pass. The building here resembled a safe, and also served as a safe. A tall black man sat at a desk half-filled with some kind of control panel. He was wearing a khaki uniform without a badge and could have passed for a hotel police officer. He was as friendly as the cashier. When he came up, his cold, insufficient eyes were looking at me.
  
  
  "I need Cappola," I said, showing my ID card.
  
  
  He leaned into the built-in microphone and said in a deep growl, " Carter here. New security guard.
  
  
  Rheumatism sounded on the intercom. "Send the ego."
  
  
  He pressed a button, and the heavy metal panel opened silently again. Behind him was a large room with bare yellow walls, an empty chair, several empty chairs, and a deep one from the couch where the redhead was sitting. The cigarette between her lips released a thin blue smoke in a trickle between her half-closed eyes. She looked at me as if I were an old acquaintance.
  
  
  Chip Cappola was the epitome of a man who wanted to look thirty years younger than himself. Ego's white silk suit jacket hung moaning on the rack. Ego's light purple shirt with a dark red monogram on the sleeve was the only bright spot in the gray room. Ego's voice was just as colorless. "This year the geese flew south."
  
  
  "They didn't stay in Miami," I said.
  
  
  I do not know who came up with these idiotic code words. They should seem inconspicuous, but at the same time they should not be something that can be said accidentally. Cappola gave me a dismissive look.
  
  
  Nick Carter, eh? Killmaster? You don't look like the killers I know. But don't let me insult you in front of the ladies." He pointed at the redhead. Mitzi Gardner. Maybe you've heard of her.
  
  
  I heard her. But it didn't strike me as typical of Mitzi. Not stupid enough. According to my information, she was the mistress of a large number of mafia leaders, four of whom were already dead. She would probably take care of smuggling money for them. Mafia dolls under lock and key to Swiss banks. It now belonged to Chip Cappola, a high-ranking gangster wanted in the United States. And such a guy now worked for AX.
  
  
  Cappola was not interested in national security. Ego loyalty was exclusive to underworld nations. But one thing was for sure: he didn't want the Communists to take over the casino, so it was to Emu's advantage to support Randolph Fleming. With Fleming in the saddle, Cappola's business at Grand Laclare continued unimpeded, just as it had in General Hammond's time.
  
  
  Cappola pointed to a chair, and he accepted the offer. "I'm damned glad you were on that plane Fleming came on. If we lose him, we're all risking our own skin. Then we'll forget about our casino, and Sawyer will lose everything."
  
  
  "We haven't lost our ego yet," his mafioso denied media reports. "He's the president, and Colonel Jerome says it's okay."
  
  
  It immediately sel. "Have you talked to Jerome? Said emu, who are you? He spat out the words furiously.
  
  
  "Why are you so angry?"
  
  
  "Did you tell emu?"
  
  
  'Of course not. What do you have against him anyway?
  
  
  He put his hands on the chair and leaned forward. "Carib Jerome ordered the abduction of Fleming."
  
  
  Hers remained neutral. "Where did this idea come from, Capolla?"
  
  
  "An idea? We know. Do you think only AX knows what's going on? We have a man in Cuba. He's like that with Castro." He pressed two fingers together. Jerome wants Fleming permanently removed.
  
  
  I wasn't impressed. Whatever information Gordeev's Goat has for us, it can never outweigh ours. Besides, it didn't fit the colonel's behavior. Fleming was in the United States. Jerome called em back.
  
  
  Cappola grinned. 'Listen up. While Fleming was on the mainland, Jerome couldn't even pull off his coup with the help of the Russians. The Americans will send Fleming in at the right moment to confuse things. And that would be Jerome's flow. But with Fleming in the audience in a Cuban prison, Jerome can fool the public that he will release Fleming when he comes to power. He will succeed, and that will be the last thing we will ever hear from Fleming."
  
  
  I always listen to anything that doesn't immediately seem like nonsense. But I wouldn't want to be dumbfounded by the mobsters ' screams. Even if all this were true, Jerome's hands were tied openly now. There was a buzz, three short beeps. Cappola jumped up, read the doubt on my face, and said to the red-haired woman:: "Come on, relax. He was in a hurry to get out of the office.
  
  
  Mitzi Gardner stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. She took her time and looked at me appraisingly and a little teasingly. "Someone had a heart attack at the casino," she said flatly. "Every once in a while, there's a big winner or a big loser." Nah's voice was slightly hoarse. "Let's go for a ride, honey."
  
  
  "The security chief ran off with a lady? If you think Jerome wants to kidnap Fleming, I'd better make sure he doesn't.
  
  
  She shrugged her shoulders. "There are still people in the casino. Fleming is absolutely safe today. He's sleeping, and Em won't have to leave the hotel tonight. Besides, I have something to tell you and something to show you." She said familiarly to the black footman,"We'll go down, Duke."
  
  
  He smiled broadly. He loved her a thousand times more than I did. The button he now pressed opened the elevator opposite the casino entrance, which took us to a basement garage that could accommodate four cars. There was a Volkswagen van and a light purple Cadillac. Convenient for users who don't want ih to be seen. I told her something about it.
  
  
  She smiled wryly. "The elevator also goes to the Chips' apartment on the roof. "Where is Fleming now?"
  
  
  She got behind the wheel of the Cadillac. Her sel is next to her. Hide on the floor until we get around the hotel, " she told me. Jerome would ask you to follow him if you showed yourself in front of the inn."
  
  
  Hey played along, letting Hey scare me, and doing a bench press while Mitzi pressed the button. A steel hatch opened. She turned off the engine and we drove away. A dull echo from outside told me we were passing through a large garage. The tires creaked as we rounded the corner into the mountain. She turned onto the boulevard and after a kilometer released me around my hiding place. yahoo's mess last night was swept up, and the street was quiet again. The crowd was gone.
  
  
  "Jerome," I said. "If Cappola was right, why didn't he kill Fleming? Why did he send his ego to Cuba?"
  
  
  She didn't look at me. "Nobody wants a corpse. And the living Fleming could still be used as an object of negotiations with Russia ."
  
  
  'Perhaps. Her also wonder why Jerome wants her to follow him."
  
  
  She looked at me in surprise. "He has already tripped over you once. All this fuss about the gun wasn't an accident, of course. He wants you out of here. How many times do you really need to tap on the heads to turn on your mind? '
  
  
  She had to put it all on the back burner. Fleming was safe in Cappola's penthouse, and now I had time to think things through. I do this best when I'm relaxing. So I decided to relax.
  
  
  We passed mimmo market and the palace. Farther up the hill, he saw a dilapidated fortress that must have served as a prison in the old days. The basement is full of political prisoners. A dirty place. The old town was built at the foot of a hill. The road narrowed there. Mitzi found it difficult to maneuver in the car mimmo carts playing with children and women carrying groceries. Here you will find the true color and charm of the island. We didn't see any tourists.
  
  
  We passed an old hotel that was in a state of disrepair. It looks like gingerbread. The lawns are overgrown with grass, and the windows and windows are boarded up with plywood. A hundred years ago, it was a luxury hotel.
  
  
  "I'm trying Poinciana," Mitzi said. "When it was built, it was the best hotel in the Caribbean. Now it's a termite paradise. Sometimes the ego of the ferret is still used by mountain dwellers who camp there when they need to be close to the city ."
  
  
  Some things on the girl were wrong. She didn't sound like a whore. There was education and intelligence in her voice. And for a simple money courier, her opinion made a big difference in the mafia. They even said hey my real identity. This made me curious. I asked her about it. She answered with a Mona Lisa smile.
  
  
  When Chip was worried that he might lose the casino, Davey called her and asked ego to send you here to save the day."
  
  
  Davey? Davey Hawk? Was Hawk following orders from this chick? I felt like I'd been punched below the waist. Was Mitzi Gardner an AX agent? Was Hawk playing his game again and letting me figure things out for myself again? "Honey," I said, " I'm very fond of jokes, but who the hell are you?"
  
  
  She answered my corkscrew question in rheumatism. "What hat should I wear for you?"
  
  
  He swore under his breath. "I'd rather you drop them all."
  
  
  She didn't lose her confidence. 'You're lucky. The time is almost here."
  
  
  We were now driving through an open area with dense jungle vegetation. Then there were sugar cane plains and small banana plantations. She told me about the changing economy of the area. Bananas were more profitable than sugar cane. They called it green gold. Meat, cloves, turkey, and fragrant tonka beans were also becoming increasingly attractive to grow. She said that Nah had her own small plantation on the other side of the island.
  
  
  The road wasn't straight at all. She walked along the coast for a while, then approached the mountains that stretched like a ridge through the center of the island. When we left the plantations, the area became swampy on the west side, and on the other side I saw deep canyons overgrown with trees and plants. We were about ten miles out of town when Mitzi turned the heavy car off the highway onto a country road, followed it for half a mile, but then stopped at a lagoon.
  
  
  She turned off the engine, kicked off her sandals, and opened the door. He sat down for a moment to examine the view. For the dark blue water, about a mile away, you could see the entire hotel area, and the terrain there rose steeply, and you could still see traces of the old fortress.
  
  
  And the view of the payouts right in front of me was even better. Mitzi took off all her clothes and ran to & nb. She turned and waved at me invitingly. But I didn't need the second hint. He quickly undressed and followed her.
  
  
  There was only a light outdoor activity, and the water was almost warm. The girl swam with a fast, smooth motion, and was only caught up by her far from the shore. Couldn't stand her, but we were & nb. Her skin felt soft. I tried to pull her down by her hips, but she threw herself back and dove around me. No one around us was quite ready when she surfaced, sighed, and dove back into me. There's nothing to hold on to in deep, but we didn't need to. She was gorgeous.
  
  
  When it was over, she surfaced. I swam up to her and we rested. Her fell asleep in a calm warm & nb. I didn't notice it until my target dropped down and plunged into the warm salt water.
  
  
  The girl was gone. I looked back and saw that she was already on the beach. On her belly, on a brown background of white sand. Her, noticed that you won't see the split on her swimsuit. He swam to the beach, flopped down next to her, and went back to sleep. So far, it's not my only transmission of her hoarse voice. "Good morning, Carter. You are about to meet an ally.
  
  
  He opened his eyes and saw that the sun was already setting in the west. There was no one in sight on the beach. Just a few crabs and lots of sand. Then she pointed to a promontory across the water. Something approached us over the water, but it wasn't a boat.
  
  
  It looked like a human figure. He blinked, shook his head, and looked again. He was still there. Three hundred meters away, and in the place where he noticed that it was absolutely impossible to stand here, a man came out. She was tall, thin, and dressed in a long white dress that fluttered like a fan. He approached us with a stately but determined approach. It was incredible.
  
  
  The girl next to me stood up and waved. She dressed quietly. I knew it was a hallucination. Admittedly, the water was salty and tasted like syrup, but he almost drowned when he fell asleep in it.
  
  
  The man was getting closer. About ten feet from the shore, he picked up his robe, plunged into the water up to his thighs, and rose again, approaching the shore. I thought he was about six feet tall. He was old, with a long beard and white hair. He was thin, but wiry.
  
  
  Hers was sitting naked on the sand, staring into dark eyes and wide mouth, smiling at Mitzi Gardner. She was sitting next to me, and he took her hand with fingers that could have reached for a basketball, gently, as if it were an egg. She said a few words to the emu in a language I didn't recognize, and they laughed. She looked at me and said: "This is Noah, Nick. He's been here longer than anyone can remember. He's also an opponent of communist missiles on the island."
  
  
  Its got up. What else could he have done to her?
  
  
  Noah looked at me carefully, then shook my hand. Mine completely disappeared into the ego palm, but he squeezed my Rivnenskaya hand just enough to inspire honesty and trust. He touched her flesh, warm, with blood inside, alive.
  
  
  "I really admire you, Mr. Carter. He had a distinct British accent, and a voice that he could growl if he wanted to. "Mitzi told me about meet your deeds, which cemented my faith in you."
  
  
  He swallowed it. "Your faith in me?" "At least I'm still doing what I can. I'm afraid you're exaggerating enormously.
  
  
  He looked at Mitzi. There had to be a close connection between them. Obviously, around respect, friendship and understanding. Then he turned his attention back to me.
  
  
  "I must apologize, Mr. Carter. Mitzi asked her to bring you here before you got too busy with your work. Unfortunately, there is a problem here ." He pointed to the mountain. "I must banish a serious illness. I can't stay right now, but I thought I should at least meet you and promise you my help if you need it. I hope you will visit me again."
  
  
  He leaned down, kissed the girl's earlobe, nodded at me, returned to & nb, picked up the robe, and disappeared just as he had come.
  
  
  He was watching him. Mitzi giggled. "What's left of your composure? I think you saw a ghost.
  
  
  He pointed it out to the ghost. 'How...?'
  
  
  She became serious, looked at me for a moment, and said: "Don't ask too much, Nick. Its really seen incredible things with them ferret as met this man. You will experience it too. Now we'd better get back to Fleming's before he wakes up and doesn't want to take a walk."
  
  
  As she dressed, he glanced back at the tall, dark figure that had suddenly disappeared from the rocks at the foot of the promontory hill. "Tell me more about your friend," he asked her.
  
  
  She shrugged a brown shoulder.
  
  
  "Think about what I told you. Be prepared for surprises. Noah can provide you with plenty around them, and I'm sure I haven't heard or seen all of them yet."
  
  
  She ran ahead of me to the car. When her father got in, the engine was roaring. Before I closed the door on her, she stepped on the accelerator and we drove at full speed along the track back to the road.
  
  
  He didn't tell us for a minute that this Noah guy had special magic. I just thought he was very smart and cunning. "Is he a hermit?" Mitzi asked her. Anything but that. He is the leader of a tribe of over a hundred people. They live in an old fortress. He says that ego, people settled here a few hundred years ago, then the slave revolts. Together, it's a creepy group. They can be everywhere in the jungle and you won't be able to see ih if they don't want to."
  
  
  "How did you know the ego?"
  
  
  She pursed her lips and looked at me.
  
  
  "It was also very strange. Hers was floating in the lagoon when he suddenly came down to give me a message. Chips ' assistant at the casino was killed, and Chip asked her to pass it on to Miami. This guy was killed at ten minutes past three. Noah told me at a quarter past three.
  
  
  It was easier that way. At least I had some solid ground under my feet now. "The jungle drum," I laughed. "Phone in the jungle".
  
  
  'Probably. But later, she was seen one day healing a very sick woman with voodoo. He said he was her pigeon. She stood still, and now it's getting better ."
  
  
  My head tingled. The girl next to me was strong enough to survive in the harsh world of the mafia. To do this, you need to have a practical attitude to everything. Now she was talking about voodoo and black magic as if she believed in them. I didn't ask her any more questions.
  
  
  We drove in silence for five minutes. Suddenly there was a black man in the middle of the road. He motioned for us to stop. Mitzi slowed down and opened the window. He seemed flustered; she asked ego something in the local dialect, and he shook his head. Without saying a word to us, Mitzi backed up, turned around, and accelerated.
  
  
  "Noah asked about us," she said. "There was a rush. Something was going to happen, but he didn't say what.
  
  
  He looked at Mitzi and then back at the messenger. The road was deserted. When we turned into the next signpost, the road was very bad. We would need a Jeep to easily overcome all the obstacles. I stopped half-way in front of a large pothole in the road.
  
  
  "We have to keep going," Mitzi said.
  
  
  You wouldn't call it walking. We climbed the trees like mountain goats until we finally reached a high wall built around the shale. The fortress occupied the entire cape and looked impregnable. When we passed through the gate, the courtyard walls were also made of slate. Stone buildings were built against it, some dilapidated and others in excellent condition. Ih roofs served as a platform for the wall. People gathered around the imposing figure of Tony won. They had the dark faces of Native Americans. The men wore only a loincloth, while the women wore short colorful skirts. Everyone was silent, the mood was depressed.
  
  
  As we entered, Noah came up to us. Ego's face was grim, but ego's demeanor remained proud and dignified.
  
  
  He broke the news to us without batting an eye. Dr. Fleming was abducted. Chip Cappola died trying to prevent it. Jerome took over the hotel. Cruise ships are evacuating all Americans and Europeans."
  
  
  I asked her, " Where's Tara Sawyer from?"
  
  
  It wasn't until later that it dawned on me where her information was coming from. But during our silent Cadillac ride, she didn't hear the jungle drum faction at all.
  
  
  The message didn't say anything about her, " Noah told me. In any case, the message was there. Therefore, he didn't rely solely on visions. "How did you know all this?"
  
  
  He glanced at the people around him, and he saw that ego's mouth was twitching impatiently. "Please don't doubt me, Mr. Carter. Not enough time. Dr. Fleming is being held in the dungeons under the old fortress, and Ego needs to be saved. Your Miss Sawyer was probably sent home on one of the ships.
  
  
  "It seems unlikely to me. I don't think Jerome would have let her go if he could have held her for ransom."
  
  
  "This is an argument. But that's not all. Descriptions of both of you were distributed, and ten thousand dollars were offered for your capture.
  
  
  He swore out loud. "As soon as I'm about to make a little detour, the sky goes down."
  
  
  "Glad you made that detour," Noah commented. "Otherwise, you'd be dead by now." At least now you can fight back."
  
  
  "I'd rather do something," I agreed. Her, looked at the girl. 'Stay here. You're safe here. Her beru you have a car."
  
  
  'We're welcome. You don't know the area. I know her, and I still have a job to do." There was a metallic note in her voice that hinted at the character traits that had earned her a place in the mafia fraternity.
  
  
  "She's right," Noah said. "You can't go back to Port of Spain by the coastal road. You'll have to go through the mountains, and then you'll be able to use whatever help you can get." He pointed a long finger at one fat, dark man, then another. "Pants, shirt. Hurry up. You're coming with me."
  
  
  I didn't like it. How could I be sure that Tony's story was true? And who would need this escort on a journey that God knows how will end? But I had no choice. Noah and Ego people made up the majority, and even Mitzi sided with Tony won. So I agreed, at least for now. By the time we got to the Cadillac, the couple was there, too, grinning. Our guides were now wearing knee-length cotton trousers and white shirts with rolled-up sleeves. They had machetes hidden in their belts.
  
  
  They play this game from behind.
  
  
  There was nowhere to turn, and Mitzi had to push the car back and forth for five minutes until we were finally able to get down the hill. The main road was already bad, and this one was terrible. We were driving in low gear over what looked like Swiss cheese with holes in it, and to make matters worse, we ended up on a cliff on the other side of the ridge. We turned and followed a narrow path that led slowly down. The car on one side brushed the mountainside, and on the other its staring into an abyss of unfathomable depth. He didn't say anything, so as not to distract Mitzi. He could concentrate better on driving.
  
  
  After a few kilometers of these hardships, we drove through the bushes again, and I was able to breathe freely again. "So you know the way," Mitzi told her. "How do we get into Jerome's dungeons?"
  
  
  She shook her head. "We have to find out something about this first. First we need to go to that old hotel that she showed you on the way to your first meeting with Nov. There we can develop our plans ."
  
  
  It was getting dark when we finally came out on a road wide enough for a Cadillac. We could see lights through the vegetation below. So, we were not far from the city. Mitzi turned on the headlights to get out on the road.
  
  
  A beam of light illuminated the uniformed man. He pointed a gun at us. The girl immediately slowed down, put the car in reverse, and accelerated again. Her instinctively turned around. The taillights caught another soldier who had just turned his rifle up. Before the ego shotgun was high enough to hit anyone around us, my Luger fired. At the same time, the windshield was broken. There was a lot of shrapnel on Mitzi, but she kept driving. She was shot through the gap where the windshield used to be, and the soldier in front of the car fell.
  
  
  Mitzi stopped the car, and I had time to check out our guides. None of them were harmed. They were curled up in the back seats, and now they were carefully getting up again. I went out to take a closer look at the presents Colonel Jerome had given us. Two soldiers were killed. IH took her uniform and weapons and threw them in the backseat. Tony Won's men grabbed their guns. I told her. "Can you handle it?"
  
  
  They could. They served as palace guards when Fleming was president. Perhaps someday we will be able to use this knowledge. For the time being, he kept his weapons to himself and ordered the two of them to drag the corpses into the bushes, where they would lie quietly until some hungry beast appeared.
  
  
  In any case, the road blockade proved that the information Tony had won was correct. This old man had more up his sleeve than she cared to admit. So Jerome was in charge, Noah said. It was time to think of a way to free Fleming. Tony's authority also gave me more confidence in my ego friends. After all, they introduced themselves, and now that they've proven they can handle weapons, they can still be useful.
  
  
  We had no trouble getting to the hotel, and Mitzi parked the car in an abandoned shed behind the building. From there, we went to a dilapidated lobby. The smell of mildew and rotting wood competed for supremacy. Our guides led us up the creaking stairs to the kitchen. It was a large kitchen with shelves along one wall and a worktable in the middle. We weren't alone. A candle was burning on the table, and three men were eating iguana, a local delicacy that made my stomach growl.
  
  
  Then, with the two men and our two guides excitedly chatting with the three natives, we were finally able to eat. When my brutal hunger was satisfied, his felt a little less like a yo-yo on a rope of surprises and difficulties. My plate was still half full when the three natives left. He was happy to see them go. We needed to work out our tactics, and I didn't feel like an uninvited party.
  
  
  Noah gave me the names of our guides, but since I didn't know the language, ih forgot it. I remember it only because it was long and had a lot of consonants. However, nu didn't want to offend her by just calling ih Tom or Harry, so he explained his problem to her and asked ih for his opinion.
  
  
  The taller of the two laughed and said: "You can call me Lambie." He pronounced it a solid "four".
  
  
  Mitzi said in my ear, " Lambie. this is a large clam. They eat ego meat to increase their potency."
  
  
  Nen has style, " I grinned. "The price of many people is better than, for example, my name is N3. And you?"Her, looked at number two.
  
  
  She smiled broadly. 'Military personnel.'
  
  
  "Short enough," I agreed. 'What does this mean?'
  
  
  He laughed again. "A bird of prey. Very dangerous.'
  
  
  'Excellent.'Ih loved her. They might be joking about the prospect of fighting the entire Grand Laclair army. Maybe we still had a small chance.
  
  
  "You understand that we need Dr. Fleming. Get Fleming out of jail forever. But first we need to get there. Does anyone around you know anything about escape routes, such as tunnels that prisoners may have dug in the past?
  
  
  Rheumatism was negative. There was one. Too narrow to turn around and too steep to crawl back into the cell. Where the hole had opened, there was now an iron gate. Across from her, the faded skull of the unfortunate man who had made one last attempt to escape still lay. It was a long time ago. So we have to work on our gut instinct, and it often turns out to be bloody. I told her what I thought about it. "Where do you think you want to start?"
  
  
  Oni Aryans felt sorry for their shoulders. I said it for both of them. "If Fleming dies, so will we. Jerome wants to build a rocket station on our planet. We will fight, but we don't have enough men and weapons to stop ego."
  
  
  I started liking the couple more and more. Ih age was hard to guess, but ih skin was smooth and ih coordination was fine. They moved with the grace of tigers. He pointed to the uniform. 'Put this on. You will play the role of soldiers. You've captured Mitzi and me, and you're going to take us to the fortress. You'll say Jerome ordered us locked up on Fleming's digital cameras.
  
  
  The girl's eyes narrowed for a moment. I didn't like risking her life, but our "trick" would have been more convincing if she was there too.
  
  
  The military and Lambie took off their shirts and trousers, hesitated with their loincloths for a moment, then shyly turned around and took off their ih too. Both of them wore owang, for the battle amulets on their belts, around their necks. Sure, the weapons were handy, but maybe they thought it wouldn't hurt to have a little extra protection. They put on army doublets over their amulets, put on trousers, and if they knew we were ready to go.
  
  
  Mitzi was driving. Her sel was next to her, and two of our craftsmen were sitting in the back, guns pointed at our necks. On the way to the fortress, the girl made the most of the short path. The streets were surprisingly empty. Everyone stayed inside and kept the curtains closed. The shops were dark and boarded up from looters. Port of Spain was suddenly a dark city, very different from the fun of the previous night.
  
  
  The fortress was located on a low hill. The green lawn in front of him did its best to make it look friendly, but that effect was ruined by the iron fence around him and the cannon mounted in the center of the lawn. Parking in front of the gate didn't make the place any more comfortable.
  
  
  Kapralov and two soldiers saw our lights and blocked the road, guns drawn. Mitzi slowed down and stopped a few feet in front of them. Behind me, Lambie exclaimed, " Kapralov, let's go and see what we've got. Fat catch! He pushed me forward with the muzzle of his gun and laughed heartily.
  
  
  Kapralov approached cautiously. The hotel first has a look at this. The steamers shared a success story about how they got us and the insurmountable challenges they had to overcome. Kapralov was impressed. When they finished their story, he slowly raised the rifle and pointed it at me.
  
  
  My life shrank. He wouldn't shoot Mitzi. He was sure of it. Nah they could take a bail or a ransom. But what Jerome had planned for me was completely different. Kapralov left me in the dark for a moment, looking at me through the visor. Then he barked a command. The soldiers cleared a path. Kapralov got into the car and ordered Mitzi to go to the fortress. It was a gray building. No windows and only one door in the middle, like an open mouth. There was even a wooden tongue sticking out of it. Mitzi had stopped and parked in the tiled parking lot, and now he could see that the wooden tongue was a drawbridge over a deep moat. There were weeds growing in nen now, but a long time ago there was a queue of slaves sitting here. pouring water over her ego through her dress. Each attacker had to rely on a wetsuit. A soldier was standing in the middle of the bridge, and the entire area was illuminated by bright spotlights. Kapralov went out. "Take ih while I hold that guy at gunpoint."
  
  
  I was pushed around the car. Mitzi got out on the other side. The military and Lambie had their guns pressed to our backs. Kapralov gloated a little more and went inside. A few minutes later, he arrived again, accompanied by a lieutenant. The soldier on the bridge of raw saluted, and the newcomer's demeanor told me that he was in charge here.
  
  
  Kapralov chatted with busy gestures until the officer silenced ego with a gesture. From the stars in her ego eyes, he could guess who would have won the award if it had been a real capture.
  
  
  Lambie remarked, " Orders from the Colonel. These two should be locked up, aka digital cameras, just like Fleming. You see, all the captured birds are together.
  
  
  "I see," the lieutenant said shortly. "Take ih to the guardhouse."
  
  
  He turned, and we were forced to follow him down a stone corridor that echoed eerily. A real nightmare for those suffering from claustrophobia. In the guardhouse, the lieutenant signaled that we should search.
  
  
  The military quickly said, " We've already searched ih, Lieutenant. They are one hundred percent pure."
  
  
  The lieutenant chuckled, " Very good.'"Nick Carter, isn't he? "Very dangerous," said the Colonel. But I think your teeth will be pulled out tonight."
  
  
  He shrugged and tried to look like a beaten dog. Now he turned his attention to Mitzi. Even with tears in her eyes and cowering like a frightened cat, she was still worth seeing. Maybe emu liked it when she was a little submissive. For a moment, her hips rocked back and forth, and he lifted her chin with one finger.
  
  
  The colonel says you're worth a lot to the syndicate. That they want to pay to get you back. We know that." Mitzi looked even more terrified, clapping her hand over her mouth and sobbing. "Please, sir, don't send me to them. They will kill me."
  
  
  He raised his eyebrows. "If you love ih so much, why would they do that?"
  
  
  She bit her lip for a moment, then, as if she knew the lieutenant would be able to make her talk, she whispered, " I don't know.: "I needed to bring some money somewhere. But ego didn't deliver it. Now, there are dollar signs in the ego's dark eyes. God, he had an imagination. He's absurdly impatient. "Where are these dollars now?" She suddenly looked hopeful. "I can show you where ... If you let us go, I'll ..."
  
  
  Ego's laugh was unpleasant.
  
  
  "You want a lot, honey. As for Carter, if I'd lost her ego, the colonel would have handcuffed me instead. He lifted his shoulders. "For some reason, he's actually thinking about this gentleman here."
  
  
  The girl rubbed her hands together, held out her ih emu, and came licking up to him, submissive and aroused at every step.
  
  
  "Just her, then?" Just you and him?'
  
  
  Lust was visible on his face. Without taking his eyes off us, he spoke to our two men. "One person around you will stay here, the other will take Carter to the cell."
  
  
  I had a scary moment when I thought that the lieutenant wanted to be alone with the girl. Then her, realized he could send me with one of the guys around. He flexed his muscles a bit, as if I liked the idea and he was planning to attack the person along the way. Mitzi can handle a lieutenant, but there might be a fight, and I didn't need an incident that would mobilize more soldiers. The lieutenant saw my movements, grinned, and decided to come with me anyway. He walked out the door ahead of Lambie and me. Mitzi called after emu in a sweet tone, " Lieutenant ... see you later, yes ..."
  
  
  He walked down the hall, and I noticed that his gait was more agitated than his military gait. The lieutenant's thoughts were not about ego duty. At the end of the corridor, he opened a thick stone door, motioned us in, and slammed it behind him. Her suspicion was that with this granite block behind us, no sounds could penetrate through the dungeons on the ground floor. We went up a stone spiral staircase and entered a lower corridor. Water dripped and there was a musty smell. There was no peace but the lieutenant's lantern, and he led the way again, passing twenty barred doors on either side of the fetid corridor. At the end of the corridor, he took out a brass key about four inches long, unlocked the door, and stood by the cell.
  
  
  Dr. Fleming was sitting against the wall, one hand pursed to each tribe. He stretched his other leg out in front of him. It looked ugly and swollen. He was sitting on the green moss that covered the stone floor, and one of Ego's arms hung over his head on an iron smash attached to the groan.
  
  
  He looked up, blinked, and saw Sell and me. Then he saw my guard and finally the lieutenant. His shoulders slumped again, and egoism slumped forward in dejection. The officer stood over him, smiling. He unfastened his holster, pulled out his revolver, and stepped so that he could see Fleming and me clearly, slowly aiming the weapon at my waist.
  
  
  "Mr. President," the voice sounded slippery. "Were you hoping to find a good ally on the island? A man who has already saved you once, and may be able to do it again? I present the ego to you. He can stay with you."
  
  
  Behind me, Lambie was obviously holding his breath. I had several options. I could have stood aside and let my math class and shot the lieutenant. But maybe the officer was faster, and he was beginning to understand Lambie more and more. Or I could have taken my mind off it and pulled out my Luger.
  
  
  While he was thinking this, a rat the size of a cat darted through the cell through the lieutenant's boots. Sergei ego lanterna probably scared the animal. The lieutenant jumped out of the way and shot her. That gave me enough time to grab my Luger. Her shot Lieutenant Frank in the head. The lantern flew through the air. Ego was able to catch it with his free hand, burning his fingers on the hot lamp, but he was able to quickly put it down without breaking it. The lieutenant fell on his face. The green moss on the floor slowly turned red. Lambie snorted with satisfaction. I was glad that my move didn't take ego by surprise. Finally, by reflex, he could pull the trigger and shoot me. He thanked him with a pat on the shoulder.
  
  
  Fleming blinked. He still wasn't used to the light. He was embarrassed.
  
  
  "I don't understand anything else," he muttered. "Colonel Jerome is asking me to come back and run the country. Then why am I being arrested now? Why did they bring you here?" Why are you so well-equipped for this soldier?
  
  
  "Later," ego silenced her. "There's no time right now." US David Hawke, US Tara Sawyer wouldn't want Fleming to know about AX's meddling. After Jerome's betrayal, he was tempted to tell Em everything. But if Hawk and Tara were right, if Fleming started acting stubborn and didn't want to play anymore, who would Frobel Island be? So I'll have to lie. He pointed to his leg. "How badly are you injured?"
  
  
  He still looked puzzled, but his ego was trying to divert its attention from political topics.
  
  
  He sighed. "My beginnings are broken."
  
  
  He started searching the lieutenant's pockets and asked for the key to the handcuffs. The ego was not with you. I could have fired at the chain, but I didn't have much ammunition. I might need some bullets upstairs. I put one foot on the wall and pulled her. The mortar between the stones was centuries old, and was weakened by the action of moisture. He felt the chain buckle a little, but it didn't come off. Hers twitched a few more times, but it was useless. We have to dig this thing out. Her, I made a quick movement with my hand, and the stiletto fell from its suede scabbard into my curved fingers. The razor-sharp metal bit into the mortar, knocking adobe over brick by brick. Lambie started helping. It took longer than he'd thought. Despite the cold, he was sweating. If the lieutenant doesn't arrive soon, it might occur to someone to go find out what happened to him.
  
  
  Its made a deep groove on one side of the bracket. Then he pulled the chain with all his might, along with Lambie. When it broke free, we fell to the smooth moss. Fleming was drawn forward. Lambie and I raised our egos. He could stand on his good leg, although he was very weak, and his head was spinning from the noise we had to make. Left her Lambie to keep her ego up while he photographed the lieutenant's jacket. Ego also took her belt and revolver and gave them all to Lambie.
  
  
  "Take off this jacket and put this one on. You've been promoted ."
  
  
  Lambie obeyed. With Fleming between us, we returned to the guardhouse.
  
  
  Mitzi Gardner's dainty chest arched in relief. She grabbed a chair for Fleming, and as he sank into it, she asked:: "Where have you been for so long? We just want to go out and see. God, what had they done to him?
  
  
  "Keys. Look in the drawers.
  
  
  He opened the top drawer and tossed me a handful. I tried it several times before finally finding the right one. What's more, the lock was so rusty that I had to beat the ego with a paperweight before it opened. Only when the handcuffs were removed did he see the nails inside and the blood around the wounds on Fleming's wrist. The rust from the old smashing was in the wounds, but it was impossible to wash it off. There was no medicine in the waiting room. You should wait.
  
  
  He told me how he was going to leave the fortress. Lambie was standing with his back to the wall in his new uniform. I had to tell the soldier on the bridge that the lieutenant wanted to see ego. If he came, we tied up the ego and gagged the emu. Mitzi then ran to the car and brought ee to the drawbridge. We got Fleming out on the bridge and Ego dragged her to the car. Lambie, in his lieutenant's jacket, sat in the front seat, between Mitzi and the Others.
  
  
  At the guard post, Lambie would point the lieutenant's revolver at Mitzi, turning toward her so that the guard wouldn't see, egoism. He would tell the corporal that Jerome had ordered the girl to be taken to him. If it had worked, we would have passed. If that doesn't work, I'll still have the Luger. Lambie and the Military were also armed. And three to three is a very favorable ratio.
  
  
  We got there in a Cadillac, no problem. Mitzi turned on her headlights and drove down the hill. The sentries saw that we were in Eden, and they went along the road without blocking us in the least. They didn't expect an escape attempt.
  
  
  Kapralov raised his hand to make a routine check, and Mitzi rolled down the window. He leaned forward to cover Lambie's face and tried to look impatient. "The colonel changed his mind. He wants a girl brought to him. Now.'
  
  
  Kapralov looked worried. "Lieutenant, if you bring ee yourself, who's in charge here?"
  
  
  "You," Lambie snapped. "Don't let anyone pass until I get back.....'
  
  
  Kapralov jumped back. Lambie's voice didn't sound like the lieutenant's. "Hey ... wait... you're not ... hey ... what does this mean?"
  
  
  He heard the shot and got to his knees. The military shot the corporal. The soldiers weren't on their guard, but as Mitzi drove quickly, one of them managed to put his hand on the doorknob. He smashed her arm with the butt of his luger and then shot the soldier. The other man aimed his rifle, but didn't have time to pull the trigger. It was just in time to pump lead into the emu's stomach.
  
  
  It was great. We were now speeding down the road at full speed. We were at the bottom of the hill when I heard a car. She knew the sound all too well. We're out of gas. Mitzi stopped the car, looked at me, and shrugged. Since emergency laws were in effect all over the island, there was no chance of refueling. All gas stations were closed. And Fleming was in no condition to walk twenty miles in the mountains.
  
  
  We might be able to take ego to the Tony Won hotel, but what's next? If Jerome realized that Dr. Fleming had escaped, he wouldn't be safe anywhere near Port of Spain. I had to find another car. From where we were now, I could see the coastal road below. A Jeep was parked near the old town. Dark figures were standing around him, and lanterns were burning on the road. It was a roadblock. Its decided.
  
  
  "This is our new mode of transport. I do not know how many soldiers we will have to take out of the assembly, but we cannot risk firing shots.
  
  
  Maybe there are other people who can step in. You two approach them and distract these guys. I'll take care of them. Try putting ih together. Mitzi, do you have a revolver?" She took offense at me."Do I look naked?"
  
  
  "Stay here with Fleming. If someone comes, ah, here, if there is no other way out, but first try to see if this is not a trick."
  
  
  Lambie and the Military were gone. He walked around the houses on the hill. When mimmo of homes passed it, it was examined by the environment. Now she could clearly see the roadblock lights. My shaggy ones drowned out ferns and other plants. He walked over to the jeep and looked around carefully until he saw the patrol car. Ih didn't understand her, but whatever Lambie and the Military were telling us, it must have been a lot of fun. The four soldiers standing in a group around my two boys were bent over with laughter. They turned their backs on me. He acted quickly, afraid that they would turn around. "She should have followed them with the Luger ready," I said sharply. "You are all being targeted. We are a single movement! '
  
  
  The laughter suddenly stopped. They stood frozen. Lambie took a few steps back and took aim. The gold braid of ego camisole's epaulettes glinted in the darkness. He ran to the jeep, reached into the rear compartment, and returned with a rope. The rest was done quickly. When I'd tied up the last four meals and gagged her, I checked the Jeep's gas supply. To my relief, the tank was full. "Put ih in the bushes and get those lights out of the way," I said. "I'm going to pick up Fleming."
  
  
  He drove the Jeep back to where we'd left the Cadillac. Only now did he notice that the jeep's headlights weren't working. Damn it!
  
  
  Mitzi helped me transfer Fleming to a smaller car. She got in next to me when her father got behind the wheel and drove down. "Lamby and the Military have to get to the hotel on their own. From there, they can safely return home ."
  
  
  The Jeep must have been good, but it wasn't the perfect solution. With no headlights and no checks to save, I didn't have to think about driving through the mountains. The thought of driving like this, over twisting mimmo roads with all sorts of precipices, gave me goosebumps. It should risk driving along the coastal road.
  
  
  Lambie and the Military didn't like to fall behind, but they saw it as the only solution.
  
  
  When they left, she was brought back in the Jeep. Now I was finally able to give Fleming the spin that had been tormenting me for a while. Her, he called over his shoulder: "Do you know what happened to Tara Sawyer? They let her go?
  
  
  'No. The soldiers who captured me said they would demand a million-dollar ransom for nah. Where are you taking me anyway?"
  
  
  "To Noah."
  
  
  Ego's voice echoed with pain and fear. "Yes, this is the first one. Then I'll have to go to the city. People will listen to me."
  
  
  He let the emu fool him. I've had enough problems myself not to argue with him. I was worried about Tara Sawyer. I couldn't let anything happen to her. Her, stepped on the gas. The sooner I get it to Fleming and Mitzi, the sooner I can get back to town. I turned the corner and saw lights on the road ahead. Another obstacle.
  
  
  "Dive down," Mitzi hissed at her. "And get ready."
  
  
  I slowed her down. Her hotel, so they'd think I was going to stop, only to break through the barrier at the last minute. I saw it only ten meters away: a huge truck with a small fast howitzer in the trunk. It blocked the entire path. There was no passageway.
  
  
  On one side of us, the oily water from the swamp reflected the holy light from the lanterns. So I wouldn't have gone any further there. On the other side were palm trees. They don't grow in & nb, so there would have been solid soil, but the trees were licks to each other than I would have liked. I wondered if I could pass it in a Jeep. But this was the least bad option. Her steering wheel turned and she slid off the road with the throttle on the board. I heard them yell," Stop, " and then a gunshot. Gawk whizzed high through the palm leaves.
  
  
  A warning shot.
  
  
  Nice people! Mitzi turned in her chair and returned fire, but not so carefully, not in the air. I didn't look back. I felt like I was riding a wild stallion for the first time in my life. He crashed into a tree, jumped the other way, on two wheels, and almost rolled over. They shot at us, but they didn't see us. I tried to get back to the road, but when I did, I found another surprise there.
  
  
  There was a Jeep on the road, and four soldiers ran towards it. Fleming let out screams of pain behind me. It wasn't fun for him. Mitzi fired a shot over Fleming's head at the Jeep that was chasing us when she was pushed as far as she could by the small car driver. It wasn't fast enough. The one around our tires was empty.
  
  
  "Nick, they're gaining on us." Mitzi shouted.
  
  
  Hey, you didn't have to tell me. Ih Gawk slammed into the metal Jeep almost at the same moment as she heard the gunshots. He gave me a Luger.
  
  
  "Try to get into the group. Aim and shoot again." She used both hands, but it is very difficult to aim at a moving target when you are being shaken from side to side. It was one of those times when I wondered if my name would be added to the list that Hawke keeps in his safe, and each name has an asterisk to indicate that the person in question is dead.
  
  
  Mitzi screamed. Her, thought she was hurt, but she sat candid. I saw her crash in the rearview mirror. Behind us, the Jeep spun out of control and sped at full speed into the swamp, where it slowly and majestically sank to the bottom. Hers, saw the headlights flash briefly before going out.
  
  
  Mitzi shoved the luger between my legs and turned around. We were riding on the same flat tire. It wasn't the only noise in the night. In the jungle, the sound of bamboo sticks hitting hollow wooden drums could be heard. It was a muffled, ominous sound. He wondered if the Military and Lambie could send a wireless message to the tribe. Perhaps it was a message about our escape, sent by unseen figures in the rainforest.
  
  
  The rhythm picked up. It was like a disaster. Behind me, I heard her faint voice of Dr. X. Fleming. "We are being watched, and they are quickly catching up with us."
  
  
  She was pushed to the last speed by the jeep's software.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  
  
  
  -
  
  
  Right in front of us on the road, someone with a lantern motioned us to turn onto a country road. Stahl didn't ask her any questions and swerved. He drove the car across the sand to another torch by the water's edge, turned on the ignition, and got out.
  
  
  Noah was there, now without a white dress and wearing a loincloth. On the road we were just driving down, I heard the sound of a car approaching. We didn't have enough time. We were standing with our backs to the sea. And my Lugger was deserted.
  
  
  Mitzi came out too. Noah pulled Fleming up to his knees under strong hands.
  
  
  "Come with me, Carter. Take Mitzi's hand and don't let go. Stay behind me."
  
  
  Luger tucked her into his belt, took her hand, and followed Nov. What else could he do to her? We're going to die soon anyway. And maybe we could even swim so far away that our pursuers wouldn't find us if we just kept our heads low enough in the dark waves.
  
  
  Noah stepped calmly and confidently into the sea. It is easily soluble by Fleming. The sea rose around ego's leg, to the middle of ego's thighs, then suddenly it began to rise again, step by step.
  
  
  On the next step, her toe hit something hard. He almost tripped, then lifted his foot. Her foot scraped a rock and a little higher felt the hard ground. Her, putting your alenka on it. I reached out to every tribe, and I felt like I was a step above the first one. We went up four steps and walked openly on uneven stone surfaces, perhaps six inches under the water.
  
  
  He chuckled softly. Her was well versed in this incantation. It was the first time Tony Possessed had seen her, walking along this stone path. However, he realized that it was an old stone structure, probably a flood barrier that had long since sunk below sea level as a result of an earthquake. I didn't think Noah had ever seen ego over water. He probably discovered the ego by accident while swimming, and despite not being a showman, he used it to scare his superstitious followers.
  
  
  Behind me, Mitzi heard her giggle. "It's a great honor for you, Nick. Now you know something that is a mystery to almost everyone. Watch out for slippery areas and stay in the middle. The wall is only half a meter wide ."
  
  
  He squeezed her hand. Strong enough. "You knew and tried to tell me stories about Santa Claus, you dirty whore. How did you become known?'
  
  
  "While swimming. She hit her head on it and lost consciousness. Noah saved me. He didn't tell me what I'd stumbled upon until hers threatened Emu that I'd take care of it myself. He swore to keep it a secret."
  
  
  We were almost on the other side when a pair of floodlights shone over the water. There were shouts of permission to perform and anger. They found the jeep, but there were no people. We were already out of the world's reach, so they couldn't see us. We came to a steep cliff with a narrow staircase carved into it. It was a long and difficult climb, but Noah, carrying Fleming, showed no signs of fatigue as he reached the top step and jumped five feet down onto the platform that now served both as a rampart and roof for the houses below. I thought that he would succeed as a fitness trainer in the AX program. He handed Fleming into his outstretched arms, and the president was quickly ushered into the room.
  
  
  When we arrived, I noticed that the room was already equipped for ego treatment. Burning torches hung from the stone walls. In the center of the floor was a cot covered with fragrant leaves. We passed a sort of honor guard consisting of tribesmen, each of whom touched Fleming lightly, as if to give the emu some of their strength.
  
  
  When Fleming was laid on the bed, he told her: "His leg is broken, and there is rust on his wrist. He must have blood poisoning, and I didn't have time to go to the pharmacy for antibiotics. The emu needs it now. Is there a way to get it here? '
  
  
  The tall, dark-skinned man looked at me dispassionately. Fleming's voice sounded weak, but he smiled. "Thank you for your concern, Mr. Carter, but I'm in good hands. Her bet on Tony's medical knowledge is higher than that of the most expensive specialist on Park Avenue."
  
  
  The patriarch said softly ," We have been informed of the nature of your injuries, and we can start treatment immediately."
  
  
  Two women from Fleming. Noah knelt down next to him and dipped a sponge in the liquid that was already sitting in the bowl next to the bed. With that, he cleaned the wound on Fleming's wrist. Then he spread a thick green jelly on the nah.
  
  
  "It's a warm blend of coca leaves and green soap," Noah said. "We'll put a blindfold on him. This material will draw out the dirt around the wound, and then the arm will heal quickly."
  
  
  Treating the legs was a bit more difficult. Noah straightened his leg. Then, he dipped his finger into a bowl of dark red thick substance. With that, he drew a circle around the wound, and inside the circle, he drew an "X".
  
  
  He smiled at me. "Rooster's blood," he explained. "To exorcise the devil by bone." Now several layers of spiced leaves were tied to the leg, on top of which was a paste of warm flour. Tight bandage around the entire leg.
  
  
  I was wondering how much of this was a manifestation of primitive medicine, which has proven its effectiveness over the centuries, and psychological influence.
  
  
  I didn't know her. But Fleming believed in it, and perhaps that belief can heal the ego. Like many leading politicians, he may secretly be deeply religious.
  
  
  And if he didn't admit it publicly, maybe deep down he accepted the forbidden mysticism of voodoo. But I didn't have time to wait and see how it would turn out for him.
  
  
  Tony took her aside and asked What's the matter: "Did the drums also tell you that Fleming wants to go back to the city and perform in front of people?"
  
  
  The old man smiled wryly. Fleming is an idealist, and very stubborn in his beliefs. But when he gets over the shock, I'll tell em the truth. I suppose you want to go back and free Miss Sawyer?"
  
  
  I didn't tell Em what we'd said about the hotel magnate's daughter. He knew a great deal for someone who lived so far up the hill. Perhaps it was the drums that kept the ego informed, coupled, of course, with the ability to correctly explain these rare jungle signs.
  
  
  My face went a little stiff as I said, " If I don't get her back in one piece, I don't think I'll survive on my own."
  
  
  Mitzi was eavesdropping. "You're crazy if you try this. But if you do, I'll go with you."
  
  
  "Wrong assumption," I said. "I can't use you. Noah, make sure she stays here.
  
  
  To my surprise, he nodded. "I'll give you guides ..."
  
  
  "No," ego interrupted. "I'll just go back the way we came."
  
  
  He raised his eyebrows. I knew that in the end, he wouldn't be able to change my mind. He shrugged, took Mitzi's hand, and went back to Fleming.
  
  
  He walked over to a ladder carved into the rock. Behind him, he could hear her rousing tribesmen singing, probably intended to help Fleming recover. Her stepped over the wall and into the water back to the other side. The Jeep saw her vaguely. It seemed deserted. There was no sign of the soldiers.
  
  
  Halfway down, my foot hit a slippery clump of seaweed growing between rocks, and he slipped. He stood up, spitting mud. he straightened up and walked more cautiously.
  
  
  When I got to the beach, I got soaked.
  
  
  He took off his clothes and tried to wring them out as best he could. Luger dried it as best he could and dropped the gun on the front seat of the Jeep. He draped her clothes over the hood so they could dry in the warmth of the engine.
  
  
  Her boot was still on. They're wet, but I need them for the ride.
  
  
  I was looking forward to a good trip with a flat tire and wasn't disappointed. When she reached the spot where the other Jeep had entered the swamp, she stopped to load the Luger . I saw her, activity on the spot, three or four men on the side of the road. Maybe the people who were in the car didn't drown, but I didn't see what they were doing.
  
  
  The Odin around them suddenly stepped into the middle of the road and motioned for me to drive closer. She was almost knocked down by Ego nogi, but he saw the loincloth just in time. She still had her Luger ready and drove up to Lick. I heard her laugh, a sort of triumphant sound, and then the Jeep's nose shot out through the swamp. They took out the ego. It was deserted. No dead bodies.
  
  
  Tony Won's jungle helpers pulled out the spare tire and rolled the ego back to me. I got out and saw the two men around them lift up the front of my Jeep, change the wheel, and put the car back in with a big smile, which meant everything was fine now. Then they quickly disappeared among the palm trees. So fast, he wouldn't have seen it if he'd just blinked.
  
  
  Its driving fast, guess what I'll find up ahead, where a big truck has blocked the road. Tony Marshall's men were busy there too, but the car was too heavy and they couldn't move it. He got out, got behind the wheel of the truck, and motioned them out of the way. I put it in reverse and jumped out. It was a beautiful sight to see the truck slide into the swamp. Only the gun barrel was still slightly above the water.
  
  
  On my further journey to a remote hotel, no one met her. A couple of men were playing in the kitchen. The game was new to me. Each man had a polished chip that looked oddly like a human finger. They took turns rolling ih around the table. Who came up to lick the cleavage in the middle of the stomach of the chair, - said the Prime Minister, judging by the excitement that it caused. Koko was the last to roll. He let out a loud cry as his finger fell into the crack. The losers paid emu twice as much. When he and Lambie saw me, they stopped playing. When I told them I wanted them to take me to the Sawyer Hotel, they didn't look very excited.
  
  
  Lambie coughed significantly. "It was risky enough to deceive the lieutenant in the fortress," he said. "But deceive the colonel? "I don't know."'
  
  
  I needed a couple of assistants. It was important that they trusted in the success of the operation. Nervous and doubtful people didn't need us. "Noah knows where we're going," I announced. "And he will help us."
  
  
  They were magic words. If Noah thought it might work, it would. We went up in the Jeep in a good mood.
  
  
  The streets of the city were still empty. In total, we saw no more than a sixth person. When they hear the Jeep, they're as scared as mice. There was no traffic, all public buildings were closed, and the windows were dark except on the ground floor of the Sawyer Hotel.
  
  
  He pointed a rifle at my back as we drove toward the main entrance. A sentry in the shadows watched us all day.
  
  
  He jumped out and motioned for me to follow him. Her father came up to her, accompanied by the Military and "Lieutenant" Lambie. The guard stopped us. 'I'm sorry. The colonel said no one was coming tonight.
  
  
  Lambie stretched and glared at the soldier. "We'll go inside. If you want to stop us, you might end up getting hurt. This prisoner is Nick Carter, the man for whom Jerome offered a thousand dollars. Get moving.
  
  
  The guard pointed a rifle at me and licked his lips. "In that case, I'll bring her ego there."
  
  
  Lambie growled. "Oh, no, you won't drive your ego. I'll deliver it myself. You think you can take this award away from me. Get back, you bastard! '
  
  
  The sentry looked guilty and didn't move fast enough. A military man walked past mimmo me and hit his ego with the butt of a rifle across the ear. At the same time, he accidentally touched the trigger. Gawk my leg whizzed past, between, higher than it should have been. It was starting to get too realistic. Lambie showed his teeth again. "Colonel. Where is he?'
  
  
  The now rather impressed guard muttered almost unintelligibly: "At the casino, Lieutenant. Guide you?"
  
  
  "I think we can find it ourselves." There was a warning in Lambie's voice. "Stay at your post."
  
  
  He pushed me into the lobby. Thomas Sawyer would have been shocked to see the damage. Large benches were laid out. The shelves of newspapers and magazines were overturned, but none of the display cases were left untouched. The store shelves were empty. What a mess!
  
  
  Colonel Karib Jerome might be a good conspirator, but he was a lousy commander. If he hadn't allowed his men to rob him, he would have won more, if his plans had been successful, of course.
  
  
  The casino was even worse than the lobby. Thousands of gaming tables were destroyed and could not be repaired. On the Internet, nudes above the elongated bar were scratched, figures were cut out. The military and Lambie whistled. "Good news missed."
  
  
  Glassware was smashed on the floor around the bar. There were no bottles. The military men and Lambie looked awkwardly around the empty rooms. "Where did everyone go? Where's the colonel?"
  
  
  "He's sleeping out of a daze. How about there are three hundred rooms with comfortable beds. As for Jerome, I think he's in the Cappola Chip office counting casino money. Let's go to him.
  
  
  We have passed mimmo cash registers. They remained untouched. But there were no stacks of coins behind the glass partition, no bills in the open drawers. The soldiers were kept away from here. He pressed the button that normally activated the sliding metal door.
  
  
  Its passed between the guys. The unfriendly black security guard at the control desk was caught off guard. He reached for his revolver, but then he saw that Lambie's gun was on my back, felt me, and laughed.
  
  
  "No, but, Mr. Carter. Where did you find it, Lieutenant?"
  
  
  He might have switched sides, but it seemed more likely to me that he had been Jerome's spy all along.
  
  
  "Detained at a checkpoint. Tell the colonel we're here.
  
  
  But the negro wasn't going to let us in yet. "Mitzi left here with Carter. Where is she?'
  
  
  Lambie Aryan shrugged. "She wasn't with him. Maybe she's gone."
  
  
  "Well, it's not important." He pressed the doorbell. "Colonel, you have company."
  
  
  It doesn't make much sense to get excited. "I told you that I ..."
  
  
  "Two soldiers have come to deliver Mr. Carter."
  
  
  Stahl's voice is suddenly brighter now. "That's great. Let ih in.
  
  
  The door swung open. Karib Jerome was sitting at Cappola's desk. In front of him were piles of banknotes and monettes. Recent casino and hotel revenues and lobby stores: huge syndicate and Sawyer money.
  
  
  Her friend smiled. "Have you found a way to get rich, Jerome?"
  
  
  He smiled at the rheumatism. Only ego's smile was a little colder than mine. "You have to admit that this is a good way." He looked at Lambie. "Lieutenant, where did the girl who was studying with this man come from?"
  
  
  Her, blurted it out. 'Dead. She drowned.
  
  
  The black eyes narrowed. "She swims like a dolphin, Mr. Carter. Don't try to deceive me. It's worth a lot in Miami."
  
  
  He looked over his shoulder at the door, which was still open. The Negro was following our conversation. When he was behind my men, I couldn't use my luger. That would have meant the death of Tom and Lambie. He'd asked her to close the door, and had chosen the quickest way to notify the colonel of the security ego's attention.
  
  
  Her he said defiantly to Jerome: "You can get a good ransom for Mitzi, but I keep the money, this lieutenant will never see his thousand dollars." That was enough. The door slammed shut. Jerome leaned into the pile of money on the table. When he looked up again, he was looking openly, almost directly at my luger.
  
  
  "Take what you need," Lambie and the Military said to her as the ih pistols moved away from me, much to Jerome's surprise. Ego's face tightened. "Treason, Mr. Carter? Bribe the soldiers! They'll be court-martialed as soon as it's over. .. '
  
  
  He was fast. I suspected it. But still not fast enough. He was at the desk, and his hand moved quickly to his holster. He was a little faster, swung the luger around his right arm to his left, threw the stiletto in his hand, and threw. The stiletto pinned ego's hand to the holster and ego failed.
  
  
  I admit that he wasn't a coward. It was a big risk for him. But if he could make me shoot, or if he could shoot himself, it would alarm the niggas outside and my chances would be lost. He quietly sel. He took her with a Luger and ordered the emu to stand against the wall. His small black eyes were full of hatred, but he did as the emus were told.
  
  
  Lambie placed the gun on top of a stack of bank notes and gave the colonel a thorough search. He pulled out my stiletto, my revolver, and found a spare one in one of the pockets all over the place.
  
  
  "Now sit on the sofa so we can talk. Where's Tara Sawyer? I told her.
  
  
  Jerome didn't even blink. He sat down comfortably on the sofa and crossed his legs. He curled his upper lip sarcastically and gave a counter-spin. "Where's Mitzi Gardner?"
  
  
  I didn't have the time or inclination to play Q & A. Of course, he kept Tara at the hotel. But I couldn't count on Jerome's entire army sleeping, and I didn't want to risk having to search the entire hotel. He stepped in front of the colonel and slammed the barrel of the luger into his ego. It was an ugly scratch. Her ego didn't want to kill her; he was the only person who could control the army at that time, and he still needed nen. But first of all, I was worried about Tara's safety. He told her this to Jerome and added, " I won't regret disfiguring your face if I have to."
  
  
  He was a handsome man. He knew that, and he was vain. "All right," he said. "You can't free her anyway. Miss Sawyer is in the hall in her suite on the top floor. There are six hundred of my soldiers between the lower and upper floors."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  While Lambie held the colonel at gunpoint, the Military and I stripped off Jerome's jacket and shirt and tore his shirt into strips to tie him up. We let the emu sit on the sofa.
  
  
  "Stay here to keep an eye on him," he ordered her. Showed her emu how the door controls worked. "Wait until Lamby and I get to the door. You open it to Rivnenskaya just enough to let us pass, and then close it again.
  
  
  Lambie put the gun to my back again, and we started walking. The Negro was engrossed in a detective novel, and did not look up until he had shoved it under his nose like an emu luger. When I saw what he was reading, I had to chuckle. "Don't read it, do it; it was added a moment before Lambie hit his ego hard in the skull with the butt of his rifle. He rolled off the chair and onto the floor. Whether he was dead or not mostly depends on the thickness of the ego skull. We dragged ego to one of the casino's cash registers and tied him to a chair. We walked quickly to the elevators. Halfway down the lobby, the elevator door suddenly opened. The soldier came out, saw us, and tried to dive back in. Stiletto dropped her and for a moment found the ego in the ego Adam's apple. Lambie dragged ego behind the reception desk. The keys to Tara's rooms weren't there, so we need to get in as quietly as possible.
  
  
  We went back to the elevator, and he picked up the two machetes that had slipped from the soldier's belt after hitting ego. Now we only had 599 opponents.
  
  
  At the top, we ran to the door of Tara's apartment. The lock was broken with a stiletto, and we were inside before anyone else appeared in the hall.
  
  
  The room was suffocating. The air conditioner was turned off. Tara Sawyer lay on the bed, arms and legs spread out. She was wearing a pair of panties and a bra. Her wrists and ankles were tied to the bed by a curtain, so she could barely move. Nah didn't have a gag in her mouth, but that probably wouldn't have been necessary. The sound insulation of the Sawyer Grand LaClare was excellent. At most, it could be heard in the next room.
  
  
  She saw me and Lambie. Her face was contorted with despair, and he thought she was going to cry out. Ey put a hand over her mouth. "Jerome's people are here. Be calm.'
  
  
  Her eyes darted to Lambie. She thought I was caught, too. It was Ay who explained that he was on our side. Her beautiful blue eyes were now large and dark . The fear in her eyes was now replaced by anger. He removed his hand around her rta and kissed her. Then he released her to untie her shoelace. "They killed my ego?"
  
  
  Her knew she was mistletoe referring to Fleming. I told her. "Not at all. We were able to cover him. He's injured, but he's safe in the mountains with Noah."
  
  
  'Who is it?'
  
  
  Of course, she had never heard of this old black wizard and ego tribe. "You'd call me a liar if I told you more about November, but if we get out of town alive, I'll introduce you to him. And even then, you won't believe it."
  
  
  It was quickly loosened by a shoelace to reduce the pain. Her hands and feet were white and swollen from the circulatory disorder. Hey, it hurt, and he saw that it would be a while before she could walk again. However, I couldn't risk carrying the sl. If anyone tried to stop us on the way, I would desperately need my hands, and probably Lambie too.
  
  
  He dabbed Tara's wrists and ankles with cold water around the tub. Then she took out a thin cotton dress around the toilet. She looked better as she was, but her panties and semi-transparent bra are just not ideal for traveling during wartime.
  
  
  It took Tara precious minutes to stay on her feet. We made a room-by-room check of this. Lambie had sent her down the hall to check that the exit was clear.
  
  
  A moment later, he poked his head in at the end of the day and beckoned to us. We ran to the elevator as fast as Tara's condition would allow. As soon as I pressed the button, I saw her as a door opened in the corridor.
  
  
  We reached the first floor and the elevator door slowly opened. I saw a soldier through the crack. Even worse, Colonel Karib Jerome was there with a gun pointed at us.
  
  
  He ducked behind the metal door and simultaneously pressed the basement button. Gawk bounced off the metal walls of the elevator. It was a miracle that no one around us was injured. The door closed and we went inside. It felt like hours had passed. If there was no car in the garage, or the exit was blocked, David Hawke could have written one off through his agents. Tom Sawyer would have lost his daughter, and Noah would have lost a damn good assistant.
  
  
  I was wondering where the other assistant Tony Possessed was. Probably dead. If Jerome had persuaded Ego ego to let go for a hefty sum, he might have expected a bullet. The Colonel will have no reason to keep his word. It was obvious that it was a mistake to leave the poor simpleton here alone with such a character.
  
  
  The elevator hit the air buffer in the basement. We were in the garage. There were plenty of cars belonging to guests and higher-paid staff, but I didn't expect to find the keys in them, and I barely had time to check ih everything. A military truck was parked at the exit. It was probably ready in case of emergencies, and it worked quickly. Except that it seemed a mile away.
  
  
  He pointed it out to her. "Run to his car," I said. "Take ego while I cover her retreat."
  
  
  They ran. At least Lambie was running as fast as he could, just as he was dragging a stumbling Tara by the arm. The elevator doors opened. When they opened to two inches, he shot through the gap, following Jerome's lead. I heard her scream and hoped it was the colonel. He kept shooting as the door opened even more and more screams were heard. Finally, someone came up with the brilliant idea of sending the elevator back up. He kept shooting until the door was completely closed. Now we had a small advantage. He ran to the truck and jumped in next to Tara, who quickly started the engine and then settled into the seat next to the driver. Happy one. If it had been Mitzi Gardner, we would have been arguing about who would drive, and there was no time for that right now.
  
  
  I went behind her in second gear and turned onto the exit ramp. The ego wasn't barricaded. As mimmo passed by the main entrance of the hotel and glanced at the door, she saw Jerome and a few of his men running out. They stopped on the stairs to shoot at us, but they were too quick. The shots went low-lying.
  
  
  I zigzagged it to minimize any further chances of being hit by microphones and speakers, and heard Lambie firing from behind. Her emu shouted for him to pull himself up. He didn't hear me. Or maybe he was too excited to react.
  
  
  It was too late then. I heard her scream briefly, and in the rearview mirror I saw Lambie fall out around the car. he just lay still in the middle of the road. The front of ego's shirt was soaked in blood. His body shook as bullets hit him. Jerome got his revenge on the emu now that we were too far away to be caught.
  
  
  He concentrated on driving, trying to ignore his fatigue. No more bullets whistled behind us. Jerome and his soldiers ran to the cars parked at the entrance of the hotel. We were far from home and safe.
  
  
  On the boulevard, I swerved it and stepped on the gas pedal. The truck was more suitable for carrying heavy loads than for increasing speed. We had some time, but it wasn't enough to avoid the colonel's pursuit.
  
  
  We were out of town, and headed for the Tony Won hotel. Something had to be resolved quickly. I couldn't avoid Jerome on the coast road. I had two options. The first is to hide the truck in a shed on the old inn. The other was a bad road winding through the mountains.
  
  
  It occurred to me that the colonel probably knew about the inn's existence, and that Noah used it. Emu wouldn't even have to fight. The entire building was made of wood. He could have burned us.
  
  
  So he chose the mountain route. Our heavy truck could handle potholes and bumps probably better than the lighter cars behind us, and they couldn't go any faster than us on this road.
  
  
  By the time we reached the bend, they hadn't noticed us. Sergey switched it off and turned the steering wheel. We were now invisible to the jungle environment for the two Jeeps passing mimmo us on the main road. Great. He stopped, took out the spotlights around the holder, and walked over to the loading dock to check what we had with us. Or maybe Lambie dropped the gun. My ammunition supply was running low.
  
  
  I couldn't find the gun between the coils of rope, the shovel, and the three crates. She was about to run when Sergey Lanterns dropped a text on one of the boxes all over the place: "Dynamite". He pulled the box forward. A few rods had fallen out, but most of them were still wrapped neatly in sawdust.
  
  
  If Colonel Jerome finds out we've left the main road, he'll undoubtedly turn around. But we were ready to accept it. We drove about 100 meters into the jungle. Her popped around the truck cut and ran back to the intersection, getting ready along the way. I did it by the time Jerome's Jeeps came into view. They drove fast, jumped out of the corner, and her dodged the ih lights. They spotted a truck in the distance and rode toward it, shouting in triumph. As the first Jeep approached, the wick lit it. He tossed the stick of dynamite into the backseat and ducked as far as he could into the foliage.
  
  
  The explosion occurred immediately and threw me back onto the road. But my physical condition was much better than that of the jeep's passengers. I was still holding my breath when I heard Tara's voice calling out to me. He got up earlier than he would have liked and motioned for Ay to stay away, looking at the deep crater that had formed in the road. Behind me, a second Jeep pulled up to the bend. The girl and I ran back to the truck. We were already driving at full speed when the Jeep screeched to a stop at the crater of the crater. In the rearview mirror, she saw Jerome's tall figure leaning over a huge pothole in the road. Bullets whizzed past us, but we were already too far away for them to hurt us.
  
  
  Tara didn't understand what had happened. He explained what he'd found in the back of the truck, leaned in to give her a quick kiss, then turned his attention back to the road.
  
  
  "We're safe for now," her husband said. "They can't drive through this pit, otherwise they'll have to cut down trees. And that takes time. Get ready for a rough sea ride ."
  
  
  In the dark, I almost ran into a tree as I turned the corner, which reminded me that I needed Sergey. The risk of being discovered was less important now than the risk of running into a tree. A glance at my watch told me that the night was already ending. By the time we reach the most difficult places, it will be almost light. This made it a lot easier to do so.
  
  
  But for now it was still dark, and the holy lights shone through the thick foliage. Tara had to hold on to the door jamb for a day to avoid hitting her head on the roof. She walked a few miles, then laughed bitterly.
  
  
  "Nick," she said. "I don't think I'm the right person for this. He was thrilled to come here and meet Fleming. It was so romantic ." Her laugh sounded disappointed. "Now I know it's actually Della Street."
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "Is Fairytale World disappointing?"
  
  
  So she was scared, talking to keep herself in check. We climbed higher and higher, and it will be even tougher from now on. Her, thought it was a good excuse to let go of the reins. Finally, anxiety is a stimulant, and sex is a great tranquilizer. He stopped and turned the key in the ignition. It was very quiet. He got out, walked around the car, opened the door on Tara's side, and pulled her out. I dragged her over to the car so I could check the area with the headlights on for any dragons or porcupines that might spoil the fun. Her mouth was as hungry as mine. Hey, it was just as hard as it was for me. It took a long time before we finally played such a truck game completely exhausted and satisfied. I smiled at her. 'Are you feeling better?' She nodded, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes.
  
  
  By the time we reached the cliff face, it was already light. I told Tara to keep her eyes closed for a while, and sure enough, she immediately opened the ih to look out with interest. When she looked out of the window and saw only the abyss, she turned pale. She sat up straight, lifting her chin.
  
  
  As we passed the dangerous part of the chasm, I thought of Fleming. At the point where the road came to a dead end, we got out and continued walking. Now she was discovered by something I hadn't noticed before. The trail led into a steep ravine; beyond the edge, on the other side, were caves where the tribe's previously surplus population had stung. At the moment, no one seems to have lived there. The thick wooden gates of the fortress were closed. He tapped it with the butt of his gun. A few minutes later, she heard the rattle of chains and the shifting of wooden bolts. Then the gate swung open and a man in a white shirt beckoned us inside. Tara looked like she'd seen a ghost.
  
  
  Noah greeted the girl affectionately, said that Fleming was feeling better, then switched to the Barents Sea Area's bad news department.
  
  
  "Our line was cut last night. We didn't hear anything from inside the ferret with them after you left. Can you tell me what the situation is in Port of Spain?
  
  
  He suspected that the old hotel on the outskirts of the city was more than just a place to stay for tribesmen who wanted to visit the city. It was supposed to be the center of the Barents Sea territory for messages that came through the cities and were transmitted using the jungle drum. If there were no more reports, it meant that Jerome had raided Nach.
  
  
  He was very tired. Hours of long tension began to accumulate. This great fortress was impregnable. Kings, pirates, and rebels have always tried in vain to challenge the high walls in their ancient times. But this time the only protection was my Luger and a handful of bullets, Mitzy Gardner's dainty little stall, and a few crates of dynamite. A little bit against a modern equipped army. Her, leaned against a thick stone groan and informed Tony of the victory. I told emu what I was going to do with the dynamite.
  
  
  "I should have blown up that cliff right away," I confessed.
  
  
  "But I didn't think of it then, and now it's too far away. But I'm just turning this route into a minefield. I don't expect Jerome to come here in jeeps. The ego is in for a surprise. I need porters.
  
  
  Noah assembled the team and introduced her to the girls.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  People pulled dynamite around the truck. They were taking the purple open box from here to the fort, leaving a full box for the devices, mines, along the way. Before leaving the truck, it was removed by the distributor rotor so that no one else could start the truck. He turned the path into a minefield, making sure that the detonators were set up so that one person could detonate each charge independently of the others. As he worked, he could hear the drums in the fortress; they were not messages, but ceremonial sounds. Her guess was that Noah was trying to raise morale a little.
  
  
  By the time he finished, he was feeling completely exhausted and hungry. He barely made it to the fortress. Indeed, there was a ritual. Sacred birds were killed and boiled in boiling water. Naked tribesmen with spears danced around the cauldron. They had excellent ending military weapons to fight with bazookas and submachine guns.
  
  
  Noah took care of that before he had a chance to eat anything. I wasn't even half asleep yet. When Noah got this single transmission, her was lying in a cool dark room; on the shadow line on the day of his could see that the sun had already reached the midday position. I put a man on guard by the trail. From this location, you should be able to hear vehicles approaching from afar. Now he was standing in front of Nov, and he was excited.
  
  
  
  
  "The military approached the truck," Noah said.
  
  
  Its immediately woke up. - 'How much is ih?'
  
  
  "He can't count." Noah spoke to the watcher.
  
  
  "He says:"very, very much."
  
  
  He got up and ran to the gate. By now, they should have followed the trail, and taken her to the hotel to make sure they didn't find any dynamite. The war dance was over, and the people who had gone to their caves were fleeing back to the fortress.
  
  
  He passed the door of Fleming's room and paused for a moment. He was standing for a day between two girls. There were no ugly red stripes on his bandaged arm, no gray streaks on his chocolate-brown face. I didn't have time to dwell on it, but Fleming's rapid recovery surprised me. I threw it around my head as I kept walking. He ran through the gate and down the path. If they were fast, her might run into them, but his had to be sure.
  
  
  When I reached the pass, I still couldn't see anything. He was in the clearing now, and through the treetops he could see the truck at the bottom of the ravine about half a mile below. The group of about thirty people standing side by side had no intention of climbing up. I wonder why. Then I heard a noise behind me. It was Mitzi. Nah had rheumatism.
  
  
  "There's another attack from the other side, Nick. Boats in the bay. Lots of boats.'
  
  
  This explained why the group was still waiting downstairs. It was a joint action, a pincer movement that would start simultaneously on two fronts. Ee put his arm around her shoulder. "Can you detonate the mines?"
  
  
  "This has always been my goal in life. What should I do?'
  
  
  He showed her hey the ignition, handed her hey the lighter, and told her what to do. "The path between these two points was booby-trapped." He pointed out two points. "The ignition on the right ignites the lowest charge three minutes after the ignition fuse. When the first group reaches the turn, the ee must be lit. I hope that will be enough, although some soldiers can be stupid at times. Take your time. But stop ih."
  
  
  'With pleasure.'She kissed me and I got the impression that she was kissing me goodbye. "Good luck with the fleet."
  
  
  Her, chuckled. 'This will work. Trust Noah."
  
  
  I assured her better than I felt. We didn't have the equipment to withstand a siege on both sides for long. I was supposed to do what I could within the limits of my abilities, but something told me that it would take a miracle to survive this day.
  
  
  Major changes have taken place in the fortress during my absence. The tribe was busy. Ladders stood on a solid roof that also served as a protective wall, and skull-sized rocks were brought in buckets that were passed around hand-to-hand like a conveyor belt.
  
  
  Oddly enough, it was an uplifting sight. The rhythmic swaying of all those black hands as they passed the material like a living hand gave confidence to these people, who had probably never fought a real war in their lives.
  
  
  Noah kept up appearances, but seemed less confident than ego people. He was talking to Fleming in a quiet corner by the gate. Fleming leaned on a stool and seemed to be trying to convince Tony of something. Lizzie came over to follow the conversation.
  
  
  "Okay, Noah, I want to believe that Jerome is playing a double game. But I can't let you and your people risk your lives with my cause. If Jerome is that strong, then I must obey, just as I did her General Hammond. I will surrender and be exiled to the United States. Jerome is a capable man, and this island has, after all, survived a military dictatorship before. Maybe I can even give em some advice. Her want you to give him was my message.
  
  
  Sending Jerome a message to the world was like signing your own death warrant. Even if the Colonel had left Tony Won and Ego tribe alone, she wouldn't have belonged to the land of the living for a moment. Her, thought it was bad enough to meet defeat. He hated it. But it was even worse to imagine what would have happened to me if Jerome had been as offended as I thought. The Patriarch's response was waiting for her. It broke into a tedious tirade.
  
  
  Fleming, I respect your idealism, but it blinds you. When General Hammond got rid of you, people still believed that he would leave the island to the Islanders. He could afford to expel you. Karib Jerome can't be so generous. He is as unpopular as he is ambitious. As long as you're alive, you're a threat to him. And it's not just your life that's at stake. If Jerome succeeds, he will turn this mountain into a missile base. He will drive us away, and bring our enemies here. He cannot remain in power without Russia's support. This mountain has been our sacred home for centuries. These people would rather die than abandon this mountain."
  
  
  The old man spoke well. He was convinced by Fleming, who showed that he was not sensitive to reasonable arguments. "I admit you're right, Noah. Its been living in a dream world for too long. Hope sometimes takes on a seductive air. If you need it, I can throw stones with one hand."
  
  
  He touched Tony Win's arm in a gesture of respect, then limped with his good leg to the parapet.
  
  
  Noah beckoned to me. I climbed up on the roof and looked over the battlements of the lagoon entrance. The approaching fleet refuted media reports to me about how the British evacuated Dunkirk during the outbreak of World War II. Every fishing boat, every pleasure craft, in short, everything that could be found in Port of Spain, was approaching us.
  
  
  Her dreams were of American torpedo boats and covering up air sampling with fast fighters. But it was a beautiful daydream.
  
  
  The first boats sailed one after the other at maximum speed on & nb in our direction. The boats that sail on them will survive. The first ones will face a surprise. They quickly approached, apparently oblivious to the underwater dam that would soon stop ih from moving. Tony's reputation for winning would scare people away from this small harbor, so they didn't know anything about the flooded dam.
  
  
  He watched as the first two yachts raced side by side together. Even without binoculars, she could see the bazookas and machine guns that people kept on deck. They hit the dam at the same time as the sound of metal cracking. The bows reared, the hull shook, and the concussion hurled the men from the deck into the sea. And to celebrate the shipwreck, at the same time, there was the pop of the first charge that Mitzi had detonated.
  
  
  Behind the first two unfortunate yachts were two tugboats that could no longer brake. They slammed into the stone wall and hung at an angle. Around the men who fell overboard, some drowned under the weight of boots and other equipment, others managed to catch on to the dam. The next boats managed to stop in the middle of the lagoon. But three boats loaded with soldiers armed to the teeth hit the dam without receiving any noticeable damage. They found an unexpected obstacle with sticks. They were lying at the height of the flood barrier on the stairs leading to the fortress.
  
  
  People around the first boat began to cross the dam to the stairs. The third boat backed up slightly and fired a broadside of cover at the rail.
  
  
  I didn't notice Noah come up the stairs, but I did notice him standing next to me. He had a bamboo periscope with an extra mirror that allowed him to look candid over the railing. He raised his hand, ready to signal. Brown figures stood along the rail, each holding a rock.
  
  
  The sound of soldiers ' boots became more and more audible over the gunfire of the boats. Then I heard a growl on the other side of the wall, and I knew that the soldiers were now openly below us. Noah lowered his hand. There was a sudden movement against the wall.
  
  
  The men forgot about the bullets whizzing over their heads, leaned over the eight-foot-thick wall, threw rocks, and took cover again. The three around them collapsed from their wounds. Others took ih and took ih seats.
  
  
  The cover fire suddenly stopped. I followed her along the battlements to the bottom of the stairs. A soldier saw her fall, a chain reaction of bodies rolling toward the sea.
  
  
  Tony's men won again, they brought stones and prepared for a repeat success.
  
  
  The cover fire had resumed, and the deadly lead whistled over the battlements again, punching holes in the wind-beaten moan.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A second explosion shook the jungle. So Mitzi had to light the second charge first. She doesn't need Noah right now. It still couldn't hit the boats from the Luger, and the bullets around the ih artillery didn't damage the wall too much yet. The old giant controlled the stairs well. Her, ran to the path. Mitzi sat on the ground with the third fuse in her hand and looked worried. "They're getting smarter," she told me. "The first time I had seven, and the second dis had four, all together. But now they go one after the other. At a distance of eight meters. It's a shame, a whole storehouse for one person.
  
  
  "No, they're not worth it," I agreed. 'It doesn't matter. It will be destroyed by ih individually ."
  
  
  The soldiers went ahead. They didn't want to fight, but they did, spurred on by the cursing of the officers behind them. They didn't look ahead, but to the side and to the ground in the form of booby traps.
  
  
  I ran through the undergrowth to a suitable spot for me. A protruding piece of rock that covers the path from below. If he could get there earlier than the soldiers, he could work constructively with his Luger . Hers had just gotten there when the first person was within reach. He was short, stocky, and very dark. Ego's face was drenched in sweat. He paused to catch his breath, then slowly walked back, keeping his eyes on the trail. He took aim at the luger, then changed his mind and holstered the ego again. There was a better way. After all, he didn't know I was there.
  
  
  My supply of ammunition left much to be desired anyway, and I couldn't count on it just yet. She was unsheathed by a stiletto on her right forearm. As the soldier passed under me, he leapt at him from behind. She was hit by an ego kick. It felt like a little sampling of the air he had left in his lungs was being blown out of him. It's not my custom to kill an unconscious opponent. But this time I had no choice. Now he couldn't afford the luxury of taking prisoners. Reluctantly, he finished his work, dragged her ego under a bush, took Ego's rifle and bandolier, and raced back to his hiding place. If he continued like this, he could have destroyed quite a few of them, as well as accumulated a stockpile of weapons. Convenient and reasonable!
  
  
  The next one poked his nose around the corner. He stopped, a look of surprise in his eyes as he saw the bloodstains on the ground in front of him. He raised his head even more, turned, and saw me. He carried a submachine gun strapped to his stomach, and it swung promisingly in my direction.He quickly pulled the pistol from its holster and fired a bullet into the emu's head before it could pull the trigger. She was silently thanked by Hawk for training in speed and agility, which all the best AX agents have to do on a regular basis and which she usually despises because they have a habit of always cutting down on my relaxes. But sometimes a fraction of a second more speed means the difference between life and death. Stay humble, Nick, I thought.
  
  
  But it's still beautifully done.
  
  
  Unfortunately, the man rolled away from the trail so far that he was no longer in the blind spot. But I couldn't give up on this machine.
  
  
  With the luger in her right hand, he jumped down, ran to the corpse, and began to work quickly, never taking his eyes off the trail. It was loaded with ammunition like a pack mule. Gold streak!
  
  
  Ego rolled her down the side of the path into the bushes, gathered up his weapons, and ran back to his seat. No one has come around the corner yet. Strange. I've been busy for a while. They must have heard the Luger.
  
  
  I waited another ten minutes for her, but no one showed up, and I began to feel like I was wasting my time. He returned to Mitzi with his loot. From here, he could see the trucks and jeeps below. The soldiers gathered around the man with the walkie-talkie. They were probably waiting for new orders from someone higher up. Mitzi appraised our new weapons. Her, chuckled.
  
  
  "They won't stop anything Jerome can throw at us, but at least we have a little trump card. That little army down there will know we're armed
  
  
  He pointed to the group below. "They are changing their plans. The path is too dangerous, and I don't think they will make another frontal attack. But keep an eye on ih and warn me if I'm wrong."
  
  
  She licked her lips. "Leave the rifle here, will you?" Maybe I can do something useful with it."
  
  
  I left her a rifle and some ammunition. As soon as he left, he heard a new sound - a thunderous mine on the coastal road. Maybe it's time to blow up the dynamite again.
  
  
  He finished loading it when the new cars stopped at the end of the road. The soldiers came out and I saw a man with a walkie-talkie. He had no idea that these soldiers would approach in groups. Instead of waiting for them to disperse, Stahl detonated the first charge.
  
  
  It exploded under a jeep and also destroyed two trucks. When the noise of the explosions subsided, a burst of automatic fire was fired at the cars behind her. The cars that were still intact shifted into reverse and cautiously moved back. It looked like it would be quiet for a while, so he decided to return to the fortress. The roof was noisy. Everyone was in hiding as bazookas and long-range rifles continued to fire at the railing. Noah beckoned me to look through the ego periscope. I saw large groups of soldiers going through the flood barrier to the stairs. Some of them had already reached the stairs and were climbing them. Noah looked grim.
  
  
  All the traffic was moving faster than I would have liked. If the cover had lasted longer, they would have hit their men, but we couldn't reach them until the fire stopped. I tapped on the pay phone and told Noah to let me know when they were upstairs.
  
  
  However, this was not necessary. After a few seconds, the cover fire suddenly stopped. It was a sign for me. Her soles came up to lick as her, stepped between two prongs. He almost hit the soldier in the face with a submachine gun, but he dodged as the soldier took the final step. A shot at the "vending machine" threw ego at the man behind it. They both fell over the edge. He continued firing until the stairs and most of the dam were cleared. The last of the men ran back to their boats and took cover by diving into the water.
  
  
  There was no more shooting. The fleet moved to the far end of the dam and anchored where Mitzi and I were hugging each other in the saltwater. It seemed ages ago.
  
  
  He went back to Noah. I sat back and lit one around the long, thin and delicious cigarettes made especially for me in Istanbul. "That was the first act," I said. "We can probably get some rest."
  
  
  "That might be true for you, Nick. I am very grateful to you for everything you have done. But the siege is not broken yet, only delayed and not for long. Jerome's army will return. I know that my people think they've won, and that's why they expect yahoo. If I don't give them a feast, they'll think I'm forgetting to thank the gods for the victory, and they're afraid the scarecrows won't favor us any more. Then they will lose the will to fight."
  
  
  Noah left me to organize a celebration with sacred fire, drums, and ceremonial dancing. He divided his time between watching the feast and watching the enemy fleet. Some ships were moored to the shore. He was really surprised that the soldiers stayed close to the boats and didn't try to reach the fortress through the beach. Walkie-talkies will be red-hot from orders and counter-reports.
  
  
  He was standing looking out at the water when he felt a hand on his arm. It was a warm hand clinging to my fingers. I looked around. A girl leaned over me. She was naked from the waist down, and her skin glowed from the ceremonial dance. Her breasts swelled. my face. My breathing began to quicken. And that's not all.
  
  
  I should have kept an eye on her now that everyone was busy partying. But those damned drums didn't work on me either. Also, there was no noticeable activity on the boats. I followed her down the stairs. We found another other soft flowerbed around the leaves in a quiet corner by the gate.
  
  
  Then it was all over. The sound of the drums was muffled. It was a bit like praying, and he felt strangely calm. He helped the girl up, and we walked back, hand in hand. I left her to go back to the parapet and look at the walls.
  
  
  The fleet has gone out to sea!!! One boat was still in the lagoon, preparing to be the last to leave the natural harbor. What the hell happened? I went downstairs to inform Tony Marshall, who had just spoken to Fleming and Tara. I told them the news.
  
  
  "Now we can get Fleming and the girls out of here," I said. "Maybe we can move to another island and send a message to the United States. Then they can pick us up by plane. That way, at least Fleming would stay alive to try again. And I can come back later to eliminate the colonel."
  
  
  But Fleming didn't want to hear about it. No planes. No elimination of Jerome. He gave up and sourly told em that it was ego, a personal matter. He just had to settle it with Nov while she was looking at the wrecked boats.
  
  
  Noah chose a few people to help me. "The best swimmers," he said. I didn't need swimmers, just porters. I took the opportunity to ask how Mitzi was doing.
  
  
  It was still where ee had left it, but there were no Jeeps under it. Only the truck was still there. She told me they left, all at once; probably at the same time as the ships sailed. I said this to her, and she looked at me skeptically.
  
  
  "You don't think Jerome will give up, do you? What will it do?
  
  
  I didn't tell Noah and Fleming what I really thought about Della Street. But he could have talked to Mitzi. "I will note that he begged Castro for help. I predict that we can expect bombers, gunboats, and everything else that Russia can send to our head through Cuba. I hope we won't be here anymore." I told him about the boats that were wrecked on the dam, and that I intended to advise Noah to send ego tribe out into the jungle for a while after we left. The entire area of the hotel, and underfoot can be very hot.
  
  
  She looked at me pityingly. "Hopeless locality of Russia. Good luck with that."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The headwind was strong enough to shake the surface of the water, but it barely slowed our speed. The tug wasn't designed for speed, but to tow barges carrying produce all over the interior districts to Port of Spain, and even though we were sailing at top speed, I had the feeling that we were crawling.
  
  
  With the help of the people Tony won her freed this boat, which was engaged in running aground during the enemy attack, and then a small repair she came in handy.
  
  
  Noah sent his men to the area on the other side of the mountains, where they spread out to avoid falling into the hands of Jerome's soldiers. It might have made Tony Obsal realize that the fortress was no longer secure, and he had a hard time getting Ego to come with us. He would have preferred to stay with his tribe, but I pointed out to him that he served his tribe better by coming with us and helping us. Besides, now that it was known that he had taken Fleming under his wing, he was undoubtedly forced to pay the price. Fleming, too, strongly insisted that he accompany us, and in the end he reluctantly gave in.
  
  
  Now we go out on the lagoon on the captured tug boat. At the speeds that we had before, even to the nearest island, the journey turned partly into a night journey. However, in bright sunlight, we were now easy prey if enemy planes appeared before we left the lagoon. Then she asked us to try to swim under the cover of the coast and escape unnoticed, and then cross the open sea in a place where we were not expected.
  
  
  Everywhere we sailed, the sandbanks were shallow, but at least I didn't see any flood defenses below sea level. If we were discovered? . Then we would have little hope.
  
  
  I followed the curve of the lagoon. The beach is overgrown with jungle up to the water's edge. The shale went under the water into an underwater canyon. Its kept as much as possible lick to the shore. Her, hoping that the tug on the dark foliage wouldn't be visible in the distance. But it was a futile hope.
  
  
  We were almost there when we heard the plane approaching. It flew slowly and low, didn't seem to notice us until it was openly above us, and flew to make a quick turn. The plane wouldn't carry a bomb load, but somehow it would be armed, otherwise it wouldn't bother flying back.
  
  
  The little workhorse we'd stolen had good maneuverability and was fast to turn. Noah shoved Fleming into the cockpit behind me, then pushed Tara out, sprawled on the deck.
  
  
  The fast city of bullets left for us after crossing the water. It changed course, and the bullets missed their target. When the plane arrived, the second time it was heard by the thunder of our machine gun. A quick glance aft showed me that Mitzi was still a good girl. The weapon was in Nah's hands, and she also hit the target. The gas tank in one of the wings exploded, and the plane crashed into the sea. Mitzi lowered her submachine gun and gave me a victory sign.
  
  
  Its still not dared to rejoice. The plane certainly had radio contact with the base. Now that that's gone, the other pilots seem to have taken stock. But it might take some time, and we weren't going to wait for ih.
  
  
  At the mouth of the lagoon, the depth was so shallow that the sandbanks were clearly visible to the naked eye. But the tug had a light draft, and we passed without difficulty. I turned her off the promontory and out to sea. And ih saw it at once: two razor-sharp prows of fast patrol boats slicing through the water. The slender greyhounds were racing towards us, at full speed, as soon as they saw us. And they saw us right away. Our four-cylinder Dodge wouldn't be able to withstand the powerful ih engines in the engine rooms.
  
  
  All we could do was buy time. Perhaps we should return to the questionable defense of the fortress? I wondered if we could handle it. Her maneuvered tug and asked. "Does anyone here know how to operate a boat?"
  
  
  Girls could do it. Of course, they only sailed on yachts, but the operation of the tug wasn't much different.
  
  
  "Replace me. We return to the fortress. We'll have to wait until dark before we try again."
  
  
  Tara slipped into Fleming's mimmo and took the wheel. She said in a tense tone. "They're too fast, Nick. We won't get away from them.
  
  
  "My ambush will work. Trust Uncle Nick.
  
  
  I didn't have time to explain. He ran to the quarterdeck, grabbed a submachine gun and ammunition, and jumped overboard. He waded to the shore and plunged into the jungle. The tug rattled clumsily in a straight line toward the fort. The patrol boats turned and leveled their machine guns. Just behind the tug, there were fountains in the water.
  
  
  But they were in too much of a hurry. They continued to swim side by side. This way they can never pass through a narrow passageway.
  
  
  This doesn't work either. First run aground on a shoal. The fast ship reared up, throwing most of its crew overboard. Around the jungle shelter, he was fired upon by the people still on the ship.
  
  
  But the second patrol boat also suffered the same fate. But it was beyond the reach of my machine gun. Unfortunately, this didn't work and he changed his position. They couldn't see me, and they didn't know exactly where I was, but two machine guns were firing long bursts toward the trees that lay between them. He waited for her behind a thick log until they were tired or ran out of ammunition. In any case, it wasn't long in coming. They had a bigger problem than the submachine gun on the shore, which still couldn't hit ih. The thunderous ih of the engine rose to a high-pitched screech as they tried to pull away from the sandbank. The stern shook widely. All but the helmsman jumped overboard to avoid the sharp point. The boat was moving inch by inch, but it was moving. And after half a minute of work came off. The crew jumped on board and returned to Port of Spain. Her, walked over to & nb and looked across the water from the lagoon to the cliff. Our tug arrived safely, and everyone was just climbing the stairs. I thought I had prepared a pleasant surprise for them. If one patrol pulled a boat out of the sandbank so easily, we can get another one out. We would have taken the nen and sailed quickly down the Grand Laclair. Some of the people around us would have been able to put on their crew uniforms. If anyone on the coast had seen us, they would have taken us for Jerome's men. And getting the boat out of the water shouldn't have caused any problems. her, was her plan to return to the fortress, pick up her men, and send a tug here. If he had enough strength to tow the barges, he could easily pull out the patrol boat.
  
  
  I suddenly felt very good. Until I heard her voice. And the sound of boots creaking up the hill behind me. There were at least four people. They kept talking to each other. Where the hell did they come from? Maybe ih was lured here by the shooting. It was time for me to find a safer place.
  
  
  He thought for a moment of the boat he had seen on the aft deck of the patrol boat. But it didn't seem like the best solution for going out into the open water. If they saw me, I'd be dead. He might try to swim to the fortress under the cover of overhanging foliage.
  
  
  But with all the blood in the B & nb, he could be sure of the company. Barracudas or sharks. The best I could do was try to keep up with the soldiers in the area they had already searched.
  
  
  He went to the ground and cautiously poked his head out over the bushes. The third patrol boat was anchored off the beach, and Ego's dinghy was lying on a stretch of sand at the bottom of the hill. This boat can carry a handful of people. Well, it wasn't much, otherwise I would have had to hear more voices.
  
  
  What now? I didn't want to wait for the soldiers to appear in my field of vision. She's a hunter by nature. I don't like waiting for difficulties to come to me. I'm not looking for her. The attacking man always has the advantage. In addition, I had an additional argument. Anyone she meets here can only be an enemy. And every sound they heard could be the sound of one around them. They'll have to wait to fire until they're sure they won't kill us alone through their men, and I can attack him as soon as I see or hear anything.
  
  
  Holding the submachine gun so that it wouldn't get caught in the large leaves and vines, he began to slowly move forward on the ground. Thirty meters away, I saw something brown moving. The man bent down to crawl under the vine, his attention focused on something ahead, his back to me. With one swift movement, he suddenly disappeared into the foliage, and her ego lost sight of him.
  
  
  I followed him. If her ego could kill her, it would leave a hole in the iht. And that hole will be big enough to miss Nick Carter.
  
  
  If I'd shot him, he'd have been lured away by the others, but he could have turned around at any moment, seen me, and given me a full shot. He wasn't within striking distance of the stiletto.
  
  
  He took the submachine gun in his left hand, shook his stiletto in his right hand, and began to sneak up on him. Hers was three meters behind him. Then he turned around. He looked at me in surprise and raised his submachine gun. A knife dropped her. It plunged into the emu's throat before it could pull the trigger. It collapsed without much noise. I went over to him for the stiletto.
  
  
  Then my head exploded.
  
  
  When I came to my senses, my heads didn't make much sense to twenty beat groups, each playing a different song around them. He looked up at the treetops and saw three ugly, happy faces above the army uniform. My hands were tied under me. One of the three was a sergeant, the other two were privates. The sergeant tucked my stiletto into his belt, and the soldiers carried my submachine gun and my Luger. The sergeant saw me open my eyes, and lick came up and kicked me between the ribs with his boot.
  
  
  "For Belmont," he grumbled, and kicked me again. So Belmont's throat had been operated on. My throat will be next. With her hands behind her back, there was nothing I could do against this force majeure. He rubbed his hands together, pleased with his prize. "Get up, Mr. Thousand dollars," he said. "And you'll get a promotion, too."
  
  
  I didn't move. So they valued me more alive than dead. If they were still going to turn me in safely, it seemed reasonable that they should do all the work, too. The sergeant snapped his fingers. The soldiers pulled me to my feet. Odin around them pressed the luger against my shoulder blade and began to push. There were two options. Or else he would have broken his shoulder blade. I moved on.
  
  
  They pushed me off from where the boat was on the shore. The sergeant barked at the rest of his men to stop looking. They caught me.
  
  
  Two voices answered, and after a while, the soldiers accompanying ih appeared around the jungle. They were all very pleased with themselves.
  
  
  The sergeant ordered the new arrivals to carry a dead colleague, and we are on our way. The body carriers are in front of me, the other two next to me, and the sergeant in the rear. He didn't really care about his future. I probably had a meeting with a dank basement and a sadistic interrogator, and then a meeting with a noose.
  
  
  Even if Hawk found out about my fate, there was nothing he could do. In his position, Emu found it hard to admit that an American agent was involved in the internal affairs of Big Laclair.
  
  
  When we were halfway to the beach, a gunshot rang out around the jungle. A shout behind us made us all turn. The sergeant stopped. He was going to fall. The front of the ego uniform jacket turned red. The soldiers pounced on him as if trying to catch his ego. Eluding him, they took their rifles to the thick undergrowth around us. Another rifle shot. The soldier to my left, holding up the back of my head, received a headbutt and fell to the ground. The one on my right panicked, bent down and ran.
  
  
  He kicked her on the ground. He lay still. The other two soldiers raised their hands high. Mitzi climbed out of the undergrowth, pointing a revolver at them. She shot one before he got close enough to squeeze her wrist. The remaining soldier raised his hands even higher.
  
  
  She glared at me. "You're not getting sentimental, are you, Carter? We don't have time for prisoners." She pulled her wrist free and swung the small arms back at the soldier, who by now had gone pale.
  
  
  "Stop," I said. "I want to take ih alive. Hold my ego at gunpoint and see if you can untie my wrists with one hand.
  
  
  I turned around and she started to untie the rope around my wrists. Massaging the spasms from my fingers, I approached the soldiers with a rope and motioned that I wasn't going to strangle ih with it. They understood what I meant.
  
  
  The soldier who'd been knocked down jumped to his feet as if Nessus had a ton of lead on his shoulders, and the two soldiers followed me to the shore, Mitzi for cover. The thin ship was still stuck in the shallows. We waded into the water and he led two soldiers to the headland. He told them how to push the boat, then took Mitzi to the stern and helped her up on deck.
  
  
  She went to the cab and started the engine. I heard the engine start and went to the bow. There was a hoarse mutter. Then it stopped. Another g? n? rale, and then nothing at all. My diagnosis was: malfunction. And he could thank himself for that.
  
  
  "Stop it," Mitzi shouted at her.
  
  
  He jumped on board to make sure I was right, and tracked down the holes left by my shots. He was right. It hit the fuel line when fired at the team. To make matters worse, the tank was empty to the bottom. We need a drop of gasoline.
  
  
  Her, felt powerless. Our fuel, our energy. Our power, our patrol boat, we need to leave the island. Absolutely not at all.
  
  
  Mitzi shouted all over the cabin. "Nick, soldiers. They're running away! '
  
  
  Her shot went off into the air, and they stopped. With slumped shoulders. They were probably expecting a bullet in the back now. He jumped on board and waded over to them. There was no point in keeping ih, but her hotel, and carrying ammunition anymore. Ih motioned her to the bank and called Mitzi.
  
  
  When she caught up with us, Ay allowed her to hold one of them at gunpoint, and the other was freed from his shoes and pants. He tied the legs of her pants together, stuffed her pants with bullets, strapped her belt, and swung her legs around his neck.
  
  
  "Now let go of ih," he ordered the girl. "We don't need them anymore, and they can't hurt us anymore. Two more or less doesn't make much difference."
  
  
  He motioned for them to leave. They didn't need any support. When they were gone, Mitzi and I headed for the fortress as fast as we could. Noah was frying fish, and the sky made me realize how long I'd been missing it. And my bones told me I needed to sleep. Although I had work to do and it was still dark, it would be a while before the darkness fell, and I thought it was time to take a breather with rum, hot fish, and fruit.
  
  
  He found an empty room, dropped to the stone floor, and relaxed. Mitzi will report. I had no idea how high she was on Hawke's list, but if we ever made it out of it alive, by some crazy twist of fate, I'd go after her. She deserved a special medal.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 11
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It's time to destroy the ladder. Now that escape by sea is impossible, Stahl can no longer serve us.
  
  
  Destroying such an archaeological treasure was a step he didn't want to take, but it was too dangerous access to the fortress. We could hear cars approaching along the coast road and along the trail, but Jerome might have the idea to send out rowing boats at night and send his men up the stairs without us noticing. And there were too few of us to watch all the fronts. Tony Possessed's eyes darkened as he told Emu what to do.
  
  
  He opened the last case of dynamite, took out two sticks, and looked at the old patriarch. "It hurts me too, Noya. If we get out of here alive, I promise her that AX will build a new staircase ."
  
  
  It was raised by a machine gun to the third step from the bottom, shot several holes in the hard slate, advertised dynamite sticks on the softer, non-oxidized part, and lit the fuse. He was running again and was already inside the walls when the explosion occurred. An avalanche of natural stone thundered into the water, and when the sound died down, the cliff became a steep, forbidding slope again.
  
  
  So now there were only two access roads left to be used at night. Dr. Fleming looked pretty good, and I had no doubt that we would be able to move ego to another island Nov. The rest of the group was able to join Tony's men defeated in the jungle. I'll go into town, find Jerome, and kill him. If the military were beheaded, things would probably calm down and Fleming could be reinstated as president.
  
  
  I presented the plan to Noah, and he didn't mind. We agreed that he would guard the coast road that night, and I would watch the trail. Its prepared by ego, showed how to detonate mines and told all about the timing. Then he disappeared in another direction. As long as we had dynamite, no one could attack us at night.
  
  
  Tara wants to help. "My father sent me to help you. Haven't you forgotten about it? And you need to rest. You think I can't blow up like Mitzi when I need to?
  
  
  Lighting matches are available, yes. But how would she handle the excitement? But at least ee, the company would make my hours more enjoyable. Besides, he hadn't expected an attack at night. The Colonel's troops had suffered significant losses, and he suspected that after the loss of the patrol boat's ego, Jerome would need some time to lick his wounds.
  
  
  I told the girl I'd watch the first few hours, but she didn't want to hear about it. She thought I needed to relax. Without meaning anything special. So I stretched and let sleep get the better of me.
  
  
  It was already broad daylight when the sun in my eyes woke me up. I felt like a human again, except for the bump on my head where the soldier had hit me. Tara sat with her back to the tree trunk, awake but sleepy. Nah had dark circles under her eyes. Her rolled over to her.
  
  
  Her voice is absurdly hollow. "Nick, she's sick, my life hurts. It's gotten even worse in the last few hours ."
  
  
  We were under a high archway, surrounded by trees, and streaks of yellow sunlight filtered through the leaves. Tara's skin was greenish-yellow and glistened with tiny droplets of blood. There was a gray haze in front of her eyes. She was picked up by ee and ran up the hill to the gate. Tony Marshall came in and called for her. Her, afraid that he would still be on guard. After all, he was the only healer we'd ever had, no matter what the cost.
  
  
  He entered the fortress a few seconds after me. Tara laid it carefully on the floor, and Noah immediately set to work. He felt the glands on her neck, grabbed her wrist, opened her mouth, and examined her palms. Before he dropped it ih saw blisters on his fingertips.
  
  
  The old man had never been in such a hurry. He flew into one of the surrounding rooms. I ran after him, but before I reached the door, he came out again with a wicker mat and pumpkins. He dropped the mat, kicked it, and motioned for me to put the little girl in it. Her, realized that he needed a saint and there was no time to light torches in one of the dark rooms.
  
  
  He laid her down on the mat and took off her dress. Suddenly Mitzi was also in the courtyard, first interested, but then concerned when she saw the girl's bloodless lips.
  
  
  Noah held half a pumpkin in one hand around his large hands. He shook the contents, which looked like a mixture of water and green soap.
  
  
  """Back". Ego's words were harsh. When we obeyed, he lifted Tara's head, opened Hey's mouth, and poured the liquid down Hey's throat. "Manchin," he said slowly. "A very poisonous tree. A single bite from the fetus ' ego can cause sudden, painful death. Even touching the trunk can be very dangerous. Just look at the poor kid." Suddenly, Tara stretched. Noah picked her up again and poured some of the liquid down her throat again. As she lay on the floor, gasping for breath, her father remembered that he already knew about manzinella. It was pretty serious, as Noah just mentioned.
  
  
  The old man needed help. He said, " Pour some liquid on your fingers. Not three!
  
  
  I did it. He turned her so that we could see her back. It was also covered in leaves. She was doused with the liquid hey poured on her back as her body clenched in painful spasms.
  
  
  I heard the old man sigh with relief. "I think we did it just in time," he said. "She'll be fine."
  
  
  After a while, the convulsions stopped, and the girl lay motionless. Now Noah put down the pumpkin with the soap mixture and picked up the other pumpkins. He began to make a thick emulsion around the white powder and what looked like copper. He turned the girl over and poured a glass. Then he laid her on her side.
  
  
  'Now it's your turn.' He stood up, unbuttoned my shirt, and turned it inside out. The cloth was also poisonous. He rubbed my hands with disinfectant, at best, then did the same with his own hands and smiled. "I should have warned you. The jungle is usually different, sometimes the enemy. Take the other side of the mat; we are now spiritually in the shade."
  
  
  Tara opened her eyes as we took her to one of the darkened rooms and laid her on a cot. She was conscious, but still very ill.
  
  
  This meant that there would be no exodus through the fortress. We were supposed to carry Fleming and Tara, but that wasn't possible. Not on steep mountains. Not with all the dangers that threatened us. Wait forever. He saw her sitting next to the blonde, and suddenly realized that he was more worried about her than he wanted to admit. I liked it, and now it's clearer to me than ever. If Noah hadn't felt hurt right away, she would have been dead by now. The old man saved her in the nick of time, and for that he rose again in my esteem. I smelled her breakfast. I wasn't paying attention until Noah called out. Then he walked over to the others, who were already having lunch.
  
  
  I had a surprise waiting for me. We had guests. A dark-skinned young man in a loincloth. He brought news, and judging by the look on Tony Won's face, it wasn't very good news. Noah said to me in a voice that echoed with weariness as Mitzi and Fleming stood dejectedly together. The tribe was not idle that night. They sent out their scouts.
  
  
  Karib Jerome's soldiers didn't sit down to put their hands down either. They set up a cordon along the lagoon's edge to the beach, where a third patrol boat was moored. We were surrounded. With two patients, I didn't even have to think about going through the cordon. I asked the guy if he could get me out, and the rheumatism was brief: no. He arrived here before the encirclement was completed. Now he couldn't go back either.
  
  
  So Tara hadn't noticed the troop movements. If he hadn't been asleep, someone might have heard him. Or maybe they were too far away after all. Her, looked at the silent figures around me, realized how weak we were, and suddenly his wasn't hungry anymore.
  
  
  I took it upon myself. At least that's what kept me busy. After lunch, we sat in silence. We waited.
  
  
  I heard it first, a split second before Noah turned to face me. It was the dark, lazy hum of planes. The old man slowly got up and said, as if inviting us to tea, " I suggest we take shelter in the catacombs. Mr. Carter, will you take Miss Sawyer with you?"
  
  
  As Mitzi once told me, the old man was full of surprises. So he had a basement under the fortress. I was wondering how deep, and if it could withstand bombs, and if we weren't buried there alive. Mitzi's face paled, and he knew she was thinking the same thing right now. But again, we had no choice.
  
  
  I went to get Tara. I was relieved to see that she was already able to put her arms around my neck. As he led her outside, Noah opened a door around a thick slate wall that he hadn't seen her through before.
  
  
  Mitzi and the boy were already out of sight. Fleming just walked through the hole on crutches. I followed him. Noah closed the thick door behind him, leaving us in total darkness.
  
  
  A moment later, he struck a spark with a piece of flint and lit the candle. We had a holy one. Noah handed the candle to the boy, picked up Fleming, and walked down a few steps to the dark tunnel entrance, the small flame above the boy's head beckoning us.
  
  
  The tunnel was wide enough for us to pass through, but the height left much to be desired. A tall man would have to bend down. I had to bend my knees, and Mitzi bowed her head to avoid hitting me.
  
  
  It was a long walk. In any case, there were enough rocks above us to withstand a heavy impact. When we reached the bottom, we found ourselves following a sharp turn in a fairly large room.
  
  
  We played this game on the floor, and Noah put out the candle. "To save air," he said. A few minutes passed. The planes might have been long over us, but there was no explosion to break the silence. Our services. I didn't like it. What were they waiting for?
  
  
  Then he thought of something else. In our rush to escape the full title, we completely forgot that we might need an extra exit. After all, it's possible that an air raid will block the door to the catacombs. There was only one remedy that always guaranteed us a way out: dynamite." And we left it at the top.
  
  
  Mitzi brought a submachine gun, and groped for her ego in the dark. He went up the stairs, returned to the top, and pushed the heavy slate door open about three inches. The bright daylight of the holy Lord blinded me, but I caught her moving. I stayed where I was until my eyes adjusted to the light. Four men in Russian uniforms appeared. Sure. The Colonel wants Fleming taken alive, not killed by a bomb. Then he could be sure that the ego was not permanently excluded.
  
  
  They had automatic weapons. After parachuting down, they separated. Two of them walked together in one direction, two in the other. They walked around the rooms and were obviously surprised to find no one. Gradually, they began to work faster. No one around them was looking in my direction. He pushed the door a little wider and pressed himself up against Moan, who was now in the shadows. I made a stupid mistake. If I'd waited for him at the top, I'd have shot her easily. Now I had to wait here and try to make the most of it.
  
  
  It took one of them a long time to get his head through the door where he kept it. All those empty rooms made ego careless, his gun pointed down. He took a few steps back. When he was inside her, I hit him with the butt of the machine gun on his ego temple. He fell and didn't move. Its back to the day.
  
  
  Number two crossed the room with his back to me. It was close enough for a stiletto. Her almost never miss, but he turned around. Razor-sharp steel passed mimmo him, smashing into the wall and crashing to the ground in front of Ego's feet. He looked around in surprise and turned to me. He was already out the door. He shouted something to the others in staccato Russian. Immediately came rheumatism. They planned to enter with fire. That was fine with me. Her, went down the stairs to the catacombs. As I expected, they didn't shoot lowly, but outright forward, rushing one after the other. It was sliced in half by ih in a burst before ih's own volley was muffled so that the sound of my own weapon wouldn't alarm the fourth marine.
  
  
  I couldn't hear Mitzi coming up the stairs behind me over the noise. Now her voice came from behind me. 'What's going on?'
  
  
  "We have houses. Four. I've already got three lying here, one outside somewhere.
  
  
  Her husband went up to the door, but did not see the fourth person. Her voice screamed loudly, but he stayed hidden. The courtyard was dead silent. It's too quiet. I had no idea where he was, and he'd probably shoot me if I stuck my head out too far around the doorway, risking losing my ego quickly. I didn't believe he would allow himself to be lured here again. Maybe he was the smartest of them all.
  
  
  It was thrown at Mitzi by a Russian submachine gun. "Look at the ammunition."
  
  
  'That's enough.'
  
  
  "Keep the passage under control. I'll come back and ask if there's another way out, it's the only way out."
  
  
  After her description of the situation, Noah lit a candle. In the dim light of the flames, she saw Fleming leaning against the wall. Tara was sitting next to him, a few feet away. She was already looking better, though she still looked dazed. This dark hole deep in the mountain, smelling of mud and mildew, wasn't an ideal convalescent home either. But I couldn't change her situation until I knocked out the fourth guy. Noah said something to the boy who broke through the line of Jerome's army. The boy nodded, took the candle,and beckoned me to follow. The dim light fell on a painted Holst's that hung on a sort of primitive altar. He lifted a side of the canvas. A corridor appeared behind him.
  
  
  He hoped the boy knew the way, because that stump of a candle wouldn't burn for a long time. We descended the stairs and entered a tunnel with niches in the walls. What-where candles were attached to groans in holders, usually they were stubs several cm long. There was a foul, putrid smell. I soon saw the reason for it. Most of the niches were filled with human skeletons, and behind them, on stone shelves, were hollow skulls. It was supposed to be a tribal mound.
  
  
  My sense of direction told me that we would go to the other side of the fortress. After a while, I saw it on the stone floor of the circle of the world. Above it was a round groan hole, barely wider than my shoulders. I couldn't get to nah. The boy saw it too. He took the machine gun from me, put the ego on the floor next to the candle, and helped me up. I put my hands on the top of it and climbed out through the nah.
  
  
  I looked around. Hers, standing against the outer wall. There was no movement anywhere. He put his hand through the hole and picked up the machine gun.
  
  
  She scrambled over the edge of the roof and saw her fourth husband. He was lying on his stomach under the parachutes, his weapon pointed at the door where Mitzi was standing. When working independently, they are usually not very impressive. He was young and slender, but deadly because of the deadly weapons in his ego-infantile hands. Ego called out to her in Russian: "Have you looked in here yet?"
  
  
  He turned around. He pulled the trigger. Goodbye, unknown soldier. Mitzi appeared in the doorway, saw the body, and went over to it. Her, jumped off the roof. In the blink of an eye, the fifth paratrooper flew out from behind the half-open door. He slammed the heavy revolver into Mitzi's neck. If they'd found him and killed ego, I'd have had to shoot Mitzi. Damn it!
  
  
  He looked at me and shouted in good English, " Throw away your weapon."
  
  
  He said something to the girl. A submachine gun dropped it.
  
  
  "Come here, don't get too close. Stand against this wall."
  
  
  The ego form was around better material than that of ego colleagues. Nen was wearing an officer's shoulder straps, and a walkie-talkie hung from her belt. Even from a distance, Mitzi could hear her heavy breathing. He hugged her tighter, and she fell silent.
  
  
  He laughed. "I'm giving you a chance. Tell me where Dr. Fleming is." If you don't, I'll shoot her first. Then you will die."
  
  
  My stiletto was out of reach in the yard. Mitzi's voice came through gritted teeth. "Let him go to hell."
  
  
  I turned slowly so he wouldn't pull the trigger. He stahl threaten. "I told you not to move."
  
  
  He pretended to be scared. - 'Don't shoot. I'll tell you. He's hiding. I'll go get him.
  
  
  Mitzi cursed me. It can also work. What a killer girl. If he lets me through the door, I can snatch a gun from one of the Russians. But the trick didn't work. The Russian also knew where his comrades were. Her, I saw how he thought.
  
  
  He could have used Mitzi and me as shields and gone down into the catacombs with us. With us as hostages, he can order Fleming to surrender. But what if Fleming doesn't care about our lives? What if he shoots us to hit the enemy? This was an opportunity that he couldn't risk. So he went the other way. He probably realized how important Mitzi was to me, he knew from the speed with which her gun dropped as soon as he grabbed her.
  
  
  
  'Yes. Do it. Go after him. But if you try anything, that piece of whore will die."
  
  
  I had to play it off. He was a head taller than the girl, and I knew I could handle the Luger well enough to shoot the emu in the head while he was looking at me through the doorway that hers had entered.
  
  
  "Walk slowly," he ordered . Don't bend over. I'm watching you.'
  
  
  We went to the catacombs. Just before I reached the stairs, he stopped me. Probably to get your eyes used to the light. So he wasn't that stupid.
  
  
  I was allowed to continue. He wasn't following me anymore. When hers came down, hers felt a hand on her arm. "I saw and heard it. Come with me." Noah whispered in my ear.
  
  
  He kept holding me and pushing me forward. I whispered to emu what I was up to, and ego's fingers tightened on my wrist.
  
  
  "It will never work. You can't see behind you. The risk of seeing a shadow and pulling the trigger is too high. We'll try another way. The word "shadow" gave Noah an idea. At least, that's what he told me later. He lit a candle, which only dimly illuminated a box filled with small wooden dolls. Noah took one around them, stuck a long needle into it, which he also took out around the box, then held the doll up in front of him.
  
  
  The ego's lips began to move in silent prayer. Oh my God, Mitzi was sitting outside with a revolver pointed at her neck, and Noah didn't know what to do except summon some god of thunder.
  
  
  Fleming and Tara were also staring at the old man with wide eyes. Noah headed for the stairs, still muttering to himself. I followed him.
  
  
  I had to see it. Besides, she would have been released by Mitzi if the ruse had failed.
  
  
  Mitzi and the soldier were standing in the dark outside the door, both in shadow. Nov and I stopped on the stairs far enough away to hide from them. The Russian glanced nervously down the stairs at the open door. Mitzi was tense and ready to throw herself at anyone around them if necessary. He growled silently to himself. Impossible! You will never be able to achieve this with some crazy trick.
  
  
  The old man dropped the doll. With a sharp click, it fell to the stone floor, revealing itself in a ray of sunlight. The Russian's target moved abruptly toward the ground. Waiting for her was the shot that would end the thread of Mitzi's life. Nothing like that. It was Tony who cursed her and won. "No tricks," the Russian said. This doll, with a needle stuck in its back, was the biggest super trick it had ever seen.
  
  
  There was a sudden, wild movement in the shadows. The man twitched both hands. Ego's fingers parted as if he had been struck by an electric shock. The gun clattered to the ground. He staggered, clutching his chest with both hands, spinning on his axis, and then fell to the ground like a lifeless mass.
  
  
  Mitzi ego had a gun in his hand before I even got to them. She let the weapon hang limply as she looked from the soldier to the doll in a daze. She turned the man around so that he was lying on his back. It die. Ego's face twisted into a painful grimace. Ego's eyes bulged. The classic image of a massive heart attack.
  
  
  It was a man killed by fear. I knew it. Because that was the only option. A soldier who saw four of his friends killed in an old pirate fortress that was legendary. A man surrounded by enemies. Tense to the maximum. All around, the symbol of death falls at the ego's feet out of nowhere. The ego of adding up the dollar has stopped. Impossible ?
  
  
  Her, looked at Tony won. The old man was busy with the corpses. He dragged five dead soldiers with parachutes. He was standing cross-legged against the two of them. As if in a relaxed position. He held the third to moan, knees bent and arms crossed. The fourth one was the same way. She put the officer in the wicker chair where Fleming was sitting. Created a group type of men who completed the task and are now waiting.
  
  
  For what? Of course! How could I be so stupid? If Fleming had been captured, he would have been taken away. The men had to be taken away with the prisoner. Coming soon by helicopter. The pilot will be alone, because all available space must be occupied by passengers. It could be turned off by the ego! All I needed was an officer's radio.
  
  
  I went to get it. Noah completed the still life and explored the sky. . He smiled. "We get it by helicopter. It might come in handy sometime.
  
  
  He looked at me as if he wanted to challenge me to attack the ego art of voodoo. Then he went to the catacombs. Mitzi and I were waiting by helicopter.
  
  
  Half an hour later, we heard the sound of the propeller blades. He flew low, circled the fortress, and a voice came over the radio. He wants to know if we have Fleming. It was easy, I didn't even have to lie. I told her that we had Fleming and that he was still alive. The pilot laughed, broke contact, and began to land.
  
  
  Then something happened that we didn't foresee. The parachutes were pulled down by a sudden gust of wind. The corpses of Russian soldiers toppled over like wax figures.
  
  
  The sound of the engine immediately turned into a high-pitched screech, and the helicopter shot up. When I walked her around the doorway with a submachine gun, the plane was with me forever. I didn't see the pilot. It was impossible to get the ego to land. He was shot, the helicopter swayed. He disappeared behind the parapet and burned in the waters of the lagoon. Our transport has disappeared. He could have hit himself in the head.
  
  
  Behind me, I heard Mitzi define a few curses that were new even to me.
  
  
  We went down. A candle was burning, which was reflected in the curious eyes. Hers, he shook his head. 'Bad luck. We had to secure the trap. Noah was silent. He looked serious and raised his eyebrows so that his high forehead was lined. He took a deep breath.
  
  
  "There are almost never any storms in winter. Usually only in June, July, especially in August. But it doesn't hurt to try. Will you leave me alone? I'll be getting ready for the ceremony." Why not? A good show will kill time before Jerome's next attack.
  
  
  He helped Fleming up the stairs behind the girls and the young native. Noah called out to us. This is an insult to the gods." The sudden anger in her ego's voice frees me.
  
  
  She was pulled out of the chair by the officer's corpse and allowed to sit on it. Then she was brought a device to fit the hole in the parapet. I struggled to drag her and finally managed to push them all into the sea. Then her sel next to Fleming. Suddenly Noah appeared. He seemed like a completely different person. He was turbaned and hung with amulets and chains, and the gourds hanging from his ego belt made muffled music as he sang. Ego's eyes were wide open, but he didn't seem to see anything. He seemed to ignore us completely and went up the stairs to the roof.
  
  
  There he began to dance and sing. The objects on which it hung made sounds in accordance with the rhythm of the ego's movements. He spread his long legs, threw back his head, and raised his hands to the sky. The wind, stronger than before, ruffled Ego's hair and beard wildly. The voice that I had previously thought might be booming now actually boomed.
  
  
  Now he stood and listened in silence. Something in the emu responded. At first, I thought it was a thunderstorm approaching from afar. I shivered. Then I realized it was a different sound. Now I was shivering even more. It wasn't a thunderstorm that answered, the rheumatism came from the planes. bombers. Apparently, Jerome and his foreign assistants had given up trying to capture Fleming alive. Now Fleming was just an obstacle preventing them from entering the island.
  
  
  I saw her flying over the parapet, maybe two miles away. Its ran to a page that wasn't giving access. into the catacombs and beckoned to the others. The girls and the boy were taking Fleming's purple one, chair and all, down to the tunnel. Noah followed them. He picked up a candle from the altar, lit it, and went downstairs.
  
  
  As we entered the underground chamber, there was a dull explosion. Another one immediately followed. And another one. Dust and acrid fumes entered the room and collected. There were five strikes in a row.
  
  
  Tara was claustrophobic. She ran up the stairs. I went after her, grabbed her, and held her tight. Then it was quiet. There were no more explosions. The first active recreation aircraft disappeared. Now it was possible to expect the arrival of helicopters and paratroopers and reconnaissance of the results of the bombing. Her hotel will pay them off on time.
  
  
  I started to climb, and found out that I wasn't the only one. Everyone's tired of this graveyard down there. Tara, Mitzi, and the boy followed. Fleming and Noah followed, supporting each other.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 12
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The altar was covered with rubble, and a hole was made above it. Perhaps Noah let one down, around his gods in his weather dance. The room upstairs was still intact. The exit was clear, except for the thick granite door that had been completely torn down.
  
  
  The courtyard was cratered, and rubble lay from wall to groan. The tower on the parapet took a direct hit. It just wasn't there anymore. Several rooms were demolished, and a wall was torn down around one of them.
  
  
  The old patriarch put a hand on Fleming's shoulder, inspecting the damage. Anger was the obvious ego of the person. He turned and looked up at the mountain peaks, seemed to think for a moment, then said something in his native dialect to Fleming. The president of Grand LaClare let out a strange, wistful laugh.
  
  
  The black-and-blue sky drifted toward us over the treetops. The tree trunks swayed back and forth, and a strong wind whistled through the leaves. Through the hole in the outer moaning area, she could see the huge waves in the lagoon.
  
  
  A tall gray figure appeared at the entrance to the lagoon: corvettes. I wonder what they want out of this light ship. The small cannons on board this ship couldn't beat the result of the bombardment.
  
  
  Next to me, Mitzi Gardner grinned. "What do you think Jerome's naval forces are going to try again?"
  
  
  "This ship doesn't belong to Jerome. Oni sails under the Cuban flag, but the master's name may be more like Ivan than Juan. This is a submarine hunter, so they carry depth charges and mines. Maybe they think they can blow us up by blowing up a rock underwater."
  
  
  If that's the case, they'll have to come closer or use divers, and I can handle them. The others joined us, watching carefully as the ship approached. It had almost no speed and moved with the greatest caution, between the shallows, open to flood protection. I didn't think they would go so far as to attack, but I seemed to be hoping until the last moment.
  
  
  But that didn't happen. Just out of range of our weapons, they dropped anchor and threw four swimmers into the water. They made off with depth charges. I gave them time to get close enough to my machine gun, and then fired a burst into the water, following the route they probably chose. The first stage was unsuccessful. But the next one hit ih all.
  
  
  A fountain of water exploded as four charges exploded simultaneously. Tons of water and bits of black rubber flew into the air. This caused a wave that dealt a heavy blow to the corvette. The ship started to leave the lagoon, but I had the feeling that it had suffered significant damage. And looking out at the rough sea beyond the lagoon, he thought he might not make it to Port of Spain. The dark clouds were rapidly approaching. The wind roared, sending large foam heads flying around .
  
  
  At first, I didn't hear any other sound at all. But then she saw a squadron of helicopters approaching. It was impossible for helicopters to fly in this weather, but in some countries, human lives don't count.
  
  
  "Take cover," I shouted as loudly as I could over the wind. "They will try to attack us here and then land here with one helicopter. "Hurry up! '
  
  
  Noah and the boy were taking purple Fleming from here to the tunnel. Tara followed them, and Mitzi and I closed the line. When Tara reached the stairs, she suddenly turned around. "Tailor, I've had enough. Show me how to handle such a machine. I want to help you! '
  
  
  Nah had guts, and for some reason he was proud of her. He gave her brief instructions, telling her not to shoot until she was sure the enemy was in the room.
  
  
  "Stay here, Tara," her father said. "Mitzi, close another hole. I'll go the other way. Then you don't shoot at the crew until they get out. Maybe we can get out of here after all. He waited until Mitzi had disappeared into one of the surrounding buildings. Then he ran to the other side of the courtyard. It barely hid under the roof as it flew by as the lowland embassy reported, sending a city of 50 mm bullets into the walls. When the lines ended, her husband went out into the yard and shot at the nearest one. He flew like a drunken bird toward the jungle. Mitzi heard the crack of the machine gun. It hit one of the helicopters, but it wasn't an effective hit. Tara fired several long bursts, but didn't hit anything.
  
  
  Because of the noise of their own guns, they probably didn't even hear them being shot at. They came back to fly over us again, and covered the landing of one of the helicopters, which apparently had problems. Heavy rain began to fall.
  
  
  The helicopter dropped to the ground like a tired bird. The door opened on the other side, and two machine guns fired at the walls where the girls were sitting. Then the pilot got out around the helicopter and walked around it. The girls ' machine guns roared. He fell, bleeding profusely. But the second man in the helicopter was still firing in our direction. Ego couldn't see her from where he was standing, so he ran around the room and ran to the helicopter. I had to silence the ego. He fired through the glass and saw the shooter's target turn to red mush.
  
  
  Now it was raining in heavy gusts. The sky turned a dirty green. There was lightning, and there was a deafening thunderclap. The rest, the embassy said, could no longer withstand the storm. They were trying to land on the beach.
  
  
  I was just about to grab a rope to tie up the landing helicopter when Mitzi's shout made me stop. She pointed to the room where Tara should be.
  
  
  I knew it even before I got there: Tara Sawyer was lying on the floor. Her beautiful body turned into a bloody mass, torn apart by heavy bullets from the helicopter. With a quick glance, he quickly disappeared around the room. I couldn't afford to dwell on us, on anything. I had to tie this one up by helicopter. But it wasn't easy for me, I was very worried about her. Poor Tara! Hey, you shouldn't have fought.
  
  
  Mitzi helped me. When we finished, we had to crawl low-lying on the ground to avoid being blown away by the wind, which is high places at about 150 mph. We didn't go into the tunnel. She didn't want to see Tara again right away.
  
  
  Her hotel is calm to think. Tony won didn't want to see her, either. He asked for a hurricane and got his ego. In February! Her, thought about a few things.
  
  
  We sat side by side, not saying a word, both of us full of our own dark thoughts. The storm continued to rage for another hour before subsiding. Suddenly there was an oppressive silence. In the south, hurricanes rotate clockwise, in the north - counterclockwise. The speed increases from the center to the outer ring. If Noah can not only cause a hurricane, but also change the course of the ego, we will soon get a full blow from the other direction.
  
  
  He looked through the hole that the bombs had made in the outer wall. I saw her, the corvettes. The ship ran aground and rocked up and down. The waves that were several meters high hit him with terrifying force. Most of the helicopters got caught in trees and crashed, and the stranded patrol boat disappeared. Damaged yachts floating in the lagoon were washed ashore and completely destroyed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 13
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Noah curiously circled the helicopter and nodded to himself. But when he came up to us, his face was dark and his eyes were somber.
  
  
  He said in as gentle a tone as possible, "I underestimated you and I admit I don't understand it, but you even hired us a taxi to get us out of here."
  
  
  He continued to look grim. "Miss Sawyer is a great honor to all of us. The art I don't own is the art of resurrection. But we can at least give you a place among our heroes."
  
  
  Tara's voodoo funeral? I didn't think so. She couldn't even imagine that her father would appreciate it. He was going to take her body with him, but decided not to talk about it yet.
  
  
  Noah wasn't done talking yet. "The wind will be back soon." He pointed around. "The fort is severely weakened by bombing. When the storm hits again, the walls will collapse. We'd better get down."
  
  
  He didn't wait for our response, but walked down the tunnel. Mitzi and I followed him. He suddenly thought of Tara. The thought of her death made me sick. I would be pleased to use all the methods of our organization and organization that I know of against Colonel Karib Jerome.
  
  
  Two candles burned in front of the altar. Probably one to thank the gods and one to beg ih for the good of the future. And we could use any kind of help. Noah was busy mumbling again, perhaps intending to smooth Tara's path to the afterlife.
  
  
  Her, felt unnecessary. Her, felt restless and trapped. I didn't even realize I was walking until Noah said to me in a low voice, "You don't have to stay here, Mr. Carter. It's a maze; there are other rooms you might want to explore as well." He touched a rock that seemed to be part of the wall. As a result, part of the wall swung inward. Beyond it was a corridor.
  
  
  I could hear the slight note of reproach in her voice. He probably thought I was interfering with the ceremony and was glad he was able to leave. There were several candles in his pocket, and he lit one. Then he and Mitzi walked through the open door, and Noah closed it again behind us.
  
  
  We found ourselves in a room with a well in the middle. So, it was a place where water was stored for the duration of a long siege. The rest of the rooms served as food cellars. They were cool enough to keep food in them for a long time. And then we came across a whole butcher shop; a room filled to the brim with carcasses. I was wondering how the old man fed his tribe if they couldn't hunt safely outside the walls.
  
  
  We spent an hour walking through the underground chambers, but there was plenty of fresh air sampling everywhere. Her task is to find the source of this. We walked down a winding corridor that led to the surface. At the point where I suspected we were on the level of the courtyard, we came across a barred gate blocking the passage. He picked the lock with his stiletto until it opened. We went on and found a staircase leading to the corner tower. Air came in through the embrasures.
  
  
  We came across a locked door. It was unbolted, and we went up a flight of stairs around a mahogany wall that led directly to a room at the top of the tower.
  
  
  Mitzi had said that before. No one knew all the tricks of this old conman! It was a radio room! Filled with transmitting and receiving equipment: the best.
  
  
  Her sel in front of the console and laughed. Mitzi reacted very differently. She was furious.
  
  
  "Now let's talk to that old hypocrite con artist!" she shouted. "He made everyone look like idiots. He sends everyone away so that he can call on the gods in peace, but in reality he goes to his radio room to listen to the weather reports. No wonder he knew a hurricane was coming."
  
  
  "Take a tailor, yes," I added. "He made me hear sounds that didn't exist at all. Jungle drums! I think that somewhere in the bushes, near Port of Spain, there is another weapon hidden so that you can signal the latest news here. Let's see what's happening in the world ."
  
  
  I flipped a few switches, and Sergey lit up. The device started humming. But the only sound we got was the crackle of static electricity. The storm was too strong to take anything in. He turned off the radio. The loopholes in the radio room were closed. We had nowhere to look outside, but at least from the sounds we could hear, we could tell that the storm was back in full force.
  
  
  We went out to the radio room, trying to erase all traces of our presence. He wasn't going to tell Noah that he'd opened the ego game. And an hour later, when the old man's mimmo passed by to watch the helicopter ride through the storm, he tried to make an innocent face. But that wasn't all.
  
  
  The storm was over. But by helicopter, too. All that was left of it was a pile of scrap metal against one of the walls. The propeller blades were bent like tentacles.
  
  
  The radio was our last contact with the outside world. And we won't be able to use ego for the next few hours. Even if she had been able to contact Hawk, he would never have been able to send a helicopter out into the storm that was still raging. All that remained was to wait until the next morning.
  
  
  I had an idea of what the view would be like on the island at that moment. In any case, it was obvious that all the roads were blocked by fallen trees. Even the heaviest tanks could not cross the road. So we didn't expect a night attack. I went down to tell him the news about the helicopter.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 14
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We were eating edu, for Tony's inexhaustible supply had won, when the old giant suddenly looked up. He'd heard it, too: the sound of excited voices outside the gate. Noah was on the stairs in two strides. He ran after him to the gate.
  
  
  The tribe has returned. Noah pushed open the gate and the men rushed in. Noah translated the ih words for me. When the hurricane hit, they hid in caves scattered all over the island. Then they heard drums from the direction of Port of Spain: the capital was destroyed, the army disbanded. And Jerome was dead!
  
  
  They were shocked by the state of the fort, but now that they were safe again, they hoped to repair the damage. When they started preparing for the holiday night, Mitzi and I did the same, albeit on a slightly smaller scale.
  
  
  I'll have to wait until the next morning to make sure my assignment is completed. I had to see the colonel's body with my own eyes and make finger prints for the POLICE. According to tribal officials, Tony Possessed's body was still in the Sawyer Hotel, so I need to get there as soon as possible. If the truck hadn't been destroyed, he could have used it to get to the capital quickly. I'd take her with me, men with machetes to clear the way where necessary. Let's hope that the truck did not suffer the fate of helicopters and boats in the lagoon.
  
  
  Finally, by midnight, we were asleep. The next morning, he decided not to call Hawke for help just yet. I don't like it, and Hawke said it was important that he did it alone, without foreign help. I still had a chance to help Fleming take the presidency on his own.
  
  
  Fleming was in favor of entering Port of Spain as soon as possible. But Noah seemed less confident. The jungle drums were fun, but of course he hadn't heard anything on the radio yet. Something he certainly didn't want to say out loud. He sent some young men with machetes to clear the road with me, and I went with them to the truck. Fortunately, not a single tree fell on it. I inserted the rotor, dried the carburetor, and closed the hood. Mitzi Gardner sat in the front seat, putting leaves on the wet upholstery. Ee machine gun was lying on the dashboard.
  
  
  I didn't protest. Nah had the right to attend the closing ceremony. Now we were alone again, and only Tony Vanquished's men were clearing the way for us. It could have been worse. The trees along the road were mostly small, ih was easy to move. Where the road went close to the sea, sometimes whole sections were counted. If necessary, people put logs in deep places so that we could drive along them without any problems.
  
  
  The day was clear. The sky was an innocent blue, and the sea was calm. But the beaches were like boat graveyards, and the houses on the coast were mostly completely destroyed. The first big building we passed, the old Poinciana Hotel, is just a lot of rubble. There, the Tony Won boys jumped out around the car to enter the crash and search for valuable finds under the rubble. The entire village ahead was a sad sight. People walked aimlessly through the rubble, sometimes picking up something, then dropping it and moving on.
  
  
  I'm trying to keep the hill fortress, which has weathered so many storms, withstood this blow as well.
  
  
  Government Square still looked pretty good, except that not one window was intact, and the road was littered with trash. The soldiers in the area were unarmed and walked like dazed robots. In the business district, several soldiers were cleaning up the rubble, under the direction of junior officers. They watched us as we passed mimmo, but they didn't try to stop us. Now that the colonel was dead, they were apparently in a power vacuum. At the Sawyer Grand LaClare, the elegant tall trees that decorated the lawns were broken like branches. They were scattered here and there. In the harbor, several boats were floating filled with water. The water was dirty in color. The white beach was in ruins, surrounded by ruined sun loungers and umbrellas. There were no soldiers near the inn.
  
  
  He pulled up to the main entrance. We entered with our weapons drawn. He took into account that Jerome may have several soldiers guarding him as a guard of honor. I have to take this into account. But that wasn't the case. The hall was deserted, as was the casino.
  
  
  "Maybe in the Chip logs?" Mitzi thought aloud. We went there. For the cash register, of course, there was no black security guard. To my surprise, the electric lock was still working. We moved on. Still no one in sight. We opened the door to Capolla's office with a button on the control panel. Jerome wasn't there, but the money was there. Beside me, I heard her sigh a deep sigh of relief. Mitzi ran her tongue over her lips when she saw the stacks of bills.
  
  
  "The boys in Miami will love to hear that," she said. "I think all of Sawyer will open soon."
  
  
  "But where is Jerome's body?" I asked impatiently. I needed finger prints. Mitzi suggested that I take a look at the rooftop apartment.
  
  
  "Go on, Nick. I'll leave her money here. Anything can still happen, and she wouldn't want that money to disappear in the nick of time."
  
  
  "I don't want to leave you here alone," her father said. "In such situations, this city must be swarming with looters."
  
  
  Her lip curled. "The door can be locked from the inside, but you can only open it around the hall. It's almost as safe here as it is in the vault. Do you know how the elevator control panel works?
  
  
  I knew it. I took a close look at her, just like she did when we first used ego together. She barely felt the elevator stop, but when the doors opened, she stepped out onto the thick carpet of the upper floor.
  
  
  The traffic was too fast. The hand with the revolver hit me in the head. Her reflex leaned in, but I was hit. My arm was momentarily paralyzed. My gun fell to the ground, and I couldn't bend my elbow to grab the Luger.
  
  
  He jumped back and grabbed the wrist of the man holding the revolver with his left hand: it was Jerome.
  
  
  So he wasn't dead. He had a wound on his forehead. He'd probably been out for a while, but now the ego muscles were completely intact. And he could fight almost as well as she could. He knew all the tricks.
  
  
  While my right hand was still limp and ego's left wrist was gripping it, he punched me in the chin and then immediately kneed me in the groin. Its cringed than hurt. But I needed to keep that gun away from me. Her muscles tightened at first, and then suddenly fell to the floor. In rheumatism, he loosened his grip. He got to his knees. He wrenched his wrist free and tried to aim at the revolver. He buried his teeth in ego's leg and kept biting. He screamed in pain and doubled over my back. The revolver fell to the ground. He bit her again. He screamed, and I felt warm blood running down his pants. Then my fingers found the gun. He leaped to his feet, threw up his ego, fell on one of the tribes, and shot Jerome.
  
  
  He massaged his right arm until he felt his strength return. Then she was dragged by the corpse into the elevator. I didn't have time to take finger prints. Cutting off my fingers with Hugo, my stiletto, was faster. Ih tied it up with a handkerchief and put it in a minute.
  
  
  When I entered the first floor, I was surprised to find that Mitzi was still there. When her phone rang through the intercom, she opened the door from the inside. "Have you found the ego?"
  
  
  'Ego found her.'
  
  
  "Nick, her name is. Let's take a truck and deliver the money to Noah, it'll be safe there."
  
  
  'Good. Wait here while I take the truck to the garage."
  
  
  A truck took it, and we put the money under the tarp and drove back to the hills.
  
  
  We were almost at the fortress, not far from the capital, when a Jeep pulled up from the opposite direction and blocked the road directly in front of us. A colonel in a Russian uniform got out around the car and pulled out a revolver. He was shouting something at us. "It was ordered that no vehicles should be allowed on the street. Don't you know... "Then he saw Mitzi's red hair and began to suspect something. 'Who are you? What are you doing in this truck?
  
  
  It got out, the machine gun and shot at it. After I got rid of the officer and the driver of the Jeep, he was hit by gas on the road. That's why we didn't see any senior officers anywhere on the island. Even now, they were sitting in the fort and listening to new orders. Port of Spain was under the laws of war of a foreign Power!
  
  
  When we were some distance away from the city, we encountered Noah and ego people. With November in the lead and Fleming in a wooden palanquin, they were heading our way.
  
  
  Her growled and hit the intimidation pedal. How could Fleming have persuaded the old man to do such a thing? God knows how many foreign affairs troops are on the island. He jumped around the car and walked over to Noah. I found that I could no longer control my voice with anger. He even started yelling at him, but he didn't think about going back. He described the situation in the city, the seizure of power. No reaction!
  
  
  "Now that Jerome is dead, people will rise up," he said. "They will support President Fleming."
  
  
  How? With a machete? Machetes versus machine guns? Noah stepped around me and nobly walked on. The tribe followed him, passing a mimmo truck. They sang and played music on their wooden drums. Her, jumped in the car and started to turn the truck. But Mitzi grabbed the steering wheel.
  
  
  "We won't be returning with this cargo, dear. It's a ride up the mountain forever, even if I have to do it alone."
  
  
  Woman. Well, Hawke only hired her in Fleming's case. If she insisted on being killed and decided that she would visit her mafia friends to at least get the money, he could hardly blame her. At least her life would be spared. Hers jumped out around the truck and ran to Fleming at the head of the procession.
  
  
  As we continued walking, I noticed that the hooting behind us was getting louder. Looking back, he understood why. More and more people, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, joined us in the jungle.
  
  
  The inhabitants of the old village came out of the woods like the teeth of a dragon. Human rivers flowed down from the hills. We were met by residents of the capital.
  
  
  Then something crazy happened. The local army came out of the fort not to attack us, but to join us. They started shooting in the direction of the fortress.
  
  
  Then I understood her. Jerome's soldiers watched him until they found out what he was really up to, until the Russians told them. Now they have made a revolution. The soldiers and the people marched on Fleming. And the soldiers were joined by the officers who were in the shower for Fleming. The people who had been for the Cubans and a handful of Russian advisers were now trapped in the fortress and surrounded by a mass of people and soldiers. And many people now know no fear.
  
  
  Shouting and waving their knives, the natives followed the charging armed soldiers. Many were injured. But many more began to storm the walls of the fortress. They fought until the shooting at the fortress stopped. It didn't take more than half an hour. People who had entered through the windows and through the walls poured through the gates. They didn't have us Cubans, us Russian "advisers".
  
  
  The soldiers formed a formation and moved to where Fleming was watching the battle. They saluted and presented the rifle as a token of loyalty. I knew that Fleming had been taken to a place where my government could see my ego.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 15
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Only one plane at the airport could not take off. There was only one ship in the harbor that was ready to sail. All foreign pilots, officers and "advisers" were brought on board and left the country as unwanted foreigners.
  
  
  Fleming began to clean efficiently. The Tony Won tribe has gone back to the fortress. The Hammond family invited Fleming to come and live at the palace. They will leave as soon as the airport reopens to normal traffic.
  
  
  Mitzi sent a courier with a note. If she was asked by Davey's hotel to tell the boys in Miami where she had been and that she would stay there until she received further orders.
  
  
  "Tara Sawyer was laid to rest in a beautiful ceremonial funeral," she wrote. "She's buried in marble somewhere in the catacombs."
  
  
  She still had a week left to help Fleming if necessary. But there were no other problems, and the emu didn't need my help. It was a kind of vacation.
  
  
  When he returned to Washington, Sawyer ranted to Hawke about his daughter's death. He demanded that she be buried at home. He hadn't yet informed Emu of Tara's fate. Hawk let me sort out the problem.
  
  
  Sawyer tried to calm her down and told her about Tara's exploits. He pointed out to emu the immense gratitude of the natives and saw that some of Sawyer's anger and deep sadness had turned to pride.
  
  
  Emu hadn't told her about Mitzi. There's no point in starting a war between him and the mafia. If a girl wants to remove the top layer of cream, I thought she deserved it. Thomas Sawyer could easily have paid for the renovation with his company's profits, and perhaps now Mitzi could have gone into business and lived a quiet life.
  
  
  He told them both about November. Hawke looked at me as if he'd never heard the name before, but Sawyer seemed very impressed with the stories he was telling her about nen.
  
  
  When Hawk and I were alone, I brought the jar of Jerome's fingers to the chair. Hawk looked at Nah like he was looking at a jar of peanut butter. Then, with a flourish, he placed Mitzi Gardner's note next to it. He looked at nah and then looked at me. I didn't see a muscle move under the parchment skin. He didn't even blink.
  
  
  'I like your work.' It was his usual spa tone. "I'm waiting for your report."
  
  
  I started it with small details. Stewardess; "I was pretty sure Jerome killed her, but we could still check it out. The prison that Fleming was supposed to inspect. The dungeons he turned into laboratories for the university. Then, with an expressionless face, he gave a chronological overview of the activities of Tony Won.
  
  
  "He knew about the hurricane two hours before," Hawke told him. "There is enough time to show that he is not afraid, and give a full performance. I wonder why the rest of the island was caught off guard, so they couldn't get their ships and planes to safety in time. Can I call her on the phone? '
  
  
  It was possible. I called the weather bureau and got in touch with one of my friends who works there. "Jim, when did you get the hurricane warning last week?"
  
  
  There was something like a curse on the other end. "Damn it, Nick, it's too late to save anything. The satellite didn't see it until it passed over Grand Lachlair. By the time we got the warning, and it was all over. We've never seen a hurricane move so fast. And this is in February! Even Noah didn't warn us in advance."
  
  
  I thought I was going crazy. "What do you know about Noah?"
  
  
  "He is our observer in the area. N. O. A. H. (Noah) these are ego code letters. He's pretty damn good. He usually predicts the weather as fast as we do. How is it? It sounds a little strange.
  
  
  'Noah .. . nothing like that. Thank you.'
  
  
  I hung up on her. Hawk put down the other one. Ego's voice sounded grim. "If he had reported it in time, he could have prevented a lot of damage. Many lives would have been saved ."
  
  
  "And the island fell into the hands of our big brother on the other side of the ocean," I added.
  
  
  He walked out of the office without a word and closed the door softly behind him. The weather satellite is constantly photographing large areas of the ocean. And this crazy hurricane wasn't photographed until it hit the coast of the island. Has the satellite never seen a storm before?
  
  
  He lit a cigarette and tried not to think about it anymore. Her cigarette was thrown away. Was this job starting to make me senile?
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  About the book:
  
  
  
  
  
  There are many ways to kill a person ... Chinese assassins prefer a knife, while others kill with their bare hands.
  
  
  American mobsters use large-caliber revolvers, Russian assassins use dynamite.
  
  
  However, there is only one person who can practice all killing techniques. Ego's name is Killmaster !!!
  
  
  This time, Nick Carter will have to use all his skills to deal with the butchers he meets on the way to the "Kremlin Dossier".
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Carter Nick
  
  
  Spanish Connection
  
  
  
  Nick Carter
  
  
  Spanish Connection
  
  
  Dedicated to members of the United States Secret Service
  
  
  
  
  The first chapter
  
  
  It was Hawk, and he was quirky. He didn't have much practice at it, and he wouldn't have excelled at it even if he was in great shape.
  
  
  "Do you go skiing, N3?" he asked me on the phone.
  
  
  "Of course, I go skiing. And very good, if I may say so"
  
  
  "Collect your skis. You're going to Spain."
  
  
  "It's hard to ski in Spain," I said. "Pure snow"
  
  
  "Amendments. Sierra Nevada. Translation. Snow-capped mountains".
  
  
  "Well, maybe it snows from time to time ..."
  
  
  "You will have a companion."
  
  
  "Also a skier?"
  
  
  "Absolutely fantastic. Also an expert on drug trafficking. It's on loan from the Treasury's Drug Enforcement Administration."
  
  
  "Snow bird?"
  
  
  "It's a lot of fun. You'll both be partying at a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada."
  
  
  "Called...?"
  
  
  "Sol y Nieve".
  
  
  "Transfer:"sun and snow / No, sir. I mean, who are you?"
  
  
  "I'll let you know later. In the meantime, take the San Diego flight to Ensenada."
  
  
  "Ensenada?"
  
  
  "A small fishing town in Baja California."
  
  
  "I know what it is, and I know where it is. Her ego even has a special smell. What does a desert city have to do with cross-country skiing?"
  
  
  "You'll meet a Treasury agent there."
  
  
  "Ah."
  
  
  "Be nice to her. We need her expertise."
  
  
  "Her?" Bells rang in my nerve centers.
  
  
  "Ee."
  
  
  "What is it? Does she have to be a babysitter for drug addicts?"
  
  
  "You should see that the meeting takes place."
  
  
  "A meeting?"
  
  
  "Between it and one of the links to break Turkey-Corsica-California. He wants to sing. I want to hear the music before the emu's throat is cut."
  
  
  "Sir, sometimes you ..."
  
  
  "Don't say that! The address is La Casa Verde. Ask Juana Rivera."
  
  
  "And then?"
  
  
  "Bring her to Washington with you."
  
  
  "When?"
  
  
  "On the next plane to Ensenada."
  
  
  He didn't see my clenched fist.
  
  
  "Nikolai!" Hawk sighed. He suspects me of being frivolous.
  
  
  I hung up on her. After closing a case in the Philippines that smelled like overripe coconuts, hers had flown to San Diego from Hawaii just two days ago. He was just beginning to get rid of the kinks in his muscles and the tension in his psyche. Killing is never pleasant, its exceeded its quota in Mo. And.
  
  
  It's best to throw it all out by sight, around your head - with the help of a flock of beautiful stars in San Diego to shoot a TV series. But now...
  
  
  I called the clerk, telling him about my most unfortunate color change, the rapid increase in plans, and asked him to prepare my bill. Then he called the airport and found out that the next plane to Ensenada would leave in an hour and a half.
  
  
  If I interrupt my spiky shower, I'll just be able to do it.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Baja California is the tail that hangs down from California proper. No one seemed to know what to do about it. This has been the subject of controversy between the US and Mexico for many years. After months of haggling over ownership of the desert strip, the Mexicans finally gave in and agreed to take it back.
  
  
  He leaned back in his seat and slept all the way to the small airport on a dirt strip near a tiny fishing village called Ensenada. The word actually means "bay" or "small stream" if you're into interesting little things.
  
  
  When I went out on the plane bright sunny saint, the brightness was so strong that I put on sunglasses.
  
  
  A new Mustang taxi was parked outside the operating tower, and the driver called her to take Ego back to town. After passing through rutted roads, savannahs overgrown with sagebrush and greasy forest, we finally came to the main street of the city.
  
  
  La Casa Verde - which was supposed to be green if my Spanish still fits, but was actually a kind of fading pastel lime-was at the end of a sagging block, where it lay sunning like a lizard on a rock.
  
  
  He got out of the taxi, picked up his bag, and went into the lobby. The motel was pitch dark from the bright sunlight, but I could see the mustachioed teenager pretending to be interested in my arrival. Emu waved at her and picked up the phone at home.
  
  
  "Livi". It was a girl at a miniature switchboard.
  
  
  "Can you connect me to Senorita Juana Rivera?"
  
  
  There was a click, and a long ring.
  
  
  "Livi". It was a different girl.
  
  
  "Juan Rivera?"
  
  
  "Her."
  
  
  "Do you speak English?"
  
  
  There were fluctuations. "Jess?"
  
  
  Her, closed his eyes. This was supposed to be one of those missions. He shook his head and said the code phrase, trying not to feel absurd:
  
  
  "October is the eighth month of the year."
  
  
  "I beg your pardon? Oh, yes! Then the apples are ripe."
  
  
  "Good girl! This is George Peabody." That was my current cover name, and Hawke didn't ask me to change my ego. So I was still George Peabody.
  
  
  "Ah, Senor Peabody." He was glad to hear that the accent was gone. "Where are you?"
  
  
  "I'm in the lobby," I said. "Should I suit her?"
  
  
  "No, no!" she said quickly. "I'll be downstairs."
  
  
  "In the barre," I sighed, looking out at the very dark flow of the lobby, where the man behind the counter was wiping his hands.
  
  
  He turned and headed for the darkened bar. The bartender looked at me. "Senor?"
  
  
  "Pisco Sour," I said.
  
  
  He nodded
  
  
  
  and turned to do it.
  
  
  I could feel the heavy air moving softly behind me, bringing the scent of fresh lemon to me. He turned and saw a slender, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl in her mid-twenties, with the almost luminescent pale white skin that water lilies usually have.
  
  
  "George," she said in Spanish. It was like "Hor-hey".
  
  
  "Juana?" I told her, correctly pronouncing the ego midway between the "h"and " w".
  
  
  She held out her hand. I'll take it. Then he pointed to a table against the wall.
  
  
  We came up. She was elegant, clean, and very feminine. Her body was lithe and beautifully shaped. Ee legs too. "Good old Hawk!" I thought of her. How uncharacteristic of him!
  
  
  We play this game.
  
  
  She ordered an iced tea, settled into a chair, and leaned forward, her eyes shining. "Now. What does it all mean?"
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "I have no idea. My superior in Washington will brief us."
  
  
  "When?"
  
  
  "Tonight."
  
  
  Her face was blank. "But that means we won't be here today."
  
  
  "Es verdad".
  
  
  Her mouth dropped open. "Then there won't be time for..." Her mouth snapped shut.
  
  
  "What, Juana?"
  
  
  Her face was pink. "He's an olvidado to me."
  
  
  "You have a short memory," I said, and finished my pisco sour. Beautiful Aguardiente, I thought. Someday I will have to visit Pisco, Peru.
  
  
  Its got up. "Pack your bags, Juana. We're taking the next flight out of here."
  
  
  "But you should know something about the mission..."
  
  
  "Drugs," I said.
  
  
  "Of course, its about drugs"
  
  
  "And the Mediterranean Sea. We're going to Spain."
  
  
  Her mouth formed an o.
  
  
  "Go skiing."
  
  
  She was drinking iced tea. "Could you repeat that?"
  
  
  I never made it.
  
  
  Then she tricked me. Her eyes lit up. "Ah! Of course, the Sierra Nevada! There's a first-class ski resort near Granada."
  
  
  I watched it.
  
  
  "Can you ski?" she asked me.
  
  
  This was the day for this question. "What are you doing?"
  
  
  "Very well," she said placidly.
  
  
  And modest, I thought. He calmly said, " We'll indulge."
  
  
  The bartender was watching me. Juana winked at her, and she winked at rheumatism. It was beautiful, refined, and achievable.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  As we stepped outside, a flash of light bouncing off the rifle barrel drew my gaze to the black hole at the end of it. This man was lying flat on the roof around a hot alley across the street, and I knew he had me centered in the center of the scope's ego scope.
  
  
  He froze for a moment. Then he tossed it to Juana's side and dove in the opposite direction, toward the shelter of the doorway. The shot rang out across the street.
  
  
  "Hold on!" Hey called out to her.
  
  
  "But, Nick..."
  
  
  "Quiet!" I hissed.
  
  
  He quickly got up and ran to the lobby window. I covered it and looked out the window. The gleam of the rifle barrel caught her again. The man was still on the roof of the dry goods store.
  
  
  As her husband approached his gun, he raised the rifle and fired again. Gawking eyes dug into the wooden structure candid above Juana's head. Now she was crawling back into the doorway. "Good girl!" I thought of her.
  
  
  When she looked up again, the man was gone.
  
  
  I could hear her running feet. I looked through the dusty window and saw a man in a black suit coming out of a store on the street and looking up at the spot where the sniper was waiting for us.
  
  
  He ran around the hotel, waving at Juana to stay inside, and went up the dry goods store's stairs, two at a time, to the top floor.
  
  
  Its too late. He's gone.
  
  
  There was nothing left on the roof but a lot of Mexican cigarette butts and a sombrero he'd bought two days earlier from the store below.
  
  
  "A foreigner," said the two men in the store, a man with a fat belly and a smiling face. Gonzalez.
  
  
  "Tourist?"
  
  
  "Yes."
  
  
  "Can you describe the ego?"
  
  
  Gonzalez shrugged. "About your height. Brown hair. Brown eyes. A thin man. Nervous."
  
  
  It's all.
  
  
  Juana took her aside in the hotel lobby while we waited for a taxi to pick us up and take us to the airport.
  
  
  "He was here two days ago," her father said.
  
  
  "Right?"
  
  
  "How long have you been here?"
  
  
  Tour."
  
  
  "Do you think he knows who you are?"
  
  
  Her eyes narrowed. She took it as an insult. She was Latin, beautiful, and full of fire. "I don't think so!" She said indignantly.
  
  
  They didn't think it was an insult.
  
  
  "What were you working on before you were contacted about this assignment?"
  
  
  "A drop of the drug".
  
  
  "Break it?"
  
  
  She nodded, lowering her eyes.
  
  
  "All of this?"
  
  
  "Yes." Her chin lifted defiantly.
  
  
  "One left?"
  
  
  "Maybe so," she said evasively.
  
  
  He turned and looked out of the doorway at the top of the dry goods store.
  
  
  "Yes," I agreed. "I think maybe so."
  
  
  Her face twisted with rage.
  
  
  Ee grabbed her by the elbow. The taxi has arrived. Lucky Nick. Saved by Ensenada's company Taxicab.
  
  
  "Come on, Juana. Next stop, Washington, DC."
  
  
  Very authoritarian. Very domineering.
  
  
  She calmly climbed into the taxi, flashing a beautiful piece of thigh. But I almost didn't notice it.
  
  
  Two
  
  
  Hawke sat at the console of the AXE cinema control panel, pushing buttons and setting up discs. One button to play audio. One ribbon button. One button for 16 mm film. One button for live broadcast. One button for an old black-and-white movie.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  One button for slides. Or, if you want to rest your eyes, one button for a soft female voice voicing intelligence scores.
  
  
  The conversation up to this point had been a casual chatter. Her erased it all around her head. I only remember that I could perceive Juana Rivera visually, and I really did. However, something in her thoughts seemed pre-determined, pre-tested, and fruitless.
  
  
  But she was beautiful, and I like beautiful women. I thought of her: "If only he could erase her voice, like a Hawk can erase a recording he didn't want to hear."
  
  
  Brylev completely went out, and in front of us was a picture on the screen that engaged magically appeared on moans.
  
  
  "Enrico Corelli," a soft female voice said over the image that flashed across the screen. It was a still photograph, taken about fifteen years ago, and blown up by the smallest part of some larger photograph. The background scene was the Vatican rotunda.
  
  
  "Photographed, for example, in 1954," the voice continued. "This is the last surviving photograph of Corelli. The rest of the ego photos were bought for a lot of money. The investigation cannot prove that the money comes from the mafia's coffers. But that's what they believe in."
  
  
  Her eyes took a long and careful look at the photo. The face was almost indistinguishable. The facial features were quite ordinary: dark hair, firm chin, face shape without distinction. It was memorized by ego as best it could, but because it had been blasted so many times around such a small piece of grainy film, there was almost nothing in it that it could focus on.
  
  
  A map flashed across the screen. It was a map of Corsica. The city of Basria was outlined in a circle.
  
  
  "It is established that Enrico Corelli lives here, in the suburb of Basria, Corsica, in a villa built in the Napoleonic era. He has a staff of ten servants and two bodyguards. He lives with a woman named Tina Bergson.
  
  
  "Corelli is now forty-five years old. He worked for the Italian government in Rime, but was fired a few months later. He was briefly married, but the ego woman died of pneumonia when Corelli wasn't working. Disgusted, he began working for members of a gang of forgers and exiled thieves around the United States who were born in Sicily and were mafia members in New York and Chicago. He stahl is a good enforcer and a very good businessman for them. When the pharmacy chain was established, he was one of the first people to open a point of flow, near Naples.
  
  
  "The drug network flourished in the 1960s, and by the end of that time, Corelli Stahl was a key figure in the entire mafia chain.
  
  
  "With them to find out, he had different mistresses. One tried to kill ego when he dumped her with another woman's owl. She was later found drowned in the Bay of Naples."
  
  
  The map disappeared, and a luxury yacht about 180 feet long filled the screen with a beautiful color slide.
  
  
  "This is Corelli's pleasure yacht, Lysistrata. She sails under the flag of France. Corelli considers himself a citizen of Corsica, even though he was born in Milan."
  
  
  A picture of a large villa now appeared on the screen.
  
  
  "The Corelli House. Although he only has two bodyguards to guard ego, Ego manor is constantly patrolled by half a dozen gunmen."
  
  
  A new picture flashed up. A body lay in the grass. He was shot several times. The corpse was unrecognizable, but from the appearance of her remains, I decided that the bullets that hit it were dummy bullets-ordinary bullets cut into blades of the letter X. dumdum Bullets turn mushrooms into a cut, destroying the shape when they hit the target .
  
  
  "It was a French agent named Emil Ferenc. He was trying to break into Villa Corelli, as the estate is called. Apparently, he was discovered by the patrols and killed."
  
  
  Then a picture of the desolate, desert-like countryside appeared on the screen. The lens zoomed in on a figure standing near the majestic Lombardy poplar, the only tree of any size in sight. As the figure grew, one could see that the man was of indeterminate age, but rather tall and strongly built. The face was in shadow.
  
  
  "Enrico Corelli. This is the closest image that anyone has managed to photograph in the last ten years. The image was taken with a telescopic lens from the safe polling point on the opposite hill. Although the face is indistinguishable, the person's body can be seen clearly . According to computer estimates, Alenka's ego was about 182, height-6 feet, sat straight, and health-excellent end of the military."
  
  
  The screen went black. Then a movie was launched. It was a scene on a beach, possibly on the French Riviera. A stunning blonde in a tiny bikini paraded across the sand, swaying her hips as her long blonde hair fluttered around her shoulders. She paused for a moment and turned, as if someone had spoken to her. She looked at the camera and smiled.
  
  
  "Tina Bergson. Hey, twenty-three years old. Born in Sweden, she moved to Rome, where she had a brief but unsuccessful film career.
  
  
  
  
  
  Then, two years ago, she moved to Switzerland, where she was involved in money manipulation, apparently for the benefit of the mafia or some organization like the mafia. She was caught, but never brought to trial. Most of the money is said to have changed hands to help her escape from the Swiss authorities.
  
  
  Soon after, she found herself in Enrico Corelli's house. Corelli didn't marry her, but she's his constant companion. She speaks Swedish, French, Italian and Spanish, as well as English. Ee's IQ is said to be 145 based on the results of an actual test taken when she filled out a Swiss bank job application. She's a great skier ."
  
  
  In the movie, she now flashes on skis on a slope. Her had to admit that she was very good. No wonder Ay wanted to spend the winter months at the ski slope; she seemed to love sports.
  
  
  Another map appeared on the screen. He showed the world in a Mercator projection with a line running from the Middle East to Turkey, from Turkey to Sicily, from Sicily to Corsica, to the Riviera, back to Corsica, and then to Portugal, thence to Cuba. , then to Central Mexico, and then to San Diego in California.
  
  
  The drug chain.
  
  
  "There have been many changes in the main drug supply chain over the past few years. Typically, heavy drugs start in the East and end up in the west, across the Mediterranean Sea, where they are processed. Control of this chain is anchored in Corsica, just a stop before the most important processing on the Riviera. The drugs then return to Corsica and then on to Cuba via one of three stops: Portugal, Morocco or Algeria.
  
  
  New map. He pointed to Corsica again.
  
  
  "From these statistics, the distribution lines extend back to the Middle East and further to the final destination, in the West. Money from the West comes here, where it is then distributed among the links in the network."
  
  
  The lens zoomed in on the map, showing the Corelli estate in a suburb of Basria, surrounded by a circle.
  
  
  "Rico Corelli is the person who controls the chain. He gets his orders from Sicily, where a deputy mobster controls the eastern half of the smash. Don in the west controls the rest of the smash, plus spread."
  
  
  The image went out, and Sergey lit up.
  
  
  We sat in silence for a while.
  
  
  Hawk cleared his throat.
  
  
  "Interesting," I said.
  
  
  "Academic," Juana said.
  
  
  "I agree with her," he continued.
  
  
  Hawk frowned. "It's just a briefing."
  
  
  "What about Corelli?" Juana asked.
  
  
  Hawk closed his eyes and rocked back in the comfortable swivel chair.
  
  
  "The mobsters have become dissatisfied with the profits from the drug program," Hawk finally said. "Six months ago, they started sending people from the inside out to test the system for intelligence. Corelli took a significant amount - too much, according to the US Don. But the Sicilian second couldn't think of a way to correct the situation. At the meeting, it was decided that Corelli would have to leave. One person was sent to hit him, but he disappeared through the fields of vision. You saw what happened to the so-called trench agent who tried to break into the estate.
  
  
  "Then the mafia capos decided to attack Corelli through Tina Bergson. A detective claiming to be from Switzerland tried to arrest her once in Basria on an old Swiss charge. But Odin's bodyguards Corelli intervened and saved Tina. They then dragged the detective himself to a nearby beach, tied ego up, and allowed him to wait for the tide to turn before drowning. The man escaped and left Corsica, never to return ."
  
  
  He raised his hand.
  
  
  "Nick?"
  
  
  "How do we know all this?"
  
  
  "Corelli told us."
  
  
  "Directly?"
  
  
  Hawk sighed. "We have someone close to Corelli, although he has never seen it. Corelli gave out the information on his own initiative."
  
  
  "Why not?" Juana asked.
  
  
  "He said he wanted to leave for good."
  
  
  "To save yourself and the girl?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Absolutely fantastic. And get asylum in the States."
  
  
  "In return for...?"
  
  
  "The whole command line, the correct chain, and how it works."
  
  
  "How do we know it's not a trap?" I asked her.
  
  
  "We don't." Hawk opened his eyes lazily. "Vote where you enter". He turned to Juana.
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  "With your expertise, you need to find out if Corelli is telling us the truth - or if he's leading us down a garden path."
  
  
  He sighed. Sometimes Hawk's diction is hopelessly Victorian.
  
  
  Juana ignored the words. "I'll find out."
  
  
  "Has anything been installed?" I asked her.
  
  
  "We will meet in Sol y Nieve. At a ski resort in Spain. Did I tell you about this?"
  
  
  "Briefly"
  
  
  Hawk leaned back. "Every year Tina Bergson goes to this ski resort, and Corelli goes with her. They spend about a month there."
  
  
  "Is he going there like Rico Corelli?"
  
  
  “no. We don't know what name he uses. But we know that they always go. And Corelli wants to meet me there."
  
  
  "This could be a setup," I muttered.
  
  
  "Of course," Hawk said. "That's why you're here, Nick. Voice why in the photo AX".
  
  
  "Waiting for strikes."
  
  
  He nodded. "Let's say the mobsters knew about Corelli's plans. Wouldn't they like to get our number one enforcer
  
  
  
  
  
  
  and our number one drug expert? "
  
  
  He rubbed her chin. "How do we see the contact?"
  
  
  Hawk said: "We have a man in Malaga. He has a boy in Sol y Nieve. Corelli's bodyguards will approach him. You will meet our man in Malaga and he will arrange a meeting with the boy at the resort. Then you will meet Corelli face to face."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "And then?"
  
  
  "Then Miss Rivera will take over *
  
  
  "Have you prepared our passports?"
  
  
  "AX Identification has documents. You'll still be George Peabody, but now you're a professional photographer."
  
  
  "Sir, I can't even control a Brownie, much less a Hasselblad!"
  
  
  "These cameras are reliable today! Also, they are good at getting you to know the basics. And you, Miss Rivera, are a model photographer. All your papers are done. Burn ih after remembering your past."
  
  
  "Am I posing nude?" Juana asked.
  
  
  Hawk was shocked. Ego's blue eyes widened. He was the last of the old ones, a completely repressed man in a society where sexual freedom is the rule. "My dear girl!"
  
  
  "Would you pose in the nude?" I asked quickly.
  
  
  "Of course," she said. "In a professional sense. When I play her role, I play her all the way."
  
  
  Hawke's face changed color. It was very red. He stared at his hands in an agony of static. "If you're already done," he interjected.
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "Continue."
  
  
  "I know you won't mind that we set up your cover as a husband - and-wife team," he said quickly, his eyes shining.
  
  
  "Sir," I said.
  
  
  "Mr. and Mrs. George Peabody of Millers Falls, MN."
  
  
  "I love it!" Juana said softly.
  
  
  "I hate it!" I growled. "This is too far-fetched! And it causes complications!"
  
  
  "But it makes it easier for Ms. Rivera to act - if she has to." Hawke's face flushed again.
  
  
  "I don't follow logic!"
  
  
  "An unmarried woman, a girl like Miss Rivera..."
  
  
  "I resent it!" Juana interrupted.
  
  
  "... It would be much harder to be, oh, stalked, let's just say, than to be a married woman. See?"
  
  
  Hers was lying face down in the sand. I really did see it, the twisted logic.
  
  
  Hawk turned to Juana. "Do you approve?"
  
  
  "Completely." She smiled charmingly.
  
  
  Hawk nodded in satisfaction. Then he looked at me. "Any disadvantages?"
  
  
  Damn him! "It looks reliable," I admitted. "We have to set up some sort of alarm," he continued. "I mean, in case everything falls apart. I want to be able to save Juana and my skin, no matter what."
  
  
  "We have a man in Granada, just half an hour away from the resort. Malaga will inform you."
  
  
  "Actually. This should cover it."
  
  
  "You can send any encoded message you want via Granada."
  
  
  "All right," I said. He turned to Juana. "Do you have anything to discuss?"
  
  
  She looked at me and then at Hawk.
  
  
  "I think not. She will be met in your arms until I meet Mr. Corelli. Then I'll get on with it."
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I had just dozed off when there was a sharp knock on the locked door separating my room from Juana's.
  
  
  Its got up. "Yes?"
  
  
  "Nick!" she whispered.
  
  
  "What is it?"
  
  
  "Window."
  
  
  Her, turned around. "What about this?"
  
  
  "Look outside."
  
  
  He reached for the shoulder holster hanging from the bedpost. He walked over to the window, keeping in the shadows and snuggling up to moan. Pulling back the curtains with the barrel of his luger, he peered out at the dark street below.
  
  
  Across the street was a Cadillac, the best car on the block.
  
  
  In the nen, there was a man sitting on the driver's side, who was directly facing me. Then, as he watched, the other man hurried across the street to the Cadillac, spoke briefly to the driver, and climbed into the backseat.
  
  
  The caddy started up and drove quickly down the street, turning right at the corner.
  
  
  Hers went back to the wall separating our rooms.
  
  
  "Did you recognize the ego?" Sl asked her.
  
  
  “yeah. Her, saw him getting out around the car a moment ago. He looked at my room - or yours. Her ego face saw it. And then he hurried to the hotel lobby."
  
  
  "Who was he?"
  
  
  "I saw - ego at the Dulles airport today is not when. When we arrived. He had a small leather briefcase. Around them, where you can put a weapon with a telescopic sight."
  
  
  "Good girl," he said absently.
  
  
  There was a pause. "What do we do now?"
  
  
  "Go to bed," I said. "At least we know what they know."
  
  
  "You're not going to look for an ego?"
  
  
  "In Washington? It's a big city."
  
  
  "Nick!"
  
  
  "Go to bed, Juana." Its gone in a day. "Sweet Dreams."
  
  
  Her, heard her grumbling under her breath, and then she walked away in the day. A moment or two later, she heard the creak of the bed as she climbed in and sat down.
  
  
  Then there was silence.
  
  
  He was sitting by the window, watching, waiting. But no one came.
  
  
  Three
  
  
  We passed through the low foothills and landed on an airstrip near Malaga. A taxi driver drove us into the city through a swirl of miniature European cars of all makes and shapes.
  
  
  We stayed in one of the main hotels in the city, overlooking the harbor of Malaga. There were several merchant ships and pleasure boats moored or anchored near the well-kept harbors.
  
  
  Juana was tired. She locked herself in her side of the room, took a nap, and showered. Her immediately went to the AXE safe house.
  
  
  It was a small office, in a house, one block away
  
  
  
  
  
  
  streets and around the corner.
  
  
  "Construction improvement," read the sign for the day. RSS. RAMIREZ AND KELLY
  
  
  Her, knocked.
  
  
  "Quién es?"
  
  
  "Senor Peabody."
  
  
  "Her."
  
  
  The door opened. It was Mitch Kelly.
  
  
  "Hello, Kelly," I said.
  
  
  "Hello, senor." He grinned and let me in. Then, glancing up and down the dark, antique corridor, he carefully locked the door.
  
  
  Her, looked at the office. It was small, with only a battered desk, a pile of old filing cabinets, and a door leading to the bathroom. Behind the desk, a window looked out over the harbor and the city of Malaga.
  
  
  Kelly slapped me on the back. "Didn't see you with them ferret, as word got out about the red oranges case, Nick."
  
  
  This happened in Greece. "Five years ago, really?"
  
  
  "Actually. Hawk said you were coming."
  
  
  He opened a drawer and took out a fine pair of Bausch & Lomb 30x binoculars, which he weighed thoughtfully in his hand.
  
  
  "I might have some news for you."
  
  
  "Ouch?"
  
  
  He put the glasses over his eyes and turned to look out over the harbor. I realized he was watching the boats when I knocked on her door.
  
  
  Kelly led TOPOR in Malaga for at least three years. Ego's job was to know what and who was coming and going around Malaga.
  
  
  He was looking over ego's shoulder. He was studying the pleasure dock in the center of the harbor. He seemed particularly interested in the large yacht anchored somewhere in the middle.
  
  
  "The voice is all," he said. "This is Lysistrata. Corelli Yachts".
  
  
  I remembered the picture I'd seen of her in TOPOR's headquarters.
  
  
  He handed me the binoculars. It was her ego that focused her. He was excellent; He was very well seen by the yacht. A few crew members were bustling around on the deck. All was quiet and peaceful on board. She could see a row of cabins on the main deck with two rows of portholes, which meant that the cabins were located on two decks below.
  
  
  It was a large, beautiful pleasure yacht. The French flag was flying in the stern.
  
  
  Mitch Kelly sat down in his chair and rustled the paper. Her, knew that he wanted her to pay attention to what he was saying. As he was about to give her the order, he saw someone in a sweater and trousers come out of the main cabin and onto the deck. It was a woman with long blonde hair. She was very busty and had a small waist, and the tight-fitting trousers that outlined her thighs and buttocks left nothing to the imagination. Under those blue trousers, Nah had good legs. Her skin was fair and smooth, and her eyes were blue. Stepping out into the sunny holy light, she put on dark glasses and absently held out an ih on the spot.
  
  
  "Tina Bergson," he said aloud.
  
  
  Kelly craned his neck and peered out the window, squinting in the sunlight on & nb. "Yes, supposedly."
  
  
  "A perfect girl," I said.
  
  
  "Another thing about Nick Carter," Kelly sniffed. "How are you doing?"
  
  
  "I'm just doing what the man in Washington says," I muttered.
  
  
  "This came in yesterday," Kelly said, shaking the paper again.
  
  
  He tore his gaze away from Tina Bergson's slender shoulders and sweater-covered chest and reluctantly lowered the binoculars. Kelly picked it up, turned the chair around, and focused ih on Tina Bergson while she read the typed information.
  
  
  CALLIE. RAMIREZ AND KELLY. 3 PASEO ZAFIO. ARRIVAL ON TUESDAY ABOARD LYSISTRATA. THE USER IS READY. TINA BERGSON WILL BRING EGO TO THE YACHT. LATER SETS UP A SKI MEETING WITH A DRUG EXPERT.
  
  
  "Roman nose!" - repeat it with a grin.
  
  
  "That's Corelli's nickname," Kelly said. "Pretty corny, isn't it?"
  
  
  "Pretty corny, yes." Roman Nose was an Indian chief.
  
  
  "Corelli considers himself an outcast. You know - from the mafia."
  
  
  He looked at the message again. "Judging by the wording, I think she's meeting me, right?"
  
  
  "Actually. She knows your hotel. I've already sent her a note."
  
  
  "When will she be there?"
  
  
  "She's supposed to pick you up in the lobby at noon." Kelly glanced at his watch. "That gives you half an hour."
  
  
  "What about Juana?"
  
  
  "She can wait. This is a preliminary investigation."
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "What's all this nonsense about?"
  
  
  "Roman Mys was scared. I think he wants to know if he's being followed."
  
  
  Or if you can, I thought.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I was waiting for her in the hall at noon.
  
  
  When she entered, all eyes in the lobby were on nah, the women looking on with indignation, the men looking on with interest. The locals at the table suddenly turned into friendly Lotharios.
  
  
  He got up and walked over to her. "Miss Bergson," he told her in English.
  
  
  "Yes," she replied with only a slight accent. "I'm late. I'm really sorry."
  
  
  "You're worth waiting for," I said.
  
  
  She looked at me coldly. He thought of icebergs in the fjords. "Let's go, then?"
  
  
  "Yes," I said.
  
  
  She turned and led me around the lobby and out into the bright sunshine of Bryliv Island.
  
  
  "It's just opposite the square," she said. "We can walk"
  
  
  He nodded and took her hand gallantly. After all, hers was in Europe. She gave me an ego without comment. Every Spanish eye turned with a letter to greet the two of us - me with admiration, me with envy.
  
  
  "It's a beautiful day," she said, taking a deep breath.
  
  
  "Do you like Malaga?"Her eyes were drawn to her face.
  
  
  "Oh, yes," she said. "It's lazy and easy here. I love sunny brylev. I love her warmly."
  
  
  She said this
  
  
  
  
  
  but I didn't mention it. "How was your boat trip?"
  
  
  She sighed. "We were caught in a squall off the Costa Brava. Otherwise..."
  
  
  "And yours is your comrade?"
  
  
  She looked at me thoughtfully. "Mr. Roman?"
  
  
  "Mr. Roman." The charade continued.
  
  
  "You will see that ego soon."
  
  
  "I take it you're skiing,"I said as we approached the marina bar.
  
  
  "I love it." She smiled. "And you?"
  
  
  "Moderately," I said. "Mostly in the United States. Aspen. Stowe. *
  
  
  "I want to go to America one day," Tina Bergson said, her blue eyes warm and staring at me intently.
  
  
  "Perhaps Mr.-er, Roman - will have something to say about that."
  
  
  She was laughing. His teeth were perfect. "Perhaps indeed." She looked at me sharply. "I think you and he will get along just fine."
  
  
  Then we were on the waterfront, and the young man at the end was standing at attention, directing his attitude toward Tina Bergson. He was rather thin, but he looked wiry and strong. He had curly black hair and a pencil-thin mustache.
  
  
  "Senorita," he said. He held out his hand to help her down into the small, sleek motorboat tied to the dock.
  
  
  "Thank you, Bertillo," she said softly. "This is Mr. Peabody," she said to em, pointing at me.
  
  
  "Senor," Bertillo said. Ego's eyes were dark and intelligent.
  
  
  Her then jumped off after Tina Bergson and then Bertillo walked away, took the bike, and we made an arc to the yacht three hundred yards away.
  
  
  The bay glittered in the sun, gulls scooped up waste from the beach, and as we cut through the water, they flew angrily into the sky, splashing us with seawater.
  
  
  A few minutes later, we were tied to the yacht. Her name, Lysistrata, could be seen now. Above us, two sailors looked down and dropped the ladder. We climbed aboard.
  
  
  In the cabin on the main deck that serves as the main lounge, she saw a muscular man sitting in a comfortable lounge chair. He was smoking a cigar that made halos of blue smoke form over ego's head.
  
  
  We went in. He stood up, his big target rising in a cloud of smoke. Tina! he greeted her, and she smiled at the rheumatism.
  
  
  "This is Mr. Peabody of the Americas," she said. "Mr. Peabody, this is Mr. ... er ... Roman".
  
  
  I looked around. The surroundings were gorgeous.
  
  
  He laughed and shook hands. Ego power was solid. "Mr. Peabody, her, I assume you go skiing?"
  
  
  He nodded to her. "I'm doing a slalom."
  
  
  "So is Tina. Hers, too, but not for long. We spend some time in Sol y Nieve. I take it you're going to be there?"
  
  
  "Her."
  
  
  "With your companion?"
  
  
  "Yes."
  
  
  "This fellow. Does he understand the meeting?"
  
  
  "He's a she."
  
  
  "Simple?"
  
  
  "My companion is a woman. She understands."
  
  
  It was studied by the "Roman nose". In the picture I saw of her, I realized that he could easily have been Rico Corelli. In fact, he was pretty sure it was Rico Corelli. He was the right age, although he didn't show his age as much as most men in his email business do.
  
  
  "I've always had a good relationship with the Americans," Corelli said.
  
  
  Tina smiled. "Always."
  
  
  "We look forward to your presence in our country," I said. "At least hers, I understand that you..."
  
  
  Corelli raised a hand. "I hope to make the trip. If we can make a deal."
  
  
  "It will only take one meeting," I said. "At a ski resort."
  
  
  He nodded.
  
  
  "What is the reason for this preliminary meeting?" I asked sharply.
  
  
  "Security," he barked, puffing on his cigar. Thick smoke began to wander around the cabin.
  
  
  "You seem safe enough." He leaned forward and spoke softly and pointedly. "I assure you, as long as I'm around, security won't be a problem."
  
  
  A faint smile flickered across his lips. "Probably not."
  
  
  The steward brought the drinks. Hers, leaned back. The meeting was discussed and agreed upon. It would be simple to contact him at the resort and bring Juana along.
  
  
  We drank.
  
  
  We were talking about something else. Fifteen minutes passed. Finally, Tina stood up.
  
  
  "I believe Mr. Peabody is very anxious to get back to his hotel."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Roman. I look forward to a more complete discussion in snow country."
  
  
  We looked at each other, and he turned to leave. Tina came over to me and took my hand.
  
  
  "I'm sorry that I can't go back to the shore with you. But Bertillo will take you back."
  
  
  He slowly shook her hand. "Thank you both for your charming hospitality."
  
  
  We were on deck, and I went down to the boat. She waved at me from the deck as the boat began to spin and headed for the port of bar.
  
  
  We had gone only fifty yards when there was a sudden shout from the yacht. A startling sound spread rapidly and continuously across the surface of the water.
  
  
  He turned quickly. "Stop, Bertillo!"
  
  
  Her, saw Tina go out around the gym where she just left. She stumbled.
  
  
  A series of orange flashes erupted in the cabin, followed by a thunderous boom.
  
  
  I heard her scream.
  
  
  Another shot rang out, and he saw Tina Bergson fall to the deck, her voice cut off in mid-belly scream.
  
  
  A figure in a dark wetsuit was moving rapidly across the deck, like a man in a boat.
  
  
  
  
  
  a panther, and jumped over the railing on the far side into the water. I pulled out my gun, but I couldn't shoot him properly.
  
  
  "Go around the boat!" Bertillo snapped at her.
  
  
  Surprised, scared, but capable, he fired a shot at the motorboat, and we whizzed by on the starboard side of the mimmo bow of the yacht.
  
  
  Only the bubbles showed where the man in the wetsuit had gone. He'd left his scuba gear there, that much was obvious. He's gone forever.
  
  
  We circled for a full minute, but he didn't show up.
  
  
  He went up the stairs to the deck, where the four crew members surrounded Tina, who was breathing heavily but moaning softly. Her sweater's shoulder was drenched in rapidly drying blood.
  
  
  Her, ran into the salon.
  
  
  The big man was lying on the floor. Ego the target was almost completely destroyed by the gunshots. He died before he hit the deck.
  
  
  Outside, he was looking out at the beach, but the man in the wetsuit wasn't there.
  
  
  She was picked up by a ship heading for shore and called Mitch Kelly. He was shocked, but he was a pro. He immediately called the Malaga Guard.
  
  
  Tina opened her eyes.
  
  
  "It hurts!" she moaned.
  
  
  Then she saw the blood and fainted.
  
  
  Four
  
  
  Mitch Kelly opened the bottom drawer of the cupboards. He saw what I was going through. I watched as he unzipped the leather case that held the wireless transmitter.
  
  
  It was a beautiful little set: Japanese-made, with solid-state transistors. You could almost go to the moon and come back with it.
  
  
  It hummed for a couple of moments after he turned on ego, until it warmed up. He didn't look at me at all, but he got to work, contacted AX after a few preliminary calls, and briefly chatted with the operator in AX Monitor, using the usual R / T gibberish.
  
  
  "I have a Hawk."
  
  
  It was answered by " Sir?" Her anger was barely contained.
  
  
  "Nick, this isn't an authorized call! Her, I want you to know..."
  
  
  "Are we clean?"
  
  
  "Yes."
  
  
  "Skirmish".
  
  
  "That's right." Hawke Stahl's voice was cautious. "What's up, Nick? I always get butterflies when you comply with security measures."
  
  
  "Who organized this mission? Treasury?"
  
  
  "You know I'm not authorized to speak."
  
  
  "It has a funny smell."
  
  
  "Say it again?"
  
  
  "It stinks! Corelli is dead."
  
  
  "Dead?" Pause. "Ah, her darling."
  
  
  "Who arranged this?" I asked again.
  
  
  "I can't..."
  
  
  "It was a setup. And whoever arranged it used me to kill Corelli."
  
  
  "No way! Oh, her, I know what you mean."
  
  
  "Check it out, sir, please! If the mafia is clean, then something went wrong on our part. If Corelli was playing a game, then the Treasury was cheating."
  
  
  "Are you sure he's dead?" Hawk asked sharply. The ego tone of his voice meant that he had recovered from his initial shock.
  
  
  "Half the head was demolished? Oh, yeah. He's dead, sir."
  
  
  "And his companion?"
  
  
  "She's alive, but she's wounded."
  
  
  "I think it was the right thing to do," Hawke said. "Roman control checked Corelli."
  
  
  "Roman control can be paid for by the mafia!"
  
  
  "Nicholas..." he chided me.
  
  
  "Consider, sir, that the locality of Russia is over."
  
  
  "Calm down, Nick. I'll get back to you as soon as I make a few calls."
  
  
  "Miss Rivera and her will not be available for further comment."
  
  
  "Stay there! I want to make this clear."
  
  
  "That's already been clarified, Hawk. Or perhaps a more accurate term is mapped. Goodbye."
  
  
  "Nick!"
  
  
  I subscribed to it.
  
  
  Kelly was taken aback by the conversation between Hawk and me. He did not engage in deliberate disobedience. That's why he talked about unimportant things. He went to his desk and sat down. He was studying me intently, waiting for the roof to collapse on top of me.
  
  
  "Do you think it was AX?" he finally asked.
  
  
  "I think so, but I don't know."
  
  
  "Leak?"
  
  
  He looked down at his hands. "Maybe."
  
  
  "What about the girl?"
  
  
  "Juana? Its really don't know about her. If she was involved, she'll be long gone."
  
  
  "Where are you going?"
  
  
  Her, turned to day. "Let's go back to the hotel. I wonder if she'll be there."
  
  
  She was. Her could hear her rummaging through her room as soon as her entered her half of the room. At least it was like nah. Just to make sure she got out her Lugger and moved on to the adjacent day.
  
  
  "Juana?" I said quietly.
  
  
  "Ah. Nick?"
  
  
  "Mr. Peabody."
  
  
  "How did it go?"
  
  
  It was Juana, okay. I could tell by her voice. She was supported by Lugera, who decided that if she had been with the killer, she would have already left Malaga, since her participation in the charade would have been completed.
  
  
  He opened the door and went in. She was dressed in a very strict but cool-looking suit that hinted at taste and money, but wasn't expensive. She was smiling, which meant she didn't know anything about Corelli.
  
  
  "You look tired, Nick."
  
  
  "Her. Fresh on energy."
  
  
  "Why not?"
  
  
  He lifted her to the edge of the bed and looked at Nah. Her hotel got the most out of the world when reading her face. She turned to face me, the strong sunlight of Malaga pouring into nah, illuminating every detail of her face.
  
  
  "Rico Corelli is dead."
  
  
  Her face paled. If it worked, Nah had excellent control over her arterial system. Any physiologist
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Types of transfer
  
  
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  It will tell you that the arterial system is involuntary.
  
  
  "Killed? On a yacht?"
  
  
  He nodded to her. "A character in a wetsuit."
  
  
  "What about the woman who was studying with him?"
  
  
  "Tina Bergson was injured, but she's still alive. It looked like a setup, Juana."
  
  
  "What do we do now?"
  
  
  "We're waiting," I said. "In words from Hawk. It has already been reported."
  
  
  She was looking at me. "Could you have seen the man who killed Corelli?"
  
  
  "Only the ego silhouette."
  
  
  "Did he look like the one who shot us in Ensenada?"
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "His ego has never seen it either."
  
  
  "It may have been the man in the car in Washington."
  
  
  "This time he was wearing a wetsuit. He could be the one. He could also be Senator Barry Goldwater."
  
  
  Juana ignored it. "He picked us up at Ensenada and followed us to Malaga via Washington." Now she was positive and looked openly at me.
  
  
  "Maybe."
  
  
  "It has to be!"
  
  
  "If you say so."
  
  
  She moved toward me until she was about six inches away from me. "They said you're the one around the best. How did you let this happen?"
  
  
  Her gaze was focused on Nah, not allowing any expression to show on my face. But there was so much anger in me that waves of emotion must have reached out to touch her, because she recoiled as if she expected me to hit her.
  
  
  "I'll forget you ever said that."
  
  
  She pulled herself together and shook her head grimly. "I won't"
  
  
  The phone rang.
  
  
  "Kelly's here," the voice said. "I am in contact with Tina Bergson."
  
  
  "Ouch?"
  
  
  "The Civil Guard took her to a private clinic not far from us, not far from Alcazaba. Then the doctor gets our salary."
  
  
  "How convenient."
  
  
  "She's conscious. She wants to see you."
  
  
  I thought about it quickly. Good. Give me the address."
  
  
  "I have to take you there."
  
  
  Good. I'll get back to you in fifteen minutes." Kelly, how did the Civil Guard know where to take her?"
  
  
  Kelly chuckled. "We also have a couple around them."
  
  
  Smiling, he hung up.
  
  
  "What was it all about?" Juana asked me. She was still visibly shaken by the news of Corelli's death. At that moment, her father decided that she was innocent.
  
  
  "Tina Bergson. She's recovering. I'll go talk to her."
  
  
  "Her?"
  
  
  Her hotel, so that Juana was always visible. "You go ahead."
  
  
  She relaxed. "Ah, good." Smile. "I was wondering what you were going to do with me."
  
  
  "As always, her beru takes you with her. You're a very pretty girl, and I like pretty girls." Her, chuckled.
  
  
  She actually blushed. I think she was worried again, asking her about her sanity.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Mitch Kelly spent most of the drive to the office and clinics bragging to Juana Rivera. He played the role of a very cool, sophisticated special agent. In fact, he could charm women even when he wasn't playing a role. Juana seemed determined to embrace the ego act, obviously using their interest in Kelly to spur me on.
  
  
  But I wasn't paying much attention, I was too busy thinking.
  
  
  First, he was furious with himself for not anticipating the production. With this sniper operating in Ensenada and a strange team watching us in Washington, I should have been prepared for trouble in Malaga. However, before her, I thought that the killers were after me and Juana, and not Corelli. How stupid!
  
  
  This was what I realized in my thoughts. The honking of horns outside the car finally brought me out of my daze, and he began to watch mimmo me through the narrow streets of Malaga.
  
  
  The car pulled up to the curb and we got out through the nah. The clinic was located on a narrow street shaded from direct sunlight by the buildings surrounding the nah. The buildings were clean and well maintained. This was definitely not part of the slums of Malaga.
  
  
  Kelly entered through the main entrance. We walked up the curving marble staircase, followed by a woman in a white uniform with a rather formidable backside, who also chatted briefly with Mitch Kelly as we entered. As we walked down the second-floor hallway, a thin man in a business suit and black tie greeted Kelly with a big smile.
  
  
  According to Kelly, it was Dr. Hernandez, Tina Bergson's attending physician. From Hernandez's beaming smile, he could tell that money ALWAYS paid the ego's bills and brought the ego to full boil when it greeted its employers ' slaves.
  
  
  "How is she?" Kelly asked.
  
  
  Hernandez folded his hands in front of him, took a deep breath, and worried for a long time.
  
  
  "It's a bullet wound, you know. Such a wound sometimes actually causes sepsis in the bloodstream. Sepsis is about resentment, " he told me, as if he were the main blockhead in the group. "I really think she'll come out of this one fine. With God's help, it will come out!"
  
  
  "How soon?" I asked her.
  
  
  "A few days," Hernandez said after a moment's thought.
  
  
  "Ah," I said. "Then it's not that serious at all."
  
  
  Ego's black eyes flashed for a moment. Then he smiled a worried, concerned smile. "Serious enough, Senor Peabody," he intoned. This meant that he wouldn't let her go right away. I had to accept the fact that ego resistance might be medically justified. A bullet wound can be a nasty little thing. "But it's good that she's
  
  
  
  
  
  "she came here immediately," Hernandez continued. She was almost in shock. When it comes to bullet wounds, you don't have to worry about shock."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "Can we go in to see her?"
  
  
  "Of course, of course," Hernandez beamed, turning to Kelly and waving them toward the door in the hallway. "Please enter."
  
  
  Kelly opened the door and walked into a large, airy room with a hospital bed in the middle. The blinds were drawn, and a lamp was burning on the bedside table.
  
  
  Tina Bergson was beautiful, even if she was wrapped in a very elaborate white linen cloth, and her chest was covered with hospital blankets. Her hair was fluffed out over the pillow, a halo of spun gold.
  
  
  Nah had her eyes closed when we entered, but she opened ih as we looked down at nah.
  
  
  Her look wanted me. "Mr. Peabody," she said.
  
  
  He nodded to her. "I'm glad to see that you look so good."
  
  
  She tried to smile. "It was... it was... " And tears welled up in her eyes.
  
  
  Her, went up to her. "Tina, it was awful. Do you have something to tell me?"
  
  
  Her voice was a whisper. "I'm so ashamed. I..." She looked at us pleadingly.
  
  
  Her, turned around. Good. Clear the room. She wants to talk to me alone."
  
  
  Juana straightened up. "And me."
  
  
  Our eyes met. "Stay, Juana. The rest of you, get out!"
  
  
  Hernandez and Kelly obediently went out through the rooms with a woman in a white uniform.
  
  
  He took Tina's hand. "What is it, Tina? What are you ashamed of?"
  
  
  She turned away from me. "The catch," she said. "The game we played."
  
  
  "A game?" Juana's voice was sharp and even.
  
  
  "Yes," Tina said nervously.
  
  
  "Tell us about it," her ai ordered.
  
  
  "It was Rico's idea. I mean, he was scared and knew someone was trying to kill ego."
  
  
  "How did he know?"
  
  
  "This has already been tried."
  
  
  Good. He suspected that someone was trying to kill ego. Because of an ego arrangement with us?"
  
  
  "Yes," she whispered.
  
  
  "If he knew someone was going to hit his ego, why did he fall into an outright trap?"
  
  
  "He didn't do it," Tina said. "He didn't fall into the trap. That's just it."
  
  
  He turned and stared at Juana. A strange thought occurred to me. Her father squeezed Tina's hand tightly.
  
  
  "Go on," he urged her.
  
  
  "It wasn't Rico on the boat," Tina finally said, rolling her eyes pleadingly.
  
  
  Tack! No wonder it all happened so fast!
  
  
  "No?"
  
  
  The person you spoke to wasn't Rico Corelli. This was a man Rico had known for years. Ego's name was Basillio di Vanessi. The Sicilian.
  
  
  "What about Riko? Was he on the boat?"
  
  
  “no. Rico in the Sierra Nevada gym. As soon as the meeting on the yacht was over, we had to notify the ego - and then you and he would meet at the ski resort. This preliminary meeting was a test. The Rico-Hernini deck."
  
  
  "Guernini?"
  
  
  “yeah. A-how is that? "twin!"
  
  
  "A doppelganger," Juana said.
  
  
  "Yes! You know, to find out if anyone tried to kill Rico. See?"
  
  
  Or kill me, I thought.
  
  
  "This is for real."
  
  
  "So it's Vanessa who's dead, not Corelli?"
  
  
  She said, " Yes. It's true."
  
  
  Juana pushed me away and stood by the bed. "You're lying," she snapped. "I can tell."
  
  
  Tina half sat up in bed, wild-eyed. "Why are you talking to me like that?"
  
  
  "You're not telling the truth! Corelli is dead! And you're trying to frame us with a fake!"
  
  
  "That's not true! I swear it!" Tina's face was covered in sweat.
  
  
  "I don't believe it!" Juana pressed hard.
  
  
  "Rico is now in the Sierra Nevada. We released the ego from a yacht in Valencia. I can prove it"
  
  
  "How?"
  
  
  "His... his..." Tina broke down. She began to sob.
  
  
  "How?" Juana exclaimed, leaning over and shaking her violently.
  
  
  Tina shuddered and groaned, which hurt. Her tears were flowing. "It's true!" she sobbed. "Corelli is alive!" Now she was openly crying. "Valencia has records of ego leaving the yacht!"
  
  
  Juana straightened up, her eyes narrowed, but satisfied. "We can check it out."
  
  
  Juana gently pushed her aside, giving Nah a meaningful and knowing look. Juana was bold, and I liked that. Now we knew Corelli was still alive.
  
  
  "Where is he?" He asked Tina.
  
  
  "I told you. In the Sierra Nevada." Her eyes rolled back in horror.
  
  
  "But..."
  
  
  "He will tell me where he will meet you."
  
  
  "Is he incognito at the resort?"
  
  
  Tina nodded desperately. "Yes, Yes! Oh, Mr. Peabody, I'm so sorry about what went wrong."
  
  
  "You should be," I snapped.
  
  
  "Will you go there to meet ego?"
  
  
  "We're welcome!"
  
  
  "No?" Her face crumbled.
  
  
  Her "no!" was categorical.
  
  
  "Why, why not?"She started crying again. "He... he... kill me!"
  
  
  "Yes," I said quietly. "I believe he will."
  
  
  Chapter Five
  
  
  There is no need to project thought waves around your brain onto someone else's. I've been trying this for years, but to no avail. But at that moment I knew that I was only supposed to communicate with Juana Rivera through brain waves - real psychic perception.
  
  
  He fixed his gaze on her face and became very thoughtful. I thought, " Come to her aid, Juana." You're a good guy;
  
  
  Juana looked at me, her face flushed, as if she was embarrassed that a man was looking at her so closely.
  
  
  I knew my initial thought hadn't penetrated her. I guess you're my lost one
  
  
  
  
  
  a guy, though.
  
  
  To hell with it, he thought at last. I have a feeling she caught it.
  
  
  He turned to Tina and snapped, "We're not allowed to!" and said it again. "It's over. You lied to us the last time. No meeting."
  
  
  Juana's eyes narrowed, and he could almost follow her thought processes as she traversed the convolutions of play and counterplay.
  
  
  "Wait a minute," she said quickly. "We can't just leave Spain without seeing Mr. Corelli!"
  
  
  Tina stopped sobbing and looked at me hopefully.
  
  
  He stared at Juana like a garden worm on a fresh salad. "Oh, yes, we can!" I said angrily. "They lied to us, and this is the thread."
  
  
  "But what about the information Corelli has to give us?"
  
  
  "We don't need it."
  
  
  "You don't need it," Juana pleaded, " but I need it! Hers is the one who was sent here for him. You're just a bodyguard!"
  
  
  I glanced at Tina to see how she took our little dramatic improvisation. She turned into a spectator at a fast-paced tennis match.
  
  
  "I'll get in touch with AX, "I growled, doing something like a late-vintage Bogart. "Russian locality cleared!"
  
  
  "Let me talk to them!" said Juana, already flustered. "I've put a lot on the line!"
  
  
  "We're not supposed to talk in front of her," I said reluctantly, waving at Tina.
  
  
  "I don't care who hears! This is my assignment!"
  
  
  I thought about it, pretending to weigh the consequences. Finally I told her: "Do you really want to go and meet Corelli?"
  
  
  Juana nodded. "Of course! Just because you ruined the first meeting..."
  
  
  "And you?" I interrupted him, turning to Tina. "What guarantee can you give us that you will meet the real Corelli in the Sierra Nevada?"
  
  
  "I already told you! You'll know when you get the right information."
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged.
  
  
  Juana interrupted. "We need to meet Corelli," she said. "This is terribly important to me!"
  
  
  Good girl, I thought. Keeping his face impassive, he leaned over Tina. "We'll try again."
  
  
  She closed her eyes in relief and smiled.
  
  
  "You'll have to work closely with us, Tina," her father said. "There is no reason to assume that the killer will go home now. He'll want to kill you, too."
  
  
  Juana frowned. "Why not? If Emu was paid to kill Rico Corelli, he worked out his contract."
  
  
  "But he will definitely find out about his mistake. The mafia knows that Corelli is alive - or about to die. Then the hitman will chase Tina - to lead ego to Corelli!"
  
  
  Tina snorted.
  
  
  "We'll put guards in this room," I announced. "I'll tell Mitch Kelly."
  
  
  "But a trained assassin can infiltrate anywhere. How does the guard know for Hema to follow?" Juana asked.
  
  
  Her brow furrowed. "We have no idea who the killer is. Emu will just have to keep everyone away."
  
  
  "But we know," Tina said suddenly, sitting up and wincing in pain at the sudden movement.
  
  
  Juana and I turned to her, our mouths hanging open. "You know what?"
  
  
  "Who is the killer. This is a man named Komar. Must be. He's a professional killer. Ego's real name is Alfreddo Moscato."
  
  
  "How do you know?"
  
  
  "Because an assassin tried to break into Rico's villa in Corsica six months ago. There were many traps and devices along the walls, so he couldn't get inside. But when he tried, he hit the wires that were taking infrared photos. the photos showed up, and he realized it was Moscato."
  
  
  "Does Rico Corelli know Moscato?"
  
  
  “no. They never met. Odin around Riko's people is known as Moscato."
  
  
  "So you're saying Moscato doesn't know Corelli by sight and thinks he killed ego."
  
  
  Tina nodded. "I haven't thought about it, but yes, I would say so."
  
  
  "What else do you know about Moscato? Anything that can help us identify the ego?"
  
  
  Tina's face turned pink. "Emu really likes girls," she said.
  
  
  "Anything more than that?"
  
  
  "Emus like couples," Tina blurted out, embarrassed.
  
  
  "In pairs?" I asked cheerfully.
  
  
  "This isn't funny!" Juana said sharply.
  
  
  He turned back to Tina. "Does he have a three-story sex habit?"
  
  
  "Yes," Tina said. "It's connected to him. He does this every time before he leaves for work. It relaxes the ego."
  
  
  "Maybe we can use this knowledge to find him before he finds us."
  
  
  "Finds us?" Juana confirmed dully.
  
  
  "He will certainly try to find his way to Corelli again. Because he doesn't know the ego at first sight." He stared out the shuttered window. "And the easiest way to catch Corelli is to watch us."
  
  
  Juana's eyes lit up. "Then we'll see ourselves in Malaga and he's coming for us."
  
  
  “no. We'll find the ego first." But I needed to fix something. "Tina, how do I contact the real Corelli?"
  
  
  She turned away. "You'll have to wait until he calls me."
  
  
  "But how will he know where you are-I mean, hidden in this special clinic?"
  
  
  She shrugged her shoulders. "He will. I can guarantee it"
  
  
  "I don't want to go up to a ski resort and wait for ego there," I said.
  
  
  "The doctor says I'll be fine in a few days."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "Then we'll wait. In the meantime, we'll try to swat the Mosquito. She would like him to disappear while we work on this rally."
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  She was quickly informed by Mitch Kelly
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A minute later, he was on the phone, tricking the commandant of Malaga into assigning a member of the Civil Guard to look after Tina Bergson. On the way back to the hotel, I told Kelly about the direction of operations.
  
  
  He said he hadn't heard that The Mosk was in Malaga, but of course he didn't detect any feelings in the area. He seemed to think his ego was being criticized. I assured him that I didn't.
  
  
  "Hell," he said. "Why don't you take a look?"
  
  
  "What underworld?"
  
  
  "Malaga stew," he said. "Vote from where they learn about the Mosquito. Tailor, you and Juana look perfectly legitimate. You could be a couple of depraved expats trying to hire a bodyguard. I have a contract that knows stew inside out. The ego's name is Diego Perez. Listen, I'll send her to you tonight. It will surround you."
  
  
  Hers, I glanced at Juana, all prim and tense with my masculine chauvinism.
  
  
  Good. Let's try it."
  
  
  We finished the ride in silence.
  
  
  As soon as we got back to the hotel, her phone rang.
  
  
  It was Kelly.
  
  
  "Odin. I made a deal with Diego."
  
  
  "All right."
  
  
  "He's five feet seven inches tall, smooth-looking, with a tiny mustache, and very intelligent. Don't let your ties mislead you."
  
  
  "That's right"
  
  
  "Two. It was just decoded by an Interpol signal."
  
  
  "Interpol?"
  
  
  "I sent their description of the dead man along with the prints. This isn't Corelli. It's Vanessa, okay."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "So Tina's telling the truth."
  
  
  “yeah. Good luck tonight, Nick."
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Diego Perez turned out to be exactly what Mitch Kelly had described - a smooth-looking escort type who wore bright but proper clothes and kept up a steady stream of inconsequential chats to entertain the ladies, in this case Juan Rivera.
  
  
  "Her name is Diego Perez," he told me when I let him in.
  
  
  "How are you?" I told her. "This is my wife Juana."
  
  
  "Fair lady," he said with a bow. He stole a glance at Juana. She tried to keep her face still, but I could see the anger building inside her. She suspected I was making fun of her.
  
  
  "Mr. Kelly told me the purpose of our evening," Diego said shortly, giving me a meaningful look.
  
  
  "Where do I start?" I asked her.
  
  
  He named a place, and we called a taxi and played a game like this. Diego sat with Juana, beaming and chatting in Spanish and then English. He was looking out the window.
  
  
  In Malaga, you really don't know where stews started and where clubs ended. We started with a restaurant with a view of the Mediterranean Sea, next to the harbor, in an area of the city called La Malagueta. The sun went down over the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, and we ate seafood and drank wine and cognac. The waiters lit candles with colored glasses, and night fell.
  
  
  "I have an idea, Diego," I said.
  
  
  "An idea?" Diego started to smile. Emu liked intrigue.
  
  
  "I'm a wealthy American tourist. This can be seen in the way I throw money around. Its walking with my wife. But I'm bored with my wife. I want her to go to bed not only as a simple peasant girl. I want two of them!"
  
  
  Diego was delighted. "But how do you explain your wife's presence, senor?"
  
  
  "She's with you, Diego."
  
  
  Ego's face broke into a beaming smile. "Ah!"
  
  
  "And when we find two girls who work in pairs, we find out if ih has been asked to perform in the last few days, especially last night."
  
  
  Diego's face was full of admiration: "Then let's go."
  
  
  "Actually. We'll see what happens next."
  
  
  We started going to discos in Malaga. A European disco is essentially a dark place with a low ceiling and very few windows. Small tables are arranged around the platform in the middle. From the ceiling hang all sorts of trinkets - dried moss, belts, ropes, garters, thongs, bras, whips, almost everything you can imagine.
  
  
  There's always a loud stereo tape playing somewhere. Loudspeakers emit noise in all directions around hidden niches. Stroboscopes flash multi-colored lights in all directions. Color slides with nude bodies and couples in different positions of sexual intercourse are projected on the walls. The noise is fantastic.
  
  
  Then all the strobe lights turn off and a group of guitarists enter the stage. A male or female flamenco dancer appears.
  
  
  By midnight, we had passed half a dozen places with negative results.
  
  
  "All right?" After a while, Diego asked her.
  
  
  "Nothing, senor," he said. "There are a lot of women available-singles, doubles, even triples, but recently no one has performed triples."
  
  
  "So, we'll try again."
  
  
  "We're out of seats." Diego's eyes narrowed. "I think we should try Torremolinos."
  
  
  "Where is it?"
  
  
  "A little further south. On the Costa del Sol".
  
  
  "More discos?"
  
  
  "The best. Live. Animal. Depraved."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "That sounds good. Let's go."
  
  
  For example, at one-thirty we entered a place halfway down the main street of Torremolinos. It was a gloomy place. Caged animals were pacing back and forth in cages hanging from the ceiling near the entrance bar.
  
  
  Luminescent painted chairs and tables glistened in the dark. The flamenco dancer vanished in her usual stride
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  s on a small stage in the center of the room. A slide of two ecstatic lesbians was projected onto the wall. Amplified guitar music competed with the frenzied bemoaning of a never-before-existing singer in an apparent attempt to stun all patrons.
  
  
  We sat down, ordered sangria, and watched.
  
  
  Diego was gone.
  
  
  Juana and I stared at each other.
  
  
  My hand gripped my shoulder. He whirled around, startled by the unexpected human contact.
  
  
  "I have them," Diego said in my ear.
  
  
  He touched Juana's arm, warned her to stay there, and followed Diego into the darkness. There was a small doorway to the side of the disco. Diego led me through it, and we walked down a dark hallway to a room at the end. A woman of indeterminate age in a dirty, ragged flamenco suit sat at the table. In the moan above her head, a faint electric brylev glowed. Nah had black hair, black eyes, and black bags under them.
  
  
  "Bianca," Diego said. "It's a man."
  
  
  Bianca smiled tiredly. "I like you," she said.
  
  
  He smiled at her. "Your comrade?"
  
  
  "She's not as good as her, but she'll be there."
  
  
  "Her name?"
  
  
  "Carla". She shrugged her shoulders.
  
  
  "Bianca," I said. "You have to be good. I don't want to waste my money."
  
  
  "Don't waste your money on Bianca and Carla!" the woman snorted. "We are good. Very good."
  
  
  "I don't want amateurs!" I told her. "I want to know if you've worked together before."
  
  
  "Of course we work together," Bianca said, waving a reassuring hand at me. "Don't worry about it. We'll split the money."
  
  
  "How much?"
  
  
  "Seven thousand pesetas apiece."
  
  
  "That's a lot! You should know if you're good!"
  
  
  "Listen, ask someone ..."
  
  
  Diego said, " Who, Bianca? Do you have any recommendations?"
  
  
  "Of course, I have recommendations! This Frenchman lives in Marbella."
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "I don't believe any Frenchman!"
  
  
  She was laughing. "That's good. Her children!"
  
  
  Diego and I shrugged our shoulders.
  
  
  "Hey," she said. "There was one that we did just yesterday! Carla and her. A real bastard, he was! He knows everything! And immediately! Oh, I'm telling you..."
  
  
  "Who was he?"
  
  
  She frowned. "I do not know. He doesn't tell us his name. He's a dark guy. You know. He looks Italian or something. He didn't speak Spanish."
  
  
  I looked at Diego, and he lowered the lid of one eye.
  
  
  "Where does he live?"I asked her.
  
  
  "We went to the villa openly here in Torremolinos."
  
  
  He reached into his purse and pulled out ten thousand pesetas. "Give me the address," I said,"and keep the ten thousand."
  
  
  Her eyes widened, and he saw sweat break out on her forehead. Her lips were wet with saliva. She was torn between greed and caution. Now she suspected that hers might be more than just a customer with strange sexual desires. But she was more interested in money than doubt.
  
  
  She reached for the money.
  
  
  "Address?"
  
  
  "I do not know his address... I'll take you there."
  
  
  I returned her money and withdrew five thousand rubles. "The rest is when we get there, Bianca."
  
  
  Diego looked puzzled. "Senor. What about the other senora? Your...?"
  
  
  "Go back there, Diego, and take her home in half an hour."
  
  
  He thought that if anyone was watching Diego, they would follow him and Juana back to the hotel.
  
  
  Bianca grabbed her arm and we went out the back door of the disco.
  
  
  It was very dark outside. Neon lights illuminated the front of the building, but the back was almost pitch black.
  
  
  Bianca said: "Wait here."
  
  
  She left, and half a minute later a taxi pulled up to the house and she waved at me.
  
  
  Her sel is beside her, smelling the musty smell of her makeup, her jar, and her clothes.
  
  
  She spoke to the taxi driver, a sad-eyed Viejo in a beret, and he drove off, winding through the narrow streets that led to the foothills on the outskirts of town. We left the spa section of Torremolinos and entered a suburban residential area.
  
  
  Ten minutes later, Bianca leaned forward and tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder.
  
  
  "Aqua! Voting results".
  
  
  He hailed a taxi.
  
  
  "That one over there?" I asked her, Bianca, identifying the villa she was pointing to.
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  "A man-does he live there alone?"I asked her.
  
  
  "This is for real. There's no one else."
  
  
  Ey handed her five thousand pesetas, got out in a taxi, paid the driver, and waved them both on their way.
  
  
  The taxi was gone.
  
  
  I checked it in my shoulder holster. The Luger was waiting.
  
  
  The villa that Bianca recorded was a small stucco house surrounded by a well-kept garden. There was an open gate in front of the house.
  
  
  Her husband came in.
  
  
  The house was dark.
  
  
  It was bypassed. It was obvious that the occupant of the house was either outside or sleeping in the trash.
  
  
  I looked out the window and saw the kitchen and dining room.
  
  
  The second window opened onto a bedroom, and someone was sleeping in one of them.
  
  
  I looked around to make sure no one was watching me. Then, making as little noise as possible, he went to the kitchen window and tried to open it.
  
  
  To my surprise, it was released and flew out.
  
  
  It got through.
  
  
  Sex in the villa was tiled, and hers landed on it without a sound. I drew it
  
  
  
  
  
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  I pulled out my Luger and headed for the door to the hallway at the back of the kitchen.
  
  
  The bedroom door was ajar. He quickly walked through the nah to the bedroom and noticed a light switch near the window. He brought his piece to the bed and turned on brylev.
  
  
  "Freeze," I said, thinking he might have a gun handy.
  
  
  No movement. Nothing. I watched it. Sergey, who was flooding the room, showed me what had happened, and I felt bad. The person who was lying in the trash was no longer there. The pillow and bedclothes were pushed up to look like a sleeper.
  
  
  Feeling a moment of absolute panic, I reached for the light to extinguish my ego.
  
  
  The sound behind me came too fast. Although he spun as fast as he could, turning the Luger to catch whoever it was, hers never finished moving. It was plunged into darkness the moment a hard metal object hit me in the skull.
  
  
  The first thing I realized when I regained consciousness was that I couldn't breathe. And then I found out that my head was hurting too. The third thing I felt was the position in which my body was twisted. Hers was in a very cramped space, barely enough room for my aching bones.
  
  
  I gasped, trying to breathe clean air through the fog of toxic fumes that surrounded me.
  
  
  I opened my eyes and saw nothing at first. My eyes stung, blurred, and refocused. Suddenly I realized that I couldn't move my arms and legs.
  
  
  Trying to sit candid, I saw in the dim light that I was stuck in the front seat of a very small Volkswagen. The engine was running, but the car wasn't moving.
  
  
  He coughed and tried to clear his throat, but couldn't.
  
  
  Exhaust fumes! The thought flashed through my mind, and he sat up abruptly, looking around, noticing for the first time how the hose was sticking into the nearly closed window.
  
  
  The exhaust was pouring through the hose into the folksy car. He knew enough about these cars to know that they were practically air-and water-tight inside. And with the arrival of carbon monoxide, I didn't have much time.
  
  
  My wrists and ankles were bound with tight ropes tied together so that I resembled a bull chasing a bull dog. He reached out, trying to grab the key in the ignition to twist it, but he couldn't maneuver his ankles high enough within the car's confines to reach the key.
  
  
  He lay panting in despair. I knew I wouldn't have time to breathe fresh air into my lungs.
  
  
  I knew there was a Mosquito waiting outside, and after five or ten miles it went into the garage, opened the car door, turned off the engine, and took me somewhere for delivery. He completely outsmarted me!
  
  
  I could reach my ankles with my right hand, but I couldn't lift the ih high enough to touch the steel blade attached to the back of my ankle. He slid out of the seat and hit the gearshift lever, almost losing his ego shape.
  
  
  And then a steel blade touched her.
  
  
  I lost consciousness for a moment, and my whole body was tormented by an agonizing cough. I didn't have time at all.
  
  
  The blade came out, and he tried to cut through the ropes holding my ankles. A minute later, the rope snapped. She couldn't breathe anymore, and held her breath. Darkness began to fall on me from all sides. He could barely move his fingers now.
  
  
  Carbon monoxide continued to flow into the car.
  
  
  Then my legs were miraculously released. Ih pushed her away from her wrists and stepped on the gas pedal with one foot. Volkswagen jumped, but the bullying held on.
  
  
  He turned the gearshift lever to the side and down to reverse, and put his foot on the gas again.
  
  
  The Volkswagen shot through the closed garage door and crashed into nah.
  
  
  But the door didn't open, even though I could hear the crack of wood.
  
  
  The Volkswagen was driving her forward.
  
  
  My vision faded again, and he couldn't see much. My lungs were shaking from the toxic air sampling.
  
  
  Back again, break it.
  
  
  The day moved apart.
  
  
  I saw her outside at night. Forward.
  
  
  The Volkswagen reversed it again, and through the open doors it shot out into the driveway. It skidded to a stop in an open area. Fresh air poured in through the window.
  
  
  To her right, a sudden burst of orange flame preceded the sound of a gunshot.
  
  
  He cut the ropes around her wrists and freed her wrists. He yanked the door open and rolled down the window, coughing in the fresh air. A minute later, I had the steering wheel in my hands. The Volkswagen swung it around, lit the holy light, and aimed the ego at the spot where the shot had come from.
  
  
  Someone screamed. Another shot rang out. He drove across the driveway to the lawn and headed for the shrubbery that grew near the garage. When I saw her, I saw a human silhouette jump out from around the bushes and run across the lawn. It was the Volkswagen that held it pointed at him.
  
  
  He turned once, his startled face illuminated by the car's bright headlights. He was a short, dark, round-faced man with thick eyebrows, long sideburns, and a gnat - jawed blue beard.
  
  
  He fired again, but missed, and was hit hard on the gas. The Volkswagen leapt forward.
  
  
  Moscato zigza
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  gged now, trying to find shelter in a small courtyard. I hit the gas pedal and forced the Volks to go as fast as I could. Her, saw him jump on a brick wall and jump over nah.
  
  
  He took his foot off the gas pedal and abruptly pressed the bullying button. The Volkswagen turned sideways, dug up grass, and slammed into a brick wall.
  
  
  The wheel is in my stomach, but I wasn't going fast enough to seriously injure myself.
  
  
  He climbed around the car and jumped up on the wall, looking into the tangle of vegetation and bushes in the next yard.
  
  
  There was no one in sight.
  
  
  I went back inside and went inside. In her bedroom, I could see where Komarov kept it and where he hid before he hit me. I found my Luger on the floor where her ego dropped it.
  
  
  Ego picked her up and started walking out through the bedrooms, planning to set a trap for Moscato. Sooner or later, the emu will have to come back.
  
  
  Suddenly I realized that I wasn't alone in her house.
  
  
  A man was standing in the hallway, smiling at me.
  
  
  The first thing I saw was a Webley Mark VI, a very lethal weapon. Almost immediately, her eyes focused on the man holding the gun.
  
  
  He was a large, imposing man in a belted raincoat. He clutched the Webley, almost casually, as if it were nothing more than a business card, his ego pointed straight at me in life.
  
  
  Six
  
  
  He had a long, almost skinny face with dark eyes and wavy hair that fell carelessly over his eyes. And at the same time, though the ego's features were immobile in an expressionless mask of dispassion, his lips were slanted in a flat smile.
  
  
  "He flew," he said sadly, in very British English. "Now, that was the stupidest thing on your part to let the emu escape."
  
  
  Emu waved at her, careful not to aim his own at him. "Could you please get that face out of my face?"
  
  
  “what? Ah!" He smiled. Webley slid into the side pocket of a belted payt and disappeared. "You're an American, aren't you?" He seemed saddened by the idea.
  
  
  “yeah. And there's no point in accusing me of running away. If you hadn't barged into this corridor like Q E II, her ego would have killed her!"
  
  
  He shrugged. "Well, that happens sometimes, doesn't it?" "What do you think? Shall we follow him?" Any chance?"
  
  
  "He's already far away from here," I said. "I'm afraid we might forget the ego."
  
  
  He studied me carefully. "I don't recognize you, buddy. The CIA? Military intelligence?"
  
  
  Her calmly said: "I'm an American tourist. What are you talking about?"
  
  
  He laughed. Adam's ego apple bounced up and down as his target tilted back. He was a big, handsome man in typical British style with a tweed jacket. "You don't have the faintest idea, do you?"
  
  
  He sighed. "Damn the tailor. Her Parson. Barry Parson. A British citizen. On vacation in Spain. And you?"
  
  
  "George Peabody. Similarly, its confident."
  
  
  He gave an exasperated grin. "Bullshit."
  
  
  "In the dell itself, yes," he told her, also chuckling. "It's dark in here. Do you want to stake out an ego?"
  
  
  "Excuse me, please?"
  
  
  "Lay out the ego. You know. Wait for the ego here."
  
  
  "Ah. Maintain observations? In the affirmative. I totally agree with you, antiquity."
  
  
  "Call me George."
  
  
  He snorted. "Then George."
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "We'll wait." He walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it.
  
  
  He walked past me and collapsed on the pillow, leaning back against the headboard. I could hear him fumbling in his pocket. He pulled out a pack of Spanish cigarettes, popped one in his mouth, and quickly lit it with a long wax match. Apologize. Smoke?"
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "Quit".
  
  
  "How did you get into it in the first place?" "What is it?" he asked suddenly.
  
  
  "WHO?" He grimaced, because he knew how stupid it all sounded. But there was always security.
  
  
  "A mosquito," Parson said, as if he was completely incompetent.
  
  
  Its trying to see its way to the correct cover. "This woman lives in Malaga," I said. "She is married to a businessman I know. However, when her husband started playing games in Switzerland with his mistress, the woman decided to have an affair with the man you call a Mosquito. Now he's blackmailing her, threatening to tell her about ih's affair with her husband. Its acting on behalf of senora to get Mosquito to stop and give up on ego fold paper blackmail ."
  
  
  Cigarette smoke rose into the air. It was dark, but I could see that Parson was smiling in confusion. He grinned again, very softly, very contemptuously.
  
  
  "You know how to use cliches," he said in the conversation. "George? George, is this necessary?"
  
  
  "You asked for a true story. It's a true story." Her, turned to him. "And you?"
  
  
  "Ah. Her." He took a deep breath. "Well, Komarov, who is known to me in many ways, but not as much as a big fan."
  
  
  "Well," I said timidly.
  
  
  "It's mostly known to me as the prezzolata pistol. This is a broken Latin word for Tut man / Ego the real name is Alfreddo Moscato, hence Mosquito. Ego was sent through Rhyme to work here in Spain, but I do not know what kind of job. Mosquito of Neapolitan origin "
  
  
  "But why are you hunting him?"
  
  
  "This is
  
  
  
  
  
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  At first it was a non-military affair, but now it has turned into a paramilitary affair. Komarov swooped in on one of our men in Rime six months ago and killed ego."
  
  
  "Will Odin Po meet your people?"
  
  
  "Military intelligence," Parson said dryly. "We are concerned about drug trafficking in the Mediterranean Sea. The armed forces are full of it. We've been trying to stop the ego both ways since the start of World War II. And we were currently in the pipeline when Three was killed by Moscato." Parson paused thoughtfully.
  
  
  He nodded to her. "I see. Apologies."
  
  
  "I was in Spain last week when we received a notification that a Mosquito was here. I tried to find it, but failed. Then, just this evening, I ran out of leads and her discovered that you were talking to a prostitute that her supposed to be Her just questioned her after she went back to the disco and came here for a take.
  
  
  "Military intelligence?" I got used to it. "MI6?"
  
  
  "Actually, five." He smiled. "You are very perceptive when you think about MI6. The sixth is, of course, espionage. And the top five is counterintelligence. Right? Now I won't bother you about your particular ID tag, because I know that you Yankees are awfully scrupulous about security and all that. However, this should not complicate our relationship. I suggest we work in tandem and try to get our man Moscato."
  
  
  "What are your orders regarding Moscato?" I asked her.
  
  
  "I beg your pardon? Ouch. In fact, Mosquito is a very annoying player. I was told to count my egos."
  
  
  "Total ego?"
  
  
  “yeah. Eliminate the ego."
  
  
  "Who do you think is behind it?" I asked her.
  
  
  "A mafioso, no doubt. He has done work for his fathers many times before."
  
  
  "I'm sorry about Justin."
  
  
  "Three?" He showed me a blank face.
  
  
  "The man who was killed. Your..."
  
  
  "Oh, Three Delaneys. Yes.Poor Three." Parson sighed. "Well, he knew what he was getting himself into when he joined, didn't he?"
  
  
  Hers, staring at him in the dark. Her, thought it was just like the Brits. Stiff upper lip and all that.
  
  
  "What do you get from your patron?" He asked me sardonically.
  
  
  "Patron saint?"
  
  
  "A lost woman?" He made a pause. "You took the Mosquito's place in hers ... love?"
  
  
  Ouch. My cover story. "This is purely a chivalrous corkscrew," he told her with a smile.
  
  
  "You Yankees really do have a little too much old-fashioned gallantry. Well done!"
  
  
  We fell silent.
  
  
  After an hour, we decided that Moscato wasn't coming back.
  
  
  Two hours later, we were drinking in my hotel room. Then it was "Barry" and "George". Hers was still suspicious, but decided that it might lead to information.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Juana was sitting in the doorway of her room, her hair hanging down over her shoulders, her eyes full of arches, and her beautiful face was frowning.
  
  
  "What is this vision of pulchritude?" Parson shouted, waving his brandy glass.
  
  
  "This is Juana," I said. "Hello, Juana."
  
  
  "Is that my senora you were telling me about?" asked Parson, making elaborate gestures. He was almost as drunk as he was.
  
  
  "No, of course not," I said. "This is my woman!" Parson turned to look at me. Then he looked back and stared at Juana.
  
  
  "I say, now! You have great taste, old man! Great taste!"
  
  
  He stood up and bowed. "Thank you, Barry. Oh, Juana. Please come in." I'm sorry I'm late. She was met by an old friend of hers."
  
  
  Parson grinned. "Yes, indeed, my dear. That's Barry Parson's name."
  
  
  "This is Juana Peabody," I said.
  
  
  Juana was already awake. She came into the room, glaring at me. "What happened?"
  
  
  "I'll tell you later, woman," I said, reminding hey of her status with Parson. "Suffice to say, I ran into my old buddy Barry Parson all over Six."
  
  
  "Five," Parson said.
  
  
  "Five and one are six, like I said." He smiled at her. "Join us, Juana?"
  
  
  "It's late and I'm tired."
  
  
  "You don't look tired," Parson said, walking up to her and looking at Nah intently. "You look very cheerful." He leaned down, lifted her chin, and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. "Do you see?"
  
  
  He closed his eyes, waiting for the explosion. It never happened. When I opened my eyes again, I saw her smiling at Parson and smoking a cigarette that had magically landed in her mouth. Spanish smoke rose around the ego glowing top.
  
  
  Her father leaned back on the couch, stunned. What happened to the Freed Juana?
  
  
  Juana was now looking into Parsons ' eyes, her body free and arching toward him. "You're British, aren't you?"
  
  
  "The old Shaggy Lion in Parson!" he said with a laugh. He hugged her. "You Yankees are creating a super breed of females."
  
  
  She didn't shake it off. "5?" said Juana. "What do you mean, five?"
  
  
  "Military intelligence," I said. "Counterintelligence, eh, Barry?"
  
  
  Parson nodded. "Absolutely fantastic, man. Her, I say, don't you two want to come over to my dig site and have a drink?"
  
  
  Juana smiled brightly. "Love."
  
  
  He looked up weakly. "All right."
  
  
  "You can come too, George."
  
  
  "I'm talking," he said, as sincerely as he could. He started to look like David Niven.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I had to give my ego to Juana. She played the ego as well as he played the sl.
  
  
  A saint was burning in the living room of Barry Parson's villa. It was a beautifully furnished apartment.
  
  
  
  
  
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  the interior is decorated in the usual style for the Spanish coast-rugs, tapestries, thick wooden chairs, sofas, tables.
  
  
  She was still playing drunk when we entered the room. Since it was the closest, her father walked over to the couch and sat down on the edge, throwing his head back and yawning horribly.
  
  
  Juana looked at me, then turned and smiled at Parson. He glanced in my direction, grinned, and lifted Juana into his arms. They kissed long and deeply. He watched them through the slits of his eyes, and once again wondered what Juan Rivera's consummate artist was like.
  
  
  "Que bruto! En nuestra casa! Mil rayos te patten!"
  
  
  Her, raised his head. A woman sat in the doorway, arms crossed, looking at Parson and Juana. She was a beautiful young woman with brown hair, dark brown eyes, and creamy skin.
  
  
  Parson pulled Juana away from him and turned to the woman in the doorway. "Elena," he said. "This is George, and this is Juana."
  
  
  "Hmm!" snorted Elena.
  
  
  Juana glanced at Parson, then back at the woman. "Who are you?" "What is it?" she asked softly.
  
  
  "This is my -" Parson turned to me and seemed to wink, " - a woman."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "How are you, Elena?"
  
  
  "Elena Morales," she said, and smiled. She turned to Parson, lifted her chin, looked down at him, and walked over to the bed next to me to plump up.
  
  
  Juana's face clouded for a moment, but then magically cleared as Parson squeezed her and led her through the rooms through the door Elena had entered through. A moment later, I heard him rattling glasses and bottles. More drinks!
  
  
  Elena's robe fell from her shoulders. She was wearing a thin nightgown under her robe, and he could clearly see the outline of her breasts. Nah had a full build and an exquisite shape from head to ankles.
  
  
  "Are you really married to Parson?" I asked her.
  
  
  She grinned mischievously. "Why do you want to know?"
  
  
  "Because I'm curious."
  
  
  "I'll keep you posted."
  
  
  "You won't tell me?"
  
  
  "I don't think it's a big deal." She reached out and pinched my nose. "I suspect you know that."
  
  
  He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders.
  
  
  "Hey, your woman," she said. "She's beautiful. I think Barry likes her."
  
  
  "Come on, lady," I told her as she leaned against me, the robe comfortably undone.
  
  
  "I don't understand what you're saying," she laughed.
  
  
  "There's always too much talk, anyway," she said soberly. "Don't you think so, George?" She decided it was "Hor-hey".
  
  
  "Yes, supposedly."
  
  
  We gathered together like we were in a land of thunder, and he remembered hearing the clink of bottles and glasses in the next room. But that was all. Whatever Parson was mixing for us didn't end up in any glasses for Elena and me. I didn't see her again, Parson, or Juana.
  
  
  Elena also did not comment on the lack of alcohol. She was too busy showing me how much I'd missed her in my entire life not nah.
  
  
  She took great pleasure in my shoulder holster, and my 38-his Luger. She tried to undo the ego, and everything got mixed up. It was the last thing I was wearing, and even more than she was. Somehow, she took off my holster and dropped it on the tile floor.
  
  
  Her, felt-defenseless-without it her almost said "naked".
  
  
  She reached for the lamp switch and turned off the brylev.
  
  
  He noticed that the noise of bottles in the next room had stopped.
  
  
  Seven
  
  
  To reach the Sol y Nieve Ski Area, head around Malaga on a winding road up the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Nevada hotel where we were registered was at the bottom of the Prado Llano, and Juana and I were wearing a suit that overlooked the ski slope.
  
  
  The white slope of Borreguilas separates the ski run about halfway between Picacho de Veleta and Prado Llano. The lower cable car from the Prado Llano ends, while the upper cable car starts from Borregilas. The engine room is nearby.
  
  
  Two parallel barrancas contain the lower ski runs from Borregilas to the Prado Llano. They are separated by a sharp ridge all over granite and mica, on which even after the heaviest snowfall only small patches of snow are visible.
  
  
  The cable car that runs from Prado Llano to Borreguilas is suspended above the main barranca, where the light trails are located. More difficult tracks are located to the east in a nearby ravine.
  
  
  I sat on the balcony that ran around the hotel and watched the skiers, but soon decided that I would rather ski than watch. But just to provide my cover, I took half a dozen photos using Rolleiflex 1, which I brought for free to the AXE prop department to make sure that the houses below saw me.
  
  
  It was a tiring ride, and soon after, I went inside, kicked off my shoes, and with a tired sigh, I bench-pressed on the bed. But I couldn't sleep. Her, thinking about the events of the last two days.
  
  
  It's been two days since the mosquito killed the Rico Corelli twins, the second - in-command. Absolutely nothing happened in the two days after my meeting with Barry Parson and Elena Morales. But she was in touch with Mitch Kelly, and several messages came in from Hawk:
  
  
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  Questioner: Please do not attempt to communicate directly with Rico Corelli under any other circumstances. AXE's agreement with him remains unchanged. No sign of duplicity on the part of the ego. Wait until you receive a notification from it via Tina Bergson.
  
  
  POSITION: Our information indicates that Moscato is not currently in Malaga or Torremolinos. Don't repeat it, don't try to follow it. Keep a close eye on it.
  
  
  post: The Sol y Nieve meeting is still under development.
  
  
  POSITION: The requested information about Barry Parson is not available. MI5 does not disclose whether there is such a person. Obviously, the name is a pseudonym; MI6 probably won't reveal the ego's identity until the ego completes its current mission. Sorry, but we don't have confirmation, we don't have refutation of ego or ego roles in this scheme.
  
  
  POSITION: Moscato is an assassin who has worked for the mafia for many years. He also strikes at large.
  
  
  POSITION: Elena Morales - little is known about her. Nah has no record of previous involvement in espionage, counterintelligence, or covert work in Spain for the Government. However, she may not be Spanish at all, but French or Italian. No leads at all.
  
  
  POSITION: Confirmation of Moscato's presence in Mexico at the time the sniper attacked you in Ensenada. In addition, there is a record that he made trips to Europe at the same time as you, although not via Iberia.
  
  
  It was from Hawke.
  
  
  On the second morning, after the murder of the understudy Rico Corelli, I got a call while having breakfast with Juana.
  
  
  "Kelly," the voice said. "Tina received a notification from Roman Nose. You need to go to Sol y Nieve today."
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  "Don't look for the ego. Wait until the first night. At midnight, go to the cableway engine room and meet the ego contact there. Contact's name is Arturo. He will set up a meeting between you and Roman Nos at what time you should set up a meeting with Juana. But the first two meetings you have to go alone."
  
  
  "Got it."
  
  
  "The voice is all," Kelly said. "Good luck."
  
  
  "Hold on. How's Tina?"
  
  
  "Join us."
  
  
  "When exactly is she going to the resort?"
  
  
  "Nothing is said. Hernandez hasn't released ee yet and hasn't said when he'll release her."
  
  
  "Anything about Parson?"
  
  
  "Negative".
  
  
  "Elena Morales?"
  
  
  "Exactly the same."
  
  
  "You guys really work hard, don't you?"
  
  
  "Oh, Nick!"
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Around four o'clock in the afternoon, I rolled out of bed and put on my ski pants, shirt, and sweater.
  
  
  The skiers were still on the slopes. He could see the men in red jackets, the girls in green jackets, and the figures of both sexes in jackets walking down the alleys of the lowest floor. After passing the engine room mimmo on the lowest slope of the cable car, I saw the beginning of the second slope, rising to Borregilas in a large U-turn all the way to the top of the highest falls - Veleta.
  
  
  The cable cars were still running, going up and down at the same time, passing another one, going up filled, going down empty. He looked thoughtfully at the engine room.
  
  
  By Rico Corelli. If only she knew what he really looked like. The hotel was small - you could take your place in the lobby and meet him without all the ridiculous cape and daggers that Hawk and his minions loved so much.
  
  
  Still. One person has already been killed. Rico Corelli was a big man on a dangerous mission. Security was important.
  
  
  He knocked on Juana's door.
  
  
  "Yes?"
  
  
  "Let's go down, Juana."
  
  
  We came out together as husband and wife - I try to be a married couple in which the fires of sex and love have long been extinguished. A bachelor husband and a virgin woman.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The air was cold but crisp. The snow turned out to be perfect for skiing, just a light layer of powder in the right places. No storm was predicted. But I felt that there might be snow that night.
  
  
  We play this game for Odin around the last tables in the Prado and soaks up hot chocolate with cognac. A group of four came down the slopes, parked their skis and batons against the side of the diner, and searched for a chair and chairs.
  
  
  They spoke German. I know a little German, so I offered them half of our chair. They glanced at Juana and quickly agreed. The party consisted of four people. One was in his forties and was obviously the leader of the group; the other three were probably in their late twenties. The leader spoke German, but Delle was actually Swiss. The other three were mixed-a Dane and two Germans.
  
  
  They couldn't take their eyes off Juana, or even after Muchacho brought them four steaming mugs of chocolate.
  
  
  "Herr Bruno Hauptli," the big man said, reaching out to shake my hand.
  
  
  "George Peabody. Around The States."
  
  
  "Ah, yes! Sure. She knows something of the American accent in your German."
  
  
  "I'm sorry," I chuckled. "This is Juana, my woman."
  
  
  "Such a lucky guy!" Bruno Hauptli exclaimed, turning to his companions and explaining in German that she was married to me.
  
  
  "Yes, yes," the two Germans said, looking at Juana. The Dane dipped into the chocolate.
  
  
  "Are you guys going skiing tomorrow?" Herr Hauptli asked.
  
  
  Juana nodded. "We intend to."
  
  
  "Ah! I won't be on the slopes tomorrow, but maybe the next day or soon
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Herr Hauptli slapped his thigh excitedly."Why don't we do a duet - a trio, I mean," he said, remembering me.
  
  
  Juana glared at him. "I'd love that!"
  
  
  "Herr Peabody?"
  
  
  "Ah, love it, love it!"
  
  
  Everyone was laughing because it was obvious that I wasn't going to like it.
  
  
  The conversation continued. Hauptli suddenly grabbed Juana's arm, pulled her out of the chair, and bent down with her over their skis and poles. They were deep into some technical discussions about the lock he had on his skis. Juana seethed and hissed.
  
  
  "Herr Hauptli," one of the young men said to her in German. "He's a businessman, right?"
  
  
  The German next to me was classically blue-eyed and blond. "Yes! Herr Hauptli is one of the most successful businessmen in the German market," he said. "Nen has a lot of responsibility."
  
  
  "Is he on vacation?" I asked her.
  
  
  "A big meeting will be held in Paris in a week. Now Herr Hauptli is relaxing, enjoying the sunshine, the snow and..."
  
  
  Pause.
  
  
  The Germans laughed, and the not-quite-melancholy Dane slapped the table.
  
  
  "Girls!"
  
  
  Laughter.
  
  
  It reminded me of one of those old German opera comedians I'd seen in a late-night performance - old movies from the 1930s. Something about this didn't seem quite right to me. But I couldn't figure it out.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The restaurant was set up like a typical refectory in a ski resort, with one long table in the center of the room in the style of an overpass and small tables along the walls of the room.
  
  
  Our group - Juana and his wife, along with Herr Hauptli and his friends-were outspoken at the center of the meeting. Herr Hauptli continued to rattle on incessantly the Teutonic chatter that almost simultaneously stunned and stunned everyone. Even those who didn't understand German or English seemed completely mesmerized by the ego charisma.
  
  
  He took his time during the long meal and carefully surveyed the rest of the hotel's patrons.
  
  
  She wanted a Roman Nose, trying to see the real Rico Corelli in the sea of faces around me. There didn't seem to be any opportunities.
  
  
  It was eleven-thirty before her time was even known. The brandy arrived and she sat down, sipping her ego. When Herr Hauptli paused to catch his breath, her father turned to Juana and said: "I go out to get some fresh air before going to bed. Are you coming, dear?"
  
  
  She gave me a calm smile. "No, dear. Apologize. It's too cold. Don't be late."
  
  
  He smiled and finished his brandy.
  
  
  "Herr Hauptli, it was a real treat. See you tomorrow or sometime - really?"
  
  
  "Yes," said Herr Hauptli, his face flushed with wine, brandy, and the excitement of eating. "Auf weidersehen".
  
  
  He pushed back his chair, bowed to the two Germans and the Dane, and walked through the crowded restaurant.
  
  
  It was very cold outside. The air was cool. He stuck his head out and then went back upstairs to our room and bought himself some headphones and a stocking. I also put on my windbreaker, checking the weights in the shoulder holster, and making sure the knife was strapped to my ankle.
  
  
  He reached the top of the winding path without incident. Away from the protection of the buildings, I felt colder than the ferret felt with them when I arrived in the Sierra Nevada. The wind cut through my clothes until I felt half-naked.
  
  
  There was no peace in the engine room. There were no hints on the mountainside either. He glanced over his shoulder. The yellow rays of the sun around the hotel rooms and around the windows facing the Prado made golden patterns on the white snow.
  
  
  The building where the chairlift car was located was surrounded by snow. The main entrance to the valley could be seen. The engine room door was closed, but not locked. He turned the handle and pushed it open. The interior of the building was very dark, although the reflection of the stars in the snow brought a little peace. It was amazing how bright the sky was, even in the dead of night.
  
  
  He could see her behind the wheel until the U-turn, where the cable cars turned in a semicircle in the opposite direction. There was a cable car in the middle of the semicircle's belly, which held the ferret until the car started up in the morning.
  
  
  Her was about to walk forward when she saw someone passing by the mimmo cable car. Whoever it was that entered it must have been inside the building or entered through some other entrance. I thought he must have been waiting for me. Then, of course, he will be my contact person.
  
  
  Arturo.
  
  
  He grabbed his piece, pulled out ego, and tensed, moving forward, opening his mouth to whisper " Arturo."
  
  
  I never told her that.
  
  
  Someone else did!
  
  
  "Arturo!"
  
  
  The sound seemed to come from behind the cable car. Its picked up a piece and made an ego silhouette there. If he called Arturo, it wasn't Arturo. And since she was supposed to be called by Arturo, her, I knew that this person would be someone else who would try to find Arturo before me, someone not on my side.
  
  
  "Yes?" "What is it?" asked a voice on the other side of the big engine room.
  
  
  Instantly, a loud voice rang out.
  
  
  
  
  
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  the echo of a gunshot-a report that swayed back and forth in this small room like the pounding of hundreds of drums. A flash of orange flame appeared and instantly disappeared. I heard her scream to my left.
  
  
  She immediately crouched down and shot at the figure behind the cable car.
  
  
  Someone was swearing in Spanish. To my left, I heard the sound of a body falling and a groan. Her, shot again, trying to see the man for the cable car. I couldn't make out a single part of the ego.
  
  
  The door opened again, and her figure was revealed; he made his escape. She fired once more towards the sound of day, then ran through the darkness to the location.
  
  
  There was no one there.
  
  
  There was a door that was the second entrance to the engine room. I opened it and looked out. There was no one in sight. He quickly went outside and looked up and down the snowy slope. Us Odin. Nobody.
  
  
  Back in the building, her heard someone gasping and wheezing, her found the boy and Stahl kneeling over him on the concrete floor. Ego couldn't see her at all.
  
  
  "Arturo?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Yes." He shuddered.
  
  
  "Where can I meet the person I came to see?"
  
  
  "The top of Veleta is Picacho de Veleta. Twelve o'clock. Tomorrow night."
  
  
  "Okay," I whispered. Her, bent down. Her ego heard labored, ragged breathing. Then, before he could say anything else, she heard a familiar gurgling rasp that sounded very much like a rattle, but it wasn't really a rattle at all.
  
  
  Something else.
  
  
  Life leaves the body.
  
  
  Arturo was dead.
  
  
  He quickly got up and left through the engine rooms, driving around the outcrop with a long and ready figure, until he reached the Prado Llano and ran to the hotel.
  
  
  However, he looked back only once and saw that the engine room was lit up with a saint, and dark figures were wandering around inside.
  
  
  The shots were loud enough to alert the entire Sol-i-Nev police force. The Civil Guard was there.
  
  
  Shocked by her, I climbed the stairs and walked through the lobby, turning left to the bar, trying to catch my breath with a strong sip of cognac.
  
  
  That helped.
  
  
  Several.
  
  
  But not really.
  
  
  8
  
  
  The muted excitement that had peaked immediately after the shooting of Arturo and the subsequent murder investigation had completely subsided within half an hour. The Civil Guard stationed at the ski resort took care of the corpse and began the long, tedious process of interrogating visitors and service personnel at the resort.
  
  
  He didn't envy her the police work. It was grueling, thankless, and especially uncomfortable work at these heights at this time of year. They were good people.
  
  
  I was lucky. Nothing brought ih to me.
  
  
  I like cognac a little. I kept my eyes on the hotel lobby, watching everyone coming in and out. She would have liked someone who looked like the man she'd found in the trash at the villa in Torremolinos, the man I'd come to believe was a Mosquito.
  
  
  Finally, he got up, walked into the hall, and looked at the Prado Llano. There seemed to be no one abroad now.
  
  
  I crossed the lobby and went up the stairs to the second floor, where our room was located. As I put the key in the door, I heard her laughing in the next room. Juana's laugh.
  
  
  Smiling, Brylev pushed open the door and turned it on. So, she joins Herr Hauptli in her room. At least he seemed funny, even in his boorish Teutonic way. The only consolation was that such an extrovert person had several hidden wrinkles.
  
  
  He walked up to her and put his ear to her.
  
  
  Giggle. The fun spilled out of nah like bubbles around a champagne glass. Herr Hauptli must be better off in the dining room than in the drawing room, she thought idly. She didn't trust it in math.
  
  
  "Please," Juana said. "And put some ice in there, please, Barry?"
  
  
  Barry!
  
  
  She walked away from the day, frowning.
  
  
  Barry Parson?
  
  
  Then her ego could hear her voice, muffled but unmistakable - an unmistakable British accent, muted amusement, and muted excitement.
  
  
  "Actually, Honey. One glass of whiskey, all right!"
  
  
  The last time we saw Parson was in Malaga. The next day, after the murders of Rico Corelli's double, he and Elena joined Juana and me for a shopping trip and lunch. We went to dinner with them the night before we left for Sol-i-Niev. But we didn't tell anyone around them where we were going, because we didn't know until early in the morning. How does Parson know where we are?" And why did he follow us? Did he discover that the Mosquito was also following us? Quite possibly. Komarov was here - I suspected he killed Arturo. At the very least, this was the most obvious possibility.
  
  
  But why wasn't Parson there to stop the Mosquito if it followed him? And why...?
  
  
  The thought of a Mosquito stopped me. Her mind quickly refocused and shuffled the cards into a completely new hand. Then I realized that it was possible that Barry Parson might not be the innocent British MI5 officer he claimed to be.
  
  
  Thus:
  
  
  Tart joins me at the villa where the Mosquito was hiding in Torremolinos.
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  who had helped em serve ego the night before.
  
  
  I found a man in the bedroom and tried to grab him, but I was interrupted. The man ran away. Another man, who identified himself as Barry Parson, entered the bedroom, claiming to be a secret British agent, then a mosquito.
  
  
  Suppose Parson wasn't an agent at all. Let's assume that the person in question was just John Doe. Let's say Komarov advertises John Doe there and then interrupts me to let the false Mosquito disappear. And then suppose the emu managed to convince me that the Mosquito was gone.
  
  
  He was a Mosquito back then! Barry Parson! And he just followed me to Sol-i-Niev, followed me to the engine room, killed Arturo, probably assuming that Arturo was me, and ran away. Now he was in a relationship with Juana, hoping that egos would lead to the real Rico Corelli!
  
  
  He broke out in a cold sweat.
  
  
  He hurriedly answered the phone. One in each room of the suite. Her picked up the phone, and the chair answered immediately - not so wouldnt make many calls in the dead of night.
  
  
  "Mrs. Peabody, please."
  
  
  A moment later, the phone rang in the next room.
  
  
  "Hello?" It was Juana.
  
  
  "No words were spoken to us. This is Nick. I can hear her there, Parson. Imagine that this is the wrong number."
  
  
  "I'm really sorry. Her, I believe that you have..."
  
  
  "Keep your ego there. I'll meet Corelli at midnight tomorrow night. Велета. The contact is dead. Keep Parson there all night, if you can. He could be the person who killed the Corelli lookalike."
  
  
  "You're bothering me, please, and I don't have to put up with it."
  
  
  "Don't tell em anything. Keep your ego in touch. If you understand all this and can comply, say so:"I don't mean to be rude, but I can't help you. Then hang up the phone."
  
  
  "I don't mean to be rude, but I can't help you."
  
  
  I hung up on her. She could hear Parson's voice around the other end of the room.
  
  
  "Who was that, Juana?"
  
  
  "Wrong number. Some drunken Englishman."
  
  
  Parson laughed. "Are you sure he's not an American?"
  
  
  "He had the same accent as you," Juana retorted.
  
  
  Good girl! It was cool as powder.
  
  
  He checked his stiletto, his luger, and changed into a turtleneck sweater and jacket. I was going to the bar again. Her hotel to think about. And he didn't want to stay in this room for both ends of the night. Maybe I could pay the bartender to let me go to the lobby next to the bar.
  
  
  The saint turned it off and quietly left.
  
  
  The bar was exactly as his ego had left it. I looked around. I don't think everyone was asleep yet.
  
  
  A chair tasted it. "Where is everyone?"
  
  
  "Disco," Klera said, surprised. "In the basement."
  
  
  "I don't hear any noise."
  
  
  "It's soundproof, Sector."
  
  
  He shrugged and went down the stairs that he thought led to the lower level of the hotel, where the supply rooms were located.
  
  
  Three doors led from the landing below, and one said: DISCOTHÈQUE.
  
  
  He went to the bar on the right and ordered a drink. The bartender, dressed like a flamenco dancer with long sideburns sticking to his skull, quickly prepared a drink.
  
  
  Now I let my eyes wander carefully over the disco patrons. He hadn't noticed the place: it might have been the place where the Mosquito had been hiding after the murder, if indeed the Mosquito wasn't Barry Parson.
  
  
  But I didn't see her, the person I first saw in the bedroom of the villa in Torremolinos.
  
  
  He was about to sit down when he saw an acquaintance.
  
  
  She was sitting in the far corner, all alone, under an overhanging section of what looked like a large, flat rock. In one of those bright moments, Sergei punched her openly in the face, and she blinked and turned away.
  
  
  It was obviously Elena Morales.
  
  
  What was her role in this charade? Did she know why Barry Parson had come to Sol y Nieve? Was she part of it? Or was she just an innocent bystander, part of a showcase Parson had set up to protect his own part?
  
  
  Or was he wrong about Parson?
  
  
  He walked up to her, suddenly appearing in the darkness above her and smiling broadly.
  
  
  "Hello, Elena."
  
  
  "George! What a pleasant surprise!"
  
  
  "When did you come?"
  
  
  "Oh, Barry, and him got here around eleven. We both showered, changed, and went candid to the dining room, but of course it was time to eat. And we saw your wife. She said you ate gone." Her eyes sparkle. "On business."
  
  
  "But now you're alone!"
  
  
  "Well, we came down here, the three of us. There was another charming person here. German. Barry had to go upstairs to sort something out with his luggage. He returned about half an hour later. to leave. Then we danced and ... "
  
  
  "How long did the German stay?"
  
  
  Elena smiled. "Is this what you call cross-examination, George?"
  
  
  Hers was laughing. "Of course not. What happened after Barry came back through the luggage?"
  
  
  "The German left, as I said, and then around twelve-thirty Barry said he would take Juana to her room. Juana was tired. He told me to wait here." She frowned angrily. "I'm still here."
  
  
  Her ordered drinks.
  
  
  "What happens if Barry doesn't call you?" She was asked, g
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  remembering what I had instructed Juana.
  
  
  She grinned. "I go to bed alone."
  
  
  "Maybe clean."
  
  
  Her eyes focused on my face. "Are you telling me something?"
  
  
  "Maybe."
  
  
  "Okay," she said, turning to me and putting her hand on my hip. "Vote what I'll tell you. Why don't you take the bottle and go up to my room? We'll wait until Barry gets back there."
  
  
  I took her a bottle of cognac and we went up the stairs together. Elena was a bit of a weaver, but she kept the liquor well.
  
  
  The ih room was on the third floor. Elena took a key out of her bag and handed it to me. He opened the door and let her in. She absorbed the saint, and he closed the door behind us.
  
  
  She took out a few paper cups, opened the bottle, poured cognac, and began to drink, sitting on the edge of the bed.
  
  
  "Your wife is very pretty," Elena said.
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  "Do you have family problems?"
  
  
  "No more than anyone else."
  
  
  "But it seems that your Jean likes other men."
  
  
  "How's Barry?"
  
  
  "Yes."
  
  
  "Is Barry your husband?" I asked her.
  
  
  She shook her head. "We're faking it." She smiled.
  
  
  "How long have you known ego?"
  
  
  "Ah. Maybe a month."
  
  
  "Where did you meet ego?"
  
  
  She raised an eyebrow. "In Malaga."
  
  
  "What does Barry do for a living?"
  
  
  She was laughing. "He's making love."
  
  
  “no. I mean, what's the ego thing?"
  
  
  "I don't meddle in men's business."
  
  
  He nodded to her. Sure. She wouldn't. She was Spanish. The Spaniard doesn't get involved in her husband's "other" life - ever.
  
  
  "And you," she said with a smile. "What do you do?"
  
  
  "I'm a photographer," I said, trying to remember what was on my cover after a moment of complete amnesia. "I sell online."
  
  
  Elena looked at me carefully. "You know, I've never seen you with a camera."
  
  
  "We're on vacation," I said lamely.
  
  
  "Well, it's actually for the British, too," she murmured softly.
  
  
  "Barry never works either?"
  
  
  She shook her head. "He says that he is a representative of the company in the UK. Sales representative".
  
  
  It was new. This was obviously Parson's legend. I decided to learn more about nen.
  
  
  "What does he sell?"
  
  
  "I really don't know. I don't ask him."
  
  
  "Does he ever correspond with the UK?"
  
  
  "I don't think so. I've never seen him write letters. But he makes a lot of phone calls."
  
  
  "Ah."
  
  
  "I think he has a secretary. He always talks to her."
  
  
  "I see." Her brow furrowed. "Where is she?"
  
  
  "I do not know. He's on the phone, and I don't really know where he's calling because I'm not in the room when he starts. Or when she calls emu, it should be given to emu by phone, and he waits for her to leave the room."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "You Spanish girls are wonderful," I said. "An American woman was eavesdropping at the door. Or listening to the ego." "But to avoid eavesdropping, you need special discipline."
  
  
  She nodded. Then she smiled. "Too much for me."
  
  
  "Are you listening?"
  
  
  "I do."
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "Good girl."
  
  
  "However, it never talks about what the mail business is. He's always talking about people. People I don't understand. He calls ih " the one, or himself, or a man, or a woman ."
  
  
  For an agent, it doesn't make much sense, like a good chatter.
  
  
  "Have you ever talked to the ego secretary?"
  
  
  “yeah. I gave her a little accent to make her think I was stupid." She smiled at me with a sudden pixies-like flash of humor.
  
  
  He squeezed her thighs. "You're not stupid at all, Elena."
  
  
  "But she thinks I'm stupid."
  
  
  "WHO?"
  
  
  "Chris. The woman Barry is talking to."
  
  
  "Do you know her other name?"
  
  
  Elena shook her head.
  
  
  "Did he talk to her for as long as you ego knew?" I asked her, though I didn't know where we were going, just continuing on the usual path of gathering information.
  
  
  "Ah, yes. He was always in touch with her. He called long-distance numbers to settle some of his business affairs."
  
  
  "In England?"
  
  
  "Oh no, not always. Sometimes in France."
  
  
  "Are you sure it was France?"
  
  
  She frowned. "I think so. I don't always listen to her so carefully, George. I don't always get the right chance. Why are you so interested?"
  
  
  "I like Barry." He smiled at her. "I'm just wondering what country the business is in, it's in the audience."
  
  
  "I like Barry too."
  
  
  "Do you know the night Barry and I went home to the villa with Juana?"
  
  
  "Yes."
  
  
  "Where was he that day?"
  
  
  "He was at home all day. I'm thinking."
  
  
  So he didn't shoot Corelli - it was a Mosquito or some unknown group. Barry wasn't a Mosquito - no chance.
  
  
  "And he talked to Chris that day?"
  
  
  "Chris?"
  
  
  "A girl. Secretary".
  
  
  "Ah. No. I don't think so. He stayed at the villa. We went to the beach."
  
  
  "The beach? In winter?"
  
  
  "We were sitting on the sand in the sun." She giggled. "It was fun."
  
  
  "How about the next day? Calls to England?"
  
  
  “no. Nothing that day."
  
  
  "Later?"
  
  
  "Well, I think she's calling this morning. You know, it's early today."
  
  
  "Chris's girlfriend?"
  
  
  "St. She's a nice girl. Very effective. I have a picture of her in my head office. You know what? Sitting at a desk in this office. Very formal."
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  "I see her on the phone. Her, I can see her talking to Barry. She thinks I'm bad, and she, hey, doesn't like me." Elena showed her teeth.
  
  
  "Does she know about you and Barry?"
  
  
  "Oh, of course. Kristina and I..."
  
  
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  he grabbed ee's arm. She almost spilled her drink. "What is it?" She switched to an accent.
  
  
  "Kristina? You said Chris."
  
  
  "It's the same name. Is something wrong?"
  
  
  Something's wrong. Something was very right. Now everything fell into place. Chris was Christina. Christina was Christina. Christina, cut off in the middle with the front part missing, was Tina.
  
  
  Elena sighed. "Are you leaving?"
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "What gave you that idea anyway?"
  
  
  "Your mind has already gone somewhere else."
  
  
  He reached out and picked her up. "Not anymore. Look. There is no more cognac. Any ideas?"
  
  
  "I'm thinking about it," Elena said, breaking free around my arms. "I'm wearing something more comfortable."
  
  
  She got up and went to the bathroom.
  
  
  When she came out, she didn't feel any more comfortable in anything.
  
  
  And I was completely comfortable.
  
  
  Nine
  
  
  In the morning, her breakfast was almost finished when Juana came into the hotel dining room and approached me. She had just showered and was smiling.
  
  
  "Good morning, Mrs. Peabody," I said, sitting up and pretending to bow at the waist.
  
  
  "Good morning, Mr. Peabody," she said dryly.
  
  
  She sat down.
  
  
  "You look annoyed," I said, buttering a croissant. "Rocks in your trash?"
  
  
  She glanced around to make sure no one was listening. At the moment, there were only six other customers in the dining room.
  
  
  "I kept ego there all night, just for you!" she attacked me under her breath.
  
  
  "Thank you," I said. "I'm sure you enjoyed it."
  
  
  She blushed furiously. "Now what's all this about?"
  
  
  "I told you. I'm not even sure yet that Barry Parson is who he says he is."
  
  
  She looked around. The waiter loomed over us. With a smile, she ordered, and the waiter hurried away. She turned to me. "Me too," she confessed.
  
  
  Her, looked up. "Ouch?"
  
  
  "You said he might have been the person who killed the Corelli lookalike."
  
  
  "Her beru is back. He couldn't do it. He has an alibi."
  
  
  "But he seems to know a lot about the mafia."
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "He claims to be an agent. And that British military intelligence is working to try to eliminate the mafia's drug network."
  
  
  "I know all this. But he seems that unlikely."
  
  
  Interesting, I thought. I always had the same idea.
  
  
  "Where have you been all night?" "What is it?" she asked suddenly.
  
  
  The waiter brought her a tray of continental breakfast and a steaming pot of coffee.
  
  
  "I was staying with someone else."
  
  
  One eyebrow rose as she opened the roll and buttered the ego. "Ouch?"
  
  
  "Mrs. Parson."
  
  
  "If there is a Mrs. Parson," she chuckled. "I thought you might run into nah at the disco."
  
  
  "That's what I did."
  
  
  "What really happened to the man who was killed?"
  
  
  I looked around. "The mosquito followed me into the engine room and killed him. However, she knows the meeting place. I'm meeting Corelli at midnight tonight."
  
  
  "Is it really better for you to talk so freely here?"
  
  
  "A bug in the coffee pot?" Her, chuckled. "I doubt it. But don't say anything in your room that you want to keep secret. Hers, I'm sure the damn thing is bugged. I think that's how I was attacked by a potential Corelli killer. Juana, did Parson say anything about Corelli?" "
  
  
  "Corelli?" She shook her head. "No, why not?"
  
  
  "I think he knows Tina Bergson."
  
  
  Juana froze. "Can you be sure of that?"
  
  
  "Not really, no." Her, leaned back. "Why not?"
  
  
  "He speaks Italian, you know. Very good."
  
  
  "What does Tina Bergson have to do with it?"
  
  
  "Nothing at all. Hers, thinking about Corelli."
  
  
  "You think Parson is Italian and knows Corelli?"
  
  
  Juana shook her head. "I don't think anything of her. I just told her that he surprised me when he came up with an Italian phrase."
  
  
  "What phrase?"
  
  
  She blushed. "I don't remember."
  
  
  "But you know it was Italian?"
  
  
  "He admitted it. He was also very cool."
  
  
  "And it was an accident?"
  
  
  "Very much so." Juana looked down at her plate. She was suddenly primal and precise. He wasn't smiling, though he was laughing inwardly. Something unintentional in the middle of making love, she knew. And he came up with a nice rich Italian phrase. Interesting. Very interesting.
  
  
  "Does he go skiing?" I asked her.
  
  
  "I do not know. I mean, should I know her?"
  
  
  "I was just thinking. We'll go up the slopes tonight, Juana. It should appear on the cover. And I'd better take some photos." Good. I'm tired of all this boudoir work."
  
  
  "You seem to be taking it very well," I said casually, looking her over. "Actually, I've never seen you look like this before... Oh, I'm glad if you get what I mean."
  
  
  She was angry. "I'll take your ..."
  
  
  "Now, now," they warn her, sipping the rest of their con leche coffee.
  
  
  "When do you go skiing?"
  
  
  "I have to go up to my room and clean up first."
  
  
  She nodded. "I'll be ready at nine-thirty."
  
  
  "Nine-thirty then. Let's go to the top. Велета. Are you playing?"
  
  
  "Of course! Her chin shot up. She was challenging me. I felt her better. She was still fighting for her meaning and her equality. Good girl.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  We pulled out our equipment on a Prado Llano and played a one-on-one game along the cable cars to make the first race to Borreguilas.
  
  
  It was an invigorating day, with the sun high in the sky and the wind bringing some moisture.
  
  
  
  
  
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  re. "It's going to snow tonight," I thought. He remembered that he had smelled snow in the air the night before. Now it would happen, he was sure of it.
  
  
  The cable car bounced and jerked, and we sat climbing up and up the peaks of the Sierra Nevada. You could see everything from there. It was getting colder and colder - fast. I turned around and looked down, and it was like looking at the end of the world. At a great distance in front of me, the entire Granada area was spread out, although there was some haze down there, enough to block out the full panoramic view of everything.
  
  
  We jumped off the cable car while the attendant held it, and went to the apartments on the street. It was very high up here, the air was thin, and the cold enveloped us from all sides and penetrated our skin through our clothes.
  
  
  We walked in silence to the top of the ski slope. It was a desolate country - all covered with mica shale and snow - there were no trees or thickets anywhere. Just snow, rocks, and sky. He silently strapped himself into his Austrians and watched Juana wrestle with her Canadians.
  
  
  We stood there for a few minutes, looking down the slope, and then I took her cap off, pulled the cap down over my ears,and waved at her.
  
  
  "You first!"
  
  
  She nodded, pushed herself forward, bent her knees, and began to move along the steep section of the first fall.
  
  
  I followed her, relaxing and enjoying the crisp snow on the edges of my skis. We were in the best weather conditions.
  
  
  One day we rested and she brought us a couple of sandwiches, which brought amazing value to ih. We ate ih and didn't say a word to each other. We just basked in the sun and were delighted with the solitude and beauty of the mountainside.
  
  
  We finished our sandwiches and moved on.
  
  
  It was a great race.
  
  
  Wonderful.
  
  
  After making a short descent down the Borreglas, we sat in the hotel lobby all day, exchanging stories with Barry Parson and Elena Morales as the fire crackled and tourists came and went. We could see the lower piste - from Borreglas to the Prado Llano-outside the window, and spent time commenting on the shapes of various skiers.
  
  
  Finally, I went to rest and take a shower. The meal was modest, with the usual large number of dishes, and at eleven-thirty he started to get a little nervous. At that moment, we were still sitting and drinking.
  
  
  He excused himself, went upstairs to his room, and checked his luger and hairpin. Then he took it out, made a map of the area, and checked the route to the monument of Velet, who had seen it that morning from the top of the ski slope. The government road around Granada to Motril on the Costa del Sol, she'd been told, ran right next to a concrete structure.
  
  
  The road from the Prado Llano connected to a regular highway about three miles from the Prado Museum. Its marked its route north to the fork and then southeast to Velete on the highway. He put down the map for a moment, picked up the keys to the rented Renault, and went down to the lobby.
  
  
  In the dining room, he saw Juana still sitting with Elena. I wonder where Parson is. I'm standing there, looking out the window at the front of the hotel where the Renault was parked. Several figures were moving along the Prado, probably in bar-Esque fashion. One of them was Herr Hauptli.
  
  
  I stepped through the front doors of the hotel and into the darkness outside, and he saw me waving:
  
  
  "Don't forget, we'll do this race someday!
  
  
  "I'd rather do it in daylight," he told her in German.
  
  
  He laughed out loud and walked into the lobby.
  
  
  Her sunset in Reno. A cold wind blew down the slopes. The car was cold but cozy. The heat of the engine will quickly warm up the ego.
  
  
  Light snow began to fall. It was too early to stick, but it fell on icy patches of snow that were already on the roadway. Snowdrifts began to accumulate along the edge of the sidewalk.
  
  
  The Renault hummed like a happy bird. He drove slowly and carefully watched the bright white line in the center of the road. The double lane of the road was a narrow lane for two cars passing by. I watched a bus and cars barely pass mimmo another other during a trip around Granada, reminding me of an elephant mating with an antelope that refuses to cooperate.
  
  
  She was met by two cars heading towards the Prado Llano, and then drove onto the main road, where he turned to follow the turns and turn back towards Veleta. The snow was getting heavier. It crossed the rays of the world and formed a curtain in front of me. I could barely see the highway, and although it was wider than the driveway, it wasn't designed for overtaking or stunt driving on any ground.
  
  
  The Renault was driving easily on the winding road, but I could see that the snow was starting to cling to the sidewalk a little. Sometimes I couldn't see the edge of the highway at all.
  
  
  A steely voice came up the slope
  
  
  
  
  
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  Now Renault had to give it all its gas. He shifted into low gear and moved slowly and carefully through the increasing surface of snow.
  
  
  Finally he saw the sign: VELETA. And beyond the sign, the dirt road turned off the main road and up to the familiar concrete monument on top of the cliff.
  
  
  She was pushed by the Renault onto a dirt road and turned around over rocks and ice until it came to a flat area, apparently blasted around hard rocks. There was no sign of the car.
  
  
  My watch said five minutes past twelve. I wonder what happened to Rico Corelli. Then another thought occurred to me: had Corelli decided not to hold meetings when word got out that Arturo was dead? Was Corelli, too, hiding somewhere behind a rock, waiting for her to come out into the open to shoot me?
  
  
  I turned off the ignition and the Renault died. There were tire tracks everywhere in the frozen slush, but they meant nothing. He shuddered. It was lonely here, in the most secluded place in the mountains. It was just Corelli and him , and he arranged it that way. Kill me for Arturo's death? For the death of Basillo di Vanessi?
  
  
  He carefully turned off the headlights. He sat there for a while, weighing his options. Then he put on his windbreaker and pulled out the Luger . There was a pocket flashlight in the dashboard compartment that I usually carry with me, and Ego took it out and turned it on.
  
  
  Then he opened the door of the Renault. The wind slammed into me with frightening effect. Licking pulled her windbreaker over to him and stood by the Renault, closing the door with a thud. It was made by the beam of a flashlight in the night and I could only see the snow swirling towards me, whipping in all directions at the top of the peak, where the wind was blowing from all points of the compass.
  
  
  The monument was piled up there, dark and silent, and Ego walked around it until he found the blue SIM card he'd pulled out from the back view. I had no idea how Ego driver talked ego into breaking through the ice and icy slush, but he was standing there. It touched the hood. It was still warm.
  
  
  At the back of the monument was a pile of building materials left by the first craftsmen to complete the monument. I was standing there at the Sim Card, trying to hide from the wind, and it was there that I heard a sudden noise not far from me.
  
  
  Her husband held the Luger tightly in his hand and turned to face the direction the sound was coming from. As the wind whipped around, ripping the sound and scattering the ego in all directions, he wasn't sure if I was watching her face-to-face with the movement or not.
  
  
  Then shaggy heard her.
  
  
  Luger held it in his hand, aiming and ready to squeeze.
  
  
  "Ah, Peabody," the voice said, as if through a scarf.
  
  
  He didn't realize it.
  
  
  But when he stepped into the flashlight spot, his ego was immediately known.
  
  
  It was Barry Parson.
  
  
  But now he didn't have a British accent at all. He spoke in a vague sort of way, which made me believe that up to this point he had, after all, only played the role of a British secret agent.
  
  
  Who was he?
  
  
  He stepped forward from behind a pile of building materials and reached out to shake my hand.
  
  
  Its frozen.
  
  
  "Relax," Barry Parson said. "It's all right. Her Corelli. Rico Corelli".
  
  
  10
  
  
  The snow swirled around us for a long time, and no one around us moved. It was getting colder and colder.
  
  
  "All right?" he said, leaning down to lick me, trying to see my face.
  
  
  The Luger was tucked under her windbreaker, just in case. "How can I be sure?" Ego asked her. "First you tell me you're Barry Parson, and now you tell me you're Rico Corelli."
  
  
  He laughed. "Let's go. This should be obvious! Well done=), and who could be here but Rico Corelli?"
  
  
  "Anyone could be here to answer your corkscrew. Anyone who knew about the meeting."
  
  
  "Who but Rico Corelli and the murdered child?" he asked.
  
  
  "Komarov. He might know."
  
  
  "You think I'm a mosquito?" Parson asked with a laugh.
  
  
  "He would be the only one who would know that Corelli met me here."
  
  
  "Be reasonable! Its not a Mosquito!"
  
  
  "You say so, but I don't know her."
  
  
  "If he was a mosquito, what would he be doing here?"
  
  
  "Trying to find Corelli and kill ego."
  
  
  "But her Corelli."
  
  
  It turned into a simple comedy. He shook his head resignedly. "Bearable, you're a Corelli. I'm fucking cold. Let's get in my car and talk."
  
  
  He smiled. Good."She was led by ego up front to the Renault.
  
  
  "Nice little job," he said.
  
  
  "Great," I said. "When you rent, you can get the best out of it."
  
  
  He opened the door with his key and entered, then reached out and opened the passenger door for em. He climbed in and slammed the door. The car lurched. It was still warm inside.
  
  
  "Let me tell you about Basillo di Vanessi," he said after a minute of silence. "Replacement. They've been trying to catch me for months."
  
  
  "Them?"
  
  
  "Someone around the top level of the mafia," Parson said. Her couldn't help it; His still thought of nen as Barry Parson,
  
  
  
  
  
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  not like Rico Corelli.
  
  
  "But how do you know that?"
  
  
  "I have friends there too. At the top. Kapo Kapo wants her to be excluded by default. He wants it to be complete."
  
  
  "What's the ego's name?"
  
  
  He smiled. "Forget it. Just trust me."
  
  
  Good. So Capo Capo wants you to leave."
  
  
  "You want to kill me. Tried to tell me twice already. Once in Corsica. Once in Naples. I was there in delivery."
  
  
  "Naples? "Where did the Mosquito come from?"
  
  
  He looked at me sharply. "You'll be fine."
  
  
  "I was told."
  
  
  "Hema?"
  
  
  "Nothing."
  
  
  "When my second strike failed..."
  
  
  "The one in your villa in Corsica?"
  
  
  He frowned. "Yes." He waited. Then: "When he failed, he decided to leave for business. That's when I came to you people."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "I know all about it." It doesn't exist. But it was useless to listen to the ego's story. I had no way of knowing if it was true or false.
  
  
  Good. When we left Corsica on the yacht, Vanessi took it with him."
  
  
  "To take your place?"
  
  
  “yeah. When we got to Valencia, we stayed in port for a day, and hers stayed on shore when they left."
  
  
  "Did Lysistrata sail without you?"
  
  
  "Absolutely fantastic. Vanessa played Rico Corelli."
  
  
  "And when they landed in Malaga, Vanessa was still playing Corelli?"
  
  
  "Yes." He made a pause. "With the help of Tina Bergson."
  
  
  "Was Vanessa in Malaga?"
  
  
  “no. He stayed on the boat. We thought it would be better this way. Then there will be no error. I mean, just in case someone recognizes the ego."
  
  
  "Can anyone in Malaga identify you?"
  
  
  "We've got a chance," Parson laughed.
  
  
  "Then?"
  
  
  "Then you contacted Tina and she came to meet you."
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  "I believe someone chose you after following you to the yacht, putting on scuba gear, and getting hit."
  
  
  "WHO?"
  
  
  "Moscato, of course. Who else? He knows everything about me. And he must have had more than one eye on the boat when it came in. He just timed the time you were near the ship to get you involved."
  
  
  "Why didn't Moscato recognize you?"
  
  
  "He knows about the yacht, about Tina, about meeting you people..."
  
  
  "I see. But he really didn't recognize you."
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  "And he stabbed and wounded Tina."
  
  
  "Thank God she wasn't killed!"
  
  
  He was watching him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of American cigarettes. He lit one and waved the match. Last time, he took out a Spanish cigarette. But then, of course, he played British secret agent Barry Parson. He was a consummate actor and knew how effective the right props were.
  
  
  "How is she now?" I asked her.
  
  
  "You mean what they're saying around the clinic?"
  
  
  "Yes." He knew.
  
  
  "She's coming."
  
  
  "When can she join you?"
  
  
  He hesitated. "Soon."
  
  
  "And then-meetings with my partner?"
  
  
  "That's right." "Look, Tina is part of the sentence. You know that, don't you?"
  
  
  "Yes," I said. "But we want to meet first, and then we'll discuss the details."
  
  
  He nodded. "That's all that matters right now."
  
  
  "One thing puzzles me."
  
  
  "What is it?" Smoke rose in front of ego's face. In the windshield of the Renault, she could see the reflection of their egos as he took a drag on his cigarette.
  
  
  "How did you even get in after the Mosquito in Torremolinos?"
  
  
  He laughed. "Neat, huh?"
  
  
  "Very neat. Her paused. "Too neat."
  
  
  Ego's eyes slid over mine. "What are you saying?"
  
  
  "I'm saying that I can't completely agree with your story, Corelli. You enter the deal when my Mosquito runs cold, and then you play Barry Parson, a secret agent. What gives?"
  
  
  "Let's go back," Parson said seriously. "Listen up. Her, I knew you were after a mosquito. Do you agree?"
  
  
  He nodded to her. "You might have guessed it, of course. But why were you in Malaga at all? I mean, Rico Corelli. You were hiding in Valencia. Why go to Malaga to expose yourself in vain?"
  
  
  "Insurance," he said slowly.
  
  
  "Insurance?"
  
  
  "I was safe from the moment I left the yacht in Valencia. Do you understand?"
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  Good. Savchenko was on the yacht while he was working, when the" Mosquito " was struck. Really again?"
  
  
  They thought of her. Good. Let's assume that you were supposed to be in Sol y Nieve at this point."
  
  
  "That's what I told Tina."
  
  
  "I thought so. I mean, why did coming to Malaga help? That was my corkscrew."
  
  
  "Take it to your hotel and find out more about you." He shrugged. "I mean, my life is wrapped up in a nice little bundle. I'm going to the States. And you and that girl you have there are my keepers. Right?"
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  "So I'll wait for you to recover.
  
  
  There was a long silence. Her gaze was cold. He looked at me just as coldly.
  
  
  "Where did you take me from?" I asked her.
  
  
  He sighed. Good. Look. You were out hunting. Her, I knew you were going to try to find Moscato. Really?"
  
  
  "I guess so."
  
  
  "I was just waiting until I found you."
  
  
  "Did you identify me earlier?"
  
  
  "Oh, of course. I watched where Tina went."
  
  
  "And then you followed Juana and me that night?"
  
  
  "Of course of course."
  
  
  "To the villa."
  
  
  "Actually. By the time you hit that hooker - the one who was already having a threesome with Moscato, and the other was wide - I knew we were in the dell. I was just following you."
  
  
  "But why
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Are you fighting your way back from when I had Moscato dead? "
  
  
  Ego's eyes met mine. "We all make mistakes, don't we?"
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. Good. But why the cover story?"
  
  
  "Barry Parson's jazz? I just brushed the dust off the shelf, " he said, slipping into Barry Parson's British accent. "And it seemed like that was what needed to be done at the moment. What am I going to do, make up my mind, and say:"What a voice for her, good old Rico Corelli! It doesn't make much sense now, does it? "
  
  
  Hers was laughing. "I still don't like ferret all this bifurcation and tripling. You could have made contact with Juana right away. You slept with her, there, and again here. Why don't you just give hey the information and ask her to check it out? "
  
  
  He bit down on his cigarette and looked out the windshield. The snow was falling, but it's getting lighter now. I looked up and saw our two faces reflected in the dark night.
  
  
  Ego's eyes stared back at me.
  
  
  "I never trust the bedroom," he said, frowning. "I mean, not even my own. This is the place I rented her in Torremolinos. How do I know Moscato didn't record me on tape before I followed you to his place? After all, he thought he'd killed me on the boat. But maybe it was a trap. Really? Maybe Moscato wasn't there, maybe Moscato was always thinking about me and waiting for me. How could I have known him? "
  
  
  Hers was sitting there.
  
  
  "And this hotel. I don't trust her with anything. Nothing like that. I think there are bugs in every room. I had to go through a future meeting because it was part of the original plan. I don't like to deviate from the initial planning, because it leaves too much to chance. Since we already knew each other, its just played cool and continued from that point on. I'm very sorry if this has offended your sense of order."
  
  
  It made sense.
  
  
  "What now?" I asked her.
  
  
  "We've arranged a meeting between the girl and me," Parson said, again businesslike. "Deliver microfilm".
  
  
  "Where?"
  
  
  "Well, you know what I think about the hotel. This gives you the right to any number. And I don't like hanging out with people in the Prado Llano. Look, what about the ski run?"
  
  
  They thought of her. "It's very deserted, okay-at times. There are no insects in the snow either." He laughed, wondering how true that was.
  
  
  "To hell with the snow. You can shoot a person to paris with a telescopic lens." He shuddered. "I don't like it at all."
  
  
  "But if no one knows you're a Corelli..."
  
  
  "Who said so? In addition, there is another bad point. If Moscato still exists, and hers, sure that he's after Arturo bought ego - will he keep an eye on you and your business, really?"
  
  
  "About Juan?"
  
  
  "Of course! So I have to see it somewhere that is both eye-catching and protected at the same time."
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "This is not an easy bible to fill out."
  
  
  "No? What about one of these cable cars? When you are in one around them, you are isolated, alone, and safe!"
  
  
  I've been thinking about it. "A gondola? Her, I know what you mean. Get on the nah with her and get up together. As long as you're there, locked in a cable car, you can get yourself into a controlled environment and no one will be the wiser. is everything on film? "
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  I sat and thought. "But someone can still shoot you from the slope."
  
  
  "That's where you come in, old man," Parson said, walking back to the British university. "You get on your skis, stand at Borregilas station and cover us as we approach."
  
  
  I've been thinking about it. I like. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
  
  
  "I'll buy this," I said.
  
  
  "What time is it?"
  
  
  Its said: "Tomorrow at ten in the morning?"
  
  
  "Actually," Parson said. "I'll stay away from Juana. I don't want any complications when we are so close to making a deal."
  
  
  "Good luck," I said.
  
  
  He was standing in the snow, adjusting his windbreaker. He could feel the cold gushing through the open door, even though the snow was almost completely gone.
  
  
  "Get started," Parson said. "I'll follow you down."
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  He slammed the door in my face and hurried around the monument, where he disappeared from sight.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Renault started up without any problems. I let the EMU warm up a bit, then waited until I saw Simka come around the corner of the monument, her headlights slanting down onto the makeshift road. Then he drove off, crawling down the short driveway to the highway. He waved at Parson in the rearview mirror.
  
  
  I saw a Sim Card following me, its headlights flickering in the falling snow.
  
  
  The twists and turns were quite sharp, requiring constant braking and downshifting. He started enjoying the roadway when he felt the first wet brake system.
  
  
  It descended through a valley around a black mica that reared up, where the road had been blasted into a V-shaped ditch. At the end of it, I saw the sidewalk making a quick sharp sign straight ahead.
  
  
  In the middle of his stomach, he started to slow down and felt a slip. I thought I'd stumbled across a frozen spot on the road by accident, and tried again. But it wasn't a frozen place at all.
  
  
  I hit the bullies again to get some traction when downshifting, but
  
  
  
  
  
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  It didn't seem to transfer any power to the wheels.
  
  
  Hers was frantically pressing the gearshift lever, but now hers was going too fast to start, and couldn't shift into lower gear.
  
  
  I slowed her down to the floor as I went downhill, but the speed was too fast. Fortunately, the curve turned out to be very good. It was made by pointers. But then I hit a quick left turn in the opposite direction and hit the bullies again, hoping the roadway would give me traction here. But I felt nothing but wet inefficiency.
  
  
  Nothing.
  
  
  I turned the wheel hard and turned it. The road straightened out, but began to descend as the highway turned into a long, level traverse crossing a high rocky slope. At the end of the hike, he was spotted by a couple of back signs with a big warning sign on the highway ahead.
  
  
  I clicked on bullying again, but got no response. He pressed down on the gearshift lever, but he couldn't reduce the ego to a minimum. Her started spinning the wheel back and forth, trying to get a friction type snowplow to reduce the Renault's speed so that her could lower the damn thing in low gear.
  
  
  Failed.
  
  
  He saw the Parson lights behind him, and I wondered if he was watching me in the S and puzzling over my inexplicably bad driving.
  
  
  Her light flashed twice, as a kind of signal for help.
  
  
  The curve was getting closer and closer, and the Renault couldn't control it at all. He thought about crossing the internal drainage ditch, but decided that the chance of breaking the axles and ripping off the wheels was too great to risk. I might also have been smashed flat on the shale bank that rose up around the ditch as the steering wheel grew up around my back.
  
  
  The tires screeched, and he turned the wheel to the left to turn too fast. It crashed into a towering bank to my right. The Renault pulled off the shoulder of the road and headed straight for the outer edge of the road, where there was about a foot of rock piled up under a white-painted wooden fence that stretched for about twenty feet.
  
  
  He slammed sideways into the railing, tore something off the Renault's body, and then galloped back to the embankment. But it was pulled hard and the car straightened out again.
  
  
  Ahead of me, the road continued to descend rapidly. A few yards away, I saw a roadway making a sharp straight turn, with another wooden fence protecting the signposts and a very large sign just before the turn.
  
  
  Its never gonna be able to make this pointers.
  
  
  The sound of a thunderous engine near his ear caught her and he turned quickly.
  
  
  It was Parson.
  
  
  He fired a mimmo Sim card at me and fired it on the roadway ahead.
  
  
  I was wondering what the hell the tailor was trying to do. She was asked to call out emu, but not Stahl.
  
  
  He cut me open in front of me, and she almost screamed at him to get out of the way or get hit.
  
  
  He tried the gearshift again, desperately trying to get down a step, but it was no use.
  
  
  Parson was right in front of me. He almost closed his eyes, waiting for the crash to happen.
  
  
  It never happened.
  
  
  Suddenly, my front bumper was banging against Parson's rear bumper. I saw the red brake lights of the Simca Parson flashing, then going out, then going out, then going out again.
  
  
  Its slowing down.
  
  
  It was an old trick to stop a runaway car by braking the car in front of it to slow down the car behind.
  
  
  Her firm grip on the steering wheel was because I knew that one rock in the wrong place on the roadway would throw the Renault off the Simca bumper, and I would be thrown left or right, then causing her to slide off the slowing car and go either into the cliff or over the edge of the cliff into the air.
  
  
  Parson's bullying continued to blink and blink, and by the time we came to the turn, he had stopped me. I put it in reverse and got into the car, shivering.
  
  
  The door opened and Parson stepped out through the SIM card. He came back to my side of the car, and snow was falling all around him.
  
  
  My lights were on outside, illuminating the back of the Simca and showing Parson standing there in the night.
  
  
  "I won't ask what happened," Parson said slowly. "Someone hit your Renault."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "Thank you for your help. It was a good trick."
  
  
  We stopped at the Esqui Prado bar before I took her car to the garage. I had three lumumba's and a cup of coffee, and its still not feeling quite right.
  
  
  11
  
  
  Her returned to her room after a brief stay in Barre Esquí with Parson. The rum and chocolate in the lumumba helped me calm down a little, but I was still shaking when I put the key in the door and went inside.
  
  
  Turning on the holy light, he heard a rustle at the other end of the room, then the connecting door swung open, and Juana was there, eyes wide. It was as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep.
  
  
  "Have you met him?"
  
  
  "Yes," I said. He quickly went to the bureau and picked up a notebook. It was quickly scrawled on nen by bug and shown to hey.
  
  
  She nodded that she understood.
  
  
  "How did it happen
  
  
  
  
  
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  go? "What is it?" she asked me.
  
  
  "Nothing to report. I'll have to see ego again." He was busy writing in a notebook. "You will meet him tomorrow at ten o'clock in the gondola. More details later."
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  "Now I'm going to bed and get some rest."
  
  
  "All right," she said.
  
  
  I pointed to the hall door, indicating that I would meet her outside soon.
  
  
  "Good night, George," she said, and went back to her room.
  
  
  I took off my clothes, changed into clean ones, and went out into the corridor. Juana sat smoking a cigarette.
  
  
  "Are you sure the rooms are bugged?" she asked.
  
  
  "Positive."
  
  
  "Have you met Corelli?"
  
  
  “yeah. We know ego like Barry Parson."
  
  
  She studied me. "I almost guessed it."
  
  
  "I did the same."
  
  
  "Can you be sure?"
  
  
  "How can I be completely sure? But he meets you on the cable car, where, tailor take it, you will get the materials"
  
  
  "What is it?"
  
  
  "I can handle it," she said confidently.
  
  
  Good. I'll cover you from the ski slopes. That's what Corelli wants."
  
  
  "But, how could the Mosquito know about the meeting between him and you?"
  
  
  "He was watching us all the time."
  
  
  "I'll try to keep an eye on him."
  
  
  "Don't worry. I'll take care of it. Just meet Corelli and see if he's joking with us or not."
  
  
  She looked at me. "Why didn't he give me the information earlier?"
  
  
  "He said he wanted to be sure."
  
  
  She shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose that makes sense."
  
  
  "Take the cable car with him and ski down from Borreglas. I'll meet you at the bar downstairs when it's all over." Then we'll hurry down and check out the authenticity of his things."
  
  
  "Malaga?"
  
  
  "Granada. I have a transmitter there."
  
  
  "All right."
  
  
  Her, went back to the room and bench press to sleep.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Now he could see everything along the rocky ridge. The sun saint was pure white. Snow holy Lord blinded my eyes, but I used a filter in my Zeiss 60x glasses.
  
  
  The cable car was moving up, and I could clearly see Juana's yellow sweater. It was just her and Parson inside. The gondola usually carried four people, and he knew that Parson had to tip the service staff for a private ride, but I wasn't worried. He had the money to do it.
  
  
  Her glasses rolled across the field again, and then ego saw her.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  He was lying on his stomach on a granite ledge about halfway between Borregilas and the Prado Llano. He was dressed in gray clothes, so he definitely blended in with the mica and granite slate. But I could see that he was a man after all, and I could see that he was holding a long rifle along the cliff. A scope was attached to the rifle.
  
  
  I couldn't tell anyone the type of rifle by points.
  
  
  He lay very still and waited. And he was looking at the gondola with Juana and Parson. How did he know they were taking the ego? How could he know?
  
  
  Parson? Was Parson a substitute? Did someone set up Juana? How was the information leaked again? In our rooms, no one said a word to us. No one but Parson and me knew the time and place.
  
  
  Still, the assassin lay waiting.
  
  
  Moscato? Quite possibly.
  
  
  He unbuttoned her windbreaker and pulled out the Luger . Her ego was treated and tucked into a minute windbreaker. I would have to cross the slope and get a foothold on the cliff to reach it. Then I'll have to crawl over the rocks and kill him before he can strike.
  
  
  There was no other way. If I let Moscato live, he will try again to get Rico Corelli - try again until emu succeeds!
  
  
  Judging by the speed of the cable car and the location of the person on the rocks, I had about a minute and a half to make the move.
  
  
  I checked the descent a bit to avoid the dangerous tycoon and drove just below him. When her hit the bottom of the slide, something happened to the rest of the snow at the top, and she suddenly found herself sinking into the slide to her knees. I pushed and thrashed, and the snow fell off me. I was lucky. A large ball of rolling snow continued to move away from me and hit the rocks nearby.
  
  
  Its lost precious seconds.
  
  
  The rocks were ahead of me, but I couldn't even see the man lying below me. I had to take out my camera and slowly pan along the ridge.
  
  
  Then ego saw her.
  
  
  I was blown off course by about a hundred feet! His was too high.
  
  
  It quickly began to descend the hill again, returning in a different direction, deviating from that course and returning to a point within human reach on the rocks.
  
  
  I let go of the clamps and put my skis in the rocks so they wouldn't slip. Then he pulled her out and looked over the edge of the rocks.
  
  
  For example, I saw the cable car slowly rising between the second and third steel pillars. And she could be seen by the man with the rifle, who gripped ego tightly and steered the gondola carefully as it moved up the spidery steel cables.
  
  
  A luger aimed it at the man's head and fired.
  
  
  Gawk hit a rock and flew off somewhere. I could hear ricochet singing.
  
  
  The man turned quickly. I could see a blur on his white face. He arched his back quickly, turned, and pointed the rifle at me - scope and all.
  
  
  Gawking eyes caught in the snow behind me-too close for
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  comfort level.
  
  
  I shot her again. But he disappeared from sight immediately after the shot was fired. Ego couldn't see her.
  
  
  Crouching there, ego tried in vain to find her.
  
  
  Another shot broke the stone with my hand.
  
  
  He ducked.
  
  
  The gondola was moving slowly along the cable, and Juana's yellow sweater could see it, and that was all I was paying attention to.
  
  
  The gunslinger stood up and turned away from me, aiming at the gondola. I shot her again.
  
  
  He fell, crouching behind a rock, missing it altogether. Her, saw him hit the cliff, and aimed at the gondola.
  
  
  I started it over the rocks, but I knew I couldn't reach it in time.
  
  
  With a snap of the cable clamps, he was put back on his skis and started downhill, two batons in one hand and a luger in the other. It wasn't the most comfortable ski position he could have imagined.
  
  
  As it progressed, I realized that I could not shoot on skis, and thus spent more precious time.
  
  
  He descended to the level where he had crouched, broke free of the bindings, and crouched down across the rocks.
  
  
  The voice is on!
  
  
  I shot her.
  
  
  He was aiming for the gondola, and he fired just as I did - or maybe a fraction of a second later than I did. Whatever happened to us, my own shot apparently caused it to misfire, and the ego charge is harmless as it hit the base of the gondola, rather than through the window in the Parson's dollar stack.
  
  
  It hit the shooter.
  
  
  He fell face first into the rocks, then reflexively spun around and swung the rifle around until it was pointed almost directly at me.
  
  
  Her, jumped back and into the snow, sliding down the mountain. Bullets flew all around me, but none of them hit me. Her sunset is back on the cliff, clinging to nah for purchase.
  
  
  The rock was slippery, but hers crawled over it, and when another gawk exploded near my ear, I lifted her head, saw ego clearly, and shot the emu in the neck.
  
  
  He immediately fell down. Blood exploded around him in a red cloud.
  
  
  He was then lying in a pool of icy redness when she walked up to him.
  
  
  It was Alfreddo Moscato.
  
  
  Mosquito.
  
  
  Matchmaker!
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The rifle that first shot me and that was supposed to kill Rico Corelli in the gondola was a Winchester Model 70 Super Grade rifle, calibrated for 30-06 Springfield rounds and equipped with a Bausch & Lomb Balvar Lee dot variable-power optical sight. It was a beautiful drilling rig.
  
  
  The 30-06 Springfield Hi-Speed cartridge, with a bronze tip, can deliver a muzzle velocity of 2,960 feet per second and a velocity of 2,260 feet per second at 300 yards, with a striking force of 2,920 ft-lb muzzle energy and 1,700 ft-lb. pounds for 300 yards. The Bausch & Lomb power adjustable scope is adjustable from 2 1/2 to 4x, with only two moving parts controlling the height and wind.
  
  
  If anything can help kill a person from a remote shooting location, this combination could.
  
  
  Her, bent over the dead man. He had a wallet and papers, but they were obviously forged. The name was said to be Natalio Di Cesura, and the papers said he had come from Bari, Italy.
  
  
  He had dark skin, dark hair, and a shaved blue chin and wand. Ego's sideburns were shorter than normal, but they didn't seem too long.
  
  
  He was wearing a nice windbreaker and tight ski pants.
  
  
  He turned at the sound of sudden footsteps on the rocks. Odin of the Civil Guard came down to the place, took off his skis and came to me with a notebook in his hand. Her, noticed that the ego holster of her seat belt was unbuttoned.
  
  
  He looked at me, said nothing, and then walked over to the rock where the dead man lay. He leaned down and looked at the body, then carefully examined the ego and made a few notes.
  
  
  He touched the corpse's neck and felt its pulse. He could have told emu that ego wouldn't be there. He took out his papers, examined them, and then examined the Winchester 70 with the scope.
  
  
  He stood up and turned to me.
  
  
  "Pardon the intrusion, senor," he said in English.
  
  
  He smiled at her. "How did you know I was English?"
  
  
  "I know you're an American," he corrected me with a smile. "With your skis".
  
  
  They were Austrians, but I bought it from ih in Sun Valley. And it was imprinted on them.
  
  
  "Have you witnessed this-trouble?" "What is it?" he asked, delicately, but apparently.
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged.
  
  
  "Perhaps you are more than a witness. Perhaps you were involved in this person's death?"
  
  
  I didn't say anything to her. When was he going to tell me my rights? But, of course, in Spain you were not read your rights at all.
  
  
  He started to unbutton his windbreaker to get out his wallet.
  
  
  The Guardia weapon, an American Colt .45 caliber, was instantly in Ego's hand and covered my life.
  
  
  "I'm sorry, senor, but please don't take anything out of your pockets."
  
  
  "I just want to hand over my ID card," I smiled. "I came on the recommendation of Senor Mitch Kelly around Malaga."
  
  
  Recognition flickered across his face. "A. Clear. You have an ego card here. Also one around yours." He looked at nah and slowly put her back in the plastic folder. He handed the wallet back and slammed the ego shut with a smart slap.
  
  
  I took it and put it away.
  
  
  "I'm sorry, senor. Its not n
  
  
  
  
  
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  Here I am waiting for you for any questioning. If you want to leave? "
  
  
  Oh, that lovely little AXE logo in the corner of Mitch Kelly's card that everyone seemed to know and love.
  
  
  He turned and pointed at the dead man. "Is he known to you?"
  
  
  Guardia shook his head. "I don't think so. But I'll find out soon enough."
  
  
  "Polite advice," I said. "This person may be wanted in Malaga for a crime. Murder."
  
  
  "Ah."
  
  
  "And the murder of a boy last night is open here on the Prado Llano."
  
  
  Guardia's eyes narrowed. "You know, a lot of things, senor."
  
  
  "That's my business. Know a lot of things. And take pictures of ih, " she added with a smile.
  
  
  He saluted. "Prima: My apologies for detaining you. I think it would be nice if you weren't here when my colleague arrives. He's a bit young and impulsive."
  
  
  He looked up the hill. Another Guardia was on skis and running downhill.
  
  
  "Thank you."
  
  
  He bowed from the waist down and saluted. "I'll tell Senor Kelly that we've met."
  
  
  He slid through the clamps, picked up his poles, and quickly descended to the Prado Llano.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  After half an hour of it, I returned to the hotel. Juana was waiting for me in the living room by the big fireplace.
  
  
  We were alone.
  
  
  Her face glowed with excitement. "I have this," she whispered to me.
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  "What was that commotion?" - she thought.
  
  
  "I scared Moscato off and killed ego."
  
  
  Her face paled. "How did he know we were meeting on the cable car?" she asked. "No one knew but you and me - and Parson."
  
  
  "Do you think Parson is really Corelli?" I asked her.
  
  
  She shrugged her shoulders. "He certainly knows a lot about the drug network. And he's willing to give it to us on a silver platter. I'm very excited about it."
  
  
  "Have you ever been disappointed?" I asked cheerfully.
  
  
  "Very solid. As soon as we started playing with that first replacement Corelli."
  
  
  "Today is not when we will deliver everything to Granada."
  
  
  "I can't be sure that the information is accurate, Nick," she said, as if she'd been thinking about it for some time and finally made up her mind. "It seems unfortunate that I've come this far and can't tell if Corelli is authentic or not."
  
  
  "Don't worry. The AXE memory bank will know."
  
  
  "But I wonder why I was sent here on the dell itself." Now she was pouting.
  
  
  "Forget it. It's part of the job."
  
  
  The mechanic at the Prado Llano garage apologized. "I'll get an ego by two o'clock in the afternoon. Is that soon enough for you, senor?"
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "It should be. What happened?"
  
  
  "Brake fluid drained, senor."
  
  
  "For what reason?"
  
  
  "Pipeline failure". He didn't want to say much.
  
  
  "A break?"
  
  
  "Very strange, senor," he confessed. "Not parts of the fluid line wear out in this way. In fact, it's impossible."
  
  
  "Then what happened?"
  
  
  "The line is broken."
  
  
  "A cut?"
  
  
  "It looks like it, senor." Now emu was uneasy. Such things were incomprehensible to emu.
  
  
  "Did someone cut this out on purpose?" I asked her.
  
  
  "I do not know. I don't want to talk about it. This is a serious accusation."
  
  
  "But there's no one to charge it, so why not say it?"
  
  
  He saw me smile. Good. I tell her that someone cut that line, senor. Snip! Does that make sense?"
  
  
  "Oh, yes," I said. "It makes sense."
  
  
  The boy looked serious. "Then you have an enemy, senor. A woman's husband, perhaps?
  
  
  Spaniards are such incurable romantics!
  
  
  "Yes," I said. "I feel like it could be. But it's worth it, you know?"
  
  
  He brightened. "Good then. Good!"
  
  
  "I'll be there at two."
  
  
  "Oh, there's one more thing," he said.
  
  
  "What is it?"
  
  
  He hesitated again, looking around to see if anyone was listening.
  
  
  "Do you know what this is?" he took something out of his pocket and held it in his hand.
  
  
  Ego took it from ego's palm. It was a beautiful mistake. Magnetic transmitter in combination with a direction finder. A beautiful model! Thoroughly professional. Probably Japanese or German.
  
  
  Her, looked at it. "I have no idea what it is."
  
  
  "Me too, senor."
  
  
  "Where did you find this-this gadget?"
  
  
  "It was attached to the bottom of the Renault, senor."
  
  
  "How interesting. I guess it just took off from the highway when I was driving it."
  
  
  "It's magnetism, you know, senor? I thought you'd be interested to see it."
  
  
  "Me... very interesting."
  
  
  The direction finder laid it down in a minute and pulled out several hundred pesetas. Ih gave it to the boy. "This is for you," I said. "For your interest and for your silence."
  
  
  "I understand, senor."
  
  
  He was sure it was true.
  
  
  He knew her now, just as Moscato had known about the cable car meeting.
  
  
  Her self said emu 1
  
  
  Twelve
  
  
  As Juana and I were sitting in the Alhambra garden, a short, dark-haired, curly-haired Gypsy named Gervasio Albanes came up to us. He was leading our trip, which was already ahead of us. By design, Juan and her were left behind.
  
  
  "It's warm for Andalusia," he said in a very good English accent.
  
  
  "But not for Morocco," he said of rheumatism, again embarrassed for Hawke and the completely childish recognition system created by AX.
  
  
  He nodded
  
  
  
  
  
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  He looked around. There was a concrete bench under a pepper tree, and he led us there. We sat together, looking out at the reflecting pool and the large Moorish archway opposite.
  
  
  "I have news for you," he said in a whisper. "We should meet right after tails ends."
  
  
  "News?" I asked her.
  
  
  He put a finger to his lips. "Later. On the hill opposite." He pointed a finger at the mimmo Alhambra on the hillside to the northeast. We were told earlier that there were several caves on the hillside, caves where a large number of gypsies were still stinging. In fact, that's what Gervasio himself told us.
  
  
  He nodded to her. "And then excursions. At the entrance to the Alhambra."
  
  
  The crowd at the entrance to the Alhambra was thinning out when we got out, and Gervasio walked us to the parking lot.
  
  
  "Do you have a car?"
  
  
  "Alas, no," said Gervasio, smiling. He lille charms in the direction of Juana. "I only have a very small Lambretta ...
  
  
  "Don't shed blood all over the path," I said. "Come with us. We'll take you here later, and you can pick up Lambretta."
  
  
  "You're all over the hotel, and this is it."
  
  
  "Negatively. We're just being practical. We can't waste time driving back and forth while waiting for you to overcome big hills. Where are we going?"
  
  
  "I live in a cave, senor," he said tragically, giving Juana more juice with his eyes.
  
  
  She was looking at him. He was getting to nah.
  
  
  "Forget it, Gervasio. I'll bet you have a fourteen-liter pitcher full of solid gold coins at the bottom of the cave.
  
  
  Ego's eyes glittered. "You are a humorous man, senor."
  
  
  Gervasio and Juana climbed into the backseat. He was watching her warily, but I could see the way his eyes sometimes looked at me in the mirror.
  
  
  "Come down here, senor, and then straight on," he said to me, and kept running until, after a short time, we stopped in front of a hole in the ground. There were other cars parked around, as well as a pile of motorcycles. Mostly there were seats and Peugeot. It was one big credit card in the mud.
  
  
  "We're sitting here."
  
  
  He nodded to her. Her, looking at him in the rearview mirror. "And now for the news, Gervasio."
  
  
  "Senor Mitch Kelly wants you to call emu in Malaga immediately."
  
  
  "Did he explain why?"
  
  
  "Of course not, senor. But it was permanent."
  
  
  "Where can I call her ego?"
  
  
  "I have lines inside the house."
  
  
  He pointed to the cave entrance.
  
  
  He looked at Juana. "Well, let's go."
  
  
  We got out and followed Gervasio into the cave. Inside, it was furnished like any other house, with heavy Spanish furniture and carpets on the hard-packed dirt floor. There were light bulbs and lamps plugged into electrical outlets. The main room smelled very strongly of cooking.
  
  
  Gervasio went to a bookcase at the end of the room and pulled out a leather case that belied the media reports of Mitch Kelly's me R / T safe house in Malaga.
  
  
  He plugged in the ego and let it warm up. He sat and looked at it. Juana got up and walked around, looking in awe at the draperies on the walls, the intricately woven tapestries, the lace covering the tables, the Internet.
  
  
  Gervasio gave the code letters and responded to Kelly's request for identification.
  
  
  "Kelly?" I said it after a moment. "Why the hotline?"
  
  
  "It's a girl. She's heading to Sol y Nieve."
  
  
  "Actually. So?"
  
  
  "Did you have any problems?"
  
  
  He stopped, looking at Gervasio. "Trouble?"
  
  
  "Well, you haven't turned up your Roman nose yet. Really?"
  
  
  "Actually, we have."
  
  
  There was silence. "Listen," Kelly said. "Roman Nose called the girl yesterday and told her hey, about the death of a young man, and this morning-about the death of another man!"
  
  
  "It's true."
  
  
  "Roman Nose refused to meet you or N. X., really?" N. X. Drug expert. Very good. Juan Rivera.
  
  
  Waiting for her. "Negative. What's his reason?"
  
  
  "Roman Nos says he wants to cancel all this. He's sure it's a setup. He is sure that the ego organization is trying to kill him. Do you read me?"
  
  
  "Loud and clear."
  
  
  "The girl is now driving up in a red Jaguar. In a red Jaguar. Understand?"
  
  
  "I see. A corkscrew. Why is it coming?"
  
  
  "She says she wants to talk Roman Nose into meeting you."
  
  
  "Wait a minute. We've both met Roman Nose. I repeat. We've both met Roman Nose. Do you read me?"
  
  
  Pause. "I read you."
  
  
  "I don't understand why she thinks we haven't met Roman Nose?"
  
  
  "Maybe you didn't."
  
  
  "There is such a possibility. The Roman Nose was not on the dell itself uniquely identified. But he gave us the material."
  
  
  "The girl insists that you haven't met Roman Nose. The Roman Nose wants to return to Corsica without being identified by its enemies. So don't date you."
  
  
  "So you think our Roman nose is not a Roman nose."
  
  
  "Re-performance of the show in Malaga Bay. Yes. Quite possibly."
  
  
  "It's pretty clear to me," I admitted. "Two things: a Roman nose is a Roman nose, or a Roman nose is not. Callie. Get in your car and join us at Sol y Nieve."
  
  
  Pause. "Why not?"
  
  
  "I need your help. We need to make sure that the Roman Nose is what it claims to be."
  
  
  "How can I help her?"
  
  
  "It's a complicated story. But I know what to do now."
  
  
  "Her hotel would say the same thing!"
  
  
  "S
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ol y Nieve. The Sierra Nevada Hotel. Tonight. Right?"
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  "A thread of communication."
  
  
  I sat and watched the set for a long time. Then I saw her, turned around, and saw Juana watching me.
  
  
  "All right?"
  
  
  I looked around. Gervasio was also looking at us with wide eyes. Her, talked to Juana. "Do you have this microfilm?"
  
  
  "Yes," she said, reaching into her bag.
  
  
  Good. Give it to Gervasio."
  
  
  She did just that. He looked down at the small bundle of film in his hand. Then he looked at me questioningly.
  
  
  "Blow this roll and send the ego, symbol by symbol, to AX."
  
  
  The gypsy woman nodded.
  
  
  "Juana, go back to the Renault in Sol-y-Nieves."
  
  
  "Without you?" Her eyes narrowed.
  
  
  “yeah. I'm going to intercept Tina Bergson."
  
  
  "But why?"
  
  
  "The minute she shows up at the resort and talks to the real Corelli, she's instantly identified."
  
  
  "But...?"
  
  
  "I mean, someone is trying to kill the ego."
  
  
  "WHO?"
  
  
  "The man who calls himself Barry Parson."
  
  
  Juana's eyes widened. "But why does it have to be Parson?"
  
  
  "It should be."
  
  
  "So there were two people to kill Corelli?" asked Juana, frowning.
  
  
  "It's likely that the mobsters have decided on two contracts with him in case one doesn't work out."
  
  
  "It's complicated."
  
  
  "You keep the money that it's your life. Listen to me. Let's analyze this. Suppose Parson wants to kill Corelli. Really? And Parson doesn't know Corelli by sight any more than we do. But he knows I'm trying to make an appointment with Corelli. Not just hers , but you and me. So it gets licks to us. Like ble licks ."
  
  
  The thief meant her. Juana didn't miss the hint. She blushed.
  
  
  "Now. Let's assume that Parson was present with Moscato when Arturo was killed. Parson was watching me, of course. Then he must have heard the instructions he received from Arturo when he was dying. So far away?"
  
  
  "Great."
  
  
  "Then Parson goes to the meeting to hide and wait for Corelli to show up. But who will show up? Her. Not Corelli. Parson is standing there, and I walk up to her, and her whole face is covered in egg."
  
  
  "But why didn't Corelli go to the meeting?"
  
  
  "You heard what Kelly just said. He said Corelli was scared when Arturo was shot. I have to assume that he just dealt with it all and let it happen without him."
  
  
  "Why didn't the Mosquito go there to kill Corelli?" asked Juana innocently.
  
  
  "I've been thinking about it," I admitted. "Suppose he was in such a hurry to escape after Arturo's murder that he didn't hear what Arturo said to me."
  
  
  She frowned.
  
  
  "All right, "I said, continuing quickly," That's Parson's place, and that's hers. What does Parson say? The only thing he can say is the truth. He knows I'm not Corelli. And he knows that the meeting will take place. He says, " I'm Corelli! And he's still playing a practical joke, arranging a meeting with you."
  
  
  "What about microfilm? He gave me the movie."
  
  
  "We are checking it out. But replacing this type of information is very simple: names, places, and dates."
  
  
  "Good..."
  
  
  "He fakes the film, arranges a meeting with you. He arranges a meeting to play Corelli. He passes you a fake movie, and meanwhile Moscato is trying to kill ego, and I'm killing Moscato."
  
  
  "But how did Moscato know about the meeting?"
  
  
  "A mistake in the Renault," her father said.
  
  
  "What is Parson waiting for now?" - she thought.
  
  
  "He's waiting for Tina to show up. He knows about her, even if he may not know her personally. I think he must have faked these " phone calls "to Tina to confuse Elena. But he knows that Tina will eventually appear in Sol y Nieve. He'll wait for her and let hey hum ego Corelli, and bingo! You see? "
  
  
  "And what's the good of intercepting Tina?"
  
  
  "I want to warn her that her appearance in Sol y Nieve will affect Corelli."
  
  
  She nodded. "And then?"
  
  
  "Let me figure it out," I said softly. "I don't have a punch line yet."
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Juana Rivera took Gervasio and me to a car rental shop in Granada, where she was picked up by a Seat mini with manual gearshift. Juana then drove Gervasio back to the Alhambra, where the ego mini bike was parked.
  
  
  It took off in a Seat on the Malaga-Granada highway and headed for Malaga. It was already quite late, but the sun wasn't shining yet. She has more than one eye on the red Jaguar - the car is easy to distinguish.
  
  
  It must have been no more than twenty minutes before Ego saw her, as he was teased on the rapid descent across the valley from me. He quickly turned back, drove out into a scorched wheat field, and made a quick sign for three corners. I was in front of the Jaguar and heading back to Malaga when I saw him approach me in the rearview mirror.
  
  
  He held out his hand and waved hey, hey a few times, indicating to stop.
  
  
  She saw the hand, then she saw the car, and finally she saw me. She was surprised, but not depressed. He pointed to the side of the highway and we pulled off together.
  
  
  He got out of the saddle and walked over to the Jaguar. She was sitting there, looking cool and chic in the same Scandinavian style that Nah had, in a bright green sweater and gray skirt.
  
  
  "I talked to Kelly," I said when I could get a voice.
  
  
  “yeah. Do you know why she's here?"
  
  
  "Of course. But the plans have changed."
  
  
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  fell. "Has Riko gone home yet?"
  
  
  "Perhaps, yes. Probably not. But there are problems. The other man is posing as Rico."
  
  
  "How did you...?" She blinked. "I see. Yes. Someone is pretending to be Rico."
  
  
  "Unless Rico changed his mind about talking to you later."
  
  
  “no. He was confident." Her eyes shifted slightly. "Listen up. Don't you believe me? Honestly...?"
  
  
  "I believe you," I said. "The problem is that we have another Twin, another substitute, another one-Rico Corelli."
  
  
  "Then she should be warned by the real Riko..."
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "Someone is trying to kill the ego. As soon as you approach him and meet ego, the killer will know who Rico is. See?"
  
  
  Her face changed. "Yes, yes, I understand her!" She looked at me seriously. "What do you want me to do?"
  
  
  "I want you to stay in Granada."
  
  
  She bit her lip. "It's so lonely."
  
  
  "But you were in the clinic alone."
  
  
  "It was maddening!"
  
  
  "How's your shoulder?"
  
  
  "Very good," she smiled. Obviously, there was only a tiny blindfold. It wasn't even in the dramatic curves of her sweater.
  
  
  "Okay, will you do it, Tina?"
  
  
  "What should I do?"
  
  
  "Stay in Granada?"
  
  
  She sighed. "Good..."
  
  
  "I'll take you to dinner," I said conspiratorially.
  
  
  Her eyes lit up. "Will you, George?"
  
  
  Hers was laughing. "With pleasure."
  
  
  "Then I'll do it."
  
  
  "Follow me to the Jaguar. We'll go to the hotel and check you in."
  
  
  She nodded, her eyes bright with excitement.
  
  
  "Do you think Riko will be angry when he hears?"
  
  
  "What - that I had dinner with you?"
  
  
  "Yes." She shrugged her shoulders. "Anyway, who cares?"
  
  
  So far, the ferret she veined dangerously, and with great success. Hers, I guess she thought she could live dangerously forever with the same degree of security.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  We had dinner in a lovely little restaurant near the shopping district of Granada. The musicians were playing Spanish music in one corner, and the waiters were hovering over us, trying their best to spoil us.
  
  
  It was about ten when we got out, circled the restaurant and headed for the hotel. Granada is a beautiful city at night. The shops are lit with holy lights, and people walk the streets around the clock. Ten o'clock was rather late, but some people weren't out yet. The Civil Guard seemed to protect the streets from crime.
  
  
  We entered the hotel, and Tina went to her for the key. All eyes in the lobby turned and followed her walk. I heard her sigh a few times. This was a repeat of her performance in Malaga.
  
  
  She held her key and turned to me with an evil look.
  
  
  "Its so clumsy with the keys."
  
  
  He nodded to her. Good. I know so much about them."
  
  
  "Yeah. Then come and put the key in the lock, please." Her eyes glowed with food, wine, and anticipation.
  
  
  "I'm only human," I said, and followed her into the elevator. When the day closed for us, her, I saw that every man in the lobby was looking at me with envious eyes.
  
  
  We rode up in the elevator, and the silken tendrils of her hair brushed against me as she moved softly beside me. He turned around and looked hey in the eye. She smiled.
  
  
  The elevator doors opened and we stepped out into the corridor. There was a long red velvet rug on the floor. There was a large antique sofa set against the wall. Flowers in vases hung from the walls.
  
  
  I found the room number and tried to insert the key in the lock.
  
  
  Tina giggled.
  
  
  I didn't realize I was so drunk. I tried it again.
  
  
  The door opened magically.
  
  
  She walked into the room in front of me, turning slightly as she did so, and walked mimmo me with her entire body. She could feel the contact from head to toe, in the form of alternating and direct current shaking.
  
  
  I walked in, and the door closed behind me. Her confident that no one touched her ego. Some of the hotels are enchanted.
  
  
  He stood there looking at Nah with a silly smile on his face. I know it was a silly grin, because I happened to see my face in a small gilt-edged mirror that hung on one of the walls. And she was looking at me with an expression that could only be described as heavy with primitive lust.
  
  
  I had her in my arms. Her father held her close to me. She sighed. She told me that she had been in the clinic for so long and was in such terrible pain.
  
  
  Sad, sad.
  
  
  Yes, yes, she told me.
  
  
  When she saw that I sympathized with her hurt, she showed me the wound on her shoulder. There was no other way to show me this than to take off her sweater, and when she did, I saw that nah had nothing under the sweater at all, that is, nothing but this beautiful golden hide. It was as nature had made it.
  
  
  In fact, he even looked at the small bandage on her shoulder and admired Dr. Hernandez's work.
  
  
  "Wasn't it awful?" she asked me.
  
  
  I sympathized with her.
  
  
  "I once had a scar on my hip," she told me. In fact, it was because I didn't like the vaccination box in my hand, she continued, and so the vaccination box was put on my foot. It's awfully swollen.
  
  
  I sympathized with her.
  
  
  She believed me. After a moment, she took off her skirt and panties, and showed me the scar on her thigh. It looked really good on her. Her a said it.
  
  
  "Of course," she said, " you must have wounds, too.
  
  
  - I am a veteran of many martial arts.
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ars, assured her, her, and started showing the evidence.
  
  
  We somehow ended up in the bedroom at this point, and Tina carefully pulled back the bedclothes and patted the sheet a little, shifting the pillows into an odd position.
  
  
  When I asked her why she shared pillows so much, she told me that Swedish women have very advanced ideas about love. To prove that Swedish women treat their husbands and lovers well, she joins the current life expectancy charts compiled by the United Nations, which proved that the life expectancy of Swedish men is 71.85 years, compared to the life expectancy of American men, which is 66.6 years.
  
  
  "I'll show you why," she told me. We have certain methods of maintaining the flow of vital juices.
  
  
  Thirteen
  
  
  Breakfast in Granada.
  
  
  "You have to promise me to stay in a hotel here," he told Tina, looking around at the magnificent interior of the dining room.
  
  
  Tina looked sad. "But I'll miss skiing!"
  
  
  "If you go to Sol y Nieve, you will be responsible for Rico's death."
  
  
  "I understand that." She pouted.
  
  
  "And you can put yourself in your place."
  
  
  Good. Where are you going?"
  
  
  "I'm going back to the resort. I have a job to do."
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was a pleasant 40-minute drive up the mountainside to Sol-i-Niev. When he arrived, the skiers were already on the track. It was a clear day with a nice light powder, then a short fall the night before.
  
  
  I walked into the lobby and saw Mitch Kelly sitting in the bar next to the lobby.
  
  
  He placed a chair next to it. "Looks like you opened the bar this morning."
  
  
  "Actually. Just got in."
  
  
  "You're early, aren't you?"
  
  
  "I thought I'd come here as soon as I could. What is the plot?"
  
  
  "You know what it is. Our man is here, but he's afraid to show his hand. And we have a doppelganger who wants to be led by his ego to the Roman Nose."
  
  
  "Right?"
  
  
  "A vote on what we're doing."
  
  
  We bowed our heads together, and gave emu a diagram - nuts, bolts, hammer, saw, and lumber.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I went to my room and changed my clothes. I put on my ski gear and waited for Juana to call out to me.
  
  
  She did it from the doorway.
  
  
  "I see you're back," she said in her high, serious voice, a wounded Puritan.
  
  
  "Yes," he said musically. "It's been a long ride."
  
  
  She snorted. "What's on the program for today?"
  
  
  "We go skiing."
  
  
  "Good!"
  
  
  "Then we'll take action tonight."
  
  
  "Action?" Her mood improved.
  
  
  "You will take care of Elena."
  
  
  "How?"
  
  
  "Stay with her all the time. Her what-that I work with Parson. Kelly and her."
  
  
  She nodded. She looked disappointed. "But Elena seems completely innocent."
  
  
  "Innocence or guilt is not a corkscrew. We need to isolate Parson. I'll arrange it for her. But I don't want Elena to distract me."
  
  
  Good. Now. What about now?"
  
  
  "Looks like a great day for the slopes."
  
  
  She brightened. "Right!"
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  We spent the rest of daylight in the snow. It was strictly relaxation and relaxation. For a few hours, he forgot all about Corelli, Tina, Elena, and Hauptley - forgot about all those troublesome people and the mission, the Spanish Connection that had proved so difficult to establish. I had all the plans. You just had to wait for Parson to be in the right place at the right time. Towards evening, we ran into Parson and Elena near Borreglas. Elena seemed withdrawn and depressed, but Parson was the old ego buoyant her.
  
  
  "We had an amazing run this morning, didn't we, Elena?" He really was so British that his blood almost clotted.
  
  
  "Ouch?"
  
  
  "I thought it was great! Excellent conditions! Really great mileage! " He grinned at Juana. "How are you, sweet lady?" The ego's voice was capitalized.
  
  
  "Fine," Juana said.
  
  
  "I think we must have missed you last night. Where have you been?"
  
  
  "All around," Juana said.
  
  
  "I was in Granada," I said.
  
  
  Parson shrugged. Ego took her aside.
  
  
  "There's someone you need to meet, hema," emu told her in a low voice.
  
  
  "Ouch?"
  
  
  "About the trip".
  
  
  "A trip? What trip, antiquities?"
  
  
  "To the States."
  
  
  "Already? You mean you've looked through the material I gave you...?"
  
  
  "Not yet. But it seems reasonable to create a route. Its sure that there will be problems with logistics."
  
  
  Parson cleared his throat. Good. Where will we do it?"
  
  
  "Not these rooms," I said. "I'm convinced they're bugged."
  
  
  Ego's eyes widened. "You really don't think so?"
  
  
  You damned hypocrite! He was the one who threw up the bugs!
  
  
  "I really think so," I said.
  
  
  "Then where? In the snow? " He grinned.
  
  
  "Disco".
  
  
  "In the basement of the hotel?"
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  He nodded. "You're on."
  
  
  "Ten o'clock?"
  
  
  "A good show."
  
  
  "I told Juana to meet Elena. We just don't want any interference. This is important."
  
  
  "Of course, a monument."
  
  
  "The four of us will have dinner together, and then Juana will sit with Elena in the living room."
  
  
  "I'll admit that Elena is a rather unpleasant problem," Parson frowned. "Sorry about that"
  
  
  "Nothing that can't be handled."
  
  
  We had dinner together and everything went according to plan. Juana and Elena went to the living room, and Parson and his wife went down to the disco to " talk business."
  
  
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  The floor show hasn't started yet. The stereo provided loud music, and dancers wandered around the floor making monkeys, rags, and anything else that was "in" in an ih-specific scene.
  
  
  Parson and I have a table in the corner. I was sitting in a corner, two walls leading away from me. Parson was sitting on my left. It is advertised by the ego there specifically. There was an empty chair to my right.
  
  
  We ordered some soft wine to start with. In fact, it didn't take long for the music to get louder and the action on the dance floor to speed up. Several drunks were already hauling out their comrades on their shoulders.
  
  
  Then Mitch Kelly appeared, spotted us in the corner, and turned between the tightly packed tables to walk toward us.
  
  
  He grinned at me. "George," he said.
  
  
  "Kelly," I said. He turned to Parson. "Barry Parson, this is Mitch Kelly. He's the man I told you about."
  
  
  Kelly chuckled and sat up. He ordered from the waiter, and the child disappeared into the crowd. It was dark, and there were strobe lights in the center of the dance floor.
  
  
  "You really don't look Italian," Kelly said with an ego - wide, disarming grin.
  
  
  Parson's face froze. "Well, you too."
  
  
  "I don't pretend to do that," Kelly replied.
  
  
  Parsons ' eyes narrowed. He glanced at me, and then, seeing no expression on my face, turned back to Callie. "What's that supposed to mean?"
  
  
  "This should mean: how can you prove that you are who you think you are?"
  
  
  Parson relaxed. "Well, now. I think I proved it to your colleague. Isn't that enough?"
  
  
  "I'm the person who should arrange your transfer to the States." Kelly's face tightened. "I don't want to try to transport the wrong person!"
  
  
  "I'm the right person," Parson said, his accent noticeably lessened. He should be more like the role of " Corelli "that he played with me in"Velet". Her sel, enjoying the compromise.
  
  
  "I feel like we're talking about two different things, Mr. Parson," Kelly said politely. "I have permission to arrange transportation to the United States of a person who is a key figure in the smashing of Mediterranean drugs."
  
  
  "Her man," Parson snapped.
  
  
  "This man's name is Rico Corelli. Are you Rico Corelli?" Kelly had a vague smile that didn't even touch her ego's eyes.
  
  
  “yeah. Her name is Rico Corelli." Parson's lips were white, and he squeezed his ih very hard. Tension, tension.
  
  
  "I'm afraid you'll have to prove it to my satisfaction, Signor Corelli."
  
  
  Parson put a hand to his mouth. "Not so loud! This name is known everywhere!"
  
  
  "Because of all this noise, no one can hear," Kelly smiled. "I repeat, you will have to prove your identity to me."
  
  
  "But I've already given George Peabody material that might prove it."
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged.
  
  
  Kelly reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope. It was the size of a letter. He opened it and pulled out a tiny roll of film. He placed the bundle in the middle of the chair.
  
  
  The waiter brought Kelly a drink.
  
  
  Parson stared at the bundle.
  
  
  "My microfilm?" "What is it?" he asked in a hushed voice.
  
  
  "No, Rico Corelli," Kelly said.
  
  
  "But I gave it to Mr. Peabody! The real movie is Rico Corelli!"
  
  
  "Negative, Parson. It's impossible."
  
  
  Parson was bluffing well enough, but he could see the tension around the ego's eyes - tiny crow's feet of nerves growing into the ego, the body.
  
  
  "Her name is Rico Corelli, Parson. And hers, I dare you to challenge that fact."
  
  
  Parson's face was like granite. I was reminded of the shale along the ski slope. He stared at the roll of microfilm. He picked it up to examine it again, even bothering to unfold it.
  
  
  "You don't have to try to read it," Kelly said. "It's too small to see clearly. And it's a duplicate anyway."
  
  
  A thin drop of blood appeared on Parson's forehead. "Duplicate?"
  
  
  "Yes, indeed," Kelly said with a smile that would have been the envy of a cobra.
  
  
  "And the original?"
  
  
  "Mr. Peabody went ego to Washington to be checked out by the Drug Enforcement Bureau of his great country."
  
  
  Parson stared at Kelly for a long moment. Finally, he took a deep breath.
  
  
  "Okay," he said. " Tack tack tack."
  
  
  "Right in the dell to, Barry," he told her with a smile. "All right?"
  
  
  He turned to me, his lips curling. "What made you make such a charade? I don't understand you."
  
  
  He was going to defend himself. Mitch Kelly and her have achieved our main goal. We determined that Parson wasn't Corelli. If he was Corelli, he would have chuckled and congratulated me on my little game. But he wouldn't give in. The problem for Parson was that he didn't know who Corelli was at all; he suspected that Mitch Kelly might actually be him. And the microfilm of ego was unnerving. The ego was fake. This may be true. He just didn't know what to do next.
  
  
  "Actually," he told her with a smile, " this meeting was arranged at the instigation of Mr. Corelli." He nodded toward Kelly.
  
  
  Kelly smiled. “yeah. Her hotel knows what the man who was hired to kill me looked like."
  
  
  Parson's face was a mask of old leather goods.
  
  
  "You're very humorous, Mr. K."
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Ellie "
  
  
  "You can call me Corelli. Do you hear the resemblance, Mr. Parson?"
  
  
  What a bloody coincidence! I thought of her. There was no truth in what Kelly was implying - that he had taken the name Kelly to sound like Corelli. But it played beautifully.
  
  
  Good. Corelli. It's a cat-and-mouse game." Parson's earlobe now glistened from the jar. "I don't like cat and mouse games."
  
  
  "No one knows," Kelly said. "Especially the mouse. A minute ago, you were a cat. Now your eyes are red."
  
  
  Parson sighed. "Let's go. What do you want?"
  
  
  "I want to know why you tried to make me look like a sucker!"
  
  
  Parson smiled thinly. "I've been playing you like a sucker since the first minute I met you, George - whatever your name is, Mr. Secret Agent Poe Monotonously-and I don't understand exactly what point you were referring to."
  
  
  "It wasn't enough," I said softly. "Very unkind of you, Barry-baby." Hers, leaned toward him. "I mean, when you took on the role of Corelli in Velet."
  
  
  He shrugged, his face set in a frozen smile. "Very simple. He bugged your car. And he was there when Arturo was killed. I went to Veleta to find Corelli and kill ego."
  
  
  I looked at Mitch Kelly, who tilted his head and drank his liquor.
  
  
  "So you were in the engine room of the cable car on the first night?"
  
  
  "Of course. I followed you to Sol-y-Niev to find Corelli. It's just a matter of making sure you meet everyone you meet."
  
  
  "So you knew I was dating Corelli..." I turned to look at Mitch Kelly, " ... midnight in Veleta."
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  "And you were waiting for me when I arrived?"
  
  
  "Exactly. Parson smiled faintly. "I could hardly explain the coincidence, could I? I should have told you I was a Corelli when you found me. And besides, I knew that I would eventually find Rico Corelli through you." He turned to Callie. "Just like me."
  
  
  "It was kind of a sudden inspiration, wasn't it?" I suggested it.
  
  
  "That's right."Parson was gaining confidence.
  
  
  "And you thought Corelli would come to the surface to find out why you were impersonating him?"
  
  
  "Something like that"
  
  
  "And you were hoping that the fake microfilm wouldn't have checked by then?"
  
  
  "I had to take the risk."
  
  
  Hers, leaned back, looking at him. "Not really, Barry. Nice try. But not good enough."
  
  
  Parson frowned. "I don't understand."
  
  
  "The thing is, you cut the brake line in the Renault before I left for Veleta. You want her to be completely excluded from the entire field of view. You want Corelli to be completely alone at the monument, so you can kill your ego and go free. Right?"
  
  
  Parson took a deep breath. "I deny it. Why would I go to all this trouble to save you from this when your car was out of control?"
  
  
  Kelly looked at me. It was a convincing argument.
  
  
  But her known rheumatism on this corkscrew: "You needed me after Corelli didn't show up for the meeting. He was the only one who could lead you to him. Except for Juana. But Juana wasn't allowed to meet Corelli until she was ready for me, Barry. Alive. Why not pretend you're Corelli before Corelli finally declares himself to me. Really?
  
  
  He sat motionless.
  
  
  At the disco, the holy light suddenly went out, and then Sergei flashed on again. The stereo was turned off, and the dancers left the floor with the postage stamps. Professional Spanish dancers dressed in flamenco costumes gathered on the small stage. Six guitarists were sitting on chairs at the back of the stage.
  
  
  In the moments that followed, the male singer stepped forward, strummed his guitar, and began to tell the story of the dance.
  
  
  "What do you want with me?" Parson asked, looking at Kelly.
  
  
  "Someone hired you to kill me," Kelly said, her lips parted.
  
  
  "I deny it," Parson said.
  
  
  "Don't give me that shit," Kelly said in a low, threatening voice. "Someone hired you. You are a professional assassin. Barry Parson is a cover story. Since the beginning of World War II, you have worked in dozens of countries. Come on. Interpol knows all about you."
  
  
  This we pulled out around the hat.
  
  
  Parson's face turned to ice. "I'm self-employed, that's true. I work for everyone who pays me."
  
  
  He glanced at Kelly. He kept up the pressure. Parson broke down. He admitted it. He was furious. Now it will work for Kelly, if Kelly puts it high enough.
  
  
  But we don't want that at all.
  
  
  "Who hired you to kill me?" Kelly asked again.
  
  
  "If I tell you, I'll be a target tonight," Parson said with a hollow laugh.
  
  
  "If you don't, you are now a target sitting in this disco," Kelly said, putting a lot of power into the words.
  
  
  "I'm dead anyway," Parson reasoned.
  
  
  "We'll get you out of here. Tell us who hired you, and we'll go straight to you." We'll take you all over the resort. I have helpers."
  
  
  Kelly turned to look at the bar. Odin Poe of the waiters standing there looked at Kelly and nodded. Then Kelly glanced at the chair in the far corner of the room. A man in black was sitting there. He tilted his beret with a finger as Kelly looked at him.
  
  
  A little bit of decoration to make everything look right.
  
  
  Parson was flour-based, clean
  
  
  
  
  
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  sh.
  
  
  Flamenco music started playing, and the soloist came out to dance. He was fast and steady. Ego heels went off like machine gun fire. The dance increased in tempo and volume.
  
  
  "Tell me who hired you!" Kelly croaked.
  
  
  "That's not it," Parson snapped. "Anything else, but not him."
  
  
  "A mobster?" I asked her.
  
  
  He looked at me contemptuously. "It was Moscato's bosses! Not hers." Ego's eyes widened. He realized that he had practically told me who had hired ego.
  
  
  There's only one person left!
  
  
  "It was her!" I whispered, leaning closer to Parson. "Tina!"
  
  
  It seemed frozen in time and space.
  
  
  He opened his mouth and closed it again. Ego Target nodded slightly. It's all.
  
  
  Then he moved out.
  
  
  He moved with lightning speed. Her,saw ego's hand on his lap reach for the belt where he'd hidden his big Webley. A lump on his shirt saw her. He hoped to hit Kelly with the first shot, but it was cut off by Ego's hand with the gun as soon as he pulled it out. For this reason, it is advertised by the ego to the left of itself - so that it can be controlled by the ego hand with a gun. The shot rang out loud and clear, but luckily it landed on the floor.
  
  
  Instantly, a second shot rang out.
  
  
  Parson tensed in the back of the seat, then slumped like a puppet when its ropes are dropped, and let his head lean forward against the tabletop.
  
  
  He put his foot on Webley's revolver, and Kelly quickly got up and walked over to Parson's body. There was so much noise from music, dancing and entertainment that, to our surprise, no one noticed the secondary game in the dark of the discos.
  
  
  Kelly grabbed Parson's shoulder and straightened his ego in the seat. He reached out and picked up the Webley, tucking his ego between his belt and his stomach. Then he turned, grabbed Parson's right shoulder, and helped Kelly lift Ego to his feet. Keeping our egos together, we made our way through the crowded tables to the disco entrance.
  
  
  "Mui borracho". Kelly nodded to one of the waiters.
  
  
  The waiter smiled sympathetically.
  
  
  As the second flamenco dance continued, the machine-gun shots of the dancers ' heels made it impossible to distinguish the sounds of a real submachine gun from the heels of local Jose Greco dancing.
  
  
  "Sometimes I hate this job," Kelly told me as we walked down the stairs to the lobby.
  
  
  We dragged Barry Parson's lifeless body across the lobby-thankfully deserted at the moment-to the stairs, and then began the slow climb.
  
  
  He was very dead when we finally put the ego, the ego, our own bed in the ego's own room.
  
  
  14
  
  
  Mitch Kelly worked as a detective for the San Francisco Police Department for several years before retiring to join the AXE Stable. As soon as she closed the door to Barry Parson's room, he quickly began rummaging through the pockets of Parsons ' clothes.
  
  
  He spread the contents out on the commode and went to the bathroom to get a towel. There was a lot of blood on Kelly's body and hands. Kelly shot the emu in the dollar stack, and the force of the impact killed Parson instantly. Kelly used his own Colt.38 Detective Special, equipped with these special cartridges with high muzzle velocity and high penetration.
  
  
  When Kelly came out of the bathroom, he dried himself thoroughly and glanced at his watch.
  
  
  "Wallet," I said. I was looking through her papers. "Barry Parson, it says so."
  
  
  "Strictly cover up," Kelly muttered, coming up to me, and I stand beside her, watching. "Someone did a good job."
  
  
  "Documents? Do you think it was MI5?"
  
  
  Kelly shook his head. "I told you that we have contacted the British. They didn't confirm the ego, the identity."
  
  
  "Yes, but..."
  
  
  "When the British don't confirm, the British deny. See?"
  
  
  It can be obtained via credit cards and passport. He glanced at his passport, but Kelly shook his head. "Forget it. This is also a cover-up."
  
  
  "It looks like a real one"
  
  
  "You can get a good set of documents made in Portugal if you have the money to pay for them. Including the best fake passports on the continent. There are hundreds of fake identity cards floating around Europe-all made in Lisbon."
  
  
  He looked thoughtfully at the papers. "Does it smell like government stuff?"
  
  
  He shook his head. "I would say he was a freelancer. A mercenary for hire. Something like that. I told you that Interpol has declared an EMU sales ban." But I'm still going to check your finger printout ego."
  
  
  He continued to read the newspapers, and then took up his ego baggage. There was nothing there to hint at anything other than a rich Brit who spent most of his time traveling the continent.
  
  
  Kelly pulled out a small set and began rolling out Parson's printouts. When he had finished all ten, he carefully wiped off the ink and placed the printouts on the parchment. Then he took out a small Japanese-made mini-camera with his name stamped on it and took a few photos of Parson's faces. When at rest, Barry Parson looked completely harmless, devoid of the life force that always made the ego what it was in life.
  
  
  There was absolutely nothing in these things that would tie Parson to a syndicate of any land. We thought Parson didn't have a bee
  
  
  
  
  
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  Working with any band, Tina was the frontman, but especially with her.
  
  
  And that made Tina the number one question mark. Who did she work for - if she really worked for someone?
  
  
  Kelly kept looking at his watch.
  
  
  "Worried about the time?" I asked her.
  
  
  "I'm wondering what we're going to do with this body."
  
  
  He took a deep breath. "There's not much we can do. We just go out and leave it here."
  
  
  "But Elena Morales?"
  
  
  "It goes in and finds the ego. And she blows her whistle. Nothing to connect Parson with us, nothing concrete."
  
  
  "We were seen with him at the disco."
  
  
  "Can you fix it?"
  
  
  Kelly thought about it. "It's already quite late. Why was her voice checking the time? Eleven-thirty. I don't think my contact is on duty right now."
  
  
  "A tall man with a fu-Manchu moustache?"
  
  
  Kelly grinned. “yeah. Do you know ego?"
  
  
  Her sel and stared at the carpet. "We have another problem to worry about. Tina doesn't know that her assassin is dead. She thinks he'll be waiting for her to arrive in Sol-i-Niev to touch Corelli. And that means she will come. here. We have to stop her."
  
  
  Kelly frowned. "How?"
  
  
  I thought about it for a long time. "Look. How about this? We call Tina at her hotel in Granada. We leave a message from a Person. Nen says that he is leaving for Sol y Nieve, and wants to know where to meet her. Then we just wait here until she calls the hotel. We're finding out who Hema wants to talk to. And this man is Rico Corelli ."
  
  
  He stared out the window, waiting for Kelly's answer. "That sounds good. What do we have to lose?"
  
  
  "Suppose she calls Parson immediately to tell him who to shoot?"
  
  
  Kelly shrugged. "She finds out that Parson is dead, and then contacts Corelli. In any case, we are ahead."
  
  
  "I'm going to the waiting room to intercept Elena Morales," I said. "I don't want her to wander in here and find the body. She could have warned the whole hotel."
  
  
  "I'll join you as soon as I take care of the Bergson woman."
  
  
  We left the door unlocked and went out into the corridor. No one saw us.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Both Juana Rivera and Elena Morales looked at me as I entered the lobby a few minutes later. I could hear loud laughter and shouts of merriment all over the lobby. Juana and Elena were in the middle of a noisy yahoo with Herr Hauptli, two ego Germans, an ego Dane, and a group of about twenty other ski pairs each.
  
  
  He walked over and nodded to Juana and Elena. Between them, they made a place for me. Herr Hauptli saw me, greeted me, and introduced me to the group.
  
  
  He grinned at her, waved his hand, and leaned back on the bench between the girls, staring into the blazing fire. It was safe and secure, away from the sound of gunfire and the sight of blood.
  
  
  Mr. Hauptley treated the group to his more exciting sporting exploits - he was an amateur hunter, an expert fisherman, a highly successful yachtsman, and a great mountain climber - and she scribbled a few lines on a dinner receipt and turned it in. Juana with a warning to keep the ego out of sight.
  
  
  She wouldn't even admit it, but I knew she was reading it out of everyone's sight. A sharp elbow to the ribs told me she understood.
  
  
  PARSON'S DEAD. TINA'S MAN. THE TAIL OF A DEER.
  
  
  I put in that last part because I didn't know what to do with Elena Morales. If she'd been seriously involved with Barry Parson, she might have known - or guessed-what he was up to. Otherwise, there was no need to take her to investigate. Bella fucked her until the hotel let her know about Parson's death. I felt that if Juana couldn't handle her, I could.
  
  
  Mitch Kelly appeared in the living room doorway, smiling broadly and waving at the familiar param. Then he noticed me, walked over quickly, leaned over, and said in a low voice, " The lobby. Quickly." No one else heard. He squeezed my shoulder, gave Juana a generous kiss on the cheek, and left the living room with an apologetic nod to Herr Hauptli.
  
  
  He touched Juana's thigh and got up to leave. Kelly sat in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass window at the back of the lobby that overlooked the foothills of the ski trail. He was looking at my reflection in the glass. The lobby was completely deserted.
  
  
  He spoke in my ear without moving his lips , an old cop trick borrowed from his cellmates.
  
  
  "She went out, around a hotel in Granada. It looks like she's heading for Sol-i-Niev."
  
  
  "When did she leave?"
  
  
  "Tonight. We don't know when."
  
  
  "This is bad news."
  
  
  Kelly nodded.
  
  
  In the reflection of the glass window, she saw one of the employees put down his phone and walk across the lobby to the lobby. A minute later, he came out again. Elena Morales followed quickly and gracefully.
  
  
  Kelly nudged her. Elena headed purposefully for the stairs. That meant she was going to her room - the room she shared with Barry Parson!
  
  
  Kelly and hers exchanged surprised glances. Her, I saw Juana coming out of the living room with a worried look on her face. Kelly hit her.
  
  
  "Keep Juana in the living room. Join her. I'll go get Elena."
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  He waited until Elena was halfway up the stairs before starting
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  d then nah. Something's happened. Someone had warned her. I couldn't figure out who or why. Still, it was obvious that she was going to her room.
  
  
  Third floor. Down the hall, around the bend. She reached into her bag for her keys. But when she took out the ih and touched the handle, the door opened. She turned to scan the hallway. He expected such a move, and ducked back around the corner, out of sight.
  
  
  She didn't see me.
  
  
  I heard the door close behind her.
  
  
  He moved quickly down the corridor and stopped for the next day. At first, I couldn't hear her because of the thickness of the hull. The carpet prevented sounds from coming through the gap between the door and the frame.
  
  
  But then I thought I heard voices whispering inside. One light, high - pitched voice-a woman's-heard her. Of course, the voice of Elena Morales. But did she talk to Hema?
  
  
  Us Odin. Nobody. Of course, she used the phone!
  
  
  Then the murmurings stopped again, and she was no longer heard. I waited for the sound of replacing the receiver on the base, but missed it. Then the door opened and creaked shut. A closet? Did she dress up to go out?
  
  
  He walked quickly to the far end of the corridor and out onto the balcony that surrounded the building on three sides. He ducked out of sight and crouched against the outer wall, waiting for the Deer to come out into the corridor.
  
  
  But she didn't show up.
  
  
  He glanced at his watch.
  
  
  Fifteen minutes.
  
  
  He started back down the hall and stopped in front of her door, craning his neck and putting his ear to the paneling.
  
  
  Nothing.
  
  
  The Luger pulled it out and hugged Ego to his chest as he stepped forward and turned the handle. The latch was still open, and so were Kelly and me.
  
  
  He quickly stepped inside, leaning back against the wall and holding the Luger out in front of him.
  
  
  There was no one there - no one alive.
  
  
  Parsons ' body lay exactly where we hadn't left it.
  
  
  But there was no one else in the room.
  
  
  Where was Elena Morales?
  
  
  He glanced at the toilet doors, but the closet was too small for anyone to hide in. And still...
  
  
  It was a faint sound, and at first he wasn't even sure he'd heard it. But as he stood there, barely daring to breathe, her ego heard her again. It was the unmistakable sound of a person trying to stay still, but moving slightly. He glanced at the cabinet again, but the sound was coming from the wrong direction.
  
  
  No. He came by the bathroom.
  
  
  The luger grabbed her tightly and went straight to the bathroom. It was closed.
  
  
  "Elena," I told her softly.
  
  
  There was no response.
  
  
  Someone was there, and it wasn't Elena. Where did it go? Or was she there with someone else?
  
  
  "Elena," I said, louder this time.
  
  
  Nothing.
  
  
  "I'm going to open this door. I have a gun. Come out, hands over your head, " I barked, standing on one side than day.
  
  
  Nothing.
  
  
  I grabbed the handle of the day, still standing pressed against the paneling of the day, and turned it. The door opened and swung inward. Her body tensed. Our services.
  
  
  Through the open crack, he could see the bathroom. Sergei was on fire. And there, pale and tense, sat Tina Bergson, terrified to the core.
  
  
  He moved to cover her with the luger. Then he saw her lying in a basin with her supplies laid out for use. Subcutaneous, a bottle of liquid, cotton swabs.
  
  
  She was looking at me with wide eyes.
  
  
  "Where is Elena?" She was asked by ee, even though she could have been asked a hundred more questions instead.
  
  
  She shook her head. "I haven't seen Elena. Only Barry saw her. And he... he was dead." Her voice dropped to a whisper. She was on the verge of fainting.
  
  
  He walked into the bathroom and grabbed her roughly by the elbow. She clung to me, breathing hard.
  
  
  "She killed the ego?" her voice whispered in my ear.
  
  
  I didn't say anything to her. How could I tell her hey that it was Kelly and her?
  
  
  "Why did you go back to Sol-i-Niev?" Sl asked her quietly.
  
  
  Her eyes turned to me. He pushed her down and sat her down on the edge of the tub. Her sel is next to her. She was held by a Luger on her chest. She was a sly woman, and her father didn't trust her at all.
  
  
  "To see... see..."
  
  
  "Barry Parson," I added. "To show emu to Corelli so he can kill ego."
  
  
  Our services.
  
  
  Her lips trembled, and her eyes left mine. "Yes," she whispered.
  
  
  "You hired Barry Parson to kill Corelli," I said flatly. "You can't deny it. He told us earlier..."
  
  
  "I don't deny it," she said firmly. Her face had regained its color. My gaze slid to the hypodermic needle.
  
  
  "Motive?" I asked her. "Are you a drug addict? Is that all?"
  
  
  She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm all confused. I do not know why I want to kill her ego, except that I hate ego more than anyone else in the world."
  
  
  "But he refuses to do that, turning in everyone involved in the drug network," I said.
  
  
  She hung her head.
  
  
  "Why did you come back?" I asked again.
  
  
  "To find Barry," Tina said softly. "I went up the balcony, looked inside and saw him. Dead. Her, entered..."
  
  
  Hers was looking over her shoulder. Of course! Balcony! This is th
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  how Elena left through the rooms without seeing her. When Elena found Barry dead, she was scared to death and ran away. She simply opened the French doors, stepped out onto the balcony, and hurried away. Then, right after that, Tina went up the back road to meet Barry in the ego room - maybe they were both planning to meet - and she found Barry dead. Her need for drugs got the better of her and she went to the bathroom to get better, just like hers.
  
  
  "I went in and found that he had been shot at. At first, I thought Elena might have killed her ego. But maybe Corelli found out that Barry was an ego buster. Maybe Corelli knew I was..." Her eyes filled with tears. "I'm scared, Nick!"
  
  
  It shocked her. "You have to take me to Corelli, Tina. This is the only case of rheumatism. Too many people tried to stop us from getting that list of names. Too much. It's up to you now, Tina."
  
  
  She turned pale. "He'll find out, Nick! He'll think I hired someone to kill ego! You can't make me do this. You have to let me go!"
  
  
  "What do we want, Tina?" "You're the only one with rheumatism. You're taking me to him openly now. Just show me your ego, and..."
  
  
  "He won't admit it! she exclaimed. "He will deny his identity."
  
  
  "Tina..."
  
  
  She reached for the hypodermic needle. He guessed what she was going to do as soon as she turned to the shoulder. He pressed her like a luger against the soft part of her neck. "No, no, Tina! Not needles. Sure, you'll be fine for a few minutes, but you'll always have to come back to reality."
  
  
  "Nick!" she sobbed, still holding the needle.
  
  
  Luger put it in his pocket and reached for the needle. Her face changed almost instantly. That serene, beautiful mask transformed her into the face of a hellcat - eyes flashing, teeth bared, lips parted in an animal snarl.
  
  
  The needle sank into my forearm before I could defend myself from the frenzied slash.
  
  
  She laughed, a low, mirthless wail.
  
  
  Her, felt everything go through me. Hers, felt like a ball of screed.
  
  
  She led me to the next room and then pushed me into a chair.
  
  
  "A little mix of our own, Nick," she'd say with that satanic smile of hers. "You'll stay there like a good little boy. I'm going to leave here."
  
  
  No, Tina! I tried to say it, but it didn't work.
  
  
  She seemed to be moving at an accelerated pace-a hundred frames per second, running through the French windows on the balcony. Then there was silence.
  
  
  After a few centuries of it, I heard someone knocking on the door. It was Kelly.
  
  
  "Nick! Are you there? Nick?"
  
  
  Her mouth opened. At least it's moved. But I didn't have a voice. Did you get polio?
  
  
  The door flew open and Kelly stormed into the room, gun drawn. He just stood there and stared at me in amazement.
  
  
  "Hey, Nick!"
  
  
  Her lips moved again. He was suffering from polio. Her, grumbled.
  
  
  Kelly looked around, checked the bathroom, and smelled a hypodermic needle. Instantly, he came back to me, slapped me across the face, lifted me out of my chair, and dragged me to the bathroom. He shoved my head under the shower, and the cold water hit my neck.
  
  
  Kelly talked to me while he was working.
  
  
  "This is something new. We have stocks of it. Knocks you out, so you can't move, but you can see everything that's going on. Temporary polio. It comes from kurari, also known as urari, urari, uurali, vurali. and woorara. But it was shortened with something else. Don't ask me what. Formulas always disappear as soon as we get ih ."
  
  
  It soon revived.
  
  
  "Quick!" I told her. "This is Tina. She drove down Granada to meet Barry Parson, and found Ego's body here. She's on her way out now. She thinks ego killed Corelli. If she escapes now, she can kill ego later."
  
  
  Kelly snapped. "I came here to find you. Tina was down in the lobby, making a scene!"
  
  
  "WHO?" I asked impatiently.
  
  
  "Tina Bergson".
  
  
  "Tina!"
  
  
  "Absolutely fantastic. But now she's gone."
  
  
  "Gone? But...?"
  
  
  "She was in the lobby, but she left," Kelly told me as we ran through the rooms and down the hall. As we started down the stairs, I saw a crowd of people in the lobby. Everyone was looking at the parking lot.
  
  
  Juana saw her, and she turned quickly and waited for us.
  
  
  "What's all this about?"
  
  
  "She's in a red Jaguar," Juana said, pointing to the parked cars. Her, I saw the headlights come on in one of them, all around them. Sergei cut through the darkness and lit up the snow-covered mountainside where the road turned from the Prado Llano and led to the main highway.
  
  
  "She made a big scene," Juana said quickly. "It was very dramatic."
  
  
  "Too harsh," Kelly said dryly.
  
  
  "Are you going to tell me what she did?" I asked impatiently.
  
  
  "She came here no more than ten minutes ago, raised hell and asked for Mario Speranza!"
  
  
  "Who is Mario Speranza?" I asked her.
  
  
  Kelly shook his head. "When I was told that Señor Speranza wasn't here, she almost went into hysterics, right here in the lobby."
  
  
  I could see her
  
  
  
  
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  The jaguar began to move. Tina's blond hair fluttered behind her.
  
  
  "It forced all of us to leave the hall on the run," Juana explained.
  
  
  "And then she immediately fell, and the desk clerk had to revive her," Kelly concluded. "I followed you."
  
  
  He frowned, thinking quickly. "It's a performance-the scenes are down here. What this is for, I do not know. But I have to stop her."
  
  
  "Actually," Kelly said. "What are we doing?"
  
  
  "Look at this Mario Speranza," Kelly told her. "I probably don't exist. I'll go get Tina!"
  
  
  Her carapace made its way through the crowd to the revolving doors and was spotted there by Mr. Hauptley and his ego team of sycophants. He waved and turned away.
  
  
  It was cold in the Renault. It started up quite well. He left it on the road and slipped twice before he got it under control. There were ice patches on the roadway, just like two nights ago.
  
  
  The road descended and turned straight. The red Jaguar couldn't see her at all, but he remembered that the road turned straight and then began to turn left onto a long, wide horseshoe sign that clung to the edge of the barranca.
  
  
  I turned on the engine because I didn't want to lose sight of Jag.
  
  
  I could see the edge of the road in my headlights, and I inadvertently clicked on the bullying button to check the drag. I was relieved to feel the tension in the bandages.
  
  
  Her Renault swerved around a bend and saw Tina Bergson's red Jaguar halfway up a wide horseshoe bend. She was driving slowly, but then picked up speed when I noticed her, too.
  
  
  The car seemed to leap forward in the darkness, the lights reflecting up the road as if they were climbing through the sky. And then - he couldn't believe what he was seeing-the Jaguar slammed into the bank, almost hitting a rock wall.
  
  
  Turn around, Tina! I shouted involuntarily. "Change!"
  
  
  Whether she did or not, I do not know, but the next thing I saw was the Jaguar, heading not for the shallows, but for the outer edge of the road. "Tina!"
  
  
  It was a lost cry.
  
  
  The Jaguar picks up speed and goes over the edge, as if the egos have learned to do a very shallow swan dive in a puddle.
  
  
  The headlights caught the jagged mica shale below, patches of snow pressed against the shale and lit up a tangle of lights and reflections in the snow, then the car buried itself in the rocks, bounced, rolled over and over, the headlights circled like a pinwheel in the night and crashed with a crash into a piece of sharp rocks at the foot of the barranca.
  
  
  There was a moment of silence.
  
  
  Then, a strong flash of flame shot into the sky, and a loud explosion thundered in the air. Smoke billowed mimmo orange flames, sharp, suffocating black smoke.
  
  
  The fire soared, then fell back on the wreckage of the mangled Jaguar and began to slowly eat away at the metal. Then smoke rose slowly, fire dancing around the edges of red steel, clear glass, and colored plastic.
  
  
  Shaken, he drove cautiously along the highway until he reached the spot where the red Jaguar had gone over the edge. He looked down. All I could see was a crack in the rocks cut into the shoulder at the edge of the roadway.
  
  
  The Renault parked it, pulled out the key, and got out around the car. It was cold on the highway. He walked to the edge of the road where the Jaguar had passed through the rocks. He stood there, looking at the dislodged rocks, and followed the charred black line in the shale below to where a bright red fire crackled over the remains of Tina Bergson and the red Jaguar .
  
  
  In a matter of seconds, the first of the hotel's guests pulled up in a Fiat car, parked, and joined me at the edge of the roadway. Ogling.
  
  
  And then the others came.
  
  
  And more.
  
  
  Thrill seekers.
  
  
  I felt sick.
  
  
  Then I went down the rocky slope, using my pocket flash, and passed the charred part of the rock where the red Prong had first struck, and finally reached the area next to the car itself.
  
  
  But the flames were devouring the wreckage, and it was impossible to approach without getting burned.
  
  
  He stood with his hand on the top of her head, waiting.
  
  
  A fire truck screeched on the roadway, and soon a big firefighter in a ski jacket and carrying a portable fire extinguisher crashed down the slope and began spraying burning debris.
  
  
  He shuddered.
  
  
  A fireman was standing there, looking at the charred wreckage. The Civil Guard joined him and made a flashlight at the burnt-out car. The beam of light was more powerful than mine.
  
  
  Lizzie came up to her.
  
  
  I saw it then.
  
  
  There was a charred body in the front seat. What was left of it was black and smoldering.
  
  
  Tina.
  
  
  All that's left of the golden girl with the golden skin.
  
  
  Her, turned away, sick.
  
  
  Hers must have fallen on a rock next to the wreckage and plunged into the land of soulful funk. Someone was shaking my arm and shoulder. I realized that a voice had been talking to me for a while.
  
  
  Its stirred.
  
  
  "Nickname."
  
  
  It was Kelly.
  
  
  "She's dead," Kelly said. "Damn thing."
  
  
  "I think she just felt like it was over and hey, better run." He sighed. "She knew Rico would be Corelli
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  her for the rest of her life."
  
  
  "But Corelli didn't even know!"
  
  
  "He'll find out. That's why he left, " I said. Voting, as I understood it.
  
  
  "I checked that name, Nick."
  
  
  He looked up and frowned. I didn't understand what he meant.
  
  
  "Mario Speranza is not registered at the hotel."
  
  
  I sat and thought about it. "But that's the name she gave the clerk."
  
  
  He nodded. "Clare says he said this. Clare says that's when she came out through the skull."
  
  
  He stared at the wreckage below us. "Are you saying that Rico Corelli was never in Sol y Nieve at all?"
  
  
  "I'm saying that he definitely hasn't been here - or anywhere else at the Sol y Nieve Hotel-in the last month or so. If the ego name on the cover is Mario Speranza."
  
  
  "But then..."
  
  
  "Can't you see that? Maybe he knew about Tina. Maybe he knew she'd hired a hitman to kill ego."
  
  
  Her, shook his head to clear it up. "And all this chatter about the meeting was just a fake death of Tina Bergson?"
  
  
  "Not at all. I say that Rico Corelli must have known about Tina Bergson and Barry Parson. And he just didn't come to the resort at all. Everyone thought he was here - a hitman hired by the mob, an assassin hired by Tina-and us because we were going to meet Corelli. Everyone was here except Corelli! "
  
  
  "Then where's the son of a bitch?"
  
  
  Kelly shrugged. "I think we'd better signal Hawke and start over."
  
  
  We got up to go up the hill, but I couldn't leave my ego alone.
  
  
  Then he turned and looked back at the wreckage.
  
  
  "Why did she go there?"
  
  
  Kelly shook his head. "She was a beautiful woman, Nick. Beautiful women do stupid things. She must have loved Corelli. And I hated ego, too."
  
  
  "Or loved the money," I said.
  
  
  "You don't think so much about people, do you, Nick?" Kelly sighed.
  
  
  "Should I have it? Do I owe her, really?" Her voice calmed down. "I think she decided it was a better way than running all over an outdoor pool trying to get away from Rico Corelli's paid gun."
  
  
  "She'll never know when he's going to hit her," Kelly said dispassionately.
  
  
  "I wonder where that bastard is now?" Hers, he thought half aloud.
  
  
  Fifteen
  
  
  The next morning, we were first for breakfast. Despite Juana's radiant appearance, she was spiritually depressed. Her explanation was that we were able to complete the task.
  
  
  We ate a continental breakfast and sat in the bright sunlight. I suggested that we go skiing in the morning before leaving for Spain, but she objected.
  
  
  "I just want to pack my things."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "I'll go to Veleta and do a couple of runs."
  
  
  She nodded, her mind elsewhere.
  
  
  "Penny?"
  
  
  She didn't answer.
  
  
  "Two pennies?"
  
  
  "What is it?"
  
  
  "To meet your thoughts. What happened?"
  
  
  "I think he was thinking about wasting a human life. Tina Bergson. Barry Parson. The mosquito. First take by Rico Corelli. And even Elena Morales - wherever we need her."
  
  
  He reached out and took her hand. "That's the way the world works."
  
  
  "It's not a good world."
  
  
  "Did someone promise you what it was?"
  
  
  She shook her head sadly.
  
  
  I paid the bill and left.
  
  
  It was cool, but Velet is still very quiet. The sun was shining brightly. The surface of the track was well covered with powder. He took it out, used binoculars, and examined the slope. As I explained earlier, there were two descents from the top of the Veleta.
  
  
  This time it was decided to make a longer run, the one that branched off to the left when you went down. I was just putting it back in its leather case when someone climbed over the rocks at the turn of the cable car and came up to me.
  
  
  It was Herr Hauptli, and this time he was alone.
  
  
  He waved at her. "Good morning, Herr Hauptli."
  
  
  He smiled. "Good morning, Herr Peabody."
  
  
  "I missed you yesterday, or when we were going skiing together."
  
  
  "There is undoubtedly pressure from businesses,"he said..
  
  
  "Yes," I said, giving him a quick glance. But he turned away to look down the slope.
  
  
  "Where's your favorite woman?"
  
  
  "Packaging".
  
  
  "Then you're leaving?"
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  "Too bad. The weather was so nice."
  
  
  "Indeed, there is."
  
  
  He smiled and pointed to the ledge of rock at the top of the track. I joined him as he laced up his boots tightly and began to rub blue wax on his skis.
  
  
  "Where are your friends?" I asked her, sitting down next to him. What the hell, I didn't have anything else to do at the moment.
  
  
  "They're at the hotel," he smiled. "It looks like they weren't too eager to join me today. It was a late night at the Esqui Bar, and they had lumumbas flying around their ears."
  
  
  "You're usually inseparable."
  
  
  "So it is with money. They attract like a magnet." He smiled again, the crow's feet at the corners of his ego eyes deep and shadowed.
  
  
  "You're a cynic, Herr Hauptli."
  
  
  "I'm a realist, Herr Peabody."
  
  
  He picked up the first ski and began carefully applying wax to the string. He was a meticulous and methodical worker, which was to be expected from a good German.
  
  
  "Fraulein Peabody reminds me of someone close to me," he said after a moment.
  
  
  "Of course?"
  
  
  "You know, I had a daughter." He looked up. "Of course you didn't know. Apologies." He continued his wax
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ing. " She was the most beautiful girl."
  
  
  "Was there, Herr Hauptli?"
  
  
  He ignored my intervention. "Hey, she was nineteen and went to university," he continued. "My woman - her mother-died when she was a little five-year-old girl. I'm afraid I've never been able to give her any proper guidance in growing up. Do you understand?" Ego's eyes lifted and met mine.
  
  
  "I've never been a father, so I can't know that, Herr Hauptli."
  
  
  "Honest rheumatism". He sighed. "Whether it was parental neglect or unwarranted waste of material possessions towards her , when she left for university, we lost touch."
  
  
  "It's happening these days."
  
  
  "In her case, the worst happened. Her companions were very addicted to drugs." He looked at me again. "And she ended up being involved in this group to the point where I couldn't handle it." He continued waxing. "She's addicted to heroin."
  
  
  He stared at Hauptley.
  
  
  "A year after getting used to it, she died of an overdose." He was looking out at the Vega of Granada. "Independent management".
  
  
  "I'm sorry," I said.
  
  
  "There's no point in wasting your time so late," Hauptley said, his voice harsh compared to his normally pleasant voice.
  
  
  "I'm sorry for this waste of a human life," I said, thinking about what Juana had said at breakfast.
  
  
  He shrugged. "In a way, I blame myself. Her evaded her father's responsibility. He became close to other women - not just one, but many-and neglected his daughter." He thought for a moment. "And she endured my scorn, reacting as best she could. By rejecting himself just as he rejected her."
  
  
  "That's not what a psychologist can tell you," I said cautiously. "Introspection is a dangerous game."
  
  
  "I didn't just meet women. Its been doing this business."
  
  
  "Every man should have a profession," I said.
  
  
  "But not the one I had."
  
  
  I watched him, knew what he was going to say.
  
  
  "Drug dealing," he said with a bitter smile. “yeah. She was probably drugged with the heroin that my only child used to kill himself. How does this relate to your morals, Herr Peabody?"
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head.
  
  
  "It doesn't go well with mine. I started analyzing her business, which I've always been. I started thinking about the ego impact on humanity. I didn't like what I saw."
  
  
  He chose another ski and began to wax it.
  
  
  "I decided it was time to go out of business and start fixing my misdeeds for years."
  
  
  Her couldn't say anything. Waiting for her.
  
  
  "They told me what would happen if I left the organization. They'll be looking for me to the ends of the world. And kill." He smiled ruefully. "Do you understand that?"
  
  
  "Yes, Signor Corelli."
  
  
  "Enrico Corelli," he said with a half-smile. "Rico Corelli, and you're Carter. I'm told that Nick Carter is the best."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "Usually. Not always. But usually."
  
  
  "I'm telling you, it was an administrative problem from the very beginning. A simple meeting, isn't it? Meet in the snow-deal with the snow! " He laughed, showing his strong teeth. "A joke, Mr. Carter! A joke."
  
  
  "Yes," I said.
  
  
  "It seemed simple enough. I leave Corsica on Lysistrata and meet you in the Sierra Nevada."
  
  
  "Of course."
  
  
  "There were problems from the very beginning. The Capo found out about my plan. Someone close to me guessed it. Or overheard it. The mobsters decided to sign me."
  
  
  "Komar".
  
  
  “yeah. To prevent such a blow, she was persuaded by her old colleague Basillio Di Vanessi to paint me on my yacht. And the very nice girl he was sleeping with went with him to make the characterization real."
  
  
  "You framed your own man?" I said softly.
  
  
  "I don't know if the strike will be successful," Corelli said. "Basically, I did what you say I did. But her really didn't think the Mosquito would heal. I was hoping that the meeting between Basilio and you would go off without a hitch, and that a real meeting between you and me could be arranged. "
  
  
  He sighed.
  
  
  "But that's not all. Just before I left my yacht in Valencia, I discovered that my beautiful Swedish nightingale was plotting to get rid of me!"
  
  
  "Tina Bergson?"
  
  
  “yeah. She wants her dead. She signed a contract with me herself." Corelli smiled sardonically.
  
  
  "Was there a reason?"
  
  
  "I was just as curious as you were, Mr. Carter. You should understand Tina a little more clearly."
  
  
  He understood her perfectly, but didn't say anything.
  
  
  "She's a nymphomaniac, Mr. Carter. I don't think this is surprising to you. But perhaps the reason it has become such a Freudian symbol is just as interesting as the fact of its obsession."
  
  
  He looked at him curiously.
  
  
  "At the age of fifteen, she was raped by a Swedish farmhand. She got pregnant. The abortion was successful, but sepsis developed. When I was fifteen, I had a hysterectomy. This barren, beautiful, intelligent creature became obsessed with destroying her. femininity, with its inability to be a mother. Because she was not a woman to us, but a man to us, she became what she should become-a superman! With this beauty and this intelligence-I assure you, her intelligence is limited
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Ess, Mr. Carter! "she decided that she would take over the small empire of which he was the master."
  
  
  "Drug network," I said.
  
  
  "Absolutely fantastic. Now I'm talking about her ambition after I decided to break the chain and reveal her deepest secrets to the United States Department of Drug Enforcement."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "And that was the reason she hired Parson to kill you!"
  
  
  "This is for real. Fortunately, I interpreted her first shocked reaction to my decision to dismantle the chain as suspicious and kept my eyes open. Although she promised me that she would remain loyal to me and accompany me to America, her guess was that she was lying to Him. I turned on her phone - our villa in Corsica is big, and everyone around us has a lot of freedom - and finally heard her make a deal with Barry Parson in Malaga.
  
  
  "Most interesting".
  
  
  "My next step was to send my own spy on Parson. I think, by the way, that you'll find Parson in the Interpol files as Daniel Tussauds, the late French underground. He was a ten-year-old child during the World War. Two, and grew up to spy and kill."
  
  
  "He's dead now."
  
  
  "I suspected as much." Corelli shrugged. "I heard about you leaving the disco with a friend of yours from Malaga."
  
  
  He smiled at her. "Not much escapes you."
  
  
  "That's enough," Corelli sighed. "Well, Elena Morales kept a close eye on Parson, letting em pick her up at the barre in Torremolinos. And it was she who warned me, they say that he came to Sol-i-Niev to find me and kill me. That's why he didn't meet you in Velet."
  
  
  "I reasoned that."
  
  
  Corelli nodded. He was done with his skis. "I was hoping that maybe Tina could be killed on Lysistratus' yacht if anything happened there, but as you know, she escaped serious injury. The Capos had planned the execution well, though. This meant that I had to keep an eye on the weather so that nothing would happen. Not only a Capo assassin, but also for Tina's assassin for hire! Mosquito. And the pastor. So I'm just stahl herr Hauptli, hiring a few unemployed actors in Valencia to play the role of my supposed sycophants."
  
  
  Hers was laughing. "You're a very resourceful man, Mr. Corelli."
  
  
  "I have lived a long life because of my resourcefulness in a very dangerous profession." He frowned. "Not a profession. It defiles the very meaning of the profession. In a very dangerous racket. That's a good word. Severe. Flat. Unromantic. Rocket".
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  "I've been watching you in awe for quite some time." Corelli smiled. "I knew right away that you killed a Mosquito. And I predicted you'd kill Parson, too. Tina's death came as a surprise to me. I don't think she committed suicide, as they say in the Prado Llano. But I think she must have lost control of that car after quite possibly discovering that Parson was dead and thinking I knew everything about her and would kill her."
  
  
  Her, said ," In this case, she decided to run away before you knew she was here."
  
  
  "Exactly."
  
  
  "She's dead. Vote and everything related to it."
  
  
  Corelli nodded. He tightened the ski clamps, adjusted his boots, and put the clamps on. He stood up and bent his knees.
  
  
  He started to get dressed.
  
  
  "Do you want to ride with me?"
  
  
  "Beautiful."
  
  
  He grinned. "Before that, Nick, she'd like you to have this."
  
  
  He looked down. He was holding out an envelope. There was a bulge on the nen. He opened the envelope and saw a familiar - looking roll of microfilm.
  
  
  "It's just what you think. The names. Places. Dates. Everything. All the way from Turkey via Sicily, and the Riviera to Mexico. You can't miss our stuff, our man, if you follow the facts. I want this chain destroyed, so it can't be put back together. Bella Beatrice ."
  
  
  Beatrice. Ego daughter. And isn't that Dante's image of femininity?
  
  
  "All right, Corelli," I said.
  
  
  He slapped me on the back. "Let's go!"
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  He started a slow traverse against the drop line, then crossed the slope and raced down to the turn on the run. Then he turned back into the beautifully designed Christie and walked around the pile of rocks.
  
  
  Microfilm put it in the inner pocket of his ski jacket and ran after it. The snow was just right. I could feel my skis biting into the powder with a nice bouncy bounce.
  
  
  Corelli was below me as he moved along the curve of the rocks. He completed several turns, entered Wedeln, and then turned onto a very wide traverse along a gentle corner of the track.
  
  
  I followed him down, taking a few turns and shaking off the curves of my body. At the end of the race, open on the traverse, she was seen by a third skier on an alternative route.
  
  
  The slopes were such that alternating sections intersected at certain intervals, something like two wires that were loosely twisted in certain places.
  
  
  It was a young man in a brown jacket. He looked like a teenager, or at least he had that wiry, slender build. Regardless of his age, he was an excellent skier. Ego skis dug into the snow, and he was a master of cornering and drifting.
  
  
  
  
  
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  own mileage.
  
  
  On a section of slope where two tracks converged, a young skier crashed into his side and slowly descended in a series of flat traverses. When he reached Corelli, he disappeared from view toward the rocky ridge that separated the two trails.
  
  
  "It's a beautiful room," I said.
  
  
  He nodded.
  
  
  "When you get to the States, I'll take you to Alta and Aspen. You'll love them!"
  
  
  He laughed. "I can see you about this!"
  
  
  "Good deal," I said. "Go ahead. I'll follow you to the next stop."
  
  
  He grinned and started walking.
  
  
  Hers came a few moments later, then his. My right ski was lagging a bit, and I tried to adjust my stance for a better bite.
  
  
  He followed a steeper drop, slowing down with a snowplow because the bridge between the two rock outcrops was too narrow for graceful maneuvering, and then came out into a wide clearing, surrounded by snow and ice, which now looked like a picnic area for any skier. Corelli saw her at the far end.
  
  
  He started down the stairs, following Corelli to the left, and that was when the boy saw her again.
  
  
  He had gone down faster than the two of us in the alternate run and was now approaching the intersection of the two tracks at the bottom of the wide, sloping field.
  
  
  He stopped for a moment, slamming into the snow at a hockey stop, and just stood there. The powder was good. The snow below seemed solid. But I didn't like the angle of the field of view. I mean, it was steep and almost flat, but there was a concave slope at the top that I didn't quite like.
  
  
  Still, Corelli had no trouble getting on with it, halfway through. He was driving to my left, right behind me, and while I was looking at him, he went into the storm and came back from the right to the left. Behind him, he saw a young man on a different race, approaching the ridge of rock that separated us in life from ego.
  
  
  I was just about to pull out when I caught a warning flash out of the corner of my eye. He looked up again, squinting against the bright sun. Did my eyes play tricks on me? No!
  
  
  The guy was holding something in his right hand, and with his left hand he was clutching both ski clubs. He was holding some kind of weapon-Yes! It was a handgun!
  
  
  Now the child stopped and crouched in the snow. He was behind the rocks now, and I couldn't see what he was doing, but I knew instinctively that he was aiming at Corelli, who was skiing with him, unaware that he was aiming at the scope.
  
  
  "Hauptli!" I screamed, using my ego as a cover, just in case I was being tricked by some optical illusion.
  
  
  He turned his head quickly, looking up the hill at me. He waved his hand at the young man. Corelli turned and couldn't see anything from his corner. He waved frantically at her in warning. Corelli knew something was wrong and reacted. He tried to change the running line, but lost his balance and fell due to a bad head-on fall. But he pulled himself together and slapped his thigh, then began to slide.
  
  
  He jumped on his skis and hit the poles, rushing down to the rocks where the teenager was sitting. He tucked both ski truncheons under her left arm and pulled out a luger.
  
  
  The tycoon appeared around out of nowhere. I looked at the rocks in the area of the guy's head, but I couldn't see anything. Magnate picked me up halfway between my knee and the ski clip and threw me face-first into the snow, completely ripping off one ski when the safety handles loosened, and continued on through the loose field. Her, slipped, and finally stopped abruptly. The other ski was lying next to me. I don't even remember how it came off.
  
  
  Corelli had scrambled out of the snow and now turned to look at the rocks.
  
  
  The first shot rang out. He missed. Now she could see the teenager coming out around the rocks and moving forward. The emu's luger aimed at her head and pulled the trigger. Too far to the right.
  
  
  He turned quickly and saw me. Ego cap dropped. Golden hair flowed around ego's throat.
  
  
  It was Tina Bergson!
  
  
  He was so stunned that he couldn't think.
  
  
  But then my brain repeats the whole story without prompting.
  
  
  Tina!
  
  
  It wasn't her body in the red Jaguar.
  
  
  It must be Elena Morales. I saw her, it's now. I saw Elena go into Parson's room and find Parson's body where we hadn't left it. And ee saw her in the room - Tina Bergson was already there! Tina came to Sol-i-Niev to find Parson and send ego to Corelli to kill ego. And she'd found Parson dead before Elena had even entered the room. So she rang the bell in the living room to bring Elena in. And Elena came, sent a message.
  
  
  Tina made Elena go out on the balcony and go down to the red Jaguar, because now she knew that Elena was Corelli's eyes and ears. She put her in a Jaguar and killed her. At the turn of the horseshoe, out of sight, she put Elena behind the wheel, drove the Jaguar in ski boots or something heavy, holding the gas pedal, and jumped away herself.
  
  
  And escaped in the dark, though her shell, right behind her.
  
  
  And now...
  
  
  Now she was here to kill Corelli and take over the drug network herself, just like she always did.
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ice hotel make!
  
  
  He saw Corelli get up again and stare at Tina. Tina shot me again. Abe answered with fire. Hers was too far away to do anything good.
  
  
  She looked at me, then at Corelli, and started walking through the snow toward Corelli. He was desperately trying to get out of the snow and down the slope. Like many men in extremely dangerous professions, he clearly disliked carrying a gun.
  
  
  She purposefully rushed towards him in her ski boots, holding her weapon high.
  
  
  The snow around magnate is very cold. He could see it crackling with tension at the top of the slope, which formed a rounded outline that sloped toward the bottom of the field.
  
  
  He pulled the Luger out into the snow and fired once, twice, three times. Gunfire echoed in the air. The snow scattered in all directions. There was a splitting crack, and the entire slab of snow and ice began to melt-splitting with the upper half of the magnate that had fallen to the ground.
  
  
  From the beginning, he was moving fast. Gorka!
  
  
  She had anticipated ego's approach, but she couldn't avoid it. She shot Corelli twice and then ran towards him, dodging the snow slide, but she caught it and carried it down. Her, saw her yellow hair disappear in this material.
  
  
  Then the snow accumulated and began to crumble on the spine stones, stopping with a clatter and crash.
  
  
  I gathered up my skis and walked slowly down to Corelli.
  
  
  He was lying on his back, bleeding profusely in the snow.
  
  
  Her, went up to him. Ego's face was white with pain, and his eyes were unfocused. He was in shock.
  
  
  "Break the chain!" he whispered to me.
  
  
  Her ego lifted her head in the snow. "I'll do it, Riko."
  
  
  It was the first time ego had ever called her by her first name.
  
  
  He leaned back with a small smile on his lips.
  
  
  Sixteen
  
  
  Her ego closed her eyelids.
  
  
  He helped the Civil Guard take care of Corelli's body, then skied away when several men with shovels started digging for Tina Bergson. The man with the fu-Manchu moustache took him aside and informed em of the sad end of Barry Parson.
  
  
  Under the shower, it was nice to release the tension and tension associated with this Spanish Connection case. I toweled her off in my room before getting dressed and knocking for Juana Rivera. It's time to tell you the last chapter of the story and start your journey to Malaga with it.
  
  
  He checked his Luger in the shoulder holster that hung over the headboard and reached for his robe. Since my feet were dry, I glued her with a stiletto and wrapped her shoulders in a cool terry cloth. The bathroom mirror was darkened, but I managed to brush my hair. I checked it again and found that the gray strands no longer appeared after I pulled it out ih a week before.
  
  
  I knew that in the future I would see ih more, not less.
  
  
  My bags were packed - I did that before I got in the shower-and hers, thought about putting on some clothes before I called Juana, and then thought, what the hell, walked over to the door and tapped it with my bare knuckles.
  
  
  "Come in," she heard her muffled voice say.
  
  
  "Are you ready?"
  
  
  There was no response.
  
  
  He opened the door and went in.
  
  
  The door closed behind me, and I turned in surprise to find Juana sitting in the chair across from me. She was completely naked, with a handkerchief tied around her mouth, and her hands were tied behind her back and tied to a chair. Her feet were tied to the legs of a chair. She looked at me with mute, pleading eyes.
  
  
  He reached for the doorknob.
  
  
  "No, no, Nick!" the voice said softly.
  
  
  The curtains on the windows flickered, and Tina Bergson stepped out from behind them, gun in hand. It seemed huge - for nah. It was a Parsons Webley Mark IV. She was wearing ski clothes - the same ones she had worn on the slope. It was wet and cold, but otherwise quite normal. Her eyes burned with the passion of madness.
  
  
  "Hi, Nick," she said with a cheery laugh.
  
  
  "Tina," I said.
  
  
  He didn't die in the avalanche you caused."
  
  
  "I see."
  
  
  He turned to look at Juana's naked body again. That's when I saw the cigarette burns on her bare chest. He shuddered. Tina Bergson had sadomasochistic tendencies, possibly lesbian tendencies that led to nymphomania.
  
  
  "You're sick, Tina," I said softly. "What's the good of hurting people like Juana?"
  
  
  Tina exploded. "Rico was a fool trying to break the drug chain! He had the best money-making scheme in the world - and he was just fucking getting rid of it!"
  
  
  "But this method killed my daughter's ego."
  
  
  Tina chuckled. "This daughter became a whore, just like all women - every man went to that stupid college she went to."
  
  
  "Only in your imagination, Tina," I said. "You need a psychiatrist."
  
  
  She threw back her head and laughed. "You're a Puritan, Nick! Do you know that?" A Puritan!"
  
  
  I thought of the shoulder holster hanging on the headboard in my room and cursed myself for being a stupid fool. I'm not going anywhere without it. All because of a silly sentimental
  
  
  
  
  
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  Her interest in Juana Rivera put her to death.
  
  
  "Give me the microfilm, Nick," Tina said, moving away from the curtains where she'd been waiting for me. "I saw you with Riko. You must have it. Give it to me, or I'll kill you."
  
  
  "No business, Tina," I said. "If I give you the tape, you kill the two of us and leave."
  
  
  "No," Tina said, her eyes shining. "I don't care what you do with that bitch. You can leave and fly back to the States, I don't care. I just need a microfilm and I'll let you go."
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "We don't care, baby."
  
  
  Her eyes were bright and blue, like ice-cold ice. He thought of the Scandinavian fjords and the ice crust. And I thought of that beautiful body under my ski clothes.
  
  
  Tina pointed a heavy British Webley at Juana. Her gaze was fixed on Nah with an almost sickening fascination. Juana's eyes rolled up in alarm. I've seen her tremble. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
  
  
  "You're a monster," I said calmly. "Can you hear me, Tina? You could have taken me on instead of tormenting Juana." What kind of inhuman creature are you?"
  
  
  Tina shrugged. "I'll kill her on the count of three if you don't bring me those movies, Nick."
  
  
  "I don't have a movie," I said quickly. Suddenly, I had a plan. Her hotel, so she'd think I was protesting too much.
  
  
  Her eyes narrowed. "I saw you with Riko. You must have gotten a movie from him. Em needed one private meeting with you. Vote and that's it. And he got the ego. He must have given his ego to you. Odin, Nick."
  
  
  Its sweating. "Tina, listen to me! He sent the microfilm in the mail. He went ego in Washington."
  
  
  "Rico wouldn't trust the mail," Tina snorted. "I know the ego better than that. Think of something better, Nick. Two."
  
  
  "Tina, it's true!" Her impulsively moved towards her. "Now lay the gun down and pull Juana around the chair!"
  
  
  Tina turned to me. A small heavy pistol was pointed at my chest. "This is Webley.455 Nick, " she said sharply, grimacing. "He's as powerful as Colt Frontier. Don't make me tear you to pieces. At such a short distance from your chest and heart, there will be nothing left. I'd have to go through your stuff to find the movie. And I like your big hard body too much to destroy the ego. Give it to me, Nick. The movie! "
  
  
  Juana was crying.
  
  
  It stirred a little.
  
  
  Tina shouted, then put the gun to Juana's head, just inches from her hair. "Give me that movie, Nick. Or she will die!"
  
  
  He stared at nah in despair.
  
  
  "I said one and two, Nick! Now it's the last moment to vote... " She sighed.
  
  
  "Wait!" Her crying. "It's in the other room!"
  
  
  "I don't believe that," Tina said with a small grin. “no. You carry it with you. Such a valuable item."
  
  
  My face dropped. "How can you be so sure?"
  
  
  She smiled. "I know! Vote and that's it. I know her!" She started toward me. "Give it to me!"
  
  
  He reached into the corner of his terry-cloth robe. "Tina..."
  
  
  "Slow!"
  
  
  It lifted its heavy muzzle and aimed it at my neck.
  
  
  Hers moved away. "It's in my pocket."
  
  
  She was looking at me, her eyes pinched shut, her mind working fast.
  
  
  "Then take off your robe and pass it to me. Slowly."
  
  
  He untied her belt, thinking furiously. There was no film in his pocket, of course...
  
  
  "Off!" she snapped.
  
  
  She was too far away to grab her robes, as he had hoped at first. Ego took it off his shoulder and lifted it off his body. He was standing there, naked and unprotected. If only she'd been closer, the robe would have shaken her off, snatched Webley's hands away, and ... ..
  
  
  "Throw it on the bed!"
  
  
  He sighed.
  
  
  She moved toward him, holding the gun to my chest and heart. With her left hand, she rummaged in one of her pockets. Empty. And then another. Empty.
  
  
  "Liar!" she screamed. "Where is it? Where is it?"
  
  
  I saw her eyes burn with a blue flame as she stared at me, her gaze moving up and down my body and down my legs. I moved her leg a little, wincing, trying not to let her see the sticky tape where it ran down the back of my ankle.
  
  
  Her gaze involuntarily shifted to her right leg. She saw my gaze disappear, and her eyes narrowed in thought. She looked more closely at my foot, then at my leg, and she saw a tiny piece of sticky tape running down the back of my ankle.
  
  
  "Vote it!" she snapped. "Attach to the ankle! Bring it, Nick. Bring it and..."
  
  
  "Tina, I swear to you!"
  
  
  "You want her to kill you and take that tape off yourself?"
  
  
  I knew she would.
  
  
  Feeling naked and vulnerable, I bent down and reached for my right ankle. When Ego put it on, the duct tape was loosened due to the moisture in the shower, and his hairpin was immediately removed.
  
  
  "Quick!" She called out to me, leaning over me and reaching out with her left hand to take it from me.
  
  
  He pulled out a stiletto and walked over to her, holding out his left hand as if she were holding a microfilm. Her eyes flickered to my clenched fist, and she reflexively reached out.
  
  
  He pushed it with his fist. She let her fingers touch the ego. Ee grabbed her wrist. V s
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  At one point, her right hand made contact with her body and stuck the stiletto in hey's neck, right under her ear.
  
  
  With a gurgling cry, she fired the Webley.
  
  
  Gawk punched through the hotel wall, making her way to the other side.
  
  
  My chest burned with the fire of exploding gunpowder.
  
  
  He stepped back.
  
  
  She fell, and arterial blood gushed out around her body's golden skin.
  
  
  What a waste.
  
  
  What a hell of a waste.
  
  
  Startled, he stood up, picked up her body, and carried her to the bed.
  
  
  One day, she opened her eyes.
  
  
  "Nick," she whispered, and smiled cheerfully. "I'll never live to be seventy-seven, will I?"
  
  
  "You've chosen the wrong profession," I said.
  
  
  She went limp.
  
  
  He wrote a letter to Juana, trying to comfort her by untying her from the chair, and then dragged her to the closet where she changed. Then I went to my room and climbed into mine.
  
  
  I went back. Hers was holding her Rolleiflex now, looking exactly how hers should have looked in my cover. Dear old Hawk.
  
  
  In fact, she was happy to get dressed. When you're dressed, it's always easier to talk about everyday things.
  
  
  "Where is this microfilm?" Juana asked me.
  
  
  It was picked up by Rolleiflex. "Here," I said. "A good cameraman always carries his film in his camera."
  
  
  She stuck out her tongue at me.
  
  
  I caught it on film. After all, he was one of the best photographers in the Midwest, wasn't he? And Juana didn't need to know that I had a microfilm in my pants pocket, like a pack of cigarettes or a keychain, did she?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Death Head Conspiracy
  
  
  
  
  The Death Head Conspiracy
  
  
  Prologue
  
  
  Mumura Island was like a tiny green gem in the deep blue velvet of the South Pacific. Tucked away in a corner of the Tuamotu Archipelago, Mumura was one of the few truly Polynesian islands that had not been influenced by missionaries and civilization. The people of Mumuran were still free in the full sense of the word. No one put tight shoes on their feet or covered the beautiful brown breasts of their women. In total ih about five hundred people, they were unaware of the paradise that was ih island because they didn't know anything else.
  
  
  Almost the entire population was now waiting on golden beach as the motorboat cut through the gentle breakers on the shore. In the bow of this foreign ship stood Atmatov, tall and straight, unafraid of the speed of the ship or the roar of the engine, as a leader should be.
  
  
  When the boat stopped a few yards from the shore, the men ran to their boss, but the women stayed on the beach, laughing excitedly among themselves and warning the children not to interfere.
  
  
  After walking around the boat, Atm took a large suitcase from the crew members and waded into the water, holding it high to keep it dry. The boat roared to life and sped back to the white yacht, which was already moving easily half a mile away.
  
  
  Atm strode down the beach, proudly carrying a suitcase in front of him. He laid the ego stone that ego's ancestors used as a sacrificial altar, but now he stahl stands.
  
  
  The Mumurans crowded around. The musical rhythm of ih tongue ross from excitement.
  
  
  Atm raised his hand for silence, and immediately the only sound that could be heard was the sigh of the evening breeze in his palms. The white-haired chief smiled softly at his men, and bent down to undo the locks of the suitcase as the emu showed the white men on the big boat.
  
  
  He ran his hand over the glossy brown material of the suitcase. He had never touched anything like this before, and ATM machines were fondling it with amazement. Then, seeing the impatience of his men, he grabbed the lid on both sides and lifted it.
  
  
  He brought out the treasures one by one, allowing people to enjoy each one around them. A piece of cloth that is incredibly flexible and dotted with colored spirals, unlike us, like a single flower in Polynesia. Necklaces strung with amazing stones reflected the sun's holy light and turned the ego into a rainbow. Small oblong packages with paper-wrapped strips that tasted sweet. Atm put one in his mouth and started chewing to demonstrate what the emu showed the white men. He distributed the rest of the cordon strips, saw that as many children as possible got ah. Miracles continued to radiate around the suitcase. There were things that bounced, things that glittered, things that made sounds. Each new treasure caused the crowd to murmur with joy..
  
  
  This day will surely be remembered on Mumura.
  
  
  On board the yacht, now pulling away from Mumura, two men stood at the railing, watching the island recede through binoculars. One was heavy, bear-like, with a tangle of black hair that needed washing. The other was taller and lean as a whip, with silver hair slicked back from a high, smooth forehead. Although the men were in civilian clothes, there was something military about ih's demeanor. Behind the taller man sat a huge German Shepherd and a muscular black Doberman, looking at the world with hatred.
  
  
  Fyodor Gorodin, the heavier one said. "Why don't we get this over with, Anton? We should be far enough away from the island by now. The ego's voice was a harsh growl that made the ego look more like a bear.
  
  
  The white-haired Anton Zhizov lowered his head and nodded slowly. Ego's tiny dark eyes were hidden by deep sockets under straight black brows. "Yes, I think the time has come."
  
  
  Zhizov turned to the third man, who was pacing restlessly on the deck behind them. "What do you say, Varnov? Are you ready?"
  
  
  Varnov was a thin man with narrow, stooped shoulders that made him look even smaller than he actually was. He had the pale, unhealthy skin of a man who rarely goes outside for medical purposes.
  
  
  "Yes, yes, it's ready," Varnov snapped. "I've been ready for the last twenty minutes."
  
  
  "Excessive haste can be very expensive," Zhizov said softly. It should look pretty now in the setting sun." He turned to the young math major in the sailor uniform. "Boris, tell the captain to hold us, I want to take a picture."
  
  
  The young man became alert. He started to move toward the bridge, but hesitated. "Sir?"
  
  
  "What is it, Boris?" asked Zhizov impatiently.
  
  
  "People on the island. Will they have time to evacuate? »
  
  
  "People? You mean those brown-skinned savages?
  
  
  "Y-yes, sir. They seemed harmless enough.
  
  
  Gorodin shot out from under the railing, the ego muscles of his huge shoulders clenching. "What are you whining about, boy? You were given an order! »
  
  
  Zhizov raised a manicured hand. "Boris is young, Fyodor. It retains a touch of humanism,
  
  
  
  
  which isn't always a bad thing."
  
  
  He turned to the young sailor. "If we want to achieve our goals, Boris, we need to sacrifice some lives. As you know, thanks to the changes that we cultivate, the conditions for all the peoples of the world will be greatly improved, so these simple natives helped their lives for the benefit of humanity. Do you understand, my boy?
  
  
  "Yes, sir," Boris said, though there was still doubt in his ego's eyes. He moved forward to the bridge.
  
  
  "I don't know why you're trying to explain it," growled Gorodin. "The order must be carried out immediately. Just like you and I were taught."
  
  
  "We must recognize that times are changing," Zhizov said. "When we are in power, we will need such bright young people as Boris. It would be unwise to push the ego away now ."
  
  
  The pitch of the engines changed, and the yacht slowed down. With a slight shift in balance, the two dogs growled, knocked off their feet by the unstable support. Zhizov snatched the thread ih of the double leash, looped over the handrail, and slapped both dogs in the face. They pressed themselves against the cabin bulkhead, black lips parting from strong white teeth in a silent growl.
  
  
  "I do not know why these dogs do not tear you apart, how you treat them," Gorodin said.
  
  
  Zhizov gave a short, barking laugh. "Fear is the only thing these animals understand. They would kill for me on command, because they knew I had the power to kill ih. You should learn more about psychology, Fyodor. With a young man like Boris, you need to be patient. Only cruelty works with these cute devils." He ran the leather cord over the dogs ' faces again. They didn't make a sound.
  
  
  "If you finish playing with your pets," Varnov said with strong sarcasm, " I'll continue the demonstration."
  
  
  "In every sense. Let's see if all the time and money we've invested in you will pay dividends ."
  
  
  Varnov reached inside and pulled out a black leather case. From these he picked up a thin metal cylinder, six inches long and pointed at one end. "It's an electronic stylus," he explained. "This is how I control the trigger, a complicated set of settings that only I know."
  
  
  "Do we need all this talk?" Gorodin complained. "Let's see what's going on."
  
  
  "Be patient, Fyodor," Zhizov said. "This is an important moment for Mr. Varnov. We had to let him enjoy it to the fullest. In the end, if the ego project fails, what's left of his life will be the most unpleasant." "He won't fail," Varnov said quickly. "You have to remember that this is one around my less destructive devices. However, it will be more than enough for an island the size of Mumura." Holding an electronic stylus in his hand, he began to unbutton his shirt. "The beauty of it is that even competent customs inspectors would never have found the bomb in that suitcase, because there's no bomb in there."
  
  
  "We all know that," Gorodin said impatiently. Varnov continued as if the ego was not being distracted. "There is no bomb among the trinkets, because the suitcase itself is a bomb. Soft, pliable, machinable in any shape, the ultimate extension of the plastic explosive principle is nuclear fissionable plastic. The detonating device is small and mounted on a metal latch. A voice and a trigger." Now that his chest was exposed, Varnov dug his fingertips into what appeared to be a healed vertical scar on the left side of his chest.
  
  
  Big Fyodor Gorodin started and turned away. "Oh, I can't wait to watch him do it," Varnov said with a short laugh. "You don't regret watching several hundred people die from a distance. And yet you hate to see a man open a flap of his own skin." Grabbing the edges of the scar with his fingertips, he gently pulled it out. With a sucking sound, the flesh separated from his chest, exposing his width, which contained a round metal object the size of a silver dollar. A hundred tiny contact points, no bigger than the head of a pin, covered the ego.
  
  
  Varnov lightly touched the edge of the disk with his stylus. "The access key, I call it ego For me the key to wealth and moved, for you the key to power."
  
  
  "And for those who stand in our way," Zhizov added, " the key to oblivion." "Absolutely, in fact," Varnov said. He began to touch the tip of the needle to several points on the trigger disk. "You don't need to remember the order of contacts," he told Zhizov. "It changes automatically after each completed signal. A man needs to cover up ."
  
  
  Gizov smiled thinly at emu. "I admire the thoroughness of your self-defense. It was nice to connect the password to the pacemaker."
  
  
  "Yes, I thought so," Varnov agreed. "If for any reason my stack dollar stops beating, the access key is programmed to signal the explosion of all existing nuclear plastic full name. Once we start a business and all the terms of our agreement are met, it will, of course, disable the password from your heartbeat ."
  
  
  "Of course"
  
  
  
  
  
  Zhizov said.
  
  
  Varnov finished manipulating the stylus and smoothed out the skin flap. "There. It's done."
  
  
  The three men stared at the island on the horizon. Gorodin slowly turned his massive head.
  
  
  "Nothing happened, Warnow,"he said," your bomb doesn't work."
  
  
  "Just keep watching," Varnov told emu. "There is an automatic delay of thirty seconds between entering the access key and putting the detonator in the boiler. This will give me time, if ever necessary, to signal withdrawal.
  
  
  "A wise precaution." Zhizov approved it. "But this time, such a delay will not be necessary."
  
  
  Varnov watched as the second hand completed a semicircle on the face of the ego wristwatch. He counted down the last second aloud. "Five, four, three, two, one."
  
  
  At first it was a second sun, rising like the other setting. Ego's yellow-orange fireball grew like a huge instant cancer as black smoke and white steam obscured Mumura Island. A shock wave of activity swept across the & nb towards the yacht, which could be seen like a ten-foot breaker speeding away from the crash site. Outdoor activities hit the stern, engulfing the ship and the egos of the passengers. At the same time, the sound hit ih. The prolonged rumbling roar like thunder increased a thousandfold.
  
  
  Anton Zhizov turned to his comrades with a thin-lipped, triumphant smile. "I think we've seen enough. Let's go inside and dry out while I tell the captain to move."
  
  
  The two dogs cowered, tumbling belly-first to the deck, their eyes widening in horror as a ball of fire, now a dull red, rose into the sky on a black smoke column. Zhizov yanked on the leash, fastening the choking collars tightly, and half-dragged the animals with him, heading for the cabin.
  
  
  From the yacht's distance, the cloud of smoke was a raging beauty. Mumura Island, now blackened and withered, was no longer beautiful. Only a gust of wind drew in to fill the void where the boiling flames had consumed the oxygen. Otherwise, there was silence. And death.
  
  
  Odin
  
  
  The nuclear explosion began to take its toll on my life two Sundays after the fiery death of Mumura and her men. It happened at the most intimate moment.
  
  
  Her name was Yolanda. Nah had straight, jet-black hair and creamy skin. She was met by ee earlier in the evening at a small flamenco club just off Broadway. She danced there, wearing a tight red velvet dress that showed off her beautiful breasts and tiny waist and flared around the dancer's long legs. She gave me a long, challenging look as she paused in her dance in front of my desk. It was an invitation and a challenge. It was a corkscrew look that I couldn't ignore.
  
  
  Now that she was sprawled out on my bed, Nah only had a proud smile on her face. She wanted to be admired for her naked body, and I didn't live up to my expectations for any reason.
  
  
  "Come on, Nick," she said, " get rid of your clothes now and come with me."
  
  
  He took off his shirt, grinned, and took another sip of his Remy Martin.
  
  
  Yolanda ran her eyes over my bare chest, and over my body. "Come on," she said imperiously, " I want you now."
  
  
  Her grin widened a little. "A funny thing was given to me. I don't respond well to orders in my own bedroom. We'll have to agree on who's in charge here."
  
  
  She sat up in the chair, her Spanish eyes sparkling, her carmine lips parted to say something. She quickly walked over to the bed and solved ee's research problems with her mouth. At first, she tensed and grabbed my bare shoulders, as if trying to push me away. He slid his hands down her velvety sides, kneading the supple flesh where the bulge of her chest began.
  
  
  She gasped under my mouth, and her tongue darted out, hesitantly at first, then with great impatience. Her hands moved to my back, and I felt the bite of her nails as her fingers slid over my body. Her inquisitive hands slid into the waistband of my trousers, searching, searching.
  
  
  Suddenly, she pulled her mouth away from mine. She was breathing heavily, and her skin glowed with the flush of desire. She found my belt buckle and undid it with slightly shaky hands. Her got up and finished nah's work, returning to lie naked next to her. He kissed her open mouth, thrusting his tongue through her sharp teeth. She took my ego in her mouth and sucked, moving her mouth back and forth on my tongue in a sensual promise of pleasure to come.
  
  
  Her mother gently pulled away, kissing her rounded chin, then moved to the hollow of her throat. Yolanda held her breath sharply as my tongue slid down the line between her breasts.
  
  
  Her raised her face above hers and she cupped her breasts with her long fingers, offering ih to me. Her nipples were vertical, wet roses against the dark brown halos. As her father leaned down to take the offering, an insistent squeak rang out in the small room next to my living room, which I use as my study.
  
  
  "Oh, Nick, please don't stop," Yolanda breathed as her mother hesitated.
  
  
  "Honey," I said, " there's only one thing in the world that can't make me leave you all at once.
  
  
  
  
  
  Curse it, and the sound you hear is it.
  
  
  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and strode across the bedroom to his office. On the table, the red telephone continued its shrill call. Apart from me, only one other person had this phone number - David Hawke, Director and Chief of Operations of AX, the US Special Intelligence Agency. The electronic scrambling signal prevented anyone from connecting to the line. I picked up the phone and spoke into the mouthpiece, leaving my voice inaudible in the room.
  
  
  "You have a talent for choosing the most inconvenient time to call," I said.
  
  
  Hawke's voice answered with the familiar dry New England sound. "The lady will have to wait, Nick, hema would she be to us. It's urgent ."
  
  
  "That's what I thought," I said, ignoring my ego's exact guess as to what he was doing.
  
  
  "There was a nuclear explosion in the Pacific Ocean. A small island called Mumura in the Tuamotu group ."
  
  
  "You mean someone started testing again?" I asked her.
  
  
  "It wasn't a test. The island was destroyed, along with several hundred Polynesians who lived there."
  
  
  "How long ago did this happen?"
  
  
  "Two Sundays."
  
  
  "I haven't heard anything about it."
  
  
  "I know. There is a complete shutdown of the current device. Of course, all the big countries know about this. We all have radiation detection systems that allow anyone to locate a nuclear explosion anywhere in the world. But none of the countries with nuclear capabilities admit that they know anything about it."
  
  
  "Is someone lying?"
  
  
  "It's hard to say for sure, but I don't think so. This morning, our government received a ransom demand from people who claimed to have blown up Mumuru."
  
  
  "You mean they're asking for money?"
  
  
  "Much more. What they are asking for is the unconditional surrender of all U.S. military forces and the transfer of our government to IHC."
  
  
  "Could the message be coming from a weirdo?"
  
  
  "We were sure it was genuine. They have facts about the Mumura explosion that only the perpetrators could have known."
  
  
  "They will definitely ask for a high price. What if we reject them? "
  
  
  "According to the report, these major cities will be blown up like Mumura. New York City will be the first, and after that, one around our cities will be destroyed every two Sundays until we surrender to ih demands or there's nothing left ." "Where do I fit her in?"
  
  
  "The president wants to make every effort to do this, but we can't afford a highly visible operation. We have the full support of the Joint Intelligence Committee, but the job itself falls to AX. And you're a man, Nick.
  
  
  "When do you want her to be in Washington?"
  
  
  "How soon can you do it?"
  
  
  For the first time, I saw Yolanda standing in the doorway, looking at me. She was still naked. One hand rested on the door frame, and her long legs were slightly apart. Her Spanish eyes lit up with desire.
  
  
  She said into the phone, " I can leave right away if you need me, but unless tomorrow morning?"
  
  
  Hawke's sigh rang clear on the wire. "Anyway, her, I don't think we can do anything tonight. Continue to entertain your lady, but try to save some energy. Her, I want you to be here and alert first thing in the morning. There is a time factor here, and the morning briefing will be crucial.
  
  
  "I'll be there," I said, and hung up.
  
  
  Yolanda's eyes slid over my body, lingering as they found the center of her interest.
  
  
  "Thank God," she said. "For a moment, I thought I'd lost your attention."
  
  
  "We'll have a chance," the sl assured her. Her quickly moved forward and picked her up. She was a big girl, broad-shouldered and tall, with broad, firm hips, and she wasn't used to being lifted into the air by a man. He took her into the bedroom and laid her down on the sheets.
  
  
  "Oh, Nick," she breathed, " please don't leave me like this again."
  
  
  "Not tonight," her father promised. Then hers, leaned forward, and continued the action from where we'd left off.
  
  
  The second chapter
  
  
  When I got out of the 747 at Dulles International Airport, I was met by a silent young man who pulled me into a waiting limousine. He maneuvered carefully through the morning traffic, and finally stopped in front of the nondescript Du Pont Center building.
  
  
  She knows a man who came out the day after he came in. He was the president's chief national security adviser. He wasn't smiling. The people in the lobby - the magazine salesman scanning the visitors, the security guard at the elevator-seemed quite ordinary if you didn't look them in the eye. Then you saw the hard, serious analysis that shows up in the eyes of government agents on duty. The AX headquarters was completely secure.
  
  
  I submitted my credentials three times, my face was scanned using a telecomputer, and my palm print was confirmed by an electronic sensor. Finally, the electronic and human watchdogs were convinced that I was indeed Nick Carter, an AX N3 agent rated as a Killmaster, and I was allowed to see David Hawke. He was sitting in his battered leather chair, chewing one of the long cigars he almost never lit.
  
  
  Ego's steely blue eyes betrayed no emotion as he nodded at the chair across from him.
  
  
  
  
  
  "I can't understand,"he said," how you keep looking so healthy, given the depraved life you lead between assignments."
  
  
  He grinned at the old man, who sat as straight as a ramrod, looking more like a man in his fifties than seventies. "The secret is always to think cleanly," emu told her.
  
  
  "Of course," he said. One side of rta's ego curved slightly, which was the closest thing to a smile he'd ever seen on his New England leather man. Then he became very serious. "Nick, we're in big trouble."
  
  
  "Well, it's similar. You said we received a message yesterday."
  
  
  "That's right. This man claims that he and his people are responsible for the Mumura bombing, and they are ready to destroy our cities one by one."
  
  
  "Who is the person?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Anton Zhizov. I assume you know the name."
  
  
  "Of course. The number two man in the Russian military command. I thought you said we didn't have one of the great powers involved."
  
  
  "The Soviets deny any responsibility for Zhizov. As you know, he was a leader of militant hardliners in the Kremlin. He is increasingly dissatisfied with the growing detente between our countries. Looks like he got out on his own. He took with him Red Army Colonel Gorodin and some naval officers who did not believe in peaceful coexistence. They also seem to have gotten away with stealing a large supply of Russian gold."
  
  
  "And Zhizov thinks that with a small amount of nuclear weapons, they can defeat the United States?"
  
  
  "According to our experts, he expects that as soon as he pushes us to negotiate or blows up several of our cities, the Soviet government will change its policy and support ego."
  
  
  "Do you think the Russians will do that?"
  
  
  "I don't even want to speculate," Hawke said. "Our main concern right now is to stop Zhizov. The President made it clear that there will be no surrender. If Zhizov is telling the truth - and we must assume that he is-ego bombs have already been planted in a number of American cities."
  
  
  "You said that New York is the first target. Zhizov gave us a deadline? "
  
  
  "Ten days. Hawke's eyes flicked to the open page of the desktop calendar. "We have nine days left."
  
  
  "Then the sooner I start it, the better. Do we have any leads? "
  
  
  "Just one. An agent in Los Angeles working with the Atomic Energy Commission saw the classified information about the Mumura explosion and Gizov's message and contacted us just a few hours ago. The agent says that Nah has valuable information and asks that a man be sent so that she can deliver it personally."
  
  
  "No," I interrupted, " you said she was?"
  
  
  Hawke bit down hard on his cigar and frowned, but he saw the twinkle in Ego's eyes. "I'm not sure how you get into these things, Nick, but the agent is a woman. Very attractive, according to the image in her file."
  
  
  He handed an eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph across the chair.
  
  
  The face that looked back at me had high cheekbones, large, wide-set pale eyes, and a mouth with a hint of humor, framed by thick blond hair that fell loosely over her shoulders. I turned the photo over to check the statistics of natural population movement. Rona Voelstedt, 26, 5-foot-7, Alenka 115 pounds.
  
  
  I handed it back to Hawke.
  
  
  He said ," If I'd been lucky like you, I'd have made a fortune at the racetrack and retired in two Sundays."
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "As I said before, I owe everything to her pure thoughts. Do you want to start it right away? "
  
  
  "You are booked at one o'clock in the afternoon. flight to the coast. Before you leave, take a look at the special effects. Stuart wants to show you some new toys.
  
  
  As usual, Stewart is fastidious and meticulous about showing me his latest designs, but since ego toys has saved my life more than once, I let emu introduce ih as he sees fit."
  
  
  "You'll see a small fire burning behind the glass partition," Stewart said by way of hello.
  
  
  "You did it this time, Stuart," I said. "You invented fire!"
  
  
  He ignored my comment and continued. "These round white pills I'm holding in my hand are an improvement on our usual smoke pellets. I'll demonstrate it ." He slid one hand through the mouth-like rubber seal on the bulkhead and tossed one of the pellets into the fire, quickly withdrawing his hand.
  
  
  There was a soft pop, and a blue haze filled the small, locked room.
  
  
  "Is this it?" I asked her, a little disappointed.
  
  
  "As you can see," Stewart said, as if he hadn't said anything, " the smoke seems very thin, barely colors the air, and obviously doesn't interfere with vision or action. However, it would be worth it if you sniffed a little.
  
  
  Turning his face away, Stewart opened the rubber lip of the seal with his thumbs. The smoke coming out was too thin for the ego to be seen, but I went ahead and took a minimal breath. Instantly, he coughed and sneezed. Tears of how many religions there are here my eyes, and the mucous membrane of the nose and trachea seemed to burn. After about fifteen seconds, after Stewart closed the lid, the symptoms disappeared, and she was able to get out of it.
  
  
  
  
  
  I could breathe and see again.
  
  
  "Strong stuff," I said, noticing that Stewart seemed a little smug about my discomfort.
  
  
  "The effect, as you can imagine, is temporary," he said, " but the smoke from a single pellet can immobilize everyone in a medium-sized room for three seconds. Now I want you to try it." He handed me what looked like a plain linen handkerchief.
  
  
  "Do you want her to blow her nose?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Super-fine mesh is woven into the fabric," he said. The corners will attach to your head to ensure the mask is protected from smoke exposure ."
  
  
  Her handkerchief was pulled down over her nose and mouth, and she pressed the two corners to the back of her head. They stuck together and held the mask in place. He opened the rubber pad on the glass partition, took a small experimental breath, and took a deep breath. The pungent smell was still present, but this time I didn't have any unpleasant effects. He closed the seal and removed the handkerchief-mask.
  
  
  "Good job, Stuart," he told her seriously.
  
  
  He tried not to look too pleased. "I have another small item that you might need." Around the crate, he took out a brown leather belt and held it out in front of me, like a proud father showing off his newborn baby.
  
  
  Taking the belt around Ego's hands, he said to her, " Stewart, you must have slipped. This is one of the most obvious fake buckles I've seen in years. This won't fool a professional agent for ten seconds. What's inside, the Captain Midnight decoder?
  
  
  "Why don't you open your ego and find out?"
  
  
  Something in Stewart's tone told me that he was ahead of me, but I examined the special buckle, and quickly found the tiny spring latch that didn't open the secret compartment. It was opened by ego, and there was a sharp message as the paper cover came off the buckle.
  
  
  Stewart said: "In the real model, there is a small explosive charge inside instead of the cap in the hall. Not powerful enough to destroy, but quite capable of killing or maiming the sharp-sighted enemy agent who took your ego away from you.
  
  
  Her took half a dozen smoke balls and a nose mask-mask and traded her own belt to Stewart's stunt model. I took it out around the small bag I'd brought with me, the tools of my trade - Wilhelmina's, my nine-millimeter. Luger and Hugo, my double-edged, razor-sharp stiletto. It's advertised by a Luger in an FBI-style belt holster, and a stiletto in a specially made suede leather scabbard, which he tied to his right forearm. With proper flexing of my forearm muscles, Hugo would fall hilt first into my hand. He put on his jacket again, picked up his bag, and headed outside to get a taxi to Dulles. Killmaster was back in action.
  
  
  The third chapter
  
  
  It was one of those rare days in Los Angeles when the wind shifted, picturing the city by the pool sprawled out like a living organism on concrete and asphalt, with huge highways open like a huge dissecting knife.
  
  
  It was a long taxi ride around Los Angeles to Rona Folstedt's address at the foot of a canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. I lit a cigarette while the driver told me exactly what he would do if he were driving the Dodgers.
  
  
  He dropped me off in front of a cozy cottage tucked away from the road among the pines. The silence of the canyon was broken by the sound of about a dozen motorcycles passing along the road. It seemed like a strange place to meet at a bike club, but you can't ignore the preferences of motorcyclists.
  
  
  He climbed the short stone staircase and trudged across the carpet around the pine needles to the front door. There was no bell, so I knocked on it.
  
  
  The girl who opened the door was at least better than the picture I'd seen of her in Hawk's office. Her skin was clear and white, with a slight blush on her cheekbones. Her eyes were now the dark blue of northern Freemasonry, and her soft blonde hair seemed to be illuminated by the moonlight.
  
  
  "His name is Carter," I said, " by AX."
  
  
  Her eyes stared at my face for a moment, then took hold of my shoulders and ran all over my body. "Come in," she said. "Her name is Rona Voelstedt."
  
  
  Her living room looked like an explosion in a record store. Bits and pieces of guitars were scattered without any apparent method, bottles of glue and shellac sat on the carpet, and a few surviving instruments were propped up against the walls.
  
  
  Rona has seen her take it all in. She said ," My hobby is designing and repairing guitars. I find it very relaxing ."
  
  
  "You should spend a lot of time alone working on them," I said.
  
  
  "I didn't realize how many ferrets there were until now."
  
  
  "Maybe we can make some changes to the way you spend your leisure time," I said. "But first, you were going to give us some information about the Mumura explosion."
  
  
  "I'm not sure I understand what you mean," she said doubtfully.
  
  
  It was a case of rheumatism. I didn't knowingly give her an identification mark. Her, knew that Hawk would instruct her, and her hotel would make sure that I was talking to the right woman.
  
  
  "Can you save a match?"
  
  
  
  
  
  I told her.
  
  
  "Sorry, I don't keep ih since I quit smoking."
  
  
  "I tried to quit smoking myself last year, but I only lasted two Sundays." I've always felt a little silly going through one of these procedures, but such small precautions can make the difference to distinguish a live spy from a dead spy.
  
  
  Rona Folstedt relaxed and sat down on the couch. She was wearing blue pants that kept her legs a secret, but her loose blouse gaped so much that it exposed firm, raised breasts that didn't need the support of the underwear industry. She was thin, but not gaunt. Her sel was beside her, breathing in the light floral fragrance, and she spoke.
  
  
  "As you've probably been told, it's called a nuclear power plant. Most of our secret work and investigations are done by the FBI, but we do some of the work ourselves. It was on one around them that her met Knox Varnov.
  
  
  "Five years ago, he held a very minor position in one of our energy projects. He started talking at cocktail parties, and apparently expressed some strange political views. I was instructed to get as close to him as I could lick to listen to him. It wasn't difficult. He really wants someone to listen to his ideas. He was referring to the process of making a nuclear explosive device from plastic, which could be given almost any shape. Ego asked her what the goal would be, and ego's eyes actually lit up. According to ego, innocent-looking objects can be made around this material, which can easily be smuggled to any country in the world and placed in ih cities. You can demand that the parties surrender or the cities are destroyed one by one."
  
  
  "Of course it looks like Mumura."
  
  
  "This is what I thought emu needed money to improve its process, a lot of money. He told the NPP officials about his scheme, and they practically kicked him out of the office. We focus mainly on the peaceful constellation of atomic energy today, and no one even wants to talk about weapons.
  
  
  "For estestvenno, Varnov was released from work on an errand. He was very offended. He swore that he would get even with the whole rotten country for not supporting ego. Soon after that, he disappeared from view, and we didn't try too hard to find the ego, because, frankly, you consider yourself an ego freak."
  
  
  "You did a good job on Varnov," I said. Then, to tease her a little, he added, " How close did you manage to get to him?"
  
  
  She lowered her lids and looked at me with her dark blue eyes. "Actually, hers has never come this close. Warnow was so engrossed in his plastic surgery process that he couldn't be interested... other things. He felt a little relieved. He had an electronic pacemaker that regulated his ego's heartbeat, and it would have been rather embarrassing if he had locked himself in during an intimate moment. Tell me, Nick, you don't use such artificial remedies, do you?
  
  
  "No," I chuckled. "I still ferret use all the original parts."
  
  
  "I'm glad to hear it. Do you want a cocktail?" »
  
  
  "That's a great idea," I said. "Then I'll call Hawke in Washington and tell him what you told me. If we're lucky, we'll be able to spend the evening alone.
  
  
  We walked together to the bright, compact kitchen at the back of the cottage. He said, " You have a pretty isolated place here."
  
  
  "Yes, I know him. I'm loving it. I've never been particularly attracted to crowds. This road outside the cul-de-sac ends a couple of miles up the hill at a private estate, so there aren't many cars here.
  
  
  "If it wasn't for the roar of motorbikes on the street, you might end up far out of town. Oni parts are here to walk? "No, this is the first time I've seen him. They seem to be waiting for something to happen. It's a little creepy, but they didn't come up to the house."
  
  
  Alarm bells rang loud and clear in my head.
  
  
  "Rona, that call you made to Hawke this morning - did you use the phone here?"
  
  
  "Yes, I did. Why -? " She gasped as understanding dawned. "Do you think my line is tapped?"
  
  
  "The safest bet is to assume that all lines are tapped until you prove otherwise. I don't like this biker gang. Do you have a car?" "
  
  
  "Yes, it's parked on the street leading up the hill."
  
  
  "Put a couple of things together and let's get out of here."
  
  
  "But where are we going?"
  
  
  "AX has a beach house in Malibu so agents can use ego when needed. You'll be much safer there." It wasn't Stahl who added, "If we pass mimmo crowds of motorcyclists," but that's what I was thinking.
  
  
  The fourth chapter
  
  
  We went out the back door and slipped through the bushes to the steep slope where Rona's car was parked.
  
  
  "You'd better let me drive," her father said. This may require some complex maneuvers ."
  
  
  She handed me the keys and quickly walked over to the passenger side. She got behind the wheel, noticing that the back seat was jammed with a large amount of ee guitar equipment-panels around rosewood, coils with steel and nylon strings, and griff pads around ebony.
  
  
  A group of motorcyclists hadn't noticed us yet, but they were loitering restlessly at the bottom of the road. I picked up the engine and heard screams behind us. She slammed the gearshift lever
  
  
  
  
  
  
  into a low one, and the car jumped uphill. We screeched along an S-curve, momentarily out of sight, but I could hear the ih cars roaring up the hill behind us.
  
  
  We immediately managed to get up to speed on the short climb, and he silently thanked Rona for having a car with some muscle under the hood. The motorcycles showed up in the rearview mirror, and she heard a pop that wasn't part of the ih exhaust. Gawk flew away from the back of the car, followed by another low-aimed one.
  
  
  He turned the car around another bend and pulled Wilhelmina out of her holster. He released the safety catch and handed the Luger to Rona. Its said: "I can't slow down to give you a good shot, but keep shooting and it'll give them something to think about."
  
  
  Rona was leaning out of the window and shooting at the bikers with her left hand. I was pleased to see that she knew how to handle a gun. Keeping the car on the road, I was too busy looking around to see if it had hit anything, but the change in engine pitch behind us suggested to me that it was at least slowing down the ih.
  
  
  When I caught my breath between us and the bikers, the pungent smell of gasoline told me they'd blown a hole in our tank. The fuel gauge needle was already swaying at point E, so I knew we weren't going much further. Her accelerator pedal hit the floor, and we took two more dangerous turns.
  
  
  The bikes were still rumbling down the road behind us, but I had a couple of turns between us when the engine coughed and I knew it was bad. In the last thirty seconds, she's come up with a desperate plan to get us out of there alive. Rhona had emptied the Luger ,and there was no time to reload. The bush on either side of the road was too thick for us to run any further. The pursuers were only seconds away from taking action, so my first attempt would be the only one we could get.
  
  
  He stopped abruptly in the middle of the road, grabbed a spool of steel guitar string from the backseat, and raced to a pole by the side of the road. He looped the wire around her-six, twisting the thread twice to secure it. Running up to the car, he threw the reel through the rear window, jumped in the front seat, and squeezed the last ounce of power around the car to get us up a slight incline and out of sight of a bunch of chapparal on the road. the other side of the road.
  
  
  Thunderbolt was just one turn down from us when he leaned over the seat and at the same time said to Rona, "Come out and sit behind the car."
  
  
  "But, Nick, they'll see us as soon as they get through the bushes here."
  
  
  "I think they'll have something to think about," I said. "Now do as I tell you."
  
  
  Following Rona's instructions, he grabbed a reel of guitar wire and pulled it on. He opened the door for her, wrapped the wire around the window frame, and rolled up the window to keep the ego in place. Then her, slammed the door. Motorbikes roared openly down the road as it fell next to Rhona, leaving a steel guitar string strung across the road about four feet high.
  
  
  The two leaders of the motorcycle group hit the wire almost simultaneously. It looked like they were nodding at each other, but in the next instant, both heads were frozen in midair, and the bikes burst out from under them. Helmeted heads hit the asphalt and bounced madly along the road like creepy soccer balls. The motorcycles, their handlebars still held in the hands of the headless riders, roared up the hill for a few yards before one swung to hit the other, sending ih both into a tangle of flesh and machinery.
  
  
  The rest of the bikers tried to stagger and slide on the slick asphalt. The result was a pile, a tangle of bent cars and broken wires. Rona grabbed her arm and we were off. We were lying face down behind some bushes when we could hear the survivors of the motorcycle gang starting up their bikes and disappearing into the distance.
  
  
  Rhona's thin body shuddered. "What do you think they were, Nick?"
  
  
  "They must be connected to the people who blew up Mumuru and are threatening New York. Your phone must have been tapped a long time ago. This morning, when you called Hawk, they knew you were onto something. They were waiting to see who AX would send, and then they planned to get rid of us.
  
  
  "Yes, but it's just an army. Who gives the orders? "
  
  
  "The leader was Anton Zhizov, a real battle hawk in the Red Army. It seems that one of the men with him was Fyodor Gorodin. Not as smart as Gizov, but just as dangerous. And if your guess is correct, there's a Vorn Knox.
  
  
  "So all you have to do is find ih and stop them from blowing up most of the United States."
  
  
  "That's all. But, my tailor, I've got eight whole days.
  
  
  Then, after a break, we returned to the road and walked to a clapboard-fronted store run by an apple-cheeked woman who always looked like everyone's mom. Rone bought it
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I got a beer and a handful of change for my phone.
  
  
  First, she called the contact person for the Joint Intelligence Committee in Los Angeles. Her told Emu about accumulating debt on the road and about Rona's car in the bushes. I called her to call a taxi, and Rona and I sat down to wait
  
  
  Chapter Five
  
  
  Malibu. A playground for movie stars, a weekend house for the rich, and the location of emergency neighborhood No. 12 AX. Some around them have been spotted across the country for use by AX agents in special under other circumstances. I felt that Rona and I met the requirements.
  
  
  Each AX agent had the same key that opened the door for any of them. They were located in all sorts of neighborhoods and buildings. The one in Malibu was insufficiently described by the term "Emergency Quarters". The modern building, surrounded by glass and mahogany, was protected from the access road to the Pacific Coast Highway by a seven-foot fence. Downstairs was a huge living room with a high ceiling and comfortable furniture arranged around a hanging fireplace. A ten-foot-high blackwood bar spanned the living room from a small, functional kitchen. A spiral staircase around the wrought iron led to a three-way landing where the bedrooms were located.
  
  
  Rona noticed a bathroom with a sunken Roman tub. "It would be just like a hotel to take a bath," she said. "Do you think there's anything here I can hide in later?"
  
  
  "Look through the bedrooms," I said. "These places are pretty well stocked."
  
  
  She went upstairs and rummaged through cupboards and drawers while the bar checked her out. Soon, she tripped and tripped again with a velour robe draped over her arm, and her hands were full of bottles and cans.
  
  
  "He's probably setting up his hideouts for all occasions, isn't he?"
  
  
  "They're not that wouldnt posh," her husband said. "I was in a couple where I had to fight rats in place for vaults."
  
  
  Rona stared at me for a long moment from the bottom of the stairs. "This is a web service that we won't have here."
  
  
  "At least one," I agreed. "What do you like to drink? Hello, I'll have a pair ready when you come out.
  
  
  "Whatever you want us to have," she said as she walked into the bathroom.
  
  
  The section of wall by the tub was made of pebbly glass and faced the bar outside. When the bathroom light was turned on, the glass was fairly translucent, and everything that was going on inside was clearly visible, at least in appearance, to anyone watching around the bar. I couldn't be sure if Rona knew about this voyeuristic effect or not, but from the grace of her movements I'd studied, I suspected she did.
  
  
  She handed the bottles and cans to the shelf, then took off her blouse. Even through the distorted glass around the pebbles, the pink color of her nipples was different from the whiter flesh of her breasts. She stepped out of her black blue pants and slid a strip of black bikini bottoms down her long, slender legs. She checked the water with one foot, took one last look at herself in the full-length mirror, and went down to the tub.
  
  
  He went to the phone at the far end of the bar to call Hawk. I immediately called her back on her personal number. Of course, there was a possibility that Malibu's phone was tapped, but given the speed of traffic, he couldn't stop worrying about it.
  
  
  Before I could tell you what you'd learned from the Rhone, Hawk opened the conversation.
  
  
  "I just got in touch with a very excited JIC representative, who said that you left the emu with a rather dirty cleaning job, which he should dispose of and explain to the local police."
  
  
  She was recognized for the accuracy of the report
  
  
  "Nick, I understand," Hawk continued, " that in the course of our work, some of the fixtures will definitely be left behind. Wouldn't it be too much if you made the necessary throws in a more careful manner in the future?.. say, shooting them to add up a dollar?"
  
  
  "I'll try to be more careful," I promised, " if circumstances permit."
  
  
  Good. Now, tell me, does Miss Volstedt have anything of value for us?"
  
  
  He suppressed a smile when he saw Rona get up in the tub and reach out with her bare hand for a towel. "Yes," I said,"I think so."
  
  
  Her told Hawke about Rona Knox's investigation of Varnov five years ago, and Ego's scheme to blackmail nations by threatening to blow up her cities one by one. Hawk was particularly interested when he told Emu about Varnov's idea of making a plastic nuclear explosive.
  
  
  He said: "This goes very well with the new development in this area. I don't want to discuss this over the phone, but she'd like you to fly back to Washington in the morning."
  
  
  "That's right. I'll be there tomorrow."
  
  
  Rona was already out, around the tub, drying herself with a towel. With casual sensuality, she moved the fluffy towel up and down the smooth inside of her thigh. When Houkou answered, I must have sounded a little disappointed that such a promising introduction had ended so soon. Hawk cleared his throat in his disapproving way. "You can take Miss Folstedt with you. My project will work for the two of you."
  
  
  "We'll be there," he said with great enthusiasm.
  
  
  I hung up and made a couple of martinis.
  
  
  
  
  
  a refrigerator for alcoholic beverages under the bar. As she was being tossed a slice of lemon into each glass, Rona came out around the bathroom. She was wearing a short velour robe tied with a belt. It was enough to reach the crease where the thigh meets the buttock.
  
  
  "I'm afraid this robe isn't for a tall girl," she said.
  
  
  "I wouldn't say that," her father said. Rona's legs, as they were now, didn't look even a little thin. Instead, they looked rounded, smooth, and pliable. Hey Martini handed it to me.
  
  
  "Thank you," she said. "Have you called Washington?"
  
  
  Hawk wants us to fly there tomorrow. He said he had a job for both of us. Are you all right?"
  
  
  "Why not? It should be better than hanging around here with motorcyclists and the tailor knows who else is shooting at me.
  
  
  Rona took a swig around her drink, then set the glass down on the counter and started to shudder violently, as if she'd been fanned by a gust of cold air sampling.
  
  
  He took a step toward her. "Ron, what's wrong?"
  
  
  She took a deep breath. - I think this is a belated reaction to all the excitement today, not when. I don't think she's as cool and collected as I thought."
  
  
  Her husband came in and hugged her. Her body, which looked so slender and capable in the clothes, melted into me with a warm flexibility that was amazing. Her breasts pressed against my chest, gently moving with her breath.
  
  
  "I'm so fucking scared, Nick," she said, " for you, for me, and for everyone else in the world. How will it end? »
  
  
  "Bad," I said. "But not for us. Now just relax and let me worry."
  
  
  He massaged the smooth muscles of her back through the velour robe.
  
  
  She tilted her head to meet my eyes. "I hope you're right, Nick," she said.
  
  
  He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. Nah smelled of soap around the tub, with a faint floral scent on her hair. Nah's lips were cool and pliable, and they tasted like mint.
  
  
  My hands slid up and found the open hem of her robe, then slid down to the warm, towering mounds of her breasts. With a small cry of desire, she pulled away from me. Just enough time to loosen the belt and slide the robe back over her shoulders, allowing the emu to fall to the floor.
  
  
  Slowly, deliberately, she ran my hands through her nakedness, pressed against her breasts for a moment, then let my nipples rise again as she ran her hands over her body and flat stomach with ego-soft, suede-like skin.
  
  
  Her eyes were enchanted as she tilted her head to look, she made my fingers in her silky pillow towards her warm center, and her hungry eyes lifted to meet mine.
  
  
  When her husband stepped back and hurriedly removed his clothes, she studied me with genuine interest and admiration, never turning away, even when I was completely naked. Then she just opened her arms to greet me.
  
  
  I glanced at the bedroom landing, but she shook her head - as if to say that her need was too urgent to delay - that the place was here, the time had come. We stretched out on the thick blue carpet, and she stroked her body. At first, her moans were as soft as a sigh of wind, but they soon turned into frantic cries of demand as she rolled over and pulled me on top of her.
  
  
  When hers entered nah, she arched her slender fair body to meet me. Then there was the twisting, twisting rhythm of her agonizing desire, building together on the crest wave of climax, followed by a long, rapid descent to the empty shore of sweet exhaustion.
  
  
  Chapter Six
  
  
  The next morning, Rona went to work and prepared a rich breakfast. The late-night exercise gave us both a big appetite, and we enthusiastically put down edu. As the coffee in our cups cooled, everything else started to heat up. However, it was a working day, and around what she knows about Ron the night before, a place to rest, then breakfast can keep us busy until late at night.
  
  
  Instead, hers, I got in the tub and took a cold shower.
  
  
  We went all over Los Angeles. International on the nine o'clock flight, and at Dulles we were met in the AX limousine by another of Hawk's taciturn and efficient chauffeurs.
  
  
  We went through the ritual, security, and soon a game like this on the chair opposite David Hawke. The AX lead man ran his eyes over Rona Voelstedt and turned to me with an unspoken question in his eyes. He shrugged and smiled at him as innocently as he could.
  
  
  Hawk cleared his throat sharply and got down to business. "At the time you called me yesterday, Nick, we were holding a sailor named Juan Escobar off the Caribbean cruise ship Gaviota. Ego was detained in Fort Lauderdale after acting suspiciously while passing through customs. No contraband was found on us at nen, in our ego suitcase, but since all our people were on double alert these days, the Florida authorities called our office. Escobar was brought in for questioning, but we didn't get anything out of him. Then, when you gave Miss Voelstedt the information about Knox Varnow and Ego's nuclear-plastic explosives, we took a closer look at the suitcase he brought. Of course, our laboratories have shown that this is a fissionable material.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  On the latch, we found a microelectronic detonator that could be activated by a long-range radio signal. And, interestingly, the handle was engraved with a small skull - a tiny death target.
  
  
  "Did you learn anything else than a sailor?" I asked her.
  
  
  "A little. I'll let her do the math and tell you myself.
  
  
  Hawk pressed a button on his intercom and said, " Send Escobar." A minute later, a pair of grim-faced government officials entered, and a sullen, pockmarked man stood between them. The government officials left, and Hawke motioned Escobar to a chair.
  
  
  He walked over and stood in front of the man. "Let's hear your story," I said.
  
  
  Escobar shifted uncomfortably. "I've already said it twenty times."
  
  
  "Say it again," I said. "Me."
  
  
  He looked at my face and started to speak without hesitation. "Big guy, he gave me a suitcase and five hundred dollars. He said to take a break for a couple of weeks. Then, when I catch up with her ship, he gives me another five. All I do is put my suitcase in a locker in Cleveland and leave my ego there. That's all I know. Hers, I swear."
  
  
  "Who is such a big man?" He asked her.
  
  
  "I do not know his name. Sometimes it comes on board in one port, sometimes in another. All I know is that he has new owners, and when he gives an order, everyone obeys."
  
  
  "New owners, you said?"
  
  
  “yeah. Five or six months ago, they bought Gaviota. Most of the old oni team is being laid off, and some of the people around us are being left behind. I work for anyone. You see, it's a job. The new guys they hired for the team, not around South America like the rest of us. They talk funny and stay away from us."
  
  
  "Tell me more about the big man."
  
  
  "He's the boss, that's all I know. He looks rough and speaks in a low voice. Big shoulders, like a bull's."
  
  
  He glanced at Hawk.
  
  
  "This description fits Fyodor Gorodin," he said.
  
  
  He said to Escobar, " Does anyone else give orders?"
  
  
  "I only see one person twice. Thin, sinister, gray hair. He's the only one she's ever seen giving orders to the big guy.
  
  
  He turned back to Hawk. "Zhizov?"
  
  
  He nodded.
  
  
  He shoved his hands in his pockets and slowly walked over to the far moan. Then hers, he came back and stood in front of the sailor again. She stared into Emu's eyes until he looked away.
  
  
  "Juan," emu told her, " you've probably heard that the United States treats criminals fairly and that you don't have to be afraid of being mistreated. But this is a different situation, Juan. No time for patience. If you are lying to us, I will personally make sure that even if you are alive, you are useless to the senorita. Do you understand me, Juan?"
  
  
  "Yes, senor!" he snapped. His bulging eyes told me he knew I wasn't joking. "On behalf of my mother, I'm telling the truth! There were six other people whom they also helped with suitcases. Kuda oni ihk, I didn't hear it. My business was in Cleveland. That's all I know, senor, believe me.
  
  
  I made it. I nodded to Hawke, and he took Escobar.
  
  
  "I assume you've checked out the ship and these new owners," I said when the three of us were alone again.
  
  
  Gaviota is the Venezuelan version of their future spelling literacy. The former owners were paid a huge sum in cash from a man who said he represented Halcyon Cruises. This, of course, is a fake.
  
  
  Rona spoke up. "Could you take over the ship and interrogate the crew? Find out where the bombs came from? »
  
  
  "We could," Hawke admitted. "But we couldn't be sure that Gorodin would be on board, and it seems that there are almost no Surprises. Even if we knew where the bombs were made and where the trigger device was stored, word of the ship's capture would have reached ih before we did. And then they can detonate bombs already planted in God knows what cities. No, this exercise needs to be low-key, voice why she wants you and Nick here.
  
  
  "I was wondering when you would come before that," I said. "No offense, Ron, but I'm used to working alone."
  
  
  "Not this time," Hawke said. "Our first step is to put someone on board a cruise ship. And a single man will attract too much attention."
  
  
  "Why not?" I asked her.
  
  
  "It just so happens that the Gaviota specializes in ..." - here the old man finds it necessary to clear his throat again - " ... honeymoon cruises."
  
  
  Rhona Voelstedt started to smile, but quickly sobered up when Hawk gave her one of those hard New England looks.
  
  
  He said: "I have arranged with the Atomic Energy Commission for Ms. Voelstedt to be assigned to the United States for the duration of this emergency. I don't think that if I asked you to play the role of the newlyweds, you would expand your acting talents too much.
  
  
  "I think we can handle it," I said, unperturbed.
  
  
  "While he's on duty," Rhona added, winking at me when Hawke wasn't looking.
  
  
  "I knew I could count on your cooperation," Hawke said dryly. "You will join the cruise tomorrow in Antigua. The Gaviota will call at several Caribbean ports, sail through the Panama Canal, and head up the west coast of Mexico with a stop in Los Angeles. But if you haven't located the operational base and disabled it by the time the ship arrives in Panama, then
  
  
  
  
  
  
  it will be too late. Because in eight days it is planned to detonate a bomb in New York."
  
  
  "A short honeymoon," he commented.
  
  
  Hawke continued as if he hadn't said anything. Excursion locality of Russia-find out where to put the suitcase bombs on the ship, and return to the source. There you should find Anton Zhizov and, most likely, Knox Varnov. Then you're on your own. I will give you all possible support for this purpose, but any large-scale operation is impossible."
  
  
  Rhona and I left through the old man's office and took the same flight down to the Document Management Center. They provided us with all the documents and photographs we would need to pass ourselves off as Mr and Mrs Nicholas Hunter.
  
  
  When we left AX headquarters, Rona was playing, acting like a bride-to-be to the world.
  
  
  "Don't you think, "she said shyly,"that since our 'marriage' doesn't officially start until tomorrow, we should stay in two separate rooms today?"
  
  
  "Good idea," I said as I hailed a taxi. "I have to go out quite late today, and I wouldn't want to wake you up when you come in."
  
  
  "Really, too?" "What is it?" she asked with heavy sarcasm. "What's her name?"
  
  
  "Come on, honey, you wouldn't regret me enjoying last night's bachelor party."
  
  
  We were playing this game of packing, and Rona moved as far away from me as the seat would allow. She sat with her hands clasped and her knees pressed together, frowning out the window.
  
  
  He let her sulk for half a dozen blocks, then relented. "If it makes you feel better, I'll be at AX headquarters tonight and keep an eye out."
  
  
  She turned and looked at me with her Nordic blue eyes. "In the dell itself?" "What is it?" she asked in a little girl's voice.
  
  
  "Right," I said. "I don't mind mixing business and entertainment when one doesn't interfere with the other. But today everything should be on business. I want to share everything we have about Anton Zhizov, Fyodor Gorodin and Knox Varnov."
  
  
  Rona reaches out and puts her hand lightly on my shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Nick. She wasn't supposed to be childish.
  
  
  Her, Hey chuckled. "There would be no other way."
  
  
  Then she slid in beside me, and he leaned down to give her a soft kiss.
  
  
  Chapter Seven
  
  
  The next morning, a couple of hours before the Gaviota's arrival, a chartered plane pulled us out of Antigua. St. John's, the capital of a small island, is still very British in the central parts of the city. But once you get to your native neighborhoods, you start to hear the soft musical language of calypso and see colorful costumes that people wear not to impress tourists, but because they like the colors.
  
  
  The travel agent at the Queen's Hotel was in no hurry to sell us tickets for the Gaviota cruise.
  
  
  "You've already missed the first part of the flight,"he said," and I'll still have to charge you the full price."
  
  
  "What do you think, dear?" she asked, as if after performing a precision geometry detail.
  
  
  Ron ran his tongue sensuously over his lips. I'm sure we can make do with everything that's left of the flight.
  
  
  He winked at the travel agent. "You'll see how it works."
  
  
  With some reluctance, he wrote out a couple of tickets for Mr. and Mrs. Hunter. Somewhat less reluctantly, he took my money.
  
  
  Rona and I walked around for a while, looking at the windows and holding hands, playing newlyweds in case anyone looked at us. In fact, it wasn't difficult at all.
  
  
  After a while, we went down to the docks to watch the Gaviota enter. It was smooth and white, with a quick-looking silhouette, maybe less than five hundred feet long. As she made her way to the deepwater dock, the happy honeymoon passengers were noticeably absent.
  
  
  An isolated couple here and there looked over the railing with a smile, but the ship seemed to be sailing with far fewer passengers than its capacity. Obviously, the new owners didn't promote their product very much, which was understandable given the other businesses they had.
  
  
  I watched several passengers and crew members leave the ship, and at the minimum periodic loading, but I didn't see anything suspicious or familiar faces. According to Juan Escobar, most of the team looked more Slavic than Latin.
  
  
  Rona and I played this game and found the bursar. Quite unenthusiastically, he showed us our cabin, an outer room one deck below the Boardwalk. It was sparsely furnished: a chair, a sofa, a small chair, a commodus, and two single beds. The latter seemed unusual for a newlywed cruise, but Rona and I soon discovered that they could easily rollerblade together. The fluorescent lamp over the dresser mirror gave off a rather chilly glow. She opened the curtains and let in the warm Caribbean sunshine of Brylev.
  
  
  Rona came to stand next to me. She said,
  
  
  "Well, what would you like to do now, dear hubby?"
  
  
  "I don't need to tell you what I want to do. However, first we will take a walk around the ship. Remember, you do it with pleasure?
  
  
  "Oh, good," she said. "But if this honeymoon doesn't revive very soon, I can go home to my mom."
  
  
  Her hit her pretty rounded ass and pushed her out
  
  
  
  
  
  
  on deck. We spent a couple of hours walking around the decks, looking at the bars, gym, dining room, theater, card room, and gift shop. The lack of other passengers was terrible. The honeymoon couples we met seemed too involved with another friend to notice if anyone else was sailing with them or not. The few crew members we met were very busy with their tasks and seemed to feel invisible to us.
  
  
  We spent the rest of the day sitting in the observation lounge, sipping a couple of fruit drinks with rum, surreptitiously watching who boarded, and assessing the ih of luggage.
  
  
  At dusk, no one remotely resembling Fyodor Gorodin or Anton Zhizov came on board, and no strange suitcases appeared in the hands of returning passengers or crew members. Meanwhile, the sweet rum drink sloshed uncomfortably in my stomach.
  
  
  As darkness rolled in from the Atlantic Ocean, the Gaviota gave a couple of horns to summon stray passengers on board, and we prepared to set sail. A local steel drum band serenaded us as the ship pulled away from the dock.
  
  
  We had dinner in the almost abandoned dining room, then walked around the deck and returned to our cabin. Outside the door, Rona turned to look at me, and ee hugged her and kissed her. It all started with a simple friendly kiss and then dinner. But then I felt the tip of her tongue brush my lips lightly, almost shyly, and I had a hunch that "honeymoon" wasn't going to be a charade. I had more than a premonition when her sweet little hand slipped under the elastic of my trousers and playfully reached down, waiting for the gentle caress that promised a long night of erotic acrobatics.
  
  
  She stepped back and, moving with the sensuality of all women but used effectively by only a few, stripped off her clothes. She did it slowly, from the first button of her blouse to the last squeeze of her hips, which caused her panties to slide to the floor, exposing her tanned, velvety skin. Two narrow white strips of cordon outlined the outline of the bikini she wore while taking a sun bath. White borders framed a fluffy-soft triangle that was only a shade darker than her fair head.
  
  
  During our frantic lovemaking at the Malibu house, I didn't have a real chance to appreciate Ronas ' incredible body. The lean greyhound she seemed to possess in her clothes was deceiving. Although there was not an extra gram anywhere on it, but there were no sharp corners either.
  
  
  She posed in front of me, enjoying my admiration. "Don't you think I'm too thin?" she said, her face not showing the slightest doubt.
  
  
  He stroked her chin and tried to take a critical look, " Well, now that you mention it..."
  
  
  She touched my lips lightly with her fingers. "I understand the message. It's time I quit fishing for compliments."
  
  
  Ee put his arm around her waist and pulled her close, kissing the soft bump of her life.
  
  
  Rona snuggled up to me, making whimpering sounds of pleasure as he explored her life with his tongue in a slow circle, constantly descending.
  
  
  I let go of it and it fell on top of me, wildly wanting in my mouth. He picked her up and carried her to the bed. There I lowered her gently to the satin coverlet.
  
  
  Rona bit her lower lip between her teeth and watched hungrily as he slid out of the clothes.
  
  
  It's true that we weren't the carefree newlyweds we pretended to be. But I doubt that any legitimate newlywed couple has ever had a more fulfilling wedding night than we did. Before we finally fell asleep, the first gray rays of dawn lit up the eastern horizon.
  
  
  8
  
  
  By the time the Gaviota entered Martinique, we were up, dressed, and having a good breakfast. Rhone Hotel, visit the colorful boutiques on the waterfront of Fort de France, but I said hey, I should stay where I can watch who and what gets on board. I sent her away alone, but she came back less than an hour later, saying that here, not fun.
  
  
  As it turned out, he could go with her, despite the fact that she liked to look at him. We spent four hours in Martinique, during which time several newlyweds went ashore and returned with shaggy straw hats and other junk around the souvenir shops. The crew mostly stayed on board. There were no suspicious suitcases. No heavy, bearish Russians. No skinny Russians with gray hair.
  
  
  Last night, Rona and I walked around the playground again. Activity aboard the Gaviota was, as usual, minimal. We retired early to our own cabin, where the action was considerably accelerated.
  
  
  Our next stop was La Guaira, the seaport of Caracas. Since Gaviota was registered in Venezuela, I was hoping that something might happen in that country's glitzy capital.
  
  
  He was disappointed again.
  
  
  That night, I began to worry about our mission, even though I didn't admit my doubts to Rona. After all, we didn't have any good reason to believe that Gizov and Ego teams hadn't previously set up all the suitcase bombs for the fateful hour.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Or the cities of the Americas may already be booby-trapped and ready to explode in a nuclear cloud as soon as the button is pressed in some unknown location. If Juan Escobar was telling the truth, at least six full names were sent with Gaviota crew members. As far as we knew, there may be other ways of ih distribution.
  
  
  And five days later, the first bomb in New York was going to go off. Given the uncertain mood of the American public these days, the destruction of our largest city may be all it takes to start noisy negotiations. Of course, there are no negotiations with people like Anton Zhizov.
  
  
  We had only two choices - surrender or fight. Most likely, then in a small democratic debate, the government decided to fight. But that would have been ridiculous, since there was no visible enemy. Hidden bombs that are triggered by radio signals around an unknown location do not represent a visible target. When the beginnings of the second and third cities explode, people's will to fight may disappear. Even if that didn't happen, the destruction of the country's major cities would have robbed people of the strength to resist.
  
  
  So Gaviota was our only game. The vigilant customs officer who had apprehended Juan Escobar presented us with a tiny gap in the enemy's armor. My job was to get through that gap and deliver the killing blow before he could strike.
  
  
  Five more days.
  
  
  Our lovemaking that night lacked the same spontaneity, at least on my part. Of course, Rona sensed that something was wrong.
  
  
  "What's up, Nick? Are you worried about the mission? "
  
  
  "We should have already taken some action," I said. "Tomorrow we go to Curacao, and if nothing develops there, we have problems."
  
  
  "Would you rather her move to her side of the bed and let you sleep?" "What is it?" she asked seriously.
  
  
  Ee grabbed her and held her naked body to him. "Honey, if we only have five days before the world starts exploding, she should spend as little time as possible sleeping around them."
  
  
  With a slight purr of pleasure from Ron, she wrapped her legs around mine. And for a while, I didn't think about nuclear bombs in the form of suitcases, he didn't think about dead heads.
  
  
  In Curacao, Fyodor Gorodin appeared on board the Gaviota. He was so glad to see the scowling, broad-shouldered Russian that he could have kissed him. Curacao is an international freeport with some of the best shopping in the Caribbean. Most of the passengers had left the ship in the morning in search of bargain shopping, and when they got home, they found a burly Gorodin among them, trying in vain to look like a typical cruise passenger in a Palm suit, whatever it was. . Ego spotted her immediately and kept Ego in sight while he pretended to wander around the deck before sneaking into the officers ' quarters.
  
  
  I was a little disappointed that he didn't bring one of the bomb suitcases with him on board. But since Curacao is the historical headquarters of the smugglers, I had a suspicion that the time had come. If a single full name po appeared, I could try to track it down, which would greatly simplify my work. But if not, I can always pin down Gorodin.
  
  
  After finding out which cabin the big man was staying in, he joined Rona in the barre in the observation room.
  
  
  "Gorodin's on board," her voice said.
  
  
  Her blue eyes widened with excitement. "Oh, Nick, that means you can track the bombs through it."
  
  
  "It's either a punch to my skull. Because so far ferret it's been a failure ."
  
  
  A brief hurt look caught her eye and he took her hand. "Don't get me wrong. In a way, it was the best three days of my life. But work comes first, and it's no exaggeration to say that the whole damn world is on my shoulders."
  
  
  "I know, dear," she said. "I didn't mean to be selfish."
  
  
  "When this is over, we can take a little vacation," I said. "It would have been nice to get into bed if we hadn't been joined by Zhizov, Gorodin, and Knox Vamov."
  
  
  Ron looked at Nah in surprise. "I have to hope so!" Then she smiled at me and everything was fine again.
  
  
  "What do you plan to do?" she asked.
  
  
  "Pray that one of the suitcases with bombs will be brought on board so that it can move in. Otherwise, I'll have to go to Gorodinym. Quickly and accurately. Because somewhere Zhizov and Varnov are waiting with a button that can easily blow up most of the United States. If I'm careless, someone can send them a message so they don't have to wait for the deadline."
  
  
  "What can I do, Nick?"
  
  
  "Stay out of the way," he snapped, then relented. "Rona, things can get crazy and deadly from now on. They are trained to do this, but you are not. I want you to go back to our cabin and lock yourself in. Don't open the door until I give you the signal.
  
  
  "All right," she pouted.
  
  
  Ron sent her on her way. She was good company. And useful. But not at this stage of the operation.
  
  
  He returned to the deck to get a better view of the ship. At nightfall, we prepared to leave, and not a single suitcase was brought on board. We drove out of Willemstad Harbor
  
  
  
  
  
  
  After passing the swinging pontoon bridge, they named it Queen Emma, and I decided that I would have to confront Mr. Gorodin. Then I heard it start.
  
  
  It was a fast boat with a twin outboard engine and no lights. As he pulled himself up, someone threw a rope over him. The squat, bald man on the boat seemed to be giving orders. The ego people lifted a dark rectangular object onto the deck. It was a suitcase, and he figured it was just like Juan Escobar's.
  
  
  As the sling began to rise, he moved aft along the rail to see who was lifting. It was my other Fedor Gorodin, still wearing an ice cream suit, and he was directing a couple of non-Latin members of the ih group. Reaching into the ponytail of Wilhelmina's shirt, he pulled it around the holster on his belt. Clutching the familiar Luger ,he took a step toward Gorodin and his friends.
  
  
  One step was all I managed. Something hit the back of my head, and the deck rocked and hit me with a giant fist. There was an immediate burst of sound in my head that seemed to dissipate back through my skull as everything went quiet and black.
  
  
  Chapter Nine
  
  
  Oddly enough, at first hers, I only realized that my nose was itching. He tried to reach out and scratch his ego, but his hands wouldn't move. Her eyes opened. Then I realized my head. It hurt like a single big tooth when a nerve was caught in a blast of cold air sampling. Her eyes closed again and slowly opened ih. The pain didn't go away, but my surroundings came into focus.
  
  
  He was lying on his back on a narrow bunk in a small inner cabin. I saw that my feet were bound with several coils of masking tape. My hands were crossed at the wrists behind my back; they were also glued together. Rona Vohlstedt was sitting on the bunk across from me, wearing a bright striped blouse and slacks. Her hands and feet were also taped shut.
  
  
  "Glad to see you're back with us, Mr. Carter," a heavy voice growled from somewhere around the front of the cabin. With an effort, he turned his head in the direction of the voice. Fyodor Gorodin was sprawled out in a vinyl armchair facing two bunks. "I don't think it makes sense to call you Mr. Hunter," he continued. "This masquerade ended almost as soon as it started."
  
  
  In front of the cabin door, a young man with neatly combed brown hair sat on a folding metal chair next to a card table. She knows the Luger he was holding, pointing at me-Wilhelmina. He shifted his hands a fraction of an inch, and was annoyed at the lack of pressure where there should have been pressure. There was no stiletto. I saw it lying in Gorodin's belt.
  
  
  "Yes, Carter," Gorodin growled, " we have your weapons. And yours ... "woman". Perhaps you can talk to us now.
  
  
  "I'm not following you," I said, just like in old college. "My name is Nicholas Hunter."
  
  
  Gorodin turned to the young math major and barked, " Boris, give me the map." He snatched a five-by-seven card from around Boris's hand, and Stahl read it aloud. "Nick Carter, agent of AX N3. Rating: Killmaster. Reports to David Hawke, Washington, DC, Director of AX. "Don't you think these people know you by reputation? Carter? When your friend Miss Voelstedt called AX, we knew they'd sent an agent. Perhaps if our comrades in Los Angeles knew you, they would be more careful in their pursuit.
  
  
  "Not only your reputation, but your face is known to some around us, who are we if copies of your picture are made, Carter. The captain recognized you when you boarded with a woman in Antigua. He told me about it on the radio, and they have ferrets watching you. When hers came on board, we knew you'd be making your move soon, and we were ready for you."
  
  
  "All right, Gorodin," I said, walking out through the games, " what do you need?"
  
  
  "You also know my name, I can see her. Well, that was to be expected. I want it very simply. First, her, I want you to tell me everything you know and suspect about our operations. I assume you got the name Gaviota from Juan Escobar. We saw ego taken away in Fort Lauderdale.
  
  
  Her quickly calculated that nothing around what we knew would come as a surprise to Gorodin, so she exposed it to emu, using another part of her mind to look for a way out.
  
  
  "We know that Anton Zhizov is heading up your show," I said. "It was obvious because he signed the ransom telegram. We know what bombs you use, how you deliver ih to these cities. We suspect that ih is being done for you by a scientist named Knox Varnov. This is it."
  
  
  "Very good," Gorodin said. "It's rheumatism for the simple part. Now I want you to tell me about it. Of course, after we take over the management, the organization will not matter, but it will still simplify the situation if we are familiar with its operations. You can start by telling me what the physiological agents are."
  
  
  I didn't say anything to her. My head throbbed. I tried to think.
  
  
  "Carter, I have no patience for games," Gorodin snapped, and all semblance of a joke vanished. "I can make you talk - I can make any man talk - but maybe it would be faster to get a job."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ih from a woman ".
  
  
  "She doesn't know anything about it," I said quickly. "This is a one-time task for nah."
  
  
  Gorodin jumped up from his chair and took a step forward with surprising speed for a large man. With the back of his hairy hand, he whipped me in the mouth. I tasted her blood.
  
  
  "Silence," he ordered, " When I'm done with the woman, you'll have another chance to talk."
  
  
  As the hulking Russian turned away from me and stood over Rona, my pain-clouded brain recalled the stunt belt Stewart had been so proud of in Special Effects. The one that exploded in the hands of the bad guy when he took the ego away from you to study the obviously fake buckle. Why didn't you find Gorodin? Her looked down and saw rheumatism. My sports shirt covered it.
  
  
  He tried to squirm on the cot to get his belt out. Young Boris, who was sitting up for the day, motioned me to lie still with the muzzle of his luger. Even if her belt had been able to draw it and Gorodin had caught it, Rona and I would still have been completely tied up with a gun covering us and a ship with obviously hostile crew members. He lay still, trying to think of an alternative.
  
  
  Gorodin looked openly into Ronas's face. From where he sat, he could see that her blue eyes were wide and frightened, but she didn't lose control.
  
  
  "Now it's your turn, Miss Voelstedt,"he said," to tell me about IT."
  
  
  "What Nick said is true," said Rona calmly. "I don't know anything about AX."
  
  
  "Sooner or later you will tell me what I want to know," Gorodin said. "The smarter you are, the faster you'll talk." With that, the Russian reached out and grabbed Rona's blouse, sliding his thick fingers between the buttons. He laughed and pulled, and the blouse tore off, leaving the emu with a handful of fragile material.
  
  
  Rona's breasts came into view, the upper part slightly tanned and the rounded lower part white because it wasn't hidden by the bikini bodice.
  
  
  Gorodin turned to Boris in the doorway. "What do you think of that, my boy? Not as big as some, but solid and full.
  
  
  Boris nodded curtly, but his ego's eyes showed disapproval of Gorodin's actions.
  
  
  "And it feels good," Gorodin said, running his big hands over Rona's chest. "What a pity that we don't have time for some fun before the interrogation starts. Maybe there will be time for this later, but if the lady answers correctly.
  
  
  He could see the muscles in the big man's arms moving as he began to squeeze the girl's breasts.
  
  
  "We'll start again," he said. "You tell me the names of everyone you know connected to AX."
  
  
  Rona gasped as Gorodin squeezed her breasts like ripe fruit in his massive hands. "I do not know other people!!" she exclaimed.
  
  
  Gorodin straightened up, leaving red finger marks where he'd held Rona. He shook his head sadly and turned to me. "Your friend will also be stubborn. It looks like I'm going to have to hurt the one around you, and I think I'd like to hurt you the most." He ran his hands over Rona's bare stomach and began to undo the buttons on her trousers.
  
  
  This is where the hero of the movie would say, " Wait, don't touch the lady! I'll tell her what you want to know. That's not so. Sure, Ronu loved her, and what Gorodina was going to do to her would have scarred me, but she was a professional, and you didn't get into the spy business, whether it was Killmaster for AX or two ... I'll do a little spying for the Atomic Energy Commission if you're not willing to take the risk. And from a practical point of view, the minutes it would take for Gorodin to destroy Rona Folstedt only to find out that hey had nothing to say to emu would give me a lot more time to find a way out so that he could complete the task. In the end, the most important consideration should be the locality of Russia. So he gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on his escape plan.
  
  
  Knuckles pounded on the cab door.
  
  
  Gorodin swore in Russian as the door opened and the pale sailor stood staring at him, trying not to look at the half-naked blonde on the bunk.
  
  
  "Radio message for you, sir," the sailor muttered.
  
  
  "Not now, you idiot," growled Gorodin. "Get out of here!"
  
  
  "B-but, sir, this is General Zhizov. Urgent ".
  
  
  With a grunt of annoyance, Gorodin turned away from Rona.
  
  
  "Excellent. Tell the general I'll be there.
  
  
  The crewman saluted smartly and disappeared.
  
  
  Gorodin stopped at the chair where Ego's young assistant was sitting. "Boris, always keep an eye on these people. Watch out for Carter.
  
  
  "Yes, sir," Boris said, without hesitation, pointing Wilnelmina at me.
  
  
  Gorodin went out and slammed the door behind him. Working behind her back, she tried to pull up her shirt so that Boris could see the magic belt. As she moved, I saw Boris's thumb tighten on the trigger.
  
  
  "You'd better lie down," he said. "Don't doubt that I'll shoot you if I have to."
  
  
  He meant it. He stopped moving.
  
  
  Rona stifled a sob. Her eyes darted to Nah. She didn't look like a loudmouth. Boris looked, too. When his gaze fell on her bare breasts, he looked terrible.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Rona sobbed again, let out a series of pathetic whimpering sounds, and gasped. "Boris," she said with tears in her eyes, " would you let him do this to me?"
  
  
  Then I understood her. Rona was more of a professional than he'd imagined. She had caught the earlier flash of compassion in the young man's eyes, and now she was playing with it.
  
  
  "I can't help you," Boris said. "You must tell the colonel what he wants to know."
  
  
  "I can't," said Rona. "I don't know anything. Hell is doing terrible things to me. You don't look like him, Boris. I see the humanity in you. Please tell me."
  
  
  She was good, really convincing, and only half-assed.
  
  
  Boris bit his lip, but shook his head. "I can't help you."
  
  
  Precious seconds passed. I had a certain amount of physical freedom, enough for a desperate game - if Rona could distract me. He caught her attention, then looked pointedly at the pack of cigarettes lying on the card table in front of Boris.
  
  
  She gave him a small smile and sighed heavily. "I understand, Boris," she said. "You work for what you believe in, just like we do. What they would have done to us with me, I know it would have been different if you were in charge."
  
  
  The boy looked at Nah with something very close to gratitude.
  
  
  "I'm not asking you to betray your beliefs," Rhona continued. "But, could you do me one small favor?"
  
  
  "If I can," Boris replied almost inaudibly.
  
  
  "Before that beast Gorodin starts torturing me, I'll light it up." Hey, I managed another weak smile.
  
  
  "It's a small treat, but probably the last one. Will you give me one?" "
  
  
  Boris hesitated, then nodded. He picked up the backpack in front of him. "These are Russians. Do you mind?" "
  
  
  She shook her head. "A cigarette is a cigarette when your nerves need relief."
  
  
  "This is going to be awkward," he said. "I can't let go of your hands."
  
  
  "Please ignite your ego and put it in my mouth," she replied.
  
  
  It was a very long shot. I'd only have a couple of seconds. He tensed, curled up.
  
  
  Boris lit a cigarette, got up, and tucked the pistol into his belt. He crossed the cabin and put a cigarette between Rona's lips. As he moved, he swung his legs from the bunk to the deck and slowly sat up.
  
  
  He was about to lunge at him when he turned. Hers, hoping he'd be over Rona, occasionally lifting a cigarette from her lips. But obviously, he was going to return to his seat.
  
  
  And now he saw me out of the corner of his eye. He whirled around to face me and grabbed the luger . But here I have an unexpected break. When Boris turned to face me and turned away. Ron, she raised her knees almost under her chin, aimed her feet at the target, and slammed them forward with a powerful thrust. It was done with amazing agility and lightning speed.
  
  
  Boris had a pistol in his hand, but before he could raise it, he was catapulted toward me, losing his balance, with such force that he fell headfirst on my feet, and the Luger crashed to the deck with a crash. It only took a fraction of a second to lift my bandaged feet, now a club with a double leather sole, and smash them into my ego's skull. The first punch was stunning to say the least, but the next three, in quick succession, performed by bouncing and punching down with the full measure of my weight, put the ego into oblivion.
  
  
  "Poor Boris," said Rona, after she had jumped over and was looking down at him with a sickening expression,"I was almost starting to like him."
  
  
  The tenth chapter.
  
  
  I didn't have time to express my gratitude and admiration for Rona's amazing agility and quickness in the moment of truth. I was too busy checking out the gym for the sharp end of something to weigh us down. But at first glance, there was nothing sharper than the obtuse angle of a mirrorless bureau.
  
  
  Then the fluorescent light above the desk caught her eye. Of course, it was out of reach, but the tube could easily break if he could hit it with something. He might have forgotten his Luger, which was now resting on the deck nearby. With my hands behind my back, I'm not a very good shot; besides, a shot would make too much noise. For the same reason, she could not throw a gun at Brylev.
  
  
  He swung her strapped ankles over the edge of the bunk and Sold her. Working the heels of the other against each other, I managed to loosen one around my shoes so that it hung off the toes of my right foot. I only had time for one attempt. He gently swung his legs off his lap a few times, then stood up and straightened up with all his strength.
  
  
  The free boot left my foot and spiraled upward. It seemed to be moving slowly as I watched it move towards the target. The heel of her shoe hit the dead center of the fluorescent light, resulting in one of the most beautiful little bumps she'd ever heard.
  
  
  The cabin was plunged into darkness, and he leaped across the floor to where he could hear shards of glass falling. Crouching down, he groped behind her and found thin shards of glass. They were quite sharp,
  
  
  
  
  
  
  but most of them were too small. Picking my way through the shards, I finally found one big enough to hold my ego between my thumb and forefinger, and saw the ribbon on my wrists. When I was working with the curved glass, my hand suddenly became wet. I knew I'd cut myself, but my hands were too numb to feel the pain.
  
  
  When at least a notch was formed on the tape of each thickness, her wrists parted and they burst out. As she continued to work in the dark, the glue on her ankles tore away.
  
  
  "Voila," Rone said to her. "Say something to get him to find you."
  
  
  "I'm here," Rona's voice rang out around the darkness.
  
  
  He was moving toward the sound of her voice when he heard someone scratching at the deck outside the cabin door. Then the latch opened.
  
  
  Leaping to the bulkhead, he pressed himself against the wall. The door opened, and the holy Lord flooded in for Gorodin, who hesitated for a split second. It was a fraction of a second longer. It hit him with an ego-blunt right to the jaw, sending shockwaves all the way to my shoulder.
  
  
  Ego grabbed her by the waist when he was sagging and pulled her out the door. It was torn from Gorodin's belt by the stiletto, and Hugo slid it back into the scabbard on his forearm. There was enough light on deck to find Wilhelmina, and the Luger had taken her too.
  
  
  Now hers, he went to the cot where Rona was waiting patiently, and tore the tape from her wrists and ankles.
  
  
  "Come on," I hissed, tossing hey what was left of her blouse. "Stay behind me, I'll try to throw us over the edge. This is our only chance.
  
  
  We entered the corridor. I tried to orient myself. I could see her at each end of the corridor, except for a narrow metal staircase. I had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing which direction would be safe. I made my choice and ran for the stairs, Rona right behind me.
  
  
  But I made the wrong choice.
  
  
  As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard the sound of heavy feet approaching. It was pulled out by a Luger and fired at the descending men.
  
  
  I used my free hand to push her out of Ron's way as a body flew past us and hit the deck. It was the one around Slavic sailors. We heard footsteps coming down the corridor on the upper deck.
  
  
  Then he turned and followed Rona to the stairs at the other end of the hall. He could see that we were on the lower deck, and he knew that we had to climb two levels higher before we could reach the railing.
  
  
  We clattered up the metal steps and reached the next deck just as a group of Gorodin's men came rushing around the corner. It was fired in the ih direction, which slowed down the ih of Rivne so that we could run up the next flight of stairs. Down below, someone suddenly fired two thundering shots. Bullets bounced off the steel bulkhead as we jumped to the next deck out of ih's reach.
  
  
  In this corridor, there were doors leading to the lifeboat area. I didn't think about freeing one around the boats, but there were life jackets stored along the bulkheads, and if we could grab a couple all over them, we might be able to survive in & nb.
  
  
  When we broke into the street a day later, three crew members were standing between us and the railing. One of them had a gun around them. He raised the weapon to fire, but Wilhelmina was already in my hand. Her sent a bullet through the ego lobe, and it landed on the rifle. One of the other team members pulled the rifle to free it from the dead man, and the third pulled out a hand pistol from his clothes and fired a shot in our direction. Wilhelmina answered. The gunman clutched his chest and staggered back to the railing, rolling over the side to splash in the black Caribbean below. The survivor gave up trying to free his rifle and ran aft.
  
  
  I tore the lid off a wooden container marked "Life Jackets" but found only one inside. Ego Rone threw it at her, and she shrugged, trying to gather up the remnants of her blouse.
  
  
  There were sharp shouts now, and people from both sides were running across the deck toward us. It's time to save yourself. He nodded to Rona, then climbed up on the rail, climbed down to the narrow outer ledge, and dived.
  
  
  In a furious shootout to escape her, forgot about the raw wound on my shattered skull. He remembered it well when he hit the salt water hard.
  
  
  Then brylev went out. But he soon came to, coughing and spitting out water like a broken radiator.
  
  
  The Gaviota had sailed a couple of hundred yards, but now she was coming closer, her searchlights playing over the water.
  
  
  The wind was sharp and the sea was rough. They'll be hard to spot in this swirling ocean desert. The water was warm, but full of unfriendly creatures with sharp teeth - and it was lonely.
  
  
  It's lonely! It occurred to me that I hadn't seen Ron and the ferret jump overboard. Did she really dive with me? I couldn't be sure. She was floating in a wide circle, sinking into the water as the floodlights swept past me, but Ronu couldn't see her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Gaviota was now slowly approaching me. From my point of view, at water level, it looked huge and threatening. About fifty yards away, the ship came to a stop, and the lights began methodically darting back and forth on the & nb.
  
  
  Something white bobbed on the waves between me and the ship. I couldn't risk calling out. My voice carried easily over the water, and the ship's engines were now silent. Her crawling body moved towards the object in & nb, but stopped abruptly when my hand touched the fabric and flesh.
  
  
  It wasn't Rona. With a mixture of relief and disappointment, I discovered that it was the body of a crewman who had fallen on board after I shot him.
  
  
  A long thumb of flashlights found us in the blinding flames. Her instantly dived, leaving the dead sailor afloat by me forever. Under the water, he glanced in the direction of the ship. He could hear the muffled thunder of gunfire and the sound of bullets hitting the water.
  
  
  When I surfaced, the hull of the ship loomed before me like a white steel wall. They were still firing on the deck, and she heard the sound of a lifeboat being lowered. He walked back along the hull to the stern, where he hid under the overhang as best he could. Here it was out of the reach of flashlights, and I would have been hard to see from the boat if it hadn't run over me. Unfortunately, there was no place to catch on to the handrail, so I had to swim along the & nb to stay close to the hull.
  
  
  The boat plopped amidships, and the rowers headed for the silvery patch of water where the holy lantern had fallen. They reached the spot, pulled the sodden body into the boat with a few powerful blows. Someone swore, then stood up and called out to Gaviota through a megaphone.
  
  
  "It's not Carter or a woman! He is alone, all around us! »
  
  
  After a moment of soaring silence Gorodin's voice boomed out: "Get back on board. We'll search again when it gets light."
  
  
  The boat obediently returned to Gaviota and was hauled aboard. Daylight was still a good seven hours away, and I didn't expect to be around when it arrived. At a very rough estimate, hers, I assumed we were somewhere in the Gulf of Honduras. I took her course by the stars, and as soon as the sounds on deck died down, she steamed without a splash to the east, which I calculated was the direction of the nearest land. The water was still warm, and the sea had calmed down enough to make swimming easier. If I'm lucky, I might reach some land or be spotted by a friendly boat.
  
  
  Swimming quietly, moving slowly to conserve his energy, he wondered again what might happen to Rona. She felt a deep sadness.
  
  
  Chapter eleven
  
  
  It was afternoon holy, all pink and gold, somewhere ahead, while he stroked her, swam her, stroked her in the Caribbean. My body heat had dissipated a few hours ago, and the once-warm water now felt icy cold. When it was light enough, he stopped to scan the horizon. At first, I couldn't see land in my field of vision, and my muscles screamed in protest that I was still swimming with no apparent reward. Then he noticed a patch of brown where the blue of the sky and sky met in the east. I decided that it was either Honduras or, if the currents had taken me north, Yucatan. It didn't really matter. Any piece of dry, solid ground is welcome.
  
  
  He gave himself a few minutes to swim, then turned over and began a long, light crawl toward the far bank. After a while, I got a company.
  
  
  At first, it was just a ripple on the smooth surface to my right. Stepping on & nb, I watched it and saw a new ripple. Then another. And another one. Her, knew what it was, even before the first sickle-shaped dorsal roll appeared on the surface.
  
  
  Sharks.
  
  
  When it stopped moving, they changed direction, crossed in front of me, and then turned back, now licking. He could make out three people around them, though he had no doubt that there were friends nearby. When its submerged in the water, it could clearly be seen by ih circling over me at a distance of about fifty feet. They had shale crevices and a white string of blue shark life. Although the white shark is a more tenacious man-eater, the blue shark is not my favorite companion in long-distance swimming.
  
  
  The three specimens surrounding me were between eight and ten feet long. Hers was a strange intruder in ih waters-clumsy, slow, possibly dangerous, but a potential lunch. From time to time, one of the three would rush towards me and then swerve away, as if testing my reaction. I knew that sooner or later someone around them would come up and stab me with their sharp teeth.
  
  
  He continued swimming to the crest of the land. With an effort, I kept my stroke slow and relaxed, as if the three predators weren't bothering me at all. It was more for my benefit than for them; you don't tease a shark.
  
  
  My escorts drew steadily closer as I continued my agonizing progress toward the shore. Fortunately, the blood had long since washed away from the head wound and the cut on his thumb.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  where her ego had cut her with a fluorescent light fixture. If I spilled fresh blood into the water around me, the sharks wouldn't hesitate to tear me apart.
  
  
  When my attention was focused on the sharks, I didn't notice the brown sail between me and the land, a little to the north. Since I didn't know the size of the boat, I couldn't tell the distance to nah. But it was getting closer to me, and I was mentally trying to reach out and speed up the ego. With a sail, it would hardly have been from the Gaviota, and even if it was, I'd rather take the risk with Gorodin's crew than with the deadly torpedoes that kept closing in on me.
  
  
  While I was thinking about these thoughts, something flashed candid beneath me. I wasn't affected, but the turbulence sent me spinning like a traffic jam. My playmates were preparing to attack.
  
  
  He stopped swimming and waved frantically at the boat. I couldn't tell if he'd seen me, but the boat kept moving in my direction, which was reassuring. When another shark passed within six feet of me, Hugo drew it from its scabbard and held the hilt ready under the water. The stiletto didn't change the odds much against three killers weighing between three hundred and four hundred pounds each, but it did give me a chance.
  
  
  He dived several times to watch the sharks while keeping his eyes on the approaching boat. Now another shark broke away from its companions and attacked me. There is a popular theory that because the shark's mouth is located on the underside of its head, it must roll onto its back to bite. Don't believe it. When the lower jaw comes down on its hinge, the sinister crescent opens up into a deadly cavern of teeth. The shark can bite you in almost any position.
  
  
  This one decided to attack me at the stake. Hers went below the surface to meet the ego in the same way, presenting as small a goal as possible. He was on top of me like a son,a black underwater missile, before Hugo could put him on the defensive. Human maneuverability under water is limited at best. And there was only time to throw myself up and let the huge black shape pass beneath me. It was so close that the grainy shark skin scratched my shoulder.
  
  
  Finding me defenseless, the shark instantly changed direction and joined the other two. Ih the excited movements suggested that they were preparing for a concerted attack. Looking at the boat, he realized that it was a simple wooden boat with a single sail. Small, dark-faced men were standing in the bow, pointing at me. They seemed to be shouting, but I couldn't hear the words.
  
  
  The dorsal mirror cut through the water nearby. This time hers dived deeper, and so did the shark. It made a detour under me, and headed up, jaws wide, its evil eyes seeming to challenge me. He did a somersault and dodged the deadly teeth by a few inches, but this time Hugo was ready. Its stuck a blade into the upper part of the shark's life. My arm jerked as if it had been hit by a speeding freight train, but I held on as the shark's momentum carried us both up, and the stiletto blade sliced through the tough white skin of life.
  
  
  Before we reached the surface, she pushed off from the injured shark, which then left behind dark red blood like smoke, a loop of guts bulging around her gathered along the length of life.
  
  
  He stood up and walked away from the slain assassin, glancing back only once to see one of his ego's recent buddies slap his ego in the stomach and violently rip off a large chunk of flesh and entrails. The third shark kept pace.
  
  
  He pulled himself to the surface and breathed the sweet, fresh air into his lungs. After a minute, my ears stopped ringing and I heard voices. Ten feet behind me, the boat was bobbing in a small swell, the sail lifting the reefs. There were four men in the boat. They were short and dark, with delicate features set symmetrically on small round heads. The words they spoke were unintelligible to me, but I sensed that they were Mayan, the ancient language of lower Mexico that is now spoken in the southeastern part of Yucatan, Quintan-a-Ru.
  
  
  Brown hands on muscular arms reached out and pulled me across the water into a wooden boat. Hearing a sound behind me, her father turned to look at the bloody foam on the beach where two sharks had torn the wounded man to pieces. In a few minutes, hers would be next.
  
  
  Her father held out his hands in gratitude to his rescuers, but ih closed eyes and expressionless faces did not respond. The Odin around them gestured for me to sit in the bow. He did so, and they dropped the sail. The wind picked up the canvas, and the light boat seemed to rise out of the water and run toward the shore.
  
  
  Chapter Twelve
  
  
  As the boat moved smoothly and silently toward the shore, my efforts of the last sixteen hours began to catch up with me. The fight and escape on the Gaviota, the long swim, and the battle with the sharks tired me out. He nodded and closed his eyes to let them rest, and a second later, tac
  
  
  
  
  
  The bottom of the boat seemed to scrape gravel, and people were running down groups of huts to pull the boat ashore.
  
  
  All activity stopped when her husband came out and stopped at the beach. Odin's nam po Maya was no higher than my armpit. And like my boat-mates, they didn't show us any greetings or hostility on their faces, although they looked at me with some curiosity.
  
  
  They were descendants of tough and unruly Mayan Indians who had never submitted to Spanish rule in the days of colonization. After the 1847 uprising in western Yucatan was crushed by the Spanish, they fled as best they could to the jungles of Quintana Roo, where armed resistance continued until the twentieth century. Even now, remote villages like the one I was brought to have been left entirely to the federal government to govern itself in accordance with old tribal traditions.
  
  
  Two men from a fishing boat approached me from both sides. Each of them put a small brown hand on my elbow and pushed me forward. I didn't know if I was being escorted or captured.
  
  
  They led me through a village of about twenty houses between rows of silent, watchful Mayan people. We stopped in front of a hut smaller than the others on the outer perimeter of the village. The roof was thatched, and the mud walls had no windows.
  
  
  As odina, around my entourage, started to lead me through the door, he pushed Wilhelmina's metal block, still pressed against my thigh. He lifted my damp shirt and pulled out the luger .
  
  
  "Pistola!" he snapped, the first word in Spanish she heard from anyone around them.
  
  
  "No se funciona," emu told her. It was the truth. The gun didn't work until after a night's immersion in salt water. "No tiene balas," I added. Also true. He used up all of his ammo while shooting back at Gaviota.
  
  
  No response from the Maya. Apparently, they only knew a few words of Spanish. After confiscating Wilhelmina, the Indian pushed me into the cabin and slammed the wooden door behind me. He spoke to his companion in the Mayan language. From her tone, I could tell that the one around them was supposed to stay there and guard the door, while the other was out on some errand. He lifted her to the rammed earth floor and leaned against the wall.
  
  
  For the first time in many hours, his thoughts turned to the mission that involved joining me in the Caribbean. Was it really only yesterday that her son was on the verge of defeat in a plot with a suitcase and a bomb, when he moved towards Fyodor Gorodin with a Luger in his hand? However, how far am I from being able to do anything to prevent the nuclear destruction of New York City in another three days.
  
  
  I tried to bring my thoughts back to my current predicament, but a vision of Rona Folstedt, a slender greyhound and blonde Nordic blonde, flashed through my mind. Where was she just now? Dead? It's better to drown than to be snatched up by the Gorodins.
  
  
  The door of my hut swung open and two of my guards entered. With gestures and grunts, they make it clear that she should be accompanied by ih. He got up and walked with them back to the village.
  
  
  We came to a larger hut than the others. Once painted white, it was gradually turning gray. The two Mayans led me through the door, then stopped in front of an old man sitting on the platform. He had shaggy gray hair and a face as hard and wrinkled as a walnut shell.
  
  
  He raised a crooked arm, and two of my guards stepped back, leaving me alone with him.
  
  
  "Her Cholti," he said in a strong, low voice that seemed out of place with her age and tiny breasts. "Her voice is El Jefe, Chief."
  
  
  "It's an honor,"I said," and a pleasure to find someone who speaks English."
  
  
  "It's all hers in the village, I speak English," he said proudly. "I went to school in Merida. They would teach it to their sons, but they don't want to know the Yankee language." Then he paused, hands folded in his lap, waiting for me to say something.
  
  
  "My name is Nick Carter," I said. "Her agent is from the United States. If you could take me to the nearest city with my phone, I would be grateful. I'll pay you well.
  
  
  "I was told you had a gun," Cholti said.
  
  
  “yeah. In my work, I must sometimes defend myself, sometimes kill her."
  
  
  "White people aren't very popular in Quintana Roo, Carter. I don't like white people with guns at all. My men were treated very badly by white men with guns."
  
  
  "I don't want to hurt us, you, us, your people, Jefe. The people I'm fighting are evil people who want to destroy the great cities of my country and kill so many of my people ."
  
  
  "What should this mean for us here in Quintana Bur?
  
  
  "If these evil people are allowed to win, no place in the world will be safe from them, not even your village. They just destroyed an island in the Pacific Ocean where the people were very much like your own.
  
  
  "Tell me how you ended up at sea, Nick Carter."
  
  
  He told Em a story about the time Rhona and I boarded a cruise ship in Antigua. Cholti listened with his eyes narrowed, his hands still in his lap, his eyes almost closed. When it was finished, he sat for a full minute.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  in silence. Then ego's eyes opened and he searched my face.
  
  
  "I believe you, Nick Carter," he said. "Your voice doesn't lie, and your eyes tell the truth. The phone you are looking for can be found up north in Vigfa Chico. I would have taken you there, but ...
  
  
  "But what?" I prompted it.
  
  
  "You are a white man. They brought a gun to our village. For these reasons, my people want you dead. They'll listen to me like el jefe, and maybe I can make ih believe, like her, that you don't want to hurt us. But there is one who cannot be shaken ."
  
  
  "Who is this?" I asked her.
  
  
  "The ego's name is Tihok. He's my son. When I die, he will be in charge here. I'm afraid that will happen very soon. Teehawk will never agree to let you go until you meet him."
  
  
  "Run into him? I thought you said no one here speaks English."
  
  
  "There are other languages," the old man said. "My son is waiting for you outside my house right now. How you behave with him will determine your fate. This is how it should be ."
  
  
  "I understand," he said to the old man. Cholti nodded toward the door of his hut. Then he turned and left.
  
  
  Before he had taken two steps into the clearing in front of the chiefs ' hut, something thundered through the air and hit the ground at my feet. It was a six-foot spear, its narrow, double-edged blade burrowing into the ground.
  
  
  On the opposite side of the clearing stood a young Maya, stripped to the waist, his brown skin taut and glistening over taut muscles. He pinned the twin to the spear at my feet, holding the ego at an angle, in the traditional challenge pose. There were villagers all around us, their faces impassive but their eyes wary.
  
  
  So this is Tihok, the chief's son. This was a man I would have had to face in battle if he had left the village alive. But if ego kills her, can Ego's father let me go to Vigia Chico? Even if the old man agrees, will I let the ego people live? Somehow, I had to defeat Teehawk, but I didn't take the ego out of him.
  
  
  Before touching the spear, Hugo deliberately drew it from the scabbard of his forearm. It was lifted by stiletto so that the villagers could see ego, then sent ego spiraling toward the door of the chiefs ' hut, where it was stuck, the handle shaking. Although there was no audible response from the watchers, he could sense her implicit approval.
  
  
  Then he pulled the spear around the ground and, holding ego in the same position as Teehawk, moved to the center of the clearing. There, we touched the spearheads in a greeting oddly similar to that used on a battle staff. The deadly difference was that these spears pierced twelve inches of steel blade, a blade capable of piercing a person or cutting off a limb from their body.
  
  
  He took a step back in a ready stance, and calmly immediately attacked, swinging the spear hilt up. I dropped my spear to block the blow, then quickly raised it to deflect the blade that would have split my skull.
  
  
  My rheumatism was my own response, which Maya anticipated and blocked. Then he moved to counter the expected blow, but he just feinted with the blade and swung the butt sideways against ego's ribcage. Teehawk groaned in pain, but deftly crossed his spear, ready to block the killing blow.
  
  
  We retreated, returned to our starting position, and the battle began again.
  
  
  The art of the warstaff is much as formalized as fencing or even dancing. Each hit has a block, each block moves to the counter. The only sounds in the Yucatan clearing were the clank of shafts and the clash of blades, punctuated by the heavy breathing of Teehawk and myself. I've seen it more than once, opening a hole to drive a spear blade into, but I've slowed my lunge to Rivnenskaya enough to allow the young Maya to block. I've managed to keep my ego's own blade away from me so far, except for the crease in my calculations that it left a crimson stain on my shirt.
  
  
  The breakthrough came when he was knocked out by a spear one at a time by Ego ruk with a double upstroke, whereas he was expecting a normal upstroke and slash attack. With ego spear dangling uselessly in one hand, Teehawk's throat was bared for my blade. The push pushed her a fraction of an inch to the side, barely cutting her skin. In Maya's eyes, I saw that he knew what I had done.
  
  
  Regaining control of his spear, Teehawk charged with deadly ferocity. Her ego gave way to an attack and began to fear that the duel might only end with Teehawk's death or mine.
  
  
  The thread came with startling suddenness. Silently, he lunged at me high, then crouched and swung the butt of the rifle like a baseball bat, catching me just above the ankles and knocking my legs out from under me. I dropped to the ground and rolled onto my back just in time to see the blade of Teehawk's spear plunge into my face. At the last second, it sank into the ground so close to my ear that I could feel the ego peel.
  
  
  He leaped to his feet, spear ready again, and faced his opponent. There was a new message in the ego's eyes : camaraderie. We were even now. Her ego had saved her life, which he couldn't forgive until he'd lost it.
  
  
  
  
  
  saved mine.
  
  
  She was being gambled on. Taking a step forward, he tilted her blade toward Teehawk in greeting. He brought his own spear down to meet mine, and the battle was over. We dropped our weapons and held our wrists in a Mayan fashion. The villagers chatted approvingly, and for the first time she saw smiles on the dark faces of the Indians.
  
  
  The old chief came up to us and spoke to Tihok in Mayan. Then he turned to me and said: "I told my son that he fought bravely and with honor. I'm telling her the same thing about you, Nick Carter. Vigia Chico is an hour's drive away. Two of my strongest men will take you there in a canoe.
  
  
  He handed me a bag wrapped in a waterproof cloth. "You must clean and lubricate your gun before the salt water dries up, otherwise it will be useless against the evil people you are looking for."
  
  
  Ego thanked her and took Hugo out for the day of the hut. Then I followed the two muscular men who were already waiting to take me to the canoe.
  
  
  Thirteen
  
  
  The coast canoe trip was quick and quiet. Two Mayans greeted us cordially at the surf's edge. None of them spoke to us.
  
  
  We disembarked at Vigla Chico, a settlement three times the size of the village we left. The houses seemed more permanent, and the railroad tracks from the east ended at the outer edge of the city. My oarsmen took me to what I thought was the house of the local headman, spoke briefly to him in the Mayan language, and then suddenly left me without looking at him.
  
  
  She asked for a phone number, and I was taken to a general building that apparently served as a school, general store, meeting room, warehouse, and so on. The phone was an early model in a rugged wooden case with a handle on the side.
  
  
  The next two hours were spent driving to Merida, the capital of Yucatan, and from there through a maze of repeaters and intermediate operators, until the familiar voice of David Hawk Chronicle rang out on the line.
  
  
  I told emu where I was and gave emu a condensed version of how I got there, talking quickly for fear that we might lose contact at any moment.
  
  
  "I need a quick way out of here," emu told her. "There is a railway, but apparently the train has to run once every time there is a total solar eclipse."
  
  
  "I'll take you by helicopter. What is the status of the mission? "
  
  
  "Suitcases arrive on board the Gaviota from Curacao. Fyodor Gorodin appears to be the head of operations with Zhizov, apparently staying at ih headquarters and only occasionally appearing on the street. There is no confirmation that Knox Vornov is the key person, but the evidence is strong enough that we can consider it certain." He hesitated, then added ," We've lost Rona Folstedt."
  
  
  "I'm sorry to hear that, Nick," David Hawke said. Hers, knew that was what he meant. As the director of AX, he was familiar with death, but his agent squad caused Emu deeper pain than many realize. "Can you work here alone?" he added.
  
  
  "I can, but it would be nice if there was someone familiar with this territory. It's getting dark here, and I don't need to remind you that we're meeting a deadline."
  
  
  "Of course not," Hawk said dryly. "Wait a minute."
  
  
  The phone crackled soundlessly in my ear for a few seconds, and he knew that Hawk was entering information into his desktop computer. Then he came back with an answer:
  
  
  "The CIA has an agent named Pilar in Veracruz. She'll contact you there at the Hotel Baia Bonito."
  
  
  "Her?"
  
  
  "Yes, Nick, you seem to be in luck. I was told it was a red-haired, well-equipped... erm... all additional equipment ". Hawk cleared his throat, then continued in a different tone. "Can you arrange a helicopter landing at Vigia Chiu?"
  
  
  "There's a clearing right behind this building. How soon can you send it by helicopter? "
  
  
  "I will have to work through the State Department. If they're up to the mark, you'll have the bird in three or four hours."
  
  
  Good. I'll make sure to light up the landing area with flares or bonfires. As we discussed these details, it occurred to me that under normal circumstances, such information would never be transmitted unencrypted over public telephone lines. The circumstances, however, were anything but ordinary, the conditions were primitive.
  
  
  "You're going to need money," Hawke said. "I will be waiting at your hotel in various Central American currencies. Anything else?"
  
  
  “yeah. My Luger took a saltwater bath, so I want to have a gun cleaning kit handy. Children 9mm ammunition ".
  
  
  "It will be waiting for you." There was a pause on the line, as if Hawke wanted to add something else. But then he just said, " There's more to you than luck, Nick."
  
  
  I had a job where she was persuaded by the local prefect to direct the warning lights for the helicopter. He didn't want to help me. The natives of Vigia Chico were slightly less hostile to the outdoor pool than the Maya in the coastal village, but their ties to the old traditions remained strong. White people of rare healing came to Yucatan on peaceful missions, and people were not eager to meet them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  one around ih flying cars.
  
  
  It was finally obtained by ih's reluctant cooperation in the old-fashioned way. By promising them money. Privately, her hope was that a CIA, State Department pilot would bring in some money. It would be a bit awkward to get out on Chico's Vigia if the residents thought they were being cheated.
  
  
  For the next few hours, such concerns were hidden in the back of her mind as she directed the placement of the warning lights. There was a lot of dry dead wood around, and I lit six fires in a circle to outline the landing zone.
  
  
  As soon as the bonfires were lit and the clearing lit up, Sel and Stahl waited. And wait. And wait.
  
  
  He should have known that things weren't going to go so smoothly with the State Department involved. By the time I heard the sound, the helicopter's rotor was beginning to break, and my fire brigade was definitely unhappy with the delay. The pilot noticed our small group and brought his ship in, sending up a huge cloud of thick red-brown dust.
  
  
  The pilot's name was Martin. He was a thin young man with a pointed nose. We exchanged IDs while the villagers crowded around, looking at the helicopter with great suspicion.
  
  
  "I hope they sent some money with you," I said.
  
  
  "Money? Why?"
  
  
  "To help with the alarm fires, I had to promise these people some payment."
  
  
  Martin squinted at the lightening sky. "I do not know what you need the warning lights for; almost a full day.
  
  
  "When she was asked by helicopter," I said coldly, " it was dark. I was hoping the State Department would respond quickly enough to get me out of here before dawn. I've got a pretty busy schedule, old buddy.
  
  
  "No one said anything about bringing in money," he grumbled.
  
  
  The people around us were muttering, and he was afraid they'd caught the gist of our conversation.
  
  
  "Did you bring them their money?" I asked her.
  
  
  "well... some of them," he said carefully.
  
  
  He was losing his temper. "So get out, take the tailor! I promised these people money, and I suspect they'll break your bones if you don't get ih."
  
  
  Looking offended, Martin pulled a battered wallet out of his back pocket and began flipping through the bills. Annoyed with her, I took the wallet from him and pulled out the wallet. The amount of the bills was just over fifty dollars. It was passed by ego to the senior, who solemnly counted the egos, then nodded without smiling. He spoke to the villagers who had moved away to clear the way for us.
  
  
  When we played this game in the helicopter, Martin said: "You had to give them everything? They Indians would probably be satisfied with half of it.
  
  
  "Maybe," I said. "And maybe they wouldn't be happy - until they put a spear through your throat. Will it cost you twenty-five dollars?"
  
  
  He started the engine to life without comment
  
  
  "Don't worry," emu told her. "I will make a full report on your contribution, and you will be reimbursed through the normal channels of the State Department. If you're lucky, you'll get your money back by Christmas. Maybe not this Christmas... "
  
  
  For the first time, Martin relaxed a little and even managed a grin. "All right," he said. "I have to admit, it's cheaper than a spear in the throat. Where to?"
  
  
  "Veracruz," emu said to her, and we jumped.
  
  
  Chapter fourteen.
  
  
  Hernando Cortez went ashore in Veracruz in 1519, becoming the first Spaniard to set foot on Mexican soil. With them, Ferret city was captured in various wars by the Americans and the French twice.
  
  
  As we glided across the Bay of Campeche, and he squinted at the sunlit city, it was clear that Veracruz was now at least a prize worthy of all that blood and thunder.
  
  
  We settled down on the landing by the American Consulate, where she declined an invitation to stay for lunch. I felt stiff and clammy from exertion, exhausted from insomnia, and I didn't feel like making small talk martinis with some of our foreign service staff. He shook Martin's hand, assured him again that he would get his money back, and used the external phone to call a taxi.
  
  
  The taxi ride to the Baia Bonito Hotel took you through some of the city's ancient cobbled flagstones with quaint old houses, as well as through wide modern streets next to steel and glass skyscrapers.
  
  
  My inn was dated but comfortable, with a large courtyard open to the sky and three rows of rooms around it. He told the driver to wait and went inside. When he gave me his name, the man at the desk handed me a room key, a thick sealed envelope, and a package the size of a clarinet case. It came in various sizes and colors: dollars, pesos, quetzal, cordoba, colonas, lempirs, balboa, bolivars, gourdes, pounds, francs, and guilders. I pulled out a peso, paid the driver, and went up to my room on the third floor with the bag under my arm. We didn't hear from anyone else, Pilar.
  
  
  He took a long steamy bath, followed by a cool shower, then unwrapped the packaging of the corner cleaner.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I started working on the Luger. She might have asked Hawke to bring me a new gun, but Wilhelmina was an old and trusted friend.
  
  
  Luger took it apart and examined all the details. Because it was well prostrated and protected by a waterproof coating, the salt water had not yet damaged the metal. He used solvent in every part, even the tiny screws, and worked the stains through the hole until they were pure white. The disassembled gun dried it with a lint-free cotton swab, touched the critical parts with low-viscosity lubricating oil, and reassembled the Luger. He tucked an eight-round clip around the box of shells Hawk had brought, then slid Wilhelmina into a belt holster.
  
  
  My body needed sleep, but my mind wouldn't give up. There were plans to do this, close loopholes. And every time he let his brain rest, a picture of Rona would come into view. The blonde whose slender, lithe body had been in my arms for so many nights couldn't be considered just another lost work partner.
  
  
  They don't allow us the time we need to exhaust your sorrows, I thought bitterly, and flew around the room. At the table, I asked her if there was a store nearby where I could buy clothes.
  
  
  "Yes, senor. Aguilarz, located across the street, is a great choice, " said Clera.
  
  
  «Gracias. I'm waiting for a visitor. If she comes, tell her, hey, where to find me."
  
  
  He crossed the street and spent a handful of Hawke's money on clothes. After dressing in a new suit with all the appropriate accessories, he consulted his desk clerk once more and sauntered up the street to the street cafe. He sat her down at a table where he could watch the entrance and ordered a bottle of local brandy, which burned like a fire but didn't taste bad. As I sipped my brandy, I wondered how long I should wait before I decided that my companion, Pilar, wasn't going to show up.
  
  
  At that moment, a dark-skinned girl in a low-cut blouse that barely contained her gorgeous breasts swung between the tables and stopped at my place. Her hair was black and thick, slightly tousled, fresh from the garbage. Nah had coffee-colored eyes that promised exotic pleasures.
  
  
  "Can you save on a match?" she asked with a slight accent.
  
  
  "Sorry, I don't keep ih since I quit smoking." Hey prompted it.
  
  
  "Last year I tried to quit smoking myself, but only lasted two Sundays," she correctly answered.
  
  
  "You must be Pilar."
  
  
  “yeah. And you're Nick Carter... Whose name is Killmaster. Your reputation precedes you." "I do not know if I should behave modestly or apologize."
  
  
  Her full lips curved into a smile. "You should never apologize. Can I sit her down?" »
  
  
  "Of course. My manners are a little worn out today, like everything else.
  
  
  Pilar sat down in the chair across from me. "You look like you need to get some sleep," she said.
  
  
  "Business comes first," she said with an insinuating smile. "Can we talk here?"
  
  
  Her beautiful eyes roamed over the loafers in the cafe and the passers-by on the sidewalk. "This is as good a place as any," she told me with a shrug.
  
  
  He motioned for the waiter to ask for another glass, then poured Pilar a brandy. Then he asked her sharply: "What did you do with your hair?"
  
  
  Instinctively, her hand went to Golov in momentary confusion, then she smiled. "You must have been told I was a redhead. As you know, in our mail business there is a part of the need to change the appearance. Do you like black? "
  
  
  "Love it. I'll bet you the money, you were just as crazy as red.
  
  
  "Why, thank you," she said, and gave me a mischievous look from under her long lashes.
  
  
  For a moment, Pilars ' features seemed to disappear, replaced by the thin face of Rona Folstedt. He took a sip of the strong brandy and the image disappeared.
  
  
  "The only thing we have," I said, "is the boat that brought the suitcase on board the Gaviota. I couldn't make out our name, our identification numbers in the dark. It was driving too low in the B & nb and was powered by two outboard engines ."
  
  
  Pilar bit her lip and shook her head.
  
  
  "Nothing like that. Did you see anyone around the people on the boat?
  
  
  "The main person was short, thick-set, and completely bald."
  
  
  She raised her hand to stop me. "A stocky, bald man?"
  
  
  "That's right. Do you know ego?"
  
  
  "I think so. There is a man who leads a gang of smugglers in Curacao. Ego's name is Torio.
  
  
  "Can you tell me where to find the ego?"
  
  
  "I can take you there. Curacao knows her, and we can move quickly ."
  
  
  For a moment, he was about to object. She wasn't sent to a hotel to be like Rona. But Pilar was right, he could spend precious time in Curacao without wires, and time was the deciding factor.
  
  
  "How soon can we leave?" I told her.
  
  
  "We can catch an early fishing trip tomorrow morning. I'll arrange everything for her.
  
  
  "Can we start earlier?"
  
  
  “no. And it's important that you get some rest tonight. Tomorrow you will need to be strong and alert."
  
  
  My aching muscles agreed. We had another glass of brandy, and she walked me back to my hotel.
  
  
  "I'll come pick you up in the morning," Pilar said, " and we'll go to the airport."
  
  
  They left her in the yard and got up wearily
  
  
  
  
  
  
  to my room.
  
  
  Chapter Fifteen
  
  
  He took his second shower of the day and drew the blinds against the evening sun. He took off his new clothes and put them on a chair. Then he stretched out naked on the bed, pulled the sheet over him, and stared at the ceiling.
  
  
  Just forcing yourself to sleep is usually impossible. Every nerve in my body needed rest, and my eyes were like sandbags, but she couldn't sleep.
  
  
  Somewhere, a former American scientist and a former Russian general were preparing to erase my country, city by city. The day after tomorrow, the first one will go to New York. Its got to rush somewhere to stop ih, not fly from bed to bed in a hotel in Veracruz.
  
  
  But rushing into battle without preparation would be foolish and dangerous. And if Pilar can find the smuggler Torio, he may still have enough time to complete the mission. Her, closed his eyes. Rhona's vision swam before me, faded, then returned.
  
  
  The sunlight filtering through the orange blinds gradually dimmed through all the shades of gray, and finally it was dark. However, my mind couldn't calm down.
  
  
  Every sound from the street below seemed to reach my ears openly. Flushing the toilet in the next room, fountain Niagara Falls.
  
  
  Then someone knocked lightly on my door.
  
  
  "Yes?"
  
  
  "This is Pilar," came the mild reply from rheumatism.
  
  
  He crawled around the trash, grabbed a towel, and opened the door. Pilar was wearing a black dress with tiny flowers that seemed to grow happily in the hills and valleys of her rich country.
  
  
  "Come in," I said.
  
  
  "I really didn't believe you'd be able to sleep," she said, and went inside.
  
  
  "Your beauty surpasses only your wisdom," I replied.
  
  
  "I brought you something to help you." She sat down lightly on the edge of the bed.
  
  
  "Pills?" he asked her. "I never take ih."
  
  
  She gave me a lazy smile. "No, not pills. Me."
  
  
  "Well," I replied, recovering from my astonishment, " you're definitely a delicious tablet, and it's not hard to swallow at all."
  
  
  Her beautiful face turned serious, almost stern. "Don't joke," she said. "Both of our lives may depend on your physical condition tomorrow, and..." Here she hesitated, her eyes moving over my towel-clad form. "And maybe I'll rest restlessly alone tonight, too."
  
  
  "Maybe," I said.
  
  
  "Will you leave everything to me?"
  
  
  "Pilar, she's in your hands."
  
  
  "Bien. I want you to lie here on the bed first."
  
  
  He obediently walked over to the bed and was about to sit down when her strong brown fingers slid under the towel she was wearing and brushed away the ego.
  
  
  "We won't need a towel for that," she said flatly. "Lay down for life, please."
  
  
  Her body was sprawled out on the bed, her hands ending up in the pillow. Something cool touches my neck at the base of my skull and slowly crawls up my back. A faint whiff of cinnamon reached her. Over her shoulder, I saw Pilar take out a tiny vial around the bag she was carrying and pour the contents down my spine.
  
  
  "Cinnamon oil," she explained. "Now I want you to lower your head again and let me help you relax."
  
  
  "Yes, ma'am," I chuckled. There was a whispering, silky sound. A flash of dark thigh caught her out of the corner of her eye, and I realized that Pilar had stripped off all her clothes.
  
  
  As if sensing my thoughts, she closed my eyes with a light touch of her cool, soft fingers. "Relax," she murmured. "Now all you need to do is relax."
  
  
  Then her hands rested on my back in smooth little circles, her fingers pressing firmly and gently. She smeared oil on my shoulders and chest, making approving noises to herself. She found the crease on my side where the Maya spear had grazed me, and her fingers stroked the pain.
  
  
  She applied the oil to my waist, her hands sliding deliciously over my skin with the fragrant lubricant. Down and down, over the buttocks and back of the thighs. Touch the hollow of my knees a little more, then my calf muscles, along the Achilles tendon, so that my heels are resting on her palms.
  
  
  Pilar gently applied the oil to the soles of my feet, sliding her finger between and around each of my toes.
  
  
  My skin was alive and hypersensitive to her touch. It was as if I could feel the closeness of her naked body through my pores.
  
  
  He said, " Pilar, I do not know if I am excited about her or if I want to sleep. Please make a decision! »
  
  
  "Calm down," she scolded softly. "We're just getting started."
  
  
  Then she took my toes, one at a time, to coax ih, rolling them between her fingers. With her thumb and forefinger, she made an oiled scabbard that slid up and down from each toe.
  
  
  Then Pilar took each foot in her hands and kneaded it until I could feel the bones cracking. Then she moved her hands up my legs again, her expert fingers digging into the taut muscles, squeezing, manipulating, drawing out the aching pain.
  
  
  Special attention was paid to my rump. With one hand on each buttock, she bent down and squeezed with surprising strength for a woman, her hands rolling rhythmically from her heels to her fingertips.
  
  
  The bed sagged slightly as Pilar
  
  
  
  
  
  
  she was on my feet. Around this position, she leaned forward and ran her lithe fingers down my back, magically relaxing the tense muscles.
  
  
  As she reached forward to massage my shoulders and neck, her I felt the nipples of her swaying breasts brush against me. Now her hands slid down my bare back from my shoulders to my feet.
  
  
  "Now turn over," she said,"and I'll make it on the other side."
  
  
  "I do not know if I can handle it."
  
  
  "Don't worry, its safe, you can't take it."
  
  
  Her, rolled over on his back.
  
  
  Pilar sighed. "Why, Nick, I thought you were relaxing!"
  
  
  "Damn the tailor!" Hers, chuckled, taking the opportunity to glance at my naked masseuse. Her skin was like polished copper-smooth and flawless. Her breasts were full and ripe. They sank, then rose sharply. Her narrow waist and round, firm thighs glistened with a slight sheen of gold.
  
  
  She daintily leaned down to pick up a bottle of oil from the bedside table and sprayed ego on me, spreading her arms.
  
  
  "Don't worry," she said, as if reading my mind again, " nothing will be left unfinished!"
  
  
  So now she's got her hands on it. Her eyes closed , and there were no disturbing images in her head. I had a feeling of weightlessness, as if my body, guided by those knowing fingers, was drifting in space. Hers seemed to be made in butterscotch... taut, stretched, deliciously taut to the point of dolly breaking point.
  
  
  Her eyes snapped open and he grabbed Pilars ' arm. "That's enough," I said. "We've just reached the limits of massage. Do you have any other talents? »
  
  
  Pilar gave me a lazy, teasing smile. I felt a shock of exquisite pleasure as her mouth closed over mine.
  
  
  And for a moment, I felt like I was being pulled through a small velvet hole into a world of unimaginable pleasure. Then I felt a shiver of release. And for the first time in many hours it was empty of us from thoughts, us from feelings, floating in the void, floating to the deep well of oblivion.
  
  
  Her warm, burning body next to mine pulled her down and covered us both with the sheet.
  
  
  In less than a minute, the dream that had been craving him for so long wrapped me in a warm, cinnamon-scented embrace.
  
  
  Chapter Sixteen
  
  
  I woke up at dawn with the feeling that all the old parts had been replaced with new, Teflon-coated permanent pressing components. I could hear water splashing in the bathroom and a woman's voice singing in Spanish. Her popped around the trash, walked up to Day and pushed her.
  
  
  Streams of steam burst into the room. Behind the semi-transparent shower curtain, I could see the silhouette of Pilar's beautiful body as she lathered up and sang something from the days of Pancho Villa. From time to time, the curtain stuck to her skin, exposing the shiny surface like a cellophane window in a candy box.
  
  
  He stood there for a moment, enjoying the sight, then grabbed the curtain and pulled it aside.
  
  
  Pilar gasped at the flag of permission to perform and covered her face with her hands in an instinctive feminine gesture. Then she put her hands down and sat smiling under the shower jets, while the water trickling down the hills and hollows of her body made her glisten like a seal.
  
  
  "Good morning, kerido," she said. "I hope this is her only broadcast, not yours." Her eyes roamed over my body. "Do you always wake up like this?"
  
  
  "It all depends on who's taking a shower in the next room."
  
  
  "I hope you slept well."
  
  
  "Like a log. If the world ever finds out about this sleeping pill drug of yours, we'll see the latest on barbiturates.
  
  
  "Flatterer. Sit down and I'll wash your back."
  
  
  I stepped into the shower, and Pilar turned me around. She lathered up her hands, but the area of my anatomy that she lathered up was definitely not my back. I turned to face her, and water splashed on both of us. For the first time, she realized what a tall girl she was.
  
  
  "It occurs to me," I said, " that I get a lot of orders from you. It's time for me to take over.
  
  
  "What did you mean, Kerido?" she breathed as she leaned forward, those gorgeous breasts swaying toward me.
  
  
  Taking her by the arms, Pilar lifted her up and led her to his side. Then he lowered it further, a fraction of an inch at a time.
  
  
  She let out a small sound of delight as her arms wrapped around my chest, and she pulled us together, pressing her chest against mine. We began a slow, undulating, motionless dance, there in the shower, gradually increasing the rhythm until Pilar was spinning and shaking like a possessed woman. Suddenly she screamed, her voice piercing the monotonous hum of the water.
  
  
  Instead, we stood together, letting our bodies wash.
  
  
  We dressed quickly and then went to a nearby cafe for a delicious breakfast of huevo rancheros. We washed our egos down with Mexican beer, which even at breakfast is better than bitter Mexican phi coffee.
  
  
  A taxi took us to Aeropuerto Nacional, where we played a small plane game like this. We left at six-thirty. With a two-hour time difference, we would have landed in Curacao around noon.
  
  
  When we were flying
  
  
  
  
  
  In the peaceful green of Yucatan and the deep blue of the Caribbean Sea, her mind couldn't help but remember that not so many hours ago hers, fighting for her life there.
  
  
  As if by mutual consent, Pilar and I didn't talk during the trip. Earlier this morning, we were just a man and a woman enjoying life, and another friend, as if our biggest problem was deciding what to eat for breakfast. But now we were two professionals walking towards unknown dangers, I know we'll never go back. This wasn't the time for small talk. We sat quietly, lost in our own private thoughts.
  
  
  The pilot's voice broke the silence. "They are all around you, who are in the hall on the starboard side, can now see the island of Aruba ahead. Aruba is the smallest of the three islands that make up the Netherlands Antilles. Curacao is still fifty miles to the east. We're starting our descent, and we'll be landing in about fifteen minutes."
  
  
  As the pilot continued to tell us about Curacao's weather conditions (perfect, as always), I watched Aruba glide past us. The Straits between Aruba and Curacao were dotted with white sailboats and many tiny brown islands with no permanent population, although they were sometimes used by fishermen.
  
  
  Our plane landed at Plesman Airport, and we found the fees for a five-mile trip to the capital city of Willemstad. The cabin was an old "Moe", with the roof removed so that it could be used in the open air.
  
  
  The driver was a talkative little man who seemed determined to tell us all the local gossip during our short trip. I didn't pay much attention to what the man was saying until a single sentence went through my mind like an ice pick.
  
  
  "Wait a minute," he barked at the driver. "What did you say about the blonde being pulled up the dress?"
  
  
  He turned in his seat with a wide grin, pleased to have piqued my interest. "Oh, yes, senor. Two days ago, there was a lot of excitement at the fishing docks. One of the boats returned with a yellow-haired lady. She was wearing a life jacket that kept her afloat, even though she wasn't conscious when they brought her in. It's very strange, because only one of our boats was not involved in an accident."
  
  
  "Where is she now?" Her, interjected,
  
  
  "When it became known on the fishing grounds, the woman's husband soon arrived and took her with him."
  
  
  "Her husband?" - repeat it.
  
  
  "Ah, yes. This is a big bear-like man who sometimes swims with Goviota."
  
  
  Gorodin! He must have gone back to Curacao when he couldn't find me or Rona in the & nb. No doubt he was waiting there when word came around that she had been brought in by fishermen. That was two days ago. I calculated the odds that Rona was still alive. It was a long shot: "You don't know where the man is going... her husband... took the woman?" I asked her.
  
  
  "No, senor, but perhaps my friend Saba, the fisherman, can tell you." It was he who pulled out the lady's dress."
  
  
  "Can you take me to Saba?"
  
  
  "Now, senor?"
  
  
  "Currently." He pulled a ten-guilder bill from around his bulging wallet and handed it to the driver. "And do it quickly."
  
  
  "Five m's," he said, depositing the money in a minute.
  
  
  In five minutes, almost to the second, we made our way through the maze of narrow streets to the fishing docks outside of Willemstad, clearing the way with a horn that the driver always leaned on. We stopped abruptly on the embankment in front of a frame house with one large window smeared with smoke and a weathered sign that said Vanvoort's Hideout.
  
  
  As I walked around the car, I felt a tug on my sleeve and realized that I had almost forgotten about Pilar.
  
  
  "Nick, the blonde... is this your Rona?"
  
  
  "It should be."
  
  
  "What are you going to do?"
  
  
  "Find her if you can."
  
  
  "But we have a locality in Russia."
  
  
  If it wasn't for Ron, there would be no mission. It was she who gave us the key, and now she can lead us to Gorodin. Besides, she wasn't trained to do a dangerous job like we were. If she was in Gorodin's hands now, she would have to pay a terrible price. Its got to try to find her. Her husband owes her a lot ."
  
  
  "Hey, you don't have to do anything," Pilar said. "You didn't force her to complete tasks. And the time ... do you know what day it is?
  
  
  "Yes, I know him. Tomorrow is the deadline ."
  
  
  "Forget about her, Nick. Come with me and I'll take you to Torio." We'll find ego on the waterfront, not far from here."
  
  
  He stopped in front of the door of the Vanvoort shrine and looked up into Pilars ' face. When I spoke, my voice was cold. "The decision is mine, and his ego has made it. Will you come with me?" »
  
  
  She met my eyes for a moment, then turned away. She reached out and touched my arm. "I'm so sorry, Nick. You must act according to your conscience. I'll help you in any way you ask. "
  
  
  He squeezed her hand and walked through the door.
  
  
  Chapter Seventeen
  
  
  Vanvoort's Hideaway wasn't a tourist bar. The light was dim, the air musty. The walls were covered with posters advertising beer and politicians. The linoleum floor was worn down to bare wood in a strip along the front of the unpainted plank.
  
  
  The clientele was fishermen and sailors.
  
  
  
  
  
  many nations. And all men. The hum of conversation and the clink of glasses suddenly stopped when the customers noticed Pilar, who was already looking spectacular in a short lemon-yellow dress.
  
  
  Behind the counter sat a club-footed Dutchman with melon-like biceps sticking out from under the short sleeves of his ego shirt.
  
  
  "I'm looking for a fisherman named Saba," I said.
  
  
  The Dutchman's tiny eyes flickered over me like insects. "Who says he's here?"
  
  
  "Ego is another taxi driver. The one in the Hudson River.
  
  
  He shook his massive head from side to side. "Doesn't mean anything to me."
  
  
  Placing both hands on the rod, he pressed his face against it. "Mister, I don't have time to play games, and I don't have time to explain. But I want you to know this: if you don't show me a Sub in five seconds, or tell me where I can find her, I'm going to walk across this bar and break your bones until I get rheumatism."
  
  
  The Dutchman knew I was serious. Ego blush paled. "Over there," he croaked. "Alone in a booth by the wall."
  
  
  When I turned away from the bar, the babble started again, and everyone was busy looking at Pilar.
  
  
  The lone man in the booth was a black Virgin Islander.
  
  
  "Saba?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Actually, buddy. Sit down. And the lady, too. In ego performances, the musical part was British, and the part was calypso-melodic, which you hear in some parts of the West Indies. "You have to instill in Hans the fear of God, make the ego recede like this."
  
  
  "I want to ask about the woman you brought two days ago. The one you found in the sea."
  
  
  "Ah, the lady with the yellow hair. Very pretty. She doesn't wake up to say the words to us. Very, very tired. The sea drains your strength. But I don't think it hurt. Nothing is broken ."
  
  
  "And the man took her away? The one who said he was her husband?
  
  
  "Oh ho, maybe he's not her husband," huh? He doesn't look like the yellow-haired lady who is mistaken for her husband. Too rough, too ugly. Are you a man, buddy?
  
  
  "No, but her servant, and the man who took her away definitely wasn't. Do you know where he took her?"
  
  
  "Yes, I know him. I tell em the way to the Queen's Hospital. He says he never min ', he takes the lady to where he has friends. He said they were taking care of her. So I watch where it goes. He takes the girl to a motorboat with two other men. They're going to Little Dog, a small island twelve miles offshore. Nothing but big Little Dog rocks. Big rocks and a fisherman's hut. Fishermen no longer use this place. Men with guns now scare everyone.
  
  
  "Can you show me how to get to the Little Dog?" she asked.
  
  
  "Of course. Go down to the docks, you can see this place. Let me show it to you."
  
  
  The black man got up and walked out through the kiosks. Pilar followed us out into the street and down a couple of steep blocks to the waterfront, where Saba, alone across the sparkling water, onto what appeared to be a jagged ledge around brown rocks.
  
  
  "Little dog," he said. "Maybe 500 meters long, 200 meters wide. The only safe place to land the boat is on the other side. You can't see it from here.
  
  
  "I need a speedboat," I said. "Do you know anyone who rents me one?"
  
  
  "Of course. I also have one with the fastest boat in the harbor, apart from the smugglers and the police. He charges you a lot of money, but you get your own money."
  
  
  Good."Her," he turned to Pilar. "Now I'm going to ask you to do something that will be very difficult for you."
  
  
  "What's up, Nick?"
  
  
  "Wait for me. Wait until I get back to the dark, tell David Hawk in Washington and tell em everything you know ."
  
  
  "Ble her go with you? I can steer the boat. I can help you in many ways ."
  
  
  "No," I said firmly. "This is my job, and I want you to stay here."
  
  
  "Yes, Nick," she said with uncharacteristic resignation.
  
  
  I squeezed her hand and followed Saba to the docks where we'd find ego, the other on the boat. It turned out to be a very fast boat, which her proud husband carefully kept in good condition. The man wasn't too worried about letting the stranger soar in his pride and joy, but enough guilders had changed hands to reduce ego resistance. The engine was a giant Evinrud ,which instantly came to life, and soon it was already rushing through the light strait towards the Little Dog. Before it got too close, it made a wide circle around the rocky island. At the entrance on the far shore, a boat with cabins was tied to the unpainted harbor of bar. There was a wooden hut for Piers. Pale gray smoke curled around the chimney.
  
  
  She was strangled by an Evinrud, then examined the cabin and surrounding rocks for any signs of life. Did not have. So I started the engine and went back around the island.
  
  
  Her wandered along the rocky shore, on the far side in I asked for a possible landing spot. The jagged peaks rise fifteen or twenty feet, as if some huge disturbance at the center of the earth had thrown ih off the ocean floor. Finally I hit a narrow wedge of water between a couple of protruding boulders, and I managed to squeeze the boat through. I secured her, climbed the rocks, and made my way to the cabin on the opposite side of the island.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Traffic was slow at best, and he moved cautiously, in case Gorodin had set up surveillance. Twenty minutes later, he reached a comfortable spot where he could lie down and look at the cabin. Here, it seemed larger than from the ocean side, and it seemed to be divided into two rooms. The only window he could see was jammed with boards with only slotted holes. Still no sign of human life, just swirling smoke spreading through the air. Now that she was downwind of the smoke, she noticed an unpleasant smell. Perhaps in her heart of hearts, I knew what it was, but I rejected the thought and crawled toward the shack, trying to avoid being seen going to the window in case anyone was watching it.
  
  
  He made it to the hut without any trouble and sat down under the boarded-up window.
  
  
  The stench here was unmistakable. It was the smell of singed flesh and human hair. He gritted his teeth and tried to erase the mental picture of what might happen to Rona Folstedt. Inside the hut, a sharp, barely contained voice of anger rang out. It was the heavy growl of Fyodor Gorodin.
  
  
  "You've given me a lot of trouble, you and Carter," he said. "But you can still earn my forgiveness. You have information, I need that information. Simple exchange. And really, Della, how can you say no to a math major like his who is so talented at persuasion? »
  
  
  He slowly raised his head to squint across the space between the boards, and Gorodin's voice continued.
  
  
  "We know that Carter didn't drown. The ego is said to have been brought ashore in a Mayan fishing village in Yucatan. Moreover, we were not able to track the ego. There would be a contact point where you could contact him in case of an emergency. Her, I want you to tell me where it is."
  
  
  Now he could see the room through the windowsills. Rona-Folstedt was sitting on a wooden chair next to Gorodin. A web rope was tied around her waist, tying her arms at her sides and holding her down on the back of a chair. She was only wearing a scrap of the pants she'd worn when diving off the cruise ship. Above the waist, she was naked, revealing small, well-formed breasts. Her eyes are red and her hair is tangled. When she spoke, it was in a distant, tired voice.
  
  
  "There was no contact person," she said.
  
  
  "You're a liar and a fool," Gorodin said. "You should know what I can make you say. I'm in screaming agony now or later. One way or another, I'll find her for Carter. He's already killed some of my best people, and every minute he's still alive, he's a threat to our plan. Now-once again-where can we find Nick Carter?
  
  
  "I have no idea where he is," Rona said in a tired monotone.
  
  
  "I don't have any more patience," growled Gorodin. "Now I'll show you what happens to the people I've lost my patience with."
  
  
  The big Russian stepped aside, and the source of the smoke around the chimney was discovered. In a large iron brazier, a red-hot pile smouldered around the charcoal. The rubber-covered handles of some long tool protruded from the coals. Gorodin carefully took hold of the handle and pulled out the tool. They were long, sharp-nosed pliers. The pliers glowed with a dull orange light as he showed ih to Rona.
  
  
  "You may have heard of this technique," he said.
  
  
  "The flesh is torn from the body a pinch at a time. Special attention is paid to the delicate breast of a woman. You will live for quite a long time, but at every moment of that time, you will be begging to die."
  
  
  Rhona's gaze rested hypnotically on the glistening tips of the pliers. "But I don't know anything,"she said with tears in her eyes," nothing at all."
  
  
  Gorodin ignored her. "I'll give you another chance to answer my questions," he said coldly. "Then we'll start."
  
  
  He considered his plan of action. Gorodina could have killed her by shooting through the window slats, but in the shadows in the darkened room, he could see that two other men were standing against the nearest wall. They'll probably be armed, and they'll probably kill Rona before I can get him around the corner of the hut to the outer wall. Another door, open, opposite the window, apparently led to a second room. It didn't help. If the room had a window, the ego would have stabbed it.
  
  
  While he was trying to think of a feasible plan, Gorodin inserted the tongs into the coals and turned them in my direction. Her disappeared from sight when he said to one of the unseen people: "Take the ego here. Show Miss Wohlstedt what she can expect if she doesn't cooperate with us."
  
  
  A Slavic guy with short hair crossed himself in front of my window, and when I looked up again, he opened the door on the opposite side. The smell of burnt flesh spread like poisoned gas. The Slav returned a moment later, dragging something on the floor a few feet away from the Rhone.
  
  
  The creature on the floor was shaped like a human with a head, torso, two arms, and two legs. The man didn't tell me much else about it. Flesh and muscle were torn, burned, torn, and torn from every part of the head and body. There didn't seem to be an organ anywhere that could be used.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  it wasn't disfigured. In many places, the bones showed through the holes in the flesh, while the creature was bleeding and other body fluids.
  
  
  The lips were completely torn off, leaving a skull-like grimace of exposed teeth. Where one eye had been, there was now only a wet, blackened hole.
  
  
  Worst of all, this remnant of a man was still alive.
  
  
  Rona shut her mouth and turned away as the apparition scraped the floorboards with a spasmodic hand.
  
  
  "You can't turn your back on an old friend like that," Gorodin said. "Or maybe you don't recognize the handsome young Boris."
  
  
  Ron let out a shaky sob.
  
  
  "We found the ego unconscious, but still alive," Gorodin continued. "We revived it. We nursed him and fed his ego before the trials. Then he paid the price, not very staunchly, I'll admit, in that careless moment when he evaded his duty, and will let you and Carter escape. Rising abruptly, ego Stahl's voice hardened. "And now it's your time. I need Nick Carter, and you can tell me where to find ego."
  
  
  "Me... I don't know," sobbed Rona.
  
  
  Gorodin swore in Russian and reached for the rubber handles of the pliers.
  
  
  The waterproof tube with the six smoke balls that Stewart had given me was in my hand. Somehow I had to throw one of the pellets into the glowing charcoal. It was an easy distance - the problem was to send the pellet through the grated window. I needed an air gun, and when the image popped up in my head, I quickly pulled a ballpoint pen around my shirt pocket and unscrewed the cap, throwing out the ego along with the cartridge inside. This left me with a three-and-a-half-inch tube, narrow at one end and wide enough at the other to receive one of the smoke pellets. He dropped the bullet in the center of the handle, stuck it between the window boards, and began carefully adjusting it to make sure the rocket's trajectory was accurate.
  
  
  Gorodin now approached Rona. Holding a pair of pliers in each hand, he pressed the hot tongs to her left nipple. Her made, little homemade blowgun glowing charcoal. My first attempt should be perfect, because I don't think I'll be able to do it again.
  
  
  He took a deep breath, pressed his lips to the end of the tube, and exhaled with an explosive puff.
  
  
  The ball flew into the coal and donkey on the hot coals with a delicious hiss and mushroom smoke, spreading its pale, suffocating smoke to every corner of the room.
  
  
  Blessing Stewart's ingenuity, he pulled out a handkerchief mask and covered his nose and mouth with it. He turned the corner of the hut and shouldered the door open. It shuddered and then shattered as his strong kick hit it.
  
  
  As his burst into the hut with Luger in hand, he saw Gorodin stumble out the door into the next room, while one of the ego people blindly wanted a target for his submachine gun.
  
  
  He was shot and fell. He was still trying to pick up the submachine gun from the floor, so she shot him again, and he stopped moving.
  
  
  "The second person in the room attacked me with red-hot pliers after picking ih up from the floor, where ih had dropped Gorodin. The emu shot her in the head, then lunged at Rona and quickly freed her. Between coughs, Hey managed to exhale my name.
  
  
  "Nick?"
  
  
  "Actually," I said. "Calm down, I'll get you out of here in a minute."
  
  
  Plath's mask slipped off my rta as I carried her outside to Ron and lowered her to the ground. He waited for my eyes to clear, then returned to the Gorodins.
  
  
  He stepped over the fluttering remains of Boris and into the second room of the shack. Empty. There was a plank window, but it was broken. He looked at the surrounding rocks, but didn't see Gorodin.
  
  
  Rhona's distant cry threw me away from the window. He ran back through the hut and out the front door. Gorodin ran along a short path between boulders to the dock where the boat was parked. When hers came through the door, he turned around and shot me with a long-barreled Erma pistol. Gawk's ego caught me in the sleeve, Rivnenskaya enough to ruin my target when her two return shots were fired. The Odin around them hit the cruiser's fuel tank, and the boat shot up with a loud explosion as Gorodin threw himself off the path and onto the rocks.
  
  
  He knelt down next to Rona. "Can you walk?"
  
  
  "Me... I think so."
  
  
  "Then keep an open mind behind me. I have a boat moored on the other side of the island. It won't be easy going, and Gorodin is out there somewhere with a gun.
  
  
  "You're driving, Nick," she said. "I'll do it"
  
  
  Her shirt had been taken off and left to ee Rone, not out of modesty, but because it was almost the color of a rock. My own skin was tanned enough to not be such an obvious target. With Rhona behind me, I made my way back over the jagged rocks in the direction of my boat, painfully wary of the slightest sound or movement.
  
  
  When ego saw it, there was only one narrow ridge of rock between us and the boat, a glint of metal in the sun.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She was thrown heavily to the ground by Ron, who collapsed beside her just as the flat crack of an Erma pistol shattered the silence and gravel splashed two paces in front of us.
  
  
  "Stay where you are, "Rone hissed at her, and aimed the Luger at the spot where she'd seen the flash of the gun's muzzle. She was shot once, twice.
  
  
  Gorodin's arm and shoulder wrapped around the boulder, and he fired a wild shot that bounced off the rocks above our heads. Her shot at rheumatism and heard a Russian yell than hurt when my gawk tore emu's forearm.
  
  
  Now carelessly, Gorodin shifted to examine his wound and cast a perfect shadow on the boulder in front of him. Obviously, he wasn't seriously hurt, because I saw shadow clench and unclench his right hand, then pick up the gun again and crawl higher up the rocks for a shot.
  
  
  When Gorodin's target appeared, he was ready with his luger aimed. He pulled the trigger. The hammer hit the empty camera wall. I used two rounds of ammunition, and I didn't have the other one.
  
  
  The Russian shot, but due to the bullet wound in his ego, his accuracy was poor, and he dived back in sight.
  
  
  Her eyes scanned the jagged rocks around us, searching for a place that might be better sheltered. Ten yards from the path we'd come from, there was a coffin-shaped cavity.
  
  
  I went to Rona's ear, and he whispered, " I'm sorry.: "When I tell it to you, get up and run it to the hole that's there. Move fast and hold on.
  
  
  She opened her mouth to say something, but Gorodin got up again and took aim. "Go!" I said softly. Rona jumped out, ducked, stumbled, and ducked into the alcove as Gawk bit off a chunk of boulder inches from the hole.
  
  
  He jumped to his feet and followed her. When her, dove into a shallow pool, gawking eyes burned my shoulder and hit the ground. He flew out to a sheltered spot and felt the sticky wetness of blood in that spot.
  
  
  "You've been hit!" said Rona.
  
  
  "Hardly."
  
  
  Gorodin's voice came from outside, and he could now guess why I hadn't returned his fire. "Carter, can you hear me? Another one like this will kill you! Come out with your hands up! "
  
  
  After a few seconds of silence, two more shots rang out. One of the bullets hit our narrow opening and ricocheted back and forth, splattering us with shards of rock.
  
  
  Approaching Rona, he whispered to her:: "Next time he shoots, yell."
  
  
  She nodded in understanding, and at the next shot, he let out an agonized scream. It was Ay who gave her the okay sign, and Stahl waited.
  
  
  "All right, Carter," Gorodin bellowed. "Come out, or the woman will die!"
  
  
  "I can't!" shouted her rheumatism, a voice absurdly strained than painful. "She was wounded, and the woman was seriously wounded. Let her go, and I'll make a deal with you."
  
  
  "I don't think you have any ammo either, ah. Throw the gun away; then we'll talk."
  
  
  He smeared the blood on his wound, on Rona's hairline and on her face, put her on her back and told her what to do. Then he called out to Gorodin and threw the gun away.
  
  
  When she heard Gorodin's approach, she rolled over to life and lay hunched over and stationary. Heavy shaggy silence fell over us. After a pause Gorodin said: "Out, Carter, out!"
  
  
  Then Rona said weakly, " He's ... he's unconscious."
  
  
  "Probably not," growled Gorodin. "Let me know if he's faking it."
  
  
  The ego gun exploded blatantly over me, and gawking eyes shattered the ground and rubble inches from my head. Ego's words signaled a trick, and hers didn't budge.
  
  
  A shadow fell on the rocks. I saw it out of the corner of my eye as he leaned over me forever. He knew that he had a gun in his fist, carefully aiming his ego, and waited in anxious anticipation. Rona, I said, don't let me down now!
  
  
  Then he heard the push of her leg, the soft thud of her foot as it connected with Gorodin's body, and he stumbled.
  
  
  Gripping the stiletto in his hand, he instantly turned and drove the blade into Ego's massive chest. With a long sigh and a gurgling groan, he gave up the gun - and his life.
  
  
  Rona led her out into the dim afternoon and said: "The boat just passed the ridge. Wait for me there - I have one last thing to do."
  
  
  She looked at me questioningly, then turned and walked back to the boat. He reached for Erma's pistol, which Gorodin had dropped, and knocked out all but one of the shells. Then he went back over the rocks to the fisherman's hut. The door swung open and the smoke cleared.
  
  
  He walked across the room to Boris's torn remains. There were barely audible whimpers around the shattered throat, and a working hand scraped the floor.
  
  
  I felt like I had something important to say, but I couldn't find the words. Her just put the gun on the floor for a moving hand and walked out the door.
  
  
  He was just walking back to the Rhone and the boat when he heard the shot
  
  
  Chapter Eighteen
  
  
  When I joined Rona in the boat, she was hunched over in the bow, hugging herself like a small abandoned child. Tears were streaming down her cheeks,and she was shaking miserably.
  
  
  "It's all right now," I said. "No one will follow us."
  
  
  She reached out and crossed her arms over her chest.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  towards me, clinging to me as if I were a raft of salvation. After keeping her cool through a nightmare of violence and a long stay in the ocean, she was at the end of her endurance-on the verge of collapse. And hers, knowing that Hi needed rest and medical attention.
  
  
  Holding Rona beside me with one hand and steering the boat with the other, he crossed the water and headed for the Curacao docks. As we approached the overpass where the boat was moored, I saw a figure standing there, waiting. It was Pilar. Apparently, while watching the boat, she saw us approaching.
  
  
  It slowed down, drifted to the dock, and threw a rope to Pilar. She secured the ego to the spike as her jumped out and secured the stern. He then picked up Rona and lifted her to the dock, where in a trance-like catatonia of shock, she sat up like a zombie.
  
  
  "It must be the Rhones," Pilar said.
  
  
  “yeah. She's in bad shape. We'll take a taxi to the hospital.
  
  
  "I can do better than that. A Jeep rented it while you were gone. It's parked candid there. You take Rhona back; her, I'll go. I know the way to the hospital. Then she added comically, " Your Rona is very pretty."
  
  
  "Pilar," I said, " I'm glad to see you. You are a convenient partner. Let's go."
  
  
  As Pilar and I drove in the Jeep through the streets of Willemstad, she said, " What happened on the island?"
  
  
  "Gorodin was there with a couple of his goons," her husband said. "He was going to torture Rona to make her talk. What he didn't know was that she couldn't answer him. She was just a fan of the game for avid professionals ."
  
  
  "But she really was a volunteer," Pilar said.
  
  
  "Actually, but no one around us took the time to tell you about the possible risks."
  
  
  Pilars ' black eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. "Do you care about her, Nick?"
  
  
  He paused for a moment before answering. "If you mean I love ee, violins and candles, then I don't have rheumatism. I've been doing this dirty business for so long, I don't know if I can really love anyone in the classic sense of the word. But if you mean, I care what happens to her, of course. Otherwise, she wouldn't have gone to Little Dog Island to help Hey. Her know that it seems too human to me, but hers hasn't turned into a block of ice yet."
  
  
  Pilar spoke softly, looking straight ahead. "Nick, tell me something."
  
  
  "Of course."
  
  
  "Do you care what happens to me?"
  
  
  He reached out and placed his hand on the warm flesh of her shoulder. "Very much," I said.
  
  
  Pilar sighed, then said curiously:: "I hope you never regret it."
  
  
  At that moment, we turned and pulled out into the entrance to the Queen's Hospital, a gleaming new building in pastel blue. I left her a pack at the cashier, and Odin assured me on the phone that Rona would provide the best possible medical care. He told the doctor that any additional expenses would be paid for by the American consul, and then called the consulate to make arrangements.
  
  
  He returned to Pilar in the Jeep. It was dark, and the sky glittered with an infinity of stars. He said, " Let's go rob the smugglers."
  
  
  She was put behind the wheel of the jeep; Pilar gave her recommendations. We returned to the waterfront and then turned south.
  
  
  "There must be other news that you haven't told me," Pilar said. "How did you leave Gorodin?"
  
  
  "Dead."
  
  
  "And the two of them who were with him?"
  
  
  "Also dead. And a guy named Boris who died because he was too well-equipped and too careless to play."
  
  
  "So you left behind four bodies?"
  
  
  "That's right. But somewhere Anton Zhizov and Knox Varnov are preparing to blow up New York tomorrow. If we don't get to them first, it doesn't matter if they find four bodies on Little Dog Island or four thousand."
  
  
  Pilar looked thoughtful. And he was silent.
  
  
  We drove to the most seedy part of the waterfront, where the poorest around local fishermen moored their pathetic-looking boats in thick oil and trash. After a couple of miles, Pilar pointed to a gray, rough frame building, lit from the front by a single pale light bulb. In comparison, Varnov's Hideout was like the shack of a Shouting Merchant.
  
  
  "This is where we need to start," Pilar said. "If you need Torio, go to Little Lisa."
  
  
  The sound waves hit us when we were still fifty feet away from the ground. A full-scale riot couldn't have been louder. Inside, we joined a hundred or so cheery people who, while not rioting, were at least hysterical. Everyone seemed to be in constant motion. It was impossible to drown out the noise, so everyone was shouting. From time to time, sharp female laughter cut through the cacophony. A jukebox was playing somewhere, but only the reverberation of the deepest bass notes could be heard.
  
  
  Pilar and I fought our way through the frantic bodies to a simple board set up at the back of the building. A woman the size of Godzilla was sitting on the side of it, pouring drinks into unmarked bottles. And almost as attractive.
  
  
  Pilars shouted in her ear. It was hardly a wild hunt.
  
  
  "Little Liza!" she confirmed with a grin.
  
  
  Lisa wore a cascade of tight curls in her shorts.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  a red color that couldn't possibly be human hair. Somewhere between six and seven feet tall, Lisa was covered in bags, pockets, and oddly shaped pieces of flesh. It was like an amateur sculptor hastily slapping the clay on the frame. Intending to finish the work later, he rightfully lost faith in his creativity and gave up.
  
  
  When I finally got her attention, Lisa moved awkwardly toward me from the other side of the bar, the flesh of her various parts dancing to different rhythms.
  
  
  "What will it be?" her voice rumbled like an empty barrel rolling on a cobblestone.
  
  
  "I want Torio," I shouted.
  
  
  "I've never heard of nen," boomed Little Lisa in Rheumatism.
  
  
  "Gorodin sent me."
  
  
  "I've never heard of nen either."
  
  
  He pulled out his wallet. I was running out of guilders, so I spread out a few American notes on the board in front of the huge woman.
  
  
  "I've heard about Andrew Jackson," she said. "Torio sleeps in the back room." She pointed a finger the size of a pickle.
  
  
  With Pilar in tow, I headed for the narrow door at the far end of the bar. In the small room behind it, there was one chair, one chair, and one cot. launch.
  
  
  The door closed behind her, and the noise died down. Her, checked the other door in the opposite groans. This led out into the open air for the building. He went over to the unsuspecting smuggler, searched Ego, and found a Colt .38 automatic. After giving this to Pilar, he shoved it, took his luger emu under his nose, and slapped him across the face.
  
  
  She was shouted " Torio!".
  
  
  He turned his head, grunted piteously, and slowly opened his eyes. When he saw the gun under his nose, his eyes widened.
  
  
  "Hey, what's this, a robbery?"
  
  
  "Get up, Torio," I growled. "We're going for a ride."
  
  
  This ego was startled. He sel. "Wait," he pleaded. "I don't even know you."
  
  
  "This isn't such a wouldnt game," emu told her. "Play sincerely with me, and you will have a round trip. Now move the ego! "
  
  
  Ego poked her lightly with the barrel of his gun to emphasize it, and Torio jumped up from the bunk with surprising agility for someone with a heavy hangover. Ego pushed her out the back door, and he obediently walked over to where we'd parked the Jeep.
  
  
  Pilar was driving, and hers was in the back with Torio, luger trained.
  
  
  "Drive down the road for about a hundred yards and then pull off when you find a dark spot," her father said.
  
  
  "Now, Torio,"I said as we drove down the dim road and parked," I want to know about the suitcases."
  
  
  "Suitcases?" "What is it?" he asked.
  
  
  "I don't have much time, Torio," I said, " and neither does my temper. In just a minute or two, you'll hear bones cracking and see a lot of blood. These bones and this blood will be yours, Torio, so please take this opportunity to share information."
  
  
  In the moonlight, he could see drops of water rising from the ego's scalp and trickling down the smooth sides of the ego's head.
  
  
  He quickly nodded, " Good, good. I'm not going to be a hero to foreign bitches. You mean the suitcases that took her to Gaviota, really?
  
  
  "A clever conclusion, Torio. I want to know who gave you ih and where you took it."
  
  
  "It was a husky guy with a foreign sound that I made a deal with six months ago. A big hairy monkey. He never told me his name, and he wasn't the kind of guy I was supposed to ask questions about. He always paid me in advance, then told me when to pick up my suitcase. Hers was heading south from here, a little way into the hills, and he came by helicopter with a suitcase and took her ego to the ship. Trust me, that's all I know, other. I even looked in one of my suitcases and it was empty. It's a freaking weird business, but I can't afford to be curious.
  
  
  "How many suitcases did you put on the ship?" he asked her.
  
  
  "Let me see, the last time we took it was three nights ago. There will be eight in total.
  
  
  "Can you take us to where the helicopter lands?"
  
  
  "Sure, but there's always a couple of guards with guns. Oni and the pilot, a guy named Ingram, who sticks around there when his helicopter pilot is in the hall inside.
  
  
  "It's up to you," I said, " to see that we get past security. And now we have instructions.
  
  
  Pilar drove south and turned onto the narrow dirt road marked by Torio. Then we were out in the open. Fortunately, Pilar rented a four-wheel-drive jeep: it was hard to drive: the road turned into a trail, the entire territory of the hotel, but rocky, and the terrain turned into hills.
  
  
  Now I had a smuggler sitting in front of me, so that when the searchlight hit us, he could jump up and wave his hands so that the ego would know before anyone started shooting.
  
  
  "It's her, Torio," he called.
  
  
  The man with the shotgun moved slowly forward and stopped a few feet away. "What are you doing here? There will be no pickup today "
  
  
  "There are problems in Gaviota," Torio said. The big guy said I should come and tell Ingram.
  
  
  "Who are the other two?"
  
  
  
  
  
  The guard asked suspiciously.
  
  
  "They... they are... Torio began awkwardly.
  
  
  "We're with Gorodin," I said. "We have information that we need to get to Zhizov immediately."
  
  
  Names were important to the guards. Ego rifle's nose lowered, and he walked over to the jeep. "Show me your ID card, please, sir," he said respectfully.
  
  
  "Of course," I said, and reached out for a scrap of paper. It was held by ego so that the guard could reach him. As he did so, ego grabbed his wrist and pushed him forward. Pilar quickly punched the man behind the ear, causing ego to freeze before he could cry out.
  
  
  He gagged her and bound her with a piece of nylon rope that he had found in the boat and used for such a dangerous situation. Turning the ego's searchlight, it illuminated her small wooden building fifty yards away. Just behind it was a small, sturdy helicopter. The saint turned it off and motioned for Pilar to turn off the jeep's engine. Pushing Torio ahead of me, Luger in hand, her husband scrambled out to the building with a coil of rope and hurried away, Pilar following me. As we approached the door, he pushed it open and stormed inside, pushing the button on the searchlight. Two men sleeping on bunks against the far wall were playing this game. One was a heavy Slavic type who might have been the brother of the disabled security guard at the entrance, the other was a pale, skinny man with a big nose and a weak chin. He decided that he would be Ingram, the pilot.
  
  
  The guard was reaching for his rifle, which was propped up against the groan near the head of his bunk.
  
  
  "You'll die trying," emu told her, and the man froze. Ingram froze, rubbing his eyes and blinking.
  
  
  Pilar found Mira's light switch, and ego's blazing flames flooded the single room of the buildings. To our left was a complex shortwave radio station.
  
  
  "Torio! You sold us out, " the guard accused.
  
  
  "Of course," said the smugglers, " with a gun at my target, I'll sell out fast - just like you, buddy."
  
  
  "Ingram, get dressed," I ordered. "Helicopter refueled with gas?"
  
  
  "Yes, to the fullest," he said nervously.
  
  
  The man was trembling with fear. It doesn't matter that he's so afraid that he can't fly, " I said. "Just follow orders and you won't get hurt." This calmed his ego, and he began to pull on his clothes.
  
  
  "Torio, sit in this chair," I said, and the smugglers hurried to obey. He threw a coil of rope to the guard and said, " Tie him up. I don't need to warn you to do a good job.
  
  
  Torio also aimed it at the guards with his luger, making sure that Torio was secured in good tight knots. Pilar was holding the smuggler's .38-caliber pistol and keeping an eye on Ingram, but he wasn't going to cause us any trouble.
  
  
  When Torio was heavily bound, he told the guard, " Now sit in the chair at the other end of the room." When he obeyed her sullenly Pilar said: "Take a rope and tie it up, children."
  
  
  Pilar handed me the Colt and walked over to the guard. This was a serious mistake. She stepped between me and our prisoner. In one swift movement, the man pulled out a knife from somewhere under his clothes and grabbed Pilar, turning her in front of him, tilting her head back and holding the blade of the knife to her throat.
  
  
  "Drop the gun or the woman will die," he rasped.
  
  
  Crouching down as he stood behind Pilar's body, the man offered no target, he couldn't be absolutely certain that I would miss it and hit the death spot. If I turned the gun to get a better aim, it would cut her throat. So he hesitated.
  
  
  "Damn it, the tailor told her to drop the gun." "No," he snapped. "You think I'm bluffing her?"
  
  
  When she didn't move, the guard jerked the knife, and a red worm of blood crawled down Pilars ' neck. The Luger still held her ready.
  
  
  "Ingram, take that idiot's gun," the guard barked.
  
  
  "Me... I can't do it," the pilot said in a shaky voice.
  
  
  The guard snarled at him, " Be a man for once, you whimpering earthquake, or I'll..."
  
  
  We never found out what the guard might have done to Ingram, because in his pilot's rage, he turned Rivnenskaya's head enough so that the Luger could put her in position and shoot the emu through the unprotected left eye. He turned away from Pilar, bounced off the wall, and fell to the floor. The knife struck harmlessly away.
  
  
  Pilar stared at me with an offended expression. "You would have let em cut my throat before you gave up your gun, wouldn't you?" she said.
  
  
  "Of course," I admitted. "If he had my gun, you and I would both be dead."
  
  
  She nodded slowly. "Yes, her, I guess you're right. But still... " She shook her head. "You're cool. You give me the creeps."
  
  
  "We'll warm you up later," he said quickly, and turned to the pilot. "Now, Ingram, you're going to take me to a place where you can pick up the suitcases that you're taking to Torio."
  
  
  "You mean Gisov's hideout?"
  
  
  "That's right. Where is it in the hall?"
  
  
  "In the mountains on the border of Venezuela and British Guiana. But hers would never be able to land there in the dark. Not when it's hard enough.
  
  
  He looked at his watch. "If we take off now, it should be bright
  
  
  
  
  
  when we get there. And Ingram, if you accidentally point me in the wrong direction, you'll be locked up Six feet underground forever..."
  
  
  "I am neither brave nor stupid," he replied. "I'll do exactly what you tell me."
  
  
  "That's good, Ingram. You may still live to write your mother all the unpleasant details."
  
  
  Pilar, who had been sitting quietly at the side, spoke up. "Nick, you sound like you're coming from Odin's place."
  
  
  "Her," I said. "This is the thread of the queue, and most likely there will be fireworks. A woman can be a nuisance ."
  
  
  "No," she said, spreading her legs resolutely. "We've come so far together, and now I won't be left behind. Its helped you a lot, hasn't it? "
  
  
  "That's true, but ..."
  
  
  "Take me with you, Nick," she said. "I can shoot as well as you, but two pistols and double our chances of success. This means a lot to me, querido "
  
  
  For a moment, I couldn't make up my mind.
  
  
  But what Pilar said made sense. She was a seasoned professional, tougher than most men. And she knew that she was expendable, that if necessary, Owl mission would sacrifice it to her.
  
  
  "Then let's go," I said. "Since you're not going to use the Jeep to get back to the city, go and pull the distributor cap so that it's not useless to anyone who finds it useful." He couldn't help but add, " Do you know what a distributor cap is?"
  
  
  Her full lips curved in a slightly mocking smile. "Yes, querido, I know about distributor caps and many other things you won't believe."
  
  
  Her, grinned at the rheumatism. Good. And you can give our friend another knock to put him to sleep for a while.
  
  
  "I'll hurry," she said, and took the .38 from me and hurried away.
  
  
  He walked over to the walkie-talkie, smashed it on the floor until the case opened, and then destroyed the guts with the butt of the guard's rifle. During this rough debriefing, I watched Ingram, even though he was a very good boy, and was no more of a threat than a toothless black hound on a rope.
  
  
  Her Torio said: "You'll work for a while and then you can go back to Willemstad. It's a long way to go, but you'll have time to think about how best to make a living. Berry plumbing, " I said.
  
  
  He barely smiled. He didn't have much of a sense of humor.
  
  
  Pilar returned with the dispenser lid, which she handed to me with a mock curtsy. "Whoever is there should not wake up before noon," she said. "And then he'll have a headache that no amount of aspirin can cure."
  
  
  "All right, Ingram,"I said," let's get yours up in the helicopter." Then the three of us trudged down the rutted road to the waiting helicopter.
  
  
  Chapter nineteen
  
  
  Ingram seemed to take charge as he took the helm of the helicopter and we took off into the night sky. We headed east and slightly south, soon leaving the lights of Curacao behind us. The small island of Bonaire also slipped away, and for a while there was only the black Caribbean Sea below us and the starry sky above.
  
  
  Soon we caught the lights of Caracas and walked along the coast of Venezuela for a while.
  
  
  "You say this mountain hideout of Gisov is hard to find," I said.
  
  
  "Almost impossible," Ingram said. "No airlines fly over this place. But if they were, they would never have seen it. Buildings are built all over the aka orange-brown rock mountains. The ego is almost invisible from air sampling. There are no roads to it. All supplies must be delivered by plane. Zhizov made a deal with one of the South American governments, I do not know which one, to transport cargo. My job was to transport VIP double rooms of these suitcases. And if I didn't know the landmarks that guided me, I would never have found this place alone."
  
  
  We passed Trinidad on our left, and turned south to head inland through the swampy terrain of the Orinoco Delta. The eastern sky began to lighten, and details of the ground became visible as we rumbled into the mountainous terrain known as the Guiana Highlands.
  
  
  Then we had to gain altitude, and Ingram adjusted the pitch of the main rotor to take a deeper gulp of the thinner air. Stahl's day is brighter, but high cloud cover showed no signs of dissipating.
  
  
  A thought I'd deliberately avoided crossed my mind. It was the day that New York City would die if I couldn't stop it.
  
  
  Ingram nudged my shoulder, interrupting my thoughts. He pointed ahead at a rock formation, such as one in the shape of a raised fist, giving an obscene salute.
  
  
  "Can you see that up ahead?"the pilot shouted over the sound of our engine. "This is a landmark that pilots must pass. We call it Finger Mountain. Just beyond it is a small rocky valley where Zhizov pitched his house.
  
  
  "What are the chances that they will start shooting as soon as they see us coming in?"
  
  
  "I don't think that's likely. Ingram seemed to have gathered the courage in the air that the emu lacked on the ground. "They are quite confident in their safety here, and as the embassy reported, they come and go quite often. Unless they somehow find out about what happened
  
  
  
  
  
  we shouldn't have any problems landing in Curacao."
  
  
  "All right," I said.
  
  
  "But that's just the beginning. As soon as they spot you or the lady, all hell breaks loose.
  
  
  "Can you give me an idea of the physical layout of this place?" I asked her. "Where does Zhizov's headquarters come from? Where does the scientist Varnov do his work?
  
  
  "No," Ingram said, and then looked at me quickly, as if to assure me of his sincerity. "Believe me, I would have told you now if I had known. All I do is stay at the helipad while someone gets out or sits down, or while they load whatever they want to carry it."
  
  
  "What if you want to deliver a message?"
  
  
  "I give my ego to the security guard at the helicopter landing site. He'll come out and meet us. And he'll be the first hema you'll have to deal with."
  
  
  We rounded a jutting thumb of rock and began to descend into a narrow canyon with sheer cliffs on all sides. Even then, if you didn't want it, well, you wouldn't see it with all the buildings crudely built around rocks. I counted four rather large buildings, one small one near the flat ground we were descending to. Low rocky ridges and boulders littered the entire area, and there were only faint traces of paths connecting the buildings.
  
  
  While I was watching, a man came out of a small building near the helipad and looked at us. He carried a rifle over his shoulder.
  
  
  "It's a security guard," Ingram said.
  
  
  "Is he the only one?"
  
  
  "He's the only one I've ever seen. There may be others ."
  
  
  Pilar said to her, " Get down out of sight." After she took up a position, she was also made invisible by Stahl.
  
  
  "When we land," he told Ingram, " let the security guard come closer, open to the day."
  
  
  "What if I can't get ego here?" the pilot asked nervously, the ego courage in the air starting to evaporate.
  
  
  Try very hard, " I said. "As if your life depended on it. Because, Ingram, an old friend, it's true.
  
  
  We carefully landed in a small clearing, and Ingram was solving research problems with the engine. As the big rotor came to a stop, the man with the rifle shouted something from where he was standing twenty feet away.
  
  
  Ingram pushed open the door and shouted, " I've got something for the general."
  
  
  "Are you lame?" the guard called back. "Bring this."
  
  
  "To me... I'm going to need some help," Ingram said. "It's too hard for me."
  
  
  There was silence. But then we heard shaggy footsteps across the gravel toward us. "You know, it shouldn't be a porter," the guard complained. "You should-"
  
  
  He stopped abruptly, as if he could see us. I knew we were in trouble when I heard the unmistakable sound of a guard removing his rifle and turning it on in the prison. The Luger had her ready, but it would have been fatal to risk firing a shot now and alerting the entire crew. Instead, I pressed it down on my forearm, and Hugo fell into my palm. A stiletto flipped her over, and he held the blade between thumb and forefinger as he quickly climbed through the doorway. The guard raised the rifle, and its blade was made in the ego's direction.
  
  
  The stiletto flipped in midair before the blade entered the man's neck. He made a sound like a hoarse whisper, took two steps back, and fell to the ground, blood gushing down ego's throat.
  
  
  Pilar hopped around the copter. Ingram stared at the dead man from the pilot's seat.
  
  
  "What now?" Pilar asked.
  
  
  "Now I'm going to sneak in and explore this stone village. You will stay here to watch Ingram. When I get her back, she might be on the run, and I'll need someone to cover for me.
  
  
  "All right, Nick," she said with a meek agreement that surprised me.
  
  
  He kissed her lightly, then bent over the dead guard, yanked the stiletto away from his throat, and wiped the blade clean. Ego returned it to the scabbard of his forearm, then climbed over the rocks, avoiding the path leading out of the guard post.
  
  
  Remembering how I saw her, this place from a bird's-eye view, she rushed towards the biggest building. It seemed logical to assume that this would be the headquarters of the operation. I'm lying on a small ridge that opens onto a path that leads directly to a long, low building called the barracks. As he watched, people in rough blue clothes and work caps moved out of the exit. They were unarmed. Others had holstered pistols and brown Soviet Army uniforms with red trim. Beyond the barracks, he noticed a large square building that he had made her first target.
  
  
  Her interrogator left his vantage point and walked cautiously around the shacks to the point above it. Like the others, it was only about six feet high, and he guessed that the interior space descended below ground level. I heard voices and knelt down to listen to the narrow ventilation system.
  
  
  "Did you send for me, General Zhizov?" It was a young voice-energetic, military.
  
  
  Zhizov responded with an oily-smooth patronizing intonation. "I sent for you, Major Rashki, because I did not receive a message at the appointed time from Colonel Gorodin. Thus, we must assume that it will not be available to us during the final stages of the operation. I need my second in command,
  
  
  
  
  
  and he chose you."
  
  
  "I'm honored, General."
  
  
  Tell me, Major, are you fully familiar with the plan?"
  
  
  "Yes, sir. We have placed nuclear explosive devices in seven American cities, and the most recent device was placed on the Panama Canal. The names of cities and the exact location of the full name are known only to you and an American scientist ."
  
  
  "Very good, Rashki. Do you know when the first bomb is scheduled to go off? "
  
  
  "Today, sir." He clears his throat in embarrassment. "There are rumors all over the camp, sir."
  
  
  "Yes, it's hardly a secret; the mechanisms are obvious. Her, I'll tell you that the first American city to be destroyed is New York. Since the ih government did not accept our terms, Dr. Varnow will detonate the first Rivne bomb in four hours."
  
  
  He looked at his watch with great relief. There was an icy fear that as it circled the Venezuelan sky at dawn, New York City might even then have been leveled by the infernal flames of a nuclear explosion.
  
  
  While they thought the odds were against me, a chilling growl echoed around the ventilator.
  
  
  "Ah, I see her, my dog friends are awake," Zhizov purred. "Don't worry, Major, as long as I control everything, they won't harm you. But one word from me and they'll kill you in seconds." Zhizov's enthusiastic laugh was imitated by the unconvinced Raschke. "These beasts are made by two of the most powerful forces in the world, Major," Zhizov continued. "Fear and hate. Remember this "
  
  
  "Yes, sir," the Major replied uncertainly over the snarls of the beasts.
  
  
  He moved away from the ventilator and sat down, looking at the walkways between the buildings. First of all, I needed a clue to Knox Vornow's murder, which was the key to the whole murderous case.
  
  
  The workers passed singly and in pairs. The armed soldiers with their ih defiant bearing seemed pleased to the point of indifference. Perhaps, as Ingram had hinted, they had come to carelessly assume that ih security in such a place was invulnerable.
  
  
  It was clear that I should have freedom of movement. So he waited for the next worker to pass under him and fall behind him. Ego hit her with a Luger ,and he went limp in my arms. She was quickly dragged by ego to the rocks and silenced forever by ego.
  
  
  She took off the blue coveralls he was wearing and pulled ego over her clothes. The pants were a little too short, but otherwise they fit. He put on his hat and pressed the visor to his forehead. From a reasonable distance, it could pass unnoticed. After hiding the worker's body between two giant boulders, he headed back to the trail and followed it. I heard shaggy voices behind me. He ducked into a low doorway that looked like a storeroom. He knelt down, his back to the path, and fiddled with the handle all day, as if checking a faulty lock.
  
  
  The warm smell of food reached my nostrils as two workmen paused to linger on the path behind me.
  
  
  "I don't have to guess who gets the breakfast you're carrying," said one around them. "An American, right? To a scientist."
  
  
  "Of course," said another. "He's our guest of honor."
  
  
  "What's he got this morning when we're eating our usual trash?"
  
  
  "Fresh eggs, ham, toast and ripe tomatoes."
  
  
  The first worker moaned expressively. "I pray that there will be no icing until we can all leave this mountain purgatory and live as human beings again. How I envy good Eda and the women that Americans enjoy."
  
  
  "This time is near, comrade. Today we must strike at the Americans."
  
  
  "If so, then today we celebrate. But now I must go."
  
  
  As he watched, one of the two men followed a nearby path, branching off to the left, while the other, carrying a tray of food, continued walking openly. He let the emu walk down the path and then followed, covering his face with his cap.
  
  
  The man didn't turn around, so I followed him to one of the larger buildings that stood apart from the group of buildings. He went down a few steps, opened the door and disappeared through it, gave em a few seconds, then went through the same door.
  
  
  Her discovery was that these buildings were dug much deeper and finished much more thoroughly than she had imagined. Ih A well-designed design indicates a long preparation period.
  
  
  There was one long corridor with walls around smooth stone that curved gently in an arc. Although I couldn't see the worker, he was heard by shaggy's ego up ahead. The corridor was lit up with electric lights at regular intervals, and there was no doubt that there was a power plant there.
  
  
  Then I remembered that a few years ago there were rumors that a Russian base was being prepared somewhere in South America. This was during the Cuban missile crisis, for example, and in the subsequent detente, such rumors died out. Now it turns out that the database is a fact. It was probably abandoned by the official Russian regime, but reactivated by the Grassroots and ego faction as a hidden center of ih operations.
  
  
  All along the corridor, her
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I only went through one door. Apparently, there weren't many rooms, as they had to be carved from solid rock. Hearing voices up ahead, he stopped abruptly.
  
  
  "I brought a royal breakfast for your Highness' ego." It was the food delivery guy's voice, full of sarcasm.
  
  
  "Just deliver edu and leave idiotic comments." The answering voice was rough and businesslike ."
  
  
  "What is the American doing there?" the worker asked. "Is he ready for a special day?"
  
  
  Now he slowly moved along the curved wall to look at the processes, and reached the point where he could see the thread of the corridor. A soldier with an impressive black mustache stood there, guarding the massive door. He took the food tray from the worker and pursed his lips before saying, " It's no different from usual, except that he got up at dawn this morning. But I can't know what's going on in his head."
  
  
  "No, I don't think so. Well, the best for him, the worst for me. Its going to breakfast for the annoying gruel.
  
  
  He hurried back down the corridor the way he'd come. Now that I knew where to find Barnabas, I needed to find a way to get to him. While pondering this problem, I swerved it for signs, and too late I saw a figure approaching in the distance. I could tell by the shape of it that it was one of the other soldiers.
  
  
  Accidentally, as if its something I forgot, turned it back. He called out to me, but she was being played deaf and dumb. Around the bend, out of sight of the soldiers, he raced back to the sanctuary of Varnova. But " shaggy was coming from this direction. He paused. The education delivery worker will return, followed by another soldier at the door of the Barn.
  
  
  He quickly made up his mind and rushed to the only door leading down the corridor.
  
  
  The door was locked, so I went under the worker's coveralls in my minute and found a thin elastic strip of steel. This device is stronger and more flexible than a traditional piece of plastic, and works quickly with a simple lock.
  
  
  As the worker was still approaching from one side and the soldier from the other, her, pushed open the door and rushed inside.
  
  
  Chapter twenty.
  
  
  In a few seconds, the luxurious interior of this room came together. There were no rough surfaces, no dull colors. Soft textures-pillows, sofas, beds, deck chairs-all in a carnival of rainbow hues.
  
  
  "You could at least knock," a distinctly female voice said from somewhere to my left.
  
  
  "The great scholar should get up early today," another voice said from the other side.
  
  
  As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, hers, I found that the voices were coming from a row of satin beds and fluffy pillows in deepened ovals on each side of the room. As he watched, disheveled blond heads appeared to the left and right, followed by bodies that looked like college cheerleader software. Blonde number one was wearing a pink nightgown short enough to leave no doubt that she was born blonde. Number two was wearing harem pajamas that were transparent enough to confirm that she was also a real blonde.
  
  
  "I hope I'm not intruding," I said.
  
  
  "Her name is Terri," said blonde number one in a pink crop top.
  
  
  "And her name is Jerry," said number two in the harem pajamas.
  
  
  "Both are written with an 'i'." Terri explained
  
  
  "Important information," I said.
  
  
  "We're twins," Jerry suggested.
  
  
  "Another startling discovery," I said.
  
  
  The girls got up from their beds and came to my side.
  
  
  "I've never seen you before," Terri said.
  
  
  "You don't belong here, do you?" added Jerry.
  
  
  "You came like a storm," Terri said. "I think you're being chased and you want us to hide you. How great!"
  
  
  "You're not a cop, are you?" said Jerry. "We don't hide the cops."
  
  
  "I'm not a cop," ih assured her. "Who I am and what I do is too much to explain in less than an hour, and I don't have thirty seconds. But you can tell that I'm the only one around the good guys - and I'm not joking at all - I need your help ."
  
  
  At that moment, we heard voices and went to listen at the door.
  
  
  "Why did you turn around and come back when she was calling you?" It was the voice of the soldier who had shouted at me in the corridor.
  
  
  "I don't know what you're talking about. She's just been dropped off for breakfast. I didn't see you just now, " the worker replied.
  
  
  "You were walking here a minute ago, then you turned around and walked back."
  
  
  "Not her."
  
  
  "No one came in with you?"
  
  
  “no. Ask Yuri at the professor's door. "I will. I'm going to change her ego. And if you're lying, it doesn't matter. Let's go, comrade! »
  
  
  The sound of a worker's footsteps coming down the corridor. Keys ring outside the door.
  
  
  Her snuggled up to moan from the looped side of the day, Luger in hand. The twins stared at the gun with wide cornflower-blue eyes, then looked at each other, chuckling in frustration. That toddlers, through ih tiny brains at this point, can mean life or death for a lot of people.
  
  
  The guard unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
  
  
  "Well, well, you girls get up early," he said.
  
  
  "What's around it?" Terri said.
  
  
  "We can get up anytime we want," Jerry added.
  
  
  "Up and down, up and forward.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Well, that's your whole life, " the guard snorted.
  
  
  "Who around us wants to talk this morning?" asked Terri.
  
  
  "Or is it both of us again?"
  
  
  "We need this, we need something else. He's just had breakfast, and his job comes first. Then eda - and women for dessert ."
  
  
  "Then what are you doing here, Marcus?" "You are not to enter our room unless the professor sends you to fetch us."
  
  
  "I'm looking for a man," he said apologetically.
  
  
  Emu responded to the girls ' giggles.
  
  
  "I thought I saw a workman in the hallway," Marcus continued rawly. "Someone who didn't belong to the team. I thought he might have come in here."
  
  
  "We didn't see one person," Terri said innocently.
  
  
  "It's such a disappointment," Jerry added disgustedly.
  
  
  "I'm not around people who see phantoms," Marcus said. I heard him take a tentative step forward. "It will be some time before the professor finishes his breakfast, and will send for one around you. Since she's already here, perhaps we could entertain the other party a little ...
  
  
  "Definitely not!" Terri cut in. "Our contract says that we are here exclusively for Dr. Varnov. We were warned not to play games with others."
  
  
  "But think carefully," Jerry said mischievously.
  
  
  "Teasers," the guard said. He stepped back and the girls closed the door. The lock closed.
  
  
  "Now we're really in trouble," Terri giggled.
  
  
  "But we're having so much fun," her sister said.
  
  
  "Thanks a lot, "I said, and slid the Luger back into its holster. Her, chuckled. "Maybe I can find some time to pay you back. It's true that you're only here to... err... serve Warnow?"
  
  
  "You heard what we said to Marcus, we're just wind - up toys for an American scientist," Terri replied.
  
  
  "And given the kind of person he is, it doesn't take up much of our time," Jerry said, and came over to me.
  
  
  "How did you get into this?" I asked her.
  
  
  "You mean what do good girls like us do in a place like this?"
  
  
  "Something like that."
  
  
  "We responded to an ad in an underground newspaper in San Francisco," Jerry said. "Related girls want travel, excitement, adventure."
  
  
  "And obviously you got the job."
  
  
  "Of course. There must have been fifty other girls, but we had the advantage of being twins."
  
  
  "That's not all you had," I said, noting ih's generous forms.
  
  
  "I like you," Terri said.
  
  
  "I bet you're also worth a lot more of a man than a professor," Jerry added.
  
  
  "I'm not interested in ego sexual talents or ih absence," he told her seriously. "But he turned out to be the most dangerous person in the world, a threat to the United States and the whole world. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but believe me, there's nothing more important to the future of humanity right now than for me to get into Varnov's lab. And her, I want you girls to help me ",
  
  
  "You mean that stupid me trying to be more important to you than this?" said Terri, lifting her short nightgown even higher.
  
  
  "And this?" Jerry interjected, snapping the waistband of her pajama bottoms and sliding it down to the middle of her rounded thighs.
  
  
  "I said more important, girls, not more fun."
  
  
  "Why should we help you?" asked Jerry. "You won't even be polite to us."
  
  
  It was clear that patriotism and humanism were words that were not noticeable in ih pretty bright heads. But without ih's help, my chances were zero.
  
  
  "As the old saying goes," the poker - faced man told her, " you scratch mine, I scratch yours."
  
  
  A pair of beaming smiles of knowledge lit up the room. "You mean you will?" the twins said in unison.
  
  
  "If you can help me get into Varnov's lab."
  
  
  Nodding happily, they took my hand and led me to a pile of colorful pillows, where they quickly removed the thin covers. In the blink of an eye, they were naked, taking various seductive poses among the pillows. He discovered that Terri had a tiny birthmark just below her left breast, and that was the only way he could tell her apart from the twins.
  
  
  It was the only time in my life that hers was in a hurry to complete what is probably the most exciting thing around all human operations. And so it set a new world record for removing as many clothes as possible in the shortest amount of time.
  
  
  "Mmm, delicious," Terri commented.
  
  
  "I knew he'd have more than that old professor," Jerry approved.
  
  
  "Come here," Terri ordered, " it's open between us."
  
  
  He quickly got to his knees and settled into a classic position with Terry's more eager little body.
  
  
  "Her mistletoe is not meant between me, and between us," she said with a sigh, a low moan that didn't sound like a complaint at all.
  
  
  "Do you mind?" I asked him further after entering the gates of paradise.
  
  
  "Oooooooh," she moaned.
  
  
  "I'll call her plays in the future," I said to her, and plunged into the tunnel of love.
  
  
  That's how it all started, even though in a very short time we adopted an endless number of gymnastic poses, most of which are not described in the marriage manuals.
  
  
  After a while, we became so engrossed in another friend that Jerry said in a low, sad voice:: "I don't really like playing seventy."
  
  
  I was put in an awkward position to talk, but turning my head, with a huge effort, I asked her
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Innocently: "What does that mean, Jerry? "seventy to play."
  
  
  "God, everyone knows that," she said grumpily. "Seventy-sixty-nine with one eye."
  
  
  She was approached with a letter to her, and with a little coaxing, she became the third partner in one of the most complex, exotic, and tedious performances I can remember. And I remember it quite a lot.
  
  
  After that, as she was being asked to dress quickly, the twins looked at me with happy faces interspersed with small smiles and winks of gratitude. It was Jerry who said with a long, happy sigh,"You know, I think the three of us will make a fantastic couple."
  
  
  But my mind was already preoccupied with the problem of Warnow and the companies. "All right," I said, " the fun and games are over. Now let's see if we can find a way to the shrine of Nox Varn.
  
  
  They nodded almost in unison. But there was no real interest on their faces.
  
  
  "Do you remember our little deal?" Her ih asked.
  
  
  "Yes," Terri said, frowning. "But it can be dangerous to help you."
  
  
  "Besides," Jerry added. "We have a lot to lose. Oni pay us more money than we've ever seen in our lives. When we leave here, we're going to use it to open a small clothing store."
  
  
  At the time, I had the strong impression that the twins weren't as stupid as they pretended to be.
  
  
  "So you're going to open a clothing store when you leave here," I said. "And what makes you think you'll ever leave here? You're prisoners, don't you know? "
  
  
  Terri shook her head, " We're not prisoners at all. We come and go as we please. When we get tired of being cooped up, we walk all over the house. město. And no one is stopping us ."
  
  
  "Of course," I said. "You can go wherever you want, because there is no way out around this stone fortress except by air. But tell these people that you want to quit smoking and ask ih to get you out of here. "then you will know what you should have known long ago - that you might as well be slaves in chains."
  
  
  Now ih had her undivided attention. Ih the cute glowing faces turned serious, and they exchanged startled glances.
  
  
  "I didn't risk my life to come here with a laugh," he hurriedly continued. These people are going to take over America and the whole world with atomic force. Ih bombs have already been placed in key US cities, and are ready to explode one by one if we do not comply with ih requirements ."
  
  
  He looked at his watch. "If I can't get to Varnov, who is the only one who can activate the devices, the first atomic bomb will destroy New York and all the ego residents in just two hours."
  
  
  Her father nodded as they gaped. "Yes, these are facts. And I want you girls to stop trying to force this stupid blonde on me and keep going. Because, apart from Varnov, who denounced his country, we are the only three Americans in the middle of the enemy camp.
  
  
  "And without me, you'll never get out of here alive."
  
  
  "Oh, my God," Terri said. "How can we help?"
  
  
  "I want this procedure to be used to get the two of you to the Warnes' lab, living quarters, and everything else, and back. I want you to tell me everything you saw there that might give me a clue to the ego operations. And do it quickly; it's time to move now! "
  
  
  They both started talking at once. "Wait," I said, " Terry, go ahead."
  
  
  "There's a security guard," she said. "But Marcus is on duty most of the time. He sleeps in a small room behind the professor's door that looks like it's made of solid steel. And he's the only one who sees us back and forth. He presses the alarm button, and Varnov goes to the other side of the door, opens it, and speaks through a sort of iron grating. There is no key to this door; it opens from within - and the professor never tells us why ."
  
  
  Good. Anything else?" I snapped. "What's inside?"
  
  
  "When you go in," Jerry said, " you'll see an office with a desk and a telephone. The place is bare, there is no other furniture. But there are filing cabinets. And a large framed map of the United States hanging on moans near a chair. Another door leads through office b ...
  
  
  "Wait a minute!" Terri interrupted. "There's a wall safe behind this card. Well, not exactly a safe. But a square nook.
  
  
  "How do you know that?" Sl asked her.
  
  
  "Because one day when I was coming in, I saw it. The map was taken off the hook and lay on the floor under this hole in the groans for example a square foot. Warnow had papers spread out on his desk that he must have been reading while he was waiting for me. I guess he forgot to put the papers away and cover město with a map.
  
  
  She grinned. "Or he thinks I'm too dumb to know the difference between a moaning hole and you-know-what. Anyway, I pretended not to notice, and I wasn't particularly curious at the time. The next time he sent for me, the map was still there, no papers."
  
  
  "How does it tell you apart?" I asked, just to confirm my educated guess.
  
  
  "I have a birthmark right here," Terri said with the faintest hint of a smile, pointing to the area under her left breast. "And as you can see, we wear different costumes to distinguish us."
  
  
  "All right, Jerry, go ahead. What's in the room next to the office? "Well, it's really one big room separated by a curtain.
  
  
  
  
  
  On one side is a bed, a couple of pieces of furniture, and a bathroom that connects directly to the office. On the other hand, don't ask me. I've never seen it, but I think it's probably some kind of equipment. Oh right, and next to the bed, there's another one around these internal phones.
  
  
  "Have you ever heard him talk on these phones?"
  
  
  "Just once. But it was a kind of two-pronged conversation, and he didn't understand it "
  
  
  "Twice when she was there, Emu got a call," her sister said. "I didn't understand what he was talking about either. But I think I know now ."
  
  
  "Tell me about it, Terry."
  
  
  "Well, he looked very angry. And he said something like, " Look, don't go at me, General, and don't threaten me. Remember, if I leave, and everything goes with me. Including in Moscow, a general who came to the conference with two suitcases. But for some reason, one of them got lost ." And then he paused and said, " Does that mean anything to you, General?"
  
  
  "I do not know what he says to the general," he commented. "But that tells me a lot. Varnov has such a system that if he dies, all cities, including Moscow, will die with him. Not only is he an evil bastard, he's also fucking smart.
  
  
  My mind spun for a moment as I sorted out various aspects of a workable plan. Then he said, " On the one hand, time is the most important factor. But I don't see it. I can get Marcus to take one of you to Ond. But I can't force Warnow to open it if he doesn't take the initiative. That is, if he hasn't already sent Marcus after you.
  
  
  "Also, I can't break through after you without killing Markus, who will be standing open for a day where Varnov's ego can see. And before I could take care of Marcus, he slammed the door in my face. So it all depends on you girls. Whoever comes to see him today, I have to stick something in that door so that it doesn't close completely, and do it so that Varnov doesn't notice him. And it takes a miracle of time ."
  
  
  "I have a better idea," Terri said. "The one who has received the professor's approval goes with him to the bedroom, pumps up the ego and puts him to bed. She then begs her to go to the bathroom. He can't argue with that, so he locks himself in the bathroom, flushes out the water, then runs to the study and opens the steel door for you. Then she returns through the connecting door and climbs onto the bed with Varnova.
  
  
  "Pure genius," I said.
  
  
  "In the meantime, you'll have to get rid of Marcus," Terri said, " and wait a day."
  
  
  "Give me five minutes," I said. "And her, I want Marcus to be lured here by the remaining girl, so that she can be taken care of quickly and silently by nen."
  
  
  "He usually doesn't want both of us at the morning party," Jerry said. "But suppose he knows?"
  
  
  "Don't worry, I'll be ready for almost anything," her father said.
  
  
  There was another thoughtful silence, and then he said, " Now all we have to do is wait. But for how long?
  
  
  "He's like a clock," Terri said. "It should be here any minute."
  
  
  "Sure," Jerry said. "But if it's ego's big day to wipe out New York, maybe he'll be nervous and damn well won't want to sleep."
  
  
  "Jesus," Terri moaned.
  
  
  I didn't say anything to her, because the magnitude of the question and the potential catastrophe of the answer overwhelmed my brain.
  
  
  Twenty one
  
  
  There was a sort of dressing table in a dark corner of the room, and I sat down at it, completely shut out from the light. The minutes ticked by endlessly, and my cramped, muscled muscles begged for relief. Finally he got up. It was stupid to stay in such an awkward position when you could probably hear the warning sound of a key once a day.
  
  
  Half an hour had passed by when she judged that the rheumatism on the huge corkscrew had been removed, Varnov was about to give up frivolous amusements and concentrate on the grim affairs of the day, his hand ready to send the signal that would blow up the city of New York. into the sky. And if in the last hour the president didn't decide to risk a national panic and evacuate Manhattan, the fate of all these people was in my hands.
  
  
  As he waited for her, he fought a growing sense of dread, calculating the feasibility of half a dozen alternative plans. They were all practical and smart enough. But each one came to a dead end - an impregnable steel wall between me and Varnov.
  
  
  From time to time, indistinct muffled sounds could be heard along the tunnel corridor. Indistinct voices, the thud of heavy feet, the clang of metal. The girls listened to me with their ears flat against the wall, but reported that they hadn't heard anything important, just useless chatter as several men, obviously in a hurry, passed mimmo.
  
  
  Then, after a long period of silence, when he was about to risk any desperate ploy, no matter how crazy the risk, there was an impatient knock on the door, followed immediately by the rattle of a key in the lock.
  
  
  It was already well hidden when Marcus stormed into the room of the professor's concubines and yelled: "You're the Little Miss Mole," the American demands.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Your services for two! The professor was detained because of a visit from his superiors, and he says that if you don't come right away, he will feed you to the general's dogs for dinner.
  
  
  "Oh my God, these dogs will eat poor little me in three bites," Terri said in her sweet voice. "Let's hurry before the professor loses his temper."
  
  
  "I think you mean ego - cool, not ego-hot, dear Terri," Jerry corrected.
  
  
  "I call ih as I see ih, dear," she replied, and ran to the door.
  
  
  "Oh, Marcus," Jerry exclaimed, " could you come back for a tiny moment before you deliver my sister?
  
  
  "Come back?" Marcus snapped irritably. "Why?"
  
  
  I'm lonely and ... And I need a real man, not this tired old bag of bones.
  
  
  "To wouldnt? Is this the case now? Marcus said, his voice shaking with excitement. "What could you do with a real man in just a tiny minute?"
  
  
  "Could you spare two tiny minutes?"
  
  
  "I could save a lot, but I might have a problem."
  
  
  "I won't tell you. And don't you think I should take the risk?"
  
  
  And then, then a terrible, uncertain pause: "Yes, I'll be right back. In less than a minute. Be prepared!"
  
  
  As if it was an exclamation point of agreement, the door slammed with a thud. And then there was a huge vacuum of silence.
  
  
  "Don't waste us a second," Jerry told her in a low voice,"and keep him busy!"
  
  
  "Tailor, never know what ego hit," she muttered, and her crouched down again.
  
  
  Marcus returned a few seconds later.
  
  
  "As you can see, her husband, her lover," Jerry said.
  
  
  "I'm more ready than you'll ever be," he said to Vaughn with a nervous chuckle. "But I have to guard Warnow's door, and I don't have time to undress."
  
  
  "Forget about this stupid day," Jerry replied. "A wild elephant tower twenty feet high wouldn't be able to break it if the inner room was covered from floor to ceiling with peanuts."
  
  
  Obviously, Marcus was too far away from wanting to answer. But a minute later he let out a couple of businesslike grunts when Jerry said, "Oh, my God, you're too much!" and her sneaked out from behind the dressing table.
  
  
  Her lightly but quickly stepped forward with the stiletto. Her Bosnia and Herzegovina court convicted over them for a moment when it raised its weapon over the ego's broad back. Jerry's open eyes widened at the sight of me.
  
  
  Suddenly, perhaps prompted by some animal instinct or by the look in Jerry's startled eyes, Marcus lifted his head and turned half to me.
  
  
  So instead, he stabbed the emu's blade into his chest.
  
  
  Ego's mouth was open and his eyes were openly incredulous. But then, with a little cry and a terrible grimace, he was quickly pulled out by a knife, and obediently collapsed on top of Jerry and froze.
  
  
  Hers wiped the blade on ego's uniform jacket and recovered the weapon, while Jerry, with the most terrified expression on his face, tried in vain to push the body away from nah. Ego grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked, and he rolled to the floor. He was looking out into the infinity of space.
  
  
  Gerry sat up and wiped the bloodstain off her naked body with the corner of the sheet as she looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite place. Except that perhaps it was a mixture of admiration, disbelief at the near reality of savage death, and a tinge of disgust. Whether he hated me, the blood or the corpse, I couldn't tell.
  
  
  "Yes," I said, as if responding to an unspoken corkscrew, " a voice like this happens. And if I don't hurry, millions of other, much more innocent people will die."
  
  
  Then he left her and, glancing up and down the corridor, he sprinted for the huge steel door for which Varnov and the remote control device were waiting in the wings.
  
  
  A couple of anxious, sweaty minutes passed. And then she heard the click of the latch, and the door opened just a crack. It started to swing toward me, but I caught it with my ego and squeezed in, just in time to catch a glimpse of Terri's naked back, which was almost hidden from view by the closing door.
  
  
  He closed the door softly and looked around the room in one gulp. According to Gerry's description, nen had a chair with a phone, cabinets, a large framed map of the United States, and a part of Central America that she didn't mention. He went through the drawers of the chair, but they were locked. It was made by another pass in the file cabinet, the result is the same.
  
  
  I examined the map. The rings, drawn in red pen and felt-tip pen, went around seven US cities and the Panama Canal. Targets for destruction. One of the cities around here was Cleveland, but we might have ignored it, since the ego-destroying bomb was intercepted by customs. On the map, the cities were numbered, and with the exception of Cleveland, they were in exceptional order: New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
  
  
  However, I noticed that the capital was preserved to the last, no doubt to give our government the opportunity to negotiate until the last hour.
  
  
  The map was suspended by a wire from a strong copper hook. Ego had let her off the hook with the certainty that, as Terri had said, she would be found in a gaping hole or hiding place where secret documents were hidden. But there was no such hole
  
  
  
  
  
  The walls under the map were smooth.
  
  
  It occurred to me that a simple hole-in-the-moan map wasn't too inventive for a Varn-level scientist. And now he began experimenting with the brass hook, twisting the ego in different directions, but finding that it was firmly fixed and motionless. But not quite motionless. Because when the hook was pulled back, it clicked slightly. Immediately, a square section of the wall slid back without a sound, revealing a jar containing a small leather-bound notebook and a series of numbered drawings, each with a red circled skull all over it, which, to me at least, clearly indicated the location of the bomb suitcases that had been planted.
  
  
  They set the locations, that is, if you had an appropriate explanation, which building is in which city in the hall. Without help or other guidance, the printouts didn't make sense.
  
  
  Although it seemed like an age in these tense, otherwise nervous circumstances, a glance at my watch told me that only two minutes had passed. And since she knew that Vamou could live another ten minutes or more when Terri was alerted to my need for time, she was lifted into a chair and began a quick study of a leather-bound pocket book.
  
  
  At first, the letters and numbers contained in nen were as clear to most people as a Chinese crossword puzzle. But I'm used to all sorts of puzzles, and there aren't many agents in the world who are so well versed in the art of solving access codes. She soon became aware of the American code used by scientists of the Varna era in nen. And while the code was basically simple enough if someone had provided a wonderfully clever mathematical formula for ego decoding, to my knowledge, it has never been hacked by an enemy inside or outside the US.
  
  
  I flipped through my memory, and the principle code popped into my head almost immediately. He found a pen in a holder on the table next to his notebook and made quick shorthand notes, deciphering and shortening only the basic basics of text and numbers, including the head-death plot. It included the secrets of Varn bomb exploding devices activated by a self-powered stylus. Microelectronics had been engineered into a dollar-sized disk the size of a skin flap to make the ego capable of transmitting a powerful high - frequency signal over vast distances-a device somewhat similar to a pacemaker, but much more sophisticated, detonated all the bombs in unison seconds after the Varns ' last heartbeat.
  
  
  This intricate, incredibly small remote control device was labeled "Access Key" on the first page. And on the final page, under the heading: DISARM, there was a series of five numbers that, as explained in the text, were the key to disabling the full name even after they received the explosion signal. This emergency safety update will avoid tying the pacemaker to Warnow's heart.
  
  
  But there was a catch. After the time-lapse signal that triggered the bombs was sent out, there were only thirty seconds left to cancel the explosions.
  
  
  She quickly mentally photographed the numbers and projected the ih images onto the front wall of her mind. I have an almost error-free memory, and remembering a dozen numbers wouldn't be a real problem. However, he wrote the numbers on a piece of paper, which he collected and put down in a minute.
  
  
  I studied it for another minute with a stylus and a disk, and then wrote down the location of the suitcases-the full name in different cities.
  
  
  Having done this, I put the book and notes with the transcript of its essence in its other width. It took me about five minutes to write down the decoded facts, because I needed to have a direct working knowledge of the device if it was going to be interrupted by Warnow's murderous plan. I found that I could remember almost everything if I put the details in writing first. In any case, once you had the device figured out, it was as easy to operate as touching various compass points with a pencil.
  
  
  Now he shoved the blueprints, which were too bulky for ih to carry, into a wall container, snapped the brass hook to close the hole, and hung the map back up.
  
  
  Her quietly entered the bathroom and walked over to the other day. Leaning close to him, I heard what I assumed was Varnov's voice and Terry's answering voice. I ignored the conversation as I pulled the luger out of its holster and picked up the door handle. But the gist of it was that Varnov apologized for being rushed because of "urgent experiments that need to be prepared immediately," and Terri begged for hey, a few more minutes with the charming professor, who was such a big man that he made her choke. more of the same.
  
  
  When her mother slowly opened the door and looked in, Knox Warnow, wearing a white lab jacket over his trousers, was standing in profile to me, his hands on her shoulder-a Turn when she, dressed in boudoir attire, looked Emu in the eye with a fake air. adoration.
  
  
  The Varns ' hair was black, heavily streaked with gray. It had a small promontory
  
  
  
  
  
  slender features and a slender body that seemed almost fragile. Before the ferret, until her gaze met Ego's bright green eyes that held no emotion, though they were hard and glittering like emeralds, he was an unlikely threat to the survival of the most powerful nation in the world. And I don't think there's a man who could get through a single round with Terri or her twin.
  
  
  "I'll send her for you and your sister tonight," he was saying now. "There will be something to celebrate with vintage champagne and a special dinner. And then spend a long, exotic night of pleasure together ."
  
  
  "I doubt it very much, Varnov," emu told her as he entered the room behind the Luger . "I expect you to return to the United States tonight as my prisoner."
  
  
  Ego's face fell from the execution permit flag as he turned to me. As he groped for words, he said to her, " Terry, go back to your room. I want you and your sister to be dressed and waiting for her to come pick you up."
  
  
  She opened her mouth to say something, then hurried away
  
  
  "I know who you are," Varnov said calmly, his face calm. "Does that surprise you?"
  
  
  I did, but I didn't tell her.
  
  
  Varnov sank into the massive leather chair next to the bed, crossed his legs, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you think, Carter," he continued with a whispered smile, " that I'm not ready for a situation like this? Of course not. Its never gonna get out of this room, with you alive. And if I die, almost immediately half the world will be reduced to ashes."
  
  
  "I know all that," I said. "I have decoded your secret documents, and your arrangements are in vain. The numbers 5-21-80-54-7 do anything diverge for you?"
  
  
  The ego-manic expression flared up like a candle in the wind and went out. For a moment, he could almost see the gears of the ego mind shift down, collide sharply, and then sort through the alternatives.
  
  
  He shrugged and put on a pale, resigned smile. "Well," he said, " in the end, nothing matters. To all men, to all the foolish creatures of mortals, the thread must come."
  
  
  "A noble philosophy," I said.
  
  
  "The two of us," he continued, " are alone in this dungeon of a room controlled by the density of the world. Think about it. Just think about it! The unspeakable power that we hold in our hands ." He made a pause. "We can join forces and rule the world together. Or we can destroy another, another one in the next few minutes. What will it be? "
  
  
  "We need this, we need something else," I said. "Even a bad loser knows when the game is over. And accepts its losses. Now, I'll give you thirty seconds to decide. Come with me and stand trial, or die in this chair." Personally, I hope you choose death. Because it's going to take more than a little risk on my neck to get you out of here.
  
  
  Varnov nodded slowly, the fingers of one hand spasmodically kneading the thick padded arm of the chair. "All right, hers and I'll go with you," he said. He unclenched his legs and seemed about to stand up.
  
  
  But suddenly he pushed the chair's armrest. The upper soft part of the arm instantly folds on hidden hinges, revealing a small illuminated console. The nen had a large red button, a toggle switch, and a numbered dial.
  
  
  When he slammed his palm down on the button, it was shot through the emu's chest. However, his other hand was already reaching for the dial. So I shot him again. My hand shuddered and went back to the switch. I do not know whether it was the reflexive spasm of death or the last superhuman effort of a man who was only a second away from eternity; but to my surprise, the hand continued to descend and as it did so pulled the toggle switch.
  
  
  The thin click was followed by the distant muffled sounds of bells and sirens. If such sounds could penetrate the huge stone walls and half a ton of steel doors, he knew that outside, in this commune of soldiers and workers, it was a screaming, clanging, ear-splitting call for help.
  
  
  Her plan was to get Warnow to tell me where he fed the crucial stylus, without which it would be impossible to cancel the detonating signals of the pacemaker. But now he was dead, I didn't have a stylus, and the last thirty seconds were ticking away. the most destructive multiple explosions in the history of mankind.
  
  
  Vamov's eyes rolled back in his head, blinding death, as he glanced at the hand of my watch, leaned over, tore open Ego's jacket, and in almost the same motion tore off his shirt. And then there was the stylus; it was suspended from Ego's neck by a long silver chain!
  
  
  Ego's chest was bare, but staggering with blood. Madly, he wiped the blood from a four-inch square of hide, bordered on three sides by a plastic seam. He slid his fingers under the edge and pulled back the flap of hide to open the access key with the ego spiraling around the tiny numbered contact points.
  
  
  Holding the needle as carefully as a neurosurgeon might hold a scalpel, he touched the tip of the needle to the points of contact, triggering an electronic combination to signal a WARM-up signal.: Five... twenty one... eighty... fifty-four... Seven!
  
  
  Now my eyes fell on the clock. Four-three-two-one and-bug
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ! The time to blow up and destroy the cities, which never came, I had four seconds before the warehouse. And it happened!
  
  
  Or was it?
  
  
  He looked down at the arm of the chair. Above the red button was an inscription: SELF-DESTRUCT. Above the switch is the inscription: ALARM. A numbered dial examined it now. It was labeled "FAILURE DELAY" and graded from zero to sixty minutes. The pointer, which Varnov was obviously trying to lower to zero, was held at sixty.
  
  
  Sixty minutes to what? Above the red SELF-DESTRUCT button, a green brylev lit up. There was no other button to cancel the temporary lock, so I hopefully clicked the same button again. Nothing. The green saint continued to burn.
  
  
  I listened to her. In the distance, alarm bells and sirens continued to hum loudly. Her chain and feathers were thrown over Warnow's head, he put the device in a minute and rushed to the door with a gun in his hand. I yanked the door open and was startled by the deafening sound of bells and sirens. He checked that the steel door was closed so that no one could enter and discover Varnow's body, then dashed through the security room and into the tunnel. At first, she didn't see anyone and hurried to the twins ' bedroom door.
  
  
  As he reached it, two soldiers with rifles came around the bend and took aim. Hers pressed up against the camera screen as they fired, but missed. Her carefully fired straight arm shot at the lead. As it tumbled and fell, the other quickly retreated for pointers.
  
  
  He knocked on the door and shouted his name. Terri looked out with huge eyes, then opened to let me in and slammed the door.
  
  
  Both girls were dressed in nondescript, almost severe gray suits. There were a couple of small identical suitcases for the day.
  
  
  "Forget it," I said. "We're in a tight spot, and you'll be moving too fast to carry ih. Are you ready?
  
  
  They both nodded gravely.
  
  
  "Has anyone around you ever fired a gun?"
  
  
  "My dad taught me how to shoot targets around his gun," Terri suggested.
  
  
  "Jerry?"
  
  
  She shook her head. "I've always hated guns. But if I have to, I can aim and pull the trigger."
  
  
  He walked over to Markus ' sprawled body and pulled the ego pistol from its holster. Terri's ego gave her up. "Shoot to kill," her father had said. "Come on, let's go!"
  
  
  Ih led her carefully into the tunnel. The alarm stopped, and the silence was broken. We crawled sideways to the first bend in the tunnel, snuggling up to moan. There I went down and crawled forward until I could see past the signposts.
  
  
  Three feet away, a retreating soldier stood against the nearest wall, rifle ready. He saw me a split second later, and he shot the emu in the chest. My target was high up in this awkward position, and it was abruptly caught by ego in the mouth, the gawk puncturing a pair of front teeth before going through ego's brain.
  
  
  When we passed mimmo ego bodies, the girls stopped and looked down with expressions of disgust. The soldier was carrying a pistol. He leaned down to pick it up and handed it to Jerry. For a moment, she stared at the gun as if it was a lethal weapon. But then, with a shrug, she asked me how to use it and showed me her phone.
  
  
  Now we headed for the exit, around the tunnel where he was checking for hidden soldiers. Not finding anything, we went to the day brylev. We hurried down the path for a few yards and ran into a couple of soldiers. men in work clothes are walking briskly towards us. They were unarmed, so ih didn't try to shoot her. They didn't even look at me. but he looked at the girls curiously in passing.
  
  
  And then her, I remembered that I was also in work clothes, the men were so distracted at the sight of the girls that they couldn't look at me carefully. Perhaps there were so many workers of the model that not all of them were well known to another friend.
  
  
  He turned off the trail and led the girls up a hill strewn with large boulders that served as a shelter and shelter. When I stopped at a large rock and looked down again to make sure we were being watched, two uniformed men, one wearing officer's insignia, came out from behind the rock with rifles pointed openly at us from a few feet away.
  
  
  He couldn't hear our voices, and I was caught with a luger, so there was no time to raise my ego.
  
  
  "Stand here right now and tell me who you are," the officer said to me in Russian.
  
  
  Fortunately, I was taught to speak the language with perfect fluency, and she was quickly told in Russian: "I am Boris Ivanov and Major Rashki has instructed me to escort these girls to the high ground among the rocks, where they will be safe until the danger is over."
  
  
  The officer grinned, looked me straight in the eye, and said, " Major Stahl wouldn't send a worker to do a soldier's job. In any case, the appointment of workers is my personal task, and such a name as Boris Ivanov was not on my list. I don't remember her, and I don't remember any faces with a foreign tinge, no doubt American. So, you'd be the Nick Carter we're after. With great difficulty, since you're dressed like the one around us." As the officer read out this rather lengthy indictment, he stole a glance at the girls.
  
  
  
  
  
  As the officer read out the lengthy indictment, he stole a glance at the girls. They had the frowning, puzzled looks of people who don't understand the language they speak, but at the same time they seemed scared and stupid, as Terri looked at the ruthless Russian position with a cocked rifle with something close to panic.
  
  
  "You open your right hand," said a fellow officer, " and just drop the gun on the ground. And then you will come with us."
  
  
  After a moment's hesitation, as both men stared unblinkingly at the gun that held her limp, her fingers relaxed and the luger fell to the ground. The soft thud he made upon landing was never heard. The sound was interrupted by two thunders made close together, like giant hands slapping my ears.
  
  
  As he watched with a sense of utter unreality, the officer slowly staggered back, put one eye through his head, fell to the rock, dropped his rifle, and fell sideways to the ground.
  
  
  The ego of the comrade who had received a gunshot wound to the neck gushed red as he fell to his knees and fell forward, still clutching the rifle in his hands.
  
  
  And behind me, still pointing at Marcus's heavy, smoking gun, sat Terri, her beautiful mouth forming a big round, silent oooooh ...
  
  
  Gerry was also holding a gun, even though she had one. he picked it up without enthusiasm and aimed without success.
  
  
  Suddenly, Terri lowered her gun, fell to the ground, and screamed. "You - you should have-fired at the same time," she sobbed, accusing Jerry, who, looking at the dead soldiers, also began to cry.
  
  
  Patting the tousled blond head of the Blackthorn, her father said softly:: "I owe you one, baby. My God, how I must love you! »
  
  
  She was picked up by his grounded Luger, and then he took them both in his arms, hugged them, and said, " Go, little soldiers, let's go!"
  
  
  Twenty two
  
  
  As we quickly climbed to the top of the hill, crouching low, running from rock to rock, we began circling toward the helipad. In front of us, the area above the buildings was filled with soldiers looking for us. Some of the workers were given guns, and they also hunted us. It was impossible to get through, so we hid in a small pocket between two huge boulders shaped like squatting prehistoric monsters.
  
  
  The girls sat with stunned faces, their weapons resting on their laps.
  
  
  "I don't understand how you got away with this," I said. "Why didn't the soldiers see your weapons?"
  
  
  "Because," Terri said, " when we went downstairs and saw the workman coming, he had a gun tucked under the waistband of his skirt and a jacket thrown over him. Jerry signaled him, and she did the same. Those lumps couldn't have hurt us, but I thought if they saw a gun, they'd raise the alarm. So when the officer and ego servants jumped out with their rifles and started talking in Russian, her, Jerry whispered and said: "Pull out your gun and shoot when I poke you."
  
  
  Terri sighed, " But she couldn't stand it. She got cold feet, didn't she, sis? "
  
  
  "I probably wouldn't have been able to shoot the snake if it was coiled up to hit me," Jerry replied.
  
  
  "Anyway," I said, " it was a bold game and a hell of a smart game. You're both very smart cats. So why are you pretending to be dumb blondes? "
  
  
  Jerry answered with a wry smile. "Well," she said, " we've known for a long time that men like to feel superior. And if you're a sexy little blonde, you can get a lot more out of a guy if you give em a cute but silly routine."
  
  
  "That's not the half of it," Terri said. "If you hide behind such a smokescreen, you can watch, listen, think and come out on top every time. Because when you seem empty-headed, you go by the wayside. You look dangerous, like furniture. And so the big wheels that will try to deceive you, in different ways, allow you to reveal all their secrets "
  
  
  "Have you ever considered becoming a spy?" he asked her with a chuckle.
  
  
  Ih heads nodded almost in unison.
  
  
  "On our own," Jerry said, " we do a little spying. For corporate executives. Business items. But it's a tough, relentless game, and we want to finish it. We thought this charade would be a normal vacation." She looked up at the steep ledge of rock. "Some vacation time. We could join the WACS, have more rest, and be safer."
  
  
  Nodding, he loaded a new clip into the Luger . "If we ever get out of here alive, I'll remember you girls," I said. "You have a lot of talent," she added with a grin.
  
  
  "You don't think it's good to get out alive, do you?" said Terri, biting her lip.
  
  
  "I'll be honest with you. But it doesn't look very good right now. He examined his watch. "I have a feeling that if we don't look down on this Stone Age fortress from this Rivne helicopter in twenty-five minutes, we'll be looking down from the sky. Or up - out of hell ."
  
  
  "What does that mean?" Jerry said, her eyebrows going up. "Look, its far from happy in this world. But I'm not ready to die."
  
  
  "I don't think you should know what that means," I said. "In any case, this is only an educated guess. And if he's right, it won't do any good to warn you in advance. ".
  
  
  
  
  
  
  "Can you fly a helicopter?" said Terri.
  
  
  "Yes, I can fly almost anything. And my memory of topography would take us to the nearest city. But if all goes well, we'll have a pilot who knows every inch of this country."
  
  
  Her gaze slanted down through the space between the rocks. To my left, the helicopter was sitting away from the center of its site. The ego was moved a short distance away, closer to the tank. And hers, he hoped, which meant Ingram had strangled the bird. Where was he? Where was Pilar? The playground and surrounding area were deserted. The body of the dead guard was removed.
  
  
  Pilar must be in hiding. Or was she captured? Finally, he asked himself, how did the soldiers know they were after Nick Carter? With Varnov dead, who could pass on the word?
  
  
  The logical choice of explanation seemed to be that either Pilar had been captured and the nah was being tortured for the truth, or Ingram had escaped and let it slip.
  
  
  "I'm going to check on the helicopter landing site," I said. "And her, I want you girls to stay here. The three of us may never make it together. On the other hand, if you were caught alone, you can pretend to be stupid and say that you were just scared and hid until the shooting was over."
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "It won't be difficult for you to pretend to be a dumbass?"
  
  
  They chuckled weakly, and gave me a couple of watered-down smiles.
  
  
  "Now," I continued, " you can clearly see the pad through this little spy hole between the rocks. And I want one around you to keep an eye on it all the time. When I go down there, if everything is clear, I'll take off my coveralls and wait for her in the suit I'm wearing. This will be your signal to pass the double. And I mean the double."
  
  
  They both nodded gravely.
  
  
  "If you see that I have a problem, stay put until I give the signal that it's over. Hers, too, could be quite dead. If it's obvious to you, go out and start your innocent act. And don't get caught with a gun. Get rid of them."
  
  
  He started to leave, then stopped. He winked at her and gave them a small salute.
  
  
  "Good - bye, Nick," Jerry said.
  
  
  "Good - bye, and good luck, Nick," Terri said.
  
  
  Her, turned and dived
  
  
  Chapter Twenty-three
  
  
  There were a lot of soldiers and a few workmen scouring the slopes above the cluster of buildings behind me. But when she crept to the candid waterfront through the helicopter pad, no one met him.
  
  
  The surrounding area seemed deserted and quiet now. The absence of troops did not seem particularly threatening to me. It is possible that, after combing the helicopter's surroundings, the soldiers focused their efforts on the higher ground above the center of the complex, where there were much more shelters.
  
  
  On the other hand.
  
  
  He sprinted around the shelter and raced up the embankment toward the helipad. I saw her by helicopter. He crouched down empty and unprotected, ready to fly into the sky. My electric clock told me that fourteen minutes remained - still a long time. For Wilhelmina her, went to a point near the day concrete guard post. The door was closed, and he went to the one around the narrow metal-barred windows to look inside.
  
  
  At that moment, the door swung open. He dropped to his face and raised the Luger to fire at point-blank range. But my target had long black hair and a friendly, toothy smile.
  
  
  It was Pilar! If it wasn't for the gun that A had left her, which was strapped to her waist, she looked completely feminine and desirable.
  
  
  He relaxed his finger on the trigger and stood up with a grin, then reached inside his coverall and held the Luger to its holster.
  
  
  Pilar came up to me with open arms. She hugged me and kissed me. "Nick!" she said. "I wasn't sure, but I heard gunshots and thought you might have ..."
  
  
  Hers was laughing. "Hers is only half dead," her father said. "From exhaustion. Where's Ingram?
  
  
  "They took it away. To punish the ego for bringing you here."
  
  
  "You can die from ih discipline," I said.
  
  
  She stepped back and admired me again. "You look exhausted, Nick. She sighed. "You're a big man, and I'm going to hate losing you." She pulled the gun out of its holster and aimed the ego at my chest with a hand so steady it might have been a piece of steel wrapped in a vise. "But," she continued, " the voice is like, as they say, cookie crumbles, huh?"
  
  
  "So you were on the other team all along," I said, really stammering, because I suspected that at any second she was going to kill me.
  
  
  "No," she said, " not really. Her double agent, a coin with two faces. I secretly serve Russia, and also pretend to be an agent of your America. Both of them pay me well - well, very well. And my love for money is greater than my love for any country, you know? She just smiled.
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "No, I don't understand. Not too clear.
  
  
  "Russia," she explained, " the true and official government of the USSR instructed me to disclose this base of operations so that Varnov, General Zhizov, and the ego independent faction could be contained before they detonated a nuclear bomb.
  
  
  
  
  
  This is a clear war with America. So, for a while, she was your ally. But then, when I saw that a good general couldn't lose with Varnov's help to defeat the powerful United States, I was persuaded to join forces. This is a great strategy for Russia, and the government in power will comply as soon as the coup is completed."
  
  
  She stopped, and now her finger tightened on the trigger.
  
  
  "Besides," she added, " the general paid me a fantastic sum. My money belt has become a thick currency belt. And indeed, money is the web power that I worship."
  
  
  I was going to tell her that Varnov was dead, but I knew she wouldn't believe me. And the door to this room must be blown up with a powerful explosive before this fact can be proven. Besides, a glance at my watch told me it was only ten minutes to go.
  
  
  Whatever it was, these tumultuous thoughts were rudely interrupted when Pilar bared her teeth in a grimace and let out a loud, high-pitched whistle.
  
  
  Instantly, three soldiers with submachine guns rushed around the back corner of the guard post. They were closely followed by General Zhizov, resplendent in his sheathed uniform. A Doberman and a German Shepherd dog struggle with a chain; leashes were hopping in front of it.
  
  
  When this unholy group surrounded me, Gisov ordered Pilar to rid me of my weapons. And the hand that had been caressing me so tenderly earlier had penetrated my clothes, found both the luger and the stiletto, and taken ih.
  
  
  "I admire such a formidable enemy, Carter," the general said. "But my admiration does not include mercy. Therefore, I believe that the punishment should correspond to the crime. And what might be so appropriate as to feed one animal to another of its own kind? Although, of course, this is a higher type ." He looked pointedly down at the dogs, who looked at me with angry eyes, growled and showed me their shiny, tortured teeth.
  
  
  When he said that, he started playing with an absurdly oversized belt buckle that Stewart had given me in Washington. Thinking in case of unforeseen situations in the future, she fastened the ego-supporting belt around her coverall. It made my clothes look funny, but it also drew special attention to the buckle.
  
  
  Remembering that the belt had been submerged in salt water for a long time, she mentally bragged about Stuart for making the buckle completely waterproof.
  
  
  When his apparently crafty step was to undo the buckle, the general caught the gesture.
  
  
  "Get your hand off the buckle!" he bellowed. I obeyed as if I'd been caught with my hand in a deadly cookie jar.
  
  
  "Take the belt from him and bring it to me!" he commanded Pilar.
  
  
  With a dismissive "caught" - "you-are-not-us"? Smiling, Pilar unbuckled her seat belt and handed it to Egomedov. When one of Po's soldiers took possession of the dogs, he began to investigate ih, occasionally looking up to give me a narrow-eyed look of self-satisfaction.
  
  
  "The American method of concealing miniature weapons," he said, " is not smart enough to fool any five - year-old Russian boy. What do you have inside here, eh? A single-shot pistol? Knife switch? Or traditional cyanide pills? "
  
  
  While working on finding a poorly hidden spring latch, he said, " How to just be idiotic. In this curl is hidden catch and...
  
  
  He squinted at the dummy buckle as the booby trap exploded with a startling sound, the sound bouncing off the hills and briefly echoing through the canyon below.
  
  
  The hands holding the buckle disappeared, and the general slowly moved the bleeding stump towards his face, which was exposed as if it were a rotting watermelon. He fell to the ground.
  
  
  Then he threw himself at her and cut the neck of a soldier who was holding a leash in one hand and a submachine gun in the other. Before he fell, he was grabbed by a gun and mowed down by his buddies ' egos in a short burst that doesn't knock ih down like toy ducks in a shooting gallery. Pilar pointed a gun at me in life, so her, kissed her goodbye with a leaden kiss without regret.
  
  
  The soldier he'd slashed in karate was coming to life again, starting to get up. Ego pulled her back and pinned her to the ground with another quick tug.
  
  
  I expected the dogs to attack me immediately. But, on the contrary, they turned against their helpless master, who had so cruelly insulted ih and cruelly chewed on this bloody remnant of a man.
  
  
  Now I took off my coveralls and, after making sure that the stylus and the small leather code booklet with the transcripts were still in my jacket pocket, turned to the monstrous boulders. Generously raising and spreading his arms, he sent the girls a broad victory signal and greetings.
  
  
  For a moment, I watched them scramble off the rocks and race toward the waterfront, their blond heads bobbing in the sun. Then he was picked up by a Luger and stiletto from the ground near Pilar. I stood over her and thought: how evil is beautiful. What a loss!
  
  
  He opened it, turned to leave, then, with an afterthought that wasn't meant for greed, opened it.
  
  
  
  
  
  ee blouse and took off what she liquid and blood like a thick currency belt, namely a money belt.
  
  
  Taking ego with him, her, I ran to the helicopter. He checked the fuel gauge, almost cried with joy when he found the tank full, and warmed the engine, the big blade spinning as the girls dived in and climbed aboard.
  
  
  He revved up, adjusted his pace, and we flew off the ground like a huge wingless bird startled by a shotgun blast. Beneath the complex of buildings where Knox Varnov and Anton Zhizov's fatal plot took place, it seemed to dissolve into the ground as we rose and slipped away.
  
  
  Driving through the notch between the mountains, passing mimmo of a giant extended finger of rock, we almost lost sight of the area.
  
  
  But after a minute, it became shockingly certain for us, as it was blown up, burned, crushed by the atomic explosion that I expected at any second while I was looking at my watch. When the sound reached us, the shockwaves reached us. The helicopter was lifted, bounced, and twisted, as if a giant hand were teasing the ego.
  
  
  The blinding white saint was so bright that we were forced to look away. But when the helicopter flight stopped, we looked back at the explosion site and saw the pale smoky dragnet of a rising, expanding cloud.
  
  
  He nodded to the twins 'exhausted faces and said," Yes, actually. It was the big, granddaddy of explosions. And hers, knew it was coming. Are you curious that I didn't see the point in warning you? You'd be hysterical in a panic."
  
  
  "Why weren't you afraid?" Terri asked reasonably.
  
  
  "Because death threats are almost commonplace to me," I said. "In every task, he follows my elbow."
  
  
  "Wedding ring?" said Jerry. "What task? Tell us what you're doing." Tell us what this terrible business is all about."
  
  
  "Who were these people?" "What was in those buildings?"
  
  
  "What buildings?" I told her. "What people? There were no people. There were no buildings. Ih never existed ."
  
  
  "News of the explosion will hit the headlines, and then we can tell all our friends what happened," Gerry said.
  
  
  "It will never get to the papers," I said. "And if I am asked, I will give up the slightest knowledge about the explosion and the events surrounding it. The topic is closed. Period! "
  
  
  "How can you be so mysterious in the face of -" Terri began.
  
  
  "My job is a mystery," I said. Then, with a smile: "And her phantom, which doesn't exist on Della Street, is just an image of your dream."
  
  
  Terry handed her the money belt and said: "I owe you, dear, and there's a small down payment. I am indebted to both of you. And I suspect there's enough of it in this filthy-rich belt to open a clothing store.
  
  
  Chapter Twenty-four
  
  
  Two days later, I was stretched out between the satin sheets of a bed the size of a tennis court in the most expensive and luxurious suite of the Royal Curasao Hotel on Pescadera Bay. In one hand was a glass of dry orange liqueur, named after the island, and in the other was a soft blue phone. In my ear, I heard the voice of David Hawke, who had just given me an unusually cheerful signal from his throne in Washington, DC.
  
  
  "And don't forget to send the money!" said emu.
  
  
  "Sunny?" he shouted . "Well, it's not sunny here. It's been raining all day! Then he chuckled softly.
  
  
  "Send the money by telegraph!" an emu in rheumatism shouted to her. "I am a man of infinite patience. So any time in the next hour is fine. And if it's really raining, be sure to wear a raincoat! »
  
  
  I hang up the phone.
  
  
  I rolled over and winked at Rona Voelstedt, who was lying next to me, propped up on pillows, and drinking a glass of aka local formula.
  
  
  "Hawk wants to know if we want to get extra leave from the government," her husband said. "He suggested a leisurely Caribbean cruise."
  
  
  Rona twisted her lemon-sour face. Then she grinned. "I didn't know this old man had a sense of humor."
  
  
  "He hides it well," I said. "And it only tightens the ego when there's a special occasion worthy of a small smile. For example, when the entire nation was saved from the atomic destruction of city after city."
  
  
  Rhona sipped her drink. "What else did he say?"
  
  
  "Only that, following my instructions, the ego guys found all the suitcases with bombs. He informed the Russian government that the assassination plot had been defeated; the file was closed."
  
  
  "Oh my God," she moaned. "And that's all about the whole caper thing? A small cruise, a few shots fired, a swim in the ocean, a torture chamber, more shots fired, and a small explosion?"
  
  
  She grinned. "So what should we do to have fun?"
  
  
  He didn't say a word to us.
  
  
  But I still spent the next two Sundays answering this corkscrew.
  
  
  
  Thread.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nick Carter
  
  
  The Beijing Dossier
  
  
  translated by Lev Shklovsky in memory of his lost son Anton
  
  
  Original name: The Peking Dossier
  
  
  
  
  The first chapter
  
  
  I didn't pay much attention to the title. It said something about a senator who'd been shot.
  
  
  He put the coin on the shiny counter of the Waldorf's newsstand. It must have taken them an hour to make the ego so shiny. "While you're doing this,"he told the girl behind the counter," I'd like to buy her a pack of Lucky Strikes."
  
  
  She leaned down and examined the shelf below. I really liked what happened when she leaned in. It was added by half a dollar.
  
  
  "No, no," she said. "Cigarettes seventy-five.
  
  
  Her, looked at nah. "The New York City area is enough to make us quit smoking," I said.
  
  
  She gave me her smile.
  
  
  "It's all right," I said, tossing another quarter on the counter. Nick Carter, the last one around the great spenders.
  
  
  He saw his reflection in the lobby mirror. I always thought I looked exactly what she thought I was. Secret agent. Hers is too tall and mean to fit into an elegant spa suit. In addition, I also look like I've been walking in the wind and bad weather for too long. Little girls call this face "old." Big girls call it " going through a lot." I think it's just wrinkles, and the rest doesn't bother me.
  
  
  He looked at his watch. 1:50. Hers arrived early. Hawk wanted me to meet someone on the PHONE to brief me on some emergency situation. He would have sent me a girl. Redhead. She would ask me if I knew the way to the Tower Restaurant. And there is no such restaurant in New York.
  
  
  He walked over to one of the big padded chairs in the waiting room — which had an ashtray next to it. I used up the last pack of my special food and forgot to order another one. But Lucky Strike was fine, too. He opened the newspaper.
  
  
  "Late last night at the exclusive Casino Grenada in Nassau, Senator John. Saybrook, the chairman of the Military Affairs Committee, was shot dead by a tall assailant in a tailcoat. According to eyewitnesses, the senator had just won a couple of times, I'm playing Blackjack, when the player next to him, shouting "cheat", pulled out a gun and shot him twice. Local police placed the suspect in custody. A preliminary psychiatric report indicates that this man, Chen-lee Brown, is mentally unstable. The maximum table bet was two dollars."
  
  
  Her, looked at the picture. Chen-li Brown didn't look at all mentally unstable. He looked more like a cat that had just eaten a canary. Narrow Asian eyes on a wide hard face. His mouth twisted in a wicked laugh. He looked at the photo again. Something was bothering me. Something like those two pictures next to each other: find the error.
  
  
  "Excuse me, but can you tell me how to get to the Tower restaurant?"
  
  
  Very red-haired. Thick copper-colored clouds around a beautiful face. A face that seemed to be all eyes. Eyes that seemed completely colored. Green, brown, reddish-brown. She was wearing some sort of military outfit. Just Fort Knox: there's a gold mine hidden here.
  
  
  I told her. "The tower?" 'I've never heard of nen."He had to say it, and he said it like a perfect actor.
  
  
  'No?'No,' she said, wrinkling the lovely lines on her lovely forehead. — Perhaps you mean the Tower Inn?" This was also part of my text.
  
  
  'Oh, no. How silly, eh? I was going to meet some friends, and I thought they said "Tower" restaurant. She was an excellent actress herself.
  
  
  "You know what," I told her, loud enough for anyone who might be interested to hear. — I keep the money, and there's a phone book in the bar. We will find all restaurants that have the word "Tower" in their names.
  
  
  "It can take several hours," she said.
  
  
  "I know," I said.
  
  
  We found a dark corner. I ordered her bourbon, and she's sherry. A lady was a lady. 'Well?"I told her that when the waiter brought our drinks. Not that he was in such a hurry to get down to business.
  
  
  She asked. — Have you read today's paper yet?" So she can get to the bottom of it.
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "Just the front page."
  
  
  She nodded. That's what she was asked to talk about.
  
  
  "You mean Senator Saybrook?"
  
  
  'Not really. In fact, he called it mistletoe in reference to Chen-li Brown.
  
  
  — Is it related to him?"
  
  
  "Mmmmm. Partly.'
  
  
  Almighty God. Another girl who is engaged likes to play games. Only I don't like games at all, and neither do the girls who play them. He took a sip of bourbon and waited.
  
  
  I'm not trying to play a practical joke on you... it's just fucking awesome... she searched for the right word,"... tailor take it... well, ' difficult — isn't exactly the right word." She reached for her purse, the one next to it.
  
  
  — Do you remember how Senator Morton died?"
  
  
  I checked my memory. "It was about three or four months ago. A plane crash, isn't it?
  
  
  She nodded. "Private jet. The pilot did not survive.
  
  
  'What is it?'
  
  
  'Well. She opened her purse and took out a clipping from an old newspaper. "It was that pilot," she said. Even in the dim light of it, I knew what she meant by mistletoe. "Chen-lee Brown," I said.
  
  
  She shook her head. 'No, no. Charles Bryce.
  
  
  The photo examined it again. It was indeed Chen-li's face. "If that's the case, then all these Chinese people are similar to each other, and I can't understand the story."
  
  
  She almost laughed. "Perhaps this is the only explanation. But it can't be the same person, because "— she paused — " because Charles Bryce is dead. She leaned back and waited for the bomb to go off.
  
  
  'Twins?'
  
  
  "How about triplets?" She reached into her purse again and pulled out a photograph. She was on a secret AX case. I recognized it as Henderson's handwriting. On it was written "Lao Zeng". The photo was large and clear. Sharper than photos from old newspaper clippings, and sharper than a snapshot from today's newspaper. No doubt it was the same face again. Up close, it looked older, but the face remained the same. Now I suddenly understood what I had thought was strange before. There was a wart in the middle of his forehead. In the less clear photos, it looked like one of the painted patches of Indian caste symbols around them. Except that it was a real wart. More precisely, three warts. Candid in the middle of three different foreheads. This is impossible, even if it was triplets. Chen-li Brown, Charles Bryce, and Lao Tseng were all supposed to be the same person. But if this Charles Bryce hadn't risen from the dead, it wouldn't have been possible.
  
  
  "Who is Lao Zeng?"
  
  
  "Chief Agent of KAN .'So the vote is it that; KAN was behind it. Asian assassin squad. A free federation of Chinese, Cambodians, Laotians, Vietnamese and anyone else who thinks the US is the root of all the ih problems. Whatever that word means to them, it means to us, "Americans are about to have their throats cut." Because KAN mostly did it.
  
  
  Her, looked at the girl. She stared into her glass as if trying to see into the future. "Lao Zeng has an M1 degree," she said.
  
  
  A first-class assassin. If she had encountered this Lao Zeng, she would have met her equal. She looked at me with eyes full of fear. I let her gaze go straight to me. Her best bet is to keep that look in her eyes. It was the first sign of gentleness she'd seen since we'd met. The charming, hurried girl in the lobby turned into a strictly businesswoman as soon as we were alone in the dark bar. I don't really want to act like Don Juan, but it's usually the other way around. My gaze turned to a blink, and now it was my turn to get down to business. Her, felt that she didn't take things too lightly.
  
  
  "Lao Tseng," I said shortly, " where is he now?"
  
  
  The emotion in her eyes disappeared like the slow fade of a television image. "We don't know," she said slowly. "Where does he usually go?"
  
  
  She sighed and shrugged. — We don't know either. China? Indochina? About five years ago, we lost after. It can be anywhere.
  
  
  He reached in a minute for a cigarette. He must have left her an ih in the lobby.
  
  
  She looked at me and smiled. — You left ih in the lobby. She pulled her pack from around her purse.
  
  
  I took her one on the nah, with a filter, and lit a cigarette and so on. Fortunately, she didn't belong to the most recent generation, through them, who are offended by such things. Call me old-fashioned, but I am convinced of one thing: a woman can only show aggression in public.
  
  
  "Now," I said, " what's my assignment?"
  
  
  "Yes," she said. "This is your assignment now."
  
  
  "Hawk imagines that someone will try to drag Chen-li around the prison. Whoever it is, it could be the key to all of this." She pointed vaguely at the air. "Well,"she said," it must be a political conspiracy."
  
  
  "Say it, go ahead. This must be a joke. Two senators were killed by two Chinese men who look the same but are not the same person, and they also turn out to be doppelgangers of a high-ranking KANNA agent, and you think it's a political conspiracy.
  
  
  She looked at me questioningly. — What would you call it then?"
  
  
  "I'd rather call it a sci-fi story."
  
  
  She stared at me for a moment, then laughed. "They didn't tell me you were so funny," she said.
  
  
  "I'm not trying to be funny at all. It looks like this is a job for John Brunner or someone else. She's only here for muscle work."
  
  
  "Mmmm," she said, licking the sarcasm off her lips. If it was going to happen again, hers, I hoped she'd let me do it. "Muscle," she said, " is a necessary condition. They guys who want to get to Chen-li won't do it with guns." She took a sip of her drink. A few office buffoons in the distance were looking at Nah without hope in their eyes. I figured I could sell my place here for forty or fifty thousand dollars.
  
  
  And as for brains, "she said," you wouldn't be alive if you didn't have ih. I don't think the "n" in N-3 doesn't mean zero.
  
  
  "Exactly," I said. "His genius. But I always thought you'd write "zero" with an "h" instead of a "0". Her praise made me angry. I'm not sure exactly why. She also didn't know anything else and changed the subject. "Gar Kantor is waiting for us in Nassau. We'll contact him as soon as we get there."
  
  
  'We?"It turned out sharper than I planned it. For now. I don't like working with women. Play to. Not particularly hard to work. When it's hard for me, I only put up with one woman around me: Wilhelmina. My nice, 9mm Luger pistol.
  
  
  "Oh, no, — I said. "That's not going to happen. Also, if your muscles are in the foreground, then you're not the only one around them. You don't have enough of that. She sat up abruptly. There was anger in her eyes. "Not that they think it's a disadvantage," I added, " but I just don't like muscular aunts."
  
  
  "So it's just a skinny aunt who does nothing but get in the way?"
  
  
  Her, looked at nah. — I wouldn't call you skinny at all.
  
  
  She didn't take it as a friendly comment. She made a schoolteacher's face. "Well, Mr. Carter, it looks like HQ wants her to participate. Among other things, I know the soe-toan dialect of Chinese, and I think it might be useful to us.
  
  
  "In Nassau?" He laughed.
  
  
  "In Nassau, and maybe somewhere else. She wasn't laughing.
  
  
  He nodded to her. 'I understand her."I didn't understand it at all. But something was beginning to sink in. Whether it was a plot to kill all the United States senators or something else, it was May's work. And except when it came to murder, KANNA and she didn't speak the same language. Then there was this Lao Zeng. and sooner or later after that, could lead to him. And it can be anywhere. In China, in Indochina maybe. So it was more than likely that I might need ee knowledge.
  
  
  — When do we leave?".
  
  
  "Four-thirty." Nah got two first-class plane tickets. — I've prepared a suite for us on Paradise Island.
  
  
  That way, we'd share both the housework and the bed. He motioned to the waiter and paid for the drinks.
  
  
  "By the way. What is your name?'
  
  
  "Stuart," she said. "Linda Stewart." She paused. "Mrs. Stewart."
  
  
  "Oh, — I said. And then what? Her didn't want to marry her.
  
  
  "So who's the lucky guy, Mr. Stewart?"
  
  
  'You.' She pointed to the tickets on the table.
  
  
  Mr. and Mrs. John Stewart Race New York-Nassau
  
  
  — The rest of your documents are in our luggage. Driver's license, passport, etc. All in the name of Mr. John Stewart. Her luggage was left at the front desk. While you order a taxi, I'll pick up his ego. "I'll tell her the rest on the plane.
  
  
  We were still sitting at the table. Nice, cool, dark corner chair. Ee grabbed her wrist and pulled her down. I pulled her hard because I knew she wasn't going to scream. He moved his forearm, and the stiletto slid into my hand. Made sure she'd seen him. "All right, Linda. Her strong one was holding ee's hand. — I want to know your name." I need your ID, and I want an ego right now.
  
  
  Her face was white and her eyes were dark. She bit her lower lip and looked down. Without saying a word to us, she grabbed her bag. "Oh no, dear, I'll do it myself."
  
  
  Without taking his eyes off her face, he took the bag from Nah and searched the contents with his free hand. Keys, compact, lipstick, wallet. There was also a gun that he caught a glimpse of. Precise.22. It was laid down by the ego in a minute. After a bit of tinkering, I found what I wanted: a fountain pen.
  
  
  He put it down on a chair and pulled out the case. Holding her tightly, he deciphered her code. Tara Bennett. Age twenty-eight. Red hair. Green eyes. So officially, her eyes were green. "IDAX-20. Class R. ' She worked in the science department and was extremely reliable. As I read it, she studied my face. She knew I was reading, but she still looked shocked.
  
  
  "Okay, put that away. He pointed to the pen. Her didn't let go of her when she put ee away.
  
  
  — Do you trust me now?" Her voice was still too shaky for sarcasm.
  
  
  "I never asked you, Tara," I said.
  
  
  She looked at me quizzically. — So what was it all good for?"
  
  
  "Nothing good," I said. "It's just that when I work with a woman, it's more convenient for me to know that I don't work for nah. I wasn't sure if you knew about it.
  
  
  I went to the exit. She picked up her things and followed me in silence. As we passed through the lobby, her father turned to her. "Tell the doorman to call a taxi. I'll meet you at the front door in a few minutes."
  
  
  She lowered her formal green eyes and left.
  
  
  "Two packs of Lucky Strikes," I said. Her gill is now in Mr. John Stewart's expense account.
  
  
  The girl behind the counter stared at me for a moment, then handed me both packs. She shook her head.
  
  
  And she asked. 'Who are you?"Some kind of masochist?
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 2
  
  
  
  
  If you want to know why I'm doing this, let me tell you that I'm not doing it for the money. If you were unemployed for six months in the previous year, you probably earned more than her; and that's not counting your unemployment benefits. If you want to know why I'm doing this, then I have to tell you that the real reason is patriotism. Of course, this can always be true. But if you put me in the dock, and you want the truth and nothing but the truth, her should I add that it was 40 degrees in Nassau, and her right now was on a pink sand beach next to one of the world's best bodies in one of the tiniest bikinis in the world. This girl had everything. Up to the ee appendix. Tara Bennett was beautifully portrayed. Odin D seventy-five; creamy body. One and a half around which were the legs... She was one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever looked at her for. And I had a feeling that if I played my cards right, it wasn't just my eyes that would be on her.
  
  
  As they say, it was good. But I don't think it made me any less patriotic. The night before, she had received a message from the Firm's train station saying, " Keep your head down, everything is calm." He told me that he would contact me when the time came. Before they had ferret, we just had to act like a normal American couple on vacation. This means, if I did, that while we were eating, we weren't allowed to tell us anything other than - out loud - whether we could go swimming or not.
  
  
  He left her in his room, reminding himself that she was Linda and her name was Mr. John Stewart, and went out to get a good picture. I hate island drinks, and the island bartenders respected me for it. This is a free tip: order a Caribbean sling and they'll ignore you. Order a pure whiskey and they provide you with all the information you need.
  
  
  Her hotel asks for local opinion on the shooting. I got what the hotel needs. Insiders claimed that it was just a dirty business. Chen-li was not from the island, and was not a tourist. In any case, he wasn't mentally unstable. When he first visited the city, he was quite disappointed in nen, but after that, he just disappeared. Something dirty was happening.
  
  
  When he came back to our room, he didn't go to the bedroom. She took off her clothes and bench press to sleep on the sofa. This is another free tip: nothing turns a woman on like a man who clearly doesn't have an appetite for her.
  
  
  He lit a cigarette and looked at Tara. She was sleeping on the beach. I wondered if she'd been asleep last night. But I didn't want to continue with that thought. That was all she did, of course, it was nice too.
  
  
  "Mr. Stewart?" It was the hotel messenger. Her hand was held above her eyes, against the sun. "There's a gentleman in the harbor who wants to talk to you." It will be Gar. Of course, on the hotel avoid people in the hotel. I nodded and followed him. We arrived at the thread of a pink sand beach, at the beginning of a winding rocky trail. "You must pass through here," he said. — You can come back here. You won't be allowed through the lobby in a bathing suit.
  
  
  "Thank you," I said.
  
  
  - Vote on this track. On the other side there is a staircase down.
  
  
  "Yes," I said. I understood why he hesitated, but offered em a cigarette instead of a tip. "I'll see you later, "I said, with the air of a vacationer:"You'll get your tip tomorrow." We thought Mr. Stewart was a very generous person, didn't we?
  
  
  I followed the path that led to the harbor. The view was unique. Beyond, where the island curved, rose green tropical hills surrounded by a narrow pink border. To my left, there was a wall around a pink stone with streaks of dark red primroses, like the bounces you get when you put ten yellowish-brown balls on it. On the other side, about seven meters below me, lay water that glittered like a sapphire in the sun. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a shorter route. The harbor was still three hundred meters away, and Lick still hadn't reached it.
  
  
  If she hadn't been heard by the thunderbolt of that boulder, a split second before it reached me, she would have been a big flat pancake instead of a well about six feet in diameter. He didn't just fall, he was pushed-ego. Her, ran and clung to the stone moan. The boulder hit the path and sank further into the water. He stayed where he was and listened. Whoever it was had the upper hand. He could have been watching me from above. All I had to look at was the narrow path and the water seven meters below. The sharp rocks at the bottom glistened like sharp teeth in a lustful mouth.
  
  
  'Well? Someone heard her in a whisper. It didn't take a Harvard degree to know that ih was two people. Not that this revelation helped me much. Her husband was literally standing with his back to moaning and was naked. Instead of a weapon, all he could get her was a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches. There weren't even any rocks near me. Hers was curled up against the wall. If I went down, I had to follow the trail. Not across the water, waiting to get shot.
  
  
  The other guy probably nodded at rheumatism, because until now the attacks hadn't been heard from our voices. My God, it was big. One ton of bricks. A full thousand kilograms. It's like I was hit by a Leopard tank.
  
  
  We collided on a narrow, rocky path, and he slammed into me with ham-sized hands, slamming into my back. I didn't have the strength to take that blow. The best I could do was try to resist. He tried to put an ego to every tribe, but he rolled over and caught the blow with the heavy muscles of his thigh. Not exactly a crushing blow.
  
  
  I couldn't get rid of the bastard. It literally stuck to me like one big barrel of glue. He put his hands around my throat, and it seemed like there was nothing to do. My right hand was caught somewhere below us. All I could do was hit ego in the eyes with the fingers of my left hand. He didn't like to do it, but at this distance he could hardly miss. I felt something turn to marmalade under my fingernails, and he made an inhuman sound of fear. He rolled off me and fell to his knees. Blood seeped between my fingers. He stood up again.
  
  
  The first round, but the best was yet to come.
  
  
  My next opponent was already waiting. He was standing quietly a little further down the trail, a silenced .45-caliber revolver pointed at my face.
  
  
  He looked his best at Easter in his white suit. white shirt and white tie. Besides, it was clear that he wasn't going to get blood on his ego. Good match, these two. This blonde-haired dandy with pale eyes and tota ex-heavyweight champion is colorful. And then Nick Carter in his purple swimming trunks. He stood there, panting, running his hand over the deep cut on his head. The ex-champ fell a few yards ahead of me on the trail.
  
  
  The blond guy complimented me. "So, Mr. Carter, I see you're a reasonable man. You know, of course, that it would be very stupid to try to attack me?
  
  
  He must have been British. The words came out around his throat in a familiar, cloying accent.
  
  
  "Yes, of course," I said. "My mother taught me never to argue with an armed man. If it's out of reach.
  
  
  — Too bad you didn't let that boulder fall on you. It would be much nicer for many people. "American tourist killed by falling rock." No quibbles, no hard questions. No complicated plan to get rid of the body.
  
  
  "Listen," I said. "I don't want to be a burden to you. Why don't we just take a break?
  
  
  He laughed. Or rather, he neighed. The ego gun was still pointed directly at my life. "Ah," he said, " you have already left me one body that I must dispose of. Two bodies is really a bit more of a problem.
  
  
  I told her. "Two bodies?" Your ex-champion is not dead. He'll just never be able to embroider again. "Kane — - he pointed to the still-undead body -" I don't need him anymore. But come to think of it, "he snapped his fingers like a college comedy professor," he doesn't have a bullet wound, and his ego death can be caused by a fall. He smiled with satisfaction. "I think Kane will fall. They're muddy rocks out there, under the water.
  
  
  Ego's smile widened. The bastard really got on my nerves. In my profession, murder is part of my job description. He thought it would be wise to just let him talk. It would save her time trying to figure out what to do with it. The web problem was that I didn't come up with anything yet. He could already imagine the newspaper report about himself: "Killmaster destroyed by Brave Daan." I didn't like it at all.
  
  
  It wasn't the worst situation he'd ever been in, but it didn't tell us anything. He was five meters away from me, and he had a gun in his hand. He was out of my reach, but I was in his sights.
  
  
  Behind me, the path was open as an arrow. To my right are high cliffs. Water on the left. Between us is a blind semi-disconnected giant. who could have killed me without seeing me if he could. If that gawk hadn't hit me first. But maybe I can still use her somehow, this Kane. I should have thought about it. I needed time.
  
  
  — And how are you going to dispose of my body?" I assume there will be bullet holes in the nen."
  
  
  In case of rheumatism, he reached into the inner pocket of his doublet and pulled out an elaborate large whiskey flask. He lifted the silver lid with his thumb.
  
  
  I didn't understand her.
  
  
  He whinnied again. "No whiskey, Carter. Gasoline. There's a cave in the rock around the bend. Kane would have built a fire there...
  
  
  "Using me as firewood."
  
  
  "There is a voice." He sighed heavily. "I guess I'll have to do it myself now." I hope Chen-li will thank you properly."
  
  
  He was hungry for some information. — Why don't you just wait for him to do it himself?"
  
  
  I'd love to see her. But he won't be out of jail until tomorrow night. And no one could have found you here before.
  
  
  Just like that. They were planning ego's escape. Hawk was right again. But what did the bastard have to do with it? Kane stopped and let out a small groan. He took a step toward it.
  
  
  "Stand back, Carter. The blond man took a quick step forward, holding the gun out in front of him. He shoved the flask of gasoline back in a minute, not forgetting to put the cap back on. A gasoline stain spread across ego's jacket. He didn't notice.
  
  
  Kane groaned softly again. Her, looked down at him. Suddenly, the exit saw her. He took another step forward. The blond one, too. "Back up," he said with a sharp flick of his hand.
  
  
  "Do you want Kane to wake up? It will be difficult to deal with him when he comes to his senses. I can kill her ego with a single blow.
  
  
  — And why do you want to be so helpful?"
  
  
  "Honor," I said. "If I have to die, I want her to take at least one with me, around the two of you. Deliberately hers, he walked over to Kane's body. It made me a bit of a lick. Maybe not close enough, but it should be enough. Not yet...
  
  
  He leaned down to what was left of Kane's face and grabbed his weapon with an invisible hand. Kane made a sound that sounded more like "Gaaa" than anything else.
  
  
  "Jesus Christ," I said, getting up quickly again. — I think he has a plan."
  
  
  'Which one?' Wittmans stepped forward a little to understand me better. — Plan, - repeat it. "Planier or ribel".
  
  
  He came back to lick a little to understand my slurred words. The voice pointed at her and set to work. With a flick of his thumb, he lit a box of matches and tossed it into his ego-soaked jacket. It immediately lit up. He dropped his weapon and tried to put out the flames, but it didn't work. The flames spread quickly. He leaped and wriggled, screaming like a burning puppet. 'Help me. God help me. Please.'
  
  
  I looked at him and shrugged. "If you don't like fire, there's water nearby."
  
  
  Then he turned and walked back down the path to the pale pink beach.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  
  
  Tara was gone. She probably already went upstairs to her room. I was covered in bruises and blood, and I needed a bath. And a drink. And something else. I had to deal with this case first.
  
  
  Her ego found her in the kitchen of the restaurant and at home, by the pool. He-ale hamburger with garnish, grabbed her ego by the collar and slapped it across the jaw. The chef who was working on the grill understood and left.
  
  
  "So, Lolly, how much did they pay you for this?"
  
  
  In his rheumatism, he reached for his meat cleaver. It was wrong. His back was pressed against moan, and both wrists were pinned. Ih turned it a little further, just to be sure.
  
  
  "Hey kid, aren't you okay? Let me go.'Ego's name was Carlo. It was written all over his uniform.
  
  
  "Not until you tell me who it was, Carlo." Who paid you to let me walk this road to eternity?
  
  
  "Let go," he shouted. He tightened his grip and gave him a light knee kick to the life. He groaned. 'Her, I swear. I do not know who it is.
  
  
  "They say it's Carlo. Was he wearing white?
  
  
  'No. The man in white... he stopped abruptly.
  
  
  "Who was that, Carlo?" His ego slammed him into the wall.
  
  
  "Go to hell," he said.
  
  
  Ego dragged her to the grill. The meat splattered with fat. She was pushed down by ego's head so that he could look through the bars and imagine what ego Gol would look like later. "Bb-Bangle," he said.
  
  
  "Beautiful Christian. And the one who sent you?
  
  
  — I don't know, " he whimpered. 'Her, I swear. I don't know.'
  
  
  Ego released her and took a step back. Most likely, he won't cause any more trouble. "Then tell me what he looked like."
  
  
  He sank back into his chair. "Big guy," he said. 'Chinese. But very big. In some crazy gray suit.
  
  
  I've never seen it before.
  
  
  "And this Bangel, where can Ego find him?"
  
  
  He gave me a startled look. Hers, turned to him with a serious expression. Whatever he was afraid to say to me, he was also afraid not to say it to me.
  
  
  "These are two men from the Grenada Hotel.
  
  
  The senator was shot dead in a casino in Grenada. At least two pieces of the puzzle already fit, and I was wondering what it would all look like. — What else do you know?"
  
  
  'Nothing more. You are welcome. Nothing like that.'
  
  
  "All right," I said. I don't like tormenting a scared little guy. What else I needed to know, I'll try to find out in another way. He turned to leave, but there was something else he wanted to know.
  
  
  "By the way." Her, turned around. "How much did he pay you to retrieve this sweet message?"
  
  
  He rubbed his wrists. "Fifteen."
  
  
  "Then he lied to you. I pay her twenty dollars.
  
  
  "Nick, is that you?" She was in the shower.
  
  
  I told her. "No, ' Dirty Rapist'.
  
  
  — I don't understand you, " she screamed. 'Wait a second.'
  
  
  She sat down on the bed. The door opened and she appeared in a cloud of steam,her hair curling in the shower. She was wearing a long white terry-cloth coat. I was wondering why I always thought black lace was so sexy. "Gar called..." She stopped and looked at me. "Oh my God, Nick. What happened?'She was rushing towards me like a fiery white angel.
  
  
  "I hit the door," I said.
  
  
  Her eyes scanned the cuts and bruises on my back. "You look awful," she said.
  
  
  — Then you should see this door."
  
  
  She sighed. "Sit down to vote like this." She disappeared and returned a few moments later with a warm cloth and a bowl of water. "As they always say in movies, it can hurt."
  
  
  "And, as they say in the movies — I swallow it like a bullet. What was it with Gar?
  
  
  — He wants to have dinner with us tonight." Eight o'clock at the Cafe Martinique. She treated my back, almost tenderly. — Will you tell me about this story?"
  
  
  "It was a trap. Chen-li's friends know I'm in town. But I don't understand how they know that. He turned to her and caught her eye. She looked worried and tried to hide it. I told you, baby. This is not a game for women." He should have known it would make her angry, but he gently pulled her back onto the bed. "Look," I said. "I'm sure you know your craft, whatever it is to us, but whatever it is to us, hers, sure it's not hand-to-hand combat. That's all I had in mind.
  
  
  She looked down and sighed. "I'm a trained agent and I can take very good care of myself." It sounded like the voice of a trained agent, but it didn't make much sense, like a poorly dubbed film: it didn't match the picture. The sun gave her a fine mist of freckles that made her look young, innocent, and very fragile. And so it was. She was picked up by ee. It felt small and warm. They smelled of lemons, and she kissed happily with her mouth open. He ran his fingers along the bridge of her nose. "You have freckles," I said.
  
  
  "But at least I don't get sunburned," she smiled. "Most blondes get sunburned."
  
  
  That reminds me of something. The phone grabbed her. Give me the police. "I told her operator. A Bahamian police officer answered the phone. "There's a rocky path to the Paradise Hotel harbor. Do you know that?"' He knew it. About half an hour ago, a flame saw her there. It looked like some boys were playing with fire. I think you'd better take a look there. The sergeant understood, and he hung up.
  
  
  I turned back to Tara. "We're not supposed to meet Gar until eight o'clock..."
  
  
  "Listen, Nick." She looked restless. "I think we have a mission, and..." she stammered... I interrupted her and continued my sentence. "It gives us time to run our errand first." Her hotel would like to take a look at this casino in Grenada.
  
  
  I thought I saw the disappointment in her eyes.
  
  
  Her, went into the bathroom to take a shower. She turned on the radio. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and wondered why I still didn't have a single gray hair between us. "The One Note Samba" was played on the radio until the music was cut out for "an important release of the Barents Sea territory".
  
  
  Senator Paul Lindale was dead.
  
  
  Senator's body was found on Ego's doorstep. He probably fell through the windows of his office on the tenth floor. Of course, they thought it was an accident.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  
  
  It's always three o'clock in the morning in the dark of the casino. Every hour, every day, in any weather, it's always three in the morning. I play cards and dice with tired women and men with drooping heads, leaning over tables and shouting, "Come on, honey." It's almost an orchestral composition. In the corner, there was a drum section that kept up a steady beat with the reels of slot machines and the occasional platter of payouts: fifty balls in quarters. The space becomes quieter as entertainment prices rise. For example, at craps tables, you can hear a pin drop, especially when ten thousand dollars is at stake.
  
  
  The casino of Grenada was no different. It was exchanged for a check for fifty dollars-Jon Stewart definitely wouldn't want to play for more, because the only way to get through the casino is to move around during the game. Her, saw Tara watching the rookies cum on one of those one-armed killers they stuffed with quarters. Then we sniffed the air, but didn't understand anything.
  
  
  We parted ways to keep an eye on the two most likely points. Tara played roulette with a Chinese croupier, and her sel for a blackjack chair, to which the senator made his wins and losses.
  
  
  I have twenty-one hands in the first hand, as well as the first and second. I put my chips on the third round, but the dealer stopped me. The chips were missing the letter G of Grenada. He told me to take ih back to the cash register. These were new chips, he said. They had this difficulty earlier in the day.
  
  
  I've already had some difficulties, and this time I don't want to risk it. This time he was armed. Her, went to the cash register. He apologized profusely and handed me the other chips, which he kindly shoved into my hand.
  
  
  Five seconds later, he was completely shocked.
  
  
  I do not know what they gave me, but it must have been nonsense. When I opened her eyes, two Chen-li with two warts in the middle of their foreheads were leaning over me. But if they were there, they were gone, because when she finally came to, both of them were gone. Just like my gun: Wilhelmina left with another man. This time with a Chinese. He sat across from me in the room and smiled at me. It was a small, smoke-filled, sound-proofed room, apparently used by Krasnoyarsk's office, which went about its business and distributed chips. There were about six other people in the room besides the man with my gun, and no one was laughing except the man with my gun.
  
  
  "Welcome to our humble gathering. He just bowed his head. Hef was a short, well-built man, dressed in an elegant silk suit. Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Lin, Lin Qin.
  
  
  "Mr. Qin." He nodded, too.
  
  
  "Mr. Lin," he corrected. The last name is always mentioned first.
  
  
  All this courtesy was too kind. I wondered if he would challenge me to a fork duel. "It saddens us," he continued, " that we have had to request your presence in our small gathering in such, shall we say, abrupt fashion. But consider yourself an honored guest.
  
  
  A circle of stone faces surveyed her. "Gut, guys, she wouldn't have missed this for anything."
  
  
  Laughing, Lin turned to the others. "Mr. Carter is joking," he told them.
  
  
  They still weren't laughing.
  
  
  "Well," he shrugged, " as you can see, my companions don't listen to the gentlemen's jokes among themselves. They prefer to get down to more important things right away. He picked up a cigarette and tapped it on the back of the gold-onyx case. Odin po ego accomplices jumped up to give a light. A faint sweet fragrance spread through the room. "Oh, how rude of me. He handed me the phone. "A cigarette, Mr. Carter?"
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. I wondered why I cared so much about this Jon Stewart nonsense. My name seemed to be the most closely guarded secret in this city. "I suppose it wouldn't help much if I told you that you found the wrong man, and that my name is John Stewart?"
  
  
  Lin raised one eyebrow. "I'm sorry, Mr. Carter.
  
  
  Odin Po will meet your old enemies-our old friend. He saw you arrive at the airport and informed Mr. Bangel. He leaned back comfortably in his chair. — And while we're talking about our former employer—" — I take it you've heard of ego's early demise?"
  
  
  Yes, tragic, I said. "To be taken away to vote like this, in the prime of my youth."
  
  
  Actually. The smile returned. "But perhaps an inappropriate tragedy. You see, some around us disagreed with Mr. Bangel's way of doing business, and now that hers has taken over, those disagreements will disappear. He addressed the letter to the others, "being out of this world."
  
  
  Now they were laughing. A few more cigarettes appeared and lit up. It began to represent the nature of ihc. The sweet smell of success filled the room.
  
  
  — And now, Mr. Carter, we're ready to make you an offer. Not that we should. But your immediate death without our help will not be of any use to us.
  
  
  I was surprised that Bungel didn't notice this advantage. I found this contradiction rather odd.
  
  
  I asked her. — What is this advantage?
  
  
  Five percent. Five percent of the profit. This is a good suggestion. But don't expect millions. The retail price of heroin is much higher than the price we get for it."
  
  
  'And the rest?'Hers,' looked at his cigarette case. 'Grass. Hash?
  
  
  "Of course, five percent of the total amount. He smiled again. And the other, as you say, is a trifle... It's asking us for opium.
  
  
  "You bring the ego here to Nassau and smuggle it into the United States yourself." Its made it as an app; not like corkscrew.
  
  
  He nodded. But of course you already know that. Otherwise, you and Mr. Bungel "— he hesitated — " wouldn't be arguing.
  
  
  This last statement startled me. He offered me an agreement as if he were a drug enforcement agent, and as if Bangel only dealt in drugs. Well, maybe it was. Maybe this Chen-li was just a member of a drug syndicate. Maybe he was just so stoned that em got to help a U.S. senator. Maybe it was all one big crazy coincidence. Or maybe Lin wanted her to think so.
  
  
  "I see you're hesitating, Mr. Carter. You may want to consult someone before making a final decision. Oooh! He nodded to the man who was sitting for the day.
  
  
  Chu got up and opened the door.
  
  
  Container.
  
  
  Her wrists were tied together, her dress was torn, and her hair had come loose during the struggle. The hair I'd seen her put up and pinned up before she left. Deeply unhappy, she looked at me, only at me.
  
  
  'I'm sorry.'
  
  
  Two men were holding her down. One on each side. Both carried Sten submachine guns; short, light British guns that could fire five hundred rounds a minute. Instinctively, he approached her. They let go of her and raised their weapons as I and another man came up to grab me. They just made a mistake. They must have stopped searching me when they found the gun.
  
  
  With a quick movement, he moved her stiletto into his palm so that only the blade was sticking out. He got to me first, and I plunged my emu dagger into the dollar stack. Ego's mouth opened and he died of surprise. It happened so quickly — and for no apparent reason — that the others momentarily lost their guard. The moment you took advantage of it.
  
  
  I went to see Lin Jing.
  
  
  With a single swing of his left hand, he brought ego up in front of him, then held it in an iron grip, holding the stiletto to ego's throat.
  
  
  Two submachine gun heroes froze in place. The others remained where they were, bewildered. Lena could have used her as a hostage to get Tara and himself out of here. But I didn't want it that way.
  
  
  "Untie her," I ordered.
  
  
  For a moment, no one moved. Just her. Lina pushed her forward until we reached one of Tara's guards. The sharpness of the blade made her Lin raise her chin, and her throat was exposed. "Ma-untie her," he managed. The guard lowered his weapon and did as the emu was told.
  
  
  It was Tara who ordered it. — Get out of here.
  
  
  'But,. Nick. †
  
  
  'Go!'
  
  
  She came to the door. Lina made her gasp and pushed ego toward the guards, who backed away in horror as she was grabbed by a submachine gun from one of them and started shooting. First it hit another shooter, and then it was child's play.
  
  
  Ten seconds later, it was all over.
  
  
  A submachine gun dropped her and picked up Wilhelmina. On a table in the corner, he noticed a small open box of chips. He carefully took the one around them in his hand and examined it. There was a very small needle sticking out of the side, two millimeters long. The chip broke him in half. A pale yellow liquid came out. Disabling drops. The chips they used against me. I put the lid on the box and put it in a minute. Who knows. If the game went against you, maybe they could come in handy. He ran a hand through his hair, straightened his tie, and closed the door on the disbanded Nassau Chinese Union forever.
  
  
  He looked at his watch. We were twenty minutes late. By the time we reached the Cafe Martinique, the station was gone.
  
  
  But now she was really looking forward to it.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  
  
  I dropped her off at the hotel and went to look for the train station. He was staying in a small hotel near the coast. When I got there, it was full of police officers; the ambulance setting off the alarm told me I might be late. It turned out that I was just in time.
  
  
  The doctor looked at me and gave a hopeless shrug. — He only has a few minutes left. Its not much I can do about it.
  
  
  He crouched down next to Gar. "Tomorrow night," he whispered.
  
  
  He nodded to her. I know her. Chen-li's escape. Her, heard my watch ticking down the ego's life. Or was it my dollar stack? 'Anything else?'
  
  
  'He said. "I left you a message. Tell Tara..."
  
  
  It's something to vote for. Gar and hers may have worked together on five or six assignments. He was a professional, as good as you could wish for. I thought he'd always be there for her. Vote vote what you get with death. You remain immortal until the last second.
  
  
  I went back to my car and sped off, as if speed had sped up my concept world. But that wasn't the case. In fact, the more he learned about it, the less ego understood it. Three identical Chinese men. Three dead senators are open now. Casino. Escape from death. And Lao Zeng, who was somewhere in Indochina. It didn't match and it didn't add up. The backdrop for all of this was CANNAH, and CANNAH was an assassin squad. And if the senate hunting season had opened, three were already dead, and ninety-seven were still alive. At the current rate, they will soon destroy the entire American system of government. It was up to me to find out what they were up to to get ahead of ih and prevent it. He left a message for me. Or was it meant for me? He said, " Tell Tara to Tara Bennett. ID = AX-20. Tara Bennett, a learned woman.
  
  
  Suddenly, he was angry.
  
  
  Tara knew something that hers didn't. For example, she knew why she was with me. And not because of the Sutoan dialect. When she told me in that bar that I was such a fucking genius, she knew that nah had the brains for this job, and as for me ... "Muscles," she said, " are a prerequisite in this task. Suddenly I understood the classic female insult that you want to attract me just because of my strength.
  
  
  Well, that might change tonight. Tara and I would have a nice and very long conversation. Whether he liked it or not. And she would have told me the truth.
  
  
  She was lying on the bed, and the holy light was turned off. 'Not forever.'No,' she said, as Brylev reached out to turn it on. Brylev turned it on. A small purple scar the size of a quarter swelled up on her cheek. She held up her fingers to cover her ego. Whether it hurts, or around vanity. She looked small and helpless again.
  
  
  He said to her," Gar is dead. "" ... and I think it's time to tell me what he died for."
  
  
  "Gar? Oh, no. She turned her head, and tears welled up in her green eyes. He almost expected the tears to be green.
  
  
  "What was he doing?"
  
  
  She looked at me again. "I don't know, Nick. Right... I really don't know.
  
  
  "Say it, honey." You're not the first naughty woman I've questioned, and if you sometimes think I'm giving you a preference...
  
  
  "Oh, Nick. The tears were now flowing in full force. She straightened up and buried her face in my chest. I didn't answer.
  
  
  She pulled herself together, sat up, and said, sobbing, "I was told not to talk. I'm not supposed to tell you, " she corrected herself.
  
  
  Her father laid a finger affectionately on the scar on her cheek. "Then let's just say I'll beat it out around you."
  
  
  "You'll never do that."
  
  
  Her, looked at nah. "We have other ways." I told her. The famous truth serum Kolodezny, for example.
  
  
  "And this?" she asked.
  
  
  "And this ... I said. Ee took her in his arms and kissed her long and slowly. "More," she said. "Hey, more. "All right," she said with a sigh. 'You've won. The Americans will land on the Normandy coast.
  
  
  He tightened his grip on her. "Das weissen vie," I said. Her, felt her breasts. "What else, Fraulein?"
  
  
  She started to laugh and bit her lip. "The bomb will fall on Shirohima."
  
  
  He put his hand behind her ear. "To Sirohima?"
  
  
  "To Hiroshima." We were both laughing now.
  
  
  "Very interesting," I said, untying her robe, probably on the best chest in the entire western hemisphere. Or perhaps the best hemispheres of the West. "Ah, girl, girl. You're really great. The bathrobe covered it again. "So, let's talk now.
  
  
  "I think I like the active part better."
  
  
  I smiled at her. "I know," I said. "But that's how I know the truth." No sex until you tell me. My method of torture is sexual dissatisfaction." her tie unbuttoned'
  
  
  "I warn you, you'll be furious in an hour."
  
  
  She looked at me and giggled a little nervously. "The beast," she said. 'Oh, no. Sweet words won't help you. He leaned back and crossed his arms. — I'll make you an honest offer. If you don't give me what I want, I won't give you what you want."
  
  
  She frowned. "No foul language," she said.
  
  
  "Ah! It's part of the plan. If you don't speak quickly, I'll insult you until I drop.
  
  
  "Seriously, Nick. I have my orders...
  
  
  'Seriously. Container. I don't care. He looked her straight in the eye. "First of all, I don't like to risk my neck if I don't know all the VCS. Second, I don't like the idea of not being trusted. I've never seen Hawk hide anything from me.
  
  
  — It's not that he doesn't trust you, of course. If there's one person he doesn't trust, it's me. Or at least my theory, I mean. He said you could stop if I told you. You might think that the whole world has gone mad."
  
  
  "With Gar and three senators in a coffin, it's very unlikely that I'll leave. So go ahead. What's your theory?"
  
  
  She took a deep breath. "Have you ever heard of a single-celled culture?"
  
  
  'Mmmm.' Biology... genetics. Something like that?'
  
  
  — Well, you're getting closer. This is a new way of reproduction."
  
  
  — What's wrong with the old one?"
  
  
  "Listen," she said. — I'm breaking my orders to tell you this. So you have to be serious and listen."
  
  
  "I'm listening," I said.
  
  
  "Thanks to a process they call single cell transplantation, ble through the nucleus of a cell around a mature body-from any cell across any part of that body — create a new organism that is genetically identical."'
  
  
  Her, looked at nah with a smile. 'Repeat.'
  
  
  "They could extract the cell around my clipped nail, put it in the right chemical environment, and the result would be a baby girl who would look exactly like her in every detail."
  
  
  — Does that happen?" "I didn't trust her with anything around this.
  
  
  'Yeah. It's not a secret. To be precise, there was an article about it in Time in 1971. So far, this has only been done with frogs. At least... as far as we know. But China's price is way ahead of us in many things."
  
  
  'Wait a minute. Are you saying that Chen-li and Charles Bryce are clones of the same plant?
  
  
  She nodded shyly. "I told you you wouldn't like it," she said.
  
  
  'I don't understand. I mean... Why? I mean, even if it's possible, it still doesn't make sense.
  
  
  'Listen. Even in this country, there were study groups. We were trying to figure out what kind of people should be single-celled to reproduce. And one of the reasons we haven't done any experiments in this direction is because of the answer to this corkscrew: the worst people. The Hitlers. People with megalomania. People like Lao Zeng, for example. A first-class assassin.
  
  
  "Okay, let's say Lao Zeng has multiplied..." It wasn't hard to believe in such a super fantasy. "What do they gain from this? Except for selfishness. And what does this have to do with CANNES and these senators? What does this have to do with the whole Nassau situation?
  
  
  She shook her head. 'I do not know. I know absolutely nothing about it. All I know is that these copies of first-class assassins will grow into first-class assassins. They will look and think — and kill-like the original. And my theory is that KANG took Lao Zeng's material to create a squad of pureblood assassins."
  
  
  'You know about this...'
  
  
  'What nonsense...?'
  
  
  "I'm sorry to ask you that.
  
  
  She studied me carefully. "You think she's crazy?"
  
  
  "Of course I think you're crazy. But hers, too. Healthy men are now lying in bed wondering how to get rid of weeds in their garden. And normal women now pack their lunches. You have to be crazy to work in AX."
  
  
  "That's my theory," she said.
  
  
  "It's crazy, but that doesn't mean it can't be true."
  
  
  She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Nick." Then she smiled. 'Tell me...'
  
  
  Yes.'
  
  
  She pushed her hair back from her forehead. — Have you ever met any ordinary women?"
  
  
  'No.'Its said. "They're not my type."
  
  
  "What's your type?"
  
  
  Brunettes, " I said. She looked hurt. "Short, fat, and very stupid. Although, "I added —" I'm open to anything."
  
  
  "How's it open?" she asked, unbuttoning my shirt.
  
  
  "Very open," I said, taking off her dress. "Great," she said. And that was the thread of our conversation.
  
  
  I want to tell you that I have known several women. And her, I thought I already knew the best. But I want to tell you that I was wrong. Tara was something else. Very different. And very different from that. It seems to me that every time some nerd tries to tell something like this in a book, it sounds like the height of boredom. She is always "heaving", she is "writhing", he is "piercing" her, and she is always "exploding". Something like this always sounds like a transcript of a wrestling match.
  
  
  Tara was different, and I don't have the words for that. She made me feel as if her body had been invented, and it came to life for the first time and only for me. She was open and innocent, she was hot as butter and serene. She was a girl as well as a woman. It was a question and answer. She was Tara. And she was mine. Hers was different, too.
  
  
  Her, looked at nah. There were tears in her eyes. She kissed my shoulder. 'Thank you. Thank you.'
  
  
  He let his hand play through the red cloud. You'd think you were a farm rooster if you said nothing, just each other's feelings. So he just shut up and kissed her again.
  
  
  We were so close to each other when we heard a knock on the door. Her, got out of bed. If it was a girl for the night, she would have come in if we didn't answer. But then again, maybe it wasn't a girl.
  
  
  Her wrapped a towel around her waist, picked up the gun, and went to the door. He opened it a crack.
  
  
  It was room service. On the cart was an extensive, driving system; complete with champagne in a silver cooler.
  
  
  He stood there, looking at it, and sighing heavily, suddenly very hungry. "I'd like to order this for her," he told her waiter, " but I think you've got the wrong number."
  
  
  He asked. "Mr. Stewart?"
  
  
  'Yes. Her Stewart.
  
  
  "Mr. Garson Cantor ordered this for you." Until midnight, he said. A surprise.'
  
  
  "Okay, — I said when the waiter was gone again. The station's message in the hall is somewhere in the middle of its own.
  
  
  — You mean like the beans in a Christening pie?"
  
  
  I have no idea what I mean, but Gar told me he left a message, and this eda is all he left us, so... " She looked around the chair, and I asked for something noteworthy. A piece of paper. It was with champagne. Envelope, inside only a business card with the inscription " Best wishes in capital letters. Gar also wrote something that was supposed to be code.
  
  
  M-1 x4 + ?
  
  
  "How awful," I said. "This is nonsense." She was again being probed by the ego message: "Maybe this is a formula." I gave a card to Tara: "Voice. You're the scholar in the family."
  
  
  Tara returned the ego to me and shrugged. — It's not my name that I know. M minus 1, multiply by 4 plus something." She shook her head. "You're right, this is nonsense.
  
  
  He looked at the map again. Hey wait up. Understood her.'All of a sudden, it all made sense. "Do you know what that means? It means you were right.
  
  
  She looked at me blankly. "Like what?"
  
  
  "About them pbx. Look. Her father showed her the card again. "It's not M minus 1. This is the band M 1. Ml. Code name Lao Zeng. And Ml x 4 is Ml multiplied by 4. There are four MI's. Four men who looked like Lao Tseng. Four branches. Plus a question mark. Plus God knows how many more.
  
  
  Confused, she leaned back in her chair. "You are witnessing a historic moment."
  
  
  "Oh, come on," I said. "You were right before."
  
  
  "Yes, — she said. "But I've never regretted being right before."
  
  
  It must have been my tenth cigarette. So it was too much. I threw my cigarette butt over the balcony railing and watched it dive like a brave little bomber. "We live with honor and fall like rotten pears." The wind had picked up from the dark harbor, and the anchored fishing boats were bobbing nervously in the waves, like impatient children who have woken up before their parents and are now looking forward to a new day. I couldn't sleep. He waited until Tara dozed off, then poured himself a glass of champagne and went out on the balcony. Thousands of stars and a white moon hung over the world of plain water and beach. For a moment, I wanted to forget that other world, with the ego and the hard lines and the blood-redness. This world of murder and death, where first shoot, and then ask questions.
  
  
  But I had so many questions to ask ih myself. And now the answers couldn't be put off until later. Chen-li was one of those PBXs. He killed a senator. Now, someone was planning to rescue Chen-li around the prison tonight. But who was this "someone"? And when was it "today"? This "hema-to" could be twelve people with hand grenades or one person with a good plan. And today — the longest word. It lasts from dusk to the next dawn. There was something else. Lin Qing said that I was being targeted by an "old enemy". What old enemy? I had a thousand enemies. And if he was still on the island, he could just cross my path. Somehow he had to find the answers. And before that, " tonight."
  
  
  He turned and looked inside, at Tara sleeping there. The moon was reflected in the glass by day; it looked as if it was suspended in the air on a blue quarter with the moon as a night light. Her eyes drifted away again. There was also something similar. I still had Tara to worry about and protect. She was an agent and a senior researcher, but hey, I needed my protection. Another reason I couldn't sleep. This wouldn't be possible if I didn't have a plan, like where to start, to track down all these "whys".
  
  
  He began his search for her. In the drawer of her desk chair, I found what I needed. These kitschy flyers they leave for tourists. "Fun in Nassau". "Where is all this happening?"
  
  
  "Where is all this happening?" there was a map of the island. He picked it up to take a closer look. The prison found her. Good. If she was sent to a hotel to escape a prisoner, where would her ego take her? Her hotel would get her off the island. So I would go to the coast. A small plane could use the beach as a runway. Or a boat would have used it. Private ship, vacation and privileged yachts. I traced her from the prison to the dress. The dress was very expensive, there were a lot of roads. The whole island took it out.
  
  
  When I looked up again, her appearance had changed. The sun popped out from behind the Earth line, and the sky covered Mother Earth with a familiar pink blanket. The fishermen went out, around their homes, onto Bay Sturt and headed for their ships moored at the pier. Women opened their stalls in the market with gay straw hats and gaudy bags of seashells. If I was Jon Stewart, we could walk through this market and go water skiing on the sea, and then have lunch in the city with freshly caught sea bass. If he was Jon Stewart, he wouldn't know about Chen-li's impending escape right now, and if he did, he would have gone to the police to prevent it. "But Nick Carter will help Chen-li escape.
  
  
  The killer was just a cog in the whole car, and hers would be the whole car; like the place where they mass-produce the PBX. And with any luck, Chen-li will lead me there. If only he could make the ego run away. Everyone but me.
  
  
  It was six o'clock in the morning, and now I had a plan. He could sleep now.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  
  
  Rule one: know your enemy.
  
  
  He turned off the Interfield Road and headed for the airport. My old enemy, at least according to Lin Jing, saw me arrive at the airport. Maybe the airport could give me a lead. Well, it was a wild ride, but it was worth a try.
  
  
  She looked at the faces behind the counter. Customs. Information. Hertz car rental. Booking. No one around them denied me anything that appeared in the media reports. I went to a newsstand and bought a newspaper. To have something to do while hers, think about what to do. Nen didn't have anything about casinos in Grenada. Foreigners. But not so wouldnt it be strange. They probably don't want to scare tourists. Or maybe the cops just didn't know about it. Maybe someone else came earlier and cleaned up this mess. Someone else on this drug trade.
  
  
  Or someone around others . The list of dead checked it out. Bangel died in the hospital. Carelessness with a cigarette. Ego my mother, who lived in Kensington, was an ego survivor. Nothing but good things about the dead. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. I looked around the area because of my newspaper. No old enemies lurked in the shadows.
  
  
  There was one more thing he could do. A pretty English BOAC girl checked the passenger list for me on Monday night. On Monday evening, we arrived all over New York at 7: 30 am. The Pan Am left for Miami at seven, and the British plane around London arrived at eight-no, a quarter to eight. It was a little early. London. I thought about it for a while. Charles Okun was the enemy around London. But no, they got ego when they raided his lab. Eight! Vin In! It could have been him. Carlo, the delivery boy, said the man who paid the emu was a big Chinaman. Wing Tak was a five-foot-tall agent KAHN based in London. And it's unlikely that he's forgotten that he ever met me. Let me remind you that he now had a three-fingered hand.
  
  
  'Darling. She smiled at the girl behind the counter. "Can you tell me if Mr. Wing was on that flight on Monday around London?"
  
  
  "Oh, I'm sorry." She even looked very sad. — But I'm afraid I'm not allowed to give you that information."
  
  
  "I know you can't," I said.
  
  
  He looked her straight in the eye. Look number two: barely controlled, seething passion.
  
  
  She gave me information. Vin Vo was indeed on this passenger list. He wasn't alone on this trip. The ego of the fellow traveler was called Hung Lo.
  
  
  "In case you're wondering," she added helpfully, " they've booked a trip back to London at ten o'clock this evening."
  
  
  He was interested.
  
  
  I took a chance and called her at the Grenada Hotel. Mr. Vin Po was registered with them. My gamble started to pay off. But on the other hand, a certain Hung Lo. You can't just win all the time, either.
  
  
  I went back to the hotel and found Carlo, our mutual friend. He would have realized the Guilt. Her told emu what her hotel knew, and told emu how much I would pay her for it. We came to an agreement.
  
  
  I told Tara what to expect. She thought it would be fun.
  
  
  He kissed her good-bye and went back to the car.
  
  
  Rule two: go to jail. Go openly to jail.
  
  
  But on the way, he stopped at Pipes of Peace, an English cigar manufacturer in Nassau. They had my ugly brand with a gold mouthpiece. He ordered her to send a couple of packs to the hotel and took a few packs with him for immediate use.
  
  
  I went to a bar on Bay Street and had a sandwich and a beer. Then another. And another one. And a bourbon to warm up. When he left, he was drunk and stumbled. I had an argument with the bartender about the bill. The point is, he was right, after all. He got out in a boisterous mood, got back in the car, and drove off. He took a wrong turn on a one-way street and honked at oncoming cars. I really liked the sound of this horn. He started honking, " This-is-home-we-continue-the-battle."
  
  
  This policeman showed up at Parliament Sturt. I didn't have any documents with me. He was very kind. He offered to take me back to my hotel. Forgive and forget. He wanted her to get some sleep.
  
  
  Her ego hit him on the chin. Also a good way to get into jail.
  
  
  The Nassau prison wasn't as bad as usual. It was a clumsy, two-story stone structure on the western side of the island. The locals call it a "hotel" because that's what it looks like. It has many natural beauties to offer. Neatly manicured lawns and narrow gardens. The clientele mainly consists of people sleeping off their drunkenness for one night, random thieves and the occasional local "criminal maniacs". Until now, ferret race riots have not resulted in violent crimes. Thus, people like Chen-li were not considered in any way when they set up their security system. But they did emu the best they had. A guard was standing in front of the ego camera.
  
  
  He was very drunk. They said I was entitled to one phone call. I told them I wanted to call Saint Peter. They said I was very drunk.
  
  
  We're taking me upstairs. Apart from Chen-li, there were only two other prisoners. Put me in the same cell with these two guys.
  
  
  Odin was sleeping around them, clearly drunk.
  
  
  The other looked like a man you wouldn't want to be trapped in the same cell with. He was a large man with a solid build, and the scars of stab wounds that made his blue-black face look like a patchwork quilt.
  
  
  He was thinking about something when he entered.
  
  
  Chen-li's cell was on the other end. Over there, at the end of the corridor. If he'd stayed on the left, her ego wouldn't have seen her. My first look at the branch. He was cool and calm.
  
  
  He lit a cigarette and handed the pack to a large cellmate. He picked up one, examined it, felt the gold holder, and held it up to the light. "That kind of shit." And he smiled.
  
  
  Ego's name was Wilson T. Sheriff, and he owned a bar called the Wooden Nickel, a local establishment outside of town. All of a sudden, the cops swooped in and found packets of heroin under the bar. "It was planted, man. I'm not that stupid. He spread his hands. They were clean. "On the other hand," he scratched the back of his head, " if its so smart, then why is its here?"
  
  
  They closed the ego bar and then killed the ego. According to Ego, there wasn't much of a drug problem in Nassau, so the cops just pretended that he was a bigwigger. It was as if they really got a big boss. — Meanwhile, some smart guy is laughing his ass off."
  
  
  "Yes," I said. "What a thrill."
  
  
  Wilson T. Sheriff and his became friends. He told me about his Jean and the kids and the yellow house he'd built for himself. I asked him if he had any serious enemies, and he laughed. "Jesus, yes. But my enemies. They are more likely to cut you to shreds than decorate you in this way. Vote what makes me so angry, man. No one around them will get anything around it."
  
  
  "And your bar?"
  
  
  He lifted his shoulders. If someone doesn't need it, they'll still have to buy it. It's either me or the government. In any case, they will still have to pay."
  
  
  "Unless they're doing it for some other purpose." He already knew who "they" were.
  
  
  Her something is known in this prison. The cops downstairs were on duty until ten. Security guard Jung-lee was the only security guard upstairs. The ego changed every five hours. The next security guard will be here at a quarter past six. Warden Bruckman will be replaced by Jailer Crump.
  
  
  He was asked a few questions by emu about Chen-li. Our sleeping cellmate stirred briefly in his sleep. Then he turned around and started snoring.
  
  
  Chen-li only had one customer. A sailor, Wilson thought. A skinny guy in a tracksuit. Chen-li called the ego Johnny. Johnny came every day. The last time was this morning. He had a tattoo of a large red butterfly on his arm. You couldn't miss it from a kilometer away.
  
  
  One thing its mastered over the years. Items that can't be missed within a radius of 1 km are usually placed there for some reason.
  
  
  A sergeant came up to me. He was already very sober. I had a lot of remorse. He asked her if I could call her Jean.
  
  
  At six o'clock, as planned, Tara arrived. She couldn't understand how I could be so stupid. She told them that I was a good person, a good citizen, a good husband, and that I had never done anything so wild before. And hers would never do it again. Later, she told me that she was crying real tears.
  
  
  They dropped the charges in exchange for a fine.
  
  
  At ten minutes past six, the wall phone in my block rang. Guardsman Bruckman left his post and went down the corridor to answer the emu. 'Yes. He looked in my direction. 'Yes. I'll send her ego down immediately.
  
  
  He turned his back on moaning. "Hey," he said into the phone, " her hotel wants to ask you.".. Ego Stahl's voice is low and confidential. I was hoping that the corkscrew ego wouldn't take too long, because it might disrupt my schedule.
  
  
  He looked at Wilson. T. Sheriff. I really liked it. And he's ripe to die tonight. Being killed by CANNA because he was a witness. She didn't trust our silent digital camera companion. He was too quiet. And a little drunk. The ego smell could be felt in Paris.
  
  
  But what the hell did I care? The least I could do was protect Wilson. He was sitting up in his bunk. "It's you, man," he said. "You can go home now."
  
  
  "You'll leave, too," I said. 'Very soon.'
  
  
  — I wouldn't bet Stahl on that.
  
  
  - yes. To be honest. The seam of her doublet touched her: "I dare put everything under it." Now, open now.
  
  
  She was put ih emu in the arm. He knew that the chips brought in from the casino would come in handy.
  
  
  When Jailer Brookman came for me, Wilson was already asleep, and Brookman led me to the stairs. "All right, Stuart. You must go alone. I can't leave this world.
  
  
  "Thank you, Agent Brookman," I said.
  
  
  "At the bottom of the stairs, just turn left. Your woman is waiting there.
  
  
  Her, nodded with a smile. "Indeed," I said. "I really want to thank you. You've been so good to me. He held out his hand. 'High five.'
  
  
  He held out his hand.
  
  
  Five seconds later, it was under sail.
  
  
  Her three times dose of anesthetic is on each token. Both men will be out around five, out for the sixth hour. This should be long enough.
  
  
  Chen-li looked at me and nodded silently. He thought it was all part of the plan.
  
  
  It was a quarter past six. On the stairs, she was confronted by Warden Crump, Bruckman's replacement caretaker. "Bruckman has a message for you," I said.
  
  
  'Oi? He stopped, confused.
  
  
  He reached in a minute and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Her firmly placed this along with the chip in the ego waiting hand.
  
  
  Her ego dragged her sleeping body back upstairs to the prison block.
  
  
  Downstairs, the sergeant was preaching to me about the dangers of drinking.
  
  
  He told the sergeant that he would have been a good boy otherwise. We felt sorry for each other's hands.
  
  
  The clerk in the waiting room heard the sergeant fall and came in to see what was the matter. "It just tipped over." I told her. 'Just like that. Come and see." Ego grabbed her arm as if trying to hurry her up.
  
  
  The police writer fell on top of the sergeant major.
  
  
  Tara was waiting for me at the counter.
  
  
  "I shook hands with all the police officers who were so kind to me," I said.
  
  
  "We really need to be on our guard," she said as we left. — I mean, everyone here sleeps so well now.
  
  
  She started humming Brahma's Lullaby.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  
  
  Tara and her wanted a place to talk. We found a place not far from the prison. A real fake antique pad-with plastic bricks and wooden vinyl. This place was called "Het Schelmenhor", and I wondered if it was the real scoundrel.
  
  
  I didn't expect any difficulties from the prison. All of them will sleep for the first few hours. And, as someone once said, sleeping until midnight is important. Her doubted that ih sleep would be interrupted. The enemies ' first car wouldn't be there until ten o'clock, and since the devs had booked tickets for a ten-hour trip to London, the escape had to take place before ten o'clock.
  
  
  And the escape took place. Hers, took care of it. On the other hand, the police also helped her. At least he'd kept them alive. With any luck, no one was shot. Chen-li's friends would look at the police and, he hoped, not wake the sleeping dogs. It was a good thing I did that day.
  
  
  He led Tara to a table in the corner and ordered a bourbon. She ordered sherry. My lady remained a lady. "Any word from Carlo?"
  
  
  She started rummaging in her purse. "He called," she said. "Saved her." She came up with a handful of cigarette butts, grimaced, and dived again. Our aimless search led us nowhere. Then she began methodically emptying the bag, one item at a time. Compact box. Cigarettes. Wallet. She looked at me in confusion. "If you make even one comment about this, Carter, you'll be fine."
  
  
  She continued her reid.
  
  
  I continued my search for a suitable comment.
  
  
  Have you heard the news yet? 'No, of course not. The tabletop was beginning to resemble Waterloo Square. "Senator Cranston." She looked up. 'Car accident. At least, this is the official app.
  
  
  — Did you get the real information?"
  
  
  She nodded. "When I called her in Washington to inform her of our findings, I understood everything. The real reason is that the plane was damaged.
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. Another day, another death. And so far the ferret at home Cannes has had all the trumps. "You wanted a message from Carlo," her husband denied the media reports. — I think you'd better hurry up with your search." She was rummaging in her bag... She snapped her fingers. "I'm sure it was."Carlo combed all over Grenada, just like you said emus were, and when they were invented in France, Carlo went after them. To a seaside mansion, " he said. At the end of the Cascade Road. Then he turned left or straight ahead. Well, at least you refuse to eat
  
  
  She was given the most vicious look of the last few days by Nah. "Tara!" My voice is absurdly harsh. She found the paper. "Turn left," she said.
  
  
  He tried to remember the hotel brochure. The map he'd studied on the balcony in the first light of morning. According to" Where is all this happening? " the Cascade road ran parallel to the Atlantic Ocean, say a mile from the sea. According to" Fun in Nassau, "Cascade Road was known as the main street of millionaires." ... featuring some of the most extravagant villas in all of the Bahamas." In any case, it was a good hiding place for Chen-li. And a good place to start your escape from the island. There is no doubt that Po Vin was waiting there, Chen-li.
  
  
  "By the way," she said. "It's still there."
  
  
  "Who," I said, " where else?"
  
  
  "Vin In is still on Cascade Road. At least, in all likelihood, he's there. Carlo said that Ego had been removed from registration at the Grenada. I took my luggage. It looked like he was going to settle down there.
  
  
  There it should have been. Fortunately, Carlo was watching Wing. But the chance that it would pay off was slim. Carlo might have been bribed. Just being lucky makes me nervous. It reminds me how much of our lives and destinies is hidden in the bosom of the whims of ironic gods. "Have a drink," I said. "We have to go to work."
  
  
  "Cascade Road?" She looked impatient.
  
  
  "Partly," I said.
  
  
  — What do you mean by 'partially'?"
  
  
  — I mean, I'm the e-part that deals with going to Cascade Road. You're the other part, heading back to the hotel.
  
  
  She twisted her face. "You always get all the fun stuff." What is the debt?
  
  
  I have a hunch. — I want you to pack up and drive around the hotel.
  
  
  I wrote down her address and added a message that would grant her access. Abe handed it to her. "We'll meet there again."
  
  
  She avoided my gaze. "And if.".. and if you don't come?
  
  
  Her ignored her intentions. "If I'm not here until midnight, contact Hawk and make sure you can get out of here as quickly as possible."
  
  
  She looked at me again with that funny, thoughtful look. She was thinking about what would happen if we never met again.
  
  
  "I'm coming," I said. "Don't worry. "Her, I'm leaving.'
  
  
  She was kissed by ee, but my thoughts were elsewhere.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  
  
  Many people say that happiness isn't about money, but I'm beginning to suspect that they might be wrong. The house in Cascade Road looked awfully happy. Modern castle all over pink stone with glass walls overlooking the sea. You reach it by following a long U-shaped driveway. And judging by what was in the garage, you only got there with a Bentley or an Aston Martin or a Lamborghini. When you've been there, you can choose from quite a few nice things. There were stables, tennis courts, and a small harbor where a fifteen-meter yacht was displayed. And if you were tired of all this, you could just look around. Only the place was a festive rush of nature. Next to the driveway, an ancient fig tree has created a series of natural gates. The ego's thick branches bent down to the ground to put down roots like new trees. There were other trees with scarlet leaves as well throughout the hotel, and it was a tangle of scents and flowers. It was like having a garden party and only inviting flowers.
  
  
  I hid my car near the main road and continued walking. She'd been passed over by the house, but that didn't matter. They had security there. But now it's gone.
  
  
  With a single blow, it broke something in the emu's neck. Her ego took the gun with it. As a souvenir. You never know when you might need a gun. It was located about thirty yards from the house, in a neatly landscaped area. I had a view of the paved terrace. There was a bar with food and drinks. The terrace was waiting for guests. I was waiting for her, too.
  
  
  They left the house. Vin with an older man and an ego wife. The Vin has not changed. He was one of the tall, bald men around them, the size of closets, whose faces didn't reflect time or emotion. You might as well carve an ego around yellow soap. He was wearing what Carlo called "a strange gray suit-the uniform of all Maoists." Judging by the clothes, the husband and wife were English. Silver-white hair, extremely tasteless in a luxurious way. Maybe one of these fancy header carriers. The Duke and Duchess of Atwaters-Kent. Count and Countess Massa-to-success.
  
  
  The man poured some drinks, and the woman passed the dish over. Everything was equally pleasant. Not a typical prelude to blood and heroism.
  
  
  MG arrived. Blonde, nineteen years old, dry, beautiful. got out with a load of boxes all over the clothing stores. She kissed the man and the woman, entered the house, and returned a few moments later with an evening dress slung over her arm. She pressed her ego to her body and pirouetted with a smile. Everyone, including Po Vin, smiled at rheumatism.
  
  
  I began to think I'd made a mistake. This happy scene of the British upper class may well be exactly what it seemed: the happy scene of the British upper class. As for the sentry, many wealthy steamers hire guards to guard their property. It may very well be that Vin led me to a dead end, I know that he led me all the way, and secretly laughed into his fist. If that was the case, it would have greatly ruined everything.
  
  
  But this is not the case.
  
  
  A few minutes later, the butler came out. He had a large box of cigarettes with him. The butler looked like a Chinaman. The girl was about to return to the house, and the butler turned to her, and therefore to me. He looked through the rifle's scope. The butler had a small wart in the middle of his forehead. Department number three.
  
  
  He also had a gun in the pack of cigarettes. The moment he brought it, Po Vin also lit a cigarette and pointed to the shadows outside the courtyard.
  
  
  Three bandits came up through the undergrowth. They were all Easterners. I knew one around them. A shrewd man in a white shirt, jeans, and worn-out brothels.
  
  
  By partizan. A Cambodian terrorist.
  
  
  First, he fought against the government of Prince Sihanouk, and then, when that royal government fell, he plotted against the Lon Nol regime. If you accept Cambodian politics for what it is, you can call ego a patriotic fanatic. But the ego of being present here made the ego a Communist sympathizer. In the dice game of Asian politics, it's hard to tell who's what without a crystal ball.
  
  
  The other two were new to me. But they probably had an impressive criminal record. They wore grass-stained khaki trousers and corduroy doublets. If you've seen ih like this, you've probably adopted ih for gardeners. They twisted their owners like plucked flowers and pushed ih into the house. The girl screamed a few times, but the butler had probably already silenced the other servants, as no one came out to see what was going on.
  
  
  The prisoners were sent to the fourth floor. The girl was taken to a separate room. I watched the scene through the thick glass windows until one of these robbers, in a fit of extreme caution, pulled the curtains and hid the scene from me.
  
  
  He quickly walked through the grounds to the circle of trees near the courtyard. Sergei was already turning pale blue. He looked at his watch. It was half past six. The fireworks could explode at any moment.
  
  
  They returned to the terrace, now masters of the situation and the house. Wing poured himself a drink and raised his mug for the cheese sandwich. He finished his drink in one gulp. "We'd better go through the points."
  
  
  They all play this game around the chair. The wiry gentleman began with a general survey, something like: Ica eno, lucky tao.
  
  
  Without the slightest subtitles on the screen. Nicely. Ey was the frontman of the show, and nen was supposed to have a lot of "Oo zurab tao"in it.
  
  
  Without realizing it, Wing came to my rescue.
  
  
  "English only, Kwan. English. Among ourselves, we speak four different dialects. So let's speak in English as we originally agreed." He turned to Wang Tong. — Any problems with the boat?"
  
  
  Van shook his head . 'How are you. Johnny checked everything. He's already on board.
  
  
  Johnny. The sailor. With that tattooed butterfly on her arm. The one who visited Chen-li in prison. He was now in command of the Duke's yacht.
  
  
  Wing smiled and turned to the group. "You will understand that Johnny will be a very bad captain. Not far from here, the yacht will have an accident. You will be secretly saved by a submarine and your mistakes. "they'll be buried on the sea floor."
  
  
  I had a feeling that these "bugs" were people upstairs in the house. Not so wouldnt it be difficult to unravel the ih plan. The submarine rescue was a good and clever trick. But faking the crash was pure genius. It's an old trick to hide one crime by committing another. They could have presented it as a failed hijacking of a plane with the bodies of Britons on board as silent witnesses. A few greasy traces of Chen-li's presence on board were enough to indicate that he had drowned at sea. You won't be able to search the entire ocean to find the body. He wondered if Johnny, the "captain," would go to the owl yacht after all this. That would be a good pull. The ego tattoo chained the ego to Chen-li, because she could be seen in Paris. She wondered if that had already hit Johnny. He decided that Johnny's mother should worry about it.
  
  
  I had a few concerns myself. For example: how to disarm a submarine? How could I save an elderly couple and a girl?
  
  
  "As for the girl..." It was the third man who opened his mouth. He looked the coolest around, and he had a full set of stainless steel teeth. When he smiled, he looked like a mechanical shark. Now he was laughing. — I mean — "he said with a lustful, sly look," why would we kill her now?" We could all enjoy hey-maybe at sea. Ego's laughter turned into a feverish giggle. The ego plan is widely accepted. Wang and Kwam also smiled.
  
  
  A more condescending laugh was invented. "All right," he said. Then have fun. He turned to the butler. — Do you know what to do yet?"
  
  
  The butler seemed to take corkscrew as an insult. Of course, he knew what to do. "Kill a few people and then board." He seemed almost ashamed of these small jobs. But he had his own reasons for doing so. A wart on his forehead indicated that he was young. He inherited Lao Zeng's terrible abilities and the arrogance that accompanied ih. It was obvious that the emu did not like the subordinate position. Vin, Po studied the branch's face. — Don't worry, Hyun Lo. Your time will come.'
  
  
  Oh, my God. If it was a comic book, I would have Sergei on fire right now.
  
  
  Follow this scenario.
  
  
  The butler's name was Hong Lo. Hung Lo arrived, around London with Wing. Lo's ticket was booked back to London with Wing. Ten o'clock today. But Hung Lo expected to get on that boat. So Chen-li, the ego of the doppelganger, will be on the plane. Handsome doppelganger.
  
  
  Sure, the airport's full of cops. But he will have all the relevant identity certificates and a British passport, all in order, as well as proof that he has just arrived around London. No doubt there will be people at the airport who will swear that they saw the ego there a few nights earlier. I could have forgotten about tracking this submarine. I'd worry about tracking the plane later.
  
  
  It's time to worry about something else.
  
  
  The Commission continued its control there, on the terrace. Hers slid silently through the house. The door was locked. And the windows seemed to be there just for fun. The solid, seamless arches - like the arches of a cathedral - are made of thick, unbreakable glass, then sealed and set into the stones. Fresh air was therefore an issue for air conditioning sampling. Only on the fourth floor were the windows real. Large windows that can be moved horizontally. The one around them was open. It was, as they say, a web horse to bet on. The stones around which they built this palace weren't small at all. They were large, flat stones of irregular shape, stacked together at irregular intervals. The fulcrum points were sometimes located at a distance of one and a half meters from each other. Anyway, its just started climbing up. When I was about thirty feet up, I knew I wasn't Tarzan. Thirty feet high is not a good position to know that you are not Tarzan. It's even worse to realize that you're stuck in a simple moan around a rock, with no other foothold nearby. And that's when the leg I was balancing her on broke, leaving her dangling on my left arm, which was now stuck in the niche above my head. That's all that kept me there. Falling wouldn't kill me right away, but that wasn't the point. This will cost the lives of a girl and an elderly couple.
  
  
  With an effort, he gripped his heavy grip with one hand and carefully examined the gable door for good. Nothing that could help me. No footholds, no tricks, for hands. Just a rock. With a quick movement, he took the stiletto in his right hand and tried to carve out another foothold, driving the ego right through the stone shards. His could have done it in six months, but my left arm kept hurting and hers couldn't last another six minutes. It made her think again about the danger of a possible fall. All things considered, a broken head was tantamount to a death sentence.
  
  
  He tried again, with the door open over his head, to see if there was a piece of slightly weathered cement between them. It was given a strong push, and it crumbled into one big piece. Now I had space for my right hand, for example, on the same line as my left. He put the knife between his teeth, gripped the handle, and pulled himself up slowly, panting.
  
  
  I gave it to every tribe where my hand was. From there, everything went well. I had a natural recess, a window frame. With a final, groaning effort, he got there.
  
  
  The window flew open.
  
  
  Her going inside.
  
  
  I found myself in a sort of guest room. And if it's a guest room, the best thing you can ask for (other than riches) is to visit the rich. The large teak floor was covered with oriental rugs. Not the ones you buy in local shops, but the themes you get all over Persia. Pick-up service. The bed was placed on a sort of platform and covered with ten square meters of fur. Stone's photo was signed by Mr. Van Gogh.
  
  
  I couldn't move for five minutes. My hands were shaking from the recent strain. Apologize. I also understand that heroes should never get tired. But this happens only in the imagination of novelists divorced from reality. I mean, don't believe everything you read.
  
  
  He caught his breath again and set to work.
  
  
  Her girlfriend found her first. She was tied to the bed. She was so attached that I couldn't help thinking that they would have fun with her before they sailed. Up close, she was still beautiful and gently beautiful. It was such a sight for a soap commercial. Extremely uninteresting. Her body was something else. Let's just say it was interesting. Her white dress was partially unbuttoned, revealing even whiter flesh. She looked at me with wide eyes. She tried to scream, but hey, they gagged her. So other than" Mmmm, mmmm, " she couldn't say anything.
  
  
  Her told hey to shut up and that I was her friend. She calmed down a little, and I pulled the plug around the socket. She was lying on the bed with her arms and legs spread out. She began to loosen the ropes around her leg. She began to sob. Ey told her that nah didn't have time for that right now. I described her to hey, our chances of surviving that day, and asked her if she would like to help me improve those chances. She said she was ready. He tied her up again and gagged her.
  
  
  I heard them come back. It felt like they were on the second floor. The voices were loud. There was a burst of laughter, and someone said, "Come on..." and someone said, "Yes..." and then there was shaggy on the stairs. The odds were fifty-fifty. One chance that it's Hyun Tem came to kill the Duke and duchess. Another thinks it is he who will come to visit the beautiful maiden.
  
  
  Maybe Vin just wanted to take a piss.
  
  
  Either way, I had to make a choice. It could only be in one place at a time.
  
  
  He ducked back into the girl's room and stood next to the door.
  
  
  The door opened.
  
  
  The girl swallowed.
  
  
  The godforsaken bastard got so carried away that he unzipped his fly before he even closed the door behind him... I dove in after him and grabbed ego by the throat. He clutched at my arms, but I turned her around with my ego and pinned her back to moan. And he hit me.
  
  
  He screamed. Blood began to flow. They were laughing downstairs. These sadists thought it was a girl who screamed.
  
  
  Vin tried to fall, but her ego picked her back up. I think it was the ego that made me angry. He attacked me with a force that she didn't know existed in nen. Also, with a knife that I didn't expect. He was aiming for my folding dollar and hit me in the shoulder... He aimed at me again, but this time he wasn't ready. She was grabbed by ego knife hand and applied the basics of judo. He flew through the air in a stunning somersault and landed face-first on the bedroom floor. After that, he didn't move again. Her ego, her body, kicked her. That bastard landed openly on his own knife. This time, I thought, it's open to add up a dollar. He dragged her body under the bed. Then he released her.
  
  
  'What's your name?'She just stared blankly...
  
  
  Hers was insistent. 'Your name? What is your name?The girl was in shock. She was hit by ee. Then she started crying and let herself fall on top of me. She clung to me, sobbing. He kissed her once, on the top of her head. "Listen, my dear," I said. "We'll talk later. Now you have to get out of here. I have to go find another boat. She nodded and tried to pull herself together again.
  
  
  "Is there a ladder at the back?"
  
  
  Ee target rose and fell.
  
  
  'Good. Then go ahead.'
  
  
  He opened the door for her. There were more voices below now. Chen-li and ego's companions arrived. Chen-li described the sleeping prison. He said it as a joke. He still thought it was part of the plan. The ego story hit everyone like a bomb. There was a dead silence.
  
  
  "It was Carter," Poe Vin said.
  
  
  The girl and I went out onto the landing by the back stairs. "Hurry up," I whispered. She started down the stairs.
  
  
  Hers, he turned to the hall.
  
  
  "We can't let Carter ruin our plans." "Exactly," said Van. "We don't give a fuck."
  
  
  He was almost in the elderly couple's room.
  
  
  The girl was back. 'Where should I go?'
  
  
  "Christ of God," I said. "It's your own garden. You know where to hide, don't you?
  
  
  She looked at me blankly and swallowed. She was still in a state of shock.
  
  
  "Chen-li," Wing ordered, " change now. We'll need to look normal at the airport.
  
  
  The girl just sat there. Ee grabbed her by the shoulder. Where did you always hide when you were playing hide and seek?
  
  
  "In the stable," she said. "Under the straw."
  
  
  Hung started up the stairs.
  
  
  "Then go," I whispered. "Hurry up." She ran away.
  
  
  He got to the right room, just a second and a half ahead of ego. The elegant couple were sitting on the floor with their mouths gagged and their backs to each other. He ducked behind the curtain and pulled out his gun as soon as Hung Lo opened the door. She was shot twice before he realized what was happening. When he realized this, he was already dead.
  
  
  Two of them lay down.
  
  
  Ego corpse put it in a wall cabinet and ordered the couple to appear dead. They didn't understand our words. "Dead," repeat it, pushing ih. My shoulder was stained with real blood, and he ran his hand over it to get blood on ih.
  
  
  "Okay, we're leaving," Wing said from the stairwell. "And I think you should get to the boat as soon as possible."
  
  
  There was a hum of several voices. Her had no idea how much ih was involved. And how many people were with Chen-li. But whatever they were to us, they mostly played second fiddle. Wang Tong took command.
  
  
  "Take Hong Luo and drag that sex devil out of that chicken."
  
  
  He laughed. I found the old-fashioned joke funny. I admit that it wasn't so funny, but it was getting very close.
  
  
  He went back to his old hiding place Behind the curtain. The elderly couple looked convincingly dead. That fact gave me maybe three minutes.
  
  
  Sounds of commotion and various exclamations could be heard in the corridor. They opened the door to the girl's room. No, to us, the sexual devil, to us chicken. "Lemur, lemurs," Kwan said. — What happened to them?"
  
  
  There was a short discussion. Then they fell silent, and the door of the room he was in opened a crack. It was Wang and the three ego companions. They stared gloomily at the "dead couple" and chatted excitedly. Odin around them went in search of Hong Luo. There were three men left, but they weren't armed.
  
  
  Around them, Odin opened the door of a wall cabinet.
  
  
  Ah, " he said. The rest of us joined him to help. Everyone bent down to look at the corpse. Wang summarized it succinctly. "Murder," he said.
  
  
  This moment may not happen again. In any case, he had to act now. My shoulder was still bleeding in the background of the curtains, and they soon drew conclusions from the spot. I imagined what it would be like: I would go out and shoot, bang, bang, bang, and shoot all three of them while they were still standing at the wall cabinet.
  
  
  She went out to shoot.
  
  
  My idea was wrong.
  
  
  She was shot down by one around them, but Wang and the others jumped out of the way. They both dove at me from opposite ends. They attacked simultaneously and split up the work. The first blow was a punch to my wrist, and Wilhelmina jumped out around my arm. Van Lowland leaned over like a charging bull and headbutted me in the ribs. His body doubled over in excruciating pain, letting out air like a punctured tire. It knocked me over a bit, but on my way to her floor, I dove at Van's ankles. He fell and landed with a thud. For one crazy minute of it, I thought I'd make it. He took the stiletto in his hand, but it was all pointless. The other wasn't sleeping. This time, he didn't aim for my wrist, but focused on the source of all my great powers. The ten-pound club landed on my skull with a creak.
  
  
  When he came to, he was lying on the floor of what looked like a library. For a second, I thought I was in a public reading room. The room wasn't that big. My target was like an overripe melon, and opening my eyes was like lifting weights. Nevertheless, the effort paid off. Now he knew one thing he hadn't known before: now he knew how much ih there was. Because all ten apparently had them in this room with me.
  
  
  My gun was gone, and so was my stiletto. My shoulder wasn't gone, but he wanted it to be gone. It felt like someone was constantly biting my arm.
  
  
  If you've ever done special operations in a war, you may have been in this position. Or if you've ever been a kid in an area where it's about " our 'gang' versus 'ih'. And the" friends " were squeezed in a dead-end alley. The cards are against you, and the cavalry won't budge. It's you against the rest of the world, and you don't stand a chance. Unless you have something "special". Hemingway used the word cajones, which means "balls" in Spanish; also known as macho. Or, I say in Dutch, the noble deien. I don't quite understand why testicles have become a symbol of everything brave and honest, but then again, it's not around those who question such a cliche. I strongly believe in such expressions as" Working on time makes you ready "and"A person is worth as much as an ego egg". So I have ih three.
  
  
  My personal treasure.
  
  
  Of course, you should know that I wasn't born with three eggs. The third was a gift from AX. On the dell itself, this is also a ball-shaped grenade. A deadly gas bomb. The printed user manual for it read: (1. Pull out the pin. 2. Drop the bomb. 3. Run as far as you can.) and a "List of possible parking spots", which is AX slang for where you can hide hidden weapons. The +3 sentence ("use the flexible appendage of Z-5 and place the grenade on your body parts") contained some subtext.
  
  
  What I didn't know then, and I know now, was that "Between your own parts" there was the safest shelter in the world. No one would think to look for a grenade there. And this fact has saved my life more than once. But there is one problem with this grenade: how to get ee around a shelter.
  
  
  You vote in front of your firing squad. Twelve guns are aimed at your stack dollar. You are offered a blindfold, and you say "no". They offer you a cigarette and you say no. They ask if you have a last request, and you say, " Yes, sir." Her hotel would like to make itself comfortable for the last time.
  
  
  This is a problem with the grenade.
  
  
  "I think he's awake. Kwan was saying. Van had come to see if that was the case... I couldn't pretend to be dead forever.
  
  
  "Nick Carter,"he said.
  
  
  He slowly pulled himself up and felt his head. "I happened to be in the area, and I thought I'd stop by and drop by."
  
  
  He smiled. "I wish we'd known you were coming."
  
  
  "I know," I said. — You should make a cake."
  
  
  With a gesture, he addressed the letter to the others. "Hey, come here. I want you to meet the famous master assassin, Nick Carter, one last time." From the way he said it, she was expecting a round of applause, and maybe a few more.
  
  
  Instead, he received a merciless series of sneers.
  
  
  'Now...'said Van. — There's another problem. Who will have the honor of killing our Killmaster? It was a rhetorical corkscrew, of course, to Van hotel to get people to help emu crown.
  
  
  "To me. Kwan suddenly pulled out his gun: "I've been following orders long enough. I need this honor for promotion." Wang also drew his gun and did an ego Kwan. He said. "More worthy of it."
  
  
  I was wondering who was more worthy around them. I was really starting to get interested.
  
  
  The two men stood looking at each other, two guns pointed at each other's hearts.
  
  
  The circle of men took a step back from them, as if they were performing a quadrille without music. This move increased the tension, prompting the two heroes with weapons to fight. Now it's up to pride. If anyone around them retreated, they would lose face. Or anything else.
  
  
  — I order you to drop your weapons. It was a pointless game, and Vahn knew it.
  
  
  — And I'm telling you that I don't take orders anymore.
  
  
  I think Kwan fired first. Two flashes happened in a split second, and he was already halfway across the room. The duel gave everyone the distraction they needed. Sitting down on the floor, he took the grenade in his hand and began to crawl inch by inch toward the door. At the first shot, he dropped it, held his breath, and ran for the exit. The gas created a deadly smoke screen. They gasped and fell, trying to reach me. One went through nah, but her ego kicked in life and it bent. He took a big leap and forced himself to jump out. It was a heavy antique oak door with a decorative key in the decorative lock. The door clicked reassuringly and confidently. She wouldn't be able to withstand the pressure of eight bandits forever. But then again, they didn't have much time. The gas would have knocked ih off its feet in sixty seconds, and in three minutes they would all be dead.
  
  
  He went up to the fourth floor, opened the window, and took a deep breath. The gas will remain where it was: in the closed library on the second floor, in the room where the windows were closed.
  
  
  The elderly couple was still where ee had left them. They were so scared that they still pretended to be dead. Ihk picked her up, back to back, and carried her down three flights of stairs.
  
  
  We reached the grass in front of the house and lay down on the grass to catch our breath. He looked out the library window. Three bodies lay curled up on the nen. The window can't open, but they died trying to open it.
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  
  
  There were no suites left in the British Colonial, so I rented her three rooms. The two around them were for Thestlewaites. It turned out to be the last name of the Duke and Duchess. And they really were the Duke and Duchess. It turned out that the girl, Nonnie, was ih's daughter. And considering that the duke was eighty-three years old, her father felt a sense of respect for the nobility.
  
  
  Nonnie got the second room.
  
  
  Nonnie just kept coming to third.
  
  
  The third room was mine.
  
  
  Gently, I tried to explain to her that I wasn't her type. She protested furiously, and said she liked me. I gently explained that she wasn't my type. It made her cry. I told her I lied. I told her I found her extremely seductive and devastatingly sexy. Her father told her that he was badly injured.
  
  
  She was very understanding.
  
  
  "I called and had two conversations. The first one was with London, with Roscoe Kline. Roscoe was an AH agent. As a marksman, his talents were far below average, but when it came to tracking Hema anywhere, Roscoe Kline didn't have the sun on him.
  
  
  Roscoe looked like nothing he'd ever seen before. The emu managed to look like three different people within the same area. He had a special way of changing his expression and posture. One day you looked around and saw an errand boy. If you look back again, the errand boy is gone and you see someone else — a lawyer or a racing driver-at any rate: someone else entirely. Then it was just your feelings, you thought that you were not being followed... The story goes that Roscoe once escaped through Dachau by simply walking out of that Nazi stronghold, simply because, as he put it, "he looked like a German."
  
  
  Believe it or not. I fully believe in this in the long run.
  
  
  Roscoe promised to catch a plane to Nassau. It will continue to monitor Chen-li and Vin Wo until I get there. It was ten minutes past ten. I called her at the airport. The trip to London took off on time. Then he turned on the radio. There was news of an escape, but nothing about Chen-li's possible capture. Roscoe must show off his tricks.
  
  
  The hotel doctor examined my shoulder, bandaged my ego, and gave me an injection.
  
  
  He didn't trust us with a single word that I bumped into the door.
  
  
  Her hotel take a shower, have a drink and have forty-hour vaults. But she's also interested in seeing Tara, and I'm not so direct that I don't realize that she must have been through hell for the last few hours. It was poignant when she grimaced and said, " You guys always have fun too." Its also knew that she actually had the mistletoe in mind. I'd rather start looking for her myself than sit and wait. He hoped that Tara had canceled her hotel reservation and gone to the address he'd given her. He drove up to a yellow house on the other side of town.
  
  
  Mrs. Wilson. T. Sheriff answered me. No, she told me, Tara wasn't there. Hema was this Tara? And hema was for nah her? The blood started humming in my head. Tara should have been here a few hours ago. It was the safest place he could think of. But I shouldn't have let Ay go back to that hotel. Her should have sent her candid here. The message that Mrs. Sheriff sent her meant that I would get rid of her stalkers. He pictured the two women sitting together, drinking coffee and playing with the kids.
  
  
  The spectacle that now presented itself before my eyes was no less pleasant.
  
  
  They had a Container.
  
  
  But, voice problems again. Who are they'? And where did they take her? Her again didn't know where to start. And even now, Tara could...
  
  
  Her name is Missis. Sheriff, Hema was there.
  
  
  She gave me a bottle of rum.
  
  
  Its stuck at nah. It would be stupid to leave while I don't know where to go. Grenada? I don't think they took Tara there. But it was the only place he could think of. And that's why they didn't take her there. He took another sip of rum.
  
  
  Her master sent her. The sheriff fetched some paper and a pen and wrote a note for the cops about Wilson. He told them who the real culprits were and that they would probably find ih five feet under the lawn. I told them there might be more bodies, but I didn't know where.
  
  
  Then this holy place lit up again.
  
  
  The "Wooden Nickel" was exactly what Ego Wilson had told him. A somewhat run-down tavern on the side of the road. Mimmo rode past her and parked between the trees.
  
  
  The windows were dark, but when I got closer, I saw that they were covered with black curtains.
  
  
  I heard her voices.
  
  
  He reached for Wilhelmina. I took it when the air in the room became breathable again, and I had to snatch it out by the dead trick of a suffocating Thai. Stiletto found her somewhere on the library floor. It was nice to get my old reliable weapon back. A new weapon is like a new love — you are always afraid that it will let you down.
  
  
  Lizzie leaned toward the darkened window.
  
  
  Eh bien, Lotto?
  
  
  Nous visits.
  
  
  They were waiting for something, and they were talking in French. French was a common language in Indochina. Many around these revolution-ravaged countries were once French colonies and then faced independence while thinking together about which direction to take. Left or right. Its never been so good at these eastern languages, but at least its speaking French.
  
  
  «Si le Yacht is parti. Do you see the signal?
  
  
  They were waiting for the signal that the boat was gone.
  
  
  — Плюс важно, où sont les autres?
  
  
  They were also waiting for the "others". If these "others" were where I hoped they would be, they might have waited a very long time.
  
  
  He strained to catch every word they said. They wondered if you had contacted les autres with Carter. They thought it was a pity they weren't allowed to help.
  
  
  "C'est dommage," said one, " que la femme est mort."
  
  
  My dollar stack stopped beating.
  
  
  Tara was dead.
  
  
  Wisdom, prudence, self-defense, opportunity, purpose, ah, life, all crumbled into meaningless dust. Its just gone crazy. He jumped up and kicked the door open. She was attacked by the first moving object in sight. She didn't even draw a gun. Her hotel could feel the flesh in its hands and felt a primitive urge to tear and retaliate. Her hotel can be her own weapon.
  
  
  Suddenly it turned out that I was fighting with three men. Together, they were six feet tall and three hundred and fifty pounds, but when it comes to insanity, I don't like the sun. Blind rage, blazing rage — that's what turns fools into superhumans.
  
  
  He was a continuous furious machine. He was a factory that dealt punches and kicks. None of them escaped me. We were arranged like a Chinese puzzle-a single, spinning, kicking ball. They were all afraid to shoot, afraid to hit one through them.
  
  
  Her hotel would like to tell you how I did it. In fact, her hotel would have known for itself. But all I remember is my own rage. When it was over, they were all dead. And he did it only with his bare hands.
  
  
  Tara's body was sprawled on the counter. There was no pulse. No sign of life. He picked her up and carried her outside. Her red hair burned me like a handful of flames. Her face looked pale in the moonlight, but a faint mist of freckles still covered her nose. A lump stuck painfully in my throat, and I screamed to break free in a devastating sob. But it didn't go any further; he just stayed there.
  
  
  He kissed her good-bye.
  
  
  She stirred briefly in my arms.
  
  
  Ee kissed her again.
  
  
  She chuckled and grimaced. "Hey, Nick," she said with a laugh. — Did she scare you badly?"
  
  
  I almost dropped it, I was so shocked by this unexpected performance. He couldn't say another word to us. She burst out laughing. 'Calm down. You're not crazy. Sleeping Beauty is alive and well."
  
  
  Finally, I managed to say "What-ha-whoo". Or something similar.
  
  
  She laughed again. — Let me go and I'll tell you everything."
  
  
  It was lowered by ee. "Mmmm," she said. "It's nice to be moving again." She stretched out her arms and spun around in the moonlight.
  
  
  She was gorgeous. She was a mythical nymph. A nymph by an old legend, born again, rising from the crests of the dress, a magical creature through fairy tales, awakened unscathed from a spell that lasted a hundred years.
  
  
  He looked at Nah, more or less mesmerized himself. She finished her dance, shook her head, and grinned. "I hate to tell you the truth, darling. It's really very unromantic."
  
  
  Try it, " I said.
  
  
  "Biofeedback," she said.
  
  
  Organic feedback?
  
  
  Organic feedback".
  
  
  "You've already said that," I said. "But what is it?"
  
  
  Well, no doubt you've heard of these theories about how to stop a headache, how to manage asthma just by controlling your brain waves... "So what?" There was a bestseller called Biofeedback. I don't read any bestsellers, but I've heard about these theories. It had nothing to do with "how do I imitate a dead person in math?"
  
  
  "Well," she said, " I did. They asked me where you were, Odin around them hit me and I fell. Then its just started with this bio-feedback. I lowered her pulse until I couldn't feel her ego anymore, and held my breath. I always did that when they got too close to me."
  
  
  Just like that? I snapped my fingers.
  
  
  No. Not easy. AX is prepared for a group of female agents. This exercise lasted for many months. But it works."
  
  
  But tell me, why didn't you contact me? She shrugged her shoulders. — I wasn't sure it was you at first. But also "— she paused and looked at the ground — " go to your hotel to see if it bothers you."
  
  
  He gave her a venomous look. "I was so freaking worried when they said you were dead that I stormed into this club like a madman."
  
  
  'Hi there.'Don't shout like that. Do you think she came here for fun?
  
  
  'No.'But you weren't having fun. You slept at work.
  
  
  She knows that this method has several advantages. You can even stop your pulse while your ears continue to function. And people just tend not to be shy in their words in the presence of the deceased.
  
  
  Tara learned a lot. Not that it got us any further, but at least the secrets of Nassau were cleared up.
  
  
  Lin Jing and Bangel had an oriental pharmacy. Bangel also had a hotel in Nassau. When it all seemed too good to be true, the Chinese company KAN made an offer that they couldn't refuse. In exchange for not shutting down the source of the drugs, KAN demanded twenty percent of the proceeds and periodic services. This "random service" was very simple: all they had to do was provide cover and cover for the PBX series that KANG was trying to plant somewhere.
  
  
  Nassau was an ideal staging area. Close to America, but still British territory. This saved ih a lot of trouble and risk. And as for the last leg of the ih journey, it was very easy to board a fishing boat and land on a remote Florida reef. The system was working fine.
  
  
  Charles Bryce, for example, is the man who killed Senator Morton. At first he worked as a simple kitchen assistant in a casino in Grenada; then KANG was appointed by ego, pulling the right strings here and there, as a pilot of "Flying Aces"; - he crashed the plane with the senator in nen. As for CAN, the system worked smoothly, but Lin Jing objected to this fold paper. It is mainly intended against the use of sharp cuts. There were other participants who grumbled.
  
  
  This culminated when Chen-li shot Saybrook. It was impossible. Senator Saybrook might have been Chen-li's target, but ego should have killed himself at home in Maine. When Saybrook entered the casino with candid eyes, Chen-li thought: "Why should I wait for her?"
  
  
  It was a damn stupid thing to do. So you will open your own nest.
  
  
  Chen-li was arrested.
  
  
  Lin Jing decided to leave. Bad enough to turn Bangel in for it, if necessary. The rest of the gang was also on the verge of mutiny.
  
  
  The entire casino business in Grenada was suddenly under threat.
  
  
  They sent By Vin. Ih big man in London, plus a rescue team by Kang to get to Chen-li. Wing had established himself as an opium dealer, and this role allowed him to gain Lin Jing's trust, as well as send Lin Jing to fetch me. But because of this chaos and mutiny in Grenada, KAN had to find a new location. So they included the Wooden Nickel in the case, hiding the drugs from the Wilson. T. Sheriff. This bar Stahl ih is the new headquarters. There they gathered to plan their next actions. Most of the people around them even ate and slept there. The plan was good.
  
  
  Wing was the mastermind behind Chen-li's escape around the prison. He also planned the accident with this yacht and brought a submarine. He then arranged a "business meeting" with the duke, and also made sure that the duke's loyal butler had disappeared. Wasn't it coincidental and pleasant that the Vin knew a great butler? Just arrived around London with Lady Cheryl's recommendations.
  
  
  He left the violent acts to Wang Tong. These classes weren't bad, well, violent. What was annoying was the translations. Somewhere, from French to Cambodian, Thai, Chinese, and the special English of Van Tong, mistakes have crept in, and well-thought-out plans have lost some of their meaning. What followed looked like something out of a "Keystone Cops"movie comedy.
  
  
  Every time one of the guys around KAN tripped over a body, they thought it was KAN's doing.
  
  
  After all, KANNA had every reason to kill Bangyeol, and KANG also planned to kill Lin Ching. So everyone thought that it was someone else in the group who did it, and silently cleaned up the corpses they had left for her.
  
  
  The rest of it was less fun. This was the aya part that deals with mistletoe's relation to Garou. They got to him when he contacted me. The guys on the Phone did it, and the notification came that " the American is dead." Vin's only thought for granted that I was this American. It was late in the evening when Wing's group made their way to the Cascade Road, and the others began their stories over a general conversation.
  
  
  They decided they'd better get me — and quickly. But I was already on Cascade Road. They took Tara instead of me.
  
  
  "Where did they take you?"
  
  
  She turned around.
  
  
  You said they were yours. I want to know where.
  
  
  She let the sand run down my chest. - "I think it's a very sick corkscrew." She drew a dollar stack in the sand on my chest. 'What's going on?'What is it?' she asked with a laugh. "Are you jealous, Carter?"
  
  
  Of course I'm not jealous. And don't call me Carter. You look like a female reporter around a movie.
  
  
  "I just happened to play Lauren Beckall." She stood up with dignity and ran down the beach in the moonlight. "If she needs me," she said, " just whistle." The only thing that would detract from her dignity was that she wasn't wearing any clothes. When we first met, she seemed like a pretty decent young lady. But lately, she looked more like a broken young lady than a proper lady.
  
  
  Her definitely hotel sl. Her hotel ee again. But the worst part of it was that I couldn't whistle.
  
  
  He got up and followed her down the beach.
  
  
  We went swimming.
  
  
  In & nb, in the middle of the waves, we slid another one around the other.
  
  
  "It won't work," she said. I told her. "Place a bet?"
  
  
  Well, it might have been, if we hadn't been torn apart by another week of outdoor activities. So we made love at the very edge of the ocean, sometimes covered with water, sometimes naked again. We fell into the same rhythm as the wave, or the wave — into the same rhythm as ours, so that it and it became waves and shore, meeting in their natural course and saying goodbye; we became even more friends, greeting and saying goodbye affectionately, with wet salty kisses. In fact, it never stopped. My mouth on her breast instantly made her start all over again as we descended together into the swirling water and rose again together, gasping with excitement.
  
  
  A few days later, she said to me,"You know, I was afraid of her at first."
  
  
  He ran the inside of his hand over her stomach. "It's a scary game, honey. And if you can't play with knives or kung fu... well, I don't blame you. He looked deep into her eyes. "Then let me tell you what.: I was very angry with you."
  
  
  She shook her head. — I don't mean then. I mean, until this day, when you and I were sitting in that bar, when you were sitting there, on the other side of the chair, millions of miles away.
  
  
  "Look," I said softly. "A voice like hers. And no one can make me pay for it. You know that now that she's with you, hers is all yours. And the rest of the time... well, then its probably all its own.
  
  
  She smiled. There was a haze of your sadness in it. "Don't worry. Carter. I won't try to change you. Simply... She paused, considering what to say, then decided to continue — " that I didn't know you before. Then if her name isn't Lauren Beckall, then I have this awful, disgusting tendency to be Orphan Annie. She smiled again, but this time her face was more cheerful. Don't worry. Now its very big and strong, and love you just the way you are."
  
  
  I have a built-in reflex to the phrase "I love you", in a series of bounces. He never promised her anything... we all have to keep it non-binding... I looked at Tara. "I think," she said, " maybe I love you too."
  
  
  "My God," she said...
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  
  
  The British Museum was more attractive than ever. For me, there was always something sinister about this attraction. You're looking at some armor that King Arthur must have once worn, or a monk's robe that "dates back to 610". It suddenly occurs to you that history is not just a small story that is compressed and dried in these history books, like one string of barren people and events going hand in hand to the dates that are always remembered. (1066, Viking victories). 1215, Magna Carta.) History is a tumultuous, tumultuous jumble of facts written with courage, confidence, and blood. History is about people like you and me, forever doomed to serve our simple, mundane existence. Not a metal shield, or a piece of cloth.
  
  
  Like I said, it's creepy.
  
  
  He had arranged to meet Roscoe at eleven o'clock in the room where the Constable's finger prints were kept. A special pass was required to enter. I had this passage, and directions to get there, as well as a brilliant pamphlet about John Constable (1776-1837). She was handed a pass by a Margaret Rutherford lookalike, who then handed me a giant folder of prints. "A romantic realist," the pamphlet said. "Constable Hotel return to nature." If so, then nature (1776-1837) was a wonderful place. One sight of brilliant green.
  
  
  "But yes. Then there was no toilet in the house.
  
  
  Her, turned around. It was Roscoe Klein.
  
  
  "Continue to admire this painting," he said. He turned around and admired the painting. "Our mutual friend from Nassau came here. He rented a country house in the Cotswolds. Her, went to another painting. Houses with thatched roofs and a bright green river. "Your Chen-li is still there. They went there candid around the airport and with them the ferret didn't go out anywhere. There were no visitors. There were no phone calls, " which is unusual. They're just a bunch of squires leading a quiet, tidy outdoor life. Of course, they had only been here for twenty-four hours.
  
  
  He turned another leaf and this time explored the mill and stream. "Have you seen any other KANG agents?"
  
  
  "No one, Nicky. To nobody.'
  
  
  — Did anyone bother you?"
  
  
  Who is me? Lamong Cranston? With the ability to cloud your mind? No one sees the shadow, baby.
  
  
  Then I have another corkscrew, Roscoe... Why are you suggesting that I look at these pictures?
  
  
  Her, turned around. Roscoe shrugged. — I just thought you should know something about art."
  
  
  What I said then is not suitable for compaction.
  
  
  We had lunch at a West End diner called the Hunter's Cabin. A wood-paneled diner with a sort of eel-in-jelly and hare-back menu. I called Tara and told her to come over. We were staying in an" apartment " that belonged to a friend of Roscoe's, a girl who was currently working around town. We were more on our own, and we had less trouble with all that John Stewart nonsense about porters, waiters, and maids. It was also the most peaceful way to interact with the city. I saw the way Roscoe looked at Tara when she came in. She was wearing an emerald green cashmere dress with a narrow neckline and tight as the plague, which exposed her at her best, and helped her firm round breasts. She must have gone shopping and bought an ego that morning. At least I've never seen it before, ego. I can sometimes forget her dress, but I will never forget her tight dress.
  
  
  He introduced her to Roscoe. She smiled her own smile. Like I said before, Roscoe can look whatever emu likes, but now he's specialized in watching without expression. Mr. Poe, The Average Person. Average height, build, face, and clothing. I estimate he was about fifty years old or so, and I get that figure by adding up everything he did. But he has his own thick hair, it is not gray, and it does not have that aggressive black color that happens when coloring.
  
  
  So Tara smiled. A few moments later, when Roscoe looked at him, it was Gary Grant. He was tall and thin, and suddenly nen was wearing a tailored suit, and he saw that he had surprisingly white teeth. Ah, the white that dazzles, and Tara looked dazzled.
  
  
  He sat down, cleared his throat, and with a firm, imperious gesture called the waiter over and ordered drinks. "Tell me," he said to Roscoe, " who is watching your trade now?"
  
  
  'Trading?'
  
  
  'Outside. Your foreign trade.
  
  
  "Oh, the alleged trade. Charlie Mace. Have you ever seen ego?'
  
  
  His ego has never seen it.
  
  
  "Well, that's good. Weapons are also good. If something happens — and I don't think it will-he'll let me know. There's a boy with him, Pearson. So you don't have to worry about it."
  
  
  'A boy?'
  
  
  Roscoe looked me straight in the eye. — I think you were pretty smart when you were twenty."
  
  
  I thought about it for a while. — Still, it would feel a lot better if you were sitting there right now."
  
  
  Roscoe shook his head. — I'm a bloodhound, Nicky. Not a watchdog. Besides, I'm getting too - " too old,"he tried to say, but caught himself just in time," her stahl's been too lazy lately to lie in the wet grass for a week waiting."
  
  
  "How can you be so sure that they will stay for so long?"
  
  
  - Products, for example. They ordered groceries-for example, for a week. They even hired a housekeeper. This means that they plan to be good boys for a while. Such news spreads quickly through the village. And believe me, it's already news in these cities if someone sneezes twice.
  
  
  "So what do we do?"
  
  
  "Just wait?"
  
  
  He pulled out two e-mail boxes. Small pocket black boxes. 'One for you; one for me.'
  
  
  'Working from a distance?'
  
  
  'Yes. Just go to the nearest phone and dial nine-three-six-four-zero-zero-zero. Outside of the city, you must first turn zero-one. Then click code this cutie and you'll hear a recording of Mace's report. Report every hour.
  
  
  "Is that all?"
  
  
  "No," he said. "There's something else. You can also call and leave your message on tape. Then Mace and her ego can listen in. Dolores is constantly monitoring the monitor, so we'll be alerted if anything goes wrong. Just be sure to tell hey where you're staying. Dolores was an AX switchboard.
  
  
  — And this house — is it possible to put Zhukov in it?
  
  
  He made a sour face and shook his head. 'Hardly. Or they should be gone for a while, but they haven't shown any signs of it yet. We might try to send a worker for some reason. But if Poe Vin fell for such a trick, he would have been long dead. We have a connection to the local telephone network, so we can intercept all outgoing messages.
  
  
  I didn't like it. It was forever to wait. But I couldn't risk putting myself at risk. Vin Vo remembered me. Just show the emu your face once and the whole operation would be a failure.
  
  
  He looked at his watch. It was two minutes to one. "If your paging system is working, I think you have time to do it."
  
  
  Roscoe gave me his dazzling smile. — Why don't you do it now?" a friend? Hold it in your fingers for a while. Try it yourself.
  
  
  "I trust you implicitly, Roscoe," I said. He grinned at Tara. "I mean with the phone. I know you'll give me an accurate report.
  
  
  He could argue that, but N-3 is always more important than K-2. Roscoe answered the phone.
  
  
  Tara smiled.
  
  
  It was the sweet but empty smile of a woman who doesn't know the fleet has just sailed. "I'm hungry," she said, looking at the menu. "Besides, he's not my type," she added without looking up.
  
  
  Her brow rose. "I didn't even think about us for a moment," I said.
  
  
  Mace didn't have the Barents Sea territory to tell us. Which basically gave us a day off. I bought her some tickets to the musical. One thing called " Tell Your Mom, "which an arrogant New York Times salesman called"pretty funny if you like that kind of stuff."
  
  
  Tara was getting ready for some shopping, and her little nervous about not doing anything. My voice must have sounded absurdly creepy, because she suddenly stopped talking.
  
  
  "I know what you're thinking," she said at last. "You think this is going to be one of their godforsaken tourist traps, so what do you do with this girl? Or rather, what was she doing here anyway? All she can do is get kidnapped and go shopping."
  
  
  I didn't answer. Ee think -- was close.
  
  
  — Well, I have a reason to be here. And the reason is that once you figure out where the labs are in Hall ih, I'll know who the clones are around them and what to do with them. She was looking at me in the same non-rude, tight-lipped way she had the first day we met at the Waldorf. And the hair on the back of my neck stood up just as it did then. Hers, knew that her reaction was purely defensive. She sat there and felt like she was annoying me, and there wasn't much she could do about it. And she was unreasonably touchy, and she also couldn't do anything about it.
  
  
  We stood on the corner of Piccadilly Circus, looking at each other in helpless rage.
  
  
  She said. — Besides, there's something else I can do.
  
  
  "And so it is," I said. "You mean you'll also say something."'she said. — I can also make you very happy."
  
  
  It's hard to argue with such an unvarnished truth. We agreed to meet at the apartment at five o'clock. Until then, the ferrets around us will take care of themselves. I went to the pad on Charing Cross Road. It got a little hazy. Not exactly fog, but rather some kind of thick cold. The healing wound on my shoulder hurt. He wondered why people liked hurting another friend so much when that pain actually existed.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 11
  
  
  
  
  At a quarter to three, he arrived at the pad. Just in time to remind me that it was nearing three o'clock. The English don't drink at all, not when. That's why-at least according to Roscoe - you can't trust the English. I ordered a beer and flipped through the newspaper.
  
  
  On page ten of the London Times, there was a small piece of news all over the United States. It turned out that Senators Bale and Croft were victims of a helicopter crash while checking out the effects of Hurricane Carla. At least, that's what they thought. The helicopter and pilot were missing, and the investigation was postponed due to Hurricane Dora.
  
  
  So ih became six. Morton, Saybrook, Lindale, Cranston, and now Neil and Croft. He could imagine Washington's acrobatics. Private conversation about assassination attempts and conspiracy. Encouraging government statements. Meanwhile, top-secret negotiations were taking place in Hawke's office. How can we take security measures without causing widespread panic?
  
  
  I was wondering how — if Hawke did that-he'd handle the clone case. Until now, the ferret has had no conclusive evidence for the theory. And if he'd been even remotely inclined to accept our theory, I still wouldn't have met him for a while. No doubt the clones were already in the country. But how can ih be put on the wanted list if you don't know how many copies of the same person are around?
  
  
  But of course, that was Hawke's problem. So far, I've had my own problem. My task was to find a hotbed of these PBX systems, wherever they were located. Kill the original and destroy the copies. Also try to find out how many-if there are a few ihs left-are walking free with a murder order. If he had done that and lived long enough to tell the story, Washington could have started a full-scale shutdown. At least not if I live long enough.
  
  
  It all went around in circles and then came back to me. Washington was waiting for my first move. And Chen-li was waiting for her first move. And then there comes a point that you shouldn't think about at all: what if this Chen-li doesn't move at all? What if he's just sitting in hiding and there are fewer and fewer senators?
  
  
  The bell started ringing. The girl at the bar told me it was closing time. I paid it and left.
  
  
  Sometimes you wonder if we are part of some giant chess game. The Big Hand comes and boasts that it will put you where you wouldn't be at all. It looks like a very random movement. but in the end, it turns out that this was the final move of the entire game.
  
  
  I went for a short walk. Aimless, I think. Po Bond-erased. At a good time, he found himself in the Burlington Arcade, a long, narrow gallery of shops. To her, he craned his neck like everyone else to look up at the flag-decorated ceiling of the gallery. He looked at the shop windows with shirts and cameras, and at the windows with Chinese figurines.
  
  
  I was taking a detour when a man in Virginia took a picture of his wife.
  
  
  Then I ran into a coincidence.
  
  
  My first reaction was to turn away so he wouldn't see me; to look at my face in the reflection of the shop window. But then I realized that he wouldn't recognize me in the end. Her ego knew her face almost as well as he knew his own. I've met him twice before. Her ego had already killed her once. But not in this body. Chen-li was somewhere in the countryside. Hung Lo was in hell, and I didn't think Lao Zeng was shopping right now. This face belonged to someone else. The same broad, hard face. The same flat, unfriendly expression. The same perfectly placed wart.
  
  
  Another branch.
  
  
  I followed him with a casual, calm gait. Piccadilly tube, back to Russell Square.
  
  
  It was risky to follow him so closely. But there are some risks you should take. Moreover, he started out like a man who didn't expect trouble. He didn't look at his pursuers or turn around. Output: multiple choice. Either he didn't know I was being stalked ; or he knew and was leading me into a trap.
  
  
  He followed it for a few more blocks until the branch disappeared into a red-brick building. The door was numbered 43, and a bronze nameplate added irrelevant information: "Featherstone Society "with an irrelevant postscript:"Founded in 1917." What the hell kind of Featherstone Society was that? The next thing I had to do was find out.
  
  
  There was a macrobiotic restaurant across the street. All of a sudden, I had a big appetite for healthy food.
  
  
  It was taken over by a table with a view of the street; the waiter, who didn't look as healthy as you might think in this setting, brushed away a few crumbs and handed me a menu. I had a choice: sunflower sorbet (whipped yogurt with seeds) or a list of increasingly deadly concoctions. Spinach juice, cabbage souffle. He paused on the decanter of organic lemonade, wondering what organ they'd managed to cook the ego around.
  
  
  A couple of widows with walking sticks made a painful trek through Featherstone's Societies.
  
  
  A juicy teenager in a T-shirt and jeans took the table next to me and ordered a sunflower . She looked at me the way little girls do.
  
  
  A woman came in with a large number of packages. On their heads they wore an overly red hat and almost ostentatious wrinkles. At first, I thought she was talking to herself. But I was wrong. She was talking to her bag. "All right," she said, " and please remain calm.
  
  
  She was absolutely right about that. A shopping bag with too big a mouth CAN be very annoying.
  
  
  She sat down at the table next to me and took off her fluffy brown cape. Hey, it wasn't far from eighty, but she was still dressing up to match her youthful years. She was some kind of teenage girl. Pearl necklaces and musky perfume.
  
  
  "Sit down," she said to the bag. She turned and gave me an apologetic smile. "I don't understand why egos aren't allowed in restaurants. They say it has to do with neatness or something. But it's very neat. She looked in her bag. "Isn't that right, honey?"
  
  
  Clench was a six-pound Yorkshire Terrier. Also known as Roger. Coincidentally, I don't like all those little yapping dogs at all, and something about that must have been written all over my face. "I hope you're not afraid of dogs."
  
  
  I told her I wasn't afraid of dogs.
  
  
  Oh, good. She smiled and patted my hand. "Because Roger wouldn't hurt a fly."
  
  
  He wondered aloud, given the ego's growth, if a fly would hurt the emu. She let out a high-pitched laugh, and coquettishly sat down to lick.
  
  
  Her name was Miss Mabel. She had lived on the block for more than fifty years in a house that she modestly described as quite luxurious. "Ah, let's just say that... a gift from, let's just say ... another. Miss Mabel wants to let me know that Nah actually had sex. I made it clear to Miss Mabel that I wasn't surprised.
  
  
  This earned me a few points, and the conversation took a certain direction. I was told by hey that I was sitting and waiting for a friend who was currently attending the Featherstone Society.
  
  
  "Mmm," she said. "And you didn't want to go in there." Don't you believe in these things? †
  
  
  I told him I didn't know much about it.
  
  
  "No one knows about ghosts, Mr. Stewart. We just have to accept that they are there."
  
  
  Just like that. The Featherstone Society lets you talk to the dead.
  
  
  He wondered if this branch had questioned senators.
  
  
  I asked her if she'd ever been there, and she snorted.
  
  
  "Ha. No, that's unlikely. John Featherstone cursed me in 1920. A curse, imagine that. He said I was a brawler, to put it mildly. Oh, he was a man of decency, a real fanatic. She tapped the heads with her index finger, which glittered with a collection of diamond rings. Memories of a past scandal.
  
  
  "Well, if you ask me —" she said softly in my ear, " there isn't one body in this house that we need to talk about. Dead or alive, you must be an angel to enter this house. And angels, my dear, are extremely boring. She gave what you might call a mischievous wink.
  
  
  The waiter brought hey, a soda rich in vitamins. She took a sip and made a face of disgust. This drink is very good for you.
  
  
  What did I say again? Oh, yeah, well, when he died, his daughter took over. Well, I'm talking about oddities... Alice Featherstone, dear lady, Miss Mabel pursed her lips in disapproval. "Playing a virgin for too long is never a good thing."
  
  
  He ignored Miss Mabel's psychosexual theories.
  
  
  Well, nonsense. "Ah, Touwe" or "Wauwe". something like that. I don't know her exactly. If you ask me, honey, it's because of the traditional Chinese food she learned as a child. They eat the most horrible things, you know. I think it affected her brain.
  
  
  She's learned a lot from enough people over the years to know that you should listen to everything. From ih favorite flying saucer theory to step-by-step replay of ih best golf game. Everyone wants to be heard. And if you're willing to listen to things that no one else wants to hear, chances are they'll tell you things that no one else will. So the owl of the whole world wouldn't have interrupted her if it wasn't watching the street. What I saw there told me that I might have won the grand prize.
  
  
  He excused himself and went to the phone. Ego found her in the men's room and dialed her number. Mace didn't have the current one.
  
  
  I'm taping it.
  
  
  The branch just left through number 43. I went to the corner to send a message. Unless it wasn't the branch that was chasing her here. Unless he'd been changing and limping for the last half hour. Of course, it was possible. But he didn't trust her. My branch looked too cocky to bother with disguise. And if it had been anyone else, he would have encountered something bigger. These are cloning stations.
  
  
  It was ten minutes to four. I left her a message for Roscoe. I told emu to come here and keep an eye on the next clone. In the meantime, I'll sit here and watch. I'll see if anyone else comes in."
  
  
  Miss Mabel was talking to Roger again. Her wondered if I could get her my next rheumatism test without a lecture on the chemical composition of food. I took a chance on her. "Why did Alice Featherstone grow up on Chinese ed?"
  
  
  Miss Mabel seemed to think it was a silly corkscrew. Well, dear. What else do the Chinese eat?
  
  
  Wait a second. — You mean the Featherstones are Chinese?"
  
  
  "Well," she pointed at me. 'Not really. But again, not exactly.
  
  
  In short, Old John was a tea exporter. He lived in China for many years. But with the revolution of 1912, it became clear to Westerners that they were no longer welcome. The ego case was confiscated. Killed the ego's wife. So John returned to London with his little daughter.
  
  
  And with a penchant for mysticism.
  
  
  He claimed that he talked to his wife every day. And emu managed to convince many of the old aristocrats that he could be ih's " contact with the dead." They helped emu and founded the Featherstone Society. That was pretty much all Miss Mabel knew about it. Except that John and his daughter Alice lived as hermits. Only to come out from time to time to cast a curse on the less pure-hearted.
  
  
  She finished her story just in time. In less than a second, she looked into her bag. "Roger!" he bit her. 'Bad dog.'
  
  
  She excused herself and left.
  
  
  It was 4:30 when Roscoe arrived. He took a table at the other end of the room and dropped a note on my lap as he passed mimmo:"There's a back door in the alley."
  
  
  It started raining as soon as I left the restaurant. He stopped in the shelter of the entrance and looked out the window across the street. A woman in her sixties in a black silk dress was kneeling on the windowsill, looking out.
  
  
  Through the rain of her, heard her voice. "Yes, a rope. he said. "Ah, the rope. Ugh.'
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 12
  
  
  
  
  It was a narrow cobblestone alley that ran the length of the block. Some where it was slightly wider where there used to be entrances for some stable or small pitch. It ended in a tunnel about twelve meters long. And then there was a side street.
  
  
  Number 43 was a four-story mansion. There were no fire escapes, but there was a back door.
  
  
  The door opened.
  
  
  And there was my first branch. He saw me, too, and gave me a quick, questioning look. A "I haven't seen you before"look.
  
  
  When in doubt, you should improvise. I walked over to him and smiled. I'm sorry, but I'm looking for Marsden's house. I pulled Roscoe's note out of my pocket and pretended to study it. It says I'm supposed to be at number forty-four, but — - I shrugged - " there's no forty-four at all.
  
  
  He glanced at me. 'I do not know. But at least you won't find an ego in the alley." This was her first time talking to a clone. I've heard others talk to her, but not to me. Now it hit me. All of them spoke perfect English without any accent. American accent of English. They were thoroughly trained.
  
  
  "Listen," I said, " maybe I'll use your phone. I've got Marsden's number - " I fumbled with Roscoe's note again.
  
  
  He shook his head. "It's malfunctioning."
  
  
  "Oh, — I said. "Well, thank you."
  
  
  I had no choice but to go out through the alley. The rain was falling harder now. It hit the sidewalk and echoed loudly in the narrow passageway. The place was ominous. The alley is dark. The rain is dark. It's slippery because of the sudden rain. Her collar turned up.
  
  
  It wasn't something I saw or heard. It was just an instinct.
  
  
  He stopped to light a cigarette. He stopped at Rivnenskaya just a step away from me.
  
  
  He didn't turn around. He let the stiletto slide out of his hand and continued on his way. I heard Tara say again, "I'm a first-class assassin," she said,"I have to be a first-class assassin."
  
  
  Good. So I was being followed. Between the echo of her own footsteps and the drumming of the rain, she could make out another sound.
  
  
  The tunnel was in front of me. Her, entered the tunnel. It was darker there. He crouched in the shadow of the wall and looked back down the alley.
  
  
  Nothing like that.
  
  
  And yet... I didn't see it coming. The hairs on my neck stand up for a reason.
  
  
  The only sound that could be heard was the sound of rain. Silent gawk flew out of nowhere. It hit the stone wall. Her shrank back and swapped his sword for Wilhelmina's. Just in case. I didn't expect to have to kill the ego. She was trying to get some answers out of him. At this stage of the case, another dead branch will lead to another deadlock.
  
  
  He crawled back into the shadows and took off his coat. I hung her up like a stone in groans. Gawk-eyed mimmo whizzed past me and grazed my coat... On her stomach, it began to crawl around the tunnel, in the direction from which the bullets had come.
  
  
  The thing is, he's not used to missing a shot. He was waiting for his victim to say "phew" or " argh." The silence got on Emu's nerves, if he had any. He exited through the shelters as soon as he reached the tunnel entrance. Her shot went lower and hit the emu in the hand with the gun. Not at the hand itself, but at the gun that fell to the ground, He turned to raise his own ego. Her, jumped up and attacked. The moment he reached for his weapon, he was flung away by ego. It was hard to fight against him. He was good. He knew every trick that knew her. He had a knife. Just so it was there, and was sent candid to my dollar stack. Ego grabbed her wrist and managed to stop her from moving. But not for long. He picked up every tribe, and almost hit me where it really annoyed me. Her, turned around and leaned forward slightly and it hit me in the life.
  
  
  The blow knocked me off my feet, and the knife almost hit me. Its got up. The top of my head hit ego's chin with a loud clang of teeth. This violated the ego's intentions. With a karate kick in ego's hand with a knife and knocked out ego, the weapon stood outright between boulders, point down. Her continued to hold ego's wrist and flipped ego onto his back. He tried to get rid of her power by using a judo move, but her already prepared for an ego move. He slipped and fell on the wet rocks. I heard the dry crack of bones. He lay there, looking up in surprise. Ego's legs were tucked up, he was still conscious and didn't feel any pain. Shock just grew all these feelings. Maybe his legs were permanently disabled. "All right," I said. "I know who you are. I want to hear some more details from you. How many of you are there?
  
  
  He closed his eyes and smiled arrogantly.
  
  
  "A lot." "Too many to stop us."
  
  
  Where is your base?
  
  
  That smile again. 'Next. In a place where you'll never find us.
  
  
  They put a gun on him. 'Good. We'll start from scratch. And I don't need answers like "a lot" and "more". I want to get answers, like how much and where. So go ahead.
  
  
  Ego's face was calm.
  
  
  "Or you'll shoot me?"
  
  
  He shook his head. "There is no difference between death and life. You Westerners don't understand. I couldn't find it. So hers is already dead.
  
  
  You are left with few threats when the most recent threat gets such rheumatism. It was a dead end. Hers also failed. But then, if I couldn't get what the hotel said, I could always try to get confirmation that I thought I knew her.
  
  
  — But you think others will succeed. That you can kill an entire hundred senators?
  
  
  We don't have to kill them all. Enough to scare ih everyone to death. To summon kingdoms in your government. Yours... Congress, as you call the ego. Then we will contact your president, and everything will happen as we want."
  
  
  Now it was my turn to show some disdain. "I think you forgot something." This president has bodyguards and a pretty tight security system."
  
  
  He shook his head. "I think you forgot something." This security system has been bypassed before. And besides, we're not going to kill the ego. We only intend to control the ego brain.
  
  
  Hence alexander ih master plan. Paralyze Congress and make the president your puppet. In the face of chaos in Congress, the active service will have unlimited power. And KAHN will have full control over it. It wasn't as impossible as it seemed. Bodyguards are only protected from bullets. And don't mind your omelette full of mind-altering drugs. Or against aspirin, which is not aspirin. That was all they needed. It is said that Rasputin had a king in the ego of power. But today, you don't even need to be Rasputin to do that. You just need to be a drug guy. The kings of the Middle Ages had their own tasters. People try food and beverages to make sure they are not poisoned. It was a job. But this is not the case now. Therefore, attracting their brilliant pedagogical abilities, the rulers are defenseless. KANG's plan was insane. But it wasn't that crazy.
  
  
  He lost consciousness. Or so it seemed. I didn't have much to do. Anyway, I didn't get any more information. But one thing was clear: he had to die. Or this whole KANG clique will come after us.
  
  
  He looked down at her motionless body. Hers, thought for a moment. Her, thinking about the best way for him to die. Her, gone. He returned to the tunnel and picked up his coat and the stiletto he'd dropped. From there, it continued down the street.
  
  
  All I heard was a faint sound. Of course, he wasn't unconscious. He turned and raised the gun.
  
  
  He shot himself in the eye.
  
  
  First-class murder.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 13
  
  
  
  
  The performance of" Tell Your Mother " at the Lyric Theater, as promised, was "quite fun if you like this kind of thing." The bad thing is that I probably won't be ego-watching. The only interesting thing was the girl who had already crawled out of her clothes. Janice Venus. He remembered her from the days when her name was Janice Wood.
  
  
  Janice Venus was a blonde goddess, and whatever her name was, with a beautiful figure. She was a hot companion on a trip to the Riviera, probably five years ago. We parted as friends. My business and her future were saved by the affable and wealthy Count Hoppup. He gave me some information about Almazov's smugglers, and Janice gave me a bunch of Almazov. The last time ih saw her, in Nice, they were getting married.
  
  
  How it looked now, everything could have turned out a little differently. During the break, I called her and got a recorded message from Mace. Around what Emu managed to collect through the telescope, the source of good porridge was oatmeal.
  
  
  That was all they had right now.
  
  
  Roscoe announced that he had counted three telephone exchanges. Odin was at the Addison Hotel; one was still at Featherstone's, and the third was at the Old Vic, watching Sir Laurence Olivier play Hamlet. I left her a "Tell your mom" message, which was quite fun if you're into that sort of thing.
  
  
  He returned just in time to begin the beginning of the second act. The lights had already gone out, and Tara had to wave me back to my seat. The orchestra performed from the beginning for the second time.
  
  
  'News?'What is it?' she asked in a whisper.
  
  
  'Yes. There are three.'
  
  
  "Well, three? Or three more?
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  She paused. "So it's only seven.
  
  
  'Yes. He nodded to her. 'Still a ferret.'
  
  
  The band was playing a song that Janice was singing. "This girl," Tara said, " did you know her, or were these signs of love at first sight?"
  
  
  I didn't know I had such symptoms. "I already knew her," I said. "A few years ago. Nice girl. Nothing more.'
  
  
  Tara raised an eyebrow. "Well, she doesn't look that girly anymore."
  
  
  She was probably right about that. Janice's current size was 90-60-90.
  
  
  "We were just friends," I said. "My word of honor."
  
  
  Tara looked at me. "Tell your mother.
  
  
  After the show, we went backstage. Janice was hot. Tara was cool. Janice introduced us to her new love, Mickey. Tara thawed out. The four of us went out for a beer.
  
  
  In the taxi home Tara said: "You're right, she's a nice girl. He added rather sharply,"Nothing more."
  
  
  There are several ways to find out if someone answered your door while you were away.
  
  
  Unfortunately, everyone knows these manners.
  
  
  Especially to those people who try to open the door to you in your absence.
  
  
  Thanks to Jan Fleming, these multi-hair traps have become widely known. And any experienced agent knows how to do it. And other authors of spy stories have exposed other good tricks. The trick of being a secret agent is that the ego tactic remains a secret. Today, for the price of paperbacks, every child is the spitting image of Carter.
  
  
  Well, Carter is more cunning.
  
  
  And if you sometimes think that I will spoil a good thing by giving it away for those few guilders, think again. The thing is, someone took my bait. When we got back to the apartment, I realized that someone was there. Or else there was. She motioned for Tara to come out again and wait for my signal. He grabbed her gun and opened his own lock with a skeleton key. A soft click instead of a cacophony of audible clanking keys. It was dark inside. And it was quiet. Such a very loud silence caused by someone trying not to be there. Her husband gripped Wilhelmina tightly in his hand and began to walk cautiously around the apartment. Room by room. Through the cluttered living room, dining room, and finally the living room, wishing that Roscoe's friend had taken her cat away before she left, because that cat was clinging to my heels.
  
  
  Good. So, our guest was waiting in the bedroom or hiding in the shower. Or the ego was long gone.
  
  
  Hers, stopped by the bedroom. Someone was there. I could hear him breathing. My next step was a masterpiece of coordination. With a single movement, he flung open the door, turned on the saint, and took aim.
  
  
  He jumped out of bed like bread on a toaster. Jesus, Nick. Is this your skill to say good morning?
  
  
  He lowered the gun and shook his head. — No, Roscoe. But it's a damn good way to say hello with a bullet, you fucking bitch. Do you know that I could have killed you?
  
  
  He pushed his hair back and yawned. Then he scratched his chin, staring at me. "You Americans are all like that," he said. Listen. This is my girlfriend's place, isn't it? That's why I don't want to talk to you. So I have the key. So, its entered. So how was I supposed to know you were coming?
  
  
  Roscoe... - her sell on the edge of the bed, -...as for these methods of your work... †
  
  
  He raised his hand. "Don't preach. Nick. You are welcome. He lit a cigarette, and I saw that the flame was trembling slightly. "Where's Tara?"
  
  
  He went to the window and signaled to her.
  
  
  No sermons, Roscoe. Word.'
  
  
  He sighed. 'The word?'
  
  
  A.'
  
  
  "Fire".
  
  
  Voting is a word.
  
  
  He tapped his cigarette against the butt of the gun. "It's my job, Roscoe. You're a shadow. I shoot her. Which means there are a lot of people around who are planning to shoot me. And then, if I don't stay on my guard, they will succeed.
  
  
  Pif-bang, and its dead. Understood?
  
  
  He nodded and smiled. "Wrong," I said. "It's not funny. This is fucking serious. I think you're a genius, Roscoe, but I think you're getting overconfident. In translation, this is called that you become indifferent. And it's a very good way to die.
  
  
  Understand?" He nodded. He didn't smile.
  
  
  I should have stopped. But, like all preachers, he had been in his pulpit too long, and he had suffered only one moral blow from which he could not recover.
  
  
  Roscoe shrugged. "All right," he said. Well, I've heard it all before. But tonight... you made a storm in a glass of water. †
  
  
  Tara was sitting in the doorway. "So you'll be drinking tea.
  
  
  She smiled. One or two spoons?
  
  
  Roscoe smiled at rheumatism. "This other one of yours has missed his calling.
  
  
  'What is it?'
  
  
  "Creating military training films".
  
  
  Tara made tea.
  
  
  Roscoe's reason for coming was Featherstone's company, and he wanted to know what to do with it. Watch again tomorrow, or what? "Yes," I said. "Keep watching. We need to know when these clones will take effect. Too little happens; I don't like it. In the meantime, let's take a closer look. Let's see if we can find out what's going on inside. 'Hmm. I just don't know her yet, Nick. I doubt it.
  
  
  'Right?'
  
  
  — Then what will you do?"
  
  
  "Visiting Featherstone Society to meet my dear late Aunt Myrtle.
  
  
  — You mean just walk in?" Just like that.'
  
  
  "well... I could fly in, but I think it would be too flashy, wouldn't it?"
  
  
  Roscoe stood up. — And you're telling me not to joke." Have you come all this way?
  
  
  If this is Camp CANNA, you're the thread. You look pretty familiar, buddy. You're almost as anonymous as Nixon at a Democratic convention.
  
  
  "I was counting on your special effects department to give me a mask and a suitable camouflage might help.
  
  
  Roscoe sighed. "Our special effects department," he said, " is dead."
  
  
  'Passed away?'
  
  
  "Well, you know... it's really a little painful... It was an old lady who had once worked for Ealing. You know, this movie studio. And ... well... she passed away. I know her! He cut me off before she could say a word. This is ridiculous, this is her, this is child's work, and it's impossible. But I'm afraid it's only the London branch of AX.
  
  
  Its made by an emu, don't say anything.
  
  
  He said. = "Can I get her there?".
  
  
  "I'm sorry, Roscoe. I need you outside more. If one person around these PBX stations goes to the United States, then another senator will go to the morgue. We need to find out what these steamboats are up to.
  
  
  He threw his hands in the air.
  
  
  'Then it's fine. We're back to our starting point. You go there. So I might as well ask you now. If you die, can I take this tie from him?"
  
  
  I know her. Be serious. But seriously, what do you guys suggest?
  
  
  I suggest, "Tara looked at us," that I go there."
  
  
  No, I told her. 'Definitely not.'
  
  
  "But, Nick. †
  
  
  No.'Its said.
  
  
  'But...'
  
  
  Then no one listens to me here. This is a thread.'
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 14
  
  
  
  
  So Tara went anyway.
  
  
  Well, not exactly Tara. Not Tara, the " curvy redhead." Curvy redheads are too easy to spot on a street full of people, and too easy to track down. The woman who came to the reception at number 41 the next day was a mouse-faced spinster. With dodo-brown hair, a hooked nose, and a bag for a dress. We had the costume, wig, and makeup, thanks to Janice and the "Tell Your Mom" companies. If Tara didn't return to the theater by seven o'clock at the latest, the show might not continue - the wig and nose belonged to her mother.
  
  
  An electronic voice recorder and a camera for a wristwatch were made of aluminum.
  
  
  The tape recorder was the latest model , a small battery-powered Sony. it was about the size of a cigarette case and disguised in such a way that it also looked like a cigarette case. It was controlled by sound, which meant that it wasn't recording tishchina. At a speed of 4.75, I managed to record clear sound for about two hours. By turning the volume knob all the way down, he could record from a woman's purse, just like Tara's. Large open canvas shopping bag.
  
  
  If you've ever wondered what kind of crazy people will talk to the dead, the answer is rich crazy people.
  
  
  Bibi Hodgson, for example. Tara bumped into her on the way (click). Good. So I know who she is, too. But Tara says that according to Vogue, this lady is a "squatter," a title that can only be earned if you've spent a lot of money on ballet slippers and belts. Around them are women for whom small expenses still mean a Dior dress. Mrs. Hodgson receives her money from Mr. Hodgson. William A. Hodgson by Hodgson's Real Estate Agents. And I know who he is. Hodgson's real estate agents own half of Florida and a large portion of the island they call Manhattan.
  
  
  There was also Mrs. Wentworth Frogg, who had about forty-five million dollars. Tara met her downstairs in the waiting room. She also photographed the reception area itself. A Victorian room with red plush sofas and lots of potted palms. Tara had to fill out a form. A few questions about her personal life and the life of the deceased. According to the completed form, G. Louise Rigg of St. Louise, Missouri, is visiting her aunt Myrtle Rigg. In the "Reasons to visit" section, Tara wrote: "Ask for advice on investing in monuments." She didn't know why she'd written it. She said it just occurred to me.
  
  
  "Is that a lot of money, dear?" The receptionist asked. And Tara answered: "So big that it scares me."
  
  
  The receptionist smiled,
  
  
  A thin Oriental boy led her upstairs to a purple waiting room full of palm trees. He told hey that Sun Ping would arrange a meeting. Sun Ping will come to see her in half an hour. In the meantime, maybe she could read a magazine for a while. Would you like a cup of tea?" He disappeared and returned a moment later with a steaming cup. Tara took it, and the boy disappeared again.
  
  
  She only waited a minute or two, then opened the door. There was no one in sight in the corridor. Across the hall, a woman's drunken laughter rang out behind the closed door. There was a faint hum around the beginning of the second day. A medium who moaned as he fell into a trance. The third and final door was marked "Rest". There was no sound from there. Tara tried to open it. It was locked.
  
  
  From her oversized bag, she took out a toothpick and a strip of plastic. She wasn't used to it, and she didn't work well. But there were no footsteps on the stairs, and no one entered the other two rooms. Finally, she opened the door.
  
  
  She closed it behind her and looked around. It was a small white room. There were several sinks, a small refrigerator, and a double stove with a kettle. Glass display cases lined the walls. They had all kinds of tea in one all over the place. green tea. chamomile. Lapsang Souchong. A collection of pink and white flowered teacups sat neatly on the top shelf. Just like the bowl the boy brought to ay. In another display case, on the other side of the room, sat a collection of brown bottles. Each contained some sort of granular powder. The labels simply said "A", " B " or "H". Another set of bottles contained liquid, and on the bottom shelf were hypodermic needles.
  
  
  The window was locked.
  
  
  There was a used needle in the sink. Tara raised her ego. There were still a few drops of liquid left in the nen. She carefully injected the ego into an empty ampoule beside her. She sniffed the vial. The scientific computer in the back of her mind ran through several thousand punch cards and gave out rheumatism in less than a second. She put the ampoule in her bag and went to the door.
  
  
  Voices rang out in the corridor.
  
  
  She froze.
  
  
  "So, Miss Alice. Don't worry. It was a man's voice. With a high nasal Asian accent. He spoke as if he were talking to a child. Emphasis on each syllable separately. "Also, there's no dislike, remember?"
  
  
  Alice answered vaguely. 'Yes. I know her. Evil has existed since... but sometimes I wonder...
  
  
  "Don't be surprised, Miss Alice. Trust me. Your father trusted me, too. Still...
  
  
  Do you remember what he said to you yesterday?
  
  
  Alice sighed. Yes, Jan. I trust you.'
  
  
  "All right," he said. "So you remember what to do?"
  
  
  "Nothing," she said in a low voice.
  
  
  'Nothing like that. Exactly.'Then there was a short break." Well, then why don't you go upstairs and do it?"
  
  
  Perhaps she nodded in rheumatism. Web took a couple of steps up the stairs. The other couple took only a few steps. A hand knocked on the door. The door opened. In the background, the drunk lady was still talking. "Oh, dear, dear Robert." In some sad song.
  
  
  'Well? The man said.
  
  
  The emu was answered by a woman with a sharp voice. "As you gave majestic looks to the stars. Tomorrow at the latest.
  
  
  "Try to get it today. We may need it tomorrow."
  
  
  'Good. Then leave me alone.
  
  
  The door closed, and men's shaggy voices echoed down the stairs.
  
  
  Tara waited until the hallway was quiet again. She hurried back to her chair in the waiting room. She looked at the iced tea she'd left untouched. She sniffed it. It was tea.
  
  
  She picked up the magazine. The door opened.
  
  
  The woman was wearing a black kimono. It covered a large body with significant bulges. Nah had a short, masculine haircut and a stern face. She spoke in a measured, husky voice.
  
  
  My name is Sonny. An error has occurred. I can't see you today. Can you come back tomorrow?" It was more like an order. Tomorrow at two o'clock. She bowed her head briefly, not allowing her eyes to participate. They glided mimmo Tara like black spotlights.
  
  
  Tara stood up. 'But...'
  
  
  At two o'clock.'As Tara was coming down the stairs, she called out to her. "Your aunt will be there, then."
  
  
  Tara stopped recording and turned to me. "Is Louisa Rigg going to see her Aunt Myrtle?" Tomorrow in the same wave, and you'll hear it all."
  
  
  She was very pleased with herself. She was seething with excitement. It was Hansje Brinker, who had found a hole in the dam and now stuck his thumb in it to save the country from a gigantic catastrophe. She was so damn happy that I really didn't want to tell her that she didn't know anything at all. Only photos can have some value. Roscoe picked up the development film. The next morning we get rheumatism.
  
  
  "I wish you could have a picture of what the ego's name is again — the one who talked to Alice."
  
  
  "Yana?"
  
  
  Yes. The ego voice sounds like the voice of a famous agent KANG.
  
  
  Tara's eyes widened. — You mean the rest of the people aren't involved?" And that narcologist? So it's not exactly what I'd call childish innocent fun.
  
  
  Not quite."Her smiled.
  
  
  What was in that syringe? A pentothal?
  
  
  She lowered her mouth. — How did you know?" I left it for last.
  
  
  I smiled at her. "Listen, my dear. According to the twelve tricks they have for cheating rich bitches, they have eleven in there. Sodium pentothal is a truth serum, isn't it? So, they give these ladies a good chance by giving ih this tea beforehand, and the ladies tell them everything they want to know. All sorts of details about the departed lover. Then, word for word, the mediums repeat it afterwards. It turns out a very convincing performance. These ladies don't remember what they said before. These ladies are dumbfounded. Both grateful and generous.
  
  
  Tara's mouth formed a silent "O".
  
  
  "It has a number of other advantages. If this truth is incriminating, there is always the possibility of blackmail. And if there's enough money involved, the ghost tells you what to do with it. Whatever it is for us — charity, promotions, a Swiss bank account — you can be sure that they are raking in the money. Tara looked confused. "But what does this have to do with KANG?"
  
  
  'Nothing like that. That's right. I think it's all Nassau again. The Featherstones were engaged in fraud, KAHN found out about it and blackmailed ih. Probably the same as with Bangel. It suddenly occurred to me that Bungel and the Featherstones had something else in common: they were both drug dealers.
  
  
  Her said hey,:
  
  
  "So KAN could have taken the same path to get inside. Have threatened to discontinue ih coasters if they don't receive a portion of the revenue plus a few services. Services like maybe housing clones.
  
  
  She shook her head. 'Charming.'
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. 'Charming. Safely. But keep your wits to yourself.
  
  
  This way we won't get any closer to the PBX headquarters. Besides, we're not here to solve the mysteries of society. Our task: iht.
  
  
  She shivered a little. — That's a milder word than murder, isn't it?"
  
  
  Her, looked at nah. She was sitting on a silk chair in the bedroom, her legs tucked under her. She was wearing a pale pink suit, and she looked pink and white and smooth as silk. Like one of the girls around them who turn a blind eye to a Sam Peckinpah movie. Like one of those girls who cry in Fove Story.
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "At the risk of sounding trivial... but what does a girl like you really do in a job like this?"
  
  
  The corkscrew bothered her. She studied her fingernails. Long. It's like she's never seen ih before. -"Well," she said at last, " that's it... It's a long story. Some time ago... Uh, I met her... a man.
  
  
  A long time ago. It was passed among all candidates, as the best, and then, for... this man... I went to the AH... We - well, never mind. This was during Johnson's time, when the Vietnam War was once again at its peak. Well, I ... signed it. She tilted her head back and smiled cheerfully at me. "I also thought it would be very exciting and romantic to work with people like James Bond every day."
  
  
  "Don't forget to mention Nick Carter?"
  
  
  Ah, " she said. "I'm not brave enough to dream about it."
  
  
  He walked across the room and sat down next to her. He took her chin in his hands.
  
  
  Listen, " I said. "We will bring to life a few more will meet your wishes."
  
  
  Hmm. ' She glared at me. — How do you know what I'm dreaming about?"
  
  
  All right, " I said. "Let me guess. Her, closed his eyes. "You want to float freely in the air and make love there."
  
  
  Mmmm... She looked thoughtful. 'Interesting. But maybe it's too windy.
  
  
  Then it's all right. What about... how about a museum? There they have a bed of the sixteenth century-according to the old tavern. We could slip behind the velvet curtains and scratch those names on the headboard when we're done.
  
  
  I love it, " she said. "But the museum doesn't open until ten in the morning." She looked at me. — Do you agree with my idea?"
  
  
  Her father agreed.
  
  
  In a bubble bath.
  
  
  In a bubble bath?
  
  
  "In a bubble bath."
  
  
  Listen, I can recommend it. Considering the bubbles and all that goes with it, it's neat, clean sex. You just should never try it in such a case. At least if you're my size.
  
  
  She dried me out. With a large, soft warm towel.
  
  
  "I want to ask you what's what," I said.
  
  
  About what?'
  
  
  She did some interesting things with this towel.
  
  
  "Never mind," I said.
  
  
  With the right girl in the world, too, not everything is so bad. You also don't need to dress up to set your alarm for the right time. Not with two people who like each other, and different sex. The problem is that it never lasts long enough. Difficulties return.
  
  
  He took her hand, stepped aside, and lit a cigarette. "She's supposed to ask you.".. "I blew out a smoke ring. "Is there a Chinese word like 'oh, tove, wow'?"
  
  
  She ran a finger through the hair on my chest. Do you want to change the subject, dear? Or do you want to try playing that bath scene in Chinese?
  
  
  It was explained by Alice Featherstone's singing. Tara frowned. "Ah, the rope, wow?" She shrugged and thought for a moment. "Ha. Wait a second. You said it was a song. He nodded to her.
  
  
  She got up from the bed. 'Don't go away. She grabbed her dress and went into the living room. I heard the tape recorder working again.
  
  
  She came back smiling. Nah had those words. "I get it," she said proudly. "The Tao".
  
  
  "The Dao? How is the Tao of He of the ancient Chinese religion?
  
  
  She nodded. Ih Evening prayers are a constant chant: "O Tao! O Tao! Chances are it sounds like " Oh, tauwe, wow." If only you knew what you were listening to.
  
  
  She flopped back on the bed and curled up in a ball, wrapping her arms around her knees. She was quite confident. Of course, the best explanation the ferret had come up with so far was the rather dubious theory that Alice was obsessed with ropes and wagging all the time.
  
  
  Tara beamed. "Oh, Nick. Perfect. Everything is real. They are Featherstones who live like hermits-Taoist ascetics. As for talking to the dead. Taoist mystics. And they were cursing Miss Mabel, saying that the Taoists were fanatics. And also. She paused like a Boltini when announcing the Flying Wallands. And Alice, who is engaged incessantly repeats that the evil one is pure. Oops. ' She hit the bed. "Well, supposedly this branch that tells you that death and life are one and the same. These are both Taoist ideas. The way they see it, it's all the same. Good and evil, death and life. They all become one again in the great Unity of the Tao."
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "It means about the same as the Great Electric Chopper in Heaven."
  
  
  She sighed and grimaced. "A typical philosophical idea. But not bad.
  
  
  Her leg was bent. 'Next?'
  
  
  "well... because they think the evil one doesn't exist, they don't do anything to stop the ego. Do nothing, and everything will be as it is forever. This is ih's great motto.
  
  
  'Mm-hmm.' this may be true for Alice. but not for the PBX, CANNES isn't exactly doing nothing right now."
  
  
  Mmmmm. I don't know. People interpret religious doctrines in strange ways. Just look at the Inquisition. Or those endless wars for the Holy Grail. It wouldn't have ruled out a possible connection.
  
  
  He thought about consistency and rejected the possibility. Politics is the web religion in these parts. And if someone writes the evening prayer, it is more like "O Mao" than "O Tao".
  
  
  The thing is, "she continued," I can get Alice to talk. If she really is a Daoist, she won't beat around the bush. Maybe she can tell me a lot about what's going on in that house. In fact, it can give you all the answers.
  
  
  He ran his hands wearily over his eyes. "I hope we don't have to be stingy about this, but you're not going back to that house."
  
  
  It got that green-eyed look from nah.
  
  
  We would spend a lot of words on this.
  
  
  And why not?'
  
  
  This is because as soon as they see you, they'll pump you full of pentothal and you'll tell them everything . Use your wits, Tara. It's very dangerous there. We don't even know how dangerous it is until we identify these photos. So stay away from them. You did your part. Roscoe and I will continue to investigate, Alice.
  
  
  And how are you going to do that if she never comes out?
  
  
  Well... then we can get inside forever.
  
  
  She got out of bed and began to pace angrily around the room. But this is so stupid. And you lose so much time because of it. Also, it's even more dangerous for you. I already have a pass to enter. Tomorrow. At two o'clock.'
  
  
  She was right. I made a mistake that I've never made before. I made an emotional decision. More than anything, her desire was to protect her. And that was wrong. Emotions are unacceptable in my work. You leave ih for a day as soon as you start.
  
  
  Her, agreed that she would go. Under two conditions.
  
  
  First: so that we can deal with the photos first. If this place was a real stronghold for KANNA's agents, she wouldn't have gone there. She agreed.
  
  
  Second, Roscoe and I would wait for ee in a macrobiotic restaurant across the street and keep in touch with her through a microphone. If we heard something like a password, we could come to the rescue.
  
  
  She agreed. By the way, with some surprise. "Well, Nick, I can't imagine what would have happened otherwise. It's not that I'm afraid of her, "she said," it's just that I... "she thought, for a moment —" I'm afraid."
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 15
  
  
  
  
  It's been a shitty day. I cut myself shaving. Tara dropped the mirror. The coffee was too weak. And it started to rain. That was the good part.
  
  
  Before eleven o'clock, Tara left the house. She had to put on her makeup and dress in time to get to Featherstone early. She hoped to slip up the stairs through the conveniently located waiting room on the second floor to meet Alice Featherstone.
  
  
  My phone call to Mace at 11 o'clock was another blow. "Sorry guys," the band members said — " still no action."
  
  
  She got a call from the Lightfoot tea shop and was told that my order wouldn't be ready until noon. They didn't have couriers.
  
  
  "Can't I get an ego?" They said yes. It was a complex order.
  
  
  This meant that the photos that Tara took at The Featherstone's were not so easy to identify. They were supposed to send ih to Washington. Probably. Either way, I'll get her rheumatism at noon. There's still plenty of time to contact Tara at the theater if the need arises. He left through the apartments and walked down the streets. Roscoe met her at the macrobiotic restaurant at one o'clock in the afternoon. I decided to get something to eat first.
  
  
  At ten minutes to twelve, she was in Lightfoot's tea shop. A small dirty pressure medium and small shop on the ground floor of a ramshackle building somewhere in Soho. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves filled with huge cans of tea. The windows facing the street were also filled with stacks of tea.
  
  
  A scruffy-looking man in a worn brown apron was standing behind the counter. He looked at my papers and nodded. He took the jar from the shelf and set it on the counter. He began wrapping the ego in brown wrapping paper.
  
  
  "I, uh ... would like to use ego here," I said.
  
  
  He shook his head. "The store is hardly suitable for this, is it?"
  
  
  — Maybe upstairs?"
  
  
  He looked at me suspiciously. "I don't know," he said. — I have to check it out." He went to the cash register and pressed N-3. After a few moments, the phone rang twice and then went silent. "All right," she said. She pressed a button under the counter and a small section of the back wall slid open.
  
  
  The opening gave me access to a narrow staircase leading to the local AH headquarters. The stairs led up to a small, untidy reception area. Two orange plastic chairs, a chair filled with numbers from the Barents Sea Tearooms, and a large, battered desk chair. A dark-haired beauty sat at the table, chewing gum. She looked at me curiously, stopped chewing, and crossed her legs to the other side. To the right of them was another door. The holy of holies. He looked at his watch. It was twelve o'clock. He put both hands on the chair and leaned forward slightly. "I want to talk to Dolores," I said.
  
  
  She put on a completely expressionless face. Her ID flashed up. Her eyes finally showed some understanding, and she nodded. "You don't know anything for sure in this tea shop," she said. "Do you need Dolores or your message?"
  
  
  "A message," I said. She pressed a few buttons on her phone as he started unpacking the tea jar. She handed me the phone. There was a taped message from Roscoe. "I'll see you at one o'clock in the afternoon." Then Mays again: "Sorry guys, no action."
  
  
  He opened the jar and sat down on a chair. Each photo was neatly attached to a computer card. Dear Zhirinovsky Ladies Mrs. Hodgson and Frogg were recognized as such. Featherstone's secretary was instrumental in the dismissal of Agnes Corona, a former secretary of Scotland Yard, because some of the documents Nah had were stolen from there. No evidence of her involvement was ever found. "Negligence" was the reason for her resignation. However, she was under suspicion. The boy who brought Tara tea and ushered her into the waiting room was Pam Horse, a young terrorist who specializes in psychological warfare. Especially good in psychotropic drugs. He was the chief investigator of the KAN. Somewhere in Asia, they lost their ego in appearance. Thanks to the photo of Tara AH updated the ego data in the archive. Last but not least, there was Sun Ping. M-2. A second-class assassin. Starting second grade didn't mean she was bad. It didn't mean anything other than that she was a killer. And all of them are feminists who are now angry at men, send your complaints to Mao Tse tung. Sun Ping was an evil aunt. According to the computer map, she was an expert in the intricacies of physical torture.
  
  
  I jumped to the phone and called the theater.
  
  
  Tara was already gone.
  
  
  I hit her on the phone so hard that the chair shook, and told her I wanted Dolores. "Dolores personally. And fast! The receptionist sped up her chewing to four or four times and pressed a few buttons. The door to Nah's right opened a crack. "You won't miss Dolores," she said. This is a web-based dashboard model.
  
  
  The girl at the switchboard was a tall, baggy man with gray hair, a long-dead shirt, and a haggard face.
  
  
  I told her. "Dolores?"
  
  
  He sighed.
  
  
  "Look," he said, and lifted his ear off a pair of earphones.
  
  
  "Her Carter," I said.
  
  
  'Oi.' He looked a little straighter.
  
  
  I told em to give Roscoe an urgent message. Plans have changed. We were supposed to intercept Tara before she entered the lion's den. I'll go back to the apartment in case she comes. Now he was heading to a macrobiotic restaurant. If I couldn't meet her, I'd meet him there at one-thirty.
  
  
  I took a taxi back to my apartment in record time. Tara wasn't there. All I could do was wait. If she wasn't in the theater or here, she could be anywhere. And London is a big city. There was no real reason to panic. Before Roscoe saw her, I had every reason to warn her in time. Even if it was at the very last moment. However, her father felt a little uneasy. He continued to walk around the empty apartment. The rain pattered nervously against the windows. There was a faint hum of jazz from the next street. I could hear cars groaning from the street itself. Somewhere high above me, a plane flew by. The cat blew. The clock was ticking.
  
  
  Her hotel should be demolished. Definitely a watch. Maybe to stop time. Or maybe it was because they weren't making the right sound for her to hear. The sound of Tara coming through the door. A whole, terrible time, if nothing happens, it all threatens to happen at once and not like that.
  
  
  At one o'clock in the afternoon, her number dials. Her got rheumatism Roscoe on my message. Then three rings and Mace's band: Sonny, guys. Still no action.
  
  
  I hung up on her. He rubbed his eyes and rubbed his neck. It stung again. He stopped rubbing it. What did my radar warn me about? Her, looked at the wall. Then to the phone. He picks up the phone and dials the number again.
  
  
  ROSCOE: Shut up. Nicky. We'll find her.
  
  
  Bi-I, bi-I, bi-I. Irina: Sorry, guys. Still no action.
  
  
  He held the phone slightly away from his ear.
  
  
  These were the very words that Mays used twice!
  
  
  Every hour he gave a new message. Of course, he might not have been able to come up with anything more, but it didn't hurt to repeat it anyway. Every hour for the past few days, he'd come back with some strange report or news item about what was being eaten in the village. And if he couldn't think of anything at all, Matt would come up with it anyway.
  
  
  He put the phone back to his ear... I listened to her carefully. "Sorry guys. Still no action. Yes! Vote it! In ego-there was a faint growl in the last words. The plane that flew by. This sound was there before. There was something crooked there.
  
  
  Dolores called her. He confirmed to me that the same message had been there for three hours. No, he said, he didn't find it suspicious. He only thought that Mace was trying to make a joke by using the same message over and over again.
  
  
  He told Emu about the plane. He was silent for a moment. "Almighty God.'he said. 'You're right.'
  
  
  I didn't have Mace anymore. Hers was somewhere between anger and panic. Anger that I'd gotten so caught up in Tara's safety that I'd lost track of ih's true intentions and hadn't known about Mace's message sooner. All of our hopes for "constellation today's case" were based on Chen-Li Brown's after-show, after-show, which was to lead to the cloning lab and to Lao Tseng. If he has already made a move, all hope is lost. We will never find this PBX socket. We would never have been able to stop ih. God will punish me for this bitch who just got under my skin.
  
  
  "All right," Dolores told her. "The intention is as follows. I need a helicopter that can take me there. Give Roscoe some extra help...
  
  
  — Are you kidding?" he interrupted me. "The London office is not that big. We simply don't have any additional help — at least not the kind you need.
  
  
  "By helicopter?"
  
  
  "It's still going on."
  
  
  'Good. Then tell Roscoe to shell Odin. And for God's sake, tell Em to be careful!
  
  
  'Listen up. I wouldn't worry about Roscoe if I were you. Sometimes he can be a little pedantic, but not when his own ego is at stake. He loves life too much.
  
  
  Her sighed. " Let's hope so."
  
  
  The helicopter was supposed to pick me up at half past one in Hyde Park. Anyone would be surprised, but it's none of my business. Either way, they'll be talking about it for a few days. Wilhelmina cleaned it and reloaded the battery. He slid the stiletto back into its scabbard and inserted another gas bomb. Lucky Pierre, so sincere in the middle.
  
  
  I put on my raincoat and went out into the rain.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 16
  
  
  
  
  Roscoe glanced at his watch. It was five minutes to two. Tara said she was going to Featherstone's at one-thirty.
  
  
  He didn't want to appear too suspicious by running around the restaurant like a madman. So he paid, got a newspaper, and went to read it in the entrance hall. The rain began to fall harder. So the person reading in the entrance will not stand out. He was probably thinking about his forgotten umbrella.
  
  
  He must have seen Tara when she came around the corner across the road. She didn't see him. Nah had an umbrella, and it provided the necessary blinders to limit her view.
  
  
  Roscoe approached her from his side of the street. Passed the grocer's mimmo. Besides the shoemaker. Mimmo Lane. He probably hadn't taken his eyes off Tara, so he hadn't noticed the man. It could have been two men. They came up to him. He probably wasn't warned by the fact that the man didn't use such a good black rain umbrella. And so far, the ferret had kept his ego folded in his hand.
  
  
  At least, this was the case, as we later imagined it.
  
  
  Licks by the evening we found Roscoe's body. He was in an alley. Ego's hands were still clinging to the big black umbrella, the razor-sharp tip of which had sunk into the emu's folding dollar.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 17
  
  
  
  
  The helicopter landed in a swampy field, about a kilometer from the house. A big Fiat 130 was waiting for me. The driver handed me the keys, pointed me in the right direction, and sat down next to me. Next to my driver's seat. Then we all went our separate ways.
  
  
  The rain had stopped, and the landscape shone an unreal yellow-green. One of these flowers from Constable's paintings. It was one around fabulous landscapes with cottages and hotels from the time of Richard the Lion's Dollar stack. Her, I felt my blood boil at this universal challenge. Willingly. The Crusade. Her sel is in your big Fiat to kill dragons. My pistol and stiletto were the new Excalibur. He was part of history and made history. I could already hear the horns greeting my arrival. Her, the all-conquering hero.
  
  
  Oh my god. But: finally::
  
  
  He parked the car behind a grove of trees and continued through the small bushes to the back of the estate. It was a shelter they rented for themselves. A house with a thatched roof that exudes a strange atmosphere. It was very quiet.
  
  
  It's too quiet.
  
  
  He looked around. Next to the main house were two small houses, equally strange. The nearest one was about twenty yards from the main building. Both were boarded up. I wonder what kind of software Mace used. He was pretty sure he wasn't using it anymore.
  
  
  He moved from one tree to another and reached the second house. She also got a view of the driveway. My luck was too good to be true. There was a car there.
  
  
  It was an old American station wagon. These old 1952 Chevy pseudo-wood cars. The roof rack was stick luggage. And fishing gear.
  
  
  Wherever they went, they didn't go fishing. But they were going somewhere, and he arrived just in time.
  
  
  I got to another house. The door was locked. He looked inside through one of the stained-glass windows. He reached for the window. It opened. Maybe too easily. Wilhelmina prepared it and went inside.
  
  
  If it was someone other than Mace, I'd be in trouble. Those old floorboards gave me away at the slightest movement. They creaked under my entrance. But if someone was there, they were silent.
  
  
  Its kept going. There were only two rooms on the lower floor, and they seemed empty, very empty. The fireplace was hung with copper pots and a clean but burnt grate.
  
  
  He went up the stairs.
  
  
  Bathroom.
  
  
  It was an ego spot in the domk. Mace's tape recorder was still on the bed. The powerful binoculars were still stuck around the window. The bed was a tangle of sheets. Mace and Pearson took turns sleeping here. There was a single display of tin cans in the corner. The faint smell of fish still lingered in the air.
  
  
  There were no signs of a struggle.
  
  
  What good news this might mean. Something forced ih to step away from his post. But that didn't necessarily mean they were dead.
  
  
  I looked through my binoculars. Chen-li saw her in the house. He was talking to two men. IH legs could see her, but ih faces couldn't be seen. I used my voice recorder to send a message to Dolores. This thing was in wireless contact with He beauty in the tea shop. Then he went back down and climbed out of the window.
  
  
  Drizzly weather. Her, felt awkward. I thought it was the weather. But then again, her, thought this might be a warning.
  
  
  He headed for the second house. The one that was closest to the main building. The boards that had been hammered into the door were ripped out. Wilhelmina squeezed it and opened the door.
  
  
  What I saw there made my stomach clench.
  
  
  There was blood everywhere. The old wooden floor was soaked with it and painted the obscene color of death. It froze between the seams of the floorboards. The white cotton furniture was smeared with dirt. AX's wristwatch lay crushed. The .38-caliber pistol from the AX was covered in blood on a floured chair. And the axe, painted red, lay next to the fireplace.
  
  
  Fireplace.
  
  
  It was still burning. Still gave heat. There was a pile of warm ash on the grate. In the corner, next to the fire, lay... arm. I heard a very strange noise, and then I realized I was adding my own vomit to the mess.
  
  
  I went to the kitchen and turned on the tap, then splashed cold water on my face and stuck my wrist under the tap. My ears prickled. The tap turned it off. I thought I heard something. Wooden floor creaking.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 18
  
  
  
  
  Tara told me later, but I can tell you now. In the correct order.
  
  
  She didn't see Roscoe. But she didn't look back, either. She knew he was there. Together with me. In the restaurant. She entered Featherstone's Office as planned at 2:30 p.m. Around her neck, Nah wore a string of pearls that could transmit any conversation within five meters of Nah to a phone across the street. In her bag, Nah had the same tape recorder that she had used the day before.
  
  
  Tara felt fine.
  
  
  The receptionist noticed, a little irritated, that Tara was too early. Pam quickly escorted her to the same second-floor waiting room as the day before and offered hey, another cup of tea. She left it to study the same magazines.
  
  
  This time, Tara took a cup of tea. It smelled pleasantly of cinnamon. She dipped her finger in the liquid and licked it off. My girl got an A in chemistry for a reason. "The tea," she whispered to pearls and Sonny, " is filled with methaqualone." She counted about five hundred milligrams. This medicine gives you what they call " well-prepared." On the one hand, a feeling of drowsiness, on the other a feeling of elation. As for the strike itself, it can kill you in two ways. The drug itself, or the absence of this drug. Withdrawal symptoms are similar to those of epilepsy — a few days of seizures that can end in complete collapse: death. These people here knew what they were doing. That five hundred milligrams was enough to blow your head off. At least enough to make you think your Aunt Myrtle has risen around the dead.
  
  
  Tara poured the contents of the cup into one of those potted liangs. If this vine wasn't properly rooted in the ground, it would surely come off.
  
  
  She tiptoed out into the corridor again, and once again there was no one to stop her. She went up the stairs to the top floor. Two doors led to rooms at the front of the building. The one around these rooms belonged to Alice. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the window her father had pointed out. I'm standing in front of the house, it was to the right of nah. So it should be the door on the left.
  
  
  She knocked on the door.
  
  
  Alice's voice is absurdly bad: "Come in."
  
  
  Alice Featherstone was lying on the bed in her blue silk pajamas, hidden between five printed silk pillows. Alice Featherstone didn't look too healthy. Tiny beads of tin stood out on Nah's forehead, and she fanned herself with an oriental fan. Her white, highlighted hair lay wet on the back of her head, and the pupils of her eyes were pinpricked. She reminded Tara of the scruffy queen from Alice in Wonderland.
  
  
  Alice Featherstone was loaded with drugs. And it made Tara's job much easier. Hey, there was no need to worry about a logical-sounding excuse at all. Alice was far from logical, at the moment. She was somewhere in the border zone, where the only sentence is nonsense, and logic creates confusion.
  
  
  She started to speak in a low voice. For some reason, she thought Hey was six years old and Tara was her mother. Indeed, there are drugs that can make you think that way. Hashish is already capable of a lot of things, but they, things that you swallow, sniff or inject, only finish the job well. But perhaps it was just a camouflage "Tell your mother" ringing the bell. In any case, Tara kept up and played the Mother.
  
  
  Mother must know all about Ian. My mother didn't trust me as much as my father did. Alice said she didn't do it herself.
  
  
  Yang was an ardent Taoist. But Jan had changed. Alice didn't know why. She just felt that way. Alice loved to feel. Nah also had a nice-to-touch teddy mouse. Didn't Mo want to see it?
  
  
  Later, she said wearily. What about this Ian?
  
  
  Well, about five years ago, on the posthumous advice of the pope, Jan took over the management. Everything was going well until two years ago. Then he fired all those old staff and appointed new staff. They are also Taoists, he said. But still... Alice didn't like them very much. Not new ones, of course. Pam The Horse, Contact. And then the quads.
  
  
  Quads?
  
  
  These four guys who all look alike. During the IHC, only one around them went hunting. No, he couldn't. Not hunting, he was teasing her... Alice began to cry. Perhaps he was going to tease her.
  
  
  Tara said her mother would protect her. Alice stopped crying. She began to sing. Tara looked up and checked her watch. It was five minutes to two. Hey, I had to get back quickly while she was waiting in the waiting room. But what about those quads? Did Alice say anything else?" Alice nodded. She giggled. They have three brothers, and these brothers are triplets. And they look like these quads. It turns out that they are seventies... or not? Alice just kept giggling. Triplets first. Then the foursome... Alice just kept giggling. There were also Chen-li Hong Lo, who were somewhere in Ireland. Or in Iceland. Or somewhere else. And then there was Peng Li, the pilot. Alice waved her hands. He was in America. And then there were, and then there were "— Alice counted on her fingers — " Dopey, Sheezy, and Doe. She giggled. But they passed in a few weeks. They went to America with Pam the Horse. To meet the wizard. No, to meet this Presbyterian. To talk to the press. To go to the dentist. It is prepared. Clean, clean. Well, she didn't remember.
  
  
  Tara thought about it. So they left a few weeks later. To ... the president! It should have been like this. They went to meet them.
  
  
  It was two minutes past two. Tara squeezed Alice's hand. "Are these all the brothers you know?" she asked.
  
  
  'Oi. No,' said Alice. "There are many more. This is a very big family. But the others are far away. Alice stopped humming.
  
  
  "Are you sure?" Tara asked sternly. "You won't go to heaven if you lie."
  
  
  Alice looked sober. "At least that's what Ian says. He says that the others will stay at home for a while and that we should get ih out of there. So when Pam is a Horse and others leave, new ones come in. Oh, honestly, Mom. That's what he said. Alice honestly tried her best.
  
  
  Tara stood up. "Well, my dear," she said. "Now I have to go, and you're a good girl, and" - she tried to think of something motherly to say - " now you eat your cashews obediently, and I'll be with you again soon." Tara closed the door behind her and took a deep breath. "You heard that, honey," she said to her necklace. "There's only one in America right now. And this is the pilot. A helicopter pilot, I think. Or maybe he was killed along with the senators he killed. She paused, then couldn't help adding, " And you didn't want her to come here." ha-ha.
  
  
  She smiled and went down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, on her way up, Pam had Horses and Sonny. They looked angry. Very angry.
  
  
  Pam Kona had a hypodermic needle in her hand.
  
  
  All Tara can say is, " Yes, Nick.'
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 19
  
  
  
  
  If you spend your whole life trying to arm yourself against the day of shit, this day of shit will come.
  
  
  Her gun was placed next to the sink, and the creaking of the floor made me dive for her. Its too late. The knife swept across the room, pinning my hand to the sink like a new butterfly in a collection.
  
  
  "All right, Carter. Turn around slowly."
  
  
  Ih was three. It wasn't the "they" he was expecting. They looked like three local Ivanovs. Super dandy. Ih Swedes and haircuts were ten years younger than ih, and toned muscles did not fit with modern clothes. They came up to me with their guns drawn. The leader is ahead.
  
  
  "Put your hands behind your head," he said.
  
  
  Ego looked her up and down. The only good thing about nen was the ego suit. "She should have raised her hands,"I said," but I have a technical problem." He pointed to the knife still clutched in my hand.
  
  
  He turned to one of his companions. "Giles," he said. Please identify, sir. Giles came over to me and pulled out a knife. My blood was bubbling. Giles searched me. He found the stiletto, but it didn't come close to gas hardness. It's probably not her ego type.
  
  
  Giles smiled. Very confident. "All right, boss. It's clean.
  
  
  "Then you and Robbie take the ego into the house."
  
  
  Giles and Robbie took my hands, and with a couple of pistols pressed to my spine, I was led to the house.
  
  
  There is no doubt about it. They make the best killers around these days. Bangel, Lin Jing, and now these steamboats have really outdone themselves in politeness. Vin Vo was something else. When I joined him in the room, he gave me a murderous look and snapped at the bastard: "Plant an ego." They pushed me into a chair. Each of them took my shoulder and pressed it: his seat. Wing nodded. The main villain is also sel. Hers was in another wood-paneled library. Only it wasn't as big as the one in Nassau. And the windows were open. Besides, Chen-li wasn't here either.
  
  
  Wing walked across the room, three-fingered fingers twirling his cigarette like a moving mountain. It reminded her of happier times. "We're very tired of you, Carter," he said at last. Ego's voice was high and icy. — Besides, you were always stupid.
  
  
  I wasn't going to answer that honestly. All I did was raise an eyebrow. Besides, no elephant could stop him from telling me that I was stupid.
  
  
  "You thought your friends in that little house were watching us so you could finally catch us." He smiled. Either way, he pursed his lips. "On the dell itself... it was just the opposite. We had our eye on meet your friends and we knew it would lead us to you. At least we were prepared for your visit.
  
  
  He was right. He was stupid. Her fell into the ih trap with her eyes open. But on the other hand, the AH knew where she was. And Vinh Po would know better if they knew that... He stood up on the chair. He opened the drawer. "In case you think your friends will help you..." he held out a small audio tape. — We've asked your agent, Mace, to make a final report. "Kostya, he made three. We haven't found a recurring message that will lure others here — as it has lured you. He put the tape in a small portable recorder. "By the time the third message starts repeating, we won't be here anymore." He turned back to me. "I thought you might be interested to hear the official dedication of what happened here today."
  
  
  He pressed a button, and Mace began his postmortem report.
  
  
  "Sorry, I went fishing. Don't eat food. Spoiled porridge tastes even better. Quickly tasted, quickly saddened. Ah.'
  
  
  For a moment, I thought Mace had made a mistake, but I quickly prayed that he would forgive me, no matter where he was in the fog at the moment.
  
  
  Mace didn't lose his way. Well.
  
  
  The usual closure is a "message thread".
  
  
  "In the program" means that the message is in the hall in the code. Simple code for fast message transmission. Along with the first letter, you should always take the next fourth word. I counted it out. Mace's message to us was: "I'm sorry. The Eda is corrupted. Quickly!'
  
  
  Reinforcements will arrive just as the band is playing. Kindergarten or not. He could expect help within the hour.
  
  
  The wing turned to the main villain. "Cornelius, "he said," now insert this tape."
  
  
  Cornelius took the tape and went out through the rooms.
  
  
  "Now, Carter... Now that you've helped us so much, I'll do you a favor... Get Chen-li, " he said to Giles.
  
  
  Giles was gone. 'Good. What do you really want to know about us?
  
  
  He went through his entire arsenal of grimaces and giggles before he found rheumatism. — You want to know where the headquarters are from, don't you?" And now — "he said, as Giles and Chen-li entered the room," that's where we're going to take you."
  
  
  He looked at Chen-li.
  
  
  What I found least appealing about nen were the hypodermic needles in the ego arm.
  
  
  I didn't have time to try anything, so I made another unsuccessful attempt at the emu's throat, but Robbie and Giles beat me to it. I was thrown back into my chair. A blow to my jaw that seemed to knock out all the fillings around my teeth. Vin came over and hit me. It all happened very quickly. Giles and Robbie were holding me down. Chen-li rolled up my sleeve. There was nothing the tailor could do about it. In one swift movement, the needle disappeared into my hand.
  
  
  They held me like that for a few minutes. Seconds passed, maybe. Or a watch. I don't know her anymore. Cornelius came back and said that he had broken the tape in the cassette. He said he was sorry. Vin Wo swore and wanted glue to fix her. He turned to Cornelius and said, " Dog puppy. Asshole.'And then ego's face turned red. Red rose. The petals opened, and one by one they fell to the floor. He loves me, he doesn't love me...
  
  
  "Capulets," said Giles. He was laughing. A fat water beetle crawled out of the rta. Ego tried to push her away with his hand. Stay as reasonable as possible.
  
  
  It was a lost game.
  
  
  My mouth went dry. He tried to get up. But he didn't seem to know how to do it anymore. He looked down at his ballet slippers. Due to incorrect both ends of the binoculars. They were far away. But the buckles. They were beautiful. They were gold. They glowed.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 20
  
  
  
  
  The next period was a constant nightmare. I don't remember how many hours or days it lasted. There was no longer any difference between no time and night, between sleeping and waking. In your dreams, you are sometimes chased by monsters. Whole crowds are laughing at you. The sidewalks crack and vomit. But then you open your eyes, shake your head, and see your familiar bed leg again, the curtains drawn, the shirt you threw on the floor last night. You measure your sanity on your own terms, by the soothing contrast of reality.
  
  
  Only reality didn't exist for me.
  
  
  When I opened her eyes, I saw her other monsters. Laughing mirror faces. Kaleidoscopic views. A changing, wide, slow-moving universe of merging shapes and changing colors. Mythical creatures and impossible events. In my dreams, Tara kept coming back. Her hair is green. Her eyes are wild. Once she squeezed my hand until it bled. He'd held her in his arms once, and she'd cried for ages.
  
  
  Slowly the dreams passed. It became less scary. My target turned into a single white blank screen. Without images. No thoughts. One day I opened her eyes and thought "airplane". Hers was on the plane. Trying to hook that word with my perception sends me back into a deep, restless sleep.
  
  
  Hers was in the car. He was looking out the car window. He closed his eyes again.
  
  
  When I looked at it again, the view was the same. The sky was still blue. The grass was still green. The bus outside didn't change shape or color. There were several letters on the back. But I couldn't see what it was. It was nonsense, it was hieroglyphs. He shuddered. Whatever they did to us, whatever drugs they gave us, I couldn't read!
  
  
  Then he looked in the other direction and cautiously, with half-open eyes, looked around the car. I was handcuffed to someone on my right. I felt it. But hers wasn't going to look in the ego's direction just yet. I didn't send her to the hotel so they'd know I was already awake.
  
  
  The car was a limousine. The front seat was hidden from view by a heavy gray curtain. There was no us, no sound but the sound of the engine and the sound of the road. The one sitting next to me wasn't a talker. He slowly tilted his head to the right and looked at his group with narrowed eyes. I didn't need to be so careful at all. He was asleep. A thin, wiry man. Vietnamese, I think. A doctor or assistant in a white hospital gown. No. It's probably just another CANNES agent dressed up to play doctor.
  
  
  Her tried the door. Closed. For estestvenno.
  
  
  He looked out the window again. The bus was still ahead of us. He could still read it, but what was written on that bus was illegible. It was written in Oriental letters.
  
  
  We thundered over the bridge. Other vehicles on the road were carts and bicycles. There was only one other car. Another limo. He rode behind us.
  
  
  He looked out again. I do not know how long I looked. The next thing I saw was a city street. Noisy trams, people on bicycles. Bullock carts and people in green uniforms and straw hats everywhere. Her gaze mimmo her sleeping guard through the window to his right. I saw her at the Moscow Gate." Everything is behind this gate. How could I have known him? Something came back. He looked out his own window again. Opposite the hotel, on the roof of the building, I saw what I wanted. Huge color portrait of Ho Chi Minh City with an area of 40 square meters.
  
  
  Only the building belonged to the Vietnamese state bank. The city was in Hanoi. Vin Vo took me to Hanoi.
  
  
  He looked around with renewed interest. I haven't seen her in Hanoi in eight years. A few buildings spoke of war, but the damage wasn't so great.
  
  
  Hanoi is a beautiful city.
  
  
  A city of long, shady banners dotted here and there with old French colonial mansions. Buddhist monuments, Chinese temples. The red river is clear and clear, and junks on its banks roll lazily along the blue one. Surprisingly, there are no anti-American slogans on billboards. No signs of hatred. These people don't hate.
  
  
  This is a wrong attitude to war. You hate, and then immediately think that others hate you. One thing to think about. But in the first place, he couldn't think straight. Second, her agent AX. It's not that they don't think. But ih is being prepared for war.
  
  
  On a side road, another limo pulled up to Lick. Her glimpse went inside. There were curtains on the rear window. But up ahead, Chen-li was sitting next to the driver. Chen-li saw me and saw that I was awake. He nudged the driver, who honked his horn.
  
  
  My doctor woke up. She gave him a dazed, startled look at what it should have been like these past few days. "Rugby," I said. "Nice ball..."
  
  
  He was laughing. "It doesn't make any sense. Carter. You haven't taken this medicine in twenty-four hours. The effect is over. You've already overslept everything. And with this H-2, there are absolutely no side effects."
  
  
  He looked at me appraisingly. "Nice try."
  
  
  He was, God knows why, an American. At least he spoke as one around the Americans. But the other one? Or an enemy?
  
  
  "How... how long has it been under sail?"
  
  
  "Ah," he said. "This is classified information. Let's just say... Long enough to get you here. And don't ask me where "here"is.
  
  
  "Hanoi," I said.
  
  
  The ego-friendly expression was gone. Ego's eyes narrowed. He pressed a button and the window behind the front seat rolled down. "Mr. Wing," he said. "Your prisoner is awake."
  
  
  The curtains slid back. A flat Vin face appeared, cut off at the neck by a window frame. He looked like a monstrous puppet. He looked at me and growled.
  
  
  "He seems to think we're in Hanoi."
  
  
  "Ah," Wing said. Then he nodded. "Yes, Hanoi. Will you see it there? He pointed to a cluster of gray buildings. "Li Nam De".
  
  
  I try the French prison. Also known as Hanoi Hilton. The place where our prisoners of war were held.
  
  
  "No doubt you've heard stories about this place," he said. — But you will find that the prison to which we are sending you is very dangerous... completely different. Although I don't see any reason why you should know where he is in the hall. He pressed a button and the curtains closed again, blocking my view.
  
  
  "Dr. Kuoi?" So it was a real doctor. — For a fool our Mr. Carter, not so wouldnt be stupid. Even without a good survey, it is still able to calculate its direction and time. Not that he came back, but I think so... maybe another shot."
  
  
  My hands trembled at the words. She couldn't stop shaking at all. We have a feeling of nausea in my intestines. I couldn't remember the drug itself causing such feelings. But maybe my body did it on its own. Quoy looked at me and smiled again. The ego's sense of superiority has been restored. "Don't worry, Mr. Carter. This shot will just put you to sleep. No, there will be more bad dreams. Nothing dangerous. We want you to be as fresh as chamomile once we get there.
  
  
  I didn't have much choice. Damn Jesus.
  
  
  Another shot.
  
  
  The desert again.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 21
  
  
  
  
  When I woke up, it was dark. I'm lying on something soft. The air was filled with the scent of vitek. There was a faint, soothing hum, a reflex movement, and I looked at my watch. Of course, I didn't have a sentry anymore. They took ih away from me a long time ago. When I was under anesthesia.
  
  
  Its stahl to navigate. Hers lay on the floor on a soft mattress, covered with a cotton sheet. The room was lit up by late twilight, and early stars shone through the air vents. There was a breeze. This brought with it an uproar.
  
  
  It wasn't noise. It was a song. A low, clear mix of hundreds of male voices that came together in a single sentence: "O Tao; o Tao.
  
  
  The room was large. Sparsely furnished, but comfortable. A set of lamps. There were no chairs, but there were piles of pillows on the floor; the floor was covered with woven mats. At the other end of the room was another mattress with another pile of pillows.
  
  
  But no. They weren't pillows. The Containers were there.
  
  
  She didn't move. She was still asleep. Or she was still under the influence of sleeping pills.
  
  
  He got up and went to the other side of the room. I was still shaking. He touched her shoulder. It was real. "Tara?"
  
  
  She groaned, turned, and buried her face in the mattress.
  
  
  "Tara," repeat it. She shook her head wildly. "No, no, please," she said.
  
  
  She shook her shoulder back and forth. "Tara". She opened her eyes. suddenly, suddenly. Wide open. She just looked at me. Our relief, our reactions, our recognition.
  
  
  Her gaze was troubled. Finally, her lips moved. "N-Nick?" she said softly.
  
  
  Whatever they've done to her in the last few days hasn't changed her. It was exactly what I saw last time. The green eyes that scanned me were wide and glittering. There were no black lines on it from the illness she had suffered. Even her freckles were still scattered all over her face.
  
  
  She lifted her face and took my hand, running it slowly down my shoulder, down my neck, and down my cheeks. Like she's trying to convince herself with her fingers. As if she didn't quite trust her eyes yet.
  
  
  "Oh, my God," I said. "Oh, Nick," she said. And we melted into each other until the color disappeared. We kissed, and hundreds of voices finished singing.
  
  
  He pulled away and ran a questioning hand over her face. "Actually, I would be sorry to see you here instead of being happy. How... I shook my head, " how did you get here?" When her finally could think again, her, thought you were safe and sound in London.
  
  
  She leaned back on the mattress and buried her face in her hands, remembering how she'd gotten here. Suddenly she looked at me.
  
  
  "But if you weren't there.".. weren't you there?".. You weren't there.
  
  
  I tried to understand her. "At Featherstone's?" No, it was Roscoe.
  
  
  "Roscoe? No, ego hadn't seen him. But I thought about it... I mean, the last thing I did was call you and... and when you didn't show up, her thought, her thought they'd caught you, too. The kids told me what happened. Nick, I remember her... or, yes. I think I remembered her now, it was also such a shock, but..... I was told then... that there's nothing else you can do for me. That you were ih's prisoner.
  
  
  They must have had some connection between this mansion and Featherstone's house. Maybe the radio. "Well, they were right about that. I told her. "He was an ih prisoner. But not in London. I went to the ih mansion.
  
  
  'In the manor? To Chen-li?
  
  
  "Wait," I said. I checked the room for microphones or other hidden listening devices. There was nothing there. I was told by Hey what happened to me on my last day in London. No one around us knew what had happened to Roscoe. We just knew it couldn't be too good.
  
  
  'And you?'
  
  
  I asked her. — What did they do to you?" She ran her hand through her red angelic hair.
  
  
  "Remember," she said. She touched my face again. "Remember, you warned me not to go there. You said, " They'll pump you full of pentatol, and then you'll tell them Hawke's middle name." You were right about one thing. I didn't know Hawke's middle name. Oh, Nick, I'm so ashamed. She started to cry. Not these big bulging tears full of self-pity, but these sufferings of mental pain.
  
  
  "Hey, calm down," I said softly. "Don't blame yourself now. Now it is a corkscrew of will or power. And what does drugs have to do with it? They take your will. In the hypodermic needle war, there are no heroes at all. You should know what.'
  
  
  She nodded, and crawled up even more hollyhocks. "I know that," she said. — But that doesn't help much. Especially when I was thinking about putting you in danger.
  
  
  Well, you can bear the blame, because the only person who put yourself in danger was her husband. Its got blatantly trapped by Vin and did it completely without your help. And I think if we really look into this, I think it's my fault that you got caught. I should have listened to my thoughts and not let you get any closer to that place on Paris.
  
  
  She smiled. It was the first smile she'd had in a long time, and her lips were still fighting it. "I think," she said, " you should call it fate. She should have listened to your opinion, but she's a damn rebel. To anyone who treats me like a little girl, or at least like a little girl, I want to prove that I am very useful in practice."
  
  
  She was touched by ee sticks. "Too useful," I said.
  
  
  She lowered the sheet that covered the bed slightly.
  
  
  "Do you want to try it and see if you can use it now?"
  
  
  She really wanted to see it.
  
  
  There was a knock on the door.
  
  
  He opened it and two men entered. At one point, I forgot that we were prisoners. The men were dressed in simple cloth clothes. Ih heads were shaved. Ih faces were-I hate to use that word when it comes to Easterners - but ih faces were incomprehensible. Odin was surrounded by a large pitcher of water. They bowed.
  
  
  They didn't say a word to us.
  
  
  The man with the jug walked across the room and poured water into the jug, or at least something that looked like it. Another turned on a dim ceiling light, a frosted pear in a frosted glass ball. It wasn't piercing, really, but it still made us blink.
  
  
  He opened the cabinet. There was our own, the Swedes '— well, mine, the Swedes', and some junk loaned to Tara — but he pulled out the other two suits. A pair of gray silk pajamas. Not the ones you wear on vacation, but the ones you wear to formal events.
  
  
  For Tara, he had a beautiful, silk-embroidered aozai, a traditional Swedish woman's dress.
  
  
  They continued in silence. We had to wash, dress and be ready in half an hour, as, to us, if there is a signal. Ready for what, we didn't know. Pantomime's Ih did not inform us about this.
  
  
  They were monks, " I said when they were gone again. 'Or not?'
  
  
  — I - I don't know. She was washing by the jug.
  
  
  He nodded to her. "They were monks. Recently ih heard her singing. "O Tao: O Tao'And Her, went to the window and opened the joints. There was a grate behind them. As far as I could see, the building we were in was part of a "huge old stone fortress." Landscape in the distance like the Garden of Eden. It was quiet and lush, except for the chirping of crickets. A small procession of shaven-headed men walked one after the other, heads bowed, through the long grass.
  
  
  'Yes."Her was watching a silent movie, and suddenly got angry at the situation. "They are monks. Taoist monks. And this is a monastery. You were right. Tao and KANG are somehow connected. Although the ego god knows how. And how is it possible that monasteries can still exist in this corner of the world? The blinds closed again. "The Grand Prix game," I said. "Hit or double in the next round." Her, moved away from the window. "Honey," she said, coming up behind me with a sponge and soap. "The main thing," she began to stroke my back with a soft sponge, " is ...wherever we are, you'll get us out of here.
  
  
  Her hint was as clear as my irritability. But it worked. If anything, it made me laugh. He grabbed her sponge and kissed her.
  
  
  "If you're going to lather me up anyway, do it a little higher and a little to the right." She made a small sound in her throat. "Hmm?" and threw her head back. "My God," she said, " all these days... or hours, or years... this is a terrible medicine that I was given. Oh, Nick. It made the world so terrible. Everything was such a nightmare. Except when I dreamed that you were holding me. Then I started crying, and all that was left of me was saying, "Hold on, it's Nick." And I think that's why I held on to her. .. now we're sitting here fighting our own little squabbles, as if it never happened. happen.'She looked at me: "I really love you, you know that?"
  
  
  Suddenly, I had a flashback. Tara, green-eyed and sobbing in my arms. I had the same dream, " I said. "Probably the same drug. I'm starting to wonder why they brought us here. What they want from us. Because I'm starting to think they want us to be together. Not just her, or you. But we're together.
  
  
  She shook her head and frowned. 'I don't understand.'
  
  
  I smiled at her. 'Thank God. Because I don't understand it either. For now. However, its feel like we'll find out soon enough. Meanwhile, before we start worrying, let's worry about these clones. We already know something about these adult clones, but these clones are in the process of being created, the brood you mentioned, we have to destroy the ego.
  
  
  She wrapped herself in an aodai. It was pale green with yellow flowers and fell halfway down her luscious thighs over her satin trousers. "Ah," she said. "As for these adult PBXs, I heard it from Alice."
  
  
  She told me Alice's story while brushing her hair. The odds were a little better than hers, he'd hoped. At that time, there was only one branch in America, and with any luck, it had already gone into the shadow realm. Dead.
  
  
  In London, ih had three, but it won't last long if I get my way. With a little luck and a few weeks of life, I can stop ih. There was even a chance that AX in London was responsible for this. Even such a rusty AXE (S) sometimes works well. So now it's up to Tara and me. If we could destroy this nest, all the jumping from place to place would be over.
  
  
  Hers struggled with the neckline of her silk pajamas. I had to tie it on my shoulder.
  
  
  "What does such a brood of pbx look like?"
  
  
  She sighed. — Just as they are — like human embryos. They are probably in a controlled environment — maybe in an incubator - or somewhere in the lab."
  
  
  "How are the test-tube babies?"
  
  
  She nodded grimly. "I didn't think I had the easiest job in this assignment. I constantly have to force myself to remember that these almost-children are future murderers."
  
  
  He threw his damn unzipped pajamas on the floor and reached for his own clothes. He looked down at his blue shirt. I wore it for so long that it was put on almost without help. My God, he wasn't going to a fancy dress ball. And besides, the game was already too advanced to suddenly make difficulties with Oriental etiquette.
  
  
  "How do I get rid of it?"
  
  
  "I had a small laser in my bag. Well, wait. Maybe I still have it. She went to the closet and rummaged in her bag. "No, not anymore," she said. "I think we need to improvise something. Maybe something with chemistry. Everything we can find in this lab.
  
  
  Finally, she combed her hair with the last comb. My redheaded geisha. I put on her socks. "Well, what you do is up to you. I guess I'll just mind my own business.
  
  
  She frowned. — I was just thinking... they took your gun, didn't they? So, what do you think...
  
  
  She bit her lip.
  
  
  He pulled on her pants. About my underwear, which they didn't take off. About good old Pierre, still beautiful, hidden in the middle.
  
  
  "Well," she said firmly, and quite contrary to her nature, " how you do it is up to you. I guess I'll just mind my own business.
  
  
  He raised one eyebrow, but didn't answer.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 22
  
  
  
  
  Well, Mr. Carter, we finally meet. It was Lao Zeng, the great-great-grandfather of the entire company. With a great-great-grandfather's wart in the middle of his forehead. He was in a wheelchair. Which seemed to explain a lot. Why he himself disappeared from the battlefield. Striving to elevate yourself to the highest branches. Dozens of times a day to look at what he once was, again in action, again in the company. He poured out a whisky and offered it to us, too.
  
  
  Tara said no. Stanan took it.
  
  
  He raised his glass. "For Nick Carter,"he said," and all the little future Carters."
  
  
  He reached in a minute for a cigarette. They were gone. Lao Zeng gave me one from a large lacquered box. The cigarettes had a gold mouthpiece. Apparently, he confiscated mine.
  
  
  We were in the ego room. Or in the ego office. It was a large space. It might have been big, but the windows were closed and the atmosphere was a little musty. Here, too, the furnishings were somewhat sparse. Long teak chair, round white sofa. One single chair. The only decoration was an extremely colorful cloth and a collection of weapons on the wall behind him. There must be about a hundred weapons. Not particularly rare or particularly old, but they hung there for moans, and this wall itself was covered with a huge sheet of unbreakable glass. In addition to the pistols, there were other weapons: several knives and hand grenades, as well as some unnecessary things of undeniable lethality. Each individual part was illuminated by a small spotlight, and underneath it was a small picture.
  
  
  "I see you admire my collection," he said. "Come and take a closer look." I got up from the couch, and he turned his wheelchair to follow me. Under the U.S. Army pistol display was a sign that read " Bristol, Kenneth, Daejeon, 1952." Next to it was a pearl-handled stiletto. Hample, Stewart, Paris, 1954. He looked down at the damn stiletto and let out a whoosh. It was like seeing a sword with Bonaparte and Napoleon under it, or a chariot with Har and Ben under it. Stu Hample was one of those vagabonds whose names are already creating myths. It was the best that AX, N1 has ever had since Paris 1954. When someone took that pearl-handled stiletto from him. Along with the ego life.
  
  
  'You?"Her," turned to Lao Zeng.
  
  
  — I knew you'd be impressed, " he said. Her personally captured all of these weapons with groans.
  
  
  It pointed straight out of me. — But I think there's something about it that might interest you more." I went in the direction indicated. I didn't have to read the sign to see that he'd added Wilhelmina to it. And my stiletto. No mother-of-pearl pen, but still my Hugo.
  
  
  "Just in case you think you can take the ego back," he said. "It's unbreakable glass, it's electrified and tightly locked."
  
  
  He grinned. "But sit down and finish your drink." The Eda will be filed immediately, and we still have a lot to talk about."
  
  
  He was confident in his own safety. He may have been in a wheelchair, but he was also driving the controls. And that was a good thing. There's something about being in control that makes people lose control of their words. It's wrong, but it's true. You can point a guy's gun at his head and ask the ego for ego stories, but all you get is a couple of closed lips. But the guy who points a gun at your head is bound to spit out his guts. If you understand something about this, please let me know.
  
  
  He leaned back on the sofa. -"Impressive," I said. - Figuratively speaking.
  
  
  He focused his gaze on Tara. "You're a scientist," he said. — You specialize in microbiology. No doubt you already know all about our clones.
  
  
  Tara looked at me. He motioned for her to continue.
  
  
  "Yes," she said. "I am overwhelmed by your cutting-edge technology."
  
  
  The emu seemed to like that. "That's enough... fantastic, isn't it?"
  
  
  — How long have you been doing this?"
  
  
  He smiled. "Twenty-two years ago. Well, on the dell itself before that... But at that point, we started with my family. Dr. Kuoi... He turned to me, " I assume you've seen this before... well, my father started it. He was very interested in genetics and managed to get the government to provide emu with a small laboratory. Provided, of course, that in time he doubles down on some of the best minds in the communist world. He started working on Nguyen Shogun..."
  
  
  "That physicist?" Tara looked surprised.
  
  
  Lao Zeng nodded. 'Yes. But the Shogun had several genetic abnormalities. Tara seemed to know that already. "That's exactly what I asked her to say. Brakdon's syndrome, isn't it? Ego symptoms only appear when you are 30 years old."
  
  
  Exactly. But, as you can see, embryos cannot survive the chill during incubation in test tubes. Several groups of the Shogun's pbx died before the third month. At first, Kuoi thought the egos were wrong. The government thought the same. They have withdrawn their support. Then, a few years later, the Shogun himself began to show anomalies."
  
  
  "And then KANG decided to support us for another attempt?"
  
  
  He turned to me. 'Yes. But only this time KANG has found an emu that is both physically and genetically perfect."
  
  
  "So it was you."
  
  
  I want it to be me. Besides mine... — my physical perfection, I had a number of, shall we say, 'talents' that CANNES was passionate about perpetuating.
  
  
  "A talent for killing in cold blood," I said.
  
  
  He blushed modestly. But you, Mr. Carter, are also a talented assassin. He made a pause. "Although, if you like to hear it, your blood is still a few degrees warmer." Who is he to influence your ego?" He was smiling at me now, the same catlike smile he'd seen her use, at Chen-li in the photo taken the next day, then at the Senator Saybrook murders. Hong Luo's laughter too when he came to kill the duke and duchess. This wasn't the time to explain to em the difference between a psychotic killer and someone who only kills in self-defense. A long time ago, he had already thoroughly researched himself. A long time ago, he'd lain without a vault, wondering if she was as bad as they were, the people he'd destroyed. If you don't have to give it all up and retire to a country house. There was a huge difference between me and Lao Zeng. It brought the subject back to where the hotel was.
  
  
  — And these clones of yours stuck?"
  
  
  Yes. Ca started the second attempt. The entire group survived. Dr. Kuoi was working on the third group when his dollar stack failed. You understand that there was no one to replace the ego. The whole ego operation was secret. Emu was assisted only by his son. That son then tried to bring out the third group, but he didn't have enough knowledge. We didn't want the government to know what we were doing, so we smuggled it into the United States. There he received an excellent genetic education. Our Dr. Kuoi is a Harvard man. This fact seemed to please the emu.
  
  
  Tara said: "And after that, he was able to follow in his father's footsteps."
  
  
  Lao Zeng seemed happy that he was able to answer "yes". He himself was very happy to have more sons, especially after the accident. And the voice of ego dream come true. At this point, Dr. Kuoi was hatching thirty-five new PBXs. Thirty-five new Lao Tsengs. Everything is in excellent condition. Thanks to providence.
  
  
  For a moment, he wondered how much ih was in the original group.
  
  
  A short phone call interrupted my train of thought.
  
  
  "Ah, it's time to eat," he said. What day was opened by a pair of monks who looked alike-clones? No, it's pointless - and to us, we lead along the stone corridor to the dining room.
  
  
  It was a celebration that we encountered. Well, feast if you like monkey brains, goat tail and raw squid. It took Tara a moment to realize what she was up against, and she ate with the gusto of a three-day abstinence from a lot of "ah" and "mmmm." On the dell itself, monkey brains are delicious. This is what I told myself, and what I need to eat to keep my strength up. But he kept silently hoping there was a sandwich shop around the corner, and he wondered if I'd hurt her myself by popping out to get a hamburger. Its just thinking: what the peasant does not know, he is not.
  
  
  Edu was served by silent monks. After the main course, Lao Zeng gave them a task in an incomprehensible language. Super final. Centennial eggs.
  
  
  The conversation at the table was very pleasant. What he really wanted to say was later. At the same time, he was cheerful and open. One day, he turned down the role of an unflappable, affable host. Odin's circle of monks left the kitchen door open for a moment, and Lao Zeng exploded, pulling his jacket closer to protect himself from the deadly draft. The monk quickly ran and closed the door, and Lao Zeng regained his composure. Her took advantage of ego's newfound favor and asked ego about the relationship between KANNA and Tao and how this monastery survived the Communist purge.
  
  
  He clapped his hands, and the silent waiters began clearing away the trays. "There's nothing stopping you from saying that," he said. "There is nothing you can do with this information. The only relationship that exists between us is one of mutual benefit." Then a monk appeared with a pot of tea. He poured a cup for Tara and one for me. He approached Lao Zeng, but the latter waved him off as he continued to speak. "The monastery gives us two important things. First of all, laboratories for our experiments. Not just genetic experiments, but experiments with what you call mind-altering drugs." He leaned back and rubbed the arms of his wheelchair.
  
  
  — I think you had the honor to try some around them?
  
  
  "Let me assure you, Carter, that we are pretty far along on this. H-20 is the only hallucinogen without side effects." Kuoi said the same thing, but it wouldn't hurt to hear the good news a second time.
  
  
  "And secondly?"
  
  
  Secondly, see for yourself. Just go to the window.
  
  
  Her, went to the window.
  
  
  And I saw a field of flowers. It stretched to the horizon in all directions. It was a field of poppies. Opium poppies. For a moment her tried-to-someone ego market value, but she just didn't know what comes next of a trillion. He continued to stare out the window.
  
  
  "Nice view, isn't it?"
  
  
  I didn't need to see ego's face to know that nen was wearing a thin smirk.
  
  
  "So you're a supplier," I said, " to this Nassau clique and to the Featherstone Society.
  
  
  He gave a strangled laugh. - 'Among other things. Among many, many others. We believe that opium is our best asset for building a global organization. Opium was also our main weapon in the previous war.
  
  
  "Do these monks," I asked him, " agree with your policy?"
  
  
  "These monks," he said, " don't know anything about politics. They don't even know what we're doing with these drugs. We know what's going on in the lab. All they know is that when the state was rewritten to other temples and monasteries, KANG kept ih for them and their possessions intact. They are very grateful. They don't ask questions. If they knew the truth, they would also be very upset. But it is unlikely that they will find out.
  
  
  Her, looked at the two monks for a day. They lowered their eyes.
  
  
  "They don't speak English," Lao Zeng said. So if you're thinking of telling them what we really do, I'm afraid it's going to be very difficult. Unless, "he snickered," you can master the rather complex and obscure Susoy dialect."
  
  
  Her father tried hard not to look at Tara.
  
  
  "But," he said. 'Sit down. Your tea is getting cold. And we still have a lot to talk about.
  
  
  He returned to the table. He looked at Tara. She looked weaker than he'd thought. Those few hours had taken their toll on her now. Nah's eyelids were heavy. He reached for the cup. Her eyes suddenly flashed at me. Green lights. But that meant: Stop! He looked back at Nah. The tea was drugged, and she discovered it too late. I picked up my cup and pretended to take a sip. — What else do you want to talk about?" Lao Tseng asked him.
  
  
  "Your children," he said. "Yours and Miss Bennet's.
  
  
  "Our what?"
  
  
  "Children," he said. — But maybe it would be better if Dr. Quoy explained everything." He pushed himself out of his chair and rolled over to the small intercom. He pressed a button and Stahl waited. While he was doing this, with his back to me, she poured the tea back into the teapot. "Now," he said simply into the voice box. Then he was back at the table. He looked at Tara. She was a little dazed, but she still sat up straight. Kuoi came and explained.
  
  
  It was really very simple.
  
  
  He went to us to get vaccinated. They will bring out a small army of N3 agents for themselves. But this time, these N3 agents will work for KAN. Tara would have given them a number of brilliant specialists in such areas of genetics. Clones of Tara that will continue to work on vaccinating people. The first scientific ability was already in the genes, and KANG only had to provide the necessary practical training.
  
  
  But they can take it one step further.
  
  
  What would happen, they thought, if Tara and I had a baby? Or more children. The statistical odds were four to one that we would produce an agent who outperformed all other agents. A brilliant killer from a scientific point of view. Best of both worlds. And then, using this as the original, they get the required number of duplicates by grafting. What are the best prices for CANNES? Dr. Kuoi was delighted. With fifty or a hundred of these superclones, KANG could take over the world.
  
  
  Tara began to fall forward. She looked a little sluggish. She rested her chin on her hand and seemed to struggle to hold it in place. Her also had to drink tea, so her started mimicking her symptoms.
  
  
  Lao Zeng turned to Kuoi. "I think they'll soon be asleep now," he whispered. — When do you plan to perform the first operation?
  
  
  "By sunrise," he said. "If they're still asleep." In the meantime, I need some time to prepare myself in the lab. The operation is insignificant. Every cell in the body carries all the genes needed to make an exact copy. Its just a beru thin strip of hide with ih forearms. When they get back to their cells, I'll check her out.
  
  
  Tara was already asleep, his head propped up on a chair. He mumbled something and also lowered his head.
  
  
  Lao Zeng clapped his hands.
  
  
  Several monks appeared. It was too heavy for one monk to carry me, and I was carried by two. They were taking the purple one out of here and back to our jasmine-scented prison cell.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 23
  
  
  
  
  Keys clanked on the chain, and the door opened. We were placed in two separate mats, and the monks were allowed to leave. Around her corner, he watched with closed eyes as Quoy bent over Tara. The small light on ego Thalia's key chain flickered. He checked her blood pressure with a handful of his own, then tapped her breast with an impersonal finger. Then he took out a stethoscope from his pocket. He must have been very sensitive. The earbuds were longer than usual and went deeper into her ears. He seemed pleased. Then he came to me.
  
  
  Now he was standing in front of me, cursing softly. The monks didn't take off my jacket, and Em needed a bare hand to measure my blood pressure. We went through the whole farce. I pretended to be dead weight. Emu had a hard time getting my jacket off. He put a bandage on my arm and started pumping. I was wondering if emu would tell me my blood pressure, if I was really dreaming, if I wasn't faking it.
  
  
  I guessed that wasn't the case.
  
  
  He patted my chest, then pulled out the stethoscope again. I waited for the cold metal audition piece to press against my chest. Then ego grabbed her by the head and pulled hard.
  
  
  The pain must have been intense. He threw back his head, and tears welled up in his eyes. He groaned. Ego grabbed her by the tie and pulled again, half choking her. We rolled over until hers was on top, and he was dealt an emu blow to the jaw and then a blow to ego's neck that would keep ego unconscious for a long time.
  
  
  For a moment, he thought about killing the ego. It could have just strangled him. But it seemed like a stupid move. I'll win the round, but I'll lose the match. Ego death would be our death sentence. When the hopes of making an automatic telephone exchange through us evaporated, Lao Zeng would immediately send a firing squad. Either they just shot us, or they killed us with their sedative syringe. At least then they'll finish us off. Meanwhile, the ats family would continue to exist along with the thirty-five brothers that were to hatch. No, it was better to leave the dream to Lao Zeng for a while. At least for a while.
  
  
  I needed to work with Kuoi's unconscious body. It was Thalia's ego charm that took it off. It was a whole collection of keys. Must be at least twenty. The odin around them should be the key to the ego lab. And this is the lab I was hoping to get into.
  
  
  Then her ego took care of the white coat. From some distance away, this should give me some masking. From behind, too. In any case, these monks kept lowering their eyes.
  
  
  Our roles were reversed. This time, he was a dead weight, and it was hard for me to undress the ego. He hung her keychain around his waist and put on Ego's white coat. He was about eight inches taller than Dr. Quoy, but I didn't care. He bent down, turned ego's motionless body into a moan, and covered ego with a cotton blanket. If they had been careful, they would have found the sleepers in order. As long as they don't check too closely.
  
  
  Her, I realized that I was relying very much on my luck and on other shortsightedness.
  
  
  He took one last look at Tara, who was sleeping peacefully, and went out into the corridor.
  
  
  Where to go?
  
  
  It is unlikely that the laboratory was located in this building. Perhaps it's in a hall in one of the outbuildings in a more or less remote location. So I had to find a way out first.
  
  
  The spacious stone corridor was cold and dark. Just lit candles placed at regular intervals on the walls. There was also a day with locks. The monks ' cells that were now empty? Or busy prison cells?
  
  
  I went to the left and followed the corridor both ways. He went out every day. The door wasn't closed. Although with Kuoya's key chain around my waist, hers felt like I had the keys to an entire kingdom.
  
  
  The night was clear and calm. The stars were already visible, though the sky wasn't quite dark yet. It was only half past eight or ten o'clock, but the Taoist brothers were already entering in a single silent line into a large building that might have housed the ih dormitories.
  
  
  This meant that it couldn't be a laboratory.
  
  
  There were five buildings in total.
  
  
  All buildings in the complex are built around heavy gray stone that is one foot thick. I keep the money, it was made by hand. Sincerely, like the Great Wall of China. But then the great-great-grandchildren of those builders. These buildings were only six hundred years old. But. It was originally a fortress. Or maybe it's always been a monastery.
  
  
  Lao Tseng's chambers, as well as our "guest cells", were located in the smallest of the five buildings. Behind them, stretching in all directions, were fields of poppies in the distance. A little to the left, in a huge two-story rectangle, were the monks ' sleeping quarters. Opposite this was a barn-like structure that turned out to be a temple. So there are two buildings left.
  
  
  I chose the farthest wing as a possible laboratory. Perhaps the double bars on the windows and the plumes of smoke around the chimney made it likely for me. I'm trying to tell her that it wasn't even such a stupid choice.
  
  
  Its achieved this very simply. It was also just passed by mimmo by two monks with books who were guarding the door. The wide hallway was the same as the one that had left her. Wet and empty. They're candles. Taking a chance, he chose one of the rooms and paused for a moment to make sure there was no sound inside.
  
  
  The lock tried it. The door opened.
  
  
  It was a monastery cell. The bed was nothing more than a corner of the room covered with a mat.
  
  
  There was a sink, a pillow, some books, and a small reading light. He turned on the lamp and looked at the books. These were two volumes of the Marxist Bible: the Communist Manifesto and Capital, as well as a number of pamphlets. Ih flipped through it. One of them was called "How do I take over an underdeveloped country? "and the other" How do I undermine an overdeveloped country?" And that included everything except Iceland.
  
  
  There was definitely a monk living here. But not a Taoist monk. A communist monk. One of these cruel, devoted, communist ascetics. I wonder how many of the surrounding rooms were occupied in this way. But I was wasting my time. He went out through the cells and walked on, mimmo other, identical wooden doors. I didn't know how I would recognize it, what the right door would look like. I didn't think there would be a neon light box with the LAB letters flashing above it. But somehow I expected the door to be different, and maybe a little more modern.
  
  
  A door closed behind me. Soft shaggy came up to me. It was one man. With his head bowed, he continued walking, covering his chin with one hand: Kuoi pondering a pointy genetic problem.
  
  
  The man walked past me without looking at me and disappeared around a bend down the hall.
  
  
  Now I had to make a quick decision. He could have stayed where he was, and thus aroused suspicion. He could have gone outside, which might have been safer, but not very profitable.
  
  
  There was also a double chance that I wouldn't find what I wanted. But if he did, he'd be an accountant in New Jersey, not a secret agent in Hanoi.
  
  
  He continued on and turned the corner. And fifty thousand New Jersey chartered accountants chuckled as the lead pipe slid down sharply, nearly grazing my head and slamming into the wall behind me with a crash.
  
  
  He was waiting for me, the end of the phone ready in his hand. The moment the pipe hit the wall, Ego grabbed it by the wrist and turned it, but this pipe wasn't the only one made of lead. Ego power was unshakeable. Still holding the phone, he lunged again, this time aiming for my high one. But now she firmly grabbed ego's wrist and hit his ego with his knee...
  
  
  It was a branch office. Its not underestimating him. One lucky punch wasn't even enough to knock the starch out of the collar's ego.
  
  
  He was absolutely right about that. On my second kick, it dove at my feet, and he fell to the ground. He sat on top of me and started hitting me. I rolled over, but he grabbed me by the throat. She tried her best to pull her ego, her hands away, but I didn't think I was trying hard enough.
  
  
  This moment before death is very bright. Many times he was only one minute away from death, and it was only with this last-minute brightness that the clock stopped.
  
  
  The phone is lying on the floor, out of my reach. He focused intensely on one focused movement. My legs were my ego's back. He put his feet on the ground and kicked like a horse about to throw its rider. It didn't knock ego out around the saddle, but he lost his balance a little, and when we hit the ground again, he was about six inches to the right. My hand touched the tube, and it hit his ego more heads.
  
  
  Ugh.
  
  
  He rolled off me and lay motionless on the stone floor, blood oozing from a large orange gash on his head. He won't bleed out for too long. He was dead.
  
  
  I couldn't leave the ego here, and I couldn't risk dragging the ego, the body, for a while. We were only a few feet away from another wooden door — another cell. He opened the door and dragged ego inside.
  
  
  Her father was bending over the body when he heard a voice around the doorway.
  
  
  "Problems, Doctor?"
  
  
  He didn't turn around. Hers was hunched over, so now my height and face couldn't give me away. He tried to make his voice as high as Kuoi's.
  
  
  "He'll be fine."
  
  
  "Can I have her do something for you?'
  
  
  "Make sure my ego isn't disturbed when I'm not around."
  
  
  "But this is my room.
  
  
  "Then take ego's room, take the tailor. This one in math needs a rest. My high-pitched voice dropped a little, but he didn't seem to notice.
  
  
  "Yes, Doctor," he said shortly. And went to the left. When he closed the door too tightly behind him to let me know that he didn't like taking orders and didn't care that I knew about it.
  
  
  He spent a minute in total darkness to assess the extent of the mess he had made during his research. I haven't found anything for her yet. Except for the difficulties. It's very likely that I ended up in the wrong building, and if I wasn't lucky, I might have ended up in a dead end. From the moment Nassau left, everything went wrong. But on the other hand, they were wrong in the right direction. Tara and her ended up where we should have been. Together, alive, in the PBX headquarters. Now all that remained was to get down to business. He opened the door a crack and looked out into the hallway. It was a very good thing I did. For just then a door opened at the end of the hall, and a murmur of voices was heard. First there were three. Three branches stood in the doorway and wished each other a good night. They all spoke English. Its guessed that this was part of the ih training sessions. Then the door opened wider, and it was like standing at the end of a conveyor belt... four... ten... eighteen... twenty-one identical copies. Serial clones.
  
  
  The meeting, or whatever it was, was over. They were on their way to their rooms. It was chosen by the location of the PBX instead of the laboratory.
  
  
  If you were waiting for that scary scene where Carter simultaneously kills twenty-one killers with a lead pipe, then you were mistaken. Without saying anything, he closed the door again and went to the window.
  
  
  However, if you're waiting for my problems to end, you'll have to wait a little longer. The place seemed completely deserted. Under the cover of the low, neatly trimmed undergrowth, he walked to the last building. This must have been the lab.
  
  
  She was already almost a day old, who was now under the protection of the bitches of these ubiquitous monks. Between the pbx men who were identical in birth and the monks who looked identical in their identical I paid and shaved heads, I had the feeling that I was a stahl participant in a life-size puppet show. Only someone had enough imagination when emu had to create different characters.
  
  
  I was just passing a mimmo building about five yards away when it popped up out of nowhere.
  
  
  "Still at work... doctor?"
  
  
  The emphasis on the last word meant that he wouldn't believe in this "doctor" in a hundred years. He felt a weary nostalgia for the good old special effects department of disguise in Washington. He gripped the lead pipe in his pocket and turned around.
  
  
  The branch was waiting for me, gun in hand. "Great, N3," he said. Ego's lips curled into a contemptuous smile. "My God. how you grew up, Dr. Kuoi.
  
  
  He didn't take another step in my direction, and he was still out of my reach.
  
  
  'Good."Her, I heard that you're some kind of sacred cow. So I can't kill you. But I'm sure they want you back. So go back.
  
  
  He knew what he wanted. He couldn't kill me, but he'd pump me full of lead if the emu wanted to. Acquired characteristics, such as bullet wounds, are not passed on to children. It was supposed to disarm him. but I would have to take the ego by surprise. Before he can shoot. Even if he missed, the sound of that .45 would draw a whole platoon here.
  
  
  Hers was as still as a piece of rock. "Hurry up," he said.
  
  
  He just continued to stare at him with a stony face.
  
  
  'Why? Why would I do that? You can't shoot me if its not doing anything to you. You can't even hurt me, " I lied. "His blood squad will delay the small operation they've prepared for me. So if you want to get her back, you'll have to convince me first.
  
  
  He hesitated. He wasn't sure if my little contribution to science was true or not. If anything, he had his doubts. If he lets me escape, he'll be in trouble. If he pumps me full of bullets, he might be in even more trouble. This meant that the ego was being challenged to a fist fight.
  
  
  He accepted the challenge. Only ego's first choice of weapon wasn't fists, but karate. I have a black belt in karate. But I also had a black lead pipe. It was all very well planned. To begin with, the second time in half an hour, I had a body that I had to get rid of.
  
  
  Well, the voice you had was this closed shed. But Dr. Kuoi might have the key to it. It took me six tries, but finally the door opened. She was dragged inside by Branch's corpse and locked the seraglio door.
  
  
  The monks were still standing with their eyes lowered, guarding the entrance to the laboratory. It was incredible. Most likely, the clones were ih brothers, but they saw everything and did nothing. She began to understand a little of Tara's explanation of Taoist morality. There is no death, and there are no warnings, so if you run into one, we'll run into the other. you just don't do anything. Her, stepped through the lab door.
  
  
  The interior of this building was different from other buildings. There was a small reception area of the monastery and large white double doors. The tenth key gave me access, and the doors swung open.
  
  
  I think this is the worst place I've ever been.
  
  
  A row of large glass tubes filled with growing fruit lined the wall. I'll do you a favor and omit the description.
  
  
  There were other test tubes. Smaller ones - with lumps of substance floating in the liquid. I counted fifty of them. Who around them was human and who wasn't, he couldn't tell. There was a chair in the center of the room. Nen had cages with frogs and rats, and several guinea pigs that appeared when Brylev turned it on.
  
  
  Across the street was an office. A large glass window separated Ego from the lab, but it allowed him to keep an eye on everything from there. Against the wall at an angle to the window was every mad scientist's dream. About a six-meter-high work chair, filled with bubbling barrels fed by electric heating coils, water condensers, and small gas torches. The whole place was covered by some kind of metal canopy, like a hood over a stove, and from there there was an unbreakable glass screen that covered it all.
  
  
  But that's not all.
  
  
  There was another pair of double doors at the back of the lab, right next to the door to Quoy's office. I opened it, fumbled with the keys, and opened ih. He was back in the narrow corridor. Six closed wooden doors.
  
  
  The key to the first one found her.
  
  
  A young Thai man in his twenties was rocking on the floor in the corner. When he saw me. he started whimpering and crawled further into his corner.
  
  
  In another room, an old woman with a wild, empty look leaped at me and began to beat me in the chest with wild, aimless blows. Ee grabbed her arm and gently but firmly pushed her back. Instead of me, she started pounding on the soft moan. He closed the door again and thought for a moment.
  
  
  Kuoi said he also experimented with drugs in the lab. He said it was mind-altering drugs. Well, those two opinions have obviously changed. Science is moving forward. I thought I'd seen enough of her at the time.
  
  
  He returned to the lab and paid a visit to Kuoi's office.
  
  
  The walls were crammed with books and folders. Probably his personal archive. The ego chair searched her. I didn't know what I expected to find. But what I found was excellent. A set of eight keys. Ih compared it to the keys on my belt that gave me access to the lab and the cells. Yes. Everyone had their own plan. A smaller set of duplicates per minute slipped it in. Then another thought occurred to me, and he hid the ih in the hem of his underpants. My hidden chances of winning started to increase.
  
  
  She closed the lab door behind her and stepped out, mimmo of the drooping monks, into the night.
  
  
  About halfway there, I saw something interesting. Two monks who were having a rather heated argument. It was amazing that these monks could talk at all, but even more amazing was that they argued with each other. Her, hid behind some bushes when they passed mimmo me, now they were silent.
  
  
  The rest of the journey through her complex was uneventful. It is very important that I have time. Hers must have been gone for about an hour and a half. She felt like she had dealt this Kuoyu a two-hour blow, but she still took the risk. When I came to the main gate of our house, ih was guarded by two monks. When I left her, I wasn't there. But like everyone else, they lowered their eyes and paid no attention to me.
  
  
  I didn't see anyone in the hallway. Quickly and silently her, got to the day of our cell. Hers was softly opened by the door. Tara was still there. Still asleep. He looked through the camera at the other mat. Kuoi was still there. Confident of his position, Dellee entered the room. But he shouldn't have been so sure.
  
  
  A pair of hands grabbed me from behind. A hand closed around my neck. I tried to twist away, but another hand held my wrist in place and rolled up my sleeve as that hand tightened around my neck. He looked back. They were two monks. They must have followed me in silence. The third one was waiting for me outside the door. With a syringe. Dr. Kuoi got up from the bed. I felt a prick of it. Her strong arms pulled free and she vented her wrath on the first monk who came within reach. For example, after a couple of seconds, the rabbit hole opened and he started to fall.
  
  
  Deeper.
  
  
  Deeper and deeper.
  
  
  Back in Wonderland.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 24
  
  
  
  
  Tara sat in front of me and said something unintelligible. She was wearing her own pale pink panties. Nah had a square gauze bandage wrapped around her forearm. Her eyes dropped to her forearm. There was a similar square of gauze.
  
  
  They did it. They vaccinated us.
  
  
  These heirs were already floating in test tubes, somewhere in labs all over nightmare, somewhere among the stumbling rats and frogs.
  
  
  Her jumped out of bed.
  
  
  "Calm down," she said. 'Calm down. You're still too weak. Day protected. We can't do anything yet. She turned around and started muttering something. He shook his head, trying to make sense of her words.
  
  
  Then ego saw her. She was talking to a monk. This gibberish was supposed to be the now-famous Sutoi dialect. This was only the second time that the sedative experience made me question my own sanity.
  
  
  The man was sitting on the floor, still holding a plate of food that engaged ego joins in our cell. He looked exactly like the others. Skinhead. But when he opened his eyes, he knew he was special. I'd never seen her look like that before. They contained all the knowledge and innocence of millions of years of humanity.
  
  
  Tara turned to me.
  
  
  "Ning Tan is the abbot. He came here to help us. At least to make sure our eda isn't drugged. They were planning to put us down with sleeping pills." Her voice is absurdly a little shaky.
  
  
  Her, looked at Ning Tang, those endless eyes. "Is that all the help he gives us?"
  
  
  She shrugged her shoulders. 'I do not know. Helping us in any way is against the ego of faith. Whatever happens to us, it must be the will of, say, God. He feels like he's getting in the way of it, and it bothers his ego."
  
  
  "What the hell kind of religion is this, tailor?" "Is drugging and killing people the will of God?"
  
  
  She looked at me calmly. He says that ego actions cannot prevent murder. It can only affect who gets killed. If he doesn't do something, they'll kill us. If he helps us, we'll kill him.
  
  
  — Is it all murder for him?"
  
  
  She nodded gravely. "It's all killing for him."
  
  
  Her brow furrowed. — Then why is he helping us?"
  
  
  "He says he helps us even the odds."
  
  
  He looked around. There were two of us, and we were locked up on digital cameras. Unarmed. Outside, there was a lot of ih. All armed. — Is that what he calls it?"
  
  
  The monk said something. Tara translated it. "He says he understands our feelings... but I wish you could understand it. He said... she hesitated, as if fearing my reaction. "He said that understanding will bring you peace."
  
  
  'Oh, right? Then that's great. He talks easily about the world. Here, in the ego little Taoist temple. But what about there? What about all those cattle that make their way through life thanks to the poppies he grows in his garden? Ask him what he thinks about it. Tara looked down at the ground and sighed.
  
  
  "Well, hurry up," I said. "Ask him."
  
  
  They talked to each other for almost ten minutes. It must have been very interesting. Ning Tan paused in thought for a long time and spoke in a mournful voice. Finally, he said something that made Tara turn around.
  
  
  "He didn't know anything about this opium," she said. "He doesn't know much about what's going on there. He's spent his entire life here. But he says he believes-judging by the fire in your voice, "he said," that you are close to the source of universal energy. Then he told me to warn you that not all the monks here are monks. Some are around them... about half of it... about a hundred... The KAN partisans."
  
  
  I've already thought of something similar myself. That explained the monks I'd seen arguing and the monks who'd grabbed me to give me the injection. But the last couple I saw looked exactly the same as all the others. Down to the lowered eyes. He shrugged, feeling a dull anger build. "Great," I said. 'Good to know. So half of them are partisans around them. But if they all look the same, how can we recognize ih?
  
  
  Tara handed Corkscrew over and turned to me. "He says we can't really do it on the dell."
  
  
  Her, got up and started pacing back and forth on the digital camera. 'Well, if it can soothe the ego's conscience, he told us something, but he didn't say anything. Such riddles emu soul.
  
  
  Ning Tan stood up. He must go, he said politely. But he'll be back during our next accepted whining session. And before them, the ferret, he left us some Taoist platitudes:
  
  
  "Action provides fewer answers than people think."
  
  
  "Ideas are stronger than weapons."
  
  
  To which he added in his solemn closing address:
  
  
  "On the Day of Miracles, everything will come true." And again, this understanding was the key to an outdoor pool. This kind of talk really drives me crazy. But he looked at me good-bye with his old eyes, and for a moment he felt nothing at all. For a moment, he knew all the answers, and those answers were correct.
  
  
  He left, and I heard ego key our door. The sound brought me back to a brutal reality. I wanted to punch someone. But the only person around was Tara. He continued to pace up and down the room.
  
  
  "It's good that you're mad at me now," she said. — What were you thinking then?" That I would turn ego into a convinced AX agent for ten minutes.
  
  
  — You could at least try, dear. Instead of repeating this nonsense to me, this understanding would bring me peace."
  
  
  'Oh, my God. how stupid you are.
  
  
  "Ah. Good. You're smart, and she's a piece of shit.
  
  
  She sighed. "I didn't tell her that.'
  
  
  Oh, no? Her picked one up around the pillows from the floor and waved hey over. It's all here, baby, on a hidden microphone. Do you want me to play it?
  
  
  She sighed again. "Well, that's not what mistletoe meant. Its just hard to say that if only you understood...
  
  
  "Yes, Yes. I know her. Then I will finally find peace."
  
  
  "Yes," she said. She shook her head, picked up another pillow, and threw it at me. That's when it happened. He threw the pillow in his hand at her. She dove to the side, lost her balance, and landed back on the mattress. From there, she started throwing pillows at me, which v nah threw at her. She got up with a big orange pillow and started hitting me with it. I grabbed her and pushed her back down on the mattress, and we started kissing furiously. This calmed us down a little. We panted and hugged. Then it was in nah. Everything was exactly as it always was with us. Only at the last minute did I have a thought. He recoiled. "Don't worry," she said. "If they want us to make a super baby for them, they'll have to wait a few more weeks." But it didn't work. The idea of CANNES being a hotel for us to do this was repulsive. Her climb down from the nah and gently kissed. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm afraid I don't want to take that risk.
  
  
  After a while, she said: "You're right. I lied to you. She could have a child with you right now." She kissed me. I want your baby.
  
  
  'Currently?'
  
  
  — I'll want that when we get out of here, and ... not like this... well, she wouldn't want them to know that." Its better to kill myself than this. But I believe in you, Nick, " she said with a smile. "I think, as that person said, you are close to the source of knowledge. I believe that you have a noble character, and you have a lucky star, no matter what that person tells us. I believe you'll get us out of here.
  
  
  I should have thought about it. He got up, wrapped a towel around himself, and started pacing again. Right now, her would happily change her noble character to a cigarette. Her, looked out the window. It was midday. I lost it for half a day.
  
  
  "I found her lab," her father said. 'Come here.'
  
  
  She made a sarong around the cotton sheet and went to the window. We were suddenly very depressed. He pointed to the lab and told me its location. He showed her the keys he'd taken from Kuoi's chair. I still had them. "All we have to do now is get out of here.
  
  
  "Do you think you can do it?" — What is it? " she asked softly.
  
  
  "Of course," I said. "A golden soul, and a lucky star? For estestvenno. How can I miss?
  
  
  She sighed heavily and bit my earlobe. "Wonderful," she said.
  
  
  A bunch of keys jingled for the day. We both quickly ducked to our beds, where we pretended to sleep.
  
  
  The door closed again. He looked down at the tray of food. "We'd better have dinner," I said. "Eda is supposed to intoxicate us."
  
  
  "Mmmm." She writhed on her mat like an art class model. "I'm glad that's not the case. I think its hungry. She carried the tray to a low table and lifted the lid off the still-steaming saucer.
  
  
  However, she sniffed it suspiciously. She yawned. "Don't worry," I said. "This is the Chinese eda. You'll wake up again in an hour.
  
  
  We took over. It was a simple eda, rice with vegetables. But it was delicious and at least it was filling. He looked at Tara and felt hungry again. But that had to wait. In a different place and at a different time. She felt my eyes on her, looked up, smiled shyly, and turned her attention back to her plate.
  
  
  I tried to understand her. It's a sudden embarrassment. I still had a lot to understand about her. My reaction to women is usually simple. When I have questions, they are all around them, which can be easily answered with both yes and no. Only this time, there was nothing simple around at all. Not questions or answers. Not my woman, and my feelings for her. Simple names are no longer applicable.
  
  
  She wasn't a pretty girl with glasses or a calendar beauty, although I couldn't imagine a month that didn't look better in nah. She was both Category A and category B. She was a certified scientific genius and an excellent worker. She was smart and sexy. Gentle and exciting. It stimulated me, irritated me, challenged me, lifted my spirits. and if it annoyed me, it also turned me on.
  
  
  — How about we get to work?"
  
  
  "How," she asked, " do you imagine that?"
  
  
  The tray pushed her away, resisting the urge to smoke a cigarette. Taking the laser away from Tara is one thing, but taking my cigarettes is torture.
  
  
  "I've been thinking about these monks for a while," I said. — And I have an idea. Can you talk fast?"
  
  
  "In the Sutoan dialect?"
  
  
  "In the Sutoan dialect."
  
  
  "Its just as I thought. Go on.'
  
  
  "Well, half of the monks here are agents of CANNES, aren't they? There are about a hundred Ih, and they will rush to the scene at any moment to disrupt our plans. So we have to destroy ih. Or at least bring ih around the game."
  
  
  'Good. But how do we know who they are?
  
  
  — We can't find out ih. That's the whole point. Only a real monk could do that."
  
  
  Tara frowned. — I doubt we can convince ego to tell us, if that's what you thought." Not if he knows we're going to take out these agents, or maybe even worse.
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. — I don't want him to tell you at all. I want these real monks to capture these CANNES agents or worse.
  
  
  For a moment, she just stared at me.
  
  
  "Do you want it to rain too, or maybe make gold around the straw?
  
  
  He smiled at her. — I don't think it's so supposedly difficult.
  
  
  — You can say that easily. What argument do you suggest I use? I mean, how do you convince men who are committed to doing nothing to do something? And secondly, if you manage to convince ih, what weapons do you suggest they use?
  
  
  He got up again and paced up and down the room. "As for the first part of your question, its counting on ih self-preservation instinct."
  
  
  She shook her head. "It won't work. They are not afraid of death.
  
  
  "I know that. But I don't mean ih personal survival. I mean save ih faith. Look, there's only one reason they're teaming up with KANG: to save their monastery. This must be the last remaining Dao stronghold in all of Indochina. If not in the world.
  
  
  'Right?'
  
  
  — So when these monks die, ih faith dies with them. KANG is not going to accept new monks. This place will become a CANNA fortress, not a Taoist temple. If they don't want to fight for it. In this case, doing nothing is tantamount to destroying yourself."
  
  
  — But wouldn't they have died without ih protection?"
  
  
  "With our help, they could move to another place."
  
  
  In one minute, she closed her eyes in thought. "Sounds pretty, as far as I can see." But then again, its just like you are a pragmatic American, and we are dealing with a completely different mindset."
  
  
  "I don't believe it," I said. "I think all idealists are the same in the end. They are willing to die for their ideas, but they don't want to let themselves die for their ideas."
  
  
  There was another water nut left on the tray. She picked it up with her fingers and took a bite. She smiled. Good idea, " she said. "It's worth a try anyway. There's only one problem on the dell itself.
  
  
  He sighed. 'What is it?'
  
  
  "How do you say 'idealist' in Sutoen?"
  
  
  I threw her on the bed with a pillow.
  
  
  'No, no.'she said. "The quiz isn't over yet. What about the beginning of the second part?
  
  
  "What's the second part?"
  
  
  "What should they use as a weapon?"
  
  
  "Oh, that," he told her with a smile. "What's around Lao Zeng's office." I had to wait a bit until she was on the same level as me. It didn't take nah too long.
  
  
  'God. Weapons groaning.
  
  
  "Weapons of ego moan. There are about a hundred ego units hanging there, and there are about a hundred real monks. And my math teacher would say that he gives you one weapon per person.
  
  
  "Hey, but wait a minute. As far as I can remember, this glass against the wall is unbreakable, electrified, and locked.
  
  
  — And my common sense tells me that where there is a lock, there must be a key." And that where there is electricity, there is also a switch. And one of the monks in Lao Tseng's chambers should know where they are."
  
  
  She looked at me seriously for a moment, then giggled, jumped over, and hugged me. "Sometimes,"she said," you're just lovely."
  
  
  "You haven't seen anything yet," I said.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 25
  
  
  
  
  That night, the Day of Miracles began.
  
  
  The first miracle happened when Tara pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her purse. You may not think that this miracle equates to getting water around a rock, but then you're not as addicted to smoking as you are to it.
  
  
  The second miracle took a little longer. About an hour, to be exact. But when Tangning left again with our dinner tray, he agreed to talk to his Supreme Court. If the Court agrees, it will join my plan.
  
  
  The third may not be considered a 100% miracle, but I'm willing to think so. Because, in the first place, it wasn't my idea. If I hadn't used Tara's last match, I might never have reached into the closet to see what was left in my pockets, and I might never have found the three lovely chips that I picked up at Casino Grenada, with yellow contents surrounding the drops. By some miracle, they remained in the seams of the doublet.
  
  
  The time was also quite wonderful. Because less than four seconds into the day, the key jangled and a monk came, apparently through the agents of CANNES, to check on us.
  
  
  It was only a few hours after our last drug-treated meal, and we were supposed to be relaxed. For he might have a weapon in his hand, but he wasn't on the lookout. And when he leaned down to take a closer look, I had no trouble hitting the emu with the chip hidden in my palm. I just took the gun from him. A strange Russian-made revolver. The seven-shot caliber revolver closed up 7.65.
  
  
  After about ten minutes, as he expected, his partner came to see what was going on.
  
  
  Now it's time to act. He didn't know the outcome of Ning Tang's meeting, but this was the situation right now. And its not around those who miss the opportunity.
  
  
  Tara and her changed into their nun's robes, wearing hoods to cover their heads. It was just another weak disguise. But at least the monks were of all sizes and heights, so our physique and height were not given away. He closed the door between us and our unconscious guards, and we easily slipped out around the building and across the dark area.
  
  
  We went openly to the lab.
  
  
  Tara felt at home among the swirling barrels and complex equipment. She quickly identified the three-month-old pbx. New clones of Lao Tsen. The other creatures were monkeys, she said. Then she stared down at the row of test tubes as if struck by lightning. "Ours," she said hoarsely. And she turned away.
  
  
  I stood guard while she rummaged through a cabinet full of chemicals, trying to figure out what to do with them. "What do you think," she said at last. "I could kill the pbx by adding anger to ih's diet. But then the lab would still be intact, and Kuoi could start withdrawing a new group again tomorrow... She was lost in thought, tapping her nails against her teeth.
  
  
  'Or else?'
  
  
  "Or... I can make some glycerol tri-nitrate and that's it."
  
  
  "Glycerol trinitrate?"
  
  
  "Nitroglycerin for you".
  
  
  'It's the same for you.'
  
  
  He smiled at her.
  
  
  'Well?'
  
  
  'Yes. Go ahead, keep going. Hurry up and make some nitroglycerin. I wouldn't want to give them a second chance."
  
  
  She set to work, lifting the glass screen that blocked the boiling chemicals. She chose a large round flask filled with a clear liquid, which was added drop by drop to the next tube with another clear liquid. This thing was on a heating coil and made big noisy bells. A condensation column was placed on top of the flask, and cold water maintained the temperature even when mixing substances with an automatic stirrer. It wasn't Stahl who asked her what the incident was on the dell itself. Anyway, she threw all those cashews down the drain.
  
  
  Then she took two more liquids, both colorless, and put them in one flask and the other in a feeding tube. If I'd ever had any doubts, they'd be gone now. Nah really had a reason to be here. She worked with the quick and efficient ease of some red-haired man in a brown hood, a good fairy, mixing the salamander's eye with the unicorn's tears. It is replaced with the refrigerator tube and stirrer.
  
  
  "All right," she said. Yet the Day of Miracles produced its first false note.
  
  
  And many other fake notts.
  
  
  These false notes were - left right on Vin. Dr. Kuoi and a dozen fake monks with a dozen real big guns. Those stupid seven-shot revolver pistols.
  
  
  I'm not easily intimidated. If she had been Odin, she would have been taken hostage by Kuoi. But they knew the hostage theory themselves. Two monks approached Tara, shoved a revolver into her back, and Po Vin ordered me to drop the weapon.
  
  
  He sighed. He dropped the weapon. He was beginning to get into the bad habit of being captured by him.
  
  
  Her emu said that.
  
  
  He said it was time to kick the habit. That it was the last capture. That I won't run away again. Kuoi added that it was time for me to develop a new habit. He was experimenting with something, but he hadn't tried it on humans yet... We were roughly taken to a room in the back of the lab. Next to the camera of an old woman who was constantly beating against the walls, and the camera of a young man who regressed to childhood. We were thrown inside, the door slammed shut, and then there was the heavy sound of a bolt sliding in front of it.
  
  
  Shaggy disappeared.
  
  
  The windows were barred. The cage was small. Inside, there was nothing but quilted walls. We were wearing soft digital cameras. And they were going to use microphones and speakers to drive us crazy enough that this soft camera might come in handy. At least they were going to try.
  
  
  All I knew was that they wouldn't succeed. Kamikaze wasn't my style, but my gas bomb was still hidden between my legs. If I let her go in the confined space of the cell, he'll take us with him. But at least he would have contacted Kwoi. I will reach my creator while my abilities are still intact.
  
  
  He looked at Tara. She was terrified. Her knowledge is important. Her eyes were wide open, her face expressionless. Anxiety is different from fear. Fear makes you worry to the fullest. Terror is paralyzing.
  
  
  Ee picked her up and tried to cheer her up. He tried to squeeze out a fit of fear through nah. She was still shaking. It shocked her. She was hit by ee. "Wake up, dear. I need you."'
  
  
  She dug her nails into my arm. "I'm sorry," she said in a strangled voice. "Tailor, you're right," I said. — How do you think I feel?"
  
  
  She looked at me in surprise. 'An alarm?'
  
  
  "Christ," I said. "If her didn't do it, his would have already been ready for this soft digital camera."
  
  
  She put her head on my shoulder and just hung there. "Why do I feel better now and not worse?"
  
  
  "Because you're locked in with a human, not a machine." She smiled thinly at me. Nervously, but with a smile. "If so," she said, "why do you have' Made in Japan ' written all over your ass?"
  
  
  "Because I was created there," I said, following her on her way. He ran a hand through his hair. She was imitating herself, but at least she was in control again.
  
  
  "Hurry up," I said, " and let's be reasonable." First of all, when is this damn thing going to explode?
  
  
  She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. If the cold water turned it off, we'd be dead by now. But to explode, the chemical must be heated to 240 degrees, and by itself it will not achieve this. I also managed to get that glass curtain down again. They don't even know that I switched out the chemicals, because they can kill their own PBX. At first it was there... well, let's say eda for PBX.
  
  
  'Then it's fine. As for Kuoi and ego funny gun, I have an idea. He guessed that if Kuoi came back here, he might not come with an entire platoon. A few monks with revolvers would probably be enough. He'll think about it. I told Tara what I meant.
  
  
  They were in no hurry to return. Maybe it just took a little time to get ready.
  
  
  We positioned ourselves on either side of the door. Tara was on the right. When the door opens, she'll be on it.
  
  
  A heavy silence built up and invaded our cell. If the lady next to us was banging on the wall, the padding would bury the sound. Her told Tara to get some sleep if she thought hey needed it. She thought Hey needed it. I stayed awake and watched the silence. I waited for it to break.
  
  
  I was wondering what drug Kuoi had prepared for us. I kept thinking about those old science-fiction movies where a university chemistry professor turns his students into giant bugs. Or the one in which astronauts overdose on moonbeams and turn into crazed cacti. Carter meets Dr. Vail Tweet. In the near future in this theater. Two bags of popcorn and lots of Coke. Then you go home and make love to Irina.
  
  
  Tara stirred for a moment in her sleep. Her estimate was that it was about five o'clock in the morning. The birds had been up and flying for an hour, and the saint was pouring in through the barred windows. Her shook her.
  
  
  The first minute of recovery is the most difficult. I watched her as she adjusted the perception of my brown furniture and quilted walls. She rubbed her hands over her eyes. 'What time is it now?'She looked around.' Oi. ' So, she finally returned to the land of the living. "I guess we don't know, do we?"
  
  
  "Time to get up," I said.
  
  
  "I had such a good, safe sleep. I dreamed that we were...
  
  
  "Shh."
  
  
  He heard the door to the hallway open. Lab door. Tara again beds candid in the corner as we rehearsed. When the door opened, her body was hidden, but her hand could reach it. She was ready for action. In her opinion, the timing was perfect. She hadn't slept long enough to be awake, and not long enough to be afraid. Her lay on the other side of the day, leaning her head against the moan. sleep.
  
  
  The door opened. Two armed monks surrounded Dr. Kuoi. There was a knife in Kuoi's hand.
  
  
  Everything went quickly and well.
  
  
  The first monk, Agent KANG, poked me with his revolver. For the first time in a day, Tara's hand appeared. The second monk felt a slight prick on his bare foot. Latest chips by Grenada. He lunged and reached for his revolver. He fired at random, into the quilted wall. Quoy cringed. The second monk fell unconscious. I had a gun in my hand now. The first monk was shot twice in the stomach. Kuoi started to run away. Her emu tripped her up and held her down until Tara grabbed the squirts and gave the emu a shot. Ego's eyes rolled back in fear. He fainted. He picked up the second weapon from the ground and handed it to Tara. Then she took the key and locked Kuoi ego and friends on digital cameras.
  
  
  We were free again. This means that I am exceptionally smart and exceptionally stupid. Choose one. But don't tell me rheumatism...
  
  
  Tara leaned against Moan and closed her eyes. "Can I turn it off now?" It was indeed very weak.
  
  
  "You think you can hold out for another hour?"
  
  
  She sighed and straightened up again. "I promise."
  
  
  "Come on," I said.
  
  
  'Wait a second.'She gave me back the gun that ay gave me. "Wait, huh? She untied the string of her monk's robe. The monk was as tall as I was, and the hem of his robe trailed about six inches on the floor. She pulled the ego up until it was no higher than her ankles. "Hold this now." He held her down while she tied the shoelace tight again and folded the extra fabric over it.
  
  
  "I know," she said. "It's not particularly pretty, but it's better if I have to run." She took her weapon. 'Good. Where are we going, boss?"
  
  
  "To the lab."
  
  
  We walked up to the door, and its cracked open. He motioned for Tara to stay away. Two lab technicians were busy inside. They were dressed like monks, but ihas were covered in white lab coats. They were working on the covered table, but they didn't touch Tara's creation.
  
  
  He slipped through the door and walked noiselessly across the room. When he was about ten feet behind them, he said, " Hang in there, and put your hands up. Turn around slowly.
  
  
  They did as they were told. I told her to Tara.
  
  
  "What do we have in this medicine cabinet to silence ih for a few hours?"
  
  
  She went to the shelves of magic potions and studied the sorting. "Mmmm, how about... how about some amobarbital? That's enough for a nice, calm cola."
  
  
  "I'm fine."
  
  
  She started preparing syringes. "Whatever you prefer. Normal sleep or to whom?"
  
  
  "Jesus," I said. "The choice is up to the buyer". I kept my eyes on the two monks. Odin moved his hand carefully across the table around them.
  
  
  For vaults, then, " she said, half-filling the hypodermic needles.
  
  
  Her shot hit the cup he was reaching for. The glass shattered, and yellow liquid flowed out. It corroded the surface of the chair.
  
  
  We've all looked at it. Hers, he shook his head. — I think you'd better get out of there." I wouldn't want anything to happen to you." They didn't move for a while. "I have five more shots and I shoot very well. So you really only have one choice. Sleep... I pointed to the container and the needles.
  
  
  He waved the revolver at her. They headed for the center of the room.
  
  
  I don't know why I let them choose. It was like shooting unarmed people in cold blood. She was held up by a revolver under their noses while Tara injected them with a hypodermic needle, rubbing ih with alcohol as if it mattered. Good habits are just as hard to break as bad ones.
  
  
  Soon they passed out and fell asleep. She turned to me.
  
  
  'What now? she tried to speak calmly, but her voice was shaky.
  
  
  "You still can't pass out," he asked her
  
  
  "Can I sit her down then?"
  
  
  Hey smiled at her. Because of her strange combination of ability and tenderness, strength and weakness, woman and child. She sat up and was kissed on the top of her head by ee.
  
  
  — You have something else to do, honey.
  
  
  "Nitroglycerin".
  
  
  Nitroglycerin. Can you make the ego strong enough to blow up the whole building? I mean, including our shining star. Dr. Kuoi?
  
  
  She nodded. "Including ego, office, and all ego papers."
  
  
  "Then do it."
  
  
  He suddenly thought of the innocent victims in the cells. A boy, an old woman, and someone else had the wonderful good fortune of being a human guinea pig for Dr. Kuoi. He was fiddling with his set of eight keys. Keys to cells. Somehow, I had to try to save these people. But how do you explain to those people who don't understand what you're doing? How can you tell them, " Follow me. Don't worry.'...
  
  
  He went to the medicine cabinet and took the medicine that Tara had used against the monks. "How much is enough for a normal anesthesia?"
  
  
  "Oh ... five hundred milligrams is enough. Can you confuse it with this? She pointed to a bottle of clear liquid. "Do you know how to give someone an injection?"
  
  
  He nodded to her. He started mixing sedatives.
  
  
  'Good. I'm going to try to get these guys out of here. To the temple, if I have time. They will surely be safe there for a while...? Her, looked at the cup in her hand. "When I get back here, do you know how to throw this stuff?
  
  
  "Don't give up your ego forever, dear. Why just turn off the water and turn on the heating?
  
  
  'Good. I'll do my best to come back here to pick you up. Or will you meet me at the temple?" I'm leaving her.
  
  
  'Nickname?'
  
  
  Her, turned around. 'What is it, honey?
  
  
  "Make sure everything's okay?" It was like a prayer. He held up the bottle and needle and picked her up. Her, felt all her softness under the rough fabric. I felt myself soften a little from her pulsing warmth, that infectious warmth that spread through my body and penetrated my folding dollar. There's a word for it. It's a funny word that's printed on Valentine cards and played on jukeboxes a hundred times an hour. She was kissed by ee. Her kissed her greeting and goodbye, her want you and love you, and she held me as if her stahl were a part of her. "It's going to be all right," I whispered. 'Everything will be fine.'
  
  
  She hung her head. "I know what's in there—" "All these people with all these revolvers?
  
  
  "Well, they're not looking for me right now. They think I'm turning into something incomprehensible here.
  
  
  The eyes she opened on me were uncomprehending.
  
  
  "A plant," I said. "A product of the Kuoi Magic Elixir company. So if I play it right, I can avoid getting into trouble. Besides, "I lifted her chin," I've met a lot of men in my life, with lots of guns. And its still alive.
  
  
  She tried to smile and failed miserably.
  
  
  "Cheer up," I said. "Its invulnerable. Noble and with a lucky star, remember? Also, the hero is never vulnerable. You've read enough stories to know that.
  
  
  She shook her head. "This is not a story. This is reality. She paused. "Peter Hansen was such a hero, and something happened to him."
  
  
  Hansena met her once. Attractive guy and sniper rifle. Hawke called ego a real talent. But something had happened to Hansen. Not the big goodbye, but what could have been worse. They hit Hansen in the spine. Gawking with a forty-five gauge has severed the nerves that allow you to do things like walk. And make love. She pushed the thought away as quickly as possible. "That's another story," I said. 'Not mine. Not ours.
  
  
  She kissed me again, her eyelids fluttering with new fear.
  
  
  He pulled away and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Stop it," I said. — I told you everything was going to be fine. So everything will be fine. And keep a strong grip on this weapon. He pointed to the revolver lying on the table. "Take your ego with you when you go out and use it when you need to."
  
  
  She sighed and nodded, slowly regaining control of herself.
  
  
  "See you at the temple." "I went to the cages.
  
  
  'Nickname.'she asked. "Can I turn it off now?"
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 26
  
  
  
  
  There was another victim of Dr. Kuoi's practice. A man about my age, European, tall. He smiled a lot. And he drooled. I wondered how this poor man got here. And, to my personal happiness, I got out of here alone.
  
  
  I'd be wrong if no special security team wanted me. The grounds were quiet. The sun was already high, and the air was shivering with heat. The usual rows of ground-looking monks were heading towards the temple. Hoods are worn to protect ih bald attack skill value. She stealthily immersed herself in the situation. The PBX is not visible. A burst of rough laughter around the dorm window informed me that the partisan monks were still inside at that moment.
  
  
  My three proteges were pacified. Inside the temple with real monks, they will be safe.
  
  
  Ih brought her and laid her on woven prayer mats next to the kneeling monks. It was cool inside. The result of thick exterior walls or lack of passion inside. The silent monks were like statues. But not like the stone statues. The stone is dirty and earthy, and even the smoothest marble still carries hints of rock, mountain, and mud.
  
  
  If it were possible for images of clouds to be taken. then that was all. One big picture of the sky.
  
  
  Ning Tanga saw her in the foreground of the room. Her ego tried to catch her eye, but it was turned inward, fixed on some abstract thought. I left her through the temple. If I don't hurry, I can still get to the lab and to Tara. She wasn't sent to the hotel to cross the grounds alone.
  
  
  Leaving was harder than coming. When her, entered the temple, she was one around many. Now he was one of the few Po's. The fake monks knew that the real monks were praying hard. And if its not real and not fake, then its got to be Carter. But maybe I just kept getting lucky.
  
  
  He was really trying to keep up with the pace of a man who sees time and distance as mere mortals and unimportant things. It just wasn't supposed to go well.
  
  
  So it didn't go well.
  
  
  This wasn't the first branch, he was looking at the sun with narrowed eyes. And to the lab.
  
  
  Laboratories and Containers.
  
  
  A step picked her up.
  
  
  Her guess is that it is.
  
  
  All six of them were standing by the well. About twenty meters away from me. Six automatic telephone exchanges. The Odin around them raised his head as they talked. He saw me and started yelling. Then they all came at me. He ducked behind a tree and fired. One of them was shot in the shoulder, but he continued to advance. I had four shots left. If it was hit four times, there would still be two branches in full formation. I was just pondering this situation when reinforcements arrived. The other clones. Twenty in all. They rushed out of their dorm and headed in my direction.
  
  
  There are times when you need to run fast.
  
  
  I went the only possible way. This meant that I had to go to the poppy fields. When you see a guy do something so stupid in a movie, you know he's doomed. Any madman who climbs a scaffold or runs across a flat field is mercilessly dooming himself.
  
  
  But sometimes there is simply no other way out.
  
  
  If I had gone to the lab, ih k Tara would have brought him. If I bring her to the temple, I will endanger others and do little to help myself. I didn't have any plan in mind. No long-term smart field maneuvers. The corkscrew wasn't about whether I would survive. But for how long.
  
  
  The poppy field beckoned to me like a scene from Oz. Endless carpet of purple flowers. Dream stage. Extremely unlikely Waterloo.
  
  
  I had a thirty-yard lead and four bullets. It's all. That was the end of my blessing count. Bullets slammed into the ground at my feet, sending nasty gusts of wind as they whizzed past my shoulder. He continued to run and gained a few more meters. Somewhere in the middle of the field was a small stone box. If only ee could get to it, and ee could use it as a temporary defense, as a temporary base.
  
  
  Carter's last bastion.
  
  
  Now they dispersed and tried to surround me. Bullets whizzed around me, as if I'd been sucked into a stuffy room when he reached the stone structure. The door was locked. Her snuggled up to moan and looked around. The clones approached me. Twenty identical faces approach me from twenty different directions. Twenty revolvers pointed at me.
  
  
  He fired at the nearest target. it is aimed directly at the point in the center of the forehead. He quickly fell on his flower-strewn grave. Another city of gunfire rained down on me from all directions. They slammed into the wall behind me, cut the flowers on my feet, but somehow they didn't touch me.
  
  
  Then I understood her.
  
  
  They were still ordered not to kill me. They couldn't have known that Kuoi was my prisoner, and that the ego lab was only minutes away from eternity. As far as they knew, hers was still the golden egg-laying hen. They just want to catch me and put me back in the cage. Suddenly it knows exactly what to do. The opposite odds no longer bothered me. Winners are never realistic.
  
  
  I fired at two automatic telephone exchanges that were blocking my way in the direction I wanted, and got out. He would never have done that. Only then, at the same time. the lab blew up. It exploded like a small volcano, shaking the earth, spewing fire, throwing rocks and rays at the sun, and just kept exploding, bang, bang, bang. And in the midst of the crippling confusion that followed, he advanced a few yards. I raced across the field, thundering through everything that stood in my way like a god of war.
  
  
  They started to recover and gave chase. This was exactly what her hotel was like. They had lost a lot of time, and her father had taken the lead.
  
  
  She was reached by the door to Lao Tseng's chambers. There was no one to guard the door. No monks. No partizan. When the chaos broke out, no one on the dell itself ventured out into the open.
  
  
  When her got to Lao's office, her understood why. The glass wall parted, and the weapon disappeared. The Taoists have joined my plan. They kept the po KANG guys at gunpoint, and away from me.
  
  
  She was found by Lao Zeng and Vin in the dining room. Two monks held ih at gunpoint with revolvers. She chased the monks around the building and exchanged weapons with one around them. Ego seven shots to the one I have left.
  
  
  There were two people in the cafeteria. One in the hallway, the other in the kitchen. I opened the door to the corridor a crack, but the lock worked. When the door closed, it was indeed locked. Outside. He took it himself and stood at the kitchen door, pointing a revolver at the prisoners. Lao Zeng looked grim. Vin, who looked angry. But they haven't given up yet.
  
  
  After all, the ih rescue squads were already on their way. Lao Zeng's clones will arrive just in time to save ih. At least, that's what they were counting on.
  
  
  Lao Zeng gripped the arms of his wheelchair. "Enjoy a brief moment of your glory, Carter. Because I'm warning you: this is going to be a very short time. I have a hundred agents and twenty of my best sons there. You don't stand a chance.
  
  
  "Well, we'll see," I said. — In any case, your intrigues are thwarted. In case you haven't heard, your lab just took off — the clones, the documents, Dr. Kuoi, and the whole ego fucking gang.
  
  
  Vin Vo tried to refute this with a positive mindset. "We can restore it," he said, more to Lao Zeng than to me. "There will be a new Dr. Kuoi and a new generation of powerful ats. Meanwhile, our mission will succeed in paralyzing your country. The PBX that will do this was no longer in the lab."
  
  
  All I could say was, " Keep dreaming." There was a commotion in the hallway. Boots rustled. Doors opened. The clones have arrived. Just a few seconds and they'll be walking in with my old buddy Chen-li. Vin Wo smiled. "You're about to be rudely woken up." You may be good, Carter, but you're not good enough for twenty to one.
  
  
  "We'll see," I said again.
  
  
  The door to the corridor opened and the clones rushed in. The whole family. "Close this door!" Lao Zeng said. The revolver at ego's head scared ego less than the thought of a draft. The door closed and decided ego's fate.
  
  
  They were in no hurry to approach me. It was twenty to one, and he was ready to go. He dropped his weapon. One of my hands was focused on the kitchen table, and the other was hidden in the folds of my robe, where bomb had hidden it. Her, I realized that it was time. Then she was abandoned by ee. Like a hard ball. Open to Lao Tseng's head. Double whammy! He lost his ego, and at the same time the bomb went off, filling the room with deadly smoke. Hers was running around the kitchen before they even realized what was happening. He locked the door behind him and went to the temple.
  
  
  Tara was there. Together with Ning Tang. He said the other monks kept KANG agents in the dorm building. All the ihs were carefully tied up and laid on the floor. The real monks were running their monastery again.
  
  
  She was asked by Tara to ask egos how they felt about using guns and actually threatening other people to die. Tara heard rheumatism, then turned to me with her eyes closed. She shook her head.
  
  
  "You won't believe it."
  
  
  "Try it," I said. "Today I believe in everything."
  
  
  "They all really hated using these weapons. The voice of why — "she shook her head," the voice of why they took out the bullets around the guns first.
  
  
  'How? He looked at the weapon in his hand that he had exchanged with the monk. He aimed at the open door of the temple and fired. Nothing like that. Just a dull click.
  
  
  He laughed.
  
  
  All this uprising took place without bullets. The fact that the po KANG guys thought there were enough bullets to win led ih into a trap.
  
  
  He looked into Ning Tang's eyes and remembered that he had said that ideas were stronger than weapons. Then her, I thought I understood.
  
  
  For a while.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 27
  
  
  
  
  Rating is one of those new words that I hate about it. One of them is the bad habits of the establishment, when efforts are never "intense" and when the army is never simply "sent out" rather than"deployed." Grades are just a big word for what I tell Hawke about what I know, and what he tells me about what he knows, and we decide not to tell anyone else.
  
  
  Tara and hers were on their way to it.
  
  
  It was one of those beautiful spring days when Washington sparkles and every monument seems to have a monumental significance.
  
  
  Tara was uncomfortably quiet in the taxi. Gripping my hand tightly, she bit her lip, lost in her own untranslatable thoughts. She's been like this ever since the ferret plane landed. The driver's radio was tuned to one of those stations that play old standard tunes, and right now they were playing a good old Cole Porter song, " So Near And Yet So Far." That was her voice.
  
  
  We drove up to Dupont Circle and stopped in front of a certain unmonumental door of the Joint Press and Telegraph Office. At least a better facade for the AX headquarters than that run - down London tea shop.
  
  
  Hawk greeted us enthusiastically. He looked up from his cluttered chair and growled.
  
  
  "Sit down," he said. "Do you have a minute?"
  
  
  He was reading something in a red secret folder, chewing on an unlit cigar. Our little battle with the clones was over, but here on Hawke's desk, the war continued. New case. New stories.
  
  
  Tara looked out the window at the sunlit treetops. Her upper lip was pulled tight. He turned and shrugged. Whatever's bothering her, she'll find out sooner or later. She was one of those women who shouldn't play poker. At least not if you had those feelings.
  
  
  Instead of looking at nah her, he looked at Hawk. His old face with young blue eyes. With the kind of brain that can name any address of a Nazi hangout in 1940, but can't remember what shirt he was wearing yesterday.
  
  
  Finally, he looked up. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "As soon as she knew you were safe, you disappeared around my priority list." He turned to Tara. "Well, Miss Bennet. How do you like the active part of the paint?
  
  
  Tara smiled. A strange, unconvincing smile. "Very nice," she said softly. 'Yes, very nice. But... I don't think I'd want to do it again."
  
  
  'No? He raised one eyebrow and looked in my direction. "All right, Carter. Your turn. He leaned back in his creaking swivel chair and lit a chewed cigar.
  
  
  — You already know most of it, sir. We found a nest of these PBXs and destroyed it. Tara took care of the clone embryos, the labs, and the mad scientist behind her. CANNAE will no longer be propagated by ih. At least as long as we're still alive, Vin Po, Lao Tseng, and all the adult PBX have taken her out. At least all those who were in Indochina
  
  
  "And we are the ones who were here, and the few who were in London," he interrupted me. "We also contacted an ih drug expert. there is. What-is-the ego called-now?
  
  
  "Pam the Horse." †
  
  
  'Yes. We have him, and he admits everything carefully. Of course, first we give emu a little ego of his own truth serum. Hawk grimaced. He loved using her as much as he loved using her. — We don't have to worry anymore. This Featherstone performance was also closed. This is the responsibility of Scotland Yard. It looks like they got hit a lot there. And this money has funded many KAN events.
  
  
  He told Hawke about the opium fields and how KANG used the drug trade as a medium of thought. He shook his head grimly and stubbed out his cigar as if killing a parasite with it. "Unfortunately, the drug trade is not within our competence. But I keep telling them that there's much more to these drugs than just greed."
  
  
  He sighed. "Maybe they'll listen a little more now. In any case, this special poppy field is no longer used - along with the branch in Nassau that you closed. That makes two.
  
  
  "And hundreds more such places to start."
  
  
  Hawk gave me a piercing look. "Thousands would be a better fit." He turned back to Tara. 'Well. ' - Actually, you should be happy. Your... what's her name again?" .. a crazy, unimaginable theory... Well, it was correct.
  
  
  Tara cleared her throat. "You called it a godforsaken, crazy dream, sir," she said sincerely.
  
  
  Hawk looked confused. Maybe for the first time in my life. "All right," he muttered. — I let you go through with it, didn't I?
  
  
  "Yes, sir —" was the only rheumatism he got.
  
  
  'Then it's fine.'He was preparing to let us go. 'Even more?'
  
  
  He nodded to her. 'Two things. I promised these monks that we would try to find them a new monastery. Somewhere in the free territory. Her hotel would have kept its word. Do you think we can take care of this?
  
  
  Hawk made a note in his notebook. "I believe that there is a military base in South Korea. Let me check this out first. I believe we can do it. And she started the second corkscrew.
  
  
  "Roscoe."
  
  
  Hawk struggled to light another cigar. Then he looked up and told me about Roscoe. About that damn umbrella and how they found the ego.
  
  
  "Maybe it was better that way, in a way," he said. Then he let out a grim laugh. "Take it, Tailor, that's a stupid thing to say.
  
  
  He turned in his creaking chair and looked out the window. I looked out. "Her point is that we've been getting a lot of bad reviews about this Roscoe guy. He was getting too old and too careless. Abington in London asked for permission to retire ego. Shortly before this happened, you called out the ego. Either way, it would be ego, the last thing to do. And I'm not sure how Roscoe would have understood that. In his best years, he was an excellent agent. It was an ego life.
  
  
  Hawk took a deep breath. I wondered if he was thinking of himself. About the day when he himself becomes careless, and someone decides to retire the ego. God, now he was thinking about himself, too.
  
  
  Hawk turned away from the window.
  
  
  "What will you do? Will you spend one of your well-earned vacations abroad?" It was ego's way of telling me that he was giving me a few weeks off.
  
  
  He looked at Tara and thought of the Riviera. Or Tahiti. Yes, a desert island would be perfect for us. "Maybe," I said.
  
  
  He continued. 'And you. Miss Bennet? You deserve a few days off, too. We have made sure that Peter receives excellent care, but you can spend your holidays together. You two.'
  
  
  He shifted to a higher gear.
  
  
  'Peter?'Her,' turned to her.
  
  
  She looked me straight in the eye. "Peter Hansen," she said softly.
  
  
  Peter Hansen, the wounded hero. Whose name she mentioned in the lab when she warned me to be careful. "My husband," she concluded.
  
  
  For someone who doesn't have much time for tact, Hawk made a generous gesture. He cleared his throat, got up, and went out into the hall.
  
  
  Tara looked at me sadly. "I love him," she said. — I can't leave him. I wouldn't do it even if I could. But, Nick, I loved loving you so much. She reached out, grabbed me, and held me close. Her, looked at her face. For the last time. Those gorgeous green eyes, those auburn hair, and those stupid freckles that were still there. And her, thought about what kind of life she would have had for nah. A safe and good life where everything stays as it is and never turns into a nightmare. A life that Ay could never promise her. A life she could never live. A life she probably never would have wanted.
  
  
  "Maybe that's better, in a way," I said. "God will love me for talking nonsense."
  
  
  
  
  
  About the book:
  
  
  Once upon a time there was a publication dedicated to experiments: take a body cell from someone, develop it in the right conditions and get a duplicate of this person. The doppelganger will be identical in appearance, it will be identical in abilities.
  
  
  Nick Carter couldn't believe it, but emu had to when he encountered such "clones" or identical doppelgangers. In this case, they are doppelgangers of a genius assassin, with only one goal in mind: to intimidate Congress, the Senate, and the President of the Americas, and to subordinate ih to their salvo. And thus control world politics from different points of view.
  
  
  Nick Carter can destroy as many PBXs as he wants, but it's pointless. And while US senators are being killed, Carter is doing his hopeless job: stopping the production of the PBX and eliminating the only real killer.
  
  
  But can't every branch be a real man?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Table of contents
  Chapter 2
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  Chapter 11
  
  
  Chapter 12
  
  
  Chapter 13
  
  
  Chapter 14
  
  
  Chapter 15
  
  
  Chapter 16
  
  
  Chapter 17
  
  
  Chapter 18
  
  
  Chapter 19
  
  
  Chapter 20
  
  
  Chapter 21
  
  
  Chapter 22
  
  
  Chapter 23
  
  
  Chapter 24
  
  
  Chapter 25
  
  
  Chapter 26
  
  
  Chapter 27
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nick Carter
  
  
  The horror of ice terror.
  
  
  translated by Lev Shklovsky in memory of his lost son Anton
  
  
  Original title: Ice Trap Terror
  
  
  
  
  
  The first chapter
  
  
  It was already getting dark above the high roof and around the treetops. Shadows slid across the intertwining foliage, thickening the steam curtain of depressing Savchenko that spilled over everything. It made the sluggish, exhausted feeling I was having even worse. An implacable force lurks in the jungle — a giant leech that drains all your energy and even your will to live. This power has been working on me for a day and a half. She urged me to stop and lie down, just give up and let these devilish hordes of insects finish me off for good. Thread of Nick Carter-super agent AH, Killmaster N3. And her voice came to this infernal corner of Nicaragua called the Mosquito Coast. Ironically, the name of this low, hot swampy area is not taken from these devilish insects, but from the Indians-mosquito .
  
  
  However, he persevered because he knew that he had to reach his destination before dark. The almost impenetrable undergrowth had delayed me long enough. I had to clear every inch of the jungle with my machete. He swore and almost tripped as the mass of greenery she'd just cut flew up again.
  
  
  He was digging in the thick mud of a nearly dried-up stream, one of thousands of streams that meandered here like capillaries. As her carapace rubbed at him, slithering, slimy creatures began to climb the stagnant muck. Sweat trickled down my face, soaking my clothes and backpack. It was as if the straps of my backpack had cut into my shoulders.
  
  
  Early yesterday morning, a MID patrol ship dropped me off at Laguna de Perlas . From there I went southwest, roughly parallel to the Tungla River.
  
  
  It was December, so the thread of the rainy season. I was grateful for that. Precipitation varies greatly in Nicaragua, but Bluefields on the Caribbean coast gets 750 cm per year. In July or August, my journey, which is already a complete misery, would have been completely impossible.
  
  
  There are no roads in this corner. The web backbone is Panamericano on the other side of the country. The national rail network is about four hundred and fifty kilometers long, and is mostly located on the Pacific coast. In any case, he would never have dared to use it, just as he would not have dared to show himself on the only road in the area. A white stranger would be noticed and distrusted, and that would be disastrous at this critical juncture.
  
  
  It continued its journey through the bright colors of this unreal twilight world up the eastern plateau, a low ridge peak. The highest peak here is less than two thousand meters, and the average height is seven hundred. On the other side, the mountains descend to a fertile plateau, plains and lakes. On this side, however, it was a jungle-covered slope, an endless line of vermin-covered trees, dense fleshy plants, and fungi. Huge vines twined around the trees and branches; stinking mildew and dark moss covered the ground. There was a pungent smell of rotting vegetation everywhere.
  
  
  Gradually the ascent became steeper; the paddles became sharper and the chasms deeper. Gorges were receptacles for dripping rainwater, and ih stagnant swamps were breeding grounds for millions of hostile creatures that consider themselves my delicacy. The air was always full of insects. Frogs and smaller mammals appeared only at night. The birds did not gain the upper hand when, but usually sat high in the treetops. Troublemakers, frogs, and constantly chirping birds gathered near the waterfall. There was one, about the size of a crow, but very brightly colored. She whistled an almost perfect scale, never once repeating the last note. It was driving me crazy. In addition to insect bites and bird madness, I also endured snakes and lizards. There were also daytime drifters like the stinking lizard on the ground. There were also boa constrictors in burrows and on branches, medium-sized tree snakes, and slimy predatory snakes such as the fanged ferocious spearman . Ih's homeland was a deadly land that was barely explored or mapped, and that would quickly devour anyone who was stupid enough to try to get there.
  
  
  For the rest of the day, he waded through the stifling depths, stopping only once for a bite to eat. I was sure I wouldn't make it, but as darkness fell, slowed by the light still coming from behind a few ridges of cloud, I came across a large cluster of Honduran palm trees. It was like a forest, in a forest made up entirely of these tall palm trees with feathery leaves and rather smooth trunks. Smaller fig trees grew between them, surrounded by swarms of bloodthirsty mosquitoes.
  
  
  Honduran palms grow in most jungles of Central and South America, but an ih cluster like this was rare. This proves that this area was once cultivated, as the Mayan Indians used the fruit of this tree for the production of oil. Although it wasn't easy to cut down this tree with stone axes, they also used the wood for their buildings. In this area, this tree flourished, and eventually it took over the land that was once cultivated everywhere.
  
  
  From the moment I entered the palm grove, I opened it slowly and carefully. Frank ahead should be Colonel Zembla's headquarters. From what little AH had unearthed about the mysterious colonel and ego activities, he knew that this stretch of forest was heavily guarded with men, flares, fragmentation mines, and sensitive signal microphones capable of picking up even the faintest sound.
  
  
  He crawled forward on all fours, studying every inch of the terrain. He pushed through the undergrowth and slid like a dragon through the boulders. He deliberately chose the most difficult and impassable road. If an animal or plant made the slightest noise or rustle, it was used by the ego to move forward, drowning out the sound I made. The backpack was heavy and swung around from side to side. The bank painfully closed my eyes, so I couldn't see properly. It annoyed me even more when I wiped her face with my sleeve.
  
  
  In a training camp in the woods and fields that were supposedly booby-trapped, it was a practical game that gave our instructors sadistic pleasure. Everything was deadly serious here, and he strained to find every bent blade of grass, patch of crushed moss, or creeper that couldn't be found anywhere. It was discovered by several mines and bypassed by nu, without touching. Cutting the wires would be suicide. Just before he reached the trail, a flare cable found him. Mimmo nim crawled through it and found a signal cartridge, which he defused.
  
  
  The path was a weed-covered road that originally ran from the Tungla River and went north. There was probably a canoe dock at the bottom, and there might be a few snipers in the bushes, too. The trail itself, of course, was littered with mines and other traps near Colonel Zembla's jungle hideout. So I definitely shouldn't have taken this straight, narrow path. Hers disappeared back into the shadows, and Stahl picked his way more cautiously through the undergrowth. Thirty yards away, the path suddenly swerved and cut me off. He carefully examined the small, moss-covered clearing. It seemed so peaceful with little winged and glittering butterflies dancing in the dim light.
  
  
  The shaft was buried in the moss with the hairpin facing up. Whoever put it up for us didn't do it professionally enough, because there was a small patch of moss sticking out right at the top. To my left and right were thick hedges around thorns. I couldn't avoid it, otherwise I would have to go back and walk around this place from afar.
  
  
  Crouching low, he listened for a sound. I didn't hear her and thought about what to do. The long way back can be more dangerous than clearing a mine. Maybe it was a booby trap that didn't explode when you touched it, but that didn't seem to fit Colonel Zembla's character. He wasn't around those who would waste a mine that was already impossible to dig to secure passage.
  
  
  He looked over his shoulder at the jungle darkness behind me. It would take too long to get back, and in the dark I didn't have a chance. He crawled forward and carefully picked up a patch of moss. My mistletoe is a single pressure ignition. He held his breath, wiped his hands on his pants, and turned the ignition switch. The thread was corroded, and the handle wouldn't budge easily. Finally it worked. He took out the fuse, replaced the handle on the mine, and replaced the piece of moss. Then he sighed again.
  
  
  He got up and walked carefully down the path until he could duck back into the bushes beside her. I hid it for the rest of my journey in the bushes. Every detail required maximum effort. I found another mine to get around it, and some flares. The mines were scattered as thickly as the insects. Finally, he stepped out into a more open space. A few yards away was a high, angular hill, thickly covered with shrubbery and creeper-covered trees.
  
  
  At first glance, it looked like a pyramid-like hill. But then he saw that the foundation was made of layers of intertwined stones, and on one side was a staircase with hundreds of steps. The walls were covered with beautiful orchids and other epiphytes that felt more comfortable in the cracks of the masonry than on the branches of trees. He looked at the ruins of an ancient Mayan building . Ih was almost impossible to recognize as the work of human hands. They became one with the jungle that consumed ih a thousand years ago. The structure, apparently designed as a temple, rose spectacularly across the depths of the jungle, dark and mysterious in this remote place.
  
  
  More important than its historical value was the purpose for which it was now being used. Reports of this came to us fragmentary and parts were still coming out by ear. However, if our information was correct, these isolated and seemingly abandoned ruins contained the most advanced electronic warfare imaginable.
  
  
  It all started two months ago with a garbled radio message from our agent in Oaxaca, Mexico. Since that time, the image of a peculiar genius who called himself Colonel Zembla gradually developed in the Academy. He invented something for climate change, and then used this climate control as a weapon. Who he would use the ego against, and why, was unknown. However, everything pointed to the fact that he had enough equipment in this Mayan temple to turn the vast boiling jungle into a giant glacier.
  
  
  Within days, or perhaps hours, he planned to do just that: without warning, turn Central America into one vast Arctic landscape.
  
  
  Her ego should have stopped her.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 2
  
  
  
  
  I took off my backpack and carefully placed ego on the ground. During my two-day trip here, I really liked it. He provided me with education and shelter, and I hoped that he would help me again. What I had to do next had to be done carefully and quietly. All I was able to bring with me was a small set of tools that the guys in the AX lab made specifically for this case. Ego was able to fasten it to my belt, so my hands were free. My gas bomb was taped to my ankle, and a stiletto was fastened around my arm. I left her my Luger. Now I had a 7.65-mm Chi-Com pistol, used in Vietnam, closed with a raise. It had a built-in silencer and required special cartridges with rimless casings. It was far from a Luger: it didn't have as much power, but it was just as effective at close range. Especially since you can't really put a silencer on a Luger. This handle still doesn't fit very well in my hand, as I'm used to the heavier German pistol.
  
  
  I was thinking of taking a machete with me, but I wouldn't need an ego to go through the ruins since they weren't overgrown, and if I used a knife, the sound would definitely give me away. A long-bladed knife was a good weapon if you had space, but it would be difficult to handle in a temple like a Luger. So I left the ego with my backpack and went to the clearing surrounding the temple. There were probably more microphones hidden here than in any broadcast studio. I was counting on the person at the monitor to mistake me for an animal around the jungle, because the alarm system no longer issued warnings. He leaped up and pulled himself up to the first ledge of the temple. I had to use roots, vines, and tree stumps as support because I didn't trust the crumbling stairs.
  
  
  Her almost blindly fell into another trap. Luckily, I saw a small hole high up in the tree. The man who laid the mine pointed out where he was putting the projectile. Its not daring to move. It took me forever to find the ignition. It was a thin yellowish cable with small sharp spikes stuck in it. It stretched out between two trees and disappeared completely into the foliage. If I went any further, it would cut through my flesh like a razor. At the same time, the pin would break out around the load behind the tree, and the tree and I would go up in the air together. A hospitable man, this Colonel Zembla!
  
  
  The cable skirted it and crept cautiously on. Every few meters, her foot caught on a vine to listen and rest. Then he got up again. As a support, he used slits and protrusions. High above the treetops, he saw the moon rising, casting a pale light.
  
  
  Once at the top, he crouched down between two boulders on the battlemented ledge. He examined the roof, which was usually flat and rectangular. The front part leading to the stairs and the back part were twice as long as the side he had climbed. The roof was clean and probably freshly laid. In a corner on the far side was a sort of hut, like a pile of rubble.
  
  
  To get to the temple, I had to go through the door of on's hut, because there was no other entrance to the roof. Two guards and a helicopter stood between me and the hut. Odin around the guards leaned against the helicopter's landing gear. Another slowly shell along the handrail. Both were short, stocky Mestizos; like seventy percent Nicaraguans, half Native American and half Hispanic. They were wearing loose trousers and shirts and soft suede boots. They seemed to be fine and didn't make any sound. They weren't dressed like real soldiers, but they could have used their light automatic rifles if you got too close to them. These were Belgian 7.62 mm NATO FAL rifles; very good and very popular with South Americans.
  
  
  The helicopter was a Bell Sioux 13 R, a three-seater. It looked a bit like a large dragonfly with its tail up. It was a reliable workhorse that had been widely used since the Korean era. In this godforsaken place, such a thing was the only means of transportation at best. Therefore, the roof of the temple was made suitable for landing. Hawke took aerial photos that showed that the helicopter was usually parked on the roof. An investigation completed a week ago revealed that the helicopter did not belong to an official archaeological group. It was acquired through a series of very careful transactions at an army depot in Mexico City. This happened a few days after the city was hit by the strongest snowstorm in living memory. Not so strong in itself, but still enough to raise the worst suspicions in the AH. That's why Hawk decided to send me here.
  
  
  He was the first of our people to take a close look at this helicopter. There was a curious emblem on the doors; a golden sun with three crimson lines on the nen. It was as if someone had cut the ornament with a knife, and the metal was now bleeding. I wondered what that meant. As the patrolman approached Licks, he noticed the same sticker on his breast pocket.
  
  
  He kept coming up, licking and licking... The situation has become complicated. The two guards were now so far apart that I couldn't shoot them at the same time from where I was sitting. If I shoot one, he'll warn the other before I can turn around and follow him. If hers moved too early, hers was caught between them; however, if hers was late, hers would also fall into the trap like a rat. So somehow I would have to disarm both of them at once, and then, without a sound.
  
  
  The guard stepped around a few rocks that had fallen from the rail. He had walked around the roof so many times that now he threw a small cap on Nah and stared aimlessly over the railing, his rifle slung over his shoulder. At times, he doesn't even bother to answer; something that even a running dog does. The first requirement is that you should always know what is happening around you, because your life may depend on it. It will cost the emu its life.
  
  
  He put the stiletto in her hand. I had a silenced pistol in my other hand. The shadow completely swallowed me up. She was one piece with the stones. Objects are sometimes harder to see at dusk than in the dark, and I can vouch for that. He kept coming up, licking and licking. Her breath caught in her throat... Suddenly, his ego couldn't see him anymore. He was probably walking around some fallen rocks again. For a moment, I was afraid he'd seen me, and I ducked for cover. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her ego legs. So he still didn't know I was there. Now her ego could hear her breathing and the rustle of her ego pants on the roof. He counted to three and jumped up.
  
  
  On the dell itself, my main concern was the security guard at the helicopter. She needs to get ih out of the way first, and use the rest of them as a shield. Given the distance, the ego's unpredictable reaction, and the fact that I wasn't allowed to make any noise, he was the biggest threat. She was quickly shot twice. The first shot hit the emu in the chest, and the second in the neck. Without making a sound, he fell back against the round steel pillar of the helicopter. The soles of my boots made more noise on the rocks than the shots around my gun.
  
  
  He used her stiletto to hit another guard in the kidneys. He expected him to freeze when he saw his dead friend. But he reacted like a panther. With an instinctive movement, he turned, bending down. After that, it all happened in a blur.
  
  
  If he was properly trained, he should be using his weapon now. But in that split second, he reacted in a way he hadn't expected. He bent down, dropped his rifle, and reached for the commando dagger that hung from his belt. He was used to fighting him. He learned it as a child. To him, the gun was just a clumsy piece of iron.
  
  
  I expected to dodge his rifle, but the long barrel of FOUL's rifle slammed into my wrist, sending the stiletto flying around my arm. After that, everything went lightning fast. The rifle fell to the ground between us. My right hand went up with the smoking gun. Ego's left arm stretched out to receive the blow. Ego a right hand with eight inches of cold steel aimed at my life. My left hand grabbed ego's right wrist and yanked him back. His back was to me now, and he couldn't move the hand that held the knife. He opened his mouth to scream. He pressed his right hand to ego's face and squeezed the butt of the gun between ego's teeth. He gasped and tried to twist away. My left hand pressed down so hard that I had to bend back. He kicked me in the shins and tried to reach my face and eyes with his free hand.
  
  
  Emu put the gun in her mouth and yanked on her arm. Something cracked. Ego's hand went limp, and the knife fell through ego's weak fingers. My left hand was behind his neck. He tried to pull away again. Without success. He didn't give us a sound when his neck broke.
  
  
  She pushed the lifeless body out of herself and took the knife. When the guard collapsed to the ground, his target was at a strange angle, and he was already running towards Day. Inside was an I try narrow staircase. On the large racks around the sapodilla tree, the carvings were still clearly visible and barely affected by time. The stone walls were covered with bas-reliefs, the color of which stood out in the light of electric lamps on the ceiling. There was also some light coming in through the dark roofs of what had once been windows and were now overgrown with green spider webs.
  
  
  Halfway up the stairs, he hesitated. We couldn't hear anything, from above, from below. He sheathed his stiletto, picked up a pebble, and tossed ego down. He bounced off the rocks. There was only an echo. He continued on his way, gun drawn.
  
  
  He came out on a platform with a vaulted roof and a corridor that turned left. Further, everything has been recently remodeled throughout with concrete, steel beams and aluminum. The lamps still hung from the ceiling like a string of Christmas tree lights, but next to them was a metal air-conditioning pipe with holes every few meters that let cool air out. From now on, the Maya Stahl temple is nothing more than a shell, a shell of Colonel Earth's ultra-modern structures.
  
  
  At the other end of the corridor was a steel door that didn't look as solid as a bank vault door. There was no sound of us. The door jamb had a recessed lock with a red handle. It was possible that the door would open when I pressed the button. However, it is very likely that someone on the other side will receive the signal to open the door.
  
  
  He put his ear to the cold steel. I didn't hear her at first. Then I heard a low rumble that I felt rather than heard, along with the shrill, faint whine of generators. He looked back at the lock. Around the tool bag, she pulls out a lock pick: a tool with a spring that automatically makes the needle jump between the parts of the lock and thereby breaks the ego. It was a simple thing, and it required a lot of experience and patience to use it. After three attempts, the door opened. Hers crept in quickly and silently, like a cat. The temple seemed quiet and abandoned. The vibrations increased, filling the room with the supersonic rumble of a powerful energy source. I went straight to the sound because I knew intuitively that it was the source of what I wanted. My shaggy footsteps echoed on the rough concrete. Another corridor, another staircase, another corridor, and finally a second steel door, behind which the noise was even louder than before. He used the lock pick again and stepped cautiously inside.
  
  
  It was a low room with rows of neon lights. On either side were steel cabinets with counters, sensors, and rows of computer coils behind glass. In the center was a switchboard almost a meter and a half long with an unimaginable number of buttons, wires and potentiometers, under which were trays with meaningless inscriptions for me: Labion. Index, countercurrent coupling, and cataridin Factor. The power for this electronic device was supplied via a cable as thick as my arm and ran across the floor to a groan switch on the other side. There was a door nearby, and the high-pitched screeching of the power plant could be heard from there. But I wasn't interested. His was where it should have been. He went to the computer cabinets and pushed the rotary switch panels forward.
  
  
  Coils as thin as springs, transistors, and integral fold papers glistened in the light. Poe took out a polyester spray can that looked like a regular spray can of insecticide. It was sprayed on the equipment with a transparent layer of highly corrosive solvent acid. So I cleaned all the cabinets and closed the panels again when I was done.
  
  
  Acid was an invention of the AX lab . A bomb can take out part of an object when assembled, but probably not all of it; and certainly not all of the important parts, unless it used so much explosive that the entire Mayan temple was destroyed. However, the sudden destruction of the temple may have less pleasant international consequences.
  
  
  Then there was the logistical problem of how to smuggle something so heavy. There's also the danger that the bomb will be found and defused with me. The acid couldn't be detected until it was too late, and it couldn't be detected after it was sprayed. Even the bus would have disappeared, leaving us no clue as to what happened after I left.
  
  
  He carefully sprayed the caustic substance everywhere. A few hours and the acid would have eaten through everything. Parts melted, cable connections dissolved, and caused a short circuit in the metal housing. By the time I get back to the jungle safely, Zembla's methods will be tearing their hair out. By midnight, every piece of equipment he handled was reduced to a pile of scrap metal. That would give our diplomats time to get Nicaragua and the Organization of American States to investigate. Sabotage was my only job. When I finish it, everyone will laugh at it. Except Colonel Zembla.
  
  
  He finished with the computers and sprayed the inside of the switchboard. Suddenly, the door opened and two technicians and a security guard entered. My sense of surprise was as great as my shock. The methods — I thought they were methods because they were wearing white coats and carrying papers - were unarmed. Gray-clad security guard mistletoe Rossi's Brazilian .38-caliber revolver in a hip holster. They developed the ego on their own, using Smith & Wesson, and it had a four-inch brain. He grabbed ego and yelled, " Alto."
  
  
  However, I wasn't going to stand still. All he had time to do was rip the self-destruct strip out of the balloon and hurl ego into a dark corner. He took aim and fired twice. The guard screamed in pain and clutched at his throat. A gawk at the ego revolver passed over my head without hitting anything. The guard fell against a cabinet behind him. He groaned, clawed at the metal, and slowly slid to the ground.
  
  
  He jumped to the door and ran into two technicians who were obviously following the guard's orders and were standing still. This took me out on counterweights. I felt someone grab my shirt. Her body rotated 360 degrees to escape by ego's tricks. At that moment, more guards rushed in. Then the second technician lunged at me, head bowed, and forcefully pushed me back into the room.
  
  
  The guards rushed at me. One fist caught me in the solar plexus and the other in the jaw. He recoiled. He tried to catch his breath and fired the last two bullets at the attackers. I had the satisfaction of hearing one cry. A city of fists and steel descended on me. The gun was knocked out around my hands. They were strong, energetic fighters. If it gets rid of one, the other two are considered in its place.
  
  
  In this confusion, I was suddenly kicked hard in the groin. He doubled over in excruciating pain and fell to the concrete floor. The boot hit me high. Half-numb, he reached around her, found her leg, and yanked. The man fell between the others, screaming. Now he could get his knife.
  
  
  I was chopping it all around me, and I felt something warm splashing on my face and hands. My stiletto was too slippery for my ego to hold. The guards ' roar heard her. Ih is too much, and ih was still arriving. I was kicked and hit with the butts of revolvers. Some of them had guns, and they tried their best to hit me with them. Ih the boots were all over my wounded body. The screams grew fainter and more indistinct: a mist of shadows and voices. The revolver went off. It was like a dynamite charge exploding in the lower room. I have a vague feeling that the killing attack has stopped. The guards stood at attention, breathing heavily. A man stood in the doorway, slowly lowering a Colt 357 Python. Unsurprisingly, the gunshot echoed in the room. He was dressed in the same uniform as the others, but his ego-driven demeanor expressed confidence and authority. His face was thin and sharp. His pursed lips had a bandit moustache, and Hans Emu's aquiline nose had the look of a bird of prey. He stood there like a casual, disinterested spectator, but his eyes were as hard as stone.
  
  
  'What's going on here?'What is it?' he asked quite calmly. "Sir," said one of the guards, " we found this Englishman here. He killed and wounded Juan...
  
  
  "Silencio". The man pointed a revolver at me. 'Come with me.'
  
  
  I dropped my stiletto and staggered to my feet, my muscles screaming in pain.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  
  
  Hers, was in a dark cave. A single saint was making his way through the crack under the thick wooden door. The attic was very small, no bigger than a large wardrobe. Who knows who or what was once inside. At least he was sitting there now, in the middle of the filthy mess. It must have been somewhere under the temple, for the roots of the trees and plants had penetrated the stones, but apparently so slowly that they were now holding the walls together.
  
  
  He leaned against the stone wall, moaning, naked and powerless in the fetid air, waiting impatiently for what would happen next. I was found, searched, and everything was taken away. As well as my gas bomb and my wristwatch.
  
  
  The investigation was led by a person whose name and position I do not know. He didn't question me. Ego words were limited to a few brief orders to me or the two ego-escorting guards. He treated me with a calm, haughty disdain that angered me even more than if he had been sadistic. He'd left me here, and as far as I could tell, he'd forgotten her.
  
  
  The hour passed so slowly that I almost lost my mind. I spent part of my time thinking about my escape plans. There was no Ih. The rest of the time, I thought about the corrosive acid; how slowly, but really, along with Zembla's equipment, it was eating up my life. Every second brought me closer to the moment when the process of destruction would be noticed, and then they would definitely not let me rot here any further.
  
  
  The sound of the bolt on the other side of the door startled me. The door creaked open. My investigator returned with two nervous guards. He threw my pants at me, then leaned against the doorjamb with the air of a casual, disinterested observer.
  
  
  "Get dressed, amigo, and we'll go to a party with the ladies."
  
  
  'Where to?'
  
  
  "Shut your mouth. Do as you're told.
  
  
  He waited until I had buttoned up my unbuttoned trousers, then motioned for me to get her out of the makeshift cell phone. He blinked in the light of an unprotected light bulb in the hallway, and hesitated for a moment to get his bearings. This caused the guard to poke me with the barrel of his gun. We took a different route than we had come, and met several soldiers and technicians who looked at me with a mixture of disgust and curiosity. We walked for a while through long, bare-walled corridors, up and down stairs. They were all so similar that I was hopelessly lost in the maze. At last we came to a wide hall that opened into other corridors, so that it looked as if we had reached the axis of a wheel with spokes. This hall quickly turned into a large central hall. Most of it was dimly lit by a glow from behind damask curtains that hung in a circle from the ceiling. There was one strong spot forming a bright circle in the center of the floor. The walls were lined on almost all sides with bookcases. Thick leather-bound folios stood next to leafy flyers. The wall in front of which he kept it was deserted, except for a huge mysterious sticker that always hung high and sincerely in the middle. A golden sun shone on the stage where the instrument console sat, looking as if it had been tampered with. Five people were sitting in a circle around nah.
  
  
  There were two middle-aged men there. One had a target as bald as a billiard ball. The other was with a face that, at first glance, collided with the slamming door. One of the women was short and fat, with a heavy, clumsy chest and sharp, piercing agate eyes. The second one was younger and slightly better portrayed. She looked like she was bored.
  
  
  The fifth person was a person very different from the others. He sat among the women at the console in a spectacular black leather swivel chair. Nen was wearing a light beige and spa suit with a blue cashmere scarf. He leaned on the console, raising his elbow and holding my tool bag in his hand, as if asking me to take a look at nah. He looked me straight in the face with a wise and sad look in his eyes.
  
  
  It was small and agile. Not an old man, but the years had not spared him. The deep lines on his face and the circles under his eyes seemed to have been hammered into them, erasing any traces of youth or guilelessness. He wasn't like us, or anyone else I'd ever seen him with. The original curved nose, forehead lines, and tightly compressed upper lip gave away a thoroughbred Maya. Emu didn't need to introduce himself. He ran into the elusive Colonel Zembla. "Step outside, senor," he said. Ego's voice was high and sharp as a sword.
  
  
  The gun pushed me forward.
  
  
  She stood in the middle of a blinding beam of light, and for several long minutes no one said anything. Zembla didn't move, but the others shifted uneasily in their seats, studying me with strained eyes. They weren't as pure-blooded as the ih leader, but the Mayan blood left behind on ih's heavily tanned faces.
  
  
  "We've searched everything twice," Zembla said at last, " but we haven't found any hidden explosives anywhere.
  
  
  He didn't say anything.
  
  
  I'm listening to her, " he said. Ego's voice was deceptively friendly. The poking gun in my back wasn't like that at all.
  
  
  I didn't leave it for her, " I said.
  
  
  Maybe, " he said. He turned my toolbox upside down so that its contents rolled across the console tray, and picked up my microfilm camera. "You have come a long and difficult way just by taking pictures, senor," he said. Photography was just the second part of my assignment. I was supposed to capture as much of the equipment as possible on film, but only after I had a chance to use my spray. Hawke was adamant about that. Destruction came first. He couldn't help but smile, even though he felt awkward and nervous, like a tiger sniffing a trap.
  
  
  Suddenly Zembla threw my things to the ground with a sharp movement of his hand.
  
  
  'Who are you? What's your name? What are you doing here anyway?"
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "My name is Nick Carter - and you know why she's here. You had a reason to meet your hands a second ago.
  
  
  "Carter..." He said the name carefully. "I think I remember something about her.".. Yes! Vote it! Cuba in 1969 and Chile last year. Well, you failed this time, Mr. Carter.
  
  
  "Maybe you're right," I said, looking at him. My eyes kept moving back and forth, trying to find a weak spot in Zembla, in the other four, or in the man and the guards who stood between me and the dark corridor. There was absolutely no escape option for us. Zembla seemed to sense my growing unease, and he let out a short, sharp laugh, and said: "Calm down. We won't execute you here.
  
  
  "I'm waiting for a ceremony where they'll rip my chest out and rip out a dollar bill."
  
  
  — You'll have to admit that you deserve it, Senor Carter. They were good people, the ones you killed. But we've come up with a way to use you for ourselves, and while you won't be able to take photos of it, there's a chance that you'll be able to let us know what you're about to see. By the way, just out of curiosity, didn't treachery show you the way here?
  
  
  He shrugged casually again. "Hearing all over the hotel, and getting full."
  
  
  — I was already afraid of that. It was only with the help of a traitor that you were able to pass through my defense belt. The only equation I can't solve is that of human unpredictability. I don't think it will bother me after tonight.
  
  
  He didn't know how right he was. But for a different reason than he thought! And when would he know the truth?.. I looked around again and swallowed. It was a trap, a tomb. Even the ruthless saint above seemed to radiate danger.
  
  
  "After tonight," Zembla continued, " there will be... But you probably already know all about my little installation here!"
  
  
  — You just think you have the biggest refrigerator in the world."
  
  
  "Not exactly," he chuckled. "I'm only going to make some imaginary mountain. That is, using radio waves to pretend that the forest is there, projecting all its properties to the air currents of the troposphere. This will need to happen at an altitude of about 15,000 feet for it to snow. Of course, no one will see these radio waves, and the plane can simply fly through them. Only the climate will think that there is a forest!
  
  
  "As you thought in Mexico City?" I asked sourly.
  
  
  So, you've noticed! It was, so to speak, an experimental broadcast. Back then, my coordination points were only a few miles apart in the suburbs. But this time it will be able to cover most of Central America...
  
  
  - Coordination points?
  
  
  Ego interrupted her. 'What do you mean?'
  
  
  It will be clear to you that I cannot produce a radio signal with a wavelength as wide as a mountain. I need to project a series of points or, say, lines of force that form the contours of a mountain over the area I have selected for goals. Very precise calculations are required to determine where to place the backup transmitters so that they are in the correct proportion to the mathematical main axis of the diagram."
  
  
  "My assistants,"he added, nodding to the four behind him," are each monitoring a support station in their own country."
  
  
  My throat felt dry. — But that axis, the center around which everything revolves, is here, isn't it?"
  
  
  Yes, of course.'
  
  
  Half of her breathed a sigh of relief, the other half cursed the ego's cunning.
  
  
  And what happens after you cover everything with snow?
  
  
  He laughed enigmatically. "Then comes the third Mayan empire."
  
  
  I was stunned when his megalomania hit my brain in full force. Then he snapped, " Aren't you too far south for that?"
  
  
  This is actually in the sense that the cradle of our civilization was located in Dukatan. But the first two Mayan empires extended even further south." He added with a sharp laugh, " Never call a Yucatecan a Mexican. Our history of feuding with the Aztecs still exists, although we have the same Teules, they are the same scarecrow as the Feathered Dragon Kukulkan.
  
  
  He turned and pointed at the illuminated image of moan. "It reminds us of nen."
  
  
  "And the red lines?"
  
  
  "They remind us who our real enemies are. In 1519, Cortez killed a Maya in Tabasco and then carved three going into a tree trunk. On behalf of King Charles I of Spain, he took possession of our territory." Zembla looked at me again. "You're our enemy, Carter. Your kind has occupied our land for five centuries, and forced us to live in poverty.
  
  
  — Then what are you going to do, Sam?" With this device, you will cause even more poverty. Everything will freeze. Rubber, bananas and valuable wood species will die from frost. Coffee and cocoa will be destroyed. The industry will be destroyed. The entire economy of Central America will be destroyed overnight."
  
  
  He waved his hand, as if an emu had had enough of an insect. "Given the natural resources, our country is almost virgin. The small portion that has been developed is being depleted by capitalist exploitation. Our lives will not change, because we still suffered from hunger and poverty. Once this is over and you gringos are gone, we will build our economy, but only for ourselves. You can say that I'm making Central America temporarily unprofitable."
  
  
  "You mean uninhabited.
  
  
  "Unprofitable, uninhabited, for the imperialist is reduced to the same thing."
  
  
  'This is nonsense. And the locals won't agree with you. Why don't you warn ih, Colonel? At least then they can prepare for the cold weather.
  
  
  "You have to be realistic about these things. Who would believe me? Its not partizan. Its engineer is Sizov. And as for this colonel, this is an honorary rank bestowed upon me by the Arkansas Confederate Militia for services it once rendered. If I were trusted, I would be strong enough to repel an attack, Senor Carter. As you've proven, its vulnerable. You will no doubt understand that I must keep everything a secret until my power can be overcome. And to answer your corkscrew question: that's why I live, hundreds of miles from Yucatan, in this desolate part of Nicaragua.
  
  
  But thousands of people will meet your people, suffer and die."
  
  
  We have suffered for centuries. We are hardened against the ravages of nature. You can say that we are like a reed. Luxury and abundance have made your people soft and weak. Yes, people will die, unfortunately. Ih But it will be much less than if it was a bloody revolution. People must always die for others to live. Don't you see? It is extremely important that you first create your own mountain and only then inform the outdoor pool of your requirements."
  
  
  What happens if your demands are not accepted? Will your transmitters continue to work and bring everything back to the ice age?
  
  
  This has been our dream for too long to stop. For years, we have dreamed of the day when we can reap what we have sown."
  
  
  Despite the fire of ego speech, his eyes were perfectly normal when he looked at me. "That day was originally supposed to be tomorrow, Mr. Carter, but it is clear that your intervention has pushed our schedule forward."
  
  
  "For today?"
  
  
  'By now!' Ego's fingers ran over a row of switches. "Our deadly harvest begins now!"
  
  
  Not now! Not until a few more hours have passed ! I had to bite my lower lip to keep from yelling at him as the tools came alive under ego's hands. I was thinking about three channels that would be broadcast in other Central American countries.
  
  
  Adding up a dollar of everything might have been here, but this adding up a dollar was still beating. God, would that acid never work, too? My initial panic was gone. It occurred to me that nothing could stop this relentless destruction. Zembla could afford to cool down for a while, but in the end, his plans were doomed to failure.
  
  
  Zembla frowned as the meter registered an anomaly, and Ego's hand shook slightly as he adjusted the reading. But the ego's voice is absurdly firm and confident. He spoke in the same level tone. "You know, Carter, I was ready for you to arrive."
  
  
  — Did you know I was coming?"
  
  
  "Oh, not immediately, but the probability of some government sending an extermination expert was quite high." He looked anxiously at the dancing arrows on the control panel. One by one, he turned on smash. "That's why her voice took extra precautions. My transmitters work independently of each other.
  
  
  'Which ones?'- "Don't you have control over these other points?"
  
  
  'Yes, of course. I'll turn it on with an ih relay signal from here, " he said. He tapped on the panel. — And I'll turn it back on ih in the same way. Only then do they get another radio pulse.
  
  
  I felt sticky between my shoulder blades. "You mean that when they're on, you can only turn them off by remote control?"
  
  
  'That's right. This is a protection against sabotage. A kind of insurance for my own safety and the safety of my installations. If everything here was destroyed, and God bless the idiot who tried to do it, the forest would still be created. The result would be disastrous.
  
  
  I asked her in a slurred voice ," What do you mean by catastrophic?"
  
  
  Destroying one transmitter would be like removing one baton from under a tent. The tent will have a different shape, but will still remain standing. My calculations are very accurate, and I prefer not to think about the meteorological shocks that would occur if my force field was inferred from the counterweights in this way. To make matters worse, if this station went out of assembly, the others would no longer be able to transmit the signal. It is quite possible that then Central America will be covered with snow and ice forever."
  
  
  The diabolical truth of the ego's prophetic words hit me like a blow.
  
  
  "My God," I shouted, looking at him, " don't start that! Hold on! her...'
  
  
  A loud explosion cut off my warning in mid-sentence. It hit the ground. Two guards jumped on my back. They almost crushed me, and squeezed the air around my lungs. Her writhed and struggled like a madman. No result. These two were stronger than me. They pinned me to the floor. The man's muscular arms held me tight. A rough, callused hand squeezed my mouth so hard that my teeth almost went through my lips. Her head was freed.
  
  
  'Stop it! There is no...'
  
  
  Rough fingers tightened around my rta.
  
  
  My screams caught in my throat. It was a hopeless situation.
  
  
  Zembla laughed softly. "Calm down, senor . I've already turned on other channels, and as far as I can tell, everything works fine here. Now they're just syncing.
  
  
  With her skirt on, he watched helplessly as Zembla switched its four stations to the same wavelength. Her body began to tremble, an animal muscle reaction. Not at all reassured, he waited for her to see what would happen. If Zembla's strategy had really worked, my maneuver would have been counterproductive. By sabotaging the ego setup here, it would unwittingly cause the disaster to continue forever. The consequences would be disastrous. Zembla let his finger hover spectacularly over the large button. "And now the power current." He smiled contentedly and pressed the button with all his might. Sergey faded. Deep inside the temple, the rising sound of generators could be heard. "I need more energy," he said. He turned several large knobs.
  
  
  He got what he asked for, but in a different way. Vulnerable fold papers apparently didn't survive the sudden overload. My caustic acid eroded ih too much. The noise of the generators was loud and high-pitched, and the stench of overheated parts wafted through the air-conditioning grilles. Far, far away, I heard splashes and crackles as the tension ran limitlessly through the equipment I was working with with my spray. He could hear the faint, high-pitched screams of the people trapped in this room.
  
  
  Only Zembla seemed to understand what the sounds and stench meant. He frantically turned the knobs, trying to get the hands back to zero. But now that he had turned on the power, it didn't make much sense.
  
  
  'No, no! This can't be happening. His eyes bulged in horror as the instruments raced by and the needle of the power transformer entered the red zone. Ego's own panel started to short out due to overload. Yellowish smoke seeped into the seams of the metal panels. The men behind him let out stifled curses. One woman coughed and clutched a chair with clawed fingers. The panels bulged as if they were under very high pressure. There was a narrow passageway. White flames shot up and burned Zembla's hand. I felt strangely nauseous. It was terrifying to watch ego's entire plan fall apart on its own. The electronic monster he created swallowed itself up. He melted his fragile parts, punched through his own sensors and wires, punished himself with static electricity, and breathed out the stench of burnt insulation. I could see Zembla's face through the smoke. It disappeared and was no longer human.
  
  
  There were tears in ego's eyes from the smoke, or from excitement, or both. A desperate sound escaped from the ego's throat.
  
  
  "Carter, Carter, you did it. Do you have any idea what...
  
  
  Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the terrible pressure of air sampling. Zembla's offended voice trailed off. A blinding flash of light pierced the room. Zembla and his friends were killed in a deafening explosion. The guards holding me down were thrown away like dolls. The explosion emptied my lungs. A rain of metal, glass, and rustling bits of glowing cable filled the sky. Her body pressed hard against the ground. I was glad that the guards knocked me down and put me on the floor. It probably saved my life.
  
  
  The noise and bright saint disappeared as quickly as it had begun. My head was spinning and my ears were ringing. I waited for her. Then he looked up. Vapor and smoke still hung in tatters in the hall. Vaguely her could see the mess that was left. The control panel popped like a ripe tomato. Zembla had apparently gone up in smoke. At least there was no sign of him. The rest were scattered on the floor where they had fallen. The bald man was lying on his face. Another man and a fat woman were lying on their backs. A piece of metal panel stuck to the bored woman's neck. She's dead, and I'm on my knees by the chair. Blood ran down the charred part. It flowed in oily streams across the moaning and rubble-strewn stage.
  
  
  He jumped to his feet, took a deep breath, and looked around. Odin was sprawled on the floor around the guards, bleeding from the rta. The man who grabbed me disappeared, probably to raise the alarm. The other guard rolled onto his side and aimed the rifle at my life area.
  
  
  He reached her in one jump. He didn't have time to react or shoot. Ego kicked her in the face. My right heel slammed into ego's nose with ferocious force. I heard a bone crack. Pieces of the ego nasal bone have penetrated the ego brain. He fell dead.
  
  
  It was the ego gun that picked her up. He had to leave. Sirens wailed. She heard the furious roar of men rushing through the corridors. They will be here soon, and they will not ask questions, but will shoot first. If I had a chance to escape, it should have been in the turmoil of the next few seconds.
  
  
  But her, turned around and ran to the stage. I couldn't leave yet, even if it meant my death. I had to search the clothes of these four people. Where did they come from and where were the other four transmitters hidden? He should have found out first. I managed to infiltrate and destroy this installation. This is also assigned to me. But my assignment wasn't completed yet.
  
  
  It's only just begun on the dell itself.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  
  
  A dense cloud of dust and smoke, chunks of twisted steel sticking out, echoes of screams of fear and pain — Dante's hell was nothing after that. Coughing, her bare feet stumbled on the floor. He reached the blood-soaked stage and knelt beside each of the three wires. Quickly and thoroughly searched through her tattered ih clothes.
  
  
  This wasn't the time for fastidiousness. I didn't have time for a thorough investigation. I had to grab what I could and then run as fast as I could. The dead guard's FOUL rifle was tucked under his arm. Passports, ID cards, odd scraps of paper — anything that might later indicate the location of the other transmitters he'd collected. Put it all in the fat woman's bag. It was a large leather women's bag with a shoulder strap. I can hang it around my ego's neck like a bag. He was almost done when he heard the sound of boots outside. He spun around, rifle ready.
  
  
  The men burst into the room. In confusion and fear, they shouted. Their bewilderment was reflected in the careless way they held their weapons. Her back clenched to the moaning stage. Suddenly, eight soldiers saw me and stopped shouting. They looked at me anxiously. They walked slowly back to the house. Her rifle swung threateningly. He ordered them to stop and drop their weapons.
  
  
  The forces of the parties were almost even. Hers was in a slightly better position, but I was alone. She could have been killed by a few around them; but I would have been shot. Thank God no one wanted to be one for this couple. Reflexively, they seemed to realize their superiority. Her lost the game. Then, painfully slowly, ih rifles and pistols fell to the floor one by one with a crash.
  
  
  The noise grew louder outside the hall. More soldiers were approaching. He moved sideways along the wall. He kept the muzzle of his rifle pointed all the time. The pair I held at gunpoint read the desperation in my eyes. No one moved. Everyone around them would have shot me without hesitation if it wasn't for the personal risk. Ih walked around her in silence. The stone wall of the corridor felt oddly cold and sticky on my bare back. He reached an intersection with another corridor that ended in a dead end. So I had to go through the main hall. I was wondering how many seconds I had left. At any moment, the other soldiers could attack me.
  
  
  I made it to the next intersection without any trouble. This corridor was short, and resembled a portal of buildings. The stairs led up. He ran down the stairs, stopped, and fired a short salvo toward the hall. It'll keep the guys down there for a while. He started up the stairs with long strides. The stairs led up to the area where the real carnage had taken place. One wall was finally destroyed. Pipes and tubes jutted out in a tangled, writhing mass. The sizzling steam formed large clouds of steam. It was like a real battlefield. Below, the eight soldiers gathered their courage. They were shouting loudly for blood, which is my blood. They were firing blindly; in the void, the thunderous ih of the rifles seemed like explosions. Three shots suddenly rang out around a small alcove to my left. Chunks of brick flew through the walls near my head and chest. He ducked for cover. It was as if he had fallen into a trap. If there had been an exit to the temple roof, it would have been blocked by the great shift that had taken place. The man in the alcove fired again. She was shot with rheumatism. The dark figure disappeared. Brandishing my gun, I followed him. He lay writhing on the dirt floor. His chest and life were covered in dark bloodstains from the bullets. He leaned over and grabbed Ego's revolver. She was shot in the direction of the stairs. Colonel Zembla's soldiers were bumping into another one, hurrying to be the first to retreat. The shooting stopped for a moment. He crawled through the rubble of what had once been a portal. In vain, he tugged at the concrete blocks and crushed rocks, trying to open the exit. No result. He heard the soldiers gathering again below. They crawled up the stairs. I could hear the loud scrape of boots and the clank of guns.
  
  
  My hands found the collapsed wall. Suddenly, he felt a whiff of cold air sampling on his fingers. She yanked frantically at the wreckage. He threw loose rocks and chunks of concrete down the stairs behind him. The man screamed as his skull block fell. He dug a tunnel through the rubble and pushed his rifle through it. On the other side was a wide arched corridor. There was an I try narrow staircase that didn't lead to the roof. It was the first time it was raised in this way.
  
  
  Without hesitation, he flew up the remaining steps and onto the roof. I didn't care about the people who might be waiting there. I knew how many guys I had behind me, and they were right next to me. If there were more guys up there, a careful tactical approach wouldn't have saved my skin either. Not a single shot was fired.
  
  
  There were about ten people standing by the Bell Sue helicopter as it took off. The roar of the engines and the propeller-driven wind of the propeller made my sudden appearance unnoticed. But I only had a brief chance to look at the scene in front of me. Then they hit me in the eye. The helicopter hovered a few feet above the landing pad and swayed unsteadily. The pilot was a man with a mustache who caught me for the first time. The ego passenger was none other than Colonel Zembla! Somehow Zembla managed to escape death. At least he wasn't seriously injured when the console shattered in front of his face. By a freak of fate, he escaped the devastating explosion. And now he was running away from me! Ego's face was covered in blood. Ego lobe was wrapped in a makeshift bandage. Ego's glittering eyes reflected a savage rage.
  
  
  'Kill the ego! Shoot the Sump! Ego's voice rose above the roar of the helicopter. I took the helicopter up. Ego's voice still echoed through the air. He raised the rifle and aimed at the pressure tanks. Hers, too, he hoped, along with Zembla, to wipe out half the temple. But the soldiers had already opened fire on me. I had a choice between being a martyr or being saved from myself, and the bag that was always hanging around my neck. My anger told me, " Shoot this one down with a helicopter and forget about it." My common sense, however, ordered me to carry the bag to safety.
  
  
  She heard Zembla's last faint cry: "Kukulkan will take revenge!" Then the helicopter rose majestically into the air and turned in a south-westerly direction. He disappeared into the distance. It jumped over the parapet of the temple. The soldier leaned over the edge. He held the gun down. Falling, he fired at random. It was worth it. Her, saw the man stagger and fall against the stone wall. Others crowded around him, waving their weapons angrily and firing. They were over the moon. Helplessly, it crashed down. The branches of the trees softened my fall as it hit the sloping side of the pyramid-shaped temple. Tree roots that weren't too firmly rooted in the rock crevices popped out through them. Together with the tree, it fell another six meters. The impact that finally hit me squeezed the air around my lungs. However, the branches and leaves softened the blow. He crawled into the foliage for cover and rolled down the slope. The soldiers around the temple joined their comrades. Bullets tore through the ground around me. The undergrowth was blown to shreds. Trapped in the deadly lead rain, her body was strangely unable to feel her anymore. Her two bullets whizzed past my ears. Whenever I had the chance, she returned fire. One man was shot in the face. Another was shot in the chest and also disappeared from the battlefield. He ran from bush to tree and from tree to bush. By zigzagging, he hoped to get down without being fatally wounded. She reached the foundation and paused for a moment. Then he ran as fast as he could through the barren stretch of no-man's-land surrounding the temple. Gawk bounced off a nearby boulder with a nasal squeal. Another gawk tore the leg of his pant leg. It didn't matter, because I was leaving here forever. I couldn't get my backpack and machete back. They were just around the corner, and Nu was nowhere to be seen. He dived into the jungle. A thick darkness of foliage enveloped me. He immediately turned left, heading straight for the path leading from the temple to the Tungla River. Her could never go back the way she came.
  
  
  Crossing the jungle without rations and with the much more experienced Mayan rebels behind was too much of a challenge. I had to risk blowing myself up on the road. I prayed that my luck wouldn't fail me until I reached the rivers. I fervently hoped that I would find a boat to sail down the river.
  
  
  Suddenly, a voice came from around the dense undergrowth. "Who's that?" Leaping forward, he tore through a narrow gap in the thorn bushes and nearly tripped over a crouching soldier. He picked up a huge old pistol. Her, ducked to the side.
  
  
  He was blinded by a gunshot. Gunpowder burned my face. The gawk hit me high in my left shoulder through the pectoral muscle. I tripped over it. I didn't feel any pain from the blow. If I'm lucky, it will happen much later. Another gawk flew by mimmo of my wand. Its overturned. He fell to the ground and almost lost consciousness. The soldier fired a third time, but missed. He stood up, took aim thoughtfully, and fired. He let out a high-pitched scream, desperate, and tried to shoot again, but fell down, dead.
  
  
  He stood up and sighed heavily. Hers, he shrugged. Covering the wound with one hand, he trudged down the narrow dirt path. He could hear Zembla's personal army chasing behind him. A branch snapped near my head, punctured by a bullet. Some nocturnal animal, driven away by the noise around its burrow, was hopping like a madman along the path in front of me. Gawking eyes blasted the ground outright in front of the animal. It stopped abruptly and disappeared into thin air in one bound as more bullets began to hit the area. There seemed to be no end to this tortuous path. Now she was beginning to experience a painful throbbing in her chest. He ran, gritting his teeth. From time to time, he almost stumbled. Once he burst out laughing hysterically. Behind her, he heard the sharp, crushing sound of an explosion, followed immediately by a high-pitched scream. My pursuers were the victims of one of their own traps.
  
  
  The last few meters seemed endless. Finally, the last signposted him. He came to a small clearing that ran slowly down to the dock. While passing mimmo, she was shot at by two men guarding the harbor. One fell into the water, and the other folded in half like a hinge.
  
  
  The wharf itself was nothing more than a half-rotted plank lying in the dark Tungla. At this point, the river was narrow and shallow. A smoking jungle arched over both banks. This vegetation would be a good cover when its going down the river. The muddy shore was practically impassable. This will stop Zembla's men from trying to chase me.
  
  
  Two boats were moored to the port of bar. The boats rocked around from side to side . The front and back of them were narrowed, like a canoe. The ship's hull was riveted to numerous T-shaped trusses. On the other side was actually a real engine room, about seven and a half meters long and two meters wide. The ship had a small cabin on the aft deck. Side bulkheads were installed on both sides of the cabin, and a strong zinc roof completed the entire structure. The hull was covered with copper. The draught can't be much more than a few meters.
  
  
  I rushed to the old boat as if it were a long-lost math favorite. Meanwhile, he fired several shots at the boat. Only a bomb could sink a boat, but it was useless now. He released her moorings and dived into the cabin. At the same time, the soldiers entered the clearing. There was a starter button next to the wooden steering wheel. He yanked on the air flap and pressed the starter. Bullets flew into the open cockpit. Its dived down. Ominous sounds drifted down into the hold. Throbbing and coughing furiously, the engine came to life in protest. I put the throttle in the extreme position. On its oblique side, it sailed from the port of bar to the middle of the rivers ' belly.
  
  
  The remnants of Colonel Zembla's horde had gathered on the beach. Orders were issued, answers shouted. They were shooting like crazy. Bullets screeched off the zinc roof and copper hull, shattering the thin wooden bulkheads around me. When the gunfire subsided for a moment, her last shots were fired around the FOUL rifle. The longboat sailed with difficulty.
  
  
  The Ego Corps shuddered at such harsh treatment. But we got to the middle of it and started down the river. I was hoping that we would eventually reach the port city of Prinzapolz. The current gave us a decent speed, and the shooting decreased. The foliage of incredibly lush vegetation hung over us. In a few moments, the small harbor and the jungle clearing disappeared as if ih had never existed. The noise of men and guns also subsided. Above him, her son saw the green saint of the evening sky. A rusty-brown river flowed around me. Dark green trees towered above us on either side. The branches were decorated with giant vines. Incredibly large plants covered it all. Stifling steam hung over the river. The pungent smell of rotting vegetation was everywhere.
  
  
  The longboat proved difficult to steer. It took all my rapidly diminishing strength to stay in the middle of Rek's stomach. Each course correction sent a rush of pain through my shoulder. Blood was running down my chest. A gawk was released at close range. So the wounds where gawk entered my body and where she exited were clean and surprisingly small. But I knew I wouldn't last long without medical attention.
  
  
  I thought of the big bag still slung around my neck. Only now that the danger was over, at least temporarily, did I feel her rapidly weakening. He leaned against the steering wheel to keep his ego in the correct position, and unzipped his bag. Inside was a white lace handkerchief. It smelled pleasantly of the pungent perfume that most women in the south wear. Her handkerchief was rolled up in a bandage and tied by ego on her shoulder. Her teeth tightened the knot. That would stop the bleeding. Hers, he thought about the rest of the bag. But this wasn't the time or place to investigate. So he turned his attention back to the boat, which in the meantime had swum up to the left bank.
  
  
  She had been at the helm for one, maybe two hours. Hers, constantly tinkering with the struggling boat. Again and again it threatened to drift toward rocks or muddy sandbanks. I couldn't tell how long it took. The pain in my shoulder shot through my entire body. It seemed like a nightmare. He could think clearly. Somehow he remained conscious. Intuitively, I knew that I would die if I ran aground.
  
  
  Gradually, the river widened and deepened. The launch began to move with the accelerating current, and he leaned against the cabin wall. Too tired and too weak, he lazily slipped and sat down on the floor. He was thinking about the contents of his bag, but he was too weak to think straight. Large drops of blood formed on my forehead. My head felt feverish.
  
  
  Sitting like this, he lost all sense of time. From her cabin, Poe looked out at the jungle clearings that she had passed. He could hear the signs of life on the beach, the plaintive moans of the old ship, and the thud of the engine in the small hold. He lay panting against the cabin wall. The obvious awareness of his condition was replaced by a vague feeling of nausea. It felt like my brain was going to explode in a whoosh-whoosh. The deck shifted slightly. It was as if we had never been to the Mayan temple, to Colonel Zembla.
  
  
  The weather began to change. Gradually, the sky became overcast. The evaporating hot air was now cool, and sometimes even cold. There was something menacing in the air. The wind howled mournfully. The longboat rumbled. He struggled to his feet and tightened the roof supports of the cab. The hulking trees bowed in protest to the wind. The sky turned inky black. The massive trunks swayed menacingly in the rising wind. In the distance, a thumping sound was heard, mixed with the sounds of frightened or injured animals. The wind died down for a moment. Then, with a deafening force, it burst out in full force from another direction.
  
  
  If you'd ever doubted Colonel Zembla's force field, you'd have trusted her by now! The river water swirled. The howling storm tilted the longboat threateningly and drove on. Lightning bolts as wide as a comet's tail flashed. The sky shone purple in this unearthly light, but with the thunder, darkness came again. Then it started to rain. At first it was a light drizzle. But it soon became a second river. A torrent of water gushed through the storm clouds. A terrible storm caused by Zembla lashed the boat. My breath caught in my throat. The longboat rocked and creaked at every seam. He gripped the steering wheel until a sudden gust of wind sent his ego spinning. Her ego should have let her go. My strength was gone. Wind and rain now have full freedom of action. The ship moved with the current.
  
  
  He clung to her desperately. The minutes seemed like an eternity. The river became a delta. Her, I realized that we were approaching the estuary. Through the howling storm, I could just make out the lights of Prinzapolka, twinkling across the wide estuary to my left.
  
  
  Off to the right swirled agitated masses of seawater. Undulating foam marked the place where the river emptied into the sea.
  
  
  The longboat was caught in a whirlpool. Amidst the frenzied swirl of foam, wind, and rain, the speed continued to increase. Waves as tall as houses loomed before us. As they tipped the ship on its side, the rudder jerked. Twice I felt the ship's keel shake, and I thought we were sinking. I had already lost all hope when the swirling ocean saved us. The boat swirled in a whirlpool, lifted over sharp rocky outcroppings and plunged into an arm of the river. In the end, the sea finally turned us around. We were back to front in the relatively calm waters of the harbor.
  
  
  She was brought by a tired longboat just below the shore. Compared to a moment ago, there weren't many waves. Ship on a diagonal, running aground. He stayed in the cabin for a while to regain his composure. He could hardly believe it was over. And he was still alive! He climbed over the railing and climbed out onto the bank. The water was cool. The entire hotel area was sticky under my bare feet. It trembled with the force of Zembla's artificial storm. A searing pain shot through my chest. He fell to his knees on the rocky beach. Breathing heavily, he closed his eyes and sat there for a while before continuing.
  
  
  By the time I reached the boulevard, the storm was almost over. The wind turned into an icy wind. The raindrops were like ice needles.
  
  
  When I got to the square in the city, it started snowing.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  
  
  He trotted her shivering barefoot across the square. It was getting colder by the minute. Dozens of narrow streets lined the square on three sides. The fourth side behind me was the embankment. There was a colorful fishing fleet of the town of Prinzapolca. Boats tore their cables. The masts were lost in the swirling white snow.
  
  
  Normally, under other circumstances, the square would be crowded at this time of day. As they strolled back and forth, they made the latest purchases and occasionally interjected with the local gossip. Market stalls, old horses and even older carts, well, it would be almost impossible to count. Merchants displayed their wares. Sleepy donkeys would stand nodding beside their owners, loaded with milk cans, barrels of wine, sacks of flour and cement, and even long iron bars and chairs, tables, and cabinets. But not now. Zembla's weather put clubs in the wheels. An icy wind howled in the deserted square and along the main avenue. Once a green park, to my left it looked sad. The joints of the clumsy buildings were closed. They seemed uninhabited. High in the corners of the banner were clay trays with names on them.
  
  
  Calle Montenegro wanted her. According to the list that was in the headquarters apartment and who learned it by heart, our agent, Dr. Hector Mendoza, gilles at 10 Calle Montenegro. She had never met this man. As far as she was concerned, he might be the pinnacle of honesty, though hers was very doubtful. He was on the list for a reason. Prinzapolza was unlike any other city in Latin America, where one in two has secrets to sell and one in five is a secret agent. Another corkscrew, agents of which country or organization they are. Loyalty is as relative and volatile as money changing hands. You can only trust them if you keep an eye on them, and even then they can deceive you openly to your face, and it is almost impossible to find a reliable agent of a foreign power.
  
  
  Its had to deal with this. Meeting Dr. Mendoza was a risk I had to take. Colonel Zembla's organization was rather nationalistic. That's why I avoided Prinzapoltsy when I arrived there two days ago. I would have done it now, but my wounds had to be treated. I also needed the Swedes. You can't get very far in wet pants alone. In any case, I wouldn't have been able to get to the drop-off point where the patrol boat was waiting for me. I needed help, no matter how suspicious or dangerous it was for us. Halfway across the square, Calle Montenegro found her. It was a narrow, ascending street, flanked on both sides by houses — apartments-cantinas , booths, and other small shops with closed shutters. He hurried through the darkness to room ten. I had to bend over and fight the icy storm. And that was just the beginning! Compared to what it might become, it was midday in the Sahara.
  
  
  Above, there are fewer stores. The last blocks of houses were buildings built around large stones. Snow mixed with dark grass fell openly in my face
  
  
  He walked through the locked stable. Inside, there were plaintive sounds and the tramp of cold, frightened animals. Number ten was not far from the stables. The entrance was like a dark cave. Her, entered the building. It was like a freezer. The wind had died down, but the air remained icy.
  
  
  The stairs creaked and the walls were unpainted. On the first floor plan was a landing. In the dim flickering light of the overhead lamp, he tried to decipher all the names. Dr. Mendoza wasn't there, on top of us, on the next floor. Ego found her in an office on the third floor, next to an empty room whose door was slamming in the draught. The sign with Mendoza's name was located above a more old-fashioned bell, set in the center of the room like a copper navel. I pulled it and heard a loud clank. There was a faint shuffling of feet into the house. Mendoza apparently occupied several rooms. A sudden thought made me take the bag off my neck. Ee threw her into an empty room and closed the door. The doctor's door opened and a woman poked her head out.
  
  
  "Dr. Mendoza?"
  
  
  "Her."
  
  
  "The weather is very warm,"I said," even for this time of year." It doesn't make much sense to laugh.
  
  
  Ego's already small eyes narrowed even further. Nen was wearing a dirty blue sweater over a white shirt. The tips of the ego collar were curled up like the wings of a dead butterfly. A heavy weight hung over a pair of faded blue trousers. Ego's pale face was shaped like a melon. He was breathing heavily and smelled of some local moisture.
  
  
  Hers looked at him impatiently. 'Well?'
  
  
  "Me... I hope it will rain soon for the farmers." He took a bright cloth from his pocket and wiped his upper lip. 'Jesus! It's so estupido, senor. Just look outside.
  
  
  — You have to tell me — " I said hoarsely.
  
  
  'What do you want?'
  
  
  Ego pushed her away and entered ego's office. — What the hell do I need?".. The doctor?
  
  
  'Ahh ...!' he seemed to see my shoulder for the first time. He rolled his eyes and pulled the cloth over his face. "Federalists ?"
  
  
  'No.'
  
  
  'Who then?'
  
  
  'It doesn't matter. Just patch me up and don't worry anymore. You'll pay well for it.
  
  
  - For estestvenno. I didn't think about it at all. He closed the door and motioned for me to sit in the chair across from him. Ego's sudden smile seemed very forced. 'Please.'
  
  
  The room was cold and gloomy. A curtain hung from the ceiling to the floor, dividing the room into two parts. Now the ego has been pushed aside. There were several rickety chairs and a couch in front of her. On the other side was a small mahogany desk chair, the usual set of first-aid kits, shelves of tools, the chair he was sitting on, an adjustable lamp, and an open sterilizer in which a few needles were boiled. A locked door led to the rest of the apartment. It smelled of dust and stale beer.
  
  
  Dr. Mendoza put the cloth in my pocket and untied the handkerchief on my shoulder. He examined the wound from the front and back. "The bones were not damaged, the blood vessels were not damaged," he said. "Just a nice little hole in the flesh. "Small caliber, I'd say."
  
  
  "It wouldn't have looked like this otherwise."
  
  
  "Well, it's never the same, is it?" He opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of disinfectant.
  
  
  "That's all I have. Unfortunately, I ran out of penicillin. But if that handkerchief wasn't dirty, that should be enough. You can't get infected from the bullet itself."
  
  
  "I know," I growled. Her hands gripped the railing. Tailor, he didn't dilute the disinfectant! He didn't kill the germs; no, he burned ih with embers. He clenched his teeth to keep from screaming. He applied dermatol to the wound and wrapped my entire shoulder in sterile gauze.
  
  
  "Now rest, otherwise the wound will open again." The look in my ego eyes told me that I could rest anywhere in the world, but not in the ego office.
  
  
  — I can't, " I said.
  
  
  "Make sure it doesn't bleed again."
  
  
  He frowned and thought for a moment. He rummaged in another locker and pulled out an elastic bandage. There he wrapped me so tightly that I began to seriously doubt the circulation in my arm. He secured the case with a metal clip. He took a step back and looked at me expectantly.
  
  
  "I need the money, and the Swedes," I said. "Then I'll leave her."
  
  
  -"Yes, but it's not ...
  
  
  "What kind of agent are you, Mendoza?" He was abruptly interrupted. I've had enough of this sycophantic mercenary, doctor or no doctor. — You don't expect me to leave to vote like that, do you?"
  
  
  "Senor, its completely at your service. But its poor. My shvedov won't suit you, you'll see for yourself. It's the money... He took a deep breath and pulled out his colorful rag again. 'But wait. My brother Miguel can help you. He's about the same height as you, senor, and he recently sold the land. So he has money. Why didn't I think of nen before?
  
  
  'Good. Call Miguel and have him come here.
  
  
  "Unfortunately, we don't have a phone. Mendoza walked over to his desk. He took out a card around the top drawer and scribbled something on it. He gave it to me. "Give this to Miguel and everything will be fine."
  
  
  He wrote an address on the back.
  
  
  "Where is Noevo Street?"
  
  
  "The street is straight ahead, senor . This is the third house on the right, on the first floor. Is there anything else...?"
  
  
  He stood up and stretched out his wet legs. — I'll have to accept it.
  
  
  "Maybe a glass of tequila?"
  
  
  "In my condition? I wouldn't be able to get through the door anymore."
  
  
  "I have some Kafion."
  
  
  Kafion is an old-fashioned stimulant; there are better drugs now. So Mendoza still had some around these things. He was a doctor. Emu didn't care what he gave me. He nodded to her. I just had to take what I could get here.
  
  
  He dissolved two pills in a glass of water. He drank it as he went to the window. He set the glass down on the windowsill and pulled back the curtains to look out. The narrow street below was gray and dark. Apart from the falling snow, nothing could be seen. I wondered if he would talk. Mendoza was shrewd enough to connect the change in weather with the sudden appearance of the wounded North American. And I had a sneaking suspicion that he was as cautious as a gossip columnist. He was the only person who knew I was still alive. He wondered if it would be safer to kill the ego.
  
  
  He let the curtain fall and turned around. Mendoza was sitting at his desk, his right hand in the top drawer. I could guess what he was holding there. No doubt others before me would have had the same idea. The gun he was probably holding right now should have made ih change his mind. This has changed my view, at least for now.
  
  
  - thanks. I'm leaving her.'
  
  
  "Go to my brother, senor, and Miguel will help you." Ego's voice was condescending.
  
  
  Her, came to an end. The coffee made my dollar stack beat faster. He waited a moment before opening the door. There was no sound from outside. She took one last look at the doctor. "Not a word about it, Mendoza.
  
  
  "Senor, I swear on my mother's honor!
  
  
  "If you talk, I'll come back," I said,"and see if you still have a mother."
  
  
  Mendoza shrugged resignedly. Apparently, he had heard such threats dozens of times from problem patients. Ego didn't care anymore. He went outside and closed the door behind him. He looked to the left and straight into the empty corridor. Then he examined the card with the address of Mendoza's dubious brother. I didn't like it. The idea of warm clothes and Ed was tempting, but Emu didn't trust it at all. It smelled even worse than Mendoza's office. She looked around questioningly. Candid a small metal box glittered above the door jamb. Phone socket. The fat bastard lied to me.
  
  
  He walked into an empty room next to the office and slipped inside. He picked up her bag from the floor. The room was empty and smelled sour and gluttonous. The corners were littered with sobs of dust and sand. In the darkness, he crept up to the moan that separated this room from the doctor's office. She sat down on the cold shelves and put her ear to the thin moan. There was nothing to be heard. Its convenient to sel. While I was waiting for her, I tried to forget about the pain in my shoulder. What would he do? The coffee made me feel better. Despite the stimulating effect, I was overcome by sleep.
  
  
  She was awakened by the woman's angry screams. "Where's that guy, you fat pig!"
  
  
  Mendoza replied in an ingratiating tone. Her, I swear! In the ego state, he can't be far away. I gave em a card with Miguel's address on it. Maybe he was lost.
  
  
  Lost your way? Even a person with your poor mind wouldn't get lost if all an emu had to do was turn a corner. Miguel was waiting with them for the ferret when you called. We've all been waiting-too long. Where did this agent AH go?"
  
  
  "Oh! Yes, he knew the passphrases, but he didn't mention that he was on ah, senora.
  
  
  'Senorita!'
  
  
  "Senorita. Even with this wound, he could still finish me off. he was very cool! I thought it would be wiser to lure ego to you. You might be able to handle it. Even with my gun, she would have...
  
  
  "You're a big bum, Mendoza," the woman interrupted. "Tell me about this wound quickly." How did he get it?
  
  
  He never said, senorita . But we're talking about Zembla...
  
  
  "Colonel Zembla!" he could hear the woman in Mendoza's office swearing and stamping her feet. 'How did Agent AH leave him? Her thought we only know ego plans!
  
  
  Pressing his ear to moan, he wondered who else would know - and how. Who the hell was this woman? Which third party did it belong to? It turned out to be the warmest snowstorm he had ever experienced. I listened carefully to what she said next.
  
  
  "You're a fool, Mendoza. If he comes back, use your gun. Don't always look at me like that. I'm not saying you should kill it, at least not if it's not necessary. I want to take her ego alive. Then Miguel can question ego.
  
  
  "Miguel is good at this," Mendoza muttered. "How he treats people. He could be a great surgeon."
  
  
  "So you got it," she said, grinning. "Her has to go. Are you sure you want to see the money again?
  
  
  "Ah, senorita
  
  
  He heard the soft rustle of bills.
  
  
  "Voice".
  
  
  "Muchas gracias, senorita. Good-bye!'
  
  
  He crept up to the door and opened it a crack. The woman came out on the landing. She grumbled to herself. She was young and thin, and nah had beautiful legs. The rolled-up collar of her heavy coat and the slouch hat made it difficult for me to see her features in the dim light. Ee is warm, the Swedes made it clear that she knew about Zembla's plans. At least she was well prepared!
  
  
  Her heels clicked impatiently on the floor. It was now at the level of day. One more step. My hand flew out. She was grabbed by ee with a judo grip. Simple suffocation. He had to be careful. The coat collar should not interfere. Her, felt her skin. My thumbs pressed down on the nerves in her neck. Nah's breath caught in her throat. Her long red nails flew back, grazing my left ear and grabbing my cheek. I pressed it harder. Two seconds later, she lost consciousness. She didn't give us the sound. Her limp body fell on top of me as she collapsed. Ee grabbed her by the arm and dragged her across the threshold of an empty room just as the door to Mendoza's apartment burst open and the doctor ran out.
  
  
  "Senorita. You forgot - Madre Dios !"
  
  
  Her, jumped forward. Stunned by my sudden attack, he stood motionless. We bumped into another friend and burst into Ego's office. Mendoza screamed like a pig. She was hit by his ego with her left hand. For a moment, he forgot about his wound. The blow lacked strength and accuracy. A sickening pain shot through my shoulder. It had been foolish to try to use it, and now it was up to him to reap the rewards. Mendoza lunged at me with his belly. He knocked one over around his outdated chairs and knocked me over. Her, jumped to his feet. An unprepared but strong fist grazed my high one. A swaying hand grabbed her. The shoulder throw sent Ego flying across the room to the table. Mendoza collapsed next to his desk in a shower of paper, books, and shards of wood. The old revolver had fallen out around the chair drawer and was lying open on Ego's leg. Ego's hand shot out to him. I got up with difficulty. A long finger was pointed straight at my navel.
  
  
  "The gun isn't loaded?" "What is it?" he asked her, suddenly affectionate. Mendoza fell for it. He looked down at his gun. One jump of hers, was right next to him. Ego grabbed her right arm and twisted it to the side. Inches from my foot, the gawk hit the floor. Twice my fist disappeared, this time the right one, into my ego's stomach. A blow to the adam's apple knocked ego's head back. He fell to his knees and collapsed to the ground.
  
  
  He ran out of the office and slammed the door behind him. The woman was still in the same spot where he'd dropped her. He dragged her into an empty room and closed the door. I'm on my knees, and I've started searching her. Nah didn't have a bag with her, but the warm jacket had a lot of internal pockets. She looked like a shoplifter. Very few people found it. A Nicaraguan identity card stating that she lived in Managua, which in other circumstances would be a fake. She also collected a crumpled pack of cigarettes, a comb, mascara, nail file, lipstick, some shriveled tangerines, about twenty-five dollars in local money, and a 9-millimeter Makarov PM. Makarow is very similar to the Lindner-PP hotel, which served as a model for it. It's a big automatic pistol, too heavy for a woman. I could tell who she was by looking at her things, but I couldn't figure out who she was yet.
  
  
  She groaned. She shook her head cautiously. She came to her senses. Her sel and stahl wait. Her things were piled next to me. When she woke up, she didn't want to be too close to her. She could try to do something.
  
  
  She rolled over on the dark, dirty floor and shoved her feet into the thick, pleated skirt. The pants would have been warmer. But Nicaraguan women don't carry ih, and of course it had to stay in local fashion. Slowly, she sat up. She pressed a hand to her forehead as if Nah had a bad hangover. The big hat slipped off her head. Her light brown hair fell in waves around her shoulders. Her stooped figure stood out against the dim light pouring in around the dusty window. She turned her head toward me and lowered her hand. A faint holy light shone on her face.
  
  
  It was a sight I remembered. She was so damn feminine. From her full, shapely breasts under the tight wool sweater to her legs in her half-boots. Her face was heart-shaped and promised the same tenderness and passion as her body. And, of course, nen had the cold, deadly hardness that every agent has. This is simply unavoidable in our profession. But I looked further. And what I saw was a pair of very large, very frightened blue eyes.
  
  
  He recognized her face. I saw her picture in the card boxes in the headquarters apartment. It was on par with the new people and operations of the opposing team who reviewed it. It took me a while to figure out exactly who-ee's location was. By the time she regained her usual composure, he knew her. Tamara Kirova, a base of operations in Mexico, is one of the most promising young members of the State Security Committee, better known as the Russian Secret Service.
  
  
  Or just the KGB.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  
  
  She blinked a few times, then held her breath as if startled. "Hello, Tamara," I said.
  
  
  "My name isn't Tamara," she said fluently in Spanish. "Her name is Rosita, a nice girl who does..." She didn't finish her sentence and sighed.
  
  
  She laughed and looked at me. "Don't smile so smugly," she snapped in English now. "I recognize you, too, Nick Carter. If you're going to kill me, do it quickly.
  
  
  — If she'd been sent to the hotel to let you die, you'd be dead by now, " I said, as calmly and affectionately as I could. "I want to know why the KGB is dealing with Colonel Zembla, Tamara. Now that we've met, it can't be that hard anymore, can it?
  
  
  "Nothing," she hissed. — You won't learn anything from me.
  
  
  They examined their hands to make sure it was the other way around. So I immediately asked her what I wanted to know,
  
  
  "There are ways, Tamara," I said quietly. She laughed, but it was thin and shaky. Hey, couldn't hide your fear. He wasn't a weakling like Dr. Mendoza who was easily fooled. She was mistletoe dealing with an experienced agent AH, and that was a good reason for fear. But she tried to remain unperturbed.
  
  
  "We know your manners, Carter," she sneered. — At your headquarters, you could get me to talk. With modern methods and drugs, everyone starts talking at some point. But we're sitting here in an empty room, alone. You can beat and torture me until I scream, which is painful. It's stronger than you think. She leaned forward slightly, her eyes narrowing. "And if you try, if you reach out to me, I'll scream."
  
  
  "Then it will be the shortest scream in history."
  
  
  'Perhaps. It may well be the best solution. If I can stop you with my death, it will be my victory.
  
  
  'Victory?'
  
  
  "Besides, you're not going to win, Carter. You can't win.
  
  
  I didn't understand her anymore. 'Win? Win what? Furious, she pointed at the falling snow. "We may be too late to thwart this little imperialist henchman's plan; I'll admit it...'
  
  
  "An Imperial henchman?
  
  
  "...but we will put a thread to this. I promise. Freedom-loving socialism..."
  
  
  "Hey, wait a minute! She was interrupted by ee. "Do you think Colonel Zembla is the only one around us?" What is this American conspiracy?
  
  
  "It's obvious," Tamara said scornfully. "Is he an American or not?"
  
  
  "As far as I know, he worked in our country. But that doesn't mean we have anything to do with it. How can we benefit from this? Explain it to me."
  
  
  "You think she's crazy, Carter?" When we heard about ego's actions in Mexico and saw what he did to Mexico City, we immediately understood what was going on. You give emus weapons, equipment, and money. You flatter him that he considers himself a real revolutionary, and a few days later you declare Zembla an enemy and a threat. Through your puppets in the Organization of American States, you demand action. And that's where your gunboat diplomacy comes in. Your army, of course, intervenes, as in 1965 in the Dominican Republic. Your expansion plans are so stupidly transparent! But they will fail!"
  
  
  "Damn, you're crazy, Tamara!" I snapped. He started to get angry. Normally, under other circumstances, he would have laughed at it. Now he was tired, hungry, and upset. My assignment went wrong and there was a bullet hole in my shoulder. To top it all off, I was now being scrutinized with platitudes, slogans, and old wives ' tales. It was more than he could bear. The only excuse was that she believed it herself. She was obviously against Zembla. But this did not necessarily apply to the entire organization and the KGB. Sometimes they don't say on their left hand what their right hand is doing.
  
  
  "Both of your statements don't work at the same time," I snarled. "You can't call the OAS an American organization and in one breath accuse us of trying to kill some of its members. Why? Are they already in the same boat? I wonder if you ever listen to what you're saying? It is much more likely that Zembla is on your side, ready to come out from behind the scenes and clean up the ego if successful, which, by the way, will not happen.
  
  
  'We,? You belligerent lackey of imperialism, why is our elite SWAT team already going to blow up the ego Mayan temple and destroy the ego weather station? Ego security measures were amateurish. We have already learned ego secretions. If our person in the temple could have contacted us earlier, this snow wouldn't even be here...
  
  
  She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide. After a moment's silence, she lowered her hand. She rubbed her chin and said in a low, icy voice, " That's a good trick, Mr. Carter, but what little you've got out of me won't help you.
  
  
  Her, looked out. "No," I admitted, " I don't think so either, Tamara. And I think you people have learned that Zembla's headquarters is already in ruins, and he's gone God knows where. At least if they can still find their way in that barrel.
  
  
  "So you say.
  
  
  "Take the tailor, I tell her so!" I snapped at her. Her body felt warm again. He pointed to his shoulder. "How do you think I got this? If only you'd let it get into your stupid brain.
  
  
  "I don't believe you. All that snow...
  
  
  — That, dear, is because ego's security arrangements were better than you or anyone else suspected. He intentionally does this to give his people something to talk about and get help. He's a fan of revolutionary games, so I think he's done a little more than necessary. We're not here for nothing. But what he didn't announce was that there were even more channels for managing the weather. Three, to be exact, in three other Central American countries!
  
  
  — Wh-what ?" Tamara gasped.
  
  
  "Yes, and to make matters worse, they operate independently of the main transmitter. It's like the legs of a chair. The difference is that this chair does not fall until all the legs are destroyed. I'm not telling her anything, Tamara. He was there. It was destroyed by the main transmitter before realizing that it was needed to connect backup transmitters.
  
  
  - But... if what you say is true, then...
  
  
  "Then each channel should be opened separately. Yes. Also, as I understand it, not only will the force field not collapse until all these transmitters are turned off, but it will also become more and more destroyed. This will make the weather even more unstable. The ego will no longer be controlled."
  
  
  'No! No, I can't believe you. You're trying to trap me again with your lies and deceit, Carter.
  
  
  She shook her head firmly. But I could see in her eyes that I was winning. "Tamara, you'd better lie to her," he told her slowly and calmly. — But I have no reason to. It wouldn't do me any good. It's true, from A to Z."
  
  
  "It's so amazing. It's like a crazy nightmare...'
  
  
  She turned and looked out the window again. Her silence was only partly the result of her confusion and indecision. She wasn't as afraid of me as she used to be. At least she wasn't stupid, or she wouldn't have worked for the KGB. Perhaps she was just a little naive and inexperienced. He could almost hear her thoughts as she considered the alternatives. I hoped she was also considering how she would use me. In fact, I was counting on it, because it was obvious that I would have to use it.
  
  
  "Nick," she said at last. She looked at me again. There was an unprecedented warmth in her voice, and she only said my name. "Nick, these other channels. Do you know where they are?"
  
  
  "Maybe, maybe not."
  
  
  "We both know something. Now if we put this together. We could work together.
  
  
  — Are you saying that you believe that AH doesn't cooperate with Zembla?"
  
  
  She nodded. "And you have to believe me, Nick.
  
  
  'Why should I believe you? Russia has a lot to gain if Zembla wins."
  
  
  'No, nothing! If Zembla succeeds in unifying this area, it will be more difficult for us, and it will take much longer for our revolution to succeed. But there's something else, Nick. Do you play chess?
  
  
  "I've played them before."
  
  
  "For us Russians, this is a passion, as you know. And why? Because it pits a limited number of shrewd, intelligent and well-positioned opponents against each other with an infinite number of game features. So is our policy. We like to know what the options are and whether we can handle them. Colonel Zembla is quite different. He's a wild man. It must be eliminated. Otherwise, it could endanger not only Central America, but the entire balance of power in the world."
  
  
  "And we're pawns in the game, aren't we?"
  
  
  "Not pawns, Nick, but Connie. She smiled briefly, her lips twitching slightly. "Horses can jump sideways and over others. Not pawns. They're forced to do short, pointless shaggy things in one direction."
  
  
  — Is this a suggestion to jump in your direction, Tamara?" Her short but sharp laugh came out. Such a jump would be suicide. Your KGB has put a high price on my head.
  
  
  "I know that. But I also know what happened before. It can happen again — "she breathed," and it will happen again if you're not too stupid." Look at you! You have my gun and Dr. Mendoza's old revolver, but the rest of it?" Only wet pants! Are you going to defeat Colonel Zembla with this? I'm not saying we'll be friends. But we have a common goal. Voice why we could work together! We must work together!
  
  
  Tamara's eyes shone brightly in the darkness of the empty room. I thought she was making fun of me on her own. I didn't care either. I needed the help of the KGB, the help of organizations, with equipment and food. He stared at Nah, as if considering her comments. She looked around with a serious and honest look. She played her part well, very well indeed, but she was too naive, as is often the case with women in our profession. She defended her position with her black granite eyes. It reminded me of the beautiful Venus flytrap, a carnivorous plant that must smell so sweet to the insects it feeds on.
  
  
  — well... I said hesitantly, " what do you suggest?"
  
  
  'Come with me.'
  
  
  "At Miguel's house around the corner?"
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  — How many others besides you two?"
  
  
  She licked her lips, wondering if Ay should lie. "Just one, a certain Diego Ordas."
  
  
  This may be true. It was unlikely, but it didn't matter. — Do you have a transceiver in there?"
  
  
  "Short waves, all ranges," she said quickly, noting my agreement. — We'll find you some clothes and some food.
  
  
  He sighed, as if reluctantly yielding to the inevitable. He stood up and pulled off his wet, sticky pants. 'Good.'
  
  
  "It's a wise decision, Nick," she said solemnly. — Can I get my stuff back now?"
  
  
  "Yeah," I said, reaching for a macaroon and then a nail file. "Not again."
  
  
  She looked aggrieved as she filled her pockets. "Nick, I thought we trusted each other now."
  
  
  He should have smiled. - For estestvenno. But this way I trust her more. He opened the door and we went out into the corridor. "By the way, Dr. Mendoza said you forgot something." What was that?'
  
  
  She stretched out her mouth like a naughty little girl. "I forgot to pay em everything he said. He was cheated out of his ego, as you say, in America.
  
  
  Her smirk continued; it was insignificant enough to be true. Internally, it should have been laughing, but at something else. Until now, Tamara the ferret had studiously avoided saying anything about the bag still sitting next to me. She didn't even look at it. Apparently, she felt that it was somehow important. It was the first thing she would do if given the chance.
  
  
  After getting out on Calle Montenegro, we walked to the next intersection, a few steps away from the house. The houses on both sides of the street were quiet and dark. Tamara turned white as the falling snow fell on her hair and dusted her coat .
  
  
  "Nick," she said as we turned onto Calle Noevo, " Colonel Zembla must be stopped at all costs! My eyes were fixed on the third house on the right, the building where Mendoza thought Gilles Ego was a brother. The shuttered windows were dark and deserted. "Not Zembla, Tamara. He lost control of his work."
  
  
  "The channels belong to the emu anyway. That's what mistletoe meant." Her voice was sharp, " It would be terrible if we failed."
  
  
  "Plants, trees, insects, animals — all ecology on an area of thousands of square kilometers will be destroyed."
  
  
  "And people! She shivered and stood for a moment in the doorway of the house, brushing the snow off her shoes. — Ih needs to be warned, Nick. It would be unfair not to tell them.
  
  
  "They won't trust you," I said. "I think they can't believe their eyes anymore. They won't understand what lies ahead for ih."
  
  
  'It's not fair!'Yes,' she confirmed impetuously. "Thousands of people will die of hunger and cold!"
  
  
  Ee grabbed her arm as if to guide her down the hall. She was being held by her own automatic pistol pointed at nah. "Well said," I said. "This is certainly part of the drama that you are taught in the KGB. Can you cry on command too?
  
  
  "How can she say such things!" she sighed with genuine indignation. It was almost as if tears were welling up in her eyes. "We are on different sides, it's true. But the people who will suffer and die with Colonel Zembla's death are not on the same side. They try to live as best they can! Nick, are you so stubborn that you've lost all sense of humanity?
  
  
  — I once released a prisoner of your Vladimir camp " Ten " near Potma . I know your Soviet charity very well."
  
  
  She stiffened and pressed her lips together. We were already close to the first day on the right. As much as we might have wanted to respond to my taunt, she didn't say anything, fearing that her ambush would fail. Despite the cold, there was a vague smell of danger and death in the air that barely registered it.
  
  
  "We're here," she said. 'Passageways to the inside.'
  
  
  'Then you. Its staying behind you. The first person who tries to attack me will get shot in the back."
  
  
  "Nick, her, I swear..."
  
  
  "You go first, Tamara. Her hand tightened on hers. My thumb pressed down on a nerve until she moaned helplessly. "Let's see what kind of party you've arranged for me."
  
  
  Her hand on the doorknob trembled. "Nick, this is not the way to work together. Please put that gun away...
  
  
  "Go ahead."
  
  
  We went in. What we saw, no one expected from us. It was a massacre. One man was sprawled on the ground. The other sat limply in a chair, his hands calmly folded in his lap. Both had their throats cut from ear to ear. Dark congealed blood formed a large puddle on the floor. It poured onto the chest of the seated man and dripped from the chair. The walls were splattered with blood that had originally spurted down the carotid arteries.
  
  
  "My dear mummy," Tamara bowed her head and vomited.
  
  
  If my stomach wasn't so empty, I would have thrown up too. My stomach clenched in my throat now, but I managed to control myself. He studied the rest of the room. Everything was turned upside down. The drawers were emptied, the seat covers torn off, and the modern transistor radio he'd been counting on was useless. He turned to Tamara. She burst into dry sobs. He slapped her cheek with his palm, not hard,but hard.
  
  
  "Stop it," I said. "Let's move on..."
  
  
  "Oh... oh, my God. Her eyes were clear again, but she was sitting on her feet, shaking like a kitten.
  
  
  "Your people?"
  
  
  — Y-yes . Miguel and ... and Diego in the chair. How...?'
  
  
  "Ih must have been caught off guard. Ih was held at gunpoint and killed with a knife to make as little noise as possible."
  
  
  He sighed. My voice was grim: "It looks like Dr. Mendoza doesn't have a mother after all."
  
  
  'How?'
  
  
  "He must have been very busy after I left him," I explained. — He called you about me. And I'll bet you the money that he told Zembla's people in Prinzapolz about you at the same time.
  
  
  "For estestvenno! He betrayed us both! Her face was contorted with anger and hatred. "We should go back and deal with him."
  
  
  "That's a good idea, but we'll save it for later. We have to get out of here."
  
  
  "I hope the killers come back and find us here."
  
  
  "Save your revenge for a better life, Tamara. We have to shut down these channels, and they are scattered in three more countries. There's nothing else we can do here in Prinzapolz.
  
  
  "Yes, yes, I understand her. She looked at me blankly. "I'm sorry, Nick. She was trying to lure you into a trap so that she could draw out everything you knew about her.
  
  
  "Don't worry about it. You've never deceived me with your game. Your commando squad is gone and your comrades are dead. It looks like we really need to work together now, but then we need to trust each other. Do you want this?'
  
  
  She nodded. "Now it's just us."
  
  
  'Tack's voice.' It was returned by A. Makarov's pistol. I wondered what Hawke would say about working with a Russian agent. I didn't have much choice, but it might create unnecessary problems. I had to contact the AH headquarters as soon as possible and explain the case. But the most important thing is first. I went to the small room where the two bodies were lying and asked: "Is there a Swede who is engaged that suits me?"
  
  
  'Nickname
  
  
  He turned slowly, gathering his strength. Tamara waved a large automatic revolver at me, as if she didn't know what to do. She nodded again and put the gun in her pocket. "A brown suitcase. It belongs to Miguel, and it's about the same height as you. He was like that, I mean.
  
  
  "Big girl," I chuckled, tossing the magazine to Hey, who took out a gun each before saying hi. She passed the test. She blushed up to her neck, but didn't say anything.
  
  
  Miguel was shorter and fatter than I was. However, he was found wearing something under his shirts, a thick wool sweater, worsted trousers, and a pair of thick socks that fit well. It was worn by everyone to be well protected from the cold, snow and ice. The best surprise was a pair of leather boots that were quite large, so don't be upset despite the extra socks.
  
  
  — Do you have any other transponders besides this son of a bitch?"
  
  
  I asked Tamara about it while I was getting dressed. "No," came the disconcerting sound of rheumatism. "It was the only thing we had."
  
  
  "No problem," I growled. "I was hoping we could call for help. A patrol boat is waiting for me at sea.
  
  
  — We have a fishing trawler there. Does anyone around you have a radio here?
  
  
  "I'm afraid not. Otherwise, it would have been used by the ego. They're the few people we have here, all questionable, just like Dr. Mendoza. I don't think it has anything better than a quartz transmitter. We'll have to steal a boat around the harbor. Let's hope we get through this before the storm hits us.
  
  
  "We could take a plane," she said casually.
  
  
  He put on his shoes and stomped around the room. "A plane? What plane?
  
  
  The Cessna 150 that brought her from Diego all the way to Mexico City. The support team arrived with a trawler. She tossed the magazine in the air, caught the ego again, and laughed mischievously. "Of course, if you don't trust female pilots..."
  
  
  — You're joining ego here, aren't you?" If you put your ego up in the air in this storm, lady, its never gonna be critical of women driving again.
  
  
  She laughed, a deep guttural sound; generous, with a bright smile, between a man and a woman, not between agents. She was serious again. "The plane is in a lounge on a hard stretch of beach north of the village. Her ego has tied her up tight in case we don't get to Zembla in time and the weather changes. So we also brought warm clothes. Her-glad we took this precaution. But when the Caribbean Sea...
  
  
  Hey, there was no need to finish the sentence. He could easily imagine the wind-blown waves crashing down on a small plane, smashing the landing gear and crushing the ego like it was a cardboard box. We left the house immediately. She just managed to grab Miguel's fur coat from the hook on the back of the day. Tamara was a broad-minded woman who quickly got used to everything. She could force herself to look at the two dead men dispassionately. She didn't talk about it again. They were dead, and it was better ih forget. Something had to be done that might lead us nowhere, and even lead to her own brutal death. Later, when it's all over, she can mourn ih. It occurred to me that when it came to fighting, she was still my enemy. I wouldn't want to kill her.
  
  
  Noevo Street was emptier than ever. The good citizens of Prinzapoltsy were shocked by the ice storm, in which they did not understand anything. We stayed close to the gutter on one side of the street. Tamara automatically moved closer to me, as if seeking protection and comfort.
  
  
  "Eda was in the apartment . You needed something.'
  
  
  "Strange," I said. "I suddenly lost my appetite there."
  
  
  "Maybe there's something else on the plane."
  
  
  We turned onto Calle Montenegro, back to the mimmo town square of Dr. Mendoza's house. There was nothing to be seen. Nothing moved, but there was a strange silence. It scared me. He listened intently. Once again, my years of experience sharpened my instincts that something was wrong. He lowered his feet easily, very carefully. Tamara walked beside me in silence.
  
  
  We were passing the mimmo of Mendoza's house when she spoke. "Diego was a good guy," she said thoughtfully. "Miguel was the doctor's brother, if it's any consolation.
  
  
  We came to a rough-built donkey cart, which was now sitting on the drawbars frank in front of the stable. He looked at the stables. Now they were open. It was completely dark.
  
  
  Almost angrily, he whispered to her:: "We're trapped." Before Tamara could react, a thousand guns were fired around the darkness of the stable. The actual della ih was only about ten, but that's too much when it comes to you. Hers, he felt like a clay pigeon being shot at from all directions.
  
  
  He shouted and nudged Tamara. Her shot in rheumatism is around an antique Mendoza revolver. Too hasty. He doubted he'd hit anyone. We were shot at again, a red flash around the stable. I shot her again. Mimmo us swept even more lead. We approached the cart, and threw ourselves into this dubious barricade.
  
  
  'Nickname. Tamara grabbed my arm. "They've surrounded us!"
  
  
  "There's no point in panicking," the rheumatologist whispered to her. Her, leaned as low as he could to peer under the cart. "Ten to one, they're the same bastards who killed your men." They're not going to take prisoners. We'll have to fight.
  
  
  Volley after volley crashed into the old wooden wooden carts. Bullets shattered thick planks and ricocheted into the still-falling snow. It looked like they had a lot of ammunition. We didn't have any more than we had in our revolvers. I didn't need to point out our predicament to Tamara. She only fired occasionally, only when she could aim for a flash of fire. One of the seven shots hit. A sudden scream and the clang of a falling gun. A dark-skinned man in peasant garb came out, dancing as if doing a pirouette, his hands clasped over his bloody face. Tamara didn't waste another bullet on it. The man screamed. Then one of his ego friends in the stable shot him. He fell headfirst into the snow.
  
  
  "We're almost out of ammunition," Tamara breathed.
  
  
  The firing squad's guns continued to fire. Damn it! If only there was a way to blow it up and all that! This gave me an idea. "Quick," I ordered — " let me get this wooden pin out, around the hub, and take the wheel off!"With the butt of Mendoza's pistol, he pulled a makeshift wedge around the axle. Together we unscrewed the wooden wheel. It came off with a creak. The cart fell on one axle, and the other side rose. So we had better coverage.
  
  
  "Give me one around your tangerines."
  
  
  Tamara stared at me. "Tangerines? I... I don't understand what you mean.
  
  
  The lead flew around us as if we were in a hornet's nest. There was no time to explain. "Damn it," I said sharply. "These tangerines you're carrying look real, but I know as well as you do that they're disguised grenades. The British also used ih in the war against Hitler. And it seems to me that your cigarettes are actually incendiary time bombs. tailor take it in AH, we know such tricks too. Today or tomorrow I can tell you about the artificial latex dogs that we use to blow up castles in the canals. Come on!'
  
  
  She reached into one of her coat pockets and handed me a perfectly camouflaged explosive.
  
  
  "The stem is the ignition," she said. "The shorter you break the ego, the faster the explosion will follow."
  
  
  It was stuffed by a fake tangerine in the axle hole in the wheel. "Now let's chase these rats around the nest!" She rolled the wheel towards the cart.
  
  
  "Give me cover."
  
  
  "I only have three shots left."
  
  
  "They won't fight back when that happens," I promised. Tamara started shooting. He stood up and pushed the wheel. It rolled down the street through the snow, leapt over a ditch on the other side of the street, and staggered openly toward the dark stable. There was a moment of dead silence. The nine remaining snipers seemed to be wondering what was going on. If we're lucky, they'll be around the wheel right now.
  
  
  Then the grenade exploded. Deafening thunder rang out from inside the stable. The door swung off its hinges and floated across the street. The sky shivered with bright colors, followed by blinding whiteness. Tongues of fire erupted around the shattered doorway. After a few seconds, the pair turned into a blazing inferno.
  
  
  From behind her cart, he whispered — " It wasn't just a grenade. It was also an incendiary bomb at the same time!"
  
  
  She shrugged philosophically. "The most important thing is that you do your job without dying alone, like a hero."
  
  
  Together we ran down the street through the ruins of the stable. Once Tamara almost slipped in the frozen snow. She recovered and blushed from the interference. Besides, she kept up with me. We came to the corner of Calle Montenegro and crossed the white plain of squares.
  
  
  Now it was Tamara's turn to lead the way. She knew where the Cessna 150 was in the lounge, but she wasn't. I prayed that we would get to the plane without any further difficulties.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  
  
  Surprisingly, there were no further difficulties. At least not for the two-legged ones. The weather seemed to have driven even the Zembla fanatics into the house I was asking for shelter and warmth.
  
  
  The snow began to fall harder. Strong gusts of wind nearly knocked us off our feet. The icy air is squeezing my lungs and hurting my eyes. My fingers were like ice cubes. He wasn't wearing gloves. The Caribbean Sea was heaving and churning: white foam on black. The storm was coming from the west, through the lowlands. As a result, the low coastline was not submerged. After more than an hour of hard walking on the beach of Mosquito Costa, we reached the plane, numb from the cold.
  
  
  Tamara strapped herself into the left-hand seat.
  
  
  Turn on the heating, " I said, my teeth chattering. She started the engine, made quick checks, and increased her speed to check the engine. "This is the first time I've had to turn on de-icers for takeoff," she said. She stared at the snow-covered beach. 'Wait. We could withstand a few blows of wind.
  
  
  She let go of the bullying and slowly pushed the gas forward. The Cessna shivered and shook under the onslaught of wind, foam, and snow. We taxied along a wide stretch of volcanic rock and pebbles, sometimes skidding on ice floes. The plane's head should never have been pointed into the wind. It was blowing from all directions. Olga stepped on the gas all the way down. A few punches, he thought to himself, it's all right! I had a CLV license in the Air Transport category. These are still the same rights as a regular commercial license. Only the requirements were higher. The pilot is required to have better flight skills and excellent physical fitness. Mostly commercial and professional pilots have it. Her is well aware of the evolution of flying machines with them the ferret, as Icarus first covered himself with wax and feathers. But now that we were about to challenge this howling storm with nothing more than a matchbox with a wingspan of about 12m, I thought about how we could take off.
  
  
  We flitted along the beach until we reached takeoff speed. For a Cessna 150, this is about 90 kilometers per hour. We broke free and jumped into the air. It was a terrible sensation. I could see that Tamara wasn't happy with her ascent at all. Biting her lower lip, she handled the tiller and pedals like an organist playing "Gladiator's Exit" in boogie-woogie style. Tamara gradually ascended by plane to an altitude of 2000 feet. At this altitude, it continued to fly. She calmly pulled on the gas until the tachometer read 2,300 revolutions per minute.
  
  
  "You're a natural pilot," her father said.
  
  
  "Where he comes from, the weather is like this every year for the sixth month," she said. 'Where are we going to go there?'
  
  
  — You know this is the first time I've had time to worry about it?" He opened his bag and started looking through his passports and documents. Meanwhile, Ey explained how ih acquired it and who they belong to. The owner of the bag was Senora Ana Mojada, a widow living at the Vacaciones Hotel in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Loosely translated, she lived in a boarding house and worked as a housekeeper there. At least if we could check her credentials. I wondered how real they were when the next set of documents checked her out.
  
  
  The bald head's name was Tonichi Alexander. He was believed to have been a laborer in Polencia, Honduras. Another man, Ramon Batuc, lived on the island of Isla de Sangre, Panama. He was known as a lace merchant. Isla de Sangre - "Blood Island". Tamara flinched when Abe read it. "I don't think this is the right place for a lace salesman."
  
  
  "Well, when you have hundreds of small islands like Panama, you sometimes get crazy names." I checked it again, putting the papers back in my bag. We didn't have much time left. To Honduras, I decided.
  
  
  She tilted the plane to the west-northwest. We were flying back inland to Nicaragua. Another hundred and fifty kilometers and we'd be over Honduras. Visibility was zero. Outside, there was a complete maelstrom of tangled white porridge. Tamara examined all the instruments, the magnetic compass, and used her practical intuition. The work was very intense for a while. In a relatively quiet time, Olga turned to me questioningly.
  
  
  "Polencia, Honduras?" Where is this guy named Alexander from ?
  
  
  'Originally from there. Do you know where it is?'
  
  
  'I've never heard of it. The only place that seems familiar to me is Puntarenas. It looks like a promising tourist destination in Nicoya Bay."
  
  
  "It goes well with a name like Hotel Vacaciones. They should have been a little more original. They can learn a lot from Panama with its beautiful island names."
  
  
  — There are cards in the bag next to you, Nick. See if you can find a map of Honduras. Then I can get my bearings.
  
  
  There were maps in the place she indicated. There are stacks of cards on the dell itself. More than I've ever seen her on any private jet I've ever encountered. WLK's World Aviation Maps-for every part of Central and South America, detailed maps obtained from private agencies, and a well-researched FAA Pilot's Handbook for the United States.
  
  
  I found the map I wanted. - And the voice and Polensia. Judging by its size, it's a village made up of two people and a chicken. It lies between the capital city of Tegucigalpa and the three-thousandth peak of El Picacho . Hmm, how well do you land on the goat trails?
  
  
  — We'll land in Tegucigalpa, if you don't mind." I think this is the only airport in Honduras. In any case, it will lick everything to the floor.
  
  
  I gave him the coordinates and put the maps back. She turned on the radio, hoping to catch a beacon. Dynamic only made some static crackling sound. Nothing sensible could be done about it. The radio compass needle turned slowly. It didn't seem plausible to me that all the stations were off the air. They simply couldn't be heard, and there could only be one reason. Signals were interrupted by changes in Colonel Zembla's weather. Adverse conditions alone cannot cause a failure of this magnitude. Thinking about it, I also realized that we in Prinzapolz would never have been able to call for help on the radio. We were really all alone. More than he'd initially feared. I told her that to Tamara. she gave him a dark look. Her lips were pale.
  
  
  "The irony," I said, " is that Zembla was able to communicate his demands to the world on the radio. Maybe he intended to do it somewhere else, outside of this mess, but I doubt it. I don't think he fully realized what he was getting himself into. I think the ego of a huge ego has clouded the ego calculations a bit. This is often the case with megalomaniac dictators. After all, he wasn't that smart.
  
  
  "No, he was too smart, Nick. Tamara closed her mouth again and focused on her instruments. It had little to do with flying. Keep an eye on your hands, and correct them if necessary. It's all. The Cessna heaved and spun through the swirling swirls of air sampling. Tamara looked like a turkey riding a wild horse. She flew with the plane. Ee's hands and feet responded confidently and quickly to every movement of the device. She was flying well, damn well even. The only downside to flying blind is that you won't see the mountain that might loom large in front of you.
  
  
  "Why Polencia, Nick?" — What is it? " she asked after a while.
  
  
  "Why are we going there? Because this is north of Prinzapolca, and the other two are south. The storm was getting worse, and he decided we'd better take the longest section first, and then the shorter one.
  
  
  "Its just as I thought. But with her mistletoe in mind, how can you be sure there's a transmitter out there? Alexander, Batuk and Senhora Mohada could have come from anywhere and from anywhere. They could have used false documents.
  
  
  "You should know that," I said, " Senorita Rosita of Managua."
  
  
  "Don't laugh at me, Nick. Now seriously!
  
  
  He sighed. "There are four reasons. First, I have not only an ih passport, but also ih national identity certificates. You know as well as I do that you can easily enter another country with a fake passport. But try living in your own country with a fake identity card. This is particularly difficult. Especially in Latin America. The police like to check. Second, everyone around these guys controlled the transmitter. Hence, they must have lived close to his installations. Third, I don't understand why Zembla would use false documents. This is not without risk. No, I think that these places correspond to reality.
  
  
  "And the fourth reason?"
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "We don't have anything better."
  
  
  I understand her. Then we'll just do it. She pursed her lips. He noticed that it was her habit when she was worried about something, to ask her. Then her face brightened. "There's a basket behind the chair, Nick. Diego was very hungry when he was preparing for the trip, and maybe there's something else in it.
  
  
  I found her basket, one of those wicker Mexican shopping bags. Really, Diego, not much was left. There was still a bottle of cheap red wine in the bottle, and there were a few tacos left, as well as jamon and tostadas tapas . They were cold, but they were still delicious. The tostadas were still crunchy and filled with all sorts of goodies, including green peppers that were hot enough to burn your insides.
  
  
  He drained the bottle in one gulp to put out the fire. He put the basket back down and relaxed in his chair. The warm feeling of guilt, the heating, the food, and the full stomach made me sleepy. I tried to keep my eyes open. But it didn't last long. The Cessna rocked and rocked. To my ears, the sound of the engine was a throbbing, sleepy rumble.
  
  
  Her slowly woke up. The dreamless blackness in which he had sunk gradually turned into a dark gray reality. He felt a throbbing pain in his injured shoulder. My muscles were cramped because I'd been sitting in the same position for too long. Still half awake, he opened her eyes. At first, I thought I was still in the boat and was leaving the temple. He stared out into the vast gray infinity. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was being flown back and forth on a plane. He lay with his head against the wall, looking out the window at Honduras. Everything was covered with snow. He turned his head to Tamara and yawned.
  
  
  'Did you sleep well?'
  
  
  "Reasonable, considering the circumstances. Where are we?'
  
  
  "Almost in Tegucigalpa. We'll be landing in fifteen minutes. Has anyone ever told you that you snore?
  
  
  "Only if I could return the compliment," I chuckled. "Is there anything else on the radio?"
  
  
  She shook her head. — I have the impression that all channels here are simply turned off. It seems to me that Zembla bears full responsibility for this silence.
  
  
  "In that case," I said, no longer chuckling, " they'll probably evacuate the city." The government depends on the means of communication, especially in difficult times, until the real flow comes."
  
  
  "These poor people," she whispered, " this poor, unhappy man, and..."
  
  
  Ten minutes later, we saw a dark mass moving below us. We flew over the capital of Honduras. A sudden fear hit her. Tegucigalpa should be a bright spot in this gray mess. We should see lights flickering, or at least ih reflected in the snow. Tegucigalpa is almost four centuries old. It is a city that prides itself on its university and its eighteenth-century cathedral, which is visible from afar with its ego dome and two towers.
  
  
  Tegucigalpa, with its two hundred thousand inhabitants, seemed to no longer exist.
  
  
  Tamara lowered the plane through the raging storm. "The airport is in a hall south of the city, quite high, almost 3,000 feet. Tighten your belt. It will be a hard landing if I lose visibility."
  
  
  "Make sure that you can take off again soon," he warned her further. "We may have a welcome committee waiting for us."
  
  
  "What do you mean, Nick?"
  
  
  "We don't know what happened to them ferrets as we left Prinzapolce. Tegucigalpa can be almost deserted. But they can also be under martial law. And if this is the case, then Zhenoy's soldiers can simply shoot at someone else's plane. There is another possibility. If Zembla took good care of his public relations, communications, and transportation, he might well end up in the hands of his accomplices ' egos. A storm can be a signal to strike now that the side is paralyzed. I doubt it, but we know what we can't be sure of. Tamara looked at me worriedly. It circled the outskirts of the city. While her sleep lasted, she began flying at a price slightly higher than the original altitude of 2,000 feet. It descended several hundred feet and turned the plane in the direction of the kicker. Tegucigalpa became clearly visible and disappeared to the left as we flew over the countryside.
  
  
  Honduras is very similar to Nicaragua. With the exception of narrow coastal strips, it is a mountainous country. Agriculture is the main source of livelihood, but most of the land is still uncultivated. As in Nicaragua, it now looked like a barren Arctic landscape. Dark clouds, pregnant with snow, hung around an imaginary mountain peak at an altitude of four to five thousand meters.
  
  
  My pilot seemed to know the flight path. It was likely that she had landed here before. She let the car turn again, slowed to about a thousand revolutions per minute, and switched on the landing lights. Slowly, she lowered the plane. For one uneasy moment, I thought she wanted us to land in the middle of a grove of trees. Then we finished the descent. The concrete runway of Tegucigalpa Airport loomed in the glow of our landing lights. Wind and snow whipped up in torrents. Visibility didn't extend much further than the screw. Vaguely, he could see the massive forms of the control tower and hangar revealed before him. I was wondering who was waiting for us in these buildings. If anyone was there.
  
  
  We hit the ground, bounced, hit the ground again, and skidded. Tamara regained control of the plane and we rolled toward the tower. We passed mimmo pairs of old P-51 Mustangs, war relics, DC-4s, and groups of decommissioned F-5s. There were no commercial planes in sight. The hangars, control tower, and arrival hall were all dark; there were no signs of life. My suspicion that the city had been evacuated was stronger than ever. Of course, it's also possible that only the suburbs were evacuated. The population could be gathered in a camp in the center of the city to wait for the end of this incomprehensible disaster. On the other hand, it could also be one big ambush. Tamara was acutely aware of the potential danger. As we approached the arrivals hall, she switched off the landing lights, braked sharply, and turned the Cessna 180 degrees. In an emergency, we now had enough room to take off quickly again. No one came out to greet us. No one seemed to be hiding in the shadow of the building either. Tamara turned off the engine and peered out carefully.
  
  
  "Do you see anything?"
  
  
  'No. Let's wait!'
  
  
  The door opened and a man ran out. He staggered, slid, staggered, and ran as fast as he could. It is not known by the ego. In any case, he was not a soldier and was unarmed. He ducked into the water. We heard the faint sound of a car starting up and driving away at full speed. We waited a few minutes, but nothing else happened.
  
  
  "Probably a marauder,"I said," and a drunkard at that." He struggled with the door. The icy cold wind was a horror after the cozy warmth of the plane. "Wait," he called to her, Tamara. — I gather annually. Her, ran up to the door, which left the man. Mendoza's gun with one bullet in my hand, ready to go. It was almost too dark inside to see anything clearly. I felt around the wall and found the light switch and turned it on. Nothing like that. I tried it a few more times. He abruptly stopped listening to her. The wind howled outside. The paper was blown out of the big windows.
  
  
  On the other side of the large marble waiting room was a row of ticket counters. He walked over to the nearest counter and gave nah a questioning look. He examined her offices and toilets. The airport was empty. He went back to the counter and tried the phone that was on the table. It didn't surprise me that the line didn't work. Shaggy shuffling sounds came from behind. Turning around, he dropped his phone and picked up the gun.
  
  
  It was Tamara. Hey, you didn't have to tell me she was nervous. Her round eyes were the size of saucers. It was dead white. "I couldn't take it anymore there," she said.
  
  
  — Not all the legs are better here. He pointed to the phone next to his desk. "There's no one here. The phone and holy are also no longer working.
  
  
  — So what do we do now?"
  
  
  "Polensia".
  
  
  She grabbed my sleeve nervously. "Let's go to Tegucigalpa first, Nick. After all, the city can't be completely evacuated. Not in such a short time. There must be someone who can help us. The police or the army.
  
  
  "I'd love to see her, baby, but I can't. We must first find someone to explain this corkscrew. And if we find someone like that, the only problem is whether they trust us. We are foreigners without a passport or visa. No, they would rather think that we were the cause of this."
  
  
  — But we can't stop Zembla. Just the two of us.
  
  
  I stroked her hand, which was now holding mine. "Bet?"..
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  
  
  An hour later, we drove down Tuguigalpa in a stolen military land Rover to the mountain village of Polencia.
  
  
  We were lucky enough to find something that was traveling in a deserted airport. The rover was parked in a small airport police garage next to old propeller planes. The car was jacked up and the right front wheel was removed. As soon as the Honduran authorities decided to act, there was obviously a general panic. The rover was just left behind. It was rusty, with a cracked windshield and a dented radiator grille. But more importantly, it was completely closed. At this altitude, as well as higher up in the mountains, where we had to go, there is such a thing as winter. Of course, nothing compared to the current circumstances, but the fact that Hondurans used closed cars made sense. I was grateful for that.
  
  
  I found a matching tire in the garage. Meanwhile, Tamara was rummaging through several gas canisters outside the gas station. I was changing her wheel when she came to tell me that the pump wasn't working - there was no corruption. Fortunately, we found several barrels of gasoline. We managed to pump enough water with the hand pump to fill six cans and the tank of the all-terrain vehicle. After all, the high octane rating would certainly burn a hole in the cylinders. The corkscrew was just how fast. There were no weapons in the Rover, which is not surprising. We found a coil of rope and a first aid kit . Before leaving, Tamara changed the bandage on my shoulder. He was glad that the bleeding had stopped and the holes were well closed. However, there were no medications to reduce the gnawing pain. Its trying to forget the pain. My study of Eastern philosophy and my extensive yoga classes should help me do this. Spirit defeats matter - and it works!
  
  
  Finally, on the way, we noticed that the furnace was working as poorly and the muffler was cracked. A continuous thundering and burning smell filled the cabin. Her, I thought, how ironic it would be if carbon monoxide poisoning caused us to die before we had a chance to die in a more appropriate way. Personally, she preferred icy snow or hot lead.
  
  
  I drove her. Tamara found her way through the map that she had unfolded on her lap. The route we took consisted of a continuous zigzag through the hills and finally a final, terribly steep climb to Polencia. Climbing these peaks can not be considered something spectacular. They are not particularly steep and do not fall into the same category as the Alps or the younger Rocky Mountains. But now we had to cut through the snow-covered forests. Climbing windswept passes and icy horse-drawn and mountain trails was more dangerous than it looked. Dark clouds loomed over us. Wisps of gray fog and snow, mixed in places with hail, lashed the all-terrain vehicle from all sides.
  
  
  On both sides of the narrow road, a small army of natives was moving. Refugees who have left their villages and huts. They trudged to the protection of Tegucigalpa. Some were mounted on horses or mules, others had carts, but most were walking. They wore flowing ponchos, loose cotton trousers, and sandals. Ill-dressed and miserable, they trudged along with their meager possessions on their backs. If they were supporters of Zembla, they didn't show it.
  
  
  One day he stopped to let a cart pass. Tamara opened the side window. — How far is it to Polencia?" — What is it? " she asked the half-breed . He paused for a moment, then pulled the poncho tighter around his frozen body. "Maybe an hour. The road is bad. Go back if you can.
  
  
  — No, we have to move on. Thank you.'
  
  
  The man put his hand on the window. — It's no use, senorita. Some of them are around us by half-pension. People with guns chased us around our homes."
  
  
  "Soldiers?
  
  
  'No. others. I do not know why they wanted our little village. When faced with a weapon, you'd better not ask questions and obey."
  
  
  "We will be careful. Muchas gracias, senor. Tamara closed the window. Her face was grim as we drove. "There's no doubt about it now, Nick. You were right. The transmitter is there.
  
  
  'Yes. And one more thing. Zembla was already there.
  
  
  She gave me a sharp look. — How can you be so sure?"
  
  
  "I'm not sure, but it fits the schedule. Channels should not be very large. They were pre-fabricated and tuned to a fixed wavelength. Commands were made around a Mayan temple. Zembla installed ih secretly, without supervision. This way, no state will become suspicious and send soldiers to investigate the ego's activities. Now that things had gone wrong, he had to make a choice. He could dismantle his channels and forget about his program, or he could implement his plans at any cost. And I still don't see this fanatic giving up. According to the blacksmith, it has something to do with the martyr complex. Now that Polencia is occupied by ego armed bandits, it is obvious that Zebla has decided to fight to the bitter end both ways. Since there is no radio contact, I would say that he is flying back and forth between his posts to support and command his men."
  
  
  "You mean Colonel Zembla is here in Polencia?"
  
  
  "He must have gone off again and left the sentries."
  
  
  "We're not sure, Nick.
  
  
  He grabbed the Rover's steering wheel as if it were Zembla's neck.
  
  
  "No, we're not sure."
  
  
  We struggled to find our way up. Sometimes between groups of trees whose branches are bent under an unusual snow load. Sometimes on fog-shrouded mountain ranges with cliffs on one side and gray emptiness on the other. The cold increased. An icy wind sliced through the cabin like a razor through paper, and our teeth chattered like castanets. At last we reached a small plateau, at the broad end of a triangular valley. On the other side of the valley was Polencia.
  
  
  A vast, glittering plain stretched out before us. Sergei was dazzlingly reflected in the pristine snow. Only the sky seemed to sparkle and twinkle. The tumbling masses of clouds glittered like quicksilver. The valley shone white and hauntingly beautiful. Graceful ice domes covered the once green land. A river flowed in the middle of the valley. He could see where it flowed into the valley. Hilly pockets under a thick layer of snow pointed to the rapids. Many cascades, now surrounded by ice, indicated a higher position. Polencia was located at the foot of a large waterfall. Usually the village's houses were made up of beige-gray stone and plaster, but now it was a cluster of ramshackle ivory huts around an equally white church.
  
  
  He knew that there would be a man on guard on the church tower. Others will patrol the streets, and some will sit on the steep slopes around the valley. The guards we could see, six of them, were forming dark spots on the light background. Two of them were standing at the makeshift blockade formed by a fence around logs on the road leading to Polencia. The others are arranged in a semicircle on our side of the village, for example.
  
  
  They haven't seen us yet. Otherwise they would have done something, " Tamara said. "They're just standing there... Or maybe they know we're coming and wait without firing until we get a lick."
  
  
  — Well, let's not keep ih waiting any longer.
  
  
  — We can try to take out the last sentry with a detour. We could use the ego gun.
  
  
  He didn't answer right away. I studied the area and thought. He tried to come up with a plan that had a decent chance of success. I didn't really like it.
  
  
  "No, we don't know your schedule," I told her after a while. — And we don't have time to stand here and sort this out." In addition, the village is completely open. It's going to be a hell of a lot harder to get in there. And even if it works, we may not know the ih location. Then we'll give ourselves away. No, our only chance is to strike before they know we're here.
  
  
  "Okay, tell me how!"
  
  
  I reviewed it all. Then a coil of rope from the back of the car took it. "Give me your gun," I said.
  
  
  'Why? There are only three rounds left in the nen.
  
  
  'Excellent. That's two more than I have left. Oh, and another grenade, please.
  
  
  She looked sad, but she did as he asked.
  
  
  'Where are we going?'What is it?' she asked as she prepared to climb out around the Rover.
  
  
  "Not us, but me. Stay here.'
  
  
  "Nick, no!
  
  
  'This is how it should be. Meanwhile, you can turn the jeep around and fill up the tank by canisters. If I succeed, a quick retreat may be necessary. If I don't come, then...
  
  
  'Don't say that.'
  
  
  "If I don't succeed," he repeated, " then you have a chance." Petrol is more than enough to get back to Tegucigalpa.
  
  
  — I hate you, " she called after me. He looked over his shoulder at the slender figure sitting in the land Rover . If only it wasn't so damn cold, and the situation wasn't so dangerous and urgent! Then I'd like to know if she knows what love is, too. My sixth sense told me that my amiable Russian agent was passionate enough to make us forget we'd ever been cold.
  
  
  He reached both ends of the plateau and began to climb the hills that led up to the sheer cliff face above the valley. I had to tamp down the snow with one foot until it was hard enough to hold my alenka. Then, with the other foot, the next piece and so on. It was exhausting to death. Step by step, it rose. Soon, her leg muscles stopped feeling, due to the stomping. On very steep sections, you had to crawl on your knees. He struggled to get up with his hands. He finally reached the top of the cliff. Now my journey to the rock is open more than half a mile away.
  
  
  The first part wasn't too difficult. It consisted mainly of a maze of bushes and small trees, around which random branches grew in the strangest places. But then the thicket of those windswept old trees stopped. I came to a dense forest. Large coniferous trees, oaks and elms bowed under the gusts of wind. The branches moved quickly. It looked like the arms were swinging around from side to side to keep warm. Some trees collapsed under the weight of snow and broke with the frozen trunk. I had to walk on them or under them, crawling more than walking.
  
  
  Despite the snow that covered everything and leveled it, he saw that the trees were standing on a hill. This hill lay above the riverbed, just before the place where the river thundered down into the valley. There was a large group of angelesas; dark, curved shapes close together. I went there under the cover of the trees. Here, the wind was less strong and the snow less dense. He went out to the riverbank and looked around carefully. The wind died down. This allowed for better control of the path. The snow around me looked peaceful and friendly. The rope weighed heavily on my wounded shoulder. I would have liked to throw it over my other shoulder, but I had to keep my right hand free to shoot.
  
  
  He pulled the latch of the automatic pistol several times to free the ego from the oil that had thickened from the cold. He stopped dead, and Stahl waited. I would have listened to her if there was anyone nearby. There was no sign of life anywhere.
  
  
  The river — whatever they called us-flowed through the ice and snow like a sewer pipe. He doubted that it would freeze in a normal winter. Trees and shrubs, uprooted by the storm, were anchored among the rocks in the middle. The trees formed a rough dam around it, stretching from one bank to the other.
  
  
  He moved to the right through a shallow depression toward the cliff. Around the waterfall, just before the river emptied into the valley, a large spruce tree fell. He was half on the bank, half in the river. The lower branches were deep under the snow, but the roots still looked fresh. This meant that the tree had been uprooted quite recently.
  
  
  Its stopped here. A single thread of rope tied her to a tree. He tied another string around her waist. He crossed the frozen river and headed for the waterfall. Walking on the ice of the rivers would have been easier, but I didn't want to be discovered. My plan was simple. By the time he had used the full length of the rope, he would have been close enough to the waterfall to deploy Tamara's perfectly camouflaged grenade and destroy the bulky dam. He was counting on the fact that the newly formed ice would not completely set. If the ice broke, this accumulated mass would gush down like water around a reservoir. Polencia was right down in the valley. The population has disappeared. Only Zembla's men and the transmitter remained in the city.
  
  
  It wasn't safe. The grenade could have gone off before I reached the safety of the trees. A wall of snow and ice would slide along the edge at breakneck speed. The result would be as deadly as a landslide. And I wasn't going to let myself get caught up in that maelstrom. He didn't know anything about the ignition timing settings. The rope was my only hope.
  
  
  The dam was still fifteen meters away, another ten. Her way was mimmo of twigs and rocks. He held the tangerine bomb in one hand, the automatic pistol in the other. I thought I heard voices, but I couldn't see anything. Not for long. Her crawling licks, my aim and my body were as low as only hers could bend over. He had almost reached the cliff when he heard the sounds again. This time there was no mistake! Some men came through the spruce grove. They were walking toward the river. Ih voices echoed through the snow. I could clearly hear what they were saying. "...there are footprints here, I told you, I thought I saw something strange. He can't be far away.
  
  
  There was a log sticking out of the ice about a meter away from me. He dived into this shelter in the ice and found himself in a room of rustling branches. My pursuers must have heard me. Her breath caught, the Russian pistol ready to fire in my hand. Another voice heard her, shouting in Spanish. 'The world. Voting rope. It goes across the river.
  
  
  Her, looked through the dead branches. She could make out four figures stopping on the riverbank. The men were wearing a shapeless uniform with an emblem that he had seen before in the temple. Ih gloved fists clung to their rifles as they stared intently at the ice. A light breeze was blowing, making ihk stick to their bodies. "As frosty as your sister," said the third, chuckling. 'Hi!'the second man replied with an obscene gesture. "Take the rope, Jose. Let's see if you're a good fisherman.
  
  
  He reached for the rope around her waist and untied it. She wasn't forced to shoot four guys three times. He dropped the rope and watched it wriggle in the ice. He unconsciously raised his left hand, the one with Tamara's bomb. Drops of blood suddenly formed on my forehead. He stared at the grenade in disbelief. Its accidentally broken the ignition tube three-quarters of the way up. Presumably, this happened when he dived for cover. Three-quarters of what? The shell was cocked and could explode at any moment — but when? I crouched down behind a fallen tree, wondering if a grenade would explode in my face. Suddenly I heard him: "Oye friends ! Following in the footsteps of Ombre. There's someone sitting by the river!
  
  
  Four men came openly at me. One bent his head to study the tracks. All of them had rifles in their hands, ready to fire. It was carefully made by Tamara's pistol of the leader of the four. He was only twenty yards away when he shot her once. Her, saw the man grab his arm and fall to his knees. I left her a tangerine bomb at the fork of a branch. Odin's remaining trio slipped and fell flat on the ice. The other two immediately opened fire. The bullets chased after piles of snow and ice shards that hurt my face. It won a few seconds thanks to the surprise effect. Then these guys will aim better. And she was almost ih in her sights. They couldn't miss.
  
  
  Seconds had completely passed when the grenade exploded. The explosion hit me in the back like an iron fist. I felt the ice shake under my feet as the explosion tore through the rough dam. It flew through the air, landed again, and skidded. I was hit by a downpour of ice, snow, and wood. He heard the other men's screams as the thunder of the explosion died away... and then the ice began to crack with an ominous roar. The cold water under the ice hadn't frozen yet. Now it began to flow rapidly along the edge of the crater. The ice groaned and shuddered under the heavy pressure; it began to break. Large holes became visible. The ice mass no longer held back and, together with the remnants of the forest, began to slide like a massive frozen halibut through the edge at the top of the city.
  
  
  He tried to get up. The ice danced and swayed up and down. He dropped to his knees again. He couldn't even crawl a few meters to the shore. He glanced sideways at his pursuers. The man who shot her was gone. All I could see were hands that were desperately grabbing at anything. He fell through a crevice in the ice. The others slithered and screamed. He couldn't do anything but cling to the branches of the tree. The freed river surged violently through the ten-foot gap. Both banks were covered with a strong current. Odin around Zembla's people tried to get out around this bubbling fountain. The ice broke. One cry, and the raging flood swallowed the ego. The two remaining men howled like men facing death. There was nothing to do. Steadily we slid toward the cliff. Chunks of ice and the remains of trees slapped us from all sides.
  
  
  The top of the waterfall resembled a giant whirlpool. Everything was spinning and being pulled into the center of the vortex. I was sucked into it with a horrible gurgling sound. Then it fell.
  
  
  I reached out desperately for anything that might slow my descent. I grabbed it, grabbed the log, lost my ego again, but I grabbed it again. Many branches were snapped or broken close to the trunk. But there were still enough twigs and needles to soften my fall. Stahl's noise is louder. It was as if the safety valves of a thousand steam boilers had suddenly opened to release excess steam. Snow and ice poured into the center of Polencia. The entire city was engulfed in a mass of ice that quickly soared up and fell down. Her was at the center of this maelstrom when gawking eyes entered the trunk of a candid tree at my feet.
  
  
  He stared wide-eyed at the group of men. They were driven out around the city and scattered across the plain. Meanwhile, I was being shot at. All I could do was hang around and pray. I hoped I was moving so fast that they couldn't hit me. But not too fast, either, because then I'd break my neck. He was caught in a maelstrom of rushing water, rocks, and trees. Gawk slammed a branch of grass right over my ear. Another gawk with a metallic screech ricocheted off the boulder that mimmo had passed. It made me tense up in fear. The river then struck the valley floor with the force of a cannonball. I was knocked off my feet and thrown somewhere. Invisible objects slammed into me. I was engulfed by waves of icy water until it turned black before my eyes.
  
  
  A strong current brought me back to the surface before I realized what was happening. Halfway through the flattened and almost completely destroyed village of her, he came to the surface. I threw up water and tailor knows what other shit. Its trying to swim. A stab in the back made me fall. I haven't made any progress. Therefore, he continued to stay in place to keep his head above the water. Her, hoped that this way also stimulate my blood circulation. It was like being in the Arctic Ocean. In any case, my chances of survival weren't much higher! Another shot was sent after me. Then he was out of range, near what must have been the church of Polencia.
  
  
  The river rolled wildly. My blood froze in my veins. My nerves were numb. I couldn't feel her anymore. Lead dumbbells seemed to be glued to my arms and legs. It went under, broke the surface, and began to sink again.
  
  
  'Nick! Nick, wait...
  
  
  The voice came from around the fog, from somewhere far away. He waved his hand convulsively. A strong hand gripped my wrist. He tugged at her and tried to help her. Her struggled with the current. He fought the urge to give up. He fought the almost overwhelming urge to go to sleep and sink into the biggest waterbed in the world. But the hand did not give up and continued to pull me. Finally, he felt solid ground. I was still being dragged. The water swirled around my thighs, knees, and ankles... and then it flew out! He took a few unsteady steps and collapsed.
  
  
  'Nickname. thank God. I could hear the tremor in her voice. Big tears welled up in Tamara's eyes. "Thank God you swam close enough to the shore to be easily caught." Are you all right?"
  
  
  'Nothing like that. My voice cracked. He shook his head wearily and stared at Nah. It's nice to have a woman take care of you, I thought.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  
  
  It was evening when we returned to Tamara's Cessna. There was no star in the sky for us. A sudden downpour of snow covered the trees and covered the ground, which was already covered in a white cloth. It was cold. Every breath hurt. My involuntary swimming has covered my eyebrows and beard with a layer of frost.
  
  
  We were pleasantly surprised to see a hazy band of dull yellow light over the center of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. So our guess was correct. The city has given warmth and shelter to the homeless and stranded management will lead to loss. The airport and the roads leading to it were still deserted. We only briefly considered the possibility of going to the city. But the old arguments were again decisive. We would spend too much time looking for the right authorities. In the unlikely event that they trust us, ih's help will be questionable, and if they don't trust us, we'll be the loser. Added to this was the danger that some might cooperate with Zembla and secretly work against the government. Without accurate data, we would never have known who we were dealing with.
  
  
  — And what explanation should we give for what happened in Polencia?" Tamara shook her head. "Nick, that was the wildest trick I've ever seen. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn you had a whole bottle of vodka.
  
  
  "Her hotel would be one frank now," I replied, snorting. "By the way, did you have a better idea to destroy this installation with our limited resources?"
  
  
  "Well ... no, not right away, but I still think..."
  
  
  "Monday morning nausea from the headmaster!"
  
  
  'What do you mean, Nick?
  
  
  'Forget it. Just remember that only one transmitter is destroyed. Two more ahead. And we must "do it with a total of three bullets and, of course, your cigarettes."
  
  
  "Nick, this isn't fair! she said, pouting. "There's nothing wrong with my cigarettes."
  
  
  "Nothing Smokey could do to cure a bear," I said. "Do you want me to light her a cigarette?"
  
  
  "Not exactly," she laughed. "Who is Smokey Bear?"
  
  
  "It would take too long to explain it. By the way, I'd like her to have a cigarette right now with a sip of your vodka. But only my own brand with a gold mouthpiece.
  
  
  "Golden mouthpiece! Go ahead, keep going. Why is this necessary?
  
  
  "This is for my T-zone."
  
  
  "T-zone ?"
  
  
  "Almighty God! Tamara, don't they teach you anything at all at this academy on Ulyanovsk Avenue? You won't last fifteen minutes in Manhattan.
  
  
  "At least they don't teach us about T-zones . Besides, it sounds indecent.
  
  
  It was on my lips to say that it wasn't. But then I remembered a sold-out movie she'd seen a few weeks ago. She might be right. He cleared his throat and growled, " Give me a cookie."
  
  
  She gave me a cookie. It was one of those cheese and peanut butter cookies you find in vending machines. It was a web-based edible item that we could find in a deserted airport, and at the limit of our abilities, we hacked into the vending machine and took a dozen packs with us. The small chocolates in the vending machine next door were completely inedible, even after we defrosted them. Then, after our raid, it was filled with Cessna tanks. Tamara boarded the plane in an empty car, out of the wind.
  
  
  We were still there. We were in Cessna. The engine was idling, and the heating was turned on at full capacity to defrost us. We chewed on these biscuits. I was wearing Tamara's coat while mine was drying. My pants and socks stuck to me like a block of ice. We searched the buildings for blankets or dry clothes. No result. During the evacuation of the airport, everything useful, apparently, was taken with them. He looked at Tamara in the soft green light of the dashboard. His coolness, fortitude, and courage were still admired. She struggled, cursed, and helped me to revive me in the land Rover . I was close to exhaustion after we evaded the few remaining guys Zembla had placed in the now-devastated Polencia. She succeeded. She was driving all the way back. We argued about whether she should take off her sodden clothes and freeze on her bare ass, or stay in them and modestly turn into a block of ice. Finally, we came to a compromise. I took off her coat and shirts and put on her coat. The rest had to dry properly.
  
  
  Now that we were finally able to rest in peace, it was clear that Tamara was also at the end of her strength. She was on the run for two full days and nights. Her face and posture showed signs of fatigue. I couldn't have done much better. Tamara brushed crumbs from her lap and licked her fingers.
  
  
  'Good. And where to now? Puntarenas, Costa Rica?
  
  
  'No. I shook my head.
  
  
  "But Nick, Panama is worth many more to the south! You don't think...
  
  
  "Yes, we'll go to Puntarenas first," I said, interrupting her protest ... Look at you, Tamara. You're dead tired. I could fly this plane for you, but I don't think many people are better off. And in this kind of weather, it would be pretty damn hard to just stay in the air. We need to get some rest.
  
  
  — But we don't have time for that.
  
  
  "Then we'll have to find the time," I said firmly. She looked at me questioningly, then sighed. "You're right, Nick, as usual. A few hours of vaults would be the way out.
  
  
  The Cessna 150 is not designed for vaults. But Tamara has prepared another surprise for me. Nah had reclining seats, which are often found in cars these days. Folded back, they were somewhat clumsy beds, but you could sleep on them. Well, it wasn't on the FAA's list of required equipment, but Tamara didn't seem to care too much about US safety standards. At this point, I didn't care either. We stretched out, each in his own chair, about eight inches from the other. We lay in silence for a while, looking at each other. The silence became oppressive.
  
  
  "We can't just leave the engine running all night," she began.
  
  
  'No.'
  
  
  "It must be very cold in here without something to warm up."
  
  
  Another minute of silence. The atmosphere was charged with unspoken desires and seductive thoughts. "We can share your coat, then we won't get cold," he finally told her.
  
  
  Yes, she agreed. She got up and turned off the ignition. The engine coughed a few times and then stalled. A sudden silence fell over us. Tamara hesitated... She slowly sits down next to me in my narrow seat. Turning to face me, she stretched out to her full height. He opened her coat and wrapped us in it. He held her body to him. Her round, high breasts felt like frozen apples on my bare chest as she automatically snuggled up to me. Our thighs touched. A shiver ran through her. And it wasn't from the cold.
  
  
  He didn't want to scare her or hurt her. I need it for too many other things. Suddenly becoming her lover was too risky. But I couldn't control my hands anymore. Slowly and unstoppably, they slid down to her slender waist and under her wool sweater. My fingers slid gently over her taut, flat stomach. I could feel her trembling under my touch. A searing, constricting heat surged through my body. My hand caressed her velvety skin, searching, hoping. And then he felt it — a tingling throb, a vague but significant rheumatism.
  
  
  We kissed. Lazy and teasing at first. Then harder. A smoldering passion seemed to flare up in Tamara. Her body shook in my hands in undulating motions. Her mouth was like a bitter fruit. He shivered and tensed under the force of her embrace. Finally, she broke free. She laughed. A proud, self-satisfied smile, as if mocking my desire. But if she made fun of anything, it was her own desire, not mine. There was no brutality or ulterior motive in her smile.
  
  
  She didn't resist my hands. On the other hand, she silently urged me on with her movements until we lay naked side by side. The cabin was hot and humid, and not just heated. Slowly and quietly, he pulled her jacket back. Its been staring at nah, really staring at nah, all the way. Her soft, glistening skin, her perfect breasts with their crimson nipples, her lush mouth that rose and fell with her rapid breathing, her round, soft thighs that turned into long, beautiful legs. My eyes devoured her. She looked adorable. She held out her arms to hug me. "Nick, Nick... — What is it? " she whispered. "You're so strong, such a real man. A vote as it should be tonight, a vote as I give myself to you. No lies, no tricks. Not Russia and America. Just a man and a woman together... I kissed one breast gently, then the other. She flinched, grabbed my hair, and pulled me in for another lick. My hand slid between her legs and then up the soft inside of her thighs. Her hips relaxed. Her knees spread wide, inviting me to take her completely.
  
  
  She made us roll over in our little chair. Now we were in something else. It is lower. One of her long, wobbly legs hung from the end of the chair, supporting our bodies. Slowly, she lowered her hand between our bodies. She pressed me gently against her wet, warm, quivering flesh. In small, playful circles, she began to wriggle and squirm. Her fingers hungrily pressed me into nah.
  
  
  "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" she breathlessly sighed. It was as if she had completely swallowed me up deep inside her. Her body twisted. Moaning with pleasure, she kicked her legs. Her arms and legs wrapped around my tense, mobile body. A chill ran down my spine. He felt her muscles tighten, as if they were no longer part of her body. Hit her. With all her soul and body, I was in the blissful bliss of this moment. She wrapped her legs even tighter around my twitching thighs. Her passionate fingers massaged me with rhythmic movements. My pent-up ecstasy spilled out deep inside nah. He shuddered. He could no longer control his movements.
  
  
  Tamara's fingers dug deeper into my flesh. Still licking, she squeezed me between her hopelessly taut thighs. She moaned and moaned beneath me as her own passion flared up with the force of a tidal wave. Our bodies shook convulsively. It never seemed to end.
  
  
  When it was all over, we lay down for a while longer, exhausted and full. Our mouths clenched. The sound of our breathing was deep and heavy.
  
  
  "Nick," she whispered as we began to fall into a deep sleep.
  
  
  'Mmmmm ...?'
  
  
  "Nick, who's Smokey Bear?"
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  
  
  Costa Rica also consists mainly of mountains. Some of them are dormant volcanoes, which sometimes reach a height of more than three thousand meters. But in theory, even the lowest part of the lowlands was now at this height. The mountains towered above him at an unimaginable height. As Colonel Zembla had predicted, the weather was getting worse due to a force field disturbance. Now that the two transmitters were destroyed, the dam's handrails were closed. The blizzards that Tamara and I experienced in Honduras turned into a hurricane.
  
  
  A terrible cold gripped the airport as we flew south late at night. Tamara flew in a wide arc over the Pacific Ocean to avoid the storm as much as possible. But as we turned inland toward Puntarenas, we were caught in a howling, blinding snowstorm. Nevertheless, Tamara managed to land the plane safely in a meadow near this Costa Rican port city. The Cessna's wings were covered with a thick layer of ice. The de-icers didn't hold up.
  
  
  The two ranchers we landed next to owned a 1940 Buick four-door sedan. The car was secured with iron wire. The back seat gave way to chickens. The farmer didn't like the Nicaraguan money very much, but we didn't have any other means of payment. We also didn't really like the fact that we had to pay ten times the daily price for this rarity. We chased the rooster around the van and drove off.
  
  
  The contrast between the highlands of Honduras and the coastal region of Costa Rica was immediately noticeable. The snow that had fallen there in the forest was still soft. Here, the wind blew freely across the vast expanses of Nicoya Bay . Snow was blown away from the plains and accumulated in valleys or under the shelter of buildings and clumps of trees. The wind was blowing on us from all directions. Gusts of wind occasionally drove the car dangerously close to the drainage ditches that ran parallel on both sides of the road. Sometimes we were almost standing still when the city and snow were falling against us. The constant wind turned the snow and the city into a mass of ice, which gradually froze into a concrete-hard crust. It creaked as we passed ego. The sky was a dazzling white, full of reflections and flickering lights. It's amazing that such intense cold and such dazzling beauty can be combined. The combination of these two moments blinded me as I struggled with the steering wheel. I could barely see the branches of trees and bushes whipping us. The car hit ihs one by one. Tamara snuggled up to me to warm up a little.
  
  
  Finally we slipped into Puntarenas. It is the main port of Costa Rica in the Pacific Ocean. The city is located about 140 km west of the capital San Jose. This is usually a city with a population of more than 30,000 people. Now it looked more like an empty graveyard. There was no one in sight. Even the animals that tac parts roam such cities. An old cruise ship and several tuna trawlers were anchored in the harbor. They were frozen in the ice. The city, the snow, and the howling wind dented the ships and broke their masts.
  
  
  We continued driving in the lowest gear. We suspected that all Vacaciones was part of a tourist resort, on the other side of the harbor. We came to Skipper's coffee. Smoke billowed around the chimney, and the red glow of an overly bright stove shone through the windows. Its stopped. Tamara went inside to ask for directions. When she returned, she was noticeably pale. "It's awful out there, Nick," she said, her voice shaking. "It seems that the whole area is there. Women and children shiver in front of the stove. The men stand around him and stare apathetically. They are confused. They are scared and almost without food. The Odin around them told me that there was nothing to eat in the cathedral, where even more people were sitting. They're going to die, Nick. We have to put a thread to this!
  
  
  He stroked her legs soothingly. "We will do everything we can. Where is everyone in the hall?
  
  
  She nodded sadly. "What do we do when we get there, Nick? You can't say that Miss Mohada sent us. They'll never buy it! Moreover, we don't know if there are any Zembla supporters in the hotel. They can be there, but the transmitter can be hidden anywhere.
  
  
  "I know, but we need to start somewhere, Tamara, like in Polencia."
  
  
  Finally we came to a wide boulevard with hotels, bars, and souvenir shops. As a result of the increase in tourism over the past five years, they have mushroomed after the rain. All Vacaciones were one around the largest buildings. It was separated from the road by a semi-circular driveway. From the road, it looked like a big chrome spout with little balconies. The two lower floors have been extended to surround a sun terrace and an already frozen swimming pool. The entire site was surrounded by a high stone wall.
  
  
  Fifteen meters from the entrance, the narrow entrance was blocked by a Fiat car. A trickle of smoke escaped from the exhaust pipe. So the engine was running. The windows were closed. But when it stopped, the door next to the driver immediately opened, and a man came out on the nah. He left the door open, coming up to us. Behind it, she saw another man driving. Both men were holding a submachine gun pointed at the Buick. He carefully pulled out his gun and placed ego on the seat next to him. Holding the gun in his right hand, he rolled down the window with his left. Hers would stay polite as long as possible.
  
  
  "Senor?" The man asked with a suspicious look.
  
  
  "Could you move your car," I said. "We want to go to the hotel."
  
  
  "The hotel is full. New guests are no longer allowed.
  
  
  "We're not guests," I said quickly.
  
  
  'Ah, no? Then what?'
  
  
  "We're invited," Tamara said.
  
  
  "Business," I added.
  
  
  The man blinked and looked more alert than ever. Are you artists who are supposed to perform for sinners without Sin?
  
  
  Tamara and I exchanged a quick glance. We didn't understand what he meant, but we nodded quickly.
  
  
  "Of course," I said. "We are artists. Will you let us pass?"
  
  
  Who are they, Juan? "Stop it!"the driver of the Fiat shouted.
  
  
  Performers, " Juan called back. Ego's eyes narrowed to slits. "But they don't look alike at all. I think ...'
  
  
  Ego interrupted her. "We sing and joke and..."
  
  
  Pooh! the man chuckled. "We can think of something better."
  
  
  "I'm dancing," Tamara said in a low, inviting voice, looking up at him. Hey, I managed to lean forward while puffing out my chest. No small feat with all the clothes she was wearing. The disdainful smile on the guard's face disappeared like snow in the sun.
  
  
  -"Bueno ! That's better!'
  
  
  "Yes, amigo," he interrupted, " before you see Senorita Fandango from Fandango and Grind." An exotic dancer with a worldwide reputation. If you see her...
  
  
  "His," the man said. He lowered the rifle and walked back to the fiat .
  
  
  "Unfriendly boy," I muttered when he got back in the car.
  
  
  He left the door open and watched us closely. He picked up the radio from the dashboard and said a few words. There was a one-minute delay. Then came rheumatism. That should have sounded good. At least the man nodded to the driver, and the Fiat drove back.
  
  
  "The first hurdle is over," I said when we were past ego. "The transmitter is here at the hotel."
  
  
  "Because there's security?"
  
  
  "Yes, and also because the inn burns with a holy light. This means that they have their own generator. Therefore, they were prepared for the upcoming events. Presumably, Zembla has already stationed his men here in anticipation of events.
  
  
  "I hope everything is heated," Tamara said, shuddering.
  
  
  He felt his shoulder. The wound has healed well. "I wonder," he told her thoughtfully, " where they hid the transmitter."
  
  
  "Her, otherwise I wonder who or what these' sinners without sin ' are?
  
  
  'I do not know. Can you dance, by the way?" She smiled. "I may not know anything about your Smokey bear, Nick, but I learned a few more tricks in Ulyanovsk."
  
  
  "This will come in handy," I said, " because I don't know any card tricks."
  
  
  I wasn't surprised by the lack of a doorman. The hall was deserted except for the receptionist. It was like a museum of fine arts. The walls were covered with murals and paintings. In the center of the golden carpet was a fountain decorated with plastic flowers. In the far corner, behind a counter, stood a slow young man with satin eyes and expressive nostrils. Ego had an open mail and key frame on his back, and a small switchboard on his left. There was probably another walkie-talkie under the shiny rosewood counter. Anyway, he looked at us expectantly as we approached. So was the muscular gentleman leaning against the counter next to him. Like all the hotel managers, this guy was wearing striped pants and a carnation in his buttonhole. But the similarity ended there. The ego jacket looked like a swollen pig's bladder. The carnation had wilted, and his ego-heavy chest bulged through the ill-fitting suit. Apparently, he took off the real manager's clothes and hid him somewhere. Hers, hoping he wouldn't get cold in his underwear.
  
  
  I could hear Tamara's rapid breathing. I followed her intuition. Zembla blocked everything inside and out. We managed to get past the first line of defense, but there was still a lot to do.
  
  
  The pseudo-manager straightened up and looked us up and down. The ego voice seemed to come from around a very deep one. "Fandango and Grind?"
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  — You're not on my list, Senor Fandango.
  
  
  "Her Grind; she's a Fandango. But I can give you an explanation.
  
  
  "Our agent," Tamara interrupted, " got it all mixed up.
  
  
  "The other artists couldn't come," I said.
  
  
  "This terrible weather. †
  
  
  The manager raised his hand. 'Stop it! Please stop! I don't want to hear about it again. Do you both dance?
  
  
  He coughed apologetically. "Well, its mostly gone around that, and..."
  
  
  "He's my manager now, and..."
  
  
  "But if you insist, I still want it."..
  
  
  'That's enough! It's probably as good as if you didn't dance, Senor Grind. They ask for a woman and a woman they will get. Something to entertain well, isn't it? Where's your suit, senorita ?"
  
  
  "Don't worry about it," Tamara said sharply. "But I need music."
  
  
  — Didn't they tell you that?" Hotel Vacaciones has a full-time team of three people. It plays in the cocktail bar, throughout the season. This combination is at your disposal. The manager sighed almost regretfully. I hope you're as good as Carmen...
  
  
  "Carmen?"
  
  
  "Carmen LaBomba, senorita ! She is very famous in this area. I've never heard of you.
  
  
  "That will change before tonight," Tamara promised sullenly. She beckoned to ego again. Her didn't feel comfortable. My collar began to pinch my neck. It was like we were applying for a good job in Union City, New Jersey.
  
  
  "Senor, we are cold and' tired and hungry, '" I said sharply. "Hey, if you still have to perform..."
  
  
  'Yes. Pepe, show them to the ih room.
  
  
  The receptionist jumped to attention. "You! In what room?'
  
  
  "Isn't there a permanent room for artists? One of these, separate from the guests, in the back of the hotel?
  
  
  "Yours, yours," Pepe agreed . He nodded vigorously and grabbed a key from the board behind him. He ducked under the counter. "This way, ferret favorite."
  
  
  "We'll call you," the manager said. "Have a good time, senorita, and you'll be as good as Carmen."
  
  
  Tamara gave ego a sensual smile. We followed the administrator through. "Not very friendly, is it?" Tamara noticed this when we passed the mimmo lift.
  
  
  "I think he really liked this Carmen," I said. Her still didn't feel very comfortable with the way things were going.
  
  
  We walked down the corridor that led to the main hall. Then we entered a large circular room full of white round sofas, comfortable chairs, tables, and columns. On one side was a large window with a view of the sunny terrace. The other side turned into a cocktail lounge. High up between two large pillars hung a banner with large golden letters:
  
  
  WELCOME, SAINTS OF THE TRUE EVANGELICAL CHURCH-piety-chastity-purity-BLESSED ABODE.
  
  
  "You'll have to dance there later," Pepe said. He pointed to the cocktail lounge, which was filled with loud laughter.
  
  
  He looked at the living room in the direction Pepa had indicated. "Who are those people over there?" I asked, looking back at Pepe.
  
  
  Pepe shrugged. "Saints of the True Evangelical Church, senor . Who else might be in this hotel?
  
  
  - For estestvenno. Who else?'
  
  
  We headed down the hall and through the living room. I was reminded of the guards 'comment about" sinners without sin." Finally, the receptionist grabbed him by the shoulder. "Pepe, they called us very unexpectedly. We don't understand it at all. Who are these, uh, Saints?
  
  
  'Norte Americanos, Senor Gravel. They believe that drinking, smoking, dancing, or sleeping with someone else's wife is sinful. They have booked a room at this hotel as part of their crusades around the outdoor pool to convert everyone who enjoys the few joys of life. I'm telling you this as a friend, senor . We expect to be very bored with these Saints. Unfortunately, ih was delayed by a sudden change in the weather. Very annoying.'
  
  
  "You might say they're converted," Tamara said with a sly smile.
  
  
  Pepe rolled his eyes. "If I, like them, thought that the thread, the end of the world is near, I would ask her on my knees for forgiveness, for her inveterate sinner. At least if I get the chance! On the other hand, if there was nothing wrong with my lifestyle...
  
  
  "I understand. Now that they have a chance, they're catching up."
  
  
  "It looks like it," Pepe said. He rolled his eyes again. We came across an empty dining room. We walked around the kitchen through a narrow hallway. Pepe opened one of the small doors and motioned for us to enter. 'Voting. I'm afraid this isn't our best room, but.....
  
  
  "We understand that," I said. — What about the show?" Why were we asked to do this?
  
  
  "All the Saints are married, senor, truly married. And the women they brought with them... The secretary grinned shyly and shuffled his feet as if he didn't quite know what to do with his figure. "We thought it best to meet ih's new needs as much as possible. We don't want them to get in the way or make any noise."
  
  
  "Yes, that would really mess up the situation with this storm, wouldn't it?"
  
  
  Pepe stiffened. Coolly and with restraint, he said, " Don't ask any more questions, senor. You're well paid.
  
  
  Especially if you can entertain our guests in a pleasant way. Other than that, it's none of your business. I suggest you stay here until you have to perform. goodbye.'
  
  
  Pepe was right. There weren't many items in the room. The walls and ceiling were cream-colored. The floor was covered with the same golden carpet as in the salon. There was a chair, a chair, and a nice desk chair in a heavy dark style that mimicked Spanish. The double bed was covered with a dark blue brocade bedspread. There was also a small bathroom with a bidet that seemed larger than the shower stall. The terrace was covered with snow. The windows in the sliding doors bent under the force of the wind. But after everything we'd been through, the radiators radiated a pleasant, comfortable warmth. So we stayed in the room until we had to get up. Pepe took care of that, by the way. He's locked us up!
  
  
  "That bastard," I growled, yanking on the doorknob.
  
  
  "Nick," Tamara said, " come take a look."
  
  
  She was sitting by the sliding doors. He walked over and stood next to her. She pointed to an extension of the kitchen perpendicular to our room. In the kitchen, through the brightly lit windows, she could see the fat manager talking to some gunmen. Because of the unfavorable angle, I couldn't make out everything. I saw two men sitting at a table. Ih submachine guns hung awkwardly on their backs. They're Ali. A figure in striped trousers gestured wildly with her hands. I didn't think he was crazy. It looked like he was giving out orders. The steamers nodded regularly and continued to eat. After a while, the manager disappeared.
  
  
  "What do you think?" Tamara asked.
  
  
  "I don't know," I said. "It looks like they're eating. Her hotel would know where they were going!
  
  
  "Wait, they're getting up!"
  
  
  The men stood up. A fat old woman in a shapeless dress appeared. She cleared her chair. Nothing had happened for months. I was afraid we'd lost sight of her. Then, a little further on, the holy light came on, and we saw ih again. They stretched, yawned violently, and scratched themselves. Finally they found a game for a small square chair and started playing cards. Around the men, Odin leaned back in his chair, his booted feet wrapped around the chair legs. My attention was drawn to the object he was leaning against. It was a thick oak door with heavy iron fittings for a refrigerator or freezer.
  
  
  "Yes," I said slowly, " yes, I'm beginning to understand her.
  
  
  'What?'
  
  
  — I'll bet you anything that Zembla's installation is in the freezer." Cooling for estestvenno is turned off. The pipes and conduits inside it form a beautiful transmission network."
  
  
  'Are you sure?'
  
  
  "No," I admitted, " but are you sure that's not the case ?"
  
  
  'No.'
  
  
  "At least that guy over there isn't guarding the steaks," I said. "I have to investigate. We might as well start there as anywhere else.
  
  
  She snuggled up to me. There was concern in her eyes.
  
  
  'But how?'
  
  
  Ee hugged her. Her body was shaking. I thought about it long and hard. If only I had that coil of rope I left her in Polencia. Or my stiletto, which was taken from me in the Mayan temple. Or my Luger left in Washington... Not finding a logical solution after some time, her staff began to consider less obvious options. But even those seemed less appropriate than usual. Then after a long pause, he said thoughtfully,"Well, maybe there's a way out if we use your cigarettes." Ee's eyes widen in horror as she demonstrates her plan. She gasped for breath. "Don't try it! It's impossible!
  
  
  "Just like everyone else. We have to do something. Stay here and give me an alibi in case Pepe or anyone else shows up.
  
  
  She gripped my coat tightly in both hands and shook her head. — No, don't do it now. We may have a small chance, but only if we can get out of this room using the usual methods. Not if you break down the door and God knows what alarm will be raised. You must make your move during the opening of Senorita Fandango, Nick. Please wait. Then I can help you at least by distracting Zembla's men.
  
  
  "Senorita Fandango's debut, isn't it?" Her smile was crooked. — Do you really think you're good enough to hypnotize the entire hotel?"
  
  
  She pressed her trembling body to my full length. With deft, quick fingers, she unbuttoned my jacket. She took a step back, laughing as she shrugged off her own coat. "Nick, could he have come up with a better name?"
  
  
  "I had to improvise," I said defensively. He dropped his coat on the floor next to Tamara. "Mmm ... Tamara unbuttoned the wool cardigan she wore as a blouse, so that her large, full breasts were only partially covered. She took a few more steps away before she finally had enough room.
  
  
  "Senorita Fandango begins her performance!"
  
  
  She unbuttoned her skirt and lowered it. Her cardigan fell defiantly to her thighs, like a tiny mini-dress. Like a shy girl, she lifted the hem of her vest and wrapped her ego around her waist. She was naked from her thighs to her feet, except for a small pair of white panties.
  
  
  Then she started dancing. Her body remained motionless. Only the part between her navel and her knees was shaking and twisting harder than the trees outside in a storm!
  
  
  "What do you think, Nick?" — What is it? " she asked with a smile.
  
  
  Which I think its said. "I think you're more Senorita Grind than Fandango. And Senorita La Bomba with him.
  
  
  She began to laugh softly. She tore the buttons on her vest. Her woolen tails seemed to fall from her shoulders. She reached behind her back to remove her bra. She picked up the pace. She came up to me almost naked.
  
  
  "Shouldn't we...?" she asked hoarsely, nodding her head at me.
  
  
  Let's do what? My mind was far away, and it took me a moment to understand what she was saying. Talking at a time like this! This wasn't supposed to happen! Then her tongue found its own. "Tailor, yes, of course! We're going to have a hard time!
  
  
  Tamara sighed again. She reached out, grabbed my belt, and gave me a good tug. He felt a tug in his tense body. Tamara was still spinning, spinning. He reached out and took the thin white nylon. I pulled it. Why not? She was right. We'd better wait." What's the best way to kill time? She stopped dancing and pressed her naked body against mine. She kissed me, fiercely. Her lips were wet and hot. Ee picked her up and carried her to the bed, our lips still pressed together. We landed openly on the bed. Swiftly, we continued to kiss. My tongue sank deep between my yearning lips into the warm hollow and then rta.
  
  
  She raised her arms to wrap them around my neck. But ih held her wide apart and pushed her back into the softness of the pillows. He got up and hurriedly undressed. Tamara leaned back against the pillows and watched. Arms spread wide, legs slightly apart. She was breathing heavily.
  
  
  Nick, " she whispered when her bed was next to hers.
  
  
  "Do it again like you did last night... My hand wandered over the hilly terrain of her breasts, mimmo her nipples, down her smooth stomach to the soft light warmth. She groaned. Her body found " independent life under my caresses. Her voice sighed in my ear, begging me to take her completely and put out the blazing fire that ignited my fingers in her loins. He kissed her lips, her chin, the soft hollow of her neck. My tongue circled her hard nipples. New vibrations hit us. My wet lips caressed her life. Hers, felt her satiny skin tighten. My groping mouth dropped even lower until Tamara screamed with pleasure. She rolled from side to side, moaning with delight as my lips brushed hers, adding to her intense throbbing arousal. She held out her hands in sudden movements. Her fingers dug into my hair.
  
  
  Her body straightened up, trembling and writhing beneath me. Her, felt her wet warmth. She lay on the floor, waiting wildly, ready to receive me. She grabbed me with a force that was almost driving me crazy. She expressed her joy out loud. Her arms wrapped convulsively around my neck, and she pressed me against the tapering curves of her chest. Her body beneath me repeated my rhythmic movements in wild, uncontrollable thrusts. Her claws dug deep into my back, slid down, and bit into the flesh of my loins. She pushed me deeper into her, spreading her hips as far apart as possible.
  
  
  Satisfying Tamara's frantic needs was a tedious task. He let his tongue slide back and forth in her mouth to calm her down and regain her composure. It was hopeless. Ecstatic, she wrapped her legs around my back. Her naked body was slick with a bank of burning passion. She arched her back. Up and down. Slowly at first, in undulating motions, then faster and faster, until finally all the senses were banished around our bodies. Exhausted we fell on the bed her was intoxicated, unable to move her wanted to say something but couldn't find her words, reached over her and pulled the covers over our sweaty bodies. Tamara swayed gently in my arms.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 11
  
  
  
  
  The cocktail bar was called El Coyuntura . If someone around the guests — saints or sinners — hadn't been there earlier in the day, they would have already squeezed in. In other words, everyone knew we were coming.
  
  
  In the lobby, there was a wide carved mahogany bar with the necessary mirrors and bottles behind it, and a sociable bartender who spoke three languages, and all three were bad. Instead of a brass rod, the barrel contained a clear plastic tube with fluorescent lights. In the sensuous red neon light, every woman looked at least ten years younger. There were a few soft seats opposite the bar, but most of the living room was occupied by the space behind it, which looked like an amphitheater with rounded walls covered in yellow paper. Round tables were set up around a postage stamp-sized dance floor and a small stage. Half the stage was occupied by the promised combination of guitar, trumpet and piano. The musicians played with more enthusiasm than talent. They paused now, after performing Mama Looka Boo Boo with great enthusiasm shortly before . Some of the lesser saints indulged in the diabolical sin of dancing and stumbled back to the crowded tables or bar to join their friends. The men were wearing black suits and ties-although most of the ties were now untied.
  
  
  The women were even more sour, ih jaws were clenched, ih hair was slicked back and pulled up in a bun. Shapeless dresses that stretched from her neck to her feet hid her figure. They were a little tipsy, laughing, rolling their glassy beady eyes and shouting their long words over the storm.
  
  
  Outside, the storm hit everything with frightening force. Despite the screams and the muffling effect of heavy curtains, he repeatedly heard the sound of broken trees, rocks, and wreckage hitting the walls. The building shuddered, and the drinks rattled in their glasses. Vote like this, the Titanic must have gone, he thought to himself. Only then was courage and determination in the face of death still traditionally commonplace. Here the pious saints drank feverishly, determined to enjoy themselves until the last hour. With such a hangover, they would probably wish they were dead the next morning.
  
  
  Hers was backstage, the stage was open in front of me. Tamara was sitting next to me, wrapped in the white sheet we'd stolen from the bed in the room. She wrapped it like a sarong and tied a red curtain cord around her waist. It gave her the look of a virgin, a passionate but still flawless bride waiting for her husband. Despite the anticipation in the bedroom, he still wasn't sure what she was going to do back on stage. She didn't know it herself. "Play along by ear," she said as we put on her costume. After hearing the combo, he wasn't sure if it would work. The main thing was to please the public and distract employees. We agreed on this.
  
  
  I turned to Pepe, who was leaning against a pillar about three feet behind us. He'd come for us fifteen minutes ago and was now playing host. Or a security guard, given the bulge on the left side of the camisole's ego.
  
  
  "I'll continue to introduce her," emu told her.
  
  
  Bueno . _ Group ...?'
  
  
  "I talked to them about it a few minutes ago. After all, we found a melody that they say they know. I won't believe it until I hear it.
  
  
  "They're good boys, senor.
  
  
  "Oh, they're great!" Combo signaled her. The trumpeter blew a fanfare as if the ego instrument contained a fruit salad. He took a step forward and gestured with his hands until everyone was silent except for a very fat woman who had hiccups.
  
  
  Her, shouted loudly. - 'Yahora, ladies and caballeros, la senorita fandango! mui celebre y directamente de San Jose!'
  
  
  They probably didn't understand Spanish, but what I said was clear enough. They started clapping. First the hiccuping woman, and then the whole room. Hesitantly, the musicians begin to perform "Rumba Tamba". Tamara took the stage. Her got out. Passing mimmo nah her saw a layer of paint glistening on her face. She was scared. Probably more scared than if hey had to do what he was going to do to her. She stumbled. The Odin around the men gasped. She regained her balance. With stripper strides, she walked to the center of the stage. She glanced at the combo, caught the heavy routine, and began the sensual moves she'd shown me before. Her upper body barely moved. The glistening folds of the sheet swirled with the rapid circular motion of her thighs and buttocks. She turned and slowly began to untie the red string. She let it dangle as she untied it. Ee merger started to unfold only on its own. She held her ego tightly to her chest and looked at Pepe and me. Smiling, she tossed me a shoelace.
  
  
  She continued to hold the sheet in her left hand. She put her other hand in her long blonde hair and lifted ih up. Then she started dancing. The sheet slowly opened until the audience could see the strap of her bra and panties. The guitarist beautifully supported ee with the vibration of the strings and a sharp chord with each movement. The audience liked it. Only a few of the women paled a little. Pepe watched every twitch and signpost with a sly look in his eyes.
  
  
  Pepe put a string around her neck and strangled him. He rushed to the side to escape. He tightened a makeshift noose around it. He fell to his knees. It was easier and faster that way. He tried to yell, but the shoelace drowned out any sound. He pulled her harder. Using the rope as leverage, he pressed his thumbs to the back of Ego's head. A jerk, and the target rolled sideways.
  
  
  No one seemed to notice. The crowd and people placed by the" manager " in the living room watched Tamara's every move. The rhythm of the music grew faster and faster. All eyes were on Tamara. She was dragged by the dead desk clerk into the shadows of the wings and thrown by ego on top of a pile of empty beer crates. Tamara's jacket was lying on one of the crates. She wrapped the rest of her clothes in it and took everything with her, despite Pepe's objections. He pulled his jacket over to the stage and unbuttoned it. In case of trouble, Tamare could now quickly grab her clothes. Her, watched her perform.
  
  
  She took off the sheet. In her bra and panties, she rocked up and down with exaggeratedly fast and shaky movements. She danced as if her life depended on it.
  
  
  And so it was. Like mine, by the way. He slipped out of the wings and down the narrow corridor that led to the main entrance foyer. It paused for a moment when it reached the hall. He remembered seeing two men standing there on their way to the living room. They looked just like Pepe, like hotel guests. Oni smelled like the patrons of a cheap Parisian brothel. The air sniffed it. The smell of rose water Stahl tsenymnogy is weaker.
  
  
  He peeked cautiously around the corner. Tamara was doing better than I could have hoped. The two men were only a few yards away from where the hall had become the main living room. One was constantly poking the other in the ribs. Apparently, connoisseurs of fine art. With a .22 - caliber Trejo and an automatic pistol in her hand, Pepe crept the other way as quietly as he could until he reached the empty cafeteria.
  
  
  The tables were arranged so that it was difficult to pass openly, to the kitchen, to the other side of the room. The tables were fully set. We had to be careful not to bump into anything or break anything. Light streamed in through the round windows in the two swinging doors. Sometimes I heard sounds in the distance. He gently pushed open the door and slipped inside. Hers pressed against the groaning little alcove between the kitchen and dining room.
  
  
  There was a sideboard with shelves at the bottom for cutlery and decanters. Next to it, with the door open, was a large linen closet full of towels and tablecloths. There were also brooms and mops, several buckets, cleaning powder, and a four-liter can of floor polish. Her let the day quietly close and peeked into the real kitchen. Only part of it could be seen: a two-door refrigerator, an automatic dishwasher, and a chair that he had previously seen through the window. The sounds she heard in the dining room came from a fat woman clearing a chair. Snorting and humming to herself, she fiddled around. The corridor to the cold room should have been around the corner, out of my line of sight. Its not stahl to look any further. I didn't want to risk being seen. It didn't matter anyway.
  
  
  He took one of Tamara's cigarettes and lit it with a match over the hotel box he had brought by room. He stood still for a moment, listening intently. I couldn't hear her except for the occasional clatter of pots and pans and the woman's asthmatic breathing.
  
  
  After smoking it, he went to the linen closet and tossed some towels onto an empty bucket. He sprinkled a little wax on nah and threw a cigarette on top of it. Seeing that it would continue to smolder, he walked through the swing doors a day ago to the dining room and Stahl to wait. I left her closet open. Tamara said it would take two and a half minutes, but it was difficult to tell the exact time because of the hall size. Incendiary cigarettes have at one end a ball of the same composition as a match — in this case, a thread with a trademark impression. The cigarette was additionally stuffed with brown cotton soaked in saltpeter. The open ends of the cigarettes were made from real tobacco. Sitting in the dining room waiting was nervous, but there was nothing else she could do. Her trusted Tamara to keep everyone busy. The seconds passed painfully slowly. Then the cigarette burned out.
  
  
  She set the fire going for about five seconds, which was enough to turn the buckets into smoke bombs. The bedclothes caught fire, and then the towels began to smolder. Sour smoke billowed from the cupboards into the kitchen. Even on the other side of the door, I could smell her faintly as the woman finally started shouting, " Fuego ! Fuego !
  
  
  Stationary her squatted, listening to the screams. Then heavy shaggy heard her, and two guards shouted, " Ow ! Fuego ! Her, I heard one say. He stepped into the alcove, pistol in hand. The guards were trying to find out what was burning. The fat woman screamed, waving her arms. All three of them were coughing and coughing from the smoke.
  
  
  "Hands up," I ordered.
  
  
  The woman wheezed louder than ever. The uniformed men turned and yawned in disbelief. Now the fire has reached its peak. Thick, oily smoke billowed over the cabinet, obscuring the fact that the fire was burning only in a bucket. The smoke and stench must have confused my reflexes as one guy reached for his gun and the other jumped at me. Her shot was the first in every tribe. The flat, sharp pop of the .22 was lost in the screams of the woman and the roar of the other guy leaping at me. I took a step forward, so he was with me a moment earlier than he expected. Her, got down on his knees and dove between the ego legs. When he fell on top of me, he wrapped his arms around her ego legs and got up at the same time. It was a kind of rugby flip. He turned a little and used his ego's own power to throw the ego into the sideboard. The egomaniac smashed the silver shelf with a bang. It collapsed, colder than the weather outside.
  
  
  Despite the defeat of every tribe, the first guard couldn't stop. With a groan and gritted teeth, he tried to open the flap of his beautiful holster to put a bullet in my head. "Mui bravo," I said, kicking the ego in the life and then in the chin. He bench presses where he was lying. The woman was so out of her mind that she can no longer listen to arguments. "Simple, senora," I said. My left hand flew to her chin with a clenched fist. She moaned and passed out as he gently lowered her to the floor.
  
  
  Her jumped over them in the closet. In the thick smoke, he grabbed her mop and shoved it into the burning bucket. The fire had extinguished it, but the towels had left it smouldering. When her fire was under control, her pushed the mop handle into the handle of the quiet one and took out the buckets across the closet.
  
  
  He left her an ego, grabbed the guards ' weapons, then shoved all three of them into the office. He locked the drawer, put the key in a minute, and ran across the kitchen to the digital refrigerator, swinging the steaming bucket on the mop handle. In her other hand was a jar of wax.
  
  
  She flew down a short hallway on the other side of the kitchen and found herself in a room where the guards were playing cards. The cards were still on the table, and the men had thrown kuda ih. There was a large door behind the farthest seat. He pushed her chair out of the way and leaned his shoulder against the large metal latch. The door clicked open. Her, barged in without looking.
  
  
  The "manager" grabbed a large revolver and aimed it at my face. The cell was only five meters by seven meters and was full of various hooks and pipes. The emu would have had to aim pretty damn badly to miss me. He was standing over the radio in the back of the cell. He was probably wondering why he couldn't find us one station. Little did he know, of course, that the storm he had helped create also prevented emu from receiving all the radio stations. The revolver was on the table next to him, next to the receiver. Ego's hand grabbed him like lightning.
  
  
  He ran without stopping. I leaned toward him, resting my head between his shoulders. I swung the mop at her with all the strength I had. The red-hot bucket hit Egoism in the face. The gun went off right next to my ear. The rolling thunder of a gunshot in a small space stunned me. Her, saw him fall. He paused and started moving again. Then he fell on the spot. Serene's imprint was the obvious ego of a badly burned face, a time he would wear for both ends of his life.
  
  
  The transmitter was a simple enclosure compared to the control center in the temple. It consisted of several metal cabinets, shaped and sized like vertical coffins, which contained sensors, knobs, and switches. The upper part of the cabinets consisted of a circle, a large force field, and a mass of coils of bare copper wire. The thick cables disappeared through a hole in the vent. Electronic devices hummed softly. The hotel's generators, which provided electricity, were probably located in the basement next to the boilers.
  
  
  He flipped the main switch. The buzzing stopped. The arms danced back and forth for a few meters for a moment, then fell back. It was picked up by the enemy's gun and carefully smashed everything that could break. Then the cold storage manager dragged her out and rolled her ego under the chair where the guards were sitting. He went back, opened the cupboards, and sprayed the inside, floor, and walls with wax. He used the last part to rekindle the fire in the bucket. She was thrown burning towels into the puddles of wax on the installation. Flames leapt up, fanned by the draft around the vent. Hers ran out, despite the clenched fist that disappeared into her stomach.
  
  
  The manager somehow regained consciousness and jumped to his feet, full of revenge. For the second time, he attacked me unexpectedly. Ego's fist slammed into the butt of the revolver of one of the guards who'd tucked her into his belt. That saved me. Her breath came out again before he could slam the door, otherwise she would have been burned alive. It broke free and attacked him. The fire was already licking at my coat.
  
  
  He looked like a gorilla. He lunged at me, cursing in Spanish. Ego caught her with his usual judo grip, a hard hand. My left hand was gripping the collar of ego's coat, my right hand was gripping ego's shirt. He hesitated. Her ego's right leg wrapped around her right calf and kicked his ego. He swayed to the side and started to fall. Emu helped her a little.
  
  
  Enraged with anger and hatred, he clawed at me even as he fell. Ego's shoe caught on the doorstep of the cold storage room. Waving his arms, he fell backward into the burning wax. Each movement fanned the flames even more. He got down on all fours. Lowering his head, he screamed in agony. Like a human torch, it burned down before my eyes. Her emu couldn't help but close the door. The ego screams were no longer audible, and the fire would not have been detected immediately. Finally, he was able to take a deep breath. He desperately needed it. Gradually it dawned on me that I was badly hurt. The wound in my shoulder opened up again, probably when her guard attacked. The lumbago pierced my arm painfully. He tried to move the fingers of his left hand. Now hers could lose consciousness or continue to act; Hers continued. White-faced, I staggered through the rooms, back to the kitchen and the alcove.
  
  
  Odin around the men knocked on the linen closet door and called loudly for help. He stopped and knocked on the door. "Senor ?"
  
  
  "You! His!
  
  
  "If you want her to fire bullets at you through that door, then keep kicking her noisily."
  
  
  There was a moment of silence. Then he said: "I'll be quiet, amigo."
  
  
  "Bueno".
  
  
  When I came back down the corridor leading to the stage, I saw two men sitting in the living room, standing at the entrance to El Koyountoura . They stamped their feet and whistled encouragingly. When he reached the wings, he understood why. Tamara was wearing only her panties. How she could have lasted so long must have been one of the greatest secrets of the dance.
  
  
  The combos were exhausted. They played the chorus for the hundredth time, but the rhythm was still strong, and Tamara took full advantage of it.
  
  
  With stripper steps, she swayed up and down, swaying her hips and shaking her bare breasts. The crowd applauded in approval, though some of the women seemed close to shock. All eyes were on her quivering nipples. There was a worried look in her eyes... until she saw me. Her face brightened. I signaled Ay to hurry up. She nodded imperceptibly and started her winnings.
  
  
  And what a finale!
  
  
  The band was about to start playing the tune again. Tamara picked up the first chords and bent down to pick up the sheet and her bra. She gave everyone a perfect look at the defiantly lush roundness of her buttocks. Viewers could clearly see the narrow nylon line of her panties between her firm thighs, which only briefly tightened as she leaned forward. Her panties slid defiantly down her ass and stayed there when she got up and brought me a sheet and bra.
  
  
  "Great God," she hissed. — I thought you'd never come."
  
  
  "Stop it soon," I replied.
  
  
  I watched her dance back to the stage. Her swaying buttocks were a delightful sight. The saints have gone mad. I do not know what the women were thinking, but some around them looked like they would never recover from it. The men's blood vessels were bursting. Drinks were consumed faster than the waiters could bring them. For the first time in their lives in black clothes, they saw the soft beauty of real female curves and reveled in it. After all, they were facing the end of the world, Armageddon, and possibly a Second Phenomenon at the same time. And if they were going to die , what a way to say goodbye!
  
  
  A shout of encouragement rang out. Tamara started to take off her panties. The band felt the climax approaching and plunged into the remembered melody. He kept looking back over his bald assault skills and praying that the thick oak door of the cold room would hold the fire, and that the guard in the linen closet was still shaking with terror. Tamara pulled down the tight elastic band of her panties. God, why hadn't she been in a hurry? Below. Soft curly hair became visible. More noise and shouting!
  
  
  He wiped the thick drops of blood from his forehead and rubbed his aching shoulder. Her panties slowly slid down her leg. She took off her ih and turned around. She bent down to pick up her own ego. Straightening her legs, lifting her buttocks, she showed men something they will never forget.
  
  
  The crowd groaned.
  
  
  The combo roared.
  
  
  Tamara rushed from the stage and threw her candid words into my hands.
  
  
  There was a lot of applause, but there wasn't enough time to go back. I wrapped her up in my coat and told her that I would have plenty of time to get dressed after we went out around the hotel. Unfettered by her clothes, she followed me down the hall to the main living room.
  
  
  "Nick, Nick," she gasped — " what's wrong?"
  
  
  "It doesn't matter," I said.
  
  
  'But...'
  
  
  "Three channels were destroyed, one remained. I'll tell you the details later.
  
  
  We ran around the hotel. It was easier than he'd thought. He paused for a moment at the counter, and as I suspected, there was a walkie-talkie on the shelf under the counter. Ego called her over and, in a growling, pseudo-managerial tone, ordered the people in the Fiat in front of the building to step aside and let the Buick pass. A small cheap microphone hid the voice changes, and Rheumatism was a short "Si, señor!" Down the hall, through the front door, we jumped into an old car and revived it.
  
  
  The Fiat and its security detail were parked off the driveway. When Tamara saw that we were going to be successful, she gave us a friendly wave from the two men as we passed mimmo. She relaxed back on the rotten sofa and started laughing. It was a hysterical laugh of relief. Out of breath, she exclaimed, " Oh, did you see those two men?"
  
  
  'Which ones? In this Fiat?
  
  
  "No, Nick, the two of them are better in the living room!" She started laughing even harder. They looked so surprised when we sped past mimmo them. "Ah, that expression on ih faces!" Tamara was having fits of laughter. — Was I really that good?"
  
  
  "Yes, you were beautiful."
  
  
  "Really ?"
  
  
  "Good enough to make me insanely jealous."
  
  
  Tamara calmed down a little and giggled as he struggled with the steering wheel of the Buick and drove toward the plane. As she started to dress, the laughter stopped, and on the other side of Puntarenas, she said in a low, hesitant voice, " Nick, the weather. It changes.'
  
  
  Actually. The snow was now falling in a swirling swirl. The once-brilliant reflective sky darkened, and the wind howled like a wounded ghost over the hum of an overloaded engine. Trees, rocks, and anything else that could move flew around us in a howling hurricane. Hailstones ricocheted off doors and windows. We found ourselves in a world driven mad by the actions of a madman.
  
  
  "Disabling the hotel's transmitter caused a blizzard," I said grimly.
  
  
  "And it will get worse," Tamara whispered.
  
  
  "Yes, until we destroy the last transmitter in Panama."
  
  
  She turned to me, white as the snow outside. "But, Nick," she said, with obvious horror. "We should be able to do that, right?
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 12
  
  
  
  
  According to the map, Sangre Island was about six hundred kilometers from Puntarenas. But while we were crazy enough to fly in this kind of weather, we weren't crazy enough to rush out on a candid flight. Once in the air, we flew in a wide arc over the Pacific Ocean. This made the flight almost two hundred miles longer and possibly another 150 miles due to the constant zigzags. We flew over Chiriki Bay with the largest island of Coiba, a penal colony. Then we rounded the Azuaro Peninsula and came to the 150-mile-wide Gulf of Panama. Along the way was the Gulf of Panama with Panama City and Balboa.
  
  
  All this time, the plane did nothing but rock and dive. Tamara and I skated from side to side, back and forth. We never sat still. Only the seat belts held us in place. One push followed another. The fuselage groaned and creaked, and the wings seemed ready to snap at any moment. Whenever the plane landed in the air zone, it would hit holding something hard with its shoulder and experience excruciating pain. Before we left, Tamara dressed the wound and tightened the bandage, but this was not enough. Blood continued to ooze around my shoulder, soaking my shirt.
  
  
  She screamed. "What are the coordinates of the island, Nick?"
  
  
  "Not there yet," she shouted over the noise. "First in Panama City."
  
  
  'Why? Sangre Island is in the hall of the de las Perlas archipelago, which is in the hall to the east of here, not to the north.
  
  
  Hers, nodded in agreement. Archipelago means "sea of many islands", and in this case it refers to about eighty small "pearls" on the other side of the bay. He pointed to the open map. "You can't find your target in this soup yet, and you can't trust the instruments anymore. We need a landmark before we can find a small island in this group. The city in the hall is only sixty kilometers northwest of the archipelago. From here, we can make assignments.
  
  
  After Tegucigalpa and Puntarenas, I thought I had had enough of weathering against the savage and relentless destruction that Colonel Zembla had wrought. But there was an unimaginable disaster in Panama City. This is one of my favorite cities, with many fond memories. I was reminded of an evening with a beautiful woman in her apartment at the foot of Mount Ancona and waking up to the wind-beaten bells of the cathedral near Avenida Central. As we flew over the city, it was noticed by the remains of the cathedral, the old Government Palace, the beautiful National Theater, Malecon Boulevard and Bovedas Boulevard with the old underground prison. Everything, really everything, was smashed and shattered, smashed and torn apart by the cruel scourges of an inhuman storm. The city with a population of 300,000 people ceased to exist and turned into the same huge ruins as the old city nine kilometers away, razed to the ground in 1671 by the corsair Henry Morgan.
  
  
  Balboa, the English Channel port City, was also a vacant lot. From our vantage point, we could barely see the Miraflores Locks ten kilometers from the shore. The two channels leading to it were completely blocked. Several cargo ships and tankers were stranded on two of the world's largest ice fields, each nearly two hundred meters wide and fifteen meters deep. A monstrous wind swept through the canals. There was nothing to indicate that things were better on the other side of the isthmus.
  
  
  He was seething with anger at what Zembla had done to this once fertile and rich land.
  
  
  "Turn around," he snapped at Tamara. Its not feeling well. - 'South-east to Isla Sangre . _
  
  
  "Do you think Zembla is there?"
  
  
  "I fervently hope so," I said, taking one last bitter look at the swirling white landscape. "If ego finds her, the island will be drenched in ego's blood, I promise you."
  
  
  The main islands of San Miguel, San Jose, and Pedro Gonzalez were easy to find, but Zembla's last hideout was just a crumb on the map, and nothing more in reality. It was a cluster of rocks jutting out around the water under a thick blanket of snow, city, and sea foam, surrounded by a sandy beach. As we passed over it, the Cessna tossed and swayed in the shifting air currents. Tamara struggled with the tiller as she was asked for a landing spot.
  
  
  "I think we should land on the shore. Even a stone goat can't stand on its feet on these rocks."
  
  
  — What's that?" — What is it? " she asked, pointing to the left.
  
  
  She tilted the plane at an eighty-degree angle so that hers could look at it, too. Through the city that looked like machine-gun bullets, he could see the faint glow of some of the old buildings. They were grouped in the manner of an old hacienda around a courtyard. It was surrounded by a three-inch-thick stone wall with a heavy gate with iron beams. At least before ih tak built, and there was no reason to believe that these walls weren't just as thick and strong. Zembla seemed to enjoy making things difficult, especially when it came to defense or escape.
  
  
  "He's here," I said. My hand squeezed Tamara's. 'Look! Ego helicopter is moored in the yard.
  
  
  'I understand her. But will you let go of my hand now? Her would rather not fall overt ego roof. Let go of your hand and find a place to land, okay?
  
  
  Hey smiled happily at her. Finally, we tracked down Zembla in Ego magazines. My grin slowly faded as I realized that there was no suitable landing area anywhere around the perimeter. Two-year-old and lace salesman Ramon Batuc built his hacienda on top of a round hill. From the main gate, a path led down the cliffs to a boathouse in a natural cove. The hill was relatively slippery, but too steep. The rest of the island was either too rough or overgrown with thorny, gnarled bushes.
  
  
  "It's supposed to be a beach," her father said grimly.
  
  
  "A little back is an outstanding piece of beach that still looks pretty decent," she replied, pursing her lips. She tilted the Cessna again and flew toward a small stretch of windswept beach. "It's going to be very hard, Nick, and we won't be able to get close to home."
  
  
  "Who cares about a little walk? I hope we can still walk when we land."
  
  
  The plane plunged down. The wind picked up ego and howled across the metal. Sand swelled around the wheels. Parts of the plane shook as if ih was suddenly paralyzed. Tamara struggled with the struggling tiller. "We have a saying in Russia," she blurted out, intermittently. "Hold on tight to the steering wheel in this situation!"
  
  
  We were sucked down into an air hole. The Cessna rocked, rocked, and slid along the beach in a gray, sandy rain of swollen sand. In front of us, sharp stone peaks jutted out all over the sand. To the left lay a rampart around more rocks and boulders, and to the right a menacing wall of boiling surf. The plane went down.
  
  
  He growled at her. - 'Up! Up!' My cry was reflexive, as I knew Tamara was doing her best to raise her nose. The beach was approaching at a devastating rate. The nose was buried in the sand. A long hiss, then a thundering pop. We spun around, the wing struts broke off, and the propeller folded over the engine block, which was half covered with sand. The floor rose and hurled us to the roof like a pile of human arms and legs. The plane nearly flipped over, then crashed tail-first into the icy waves. Salt water splashed over us as we retreated. We were crippled, but we stood our ground. The plane rocked back and forth in the surf. We were rocking on the waves. Tamara shook her head, lifted it, and looked out at the broken windows on the beach. Startled, he took a deep breath and studied the sand and surf below us. "Vote what I like about these commercial flights," she said with a small smile. "You always land softly."
  
  
  "Don't laugh at me forever!" she said with tears in her eyes. — I've ruined everything, I know her! We will never raise the ego in the air again!
  
  
  "It probably wouldn't have happened otherwise," I said. "The sand is too soft and the wind could have knocked us off our feet."
  
  
  — But what are we going to do now ?"
  
  
  'What should I do?' He grabbed the wicker basket that eda had once been in behind him. Now nen had Tamara's Makarov pistol, Dr. Mendoza's vintage pistol, Pepe's .22 automatic revolver, and the revolvers of two security guards and the manager. She gave Tamara her gun and Pepe's, and put the rest of the guns in her pockets. 'What should I do?'- repeat it. "Well, let's go for a walk. Let's do it!'
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 13
  
  
  
  
  Walking we made our way mimmo treacherous hills under a howling and burning sky. The blizzard was still gathering strength. The darkness grew thicker. A few thorny trees creaked in the wind. Boulders were constantly falling. The wind sucked the air around our lungs as we ran against it. We were suffocating like drowning people, and sometimes we couldn't move forward. The storm was now a solid mass, fierce, relentless, and deadly. Tamara's face was covered in blood from falling sados. Her, I knew I didn't look much better. The pain in my shoulder was wearing me out. It was no longer just a corkscrew of flesh, pain shot through my soul and my bones. I struggled with it, and with my stiff fingers. We struggled and staggered stubbornly, supporting each other.
  
  
  Half an hour passed, a quarter of an hour, and another half hour. Finally we reached the hill. We were looking at the thick, solid walls of the hacienda a hundred yards away. They were lying under a thick layer of snow. If there had been sentries - he was almost certain of them-they wouldn't have been moaning. They were huddled in the dubious shelter of the wall. It will be a barely discernible line of ragged men in uniforms clinging to frozen bodies.
  
  
  "Let's go over the wall," I said. "Two or three gates will be too heavily guarded."
  
  
  Tamara shook her head with a shudder. "We can't, Nick!
  
  
  "We can't stand still either.
  
  
  We started to climb the hill behind the hacienda, open in front of the main entrance. In some ways, it was harder to move forward now. There are fewer obstacles, but the bare surface of the hill has been buffed by the wind and turned into a slippery ice slope. Tamara was the first to fall, and I had to support her. Then he lost his balance. Tamara tried to help, and suddenly we both rolled down, clutching our hands threateningly. Our stamina died, but it rose again around its own ashes. Life seemed less valuable than the warmth and peace that death would bring, and life triumphed.
  
  
  At the top, we crawled exhausted under the shelter of the wall. She was old. The masonry was worn out, and there were large gaps between the natural stones, they said. On average, it was three and a half meters high. He looked up carefully and noticed foot and arm support points in several places. "Follow me when I'm upstairs," he told Tamara.
  
  
  "When are you up?" You mean if you do this!
  
  
  "When I'm upstairs, Tamara," I said firmly. She didn't want to think about the truth in her words. "And wait for a sign." There may be sentries on the other side.
  
  
  He began a dangerous climb up the old wall. I had to take off my protective gloves to keep my fingers on the smooth stones. A chill shot through my soul. Hers, I felt my hands tighten. My blood and muscles froze. The stone crumbled under the weight of my foot. Her snuggled up to moan, and heard Tamara's soft cry of horror. For a moment, I thought I couldn't go any further. Then I remembered how close Zembla had been, and the thought warmed me. Her cautiously found another foothold. Sl found her. Inch by inch, it rose.
  
  
  A final effort carried me over the edge to a wide, flat peak. Razor-sharp shards of glass were scattered along the entire length, but snow and ice negated the ih effect. In fact, they helped me stay on the slippery surface.
  
  
  I was about to gesture for Tamara to follow me when I caught a glimpse of the sentry. He was bundled up, and with his head bowed, his hands deep in his pockets, he walked slowly back and forth between the wall and the nearest building. An automatic rifle hung from his right shoulder. He walked over to where she was lying moaning. Her, looked at Tamara to warn her. She didn't obey my command and was already climbing after me! The sentry came up to lick. Close enough to hear her if anything happened. Her breath caught in her throat.
  
  
  Tamara lost her balance and fell. She let out a startled cry. Not much, just a little louder than an involuntary sigh, but loud enough. The sentry immediately looked up curiously and saw me. Her jumped.
  
  
  The man knew his duty and tried to defend himself. Too late! He was still raising the rifle when he was thrown aside by ego, landing on top of him, the knees of an emu in life. Her rifle was snatched away by Ego rook, flipped over, and slapped. The butt hit the emu in the side of the neck. He sighed and froze. Ego the target was at an unnatural angle to the torso.
  
  
  'Nick!'- whispered from above. I looked up and saw Tamara sitting on the moaning floor.
  
  
  "I couldn't wait for her...'
  
  
  "It doesn't matter," I hissed. 'Jump.'
  
  
  — Will you catch me?"
  
  
  "Always dear."
  
  
  He placed the rifle on top of the lifeless sentry and held out his hands. She fell. She was caught by ee. Also, even though it wasn't a soft hug, it was pretty damn nice. She snuggled up to me and kissed my neck. 'What now?'What is it?' she asked softly.
  
  
  "The main building. There's a good chance we'll find Zembla and Ego there, the last force field transmitter. We have to destroy ih both.
  
  
  "Oh, is that all?" she said with a sarcastic tone. She nudged the fallen sentry with the toe of her boot. "How much ih will there be between us and Zembla?"
  
  
  'I do not know. Too much, I think.
  
  
  'Yes. And they have to find us and then kill us or keep us out until we freeze to death. We're stuck now that we're behind the wall. They are the few bullets that we have, little to change. Do you have any other such good ideas? I listened to her in silence. She tried to hide her fear with her cynicism. This is a completely natural reaction. Anyone who isn't afraid for a good reason is a fool. Tamara was a tough, practical, brave woman, and not a fool.
  
  
  — I have no idea, " I admitted. "We can only do our best and hope. It will be difficult, but we must try."
  
  
  She nodded resignedly. "And after this is over, Nick, I'll try to say something nice."
  
  
  "I'll scream for help," he told her with a smile. In the shadows of the buildings, we crept to the back of the hacienda. It was preferred to the sentry's automatic, until I discovered that its mechanism froze. Ego pawned it and took one of the guns.
  
  
  We came to the corner and stopped. In front of us was a courtyard with a helicopter. He studied the long, narrow main building where he hoped to find Zembla. It was larger than the outbuildings, with a covered porch running its entire length. In the center was a gate through which cars can enter to the main entrance.
  
  
  The porch was dark and barely visible through the swirling snow. I had a strong suspicion that there was a sentry somewhere else. One or more, all nervous and cold, with tingling fingers. "We'll take the longest route," I said. We ran to the back of the next building. He would have preferred to keep running, but caution and silence were the order of the day. Slowly we moved on. On this side of the hacienda was a second building that looked like a garage. We made it to the other end without incident. On the right, there was an open space of about ten meters. Behind it was the main building.
  
  
  We stood and listened intently. We didn't hear anything and ran to the back of the main building. In front of us was a long row of windows with wrought-iron bars. The monotony was interrupted by two streets dividing the Rivnenskaya row into three parts. There was a gate behind them, and another row of windows, some of which were brightly lit. A short cobblestone road ran from the gate in the building to the massive main gate. There was a kiosk near the gate that looked like a pay phone. Waiting kiosks. The narrow opening was illuminated.
  
  
  'The curse. We need to cross the driveway, and it's guarded.
  
  
  "Maybe they won't shoot the woman," Tamara said.
  
  
  'Why?'
  
  
  "Maybe they'll want to ask questions first."
  
  
  "Tamara, if you think you can take the bait..."
  
  
  He might as well have been talking to a wall. Bending down, she quickly passed under the windows. I followed her, hoping she wouldn't get too reckless. I had a feeling that they would shoot first and then ask questions. We crept mimmo the first by two doors and the next group of windows. Tamara was half a meter away from me. She was confident in her movements, and he knew I couldn't stop her without risking a heated conversation and possible discovery. I tried to think of an alternative, but I couldn't find it. We came to the beginning of the second day and the next window. Suddenly he heard voices.
  
  
  'Wait! hers was whispered energetically. To my particular surprise, she stopped and crawled over to me. The lamp blinked. We looked in the window.
  
  
  Colonel Zembla was pacing up and down angrily. I didn't hear what he was saying. However, he kept banging his fist on the table in the middle of the room. The chair was littered with electronic parts, transistors, circuit boards, soldering irons, and pliers. Behind Zembla were the same metal cabinets and panels as in the Mayan temple. Only these were open. The bars had been removed, and the wiring was wriggling like a strange perm. It wasn't hard to imagine what he was doing in this room. He has built a new master control system for his deadly plot to conquer Central America and create a Third Mayan Empire.
  
  
  I wondered if he was talking to Hema when a second man with a thin, mustachioed face came to stand beside him. Zembla's accomplice seemed even more mean and cold-blooded than anyone else. He unfolded a sheaf of chart papers. The two men were so engrossed in discussing their plans that I dared to approach a little lick. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw six other men, two armed guards, and four technicians in white coats, probably working on the assembly line. Tamara looked at me questioningly.
  
  
  The rheumatologist pointed to the door behind us. He gently pushed open the latch and leaned against a thick tree. The door wasn't closed. We crept inside and listened to the voices in the next room in the cold hall.
  
  
  '...kill immediately! Colonel Zembla's voice was fiercely dogmatic. "If I don't get the situation under control in the next few hours, the storm will become too strong to handle — even for me! †
  
  
  "We can stop the installation," the subordinate suggested to ego.
  
  
  "Tohel, this is the work of a traitor."
  
  
  'No, sir. Take a look at the R section here. The guys just don't have the necessary parts to put this section together. Ego can't be built in the next few hours, so...
  
  
  "You dare lecture me on R Sections! Who created the theme? Its alone, isn't it? We'll find a way to rewire the wiring. And I don't want to hear any more defeatist speeches from you. I will never give up on Tohel, even if my kingdom is forever buried under ice! It wasn't my fault. I did it perfectly. If that's Nick Carter...
  
  
  There was a general murmur of protest, which was cut short abruptly by Zembla's henchman, Tochel. — Are you still convinced that he's behind our failure?"
  
  
  "A temporary setback, but not a failure. But the constant deterioration of the weather shows that other stations are no longer working. Yes, hers, sure that Nick Carter had something to do with it. I do not know how he found out about ih's location, but he also discovered my Mayan temple. And the emu, damn it, managed to completely destroy the ego.
  
  
  "There are reports of a woman..."
  
  
  Zembla smiled contemptuously. "Give Carter the chance to take the chick in tow and treat this romance like a picnic at a sex club . But in this storm, it will never reach the island. And if by some miracle he survives, nothing will save him. The other stations weren't ready for an ego attack, so we prepared!
  
  
  Shaggy boot heard her. Suddenly, a uniformed man appeared at the end of the hall. Ego's mouth dropped open at the execution flag as he reached for his rifle. Tamara and I instinctively turned around. We fired without thinking. One gawk entered the emu's throat just as it started screaming, the other knocked out the emu's eye. I do not know who got where. He fell backward, his rifle clattering to the ground. Blood sprayed everywhere. We didn't see it touch the ground; we were already moving again. Don't say a word to us, we worked together as a well-trained team.
  
  
  We burst into the room. These revolvers were spewing fire even before the door was fully opened. With a stunned expression, Odin around the guards grabbed his hands and fell. Tamara spun around and punched a nice hole in the second sentry as he raised his weapon. One technician collapsed, the other slowly sank to his knees. Fast as a panther, Tohel knocked over a thick wooden chair. Parts and tools flew away. He pulled Colonel Zembla into cover behind him. Ego's .357 Colt began to spew fire. The last two technicians, stunned and discouraged by our attack, crept up on the open door. They were both late. Tamara took aim and fatally wounded ih, they fell.
  
  
  He ducked to avoid Tohel's shots. My revolver was empty. Ego threw it at Tohel and grabbed the beginning of the second one. Tochel ducked, and the gun slammed into the cabinet behind him. Zembla attacked me like a madman. He leaped over the chair as if he were overcoming an obstacle. Like a tiger, he lunged forward and knocked me off my feet. We fell to the floor together. Our fingers didn't have time to clench into fists. But the second revolver was knocked out around my fingers, and the third slid out of my doublet in the heat of the paint. Zembla's hard skull slammed into my jaw and grazed my nose, which bled around it, and my fingers dug into my ego's hair under the blindfold. My fist rose and returned the emu's favor. He chuckled in satisfaction when he heard his nose break. Ego's skin and flesh were torn apart. He howled, which hurt. With a quick jerk, he turned his head away, and that saved him. Otherwise, the deadly bone fragments would have pierced the ego's brain.
  
  
  The ego's response was a bony knee to my life. He tried to grab hold of my leg, which wasn't holding him up. We rolled one over the other. We, Tamara, and Tokhel didn't dare shoot at us. However, they fired again, at another at close range, without getting us a single hit. Zembla was still trying to break my ligaments or my leg. Every tribe of mine has its ego in its unprotected groin. I thought I'd kill him. I could hear him moaning and feel him trembling. In the next second, Tohel fired at the sanctifications. The room was shrouded in darkness, and in the darkness Zembla broke free and disappeared.
  
  
  A siren wailed. The sound was almost lost in the roar of the storm. Tamara and I would go out at random. Zembla and Tochel are not. They knew the building inside and out. Ih shaggy heard her in the hallway. They're gone. Her frantically rummaged through demanded weapons. A revolver found her. There was still a corkscrew, whether it was loaded. He felt a hand on his sleeve. Tamara. We wandered out into the corridor.
  
  
  Outside, in the courtyard and behind the houses, Zembla's people came to life. The siren continued to wail, and the door opened and two deadly flashes of fire came rushing at us. She was shot with rheumatism. He felt a strong recoil, and smelled the pungent smell of gunpowder. I don't know if it hit anything, but I was pretty damn happy to find out I had a revolver full of bullets. We dashed down the corridor and out into the courtyard. At night, we could hear screams all around us.
  
  
  We ran. Some shouted angrily, others excitedly, and all this was amplified by the trampling of boots. Odin around Zembla's men stumbled and fell to the ground. Bullets flew through the door, filling the air with shrapnel and lead. We kept running to the door at the end of the hall. Tamara, terrified but determined, ran to stand behind me and moan.
  
  
  We ran out the door and into the outer courtyard. They couldn't have asked for a better goal. The sound of our running feet was accompanied by the crackle of gunfire. Inside, the fire stopped as suddenly as it had begun. We impulsively rushed to the only shelter we could see, a pile of broken wooden crates. They were built around thick planks with metal straps and were used to transport sensitive electronic equipment. They were piled up to serve as kindling. Gunfire roared and bullets slammed into the ground behind us as we dove frantically between crates.
  
  
  A city of bullets tore through our makeshift hideout. She was pulled down by Tamara. The first two people on the approaching army were too impatient to be careful. Two shots and they fell to the snow. He started moving crates like a madman to strengthen our defenses. The thick boards absorbed bullets. Only an annoying direct hit can hit us now, otherwise they would have to crawl around the house behind us. He looked up, but saw no one in the windows. The surrounding men doused us with lead, as if our guns were garden hoses. No matter which direction he looked, there were too many people to escape. And we only have a few rounds left.
  
  
  Suddenly, above all the noise, she heard the sound of an electric starter. The helicopter's rotor began to rotate very slowly. In the glass cockpit, I could see the silhouettes of two men. A third man, standing alone around the guards, was hurriedly photographing the helicopter's stops and ropes from all sides. There was only one gawk left in my revolver. He took careful aim and hit the target. The sentry screamed and started twitching. He shouted so loudly that the gunfire stopped for a moment as everyone stared at him.
  
  
  "Tamara, give me something to shoot."
  
  
  "Just use my gun." There are six more bullets in there, " she said, handing me the Makarov .
  
  
  She kept the .22 Pepe for herself. The fact that she didn't hesitate to give me her own revolver was a gesture I'll never forget. She stared at the helicopter. The engine was running at full power to warm up. "They'll crash in this storm."
  
  
  "Maybe, but we can't sit here and watch. They want to escape, and if they succeed, they will start all over again. Worse, they left the transmitter on, and you heard what Zembla said about it.
  
  
  "But I thought the room was..."
  
  
  "It was just a new basic control system that they were installing. We put a thread to this, but started the second transmitter somewhere else. On the dell itself, ego was waiting for her on the other side of the gate, where we could see all those lights."
  
  
  "This means that no one can stop the storm in a few hours. At least if Zembla was telling the truth. Then the weather will never be controlled again!
  
  
  'Yes . And the trouble is that Zembla is usually right.
  
  
  Shooting resumed as the helicopter slowly and unsteadily took off. He rocked back and forth. The shooting was stopped a second time when the cockpit door swung open. In the passenger seat, he noticed Tohel's lean, muscular frame. The ego kept the door wide open in the beginning. He had a Colt pistol in his right hand, which he was holding up with his left arm bent, and he was pointing it at us. He shouted something I didn't understand. Apparently, the cry was intended for Zembla, who was acting as a pilot. The helicopter lurched slightly and skidded in our direction.
  
  
  "You bastard! She was seething with anger. — He's coming at us to kill us like rabbits!" Don't lower your head, Tamara!'
  
  
  "All right," she said, her voice firm.
  
  
  In a split second, we had to choose. If we get out of our barricade, Zembla's men will shoot us. If we stay where we are, we will be shot from above. Frustration and anger washed over me as the helicopter flew up to lick.
  
  
  "Damn bastards!" I heard myself growl. My hand tightened on the gun. He acted with a desperate and reckless brusqueness. He jumped between the crates. A sharp pain shot through my injured shoulder and chest as I bumped into a heavy tree. Boards bounced, crates fell. Her jumped into the yard under the approaching helicopter. He caught a glimpse of Tohel's surprised face . He reacted instinctively, quickly, thanks to years of training. The ego brain of a .357 Colt magnum shot out at me and fired. The heavy gawk burned my arm and tore a long hole in my sleeve. Makarov's gun flew around my hands and landed a few yards away.
  
  
  Tochel heard her laugh. "Try to get Ego Carter!"
  
  
  He dived for the weapon, rolled over, and clumsily pulled the ego out from under his body. The gun thundered, twitched, and thundered again. My body felt like it belonged to two different people. My left side was burning more than painful and was almost paralyzed; my right side was fine, despite the new wound. The helicopter rocked slightly. Zembla couldn't keep the ego upright in the strong wind. Perhaps the ego was also shaken by my shots. Tohel fired and missed. He rocked back and forth, trying to counteract the pitching. Ego massive blunt bullets slammed into the snow next to me.
  
  
  Tamara was on her knees, leaning her head against a crate. In the intervals between volleys, he heard her shrill cry. The first and only time I saw her, she was scared out of her wits. Almost instinctively, he fired a third bullet. He saw her a moment later when Tohel suddenly cringed, as if crouching in the doorway. Ego's eyes bulged around his head. The ego voice made noises that were not words, but meaningless coughs. He coughed, screamed, and pulled the trigger on his empty Magnum. He tensed and shivered. Then, he slowly leaned forward and fell out of the helicopter.
  
  
  Tohel hit the ground with a thud. Stunned, the ego people stared in tense silence, as if they couldn't understand that the ih chief was dead. Hers sat silently in the ice-covered courtyard. He felt weak and nauseous. The only sound was Tamara's soft whimper and the sudden acceleration of the helicopter as Zembla soared up and away.
  
  
  The nausea was gone, but there was no weakness. I got down on my knees, ignoring the risk of being shot by the people around me. He leaned forward into the wind of the helicopter's propeller. Makarov was vomiting and twitching, as if he had a life of his own. My last three bullets whizzed through the fragile pressure tanks. For a moment, he was afraid that he had fired too late, and that the helicopter was already flying too high. But then the main screw started making strange grinding sounds. The helicopter rattled and rattled as Zembla tried to steer it. It swayed and soared higher and higher above the hacienda. Then a sudden shock. He began to slide down. Something exploded and a piece of metal flew over us. We heard a small explosion. The helicopter hovered motionless for a moment. Tiny flames licked the hood. It then dove in a large arc and crashed into another wing of the hacienda's main building.
  
  
  With a terrible jolt, the helicopter crashed into a neighboring building along with Zembla. I was thrown to the ground. Chunks of wall flew around the courtyard, along with beams, windows,and masonry. The roof collapsed in the place where the helicopter punched a large hole. Hungry flames blazed high into the sky. With her dizziness, he jumped to his feet. It didn't break anything, but my already damaged nose was now bleeding continuously. Panting, he stumbled through the crates to find Tamara. We had to get out of here. My groping hand touched her soft curves. For a moment, she snuggled up to me and gently ran my fingers through her blonde hair. Protected by a now-demolished barricade, it is undamaged.
  
  
  The blazing fire spread rapidly. In the glowing light, he saw Zembla's remaining men running around. They had nowhere to go and didn't know what to do. There was no organization anymore. Ih leader was dead and they had no targets left. Under such circumstances, they will think twice before dying the hero's death. But they were still enemies, dangerous enemies. If we had a chance to escape from all this, it's only now.
  
  
  We crawled around the crates and ran to the back of the nearest building. Every time we jumped out of the way and ducked when someone ran past mimmo. Out of breath, we ran back to mimmo's burning main building. The smile on Tamara's lips told me that she was thinking the same way as her. In that blazing fire, Zembla's last transmitter was destroyed and turned into scrap metal.
  
  
  A group of men found us at the main entrance and opened fire. Bullets whizzed menacingly around us, shattering the bricks of the wall on either side of us. We ducked through the gate, slammed the ih behind us, and ran down the wide cobblestone path. The howling whistle of the icy wind mingled with the crackle of fire and the creak of collapsing buildings behind us. It was like a symphony from hell.
  
  
  We had come to the bottom of a hill and were now forced to wade through high mounds of boulders. A fierce storm knocked Tamara off her feet several times. She was helped to her feet by Ay, who immediately fell down on the slippery icy path. We continued on our way.
  
  
  Panting, we finally reached the sheltered bay of the boathouse. All we could think about was the boat and how to make it move. There just had to be a boat if we were going to survive this. He pushed the door open. It wouldn't budge, and I didn't have the strength to knock it out with my shoulders, but then Tamara quietly shot through the lock on Pepe's revolver.
  
  
  With a last effort, we scrambled over the dock. There was a boat. The gleaming ten-foot cruiser yacht jerked wildly like a harnessed stallion. Going out to sea didn't seem safe, without risk. The yacht was built to glide through the waves at high speed, but in this storm, it would easily capsize in the heavy swell of the outright boathouse. But the last thing I wanted to do was stay on the island.
  
  
  Tamara opened the big door and untied the ropes. He rummaged under the dashboard and preheated the engine. My muscles ached all over my body. The men ran to the boathouse. I heard them shouting and shooting. Her, pressed the start button. The engine started, sneezed, chirped, and then growled to life. She was vaguely aware that my hand was instinctively reaching for the throttle. The growling underfoot became a violent throb. The yacht flew around the boathouse and into the creek as the first men burst in through the back door.
  
  
  Outside the bay, the rough waves of the Gulf of Panama hit us. Her speed was reduced until the ferret's speed exceeded three knots. The sea was a seething mass of white foam that rose slowly horizontally above us. The boat didn't have time to turn around. The bow was buried and floated up on the other side of the wave. Water rushed frantically from the forward deck and from the cabin roof. He was too weak to hold the boat. Blood trickled down my arms and down my nose. I had to quit driving. Her, I felt myself falling. "Take control," he said, almost unintelligibly. "Tamara, get behind the wheel. I can not... The yawning darkness of unconsciousness closed in on me. He took one last look at the sky and smiled. The weather has changed.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 14
  
  
  
  
  I dreamed that I was lying in a hammock. The excitement rocked me gently back and forth. Hers was stretched out, without shoes and with a jacket under his head instead of a pillow. The boat sat motionless with the silent machines. A light breeze was blowing; the sun was hot.
  
  
  My second impression was that I was still dreaming. I had one of those wonderful erotic dreams that always seem to end when things start to get better and leave you feeling disappointed in the morning. Tamara was leaning against the aft railing in just her bra and panties. The way her long, lithe legs are stretched out on the deck, her cleavage arched, her breasts bulged, and her face tilted up to catch as much sun as possible is a sensual vision that I love to see in my dreams. But she was real, real as the sun! He sighed and flexed his arms. The pain was real, too. Her sel is candid. The boat was flooded with blue water. The sea was calm and the sky was dazzling clear. "Hi," Tamara said, smiling. She raised a hand over her eyes to block out the bright sun.
  
  
  "Hi," chuckled her rheumatism. "We're drifting."
  
  
  "We've run out of fuel."
  
  
  'Oh.'
  
  
  "A few minutes after you lost consciousness, the engine purred and stopped. Its nothing else I can do.
  
  
  'No, of course not.'
  
  
  "The current will take us ashore in a few hours."
  
  
  "We'll be busy. A little rest won't hurt us.
  
  
  "I think so, too," she said. She tilted her head back again. "It got too hot in these clothes, and she wanted to get some sun. I hope you don't mind."
  
  
  "Who is he? Never!'
  
  
  My gaze slid across the clear turquoise waters to the misty shore in the distance. Panama shone in the light, and the sea was still. He could feel the silence. We didn't have a breath of wind. Not a single animal rustled in the tangle of grasses, and we did not hear a single voice through the dense emerald forest. It was too early for that. The rivers and canals were still clogged with thick masses of ice. But the ice will soon crack and crumble. Melting snow from the mountains might cause temporary flooding here and there, but that was in the future. Man and beast were still dumbfounded, trying to escape the incredible horrors created by Zembla's domineering storm. Later, they will start mourning their dead relatives and start rebuilding their homes. But that will be later...
  
  
  He breathed in the warm, fragrant air and planted his feet firmly on the deck. I had a big smile on my face. "It was worth fighting for."
  
  
  Tamara rose with languid grace. She came up to me and gently wrapped her arms around my neck. Her fingers gripped the buttons of my blouse. Her hand slid across my chest.
  
  
  "The excitement is over," I said. "You don't have to worry anymore."
  
  
  "I've never had to do this, Nick, but I love it."
  
  
  "When we reach Panama, our paths will diverge. Until ...'
  
  
  "No," she whispered sadly in my ear.
  
  
  "You have your own responsibilities, and I have mine, and we will never change with the help of the other. Everything was fine and will be fine until we get to Panama."
  
  
  "The boat is drifting."
  
  
  — And there's nothing we can do about it.
  
  
  "Except to have fun while we still can."
  
  
  He kissed her roughly and pulled her to him, and then the hard and supple body.
  
  
  She was wrong. The excitement wasn't over yet.
  
  
  About the book:
  
  
  It all started with a garbled radio message received by an AX agent in Mexico. Now Nick Carter was making his way through the dense jungles of Nicaragua, which they called Mosquito Coast. The ego was besieged by mosquitoes, venomous snakes and an unbearable Savchenko. Ego's journey was brutal, but he had to find an ancient Mayan temple. Colonel Zembla's headquarters were located there. And this one could turn Central and South America into a polar region. And as the freezing cold threatens to break, Nick must also convince Russian KGB agent Tamara Kirova that America has nothing to do with this infernal scheme.
  
  
  But Colonel Zembla manages to rekindle his icy terror. Then Nick Carter will be required to do the impossible...
  
  
  
  Table of contents
  Chapter 2
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  Chapter 11
  
  
  Chapter 12
  
  
  Chapter 13
  
  
  Chapter 14
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Carter Nick
  
  
  Killer: Code name Vulture
  
  
  
  
  Nick Carter
  
  
  Killer: Code name Vulture
  
  
  Dedicated to the people of the Secret Services of the United States of America
  
  
  
  The first chapter.
  
  
  He licked his dry lips with his thick tongue and squinted at the sun overhead. His mouth tasted like old paper, and there was a dull but insistent buzzing in his ears.
  
  
  It was impossible to know exactly how long he had lain unconscious on the edge of a small, scrawny thorn bush. When her first came to, he couldn't remember where her was or how he got there. Then she saw the twisted, glistening mass of wreckage, Mooney's little plane plummeting like a wounded hawk out of a cloudless sky. Half-broken strips of metal - the remnants of a violent impact - rose only thirty yards above the brown grass of the veld, and thin wisps of smoke still trailed skyward. Now I remember how I was thrown around the plane when it hit the ground, and then I crawled away from the raging flames. From the position of the sun, he knew that several hours had passed since the morning crash.
  
  
  With great pain and difficulty, I forced her into a sitting position, feeling the hot white clay on my thighs through my torn khaki trousers. The shirt around the shrubbery she was wearing clung to my back, and the smell of my own body filled my nostrils. Raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight, he looked out at the tall lion grass that now seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions, interrupted only by the sparse green of a single umbrella acacia tree. There was no sign of civilization, just a vast sea of grass and trees.
  
  
  Overhead, a vulture moved silently, circling and pirouetting. Casting a shadow on the ground in front of me, the bird hung obsessively, watching. The buzzing in my ears became more pronounced now, and it occurred to me that it wasn't in my head at all. The sound came from the crash site. It was the sound of flies.
  
  
  He focused on the wreckage. Then a vulture and a swarm of flies reminded me that Alexis Salomos was on that plane with me - he was piloting ego when the problem occurred. Her eyes narrowed, but he didn't see ego anywhere near the crash site.
  
  
  As I stood up weakly, I found that my legs were stiff. My whole body ached, but I didn't seem to have any broken bones. The long cut on his left forearm was already healing, and the blood had dried. He looked grimly at the smoldering wreckage. I needed to find Alexis to see if he was still alive.
  
  
  The buzzing of the flies grew louder as he neared the plane's hull. He leaned over and peered into the cab, but didn't see his friend. I feel sick to my stomach. Then, when her shell was around the front of the wreckage, mimmo charred the propeller and a crumpled piece of fuselage, her suddenly stopped.
  
  
  Alexey's body lay in a grotesque heap of blood about ten yards away. Ego was also thrown out, but not before ego's plane crashed. The front of ego's head and face were squeezed out from hitting the plane's windshield, and it looked like ego's neck was broken. The Swedes ' ego was torn to shreds, and he was drenched in dried blood. Big brown flies covered ego's body, crawling all over his purple ones, they said. She started to turn away, and I felt a little sick when I saw movement in the tall grass behind the corpse. The spotted hyena approached slowly, aware of my presence, but too hungry to care. While the ego appearance was still being recorded in my brain, the hyena closed the small distance between itself and the body and grabbed the exposed flesh on Alexis Salomos ' calculations, tearing off a chunk.
  
  
  "Stand back, damn you tailor!" he shouted at the beast. He picked up a stick of burnt wood and threw it at the hyena. The animal crawled across the grass, carrying a piece of bloody paste. In a moment, the ego was gone.
  
  
  He looked down at the mangled body again. I didn't even have a shovel to bury it, so I had to leave the ego with the animals for twenty-four hours.
  
  
  Well, there was nothing he could do. Alexis Salomos was also dead, with or without a burial. In the end, they caught up with ego and killed him, and they almost got me, too. At least up to this point, I somehow survived. But the biggest test of my luck may lie ahead, because it belongs to them that I'm about halfway between Salisbury and Bulawayo, in the deepest part of the Rhodesian bush country.
  
  
  He walked around the wreckage until it hid the body again. Shortly before the malfunctioning plane started sneezing and coughing at five thousand feet, Salomos mentioned that we would soon be flying mimmo of a tiny village. Around what he said, he estimated that the village was still in the hall fifty to seventy-five miles to the southwest. Without water and weapons, my chances of getting there were very slim. The luger and sheathed knife that he usually carried with him were left at my hotel in Salisbury. None of them could be hidden under my T-shirt, and in any case, I didn't foresee the need for them on this particular plane trip to Bulawayo. I was on vacation and resting.
  
  
  Ular was working with AX, the top-secret intelligence agency of the Americas, and was simply escorting an old friend around Athens whom she had met by chance in Salisbury. Now the other man was dead, and the wild story he had told me was now plausible.
  
  
  I went to a nearby mound of termites, a dog of hard white clay as high as my head, with many chimneys serving as entrances. He leaned heavily against it, stared at the far line of feverish trees, and tried to ignore the buzzing of flies in the other direction of the wreckage. Just three days ago, she was met by Alexis Salomos in a small restaurant near Salisbury's Pioneer Memorial Park. I was sitting on the terrace, looking out over the city, when Salomos suddenly appeared beside my chair.
  
  
  "Nick? Nick Carter? " he said, and a slow smile spread across his handsome brown face. He was a square-jawed curly-haired man in his forties, whose eyes stared intently at you with a bright brightness, as if he could see the secrets in your life. He was the editor of a newspaper in Athens.
  
  
  "Alexis," I said, rising to extend my hand. He took ego in both hands and shook it vigorously, his smile even wider than hers. "What the hell are you doing in Africa, tailor?"
  
  
  The smile faded, and for the first time, he realized that he didn't look the way her ego remembered him. He helped me track down a KGB man who stole documents important to the West in Athens a few years ago. It looked like he'd aged considerably with the ferret. Ego face has lost its healthy appearance, especially around the eyes.
  
  
  He asked. "Do you mind if I join you?"
  
  
  "I'll be offended if you don't," I said. "Please have a seat. Waiter!" A young man in a white apron came to the table and we both ordered British ale. We chatted until the drinks were served and the waiter left, and then Salomos was lost in thought.
  
  
  "Are you all right, Alexis?" I finally asked.
  
  
  He smiled at me, but it was thin and forced. "I was in trouble, Nick."
  
  
  "Is there anything I can do for her?"
  
  
  He shrugged his square shoulders. "I doubt that anything can be done." He spoke good English, but with a noticeable accent. He took a long drink of his ale.
  
  
  I asked her. "Do you want to tell me about it?""Or is it too personal?"
  
  
  He laughed bitterly."Ah, that's personal, my other one. You can say it's very personal." Ego's eyes met mine. "Someone is trying to kill me."
  
  
  Hers, looking at his face. "Are you sure?"
  
  
  A wry smile. "How sure of her should I be? In Athens, a shot from a rifle shatters a window and passes mimmo of my head by a few inches. So I get the hint. Her beru vacation is to visit her cousin here in Salisbury. He's a script merchant who emigrated here ten years ago. I thought I'd be safe here for a while. Then, two days ago, a black Mercedes almost hit me on the main boulevard. The driver who pulled up to the curb looked exactly like the man she'd seen earlier in Athens. "
  
  
  "Do you know who this man is?"
  
  
  "No," Salomos said, shaking his head slowly. "I recently saw him walking through the Apollo Building when I was spying there for a bit." He stopped and looked down at his ale. "Have you ever heard of the Apollo lines?"
  
  
  "An oil tanker company, isn't it?"
  
  
  "This is actually, my friend. The world's largest tanker line, owned by my compatriot Nikkor Minourkos."
  
  
  "Ah, yes. I know her from Minurkosa. A former billionaire sailor. A hermit; no one sees the ego these days."
  
  
  "It's actually happening again," Salomos said. "Minourkos retired from public life almost a decade ago, when he was still a relatively young man. It is believed that he spends most of his time in his penthouse in the Apollo Building, near Constitution Square, where he runs his business. Personal contacts are established mainly by close partners of Minurcos. Almost no one ever gets a private audience with him."
  
  
  "Very rich people seem to value their privacy very much," I said, sipping my ale. "But what does the Minurk have to do with the attempts on your life?"
  
  
  Salomos took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "About six months ago, Monurco's behavior began to change. This was especially interesting for me and, of course, for other newspaper editors, because any information about Minurkos is exciting and important for readers of the Athens Olympics. Note when Minurk, who has always remained out of politics, started making public statements against the ruling junta in Athens. Suddenly, he announced that the leaders of the colonels ' societies were weak and socialist. He claimed that they had betrayed the "revolution" of April 21, 1967. and implied that Greece would be better off with the restoration of Constantine II or some other admiration for the personality of a new acquaintance is heard. He referred to the dangers of leftists such as the Witness, and guessed that another "shake-up"was about to happen in the Greek government.
  
  
  "Well," I said, " this man has a right to suddenly become interested in politics after all these years. Maybe emu is tired of spending his money."
  
  
  "It looks like it's going even further. A person like Minurkos can buy a lot of friends. The generals and colonels are coming in
  
  
  to the penthouse and back, but they won't talk about visiting the press. Rumor has it that the Minurk is funding a private army in a specially built camp in northern Greece and in one camp, on Mykonos, an island in the Aegean Sea.
  
  
  Finally, there is the recent disappearance of Colonel Demetrius Rasion. The Minurkos-dominated newspaper concludes that he drowned while traveling by boat in Piraeus, but his body was never found. Nickor Minurkos is now launching a major campaign to replace Rasion with a man of his own choosing, a fascist named Despo Adelphia. The junta doesn't want Adelphia, but its new and noble leaders are afraid of the Minurka and the ego of friends in the generals ' headquarters."
  
  
  "It's an interesting situation," I admitted, " but do you think that the Minurcos is launching a campaign of terror with the idea of a bloody coup?"
  
  
  "It's possible. But there are other solutions. There are new faces that no one around the journalists has seen before coming and going around the penthouse atop Apollo; one Minurkos is still in hiding. However, I noticed that one of the new faces belongs to a Greek-American named Adrian Stavros."
  
  
  My eyes narrowed slightly at Salomos. "Stavros in Athens?" I muttered slowly. "Keeping the Minurkos company?"
  
  
  "It seems so. Unless ..."
  
  
  "Unless what?"
  
  
  "Well, since Minourkos' recent comments were so out of character, perhaps he wasn't the ih source himself."
  
  
  "Stavros' takeover of the Minurkos empires?"
  
  
  Perhaps against the Minurkos ' wishes, Salomos guessed. "There may have already been a small coup, hidden. Since the Minurkos are very secretive and always conduct business through subordinates, the ego could be killed or captured and operate under the ego's name, and spend huge amounts of money on the ego without anyone noticing. Immediately after I expressed this theory in my editorial, the first attempt was made on my life in Athens."
  
  
  The anxious look returned to ego's eyes. I remembered the AX file about Adrian Stavros and realized that he was capable of such a maneuver. Stavros held placard demonstrations at Yale University as a student. He then became involved in a radical bombing of the CIA office, and later made an attempt on the life of a senator. He escaped the clutches of the FBI and CIA and buried himself somewhere in Brazil, where he went on to commit serious crimes such as smuggling and murder. Since there was little evidence against him in the United States, the United States did not try to return him. But he was being watched in Brazil.
  
  
  "And the man who tried to run you down here in Salisbury?" I asked her. "Did you see him coming out of the penthouse at the Apollo Building?"
  
  
  "Yes, Nick," Salomos said. He sipped the last of his ale and looked out over the hibiscus-covered balustrade down the hill toward the city. "I'm desperate. Another cousin of mine, who lives out of town outside Bulawayo, asked me to visit him briefly until this passed. Her ego accepted the invitation. A rented plane is waiting for me at the airport. I will fly nen, as he is a licensed pilot, and enjoy the ride. I mean, if I can forget about - " There was a brief silence, then he looked at me. "Nick, I would really appreciate it if you would accompany me to Bulawayo."
  
  
  He knew that Alexis Salomos wouldn't ask if he was desperate out of fear. And I still had a few days off before I got another assignment from David Hawke, the mysterious director of AX.
  
  
  "I always see the Bulawayo Hotel," I said.
  
  
  Alexis looked relieved. "Thank you, Nick."
  
  
  Two days later, we took off. Salomos was an experienced pilot, and it seemed that the flight over wild Rhodesia would be uneventful and pleasant. Salomos flew low-lying so that we could notice rare wild animals and interesting topographical features of the thickets. The flight seemed to lift Salomos ' spirits, and he looked very much like his old self. But at mid-morning, about halfway to Bulawayo, the serenity of the morning turned into a nightmare.
  
  
  Mooney's small, standard two-seat plane coughed. At first, Salomos didn't care, but then it got even worse. It solves the research problems of a small motor, but this only made things more complicated. We lost altitude and started a wide circle of signposts.
  
  
  Salomos swore in Greek, then his face paled. He examined the panel and looked at me. "The fuel gauge shows full," he shouted over the bursting engine. "It didn't move from its original position this morning." He tapped the glass covering the sensor, but nothing happened. The needle remained on the letter F.
  
  
  "We're out of gas," I said incredulously. This is bad news for any airplane, especially a small one.
  
  
  "Not really, but we're falling fast," Salomos said, putting the Muni into temporary steep planning and struggling with the controls. "This plane was damaged, Nick. The sensor was frozen in place, but the tanks were almost empty when we took off.
  
  
  This should have been done on purpose ."
  
  
  "Jesus," I muttered. "Can you plant an ego?"
  
  
  "There's no airfield here," he said, trying to keep the plane from going into a tailspin. "But we'll have to try to land in an open veld - if I can keep my ego going according to the planning plan."
  
  
  "Is there anything I can do for her?"
  
  
  “yeah. Pray." Alexis looked at me. "I'm sorry, Nick."
  
  
  "Never mind," I said. "Just plant this thing." I didn't even ask her about the problem. There was no time. We sailed down a steep slope to a grassy veld.
  
  
  The engine coughed and hissed again, then stalled for good as we saw the entire hotel as well rush towards us. Her, decided it was all over. There didn't seem to be any reasonable expectation to survive this.
  
  
  Five hundred feet down We went, like a bird with a broken wing. Three hundred. The acacia trees slid beneath them. Hundred. Salomos ' face was rigid with tension, and his hands were shackled from trying to control. Then there was a movement of grass and thorns at breakneck speed, the wing was torn by a branch of a twisted tree, and the plane, at the last moment, slightly lifted its nose and slid sideways. The impact knocked us back to the front of the plane. There was a grating sound, and a creaking of metal and a loud crack of glass, and our bodies were thrashing in the small cabin. Then came the final emergency stop: my door flew open, and my body went flying from head to toe in the grass before crunching into the hard ground.
  
  
  I don't remember anything else except. an agonizing crawl on the grass, instinctively moving away from the plane, and then an explosion with the sound of crackling flames somewhere behind me.
  
  
  The second chapter.
  
  
  He tried to push the memory of the crash out of his mind, leaning heavily on the hard clay of a tall termite patch. But it was harder to get rid of the look on Alexis Salomos ' face when he said he would fly to Bulawayo with him in Salisbury.
  
  
  I could still hear the insistent buzzing of flies behind the gleaming metal hull of the wrecked plane, but I tried not to listen. He focused again on the distant line of feverish trees on the grassy horizon. Somewhere, I sensed that the fever trees sometimes reported the presence of water. But those trees were not in the direction he should have been going to reach the village.
  
  
  In a way, he felt responsible for Salomos ' tragic death. He trusted me with his protection, and hers was unable to do so when he needed me. He expected my advice, and I didn't foresee the danger of a small plane. Besides, I felt guilty because I didn't fully trust my ego with the incredible story. However, the ego bloodied corpse was clear proof that at least some of the ego theories were correct. Someone has the ego of death. Whether this person was hema, someone who lived in the penthouse above the Apollo offices in Athens, was still questionable.
  
  
  He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned toward one of the exits around the termite patch. A small bright green dragon slid out through the gathering not far from my left hand, and seemed to stare at me intently. He jumped back. I didn't know that snakes had taken up residence in termite mounds. It was a green mamba, one of the three most dangerous snakes in the world. In the event of a bite, the victim will be able to walk about three steps between itself and the reptile before its resentment kills it. The mamba that is currently being trained was out of range, slipping into a nearby hole.
  
  
  I tripped over the wreckage as my pulse slowed. He looked around for a moment and found a sharp piece of metal about a foot long on the ground. One thread was very sharp. Ripping a piece of wood frame, partially charred, from a section of the fuselage, her fallen ego split two pieces of equal length and split a wide stream of shrapnel, tying the batons with his handkerchief to make a handle for my makeshift knife. . He tucked the crude weapon into his belt and, without looking back at the wreckage, headed for the trees.
  
  
  It was difficult to just walk through the countryside. The tall grass and thorny bushes tugged at my clothes and tore at my flesh, grabbing at me and holding me back. A rhinoceros bird screeched at me from a nearby acacia tree. I found myself calculating my chances of survival. There are a hundred ways to die, and to us, Odin around them is not pleasant. In this grass, a person can stumble upon a lion before he sees it. But usually small creatures cause the most trouble: snakes no bigger than a human finger, scorpions and ticks burrowing deep under the skin. If you find water and drink it, you can become infected with liver flukes and other parasites that eat a person from the inside out. And if you avoid it, you can still be attacked by mosquitoes, yellow fever vectors, and malaria.
  
  
  When he finally reached the trees, he found only the remains of a watering hole. The place is dry. There was thick black mud in the center, and printouts of many animals ' hooves and laps around the perimeter of the site.
  
  
  He leaned against the green trunk of a nearby tree and rested in the shade. I wasted my time and energy coming here. The direction to the nearest village that Salomos had mentioned on the plane was ninety degrees to the course that had brought me here. Walking in the hot sun weakened me even more. My mouth was like tanned leather. She was reminded of the thermos of cold water that Salomos had brought to the plane. It was seen by the ego as a crushed cylinder among the wreckage; its contents dried up in the fire. He tried not to think about the tropical sun overhead or the thirst in his throat, and went.
  
  
  It must have been a couple of hours later when I realized I couldn't go any further without a rest. My legs were shaking with weakness, and her lungs were being sucked in in long, raucous breaths. She was seen by a dead tree stump, part of ego, in the sparse shade of a nearby thorn bush, only a few yards ahead. He fell heavily to the ground and leaned against a tree stump. The very process of sitting, the relief from physical exertion when walking, brought satisfaction.
  
  
  My eyelids closed, and he ignored the pain in my body. He tried to forget about the small muscles in his thighs and the insect bites on his face and hands. I needed a break, and he was going to get it. To hell with everything else.
  
  
  There was a sound around the bush.
  
  
  My eyelids fluttered open. Her mistake? He peered into the tall grass, but saw nothing. It must have been my imagination. He closed his eyes again, but the sound came again.
  
  
  My eyes opened faster this time. There was no doubt about it; it was the sound of a human voice. He strained his ears and heard a twig snap.
  
  
  "That was something!"
  
  
  Then the sound becomes more constant and distinct. The two men were talking in a dialect he'd never heard before.
  
  
  "Hello there!" Her screamed around the last of her strength."Here!"
  
  
  At another point, I saw ih heads moving toward me over the grass. Black heads, and khaki shirts. When they saw me, their voices grew louder, and they all seemed to have the same identity.
  
  
  He relaxed a little. She was getting a lick, worse than he thought. There must be a village somewhere nearby, or at least a road. Men came out of the grass and looked at me. They were tall, slender, and somber.
  
  
  "Hello," I said. "Do you have any water?"
  
  
  The two men looked at each other, then back at me. They came and stood by me forever. He didn't try to get up. "Water," I said.
  
  
  They were both dressed in very shabby Western clothing and wore homemade sandals. The taller of the two pointed at my feet, and after a moment, he bent down and untied my shoe. Before he could ask her what he was doing, he took it off and showed it to his companion. The person who held my shoe for inspection had a large, wide scar running diagonally across his face. Another wore a small mirror in the distended lobe of his right ear. Both of them had knives on their belts-machetes - pungs.
  
  
  The tall one spoke to the other, and I realized that he was speaking in Swahili. "Mzuri sana," he said, smiling, referring to my ballet slippers. He continued in Swahili. "This is my lucky day."
  
  
  "Listen to me," I said weakly.
  
  
  They ignored me. The tall man bent and untied my very second boot. I tried to pull my foot away, but he laughed and looked at me and pulled the other shoe out from under nah. He kicked off his battered sandals and pulled on my ballet slippers, not bothering to tie my laces. "Savasawa!" he said to his companion, completely ignoring me.
  
  
  I suddenly realized that these people weren't going to be my saviors. And it occurred to me that I might have been worse off than I was before ih arrived if I hadn't counted on surviving.
  
  
  "The shoes fit well." It was the highest.
  
  
  The other wasn't enjoying the situation. "What do you think these are your ballet slippers? Didn't we come to him together?"
  
  
  "This is her first time seeing ego," the tall one said. "You can get ego pants. If he has a bag, we will share its contents."
  
  
  "It's not right that you're taking your ballet slippers," the mirror-adorned man muttered.
  
  
  The tall man turned to me. "Take off your pants," he ordered, still in Swahili. Ego's eyes were yellow with red streaks, and there were thin scars on each cheek that were not noticeable at first due to the large scar.
  
  
  My hand is resting on the handle of the makeshift knife, hiding it from my view. It seemed that I would have to use it. The man with the sprained earlobe took a panga from his belt. There was no doubt about ih's intentions. They couldn't deprive a white man of everything he had and then let the ego live.
  
  
  "Okay, I'll take her pants off," I said. He had gained strength, but he didn't want to show it. "But I have to get back on my feet." Her left hand extended toward the tall one.
  
  
  He looked at Nah disdainfully for a moment, then grabbed her.
  
  
  he lifted his forearm roughly and yanked me to my feet. The moment her left the ground, her pulled out his metal knife from his belt and forcefully stabbed ego in the middle of the African.
  
  
  Ego's eyes widened in surprise as the razor-sharp metal slid through flesh and muscle. Ego's right hand automatically took hold of the handle of the panga, but this was ego's last voluntary action. He grunted an ugly sound and slid into the dust at my feet.
  
  
  The other stared wide-eyed at his fallen comrade for a moment. Then he let out a wild guttural sound and swung the newly snatched panga.
  
  
  Her ducked back. A large blade hissed past my face, sliced through the air, and almost hit my head and shoulder. If I hadn't moved, I would have been beheaded. However, when she was evaded by pangi, she fell down. The African came up to me and swung the knife again, and the gleaming curved blade whizzed through the air toward my neck. Hers rolled quickly to the right, and the blade struck the hard clay. While my attacker was regaining his balance, her, turned around and savagely kicked his ego. The crunch of ego bones heard her. He fell to the ground next to me with a loud cry.
  
  
  If it was loud as usual, it would be an ego thread. But I was in no hurry to take advantage of the advantages I had created. When her father got to his knees, the African was already standing, and a look of despair crossed his face. He swung at me again, and this time the arc was wide. The blade sliced through the sleeve of my shirt, slicing it down. It hit his ego with its shard and made a shallow wound on his chest. He grunted again and hit me in the head with the panga as it hit the tree stump. The force of the swing caused ego to lose his balance and fall onto my right arm. He grabbed ego's ragged collar with his left hand, pulled ego's head back, and drove the metal shard into ego's throat.
  
  
  Blood flooded my face and chest as the African gasped loudly and reached convulsively for his slit throat. He fell on his face, still clutching at his throat, and then rolled to the hard ground, motionless.
  
  
  Breathing hard, she leaned back on one elbow. He was angry that he had used up the vital energy needed to survive this fight, but he was grateful that he was still alive. When her mind noted the danger of the bush at the crash site, her mind forgot about one thing: the person. It seemed that the man was always at the top of the list. If you ignore this factor, you may die before the bushes kill you.
  
  
  At least in this situation, I had one fact. These people came from the western direction, not from the southwestern one that it took. They may have passed through the village, or left the road somewhere. The same could be said for the direction they were heading. It rose slightly and took a westerly direction.
  
  
  The hot African sun leaned into the sky as hers gave up again. He collapsed into the tall grass, wondering if there was still any chance of survival. I really needed water. There were no more feelings on my tongue or in my mouth. I lay there and watched the scorpion slowly crawl mimmo me across the grass. I didn't know if I could move it if it attacked, but it didn't seem to notice me. After a moment, he was gone. She grimaced and envied the emu, because it didn't have a problem surviving, at least not at the moment. It seemed a little ironic that this species had been crawling on the surface of the planet for more than four hundred million years, long before the dinosaurs appeared, and that it would probably appear on Earth long before the extinction of humans. Somehow it seemed unfair, but then she was biased.
  
  
  As I lay there, another sound hit my ears. It was a distant hum, not unlike the previous buzz of flies. But this sound quickly became louder and more recognizable, like that of a car engine.
  
  
  He sat up and tilted his head to listen. Yes, it was a car of some sort. He rose unsteadily and started toward the sound. I saw nothing but grass and sparse trees. But the noise was getting closer by the second.
  
  
  "Hello there!" Her, shouted across the grass. "Hey, over here!"
  
  
  He tripped and fell. Rising unsteadily to his feet again, he staggered forward again. A moment later, she saw it - a Land Rover, dusty and scratched, bumping into a secondary road that was now nothing more than a trail in the grass. The rover, an open car, was occupied by two men who didn't see me as it approached the nearest point of the road and continued on its way.
  
  
  I called out,"Hello!"
  
  
  He clumsily picked his way through the grass and finally reached the road. He screamed again when he got there. He ran after the car, swaying like a drunk, but fell on his face.
  
  
  He lay there cursing out loud, feeling despair rise in his chest. This car may be my last chance to survive.
  
  
  Then he heard the Rover slow down and stop. I tried to stand up to see what had happened, but I didn't have the strength.
  
  
  I heard the engine idling, then the Rover slid back into first gear, swung around on the road, and came toward me. They either heard me or saw me.
  
  
  A few seconds later, the car pulled up beside me, the engine died, and he heard two men talking in British accents.
  
  
  "My God, it's a European."
  
  
  "What is he doing here in the bushes, all by himself?"
  
  
  "Maybe we should ask ego."
  
  
  Soon the cold water flowed into my mouth, spilled on the front of my dirty shirt, and my tongue felt it again.
  
  
  "Oh my God, man, what's up?"
  
  
  I focused on the two fleshy faces that leaned over me forever. They were middle-aged white Rhodesians, probably gentleman farmers who had spent the day in the desert.
  
  
  "A plane crash," I said. "I walked away from it."
  
  
  When they put me in the all-terrain vehicle, I knew I'd made it. But I couldn't forget that the body of Alexis Salomos was being devoured by hyenas like someone else in Athens. I was hoping that David Hawke would let me delve into what was going on in the Apollo Building to find out if Adrian Stavros was really in the hall in Brazil, as everyone thought. I haven't seen it for a long time.
  
  
  The third chapter.
  
  
  "You don't look very well, Nick."
  
  
  David Hawke, director of the super-secret American agency AX, held a short cigar in the fingers of his right hand, leaning forward on his wide mahogany desk. We sat in ego at the AX headquarters office, an apartment that was now artfully hidden in a rented Amalgamated Press & Wire Services DuPont Circle facility in Washington.
  
  
  Hers, looked at him with a wry smile. "Oni wants her to stay in the hospital in Salisbury for a little while longer. But you know how quickly I get bored. If its pale, it's because I don't need the sun and a nice circle around the tenderloin. What do you think about the history of Salomos? "
  
  
  Hawk took a drag on his cigar and blew a smoke ring in my direction. Sitting at the big table, he looked small and thin, with an ego, tousled gray hair, and the face of a Connecticut farmer. But I knew that fragile look was deceptive. He was a real dynamo.
  
  
  "It scares me a little," he said. "What also scares me is that you almost died between assignments. I've never seen a person who found problems so easily."
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "Salomos was a friend. Mine and AX's. He tried his best to help us find Borisov, remember?"
  
  
  "Yes, I remember her," Hawke said soberly. "Well, your Rhodesian escapade is over, so we'll drop it. As for the possibility that Adrian Stavros might be plotting against the Greek government, it would not be Stahl's ego to miss out."
  
  
  "Does he still own a plantation in Brazil?"
  
  
  "According to our sources, this is still the ego of the headquarters. We don't have a recent report." Hawk leaned back in his big leather chair. "If it really was Stavros, who your friend saw coming out of the Minurkos penthouse, we are definitely facing an interesting situation. Dreams of running an entire country fit very well with what we've learned about nen."
  
  
  Hawk studied his bony joints. Adrian Stavros has always been a neurotic, possibly a psychopath. In addition to leading a successful smuggling ring in Brazil that the government failed to eliminate, he also committed political assassinations, the latest of which is believed to have been the murder of Israeli official Moshe Ben-Canaan."
  
  
  "Then I understand that AX is interested in the story of Alexis Salomos," I said.
  
  
  "I'm afraid that's how it should be. And her, I believe that since you consider yourself a friend of Salomosa, you would like to get this assignment."
  
  
  "Yes, sir, she would have liked that."
  
  
  Hawk stubbed out his cigar in the nearest ashtray. "My first impulse is to say' no ' and pass the case to another math major. You know how much I always try to avoid the agent's personal involvement on a mission."
  
  
  "It's important to me that Alexis' killer doesn't get out, " I said quietly.
  
  
  Good. You can handle this. But be extra careful, Nick. I think it's best to go to Rio and talk to the CIA officer there. Find out if Stavros is in a gym outside the country, and where he spent his time. Then if your leads lead you to Athens, go there. Just keep me posted."
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "Don't I always do that?"
  
  
  "Well, sometimes you forget that there are people here sitting in their dreary jobs, and it's ih's responsibility to run the show." Ego's voice took on that harsh tone that sometimes came when he talked about protocol and the order of subordination. "If you need help at any time, ask for it. That's what we're here for."
  
  
  "Of course."
  
  
  He opened a drawer in his chair and took out an envelope. Ego's eyes avoided mine. "I predict your request and my eventual concession to you, and thoughtfully, if not wisely, bought my ticket."
  
  
  He smiled at her. "Thank you." He reached across the chair and picked up the envelope.
  
  
  "You'd better wait to see how this all plays out before you decide if she called you in for any favor," Hawk replied.
  
  
  The next night, she was taken on a Pan Am fishing trip to Rio de Janeiro. Its rested all
  
  
  one day, and it felt like the old time again. The flight was uneventful, but I kept thinking about that other one in Mooney's little plane when Salomos showed me the veld, about the trouble and the crash landing, and how Salomos ' corpse looked in the hot sun.
  
  
  The next morning, he arrived in Rio and checked into the Floriano Hotel, near the Copacabana Palace. It was only a block from the beach, and nen had the flavor of colonial Brazil. The room had a ceiling fan and a window with blinds, and a narrow balcony offered a small view of the sea.
  
  
  It was hot in Rio. All the Brazilians who were able to get there were on the beach, and most of the people around them must have been in the Copacabana area, near the hotel. I predict a hot day, and I brought her a worsted tropical wool suit. At noon, I showered, put on a light suit over Wilhelmina, my Luger, and Hugo, a stiletto sheathed on my right arm, and went to lunch at one of my favorite little restaurants, Chale Rua da Matriz 54. This restaurant used to be a colonial home and is still ferret-filled with valuable antiques and paintings. Negro slaves waited tables and tended the bar. She ordered a mixto churasco, which consisted around chunks of beef and pork with vegetables, and declined the usual chop, a great local draft beer, for well, a very good wine-Grande Uniao Cabernet. But I was just starting to eat it when I saw a girl come in and sit down at the next table. She was tall and slender, and a mane of fiery red hair made her milky white skin even paler. Her dazzling green mini dress contrasted sharply with her hair and revealed most of her long, perfect thighs and breathtaking cleavage above her waist. She was wearing green ballet slippers to match her dress, and green bracelets on her left arm.
  
  
  Her red hair confused me for a moment, but then I realized that the last time I saw her, her hair was short and brown. This was in Israel more than a year ago. The girl's name was Erica Nystrom. She was a member of the Israeli intelligence network Shin Bet. Her code name was Flame when we worked together to thwart a Russian plot against the Israeli government, but that name changed with each assignment.
  
  
  He got up and walked over to her desk. When she lifted her long lashes to meet my gaze, a smile spread across her face. "Ow!" she exclaimed. "It's you. What a pleasant surprise." She spoke English without the slightest accent.
  
  
  Erika's parents were Scandinavian Jews. Her family first lived in Oslo and then Copenhagen before emigrating to Israel when she was just eight years old.
  
  
  "I was going to say the same thing," I said. Erica and I spent an intimate evening in Tel Aviv, waiting for the courier to arrive; it was an evening we both really enjoyed. Her eyes told me now that she remembered it fondly. "Will you join me at my table?"
  
  
  "Well, someone will join me later, Nick. Do you mind?"
  
  
  "Not that I don't want to talk to you," I said.
  
  
  She joined me at my table and ordered a light lunch for herself, and the third person, who she explained was an agent, said ," You look really good, Nick."
  
  
  "You should have seen me a week ago," I said. "I like red hair, Erica."
  
  
  She flashed me a smile. A long aquiline nose accentuated a wide, sensual mouth. Nah's eyes were dark green, and her dress sparkled. "Thank you," she said. "They're mine, except for the color. It wasn't long when we worked together in Israel."
  
  
  "I remember," I said. "Are you here on business?"
  
  
  "Yes," she said. "And you?"
  
  
  "Yes," I chuckled. "It's always business, isn't it?"
  
  
  "Almost always."
  
  
  He recalled reading in the newspapers recently that Israel was outraged by the murder of Moshe Ben-Canaan and that the ih president had vowed to get to the bottom of it. It was in this murder that American intelligence believed that Adrian Stavros was involved. He couldn't help but wonder if Erica was in Rio to either kidnap Adrian Stavros and take him to Israel, which was Israeli style, or kill ego.
  
  
  I asked her. "Are you going to be in Rio long enough for us to have a drink and talk together?"
  
  
  "Maybe," she said. Her hands moved her cleavage as she made an ih chair, and my blood pressure went up ten points. Her green eyes looked me in the eye and told me that she knew I wasn't talking about wine and conversation.
  
  
  He picked up his glass. She ordered and now the same Grande Uniao Cabernet was served. "For this opportunity," I said.
  
  
  She picked up her glass and clinked it to mine. "To this point."
  
  
  We were just finishing our toast when a young man appeared. I didn't even see him until he was standing next to us. He was a massive, muscular guy with very short blond hair and a hard, square face. Part of the ego of the left ear was missing, but this defect failed the ego of the male appearance. Nen was wearing a beige summer suit that didn't completely hide the bulge under her left arm.
  
  
  "I didn't see you at first, Erica," he said rather harshly.
  
  
  looking at me. "I didn't expect you to be with hema-to."
  
  
  These words were intended as a mild rebuke. They spoke with a pronounced accent. I remembered the picture of the man in the Israeli intelligence file, TOPOR. It was Zachariah Ghraib, the Shin Bet executioner." My theory about ego and Erica's presence in Rio seemed to solidify.
  
  
  "It's an old house, Zach," Erica said. "He worked with me in Israel."
  
  
  Gareb took third place. "I know," he said. "Carter, hers, I guess."
  
  
  "That's right."
  
  
  "Your reputation precedes you."
  
  
  His manner was harsh, almost hostile. I sensed her ego, jealousy that I knew Erica. Before her emu could answer, he turned to her. "Did you order Vichisoise as I suggested?"
  
  
  "Yes, Zach," Erica said, a little embarrassed by her ego's lack of friendliness. "It will be here soon."
  
  
  "Vichisoise is the only thing worth eating in this restaurant," Zach complained too loudly.
  
  
  "I'm sorry for your bad luck," I replied calmly. "I believe that most of the dishes here are well prepared. They may have changed their cooks since your last visit."
  
  
  Zach turned and gave me a tight smile. "Maybe."
  
  
  I decided that from now on, the conversation would be less than pleasant. I finished my meal, so I called the waiter to bring the check. He offered to pay for the entire party, but Zach quickly declined.
  
  
  "Where are you staying?" Erica asked her.
  
  
  "In Corumba on Avenida Rio Branco," she said.
  
  
  Zak stared at Nah.
  
  
  "Under what name?"
  
  
  She hesitated. "Vargas".
  
  
  "Can she call you there?"
  
  
  "You won't have much time for socializing",
  
  
  Hey, Zack said quickly.
  
  
  She ignored the ego and smiled sweetly at me.
  
  
  "Yes, you can call me. I hope we meet again, Nick."
  
  
  Its got up. "Each other's feelings." I put my hand on hers, and our eyes met for a moment. I knew Zach was jealous of her, and since I didn't like him, I played it off to her advantage. He sat there looking at me. "You'll get a call from me."
  
  
  "All right," Erica said.
  
  
  He turned away from them and went out the door. As he left, he could almost feel the embers of Zach's hostility on his back.
  
  
  On the same day, he took the cable car up to the impressive Corcovado Mountain, on top of which was a huge statue of Christ the Redeemer. When he reached the place, he went to the observation parapet, stopped at the designated spot, and Stahl waited. About fifteen minutes later, a man joined me at the railing. He was about my height, but slimmer. Although he was not yet middle-aged, his long face was covered with deep wrinkles. It was Carl Thompson, and he worked for the CIA.
  
  
  "Beautiful view, isn't it?" he said by way of introduction, waving his hand towards the city below, which shone white in the sun and was surrounded by green hills and a cobalt sea.
  
  
  "Breathtaking," I said. "How are you, Thompson?"
  
  
  "For example, the same thing," he said. "It's been pretty quiet here since the last change of administration in Brasilia. How are things in AX these days? For a while, you guys have shot more ammunition than the army in Asia."
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "Sometimes it seems that way. I was busy, and I'm sure you were too."
  
  
  "And now they're putting you on Adrian Stavros."
  
  
  "That's right."I watched as a cruise ship plying the blue & nb with its sleek nose slowly entered the harbor. It looked like a toy boat down there. "When was the last time you saw ego?"
  
  
  He thought for a moment. "We have spot surveillance of the plantation. Five or six weeks ago, he was seen leaving this place. We think he boarded a plane bound for Madrid."
  
  
  "This flight could have continued to Athens."
  
  
  "I guess so. Did you see Ego there?"
  
  
  "We think so. What's going on at the plantation?"
  
  
  "Plantations are the ego of our headquarters. Here in Rio, he has a division called Apex Imports, and we think the smuggling is being done through that company. But he doesn't visit her offices very often, even though her ego name is openly associated with her. The president of the company makes regular trips to Parakata."
  
  
  "Where's the voice in the plantation hall?"
  
  
  Thompson nodded. "He's in a hall near the village, in the middle of nowhere. Ego is guarded by Stavros ' small army of ex-prisoners, political fanatics, and former Nazis. But right now, there's only some power there."
  
  
  I asked her. "Did you notice anything unusual there?"
  
  
  "Well, if you mean a crowd of people or weapons, rheumatism will be negative. But there was a visitor that no one around us had ever seen before. The ferret is with them, just as it appeared with Stavros ninety days ago, and we've been watching it almost constantly. and no one saw him leave this place. This is not unusual, except that one of my two men insists that the new guy, a middle-aged man, is in the courtroom there in custody. Egos were moved around one building to another with armed guards."
  
  
  "What did this person look like?"
  
  
  Thompson shrugged. "We have an ego photo, but this is from afar. He was in his late fifties, I'd say, with short dark hair that had turned a little gray at the temples. He's a stocky man who always wears silk shirts."
  
  
  It looks like it could be Minourkos, the Greek shipping magnate whose apps recently rocked Athens and whose penthouse was seen holding Adrian Stavros.
  
  
  "Can I get her a copy of the photo?"
  
  
  "It can be arranged," Thompson said. "Look, Carter, for example, last week we had to temporarily reduce the surveillance of the plantation to random checks, and I may have to completely withdraw our people from there in the next couple of days, because there is another problem that has already occurred for us. Do you want her to get permission to send the person back with you? "
  
  
  "No, I told her. "Hawk promised me help if I needed it. When can I get her picture?"
  
  
  "How about tonight?"
  
  
  "All right."
  
  
  "We're using a slightly different transfer location," Thompson said. "This is a city bus. You go to your hotel. My man will be there by now. You will go to the back of the bus, where no one goes, and take the last seat on the right. The photo will be attached under this seat. . The bus will be marked Estrada de Ferro and will take you to the center if you want to go that far ."
  
  
  "When does the bus pass mimmo hotel?"
  
  
  "Seven-fifteen. The bus will be numbered eleven."
  
  
  "All right," I said. "And thank you."
  
  
  "Anytime," Thompson said. A moment later, he was gone.
  
  
  Licks, in the evening it briefly went to the office of the company Apex Import. It was located in one of the old restored government buildings that were emptied when the capital moved to Brasilia. The offices were three flights up, and the elevator wasn't working.
  
  
  Her, entered a rather small reception area upstairs. The climb brought sweat to my brow, because the building's air conditioning didn't seem to work any better than the elevator, and it was a muggy day in Rio. The dark-haired girl sat down on a metal chair and looked at me suspiciously when I entered.
  
  
  "Is there anything I can do for you?" "What is it?" she asked in Portuguese.
  
  
  I answered her in English. "The gentleman Stavros would like to see her."
  
  
  Her dark eyes narrowed even more. When she spoke again, it was in broken English. "I think you've come to the wrong place, senor."
  
  
  I told her. "But Mr. Stavros himself told me that I can contact him through Apex Imports."
  
  
  "Senor, the gentleman Stavros doesn't have, here in the office..."
  
  
  The door to the private office opened and a burly, dark-haired man appeared. He asked. "Are there any difficulties?" The ego tone wasn't exactly friendly.
  
  
  "I just wanted to, Mr. Stavros," I said.
  
  
  "For what purpose?"
  
  
  Her rudeness was ignored. "Mr. Stavros advised me to buy Japanese cameras in bulk from him if I contact him here." He looked puzzled. "I'm in the wrong office?"
  
  
  "Mr. Stavros is the chairman of the board of directors," the dark man said, " but he doesn't have an office here, and he doesn't run the company's business. It will continue to be the president; you can deal with me."
  
  
  "This is Senor Carlos Ubeda,"the girl said, a little proudly.
  
  
  "Nice to meet you, sir," I said, extending my hand. He took it hard. "My name is Johnson. A few weeks ago, she was accidentally met by Mr. Stavros at the Chale restaurant. He said that he would be back through trips to Europe around this time, and that I could contact him here."
  
  
  "He's still in Athens," the girl said.
  
  
  Ubeda gave Nach a piercing look. "As I said, Mr. Stavros cannot be contacted here. But I will be happy to forward your order."
  
  
  "I see. Well, she was really interested in dealing with him personally. Can you tell me when he can return around Athens?"
  
  
  A muscle twitched in front of Ubeda's ego-mouth. "Egos aren't expected around Europe for weeks, Mr. Johnson. If you want to do business, you'll have to deal with me."
  
  
  He smiled at her. "I'll call you, Mr. Ubeda. Thank you for your time."
  
  
  I left her ih to watch me go. Outside again, he hailed a taxi and returned to his hotel. The girl's remark gave me the necessary confirmation that Adrian Stavros was indeed in Athens, as Salomos had told me. And if this photo turned out to be a picture of Nikkor Minurkos, everything was interesting.
  
  
  He showered and rested for a while, then boarded the number eleven bus following Thompson's instructions. As he had expected, the photograph was pinned to the seat in a small brown envelope. Ego picked her up, went to a small cafe in the city center, and ordered a good Portuguese wine. Only then did this person of hers take the photo around the envelope and examine it.
  
  
  As Thompson had said, the image was not very good, although there was no doubt that a telephoto lens was used. It was a picture of three men who had just left the ranch house and were walking towards a digital camera. The man in the middle was the one Thompson had told me, and despite the small size of the face he was supposed to identify, I didn't have much doubt, since her ego was comparing her to the face I'd been shown in the AX photos, that person was actually Nikkor Minourkos. I've never seen any other men before.
  
  
  The Minurkos strode sullenly between the other two.
  
  
  No one was talking around them, but the man to Minurk's left, a tall, Teutonic-looking man, was looking at Minurk as if he had just spoken to him, waiting for an answer. Minurkos's face was grim and serious.
  
  
  I put the photo back in the envelope and put it in a minute. If the CIA agent's observation was correct, my friend Salomos ' theory was indeed proven. Somehow Stavros had taken over the Minurkos operations in Athens and was plotting a coup on its behalf.
  
  
  After a light meal at her cafe, I called Erika Nystrom's room at the Corumba Hotel. Her voice was friendly and warm. She said that she would spend the rest of the evening alone, alone, and that she would be happy if I would visit her. He and Zach had a bit of a fight, and he went to a nightclub in a rage.
  
  
  After setting up a date at nine, he went back to the hotel and called Hawk. He answered in a tired voice and activated the scrambler on his end of the line so we could talk without entering everything in code.
  
  
  "What a bad hour, Nick," he said, a little testily. "That seems to be the only time I hear from you at this time."
  
  
  Her, chuckled. He could imagine him sitting at a special phone in his super-secret apartment, his gray hair tousled, probably wearing a silk tuxedo over his thin body, and the inevitable cigar clenched between his teeth.
  
  
  "At least hers isn't in some girl's bedroom," he said with dubious honesty.
  
  
  "Hmm! The evening isn't over yet, is it? Don't lie to me, my boy. I went through it all myself."
  
  
  Sometimes I thought Hawke had psychic powers that revealed my innermost thoughts to the ego-analytical mind.
  
  
  "No, sir," I said. "The evening isn't over yet. But it was used well by the first part of ego, I think that Minurkos is a prisoner of Stavros plantations, not far from Parakatu. She also knows that Stavros is in the gym in Athens."
  
  
  "Well," Hawk said thoughtfully,"that's interesting."
  
  
  "This is consistent with Salomos' theory."
  
  
  "So you're going to Parakata?" Hawk asked.
  
  
  "Actually. Maybe I can figure it out. Thompson on the CIA says that the plantation is currently poorly guarded. But there are complications."
  
  
  "Yes?"
  
  
  "Here in Rio, the hall is still old. The girl I worked with in Israel on Operation entire hotel, a promised land."
  
  
  "Ah, yes. Nystrom. Why do beautiful women seem to follow you around the outdoor pool?"
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "Don't be jealous, sir. As you noted, you also had days - and nights."
  
  
  There was a sigh from the other end. "Come on, Nick."
  
  
  "Well, sir, it occurs to me that Miss Nystrom might be here in Brazil for the same reason as hers. Or rather, software for the same person. We suspect Stavros of murdering Ben-Canaan, don't we?"
  
  
  A small silence. "Yes, we know. And I'd say you guessed it."
  
  
  "The executioner is with her," I added. "I think they're hunting Stavros. They might not know he's in Athens at the moment. But I don't want us all showing up at the plantation at the same time and ending up shooting, one at the other, by mistake or otherwise you'll ruin the job. My idea is for you to confirm Nystrom's mission with the help of Israeli intelligence. You're still an old friend of her boss, Giroud, and I think he'll agree with you, under different circumstances.
  
  
  Hawk grunted in agreement.
  
  
  "If that's the case, I think we should all be honest and sit down to see if we can help each other. Or at least stay away from the other one."
  
  
  This time the silence was prolonged. "All right, my boy. I'll call Fat and get in touch with you."
  
  
  "Thank you," I said. "I'm not moving until I get a notification."
  
  
  I didn't have to wait long. An hour later, just before I left for Erica's hotel, I got a call from Hawke. He must have pulled the Grease around the trash before dawn in Jerusalem. Giroud's rheumatism response was affirmative, and I was instructed to openly discuss Stavros ' corkscrew with Nystre, who did not answer tasks even though Zach Gareb was with her. Me, if it was a code word that proved that Giroux had ordered ay to discuss his work with me.
  
  
  He arrived at Erica's room a few minutes after nine. She met me at the door in a short relaxing robe that exposed most of her thighs. She was wearing a stifling fragrance and a wide, sensual smile.
  
  
  "I thought you'd never get here," she said, closing the door behind me and locking it.
  
  
  He went into the room and examined it. She was bigger than me, and I wondered if ee shared Zach with her.
  
  
  "Do you want a brandy? I have an unopened bottle and it's the best thing you can buy in Rio."
  
  
  "That sounds good," I said.
  
  
  She poured two drinks. Taking the glass, he let his eyes caress her beautiful face. "You've always been a pretty girl to demand the best."
  
  
  "And I usually understand that," she said. "You?"
  
  
  "You were with me in Tel Aviv," he told her softly and with a smile.
  
  
  Her long lashes fluttered as her eyes avoided mine for a moment. When she looked up again, she was smiling. He reached out and touched her cheek. She took a sip of brandy. I put my hand on hers
  
  
  He looked down at her tiny waist and pulled her to me. The nah smelled sweet and soft.
  
  
  "Remember that night, Nick?" she breathed in my ear. "Do you really remember this as well as her?"
  
  
  "I remember."
  
  
  "That was very good, wasn't it?"
  
  
  "Very much."
  
  
  We put the glasses on the nearest table. He pulled her close and touched his lips to hers. Her tongue slid into my mouth.
  
  
  "God, Nick," she muttered.
  
  
  He ran his hands over her buttocks, feeling the curves that descended to her thighs. Under my touch, her hips began to sway slowly.
  
  
  She gently pushed me away from her and turned off the brylev. Then she began to undress slowly and beautifully. Under the robe, she was wearing only a small pair of bikini bottoms. Her breasts moved impatiently toward me as she took the robe off her shoulders. Her breasts were full, ripe, and milky white. At another moment, a small piece of underwear slipped off her thighs and thighs and fell in a thin pile to the floor.
  
  
  Erica looked at me openly, letting her gaze travel over my naked body in the dim light of the room.
  
  
  "Beautiful," she purred. "So many hard muscles."
  
  
  He drew her to him, feeling her nakedness against mine. She ran her hand over my chest and shoulders, moving down my body. She stroked me, caressed me, made love to me with her hands as my fingers explored her. Her thighs parted at my touch, and she moaned.
  
  
  There was a soft, thick carpet under us. Erica knelt down on nen, letting her hands slide over my body as she descended. She knew all the ways to arouse a man, and had no doubts about using them. After a moment, he slid down beside her, and roughly pushed her back against the thick shag carpet. He knelt over her, running his hands over her breasts. She gasped. My long thighs were wrapped around me. He ran his hand down the silky inside of her thigh.
  
  
  "Oh, yes," she purred. Her mouth was slightly open, and her beautiful green eyes were closed.
  
  
  When hers entered nah, the full mouth widened for a moment, and a slight shiver went through her body. Then she began to move with me, her fingers gripping my shoulders, her hips closing around my waist. I'm not sure how long we stayed locked up together before it ended for both of us.
  
  
  Then I lay with her for a long time, I don't want to move. The warm relaxation gradually penetrated the outermost fibers of my flesh and the innermost depths of my soul.
  
  
  Later, we got dressed, played this game on a small sofa, and finished our cognac. Erica had combed her long red hair, and it looked as fresh as when he entered the room.
  
  
  "I'm glad Zach didn't knock on the door," she said.
  
  
  "He seems very jealous, Erica. Were you close?"
  
  
  She looked at me. "One day. Ego is the idea, not mine. And he was very inept. I told emu that there would never be anything physical between us again. He resents it. She didn't want him to be part of this dell, but I was rejected. He's very good with guns."
  
  
  "He'll have to be on this mission, won't he?"
  
  
  She looked at me thoughtfully. "Yes."
  
  
  "Erica, I guessed why you were in Brazil. We seem to be chasing the same person. My boss contacted yours and he confirmed my thoughts. We will discuss these individual tasks and collaborate with each other if it seems feasible ."
  
  
  The green eyes narrowed a little. "Giroud wasn't in touch with me and Zach."
  
  
  "You will receive a telegram in the next few hours. In the meantime, let me know if there's a code word that should allow you to trust me. The words are Goliath."
  
  
  She looked surprised. "That's the right word!"
  
  
  "Giroud sent this."
  
  
  She poured herself another brandy. "All right, Nick. But I'll wait for her telegram, which will tell me exactly how happy she is with you." She smiled and kissed me on the cheek.
  
  
  I expected her to be careful. She was a good agent. "It's all right. I'll just tell you a few of my ideas. You don't need to talk at all."
  
  
  "That's fair."
  
  
  "We're both looking for pictures of Stavros, but for different reasons." Her face was expressionless. She didn't give anything away. "You want Poe's ego to kill Ben-Canaan. It is not yet clear to us why it is needed, but it may be related to Greek politics and the abduction of Nikkor Minourkos."
  
  
  "A Greek shipping magnate?"
  
  
  "Actually. It can be in Parakatu, and the ego is being held against the ego's will. Stavros is in the gym in Athens, so you'll either have to wait for the ego to return or go to Europe to get it. But I think the way to it is through everything we can learn on Parakatu, I need to talk to the Minurkos.
  
  
  "If you're interested, I'll take you two to the Paracatta with me. This may increase your chances of getting there. Talk it over with Zach and let me know tomorrow when you get the telegram."
  
  
  "If we were really after Stavros," Erika said , " wouldn't it be better if we went straight to Athens?"
  
  
  "Stavros is believed to be making his temporary headquarters there, in the Minurkos penthouse, which is a real fortress. You can't just storm this place, you and Zack. And on the rare occasions when it leaves this place it can be just as difficult,
  
  
  but the Minurkos can tell us how to get to Stavros."
  
  
  She paused suddenly, considering my suggestion. When she looked at me, a small smile appeared on her full lips. "I'll get back to you tomorrow morning, Nick dear."
  
  
  He leaned down and touched his lips to hers. "You will do it." He stood up, reached for his weapon, and put it on. Then he threw his jacket over them. "And keep Zach on a short chain, okay?"
  
  
  Hey liked that. She was still laughing as she walked around the room.
  
  
  The fourth chapter.
  
  
  I thought about Adrian Stavros as I left Erica's hotel. It was already late in the evening, and there was no taxi in sight. She was carefully guided along Rio Branco Avenue. Getting into Stavros ' headquarters on Parakata, even with ego-reduced security, can be quite difficult. Stavros ' small group had a bad reputation. He gathered the dregs of society around him in a Parakata. In fact, they were similar to himself, but without the ego of leadership abilities. Thinking back, I decided that Adolf Hitler must have started out in much the same way. In 1930s Germany, there should be few people who took an ex-lance-corporal seriously. This example was a lesson to be learned, but the world never seemed to master it.
  
  
  He walked a few blocks without noticing a taxi. It was part of the area of shops and offices on the street. When I turned into an alley to head back to my hotel, momentarily abandoning transport, I had a surprise in store for me. In the third window, a dark figure stepped out of the shadows and waved a fist at me. There was a knife in his fist.
  
  
  When the attack began, he was almost past the entrance. If he had waited a second longer, Ego wouldn't have seen her at all, the attack would have been successful, and the knife would have sunk into my back. But in his eagerness to get the job done, he was moving too fast, and her peripheral vision caught the movement.
  
  
  As the knife caught me in the back, I whirled around and threw my left arm out to block the blow, which I managed, but the blade cut through the fabric of my doublet and shirt, and just barely sliced my forearm. I let the weight of a man carry my ego to me. Then he turned around, holding ego in his hands, and slammed his ego against the building next to us.
  
  
  For a moment, I thought it was Zach, ego, jealousy taking over, because the man was stocky and strong. But when I got a better look, I saw that he was bigger than Zach and had dark hair. He looked Brazilian and was a real thug.
  
  
  I reached for Wilhelmina with my free hand, but my attacker wasn't going to let me have that advantage. He stabbed him again, sharply, this time aiming for my face. I dodged and partially deflected the blade, but it cut my ear. He raised the weapon a third time and hit me with his weight.
  
  
  The ego impulse was too strong. He knocked me off my feet and we hit the sidewalk together. Her ego hit him briefly on the jaw with its right hand, but he didn't even seem to notice. We rolled over once when he was trying to protect himself from a stabbing knife. She was forced to take out Hugo, my stiletto, but he couldn't free his hand and Nam's for a moment to let the knife slide into my palm.
  
  
  For a short time, the big man was with me. He swore in Portuguese and laughed and hit me in the chest. The knife wasn't long, the blade was quite wide, but the blade was sharpened to razor sharpness. It glowed dimly in the night as ego grabbed her knife hand at the last moment before the blade reached my chest. Our hands trembled for a moment as he tried to drive the blade all the way in. He released her right hand and blindly grabbed her ego face, felt her ego eyes and dug into them with his index and middle fingers. With his middle finger, he pierced her left eyeball, and with his index finger, he pierced her right. My eyeball popped and my thumb got wet.
  
  
  "Ahhh!" The assailant shouted, clutching his eyes with his free hand and forgetting about the knife in the other. He screamed again and partially fell off me.
  
  
  During this brief rest, Hugo finally slid into my right hand. She had just been caught doing this when the big man screamed wildly and raised the knife again to blindly stab them. A stiletto inserted it under the ego's raised arm, and the blade sank into the ego's side just below the ego's ribcage and went all the way down to both ends.
  
  
  Then I saw that the attacker's remaining eye was looking over my head into the darkness, and at that moment I clearly saw the gray wetness on his right cheek crushed under the eye. The stiletto extended at her sides, and he fell heavily on top of me, his own knife clattering on the sidewalk.
  
  
  He pushed her body away and stood up. After a quick glance around, however, he saw that there were no pedestrians nearby to see what had happened. He rummaged through the man's pockets and found some documents in his wallet. One of the cards indicated that he was an employee of Apex Imports.
  
  
  It seems that she was more impressed with the man named Ubeda than I thought. Or maybe he called Stavros in Athens, and Stavros denied ever hearing about me. Ubeda probably thought I was some kind of cop who was meddling in the Apex Imports business. Or the CIA guy who got too curious. Hema wouldn't have convinced me, but he was obviously following me and knew where she was staying. It was in my best interest to go to Parakata as soon as possible.
  
  
  He left her the dead Brazilian and quickly returned to his hotel. There were no further incidents that night, and the morning came without incident.
  
  
  Erica Nystrom, Zach, and her met at nine in the morning. in a small cafe on Avenida Presidente Vargas, overlooking the hills behind downtown Rio and the colorful favela huts on the hillside above the city. Zach had guessed my closeness to Erica and was unhappy at the prospect of working with me for even a short period of time. He was even more hostile than before. Erica received a coded telegram around Jerusalem telling Hey and Zach to cooperate with me in any way necessary for the success of our common goal to stop Adrian Stavros.
  
  
  "If you need information from the Minurkos, go to Parakata," Zak told me firmly, his blue eyes flashing with anger. The ego coffee on the table in front of him remained untouched. "Our goal in Russia is to find Stavros and destroy ego. Obviously, we won't find the ego in the Paracat."
  
  
  Ego's hard eyes bored into mine. I turned with it to Erica. She was clearly upset by his behavior. "What do you say, Erica?"
  
  
  "I already told Zach. I think your approach suits not only you, but also us."
  
  
  Zak hissed at nah. "Your brain is clouded by sex!" "This man is obviously your lover. Everything he says seems reasonable to you."
  
  
  "Please, Zach," Erica said sharply.
  
  
  "Oh, my God," I muttered, shaking my head. "Look, I don't need any sophisticated love affairs getting in the way. Maybe I was wrong about us working together. I can get help from Hawke just by asking. Or maybe the CIA. But I won't go into surgery to get tangled up with some lighthearted action hero who can't keep his personal feelings under control."
  
  
  Zack's face suddenly turned red and he jumped up from his chair. "Listen, Carter ..."
  
  
  "Sit down!" Erica ordered in a low but commanding tone.
  
  
  Zak gave Nah a stern look, then sat back down. He grunted under his breath, but avoided my eyes.
  
  
  "If there's another prank like this, we'll have to talk," Erica said. "Do you understand, Zach?"
  
  
  He hesitated. When he spoke, he said a word. "Yes."
  
  
  "There's nothing going on between us, Zach. Are you listening to me?"
  
  
  He stared at nah. "Of course."
  
  
  "There is nothing between us and never will be. So anything that happens between Nick and me has nothing to do with you. If we want to work together, you have to understand that."
  
  
  He seemed to relax a little. He looked at me, and then at Erica. Ego's fists clenched on the table. "If you say so."
  
  
  "I really do say that. Now I'm going to Parakata. If you think such a plan is unwise, I will try to spare you this task."
  
  
  He looked at Nah, and her face changed and softened. "You know, he wouldn't have let you go without me." Ego's eyes met mine again. "It seems that you and Carter are running the show. If you leave, I'll leave."
  
  
  I asked her. "And can we postpone the courtship competition until it's over?"
  
  
  "You heard her," Zach said grimly. "No competition." He looked down at his coffee cup.
  
  
  "I'm sorry, Zach," Erica said.
  
  
  He hunched over. "When are we going to Parakata?"
  
  
  Ego studied her for a moment. Maybe it will work out after all. "The sooner the better."
  
  
  "I know where to rent a car," Erica said. "We can take the Brasilia road, which takes us most of the way through the Tijuca Forest."
  
  
  "Actually," I said. "If we can get the car today, I suggest we leave tonight. It would be better to drive at night through a hot sticky jungle."
  
  
  "I'm fine with that," Zach said.
  
  
  "Then that's settled," Erica added. "Zach, can you help me choose a reliable car?"
  
  
  He glanced at nah. A slight grin appeared on his face. "From what I've read about Carter, he's a car expert. Why don't we all go?" He looked at me questioningly.
  
  
  Her ego held her gaze for a moment. Yes, he could do it. "I'll call us to get ready," I said.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  We left that night. On my recommendation, Zach chose a black BMW 3.0 CS sedan for the trip. Ego's handling characteristics were excellent, and it had a gearbox that was a pleasure to work with. Zach drove until almost midnight, and then hers took the driver's seat. The road can't be considered good, even though it was a highway to Brasilia and the hinterlands. Maintenance was generally poor, and in some places the impenetrable jungle seemed ready to recapture the narrow strip cut into the ih stack dollar.
  
  
  Part of the day we rested, preparing for the trip, but the monotony of the trip did not allow
  
  
  to relax. We drove all night and slept twice the next day at the hottest time: once in the car, sitting down, which was difficult because of the mosquito and heat, and again in a dirty hotel in a small village. That night we drove again for a long time, and the next morning we arrived at Paracata.
  
  
  It was a large village with a population of several thousand, with a town square and numerous cantinas. We didn't stop there because we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves. It would make sense if Stavros ' men were having fun visiting the village, and one through them might be suspicious of white strangers.
  
  
  The road to the plantation, if it could be called a road, was five miles from Parakatu. It was a dirt road with deep ruts that cut almost imperceptibly into the jungle at a ninety-degree angle to the highway. The car was moving slowly with Zach at the wheel. The branches around the undergrowth scratched, pulled us into the car, and stabbed us through the windows. Because we had to drive slowly, mosquitoes swarmed the car and bit us in any open area. Thompson on the CIA told me that the plantations in the hall are almost ten miles from the road. We were going to drive about halfway, and it took almost an hour to get that far. Fortunately, we didn't see any cars leaving, because at that moment we didn't see any open collisions.
  
  
  For example, six miles off the highway, we found a place where you could turn the BMW off the narrow road and into the undergrowth, so it was pretty well hidden. As soon as we got out, we were attacked by insects. We sprayed repellent and set off.
  
  
  There was a tall eucalyptus tree about half a mile from Lea Stavros ' ranch-style mansion. The tree stood around the perimeter of the cleared land, next to a high wire fence, in what appeared to have once been part of the territory, but with them the ferret was taken over by the jungle. For some time, the tree was used by the CIA as an observation post. It was to this tree that Erica and Zaka led her as we walked through the wet, sticky heat. We were traveling at about the same speed as the car, and arrived there in less than an hour. At the top of the tree, hidden from view from the plantations, was a bamboo platform attached to the branches with pandan threads. Bamboo steps were attached to the trunk and branches in various places to make climbing easier.
  
  
  "Are we going there?" Erica asked.
  
  
  She was hit by a mosquito. "If it's any consolation, there probably won't be any such mistakes."
  
  
  "Then let's go up and stay for a week," Zach said. Ego's blond hair was tangled on his forehead, and his khaki shirt, like the rest of our Swedes, was stained with blood.
  
  
  Her, emu chuckled. The whole ego attitude had changed since the ferret Erika had pulled ego down, and he seemed to accept the fact that she wasn't physically attracted to him. He looked down at the Smith & Wesson revolver 38 in the belt holster on his belt, and was glad he'd taken ego with him. Erica was a smart agent, but Zach was muscular. He was a weapons expert and had brought a crate of various weapons with him in the car.
  
  
  We climbed a tree. About halfway to the top, he began to develop a new respect for the CIA agents who had to do this regularly during ih's recent focused surveillance. When we reached the platform, we were exhausted. Erica was still nervous about the climb and the height she was currently at.
  
  
  She gasped. "God, was it worth it?"
  
  
  He grabbed a pair of high-powered binoculars around his neck and looked out at the plantation. Then he pointed it out to her. I asked her, " What do you think?"
  
  
  She looked at what Zach and I had already seen - an open view through the leaves of the farm. From this position, an observer with binoculars could see what was happening somewhere on the plantation. In addition to the main building, which was the ranch, there was a cluster of other buildings around it, mostly in the back, that looked like barracks and outbuildings. It was an impressive game. The fenced area was completely planted with trees and shrubs, there were dirt roads and Parking spaces. Behind the fence was an area that used to be planted with rubber trees when the previous owner lived here, but the ih jungle choked off the sprouts.
  
  
  Erica had binoculars and was looking around the place. She sighed happily. "You were right, Nick. Mosquitoes can't fly that high."
  
  
  "Maybe we were all wrong," Zach said after a while. "With this rifle with a telescopic sight that I have in my car today, I could sit here and kill Stavros' men all day.".
  
  
  I asked her. - "How are you going to get ih all out on the street? "" And by pulling well, how do we keep ih there while we clean up ih?"
  
  
  "Besides," Erica added, " if we attack from outside, they have every chance of getting to Minurkos before we do and killing ego."
  
  
  "It's true," I said. "And if they kill him, we might not know anything here."
  
  
  "It's true that we can't endanger Minurkos," Zak agreed. "But I could use a rifle perfectly well here. What a pity."
  
  
  Her, Zak thought, too eager to kill. It was too much like hunting for him. I was determined to get rid of anyone who really got in my way, but I didn't see the point in killing them unnecessarily. You couldn't try, sentence, and execute every single person just because they worked for Stavros.
  
  
  For the next few hours, until noon, we watched the plantation, taking turns with binoculars. The CIA estimated that the number of militants in this area was about half a dozen, and no more than eight people. After spending those hours on the platform watching people come and go, our own observations confirmed this conclusion. When the confrontation develops, we will be at least two to one.
  
  
  We didn't see the Minurkos until we left the platform. Then the ego presence in place was established. He went out, around the barn building with another man, went to the main entrance of the estate and entered. He had seen her all the time, Ego through binoculars, and when he disappeared inside, he had no doubt that the man who had seen her was Nikkor Minurkos. At least we didn't come here in pursuit of a ghost.
  
  
  Shortly before we descended from the tree again, we had to repeat our entrance plan.
  
  
  "So," I said, "we'll go back to the car and drive openly to that place, like we're Stavros' best friends. Let me speak to the man at the gate. We'll say we're in the Brazilian League, and when we get inside, we'll insist on meeting Heinz Gruber, the man responsible for Stavros ' absence. I just hope they don't already know what I look like here on the plantation."
  
  
  Erica opened her shoulder bag and pulled out a small, snub-nosed Belgian .25-caliber revolver. It was a beautiful little pistol with a pearl handle and fancy engraving. I knew she could shoot it, because of my past connection with her. She checks her ego and puts it back in her purse.
  
  
  "Everything will be fine," she said.
  
  
  Zach really wants to go, too. "We will deal with them," he said.
  
  
  "Yes," I agreed. The hotel would like her to be completely sure.
  
  
  The fifth chapter.
  
  
  We drove slowly the last fifty yards to the gate. The man on duty there was already watching our approach. He was dressed in khaki pants, like us, with a folding automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. He took off his ego and prepared us for action, watching us approach.
  
  
  "If we don't pass this guy's mimmo, the ball games are over," he told them. Erica nodded.
  
  
  "Yes," Zach added. Nen, like me, was once again wearing a light jacket to hide her weapons. My weapons were ordinary, but Zack had an incredible assortment. In addition to a .38-caliber revolver, he carried a small Sterling 380 PPL submachine gun in his pocket, and also hid a throwing knife and a garrote in his possession. He was a walking arsenal. Her, hoping that it would help him was survive.
  
  
  We stopped just ten feet away from the guard. He was driving, so he spoke loudly and decisively to him in English. "Hello there!"
  
  
  The guard came to my window. He was a vicious young man with a heavy scar on his left jaw. He didn't return my smile.
  
  
  "What do you want here?" "What is it?" he demanded, peering suspiciously into the car. "You're trespassing on private property."
  
  
  I told her. "Hey, really!" "We are friends of Adrian Stavros."
  
  
  He studied my face carefully. "I haven't seen you before. Who are you?"
  
  
  Gave emu our made-up names. "We're on Rio," he told her casually. "Brazilian League". The League was an underworld group in Rio that actively competed with Stavros in its smuggling activities. AX had reason to believe that Stavros had recently tried to merge ih into his own group, and Stavros was directing the whole thing.
  
  
  "If you're still here, what are you doing here?" the guard asked.
  
  
  "Stavros invited us," I said. "And because of you, we're delayed, I'll tell Stavros."
  
  
  He looked at me. "Stavros of pure plantations. He's on a business trip."
  
  
  "He said it could be. He told us to see Heinz Gruber."
  
  
  My knowledge of Lieutenant Stavros ' name makes an impression on this man. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Okay, wait here."
  
  
  He went back to the gate, and we watched his every move. Under a small awning, he picked up what looked like an army radio from a wooden chair. He talked to it for a couple of minutes, listened, and then put the ego back, and went back to the car.
  
  
  "You can enter. Drive up to the spot candid in front of the house and park. You will be met outside."
  
  
  "Very good," I said.
  
  
  The guard opened the wire gate. He stared at the gun under his arm for a long moment. This, probably, will still have to be reckoned with. He waved me through the gate and took the car.
  
  
  "Let's go," he said to Erica and Zach.
  
  
  We drove through the gate and it closed behind us. Zak grinned as he watched the gate close.
  
  
  I was driving along a dirt road towards the complex. It was a beautiful place: arches, red flowers and bougainvilleas. It stopped in front of a huge adobe house and we got out, circling the car as the four men got out. We put the car between us and the guard at the gate.
  
  
  The men who confronted us were a bit rough. The three around them, the ones who got out first, were dressed in khaki pants, and each had a gun on his hip. Around them, Odin was a stocky, dark-skinned man who looked like a Brazilian. The second was a tall, thin guy with the appearance of a young John Carradine, and the third looked like an American hippie with long hair and a beard. I didn't like his face. The fourth man was wearing an unbuttoned white shirt and tailored trousers. He was a tall, well-built man with graying hair and a square, hard face. He was supposed to be the former Nazi Gruber.
  
  
  The three subordinates fanned out, so they surrounded us pretty well. I was glad that we had put the car between us and the guard at the gate, who was about thirty yards away.
  
  
  "Herr Gruber? Her, nodded towards the man in the white shirt.
  
  
  "Actually," he said proudly, with a thick accent. He wore a Luger pistol like mine in a belt holster. "And what is this meeting with Adrian Stavros?"
  
  
  Zack and long-hair were assessing the other other. The stocky Stavros man seemed eager to draw the pistol at his hip, and the tall, slender guy couldn't take his eyes off Erica.
  
  
  "He invited us here," I said casually. "We offered emu a batch of undiluted heroin. A couple of our dealers are in trouble and they can't handle it. Surely he told you that?"
  
  
  Gruber studied me for a moment. "No," he said. "You are an American. I didn't know the Americans were working for the League."
  
  
  "Live and learn," emu told her.
  
  
  "Who are you?" He asked Erica.
  
  
  "Jewish," she said flatly.
  
  
  Ego's eyes narrowed and he smiled sharply. "Very interesting," he said, looking from Erica to Zach. "Well, maybe we can negotiate. We'll get out of the sun, right?"
  
  
  "That sounds like a good idea," I said. I was hoping to somehow separate Gruber from the others once we were inside.
  
  
  But that wasn't the case. Suddenly, a fifth man came out of the house; our eyes met, and we recognized each other immediately. It was a conversation about the Apex Imports office.
  
  
  "What's going on here?" "What is it?" he asked Gruber. "This is the man who prowled the city. He sent a man after her, but he didn't come back."
  
  
  Gruber's eyes narrowed as the long-haired man carefully pulled out the revolver. Ah, well, Gruber told himself. Ego's eyes darted from my face to Erica's and Zach's tense ones, and then back to me. "Who are you really, Della?"
  
  
  Her gaze shifted from Ubeda to Gruber. The rest of the militants have not yet drawn their weapons. "I'm the one who called himself Hema. Just like the rest of us. Now do you want to deal or not?"
  
  
  "Why did he come to Apex posing as a legitimate importer?" asked Ubeda. "He still says he wants Japanese cameras?"
  
  
  "No," Gruber said slowly. "Not really. You can go inside, Mr...."
  
  
  "Johnson," I said.
  
  
  "Mr. Johnson. But first we need to check if you're armed."
  
  
  Out of the corner of her eye, I could see the hard look Zach gave me. He wasn't going to let these people disarm him, and he was the same person. If they had succeeded, none of us would probably have ever left this place alive. I gave Zack a look that he hoped told Em I was with him.
  
  
  "Very well, Herr Gruber," I said. I started reaching for Wilhelmina, my 9mm luger.
  
  
  Gruber said, stopping me. "I'll take this, Mr. Johnson."
  
  
  That's exactly how he hoped he would do it. As soon as he reached into my jacket, he grabbed her ego and firmly grabbed her by the neck under the ego's chin. The long-haired man aimed at my head, and Zach pulled out his .38-caliber pistol. The long-haired man shifted the scope from me to Zack and fired just as Zack crouched down; Gawk flew away from the BMW behind us. Zack's gun responded with a sharp roar and hit the Long-haired man squarely in the chest, knocking ego back against the stucco pillar that now supported the archway at the entrance to the building. He opened his mouth wide for a short time and died before falling to the ground.
  
  
  Then a lot of things happened simultaneously or in quick succession. I yelled at Zach not to shoot, but it was too late. He set everything in a frenzy of motion. The stocky man and the tall man both grabbed their guns, as did Erica. Ubeda turned and ran for the house, and Zak fired and hit the emu in the spine. Ubeda screamed and fell face first into the dust.
  
  
  "Hold on, or I'll kill her Gruber," he threatened the other gunmen. Hugo had let it slide like a stiletto into my hand, and now he was holding it firmly against Gruber's throat. I heard a loud, agitated shout from the gate guard behind me.
  
  
  The tall, lean man stopped reaching, but the stocky man had already drawn his revolver and was making Zack shoot. Erica knelt beside the sedan and pulled a snub-nosed revolver from around her purse. The stocky gunman fired and hit Zack in the chest. Zach spun around and hit the back fender of the car hard again.
  
  
  Erica took aim and fired at the Belgian pistol, and the stocky gunman grabbed his arm and screamed. Ego revolver hit the ground twice as he fell sideways on his shoulder and fell to the ground.
  
  
  Gruber gained confidence from all this and, while my attention was distracted, grabbed my knife hand and managed to pry it away from his throat. With the same movement, he hit my left leg and kicked my shin and shin. Her voice growled, and my power weakened. Then he slid out of my ruse, turning his knife hand as he went. Hugo eluded me as we both fell to the ground next to the car.
  
  
  Seeing all this, the tall man hit the ground and drew his weapon. Erica fired at him, but the shot missed. He returned fire and scratched the metal on the car next to her shoulder. I saw her when she was in trouble. She was hit by Gruber, who fell on his back farther away from me. Grabbing the stiletto in the mud behind us, I threw her ego from behind her arm towards the tall man as he aimed at Erica again. The stiletto slammed into his ego's chest, slamming into it almost silently. Ego's eyes widened, and the gun went off, splattering mud between us. He fell, clutching the hilt of his knife.
  
  
  I could hear the gate opening behind us as Gruber's hands scraped my face. She was hit hard by his ego again, and heard the bones crunch in his ego jaw. My other fist slammed into his ego's face and broke the emu's nose. He fell unconscious beneath me.
  
  
  Zack's faint voice reached us. "Watch out!"Her, turned around and saw that the shot didn't kill him. He struggled to his feet and stared at the gate.
  
  
  "Come down!" I told her this to Erica, who was already sitting very close to me next to a black sedan.
  
  
  The guard pointed a machine gun in our direction. Zak stood up and aimed his weapon at the man, but the guard shot him down. A burst of fire thundered at Ego's automatic rifle, digging up the ground for Zack, then hitting the emu in the chest before they started flying off the metal of the car. Erica and I didn't move when Zach hit the dust on his back, dead.
  
  
  He rolled twice into the car's thread to get under the front bumper, pulling out his Luger as he went. When I got there, the guard was just starting to shoot the other side of the gun. He fired three quick shots at him, holding the gun in his other hand. The Luger bullets hit the fence behind him, then the guard's groin and chest in that order. An automatic rifle shot into the cobalt sky as he fell into the dust. Then, all of a sudden, the area fell silent.
  
  
  He lay there, catching his breath. Somewhere in the jungle, a bird screeched indignantly at our noise. It was covered in dust and dirt. He slowly got up and helped Erica to her feet. She stared at Zach in disbelief, her face white.
  
  
  I turned to Gruber and saw him approaching. I leaned over and hit his ego a few times, and he looked at me drunkenly. He groaned. The emu's Luger stuck her in the face. "How many men in the house are guarding the Minurkos?" I demanded of her.
  
  
  He tried to speak, but the emu was having trouble with the dislocated jaw. "I ... don't ..."
  
  
  An emu luger tucked him under the chin. "How much?"
  
  
  He weakly held up two fingers. He turned to Erica. "Stay here and watch him."
  
  
  She nodded numbly.
  
  
  Her, went to the entrance of the house. The wide arched door was open. He entered the large lobby just in time to bump into a dark-faced man with a submachine gun in his hand. Her shot went off on her luger, and it went down with a roar in the hall. The man hit the wall next to him. Then it fell in a bulky heap on a small chair and now includes ego as well, hitting the floor.
  
  
  The man left, circling the long hallway to my left. I walked down the hall quickly, but cautiously. I couldn't put off looking for Minurkos, otherwise he would probably have been dead when I finally did. Maybe they've already killed him.
  
  
  All of the hallways, which I guessed were bedrooms, were open except for one at the end. I heard a soft sound inside as I stopped in front of him. Taking a deep breath, he stepped back and savagely kicked the door. It slammed in, and he went through.
  
  
  A very thin and ugly man stood over the Minurkos, who was tied to a straight-backed chair, and pointed a gun at the emu's head. With his finger on the trigger, he turned to face me as the door opened with a bang. He fired first, but fiercely, and the gawk gnawed through the wood in the door frame next to me. She was shot by a luger and hit the emu in the chest. He jerked and fell to the floor. But he didn't drop the gun. He aimed at me again. This time, ego beat her to it and shot the emu in the face, gawking and punching the emu in the head.
  
  
  Minurk stared at his dead captor in disbelief as Ei holstered his luger . He looked at me slowly.
  
  
  I asked her. "Nikkor Minurkos?"
  
  
  "Yes," he said softly. "Who are you..."
  
  
  "We have come to release you, Mr. Minourkos," I said.
  
  
  He drew in a ragged breath. "Thank God. He was going to..."
  
  
  "I know." Hers untied him, and he rose from his chair, rubbing his wrists.
  
  
  "Are you really all right?" I asked her worriedly.
  
  
  "Yes, I'll be fine." He shook his head and muttered something in Greek. "I can't believe it's really a thread."
  
  
  "Well, mostly."
  
  
  She started asking ego to tell her story when he heard a gunshot from the territory. I remembered Erika and the German. Then he turned and ran down the hall.
  
  
  After a moment, she answered me. "I'm fine." Before I could move into the front foyer, she suddenly came around the corner and came up to me, stuffing a Belgian revolver into her purse.
  
  
  I asked her, " What the hell happened?"
  
  
  "Gruber met an untimely end." Her eyes avoided mine.
  
  
  "Did you shoot him?" I asked her.
  
  
  "He started mumbling with his dislocated jaw. When I asked him what he was saying, he called me a dirty Jew and said I should have been with the others he saw who died in Dachau. They didn't think Jews should be allowed to live in this world with people like him. That is why her ego is turning to another world. I hope it's warm enough for him there ."
  
  
  Finally, the green eyes met mine defiantly, making me think . He remembered that her parents ' relatives were executed by the Nazis in Buchenwald. For some reason, I couldn't think of anything to say in Heinz Gruber's defense.
  
  
  "Come in and meet Mr. Minourkos," I said.
  
  
  We entered the room and Erica stared at the corpse on the floor. The Minurkos was leaning against a nearby wall. He straightened up when he saw Erica.
  
  
  "Miss Erica Nystrom," ih introduced her. "Israeli intelligence".
  
  
  The Minurkos ' eyes narrowed. He looked at me. "And you?"
  
  
  "My name is Carter. Nick Carter. I work for the U.S. government in the same capacity as Ms. Nystrom. We have come here to free you and capture Adrian Stavros."
  
  
  The Minurkos stepped away from the wall. "I see. Well, Mr. Carter, the first thing I want as a free man is to get in touch with the authorities." Stahl's ego tone is similar to that of a business magnate talking to his employees. "Then I'll deal with Adrian Stavros on my own."
  
  
  "Mr. Minourkos," I said slowly, " you have absolutely no reason to do anything about it at this stage. All it can end up with is red tape and delay. I'd rather you let us handle this."
  
  
  He seemed annoyed. "How do I know you're the hema you call yourself?"
  
  
  "You know that we risked our lives to free you. We lost a man on this dell, " I said sarcastically. "I think it will give us an advantage in doubt."
  
  
  Ego's face was drawn with sudden weariness. "You're probably right. Please forgive me. I've been through a lot."
  
  
  "As for you taking on Stavros alone, Mr. Minourkos," I continued, " that's pretty impractical. This man has an entire army."
  
  
  The Minurkos raised his eyebrows and blew out his wand, " Okay, okay, Mr. Carter. I'll go with you and this girl. But if I see at some point that your methods are not working, I will have to take the situation into my own hands."
  
  
  Her smile was brief. "That sounds fair," I said. "You were abducted by Stavros around Athens?"
  
  
  Minurkos sat down in the straight-backed chair he'd been sitting in when he'd burst into the room. He sat down on it, facing us.
  
  
  "You won't believe this man is smart," he began slowly. "I don't consider myself innocent, Mr. Carter, but I've never met anyone like Adrian Stavros. Her idea was to build a fleet around computer-controlled underwater oil tankers. Stavros found out about this and wanted to help me with it - or so he told me.
  
  
  "At first, ego didn't even want to see her, but he sent me an email with some very good ideas. In the end, he was invited by ego to his penthouse in Athens. We talked for a long time.
  
  
  "Mr. Minourkos, I remember what he said to me:"I have the same plan as you. If you'll just let me, I'll make you immortal in the annals of shipping history. He was very convincing.
  
  
  "But, Mr. Stavros," I said, " there are complex engineering problems that need to be solved.
  
  
  "I have two engineers who can do this," he told me. Impressed, even then, I saw something else in the man's face, something I didn't like, but I presented it as excessive excitement about the project."
  
  
  I asked her. "He brought the engineers to you?"
  
  
  "Ah, yes. They also had creative ideas. He was convinced that they might have the skills to make all of this happen. It was at this point, Mr. Carter, that she relaxed her guard. He asked for a private meeting in the penthouse. And I agreed to it. Only my personal secretary and one other assistant were present. He brought two people with him that he hadn't seen her before."
  
  
  "When did this happen?" Erica asked.
  
  
  "Well, I didn't suspect her at first," Minurkas said, his face as pale as he remembered. "Then, almost without warning, Stavros asked my assistants to go to another room. He was followed by one of Stavros ' men. There were two shots fired." Minurkas fell silent.
  
  
  "He killed ihk here?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Coolly. My ego minions knocked me off my feet and killed me almost to the point of unconsciousness. They took me to that other room and made me look at the bloodied bodies. I'll never forget it.
  
  
  "Salaka, my secretary, was lying in a pool of his own blood. Another guy's face was ripped open. Stavros said I can expect the same if I don't cooperate."
  
  
  "What happened after that?"
  
  
  "The next day, they brought in a man who looked exactly like Salaka Madupas. This man even spoke like a Herring, and repeated all the ego mannerisms. It was incredible, really incredible. It was like a terrible nightmare."
  
  
  "Did they have a person they would give up for you?" Erica asked.
  
  
  "No, it wasn't necessary. I am rarely seen in medical institutions, with the exception of close business partners. Oni they brought a voice recorder and played back some recordings of my voice that they had recorded without my knowledge in previous meetings. Stavros pointed a gun at my head and said he could kill me openly here and no one would know for a very long time. But, according to ego, it would have lived if they hadn't taken out too much trouble. They needed it, he said, for further notes and for writing letters in my own words and thoughts. And they put me on a private jet and took me to this godforsaken place."
  
  
  "Did Stavros tell you what he was going to do?" Erica asked, puzzled.
  
  
  The Minurkos laughed dryly. "He was very open. He said that they intended to overthrow the Greek government on my behalf, that they would call up my friends in the army and in other fields, using a person who posed as my secretary for phone calls and personal contacts. . Since I was a private citizen, no one would find it unusual that I didn't meet them in person. And if someone insists on meeting me, they can take me to Athens, and get me to meet them and tell them exactly what they want.
  
  
  "They showed me another person who could have accurately forged my signature. This man wrote checks to my various accounts and spent my money on a military coup that they were planning to organize."
  
  
  I asked her. "Did he give you any details?"
  
  
  "Mr. Stavros, who I am ashamed to admit is of Greek descent, has spoken freely to me about this, both in Athens and here. He said that the ego plan is divided into three parts. First, he intends to get rid of the ruling junta and put those people in power who feel loyal to me. They will feel this loyalty not because they are friends, as most around them will not be, but because Stavros has promised them power and glory on my behalf ."
  
  
  "Very clever," I said.
  
  
  "Second, the ego plan will involve forcing these new generals and colonels to demand that her, Nikkor Minurkos, be appointed president with full authority over the junta. Stavros indicated that I could be used for this part of the plan, as my personal life would depend on it. I mean, I would have been used if it was clear that Stavros could trust me to keep quiet about what was really going on in Della Street. Otherwise, he would have found another impostor, this time instead of me."
  
  
  "This will also work," Erica commented. "Very few people know your face well enough to notice the slight difference between your facial features and those of an impostor."
  
  
  "Absolutely fantastic," Minourkas said. "It's unbelievable that my desire for privacy contributed to this horror. In any case, the third phase of the plan calls for the constellation of either myself or an impostor as President of Greece for a short time, during which time I will appoint her as Stavros ' vice-president. by then, he, as a citizen, and his name would gradually become known to the people of Greece. Then he would have been the hero of the coup. Then, after announcing poor health, he would have resigned in favor of Stavros as president."
  
  
  The Minurkos fell silent. "It's wild," I said. "What makes Stavros think that the Greeks will stand by and watch this happen?"
  
  
  "Why not?" said Minurkas, a tired look on his face. "Do you remember what happened in April 1967, when the junta was formed? It wasn't a bloody coup, it was just a coup. The king's government was overthrown by force. Many articles of the constitution were suspended by a junta decree. It is paradoxical, isn't it, that such a person appears exactly when the constitution has been restored, and when the junta has become more moderate, and calls general elections for the following year. If Stavros ' plan to seize power succeeds, Greece could become a tyranny more perfect than that of Hitler or Stalin."
  
  
  Erika looked from the Minurkos to me. "Then we have to stop him, don't we?"
  
  
  The Minurkos examined Erika's face carefully. We have to do this!" The fat Greek stood up and stuck out his square chin. "This man is even using my family against my homeland. He brags that my son-in-law, General Vassilis Kriezotou, believes that I am behind this plot, and has supported ego because he thinks I want it. Yes, I will help you in any way I can. What should we do first? "
  
  
  "We're puffing away to Athens," I said. "A vote on where we will stop Stavros."
  
  
  The sixth chapter.
  
  
  In less than forty-eight hours, we arrived in the Greek capital. She was booked into connecting rooms at a small hotel called the Odeon on 42 Piraeus, near Omonia Square. The weather was pleasant and brought a pleasant relief from the heat.
  
  
  Athens ' newspapers were full of commentary on the rapidly changing political scene. There was news in Rhodesia that my other friend Alexis Salomos had been killed, and rumors were spreading. It was common knowledge that an attempt had been made on his life before he left for Rhodesia. One newspaper in particular avoided mentioning Salomos ' death. She also regularly published editorials denouncing the ruling junta's leadership, attacking the top general or colonel on almost every issue. Salomos mentioned to me that this publisher was unscrupulous and was the first to support the hardline junta after the 1967 coup.
  
  
  "It's pretty obvious that the publisher was bought with my money," Minourkos remarked, sitting in a reclining chair in my room on a sunny day the day we arrived. "And look at this headline in another newspaper: MINURCOS EXPOSES THE JUNTA'S COMMUNIST PLANS. Mr. Stavros was engaged in propaganda work."
  
  
  Erika took a cup of thick Greek coffee from the tray that had been brought to us and set it down for Minorkos. He accepted it with a grim face. Erica took the cup herself and sat down next to me on the small sofa.
  
  
  "I just hope no one else has seen you yet, "Minurkosu told her," especially not Odin's ego-smacking people. Your life wouldn't be worth a drachma if Stavros knew you were here in Athens."
  
  
  "He will find out as soon as he contacts Parakatu," Minurkos denied media reports to me.
  
  
  "Yes, but it might not be for a few days if we're lucky. And even then, he won't know for sure that something is wrong without sending someone over to Rio. That someone must be an ego subordinate, because Ubeda is dead . "
  
  
  "What do we do first, Nick?" asked Erica. "We can't just storm the cottage like we did on the plantation. It will be too well protected."
  
  
  "I could call the cottage," suggested Minurkos, " to see how they handle dealing with outsiders. But they will recognize my voice."
  
  
  He handed Em a napkin and a tray. "Raise the tone of your voice and speak through it. Tell them that you want to talk to yourself. When they decline, ask your receptionist, Salaka Madupas. Tell them that you are the editor of a newspaper around Thessaloniki and you want to get a statement about Nikkor Minourkos ' political ambitions."
  
  
  The Minurkos smiled at my plan, then called back. He covered his mouth with a napkin and tried to change his voice. A moment later, he was talking to someone in the penthouse. He asked Nickor Minurkos and then listened to ih's excuse. He asked to speak to Madupas. There were many more negotiations, and he claimed. He then spoke to the man who posed as Madoupas, an Athenian actor whose real name, Stavros Minourkos said, was Yanis Zanni. Minourkos asked questions about himself and waited for simple answers, and then asked if he could set up a date for a personal interview with Mr. Minourkos. Emu refused, and the conversation was over. He hung up and looked at us.
  
  
  "It's like a bad dream, "he said," like I'm actually in the penthouse and Madupas is answering the phone for me, just like he always does. They know my habits well. And Zanni's voice is exactly the same as that of my dead friend Salaka."
  
  
  "Who answered the phone first?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Some young man. He wasn't Greek. Probably Odin around Stavros ' fighters."
  
  
  "It looks like they're well established," Erica said.
  
  
  "Yes, it is," I agreed. "Since all of Athens thinks it's Nikkor Minourkos out there in this penthouse, it's a serious situation. Stavros might even have a police guard there. Or around the ego soldiers of a growing private army."
  
  
  "If I just go to the police or to the junta itself and tell them what happened," Minurk said, " they will have to believe me. Even if they think I've suddenly lost my mind, they'll be required to check my story. Then they'll find out what happened."
  
  
  "It can be dangerous," Erica said.
  
  
  "She's right," I agreed. "At the moment, we don't know how many friends Stavros has made in his own name. In any case, if we just throw it out in the open, we will force Stavros to make a move - possibly a big one. He might just decide to pull off a coup without your name on it. He has a military team at the ready, and around him are many ambitious warlords who don't care who is behind the takeover. And even if he tries shaggy and fails, blood will be spilled. A lot of sl. No, Mr. Minourkos. We're going to sneak up on Stavros. In my country, this is the 1st unit, which we call combat operations. Erika was ordered to execute Stavros, and so I will kill her. If our locality of Russia succeeds, this is exactly what will happen to it. If it fails, the authorities will be much more civilized with it. And God will help you if they can't stop the ego in time ."
  
  
  "All right, Mr. Carter," said the Minurkos. "I place myself in your capable hands. How do we sneak up on Mr. Stavros?"
  
  
  I smiled at Erica, and she answered me. "I think you mentioned that Stavros bragged about using one of your relatives' software to meet you, Amed Krizota, an army general? "
  
  
  "Yes," said the Minurkos. "I must say, he is not a strong person. He married my younger sister before he got rich, and they have a great marriage. But Vasilis would have remained in the army at a lower rank, if not for my connections. He feels indebted to me, rightfully so, for what he has in life. So for him it would be for estestvenno to agree to any plan that her proposed.
  
  
  "Stavros discovered this. He's a solid man, Mr. Carter, a man who shouldn't be taken lightly. He must have made some kind of recording to play Vasilisa over the phone, and then sent a man posing as Salaka Madupas, my secretary. The deceiver must have found out, Vasilisa, that I was counting on him.
  
  
  "Do you know how Stavros might have used the general?"
  
  
  "He hinted that Vasilis would be asked to organize and train a secret squad of soldiers and convince other military personnel to join the plot."
  
  
  Yes, I thought. "Very carefully. Does your brother-in-law live here in Athens?"
  
  
  "He lives here," Minourkos said. "On the outskirts of the city to the north."
  
  
  I asked her to. "Will you take us to him?"
  
  
  "I'll be happy to," the Minurkos replied.
  
  
  I called her a taxi, and in the early evening we drove to General Kriezotu's residence. She was forced by the Minurkosa to put on a hat that didn't cover up some of their egos until we got there. The General's house was a small mansion in an affluent suburb of Athens, with a winding gravel road leading up to the house. He was impressed with what the Minurkos could do for the average person.
  
  
  When the general met us at the door, the Minurkos took off his hat. Krizotu just watched for a very long time. Then he spread his arms wide to embrace the Minurkos.
  
  
  "Nikkor!" he exclaimed, giving Minurk a warm hug. He was a tall, gray-haired man with a kind, de Gaulle-like face and soft eyes. He was dressed in a brown uniform with braid on the shoulders and ribbons pulled down the front.
  
  
  "Agnia mera sas, Vasilis," Minurk said warmly, returning the hug. "Sigha, sigha. It's all right."
  
  
  "It's nice to be here," Vasilis said. "Come on in. Come on in." The ego gesture gripped us all.
  
  
  We entered a large hall with a spiral staircase behind it and urns decorating the walls. The General then led us into the oak-paneled library, with thick carpeting and plenty of soft leather chairs. We were all playing this game, and the general asked if we would like a drink, but we refused. The Minurkos introduced me and Erica only by our last names.
  
  
  "This is a big shock, Nikkor," Kriezotu said. "I would like Anna to be here. She's visiting her cousin in Piraeus."
  
  
  "Perhaps it's better this way, Vasilis," said Minourkos.
  
  
  "No Dhen katalave," Kriezotu said. "Are you all right? You look pale."
  
  
  "I'm fine," the Minurkos replied. "Thank you to these people."
  
  
  The General looked at us. "Nikkor, it was all so strange. You refused to see me when you started yours... Can I speak it freely?"
  
  
  "Yes, weakly," said the Minurkos.
  
  
  "Well, I didn't realize that you were asking for help on such an important mission without a face-to-face meeting. To be honest, I was very upset by all of this. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate..."
  
  
  The Minurkos finished his sentence. "A coup?"
  
  
  Crisotu looked back at us. "Well, yes." He flexed his big joints. "I have given instructions to the people in the special camps in Delphi and Mykonos, and I have convinced Adelmo and others that your new case is fair, but..."
  
  
  "But you don't believe it yourself?"
  
  
  Minurkos asked hopefully.
  
  
  Crisotu lowered his head. "Me sinhori te, Nikkor," he said. "I'm sorry, but I don't think Greece needs another coup. Its done what you asked, but its in the hotel, talk to you about it all, man to man, from the very beginning, many weeks ago."
  
  
  "Don't worry, Vasilis," Minurk said soothingly. "I don't want a coup."
  
  
  For the second time in a short time, Krizotu's face showed shock. He said. "Have you changed your mind?"
  
  
  "Vasilis, I have to explain something to you, and I want you to listen carefully," said Minurkos.
  
  
  Krizotu leaned back in the big chair and listened as the Minurkos told Em the whole story. Krizotu never interrupted him, though several times his large face showed disbelief. When the Minurkos finished, Krizotu just sat there and slowly shook his head. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his brushes, and began running his fingers over ih to calm himself.
  
  
  "Unbelievable!" he finally said.
  
  
  "But it's true," Minourkos said.
  
  
  "General, we are here to stop this man forever, and we need your help. Only you can give us last-minute inside information about Stavros, " I said.
  
  
  Krizotu finally regained his composure. "Of course," he agreed. "I will do my best. I'm so glad Nikkor isn't behind this!
  
  
  "There is a smear campaign going on through one newspaper, most of which is directed against Colonel Anatol Kotsikas. There have even been suggestions that Kotsikas is a traitor and owes his loyalty to Moscow. It is not true. Kotsikas is a liberal, but he is not a communist.
  
  
  He is a driving force behind recent political reforms and a sponsor of the upcoming general elections."
  
  
  "Anyone else?" I asked her.
  
  
  Crisotu sighed. The attacks also targeted people who usually vote with Kotsikas - Colonels Plotarchu and Glavani. In fact, the man who pretends to be your secretary, Nickor, recently came to me with information that all three of the people around these people should be killed."
  
  
  Erica and I exchanged glances. Stavros set about his plans.
  
  
  "Do you know anything specific?" Crisota asked her.
  
  
  "Well, a little. I was asked to arrange a meeting between these three men and you, Nikkor. But then the man she thought was your secretary called. He said they were having a meeting in the penthouse. I think it is. at this meeting, an attempt will be made on the lives of three colonels ."
  
  
  "We need to find out exactly what Stavros has planned and when," I said.
  
  
  "Yes," Krizotu agreed. "I was absolutely desperate about it. I couldn't believe you wanted to do this."
  
  
  "Everything will be fine," Minourkos assured ego.
  
  
  Her hotel would agree with him. It turned out that Stavros was on the verge of a bloody coup, and we had to stop him before it happened. "Call junta leader Kotsikas and try to find out if Stavros' people have contacted him, " he told Kriezot. "Don't mention the number of murders just yet."
  
  
  "Very good," Krizotu replied. "Kotsikas can talk to me. I will definitely try it."
  
  
  "And you, Mr. Minurkos," I said, " can also help. You can contact the leaders of the two bases where Stavros ' military groups are located. I suspect that if the Athenians were going to cause Stavros any trouble when this murder is supposed to happen, Stavros will try to get these special forces to Athens very quickly to quell any reaction. Her request would be for you to tell the commanders of these camps to stay there and not move ih troops unless they receive notifications from you personally."
  
  
  "Very good, Mr. Carter," the Minurkos agreed.
  
  
  "It's pretty clear that Stavros can't just kill these people without some tricks." Her, looked at the Void. "Do you think he might try to portray all this as an accident or the activity of some radical political group?"
  
  
  Crisotu raised his graying eyebrows. "Either that, Mr. Carter, or he will try to throw mud at ih in the form of propaganda by being outspoken before killing ih, so that they will lose the sympathy of the people."
  
  
  The seventh chapter.
  
  
  The three of us went back to the hotel. The Minurkos wanted to stay with Kriezotu, but I was afraid it would be too dangerous. If Stavros doesn't trust Kriezot for any reason, he can break into the general's residence without warning. She didn't want him to find the Minurkos there if he did.
  
  
  We sent edu to the Minurkos ' room, and then Erica and I went to her room. We soon began discussing Stavros ' plans.
  
  
  "I just can't sit here and wait to see what Stavros has in mind for the junta leaders," I said as we sat in the small bahar and sipped the brandy Erica had ordered.
  
  
  Erica moved across from me. She kissed me gently on the cheek. "You can't just break into a cottage like you said yourself," she commented. Her long hair glistened in the dim light.
  
  
  "No," I said, putting my hand on her hips. He turned to her, and we kissed. "But I can go to the penthouse and try to get in. Maybe I can take a look at the ih defense."
  
  
  She kissed my cheek and neck, and a light chill, pleasant, ran over my skin.
  
  
  "How would we do that?" She asked in a hoarse voice as her hand started to unbutton my shirt.
  
  
  "We wouldn't do this together," Sl corrected her. The hand was very distracting. "I'll go there alone, in some ruse."
  
  
  A long white thigh slid across my knees, and her dress was pulled up to reveal the rich curve of her buttocks. Her hips moved closer to me. "But I'd like to-go with you."
  
  
  Warm lips brushed mine again. Her tongue slid gently over my mouth, exploring and searching. Her right hand moved a few feet lower and found what was next, and she couldn't think of Adrian Stavros anymore.
  
  
  "I'm going alone," I whispered. "Tomorrow."
  
  
  Her sunset in her dress and stroked her breasts. The smooth curves were soft but firm, pressing hungrily against my touch.
  
  
  "Okay, honey," Erica breathed in my ear.
  
  
  "All right," he told her softly. "No more arguments."
  
  
  "Can I bet her with you?" she said, pressing her lips to mine.
  
  
  It was a long kiss, and Erica was ready. When it was over, she undressed me. I took over, and she got up and walked over to the big double bed across the room. She took off her dress, then her bra and pink bikini bottoms. She was well portrayed and beautiful. Every curve of her body was flawless. She threw herself on the soft bed and lay there, waiting for me. I didn't put it off. At one point, I was next to her on the bed, reaching out, grabbing and touching her body, feeling it melt on me.
  
  
  It was a passion built into both of us.
  
  
  "Ah, Nick," she said, touching me, her breathing ragged.
  
  
  My hands found it roughly, and he moved over it. After a few seconds, beautiful sounds could be heard all around Nah. She became a clawed, angry, primitive woman, losing all control as she tried to accept the satisfaction deep within her.
  
  
  Later, when Erica fell asleep, her got up from her trash can and quietly went to her room. She didn't wake up.
  
  
  The next morning, I left Erika and Minurkos with her at the hotel and headed to the Apollo building. He got his uniform from the local window cleaning crew, who regularly worked in the building and were allowed to enter the penthouse with a pass. Minourkos helped me get a pass, and he also blackened his hair at the hotel and put on a dark moustache to make him look Greek. She was lied to by a security guard outside, a uniformed building employee, saying that Madupas ordered the penthouse windows to be cleaned.
  
  
  He couldn't even get into the special elevator until he introduced himself. The elevator operator was obviously the only one around Stavros ' men. There was a gun under his blue uniform. He eyed me and my buckets suspiciously as we walked up to the penthouse. No other elevator went up there, and according to Minourkos, the web staircase leading down from the top floor was blocked and guarded.
  
  
  After walking around the elevator, he found himself in a swanky corridor that ran from the front to the rear of the building. Nen had thick carpeting, flower pots, and fancy chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. Two security guards were sitting at a table near the entrance to the penthouse. They were Stavros's hired thugs, part of his personal army. The Minurkos ' own security guards, who were few in number, had to be fired shortly after taking over the power of the penthouse.
  
  
  Odin, surrounded by two men, the taller one, met me in the middle of the corridor. He wasn't friendly at all.
  
  
  He demanded an explanation. "What are you doing here?"
  
  
  I answered her in my best Greek. "Isn't my business obvious?" I asked her. "I come to wash the windows."
  
  
  "Who sent you?"
  
  
  He pointed to a cloth patch on the uniform that read the name of a small window cleaning company.
  
  
  "Did your employer have any orders for the penthouse?"
  
  
  "If they hadn't, I wouldn't be here," I said. I took a chance on her. "I heard Madup's name mentioned."
  
  
  The other man frowned darkly from behind his chair. He had blond hair and a very stern look, and he decided that he was one of the men Stavros had brought with him all over Brazil. As he studied my face, he felt like he could see me through my disguise.
  
  
  "Hmm," the man next to me grumbled. "Turn around to moan and put your hands on the nah."
  
  
  I wondered how careful they were with their weapons. He left her Wilhelmina at the hotel, removed Hugo's stiletto from his arm, and tied Ego to the inside of his right ankle. Her advice is not to enter the lion's den without proper protection. I turned and held my breath as the thug searched me expertly. After examining my torso and arms, he slowly lowered my left leg to my knee. Then he moved down my right thigh toward the knife. He stood on each tribe and passed below it. My life shrank. He stopped about an inch from the handle of the stiletto.
  
  
  "All right," he said. "Turn around and let me see your documents."
  
  
  She pulled out a fake card, and he examined it carefully. Without saying anything, he took the card to another math class and showed it to em. The man finally nodded, and the tall, dark man came back, handed the card back, and looked into the buckets.
  
  
  Good. He'll take you inside."
  
  
  "Thank you," I said humbly.
  
  
  The second man got up from behind his chair and studied me carefully as her emu walked toward me. He was beginning to feel that getting to Fort Knox would be easier and less difficult. He opened the door and he entered the penthouse ahead of him.
  
  
  I was finally inside the fortress. It was a terrible feeling, considering my vulnerability if they found me. Chances are, if that happens, I'll never walk around the building alive. And the way Stavros killed the spy might not be the most pleasant way to die.
  
  
  We entered a spacious living room. It was simply luxurious. Rich carpeting covered two floors from the floor, and the high ceiling was painted with frescoes depicting scenes from ancient Greece. At the far end of the room was a glass wall with a view of the city, opening onto a small balcony through a sliding glass door. Here he started his work. He turned around and saw expensive furniture, mostly antique, all over the room. Their wooden urns rested gracefully on the polished tables.
  
  
  To her right, through a half-open door, she saw another room with desks and cabinets, which Stavros had apparently converted into a study. To my left was a corridor with rooms, presumably bedrooms and living quarters.
  
  
  "I'll start with the big windows here," I said.
  
  
  "Wait here," the man who had escorted me ordered.
  
  
  Her shoulders hunched. "Of course."
  
  
  He went into the office and disappeared for a moment. He moved to the right to get a better view of the interior of the room. Several people in dark suits were moving around, and someone was talking on the phone. It was a communications hub. There must have been half a dozen men in this room. While I was waiting for her, two other men came down the hall to the large room where I was, looked at me, and also entered the office. Stavros had a lot of people here - maybe a dozen or more, at any given time. And there was little doubt that most of the people around them carried guns and knew how to use them.
  
  
  A few minutes later, the man who had shown me out reappeared and silently returned to the corridor. He was followed through the office by another man who wore his hair long and looked like a radical student who had outgrown his clothes and hairstyle. He was dressed casually and carried a large revolver openly in a shoulder holster over a fringed leather vest.
  
  
  "How long will it take?" "What is it?" he asked in English.
  
  
  His guess was that he, like the man on the Paracat, was an American. Stavros took a solid core of political activists with him.
  
  
  I answered her in broken English. "For how long? Maybe half an hour, maybe an hour. Depends on how dirty the windows are."
  
  
  "Madupas doesn't remember calling you." He was looking at me through large blue-lensed glasses. Ego's face was slightly pock-marked, and his lips were very thin, almost absent. Through the file manager, she was identified by ego as another Stavros; he was known as Hammer, a very nice guy who was believed to have killed two women by strapping sticks of dynamite to their ih belts.
  
  
  "No, he didn't call?" It was taken out around his pocket by a piece of paper and stahl ihk. "They tell me Mr. Minourkos' house."
  
  
  At that moment, another man entered the room and stopped next to the Hummer. He was short, dark, and probably Greek. I saw a picture of Salaka Madupas in the AX files, and the man looked exactly like him.
  
  
  "I don't recall calling the window cleaning company," he told Hammer in English. "When was the last time you came here?"
  
  
  "I don't remember without notes," I said nervously. "You understand that you need to have records."
  
  
  Hammer approached me arrogantly. "But you've been here before?"
  
  
  Hers hesitated. "Yes, her, worked here before."
  
  
  He pulled out a revolver and pointed it at my face. The brain's ego was uncomfortably close. "Tell me what the kitchen looks like."
  
  
  A trickle of blood broke out under my left hand. I tried to remember the description of the kitchen that the Minurkos had given me. "It's big, with a sink and cupboards! What is it anyway?"
  
  
  "Ah, let him start," said the fake Madupa.
  
  
  Hammer ignored him. "How many windows are there in the kitchen?"
  
  
  I was wondering how fast I could get to the stiletto if I fell to the floor at ego's feet. But then her, remembered that the kitchen is an inner room, in the corridor of the building, and not on the outside moan. "But there are no windows," I said innocently.
  
  
  Hammer's thumb pressed against the trigger. Gradually the white of his knuckles faded, and he lowered the gun to his side. A man in a short-sleeved shirt came out of the office.
  
  
  "People all over the Raid Site say they've sent a man," the guy told Hammer.
  
  
  He tried not to look relieved. I bribed a girl in the Plaque office to back up my story if it was necessary, but I was worried that she would actually go both ways.
  
  
  Hammer holstered his pistol. Good. Clean the damn windows, " he ordered. "But do it quickly."
  
  
  "Yes, sir," I said. "Mr. Minourkos sometimes wants to talk about our old sailing days. Will I see her ego before I leave?"
  
  
  Hammer gave me a sharp look. "You won't see the ego," he said. "Continue your work."
  
  
  "Thank you," I said.
  
  
  They let me go down the hall to fill the buckets with water, and he quickly examined the physical layout of the rooms. When I started working on the big windows, everyone left me alone. I saw why I was here and was trying to think of a neat way to interrupt my visit when a group of men came out of the office and started openly discussing Stavros ' business without noticing me. Hers was on the balcony with the door open.
  
  
  "Both camps are ready," one man said. "I think we should recommend Stavros to act as soon as..."
  
  
  The other man stopped ego and pointed at me. The first man turned away and spoke again in a hushed tone. However, at this moment, three more men entered the room around the inner corridor, and I got a big bonus from my visit. Sincerely, like a ramrod, in the foreground was Adrian Stavros. He was of medium height, with receding dark hair. He looked a lot like the pictures she'd seen of him, a rather ugly, stern guy who looked older than his thirties. But it still looked dynamic. He had broad shoulders and carried himself like a West Point graduate. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a dark tie around his neck. He was holding a stack of papers in his hand, and it was obvious that he was very tired.
  
  
  "Okay, let's make this meeting brief," he said to the others in the large room. I noticed that Zanni wasn't there. He wasn't important enough in this organization. "Rivera, what's the latest report from Mykonos?"
  
  
  I stand there looking at this small group, remembering how smart they were, they acted, he almost felt respect for Adrian Stavros.
  
  
  "...And the commander says that the ground is finished and the troops..."
  
  
  Stavros suddenly looked up and saw me for the first time. He nodded at his subordinate, took a few steps in my direction, then stopped dead, anger on his face.
  
  
  "Who the hell is this tailor?" "Stop it!" he bellowed.
  
  
  Odin around Stavros ' men approached him warily. "I believe someone said they were here to clean the windows."
  
  
  "You believe!" Stavros shouted loudly. He looked up and saw my bucket on the balcony next to me and a rubber-edged tool in my hand. He ordered it. "You! Come here!"
  
  
  If Stavros had been angry enough to decide that he wanted to get rid of me, no one would have questioned ego's judgment. Her accidentally entered the room. "Yes?"
  
  
  He turned away from me without answering. "Who let ego in here?"
  
  
  Hammer, I'm standing in the corner as the panther stalked to the center of the room. "He's fine. We didn't check the ego."
  
  
  Stavros turned and stared at his bandit for a long moment as the black silence filled the room. When Stavros spoke, it was quiet. "Am I surrounded by idiots?"
  
  
  Hammer looked at him sourly. Then he turned to me. "Okay, window cleaning is done for today."
  
  
  "But I've only just started! Mr. Minourkos always wants all the windows cleaned. He says..."
  
  
  "Take the tailor, go away!" yelled Hammer.
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. "My bucket..."
  
  
  "Forget it."
  
  
  Stavros ' mimmo calmly passed it, and he was watching me all the time. As she rode the elevator down to the street, her mind took note of the sound insulation, communication lines, and locks that locked the small elevator's doors. I wonder if her suspicions were aroused by Adriana Stavros. My visit was definitely worth it. Not only did he get a good look at the person he was hoping to kill, but he also noticed the physical location of the fortress's ego. The elevator was the only way to get inside, and he knew what to expect when we got inside.
  
  
  When I got back to the hotel, Erica and Minorkos were waiting for me in my room. As soon as I walked in the door and Erica saw that I was okay, she shoved the newspaper at me. A bold headline read it.
  
  
  OFFICIAL APPEARANCES THE KOTSIKAS CONSPIRACY.
  
  
  The Minurkos clicked his tongue.
  
  
  "A certain cabinet member, a little-known figure named Aliki Vianola, says that he has evidence that Kotsikas is planning to sell his party to the Communists and that the lives of other junta leaders are in danger."
  
  
  I looked through the first column of the stamp. "It turns out that the general's assumption was correct," I said. "Stavros throws a shovelful of dirt at Kotsikas to confuse the situation, just before a meeting where he plans to kill the ego and egos of his colleagues."
  
  
  "And notice how he tries not to mention my name," Minurk said heavily.
  
  
  Erica took my hand. "The police are investigating the charges, but by the time they are found to be baseless, three colonels will be dead."
  
  
  "Not if the general goes for us," I said. "Did he call?"
  
  
  "Not yet," said the Minurkos. "Did you get into the penthouse?"
  
  
  "Yes, I did," I said. He told them about the conversations he'd heard her have, and what he'd seen of Stavros.
  
  
  "I'd love you to have a gun," Erica said bitterly.
  
  
  "If I had it, it wouldn't have got there," her husband denied reports that appeared in the media. "They gave me a good search. No, we'll have to go back. I wish we had Zach."
  
  
  Erica looked at me. "He was very good at his job."
  
  
  "Yes," I said. "Well, I can get help from my own people if I need it. I think there are AX agents in the area. I'll know her for sure." He turned to the Minurkos. "Did you manage to get through to the camp commanders?"
  
  
  "I caught both of them," he said. "I told them exactly what you said. Both men told me that they would not take any action until they received notifications from me personally. I also advised them not to contact the penthouse and ignore any contrary orders from my so-called secretary."
  
  
  "You did very well, Mr. Minourkos," I said. "Now, if we know..."
  
  
  I was interrupted by the phone.
  
  
  Erica answered it, and the caller introduced himself. She nodded and handed the phone to the Minurkos. He picked up the phone and held it to his ear. There were few words on the ego side. "Yes, Vasilis. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes, go ahead. It's clear. Yes. Ah, great." When he finished and hung up, he looked at us with a sly smile.
  
  
  "All right?" Erica asked impatiently.
  
  
  Vasilis called the cottage, and Zanni refused to see our ego today, our ego tomorrow because he was too busy. He suggested that Vasilis call next week. There was an argument and heated words exchanged, but Zanni remained adamant. He also refused. discuss the colonels ' visit by phone ."
  
  
  "So what did he do to make you smile?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Do you remember Despo Adelphia?
  
  
  The man who replaced Rasion on the colonels ' committee? Stavros ' own man? "
  
  
  "Yes," Erica nodded.
  
  
  "Vasilis went to this in mathematics. He suspected that it was Adelphia who would arrange the meeting, and he was right. Adelphia knows the whole plan. Vasilis argued about the three colonels and won Adelphia's trust. Adelphia told em the time and place of the meeting. Kotsikas, Plotarchu, and Glavani have already arranged to meet me at Kotsikas ' residence. He has a country estate just north of town, in a rather remote area. Adelphia will be there too."
  
  
  "When?" I asked her.
  
  
  "I don't know when today," the Minurkos replied. "In just a few hours."
  
  
  "How will they kill colonels?"
  
  
  The Minurk hunched over. "Adelphia wouldn't have said that when she found out Vasilis didn't know. It looks like we'll have to wait and see."
  
  
  "It can be extremely dangerous," I said. He glanced at the watch on his wrist. "Erica, call a taxi. We, t to Kotsikas. Mr. Minourkos, stay here at the hotel and stay out of sight. If anyone recognizes you, we're in trouble."
  
  
  "Very good, Mr. Carter."
  
  
  While Erica called a taxi, he took off her jacket and strapped on the luger holster, then the stiletto on her right forearm. The Minurkos stared, silent and grim. He took out the Luger around the holster and slid the bolt back, inserted the cartridge into the cartridge with a light movement, and then put the gun away again.
  
  
  Erica was on the phone. "Our taxi will be on the street in five minutes."
  
  
  "Then let's go," I said. "We have an appointment."
  
  
  The eighth chapter.
  
  
  "I don't think I understand," Colonel Anatole Kotsikas said after receiving us in the lobby of his big house. "Adelphia said it would be a private meeting, General."
  
  
  We picked up General Kriezota on the way, because I knew that Kotsikas would reject us if Erica and I went alone. Kotsikas, a thin man in his fifties, stood in a khaki uniform and looked at me suspiciously.
  
  
  "Will anyone around the others be here, Colonel?" Krizotu asked.
  
  
  "They are expected soon."
  
  
  Good. Give us some of your time, " Krizotu said.
  
  
  Kotsikas looked at us in silence, waiting for an answer. Although his military rank was lower than that of a general, at that time he was the most powerful person in Greece. When the coup of 1967 took place, the people who led the ego deliberately kept top officers out of the junta, because the generals were associated with a privileged upper class.
  
  
  "All right," he finally said. "Come to the office, please."
  
  
  A moment later, the four of us were standing in a circle in the middle of a rather dark office. The servant opened the curtain, and the room brightened. Kotsikas offered us a drink, but we declined.
  
  
  "Colonel, she would like you to allow these two people to search your house before the meeting and stay here until the meeting," Krizotu said.
  
  
  "Why not?" Kotsikas asked. "What a ridiculous request."
  
  
  "Listen to me. This meeting is a trap, " the general said. "We'll have a lot to explain later, when we have time, but Nickor Minourkos is not the person behind the recent attacks on you. There is a man named Adrian Stavros, who hides behind the name Nikkor and plans a bloody coup against the junta. You, Plotarchu, and Glavani should be killed here in your home, today, not when ."
  
  
  Kotsikas ' face took on hard, straight lines. "I'm thinking," he said.
  
  
  "I suspect that Adelphia should escape unharmed," the general added. "Nikkor won't be here, of course, because he has nothing to do with it."
  
  
  Kotsikas stared out the window for a long time. When he turned back to us, he asked: "And this man and girl?"
  
  
  "They're here to help," Krizotu said simply.
  
  
  "How do I know it wasn't you three who came to kill me?" asked Kotsikas calmly.
  
  
  Crisotu grimaced.
  
  
  "Colonel,"I said softly," if I had come here to kill you, you would be dead."
  
  
  Ego's eyes stared deep into mine. Good. You can check at home. But I am sure that there was no one inside who would have caused harm in all the houses around me or my friends."
  
  
  "Is there a basement, Colonel?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Yes."
  
  
  "We'll start from there," Ericke told her. "You and the general can talk for now, Colonel. How much time do we have before ih arrives?"
  
  
  "I'd say at least fifteen minutes."
  
  
  "That should be enough." He turned to Erica.
  
  
  "Let's get started."
  
  
  We quickly searched the large basement and found no bombs, no explosives. We looked around the rest of the house, and finally at the office where the meeting was to take place. We thoroughly searched the study. Although no full name was found, we found two electronic bugs.
  
  
  "It's unbelievable," Colonel Kotsikas said when she was alone. "I do not know when this could have been done."
  
  
  "These people are professionals," I said. "Now you have to believe me."
  
  
  "Well, it's time," Erica said. "Will they arrive separately?"
  
  
  "Since they were at the committee headquarters this morning, they can come together," Kotsikas said.
  
  
  "Even Adelphia could have been with the others, even if they didn't love him immensely. After all, this is supposedly an attempt at reconciliation ."
  
  
  The Colonel's guess was correct. Ten minutes later, a large black limousine pulled up, and all three colonels were in nen. Plotarchu and Glavani were elderly men, Glavani with white hair. Adelphia was in her mid-forties, a fat, fat man whose shape seemed to him three sizes too small. He was beaming in all directions and talking loudly about consent and consent, and was very surprised when in the lobby he put handcuffs on his right wrist.
  
  
  Ego behavior changed like lightning. The smile faded, and the dark eyes were icy hard. "What are you doing?" he exclaimed.
  
  
  Kotsikas and Kriezotou said nothing. He turned Adelphia roughly and bound the emu's hands behind his back. Ego's hard face quickly filled with rage. "What does that mean?" he asked loudly, looking from me to Kotsikas and the general.
  
  
  "Mr. Carter says you came to my house today to kill us," Kotsikas said coldly.
  
  
  The other two colonels looked at each other in shock. "Is that true, Anatole?" Glavani asked Kotsikas.
  
  
  "This is absurd!" Adelphia exclaimed. "Who is this person?" Before Kotsikas could respond, Adelphia switched from the formal manner of one who practices to a flurry of hot Greek, spitting out words like poison and regularly throwing his head in my direction. I couldn't catch much of it.
  
  
  "We'll see, Colonel," Kotsikas finally replied.
  
  
  He grabbed her roughly by the arm. "You can spend the next short period of time in the office,"I said," in case we miss any surprises." He looked at Kotsikas. "Everyone else around you, except Erica, stay in the room across the hall until I hear her no more."
  
  
  "Very good," Kotsikas said.
  
  
  The colonels and General Crisotu entered the living room across the hall from the study, while Erica and I taped Adelphia's fleshy mouth and tied ego to a chair. It was taken from ego's hip by a revolver and stuck in his belt. Erica and I went back to the lobby, and Adelphia muttered insults at us over the tape.
  
  
  "Are we waiting now?" Erica asked.
  
  
  Her, looked at nah. Her red hair was slicked back and she looked very smart in her pantsuit. She took out a .25-caliber Belgian pistol from around her purse and checked the ammunition.
  
  
  "Yes, we're waiting," I said. He went to the open front door and looked out at the long road lined with tall Lombard poplars. The only road running through the place was almost a mile away. The perfect place to kill. The corkscrew was coming up with Stavros ' twisted meaning? He considered questioning Adelphia, but there wasn't much time, and he was too afraid of Stavros. It showed on his face.
  
  
  Erica came up behind me and pressed her body against mine. "We don't have much time alone, Nick."
  
  
  "I know," I said.
  
  
  Her free hand, the one without the gun, patted my shoulder and arm. "When this is over, we'll hide in Athens, eat, sleep, and make love."
  
  
  "I don't think our bosses would appreciate it," I chuckled.
  
  
  "They can go to hell. They can give us a few days, " she said irritably.
  
  
  He turned to her. "I know a nice little hotel where..."
  
  
  Her, turned to day, hearing the sound of a car engine. At the far end of the driveway, before it disappeared from view, a black sedan was approaching. It had a police light on top of it.
  
  
  "It's the police!" said Erica.
  
  
  "Yes," I agreed. "Do you think Stavros bribed the precinct master?"
  
  
  "It will only take a few people," Erica suggested.
  
  
  "Especially if Stavros takes a couple of his own men with him," I added. "Let's go."
  
  
  We hurried to the room where the junta members and the general were waiting.
  
  
  "There's a police car coming up outside," he told her quickly. "It's like the Stavros gambit. Are you all armed?"
  
  
  All of them were, except for Krizotu. I gave emu Adelphia's revolver. "Now, just sit here as casually as you can, as if you're engaged in a serious discussion. Keep your weapons ready, hidden at your sides. Erica, go to that storage room." She left quickly.
  
  
  "I will be sincerely behind these French doors," he continued. "When they all enter the room, we will try to take ih. If anyone around you wants to leave now, you can go through the back door."
  
  
  He looked at the silent officers. They stayed where they were.
  
  
  Good. We'll try to avoid a shootout. Trust me."
  
  
  I was walking through the French doors when I heard the front door open with a bang. The servant tried to stop the police, but ego was pushed away. He heard them slam the locked door of the study where Adelphia was bound and gagged, and then he heard the servant's voice again. It doesn't make much sense if there were more than one man. A moment later, ih could clearly see her as they burst into the living room. There were six Ihs - five in uniform and one in plain clothes. All the men in uniform had revolvers on their belts.
  
  
  "What does that mean?" said the colonel, standing up, but hiding the pistol behind his back.
  
  
  The plainclothes man stepped forward, a man in uniform with lieutenant's stripes. The plainclothes man was Stavros ' bodyguard, whom she had seen in the penthouse. The lieutenant was probably the cop Stavros had bribed. It has to be a real police force. It was supposed to be a made-up but reliable story for the press.
  
  
  "We weren't expecting you here, General," the lieutenant said. He looked around the room, probably the one in Adelphia. "You are all under arrest for treason. We have evidence that you came here to meet with a communist agent and negotiate a secret agreement with international bandits." He looked very nervous.
  
  
  "This is absurd," Kotsikas said.
  
  
  "You're all traitors," the lieutenant insisted loudly. "And you will be executed as such." He watched as the lieutenant pulled out his revolver.
  
  
  The Stavros man grinned harshly. "And there will be an execution here," he said in English. "When you resisted arrest."
  
  
  "We didn't have any physical resistance during the arrest," Kotsikas told the young maths student, who had appeared in the media.
  
  
  "No?" the mercenary asked Stavros. "Well, at least that's what the police report says. So people will hear it on the radio."
  
  
  The lieutenant pointed the revolver at Kotsikas. They had already guessed that in a moment all the policemen would draw their pistols at the lieutenant's signal. The Stavros man reached into his jacket and nodded to the lieutenant, who turned to his men. He stepped quickly through the wide doorway, aiming Wilhelmina at the lieutenant's chest.
  
  
  "Okay, stay here openly."
  
  
  The lieutenant stared at me, surprise etched on his face. Stavros ' man hadn't reached for his gun yet, and only a couple of uniformed cops were reaching for their holsters. Everyone froze, and all eyes turned to me.
  
  
  "Drop the gun," he ordered her lieutenant. "And you, carefully remove this hand from your doublet."
  
  
  No one followed my orders. They were figuring out what they'd have to do with me. To their left, the bathroom door opened and Erika came out, pointing her Belgian revolver at Stavros ' man.
  
  
  "I think you'd better do as he says," she said coldly.
  
  
  Frustration and anger were building on the faces of thug Stavros and the police lieutenant as they looked at Erika. Her eyes stared at ih's face for a long time, trying to guess ih's intentions. Then all hell broke loose.
  
  
  Instead of lowering the gun, the lieutenant pointed his ego at my chest and pulled the trigger with his ego finger. He saw the lightning-fast movement and started to fall to the floor. The ego gun went off like a shotgun, and he felt a hot, searing pain shoot through my left arm. Gawk passed mimmo me and smashed the glass all day. Her, fell to the floor and rolled over in a chair as the lieutenant fired again, gawking eyes splintering the wooden floor next to me.
  
  
  He was screaming. - "Kill ih!" " Kill ih all!"
  
  
  Just as the lieutenant pointed his revolver at me, Stavros ' man followed him and pulled out his own pistol. It was a shiny black submachine gun, and it aimed Erika's ego at her head. Erika fired at him, but missed when he fell on one of the tribes. The shot hit one of the policemen in the thigh. The man screamed in pain as he fell to the floor.
  
  
  The other two policemen ducked low. The wounded man and another policeman ducked for cover behind a small piece of furniture.
  
  
  Krizotou and the two colonels who had arrived were still motionless, but Kotsikas pulled out his revolver and fired it at the lieutenant. The man fell and crashed into a low chair, shattering it as he dropped ego to the floor.
  
  
  He went up to the firing position. Stavros ' man had just shot Erika. He missed because he was still losing his balance, avoiding her shot, and because she herself quickly crouched down.
  
  
  Several guns were firing simultaneously. Kriezotu killed one of the policemen, and she shot two more. Erika accurately shot Stavros ' mercenary candid in the fold dollar.
  
  
  The lieutenant was preparing for his second attempt to attack Kotsikas, but he saw her move and quickly stepped in front of each tribe. "I wouldn't have Stahl do that."
  
  
  The other policemen refused to fight. Dropping their weapons, they raised their hands above their heads. The lieutenant glanced at them, lowered his pistol, and dropped ego to the floor. He looked at the motionless bodies, then at me.
  
  
  "This is an outrage," he said hoarsely. "You obstructed the legitimate work of the police and killed officers in the performance of their duties. You won't get away with it..."
  
  
  Her pistol hit him on the ego heads, knocking the ego leg off. He was lying on the floor, panting, holding his head. "You need to shut up," I growled.
  
  
  The Colonels and Kriezota handcuffed two officers. Erica leaned heavily against the wall. I asked her. "Are you all right?"
  
  
  "Yes, Nick."
  
  
  "I'm glad I trusted you, Mr. Carter," Kotsikas said. "We owe you one"
  
  
  "And the attempt failed," Glavani added.
  
  
  "I'll get in touch with the police commissioner, and I'll talk to him for a long time about what happened here," Kotsikas said, looking grimly at the wounded lieutenant.
  
  
  "I'd like you to, if I have twenty-four hours before you do, Colonel," I said. "The octopus target is still alive. Miss Nystrom and I will go get Stavros."
  
  
  He hesitated for a moment. "All right, Mr. Carter. I'll keep her quiet for twenty-four hours. But then its up to her to make her move."
  
  
  "Fair enough," I said. "If we don't find Stavros by this time tomorrow, you can handle it yourself however you want."
  
  
  Kotsikas held out his hand. "Good luck."
  
  
  Ego took her hand. "We'll need it!"
  
  
  The ninth chapter.
  
  
  When we returned, we found the Minurkos pacing the hotel room. It was clear that he didn't give us many chances to come back.
  
  
  "Are the colonels okay?" He asked, a look of relief on his face.
  
  
  "Yes," I said.
  
  
  "And Vasilis?"
  
  
  "He's safe and sound," Erica said. "We were very lucky. It could be a bloodbath."
  
  
  "Thank God," said the Minurkos.
  
  
  "We couldn't have done it without the general," I said.
  
  
  "I am glad that Vasilis showed himself well. Have the surviving killers been arrested?"
  
  
  “no. Kotikas asked her to give us twenty-four hours until we could get to Stavros."
  
  
  He was silent for a moment. "I'm not sure I agree with this secrecy. But I won't do it yet. I'll keep her quiet for twenty-four hours, too, Mr. Carter."
  
  
  "I appreciate that, Mr. Minourkos. Now we have a job to do. We should go after Stavros."
  
  
  "It seems bad to continue to solve this problem on your own," Minourkos said. "This requires the help of the police, Mr. Carter. I know some people I can trust."
  
  
  I asked her. "Like them, who came to Colonel Kotsikas intending to commit mass murder? "" No, I should have a chance to take ego, Mr. Minourkos. I can't believe that the police will be able or willing to bring Stavros to justice. My government can't either. That's why I have orders to kill Stavros on the spot. Those orders are the same as the ones Miss Nystrom received from her government."
  
  
  "But to go up to the penthouse would be suicide," he said.
  
  
  "Maybe," I said. "But maybe not, considering what I know about this place. And what you know."
  
  
  He asked. "When would you go?"
  
  
  He glanced at Erica. "Are you all right?"
  
  
  "Whatever you say, Nick."
  
  
  "For example, Stavros is now wondering why he didn't hear from his man. I think there is a possibility that Stavros will wait in the penthouse until he is sure that something has gone wrong. So he should be there tonight."
  
  
  "You yourself spoke of armed guards," said the Minurkos. "You can't go through the entrance to the corridor."
  
  
  "It's possible. But Erica and I will have a third person to help. I was in contact with my superiors before we went to Kotsikas ' house. Another agent is in the gym in Athens on a different assignment and he will help us."
  
  
  "There are only three of you?" The Minurkos asked. "The odds may be two or three to one against you, even if you get hit on the spot."
  
  
  "Mr. Carter likes long odds," Erica said, smiling.
  
  
  She smiled at the rheumatism. "Also, I have a plan that involves four."
  
  
  "Four?" The Minurkos asked, confused. "If you're counting on me, your trust is misplaced. I don't even know how to shoot a gun."
  
  
  "Not you," I said. "Here on the plane, you mentioned something that I remember. You said that your murdered secretary, Salaka Madupas, had a brother who looked very much like him."
  
  
  "Yes," said the Minurkos. "Poor guy, he doesn't even know that ego brother is dead. He and Salaka didn't see each other very often, but there was a lot of affection between them."
  
  
  I asked her. "How much does it look like a Herring?"
  
  
  "A lot of people. There was only a year's difference between them. Some say they look like twins, except that Salaka was about an inch taller and somewhat heavier than his brother."
  
  
  "We can fix this," he said, more to himself than to Erica and Minorkos. "Does this guy live in Athens?"
  
  
  Minurk looked at me questioningly. "Sincerely outside the city in a small village."
  
  
  "Call em and tell him about the Herring," I said. "Then ask him if he wants to help avenge his brother's death."
  
  
  Erica looked at me. "Nick, you mean ..."
  
  
  "If Stavros can invent an impostor, then so can we," I said. "Janis Zanni is not the only one who can talk about a dead person."
  
  
  "The third Salaka Madupas?" Erica asked.
  
  
  "Actually. Maybe only he can get us to the penthouse." He turned to the Minurkos. "Will you call em?"
  
  
  Minurk hesitated only briefly, " Of course. And I'll bring it to ego here."
  
  
  Two hours later, just at dusk, Sergiu Madupas arrived at his hotel room. He seemed like a meek, timid person, but underneath the surface was a grim determination to help avenge the math major responsible for his brother's death. I gave Em a pair of high-heeled ballet slippers and a soft lining and gave him a quick touch-up. When it was over, he looked almost exactly like the cheater he'd seen her in the penthouse. After all, it was the trickster Sergiu was posing as in our scheme, on the dell itself, not the ego brother.
  
  
  Her hotel wants the people in the penthouse to accept Sergiu for Zanni, the fake Madup.
  
  
  When her finished with it, her stepped back and we all took a good look. "What do you think?" The Minurkos asked her.
  
  
  "It looks very much like a Salaka - and therefore also like a Zanni," Minourkos said.
  
  
  Our own deceiver, smiled uncertainly at me. "You did a good job, Mr. Carter," he said. Ego's voice was very similar to Zanni's, and ego's English was about the same quality.
  
  
  "I think we can handle it," Erica said.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  An hour later, we arrived at the Apollo building. It was lunchtime in Athens, and the streets were almost deserted. The building itself was dark, except for the lobby and the distant flickering lights of the penthouse. We sat in the rented black sedan for about ten minutes, and then a tall man came around the corner of the house. He walked straight to the car and sat down next to me in the front seat. Erica and Sergiu were sitting in the back. Minourkos stayed at the hotel.
  
  
  "Hello, Carter," the tall man said. He looked at the other two and held Eric's gaze.
  
  
  "Is something going on?"
  
  
  "Nothing like that. There was no one with the ferret when he arrived." It was Bill Spencer, my colleague at AX. He was new to the agency, and had only met him briefly before her. However, Hawk had assured me on the phone during our brief conversation earlier that Spencer was a good person. According to my instructions, he watched the special elevator to the penthouse through the glass facade of the building for almost three hours.
  
  
  Ego introduced her to Erica and Sergio. "We go through the service door to the lobby," I said, " with this key. Sergiu goes first, and we act as if this place belongs to us. If we go to the top, we will proceed as outlined earlier. questions?"
  
  
  There was a thoughtful silence in the dark car. "All right," I said. "Let's get this over with."
  
  
  The four of us got out around the black sedan and walked together to the front of the building. To the left of the main entrance was a locked glass service door. Sergiu inserted the key Minurkos had given Emu into the stainless steel lock and turned it. In the lobby, the elevator guard turned to us in disbelief.
  
  
  Sergiu entered first, and we followed. Her, wondered if we'd really taken Stavros by surprise. He should be pacing the penthouse waiting to hear what happened at Colonel Kotsikas ' house. I hoped he hadn't sent a squad of his own people there to investigate. There was also the possibility that he had tried to call Parakata in the last day or two, and found that he couldn't reach Hema and me there. Not being able to contact any of the jungle plantations told Stavros that something was wrong.
  
  
  We approached the security guard at the elevator. He looked at Sergiu strangely.
  
  
  "Where have you been?"
  
  
  "These are the press representatives," Sergiu said, playing out his new role. "They have heard about the terrible massacre of junta colonels that took place just a few hours ago. The police informed them of the tragedy. They want to do a short interview to get Mr. Minourkos ' opinion on this terrible event, and I'll talk to ih upstairs."
  
  
  Hugo's stiletto felt it on his right forearm, and I wondered if I'd have to use it. If the guard had been on duty for a while, he would have known that Zanni didn't go out around the buildings.
  
  
  "All right," he said. "I'll take the elevator with you."
  
  
  The elevator was up in the penthouse. He rang the bell, and he slowly began to descend. It seemed like an eternity before he arrived at the first floor, but the doors finally swung open. The same elevator operator who used to take me up and down was on duty. We climbed aboard while the elevator operator watched Sergio. The day closed behind us, but the operator did not press the button to pick us up.
  
  
  "I didn't know you were out around the building," he told Sergiu, looking at us warily.
  
  
  "Well, now you know," Sergiu replied irritably. "I left to meet these newspapermen. Take us upstairs." I'm giving her an interview."
  
  
  The man examined Sergiu's face carefully. "I'll call her upstairs first," he said.
  
  
  "It's not necessary!" said Sergiu.
  
  
  But, he went to the comm console at the side of the car. I nodded to Spencer, and he went over to lick it. He pulled out his Smith & Wesson 38, and the other man noticed the movement. He turned just in time to see the gun at his temple. He gasped and slid to the floor.
  
  
  Erica went to the control panel. "Take it on yourself," I said.
  
  
  On our way to the cottage, we moved the limp figure of the elevator operator to a corner of the elevator, where the ego would not be immediately visible when the four of us got out. A moment later, the doors opened in the penthouse hallway.
  
  
  As I suspected, there were two other men on duty. One of them was the blond thug he'd met earlier. They were action movies, and he didn't want to play games with them. The blond guy got up from behind the chair at the entrance to the penthouse, while the other stayed seated.
  
  
  They both looked at Sergio as if they'd seen a ghost.
  
  
  "What the hell..." the blond man exclaimed. "What's going on here?"
  
  
  Sergiu caught the blonde's attention, and Spencer approached the dark-haired man at the table. The man slowly walked up to Spencer.
  
  
  "I gave permission to interview these people," Sergiu said.
  
  
  "How did you get out of the penthouse?" The blond man asked.
  
  
  I walked over to him while Sergiu answered. Spencer was standing next to the dark man. Erica covered us both with a small Belgian revolver hidden in her purse.
  
  
  "Don't you remember when I left?" Sergiu asked indignantly. "That was about an hour ago. I told you that..."
  
  
  No further explanation was required. Hugo slid soundlessly into my hand. The blonde grabbed her with his left hand and pulled her towards him as he lost his balance. He was quickly drawn across ego's throat with a knife-wielding hand. Blood splattered on Sergio's shirt and jacket.
  
  
  The dark man took the gun, but Spencer was ready for it. He pulled out an ugly garrote from his pocket and quickly placed it on the bandit's head, then pulled hard on the crossed wire with two wooden handles. The man's hand never reached the gun. Ego's eyes widened and his mouth fell open as the wire cut through flesh and arteries to the bone. More blood splattered on the thick carpet at our feet as the gunman jumped and twisted momentarily in Spencer's grip, his legs shaking in the air. Then he joined his companion on the floor.
  
  
  Erica loosened her grip on the trigger of her revolver. Sergiu looked at the corpses with a pale face while Hugo wiped the blade on the blonde's jacket. Spencer nodded at me, giving up the noose that had sunk deep into the man's neck , and headed for the penthouse floor. Hugo held it in his hand, and Spencer pulled out the special pistol he'd mentioned to me earlier. Ego is provided by the company, Special Effects and Editing-an air gun that shoots darts. The darts were filled with curare, a fast-acting poison that I had borrowed from the Indians of Colombia.
  
  
  Sergiu came to his senses. He went to the door, inserted another key Minurkos had given Em, and used it to unlock the heavy door. He looked at me, and I nodded. He silently pushed the door open and stepped aside since he couldn't enter the penthouse. He wasn't ready to help at this stage of the attack.
  
  
  The three of us quickly entered the doorway, fanning out, Erica holding the revolver in front of her, ready to fire, but she was just a spare pistol. She didn't need to warn Stavros's people any more than was absolutely necessary before we found Stavros himself.
  
  
  It would have been perfect if Stavros had been in the large living room at the entrance. It would have taken out the flow of all this very quickly. Instead, we found a burly Hummer sitting on a long baha'i with his back to us, a glass of brandy in his hand. I saw her, the holster straps from where I was standing. He was still armed , this dangerous man.
  
  
  There was no sign of life in the inner corridor leading to the bedrooms, but voices could be heard from the well-lit office. I was just about to head for the Humvee when two men walked across the office and into the living room. Around them, Odina was a burly gunman with a submachine gun in a shoulder holster, and the other was another fake Madupa, Janis Zanni.
  
  
  They stopped when they saw us, and they both looked at Sergio with bright eyes. The two impostors paused for a moment, looking at each other, and Hammer turned to them and saw the expressions on their faces. A split second later, the thug and Zanni reached for their pistols.
  
  
  Spencer aimed the dart and fired. There was a dull pop in the room, and a moment later, a black metal dart flew out around the man's neck, next to the Adam's apple. Ego's jaw began to work soundlessly as Zanni stared in horror at the black object. Hammer started to turn in one catlike motion and pull out his gun.
  
  
  His eyes focused on me first, and I saw the threat in them as his hand found the gun in its holster. He fell on one of each tribe and simultaneously swung his arm, performing a loop from below, freeing the stiletto. It sliced through the air as silently as striking a dragon, and its hammer hit the chest next to the ego and heart. The blade sank into the ego and body with a loud thud, and came down to the hilt.
  
  
  Hammer's ugly eyes, first revealed to me because nen wasn't wearing blue sunglasses, stared at me for a moment, incredulous that I'd managed to kill the ego so quickly. He looked down at the stiletto, where ego's shirt was oozing crimson. He picked up the knife as if to pull it out, then raised the gun in his hand toward me. But he was already dead. He fell face down on the couch, his long hair hiding the man's ego confusion.
  
  
  The other gunman had just stopped twitching on the floor. Zanni turned to run back to the office, but another dart from Poe's air pistol stopped ego, hitting him in the back.
  
  
  He desperately tried to grab it, couldn't reach it, and then crashed headfirst into the office doorway, shaking there for a moment, and then went limp.
  
  
  I went to the door and saw that there was no one else in the office. He turned back to the others. I nodded toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms, and Spencer beat me to it. Erica followed me.
  
  
  We explored the rest of the places. Another living room, bedrooms and kitchens. We found an armed criminal eating a sandwich in the kitchen. So Spencer found the ego first. Her, entered just as he fired again at the air pistol. He was hell bent on killing, almost as eager as Zach. The man was hit in the side when he pulled out a long Welby revolver.32. For some reason, resentment did not affect him so quickly, and the emu managed to shoot. The gun roared out of the room and hit Spencer squarely in the ribs, knocking his ego back to moan. She was grabbed by a chair and slapped in the face with it when he was aiming a revolver at me. The chair slammed into him and smashed into his face. The gun went off into the ceiling, and the man hit the floor on his back, losing the weapon. Spencer grumbled at the wall as he aimed the air pistol again.
  
  
  Her screamed at him. "Hold on, take the tailor!"
  
  
  "Why?" "Motherfucker get me!"he asked hoarsely.
  
  
  He aimed again. Her ego punched him in the face and he hit his head against the wall. Then the gun knocked her out, so he lost his ego. It clattered across the tiled kitchen floor, and he looked at me in a daze.
  
  
  "I said wait," I growled.
  
  
  Our eyes met for a moment, then he looked down, clutching at the wound under his ribs. It was like a simple wound in the flesh, but it didn't bother me much right now. He walked over and knelt down in front of the gunslinger. Ego's eyes were open, and his body was still struggling with the poison. He was one of those rare individuals who had a natural immunity to certain toxic chemicals, which, while not complete, caused curare to kill egos slowly rather than instantly. I was glad that was the case. Maybe I can get some answers.
  
  
  Erica came into the kitchen at that moment, but her gun hadn't fired yet. "The ego is not here," she said.
  
  
  He grabbed him by the shirt and shook him. "Where's Stavros?" I demanded.
  
  
  The man looked at me. "What's your business?" was another one around Stavros ' American fanatics, but ego's hair wasn't as long as Hammer's.
  
  
  It was the Luger that pulled her out of its holster and pressed her ego against the gunman's left cheekbone. "If you tell me where he is, I'll make sure you write to the doctor in time to save you." It was a lie, of course. "If you refuse, I'll pull the trigger. Talk."
  
  
  He looked me in the eye and appreciated what he saw. "Tailor, all right," he said hoarsely. Resentment was already working on him. "If you really save me."
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  "He went to Mykonos."
  
  
  He exchanged glances with Erica. The island of Mykonos was one of only two locations where Stavros built up his elite rebel corps. "Now tell me," I said, pressing the Luger to Ego's face. "Did he get the notice about the colonels?"
  
  
  The bandit chuckled, then his face contorted with sudden pain. "Zanni called Kotsikas' home. One of the cops answered. He said that the lieutenant and these men were fine, and that the colonels were dead."
  
  
  "What the hell?" Spencer exclaimed.
  
  
  Spencer was surprised by the answer, but she wasn't. Colonel Kotsikas thought quickly when the bell rang, and gave it to one of the policemen. Kotsikas tells them that if he doesn't send a false message to the penthouse, Stavros will go there with his men. Kotsikas didn't have time to coordinate with us, so he went ahead and did what seemed best. It made sense, but the colonel couldn't have known that the rheumatism he'd forced on the cop would allow Stavros to leave the penthouse before we got there.
  
  
  "Why would Stavros go to Mykonos?" the dying gunslinger asked her tartly. "To interrogate the troops?"
  
  
  Another twinge of pain hit him. "Get me a doctor," he breathed.
  
  
  "We'll talk first."
  
  
  He whispered the words. "He called both camps together. He wants the troops brought to Athens. The commander in Mykonos said something about not moving his troops until he received notification from the Minurkos. Stavros was very angry with him. He flew there to personally command."
  
  
  Its grown up. The man stiffened and shuddered. Ego's face is already blue.
  
  
  "Let's get out of here," I ordered. He turned to Spencer. "Stay here."
  
  
  Resentment doesn't make much sense in the ego voice. "I'm hurt, Carter."
  
  
  Her examined it. It was just a wound that didn't have anything vital in it. "You'll be fine," I said. "Put a bandage on this and call Hawke from here. Tell the emu about the latest developments. I'll have the Minurkos call a doctor to take care of your wound. Any questions?"
  
  
  "Yes," he said. "Why don't you want her to be with you in Mykonos?"
  
  
  "You need to get a little better, Spencer.
  
  
  Stavros is too important to me. "
  
  
  "Tell Hawk that?" "What is it?" he asked sourly. "He recommended me for a temporary job on this assignment."
  
  
  "Tell em anything you want." He turned to her, holstering his luger . "Come on, Erica."
  
  
  "What do you expect from me, just wait until I get a notification from you? Spencer asked.
  
  
  Her, stopped and thought about it for a moment: "Tomorrow at breakfast time, you can leave. It will be too late for the newspapers to tell this story. Have the Minurkos call the police and tell them everything. Call Colonel Kotsikas and ask him to support the Minurkos ego. By then, I'll be in Mykonos and find Stavros, if there is one. It will be too early for him to receive any news about what happened here and at the Kotsikas ' house."
  
  
  "What about Sergiu?" Erica asked.
  
  
  "We're bringing the ego home," I said. "He did a good job and now he can go back to his family."
  
  
  "Carter," Spencer said.
  
  
  "Yes?"
  
  
  "I'll do better next time."
  
  
  Her, looked at him. "All right," I said. "Come on, Erica. We need to catch a vulture."
  
  
  The tenth chapter.
  
  
  Mykonos harbor lay like a massive faceted sapphire in the morning sun. It was an almost completely enclosed harbor with small fishing boats and speedboats inside and two large cruise ships anchored at the sea wall. Ships did not enter Mykonos. Passengers had to walk down unsteady ladders with their luggage in their hands to the boat, which took ih to the shore in small groups.
  
  
  Erica and I didn't survive this brief adventure. We arrived at the new airport on the other side of the island just an hour ago and took the bus down the bumpy road to the village. Now I was sitting in a straight yellow chair in a beachside cafe under a canvas awning, watching half a dozen mustachioed Greek sailors guide a newly painted fishing boat into the water just fifteen yards away. The embankment turned away from me in both directions , a row of whitewashed houses with cafes, shops, and small hotels. I took a sip of Nescafe, the Greek's symbolic homage to American coffee, and watched as mimmo was driven by an old man in a straw hat selling grapes and flowers. In this atmosphere, it was hard to remember that I was here to kill a man.
  
  
  Erica wasn't with me. She disappeared into the maze of snow-white banners, not far from the waterfront, to find an old woman she knew from her stay in Mykonos a couple of years ago. If you needed any information about Mykonos, you turned to the dark-haired old ladies in black shawls who rented out rooms in their homes to visitors. They knew everything. Erika went to find out about the military camp on the island, and find out where the camp commander might live, because we'll probably find Stavros there.
  
  
  I was just finishing Nescafe when Erica, rocking on the stone path in front of the cafe, was dressed in yellow trousers, her long red hair tied back with a yellow ribbon. I still found it hard to understand why a beautiful girl like Erica would be drawn into my world. Hey, you should have married a rich man with a villa and a long white yacht outside of Tel Aviv. All this she could have had in her appearance. Maybe she didn't know that. Or maybe yachts just weren't her type.
  
  
  "You look like a tourist, Nick," she smiled, sitting down next to me. "Except for the jacket and tie."
  
  
  "Give me another hour," I said. "What did you learn?"
  
  
  She ordered a cup of hot tea from the waiter and he left. "It's good that I went alone. Maria didn't really want to talk at first. These islanders are very far from strangers, and anyone who doesn't live here is a stranger."
  
  
  "What was she supposed to say?"
  
  
  Erica started to talk, but hey, I had to wait until the waiter left hey, tea. When he was gone, she poured some sugar into the cup from an open bowl. "There is a camp near Ornos Beach, and only a couple of islanders have been inside. The commander lives in a rented villa near the camp. Ego's name is Galatis. Odin rounded up two local taxi drivers and drove the two Americans to the Renia Hotel. on the outskirts of the village; later, the same person took ih to the villa of Galatis."
  
  
  "Excellent intelligence work, Miss Nystrom," I said. "Come on, let's go to Renya."
  
  
  "I just sat down," she complained. "I still have half a cup of tea."
  
  
  "I'll get you another cup later." He tossed her a few drachmas on the table.
  
  
  "Okay," she said, hurriedly taking another sip of tea, then rose to follow me.
  
  
  We walked along the mimmo coffee boardwalk and a small group to an open square where buses going to the outskirts stopped. The post office and police headquarters gate faced the square, and there sat a tarnished bronze statue of an ancient hero. We passed this square, turned off the embankment into a small neighborhood, and soon arrived in Renia. It was a multi-level hotel built on a hill with an almost tropical garden in front of it.
  
  
  The slender young man at the front desk was very welcoming. "Yes, two Americans arrived yesterday. Are they your friends?"
  
  
  What's ih's name? I asked.
  
  
  "Let me see." He pulled a magazine out from under the counter and opened it. "Ahh. Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith."
  
  
  “yeah. They will be our friends, " I said. "What room are they in? We want to surprise ih."
  
  
  "They're at 312. But they were already gone. They mentioned that they'll be back at the hotel for lunch before noon."
  
  
  We checked the room anyway. He knocked on the door and then walked in with the special effects provided by the guys around the special effects department. We closed the door behind us and looked around. Both of the big beds were still unmade, and a half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the nightstand. Stavros wasn't much of a drinker, so I thought it was the ego mercenary he brought with him who drank alcohol.
  
  
  Apart from scotch and a few cigarette butts, they didn't leave anything else. Stavros probably didn't bring any luggage. It was something he had to do, and it wouldn't take long. Em had to find out about a phone call from a man claiming to be a Minurkos, and test the loyalty of Galatis, the camp commander. Galatis 'life would have been in immediate danger if he had obeyed the Minurkos' orders not to move until further reports were received from him. Since Stavros had arrived yesterday, Galatis might already be dead.
  
  
  "We'd better go to the villa," I said.
  
  
  "I'm with you, Nick."
  
  
  After half an hour of waiting, we finally found the taxi driver sipping ouzo in his coffee. He didn't have the slightest intention of driving us to the villa until she showed em a wad of drachmas, whereupon he hunched over and led us to a taxi. It was a beat-up 1957 Chevrolet, with most of the flowers gone and cotton wool sticking out of the upholstery. The taxi driver took an old engine with him, which made a loud belch as we drove.
  
  
  Most of the ride took place on a poorly paved road along the island's rocky coastline, where sheer cliffs dropped off into the Aegean Sea. When we were almost at Ornos Beach, the driver turned onto a ragged gravel road in the direction of the camp and villa. As we passed the high barbed-wire fence, we only caught a glimpse of the camp, green buildings lurking in the distance. We turned away from the fence and onto the long road that led directly to the villa. When we arrived at the house with the tiled roof, she was asked by the taxi driver to wait, and he seemed very willing to do so.
  
  
  We were ready for anything when her father knocked on the ornate wooden front door. Erica once again had a Belgian revolver hidden in her purse, and this time she hoped to use it. She calmly sat next to me for the day and waited. The luger had placed it in the side pocket of my jacket, and my hand was with it. The servant, an elderly Greek, opened the door.
  
  
  "Cali's been updated," he greeted us. He continued in Greek. "Do you want to see the commander?"
  
  
  "Forgive me," I said, gently pushing the ego aside. Erica and I moved into a large living room with a single glass wall facing a tree-lined hillside.
  
  
  "Please!" The old man retorted in English.
  
  
  We moved cautiously from room to room, and finally met in a large room. There was no one there.
  
  
  "Where's the commander?" Erica asked the old man.
  
  
  He shook his head violently from side to side. "Not in the villa. Visiting".
  
  
  I asked her. "Where?"
  
  
  "I went with the Americans. To the camp."
  
  
  "Efaristo," I said, thanking him.
  
  
  We went out and played this game in the cockpit again. "Take us to the military camp," he told the driver.
  
  
  "What are we going to do when we get there?" Erica asked.
  
  
  The taxi pulled away from the house and headed back down the gravel road. "I'm not sure yet," I admitted. "I just feel like we should at least take a look from the outside."
  
  
  But we didn't get that far. When we turned back onto the road that now ran parallel to the fence and followed it for a few hundred yards, I saw a spot where the tire tracks came out of the roadway and stopped near some thickets.
  
  
  I told her to the driver. "Stop!"
  
  
  "What's up, Nick?" asked Erica.
  
  
  "I do not know. Stay here."
  
  
  He climbed around the cab and pulled out the luger . Her slowly moved mimmo tire tracks towards the thicket. There was evidence of a fight near where the car was parked. Once in the bushes, he found what he was afraid of. Behind a thick bush, a tall, thin man lay with his throat cut from ear to ear. Galatisa must have found her.
  
  
  I got back in the car and told Erica, and we just sat there for a while while the taxi driver looked at us in the rearview mirror.
  
  
  "Stavros should have had one of Galatis' subordinate officers on his side by now, " I said heavily. "If we don't find Stavros, he'll have these troops in Athens tomorrow."
  
  
  "We can't follow him to camp, Nick," Erica said. "He will have a small army to protect the ego there."
  
  
  "We will return to the hotel and hope that what Stavros told them is true - that he intends to be there by noon. We will wait for ego there."
  
  
  At the Renya, Erica and I made it to Stavros ' room without being seen. We locked ourselves in and waited. It was the middle of the morning. The beds were made up, so we didn't have to worry about the maids. He poured us both a small shot of whiskey, and we played a game on the edge of the bed after drinking it.
  
  
  "Why can't we be here on vacation as tourists?" Erica complained. "Nothing to do but visit windmills, go to beaches, and sit in cafes watching the world go by?"
  
  
  "Maybe we'll be here together someday," I said, not believing it for a minute. "Under different circumstances, under different circumstances."
  
  
  Erica took off the small gillette she'd worn with her trousers. She was wearing only a sheer blouse tucked into her trousers. She sat back down on the bed, her feet still on the floor, her red hair a mess in the plain green coverlet.
  
  
  "We don't have much time together," she said, looking up at the ceiling. A light breeze came through the open window, a light sea breeze. "No matter how it all works."
  
  
  "I know."
  
  
  "I don't want to wait for something possible now and in the future together. It may never come." She started to unbutton her blouse.
  
  
  Her, looked at nah. "Erica, what the hell are you doing, tailor?"
  
  
  "I'm getting undressed," she said, not looking at me. The blouse was removed. She unzipped her small bra and brushed away her ego. He looked down at her.
  
  
  "Do you realize that Stavros can come in here at any moment?" he asked her.
  
  
  "It's only the middle of the morning." She had undone the snap of her yellow trousers at the waist and was pulling her ih over her hips. There was only a piece of underwear underneath, a small piece of cloth that barely covered anything.
  
  
  I remembered her, and my throat went dry. He remembered the pure animal pleasure he'd felt with her.
  
  
  "Erica, I don't think -" I tried to protest.
  
  
  "There's time," she assured me, moving languidly across the bed. He watched her body move and stretch. "You said yourself that Stavros will probably spend the entire morning talking to the new camp commander."
  
  
  "We can't be sure about that," I said as she undid my belt. My pulse quickened, and he felt the familiar inner reaction to her touch.
  
  
  She pulled me to her and moved toward me. My left hand moved to my chest of its own accord.
  
  
  "How sure we have to be, Nick," she breathed, reaching into my clothes.
  
  
  What the hell, I thought. The door was locked. The Luger will be within easy reach." We'll hear Stavros before he enters the room. And I had the same feeling as Erica. This may be the last time.
  
  
  He turned and let his eyes roam over Erika's body and the mane of flaming hair falling over her milky shoulders, and wondered if there had ever been a woman more desirable than Erika Nystrom. Anywhere. Any time.
  
  
  She was kissed by ee and her mouth was hot and wet, and there was a need in the way she pressed her lips to mine. When we kissed, she undressed me, and I didn't stop her. Then we lay on the bed together, and he pulled the transparent panties off her thighs and thighs. In the end, she helped me by confusing ih.
  
  
  She lay back, her eyes almost closed, and reached for me. I walked over to her, and she pulled me to her. We kissed passionately again, and she held me and caressed me. When she pulled me in, there was a moment when her mouth opened in pleasure, and then a low moan escaped her throat.
  
  
  Her hips moved against me, taking the initiative and demanding. He answered her by pushing her hard. Long thighs lifted off the bed and locked behind me, forcing me deeper inside.
  
  
  And then there was an explosion. It came earlier and with more power than I'd ever thought possible, making my flesh quiver and quiver with its naked power and only passing after we were both spared all the turmoil that was already building up inside us. We were left with a soft ripple of pleasure that slowly penetrated the deepest and most intimate parts of us.
  
  
  They dressed slowly. It was still early morning. However, she began to fear that Stavros might not show up. He may be at the airport waiting for a plane to Athens. He might have said that he returned at noon only to throw any pursuers off his trail.
  
  
  It was eleven-thirty. Erica drank more whiskey, and the tension inside Nah was growing, which was obviously reflected on her face.
  
  
  "I'm going to the lobby," she said at eleven-thirty-five.
  
  
  "Why?"
  
  
  "Maybe he called and changed his plans," she said, taking a quick drag on a long cigarette. "They might know something."
  
  
  I didn't try to stop her. She was all agitated, even though we had made love earlier.
  
  
  "All right," I said. "But if you run into Stavros, don't take it on yourself. Let him come here."
  
  
  "All right, Nick. I promise."
  
  
  Then her father Erica began to pace the room. Her sam was nervous. It was important that we brought Stavros here. We've been chasing the ego long enough.
  
  
  It was only five minutes after Erica went down to the hotel reception when she heard a commotion in the hallway. Her and pulled out a 9-mm luger and went to the door. He listened intently. There was another sound. I waited for her, but nothing happened. He unlocked the door carefully and quietly. Opening it an inch, he looked out into the corridor. There was no one in sight. Her husband glanced down the hall and looked back and forth.
  
  
  Nothing. Mistletoe corridor open arches leading to the garden. I went and looked out, and again I didn't see anything. There was an exit to the garden about fifty feet down the hall. He quickly went down there, looked around, and finally gave up. My nerves must have been on edge, I decided. He went back to the half-open door of the room and entered.
  
  
  Just as she was grabbing the door to close it behind her, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, but it was too late to react. A crunching blow to the back of my head caused a dizzying pain in my head and neck. The Luger slid around my arm. He grabbed the doorjamb and held on as hers, leaning on it. She caught a glimpse of the face in front of her and felt in nen what she had seen in the penthouse in Athens. It was the stern, scowling face of Adrian Stavros. He made an animal sound in his throat, and reached for that ugly face. But then something else hit me on the head again, and bright lights flashed inside. It floated into a black sea, and there was no horizon line between the black sea and the black sky. It all closed in on me and merged into a swirling dark mass.
  
  
  The eleventh chapter.
  
  
  "He's awake."
  
  
  I could hear her voice indistinctly, as if it was coming to me from another room. My eyes opened, but I couldn't focus them. He saw three vague shapes around him.
  
  
  "Actually, open your eyes."
  
  
  The voice was familiar. It belonged to Adrian Stavros. He tried to focus on its source. Ego's face brightened in my vision. I stared into the hard, hard face with its receding hairline, dark hair, and icy cold eyes, and hated myself for letting em take me. Her gaze shifted from him to the other two faces on either side. One belonged to a healthy, dark-skinned guy with a bluish eye above his left eye. It was taken over by the ego for Stavros ' Brazilian bodyguard. The other man was quite young and wore a khaki uniform. He guessed that this was the officer who had replaced the executed Galatis.
  
  
  "So," Stavros said in a venomous voice. "Window cleaner". He let out a sort of throaty laugh. "Who are you really, Della?"
  
  
  "Who are you really, Della?" I answered her, trying to clear my head, trying to think. I thought of Erika and wondered if they'd found her, too.
  
  
  Stavros pulled me out and hit me with the back of his hand, and only then did he notice that I was sitting in a straight chair. They didn't connect me, but there was no Luger. Hugo was still perched on my forearm, under my unbuttoned jacket. He almost fell off his chair when the blow landed.
  
  
  Stavros leaned in for good measure, and when he spoke, his voice was like a growl to a female leopard. "I see you don't recognize me," he hissed. Her, saw the army officer look at him. "Now you know what kind of man you're dealing with."
  
  
  Yes, crazy, I thought. A ruthless man who preys on others. Now he understood why they called ego a Vulture. This time, she kept her mouth shut. He straightened up, grabbed the front of his shirt, and tore it open. He stared at the mass of scars on his torso, apparently from the fire. It turned out that they covered most of the body's ego.
  
  
  "Do you see this?" he growled, his eyes glittering too brightly. "I got this in an apartment fire when I was a boy. My father took a lit cigarette to bed with him, the latest in a series of irresponsible actions against his family's ego. But I survived, you see. Don't think I'm going to hell, because I've already been there."
  
  
  So this was the big missing piece of Stavros ' puzzle. The fire snapped something inside him. It burned away all that was left of the soul, leaving only the charred core. As he buttoned up his shirt, he realized why he was standing so openly. His entire torso must have been stiff from the scarred fabric.
  
  
  "Now you understand," he hissed at me. "Now you will tell me who you are and what you are doing here in Mykonos, spying on me."
  
  
  The husky, dark-faced guy next to him pulled something short around his pocket, presumably a club, just in case he was stupid enough to challenge Stavros.
  
  
  "Is this the CIA?" Stavros ' ugly voice came back to me. "Did you call Galatis while pretending to be a Minurkas?"
  
  
  He had to spare himself, otherwise it would have been over. If Erica hadn't been suffering at the hotel counter, as it turned out, she would have returned here soon. If I'm lucky and she pays attention, she won't enter the room and become ih's prisoner. She will struggle with this, and I must be conscious to give her help.
  
  
  "Yes," I said. "It's from the CIA."
  
  
  "Yeah, the truth is coming out," Stavros said. "And you're here to stage a coup against me?"
  
  
  Stavros ' eyes flashed at me with maniacal hatred.
  
  
  "Something like that."
  
  
  "What are the details of this CIA plot?" demanded Stavros.
  
  
  Hers hesitated. If he said too much, it would sound fake. Husky raised the club again.
  
  
  "Wait," the young officer said with a thick accent. "Recently in Greece, we have studied certain methods that allow us to get full cooperation from prisoners. But it will be too noisy to start such an interrogation here.
  
  
  In any case, we must return to the camp. We'll take the ego with us."
  
  
  Stavros thought for a moment. "All right," he said grimly.
  
  
  They scooped me up from my chair. I wonder where the hell Erica is. She had to go back through the front desk. Maybe they found her after all. But he couldn't ask her.
  
  
  When they cornered me in a waiting car outside the house, in a parking lot far from the entrance, I thought about trying to escape with a stiletto. If they had taken me to that camp, Ego would never have left it alive.
  
  
  But it wasn't a good idea to move with a knife. A husky man held a gun under my ribs, and Stavros sat on my other side. The officer was driving.
  
  
  On the way around the city on the steep road, he kept thinking about Eric. It was hard to understand what had happened to her. She knew that hey, that she would have to go back to the room as soon as Stavros showed up.
  
  
  We were out of town-on the mile, for instance-when we turned onto a steep signpost and saw a car stop just twenty yards ahead of us on a narrow road. However, I remembered that I had seen this car parked outside the hotel earlier, and I came to the conclusion that it belonged to the management. The officer pressed the bullying button, and the military vehicle stopped a few feet away from the other vehicle.
  
  
  "What is it?" Stavros asked curtly.
  
  
  "Looks like a broken car," the officer grumbled.
  
  
  "Well, go get her out of the way," Stavros commanded.
  
  
  To the right of our car was a cliff, and on the other side was a steep drop. The officer got out on the left side and moved cautiously towards the car blocking the road. Stavros, who was sitting on my right, opened the door on the side of the cliff and stood on the sidewalk, watching. I was alone in the car with a husky man holding a gun next to me.
  
  
  "Throw her off the cliff!" Stavros ordered them to stand next to our car.
  
  
  "I'll try," the officer said.
  
  
  Those were ego's last words. When he stopped by another car, he saw Erica's target fly over the cliff. She must have been eavesdropping outside the hotel room and heard them decide to take me to the camp. She stole a hotel car and stopped us on the road.
  
  
  Stavros shouted to the officer when he saw Erika pointing a revolver at the man.
  
  
  The Greek turned as Erica's gun went off. A hole appeared on the officer's forehead. He staggered back and slammed into the car as Erika pointed a gun at Stavros. He was pulling out his own gun, and he admired her Erika for getting the officer out first, because I knew how she could shoot Stavros. She aimed at Stavros, and her gun barked again, hitting him.
  
  
  The hoarse man next to me in the car was aiming at me, not knowing what to do first. Finally, when Stavros was wounded, he decided to finish me off first and then go after Erika. Hers, I saw his finger turn white on the trigger of the revolver. I swung my arm and hit his ego, the hand with the gun, and the gun went off, shattering the windowpane next to me. The stiletto was in my hand. Holding the gun at a distance, I pushed her hard with the knife and felt it enter her arm. It was all over for him.
  
  
  Stavros was shot in the shoulder, but it was only a wound. He fell to the ground and was responding to Erica's fire as her jumped out around the far end of the car. Crouching low and using the car for cover, he headed for another car with a gun in his hand. Stavros forced Erika to hide behind the cliff again. His hotel, take a precise shot at him from where he least expected it, because he thought I was still a prisoner.
  
  
  But when I got to the other car, Stavros saw me. He fired two shots, and the bullets whipped up chunks of asphalt next to me. Her and ducked around the corner of the car and out of the line of fire. The next moment Stavros was back in the war machine. Erica's target popped up around the cliff, and she fired at the car, but missed. Stavros was driving. The engine started.
  
  
  He stood up and shot him. Suddenly the car lurched and flew straight at me. He tried to pin me to another car. He fired one aimless shot, then ducked away from the approaching car. He crashed loudly into another car. I lay very close to the impact, covering my face and hoping that the torn metal wouldn't hit me. Stavros reversed the car and swerved sharply away from the impact site. He was on his way back to the city. A split second later, he was on the move. He took careful aim, hit the tire and tore it open, but he kept going. Erika fired two rounds, the bullets whizzing off the car and missing Stavros.
  
  
  Her, heard her scream. "Tailor!"
  
  
  He got up and opened the door of the wrecked car. The door fell into my hands and hit the sidewalk. He got in the car and tried to start the car. On the third attempt, everything worked.
  
  
  Erica met me at the car when I put her in gear.
  
  
  We roared down the Stavros road. We kept an eye on ego until we got to the city, and then we found an abandoned car near the waterfront. We fell down and looked, gas ran out.
  
  
  "He can't be far from here," Erica said. "I'll stop by the cafe."
  
  
  "Okay, I'll take a look at the boats. Be careful."
  
  
  "You too, Nick," she said.
  
  
  She walked up the path to the cafe. There were plenty of places to hide. I went out to a small pier where several tourists were waiting for the boat. I was just about to ask Stavros when I heard the roar of a motorboat. Then ego saw her on the boat at the end of the dock. The boat was moving away.
  
  
  I ran to him, but I was too late. He was on his way. He pointed the gun at him, but didn't fire. Spotting a small boat next to me, I jumped on board with the owner, who was standing there with his mouth hanging open, watching the whole thing. I still had the gun.
  
  
  "The factories," I ordered.
  
  
  He obeyed in silence. The engine roared.
  
  
  "Now go get him."
  
  
  "But..."
  
  
  "Get out, take the tailor!"
  
  
  He went out. At that moment, he was driving away from the port of bar, following Stavros. I looked back and saw Erica at the far end of the panel, shouting my name. I couldn't go back. Nah waved her off.
  
  
  Her, heard her scream. "Be careful!"
  
  
  I wished she could be with me, because Stavros was important to her. But circumstances dictated otherwise. Her, saw Stavros pass through the entrance to the inner harbor, leaving a clear white trail in his wake. Outside of this protected area, there were small, choppy waves, and when I got there, my small boat started to rock, and splashed salt water in my face, all around the dark blue Aegean Sea. It was clear that Stavros was heading for an uninhabited island near Delos.
  
  
  My boat was faster than the speedboat Stavros stole, so while desperately clinging to his small craft, his slowly caught up to it. Meanwhile, I was thinking about Erik back in Mykonos. The police will need to give an explanation. But a call to Colonel Kotsikas will tell the authorities everything they want to know. By the time I get back, they'll probably have awarded Erica medals. If I get it back.
  
  
  I was suddenly within reach, but Stavros beat me to it. He shot me twice, and they smashed the windshield of the boat. Considering the way my boat jumped, it was quite a feat that Stavros got where he was. He drew his pistol and took careful aim at Stavros ' silhouette. Her, fired and missed. I only have two shots left.
  
  
  We headed to a small abandoned area of the island and the water calmed down. Stavros ran to the shattered remains of a red-hot, sun-bleached building. I saw him reloading his pistol on the way, so he had the advantage in ammunition. As he pulled up to the dock, he shot me twice to keep me away. He swung the boat around in a wide circle, trying to outwit him. But the fire held her back. I couldn't waste any shots.
  
  
  Stavros was bent over at the start, working on something. The boat was already docked. Her, thought this might be my chance, and made the boat inside again. Just as I got close enough to shoot, Stavros came into view and threw something at my boat. He landed candid in my cockpit. He'd seen the fuse burn and knew Stavros had found the dynamite. In Mykonos, ego was used to build a new road at the far end of the island. I didn't have time to try to throw my ego overboard. The fuse was short. Tucking the pistol into his belt, he dived over the side and swam.
  
  
  The explosion ripped open my ears and shook the hot air, sending large waves into the water. Debris rained down around me, but it drifted away. He looked back and saw flaming wreckage on the surface of the water, black smoke rolling towards the sky.
  
  
  I was lucky. Its continued to float to the shore adjacent to the port of bar. Stavros saw me and fired two shots. The bullets hit the water right behind me. He fired a third time and cut through my forearm. He swore under his breath. Even if I get her to the shore, I might not be able to carry a gun, because the bullets in the gun might get wet.
  
  
  When Stavros saw me continue walking toward the shore, he turned and ran away from the seaweed-covered dock. It led into the flat, low part of the island, directly behind us, to the ruins of half a dozen fishing shacks that had long since been abandoned. He obviously intended to ambush me there.
  
  
  It was hard to see the old sea wall, which now entered the dock at right angles. I looked at the open space in front of me, but I didn't see Stavros. The hot sun began to dry the salt water on me as I studied the terrain candid ahead. At a distance of about three hundred yards, the entire property was relatively flat, except for scattered stone outcrops and boulders that surrounded and provided a backdrop for a short line of crumbling stone shacks. Behind them, a rocky hill rose steeply toward the center of the island, and on the hill was another building. It was a two-story house without a roof or one wall, probably some kind of public structure.
  
  
  He squinted in the bright light, hoping to see Stavros, but Stavros wasn't there.
  
  
  Pulling the revolver from his belt, he took out the cartridges and wiped the ih. He opened his gun and peered into it. Water droplets glittered inside the metal tube, glinting in the reflected sunlight. He put it to his mouth and blew it out to clear his ego. The two cartridges that hers so carefully preserved might fail when hers depended on them. I had no other weapon, since the Luger was still in the hotel, and the stiletto was stuck on the sides of the shooter on the road leading to the military camp. Erica will take ih, but that won't help me at the moment.
  
  
  But Stavros wasn't sure I wouldn't shoot, or he wouldn't have run away. It was a small break in my favor. Taking this as the best thing I had, I got up from the wall and headed for the cottage, gun in hand. If I'd shown her a gun, she might have made Stavros think I was ready to fire it, wet or not, and put ego on the defensive. But I hoped it wouldn't come to that.
  
  
  He cautiously approached the stone houses. Tall grass grew everywhere, even inside the skeletons of small buildings with no doors or windows. The grass moved slightly in the warm breeze where he was. The sun seemed somehow brighter here than in neighboring Mykonos. It and the warm breeze slowly dried my shirt and trousers, but my Swedes still clung to my body.
  
  
  He moved her carefully through the long brown grass. Two lizards, gray and prehistoric, leaped over the rocks to get out of my way. It didn't smell like the street. The hot air filled my nostrils and almost smothered me with its rotting smell. Flies buzzed in the weedy field between the cottages and me, and in the back of her mind I saw Alexis Salomos lying on the twisted wreckage with flies on his nen. Then she noticed movement ahead of her near the nearest cottage.
  
  
  He rubbed a hand over his eyes and looked again. There was nothing to be seen now, no further movement, but I could sense Stavros was there. I could feel it, every bone in my body sending out warning signals.
  
  
  He ran to a chest-high boulder near the first cottage and stood there, watching and listening. The sound of insects was constantly in my ears. He moved his hand to the boulder and placed it on the lizard's back. She jumped back, startling me. At that moment, Adrian Stavros poked his head out from behind the second line cottage and fired his pistol.
  
  
  The shot seemed to echo in the sticky air. Gawking eyes split the stone near my right hand. A moment later, the second shot hit a rock and scattered grains of sand in my face. He spat it out and blinked it away. When Stahl saw her again, Stavros was gone. But licking towards me, between the first and second cottages, she noticed the movement of grass.
  
  
  Stavros apparently decided that I wouldn't shoot the wet gun. Instead of being chased by her ego, it was chased by me.
  
  
  "Hunter becomes prey!" came a voice, followed by a low, blood-curdling laugh.
  
  
  That deep, crazy voice seemed to come from inside my head rather than around the cottages. I couldn't tell exactly where Stavros was from the sound.
  
  
  "Then come and get me, Stavros," I shouted.
  
  
  "Ilyas," Stavros corrected me from somewhere. "Alexander is a given name." This was followed by another burst of laughter, high-pitched, psychotic, swaying in the hot breeze.
  
  
  She was heard by a noise in the thicket near the first cottage. He looked through the empty eyes of the broken windows and saw nothing. Then I heard her voice to my right and a little behind me, in the tall grass.
  
  
  "The gun is useless, isn't it?"
  
  
  I turned to see Stavros standing behind me, in a completely different position than I'd heard her last sound. He might be crazy, but he was still cunning. He pointed a gun at me and fired.
  
  
  Hers fell flat on the ground next to a boulder as he pulled the trigger. The stone was no longer between us. Gawk tore the sleeve of her shirt and scratched her left arm. Her, rolled over once when he fired again. Gawking eyes kicked up dust next to me. I pointed the revolver at him in desperation as he pulled the trigger for the third time. He was trapped in an empty cell. He was looking at me as he pulled the trigger of his gun. It also clicked without firing a shot
  
  
  Stavros ' face changed, and he laughed a high, wild laugh as he slid bullets into his weapon. He threw the gun away, dug his feet into the ground, and jumped at him.
  
  
  It hit Stavros when he raised the gun at me. He didn't have time to pull the trigger while hers grappled with him. The gun dropped as we both hit the hard ground, kicking and scratching at the tall grass.
  
  
  Stavros hit her hard on the jaw, sending him sprawling on his back. But when he charged at him again, he still had a lot of frenzied strength left. He somehow found an empty gun, and when he was back on nen, he violently slammed the barrel of the gun into my head. It hit with a glancing kick, and he fell off it.
  
  
  When he was able to focus on nen again, he jumped up and ran towards the two-story ruins on the hill behind the cottages. I try the wooden door, hanging awkwardly on one hinge, and when her entered, it was still creaking softly. Stavros went this way.
  
  
  He slowly entered the dilapidated building. There was almost as much grass inside as there was outside in the field. In some places it was flattened, where Stavros passed. But I was pleased to remember that this man was so persecuted all his adult life, and he managed to survive. As I rounded the corner of the collapsed wall, I saw her look of mad selfishness, and then a rusty iron bar swung at my head. I ducked, and the bar grazed my hair and slammed into the stone wall next to me.
  
  
  "Tailor!" I muttered. He found a piece of iron left by the last inhabitants of the island. Once again, he had the advantage over me.
  
  
  He grabbed the bar, but lost his balance. He knocked me off my feet and he lost his grip. A moment later, he swung the weapon again. It came down to my face and would have smashed my head if it had hit. I rolled over, and the barbell grazed my right ear and hit the ground hard under me.
  
  
  I grabbed the bar again, trying to wrest it away by Stavros ' trick, and we both lost it. Stavros turned and ran up the crumbling stairs to the top level of the building, where the end of the second floor was located. He was with me forever when he finally got back on his feet. He grabbed a large piece of rock and threw it at me. He slid off my shoulder, and pain shot through him. He started up the stone steps. He was going to catch Stavros and kill Ego with his bare hands.
  
  
  When I reached the top, another piece of rock flew at me. I ducked, and he fell down with a crash. Stavros stood at the back of the narrow section of the skirt, the exposed side of the structure behind him. Despair appeared in Ego's square face as he stood frowning at me. He looked at the towering ground behind the building, which was strewn with boulders and rocky. Then, with a slight hesitation, he jumped.
  
  
  I saw him hit the rocks and roll. He clutched at his ankle, and Ego's face contorted with pain and rage. He crawled to a special round boulder perched precariously on a rock ledge. The boulder was about three feet in diameter, and a smaller rock was wedged under its front edge on a slightly sloping ledge around the rock and grass. Stavros reached for the small stone to use his ego against me.
  
  
  I jumped to the ground next to him, and the impact stung my feet. He fell forward, but rose quickly, unharmed. Stavros frantically pushed the stone away from the boulder. When I started after him, he yanked the stone out with a superhuman effort and stayed there, panting, waiting for me.
  
  
  "Go," he hissed. "I'll break your skull. Her..."
  
  
  We both saw movement at the same time. The boulder next to him, without the support of the removed rock, began to move down the sloping surface of the rock ledge below Stavros ' foot. It seemed to stop for a moment as it stared at him in horror, then it moved forward from the small ledge towards him.
  
  
  Because of the heavy rock in his hand and the broken ankle, he couldn't move fast enough. He started shouting warnings, but then realized the futility of it. Stavros ' face twisted in horror as the boulder reached ego.
  
  
  "No!" he shouted when he realized, like a man falling from a tall building, that certain death was only seconds away.
  
  
  When the boulder reached Stavros, covering ego, he threw up his hands as if to stop ego's advance, but he was gaining too much speed. It rolled slowly across ego's chest, swayed a little, and stayed there. When he first touched the ego, a sharp, piercing cry escaped from the ego's throat. Then, very suddenly, it went dead, as if someone had turned off the radio.
  
  
  Grim-faced, he walked over to where she could see Stavros ' head and shoulders sticking out from under the boulder. Ego's eyes were open, staring unseeingly at the white, hot sky. The arm stopped and twitched as the muscle died, and then it became lifeless.
  
  
  The twelfth chapter.
  
  
  Nikkor Minourkos and her sat under a cool awning in a coastal cafe and watched the mimmo of brightly painted fishing boats on the cobalt-blue Aegean Sea. It was a pleasant morning and we enjoyed it.
  
  
  "Colonel Kotsikas and her have explained everything to the authorities, and they are very grateful to you and Erica," Minourkos told me.
  
  
  Erica had gone out for coffee for a few minutes and was not far from the shop where she bought an English newspaper.
  
  
  "We must have caused some commotion locally," I chuckled, " until they got an explanation for the whole shooting. I'm sorry about Galatis. He came out against Stavros at the wrong time."
  
  
  "In every war, big or small, there are casualties," said the Minurkos, finishing his ouzo.
  
  
  "One man can cause a lot of burn," I repeat.
  
  
  "Stavros could have caused a lot more if you hadn't stopped the ego," Minourkos said. "That's why I flew here to Mykonos to thank you personally. Kotsikas also wants to thank you. He wants to present you and Miss Nystrom with honors at a public ceremony in Athens as soon as you return."
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "Thank the ego for that thought," I said. "But in my dell, we're not allowed public honors." He could imagine Hawke's reaction to the public ceremony.
  
  
  "But there are orders," countered the Minurkos. "Can we at least send ih to you and Miss Nystrom?"
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "Why not? Are you back in the penthouse?"
  
  
  "I'm leaving this place," said Minourkos. "This episode made me realize that a man cannot and should not hide from the outside world. I believe that I still have a lot to do for my country, and I can achieve more thanks to my personal contacts. Which brings me to another reason for coming here to see you."
  
  
  Ouzo sipped it and looked at Minurkos. I liked the ego face. He was a man who could be respected. "What's that, sir?"
  
  
  Ego's dark eyes stared into mine. "I owe you my life, Nick. But more than that, I like you. I like the way you act. Her, want you stahl work for me. I want a man to control my security system and be close to me. I need you, Nick."
  
  
  I started to speak, but he took my hand.
  
  
  "You will have a salary that I am sure will be more than enough for her. And it would give you a share of revenue on shipping lines. I'm not going to live forever. You may end up getting very rich."
  
  
  Ee took her hand. "I'm sorry, Mr. Minurkos ..."
  
  
  "Nikkor".
  
  
  "All right, Nikkor. I'm sorry, but I can't."
  
  
  "Why not?"
  
  
  He took a deep breath and let it out. I was looking out at the blue harbor, where a shiny white cruise ship was heading toward us in the distance. "It's hard to explain," I said. "I tell myself several times a year that I'm crazy to keep doing this job, that it's a thankless job that no one gives a damn about. But people don't care. And despite the poor pay, the long hours, and the danger, it's a part of me. That's what I do best, Nikkor. This is where she needs it most."
  
  
  There was a long silence. A gull flashed its wings in the sun. Finally, the Minurkos spoke. "I understand."
  
  
  A moment later, Erica was sitting on a chair with a London newspaper. "I do not know how they can fly here every day and charge tak malo drachmas apiece," she said.
  
  
  I asked her. "Any mention of Stavros?"
  
  
  She held up the newspaper so that we could read the headline: GREEK OLIGARCH DEALT WITH, there was a picture of Minourk.
  
  
  "Maybe this will raise the value of your stock price," I said, smiling.
  
  
  He got up and hugged Erica. I was going to spend a couple of days with her at the Renya, as David Hawk would have told us. It belongs to them that we have the right to do so.
  
  
  "We're going back to the hotel," Minurkosu told her. "Would you like to come with us?"
  
  
  He shook his head. "I think I know her when two people want to be alone. I'll just sit here until the plane leaves and watch the cruise ship come in. I've always enjoyed watching a beautiful ship enter the harbor gracefully."
  
  
  "Good-bye, then, Nikkor," I said. "Maybe our paths will cross again for the best under different circumstances."
  
  
  "Yes," he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Carter Nick
  
  
  Vatican Vendetta
  
  
  
  
  
  Nick Carter
  
  
  
  
  
  Vatican Vendetta
  
  
  
  translated by Lev Shklovsky
  
  
  
  Original title: Vatican Vendetta
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It was late in the evening, and she was waiting to search Maxim Zhukov's room. The woman who was already waiting with me was Daphne. The clock on the bedside table said a quarter past nine. Her, knew that he left his room at the Villa Favorita every night, around 9: 30, so it was time to get ready. Hers rose from the large brass cot where Daphne lay deliciously naked , her long dark hair fluttering on the pillow, her large eyes and wide mouth smiling out of vast and recent satisfaction. Stretching her body out on the white sheet, she looked like a living doll.
  
  
  He dressed more comfortably. As I buckled her shoulder holster for my 9mm Luger pistol-which I affectionately call Wilhelmina - Daphne looked at me with her big green eyes. "Why are you getting dressed, dear?" she asked. 'It's still early.'
  
  
  "Didn't I tell you that? I have a late business meeting.
  
  
  "It's terrible to stop so early," she pouted.
  
  
  "Modesty is good for a person," I said. But when Daphne let her long, sensuous thighs slide across the sheets, I didn't care about modesty. To hell with Zhukov! He pulled the Luger out of its holster and checked the ammo. As Daphne watched, fascinated, he pulled the bolt and checked the magazine. You can't be too careful with someone like Zhukov. He was an agent of the Wet Dels, the "Heavy Dels" section of the KGB. Like her, he was authorized by his Government to act as it saw fit; that is, to kill when necessary.
  
  
  "Should I wait for you, Nick?"
  
  
  I thought about it for a while. "It may be quite late," I said. "I'll call you.'
  
  
  "Are you sure you can't stay?" she muttered.
  
  
  He playfully patted her buttocks. 'Get dressed.'
  
  
  She did so, breaking out a promise that I would call hey; and finally she left. I knew I might never see her again, but that's my job.
  
  
  She was strapped into a stiletto, christened by the special effects department of AX Hugo HQ, and put on a jacket over the weapon, his trained to kill people in many different ways, but no method can replace the two main weapons. I always carry it with me . Luger and stiletto saved my life more times than I can remember.
  
  
  He thought again of Maxim Zhukov. He was a lean, wiry Russian who had joined the KGB as a young man.
  
  
  A long time ago, the ego was assigned to the "hangman" for Wet Cases, and he was a perfectionist who loved his job . Our paths have crossed only once before, in Caracas. We met by chance in a hotel room, and he offered to buy stolen Chinese secrets for the United States. When emu was ordered to decline the offer, he tried to kill me. Em almost succeeded. The proof of this is the scar on my stomach; and at night in his hotel he was still asking himself for him the hatred that deals can only be replaced by time, or the ego by death. But it wasn't my job to kill Zhukov. I just needed to avoid him if possible. My task was as follows: while Ego was away, go to the ego room and find the document that he and his KGB henchmen had stolen from the courier university a few days earlier in Rime and that he was going to hand over to the KGB. The document contains a blueprint for a new nuclear weapon detonator, a device that has made the use of tactical nuclear weapons more practical and easier. This arrangement gives the United States a clear military advantage over the Soviet Union, and therefore, of course, should not have been able to get to Moscow.
  
  
  
  At nine-thirty, he took a taxi to the Villa Favorita Hotel on Via Flaminia. Although it was Saturday night, it was very quiet in Rime. The only sounds were around the intimate terraces, with brightly lit pizzerias, or on the nearby scooter, where a young couple sat laughing.
  
  
  Villa Favorita must have gotten its name at the best of times. There was nothing outside to encourage a traveler to spend the night there. The stucco facade was cracked and chipped, and the paint was peeling off. Old knuckles hung from the upper windows . Inside was a scratched counter where an old Italian man was sleeping. She silently passed mimmo him and went up the stairs to the back of the small lobby. He stopped on the second floor and looked down the dimly lit corridor to room 307. He went to the door of the room and listened. It was quiet inside, and the world couldn't see her. But that didn't mean Maxim Zhukov wasn't waiting inside. She took out a special lock pick from her pocket and selected the key that opened the lock. Without a word, he inserted the key in the lock and turned the switches. The lock clicked. He slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open. From the inside, there was no sound to us, no trouble to us . A luger pulled her out and quickly stepped inside. One glance into the darkened room convinced me that Zhukov was indeed taking an evening stroll to the nearest newsstand to buy a newspaper. He closed the door behind him ...
  
  
  After a few minutes, my eyes adjusted to the dim light. I looked further to make sure I was really alone, then holstered the Luger and looked around the room and the adjoining bathroom. The room was sparsely furnished and had an unpleasant smell. - from a dirty sink, wooden floor, and sweaty mattress combined with insect repellent powder. Places for eating things were few and far between. The furniture consisted of a wide bed, a bedside table, a small writing chair, a straight chair and an armchair. There were holes in the chair where the padding was sticking out. It wasn't exactly the Cavalier Hilton, but Zhukov might still have a ferret hiding there .
  
  
  He guessed that Zhukov did not have this document. Of course, it was possible, but it would be contrary to all the rules of our profession. You keep an important item with you only for as long as necessary, and then pass the ego on to someone else, or find a suitable place to feed until the ego is passed on . In this case, it was expected that the cache would be here, in Zhukov's room.
  
  
  When fifteen minutes later she found nothing, she started to wonder if I was wrong. Her room was literally turned inside out. Zhukov's mattress was in tatters, and there was filler on the floor. The chair looked the same. The drawers of her chair and bedside table were pulled out and thrown on the floor. Everything was thoroughly searched, even the toilet sink. And I didn't find anything for her.
  
  
  He went to the window and looked at his watch. It was already ten minutes to ten. If Zhukov keeps up his usual routine, he'll be back at ten o'clock or shortly after. He swore under his breath. I needed to find this document before it came back. AX belongs to them that he will hand over the ego to his own discretion carrier early the next morning, so this was our only chance to get the ego back.
  
  
  I saw that there were no ventilation slots in the room, and I suspected that it had never been there. The tenants probably rented the fan downstairs when it was hot, and closed well when it was cold. It really was a third-class hotel, through them, where bed springs poke you in the back all night, and where there's no hot water to shave .
  
  
  Since there were no holes in the walls to explore, I began to fear that my search had abruptly stopped. I was just turning to take another look at the bathroom when I heard a commotion in the hallway. A Luger grabbed her, walked over to her, stood beside her, and listened. She heard another sound in the hallway - a door opening and closing . Her relaxed and shoved the luger back in a minute. As her husband turned toward the bathroom, the door opened.
  
  
  It was Zhukov.
  
  
  Her, turned around. My hand flew to the Luger.
  
  
  "Not forever," Zhukov said calmly, pointing the Russian revolver at my chest. Her hand dropped; he closed the door and came over to me.
  
  
  He was about my height and rather thin. But he had a wiry, sturdy figure that couldn't be underestimated. Ego's face looked young, despite his thinning hair.
  
  
  He stepped into my jacket at sunset, picked up a Luger ,and pointed a revolver at my chest. He tossed Wilhelmina the cut one on the mattress.
  
  
  "So it's you, Carter," he said, taking a few steps back.
  
  
  "You're back early." I quickly thought about the conversation I was about to have. I wondered how long he was willing to talk before he decided to pull the trigger.
  
  
  "I have a habit of changing my behavior at will," he said with a smile. "It keeps me alive. As for you, my other pony, I think I should have treated you better in Caracas."
  
  
  My blood pressure started to dreadlocks. And her voice was again on the wrong side of Zhukov's revolver. And this time he will try even harder.
  
  
  "I'm sorry for the mess," he told her with a gesture. "But in this room, you might consider it an improvement."
  
  
  He asked. "You didn't find the ego, did you?" Ego's smile widened.
  
  
  "No, you hid it well. Of course, I had very little time ."
  
  
  "Of course," he said.. And since you're still here, Carter, I'm afraid you'll have even less time left.
  
  
  "I think I know where it is."
  
  
  "Yes?" he said impatiently. He was ready to shoot, but the emu was curious.
  
  
  "A place where you can't always think straight," he continued. "For a man of your intelligence."
  
  
  The smile turned to an angry look. "Where do you think it's hidden, Carter? Will your last conclusion be correct or incorrect?
  
  
  "I thought it was there." He pointed to the bathroom door as he stood between the door and Zhukov . At the same time, the muscles in her forearm tightened, and the stiletto slid imperceptibly into my palm.
  
  
  I heard Zhukov chuckle at my incorrect guess, but instead of turning to face him, I dropped to the ground. Zhukov's revolver wiped out, gawking eyes caught in my jacket as it rolled away and threw a knife.
  
  
  It was a crazy throw, but fortunately, the stiletto still stuck Zhukov in the right shoulder. When he let out a scream and the hand holding the revolver dropped, her father jumped at him from the ground. We hit the wall. Ego turned her arm, and the revolver flew out, hit the floor, and slid into the corner.
  
  
  Walking up to him, he quickly delivered a right-handed punch to the ego's narrow face, during which he heard the crack of bones . Her plan to launch a second strike began, but saw that it was no longer necessary. Ego fighting spirit is gone.
  
  
  It was the knife that took her off ego's shoulder. He opened his eyes wide and hissed, which hurt. He pressed the stiletto to Ego's chin and studied the thin face. I asked her, " Where is it in the hall?'He groaned. Her ego slapped his face and shook him back and forth. "Tell me where the document is hidden, Zhukov," I said.
  
  
  "The ego isn't here," he said, breathing quickly.
  
  
  "Let's talk," I said. "It's too late for games."
  
  
  He shook his head. The tip of the stiletto pressed hard against Ego's scrawny neck until it bled. I could hear her voices in the hallway. The shot was heard. Someone asked in Italian if everything was all right.
  
  
  Her sazaal. - "Va Bene!" It's okay! He turned back to Zhukov. "Do you see now? Now you don't have much time left. The police should be here any minute." I want to know where this document is in the audience. Speak!'
  
  
  He glared at me and was breathing heavily. "You thought I was just an ordinary person who would punish you just because you threatened me with death? I'm afraid you don't know Maxim Zhukov very well."
  
  
  But ego knew her better than he thought. He remembered the AX file that was on him. Maxim Zhukov was not only a talker, but also a hunter of women. He was very proud of his potency, mistletoe women all over the outdoor pool and had a reputation for having a considerable sexual appetite. "All right, Zhukov," I said softly. "I won't kill you. I'll take the part of your body that you're so proud of - I'll chop the damn thing off ."
  
  
  The arrogance was gone from the thin face's ego. 'What? W-what?
  
  
  There were more voices in the corridor: "You heard what I said."
  
  
  He gave me a startled look. "You won't do it!"
  
  
  'I will.'
  
  
  "You're crazy," he said, sweat breaking out on his upper lip.
  
  
  "Fool."
  
  
  Emu cut her fly open. "So, Zhukov?"
  
  
  'Kill me!'
  
  
  'Oh no. = This makes many people more fun.-"All right?""She was held by a stiletto on the elastic band of the ego of her underpants. Her got the rheumatism I wanted. Panicking, he looked out the window. Then he mustered up his courage. "No," he said. But it was too late. Her, rushed to the window, pushed ego, the rookery broke off and fell into the gutter. There, at the edge of the starboard hatch, was a hidden paper.
  
  
  The frame of the hatch consisted of three layers of wood in varying degrees of decay. In this trapdoor, the middle layer rotted faster than the painted outer layers, and large chunks of wood fell out to form a space . There was a folded piece of paper in this room. When the hatch was closed with the edge to the window frame, the paper was covered.
  
  
  'No! Zhukov shouted, crawling up to me and trying to get up.
  
  
  He took out the paper around the cache and unfolded it.
  
  
  It was indeed a blueprint for the ignition mechanism. I was just putting my ego down when Zhukov dived for his revolver.
  
  
  Before I could reach him, he grabbed a revolver and pointed it at me. He dove for the torn mattress where the Luger lay . Zhukov's revolver went off, and gawking scratched my right thigh. He landed on the mattress and immediately grabbed the Luger. When Zhukov took aim again, the Luger picked it up and fired two quick shots without taking aim. The first gawk hit the door. There were loud shouts in the corridor and knocking on the door. The second gawk hit the beetle just below the heart. He jumped and fell, sitting on the floor. He sat for a moment with his eyes wide open, then fell down dead.
  
  
  People were shouting in the corridor: "Polysia! Polysia! "It was time to disappear. He climbed out of the window onto the rickety fire escape, and let sirens wail in the distance as he descended into a dark alley.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 2
  
  
  
  
  
  
  That evening, as an extra precaution, he checked into another hotel. My new residence was near Via Marco Aurelio, on a small hill opposite the Colosseum. It was a poor neighborhood, and after I moved into a small, stuffy room, I was more concerned about predatory than the KGB. Its been a restless night .
  
  
  The next morning, he got up early, pulled out a cache that wasn't nearly as inventive as Zhukov's, and dressed. But the time to transfer the document was better. She would have been met by a courier at the airport Rhyme didn't know when and handed Emu the document as he boarded the plane to New York. It occurred to me that if Zhukov had disposed of the document within twenty-four hours, he might still be alive today.
  
  
  When he went out for coffee, he left her ego in his room. Like Zhukov, he wasn't asked to stay with me any longer than necessary. The part lover thinks that the items will be safe when he ih carries them with him. But a professional knows that if the item is hidden in a good hiding place, it will be safer there. Inexperienced officers are usually concerned about this, but this concern should not go beyond the qualities of shelters.
  
  
  I spent the morning double-checking the take-off time of my carrier's plane and encoding a short message for David Hawke,my immediate supervisor and director of AX in Washington. Hawk wants to know as soon as possible under what other circumstances the document was found. The courier gave em a message.
  
  
  Not when it was taken out by the document on places of food, put in a silver cigarette case and put the cigarette case in a minute. At the airport, he was supposed to offer the courier a cigarette, and then two identical items were exchanged.
  
  
  I didn't order a taxi at the hotel, but just went down the hill to the Colosseum. But this time the precaution wasn't enough. After only a few minutes of driving it, I saw that we were being chased by a black Fiat.
  
  
  "Take a left here," he told the driver.
  
  
  "But you said you wanted to go to the airport!"
  
  
  "Forget it for now."
  
  
  "Cheers o coraggio!" the man grumbled as he turned the corner.
  
  
  I looked out the back window and saw a Fiat car following me. Now it was my turn to grumble. Her, thought everything went well after he cheated on her. But somehow Zhukov's friends found me.
  
  
  We quickly turned the corner twice more, trying to get rid of them. The driver, finding that the car was following us, took the opportunity to demonstrate his driving skills. He dragged us down Via Labicana, back up mimmo Colosseum and up Via dei Fori Imperiali, then mimmo Basilica of Constantine and the snow-white Roman Forum with ego-shattering temples boiling in the midday sun.
  
  
  "Where to now, signor?"
  
  
  "Just go straight," I said, looking back at the Fiat. Despite the taxi driver's deft handling, we were held up by traffic, and the Fiat kept up with us; it was too close to me. We drove along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele to the Tiber, crossed the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele and headed towards the Vatican. The black car was still chasing us. At first I thought of hiding the document in a taxi somewhere, but since the agents behind us identified the car, this plan finally seemed too risky. So we continued driving down Via della Conciliazione to Piazza Pius XII. St. Peter's loomed before us . When I looked at the square with the big fountain in the middle, I suddenly had an idea. Obviously, it was a corkscrew now or never.
  
  
  "Stop, driver," he said quickly, and at the same time looked back and saw that the Fiat was no more than two hundred meters behind us . I shoved a wad of lire into the driver's hand, and he raised his thick, bushy eyebrows.
  
  
  "Benissimo !"he called after me as I left. "In bocca al lupo!"
  
  
  But then I realized that I needed so much more than my ego's good wishes.
  
  
  Her step picked her up; when she looked quickly over her shoulder again, she saw that the Fiat had stopped on the other side of the square . There were two men in the front seat, their faces invisible in the afternoon sun. Ih the seeming indecision spurred me on . I knew that if I could get into the Basilica museum , I would have a chance to get away from them among the crowds of tourists.
  
  
  So I picked up my pace again and hurried through the colonnade, mimmo of the huge Gemini columns to the museums beyond. He looked back again. Both men got out, circled the sinister-looking black car, and followed me.
  
  
  Suddenly he jerked to the right, ducked into the shadows of the first two museums, and strode into a third, dark building. There were uniformed guards at the entrance. He walked past them without looking back and entered a hall where tourists were filling up the souvenir shops. "Damn the tailor," he muttered; these guys had sharper eyes than he'd thought.
  
  
  Around them, Odin was already entering the hall as he climbed the stairs two at a time. I had time to notice the preoccupied ego expression on the angular, chiseled face. He was a muscular man with dark hair, dressed in a nondescript loose gray suit. And he was probably in the KGB.
  
  
  At the top of the stairs, where hers, panting, looked around, hers, saw that I was in the gallery of the Vatican Library. It was a long, narrow space flanked by glass display cases containing gifts to Popes Pius IX, Leo XII, and Pius X. It was a veritable treasure trove of jeweled scepters, silver statuettes, and strikingly beautifully carved gold bowls and religious objects; ancient vases stood on the floor and between the display cases . To the left of the gallery, she saw the outer wall facing the courtyard where she had run a few seconds earlier .
  
  
  Her room was scanned and Stahl searched for a possible place to eat the document. It was too risky to keep the ego to himself, and he knew that with any luck, the KGB would never be able to find the ego if I hid it in the right place.
  
  
  Uniformed staffers moved through the corridors on either side of the gallery. She could hear the creaking of floorboards as the maintenance staff paced back and forth . Then I'll take a handful of my own actions over the muffled sounds of footsteps, so they can't see what I'm doing. He took it out of his pocket with a silver cigarette case. A dark-haired KGB agent might appear at any moment. He quickly shoved the folded paper into his right hand and shoved the cigarette case back into his doublet pocket. Odin Poe of the attendants was whistling. I stopped and pretended to admire the silverware on one of the display cases, watching the attendant constantly until he was out of sight. Then he shoved the document into an Etruscan vase that sat in a window at the end of the gallery. I had to fold the paper in half again to get it through the narrow neck.
  
  
  He had just gone to another display case when the Russian appeared in the doorway. He came in quickly, saw me standing, and slowed down. He also stopped in front of the display case and examined the contents.
  
  
  I was sure that no one had seen me put the document in the vase. Hoping to look like an ordinary tourist, he spent a few more minutes looking around the exhibition. Then he walked slowly through the rooms and returned the nod of the attendant in the doorway. When he was in the corridor, her father went to the window and looked out into the courtyard. Her, saw that at the entrance to the building was waiting for the start of the second Russian .
  
  
  I moved on. So, they thought they had me trapped. But if they thought so, they didn't have the paper yet. This document was more securely stored in a Swiss safe. My carrier was ordered to postpone ego trips for twenty-four hours if I didn't show up, so that's fine too. Now all I had to do was get away from these two Russians alive.
  
  
  I went down the stairs to the first floor of the building, where I found a corridor with several toilets. Beyond it was the main corridor with a small vestibule leading to the service entrance. He went to both ends of the short lobby, turned the corner,and waited. Almost immediately, a security officer came running around the corner, probably thinking I'd disappeared through the service entrance .
  
  
  When he gave her away, Stahl reached out, grabbed ego, and pressed her to moan. Her ego might kill her, but it doesn't have to. I still had to remove the security document, and while I was doing that, he didn't need the police to investigate the murder. "You're late," I lied, pressing my ego to groan. "The document went to Washington."
  
  
  Its been hit by his ego fist in life. He's bent over, which hurts. Her ego hit him in the neck and he fell to his knees. As I was about to run away from him, he suddenly grabbed my legs and pulled me towards him.
  
  
  He croaked. 'You're lying!'
  
  
  He reached for my face and missed my right eye by a few millimeters. Ego ruku stopped her and slammed his fist into Ego's fleshy face. He screamed and fell against the wall. I got up, and as he was about to get up , I slapped his ego in the face again. Gol-ego was thrown out of the way by the impact. When he hit the wall, her knuckles slammed into his ego diaphragm. Air rushed out through the ego of his lungs, and he collapsed again. Her ego kicked him in the face. He was unconscious.
  
  
  It was clear that no one in the main corridor had heard of the fight. I went to the service entrance and found the door locked, as I expected. But I didn't think I could get past the other officer's mimmo at the main entrance . Her voice picked up its special lock pick, even though it wasn't sure if it would work with a big old lock. It was tried for several minutes, constantly hoping that the service staff would not appear. Finally, the lock opened it.
  
  
  Behind him, I heard her moan as a security officer. He came to his senses. He turned the handle and opened the door. Sunny Brylev entered the room . He walked out into the small parking lot behind the building and walked to the corner where a taxi was waiting. The driver was dozing at the wheel. He leaned over and shook Ego's shoulder.
  
  
  "I want to go to the Hotel Della Lunetta," I said.
  
  
  "Mi si live dai piedi," he replied ; if only her hotel would just take a ride.
  
  
  She was handed a wad of lire by Emu and sat in a taxi while he collected the money. When he finished, he laughed.
  
  
  "Now, quickly."
  
  
  "Your, your, signor."
  
  
  He started the engine, shifted gears, and we drove to the main entrance, mimmo tourists and a security guard. He picked up a newspaper from the driver's seat and held it in front of his face as we pulled up to the entrance. As we passed the mimmo, it was peered over the edge at a KGB agent, a man shorter than his ego colleague. He glanced briefly at the fees, then turned and looked into the building as if he expected to see his colleague .
  
  
  As we drove through St. Peter's Square to the river, she put down the newspaper and relaxed. The document was safe - until some ferret. Now I had to find a way to get my ego back before the courier left the next day.
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  
  ;
  
  
  I wasn't able to contact the carrier until the next day, but that wasn't necessary. As for the document , the Vatican museums were closed half an hour after he left for packing, and did not open until the next morning. So, after a relaxing meal, he was moved to a third hotel in case the KGB looked after the beginning of the second. After lunch, I went to a small bar, ordered a cinzano, and had a slow ego drink . It occurred to me that if Hawke had known where the documents were in the hall, he might have been happy with what I'd done with them, and that I'd already figured out a way to get the document back. I went to the drugstore and bought an extra-long pair of doctor's tweezers. The next morning I'll go to the gallery with tweezers under my jacket, and if no one is around, I'll dip the tweezers in an Etruscan vase and pull out the paper. I'll arrive early as soon as the museum opens , so that there won't be many tourists.
  
  
  I had just worked out my plans when a girl came over and sat down at my table. I watched her while I was still thinking about the Vatican. She was obviously a whore: thin, with thin black hair and too much makeup. She was wearing a cheap striped sweater and a skirt that barely covered her thighs anymore. "Hey, Johnny. You're an American, aren't you?
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  "In the mood for some fun, huh?"
  
  
  "Not tonight."
  
  
  I have nothing against whores. Only most of the people around them seem emotionally disfigured, and I like a woman to be healthy, not just in body, but in mind.
  
  
  She insisted. "Are you sure, Johnny?"
  
  
  "Yes," I said. 'Its confident.'
  
  
  "Hey, I know who you are," she said suddenly. "You're an American cop."
  
  
  Her gaze fixed on Nah. 'What makes you think that?'
  
  
  'Of course! Police officer! Can I let her see it?" Do you work with the Roman police ?
  
  
  "I'm not a copp," I said.
  
  
  She gave me a hard smile. "Hi, Johnny," she said, " there's someone you'd like to meet. Hello, Gina! Favoriska ! Before I could protest, she called out to the girl who had just come up to us and stood hesitantly by the chair, looking me in the face. This one didn't look like a whore. And she was very pretty.
  
  
  "Si encodi!" the thin girl said to the pretty girl, knocking on the third chair. Then she leaned forward and said in a confidential tone: "Gina, she speaks good English. Hey likes Americans. You want to talk to her, don't you?"
  
  
  Gina tried to object to the skinny girl's invitation, but finally allowed herself to be persuaded to sit down.
  
  
  "Gina's pretty, isn't she?" said skinny pride.
  
  
  "What a diabolo!" said Gina, and started to get up.
  
  
  Nice to meet you, Gina, " I said. 'My name is Nick. Please sit with us."
  
  
  She hesitated for a moment, then leaned back shyly. Nah had the beautiful features and light brown hair of northern residents of Milan and Vicenza. Nah's hair was long and thick, with light streaks. Her eyes were brown, her mouth was wide and sensual, and under her fitted blouse and short skirt, her figure was more than refined.
  
  
  "Gina has a cousin in America," the other girl said, ignoring Gina's outrage. "But she speaks American, better than hers. She'll tell you. Then she got up and left, first with a wink at me.
  
  
  "What does that mean?"
  
  
  Gina managed a smile. "Rose likes to introduce me to men. She thinks I'm lonely.
  
  
  "And that's you?"
  
  
  She shot me a quick glance, then avoided my gaze. Everyone gets lonely sometimes, doesn't they?
  
  
  "Yes," I admitted, remembering that it was definitely in my line of work. "Do you work here, Gina?"
  
  
  She's a waitress, a hostess, if you want to call her that. But I don't sleep with men at work." She decided on the last words slowly and decisively. I didn't go into too much detail. Your friend Rosa thinks I'm a cop, but it's really none of my business.
  
  
  "I wouldn't care if it was your job.
  
  
  I asked her. "Can I get you something?"
  
  
  She looked me in the eye. "I'd love to, Nick," she said, " but like I said, I'm not a hooker."
  
  
  I smiled at her. [I thought so. What do you want to drink?"
  
  
  He motioned to the waiter, and she ordered an appetizer. We chatted for a while. He told her that he was an American official who visited the embassy in Rime.
  
  
  "Where are you from in America?" Gina asked.
  
  
  "Around New York."
  
  
  "I always want to go there. Niece Rose was talking about life in New York. She highly values cafeterias and restaurants. Are they really as good as she says they are?
  
  
  I waited for her for a while. "Ah," I said, " they are good in their own way. How long have you been working at this bar, Gina?"
  
  
  'Not so long. I can hardly afford the rent." She lowered her eyes. "I'll go home soon," she said timidly. "There is no work here today, and they don't need it. You can come for a drink with me if you want." Why not, I thought. "I'd love to," I said.
  
  
  I called her a taxi and we went to Gina's room. It was a room on the roof of an old house in Via delle Quattro Fontane. We started on the fourth floor, and as we exhaled for the start of the second landing, her father leaned in and kissed her gently. Her lips were soft, warm and tender .
  
  
  In the room, we chatted while drinking wine. Gina talked about the time when she was the mistress of a powerful boss of the Roman underworld, a certain Giovanni Farrelli. He started out as a simple burglar and then made millions in real estate fraud. According to her, he treated her badly.
  
  
  "But that's in the past. Now I stay away from men like Giovanni. I stand on my feet and earn money honestly ."
  
  
  My blood pressure rose at the sight of her smile. She stared at me for a moment, then got up and turned the light switch so that only the saints around the dormer window would enter the room . She undressed without saying anything. Her blonde hair fell over her shoulders, and her full breasts begged to be touched. I pulled her warm body to me, and she melted into me as my hands gently ran over her velvety skin. Her lips, suddenly hot, found mine, and our mouths opened in mutual exploration. The body he was playing on was lithe and smooth, like a sixteen-year-old's.
  
  
  "Take me, Nick," she whispered in my ear.
  
  
  I undressed her, and she saw the Luger . "So you're a cop."
  
  
  "I told you the truth," I said. Ee hugged her and she forgot about the gun.
  
  
  "The bed," she whispered. "Take me to bed."
  
  
  I did it. As I lay beside her, my hands caressed her body until she parted her long, lean thighs and he ran his hand over the velvety inside.
  
  
  "Va benissime!" she muttered.
  
  
  He let his hand rise higher.
  
  
  "Come on," she breathed.
  
  
  He kissed her full breasts, and she held her breath. "Basta," she called. 'That's enough. Now. I want you now.'
  
  
  Her slowly penetrated nah. Hoarse screams erupted around her throat. Her body writhed with passion, and I was spurred on by a strong and overwhelming physical desire. I felt her wet thighs close around me, and the sound of her whistling, gasping screams echoed in my ears. She scratched my hands with her nails, wrapped her arms around my neck and shoulders, and pulled me down, almost frantic to finish what we'd started.
  
  
  Then came the moment when every thought, every willpower, was gone. "More, more, Nick!" she gasped. My lips curled into a smirk that was already half sardonic, half understanding. She hugged me tighter, more possessive, and her hips began to sway as she lost control. One last convulsive tremor, and we gathered together to decide what to do; she moaned furiously, a song of longing, and seemingly endless pleasure.
  
  
  
  
  When I woke up the next morning, there was a moment of panic; the first flashes of fear as I stared at the unfamiliar surroundings. Next to me, a warm body murmured softly. He looked up and laughed when he saw Gina's sleeping form. Her hair was tangled on the pillow , a coppery halo in her white underwear. Very carefully, she slipped away from Nah until her hand dropped from my chest. She stirred for a moment , then her breathing became even again, and she fell into a deep sleep.
  
  
  Silently, so as not to wake her up and let me ask her where I was going, I got out of bed and gathered up my clothes. I was surprised that I didn't go back to the hotel and spent the whole night with Gina in my arms. But there was nothing of value in my hotel room, because an Etruscan vase in the Vatican Library still held a precious document containing her deadly secret. But now that I had managed to keep the document out of the hands of the KGB, I had to get it back, and as soon as possible. When he was dressed, he smoothed his fingers through his hair, took another look at the bed with its rumpled, damp sheets and the gift of Gina's beautiful young body, and headed for the door.
  
  
  He wouldn't mind waking her up like he knew she wouldn't mind . But he was my true love, and women's pleasures should never have held me back from a job that needed to be completed. She gave Nah one last passionate look. She didn't say anything; her breasts rose and fell with each breath . He slipped out of the room and closed the door softly behind him .
  
  
  It was time to put all thoughts of Gina out of my head. I had to focus on extracting the document, getting it without attracting attention. If I was accidentally caught trying to return the document, there would be , to put it mildly, serious complications. First, the worst thing that can happen to agents-other than death, of course-is to attract public attention. The possibility of my camouflage showing through was risky enough, but if I was discovered trying to grab the paper, the document would be reviewed and examined by any Italian police officer who could see the ego. Even if I can finally convince the authorities that the document belongs to the US government, the secret will cease to be a secret as soon as possible. He was sure that not all Italian police officers would be unwilling to sell such a top-secret document to someone with a large wad of lire in their hands.
  
  
  And if we had told the Russians where the document was in the hall, they would have tried to get to it before I did. Extracts of the document on the Etruscan vase are now my main goal. Everything else was unimportant . Luckily, I woke up early to be in the Vatican Library when it opened.
  
  
  I was in Piazzale XII, at the entrance to the Vatican, when I saw a large crowd gathered in the square in front of me, St. Peter's Square. This was not uncommon. The pope often appears on the balcony of his palace to bless the faithful and pilgrims standing in the square. But this morning, the crowd of tourists and Romans seemed bigger than usual.
  
  
  I had to make my way through the crowd, muttering my apologies at every step. Heads were raised to the windows of the Papal Palace, and as her husband approached the edge of the dense crowd, there was a shout, followed by a strange and almost ominous silence that engulfed the audience. He stood motionless and looked up as the white-clad figure of Pope Paul VI became apparent.
  
  
  He raised his hands in blessing. But he had just begun the blessing when a sharp impact split the sky like thunder. At first I thought it was a car muffler.
  
  
  Unfortunately, it was much more serious.
  
  
  A split second later, the broken glass crashed down on the Pope as the large stained glass window of the ego balcony shattered with a crash. Someone in the crowd below the balcony started shouting, and the Pope disappeared from sight as more glass fell into the crowd of people in the square.
  
  
  The shouts were echoed by others as the crowd became panic-stricken. He looked in all directions to see where the shot was coming from; the shot must have been aimed at Dad and missed him by a few inches .
  
  
  "It's Papa!" a shrill Italian voice shouted.
  
  
  "They're trying to kill the ego! another shouted.
  
  
  People ran to the entrance of the Vatican, and the noise of ih panicked voices rose in the air like a moan of your sadness and despair. Shards of glass still fell on the square, but the leading part of the crowd ran to the doors and did not fall under the city of shrapnel.
  
  
  He glanced once more at the balcony, and at that moment two figures in the bars became visible. They bent down to help Papski up. From where he kept it, he could see that it was apparently unharmed.
  
  
  Behind me, there was another roar around the crowd. He looked over his shoulder and saw a long black car speeding away from the square. Was it just a coincidence, I wondered , or did the car have something to do with what I'd just watched?
  
  
  I don't know why she suddenly looked in the direction of the Vatican's museums and libraries, where she was taken. But when I looked at it, I saw a helicopter descending and disappearing behind a building. It clearly looked like an American military helicopter Skyhook.
  
  
  I didn't have to think about it for even a second.
  
  
  As he made his way through the crowd, he realized that he had to get to the library as quickly as possible. He pushed through the startled people and walked from the main square to the colonnaded museum. When her father entered the main courtyard, Stahl Vidny was back by helicopter. He slowly descended candid over the Vatican Library. And then her, I realized that something was wrong; terribly wrong.
  
  
  He started running because he didn't have a second to lose. Hers, felt my dollar stack pounding, and adrenaline surged through my veins as hers raced toward the museum entrance . Caught up in the panic of the dense crowd, uniformed employees almost all left their posts in front of the Pontifical library. They ran mimmo me, ih eyes frozen with fear. I looked back at the balcony where my Dad had come from. The balcony was deserted; only the shards of glass remained silent witnesses to what I had just seen.
  
  
  Obviously, they didn't know about the saint's condition yet; it wouldn't exactly be an angry, panicked crowd. The guards were running back and forth across the square, as if looking for footprints. But I knew they wouldn't find anything , and I was sure there was more to the fight and the general confusion than was superficial.
  
  
  Now a second glossy black limousine came into view. Her ducked behind one around the pillars at the library entrance. The car screeched to a stop. There was a creak of intimidation, and two broad-shouldered, fat men jumped out around the car and stormed into the building. At the same time, the hatch in the bottom of the helicopter opened, and she was caught in a series of movements in the plane.
  
  
  A shadowy figure sat behind the wheel of the limousine. The man's face was impossible to see as the car lurched forward and flew past me. He squinted and tried to write down the license plate number. But even if the car stopped, you'd still have to have an X-ray eye to see the numbers. The record was covered with a rough opaque black cloth cover.
  
  
  When the car was out of sight, he moved on. I couldn't enter the library while the car was in front of it, but now that it was speeding away, I ran to the entrance of the papal monument and looked inside. Some employees nervously talked about what had happened.
  
  
  But the two strong-built men who had just jumped out around the car were nowhere to be seen. And no one around the excited ih museum staff seemed to notice. Maybe they hadn't seen the men run into the library, but they'd seen her. As he approached the stairs leading to the gallery, two shots rang out. She had a very sophisticated ballistics course at AX , and I had no problem determining that the shots were coming through the galleries where a top-secret drawing had hidden her.
  
  
  Her, ran up the stairs to three dis, Luger in hand, finger on the trigger. When I finally reached the first floor, my worst suspicions were confirmed. The uniformed servant who had decided to stay at his post hadn't left yet, now lying in a large pool of blood for the day. I didn't have to bend over him to see that he was dead.
  
  
  Too late, he saw the massive carved oak doors of the gallery closing from the inside. I ran there, but not fast enough. Even if it was used by Wilhelmina, it would be impossible to prevent the doors from slamming shut.
  
  
  I heard the click of a key in the lock. He pulled the trigger and the wood around the lock split open. But the gawk broke through half the thick wooden door. Then he heard another thud and realized that the same thing was happening on the other side of the long corridor. The gallery was closed from the inside with such efficiency that it was clear that the operation - anything that might involve it - had been carried out with proper qualifications and preparation.
  
  
  I looked around wildly to see if it was possible to enter the gallery. I heard muffled voices behind me. I didn't take any more chances with her. He turned around as three tourists came around the corner. One of them, a red-faced woman in a bright dress, glanced at the Luger and shouted.
  
  
  Her cry spurred me to action. He ran to the row of windows near the closed gallery doors. He unlocked the latch, opened the one around the windows, and leaned forward to look out into the courtyard. About thirty yards from the helicopter, a metal basket more than three feet in diameter and height, attached to a thick steel cable, fell . A man was crouched inside the basket, and I noticed that the basket was made of armored steel , the same metal that covered the bottom of the helicopter.
  
  
  It was now clear that what he had first guessed was indeed true. The attack on the Pope was a diversionary tactic to distract attention from the real crime that was currently being committed. They who were behind this never intended to kill the Pope. This attack was carried out to cause panic and general confusion. The real target was the collection of gold and silver treasures from Gallery Po of the Vatican Library, the very gallery where that damned, irreplaceable secret drawing had hidden her.
  
  
  The screams of a frightened tourist attracted the attention of other visitors to the museum. He looked back and motioned for them to leave - the way he waved at her sparked the alarm of the confused and frightened crowd. He went back to the gallery door, bent down, and listened intently . Her, heard the glass breaking, and suspected that the windows in the gallery were broken into, and soon ih precious treasures were stolen-gifts from all the reigning European monarchs, priceless artefacts passed down to the papal from kings and ecclesiastical princes . And between them was a document that was supposed to return her-at any cost.
  
  
  Somewhere in the museum, an alarm bell rang. But no one was able to put a stop to the most brutal robbery in the history of Italy. I couldn't help but admire the ingenuity of the plan and the efficiency and professionalism in which the crime was committed. But the document I needed was in an Etruscan vase, invisible behind the tightly closed doors of the gallery.
  
  
  "Call the maintenance staff!" I shouted this to the young math student standing next to me, and ego's wide eyes and mouth changed as he was pushed down the stairs by ego.
  
  
  "Yes, sir," he said, the camera ego dancing on his chest as he made his way through the excited tourists .
  
  
  "Tell them that the Papal Gallery is being robbed!" Ego called after her.
  
  
  Perhaps it was the convincing sound of my team or the fact that I spoke English, but whatever it was, the audience calmed down. He pointed them to the safe handrail of the stairwell. Even the woman who had already screamed when she saw my Luger calmed down and seemed to be herself again.
  
  
  Her eyes turned back to Day. A splintered, scorched tree above the castle marked the path of my first shot. One bullet would have been enough . Maybe that changed with the second or even third shot. He took careful aim and fired three shots in a row.
  
  
  Everyone groaned as heavy bullets hit them. The metal lock creaked loudly, and through the smoke and shards of wood, she saw that the lock had been roughly forced. Wilhelmina once again proved her worth when she was shot through the heavy door again. Behind me, another woman screamed, and the terrified tourists ran blindly down the stairs to the lobby.Now that they were no longer in danger, he stepped back, lifted his foot, and kicked. Tae Ex Do is one of the best fighting techniques. Blow up, Will Cha-Gi, day split. The second door and the metal lock flew off the wooden frame and clattered to the floor.
  
  
  Then the doors swung open and her immeasurably saw two well-built men step out around a black limousine . It seemed like it had happened a few hours ago. But no more than ten or fifteen minutes had passed since the ferret was with them when two men - ih comrades in the helicopter-burst into the museum.
  
  
  They were stuffing one precious artifact after another into several already overloaded heavy canvas bags. The metal basket he had seen hung in front of the open gallery window and was attached to the wide stone sill by two metal hooks . The third man loaded the linen bags into the basket. Glass display cases were smashed, and the polished floor was covered with shards of glass .
  
  
  As soon as I broke down the door and took a quick look at the scene, the thief closest to me turned and pointed a revolver at me. He called out to two of his comrades, and one of them dropped a linen sack on the floor and started shooting at random.
  
  
  He ducked behind the doorjamb as bullets whizzed through the air. I heard the sound of lead ricocheting around me . The bullets slammed into the door frame and nearly hit me in the head and chest. He swore under his breath and pulled back a little more .
  
  
  Another gawk whizzed past mimmo's door jamb. He waited a moment, then poked his head around the corner and fired. The gallery provided little cover for the three men. The man who fired the first shots tried to dodge. But Wilhelmina was faster, and she was hit by her first target with a bullet that hit Ego's left forearm.
  
  
  A stifled cry escaped ego's lips. He groaned and fell against the shattered display case, the revolver falling over the egos of limp and useless fingers. My eyes fell on the second man just as he shot me.
  
  
  This one wasn't going to give up as easily as ego on the other. He dragged his heavy bag to the open window, " I want to put the treasure in a metal basket." His Luger pulled the trigger, missing his left thigh by an inch, and Em managed to pass the bag to the third man, who was still standing by the open window.
  
  
  Behind them was a glass display case at the other end of the room. The day before, an Etruscan vase had been placed next to this display case. But now that I saw it, my mouth was dry. There was no vase.
  
  
  Problems are big problems. If the thieves are not stopped and the vases are not returned, the consequences will be unpredictable. I didn't think much about the situation, but I ran into the gallery, shooting. He took aim at the wounded man and shot the emu a second time in the right thigh. He was knocked out, leaving only two egos of his teammates.
  
  
  The man she'd seen climbing down into the metal basket climbed back in, and from where she was standing, she could see the tops of two full linen bags. The dark-haired man who had helped em was ready to leave. The gallery was practically empty, stripped of its precious treasures. When the man returned fire, I collapsed to the ground. Bullets whizzed menacingly right over my head. But I kept shooting, and wood and glass shattered all around me. I felt shards of glass fall on my thighs and chest.
  
  
  If she hadn't been killed by two other men, if she hadn't gotten the document back on the Etruscan vase, Hawke would never have forgiven me, to say the least.
  
  
  "Caita hat!" the man at the window shouted, urging his companion to hurry. He pinned me down with his shots as the wounded man staggered to the window, leaving a bloody trail on the floor. A moment later, the two men were in a metal basket with their companion .
  
  
  He leaped up and fired twice more as the basket soared toward the gaping belly of the hovering helicopter. But when her husband went to the window and fired again, looking out, the basket with the people in it had already disappeared inside the humming car.
  
  
  The armor panel snapped back into place, and my last gawk bounced off the metal. Her cursed as several museum workers and a dozen policemen burst into the courtyard candid beneath me. They fired on the helicopter, but to no avail.
  
  
  It seemed impossible to stop the robbers. I sped out of the window and into the hallway, ignoring the ruins behind me - the ruins that until recently held the museum's most valuable treasures. A few curious tourists looking for fun - and they got it - were still huddled at the top of the stairs. One of them, a fat man in bermuda shorts, had binoculars around his neck.
  
  
  "Give me your binoculars," I said.
  
  
  He looked at me and snorted. 'Go to hell.'
  
  
  It was immediately aimed at him by a luger. "Binoculars," repeat it. "And sincerely now."
  
  
  Suddenly, he was afraid. He handed me the binoculars, his fingers trembling nervously. He snatched up the binoculars on ego hands, ran back to the window and aimed the binoculars at the helicopter.
  
  
  The trapdoor in the floor was now completely closed, protecting the passengers and the treasures of the Vatican collection , as well as the document that had unfortunately hidden him in an Etruscan vase. The helicopter began to take off and deviate from the museum. It was viewed through binoculars by helicopter, but nen had no identification symbols to identify the owners. She then made binoculars through the window on the left side of the helicopter and caught the face behind that window. It was a face that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Amazing, I thought, still looking at the profile of the man I'd seen so many times before .
  
  
  I was not deceived by us in my eyes, us the spectator. I had to believe what I saw. It was a skull - like face, empty, parchment-like skin, thick and waxy. The man's eyes were vicious snake-like clusters with thin, coal-black pupils set in a yellowish, leathery face. A wide mouth with thin lips curled into a skull grin. It was the profile I kept looking at: one side of her face, belonging to the most depraved and monstrous math major I'd ever met. I thought I got rid of him forever the day he plunged into Niagara Falls.
  
  
  Apparently, he survived the fall. Judas was still alive.
  
  
  The helicopter took off quickly, swerved again, and disappeared a moment later.
  
  
  He went back to the gallery and looked around the room. Only a few display cases remained untouched, no doubt because ih's contents were not precious enough. It looks like the thieves knew exactly what they wanted before breaking into the room .
  
  
  He asked her again for the Etruscan vase, hoping desperately that it had simply been moved or broken . But the vase wasn't there, and there were no shards of glass to indicate that it had been destroyed during the robbery. However, he knew that the vase did not have a significant market value. It was worth something only to collectors. Sergey lit up for me. Judas, the man who had so long interfered with AX's work , took a special interest in ancient Italian artifacts. I had no doubt that my eyes had seen everything correctly. Judas was still alive. And he pulled off the most fantastic heist of our time . And he had an Etruscan vase, because he specifically instructed his men to take it too.
  
  
  Her flinched as he imagined ego's joy at discovering the surprise hidden in the vase. It was an unpleasant thought.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  "Unbelievable!" shouted Hawk, pacing furiously in front of the mahogany desk in his temporary Paris headquarters on Rue de Fleur. He gave me a sour look and strode off in his tweed suit. Ego's gray hair was disheveled, and he was chewing vigorously on a thin unlit cigar that bounced gently between ego's teeth.
  
  
  "I'm sorry," I said.
  
  
  "It wouldn't have been such a difficult assignment, Nick," he said sharply. "You had that damned document in your hands. And then... Well, I've never heard such a strange story as what you just told me.
  
  
  'I didn't have a choice. I should have done it. It was just a stupid coincidence that
  
  
  "Do you know who I should answer to for this?" Hawk interrupted me. "It was a joint operation, remember? There are people on military intelligence. I have to report this to the Pentagon and ... God, do you have any idea how the president will react to this? When I hang up the phone, then talk to him, I won't be able to sleep on my right ear for a whole week."
  
  
  "Look," I said irritably, " if you want to deprive me of my assignment ..."
  
  
  Hawk stared at me for a second, as if he'd seen me sitting there for the first time. Their egos changed. The shock of the bad weather in the Barents Sea seemed to have abated. God, Nick, he said, don't mind me. I can't blame you all, I know that. Although many people will try to do it. If there is at least some fault, I will continue to share it. You know, there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the fact that the president assigned this position to AX . I bet they'll jump on our necks .
  
  
  "I do not know what else I could have done to her," I said. "Maybe... I would like a way to do it in a different way.
  
  
  Rubbish. If this robbery hadn't happened this very morning, you would have already become a big hero. To be honest, it was quite clever of you to hide the document in this vase .
  
  
  He smiled faintly. "How nice of you to say that. I have to admit, I thought so myself."
  
  
  But you understand, of course, that it's pointless to convince anyone of this, " he said sourly. "We are in a crisis until we return this document. By the way, how did you get around this museum after the helicopter disappeared?
  
  
  "It was placed at the service entrance, so as not to get caught by security guards in the building.
  
  
  But on the way there, he was met by Odin in a hallway on the first floor, where a window was open that just begged to be used. Her, jumped for example, five feet, a vote, and that's it.
  
  
  "Hmm," Hawk growled. "Well, at least you didn't get caught. Are you sure you saw Judas?"
  
  
  "If it's not him, it must be his twin brother," I said. "The face looked identical. Hawk shook his head. He took out an iso rta cigar, walked around the chair, and sat down. "Judas is still alive ... We didn't find Ego's body when he fell into the waterfall. So it's possible ."
  
  
  "I was thinking about this art theft," I said. "In style, it resembles a number of other art thefts committed in Italy over the past few years. I wonder if Judas was the mastermind behind all these robberies.
  
  
  "I think," Hawk replied, " that if this series of thefts is Judas's doing, I'll bet there's other motives than financial gain. 'Perhaps. But right now, I'm more concerned about the document than Judas ' big plans. He will definitely find an ego in this vase, and the least he will do is sell it to Russians or Chinese all over the world for his hatred of the West.
  
  
  Hawk looked very small and very tired in the leather chair behind the desk. It bothered me that I was burdening my ego with these concerns.
  
  
  "If others copy this detonator, Nick," he said softly, " we could be in serious trouble. I didn't go into details when I gave you this assignment because you didn't need such information to get the job done, but I believe you should now know what we've lost if the information ends up in the hands of potential enemies.'
  
  
  "With this thing, Nick, you can create nuclear weapons on a very small scale. Mortars and howitzers can be loaded with small nuclear warheads, just like tank guns. One shot at a tank cannon can kill hundreds of people."
  
  
  "And there are no negotiations on tactical weapons," I said.
  
  
  I don't believe that we would use such weapons even if we designed and produced them. But the Russians may not impose this restriction on themselves. "Nuclear weapons would be ideal for small-scale warriors who don't stop at ih borders." Hers, he shook his head. "I hope you were wrong about Judas. We can do without it and the associated complications. I will never forget the operation he performed a few years ago when he intended to leave his own after being in America-periodic power outages, black fog, dirty water, blood-red rivers and lakes ."
  
  
  "In the dell itself," Hawk said, " but all we're interested in right now is getting this document from Judas, or whoever it is in this helicopter. The police in Rime seem to be on your side, but I wouldn't expect too much from them. Don't go to them unless you find that they have clear instructions."
  
  
  "What about Interpol in Rime? I know a few people there, and they'll probably be investigating the case."
  
  
  "I will work with them. Of course, they can't know exactly what you do."
  
  
  'I understand her.'
  
  
  "Did you have a chance to see the Vatican Library gallery before you had to leave so quickly?"
  
  
  "I took a quick look around."
  
  
  "Well, I think we should take a good look at this situation there," Hawk said, putting the cigar back in his teeth and biting it.
  
  
  "But how do we do that? There will be double security until the police investigation is over.
  
  
  Maybe that would suit you as your friend in Interpol, Hawke mused. But we won't count on it. I think it's better to go straight to the top figure."
  
  
  "What Rhyme?"
  
  
  "No," Hawk chuckled. "Dad."
  
  
  He leaned forward in his chair. "Talk to Dad?'
  
  
  'Why not?'
  
  
  "God, I wouldn't know what to do. I mean, you have a protocol and everything. Someone else can't do it ? He hated meeting prominent politicians, and what Hawke had suggested was totally unacceptable .
  
  
  "Nick, you need permission to search the crime scene. So you're the kind of man who can talk to the Pope. I believe you will find Paul VI a charming man ."
  
  
  "But will he accept me?"
  
  
  "If the president called emu, then yes. If we had to try again to get the Zhukov document back, the Pope might refuse, because he would interfere in a matter between two world powers. But since it is clear that our state secret was accidentally stolen by criminals, I believe that the Pope will be happy to help us, in any way possible. And if he says you can look around the library, the police won't be able to stop you."
  
  
  Her sighed. "' Good. When will I return to Rome?
  
  
  "Tonight," Hawk said. "That is, if it doesn't interfere with your plans for tonight." The last comment sounded sarcastic.
  
  
  He said with a straight face, " Well, that little flight attendant from the plane. Nah has twenty-four hours off until the next race, and he said hey ... "
  
  
  "That's enough, Nick," Hawk said grimly.
  
  
  He grinned and stood up. "I'll keep you posted."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The warm weather in Rime was over; it was overcast and rainy. The Colosseum had deep pools that reflected the ancient architectural grandeur. The cobblestones of the alleyways were washed away, and tourists walked around with multicolored vehicles dripping with water.
  
  
  The newspapers were full of reports of a Vatican robbery. But it was surprising how few people seemed to know what had happened on the dell itself. In some stories, it was reported that paratroopers landed around the plane in the courtyard of the museum. Other eyewitnesses were sure that the predators were wearing masks. One newspaper reported that there were a dozen men in the building, all of them armed with machine guns and threatening tourists with death. Another newspaper reported that a masked stranger appeared out of nowhere and saved the lives of those who were threatened by criminals. This masked stranger reportedly had a German firearm and spoke either Slavic or Hebrew.
  
  
  I just hoped the police would be better informed. No wonder the rumors and speculations were so widespread after such a sensational crime, but I've never seen the press so confused. He didn't read us a single article that described exactly what happened that sunny morning.
  
  
  The best thing I could do now was to contact my friend Antonio Benedetto at Interpol headquarters in Rime . Antonio was a young, handsome inspector who twice helped me go through the Interpol files. I thought I could count on him again. I got a good look at the face of the man she shot in the gallery, and I wanted to study the photos of the criminals. I knew I could trust Tony to keep my identity to himself and not ask questions.
  
  
  Her, approached him late in the morning. Ego's voice was warm and friendly.
  
  
  "Nick," he said with a thud, " what a surprise to hear from you again, amigo. What are you doing in Rime? Are you the mastermind behind a massive Vatican heist? Ego's laughter was infectious.
  
  
  "It's not my job," I said. "I only deal with real money. Cans. Cashiers and so on.
  
  
  He laughed again. "But this case took a lot of imagination, amigo."
  
  
  "Yes," I said. "To be honest, I was kind of involved."
  
  
  "Four times ?"
  
  
  I didn't go into too much detail. "Tony, I'd like to see some pictures of her every year. Can you arrange that?"
  
  
  'Of course. Earnings today is not when. Better yet, we'll have lunch. I know a nice cafe not far from here.
  
  
  'I can't do it today. I have an appointment.
  
  
  Ouch. Well, I hope she's a beautiful woman."
  
  
  I said, " No. "With My Dad."
  
  
  "Impossible ! Antonio said.
  
  
  'That's right. The Holy Father sees me at two o'clock in the afternoon ."
  
  
  'Mercy!'he said softly. "You have more influence than her, I thought, amigo."
  
  
  "With some help from Washington," I said. "I'll tell you about it later. Can I come to your office in the morning?'
  
  
  "Benissimo," Antonio said. "You always seem to turn me on, Nick."
  
  
  On the same day, he returned to the Vatican. The area around the museum was cordoned off, and police were visible everywhere. It would be impossible to return to the gallery without permission from the authorities . You might as well try to break into Fort Knox.
  
  
  Dad's safety was now much better than it had seemed at first. The perpetrators were terrified by the shot fired at him on the day of the robbery, and no one could approach him without impressive documents, and then a thorough check.
  
  
  The first line of defense consisted of several police officers around the entrance to the wing where the papal residences and offices were located. They were well-trained guys, and it took them a while to test me.
  
  
  Of course, he'd left all his weapons - and especially Wilhelmina's - at the hotel. When they couldn't find anything suspicious, they handed me over to a plainclothes policeman, who handed me over to the Vatican Guard.
  
  
  Finally, I was escorted to the papal chambers. The rooms were rich in the history of Western civilization. The paneled walls were decorated with frescoes, the ceilings were mosaics, countless walls and faded tapestries. Yet nen was ascetic, almost ascetic. The feeling I got when I looked around her was a sense of solemnity, a complete lack of levity.
  
  
  I was shown a seat in a large waiting room, and while I was waiting for her, I thought about her equipment to all the heads of state and dignitaries who were sitting in the same room. And now it's Nick Carter's turn, Killmaster N3 AX. I didn't know if the comparison made me laugh or saddened me.
  
  
  It had been at least half an hour, and I was starting to get a little nervous when the door opened. A tall, distinguished-looking man in a fiery red cardinal's outfit entered the reception area.
  
  
  "Your Eminence," I said, getting up too quickly.
  
  
  He came up to me, his face expressionless. "I assume you're Mr. Carter?" "What is it?" he asked softly.
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  "Her Cardinal Pei. Your Ego Holiness can receive you now. You can follow me." He pointed to the room he had just entered.
  
  
  He followed closely, hearing the sound of his own footsteps. As he closed the door behind us, he nodded to the other two cardinals, presumably the honor guard. Ih the narrowed but not angry eyes told me that my every move was being watched carefully, if not evaluated.
  
  
  At the end of the hall were two brown-robed monks. A total of five men watched me as I slowly lowered my head because I didn't know what else to do. Pope Paul was sitting openly in front of me, surrounded by two monks. He was wearing a white smock and cap, and on his chest was a large gold cross.
  
  
  Cardinal Pei didn't say anything. The subtle change in their expressions made me take a sharp step forward. "Your Holiness," I said, lowering my head again, not sure whether to bow or not. A smile crossed Dad's pursed lips. Maybe he saw how uncomfortable I was feeling . Perhaps he sensed the uncertainty that I thought was now reflected in me. In any case, I was very reassured by his smile. "Mr. Carter,"he said in perfect English," please sit down." He gestured to the chair next to him, and the ego pope ring glinted briefly in the light.
  
  
  Her sel, painfully aware that the credibility of my government, not to mention Hawk and AX, is now at stake. But Dad's condescending demeanor was contagious, and it wasn't long before I found myself starting to relax.
  
  
  Cardinal Pei took up a position to the Pope's right. "This is a young man sent by the President of the United States, Your Holiness," the Cardinal said.
  
  
  "Yes, her, I remember that this audience was requested."
  
  
  Pope Paul VI turned to me, and my eyes clouded for a moment. "It appears that your government has become involved in a recent - and very unfortunate, extremely unfortunate-theft."
  
  
  "Yes, Your Holiness," I said. "A very important document was stolen along with the papal gifts. To protect the ego from ... er ... Against enemy elements, her took the liberty of hiding the ego in one by will meet your beautiful Etruscan vases. Some elements accompanied me to the museum; people who came to take the document from me ."
  
  
  I knew that I was on slippery ground, in the territory of international diplomacy. Therefore, he chose his words as carefully as possible. When Dad nodded, as if agreeing with me, he was glad that despite the ambiguity of my brief explanation, hers was clear.
  
  
  "Your president," he said, " said this one ... this document, as you call the ego, is extremely important."
  
  
  "In the dell itself, Your Holiness. That's why we were so eager to explore the gallery and maybe ask a few questions to the museum staff. We understand that the police are conducting a thorough investigation. But because of the importance of this document to my Government, we found it necessary to conduct our own ... er ... careful investigation ." Cardinal Pei nodded, looking first at the Pope and then back at me. I moved on.
  
  
  "For example, we need to check whether a vase is among the stolen items. Of course, there is a possibility that it was transferred to the Etruscan museum after the library left it."
  
  
  "I don't think so," said the cardinal.
  
  
  "Right in the dell," Dad confirmed. "I believe the inventory is complete, Mr. Carter. I only glanced at her cursorily, but I don't remember her having an Etruscan vase with her. Of course, most of the stolen items were removed from the shop windows." He stopped and looked across the room from me at the opposite wall. Time seemed to pass slowly, but he didn't say anything to her. Finally, he looked back at me . "Excellent, Mr. Carter," he said. "You are allowed to spend the rest of the day in the gallery and other areas of the library. I also allow you to make a request - that is, without providing additional information, but I probably don't need to tell you - at the Etruscan Museum."
  
  
  "That's very kind of you, Your Holiness."
  
  
  He turned to Cardinal Pei. "Prepare a letter so that ego can sign it. Mr. Carter shouldn't have any unnecessary problems with our police.
  
  
  "Your Holiness," the Cardinal said, nodding again.
  
  
  "Make sure it happens immediately." Dad turned back to me. "We personally wish you to find this document, Mr. Carter."
  
  
  "Thank you very much, Your Holiness," I said, standing up and taking a few steps back. She bowed and left through the rooms, followed by Shell Cardinal Pei.
  
  
  Twenty minutes later, he received a note with the Pope's signature and seal. I was overwhelmed by active recreation relief. My audience with Pope Paul VI went well, but it was the most nerve-racking part of my mission.
  
  
  
  
  Her first went to the Etruscan Museum. The entire area was temporarily closed. We didn't have our visitors, our tourists, so I didn't have any problems getting information. Like the other Vatican museums, this one looked more like a palace than anything else. It was studded with valuables and artifacts from the Etruscan era. He recalled that most of the items were found near Etruria during the excavations of Pope Gregory XVI. I had no idea that there would be so many vases, bottles, bowls and other treasures in the museum. Unfortunately, the hope that I would be able to recognize the vase was futile. But with the help of some people around the museum, ih has an extensive archive of her and discovered that the vase was given to the Vatican almost two years earlier, and that there is no record of her return.
  
  
  Later that day, hers spoke to some gallery employees, who confirmed that the vase, as far as they knew, was in the gallery on the morning of the robbery. This left me with the conclusion I was already dreading: the predators had taken her.
  
  
  Her spent part of the day at the gallery, then a thorough police check. The young plainclothes cop looked suspiciously at Dad's note.
  
  
  "That needs to be checked, signor."
  
  
  "Then do it quickly," I said. "I only have time to look around today."
  
  
  'There is a certain procedure
  
  
  "Look," I said. "Dad himself told me that I wouldn't have any problems with this note. Should I tell her that you doubt it?
  
  
  The young man looked at me for a moment. Then he looked at the note again. "Simple," he said. He went out into the gallery and handed the note to the second plainclothes officer. The man read it. Then they looked at me and said something quietly to each other in Italian. The man who was standing on the day turned around, pointing at me, and then spoke decisively to the other detective. The rheumatism was calm and accompanied by a casual wave of the hand. The young man handed the note back to me. "My boss says you can go to the gallery," he said grimly .
  
  
  "G," I said, and took the note.
  
  
  I went in and looked around. Including the young man, there were three policemen. They were talking quietly to each other. The long hall looked different from the first time ego had seen it. The windows were closed because it was raining; it was gloomy. The broken lids of the glass display cases were removed and examined for fingerprints. He was sure that if the thieves had left any physical evidence, the police would have already taken ih. But there would have been nothing meaningful left around what I saw that morning if it hadn't been for the finger prints ...
  
  
  He looked at the door. It would be impossible to identify individual printouts of shoes among the many available if they were not located at the window frame or in other specific locations where only thieves were present.
  
  
  He asked for the Etruscan vase again, even though he was sure it wasn't in the main hall . She was asked by the police if the vase or fragments of the vase had been used as evidence. He said it wasn't.
  
  
  I went back to the hallway, trying to remember what I'd seen coming up the stairs that morning: the dead servant and the doors that had just slammed shut. Then he turned and went back to the gallery. Then he walked over to where the body was and saw that nen still had bloodstains on her. The doors were now wide open, and when her father peeked through the right-hand door, he saw that the broken lock hadn't been repaired yet. The police were probably curious about the 9mm bullet they pulled out around the tree. He looked down at the ground and saw something else. The door was pressed against the groan by a metal hook on the floor, which was inserted into the eyelet at the bottom of the door. It was interesting. This meant that to lock up the day, the thieves had to stand outside the doors to release the hooks . He leaned down and looked at the floor. A thin layer of dust outside the door left a clear impression of recent shoes .
  
  
  Most likely, the print was made by the person who killed the security guard and locked the door on this side of the gallery . I thought it was a crepe sole with a rather unusual checkered pattern. The print moved around her, unhooked the door hook, and pushed the door open to let in more light . A miniature camera with ultra-sensitive black-and-white film pulled it out of its pocket. I took three pictures of the shoe print and put the camera back in a minute. And when he straightened up again, he saw a lump of dried white mud next to the print. Most likely, it fell off from the shoe in which the print was made. He took a handkerchief from his other pocket, took a piece of clay, and wrapped it in the handkerchief as soon as the young detective returned. As he watched, he pushed the door open again and fastened the hook.
  
  
  "Is something wrong, signor?" he asked. His ego tone suggested that he had taken me for an intruder.
  
  
  I wasn't going to tell him anything about after being revealed. If possible, she should be asked to find Judas before the police do. The police may have different ideas about ownership, the document, and an international intrigue may begin before it is returned to ego - and only after the Italian military authorities have carefully studied ego.
  
  
  "I just saw those bloodstains on the floor," I lied. "Terrible condition."
  
  
  "Yes, it's terrible," he said soothingly.
  
  
  "Thank you for your cooperation," I said, turning to leave.
  
  
  He stopped me. "Tell me, Signor, are you on Interpol or maybe on the world press?"
  
  
  "We need this, we need something else," I said. "Her professional visitor to the museum. I go to museums all over the outdoor pool, and then describe and catalog the contents of various publications. So far, more than ten thousand people have visited it. I couldn't wait for the gallery to open, because I still have fifty-three museums in seven other European cities on round-trip Sundays. I have to go now, because I have a few more museums to visit here in Rime today."
  
  
  "Of course," he said.
  
  
  When I left, the young man looked at me in surprise, wondering if he had been deceived.
  
  
  
  
  The Interpol office was located at 23 Via Filippo Turati, in a nondescript building. The weather had cleared up, and there was a crisp spring air in the air. It would be a great morning to take a walk around Rome and experience the atmosphere-go to the Tivoli Gardens, the Baths of Caracalla or the famous Villa Adriana. But there was still work to be done, and that work was waiting behind the dingy facade of Interpol headquarters.
  
  
  She was found by her friend Tony Benedetto in Ego's small second-floor office. The dim walls and furniture of the office were lit up by sunlight streaming in through the open window and Tony's big smile .
  
  
  "Nick, my other one!" he greeted me and walked around his chair to give me a hug.
  
  
  "Buon giorno, amico," he told her with a chuckle.
  
  
  Tony was almost my height, with thick dark hair and bright eyes. We've helped each other out before and had a lot of fun together. Tony liked to have a little fun.
  
  
  We play this game. He pulled out a pack of Lucky Strike and offered Tony a cigarette.
  
  
  'Ah! Now I remember why I like you so much, Bambino. Because you have good American cigarettes.
  
  
  He lit it, and we sat in silence for a while, smoking in silence. "So you're the controller now?" he finally told her.
  
  
  He shrugged. "If you stay in the organization long enough, you'll eventually become the boss, whether you like it or not." He smiled at me with his toothpaste.
  
  
  "Maybe I should leave on AX before the boss resigns," I said. "I don't think I can handle office work."
  
  
  "Me too," Tony said. "Fortunately, my small promotion allows me to also work outdoors." The dark brown eyes were serious now. "I have a case of a robbery at the Vatican, Nick. How are you involved in this?
  
  
  It was summed up by what had happened so far by ferret. He told Emu about the document, but not what it contained. He listened grimly. I'd like to see your police photos, I decided. "I got a good look at the person I injured."
  
  
  "We'll watch ih together, Nick," he said. "I sent a man to the Vatican, but he didn't find anything. Is it possible that we can work together on this issue? "
  
  
  "Maybe," I said. "But not officially. I prefer that Interpol does not know the reason for my presence."
  
  
  He nodded.
  
  
  "And one more thing," I added. "If we could find the document, it's mine. You may not even mention the existence of an ego to your superiors."
  
  
  Tony thought about it. "All right, Nick," he said. "We are interested in getting the Vatican's treasures back, we don't need to dig into the state secrets of the Americas." The smile slowly returned to her face. "I have a feeling you have a lead."
  
  
  She was taken out of her pocket by a miniature camera. It was a Minolta with a very fast shutter, and he used superpanchromatic film in it. "I think this will interest you," I said. "How quickly can it be manifested ?"
  
  
  "We have a small dark room," Tony replied. "And a professional. We'll be able to zoom in around noon."
  
  
  "Great," I said. He took the handkerchief and unfolded it. "And then she'd like to know where that lump of clay came from." Can you find out?
  
  
  "This is going to be a little harder, amiko," he leaned forward and examined the lump of clay. "I'm giving my ego to our chemist. Anything else?'
  
  
  'Not at the moment. Let's take a quick look at your photo albums ."
  
  
  We spent more than an hour looking at police photos in a large gray room filled with filing cabinets, desks, and female clerks. When we finished, she didn't recognize a single face in the entire photo archive that she knew.
  
  
  "I was sure this guy would be there," I said. "If the person you saw was Judas," Tony said, slapping the latest album,"he must have been very careful about choosing his people."
  
  
  'Exactly. But this robbery was committed by real professionals, and usually people of this level have a criminal record ."
  
  
  Tony put a hand on my shoulder. "We have photos and a piece of clay," he said. 'Come on. We'll have a good lunch, sprinkle some fine wine on the afternoon, and then go back to the day's work refreshed.
  
  
  He grinned and nodded. One thing I always liked about Tony. The ego and carefree demeanor were genuine, but I knew that behind the carelessness lay the intelligence and cunning of a dedicated police officer.
  
  
  "You're right," I said. "We can't do anything here until the photos are ready."
  
  
  We went to the Mediterraneo Cafe and played this game on the terrace. It was getting warmer now that the clouds had cleared, but the wind was still strong. On Tony's recommendation, we ordered fried fish. The main course was preceded by spaghetti and then white cheese. Our light white wine was delicious. We chatted about the old days, and Tony denied the media reports about a girl we both knew. We laughed a lot, and for a while, the pressure of the past Sunday eased, and she was able to relax.
  
  
  More than an hour later, we returned to the Interpol office. The photos were developed and enlarged to 18x24. Tony took the ihs out of the folder and handed them to me without looking at them.
  
  
  "They did a good job," I said. "Look at this."
  
  
  He examined the first photo. "Yes," he said, " it's a picture, clearly visible. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it, Nick. Very unusual.'
  
  
  "I agree, and it's good for us."
  
  
  'In particular. I'll make more printouts and choose the type of shoe ."
  
  
  We entered the darkened room, and the lab assistant immediately promised to make more copies of the best photos. Then Tony took a list of shoe stores in the city, and hers, made a few phone calls to check out the shoe manufacturers. There were a dozen ihs all over Italy.
  
  
  While Tony ordered several men to visit shoe stores, he returned to the hotel to code a report for Hawk. I had to put the ego in a "mailbox" where the ego courier would pick it up and send it to Hock. AX didn't use a phone, even with a speech converter, except when an urgent message had to be delivered. I wrote my report and sent it to Ego's mailbox.
  
  
  When I got back to my room, I found Tony asking me to call em.
  
  
  "We found a manufacturer," he said. "This is a web company in the country that is engaged in producing such a design. We are currently compiling a list of retailers based on the manufacturer's ledgers."
  
  
  "All right," I said. "I'll be there before you finish. My compliments for your efficiency ."
  
  
  -
  
  
  When she returned to Tony Licks, by evening she had learned that the shoe factory in the hall in Milan was called the New Italian Society. The representative in Rime received only small quantities of shoes from the factories, and sold ih to only two stores in the city. The odin around these stores went bankrupt about a year ago. As a result, there was only one shop on the outskirts of the city .
  
  
  Upon inquiry, we found out that the owner of the store was a certain Luigi Farnese.
  
  
  "Now we'll find the ego," I said. "That is, if our man bought ballet slippers in Rime."
  
  
  "Probably," Tony said. "We believe that we have also identified your piece of clay, amiko. Our chemist thinks it's Sicily.
  
  
  "Hmm," I said. "Mafiosi".
  
  
  -
  
  
  Tony had other things to do, so he took a taxi to the store alone. It was located on a narrow street in one of Rhyme's new neighborhoods. Shoes and other products were sold at skins. Farnese, a short, fat man with a narrow mustache, was very helpful.
  
  
  "Three customers recently bought these crepe-soled shoes," he said. "I wrote down ih names."
  
  
  Her, looked at the names. Barzini. Aranchi. Pallotti. They didn't tell me anything.
  
  
  I asked her. "Can I copy her names?"
  
  
  'Of course; for estestvenno.'
  
  
  I never made it, thanked the seller and left.
  
  
  
  
  The next day, Tony took me to the police headquarters, where her ego assistant was supposed to be, and the emus decided to go through the voluminous files. By noon, we found what we wanted. Rocco Barzini had a free kick. The list was old, and the nen only mentioned a minor crime. An hour later, we found the ego among the police photos. It was the man who shot her in the Vatican .
  
  
  Tony conferred briefly with the archivist.
  
  
  "The police haven't heard from Barzini in quite some time,"he said," and they've lost their ego in appearance."
  
  
  "Don't they know where he is?"
  
  
  "They say no."
  
  
  "Well, we know he was in Sicily recently."
  
  
  "Yes, dear other, but this knowledge is of little use to us. Sicily is a large island with a taciturn population. You will see that it will be very difficult to get anyone to talk about Barzini or anyone else." I agreed with him. Then he suddenly thought of Gina, a girl who wasn't connected to the mafia. "Perhaps, "I said," we can find out something about our crepe - soled friend here in Rime."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I went to see Gina that night. She knew I was coming and made a delicious edu. The main course was scallopini alla Firenze, with melted cheese on the meat and spinach. First there was spaghetti, then veal, and finally cheese and a nice present. The red wine was excellent.
  
  
  "Do all Italian women cook so well, too?" he asked her when we played a game like this on the bench.
  
  
  Gina put her arm around my shoulders. "Not everyone is around them," she said,"but most Italian women are." She pulled her legs up under her, and her skirt slid up her thighs, exposing her white buttocks.
  
  
  "They do a lot of things well," I said softly.
  
  
  She smiled and lightly kissed my neck. "I thought you were coming back to me, Nick," she whispered.
  
  
  "I'm afraid it's business," I said guiltily. "At least that's the main goal tonight."
  
  
  She jerked her hand away. "That's not exactly flattering, is it?" she said, pouting.
  
  
  He smiled at her and pulled her close. "This is very important, but it doesn't mean I didn't want to see you again."
  
  
  He turned her face to him and kissed her on the lips. She put her arms around my neck. "That's better for the legs," she muttered. Then she broke free. "What kind of business do you have then?" she asked. "I thought you were in the foreign service."
  
  
  "In a way," I said. Gina, I can't tell you exactly why she's in Rime. But maybe you can help me, if what you've told me about yourself is true."
  
  
  She kissed my earlobe. 'What do you mean?'
  
  
  "You said you know people from the underworld."
  
  
  She recoiled a little. "But you're not the police."
  
  
  Hers hesitated. Then its decided to tell hey as much as possible. "For some reason I can't explain it to you, Gina, "I said," I'm interested in what happened in the Vatican Library a few days ago."
  
  
  Her dark eyes were even bigger than usual.
  
  
  "Diavolo ! Are you interested in the Vatican robbery?
  
  
  "Yes," I said.
  
  
  'Ah. I don't know. There are certain types of crimes that you can't get information about. It's such a crime. No one knows anything about it."
  
  
  "I don't expect you to tell me about the crime, either," I said. "I was just hoping you'd tell me about someone."
  
  
  She shrugged her shoulders. 'Who is this person?'
  
  
  "Ego's name is Barzini," I said. "Rocco Barzini".
  
  
  She thought for a moment. Then she said: "I do not know that name."
  
  
  "Think carefully, Gina," I said, kissing her hand. "This is very important to me."
  
  
  After a moment, she said, " No, Nick, I don't know this man."
  
  
  He sighed.
  
  
  "The police themselves don't have any clues in this case," she continued. "It would be better if you put this matter around your head."
  
  
  I could see the worry in her eyes. "Gina,"I said," I can't."
  
  
  She leaned back on the couch and chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "Well,"she said slowly," if I can't convince you to give up, we can do something."
  
  
  'Yes?'
  
  
  "There is a woman. I met her through Rosa, a friend of mine from the cafe."
  
  
  "I remember the Rose," I said.
  
  
  "This woman owns a brothel in Piazza Montecitorio. She knows Roman criminals better than her brothers. Maybe she wants to talk to you." For a fee.'
  
  
  "I'll pay you," I said.
  
  
  "You'll have to go there alone. She doesn't let women into her house, except for the girls who work for her."
  
  
  "Can I see her tonight?"
  
  
  "I'll take a look."
  
  
  She went to the phone, dialed a number, and spoke in a hushed tone. A few minutes later, she hung up and sat down next to me on the couch.
  
  
  "It's all right," she said sadly. "You can go there after ten o'clock.
  
  
  She's ready to talk to you. She didn't mention the name of the person you're looking for. She is afraid that her phone is sometimes tapped by the police."
  
  
  "Thank you, Gina," I said. He looked at his watch. It was almost ten o'clock. "Then I'd better go," I said.
  
  
  "There's something else."
  
  
  'Yes?'
  
  
  "To make your visit look normal, find one around the girls before you can talk to Mrs. Vasari."
  
  
  She was lifted by her sullen chin with her index finger. "Maybe I can avoid it," I said.
  
  
  She looked serious. "Don't play games with Mrs. Vasari, Nick. She said hey, you'll pay for the girl and that you should recoup your money."
  
  
  'I'll watch it.'It wasn't a pleasant thought to leave Gina and go to bed with a prostitute. "Don't be afraid forever. I mean, the girl. Rose assured me that Mrs. Vasari is very strict about her health."
  
  
  Its got up. "If you're okay, I'll come back here after I talk to her."
  
  
  She looked at me with tears in her eyes. "I would really like that," she said.
  
  
  
  
  I took her by taxi to Piazza Montecitorio. The square was in an ugly part of the city, not for evening walks. The house was very old, with a weathered facade. All the windows were lit, although on the ground floor the blinds were drawn and the windows above them were closed, leaving only streaks of yellow light .
  
  
  As her carapace crossed the sidewalk, she saw a man standing on the next porch. He wasn't looking in my direction, but his selfishness made me wary. A thin young girl let me in. A few more customers moved into the large living room, where they met the girls; while I waited in the hall outside the great hall, they all seemed to be aware of my presence.
  
  
  A slender, middle-aged woman with black hair slicked straight back approached me. I asked her. "Mrs. Vasari?"
  
  
  She smiled thinly. "No, her to her Mrs. Vasari. Do you want a girl?
  
  
  He didn't know how to respond. 'Yes.'
  
  
  As we entered the living room, several women looked in our direction. A young blonde woman came up to us. She was wearing a pair of short black panties that exposed most of her thighs and breasts. Her rated her at about eighteen; her felt another touch of innocence to her heart-shaped face. She asked me in Italian if she could keep me occupied . Her conclusion was that she was just as good, or just as bad, as the others. He nodded to her.
  
  
  She smiled and grabbed my arm possessively. Mrs. Vasari's mother left, and the girl asked if I would like something to drink before we went to her room. "No,"I said," let's go upstairs now."
  
  
  "Ah, you're looking forward to it, aren't you?" She led me up the stairs to a room on the ground floor.
  
  
  As soon as the door closed behind us, she started undressing me. "You're English, aren't you?" Mary received many Englishmen ."
  
  
  He let it run its course for a while. Looks like hey liked it. I didn't bring my guns, a risky move, but I didn't want to attract unnecessary attention in this place . He lifted her to the edge of the iron bed and removed her ballet slippers and trousers, while Maria deftly removed her thin clothes. Nah had a beautiful young body with a small waist and firm full breasts. There was a bruise on Nah's left thigh, no doubt left by a hot customer.
  
  
  "Do you like Mary?" she asked.
  
  
  He stood next to the bed and took off the rest of his clothes. "Yes, Maria, you are very beautiful." Her, smiled and meant it .
  
  
  She sat down on the floor at my feet and began to stroke my thighs. "You're very beautiful," she said. Her hand went up to my genitals and worked there. She leaned forward and kissed my thigh. She was lifted to the edge of the bed and moved to my thighs to snuggle up against each other.
  
  
  When he entered the room, all he was thinking about was talking to Mrs. Vasari. But as Maria worked very expertly with me, my arousal grew, and by the time she stretched out on the bed and tucked the pillows under her thighs, hers was ready.
  
  
  She knew her profession well. She knew exactly what to do and when to bring me to an explosive climax. When it was over and we were lying in a sweat on the rumpled sheets, she seemed happy that I was physically satisfied. She hadn't expected anything else. As for me... Well, that was what I paid for.
  
  
  I asked her about Mrs. Vasari.
  
  
  'Ah. You're the one who wants to talk to Madame.
  
  
  'Yes. Can you take me to her?"
  
  
  'Come with me.'
  
  
  She led me to a second-floor office and we walked down a dark hallway to a back room. She knocked twice, and when she opened hers, she left.
  
  
  "You want to talk to the missus?" the dark-haired woman asked.
  
  
  Her looked mimmo nah into the room. It was softly illuminated with red and blue light. The smell of incense wafted down the corridor .
  
  
  "Yes, she said she wanted to see me," I said.
  
  
  "Come in," the woman said, stepping aside.
  
  
  His entered the room, and the smell of Stahl was suffocating. A figure in rich silk reclined on a low baha'i in a thick-carpeted room . When he came to lick her, he saw that she was an unusually fat woman. Hey, she should have been at least seventy, but she was heavily made up, like a warning from an early sound film. Her lithe, wrinkled face was covered in makeup, her eyes were black and her eyelids were dark blue . Blush was smeared on her greasy cheeks, and red lipstick formed a fake mouth. All of this was covered by an orange wig. Her thick white hands stuck out around her silk dress like two shriveled balls of dough, and then her leather fingers were decorated with at least a dozen rings.
  
  
  "Is that Mr. Carter?" I raised her old voice.
  
  
  "Yes, ma'am," I said.
  
  
  The assistant pushed a chair over to the couch and motioned for me to sit down. "I'm sorry about the odorous stuff," she whispered. "Madame has a strange body odor, which she masks with incense."
  
  
  Sell nodded, too.
  
  
  "Stop whispering and tiptoeing," Mrs. Vasari told the woman. "You can leave us alone for a moment."
  
  
  "Yes, ma'am." She turned and walked out through the rooms. "You look good," Mrs. Vasari said in English. "Do you mind if I take off this wig? Very hot."
  
  
  "Of course not," I said.
  
  
  She pursed her puckered lips and removed the orange wig from her head. She was almost bald, with tufts of white hair sticking out here and there. Wearing a wig, she was the most bizarre woman he'd ever seen. Without her wig, she was a caricature of a sad old woman. Oddly enough, I liked it.
  
  
  "All right," she said in an old man's brittle voice. "I understand you've come to ask for information." The conversation took Nah's breath away.
  
  
  "Right in the dell, ma'am," I said.
  
  
  "Just call me Nellie."
  
  
  "Nellie?" I asked her incredulously.
  
  
  "My father was an English sailor. Despite my Italian mother's protests, he insisted in giving me the name Nelly."
  
  
  She wrinkled her thin, painted lips into a grotesque smile. "Would you trust that I was a very attractive woman?"
  
  
  'Of course."Her hoping that my voice sounds friendly.
  
  
  "When I was seventeen, I got an offer from the Venetian nobility," she croaked. "Her refused. You see, her hotel is more than a spa marriage.
  
  
  I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to say.
  
  
  "When she was founded by this house, she was hosted by some of the most prominent people in Europe, Mr. Carter. My girls knew statesmen and high-ranking officials. The name of a certain minister was known all over Italy . He never slept with girls. He watched them undress and then asked ih to stand naked in front of him while he played with himself. You never know what every person's desires are ."
  
  
  She was already choking on this conversation. "Later," she said, " the underworld would often come here. Mafiosi and others. Ih knew her all along, Mr. Carter. I was told a lot of things, but I never sold information about people I liked."
  
  
  The stench in the room hung up to my nostrils. The wrinkled mask continued. "You've come to ask about a man."
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  'Ego name?'
  
  
  "Rocco Barzini".
  
  
  The eyes stared at me for a long time over the wrinkled skin, then returned to my face. "I know the ego . What information is involved? '
  
  
  "Can you tell me where to find the ego?"
  
  
  "Maybe," a hoarse voice answered. "If the information is worth a lot of money to you."
  
  
  "I have money," I said.
  
  
  "Twenty thousand lire?"
  
  
  Hers hesitated. It was a lot of money, but I had an idea that I couldn't bargain with Nelly Vasari.
  
  
  'Good.'
  
  
  "Do you have this with you?"
  
  
  He reached in a minute, took out a wad of lire, counted out twenty thousand, and handed the money to Nellie. She picked up the ego and counted it again with her clumsy old fingers. When she was done, she held the bill up to her eyes and studied the engraving and texture of the paper.
  
  
  I asked her. "Satisfied?"
  
  
  "You can't be too careful in my work," she said, " even when dealing with Americans. But there's nothing wrong with your money, so I'll tell you everything I know about this parasite Rocco Barzini.
  
  
  She wriggled into the carved oriental chair next to the sofa, the soft flesh of her shoulder swaying back and forth.
  
  
  "Barzini came here from time to time. He was a little thief who mistreated my girls. He was in prison. He usually lives and works in Rime, but sometimes disappears for several years. He spent some time in Naples, where he became interested in prostitution and drugs. And recently he returned to Rome with a man whose name you may know-Giovanni Farrelli."
  
  
  "I don't believe it," I said. But I remembered her name, around Gina's story.
  
  
  "Every cop in Rime knows that name, Mr. Carter. He's a rich man with several legitimate interests. The most profitable one is the successful development and construction company Makelaardij Farelli . But behind this respectable facade, Signor Farrelli is a leader of the underworld, a drug dealer and other illegal businesses. He's connected to a mobster, Mr. Carter, and his name is connected to an art theft that took place in Venice about a year ago.
  
  
  "Interesting," I muttered.
  
  
  "When Rocco Barzini returned to Rome, he was Farrelli's bodyguard."
  
  
  'Loyal. And that Farrelly lives in Rime?
  
  
  "Signor Farrelli has many residences," she croaked. "He has a place to live in the city, but he's almost never there. He has a villa north of Rhyme and a suite in a hotel in Capri that he owns . It's almost always in Capri at this time of year.
  
  
  She picked up the bottle and sprayed a fragrant smell in the room. The liquid made her hair look wet and shiny in the soft light. She sniffed the sweet fragrance, nostrils flaring, then coughed violently.
  
  
  I asked her. "Are you okay?"
  
  
  "Yes, yes," she said. "All right, young man."
  
  
  "Do you believe that Barzini and Farrelli can be in this hotel in Capri?"
  
  
  "Most likely, Mr. Carter. The hotel is called Caesar Augustus and is located in the center of the island ."
  
  
  "You've been very helpful."
  
  
  "I always value a person for money." Her painted, leathery mouth smiled wryly.
  
  
  He got up to leave.
  
  
  "You must pay fifteen thousand lire for the girl," Mrs. Vasari croaked. "You can pay at the bottom. And come back again, Mr. Carter.
  
  
  "Thank you," I said.
  
  
  In the hallway, I took a deep breath of it. Downstairs, he paid the dark-haired woman for a short stay with Maria and left. Outside, the fresh air had never smelled so good.
  
  
  She told me that I could find a taxi on the boulevard a little further away, so I went in the same direction. It was a sultry evening, a pleasant evening. But halfway across the next block, shaggy heard her. He turned and saw two men approaching quickly .
  
  
  I had no reason to believe that I was in any danger, but as they approached, her body pressed up against the moaning house. They slowed down. One passed around them mimmo me, the other next to them. Then the man who passed mimmo turned around and cut me off . I thought I recognized the face I'd seen in Nelly Vasari's house.
  
  
  "Firth Mar!" he said, stopping me significantly.
  
  
  I didn't have a choice. I said, " What happened?" . "Hofretta!"
  
  
  I was in a hurry.
  
  
  "What did you talk to Mrs. Vasari about?" Another, less muscular man asked in English.
  
  
  He looked at the man's square, pock-marked face, and suddenly felt naked without a luger or a pair of stilettos.
  
  
  "She's an old friend of mine."
  
  
  The big man growled. You've never been there, Signor.
  
  
  Her shoved him. 'Move over!'
  
  
  "Not until you say what you're saying to Madame," he said.
  
  
  "I've already said that. It was a renewal of an old friendship ." Her hotel pass mimmo them.
  
  
  A muscular man punched me in the head. It fell on his companion, who let his fist enter my life. The combination of the two blows knocked me out for a moment . It hit the house hard, and gasped like a fish . I saw another fist coming at me and tried to dodge it, but got a quick slap on the cheek. Moments later, I was grabbed from behind. The smallpox-marked face moved in front of me.
  
  
  "Tell us about this conversation," he snapped.
  
  
  'Go to hell. I groaned.
  
  
  A fist slammed into my chest. Before he could recover from the blow, her first two was hit in the face. Her, I felt my head tilt to the side. These gangsters knew their stuff. They probably didn't even have anything to do with the kind of men she would have liked, but that didn't make much difference at the moment.
  
  
  "Stop it," he growled. I saw the flash of a blade, and then the stiletto held under my nose.
  
  
  "Say it or I'll cut you!"
  
  
  He could breathe again. "All right," I said. "I'll say it." The knife didn't disappear, but it remained motionless.
  
  
  Now he had regained his strength. The narrow blade of the knife was only three inches from my left eye. I should have known very well what I was doing.
  
  
  "We were talking about the slam business being revealed," I said, still breathing heavily. He moved his right leg so that it was between the ego's splayed feet . "Mrs. Vasari's company?" "What is it?" he asked suspiciously. 'Why?'
  
  
  The other man was holding my hands a little less tightly.
  
  
  "Yes," I said, bracing myself for action. "You see, take her to a hotel, ask her to open a house in Milan."
  
  
  'Which ones? Mrs. Vasari would never -"
  
  
  He dragged the massive man forward one step and drove his right knee hard into her scrotum. Ego's face twisted. He dropped the stiletto in the street. When I put my foot down, I stepped on the stocky man's instep with my right foot . He screamed, and the ego power weakened. I slammed my left elbow into her ego ribcage as hard as I could. I heard it crack. He screamed, fell on his side, and slammed into the wall behind us.
  
  
  The other one hit me. She was blocked by a left-handed punch and returned it with a right. As he fell to the ground, he reached for the stiletto, but it slid into the darkness. Then she felt a crushing blow on her back. The big guy pressed up against moan, and attacked me again. An ego fist slammed into the back of my head, and he fell to his knees. It fell on its side. A hard boot slapped me across the face. I hit it with the back of my hand, and it flew off.
  
  
  When I was kicked in the side again, I groaned loudly. He reached out with his boot and missed. The muscular man stood up again .
  
  
  "Basta cosi!" he said. He decided to leave.
  
  
  The ego companion hurried after him, and they disappeared around the corner. Its hard to sel. It felt like I'd been passed through a giant meat grinder. I had such severe pain in my body that it was impossible to tell which areas were damaged. He raised his hand to his face. It was a bloody mess.
  
  
  He leaned against the house for a few minutes, hoping the pain would subside. Hers, was too optimistic. He stumbled down the dark street for several hundred yards and finally reached the boulevard. Just as she had said, a taxi soon arrived. Ego called her and went inside.
  
  
  "What diavolo !?" the driver exclaimed when he saw my face.
  
  
  He gave emu Gina Romano's address. He drove fast to get me around his taxi as soon as possible. He went up the stairs and slammed Gina's door. When she opened it, her eyes widened in shock.
  
  
  "Dia mio!" she exclaimed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  My forearms were heavy and my mouth was dry. He was trying to recover. All I could remember after meeting Gina was that I managed to get Hawke on the phone with the voice converter to let em know . He said he'd call me back in the morning. He moved one of her legs. He could feel the other flesh under the sheet . He ran his hand over the soft swell of life, to the warm spot where his thighs met. Gina turned to me. Her left breast brushed my side, and I felt her nipple slide mimmo me. He reached under the sheet and touched her soft, warm pelt . Trying to ignore the pain, he rolled onto his side, squeezing the hard round buttock.
  
  
  "Mm," she said, still closing her eyes.
  
  
  She snuggled up to my body and wrapped her arms around my waist. Then she let out another sound, and her eyes opened, blinking.
  
  
  'Nickname? Are you sure you're feeling better?
  
  
  He pulled her hips up to me, and she slung an arm over my shoulder. Her breasts pressed against my bare chest.
  
  
  "Nothing much," I muttered. "But I think the situation will improve in the near future."
  
  
  She parted her full lips. The newly hatched tongue was warm and sweet. Her hips bounced gently against me. The kiss made us gasp. Gina swung her right hip over my hip, and my body aches were forgotten in the rush that gripped us as hers turned and lifted her body to take my push. She came to me willingly, and at the same time, we reached a climax.
  
  
  Then her bench press is on her back to rest. Gina was lying next to me, looking up at the ceiling. Finally, he raised his hand and gently touched the wounds above his left eye and on his right cheek. They were dry, but the whole side of my face hurt . By some miracle, my teeth seemed to be still there. He pulled down the sheet and saw a few bruises on his torso.
  
  
  "They treated me well," I said, " but I doubt they'll be able to move so smoothly this morning."
  
  
  "Poor boy," Gina purred softly. She puts her hand on my hip.
  
  
  "I hope they didn't bother Nelly Vasari," I said.
  
  
  "They won't do it, Nick. Nah has a lot of powerful friends ."
  
  
  "I thought they were Sicilians," I said. "Even though there is no direct connection, by now Barzini or Farrelli has heard it."
  
  
  .
  
  
  "Nick," Gina said, turning to face me. "Are you going to Capri?"
  
  
  I asked her. "Why do you want to know?"
  
  
  "When you told me all about your involvement in the theft last night, you may not have known about it, but you forced me to help you," she said. "And I can help you. You might as well trust me completely now that you've trusted me for a long time. I don't know this Farrelly guy. You remember her telling you that I was an ego lover. I know her ego everything, ego, id, ego habits. I can be of use to you."
  
  
  I asked her. "How long have you been ... with Farrelly?"
  
  
  She avoided my gaze. 'A few months. He bought me a lot of things, but the ego cruelty was unbearable for me."
  
  
  "How can I be sure that you will now help me against him?" Her, felt further.
  
  
  She narrowed her eyes. "I hate Farrelly, Nick. I swear you can trust me.
  
  
  Her, thought about it and decided to try it. "All right," I said, " I'll take you to Capri. My other Interpol officer is coming with us."
  
  
  "Bring a policeman?"
  
  
  "Yes." She stopped. "Farrelly robbed the Vatican, Nick?"
  
  
  "There's a good chance of that."
  
  
  "But why should your government care?" He looked at Nah thoughtfully. "During the robbery, something belonging to my government was stolen. You don't need to know Jin anymore. Don't ask me again."
  
  
  
  
  "All right, Nick."
  
  
  The phone rang. Gina got up, went to the other end of the room, and picked up the phone. Her naked body still looked attractive. A moment later, she turned around . 'This is for you.'
  
  
  It had to be Hawk. It was him.
  
  
  "Who the hell was that tailor?" he roared across miles of ocean.
  
  
  Hers, he chuckled, despite his hard, sickly face. "Oh, one girl," I said innocently.
  
  
  "Yes, take the tailor, girl!"
  
  
  "It's all right," I said. "And I just put it on the payroll."
  
  
  "To what extent?" His voice sounded sour.
  
  
  "You know, I'll never charge you for this," I said. "I hired Gina on a temporary basis. It joins me to the source, it is important information that I discussed with you.
  
  
  "As long as you know what you're doing!" He paused to find his sarcasm, " I hope you had a good night, Nick."
  
  
  Ego's intentions were clear, but hers remained unmoved. "Oh, yes, sir. Her, I feel much better about myself.'
  
  
  "Look, are you okay? You sounded a little beat up last night.
  
  
  "I'm fine," I said.
  
  
  "We have reviewed Judas' files, "he continued," and we have news for you. Farrelly's name appeared in Judas's file several years ago. He stole some government documents in England. Farrelly is a big boy. He's either a mobster or has close ties to them."
  
  
  'Yes. Like the guy who can provide the manpower and equipment for a series of robberies Judas devised."
  
  
  "A vote on what it came to, Nick. I think you'd better go to Capri.
  
  
  "I'll fly to Naples later."
  
  
  'Good. Keep me posted. This case may be bigger than we think ."
  
  
  'Exactly.'
  
  
  "Try to get some sleep at night."
  
  
  He smiled at her. He knew that Hawk was smiling, too, with his thin face. "Yes, of course," I said.
  
  
  -
  
  
  Later that morning, I went to the Interpol office and briefed Tony Benedetto on the latest developments. He had a solid file on Farrelly. There was a reference to "Mr. J." The date was later than specifying AX.
  
  
  "Judah and Farrelly seem to have become good friends," Tony said.
  
  
  "As for Farrelly, I do not know." "But no one is a Jew yet. He only maintains ruthless business contacts." I looked at the folder with the files. "Judas is not exactly human, you see, he lost his hands in an accident when he was young, and he has artificial hands that look like flesh and blood, but are under a 'skin' made of solid steel. These hands symbolize a person. He almost killed me with them once.
  
  
  "We will pray that he doesn't have another chance," Tony said.
  
  
  "Are you ready to go to Capri?"
  
  
  'Yes . "What time does our plane leave?"
  
  
  'At four o'clock. We'll be in Naples in an hour, and on the island in the early evening."
  
  
  
  
  It was still light when we took the funicular train to the city of Capri, a snow-white island drenched in flowers. The island was so small that the cobalt-blue sea could be seen from almost anywhere in the city. The narrow, winding cobbled streets had countless staircases leading up and down to other levels. Tourists filled the small square in the center and sat drinking cinzano at sunset. Two blocks from the square was the Caesar Augustus Hotel, a large, beautiful building with a bougainvillea tree over the entrance.
  
  
  "The voice is all," Gina said as we stood in front of it. "The suite Farrelly lives in is in the third-floor lounge. You can see the balcony from here. When Farrelly is there, he has two bodyguards, but you can only see one around them. The second one he hides when strangers come to visit . In the small room next to the living room, there is a metal chair that is always locked. There may be something important in this." Then she asked: "What are you going to do when Farrelly arrives?"
  
  
  "Keep our people a secret for as long as possible," I replied. "We can learn about the land or houses on the island. Of course, hers, and I hope Ego isn't there, because we don't have enough evidence against him to arrest him. Judas is the right person for me. I hope he has what I'm looking for." Then: "You can't go upstairs."
  
  
  "Why not, Nick? I can wait for her in the hallway until you ask."
  
  
  "No, it's too dangerous. You go to the cafe in the square for a drink."
  
  
  "Okay," Gina said, disappointed.
  
  
  "If you don't hear from us within an hour, please book a room at the Paradiso Hotel."
  
  
  'I'll do it. She shrugged and walked toward the square.
  
  
  Tony smiled and shook his head. "Good informant, amiko," he winked at me.
  
  
  "You should have seen Nelly Vasari," I said.
  
  
  Faced with a situation like the one Tony and I were in, we had to play by touch . It's like playing chess, because after the first two or three turn increments, there are a lot of opportunities. So we went to the apartment with very preliminary ideas. We knocked, hoping there would be no answer . But the door opened and we saw a girl standing there . Nah had platinum blonde hair and pink lipstick on her plump lips. Her floral-patterned house coat, loosely buttoned at the waist in a provocative fashion, didn't hide her voluptuous curves. It was obvious that she was naked under the coat. Her long, curvy thighs and ample breasts peeked seductively around the corner with every heavy step she took. And judging by the hoarse mutterings and shaky footsteps, it was just as clear that Ay didn't need the drink in her hand. "Is Mr. Farrelly here?" Tony asked.
  
  
  "No,"she said in Scandinavian-accented English," Mr. Farrelly isn't here." She leaned against the wall, and the folds of her housecoat parted even further.
  
  
  "Sorry," I said, trying not to look at her luscious body, " we've come a long way to see it. Can we talk to Hema again?"
  
  
  "You can talk to me, boss," she said, giggling. "She's here, as always, all alone." She puts her hand on the door jamb, as if she's going to rip the dress off completely. Tony looked at me and smiled a little. "We are happy to accept your invitation, signora."
  
  
  She beckoned to us and slammed the door behind her. The room was lavishly furnished, but cleanliness was clearly not her strong suit. Empty bottles, overflowing ashtrays, and half-empty glasses were everywhere, and the thick carpet was strewn with newspapers and illustrated magazines.
  
  
  With a casual gesture, the girl motioned for us to sit down. 'Would you like something to drink?' she giggled drunkenly. He shook his head, and her lips curled in frustration . "Bad luck," she said.
  
  
  The blonde stumbled over to the bench opposite the two chairs Tony and I were sitting on. With a loud and agonized sigh, she fell back on the couch, and the loose knot of her belt came undone, leaving almost nothing to show for her mature body. No doubt we were face to face with Farrelly's mistress. 'What do you want?'What is it?' she asked. "You can tell me. Giovanni keeps me posted on everything." Her words still sounded forced, but she wasn't as drunk as I originally thought.
  
  
  When Tony explained that we wanted to buy villas on the island, hers, he turned and looked into the small adjoining room Gina had mentioned. From where I was sitting, I could see a metal chair with a phone in the corner.
  
  
  "There are very few villas for sale in Capri," said the blonde who only introduced herself as Herta, " and if someone is selling something, it's at a very high price. Gentlemen, other expensive Zhirinovsky things? The last word was given, with a hint..
  
  
  "Right in the dell," Tony said, smiling at Hey. He cleared his throat. "Herta, I see her phone in the other room. Can my friend call our hotel? '
  
  
  Tony frowned.
  
  
  "Of course," she said in a hoarse voice. "I'll turn you on holy one." She got up from the couch, and the robe slid down her thighs for a moment, revealing her pale triangle.
  
  
  When she went into the other room to turn on the saints, Tony raised an eyebrow. And when he passed mimmo nah to go to another room, she took ego's hand.
  
  
  Her, saw that he was hugging her bare right breast. She waved back and forth and smiled. Tony stepped into the room and closed the door. Gerta came over to my chair and stood beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder: "You're a handsome man," she said.
  
  
  Her, looked at nah. "Thank you," I said. "Tell me, Gerta, has Mr. Farrelly made any new business friends lately?" I heard her, he's got a new partner." She returned to the couch with a drink in her hand. "Giovanni always has new faces," she said slowly. "But should we only talk about Giovanni?" You and your father don't just live in the middle of business, do you?
  
  
  "Of course you're very hospitable," the servant stopped her, hoping that Tony was busy searching that chair.
  
  
  "You know, people like her. It's always been like this. I have what they want. Do I shock you?
  
  
  "Not at all," I said. What was Tony doing there?
  
  
  'Great job. I'm glad you're not in shock. Then you're just like her. You know you have to take the opportunity when it comes, don't you?
  
  
  "Yes, it is," I said, thinking about the next room.
  
  
  Herta put down her glass and stretched lazily on the couch. She casually unbuttoned her robe as Tony entered.
  
  
  "Benissima !" he said softly.
  
  
  Herta didn't look at us. "I know what you want," she said in a hoarse voice. "And you can do it. Each in turn, or both at the same time. It's all right, I won't tell Giovanni.
  
  
  Tony was standing in front of her, looking down at her naked body. "Nick," he said through a dry mouth, " maybe we have a few more minutes, okay?"
  
  
  "God, no, Tony."
  
  
  "Then go away. I'll see you later."'
  
  
  "Tony, he'll be back any minute!"
  
  
  Tony looked at the couch and turned to me. "It's easy for you when a girl is waiting for you squares." Now he was upset and a little angry. Not at me, but at the situation. He knew I was right.
  
  
  "Do whatever you want," I said, " but give me the information you got on the phone."
  
  
  Ego's face changed. "I'm sorry, Nick. You're right. He took one last long look at Hertha, then turned and walked toward the door.
  
  
  "Sorry, honey," he said to the naked girl. "Just not the time or place."
  
  
  Herta looked at me a little puzzled. "Don't you want to sleep with me?"
  
  
  "You are the most desirable woman on the island," I said, " but my friend and I have urgent matters to attend to."
  
  
  
  
  Tony was silent while we were in the elevator. As we entered the lobby, I told her: "Look at it this way, amiko. You may get a problem ."
  
  
  Tony laughed. 'I think a cold shower in the hotel ...'
  
  
  I asked her. "What is it?"
  
  
  'Look. That man. This is Farrelly.
  
  
  A tall, dark man in his forties entered the lobby with another guy. It was carefully examined by ego, so that he could find out next time. Then her, looked at the other man hobbling with a cane, and felt ego. It was Barzini, who had shot her in the thigh during a robbery at the Vatican . As the two men approached the nearest counter , her husband turned to the newspaper counter so that Barzini couldn't see my face.
  
  
  "I haven't been asked yet?" Farrelly asked the desk clerk.
  
  
  "No, Signor Farrelli."
  
  
  'Excellent. Send food up for three. Let's say tagliatelle alla bolgnese.
  
  
  "I'll take care of it, Signor Farrelli."
  
  
  Farrelli and Barzini went to the elevator without noticing us. Barzini limped badly. A few moments later, the elevator door closed behind them.
  
  
  "Ego ballet slippers," I said.
  
  
  "At Barzini's?"
  
  
  'Yes. It has a crepe sole.
  
  
  
  
  On the way back to the square, Tony pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "I opened this chair with your handy lock pick and found two interesting things. One was a notebook with Judas's address on it. I decoded it. This confirms the second piece of evidence you found at the Vatican."
  
  
  Her, looked at the paper. It was scrawled: "Senior. Jude, San Marco Imports, Via Sachetti, Pancino, Sicily " .
  
  
  "Of course," I said. "Judas's headquarters are in Zala in Sicily, so that's probably where he hired the bandits."
  
  
  "This means that our interests are also shifting there. If the stolen items are now in Sicily, my case will be resolved when we find ih.
  
  
  "Indeed," I said, " although my task will not be so easy to complete. Not if Judas found the document in the vase . "
  
  
  "Turn the paper over," Amiko Toni continued, " and then you can read what I've copied." It was written in a notebook. Does this mean anything to you?
  
  
  He paused under the light of the hotel's small veranda and examined Tony's handwriting. I read it: "Leonardo's cargo" plus the date.
  
  
  "It's probably a reference to stolen items," Tony said , " and Leonardo could be the collector buying ih."
  
  
  'Perhaps.'
  
  
  Something about the note intrigued me. If it was just a matter of transporting stolen goods, it was none of my business, since I was sure the vase was meant for Judas ' private collection. But I had a feeling that, for some reason, the period had a real meaning - for me more than for anyone else !
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  After 48 hours, we arrived in Sicily. The island was barren and rocky, with a bleak but picturesque view. We explored the first village and found that its inhabitants were about as described in the guidebooks. The men either growled unintelligible answers to our questions or ignored us altogether. The women disappeared when we arrived at the scene. Finally, Tony asked the old man to tell us where the Via Sachetti hall was. It turned out to be a long road, rocky and uneven, leading to another stream on the island. We learned that the company San Marco Imports was closed quite a long time ago, although it was bought by a foreigner. According to the old man, the building was leaning against a cliff overlooking the sea.
  
  
  We knew that the house would undoubtedly be guarded, so if we took a taxi there, provided we could find a taxi in the village, we would immediately have problems. So we decided to approach Judas ' hideout from the other side, by boat.
  
  
  The next morning, after arriving, we hired a fishing boat and made it to the place where the black rock towered almost two hundred meters above us. From the dancing boat, the cliff looked almost vertical. We put a small white boat in a narrow beach at the foot of a cliff.
  
  
  "Maybe we should have taken the road, my other one," Tony guessed, tilting his head back to study the rock above us. "I think it's a very difficult climb."
  
  
  Gina sat next to us on the dark sand, her blond hair swaying like a mane in the wind. "Nick, "she said," I can only climb rocks barefoot."
  
  
  "You don't interfere with anything," I said. "You'll stay here to guard the boat."
  
  
  "No," she said. She turned to Tony. He lifted his shoulders.
  
  
  "No protests," I said. "You are more valuable to us than if you were trying to climb this cliff. If you hear gunfire, wait 15 minutes. If nam Odin doesn't show up around us, leave by boat. Understand?"'
  
  
  "Yes," she said grimly. 'A quarter of an hour.'
  
  
  "Okay," I said, and smiled. "Watch the boat carefully. In the near future, it may be our only option. We'll be back in an hour."
  
  
  We left Gina in the boat and started climbing. We were wearing light windbreakers and rubber-soled boots that we'd bought in the village, and Tony had a coil of rope slung over his shoulder. I had climbing hooks hanging from my belt.
  
  
  There was a narrow ledge at the base of the cliff. We chose the path that led from there. Her carapace is ahead, looking for slippery spots and pointing ih to Tony. From the ego-grim expression on her face, I could tell that the ego of working for Interpol in general was different. The fact is that Toni rarely had to leave the comfort of civilization . I was curious about how much Interpol pays compared to AX.
  
  
  It only took a few minutes to reach the middle of the cliff, but otherwise it was noticeably slower. The trail was practically gone, and we had to find hand and foot support in the crevices. It was a risky business. Now we were so high that if we fell, it was hard to tell what would happen to us. And when we were about thirty feet below the top, Tony slipped on a loose rock, lost his balance, and started to fall.
  
  
  "Hold out your hand!"
  
  
  He released his right hand and grabbed me. Her ego grabbed her arm, and Alenka's ego knocked my left leg off its support. When hers, I slipped and tried to move my legs, hers, I thought I was going to fall. But with her right hand, he grabbed a sharp rock above her head and held on tightly.
  
  
  "Find something to hold on to with your feet," I growled. My alyonka began to loosen the stone. It seemed like an eternity before Tony found a foothold again, and let go of me so I could put my left foot back up and lean on nah.
  
  
  'Good? I asked, breathing heavily.
  
  
  "Him," he growled, his face frightened.
  
  
  Tony admired her. He was far more afraid of climbing than he was of her, but he started it without any objections .
  
  
  "It's not far," I said.
  
  
  He carefully selected places to grab onto and continued. Gina became a doll far below on the narrow beach.
  
  
  We finally came to about fifty feet below the summit with Tony just below me. His knuckles were white, and his lips were pursed. He took the rope from him and looped it through a climbing hook that caught him at his waist . Holding tightly to the rock with his right hand, he let the hook and loop of rope hang loosely from the side and threw it all to the top of the cliff.
  
  
  The hook disappeared over the edge of the cliff. The rope was hanging next to me. She was dragged by ee. After a few decimeters, the hook caught on something and stopped. He pulled on the rope and looked at Tony. "We're almost there," I said.
  
  
  Ego's face was doubtful. He grabbed the knotted rope and started to climb. Holding hands, he climbed to the top. Halfway through, the hook let go of her and dropped three decimeters, then the hook snagged again. He could feel the sweat on his lips and in his eyes.
  
  
  He cautiously climbed further, and finally peeked out from behind the peak. Just twenty meters away was the white-plastered San Marco Imports building. It was a low, one-story building with boarded-up windows, and weeds grew behind a high wire fence that surrounded the building .
  
  
  Then he climbed over the edge and crawled to where the hook was anchored behind a sharp rock. Ego pulled it up, then looked at Tony and nodded. He climbed up the rope. It took some effort for the Emu, but finally he did it and sat down next to me.
  
  
  "You have crazy ideas, amiko," he said.
  
  
  "I know," he told her with a laugh. I went to the edge of the cliff and waved to Gina to let her know we were safely up. She waved at rheumatism. Her, looked at the rocky terrain. "There's an easier way down about half a mile from here," Tony told her. "We'll use them later."
  
  
  "E-Conte," he said . "I agree."
  
  
  We crawled up to the gate. No sign of life.
  
  
  "I'll take a quick look," Tony said. He crawled toward the corner of the wire fence, his face sweating. He looked up at the front of the building, then came back to me.
  
  
  "There is a security guard at the main entrance, who I think is armed," he said.
  
  
  'Its just as I thought.'
  
  
  "At least one more car is parked in front, but I saw it, the service entrance to the side moan. I believe this will allow us to enter without the security guard noticing us."
  
  
  "All right," I said. "But I just discovered an alarm system in this fence. We have to do something about it."
  
  
  It took another fifteen minutes to improvise a detour around the alarm system so that we could cut a small hole in the bottom of the fence. Then we crawled inside and headed for the side door that Tony had found . When we got there, we noticed that the guard couldn't see us from his position at the gate. Mimmo of the building slipped past her until ego could get a good look. He was wearing an open shirt and carried an AK-47 assault rifle under his arm. Next to the gate was a small security guard's kiosk; tied to the booth was something Tony hadn't seen before: a large German Shepherd. Fortunately, the wind was blowing in our direction, so the dog didn't smell us . But I knew we needed to be very quiet when we opened the service entrance.
  
  
  We crept up to the metal door and looked at the lock. It wasn't difficult to open the ego; with a special lock pick, it only took a few minutes. He gently pushed open the door and peered inside.
  
  
  "Come on," Tony whispered to her.
  
  
  We pulled out our guns and went inside. Tony closed the door behind us. We were in a corridor leading to the front of a small building. There was a dull humming sound in the distance. It looked like a shell from below, but there were no stairs in sight.
  
  
  She motioned for Tony to stay close to me as we crept up to the front of the house. We found ourselves in a kind of reception area or office. There was a man in a white lab coat sitting at the table, who I thought was some kind of technician. In the corner, the guard was reading an Italian newspaper. No one around them saw or heard us.
  
  
  There was an L-shaped counter in front of the desk, separating the man from the open front door and the sentry. When Tony nodded to her, he walked through the gate at the counter, and he took a few steps toward the guard.
  
  
  "Sit down," he called to her in Italian.
  
  
  The guard jumped up from his seat, and ego's hand went to the revolver on his hip, but then he saw that my Luger was aimed at the emu's chest. The man in the white lab coat looked at Tony and then at me, slowly getting up from his seat.
  
  
  "Where is Judas?" I asked her, keeping my gun pointed and my eyes fixed on the guard.
  
  
  "What do you need it for?" the guard asked.
  
  
  "Come on, let's go," Tony said, driving his .38 Beretta into the man's back. "Don't try our patience."
  
  
  "Judas isn't here," the man said. He answered in Italian, but he seemed German, or perhaps Scandinavian. Now he turned to us and studied our faces. He was a thin man with rimless glasses and cold blue eyes. He looked like the kind of man Judas would hire. But if he was a technician, what was the ego function here?
  
  
  "Can you contact the sentry outside?" I asked her.
  
  
  "Yes," he said.
  
  
  "Don't tell them!" the guard ran to the corner.
  
  
  I went over to him, took the ego revolver out of its holster, and tucked it under my belt. Then he turned to the technician," Tell that sentry outside to come in here, " I said.
  
  
  "He can't leave his post!"
  
  
  "Don't talk to them!" the guard insisted.
  
  
  "Shut up, you idiot!" the technician said icily.
  
  
  "Just tell him that Mr. Judas is on the phone and wants to give em special personal instructions," I said.
  
  
  The man looked from me to Tony. "Do as he says," Tony said.
  
  
  The technician opened a drawer in his chair and found the transmitter. He pressed the button and said, " Carlo." Come here. Mr. Judas wants you to talk to him on the phone.
  
  
  We waited in silence as the sentry walked from the gate to the building with a menacing AK-47 under his arm. As he approached the door, a security guard in the corner shouted, " Watch out! They have guns!
  
  
  The man in the doorway glanced at Tony and me, then raised his automatic. He shot her and hit the emu in the chest. When it hit the door, the car rattled violently. Bullets tore into the floor, the counter, and the chest of the guard who had called the warning. He slammed into the wall and fell off the chair he was sitting on. Both were dead.
  
  
  He went to the door and looked out. There was no one in sight. When he turned back to the technician, his face was white.
  
  
  "Now let's go," I said. "Is Judas gone, too?"
  
  
  "I'm here alone," he said. I could tell by the ego in her voice that he was telling the truth.
  
  
  "Where's the loot?" Tony asked.
  
  
  'Which ones?'
  
  
  "Vatican treasures. Where are they hidden?
  
  
  "Ah, you thought the treasure was here?"
  
  
  He went behind the counter and pressed the Luger to the man's left ear. 'Where are they?'
  
  
  Ego's face was white as chalk, and he was breathing heavily. "I heard them talking about the cave," he said, swallowing.
  
  
  "What kind of cave is it?"
  
  
  'Snake Cave. Somewhere here.
  
  
  "I know that," Tony said.
  
  
  She was pinned down harder by the K-man Luger. "What's underground here?"
  
  
  A look of pitiful horror crossed his face. 'Nothing like that!'he said loudly.
  
  
  Tony and I looked at each other. I asked her. "If the treasure is hidden in a cave nearby, what do you think for the room below us?"
  
  
  "I think we should find out," Tony said.
  
  
  "Tie him up," I said. "We only have a few minutes before Gina leaves on the boat."
  
  
  Tony gagged the man on the ego of his own tie, tying the ego with a rope while he was waiting for the ladder. There were no stairs, but when he opened the door to the broom closet, he saw the elevator.
  
  
  Her, exclaimed. "Come on, Tony!"
  
  
  We entered the small elevator and descended noiselessly, curious to see what we would find below. A few moments later, we emerged with our eyes wide open.
  
  
  'Good God!'Tony said.
  
  
  "You're right," he said, and whistled softly.
  
  
  We entered an incredible underground complex. We could see corridors and rooms in every direction except the cliff. As we walked, I couldn't believe my eyes. One section contained a complete nuclear "factory", and the adjacent rooms contained all the associated equipment and mechanisms. Judah Stahl as an atomic scientist! Finally, we found a kind of laboratory with a large desk and a safe. Tony went to work on the safe, which he was happy to say he could open, while he examined her chair. When the safe was opened, we found some interesting documents. Attached an ih chair.
  
  
  "Past unresolved art thefts," Tony said. "Judah and Farrelly must have worked together all the time."
  
  
  He took a piece of paper from around the safe and looked at it. "My God," I said. "Judas has kept secrets from NATO countries for years . And in the end, he had enough ih to build his own atomic bomb."
  
  
  "That's probably why he started these robberies," Tony said. "To finance this project."
  
  
  He picked up another paper and stared at it for a long time. "Well, well," I said, chuckling sourly. It was a stolen document that put her in an Etruscan vase.
  
  
  "Was that what you wanted, Nick?"
  
  
  'Yes.'Its neatly folded paper and put in a minute.
  
  
  "Then your locality of Russia is complete," Tony said, " and I'll be ready when I collect the art treasures from this cave."
  
  
  He handed Emu some ink drawings. "No, my locality in Russia is not completed. We thought that Judas would sell this document to the Russians, but it seems that he can use it himself. This is a detailed development of the drawing of the document that laid it in a minute. And in other papers there are notes on the design of devices."
  
  
  "Are you telling me, Amiko, that the document that Judas unknowingly stole contains a plan for a part of the atomic bomb?"
  
  
  "Yes," I said. It was clear that Judas saw that the detonator would make the ego arsenal more effective, and so the ego hotel to use. This also indicated that the Judas bomb was small-possibly portable. It occurred to me that even a portable bomb could completely destroy a large city.
  
  
  "Do you think he'll use it?" Tony asked.
  
  
  "I know her for sure."
  
  
  "Then where is the bomb?"
  
  
  He looked at him thoughtfully. "Suppose the bomb is ready," I said. "Judas had time to make a device and put the ego in his bomb. Suppose everything is ready, and the bombs go somewhere?
  
  
  "Ah," Tony muttered.
  
  
  He picked up another piece of paper and examined it. "Look at this, Nick."
  
  
  Something was scrawled in pencil on the paper. It was in Italian, and it read: "Power of one megaton with a range of forty-five kilometers, at ground level."
  
  
  "My God," I said.
  
  
  "But what will he do with such a weapon?" Tony asked.
  
  
  "I don't know," I said. "But whatever he wanted, the drawing around the vase made the ego plan more real . And her, I feel responsible for it."
  
  
  "Nonsense," Tony said. "No one can foresee such an incredible cause-and-effect case."
  
  
  He picked up a printed brochure that had just fallen out from under the chair. "That's interesting."
  
  
  "What's up, Nick?"
  
  
  "Ship traffic schedule for Italian lines". I looked at the list of cruise ships on the cover of the brochure and saw the name that flashed in my head. "The Voice of Leonardo".
  
  
  Tony's eyes narrowed. "Leonardo. Wait, we're... "
  
  
  "In accordance with Farrelly," her emu denied media reports. "You've decoded it. On the nen was written: "Load of Leonardo followed by a date. That was yesterday.
  
  
  "Leonardo's merchandise," Tony said slowly. "Che diavolo, my friend. Do you think this note refers to ... "
  
  
  "It seems likely to me." He opened the folder and found a list of departure dates for various ships. Next to Leonardo, the date was circled in red. When her saw what number it was, her cursed under her breath.
  
  
  Tony looked over my shoulder, then back at me. "Absolutely fantastic," I said. The Leonardo will sail again in four days . It probably has an atomic bomb on board. And then he'll go to New York."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Later, Gina and I returned to Rome. Tony Benedetto stayed in Sicily to wait for his Interpol colleagues and collect Vatican treasures around the Judas Cave. He has already handed the technician over to the Sicilian police and asked Interpol in Rime to enlist the help of the Rhyma and Capri police to arrest Giovanni Farrelli and Judas as soon as they appear .
  
  
  Around Gina's room, we called the airport, and booked seats on a plane to Naples the next morning. The Leonardo was in Naples, and from there she would sail for New York.
  
  
  Not when he contacted Hawk. He was pleased to hear that I had the document back, and remained in a good mood until I told em that Judas had almost certainly already activated the detonator.
  
  
  'What?'
  
  
  "I think he will put this atomic bomb on board the Leonardo,"I said," and the ship will leave for New York."
  
  
  "Good God," Hawk muttered. "Do you think he intends to use this bomb here ?"
  
  
  "I can't imagine anything else," I said.
  
  
  There was a long silence, broken only by Hawke's heavy breathing on the other side. He took a deep breath and continued, not intending to make the situation look rosy if he knew it was completely different.
  
  
  "As you know, the bomb he created has a range of fifteen miles. Not to mention secondary and tertiary shock waves. According to the blueprints I found, Emu managed to make a bomb small enough to be stored in a station safe in a matter of days . But size has nothing to do with destructive power ... '
  
  
  "Yes, I understand that, Carter. Go ahead, " Hawk said, clearly annoyed by the facts his emu had reported.
  
  
  "All Judas had to do was throw the bomb overboard. It can then lie at the bottom of New York Harbor for days, even weeks. Maybe for months. Now that it has a detonator, all the emu has to do is pair the ego with a long-range detonator. He might be on a field trip in Philadelphia and the emu just needed to push a button. And then... Goodbye, New York ."
  
  
  'But why? Hawk asked. "It doesn't matter if he drops the bomb off the ship, Carter. I want to know why he's obsessed with such a crazy plan."
  
  
  "Because Judas is cheating, sir. You know that as well as I do. He hates us and our country, especially when we last met in Niagara. Maybe it was an ego concept that moved-who knows.
  
  
  'Revenge? Hawk exclaimed, and now he was almost angry with me for putting ego in front of my idea of Judas's twisted character. "Kill ten million people, Carter? Oh my God, man, we need to stop him before this thing really gets out of hand. You've got to find that bomb, Carter. And, of course, Judas."
  
  
  "I'll bet you that," I said quickly. "But if it's any consolation, I'll bet you money that Judas didn't pass on our secret detonator to anyone." At least not yet . After carefully reading the documents that he found in the lab, I suspect that he passed the plans to his employees in several fragments. So no one knows the whole device; everyone only knows a part. I hope we don't have to worry about it anymore when we capture Judas."
  
  
  "If New York doesn't blow up first, you mean."
  
  
  "In the dell itself, sir," I said.
  
  
  "Come on, Nick. Let me know exactly when the Leonardo will arrive in New York, so that agents can be on the scene. You can find the bomb before the ship arrives here . If not, I'll have to warn a lot of people."
  
  
  'I know that.'
  
  
  
  
  
  When I finished calling, Gina and I went to the office in Italy. I was told that the flight schedule had recently changed and that I should go to the captain of the port of Naples or the representative of the Italian line .
  
  
  After lunch at one of Gina's favorite restaurants, we returned to her room. I couldn't do anything until the next morning, when the plane left for Naples. Hers also reserved a seat for Gina, but hasn't said hey yet.
  
  
  After I poured her a drink, Gina, who was also wearing a transparent nightgown, came and sat down next to me on the small sofa and snuggled up to my arm.
  
  
  "Will this be our last night together, Nick?"
  
  
  I looked into those dark eyes and realized how much Gina Romano had done for me. I would miss her very much if we had to break up. This was a failure in my work. You can't get into emotional difficulties. It just hurts. So it would be better if this was our last night. But I still needed Gina.
  
  
  "Honestly," I said, " this isn't going to be our last night. That is, if you want to work in AX for a while longer."
  
  
  "Oh, yes, I think so," Gina said. She kissed me, and my blood pressure rose sharply.
  
  
  "Wait until you see it's a job before you get too carried away," he told her with a smile.
  
  
  "Can I have her stay with you?"
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  "Then everything will be fine."
  
  
  He looked at her nipples, which were dark under the sheer nightgown. It wasn't easy to focus on Judas."
  
  
  "Gina,"I said," you don't need to know some of the things the ferret has been hiding from her until now."
  
  
  She looked serious, waiting for my explanation.
  
  
  "We checked the Leonardo's flight schedule because we believe there is an atomic bomb on board."
  
  
  "Nick, you mean the little atomic bomb?"
  
  
  "A certain type, yes." _
  
  
  "But what does this have to do with the Vatican robbery and Giovanni Farrelli?"
  
  
  "We believe that Farrelly and a certain Judas, or perhaps Judas alone, brought the bomb aboard a ship bound for New York. They created a bomb using a document stolen from me."
  
  
  "Nick, that sounds incredible."
  
  
  'But it is. He must find this bomb before Judas detonates it. If Judas is on board, he will probably be disguised. He's a master of disguise, so I can't count on him to be discovered. I have to start looking for the bomb immediately."
  
  
  "And you need help with that?"
  
  
  "I don't feel comfortable asking you, Gina. But Tony Benedetto is busy looking for Farrelli, and I'm not sure if Interpol will do what I say when we get on the ship. You only have to follow my orders, and you will be able to pass through the days that will remain closed to me."
  
  
  For a moment, she looked mimmo at me. "That sounds dangerous," she said softly.
  
  
  "Yes, it could be life-threatening."
  
  
  "But do you believe that Giovanni planned this terrible thing?"
  
  
  "I believe he had something to do with it."
  
  
  She took a deep breath. "I hate Giovanni Farrelli," she said slowly. "If I can do anything to stop the ego, I will be very happy . But "- she paused - " there's something else. My niece Anna lives in New York. She is my last remaining relative, and I love her very much. Would her life also be in danger because of this bomb?
  
  
  "Most likely," I admitted.
  
  
  "Then I'll come with you, Nick."
  
  
  "All right," I said. "Then you'll still get paid." He put down his glass and hugged her. Her mouth was hot and impatient. Her nipples were hard under her nightgown.
  
  
  "I'm glad you need me, Nick," she whispered.
  
  
  "I'll bet you that," I said.
  
  
  "And that you trust me."
  
  
  I could have told her that I didn't trust anyone, but there was no point in disappointing her or disparaging her about what she was going to do for AX. He pushed her down on the sofa, and we snuggled together, and for a while we didn't care about Judas, or Giovanni Farrelli, or the Leonardo with the death weapon on board. There was only warm skin, sensual smells, sounds and caresses, Gins and the roaring hell she'd created inside me.
  
  
  The next morning, it was a short flight to Naples. We landed just after eight o'clock, took a taxi at the airport, and were flown open to the Naples harbor area, where we arrived, and all the big luxury passenger ships set off. We got there at nine o'clock and got out in front of the gate master's office. A few minutes later, we were sitting in the ego master's office, talking about Leonardo.
  
  
  "Do you want to ride the Leonardo , signor?" the young man asked.
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  "Well, he's not here."
  
  
  'How?'
  
  
  "I'm sure ego isn't in the harbor, Signor Carter," he said. "But if you'll wait a minute, I'll check it out." Gina looked at me as he left the office. "It's bad luck, isn't it?" she asked.
  
  
  'Perhaps.'
  
  
  When the young Italian entered, he had a huge book under his arm, which probably weighed at least ten kilograms. He dropped his ego heavily on the chair.
  
  
  "A vote of confidence, Mr. Carter," he said. "Leonardo sailed two days ago in accordance with the new schedule of the Italian line."
  
  
  "My God," I said bitterly.
  
  
  "You can find out here at the Italy Line office when the ship is expected to arrive in New York."
  
  
  I asked her. "How far did the ship go?"
  
  
  He looked up. "If I remember it correctly, it's a fast ship.
  
  
  It must be halfway there by now. He slowly shook his head. The bomb was definitely on board. And in less than three days, the ship will arrive in New York. He tried to remember where the nearest US military command was in the hall. I needed to get to my phone quickly.
  
  
  Its got up. "Thank you," he said to the young math guy.
  
  
  
  
  If you urgently need the help of the military, you need to talk to the right person. I found this man in General MacFarlane's face. She got a call from an EMU at the nearest US Air Force base. While we were talking, he checked my ID card on the other line.
  
  
  "I'm sorry to ask you, General," I said, " but I must have a plane that can catch up with the Leonardo.
  
  
  "So this plane should be here soon," the general said. "I know that. Do you have anything?"
  
  
  There was a brief silence. "There is a supercargo that they were preparing to fly to Washington. We'll push the journey forward and make a little detour for you. Do you think this is normal?
  
  
  "That sounds great, General."
  
  
  "The plane will be at Naples airport at eleven o'clock. I'll be on board to identify you."
  
  
  "Very well, General," I said. "We need two parachutes and a life raft."
  
  
  He asked. "Two parachutes?"
  
  
  "I have a young woman with me, General. She works in AX.
  
  
  "All right, we'll take care of it, Mr. Carter.
  
  
  "Thank you very much, General."
  
  
  On the way back to the airport, she was asked by Gina if she had ever skydived all over the plane. She looked at me as if her mind had gone mad.
  
  
  I asked her. "Do you think you can do it?"
  
  
  She sighed. I'll figure it out by then.
  
  
  We jump into the sea, so we land a little softer than on land, " I said. "Of course, you must free yourself from the parachute as soon as you fall into the water, otherwise you will have problems. As soon as we get rid of the parachutes, we'll have a life raft."
  
  
  I think I can do it, " she said, but she looked nervous. Shortly after we arrived at the airport, a large transport plane landed on a green background . The General and the adjutant met Gina and me in the station building. The general was a tall man, once a pilot . He looked at my ID card carefully. Then he gave me a big smile.
  
  
  "The Air Force will take you to the scene of the accident, Mr. Carter. How urgent is this trip on the dell itself?
  
  
  "I can only tell you that there is a dangerous man on board the Leonardo, General, and we must 'find' him.
  
  
  General MacFarlane pursed his lips; he wanted to ask more, but he knew I couldn't answer him. Finally, he held out his hand and said, " I wish you every success."
  
  
  "Thank you, General," I said. "We'd better leave now."
  
  
  The general did not return to the cargo plane. He said that he had something to do in Naples and that after that he would return to his base. We said good-bye to him at the cargo terminal of the station building and went to the plane, accompanied by an adjutant. The engines were already running, and we boarded in a strong wind. Shortly after we were introduced to half a dozen uniformed soldiers and officers, we took off.
  
  
  The Italy Line, which gave us a detailed plan of Leonardo's journey, and we were told, for example, where we would find the ego. We also contacted the captain, Captain Bertholdi, and he knew that I had to make sure that the two parachutists were not lost at sea. During the last half hour before contact between the aircraft and the ship, radio communication will be maintained .
  
  
  The pilot calculated how long it would take to overtake Leonardo and calculated four to five hours. This suited me very well , because time was becoming an important factor . We ate cold food as the car flew over southern France. When we joined, mainland Europe was left behind.
  
  
  We received the parachutes, and an extremely patient American sergeant showed Gina how they worked and what to do when the time came. I watched and listened to it.
  
  
  "And all I have to do is pull the ring? Gina asked.
  
  
  "Absolutely fantastic, ma'am," the sergeant said. "But first you have to get off the plane completely, remember that."
  
  
  'Yes. It should be counted slowly to ten, " she said.
  
  
  "I think it'll be all right, Sarge," I said.
  
  
  "Yes," Gina answered hesitantly. She looked small and frail, I'm standing there in a green flight suit that hey Lee. She pushed her hair out of her face. "I can do it."
  
  
  "Just don't let go of that ring," the sergeant said. "You can fall far before you catch the ego again."
  
  
  "Don't let go of the ring," the Genie confirmed.
  
  
  Meanwhile, the pilot contacted the Leonardo and informed the captain about our jump and where to look for us. He asked the captain to take us on board and help us in any way he could .
  
  
  It was a cloudless day. Gina and I stared out the window until we could see the long white ocean liner lying motionless beneath us in the cobalt blue sea.
  
  
  The sergeant nodded at me. "We're ready to jump, Mr. Carter."
  
  
  A few minutes later, we were standing at the open money plane. The wind whistled around us. Nothing could be seen but the blue sky and the blue sky.
  
  
  "All right, Gina," I said. He respected her for her bravery. "Don't look down. You just walk out the door and hold the ring. Count to ten and pull on it.
  
  
  I'll follow you wholeheartedly."
  
  
  All right, she said, trying her best to smile.
  
  
  She turned and jumped. I saw her fall, and then I saw the bulge of white silk behind her. Hey it succeeded. He nodded to the sergeant and jumped out around the plane.
  
  
  If you don't jump the tac part, in the first few seconds after the jump, your stomach will be strangely upset. Mine bounced up and down as hers plunged into the sea below, and the wind whistled around my ears and head, holding my breath. Stretching out the ring, I watched it turn around as it did a somersault in the downward flow of air sampling. Suddenly the parachute jerked sharply. In the next moment, it was slowly floating towards the sparkling sea with a white balloon over my head. Candid beneath me, Gina soared, her parachute swaying gently in the wind. Not far ahead was the slowly expanding white hull of the Leonardo, drawing a frothy image in the calm sea.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gina crashed into the deep blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred yards from the sleek white hull of the Leonardo, which had stopped the cars and seemed almost motionless. As her k & nb descended, she saw a lifeboat being lowered from the ship . A third white parachute, our life raft, fluttered in front of me. A second after the table saw her, hers, dived into the sea.
  
  
  He was completely submerged in the water, and when he got up again, his parachute straps were removed. The salt water stung my eyes. Ih wiped it off and tried to see Gina through the waves. Ee finally found him two hundred yards away . The table landed just short of the ship's rising bow.
  
  
  Her mind drifted to Gina. When he was fifty yards away from nah her, he saw that she was fine. She took off her parachute and swam towards me. We met in the bustling & nb and ee put his arm around her waist.
  
  
  "I did it, Nick!" she exclaimed with a beaming smile on her face.
  
  
  Her, chuckled. "Come on," I said. "Let's get out through the water."
  
  
  They made it to the station without any trouble, and after undoing her seat belts, he unwrapped the bundle. When it was pulled out by a valve on the side, there was a hiss of air sampling, a loud hiss over the sea, and the yellow raft inflated. I got on board and hauled Gina in .
  
  
  "Ah!" she said, falling back on the table. "What a relief!
  
  
  "We'll be on the ship before you know it," I said. "Watch this." And her, pointing to a small boat coming toward us.
  
  
  The sloop was with us very quickly. There were several young Italians on board. As they loaded us into the boat, they looked at each other in surprise when they saw Gina take off her flying cap so that her wet hair fell over her shoulders . Odin around the men whistled, but Gina ignored ego and clung to my arm.
  
  
  
  
  When we boarded, the crew members rushed to congratulate us. Several passengers jostled, but the captain was nowhere to be found. I thought that if Judas was on board the ship, he must have seen us by now. It was bad for us, but there was nothing we could do about it.
  
  
  We were taken to the ship's doctor, who stated in a brief examination. He was very nice, but he didn't speak English.
  
  
  Then a young ship's officer escorted us to an empty first-class cabin.
  
  
  I asked him when he was going to leave. "When can I talk to your captain?"
  
  
  "I'll ask him, signor," he said, looking longingly at Gina.
  
  
  "At least they're here to get us some dry clothes," Gina said, pointing to the clothes on the double bed. Gina was wearing a blouse, skirt, and wool sweater, while I was wearing a tropical suit and sports shirt. Also oni whether we need soft leather sandals.
  
  
  "They seem very nonchalant about our arrival," I said. "If the officer delays, I'll find the master myself."
  
  
  We dressed quickly. Gina looked stunning in her outfit. He looked like a Sicilian gigolo. I opened the heavy waterproof bag I was wearing and examined my weapons, luger, and hairpins. He strapped it on over his short-sleeved shirt and hid Wilhelmina. But I waited until Gina went into the small bathroom to brush her hair before turning Hugo around and strapping her to my forearm. When she returned to the cabin, my jacket was already covering my weapon.
  
  
  "You look beautiful," Gina said.
  
  
  "You too," I said. "Let's go take a look. We don't have much time."
  
  
  We went on deck. On such a large ship, it was difficult to figure out how to get to the pier. We walked for about twenty minutes before we finally reached the upper passenger deck.
  
  
  "Where can we find a master?" The sailor asked her.
  
  
  "Master, sir? It's impossible.'
  
  
  "He's waiting for me," I said.
  
  
  He hesitated. "Perhaps you should ask the steward."
  
  
  "To hell with ego! Where's the first mate?"
  
  
  "Ah, Mr. Ficuzza. It should be on the bridge.
  
  
  "Thank you," he said to her, and mimmo walked past him to the stairs, where a chain was hanging in front of them. He held out his hand.
  
  
  "You and the lady should go to your tour guide first, sir."
  
  
  "Wada al diavolo!" said Gina aloud. "What a typo!"
  
  
  She scolded him. Ay put his hand on her shoulder.
  
  
  "Look," he said to the sailor. "We'll go there looking for Mr. Ficuzza, with or without your company. Can you take us to him?"
  
  
  He looked at my grim face for a moment. "Great," he said. "Follow me."
  
  
  He released the ladder chain and we followed him to the bridge. He asked us to wait in the aisle while he went up the bridge. He caught a glimpse of men in white uniforms, and after a few moments, one of them came out around them. It was Ficuzza's first mate.
  
  
  "Ah, Mr. Carter and Miss Romano," he said with a big smile.
  
  
  I asked her. "Where's the captain?"
  
  
  "He said he would see you soon."
  
  
  He started to worry. A line staff officer in Italy would have told the EMU how much our locality in Russia was heading for, even if he didn't know the details.
  
  
  "We want to talk to him now," I said. "We need to discuss a very important corkscrew."
  
  
  "But, Mr. Carter, the captain is very busy. He... "Damn the tailor, Ficuzza," I said. "The safety of this ship and the egos of the passengers are at stake. Time is running out.'
  
  
  He looked thoughtful. Then he said, " Follow me."
  
  
  After a short walk, we found ourselves at the door of the captain's cabin. Ficuzza knocked. When we heard a voice inside, Ficuzza opened the door and the three of us went inside.
  
  
  A tall, fat man with silver-gray hair was sitting at a wooden table. He stood up and greeted us noisily after Ficuzza introduced us.
  
  
  He said," So they're the two paratroopers! " which was condescending. "A dramatic way to get on board, don't you think, Mr. Carter?"
  
  
  "I'm afraid we had no choice, Captain," I said.
  
  
  "Please sit down," he said, pointing to two chairs.
  
  
  We play this game.
  
  
  "All right," Bertholdi said. "My company has informed me that you are looking for a certain passenger on my ship. Tell me, Mr. Carter, why can't this man be arrested if he comes ashore in New York?"
  
  
  "First of all," I said, " there is no doubt that this man is in disguise, so we must find him before we get to New York. Second, I'm not a cop, and even if I were, this man wouldn't have left any witnesses alive. So it's not just a simple arrest."
  
  
  "Yes, of course," said the captain. "Can I see your ID card, Mr. Carter?"
  
  
  Her emu showed its ID card.
  
  
  "Ah, American intelligence. And the young lady?
  
  
  "She works for us," I said.
  
  
  He smiled knowingly. "Mr. Ficuzza will help you meet your needs, Mr. Carter. You may not use firearms on this ship except in self-defense, and you must respect the privacy of my other passengers. Also, you should do your best not to mess with them."
  
  
  He started to get angry again. "'Captain Bertholdi,' I said, ' I'm not ready to argue. I suggest you listen to what I have to say before you decide what we will and won't do."
  
  
  Bertholdi and Ficuzza looked at each other indignantly. "I don't have all day to discuss this corkscrew, Mr. Carter," Bertholdi said coldly. "If you have something to say, please keep it short."
  
  
  "Captain," I said, " we're not just talking about this man. We believe that he brought a very dangerous weapon to this ship .
  
  
  'A weapon?'
  
  
  'So that the vote.'Her,' looked openly at him. - "Nuclear weapons".
  
  
  Ego's eyes widened slightly.
  
  
  "We think it's a small atomic bomb."
  
  
  Ficuzza rose from his chair. "Diavolo!
  
  
  Captain Bertholdi's face showed a hint of shock, then he quickly returned to his skeptical gaze. "What evidence do you have for this?"
  
  
  "No hard evidence," I admitted. "A note with the name of your ship and a lot of additional information. But together they lead to a reasonable conclusion ." There was a long, deep silence. "But you're not sure if there's a bomb on my ship?"
  
  
  "That's more than likely, Captain," I said.
  
  
  "And you want to search the ship for a possible bomb?" "Captain," said Ficuzza, " I can put a few men on it .
  
  
  "We need at least a dozen men," I said. "This is a big ship, and time is running out. We need to start searching the cabins of all the passengers who play this game in Naples , because I'm sure the real name of the person we're looking for, Judas, isn't on the passenger list. Of course, we have to check it out."
  
  
  "Most of the passengers boarded in Naples, Mr. Carter," the captain said. "You want to disturb and upset these people . As you know, passengers have certain rights.
  
  
  And one thing around them is the right to safety, aboard this ship, " I said. I also ask that you entrust me with the search, as I have experience in such things. Then she'd like you to slow down the ship so we can have more time."
  
  
  Go slower! Bertholdi exclaimed indignantly. We don't care. It must adhere to a schedule. My passengers also have their own schedules. You don't even know if there's a bomb on board. No, the ship maintains normal cruising speed.
  
  
  Captain!
  
  
  "And," he interrupted, " Mr. Ficuzza is in charge of the search. You'll get his orders, Mr. Carter, otherwise there won't be a search at all. Is that clear?"
  
  
  "It's getting clearer."
  
  
  Captain Bertholdi turned to Ficuzza. "Take ten people and these two people and search the cabins. Start with the third grade and go up from there."
  
  
  "Captain,"I said," I don't think Judas will have anything but a first - class cabin."
  
  
  "I repeat, Mr. Ficuzza, start with the third class," Bertoldi said. "If the search fails there, we'll see if we need to search other parts of the ship."
  
  
  The man's stupidity was unbelievable. He decided to wire her to the company headquarters that he was preventing a full-scale search.
  
  
  "Thank you for your cooperation, Captain," I said coldly, and stood up.
  
  
  "At your service, Mr. Carter," he said. "One more thing, Mr. Ficuzza. If there are passengers who refuse to search their cabins, do not insist. Send ih to me and I'll explain ."
  
  
  "Captain, we don't have time for this ...
  
  
  "You can go now, Mr. Carter."
  
  
  Hers glared at him. "All right," I said. He turned and left the cabin with Gina, and Ficuzza followed me.
  
  
  Ficuzza was much more valuable than his master. He quickly caught the purser Fabrizio, and together they rounded up nine sailors who were to search with us. She wished it wasn't such a big job so that he could handle it on his own.
  
  
  
  
  It was announced over the loudspeaker that all third-class passengers were to remain in their cabins after lunch to check their luggage. That would have been another warning to Judas about what was going on , but there didn't seem to be any reason to keep our actions secret. We spent the entire evening searching the luggage, but found nothing. If the passenger was not in the cabin, the search was not performed at the command of the owner. Fortunately, most of the passengers were there. We had to stop at midnight, also on the captain's orders.
  
  
  After some resistance, he allowed us to search the engine room, but we found nothing.
  
  
  
  
  The next morning, the group of detectives, including Gina and me, rested for a while. We had to do it. The Italian crew members were in danger of falling asleep, and we were also exhausted. Shortly before noon, we had a quick snack and continued on our way. She was persuaded by Bertholdi to go straight from third grade to first grade so that we could leave the beginning of second grade for last. The search continued all day. Most of the passengers were very accommodating. Some insisted on meeting with the captain, but in the end agreed to search their belongings.
  
  
  By the end of the second day, we had compiled the entire passenger list, but we couldn't find anything that looked like an atomic bomb, and we didn't see anyone who even remotely resembled Judas. If he was on board, he hid well, or ego visited alone around the other eleven people doing the job. But we were still empty-handed.
  
  
  On the third day, we asked Bertholdi if we could search the crew quarters. He was furious. "Isn't it obvious now that you were wrong about the bomb , Mr. Carter?"
  
  
  "Not at all," I said. "And if you don't give me permission for this investigation, I'll wire her to your headquarters. And then I will also contact Washington, which will then contact your government in Rime."
  
  
  The haughtiness left Bertholdi's face. "Is that a threat, Mr. Carter?"
  
  
  "You can call it what you want, Captain. I'll do my best to search this ship. We're going full speed to New York, and we don't get there until tomorrow . This city is home to ten million people. If you're not worried about your passengers, think about these people. If there is an atomic bomb on board that can easily explode at any moment, would you like to have such a catastrophe on your conscience? That is, if you get out alive, which I seriously doubt.
  
  
  Ficuzza said softly, " Captain, perhaps the crew won't mind this problem."
  
  
  Bertholdi got up from behind his chair and began to pace. When he turned to me, his face was serious. "All right, Mr. Carter," he said. "You can do your own research. But I will personally escort you to my officers ' quarters."
  
  
  "As you wish," I said.
  
  
  The search dragged on slowly, until midday. It yielded nothing and provoked angry comments from Master Bertholdi. He was particularly angry when we briefly visited ego's quarters as well. He asked. "Now you know there's no bomb?"
  
  
  "I told her. "No, now I want to search the superstructure, all the way to the lifeboats."
  
  
  "Absurd!" he muttered, but let's move on. Ficuzza helped us for a while, and then Gina and I were alone. We searched the galleys, storerooms, all the pits and corners of the big ship, but to no avail.
  
  
  "Maybe the captain's right, Nick," Gina said over dinner that night. "Maybe there isn't a bomb on board. Perhaps Judas missed his chance because of the flight schedule changes."
  
  
  "I wish that was true," I said. "I really want Bertholdi to be right. But I know her Judas, Gina." Her brow furrowed. "There must be places that we haven't searched. Or maybe one of our assistants did a bad job. We don't know. And tomorrow we'll sail into New York Harbor . I have to send Hawke a message on the radio tonight. '
  
  
  "What do you say?"
  
  
  "It's just that we didn't find the Judas and ego bomb. Hawk will think of something.
  
  
  
  
  Her sleep was restless. When I woke up the next morning and looked at Gina, who was still sleeping in the other part of the cabin , I thought about how close we were to New York . During breakfast, we received a bulletin stating that the journey would take another three hours.
  
  
  "Should the ship be allowed to dock?" Gina asked.
  
  
  "If so, there will be a welcoming committee," I replied.
  
  
  While the other passengers packed up and prepared to disembark, he stayed in our cabin with Gina. About ten o'clock I went on to the first-class deck, hoping to see someone who might look like Judas. At half-past ten the mainland was in sight, and shortly before noon we landed in New York Harbor. Most of the passengers were on the deck, which overlooked the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty.
  
  
  As I expected, we were greeted. The Coast Guard caught the Leonardo at the harbor and asked Ego to stop. The captain obeyed, but I could see him shouting angrily at his officers. Shortly after noon, several Coast Guard officers and soldiers boarded, accompanied by several AX agents, the Mayor of New York, and David Hawke.
  
  
  Captain Bertholdi asked to meet me in his cabin. Two senior Coast Guard officers, the Mayor, Hawk, Ficuzza, Gina, and her, were supposed to go there. Hawkeye bit into an unlit cigar as ego informed her of our failures.
  
  
  "I don't believe Judas is on board," he said. "And if he's on board, that bomb is probably there, too." He glanced at Gina. "You hire beautiful women, Nick," he said.
  
  
  Gina understood, a compliment, not sarcasm. "G," she said, and smiled.
  
  
  "Prego," David Hawke said.
  
  
  She wanted to laugh, but the thought of Judas pulled the corners of my mouth down.
  
  
  "Have you searched the entire ship?" Hawk asked.
  
  
  "Top to bottom," I said. "For God's sake, we even looked in the toilets. I just don't know anything else."
  
  
  I didn't say anything. Hawk and Gina looked at me.
  
  
  'What is it? Hawk asked.
  
  
  "I was just thinking of another place," I said. "Tell Bertholdi I'll be right there."
  
  
  I hurried to the purser's desk, remembering that at the beginning of our search, the purser had told me about a man who had come up to the captain's desk to talk about the safety of things . These are valuable items. This meant that there must be a safe on board.
  
  
  "Yes, Mr. Carter," Fabrizio said when ego asked her about it. "We have a big safe in our office. But I can't imagine there's anything in it that would interest you.
  
  
  "Maybe we should take a look," I said. Fabrizio didn't annoy us. He didn't even bother to summon the master. Moments later, the man-sized safe was opened. He bowed his head and followed him inside. We all looked. The large package contained a silver artifact from Spain. It was a disappointment.
  
  
  "I'm sorry, signor," Fabrizio said.
  
  
  "Well, it was just an idea."
  
  
  I left her an ego and went back to the captain's desk. Something was going through my head, but I couldn't figure it out.
  
  
  They started in the office. The captain strode back to his chair. Everyone else was sitting except for Hawke, who was standing in the corner with a cigar in the corner of the rta and his skinny arms crossed over his chest. I walked over to him and shook my head, indicating that I had failed .
  
  
  "But Mr. Carter has looked this ship up and down!" said Bertholdi. "If there was such a thing on board, he would have found it."
  
  
  "Excuse me, Captain," said the senior of the two Coast Guard officers, a lieutenant commander. "We cannot allow this ship to enter New York Harbor until a more thorough investigation is conducted."
  
  
  "Actually, "the mayor agreed," we should keep looking. Millions of lives are at stake ."
  
  
  Bertholdi glared at me, as if her ego had led her into this awkward situation. "Are you going," he asked, " to leave my passengers here at sea while you continue to search my ship?"
  
  
  "No," Hawk replied on behalf of the Coast Guard officer. Everyone looked at him. - "We have a better plan that makes many people safer for passengers. Currently, there were several ferries running here. Passengers transfer to these ferries without luggage and go to the port . They will be well cared for while the ship is searched again. The ship itself will be returned to the open sea, and the investigation will be conducted by my men and the Lieutenant Commander's men under my direction.
  
  
  "Back to the open sea!" said Bertholdi in a hollow tone. "Moving my passengers?"
  
  
  "I think this is the only safe solution, Captain," Hawke said. "The ferries will be here soon," the lieutenant commander said.
  
  
  "But you have no right!" exclaimed Bertholdi. "This is very stupid."
  
  
  "Captain," Hawk said icily,"it would be foolish to ignore the threat."
  
  
  Captain Bertholdi collapsed heavily into a chair. He stared at his hands. "Excellent," he said. "But if the bomb is not found, gentlemen, she is asked to invite my company to protest this unfortunate incident."
  
  
  "He will be treated with all due respect," Hawk replied. "Now, Captain, I think you'd better inform the passengers of what's going on."
  
  
  The thought that had been swirling around in my head suddenly took shape. He waited for the other men to leave. When only the captain, Hawk, Gina, and her were still in the cabin, she was asked: "Captain, is it true that passengers come to you to hand over valuables of more than a certain amount?"
  
  
  Bertholdi gave me a sour look. I believe that he considers me his personal tormentor. "Actually, Mr. Carter," he said .
  
  
  Hawk looked at my face, trying to figure out what I was thinking.
  
  
  "Did you have many such requests during this trip?"
  
  
  "Maybe five or six."
  
  
  "And then these people come to this office, don't they?"
  
  
  "Yes, Yes."
  
  
  "What are you up to, Nick?"
  
  
  "I'm thinking, sir," I said. "Odin around these passengers put a rather large package in his locker ?"
  
  
  'Yes, in the dell itself. There were several Ihs."
  
  
  "And you had to leave alone, around these people alone in this cabin, even for a short time?"
  
  
  He looked at me strangely; then I saw that he remembered something. It was the first time a ferret had spoken to them since I met him , and he spoke with a certain amount of awe in his voice. "Yes, indeed," he said slowly.
  
  
  'What did he look like? Hawk asked.
  
  
  "He had a beard. A very strange-looking man. Very thin face.
  
  
  'Judas! Hawk shouted.
  
  
  "I think so, too," I said. "And maybe he changed his plans while in this cabin. He may have intended to put the bomb in a large safe, but may have decided, when he was here alone, to find a better place. Or maybe he didn't want to arouse the treasurer's curiosity about the item."
  
  
  Bertholdi rummaged in a chair drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. He looked at Nah for a moment. "The voice of the ego is a name," he said. "Benedict Arnold." He has a first-class cabin number twelve on deck A. '
  
  
  At that moment, the mayor appeared in the doorway with a piece of paper in his hand and a startled expression on his face.
  
  
  "Gentlemen, if there were any doubts about the seriousness of the situation, ih ble clarify now."
  
  
  'What is it? Hawk asked.
  
  
  "My office just received this telegram via Rhyme," he said harshly.
  
  
  Hawk picked up a piece of paper and read it aloud:
  
  
  
  
  
  "Mr. Mayor. The atomic bomb has been placed in such a place that your city can be destroyed at the touch of a button . You have to believe us when we say it's not a joke. As proof of this, we give the code number of our ignition mechanism: HTX 312.
  
  
  The bomb will be detonated within 48 hours if the sum of one hundred million dollars in gold bars is not paid. That's about ten dollars to live in New York. Please think about this very carefully. There are very few sources of money available. You will receive a second message with further instructions within 24 hours.
  
  
  
  
  
  Hawk looked at me. "It's him," he said. Then he asked: "Can you imagine what he could do with the numbers of millions of dollars?"
  
  
  "Do you know who sent this email?" The mayor asked.
  
  
  "The man we're looking for," Hawk replied. "The telegram was to be sent to one of the egos of the accomplices in Rime , so that it would coincide with the arrival of the Leonardo in New York."
  
  
  "Probably Farrelly," I muttered.
  
  
  "On the contrary," said the captain. "It doesn't say anything about Leonardo , nothing at all."
  
  
  "For obvious reasons," Hawk muttered. "Obviously, they don't want to draw attention to this ship, Mr. Bertholdi."
  
  
  She noticed the look in the captain's eyes when Hawk addressed the letter to him without the ego of the usual headline. Ego, arrogance was annoying, but not nearly as annoying as ego's unwillingness to help me. But now Hawk was in charge, and Bertholdi took orders from HIM, whether emu liked it or not.
  
  
  "I was informed that the president and the governor received identical telegrams, "the mayor said." They want us to jointly raise the necessary money. But a hundred million in gold, my God, what kind of fool is this?
  
  
  "A madman that we should take very seriously, Mr. Mayor - a psychopathic thug who is determined to carry out his threat if the gold bars are not delivered," I said.
  
  
  "Absurd, absolutely absurd," Bertholdi said, frowning. "This is a joke - a bad American joke."
  
  
  "I wouldn't want to laugh if a bomb went off," Hawke said. He craned his neck toward the door and called out to the Coast Guard officer standing outside.
  
  
  'Yes sir? The lieutenant commander said as he entered.
  
  
  "Mr. Carter and him will search this cabin. In the meantime, take your adjutant and a few of my officers and see if you can find Benedict Arnold in cabin twelve on Deck A. He could be that person. Ah, yes, Captain, "Hawk added," he'll be armed and dangerous. Therefore, prima takes all possible precautions ." The officer nodded and turned.
  
  
  "He has a beard," the captain said. The old belligerence was almost completely gone, and his weathered face was creased with worry lines. "And a very, uh, skinny face. Oh, and I remember one more thing."
  
  
  'Which one? Hawk snapped, carefully following the master's every cursive.
  
  
  "Well, I do not know if it is important," Bertholdi hesitated, " but he asked me if it is possible to get insulin on board the plane. Her suspicion is that he has diabetes.
  
  
  "No wonder he looks so bad," I said softly, seeing Judas's creepy profile in my mind's eye. Hawk nodded. "And Captain, will you send two of my mining experts here to prepare for any unforeseen circumstances ? And let us know when Arnold is found."
  
  
  "It's all right," the lieutenant commander said. He went out all over the cabin. Gina sat next to me, twisting her fingers between mine. "How can I help you?" she asked.
  
  
  "Go and have a cup of coffee in the lobby," Hawk said. "You deserve it."
  
  
  Gina smiled at me and left the cabin. The captain politely followed her. Finally, he began to show some respect. When Hawk and I were alone in the cabin, he turned to me and grinned.
  
  
  "I don't do much outdoor work, Nick," he said, " and I just love it. Do you have any other magical ideas?
  
  
  'No, sir. Now let's turn this cabin inside out.
  
  
  And we did it. I knew that the ferries were on their way and the passengers would be coming ashore soon, which made me feel a little better. But if Judas had been holding the detonator of a bomb, he could have blown us up at any moment.
  
  
  We rummaged through the master's table, searched the cupboards, and searched the entire cabin. Hawk tired quickly. He sat down in the chair behind the captain's desk , and he noticed a trickle of blood on his forehead.
  
  
  "I'm getting old, Nick," he said. "It seems pretty damn stuffy in here."
  
  
  "You're right," I said. He looked at the side wall of the cab, saw the ventilation grate, and thought.
  
  
  He sat down next to the bars. It was placed in a fairly large panel, which was then attached to the groan with screws. Odin's po screw was loosened.
  
  
  I asked her. "Do you have any nail scissors?"
  
  
  "Yes," he said, reaching into the car and handing me a pair of scissors.
  
  
  When he saw that I was starting to unscrew the screws on the panel, he came over and stood next to me with interest. I worked feverishly, and although the panel stuck to one corner for a while , I finally managed to pull it off.
  
  
  We looked into the duct and there we saw: a three-foot-long bundle wrapped in brown paper. It filled the opening of the duct, and rested with its end at the point where the duct curved and went horizontally out of the cabin.
  
  
  "Take the tailor," Hawk said.
  
  
  He used a pair of scissors to cut a hole in the paper and looked at the contents. It was a boxed around light metal, probably all over aluminum alloy. There were mechanisms outside, including a miniature long-range electronic receiver. A small red light was on, no doubt signaling that the bomb was ready to explode immediately.
  
  
  He recoiled.
  
  
  "I'll call the mining specialists," Hawk said quietly. "I also have someone who understands it."
  
  
  I asked her. "What do we do with the passengers?"" "Should we get off first?"
  
  
  Hawk's cold eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I don't think so. At any moment, we can face a confrontation with Judas. In addition, we must assume that the bomb can explode almost directly under our noses in less than a minute, and maybe even for a second. We're right next to the harbor. If a bomb goes off here, the mainland will suffer as much damage as if we were in port . No, Nick, we have to try to turn off the ego."
  
  
  He nodded, determined, like Hawk, to outrun Judas. He went out of the cabin to fetch the specialist. He locked the door behind him and examined the horrifying bundle again.
  
  
  The red saint continued to glow menacingly, indicating the terrifying and destructive power of the bomb. Then he wondered if Judas would really push the fuse button, even if it killed his ego . This person, as I knew her from past experience, was the epitome of evil. Perhaps if he had known that we had discovered the bomb, he would not have hesitated to carry out his inhuman plan, even if the ego explosion had killed him. We couldn't take any chances, that much was certain, especially when we were dealing with a man as unpredictable and mentally twisted as Judas.
  
  
  She foresaw the terrible outcome of this nightmare-a mushroom cloud spreading its atomic resentment. Millions of people within a forty-five-kilometer radius of destruction will die. Many thousands will die during the secondary and tertiary shockwaves. And thousands more will die a slow and terrible death from radiation.
  
  
  My thoughts were soon interrupted by a knock on the door. He went up to her and asked her who it was. As soon as Hawk called ego's name, he unlocked the door and stepped aside to let him in.
  
  
  He was followed by Captain Bertholdi and three grim-looking men I didn't know. "Look at this, Bertholdi," Hawk said irritably, fed up with the master's distrust and lack of compassion. Bertholdi turned pale. He stood trembling, his fists clenched in impotent rage.
  
  
  "And get out of here, sir," Hawkeye snapped, indicating that she should be escorted by the master of the day .
  
  
  Bertholdi Schell walked up the wooden steps, his eyes strangely frank in front of him. He locked the door behind him and turned back to Hawke and the other three. "Mr. Gottlieb, Nick Carter," he said.
  
  
  He shook hands with a thin, wiry man with rimless glasses, the stereotype of a scientist. Hawk explained to me that Gottlieb had invented the detonator, a device that allowed Judas and his companions to create the bomb.
  
  
  Meanwhile, two ignition experts were busy removing the packaging from the bomb. "That would be terrible... It would be terrible, "Gottlieb muttered," if my device were used in this way."
  
  
  This, of course, was an understatement. Gottlieb joined the other two men bent over the bomb. "Are you sure it's him?" asked Ego Hawk.
  
  
  Gottlieb nodded. "There is no doubt about it. The person who put this together is well versed in thermonuclear fission. Unfortunately, we have expanded this knowledge even further." Hawk looked at me, and her, and grimaced. Gottlieb and two men were apparently working on the bomb. A red-lit ghostly glow shone from ih's faces as Gottlieb clicked his tongue and muttered to himself. "Here," he said at last. "There's a voice wire there. Yes, this is it. No, not the other one.
  
  
  We crowded around the doorway, groaning. I tried not to think about what would happen if the bomb went off right now, even if I didn't feel it. The people who worked on the bomb seemed to have nerves of steel. Hawk went to the door and asked if the Lieutenant Commander had reported yet. It wasn't like that.
  
  
  "Does this thing on have the power that they attribute to you? Gottlieb asked her.
  
  
  He spoke slowly, not looking in my direction, as all his attention was focused on the harshness. 'I don't think so. From here, the bomb will destroy everything within a radius of sixty, seventy kilometers." He focused on the detonator mechanism, and then, as if to emphasize his thoughts, said: "We who will not have a single chance for us."
  
  
  All I could do was shake my head. Gottlieb, like a man who reads a deadly catechism, continued, continuing to observe the work of specialists: "But the first explosion, the first shock waves, would not be the end of the matter. Precipitation, tidal waves - radiation sickness and a patch of uninhabited land, a patch of dead sea. Manhattan will become a neutral zone, completely uninhabitable for decades to come ."
  
  
  I didn't ask her again. Gottlieb gave me enough whining to think about.
  
  
  'How are you? Hawk asked nervously, still chewing on his stale cigar.
  
  
  The Odin around the men turned to face him. "We have another risky case, sir," he said. Sweat dripped from his forehead to his face.
  
  
  Hawk and I leaned over the others and watched intently.
  
  
  At one point, when he thought they were almost done, Gottlieb screamed: "No, damn the tailor! Not this one!'
  
  
  The man working on the device stopped and leaned his head against the wall. Her, saw ego, hands shaking a little as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he shook himself to get a grip on himself. He continued with the other two, and in less than ten minutes, the three men turned, a grim line of satisfaction forming on their lips.
  
  
  "It's happened," Gottlieb whispered. "The harmless bomb.
  
  
  Hawk and I looked at each other. He exhaled. "It was too much for my tired body," he said. He leaned against the captain's desk and took a deep breath.
  
  
  He stood up and tried to smile.
  
  
  Hawk picked up a new cigar, lit it, and carefully blew out a circle. It rose to the cabin ceiling when he looked openly at me. "Now that it's done, Nick, there's only one thing left to do."
  
  
  He nodded to her. "Judas," I said. "And if I may say so, sir, better dead than alive."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 11
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The passenger alerts were immediately lifted, and Captain Bertholdi thanked us for a job well done. Ferries that had just arrived on the ship were sent back to the dock. The Leonardo will enter the harbor several hours late.
  
  
  Shortly after the order was given, the lieutenant commander of the Coast Guard arrived at the bridge, where Hawk and I went to consult the captain. "Benedict was nowhere to be found," the lieutenant commander reported to Hawke. "Your people are still investigating, but he is hiding out and hopes to escape us when the other passengers come ashore."
  
  
  "It's okay," Hawk said sourly. "In the confusion of passengers trying to get off, it will be almost impossible for us to get a good look at everyone. And of course, he can always change his appearance again."
  
  
  "I think we can count on that," I said.
  
  
  The ship docked at five o'clock. The New York Post already had a special issue on the street with bold headlines. A crowd crowded into the Porta bar and around nah; the police tried to hold ih back. Reports and photographers were everywhere.
  
  
  Hawk placed officers at the beginning and end of the aisles.
  
  
  "From now on, I'd rather do it alone," Emu told her.
  
  
  "All right," he said. "I'll stay on board for a while so you'll know where I am if you need me."
  
  
  Gina and I left the ship before the passengers disembarked. Ee took her to the customs building and told her to stay there.
  
  
  It was chaotic from the port of bar, and I had a pessimistic feeling about finding Judas.
  
  
  "You're staying close, aren't you?"
  
  
  "No, I'm going to search the entire marina. If we lose another one, get a room at the Hilton Hotel and stay there until you get a notification from me."
  
  
  "Okay," she said, kissing me on the cheek. 'Be careful.'
  
  
  'You too.'
  
  
  
  
  Reporters mingled with the curious around the port of bar, and the police had to abandon their efforts to maintain order. He stopped at the entrance to the passageway, where two other AX agents were also standing. Once they stopped a passenger with a beard and held ego tight. He quickly approached them and told them that they had the wrong one . The beard was real.
  
  
  Just after six o'clock, a man who had just stepped off the deck saw her. Instead of going to customs, he went to both ends of the building, where a guard was stationed at the gate. At first I saw her, ego only from the back. He was well dressed, and Schell was carrying a walking stick. Ego's gait was familiar. He looked closer and saw a hairless hand holding a briefcase. It didn't look like real leather. And the hand didn't bend around the handle of the bag like a real hand would. Just as her was about to follow him, he turned his head so that he could see Ego's face. He had a mustache and sunglasses, but this skull was unmistakable. It was Judas. When he saw me, he hurried into the thread of buildings. There were a lot of people between us, and I had to move through the crowd. His progress was slow , and when he passed, Judas was already at the gate. When Wilhelmina pulled it out and ran, he was seen knocking down a security guard and walking through the gate into the parking lot.
  
  
  When he reached her, Judas disappeared from sight. The guard, who had jumped to his feet, tried to stop me, but I shouted out who I was and ran through the gate. As she walked around the row of parked cars , she saw a taxi pull up. Judas was looking at me through the back window.
  
  
  The Luger holstered him and ran to the motorcycle parked there. There was a group of long-haired young men nearby, and I guessed that the motorcycle belonged to the one around them. I looked at it and saw that the key was in the ignition. Her, jumped into the saddle. It was a big Honda designed for the highway, and the engine made a reassuring sound. "Hello there!" One of the young men roared around them.
  
  
  "I'll just borrow ego for a while!" shouted her in rheumatism. I took off and ran to the taxi.
  
  
  When I pulled out onto the street, the taxi just turned left, two blocks away. I drove her through traffic. I started passing a taxi and thought I could catch Ego at the traffic light. Then the car starts to pass through krasny Bryliv. Judas either gave the driver a lot of money or put a gun to the heads ' egos. Ten minutes later, we were on the highway leading to JFK International Airport, NY . On the highway, the taxi pulled away from me, but I thought I had come to the right place. I didn't understand how Judas could have gotten on a plane without Ego catching up with him at the airport.
  
  
  She was wrong. As I turned off the highway toward the train station and tried to close the distance between me and the taxi , I was pulled out onto the oil-soaked signposts and the biker slid out openly in front of me.
  
  
  Luckily for her, I landed on an embankment overgrown with tall bushes, and all I had were bruises, bruises, and a torn suit. But the bike couldn't be used anymore. I decided to pay compensation to the owner later and went straight to the airport. She was stopped by all passing cars, but they no longer took hitchhikers .
  
  
  Finally, a truck picked me up and we arrived at the airport at least 45 minutes after Judas .
  
  
  A bend in it revealed that a dozen foreign flights were scheduled to depart that evening. One of them was the Pan Am race in Rome. Yes, a man checked in at the last minute. A Mr. Benedict.
  
  
  I asked her. "Can I still get her to him?"
  
  
  The man turned to check the flight schedule, then looked at his watch. "No," he said.
  
  
  The plane left ten minutes ago. Rivne region on time according to the schedule.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 12
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It was clear that Judas would fly back to Rome without delay. There he would be close to his headquarters and Farrelly and his gang. He probably didn't know that we had discovered an ego underground complex in Sicily.
  
  
  I didn't leave for Rome until the next morning. But in an hour and a half there was a plane to London and then a trip to Rome, so we were supposed to arrive for breakfast, like an hour later, then Judas landing .
  
  
  She got a call from Gine and took a taxi from the Hilton to the plane while I bought these tickets. Her hotel wanted her to be with me because she knew Giovanni Farrelli so well. When Hawke called her and apologized for losing Judas , he said, " Well, he'll be easy to find in Rime. But remember, if he escapes, he still has the detonator."
  
  
  "Should she contact the police in Rime or Interpol so they can try to pick him up when he lands?"
  
  
  "No," Hawk said. There was that hard, cold sound in his voice that he sometimes uses. "If the police catch ego, you don't know what might happen. Nick, I don't want to see ego dead like you suggested.
  
  
  I wasn't surprised to hear that.
  
  
  By the time we took off, Gina and I were completely exhausted and had slept most of the way. I didn't get much sleep, but I was rested enough to continue on my way. Gina slept like a baby.
  
  
  In London, we were able to transfer quickly and easily and arrived in Rome just after eight o'clock. It was a clear, sunny morning. I gave the taxi driver the address of the apartment Gina had given me. Farrelly brought his women there, and Gina said he sometimes used his ego to meet other underworld bosses. The police didn't know the apartment existed, but I thought Judas did . If he had called Farrelli immediately after landing , Emu would have been told it wasn't safe to go to Sicily . This way, they might decide that this apartment was the safest place, and it was likely that they would meet there to discuss further plans .
  
  
  Almost an hour later, after landing, we stopped in front of an apartment building. We were about to enter when I heard a commotion around the corner.
  
  
  "Stand still here," Gineh told her.
  
  
  I ran up to the corner of the house and saw two men come out on the sidewalk and walk up to a silver Lancia parked across the street. One was surrounded by a tall, sleek Farrelly, and the other was Judas, who looked like Death in his suit . He was unmasked, but still soluble with a walking stick.
  
  
  I decided to strike right away. Wilhelmina pulled it out. "That's enough," I shouted. "Rome is your last stop."
  
  
  He reacted to the two legs faster than he thought. When he was shot, he ran to the car. Wilhelmina fired, but I missed, and Gawk dug into the cobblestones right behind him. I shot him again, hit him on the bumper, and he disappeared behind the car.
  
  
  'Damn it! I muttered.
  
  
  Then Farrelly fired. Gawk flew away from the next house. I was forced to hide when he fired again, and I felt a stab wound on the outside of my left arm. I saw her on the other side of the car as the door opened, but I was too busy trying to keep Farrelly from hitting me .
  
  
  Suddenly he heard Gina's scream. She screamed. "He's afraid of shooting!"
  
  
  Watching Farrelly turn to Gina, hers, he remembered that she was an ego lover. When he saw her, he was momentarily filled with anger. He took aim and fired at nah. Gawk passed mimmo nah by a few inches.
  
  
  He returned fire. My first shot hit the wall next to Farrelly; my second hit the emu in the neck. He jerked convulsively and fell to the sidewalk.
  
  
  Two bullets whizzed past my feet from behind the car. A moment later, the engine roared and Judas sped away down the narrow street. I shot her in the car, but I only managed to break the rear window.
  
  
  'Are you okay? Jinwoo asked her.
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  Go to your apartment and stay there, " I said. "I'll come see you later."
  
  
  She protested, but I was already running to the Alfa Romeo 2000 parked on the same sidewalk. It wasn't locked. They brought the engine with ignition wires, her, jumped into the car and raced after Judas.
  
  
  Two blocks later, her ego saw her. He drove three blocks in front of me and swerved straight ahead, trying to get rid of me. Her, passed through the signs with a neat slip of the rear wheel and a squeal of tires . Ahead of me, Judas turned left into a small street that led directly to an industrial area. In five minutes, we startled half a dozen pedestrians and nearly collided with two cars. But Judas didn't slow down, and neither did hers. If we had been on the highway, the Alpha would have caught up with him , but with this method of driving, the speed of the cars was almost the same, and Judas realized this.
  
  
  After another five minutes, Judas took the lead and lost his ego. But when he turned the corner of the warehouse, he saw a car on the asphalt with the door open. The luger screeched to a stop, jumped out, and pulled up. Judas was nowhere to be seen. He looked at the warehouses and wondered if he'd gone there. Her carapace slid toward him as my gaze fell on the manhole cover. There was nothing unusual about it, except that it was slightly tilted. He opened it, walked over to it, and looked at the lid carefully . The rim left its mark in the mud of the street. He leaned down and listened. A muffled shaggy voice heard her. Undoubtedly, it was shaggy Judas.
  
  
  Despite himself, he admired her ego for her cunning. Despite his poor health and artificial hands, the man was as smart as the proverbial fox. I quickly opened the trapdoor and lowered myself until my boots touched the third rung of the metal staircase to the room. A sharp stench rose up around me. Such steam makes it difficult to breathe, and the deeper it descended into the pit, the darker it became. In the darkness below me, I could hear the scuffle of rats. If Judas escaped by taking advantage of the vast underground network of channels and passages that make up Rhyme's sewer system, there was a good chance I'd never find ego again.
  
  
  And that was the last thing she wanted.
  
  
  He eluded me at Niagara Falls. But now he wouldn't avoid me, now that it was just between the two of us men. He increased his speed and quickly descended the slime-covered metal stairs.
  
  
  When he finally reached the bottom, he came across a narrow stone ledge. Streams of dirty and fetid water slowly gurgled over the ancient stone. The stench was almost unbearable, and the air was barely breathable.
  
  
  The faint circle of light falling from the street above me gave me some idea. He stood still and listened in the pitch-black shadows. Then I heard it again, the sound of hurried footsteps echoing in the darkness, maybe a hundred yards to my right.
  
  
  Wilhelmina was in my hand. Her lowly stooped and followed Judas into the murky darkness.
  
  
  A warm, hairy thing brushed my feet. I almost screamed at the flag of permission to perform, but I muffled the sound as the rat flew mimmo me, squeaking, and ran down the narrow ledge. It was difficult to keep up the pace, especially since the ledge was becoming slippery and wet due to the mossy layers of old, weathered rocks.
  
  
  Large, eyeless insects hung from the low ceiling. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw bats, too . Mucus dripped everywhere, and the air was stifling and oppressive. But not half as depressing as Judas.
  
  
  He focused on his fading footsteps. Something glinted in the darkness ahead of me. Her snuggled up to moan, and held her breath. But then Judas hurried on, and he followed with Wilhelmina in his hand.
  
  
  As she turned the corner, I was suddenly forced to dive, and she almost lost her balance and fell into the sewer. Gawk whistled high above me, and I could hear Judas limping again. He followed him into a smaller sewer pipe, a dark corridor considerably narrower than the first.
  
  
  He turned the corner again, found her, took aim, and fired. Gawk hit the cornerstone and bounced off. I missed it and ran after Judas before he could get too far ahead of me .
  
  
  It was a classic cat-and-mouse game. He responded to every ego move with the same gambit. But when I turned the corner, he was nowhere to be found. This waste water area was no longer used. It was dry and almost odorless. This surprised me at first. But she was soon discovered by the reason why Judas chose this passageway, below the street. He saw the hole in the groan, which was now covered with a tin plate. It was a makeshift trapdoor. He stopped, listened, and heard a noise on the other side of the doorway. Then the sunset.
  
  
  Now he could stand up straight. He found himself in a tunnel littered with junk and various rocks. While his was standing there, hers heard a sound in the distance. Apparently, Judas knew this exit from the sewer and decided to use it to get rid of me. She soon found out how he intended to do it. Sergei appeared in front of me, and I saw Judas in silhouette. He shot me twice. One gawk almost broke through my sleeve. Now willingly became more dangerous because of the darkness.
  
  
  He walked over to the lighted opening. When he reached it, he saw that the tunnel led to a small room where a light bulb was hanging. I looked around. Now he knew where we were. The bones of about fifty men lay in a groaning niche, their skulls piled on top of them, and they stared at me grimly. Judas took me to the catacombs, the tunnels under the city where the first Christians hid from their tormentors. Her conclusion was that it must be the catacombs of St. Callixtus, the most famous of all Roman catacombs. Although there was a consecration, these places were not on the tourist list.
  
  
  He walked across the room and followed Judas. It was completely dark again, although there were light bulbs hanging here and there . I could hear Judas panting now, proving that he was getting weaker. He calculated that it had been quite a while since the ferret had given the emu an insulin injection, and that the chase had disrupted the ego's metabolism. He wouldn't have lasted very long. But I didn't want him to get to the point where he could mix with the tourists . The pace picked her up.
  
  
  Soon, he entered a second room with the same lighting as the first. Judah didn't see her, so he stormed into the room. Just like in the first room, there were piles of bones and skulls on shelves in the walls. He was halfway across the room when he heard heavy breathing to his right.
  
  
  He turned quickly. Judas leaned against a pile of dry, brittle bones. Ego's face was ashen and sweaty. The man was skin and bones , and his skull looked more like the skulls on the shelves than the target of a living human. He used to be an ugly man, but now he's becoming frighteningly grotesque.
  
  
  His breathing was irregular, wheezing. There was a layer of foam on his lower lip. He was holding a shortened Smith & Wesson revolver .44 Magnum. If it hit me from it, it would very quickly join the rest of the remains in the catacombs.
  
  
  He laughed hoarsely as he considered his next move. Laughter rolled out of him like pebbles on a window pane; the prosthetics waved the tips of their ego-shaking fingers uncertainly. The right hand holding the revolver was smooth and waxy .
  
  
  "Now I can finally kill you, Carter," he croaked.
  
  
  I dove to the ground and landed between the bones, which I felt crack beneath me. Judas's revolver barked and missed Paris. He stood up and aimed the emu's luger at its chest. My finger tightened on the trigger, but it didn't fire.
  
  
  Judas dropped the revolver in his lap and fell back between the bones. Ego's face was contorted, his eyes glazed. For a moment, the shortness of breath seemed very loud, and then suddenly stopped. Ego's body tensed, and the revolver fell across ego's arm. Then the ego target hit the wall-the ego eyes were wide open, in a diabetic coma.
  
  
  I got up and walked over to him. The moment hers leaned over him, his body jerked violently and froze. Her ego took a pulse. There was no pulse.
  
  
  He stood up, holstered the luger ,and looked down at the naked skeleton. Judas was dead, his nuclear detonator was safe, and he longed for the sunshine.
  
  
  He left the body there, and went through a better-lit tunnel to the entrance of the catacombs. Judas might not be found until he looked like the other skeletons in these tunnels. If the ego hadn't been found before the Swedish ego rotted away, the ego might have been seen as the remains of an early Christian. Just as he was absorbing the dark humor of the thought, he came across a group of tourists heading for the exit.
  
  
  The Italian guide looked at me. He said. 'Come on!' - You must stay with the company, signor! It's almost over."
  
  
  Her, joined them, and walked toward the light ahead of us. "Simple," I told her guide. "I was delayed by a rather creepy scene."
  
  
  He chuckled. "The worst is yet to come, signor."
  
  
  Her, thinking about the years and tasks I still had to do if I kept up with life. "I hope you're not related to the prophet Nostradamus," I said.
  
  
  He didn't seem to understand the joke.
  
  
  But I didn't care. One thing was certain: Judas was dead. No one knew what was waiting for me next. So instead of thinking about the future, he returned to the present, here and now. And then hers, thought of Gina, and started to smile. The best grin you can imagine.
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  About the book:
  
  
  
  
  
  How is this possible? Nick Carter was suddenly forced to hide the document in the Vatican Museum during routine work . A random Etruscan vase seemed appropriate for this purpose.
  
  
  But it wasn't about Carter's Nike and ego activities, as it turned out later when Carter tried to find the document. Because at that moment, he was an unexpected witness to a highly professional art theft.
  
  
  And as art treasures, including an Etruscan vase, disappeared one by one through the window , Carter looked openly into the face of his longtime enemy, Judas.
  
  
  Judas was able to do more with this document than Hawk and Carter could have imagined in their worst dreams ...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Carter Nick
  
  
  Cobra Sign
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nick Carter
  
  
  
  Cobra Sign
  
  
  translated by Lev Shklovsky
  
  
  dedicated to the memory of the deceased son Anton.
  
  
  The main characters:
  
  
  NICK CARTER
  
  
  alias N3 agent AX
  
  
  "SHIVA"
  
  
  Head of the Cobra organization
  
  
  ASHOK ANAND
  
  
  Indian secret Service agent
  
  
  PURAN DASS
  
  
  head of the Indian secret Service
  
  
  NIRAD and RANJIT
  
  
  members of the Cobra organization
  
  
  REEVA SINGH
  
  
  shiva's granddaughter
  
  
  
  1
  
  
  She curled up in my arms, soft and fragile, and for the moment completely satisfied. Her rare healing experience was with a woman like Reeva. Shadows played across her golden skin and black hair, and for a moment I thought I was holding a dream come true. The room was dark, and Knuckles had lowered it. And thankfully, the hotel had an air conditioning system sampling air from the nighttime heat of New Delhi.
  
  
  "You didn't tell me why," Reeva whispered. Her soft, warm lips gently brushed the hollow between my neck and shoulder, her breasts pressed against my arm.
  
  
  Her turned her face and looked at the line of her plump lips. Next, Lobka was frowning, with the stubborn expression of a woman who is used to getting everything she wants... the woman who was engaged was still a child. "What, Reva?" I asked, running my fingertip over the velvety skin of her life.
  
  
  "Why did you come here, Nick?" He pulled back, dropping his head on the pillow. Her long black hair formed a fan on the white fabric of the pillow, like a halo that framed her face with perfect features... a face that at that moment reflected inner anguish and incomprehensible disbelief.
  
  
  — I told you, " I said, trying to sound patient and convincing. "My company sent me to negotiate purchases. Fabrics, silks, brocades... words, everything. Everything that costs less in this country than anywhere else.
  
  
  Of course, he lied to her. Of course, he couldn't tell Reeva who she was. Anyway, what's the difference? There was no reason to involve the girl, burn my cover, and reveal hey that her name was Nick Carter, an AX agent currently on a mission in New Delhi.
  
  
  Early in the morning of the same evening, he arrived on an Air-India flight. And the last person I expected to meet was a woman like Reeva, a delightful companion that no man could count on. She was sitting in the hotel bar when she returned from a swim in the pool. Her perfect figure was wrapped up in a blue and silver sari; we also felt an immediate physical attraction at first sight. Then one word led to another, and almost without realizing it, I invited her to dinner.
  
  
  We went to a French restaurant in Chanakyapuri, a red and black oasis in the middle of a stuffy city. It was an opportunity to lure her in and convince her to spend the night together.
  
  
  As it turned out, I didn't have to try too hard to convince her.
  
  
  Her eyes, as lustrous and sensual as her hair, spoke clearly. Of course, there were questions and word games... a common practice in the art of seduction. Prelude to a night of love and passion.
  
  
  
  Needless to say, New Delhi meant a lot more to me (and to AX) than Rewa Singh. He had been sent to India by Hawke, and although he felt it was a desperate idea, it was impossible to persuade the Old Man. "But we don't have the slightest proof that this man exists!" I pointed out.
  
  
  "All the more reason to go there, Nick," Hawke said with a sarcastic laugh. "Riots and riots are proof, aren't they?" Calcutta hall is in a state of semi-anarchy. And who supplied the rebels with weapons? Ammunition doesn't grow on trees, to be exact.
  
  
  "This is an internal security issue of the Indian government," I said.
  
  
  "Actually. Absolutely fantastic. I totally agree with her. Actually, if it was just riots and riots, this wouldn't be a mission, Nick.
  
  
  "What then?"
  
  
  "Take a look at this. He handed me a folded piece of paper. "This will tell you more about our mysterious man, Mr. 'Shiva'.".. perhaps with some vague hint that the other actually exists. The bitter smoke from his cigar burned my nostrils, and I moved to the far chair to read the document.
  
  
  After reading the article, I had a pretty good idea of what Hawk does.
  
  
  The boss remarked with a grin. "As you can see, this is a dirty business, don't you agree?
  
  
  "I'd say immoral.
  
  
  "Well said, Nick. Our man is going to ship ten million dollars ' worth of raw heroin to the United States. But as you've seen, this isn't the most disturbing element. If it was just drugs, I would have called someone else. But when it comes to international diplomacy... and world peace... then I just have to entrust this task to you.
  
  
  He nodded without opening the rta.
  
  
  The document that he had just read was from the Oval Office. It is impossible to go higher. He was referring to something I'd read about in the papers, an incident that we'd never thought would be related to AX, let alone my line of work.
  
  
  Someone called the Soviet embassy in Washington, claiming to be the President of the United States. The voice was perfectly simulated. It might be a joke, but the words weren't innocent at all. The "president" issued threats of an inflammatory nature, with threats that prompted the Soviet ambassador to hurry with a report to Moscow.
  
  
  Eventually, the misunderstanding was resolved, and the White House issued numerous apologies. This could have been the end of it, but there would have been a sequel instead. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the main political figure of the Soviet Union, spoke with the president on the "hotline". Only he wasn't the first secretary at all. To tell you the truth, no one in Washington or Moscow knew who was imitating the Russian voice. The exchange of words was far from friendly and prompted the president to call for an extraordinary meeting of the National Security Council.
  
  
  Everything was clear again... but not for long. They ferret, less than two weeks ago, had experienced a string of similar incidents; an exchange of threats and insults between India and Pakistan, between Israel and Egypt, between Communist China and Japan. Each time, the voice of a diplomat was perfectly imitated, which led to an abundance of angry threats and counter threats.
  
  
  The world was on the verge of nuclear war. Now, according to the White House document, someone was trying to throw us all into the abyss. "So you suspect that this mysterious 'someone' who calls himself Shiva is the brain behind an organization called Cobra, and that he's responsible for what's going on..."
  
  
  "Maybe, Nick. Provided that Shiva is a person and not something else, " the Boss clarified. "We know for a fact that Cobra exists. And we're pretty sure it's an arms and drug trafficking organization. But that's nothing compared to this, " he explained nervously, tapping the document he'd just finished looking at. "Is this Shiva a real person?" Or is it a cover for some strange international organization giving orders to Cobra? Vote what we need to find out... as soon as possible, I might add.
  
  
  "So you believe that if Shiva is a man, he's actually imitating voices?"
  
  
  Hawk nodded wearily.
  
  
  "But you don't even know if Shiva exists."
  
  
  "Bull's-eye."
  
  
  - So, he has to find a person that no one has ever seen, who may be able to imitate the voice of some characters, as he can... Where do you think I should start?
  
  
  "They don't call you Fighter 3 for nothing, Carter.
  
  
  It wasn't the rheumatism she'd hoped for. But as I said, sometimes it's impossible to negotiate with someone like Hawk. So I had to go all over the world and ask for someone or something who called himself Shiva.
  
  
  She knows that this is a pseudonym, and then studies the documents at home. In fact, Shiva was a Hindu god commonly known as the Destroyer. Wars, famine, and death... these calamities were the ego's absolute and unquestionable dominion, under the ego's control and authority. But there was more; the books he read contained illustrations and photographs of statues depicting Shiva adorned with snakes. These are not ordinary snakes, but cobras, deadly Indian vipers.
  
  
  And so, I had to follow a trail that seemed nonexistent and impossible... how to count grains of sand on the banks of the Ganges!
  
  
  But if Shiva was a figment of someone's twisted imagination, then Reeva Singh definitely wasn't. The girl was real, sweet, soft and surprisingly lively.
  
  
  
  Her, turned to her and solving ee corkscrew research problems, pressing his lips to her plump mouth. Her golden skin was covered in a light veil of light, and when her breasts pressed against those immature and hard breasts, I was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable desire.
  
  
  "No, I didn't," I whispered, as she tried to ask another series of questions that were beginning to worry me. "I'm Nick, and you're Reva... you don't need to know any more... at the moment. Ee hugged her tightly, and she stifled a groan.
  
  
  Pushing the blanket off the bed with his foot, her father held her tightly to him. Reeva's eyes were wide, but she seemed to be looking at something on the other side of the room. At that very moment, he knew he was in trouble.
  
  
  A noise heard her. A second later, she was identified by the origin of the metallic creak that came from the room like a hoarse whisper... Someone was fiddling with the lock. My Smith & Wesson was in the top drawer of the nightstand next to the bed, but at the moment it was out of reach of my hand. The faint noise stopped, followed by a click... and then her, I realized that I wouldn't have time to grab the gun.
  
  
  Hers jumped out of the way as soon as the door swung open. Two bearded men, dressed in white embroidered shirts and canvas trousers similar to the pyjamas worn by most Indians, stood out against the light coming down the corridor. But what struck me more than the Swedes was the short-barreled pistol held firmly by one of the turbaned figures.
  
  
  The gun was pointed at me, and there was nothing I could do about it. The door closed softly behind the two men, and the unarmed man turned on the holy light in the room.
  
  
  He blinked at the sudden glow and watched the two attackers, trying to find a way out. They were strong and muscular, their bearded faces expressionless, and judging by their beards and turbans, they were both Sikhs.
  
  
  "Good evening, sahib," the one with the gun said, and the greeting turned into an obscene grin as he realized that Reeva and I were naked, and therefore even more vulnerable.
  
  
  At the moment, the only card that could be played was to stay under the cover of a tourist and a businessman. In an aggrieved tone, he said, " What's the story?" I made a gesture to grab the phone, but an unarmed Sikh Indian moved the old-fashioned phone next to me.
  
  
  "What nonsense, sahib! he exclaimed, grinning. "No one gave you permission to move, not even the mem sahib," he pointed at Reeva, who had already pulled up the covers and was curled up under the sheets.
  
  
  "Look at the crates, Mohan," the man with the pistol said to his companion.
  
  
  "If it's a robbery, you won't find anything worth stealing," ih warned her. "I only have receipts. US rupees, US US dollars.
  
  
  They weren't impressed at all. Not at all.
  
  
  But as he spoke, he began to concentrate, preparing his body and mind for a violent and undivided fusion. The last time she enjoyed a break between missions, Hawk insisted on taking her out of the usual rest period and vacation to go through an intensive training period to perfect her skills in the most unusual forms of self-defense. Among the various techniques that she mastered, there was also a form of autosuggestion that I was taught by a black belt, a "rette dan", a champion of taekwondo, a Korean version of "kung"." The instructor also trained me in taekwondo. This form of karate is based on the use of strength and momentum gained by using the entire body, especially the thighs and feet.
  
  
  So, when one of the two attackers started rummaging through my belongings and was about to reveal my entire personal arsenal, I was ready to make the first move. He imagined himself as a spring, able to jump out around the garbage and throw his body into space.
  
  
  Revu shoved her and jumped off the bed, landing on his heels like a cat. A gawk whizzed over my head as it hit the floor. Mohan's partner had a powerful silencer on his gun.
  
  
  "Nick ... no! Reeva shouted, as if begging me not to start a fight or try to resist the two men.
  
  
  But I wasn't going to waste any more time.
  
  
  Mohan and his partner didn't threaten the girl, but moved toward me, their lips curled in a matching grin. Ih teeth and gums were stained red from heavy chewing of paan leaves. In the blinding light of the ih lamp, their mouths looked bloodied, as if they had just finished chunks of raw meat.
  
  
  "You underestimate us, sahib," sneered the one with the pistol. — We could kill the girl, but we'd like to do a very good job on you first."
  
  
  She didn't have to wait to see what "job" he had in mind. With a high-pitched cry of "ki-app" that immediately put the two men on the defensive, her, leapt to his feet and attacked. "I understand-rio-cha-gi" - a circular kick in which all of Alenka is balanced backwards. Ego released her with all the strength and concentration he could muster. He put out his right foot and hit the target.
  
  
  A hideous gurgle accompanied the groan of the man with the gun; my bare heel kicked ego in the solar plexus. Air rushed out of his ego lungs as he collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. The gun was dangling in his fingers, but as he raised the weapon to fire another shot, he jumped over it and leapt at Mohan before he could pull away.
  
  
  "Don't be afraid, brother," I whispered as the other desperately tried to grab my legs to throw me back. He was faster than he was.
  
  
  Here, he was rewarded for his efforts when he started practicing taekwondo and kung fu.
  
  
  Her hand was raised as if it were the base for the deadly "ma-nal-chi-ki", a form of attack that you have learned to master perfectly. My hand was moving through the air towards a certain point in space towards Mohan's target. And when my hard fingers touched the base of the ego's nose, I didn't need a medical degree to know that the man was dead.
  
  
  She was stabbed by a piece of emu bone in the brain, instantly killing it. A stream of blood gushed down the rta's ego, and his gaze settled on me... then, ego's eyes blurred before becoming wide open and glassy like two pieces of black marble. A hoarse, choked sound escaped through rta's ego as he hit the floor. Inert as a rag doll, her nose unrecognizable, red and crushed like the juice of a ripe fruit.
  
  
  Mohan was no longer a "killer", "he was a corpse.
  
  
  But in the few seconds it took me to finish off the ego, the ego accomplice recovered enough to try to return to the attack. Her, felt him crawling across the floor candid behind me, and I didn't have time to think twice.
  
  
  Hers, was ready instantly. "Hanna, dol, seth" ... one, two, three... I mentally thought. Then her left elbow was yanked back in a terrible "pal-kuch chi-ki".
  
  
  Her opponent hit her candid under the chin. He screamed, and she turned around, just to contemplate what was left of the perfect set of teeth. Because now the jaw was completely loose, shattered. Blood trickled down Ego's chin and neck, spilling onto his immaculate shirt. The lower part of his face was literally torn to pieces; a bruise was already spreading from his cheekbone to his eyes.
  
  
  The man tried to speak, but there was only a muffled sound around ego rta; but before ego could knock her out, he managed to pull the trigger of the gun. I fell forward, lying on the floor for a long time. Another large-caliber gawk whizzed past two inches in front of me and slammed into the opposite wall. It was a goggle-eyed dum-dum that could gut a person like a freshly slaughtered chicken ready for frying. The man stood up and backed toward the door.
  
  
  Before he could fire another one through his infernal bullets, her zigzag went down the line that engaged joins me sincerely every day. But he was gone before she could snatch the gun out of Ego's hands. He rushed into the corridor and saw a thin trail of blood and heard the heavy shuffle of metal stairs at the far end of the uncarpeted corridor.
  
  
  Then he went back to his room and pulled on the pants he'd left next to the bed. Reeva looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. Hey said it. "Don't be angry, please! - When selling fabrics, there is always fierce competition.
  
  
  "She wasn't laughing. Her,leaving her alone with the bloodied figure that had once been a man.
  
  
  Then he ran her around the room. No one saw him chasing the assailant. He had to catch him, because now that Mohan was dead, there was no way to know if he was really on Della. I didn't think they were vulgar thieves; they showed higher skill than ordinary criminals.
  
  
  He was sure that they weren't acting under the illusion of asking for money. Something was crashing in my head, something I couldn't articulate at the time. It was like a riddle... something that made me rethink what Hawke had told me. Is it possible that someone has already revealed my identity since I arrived in India on a tourist visa? Many questions might have gone unanswered if he hadn't caught Mohan's accomplice.
  
  
  The hotel lobby was almost deserted, and the night clerk was asleep at the counter. He noticed a very quick movement behind the curtains that hid the large glass doors leading out to the patio and garden. Barefoot, he rushed to the tents, pushed ih aside, and ran into the dark garden.
  
  
  The grass was wet and cold underfoot. The moon had disappeared behind a pile of clouds that covered her orange face. Then I saw the reflection of the clouds in the pool, where she made the famous swim before meeting with Reeva and having dinner with her. Gone are the clink of glasses, the rhythmic movement of swings, and the guttural shouts of street vendors.
  
  
  Now there was only the sound of my breathing, the beating of my pulse. I crept forward cautiously, my senses straining at any movement, any noise that would allow me to find my prey... before it was discovered.
  
  
  In his haste, he didn't have time to draw his gun. So I had to rely only on my intellect and my hands. Even if you don't have to rely on your intellect and hands when you find a silenced gun aimed at life.
  
  
  My instructor knew me by the nickname "Chu-Mok", which means"Fist" in Korean. But at that point, I didn't have the time to put what I was researching into practice. All was quiet in the garden. The banyan leaves only swayed slightly, obscuring part of the enclosure with their giant trunk.
  
  
  She would have seen traces of Indian blood when he noticed a sudden flash, followed by the furious hiss of a deadly bullet. This time it was me who shouted. Then I brought her hand to my mouth, her gawking eyes scratching my shoulder.
  
  
  It was a superficial wound, but it stung badly. Stahl gritted his teeth and waited, feeling more vulnerable than ever. The gunslinger, however, didn't want to take any more chances and expect me to attack him in retaliation.
  
  
  He started running toward the fence. I'd probably run after him, too, because I didn't want to let him get away without teaching the emu a lesson. Apparently, he had recovered from the treatment that ego had given him shortly before, so much so that he leaped over the border wall with surprising agility. He moved more like a cat than a human. But despite the pain in her arm, hers felt just as mobile. He took it, climbed over the wall, and landed barefoot on a patch of gravel. Another ringing sound exploded in my ears, but it wasn't a gunshot.
  
  
  An Indian in a white turban managed to reach the scooter parked at the end of the gravel road behind the fence. With the engine roaring, the scooter pulled away, and the Indian didn't even look back. I might have tried to hail a taxi or bike taxi, but I knew that the man with the gun had already disappeared into the maze of alleys of the city.
  
  
  So, instead of continuing the now seemingly futile hunt, he went back to the fence and clung to two wooden posts, climbing over it again. This time, he put in less effort. The grass was a real relief to my feet, compared to the gravel. He went to the pool, washed his hand, and crossed the lawn, slipping noiselessly into the lobby.
  
  
  The doorman woke up from his sleep, which undoubtedly allowed two Indians to come up to my room without being noticed. However, I wasn't going to blame ego for the corpse that left her upstairs and that I needed to get rid of. "Insomnia, sahib?" he asked me, yawning as he slowly stood up. Then he leaned over the counter, giving me a deflected look... In fact, hers was only in his pants. "I'll send for some sleeping pills for you, won't I?"
  
  
  "Thank you, no need," I declined, with a tight smile.
  
  
  If he noticed the long, bloody scratch left on me by a Sikh bullet, he pretended that nothing had happened. I put my hands in my pockets and walked to the elevators without anyone seeing me. Not that I feel embarrassed, mind you; but I'd rather not draw attention. Fighter No. 3 needed to find a man named Shiva by phone.
  
  
  
  2
  
  
  Reeva Singh wasn't there to help me clean my room.
  
  
  The door to my bedroom was ajar, though no one was hiding behind it to continue the work that Mohan and his partner's ego had interrupted. The room was empty except for the frozen corpse of the man she'd killed with a karate kick. The Indian lay with his arms and legs spread out in a strange position, almost submerged in a pool of dark blood that was still spreading.
  
  
  The rumpled blankets showed that he'd spent most of the evening with her and Reeva. Apparently, the girl got fed up and slipped out of the room before anyone could stop her. I wasn't stupid enough to think for even a second that I could count on her silence. So they decided to change her hotel the next morning. She didn't want anyone from the New Delhi Police to come to me and ask me questions. He would have to respond with more lies to protect his cover.
  
  
  But aside from worrying about Reeva Singh, who didn't even know if she was going to keep her mouth shut or not, hers had to worry about Mohan. Of course, getting the ego out of my room wasn't easy, especially since her hotel avoided any noise at all costs. Fortunately, the rest of the guests were already sound asleep. One door didn't open for us as I dragged her body down the deserted corridor. No frightened face can see my red-rimmed eyes, my wounded arm, or my bloody burden.
  
  
  Ego pawned it in front of the elevator and found what I needed in my pants pocket. The steel blade of my penknife proved to be a very useful device; in fact, with Della's penknife, I was able to open the door and lock the cabin on the top floor, freeing the elevator shaft, throwing the body several dozen meters down.
  
  
  This will be Mohan's eternal resting place.
  
  
  He was already head and shoulders in the air, the rest of his ego body ready for a final push into the deep pit in the well, when he was spotted by something that made me jump at the permission to perform flag. The sleeve of her Indian kurta had been rolled up as her body was dragged down the hall, and now I saw a detail I hadn't noticed before.
  
  
  It was a tattoo made in indelible blue ink that stood out clearly on my forearm; and when I realized that it was a drawing, my suspicions were confirmed. The tattoo was a coiled-up king cobra running up the arm in a typical attack position. The wedge-shaped target and fluttering tongue were lost in Mohan's frozen flesh.
  
  
  And so the Cobra appeared. They sent Mohan and ego an accomplice to make sure that Nick Carter didn't expose ih's secret organization. Only the plan failed. One of the two agents was dead, and the other with a broken face didn't have time to get any information, not even the slightest proof that I was really Fighter No. 3, an agent in the service of AX.
  
  
  A point in my favor, I thought, tugging at the sleeve of the dead man's shirt and kicking the corpse. Mohan's frozen body flew down, bouncing off the dark walls of the elevator shaft. Her, heard him reach his final destination... there was a thud as a body fell. If Shiva could still help emu, there would be nothing against it.
  
  
  The problem was that I still didn't know, as a ferret, if this mysterious character had ever existed, a brain operating under the cover of a Cobra, a chosen sense pulling the strings of this international network.
  
  
  
  Traffic moved slowly through Nehru Park. To the throng of cars, bike taxis, scooters, and bicycles, the white columns of Connaught Circus watched the throng of pedestrians like silent sentries. The men in wide white trousers and white "kurtas" that were not much different from the clothes of Mohan and ego sputnik, walked quickly, seriously and complacently. Black-haired women wrapped themselves in" saris", others in silk tunics and modest" churidar " (trousers that fit around the ankles and waist). They all formed a confused crowd, with a sense of urgency hanging over them, and at the same time waiting.
  
  
  But more than the sights and sounds of the city, more than the exotic atmosphere that always made New Delhi a unique city, my interest was focused on just one thing.
  
  
  To Shiva.
  
  
  "You're telling me that your Service only heard about the Cobra, aren't you?" I asked her, the person sitting across from me as we both sipped mint tea at a street cafe near the park.
  
  
  That morning, I contacted the Indian Secret Service. My "contact" was a Secret Service officer who was particularly recommended to me. Ashok Anand was a man about my age, but thin and haggard, with sharp and penetrating eyes, an aggressive expression on his face... the expression of someone who knows all the rules of the game, no matter if they are vile or not. .
  
  
  "Have you heard of the Cobra?" — What is it? " he asked, frowning. He raised the cup to his lips and took a long sip of tea before continuing. "Of course, Mr. Carter. We've heard of the Cobra... around Kashmir, by Calcutta, Madras, Bombay... from all over our country. Where there are riots and mutinies, there is always a Cobra.
  
  
  "And Shiva?" I insisted.
  
  
  "Do you see this?" Anand replied, pointing to the surface of the chair, a very shiny wooden shelf. "It's smooth, shapeless, see?
  
  
  He nodded at her.
  
  
  "Well, then you'll understand when I tell her that Shiva is shapeless, without a face, without a personality, Mr. Carter. He leaned over the chair and looked at me with half-closed black eyes. "It's just a name borrowed from an evil deity, even for us at IISA, the Indian secret service.
  
  
  And her voice is at the starting point, in the same place where it was the day before... only the hotel is different. Hawk allowed me to make contact with the Indians, although he advised me not to rely on ih for help.
  
  
  There was a rumor in the dell itself that the mistletoe Indians called it " treason." Although his egoistic colleague had assured Hawke of the utmost discretion, there was no point in taking unnecessary risks, especially when my life and the success of my mission were at stake.
  
  
  "May I ask why your government is so eager to find our Shiva?" Anand said in the same tone, cautiously and warily.
  
  
  "Heroin," I said. "A ten-million-dollar cargo bound for the United States. "I didn't think I would reveal my goals too much if I talked to him about the real reason, namely that I was trying to trace the source of the voice impersonations that have caused panic in international diplomacy in recent months, threatening peace on earth.
  
  
  "Ah, yes, drugs are really bad business! The Indian smiled and started to get up. "Please excuse me for a few minutes, but I will definitely call my supervisor. Maybe he can give me more information about Cobra.
  
  
  "Of course," I said. Anand pushed back his chair and walked across the terrace.
  
  
  I watched him until he disappeared inside. Then he looked down at the bottom of the cup, almost regretting that he had never learned to read fate from the tea leaves. Who knows, if he had learned it, he would now be able to predict the success or failure of his mission.
  
  
  He leaned back and let his gaze drift across the crowded terrace to the traffic that wound around Connaught Circus. There were so many questions, so many gaps with the sea, that I would have had to do a lot of frolicking to make any progress. "More tea, sir?"
  
  
  She was startled to see the waiter leaning over the coffee table. "Bring two," I said, pointing to Anand's empty cup.
  
  
  "Two mint teas, — the waiter said. "Can I offer it to Pakora, or does the gentleman want to try the signature Indian dish, a meat bear called samosa?" They are excellent, sahib.
  
  
  He gave her an affirmative nod, slightly baffled by the ego-driven approach. The man picked up the empty glasses, and as he turned to go back to the kitchen, I found myself staring at his bare arm in shock. I didn't have time to look at it for long, but I also had enough time to make out what was printed on the nen.
  
  
  A coiled cobra is something that's not easy to forget! He pushed back his chair and jumped to his feet.
  
  
  "Kuda, tailor take it, where is Anand?" - I thought, making my way between the tables. The clink of plates pierced my ears, a screech that mixed with the honking horns and sounds of cars around coffee and Nehru Park. But at least I wasn't as vulnerable as I'd been last night, when I'd had to defend myself against two Sikhs who'd entered my hotel room.
  
  
  In the shoulder holster she carried was my dear Wilhelmina, the .38 Luger that saved me from so many desperate situations, more than I liked to remember. And in case a gun wasn't enough, I had Hugo, my stiletto, sheathed under my shirt sleeve.
  
  
  "Is there something you want, sahib?" One of the waiters in white jackets asked me.
  
  
  "Phone," I said.
  
  
  He pointed to the revolving doors leading into the room. It struck me that Anand was taking too long on the phone. This, in addition to the tattoo I noticed on the waiter's arm, made me feel uneasy.
  
  
  He found her phones, following the instructions of the man in the white jacket, a row of black and old-fashioned phones set up on the left side of the narrow corridor. I quickly looked around and noticed a sign for the day to my right. Maybe hers was nervous for no particular reason, maybe hers, worried about nothing.
  
  
  Well, there was only one way to make sure.
  
  
  He slipped his hand under his light summer jacket, felt a reassuring touch on Wilhelmina's hilt, and went down the corridor to the men's room. The passage was deserted. Opening the door, he put his right foot forward.
  
  
  The door creaked open, allowing me a quick glance into the black-and-white tiled bathroom. There didn't seem to be anyone there. He stepped forward, letting the door swing open behind me. I whispered, " Ashok?" - The changing rooms were closed at three o'clock in the afternoon.
  
  
  He waited a second and then called her again. No response. Silent as a cat, with a heightened sense of fear of being trapped, the luger pulled her out of its holster and flexed its trigger finger slightly. For the most part, modern Lugers have an insensitive trigger; but the Wilhelmina was modified especially for me by the guys in the AX lab at headquarters in Washington. The trigger was ready to go off as soon as she pulled the trigger.
  
  
  I went to the first toilet on the left. With a firm grip on the metal handle, he pushed the door open and closed it just as quickly. The first locker room was empty, as was the second. And in the third, leaning on the lowered toilet seat, lay the motionless, lifeless body of Ashok Anand.
  
  
  He held out his hand and lifted ego's head. "The bastards! he hissed under his breath. Anand's wide eyes stared back at me. He ran his fingers over the ego's eyelids, thus erasing the astonished expression left by the death of the human ego.
  
  
  A thin line, now purple, marked the ego's neck. Deadened the sprouts, I concluded, examining the bruise. He unbuttoned the collar of Ego's shirt to get a better look at the bruise, and saw the marks of two tiny punctures, less than an inch apart. "But why?"he asked himself. It is clear that Anand was stewed dead, because the ego, tongue was hanging from the rta; but these marks on the neck seemed to have been left by the teeth of a snake.
  
  
  Some time ago, between one mission and another, I happened to read several books on herpetology, the science of reptiles. And she knows that reactions to venomous snake bites usually start a quarter of an hour or half an hour after the bite.
  
  
  Ashoka Ananda bit the dragon, but this did not cause the death of the ego: perhaps these signs meant a warning or represented a religious symbol. One thing was clear: he wasn't going to stop there to find out.
  
  
  The luger removed it and slid out around the cockpit. The toilet was still empty. If I had gone back the way I had before, I would undoubtedly have run into the waiter. As far as she could tell, he wasn't the only one who worked at the bar, part of the Cobra organization.
  
  
  He was asked for another way out. A glazed window over a porcelain sink looked out over the dusty paths of Nehru Park. He climbed over the edge of the sink and looked out. The window opened at the back of the cafe, out of sight of the patrons sitting on the terrace, where waiters, tattooed or not, waited at tables.
  
  
  He opened the window grate with a stiletto and lifted it, unhooking the rusty metal hooks of the frame.
  
  
  "There are better ways out, sahib.
  
  
  It's too late to snatch Wilhelmina now. He turned his head and saw the grinning face of a waiter with a gun. "The .22 Beretta was aimed squarely at my eyes. They were small-caliber weapons, but she knew the Berettas well enough to know how dangerous they could be at close range.
  
  
  "She's just being asked to get some fresh air," I explained.
  
  
  He didn't smile, just waved the gun at me, signaling me to raise my arms above my head and jump off the sink. He was holding a Beretta pointed at me. All I had to do was accept the ego's invitation. Her, landed on the floor and stared at him. It was obvious that he was nervous, from the look in his eyes, it seemed that he had little experience in such situations.
  
  
  "I thought the Indians were a hospitable people," I said. "I think my other one over there" - and he turned her head toward the closet where Anand's body had found her - " had an accident."..
  
  
  "The same thing will happen to you, sahib, "the waiter chuckled, taking a step forward, the beretta now aimed for my life. "Soon, we'll probably hear a big crash outside, a terrible mess. There will be so much noise that it will drown out the gunshot.
  
  
  So, he wasn't the only one in Barr who was connected to Cobra. How they knew where to find me, and how they knew about Anand — two unanswered questions in addition to the others I was accumulating.
  
  
  "Really?" I replied, making the Aryans laugh. "I suggest you repeat that to the policeman behind you."
  
  
  He was right.
  
  
  The waiter was inexperienced, new to this kind of work, and didn't even know this old trick. Before I could finish my sentence, he turned abruptly to face the nonexistent policeman. And in a split second, hers was in action.
  
  
  He leaped forward and kicked the waiter in the neck. He screamed as the sole of my shoe hit ego's collarbone. He lowered his leg and delivered a fatal left blow to the emu's spleen. The Beretta flew away as the man squeezed the sore spot with his hand, and vomit dripped down the sides of the rta's ego.
  
  
  As he fell forward, he picked it up for each tribe and slapped his ego in the face again. I heard her gritting my teeth at the moment when my rta ego touched every tribe. The man slid to the floor. Outside the bathroom, the dishwasher rattled deafeningly, followed by the clatter of dishes.
  
  
  Of course, this was a plan designed to drown out the shot meant for me. He took the beretta and stuffed it into a pair of linen trousers big enough to hide a pistol.
  
  
  Then he grabbed the man by the hair and lifted his head as if he were a puppet with its strings cut. "You don't look good, man!" I exclaimed in a low voice.
  
  
  He mumbled something I couldn't hear, spitting out blood and broken teeth, smearing his chin. "Where is he?" - pressed it. "I want to know where I can find your boss.".. Shiva.
  
  
  - Shiva... Shiva's gone, " the waiter muttered, hanging his head. The man closed his eyes, and his mouth started to bleed again.
  
  
  "Think again," I hissed, raising my hand. Her fingers formed a harpoon-shaped punch called penn Colony field gee-roo-ki, which was supposed to loosen the emu's tongue. And it made the ego open its pain-blurred eyes.
  
  
  Another heart-rending groan accompanied the impact. But that bastard wasn't thinking about killing Anand, so I wasn't in the mood to be a good Samaritan. He stuck emu's fingernails under her eyelids, squeezing her eyeballs.
  
  
  The waiter recoiled, shaking convulsively. Ego target hit the floor, but after a second of it, jumped on top of him, thrusting emu's fingers back into his eyes. She could have been blinded by her ego for life. But apart from being moved to the death of an Indian agent by her hotel, get rheumatism.
  
  
  "Tell me: where is Shiva?" - repeat it.
  
  
  It was an unpleasant sight; the man's features were distorted with fear and pain. His face and the front of his shirt were already indistinguishable, they were smeared with blood and vomit, his eyes would pop out of their sockets, he couldn't breathe.
  
  
  "H - h -" he groaned.
  
  
  "Where is he in the hall?" I snapped. "Where?"
  
  
  But the previous beating with the addition of the "thumb in the eye" technique knocked the ego out of the rut. The waiter leaned back and avoided the physical torment, allowing himself to drift off into oblivion.
  
  
  He removed her fingers, and her eyelids closed over her eyes. Her ego tried to revive her by shaking her violently, but the person was unconscious and turned into a shadow of himself. She was about to drag her lifeless body into the closet, to put her head under the water and bring her ego back to consciousness, when she heard the sound of footsteps. Someone was walking down the hall, heading for the bathroom door.
  
  
  "Nirad?" A voice called out.
  
  
  Needless to say, Nirad was unable to respond.
  
  
  This time, she wouldn't let herself be caught off guard. He went to the sink and climbed up on the porcelain edge; the window frame he'd loosened earlier was ajar.
  
  
  He pushed the window frame forward with his free hand. Outside the bathroom door, a worried voice called out to Nirad again.
  
  
  Fortunately, the window was big enough to fit through. Supporting the glass panel with one hand, he hopped down onto the terrace and peered back into the bathroom.
  
  
  The door swung open, and I took a mental picture of the face staring down at Nirad's bloodied body in disbelief. It was an unfamiliar face, one that Ego had never seen before. But I knew I would see the young Indian again, who was staring incredulously at Nirad's motionless figure at that moment... and probably in the near future.
  
  
  
  
  3
  
  
  "It is easy for even a Western observer to detect the true essence of God in the double incarnation of Shiva-cobra. Descended from pre-vedic deities, this very ancient member of the Indian trinities must eventually be associated with phallic symbolism. In fact, in ego iconography, we always find the swollen hood of a cobra in an attacking position. So it is not surprising that Shiva is very often described with clothing all over cobra skins, earrings also made from skins, a propitiating cord and a belt around live vipers..."
  
  
  
  He closed the book and peered through the library window, following the wide stone staircase that led to the terrace of the cafe next to Nehru Park. No one noticed my quick departure around the back of the club.
  
  
  I didn't expect Nirad's partner to scream, and I was right about that. Nor did he see any ambulances or police cars arrive at the scene to collect Ashok Anand's body. Tourists and businessmen came and went. The bar continued to run without interruption, and from her vantage point in the Connaught Place bookstore, she could even see Nirad's accomplice, a young Indian man in a waiter's uniform.
  
  
  As for Nirada, the egos have not seen us standing or lying down anywhere. The other's ego probably brought her ego to some private room or restaurant so that it could recover. No doubt the head of the agency knew about the secondary activities of its employees, otherwise something unusual would have been noticed.
  
  
  In any case, he was determined to keep watching until one or both of the waiters stopped working. Nirad "left" before he could get any information from him. So, with no other valid evidence, the web lead to follow was the surveillance of two Cobra hitmen.
  
  
  I wasn't stupid enough to think that they would lead me sincerely to a mysterious character, but I was pretty sure that once the mechanisms were set in motion, Shiva, if he really existed, would eventually appear.
  
  
  So I continued to pretend that I was extremely interested in the books displayed in the store, right up to buying a volume on Indian reptiles that was studying it. When hers finally got out of the bookcase, hers hid in the shadows, trying to become virtually invisible. There were enough tourists nearby, so I wasn't as conspicuous. The last thing she needed to do was attract attention.
  
  
  After many years of serving in her ARMY, I realized that patience is the most useful virtue. On the dell itself, as dusk began to fall into the sky, I finally saw my men coming out for coffee. They descended the wide stone staircase, slowly, step by step.
  
  
  A young man, bent over Nirad's bloodied form, was leading his companion. Nirad's eyes were blindfolded; the ego comrade led the ego as if he were blind. As far as he was concerned, the waiter's temporary blindness meant that Cobra had one less agent.
  
  
  I took a step forward and kept my eyes on the two of them, so that they wouldn't slip out of my observation after I spent the whole day waiting for her. Connaught Place was crowded with workers and clerks coming home from work. I was about to cross the crowded square when two of my men made a sudden gesture; but I was relieved when I saw another Nirada stop a bicycle taxi and leave his partner in the seat of the narrow car.
  
  
  The young Indian waved his hand, and the motorized taxi plunged into the stream with a sharp rumble. A young man with griffin eyes standing alone on the sidewalk turned his head in my direction, apparently not sure what to do.
  
  
  If he was undecided, he wasn't.
  
  
  I hid behind the white pillars, waiting to see what he would do. Another moment of indecision and he finally stepped off the sidewalk. He put two fingers to his lips and let out a high-pitched whistle to stop another bike taxi.
  
  
  The waiter was still wearing his white uniform trousers, but he had changed his jacket. Instead, nen was wearing a dark open-necked shirt. Something metallic shone on his neck, reflecting the sunset glow like a mirror. A young man got on a tricycle and the driver stepped on the gas pedal, following the traffic around Nehru Park.
  
  
  I didn't waste any more time.
  
  
  In less than a second, he was on the curb and hailed another taxi without losing sight of the waiter.
  
  
  When he was in the ramshackle old car, he shoved a wad of bills into the driver's hand, not giving him time to object.
  
  
  "Follow my friend there," I ordered.
  
  
  The driver, focusing first on the money emu had given her and then on the bike taxi that the waiter had stopped less than a minute ago, did not hesitate to obey. He took the front lane, and he leaned into the seat, keeping his eyes on the bike taxi that he hoped would take me one step closer to the elusive and mysterious Shiva.
  
  
  So far, everything seemed to be going well, I told myself, sure that the waiter hadn't seen me waiting for her outside the bar or getting into a taxi to follow him. I told the driver to speed up until we were only three cars away from the young waiter.
  
  
  "Where's my other one going?"
  
  
  From Connaught Place, we headed towards Connaught Circus to turn into an alley leading away from the New Delhi Mall. "To the old town," the driver explained. Then he gave me a quick glance and added, " Did he rob you, sahib?" If not, I'll call the police...
  
  
  "No, nothing like that," Ego assured him, and leaned over the seat to whisper something in Emu's ear.
  
  
  He blushed under his coppery skin. "Understood, sahib." Whatever you call it... meetings, or what?
  
  
  "Exactly," I confirmed with a big smile, assuming I was following a young man on his way to a romantic date.
  
  
  "Be careful, sahib," the taxi driver warned me. "Delhi women are very clever," and he accompanied the sentence by rubbing his thumb against his index finger to emphasize his powers of observation.
  
  
  "Yes, but don't lose sight of our friend," I said.
  
  
  It was almost dark, and after the Connaught Circus exit, traffic eased. The driver changed the subject and drew my attention to the monuments. At the end of a wide, dusty avenue, he pointed to the famous minarets of the Jama Masjid, a huge fortress-like mosque surrounded by red sandstone.
  
  
  And frank in front of the mosque and the nearby bazaar was another monument around a red stone, an impressive complex left by the Mughal Emperors, the Red Fort. He probably thought the waiter would disappear into the bazaar, but apparently he didn't realize that he was being followed. Instead of getting off near the mosque and open-air market, he took a bike taxi outright in front of the gate leading to the fort.
  
  
  "Stop," he said to the driver.
  
  
  He stopped just as the waiter disappeared through the gate. I got out in turn and hurried after my man, glad that the darkness had provided me with some sort of shelter. In front of the gate, there were stalls with "souvenirs", postcards, guidebooks, and local delicacies.
  
  
  But I was not a tourist, and I did not have time to stop and admire these "charms". Keeping some distance away, his eyes followed the waiter's white trousers and dark shirt.
  
  
  At least he'd never seen me, which meant he didn't know me. Unless Cobra has distributed my photo, in which case Nick Carter Stahl is less anonymous than her hotel admits.
  
  
  Ahead, at the end of the driveway, a waiter stopped in front of a narrow wooden booth. The sign announced the beginning of the Lumiere and Son show. When I realized that the young Indian had bought a ticket to the play, I didn't hesitate to follow him.
  
  
  It was a history lesson, a "journey" not without the help of psychedelics. A gravel path led from the ticket office to the courtyard of the fort. Here, in a garden surrounded by marble palaces built by the emperors, numerous rows of chairs were placed for the audience.
  
  
  A spotlight sent a yellow beam of light into the columns in front of the marble buildings, and audio commentary was broadcast over loudspeakers. The speaker described a Peacock Throne stolen by the Persian hordes that invaded India in the eighteenth century.
  
  
  Then the holy light went out, and I heard the sound of hooves behind me. He turned his head, half expecting to find himself in the midst of a maddened herd.
  
  
  Instead, he was caught in the path of a razor-sharp dagger.
  
  
  The blade hissed, ripping the left sleeve of my doublet. Without thinking twice, he finally pulled away and started the colonialmacke move with one hand. The Indian waiter will not try his luck a second time.
  
  
  Ego's white teeth flashed in a sardonic smile, and the stiletto blade whirled in the air. Then the spotlight shone full on ego's face, blinding him. The young man threw himself into the aisle between the rows of chairs and ran.
  
  
  The audience, mostly Western tourists, seemed to believe that the Native American was part of the show. Someone started cheering, and the sound of horses ' hooves could be heard in the air. Trumpets blared around the loudspeaker, accompanied by a battle cry. He ran after the attacker.
  
  
  I didn't know how he knew who I was, or that I was following him. But I could still hear the hiss of the dagger's ego blade as it sliced through the air and tore through the sleeve of my doublet. It almost pierced my skin.
  
  
  Still running, he reached into his jacket for his gun. No one around the audience found anything strange about our movements, and as the spotlight dusted the marble buildings, a dazzling reflection framed the waiter's hideout.
  
  
  "The royal baths..." the narrator announced.
  
  
  I was on one of the marble pillars before the spotlight caught me. Her eyes narrowed and Stahl searched for the surrounding shadows. A pungent smell of moss and rotting vegetation permeated the palace without walls. He was hiding there, waiting for me to fall into the trap that I now realized had been set for me.
  
  
  I could have turned around and gone back to the hotel to study the next step; but I gave up on that idea, now that I felt I was close to uncovering Cobra's nefarious operations... and Shiva. The sooner I find this person, the better it will be for everyone.
  
  
  The sound of the young waiter's footsteps was accompanied by a thud. I could hear him running toward the back of the building, farther and farther away from the tourists who were watching the play in the garden. He was also happy about it because he didn't want innocent viewers to be involved in the violent vote-to-vote confrontation that was about to take place.
  
  
  He ran, bent double, from pillar to pillar, ears pricked up at every rustle. It was hard to hear any sounds other than those made by the background of the recorded video. A muffled groan mingled with the drum roll, amplified by the powerful sound system installed in the garden. If it wasn't for the white trousers the man was wearing, he would have been able to hide in the shadows without a doubt.
  
  
  But when the holy light went out, her ego saw her again. He had passed the short marble staircase that connected one building to another, and now he was sprawled out on the floor.
  
  
  Her finger was already on the trigger of the gun. The trigger clicked just as he pulled the trigger. The sound of drums around the loudspeaker was joined by the barking of gunfire, masking my shot.
  
  
  Hers, saw gawk get stuck in a marble pillar, sending a cloud of white smoke into the air. The shot was drowned out by another deafening sound of horses ' hooves. I missed the target, so I ran forward. The waiter jumped to his feet, and Ego was nowhere to be seen.
  
  
  He passed the short flight of stairs he had just run down, and found himself in the middle of a narrow grassy path surrounded by marble buildings. Behind me, I heard the hiss of heavy breathing. It's useless to think about shooting a cannon. So I raised both elbows, twirling. It caught the young Indian in the ribs, but though he gasped for a moment, the emu managed to push me back a step.
  
  
  Killing the ego wasn't part of my plan. Dead, he would have been useless to me, and the path that was supposed to lead me to Shiva ended there in the courtyard of the Red Fort. A live waiter could provide me with valuable information.
  
  
  Suddenly, around the darkness behind me, a hoarse, barely audible voice rang out.
  
  
  "Very well, Ranjit.
  
  
  I swung her right leg back with a powerful kick, and the heel of my foot landed on someone else's tribe. The second attacker groaned in pain and recoiled. He jumped out of the way, panting, and took a step back, aiming Wilhelmina at the two attackers.
  
  
  Two against one, Ranjit was the waiter, the man hers followed; but the other wasn't a stranger either. -"So we meet again, sahib," he said with a rough, forced laugh. The words came out of his mouth, iso rta with some difficulty, because the lower part of the ego faces was wrapped in a white bandage.
  
  
  "Yeah," I said, recognizing ego: he was Mohan's accomplice, the bearded Sikh whose jaw he'd smashed the night before.
  
  
  Ranjit took advantage of the brief exchange of words to duck behind a pillar, momentarily avoiding the Luger's fatal trajectory. "It is useless to continue, sahib," said the Indian Sikh. "If you kill us, you won't know anything.
  
  
  "What happens if I don't kill you?" I asked her. But in that instant, for a split second, something metallic quickly crossed my field of vision. He turned around and pulled the trigger. Gawk flew through the air, bouncing off a ledge along the wall of buildings. And then that same gun literally slid out around my fingers, with the barrel wrapped in a metal loop.
  
  
  Ranjit came out from his hiding place and grabbed a gun. I realized then that it was something I had noticed earlier, an object that glittered around ego's neck. It was a piece of copper wire, no doubt a trap used to kill Ashok Anand.
  
  
  "You are not so clever as you think, sahib," another Hindu remarked with a chuckle.
  
  
  He tried to back away, but Ranjit wasted no time. The waiter put a gun to my chest, warning me enough to stop me abruptly. And I wasn't close enough to try and snatch the gun out of ego's hands. And if someone tried to kick her, she was sure the young black-haired waiter wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.
  
  
  "Now raise your hands above your head, sahib," the boy ordered. And he took a step forward, his mouth twisting into a devilish smile.
  
  
  He held up his hands and looked cautiously in the direction of the other Sikh. Ranjit handed the emu a copper wire. The wire hummed as the man wrapped the ends around his wrists.
  
  
  "Mohan is dead," he said, his voice almost inaudible as the music played around the speakers. The show wasn't over yet, and neither was Fighter # 3's life, as I'd hoped. "Gurnek, however, is still alive,' sahib.' An Indian Sikh approached me as Ranjit came up to lick me.
  
  
  I had the barrel of Wilhelmina's luger under my nose, and suddenly it occurred to me that she was no longer my old one yet. Not to mention the copper wire that Gurnek held in both hands.
  
  
  "You deserve worse, sahib, much worse," said the waiter.
  
  
  He was playing with a "light" trigger. A very light pressure was enough and Hawke would have had to hire Fighter No. 4. But before the young man could carry out his threats, Gurnek moved in behind me. Only this time, my backward kick was lost in the air, missing its target.
  
  
  The noose tightened around my neck, and I had to raise my hands again. I was looking at her openly through the muzzle of the Luger, but Ranjit let go of the trigger and snapped the gun, hitting me in the forehead with the butt of it. At the same time, a copper wire that was pressing down on my windpipe tried to push it away.
  
  
  The thread cut through my skin, and I couldn't breathe. It made a strangled sound, and Ranjit, chuckling, picked it up and punched me in the groin. The pain made me groan, making me bend over.
  
  
  Every tribe's heart rose a second time, causing me to explode in excruciating pain. "You're a fool, sahib... Cobra knows... Cobra knows everything, Mr. Carter.
  
  
  Ego's voice seemed to come from around the dark tunnel. I struggled to free myself, to push away the wire Gurnek was using to strangle me. But I couldn't handle the nah, it was too thin. With a groan, he fell forward, trying to breathe.
  
  
  Then the butt of a gun slammed into my head, and in the distance, a voice around a loudspeaker announced, " I'm not going to be able to get out of here.": "If there is a paradise on earth, it is here... here, here!
  
  
  Emu didn't trust her. Meanwhile, I wondered if I'd ever have the chance to believe something like this again.
  
  
  
  
  4
  
  
  It was easy at first.
  
  
  Velvety, soft and smooth, dark and cozy haze. The protective darkness that engages made me smile. But then it started to sting, cutting my skin like shards of broken glass. I had to leave, or she would have torn me apart, flayed me alive. So I leaped forward as if I'd just come up from the bottom of the sea. And the higher I climbed, the more I was torn apart.
  
  
  - No! Her... I don't want it! I heard my own voice. I tried to repeat it louder, trying to lift the weight that was pressing down on my eyes. He blinked, and something of an indeterminate color began to move back and forth in front of me, vibrating in and out of space.
  
  
  Her opened eyes started a second time, then a third, and at the same time her tried to go further until my target hit something hard. The vibrations stopped, and he sank down again, too weak and sleepy to make another move.
  
  
  I do not know how much time has passed since then. Her, I felt that I was being captured by dreams, and every time I tried to push her away and open my eyes, but something scratched my skin, something burned. Finally, it started all over again, moving forward amid alternating waves of Vlad and pain.
  
  
  Then the "thing" came together. It was a wall, an earthen wall that was now sitting in front of me, enlarged or reduced... and then normal. My target was a crushed eggshell... it's like not drinking it for a month in a row. I leaned against the nearest wall, listening to the most beautiful sound in the world, the sound of my chest rising and falling with each breath.
  
  
  Which scratched and tore at my skin-during that long purgatory between consciousness and unconsciousness, since it's the bedding on which I lay on my back. As soon as he realized I was alive, he swung his legs off the straw-covered bench and stood up, shivering.
  
  
  I push my hand against the wall to get up. Her, I felt like a drug addict in withdrawal, I was sick. The blows her golovs received, plus the wire-tightening of my throat, knocked me out.
  
  
  Now, first of all, he had to regain his strength.
  
  
  He took a few steps until my knees stopped bending. He walked around her cell... a small square room with clay walls and a floor. There were no windows, no windows, no doors. Later, if there was a future, I was sure I could find the joints in the groan where the door should be, because someone.... And someone would have pulled me out.
  
  
  At one end of the cell, to the left of the pallet, two bars were embedded in the wall. Both of them came up to my waist and were covered with wire mesh. Hers, of course, wasn't going to wait for me to be introduced to my tormentors, so I went to the railing, trying to recover from the pain of being hit by Ranjit with the butt of his gun.
  
  
  But before touching the wire mesh and examining the two bars to see if ih could be removed, her shoes were removed. The people who captured me left me in my shirt and pants. The stiletto was gone, as was the Beretta, and of course the Luger. I couldn't even see her camisole, but it wasn't cold on digital cameras... at least not yet.
  
  
  Her shoe took it and threw ego into the bars. Nothing happened. No sparks. Thank God the grilles weren't electrified. She put on her ballet slippers again and reached for one around the four metal screws that held the bars to the groan. But when my fingers touched nu, there was a voice in the silence, a voice that made me jump.
  
  
  "Good morning, Mr. Carter. Because it's daytime, you know. I hope you have had some good dreams, sahib...
  
  
  The voice came from behind one or two bars. No doubt there was an amplifier hidden behind the metal screen. But what was most alarming was that the voice was familiar... frighteningly familiar.
  
  
  "Hello, this is Carter, this is Agent 3. In fact; Hawk told you everything without telling me. So this agent of yours, Anand, I think that's his name. Well, he didn't show up for the meeting. No, you don't have to apologize. We know that our man is out of reach, and.. Oh, no, not at all! The ego doesn't exist, that's all. No, I'll be back in Washington tomorrow. A cobra? I am very much afraid that our government will not be able to interfere in the affairs of the Indian security service. You understand, of course... Yes, and thank you for your concern. Tell Mr. Anand that I'm sorry I didn't have the opportunity to meet him."
  
  
  There was a long pause. And then silence again. He moved away from the bars and returned to the cot. Despite the emptiness in her stomach, despite the terrible feeling of nausea, she had to admit one thing: Shiva was a real, ruthless, cold-blooded thug, a cunning opponent such as she had never met before.
  
  
  The short speech I had just listened to, the telephone conversation that had no doubt already taken place, was delivered in a perfectly familiar voice. It was my own voice, with the same perfect intonation, speech, and intonation.
  
  
  Shiva framed me and wasted no time removing the Indian secret service from the scene. Even when Anand was no longer at his desk, no one thought of connecting the two of us. And why would they, after all? Didn't "Nick Carter" call shortly before and tell them that Shiva is a fake? The same "Nick Carter" pointed out that, even if "Cobra" really exists, the organization that is so concerned about the Indian government has nothing to do with the mysterious character.
  
  
  "Nick Carter," Trump said of all this. And apparently, he was already on his way home to AX headquarters in Washington. "I'm very impressed, Shiva. How did you even manage to reproduce my voice?
  
  
  "There was a sound device installed in your hotel room, Mr. Carter," my voice replied, reproduced electronically with such precision that I couldn't help but be startled to hear myself.
  
  
  "Then please pass on my compliments to your electronics people. He searched this room four times and didn't find a single microphone... even in the most unlikely places, " I said, raising my voice as if I doubted he could hear me. The hidden microphones couldn't see her, though it was clear now that Success in my hotel room would have no trouble putting Odin in a cell.
  
  
  "This is one of Haji's latest inventions; an extremely sensitive, powerful, small-sized microphone," the duplicate of my voice explained.
  
  
  "It's like finding a needle in a haystack," I said.
  
  
  My laughter echoed in the air, then my voice continued, " Very good, Mr. Carter. I'm glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor. But Haji, in case you haven't heard of nen, is a web — worthy thing that Albania has exported over the past twenty years. And now he's working for me, for Cobra... for Shiva! The voice was exultant.
  
  
  "Hema does it work?"
  
  
  "You know very well, Mr. Carter. After all, AX didn't send you to India just to expose a gang of arms dealers or heroin dealers! You are interested in the miraculous discovery of Haji, the ego's ingenious invention... The box!
  
  
  "The box? - repeat it.
  
  
  - Nickname of the voice simulator, its invention, capable of reproducing any existing vocal sound. And it's small, Mr. Carter, even by your standard miniature models. No more than a pack of cigarettes... but much more dangerous, of course.
  
  
  I asked her. "And what are you going to do with your box?" I kept my eyes fixed on the metal screen, as if it could record my every move.
  
  
  "You think her crazy, don't you?"
  
  
  "Crazy? Not exactly, Shiva. You're much smarter than many people; usually, crazy people can't come up with such a complicated plan.
  
  
  "Thank you, Mr. Carter. I appreciate your compliment. No, he wasn't really crazy, at least not from my point of view. As for the Box, the inventions of Haji, your service has already seen how ingenious and effective it is. These incidents were just tests, experiments, to be precise.
  
  
  "But soon, once Haji has made some changes to his device, accidents will stop being mere experiments. As you can see, Mr. Carter, India is currently a neutral power between China and the West. With the help of my partners in Beijing, this side acting as a counterweight will collapse in an instant, and then the dream of my ancestors will come true, when China and the Indian subcontinent will join hands as good allies, an alliance that will last longer than any other in world history."
  
  
  "I asked her. "What kind of alliance?" Her mind jotted down everything he said, trying to buy time. Meanwhile, my eyes were carefully scanning the confines of the camera. I stood up slowly, so as not to make any noise; it wasn't like Shiva would hear me moving, or hear me scratching at the walls trying to open any cracks. There must be a door, but I didn't see him again.
  
  
  "The Sino-Indian Alliance, Mr. Carter, is an alternative to both nations to rid the world of warring blocs. No, I'm not a megalomaniac, I don't care if the world falls on its face at my feet. I have more money than I can spend. I also have some influence in my government. But when China and India become one nation, my people will no longer be a "hungry horde", as Western journalists call the other ego. We will become as powerful as Bharat, ancient India. And then my people will return to the ancient gods, the Nagas... to the snake deities of my ancestors.
  
  
  "We're in the twentieth century, Shiva. It's not easy to convert millions of people. Today, people are more interested in filling their stomachs than in snake worship.
  
  
  You know very little about the Indian mentality, Carter. Her lineage goes back to the royal family, a family that goes back to Naga, the snake ancestor. I wear a turban as if it were a dragon, a coiled cobra with a proud head resting on my forehead, " Shiva replied. Voice... Ego Stahl's voice was as cold as a reptile's. I was doubly impressed that he could speak and translate his emotions thanks to Haji's invention.
  
  
  "Why don't you feed your men first?" If you have a lot of money, why don't you give ih to the government so that the children don't go hungry? Or are you afraid that they will not appreciate your gesture, that they will not want to satisfy your greedy requests? Her head is thrown back and Stahl scoffs at ego dreams, he's in a terrible goal that he's set for himself.
  
  
  But Shiva wasn't enjoying himself at all.
  
  
  "I've talked too much, Carter," he announced. "But her hotel is here to let you know that you have indeed stumbled upon a nest of snakes, and that I will not tolerate little people like you." Your government doesn't represent a police world, and it can't stop me from seeing my dreams come true. Already, Chinese Communist troops are focusing their attention on our northern border, ready to rid India and other underdeveloped countries of iga poverty.
  
  
  "Keep dreaming, Shiva. The authorities in Beijing made you look like an imbecile, and you took the bait... round trip. Once the troops cross India's northern border, rest assured that the West will not stand idly by to see what happens. You will fight a war that will completely wipe out humanity from the face of the earth. So maybe... but this is not certain, only snakes will remain, an infinity of snakes that will crawl through the desert and the radioactive planet.
  
  
  Her, leaned against the moan, and held his breath. How can you talk about something with someone like Shiva? And how could I speak intelligently when all I could think of was a way to escape? I've known crazy people in my life, but not as logical and crazy as the man who called himself Shiva.
  
  
  No, he didn't want to rule this world, he just wanted to go back in time, at the cost of unleashing a third world war. And the fact that he was deaf to my comments, that he didn't see the danger of his crazy plan, sent a shiver down my spine.
  
  
  "In any case, Mr. Carter, you, among so many people, will not see such a tragic end here. Gurnek told me about Mohan's death; it might give you a couple of opportunities. Mohan for Carter, Carter for Mohan. Only this time, death won't be quick and instant. Do you know how much a person can suffer before dying from a snake bite, Mr. Carter? Shiva said coldly.
  
  
  "That depends on the snake.
  
  
  "Actually," Shiva agreed. "I'm glad you can still reason, Carter. But in case you miss any details, we are ready to provide you with the necessary data.
  
  
  He leaned against the dirty door, groaning, stopped searching for the hidden door, and turned back to the speaker hidden behind the metal screen. "Come on, Shiva," he told her dryly. "I'm all ears.
  
  
  "I didn't doubt it for a second, Mr. Carter," he laughed. "But I'll be brief, because I have more important things to do. Herpetology has been my hobby for several years now, and I dare say I'm a real authority on reptiles, especially venomous ones. I have a collection of about two dozen different types.
  
  
  "Which ones did you choose for me?"
  
  
  "Five snakes, Carter. You may not recognize ih at first glance, but they will definitely recognize you. Snakes have a deep sense of territoriality. They are not different when ih is disturbed in ih house. Depending on the ih of a fatal bite, a person can suffer anywhere from two hours to seven to eight days.
  
  
  — If a toothed viper sinks its teeth into your flesh, you'll soon bleed from all the ferrets, Mr. Carter; your saliva will be stained with blood, your urine will turn red. You will suffer from excruciating abdominal pain, and you will die as a result of a brain hemorrhage."
  
  
  "Really tempting! I exclaimed, keeping an eye on any of the movements, looking for confirmation that they weren't just threats.
  
  
  "If you choose my favorite, the king cobra, you will die of anoxia, a slow and painful form of suffocation. On the other hand, the king cobra's cousin, the Asian cobra, has a venom that has been shown to be twice as toxic as strychnine. So the choice is yours, Mr. Carter. If you choose cobras, you will die a relatively miserable death in a few hours; if you choose vipers, be prepared for the most grotesque and unbearable pain imaginable.
  
  
  "And if I don't choose her, Shiva?" What will happen?
  
  
  You have no choice, Carter, no alternative. Eventually, you'll realize what a serious person she is! So, until I know your successor, please allow me to continue this conversation with you. I have some interesting information, Mr. Carter. Very interesting.
  
  
  That was the last thing I heard from "myself," or rather, from Shiva in my own voice. There was silence again, broken only by my breathing. Hers went completely cold, certain that these weren't far-fetched threats. Shiva was determined to kill me so that he could see death come to me in torment. Perhaps he was determined to hurt someone, just as she had fueled his absurd dreams and aspirations.
  
  
  But whatever the ego's motive, he did not doubt the sincerity of the ego's words. Her eyes scanned the small cell; and hers, still desperately wanting a way out, when a creak, or rather a slight hum, made me turn my attention to the two bars.
  
  
  One rose slowly to vanish into moans. The four metal screws were useless, as the screen was controlled electronically. At this point, the ego was no longer visible; in its place was a square hole. Common sense told me to keep quiet and quiet as much as possible.
  
  
  But I had to make a superhuman effort to stay where I was when, a minute later, a king cobra at least ten feet long rolled out of the holes and onto the floor of the cell.
  
  
  
  
  
  5
  
  
  The King Cobra had already moved into an attacking stance, its head raised on its neck, when another dragon fell out around the groan hole. I couldn't recognize it by its name, but it had hard and dense scales, and when it spread out on the floor, it made a strange hiss, like the sound of fire.
  
  
  He slid along the wall, trying to reach the straw bed. Shiva said he would send me five snakes. A third, more than a meter and a half long, was descending around the hole at that moment. It was an Asian cobra, a type that recognized it immediately from the distinctive wedge-shaped markings on the back of its head.
  
  
  Her resentment was twice as poisonous as strychnine, he remembered, as he moved slowly toward the pallet raised above the ground.
  
  
  To the hissing and whistling of the three reptiles was added my mad laughter around the speaker hidden behind the bars, laughter that filled the cell with its eerie refrain. Shiva laughed, using an Albanian scientist's invention to reproduce the laughter in my own voice, and it rang in my ears.
  
  
  "Good-bye, Mr. Carter." my invisible enemy exclaimed cheerfully. "Good day to you!"
  
  
  The laughter died along with the grotesque final chorus. He saw the forked tongue and glowing eyes of the fourth snake framed in the doorway. It was a krait, a type of Asian cobra, and it slid to the dirt floor.
  
  
  He opened his nostrils; there was a strong smell in the air, a rancid taste. It was a musky smell. Hers is breathless, but Stahl's scent is stronger, almost palpable in the cramped confines of the cell.
  
  
  Shiva thought it all out.
  
  
  Snakes with an ih keen sense of smell seemed even more irritated: whatever nature they were to us, the smells sharpened my irritability to frenzy. A king cobra, twice as long as the others, slithered gracefully across the floor. He continued to approach the pallet bed, avoiding any quick movements that might provoke the reptile to launch a deadly attack.
  
  
  As soon as my beginnings touched the end of the wooden bench, a fifth dragon appeared around the darkness hole in the opposite moan. She was the smallest of them all, especially when compared to the king cobra. But size had nothing to do with her ability to kill; and she was as feared by this last reptile as the other four combined. Now they were approaching me, who was standing with my back to the moan.
  
  
  Like it or not, I had to move.
  
  
  He threw himself forward into space, first with intense mental concentration, then leaped off the floor and landed on a straw-covered bench. The king cobra whistled and charged at me. He could see drops of venom glistening on her razor-sharp fangs.
  
  
  I pulled away when I felt her bite the butt of my shoe. She couldn't bite my ankle. A poisonous yellowish liquid dripped onto the straw where it was stored. The cobra crawled across the bed. He quickly unbuttoned his shirt and released his hands around the sleeves.
  
  
  The snake's hood seemed wider than before, and the reptile swayed from right to left, ready to strike again. Meanwhile, the other four were writhing on the floor, all licking and licking their way to the mattress. He pulled back as hard as he could and straightened his shirt like a matador holding a red cloth in front of an angry bull.
  
  
  As the cobra lunged forward to sink its teeth into my flesh, he draped his cotton shirt over nah and leaned sideways. The shirt moved as if it were alive. Beneath the cloth, the reptile hissed and writhed, trying to escape around the makeshift trap.
  
  
  I wasn't going to wait for the cobra to break free, so I quickly undid the leather belt on my trousers. Holding her with the end of the buckle a few inches above the straw, her father walked to the back of the bench. At this point, the only thing to do was try to get to the groan hole.
  
  
  The electronic control of the metal grid wasn't activated with them ferrets as the screen went up on the wall. The opening, judging from where hers was at the far end of the cell, seemed large enough to give me a possible escape route.
  
  
  And in general, it was worth a try. Otherwise, the reptilians would have attacked all together, and then there would have been no escape from the violent and painful death that awaited me. A dragon with jagged scales was writhing at full length on the edge of the bed.
  
  
  It was the reptile Shiva had told me about, with a venom so strong that if it bit, it would cause internal hemorrhage and make me bleed like a ferret. The other three snakes, attracted by the king cobra's hiss, crawled across the floor toward the fluttering shirt that covered the large reptile.
  
  
  The dragon, on the other hand, seemed only interested in me, but with cold eyes that seemed to reflect blood. And in my opinion, it was not a cobra, but a reptilian viper, in which Shiva could find his incarnation.
  
  
  It was about sixty cm long, with noticeable pale and dark patterns on its scaly sides. Her movements weren't defensive at all, and the hiss she made as she crawled to the edge of the mattress made me wince.
  
  
  Her belt string tightened, lifting ego high into the air, and at the same time, the dragon snapped with incredible speed, darting through the air. He lowered the thread of the belt with the buckle on the reptile's head. Metal bounced off rough scales, but the impact sent the vipers sliding back, coiling on top of each other.
  
  
  This was the moment she'd been waiting for.
  
  
  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the hooded head of a king cobra poking out from under her shirt. Now my life depended on how fast I moved it; I took a deep breath and jumped as high as I could to the side.
  
  
  As hers darted toward the opening in the opposite groan, the five reptiles whistled and hissed like a chorus of angry demons. He glanced over his shoulder. The smell that Stahl had smelled earlier was stronger, the fetid miasma so pervasive that it seemed palpable.
  
  
  The reptilians were now closing in on me, ready to strike and kill. When I reached the opening in the groans, they were less than two meters away from me. He sat up, but he heard the cobra hiss so close that he turned and stamped his foot hard on the dirt floor.
  
  
  He reached down like lightning, picked up a handful of dirt, and hurled it at the cobra's formidable head. The reptile's head snapped up, and its owner ducked into the hole, clinging to the end of the narrow passageway.
  
  
  The last thing on her mind was where the tunnel was going, or if you were in the passage of other reptiles. Something hit the leather sole of my shoe, unable to penetrate the nah. He jerked his foot away and moved into the dark passage, banging his head against the top of the low, narrow tunnel.
  
  
  There was no room to turn my head and see if any dragon shape had followed me into the tunnel and into the digital cameras. He moved forward, still hearing the frantic hiss of the reptiles behind him. Thankfully, the sound grew fainter as he moved down the aisle.
  
  
  The path I took was the only possible alternative to certain death. Even if I manage to kill a few snakes, the survivors will surely be able to sink their fangs into my flesh before ih can stop him. And even if all five of them were eliminated, he was sure that Shiva would not hesitate to send a second group of venomous reptiles to the cell. So in a way, he could consider himself safe.
  
  
  Now that his choice was made, his continued crawling on all fours. The tunnel seemed to rise slightly, with a slight incline. It was dimly lit; the reflection of the world filtered out behind me, and a pale glow fell from above. But the farther it went, the darker it got. The light source does not become more intense. He could barely see his hands as he walked down the narrow aisle.
  
  
  All around me was wet dirt and a musty smell. He continued on for several minutes and finally stopped to catch his breath and clear his head. He was willing to bet his life that the electronic devices installed by Shiva in the digital cameras did not have video and an electronic eye... he probably only heard me, even when he wasn't saying it. But I was pretty sure he didn't have time to watch my movements.
  
  
  Time seemed to stand still as I tried to find the thread of the tunnel and at the same time find out where I was, find a way to break out around Shiva's net and expose the ego plans of the Sino-Indian alliance. We no longer felt the hiss of reptiles, we did not smell that fetid smell... what was spilled on digital cameras.
  
  
  A breath of air sampling brushed my face, an imperceptible whiff. Encouraged, he continued her movement. No alarms went off, at least not the usual bells or sirens. Clearly, Shiva was convinced that he had gotten rid of Nick Carter.
  
  
  But instead, Nick Carter was referring only to his friend Shiva, the mind, Cobras, and ego's powerful weapon... The box. If it wasn't for the help of the invention plan or the contraption itself, the whole world wouldn't be able to deal with Shiva. Which gave me a complete picture of what the ego plans were all about. But Shiva missed an important point: he did not reveal to me how he would use his Box to achieve his incredible goal.
  
  
  I came to India wondering if Shiva really exists. And now that his ego had found him, he was still a faceless character, albeit in flesh and blood. So he ended up with an unknown, unsolved equation. I would have had to get hold of Haji's invention, mainly because I had no idea how a voice mimic could be used to establish absolute power around the world.
  
  
  The damp walls of the packed earth scratched my arms and shoulders, and sweat dripped on my chest. He couldn't stop now, but the tunnel was narrowing, and I needed to keep moving forward, even if the surface of the walls was peeling my skin off.
  
  
  I had a vision of myself trapped in a tunnel with no exit around it. My fingernails were broken and bloodied, and I felt like I was a mole that moved easily in my body. But just as I was starting to lose hope, my gaze landed on something that made me stop abruptly.
  
  
  There was a barrier in front of me. The artificial saint penetrated through two gathered in a square-shaped wooden panel. Without making a sound, he crawled forward, dragging his bent body into the tunnel.
  
  
  No sound came from the other side of the wooden barrier. Her pressed one eye to k were going, not having the faintest idea what was behind her. A few boulders, rocks, large pieces of wood, and a large pool of stagnant water were the first things I saw. Then came the familiar hissing of snakes.
  
  
  Emerging from the boulders of the cliff, the sea serpent raised its long, slender neck, with its surprisingly small head above the surface of the stagnant pool of water. Something fell from above, raw, bloody meat. Almost immediately, the ego was devoured by a hungry dragon. Then the big lizard was thrown into the hole. A king cobra the size of, say, the one I'd left in the digital cameras rose up in the typical nah attack position.
  
  
  The lizard ran for the rocks, but the cobra was faster. Cocking his hooded head to one side, he lunged forward, biting into the beast's scaly neck. The lizard struggled for a second, and the cobra slid back; He saw the bitten animal move like a drunk, leaning on its side and shaking its legs convulsively. The cobra then swallowed ee headfirst.
  
  
  When the large reptile was sated, it curled up around a rocky boulder, as if basking in the midday sun. More food got into the burrow - rats, lizards, raw meat. Her, raised his head, trying to see who was feeding the dragon Shiva collection.
  
  
  But the mistletoe hole covered the stone walls, and the wooden trapdoor located at the bottom didn't give me a full survey. When the dragon was fed, the hissing subsided. I realized then that Shiva had used the tunnel to lure hungry reptiles into my cell, no doubt waking ih up with the stinky smell he spread in the small room.
  
  
  Now the wooden hatch was lowered, and I kept my eyes on the gathering, waiting for all the reptiles to be fed. Nothing in the world will make me try to escape until every dragon is more than full. After eating, they won't be as aggressive as the five individuals I left for her to watch on digital cameras. He knew the reptilian habits well enough to know that any sudden movement that threatened ih's safety would cause ih to attack, even if the hunger subsided.
  
  
  So I waited for them to eat every last bite. It was a disgusting sight: snakes, cobras and other reptiles repeatedly attacked, swallowing their victims, who convulsively kicked. Meanwhile, hers was trying to figure out who was responsible for distributing the food. Finally, he noticed a long, sinuous arm reaching out over the edge of the snake pit.
  
  
  "They'll eat whatever they're given," said a cold, sarcastic voice.
  
  
  If Shiva was still a faceless voice, this time my memory failed me. The voice was awfully familiar. The last time I heard her was two days ago, when she whispered sweet words of love to me. Then I felt her desire, passion. Now I could feel my anger rising.
  
  
  It was Reeva Singh, a beautiful, dark-haired girl who handles dragon handlebars.
  
  
  
  
  6
  
  
  Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised. Maybe I should have treated this with the usual cynicism that so many people accuse me of, calling me cold, hard, incapable of emotion. After all, when people risk their lives, it is impossible not to become "cool", with merciless cynicism to face the cruel realities of the world.
  
  
  Still, he held her in his arms, not roughly, but with a feeling of tender tenderness that he had felt before in the healing rooms. Although she was a stranger, I remembered the warmth and desire she had aroused in me, the exquisite pleasure she had given me. An experience that is not easily forgotten.
  
  
  But upon hearing her words, realizing that it was just a decoy, a decoy designed to distract me when Mohan and Gurnek burst into my hotel room, her mind went wild with rage. Escape now Stahl is more than just a matter of survival. Her hotel, so that Reeva would feel the same insane horror that she had been subjected to in the digital cameras, the same unbearable pain.
  
  
  The long, thin arm disappeared all over the field of vision. The last victim was a black mouse, bitten and swallowed by a snake in one gulp. Finally, when there was silence, her father reached out and began gently pushing open the wooden trapdoor that stood between me and freedom.
  
  
  There was nothing stopping me from lifting the panel now, but I was still in no hurry. I had to act extremely carefully, without making an erroneous running gain. Her eyes scanned the burrow in case any around the dragon hadn't calmed down. But nothing moved. Nothing but a wooden barrier.
  
  
  Finally, lifting the hatch, he slid back into the shadows and held his breath. Here, too, time allocation was an essential element, a crucial part of my plan. I was still on all fours, the tunnel walls scratching at my sweaty arms and shoulders. It won't be easy, first pulling yourself over the pass and then crossing the hole to scale the rough stone walls.
  
  
  But yes, this last locality in Russia was not easy from the very beginning. Danger is my strong suit, challenge is the foundation of my existence; she definitely wouldn't be considered the No. 3 Fighter because of her pretty face. So this is not the case with my experience, which I have gained from working in AX for many years.
  
  
  That's why her voice didn't want to take any chances. I held back until the ferret was sure that I wasn't being offered any other help other than the one I was currently dealing with. Only then did it throw its entire weight from side to side, freeing itself from the rough walls of the tunnel.
  
  
  My eyes had already adjusted to the light, so I no longer felt like a mole outside my ego lair. He put his head and shoulders forward and peered cautiously into the hole. The king cobra was still curled up on a large boulder, its hooded head turned away; the other snakes were lying in a relaxed, non-aggressive position.
  
  
  Run, Carter, run faster!
  
  
  He crawled forward, still doubled over. Not a single curious glance turned in my direction with the letter, and nothing moved in the hole. Okay, so far so good. By now, its completely out, around the tunnel and smelled the acrid reptilian smell hanging like mist at the bottom of the ih lair.
  
  
  His mind quickly calculated the distance between life and death, death and then the long agony of a snake bite. I had to get to the opposite wall and climb to the top of the hole before the snakes noticed what was happening.
  
  
  He moved until he was fully on his feet, leaning his back against the wall. Her, heard someone moving over the pit, read that light shuffle. He hoped Reeva was alone, but there was no way to tell. He took a deep breath, straightened abruptly, and leaped forward.
  
  
  It landed on the coiled back of the king cobra. It goes without saying that this was not planned. But she couldn't wait to see what cobra's reaction would be. He was already clinging to the large boulders that formed the outer wall of the burrow when he heard the snake's familiar hiss again.
  
  
  I didn't even have time to look over my shoulder. He pushed his body forward with all his strength, pushing hard with his feet and moving at the same time. I noticed that my shoe was touching something soft, but I didn't look back to see what it was. He gripped the edge of the stone wall with his hands and stepped over the edge of the pit.
  
  
  The hole was filled with the hissing and screeching of awakened reptiles. They were swaying, jumping in the air, flying from rock to rock; for me, it was like watching a rerun of a show. I didn't have time to stop and catch my breath. A split second later, he was on his feet again, and at the same time, Reeva Singh let out a shout for permission to perform.
  
  
  He ran to her and put his hand over her mouth, stifling her screams of protest. She struggled vigorously for a while, kicking and clawing like a small animal; but at last she fell silent. She had just finished feeding the other reptiles held in smaller glass cages in a room that was now a combination of a private zoo and a herpetology lab.
  
  
  Her bent her arm until she fell forward; her noticed that her bones creaked. A wild thought flashed through me... the memory of her soft, warm body as he held her in his arms. Reeva was one of the sexiest women she'd ever met. And now I understand that she deceived me, passed it on!
  
  
  "Don't tell me! I hissed. "Not a word!
  
  
  He lifted her bent arm even higher and put his bloody fingers over her mouth. The woman gasped in panic. I asked her. "A surprise?" "Don't tell me you didn't know I was here, you whore!"
  
  
  As she tried to speak, I pulled her hand away from the ee rta so that she could mumble, " I - I didn't know, I swear."..
  
  
  "Yeah, you didn't know about Mohan and Gurnek, did you?" This is not a game, Reeva, this is life, remember this.
  
  
  She shook her head violently, dismissing my accusation. He loosened his grip on her lips again so that she could speak.
  
  
  — I didn't know, " she confirmed, panting as he held her hand behind his back. "I didn't know anything, Nick. Believe me, I'm begging you! You have to believe me.
  
  
  "Well done, getting shot in the head... how was it supposed to happen, him at night? I asked, keeping my eyes on the entrance to the lab. "Where's the key?" "But she can't wait for Reeva to answer me. He reached into the ego minute robe and found what he wanted. He dragged her along, his cotton slippers slipping on the dirty floor.
  
  
  He closed the door from the inside and put the key in a minute; then he pushed Reva back to the far end of the long, narrow room. She stopped struggling, and when I pressed my hand to her lithe body, I could feel her heart beating faster.
  
  
  — He... he never told me anything about you, " she moaned.
  
  
  "Who?"
  
  
  - Shiva... my uncle.
  
  
  "Your who?"!
  
  
  "My uncle. He's my uncle. Nick, please let me explain what he did to me... - she muttered. "Listen to me, then... and then, if you don't believe me, go ahead and do whatever you want.
  
  
  He remained unperturbed. She wouldn't allow herself to be deceived a second time by this little girl's feminine wiles. However, it wasn't a big deal to hear that, he reasoned, especially since when a man begged for his life, he was always telling the truth. And then Reeva, if she was telling the truth, was the closest path to Shiva.
  
  
  "Yes, I tried to meet you to get information, I admit it," she panted again as he forced her to sit on a wooden chair.
  
  
  I didn't have any weapons other than my hands, but I didn't think the girl was armed and could play tricks on me.
  
  
  "So it was you. Why are you lying, Reeva? You've been deceiving me from the very beginning, admit it!
  
  
  She didn't understand all the words, but she seemed to understand the meaning of what I was saying to her. "I just had to ask you a few questions," she replied. - Find out why you came to India. My uncle didn't say anything else to me, he didn't mention the two men who broke into your room!
  
  
  She turned her little face to me, a naive and mischievous little face, with strands of black hair falling over her earlobe. She whispered, her words barely audible. If she hadn't been as innocent as she claimed to be, she would have already tried to scream, I reasoned, to get someone's attention. But perhaps she was trying to buy time, thinking that the others would notice her absence. I couldn't take anything for granted.
  
  
  So, you were assigned to get some information. Why? he continued in a cold voice.
  
  
  "Because Shiva made me do it, Nick. I didn't know you were here." In fact, I didn't even know what happened to you after I walked her around the hotel. I couldn't stay there when Mohan was dead...
  
  
  "So he' forced ' you?" - repeat it.
  
  
  "Please listen to me," she murmured. "Let me explain everything from the beginning.
  
  
  She suspected again that he was trying to buy time, but the tone of ego's voice was sincere, anxious. I should have listened to her. If she'd been telling the truth, Reeva might have led me to Cobra; if she was lying, I'd still have to listen to her and try to find some clue in her words, anything that would give me that clue. He was standing right next to her, ready to abruptly interrupt her story if anyone showed up at the lab.
  
  
  Reeva didn't make any false moves. The tone of her voice didn't change as she explained that Shiva had forced her to join the Cobra organization. "He keeps my father, Nick... big brother's ego, and if she had gone to the police or to anyone around the government, he wouldn't have hesitated before killing ego. My father is very ill, desperately ill. My uncle threatened not only to kill the ego, but also to deprive the ego of any treatment... if I don't follow my ego's orders.
  
  
  "Where is your father now?"
  
  
  "I don't know." Shiva holds the ego captive somewhere, but not in this house.
  
  
  I have always considered myself a connoisseur of people, able to guess whether a person is sincere or not. And now, even though I was keeping my eyes open for any hint of earth in her voice that might not betray her despite my initial anger, I found that I had entrusted her to Reeva's story. Primarily because it made sense. Especially if Shiva was blackmailing her because of her father to get her to participate in his dirty plans.
  
  
  "There's something else to explain," I said.
  
  
  But this time I was interrupted. Someone was moving on the other side of the road. "Reeva?" A man's voice called. "Why is the door closed?" Let me in!"
  
  
  "Who's that?" I whispered, forcing the girl to get up from her chair.
  
  
  "Odin is around my uncle's men, Nirad.
  
  
  "I know him. Pretend that nothing happened. Trusting hey was risky, but at this point, I had no other choice.
  
  
  "Wait a minute! Reeva shouted. And she gave me a startled look as he handed her the key and pushed her toward the door.
  
  
  I did a quick search of the lab, but couldn't find anything I needed as a weapon to fight Nirad. Well, anyway, I showed emu a couple of things the day before, so it wasn't hard for me to do it on my own. He stood outside the door and waited, ears pricked, while the young Indian continued to turn the handle to ask Reeva to open it.
  
  
  The sooner he got in, the sooner I'd disarm him, he decided.
  
  
  There were Nirad, Ranjit, Gurnek, Hakshi, Shivas, and God knows how many others. In any case, I concluded for myself, I needed to start looking for a voice simulator that Shiva owned somewhere, and Nirad was a good start, just like everyone else.
  
  
  Reeva reached out with a trembling hand, sliding the key into the lock.
  
  
  If she cheated on me now, things would get more complicated; but it was the only way to find out if she was lying to me. At this time, she was turning the key in the lock to open the lab door.
  
  
  
  
  7
  
  
  "What does that mean?" Nirad asked. The Indian no longer wore bandages and replaced the waiter's uniform with traditional clothing.
  
  
  "I don't... I realized the door was locked, " Reeva replied, backing away. I tensed, because I wasn't sure yet that she wouldn't warn Nirad of my presence outside the door.
  
  
  The young man didn't bother to look back as he entered the lab and slammed the door behind him. "Don't let it happen again! he exclaimed, as haughtily as he had sported in barre.
  
  
  Reeva took a step back, seemingly on the verge of losing control of her nerves. Ego gestures betrayed ego nervousness. And then A trusted her, and decided to trust a, even after what happened.
  
  
  "Your uncle wishes to see you in his study," the Indian announced dryly. "Immediately."
  
  
  The word hung in the air like a signal that prompted me to act. Again, it was "taekwondo" that would take me through a difficult situation. Her rushed forward, almost flying through the air to deliver a powerful blow.
  
  
  It was aimed at Nirad's spleen; the impact of the cha-cha-gi knocked ego to the ground. The Indian rolled onto his side, his face contorted in a grotesque grimace of pain.
  
  
  He crouched down and used the full length of his chest and thighs to punch Ego in the jaw. Nirad fell backward under a ji-lu-ki, ego kick, the target slumped to one side; I realized that my knuckles had shattered the emu's facial bones. But he didn't give up.
  
  
  "Close the door!" Rehve hissed at her. The girl rushed to insert the key in the lock.
  
  
  Nirad managed to turn around and get to his feet. He shivered and reached into the waistband of his trousers, where he saw the butt of the gun he was trying to hold. Then everything happened as in a confused dream, a series of actions dictated by reflection. He quickly darted to the right and spun around, raising his left shoulder to each tribe's waist. Standing on one leg, her landed on every tribe, and immediately strained her left leg with a perfect kick.
  
  
  "Jop-what-gi" his ego, on the wrist, knocking the gun to the floor. Now that he was unarmed, the young Indian looked at me with wild eyes. Ego's usual arrogance vanished in fright, he began to retreat, and a dark blue bruise began to widen on his jaw from the blow he had just landed.
  
  
  He opened his mouth to scream, and then he literally jumped up to his throat, pressing his thumbs to his throat. Nirad seemed to be gasping for breath, but Nah still had the strength to lift her leg and kick me in the groin. The blinding pain made me loosen my grip on the other's neck. I staggered to catch my breath; I had to bend down to the floor, my hands clasped over my chest.
  
  
  Nirad rushed to the door. He leaped forward, still reeling from the terrible blow he'd received. He leaped at him, grabbing his legs. It fell with a thud.
  
  
  She was immediately on top of nen, her knees on Ego's thighs. I asked her. "How are your eyes, Nirad?" There were still traces of the treatment Emu had given her at the bar where he worked.
  
  
  Instead of answering, he threw his full weight forward, trying to throw me off. If her collarbone was broken by an emu, she would be broken by an emu and her ribcage, and he would not be able to get up again. So she raised her hand to take in karate.
  
  
  But Nirad must have been a fan of martial arts movies, otherwise someone would have taught ego the basics of karate. As soon as her arm was raised, he actually parried my cutting blow with a "kara-nal McKee". It was almost going to be a fight, and that was what she wanted.
  
  
  - so... You're better than I thought, " I said, pulling away to get back on my feet.
  
  
  He also stood up and staggered as it began to circle around him. With a hoarse cry from her, he lunged forward, landing a fatal blow to the solar plexus and then an elbow to the jaw. The combined action of "pan-te ji-lu-ki" and "pal-kuch chi-ki" was enough to not only shake the ego and confidence, but also break two of the emu's ribs.
  
  
  Nirad stepped back, intoxicated with pain. He won't let himself be touched. Shiva was determined to make me die a terrible death, and the memory of Ashok Anand's killer was still vivid in my mind. Especially since Ashoka never posed a serious threat to our Shiva, our illegal Cobra operations.
  
  
  So he didn't feel sorry for Nirad. He was a mercenary... a hitman in the service of a mad assassin. Someone who underestimated me by ignoring my persistence and self-preservation instinct.
  
  
  I don't think he was able to fight again, with a broken jaw and two broken ribs. Maybe even with a punctured lung.
  
  
  But as he watched, he continued to fight the physical agony with his life. He was literally clawing at the floor, trying to grab the fallen gun. He even managed to get his fingers around ego before ego could stop her.
  
  
  "I thought you were finally beginning to understand my train of thought, Nirad.".. I said, and kicked my fingers at the emu, sending the gun flying again. The weapon bounced off one of the lab tables and landed on the floor.
  
  
  It was no longer a question of taking the young Indian out on the road for the time being. He'd seen too much, especially Reeva's complicity. Even if ego tied her up and gagged her, sooner or later he would tell Shiva how ego's niece helped me escape.
  
  
  I don't think I felt it, or even a hint of compassion for the poor guy. But I was aware that in the end, not just one person was involved, but millions of human lives. If Shiva had carried out his plans, the West would not have witnessed the formation of an Indochina bloc without intervention. This would involve the entire arsenal of nuclear weapons, starting with the Triton intercontinental ballistic missile with a thermonuclear warhead. And the end result was frightening even for the most hardened and cold-blooded men.
  
  
  "Cold-blooded" isn't the right word for me. I am not a sadist, but with time and experience I have certainly "hardened". Nirad was on my path, the path that led to the success of my mission. I had to face the reality of the situation. So, while the young Indian crouched on the floor, sobbing like a frightened child, she yanked ego to his feet and pushed him toward the stone wall of the snake pit.
  
  
  Ego's face was covered in blood, causing strange patterns to form on his cheeks, his mouth was half open, and his tongue hung down like a broken bird's wing. - no... "sahib.".. Please, no... me...
  
  
  "You were just following orders, I know her," I interrupted, finishing the sentence. "Me too, Nirad, her too.
  
  
  Behind him, he could hear the reptiles whistling and hissing as they hit the stone walls of the pit. Nirad wasn't forced to work for Cobra, he did it on his own accord. Here, now, he would finish his work, much sooner than he had expected.
  
  
  When he realized I meant it, the couple's ego suddenly changed. He tried to free himself with his foot, which had already hit me in the face, and hissed, " Shiva wants to see you dead!" "It's not Stahl's idea to dwell on that prospect.
  
  
  "Perhaps, Nirad, but you won't be here to see what happens." "I couldn't waste any more time. My fist caught him in the chin and he fell backward. Ego grabbed her by the waistband of her trousers. Nirad tried to scream, but his broken ribs only allowed him a muffled groan. - Have a good trip! I exclaimed, and threw ego over the edge of the pit.
  
  
  He tried to cling to the edge, but couldn't. Ego's legs fluttered in the air, then the Indian fell backward and found himself in an artificial pond, where he could see the terrible sea snakes moving their heads.
  
  
  Gurgling b & nb, wiggling rings and tails. Nirad's body twisted in agony. The Indian turned on his side, trying to get out of the stagnant water. The sea dragon sank its short teeth into ego's forearm; then it came out on its own, moving unsteadily in its element. But it remained with its fangs embedded in the man's arm, with a strange, terrifying tenacity.
  
  
  When he finally dropped his prey and Nirad tried to stand up like a madman, the king cobra intervened to show that no one could disturb its peace in its territory. He watched the scene with a kind of fascinated horror. This was what Shiva had designed for me. The cobra stood up and swayed in the air.
  
  
  Nirad didn't have time to shout to us before we thought about running away. The reptile raced at lightning speed, and at the same time, the jagged scaly viper sank its fangs into the young Indian's ankle. A spasmodic gurgle escaped Nirad's lips. He watched it as the pit came to life with a whoosh, a hiss, and whips.
  
  
  A spasmodic shudder shook the Indian's body. Ego's legs buckled, his hands clutching at the collar of his shirt as if he couldn't breathe. He was choking on cobra venom, which had paralyzed the nerve centers of his breathing.
  
  
  Red spots appeared on Nirad's hands and arms; there was internal bleeding. The snakes, hissing incessantly, were repeatedly ego - driven, sinking their teeth into the tortured flesh in a series of deadly bites. Her, turned away when Nirad's tongue poked out from the rta, and now he couldn't pronounce our words.
  
  
  The sound of a mutilated body falling to the bottom of the pit was the inevitable dirge; Death would come in a few minutes. But it wasn't my turn, thankfully.
  
  
  "This is what your uncle did for me," Rivet told her. "One bite after another.
  
  
  She was sitting in a chair, her face buried in her hands. When someone spoke to her, she raised her head and looked me in the eye. Her chopsticks were not wet with hollyhocks, and her black eyes were serious and cold. She hadn't lost control of her nerves, not even after the horrific sight she'd witnessed.
  
  
  "All right," she whispered. "I'm happy. One day I'll tell you all about the brutal and humiliating things my uncle made me do to his people... the pigs who work on him, who worship him, were as if he were a Naga, a god. Nirad deserved worse, I assure you.
  
  
  Only then did Reva seem to be on the verge of fainting, her face showing strong emotions. He picked her up carefully and picked her up. She was trembling. He held her close, touched her neck with a light kiss. Soon, I hoped, the time would come for us, too, a time when no one would interrupt. But now I had to leave, and the sooner I left her, the better.
  
  
  She sensed my concern and pulled away from me.
  
  
  "I asked her. "Where are we?" What is the nearest city?
  
  
  "I'll tell you everything," she said. "But first you must tie me up, otherwise my uncle will know that I helped you escape and let my father die." He'll probably kill me, too.
  
  
  She went to get a rope, and her, pointed to a chair. Then, when she explained everything I needed to know, her wrapped rope around her waist and ankles, I want the scene to look like for estestvenno.
  
  
  Hers briefly told hey what the purpose of my mission was; hers could be trusted by hey, now that she was a valuable ally. But I didn't want to put her in danger.
  
  
  And when I realized that she needed me, perhaps more than I needed her, the last doubt disappeared, giving way to the most complete trust.
  
  
  "Agra is only a few miles away," the girl explained. - Just outside the villa, follow the main road: it will lead you straight into the city. We're supposed to meet tonight: I'll try to get more information. For you.
  
  
  "For us, you mean. For the life and salvation of your father, " her husband denied the reports that appeared in the media.
  
  
  When it was the appointed time for the meeting, he found some rags in her locker, gagged her, and got ready to leave. He made sure for the last time that his shoelaces were tightly tied so as not to arouse Shiva's suspicions.
  
  
  Nirad's gun lay on the floor. Ego put it in his back pocket, then grabbed a short white robe that hung in a locker and put it on... a primitive shirt that would at least satisfy my immediate needs.
  
  
  Reeva turned away. Tears began to wet her with sticks. She asked me to come back, to let her know that everything would be for the best; but something stopped me, maybe the fear of never seeing her again. Her, thought of Reeva Singh, but the first thing that came to mind was the feeling of an AX agent. She might disappoint Riva, but I couldn't disappoint my government and the trust it placed in me... not when millions of human lives were in danger from absurd daydreams, criminal planning by a madman.
  
  
  
  
  8
  
  
  Proverbs are convenient to use because they succinctly express universal truths: they easily adapt to all kinds of situations. What came to my mind when Reeva Singh left her alone in the lab, with her collection of venomous reptiles and the grotesque body of a waiter lying in it, was: "When it rains, you don't have to get wet."
  
  
  Events didn't happen slowly; they literally came crashing down on me with them the ferret as it arrived in New Delhi two days earlier. In that short period of time, after repeatedly wondering if I was following a bait that would lead me to a dead end, Shiva managed to lure me into his lair. It wasn't an easy journey, and I didn't get to see the mysterious Shiva... the last master of Haksha and the Cobra brain. But I have received more than enough evidence to convince myself that this is not fiction. Man existed, even though we didn't meet face to face.
  
  
  Sooner or later, that would happen, too, long before he knew I had something to say to him. But now I had to get to Agra before he or the gorilla ego discovered my escape, before they looked into the cell and found it empty except for five angry snakes.
  
  
  The door opened into a narrow corridor with rammed earth walls. Outside Shiva's mansion, she heard the low, booming hoopoe sounds. The line "Poo ... poo...poo" was replaced by an alarm that seemed to be reflected in my every thought, in every movement. I tiptoed down the narrow passageway, and at the same time, a voice rang out in the air, echoing all over the far end of the passageway.
  
  
  "Nirad?" What are you doing here?" You know he doesn't like to wait...
  
  
  It must have been Ranjit or Gurnek, probably the former, since Gurnek's face was still bandaged. She caught the impatience in the man's voice, and crouched down in an alcove in the hallway as shaggy approached me. I looked up and saw Ranjit. Ego's shirt was open at the chest, and the garrote he wore around his neck gave off a metallic sheen. The Indian knocked on the lab door, and she didn't wait for her ego to react.
  
  
  Bending in two, he ran into another corridor, into some kind of maze. He was in the villa, I reasoned, and usually a villa has a door or more. Ee found it a minute later. He pushed open the massive, intricately inlaid wooden door and blinked, trying to adjust to the blinding light of the morning sun.
  
  
  The courtyard seemed to have been completely moved around some sort of Mediterranean setting. Dense foliage, flowering shrubs, lush plants. It is clear that Shiva spared no expense to reproduce an exact replica of a corner of the fertile countryside in the south of France.
  
  
  Closing the door softly, he ran down the gravel path that always began in the afternoon on the side facade. The path joins a dense cluster of juniper trees and shrubs, neatly trimmed and manicured. The general alarm hadn't gone off yet, and hers certainly wasn't going to wait for it to go off. A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed that Ranjit still hadn't had time to warn the others.
  
  
  But I knew it was a matter of minutes. I couldn't find our gate, we had no other way out than a fence around the trees. He pressed his head and neck into his shoulders and stepped forward, pushing aside the barrier around the branches with his bare fingers. It made more noise than the hotel, but this locality in Russia has already turned into a disaster from the very beginning, and even now things are not getting better.
  
  
  Branches literally tore off my clothes, whipped my face and eyes. I heard a slight movement behind me, the confusion of voices growing clearer. Hers continued to push through the branches and finally got free; Hers was standing at the edge of the dusty path that led along the villa.
  
  
  I didn't even have time to catch my breath. He ran, kicking up clouds of dust with every step. Faint sounds of muffled music echoed ahead of me as I followed the sound, hoping it was coming from a truck or van on the road to Agra.
  
  
  If I remember its geographical location correctly, Agra was about a three-hour drive from New Delhi and was also known as the place where the Taj Mahal is located. If visiting the city wasn't part of my plans, then Shiva was.
  
  
  Her, went out on the main road. It was incredibly narrow, a web lane with traffic going in both directions. The monsoon season would start in a few months, so the roadbed was bare and desolate, a uniform expanse of dark dust. Shriveled trees lined the sides of the road, and vultures perched on twisted branches, silent eaters of terrifying, bare-headed corpses.
  
  
  Reeva didn't have time to give me detailed instructions. I looked down the road in both directions, but there was nothing to show me the exact way to Agra. He squinted against the bright sun, and a moment later he saw a family huddled around a small campfire on the other side of the road.
  
  
  Two adults and four children looked at me with undisguised curiosity. He decided to take a chance and ran across the street, stopping abruptly when he reached the group. A thin man dressed only in the waist area lifted his face to look at me without trying to stand up. He must have been ten years younger than I was, but his wrinkled, sunken face made him look much older.
  
  
  "Agra?" I asked once it was established that no one around them spoke English. He pointed to the street and asked again: "Agra?"
  
  
  My mother and father exchanged surprised glances, and two children of four each started tugging at my pants. "Baksheesh, baksheesh!" the little girl, completely naked, repeated, tugging at my pant leg with one hand and pointing at my mouth with the other. Ego's thin, whining voice continued to plead.
  
  
  At the villa, they took my jacket along with my wallet and the money I kept in my inside pocket, so all I had with me was a handful of rupees that I received from Reeva. This is another problem that you can add to the others. However, he found a copper coin and placed it in the palm of the hungry child's outstretched hand.
  
  
  "Agra," he said, glancing nervously at the hedge that hid the villa. - Taj Mahal...
  
  
  "Ah, the Sahib, the Taj Mahal! the man said. He was still crouching down, but he raised his bony hand to show me the way, to the left of the villa.
  
  
  He ran again, feeling a sharp pain in his thighs. I could only hope that a car, cart, or any other vehicle would pass mimmo to help me get to Agra. But instead of a car or van, I heard a noise that immediately brought me back to the jumble of events that had taken place on my first night in New Delhi. It was a cough, and then the roar of a motorcycle behind me.
  
  
  He kept running, turning every time. From the path that now surrounded the villa, a motorcycle with two people on board pulled out onto the main road; ih heads were wrapped in turbans and they were heading towards me. Nirad's gun, which he kept in his pants pocket, grabbed her.
  
  
  It was an Astra. 32, capable of hitting any target within a radius of several meters. Astra makes pistols that are identical to the Colt and Hotel Lindner pistols (which cost significantly more), and it has used the ih more than once in the past. But when he stopped to aim and pull the trigger, he realized that the gun was empty. She shoved the gun back into his pants ' width and ran again, even as a gawk flew inches away from me, and a chunk of bark flew off a tree a few paces to my left.
  
  
  Whoever fired the shot had some practice and a trained eye. I started running in zigzags, looking for a shelter that would allow me to get off the trail, avoiding the bullets that were raining down like peanuts. Another shot, and this time gawk grazed my right shoulder. Fifty meters ahead of her, he saw a wooden shack with a column of black smoke rising from its brick chimney.
  
  
  I had no idea what it was, but I kept running like I'd never run in my life. The bike shortened the distance, but the dust rising from the road made it difficult for the driver to see, and therefore drive the vehicle to maximum speed. He took advantage of this and rushed into the yard littered with trash, while one of the two men ordered his companion to stop and continue walking.
  
  
  It must have been Ranjit and Gurnek, I thought, though I was sure Shiva had more than two bodyguards. A wooden door opened at the side of the building; the door hung on only one of its rusty hinges. He rushed inside, and the sickening smell of blood and animal excrement filled his nostrils.
  
  
  I was in a slaughterhouse, and I felt like I was back in the nineteenth century. Hindus don't eat beef, Muslims do. The lowing of cattle, the impatient clatter of cattle hooves, and the startled stares of men preparing to slaughter cows clearly indicated that I had come to the least suitable place to hide.
  
  
  The men started shouting, raising their fists. He was an uninvited guest who had nothing to do with the animals that needed to be killed. "Sorry, folks," I muttered, darting between two large cows to the tub full of blood that led directly to the external drain.
  
  
  The smell was enough to turn anyone's stomach; he was wanted to stop Shiva's goons. The air smelled of butchered meat and fear. Scott fidgeted in panic, his hooves thumping on the dirt floor. Behind me, I heard her exchange words in a language I didn't understand. Then the sound of footsteps approaching me, and the echoing noise of animals.
  
  
  "Carter! Ranjit shouted. "We just want to talk." Shiva wants to make a deal!
  
  
  It was a good thing, he reasoned, that my life was worthless to him...
  
  
  The animals, mostly unbound, threatened to run away together. Hers also allowed it. To be crushed by a herd of terrified cows driven by the instinct of self-preservation. Only, of course, the same instinct felt for her. So I kept running, and another gawk whizzed over my head, bouncing off the steps next to the bathroom.
  
  
  Gawking brought up a spray of blood, dung, and urine that stained my pants. She ran to a dead center, moaning in the back of the big room, where we couldn't see the windows, we couldn't see the doors.
  
  
  She wanted something that would give me a few seconds of precious time. He climbed to the edge of the tub and grabbed the pitchfork he'd seen over the pile of feed. "Carter! The voice shouted again. "It's all over, sahib!
  
  
  "Not exactly! I answered loudly, holding the pitchfork like a spear.
  
  
  Ranjit fired another shot, but at the same time, the four sharp prongs of the pitchfork sank into the emu's chest. The rusty tool threw her as hard as it could. Now he stood motionless, watching the young Indian stagger back, his mouth hanging open, his hands clenched in the wooden shaft of the weapon.
  
  
  Gurnek, who was standing behind his companion, ignored me completely, staring in fascination at the four trickles of blood that sprayed around the wound. He tried to pull the pitchfork free, but Ranjit continued to scream, a wild cry of pain growing fainter by the second.
  
  
  It was Ranjit's agonized screams, ego moans of anger and agony as Gurnek tried to pull the pitchfork across ego's chest, sending the cows, all dozen of them, madly rushing into the narrow passage to the drainpipe. Ih heard her thudding, hoofbeats, bellowing; Her, jumped out and started crawling toward the sewer.
  
  
  Gurnek screamed, waving his arms in the air. Ego was hit in the back with horns and literally thrown into the air, landing next to a large bathroom. Ranjit collapsed in the midst of a maddened herd of cattle. A final groan of pain escaped ego's lips as his hands opened and closed in a grotesque parody of a fist.
  
  
  Then the fetid breath of the animals brushed my cheeks and I dashed down the aisle, constantly hitting the wall at the far end of the slaughterhouse. Dirty and smelly, with a swollen face covered in blood and sweat, he must not have been a pleasant person, " he said as he stepped out onto the road, leaving behind this scene of terrible pain.
  
  
  I wasn't sure what had happened to the two Indians. Gurnek would probably still be alive, but I hoped that the wil wounds would eliminate Ranjit forever. Under different circumstances, I felt that I had done a decent job.
  
  
  The people in the slaughterhouse must also have been Shiva's people. She didn't have to wait for them to come forward to avenge their comrades. I started walking toward the street, wondering how I could convince someone to give me a ride, so dirty.
  
  
  Mimmo passed an old Ford. He was on his way to Agra, but it was useless to wave furiously for them to stop. I caught a glimpse of her copper-red face, then the car disappeared in a cloud of dust that rose as it passed mimmo.
  
  
  He kept walking, determined not to stop.
  
  
  I needed a clean bathroom, Swedes, money, and guns. As far as I know, the US government did not have our consulate, our delegation in Agra. The city was too close to New Delhi. But maybe he could have found what I needed at the hotel.
  
  
  And anyway, he had to do it. It was already past noon, and I had an appointment with Rhea that evening. There were still a lot of things that needed to be done, so she picked up the pace. Reeva said that the Agra hall is only a few kilometers away from the villa.
  
  
  A few miles or not, it was always a grueling walk. The midday sun beat down on my head mercilessly, and the sky was a blinding, cloudless expanse dotted with false reflections. It was about ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, before a cart pulled up to me. It was a ramshackle cart pulled by a pair of skinny oxen carrying a cartload of hay.
  
  
  He waved to the driver, a gray-bearded peasant who pulled up the reins and pulled the cart to the curb. "Do you speak English?" I asked the peasant.
  
  
  "Clean water," he said. "Not English...
  
  
  He pointed a finger first at him, then at himself. "Agra?" "I asked her. "Agra?"
  
  
  "Agra?" - repeat the peasant, waving his hand from side to side in a gesture that means "Yes"in the universal language.
  
  
  He nodded vigorously and climbed into the cart in the middle of the seine. The man grinned at me, showing me his teeth and gums smeared with paan. Then he loosened the reins and the oxen resumed their slow pace, which was still better than the long walk of walking.
  
  
  He dozed off, lulled by the rhythmic rocking and creaking of the cart. I needed to get some sleep, even if it was only for an hour. But my thoughts were interrupted by an insistent hum, a hum that grew louder as the cart rolled down the sunny road.
  
  
  Instinctively alert, he glanced back. Dust was rising in the distance, small clouds of fine sand obscuring the source of the noise she was hearing. I don't want to take unnecessary risks, so as not to compromise us with my life, our mission success, his hurried plunge into the fragrant hay, piling quite a lot on top to make himself invisible.
  
  
  I couldn't figure out what was coming. He peered out into the night in the wooden van, listening to the constant roar of several engines. And when her saw what it was, her sank deeper into the hay and held her breath.
  
  
  These were new faces, but from that moment on, ih couldn't forget her. Three men, all Sikh Indians... a motorized squad sent by Shiva to find me and hunt me down, kill me, or bring me back to the villa, awaiting the last orders of the Great Leader. They roared past mimmo ox carts; all three motorcycles headed for Agra.
  
  
  If only Hawk could see me now, I thought.
  
  
  He was dirty, penniless, armed only with an unloaded pistol, and my knowledge of taekwondo and karate. It wasn't hard to predict, if my judgment of Shiva is true, that the day ahead will be stressful
  
  
  
  
  9
  
  
  I arrived in Agra an hour later, and the van dropped me off on the outskirts of the city. Dusty unpaved streets, winding alleys, a maze of alleys that seemed to have been created specifically to confuse the casual visitor. After receiving some information, he found himself in front of the American Express office.
  
  
  Not that my situation was particularly funny, but it made me laugh. Her voice is a far cry from the image of an ordinary American tourist, with no passport and no money, except for the few rupees Reeva gave me before I was tied up.
  
  
  I thought about renting a car and driving back to New Delhi, but it would have taken at least six hours, and I didn't have enough time. I needed to get in touch with Hawk and get ready to meet Reeva later that day. So Nick Carter, dirty, ragged, scratched, and bloodied, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked through the door of a neat building that was the only hope in a strange city and for me a terrible enemy.
  
  
  Agra is not a megacity. Three gunmen on motorbikes could sweep the entire city in a heartbeat. The floor was already looming in my head when he entered the white building and asked for the manager's office.
  
  
  I've been in difficult situations before, but it's bordered on ridicule. Without pennies, to buy weapons or clothes, or to rent a car, I wouldn't have the choice to deal with Shiva and Ego's personal gorilla team. My passport, money, and my belongings were safe in a hotel room in New Delhi; but the rest of me was in Agra, a three-hour drive from the capital.
  
  
  As soon as she entered the building, a uniformed security guard came to my door. Her, supposedly, it was he who couldn't blame the poor guy, especially when he saw his reflection in the mirror moaning... the image of a dirty and ragged homeless man.
  
  
  "I want to see the manager," he announced to the guard. "There was an accident.
  
  
  "The director is in session, can't be disturbed, 'pucka hippie'... the man replied, throwing an insult in my face.
  
  
  Okay, I smelled like goats, and he wasn't supposed to be the model, but I had no intention of standing there and arguing with the guard... Not when everything, including the American Express ,might have been ruined if Shiva had carried out his plans.
  
  
  "I don't care if he's in session," he exploded angrily. "This is an emergency. "And she began to lose her temper when another Stahl pushed me toward the wall, intending to throw me out on the road. "You can't treat a gentleman like that!" I exclaimed, gritting my teeth.
  
  
  The guard reached into the holster of his service pistol. Mistake number two. I don't like "hooligans" and I don't like being pushed around. So, with a quick wave of her hand and a kick to the kidney, she sent the long man sprawling on the polished marble floor. Odin po klerkov looked up and jumped to his feet.
  
  
  "No need to worry," Ego assured him. "By the way, my manager has another one... And I need to talk to him about business. "Immediately." I'm not going to sit here and wait for your colleague "- I pointed to the guard's figure - " to decide if he's socially presentable or not.
  
  
  It must have been my tone of voice or the haste with which the guard dismissed her, for the young clerk nodded hurriedly and ran to the row of tables. I stood motionless in the hall, a grin plastered to my lips, ready to come out around me again if I didn't act in a minute.
  
  
  The clerk was a Hindu, but the man who held out his hand to me was an American, a tall, thin guy a few years older than me. He looked almost uncomfortable in his pinstriped suit, immaculate, while the Swedes ' clothes were dirty and tattered.
  
  
  "What can I help you with?" he asked me, looking me up and down.
  
  
  "It's best not to speak publicly," Ego snapped.
  
  
  "Forgive me?" he said, frowning in amazement.
  
  
  "I suggest you go to your office. I work for the government, your government. Special Secret Service.
  
  
  "The secret service?" Clera retorted with a laugh. "Come on, you want to joke with me forever! What is this, a joke?
  
  
  "No kidding. And if you don't want me in your office, I'll have to stand up for myself. But I wouldn't want to hurt you...
  
  
  The guard came to his senses and started walking toward us. He kept looking into the clerk's eyes, hoping that he would agree. The ego of the situation understood her: as far as he knew, he was facing a madman who was distraught and smelled bad.
  
  
  He looked away from me and looked at the guard. He hesitated for a moment, then finally looked back at me and nodded slowly. — I do not know what it is, but I assure you that I am not afraid of you, " he said in a strained voice.
  
  
  "Don't always be afraid of anyone. After all, she's still a customer, even though my letter of credit is still in New Delhi.
  
  
  She followed him through a row of desks and into a small wood-paneled office, a miniature wall-mill on the Indian subcontinent. He glanced at the name engraved on the table, sat down in the leather chair, cleared his throat, and began to tell his story from the beginning.
  
  
  Her didn't mention Shiva's name, didn't specify us the essence of his mission, us his relationship with AXE. He introduced himself to her as an agent of the CIA's special branch, in an office that could have a very specific meaning for the director. I explained my situation to emu, pointing out that my documents and money were still in New Delhi and that my locality in Russia did not allow me to return to the capital, maybe for a few days.
  
  
  When I finished my story, including why I introduced myself as a homeless person, the manager wanted to know my name and checked the information using the computer next to the desk. I'm usually pretty good at numbers, but I've never bothered to remember my card number. So I just gave Mr. Reynolds, the manager, a full name with an address in Washington that was on the card.
  
  
  Sometimes, at airports, I buy "detective" or spy books, exciting readings that help me relax and clear my head. But I have never been able to find a situation that is even remotely comparable to the one I found myself in. Who knows, the heroes of the books always had fabulous sums at their disposal in various currencies, they never ran out of our passports, our identity documents, our weapons. But he wasn't the main character in the mystery book.
  
  
  Everything that happened to me was pretty damn " real." The American Express office was real, just like the city of Agra. Everything that happened to me personally. He was watching Reynolds closely as he studied the computer data. If he hadn't helped me, I'd have had her up to my neck. Easy and simple.
  
  
  "All right, Mr. Carter, you're not a ghost," Reynolds finally said after reading the information. "And you're a busy guy, too, I might add. Have you traveled the outdoor pool as well? A smile appeared on his face, then the manager apologized for the way I was treated.
  
  
  "At least you're someone who can listen," I said. - This is a quality that many people lack right now.
  
  
  "I'm afraid that's all," he agreed. He offered me a cigarette and asked if I'd like to clean up at his house, and he called Jean to send a chauffeur to pick me up.
  
  
  He appreciated the offer, but didn't want to give him any trouble. The fewer people she dragged into this, the better it was for everyone. Ego thanked her for her kindness, but declined the invitation. "What I need first of all is a few hundred dollars in Indian currency, if possible, and your office to call my boss in Washington.
  
  
  "No problem," Reynolds assured me. He quickly got up from his chair, all happy and excited about the opportunity to participate, albeit in a reduced form, in the activities of such a secret and underground character.
  
  
  Twenty minutes later, with a swollen trouser pocket from a wad of bills, he was sitting at the director's desk, waiting for Hawk to wake up Otto vaults. "But you realize it's after midnight?" my boss muttered.
  
  
  "I thought you never went to bed before three."
  
  
  "Three hours?" Tailor, I don't have to get up at six, Number Three!
  
  
  I was always # 3 when Hawke was angry; hers was Nick or Carter when he was in a more cordial mood. Of course, the Great Leader would not forgive me for forgetting the time difference between Washington and India.
  
  
  "Okay," I said. "I'll let you go back to bed in a minute; I thought, however, that you might be interested to know what happened."..
  
  
  — I know exactly what happened, " he exploded. "I've already spoken to the Indian security service. I was informed of your call. Nick, let's not start with the same old story. I admit I was wrong. To begin with, Shiva never existed.
  
  
  "Wrong again. Shiva exists, I hope, for a short time...
  
  
  "What are you talking about?" Hawk shouted. "I thought you were done, that you were going to fly home."
  
  
  "Maybe next week, if all goes well," I said. I told Hawk all the details, from my first meeting with Mohan and Gurnek, to the murder of Anand, to my power in the Red Fort, to what happened next. When he told Emu everything he knew about the Box, he was literally stunned.
  
  
  From the other both ends of the line came a sharp g? n? rale across thousands of miles before the rheumatism came. Hawke's voice is absurdly soft and thin, but I didn't need a translator to tell me that he was deeply concerned. "Now you know what I want from you, Nick...
  
  
  "I have a vague idea," I said. "A box, isn't it?"
  
  
  "I want more." I want Shiva and Haji, if necessary. And I don't want ih piecemeal, is that clear, Nick?
  
  
  — great. Its already decided to run the situation according to your criteria. But what do I do with the supply of heroin? Should I continue to fight it?
  
  
  "Deal with Shiva first. Otherwise, I'll contact the Indian security service. The box is much more important, of course.
  
  
  "Of course, just of course," I muttered.
  
  
  "Do you want to work alone, or would you rather have her ask the Indians to step in and help you?"
  
  
  "Not yet," I said. "If Shiva suspects that the Indian security service is going to interfere with ego's plans, he will rush around the country to take refuge in China, and then we will never find ego again. However, at the moment, I don't think he sees me as an immediate danger, so I ask you not to mention it when you call officials in New Delhi. "I believe that Anand made me understand how, according to ego, there were 'leaks' of confidential information in the higher echelons of the ego Service. "I don't want our other one to fly away before I have a chance to clip the emu's wings."..
  
  
  "And pluck the ego's feathers," Hawk added.
  
  
  "Oh, we'll take the box from him, of course.
  
  
  Then we found a cipher, a code name, so that he could be sure that he was talking to the real Nick Carter, and not to an electronic voice, a brilliant invention of an Albanian scientist. "This is important business, Nick. Our Moscow, our Washington will not watch as China prepares to devour the subcontinent without ih intervention. They will be forced to take the initiative, war or no war. Therefore...
  
  
  "That's enough," I interrupted, trying to laugh, but I couldn't. - I have a contact inside the organization. And I don't accept her defeats.
  
  
  "Yes, we know," Hawk sighed. "That's why I can't lose you openly now... And I can't lose the Box.
  
  
  "And Shiva, too," I added. "Let's not forget the rheumatism of India to Alexander the Great... or should we say Hitler?"
  
  
  "I don't think old Adolfo was so cunning or even so determined, Nick. Good luck; Its looking forward to hearing back from you soon.
  
  
  "Hurry up, boss. I promise, very soon.
  
  
  An hour later, he walked her around his hotel room, looking completely different from when he entered the American Express offices. Her robe, trousers and ballet slippers were thrown out, replacing ih with typical local clothing: a white cotton shirt, summer trousers, leather sandals. Anonymous Swedes. He showered, shaved thoroughly, and finally rubbed his face, hands, and feet with a layer of greasy water.
  
  
  As a result, I had a copper complexion, and this makeup allowed me to blend in with the crowd. Shiva's people wanted a Westerner, and if they weren't smart enough to guard the exit on the American Express, they wanted him, so they weren't smart enough to imagine that I would change my clothes and appearance.
  
  
  The clerk behind the counter in the hotel lobby was tactful, though smarter than his New Delhi counterpart. In fact, watching me with undisguised curiosity (he looked nothing like the man who had just entered), he didn't mention to us the change of my clothes, the traumatic change of color, the rapid increase in the color of my skin.
  
  
  "She should have been sent a telegram," Emu told her.
  
  
  "I'm sorry, but we don't have the right equipment, sahib," he replied. Then, from under the counter, he pulled out a topographic map of Agra with color illustrations of the city's landmarks, including, of course, the Taj Mahal. "You should go to the Gwalior Road telegraph office. You can send a telegram from there, " he concluded, pointing to a dot on the paper with a red pencil.
  
  
  I thanked her as I folded up the map and stopped the bike taxi right outside the hotel. "To the Gwalior Road Post Office," he told the driver. My accent and speech definitely didn't match the color of my skin. The driver glanced at me, watching me with the same curiosity as the hotel clerk.
  
  
  But he did nothing to satisfy her ego's curiosity. I couldn't wait to get to the telegraph office to send a telegram to the hotel manager in New Delhi and tell Em that I wouldn't be back for a few days. Finally, he decided to call the Indian security service to inform them about what had happened to ih agent Ashok Anand.
  
  
  Finally, I had to run a few errands before meeting Reeva at seven. Without wasting any time, the taxi driver headed in the direction of the post office. Meanwhile, he kept looking around with wary eyes, especially whenever he saw someone on a motorcycle.
  
  
  As far as I knew, Shiva's people still wanted me, so I needed to stay as undetected as possible. Okay, my new makeup job and makeup helped me a lot, but I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks.
  
  
  "Is the Sahib an actor?" "What is it?" the driver ventured as he pulled up to the Gwalior Road post office.
  
  
  "Some people think I'm an actor... I said.
  
  
  "Then maybe the sahib wants to give me his autograph.".. Dostal, the Indian, scribbled the name with a pen and paper, smiling at her, on the piece of paper I was given. I held out. "Thank you very much, sahib! the driver exclaimed with a happy smile.
  
  
  She didn't have to wait for ego's reaction once he deciphered the scribble. After all, everyone knows that James Bond has been retired for several years.
  
  
  The central door of the post office was empty; he entered without attracting much attention or seeing Shiva's three motorized gorillas.
  
  
  I wired it, paid for it with shiny new bank notes, and then they installed it in the next room for local and long-distance calls. There was a long line in front of the counter, so it was another twenty minutes before it was my turn to enter the phone booth while the operator handed me the line to New Delhi.
  
  
  Although the hotel number flew out of my head, I didn't forget the phone number of Ashok's boss. He lifted her onto a wooden stool and closed the glass door behind him. When the phone rang, he picked it up and immediately found himself on the line of Hawke's Indian colleague, a man named Puran Dass.
  
  
  The Indian Secret Service did not know the true purpose of my mission. Of course, it was a multimillion-dollar shipment of heroin, but no one hinted at the imitator of Haji's voice.
  
  
  Her didn't even talk about it now with Anand's boss. But he told Em what happened to the ego agent. As I suspected, they haven't found the body yet. He gave Dass all the necessary information, including the address of a street cafe near Nehru Park in Delhi.
  
  
  "You said you didn't have time to meet Anand," Dass pointed out to me after I gave em all the details of Ashok's death. "And yet you spoke to my assistant only yesterday, I think."..
  
  
  "I'm afraid it's too long to explain," I said. "I was under pressure, if you know what I mean...
  
  
  "No, I don't understand, Mr. Carter," Dass said dryly. "And I don't find it funny that my agent is dead." I don't understand what's going on; one day you tell us that you've never met Anand, the next day you arrive and tell us that he's been killed. This may be the case in your country, but here in India, we value human life more than anything else.
  
  
  "Listen, Dass: I didn't call you to lecture me. When hers said I was drowning, hers meant that someone had put a gun to the back of my head, ordering me to say exactly what I said. Believe me, your agent's death has deeply disturbed me. And if it's any consolation, I tell you that Ashok's killer will no longer be able to play the role of executioner in the name of Cobra.
  
  
  "May I ask you where you are now, Mr. Carter?"
  
  
  "He can't give you any information: not yet, anyway.
  
  
  "Should I remind her that your freedom of action in this country is considered a courtesy to your Government?"
  
  
  "I am well aware of Madame Gandhi's cooperation.
  
  
  "Then please tell me what your reasons were for coming to India." I can't give you any more freedom of movement if I'm happy to keep everyone in the dark...
  
  
  Something didn't sound right.
  
  
  I remembered the leaks Hawk and Ashok Anand had told me about. Dass was anything but cordial and cooperative, his voice dry, almost aggressive. I didn't recognize her until two Cobra hitmen, Ranjit and Gurnek, found out about my meeting with Anand at the cafe in parque. If it had seemed like a coincidence then, he was almost certain now...
  
  
  Unless, he concluded, Dass had warned ih.
  
  
  Of course, emu, it would not be difficult or unusual to ask the agent where he is going to meet me. Instead, he may have contacted Shiva, hoping to kill two birds with one stone.
  
  
  "Well, Mr. Carter," Dass said impatiently. "Are you determined to treat me as if I were your boss, Mr. Hawk, or are you insisting that my office treat you properly?"
  
  
  "No, I'm not even dreaming, Mr. Dass. And since you're so insistent, I'll let you know that I'm calling from Bombay. I mentioned the hotel I stayed at a few years ago, and added , " If you want, you can send me one through your people." It's registered as Kent, Clark Kent, room 747.
  
  
  If he were an American, he would understand. But he was born in India, so he didn't find it strange that I was staying in a hotel under an assumed name. Perhaps ego had underestimated her, perhaps he was just annoyed by the help AX had requested.
  
  
  At the same time, however, it seemed possible that my suspicions of ego loyalty and ties to Shiva's organization were well founded. And I couldn't risk it, since Shiva is free in the hall and owns the Box.
  
  
  "I can't wait to talk to some of your people, Mr. Dass," I concluded. "And hers, I want to express my condolences on the death of Anand. I hope to see your agent tonight.
  
  
  "He'll be here around ten, Mr. Carter," Puran Dass said quickly. And have my full confidence.
  
  
  "I hope so, Mr. Dass.
  
  
  I found it hard to suppress the sarcasm that threatened to show in my voice. But the clerk didn't seem to notice. He hung up and stood up, reaching for the glass door of the phone booth.
  
  
  Outside, someone blocked my path. And he wasn't a stranger.
  
  
  
  
  10
  
  
  I didn't know whether to say "hello" or "goodbye."
  
  
  The second expression was infinitely preferable, given that the man in front of me, behind the sliding glass door, was one of the three Sikhs I'd seen racing towards Agra, chasing me.
  
  
  "You have completely changed your appearance, 'sahib' Carter , " the man remarked, pushing the door open a few inches for the tribe to enter. He held a blunt pistol in one hand. The Indian's intentions were quite intuitive.
  
  
  — You know what people say, " I said with a forced laugh. "When you're in Rime, look like the Romans.
  
  
  He commented. "And when you're in India, do what the Indians do, eh?"
  
  
  - For estestvenno. You always think of yourself as a good devil, all things considered. But won't you beg me to follow you, sahib?" Or would you rather end our conversation on a more explosive note? The gun was pointed directly at my chest.
  
  
  The Indian Sikh was not an idiot. And ego wasn't amused at all by my frivolous and frivolous attitude. Its not playing comedy for no reason; its just trying to buy time. He opened the door and motioned for me to come with him.
  
  
  "Tell me, how did you find me?"
  
  
  "Are you always so sarcastic, 'sahib' Carter?"
  
  
  "Only when they're trying to step on my toes, mem sahib," I retorted, using the word ego as if I were addressing a woman.
  
  
  In response to the rheumatism of the insult, the Sikh shoved a .45-caliber pistol into my back and, pretending to continue chatting pleasantly with me, led me through the lobby of the post office to the revolving doors leading to the street. "Hotel employees another rupee," he chuckled, finally answering my corkscrew. "And there aren't many hotels in Agra. Just show a photo of" Sahib "Kolodezny , and then the hotel clerk says," Yes, this guy just went to the post office, about ten minutes ago..." "Sahib" Carter thinks he's very smart, that he's laughing at Shiva! But now" sahib " Carter understands that he is stupid, and not the Cobra people.
  
  
  There was a hint of vanity and triumph in the Indian's voice. But I was more concerned about my skin than my ego, my pride. Behind the glass doors, he saw two ego comrades sitting on motorcycles, ih eyes fixed on the day of the mail.
  
  
  "You don't want to hurt innocent women and children in all the houses around you, do you?" I asked my companion as he held a gun to my spine, ordering me to open the door. "Think how much blood has been shed in vain, sahib!
  
  
  "It will be your blood, sahib, not someone else's.
  
  
  "Then have pity on the defenseless beggar," I muttered, reaching out and pressing the open palm to my chest. Directly in front of me, a fat, heavy woman trudged up the stairs with agonizing slowness. He pressed down on the door, opening it a few inches so that he could hear the rustle of a long silk sari on the marble steps. The sun glinted momentarily on the jewel the woman was wearing in her nose as she reached the top of the stairs.
  
  
  She didn't look up and started to open the door.
  
  
  "Please," he said aloud, dodging to the side. He was sure a Sikh wouldn't pull the trigger so close to a woman. She smiled and nodded slightly, both hands gripping the package wrapped in a sheet of dark paper and tied with a strong rope.
  
  
  "I hope it's not fragile," I muttered, taking the bundle around her arms.
  
  
  The woman's mouth opened slightly at the flag of permission to perform. He didn't know if Shiva was giving orders to his men to bring me back to the villa alive or dead; but I wasn't going to tell myself that. Her bag was thrown at the Indian; her trigger finger snapped, and Gawk whizzed through the air.
  
  
  The shot attracted everyone's attention. The fat woman screamed sharply, and the gunslinger ran toward her in a panic. People at the post office started screaming and running in all directions as the Indian tried to escape. She didn't want him to slip away so easily.
  
  
  He flicked his left foot, delivering a powerful blow to the man under every tribe. He staggered and pulled the trigger again. The top of the glass door cracked. The sound of gunshots and broken glass solving scientific research problems hysterical screams of those present who thought they were locked in the post office.
  
  
  Large shards of glass were scattered on the floor and on the marble steps. He threw himself with all his weight, moving his legs very quickly, one straight forward, the left slightly bent to preserve the counterweights. He hit the Indian on the knee with three times the force of the first blow.
  
  
  Ego beginnings abruptly buckled as he tried to cling to the door jamb; it was blatant behind. He didn't look back as he tried to get to his feet. He pulled his hands back so that his fists rested on his lower ribs; then he delivered a vicious backhand that shattered several of his bones.
  
  
  The man couldn't hold back a frightening cry before sliding forward. Now he had his hands on his shoulders, pressing as hard as he could. Outside, the other two jumped off their motorcycles. The weapons cast an ominous holy light in the sun as they sped towards the city.
  
  
  Killing ih one at a time was more convenient for me than eliminating all three together. The first Indian continued to moan, trying to free himself at my subterfuge. My muscles tensed as she struggled to bring her head and shoulders down to the glistening shards of glass.
  
  
  He stood up with a terrible groan that ended in a high-pitched scream as the first shard of glass tore through his ego and flesh. He continued to push it, watching the glass pierce ego's skin before entering ego's bull neck.
  
  
  Another shot of solving research problems a chorus of hysterical screams, and a gawk almost scratched my head. He held her Indian down with one hand, and with the other tried to snatch the rifle from him. Now he had no strength left as a shard of glass pierced ego's muscular neck, slowly to the bone.
  
  
  When the glass hit the emu's carotid artery, it was as if a garden hose had cut it. A stream of blood spurted out and splashed across my face and in front of my shirt. The man let out a cry that turned into a confused gurgle as she was thrown to the ground by ego, sprawling on large shards of glass. The fingers loosened, and the blunt-nosed pistol fell to the floor. The Indian tried to raise his head, but the blood was too much for a deep neck wound.
  
  
  Then the ego's body began to shake convulsively, hands swinging in the air as if trying to scratch someone... the last dance of a headless chicken that will bleed.
  
  
  I still had two other men to neutralize. They didn't have an extreme concern for innocent spectators of tragedies, and they started shooting at me again.
  
  
  The gawk hit the man, who was writhing on the floor in terrible agony. If the glass smashing into the carotid artery hadn't already killed the ego, the gawking had done its job. The man collapsed with a convulsive twitch of nerves and muscles.
  
  
  He stood behind the lifeless figure, scuffing the floor with his foot until he found the gun. Her raised her weapon and returned fire at the other two Sikhs. Someone set off the alarm. I didn't want to be here when the police arrived, either, because arresting them would have prevented me from going to the meeting with Reeva.
  
  
  So, instead of shooting at the two gunmen, he aimed at the front wheel of a motorcycle parked in front of the post office. Gawking eyes stuck in nen like butter. The hiss of escaping air sampling caused one of the two men to turn around to see what was happening.
  
  
  He pulled the trigger again and heard a bullet whiz through the air. Her aim was aimed at the Indian's back, but instead of piercing Ego's spine, Gawk hit Emu in the back of the thigh. The wound was not fatal, but the man could no longer walk. In fact, he went limp as a sheet of paper as she looked around for another exit.
  
  
  I didn't think I'd be chased by the last of the three Cobra hitmen. He bent over the body of his friend, and when he pulled the trigger to finish him off, he realized that he had fired the last shot. And her still didn't have time to get the ammo for the Astra that her got from Nirad before hers, went ego to hell.
  
  
  Her hand was stuck in her back pocket. He picked up the Astra, dropped it on the floor, and placed a .45-caliber pistol in its place, which was better than the Astra, a much lighter pistol. Not to mention that I didn't want to carry two guns. One was more than enough, especially since I was somewhat proud to find that my punches and kicks were almost a more reliable form of defense than Wilhelmina's luger.
  
  
  He looked back and saw one of the Sikhs helping his wounded comrade onto a motorcycle with the tires intact. My sandals creaked loudly as hers swept across the lobby and darted behind the post office counter.
  
  
  There were piles of sacks full of mail. He slipped between the bags and ran like a madman under the noses of the astonished postmen, who were frozen with fear. The postal and telegraph workers seemed to be in a state of hypnosis. They opened their mouths without moving and just followed me with their eyes.
  
  
  The back room opened onto a loading dock. The alarm bell continued to ring, and the familiar wail of police sirens could be heard in the distance. I wondered if the two Indians who'd been left alive by her had managed to escape. If they succeeded, I was sure they would track me down while I was still in India. But I didn't want to lose sight of nam ih, nam Riva... us ah. Hawk immediately understood the importance of my mission, so I needed to get the Box before Shiva used sl.
  
  
  What bothered me most, and what made up my nagging mind as I jumped off the loading dock to race between the two vans, was whether Shiva would stay here while I had a chance to disrupt Ego's plans. If the ego people had returned to the villa, one with a bullet in his leg, to report that the other was dead, Shiva would have been perfectly capable of packing up and disappearing if hers hadn't reported nen to the Indian police. It is possible that he has already taken shaggy steps to be ready to leave the country.
  
  
  Unless, of course, Reeva can keep it together. There was something else that could convince Shiva that I was not an immediate threat to the ego's plans, and it was based on my doubt that Puran Dass was an accomplice in Cobra's plan. If Dass had spoken to Shiva after my phone call (which meant that my suspicions of the officer's loyalty were based on hard facts, not just intuition), Shiva would have known that I was lying when I claimed to be in Bombay, and that I suspected Dass. Then he would also have imagined that, convinced that Dass was involved in the Cobra plot, he would have been wary of contacting any Indian police department... or any secret service branch.
  
  
  It was just a hypothesis, but I couldn't risk the Indian police interfering with my mission, and I couldn't let Shiva fly to China with the Box in his possession. Reeva was the only person from whom he could get information, briefly explain his mission, and reveal her uncle's absurd and frightening plan. The girl promised to help me. This is no longer a Samaritan gesture corkscrew, but a common sense corkscrew. Letting her uncle escape before I could outsmart her with Shiva was certain death for ego, the father.
  
  
  She didn't even know where Shiva was holding her father captive, as he only allowed her to talk to him on the phone. I had to find out, but if Shiva disappeared around the country before I had a chance to complete the mission, then both of us had no hope of freeing the prisoner. Fortunately, I managed to get away from the post office before the Indian police blocked me.
  
  
  The sirens were still wailing when he found himself in the alley of shops on the other side of the post office. He didn't stop to look back, but kept walking, slipping into a small shop where there was a large jumble of items and wares that seemed to hide just as many sins.
  
  
  Two, an older guy with stooped shoulders but smart enough to recognize a likely buyer immediately, stepped forward as soon as she entered the store. The man spoke English with a strong British accent, and when he explained to her what I needed from egoism, he was smart enough not to interrupt me or ask me any curious questions about my American accent.
  
  
  Despite the mismatch between my accent and Indian clothing, it presented me as if there was nothing strange about it. He was unable to provide me with ammunition for the .45-caliber cannon that he had borrowed from a Sikh, but offered me a large piece of buffalo hide. Leather, as I realized when I bought the sandals, was not easy to find in India. But the buffalo whip was in good condition, as was the cotton jacket. The shirt I was currently wearing was covered in blood, but the shop owner didn't seem too interested either. Rupees are always rupees, and that's the main thing.
  
  
  I changed her clothes at the store. When her bloodied "jacket" was handed over to the owner, he rolled it up into a bundle and threw it into a wooden counter at the back of the store. "Do you want anything else, sahib?" — What is it? " he asked with a twinkle in his eye as he took out the few wad notes he kept in his pocket.
  
  
  "Do you have a broom?"
  
  
  "A broom?" — What is it? " he asked, not understanding.
  
  
  "It's a broom," he explained, and made a sweeping gesture with both hands.
  
  
  "Oh, yes, I understand her! he replied, beaming. He looked around for what his ego was asking of him.
  
  
  It was probably the same broom he used to sweep his shop, but he couldn't wait to give it to me, certainly at the right price. The price is undoubtedly quite high for Agra prices, but at the same time it seemed ridiculously low to me. The man tried to wrap the broom in a sheet of dark paper, but he explained with a smile that I would take it as it is.
  
  
  He looked a little confused, so much so that he frowned and looked down, almost disappointed and offended that I was denying him the opportunity to perform the usual ritual, then purchase the item. He asked. "Is that enough, sahib?"
  
  
  - Yes, I think that a broom and a buffalo noose are sufficient in these other circumstances. You don't have any ammo, do you?
  
  
  The man shook his head several times. He pulled out another shiny new bill and shoved it into her palm. "You've never seen me, okay?"
  
  
  "I've never seen anyone," the two men said, without a second's hesitation, slipping the money in a minute.
  
  
  Get her another bill and repeat the operation. "Can you tell me where I can find the ammunition?" My other friend invited me to go hunting in the country...
  
  
  "To be honest, sahib, I do not know where you can find the ammunition you need. We are peaceful people here in Agra. Only the authorities own weapons.
  
  
  "Are you sure you don't remember any stores where you could find what I need?" I pressed her, and I said, I handed em the money.
  
  
  He said. "Just a moment!He put down a one-minute bill and walked to the back of the store. I watched him scribble something on a piece of dark paper. When he handed me a piece of paper, her, and looked at the name and address written on nen. "That's the best thing I can do, sahib," the man apologized. "If Basham doesn't have what you need, I don't think you'll find ammo here in Agra. This is a modest city... we sell things only for tourists. You understand, don't you?
  
  
  "Of course," ego assured her.
  
  
  So here he was, out on the street, armed with a broomstick, a skin whip, and a .45-caliber pistol that would have come in handy if only he could shoot. But at this point, his certainly couldn't complain. In any case, he was still alive. Quite satisfying, considering everything I've been through.
  
  
  
  
  11
  
  
  It was an incredible display of the primitive and uncontrollable physical strength that her rare healers had seen. The man moved with such amazing speed and agility that I couldn't help leaning back in my chair, feeling the muscles of life contract convulsively. He leapt into the air and swooped down like a tiger, with the feline grace that was always an integral part of the ego of deadly prowess.
  
  
  And, like a tiger, it had paw-like fingers armed with claws as sharp as claws. In the next second, he used his deadly weapon to scratch the other person's face, leaving large bloody wounds that seemed to have been carved out of flesh.
  
  
  Blood began to drip, crimson rivulets welling up around the deep cuts in the bone. The man looked featureless, his features unrecognizable, his ego flesh hanging in tatters like flayed skin. Staggering, he tried to retreat, but was attacked again.
  
  
  Not content with turning his opponent's face into a bloody mass, the Tiger swooped down on him. I saw her, teeth as sharp as sabers, sharp and jagged. I was shaking with disgust, but I couldn't take my eyes off the scene, its brutality and indifference to human life.
  
  
  He continued to stare in fascination. Figure with claws raised her hand to strike with the edge of her palm: it was the most perfect ma-nal-chi-ki punch she had ever seen.
  
  
  This is a warning that I couldn't just ignore, about what can happen when certain "disciplines"-particularly karate and "kung fu" - are used to cause harm rather than a just cause. Her had never believed in such punishment or violence since the beginning of violence. He shook his head sadly and glanced at the glowing dial of his watch.
  
  
  I bought her a Japanese-made watch early that morning. It wasn't yet five o'clock. I had two hours left, so I turned my attention back to the movie, a Hong Kong-style drama.
  
  
  The North cinema was overlooking the Taj Road, just to remind me that I still had to visit the famous Taj Mahal. But he didn't dare show his face in such a popular and crowded place. Hers, of course, wasn't sitting in a movie theater just to have fun while whiling away the day. Since hers, I was sure that the Cobra people were still prowling the city, trying to find me so they could finish me off, she was chosen by the movie theater to remain undetected for as long as possible.
  
  
  I had an obsession with going back to Shiva's mansion to confront him, but he didn't know how many bodyguards were in the monster's service, and he didn't even know if he was still there. The meeting with Reeva was scheduled for seven o'clock in a small town about twenty kilometers from Agra.
  
  
  The place where we were supposed to meet was known as Fatehpur Sikri, an abandoned city around marble and sandstone. With the help of a guidebook that he bought at the same store where he bought the watch, he was able to capture in his mind a topographical map of the place. There were many palace halls, some with large staircases and balconies overlooking the vast courtyard. The long-abandoned Stahl building complex was the perfect hideout for both of us, a place where they could talk quietly without being discovered by well-trained Cobra agents.
  
  
  There was an evening when I got there, and that was also in my favor. The darkness will protect me from the prying eyes of Shiva's motorized brigade. My only problem, however, was that I couldn't get enough ammunition for my pistol.
  
  
  He followed the shop owner's advice and went to visit an Indian named Basham. He had a hardware store next to the bazaar, a small shop where you could find everything from hammers to opium. But it wasn't part of the ego's range of pistol cartridges. It wasn't about money, it was about accessibility.
  
  
  "I need at least twenty - four hours, sahib," the shopkeeper said when Ego took her aside to explain what I was looking for.
  
  
  "Twenty-four hours is too long," I said.
  
  
  He held up his hands, palms up. Empty as empty was the .45-caliber pistol that had once belonged to the Cobra math student who'd bled to death at the post office. Basham licked his lips greedily, his eyes fixed on the money he was waving in front of Ego's face.
  
  
  "I would be happy to serve you, sahib.".. but my hands are tied. The cartridges you are asking me about are not easily found in India. I need at least a day to find ih...
  
  
  "It's a real shame... for both of us. Be patient!
  
  
  "But maybe I can show it to you, something else," the shopkeeper said, and disappeared into the back of the store, only to come out a minute later with a gleaming stiletto, which he held in his hands like a precious object or an offering to a scarecrow. If the reptilian deities, Nagy, were watching this scene, hers, sure they wouldn't be satisfied. The stiletto was now attached to my forearm in a very light scabbard, almost identical to the one I'd worn when Shiva's men had managed to disarm me.
  
  
  So I had a knife, a broom (turned into two identical clubs about a foot long each), and a buffalo whip. Everything that was supposed to replace the gun. I wasn't completely unarmed, okay, but I wasn't her walking arsenal either.
  
  
  However, if everything had gone according to plan, I might not even have needed to use a gun. I had no intention of dating Cobra's men until I was ready to confront Shiva on a much more personal basis than on previous occasions.
  
  
  So it was important that the meeting with Rhea went smoothly. He promised the girl to find and release her father. In turn, she showed that she is more than willing to try to get any possible information. A pact born and made out of mutual despair. Reeva needed me, her, needed her just as much, if not more.
  
  
  So I sat down in my seat and continued to watch the movie, listening to out-of-sync voices, colors as bright and gorgeous as aluminum Christmas hope. The captions, one in Hindi and the other in Bengali, probably had very little to do with the meaning of the English dialogue. But the rhythm, the incredible skill of the main character in the art of "kung fu" fascinated my sense.
  
  
  The movie ended at four-thirty. The program announced a continuation of the movie, so I got up from my seat and walked to one, around the exits, mingling with the chattering and commenting crowd. Once he was on the street, I had no trouble staying unnoticed until a taxi found him, ready to take me to the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri.
  
  
  The driver, well-shaven and without a turban, fortunately (at that moment she was seen everywhere by Sikhs), asked me for fifty rupees for a half-hour ride. On the black market, a dollar was worth twelve rupees. It was a reasonable price, so I gave Em the money up front and put him in the backseat of an old Citroen.
  
  
  Not a single motorcycle followed us, and they didn't try to overtake us. To be precise, the journey to Fatehpur Sikri was uneventful. It was the same path I took after I escaped around Shiva's mansion. He sprawled on the seat as we passed the row of hedges that separated the house from the street. There was no one in sight, and the mansion, with its packed earth walls, looked empty and abandoned.
  
  
  I wasn't happy, of course, because I thought of Shiva, Haji, and even Reeva heading for the Chinese border. Well, he concluded, time will tell.
  
  
  He looked at his watch again and tried to relax. There was still plenty of time, but the closer he came to the abandoned city to lick it, the more nervous and anxious he became. He took the opportunity to finish what he had started, buying a broom and a buffalo whip.
  
  
  Basham was kind enough to lend me a hand drill. He drilled two holes in the broom handle, one at each end of the club. Now he tied the whip of a buffalo whip first in one hole, then in the other, securing it tightly with a string at the sides. Thus, between the two sticks it got something like a stretched leather jumper. I checked the knots; the holes in the wood of the sticks were small, there was no danger of skin peeling off.
  
  
  When he finished assembling the device, he saw in the distance the fluted minarets of the imposing Jami Masjid Mosque. But the massive building looked small compared to the giant wall that rose from the southern side of the mosque. The walls were built in honor of the victories of Akbar, the Mughal Emperor, who founded the legendary city of Fatehpur Sikri. The walls overlooked the surrounding countryside and the group of squalid huts that formed the village at the foot of the abandoned city.
  
  
  "Does the Sahib want the ego to wait here?" The taxi driver suggested, slowing down to stop at the entrance to a deserted parking lot next to a deserted and silent city. "I'll give you a good price: thirty rupees to take you back to Agra.
  
  
  "I'm sorry, but I have other obligations," I explained, stuffing the buffalo skin sticks into my pants pocket. Her, opened the door and got out, around the car.
  
  
  "The guides are no longer here, sahib," the taxi driver replied. "Don't you want Weed to show it to you?" Its familiar with Fatehpur Sikri. I'll show you something that no other tourist has ever seen before...
  
  
  "I don't doubt it," I agreed, laughing. "But I need to meet my Indian guide in a few minutes." Have a safe journey, sahib!"
  
  
  "As you wish," the driver said, disappointed. He started the engine, turned the corner, and drove away, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.
  
  
  Her walking path continued.
  
  
  The last tourist bus has already left for Agra. Merchants who had displayed their wares in the courtyard around the mosque also returned to the village, leaving the marble and sandstone buildings abandoned. He quickly crossed the courtyard, checked the map he had torn out of the guidebook, and found the building known as the house of Maruam.
  
  
  It was there that Reeva made an appointment for me in less than an hour. I didn't feel anything, and I didn't see any movement that might arouse my suspicions. The building, with its gilded frescoes and painted ceilings, was grand and solemn, a testament to Akbar's wealth and political power. He was sitting on the first step of a narrow marble staircase that led to a balcony that ran around the house.
  
  
  And the waiting began. I just prayed that Reeva Singh wouldn't let me down.
  
  
  At seven, I started to get nervous. At ten minutes past six, she was doubly worried. But at a quarter past six, he heard the sound of a car stopping in the parking lot. Then, the faint sound of footsteps echoed through the marble-paved courtyard that formed the pattern of a large chessboard.
  
  
  Apparently, Akbar was playing chess, using his concubines and dancers as live pawns. Hers, too, as he slowly stood up, felt like a pawn inserted into the game, but just as determined to checkmate his opponent. Shiva was convinced that he could control all my movements, dictating his own dirty rules.
  
  
  But if I had the opportunity to say or do something, this would undoubtedly be the last game that a genius criminal should play.
  
  
  "Nick?" Nick, are you there?
  
  
  It was a familiar voice, but with a hint of fear, of panic. It wasn't quite dark yet, and even though the sky was getting darker, he could see Reeva's slender figure striding across the courtyard. She was wearing an open-necked Western dress. She was more beautiful than he remembered, but this was clearly not the time for such thoughts.
  
  
  When Reeva saw me, she ran, her sandals clattering on the marble tiles at an accelerated pace.
  
  
  "I beg you, hold me tight!" he muttered. "That's what I really want right now, Nick.
  
  
  Ee picked her up and held her close. She was trembling, a shudder ran through her whole body; she clung to me, laying her head on my chest.
  
  
  "You don't have to be afraid," I whispered softly. "I promise you that everything will work out for the best. You'll see your father again, and things will change for him too, don't worry.
  
  
  She lifted her head and tried to smile. He was lightly kissed on the lips by ee: she stepped back and pushed her hair back from her eyes. "I trust you, Nick," she said softly. "My uncle taught me not to trust anyone... I can't think with my brain anymore, because it's so much in my head. But I believe you, Nick. I don't have any choice. If you can't help me, if you can't save my father, then no one in the world can. And I have no one else to turn to, Nick! We have someone to go to.
  
  
  In the black eyes, with ih sad and frightened expression, there was also a determined look. "We've made a step forward," he said soothingly. He led her into the building and she sat down on the steps, trying to calm down.
  
  
  It wasn't easy, as she was in the throes of tension and fear that made her tremble from head to toe. "I didn't think I could make it to the meeting," he explained after a moment. "I had to make up an excuse to tell my uncle that I was going to Agra for shopping. He tried to send me with one of his men, but I finally managed to convince him that it wasn't necessary.
  
  
  Her briefly told hey about the events of the day, telling noah everything that happened to them ferret as he left nah.
  
  
  "How many men does he have left?" I asked, finishing my story.
  
  
  "Five people, no more. Ranjit is in the hospital, but I don't think he will survive. Ego lungs are destroyed by internal bleeding.
  
  
  "And the other one with the bullet in his leg?"
  
  
  "They took Ego back to the villa. He can't walk, so he shouldn't be a danger to us. The girl began to explain what had happened when she was found bound and gagged. That might sound convincing to both of us at the moment, but Shiva was a suspicious character. Despite Reeva's tears and pleas, he once again refused her permission to see her father. Nor did he reveal where he was holding his brother captive.
  
  
  "I spoke to my father on the phone. He was very weak, he could only mumble a few words, Nick, " Rhea added in a distant voice. "If you can't free him, wherever he is, I don't think he'll live long."..
  
  
  "Egoism," ee assured her, though he had no idea where to find Reeva's father. First of all, it was Shiva who had to neutralize her. Although I had managed to avoid the traps set by the monster, I was well aware that it would not be easy to reach it. "Do you know anything about Haji's invention, that diabolical device your uncle calls the Box?"
  
  
  "I tried to get into the lab, but my uncle's security wouldn't let me in. But I sensed something... She closed her eyes and frowned, trying to remember. "Maybe it doesn't matter... he added after a moment.
  
  
  "Everything is important. What is it about?
  
  
  — well... I heard Shiva talking to someone on the phone and saying something about Bombay. I thought it was odd at the time, because he doesn't have Dell in Bombay... or at least nothing I know about.
  
  
  A bell rang in my head, and it was hardly a pleasant sound. "Are you sure?" I insisted. "Did you hear anything else, find out who he was talking to?"
  
  
  Reeva shook her head. "I heard him just say Bombay." A few words about the hotel, vote and that's it. But when he moved away from the phone, my uncle didn't look satisfied.
  
  
  Did he talk on the phone before or after the ego people came back over Agra?
  
  
  - Before. That reassured her. The two of them arrived in about an hour, maybe less, " Rheeva replied. "He was on the phone before they arrived.
  
  
  So Puran Dass was the Cobra's accomplice!
  
  
  Everything began to clear up, to make sense. Now I understand how the Cobra people knew I was going to be at the street cafe the morning Ashok and I met. It wasn't a coincidence. Dass had set everything up, apparently under Shiva's orders. Unsurprisingly, the Indian secret Service found themselves facing a wall as they tried to figure out who was behind the Cobra. No wonder they were so inefficient and ineffective when riots and riots broke out across India in the last six months.
  
  
  According to what I knew about the Indian Secret Service organization, Dass was the ultimate authority.
  
  
  The information came out on the ego of the cabinet. Hawke talked about" leaks " inside IISA, counterintelligence, but he had never suspected anything so serious. Fortunately, it was decided to act alone. A decision that, in the current state of affairs, has already become a valid reason.
  
  
  - Did you manage to find out more?
  
  
  Reeva shook her head again. "I'm sorry, Nick. I tried my best, but I get the impression that my uncle doesn't trust me... now it's less than ever. He and Haji talked for most of the day, but the guards didn't leave the lab. I didn't have time to learn anything more.
  
  
  "I understand. You did everything you could, and that's all that matters, " her father said. So I had no choice but to return to the villa. Once there, I'll take the lead in action.
  
  
  But it was a big risk. Almost insurmountable.
  
  
  If I hadn't tried to get the Box before it was used again, no one could have said what Shiva would have done with three aces up his sleeve... even if it had been left out, a fourth in reserve. He shouldn't have stopped now, after coming this far.
  
  
  "I need to go back to the villa with you," Rivet explained to her. "I told you what he was going to do with the Box. If we wait, everything will go according to our ego plans, whether we want it or not. I have no other choice, Reeva.
  
  
  "Me, too," she whispered. She took my hand and squeezed my fingers in hers. "I left the car outside, it's only a few steps away.
  
  
  We went out into the street, leaving behind the frescoed rooms of the house of Marouam. The sky was crimson red, the sun a pale orange patch on the distant horizon.
  
  
  Reeva was still holding my hand, and he listened to the sound of our footsteps as his sandals clattered across the tiled courtyard. Then there was a sudden crack in our ears, a roar that would have turned most people's blood cold. But many years of training and experience have made me resilient, turning my nerves to steel wire. Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid.
  
  
  The sound of abandoned buildings echoed like thunder. Reeva couldn't help but cry out and hugged me, clutching my arm in horror. A second later, I was blinded by the motorcycle's headlight, which was already pointed at my face.
  
  
  There were three Sikhs, each riding a motorcycle like a cavalry unit. They started circling me; ih sarcastic laughter pierced me like so many stab wounds. Shiva was challenging again. But if she had been played the ego game, Nick Carter would soon have been a dead man. Something I definitely wouldn't let her do.
  
  
  
  
  12
  
  
  Two men she knew almost immediately. One of them was Gurnek, his face bandaged and scarred, but still alive and well. The other was the man from the post office, the same one who had managed to take the wounded comrade away. The third, bearded and with a turban wrapped around his head, like the others, was unknown to me. But I knew what he was thinking, even though we'd never met.
  
  
  "You aroused my uncle's suspicions, Reeva," one of the three explained. "That's why he ordered us to follow you, I know you will lead us openly to 'Sahib' Carter ...
  
  
  Reeva and I stood motionless, frozen. "Don't say a word to us," he whispered to her girl. "Do exactly what I tell you, and you'll be fine."
  
  
  "They're going to kill us, Nick!"
  
  
  - no. Your uncle is a megalomaniac: if someone has to die, I'm sure they'll want to kill him personally.
  
  
  I shielded my eyes from the glare of the headlights and looked around. Each Cobra agent was armed with a .45-caliber pistol, which at that moment was aimed at me, one in the chest, one in the head, and a third in the back. "So what are you going to do, shoot us both?" I shouted over the roar of the motorcycles.
  
  
  "Shoot you, 'Sahib' Carter ?" Odin chuckled around the men. It was someone I didn't know, a tall, plump young man who obviously enjoyed seeing me in this position. "Too easy. No, Shiva gave us special personal instructions. This is all very clear. You will not be able to resist us, because if you try to do so, we will kill the girl; then, when we bring you back to the villa, Shiva will take care of you personally.
  
  
  "How you treated Nirad," Gurnek added.
  
  
  The image flashed through my mind. I saw Nirad falling headfirst into a pit of snakes, I saw reptiles repeatedly attacking him, and I heard ego screams and understood the joy of Shiva seeing me suffer the same death agony.
  
  
  "Of course I can't resist," I said. - Three against one is not a sport, gentlemen. But don't hurt the girl; she has nothing to do with it.
  
  
  "She helped you escape.
  
  
  "I would have killed her if she hadn't." The ego father is a prisoner of your master. She doesn't care about anything else. I don't care if I live or die. He turned to Reeva and looked her in the face. "Isn't that right, whore?"
  
  
  He raised his hand and slapped her hard across the face. He whispered it. "Come on, run to them... Do as I tell you! -
  
  
  For a moment, the girl staggered, dazed and terrified. She didn't know what I was doing, but eventually she ran, screaming at the top of her lungs. "He tried to kill me!"
  
  
  The men didn't understand what was going on.
  
  
  Gurnek got off the bike, and Reeva ran to him. This was the moment she'd been waiting for. The other two Sikhs averted their eyes, the soles of their ih shoes sliding on the marble floor as they stopped riding around me.
  
  
  Reeva literally threw herself at Gurnek's feet, sobbing like a hysterical woman. She played her part perfectly, giving an appearance of veracity that seemed to disarm Gurnek — at least enough to give me time to draw my stiletto around its scabbard and throw a thin-bladed dagger.
  
  
  For a second, all I heard was Reeva's continuous, heart-rending moan. Then Gurnek staggered back, clutching his face convulsively. The stiletto plunged into the emu's left eye, cutting the onion in half. A bloody, gelatinous mass dripped into the emu's face; he let out a heart-rending cry and tried to pull out his dagger.
  
  
  I didn't stand there and watch what was happening.
  
  
  They were ordered to take me alive... but not necessarily unharmed. Of course, they will try to save their own skin first, and if I don't act quickly, everything will be considered lost. He ran, and the others jumped off their bikes. This was the second mistake made by Shiva's gorillas, as he managed to climb up for a minute to pick up two clubs made around the broom.
  
  
  It was created by a weapon that at first glance seemed harmless. But on Della Street, the two clubs, joined by a piece of hard and strong whip around the buffalo hide, were a very dangerous, almost fatal threat.
  
  
  It was a "nunchaku", the one who made it, an oriental device that I first saw during a violent demonstration given by my karate master at AX headquarters in Washington.
  
  
  A weapon typical of martial arts had an undeniable versatility, and in this case, he intended to experiment with it.
  
  
  Holding the stick in one hand, the other stream began to twist it until it gained sufficient strength and speed. My gawking eyes were stuck in the marble slabs at my feet, but I kept running, forgetting to tell anyone but the Sikh I'd chosen as my target and who my target would be.
  
  
  Gurnek hadn't been disarmed, but he wasn't in the best of shape, either. I heard Reeva scream in horror as another gawk whizzed through the air and grazed my left shoulder. I felt a terrible burning sensation that left me a fiery red afterward. But gawking didn't hit my hand. Rani made a painful face at me, but that didn't stop me from continuing to twist the nunchaku.
  
  
  "I'll kill you, Carter!" the man shouted.
  
  
  "Against Shiva's orders?" I retorted with a grin. But the .45-caliber pistol was pointed at my chest. Taking risks is one thing, but being stupid is quite another. Hers stretched until the baton lost speed and finally hung on my wrist.
  
  
  "Down with that stuff! The Indian ordered.
  
  
  "On your orders, Master," I muttered, releasing the nunchaku through my fingers.
  
  
  The Sikh was still aiming at me; but as soon as she let go of her chopsticks, he bent down to pick up ih. It was his third mistake in the last few minutes.
  
  
  While he was bending over, his opponent lunged at him. He closed his fingers around the wrist of the hand that now held the gun with all the strength he could muster. He pulled the trigger and almost hit me in the leg. But this time, I was determined to spend the rest of my days moving around like a cripple, so that the rest of my body would remain intact and intact.
  
  
  The Cobra agent recoiled, trying to free himself. My hand found the target it wanted: stretched out, it turned into a sickle, around the bones and muscles. The hard side of the palm landed on the man's neck; at the same time, her synchronous flicked her right foot.
  
  
  The resulting cha-cha-gi didn't break the emu's shin, but the pain of the blows gave me a few extra seconds, which I desperately needed. She was grabbed by the hand that was already holding the gun in both hands. The Sikh Indian writhed frantically, trying to move away, even when he was sure that his gun was no longer pointed at him.
  
  
  There's a sudden movement behind me. The third assassin, a brawny young Indian whom she had never seen before, rushed to the aid of his companion. Although it was already difficult to fight with one: it would not be difficult to cope with two men armed with pistols.
  
  
  So as soon as I managed to pry the weapon from around the first man's fingers, causing ego to fall onto his marble braids, I hurried to pick up the "nunchaku"that had fallen at his feet. In total, it took me five seconds to get the necessary speed and momentum for it.
  
  
  The third person recklessly went on the attack. Her jumped back and landed an outspoken ego accomplice. When he attacked, his stick was already aimed at the other's ego's skull.
  
  
  "Nunchaku" has now reached a strength several times greater than that required to break human bones.
  
  
  What happened next, she had never seen in her life.
  
  
  The Indian's skull literally exploded. A jelly-like mass still pulsed where the turban had been rolled up. Bits of bone, shards of hair and scalp stuck to them, splattered in my face, and my brain, grayish-white in strange spirals, scattered through the air like lava around an erupting volcano. But if the Nunchucks did a good job, I still had two opponents left. Gurnek was alive, though with only one eye. And still alive was a young Indian who had arrived too late to save the life of his companion.
  
  
  The muscular Sikh paused, a look of disgust and disbelief on his face. The deadly batons launched again, and he backed away nervously, pointing the gun at my face.
  
  
  "Kill me and Shiva will feed you to the snakes." I need to give em some important information, and if he doesn't hear it around my mouth, you might forget you exist.".. he hissed at her through gritted teeth.
  
  
  He was bluffing her. He looked at the unrecognizable figure of his accomplice. He used a split second to release the nunchucks, which flew through the air like a boomerang in a single stream. Her ego had never used it this way before, and didn't know how it would work.
  
  
  Fortunately, the primitive weapons didn't disappoint me. One or both of the batons (I can't say for sure, the Nunchucks were flying at an incredible speed) crashed into the Indian's automatic pistol. The force of the blow knocked the weapon out of Rook's ego. The gun landed a few feet behind him. The big Sikh charged me like an angry bear, his face contorted with rage.
  
  
  Karate or not, this time it was for me.
  
  
  Before her ego could stop her, before she could realize what had happened, the man who was part of Shiva's team and the "admissions committee" came down on me like a ton of bricks. My breath caught in my throat as I fell backward, hitting my head on the marble slabs surrounding the huge chessboard of the courtyard.
  
  
  Something hot and slimy dripped onto my face, momentarily blinding me. Tears streamed down my cheeks as she tried to open her eyes again. As soon as I could see her again, I looked up and saw Gurnek standing next to me. The injured eye, what little was left of it, continued to expel gelatinous and bloody matter like a faucet left open.
  
  
  Then the Indian's leg bent just as her was trying to get up. I gritted my teeth as the steel toe of my ego boot hit the back of my head. He was the only one of the three men who didn't wear sandals. And now he was using his motorcycle boots to punch me in the chest.
  
  
  I couldn't see her because of the pain that was blurring my vision. I didn't even know where she was or what Gurnek had done to her, but she can't help me, that's for sure. I felt like my rib cage was cracking, like my bones were shattering all at once, when Gurnek hit me again.
  
  
  Hers shook violently, like a wild horse trying to throw off its rider. "Shiva doesn't matter now, Carter," Gurnek said, making it clear that the ego is understood, despite the bandages that hide the lower part of the ego.. "I'll kill you, so you'll be finished once and for all!"
  
  
  From the tone of her ego's voice, I knew he meant it. The other Indian, the one who had attacked me and knocked me to the ground a moment ago, was trying to grab my legs. He crouched down in front of me, and hers continued to kick like a desperate man, especially when Gurneka's nachah jerked again, landing a crushing blow to my chest.
  
  
  It was at this moment that her Yi reached out with both hands and grabbed the man's ankle, forcefully bending ego's leg. He tried not to lose his balance. Then another Sikh drove his mighty fist into my life. It was excruciating pain. I couldn't breathe, but if I gave up on her right now, those two would add me to their glorious trophy list.
  
  
  Around the last bit of strength I had left, I gripped Gurnek's ankle and kept twisting it, I want to hear the crunch of bone breaking soon. Instead, the man fell forward, losing his balance. And he freed his legs at the trick of another Indian. Turning back, he leaped to his feet.
  
  
  I expected Gurnek's big buddy to attack me again, but instead he ran in the opposite direction. Her ego couldn't let go too far, also because he was running after the fallen gun. He was behind him as he bent down to pick up the weapon. Her, made a big jump in the air and strained his leg to deliver a "flying" blow.
  
  
  The force of the blow, the impact of my foot hitting the Indian's backside, sent ego crashing to the ground. He rolled a couple of times on the marble floor, and the gun landed a few yards away, out of reach.
  
  
  Even then, he glanced nervously over his shoulder before rushing to pick up the gun. Gurnek wasn't one to give up easily. He got up and walked over to me. Although he limped, carrying all of his weight on one leg, he could still walk. But most striking of all was the sinister metallic glow that caught my attention... metal dripping a gelatinous substance over the Indian's bisected eye.
  
  
  Behind Gurnek is a blurry figure in the late-afternoon shadows. Reeva Singh is finally back on stage. Not long before, she had played her part perfectly, and with her screams of terror and flight, she allowed me to move from defensive to offensive actions.
  
  
  He could see her now as she climbed into the saddle of a motorcycle parked in the yard. Gurnek couldn't run; he was still limping when he finally backed up, doubled over. But I miscalculated in my calculations, assuming that he had attacked me before using the stiletto in his hand.
  
  
  The Indian jerked his hand away, then reached out and threw the knife. The blade hissed through the air. And this time Gurnek almost missed.
  
  
  The razor-sharp blade sank into my thigh muscle. My knees buckled, and I felt weak. She wanted to scream, but I stifled the cry that seemed to escape my lips. Pain shot through me, twisting my nerves. He plunged into me like a hot needle, deeper and deeper, until my entire body was numb, now at the limit of physical resistance.
  
  
  This wasn't supposed to happen.
  
  
  He clenched his fists, gritted his teeth until they gritted, and tried to block out the excruciating pain. Then he lowered her hand, closed his eyes for a moment, and finally pulled the knife out around his hip. I didn't have time to stop the blood flow. But fortunately, the stiletto failed the blood vessels of the thigh muscles.
  
  
  In any case, he was still bleeding like a slaughtered pig.
  
  
  The fabric of my trousers clung to my leg, where a large dark stain was spreading, wet with the blood I'd already lost. Gurnek's wild laughter echoed through the air. The Indian started to approach me, and hers was trying to crawl to one around the buildings surrounding the yard. I managed to twist Em's ankle, and he couldn't walk without a limp. But he could still move. He stepped forward as the third Cobra agent also started moving behind me.
  
  
  I looked around and saw the gun that the man had found. Hers was left with the dagger, as the Nunchucks were out of range. "Reeva," they kept saying. "Where did you go?"
  
  
  Perhaps it was telepathy. But whatever it was, she "heard" me.
  
  
  The roar of the motorcycle mistletoe blotted out the power of the blessing, dulling my pain and physical torment. He came out through the darkness, tracing Gurnek's figure in the light of the great lighthouse, silhouetted against the shadows of the sunset ahead. The Indian turned his head and raised his hands as if to stop the car. Ego of the other person, the muscular young Sikh, on the other hand, looked like he didn't want to change his program. He kept coming at me. He reached for his dagger, trying to ignore the throbbing pain that left Nachah completely numb.
  
  
  Gurnek tried to hide in one of the deserted marble halls of the palace. Now that he was no longer an immediate threat and danger, thanks to Reeve, I was able to focus my attention on his accomplice. The gun barked and breathed fire, but the sudden darkness that seemed to rain down from the sky as the last of the twilight lights went out prevented him from taking careful aim, and the gawk flew a few meters away from me.
  
  
  He held his breath and stood on the same path as any tribe, stretching his injured leg back. He could see the white turban of the assailant and even the barrel of the gun. He'd lost count of the bullets he'd used up, so he couldn't tell if the gun was empty or if it still had a few rounds left.
  
  
  When he heard the click of the trigger, he braced himself for the shot. Instead, the Indian swore softly. He threw the weapon away, and it landed with a thud on the marble floor. Finally, it seemed that not everything was plotted against me.
  
  
  Perhaps Reeva had backed Gurnek into a " corner." If not exactly in the "corner", then the Indian was out of the way. I can defuse it with my ego later, once I've knocked out my partner's ego. He knew that Gurnek was unarmed, so Reeva would be able to handle the situation on her own.
  
  
  Now all I had to do was deal with a strange Indian, Shiva's personal agent. He tensed and held his breath. The human was just a massive form appearing around the darkness. Clouds obscured the moon, obscuring the shining face, and the courtyard of Fatehpur Sikri was in shadow. He squinted his eyes and tried to peer into the darkness. My opponent didn't want to take any chances because I couldn't hear his movements. I wasn't sure if he'd seen me when he'd pulled the knife out around his hip, or if he'd known I was armed.
  
  
  Stahl's stiletto is a precious weapon now that the Nunchucks have lost it. And I couldn't count on my deep knowledge of karate with a leg that came out of assembly from a wound that bled almost all the time, and which I didn't have time to heal. His blood supply was making me weaker and weaker, and if his leg hadn't been bandaged, I'd soon be in trouble.
  
  
  Her, screamed. "Come on, you bastard! What are you waiting for? - There are blasphemies, epithets and insults that in India immediately affect a person's pride. Maybe the "bastard" wasn't one around them, but already my knowledge of the customs and customs of the subcontinent left much to be desired. "Are you scared?" It's true? I started shouting, trying to find a massive shape in the shadow of my ego.
  
  
  The headlight of the motorcycle Reeva had jumped on wasn't pointing in my direction. It was getting darker and darker by the second, and he kept looking for her, hoping to find someone in flesh and blood. Then a huge weight fell on me. I was thrown onto my back, my injured nachalah tucked under me.
  
  
  The pain was overwhelming, and strange phosphorescent lights danced before my eyes. Her head shook and tried to drive away the dots of the world. With his leg twisted in half, he was literally pinned to the ground by the bulk of a fat young Sikh. But I literally felt myself lift off the ground as his fist slammed into my jaw. He cocked his head to the side, breathing hard. "You filthy bastard! I hissed, finally remembering the right word.
  
  
  The Emu didn't seem to like the choice of epithet, so it punched out a second time. She felt the man's hot, fetid breath on her face. He was a beast, a bull in human form. And he answered without a word... only with your fists. Emu then managed to get his hands on my thighs and kick my injured leg.
  
  
  My head was still bleeding, and it hurt more than ever. The stiletto blade scraped against the marble tiles. But I still didn't know if the Sikh Indian had noticed that I was armed. "I'll give you back to Shiva, Carter!" He gasped, pinning me to the floor. "But not all in one piece!
  
  
  "How terrible! I mumbled in a mocking tone, my lips curling in a pained grimace as he planted his knees on my thighs. My hands and fingers began to go numb, blood dripped around the wound, and the Indian held my hands. A few more seconds and I won't be able to hold the sword anymore. And if that happens, it's all over for me.
  
  
  He began to move his hand forward, trying to bring the sharp, still bloody blade closer to the Indian's calculations. He whispered it. "What's your name?" After all, we haven't... introduced ourselves yet!
  
  
  "Bark," he said, grinning. - Victorious Barking.
  
  
  "Barking, loser," ego corrected her, and suddenly moved his knife hand to check my opponent's calculations. It took all the strength I had left, right up to the limit.
  
  
  But it worked. Thank God it worked.
  
  
  The sharp blade tore the young Sikh's cotton shirt like butter. He didn't stop her. The dagger sank deeper as he raised his knees, trying to pull away. It's too late for a change of tactics. Now he couldn't stop me anymore. The stiletto plunged between her ego's two ribs, slicing through flesh and muscle like a butcher ripping through a calf.
  
  
  The young Indian rolled onto his side and fell heavily on his back as the knife released him. With the strength of desperation, I crawled over him to finish the job, not stopping at us, just for a second to feel that excruciating pain in my bleeding leg. The stiletto was buried up to the hilt in Laia's side. The man gasped, trying to breathe. He turned the handle of the knife without pulling it out.
  
  
  A stream of thick, hot blood gushed down ego's side as the dagger was driven into her, the blade sticking to ego's chest. "Pig! The Indian gasped. "But also... you're going to die... You're going to die, Carr...
  
  
  Those were ego's last words.
  
  
  Her hotel, so they wouldn't turn out to be prophecies.
  
  
  
  
  13
  
  
  My hands were slick and sticky with Laia's blood. She continued to lash out profusely as her emu sliced open its chest, not stopping until it was absolutely certain that it was dead. A gurgling sound came from the ego in his throat; he no longer spoke, but heaved his chest up and down convulsively. Finally the puffing stopped; her emu put his hand on the folding dollar. The bundle of muscles caused a convulsive heartbeat, followed by an involuntary nervous tremor, a tremor that shook the ego from head to toe.
  
  
  He stirred once more, then froze.
  
  
  Her slid back, my wounded beginnings stretched out in front of me. With quick movements, he took off his shirt, cut it open with a dagger, and began dressing the wound with makeshift bandages. It took two strips of cordon to blot out the blood that was engaged all the time flowing down the deep wound.
  
  
  After a while, he tried to get back on his feet, his eyes searching for Reeva. The girl had done a great job, and now I had to help her take down Gurnek. Later... well, I'll eliminate Gurneka first, and then I'll take up the next move.
  
  
  He listened, and almost immediately heard a faint hum... the hum of a motorcycle engine ringing in the distance. The courtyard was bathed in light as the clouds that hid the moon disappeared. It struck me that the forces of nature were on my side, as if they had promised to protect me. It was dark at first, and the lack of peace protected me, allowing me to defeat and kill Laia.
  
  
  But now that the young Sikh was dead, startled by my strength or cunning, the moon was returning, flooding the courtyard of the abandoned city with its pale glow. Her, looked at the figure of Laia, who was lying on his back, his white shirt smeared with dried blood. Ego's lips curled up in a grin that showed Ego proper white teeth, and his gums were stained red from paan gum. The corpse lay motionless on the marble slabs, crouched in a position of terrible agony.
  
  
  He felt no remorse and did not object to the young Indian's death, in part because it was a corkscrew of survival. It's either Barking or her. He looked away from the frozen, bloodied body and tried to get to his feet again. I had to make several attempts before he could stay on his feet.
  
  
  She was dragged along by her injured leg, which was still pounding and still numb from the loss of blood. I started across the yard, pausing for a moment to pick up my Nunchucks where they had fallen, and at the same time pick up Laia's pistol.
  
  
  As far as I know, Gurnek was unarmed. I had a primitive Oriental weapon and a precious German stiletto with a razor-sharp blade that saved my life. And on top of that, Reeva had a motorcycle. No doubt the girl and Gurnek knew the topography of Fatehpur Sikri much better than I did, which was both an advantage and a disadvantage. Because if there was a way out, around this maze of empty and abandoned buildings, Gurnek probably should have known, unless Reeva was able to block ego's escape and keep ego trapped until I got to nah.
  
  
  He paused for a moment to listen, and again he heard the faint hum of a motorcycle engine. It came from behind a special audience hall, the divan-i-khas. I remembered seeing an illustration of the palace in the guidebook I'd bought, a black-and-white photograph of an imposing building with a huge central column, from which four identical corridors branched off to reach the sides of the upper balcony in the shape of squares.
  
  
  There was no need to come to the girl's rescue quickly. I had to move one step at a time, dragging my leg behind me like a bulky piece of luggage. The pain was lessened now that her wound was bandaged and the bleeding stopped. But I was in pain. To make matters worse, it made me more vulnerable than ever, severely slowing down my movements, my ability to move at normal speed.
  
  
  The use of karate kicks was now out of the question, and each movement of the hand and fist became problematic and difficult, because it would require a huge amount of effort to maintain an adequate center of gravity and balance. . . . Now, more than ever, I had to rely almost exclusively on the nunchucks and the stiletto.
  
  
  The closer he got to the Lobby, the louder the car's engine hummed in his ears. What had once been a distant and indistinct hum became a dull rumble, a muffled roar. It clung to one around the outer pillars, which was covered with mistletoe of striking shape and resembled the tusk of a giant elephant. He stopped to rest and collect his thoughts. A powerful beam of light pierced the spot in front of me. Then the sound of running footsteps.
  
  
  "Roar! "I screamed. "Where is he?"
  
  
  She didn't answer me, but a moment later Gurnek came out around the building and ran across the courtyard. Her ego began to haunt her, even though he knew I couldn't get to it. He was running at an almost normal pace, so I knew his ankle wasn't hurting anymore. It was then that Reva entered the scene. She boomed mimmo at me and motioned for me to stay put. Ego's face was tense, his earlobe wrinkled; it was a face of absolute determination, a mask of cold and calculating determination.
  
  
  I couldn't deny that I was damn proud of her. She did her job perfectly, keeping Gurnek at bay like a trapped animal until I managed to get rid of Lai. And now that Lai was dead, there was only one Cobra agent left to fix. It was the nunchaku's batons that lifted her over his head, gripped one tightly, and threw out the other.
  
  
  A circular motion of the hand set the stick in motion... Which, I hoped, would decisively destroy Gurnek's plans... and ego life itself. Reeva was pointing at the Indian from both ends of the yard. A beam of light from the lighthouse illuminated the ghostly arcades and colonnades of the royal palace, framing it like an expressionist painting.
  
  
  But there was nothing picturesque about the way Gurnek began to move, repeating his shaggy moves. He'd seen me, and now there was no way he could avoid a collision as Reeva chased after him on her motorcycle like a motorized shepherd trying to catch a missing Scott. Now the Indian was an animal for fear, fear, and despair.
  
  
  He tried to get around me, but again Rhea showed her skill, cutting off ego's path. She almost hit him. The girl was doing her best to avoid a direct collision, and he couldn't blame her. She also didn't want to be thrown off the bike.
  
  
  However, even without touching it, hey managed to keep the ego out of the way, preventing it from escaping. The Nunchaku swirled around my head, and when Reva moved forward again, forcing Gurnek to come toward me, she was released by that instrument of death, and watched as it sliced through the air.
  
  
  The"killer" sticks were very useful again. He was still watching the scene, taking a step forward, when Gurnek screamed and ducked sideways as the clubs hit the emu in the chest. The blow was like a fist hitting the center, and it took his breath away. He staggered, drunk as hell, unable to keep his balance.
  
  
  He limped forward, moving as fast as he could, holding the stiletto at arm's length. There was no time to waste, because after Gurnek's elimination, I still had to face Shiva, the man whose infernal traps she had escaped, but who had not shown me his face in return.
  
  
  Gurnek was on his feet again before hers reached him. He grabbed a nunchaku ,but apparently had never seen or used the weapon before. He didn't know how to handle it, so he just threw it at me. The clubs dropped, and he bent down to pick up nu, just as Gurnek lunged at me.
  
  
  I found myself sprawled on my back again, fighting for my life, with the Indian between my fists. He was no longer able to reason: a gelatinous and bloody substance was dripping down the ego of the torn eye, it was not just the face of a madman, but the face of monsters.
  
  
  He punched me in the crook of the elbow, and my fingers involuntarily loosened their grip. The dagger slid around my arm. I reached out blindly, but the Indian struck me again in the throat with the palm of his hand. He didn't know much about karate, but he must have learned something from our previous meetings. And now he was using his talent and intelligence to finish me off.
  
  
  Reeva's bike stopped with a high-pitched groan, illuminating our entwined bodies with a beam of light. I heard her get out of the car, but I knew she couldn't help me. And since Gurnek was kicking my injured leg, the quick and easy victory she'd been hoping for wasn't in sight. The man was in a panic, and this gave him a vengeance of strength and determination. He was fighting for his life.
  
  
  Hers, too.
  
  
  He stood on his palms and tried to throw it off. I rolled over on my side, but he fell on top of me again. Meanwhile, however, I managed to grab the clubs, one in each hand, with a piece of the whip around the buffalo hide in the middle. Now there was no other way to use a weapon, a method she hadn't experienced yet. If only I could tie a leather cord around Gurnek's neck, two clubs would help me use my ego, my body.
  
  
  He put his knee in my side and punched me in the kidney, making it groan, which hurt. The marble tiles seemed to dance before his eyes, and the distant pillars doubled and tripled. He tried to focus his vision, but everything looked blurry, got closer, and then disappeared.
  
  
  Gurnek, now in a frenzy, spat out words in an Indian dialect I couldn't understand. But if I couldn't hear what he was mumbling, it wasn't hard for me to pick up the meaning of his rambling phrases; it was, to put it mildly, not optimistic, not friendly.
  
  
  He felt an agonizing cramp in his leg, which was bent under the weight of his ego. He turned his head just as the Indian reached for the stiletto, moving his alenka to the right to raise the dagger. At this very moment, it began to rise to the level of every tribe.
  
  
  But he wasn't going to give up so easily.
  
  
  He charged forward with blind dagger strikes, using the knife to stab. I moved as far away from her as I could, trying to keep my distance. Suddenly Reeva appeared behind the maddened Indian and began to beat ego on the back and shoulders with her fists. Whether it hurt him or not, it didn't matter. Her intervention distracted the young Sikh so much that I managed to avoid the bloody stiletto blade and wrap the leather cord around his neck.
  
  
  That's how it all started: first the attack in my hotel room, then Ashok Anand, and then the sprouts in the bathroom of the bar. And now the curtain was going to fall on another member of the infamous band of thugs in the service of Shiva.
  
  
  Her father gripped two clubs tightly as he tightened the buffalo-skin cord around Gurnek's neck. The Indian uttered a cry of surprise and horror at the same time, dropped the stiletto, trying to push the cord out of his throat. He wouldn't have survived if he kept being squeezed.
  
  
  He twisted the chopsticks around himself and picked them up. I didn't see Gurnek's face, and I didn't want to see his ego. He tried to swallow air, his breathing was asthmatic and wheezing, but the air wouldn't reach his lungs. Supported by desperation, he fought for his life with all his remaining strength. And that wasn't enough.
  
  
  He was in control now, despite his numb leg and fatigue. Her shoelace tightened, thanks to the sticks that allowed her to apply the necessary pressure. Another gurgle escaped the Indian's lips, and then the man gave up, no longer offering us the slightest resistance. Ego's body jerked forward, and he fell face down. Even then, the "nunchaku" would not let go of her until it was absolutely certain that Gurnek had returned to the fold of his gods, the Naga serpents, in whom he so fervently believed.
  
  
  When he finally realized that he was lifeless, that his body lay motionless on the cold marble floor, and that only one muscle in his thigh vibrated convulsively, he turned her over and freed her neck from the fatal leather string. Ego's face was livid, and his tongue was bitten, almost cut in two by his teeth, which he clenched in horror.
  
  
  "Could've been worse, man," I muttered. "Think about what happened to poor Nirad...
  
  
  But he didn't hear my comment. With a great effort, he slowly got up, keeping his eyes on Gurnek's figure. But he will not rise again around the dead. The Indian fought hard to give the emu its due. But in the end, everything ended in nothing.
  
  
  He was dead.
  
  
  "Help me take off his clothes," Rivet said to her, avoiding the girl's gaze, who seemed to give me a worried, silent look.
  
  
  She doesn't ask any questions, and he sees that I'm shirtless and the right side of my pants is soaked in blood. She bent down and turned away, unbuttoning Gurnek's shirt. The Indian jacket was stained with blood, but it was better than nothing.
  
  
  Reeva never looked at a dead man, not out of respect or modesty, but the man was an unpleasant sight, and I couldn't blame the girl for trying not to look at that swollen, bloody face with its blue tongue sticking out. The bone around the leaking eye glinted oddly in the glare of the motorcycle's headlight.
  
  
  Then I remembered something that Reeva had mentioned to me that day, back at Shiva's mansion. She didn't go into details, but it didn't take long to figure out what she meant by mistletoe. Her uncle used her for the most vile things, because of a sadistic taste in forcing her to satisfy the passions of men's egos.
  
  
  And now I felt no remorse for Gurnek, for the other two men who lay dead in the courtyard, victims not so much of my anger as of my determination to stay alive and complete the mission.
  
  
  He removed the bloody bandages he'd wrapped around her leg, then removed her pants as well, leaving Reeva crouched next to Gurnek's body. He crossed the courtyard and headed for the stone pool he'd noticed earlier. It was full of rainwater. He sat down on one of each tribe and washed the wound, applying wet patches from the torn shirt to prevent infection of the wound and gangrene of the leg. I wasn't even sure that the water wasn't contaminated, but at that moment I had no other choice, so I decided to take the risk.
  
  
  When he returned to Reeva, the girl took off the dead man's pants and kurta. They were a little wide at the waist, but he'd made up for it with the late Gurnek's belt. Reeva helped me put on my shirt, then stepped back, rubbing her hands together as if hey, it was cold.
  
  
  She whispered. "What do we do now, Nick?"
  
  
  "Let's take your car and go back to the villa," I said. Ego's face was tense, sunken, as if devoid of all emotion. She had been through a lot, and yet she was still narrower, more determined than ever. He thought of her father, wondering if he had as much inner strength as his daughter's ego. In this case, he can survive and hold out until we find the ego.
  
  
  - What will happen next? Reeva asked. - How... how are you going to do that?" she added, pointing to my injured leg.
  
  
  Most of the pain had subsided, and he could walk with less effort than before. The nunchucks put her down, tucked ih into the back pocket of her pants, and slid the stiletto into the leather scabbard that held her by the forearm.
  
  
  "How?" - repeat it. "Don't worry. I'll find her some way.
  
  
  "You always find something," she tried to laugh.
  
  
  She told me that Ego uncle was left with five men, not counting Ranjit and the young Sikh he shot in the leg at the Agra post office. So there were only two men left in the lead, apart from Shiva and Haksha. It won't be easy... but, this locality of Russia was not easy from the very beginning.
  
  
  
  We drove in silence. Reeva had both hands on the steering wheel of the small car. When Fatehpur Sikri was behind us, shrouded in darkness and dust, she turned her head and pointed to the dashboard drawer.
  
  
  "She brought you a present," she explained. "I'm sorry I didn't give it to you earlier, but I didn't know you'd need it."
  
  
  He opened the drawer and reached inside, feeling until he touched the butt of the gun. She was examined by a pistol in the dashboard light: it was a small .22-caliber Beretta, rather unusual for a young lady.
  
  
  But Reeva was also an outstanding girl from all points of view.
  
  
  The Beretta was an effective weapon at close range. He should have remembered that, he concluded, checking the gun, pleased that Reeva hadn't forgotten to load it.
  
  
  "When we're within sight of the villa, slow down and act as if nothing has happened," I ordered her, stretching out in the seat so I couldn't be seen. Especially with this bad leg, it was going to be a tough test, but if everything goes as he hoped, I'll be back in shape soon.
  
  
  "Wouldn't it be better to get someone to help, Nick?" It seems so risky to me, two of us against all of us... I mean, "he added, looking nervously into my eyes," we're going to take a terrible risk.
  
  
  "That's the only way forward," I said, and told Hey everything I knew about Puran Dass, and the reasons why he hadn't written to the Indian Secret Service for help in conducting operations. By the time Ey finished telling her the story about the leaks in Dass's office and his ego connection to Shiva, we were already in sight of the house.
  
  
  He sat down on the seat as Reeva slowed down. "You are my eyes from now on," I whispered. "What do you see?"
  
  
  "Nothing yet.
  
  
  Her eyes darted to Nah from below. She sat stiffly behind the wheel, her back pressed against the seat, her eyes staring straight ahead. He turned off the highway at a moderate speed, pebbles and rocks bouncing under the car.
  
  
  Suddenly, Reeva braked to a stop. "There are two of them! "What is it?" he exclaimed. "Two guards!
  
  
  Sounds of gunfire followed. Last stop. From that moment on, I didn't have the luxury of making a single mistake.
  
  
  
  
  14
  
  
  Her, screamed. "Get down lower!" -
  
  
  He reached out and pulled her into the seat. Reeva was a very easy target. Bullets whizz and ricochet furiously. Rain poured down the windshield like lead, causing large shards of glass to fall on us.
  
  
  "Lie still and wait until I give you the signal to continue," Reva warned her. He lowered the handle and opened the door, crawling along the dusty path. The door blocked me, bullets whizzing overhead. The sound of running footsteps echoed through the entire hotel. He raised the beretta and raised Rivnenskaya's head just enough to take aim.
  
  
  The turban-clad gunman fell like a wounded soldier.
  
  
  Someone was waiting for me there, and it wasn't Nag, of that I was damn sure. Hers hit the man openly in the chest. Unlike his comrades, his death was quick and relatively painless. But the other guard was nowhere to be seen. I narrowed my eyes and scanned the path from side to side, just in case he tried to catch me off guard and run into me from behind.
  
  
  "Stay down there! Reve muttered to her, telling her not to get out, around the car. She started to slide out of the seat, then stopped abruptly and did exactly as he ordered.
  
  
  Another shot rang out, giving me a good idea of the unseen shooter's hiding place. The sound came from the right, beyond the high and dense hedge wall that surrounded the villa. The yew and juniper trees completely concealed my opponent. If he'd come in behind me, from where she'd been under cover all day, I wouldn't have had a single chance to escape. So I needed to move, and quickly.
  
  
  I glanced quickly down the alley and found what I needed; her fingers were gripped by a fist-sized rock I'd noticed at the edge of the dusty path. With a quick movement, I threw her ego over the car door and heard a thud as it hit the ground about ten meters in front of me.
  
  
  Another gawk whizzed through the air. I couldn't see the shooter, but he couldn't see me, either. I listened, and soon my patience was rewarded by the sound of running footsteps, not toward me, but in the opposite direction. Shiva's guard, the last gorilla standing between the madman and me, ran mimmo, hiding behind a thick hedge.
  
  
  She was thrown by another rock, this time bigger than the first. The gun barked again, and Gawk's eyes flicked a tiny crumb up the center of the narrow path. A cry escaped my lips, a high-pitched moan of agonized pain. Not bad for someone who'd never been in the theater, I reasoned. It wasn't a long-drawn-out scream that could be heard from a long distance away, but it was a truly chilling scream, and it had an effect.
  
  
  The hedges parted to admit a figure with a turban wrapped around his head. Too late, he realized that there was no dead man on the trail. Too late, he realized that the scream was a ruse to pull ego around the shelter. He pulled away, not even looking in my direction. But now he had no time left... forever, he hoped.
  
  
  The .22-caliber pistol drove the bullet into the emu's shoulder, twisting it like a puppet so hard that the emu had to cling to the fence to keep its balance and take cover. I pulled the trigger again, and watched him perform a creepy dance, when a second gawk punched a hole in the middle of his ego forehead.
  
  
  No sound escaped the man's lips.
  
  
  Once in the glare of the headlights, he raised his hands and fired another futile shot at the gun. Then he slid down slowly, as if to sit in the middle of the path, legs stretched out in front of him, body tilted forward, head hanging on his chest.
  
  
  Reeva looked up, stood up, and peered around the end of the dashboard. "But, Uncle -" she began.
  
  
  "He'll be here soon, I assure you," I whispered. He calculated that the Beretta still had a few rounds left, more than the Sikh's heavy .45-caliber pistol. So I don't want to take up arms. He slowly got to his feet and stepped out from behind the bullet-riddled car door. Two men lay dead on the road, victims of their own stupidity, of their naive belief in the divinity of the mortal Shiva.
  
  
  But the box was real. Ego's plans to conquer all of India are also real and determined. He spoke of "humanitarian" needs, of the desire to feed and clothe his people, but Shiva was a tyrant who sought the most ruthless dictatorship, and the ego of the means to achieve power was as inhumane as the ego of the methods would have been if he had obtained power.
  
  
  A long line of hedges suddenly lit up as lights came on around the house, large mercury lamps forcing me to step back, shielding my eyes from the blinding light. Hundreds of insects, moths, and giant mosquitoes seemed to hover in the beam of light in my path. They hummed and swirled, mingling with the dust and the smell of death.
  
  
  Large flies circled like miniature vultures, falling on the two bloodied corpses and raising an insistent deafening hum in the air. A sound that made me wince as her ears pricked up in a rage for other noises. I couldn't hear anything but the flies, our sound from the brightly lit villa.
  
  
  "Ravi! Arun! suddenly there was a metallic voice, a voice that didn't sound like us, or anyone but himself.
  
  
  I looked at her, and she gave me a small nod of approval. "Shiva," she whispered. "It's him, my uncle. Be careful, Nick, please!
  
  
  "You damned bums! Where are you? What happened? Arun? Ravi? Shiva called out to the two men again, and his voice seemed to float toward me like the echo of an old plate.
  
  
  It's time for a direct confrontation, a face-to-face confrontation. I steeled myself, motioned for Reeva to stay behind me, and walked steadily down the path. Shiva shouted again, but the egos of the bodyguards were unable to respond. The flies, especially the voracious flies that swooped down on the lifeless bodies of the two Indians, kept the conversation going.
  
  
  "I'll kill you for your stupidity!" Shiva screamed in a high-pitched voice that betrayed anger and fear.
  
  
  However, he didn't dare come out to confront me. There was silence again. I crouched down as hard as I could, trying to keep my leg from going numb. After several knee bends in rapid succession, the blood began to circulate regularly. With one hand, he pushed aside her thick bush.
  
  
  From here, he could see the inner garden, lush and well-kept. What struck me once again was that this garden was a discordant nuona, so lush and fertile for its arid terrain, too rich in plants and flowers to be cultivated on such a dry and dusty plain. But yes, Shiva had the money, rupees and dollars, to lure Haji into his net. The ego had unlimited resources at its disposal, the means that allowed it to gain power, and numerous connections in the relevant circles. I was wondering how much he was giving Dass to keep the head of the Indian security service on his payroll. Or maybe Dass was another fanatic who blindly believed in Shiva's dreams of glory, in the golden age of India, in the mighty Mori and Gupta civilization.
  
  
  Whatever the man's motives, the danger to the world remained. But not as dangerous and treacherous as Shiva himself. I squeezed into the thick branches of the hedge, hoping that no rustling or creaking would betray my presence.
  
  
  "Carter?" A voice called out with more than a hint of sarcasm in it. It was an altered voice that took on dramatic proportions. "That's you, and the other one?" Have you come to visit me?
  
  
  He was cold, controlled again. He wasn't in the mood for conversation or ego puns. I would have preferred to end the discussion on a sharper note. But I couldn't see it. He stopped and pushed aside the branches, keeping his eyes on the path he had hurriedly climbed... it seemed like Sundays ago, not hours.
  
  
  What... What, take a tailor!...
  
  
  He blinked and looked again to convince himself that this was just a trick, an optical illusion. But no, my eyes weren't deceiving me. It was Shiva, but he didn't look at all like the person I imagined him to be, there was nothing in nen around what I imagined. He was completely different from us, the only person I'd ever seen in my life.
  
  
  Instead of the right hand, from the beginning of the palm... or where the fingers are usually located, the man wore a stainless steel prosthesis... up to the shoulder. He didn't have a right hand, but Reeva's devilish and cunning uncle didn't wear us, ordinary prosthetics, us, ordinary objects, us wooden or plastic hands. No, sir.
  
  
  A steel cobra attached to his shoulder was moving back and forth in the air, a "cobra" that resembled a living reptile in every way, its metal teeth dripping with a powerful resentment!
  
  
  To say that it was fantastic and unbelievable was an understatement. He kept blinking, but it wasn't a mirage or a hallucination. It was what is p/, terrible and frightening what is p/! The steel cobra's anatomical details were precise down to the smallest detail: a wedge-shaped head with a hood, opening and closing jaws. The teeth were undoubtedly hypodermic syringes, capable of injecting deadly reptilian resentment into the victim's blood.
  
  
  Her gaze shifted from the strange and menacing device to Shiva's face. A cold, angular, reptilian face. He had narrow black eyes and thick, bushy eyebrows. He was of medium height, with a lean, lean body that exuded the spirit of demonic malice.
  
  
  He was not an ordinary opponent, but a human being, like most of my enemies, gathered in a single gang... people like Karak, the elusive Werewolf, or the personified demon who called himself " Mr. Judas."
  
  
  As if the steel cobra wasn't enough, as a defensive weapon (and, if necessary, as an offensive weapon), Shiva's good hand held a .45-caliber pistol, the world-famous American Colt. Shiva waved the gun back and forth, waiting for any movement or sound that might reveal my location in the hedge.
  
  
  He shouted. "Honestly, Carter! "I won't shoot. We need to talk, discuss... Even your conversation with Mr. Dass today is not going to end, by the way. And while we're at it, tell me what you did to my niece, pretty Miss Singh." I can't find this cute girl.
  
  
  I didn't answer.
  
  
  Instead, he raised the beretta and aimed it at Shiva's chest. Slowly, he pulled the trigger, thinking to himself that the nightmare would soon be over. The man stood out perfectly, and I couldn't have wished for an easier target: in fact, the light streaming from the della sviatum behind him every other day completely illuminated his slender figure.
  
  
  But instead of seeing him fall to his knees, instead of hearing ego's last muffled cry or seeing him writhe in agony, hers was stunned when he saw the goggle-eyed Beretta bounce off his chest. Then gawk fell into an ancient stone statue in the center of the garden.
  
  
  "So you're there! The Indian grinned and pulled the trigger of the colt, firing a lethal bullet a few inches from my head.
  
  
  Her instinctively doubled over, still not believing her eyes. The gawk bounced off his chest, but there was no sign that Shiva was wearing a bulletproof corset under his white kurta . Indeed, her ego could see her bare chest under her shirt, the outline of her ribcage, the muscles. Everything is clearly visible to my incredulous eyes.
  
  
  Unless he's steel, too, she concluded. But that was impossible. A human is not a robot... or not?
  
  
  No, of course it wasn't, but there was no denying what I saw, and there was no denying that Shiva seemed to be endowed with supernatural powers. Guo aimed it a second time and pulled the trigger. Hers was aimed at the Indian's head, but at the same moment he recoiled, and gawk got stuck in the door jamb, narrowly missing the mark.
  
  
  So he was vulnerable, or at least he was vulnerable in some parts of his body. Since I didn't know how many rounds I had left, she didn't have to wait for Shiva to come out around the mansion. With a quick movement, despite his injured leg, he pushed away her thick hedge and began to fly through the garden. Her, knew that the ego gun could go off at any moment. It was a sound he didn't want her to hear, but he risked it anyway, praying that the man would stay out of sight until she reached the side facade of the villa.
  
  
  "Are you looking for someone?"
  
  
  He turned around and pulled the trigger at the same time. But the Beretta was silent: the store was deserted. One click, and that's it. She was thrown by a revolver into Shiva's twisted, grinning face. A cobra-shaped metal arm shot up. The Beretta bounced off the metal arm and fell to the ground.
  
  
  "Don't move, Mr. Carter. Step forward, " Shiva ordered. He kept the colt pointed straight at my chest, and I wasn't going to separate myself from that anatomical part of my body... at least not so prematurely.
  
  
  "What are you waiting for, Shiva?" Why don't you shoot, so let's get this over with?
  
  
  "To see you die without suffering a miserable death, dear other?" No, I'm afraid that's not my style. After all, my beautiful snakes are still hungry, despite the plentiful edu thanks to young Nirad. I think the boy was more useful as a waiter. But I want Cobra to be a single and compact organization. And since Nirad's older brother was already in my service, I saw no reason not to hire the boy as well. Unfortunately, you didn't think about ending your career. The monster clicked its tongue reproachfully, holding the gun pointed at me to stack the dollar.
  
  
  Behind me, hers, I heard someone moving cautiously. He turned his head and saw the figure of the Sikh he'd wounded earlier today, shooting an EMU in the right leg in front of the Agra post office. "Oh, it's you, Krishna! Shiva exclaimed happily. Then he looked at me with a wink. "I think you two know, another one, another one.
  
  
  "We had the pleasure of meeting again today," I muttered.
  
  
  "Already. I remember Krishna telling me the details of your meeting. But what you didn't know, Mr. Carter, was that Krsna is Nirad's older brother. He was named after the Hindu god of love, although he was raised as a devout Sikh. But none of that matters now — Shiva cut him off. "Suffice it to say that Krishna has a certain hatred for you, dear Carter, especially since he has discovered that you are responsible for the tragic death of your brother's ego.
  
  
  "If Nirada hadn't killed her, he would have killed me," I said. "You know very well, Shiva. This is the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest.
  
  
  "Actually, actually," the Indian chuckled. — But you, I'm terribly sorry to tell you, you're not the strongest anymore, Mr. Carter.
  
  
  Krsna didn't say a word to us. He wished he'd noticed the bulging Nunchucks in his back pocket. But with one gun pointed at my chest and the other at my back, he didn't dare make a false move, or they'd both pull the triggers. So I stood there, trying not to put too much stress on my injured leg.
  
  
  "You haven't answered my corkscrew question yet, Carter," Shiva continued. "You didn't tell me what happened to my pretty niece."..
  
  
  "She's dead.
  
  
  He raised his eyebrows as ego's menacing black eyes flashed. "Dead?"
  
  
  "Dead," I lied. "Gurnek killed her before ego could stop him. She died instantly, if that's any consolation.
  
  
  "Not at all," Shiva replied with a mocking laugh. "She's always been a lying, smug whore since she was a child. But I will miss her especially, for what she did with my men, and what they found so funny since she lived with me...
  
  
  "So she was your prisoner, you mean.
  
  
  "As you prefer, it doesn't matter. Except for her poor father... my beloved brother will suffer deeply for the loss of his dear daughter.
  
  
  With every passing second, he was beginning to realize how easy it was to hate this man. He was a pervert, a monster with a mind like a steel trap, brilliant but twisted, insane. The man licked his lips and gave me a sadistic, sarcastic smile.
  
  
  "I'll have a lot of fun with you, Carter," he said with a chuckle. - As you will see, the little time we spend together will be fun!
  
  
  "Tell me one more thing, Shiva, just for the record," I interrupted, raising my voice, hoping that Reeva could hear me and in case she missed the first lines of the dialogue. "Where's Reeva's father?" A girl named I. told me about it... do you want to know? Hey, I didn't trust her...
  
  
  Shiva's twisted psychology worked exactly as I'd hoped.
  
  
  "You were a fool to doubt my niece," said the Indian. "My brother is safe and sound, just a few steps away. If I remember her correctly, you went to the slaughterhouse the same day. Where you started the pandemonium, I might add.
  
  
  "Where is he?"
  
  
  "What, Mr. Carter?" My brother is not in a position to cause damage in all the houses around, voice and all; to be precise, he is not in a position to cause damage in all the houses around the water area. He gloated, enjoying the power he held in his hands.
  
  
  And he stood there, unable to make a move to reverse the situation. He had two guns pointed at him, front and back, ready to turn into a piece of Swiss cheese in a matter of seconds. It wasn't the best time for my favorite stunts, especially with Krishna, who was very eager to shoot me to avenge the death of his brother.
  
  
  But suddenly gawking cut short ego dreams of a page. The shot was fired in the direction of the hedge where Reeva was hiding. The girl had a perfect goal. He jumped out of the way of Shiva's gun and looked at Krishna out of the corner of his eye: a scarlet stain appeared on the front of his white shirt. He went down like a log, the impact of a bullet knocking ego back against the open door on the side facade of the villa.
  
  
  I was hoping to take the moment to ask permission to perform Shiva. He leaped forward, striking the hand holding the gun to force ego to let go of the gun. He fired just as a cobra-shaped steel hand came down on my shoulder.
  
  
  The teeth, dripping with deadly venom, were two inches from my neck. I hit the Indian in the jaw, avoiding the ego of the chest, as I still didn't understand what he was wearing under the jacket," and didn't want to break my hand on a steel plate.
  
  
  "You can't win, Carter! Never! The man hissed as her ego slammed the palm of his hand into the cleavage between her neck and shoulder. The blow worked; the man loosened his grip for a moment, and the gun fell to the ground.
  
  
  It was flung aside by ego, and the gun went flying across the gravel path. "So we're even," I said, taking a step back. I put my hand in a minute and picked up the nunchucks.
  
  
  Shiva narrowed his eyes until they were two thin slits, his face more reptilian than ever. I don't think he knew what "nunchucks" were, but he definitely understood that they weren't innocent weapons. He backed up to the door, stepping over Krsna's corpse... at the same moment, the gunshot rang out again. But this time Reeva's aim wasn't quite as accurate, and her gawking eyes got stuck in the dust and gravel at her uncle's foot.
  
  
  "Then the whore is alive," the monster said, " not for long, Carter, I assure you.
  
  
  "You can't afford to insure against an accident!" I said ironically, keeping my distance because of the cobra's teeth. The gleaming teeth on the metal rod reminded me of Shiva's peculiar madness, his sadistic methods.
  
  
  "It's jammed!" Don't shoot, Nick! Reeva's voice was shrill with panic behind the thick hedge.
  
  
  "Stay there; don't go! Hey shouted back at her.
  
  
  I had to use my nunchucks to smash the monster's head in or strangle it. But I couldn't get any closer, at least not yet.
  
  
  "You must have realized that the teeth are my cobra... the Indian's very black eyes flicked to the metal hand for a moment ...they are full of deadly venom, a mixture formed around the venom of four snakes. He tried to take his time, stopping at the description of the dragon. "It was made with a mixture of green mamba venom, scaly viper venom, Australian snake venom, and my favorite reptile for reasons you might have guessed, namely king cobra venom. All together, Mr. Carter, they make an impression that makes young Nirad's death seem like a merciful gift, as if the boy wasn't hurt at all. But you know how much he suffered, don't you, Carter?
  
  
  "Where's The Box, Shiva?" I asked her, ignoring his short speech and the satanic smirk that curled his ego's lip. "I'm willing to make a deal with you, an exchange. Your life is on the invention of Haji.
  
  
  "A deal? he said with a laugh. "You're kidding, Carter. Imagine, he even took the precaution of destroying all of Haji's notes and notes in case he ever decided to run away! No, there's only one Box here, and it's mine, Carter. No one else will get it.
  
  
  "So the good guys in Beijing will give you carte blanche, right?" You are deluding yourself, Shiva. Not to mention that you're wasting my precious time.
  
  
  As far as she knew, the Indian was bluffing. Perhaps the Albanian Hadji was slipping away from the villa at that very moment, taking his precious invention with him. Its gone too far to see my locality in Russia fail miserably. That's why I made the decision. As long as I keep out of reach of the metal cobra arm, I can get away with it.
  
  
  He took a step forward, and Shiva backed away. He was afraid, despite the terrible weapon that seemed to be an integral part of the ego of the body, the ego of the being. Grinning, he continued to drag her foot along the gravel driveway. He backed away again, but this time it was hers, stepped aside and ran toward me, trying to get after him before he could maneuver my metal arm for a killing blow.
  
  
  The movement required time calculated to the hundredth of a dolly second, the time it took to pull the leather cord around the monster's neck, and the time it took to dodge and avoid being bitten by the subcutaneous teeth. At the same time that he leaped forward, trying to wrap the gaur hide around Shiva's throat, a steel hand swung down and cut the cord in half. Her "nunchaku" stick hit the metal rod of the cursed device, but the wood slid across the smooth surface.
  
  
  The venomous teeth came dangerously close to my neck. Shiva pushed her toward the front, let go of what was left of my nunchucks (a former broomstick), and grabbed the steel cobra with both hands. The man was breathing heavily, and the artificial arm came up in front of me. I didn't know how it worked, but I couldn't stop to ask about it.
  
  
  My elbow touched the man's chest. The Indian was wearing something hard, but not metallic. It must have been plastic. Shiva continued to grin even as he struggled, and as if reading my mind, he said, " Very light and bulletproof." Another great invention from Haji. "He behaved like a maniac, even in the most desperate situations.
  
  
  He was so proud, so confident. Meanwhile, the poison-spitting teeth kept licking and licking, coming up to my neck. My arm was supernaturally strong, like a robot's, while the Indian's other arm couldn't overcome my physical strength. But I was too strong for him, and he fought hard to keep the gleaming metal teeth from sinking into my neck.
  
  
  It was picked up by one of each tribe and went on the attack, hitting ego in the groin. Shiva let out a groan as he doubled over, and at the same time she was being driven by tooth-like hypodermic needles into ego's flesh, into ego's thin, muscular neck.
  
  
  The first expression of amazement and the flag of permission to perform was followed by an expression of horror that distorted the ego features.
  
  
  I pulled back so that the steel hand wouldn't hit me first or second, and then I stopped, watching Shiva gasp, trying to breathe. Insults began to affect the respiratory centers, strange bloody spots appeared on the skin. Dark red spots quickly appeared on the skin - internal bleeding.
  
  
  - A car... Carter ... Ann... the antidote... he groaned, trying to move his legs so that he could enter the villa again, and probably make it to the lab. But the ego's legs were already paralyzed.
  
  
  Shiva fell to the ground, writhing in a violent convulsive tremor that shook his entire ego, body.
  
  
  Reeva appeared at my side.
  
  
  But she didn't look away or bury her head in my chest. She sat there, shivering, watching her uncle die, never ceasing to stare at the writhing figure, turning still and cold in the face of death.
  
  
  Because it was death who was putting on this show there, in this garden that seemed so out of place, so fertile and green, and so out of place in the arid poverty of bare and dusty India.
  
  
  It was an unpleasant death. But, this Shiva was never a nice person.
  
  
  
  
  15
  
  
  I can not say that in the end everything ended well, that is, a beautiful package with a box tied with a ribbon, for receptions at the doors of the Academy. In fact, after Shiva's death, only one math major (there was only one left) managed to escape through the network of an organization that called itself Cobra.
  
  
  "Hawk told me that he knew from a reliable source that Haji had crossed the Indian border to disappear into the limitless territory of China. After that, nothing else was known about the Albanian scientist. But I wasn't naive enough to believe that sooner or later, in the not-too-distant future, we wouldn't meet an ego along the way.
  
  
  Like Shiva, at first Haji was still an enigma, a faceless threat whose scientific ingenuity was probably already being exploited by the people who ruled Beijing.
  
  
  Anyway, it's none of my business... at least not yet.
  
  
  Ten days ago, I had other things to do, namely kill Shiva and retrieve the box. Shiva was dead. The box that Reeva and I had found in the safe at the madman's villa was already in our hands. Then he left for Agra to pick up his things in New Delhi, taking Reeva with him. And at this moment, Shiva's niece, lying next to me on a large mat on the golden sand of a small beach along the Malachar coast. A ten-minute walk away was the picturesque town of Panaji, once occupied by the Portuguese. We were in Goa on a well-deserved vacation.
  
  
  Reeva was curled up next to me, mumbling in her sleep, her slender, tanned body smelling of sunscreen. The soft, rhythmic sound of the waves lapping against the shore made me feel deeply drowsy, a wonderful sensation. I wasn't threatened anymore, I didn't have to run anymore, I didn't feel desperate. I no longer fought for my life, or faced situations that in many cases seemed clearly against me, but almost never favored me.
  
  
  But even then I had very few opportunities in this case. All this time, it was Shiva who created situations, dictated the rules of the game. In the end, he was the loser, which, in my opinion, he never thought possible. Even a shipment of drugs worth ten million never reached its destination thanks to the prompt intervention of the Indian government.
  
  
  The helicopter carrying heroin around China was briefly flown by Indian Air Force planes at the very moment it crossed the border and was en route to the skies of India.
  
  
  Two days later, the minister committed suicide: his death indicated that he had ties to the Cobra organization. And as for Puran Dass, a former Indian intelligence officer, the long arm of the Law has finally proved its effectiveness.
  
  
  Dass was in jail in New Delhi awaiting trial. Emu would have had a lot to tell the judges, especially since the government promised Emu a stay of the death sentence if he agreed to reveal everything he knew about Cobra's operations.
  
  
  From the way her ego knew her, I had no doubt that Dass would be a cooperative witness, telling government officials everything they wanted to know, and maybe more.
  
  
  Thus, in the current situation, the gaps were filled in. With the exception of Haji, I managed to complete the tasks, to Hawke's obvious satisfaction. He hadn't even forgotten his promise to Reeva. We found her father in a secret place, back in the slaughterhouse.
  
  
  Now the poor man was admitted to a private room in the best hospital in New Delhi, where doctors and nurses did everything possible for his recovery at all times and at night. Thus, he kept his word to Reva and AX.
  
  
  "Take a month off," Hawk said in a burst of generosity now that he'd completed the mission with some success.
  
  
  The wound on my leg began to heal, but each time it didn't get any better. And I had a hunch that my boss would call me back in a couple of weeks to put a new mission on my back... which I couldn't refuse.
  
  
  All these thoughts swarmed through my head as I lay on the beach, basking in the sun.
  
  
  He reached out and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him. But someone poked me in the ribs...
  
  
  The drowsiness vanished, and she was instantly on her feet. Reeva burst out laughing as we both turned to face a bearded man who had set down a large wicker basket on the sand. "I ask little, sahib," the man said with a broad smile. "Just twenty rupees and I'll show you how to enchant snakes.".. Very poisonous, sahib... cobras!
  
  
  I gave em twenty rupees without saying a word to us.
  
  
  Twenty rupees for saying "no" to act as a snake charmer, but to have the privilege of not seeing a cobra in front of you, even if it is tamed.
  
  
  "You know, you'd love the show," Reeva said with a chuckle.
  
  
  "Not as much as I like you," I said, hugging her again.
  
  
  Above, gulls soared in the cloudless sky. Fortunately, they're not vultures, I thought. Then the vultures and the dragon forgot it, even India.
  
  
  I had Reeva with me, and that was more than enough to keep my mind occupied.
  
  
  thread.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Carter Nick
  
  
  The man who sold his death
  
  
  
  
  Nick Carter
  
  
  The man who sold his death
  
  
  translated by Lev Shklovsky in memory of his lost son Anton
  
  
  Original name: The Man Who Sold Death
  
  
  
  
  Prologue
  
  
  Hxiang Shu Zhang waited. Alone in the polar night. He crouched on the moonlit snow like a dragon ready to attack. Ego's nostrils fluttered and puffed out clouds of steam. Ego's eyes flashed madly over his own trail.
  
  
  The white camouflage raincoat did little to protect his wiry body from the harsh wind and sub-zero temperatures. Behind him, the ego-dead sled dogs lay spread-legged in the ever-shifting snow. The ego of the sled was crushed by the howling rage of the dogs ' death throes. Resentment, Hsiang knew now. Slow-acting grievances. Never mind, he thought. Hsiang didn't think about running away anymore. He no longer thought about survival. All he could think about was death and the gun on his hip that was supposed to kill ego.
  
  
  A hundred miles to the east, far away in a ghostly landscape, the ruins of the ego's life's work still smouldered. A high-pitched cry of bestial rage erupted around Ego's throat at the memory of all the years he had put into it, and of ego's brutal, sudden destruction. The ego of the lab. For a moment, he succumbed to the thought it was originally meant for. For a moment, he imagined the devastation it must have caused.
  
  
  He imagined vast fields of American wheat, stunted and rotting in the hot sun, stained and smelly with the deadly fungus of the ego lab. He saw how Russian bureaucrats were desperate for new supplies of grain for the starving population, which they could not find anywhere. He smiled unconsciously.
  
  
  But only for a fraction of a second. The wind tore the smile from ego's lips, reminding him where he had been and who had changed ego's fate. There will be no tribute to Hshang Sjo Jan. It failed. And ego leaders would be unhappy about it.
  
  
  But he wasn't coming back to face them. Hsiang knew that he would die here, in the snow of the wilderness, in this endless night. But before he can taste death, he will satisfy his thirst for murder: the death of this American.
  
  
  Hsiang was sure that a tall American would come soon, because this American was a solid man. He carefully killed Sung and Jiang, the self-taught killers. And after killing those two sentries, he went to great lengths to plant incendiary bombs. The destruction of the lab was complete.
  
  
  The American struck while Hshang was sleeping. He was awakened by the last muffled explosions and saw flames shooting out all around the doors and windows.
  
  
  He ran to his sledge and dogs, fleeing from a very distant figure, the American that the Eskimos had whispered about in the southern settlement earlier this week.
  
  
  When the dogs died en route, Hsiang realized that the American had taken precautions. He wasn't going to let Hsiang go, so it was clear that the American wasn't the type to leave anything to chance. He will come to make sure that Hsiang is dead .
  
  
  Hsiang was trembling with anger. "Die, American," he whispered to the night. "Die first."
  
  
  One hour, two. He crouched down, warmed by hatred. And finally, faint from the rising wind, the barking of dogs.
  
  
  Hsiang quickly took out his right hand around the mitt on the sheepskin and stuck it in the car park's mouth. His fingers tightened around the automatic pistol. The Chinese know the ego as a Type, 54, ih copy of the Russian 7.62 mm TT M 1933 Tokarev . Hsiang slowly took the pistol out of his pocket and brought eight Mauser rounds each, heavy enough to go through a foot of pine, into Odin's room. Then he sat down on his belly in the snow, open between the ego-smashed sled tracks, and peered through the visor of his weapon.
  
  
  It won't be a difficult shot in the moonlight. A well-defined goal is approaching it with candid eyes ahead. Hsiang put the gun back in a minute, lowered his white-capped head, and became almost invisible in the snow. Then he started counting. An American would have good dogs, the kind that could live to be thirty-five. But I had to take my fatigue into account: twenty-five an hour. About two and a half minutes per kilometer. Four hundred meters per minute. Seven meters per second.
  
  
  When he heard the sound again, it became clearer. By pricking up his ears, he could distinguish the sounds of different dogs. A moment later, the sledge rattled.
  
  
  Hsjan drew his gun. He didn't see the sled until he was a hundred yards away. He ran out through the blizzard, dogs rushing, a bumpy pile of blanket-covered supplies running the length of the sled, and then a tall, dark figure leaning out around the rear runners, swaying through the ghostly landscape.
  
  
  Hsiang counted slowly to ten, then opened fire. Looking over the visor at the dark figure standing behind the charging dogs, Hsiang saw a small tuft, perhaps a skull and hair, that smoked for a moment in the moonlight before collapsing into the snow. But the motionless driver and the barking dogs continued to run.
  
  
  Hsiang fired again and again. And again. The dogs, the sled, and the man continued to rumble, looming high above the ego visor. He couldn't miss now. Hsiang's index finger tightened on the trigger again. The gun rattled.
  
  
  Ego's field of vision was filled with wild dog eyes, tongues hanging from drooling mouths, paws grinding through the snowstorm like the pistons of a fleeing infernal machine. Hsjan knelt and fired again into the gap between himself and the figure in the dark parque. Then he threw himself out of the way of the speeding sled.
  
  
  Up close, as the sledge passed mimmo, Hshang saw that the figure had no face. The park was empty. He spent his precious bullets on the scarecrow. In the next instant, he saw the weight on the sledge lift as a flying figure fluttered around its hiding place under the blanket.
  
  
  The thin blade glinted in the moonlight.
  
  
  Hsiang swung the gun up as the body hit him, sending him sprawling on his back in the snow. A strong hand grabbed Ego's wrist and crushed the bone.
  
  
  Weakly, Hsiang tried to raise the gun again.
  
  
  'Who are you?'he screamed. "Who are you who kills so well? The stiletto flashed down.
  
  
  In the last, brief moment of his life, Hsiang heard two things.
  
  
  Ego's blood drips on the snow.
  
  
  And the name: "Nick Carter."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Carter Nick
  
  
  
  The man who sold his death
  
  
  
  Name original: The Man Who Sold Death
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Prologue
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Xiang Shuyang waited. Alone in the polar night. He crouched in the moonlit snow like a dragon about to attack. Ego's nostrils quivered and puffed out clouds of steam. The ego's eyes stared blankly at the ego's own trail.
  
  
  The white camouflage robe did little to protect his wiry body from the harsh wind and subzero temperatures. Behind him, the ego-dead sled dogs lay stretched out in the ever-shifting snow. Sani's ego was crushed by the howling rage of the dogs. Resentment, Xiang knew now. Slow-acting resentment. Never mind, he thought. Xiang no longer thought about running away. He no longer thought about survival. All he could think about was death and the gun on his hip that was supposed to kill ego.
  
  
  A hundred miles to the east, far away in the thicket of ghosts, the ruins of ego life's affairs still smouldered. A high-pitched cry of bestial rage erupted around ego's throat at the memory of all the years he'd put into this, and that cruel, sudden destruction. The ego of the lab. For a moment, he wondered what it was designed for. For a moment, he imagined the destruction it would cause.
  
  
  He imagined vast fields of American wheat, stunted in growth and rotting under the scorching sun, smeared and reeking of the deadly fungus of the ego lab. He saw how Russian bureaucrats desperately needed new grain supplies for the hungry population, which they could not find anywhere. He smiled unconsciously.
  
  
  But all this was gone for only Dolly seconds. The wind cut the smile from ego's lips, reminding him where he'd been and who had changed his fate. There will be no Xiang Shu award in January. It failed. And ego leaders would be unhappy about it.
  
  
  But he wouldn't face them. Hsiang knew that he would die here, in the snow of the wilderness, in this endless night. But before he can taste death, he will satisfy his thirst for murder: kill this American.
  
  
  Xiang was sure that a tall American would arrive soon, because this American was a meticulous person. He neatly killed Sung and Jiang, the self-taught killers. And after killing those two sentries, he did his best to plant incendiary bombs. The lab was completely destroyed.
  
  
  The American struck while Xiang was sleeping. Ego was awakened by the last muffled explosions, and he saw flames erupting around all the doors and windows.
  
  
  He ran to his sled and his dogs, fleeing from another distant figure, the American that the Eskimos had whispered about in the southern settlement earlier this week.
  
  
  When the dogs died en route, Xiang knew that the American had taken precautions. He wasn't going to let Xiang escape, so it was clear that the American wasn't a person who could leave anything to chance. He will come to establish Xiang's death.
  
  
  Xiang shivered with anger. "Die, you damned American," he whispered to the night. "Die first."
  
  
  One hour, two. He crouched down, basking in hatred. Finally, the dogs began to bark faintly in the rising wind.
  
  
  Xiang quickly pulled out his right hand around his sheepskin mitt and stuck it into the pocket of his doublet. His fingers tightened around the automatic pistol. The Chinese know the ego as the Type 54, ih copy of the Russian 7.62 mm TT M 1933 Tokarev. Xiang slowly drew a pistol from his pocket and cocked it with one of eight Mauser rounds, heavy enough to penetrate a foot of pine. Then he sank belly-first into the snow, between the ego-smashed sled tracks, and peered over the visor of his weapon.
  
  
  It won't be difficult in the moonlight. A well-defined goal approaches him with frank eyes. Hsiang put the gun back in his pocket, lowered his head in a white cap and stood almost invisible in the snow. Then he started counting. The American will have good dogs, whose speed can reach up to thirty-five kilometers per hour. But fatigue was something to be reckoned with: twenty-five an hour. For example, two and a half minutes per kilometer. Four hundred meters per minute. Seven meters per second.
  
  
  When he heard the sound again, it became clearer. And when he was alert, he could distinguish the sounds of different dogs. A moment later, the sledge rattled.
  
  
  Hsiang pulled out his gun. He didn't see the sled until it was a hundred yards away. He sprinted out of the snowy ambush: dogs were racing, a bumpy pile of blanket-covered supplies stretched the entire length of the sled, and then a tall dark figure protruding from the back of the sled swayed across the ghostly landscape.
  
  
  Xiang slowly counted to ten and opened fire. Looking over the visor at the dark figure's head behind the charging dogs, Xiang saw a small bun, possibly head and hair, appear briefly in the moonlight before diving into the snow. But the motionless driver and the barking dog kept going.
  
  
  Xiang fired again and again. And again. The dogs, the sled, and the man continued to make noise, looming over Ego ambush. He couldn't miss now. Xiang's index finger wrapped around the trigger again. The gun thundered again.
  
  
  Ego's field of vision was filled with the wild eyes of dogs, tongues sticking out of drooling mouths, paws grinding on the blizzard-like snow like the pistons of a fleeing infernal machine. Xiang rose to his knees and fired again through the gap between him and the dark-jacketed figure. Then, he threw himself out of the path of the speeding sled.
  
  
  Up close, as the sledge passed, Xiang saw that the figure had no face. The park was empty. He spent his precious bullets on the scarecrow. The next thing he knew, the weight on the sled lifted as something flew around the shelter of the blanket.
  
  
  The thin blade glinted in the moonlight.
  
  
  Hsiang swung the gun up as the stiletto hit him, sending ego sprawling on his back in the snow. A strong hand grabbed Ego's wrist and crushed the bone.
  
  
  Hsiang tried to raise the gun again.
  
  
  He screamed. 'Who are you?"Who are you who kills so well?" flashed the stiletto.
  
  
  In the last brief moment of his life, Xiang heard two things.
  
  
  Like blood dripping on snow.
  
  
  And the name: "Nick Carter."
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  
  
  — Are you absolutely sure Hsiang is dead, Nick?"
  
  
  There are times when David Hawke " can be annoying, and this was one of those moments. Sitting in his headquarters in Washington, D.C., while his ego-rumpled tweed suit reeked of the ego stink of cheap cigars, Hawk starred in his own production of "The Perfect Bureaucrat."
  
  
  A brown folder marked "Carter-Hsiang" was placed diagonally in front of him, and Hawk pulled on the butt of his cigarette and did his best to make sure I didn't see anything around its contents. In addition to the folder and the cigar, ego's main crutch was an I try fountain pen, which I continued to write in the folder while I described the events in the Arctic.
  
  
  He glanced at his watch and stared at the blue cloud of smoke that hung over Hawke's gray head. "Hsiang is dead in Rivne at fifty-four hours, seven minutes, and sixteen seconds," I said.
  
  
  Hawke's pen continued to scratch the paper.
  
  
  "The emu was stabbed twice in the throat with a stiletto. The first wound damaged the carotid artery, the second opened the trachea. The body is still there. If you want to go and see the body, I can tell you about nen inside and out.
  
  
  "Now, now, Nick," Hawk said. "Not so hostile. You know how things are with our people in Washington. We live on paperwork. How else can we justify ourselves? Agents like you, Killmaster playboys, get all the fun, all the adventure, all the travel. Don't spare us these few miserable moments.
  
  
  Hawk gave me a smile about the length of an ego cigar butt. "All right, Nick," he said. 'Thank you. Not just on your own behalf and AH. There are some senior government officials who want you to know that they appreciate what you did there."
  
  
  He made appropriate sounds of gratitude.
  
  
  "Hsiang worked to cause us very serious trouble," he said. "And her, I'm afraid we'll see more of his kind now." In addition to being a fairly expensive hobby, war has become terribly rare. That is, a war in the old-fashioned way, with armies and weapons, with massive destruction in the open field.
  
  
  Hsiang was a new type of soldier: an economic warrior. Fewer copies, more brains. Wen's near-surgical knowledge of the world economy and the maniac's desire to dissect ih. The result remains the same: the destruction of nations and peoples, the overthrow of all civilized systems generated by life. But the cost of operations is lower, and the goals are easy to hide."
  
  
  Hawk took out an iso rta cigar, leaned over his desk, and spoke very slowly, very clearly, and very deliberately. "But the danger is no less.
  
  
  He waved his hand in front of his face, as if to erase an invisible horror.
  
  
  "Did you see the cherry blossoms on your way here?" he asked.
  
  
  "Yes," I said.
  
  
  "Washington has a lot to offer in the spring," he said.
  
  
  Hers, looked at him sharply. I know ego has a strange way of getting to the point, and it wasn't hard for me to suspect ego of trying to burden me with some office work. Ego should have known her better.
  
  
  "As good as Washington is," he said, " I believe there are better places."
  
  
  "Not for you," I said.
  
  
  Hawk laughed. "How about a vacation, Nick?"
  
  
  My eyebrows shot up to my hairline, but before Hawk could enjoy his small surprise, it was lowered again by ih.
  
  
  "What's the joke?"
  
  
  'A joke?'he said, lighting another of his dirty cigars.
  
  
  "You heard me," I said.
  
  
  Hawke plays offended innocence. Someday I'll pay someone a lot of money to make a copy of the Oscar for them. — Why do you doubt me, Nick?" Has her ever lied to you?
  
  
  We both had to laugh.
  
  
  "Seriously," he said. — How about a trip?" He leaned back in the swivel chair, his eyes scanning the ceiling as if it were a map of the world.
  
  
  "To some nice and warm place where you can get rid of the Arctic cold," he said.
  
  
  I waited for her, but I don't say anything.
  
  
  "Ah, take the French Riviera, for example. Yes, I've heard that it's beautiful in late spring, just before tourists flock there. A place like Nice. I had enough information. "Listen," I said. "Are you talking about a vacation or a job?"
  
  
  Hawke's idea of an honest answer was a new question. — Do you know who's in Nice now?"
  
  
  "Tell me," I said.
  
  
  "Just one of the best movie stars in America."
  
  
  I told her. 'Really?'
  
  
  "Yes, indeed," Hawk said with a shark-like grin. "And she seems to be alone, too." Last night, she was there all alone , in the Mediterrane Palace, playing and losing roulette, and no one could comfort her. Hawke shook his head at the "your sorrows" of it all. "All right," I said. "Its giving up. Who's that?'
  
  
  Ego's eyes narrowed slightly as he replied, "Nicole Cara."
  
  
  "Nicole Makes," I said,"died in a plane crash four years ago."
  
  
  'Really? Hawk said, placing my plane ticket across the chair.
  
  
  
  Chapter 2
  
  
  
  
  He was a real freak.
  
  
  Her, stood and stared at him in the ego glass cage, oblivious to anything but the ego of work. A tiny birdlike target, nervous eyes twinkling behind a pair of glasses perched on a long beak nose. Ego's bony body twitched with nervous tension, as if he was always going to run away when he got scared. Nicotine fingers flipped through the photos of ego on the ash-covered desk. Alone in his small room with a good view of his filing cabinets, which stood there like imposing rows of tombstones in a crowded cemetery, he felt in his element. Hubert Wicklow, a devotee of facts, a keeper of memories, a bearer of forgotten data. The Empire's Ego was the dusty archive of a single National News Agency.
  
  
  The rays of light that filtered through the polluted New York air through the high windows of the room were the only relief. The air hung still and heavy with the dust in the room.
  
  
  In this huge mausoleum, the past is embalmed: journalistic finds of colonels who ruled somewhere in Latin America for a week or a month; murderers whose crimes excited the public for fourteen days; crooks, athletes, presidents, prime ministers, exiled kings, a huge international string of people who momentarily won the capricious attention of the press, and then slipped on to be practically forgotten. But not Hubert Wicklow.
  
  
  In the gigantic recesses of the ego mind, names, facts, data, and statistics were piled up like miser's treasures. What he couldn't immediately recall from memory, he could find in ten minutes, pulling out the past around the grave-like drawers of his filing cabinets.
  
  
  There are people who can make such a memory profitable, but not Hubert Wicklow. Put the ego in front of strangers, get the ego to perform, and tell the emu how to get rich by providing just a simple fact, and all that broke out around the thin ego twitching rta was a helpless stutter. He shrugged and held out his hands, palms up. He shook his head weakly. Raindrops played on his forehead and rolled down his nose.
  
  
  Hubert Wicklow had a strange and subtle genius. Ugly was a good word for him. The other one, too.
  
  
  He cleared his throat.
  
  
  Startled, he looked up. His hand touched the pile of photographs on the floor. Ego's face turned red. The hand slapped a smoldering cigarette in the ashtray, missed, and rolled the cigarette across the table.
  
  
  "Take the tailor," he said.
  
  
  "Calm down," I said. "It's just me."
  
  
  Em had managed to find his own cigarette, and now, bent double in his chair, he was diligently searching for photographs under his desk.
  
  
  Ego words swirled through the smoke. "Let me clean up the mess first. Over there. Curse. I heard him bang his head on the chair below, and then reappear with his photos; flushed but happy.
  
  
  He carefully placed ih on the chair, stood up, and held out his hand. "How are you, Nick?"
  
  
  "As always," I said. 'And you?'
  
  
  "I'm doing everything I can," he said.
  
  
  He picked up a stack of photos from a chair in the corner of his room and placed them on the floor. "Sit down," he said.
  
  
  'I'm sitting down.'
  
  
  Settling his skeleton back in the swivel chair, he stubbed out his cigarette, lit another, put it to the corner of the rta, and took a quick drag. Ash flew through the air and landed on Emu's shirt. "Still united press and telegraph services?" This pseudonym was the only thing he ever pointed out about the forbidden topic of my work. "Indeed," I said.
  
  
  "Well, what can we do today for our fellow journalists?" he asked with a smile.
  
  
  "I need information," I said.
  
  
  Hubert slid forward on the table. "Tell me about it," he said.
  
  
  "Nicole's Doing It," I said.
  
  
  "Died on March 3, 1972, in a plane crash at Frankfurt Airport, which killed thirty-six passengers and the crew of a Caravel hired by..."
  
  
  He raised his hand. "Hoo-hoo."
  
  
  "I didn't want to make you feel like I wasn't there anymore."
  
  
  "It didn't even occur to me," I said. "Let's focus on the details. First of all, are you sure she's dead?"
  
  
  'Without a doubt.'
  
  
  I asked her. "Haven't you ever heard anything to the contrary? "Doubts about the identification of the bodies. The rumors you always hear in such cases: not quite dead, horribly disfigured, locked in a cell somewhere?"
  
  
  "No," Hubert said. "She's dead. No one, not even the fang club, has expressed a different opinion."
  
  
  "Never any indication to the contrary?"
  
  
  "No, absolutely not."
  
  
  "All right," I said. "The beginning of the second and final corkscrew: suppose I meet a woman who looks exactly like Nicole Makes, so to speak, a full call. How do I know if she's real or an impostor?
  
  
  "A difficult task," Hubert said. He put out his cigarette, put his hands behind his head, and leaned back, closing his eyes. "Nicole's Doing It," he muttered. Nicole Does. You should know her details. Alyonka, height, eye color, hair. She's naturally blonde, or was. He spoke thoughtfully. "The most important data is just a fact. You need something special that you haven't seen in a movie yet."
  
  
  'The voice exactly?'
  
  
  "Like a small birthmark, very high up on the inside of her left thigh."
  
  
  'Are you sure?'
  
  
  "More than just a rumor," he said. "I can't remember where I read it from, but I believe it. I think you can count on that, Nick. This is the best I can offer you.
  
  
  He stood up and shook Emu's hand. "I do not know how you do it," I said, " but you are a miracle."
  
  
  Hubert allowed himself a satisfied grin and stood up. "There's something else you might need to know, Nick." She gave him a questioning look.
  
  
  "You are the second person with a strong interest in Nicole Cara who has come to see me in the last six weeks."
  
  
  "Go on," I said.
  
  
  "As you know, Uni-National News is not only related to the press. We are also a commercial agency. Anyone can come here and buy what we offer. Mostly it's photos, mostly for books. About two weeks ago, a guy came in here and asked me to buy copies of all the photos of Kara in our archive."
  
  
  "You've already had such requests, haven't you?"
  
  
  "Sometimes," Hubert said. "Usually, however, they come here first to view all the photos, and only then tell them what they want. This guy bought it without looking. This was the first unusual feature.
  
  
  "And the second one?"
  
  
  "Secondly, there hasn't been much interest in Nicole in the last few years." Several books were published after her death. A one-time memoir of a fang club has been published. And that was all. Then we received a request for one photo to illustrate the popular history of those years. So asking nah for everything we had was just a second ego quirk."
  
  
  "And the third?".
  
  
  — You have a girl named Wilhelmina. It was a statement, not a corkscrew.
  
  
  Wilhelmina is a pretty deadly girlfriend, or rather, a Luger-type pistol. She was never far away from me. No more than Hugo, my stiletto, and Pierre, the gas bomb.
  
  
  "This guy had a girlfriend like that," Hubert said. "Under the left armpit."
  
  
  'What did he look like?'
  
  
  "Big guy," he said. "One of these broad-shouldered, stocky types. A Neanderthal face. Her eyes are hidden behind sunglasses. The scar is drawn on the left cheekbone, about two and a half inches long.
  
  
  — Did he say what he was going to do with these photos?" "That was pretty much all he said. He said the guy he worked for was crazy about nah.
  
  
  — Do you know his name?"
  
  
  Hubert rummaged through a stack of receipts in a chair drawer. "You'll love it, Nick," he said, picking one out.
  
  
  I looked at the paper he handed me. The client's signature was at the bottom. Next to it are scrawls that would embarrass a six-year-old: John Smith.
  
  
  "He was just as gorgeous as he looked," Hubert said. There must have been something accusatory in the way he looked at his old friend, because ego sounds almost absurd, like defense. "Come on, Nick. How could I have known him? Anyone can come in here and buy whatever they want."
  
  
  "Don't mind me," I said. — After all, this person could have been completely different. Maybe it's just a coincidence.
  
  
  "Of course," Hubert said when her shell finished the day. 'There is such a chance.'
  
  
  He shook Emu's hand again and said good-bye. He continued to watch her as she walked down the long hall to the elevator.
  
  
  Good — bye, Nick, Ego heard her say. 'Take care of yourself. Be careful.'
  
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  
  
  'Take care of yourself. Be careful.'
  
  
  Even the furious roar of engines thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic couldn't drown out the words. It was all ominous. A vacation that wasn't a vacation. The damned Hawk. A beautiful girl who is engaged may or may not be dead.
  
  
  He looked down at his tray of food. A startled chunk of onion peered down the side of the brown sauce that surrounded the half-cooked meat like a cyclops's eye.
  
  
  A shadow crossed my vision.I heard the stewardess ask her. 'Not hungry?'
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head.
  
  
  Her long, slender hand passed in front of me to take the tray.
  
  
  She was preceded by a glass of whiskey. "I like it," I said. "Maybe this will help me sleep."
  
  
  "Yes," she said. "This is also Odin around the world. He looked up at the pair of bright blue eyes and mischievous smile.
  
  
  "I heard there are other drinks available."
  
  
  "Yes," she said. "And better baked for yours."
  
  
  He lit one around his gold-tipped cigarettes. "And for the lungs, too, I think.
  
  
  "Yes," she said. "For the lungs, too. Will you be staying in Paris?
  
  
  'No. I have a transfer trip to Orly in forty minutes, after we land there.
  
  
  'Unfortunately. Otherwise, I could show you the sights.
  
  
  "Yes, of course," I said. "But maybe another time."
  
  
  'Perhaps.'
  
  
  She took the paper and turned to leave .
  
  
  "I think you'd better get me another whiskey," hey said to her from behind.
  
  
  Damn Hawk, I thought again. Even scotch wouldn't help me.
  
  
  He was still in a bad mood when he landed at Nice Airport later that day on a flight around Paris. From the taxi that took me to the Beau Rivage Quai des Etats-Unis, I could see the sunlit expanse of the Mediterranean Sea from one side. On the other — an almost unbroken line of hotels, villas, and high-rise buildings jostling each other like a bitch of spoiled brats in the legendary playgrounds of the rich.
  
  
  My room had a sea view. On a high French day, a cool breeze was blowing. I unpacked my bags, put Wilhelmina, Hugo, and Pierre in two rolled-up towels, and carried ih to the pebbly beach.
  
  
  For an hour he lay with his eyes closed, listening to the water whisper against the shore.
  
  
  When her husband returned to his room, there was no need to do a routine check. There was no denying the fact that someone was inside.
  
  
  There was a large fruit basket on the breakfast table. Humanity had a white card attached to a green ribbon. The handwriting was that of a French shopkeeper, but there was no doubt about the authenticity of the transmitter. "Welcome to the French Riviera," the card read. "Let your vacation be all we can hope for.
  
  
  The asshole hawk! From the moment I got back to the pool, he bothered me, infuriated me, made fun of me forever. At first, it was assumed that Hsiang might have escaped from me. Back then, it was a less obvious invitation to take a less obvious vacation. There had also been times in the past when Hawke had skimped on details about the mission. He could understand that. There were some things that he knew weren't as safe as he knew her, given the risk of being captured. Besides, I didn't need to know everything to complete my assignment. But, to tell the truth, her mistletoe didn't give us the faintest idea why she was in Nice. What did Hawke care if Nicole was alive or not?
  
  
  My hands were clenched into fists. And the blood was pounding wildly in my ears. Calm down, he told himself. Suppose the old man in his hole on Dupont Circle in Washington knows what he's doing. And then, if you don't know what it is, try to find out something. Just let things happen. It is this ignorance that is causing you so much trouble.
  
  
  Actions. This was what I needed. I always felt better then. The waiting time has come to an end. I showered and dressed for the evening. In the inside pocket of my doublet was my new passport in the name of Nicholas Anderson. Wherever she goes, a gun, stiletto, and gas bomb can come as a shock, especially if the guards were as astute as I suspected.
  
  
  This time Wilhelmina, Hugo and Pierre will stay. They were not companions of Nicholas Anderson, the tourist. But a man named Nicholas Carter with the rank of Killmaster AH would be a fool to come out alone. He stuck two single-edged blades into her collar . The third was in the belt on his back. They lay flat, invisible, reassuring, and deadly.
  
  
  I'll still have time for dinner before the evening's work starts. After leaving around the hotel, he turned left, crossed the Quai des Etats-Unis, at the next corner, and began a long, winding walk along the coast to the harbor to have lunch somewhere al fresco, alone and by candlelight, with fried shrimp, ratatouille and white wine. .
  
  
  Its not in a hurry. Now that she was ready to act, her lost this over-stimulation . Her enjoyed the food and the environment. On the other side of the harbor, yachts and trawlers came in at night. The sky darkened, turning from blue to black all around. Lights flickered in the restaurants across the street. He took one last sip of wine and stubbed out his cigarette.
  
  
  If I had a vacation, it would be over by now. It was time to start.
  
  
  Bare-chested and supported by young hands, she climbed a path of tall grass and scarlet flowers, a pale, voluptuous harbinger of dark pleasures and pervasive pleasures for those who are willing to succumb to the temptations of the cream-colored world. behind nah. If the statue had a name, no one would have thought to add it. But given the setting, the entrance to the casino, perhaps these efforts were unnecessary. Lady Fortune will be enough.
  
  
  The Palais de la Méditerranée on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice is not for us the best, but for us the worst casino on the Cote d'Azur. Nevertheless, it is professional, efficient, and equally welcoming, both to tourists who limit their risk to ten or twenty dollars a night, and to gamblers who demand higher rates.
  
  
  At the top of the double curved staircase leading to the first second floor, extending in all directions, known as Les Salons de la Mer, her, turned to the Secretariat. Behind the counter, which looked more like a cabinet, sat two men in tailcoats, pale, with an air of unbreakable skepticism. Next to them sat a heavy-eyed young woman dressed in a mourning dress, sharing her doubts about humanity that flashed through ih's tired eyes. Several tourists, apparently from one of the many conferences that Nice's city Council regularly hosts, were gathered around the chair.
  
  
  As he made his way through them, he deposited his passport and a five-franc piece on the counter. The coin was enough for an entrance ticket for one evening. Fifteen francs a week, thirty a month, sixty a season. All I was allowed to do inside, its made a big guess here. I was betting it on luck itself, betting that in one evening I would win what Hawk sent me.
  
  
  One of the other skeptical-looking men opened my passport "Nicholas Anderson", stared at the photo, and then examined my face.
  
  
  I filled out the form while he checked my passport in the archive in the corner behind him. Satisfied, he scribbled my name on a yellow casino card with two maroon stripes on the side and slid it across to me.
  
  
  The two security guards at the entrance to Les Salons de la Mer nodded to me as I approached her.
  
  
  Hers stood at the top of three marble steps leading up to a sumptuous hall; a room on different levels, wide and long like a soccer field, completely covered in red. Across from me, scarlet curtains framed the sea-view windows. On the small balconies outside, bathed in moonlight and a wet spring breeze, couples sat drinking drinks and talking over the noise of traffic. There were tables between me and the balconies to the left and right. Roulette, craps, baccarat, blackjack, écarté, trente et quarante . Under the soft glow of blood-red screens, silver gears spun, cards whispered against green cloth, dice rattled and chips flowed in a continuous cycle of losses and gains.
  
  
  He walked quickly across the room, stopping at one of the two restaurants for a drink. There weren't many people at the beginning of the season. Several tables were closed. From time to time a voice would say sharply above the din, " Rien ne va plus," and then she would hear the ticking of an ivory ball against the walls of a roulette wheel.
  
  
  There was nothing special about the audience. The Americans crowded around the blackjack and craps tables . The baccarat group consisted mainly through Brits and seniors, and the international scene was centered around roulette tables. There were a few ubiquitous Japanese people in blue suits, white shirts, and real ties, two Arabs, a handful of Greeks, a few Scandinavians, a Spaniard, Germans, Englishmen, and Americans.
  
  
  Sitting on wooden chairs, tense elderly women armed with pencil stubs bent over sheets of paper, devising strict systems like D'Alembert and Abrogation .
  
  
  He stood behind one of the older women at the table closest to the entrance. There, I had a field of vision that made it impossible for anyone to enter through the main entrance without being noticed.
  
  
  I gave each croupier two hundred and fifty francs. "Five in chips," emu told her. The bills disappeared into the desk safe through a greedy slot with a brass spout. Around a treasure trove of colored tokens of various denominations, fifty yellow disks slid toward me. He let them rain down into his doublet.
  
  
  For a while, he allowed himself to fall asleep to the clang of bets, the rumble of the wheel, the ritual cries of the croupier blended into an endless rhythm:
  
  
  - Nave . Blush. Violation. Faites fox jeux. Rien is not a big plus. Cilantro. noir. Violation. Faites vous jeux. Rien is not a big plus. Screw-hook. Blush. a couple.'
  
  
  Every time the door opened, he looked up hopefully, but in vain.
  
  
  He reached in a minute and started placing bets. Sometimes the chair took my chips, sometimes it gave them away. My thoughts were only half on the wheel. Its played at higher stakes.
  
  
  An hour and a half passed. Bored, I switched to betting on individual numbers. Its just putting the amount literally in Nike Carter, brought up to ten — and lost. Its simple to put the amount literally in Nicholas Anderson, bet on sixteen and lose again. Its just put the letters of David Hawk, bet on nine and lost. Its number ended literally in Nicole, and again put on ten.
  
  
  My chip was only in the number on the green sheet, the chance was 37 to 1. The dealer moved his wrist and the huge wheel began to spin counterclockwise. The ivory ball bounced into the wheel clockwise, against the flow of ebony, like a meteor in the night sky. 'Rien ne va plus,' the croupier barked. The wheel slowed down. The ball fell out from under the rim, bounced over the bulkheads, slowed, bounced once, twice, and fell into box number ten. The rake pushed a stack of yellow chips and one pink hundred-franc piece toward me.
  
  
  Ih picked it up, tossed some yellow cards to the dealer who placed the bet, and bent down to collect the rest.
  
  
  When I looked up again, she was there, candid across from me, on the other side of the chair. It was exciting. Her honey-blond hair, pulled back from her tanned face and tied with a pale green ribbon, revealed high cheekbones, supported by a beauty that time cannot trace. A thin white dress with a low cut at the neck to show off the fullness of her full breasts hung from her well-built body. He saw that there was nothing stopping her hard nipples from pressing against the cool, soft fabric.
  
  
  She reached into her purse and pulled out a hundred-franc note. "Five chips," she said to the dealer.
  
  
  He deftly wrapped the bill around a wooden disk and dropped it into the insatiable arch's copper chute. She tucked her bag under her arm and used both hands to squeeze the chips like a child clutching a mountain of cookies. The gesture was so innocent that I had to smile. At that moment, she looked up and stared at me across the chair, her eyes shining like burning emeralds. Then she looked down again, at those cheekbones in confusion, and continued to stare at the chair. Her expression became serious, grim. Reaching out between the seated players, she held one out around her yellow chips for a seven. She's lost, she's put on sixteen, and she's lost. She's betted on seventeen and lost. She's betted nineteen and lost. She's betted on twenty-six and lost. She's on thirty-three and lost.
  
  
  Ten times in a row, she bet on the same number, the worst odds on the table, and lost ten times in a row. Now her breathing quickened, and her breasts moved up and down in excitement, emptying the thin fabric of her dress. Her pink-lacquered hands trembled as they clutched her melting treasure, and after two more rounds, she was able to hold what was left in one hand.
  
  
  Its never thought that she plays for fun. A thin layer of ice glistened on the bottom of her neck, and once when the wheel turned, she bit her lip. Her, watched as the fingers of her right hand pulled out another reset string over the dwindling stock of her left hand.
  
  
  She looked at him. Ee lips that put mute words. "Please," she said. 'Please.'
  
  
  She puts the number nine chip in front of her. The ritual was repeated: the wheel turned counterclockwise, the hall turned in the other direction; at the moment when the ball fell, there was a shout: "Rien ne va plus" and a silence in which the players waited.
  
  
  Even if I was deaf, all I had to do was look hey in the eye to see the result. Two tears welled up from under her eyelids, balancing there to roll down her cheeks. Her, saw her body tense. She swallowed hard, and her tears stopped.
  
  
  She looked down at her hand. Six chips left. Her long brown arm wrapped one around them and placed it at number twenty-four. This time, she closed her eyes as the wheel turned. The result was no better. In less than ten minutes, Nah only had two chips left. Her agitation had not abated, but now she seemed almost resigned to her misfortune. She didn't hesitate. She puts the number thirteen chip in front of her.
  
  
  "Happy," he called from across the chair.
  
  
  She looked at me and tried to smile. But she couldn't stop her chin and lips from trembling, and her eyes were glistening with hollyhocks. She closed her eyes again, avoiding my gaze.
  
  
  Her eyes continued to stare at Nah. A door opened in the background above. A man came in. He looked like the big guy who collected data on her.
  
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  
  
  He only stood there for a split second before the ego's sharp eyes tracked him further. And then ego's super-cute black pointy ballet slippers clattered down the stairs to the red carpet. Hers was already coming around the chair towards her.
  
  
  Sincerely behind her, smiling with the cruel pleasure that crinkled Schrammel's ego on his cheek, he raised his hand and sank his plump fingers into the flesh of her right arm, just above the elbow. He whispered something in her ear.
  
  
  She stiffened, her face rigid with fear. Determined but cautious, afraid of causing trouble, she tried to break out around the ego of persistent subterfuge. Her tanned skin showed white spots from the rough pressure of ego's trick.
  
  
  Her approached her from the other side, all kindness and innocence.
  
  
  "Ah, you're there," echoed it. — I was beginning to think I'd lost you. If you're tired of roulette, how about a drink?
  
  
  In the silence that followed, he heard the dealer say, " One." She lost again.
  
  
  When the cheap perfume hit him like a sewer stink, and his black silk suit glinted in the soft casino light, Pollard Willow reached down and gave me all his mental powers. In spite of the perfume, in spite of his costume, he will always have the look of a man who has spent most of his life in taverns where flies scurry over pies.
  
  
  "Who the hell are you, tailor?" — What is it? " he asked in a whisper. That was a good sign. He wasn't going to make a scene.
  
  
  'Maybe, mr. Smith? had my rheumatism.
  
  
  He said, "Huh?"
  
  
  She didn't want to look at him. "Well, how about a drink?" Her father said. — You look like you're going to need some freshening up."
  
  
  "Yes," she said. 'Yes, thank you. Of course I can.
  
  
  "Well, that's great, then," I said. "Shall we go?"
  
  
  "This lady has an appointment elsewhere," he said.
  
  
  "You say that," I said. "But I'm surprised she didn't tell me."
  
  
  "Listen, kid," he said. "Take my good advice and get out of here. Don't stick your nose in anything that doesn't concern you.
  
  
  "Yes, but it concerns me," I said. — You heard the young lady. She wants a drink with me."
  
  
  Ego's face turned red. "Don't make me ask you too many times," he said.
  
  
  Ego ruka casually pulled back his jacket, deliberately showing me what was tucked into his belt, and also showing me that he had more guts than common sense, and that the security of the Palais de la Mediterranee wasn't as secure as he thought. Judging by he dolly seconds that I saw this weapon, it seemed to me that he backed up his drivetrain with a Mexican Trejo .22, Model 1. Mexico may not be known for its weapons industry, but the few beauties that come from there are as peaceful as a pyromaniac on a powder ship. Model 1 is a dirty and very unusual weapon. It has a selector in the upper-left corner of the store. When you flip the ego and pull the trigger, the gun fires eight shots in an automatic burst.
  
  
  The girl was gasping for breath. "Don't be an idiot, Guido," she said.
  
  
  "I don't think you're using ego," Emu told her.
  
  
  — I wouldn't risk it.
  
  
  "I was hoping you'd say that," I said.
  
  
  He gently took her hand, and together we walked to the door. Behind us, Guido muttered a curse.
  
  
  The ego, the mind, or whatever was hidden behind that Neanderthal forehead, had to go through a lot of struggle to come to a conclusion or remember what someone had told it to do. He didn't strike me as the type to become a genius in independent thinking.
  
  
  Meanwhile, the chance that he would open fire decreased with every inch that we put between us. Guido has been trained to act, not think, and if he gets down to business right away to think things through, we'll have plenty of time to walk to Paris.
  
  
  While keeping her tense body out of the line of fire, we hurried to the door. Guido had more guts than common sense, but every second confirmed my belief that he was programmed to avoid flashy scenes.
  
  
  It was only a few seconds before we reached the top of the stairs, but it always feels longer when one of those courier-happy customers is grinding something in their heads.
  
  
  Passing through the door, we passed through the entrance hall to the left wing of the staircase, which descended through two arches to the entrance of the Mediterrane Palace .
  
  
  A few moments later, Shaggy's voice heard her on the other side of the stairs, and when I looked out on the other side, I saw Guido running down, almost right next to us. Ego's eyes were full of rage under his closed brows.
  
  
  He was only two or three steps away when we dashed out the front door of the Palace on a chilly night. Pleasure seekers still came, though in smaller numbers. When I looked back, a black Citroen and a white Mercedes slid past the entrance. As we passed the mimmo statue of Lady Fortuna, I saw Guido standing motionless, a plump silhouette against the casino lights, raising his fist and waving it.
  
  
  "Run," I told his girlfriend.
  
  
  "Yes," she said. 'I know her.'
  
  
  We ran along the Promenade des Anglais. A light mist that drifted inland seemed to cover the string of lights at the entrance to Angel Cove like a soft cloth. Three-colored pennants hung limply along the poles in the heavy air, which were supposed to give the road a festive look. Traffic calmed down, the occasional roar of an engine breaking the silence.
  
  
  A strange, sinister air hung over the shore, a sense of damp rottenness growing in the gloom, a glimmer of the true gaiety of the day and evening, now dispelled by the creeping night.
  
  
  In silence, we hurried through the saint and shadow. The Westminster Hotel's terrace was teetering with yellow lamps, and yellow candles flickered on tables outside where elderly guests huddled against the damp, sipping coffee and fighting the embrace of a lonely vault. They could see the dilapidated Pratt Villa, lifeless behind a screen of palm trees and weathered shutters.
  
  
  Her, looked around. Guido was gone. Still, I had the feeling that we were being watched. We passed the West End Hotel and the Massena Museum , where floodlights played between the palm trees behind the iron gate. Ahead, the dome of the Negresco Hotel loomed like a plump woman's breast against the moonlit sky.
  
  
  He stopped and turned her to face him . Her face was flushed with excitement, and her eyes were sparkling. Her body skimmed over me for a moment.
  
  
  "Thank you," she said breathlessly. 'Thank you, sir...'
  
  
  "Anderson," I said. "Nicholas Anderson".
  
  
  "Well, thank you, Mr. Anderson.
  
  
  "You haven't thanked me yet," I said. — I'm not sure you're out of the woods yet." I don't think your friend Guido was happy with what happened at the casino.
  
  
  "No, — she said. "Definitely not. There will be more difficulties. Much more trouble.
  
  
  "Tell me," I said. "Your name is Nicole Makes?"
  
  
  She looked me in the eye for a long time. The handsome face, which had somehow blended innocence with the promise of refined passion, now looked desperate.
  
  
  "A lot of people believe that," she said. "At least one person is confident."
  
  
  It was rheumatism that didn't solve anything, but before she could say more, the look of hopelessness disappeared from her face. She cocked her head mischievously. "Mr. Anderson," she said. — I suppose you want to offer me a drink." Is there a better time than now?
  
  
  The Negresco Bar is almost extinct. The huge room was like a gloomy cavern, with a faint pink light chosen to flatter the old women's faded skin.
  
  
  We sat side by side on a blue bench at a round marble-topped table that rested on an artificial leopard skin.
  
  
  I felt her fragile beauty again, the warmth of her firm thigh next to mine on the blue bench, the curve of her breasts, the classic shape of her face, the richness of her golden-brown hair ... the emerald excitement in her eyes.
  
  
  A waiter in a white jacket swam up to us with the studied humiliation of a hotel that tends to cater to extremes of taste.
  
  
  'What do you want to drink?'I asked his girlfriend.
  
  
  She laughed slyly, like a teenager who's been let loose on Willie in a coffee shop.
  
  
  "Ah," she said. — I really haven't thought about it. I must admit that I'm not exactly a connoisseur of booze, but one day it occurred to her to drink a whole cocktail list.
  
  
  The waiter shuffled his feet, expressing a quiet mixture of concern and endless rejection of pleasant chatter. I was tempted to offer Em a drama school scholarship.
  
  
  The girl's hand rummaged between two saucers of olives and crackers to pick up a postcard.
  
  
  "I'll try this," she said.
  
  
  The card read: "Royal Negresco 14 F".
  
  
  It was a composition of po Kirsch, raspberry syrup, orange juice and Moet champagne. Just reading this made my stomach burn with rebellion.
  
  
  "No, I don't think you're an expert," her husband said.
  
  
  I said to the waiter, " One Royal Negresco." And scotch on the rocks. He bowed and left.
  
  
  It's hard to hide in Barra Negresco. In fact, it's a great ending to the military město to be very visible, so its been a pleasure to be there. That was also the reason I came here after we left the casino. Which, in turn, made me exceptionally happy that the girl chose this place to have a drink. At this point in the battle, his plan was not to go underground. Her quest is to learn more about the girl, more about Guido, and more, much more about the man who sent this caveman to the Mediterrane Palace. And she was asked to find out, while making sure no one was looking for me.
  
  
  So far, the ferret's evening has been blessed. A girl found it. This game ended well. Guido found me. And if he had been right, the invisible man Stahl would have witnessed our hasty escape to the Negresco . And then the evening was not only blessed, but had barely begun.
  
  
  "Madame," the waiter said. Bending at the waist, he placed her drink on a round paper napkin with the letter "Imperial H" and the words "Negresco" and "Nice" in three blue rings.
  
  
  "Monsieur."
  
  
  He turned to the girl and raised his glass. "Fortunately," I said.
  
  
  She looked at me over the rim of her glass. The mischievous and amused look disappeared around her eyes. I saw her tears again.
  
  
  "No, I told her. — I take it it wasn't such a happy evening for you."
  
  
  "No, — she said. "Of course not." Her voice was weak and desperate.
  
  
  "If you'll excuse my rude comment," I said, " you know as much about roulette as you do about booze, given your game of nah."
  
  
  "I know," she said.
  
  
  "People always do," I said. "Most people go there to have fun, but you obviously gave the impression of someone who was doing more serious things."
  
  
  She shook her head. Even in the dim light, her hair glistened . "No, Mr. Anderson..."
  
  
  "I think you should call me Nick," I said. "All right," she said. 'Nickname.'
  
  
  "That's better," I said.
  
  
  "No, she wasn't in that casino for fun."
  
  
  "You've lost ninety-five francs," I said.
  
  
  "You pay a lot of attention to me," she said. "Well,"I said," I'm alone in Nice, and you were hard to miss."
  
  
  She smiled briefly. 'Her, I guess that...'
  
  
  She reached into her small purse. She saw a white handkerchief, passport, lipstick, and the last yellow chip. She took out her ego and with a light click, she landed on the marble countertop. "Five francs," she whispered.
  
  
  "That's all the money you have, isn't it?"
  
  
  'Yes. Is this also so easy to see?
  
  
  "I'm afraid so."
  
  
  "It's not really five francs," she said. "It's a piece of plastic."
  
  
  I asked her. "Why does winning at this casino mean so much to you?"
  
  
  For the second time that night, her eyes searched my face.
  
  
  "You don't look poor," I said, " you don't look hungry." It doesn't look like you need Swedes and shelter. I didn't get the impression that you were trying to win a vacation or a jewelry store. Greed is also out of the question.
  
  
  - no.
  
  
  "But you played to win a lot of money. It was important to you.
  
  
  "Yes," she said. Ono's voice.
  
  
  "I think she'd like to know why."
  
  
  She studied my face again with those intelligent green eyes, now as cold and deep as the sea.
  
  
  'What do you see?'
  
  
  "Danger," she said. "Difficulties".
  
  
  "You can trust me," I said.
  
  
  "Yes," she said. — I think so, too.
  
  
  "Besides,"I said," with only one five — franc discard line, you don't have much choice."
  
  
  Her moist, warm lips parted from her even white teeth in an involuntary smile. "But if his wife didn't trust you, hers would have left," she said. "Then I would have tried to find someone else."
  
  
  — Is it that important?"
  
  
  She picked up her glass and took a long drink.
  
  
  "Want some more?"
  
  
  "I'm not used to drinking," she said. "However, I believe I want another glass. I do not know if I want her to be drunk to forget or celebrate. Yes, Nick, another one.
  
  
  The waiter called her over, and we waited in silence while he brought us another Royal Negresco.
  
  
  She took another sip, and when she finished, she seemed to have come to a decision. "Yes," she said. "I trust you. I hope you're on top of the guys who are helping. It's not really for me, not just for the girl you once met in a casino.
  
  
  "I know," I said, reassuring her.
  
  
  "This goes far beyond you and me. Yes, I need to win a lot of money and quickly. You saw it. I need this in order to hire someone.
  
  
  Her eyebrows rose in unspoken question.
  
  
  "Someone very special," she continued. "I don't even know how much it costs. Do you know, Nick? Do you know how much it costs to hire an assassin?
  
  
  He reached out and picked up a yellow chip from the chair. "Five francs," I said.
  
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  
  
  For a moment, her expression changed in surprise. Then, turning a confused face to me, she leaned against me. Her, I saw her eyes, now lit by the proverbial emerald fire, her lips parted, coming closer to mine.
  
  
  The next moment, she tensed up. Her face turned ashen. Her eyes were fixed behind me, on the side door of the Negresco bar.
  
  
  Her, turned around. Guido was the first to see her, grinning a little. Then he saw an angular, wiry Chinese man, his tall, slender body shrouded in black from head to toe. And between them, among these ego-driven servants, is the hideous creature I will know as Dr. White. Lothar Inuris. The moment ego saw her for the first time, he struggled to control the anger that came over him when he saw the girl ready to press her lips to mine. He regained his expression and pulled his ego into a fold of affable cordiality. This expression went well with the ego of the outfit: a well-cut blue blazer, grey trousers, a shirt that often proclaimed itself one of the latest creations of Turnull & Asser in Jeremin Street in London, a silk scarf, and ballet slippers from Gucci.
  
  
  But for all the care and expense that had gone into his clothing, Dr. Inuris had an intellect enslaved by a perverse and powerful drive.
  
  
  Ego eyes, ebony beads that were slaves to the ego's ability to hide its true intentions, were set on a small, globular head topped with thick black hair slicked back from a narrow forehead. The target itself, with its thin purple lips and narrow nostrils in its large nose, was dwarfed by its long and broad torso. Yet it is not a lingering hint of strength, but only the idea of a gentleness rooted in perpetual self-indulgence. His hands were extraordinary. Long palms, abnormally long, pointed fingers, short nails. The hands of a surgeon or strangler. The smooth, beardless face and strange, sickly-pale skin gave the impression that the glandular balance had been disturbed, first corrupting the body and then forcing the mind to serve unnatural obsessions. He looked like a man who takes pleasure in hurting someone and subjugating others to his bizarre perversions that control him. He exhaled angrily. He saw that the ego scarf had loosened slightly, revealing a double row of warts that covered the ego's thin, spiky neck like a grotesque collar around its wrinkled eyes.
  
  
  Others like the emu crossed my path. Ih shared a spirit of self-confidence in successfully accomplishing unthinkable things and a belief in his own genius, which also convinced ih of an impenetrable immunity to retribution. Even before he spoke, he was already known as Dr. Lothar Inuris, already a man whose nature allowed nothing but lies.
  
  
  He smiled and bowed. He raised one of his lithe arms in a hesitant salute and walked over to me. Her father stood up to greet him.
  
  
  "Ah," he said. "For a moment, I thought we'd lost you. And that would be very sad. But I'm sorry. Forgive my lack of manners. I have yet to introduce myself. Let me." To her doctor. Lothar Inuris.
  
  
  There was no strength in the hand he held out to me. Emu summoned her with all the kindness he could muster. "Nice to meet you, Doctor," I said. "I, Nicholas Anderson."
  
  
  "American, hers, I suppose," he said.
  
  
  "Indeed," I said.
  
  
  "Dear Zhirinovsky people," he said. "Europe owes you a lot."
  
  
  "Thank you for saying that, Doctor," I said. "Otherwise, from what I've read, we're not always welcome here."
  
  
  "Yes," he said. "There are they who forgot, but its not around ih numbers. For those who forget, the best attitude is tolerance."
  
  
  "Well, Doctor, can I get you something to drink?"
  
  
  He shook his head regretfully. — I appreciate your generosity, Mr. Anderson, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline." The reason she's here isn't secular, but purely professional."
  
  
  He stepped between him and the girl who was still studying at the table. He tilted his head in her direction, lowering his already soft, cultured voice even further.
  
  
  It was a voice bursting with innuendo. And it was this very second voice that was intended to impress the listener. Inuris ' superior intelligence, ego-unsurpassed abilities, his best-intentioned sincerity, and, if all this is not enough, the danger of mocking a man whose two companions might be deemed capable of using force.
  
  
  "If you are familiar with Europe, Mr. Anderson," he said, " and especially with South America, you may know that the title of doctor is used quite freely. But in my case, it's a title earned and acquired after many years of hard training. Her M. D., Mr. Anderson, is a specialist in surgery that deals to some extent with the mechanical arts. Recognizing this, and with no intention of ignoring the intelligence boost, he attempted to acquire additional specialties. She also has a psychiatrist with a practice that deals" — he glared at her - " with the most difficult cases.
  
  
  She belongs to them, that it would be okay to stir up the ego with your glee. "So you're the master?"
  
  
  He was rewarded with a shiver that ran through his body. "Yes," he said, trying to laugh. "I guess that's what they call us in America." A very interesting and primitive term. But I mustn't get distracted. As I was about to say, this young lady was one of my patients.
  
  
  Her voice dropped to stunned confidence. "You mean she's sick, Doctor?"
  
  
  Dr. Inuris tried his best to be tolerant, but I could see that I was trying my best to be patient. "Well, that's a pretty general term, to put it that way. Professionally, everything is much more complicated. But let's just say, without disturbing the relationship between doctor and patient, and without going into technical descriptions, that the young lady is suffering from a serious emotional disorder."
  
  
  "I understand," I said. — You could have fooled me. And you hope so,he told himself.
  
  
  "Not all emotional illnesses manifest themselves in a way that ih can be easily recognized by non-specialists like you."
  
  
  "I suppose not," I said.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris smiled at me. "I'm glad you have such a broad outlook, Mr. Anderson," he said. "Guido made it clear to me that your behavior towards him at the casino was, how should I put it, somewhat belligerent."
  
  
  "Yes," I said. — But on the other hand, this gentleman of yours wasn't exactly what you'd call friendly with this young lady." I mean, he hurt her, and she didn't seem particularly keen on selfishness.
  
  
  -"I must ask your forgiveness again," Dr. Inuris said as he addressed me with a hypocritical, beaming smile. "Every now and then Guido gets too hard. And her, I guess he was afraid of my anger. You see, I don't run a regular clinic. The young lady has been entrusted to my care in a villa not far from here, and at this stage of her treatment, it is not appropriate to subject her to what you and I consider normal social returns.
  
  
  "Last week," he continued, " hey, managed to leave the villa for an unauthorized trip to the casino. Guido is not a professional nurse, and perhaps that's why you should expect mistakes on his part. Nevertheless, the girl's temporary disappearance made me very angry with Guido, and he solemnly promised me that the girl would no longer elude his escort. Still, hey, that managed to repeat it tonight.
  
  
  So it's understandable, isn't it, that Guido is, how should I put it, rather impatient with her? And, " said the doctor. Inuris said candidly ," It is also clear that, as an American gentleman, you are a noble, intervened to protect her from something that was completely unacceptable behavior for you."
  
  
  "Well, Doctor," I said, " I didn't realize there was so much behind it. I just thought your servant was up to something."
  
  
  "Appearances can be deceptive," he said.
  
  
  "Yes, I did," I agreed. "Tailor take her, I never thought she was sick."
  
  
  Dr. Inuris patted my hand reassuringly. -"Well, well," he said. "It takes too much for you to understand things based on a brief observation, even medical science sometimes gets confused."
  
  
  "I see," I said.
  
  
  — And now, Mr. Anderson, you'll understand when I have to ask you to let me and-er -".. my staff will finish their evening with the girl and take her back to our villa. I do not know how many other conversations you have had with her friend, but if you can give me some well-meaning advice, you will be wise to look at everything she might have said in the light of her illness. Sometimes nah is tempted to say things that may seem plausible at first glance, but unfortunately they are caused by her illness, which I hope I can cure."
  
  
  Hers, nodded in agreement. — I really hope you can cure her, Doctor. It seems such a shame that a cute girl like her..."
  
  
  "I have every hope," Dr. Inouris said. "But the duration of treatment is likely to be quite long."
  
  
  "Too bad," I said.
  
  
  "Indeed," he said, with a hint of impatience. — But now we really have to go." It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Anderson. Really nice. He snapped his fingers, and Guido moved, ready for action.
  
  
  I didn't need it. The girl got up, tucked her purse under her arm, and walked over to them. The doctor smiled pleasantly at her.
  
  
  With an expression of irrepressible disgust, she passed the doctor and Guido's mimmo to the revolving door through which they had entered. A tall, angular Chinese man blocked Ey's path, but when she approached him, he stepped aside to open the door for her and followed her. Guido followed her .1
  
  
  "I'm sorry to bother you," Dr. Inuris said to me.
  
  
  "What a pity," I said. "Such a cute girl..."
  
  
  "Try to forget her, my dear man," Dr. Inuris said as he went to see Day.
  
  
  "I'll show you out," I said.
  
  
  "No need, dear other," he said in an unctuous voice. "Oh, — I said. — I'd really like that."
  
  
  The doctor's face darkened. 'As you wish.'
  
  
  Her followed him into the day. The white Mercedes was parked at the curb. I recognized it as the car I'd seen coming out of the casino. The girl, Guido, and the Chinaman were standing nearby.
  
  
  The Doctor clapped his hands. He said, " What are we waiting for?"
  
  
  The Chinese man opened the back door, then stepped forward and got behind the wheel.
  
  
  With a flash of her long, showy legs, the girl slid into the backseat. I noticed that she was wearing ballet pumps with high heels. These days, women rarely wear medical ih, but no shoe has ever graced a woman's foot so well. You saw ih a few years ago, when Nicole Kara was still alive.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris slid inside. Guido closed the door and sat down next to the Chinaman. The engine was already running, and the car slid away from the curb.
  
  
  Her, watching them drive away as he memorized the license plate. The Mercedes skidded to a stop at the corner. Through the back window, I saw the doctor raise his hand to her pretty face.
  
  
  Then I changed my mind. The huge hand relaxed like a huge spider. After a moment, only the thumb and forefinger were sticking out around the hand.
  
  
  As the ghost car turned the corner, the doctor. Inuris very slowly reached out his hand, carefully and with a smile of intense pleasure, and put his fingers in the girl's windpipe and began to squeeze it.
  
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  
  -
  
  
  Then he turned and walked back to the bar. If Much More. Inuris meant a quick death, he would have let Guido do it. Perhaps the doctor liked a slow death, he was sure of it. But if he could do that, he would choose a much more comfortable seat than the back seat of a car.
  
  
  She was taken back to her chair, under the critical gaze of the waiter, who looked somewhat relieved when he returned from my little walk outside with Dr. Inuris and his intimidating little gang. I didn't flatter myself that the waiter was worried about my safety or the proof. Her suspected ego's real interest was in me, assuming I was healthy enough to pay my bill, to see if, like many tourists, I might not know that the tip was included in the bill, and therefore pay emu double.
  
  
  I made a gesture in the air, and he hurried to the table, carefully lowering his eyes to push the marble bill toward me. As I traced the path of my hand's ego, my eyes fell on the handwriting. It was on a paper stand, distorted by the stem of the glass around which the girl was drinking.
  
  
  He picked up the glass and took the paper. While the Other One. Inuris and her were lying to each other, she was very busy with something.
  
  
  She wrote her message with an eyebrow pencil. "Villa Narcissa," he said, " Cap Ferrat. Help me, Kostya of God. 'It wasn't signed, and I realized that the ferret still didn't know who she was.
  
  
  But I knew what she was like: sane, despite everything Dr. Inuris had said. Beautiful, desperate, and confident enough to go with the sinister doctor without resistance. But hema she was, and remained a mystery.
  
  
  It was a mystery that he was going to solve both ends of the evening.
  
  
  But I must act quickly. He glanced at his watch. For example, half past one, and Dr. Inuris had a big advantage. She paid the bill, was not tipped, but rather to the waiter's particular disappointment, and left the Negresco through the main entrance. Taxis were waiting for passengers. In the Renault, at the front of the queue, the driver, a fat-faced man, lay with his head thrown back, snoring heavily behind the wheel. When ego tapped him on the shoulder, he instantly woke up. He looked up at me, beaming with a smile that was always a mixture of animal self-mockery and intrigue, the smile of an ex-soldier. "Monsieur," he said, as if to attract attention.
  
  
  I asked her. "Do you know Cap Ferrat?"
  
  
  "Of course," he said.
  
  
  — Do you know Villa Narcissa ?"
  
  
  "Yes."
  
  
  — Can you take me there?"
  
  
  "As you wish, sir." But I'm sorry, this is a strange place.
  
  
  'Really?'I said, yanking open the rear door of the ego Renault and getting in. "Tell me why, but for now, let's hurry up."
  
  
  The car slid west along the boardwalk and swung around the first corner.
  
  
  "No one lives there. It's deserted here, " he said.
  
  
  — Have you been there recently?"
  
  
  — No, I can't say that. But no one has lived there for years, Monsieur. I know her for sure. A few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, it was passed by mimmo nim at night. There is a stone wall between the villa and the road, and an iron gate at the gate. Her, looked in the gate. There was no peace. You can feel it when no one is in the house. This villa was such a home.
  
  
  — Do you know who it belongs to?"
  
  
  — No, sir, I do not know. Ownership here passes from one owner to another, and sometimes the presence of a stranger simply means that the two are given permission to live in their villa."
  
  
  The Renault was picking up speed now. I saw the Beau Rivage Hotel disappear behind us, and then we turned into a bend in the road that sloped slowly down to the harbor with a road cut out of the rocks that overlooked the sea.
  
  
  "There are always new faces in the villas," the driver said.
  
  
  "Passing the Middle Guinea Cormiche? "I said.
  
  
  "Yes sir."
  
  
  Now we were climbing, and the city of Nice was behind us. Below me, to my right, the sea lay motionless under a blanket of fog.
  
  
  — I'd appreciate it, "I said," if you wouldn't take me to the gates of Villa Narcissa and let me get off a kilometer earlier."
  
  
  "Got it," the driver said. He was probably a good soldier. Fat and smart, even then. Understand what it will give the emu if it understands, and forget about the rest. First of all, take care of yourself and survive. Survival was always the best advertisement a soldier could make for himself.
  
  
  He drove fast and smoothly, enjoying the challenge of one of the most exciting roads in the world. The road ahead was deserted, and he lit a few yellow lanterns to break the curtain of fog. Although the night was quiet, the speed created a pleasant breeze.
  
  
  "Here," he said.
  
  
  A sign reading " St. Jean-Cap-Ferrat loomed and flashed mimmo. To my right, outlined somewhere in the lights, Cap Ferrat lay like a thumb sticking out into the sea. The Renault's engine whined as the driver slid into low gear, preparing for the descent from very good Corniche.
  
  
  — We'll be there soon, " he said with a hint of amusement. — Are your friends waiting for you?"
  
  
  She didn't mind emu answering. "No," I said, " I'm afraid not.
  
  
  "Maybe that's what you want, too."
  
  
  He put one hand on the steering wheel and felt under the seat with the other. When he pulled ego back, he had a tire iron in his hand. He was laughing. — Maybe you can use this?"
  
  
  'Perhaps. But I'll do without it. Thank you for your kindness.
  
  
  "Never mind," he said. "This villa is a strange place. I'm trying really hard. Very unfriendly. This is not a home where you feel comfortable and welcome."
  
  
  "I've never been there," I said. "But I believe you.
  
  
  "I'll turn off the holy one," he said. "This will help your night vision."
  
  
  I asked her. "The army?
  
  
  "The Foreign Legion, "he said," close your eyes for a few minutes. I'll tell you when we get there.
  
  
  After a while, the car stopped. "All right," he said.
  
  
  He opened his eyes again. It was pitch black all around us. He handed the driver a stack of bills.
  
  
  "Lucky me," he said.
  
  
  Its out, around the car.
  
  
  The driver leaned out. - Kilometer open. On the right. A stone wall. Three meters high. Broken glass on top. The gate is seven meters long. Pointed top. There's nothing worth stealing inside. At least a month ago. But at least good luck.
  
  
  He was still smiling as the car quietly backed down the road. I waited until I couldn't hear it anymore, and then I went. While her shell was still on, I checked that the razor blades were still in place.
  
  
  Bits of moss littered the old moan, as if sprouting rotten. Rust peeled off the iron gate. The moonlight shone through the coniferous trees that rose close together around the patches of mist, and played with the unkempt grass that stuck up around the ground like a beard on a carcass.
  
  
  I couldn't see much from the road. Only the path of the car that was just passed, considering the ruts in the flattened grass. Tall trees stood like sentinels between the curious gazes and the villa.
  
  
  He stood outside the gate for a while, listening. Just silence. No dogs signaling my presence. No sixth sense for marking patrols, a sense that has saved me so many times.
  
  
  He took off his jacket and tossed it over the wall to protect his hands from the dirty shards of glass that lay on the rocks, waiting for the curious to bleed to death. He jumped up, found a firm foothold, and pulled himself up in one motion, pulling his jacket along with him.
  
  
  Crouching at the foot of the wall, he paused and listened. Just silence. Crouching low and using the trees for cover, he moved forward, parallel to the path. Hers was moving slowly. My feet trod on the wet grass. A mist that smelled of pine needles and seawater swirled around me.
  
  
  As I was climbing the hill, I saw a glimmer of light through the trees, and through the fog. A few seconds later, it reached an open field.
  
  
  I stopped at the edge of the trees and saw the car tracks on my right turn left and then turn right back to the entrance of the villa. The white Mercedes, almost obscured by the fog, stood dark and silent in the driveway.
  
  
  The villa itself, cool as stone, floating in the night sea air, loomed around the fog like the scene of a terrible nightmare. High up in the window, surrounded by hanging shutters, a piece of milky white curtain caught the moonlight and looked down at the scene below like an unseeing eye. The top two floors of the villa were dark. Sergei was burning in three windows on the first floor plan.
  
  
  Keeping within the tree line, the house quickly rounded it. The back, the side on the other side, and the front remained black and silent. He began to approach through the rough grass. Only a thin curtain covered the right-hand window. Rising to his haunches, he peered inside.
  
  
  It was the kitchen. A tall Chinese man sat with his back to me at a wooden table, drinking a steaming cup of tea.
  
  
  I ducked down and went to the other window, blessing the wetness that was already muffling my shaggy ears. Slowly, I lifted my head again and found myself looking into a room that only had a bed. Guido was lying on this bed, his head propped against the wall, flipping through a magazine. I saw him take off his jacket and transfer the pistol from his belt to his shoulder holster.
  
  
  The third of the three lighted rooms was located at a considerable distance from the first two. And as her carapace fell, keeping below the level of the windowsills, the doctor's voice heard her.
  
  
  "Honey," he said. — I've tried very hard to be patient with you. And I find that patience is not rewarded with understanding and gratitude on your part; only infidelity and betrayal. And now, unfortunately, my patience has run out.
  
  
  Hers was now at the level of the window. It was open, and the doctor's voice, charged with menace, was clearly visible. He went to the windowsill. Another section of that thin white curtain, only partially drawn, hung in the room like a spider's web in the grave. Looking out through the windows, she clearly saw Dr. Inuris and the girl. The doctor had taken off his jacket and put the scarf back on, but a few double warts were still glaring at the folds of the silk bandage.
  
  
  Her, saw that the girl was still dressed exactly the same as when ee met her. Nah's hands were clasped behind her back like a child being scolded for bad behavior, her head slightly bowed, and her glossy hair was still tied back with a pale green ribbon.
  
  
  "I was hoping you'd show me some appreciation," the doctor said. "I was hoping that you would come to me on your salvo with treasures that only a woman can give, that you would begin to repay me for the devotion that hers has poured out on you so clearly and so constantly. You may not believe me, but it really was my most sincere hope. But maybe its too hopeful. It won't be the first time. And so I also know that what is not given voluntarily can be taken by force." The girl looked at him openly. She spoke slowly and deliberately. "You're terrible," she said.
  
  
  Inuris ' face twisted with anger. He raised his hand and lowered it again. — This isn't the second time tonight that you've provoked me enough to make me want to show the cruelty in your extraordinarily beautiful face." But I shouldn't do that, should I? Her, looking so awful. Yes, I understand that my features are not resolved by you. Others have already explained this to me.
  
  
  "Don't get me wrong, Doctor," the girl said. — I didn't mention your appearance. I have the least right to do that.
  
  
  'Oh Lee?'said the doctor.
  
  
  "No, — she said.
  
  
  "Well, my sweet?"
  
  
  "I like you because you're so unspeakably bad," she said.
  
  
  The Doctor laughed, a high-pitched chuckle escaping around the ego's obscene throat.
  
  
  "How little do you know about bad to talk about nen so easily. But soon you will learn more about it, and I myself will be your guide, your teacher, your partner."
  
  
  "Never," she said.
  
  
  "Oh, yes, dear," Dr. Inuris said. "And very soon. Here, in your room, on your bed.
  
  
  The girl glanced quickly at the door.
  
  
  The doctor shook his head. "No," he said. "It won't help you.
  
  
  The girl grimaced.
  
  
  At that moment, I wanted to act, to rush into the room to see Dr. Inuris and hear his soft, soulful voice. But I forced myself to calm down. Until now, the ferret had done nothing but chatter. The girl will survive this. And as I wait, I will have more and more opportunities to learn more about this perverted man and ego mysterious captive who deals with her fantastic face and flawless body to awaken the ego threat.
  
  
  A grin of brutality and anticipation bared ego's teeth. "Well, my dollar stack," he said. — I'm giving you one last chance. I gave you everything I could. Will you give me what you can in return, or should it be taken from you?
  
  
  "You can have me, Doctor," she said firmly, " but you know, and I know, that you will never possess me."
  
  
  The doctor's face paled and his jaw clenched in anger. The vein pulsed in his temple like a dragon, curled up under his ego's pale flesh. He walked over to the girl who now sat quietly and calmly, looking at him mimically as if the ego no longer existed. Ego's huge hand reached up and tore the ribbon around her hair, which fell hey, over her shoulders in a golden waterfall.
  
  
  Anger flared up in the repulsive part of the ego faces, amplifying to them the few seconds it took the emu to grab the green ribbon and throw it to the floor. He paused for a moment to deal with it and prepare for a cold-blooded attack on nah. The girl continued to mimm at him, as if her ego intentions were no longer touching her like the buzzing of a fly.
  
  
  The doctor held out his hand again. Ego's long, slender fingers closed around the delicate neckline of her dress, and his knuckles deliberately paused in the lush cleavage between her breasts.
  
  
  He made a quick motion with his wrist, and pulled the cloth off her body. She sat motionless as he pulled the cloth from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor with a rustle.
  
  
  She didn't move to protect her bare chest from the greedy arousal raging in her ego's eyes. Her arms hung at her sides. She was wearing only white panties and ballet pumps.
  
  
  The doctor's breath hissed out of him. "Ah, so," he said.
  
  
  As she forced herself to ignore the voice inside me that screamed for me to break my ego's snake neck, his hands slid to her thighs, and her panties began to slide down her tanned thighs.
  
  
  Hubert was right about Nicole Doing if she was Nicole Forcing. She was naturally blonde.
  
  
  The bed was on my right, in the corner between the wall and the window. The girl, still motionless, was on my left, with Dr. Inuris between her and the bed.
  
  
  Getting to his knees, panting slightly from excitement and exhaustion, he rolled up her panties to her ankles.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris got to his feet, grabbed ee's arm, and started dragging her back to the bed.
  
  
  He let her take one step, then another, just to make sure. There was no mole on the inside of her left thigh. Not at all. Then he leaped over the windowsill and ducked into the room.
  
  
  The doctor turned around to see me. The girl slid back to her bundle of ruined clothes.
  
  
  The scarf fell from the doctor's neck, exposing the ego's nauseating collar around the warts. Before she could bridge the gap between us, he closed it in his amazement.
  
  
  "Guido! he shouted. "Guido!
  
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  
  
  Out of the corner of her eye, he saw the girl lift her tattered dress and press the scraps of fabric against her voluptuous body. Dr. Inuris was trapped like a spider, wasting his time waiting for the arrival of the deadly Guido.
  
  
  He didn't try to run to the door. It flashed through my mind that he was probably afraid to run into his little torturer in a dark hallway and then pay a fine for Guido's flawed intelligence and petulance in the form of a .22-caliber pistol bullet from that scumbag. At the same time, I had a mental image of a dwarf caveman jumping out of bed, pulling his Trejo pistol from under his arm, and running toward the girl's room.
  
  
  Like a cornered boxer, Dr. Inuris moved from left to right along the wall of the room, ego, palms out, as if in a gesture of reconciliation.
  
  
  I wouldn't have much time. The doctor was as much a physical threat as cotton candy, but there was no point in getting between him and Guido. The web fight that he could get into was the one where the odds were on his side.
  
  
  He let emu approach with a wave of his shoulder and left arm. He kicked me, grabbing my right arm. She was released by a punch, and a decent ego punch to the jaw. He slammed into the wall, then slid down, unconscious, blood streaming down the ego of purple lips.
  
  
  Her stahl didn't hurry to enjoy the sight, but rather turned and rushed towards the day. Late. It swung open.
  
  
  Guido was standing there. Trejo was aimed at my life. "Stand still," he said.
  
  
  His hands were raised. She told them that at the time, Nicholas Anderson, the protector of damsels in distress, had no particular reason to deal with Guido. It wasn't absolutely necessary.
  
  
  The gun remained motionless. The doctor was still lonely now. Guido smiled. — So you took that bastard down, didn't you?" Well, that's all, I think. But I still can't approve, mate. This means bad for me. And I don't like it. You should have run away when I told you to. Now you may regret it.
  
  
  Guido's sharp eyes took in the girl and widened. "Get dressed," he said. "And get Tysoeng ." Tell em the doctor needs help. And don't try to be naughty.
  
  
  The girl turned her back on us, took out a suitcase from under the bed, selected a few items of clothing, and began to dress.
  
  
  "You," Guido said, " pick out a piece of wall and put your hands on it.
  
  
  I made it, as I was told. Guido did an acceptable search for me. He'd probably been the butt of such jokes often enough to learn his trade. Ego's search might have brought Emu a gun, a knife, and a gas bomb, but he wasn't good enough to get three razors. Guido wasn't very imaginative. "All right," he said, " you're clean. Turn around, put your hands behind your head and hold ih there until I tell you to put ih down."
  
  
  Shaggy sounds were heard outside the door. The girl returned with a Chinese man who was carrying a towel and what looked like a small bowl of water. It was the first time Ruki's ego had seen her. The nails on his index fingers and little fingers stuck out like four-inch daggers.
  
  
  "Tell the doctor, Tysoeng," Guido said.
  
  
  The Chinese nodded.
  
  
  "You," Guido said to the girl, " stand next to that white knight of yours, and no jokes. He's had enough of you. If it was up to me, I'd shoot you both right here on the spot. Then I'd be more comfortable.
  
  
  The Chinese man knelt beside Dr. Inuris, wiping Ego's face with a towel. The doctor groaned, and the ego's head hung down from its ugly neck. Ego's eyes blinked. The Chinese man continued to wipe the ego until the doctor pushed the ego aside, careful not to touch the ego's long fingernails. "Help me up, Chang," he said.
  
  
  The Chinese man grabbed Ego under the armpits and lifted him up. He continued to lean his back against the wall and moan. "Bring me some brandy, Chang," he said.
  
  
  The Chinese man went out through the rooms and returned a moment later with a glass of cognac. The doctor dipped his pig face into the glass and inhaled the fumes before drinking. With his free hand, he felt his injured jaw. Then he turned to me with a tired smile. "No real damage, Mr. Anderson," he said. 'At least for me. As for you... well, that might be a different matter altogether.
  
  
  "Listen," I said.
  
  
  But Guido interrupted me: "Shut up," he said.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris waved him off like a trainer dealing with a yapping young dog. "That's enough, Guido, "he said.
  
  
  Guido gave him a look that wasn't rude. Apparently, ih relationships weren't built on attachment. Guido would have been just as happy to point the small of his Dr. Inuris automatic pistol at the girl and me, just to watch us collapse under the ego bullets.
  
  
  — Well, Mr. Anderson, I think it's time for you and Me to come to some final understanding. I thought I made it clear to you back in Negresco that the girl who attracted your attention was actually very ill. And your presence here can only aggravate and complicate her illness. You are willing to accept the rather dramatic way in which you have so painfully demonstrated your loyalty, since apparently no damage has been done. But you must understand that I am a man of science and will not tolerate any interference when it comes to the very serious issue of treating a sick person."
  
  
  "If anyone in this room is ill, Doctor," I said, " it's you.
  
  
  He felt again the power of the ego's efforts to contain the anger that threatened to rip off the ego mask of a benevolent doctor to vent the twisted anger that burned inside him.
  
  
  A shiver ran through his body. He took another sip of brandy. Ego's eyes stared at the amber liquid as he swirled the brandy in his hands. He began to understand what I had heard and seen, more than he suspected. "Mr. Anderson," he said with one of his condescending smiles. "There are some cases between a doctor and a patient that seem, how should I put it, strange to an untrained observer. A scene that might even seem shocking in math to someone like you would be immediately understandable to one of my colleagues.
  
  
  "Stop it, Doctor," I said. "I don't accept that, and if you think so, then you're even crazier than she suspected, and I suspected that you were completely cheating and disgracing your profession."
  
  
  The doctor poked his muzzle into the globular bowl of his cognac glass and took a deep breath before glaring at me.
  
  
  "What a shame," he said with a sad smile. "Too bad. For you. You're a fool, Mr. Anderson. If you would only listen to me, you could now enjoy the prospect of immersing yourself in the very rich beauty of the Cote d'Azur. But instead, your stubbornness forced you to interfere with my plans. And that, sir, is very unfortunate.
  
  
  "Unfortunately for you," I said. "But he's not here for a girl, I guess."
  
  
  "Heroes amuse me, Mr. Anderson," he said, sipping his brandy. "Perhaps your experience is rooted in Westerns, like many of your compatriots, but mine is based on facts. And so hers, I hope you'll believe me when I tell you that, based on my considerable experience, sudden death is met by more heroes than cowards. And its sure that this is just as undesirable for them as it is for ih smaller but wiser brethren. But enough philosophizing. Suffice it to say, you didn't do us, our girl, a favor. And to me, you're nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
  
  
  "That remains to be seen, Doctor," I said.
  
  
  "Indeed," he said. "And it's coming up now."
  
  
  Dr. Inuris put down his glass. "Tiong, pack up all your luggage and put everything in the car. We're leaving as soon as possible.
  
  
  He turned back to me. "Now, Mr. Anderson, you've made me uncomfortable. Her should I give up this house now. Soon Guido, Chang, her, and the young lady whose welfare you are so concerned about will be leaving. We will be looking for new accommodation as a precaution against any disturbances that may be caused by people who are curious about your location. And the business "- ego's thin lips parted in a smug smile, and his eyes darted to the girl - " will continue until its inevitable both ends.
  
  
  Guido waved the gun at me. — And what will happen to him?"
  
  
  "Ah, Guido. "Dear Guido," said Dr. Inuris. 'Be patient. We'll write a prescription for Mr. Anderson at the right time. In the meantime, I suggest you take ego to one of the basement rooms and tie him up tight. Ask Chang to come with you. And then, when Chan has packed up and the two of you have loaded the cart, we'll see what we can do about Mr. Anderson's ego-driven separation from this young lady.
  
  
  "Go on," Guido said, pointing to the door.
  
  
  Chang joined us outside in the hallway. They were a pretty good team in the dell itself. Chang backed down the corridor in front of me, keeping well away from me. Guido stayed far enough behind me that I couldn't move quickly toward the weapon.
  
  
  At the end of the stairs, there was a small flight of stairs leading down. At the bottom of the stairs, we entered a small room, empty except for a wooden-backed chair and a white-painted chair on which a newspaper was neatly folded in the dim light of a bare pear tree screwed into the ceiling. Under the table, neatly rolled up as if ih had been put there for its intended purpose, were lengths of rope.
  
  
  "Sit down," Guido said.
  
  
  He was an efficient employee. It only took Em a minute to tie my arms to the back of the chair and my legs to the legs.
  
  
  "You can go now, Chang," he said.
  
  
  The Chinaman lowered his head in a perfunctory bow, then went up the stairs in silence.
  
  
  "I sent him away," Guido said, " because I have something to tell you.
  
  
  'Oi?'
  
  
  "The doctor thinks you're some kind of prankster, buddy. You make the ego laugh. He poked the muzzle of the gun under my chin and tilted his head back. — But I don't think you're that funny." You've caused me a lot of trouble tonight, and I don't like it at all. So what I have to tell you is what the doctor has planned for you-maybe he will let you live — you will die. I'll make sure to come down here before we leave." Then I'll kill you." The doctor may be angry with me for a while, but he's still not very happy with me. And in an hour or so, he'll decide that it doesn't really matter. So you're dead, and I'm very happy.
  
  
  She belongs to them, and it doesn't hurt to make this monkey believe she's dealing with a weakling. "I have a lot of money, Guido," I said. — If you let me go, I'll give her all to you."
  
  
  "Oh, man," he said. "I love being asked."
  
  
  "You could be rich, Guido," I said. 'Let me go. Please.'
  
  
  — I just want to tell you one thing, " he said, pressing the gun a little harder. He lowered his voice to a whisper. — You're going to die, buddy. He took out his gun and walked quickly out the door. She saw the door close behind him and heard the lock click. He began to wiggle his fingers in the direction of the belt. After a few seconds, he pulled the blade around the hiding place and was already working on the ropes. Guido might have been flirting with Nicholas Anderson, but Nicholas Carter was another matter entirely. The innocent tourist's tour has come to an end. It took me no more than thirty seconds to saw through the rope.
  
  
  He picked up the newspaper from the chair. This-Mateen was fat enough to pull the trick. He opened the newspaper and left it folded only once. Then he rolled it up and then diagonally into a tight cylinder and bent it in half. The finished product had a conical handle and a rock-hard head. It was a cheap weapon, but deadly.
  
  
  He picked up the cut ropes, tied his legs loosely to the chair, and slid his hands into the back, clutching the newspaper behind his back.
  
  
  I didn't have to wait long. Ego shaggy clattered down the stairs, and the lock clicked. Guido's face was bright red. He kicked in the door.
  
  
  "Dirty bastards," he said. — He wants Chang to kill you. To punish me. Well, they can all get shit for me. By the time I finish it, you'll be dead.
  
  
  "Don't do this, Guido," I said.
  
  
  "Finish your prayers, buddy," he said, coming up to me with his gun drawn.
  
  
  I opened my mouth a little so he'd think I was going to say something else. Then she was thrown by bidu po for herself, and she hit ego's hand with the gun. The weapon arced over Ego's shoulder and smashed into the ground behind him.
  
  
  Guido's eyes widened. He crouched down defensively, feeling his bruised arm and shuffling his feet. Ego's breath raced around his heaving lungs as his adrenaline system adjusted to the surge of pain. Ego bright eyes never let me go.
  
  
  I followed him as he slid backward. He stopped rubbing his injured arm. He reached back, groping for the gun.
  
  
  Suddenly, he fell to his knees and his right hand shot out to his weapon. I waited until his arm was fully extended, then flicked the newspaper at ego's elbow. The bone broke, and an animal howl escaped Ego's lips.
  
  
  Somewhere above, I heard her voice as a doctor... "Guido?" he said. "Guido! Where are you?'
  
  
  Guido was cornered in this dark basement room, his face contorted with pain as his uninjured hand darted to his weapon. Ego's fingers closed around the hilt as he let his weapon hit Ego's nose from below, in the nostrils. The ego's nose was crushed, and shards of bone penetrated the ego's murder-obsessed brain.
  
  
  A high-pitched wailing cry escaped from the ego's bloodied face. Then he fell on his back, twitched, and froze. He got down on his knees, shifted the bidah to his left hand, and grabbed the gun with his right.
  
  
  Looking up, he saw a ghostly figure dressed in black at the top of the stairs. Ego's hands were outstretched, and a dark liquid was slowly dripping from the four dagger-like nails. He stopped at the top of the stairs, and there I heard Zhang speak for the first time, and the two words he said made a blood clot run cold in my veins.
  
  
  "Mactan's Latrodectus," he said in a monotone.
  
  
  Thanks to the dubious pleasure of axes learning how to survive Her, knew what drips from ego nails: concentrated grievances of the black widow.
  
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  
  
  And so it was. There was no margin for error. Either I get rid of Chang, quickly and accurately, or he gets me and tears my flesh apart with some of the most evil poisons released by any creature on Earth. Resentment is fifteen times stronger than that of a rattlesnake. But death, if that was any consolation, would most likely come soon because of this stuff equivalent to the venom of thousands of spiders dripping from every giant fingernail of this Chinaman.
  
  
  He approached me as if he were unarmed, step by step, like someone walking in a funeral procession. Behind him, at the top of the stairs, looking down with a mocking smile, Dr. Inuri made a casual gesture of farewell, as if saying goodbye to two ping-pong players, and disappeared into full view.
  
  
  He retreated further into the room and placed a white-painted chair between himself and the approaching Chang. Ego's face was expressionless, his breathing indefatigable, his dark eyes fixed.
  
  
  He put his feet together. This wasn't the time for bad shooting results. He was right about Guido's gun. It was a .22-caliber Trejo, Model 1. The selector knob was set to the rate of fire: when the trigger was pulled, eight rounds exploded, and it was driven to hit Chang's bony chest. If it was an emu aiming at the head, there was a chance that some of the bullets would miss due to the ego's recoil."
  
  
  Chang paused at the bottom of the stairs, next to the room, in the shadow of an ego-sunken face. And then the black-sleeved hands, those hideous hands, swaying hypnotically back and forth like a cold prelude to a ballet of death, slid across the threshold.
  
  
  Her gun was raised in both hands. Slowly, the grave's curved arms writhed like giant eels in a ritual performance, and from time to time a drop of thick venom rolled down the nail to the ground.
  
  
  I felt the gun wobble in my hand, but resisted the urge to open fire. She wanted Chang to move further into the room, toward the light.
  
  
  He lowered the weapon carefully to relieve his muscles and ligaments from the strain of waiting. Just then, Zhang jumped over the chair.
  
  
  No time for two hands. No more time for careful aiming. With a flick of his hip, he raised the gun and pulled the trigger.
  
  
  There was an explosion... complete silence.
  
  
  Guido's adorable death machine is stuck.
  
  
  Chan was standing on the other side of the chair, poking his fingers into my eyes. Ducking, I hit her with the paper bat, but only met air when he took his hands away. He quickly circled the chair, moving sideways, but when he moved, his did the same, keeping the same distance between us.
  
  
  Within microseconds of each other, black, oily nails flashed forward like four arrows, searching my eyes. Her shoved gun in a minute, swinging the bat back and forth, hitting only the air.
  
  
  Every gram of concentration in my brain and eyes strained to gauge the direction and speed of each of Chang's potentially deadly attacks.
  
  
  And the hypnotic patterns he wove for me were just part of a more intricate outline of an old plan of attack that would eventually end in death. The air-piercing fingernails flashed and licked and licked, the arms spread farther apart, the eyes straining more and more to keep up with the dark, faint movement. Then there was a moment of nonchalance, the sharp pain of a nail being driven into the flesh, and then agony and death.
  
  
  Unless Chang's death came sooner.
  
  
  Her club was aimed at the emu's chin, and when he jerked his head back, her left hand slammed into the emu's head with all its strength. He gasped and staggered back, but quickly regained his balance and attacked again.
  
  
  I walked over to him, pulling out a chair in front of me. Chan stood in his place.
  
  
  Ego's left hand suddenly shot up to my eyes. He threw his head back, but realized too late that it was a feint. Ego's right arm was pointed down, two poison spears aimed at the network of veins on my wrist that was already pushing the chair forward.
  
  
  Her chair was yanked back at the last minute, and Chang struggled to make up for his move. He was late. Ego's pinky finger flew over the target, and the tip of the long fingernail of his index finger smashed into the tabletop.
  
  
  With his right hand, he hit her ego in the head with the bat. He leaned in to avoid her as her chair turned the other way. It was rewarded with a brittle crackle. A hissing breath, anger mixed with bewilderment, escaped Chang's lips. A four-inch fingernail stood trembling, its tip buried deep in the wood.
  
  
  He pulled her chair up to him again. Tiong didn't want to hear any more about it. The chair interfered with Emu's ego intentions. The ego left hand didn't want my face and eyes, and the right hand grabbed the chair and tried to pull the ego out by my strong trick.
  
  
  Between us, a stained, broken nail quivered in the white-painted wood; the blades were no more than a millimeter and a half in the soft spruce, like a miniature arrow, all covered in deadly poison, from the sharp end to the cracked other side .
  
  
  Dodging one, around Chang's high kicks with his left hand, hit her with the bat on the ego of her right hand, which was already clinging to the chair. Chang walked away with a glint of excitement in his eyes.
  
  
  Her, knew what he was waiting for: one moment of recklessness. When I leaned over the table to strike, my back and neck were exposed to my ego with my left hand.
  
  
  If he had held on to the bottom of the chair, he would have traded nothing more than a sore wrist for a clean and final left hand to my neck. It was a sentence I wasn't going to repeat, even though Chan hoped I would.
  
  
  A chair slowly pushed her toward him, brandishing the club threateningly. The moment the tree was within reach again, Chang reached out with his right hand and greedily grabbed the chair.
  
  
  We once again took up our tug-of-war positions around the chair, extending Ego's arm towards my target while hers bounced back and forth, dodging his relentless attacks.
  
  
  Suddenly, he fell to his knees and jumped out from under the chair.
  
  
  Then the second long nail on Chang's right hand broke off and fell silently to the floor.
  
  
  Before he could recover from the flag of execution clearance, he stood up again. And for the first time, her voice saw the fear in her ego's eyes. The weapon in Ego's right hand was now completely blunt.
  
  
  He grabbed the chair again. It was a move that Chang could only ignore at the cost of mortal danger. Reaching out with his left hand, he grabbed the bottom of the tree again. And vote we stood there like two duelists on a handkerchief-sized surface, just a few moves and death is very close.
  
  
  He resisted the temptation to approach Chang under those deadly daggers, risking his life to smash his face in with a single blow of the club. The odds were getting more and more in my favor by the second. It was halved by the arsenal in front of me. He could afford to wait for her. But Chang broke down. He threw himself across the chair, his head thrust forward like a human spear.
  
  
  Bidu threw it, leaped to the side, and grabbed Ego's wrist with both hands. Ego claws wanted my flesh like a pair of dark, glistening fangs. Ego's muscular body was sprawled face down on the table.
  
  
  He took one hand off ego's wrist and pressed ego's neck to the table with his elbow, while the other pulled ego's arm back. He struggled with my weight and my grip, nerves and muscles snapping and bone snapping. Ego's mouth opened in a silent scream. As her pressure eased, his hand dropped helplessly to the edge of the chair. Tiong lay panting. Ego's eyes expressed excruciating pain and immense hatred.
  
  
  I took a step back and looked at him.
  
  
  We both saw it at the same time: the broken fingernail was still stuck in the wood, and he knew Chan was determined to grab it, despite the pain and useless arm, to use ego in his final attack. When he got up on his uninjured right arm, he walked around her ego and landed a karate kick on the emu's neck with the side of his arm, causing the ego's face to crack against a tree.
  
  
  A terrible scream erupted around ego's insides, and when he stahl spun around like a dragon, swaying back and forth on top of the white altar chair.
  
  
  There was a nail shard around his right eye. He was still screaming when his body succumbed to the poison, sliding off the chair and landing on the floor with a thud.
  
  
  I didn't have time to waste our egos-our reverence for the dead, us-on continuing to stare at Guido and Chang's corpses in this grim arena. I had something to do with Dr. Inuris, and I quickly went up the stairs.
  
  
  Outside the house, she heard the roar of the Mercedes ' engine. She was ushered out of the doorway just as the car backed out of the driveway and disappeared around the corner of the house. I saw a girl in the front seat, struggling with a disgusting lunatic.
  
  
  When he reached the corner of the villa, the car was at the top of the slope leading down to the gate. He would have been at the gate before me, but Dr. Inuris has to stop to open the case. Then I'll catch up with her ego and smash the emu's skull in cashews. Dr. Inuris must have felt the same way.
  
  
  The door to the right swung open, and the girl's body, swirled by the ego arm, flew headfirst.
  
  
  He ran to her as the car sped toward the gate. There was a squeal of intimidation below as Inuris brought her to a sudden stop and emerged, circling the car. In the headlights, he was desperately trying to open the gate.
  
  
  I didn't have time for that right now.
  
  
  He knelt down beside her and took her head in his hands. Looking up into Hey's face, he heard the engine roar again as Inuris drove around the gate.
  
  
  The girl stirred.
  
  
  The sky was lighter in the east. The fog had lifted and a refreshing breeze was blowing from the sky.
  
  
  The girl suddenly regained consciousness, her eyes wide with fear.
  
  
  "It's all right now," I said, giving her a big hug. "He's gone, and I don't think he'll ever come back here."
  
  
  I felt the tension in her body ease, and after a few minutes, she looked up at me and managed to smile.
  
  
  It was beautiful.
  
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  
  
  We were sitting on the porch steps with drinks that he had brought out from inside. There was nothing wrong with the scotch Inuris had. The girl looked normal, except for a few scratches on her elbows.
  
  
  I asked her if she wanted to come in, but she shook her head. I couldn't blame her. The villa didn't look very attractive in the growing dawn. Chunks of the chipped and broken pink plaster bulged, and dark rust spots spread across the surface like burst capillaries on an old drunkard's nose.
  
  
  No, he couldn't blame her for not wanting to go in anymore. For Nah, it was truly a haunted house, with memories of real horrors, even without the corpses of Guido and Tiong as an extra, creepy touch.
  
  
  She leaned against one of the peeling wooden pillars in the corner of the stairs and stared out at the sea.
  
  
  Ey told her that Guido and Tiong were dead. She took the news with a nod, as if such things were inevitable in a world where justice always runs its course and evil cannot escape retribution.
  
  
  I didn't insist that she talk. She'll do it enough when she's ready. I knew it. But hey, first she needed to sit and enjoy the fresh breeze, the scent of conifers, and the delicious knowledge that she was free of Dr. Inuris and the ego of the little gang.
  
  
  With her head thrown back, her golden hair like a pillow on an old pillar, she was enjoying the clean air of the new day.
  
  
  When she finally spoke, her voice was absurdly wistful. "It's so nice here," she said. "Oh, I don't mean outright here, here, in this place. I mean here, along the Riviera, with the trees, flowers, sea, sky and sun. I would have asked her to come here at a different time, with someone else. But even someone like Dr. Inuris can't erase the ego of beauty. And now that he wasn't here, she should have stayed here. At least temporarily. But that can't be happening, not now. I have other things to do. Inuris ' escape was just the beginning, at least for me. You don't think he'll come back, do you, Nick?"
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "No, he's not coming back here," I said. — But that doesn't mean he won't show up again. I knew people like him before. They don't like it when ih is humiliated. They can't let ih plans get messed up. And when they do, they tend to want revenge. They won't rest until they get their revenge, even if it takes years. Dr. Inuris is just such a person.
  
  
  — How do you stop ih?
  
  
  — You're killing ih. Like mad dogs.
  
  
  She was wearing a blue work shirt with a few buttons undone at the top and bleached jeans. In the morning, then the horror of the night, and in the clothes she had hastily grabbed around her suitcase in her room, where one wrong move might make Guido shoot, she looked as good, if not better, as she had that morning in the casino, the moment ee first saw her.
  
  
  She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around ih. She bowed her head to cover her face with her golden cloak, which covered everything but her eyes and forehead. She looked up at me from the tips of her knees.
  
  
  "You can sit here, Nick," she said. "You freed me from Dr. Inuris. That's all I asked for.
  
  
  "I think I remember something about a five-franc murder order," I said.
  
  
  She lifted her head and smiled. "I consider the contract fulfilled," she said. "I don't think you're a hema like Guido who kills owls."
  
  
  "Far from it," I said. "But some people just have to be killed. And it seems to me that Dr. Inuris is one of those people.
  
  
  "You're more right than you think," she said. — But that shouldn't be your problem. Maybe I can find help elsewhere if I need it.
  
  
  "I think that's my problem now," I said. "It's possible that Dr. Inuris might want to deal with you later, her, thought he might have something for me, too. I told you that people like him are not different when they are interrupted in ihc. And I believe that I have slightly disrupted my ego plans. It can make me sleep poorly, wondering where he is, what he's up to, or maybe thinking that he's plotting some intrigue that can't possibly be so supposedly good for my health.
  
  
  "I think you're right, Nick," she said. — But you can take care of yourself. You don't need to dwell on me and my worries.
  
  
  I kept it. — Do you want it to be like this?"
  
  
  She looked at me and said nothing. She just looked me in the eye. Her, saw the tears welling up in her eyes. She shook her head and swallowed hard.
  
  
  Her sel sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. 'Then it's fine. Whatever it is, we'll fix it together. Ok?'
  
  
  "Okay," she said with a big smile.
  
  
  "By the way," I said — " I think it's stupid to break a winning combination. We wouldn't have missed the flow of this world for anything."
  
  
  "Thank you, Nick," she said.
  
  
  "Now for one thing," I said.
  
  
  'What?'
  
  
  "Sincerely now, quickly, before anything else happens, can you just tell me your name, and what is all this?"
  
  
  "It's a long story," she said. "Why don't you pour yourself another drink and sit down here by the pillar, where you'll be more comfortable."
  
  
  I kept it. "I'm ready to do it all. But before I take another step, before the sky collapses, or the porch roof falls on you, or I trip over the threshold and break my neck, she'd like to know who you are and what we're trying to do.
  
  
  It went down the nah like a burst of automatic fire.
  
  
  "My name is Penny Doane, and we are trying to prevent the theft of $ 15 billion from the United States."
  
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  
  
  Penny Dawn. He said the name a few times to himself as he mixed the ice cream with the strong drink he'd poured himself. The name didn't fit. It matched her buoyancy, her golden hair, her tanned skin, and her willingness to accept it when the odds turned against her.
  
  
  Her sel is opposite nah at the foot of the column. "Well, Penny, tell me the story."
  
  
  She leaned her head against a pillar to let the sun warm her tired face. "The story of Penny Doane," she began, her voice soft and thoughtful, " begins with the story of Philip Doane, my father..."
  
  
  Philip Doane was born in China, the son of an American missionary. They lived in the village, where they cared for the sick, helped the poor, and where Philip Doane spent his childhood. The Chinese way of life was all that young Philip knew.
  
  
  Among many of young Philip Don's friends was old Ji Shan Jo. He was a lean, hunchbacked man with a long white mustache that hung down both sides of the rta. Ego's skin was like parchment, but his hands were as flexible as a teenager's. In his younger years, Jie Shan Jo was a famous magician.
  
  
  Philip Doane was the old man's favorite in the village, and he learned Philip by some of his tricks. Gee loved puzzles and challenging things. He could spend many hours carving objects like the intricate boxes he assembled - a box within a box within a box that could only be opened by someone who knew ih complex but simple combination. Tapping on one spot, tapping lightly on another, caused the box to open.
  
  
  Ji Shan Jo taught young Philip the art of these tricks, and by the time Philip had to take his parents to an America he never knew, he had become quite adept at creating ih. Challenging Joe puzzles . As a keepsake and in honor of their friendship, the old man gave Philip one of his boxes, a work of art covered with beautiful ivory carvings. Philip Doane was ten years old when his parents returned to America. He never forgot us, the old man, our evil eye ego. "Life is full of magic," Tse said . Shang Jo didn't tell the boy. "You never know what tricks it will play or what miracles it will produce. It's the greatest show of all time."
  
  
  While living in America, Philip continued to solve puzzles and magic tricks. He loved castles. Keyed locks, combination locks-all this fascinated him. When Philip went to university, he studied engineering and at some point went to work for a firm that developed security systems for the banking sector. It was the perfect job for Philip Doane.
  
  
  Quite early in his career, he began to gain a certain reputation thanks to his discretion, obviously a magical talent in designing security systems. When other firms approached him, he went into business himself. Given his reputation, it's not surprising that the government contacted him shortly after for the assignment he received.
  
  
  The Gold Mine and Fort Knox have become almost synonymous in the United States. But what many people don't know is that there is now more gold in the Federal Reserve vault near Nassau-crushed in Manhattan than anywhere else in the world. And when the government decided to upgrade this storage facility, it turned to Philip Doane.
  
  
  Penny Dawn shifted and tucked her legs under her. Another glass arrived, and she took a sip, telling her story.
  
  
  "It's a good thing Philip Don is an honest man," I said.
  
  
  "Ah," she whispered, " but this isn't about him. Oh, then yes, " she added hastily. "Make no mistake about this. Money, gold, or regulations; - identify, or whatever they asked us ego to protect, it didn't care. It was a difficult task for him to develop something that Ji Shan Jo would be proud of. Vote on what motivated them. Designing castles that were both simple and complex at the same time."
  
  
  "So upgrading the security system at the Nassau-Sturt ego storage facility was the biggest challenge," I said. "And he finished?"
  
  
  She smiled a mysterious smile. 'Ah, yes. He did. It was the greatest masterpiece of ego life..."
  
  
  The government likes to claim that no one knows the combination needed to open the safe, that no one has the necessary information to break into it. But of course, Philip Doane is the only person who knows the ego. And with them ferret as he designed the vault, the government hired ego as a consultant to maintain the quality of ih security measures. It makes all necessary corrections according to the latest news in such areas as security or theft techniques. He makes the final decision on who will be hired as an armed guard, a vital part of the defense system. Philip Doane could have lived a long and happy life. Life was good. He was in a very respectable position, he married the beautiful Jean, and they had a daughter to whom they were both very devoted: Penny.
  
  
  But life was full of tricks, Ji Shan Jo had said it so many times. And one day this fateful magic changed everything.
  
  
  It was a sweltering summer day, and Dawn's family drove to the beach to escape the oppressive city heat. When they returned in the evening, pleasantly tired and refreshed, they were only a few miles from home when it happened. The driver of a car coming from the other side lost control and collided with Doane's car in a head-on collision. Philip's wife was killed instantly. Philip himself only had a few scratches. But Penny Dawn went headfirst through the windshield. She was horribly disfigured.
  
  
  The doctors bandaged the girl up as best they could, but told Philip there was nothing else they could do. She would be scarred for the rest of her life; and Philip Doane was stung by the guilt of this accident, which had such terrible consequences for the child's ego. Penny grew up facing the kind of cruelty that other children can display: taunting her disfigured, scarred face. Philip seemed more offended than Penny. He pampered Penny in every possible way to compensate for her deformity, which had become something of an obsession with him. He took her on extravagant trips, sent her to the best schools, hired piano and singing teachers, dance teachers, took her to concerts, ballet, theater, everything for nah. And, of course, we took her to all the plastic surgeons in the country.
  
  
  It seemed like every month there was a different doctor, and every month the same rheumatism: scar tissue, deformities too complete. There was nothing else that could be done. Growing up, going to school, and getting her degree, Penny learned to live with her scars. She had adjusted well, and thought her life was over. But her father persisted, despite her protests, in seeking this magical surgeon who didn't exist.
  
  
  But it turned out that it exists. And one day, unannounced and unannounced, he showed up at Philip Doane's Manhattan office. "I take it," the man said, " that you're looking for a surgeon for your daughter?"
  
  
  - yes... but who are you...?
  
  
  "I'm that surgeon," the man said. 'Can I introduce her? Dr. Lothar Inouris.
  
  
  
  Chapter 11
  
  
  
  
  So much more. Inuris was referring to a simple barter: access to the Federal Reserve vault in exchange for a new face for Penny.
  
  
  It seemed ridiculous. Only a madman would offer it, and only a madman would accept it. This doesn't mean that Lothar Inouris and Philip Doane were equally crazy. If Philip Doane was mad, he was mad with love for his daughter. All parents want to do something for their children; Philip went to extreme lengths. And the price was high for Don Philip. The ego was asked to pay the highest price it could afford: the destruction of the ego masterpiece. The crypt he designed has reinforced concrete walls. It's twenty-seven meters below Nassau Street. Outside is a gate with an intricate double key system. But access to the vault itself is through a narrow passageway, through a three-meter, ninety-ton steel cylinder. The cylinder rotates in a one-hundred-and-forty-ton frame. When the entrance is closed, the cylinder turns so far that the frame is filled with solid steel, and then sinks one centimeter, like a huge cork in a bottle. It's airtight, watertight, and locked up for a while, not to mention all the electronic equipment, television, and other sighting equipment, as well as the human security system built around one of the largest units of its kind in the country: snipers train regularly. with small arms and automatic weapons.
  
  
  The alarm system can block any exit around buildings. And inside the vault there are locked compartments, triple locks. They contain about fourteen thousand tons of gold bullion in the United States and about seventy other countries. Each bar weighs about twelve pounds. It's not something you can carry in your pocket, and you won't be able to do it unnoticed with an entire fleet of trucks.
  
  
  Getting the gold out of there was a mystery that even Zhang Ji Jo would have liked. And emu would also like Philip Don's solution. It was simple and difficult at the same time.
  
  
  At the first meeting, the two men came face to face with their conditions. Philip Don, a man obsessed with his daughter's tragedy, did not immediately decide to trade his unique magic for that of Dr. Lothar Inuris. The web problem was trust.
  
  
  -"But, my dear fellow," said Dr. Inuris: "We can both trust each other. I believe that you will bring this project to a successful conclusion, and you should entrust me with the successful operation of your daughter. You don't have a choice.'
  
  
  "Of course you're right," Philip Doane said. "No one, I repeat, no one can do what I can do. It was perfected by the most advanced methods. My own methods, based on years of research.... And her only surgeon in the world who can heal the scar tissue that has affected your daughter, and give her not only a new face, but also a beautiful one."
  
  
  "And hers," Philip Don said dispassionately, " hers is the only one in the world who has the full security information that you require."
  
  
  'That's right. So neither of us wants to betray the trust of another, does it? What both men were asking for was a huge undertaking. Inuris, intent on escaping with about a sixth of the world's gold mined since time immemorial, agreed to provide Philip Doane with a loyal staff for as long as necessary. However, for his own safety, he declined to name the other ringleaders involved in this major robbery. In return, he agreed to set up Operation Penny if Philip would demonstrate his cooperation by providing access to the gold. Once long-term planning reaches the irrevocable stage, he will begin Penny's transformation. It will take months, possibly years, to steal the gold. The operation will last on Sundays.
  
  
  Even before the ih first meeting ended, Philip Doane and Inuris developed a system to keep in touch. So Philip told the doctor that he would let em know when he was ready to start his plan.
  
  
  From that day on, Philip Don seemed like a completely different person to his daughter. For the first time in years, he seemed happy and cheerful. Penny doesn't ask questions about this color change, the rapid zoom. Hey, I wanted to believe that he was finally coming to terms with the situation. But this happiness had a drawback. Penny discovered that her father had become consumed with feverish tension over time, and when she expressed her concern, he attributed it to the excitement of a new project. Penny stopped there. She was glad that he no longer dragged her around the country, to all sorts of doctors, and that he was absorbed in his work. She hadn't even noticed the ego's altered appearance; the ego's hair had naturally turned gray over the years; but over time, from the ego of the new project, he'd lost weight and bent over. Ego's face was wrinkled and old. Finally, one night, she noticed ego's physical changes.
  
  
  He came home early, in a good mood, and poured two glasses of his best sherry, odin, around which he gave ay. "A toast, Penny. Let's drink to the magic of life."
  
  
  Penny looked at her father with amused bewilderment. It had been years since the ferret had seen ego so happy. "What's going on, Dad?"
  
  
  Philip Doane sat down in his favorite chair. "You'll be operated on by a surgeon tomorrow night. And when you wake up, you will have a new face. There won't be a trace of your old scars and operation marks. Penny looked at him incredulously.
  
  
  "It's true," he said. He put down his glass and raised his hand as if to swear. — I'm absolutely serious. I've seen this man's work and I'm telling you, emu is not in the sun."
  
  
  "But, Dad," Penny said. "I really don't care anymore." Philip Don nodded. "I know," he said. "And that's why I'm so proud of you." But, Penny, please, let's not argue. Even if you don't care, please do it for me, for the old man. For your father to bring emu happiness and joy.
  
  
  Penny had no trouble accepting the request. She went up to her father and kissed Ego on the cheek. Philip put his arm around Dawn Sl.
  
  
  "God bless you," he said. Tears streamed down ego's cheeks. "Don't get off, Dad," she said. "Only joy." She thought about it. "Tell me, what will I look like?"
  
  
  "To tell you the truth, I do not know," said Philip. "I left everything to the doctor. He knows that. But he told me so much that you will be very, very beautiful.
  
  
  "He seems to be a very outstanding person."
  
  
  "Yes, very well," said Philip.
  
  
  "Tell me about nen?"
  
  
  "There is not much to say about this. But a fine man. His voice was weak and thoughtful.
  
  
  "How is he?" Who's that?" Where is he from?
  
  
  "It doesn't matter." He seemed almost angry at her questions. "He's the best in his field, and that's the only significant point, isn't it?" "Dad," Penny said, " is there anything you want to tell me?"
  
  
  "No, no," said Philip, with an artificial smile. — That's not true at all. But there's not much to say about nen alone. I mean, what's the difference? An important result."
  
  
  "This is all very strange, Daddy," Penny said.
  
  
  "Well, this hasn't happened yet,
  
  
  Well? And her little nervous voice and all, now that it's so close. And this barrage of questions doesn't make the ego any better, either.
  
  
  "Well, I don't see any harm in that. This is for estestvenno. Finally, this is important. I mean, you wouldn't leave me to some suspicious doctor.
  
  
  Philip Don jumped up as if his ego had been kicked.
  
  
  'Daddy.'
  
  
  He began to sob. Ego's daughter knelt down beside him. "I think you'd better tell me everything," she said. Philip raised his hands to his face. "I can't," he said between sobs. 'I can't do this.'
  
  
  "You have to," Penny said.
  
  
  And when the sobbing stopped, Don Philippe, still covering his face with his hands, told his daughter what he had done. He explained how he and the mysterious Dr. Inuris had managed to put new people loyal to the doctor in all the key security posts around the vaults over the years. Sometimes Philip Don succeeded, like when the I try Guard left and had to hire a new one. Philip Don arranged that when a new person was brought in, Dr. Inuris tota was selected and appointed. But that's not all. Men left the medical centers. With the information gathered and provided by Philip, Inuris organized what he called " magical disappearances." The guard was disappearing, but no one knew about it. For immediately, in order to take the ego's place and do the ego's work, there was an ideal world created by Dr. Inuris.
  
  
  After a while, the entire vault system was under the control of a whole team focused on one thing: stealing gold.
  
  
  Don Philip's solution was as simple as it was complex. The most difficult thing was to replace the men, but Dr. Inuris did it. And the simplicity was that Philip Doane knew from the very beginning that there was no point in using brute force to break into the impregnable vault he had created. There were no weaknesses in the metal. The weak spot, he knew, was in the guards.
  
  
  Now the operation has become much easier. Most of the gold was owned by the United States. Some of the bullion stocks were owned by other countries, and when the debt needed to be paid off, "gold stackers" in their special shoes moved the gold to the desired compartment using hydraulic lifts and belt conveyors.
  
  
  Every day, according to a schedule set by Don Philip, each guard moved a gold bar and replaced the ego with a fake one, with no one knowing anything but the guard himself, and he wasn't going to talk about it. How termites eat away at the house. Slow, but effective. Within a few years, thousands of gold bars disappeared. Usually, when conditions were considered absolutely safe, the truck picked up and delivered large loads. After a certain amount of time, the number of gold bars left in the vault became less than the number of fake gold bars. Billions were stolen. At this time, the price of gold on the world market remained stable: $ 35 per ounce. Then, suddenly, a combination of forces began to drain the dollar's strength. Too many dollars were printed. There was too much paper money. Confidence in the dollar began to weaken. The people's gold hotel.
  
  
  Officially, gold was more valuable. Officially, the dollar was worth less and there was a huge flight into gold, away from the dollar. When the great financial sages of the world decided to create a free gold market, the price skyrocketed to over a hundred dollars an ounce.
  
  
  Everything was ready for a financial blow. Dr. Inuris and his friends controlled almost a sixth of all the gold in the world. They had a real alenka on the market and were able to meet high prices and high demands.
  
  
  He and Philip Don explained everything to Penny, and when she insisted that he go to the authorities, he refused.
  
  
  'Not yet. That would be a disaster at this stage. Something will leak out, and the United States economy will plunge into chaos. The result would be so disastrous that absolutely no one would be left untouched. Industry will collapse, unemployment will skyrocket, and the stock market will collapse. But as long as we are silent about it, there is still a chance that the US will find its gold again. I say now, you only destroy one good thing in this whole story: a new life for you. If we keep quiet until the operation, everything will be fine. The government will hear in due course, but there is no reason to break the dam until we get our profit. We must cooperate now, otherwise all I will see in my work is an ugly girl and a father convicted as a thief." Penny quickly realized. Her father was right. Her only chance was to have an operation, thus canceling the deal between Philip Doane and Dr. Inuris. And after that, she can still do whatever it takes to fix the situation.
  
  
  Her father seemed to read her mind. "Once this operation is done," he said, " Dr. Inuris will pay his debt to me, and my contract with him will come to an end. Then, Penny, you can do what you need to do.
  
  
  And so she kissed her father goodbye the next night. A car was waiting in front of ih house. The tall Chinese man took his place behind the wheel before she could get in the back. The man behind her was sitting in the shadows. The ego voice came from the ego half-hidden face. "Her doctor is Inuris," he said. "Your surgeon, Miss Dawn."
  
  
  Before they were a mile from her house, he gave her the drug. And Penny Dawn was unconscious when they reached their destination.
  
  
  
  Chapter 12
  
  
  
  
  I realized I was looking at Penny Dawn's sweet face when she told me this story. When she paused for a moment, she was struggling with the many questions and concerns raised by her story on a bright sunny day. There were still many unfinished images that he hoped she would complete. "So this good doctor made you look like Nicole Cara," I said, swirling the last of my drink in my hands.
  
  
  "Yes, he was impressed by the image of the movie star he idolized." Her body was shaking with suppressed laughter. "Oh, of course I was grateful. I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw myself in the mirror. A new face, a beautiful face. Then I realized that I had never known before that beauty, physical beauty, is a real wonderful gift. But a gift, "she continued, her voice strained with unpleasant memories," requires a high price.
  
  
  Inuris explained that Penny was unconscious for just over 72 hours. Still captivated by the exquisite beauty of her new face, the perfection that brought back her admiring gaze around the mirror, she didn't notice the doctor approaching her. "A man could spend his whole life looking for such a woman," he said, standing openly next to her. "I never knew Nicole." But I'll admit that I'd give a lot to know her. And seeing you like this makes me lose my mind.
  
  
  Suddenly, he reached out and pulled her close. A hand wrapped around ee. Ego's free hand tugged at the thin nightgown and roughly squeezed her breast. He pressed his lips to hers and stuck his tongue between her teeth.
  
  
  Startled, Penny broke free. "Don't touch me!"
  
  
  "I think you'd better learn to accept my attentions," the doctor smiled.
  
  
  Penny asked ego to leave. Then the doctor told her where she was in the gym: in the south of France, in a villa. And, as he explained, hey, don't let her leave until he and her father complete the deal. Penny had no choice but to remain a prisoner. She pretended not to know about the agreement between Philip Doane and Dr. Inuris, which turned out to be in her favor. She decided that the best strategy for nah would be submissive behavior and ignorance. Hey, we weren't allowed to leave the villa under any other circumstances.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris, apparently realizing that his first rough approach to her was a serious miscalculation, did not make any physical effort for several days. However, he subjected her to a "blitzkrieg" of his perverted charm. And the" staff", Guido and Tiong, became less vigilant.
  
  
  Inuris told hey about himself. And around the bits of information she'd pieced together by watching and listening, she was able to imagine a twisted, disfigured man holding her captive.
  
  
  First, Inuris was addicted to heroin. The ego and love for the undisguised use of the syringe was obvious. He was of German descent and had been a medical student during the war. During this time, he was able to practice and develop surgical techniques on the prisoners of the concentration camps to which he was attached. How many hundreds of people had he maimed, killed to perfect the techniques he was now bragging about? Then he fled to Switzerland, where he opened a small clinic. He had grown rich thanks to the fanatical pursuit of new youth by older women. Growing wealth stimulated ego, greed, and he focused entirely on quenching his thirst for wealth.
  
  
  In all his memoirs, he never once mentioned how he knew about Philip Doane. He also didn't talk to Penny about ih's business relationship.
  
  
  A few days passed with Inuris ' stories, while Penny was sunning herself in the villa's garden. Then, one night, when she sensed that Inuris and Egos were calmed enough to fall asleep thanks to their obvious cooperation, hey managed to slip away and make it to Nice. She had just arrived at the casino when Guido caught up with her. When she was returned to the villa, Inuris was furious and warned her with obscene threats not to repeat that evening.
  
  
  A week later, Ay managed to sneak out again. And Guido found her again. But this time there was a man named Nicholas Anderson...
  
  
  He whistled at her. "This is a very interesting story for me. But there is one more thing. Nicholas Anderson's real name is Nick Carter. He's an agent for the United States government.
  
  
  Penny's eyes widened and her mouth formed a small, silent O.
  
  
  "Now that you're making it so clear,"I said," I thought I'd do the same."
  
  
  "I'll have to get used to it," Penny said. "But I don't see it making any difference."
  
  
  "Me too," I said. "We both still want to capture Inuris forever before he kills us. And as soon as we ego-grab her, I want to know a little more about this gold and who Inuris ' partners are. You do understand, don't you, that before your father, you are facing some kind of punishment?
  
  
  Penny lowered her eyes. "Yes," she said. 'I know her. But I think he knows, too. And the emu won't care. The only thing he was worried about was telling me. And now I'll be taken care of in silence.
  
  
  "Take the tailor if that's not true, Penny Doane," I said. "You are a very beautiful woman."
  
  
  There, on the ruined porch, she blushed. "I'm not used to such compliments yet," she said.
  
  
  "Well, I think you'd better get used to it," I said, getting up from the stairs.
  
  
  "It's all so strange," she said. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to it."
  
  
  He walked over to her and picked her up. "I'll help you try it," I said. "It's just a spin, practice." He took her face in his hands and brought her mouth to his. She was waiting for me. Her arms wrapped around me, and her body, a play of solid dots and smooth lines, merged with mine. Her hands came up and tangled in my hair.
  
  
  "Ah," she said at last, " oh, Nick.
  
  
  She was breathing heavily, the tanned tops of her breasts bulging in the long V-neck of her shirt. He saw the girl's eyes light up with green fire. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and her lips brushed mine, warm and wet, with a passion that was always more than just gratitude. Her thighs pressed against my thighs in a rhythm of uncontrollable desire. And her hands, servants of her desire, moved down to touch my thighs. He unbuttoned her shirt, took her breasts in his hands, and kissed her hard nipples. She let the shirt slide off her shoulders impatiently. "Hurry up, Nick," she breathed. 'Faster.'
  
  
  She stopped when he pulled off her bleached jeans and panties. Both her fingers and mine rushed to strip me of my clothes before we sank down together on the dewy grass, where her arms and legs wrapped me in velvety flesh. Her mouth moaned excitedly in my ear, like the voice of a tornado all around, lifting us up and dropping us back down into a pool of unimaginable pleasure. Again and again, until we were done with a thunderous explosion and left calm, warm and close to each other in the sun of a new day.
  
  
  There, lying in the grass, his stahl was telling him what he thought. Dr. Inuris decided to take her with him when he fled. If emu had succeeded, everything would have been fine, at least for him. The emu would then be able to hold Penny captive until the ferret's theft of the gold was complete. But it failed. Em had to throw Pennies around the car to distract me and escape. As long as she was alive, he was in danger. But he couldn't risk going back to the villa. It was too dangerous. Sooner or later, someone will find Guido and Tiong dead in the basement. And immediately after that, someone started asking a lot of questions about the person who rented the villa.
  
  
  No, Doctor. Inuris will never return. He was still on the run. Fighting wasn't a game of ego. He will wait and prepare retribution for his executioners, who will march on it. In the golden age, he was a technician, a demon creator, a replacement for the guards who "magically" disappeared. Her, knew what that meant. There was always someone who had good terms for this, such as" liquidation "or"unconditional termination of operations." These guards were dead ih replaced. Alexander was Inuris ' contribution to the theft of the gold.
  
  
  Someone else is providing the manpower, brawn, and a bunch of brains needed for an operation of this scale and complexity. I didn't know who exactly, but I found the presence of Guido and Tiong next to the doctor very instructive. They didn't seem like old friends of the doctor or old friends of someone else. It was as if Guido and Chang had been assigned to the doctor as a benefit by members of the alliance.
  
  
  So when the doctor was left without bodyguards and lost a girl that emu should have kept out of sight, he should have concluded that he was heading to his friends ' shelter pit as soon as possible. If he was fast enough, he could go back to his comrades, tell them what happened, and trust the decision that they will forgive the ego or at least not punish it until something crucial goes wrong.
  
  
  Meanwhile, the ego partners could do their best to make sure nothing went wrong by tracking down the girl and possibly "Nicholas Anderson." They will make sure that ih's mouth is sealed forever.
  
  
  If my guess was correct, Dr. Lothar Inuris is returning to New York.
  
  
  "That sounds good to me," Penny said.
  
  
  He didn't want to tell her about the second one, a good reason why Dr. Inuris was probably in New York. Not yet. "All right," I said. 'Let's go. Do you need anything else in the house?
  
  
  Penny shook her head. "All I need is my passport, and it's in my pocket. Let's go. Her hand slipped into mine as we walked up the path to the gate at the entrance to Narcissa's villa. The sun was shining brightly, and it was pleasant to part with the gloomy ruins of the villa and its dead inhabitants.
  
  
  "We'll hitchhike to Nice," I said. — We still have to go through the mimmo of my hotel. Its just a feeling that I will need my friends wherever we go. Ih's names are Hugo, Wilhelmina, and Pierre.
  
  
  Soon we were out again around the hotel. We took a taxi to Nice Airport, east of the city, and when we stopped in front of the airport building, Penny tugged on my sleeve.
  
  
  "Look," she said.
  
  
  Parked outside — or rather, abandoned — was a white Mercedes.
  
  
  "We're on the right track," I said. "He probably took an Air France flight to Paris at 7: 30 am."
  
  
  We took an Inter flight around Nice at 9: 30, with connections in Paris and New York.
  
  
  We didn't have much time left before we left. She was brought coffee for both of us, some croissants, and a copy of the International Herald Tribune. The large headline on the first page immediately caught my attention. The price of gold has peaked. Demand for it was at record levels in international markets, and concerns about the future of the dollar intensified.
  
  
  She desperately needed to get information on who was behind this whole gold theft operation, if there was still a chance of averting the whole disaster. If most of the US gold was leaked, the international gold crisis would turn into an international panic. Paper dollars would be worthless. A loaf of bread would be worth a million. Her, remembered reading somewhere about Germania then the First World War. In a few years, the value of brands has dropped from four marks to four billion marks. Everything was set up for history to repeat itself, but this time in the United States.
  
  
  The trip to Paris was loaded without incident. The plane swerved over the Bay of Angels to gain altitude, then take off.
  
  
  "I want to get back here soon," Penny said.
  
  
  "When this is all over," her father said.
  
  
  "When" or "if"?"
  
  
  In Paris, we were changing planes, and a big Boeing 747 took off on time for Orlov . If my guess was correct, Lothar Inuris was no more than two hours ahead of us. We weren't going to catch up with the ego, but at least it felt like we were moving in the right direction. Over the Atlantic Ocean, Penny was sleeping on my shoulder. I didn't blame her. Nah had a rough night. I was tired, too, for that matter, but I didn't feel sleepy. I didn't like being locked up on this plane. She is interested in being on earth and chasing after Inuris and her ego companions. But finally, someone on the staff came over the intercom and told us to fasten our seat belts. The announcement woke Penny. She yawned, stretched, then snuggled up to me and closed her eyes.
  
  
  "Hey, Sonya," I said. She opened one green eye and looked up at me from under her thick golden hair. 'Time to wake up. We have to go to work.
  
  
  She lifted her head and pushed her hair back. "The sooner the better," she said. 'What are you up to?'
  
  
  "We're going to visit your father," I said. — This is the first item on the agenda. He's the best lead we have with Inuris. Remember, he had a communication system with Inuris, and I want to know what it is.
  
  
  The taxi stopped in front of one of the fifty-year-old apartment buildings on Riverside Drive.
  
  
  When her paid the driver, her quickly looked around. Nothing on the street seemed abnormal to me. If anyone was watching the apartment, it was well hidden.
  
  
  He picked up his suitcase as the taxi pulled away again.
  
  
  'What time is it now? Penny asked.
  
  
  Her, looked at his watch. ' 5: 20.'
  
  
  — He'll be home any minute."
  
  
  We took the slow elevator up to the eighth floor. He took out Wilhelmina Poe's holster and shoved it into the waistcoat pocket, keeping his finger on the trigger. Penny's caliper tightened when she saw the Luger. "Let's just call it a routine precaution," I said. "I'll be the first one to go out all over the lift."
  
  
  Penny nodded. When the elevator stopped, he sat down behind his suitcase and carefully opened the door. If someone was waiting in the hallway, they would have to shoot at a small, low target to get through the gap in the day. Then the emu better be really good and fast.
  
  
  He pushed the door open and looked out the other side. "It's all right," I said.
  
  
  Penny had a set of keys ready. "Stay away from the door when you open it," her father said. "And let me go in first."
  
  
  The moment the door opened, he realized that the apartment was empty. It was filled with stale air, and dust motes hung almost motionless in the light that filtered through the windows in slanting wisps. Penny closed the door behind us. 'Daddy?'No!' she exclaimed.
  
  
  — I don't think he's home, " I said, putting the gun away.
  
  
  "Well, it won't be long, then," she said. She opened the windows and poured me a glass of Philip Doane sherry. "That's all we have," she said.
  
  
  "It's all right," I said.
  
  
  — What time is it?"
  
  
  "Half past five."
  
  
  "Make yourself comfortable," she said. "I'm going to take a shower and change. If he comes while I'm gone, you'll have to introduce yourself.
  
  
  He stood up, loosened his tie, and began unbuttoning his shirt.
  
  
  "I'd rather you agree to the suggestions, and I could take a shower for her alone," I said.
  
  
  Ee took her hand. She gave me a mischievous look and led me down the hall.
  
  
  "You like living dangerously, don't you?"
  
  
  "You can say that," I said.
  
  
  She giggled. "I do not know what will happen when he gets home and we are still in the shower."
  
  
  — We can say hello, " I suggested.
  
  
  The spacious bathroom had a shower. We took off our clothes and went under the nah. Her again admired the curvature of her body.
  
  
  "How do you want it?" — What is it? " she asked, her hands on the taps.
  
  
  "Hot and strong," I said.
  
  
  A sharp jet shot out around the shower head. Soap grabbed her, and Penny was sitting under the waterfall, her chest slightly pressed against mine. He let the soap slide gently down her back. Her arms reached out and pulled me to her. She put her hands on my shoulders and sat with her legs slightly apart as he pulled a trail of foam along and between her breasts, and then even lower, over her flat stomach and back and forth between her thighs.
  
  
  "I want to be your bath sponge," she said, pressing her body against mine, ff smooth, foamy flesh rippling around me. Hers rubbed against nah. She smiled lazily at me, her eyes wide.
  
  
  "Wash me," she said. "Wash me everywhere."
  
  
  Her hands closed around my neck. He reached out and lifted her legs until they were on my thighs, then pressed her back against the groan of the bathroom and entered nah. A small, long "ah" escaped her lips. And then, in our own wild, flowing universe, we created a raging surf, and then a vortex of irresistible suction, into which we were swept away and disappeared in a maelstrom of pure excitement.
  
  
  Wherever we were, we returned to the sound of running water on our entwined bodies.
  
  
  "I was sure he was here," Penny said when we returned to the living room.
  
  
  He finished his drink and lit a cigarette. Don't tell her yet, hey, what I'm thinking.
  
  
  Penny shifted uneasily in her chair. "Maybe he's working late," she said at last. — After all, he couldn't have known I was coming home today.
  
  
  He didn't say anything. She probably already suspected the same thing as hers, but she still couldn't believe it. Penny Dawn wasn't crazy.
  
  
  "I'll call the ego office," she said. There was a telephone in the hall. I heard her call one number, then another. "Central," she said. "I get an auto-reply that the number I'm trying to reach is unblocked. I think it must be a mistake. I heard her call the number, and there was a moment of silence before she spoke again. — Are you absolutely sure?" I didn't hear the answer, but I knew it was true.
  
  
  She came back into the living room and looked at me. "Something's wrong," she said.
  
  
  He drained his glass. 'I know what's going on.'
  
  
  — You knew all along, didn't you?" she said.
  
  
  He nodded to her. — I think your father is being held hostage." Dr. Inuris kept you here to make sure your father didn't do anything to prevent that last-minute gold theft. When he lost you, he and his friends turned to your father to make sure that you didn't do anything that would ruin my plans.
  
  
  "But as far as he knew," Penny said, " I didn't know anything about what was going on between him and my father."
  
  
  "When there are fifteen billion dollars at stake, they don't take any chances," I said. And besides, it's now about $ 45 billion. Fifteen billion is the official price, calculated at thirty-eight dollars per ounce, that the government paid for gold. In a free market, the price is almost three times higher."
  
  
  Penny whistled. 'What do we do now?'
  
  
  — Do you have any idea how your father always contacted the doctor?" Inuris?
  
  
  She shook her head. "No,"she said," he didn't tell me."
  
  
  "Given the state of the house,"I said," he didn't mind."
  
  
  "Maybe they didn't take the ego out of here," Penny said, " maybe in the office."
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "I may be wrong," I said, " but too many things don't happen like they do in an office building. There are elevator operators nearby. There are too many people everywhere, in entrances, on the street, who can see and remember something. Residential buildings are pricetypes better, quieter. People go about their own business. It would be much easier and much less risky to capture your father in your own ego dom. Given the time difference between this place and Europe, it wasn't difficult for Inuris ' friends to get here early if the doctor called them at the airport.
  
  
  — And where would they take ego?"
  
  
  "I don't know," I said. — But after what you've told me about your father, he's one of those people who takes pleasure in leaving a lead somewhere."
  
  
  "You're right," Penny said. 'But where?'
  
  
  "You say it," I said.
  
  
  Penny's eyes darted around the room. "Everything looks exactly the same," she said. I would have noticed her if I had. He's awfully neat. She tucked her legs under her in the chair and curled up dejectedly.
  
  
  "Think about it," I said.
  
  
  Penny closed her eyes. The room was quiet. Through the windows facing the Ministry of Emergency Situations, she could see the orange ball of the setting sun glowing candid over the horizon. He looked at his watch. It was six o'clock New York time. Banks across America were closed. The world was calm and safe, at least until tomorrow. And then maybe panic to put the whole thread to rest.
  
  
  Suddenly Penny jumped up. "I get it," she exclaimed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 13
  
  
  
  
  Her father jumped in his chair.
  
  
  'What do you mean?'
  
  
  "I know where he'll leave that clue," she said. "If he left it."
  
  
  'Where?'
  
  
  "Box G".
  
  
  He looked at her questioningly.
  
  
  "That ivory box that old Jie gave to my ancestor when he was leaving for China. It stores all its securities in nen. If he left a clue somewhere, it must be in this box.
  
  
  "Where is this box?"
  
  
  "In the ego room," Penny said, and was already racing down the hall after her.
  
  
  She came back in a minute. It was a beautiful piece of work, a rectangular ivory case, every inch of the sides and top decorated with beautiful reliefs of seemingly every animal imaginable. Penny gave me an ego.
  
  
  He grabbed the lid and pulled. The box remained tightly closed. Penny looked at me pityingly.
  
  
  "It's not that easy," she said. "Gee was having fun collecting boxes that were filled with puzzles, remember?"
  
  
  "How does it open?"
  
  
  "I do not know," was rheumatism.
  
  
  "We have two options to choose from," I said. "We can either break the ego, which I don't want to do, or we have to reveal that secret."
  
  
  "It's too valuable to break," Penny said. "My dad would never forgive me."
  
  
  "Forty-five billion dollars is also very valuable," I said. "And I absolutely hate anyone who tries to rob the United States government. Either we know quickly, or Philip's contribution to fixing a lot of trouble is a pile of broken ivory.
  
  
  He picked up the box carefully, turning it over in his hands. He patted its lid, bottom, and sides. I pressed it. I pinched it and felt its corners. I tried tapping and tapping combinations. It shook her. Nothing worked.
  
  
  He looked at Penny. 'Any ideas?'
  
  
  She shook her head. Whatever it is, it will be both simple and complex. This was the Ji way . Give you a problem that I thought was terribly difficult, but the solution would always look you straight in the face.
  
  
  "Staring you in the face the whole time," he said. 'Good.
  
  
  Let's assume that this is the "solution".
  
  
  The box was on my lap. Her, looked at the lid. Nothing but animals. Lions, tigers, monkeys, panther, llamas, elephants, snakes, bears, giraffes, badgers, whales, owls, gorillas, antelopes.
  
  
  Penny laughed.
  
  
  'What is it? I asked, looking at Nah as she bent down to inspect the box.
  
  
  "Oh, I was just thinking about old Jie . He probably would have liked that. Seeing the box he had made for the little boy was so disturbing.
  
  
  "I would have been much happier if old Jie had stuck to simpler tricks," I said.
  
  
  "But it's simple," Penny said. "Her mind has calmed down.'
  
  
  "I'll give you fifteen minutes to solve it, and then I'll break it into pieces," I said. "In the meantime, see where you can find a pen and paper."
  
  
  Penny was back in an instant.
  
  
  I started counting it. "Web hosting," I said. "Fifty-four animals up there. Thirteen on each side. Nothing at the bottom. A total of one hundred and six. Six lions. Eight elephants. Monkeys, five. Bears, three. Snakes, five. Two owls. Whales, four. Llamas, five. Three giraffes. One panther. Gorillas, four. Buffalo, five. Five peacocks and three dandies.
  
  
  He kept counting it. Penny kept writing until I said, " That's all."
  
  
  "Together," she said. "That's a total of one hundred and six."
  
  
  I took the list from Nah and examined her ego while she looked over my shoulder. — Do you see anything unusual?" I asked her to.
  
  
  Penny shook her head. "Nothing more than a guest list for a Noah's Ark party," she said.
  
  
  "Maybe a farewell party," I said. "Upon arrival, everyone must disembark, in pairs."
  
  
  Penny was still looking at the list carefully. "Then it will be difficult.
  
  
  'What do you mean?'
  
  
  "For the panther and the badger," she said. "There's only one around them. Do you think they know anything?"
  
  
  Then I saw it. "You're right, they know something. Check ih.'
  
  
  "I'll take a look," Penny said.
  
  
  — You don't notice anything about them?"
  
  
  "It's nothing special," she said. "Except there's only one around them, and more others."
  
  
  It was taken from Nah by the list. He held the box in one hand and the paper in the other. "All right," I said. "There are more than two animals per animal, with three exceptions."
  
  
  "Yes," she said. "A pair of owls, a panther and a badger."
  
  
  'Correct. What are owls?
  
  
  "Symbols of wisdom," she said.
  
  
  "Again." Where are the owls?
  
  
  "Open over panther and badger," she said. 'Right?'
  
  
  "Panther, and badger," repeat it.
  
  
  Penny's brow furrowed.
  
  
  "R & D," I said. "The initials of Philip Doane."
  
  
  Her, clicked on the panther. Nothing happened.
  
  
  "Oh, Nick," Penny said softly.
  
  
  "Don't give up," I said. — We can try something else."
  
  
  He put one finger on the panther and the other on the badger. He looked at Penny. He asked.
  
  
  I pressed it. Both animals slid under my thumb. There was a faint click somewhere inside the box. He removed her hand, and the lid swung open. Philip's advice Donna was the first one we saw.
  
  
  
  Chapter 14
  
  
  
  
  It wasn't much, but it was enough: a piece of white paper with black block letters.
  
  
  Fu Kuan Yeon Acrobatic Troupe. Now in the Sun Theater Min .
  
  
  In one corner, in a small, neat hand that Penny recognized as her father's, was the time and date of the meeting: 8: 05 a.m. Dr. Inuris wasted no time. As I suspected, he probably called his colleague around Nice airport and told him to pick up Philippe Doane as soon as possible. He will keep the explanation until he arrives in New York.
  
  
  So someone must have paid Philip Don a visit early this morning. He was probably observant, but not observant enough to keep the old man from putting the paper in the ivory box; probably while he was dressing.
  
  
  "Come on," Penny said.
  
  
  'Not so fast.'From the look on my face, she knew I didn't want her with me.
  
  
  — You're not going to marry Odin, are you?"
  
  
  "I'm afraid I'll have to," I said. "We'll part ways here, at least temporarily."
  
  
  "I want to go, Nick," she said. — I dragged you here. And he's my father.
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. "As soon as it gets dark, I'll go to that theater and dig around a bit.
  
  
  I know this theater. It is located at the junction of the Bowery and Chinatown. You'd stand out too much there.
  
  
  'So what?'Maybe we should let them know we're here.' Maybe ih will lure you out.
  
  
  "And suppose that happens," I said. "What if they catch us both?"
  
  
  "They win and we lose," she said with a shrug.
  
  
  "I can't afford it," I said. "And the United States government, too. This is not my game, where "tomorrow" you get another chance. If they win and we lose, it will be a loss not only to you, to me, to your father, but to many other people. Dr. Inuris and his friends must be a little scared right now. Your escape and having to take your father hostage is enough to disrupt ih's plans to make ih nervous. Keep in mind that Dr. Inuris has excluded you from treatment for some reason. This gold heist is nearing its climax. At the moment, they're not sure where we are, but at least they should suspect that we're causing them problems. So there's a chance they'll speed up the operation. If we make a mistake in our calculations, they will be free as birds, and disaster will befall the United States, as it probably will the rest of the world. I don't think you want this to be on your conscience, Penny-Donu.
  
  
  She lowered her eyes.
  
  
  "Listen, let me know by nine tomorrow morning. If I'm not back by then, call the Joint Press and Wire Service in Washington and ask for a man named Hawke. Tell Em everything you know. Then do whatever you want. That's all I ask of him. At least this way you'll have a chance to see your father again.
  
  
  Penny nodded in agreement. "What's going to happen to you, Nick?" She pressed her warm body against mine.
  
  
  "Don't worry," I said. "I just remembered that I have a lot to live with."
  
  
  She couldn't help but smile. "Then try to remember this," she said.
  
  
  "It'll distract me too much," I said.
  
  
  She took a step away from me. "Now get ready to leave," she said.
  
  
  I was wearing a light blazer, dark gray slacks,and a dark blue turtleneck I'd taken out of my suitcase. Wilhelmina and Hugo Pierre went back to their usual places, while hers was stuffed with a few razor blades in the folds of his turtleneck.
  
  
  Penny released me. "Be careful, Nick," she said.
  
  
  "Don't let anyone in but me," I said.
  
  
  "Don't worry," she said.
  
  
  Maybe it was the Sung Min Theater in the fun nineties that was a hit , but I doubted it. One thing was certain: if it had ever had its heyday, assuming it ever had, it must have been a long time ago. The big, old, square building seemed to be hidden in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, which arched over it. He was in constant semi-darkness, as if cringing to show the corruption that had befallen the ego over the years.
  
  
  It lost its big stage long ago and served as a movie theater for most of the year. Well, again, not the case when Hollywood guests are looking forward to their premieres. There were old Westerns and cheap imports from the Hong Kong film industry. Acrobats took to the stage once or twice a year around Taiwan. A special honor this time went to Kuan Yeon Squad.
  
  
  Hers was crouched on the dirty roof, peering through one of the dusty skylights. Below me, on the stage, I saw a man naked to the waist and a girl in a bare-back dress bowing to the audience. There was a low-key round of applause.
  
  
  They jumped back up on the stage and stood far apart from each other. There's a girl on one side and a man on the other. A glass of tasseled darts sat on a bare wooden table.
  
  
  The girl took out one and turned to the man who had his back to her. She flexed her arm and hurled the emu's javelin with all her strength. The dart shivered in the calf's ego, and a drop of blood came out from under the skin.
  
  
  He looked at it a little longer, then carefully walked across the tarred roof. There was another skylight that needed to be explored. It was rough, but not opaque, and looking down through the old glass made my pulse quicken. Dr. Lothar Inuris was standing in the room below me.
  
  
  He wasn't alone. He was in the company of two other men. And even though she had never been seen before, nam one, us the other, she immediately became aware of ih. Her seen ih photos in deeds and ah.
  
  
  Around them, Odin was tall and thin, with dark wavy hair and a dark, handsome face. She immediately became aware of Don Mario's nen Principle. If the mafia were a football team, he would be the top scorer and football player of the year at the same time. He was in the new mafia; born in the US, well-educated, smart, experienced and tough. He wouldn't use muscle where he could use common sense. He knew the law inside out, and used every loophole he could find. You may suspect the ego of many things-robberies, loan sharking, drugs, prostitution, and gambling - but prove it. Ego is called the "prince," and even the old dons gave him his due. They were old dogs with old tricks. The Prince knew new ones. He is adept at laundering dirty money overseas. He knew how to infiltrate and take over the legal business without worrying about the law. He knew all the tricks and traps of the police and a thousand and one ways to avoid ih. If someone was after 45 billion gold, the prince's attendance really made sense.
  
  
  No less interesting was the third man in the room. He had a stocky, powerful body and flat features when the moon was full. Even without the uniform, the ego was easy to recognize. Son of Voen, or rather Colonel, Son of Sieh. He works in the Chinese Army Intelligence service, grew up in the West, and received an economics degree from Oxford. Militarily, he was considered a brilliant strategist. He earned a reputation as a first-rate head of the intelligence agency known as Moonrise outside Macau in the 1950s. He organized military intelligence operations in North Korea and Hanoi. Russian intelligence considered ego the most dangerous Chinese agent they had ever encountered. It was said that he was as cool as he was brilliant, and as ambitious as he was cold-blooded. Now, on this seemingly peaceful spring evening, he found himself in a seedy Manhattan theater, and judging by the expressions on their faces, he was very angry.
  
  
  Her Son's colonel couldn't hear what he was saying as he sat in a straight-backed chair at a wooden table in an empty room, but there was no mistaking the subject of ego, his anger. Ego's face was contorted with anger. Dark blood flowed freely under his skin, and as he spoke, the index finger of his right hand darted a bony spear toward Lothar Inuris.
  
  
  The Prince stood to the side, arms crossed, and smiled contemptuously at the treacherous doctor.
  
  
  Inuris held out his hands to the Colonel in a gesture of reconciliation. But the Chinese didn't want to know. Dr. Inuris tried to speak, but in the rheumatism of the Colonel, the Son jumped up and slammed his fist on the table. He didn't hear our sermons. Not even the sound of Colonel Son's fist on the table could be heard.
  
  
  But he could guess what was going on. Dr. Inuris returned to the city and gave Riviera the details of his failed venture. And Colonel, my Son reacted predictably. He had a reputation for being a perfectionist. And his voice exploded. Inuris was a fool. Ego's role in the operation was simple enough: to keep the girl away. Now he's ruined the plan. Not once, but twice. And now she's run away. Not to mention that noble American Nicholas Anderson, who came here to help.
  
  
  Colonel Son stopped walking. Ego's hands made chopping motions as he spoke. Dr. Inuris tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, which is important in a room with only three people.
  
  
  I loved seeing Doctor Inuris get beaten up. He got what he deserves and more, but watching alone wouldn't have helped me take another step forward.
  
  
  The Colonel calmed down. He went back to his desk. He lit a long cigarette, inhaled deeply, and slowly released the ego around his thick nostrils. The smoke was flowing in two equal streams. He started talking again.
  
  
  I put my ear to the skylight frame, but I couldn't hear anything. And as hers cautiously leaned against the skylight, using one hand for counterweights, hers felt one of the windows move under my fingers. He moved away from her, peering into the room. No one around them seemed to have heard anything. Colonel Son simply continued as before.
  
  
  My fingers explored the loose glass. The screed holding the ego in place must have dried up years ago. The glass moved easily. Her hand moved, and Hugo, the stiletto, slid into my hand. Her silent stahl cut off the putty. Then she carefully placed the knife blade in a wooden frame and forged it. With the tip of her stiletto, he lifted the glass and took it out. Now her Son's voice could hear her . "For now, we just need to move on. True professionals, like that idiot, "Inuris pointed at the doctor," followed his instructions correctly." He took another drag on the smoke around his cigarette and blew ego through his nostrils again. "Basically, we have to act as if this girl and Mr. Anderson don't exist. They may pose a threat to our operation, but there is also a possibility that this is not the case." He looked at Inuris. — You think this girl doesn't know anything about our operation. Her, I hope you got it right. As for this Anderson, his ego seems nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence. In any case, it's too late now to put a stop to our plans. There is too much at stake for all of us, and we are now close to the end.
  
  
  "However, I believe that some changes are necessary." He finished his cigarette. — I'll discuss it with you in a few minutes." But first "— he got up from his chair, took out an empty pack of cigarettes around his pocket, and crumpled it up — " I need some cigarettes. He went out through the rooms.
  
  
  I kept looking at her. Dr. Inuris looked at Don Mario. One of those hideous, high-pitched, nervous giggles erupted around the ego of the warty throat. Ego's nerves were a little less tense when Colonel Son wasn't in the room. Don Mario looked at him coldly.
  
  
  "Don't worry," Dr. Inuris emu said. 'Everything will be fine. I know that for a fact.
  
  
  Don Mario waited a long time before answering. Ego's voice was filled with disgust. "Don't play any sillier than necessary," he said. "Everything was going well until you decided that I should be her lover."
  
  
  "Everything will be fine," Inuris said. "Don't worry.'
  
  
  "Listen," Don Mario said, " of all the people who have something to worry about, you're in the first place. If anything goes wrong, you'll have to worry about me and Colonel Son, you poor bastard, since you're here. And if you don't, there's always something to worry about."
  
  
  "You'll see the voice," Dr. Inuris said. 'Everything will be fine. Trust me. Assume...'
  
  
  I didn't hear the rest of it. In the next second, my breathing stopped as a metal chain closed around my throat. As hers struggled for a breath of sampling air under the steel pressure of smash biting into the collar of my sweater, my hand instinctively reached for the luger. My tongue poked out from the rta. My eyes seemed to jump, which hurt. Somewhere in my oxygen-deprived brain, I knew that the one behind me was using the deadly nunchucks so beloved of karate fighters.
  
  
  The chain between the two handles squeezed all my life around me. But my hand was still on the gun.
  
  
  "No, no, Carter, this isn't going to work," a voice said. Then there was a sharp slap to the back of my head and a flash of sickening lights before I was swallowed up in darkness.
  
  
  Chapter 15
  
  
  
  
  When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying on the floor of a small room behind the stage. My hands and feet were bound, and the back of my head felt like someone had crushed my ego with a sandbag. Colonel Seung, Don Mario, and Inuris stood and looked at me.
  
  
  — Are you feeling a little better?" The colonel asked his son.
  
  
  He gently moved her head back and forth. "I don't think anything's broken," I said.
  
  
  Colonel Son lit one around his long cigarettes and let the smoke seep through his nostrils. "Actually, you deserve to die," he said. "If only because you were so careless. Carelessness in our work is unacceptable, you know. And it was very careless of you to pull that window out around the skylight. Has it ever occurred to you that when you remove the glass, the freshness of the room's air sampling increases? More precisely, a very small flow of air sampling. But the trickle is enough to disperse the clouds of smoke around my nostrils. My observation of smoke has saved my life more than once." He smiled. "You can say that I am one of the few people in the world who smoke for their health."
  
  
  "If I could, I'd bow to your powers of observation, Colonel," I said. — But I'm afraid that's a bit difficult in my current situation."
  
  
  "I'll take that thought, Carter," he said. He glared at Dr. Inuris. "Yes, it's Carter, you idiot. Nick Carter, not Nicholas Anderson. He is an agent of the AH.'
  
  
  Dr. Inuris opened his mouth. Don Mario watched in surprise.
  
  
  -"Her, I had no idea -" Dr. Inuris began.
  
  
  'Quiet!"Colonel, my son interrupted him. "Of course you had no idea. This brain of yours is at your fingertips, in your crotch, maybe everywhere but your head. So you thought he was just a tourist, a rather gallant busybody who happened to come to the rescue of a damsel in distress? You're even more of an idiot than I thought. The man's name is Nick Carter. Every self-respecting intelligence agency on Earth has a file on him. He's a master assassin by profession . Colonel Son looked at me. "N3, isn't it?"
  
  
  He didn't say anything to her and tried to move to a sitting position. My head was splitting.
  
  
  "In addition to the ego of appearance," Colonel Son continued, as if giving a lecture, " Carter is also known for his arsenal of weapons. Luger, known as Wilhelmina. He picked up Ego from the chair and waved at them. He'll repeat the show. "A small but deadly gas bomb known as the Pierre."
  
  
  Dr. Inuris nodded at each item presented to the emu. Ego's face turned red, and she saw again the pulse-like blue worm under ego's temple. Emu had to swallow a lot of insults, and emu didn't like it. He was shaking with anger.
  
  
  Suddenly, he stepped forward and kicked me in the ribs. Her, fell and rolled away. The kick missed me, but rolling didn't help my head much. Painfully, she sat up again.
  
  
  The Colonel got up from behind his chair. She had a stiletto in her hand. For a moment, I thought he was following me, but instead he stepped on Dr. Inuris, who stepped back until ego cleavage was against the wall with no other way out. Colonel, the Son raised the knife under his chin. He spoke very calmly, which only increased the ego, the anger.
  
  
  "Listen carefully," he said. — You've already caused us enough trouble. You're lucky I haven't killed you yet.
  
  
  Only my Honor requires that you be allowed to participate in this operation. And if I were you, I wouldn't count on that honor too much. So take my advice and cherish it very well: stay calm. Don't rush anything; maybe you'll survive. But if you ignore my advice, I will cut your disgusting throat without the slightest hesitation. As for Carter, hers and hers alone, I will get rid of him at the moment when it pleases me, and not before. Did you make yourself clear?"
  
  
  He lightly emphasized the corkscrew with the tip of the stiletto in the doctor's throat. I put enough pressure on Inuris Rivnenskaya's neck to scratch him, but not to pierce him. The doctor's eyes bulged around his head. Em managed a curt nod of acknowledgment.
  
  
  Colonel Son moved away from him and resumed his seat at the table. "All right," he said. "Now, gentlemen," he said, fixing his eyes on each of us. "Let's get back to the point. Before we leave this room tonight, I want everyone to keep up to date with the latest developments. He smiled at me. "Even you, Carter.
  
  
  "Don't do me any favors, Colonel," I said.
  
  
  'A favor? he laughed. 'Hardly. Let me tell you something, " he said, leaning forward in his chair. — You will die very slowly and very painfully. And her, I want you to know that part of this pain will be in your mind. Some around them are related to your body, but I assure you that what hits your mind will definitely be much more excruciating. Until I finish it, you will beg me to die. You will continue to ask."
  
  
  "Don't be too sure about that, Colonel," I said.
  
  
  Colonel Son raised his hand. "Please, Carter, spare me your bravado and let me continue with what I have to say. I don't care that you're sitting here and participating in our conversation today. I want to inform you that you have failed. And as long as you live, or rather, as long as I let you live, I want the knowledge of your failure to press down on you like a big rock, squeezing all the will to live around you." He lowered his voice. "I want you to think about it, Carter, in time."
  
  
  He clapped his hands together as if to break a spell.
  
  
  "Now the first item is the girl."
  
  
  "Don't involve her in this," I said.
  
  
  "Shut up, Carter," the colonel said to his son. "I would be the biggest idiot if I didn't take advantage of the stupidity of my colleague, Dr. Inuris. Your chivalrous tendencies have nothing to do with me. Even you will have to admit that it would be unwise not to bring them out.
  
  
  "She doesn't know about it," I said.
  
  
  "I believe he is telling the truth," Dr. Inouris said. "She told me that she didn't know anything about her father's relationship with me."
  
  
  Either Lothar Inuris was a bigger idiot than he looked, or ego mad sense was still harboring the idea of sharing a love nest somewhere with ego's personal resurrection of Nicole." In any case, I didn't care.
  
  
  But Colonel Seung knows... "I told you to shut up," he said. The doctor mumbled something about trying to help and closed his mouth, but cringed under Colonel Son's scornful gaze.
  
  
  "No, Carter, I'm afraid the girl will have to be neutralized. I'm telling you as a colleague. Her, please put yourself in my shoes. Suppose, as you say, that the girl doesn't know anything. But I might add that I don't assume this, because it also assumes that I will trust you, and I will never trust her. But let's assume that the girl doesn't know anything. That is, nothing about the business relationship between her father and Dr. Inuris. However, there is one thing that she will discover sooner or later, if she hasn't opened ee yet. The Colonel's Son's eyes stared unblinkingly at me. "And that's because her father is missing."
  
  
  He tried to keep his face impassive.
  
  
  — And if she finds out about it, she'll probably check on Ego's location; investigations that will involve the authorities." And when the authorities start questioning her about her father, the young lady will no doubt tell them that her father had an affair with Dr. Inuris, the doctor who performed the operation on her. And even if he were to assume a false identity, the ego, the mastery of his craft is such that the ego's real identity will soon surface. But he didn't use an assumed name. And then the authorities will discover that this Dr. Inuris has gained some notoriety, if you think that the name can be known if it appears in the court records of a number of countries. I don't want to embarrass my colleague unnecessarily, but some egotistical crimes have a particularly unfavorable reputation, even in communities that are quite tolerant of sexual excesses. Others relate to or suggest drug abuse, especially for personal use. And still others suggest involvement in espionage. Not to mention some crimes against minors, which, in short, can easily be classified as war crimes."
  
  
  Her, looked at Inuris. He lowered his eyes as the three men stared at him in utter disgust. But at the same time, he felt a burning hatred for being the subject of such public humiliation by the Colonel's Son. He thought to himself that if there was ever an opportunity when Dr. Inuris could make the Chinese pay, he would be happy to do so.
  
  
  Colonel Son continued... And so the authorities would inevitably go to Dr. Inuris and beyond. Inuris, as we have seen, is so completely dependent on its own pleasure. He craves intense pleasure. He is horrified by any inconvenience. He is afraid of being hurt, with unimaginable cowardice. Indulge the ego in the hands of the authorities, expose the ego to the slightest pain, and what will be the result? He would have blurted out everything in the hope of saving his hideous hide. And why? All because we forgot to neutralize the girl. Colonel Seung shook his head, as if in a mocking gesture of regret. "No, I'm afraid we have to take her. Don't you agree, Carter?"
  
  
  You have something to say.
  
  
  "But I must take your silence for assent, Carter," the Colonel said to his son. "Which brings us to the inevitable question: where is the girl?"
  
  
  "I'm afraid I do not know, Colonel," I said.
  
  
  The Colonel smiled at me. "Carter, we were just talking about your reliability. Based, of course, on your well-known reputation. I told you then, and I'll tell you again: I don't trust you.
  
  
  Colonel Son lit another long cigarette and lit one around two wooden matches that he took out of the lacquered box in his coat pocket. Then he took my stiletto from the chair and went to sharpen another match.
  
  
  "Please don't make me hurt you, Carter. In time, I will cause you pain in all its forms, but I was hoping to avoid the usual torture. Remember, I have no real aversion to hurting you, but I know it's a pleasure to have my unworthy colleague here, " he jerked his head in the doctor's direction. Inuris: "That would make me not do it. He doesn't deserve that kind of attraction.
  
  
  "Go on, Colonel," emu told her. The sooner he starts, the better. In torture, there is a point where your mind no longer receives the messages of pain sent by your body, even if you remain conscious. Then the soul floats on an unattainable level, free and safe. I could look forward to it, and know that if I could reach that level and stay there until morning, Penny Dawn would fill Hawke in.
  
  
  The Colonel got up, walked around the chair, and stopped in front of me. He reached down, grabbed my hands, which were tied together, and stuck the tip of the match under the nail of my right index finger. Then he touched the brimstone head with the red-hot tip of his cigarette, and it lit up with a vicious hiss.
  
  
  He sat and watched the flame burn through the match, leaving black curled remnants. Colonel Son reached across the table, grabbed a stiletto, and held the shiny tip of it a fraction of an inch from my eye.
  
  
  "Don't move,"he said," or your eye might turn into an olive on a skewer."
  
  
  Her, saw the match still burning.
  
  
  "Where's the girl?" - said the colonel to his son.
  
  
  Hers, I felt the warmth coming closer to my skin.
  
  
  "Don't move, Carter," the colonel warned.
  
  
  The pain increased, and I felt my muscles tighten involuntarily. The blade was a faint blur in front of my eyes.
  
  
  And then, all of a sudden, it was over. Colonel Son reached out with his free hand and extinguished the flame. — I should have known I shouldn't have tried, Carter, but I had to. You'll never know. He turned to Don Mario and smiled.
  
  
  "I find myself in a rather difficult position," said the colonel to his son. "I have to give Carter credit, I'm sure he would have given me credit. We are both pros and very good. Although it was worth the risk to see if he could be sensitive to simpler forms of torture, deep down her knew it wasn't so, no more than hers." He turned to me. — Actually, you kind of welcomed the idea, didn't you, Carter?" You were hoping that you would pass the initial stage to the level of total oblivion as we all know the ego. He was laughing. "It's almost like I can read your mind, isn't it?"
  
  
  Don Mario interrupted him. "Very well, Colonel. I think it's time to stop joking and playing games.
  
  
  Colonel Son looked at his watch. "I'm sorry," he said, " you should never waste your time. And we have very-del - tonight.
  
  
  "Give me the knife," Don Mario said.
  
  
  With a slight bow, the Colonel handed Emu a shiny stiletto.
  
  
  Don Mario weighed the ego admiringly in his hand. Then he looked at me with his icy blue eyes. "In less than fifteen minutes, you'll tell me where this girl is, Carter."
  
  
  He crossed the room and whispered something in the doctor's ear. The Doctor nodded and went out through the rooms. A few minutes later, he returned and nodded to Don Mario. Don Mario responded with a curt nod of approval. Whatever you might tell us about nen, he wasn't a man who wasted words. Colonel Son sat down again. I had no idea what we were waiting for.
  
  
  Less than ten minutes later, I heard a sharp knock on her door.
  
  
  'Who's there? Don Mario asked.
  
  
  "Vito," was rheumatism.
  
  
  "All right," Don Mario said.
  
  
  The door burst open, and a small battered statue staggered in and collapsed at my feet. Ego's face was smudged and his shirt was torn. One of the ego glasses was missing. Despite my confusion, it took only a cursory glance to realize that the pathetic creature in front of me was none other than Philip Doane.
  
  
  — You know who it is, don't you?" Don Mario said.
  
  
  If it was meant as a corkscrew, he already knew rheumatism, judging by the way recognition flashed across my face, perhaps for a split second.
  
  
  "Remember," said the Colonel's Son, " I have plans for Mr. Doane.
  
  
  "Don't worry," Don Mario said. — I know your plans. You'll still get the ego back, for the most part.
  
  
  "Very good," said the Colonel to his son.
  
  
  — Do you have any medical supplies handy, Doctor?" The prince asked.
  
  
  "Yes," Dr. Inuris said.
  
  
  "Bring ih here. I need compression and gag pads and maybe some morphine until we can get the ego back to consciousness. And take everything you have to stop the bleeding.
  
  
  Colonel Son saw my eyes widen at the mention of drugs
  
  
  "Don't think you've heard anything you shouldn't have, Carter," he said. — You'll be drugged yourself for the foreseeable future.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris ran around the room and returned with a black bag.
  
  
  Philip Doane lay on the floor, groaning from time to time. Don Mario knelt beside him and turned him over until he was face up, panting slightly, like a fish caught around water.
  
  
  Don Mario's left hand shot out, grabbed the old man's lower jaw, and forced ego's mouth open. Then he inserted the tip of the stiletto and pressed ego against his cheek until he could see the skin bulge out in front of my eyes.
  
  
  Don Mario looked at me. "Listen, Carter, and think fast. Her knife specialist. Trust me. Its also not against ego use. I'm asking you where the girl is. I want a quick and honest answer. No kidding. No false evidence. If I don't get an answer, I'll cut the old man's cheek and ask him again.
  
  
  Colonel Son beamed. Mario, apparently, was close to emu in spirit of a person.
  
  
  Don Mario continued to talk. "And if I don't get the rheumatism I like, I'll do it a little more. Then her beru other cheek and ask you again. Then I work on my ears and nose. I'll cut out her eye, her fingers. Toes. A whole leg. The doctor will keep em alive, because the colonel needs him alive. But it will be a wreck, and even a doctor will not be able to fix the ego. And you're the one to blame. Keeping your mouth shut like a great hero, Carter. How do you want it?
  
  
  He could almost see the blade through the old man's pale, thin cheek. He lay with his eyes closed, his breath whistling over his hunched chest. Whatever he was, Philip Doane didn't have much to look at. He caused me a lot of trouble, but that was the least of it. What he did threatened disaster for millions of people. So, on the one hand, the ego wasn't worth saving. But in his obsession, he wasn't so bad. Her guess is that in his own mind, he only opened a few doors to a few people in exchange for making his daughter's life brighter. If I let Don Mario cut my ego to pieces, it might save Penny. And by saving her, maybe I can save her gold.
  
  
  On the other hand, if I opened my mouth and told them where and how to get Penny, it might give the old man an idea of what he'd done for nah. He probably deserves it, the chance to see her once: beautiful.
  
  
  But it is likely that one glimpse will cost an outdoor pool about forty-five billion dollars.
  
  
  At a strictly professional level, only one rheumatism could give it. And it was completely silent.
  
  
  He opened his mouth and said: "You will find her in her father's apartment. She's waiting for me.'
  
  
  
  Chapter 16
  
  
  
  
  Colonel Son slapped Mario on the back. "Beautiful," he said, with a smile wide enough to reveal a set of steel molars. "Just beautiful."
  
  
  Don Mario didn't answer the emu. "Vito," he called. 'Come on in.'
  
  
  A ferret-faced thug poked his head in the door. Don Mario tossed the emu a bunch of keys.
  
  
  "Go back to the old man's house," he said. "You'll find a girl there. Take her back to the ship. I'll see you there."'
  
  
  "All right," said the ferret, and disappeared. Despite my instructions, Penny, I had no doubt that the ferret would deftly follow ego's command. She'll hear the key in the lock and decide-despite everything we've said to each other — that her father has come after all, and is now opening this door. Only it won't be him.
  
  
  Colonel Son looked at me curiously.
  
  
  Of course, I admit that it seemed crazy, especially in the eyes of a professional like Colonel Son. He almost laughed. He smelled a trap. There was no explanation for the girl trying to save her father. There was absolutely no benefit to him. Because, in the ego's opinion, we didn't have a great future for the old man, we didn't have a great future for me, we didn't have a great future for the girl.
  
  
  I couldn't blame him. From the ego's point of view, the game was almost over, and he won. With the girl in the ego of the authorities, he had almost all the cards: the mysterious Mr. Anderson, who fell into the ego's hands around nowhere and turned out to be an AX agent; the girl who could easily cause em a lot of trouble; and Philip Doane, who must have always been a mystery to Colonel Son, since the price of stealing gold must have been It must have seemed incredibly low to him.
  
  
  She wasn't asked to tell Em what her motives were. He wouldn't have understood it anyway. Of course, I broke all the rules. These rules said, " Give up on this old man. Take time for the girl to get to the Hawk. Stall for time. Sit back and watch Don Mario cut Philip Doane to pieces. Pretend you don't see the blood, the horror, and the agonizing pain. Imagine all the good things that you will achieve by sitting out. Remove images of blood pouring around the old man's face and eyes. Make yourself immune to screams. Just think about what the instructions say.
  
  
  Sometimes you have to discard instructions. Something inside me loudly said no to the idea of Don Mario chopping the old man to pieces while the colonel and Son applauded and Inuris licked his lips and ego's eyes glazed over with delight. It wasn't hypersensitivity. Something inside me told me that the moment Don Mario allowed him to get his way by torturing Philip Doane, I would start admitting that I was losing. And her really-della-isn't just a hotel or anything. Her hotel win everything.
  
  
  Her hotel reclaim the gold, bring back her daughter's old Philip Dawn ego unharmed and use microphones and speakers to settle the score. Her goal is to wipe out ih from the face of the earth. It was a big gamble. But when it came down to business, the moment Don Mario poked the tip of the knife into Philip Doane's cheek, something deep inside me said, throw away the damn book of rulings and play it your own way. Colonel Sin will never understand. He was a percentage player. And my principle was that as long as I didn't die, I had a chance to win. His son looked surprised. "I'm surprised, Carter. Really surprised. And a little disappointed. I thought you'd show more courage."
  
  
  "No one's coming, Colonel," I said.
  
  
  "Maybe not, Carter," he said. — But you had a reputation for being very close to it. And trust me, my reports on you are very recent. Recent enough to understand your recent encounter with my good friend Hsiang in the Arctic, not to mention Dr. Inuris. He turned to Inuris with a conspiratorial smile. — You remember Hsiang, don't you, Doctor?" I mean, at least you've seen the ego picture, haven't you? Lothar Inuris nodded.
  
  
  "It was a good job — your interest in Hsiang," my Son's colonel told me. - Very nice and a little timely on my part. If Hsiang had succeeded, the ego of the enterprise would have very successfully merged with this case, the final phase of which is joining me in your country. However, I believe that the world will have a very difficult future even without Hsiang's efforts." I didn't respond to his boast. He smiled at me. "And you, too, Carter, have a very difficult future ahead of you. When we are in China, we will have very long conversations. And you'll tell me a lot of things. But first you will have a long sea journey, which we will start in a few hours. Isn't that right, Don Mario? Don Mario nodded. "The ship is working," he said. "We've sped things up."
  
  
  "We'll be leaving before dawn," the Colonel's Son said, " thanks for your cooperation, Carter. Mr. Doane is here — - he pointed to the old man who was still lying on the bare floor — " to join us, because like you at home, he has some skills that we would like to have. As for the girl... Colonel Son tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. — As for the girl, Lothar, maybe I'll give her to you later, when we get to safe harbor." While we are at sea, you can have fun with her, as we don't risk being as safe as we are on the Riviera. Once we get to China, you can stay there as long as you want with the girl. But I know you, Lothar, and I suspect you'll be tired of nah long before we get there. If that's the case, we'll give it to the crew, who can do whatever they want with it; and then we'll get rid of nah. This has no practical value for us.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris beamed with pleasure and bowed regally. "Thank you for your generosity," he said.
  
  
  "You know, you don't really deserve it," said the Colonel's son, " but I believe that everything will be all right once the girl is in our care, and so I'm willing to forgive her for your indiscretion in the Riviera."
  
  
  "Thank you, Colonel, Son," Dr. Inuris said.
  
  
  Colonel Son turned to the mobster. — As for you, Don Mario, I'm afraid I don't have a special parting gift, although you are quite worthy egos. I enjoyed doing business with you. You are a human being often, and your conviction, as we saw tonight, is most admirable. She really would like to express her deep respect to you.
  
  
  "I'll get it here," Mario said, pointing to a chair. "Very accurate," said the Colonel. "It's very fortunate that you, who led the formidable Agent AX Carter to betray a young woman, are the heir to Arsenal's ego. It's almost poetically appropriate. Very good, Don Mario. You'll get an ego Luger, an ego stiletto, and an ego little gas bomb. Honor ih with your trophies.
  
  
  Don Mario put the bomb in a minute, and the gun and knife in his belt.
  
  
  Colonel Son looked at his watch. — We have a few minutes before the truck arrives, as you agreed. He said to me, " When he arrives, Carter, we will begin our journey. Enjoy it as much as you can, because this will be your last ride. You're going to China with forty-five billion dollars ' worth of gold, as you probably already know. With the help of Dr. Inuris, the luckless Mr. Don, and the invaluable help of Don Mario, who provided the necessary manpower, we were able to milk the Federal Reserve."
  
  
  "And tomorrow, rumors will be raging all over the outdoor pool that most of the US gold reserves and the gold reserves of many ih loyal friends have disappeared. Your government will issue encouraging messages, but the rumors will persist and grow stronger. And soon, bankers and other governments will demand guarantees, and finally prove it. They can't provide proof. Then the dollar will not be worth anything, because trust in it is destroyed. People who have dollars will try to exchange ih, but for what? The British pound will depreciate. German brands, even Swiss francs, will be devalued, because no one will trust paper money anymore. The gold that is left in the world will become priceless. Those who have it will keep the ego. They who don't have an ego will panic.
  
  
  The owner of a store with a loaf of bread will refuse to sell it if the loaf is not paid for with something other than paper money. A math major who needs a doctor will have nothing to pay for it except useless paper money that the doctor won't accept. Scenes like this will be repeated many times in different locations. And soon, gangs will be roaming the streets and looting stores in search of what they need to survive. Factories will be paralyzed because no one can afford the cars, washing machines, and televisions they produce. And the workers will be fired. An Arab sheikh in the Persian Gulf will demand payment in gold before shipping his oil. And there will be no gold to pay. So there will be no oil. And in the near future, there will be no more cars, no more trains, no more planes, and our factories will not only be idle, but also useless. The United States, as you know it, will become an economic desert. The cities will be filled with starving people. The countryside will be ravaged by alien looting gangs that kill Scott Bell's food and steal vegetables." He didn't want to hear any more. He looked at Don Mario. He didn't seem to be paying any attention to it.
  
  
  I told her. 'And you?'"This is your country. You live here. Do you want it?'
  
  
  Colonel, my son laughed. "Don Mario is a product of a new culture, Carter. Don't expect him to be guided by his feelings. Ego is about survival and profit, not empathy. We are partners in this enterprise. We differ only in one respect, in our choice of payment for our participation. China, poor in gold, chose gold. Don Mario has little interest in gold. Oh, what-what he keeps to himself, but finds it too pompous and, in principle, from a philosophical point of view, uninteresting. But there is cargo that is plentiful in China, cargo that promises big profits if you sell the ego wisely.
  
  
  And this, Carter, is Mac and what you can do around this world: heroin. You see, Carter, when the dollar depreciates, there will come a time when people will look for another means of payment. And this medium of exchange that Don Mario suggests introducing is heroin. Don't you think that's what makes people forget about their problems? And I assure you, they will have problems. Certain people in your government will be interested in restoring order at all costs; and a population that is happy to drink heroin will be an attractive temptation. Don't you think so, Doctor?"
  
  
  Colonel Seung did not wait for an answer. — You know, the doctor himself is very fond of poppies, aren't you, Lothar? So you see, Carter, that Don Mario, thanks to the ego partnership with us, will have an inexhaustible supply. And this reserve will give the emu tremendous strength. So in time, when some peace returns to your country, Don Mario will benefit much more than from the value of the gold he sold to dn. Ego gains will be calculated in terms of concessions to laws that now prohibit some over-ego actions. This will be calculated by owning land, an inexhaustible resource that he will buy up with heroin."
  
  
  And when the panic subsides and other countries see the wisdom to repurpose what's left of your population for some degree of industrial activity, then Don Mario will take over running the factories. The population will be motivated by the need for heroin, just as people are now motivated by the need for dollars. And Don Mario will become the de facto ruler of the country, not to mention the fact that at the same time he will become its legislator. Now people may know ego like a prince, but I assure you, Carter, soon people will bow to emu like a king.
  
  
  "You're crazy," I said.
  
  
  Colonel Son raised his hand. "Please, Carter, her, I'm begging you. Be realistic. I have no inclination for insanity. Try to think of heroin as a new currency. Is it more logical to evaluate the tac of a pack of white powder than some yellow metal or colored paper? No, Carter, that's not true. Emus just need to be given a different form of trust. Adjustment. And the adversities that will be encountered on your part provide the means to implement this adjustment. I admit that this is a radical adaptation, but such an adaptation is necessary for Don Mario to realize the ego's ambitions. You see, gold won't do the emu any good. Owning gold would now subordinate the ego to the rules and thinking that are relevant at the moment. Both by these rules and by this mindset, Don Mario is a criminal and means stealing his property. No, before Don Mario can achieve the status that ego ambition and quiet genius attribute to the ego, there must first be a revolution. And his gold squad will cause a revolution in the United States.
  
  
  As for those who have gold, we are convinced that there will always be people in the world who are hungry for gold. Which, so to speak, will keep the old faith. A China with ego poppies and gold will be doubly rich, although a significant portion of our poppy crop is destined for Don Mario for many years to come. China and the US will become very good friends.
  
  
  And its sure that they who believe in gold and they who believe in poppy seeds will live together for centuries to come."
  
  
  Just like that. The whole plan. It was terrible. You might call it crazy. But the line between insanity and genius is narrow, and the Colonel and Son were right about one thing. There was nothing in the AX files to indicate that there was anything wrong with ego consciousness. What he set out to do was nothing short of a masterstroke; the natural end product of the intersection of an economist's specialty and the cold-blooded greed of a soldier known for his skill at war. And from what he said, Emu was only a few hours away from completing it. He looked at his watch again. "Just a few more minutes, gentlemen. Then he turned to me alone. "Carter, there's a knock on the door in a minute. When this happens, it means that a truck is waiting for us outside. This truck will take us to the docks, where Don Mario's movers quickly load gold on board the ship. You will board this ship and we will be leaving in a few hours.
  
  
  I'm going to ask Don Mario to untie your legs. And I'll ask you to get up and walk quietly out of this room and get in the truck. When we get to the ship, hers, I want you to come aboard quietly and go where you're going. If you do as I ask, you will get rid of unnecessary pain. But, I know your penchant for heroism, its necessary to take precautions.
  
  
  He picked up the nunchucks from the chair. He saw wooden handles and a chain hanging between them. The Colonel casually slung the chain over my head and pulled the links tight enough to bite through my throat and into my windpipe.
  
  
  "You can come aboard on your own," he said, " or you can go unconscious. Make up your mind.'
  
  
  Don Mario knelt at my feet and untied the ropes. "Dr. Inuris," Colonel Son said, pointing to Philip Doane. "Get the old man up. Her, I want him to be in great condition when we arrive in China." He was laughing. "You see, Carter, we're going to need a new 'safe'.
  
  
  The rusty hull of a freighter hung deep in the fog, glinting in the moonlight, anchored at a rickety pier. Despite the low altitude, the stern of the dirty ship
  
  
  The Sarah Chamberlain-Cardiff towered over us as we stood outside the truck. Then, at the end of the pier, a huge crane with groaning cables was hauling a huge container on board.
  
  
  "Gold, Carter," the colonel said to his son. Under the rotted roof of the old seraglio that ran along the pier, a few bare light bulbs burned, casting yellow rays of light on the path. "Take a look at your vehicle heading east. Nothing special, right?
  
  
  He didn't wait for an answer.
  
  
  "But appearances are deceptive, Carter. This outrageous looking cargo barge maneuvers and sails faster than a fighter jet. Further, electronic equipment is designed to make the ego invisible to radar. But I doubt that "Sarah Chamberlain" needs to provide any proof of its strength. Who in their right mind would pay any attention to a poor old British-flagged freighter?
  
  
  "All right, Son," Mario said. "Now I'm saying goodbye to her. My people told me that they received the last of the heroin a few hours ago, and two hours later they are securing the rest of your cargo on board. After that, you can leave at any time." They felt sorry for each other's hands.
  
  
  The Colonel looked at his watch. "I'm counting on you, Mario," he said. "I'll give instructions to leave at one o'clock in the afternoon."
  
  
  "Don't worry," Don Mario said. "I'll stay in my office until you go sailing to make sure everything is in order."
  
  
  "Very well," said the Colonel to his son. "Typical of your thoroughness, Don Mario. I believe that one day we will meet again."
  
  
  "Good — bye, then," Don Mario said. He looked at Dr. Inuris, who was supporting Philip Doane . "Hang in there, Doc," he said. "Try acting like a good boy."
  
  
  Dr. Inuris doesn't think ego is worth answering.
  
  
  "Lucky me, Carter," he said. He patted his belt, where Hugo and Wilhelmina were hidden under his jacket. "Thank you for the souvenirs." He pulled the door handle and disappeared into the barn.
  
  
  "All right," the colonel said to his son. "All aboard. The Sarah Chamberlain was allowed to sail before dawn — "he laughed," with a cargo of steel.
  
  
  Colonel, my son jerked the handles of the nunchaku, causing the chain to tighten around my neck as if urging a horse on. We continued down the pier and up the gangplank. I looked up and saw the Chinese captain looking down at us from the high pier. Chinese crewmen swarmed everywhere with a single-mindedness that always characterized well-trained soldiers.
  
  
  Whatever machinery and electronic equipment was on board, the Sarah Chamberlain was not a twentieth-century synopsis when it came to prison facilities. Below deck, Colonel Son pushed me until he reached an iron cell with a barred window without glass. In front of him were two Chinese men armed with submachine guns. Colonel Seung took the nunchaku from around my neck and put a bunch of keys around my pocket.
  
  
  He opened the cell door. "Come in, Carter. And so is Mr. Dawn, " he told Dr. Inouris.
  
  
  The floor was made of iron and covered with straw, and Dr. Inuris let go of Don Philippe, who had fallen to the straw. The guards stood open for the day, the muzzles of ih guns pointed at us.
  
  
  "You can leave the old man as he is, Lothar," the colonel said. "Carter, I'm afraid you'll need handcuffs and leg irons."
  
  
  Hers, he shrugged. Handcuffs and leg irons were attached to the walls. One pair for hands, one pair for feet. He obediently entered. Colonel Seung locked ih with his keys.
  
  
  "I'll also close the cell door," he said. "And her, I want you to know something, Carter. I have a web keychain. So don't even think about making fun of the guards. There's really nothing they can do for you. But they can shoot very well. I'd rather it never happened, of course, but if it does, I'll make myself understand it.
  
  
  He stepped back around the cell. The door closed and the Colonel turned the key in the lock. He stood up again and waved at me through the bars. "I'll visit you from time to time, Carter, and maybe we can talk." But now all I can say is have a safe journey. He turned around and disappeared across the entire field of vision.
  
  
  For a few moments the guards stared at me through the bars, their heads close together. I ignored them. Soon they got bored and disappeared.
  
  
  It must have been half an hour later when I heard voices outside the cell. Colonel Son's face reappeared in front of the bars. He smiled, and the key rattled in the lock. The door swung open to reveal his son, two security guards, and Penny Dawn.
  
  
  
  Chapter 17
  
  
  
  
  "Nick," Penny called. 'Daddy.'She ran into the cell and fell to her knees next to Philip Doane.
  
  
  The Colonel came up to her and grabbed her arm. "Your loyalty is admirable, Miss Dawn," he said. — But I'm sorry that your freedom has to be somewhat restricted. You'll be in handcuffs, just like your other Carter. At least not while we're not at sea. And then you will be allowed to take care of your father "— he laughed tightly — " provided that Dr. Inuris can miss you." Sometime at sea, I'll see if we can make life a little easier for your father. But for now, we must maintain maximum security. I hope you will understand it.
  
  
  He shackled her and left through the cells. He turned the key in the lock again.
  
  
  We heard shaggy's egos die down in the iron corridor. Then silence.
  
  
  Penny looked at me through the camera.
  
  
  "Oh, Nick," she said. "What's going to happen?"
  
  
  "Penny Dawn," I said. "Believe me or not, we're going to ruin this project."
  
  
  Philip Doane groaned and shifted his thin body on the straw bed.
  
  
  "I need him to wake up," Penny told her.
  
  
  "All right," she said. She started calling. 'Daddy. Daddy. This is her. A penny.
  
  
  The old man stirred again.
  
  
  "Get up, Dad. I need you.'
  
  
  Ego's eyes twitched and he forced himself to sit up. "Is that you, Penny?" he said. "It's so dark in here. I can't find my money."
  
  
  "It's right next to your left hand, Dad," she said.
  
  
  In the dim light, he groped for ih, grabbed it, and put it on his nose. Despite the lack of a lens, he could now see. Ego's face lit up when he saw her. "My God," he said. "Is that really you, Penny?"
  
  
  "Yes, Dad.
  
  
  "You're wonderful," he said. 'Beautiful.'And he started crying.
  
  
  "Shhh , Daddy," Penny said. "You don't need to cry."
  
  
  "I can't help it," he said.
  
  
  "Dad, there's someone here with us. We need your help. For the first time, the old man realized that he and Penny weren't alone in front of the digital cameras. He turned and stared at me.
  
  
  "This is Nick Carter, Daddy," Penny said. — He wants to help us get out of here."
  
  
  "Actually, Mr. Doane," I said. "I want to get you and Penny out of here and keep the ship from sinking. But I can't do it without your help.
  
  
  'What can I do?'he said.
  
  
  "Stop whining," emu told her. — The only question is, will you do it?"
  
  
  "If I can't, I'll do it," he said. — I owe Lothar Inuris nothing more. My contract with him ended the moment he operated on Penny. But he and his treacherous friends deceived me. They came to me this morning. And they took me to this ship and threw me in this cell. When I demanded an explanation, the Chinese laughed and called me an idiot. I'll help you, Carter. I'm an old man and I don't know how to fight, but I'll help you. Now that Penny is all right, I don't care what happens to Dr. Inuris and his friends, or to me. This is all a double game."
  
  
  'What do you mean?'
  
  
  "They thought I was just an old, stupid person. The old idiot. But there was something they didn't know about me. He was born in China. I speak the IH language. And today I heard her say something in Chinese that indicates a double game.
  
  
  "Go on," I said.
  
  
  "Toma accept it was present. I take it Penny told you about this?"
  
  
  He nodded to her.
  
  
  "Well, then, I suppose you know my role. Her, went into the Penny case. But he never knew who his friends were. Until today. And then she found out that her friends ' egos included Chinese and American mafia members. The deal was that the mafia would supply gold to the Chinese in exchange for heroin. I can't say I like it very much, but I also think I'm in no position to complain about it. Well, at first everyone turned their backs on me, bringing me here and turning me over to Colonel Sin. But the other betrayal still exists. The Chinese are deceiving the mafia."
  
  
  I asked her. 'How?'
  
  
  "This heroin," he said,"is poisoned."
  
  
  'What do you mean?'
  
  
  "Exactly what I'm saying," Philip Doane said. "I do not know what they put in it, but I do know one thing: the heroin is packed in two different types of plastic bags. Things in green bags kill quickly. Things in blue bags work slowly. But if any of them hit your body, you will die.
  
  
  I had to take my hat off to Colonel Sin. Forty-five billion dollars in emu gold wasn't enough. Without firing a shot, he will bankrupt the United States and kill millions of people. It was better than a nuclear war. If we didn't have radiation, we wouldn't have industrial destruction. Just a population, dead and steadily dying, unable to defend itself.
  
  
  And he was sure that China would understand His Son's plans and take full advantage of them. Don Mario will truly be the king: the king of the graveyard. Somewhere in his ego stash was probably several thousand pounds of real heroin. He checked it out, and decided that the Colonel's Son was acting in good faith. He should have known better. But there was no reason to feel sorry for him. He was only a little more greedy than the emu needed to be. The thought of my ego being cheated drove me crazy with joy. Except that if he had realized, Colonel, the Son would have been sitting on top of a golden horse, and a lot of innocent people would have been dead or dying on the streets of the United States ever since.
  
  
  But not if I have something to say about it.
  
  
  "Okay, listen," I said, turning to Philip Doane. — I have a job for you." And you'll have to do it quickly. But I think you'll survive, considering what Penny said about you.
  
  
  "I'll do my best," he said. 'What is it?'
  
  
  "Penny told me that you are an expert on locks and that you know everything there is to know about them."
  
  
  "That may be true," Don Philip said.
  
  
  "All right," I said. "I want you to release me from these shackles and open the door for me."
  
  
  "It's hard work," the old man said. "Especially without any tools."
  
  
  "Suppose I told you that we have some tools, primitive, but tools."
  
  
  'Where?'
  
  
  "Under my collar," emu told her. "You'll find two razors there.
  
  
  The old man got up from the ground and limped stiffly toward me. He pulled back his collar and took out two blades. "Good steel," he said. "Yes, I think we could use ih. The shackle locks on the dell itself are still primitive, " he said after a cursory inspection. "As for the door mechanism, you will see that this is also not a problem."
  
  
  "How long can it take?"
  
  
  Ego's eyes lit up at the prospect of being useful again in the craft he knew best. — It depends on how long I work." Maybe twenty minutes.
  
  
  "Hurry up," I said. "If anyone comes, hide these blades under the straw."
  
  
  The old man was already stretched out at full length on the floor, holding his hands in the square patch of light streaming in through the barred window. I couldn't see what he was doing, but I could hear the faint friction of metal as his hands fumbled under the damp layers of straw.
  
  
  He tried to clear his mind while he worked. He tried not to waste his energy worrying about whether the ego's powers would last, or whether the Colonel's Son would suddenly step inside to see how the ego prisoners were doing. He tried to banish the rhythmic rasp of the blade on the concrete, slow his breathing, and forget about time. But outside, he knew, this crane swung like a huge pendulum between the dock and the ship, filling ego's holds with tons of gold. He could force himself not to think about time, but he couldn't stop the ego in life. And the moment will come when this crane will take its last step, and the triumphant journey of Colonel Son will begin. Then it would be too late for me to do what I intended to do.
  
  
  "All right," Philippa Doane heard her say.
  
  
  He stood up and in her ego hand saw one of the blades, or what was left of it. It was as if he had first split the ego in half lengthwise and cut something off around what was left. He moved awkwardly toward me and grabbed the lock on the cuff of my right hand. He let the pointed metal slide inside, keeping his ear close to the lock. He fiddled with the makeshift key between his thumb and forefinger, then turned it carefully.
  
  
  "Almost," he said. "But not good enough."
  
  
  He retreated back to the peace square, and once again she heard the scrape of metal on concrete.
  
  
  "It must be so," he said when he came back.
  
  
  Full of confidence, he slid the sharpened blade back into the lock and twisted his wrist sharply. There was a click in the still silence of the cell. The lock swung open. Philip Doane's face flushed with excitement. "The rest is simple now," he whispered. After a few seconds, he released my other arm and leg.
  
  
  He put his mouth close to ego's ear.
  
  
  "All right," I said. "Now release Penny, very quietly. Then we'll take care of the cell door.
  
  
  The old man nodded at me. In less than a minute, Penny's hands and feet were free.
  
  
  He called the old man to him and said, whispering again, " How will you open the cell door?"
  
  
  He held out his hand. In ego's palm was his second blade, still unbroken. He held the ego on the blunt side, and with his other thumb and forefinger, he swiped the blade back and forth.
  
  
  "What I'm going to do is called loiding. This is usually done with a strip of celluloid. It has the rigidity, both, and flexibility to push the lock tab back and forth. The blade will do the same.
  
  
  — Does it make a lot of noise?"
  
  
  "I don't know," said the old man. "A real loiden should be very quiet. But as soon as this language falls back, I do not know what happens. We'll just have to take that risk.
  
  
  "We don't have much choice," I said. — I'll put a penny in the corner between the door and the wall when the door is open. If something goes wrong, she's out of the line of fire. As for you, if all goes well, you signal me when the lock is free, and then you stand next to Penny. When I walk out the door, don't move. Stay where you are until I call you." Provided I'm still able to call out.
  
  
  The old man got down on his knees for a day, and began to climb into the castle with a knife.
  
  
  He tried to keep his breathing steady. I was tempted to stop breathing completely so that there would be complete silence.
  
  
  Ego's wrist moved once, twice, three times. It worked in the space between the door and the box. Then he stopped.
  
  
  The old man turned to face me and nodded. It was time to get to work. And this job consisted of capturing several submachine guns.
  
  
  
  Chapter 18
  
  
  
  
  He ran out the door like a bull that sees a novice bullfighter, hunched over, fierce and collected at the same time.
  
  
  They were standing in the hallway, one on my left, one on my right, and ih thoughts were slow enough that their jaws dropped when they saw me appear. Turning to the left, he raised his hands like knives and crushed the guard's shoulder while he was still clutching his submachine gun. When he fell to the ground with a crash, he grabbed her ego, one hand clamped over his mouth to stop him from screaming, and the other hand around his waist to support ego. She was pushed by her partner's ego directly into her partner's ego, bridging the gap between them as quickly as possible, so that even the second guard got tangled up with his weapon under his partner's arm. He lifted the arm he'd been holding on the man's waist and slashed across the ego-shattered shoulder at the burly guard's neck. It wasn't a perfect punch, but he tilted his neck to the side. When he reached out again, she was hit from above by a blatant emu in the face. Bones broke under my joints, and blood gushed down the limp rta. Ego target hit the wall hard, and he slid to the ground unconscious. The other's ego turned her around and crushed her adam's apple with the palm of his hand before he could take advantage of the fact that I was no longer covering the emu's mouth.
  
  
  He pulled her bodies aside, gathered up his weapons, and stuck his head in the camera. "All right," I said. "Time to catch your breath."
  
  
  Penny and her father quickly joined me. Gave Odin's emu around the automatons. "I want to get off this ship without using ih," emu told her. "We're not going through the top, we're going back through this deck. I know what I'm looking for. It will be away from the pier. Follow me, and if we run into any hema, leave ih to me. And if anything happens to me, you can use this weapon to take down Hema anywhere and as long as the ferret has something to deal with. Her, I saw her when we came on board: the little door on the port side of the Sarah Chamberlain. We made our way down the dimly lit corridor to the turnoff at the stern. We moved cautiously, but met no one.
  
  
  The door was waiting for us.
  
  
  "Give me the gun," I said.
  
  
  He tugged on the handle and opened the door carefully. I watched the grim, moving waters of the East River five meters below me.
  
  
  "You go first, Penny," I said. "Legs first. Allow yourself to hang on to the edge. And then you just let go. The smaller the distance you fall, the less noise there is. Then swim as quietly as you can to the pier and wait for me there. The same goes for you, Mr. Don. There you will find a staircase leading to the pier, just past the right-hand boom.
  
  
  It passed without errors. He closed the door as best he could before falling off the end. I could only hope that no passerby would be surprised by the bright light on the port side of the Sarah Chamberlain. But I doubted that anyone around the crew was on the beach. The time of departure was too close. On the other hand, we always had the guys from Don Mario to worry about.
  
  
  Colonel, my son shouldn't have been so eager to show me the ship. It allowed me to spot the door and stairs leading up from the pier, k & nb.
  
  
  Penny and her father were waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.
  
  
  "All right," I said. — I'll go up these stairs and take my weapons with me. Follow me upstairs." As soon as we get to the top, I'll go to Don Mario. I want you two out of here. Run as far and as fast as you can.
  
  
  "No, Nick," Penny said. 'Not now.'
  
  
  "She's right," the old man said. "You'll need some help."
  
  
  "I know," I said. "And I'll get it from Don Mario." At least the most immediate help. But I don't want you two with me. It's no use hurting you.
  
  
  "I'm coming with you, Nick," Penny said.
  
  
  Hers, he shook his head. — If you want to do something for me, you can. But that's not something you can do here.
  
  
  "Then tell us what you want," said the old man.
  
  
  "I want you to call David Hawke. Penny knows where to contact him, the Joint Press and Wire Services in Washington. Tell em that the Sarah Chamberlain must be stopped at all costs. Tell em that Nick Carter told you to call em. Do you want to do this?
  
  
  "If we can, we'll do it," he said.
  
  
  "All right," I said. 'Let's go. Time is short. He started up the stairs. At the top of it, I looked over the edge of the pier. It looked good. All eyes will be drawn to the special tap. He was still moving, now heading back to the pier. I just had to hope that he left at least one more container of gold, and the ego-work night wasn't over yet. I knew that my work wasn't quite over yet, either.
  
  
  I heard Penny and her father get up behind me. The old man was breathing heavily. He turned his head toward them. "Stay low and stay in the shadows. I'll cover for you. Get out now. Run!"She was alone, in mafia circles, and the Chinese, and time was running out.
  
  
  He crawled along the path on his stomach from the pier to the long sagging awning where Don Mario had entered. He stepped up to protect the door frame and tried the latch.
  
  
  It wasn't locked. Hers quickly slipped through it and into the darkness.
  
  
  Further on, by the river, the saint saw her. I started walking in that direction, my gun ready in my hand. He had to be prepared for the worst. If I'd been lucky, Don Mario wouldn't have noticed me. I was hoping that I would succeed.
  
  
  Crouching low, he kept walking until he saw a burning holy light in the office with windows everywhere looking out over the warehouse and the river. Office for the entire width of the river.
  
  
  Don Mario was sitting in a swivel chair behind his desk, looking at Sarah Chamberlain . Except for a few telephones and a copy of the Lloyd's register of aldermen, the chair was deserted.
  
  
  Staying in the shed himself, hiding himself from the ship, he jerked open the door and fired the gun. "Very quiet, Mario," I said. He didn't move. He just kept looking out the window at the ship.
  
  
  "This is Carter," I said. "I want you to get up and draw the curtain on the window facing the ship. Then sit down again. I want to talk to you." Keep your hands close to your face when you sit down again. I have some news for you about your Chinese friends that I think you'll want to hear.
  
  
  "As for what you have to say, it would be nice to hear it, Carter," he said.
  
  
  "You don't have to listen to anything, Mario. But if you don't listen, it could be fatal, " I said. "And after all your work, you wouldn't want to be in a' king is dead, long live the king ' situation, would you?"
  
  
  In his rheumatism, Mario pushed back his chair, went to the window and drew the curtain. I walked into the room and bumped into him as he sat down again.
  
  
  "Speak quickly," he said.
  
  
  "That's exactly what I'm going to do," I said. "Your friends cheated on you."
  
  
  Mario laughed. - Of course, and the cavalry is also coming.
  
  
  "You'd better start believing that, too," I said. "Your end of the bargain is not fulfilled. The only corkscrew left is whether your friend, Colonel Son, can escape to freedom after he tricked you.
  
  
  "All right, Carter, stop making these riddles. What's the deal?
  
  
  "Heroin".
  
  
  "The heroin's all right," Don Mario said. "Her ego was tested by people I trust."
  
  
  — Did you check everything?"
  
  
  "Of course not," he said. "But we took samples of several tons each."
  
  
  "It was good stuff," I said. "The others are poisoned."
  
  
  "Stop it, Carter," he said. "I'm not a sucker. You have a one-in-a-million chance to blow up this case, and that means turning me against my son. I won't eat it.
  
  
  "I'm here to turn you against your Son for cheating on you. The heroin is poisoned . This is really garbage. And the dirtiest one in green bags.
  
  
  Mario pursed his lips. "You know, Carter. I'm starting to get interested in you. How do you know about these green bags?
  
  
  — Just like I know her about blue bags and eating." If you had someone else on board this ship who also understood Chinese, you would know this. This old man was born in China.
  
  
  "How soon can we do the test?" Mario said. "Take some of this last bit of junk from the ship. Green bags. What's in the green bags kills the fastest.
  
  
  Mario answered Odin's phone. "Vito," he said. "Bring me one, around the green bags." Immediately.'
  
  
  He hung up and looked at me. "Okay, Carter, you have a chance. Step back. There's a trapdoor in front of my desk. After a minute, it opens and Vito goes upstairs. Don't be nervous with your weapons. Vito will do as I say. You can be sure that it won't do anything.
  
  
  There was a humming sound below me, and a section of the floor slid away, revealing Vito's ferret-like face as he peered into the room.
  
  
  "It's all right, Vito," Don Mario said. "There are no difficulties."
  
  
  Vito climbed into the room, and the floorboard slid back. He placed the green bag on Mario's chair.
  
  
  "We need a guinea pig," he said. "And I think I know the right person for it." He picked up the phone. The Colonel's Son, " he said. 'Quickly.'He was waiting. When he spoke again, his voice was absurdly urgent. "Colonel, Son?" Don Mario. Listen. An accident happened to one of my boys. Send Dr. Inuris with your briefcase. We'll need it soon.
  
  
  He hung up before Colonel Sin could ask any more questions. He pulled the curtain back a fraction of an inch and looked out at the ship. Soon after, the surly Dr. Inuris reached both ends of the ramp and started down the pier.
  
  
  "He's coming," I said.
  
  
  "Take it, Vito," Don Mario said. Vito went out through the rooms. "Don't worry about Vito," Don Mario said. "Vito is being honest. All you have to worry about is heroin. But at least you have to admit that I'm giving you a chance, Carter. Who better to use as a guinea pig than a drug-addicted doctor?
  
  
  Shaggy heard her and stood where he thought I'd get Don Mario and Vito in a short burst if they tried anything. The door opened slowly, and Dr. Inuris entered the room, Vito following.
  
  
  Ego's eyes widened at the execution clearance flag when he saw me standing there. "Carter!"
  
  
  "Actually, Doctor. Your old one still. She was held up by the barrel of an EMU assault rifle under her chin.
  
  
  He said, " What does that mean?"
  
  
  I hit him in the ego windpipe with the barrel of my weapon. "Shut up, Doc.
  
  
  "Doctor," Don Mario said. "Carter and her want to make some money. It's because of that heroin.
  
  
  Her, stepped back with the weapon.
  
  
  — What happened to that heroin?" Inuris asked. "It's just plain heroin."
  
  
  "That's what I want to say, Doctor," Don Mario said. "But Carter says otherwise. He says he's poisoned.
  
  
  -"Don't listen to him," Dr. Inuris said. — What does he know about it?"
  
  
  "He says he knows enough, Doctor.
  
  
  — Will you believe emu?" Inuris asked. "Agent AX?"
  
  
  "Until now, the ferret, it piqued my interest."
  
  
  "Colonel Seung wouldn't lie to you," Dr. Inuris said.
  
  
  "Well, that's what I'm trying to tell Carter," Don Mario said. "Still, emu managed to convince me that it's better to be sure first than sorry later. That's why we invited you here. Because I said to myself: "Mario," I said, " who is the best person to judge whether this heroin is good or not? "and then I said to myself,"Well, none other than our old friend, Dr. Lothar Inouris, who turned out to be an excellent scientist and a devoted friend." So, Doctor, give you a free sample.
  
  
  "I don't want that," Dr. Inuris said.
  
  
  "You don't want to?" Don Mario said. 'Don't you want to? Did you hear that, Vito? He says he doesn't want a free sample.
  
  
  "Is he that rich?" Vito said. "I've never seen an addict turn down a free sample before."
  
  
  "I think he really wants something, Vito," Don Mario said. "Like any drug addict. But he's too thoughtful. You're just being polite, aren't you, Doctor?"
  
  
  Inuris ' hideous face was drenched with blood. — I don't want this, " he shouted.
  
  
  -"Well, well, Doctor," Don Mario said. — You've gone too far with this courtesy. He pulled my hairpin out of his belt and made an incision in the green bag. Some white powder spilled out.
  
  
  "Well, Doctor, we're going to have a farewell party here. We don't have candles, but I do have matches, and Vito, I think you'll find injections and needles if you look in the doctor's bag. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's a piece of rubber hose and maybe a few other things that we need." Vito reached out and snatched the bag from around the doctor's arms. Don Mario opened up ego, and started rummaging through nen.
  
  
  "Don't let them do this, Carter," Dr. Inuris pleaded. "Why not, Doctor? I told her. "I don't see in all the houses around what this can cause. If you're telling the truth, that is.
  
  
  "Please, Carter. Please.'
  
  
  He didn't look at me. Maybe he's just looking at me. But he couldn't. He couldn't take his eyes off the chair where Don Mario and Vito were sitting. And he kept begging. The words flowed like air around a punctured inner tube.
  
  
  "Gold, Carter. I'll give you the gold. My share. You can be rich. You will never have to work again. A lot of money. More than you'll ever see with AX. You could go somewhere. You could be rich. Just save me from here. You can do it. I know you can. I'll make it worth it for you. You won't regret it.'
  
  
  Don Mario got up from behind his chair. Vito was standing next to her, a full syringe in his hand.
  
  
  "I can't agree, Doctor," I said.
  
  
  "No one can hear you, Doctor," Mario said. "There's too much noise outside. This faucet is awfully noisy.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris dropped to his knees. Sweat trickled down Ego's face. "Don't do this," he pleaded. 'Don't do this. Ask you. Don't do this to me.
  
  
  Mario slapped his ego in the face. "Shut up, you stupid dog," he said.
  
  
  He grabbed Inuris ' right arm and yanked the sleeve of ego's jacket and shirt above the elbow. A button popped off his shirt and rolled away. Vito was standing in front of the doctor with a syringe in his hand.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris began to whimper. Don Mario hit his ego again. "You must remain calm, Doctor," Don Mario said. 'Look on the bright side. In a few minutes, you will be off on a happy journey... or die. Either way, your troubles are over, dear.
  
  
  The doctor's eyes widened in fear.
  
  
  "All right, Vito," Don Mario said.
  
  
  He yanked Inuris to his feet and held out a bare, scarred hand.
  
  
  Inuris tried to twist away. He kicked Vito and made ego jump away.
  
  
  Don Mario's face darkened. "No way," he grumbled.
  
  
  Lothar Inuris was still writhing. Don Mario put one arm around Ego's neck and held the doctor's outstretched arm with the other. "All right, Vito,"he said," let's try it."
  
  
  Vito approached cautiously from the side, like a bullfighter with a miniature sword for the final blow. Dr. Inuris ' eyes bulged around his head. He tried to say, " No, no, no," but nothing came out except a long, agonizing 'NNNN' iso rta.
  
  
  Vito was beside him now, holding the needle to his bare arm, and Don Mario was helping em, holding his arm still to find the vein. The tip of the needle got under his skin, and Vito pushed the plunger down. Don Mario released Inuris. He and Vito stepped back. Dr. Inuris stood up. He pulled down the sleeve of his shirt and doublet. "I'll leave now," he said in a choked voice, " when you're done with me."
  
  
  I saw Mario's hand reach for the luger.
  
  
  Dr. Inuris smiled at the emu. "I need my briefcase," he said. He took a step toward the table. Two steps.
  
  
  It was made by Don Mario's car.
  
  
  Inuris looked at me. "Too bad, Carter," he said. "You could be rich." There was a strange, glassy look in ego's eyes. "But you're not Stahl to listen. Sorry, Carter. But what does this saying mean? Who has the last laugh...
  
  
  hahaha..."
  
  
  And then nothing but blood came out of the rta. It trickled down his shirt, staining the white fabric. He looked curiously at the terrifying flood as if it belonged to someone else.
  
  
  A huge spasm seized the ego, the body, and threw it to the ground. Blood was still pouring out, wrapping a scarf around ego's neck around the liquid rubies. Dr. Inuris was shocked. Ego's heels hit the floor. Then he bench presses motionless.
  
  
  "Jesus," Vito whispered.
  
  
  
  Chapter 19
  
  
  
  
  "All right, Carter," Mario said. — You were right. Let's make a deal now.
  
  
  "We'll make a truce," I said. — We'll work together to make sure Colonel Seung doesn't run off with the gold. After that, it's every man for himself again.
  
  
  "That sounds fair enough," he said.
  
  
  Mario picked up Odin on his phones. "Turn off the tap," he ordered.
  
  
  Her, looked out the window. The sound of the crane machine began to fade. High above the ship, one dangled above the hatch around the containers.
  
  
  Don Mario turned to Vito. "Go down," he said. "Take the boys. Tell them to bring all the fireworks they can collect. We'll need it. And bring more dynamite and gasoline.
  
  
  Vito disappeared through the trapdoor.
  
  
  "As long as we're on the same side,"I said," I want my weapons back."
  
  
  "Of course," Mario said. He pulled a luger and stiletto from his belt.
  
  
  "Don't forget this little thing in your pocket," I said.
  
  
  He took out Pierre. "A gas bomb after all, isn't it?"
  
  
  "Be careful with that," emu told her.
  
  
  Mario smiled. "We work together, Carter." He gave ego to me, and put her ego in a minute.
  
  
  Mario's men started up the stairs, filling the office. Raising his hand, Mario gestured to silence.
  
  
  "This is Carter. He works with us. So don't be nervous, don't always make mistakes when things go a little wrong. We're boarding this ship. I want the ego machine to blow up, and I want it to happen fast. If some Chinese guy wants to stop you, cut down on your ego. We were deceived. Let's go.'
  
  
  The men ran around the office, through the long shed, and out onto the pier walk. There were about twenty people in total, including Mario and me. The Prince picked up a submachine gun. Be careful with that thing, her ego warned her. "He was in & nb."
  
  
  "Thank you," Mario said. "I'll give it a try, and if it doesn't work,"he patted his armpit," I've got some left."
  
  
  From the port, Barnes looked up just in time to see the Colonel of his Son, megaphone in hand, appear at the railing of the bridge, with the captain at his side.
  
  
  "What's going on, Mario?" he shouted. "Why did the crane stop?"
  
  
  The first of Mario's men rushed to the gangplank.
  
  
  Mario raised his submachine gun and fired a short burst at the crane's cable. A puff of blue smoke appeared, and then the taut cable snapped. The huge container lurched and slammed into the Sarah Chamberlain's hull with a deafening thud. There was silence, and then she heard screams.
  
  
  The Colonel didn't need anyone to explain the situation to the emu. In the next instant, he turned and signaled to the captain, sending ego running to the wheelhouse. He leaned over the pier railing and gave orders to his men on deck. The Chinese rushed to the railing, brandishing their axes. He saw the metal crack as the axes began to flash, cutting through the thick bundles of ropes that held the Sarah Chamberlain to the pier.
  
  
  Mario stopped halfway down the ramp. He raised the machine gun. A city of bullets grazed the railing, tugging at metal and flesh. Men screamed and fell...
  
  
  It was lowered by a luger on the bridge and fired. Colonel Son ducked as the steel under the wheelhouse windows slammed sharply against his gawking eyes. When he returned, he had a gun in his hand. We were on deck. "Vito," Mario breathed. — You don't go with half the men with Carter." Take the dynamite. The others make their way to the wheelhouse.
  
  
  The little ferret nodded. Mario had already left and fired through the vending machine at the deck. Her, saw the Chinaman grab his head and fall in a bloody fog.
  
  
  And then I was inside the ship, with Vito and the rest of Mario's men following me up the stairs. Below, the Chinaman dropped to one knee and raised his rifle. A gunshot rang out next to me, and he saw the gunman grab his arm and fall forward.
  
  
  Out of the corner of his eye, I saw Vito grinning as we hurried down deck after deck. Her heard gunfire behind us, and Odin around Mario's men let out a muffled scream and dropped the end of the cabin stairs.
  
  
  The shooting stopped. There was only the sound of footsteps on the iron steps now, and ahead of her he saw a sign with an arrow pointing to the engine room.
  
  
  We were in the hallway. Ahead of us, a metal door swung open, and the barrel of a submachine gun began firing at us. It was too high and too far, and the bullets were scratching the walls and ceiling. He dived to the ground and leaped to his feet again, luger in hand. She was shot once. A scream rang out, and the gun barrel crashed down. I peeked over the threshold and found myself watching a mimmo magazine coming down another flight of stairs. Gawk whizzed over my head and slammed into the watertight bulkhead. She motioned for Vito and the men to stay behind. He looked down into the engine room. The huge pistons, polished to a perfect gloss, began to move slowly. He saw a uniformed engineer gesturing furiously, and people running to their posts.
  
  
  Another shot whizzed over my head. On the other side of the engine room, a dozen riflemen burst through the doorway, flattened themselves on the ramp, and opened fire.
  
  
  I crawled out into the day and slammed it shut when a gunshot hit me. He turned to Vito. "They've got a gun on the entrance."
  
  
  'What are we doing?'he asked.
  
  
  "Give me a stick of dynamite."
  
  
  I had it in my hand almost before corkscrew finished it. The fuse lit it. "I'll try to blow up this big trap," Vito told her. "When this thing explodes, everyone will run through the door. Stay on deck.
  
  
  The deck below us began to shake, and the engines revved up. If Colonel Seung hadn't been trapped above and managed to free the ship from the cables, the Sarah Chamberlain should have been out to sea by now. Her, I hoped that Don Mario would stop the ego.
  
  
  He stood next to the watertight bulkhead and lit the fuse. Then he threw open the door and threw the dynamite into the big room. He recoiled. When he heard the bang, he pushed the door open again. It was a kaleidoscope of deaths: trap broke through in the middle, the arrows bleeding out, grabbing at anything to grab onto, and shattering as the metal broke away from the attachment points. There was no time to continue watching. The screams had already told the whole story.
  
  
  He got up, crossed the threshold, and hurried down the stairs. The crewman grabbed my arm and smashed the butt of his luger across her nose with his ego. The bone cracked.
  
  
  The driver was standing nearby and pulled a pistol from his belt. I shot him and saw that blood was oozing from under his shirt, from under his blue doublet.
  
  
  Behind me, I heard more gunshots and screams. The Chinese man pulled the axe out of the wall clip and turned to face me. The glossy blade hung over Ego's head as Luger held it to ego's mouth and pulled the trigger. The target's ego disappeared, and the axe fell.
  
  
  Mimmo whizzed me wide-eyed, ripping the pipe open. Her, saw one of the crew members aim all over the rifle. It fell on one of every tribe and fired. He shrank back with a cry. All around me, I could hear the infernal staccato of gunfire and the howl and whoosh of ricocheting bullets. Random shouting, swearing, snarling, or the impact of a body knocked over by a bullet. Mimmo me rolled a severed head. Odin around Vito's men, victim of the axe. And then the shooting stopped.
  
  
  He looked around. Vito saw her. He pressed his hand to his chest. Blood seeped between his fingers. He raised his other hand and waved the gun triumphantly. Ego's face broke into a ratty grin. "The way is clear," he shouted.
  
  
  "All right," I said. "Put some dynamite on and let's get out of here."
  
  
  Ego explosives experts were already putting sticks of dynamite in cars.
  
  
  "I'll light the fuse," I said. "The others go back up the stairs, out the door."
  
  
  They looked too happy to be allowed to do so. Vito leaned slightly to the left in response to the calculations, but one of the others held the ego upright.
  
  
  He moved quickly from one bag to the next, holding matches to the fuses. They began to hiss like Christmas stars.
  
  
  It's time to disappear. He looked at the door. Vito looked at me, then motioned for me to hurry. Then I heard gunshots and screams in the hallway behind me. Vito's eyes widened. He clutched his back and then doubled over. He was almost dead when he finally ran down the stairs.
  
  
  Brylev in the engine room went out. The metal door slammed shut. Hers was trapped.
  
  
  Trapped in pitch darkness, broken only by the yellow fireworks of burning wicks. She really would have been stopped by "Sarah Chamberlain." But that would be the last thing I did.
  
  
  In seconds, these five packets of dynamite will blow up the entire stern of Colonel Son's ship, turning Ego into Nick Carter's flying coffin.
  
  
  
  Chapter 20
  
  
  
  
  But not if he acted quickly.
  
  
  He hurried away from the stairs, dived into the first fuse, and pulled it out. It was a time trial, and I won it. It must have been about ten seconds before the last fuse was released.
  
  
  He lit a match, went back to the stairs, and went up. Sooner or later, someone will have to walk through that door if Colonel Seung wants the ego ship to sail. And when that happened, he was ready. My hand slid across its width and closed around the gas bomb.
  
  
  Hers, hoping I wouldn't have to wait too long. Her also didn't think it would be like this.
  
  
  The son didn't have time, assuming he wasn't busy with Don Mario.
  
  
  But once its got its chance, its had to be fast. I couldn't afford to miss. I was hoping that whoever we were outside, whoever was leading the small expedition that destroyed Vito and the rest of the ego battle group, was getting impatient.
  
  
  If he'd seen the fuses burning before he slammed the door, he'd probably been waiting for the explosion, and now he wondered why Ego the ferret hadn't heard it yet. If he couldn't see, well, he was probably regrouping, preparing his men to take out any living invaders in the engine room.
  
  
  In any case, he had to act quickly, because he knew that Colonel Son didn't have much time left. The Sarah Chamberlain isn't going anywhere as long as the ego people don't control the engine room.
  
  
  The door opened with long levers, one on each side. No one could push the ego out without moving it in. This was in my favor. I wouldn't be surprised at anything. He rested the fingertips of one hand on the lever, every nerve alert for the slightest sign of movement. On the other hand, I had Pierre.
  
  
  Then it almost came as a surprise, so fast that I almost lost the lever. Sergei lit up dazzlingly. At first light, Piera kept it cocked. He threw the bomb down the hall and closed the door with all his might.
  
  
  I heard a muffled explosion, then nothing more. He knew that people were now grabbing their throats in the corridor outside and dying. In a moment, it would all be over. No one will escape. And in a minute or two it would be safe to get out of here. Pierre quickly did his job and disappeared without a trace.
  
  
  At the top of the stairs, day was pushing the handle down, looking at his watch. After a minute and a half, he loosened his grip and went back down to the engine room.
  
  
  This time, he was determined not to let anything go wrong. He lit the fuses, ran up the stairs, and yanked open the door. The bodies were piled in the hallway. He slammed the door behind him and ran as fast as he could, counting as he went. "Twenty-one... twenty-two..."
  
  
  At twenty-four, he dived on deck. There was a deafening explosion that shook the entire ship. Lights flickered over my head, and the ship leveled off again. Gathering his strength, he began to climb up to the bow. I left her Mario amidships, where he fought his way forward. I didn't know how he did it, but if he could get close to the bow, he'd be behind the carriage. Maybe he could use a distraction.
  
  
  He took the stairs and hurried through the long corridors. Her, felt like I was suffocating a little. Then her, I realized that I was going a little uphill. The Sarah Chamberlain's hull broke in two. The ship was sinking. Now the water was flowing into the engine room.
  
  
  I didn't know how far I had run, but the angle was gradually getting steeper. A trapdoor at the top of the stairs caught her eye. He went up the stairs and stuck his head out. Then he turned and went on deck. No one saw me.
  
  
  The shooting was still going on here. Her, I saw three Chinese men shooting from behind the hatch. My fingers closed around the luger . He shot each of them through once.
  
  
  It was quiet on my side of the deck now. Flashes of automatic fire were still visible amidships.
  
  
  Crouching low, he ran towards Mario's men. I noticed that they were using the lifeboat as a shield. Only Mario and two others remained. The Odin around them was also injured.
  
  
  Her dove in beside them. I asked her. 'How are you?'
  
  
  Mario fired in the direction of the bridge. He lifted his shoulders. "I lost a lot of people," he said. "The colonel is still there with the captain.
  
  
  "Vito and the others are dead," he told them. "But the engine room is blown up.
  
  
  "Yes," said Mario. "We heard an explosion. Well done. But I won't rest until I've dealt with the colonel himself.
  
  
  — Why don't you leave it to me, Mario?"
  
  
  "No," he said. "It's a personal matter. No one deceives me with impunity."
  
  
  Bullets slammed into the lifeboat's hull.
  
  
  "It's useless to stay here," he said. — You don't agree to anything. I go up to them. Give me one around these gas cans.
  
  
  'What do you plan to do?'
  
  
  "We will go on the attack," he said. — We'll take the stairs under the bridge. We are at a difficult angle from it, but there is no point in staying here.
  
  
  "I'm coming with you," I said.
  
  
  "Do whatever you want, Carter. Now I have my own business. Come on, boys.
  
  
  They jumped out on either side of the lifeboat. Shots rang out from the bridge. Every tribe of the wounded man doubled over and slid across the deck under the rails. He screamed once before collapsing onto the pier.
  
  
  It was formed by the rearguard. Bullets tore into the deck around us, but now the three of us were on the stairs. Mario was right. Colonel Son and Master had a bad angle of fire. Bullets whizzed over us. Odin flew down around the submachine guns and landed with a crash on the deck. This meant that they had run out of ammunition. Mario opened the gas canister. When he reached the top of the stairs, his son and the captain stepped out of the wheelhouse door. The last shot hit Mario's companion. He clutched at his life and doubled over. There were only two of us on the bridge now, with Colonel Sin and the captain in the wheelhouse. Mario grinned at me as we ducked under the line of fire.
  
  
  "Do you see what she sees?"
  
  
  He pointed a crooked finger at the wheelhouse windows. Bullets tore gaping holes in nen. Mario jerked his thumb at the gas canister and grinned. Then he picked it up and started pouring gasoline through the hole.
  
  
  The door swung open. Hers, I saw the captain staring intently at Mario. He shot her in the unprotected earlobe and eye. They disappeared into the red mist, and the captain's body slid down on the bridge.
  
  
  When her father looked back at Mario, he got up and threw the match out the window.
  
  
  Then Colonel Seung shot him.
  
  
  He was a little late. The match hit the wheelhouse. There was a roar, and then the entire cabin burst into flames.
  
  
  Mario was still standing there with a silly grin on his face.
  
  
  He looked at me and gave me a thumbs-up. "Hey, Carter, do you think she's with Uncle Sam now?"
  
  
  Then he sat up and fell on his side. I went over to him and felt his pulse. There was no pulse anymore. Flames leaked through the broken windows and began to creep across the peeling paint that was part of the Sarah Chamberlain's disguise.
  
  
  It's time to leave. Her, went to the stairs. Gawk bounced off the metal. Then he turned around and pulled the trigger on the Luger. Gawking eyes hit the void.
  
  
  She stood looking at Colonel Son's blackened face. Ego's skin was charred and wrinkled like a mummy's. Ego teeth people aren't rude bared at me. With a slight wave of his hand, he raised the gun.
  
  
  He was already in a trance when he pulled the trigger. The stiletto was already in my hand, and it stabbed her ego into life. It was too late to stop when she heard the hammer pounding on the empty room. The knife slid inside. Colonel Son gasped.
  
  
  The knife jerked her away. He staggered back as a ball of fire erupted around the wheelhouse, around his ego, his face, and his hair.
  
  
  My guess is that he was already dead when he staggered off the railing and fell over it. He was definitely dead when his brain shattered on the deck below. Crackling flames began to spread along the edge of the bridge. Her, went down the stairs.
  
  
  Her, numb and physically tired as he threw himself on the pier. The wail of approaching sirens seeped into my mind, and a final glance behind me told me it wasn't a bad dream. The first fire trucks had already stopped. The Ih lights were a faint light compared to the bright, flaming glow of the ship's bridge.
  
  
  Further down the pier, mimmo saw a small man in a rumpled tweed suit sipping a cigar.
  
  
  Her, went up to him. He raised his hand in greeting. "Well, Nicholas," he said. Here? And hers, I thought I'd sent you on vacation.
  
  
  
  Chapter 21
  
  
  
  
  The office still smelled the same: cigar smoke and old tweed. David Hawke sat at his desk, shaking his head in disapproval.
  
  
  "Very careless, Nicholas," he said. "Very careless."
  
  
  "I'm afraid it was the best thing I could have done under the circumstances," I said. "The most important thing was to prevent Colonel Sin from sailing away with the gold. Once he got to the open dress, things might get a little more complicated. And there would be rumors about the loss of gold.
  
  
  Hawke took a drag on his cigar. "We managed to nip this in the bud," he said. "While you were sleeping it off yesterday, the government released impressive trade balance statistics, predicting an improving economy for the coming year, and also confirmed its strong refusal to raise the official gold price. As a result, the price of gold on the free market in Zurich, Paris and London has fallen, and the dollar against other currencies is experiencing its best day in recent months. And her, I believe, rather violent death of the Colonel's Son has already arrived, before those people who were waiting for the signal of "Sarah Chamberlain".'
  
  
  "Well, — I said. Things seem to be getting better.
  
  
  "There's still a lot to clean up," Hawke said. "I am happy to say that the authorities in Washington have been of great help to me. The fire department reduced the fire on board the ship to a minimum. The police were happy to get rid of Mario and the family's ego, including finding heroin. He had a decent amount, there's a whole warehouse under that pier, under the riverbed." Hawk put a match to his fresh cigar. "After clarifying the situation with Don Mario, the police were only too happy to grant any of our requests. There is an unusually strict but unobtrusive security system around the ship. Treasury officials and senior military intelligence officials are involved in returning the gold to the vault. All security guards associated with the Federal Reserve vault and all officers associated with ego security have been taken into custody. It will probably take us most of Sunday to clear things up, but by the end of Sunday, we expect the gold to be back in storage and the fake gold to be discarded. Confiscated heroin is destroyed.
  
  
  — You said that everyone involved in protecting the vaults has been taken into custody?" I told her. Hawke took a drag on his cigar before answering. "Well, — he said. 'Not really. Except for one person.
  
  
  "Philip Doane?".
  
  
  Hawk nodded. "I saw her yesterday, Ego daughter," he said. "When she called me the night before, she told me where to find her. So when all was quiet from the port of bar, I went to visit her. We talked for a long time. She told me that you were very helpful hey, Nick. And I told her that she was very helpful. Because anyway, if something had happened to you on board the ship and she hadn't called, well, I'm not sure what state this country would be in today. A little ash from the emu's cigar fell on Gillette. He didn't seem to notice.
  
  
  "And her father?"
  
  
  Hawk blew out a puff of bluish smoke and put the cigar in the ashtray. "Philip Doane is dead," he said. "A girl told me. He died shortly after they got home. Her guess is that the trials and tribulations on this ship have worn him out. She told me they were coming home, and he seemed happy. He washed up and sat down in a chair in the living room. He asked for a glass of sherry and asked her to tell the whole story of what had happened to her. He was very impressed with you, Nick. He said there was an old Chinaman...
  
  
  "Yes," I said.
  
  
  "Yes, that's what it was called," Hawke said. "Well, she said that her father thought that this Ji would admire you. That you were some kind of wizard. A man who excelled at some pretty magical things. Then he leaned back in his chair and admired his daughter. She told me that he then raised his glass and made a toast. "About the magic of life". Then he took a sip, put down the glass, and closed his eyes. Penny said she knew he was dead.
  
  
  "I'm sorry," I said. "He caused a lot of trouble, but in the end, he wasn't a bad person. The ego mistake was that emu didn't care about anything but his daughter's ego.
  
  
  "Ego was buried this morning," Hawk said. 'Everything is fine. The girl thinks so too. If he were still alive, we would have to charge him directly. He would have spent the rest of his life behind bars."
  
  
  "I wouldn't bet Stahl on that," I said.
  
  
  Hawke smiled grimly. "Well, I know, ego is a talent, it would also not be Stahl to put it," he said. "But I know that ego daughter feels good, he most likely wouldn't have caused hey, too much trouble. In addition, he did his best to correct his mistake. He left a complete set of blueprints for the new vault security system. At the end, he wrote that even he hadn't found a way to break through nah yet."
  
  
  "Then it's over," I said. "All the ends seem to be tied up again. Dr. Inuris, Colonel, Son, Don Mario, Don Philippe: all dead. The gold safe and heroin were confiscated.
  
  
  "The parties are safe again," Hawke said. "At least for now." He took a long drag on his cigar. "Still, Nicholas, it was a little careless. Then he grinned, reached out and grabbed my hand. "Once again," he said, " my thanks and appreciation from a prominent elected official."
  
  
  "Thank you," I said.
  
  
  "We're grateful," Hawke said. "Well, Nick, I think you deserve a vacation."
  
  
  "Wait a minute," I said.
  
  
  Hawk held up a hand for silence. "No, it's serious this time. You deserve it. For a while. Go wherever you want.
  
  
  'I don't believe it.'
  
  
  'Try it.'
  
  
  "Maybe," I said, preparing to leave the office.
  
  
  "Ah," Hawk said. 'Wait a second. I forgot her something. He reached for his desk. "The girl asked me to give you this. She said her father would like you to have her. He picked up a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper and tied with rope.
  
  
  He sat down again and unpacked it. G's mailbox . "The girl said something else. "Let me see, what was that again?" Another ego joke. — Don't tell me your memory is failing you. Her message read: "Tell Mr. Carter, I'll bet you five francs, that he won't remember how to open this thing."
  
  
  I smiled at her as I pressed panther and badger. The lid of the box flew off.
  
  
  Inside it, I saw a list of flight departure times, circled by the trip number and time. He quickly closed the lid before Hawk could see what was inside. He looked at his watch and got up. "Well, I'd better go. Hawk stood up and shook my hand again. "Oh, Nicholas," he said. "Be sure to leave a message where we can find you."
  
  
  "Of course," I said. 'Effortless. You can find me in Hong Kong. Try the Peninsula Hotel.
  
  
  Emu waved at her and hurried over to the door. He stood there, grinning like a Cheshire cat smoking cigars.
  
  
  High in the hills above the Riviera, in a small town at the end of the road, stands a walled hotel. They who are inside can see everything from the outside. But those who are outside can't see inside. It's a place that blocks off the world.
  
  
  From the back wall, a mesmerizing landscape of orange groves and vineyards descends to the distant dazzling Mediterranean Sea. Inside the walls there are gardens with lots of trees and flowers, and brightly colored birds. Not when the sun glistens on the old stone walls, and the blue water by the pool beckons the body invitingly.
  
  
  In the evenings, hundreds of candles wrap the tables outside in softly shimmering intimacy under a cool star-studded sky.
  
  
  And then you still have time between the evening and the next one, not when...
  
  
  Moon saint flooded the room, her face bathed in a silver glow. She lay on the floor in the trash, her skin soft and wet, pressing against me.
  
  
  "Any champagne?"
  
  
  She smiled and shook her head. "The air is already intoxicating." She leaned in to lick me:"Nick?"
  
  
  She rested her head on my shoulder. She breathed in the sweet scent of her hair . 'What?'
  
  
  'It doesn't matter.'
  
  
  "No, I told her. 'Go ahead. What were you going to say?" Her hand slid down my thigh. 'It doesn't matter.'
  
  
  "All right," I said.
  
  
  — I was just curious."..
  
  
  'What?'
  
  
  "This is stupid." Her hand was indeed very talented and skillful.
  
  
  "Nothing," I said. "It doesn't matter if it's stupid."
  
  
  "Well, that's stupid .
  
  
  "Well, if it bothers you, you can say it right away," I said.
  
  
  She ducked under the sheet for a moment. Nah also had a great idea of what to do there.
  
  
  Mischievous, pouting, and frowning at the same time, she crawled out from under the sheet again. The hand was busy again.
  
  
  "No, — she said. "I really shouldn't ask."
  
  
  "Please," I said. 'Just ask. To please me.
  
  
  Her hand was very busy right now. — Do you mind?"
  
  
  "No, I told her. "I'm sure I won't mind."
  
  
  'Are you sure?'
  
  
  "Absolutely, absolutely sure."
  
  
  — Can I ask you two questions?"
  
  
  "Ask me three, five, a hundred questions."
  
  
  "It's beautiful here, isn't it, Nick?"
  
  
  "Is it Odin who will meet your questions?"
  
  
  "No," she said, pressing her lips to mine. — She was just asked to thank you."
  
  
  "And these questions?"
  
  
  "All right," she said. "First corkscrew: will you pay me back the five francs you owe me?"
  
  
  In her rheumatism I reached over to the nightstand and took out a five-franc note from her wallet. Hey gave it to me.
  
  
  "The beginning of the second corkscrew?"
  
  
  "Now people say that I am very beautiful. And yet, people always say that beauty doesn't go beyond the outside. Nick, if its beautiful, is my beauty only on the outside?
  
  
  There was no need for words. In her rheumatism, came across her body.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  About the book:
  
  
  Nick Carter saw Nicole Lions in a casino on the French Riviera... Nicole was gone. A few years ago, she was killed in a car accident.
  
  
  Then who was the woman with the dead girl's face? Carter's job was to find out.
  
  
  But a few people told themselves that the ego-awful setting cost millions of dollars. Meanwhile, someone is taking a significant chunk of the world's gold reserves through a spy plot that stretches from luxury French beaches to New York's "stinky" waterfront...
  
  
  What uplifting role does Penny Down play in this dubious dell?
  
  
  
  
  
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Новые книги авторов СИ, вышедшие из печати:
О.Болдырева "Крадуш. Чужие души" М.Николаев "Вторжение на Землю"

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