I checked my watch. It was 10:00, seven hours until AXE’s raid. I doubted that King would have any Cobras in the sky when AXE started dropping its own copters onto the roof. There was the heavy caliber machine gun on the roof to be disposed of, though.
I wandered away from the guest quarters back into the living room. With all the activity that was going on in the bedrooms, the rest of the criminal resort was deserted. Outside I could see King with his bodyguard. On one of the landing pads was a giant Chinook copter taking on fuel preparatory to flying the girls out in the morning. I hoped for their sake they were gone before five o’clock.
I slipped out a side door into the cold night air. A Snowman guard was at one corner of the surrounding patio. He stared out at the mountains.
“Cigaret?”
He almost jumped and then took the offered cigaret. I lit both of ours.
“You can get hypnotized by these mountains,” he said apologetically. “They don’t move, you know, no matter how long you look at them. Aren’t you a little cold?”
The question had a friendly tone but not enough of one to mislead me. The guards had been given special orders to keep an eye on Raki Senevres.
“I come from the Anatolian hills,” I said. “I’m used to cold.”
“You’re lucky. When my shift’s over it takes me an hour just to defrost.”
“You ought to switch. Learn computer programming like American matchbooks say.”
He laughed.
“What I ought to do is pull roof duty and spend all night in the nice, warm bubble pulling Z’s. You dig?”
“I’m afraid not. Goodnight.”
“Yeah.”
He stood with his back to me, smoking. I went to the door, opened and closed it, and slid into the shadow along the outside frame. The guard looked at the door and pulled out his radio.
“Control, this is Ricco. Mr. Senevres came out a minute ago. We engaged in conversation... No, no information was passed... He already went back in... Over.”
He immediately left his post for another. I climbed up the unguarded side of the lodge. It had been built with bare beams and unpolished stones for a rugged, handsome look; there was no lack of handholds.
The roof gun was .51 caliber with twin barrels. Anti-aircraft class, it would cut apart any copter ever built. The bubble was one-and-a-half-inch plastic, strong enough to deflect anything less than a rocket. The turret rollers were protected by steel, and from a special vent I could tell the gunner had a private air system inside the bubble so that he couldn’t be incapacitated by any gas attack inside the lodge. Even if AXE’s copters dropped tear gas on the special vent, he could close it off with enough air in the bubble to keep him firing for an hour or more.
The gunner, his features clear in the bubble’s light, read a magazine. Abruptly, he put it down. The turret whined and turned at the pressure of the gunner’s feet. His twin MG’s pointed in the opposite direction, the same direction the guard on patrol had been diverted to.
An Iroquois was landing on the pad near the Chinook. Whoever the late arrivals were, the attention of the guards had been distracted. I unscrewed the vent cover with my penknife blade. If the turret turned I was dead; there was no way I could pull my head and arm back fast enough. Snow from the last storm was left on the roof, proof of Snowman’s insulation. I used a handful of it to wet my handkerchief. Through the wet cloth I pressed a piece of heroin “candy,” mashing the morphine fudge into the fibers. I spread the handkerchief over the air intake and watched the prepared cloth spread over the grill. The turret stayed still, pointed at the unloading Iroquois. I screwed the cover back on and smoothed the disturbed snow. The turret whined. The twin barrels pointed in my direction, but by then I was gone.
Air would still reach the machine gunner. The amount of opium that he’d breathe would be very small. The opium was pure, though. Cut down, it would have serviced hundreds of hard addicts. Also, the gunner would be breathing it for hours. By the time the AXE copters appeared, he would be paralyzed in terms of Snowman’s defense.
Before the first guard returned to his post, I slipped back into the lodge. Whoever had arrived were being led to their rooms by King. The living room was empty, except for Vera. She was on a sofa by one of the fireplaces. She seemed to be expecting me.
“A walk, Raki? You must be freezing. Have a brandy.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t ask how she knew I was outside. My brandy had already been poured. I drained the glass. “You can’t sleep?”
“No. Maybe I have a case of nerves,” she said. She’d never had the problem before. “Do you have a case of nerves, Raki? Are you ever afraid of anything?”
“You’ve had either too much brandy or not enough, Vera.”
“My father doesn’t like you.”
“Your father doesn’t like losing. Tell him he’s not losing a spy, he’s gaining a partner.”
“He kills people he doesn’t like.”
The conversation was getting overfamiliar, and Vera was in a strange depression. Perhaps she had a foreboding that I was not who I said I was. I said goodnight and went to the guest quarters. All the sounds of merry making had died, and I checked my watch. It was 11:30, a little early for all bad boys to be asleep. I didn’t think about the fact much because I wanted a few hours of sleep for myself before five.
I went into my room and turned the light on.
Every Mafioso in Snowman was waiting for me. In the middle was King. Next to King were the new arrivals: Charlie DeSantis and a Turk. The Turk stood around six foot seven and weighed 340 lbs. His neck was as large as most mens’ thighs. His skull was shaved. His face was a scarred scowl, decorated with a mustache. If he’d pulled an arm off the nearest chief and eaten it as a late night snack I wouldn’t have been amazed.
King didn’t disappoint me, though.
“Raki Senevres,” he addressed me, “I want you to meet Raki Senevres,” and he patted the Turk on his back.
I was more than amazed.
Sixteen
Special Effects had chosen my identity. Where had they selected my name?
“Where did Raki come from? What do we know about this prospective partner of ours, I kept asking myself,” King said. “I asked my friends in Istanbul and Izmir. They never heard of him. No criminal in Turkey had the name. Another man might have had to be satisfied with no answer, but I wanted to help our friend Raki, to clear away any lingering doubt about his identity. So I kept searching and had my friends search for anyone named Raki Senevres. Finally, I found him. And what could be more perfect? As you know, I always try to provide Snowman guests with entertainment. This should be very entertaining, two men who each claim to be Raki Senevres, the greatest wrestler in Turkey.”
“Mr. King,” I broke in, “what kind of a stunt is this? I never told you I was a wrestler.”
“Are you Raki Senevres?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must be the greatest wrestler in Turkey. And this other man must be a liar.”
“I am not a liar!” the other Raki Senevres said. His voice sounded like gears grinding on bone.
I appealed to the family chiefs.
“This is a ridiculous test. I never said I was this man.”
“Mr. King insists this is the only Raki Senevres he was able to find,” the Boston chief answered. “Are you calling Mr. King a liar?”
“I’m not calling anyone a liar. I’m only saying Mr. King is wrong.”
“If you’re not Raki Senevres, who are you?” the outspoken Bostonian shot back. “I’ll tell you, Raki, we’ve always taken Mr. King’s advice in the past, and it’s always paid off. Now, we’d feel a lot better if you proved you really were someone. I can understand wanting to avoid identification, but there are some things worse.”