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."
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"Here?" Baudou said. "l told you what was going on
here. "
Chantal walked out Of the dense growth toward
Baudou. her gaze steady on his face. Intense. Sincere. In
the dense underbrush among the trees Carter barely
breathed. He held Wilhelmina. waited, and watched.
The ranks of the sentries came between Chantal and
where Catter lay. They turned and followed her toward
Baudou, their backs to him. Carter let out a slow
breath.
"Did you. Henri?" her voice said, out in the open on
the lawn now. Carter could barely glimpse her through
the armed men who had encircled her and closed in.
"When we came in with Degrange and the old resistance
fighters who rescued us. Degrange put a guard at the
gate. Later. when you had us taken down to your com•
munications room, I noticed how at ease the hotel
employees seemed to be with guns." She moved closer
to Baudou the entire time she was talking, moving away
from the thick growth under the trees. pulling the armed
men along behind her. "When I went to bed I couldn't
sleep right away. so I got up to sit on the balcony and
have a cigarette. That was when noticed the guard
under my windows."
Henri Baudou watched her. "Did you?"
"I did, and I wondered about that," Chantal said.
continuing to walk past Baudou who fell into step
beside her. i 'Then I saw the sentries under all the win-
dowse Sentries all over the hotel grounds. And that was
when I decided to find out who they were and why they
were there."
"You could have simply come and asked me."
Baudou said.
"Could 1?"
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NICK CARTER
Baudou shrugged in the dark, moonless, early morn-
ing hours. "Perhaps not. So. what have you learned?"
"That they come from many countries, the armed
men here. They are of many ages, even many races.
They are not our people. Henris and they are not
amateurs. That is what I thought I saw when Degrange
brought us here. and that was why I had to check up.
and that is what I've been doing."
"You think lirn afraid of the dark? I need a man with
me perhaps?"
"No. I doubt that you need anyone with you/'
Baudou said. "That kind of thing can be dangerous,
though. You could have trusted me—decided I knew
what J was doing."
Chantal shook her head. "No. you would have done
the same thing, Henri. It is our job to know; it was my
job to find out. If hadn't. you would probably have
reported me."
Baudou laughed. "Yes. I would have. You always
were a good agent. Chantal."
"So were you, Henri. What is going on here? Is it
Degrange? I have been suspicious of him from the
beginning. He acts as if he is in command here. owns the
hotel. Where is Sorel? Is he fooling Sorel? Some scheme
of his own? Perhaps he knows more about the
American aid and the mercenaries than he has told
anyone. Maybe he is fooling Sorel and you too. Henri."
"Let's go to my room. I'll explain it all to you."
Baudou turned and barked orders to the sentries.
They dispersed into the blackness of the heavy
African night. moving with the skill and speed of
trained men. Baudou led Chantal back across the lawn
to the hotel.
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103
From where he lay in the thick undergrowth, Carter
watched the sentries scatter and return to their posts at
thc walls. under the windows. and at the doors of the
vast. silent hotel. He watched Chantal go toward the
hotel with Captain Baudou.
The night became motionless. He heard only the
sounds of the jungle slowly returning beyond the walls:
the chattering of the monkeys, the cries of nocturnal
birds, the soft rustling of the stealthy predators.
Carter got up and moved through the dense growth as
quietly as any jungle cat.
He circled in thc shadows under the trees between the
lawn and the wall until he reached a spot at the rear of
the hotel where the open space was small. On his belly
he crawled across the narrow rear lawn in the moonless
dark. The single sentry at the rear door heard nothing:
he stood smoking. a red point Of waxing and waning
light.
Carter found an open window at the side of the sleep-
ing hotel, climbed in. and slipped through thc room
soundlessly as two figures in the mosquito-net-enclosed
bed snored and tossed in their sleep.
Out in the dim corridor, he trotted lightly past the
closed doors until he reached the echoing lobby.
The registration desk was deserted.
Carter crossed the empty lobby without a sound and
round the registration cards. Henri Baudou was in
Room 29. That would be the second floor front.
Back out in the cover Of the dark night, he swiftly
climbed up the vines and drainpipes and balconies to the
red•tiled roof. He ran along the roof like a shadow until
he located his own room, then he retraced his Steps to
Baudou's windows. There was light through the French
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104
NICK CARTER
captain's window out onto his balcony.
Carter dropped lightly from the roof to the third-
floor balcony and to Baudou's balcony. He crouched in
the shadows outside the French captain's windows.
you would have found out the rest if you hadn't
tripped that alarm. "
Henri Baudouis voice could be heard clearly from the
balcony in the quiet and windless early-morning hour.
Inside the room the Frenchman was seated on a rattan
couch. a glass of cognac in his hand, his shirt unbut-
toned. Chantal sat in a straight chair, her slim body
outlined in the black jump Suit, the deadly Ingram in-
visible in its hidden pocket on her leg.
"Tell me the rest." she said,
Baudou leaned forward. intense, the cognac glass
held between his legs. "You were right about thc serv.
tries. the hotel staff. They are all professional, all
soldiers. From every country on earth. just about."
Chantal watched him. "Why. Henri?"
"It was Sorel's idea,' • Baudou said. his voice admir-
ing, almost in awe. "There has always been a lot of
unrest down here, ever since independence and the
death of Lumumba and the troubles in Katanga over the
years, and the hotel was often on the edge of real
trouble. So Sorel wanted guards. and he got the idea of
rounding up bored former soldiers—from anywhere—
and hiring them to work here at the hotel and act as
guards too! He got his guards and they got the Jobs they
needed. With the unsettled state of Zaire. and the an•
tagonism to Europeans, they've come handy many
times to save the hotel and the guests."
"That's ail?" Chantal said.
Baudou shook his head. "No. it was just lhe begin-
ning. Once Sorel had all the old guerrillas down here. he
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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started to use them and the hotel to rescue and shelter
hundreds Of Europeans and natives from the constant
African civil wars, insurrections, revolutions and
counterrevolutions."
"That sounds more like the man my father served
under. He saved so many people from the Nazis during
the war.' •
Baudou nodded. "Quite a man. Sorel. Hc knows you
must have organization and strength to help people. just
as they had in the French underground. Unorganized,
weak. you can do nothing. Strength is needed to ac-
complish anything worthwhile, and that's what I'm
doing here."
Carter watched the Frenchman take a long gulp of his
cognac. He saw Chantal move in her chair, never taking
her dark eyes from Baudou•s face.
"What are you doing here,
"When we traced the last rumor about the force of
mercenaries to Zaire, and heard about shipments of
some sophisticated weapons from the USSR going
through Tangiet to Zaire. I was sent down to enlist
SorclS5 help once more. He knows everything there is to
know about Africa. Chantal We needed his help."
"What have you
Baudou shook his head. "Nothing. Sorel has been
everywhere. sent his people—but so far. nothing. I'm
beginning to think Degrange is right: the mercenaries
are mythical—invented to cover the actions of the gov.
ernments that steal the aid material and dollars from
their own starving people to fatten their 'retirement' ac-
counts in Swiss banks."
"Then what about the shipments from Russia?"
Chantal said.
• 'They could contain anything. Gold. for example.
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NICK CARTER
The Soviets have plenty of gold to pay for what they
want."
Chantal shook her head, "They could sell that
American material on any black market for more than
they would get sclling it to one buyer, Henri. "
"True. but they wouldn't get gold. and it would be a
lot of trouble and much more risky. Besides. I suspect a
lot of America aid cash is missing too. and that would
be in dollars. To spend it. whoever has it would have to
launder it. and what better way than getting gold for it
from the Soviets? A single package deat. They take a
loss on the material to get the laundering of the cash.
Everyone wins. "
*'Then who are the people who attacked Nick twice?"
"Are you sure anyone did?"
was there the second time in Tangier,"
"It could have been arranged,"
"He killed fifteen of them with our gunship. Henri."
'41 have heard of worse being done to convince
someone of a ruse," Baudou said. "Just who is this
Nicholas Meyer? Degrange thinks he's more than CIA
—something else
Chantal stood up. "Degrange may be something else
himself. I don't trust that man, Henrie I don't think my
father does either. Are you sure of him?"
'*He's been with Sorel since the war.' •
She nodded. "It must be my imagination then. We'd
better get some sleep. With luck. Sorel wilt return and
we can decide what to do next."
"Chantal?" Baudou said.
Carter watched her stop at the door of the room.
'*You could sleep here."
She smiled. "Why, thank you, Henri. but it•s been a
long night. Pethaps some other time."
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107
On the balcony Carter grinned, waited until Henri
Baudou walked to the door to sec Chantal out. then
quickly climbed back up to thc roof like some dark cat.
On the red tile he watched the sentries change as a
thin gold line Of dawn spread across the great nat
African land over the sand hills to the north. He moved
along the roof to his own room. Below, the two sentries,
one coming on and the other going off, stood in conver
sation. One of them faced the hotel in the slowly
lightening dawn, and every now and then he looked up
as if at the balcony of Carter's room.
The Kiltmaster swore to himself. Every minute in•
creased the danger of discovery as the dawn light grew.
Moving quickly, Carter slipped across the roof to the
dark side of the building and dropped down to the bal.
cony of a silent room. He saw no guards, swung over,
and dropped to the next balcony and ground.
In the shadows of the shrubs against the hotel. he hur-
ried along looking for an open window and an empty
room.
And stopped.
Through a closed window of what looked like an of-
fice on the ground floor, a man sat at a desk working on
the keyboard of a computer, studying the lines that ape
peared on the lighted screen.
A smallish man, slim and narrow and very erect in his
chair. Imperious. A cold. hard face like some mountain
eagle, lined and craggy. with white hair and a thick salt-
and-pepper mustache. A gaunt face. commanding.
The face Carter had last seen standing on a high rock
in Ethiopia looking down on where Carter lay hidden
from the hillside of gunfire aimed at him by the
unk nown soldiers in gray!
The Kiilmaster found an open window and an empty
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NICK CARTER
room, climbed in, and ran softly through to the tear
corridor of the hotel behind the registration desk. He
drew his Luger and moved, swift and silent. along the
corridor to the door of the room where the man with the
gaunt eagle's face worked on the computer. It was
marked Accounting.
Carter tried the knob.
There was a soft click. The door was unlocked.
Carter flung the door open and jumped in, both
hands on Wilhelmina out in front of him.
The room was empty. the computer dark.
He put his hand on the computer. It was still warm.
But the room was empty.
He stood there for some time. thinking, and then
closed the door behind him and slipped along to the rear
stairs and up to his room.
The dawn was full now as he undressed and lay down
in bed once more. And thought about the white-haired,
ramrod-straight, commanding man he had now seen
twice.
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THIRTEEN
Nick Carter slept for three hours, Wilhelmina in his
hand under the thin sheet in the growing heat of the
African morning. Awake, he concentrated his power in
meditation. unaware of time or space for fifteen min•
Utes.
Released, refreshed, he listened to the sounds of the
hotel. the rhythm and pulse around him. All was quiet
and normal, the lazy voices and movements of a resort
hotel at breakfast on the lawn, in the arbors, the light
footsteps in the corridors going nowhere in particular.
He got up and looked out. The sentries were gone
from under the windows, but he saw them still on the
walls and at the gates in the distance across the lawn and
through the trees and thick jungle growth.
In the shower he thought about Henri Baudou's
-story. It could be true; Baudou had sounded sincere. Or
Baudou could be a hell of a good actor and part of what
was going on. Baudou or Degrange or both, and who
was the whitehaired man last night?
Maybe Hawk could come up with some identifica-
tion. something on Dcgrange or Baudou. but there was
no telephone in the room, and to teach Hawk now he
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110
NICK CARTER
needed a telephone or radio transmitter.
In fresh clothes. his weapons in their places, Carter
left the room. The hotel corridors were bright and
peaceful, the few tourists smiling at him eagerly and a
little nervously as they passed. the way tourists always
do in strange countries. Down the broad stairs to the
lobby he saw Le Basque and the other old maquis in the
dining room arguing heatedly about something.
There were no house telephones or booths.
At the registration desk the uniformed desk clerk
smiled. ' 'Yes, sir?"
"Where can I make a telephone call?"
i 'In the office there, sir. Just dial three for an outside
line."
Carter thanked the smiling mane He recognized him
as one of the guards who had answered the alarm last
night. In the office he left the door open. It was always
better to lower his voice and leave the door open so no
one could come close enough to eavesdrop. He used
his small anti-bug detection device. The phone wasn't
bugged.
He dialed three. waited for the change in tone, then
punched in the secret numbers for the worldwide AXE
computer.
The phone tang and the dial tone returned.
Carter muttered over the technical incompetence of
most Third World countries, punched three again. and
dialed in his secret code numbers.
Ring . dial tone.
The Kiltmaster stared at the black instrument. Then
he looked out the open door to where the desk clerk
seemed to be watching him. The clerk busied himself
quickly with some paper shuffling.
Carter dialed once more.
Ring
dial tone.
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
He hung up and walked out to the desk.
111
"Okay, what do I have to do to make a phone call?"
The clerk looked up. surprised. "As I said. sir. just
dial three—
get one ring, then the dial tone. What's going on?"
"One . . . ? Oh. were you trying to dial out of the
country, sir? "
"That's not-—
"Because if you were. sir. that is blocked. No calls
can be made out of the country from here. You have to
go to the central exchange in Kinshasa,"
i 'Whose idea is that?"
wouldn't know, sir. I just work here."
Frustrated, Carter went into the dining room. Le
Basque waved him over. Chantal was wearing a trim
safari outfit. including bush hat and a large leather
handbag big enough to hold an Ingram.
Baudou?" Carter said as shc sat down.
"Gone into Kinshasa," Le Basque said. "I hear you
two had an adventure last night."
"Yes," Carter said, looking at Chantal. "You believe
Baudou?"
Thc waiter was there before she could answer. Carter
ordered a mushroom omelette, fruit, toast, and coffee,
The waiter hovered. writing endlessly.
• *Now?" Carter said.
The waiter glared and left.
• was one of the sentries last night." Chantal said.
"I have no reason to not believe Henrie€'
"Degrange? Where is he? • • Carter asked.
"Kinshasa." Le Basque said.
"With Baudou?"
"No. Degrange went in last night soon after dinner."
i' To do what?"
"He didn't confide in me," Le Basque said.
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NICK CARTER
The waiter returned with Carter's breakfast and
removed Lc Basque's and Chantal's dishes. Carter
watched the waiter. The waiter left.
'€1 saw a man in the Accounting office back behind
the registration desk last night," Carter said. "A small
man. thin. Looked hard as a rock despite his white hair.
Face like an eagle. lined and craggy. gaunt. A thick gray
mustache, almost white. Cool and hard. I •d say. Com.
manding. Either of you know him?"
Chantal shook her head. "l don't recognize him.
Nick. He sounds like someone I'd like to know. but I
don't.' i
'*You haven't seen him around the hotel? Perhaps in
Paris?"
• 'Some connection to Lyons before he died? "
• *No. I just don't know anyone like that.
Le Basque had said nothing. Carter looked at him.
The old fighter and smuggler was pale under his muse
tachev
"Le Basque?" Carter said.
"You saw this man last night? In the hotel?"
' 'Working on a computer. He must have seen me,
because when I tried to teach him in the office he was
gone. The computer was still warm."
• 'Describe him again. Everything."
Carter did.
"Last night Le Basque said.
Chantal said, "What's wrong, Papa? What is it?"
"I'm not sure." Le Basque said. "Nick. did this man
have a scar on the left ear? Another. perhaps, over the
right eye?"
didn't see any scars, but 1 wasn't that close either
time."
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"Either time?" Le Basque repeated.
113
Carter told them about the commander on the rock in
Ethiopia. "Whates bothering you. mon ami?"
Le Basque's voice was low. uneasy. "That description
fits Julian Sorel himself. If he has those scars—
The old maquis didn't go on.
• "Sorel?" Carter said. "Why would he be hiding from
us? What was he doing with soldiers in Ethiopia?"
"We don't know he's doing either, not tot certain,"
Le Basque said.
"Whoever Nick saw is hiding," Chantal said. "NO
one else has seen him."
"Tell me about Sorel," Carter said.
Le Basque looked out the windows at the broad front
lawn and the African jungle beyond the wall and a lot
farther than that, perhaps all the way to France forty or
more years ago. "He would not be hiding. no. He never
hid. He evaded. fooled the enemy. but they always knew
he was there?'
Le Basque watched one of the bellboys crossing the
lawn in the hot sun. "The first time I met him I was an
angry boy running from the Gestapo and our own Vichy
polices They had shot my father, and I had killed two SS
men in return and run into the night with the dogs after
me. Sorel saved me. Without him I would have been
caught within hours. He saved me and taught me the
need of organization. of cooperation, of working in a
sclflcss group. He taught me that a man alone is always
the victim. that to defeat Nazis or anyone you must
organize. join together. He took me in. protected me.
taught me how to fight the power of a faceless enemy.
defeat mindless efficiency such as the Nazis. How to
find their weak points and use those weaknesses to de•
Stroy them."
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NICK CARTER
The waiter had moved closet, busy and hovering. Le
Basque turned to smile at him. "Perhaps some more
coffeet eh. young man?"
The waiter scowled but left. Le Basque returned his
gaze to the lawn through thc windows. to those long-ago
days. "He was a great leader. guerrilla tactician' even
strategist. Another time. another place, he would have
been a general. We killed many SS men. even Gestapo.
We destroyed. we disrupted. we undermined them.
Twice we even attacked the mighty •Das Reich' Waffen
SS division. Many of us died, many were captured. tor-
tured. Sorel himself was captured four. five times. Once
even by Klaus Barbie, our beautiful Butcher of Lyons.
eh? But always he escaped. defied them.
The waiter brought the coffee. Le Basque nodded and
waved him away. "Sorel always escaped and he helped
so many others to escape. Others he helped out of the
country. out of danger. but he himself stayed. So many
Other resistance units were discovered, attacked. de•
stroyed, scattered. all running with the SS hanging black
over them. Sorel got them out to Switzerland, to the sea
and the English/ to Spain and the secret antifascist
underground. So many comrades he saved. and led us
so well in our fights that we were never discovered.
never defeated. "
There was pride in the old manis voice. a shine to his
eyes as he remembered those days and his commandant.
"What happened at the end?" Carter asked,
' •Ah, that was his most dazzling triumph. We wete
fighting near Lyons. •mbushing the Nazis as they fled.
and Sorel was captured once more and by Klaus Barbie
again. We were sure it was the end for the comman-
dant—he would be murdered. or at best taken to Ger.
many and killed there—bug once more he escaped." The
old man's eyes gleamed as he gulped his coffee. "He
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
rejoined us. and there were many fighters lost those
last days, but the commandant kept us safe and then
marched right out in the open to meet the Americans.
He said we had to meet the Americans as fighters, as
victors. not as beaten victims who had to bc saved. We
had saved ourselves, and he marched us through his
own home village 10 the Americans. The Germans did
not touch us!"
The moment of triumph was all over the old man's
face. Chantal smiled as if she wished she had been there.
Carter watched Le Basque.
"Then?" the Killmaster prompted. "When the war
was over?"
Le Basque sighed and shook his heady 5till partly lost
in the dream of his memory. Whether it had really been
like that or not, Carter could only guess.
"It was hard on the men. my mother told me." Chan•
tal added. • •Many could not adjust. They had been boys
in 1940. and six years later they were men who had
missed their opportunities. They had no skills. no train•
ing, no careers except to destroy and kill. "
Le Basque nodded. "Sorel had lost his family, his
friends in the resistance, everything. He could not stand
the France that came with victory. he told me. The petty
bickering. the politicians who crawled out of hiding, the
fat men who had grown rich while he fought. So he
came here to the Congo—where they spoke French but
were not French—and worked and soon opened this
hotel. and he has been here ever since."
*'Still saving people, if Baudou is right," Chantal
said. "Still rescuing people. And working all along for
our military intelligence whenever we needed some
secret help in Africa."
"Working with you too, Le Basque?" Carter asked.
"No. We have not worked with the commandant
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116
NICK CARTER
since the war. We have met in Paris, but he went his
own way down here with his own people."
"Degrange? Was he in your unit in the war?"
Le Basque nodded. S' The commandant's most trusted
lieutenant."
"Why not all of you, then?"
Le Basque shrugged. "We went in different direc-
tions. Killmaster. "
"Why would Sorel hide from you now? From us?"
"There will be a good answer. If he is hiding. Uit is
the commandant you saw. I know there will be a simple
answer."
Carter watched the oid maquis. "l hope so."
"Nick ! " Chantal whispered.
Carter turned to see where She was looking. Henri
Baudou had come in the front door. The French
military intelligence captain stood and looked around
urgently. When he saw Lc Basque and Chantal, he hur-
ried across the dining room.
i 'Degrange just received a message from comman•
dant Sorel in Lubumbashi. The commandant thinks he
has located some of the Soviet boxes from Tangier
down in Katanga. We will all go!"
Where is Degrange? Carter asked.
"He just got back from Kinshasa. He's been trying to
get Le Basque's gunship out of Zairean hands sinec last
night. but they won't let it go, We'll have to take a
charter flight down to Lubumbashi."
"Who is all of us, Baudou?" Le Basque wanted to
know.
"Your b*ople. myself. and Degrange and a fev of his
old maquis. That's all."
"Let's go," Le Basque said.
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FOURTEEN
The private landing field was a mile north of the
hotel; Carter had no chance to reach a telephone or
radio. A chartered plane. a small executive jet, was there
waiting for them. Degrange sat with Henri Baudou at
the front, his old Zaire-based maquis scattered among
the seats of the small aircraft. Le Basque and his six
companions sat together in seats in thc center of the jet.
Carter observed the arrangement.
"What's bothering you?" Chantal whispered beside
him.
"I'm not sure. Have you noticed how Degrange•s
men are scattered around the plane?"
Chantal looked around. "There aren't that many
seats, Nick. We got these seven together—they had to
take what were left. 'i
' 'Maybe," Carter said. "So you think we were just
lucky to get these seven together?"
"l think I'd be more suspicious if they'd separated
us."
"That could be." Carter admitted. He glanced
around. Dcgrange and Baudou seemed deep in discus-
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NICK CARTER
sion. Do you have a radio transmitter?"
•e The Zaireans took it," Chantal said.
'"Degrangc didn't rescue it?"
• •How about your father and his men?"
• 'Only on the C-47."
Carter considered the closed door of the pilot's cabin.
in front of which Degrange and Captain Baudou were
talking. Iliere would be a radio in the cockpit. but on
the small jet it would be impossible to talk to Hawk
without anyone else hearing him. He decided against it.
With any luck he could contact Hawk after meeting
with Sorel.
• •you are wondering if Sorel is being honest with us.
Killmaster? "
Le Basque leaned over and spoke close and low imo
Carter's ear.
"I don't know what Sorel is doing." Carter said.
"but I intend to find out."
think." Le Basque said, "that when ve land in
Lubumbashi. I shall insist that we meet the comman-
dant first in some public place, eh? Before we talk to
him about your business."
'*Jim not sure we're in any position to insist on
much, •w Carter said, nodding to the Zairean maquis all
around them in the jet.
"We have our weapons, Killrnaster." Le Basque said.
"The moment this aircraft comes down in Lubumbashi
we will assume control. Arc you with us?"
Carter nodded. "I'll handle Degrange, and Chantal
can take Captain Baudou until weste sure where he
stands. "
"Yes. agreed." Le Basque said. nodding. S' Then we
understand? I will give the signal. "
The old man sat back in his seat. closed bis eyes. and
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, slept or pretended to sleep. Carter looked out the wine
dow at the endless sea of jungle below. He watched the
wide green now beneath the wings, and the rivers that
were barely visible as the lush forest closed over them.
At the same time. he watched Baudou and Degrange up
at thc front of the small jet. They were still dccp in con•
versation. apparently unaware of what was happening
inside the plane.
The jet flew on, eating up thc miles like a bullet in
contrast to the lumbering old C*47. but with less cargo
space and a lot less flexibility. Lubumbashi—the former
Elisabethville—capital of the copper-rich Katanga prov•
ince Moishe Tshombe had tried to separate from Zaire
for the benefit of the European metal companicst was at
the extreme opposite end of the country, historically in
another world yet less than a thousand miles and a few
hours away from Kinshasa as the jet new.
Soon the jungle began to thin out into the high
savanna and scrub woodland of the south and east
of Zaire, the great central plateau Of southern Africa.
Trees dotted the plains of coarse grass and thick under•
brush, and here and there was some scauered real grass-
land. There was a lake and a large river, and then the
beginnings of a more populated, more civilized-looking
area.
Carter looked at his watch. They would be landing
in Lubumbashi in less then fifteen minutes if his cal-
culations were correct. He stretched and yawned and
glanced around the interior of the jet. Degrange and
Henri Baudou were still talking. oblivious to anything
around theme and the old maquis were dozing in their
seats. He leaned back, checked his weapons casually,
and looked out,
The ground was no more than a few hundred feet
below, and the jet was slowing rapidly!
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NICK CARTER
Even as Carter looked out, the plane seemed to stop
in midair as the flaps went down.
They were landing!
Carter strained to look in all directions, but he saw no
sign of a major city or even a village.
Only a long concrete runway of what looked like an
abandoned military airstrip loomed ahead.
Le Basque looked out beside him. "What do you
think it is?"
"It's not Lubumbashi," Carter said.
The jet touched down, bounced. touched again, and
raced along the empty runway toward a large woods of
tall trees.
think it is time." Le Basque said-
"Look Chantal said.
All along the runway. and out of the woods. tanks of
gray-uniformed soldiers armed with automatic weapons
appeared. running to surround the jet as it came to a
slow stop. Before and behind. Everywhere. Hundreds
of the gray bush uniforms.
"Now!" Le Basque said.
Carter and Chantal moved toward the front to covet
Degrange and Baudou.
The other Parisian maquis jumped up.
The door to the pilot's cabin opened. Three men with
submachine guns jumped through. A fourth man came
behind them.
The smalli slim. craggy, white-haired man with the
cold eyes and commanding face. In the same gray field
uniform and paratrooper boots. a blue beret on his
white hair. With the thick gray mustache, and the gaunt
face of a mountain eagle.
"l would not suggest an attempt," the gaunt man
said in a low, thin voice.
The Zairean maquis were on their feet, thor weapons
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ready. Degrange had a gun. Only Henri Baudou seemed
surprised, confused.
"What the hell—?"
"Sit down. fool," the gaunt man said,
Baudou blinked and grabbed his pistol from his
pocket. "Chantal. take—
The craggy, white-haired man raised his Uzi and fired
a single burst that flung Baudou back against the win-
dow. spraying blood across the chairs and Degrange.
The French captain was dead before his body hit the
noor.
' •His usefulness was over," Degrange said, wiping the
dead man's blood from his face.
Outside the soldiers ringed the jet tike a vise. Carter
dropped Wilhelmina. Chantal handed her Ingram to
Degrange. The Parisian maquis raised their hands. Le
Basque stepped to the white-haired man with the hawk
face and held out his pistol.
"You want my gun. Commandant Sorel? Take it. Kill
me. I did not think J would see this day. it
The gaunt man. Julien Sorel. shrugged. S' Times
change. Etienne."
Naked, Nick Carter sat in the dark cell. He tried to
remember how he had gotten there.
He remembered the gray soldiers outside the jet. The
old maquis commandant. Julien Sorel. Out of the
pilot's cabin. Guns. Blood. The French captain.
Then... ?
Trucics, Covered and closed. Trucks and
a long
ride; a long. long time night odor. an odor!
A smoke! Gas! Gas in the closed truck! Yes gas,
that was
In the darkness Carter shook his head and took a
deep breath.
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NICK CARTER
That was it. Gassed in the truck.
Now. he was naked in this dark cell.
And he'd been stripped somewhere, sometime.
He breathed deeply. Long. slow breaths. Over and
over. His head cleared, and thc details of the cell slowb
emerged from thc darkness. Stone wans. Stone ceilim:
no more than a foot over his head. He searched slowly.
but there were no windows. A metal door. Solid.
seamless. without hinges or visible lock or knob.
No furniture.
A mattress on the floor.
No drains.
Nothing.
Carter breathed deep and slow. There was nothing he
could see in the stone cell to allow escape, and they had
stripped him, leaving him no weapons or tools.
He breathed. and listened to the sounds beyond thc
steel door. He heard footsteps pacing slowly with thc
measured and bored tread of a guard. Water dripping
Thc faint sound of some prisoner singing very softly
Something that tapped. and tapped and tapped?
Carter listened.
The tapping continued. Staccato. Irregular. Long and
short. A rhythm, persistent. from the next cell. Over
and over.
A code.
Morse code.
Carter listened. It continued ... tap-tap•tap
. tap
. tap-tap ... long short Carter, Basque
Here in (he next cell... Vyou hear mee answer. Carter.
Basque. Here in the next cell. If you hear me, answer.
Carter, Basque. Here in the
Carter searched the dark as the tapping went on.
What was Le Basque tapping with? Or hadn't Sotel
stripped his old comrade? Then he saw the bucket.
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Everyone had a weakness. Sorel's was a French middle.
class upbringing. He could strip the cell, leave nothing
but a mattress. have no outlets or drains or no toilet, but
he had to leave a bucket for the necessities!
Carter had not had time to need the bucket, so he
picked tt up and sat it against the wall where the tapping
still came. He tapped back:
Carter here. A re you alone?
Yes. Stripped. No weapons.
Same. The ochers?
All separated. The commandant is efficient. Any way
out o/ your ceil?
No. Not a chance. Can only wait for an opportunity
if he brings us out of here.
Perhaps you give up too easily, Killmaster. How long
have you been awake?
Maybe five minutes, maybe fifteen.
Then you have not eaten. I have. They feed me first.
then they feed you. There are two of them, but only one
comes into the cell with the food. I wilt tap when they
have fed me. You can be ready.
I 'II be ready.
Good.
The tapping ceased, but as Carter sat back against the
wall he felt strong. no longer alone in the dark. There
wcrc two of them and they had a plan.
He waited in the dark of the cell with the soft padding
of the guard outside and the distant dripping of water,
the faint singing. Time stands still in the darkness
of a cell. There is no time. Jt stands still and passes in a
flash.. .
Tap . .. (ape
Carter stood. then glided silently across the room to
stand behind the door. Footsteps. Clink. clink.
The door opened.
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NICK CARTER
The man came in carrying a metal tray and walked
toward the mattress.
Carter broke his neck with a single karate chop.
caught him and the tray in midair. and lowered them
silently to the floor. He went out the door before the
second man could raise his rifle, dropped him sound-
lessly with a kick under the chin. and caught him txfore
he hit the stone corridor.
When he had the keys and the AK-47. he unlocked the
next cell and Le Basque came out,
"The other cells. " the old man said.
They turned to the next cell.
Doors opened at both ends of the stone corridor.
"You have two seconds to live if you do not place
that weapon on the ground. put your hands on the wall.
move your feet out, and lean."
It was Julien Sorel's voice.
AK-47s fired at both ends without anyonc showing.
Carter laid down the AK-47 and leaned on the cot.
ridor wall. Le Basque leaned beside him.
Footsteps came slowly along. Some stood behind
them. Some walked on to the cells from which they had
escaped.
"Max is okay. but Saul is dead. The tall one broke his
neck. "
Sorel stood behind them. "Well. I see what I have
heard of the Killmaster is correct. Unarmed. naked. he
neutralizes two men. one armed. C*estformidabte.••
"Television cameras, " Carter said.
"That's why there were only two guards, only one
armed." Le Basque said* "Television surveillance."
' 'Of course." Sorel said- "One learns new ways over
so many years. Stone •alls and TV. the old and the new.
The power was the Killmastet. but perhaps the plan was
my old comrade's. eh? To notice how the feeding was
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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conducted. I should have expected that. Well, no harm
done; Saul would have died someday anyway. You may
stand away from the wall. i'
Carter and Le Basque straightened and turned to face
Julien Sorel. The small. slender man now wore an ele-
gant uniform of blue and gold with thc insignia of a gen-
eral. A French uniform.
"Why not a marshal of France, commandant?" Le
Basque said.
"Perhaps after my next campaign." Sorel said, and
laughed. "Come. Etienne€ why not. eh? Did we not
fight as well as any general? Plan? Campaign? Who de-
served the uniform and the tank more? De Gaulle sitting
safe in London? Giraud, posing for pictures in Algiers?
Darlan and Pétain licking the boots of the Boche?
Perhaps . .
But never mind. i am sorry about the
clothes. but I have heard of the hidden devices of the
Killmaster, and 1 know what you are capable of hiding,
eh? So it seemed a fair precaution, and I see how right I
was.
am not ashamed to be naked, Julien," Le Basque
said. J •Better that than a stolen uniform."
• 'As you wish." the slender. white-haired man said
with a shrug. "But I have clothes now for you. Put them
on. and we will talk."
Sorel turned and walked away in his immaculate
uniform. Two gray-uniformed soldiers handed Carter
and Le Basque plain gray coveralls and canvas shoes
without laces. When they were dressed. the soldiers
prodded them up stone steps at the end of the corridor,
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FIFTEEN
The silent soldiers pushed them through the door and
out into a long. narrow passageway. Carter located the
TV camera hidden behind a metal plate with a narrow
opening in it, and outside the door was a long passage
without doors or windows and another camera at the
end. Through the second door was the first guard out.
side the block of cells. And another long passage with-
out doors or windows.
The passages were carved from solid rock. creating a
heavy. silent remoteness as if they were deep in the core
Of the earth itself. There was a constant hum and the
steady movement of a current of air. forced ventilation.
the air coming in from somewhere outside. perhaps far
above. It reminded Carter of Cheyenne Mountain. the
NORAD command deep under the granite outside
Colorado Springs.
Ahead now there were shots, whistles, explosions.
and the voices of many men shouting in unison. They
came out of the last passage into a high-domed cavern
where groups of thc gray-uniformed soldiers were gojng
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through drills, firing on a range, crawling over a combat
course with dynamite explosions and barbed wire.
Squads were climbing the rock walls, practicing com@
mando tactics, snarling in close-combat exercises.
Ahead. carved out of the sheer rock wall of the great
dorned cavern, were rows of glassed windows where the
higher command officers observed, and banks of cicc-
tronic equipment flashed and blinked. The soldiers
prodded Le Basque and Carter through a door and
down more passages in the command sector until they
reached a long room with heavy wooden tables and rows
of easy chairs. This would be the command room.
"Le Basque!"
Daniel, Karl-Heinz, and the other two Old maquis
from Paris were already in the room, seated at one of
the long tables. dressed in the coveralls and canvas
shoes. Julien Sorel sat at the small command table on
the raised platform at the far end. Dcgrange was on one
side of him. and a much younger black officer sat on the
other. As Carter and Le Basque were pushed to the table
with the others, Chantal was dragged into the room by a
grinning soldier.
"Take your stupid hands off me, you cockroach!"
The dark-haired woman wore the same coveralls and
canvas shoes without laces as the men. Le Basque
jumped up. furious.
"Sorel—I"
The white-haired commandant shook his head. "She
does a man's work. she is treated as a man. She is no less
dangerous than you, Etienne. Regrettable, but there it
is.
Le Basque stared at the hawk-faced leader. 'SYou
have changed that much, Commandant?"
"No," Sorel said. "l have not changed. The circum-
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NICK CARTER
stances have changed. so you sce now what you had no
reason to see then."
Le Basque nodded. "Perhaps there was much did
not see then."
"Perhaps," Sorel agreed. "But we must get down to
business. The past is thc past. I deal in the present. You
have brought this American to me, and he creates a
problem that must be dealt with."
"We did not know we were bringing him to you," Le
Basque said.
"Of course you did not, yet he is hete.' • Sorel said.
• •and so are you. "
"You knew all along what we were doing." Chantal
said, "That was how your soldiers attacked us in
Tangier. how Degrange knew we were coming to Zaire.
Someone in our group works for you.
"Of course I knew what you were doing." Sorel
agreed, ' 'but no one in Etienne's group works for use It
is only that when anyone from the old resistance vants
to know anything that may be happening in Africa. who
else would they contact but Commandant Sorel? It was
Le Basque's own queries that reached me. told me what
you were doing. The airfield was simple enough to
determine. Then, Captain Baudou was helpful also,
with Miss Borotra's own reports to military intelli-
gence."
Carter nodded. "And you've been wotching me since
Ethiopia. What was it—did General Tenamu sell
American aid material to you?"
Sorel nodded. "The general is a man in need of funds
to pay for dreams of power. He will not succeed. but
he is useful to us. Unfortunately, your agent, Lyons.
traced some of the material in Tangier back to General
Tenarnu as its source. They had to kill him. was afraid
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he had left a message for the •native' who carried such
;trange weapons for an Ethiopian refugee. We did
not know at first it was the Killmaster himself, Nick
Carter."
"You're well informed for a mercenary leaders"
Carter said.
"Information is as important as weapons today, Kill-
master. Surely you know that. An army is lost without
full and precise information about anywhere it operates
and anyone it operates against. "
Lc Basque snorted. • 'A mercenary gang is not an
army, Sorel. no matter how clever you think you are."
Sorel's hawk nose pinched, and his dark eyes flashed
angrily. "Ten thousand of the best-trained troops on
earth are not a gang. Etienne! We are the best, as our
resistance unit was the best."
"Best? Thugs for hire? You did not have such a high
opinion of mercenaries when we fought together."
"l had many naive views in those days," Sorel said,
*'Thugs we are not. for hire we are. For hire to anyone
who can pay our fee. Whoever and whatever. We care
nothing for what they think. what they believe, what
they plan, or what they dream. If they can pay our fee,
ge will fight and we will win, and then if their enemies
xant to pay our fee, we will fight for them and we will
win! We are soldiers, we live well, and that is all that
matters."
Sorel was up on his feet. pacing the platform,
Degrange and the young black watched him but said
nothing. He paced, looking sideways at the old maquis.
Chantal. and Caner at the table below.
"l have heard about the skill of Nick Carter, the
Killmaster, and now have seen some of it. Skill and
:raining and intelligence. We could use such a man.
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NICK CARTER
would give him the power and the authority he deserves,
and would pay him the rewards he should have." Hc
nodded to Carter. then turned his eagle eyes on Chantal.
"We can use Mademoiselle Borotra's training and con-
nections too. We can give her much more reward and
position than France ever gave her or evet wilL'i
"The reward you gave Captain Baudou?" Chantal
said. "The position you gave him?"
Degrange and the young black officer looked at
Chantal and at Sorel.
told you it was a waste of timet Commandant: •
Dcgrange said.
Y' You can't trust their kind anyway. General," the
young black officer said.
Sorel waved his arms angnly. "Baudou was an idiot!
He worked with us for three years and never saw what
we were really doing. Then he decided to be a hero when
there was nothing he could have done!" The slender
commandant turned on Chantal. "Is that what you
want? TO live and die for nothing? A pawn in power
struggles that benefit only the buyers and the sellers and
the gang in power who serve them instead of the fools
who voted for them? Die to defeat an enemy who *ill be
a friend tomorrow? Die to protect what the rulers will
decide to give away? Spend your whole life serving fat.
arrogant men who do not even know your name and
would not care about you if they did? Pieces in sornconc
else's game to be swept away at will?"
Le Basque said, "You did not always speak that way.
Sorel. When we fought the Nans you did not speak that
way."
"I was an idiot when we fought the Nazis! We were
all idiots, dupes, fools! Has the world become better?
Has France become nobler? Have people turned into
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angels or even honest men? Has genocide stopped?
Forty years ago they were devils, inhuman demons. To-
day we forgive them! People say it all never really hap.
pened! We gave our blood. our friends, our families.
our youth. and who has won in thc end? The Nazis! It is
not nobility and love and brotherhood that rule in this
world, it is the children of the Nazis!"
The gaunt old man stood on the raised platform like
some prehistoric bird in his anger. Half-crouched. he
only slowly straightened up. his voice growing softer.
"Join us. We live and fight for ourselves. Not for
hate or false loyalty, but for ourselves. For money.
which has no hate or falseness€ and our own lives. ' •
"And us, Sorel?" Le Basque said. "Your old com-
rades who are too old to be mercenaries? What of us?"
Sorel smiled. "l am not so sure you are too old.
Etienne. Or Daniel there. But if you feel too old for the
field. we will take care of you. Completely. There is
much work to do behind the lines. Your experience can.
not be duplicated."
'*I'm not sure I want to spend the rest of my life
hiding underground, Commandant Sorel. And die a
long way from France."
Sorel nodded. "We have installations outside the
mountain. of course. A normal town. No one knows
what is inside the mountain, eh?"
On the platform the whitehaired mercenary leader
watched the seven of them in turn. Degrange and the
young black sat impassive. Outside the room, from
beyond the corridors carved out of the solid rock of the
mountain. the faint sounds of the soldiers in training
Teached the briefing room.
• *And if wc say no. Julien?" Le Basque asked.
Sorel shrugged. would be necessary to execute all
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NICK CARTER
of you. Our existence is unknown. perhaps a vague
rumor, and we must, of course. keep it that way. Still. if
you join us. there is risk too. A soldier cannot be sur.
prised at death. You will die, I will die. the difference is
only how well we live while we wait."
The gaunt, imperious old maquis strode back and
forth on the raised platform. gesticulating. his eyes ex•
cited. his voice powerful. eager. "With us you will live
well, on the edge, eh? Excitement. pride, taking what.
ever you want, not bowing and scraping tor the leavings
the fat rulers toss you. Soon we will embark on thc big-
gest campaign of my career! The most important job
we've ever had. A hiring that will make us a fortune and
will shake the world to its foundations. It will change
the balance and end the rule of the new Nazis forever.
So dangerous and difficult that no one but thc Black
Mamba Brigade could do it. Ten thousand of the best
soldiers the world has ever seen. And we will do it! We
will amaze the whole world! You can be part of it! Join
us!' •
His ringing voice echoed through the room. Degrange
and the young black officer's eyes seemed to glow with
the excitement that had poured out of Sorel. Carter
jumped up.
"I'll join you! I'm tired of working for nothing.
unknown. alone.
Lc Basquc stared at the Killmaster. "Carter? • •
"Ah?" Sorel said.
At the table on the platform. Degtange sat up.
"Commandant. I don't trust this American! He has
tried to contact his superiors the whole time we have had
him."
"Of course he has. He is a first-class agent." Sorel
said. 'i Would we want a second-class associate?"
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
"But—" the younger black officer began.
133
"But he has not contacted his superiors, Major
Christophe," Sorel said, "and he has not escaped.
despite all his skills. We have taken his tools away with
his clothes. We will test him. Without his clothes. what
can he do? Even the Killmaster cannot claw through a
mile of solid granite with his bare hands."
• 'He can kill with his bare hands," the black officer.
Christophe, said.
"Then we must watch him." Sorel said. "But I don't
think he will kill any of us if he agrees to join us. Not if
the beautiful Chantal Borotra and her father also join
us.
"Why not?" Chantal said. ' 'It sounds exciting, and
being shot is not exciting,"
Le Basque looked behind him. "Daniel? Karl-Heinz?
Everyone?"
The four old maquis from Paris looked at each other.
then nodded. Le Basque shrugged.
"So, we all join. What do we have to do?"
"That you will be told later," Sorel said, beaming.
"First there will be a long period of training and in•
doctrination. We will have you psychologically exam-
inedi tested. We must be sure. Eventually you will all
take operational places—separately. of course, at least
ror a few years. Carter and Chantal will work with me
personally. There will be assignments. But' '—the white.
haired commandant smiled—€4wc have certain methods
of insuring your loyalty. which you will see."
"Must we stay in these clothes?" Carter said.
"Of COUfSe not. You will all go to the quartermaster
and draw a proper uniform, a pay book. and be as-
signed quarters. I will talk to each of you later. De-
grange?"
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Sorel's scarred chief lieutenant got up. "Okay. then.
all of you come with me. We will go to the quarter-
master. "
' •Our. ah. weapons? Clothes?" Carter asked.
Degrange smiled. "You will not need those old things
again. American. You are now in the Black Mamba
Brigade. You will have new clothes. new weapons.
Come."
Degrange led them out and along the stone passages
with an escort of his gray-uniformed old maquis. The
quartermaster storeroom was out or the command sec.
tion and along another side corridor off the high-domed
training area. Each of them were given uniforms. They
dressed under the eyes of the old maquis. even Chantal.
Degrange watched her. They were old, the resistance
veterans. but they weren't dead.
"l cannot believe you teatly—" Le Basque whispered
as he and Carter dressed together.
"There are scissors on that counter to cut off our
tags," Carter whispered. smiling at Degrange and the
other old men as they watched Chantal dress. The
woman kept them very busy. "Get a pair. and when I
turn my back do what J say."
Le Basque got the scissors and cut at his tags. Carter
stepped in front of him. •g The long scar inside my left
thigh—cut it open and remove the cylinder. Now!"
"Cut—?"
"Do it. dammit. before Degrange comes over!"
Le Basque jabbed into Carter's thigh. Carter only
smiled toward Degrange. Le Basque heard the faint
click of the scissors hitting metal. He cut as Carter's
teeth ground faintly against the pain. then removed the
long thin alloy cylinder.
Carter took it and whispered. "Now. when we•re
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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dressed. each of you knock out one of those old com-
rades of yours on my signal."
Le Basque nodded and finished dressing. He walked
to Daniel, Karl•Heinz. Chantal. and the other two, talk•
ing casually as they all finished dressing. Carter stepped
to thc counter, smiled at the clerk who had handed out
their uniforms, and held out his hand.
think J'm going to like the Black Mamba Brigade.
Thanks for the help. "
The clerk blinked, but shook Carter's hand. The
Killmaster turned and said, "Now!" and stepped to
Degrange.
Le Basque, Daniel, Chantal. and the other three
jumped the old guards and knocked them out.
"Don't be stupid! There's a hundred men—Yi
Degrange began.
Carter pressed the silver cylinder to Degrange's
throat. "Look at the clerkl Nerve poison in this hypo-
dermic. One sound from anyone and you're dead in two
seconds."
Degrange stared at the body of the clerk sprawled
across his counter. Dead without a sound. Without a
movement.
"We're going out of here." Carter said. "Just you
and us with Le Basque's people in your guards' uni-
forms. Those young soldiers won't know one old
maquis from another. You'll take us out. Otherwise
you're dead in two seconds, maybe less. How loyal to
the commandant are you, Degrangetv•
Degrange felt the tiny needle against his neck and
looked at them all with hate in his eyes.
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Degrange shrugged. "As the commandant says, it's
living well that counts. I won't try to stop you."
"You always were a practical man. Degrange." Le
Basque said drily.
"Why not? Why die for nothing? There is no way out
of here. "
•€1f there's a way in," Carter said. "there's always a
way out." He turned to Le Basque's men. "Tie up all
those Old guards and put them into the back Of the
storeroom. Then everyone except Chantal. Le Basque.
and myself dress in their uniforms. Fast!"
While the old maquis tied up their former comrades
and put on their uniforms. Chantal watched the passage
outside the quartermaster's supply room, No one came.
Dressed, the four Parisian maquis came out with the
AK•47s Of the trussed-up Zairean maquis.
"Two in front and two behind," Carter instructed.
"By now Sorel will have toid everyone that we've agreed
to join up, but they'll understand we're on ptobation.
So guard us, but make it look casual. Chantal and Le
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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Basque Will lead. and I'll walk in the middie with
Degrange. Remember. Degrange. one word. one lifted
eyebrow, and you'll be dead in two seconds or less,"
Degrange looked at the dead clerk still lying across
the counter where he had fallen seconds after Cartcrts
hand touched his. Sorel's old lieutenant nodded.
"Let's go." the Killmaster said. "Slow and easy.
Chantal. Le Basque€ look tricndly, interested in the
training, excited."
They went out into the stone passage and turned
toward the enormous cavern where the soldiers were still
going through their training exercises. No one passed
than, and they emerged into the vast domed interior
cavern. Some of the soldiers looked at them curiously.
some smiled. some frowned. but none of them seemed
surprised, as Carter had said they wouldn't.
"Smile," Carter said to Degrange.
Degrange smiled.
"About what?"
"Anything. Just talk. Tell me about the weather in
Paris. Your glorious days in thc resistance."
"Glorious? Not so glorious. Killmaster. Profitable.
and useful. maybe. but not glorious."
"Keep talking."
They walked on around the perimeter of the cavern.
skirting the training areas. with Chantal and Le Basque
pointing out various interesting aspects Of the training
exercises. Thc soldiers and instructors watched them.
but they barely glanced at the white-haired, balding
guards.
"Where is the exit passage?" Carter said and smiled.
) "Follow the rail tracks. The wide tunnel on the other
side 0! the exercise area." Degrange said.
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NICK CARTER
They passed the live ammunition combat course. The
younger black officer, Major Christophe, seemed to be
inspecting the operation. and he glanced up as they went
by. He stopped and stared at them.
"Make it look very good," Carter said.
Degrange began to point out special aspects of the
training and some Of the installations inside the vast
cavcrnt The exit tunnel was no more than twenty yards
ahead now. Christophe watched them. watched De-
grange. frowned, seemed puzzled. but he did not look at
the old maquis guards. Carter nodded to the major.
then asked Degrange a question. Christophe watched
them a moment longer. then turned back to his super.
vision of the combat training.
"Nice job." Carter said.
"Merde. " Degrange said.
Ahead. the narrow railroad tracks led into the wide
opening of the passage out of the great cavern. A pair of
armed soldiers sat at the entrance, bored, but obviously
there on guard.
"Is there another way into that exit tunnel?"
"You have an explanation for why we're being taken
in there?"
Degrange smiled. Carter touched his neck with the
tiny hypodermic at the end of the long silver-alloy
cylinder. "If we get captured, you won't know it."
"I'm taking you down to show you how secure the
main gate is," Degrange said sullenly. "It's too far to
walk; we'll take one of the cars."
The two guards came alert. saw Degrange. saluted,
and relaxed a hair while acting as if they were still alert.
efficient.
"Crank up one Of the cars," Degtange ordered. • •l •m
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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taking the new recruits to check out the gates. In case
they're worried or get ideas, ell?' •
The two soldiers grinned and pushed a jeep with
wheels adapted for running on rails up to the mouth of
the wide passage. Carter, Le Basque, and the four
maquis helped lift it onto the rails. They all climbed in.
and Degrange drove the jeep into the darkness of the
Widc tunnel.
Small lights illuminated almost a mile of smooth,
blank stone walls without a break, until they stopped
abruptly at a great black steel double door across the
whole tunnel.
"It'S a blast door." Chantal said. have seen one in
your Cheycnnc Mountain complex Of NORAD. 'i
"Yes," Carter said. "The Black Mamba Brigade is
prepared. How do we open it, Degrange?"
Degrange laughed now. "You don't, Carter. I told
you. They're H-bomb proof. They can't be opened ex•
eept on the voice command of two top officers of the
Brigade. Not even Sorel can open them alone. nereis
no way out. just as I said. You might as well give up and
let me take you back."
"If it can be locked, it can be unlocked. What's that
door over there?"
A small. normal•sized steel door was set into the rock
wall a few feet inside the gates.
• 'The control room. "
"Hold him right here, Le Basque," Carter said.
"Come on, Chantal. •e
Together they opened the small door and went inside.
The gate mechanism was ranged along one wall. Carter
examined it closely.
It's probably designed to fail-Icwk. so J can't destroy
the mechanism or it'll lock even tighter. But there has to
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NICK CARTER
be a manual override for when the power fails. If ve can
just—
"Over there. What's that door. Nick?"
Another door was set into the far wall of the small
control room, a thick door with a pull handle and no
visible lock. Carter went back into the tunnel.
" Bring him in here."
Le Basque brought Degrange into the control room.
"What's that door? 'i
"t don't know. "
Carter touched the deadly needle to the old maquis's
neck.
"Emergency exit. "
' 'So?" Carter smiled.
"It's a foot thick, Carter." Degrange said. "Hard-
ened steel. Even I don't know how it's opened."
do," Carter said.
He crouched at the heavy steel door. The lock was
embedded deep inside, with only a small, round hole for
a key: an electronic combination key, opening only on
the meshing of electronic signals. Still, all locks had to
have an actual mechanical unit to do the Icxking, no
matter how it was activated.
"Everyone stand back."
Carter unscrewed the ocher end of the silver-alloy
cylinder, drew out a needle-thin gray TOO' and inserted it
into the lock hole. He scratched the end. jumped back,
and pushed everyone to the fat side of the control room,
"Cover your eyes!"
There was a faint hiss, and then the small hole in the
door began to glow with a dazzling light that grew
brighter and brighter and everyone turned away. An
acrid odor filled the air. The dazzling glow seemed to
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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light up the room like the sun itself. an impossible glare
that reflected off the walls. the ceiling.
e 'My God. thc heat!" Chantal cried.
"Move aside! " Carter cried.
Chantal jumped out of the direct line of the door
where the dazzling glow was slowly fading and then
was gone. Carter turned and looked. The small hole
in the door was a little larger now. but nothing more.
Degrange laughed.
"Even you can't crawl through that hole, Carter!"
won't have to, Degrange. "
The Kiilmastet went to the door, touched the handle.
and easily swung the door open.
They all hurried through. and Carter pulled the heavy
door closed behind them.
"With any luck, they won't notice any change in the
lock.' • Carter said. "Or not for a long time, anyway."
A metal spiral stairway led upward, and they began to
climb. The stairs went up and up and up until it seemed
as if they would never end. Twice more there were other
heavy steel doors, and Carter had to use his thin super•
thermite rods. Then they reached the top.
"Wait," Carter said.
They were on a small steel platform, and another
door was ahead of them. A light came from under thc
door. It was a much thinner door with a conventional
spring lock that opened from inside. Carter opened the
door slowly. The light came from an opening some ten
yards ahead at the far end of a passage that had walls of
dirt and brush.
A figure sat just inside the round opening at the far
eod of the tunnel passage. Carter motioned them all
back, then hc slipped out and along the dirt tunnel. The
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NICK CARTER
gray-uniformed guard never heard him. and he col-
lapsed unconscious instantly at the touch of Carter's
pressure on his neck.
Carter moved the unconscious man out of the way
and tied him up with his own belt. He motioned. and
they all stepped carefully out into the African sunlight.
"Sorel doesn't miss much. " Carter said. '*Itll bet Ihat
exit has never been used or discovered. but hc still had it
guarded."
"The commandant survives because he does not miss
anything, Le Basque said.
Dry, dusty, forested mountains towered all around
them. Below they saw a broad valley with houses and
streets and large factorylike buildings behind a high wire
fence. Inside the fence there were broad avenues among
the factory buildings. one at least a mile long and
straight as an arrow.
With Carter and Le Basque leading, Chantal bringing
up the rear with Degrange. they went down the moun-
tain toward the town in the valley below. As they
reached the lower slopes. Carter looked for the entrance
into the secret mountain headquarters of the Black
Mamba Brigade,
don't see any entrance, " Le Basque said.
"No," Chantal said.
Carter looked at thc mountain, up at the sun. and
then at the town and large complex of buildings inside
the high electrified wire fence. Signs proclaimed
Katanga Metal Fabrique et Cie. Smoke came from the
stacks of some of thc buildings. A large three-story
brick building with two flagpoles set in a lawn in front
Of it was directly up against the mountain. The green
and yellow circle flag with the torch of Zaire flew from
the left flagpole, the black, yellow. and red venical
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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tricolor of Belgium flew from the right flagpole. The
headquarters building Of the metal company,
"That building is the entrance." Carter said. "It has
to be. Clever and elaborate. There's no building and no
metal company. It's the outside installation of thc Black
Mamba Brigade. No wonder no one has found them
yet."
"A mercenary mountain, eh?" Le Basque said.
i' Does anyone know where we are?"
do. " Chantal said. • 'It's a town called Limbaba, in
the mountains of Katanga. The Limbaba Metal Refin-
ety of Katanga Metal Fabrique et Cie. If we go east,
away from the sun up there, we should eventually come
to Kolwezi, and find a Zairean army unit."
"Then that's our best bet. Head east for Kolwezi."
"That's across the valley and up that first ridge," Le
Basque said. "We'd bctter stick to the mountains. away
from the roads. They're bound to discover our escape
soon.
"Agreed," Carter nodded. "We'll head directly east
across the mountains."
Nick! " Chantal cried,
The gray soldiers were pouring across the open spaces
among the buildings inside the electrified fence. It was
impossible to see where they were coming from. They
were just there and spreading ouL
"They've discovered our escape! Comc on!
They turned and ran across the slopes toward the
mountains to the east away from the town and the
"metal company" in the valley below. They moved
quickly. covering the ground at a trained speed, until
they reached the high point of the ridge across the valley
from the bogus metal refining installation that hid the
complex of the Black Mamba Brigade.
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NICK CARTER
Chantal looked around suddenly. "Where's De-
grange! He's gone!"
Carter nodded. "He slipped away when we ran."
"He'll tell Sorel where we're going!" Chantal said.
They crouched and looked back and saw the tiny
figure of Julien Sorel. and then the gray soldiers ail
gathering around Sorel and a distant sticklike man that
was Degrange. They watched Degrange point directly
toward the ridge where they crouched.
"He's told them!" Le Basque said.
know: ' Carter said. "I wanted him to.' •
They all stared at the Killmaster,
want them to come this way/' he smiled. "Bccause
we have to go back."
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SEVENTEEN
"Of." Carter said, "I have to go back. The rest of
you can escape by going west deeper into the mountains
until they give up. A small group with your experience
shouldn't have any trouble evading. "
"You'll go back into that mountain alone?" Le
Basque said. "Why. Killmaster?'i
"It's my job." Carter said. have to find out what
the big attack Sorel is planning is all about. What,
when, and where. Stop it if I can."
C' That is my job too." Chantal said. •a With you.
Nick, or alone. But two will have a better chance of suc•
ceeding than one. Of getting the information out."
Carter nodded. "You're right."
"Then three should be even better," Le Basque said.
and turned to his four old comrades. "Daniel? Karl-
Heinz? All of you?"
The four old maquis looked at each other.
am not sure, Etienne/' Daniel said. "We are a
little old for this."
"Let us talk. •t Karl-Heinz said.
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NICK CARTER
The four men moved away and squatted down in the
thick mountain brush. Below. the gray-uniformed met•
cenaty brigade was falling in behind the barbed wire;
getting instructions from Sorel and Degrange and the
other officers.
How many do you estimate?" Le Basque asked.
"Two thousand." Carter said. "No more. The rest
must still be in the mountain or off on some other as-
signments. "
• 'Or in posts among these mountains." Chantal sajd.
"Sorel would probably have outposts atl through the
area."
The four old maquis stood up and walked slowly to
Carter. Qiantal. and Le Basque. Daniel nodded to the
west.
€4 We will try to escape. We are too old for real fight•
ing. You will do much better without us. and if you do
not, we are sorry. but we are too old.
Le Basque watched the four men. "Is that all,
Daniel? You will escape, run to the west, because you
are too old?"
• e That is all.@• Karl-Heinz said.
• Elt could not be that you think to draw the enemy
away. eh?" Le Basque said. "You think if you draw the
enemy to the west, we will have a better chance of suc-
cecding to the east?"
"We are too oid for fighting." one of the other two
maquis said. "That is all. We wish you success. but if
we are to we must go now,
'i You will take the weapons." Le Basque sai&
"It is you who will need weapons." Karl-Hema said.
"No. • • Carter said. • •tee Basque is right Assault rifles
won't help us. but they will you.' i
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' 'Very well." Karl-Heinz said. "You are probably
right."
"Perhaps." Daniel said, "they will follow us a long
way."
"Maybe they will," Carter said. nodding.
The four old men picked up the Soviet Kalishnikovs,
nodded to Le Basque and Chantal. and turned west.
The three watched until they vanished over a spur
and around the shoulder of the next mountain. Below,
the gray soldiers were moving out in columns through
the gates in the electrified fence, starting to wind up the
slopes like long snakes.
'UThey will draw them west," Le Basque said. "A
good chase if I know Daniel and Karl-Heinz."
' jThat will make our job a lot easier/' Carter said.
"Follow them first?" Le Basque said.
"Follow them first. •t Carter said.
Chantal nodded, and they started up thc slope in the
footsteps of the four old maquis. They went a half mile
up the ridge and over the crest to the downgrade before
the rise of the first mountain itself. Le Basque spotted
where the four old maquis had crossed a clearing of
hard rock.
"Here?"
"As good as anywhere." Carter said.
Chantal turned left away from the trail of the old maw
quis and crosscd thc rocky area carefully. Carter and Lc
Basque followed. stepping lightly to leave no trail at all
on the rock. They moved carefully along the rocky out-
croppings, large boulders, gravelly slopes, until they
found a dry stream bed. They moved on down the
stream bed until it began to gather water and emerged
into a running creek.
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NICK CARTER
"Upstream." Carter said.
They turned and made their way back upstream as the
creek narrowed and grew shallower and finally vanished
into the ridge itself. Carter looked at his watch. then up
at the sun still above the ridge to the west.
• • They should be getting to where we watched about
now."
"Just about," Le Basque agreed. "We'd better go to
ground."
Chantal surveyed the trees and ridge above them.
"Just undet the crest would bc "
"There!" Lc Basque pointed.
A large tree had fallen just below the crest of the
ridge, its thick roots gouging out a deep hollow hidden
by the torn roots themselves. The three agents climbed
up along the line of the dry stream and the tree, and
disappeared into the dirt hole behind the tangled roots.
"We'll need some weapons eventually." Le Basque
said.
Chantal shook her head in the recess. "We couldn't
shoot. not if we want to get back into that mountain
without anyone knowing. i'
"Wc don't need weapons." Carter said.
"You always need a weapon," Le Basque said.
"Every advantage you can get. Weapons can be silent."
They heard the first twig crack. A stone rolled down
the slope of the ridge. Underbrush breaking, heavy
footsteps.
Two thousand soldiers can't be silent.
A crashing through the bushes, heavy boo(S slipping
on the slope, tramping as they tried to move forward
quietly. searching the forest and the valleys for the
escaped enemies.
Curses.
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
Laughter.
Boots on the trunk of the fallen tree.
On both sides.
149
Moving on and away down the slope of the ridge.
There were shouts somewhere far off as other columns
followed the trail of the actual escapees.
Silence.
In the dark recess. neither Carter. Chantal, nor Le
Basque moved. They lay facedown as close to the edge
of light from outside as they could get without being in
the light itself.
And waited.
The footsteps were soft this time. Quiet. The crack of
two twigs. a third. A pebble rolling down through the
leaves. The steps of a single man beside the fallen tree.
A pale face rrered into the dark recess under the
roots.
Carter clapped a hand over the startled mouth. pulled
the head, neck. and shoulders into the dark. and
snapped the neck.
He left the feet outside in the light,
"Anton? Are you there?" a voice called softly in Gere
man.
'*Over here!" Le Basque answered in German, his
words muffled. "Come heret Quickly!"
Another pale face appeared on the other side of the
fallen tree.
Chantal broke his windpipe with a single blow.
clamped his neck between her shoulder and forearm,
and strangled him.
The three waited in silence,
8' There're always three," Carter said, and hc slid out
ot the recess into the open, crawled along the fallen tree
trunk. and peered over.
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NICK CARTER
The soldier stood no more than five feet away, black.
rifle alert. puzzled eyes looking toward where one pair
Of feet stuck out of the tangled roots Of the fallen tree.
Wary. Suspicious. Rifle raised to fire thc signal
He waited three seconds too long.
Carter was over the trunk and on the black mercenary
before thc soldier's head could even turn ail the way to
see what was about to kill him. He died. his nek
broken, soundless on the forest floor.
Back in the darkness behind the roots, Carter checked
the Kalishnikov and the knife. Le Basque had his, and
Chantal held hers.
"That should be it," Carter said. "First the main
line, then the three-man follow-ups in case we were
smart enough to go to ground or climb a tree."
"Thereill be a full rear guard back in the valley."
Chantal said. i 'probably at the foot of the ridge or
along the main road."
"And the usual security at the fence of the installa•
tion." Le Basque said. "But they'll be looking for these
three sooner or later. and they'll know we are still
here."
"Come on," Carter rasped.
They went out.
"Take a body."
They dragged the bodies down the all the way to
the bottom of the ridge where the stream deepened and
turned along the valley between ridges. They floated the
bodies with their rifles slung over them. but they kept
the knives. They watched as the three dead soldiers
floated. bumped, and slowly moved along with the
small current-
"Now it'll look as if they were killed and we went on
to the west, Carter said.
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They went back up the same slope past the fallen tree,
because that was an area already searched by the dead
men. Over the ridge the town below was oddly quiet, as
if no one really lived there, as if it were all camouflage
for the mercenary installation. They could see sentries at
the gates of the supposed metal plant, and soldiers
patrolling the road in the distance at both ends ot the
valley. but there were no gray soldiers between the high
wire fence and the woods at the base of the ridge.
"At the base of the ridge," Carter said.
"Along the western edge of the road," Le Basque
said.
"We can work north ot south and outflank them "
Chantal said. "Those sentries on the road have to mark
thc end of their line."
"TOO much risk," Carter said.
' 'We could run into patrols. outposts€ flank guards/'
Le Basque said. '*Too many unknowns. girl Better to
head straight into their rear line and slip through. "
They went down silently to within fifty yards of where
the rear-guard gray soldiers lay hidden among the trees
at the edge of the main paved road. Hidden. alert. in•
but there was no enemy near, so small calls,
laughter, cigarettes. When the enemy came they would
be ready, hidden, but the enemy was far away, running
from their comrades, so what was there to worry about?
TO be hidden from?
Carter, Chantal, and Le Basque lay fifty yards in
front of the whispetingv moving. restless line of waiting
soldiers, and waited in turn. But they waited for night.
For darkness.
It came, as it does in Africa. suddenly. The sun went
behind the looming purple of the mercenary mountain,
there was a glowing halo, and then blackness. Lights
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NICK CARTER
went on down in the valley beyond where the soldiers
talked a little louder against the dark and smoked their
cigarettes. A long line of glowing points of red visible
for miles. All armies were the same, good and bad.
when no enemy was near.
Le Basque moved first.
"l will go straight through between the large tree and
thc bush twisted like a hunchbacki "
He was betwen Carter and Chantal, and then he was
gone.
They heard nothing. They waited five minutes.
"To the right. that wide gap between cigarettes
because of the large boulder," Chantal said.
Gone.
Carter went silently behind her. moving like a shadow
to the line of cigarettes, points of light like angry fire-
flies. Down and crawled. Inched to within ten feet of the
smoking soldier to the left. Through to the edge of
the silvery road in the darkness, the first streetlights of
the town two hundred yards to the left.
There was a touch on his foot. then Carter saw
Chantal's face in the night.
"Your father?"
"Not yet."
"Here." Le Basque said.
They moved off in the direction of the mam gate
through the high fence. Trucks began to come along the
road, then turn in through the gate. The guards opened
the gate, waved them inside, and called for news.
' 'They've got 'em dug tn two mountains over!" the
drivers shouted.
'*It won't be long now!"
"Keep the gates open!"
The guards did not inspect the trucks. Why would
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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they? Escape was thc prohicmt not breaking in. Carter.
Le Basque, and Chantal moved back along the road out
of sight of the gate.
"We need uniforms," Carter said.
Chantal and Le Basque disappeared into the night.
Carter slipped along the rear of the line of waiting
soldiers. listening, watching. A point of glowing red
showed where a single soldier sat against a tree behind
the others. Carter crawled. His stolen knife entered
beneath the rib cage without a sound; only a little blood
stained the uniform he stripped off thc dead man.
Dressed in the gray uniform. he waited at the edge of
the road again. Le Basque wore a major's gray uniform.
Chantal's slim uniform almost fitted. and she had
tucked her long hair completely into her beret.
w 'I found a small one," the dark-haired woman said.
They all had automatic rifles and stood waiting for a
single truck. One came. and Le Basque jumped out in
front and waved it down. smiling at the driver, chatter.
ine in French.
"We need an empty! How are you?"
"Empty, Major," thc driver said, leaning out the cab
window. He was alone.
Chantal knifed him from the other side. Carter car-
ried him to the rear of the covered truck. and the two of
them hoisted the body up and climbed into the rear.
where they stripped the body. Le Basque changed into
the driver's uniform. and they drove to the gate.
"What's happening?" the gate guard yelled.
i 'Surrounded out there!" Le Basque called back as he
roared through the gate. "Not long!"
Inside. Le Basque drove the truck along the broad.
straight streets, waved on by military police.
"The buildings, Nick!" Chantal said in the dark of
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the truck. "Jets inside! They're hangars!"
"And thc long, straight roads are runways," Carter
said. "They can probably move from here to almost
anywhere in the world in hours."
"But where to this time... 2" Chantal wondered.
The MPs waved the truck to the right and then right
again, and ahead the side of the three-story building
against the mountain was wide open. Lc Basque drove
in and was waved left again.
"It's only a shell," Carter said.
"We're going inside the mountain: • Chantal
breathed.
The truck drove straight into the wide tunnel mouth
and along the tunnel with its lights on until it came out
into a long cavern full of trucks and tanks and personnel
carriers.
• 'It's a different cavern." Carter noted.
"Their motor pool." Chantal said.
A last MP waved the truck toward the rear of thc
stone cavern that had a lower ceiling than the training
area, and Le Basque stopped at the end of a precise line
of parked trucks. The drivers were all leaving, chatting
as they walked toward doors in the wall.
Le Basque jumped out of his truck. He waved to
some of the other drivers. They waved. back. Ten thou-
sand is too many men for anyone to know everyone.
Some of the drivers were no younger than Le Basque.
Carter and Chantal slipped out of the back. fell in ssith
Le Basque and some of the other drivers. and walked on
through the doors into narrow passages. No one paid
any particular attention to them. Inside their mountain
they were so safe they had no suspicions.
The passage opened once more into the high-domed
cavern they had secn earlier. and as Carter. Chantal.
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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and Le Basque came out into the vast spacey hordes of
gray soldiers poured out of the main tunnel and began
to fill the eavern, rank after rank. The three agents
blended quickly in among the drivets who watched from
the side.
Julien Sorel appeared riding one of the jeeps on rails.
In the back of the jeep were Daniel, Karl•Heinz, and the
other two old maquis from Paris. Their clothes were
bloody€ and their hands were tied behind them.
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EIGHTEEN
Sorel stood on the hood of the jeep and shouted out
over the ranks of gray mercenaries.
"What do we do with them?"
"KILL THEM the ranks shouted back.
"But they fought for their country!"
"THE FOOLS!"
A' Who do we fight for?"
"OURSELVES!"
"l didn't hear you!"
"OURSEL the ranks of gray soldiers roared.
The gaunt, hawk-faced commandant smiled. Com-
manding. imperious, with his white hair and slim, im-
maculate gray battle uniform, polished jump boots.
blue beret. Fierce-eyed on the jeep above his soldiers. a
leader on the battlefield, he stood tall.
"A second chance? 'f
"NO ONE GETS A SECOND CHANCE!"
"They were heroes."
"YOU WIN SOME. YOU LOSE SOME'"
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"They have medals, honors. the gratitude of a
grateful nation.
"MERDE!"
"What do we fight for?"
"MONEY!"
"Let me hear you!"
"MONEY!"
"MONEY!"
Sorel turned to face the four old maquis who sat in
the jeep. bloody and trussed.
"You hear. old men? What do you have to say for
yourselves? Tell my men here why you should be al-
lowed to live. Tell them what use you are to them. They
ate practical men. What can you do for them. eh? Per-
haps tell us where thc other three are?"
Daniel spoke through broken teeth. "You did not
speak like that when you fought for France. Comman-
dant Sorel."
"Everyone has a right to be a fool once. old man."
Karl-Heinz shook his bloody head. "You did not
think such filth then. You are the old man, Sorel.
Sorel's imperious face darkened. was as much a
fool as anyone. yes. At first. A patriot, a lover of hu-
manity. A bleeding heart and a democrat." The white-
haired, eagle-eyed mercenary leader laughed. "But I
leatncd—oh, how i learned! The Germans taught me
much, but it was the French, the English, and in the end
the Americans who taught me most! How I laughed at
the end of that farce war when the Americans rushed so
frantically to save Klaus Barbie. Mengele, and the other
Nazi butchers—to help them all escape so they could use
them against the Russians! How I watched while the
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NICK CARTER
French patriots shut their eyes and turned their heads
away while the Americans saved ail those ever-so-useful
murderers of thc French people!"
He fixed the four old maquis with his intense eyes.
then turned to the tanks Of his mercenaries, his voice rise
ing to reach the entire vast cavern, learned things in
the resistance. ohs yes! I learned that in this universe
each animal thinks of nothing but itself. I saw human
beings as they really are. and I came to despise them and
the world they live in. Fools or murderers or hypocrites
all! Nothing mattered, human beings are all animals,
and it was then that I learned a man must work. fight.
live. die only for himself! To fight for anything but
yourself is idiocy. That was what fighting in the under-
ground taught Julien Sorel! The great patrioti the mar.
velous maquis leader! So all the time t worked for the
Nazis! Yes, the Nazis! That was how I survived so well!
How wc all surrvived!" Sorel laughed violently. "l
worked for the Nazis. the Russians. the Americans. the
English, anyone and everyone who would pay me and
use what I could do—and they all admired me for it! I
was useful. eh? I survived, I got rich. I came bere and
now am richer, and I have the best killing instrument
in the world. I live and fight and dic for onc thing. We
all live and die and fight for one thing. What do we live
and fight and die for?"
The ranks of gray soldiers roared out in the hollow
cavern:
"OURSELVES!"
"MONEY!"
*'OURSELVES!"
"MONEY!"
On the hood of the jeep Sotel waved them on. cone
ducting the roaring voices. Degrange stood beside the
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
159
jeep waving his arms. Major Christophe leaned in the
•aide tunnel mouth and watched. The Zairean maquis
stood with Degrange and shouted with all the rest,
Sorel turned back to the four captured maquis.
"Do you hear them? What can you do for me, for
them, that will convince us not to shoot you? Even old
men want to live. What value are you to us?"
Daniel said, "We do not know where Le Basque,
Chantal. and the American are.
' 'They separated from us after the first mountain."
Karl•Heinz added.
Sorel snorted. • 'We know that. We found three of our
men killed. L.c Basque is a trained man—he would have
arranged a place for you all to rendezvous. Where?"
'*In Paris. Commandant Sorel. At the Arc de
Triomphe," Daniel said,
"At the trial Of Klaus Barbie. Commandant." Karl-
Heinz said.
Sorel waved his arms angrily. "Take them to the
Chantal gripped Carter's arm in the last rank of the
drivers. No one looked at them; all stared at their gaunt
leader and the four prisoners.
"Will he? 'i Carter whispered to Le Basque.
don't know," the old maquis said.
Major Christophe nodded to a squad of twelve sol-
diets who stood apart behind the jeep as if waiting.
They were of all nationalities. all races. From the med-
als on their chests. the campaign stripes on their sleeves,
all were veterans of many wars and mercenary raids.
They pulled the four Old maquis from the jeep and
marched them, stumbling, across the vast chamber, the
ranks of mercenaries parting like the waves of the sea as
they marched through.
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"Papa?" Chantal whispered.
The squad marched the four maquis to a area
of the stone wall where six iron posts were set into the
ground. They tied each of the old men to a post. The of-
ficer of the squad, an impassive Oriental with the in.
Signia of POI Potts Khmer Rouge on his gray uniform,
offered blindfolds. Each of the old men shook his head.
i • We can't let them-—!" Carter growled. staring over
the ranks of gray soldiers to the four old fighters.
You have a mission, Killmaster."
The officer offered cach of the four a cigarette. ney
all took one. The officer lit each cigarette, stepped back,
and marched away to the side. The old men smoked.
Sorel stood on the hood of the jeep. his arms folded.
Daniel was the first to finish his cigarette. and he flicked
the butt away with his tongue.
Sorel looked at the four men tied to thc posts. "Listen
to me. old comrades. Tell me where Carter. Le Basque,
and the woman were to meet you. Then join us, and you
will be welcomed as full mcmbcrs of the Black Mamba
Brigade. Refuse, and you will be shot."
Daniel nodded. believe you, Sorel. Your humanity
has become a business dealt To welcome as a comrade,
or to kill, has equal value. Such humanity I do not
want."
i' You are right." Kaki-Heinz said, and apat away his
still-smoking cigarette. "You are now no more than any
animal. You and all your mercenaries."
The other two finished their cigarettes and spat them
out. Every eye in the room was on the four men at the
posts. No one made a sound. All stared toward the con-
demned men. Le Basque held Carter's arm and Chan-
tars. "We can do nothing. They knew what they did,
Killmaster. We all know."
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The Oriental officer snapped to attention.
"Ready!"
The squad raised their automatic rifles.
161
Chantal turned away. Carter's face was pale. There
was nothing they could do. Nothing. They had to
i.omehow stop Sorel and his Black Mamba Brigade.
The volley echoed through the giant cavern, bounced
back and forth from the rock walls.
The officer marched to each slumped body, shot each
once in the head, then returned his pistol to its holster.
He called his squad to attentionv marched the squad
through the parted ranks Of mercenaries to Sorel, and
saluted. Sorel returned the salute and dismissed the men
10 their places in the ranks of soldiers now at full atten•
Lion before their commander.
"The other three will be found by our units still in the
field, or they will escape to tell of us. It is of no impor.
tance!" Sorel shouted over the rows Of gray-uniformed
men. "They cannot harm us now. There is no time.' •
The ranks moved angrily. murmuring.
"What is important is our mission. The biggest mis-
Sion of our existence. The impossible attack. For us it
ill be possible!"
Eager. excited movement rippled through the packed
mercenaries,
"No one else could do it. No one else could be paid
what we will be paid. This will be the single most highly
paid mercenary raid in history. Each of us will retire
A surge almost like a cheer rose up through the
disciplined ranks. A surge not of money but of blood.
"It is possible that we will, with one sweep, start
World War Three and the end 01 this false civilization.
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NICK CARTER
The beginning of a new civilization or nothing. A new
world, or a cinder!"
Now the cheers were loud. real. the gray-uniformed
mercenaries roaring. shouting.
"We will start it, and then we will come back hete and
wait. We will be ready for whoever wins, or if no one
wins" '—Sorel if no war begins. if it is
allowed to pass. we will all be rich in this civilization. A
fair gamble. We win no matter what happens."
Laughter in the ranks of the soldiers.
"Our task is simple: we will attack the city of Riyadh
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We will destroy the air
force on the ground, capture the royal palace. eliminate
the king and all his ministers and advisers. We will
eliminate as many of the royal family as is possible. We
will hold Riyadh against all counterattack long enough
for the Ayatollah of Iran to invade in full force and.
with the aid of Saudi Islamic fanatics. of course, secure
the country. "
A sound like a low. animal growl filled the vast cav-
ern as if the soldiers smelled blood. action. triumph.
"We will do this because we are the best. and because
commanding leader stopped, fixing them all
with his piercing eyes---"we have tactical nuclear weap.
ons supplied by the USSR!"
There was an amated silence, then a great wild roar of
triumph as the soldiers cheered their leader. In the rear
rank, Chantal and Le Basque looked at Carter.
i' The Soviet czars do not wish to help us ot the Iran-
ians, but they cannot resist the chance to destroy an
American ally. to secure influence in the area. No mote
than the Americans could resist destroying a Soviet ally
and gaining influence in the Soviet playground. We will
use these nuclear weapons. nen we will return. not to
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
163
here in case the three agents do escape, but to another of
our secret bases, and there we will watch to see if the
world will plunge into full war, or if once more the fat
men in power in both spheres will agree to continue their
little same of musical chairs with the world. and the
fools on the streets will let them.
Laughter.
"The final triumph. We demonstrate our skill. feel
the excitement of our work, and then live rich in this
sick and ridiculous world of today, see the new world
born in which we will have our part, or see everything
destroyed. oblivion, and that would be our final tri-
umph' To take the world. perhaps the universe. into
oblivion with us! To destroy existence!"
Sorel's ringing voice echoed from the stone walls, and
the ranks of gray soldiers cheered and roared unta the
sound was one great wall of violence. Sorel finally
raised his arms in a great vee, then spread his hands out
flat for silence. The room was silent.
e 'We mount up in two hours! To battle!"
The slender. ramrod-straight old man jumped down
from the jeep and strode off toward the command
rooms behind the rows of windows in the rock wall
along the side of the room. Degrange fell in step behind
him. followed by Major Christophe.
A gray-uniformed officer, blood on his shirt and
violence in his eyes. came out of the main entrance tune
nel and hurried across to where Sorel stopped to wait
for him.
Among the drivers along the side wall of the vast
cavern, Carter. Chantal and Le Basque watched the
bloody, dirty officer talk earnestly. his arms waving.
Sorel's eyes flashed even across the distance. and his
face grew grim. He seemed to look all around the great
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NICK CARTER
stone cavern, and then he strode back to the jeep and
jumped up onto the hood with the vigor of a man half
his age.
Carter whispered to Chantal without looking at her or
moving his lips: "They've found the ones we killed at
the road.' •
Chantal and Le Basque nodded. then stared ahead
with the other drivers as Sorel raised his arms again for
silence.
"Three of our comrades have been found dead in the
rear line! This means that the three agents who escaped
did not continue west with the other four. but came
back east."
Anger rippled through the stone cavern inside the
mountain. Degrange climbed up with Sorel.
"They could have done this as a ruse. and escaped to
the east." the renegade old maquis shouted. "or they
could have come back to continue their action against
us! To learn our plans and defeat us!"
The soldiers began to 100k around at their comrades.
Among the drivers, Carter. Chantal. and Le Basque
turned right and left to glare suspiciously at their
neighbors.
"Let's find them!" Le Basque shouted in French.
'WYES!" a hundred voices took up.
"FIND THEM!" a thousand voices responded.
Sorel motioned for silence "I believe those old fools
died to protect them, and they may even be somewhere
inside the mountain now!
Major Christophe climbed onto the jeep. "Atl corn.
manders take their full squads and search every passage!
Remembcr. ooe of them is a woman!"
Carter waved angrily among the drivers. "Weill
search the passages on this side. Come on. five of you!
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
165
Chantal. Le Basque, and three other drivers followed
the Killmaster into the passage that led back to the
motor pool cavern. Other drivers spread out. and the
combat squads saw what they were doing and passed
those passages by. Halfway to the motor pool. a side
passage intersected. and Carter turned into it with
Chantal and Le Basque behind him.
' •We'll search this passage! You three search—
Chantal stumbled. and her hat fell off. Her thick.
dark hair cascaded down to het shoulders. For a split
second everyone froze. Then Chantal pushed Le Basque
to the floor and ran straight at Carter, her stolen com•
bat knife aimed at his throat.
"You won't take me alive!"
Car'ter caught her wrist. saw her dark eyes fixed on
him,and threw her to the ground.
"We've got one of them!" the Killmaster shouted.
Le Basque was up. "Take her to the commandant!"
Carter and Le Basque hustled Chantal down the
passagc toward the main cavern. shouting as they went.
i' Here's one!"
"'We've got one! "
"Here she is!"
The other drivers took up the cry. and soldiers poured
into the passage from the main cavern. Carter and Le
Basquc slipped back and away and into the side passage
they had been about to investigate.
Alone, they ran along the narrow stone passage,
found a door, and slipped inside. It was a small round
room, empty and dimly lit. The two men breathed hard.
€ • What will they do with her?" Le Basque asked.
don't know, mon ami."
The old man was pale. "She knew what to do. What
she had to do."
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NICK CARTER
"There was no other way. She knew it was her or all
of us."
"No other way."
They stood in the darkness and listened to the soldiers
moving along the passages. No one came past the door.
"They think this pas,sage was searched." Le Basque
said.
The sounds of the search suddenly grew less and (i.
nally stopped. A silence flowed through au the passage
near where Carter and Le Basque hid. The Kilimaster
looked around the tiny room. In the dim light a flight of
spiral stairs wound upward.
Outside the room there was no sound at all now.
' *Up," Carter said.
The two men climbed quickly and came out in a long,
narrow room carved from the stone. A tiny window
overlooked the whole cavern below. Ail the graye
uniformed soldiers were in solid ranks. Sorel was in his
jeep. Degrange and Christophe held Chantal between
them.
Sorel's voice came muffled as if from a long distance,
echoing in the enormous chamber below.
"We have one of them. ne other two are probably in
here too. For them I have a message! Killmastet--
Etienne. old comrade—you can do nothing! We must
leave now. We have no more time to look for you. We
will hold the woman. If you try to stop us, she will die."
The white-haired mercenary leader laughed. "You cane
not stop us anyway. We will leave this mountain for
you. Enjoy it. You Will never leave!"
As Carter and Le Basque watched. the gray troops
began to march quickly out. Far Otf they heard the
sound of engines moving away.
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NINETEEN
Nick Carter watched the last gray-uniformed soldier
march into the wide mouth of the exit tunnel far below.
"No more motors," Le Basque said, listening in the
dim room high above the cavern floor. "Nuclear weap-
ons? Will they start World War Three. Killmaster?"
"Not if I can do anything about it." Carter turned to
the spiral stairs, "Come on."
They went down to the small circular room and out
into the silent passage. In the main passage they turned
right to the motor pool cavern, which was as empty and
echoing as an abandoned dirigible hangar.
They retraced their steps to the great main cavern. No
one and nothing moved over the vast training floor. In
the command section all the electronic equipment had
been moved out. They walked through silent corridors,
looking into empty rooms. In thc quartermaster supply
they found flashlights. and racks of Uzi submachine
guns left behind, and ammunition. They each took an
Uzi and as much ammunition as they could carry, and
left their AK-47s.
There was nothing to shoot at now. but it made them
both feel better.
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NICK CARTER
In the rear of the quartermaster section they found ail
their own clothes and equipment neatly placed in wire
baskets and labeled. Carter gathered up his weapons and
devices, and returned them to their places. Le Basque
retrieved only his beret and smiled as he put it one
"Now I am ready to fight the devil!"
Back in the great cavern they hurried to the exit tun.
nel. There were no vehicles, Suddenly. all the lights went
out. They stood in the pitch-darkness, no lights in the
great cavern or anywhere along the black tunnel.
"Nick?" Le Basque said. "Listen."
Carter heard it. Silence. Total. Complete.
"No power, no blowers. no air coming in. "
"How long?"
"It's a big installation. It'll be a few days at least
before the air gives out."
They plunged into the tunnel and began to trot
toward the distant biast door. They did not use their
flashlights; they might need them more at some future
time.
In the tunnel itself the air seemed heavier, harder to
breathe, and Le Basque had to slow to a walk sometimes
as they moved through the thick darkness. After a time
they lost any sense of space or time in thc dark world
without dimension. They could have been on some
unknown planet, in an unknown time.
The sense of something looming up ahead rosc up like
some great monster of the earth.
Carter put out his hand.
Touched.
Smooth, cold. hard,
"The blast door." Carter said. He switched on his
flashlight.
They hurried into the control room and across to the
emergency exit door Carter had melted open on their
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
169
earlier escape. It lay inside the circular stairwell.
Blasted. The two men stood and shined their flashlights
upward.
The emergency exit had been destroyed, the stairs
gonc as far up as they could see.
"The commandant is thorough." Le Basque mut-
Carter searched above for any way he could use his
escark wire. but there was nothing within range to catch
it on; the stairs were destroyed all the way up to the first
sealed door.
"Vety thorough," Carter said.
"Your thermite? Will it work on the blast doors
themselves?"
In the dark tunnel again, Carter examined where the
two halves of the blast door joined. The juncture was ail
but invisible, nere was no lock opening. At the bottom
the gates moved on tails. but they were so tight to the
floor, a separation did not exist. Designed to bc radia.
tionproof, there was no space to insert the thin thermite
rods.
OAII I can do is tape a rod to the face of the door and
bope it burns through to the lock. Not confined. the
thermite doesn't work that well, and I only have three
left. "
"Then it can't be done,' t Le Basque said.
"No." Carter said.
They stood in thc dark tunnel. Only Carter's
flashlight dispelled the blackness. and the air seemed
thin and heavy at the same time. Oppressive, stifling,
forcing their lungs to labor, gasp. They knew the air
puld not give out so soon or so quickly. but the whole
weight of the mountain seemed to press down on them,
crush them.
"The control room." Carter said.
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170
NICK CARTER
While Le Basque shined his flashlight. Carter exam.
ined the control mechanism again.
"Fail•locked. that's how the door was designed.
When they cut the power, the doors remained locked
automatically. "
"That means they cut the power from outside."
Carter nodded. "They'd have their own power inside,
but they probably inactivated that first. then cut from
outside. Everything would be fail-locked, but that
means there must be a manual override."
"That would only operate from inside," Le Basque
said.
• 'Inside, and locked up, and only top officers with a
key. Find it!"
They both searched the control room, each starting at
one side and working toward the center. It was Le
Basque who round it.
i iHere. Killmaster!"
It was a large solid square cabinet of hardened steel at
the base of the main computer locking mechanism and
had the same kind of round-hole lock for an electronic
key, Carter took one of his last three thermite rods from
the silver-alloy cylinder and inserted it into the tock
hole.
"Get back." the Killmaster said.
He stood across the room with Lg Basque. eyes
averted, as the glow once more filled the room. the
pungent odor spread. and the wave of heat. The glow
brightened to a dazzling brilliance and slowly faded
away leaving only the heat in the small room.
The two men returned quickly to the heavy steel
cabinet and together swung open the door to expose a
large wheel and another small. locked box.
"The override switch." Le Basque said.
Carter took his thermite rod. inserted it
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MERCENARY MOUMrAiN
into the lock hole, and scratched.
171
The brilliant light again filled the small room as the
two men turned away.
Soon. in the darkness and the heat, they bent over the
small box and opened it.
'*There it is," Carter said, nodding to Le Basque.
The old maquis unslung his Uzi and went out into the
dark tunnel.
Caner threw the simple electronic switch and began
to turn the large wheel. In the darkness, the wheel
turned easily. a smooth gear reduction mechanism
working with soundless precision. He turned until the
wheel would turn no farther.
There was no sound from out in the tunnel.
Carter held his Uzi and went out. Le Basque stood
smiling. The heavy blast doors were open. Far off he
could see a faint glow of light.
No guards had been left outside the gate.
It was Julien Sorel's first mistake.
ne Killmaster and the old resistance fighter lay in the
thick bushes at the base of the mountain. The sky was
nearly as black as the inside of the tunnel, but the night
glowed brilliantly under hundreds of floodlights as the
Black Mamba Brigade prepared for its biggest attack.
All the "factory" buildings were open now. Hun-
dreds of gray-uniformed mercenaries worked around
mammoth jet transports, some American and some
Soviet. built it was impossible to Know where. Giant,
jet-powered attack helicopters were being rolled out
onto the long runways, the bright runway lights making
long paths into the darkness.
The top flc»or of the tower of the fake industrial ad.
ministration building was lit up. with air controllers on
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NICK CARTER
duty. Just below the top Of the tower. Sorel, Degrange
and other command officers stood on an open balcony
watching the preparations and relaying orders through
computer terminals inside the command room behind
them.
A loudspeaker boomed out. "All commanders. D
minus one hour. Repeat. D minus one hour."
Across the open spaces behind the electrified wire
fence, and outside in the supposed town. the gray.
uniformed mercenaries gathered their weapons. gear,
supplies. parachutes, bulletproof vests, and all the other
special equipment ot an elite assault shock force. Ten
thousand crack troops.
"Can they do it, Nick? • ' Le Basque asked.
"They can do it," Carter said. "Ten thousand well.
trained assault troops could take and hold just about
any city on earth for a few days. With tactical atomic
shrugged—"maybe for a long time
—if they didn't start World War Three in the mean-
time."
"No one is that insane."
"Don't bet on it." Carter said. "The Ayatollah is
nuts rot sure. and I wouldn't bet on their Chairman or
our President if thc fear or craziness got big enough—if
it gets to look like one of our systems is definitely going
to lose."
"Then we must stop Sorel before he leaves the
ground!
"If we even try, they'll kilt (Itantaj, "
Le Basque suddenly looked older in the night, with
only the eerie illumination of the distant floodlights to
outline the hollows and shadows of his face behind the
thick bushes.
"Sorel must be stopped. Killmaster. No matter
what."
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
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Carter nodded. "Maybe we can do both. At least we
can try."
• •One can always try," the old maquis said. staring
out into the illuminated night. "The runways, Kill-
master—we must destroy the runways!"
••or the nuclear weapons."
"Both."
Carter watched the preparations among the brightly
lighted buildings and the open fields. "We've got an
hour—probably an hour and a half if I know army
units—before they're ready. Sorel's mistake in being so
sure we couldn't get out of the mountain means our
escape isn't likely to be discovered. We have an bour to
contact Hawk and locate Chantal."
' 'Then let us do that," Le Basque said.
In the gray field uniforms of drivers of the Black
Mamba Brigade. the two men moved through the night
among the shadows at the edge of the floodlights. Sot-
diers walked quickly, ran. crouched. sat. and lay catch,
ing the last few minutes of sleep before battle. They
were everywhere across the grass and dirt, around the
hangars and jets. under the helicopters. No one noticed
two mote soldiers hurrying to some urgent destination
with their Uzis ready.
They found the small command helicopter standing
alone behind one of the hangars.
"You! Halt!"
Tbe single guard stared at them as they started to
climb into the helicopter.
"What the hell do you think you're ... Hey. you two
are those-—
b Le Basque hurled his flashlight into the solitary sen-
try's face. Carter smashed his Uzi against the man's
head. Le Basque caught his throat as he staggered. The
sentry wcnt limp. They dragged the body into the
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174
NICK CARTER
helicopter and climbed in. Carter found the radio.
Le Basque watched at the helicopter door.
Carter located the secret AXE wavelength. then gave
the special call numbers that would connect him to the
AXE computer.
"Hello, NJ. you've been a bad boy. The director is
furious. "
"Dammit, this is urgent! Top secret. Director Only. I
want—"
Hawk's anxious voice came on the line. "What's
going on, N3? It's been days—y •
Carter cut him off. E' We are on the base of Black
Mamba, sir, under attack. We have only minutes," In
rapid-fire sentences he tried to give his boss as many
details of what was happening in the briefest possible
time. He felt like a tape recorder on fast forward.
"Ten thousand? Trained?" Hawk's voice was almost
a whisper. "Nuclear weapons from Russia? Can this—
"The attack Will succeed!" Carter interrupted again.
"They must be stopped hete
"Two hours. One and a half at best. That's all I can
promise. The Sixth Fleet is two hours' flying time away.
Hotd them for two hours. NY' •
don't know, sir," Carter said quietly. "We can
try.
Nick."
Two hours. And the Black Mamba Brigade would be
ready for takeoff in less than forty-five minutes.
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TWENTY
"Where would Sore! hoid Chantal?"
Le Basque thought. "Close to him. yes, but not where
she could hear what is happening. He used to say to me,
'Etienne. you never know when someone witl escape, no
matter how impossible.' So. not where she could know
what was going on, but where it would be the most dif-
ficult to rescue her."
Carter shook his head. "The buildings are all hollow
—facade and hangars—except for that tower on the
administration building. She has to be in there."
The old maquis looked across the floodlit runways
from the bushes inside the fence where they had buried
the dead sentry. The guard would be missed before the
attack took Off, but he wouldn't be found. Not before.
A deserter.
"We can't take the risk. Nick. If we try, we could be
killed, captured, immobilized. The attack would go off
before your planes could arrive. They might or they
might not catch them and stop them. No. we have rrr-
haps half an hour before they go. an hour to hold them
hete. We have no choice."
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NICK CARTER
Carter nodded slowly. staring across the night toward
the tower and the distant figures of Sorel and his of-
ficetsv In the wide floodlit space between. the whole
complex was alive with the gray soldiers preparing for
their mission.
"There may be one chance—the nuclear weapons,"
Carter said slowly. "If we can find them—use them-—
we could destroy the runways and maybe the planes
themselves, and hold the Mambas here until the fleet
jets arrive. Then, while the navy attacks and keeps Sorel
and his killers busy. we could save Chantal.' •
"If we can find the weapons."
"They have to load them in thc transports."
"But we don't know what weapons they are, what
they look like."
dose • Carter said. • 'Field pieces and recoilless
shoulder cannon. Some bazookalike weapon for breach•
ing walls. They're Soviets, and I doubt if Sorel would
bother to repaint them. They're dark gray with red
markings. "
"The transports ot the helicopters?"
"Let •s find out. ' '
They crawled silently away from the fence to the edge
of the glare of floodlights behind lhe first bogus in-
dustrial building. Inside, the ground crews were working
on two fast jet transports, testing and loading at the
same time. ntere was nothing Carter could identify as
the tactical nuclear weapons.
All across the open fields between the buildings the
gray-uniformed mercenanes were fornung up in their
units, falling in. preparing to board the transports and
helicopters.
The loudspeaker boomed out over the whole installa-
tion in thc garish night: "D nunus thirty mnutes. First
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
177
transports load in ten minutes. D minus thirty min.
utes.
Carter and Le Basque circled the building at the edge
of the light. At the side of the large hangar they saw a
stack of medical boxes, red-cross armbands, supplies.
Carter took two armbands. giving one to Le Basque and
putting the other on. They picked up a large box marked
with a red cross, and walked boldly out into the glare Of
tight and across the open space to the next hangar.
The forming ranks of the mercenaries paid no atten-
tion to them. The one time when all armies are the least
alert is when they are moving out for an attack. That's
why there were MPs. walking in pairs through the
buildings. among the tents, around the barracks. But
the only MPs Carter could see this time, beyond those
who were directing traffic along the roads and runways,
wete stationed around a concrete blockhouse behind the
next building. Their military police jeep was parked and
ready in front of the door.
"Le Basque!"
The old maquis saw the red-helmeted soldiers, their
MP armbands clear on their immaculate gray fatigue
uniforms, Uzis hanging around their necks, pistols at
their sides. There were six of them. grimly alert. fore
midable, yet rigid at parade rest. immobile as statues. It
was a mistake some military minds make; the imposing
{asade instead of the flexible force.
'*The nuclear weapons have to be in that bunker: •
Carter said.
The blockhouse was at the edge of the floodlights.
three quarters in darkness. and none of the units were
flose. It was as if there were standing orders for all
troops to stay far away. Another miliary error: isolation
isn't sarcty.
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NICK CARTER
' •The two at the back can't see the two at the front."
Le Basque said.
The loudspeaker boomed: "D minus twenty-five mine
utes. first units to the loading areas. D minus twenty
five minutes. "
The Killmaster and Le Basque drew their knives. Lc
Basque dropped to the ground and crawled toward the
MP on the west side of the concrete blockhouse. Carter
disappeared silently to the east side.
Carter struck first, rising up out of the dark ground
like a ghost to bury Hugo under the fibs of the first MP.
He whirled to the front before the dead man hit the
ground. then hurled Hugo into the throat of the second
startled MP. and broke the neck of the third. He saw Le
Basque grappling with a fourth over the body of the
fifth. then raced to the rear to cut the throat of the last
as Le Basque plunged his knife home and ended it.
The two men breathed hard. Twelve seconds had
passed. They did not waste time hiding the bodies.
The lock of the steel door on the concrete blockhouse
opened to the last of Cartet•s thermite rods.
Inside. the dark-gray-and-red nuclear prolectiles were
lined up in careful racks: shells and rockets for recoilless
cannon, bazookas, mortars, and large field pieces. Rows
of the recoilless cannon. bazookas, and mortars were
there too. as well as other ammunition.
"Those are chemical shells." Carter said.
"Gas?" I.e Basque said. "Mon dieur•
"Regular ammo too. but we want the nuclear stuff.
Let'S take a mortar. a recoilless cannon. and two ba-
zookas. and all the shells we can carry."
"There! The carriers."
Le Basque Picked up two of the heavy canvas carrters
that hung like ponchos back and front Süth large
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
179
pockets for the shells, He picked up two of the deadly
gray-and-red projectiles.
Carter swore. ' 'Damn!"
" What is wrong, Killmaster? "
iiNo krytrons!"
"Krytrons?"
"The tiny switches used to trigger nuclear weapons!
Without them the shells are not fused. Look around!"
They searched, but the krytrons were not there,
"They must be somewhere!" Le Basque said.
"We don't have any more time. Someone will spot
the bodies soon now. We'll have to try to hold this
building."
Le Basque looked around. "Impossible. Killmastet.
No windows, nowhere to fire from. We would have to
dig in outside and they would run over us in minutes."
Carter nodded. "All right. Take all the conventional
weapons we can, and some of the nuclear stuff. Maybe
they won't know they're not armed. We'll load the jeep
out front, then find a hole up on the slope of the moun-
tain. With mortars and cannon we can cover the run•
ways. and they'll have to blast us out before they can
• risk a takeoff."
"It would be suicide. Nick!"
"But maybe we'd live another forty-five minutes.
That's all we need—just forty-five minutes.
Le Basque went out. Caner gathered up two mortars.
two recoilless cannons. two aprons of shells. and two
boxes of concussion grenades. He dragged them out.
side. The night was silent at the blockhouse. the dead
MPs lying in their Wood. Everywhere else the base was
in frantic activity. troops marching. the transports being
slowly wheeled out. ranks and ranks of gray soldiers
already lined up along the runways.
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NICK CARTER
"D minus fifteen minutes. First transport is loaded.
Commanders for second transport commence loading
D minus fifteen minutes. "
Together they loaded the weapons into the military
police jeep, then returned for more shells, and still
more.
"That's all it can carry." Carter said.
"Let's go! They will see us at any moment!"
"Blow up the blockhouse! Get rid of the nuclear
weapons!"
"Later, Killmaster," Le Basque said. am sorry."
Before Carter could turn, he felt the blow on his
head, the strong fingers on his neck, the pressure....
The Kilimaster came awake. Gunfire echoed through
the night. He touched where his head was bleeding.
Heavy gunfire.
Darkness.
He sat up. He was in some kind of hard ditch. behind
trees. beyond the light. There was blood on his hand.
but not much. His weapons were all in place; he had the
Uzi around his neck, a bazooka, and an apron of arn-
munition in the ditch beside him.
The heavy firing was not far away.
The floodlights were off! He could see only thc small
lights outside the buildings, along the roads behind the
fence, and in the fields where he saw the ranks of gray
soldiers lying down looking toward the mountain. Flat
on the ground.
Carter crawled to the edge of the ditch and hxüed
He was in a concrete•lined drainage ditch close to the
false administration building near the base Of the moun-
tain.
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
181
On the mountain, a hundred or more yards up. the
military police jeep was on its side in front of two large
boulders. Even as Carter watched. the jeep's heavy
machine gun fired across its side from between the
Four gray uniformed mercenaries fell seventy
yards below on the steep slope.
Bodies of gray soldiers littered the slope,
More tried to move upward.
A concussion grenade lobbed over the rocks, explod-
ing directly among them. The survivors dragged the
fallen back down to the vehicles all along the base of
the mountain. Behind the vehicles the gray soldiers
crouched. Carter could see Sorel, Degrange, and Major
Christophe. all staring up the hill at the improvised fort.
shouting orders.
A mortar shell exploded among the vehicles. scatter-
ing soldiers in all directions.
Another mortar shell exploded on the main runway.
Le Basque!
The rocks. with the jeep on its sidev formed a natural
fort, with only the steep approach in front. and no way
to get above it.
Carter looked at his watch. He had been out maybe
five minutes, no more.
Forty minutest
The mercenaries could not risk a takeoff on the main
runway as long as Le Basque was there. Forty minutes.
Could Le Basque hold out that long?
Already the gray soldiers were moving closer. using
the rocks on the steep slope for cover. More and more
Were coming up.
The nuclear ueapons?
No, Sorel would not use them on one man on a hill.
Not until he had to. And he would not have to. Le
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NICK CARTER
Basque was a dead man. The only question was when.
How long could he delay the mercenaries? How long
could he hold out without help. without Carter getting
into the battle?
There was no way on earth he could join the old ma-
quis. Any attempt would only expose Le Basque. All
he could do was open another attack. sabotage the
transports, but the tough old man had not chosen to
fight alone because he wanted all the glory.
Le Basque had hit him. put him out. so that he,
Carter, could rescue Chantal while Basque created the
diversion.
Carter could not let it all be for nothing.
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TWENTY-ONE
Carrying the recoilless cannon, wearing the apron
of ammunition. the Killmastet raced along the hidden
drainage ditch. More mortar shells exploded behind
him. tearing at the vehicles and runways.
The ditch tan behind the wing of the fake administra-
tion building, then vanished beneath where the building
joined the mountain. nte tower rose in the center. di•
rectly over where the wide tunnel went into the moun-
tain inside the building.
A recoilless cannon shattered the night where Le
Basque was making his stand, followed by the chatter-
ing of the machine gun and the boom of a grenade.
The sound of a helicopter!
Carter whirled to look up at thc black sky. The chop-
per was rising slowly over a distant hangar.
The Killmastet turned back and smashed a window
on the ground floor of the building, climbed in. and
dropped to the floor of the cavernous hollow inside the
building. To the left he saw the dark opening of the tun-
ncl into the mountain.
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NICK CARTER
No onc was in the building.
Stairs on both sides Of the wide tunnel entrance led up
to the upper floors of the tower. The firing and explo•
sions shook the whole building. The helicopter motor
grew louder.
Carter ran up the stairs to the first floor of the tower.
Two soldiers were seated in the central corridor. smok-
ing and listening to the battle, relaxed. enjoying tring
out of the fighting. They jumped up when they saw him,
guilty. afraid he was an officer.
Who is it? one exclaimed in German.
Where is she?" Carter demanded. going on in rapid
German. "The prisoner! The commandant wants her.
Now! Schell!"
• 'Next floor. sir! Second room. We .. .9' The soldier
stared. "You're not you're that—-!"
They both tried for their rifles too late. A single short
burst of the Uzi slammed both back against the corridor
walls. pitched them forward dead to the floor.
The Killmastet jumped over them. grabbed an AK-
47, and took the next flight of stairs three at a time. The
third-floor corridor was empty again. He could hear
voices up on the top floor. the control tower. everyone
up there watching the battle that reverberated down the
stairs and from the watts.
The helicopter was closer. its rotors shaking thc
tower.
Carter kicked in the door of the second room. Chan.
tal sat on the floor. het leg chained to the wall. Her dark
eyes were wide, her hair down on the shoulders of the
gray mercenary uniform. She stared at him as if she
could not see him. as if she expected to see someone
else, anyone else.
"The firing?" she said.
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
183
"Your father." Carter said. motioning her away
from the wall.
She stood away. He severed the chain with a burst.
Carter nodded. "There may still be time to help."
"The blood on your head?"
"His work. He made the diversion and left me to find
you."
"The old bastard." she said tightly.
"Come on!"
He tossed her the AK-47. In the corridor they went up
to the command floor. Deserted. the computers and ter.
minals flashed. murmured electronically, computed
without a human presence.
The violent explosion rocked the tower.
Two computer terminals toppled to the floor,
smashed. A bank of computers went dark and silent.
Through the window. over the command balcony.
Carter and Chantal saw the pieces of the helicopter fall-
ing in names. Le Basque stood among his rocks, thc
bazooka still on his shoulder. Below him on the moun-
,tainside gray soldiers were running and stumbling back
down the slope to the siege line of vehicles. many of the
trucks and jeeps now shattered wrecks.
Angry voices raged and cursed up above, Two
soldiers came down the stairs. sliding and stumbling,
eager to do battle with someone.
They didn't see Carter and Chantal.
The Kilimaster plunged Hugo. Chantal smashed with
,the butt Of the AK-47. They dragged both bodies into a
corner. then went up the stairs to the final floor. the
control tower.
They were all at the windows staring at the smolder-
, ing remains of thc helicopter. Recoilless cannon shells
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NICK CARTER
from Le Basque were exploding along the main runway
and among the vehicles below his position on the moun-
tainside.
Someone heard Carter and Chantal. Turned.
"Enemy! Down!"
Carter lobbed a grenade from the stairwell.
Another.
The explosions shattered the room. scattenng blood
and bone and pieces of arms and legs. Among the
screams and moans, someone opened fire. Carter and
Chantal raked the room with bursts from the stairwell.
The firing stopped. and the screams and moans
faded.
The two agents climbed slowly up into the room. but
they found no one alive. At the windows they looked
out at where the gray troops were halfway up the slope
toward Le Basque's redoubt. From the tower they could
see the old maquis's head and shoulders where he fired
thc machine gun, bent to fire the mortar, swung thc
recoilless cannon to shoot another great hole in thc main
runway.
' 'Look Chantal cried,
Two more helicopters were approaching the moun•
tainside. Carter ran back down the stairs to the eom-
mand floor where he had left his recoilless CannOO and
shells. then raced back up. The helicopters were closing
in; the gray soldiers were moving up closer now. No fir,
ing camc from the redoubt.
Chantal had field glasses and stood watching het
father in his stand on the mountainside.
Le Basque looked up at the two helicopters approach-
ing inexorably. separated so that he could not get two
quick shots at them.
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
It did not matter anyway.
187
He looked down at his feet. There was one more
bazooka shell, and no cannon projectiles.
Two grenades. the machine gun ammunition gone.
His Uzi with two more clips.
He looked at his watch. Thirty minutes.
He smiled.
Thirty minutes was a long time to have held out.
He watched the helicopters approach.
He searched the whole installation below. He saw the
gray soldiers moving up the slope, wary, cautious. He
had not fired for five minutes. but he had hurt them
badly. and they came on cautiously.
But it wasn't the helicopters or the soldiers he was
thinking about. He searched the field tor a sign of
Chantal. Of Carter. The Killmaster and his daughter.
He knew the American would have known what Le
Basque had done and why.
Where was Chantal?
His old eyes searched, hoped.
The helicopters were poised to swoop in now. the
gray soldiers no more than ten yards below the rocks. Le
Basque took a deep breath. tossed his last two grenades
over among the mercenaries. listened to them scream,
and raised the bazooka with its last rocket.
A helicopter vanished in a roaring sheet of name!
Le Basque looked left. The tower! The American
stood at a window at the top. a recoilless cannon still on
his shoulder. The Killmaster—and Chantal!
The old man saw the slim, dark-haired figure of his
daughter. an AK-47 in one hand, binoculars aimed
toward him in the other.
Chantal.
Lc Basque laughed aloud, and fired the bazooka at
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188
NICK CARTER
the remaining helicopter. Its totor exploded, and it
plunged into the side of the mountain tike a wounded
bird.
Then the old maquis jumped on a boulder. Uzi in
hand. and waved wildly toward Chantal and the
American. thc gray mercenaries no mote than five yards
away down the slope.
He looked at his watch. Thirty-five minutes.
He smiled, and opened fire as the gray troops stood
up and rushed toward him.
It was as good a way as any for an old fighter.
In the shattered control tower. Carter and Chantal
watched the second helicopter fall into the mountain.
then saw Le Basque jump on his boulder.
They saw him wave to them. laugh. and open fire
with his Uzi on the swarm of gray soldiers rushing up
the mountaine
They saw the mercenaries sweep over the jeep. the
boulders. and the old maquis.
Chantal turned away.
•g Thirty-five minutes," Carter said,
Chantal leaned against a blood-spattered wall, her
head down, silent.
"He saw you," Carter said. "That's what mattered."
She breathed hard and squatted down, arms around
her knees. head against her arms. dark hair hanging
almost to the noon
"Now." Carter said. "it's up to us. They'll be com-
ing. We have to hold out five. ten minutes."
The woman was motionless. •nten nodded, breathed.
stood up. and turned to the smashed windows.
Below, the gray soldiers were converging in a mass on
the tower. Sorel. Degrange, and Major Christophe rode
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MERCENARY MOUNTAIN
189
in a jeep behind the first wave of running soldiers com-
ing toward them.
Carter smiled. Sorel's second mistake. Carter and
Chantal were no real problem now. They had no more
big weapons to stop the transports. Le Basque had done
a good job on the main runway. but the cross runways
were usable. the transports could go out with lighter
loads.
But Sorel was maddened by bloodlust; he thought of
nothing but destroying the last resistance. And the
mercenaries advanced on the tower.
"Save your ammo for when they reach the stairs,"
Carter said.
O'How many shells do you have left?" Chantal said
quietly.
"Two. And three grenades."
The dark-haired woman looked out toward where
Sorel had ordered up two field pieces.
"Can you reach those two guns?"
can try."
Carter shouldered the long cannon. Chantal loaded
it. Carter fired.
Across the distance the field gun seemed to leap into
the air on a spout of concrete. dirt, and smoke. The sec-
ond gun fired. The tower rocked. and glass and plaster
showered around the two agents. A gaping hole ap-
Fared in the floor below.
Carter fired again.
, Missed.
The dirt, concrete. and flame spouted up ten yards to
thc right of the gun.
"Take some grenades,' • Carter said.
Chantal nodded. They divided the grenades. A sec•
ond shell smashed into the tower above them. took off
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190
NICK CARTER
half the roofi and knocked them both to their knees.
They struggled up. and heard soldiers in the hollow
space of the first floor far below. They took up posi-
lions where they had a clear field of fire down the stairs.
a clear throw of their grenades.
"We've stopped them, •t Carter said. "Therets no
way now they can regroup and get off before the navy
arrives. • •
"No," she agreed with a weak smile.
"Your father did it."
' 'We all did it. You, me, Daniel. Karl-Heinz—all Of us
and your agent Lyons too."
"What will Sorel do?" Carter wondered.
' • Run. hide. try again. He's a fighter too, the com-
mandant.'i
They heard the running. pounding feet almost up to
the floor below. Carter took a deep breath and glanced
out the window.
It was a speck at first. Then rapidly a dot. A shape.
Three shapes. Six. In perfect formation.
Like a single unit the six U.S. Navy jets swept in
low, dropped their bombs, cannonaded and machine-
gunned. mowing down the gray uniformed mercenaries
who stood and stared upward unbelieving.
The next wave swept in. and the next. and the next.
In minutes the Black Mamba Brigade was destroyed,
its installation a shambles, the transports and hangars
burning. the helicopters exploded. the runways and
houses rubble.
All through the ruins the mercenaries dropped their
weapons and fled.
Carter and Chantal went down the stair warily. No
one stopped them. At the bottom the empty space
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192
NICK CARTER
US. Navy were rounding up the last of the mercenaries.
"What happens to the Black Mamba Brigade now?"
Chantal wondered.
The general shrugged. "They will scatter. Some we
will capture. put on trial; others we won't. They'll find
other mercenary units, fight for a hundred other cause
and rulers. But as a unit they are destroyed.
"Because Sorel had to kill Carter." Hawk growled.
s 'If he hadn't, he might have escaped to try again.
He was the Black Mamba Brigade. Without him. it is
over. • ' The AXE chief shook his head. "How can men
go so wrong? Start out with all the ideals and end in hate
so deep they can destroy the world. 't
"Not ail men. Monsieur Hawk." Chantal said. "My
father died as he had lived—for his ideals."
Hawk nodded. "Perhaps there's some hope."
The AXE director and the Zairean general walked
down the slope where the Zairean troops held the cap-
tured and bloody mercenaries, Degrange sullen among
them.
Alone on the hill where Le Basque had died, Chantal
and Carter looked out over what had once been a green,
peaceful valley.
' • Where to now?" Chantal smiled.
' 'The Riviera? A few days?"
"Why not? Without guards it might be fun."
They both laughed. and looked out over the ghattered
valley.
' *There is hope, isn't there, Nick?" Otantal asked.
"One man kept his hope for the world. tf one can,
perhaps all can someday. t •
Then they walked down the scarred mountain to the
jet that waited to fly them out.
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echoed hollowly to the gunfire and explosions outside as
the jets swept in again and again. They turned toward
the exit.
And Julien Sorel madc his third mistake.
"Killmaster!"
Carter and Chantal whirled.
Sorel and Major Christophe had come out of the wide
tunnel entrance into the mountain not twenty feet away
and opened fire with their Kalishnikovs.
A bullet slammed Carter to the floor. shot his Uzi out
Of his hands. Chantal got Off a single burst, Cut down
the young black major, then fell and lay motionless.
Sorel rushed forward firing as Carter rolled.
The imperious, commanding old man seemed to hang
in midair for a moment. the stiletto sticking out of his
throat. Then he collapsed with his blood pouring across
the floor Of the hollow building.
Holding his left arm. which hung bloody, Carter
struggled to Chantal. She sat up. an ugly wound on her
head. Ugly, but only a graze.
"I'll have a hell of a headache. You?"
"Some stitches, a sling."
They came together and held each other as outside the
US jets began to land on the destroyed base.
Hawk and the Zairean general stood on the slope of
the mountain where Le Basque had died. Carter and
Chantal, bandaged, Carter's arm in a sling, stood beside
them.
"He held them thirty-five minutes," Carter said.
"You all did well,"
the Zaiiean general said. "My
country is grateful."
Below. the Zairean troops who had come in after the
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192
NICK CARTER
US. Navy were rounding up the last of the mercenaries.
"What happens to the Black Mamba Brigade now?"
Chantal wondered.
The general shrugged. "They will scatter. Some we
will capture. put on trial; others we won't. They'll find
other mercenary units, fight for a hundred other cause
and rulers. But as a unit they are destroyed.
"Because Sorel had to kill Carter." Hawk growled.
s 'If he hadn't, he might have escaped to try again.
He was the Black Mamba Brigade. Without him. it is
over. • ' The AXE chief shook his head. "How can men
go so wrong? Start out with all the ideals and end in hate
so deep they can destroy the world. 't
"Not ail men. Monsieur Hawk." Chantal said. "My
father died as he had lived—for his ideals."
Hawk nodded. "Perhaps there's some hope."
The AXE director and the Zairean general walked
down the slope where the Zairean troops held the cap-
tured and bloody mercenaries, Degrange sullen among
them.
Alone on the hill where Le Basque had died, Chantal
and Carter looked out over what had once been a green,
peaceful valley.
' • Where to now?" Chantal smiled.
' 'The Riviera? A few days?"
"Why not? Without guards it might be fun."
They both laughed. and looked out over the ghattered
valley.
' *There is hope, isn't there, Nick?" Otantal asked.
"One man kept his hope for the world. tf one can,
perhaps all can someday. t •
Then they walked down the scarred mountain to the
jet that waited to fly them out.
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