Hurtada stopped pacing and stared down at Harper. “I know something! You’re worrying too much about your own skin these days. Well, maybe that figures. You’re in this only for money.” He leaned closer to the big man and whispered, “You don’t have to go back to China someday. I do. It makes for a difference in viewpoint, you perverted fat bastard. And I say we’re in trouble. Think, man! Vargas is a drunk! He’s got millions of that bad money and he’s got an airplane. He’s also got a few bottles around. What does all that add up to?”
Harper held up a fleshy hand, the cigar glowing between his fingers. “All right — all right! No use in us falling out. That would bollux things. And don’t call me names! Don’t forget I’m in command of this operation, damn it.”
“They must be crazy in Peking,” said Hurtada. But the voice was that of Chung Hee.
Harper ignored the slur. “As I see it we’ve got two choices — panic and pack up and run for it, or wait and see what develops. We’ll look awful fools if we blow an operation like this before we have to. And you’re right — we don’t know where Vargas has gone. I doubt he would go north, to the States. Probably he’s headed south, for Central or South America. He is a hell of a fine flyer, you know, and he’s just crooked enough to know the ropes. I say we wait and see — if he goes south we’re probably all right. He’ll hole up somewhere and try to feed that money into circulation slowly.”
The Chinese stopped pacing and sank down on the wet bench, staring gloomily at the gravel path. “There’s only one good thing about this whole mess — at least the sonofabitch didn’t take the good money. He couldn’t get into that vault.”
Hurtada’s cuff had slipped up. Something glinted on his thin wrist. Absently he fingered the gold-plated bracelet, a serpent with its tail in its mouth. Light shimmered from the bracelet and Harper stared at it for a moment. A thought struck him. “Vargas didn’t know anything about the Party, did he? I mean he wasn’t working in it — he wasn’t on the inside?”
“Of course not,” said the Chinese with irritation. “How could he be? He’s just a drunken fool. How could we use him?”
“He foxed your security,” Harper said slyly. Then, at the look on Hurtada’s face he hurried on, “I thought I saw him wearing one of the bracelets a time or two. That’s why I asked.”
Hurtada shrugged. “Maybe he did. A lot of people wear them who have nothing to do with the Serpent Party. Even kids. The more the better — I thought we agreed on that. Like campaign buttons in the States.”
“But in this case,” Harper began, then shook his head. He stood up. “Let’s break this off now. Get back up the coast. Stay away from the castle and the Bitch. And tighten your security, for God’s sake.”
Hurtada scowled. “I have. Personally. The two guards who shared a bottle with Vargas will never share another one. With anybody.”
“Good. I hope you took them well out to sea.” Harper patted the Chinese on the shoulder. “I’ll drive up first thing in the morning. I’ve got a little business to finish up. By the time I get there I’ll have made a decision. Stick it out or run for it. I’ll let you know.”
As they were about to part Hurtada said, “You know I’ll have to report this. I’ll have to contact Sea Dragon and have it relayed to Peking.”
Maxwell Harper stared at his companion for a long time. His little eyes, glinting hard gray in their fat rings, were cold.
“Suit yourself about that,” he said finally. “I can’t stop you. But if I were you I wouldn’t — not just yet. The Party is just beginning to roll, to show results. If we fold up now we blow an awful lot of ground work. But suit yourself.”
As he turned away down the path Harper glanced back at the little man. “After all,” he said with malice, “you are the one in charge of security. Peking knows that. I didn’t let Vargas get away with the money.”
Peking is a city constructed rather on the order of a set of Chinese boxes. There is the Outer City. Then there is the Inner, or Forbidden City, and nestling in the heat — the core — is the Imperial City. This is the very penetralia of the Chinese Central Committee. As in all bureaucracies, be they under dictatorship or democracy, there are a very great many obscure offices scattered about in hard-to-find buildings. Such an office was that of the man in charge of Political and Economic Warfare.
His name was Liu Shao-hi and he was in his early fifties. He was a slight man, a pale, yellow little man with something of the delicacy of Ming about him. Liu was a reticent man, with a courteous reserve that seemed to belong more to the old China than to the new, but the true index of Liu lay in his eyes. Obsidian in color and texture, alert, burning with furious intelligence and impatience. Liu knew his job and he had power in high places.
He looked up from some papers now as an assistant entered with a dispatch. He put the sheet of paper on the desk. “The latest from Sea Dragon, sir.” The assistant knew better than to call Liu “comrade,” no matter what was set down in party protocol.
Liu waved a hand in dismissal. When the man had gone he picked up the dispatch and read it carefully. He read it again. The beginnings of a frown puckered his smooth forehead. Things were going very well indeed in Mexico, it seemed. Almost too well. Such optimism worried him. He pressed a button on his desk.
When the assistant re-entered, Liu said, “Where is Sea Dragon at this moment?”
The man went to a wall and pulled down a large map. Without hesitation he moved a red pin from one spot to another. It was his job to know these things. Now he pointed to the red pin.
“Roughly, sir, about 108 west by 24 north. We have been using the Tropic of Cancer for latitude. It is close enough. You have an order to go to Sea Dragon, sir?”
Liu held up a hand for silence. His superb brain was visualizing the map of that part of the world. He did not go to the wall map. After a moment he said, “Isn’t that around the mouth of the Gulf of California?”
“Yes, sir. The Sea Dragon lies on the bottom during the day, sir, and—”
“When I need instruction in the elementals,” Liu said, fixing him with an opaque stare, “I will let you know. Go.” The man fled.
Alone, Liu picked up the dispatch and studied it again. Finally he put it aside and got back to his papers. The Mexican venture was a gamble, of course. A great gamble. It seemed to be going well. Yet he was uneasy. It never paid to trust your agents too much! What this needed was an on the job inspection, by himself, and that was impossible. Liu sighed and kept on working, his old-fashioned pen hissing like a serpent on the paper.
Chapter 2
Brief Idyll
Sunset in Acapulco. The surrounding mountains were purpling in the encroaching dusk and a few lights twinkled on in the white luxury hotels. Belated yachts were hurrying in from the open sea to a snug harbor. The air had cooled to just the right degree, so that now it was like satin on the flesh.
Nick Carter lay content on a deserted strip of beach and let the quiet beauty of the moment sink into him. The girl lay silent also and for the moment it was enough. She had been an incessant little chatterbox all afternoon, so gay and amusing — and eager — that Nick, beguiled as he was by her, now found himself grateful for quiet.
They lay, eyes closed, only their thighs touching, hers thin and deeply tanned, his deceptively slim and heavy with muscle. Nearby on the sand lay a ravaged picnic basket and two empty wine bottles. They had contained Taittinger Blanc des Blancs. The Chardonnay grape. Killmaster could feel the gentle effervescence of the wine in him now. The drink was, to some small degree, affecting him physically; he hoped it was not affecting his mental processes. Because he had soon to make a decision. About the girl, Angelita Dolores Rita Inez Delgado.