"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry about that remark I made. I don't blame you for getting mad."
"Oh, that's all right," I said. "I overreacted. I'm just a little jumpy. My fault." I started to walk away from him.
"No hard feelings, then?" he asked.
I turned back. "No, no hard feelings. Don't worry about it."
"Good." He stuck out his hand. I took it and gripped it for a minute.
He was smiling broadly, relieved. "You know, I can see how this kind of duty can really get to you. It's the waiting and watching, I think. I don't know how the Secret Service people do it day after day, month after month."
I glanced at my watch. It was twenty to one. I tried not to show my emotion. "Yes, they have a rough job. I sure wouldn't want it Well, I have to meet a colleague. See you later."
"Sure, okay," he said. "Take it easy, Carter."
I turned and walked on down the long path. The sense of mission was so strong inside me now that I couldn't think of anything else. I wasn't aware of anything around me but my path through the thickening crowd. A cluster of aides blocked the sidewalk as I got to the entrance. I shouldered my way through them, and they looked at me as if I were crazy. But there was no time now for amenities. I made my way around a knot of reporters near the main steps and brushed past them. The crowd was getting thicker.
When I reached the stairs and started up them, I was blocked by the hordes. I pushed and elbowed my way through them. I shoved one man up against another, and he yelled something obscene at me. I banged into a woman, almost knocking her down. But I didn't even bother to look back.
I had to get to the corridor in time.
"Hey, watch it, fellow!" someone shouted after me.
I pushed my way slowly up the steps. "Let me through," I demanded. "Let me through, damn it." At that rate I was never going to get there on time.
I was driven by the urgency of my mission, oblivious to everything but the compulsion to get where I was going. At the top of the stairs the crowd was even denser, and the security people were holding everyone up.
I stumbled and pushed into them. A Venezuelan security man gave me a hard look as I brushed past him. But I had to get into the palace. My contact would be expecting me there at one o'clock sharp. And he couldn't wait. The timing had to be perfect.
"Excuse me," I said, moving into them. "Please let me through!" But nobody moved. Everyone was too busy talking about the conference and world affairs to even notice my presence. I shoved into them, squeezing through the mass of bodies.
"Hey, take it easy!" one man yelled.
I moved past him without answering. I was almost through the congested area just in front of the doors. I looked at my watch and saw I had only seventeen minutes to go. I fought my way through to the door, where several Security Police stood guard.
"Yes?" the Venezuelan in uniform said. Neither he nor the plainclothes man with him recognized me.
"I'm with AXE," I said. "Carter."
"Your identification, please."
I wanted to knock the man down and run past him. The throbbing in my head was almost unbearable. I fumbled in my pocket and came up with Nick Carter's wallet. I opened it and found the I.D. and the special pass for the palace. I showed it to the man on duty.
"Hmm," he said. He looked at the photograph on the cards and then scrutinized my face closely. If Hawk and Vincent hadn't been able to tell I wasn't Nick Carter, this man couldn't possibly see through my disguise.
"Would you hurry, please?" I said impatiently.
If anything, the request seemed to slow him down. He studied the card as if it held some flaw that was just waiting for him to detect it. Obviously I'd offended him with my impatience, and he was going to teach me a lesson.
"Where are you billeted, Mr. Carter?"
I had an almost uncontrollable impulse to ram my fist into his smug face. But I knew that would quickly put an end to the mission.
"Does it matter?" I said, clenching my fists as I tried to control myself.
"Por favor" he said sourly.
"Hotel El Conde," I said.
"Gracias, muchas gracias," he said sarcastically.
I wanted to speak to him in my native tongue, to tell him he was an idiot, the unwitting tool of a malicious tyrant. But I kept quiet.
"Your cards, Mr. Carter." He handed them back to me. "You may enter the palace."
"Thanks a lot," I said nastily. I took the wallet back and hurried past the guards into the interior.
It was much quieter inside. There were a few people in the entrance hall, but they were scattered, and I didn't have any trouble getting past them. I started toward the Grand Reception Room, which was being used for the conference.
There was another security check when I entered that part of the palace, but one of the guards knew me, so it was quick. I moved down the hall to the conference room. I was almost there.
Just then the chief of the Venezuelan Security Police came out of a doorway just a few yards from the conference room. I felt the revulsion churning in my gut, and the pressure was rising in my head and chest. As head of the brutal secret police, he was almost as detestable as the President himself.
"Ah, Mr. Carter!" he said when he saw me.
"Señor Santiago," I responded, fighting to keep my cool.
"Everything is going well, isn't it? It seems that our precautions were unnecessary, after all."
"It does seem that way, sir," I said tightly. A clock ticked in my head. It must have been about eight minutes to one. I had to get away from him.
"I am certain everything will be all right," he said. "I have a good feeling about it. Have you seen señor Hawk?"
"Not since early this morning," I lied, wondering if my face gave me away.
"Well, I am sure I will find him. And I will see you both later to congratulate you on such a successful day." He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder.
"Very good, sir," I said.
He went back into the office room, which seemed to be some sort of annex to the security headquarters. I breathed a sigh of relief and walked on down the corridor to the conference room. I checked my watch, and it said five to one.
I stood across from the open doors, as I'd been instructed to do. Across the hall there were four guards on duty, the same ones who'd been there that morning. They knew me, so I wouldn't have any difficulty getting past them. Just two more minutes to go. An aide came down the corridor and showed his credentials. The guards let him into the room. There were security people all over the place, moving around in the corridor and standing inside the conference room.
I looked up and down the corridor. I was in a lot of pain. The tension and the pressure in my head were mounting rapidly as the minutes passed. I knew the pain wouldn't go away till I'd destroyed my enemies. Yet I had an awful feeling that somehow this was all wrong. It was a gut feeling, a vague, nagging sensation that seemed to come from a hidden corner of my brain. It didn't make sense — any more than anything else that had happened in the past few days. But whatever the feeling was, it was beginning to tug at my conscience even as the urgency of my mission was overwhelming me. I felt as if there were a terrible struggle going on inside my head, and it just might drive me crazy if it didn't stop soon.
I was beginning to wonder if my contact had been detained. But then I saw him — a dark-haired Venezuelan in a conservative navy-blue suit and red tie, coming down the corridor toward me. He looked like an ordinary member of the palace staff, but he was wearing the white carnation in his lapel and carrying the carafe.
My heart pounded wildly against my ribs. In a minute he was beside me, handing me the carafe. "Señor Carter, the conference director asked me to bring fresh drinking water to the conference room during the noon recess." He spoke very loudly, so that anyone around us could hear him. "Since you have special clearance, would you mind terribly taking it in for me?"