He 180'd the jeep and skidded to a halt on the far side of the curve, out of sight from below.
From a webbed pouch between the seats, he chose three M-34 incendiary grenades and arranged them in the passenger seat. With a new magazine in Wilhelmina, who was back in his leg holster, Carter looked to the Model 12.
He fixed the stock and draped the lanyard over his left shoulder. When he dropped the jeep's windshield, the space between the left-hand grip and the magazine fitted perfectly down over the round bar at the base of the windshield.
It would serve as a reverse bi-pod of the sub, allowing Carter to fire, release the Beretta without it flopping, and throw the grenades, only to regrip and fire again.
He was ready.
Carter went through the gears quickly, hitting fifty by the time he rounded the curve.
The chatter of renewed gunfire found his ears as the jeep's nose dipped and he hurtled downward, directly for the dusty square and the area toward the storefront beyond it.
At one hundred yards he started firing. The little Model 12 bucked in his hand but stayed in place on the windshield bar.
The monks had shed their robes. Beneath them they wore green and brown fatigues. Carter could see insignia, and he guessed it matched that worn by the dead «bodyguard» near the Ford.
That would be their game.
Carter could almost see the headlines: "Government Troops Kill Leftist Leader."
At fifty yards he let up on the accelerator and released the Beretta.
There had been some confusion behind the rocks when the two shooters had seen that they were flanked and still being fired upon from the bar.
But they quickly recovered.
Now one had shifted around to return Carter's fire while the other still concentrated on Cubanez. But between the peppering fire from the two angles, neither of them could get off a shot that would do any damage.
Carter released the Beretta and. in three-second intervals, threw the grenades. The M-34 had about a five-second fuse. By the time the first one went off, Carter was firing again.
The first grenade was short.
The second wasn't.
The body that had been firing at Cubanez lifted into the air and settled down over a boulder, arms and legs sprawled grotesquely in every direction.
Just as the jeep reached the narrowed lane leading up to the monastery, the third blast rocked the air.
Carter's shooter stood. He dropped his weapon and staggered from behind the rocks, his hands vainly tearing at his ripped and scorched eyes.
Carter made the turn, lifting the muzzle of the Model 12 around and laying it across his right arm.
The guy was fifteen yards from the jeep when he started crying out in Spanish: "I'm finished… I'm finished!"
"You bet your ass you are," Carter hissed, and laid a burst across his chest from nipple to nipple.
At the top of the hill, Carter slid lithely from the jeep. Ejecting the nearly empty magazine, he jacked in a fresh one and started down the incline a boulder at a time.
From far across the square, Cubanez and his Beretta were quiet. Gaiter could not see the head of one or the muzzle of the other above the window casing.
Good man.
Cubanez was already moving out, probably far to the right and below Carter to give him backing if he needed it.
Halfway to the bottom, Carter stopped.
Firing was intermittent now.
A pop or two from just beneath him would bring small-arms fire from the second floor rear of the hardware store.
Carter waited until he could get a fix, then moved out again.
He placed two of them, one in some rocks right at the base of the hill. The other was just below his present position, on a direct line with the second-story window.
Where was number three?
Carter found out ail too soon.
A tiny scrape. Boot sole against stone.
He whirled, the Model 12 bucking in both hands.
The guy got off one shot. Carter felt the sting and tug of the slug at his left ear as his own slugs tore into the guy's gut.
He screamed. Once. And then toppled backward over the rocks to lay silent.
Carter didn't wait now. He moved on down through the rocky killing ground, his ears attuned to every sound.
Alerted by the burping fire of the Model 12 above them, the two remaining shooters had slipped their positions.
"Señor Carter…"
Carter looked up.
Hubanyo's fat, florid face was in the window.
"To your right — behind the two trees!"
Carter moved right in a crouch. He took his sight lines off the tops of two scrub oaks that angled toward the sky from above the line of rocks.
Every five feet he stopped to listen.
Nothing.
And then he heard it: the soft pad of booted feet on dry dirt.
The guy had flanked him. He was moving up now through the rocks to Carter's right, about twenty yards in the rear.
Carter smiled to himself. He hunkered down and waited, filling his hand with a good-sized rock.
It wasn't long.
When the guy was directly on the other side of Carter's boulder, he rolled the rock over the top.
The firing was instantaneous.
That was the way Carter found him when he came around, rifle in the air, firing at sound.
Carter centered the death end of the Beretta on his chest and planted his feet.
"You can live, amigo."
The guy cursed loudly and brought his rifle down in an arc, firing.
The man screamed in agony when the first 9mm slug hit his shoulder.
The screaming ended in a gurgling death rattle when the next four took his head off.
The sound of the Model 12 had barely died out when Carter heard Cubanez's voice calling to him from near the edge of the buildings.
"Amigo… Nick!"
"Yeah?"
"How many did you get?"
"Two behind the rocks and two up here."
"Then it is over. We are coming out."
We? Carter thought. moving cautiously the rest of the way down the hill, still in cover.
He hit the bottom just as Cubanez came around the side of the building. The Spaniard had a wide grin on his face, and the muzzle of his Beretta ground into the soft spot behind a man's ear.
"His name is Manuel Ortiz," Cubanez said. "He is Cuban and, as you Americans would say, he is scared shitless."
Carter smiled.
They had their prisoner.
Four
Nick Carter sighed in contentment as the strong yet wondrously gentle and feminine hands floated down over his bare back. They moved like feathers over his naked buttocks, then slid between his legs.
The fingers did amazing things, until the pleasure threatened to turn into pain.
"You like?" asked the sultry voice.
"I love," Carter replied and rolled over onto his back.
She was gorgeous, all five-foot-ten of her, full of pleasurable angles and even more pleasurable curves. Her breasts were bare, as was the rest of her, and they hung like two huge melons directly above Carter's eyes.
Her name was Delores, and Carter had met her on the flight back from Madrid three days before.
The attraction had been instantaneous and mutual.
"What do you do?" she had asked.
"I'm a reporter for Amalgamated Press and Wire Services," Carter had replied without blinking. "I'm just getting off an assignment in Spain. And you?"
"I'm rich."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I like to read, gamble, play tennis, travel, and make love… not necessarily in that order."
Her eyes had said the rest.
"I have to file my story when we land. It should take about two hours. Can I meet you for dinner?"