"Look out!" Zach's weak voice came to us. I turned and saw that the shot had not killed him. He was struggling to his feet and looking toward the gate.
"Get down!" I ordered Erika, who was very near me beside the black sedan.
The guard aimed the submachine gun our way. Zach got up and pointed his weapon at the man, but the guard beat him. A fusillade of shots clattered from the automatic gun, digging up dirt beyond Zach and then hitting him in the chest before they began careening off the metal of the car. Erika and I kept low as Zach hit the dust on his back, dead.
I rolled over twice to the end of the car, to a position up under the front bumper, pulling out my Luger as I went. When I got there, the guard was just starting to rake back the other way with the gun. I fired three quick shots at him, bracing my gun hand with the other. The slugs from the Luger struck the fence in back of him, the guard's groin, and his chest, in that order. The automatic weapon blasted at the cobalt sky as he pitched backwards into the dust. Then, suddenly, there was silence in the compound.
I lay there getting my breath. In the jungle somewhere a bird shrieked its outrage at the noise we had made. I was covered with dust and dirt. I rose slowly and helped Erika to her feet. She was gazing at Zach bewilderedly; her face was white.
I turned to Gruber and saw that he was coming around. I bent down and slapped him a few times, and he gazed up at me drunkenly. He groaned. I stuck the Luger into his face. "How many men in the house guarding Minourkos?" I demanded.
He tried to speak but found it difficult with a dislocated jaw. "I… an't…"
I stuck the Luger up under his chin. "How many?"
Weakly he held up two fingers. I turned to Erika. "Stay here and watch him."
She nodded numbly.
I went to the entrance of the house. The wide, arched doorway was open. I stepped into a large entrance foyer just in time to run head-on into a dark-faced man with an automatic in his fist I fired my Luger, and it roared in the hall. The man smashed up against the wall beside him. He then fell in a cumbersome heap across a small table, demolishing it as he hit the floor.
The man had come from a long corridor to my left. I went down the hallway quickly but cautiously. I couldn't delay in finding Minourkos, or he would surely be dead when I finally did. It might be that they had already killed him.
The doors off the corridor, which I presumed were bedrooms, were all open except one at the end. I heard a small sound inside as I stopped in front of it. Taking a deep breath, I stepped back and kicked the door savagely. It crashed inward, and I went through the opening.
A very skinny, ugly man stood over Minourkos, who was bound to a straight-back chair, aiming a gun at his head. His finger on the trigger, he whirled to face me when the door crashed open. He fired first, but wildly, and the slug chewed up wood in the door casing beside me. I fired the Luger and hit him in the chest. He spun off his feet and dropped to the floor. But he hadn't lost his gun. He aimed at me again. I beat him that time and hit him in the face, the slug blowing the side of his head away.
Minourkos stared at his dead captor with a dazed expression as I holstered my Luger. Slowly he looked over at me.
"Nikkor Minourkos?" I asked.
"Yes," he answered quietly. "Who are…"
"We have come to free you, Mr. Minourkos," I said.
He let out a shaky breath. "Thank God. He was going to…"
"I know." I untied him and he rose from the chair, rubbing his wrists.
"Are you all right?" I asked, concerned.
"Yes, I will be fine." He shook his head and muttered something in Greek. "I can't believe it is really over."
"Well, most of it is."
I was starting to ask him to tell his story when I heard the shot from the compound. I remembered Erika out there with the German. I turned and rushed into the hall. "Erika!"
In a moment she answered me. "I'm all right" Before I could move toward the front foyer, she suddenly rounded the corner and walked casually toward me, stuffing the Belgian revolver into her purse.
"What the hell happened?" I asked.
"Gruber met an untimely demise." Her eyes avoided mine.
"You shot him?" I asked, almost unbelievably.
"He started mumbling with his dislocated jaw. When I asked him what he was saying, he called me a dirty Jew and said I should have been with the others he saw die at Dachau. He did not think Jews should be allowed to live in the same world with people like himself. So I sent him to another world. I hope it is warm enough for him down there."
Finally the green eyes looked up into mine, defiantly, daring me to say something. I remembered that relatives of her parents had been put to death by the Nazis at Buchenwald. Somehow I could think of nothing to say in defense of Heinz Gruber.
"Come on in and meet Mr. Minourkos," I said.
We went into the room, and Erika stared at the corpse on the floor. Minourkos was leaning against a nearby wall. He straightened when he saw Erika.
"Miss Erika Nystrom," I introduced them. "Of Israeli intelligence."
Minourkos' eyes narrowed. He looked over at me. "And you?"
"The name is Carter. Nick Carter. I'm employed by the US government in the same capacity as Miss Nystrom. We came here to free you and to get Adrian Stavros."
Minourkos moved away from the wall. "I see. Well, Mr. Carter, the first thing I want as a free man is contact with the authorities." His tone had taken on that of a business tycoon speaking to his subordinates. "Then I will deal with Adrian Stavros in my own way."
"Mr. Minourkos," I said slowly, "there is absolutely no reason for you to do anything at this point. All that can result is a bundle of red tape and delay. I would prefer that you let us handle it."
"How do I know you are who you claim to be?" He sounded annoyed.
"You know that we risked our lives to free you. As a matter of fact, we lost a man," I answered acidly. "I would think that would give us the benefit of the doubt."
His face sagged from sudden weariness. "You're right. Please forgive me. I have been through a great deal."
"As for your handling Stavros alone, Mr. Minourkos," I continued, "that's pretty impractical. The man has an army around him."
Minourkos raised his eyebrows and blew his cheeks out "All right, all right, Mr. Carter. I will go along with you and the girl. But if I see, at any point along the way, that your methods are not working I will take command of the situation."
I smiled briefly. "That sounds fair," I replied. "Were you abducted from Athens by Stavros?"
Minourkos got the straight-back chair he had been sitting on when I broke into the room. He sat down on it, facing us.
"You would not believe the cleverness of the man," he began slowly. "I do not consider myself an innocent, Mr. Carter, but I have never met anyone like Adrian Stavros. I had been pursuing the idea of building a fleet of computer-run, underwater oil tankers. Stavros found out about this and wanted to help me with it — or so he said.
"At first I would not even see him, but he sent me a letter outlining some very good ideas. I finally invited him to my penthouse in Athens. We had a long talk.
" 'Mr. Minourkos, I recall him saying to me, 'I have the same plan as you. If you will just allow me, I will make you immortal in the annals of shipping history. He was very persuasive.
" 'But, Mr. Stavros, I said, 'there are complex engineering problems to be solved.
" 'I have two engineers who can do it, he told me. Underneath the charm, even then, I saw something else in the man's face, something I did not like, but I passed it off as undue excitement about the project."
"Did he bring the engineers to you?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. They had imaginative ideas, too. I was convinced that they might have the skills to make it all happen. At that point, Mr. Carter, I let my guard down. He asked for a private meeting at the penthouse and I granted it. There were only my personal secretary and another aide present. He brought two men with him that I had not seen previously."