****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
ONE
Clouds of dust rose from the steep dirt road scorched
by the long, rainless years of African sun in the Eritrean
back country of northeastern Ethiopia. The heat baked
into the rock, the rock pounded to dust by hundreds of
thousands of bare, skeletal feet as the starving natives of
Eritrea left their dead farms to struggle toward the last
hope of food in the refugee camps set up by the interna-
tional aid committees.
The endless column of white-clad victims of Africa's
longest drought in recent memory stretched almost out
of sight in both directions, a column that moved slowly,
with many gaps, as the weakened victims of years of
hunger stumbled and shuffled ahead, their ranks thin-
ning with each moment. Some collapsed on the road
with their bloated bellies and protruding bones, others
staggered off to sprawl into the ditches and thorny
underbrush, too exhausted to move farther.
Through this ragged column of despair a fast-moving
patrol of the Ethiopian army pushed its way. The
soldiers shoved and kicked the starving refugees out of
00
Page 1 (12/211)
00



1
NICK CARTER
their path, laughing as they pushed some particularly
emaciated man who staggered to fall facedown into
the dust. The stronger of the ragged horde moved to
get out of the path of the well-fed soldiers, but most
only stumbled on, oblivious to anything beyond their
hunger, and the weakest collapsed at the touch of the
soldiers to lie unmoving wherever they fell. The soldiers
barely glanced at the near dead walkers. These were,
after all, Eritreans. Rebels. The enemy. Let them starve.
At a spot where the mountains towered close to the
dusty road that descended toward the plain and the aid
camps, the officer in charge of the patrol made a sharp
motion with his arm. The soldiers turned and left the
road on a narrow trail that wound up the steep slope
into the brush and tinder-dry trees. They vanished in
seconds, and the stream of miserable humanity flowed
on as if the soldiers had never been there. For most of
them, sunk in pain and hunger and weakness, the sold-
iers never had.
One tall man, his tattered rags flapping over his black
skin, his turban so filthy it was impossible to believe it
had ever been white. his skin so dusty it was more gray
than black, staggered after rhe vanished patrol, drawn
like a moth to the sound of their passage, pulled inex-
orably by their very speed, their power / An animal
following anything that moved in the hope of food.
The rear soldier of the patrol glanced back at the road
and the river of refugees and saw the ragged peasant
weaving and struggling after them, his eyes rolled up to
the sky as if blind, his mouth open and gasping for air.
The soldier dropped back and kicked the refugee's feet
out from under him. The ragged man crashed down into
the dust and brush and lay motionless.
"Eat dirt, pig," the soldier muttered. "It will teach
00
Page 1 (12/211)
00






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
2
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
their path, laughing as they pushed some particularly
emaciated man who staggered to fall facedown into
the dust. The stronger of the ragged horde moved to
get out of the path of the well-fed soldiers, but most
only stumbled on, oblivious to anything beyond their
hunger, and the weakest collapsed at the touch of the
soldiers to lie unmoving wherever they fell. The soldiers
barely glanced at the near dead walkers. These were,
after all, Eritreans. Rebels. The enemy. Let them starve.
At a spot where the mountains towered close to the
dusty road that descended toward the plain and the aid
camps, the officer in charge of the patrol made a sharp
motion with his arm. The soldiers turned and left the
road on a narrow trail that wound up the steep slope
into the brush and tinder-dry trees. They vanished in
seconds, and the stream of miserable humanity flowed
on as if the soldiers had never been there. For most of
them, sunk in pain and hunger and weakness, the sold-
iers never had.
One tall man, his tattered rags flapping over his black
skin, his turban so filthy it was impossible to believe it
had ever been white. his skin so dusty it was more gray
than black, staggered after the vanished patrol, drawn
like a moth to the sound of their passage, pulled inex-
orably by their very speed, their power / An animal
following anything that moved in the hope of food.
The rear soldier of the patrol glanced back at the road
and the river of refugees and saw the ragged peasant
weaving and struggling after them, his eyes rolled up to
the sky as if blind, his mouth open and gasping for air.
The soldier dropped back and kicked the refugee's feet
out from under him. The ragged man crashed down into
the dust and brush and lay motionless.
"Eat dirt, pig," the soldier muttered. "It will teach
00
Page 2 (13/211)
00





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
you not to defy your leaders. "
The soldier hurried back to his post at the rear of the
patrol. The column vanished on through the brush.
Silence descended on the mountainside. There was only
the shuffle of feet down on the barren road, and the
cries of birds in the dry trees.
The peasant raised his head. The eyes that had been
turned blindly up to the sky quickly surveyed the hidden
hillside. He was alone. He leaped to his feet, moved off
the trail, and ran forward in a silent, ground-covering
stride parallel to the path. He seemed to glide like a
snake through the thick brush, as silent as a ghost, and
as unseen.
He caught up with the hurrying patrol down on the
path and then settled into an effortless, long-striding
walk parallel to the soldiers. Together they moved on up
the mountainside, the soldiers single-file on the narrow
trail, the ragged, unseen peasant twenty yards up the
side of the mountain among the thick brush and trees.
A mile in from the road the officer raised his hand in
a small clearing on the mountainside. The patrol came
to a sharp halt. The officer looked, listened, and then
signaled his men to take up positions around the per-
imeter of the small clearing. The officer sat down with
his back against a thick tree, lit a long Russian cigarette,
and blew lazy streams of smoke. He seemed to be wait-
ing, was in no hurry, enjoying his ease and his cigarette.
Up on the side of the mountain the still unseen peas-
ant in the ragged turban watched.
The sharp call of a bird came from somewhere ahead
along the trail.
The officer in the clearing sat up, his cigarette held
motionless.
On the mountain the hidden peasant listened.
00
Page 3 (14/211)
00






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
4
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
The call of the bird came again. It was a good imita-
tion, but to the ears of the peasant, not quite good
enough. The officer in the clearing waited for a third
call. Then he cupped his hands and gave a return call.
The officer stood, motioning orders to his men. They
spread out through the trees to cover the clearing. The
officer watched the trail ahead. His slender black hand
rested on the butt of his pistol.
On the mountainside the peasant aimed a powerful
pair of binoculars at the pair. They came into focus as
they were greeted by the patrol officer. He could see
that one was an Ethiopian general, and the second a
short, stocky civilian wearing a khaki bush jacket with
the symbol of a U.N. observer on its breast pocket.
He moved the binoculars to observe the civilian's
right hand with its four rings. The stocky man's left
hand was missing the tip of the third finger. Then he
studied the tall, erect general with his smart khaki
uniform and Sam Browne belt despite the heat and the
rugged country. He returned the binoculars to their
pocket in his filthy turban and withdrew a small, rec-
tangular case from under his ragged robes.
As the general, the civilian, and the patrol officer
conferred in the center of the clearing under the guns of
the alert soldiers of the patrol, the hidden watcher on
the mountainside opened the case and assembled a
short, compact rifle with a telescopic sight. Prone, he
aimed at the conference in the clearing below.
"Ahhhhnnnnnnhhnnnnnnnnnnnn!"
The scream of agony shattered the forest. A cloud of
birds rose into the air from the dry trees. Animals scur-
ried through the thick brush. In the clearing the soldiers
stared along the trail from where the general and the
civilian had come.
00
Page 4 (15/211)
00






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
"Nnnnnnhhhhhhh .. ."
5
The groan of pain strangled into silence at the edge of
the clearing where two soldiers appeared dragging
something torn and red and bleeding. Its face was a
mass of purplish-black bruises and blood, its clothing so
ripped and bloody it was almost unrecognizable as
clothing, the thing itself almost unrecognizable as a
man. But it was a man, beaten and tortured into some-
thing no longer human.
The general's voice carried across the distance.
One of the soldiers dragging the nearly unconscious
man answered.
"He would say nothing more, General. "
"Oh? Then why do we need him?"
The tall general, immaculate in his starched uniform
and Sam Browne belt, drew his pistol, posed for a mo-
ment with the barrel against the unconscious man's
bloody head, and fired. The two soldiers let the body
fall into the forest dirt.
On the mountainside the hidden man fired his com-
pact rifle in the echo of the execution.
In the clearing the civilian in the bush jacket with the
U.N. emblem was hurled backward and fell heavily, his
arms flung out, his eyes staring up at the thick mass of
branches of the forest roof, blood soaking into the dirt
around his head.
"Up there!" the patrol officer shouted.
The soldiers rushed toward the rise of the mountain.
The ragged man picked off two before they had taken
three steps, bloody brain matter and bone fragments
splattering over those behind them. The others dived for
cover. The general fell behind a tree.
' 'Get me out of here!" he bawled.
00
Page 5 (16/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
6
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
The patrol officer turned. "But, General, up
there—
' 'The hell with whoever's up there! Get your men
around me and get me away from here now!"
The younger officer barked commands. The soldiers
half scurried, half crawled backward away from the
slope of the mountain to where the general waited
behind his tree. The young Ethiopian officer looked
back to where the hidden peasant watched. Disgust writ-
ten all over him, he motioned to his men. With the
general cowering in the middle of them, they marched
back down the trail toward the distant road and the
endless stream of refugees.
There was silence in the forest.
Even the birds were gone.
The tall man on the slope stood up in his filthy turban
and tattered native clothing. He listened for some time.
There was no sound. Nothing moved. Down in the
dusty clearing the four bodies lay with their blood still
spreading around them. Slowly the birds began to call,
sing, cry to each other high in the trees. Animals moved
warily in the brush. The man with the sniper rifle
walked down the mountainside to the clearing.
He stood for a time looking off in the direction where
the patrol and the general had vanished. He laughed out
loud.
"That's one general who values his own skin," he
said to the trees and brush and now singing birds.
Then he bent to examine the two dead civilians. He
studied first the one in the bush jacket whom he had
shot himself. He stripped the body, searching the
clothes swiftly but thoroughly with all the skill of a man
trained and experienced in locating hidden objects. He
turned to the naked body itself and finally extracted a
00
Page 6 (17/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
7
slender steel needle from under the skin over the dead
man's shoulder blade. He slipped the needle into a hid-
den slot in his ragged sandals, then turned to the beaten
and tortured man executed with the single shot to his
head.
Even his cool eyes seemed to wince as he saw the ex-
tent of the dead civilian's injuries. But they were the
eyes of a man who had seen much of what man can in-
flict on his fellowman, and he went back to his work of
searching this body. He came up with a thin wallet and
took a card from the wallet. He stared at the blood-
smeared card for some time. Then his quick eyes looked
past the card and the dead man to the ground under the
corpse's right hand. There in the hard dust and dirt, the
executed man had traced a single word in his own blood:
MAMBA
00
Page 7 (18/211)









TWO
Across the vast, dusty African plain, hazy purple
mountains towering barren in the distance, the stream
of refugees stumbled toward the sprawling relief camps.
Here there was at least the hope of food, and if they
died, it would be among people, not alone in the brush
of some empty canyon like an animal.
His "blind" eyes rolled up to the pitiless sun, the tat-
tered peasant who had stalked the patrol and killed the
civilian in the clearing limped into the camp with the
other eager refugees. Once inside among the prefab-
ricated buildings and tents that stretched as far as the
eye could see, he staggered away to wander alone
through the buildings until he reached the main camp
administration building. He seemed to stumble aim-
lessly up the steps into the unpainted prefab.
Inside the office, a large, red-faced man with stunned
eyes sat at a desk behind a nameplate that read James
Donovan, U.S. Aid Service. He, Donovan, looked up
wearily as the apparition in its ragged clothes and dirty
turban staggered in.
"I'm sorry," he said in careful English. "but you
can't come in here unless you have business."
00
Page 8 (19/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
9
The peasant grinned through the dust and dirt caked
into his black face, and began to unwind his filthy tur-
ban.
' 'What are you doing!" Donovan cried. "l told you,
you can't come in here!"
The peasant had his turban off now, and held the
dirty cloth around a pair of high-powered binoculars.
"Dammit, I don't speak Amharic! Why didn't they
send someone here who spoke Amharic! Listen, you
can't—
Donovan stopped. He stared at the tattered ' 'native"
whose thick dark hair was cut short in Western fashion.
Still grinning, the "refugee" began to use the turban
cloth to wipe his face. Sunburned Caucasian skin
emerged from beneath the black. A pair of cold,
amused eyes watched Donovan's astonishment.
"I'll take the rest off later when I get a shower," the
' 'peasant" said. "Now I need some assistance. You are
Donovan, right? I'll need identification from you to—"
"Identification? Assistance?" Donovan sputtered,
blinking. "Who the hell are you? What are you doing
here? I'll have to report—
"No report," the cold-eyed stranger said. He reached
under his ragged white clothes and held out a card.
"CRA-5. Is that enough? And don't tell me you're not
at least a CIA field contact."
Donovan looked at the card. He didn't take it. He
stood up and walked into a back room. The disguised
man followed him into the room where there were two
desks and two telephones. Donovan sat on the edge of
one of the desks.
"Okay, you're Nigel Connors, CIA. I'm to give you
all the assistance I can. I don't like it, Connors. I'm here
to help starving people, not spy on their government or
00
Page 9 (20/211)





n now
Renews automatically with continued use.
10
NICK CARTER
Company needs met I'm supposed to help. So go ahead,
what do you want?"
"Later, first, a shower and some clothes. Right now,
a tight lip and to be left alone in here,
"My pleasure," Donovan said, and he left the room,
closing the door loudly behind him. Not everyone in the
government liked ptaying the spy for the CIA.
The "refugee" stood for a time, motionless and
listening. Donovan had not stopped outside the door,
and no one else was around the rickety prefab. Satis-
fied. he sat down at one of the desks; picked up the
telephone receiver, and dialed a series of numbers.
There was a long pause, then many clicks and squawks
on the phone. Then a soft, sultry voice answered.
4'N3. Killmastef, Nick Carter. What is your pleasure,
The damned computer. Nick Carter grinned in the
empty room. Hawk's little joke, that voice.
"Code-X. sweetheart," Carter said. "David Hawk,
muy pronto, pot favor. • •
"Code-X computing," the voice purred. "And inter-
face in English, N3; you are coded Emergency Only for
Spanish."
Carter grinned as he waited. calculating the time in
Washington. D.C. The distant city seemed light-years
away. but it was only eight hours by the clock. It was
4:CX) A.M. where Hawk would be awakened by the insis-
tent ringing beside his bed and pick up the receiver and
bark angrily.
"It's about time, N3! But it could have •aired until
six o'clock when you're three days overdue!"
"And a good morning to you, sir." Carter said cheer-
fully. wiping more of the black pigment from his tanned
face along with the sweat in the stifling Eritrean
midafternoon heat.
00
Page 10 (21/211)






Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
' 'Well? Yes or no?"
E' Yes," Carter said. "Would I call if it were no?"
"You've been known to."
"Not on this kind of sale."
"Dead? No question?"
•s Took his pulse myself."
"The documents?"
• 'In a needle under his skin. Safe and sound.' •
' 'Who was he selling to this time? "
"The Ethiopians. Or rather. the Ethiopian general
Meni Haile Tenarnu. in case hess working for himself—
which is pretty damned possible. And, of course, the
Ethiopians could be transmitting the stuff on to atmost
anyone. but probably Moscow
' 'Of course it's going on to Moscow," Hawk growled
in his dark bedroom. "So he was in his Soviet phase. All
right. well done. N3, I hate all triple agents. You can't
depend on them. "
4 *Not like a good, solid double agent."
"Exactly. Now. can I get some sleep?"
"I'm not sure," Carter said.
In the sweltering room he mopped his face. wiped off
streaks of the black makeup, and waited. One ear was
alert to any sounds around the building that could signal
danger or eavesdropping; the other waited for Hawk to
digest the fact that Carter had something more to talk
about. He heard the click of his boss's butane lighter in
the far-off Alexandria, Virginia. bedroom. He could
almost smell the stink of the cheap cigar that was
Hawk 's only vice and one of his few pleasures.
"What have you got, Nick?"
-Canet told him what had happened in the remote
clearing in the Eritrean mountains. O'He had a secret
CIA identity card. A CIA man in medium cover, I had
no alert he was working in the same arca. I don't know
00
Page 11 (22/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
12
NICK CARTER
what he was doing in Eritrea or how he got into General
Tenamuis hands. All I know is that Tenatnu wanted
something from him he didn't get, and so he killed
him."
There was a long pause. and the sound of smoke
being blown in the faraway dark room.
"I had no alert CIA was in there either, N3. Give me
the ID number. "
Carter gave it to him. "Sir? He didn't die instantly.
He hung on just long enough to write a word in his own
blood in the dirt."
"What word?"
"That's all? 'Mamba'? "
"That's it."
Carter could almost smell the cloud of smoke around
Hawk's head and see him scowling in the darkness.
"All right, I 'II pass it on to thc CIA. It's not our prob-
lemt but as a matter of courtesy..
"Honor among thieves?" Carter laughed.
"Something like that. Take a day off, Nick. Have a
go«j vacation. then be in Cairo tomorrow for reassign•
ment."
might even take two days," Carter said. and hung
up.
He sat in that hot back room of the prefabricated
temporary building for a long time. He imagined Hawk
swearing as the line went deadv It was a game they
played. he and Hawk, but there was more than a same
behind it. Hawk wanted thc discipline of the engineer,
the control of a computer over his organization. Carter
wanted thc freedom of the artist. the unpredictableness
that made him the top agent in thc supersecret AXE
00
Page 12 (23/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
13
unit, the freedom to. from time to time. follow a whim.
Carter let out a deep, slow sigh, and decided that right
now his whim was for a shower—long and hot and
soapy. Endless soap and hot water. A kind of lethargy
hung over him as it always did at the end of an assign-
ment. a kilting or any other. With an effort of will. he
roused himself and stood up.
He walked out of the steambath of the back room.
the dust that blew in through all the cracks of the prefab
gritty under his bare feet. The American camp ad-
ministrator. Donovan, was still at his desk. He looked
curiously at Carter now.
"Get done what you wanted?
"Thanks." Carter said, "Now all I need is a hot
shower and some clothes. "
"Don't wish.' t Donovan said. e 'That's going to be
harder than calling Washington. or whatever you did in
therev AJI we have here is hard work and sweat and
vodka. A lot mote vodka than water. believe me.
Clothes I can get you, but a vodka rubdown's the best I
can do for a bath. Try it—you might get to like it."
"NO. thanks—the vodka comes later. Where do I
find a shower?"
"Well. you could try for Asmara, but I wouldn't ad•
vise it. A plane leaves for Addis Ababa almost every two
hours. That's your best bet? €
"Where do I get this plane?"
"Other end of camp, the flats. Anyone in a jeep'll
take you there. I'd do it mysclf, but I've got a delegation
of hungry elders to soothe in ten minutes. Itis not even a
bad walk, but youid better borrow a hat or put that tur-
ban back on."
"How are you going to soothe hungry elders? "
• *Food would be best. But since about half the
00
Page 13 (24/211)




****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
14
NICK CARTER
shipments never seem to show up from Addis or
anywhere else, I'll see what some judicious lying. deceit
and chicanery can do.' •
"Good luck," Carter said.
Donovan only shrugged. and Carter wrapped his tur-
ban around his head again and stepped out into the
murderous sun. His (ace was streaked black and white
where he had rubbed off the dark makeup. but he didn't
worry about it; the refugees were too hungry to notice,
the camp personnel too busy.
He threaded his way through the starving Eritreans.
They sat on the parched ground with their emaciated
arms. skeletal ribs and shoulders, and bloated bellies.
The young and the old. large-eyed. gentle as dying cattle
Some were so weak they only stared ahead from fixed.
blind eyes. even hope gone. Some huddled in the shade
of the tents, out of the merciless sun. A few. stronger
and angrier. milled about in gesticulating groups, their
emaciated black arms waving tike the struggling feet of
some enormous black-and-white beetle helpless on its
back.
The two men appeared from out of a larger group
gathered near a gate to listen to an unseen high-voiced
speaker exhorting them to some action that probably
would not be favorable to the camp authorities: two
thick-armed, well-fed. compact men in gray uniforms
without insignia carrying assault rifles—AK-47 Kalish-
nikovs. Bush slouch hats. paratrooper boots. sidearms,
canteens, ammunition belts. The works.
And it was not the natives Ihey had come for.
Carter plunged into the nearest tent.
The first fusillade tore rents in the tent, spewed the
blood and bone Of two Old men •ho had been sitting oa
cots out of the sun over the other screaming refugees in
the tent, shattered thc center pole, and collapsed the tent
00
Page 14 (25/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
on the dead and the screaming and the terrified hidden
under cots.
Through the canvas and rope, through the shouting
and milling mob of the starving, the two well-fed men in
gray clubbed and cursed their way. The dying natives
were frantic not to die, not at that moment. Hopeless,
they were not going to be killed ahead of time. They
scattered, panicked, blocking each other and the two at-
tackers.
From the collapsed tent, Carter snaked through the
blindly surging mob. The administration building was a
hundi •d yards ahead. He reached the shelter of a row of
storage huts and the camp's single infirmary where a
line Of women and children waited, and jumped up to
run for the administration building.
The single shots came from two directions at once:
one from behind one of the tents on the left. the other
from near a storehouse building on the right. Or near
those places. Carter. running crouched and weaving.
had seen no one and nothing. Not even movement.
Just tvo quick shots from the high-powered rifles.
The first burned through the fleshy part of his left
bicep. A near miss. It saved his life. The second bullet, a
split second later. grazed his ear as he spun left from the
impact of the first.
Blood pulsed slowly out of his arm down his ragged
white robes.
From thc spin to the left he twisted into a backward
lunge against his momentum. hitting the ground hard
on his right shoulder as two more shots tore the empty
air where he would have been if he had completed the
spin.
Whoever they were. they had shot at people before.
He rolled left over his bleeding arm.
ne shots hit behind him.
00
Page 15 (26/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
16
NICK CARTER
Although trained. they were not too experienced.
both shooting at the same place. If they had each taken
one side to shoot at, Carter would be dead.
A somersault backward gave him the cover of a cot.
rugated metal storage building.
Two bullets hit. onc on each Sidc ot where he had
been.
They were learning.
Crouching next to the corrugated Quonset hut. Carter
quickly assembled his sniper rifle. He threw away the
telescopic sight and fixed a short, thin bayonet to the
muzzle, all the time watching with one eye the open
space in front and on both sides. One eye surveyaå thc
half circle while he assembled and loaded the rifle. Only
a half circle: there had not been time for them to be
behind him. Not yet.
Unless there were more than the two of them.
You have to take some risks. Do the possible and a
little more and forget the rest. If there were more and
they were behind him, he'd trust to luck, Fot the two in
front. he'd have to rely on more than luck.
Carter watched the space between the corrugated
Quonset and the tents on the right. the building on the
left. Alone in the whole camp. NO one in sight. The
refugees might be starving to death. but they weren't
fools. Iliey knew about guns. They somehow found the
strength to get away. hide. go to covet.
The rifle ready. opcn space empty. enemy unlocated.
Carter checked his ordnance: Hugo securely up the
voluminous sleeve ot his white rags; Pierre tight to his
upFt thigh under the torn, baggy native trousers;
Wilhelmina neatly secured to the small of his back; rifle
in hand. Ammo? Ammo low. but Byssibly sufficient.
One bandolier of clips for the sniper rifle. An extra hali-
dozen 9mm Clips for Wilhelmina in various parts Of
00
Page 16 (27/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
17
the rags and his anatomy. Hugo sharp and Pierre fully
A movement on the Left.
Small. no more than a flicker at the corner of a tent
limp under the airless scorching sun.
He steadied the sights of his rifle on the open space
between the point of the movement and the next tent, on
where, if he guessed right, the man would be next as he
tried to circle and get behind Carter.
The man ran into view. frozen momentarily in
Carter's line of sight.
Then he was gone with the echo of Carter's shot and
a spot of red widening on his gray shoulder. Only the
empty space remained—and a patch of moist red far-off
on the dirt between the two tents. Bulls-eye.
The movement on the right was slower. behind a
wheeled metal wagon used to collect trash and bodies in
the camp. There was no clear shot; it was time to re-
treat.
Only there was nowhere to retreat.
There was nothing behind him but the edge of the
camp. the fence. and the vast open plain baking in heat
and dust.
Carter heard the helicopter.
A small, single-rotor chopper was coming in Low from
the east and the mountains. Carter heard the helicopter
and another sound: the clank and grind of tracked
vehicles. Gun-carriers or personnel carriers. Soldiers.
Probably whistled up by Donovan.
The chopper was closet. It came in very low across the
edge of the camp, banked, circled back, and dropped
down into the dust. The two gunmen in gray dashed
from their cover and climbed aboard.
The helicopter began to rise. carrying the gunmen to
their
00
Page 17 (28/211)











****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
THREE
The helicopter struggled ten feet Off the ground. One
skid had hooked a long tent rope. The pilot shouted
above the roar of the rotor at the two gunmen, pointing
down to the rope. The chopper swung back and forth,
pulling again and again. It collapsed the tent and
dragged it as the two gunmen tried to lean down and
free the tope.
The sound Of the approaching tracked vehicles on thc
far side of the camp came closer. nere was no way the
gunmen were going to be able to reach the rope and free
it, and the wild swerves Of the helicopter refused to
shake it loose.
Carter saw the long rope at the other side of the tent.
A jeep was parked next to the collapsed tent.'QuickIy he
looped the rope around the jeep's bumper, secured it
with a half hitch. and jumped into thc jeep just as the
helicopter pilot waved the gunman back inside the
helicopter and gave it full throttle.
The chopper lifted the tent clear, headed west toward
the mountains. and shuddered and swooped violently as
18





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
19
the weight of the jeep hit it through the taut ropes and
dangling tent. The pilot fought the controls and shouted
at the gunmen again. They looked back, seeing the jeep
and Carter. Their rifles appeared.
Carter looked for the keys. They weren't there. He
dropped behind the dashboard as the gunmen opened
fire and shattered the windshield. Wilhelmina in hands.
Carter leaned out and fired back. The gunmen ducked
out of sight inside the chopper. The pilot cast one
furious glance back at Carter and the jeep, and then,
low to the ground, surged to full power. The helicopter
didn't have the muscle to lift the jeep, but it had enough
to drag the rope. the collapsed tent. the jeep and Carter
out through the fence and away across the dusty plain
toward the nearest foothills to the east.
The jeep careened wildly as the helicopter pulled it
first right then left in an attempt to shake the rope or the
jeep or both. then roared straight ahead, bouncing the
jeep off rocks and gullies. thorn bushes, and low
hillocks. Carter leaned out with Wilhelmina and tried to
get a shot at the chopper's engine.
The gunmen's heads appeared, and their Kalishni-
kovs. They fired back at the jeep.
Neither side could get a clear shot.
Carter had to pull his head in whenever the gunmen
fired from the helicopter. With one hand hanging onto
the jeep, he could only fire with his Luger.
The gunmen in the chopper had to try to balance the
weaving of the chopper with the careening of the jeep
and duck Carter's fire at the same time.
The standoff went on as the helicopter dragged the
jeep and Carter across the hard, dry, dusty land closer
and closer to the foothills.
Then Carter saw it ahead.
00
Page 19 (30/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
20
NICK CARTER
A giant Soviet earth-moving machine. Part of the
USSR's aid to the Provisional Military Administrative
Council of Ethiopia. What it was there to build Carter
didn't know and the helicopter pilot didn't care. The
chopper swerved left and straight toward the giant
earth-mover with its gray painted body and gigantic
wheels. Red stars and steel arms. Lifts and back-hoes
and scoops.
The pilot would use the gigantic piece of equipment to
knock the jeep, or Carter, loose from the helicopter. Or
threaten to do that. ntete was no way the jeep could hit
the earth-mover without the risk or catching and pulling
the helicopter down. The pilot had to get close enough
to make Carter jump out of the jeep to avoid being
smashed into the giant machine, but not so close that
the jeep would hook to the earth-mover and drag the
helicopter down.
It was a nice calculation—close enough to force
Carter to jump. but not so close that the jeep would ac•
tually hit the earth-mover.
Carter held to the jeep. calculating the distance that
closed rapidly as the helicopter flew closer and closer to
thc giant piece of equipment that loomed like a cliff
almost higher than the altitude or the helicopter itself.
He waited.
The helicopter flew closer.
The giant gray and red earth-mover fiilcd the whole
sky.
Carter waite&
The white face of the pilot looked back.
Carter waited.
The pilot new straight on, staring back at Carter
second to second,
The pilot had to turn.
00
Page 20 (31/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
Carter waited. then jumped.
21
He tumbled from the moving jeep, hit hard on his
shoulder, and (ett the searing pain in his wounded arrn.
He rolled and came up on his feet, then tucked his head
down and rolled again on the wounded arm. feeling the
blood spurt from the bullet hole- Then he got to his feet
and sprawled into a thorn bush that ripped like fire.
He sprawled and heard the thunderous crash of metal
against metal.
Carter smiled before he passed out.
The voices were inside his head. Gibberish. "The
Murders in the Rue Morgue." Arr voices. Jabbering
Cartcr opened his eyes.
He didn't move. He lay utterly motionless. The voices
were almost on top of him. And the gibberish of his
dream was Amharic. Four voices. Or five. L.aughing.
Without moving anything but his eyes, Carter studied
where he was. Thick branches and leathery leaves were
above and all around him. A large rock rested against
his head like a pillow. The shadow of a din wall cut off
sun and light to his left. A riverbank! A stream. He was
in thick bushes at the bottom of some kind Of dry watere
course. He was totally hidden under a thick thorn bush
at the bottom of a rocky stream bed.
Thc voices were to his left, up above the bank. There
were at least five. possibly more.
Very slowly, Carter moved his head to the right. then
to the left. It was a narrow dry watercourse, open to the
right but shadowed under the undercut bank to his left.
He listened.
The voices were close but at least ten yards away up
on the plain itself. Talking and laughing. As if on a
00
Page 21 (32/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
22
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
break, a rest stop. He pictured them in his mind. seated
and lying on the hard dirt. lounging. not alert.
Carefully he rolled his whole body to his left. making
no sound, his eye on the lip Of the watercourse bank. his
right hand on Wilhelmina. His left arm had stopped
bleeding; his left shoulder throbbed but wasn't broken.
Doubling up almost into a ball, then opening himself
up, he inched out from under the thorny brush and
moved closer to the riverbank shadow in a senes of
opening and closing motions like an inchworm on its
side.
Once under the bank he rocked himself up to a kneel-
ing position. He was extremely cautious. moving
nothing in the shallow stream bed. not even a pebble.
He found the thickness of a dusty bush, turned his head
sideways. and slowly raised himself until one eye could
peer through the base of the brush.
There were five Ethiopian soldiers lounging on the
bard dirt and waiting. Waiting like any soldiers in any
army anywhere. Waiting, doing nothing they didn't
have to, talking of furloughs and nights on the town. In
English, Swahili or their Amharic.
"You had better forget that lady. Mushara. With our
general on the ass of our lieutenant, we're going no.
where.
"But I must have a night! Shc was magnificent."
Another laughed. "To Mushi they are all magnifie
cent. I remember the time there was this toothless whore
in Harar, and Mushara brought her incense, took her to
a resnurant!"
They all had a good laugh on Mushara. But it didn't
last long as the first speakeris prophecy about their im-
mediate future depressed them,
"What does the general think. that these in the
00
Page 22 (33/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
23
helicopter are those who shot the Russian this morn•
' 'Them or the one they pursue."
"The general is afraid of his shadow."
"He should be, the stealing he does*"
"Bah! Who does not steal in the high command?"
"But this general steals more than most."
• 'And sends it away to buy friends, eh, Mushara2 "
"Shhh! The lieutenant."
With another soldier, the officer Carter had seen
leading the patrol that morning came trotting through
the brush. He motioned abruptly, and the five resting
soldiers gathered to squat around him like tribesmen
with their spears. You can put anyone into a uniform.
but it isn't always easy to make him into a soldier.
• 'The helicopter has crashed ahead beyond the Rus-
Sian machine, but we have seen no bodies. Thcre is also
no body near the shattered jeep. And there is no one
alive either. But there are construction buildings ahead
where we are building an airfield. Therefore. I am cere
tain the three in the helicopter have captured the one in
the jeep and are hiding in those buildings. Ihe general
wishes us to capture at least one of these people. We--
The barrage of deadly automatic fire came from three
sides, a semicircle of attack in the brush with thc seven
soldiers caught against the flat line of the dry water•
course where Carter crouched.
00
Page 23 (34/211)










FOUR
It lasted no more than a minute.
The blood of all seven drenched the brush along the
watercourse. Blood and flesh spattered across the hard
dirt. the bushes. and Carter himself hidden down below
thc bank of the dry stream. Their screams and cries of
agony and dying moans echoed across thc soundless
plain where there was no one to hear.
No one except the three killers in gray uniforms who
came walking slowly. warily out of the brush to look
down at the seven dead bodies. One was still crawling.
The shorter of the three attackers shot him in the head.
thcn went on to the next. The helicopter pilot looked at
his watch.
' 'They're plenty dead. Let's go," hc said.
• 'I like to make sure," thc shorter gunman replied.
He had a bandaged shoulder where Carter had winged
him as he'd dashed between buildings earliet in the
camp.
They were speaking English!
we have to walk, it could take us hours. And it
24
00
Page 24 (35/211)




****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
gets hot out here," the pilot said.
25
"Enough, Emil," the taller one said. '*There are
buildings ahead. Perhaps we can find something there. i •
Obviously the leader. the taller one turned and started
off across the broiling dusty plain. All three wore caps
now. with long 5un visors and neck coverings. They
were prepared for matching under the African sun.
In thc watercourse Carter struggled to his feet. He
had lost his sniper rifle when he jumped from the jeep.
and now had only Wilhelmina.
He moved through the dry brush of the narrow water-
course that cut across the plain past the gray Soviet
earth-mover.
He saw the hclicopter, down and battered, but it had
not crashed hard or burned. The pilot knew his work.
just as thc two ambushers did. They were trained men,
maybe not overly imaginative or original. but with
enough training to learn fast in action. The pilot had
made one mistake and hit the giant earth-mover, but he
had not made another in attempting to pull the jeep
free. He had eased back in time, stalled, and droppcd
onto the chopper's skids. It wouldn't fly again for a
while, but the three men had walked away and am-
bushed the Ethiopian patrol. Now they had gone off
across the dusty plain, finished with Carter.
But Carter wasn't finished with them.
He saw them now in the distance nearing a row of
temporary buildings. There were other earth-movers.
and graders, and trucks. Someone was building an
airstrip. There were four low prefabs. Carter heard the
shots. Four shots. and all from the direction of the
buildings.
He got up and broke into a ground-covering trot
along the narrow watercourse. As he neared the row of
00
Page 25 (36/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
26
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
silent buildings he heard a motor start. A truck motor
from the sound of it. He peered over the edge of the
watercourse but saw nothing. The sound was coming
from behind the row of buildings. Carter ducked down
and circled the buildings until he was in the rear.
Over the rim of the gully he saw the three. ney stood
between a covered Soviet truck and the wall of the last
building. Four men faced them, their hands in the air.
Across the distance Carter could see Other men sprawled
on the ground. The bodies and the four with their hands
up wore Ethiopian army uniforms.
The shots broke the vast stillness of the plain. echoing
off the nearby foothills. In the distance the four men
with their hands up fell sprawling backward. shot in
cold blood where they stood with their hands up. As
Carter watched. the two gunmen walked from one to
the other of the fallen men and carefully shot each one
in the head. The bodies jerked spasmodically and lay
still. The two gunmen in gray didn't take chances on
survivors.
Carter slipped ur over the edge of the watercourse
and began to crawl closer. It was slow and hot under the
scorching African sun, and hc hadnit reached thc first
buildings when he heard the truck engine start again and
saw the three killers jump into the cab and drive off
across the dusty plam toward the nearest line of hills.
Eleven bloody bodies lay sprawled in the dust all
around the silent row of construction buildings. their
empty eyes staring up at the blazing sky. Carter bent
down to each one to see if there •as anything he could
do. but they were all dead. Five were Ethiopian soldiers.
four looked as if they had been Ethiopian civilians, and
two were Caucasians with pronounced Slavic features.
He searched the two Caucasians and came ou: wilh
00
Page 26 (37/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
27
fat wallets. Both were Russian civil engineers. Road
buildcrs. Road builders and soldiers, a major and a cap-
taine Both had probably breathed a sigh of relief when
they got sent to Ethiopia and not Afghanistan.
Hc found what he wanted at the far end ot thc last
building. The motor pool. There were three Soviet
trucks and two American jeeps. The escaping attackers
had not bothered to sabotage them. After slaughtering
everyone they had found. they had not expected any
close pursuit.
Carter found a rack of rifles and some ammunition in
the motor pool office. He used his ignition tool to start
a jeep and went after the attackers who had now become
his quarry. He would have the element of surprise and
onc other advantage: both vehicles would move ahead
of their clouds of dust. He would be hidden from them
by their own dust cloud. as thick behind them as any
smoke screen.
He picked up the dust cloud some five miles after
leaving the buildings. They moved steadily toward the
foothills. He drove as fast as possible over the rough ter-
rain. and closed the gap between them. He wanted to
reach them before they could get lost in the mountains.
They were still some miles from the first slopes of tree-
shadowed hills when he saw that he wouldn't. The cloud
of dust ahead began to move a lot faster. They had
spotted him at last.
Carter pushed the accelerator to the floor. and the
jeep slewed and bounced off the mounds and ridges of
the rugged plain. Ahead the fleeing truck suddenly ap-
pcared as it reached the foothills and the cloud of dust
dissipated.
Then Carter was in the foothills. winding up a broad
canyon between treelined slopes. The truck. heavier
00
Page 27 (38/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
28
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
and wider, was forced to slow as the canyon narrowed
between great boulders and' the hard dirt track wound
like a corkscrew. Carter rapidly closed the gap. Steering
with his knees, he aimed the rifle and shot out the tear
tires of the careening truck.
With a wild ripping Of metal, the truck hurled off the
road and crashed through the trees. shearing off whole
trunks until it shuddered to a stop against a tree too
thick to break. Carter skidded the jeep ten yards behind
thc crashed truck. The two gunmen in gray uniforms
jumped out. Carter shot one of them in the leg. sending
him spinning into the brush. The second fired back.
Carter ducked behind a boulder. He heard the gunmen
crashing away up the narrow dirt track, going deeper
into the hills.
Carter slipped out from behind the rock and ran
soundlessly past the truck. Thc helicopter Pilot lay
crushed behind the wheel, thc steering post protruding
in dark blood and broken ribs from his back.
A trail of blood led up along the path. His trained
eyes knew from the blood that the gunmen wouldn't get
far unless the wounded one was abandoned by his part.
He ran on. He wanted them alive. At least ooe of
them.
Two shots showered leaves down over him.
Prone, he returned thc fire high, and watched.
Two mote shots exploded from ahead. one fifty yards
up behind two boulders to the left of the dirt track, and
ghe other another ten yards farther along behind a thick
tree to the right of the track. He steadied his rifle on the
nearer enemy. held it with one hand. and fired Wilhel-
mina with the other hand.
Another two shots cracked from up ahead, Carter
00
Page 28 (39/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
29
fired the rifle with one hand. The man. caught for an in•
stant raised-up and firing, screamed and fell kicking and
flopping out onto the dirt road. A red stain appeared in
the center of his forehead. His kicking and thrashitw
slowly stopped like a fish out of water dying in gasps for
breath that would never come.
ne second gunman abandoned his cover and ran on
up the road. Carter pursued him. noting thc bloody
shoulder and leg wounds on his recent vL&tim. The
escaping attacker was the unwounded one. Carter saw
him running wildly up the road. all cover abandoned.
Carter smiled coldly; everyone had his panic level. He
aimed carefully for the fleeing man's legs—and thc
whole hillside ahead erupted into a volley of gunfire.
Carter dived for cover.
Bullets whined and ripped through thc trees and off
the rocks. shattering the sky and «hoing through the
entire canyon. Carter huddled behind a rcxk, his face
pressed to the dirt. He counted, estimating there were at
Least twenty-five guns, AK-AIs from the sound, but
mixed with M-16s and even some Sten and Uzi guns.
Then it stopped.
The silence was almost touchable, a physical shape
filling the narrow canyon still echoing to the dying
sounds of the fusillade.
Carter raised himself up.
He saw them far off, all in gray uniforms, the one
fleeing attacker now among them. pointing back. He
heard the helicopters. Six of them. large choppers.
Mixed Soviet and American. Troop carriers. Gunships.
The gray•uniformed soldiers clambered aboard, and
they lifted off one by one until only one chopper was
Left. One lone man stood on a high rock looking down
toward where Carter lay hidden.
00
Page 29 (40/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
30
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
He stood imperious, without fear. Across the distance
Carter could just make out his face: a colde hard face,
like some mountain eagle. Slim and narrow. lined and
craggy, white hair under his blue beret. a thick gray
mustache. A gaunt face, commanding.
Then he climbed into the last helicopter and was
gone.
Alone in the silent canyon among the dry Ethiopian
mountains. Carter slowly stood up. held his shoulder
where the bleeding had stopped, and looked toward
where the helicopters had disappeared. He stood staring
long after their motors had died away.
00
Page 30 (41/211)










FIVE
Dawn comes painfully over the human mass that is
Cairo.
Nick Carter stood on the high balcony and felt the
awakening of the city like the slow, ponderous stirrings
of some giant, bloated slug squeezed in its narrow valley
between the desert and the Nile.
Alone on the balcony Of the luxury hotel, he felt the
hot morning sweat on his bare chest and his bandaged
shoulder, and lit a cigarette and watched the sky turn
pink across the City of the Dead. A hundred thousand
people lived in the medieval tombs. raising families
beside the graves of Mameluke rulers. Minarets and
domes thrust up behind the ancient mausoleums. with
modern high-rises beyond, and in the far distance were
the baked stone hills of the desert that surrounded the
city.
The hot whisper was in his ear. A low, soft, throaty
whisper like the purr of a thick-furred cat in heat. Her
graceful arms were around his neck, her heavy€ swaying
breasts pressed against his naked back, her belly hard
and tight to his buttocks.
31
00
Page 31 (42/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
32
NICK CARTER
"You will catch cold, Niki. "
Her mouth on his neck kissed softly, licking and
biting. Laughing. He picked her up and carried her back
into the room. She buried her face in his neck. nibbling
on his skin with sharp teeth like a hungry vampire.
squirming in his arms. His wound ached, but not too
much.
"You don't love me. Nikita." she teased. "You leave
me alone in the bed."
must have been crazy," Caner said.
He placed her on the bed. A long. lean woman with
the pale snow skin of northern forests. Lean and long,
but with the full wide hips of a womanw the heavy
breasts thick and soft as she lay looking up at him with
pale blue eyes in the dim light of the dawn bedroom high
above the city. Breasts that lay soft and massive and yet
somehow thrust taut, the pink nipples hard and excited.
"A fool." she whispered on the bed below him. A
king•size bed torn apart and ravaged. its sheets flung
into twisted piles through the two nights they had been
there.
"Insane." he said as he kneeled in the morning tight
and buried his face in her breasts, buried his face down
into the wedge of pale blond hair.
' 'Life is so brief." She twisted around him. kissing
the hard body that throbbed under her lips.
"So little time." He spread her legs wide, kneeled,
and looked at her.
"You are waiting perhaps for the permission ot the
Politburo?
She lay back, spreading her legs even wider, raising
them toward the ceiling. then back over his shoulders.
and he went down to her, into her. as she locked het
arms behind him and gasped for breath beneath his
chest as he thrust and thrust and thrust
00
Page 32 (43/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
33
Thc sun was hazy beyond the gauzy curtains across
the balcony door when Carter finally smiled down into
her aquamarine eyes. She looked up at him. tracing a
finger over his chest, watching him, playing with his
body lightly€ slowly.
"I have to go," she said.
"So soon?"
She kissed him. "I know. Only two days. What can I
say? The Kremlin is a hard taskmaster, Nikita. Not soft
and luxurious like the U.N. We must work! Strive!
He rolled her over and pressed his hands slowly down
her spine. ' 'But weeve got a lot still to do here, Anna
Ivanovna • • i"
She moaned into the pillow. "With you there is
always a lot still to do. Oh Nikita!" His hands came
around het hips to rest between het thighs. but his
fingers did not remain still for long. "You can't work at
the U.N. You're not human. A satyr a Oh
An hour later she opened her eyes, sighed slowly, and
sat up. He lay on his back in the silent bedroom of her
apartment in the luxury hotel. watching her. She smilcd
at him. then kissed him lightly.
"Niki, I really must go now. I am sorry. The boss
must not be more late than her subordinates."
"ltll miss you."
"No, but you are sweet to say it." She traced a pate
tern on his belly. i' You are a nice man—for an Ameri-
can and a U.N. robot."
' 'And you are a wonderful woman for the Chief of
Transport for USSR Aid to the Government of
Ethiopia. "
• OA very long title and not even a KGB agent." She hit
his leg playfully. ' 'You had me checked out."
00
Page 33 (44/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
34
NICK CARTER
"True. I admit it. The only Russian foreign executive
I ever met who wasn't KGB."
"True. I admit it."
They both laughed and kissed. and then Anna
Ivanovna Strelskov got up and went into the bathroom
to shower. Carter lay in bed and closed his eyes, listen.
ing to the sounds rising from the teeming city far below.
The voices of twelve million human beings screaming
for a share Of life. For the smallest share of what he and
Anna Ivanovna had in this quiet, clean. secure room.
He listened to her singing in the shower. Two days
away from it ail. Away from the needs and demands of
those teeming millions and their rulers. Isolated in this
room, safe because he had checked her out and she had
checked him out. Shc was not a KGB agent. and he
knew he had checked clean as Nicholas Meyer. U.N.
employee. He always did; AXE made sure of that.
Two days, but now she had her work and he had his.
He grinned in the big. silent bedroom as he thought of
David Hawk. The irascible head Of AXE would be
chewing his foul cigars in fury by now. When Hawk said
take a day off he did not mean two dayse
"You are thinking," she said. Shc stood in the bath-
room door. damp and naked. a towel wrapped turbane
fashion around het hair. ' 'Since *hen does a U.N.
employee think? "
"Ever Since they started making us work With Soqct
executives." Carter said with a grin. "Finished?"
She sighed. then camc over and kissed his belly. 'ENO,
but I must deny myself. Tonight?"
"Maybe."
"Ah?" Shc smiled. "No strings, da? The shower, at
least. is now yours. "
He took his shower. Hot and scalding. then ice cold.
Two days in bed with Anna Ivanovna had built a
00
Page 34 (45/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
35
strange, distant haze in his mind. and he needed a clear
head to talk to Hawk. Drying, he came out and watched
her putting a final hairpin into the gleaming blond
Zhignon at the base of her neck as she checked herself in
the long mirror. A severe linen business suit. the Soviet
arbiters and rulers as conservative as ever.
"Only maybe?" Anna Ivanovna asked. turning with
that brisk movement that precedes the opening of a
door to leave. "Tonight?"
"Definitely." Carter said. Let Hawk wait another
day.
She smiled, blew him a kiss, and left the suite,
The shots exploded. The room shook. The bullets
tore through the closed door.
Wilhelmina was in his hand from the hidden compart•
ment in his overnight bag,
He flung open the door, flattening himself to the
wall.
Frightened voices. Hysteria somewhere. NO doors
opened along the corridor. This was Cairo.
A long. empty corridor. Except for Anna Ivanovna.
She lay sprawled on her back on the thick carpeting,
blood oozing from her elegant body, her suit darkening
with the blood that soaked into it.
At the far end of the corridor the fire door was still
ajar. Carter fired four shots through the door—middle
and low. Nothing happened. The assassin was gone. He
bent over Anna Ivanovna. Her blue eyes looked up at
hime already going empty. Pain in the eyes, and fear,
and a kind of reproach. She saw the Luger in his hand.
"You lied to me Nikita."
"I'm sorry." Carter said.
"1 did not lie, but you lied. It was you they wanted
dead. not me. Now I'm dead. Tonight will ... have
to... wait
00
Page 35 (46/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
36
NICK CARTER
"Anna • • .'i
She reached slowly and touched his muscled naked
body as he knelt in the corridor.
"So • e • beautiful • •
And she was dead.
Carter remained crouched there for a moment. Then
he stood and strode to the fire door. Spent shells littered
the floor: AK-47 shells. From the look of it, one man
had fired at the person who came out of the suite d€»r.
Anna was not KGB. so it was not meant for her.
Someone was out to kill him. But Anna Ivanovna was
dead.
Doors were open a crack now. Fearful eyes stared
out. Far below there wete sirens. Naked, Carter hurried
back to her room, dressed quickly, zipped up his over•
night bag. and took the AXE•designed escape device
from the heel of a shoe.
On the balcony he attached the thin wire. lowered
himself over the edges and dropped two balconies down
to an empty one. He retrieved the unit, repacked it. and
walked through the empty suite and out to the elevator.
He rode down to the lobby. walked back to the linen
supply room. picked the lock on the side door into the
service alley. and walked out to the street to blend with
the hordes of pedestrians who fought the bumper-to-
bumper traffic for the right of way.
One of the last of the once-famous sidewalk cafés was
across the teeming street from the hotel. Carter took
a table. ordered coffee. and asked for a telephone.
Through the passing mass of people in Western clothes.
in the long robes and headdresses of the villages, in
every possible dress, he watched the door of the hotel
where the police were checking everyone who came
out.
His coffee and telephone came. He sipped the thick
00
Page 36 (47/211)




****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
37
Turkish brew and dialed the secret code that would con-
nect him to the AXE computer.
"Good morning. N3." (he soft. caressing voice Hawk
had given the computer said. "Mr. Hawk has been ex-
pecting you."
bet he has, honey." Carter said, but his heart
wasn't in to joking with the disembodied voice. "Put
me through."
Clicks, pauses, pings, beeps, and silence.
"You'd better be calling from prison, a hospital, or
the morgue," Hawk growled. S' When I say a day J mean
a day. N3. Even for you."
Carter watched the police at the door of the hotel
through the bedlam, watched thc covered stretcher with
its body bag come out.
• • The lady I spent the last two days with has just been
murdered by someone who wanted to kilt me. She was a
very nice lady. Russian. Intelligent. Beautiful. Non-
political. She's dead not because of what she did but
because of what I do. I left her lying in her own blood
on the floor of a hotel corridor so I could remain
unknown, so I could call you, She deserved better."
There was a long silence at the far end of the line.
finally broken by the sound of a butane lighter.
"All right, Nick. Any ideas who?"
"No. but it was the second try in three days." Carter
told his boss about the attack at the Ethiopian relief
camp and his escape. "No ID. but I know they weren't
Ethiopian government soldiers or rebels. They're
trained and experienced, but not real veterans. Well
equipped, plenty of helicopters, They didn't want
witnesses. •ney were after me and no one else.' •
"They knew you were in the camp," Hawk decided.
"They penetrated the disguise."
'ENot necessarily. No one except you knew I was in
00
Page 37 (48/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
38
NICK CARTER
that camp, and even you didniL know for sure I'd be
there until I called in."
"You're saying that no one there knew who you were
in time to have called them up."
s 'That's how I read the signs," Carter agreed, "and
that means I had to have been tailed or identified by
someone that day. locally."
@'And that means the attacks have to be connected to
the agent you eliminated. the Ethiopian general. ot the
dead CIA man."
"l don't see any other answer. "
There was silence on the line. Carter watched the am-
bulance take away Anna Ivanovna. The police huddled
in front of the hotel doors. obviously not happy. He had
been sure no one had seen him enter the hotel with Anna
Ivanovna, but someone must have. If the attacker had
found him. sooner or later the police would. Most prob-
ably later. knowing the Egyptian police. Probably a lot
later if the attacker had silenced his informant, which he
almost certainly had.
"That murdered CIA operative was top secret, hush-
hush." Hawk's distant voice said slowly. "He was
working on a major bind for the U.S. You're aware or
the size and diversity of our international aid programs?
Both funds and food?"
"Give or take a few billion."
"Well. a great deal of what's going to Africa—
perhaps most of it—isn't reaching its destinations.
niat•s being kept under wraps. but everyone in Africa
knows about it, and our image and interest is being
badly damaged. There are rumors it's au a US. scam
—that the food and cash are never sent at all. It's a big
scheme to weaken black Africa in favor of our buddy
South Africa. Follow me?"
00
Page 38 (49/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
39
'*Cute," Carter said. "The man they killed was work,
ing on it?"
"Under cover. "
"So our Ethiopian general must be involved, and
that's why they killed the CIA man."
"One possibility. "
i' What's another?"
There was a long pause at the far end of the line in
predawn Virginia. "For a number of years, N3, we have
had very drrp cover reports of an elite mercenary force
based somewhere in Africa who works for anyone
who pays high enough. The code word talked about is
•Mamba.' Elite jobs. hard hits, in and out where no one
else goes. High-stakes raids. Always successful. the
force is rarely identified or wears a national uniform."
Hawk paused. the lighter clicked, the distant puffs relit
the cigar. "Recently there've been whispers that they've
been hired for an attack that could destroy our prestige.
even our interests. in the Third World."
Carter heard the cigar puffing, could almost smell the
rank smoke.
"The ones who jumped me in Ethiopia could have
been mercenaries."
"My thought exactly." Hawk said. "Find them. N3.
Find out why that CIA man was killed and who at-
tacked you. The murdered CIA man was Paul Lyons.
His cover was on the staff in the Paris main office of
Carr et Freres, a French food company that does a lot
of business in Africa and was involved in aid efforts.
Your cover will be that you're CIA."
"Cover or bait," Carter said.
"You knew the job was dangerous when you took it,
NJ. Hawk's voice became a distant chuckle.
00
Page 39 (50/211)









SIX
It was still raining. the Seine almost up to the bridges.
Nick Catter lit a morning cigarette and lay in bed staring
out the windows Of his Latin Quarter apartment at the
gray drizzling sky. He'd spent ten days shuffling papers,
asking careful. discreet questions, searching the dead
CIA man's desk. files. apartment. Nothing.
Almost nothing,
Leslie stirred beside him in the bed. She reached out
in her sleep, caressed his thigh. her fingers probing. She
smiled up at him.
"Bonjoure Nicky."
"Sorry, Leslie, but it's another rotten jour.•t
She laughed. "Paris in the rain. Gene Kelly to sing
and dance, oui?"
"Why does London get the rap when Paris has the
same rotten weather?"
"The English enjoy their miserable weather. We
French pretend it does not exist." She kissed him and
pressed herself against him in the big bed. "Let's pre
tend the office does not exist. Paris does nog exrst. The
world does not exist. Only us. Only us and wc will stay
in this bed forever."
00
Page 40 (51/211)





Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
41
"A beautiful dream." Carter said, "but we have to
eat, pay the rent, indulge our habits."
Those were not his real reasons, but Leslie was not
one of those who knew what he really did. so he could
not tell het that bed and food and booze were not
enough for him. He needed the chase, the contest, ac-
tion and riskt the hurricane in his face.
She sighed. "We must go to the office?"
"We must."
"But tonight?"
"Tonight we don't have to be in the office."
She smiled. and they got up, showered, dressed. and
went out through the silent corridors that smelled of
damp carpeting and cooking into the steady drizzle of
Paris. Leslie led him along the narrow Rue St•Sulpice to
her own favorite café, the Monaco. Outside the win•
dows Paris went to work fortified by coffee and crois•
sants. They watched the people streaming past, heads
bent to thc rain, collars up.
Later, on the Métro. they hung from the bars with the
hordes or other officegoers. Ten days of this, playing
his role for those who did not know, playing the other
role of a CIA man for those who did know, his real self
to no one but himself. Ten days of filling out papers,
sifting and talking and searching, and so far nothing.
"Lunch?" she said as they walked through the rain
up the broad Champs-Élysées.
"l ill call your section. "
The office of Carr et Freres was in an old building off
the Champs-Élysées. A rickety elevator that must have
been there since Napoleon's time carried them up to the
fourth floor. Carter took his seat at the old-fashioned
desk and pretended to plunge into the paperwork of
shipping food to a thousand African cities, most in
former French colonies. Europe had lost its political
00
Page 41 (52/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
power, but its economic hold still strangled.
Then he found it.
Buried deep among the papers of American wheat to
Zaire for ground nuts to go to Belgium was a one-line
note: Le Basque. Tangier, forty-eight cases surgical
B.M.. (26) 40.07.26., Martine
The six numbers looked like a telephone number. He
looked it upv Reims. Dialed. A long ringing,
"Martin."
"SO? And where have you been the last two weeks,
Lyons?"
English. The voice had switched to beautiful, precise€
only faintly accented English as soon as the name was
spoken.
"Lyons is dead. This is Meyer. CRA-S. Investigating,
You have instructions."
The line went dead. Carter hung up and sat back in
his desk chair. He had no doubt that he had struck pay
dirt. The only question was how and when would they
contact him. whoever they were. And someone would
be watching him now. Could be already. He let his eyes
search the large room with all its desks. Which one
would it be? Or would it be none of them at all? Some-
one from outside....
He called Leslie. "The Cheval Noir?"
"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.••
"Half an hour."
He went back to work on the invoices and lading bills.
The important thing was to continue his exact routine.
At precisely 12:30 he shut off his adding machine and
headed for Leslie's section.
It was a good lunch. With wine. When he left. it
would be sudden and without notice. No good-byes.
00
Page 42 (53/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
43
There were aspects of his work to which he would never
become accustomed.
He worked all afternoon, for Carr et Ftéres and for
AXE. Cart et Freres made a profit; AXE didn't. He
found no more notes or clues as to what had sent the
CIA agent to Ethiopia and his death. No one contacted
him.
Carter decided to speed things up. He told Leslie he
had to work late but would meet her later at the Café
Monaco. She pouted but asked no questions. By 6:30 no
one had come near him. He quit and Left. Alone he
walked to the Métro€ rode to St-Germain-des-Prés. and
walked up....
"Table nine. Deux Magots. CRAS."
The man passed him on thc stairs up and vanished out
into the street. Carter turned left for the Café Deux
Magots. The man was not ahead of him. Carter saw no
trace of his contact and walked on along the boulevard
to the crowded Deux Magots on the corner. It was
going-home time, and Parisian cafés were always
crowded then—a quick glass of wine or three to end the
workday.
The barman nodded to him.
"Un vin rouge: • Carter ordered. "Table nine. which
"That one." The barman nodded to a corner table
against two walls and served Carter his glass of red
wine.
Carter carried the wine to the tabie and sat down, The
man seated alone lowered his newspaper. A tall, thin
man with a narrow, arrogant face and almost colorless
eyes.
'EWhat happened to Lyons?"
• •you've checked me out?"
00
Page 43 (54/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
"We checked. What help do you need?"
"Check yourself for me."
The man smiled. • 'Military intelligence, Roget Mar-
tin. Run me through your computer. Need handprint?
Voice? Day code?"
"Day code*ll do."
' 'Boche.'i
Carter left the table and walked around to a public
telephone hung on thc wall. He watched Martin. The ar.
togant man had picked up his paper again. There was
no need to check. Real or not, Martin knew he would
check out clean. As Anna Ivanovna had learned. no
amount or check ing sources and computers made up for
being careful. Anything that could be checked could be
faked.
Martin lowered the newspaper again as Carter re.
turned.
"So. Lyons?"
Carter told him what had happened to the CIA man.
Martin nodded.
• *It's been two weeks, give or take a day," the French
military intelligence man said. "since wc saw him last
here to when you saw him killed in Ethiopia."
"Your last contact was here in Paris?"
Martin nodded. "In that same seat you're in."
i 'How did he get to Africa?"
Martin shrugged. i' We heard through Le Basque. "
That was the name on the note in Lyons's drawer at
Carr et Freres. Carter showed Martin the cryptic mes-
sage. Martin nodded again.
" He must have traced missing cases of surgical equip.
ment from one of yout aid shipments to the black
market in Tangier. Lc Basque would be the man."
i J The man for what?"
"To follow up on it."
00
Page 44 (55/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
"Who is Le Basque?"
45
"Old maquis fighter. After the war many in the
underground found it difficult to settle down, ch? Part
thief, part hero. Part gangster, part undercover agent.
We use them when we need them, jail them when we
don't—if we can catch them. Since the war they have
lived under the smooth surface by their wits. skills. and
knowledge. "
"World War Two? Aren't they getting a little old?"
Martin shrugged again, the universal French gesture.
"It is a life-style. as you would say. where age is no
handicap and even proof of ability, eh? They have
children, followers. too. They go on. They have only
three rules: loyalty to freedom and the people. loyalty to
each other, and loyalty to France. In that order."
"How do I find this Le Basque?"
Another shrug. will put out the word, and with
luck he will contact us and we will set up a meeting. It
could take some days." A smile. hope you are not
too bored at your office work."
"Not too," Carter said.
"Ah. yes. the agreeable Leslie. You are quick, CRA-
"When in France, right?" Carter smiled.
Martin was not amused. He folded his newspaper and
stood up. "I will be in touch."
"Leslie is nice," Carter said, "but the trail is getting
cold."
Martin shrugged. "As fast as is possible."
Alone, Carter finished his wine and considered his
next move. Leslie was indeed Jovely, but Tangier might
prove more useful. Time was passing, yet he had Other
ways to find the Tangier black market. Maybe one more
night....
The gun pressed low into his back at the exact base of
00
Page 45 (56/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
46
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
his spine. The voice spoke quietly: In English.
'*We walk out the small door beyond the rest rooms.
Now.
Carter stood, drained his wine glass, set it down. then
walked around his table and out the small side door.
And flung the door back against the man bchind him.
"Sacre .
A cry of pain. The clatter of a gun.
Carter whirled, slamming into the man who was still
staggering from being hit in the face, lhe gun
somewhere on the cobblestones of the dark Parisian
alley. The man kicked out. Carter twisted, took the kick
on his thigh. and dropped the man with a single slash to
the throate
He got to the gun.
Three men camc out of the shadows.
Carter swung the gun.
Someone kicked it away.
Hugo jumped into Carter's right hand. He plunged
the stiletto into a faceless shadow in the dark alley and
heard the scream. He kicked another shadow. slashed at
the third, and ran for the distant light or the alley open•
inge
The opening closed.
Three more men stood against the light of the street.
and Carter heard the scrambling behind him.
Wilhelmina slid into Carter's hand.
Three guns fired from the mouth of the alley.
Carter felt the blow in his chest and fell backward.
blackness sliding over him.
00
Page 46 (57/211)










SEVEN
Out of the black pit a light seemed to hang like a point
iight-years away, a star alone in a void. Carter did not
open his eyes.
The pain pounded through his head. His mouth and
throat gasped for water. Anything wet, cool. The pain
of the pounding in his head screamed somewhere deep
inside. The blow on his chest. Not a bullet, a drug darte
A tranquilizcr gun usually used on animals. Drugged
and taken. and his head pounded, pounded.
Carter made no sound. He concentrated behind
closed eyes. Fought the violent headache. Thought. He
was lying on his back. On something hard yet soft. His
neck was supported on something hard yet also soft.
He heard distant sounds, movement. Someone walk-
mg. Metal striking metal and wood. Water. More than
one person walking somewhere close. but not that close.
The pain surged through his head and he had to hold
on.
He lay motionless.
00
Page 47 (58/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
His hands were on his chest. Not bound. His feet were
not tied. Why?
A voice exclaimed in Frcnch. • %4/ors! His eyes flick•
ered, Etienne!"
"He comes awake," another voice said in German.
A slow. thoughtful voice near him spoke in English.
"He has been awake at least ten minutes, mes arms,
perhaps Longer. Fighting thc headache and the dry
throat. At least ten minutest and he does not open his
eyes. docs not make a sound or move a muscle. Then
tests his feet, hands. This one is not an amateur. mes
amis. no. This one is to be reckoned with. Do you hear
me. Monsieur Meyer, or whatever your real name is?
You may open your eyes."
Carter said nothing. He remained motionless, his eyes
closed. The deep voice laughed and continued to speak.
now in French.
"No. not an amateur. The dagger up the sleeve. eh.
Karl-Heinz? The karate blows. the Luger. the gas bomb
on his leg. This man is thc superagent, nan?"
A surly German-accented French. saw the knife,
he only winged me."
The deep voice was amused. "And you. Daniel? You
tripped or that door would not have eaten your gun?' •
"No." the voice that had spoken behind him in the
Deux Magots said. "He is fast, very fast, a strong
agent."
"You hear. Monsieur Meyer? CRA-5? They praise
your skill. my men. We are friends. A small test in the
alley. Come, you arc among comrades."
Carter opened his eyes.
"Ah. welcorne, Monsieur Meyer."
They were standing around him. He was in a small
00
Page 48 (59/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
49
living room, lying on a couch, his head against the arm.
Through a lighted door there was a kitchen '*here two
women were setting a table. A domestic scene.
Three old men. one as bald as an egg. were ranged
around him. A fourth, the one with the deep voice, sat
alone on a chair facing the couch. He had white hair and
a drooping white mustache. He was at least seventy.
probably older. A face of cordovan leather. Deep-set
eyes lost among creases so hard they were like mountain
ridges. Black eyes. Yellow teeth. A beret, A small man
with a massive chest under a loose cotton shirt with an
open neck and no collar, the chest thick and without
wrinkles, Seventy-plus, with the eyes of ninety and thc
body of forty.
"Le Basque, " Carter said.
The old man's eyes bored through Carter, through
every inch, searched his hidden corners. He moved a
thick. gnarled hand to dismiss the others.
"Leave us alone. "
The other three old men left and closed the door. Le
Basque went on studying Carter.
"Who killed Lyons?" he asked in English.
"You could have just called me on the telephone,"
Carter said.
"No," Le Basque said. "Ignorance is safety. oui?"
The old man continued his scrutiny. "We did not expect
such fierceness. The CIA are not usually a brigade
alone. 't
"Sorry."
"No fatalities. •y The old man studied him. "So, the
stiletto, the bomb, the ways with the women. eh? Who?
Not CIA, no. Lyons was a child compared to you. I ask
myself. who can this extraordinary person be? Military
00
Page 49 (60/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
50
NICK CARTER
intelligence? Secret service? Special for the President
of the United States? No, more powerfuL A whisper
comes—the Kilimastet himself?"
The old man smiled. "But I do not ask, eh? Not a
word. Nick Carter wishes to be Meyer, not a word. oui?
Who else is not CIA but has a CIA number? Deepe:r
than CIA AXE even. An old name. long ago, very
secret. Hawk? David? The war. The OSS? But what
does an old man know? Not one word, eh?"
It was Carter's tum to study the old man. An inno-
cent former resistance fighter, or something else?
Guessing or testing? old man had said enough to be
checked; he had to know that. Or was he playing for an
advantage, a lowering of Carter's defenses. before tbc
check could be made? A one-time play, but perhaps
worth it.
"I've heard of this Killmaster." Carter said. "You
flatter me. I'm just a plain CIA agent. I'm afraid,"
Le Basque shrugged the Gallic shrug. "As you wish,
Nick. May I call you Nick? Later, you can ask Hawk.
"Yes. Hawk. the head of something called AXE, you
said? A rumor, nothing more. I'd know if it existed."
Le Basque smiled. Very well, to business. They have
killed Lyons in Ethiopia?"
Carter described the scene he had witnessed. Le
Basque listened intently. When Carter finished, the
Old man thought for a time. then nodded.
"So. the problem is how did he get to Ethiopia, eh?
And Why.
Carter watched him.
"You know what Lyons was working on?"
The shrug. was discreet, eh? But it is the black
market of Tangier he wishes to be taken to. He is
00
Page 50 (61/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
51
Kmerican. He looks for cases of medical supplies, in.
truments. After Tangier we do not see him. but the
%merican CIA is not investigating the Tangier black
narket, yes? It is the medical cases, the American sup-
Aies that—
"That's the last place you saw him? In Tangier?"
Le Basque nodded.
"Can you také me? 'i
"Of course When?"
"Now."
Le Basque smiled again. "Before you have checked
me out?"
This time Carter shrugged. "As long as you take mc
where J want to go. I don't care what Sidc you're on. I'll
watch you."
The old man shook his head. "Such confidence for a
plain CIA agent."
"Soon. First. we eat."
" He stood up and opened the door into the kitchen.
The three men and two women were already seated at
the long table as if in some country kitchen in a provin-
Cial farmhouse. One of the women was as white-haired
•as Le Basque. The other wasn't.
"My Wife Marie," Le Basque introduced. "and my
daughter Chantal. These old bandits are Daniel with the
very little hair. Raymond with the scar, and Karl-Heinz
the Boche. Eat. "
Chantal was taller than her father and almost as dark.
She looked as if she had spent as much time in the sun as
he had. She had jet-black hair and was slender but not
too slender. Full breasts swelled a thin white blouse.
firm hips curved thc tailored wine-colored slacks. She
nodded to Carter without interest. serving some kind of
00
Page 51 (62/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
52
NICK CARTER
Stew that smelled better than any restaurant Caner ha
been in for a long time.
He sat down and realized how hungry be was. Hr.:
hadn't eaten since the lunch with Leslie. They all ate in
silence, enjoying the meal without the tension of busi-
ness or suspicion. were men of experience. After
the last bite. Carter excused himself and asked for thc
toilet. Behind the closed door he took out a small ma
chine—hidden in a pack of cigarettes—that looked like
a tiny tape recorder.
He balanced the instrument on his thigh as he sat.
punched the "play" button, and adjusted the earpiece
The machine; powered by mini-batteries, was tied into
AXE's worldwide computer through a special radio.
telephone hookup relayed off satellites.
"Yes. NJ." the sultry voice of the computer said.
"Background check. Le Basque. former French
maquis."
There was a silence. then beeps and clicks. Then the
sexy voice made its breathless report: i 'Le Basque, born
Etienne Borotra, Cegama. Spain. Family immigrated to
France. Fought in Spanish Civil War. World War Two
underground resistance, Algeria, Since World War Two
has worked for French military intcltigence and
operated black market and smuggling operations. One
daughter, Chantal, reputed to be assistant to father."
"Relation to David Hawk, AXE."
Click, ping. squawk. "Unable tc- compute. Top-
secret need-to-know only. "
That was the damned trouble with machines no mat-
ter how sophisticated. It did not automatically translate
"N3" into • 'Killmaster.••
"Code Killmaster. compute need-to-know."
Click, pinge squawk. "Director Only. Cannoc-..e••
00
Page 52 (63/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
53
Thc brusque voice of David Hawk broke in, "What
the hell do you want with Director-Only data. NY. and
where thc devil are you? It's been ten days!"
•erm sitting on the pot somewhere in Paris after mak-
ing contact with French military intelligence and some
ancient bandit named Lc Basque who claims to be a per.
sonal acquaintance and old comrade-in-arms of yours.
Know him?"
There was a cigar-chewing silence. "I know him. "
• 'He pretends to know all about me. Do I believe
him?"
"Believe him."
"Do I trust him?"
"With your life, yes. With your watch. no."
• UIs there anyone from World War Two you don't
know? "
"A few obscure Hungarians. Is that all you have to
report, N3?"
Carter told him about the cryptic note in Lyons's
desk. and hi5 conversation with Martin of French mili-
tary intelligence. "So it looks like Le Basque will be take
ing me to Tangier."
"Make it fast, N3. More aid has vanished, and I smell
big trouble brewing,' • Hawk growled. • 'And say hello to
that old rogue."
Carter punched off, stood. slipped the tiny machine
into the cigarette pack in his pocket, and left the toilet.
In thc kitchen they were all having coffee and cognac.
"One before we go to work," Le Basque said. cock•
ing his head at Carter. "Did 1 check. CRA-5?"
Carter drank the thick black coffee but skipped the
cognac. It would be a long. hard trip however they
went, and he didn't want his watch stolen-
"Hawk says hello." he said.
00
Page 53 (64/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
54
NICK CARTER
Le Basque laughed. ' 'Aht a small change of our lives
here. there. and he would be the bandit, the spy direc-
tor with the bad stomach, eh? For me, I need the free
life, the—how do you Americans say-—'blowing on the
Wind.
Carter nodded, and his head seemed to explode.
Grow larger and Larger. The coffee! Hawk
con-
firmed
The room expanded Hawk
wrong mind was fogged faded gone .
He floated. Rocked. A baby in a cradle. On the
treetop. Headache. but gentle now as he floated free in
the rocking motion. He opened his eyes this time.
"You don't take any chances."
Chantal Borotra sat against a shadowy bulkhead
and faced him in the dim light. "We cannot allow our
locations to be known, not even to the Kiltmastet. Le
Basque says everyone has a price. a weakness. a break-
ing point. It is how he has survived so well so long
The black-haired woman was seated on a burlap-
wrapped bundle in a row of other bundles in the narrow
interior of what had to be an old C-47 transport that
rocked and floated in slow flight. ne old aircraft
chugged along like some prehistoric bird. Ahead, be-
tween the bales and the cockpit, shadowy figures sat in a
row like World War II paratroopers waiting for the
drop.
"Is that how you survive. too? No chances?"
Her teeth flashed a brief white in the dim light ot the
transport interior.
"l listen to my father, and stay away from Kili•
masters. "
Carter smiled at the girl's vague shasr. There was
something very self-contained about Chantal. and he
00
Page 54 (65/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
55
had the feeling she was oldcr than she looked. He filed
this for future reference and continued to study the nar-
row interior of the old aircraft.
His eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light now.
and he saw the guns. Mounted fore and aft, they were
on both sides of the C-47, and aimed downward
through large openingsv they had a wide sweep of fire.
Fifty-caliber machine guns, cannon, and rocket launch.
ers. Viet Nam as well as World War II. transport and
gunship.
"Where did you get this thing?" Carter asked.
Chantal looked around the crammed interior of the
chugging aircraft. "A museum piece, non? Thc hero
of World War Two. my father says. Without it there
would have been no resistance. No supplies. no te-
sistance."
"The guns aren't so museum. Puff the Magic Dragon
damn near won us an unwinnable war."
Chantal nodded. "A very useful idea, my father
says. 'i
"You haven't said where you got it."
She smiled again. i 'As I said. a museum piece, Le
Basque a World War Two museum. and this is
an exhibit. We fly it ail over France, Algeria, our old
colonies. Old men and their toys, Le Basque says. " She
laughed. "Without the guns. of course,"
"Where do they go in?"
She shook her head. "That you do not need to
know."
"And the bales?"
She shrugged. "Patriotism costs money.'"
"Marijuana?"
• "Call it our cash crop. "
A gunship. Smuggling. Contacts all across Africa.
00
Page 55 (66/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
56
NICK CARTER
Whatever else they did, Le Basque and his group were
self-sufficient. Marijuana and patriotic work with mili-
tary intelligence and what else?
Carter shifted and looked out a window. Not far
below. something shined black and silvery. A long shin•
ing path rippled to the distant moon. The old plane
skimmed low over water.
"Where are we?"
Chantal looked at her watch. "We land outside
Tangier in fifteen minutes. With luck."
"And without luck?"
The woman only shrugged again. A certain fatalism is
necessary in any kind of war.
Fifteen minutes later the lumbering old aircraft began
to descend.
Lc Basque appeared in the cockpit door. "Hold on to
what you can. i'
Below there was still water shining black and then the
darker land without reflection or lights. Carter saw the
narrow snake of a white road. Trees and mountains
loomed straight ahead as the gray paleness of dawn
touched the dry peaks. Then they were down, bouncing.
yawing along the unlighted runway. A light appeared
ahead, a point Of light that waved left and left. and the
old plane turned and finally shuddered to a stop.
Le Basque slid open the side door. "Hola. Ahoub, all
• 'Of course, you old fool," the half-seen man behind
the large flashlight said. "Another good landing. eh?
You have the merchandise?"
"You have the money and the cars?"
the welcomer called through the graying
dawn.
00
Page 56 (67/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
57
Instantly the headlights of six vehicles illuminated the
tall. dark man in a flowing white burnoose.
Le Basque laughed and jumped down. "Good."
"Three for you. three for me." the man in the but-
noose, Ahoub, said. "Gabouri says—O
Carter sensed rather than saw the movement beyond
the glare of the twelve headlights.
"Down!" he shouted, and ran for the cockpit.
The hail of fire erupted like a volcano from behind
the lights. shattering windshields. metal, windows.
Ahoub screamed as his white burnoose turned red in an
instant and his head exploded. The dead man was flung
forward against Le Basque, showering the old man in
blood. splattering the plane that had already begun to
move.
Chantal leaped from the planc and ran to her father.
The old maquis with the scare Raymond, jumped out
after her.
In the cockpit, Carter revved up the ancient plane.
and lurched slewing and weaving down the runway.
Bullets ripped through and around the rolling craft
from the automatic weapons of whoever was hidden in
the dawn light beyond the six vehicles.
"Open the guns!" the AXE agent shouted back
through the cockpit door.
The bald old maquis, Daniel, shouted in French,
"The guns! Stations!"
Carter straightened out the plane and. praying there
was nothing hidden in the dawn, yanked it up off the
makeshift airstrip and into a sharp left bank. He hoped
the ancient craft had the power. It did. Carter smiled.
They never made them any better than the old C-47.
He straightened out and lumbered back over the
00
Page 57 (68/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
58
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
airstrip in the slowly yellowing dawn. coming in low.
barely above the long. low buildings and the six ve-
hicles.
"Fire!" the bullet-headed Daniel shouted almost hap.
piiy. 4 'Fire! Fire everything!"
The gunship sprayed devastating fire into the gullies.
bushes. trees. and hills that surrounded the makeshift
airfield, and into the low wooden buildings.
Carter saw them in the lightening dawn: twenty or
thirty men in gray fatigue uniforms armed to the teeth.
Thc gunship blasted them out of their cover and holes,
out of the bushes, from behind the buildings and the
trees. They were not prepared for an attack from the
air, or for the firepower of the old gunship. They broke
and ran, panicked. to four trucks hidden Off the main
road to the west.
Like ants they scattered and ran and clambered into
the vehicles. Heavy machine guns opened up on the gun-
ship. Carter overshot. banked, and lumbered back. One
of the trucks exploded in a sheet of flame. Then the old
C-47 was past, and the trucks were on their way in
retreat.
"Well done, my little cabbages!" Daniel cried to the
old maquis behind the guns. • 'Again. American! After
them
Carter shook his head. ' 'They won't be back. We've
got more urgent business on the ground."
He turned in a steep bank above the treetops and the
barren desert ground littered now with the corpses of
the attackers. and brought the old plane down quickly.
He jumped out and ran to where Chantal kneeled beside
the shattered body of Ahoub and the fallen Le Basque.
The scarred maquis, Raymond. lay dead behind them,
his left arm shot away. half his head gone.
00
Page 58 (69/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
"Is Le Basque-—?" Carter began.
59
Le Basque smiled and sat up. "Not a scratch. He
saved me.' t
The old resistance fighter nodded to the shattered
body of Ahoub in its bloody burnoose.
"Fell on me." Le Basque said in a kind of wonder.
"Took everything that would have hit me. Who were
they. Nick?"
"You tell me," Carter said. "This is your airstrip."
"No," Chantal said. "We use a different strip each
time. There are hundreds around hete. From the wars.
the smuggling, the revolts." She held a piece of the dead
Ahoubts burnoose against a flesh wound on her left side
undet her breast.
"And our enemies do not command such firepower.
Killmaster," Le Basque said. "These, I think, were for
you."
Daniel and the other old maquis were moving cau-
tiously through the sprawled and mangled bodies of the
attackers. Carter and Lc Basque joined them. There
were some fifteen dead. but no wounded.
• • They took their wounded." Le Basque said. / iA
good unit."
"Yes " Carter said. but he was staring at the corpses.
The gray field uniforms were exactly the same as the
uniforms of the men who had attacked him in Ethiopia.
Fifteen dead men in the same gray uniforms. Fifteen
black men.
"Colonials." Le Basque noted. "See those cicatrice
tattoos? Congo tribes.' •
• 'Not all," Carter said..
He knecled down over three of the dead blacks whose
bloody uniforms showed they had rank. They were
lighter skinned, and their gaping mouths showed sophis-
00
Page 59 (70/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
60
NICK CARTER
ticated dental work. They wore rings, not amulets. He
searched their pockets and found their wallets.
"Americans," the Killmaster said.
Daniel bent over two more lighter-skinned bodies.
The faces had bandit mustaches and Indian features.
Carter stood up. "Mercenaries.
"For you," Le Basque said.
"Yes. But how did they know I was here?"
He looked around at the old resistance fighters and at
Chantal, then at the bloody corpses sprawled across the
silent airstrip. Daniel held up a crumpled envelope.
"Breast pocket." He nodded to one of the dead
Cubans.
"What is it?" Carter asked.
Le Basque opened it and read the letter inside. He
looked at Carter.
• 'It's a kind of bill of sale; twenty
cases to be picked up at a warehouse tonight. and it's
signed Abad Al•Makdi4"
Le Basque put the letter in his pocket. "We had better
go and talk to my people. "
"Who is Abad A1-Makdit••
"The biggest international black market dealer in
Tangier. "
00
Page 60 (71/211)











EIGHT
Water dripped somewhere, a slow. steady drip that
echoed through the ancient catacomblike stone cham-
ber. It could be noon out in the city. but there it was
always midnight, only two bare bulbs to dispel the chill
and gloom of the subterranean arches and corridors.
Rats outside the small circles of light, and the
odor of wet earth and stone mixed with the faint stench
of sewage.
"You have no idea who they were, Etienne?" one Of
the four old men behind the table asked Le Basque.
They were ranged like some secret tribunal at the
scarred and worn table. Old maquis, with others all
around the dim stone chamber against walls, seated on
tilted chairs. Le Basque, Chantal, and Carter sat to-
gethet at a smaller table, cups of thick coffee in front of
them.
"None. We think they were after the American here,
Mr. Nicholas Meyer' '—Le Basque smiled--"as he calls
himself, eh?"
Every eye in the dank, shadowy chamber looked at
Carter. The four leaders at the table studied him, hard,
61
00
Page 61 (72/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
62
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
• iAnd who is this Mr. Meyer that you bring him here
and bring. perhaps. danger to us?" another of the four
said.
Le Basque told them about the CIA and the dead
Lyons and Carter's mission. '*Lyons was seen last here
with us. Now Meyer follows his trail. We helped Lyons
for French military intelligence—can we do less now?"
"What help does the American want?" one of the old
maquis at the table asked.
• 'What can you tell me about a force of elite mercen-
aries supposed to be operating somewhere in Africa?"
The four looked at each other.
"We have heard rumors. For many years. We have
asked questions; there are no answers. If it exists, it is
well-hidden and well protected. "
"And the international black market?"
The four looked toward the shadows of a stone arch.
Someone moved. then came out into the light—a small.
slender man in Western dress with a dark, cold, Arab
face. He sat on a narrow chair. crossed his legs. and lit a
thin, dark cigar.
"What do you wish to know about the black market,
Monsieur Meyer?" His English was heavily accented,
and it wasn't a French accent. It was Arabic ot Berber.
"Has there been a lot of merchandise turning up with
V.S. Aid markings on it?"
The slender man smoked his thin cigar. "Yes. "
"Do you know where it comes from?"
"Everywhere. From all thc countries where your aid
is sent."
"Any specific people? Names?"
The man almost smiled. ONO. Monsieur Meyer. No
names.
"And where is it all going?"
00
Page 62 (73/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
63
' 'That we do not know for sure." The dark face was
immobile. the hawk nose and hooded black eyes turned
toward Carter. "There is some evidence it goes all to a
single destination. But it isa guess. a hint, no more. "
Carter looked at the four old maquis behind the table.
"Does he know what he's talking about?"
'*He knows. " one said.
• 'Wålid Daba operates in the black market," another
"And is chief of detectives of the police.' i
Carter looked at the slender. hawk-faced man. The
man smiled now. "Orderly crime is better than dis-
orderly, Monsieur Meyer, and who can keep order bet.
ter than one who is on both sides?"
"That attack this morning wasn't so orderly." thc
Killmaster said.
"They did not come from my territory," the thin
police detective said.
"Where did they come from?"
A shrug. "That is not my job."
"Anyone?" Carter said to the four old men at the
table.
"We have asked all our people in Africa," one of
them said. "We get no answers."
"Do you have any answer to how they knew was
landing with Le Basque at that airstrip?"
No one spoke in the dim, dank stone chamber with its
two bare bulbs and dripping water. rats singing
somewhere in the shadows. the city above close yet dis.
tant.
"It had to be someone among you," Carter said.
"No." Le Basque said. "None of mine.
"French intelligence, then," Carter said.
"No," Chantal said. ' 'Your own people, CIA man?"
00
Page 63 (74/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
64
NICK CARTER
doubt it."
"Someone you met in Paris?" one of the old men
said. "At Carr et Freres?"
' 'No one broke my cover." Of that Carter was sure.
Or was he? Leslie?
"You are so sure, American?" the thin police detec•
rive, Walid Daba, asked.
"As sure as any of you about your friends." Carter
said.
"We are sure. We have ail served too long together
not to know." Le Basque said.
In the silence of the underground chamber the thin
policeman cleaned his fingernails with a small knife.
"The attackers had a contact with this AI•Makti.••
Carter said. "How do we talk to him?"
"You do not," Le Basque said. " We will find him.
talk to him."
Carter shook his head. "My job, No other way."
"He never leaves the Casbah." one of the old maquis
at the table said. "There is no way for you to go in
there."
"He comes out." Carter said. "or I go in."
Le Basque turned to Walid Daba. "Can you do it
some way?"
The dark man studied Carter with his heavy-lidded
eyes. "Perhaps I can do something." He stood up.
"Come, American." He nodded to LC Basque. "We
will be ready at sundown."
The sun had just gone down behind thc Great Mosque
when the three men met at the southwestern gate of the
Medina. Le Basque was there first. coming out of the
shadows of the early night street With its crowds of tur-
baned and fezzed and robed people mixed gtth those in
Western dress. He nodded to the slender police detec•
00
Page 64 (75/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
tive; Walid Daba stared at Carter.
"Is it the American?"
65
Carter rolled his eyes, shook his head, and pointed to
his face. He wore a blackish. indigo-dyed turban and
desert veil. and a dirty white burnoose€ only his eyes
showing. Brass plates with Arabic script were on the tur-
ban. Walid Daba nodded.
"He speaks Arabic, but with the wrong accent for
this area, and he does not speak Berber. So he is a deaf
and dumb Tuareg from the desert I have befriended."
"Could he pass to a Tuareg?"
"We won't meet any," the Berber detective said, "or,
with luck. anyone who knows a real Tuareg."
They went through the gate and up the ancient hilt to
the old Sultanis Palace and the walled Casbah, moving
slowly through the dark, narrow streets that were little
more than passages between the old stone walls of the
buildings with their narrow windows or no windows at
all. ney passed dim cafés where silent robed figures
drank their mint tea. Few people moved along the nar•
row passages. yet noise came from everywhere: radios,
television sets, drums, flutes, angry voices and the
singing of women. the barking of dogs and scurrying of
feet, human and rodent. A cacaphony from somewhere
just beyond the shadows.
"There." Walid Daba said softly.
Among the old walls, they were across a small open
square from a café where a throng of Moroccan people
sat drinking, smoking, and talking. animated but not
loud.
Abad A1-Makdi's headquarters. The large
building to the right is his warehouse. The four men
seated at the front table inside the door where they can
watch the warehouse entrance are A1-Makdi's guards,
The dog himself is that ancient relic in the blue robes
00
Page 65 (76/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
66
NICK CARTER
and the fez at the rear table. "
Carter studied the café across the square from above
his veil. The four guards looked bored and indolent.
Judging by their heavy eyes and well-filled robes. they
hadn't seen action in a long time. A1-Makdi himself had
to be close to eighty, as thin and dried as a walking
mummy. a wizened monkey face under an oversize fez.
rich blue robes hanging as if from a skeleton. Alone, he
drank only Perrier, his nervous eyes watching every-
thing and nothing, his emaciated fingers moving in
spasms Of trembling as if utEonnected to the brain
under the fez.
"Here comes his business," Walid Daba whispered
where they were hidden in the shadows across the small
square.
Three men in business suits, tall and short, dark.
skinned and light. each bold and furtive and nervous all
at the same time, came out of the windowless old
medieval warehouse building and across thc square to
the café. One of the fat guards patted them down in
good Hollywood style. looking like someone out of the
movie Casablanca and knowing it. and waved them to
the table where A1-Makdi sat.
• •They'll haggle for hours." Walid Daba said wearily.
want to get into that warehouse." Carter said from
behind his veil. "One of you can watch him,"
• 'No need," Walid Daba said, "He won't move from
there for at least an hour, probably two. It's the only
fun he has nowadays. Come."
The slender detective slipped through the darkness of
the narrow passages past the windowless three-story
building. An even narrower allcy ran along the rear ot
the monolithic building. A low grating was set into the
base of the rear wall. Daba kneeled down and pulled at
the grating, Nothing happened. The detective swore
00
Page 66 (771211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNrAIN
67
Carter crouched and pulled the rusty iron grate out.
He dropped down into the darkness. Daba and Le
Basque came behind him as silcnt as catse Daba shined a
thin light. They were in a cramped stone window•well
with a wooden panel on the inner wall. Daba took out a
key, opened the lock on the panel, and swung it in.
Carter went in first.
There was another drop, and then he stood on the
stone floor of a long, low room with muted indirect
lightingv rows of stacked crates, boxes, and containers;
neat and precise, cool and soundless. The three of them
walked slowly along the rows. their footfalls muted. a
layer of sweat on Carter's neck under the stifling veil
and burnoose.
"Soundproofed and air-conditioned, " he said.
"Naturally." Le Basque said. ' 'An old Arab but a
modern black marketeer, eh? The merchandise is
valuable."
They moved down the tows. Carter examined the
crates and boxes and cartons. There were medicines
intended for Zaire. farm implements for Mali and
Rwanda, pumps and generators for Zambia, rows and
rows of foodstuffs for Sudan and Chad. Mali and
Mauritania. All marked with the stamps of U.S. Aid,
and U.N. Relief Aid, and Red Cross International
Relief.
"Why hasn't he moved them out?" Carter wondered.
"A good question," Walid Daba said. "There would
be no problem selling all this tomorrow in hatf the coun•
tries of the world. "
"Maybe Al.Makdi has an agreement," Le Basque
said.
Daba nodded, thoughtful. "A single buyer is even
mote profitable. yes. Less overhead, transport, protec•
tion.••
00
Page 67 (78/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
68
NICK CARTER
"Where's his office?" Carter asked.
"Upstairs." Daba said.
They moved quickly along the rows of boxes and
crates through the silence and the faint hum of the air
conditioning.
Ancient. rickety wooden stairs led upward. Walid
Daba took out a 9mm Beretta. Le Basque had his Uzi
submachine gun. Carter held Wilhelmina undet his
robes.
They went up.
At the top Walid Daba used his keys on a locked
door. They stepped out into another large room the
length of the ancient building. It too was dimly lighted
and filled with boxes and crates. but here there was no
soundproofing, no air conditioning. and the ancient
stones gave off their odor of dust and mold that had
been here since Carthage ruled the Mediterranean.
' 'Goods for local sale in the bazaars, markets,' •
Walid Daba said. "Not such elegant treatment as the
booty below. eh?"
"Whete€s the office?" Carter searched the gloomy
old shadows over his veil.
The chief of detectives led them back to an arched
section that must have seen dancers and slave girls in the
days when Roman legions marched the narrow streets
outside. It was now glassed in and had the Odor Of Vic-
torian wood. the furniture from the days of the East
India Company: old wooden desks and filing cabinets,
rattan chairs, overhead a punkah waiting for someone
to pull it by its long cord and fan the room. Walid Daba
pointed to the filing cabinets,
"I'll take the main desk. you take---"
The man came through a door at the rear of the old
office. An old man carrying a bucket and mop.
Walid Daba whirled.
00
Page 68 (79/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
"Silence!" he hissed in Arabic.
69
The old man froze, stared. terror on his wrinkled
face. Daba smiled.
"Be calm, old man."
Carter saw his hand. The old man's face was a mask
Of terror. lie trembled, cringed, and held to the wall
with his free hand.
"His hand!" Carter said.
The old man tried to run. Where his hand had held to
the wall. there was a small electric button.
Daba shot the old man in the head.
• 'Merde," Daba said softly, then turned to face the
front door.
Walid Daba shot the first one through the front door:
a fat man whose dirty gray burnoose spouted red where
the Beretta tore a hole in his heart.
Wilhelmina sent the second screaming backward
holding the black hole between his eyes,
Le Basque faced the other way, his Uzi cutting down
the two men who came through thc rear door.
One staggered blindly into a wall, then sprawled
backward through the door. The other got off a shot.
Walid Daba cursed and held his left arm, Le Basque
finished off the man who had shot, stitching red across
his white burnoose.
"Now! 'i Carter ran for the front door.
Le Basque raced after Carter.
They burst out the front door of the ancient ware-
house into the night of the small square with Daba and
his bloody arm behind them. Three gray-robed men
blocked the square. Le Basque's Uzi cut down two;
Hugo jumped into Carter's hand and was hurled into
the throat of the third guard. Walid Daba went past
them.
The small square was silent. Carter retrieved Hugo
00
Page 69 (80/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
70
NICK CARTER
and followed Le Basque into the café where no one sat
now—except A1-Makdi and Walid Daba. The café •as
empty. as was the square; A1-Makdi sat at his table in
his blue robes with Dabass Beretta at his head.
"Thc lower warehouse, worthless pig," Daba said.
"Where does it all go?"
A1-Makdi's eyes tolled in his dried leather faces Daba
cocked the Beretta.
"One second. garbage."
"Russians." A1-Makdi said.
"All of it?" Carter said as he and Le Basque stood at
the table in the empty café.
A1-Makdi nodded.
"In return for what?"
Al•Makdi's eyes bulged. searched for help, escape.
Walid Daba shot him in the arm. The old man screamed
as his bone smashed and blood splattered across the
floor and table.
• 'For what?" Carter said.
"Boxes." the old man gasped. "Wood boxes.
heavy.' i
"Boxes Of what?"
"Don't know."
Daba shot at the old man's foot. He missed. old
man screamed,
"They take them! I never see!"
The old man shivered with terror, shook his head.
and babbled. "Mamba. Pay. take, no names. Bring
merchandise for Russia, pay me, take boxes. No ques-
tions.i'
• 'They bring all thc Aid material? American?"
The Old man nodded. his eyes wide.
Where from?"
"Zaire."
00
Page 70 (81/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
OWhat do they—
71
The old man's eyes jumped out of his head. Two
men stood in the café doorway. their dark faces con-
torted with hatred. One of the men was the guard shot
by Lc Basque in thc warehouse, an arm dangling dead.
dripping blood. The other was an older man whose eyes
bored into A1-Makdi.
"Dog! Pig!" they shouted in Arabic.
Le Basque and Carter fired. Both men fell backward.
but two bombs flew across the room.
Carter went out a window. Le Basque fell on top of
him. The café exploded. Glass and wood and metal and
flesh and blood showered the square.
Carter and Le Basque jumped up.
The two men who had thrown the bombs lay dead in
the square.
Inside the shattered café the legless body of Al•Makdi
raised one stump of an arm and stared at Carter and Le
Basque as the blood poured from his leg arteries and life
drained from his amazed eyes.
Walid Dabass headless body lay across the splintered
table. the Beretta still in his hand.
Carter turned and vanished into the Casbah. Le
Basque followed him into the night.
00
Page 71 (82/211)









NINE
David Hawk's gruff voice was low under the roar of
the Old C-47*s engines. don't like the sound Of it. N3.
Something's gearing up to happen."
"If they are the mercenary group you're worried
about." Carter said into his miniaturized transmitter.
"they're operating everywhere we send aid in Africa."
4 • With the Soviets behind them. or just using them to
discredit us, or worse.' •
"Unless they're using the Russians," Carter said.
There was a long silence at the other end of the secret
radio-satellite connection.
"For what?" Hawk said.
"Yeah," Carter said. • •That's what I have to find
out. isn't it?"
Hawk chewed his cigar in the dtstant Washington
headquarters of AXE. "Find out fast, NY. Those boxes
make me very nervous. '9
"We'll be landing in Kinshasa in an hour." Carter
"Keep in touch." Hawk growled. "And I mean close
72
00
Page 72 (83/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
73
touch. Nj. I've got a strong feeling that when this one
goes up we'll have to move fast."
The instrument went silent. Carter sat there in the dim
belly of the C-47. In the lumbering aircraft, Le Basque
was again up in the cockpit piloting. Chantal with him
this time. Fout Other vigorous Old maquis sat dozing in
the dim light with Carter. Below. thc desert had changed
to jungle, and winding dirt tracks, and rivers snaking
through the thick vegetation.
Le Basque came back from the cockpit. The old man
sat beside Carter, stretched out his legs with a sigh. and
lit a joint. The acrid marijuana smoke filled the cabin.
"Who's flying this thing?" Carter asked.
"Chantal, eh? Fine pilot, taught her myself." Le
Basque grinned. "So. You have talked to my old
friend?"
"Exactly where are we going, old man?"
Le Basque laughed. "Very welt. business it is, eh?
So. we are in luck. My old underground commandant.
Julien Sorel, retired to Zaire many years ago and
opened a hotel outside Leopoldville—now called Kin-
shasa. We were able to contact him, and he will meet us
at his hotel. He knows of no mercenary force of the
magnitude you suspect. but he thinks he or his contacts
in the Zaire government may be able to give us some
"What kind of leads?"
Le Basque carefully pinched out his joint, slipped it
into the breast pocket of his camouflage fatigues. stood
up, and turned toward the cockpit. "To where some
American aid ror Zaire disappeared."
The old man walked back through the dim belly of
the vintage aircraft to the pilot's cabin, and Carter sat in
the dark and thought about the disappearance Of Amer-
00
Page 73 (84/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
74
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
ican aid in Zaire and everywhere else. Hawk had said
that people were already becoming ugly about failed
American promises. American tics, American schernes.
The U S. could lose Africa, and what else? "Vhat was in
the boxes from the USSR. and who were the soldiers in
gray?
Carter became aware of the broad Congo River below
and the widening into the lakclike Stanley Pool with the
neat white buildings of Brazzaville on the right bank
below the Pool and the tall buildings and green expanses
of Kinshasa on the left bank. The old transport
lumbered in low across the great river toward the high
sandy plateaus behind Kinshasa and began its descent
into the airport of the capital of Zaire.
Chantal came back as they taxied to an empty area of
the field.
"We've got a welcoming committee," she said
quickly. "Americans aren't too popular here. especially
CIA men. Is your French good enough to be my hus•
band?"
"My French and everything else," Carter said. grin•
ning.
• *Keep your mind on your work, monsieur. You may
need it." she said. "Here is your passport. You are
Albert Chenier, an engineer of roads and cities. Your
picture is already in place, a precaution."
Carter took the passport. It was French. proclaimed
him to be everything she had said, and someone had
taken his picture with a Polaroid camera and pasted it in
with the proper seals. Le Basque and his people believed
in being prepared.
'*Who is the real Albert Chenier?"
• 'My husband," Chantal said and turned away. "He
is dead. "
00
Page 74 (85/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
75
Carter had no time to question Chantal further. ne
C-47 door burst open. and a violent voice shouted in
bad French, "Out! Immediately! Everyone! Now!"
Outside the window Carter saw what looked like a
full company Of black soldiers. all spit and polish. white
Icggings and rcd berets. Armed to the teeth, they ringed
the C-47. bayonets fixed and rifles aimed. Two ramrod
noncoms stood below the open door shouting and gese
ticulating furiously for everyone to descend from the
plane.
Le Basque was out first. He strode to the NCOs just
as ramrod and just as furious and just as violent and in a
lot better French.
"Imbecije! Idiot! Do you know whom you are
threatening?"
The old man stood nose to nose with one of the non-
corns. The rest of the old maquis jumped down behind
him. Chantal and Carter came last.
• •Wait until Gcncral Mobutu hears how you greeted
Le Basque when he came to Zaire!"
The noncoms looked uncertain and retreated a step.
There was a stir in thc ranks of the soldiers surrounding
the old C-47. and a tall. elegant major came slowly
through the soldiers and up to the group. He carried an
ebony swagger stick and touched Le Basque on the chest
with it.
"You are a smuggler. old man." he said in much
better Frenchv "We have been informed. We will now
search your aircraft."
Le Basque nodded. "so. Who has played that old
trick? Go ahead, Major. search, w'
The major held his swagger stick suspended. a small
uncertainty at the edges of his arrogant eyes.
"Search the aircraft." he said to the noncoms.
00
Page 75 (86/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
76
NICK CARTER
The two NCOs barked their orders in a combination
Of some local native language Carter did not know and
bad French. Soldiers swarmed up into the C-47.
"What will they find?" Carter whispered to Chantal,
"Nothing."
"You're sure?"
"Of course, Weere not fools, monsieur. This kind of
thing happens a great deal down here."
Le Basque paced angrily. glaring at the ranks of
soldiers around the plane with their guns at the ready.
The other old maquis stood in the shade of the aircraft
out of the fierce equatorial sun.
"Sergeant!"
The major stood in the C-47 doorway. The senior
NCO walked quickly to stand beneath the officer,
"Take them. Put cuffs on that old one with the big
mouth."
The arrogant officer held out a large plastic bag. let a
stream of white powder fall down into the dirt. and
smiled at Le Basque.
"Someone set us up. Killmaster." Le Basque said.
"We smuggled no heroin."
Carter, Le Basque, and the other four maquis sat on
the stone floor of the military brig at an army barracks
on the outskirts of Kinshasa. Chantal had been taken
somewhere else over Le Basque's violent but useless
protests. All the old leader had to show for it was a
bruised cheek and sore ribs from rifle butts.
"Of course someone set us up.' € Carter growled,
sounding almost like Hawk even to himself. "Thc ques-
tion is who, and why? This time€ no one around me ex•
cept Hawk knew we were coming down here, and Hawk
didn't know until we were on the transport. Who
00
Page 76 (87/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
could've planted that heroin?"
77
Le Basque nodded. "One of my own people; it must
be. Unless . . .
Walid Daba could have had a con-
federate—he could have passed on what Abad El•Makdi
told us before they were killed."
"He'd have to have done it in about one minute flat,
while we were watching and he was hammering Ale
Makdi."
"We were watching A1-Makdi. Killmaster. "
"How did he transmit? A bidden mike in his Beret•
have seen things more unusual than that. But it
would not have had to be in the gun. It would not even
have to have been transmitted then. A small tape re-
corder in his pocket—a confederate knows about the aid
all coming to Tangier from Zaire."
Carter watched thc fierce old man. "You don't want
to face up to it, do you. One of your maquis? Maybe
someone you've fought beside your whole life?"
Le Basque was silent. "No, I do not want to face
that." He looked at Carter in the stifling heat of the
crowded cell. "I do not want to, but I will. Who? I ask
myself this. Who? Daniel? Karl-Heinz? Gantal?"
One of the other old maquis looked at the floor. "She
is not with us. Etienne."
"No. she is not with us." Le Basque said.
Another of the old men said. "Because she is a
woman? A separate cell for a woman to Show how
civilized they have become?"
"That is possible," Le Basque said.
The others were silent, looking at the floor or up at
the high. narrow barred windows that let in all the light
and air in the room.
"We won•t find out in here," Carter said. "As soon
00
Page 77 (88/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
78
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
as it's dark. we go and find Chantal and some an.
swers."
All the maquis stared at him.
"You have wings. American? one said.
"Perhaps one of your 'Star Warsi weapons?
wall disintegrator?"
a 'A transporter that will Wisk our molecules through
the stone?"
Le Basque rubbed his chin. "I suspect Monsieur
Meyer has something up his sleeve, ell?"
Carter smiled. "When it's dark."
The old men hooted softly and went back to staring at
the walls and floor and high barred windows. Carter lay
back against the prison wall. Lc Basque watched him.
' J They took your weapons, your tiny communication
instrument." the old maquis said.
"Yeah, I til have to stop and get those back. i'
"Out weapons and aircraft too, eh?"
"Those too.
• 'Such confidence," Le Basque said. "Or such bra-
vado,"
s 'A little of both," Carter said.
He closed his eyes and waited for night. Le Basque lay
down on the floor and slept. A lifetime of training
teaches one to conserve energy while waiting for the
time of action. Carter dozed, but he did not sleep. alert
for any sound. It was a setup, yes, but who was the
target. and who was doing the setting up? And why?
Who would come to the cell first, the 'guards or the
night?
He waited.
The night came first.
"Time," Carter siad.
00
Page 78 (89/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
None of them moved.
79
• 'Form a pyramid so I can climb up to the windows.
The Killmaster took off his belt and extracted three
pieces of his special AXE striated tape. "Now!"
"Now!" Le Basque echoed, jumping up. He mo-
tioned for Daniel and Karl-Heinz to link arms, and for
the other two to stand on their shoulders.
Carter climbed onto the shoulders of the top two,
quickly wrapped the tape around three of the iron bars.
and scratched each with his fingernail. In seconds the
bars had melted through. He removed each bar and sent
it down hand to hand to the floor. From the heel of his
shoe he took his escape wire mechanism. attached it to
the stump of one iron bar. and lowered himself to the
cell floor.
will go first," Le Basque decided.
"And I 'II come last," Carter said.
Le Basque held the thin wire. activated the mech-
anism, and rose up to the window. He looked out
warily, then slipped through the narrow opening and
out, his hands holding to the stone windowsill and then
vanishing.
Each of the maquis went up in turn. and out, and
dropped to the ground in the night outside the wails.
Carter was last. He went up to the window. retrieved the
wire and mechanism, returned it to the heel of his shoe.
slid through, and dropped lightly to the dark ground.
Hands grabbed him instantly.
Covered his mouth.
Held him in an iron grip.
00
Page 79 (90/211)







TEN
Carter slammed a knee into the groin of one man.
Pulled his arm free. Chopt*d the panting face of
another. Kicked, broke his other arm free. Crouched.
Looked into the muzzle of an M-16 aimed at tus eye.
"You will bc very quiet! "
Carter froze, staring into the eyes of the old man
behind the M-16. He saw three other old men around
him. guns leveled. the two on the ground he had kicked
and chopped down, and beyond them Le Basque smil-
ing at him.
"Friends. Killmaster,•• Le Basque whispered.
Carter saw Daniel and Karl-Heinz and the other two
old maquis in the dark night. standing apart and warch-
ing. He saw Olantat and maybe fifteen other graye
haired men all armed with M•16s. The man holding the
rifle to his face spoke again.
"We are friends, eh? You see Le Basque? You s« his
daughter?"
Carter nodded and slowly straightened up. Tbe man
80
00
Page 80 (91/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
81
lowered his rifle, but his eyes remained wary, alert. Le
Basque laughed softly.
"I think, Degrange, you are fortunate that thc Amer-
ican understood so quickly the situation. eh?"
The man with the rifle considered Carter. He was
short and thick, with iron-gray hair and a squashcd face
like a lion or an old prizefighter. and a long scar from
his left eye to his jawbone.
"So?" the man, Degrange, said. "You think I am not
a match for this one, Borotra?"
• 'l think you ate not," Le Basque said, smiling.
Degrange rubbed his jaw, continuing to assess the
Killmaster. "Perhaps you are right. Sully if I were
younger, well—"
"Does someone want to tell me what is going on
here? " Carter asked.
' *Chantal, explain as we march," Degrange snapped.
Le Basque, the four other old maquis who worked
with him. and the armed strangers all fell into line and
moved quickly off into the night. Chantal marched
beside Carter.
"These are the men of my father's old commandant,
Julien SoreL They have immobilized the Zairean
soldiers, rescued me, and recovered all our weapons.
Now we escape. "
'WHow did they know we were here?"
Ahead. Le Basque laughed. "Because, Killmaster,
they put us here! A little ruse. to protect themselves and
their organization from observation. I am not the only
one who learns these things. This way, we are together.
but no one can know we are with them, eh?"
'*They planted that heroin? Set us up?"
' 'That way, no one sees us join, eh? No one knows
where we are."
00
Page 81 (92/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
82
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
"No." Carter said. thoughtful, "no one knows. Did
they rescue my weapons too?"
Degrange dropped back from the head or the fast-
moving column as it slipped silently through thc thick
undergrowth in the night. "Of course. American.
He held out Wilhelmina. Hugo, and Pierre with all
their accessories.
"Alas, the small tape recorder was destroyed in a
slight scuffle with the Z.airean major."
"Unfortunate." Carter said. watching the leonine
face of Degrange under the thick gray hair. "Where are
"You will find out. American.' i
A road appeared. and trucks loomed ahead in the
African night. Degrange urged them all into thc three
trucks, and they quickly drove off along the pale narrow
track of the bush toad. They seemed to go north around
the glow Of light in the dark sky that was Kinshasa itself.
From time to time soldiers stopped them. but the
strangers seemed to have the proper passes or
and were allowed to go on. ney turned west, Carter
saw by the stars. and finally south again. The Killmastet
caught glimpses of the broad shine o! the great river
itself.
Carter spoke quietly to Chantal. ' • Tell me about this
Julian Sorel. "
"Sorel? He is one of the legends of those days." the
dark•haired woman said beside him in the dark. bounc-
ing truck. "He was my father's coramandant. He
brought them all through, but after the war he could not
find a place for himself in France. He could not settle
again for the small job. So he came to thc Congo and
worked many years for thc Belgian government. then
opcned a resort hotel here west of the city. It has
00
Page 82 (93/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
83
become the most famous bar-hotel in Zaire. They say
there is nothing that happens in Africa that Monsieur
Sorel does not know.'"
One of the armed men grinned at them. "That is true,
Mademoiselle Chantal. The boss knows everything
worth knowing. It is a fine life here, soft and easy. eh?
You should all come and join us. It is time Le Basque
and the others retired, settled down to some comfort as
we have. And fighting, smuggling, spying is no work for
a woman. "
The old freedom fighters began to talk among
themselves. comparing their lives, the Zaire people urg•
ing Le Basque's men to settle permanently as they had.
"Old men should rest, lie in the sun. We are all too
old now."
"Speak for yourself," someone said, laughing.
The others all began arguing as they rolled on around
the city and then west along the banks of the broad river
in the night, the moon a path of light along the surface
of the water. Then the trucks suddenly stopped.
"We are here. Everyone out. "
The all jumped quietly from the trucks. Carter saw a
high whitewashed stucco wall disappearing into thick
jungle in both directions in the dark night. Beyond the
wall the shadowy roofs and giant trees towered all
around in the moonlight. A large sign hung over the
closed iron gates: Hötel du Croix de Lorraine, Julian
Sorel, Prop. Degrange had his and Le Basque's old
resistance fighters lined up. and the iron gate opened
from inside.
"So," the smashed-face old maquis said, "Welcome
to Hötel du Croix de Lorraine."
They all went through and the gates closed behind
theme Carter turned and noticed one of Degrange's
00
Page 83 (94/211)




sult for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
84
NICK CARTER
armed men drop off and take up position at the gate.
They moved on through lush grounds that oryened onto
a well-manicured lawn and an enormous three-stoo
white hotel across the vast expanse of grass dim in the
moonlight. Towers rose above the three stories. and all
the roof area was a red state that gave a rich contrast to
the white of the giant frame building.
Inside. the lobby was broad and airy. polished bare
floors with expensive Oriental area rugs and white rat•
tan furniture. wide stairs up on both sides. a
reception desk and an open arch into the restaurant that
was almost as large as the lobby itself. Ranged in the
center were white-and-blue-uniformed native hotel at.
tendants.
O'The staff will show you to your rooms," Degrange
said. "We will serve dinner in an hour. You should all
have time to shower and rest a little. Monsieur Sorel
regrets he cannot be here tonight. but I will do my best
to fill in for the commandant."
The large, rambling hotel appeared to be almost anp-
ty. There were few guests in the bar as Carter walked
past behind his uniformed attendant. It as if
each of them were being given a private room. Carter
showered. shaved, and found his suitcase waiting in thc
room after he came out of the shower. He changed into
a khaki safari suit, wiped the dust of the airport and ceo
from his boots, and went down to the dining room.
"Nick!" Le Basque called from a long table.
Carter threaded his way through the tables to Le
Basque, Chantal, Daniel, Karl-Heinz. and the other two
from Le Basqueis Parisian unit. ne room was packed
with gray-haired. white-haired. and bald rneo, many
wearing decorations on their worn fatigues and work
clothes. It mote like a World War II reunion than
00
Page 84 (95/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
85
just dinner. The only other time Carter had sccn
anything that resembled it was a reunion of a Waffen
SS division some years ago in Germany. Old enemies
tended to grow more like each other as the years passed.
But there were no speeches, and the dinner was too
good for a reunion. When it was over, most of the old
soldiers drifted away to their quarters somewhere out on
the grounds. Degrange invited Le Basque and his party
into the bar where they all sat on rattan couches around
a small table.
"So, Borotra. it is unfortunate that thc commandant
cannot be here. but he told me to help you as much as I
could. What brings you down hete to the comman-
Le Basque told Degrange about the missing American
aid material all over Africa, and the murder of the CIA
man in Ethiopia. "So Monsieur, ahs Meyer has been
sent to replace Lyons and finish the job."
Degrange looked at Carter. "You are CIA? Searching
for your lost aid and cash?"
"That.' i Carter said, "and looking for information
on a force of mercenaries who wear gray uniforms, go
well armed, and seem to have a special interest in me
and thc aid material. "
"Mercenaries?' i
Carter nodded. "Well trained. well equipped. and ap-
parently international. " He told Degrange about the at-
tack at the airfield outside Tangier.
"Well." Degrange said. looking from Carter to Le
Basque and back. • 'Now, tell me what you are really
doing here. Why do you want to contact Commandant
Sorel? You are not a simple CIA man. No. much more.
You think we do not have our contacts in the CIA. in the
governments? In France? In Zaire? One man. alone,
00
Page 85 (96/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
86
NICK CARTER
sent to find an unknown force of mercenaries?
Ridiculous, American. Unless that man is very special.
eh? A superspy. perhaps? Killmaster, Le Basque has
called you. Who are you?"
Le Basque protested. "A joke. Degrange. A name
played with in jest."
"Am I laughing. Borotra? You think I am a fool?
We have heard of the so-very-secret Killmaster of the
United States. You have heard too. eh? Either this
American has fooled you. or you are lying to me!
Perhaps you lie about everything? Mythical mer•
cenaries! We have lived here now foc (orty years. We
would know of such a force anywhere and we do not!"
They were suddenly aware of the other old maquis at
the doors into the bar. Chantal stood up.
"You do not know what you are becoming involved
in, Degrange.•• she said. "You are right. There is more
to this than the theft of some American aid or a simple
mercenary unit. We think these things are tied together.
and to some plan that could destroy us all—tied to a
code word: mamba."
Degrange blinked at her. "Who is us. Mademoiselle
"The free world. Monsieur Degrange,'t Gantal said.
Degrange scowled. "You speak for the free world.
then?"
"My employer and Monsieur Meyer's employer do-—
France and the United States of America.' •
• *so? Then you speak for France?
"AS much as military intelligence speaks for its coun-
try."
A murmur ran through the old maquis watching at
the doorways into the bar. Degrange looked at Le
Basque and at Carter, then back at Chantal.
00
Page 86 (97/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
87
"You are French military intelligence. Mademoiselle
Chantal?"
"You can check."
"Yes, I can. Marais! Bring the captain!"
Carter heard someone move out of the crowd and
across the wooden noor and up the wide stairs. Then
there was a silence in the bar ringed by the old maquis
and the vast hotel itself. The only sounds were the dis-
tant laughter of some tourists at the pool. British voices
in the smaller bar. a radio playing somewhere. and the
distant cries of monkeys in the jungle. Le Basque and
Carter sat watching Chantal. The Killmaster shifted
slightly in his chair so that Hugo and Wilhelmina were
ready. The figures at the door nearest the stairs moved,
parted, and a tall, slender man in impeccable civilian
clothes came in and nodded to Degrangee
• 'You wanted to see me, Degrange? It had better be
important. I was—
"It's important. Captain. Do you know that wo-
man?"
The tall man looked at Chantal. Then he looked at Le
Basque. the four others, and Carter. Then he nodded to
Degtange. • 'Yes, I know her. A very dangerous enemy,
the lady. I suggest we take them all to the cellar at
once, "
There was a stir among the watching maquis, a low
growling of anger. Degrange motioned. Some hotel
tendants appeared. They had rifles. Carter watched
them. They seemed to know how to use the rifles. and
they moved with a lot of assurance for bellboys and
waiters.
'*Take them down to the basement,' • Degrange
ordered.
The armed attendants marched them through the
00
Page 87 (98/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
88
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
muttering maquis and across the polished wood of the
lobby out into the African night. Outside they were
taken around the hotel and down stone steps into the
old stone basement under the building. Degrange and
the tall man led them along dim passages past store,
rooms of food and wines to a small room crowded with
clectronic equipment.
4 • Tell your men to wait outside: i the tall man ordered
Degrange.
Degrange hesitated.
"Do it. Jacques. or Sorel will have your ass.•• the tall
man said.
Dcgrange blinked, then spoke in some African ian-
guage to the armed men. They went out and closed the
door. The captain sat down and lit a cigarette.
"AIj right. Chantal, what the hell's going on?"
could ask you the same. Henri," Chantal said.
Degrange stared at them. "You said—VA
• S That she was a dangerous enemy." the tall man
said. "She is. to the enemies of France. She is military
intelligence. if that was what you wanted to know."
'*Captain Baudou works in a different sec'tion. but we
know each other." Chantal said. "What are you doing
down here. Henri?"
"He is doing the same as you." Degrange growled.
"That was why I got suspicious. We've been helping
him track down that mercenary outfit no one can locate.
NO onc else was supposed to know about them. w •
"You?" Henri Baudou said. looking at Le Basque
and Carter. "The Americans too?"
Chantal told the military intelligence captain all that
had happened so far. and why they had come to Zaire.
"You think it's this gang of mercenaries stealing and
00
Page 88 (99/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
89
selling the US. aid? Dammit, that must be where
they're getting the cash to buy their weapons. Those
they don't steal.' t
"How did you get assigned to find them?" Chantal
asked.
Baudou sat and smoked. "For years now my section
has been trying to locate them. All we have had is
rumors. some bloody raids with no survivors, and no
loud claims of responsibility made by any known
groups. Swift attacks and vanishings. Gold stolen.
Weapons. food. aid material. •The only information
we've found is a possible code name: Black Mamba. "
"You have found nothing concrete, nothing to locate
these mercenaries so far, Hcnri?i' Chantal wanted to
know.
'SNothing. A possible lead to Zaire, so we contacted
Sorel. No one knows more about Zaire and most of
Central Africa than he does. We have worked with him
many times since the war. But this time he knows
nothing beyond the vague rumors. He is out now
following some leads for me. I expect him back tomor-
row or the day aftcr„ Then we can plan our next move."
Chantal nodded. "Very well. I suggest we all get some
steep. 'f
"And I suggest you keep out of sight," Baudou said,
•g We can't be sure of all the employees in this hotel,
maybe not even Of all Degrange•s oid comrades. They
know about me, but I think it best we keep them think-
ing you are some kin&of prisoner."
Chantal nodded, and they all went back up into the
night one at a time. Carter walked in the darkness with
Chantal.
"So you're military intelligence. You didn't tell me."
00
Page 89 (100/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
90
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
"Even the great Nick Carter can't really know every-
thing," she grinned.
Your father?"
Chantal shrugged. "I.e Basque cannot know
everything either.
"But now he knows." Carter said.
'*Yes." the dark-haired woman said. "now he
knows." And she vanished into the hotel by a rear door.
Carter waited out in the night for a time and had a
cigarette. Then he strolled around to the front, smiled at
the old maquis drinking and refighting World War II in
the bar, and went up to his room. He was bone tired.
and undressed quickly and slid into bed.
And froze.
Something was in his room.
Movement across the floor, soft and light. like an
animal crawling toward his bed, a snake slithering softly
yet heavily across the room.
00
Page 90 (101/211)








ELEVEN
Carter lay rigid.
Listened.
It moved slowly, soundlessly.
Almost without sound. But not quite.
A soft sibilance across the polished wood floor of the
large room. dragging.
The faint brush of slow movement over the delicate
Dhurrie rug between the mosquito•net-canopied bed
and the open window with its curtains blowing lightly in
the hot night.
An all but unheard click, click, click. as of small
claws scraping against the wood of the smooth floor.
Closet.
Sweat poured off Carter's face in the hot night, down
his chest brushed by the light jungle wind.
His right hand moved toward the edge of the pillow
beneath his sweat-soaked head.
The hand moved as if unattached to his body. on its
own. Imperceptible. His body lying motionless, breathi
ing lightly. unaware of anything but sleep.
91
00
Page 91 (102/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
92
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
His hand came to the edge of the pillow where Wile
helmina and Hugo waited.
The soundless sense of movement in the silver light of
the large room was almost at the bed. Almost beneath
his limp and sleeping left hand. Directly below the bed
where his immobile body sweated.
There was a small metallic scrape, like claws on the
metal of the bed,
His hand closed over Hugo. held the stiletto.
The bed shook then sagged as a weight touched it.
Carter tensed every muscle . . . and whipped Hugo
across his body at the pale thing down on the floor'
Wilhelmina was in his hand. thc Luger aimed at the
pale, naked. sprawled figure and wide eyes of Chantal.
Dark, startled, violent eyes that stared at him in the
dim bedroom lit only by the distant moon beyond the
open windows.
Chantal. Naked.
The stiletto stood buried three inches in the polished
wood floor three feet to her right.
Where she had been until, in a split second, she had
roiled away to lie sprawled on her back. breasts quiver•
inge
Carter was on his knees now on the bed, naked,
Wilhelmina in both hands aimed at her eyes.
She looked at the Luger.
'"A bad idea?"
Carter wiped the sweat from his face, and lowered the
Luger.
"Very bad. "
She smiled and shrugged. • 'A small surprise."
Carter breathed slowly. "I'm surprised.
He replaced the gun beneath his pillow. then stared at
her in the silvery glow of moonlight from the win-
00
Page 92 (103/211)
00





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
93
dows where the curtains blew softly. Chantal still lay
sprawled on het back, her dark hair like a great halo
around her intense face, her legs wide open to the wedge
of black in the moon shadows. her breasts flowing full
on her rib cage and the small bandage over the wound
from Tangier
Carter left Hugo embedded in the floor and went
down to the naked woman.
She opened wider for him. spread like a great hunger
on the polished wood of the floor in the moonlight.
In her.
Deeper into her than Hugo into the floor, Deeper
than a knife and hotter than the African night. Savage
in her. Savage cries as She shuddered again and again,
cries as tow and wild as the hunting growl of a leopard
out in the towering jungle. Sweat slick on the polished
floor, sliding and straining until the wall stopped them
and she thrust back as hard as his straining into her.
Again and again and again and
The jungle breeze blew cool on their sweat where they
lay in silence on the polished floor against the wall
under the open windows. They lay and listened to the
night sounds: the cries of the night birds. the cough of
the hunting leopard, the chattering of monkeys. the
scream of some small animal in the jaws of a predator.
Carter picked her up, her breasts heavy against his
chest. her face buried in his shoulder. the dark hair
flowing down over her body. and carried het to the bed.
She wrapped her legs around his hips. and they fell on
the bed locked like a single animal in the luminous
night. On tope she moaned and writhed against him.
thrusting her locked hips, crying out as the spasms
surged through her. Her hair swirled around her head
until at last he exploded through her and the whole night
00
Page 93 (104/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
94
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
seemed to shudder and tremble and there was no sound
anywhere but the pounding of the blood in his ears.
Carter opened his eyes. This time the sound was not
in the room. It was outside. Somewhere below the open
windows.
"What is it. Nick?"
Chantal lay with her eyes open beside him, alert and
listening,
"Someone is under the window." Carter said. Wil•
helmina was in his hand.
They listened. The sound came again. A rustling and
a click of metal against wood, and then the rustling
slowly faded away. They got out of bed and stepped
lightly across the room. dark now with the moon gone,
to the open windows.
"Did you notice that Degrange left a guard on the
front gate after we came in?" Carter asked.
"l noticed. There is a lot of unrest in Zaire—envy of
rich foreigners."
Carter ducked, "Down!"
They crouched beneath the windows, then slowly
raised up.
"There/' Carter whispered.
Below the windows two armed hotel attendants came
into view, stopped to speak to each other, and moved
off out of sight.
"And there," Carter said.
Guards sat on platforms behind the far-off wall that
surrounded the grounds, stood under all the windows.
were spread out among the trees and thick growth Of the
junglelike grounds beyond the lawn.
"They have a pretty tight net all around the hotel."
Chantal said.
00
Page 94 (105/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
95
Yeah," Carter said. •eThe bellboys and room service
attendants seem to know a lot about handling weap-
ons.••
• •What does it meant Nick?"
"I'm not sure, but that little trick of getting us are
rested and then coming to bust us out means that as far
as anyone knows, we went to a Zairean military jail and
are still there. We went in and vanished. no one knows
where.
"For their protection. "
"Against whom?" Carter said.
"A normal precaution.
"Maybe/' Carter said, "But the way it works out.
not only does no one know they're with us, no one
knows we're with them
"The guards could. because Sorel is working with our
intelligence. That room Henri Baudou took us to is a
communications center for military intelligence. The
Zaire government wouldn't like it if they found it.
Perhaps the guards are ours."
"French military intelligence?"
• 'It would not surprise me."
• 'Wouldn't Baudou have told you?"
"Not necessarily. Nick. We have our own opera-
dons. "
"Let's find out," Carter said, looking at her where
she stood slim and naked. "You can wear my clothes."
She smiled. • 'That would be romantic, Killmaster.
but mine are on your balcony."
Silently, the dark:haired agent slipped out to the
balcony, returned, and dressed in a tight-fitting black
jump suit, slid a small Ingram submachine gun not
much larger than a pistol from a secret pocket on the
leg, checked it, returned it, and nodded to Carter. All in
00
Page 95 (106/211)







****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
96
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
black himself. the Killmastet observed the movements
Of the guards below.
"We need to draw away the three below the windows
on this side." he said.
"I 'II go down and start a disturbance in the front."
• 'Too risky." Carter decided. "You could be spotted
or caught and we wouldn't find out what we need: who
and what and why."
"Then what can we do? "
"GO down from the balcony when the guards arenit
looking. There's plenty of cover closc to the hotel."
"And how do we make sure the guards aren't look-
ing? "
"That's my job. You get ready to move fast to the
balcony and down. "
Carter crossed the room to his suitcase, opened it.
and pressed a strip of metal. From a secret compartment
inside the steel frame he took a long. slender rod. Chan•
tal watched him closely as he went to the windows.
made sure the sentries below were looking the other
way. then aimed the slender rod toward the nearest trees
and jungle growth.
" Ready? • i
At the other side of the windows out onto the
balcony, she nodded. watching him.
niere was a faint pop, and Carter held less than half
of the slender metal rod. Moments later there was a
bright point of light and the sound of something thrash-
ing in the thick jungle growth beyond the hotel.
Below. thc three sentries ran toward the noise. waving
to each other to spread out as they approached the thick
undergrowth. Carter and Chantal jumped out onto the
second-floor balcony, lowered themselves over the edge.
and dropped to the ground behind the high bushes that
00
Page 96 (107/211)





****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
grew close against the old hotel.
97
The sentries returned and stood together under
Carter's window where the two agents crouched hidden
behind the heavy bushes in the now moonless night.
"What was it?" one of them said. A short, stocky
man in his forties with a missing finger on his left hand,
he wore the uniform of a hotel bellboy.
"Nick!" Chantal breathed.
Carter nodded. The man had spoken in German.
"How the hell should I know?" the second said.
"But it was sure something. We'd better report it."
He was a skinny younger man. not much more than
thirty, also dressed in thc blue and white uniform of the
hotel. He spoke in English.
"He'II have our asses if we leave our posts, " the third
said. Much older, thick through the middle. he was
dressed as a gardener and had also spoken in English
but with a strong accent.
In the bushes Carter whispered, "Hungarian?"
think so, " Chantal agreed.
The three guards stood indecisive, looking around
them in the night, then started back toward where the
noise and light had come from but where they had
found nothing.
'*AJI right. One of us goes. the other two covet his
post." the German said.
"I'll go," the skinny younger one said. "J ain't
scared,"
"We are not scared either, Canadian," the Older man
said. • We are just more experienced than you. One does
not leave one's post unguarded. t'
i 'So guard it, Old man," the skinny Canadian said,
and disappeared into the night.
The other two took up positions where they covered
00
Page 97 (108/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
98
Renews automatically with continued use.
NICK CARTER
all three areas beneath the hotel windows, leaving a
seam between them and the sentries around the cornets
of the vast white hotel with its red tile roof. Carter and
Chantal slipped silently along the wall of the hotel
behind the shrubbery.
W' Recognize any of them?" Carter asked.
"No. They're not military intelligence."
When the German and the sentry around the corner
guarding the side of the hotel were both looking away.
Carter and Chantal broke across the narrow open space
between the hotel and the first line of trees that
bordered the side lawn. From there they worked their
way around the entire hotel, observing the sentries
under all the windows and at the front and side doors.
They were all dressed as bellboys. room service atten-
dants. gardeners. maintenance men, waiters and kitchen
workers. Ail ages and sizes.
"Remember those blacks at the attack outside
Tangier? The Americans and Cubans?" Chantal said.
Carter nodded.
They continued to work their way around. observing
the sentries on the wall and at the front gate. ney were
the same: men of all ages, races, nationalities. All were
dressed as members of the hotel staff.
"What does it mean, Nick?" Chantal wondered. "Is
it just because Sorel is working with military in.
telligence?
"Maybe. Or maybe he doesn't even know what goes
on when he's not hete."
"Degrange?"
"Possible. What about that Captain Baudou?"
"Henri has an impeccable record."
• 'People can change.
00
Page 98 (109/211)






****** Result for Image/Page 1 ******
Return now
Renews automatically with continued use.
MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
99
"l know. but what possible reason could Henri have
for recruiting a private army? "
"The same as anyone—greed, money, power, a
change of political heart. How well do you really know
him, Chantal?"
"As well as any of us know each other in intelligence
work, Nick. You know we don't—
"Quiet!"
Carter gripped her arm hard. He listened in the dark
night. Somewhere in the hotel basement a faint bell or
low buzzer rang. sounding like an electronic alarm. Feet
were running straight toward where they lay hidden
among the bushes and trees between the wall and the
lawn. Henri Baudou's voice called through the night.
"Spread out! Surround the area.
Where thc two agents lay hidden in the thick jungle
growth. Chantal's eyes searched the darkness.
"They're all around us!"
Carter swore. "We must have tripped some kind of
alarm."
"What can we do?" Chantal said calmly, listening to
the running feet coming closer.
"Nothing,' • Carter said grimly. "They've got us sur-
rounded."
"Yes." Chantal said. and suddenly stood up.
She stood up in the night and called out into the
darkness. "Here, Henri! Over here is what you want. "
00
Page 99 (110/211)








TWELVE
"Don't move," she whispered to Carter.
Carter lay motionless as he watched her stand over
him smiling off into the night toward where Henri
Baudou and the armed sentries approached warily.
She smiled toward Baudou. whispering down to
Carter: • 'We can't shoot our way out. As far as I know
they're on our side. I'll have to talk our way out."
And she walked out of the thick jungle growth
shouting, ' 'It is only me. Henri! You caught me.
On thc dark lawn Henri Baudou stopped, the M-16 in
his hand stilt aimed toward the brush and Chantal. The
military intelligence captain eyed her suspiciously. His
quick eyes searched on both sides and behind her for
some trick. for someone else. for danger. The heavny
armed guards in their various hotel costumes circled
toward her on both sides. Baudou advanced slowly.
"What do you think you're up to, Chantal?"
e job. Henri." the dark-haired woman said.
"Job? What job is that?' t
"The job of knowing what is going on."
100
00
Page 100 (111/211)