Carter's smile broadened, but he did not alter the flat, noncommittal expression in his eyes. The woman was testing him. She had probably been briefed some time that day, or perhaps the day before, on his background and the story of Constantin Carstocus.
She was baiting him, and this time Carter replied.
"My uncle. He was eventually shot as a Communist rabble-rouser."
"But you had no connection with him?"
"None," Carter replied. "Indeed, quite the opposite. My father was very different from his brother, very immersed in capitalism. I only know of my uncle. I never met the man."
"I see. That is a pity. From the stories I have heard, he must have been quite a man."
"Perhaps. His name was rarely spoken in our house."
"Then you do not approve of your uncle's politics?"
There it was, an open question. But Carter was saved from answering her for the time being.
"Señor Carstocus?" The dark-haired little woman stood at the head of the stairs.
"Si, Estrellita?"
"Dinner, señor, is served."
"Gracias," Carter said and turned to his guest. "Shall we?"
Armanda de Nerro glided against him until her firm breasts were pressed to his chest.
She was indeed tall, tall enough that she had only to tilt her head to bring her lips to his.
It was a seething kiss, full of passion and promise.
And Carter returned it in kind until she gently pulled away.
"An appetizer," she breathed, barely parting her lips.
"And, I hope, an omen," Carter replied, "of things to come."
"We shall see," Armanda said, her voice husky and full of sensuality.
Carter followed her swaying hips down the stairway with a curve to his lips that was more sneer than smile.
Yes, indeed, it had been quite a month since he had staked out a beach three thousand miles or more west of the tiny principality of Andorra.
Quite a month, with a lot of bodies in between…
Two
The eyes were like black ice behind the hooded lids. They seemed somnambulant, but they digested every twitch, every movement on the moonlit beach two hundred yards below.
There were eight of them, crouched in two groups on the sand. A few smoked, the fireflies at the ends of the cigarettes glowing behind cupped hands. Two more — flanked to the right and left of the hill-dweller — served as back watchers for the men on the beach.
Nick Carter's trained ears and the icy eyes had already made their position in the rain forest behind him.
From below there was conversation, hushed and muted, but the distance was too great for the black-clad observer to catch more than an occasional word.
But accents he did catch, allowing conclusions.
They were multinational. Probably few of them spoke more than their native tongue and English. So they were communicating in English, heavily accented by Spanish, French, and Italian.
They had moved in just after sundown, two at a time, all from different directions.
Their dress was the baggy, white overblouse and trousers of the Yucatecan peasant. When they slipped out of the jungle, there had not been a weapon in sight. But shortly after taking up a position on the beach, hardware had appeared from beneath their clothing and out of the shoulder-slung woven bags at their hips.
Most of it was old stuff: M-l carbines and Enfields that looked as though they were as old as the Bedouin wars when Rommel's tanks rumbled.
The small irons were Smith and Wesson.38s. It took one hell of a shooter to bring anybody down for good with one of those. It has been said that the best way to take a man out with one was to throw it at him.
The newest thing showing was a Beretta Model 12 sub.
Carter had already made a mental note that the head guy with the Beretta would be the first to go. Not just because of his hardware, but because of who he was.
Nels Pomroy, CIA, retired. At least on the books.
In actual fact, Pomroy had decided — upon his retirement two years before — to go into business for himself, using the expertise and contacts he had gained while working for the Company.
He had become a broker for various international assassins around the world.
You want a businessman or politician gunned down somewhere? Just contact old Nels. For a solid percentage of the fee he would find you the man for the job.
And when the killing business was slow. Pomroy had a second, even more profitable sideline: arms sales.
That was his current business that night on a Mexican beach.
Carter's assignment was to stop the arms shipment and, more importantly, put Nels Pomroy out of business… permanently.
He had become a big fat embarrassment to his former employers.
It would not be much of a contest. In contrast to the men on the beach, Carter bristled with the latest.
A close-action Beretta 9mm pistol was leathered beneath his left armpit, the snout of its silencer tickling his lower left side.
His favorite Luger, Wilhelmina, had been left behind on this assignment.
Reason?
All the hardware Carter carried would be destroyed when the job was over. AXE chief David Hawk had been explicit on those instructions.
"No trace, N3, not even a shell casing. I want it as if you or them had never been there."
A Beretta 93R machine pistol hung low, Western-style, on his right hip. Its leather had been customized with a plastic, friction-reducing lining.
The 93R had also been customized away from factory specs. A suppressor had been installed, as well as machined springs designed to cycle the cartridges.
They made the Beretta a quiet killer.
At his side rested one of Lt. Col. Uziel Gal's finest: a Galil assault rifle. It had been modified to fire 5.56 shells with the same accuracy and reliability as its big-brother predecessor, the AK-47. Firepower was more than adequate with an elongated Stoner Mag holding forty-nine slugs in the magazine and one napping in the chamber waiting to be awakened.
And for icing he had infrared eyes to see the slugs on their way, goggles so that his hands were free to do the job.
Carter let his eyes float. Quintana Roo territory, Yucatan Peninsula, Republic of Mexico. A soft sand beach, isolated, desolate, fronting many miles of muggy, steam-sweating tropical jungle and rain forest.
Not a very pretty spot, he thought with a grimace, but as good as any place to die.
"They call themselves Latinos for Freedom. It's a small group and not affiliated, so until now we haven't paid them a hell of a lot of attention."
David Hawk paused to sip from the cup of steaming coffee in his right hand.
They were in Hawk's office in the Amalgamated Press and Wire Services building, Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C.
Hawk's right hand returned his cup to the table. The left, holding a cigar, came up. The rope's well-chewed end split his lips and found a groove between his teeth.
"As near as we can tell, Latinos for Freedom are rebel rebels. They raise random hell, with all sides as targets. A bomb here, a raid there. Hell, they even assassinated one right-wing tinhorn dictator, then turned right around and tried to nail the socialist who succeeded him!"
Until now, Carter had sat silently, smoking, digesting his boss's every word and storing it in the computerlike memory bank of his mind.
Now he asked questions.
"Unrest for unrest's sake?"
"That's it. We couldn't pin them down and, God knows, we've got enough trouble down there anyway, so we ignored them. The Russians and Fidel left them alone because unrest is the name of their game as well. Hell, they were giving our side as much trouble as they were giving the Marxist rebels, so the Communists figured, let 'em play."