I regarded him with a wry grin. "They wanted me to stay a while longer in that Salisbury hospital. But you know how quickly I get bored. If I'm pale, it's because I need the sun and a good sirloin steak. What do you think of Salomos' story?"
Hawk puffed on the cigar and blew a smoke ring toward me. He looked small and thin sitting behind the big desk, with his rumpled, gray hair and his Connecticut farmer's face. But I knew that the frail look was deceiving. He was a dynamo.
"It frightens me a little," he said. "It also frightens me that you damn near got yourself killed between assignments. I never saw a man who found trouble so easily."
I shrugged my shoulders. "Salomos was a friend. Of mine and of AXE. He went out of his way to help us find Borisov that time, remember?"
"Yes, I remember," Hawk said soberly. "Well, your Rhodesian escapade is over, so we'll drop it. As for the possibility that Adrian Stavros might be planning a coup against the Greek government, I wouldn't put it past him."
"Does he still own the plantation in Brazil?"
"According to our sources, that's still his headquarters. We don't have a recent report." Hawk leaned back in his big leather chair. "If that was really Stavros that your friend saw coming from the Minourkos penthouse, we're definitely confronted with an interesting situation. Dreams of running a whole country fit in very nicely with what we've learned about him."
Hawk studied his bony knuckles. "Adrian Stavros was always a neurotic personality, perhaps psychopathic. Besides running a successful smuggling ring in Brazil that the government there has been unable to break, he has also made a business of political assassination, the most recent believed to be the killing of the Israeli official Moshe Ben Canaan."
"Then I take it AXE is interested in Alexis Salomos' story," I said.
"I'm afraid we have to be. And I suppose that because you considered Salomos a friend, you'd like to have the assignment."
"Yes sir, I would."
Hawk stubbed out the cigar in a nearby ashtray. "My first impulse is to say no and give the case to another man. You know how I try to avoid an agent's personal involvement in an assignment."
"It's important to me that Alexis' killer doesn't go free," I said quietly.
"All right. You can handle this one. But be especially careful, Nick. The way to start on this, I think, is to go to Rio and talk to the CIA man there. Find out if Stavros is outside the country and where he's been spending his time. Then if your leads take you to Athens, go there. Just keep me informed."
"Don't I always?" I grinned.
"Well, you sometimes tend to forget that there are people back here at their dull desk jobs whose responsibility it is to run the show." His voice had taken on that truculent tone that it sometimes did when he spoke of protocol and chain of command. "If you need help at any point along the way, ask for it. That's what we're here for."
"Of course."
He opened a desk drawer and pulled out an envelope. His eyes avoided mine. "Anticipating your request and my eventual concession to you, I had the foresight, if not the wisdom, to purchase your ticket."
I smiled. "Thanks." I reached across the desk and took the envelope.
"You'd better wait to see how this all comes out before you decide whether I've done you any favors," Hawk replied.
The next evening I boarded the Pan Am flight to Rio de Janeiro. I had rested all day and was feeling pretty much my old self again. The flight was uneventful, but I kept thinking of that other one in the small Mooney aircraft when Salomos showed me the veldt, of the trouble and the crash landing, and of the way Salomos' corpse had looked in the hot sun.
I arrived in Rio the next morning and checked into the Floriano Hotel near the Copacabana Palace. It was just a block from the beach, and it had the flavor of colonial Brazil. The room had a ceiling fan and louvered doors, and the narrow balcony gave a small view of the sea.
It was hot in Rio. All the Brazilians who could get there were at the beach, and most of them must have been at the Copacabana area near the hotel. Anticipating the heat, I had brought a tropical worsted suit along. I showered at noon, donned the lightweight suit over Wilhelmina, my Luger, and Hugo, the sheathed stiletto, on my right arm, and went for lunch at one of my favorite small restaurants, the Chale at Rua da Matriz 54. This restaurant had been a colonial home and was still furnished with valuable antiques and paintings. Negro servants waited tables and tended bar. I ordered a churrasco mixto, which consisted of chunks of beef and pork in vegetables, and passed up the usual chopp, an excellent local draft beer, for their very fine Grande Uniao Cabernet wine. But I had just started the meal when I saw the girl walk in and seat herself at a nearby table. She was tall and svelte, and her mane of flaming red hair made her milky white skin appear even paler. Her dazzling green mini-dress made a striking contrast with her hair and revealed a good portion of long, perfect thighs, and above the waist, a breathtaking cleavage. She wore green shoes that matched the dress and green bracelets on her left arm.
The red hair confused me for a moment, but then I realized that when I had last seen her, the hair had been short and brunette. That had been in Israel over a year ago. The girl's name was Erika Nystrom. She was a member of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence network. Her code name had been Flame when she and I had worked together to foil a Russian plot against the Israeli government, but that name was changed with each assignment.
I rose and went to her table. When she raised her long lashes to meet my eyes, a smile swept across her face. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "It's you. What a pleasant surprise." She spoke English with almost no trace of an accent.
Erika's parents had been Scandinavian Jews. Her family had lived first in Oslo and then in Copenhagen before they had emigrated to Israel when she was only eight years old.
"I was about to say the same thing," I said. Erika and I had spent an intimate evening in Tel Aviv while waiting for a courier to show up; it was an evening we had both enjoyed very much. Her eyes told me now that she remembered it with fondness. "Will you join me at my table?"
"Well, someone is joining me later, Nick. Would you mind?"
"Not as much as not talking to you," I said.
She joined me at my table and ordered a light lunch for herself and the third person, who she explained, was a fellow agent "You look very well, Nick."
"You should have seen me a week ago," I said. "I like the red hair, Erika."
She dazzled me with a smile. A long, aquiline nose set off a wide, sensuous mouth. Her eyes were a dark green, and the dress made them sparkle. "Thanks," she said. "It's mine, except for the color. It was short when we — worked together in Israel."
"I remember," I said. "Are you here on business?"
"Yes," she answered. "You?"
"Yes," I grinned. "It's always business, isn't it?"
"Almost always."
I recalled reading in the newspapers recently that Israel was outraged by the assassination of Moshe Ben Canaan and that their president had vowed to get to the bottom of it. It was this assassination in which American intelligence believed Adrian Stavros to be involved. I couldn't help wondering if Erika was in Rio to either abduct Adrian Stavros to Israel, which was the Israeli's style, or to kill him.
"Are you going to be in Rio long enough for us to have a drink and a talk together?" I asked.
"Possibly," she said. The cleavage was pushed together by her arms as she rested them on the table, and my blood pressure rose ten points. Her green eyes looked into mine and told me that she knew I was not talking about wine and conversation.
I picked up my glass. She had ordered and had been served the same Grande Uniao Cabernet. "To that possibility," I toasted.