Выбрать главу

He was pistol-whipped across the face, a stunning blow that felt like it broke his jaw. A second blow struck the side of his head with a crunching sound. He dropped.

His assailant didn't stop there, but stood over Ten Eyck, kicking him in the belly. Other hands tore open the back door and grabbed Petra.

"What are you doing?" she screeched. "Are you insane? We're on your side!"

"Slut!"

She screamed, and screamed again as she was hauled out of the car. Her wounded arm was wrenched so hard it felt dislocated. She nearly fainted, and wished she had. She was thrown down to the hard floor.

Somebody laughed.

Somebody else chuckled, a sound rich in sadistic relish.

The man kicking Ten Eyck in the belly jumped back to avoid the South African's spewing stream of vomit. "You pig!"

From overhead came the beat of heavy, fluttering wings. There was a pause in the violence. Petra stared at her circle of tormentors. She knew them better than she cared to, these members of the master's entourage.

Mansour was an Arab with a thin, mean face and a wiry, supple body. He was turned out like a fashion plate in a lightweight, beautifully tailored suit. Thin black leather gloves covered his hands, one of which gripped the pistol he'd used to club down Ten Eyck.

It was no mystery how the Camel had won his name. His resemblance to that beast was extraordinary. Elongated, gawky, he wore a red fez with a black tassel, and clutched a silenced pistol.

Idir was short, squat, solid, phlegmatic. Knife work was his specialty and his delight. He held one now, a wickedly curved and gleaming dagger, idly toying with it. He looked coy, almost flirtatious.

Lotah was Senegalese, a strapping coal-black giant whom a childhood ailment had left utterly hairless. Prior to joining the master, he'd worked as the royal executioner for various Mauritanian sheiks. He could lop off any head with a one-handed stroke from his scimitar. His hands were empty now; in and of themselves, they were lethal weapons.

Petra sobbed. "I don't understand! Why are you doing this?"

Ten Eyck, semiconscious, writhed and retched.

Into view came the man whom Idir, Mansour, the Camel, and Lotah acknowledged as their supreme master:

Reguiba.

Tall and thin, with the aquiline features and weathered skin of the desert-born, Reguiba was dressed all in black, deliberate in his movements, ominous. Sinister.

He wore a high-collared military-style tunic, trimmed at the collar and cuffs with gold braid. Baggy black cotton trousers were tucked into knee-high soft leather boots. Holstered on both hips were twin Colt.45s.

When he went abroad, on the street, he wore more conventional attire, of course. But here, in his domain of darkness, he dressed — and did — as he pleased.

"Say the word, O perfect master, and these dogs are dead," Mansour said.

"Were they followed?" Reguiba asked.

"We weren't followed!" Petra cried. "I swear, we weren't followed!"

She cowered as Mansour moved to kick her. Reguiba halted him with a slight nod. His men were most attentive to his every wish.

Again, he asked if the pair were followed. Lotah shook his head. That satisfied Reguiba.

Ten Eyck was in no condition to talk. Reguiba went to Petra. "Do not rise. I prefer to look down at you. Your handling of the Lemniak kill was, let us say, less than competent."

"But we got him!" Petra protested.

"But he almost escaped. I sent six to kill one. Two came back."

"The target was supposed to be soft! We didn't know he was protected!"

"I will tell you something else you did not know. The man Lemniak met at the café is an American spy."

That information made Petra feel even sicker. "How — how do you know that?"

"It does not matter how I know it, so long as I know it," Reguiba said.

"The night has a thousand eyes. Reguiba has ten thousand eyes!" Mansour announced. He was a great flatterer.

"Had you the wit to slay the spy along with Lemniak, I might have let you live," Reguiba said. "But as it is…"

He did not complete the sentence, nor did he need to. Not all his men spoke English, but all knew when their master had decreed death. They were all smiles, like whorehouse patrons waiting in the parlor for their turn to come up.

"Why me?" Petra sobbed. "It's not my fault! What about the others?"

"They have paid the price of failure. So will you." Reguiba indicated Ten Eyck, jackknifed on the floor. "So will he."

Reguiba's men disputed the method of dispatch. Mansour said, "Why not shoot them?"

"Why waste bullets on the likes of them?" Lotah wanted to know. "These hands will snap their pale, thin necks."

"Our way was ever the way of the knife!" Idir maintained. "Cut their throats and be done with it."

"Too simple," the Camel said. "Too easy."

Reguiba tended to agree with the Camel. Between the botched Lemniak kill, and the Melina's harmless destruction at sea, he was in an ill humor and required some amusing diversion.

Handling a length of rope, Reguiba remarked, "How thin is the cord which binds us to life!"

He knotted a pair of nooses at the ends of the rope. The rope was tossed over a rafter beam, the nooses dangling level with one another. Benches were set under each noose.

Petra and Ten Eyck were set on the benches, facing each other, their hands tied behind their backs. The nooses were fixed around their necks with loving care.

Idir tied a heavy cement block to Petra's ankles, resting it on the bench. It would offset Ten Eyck's heavier weight. The victims had to be evenly balanced for the game to succeed.

The Camel pointed out that Petra was wounded, while Ten Eyck had two good arms.

"That is true." Reguiba drew his pistol and shot Ten Eyck in the arm. The booming report knocked dust down from the rafters.

Ten Eyck was knocked off the bench, which fell to the floor. Petra's support was kicked out from under her. Thanks to the block tied to her ankles, she and the Boer were more or less evenly matched in weight. They were hanged face to face on the same rope.

Reguiba pulled a hawking glove on his right hand, and whistled. His falcon fluttered down from the roof beams, alighting on his outstretched arm. He stroked the bird's head while watching the fun.

An exquisite refinement of cruelty was added after a minute had passed. The hands of the victims were cut free from their bonds, injecting the torture of hope, the hope that they might hoist themselves up and somehow relieve the suffocating pressure of the noose.

A false hope, but no less tantalizing for that.

Reguiba's men had a hilarious time savoring the death struggles, as did their master. It was the first bright spot in an otherwise dismal day of setbacks.

Much later, when the authorities finally discovered the warehouse, they were confronted with the victims of the dual hanging. By then, the lawmen were already so numbed by the violence that had previously gone down, that they hardly batted an eye at the bizarre execution.

Seven

Gianni Girotti's pose of world-weary sophistication was carved in stone. His many acquaintances in the jet-set world of café society knew him as a blasé idler whose most violent response to a scandal or crisis was a raised eyebrow, a tolerant smile, an eloquent shrug. His comrades in the international terror network knew him to be no less unflappable.

But when his men hustled Nick Carter into his presence, Girotti looked like he'd been goosed with a cattle prod.

His eyes bulged. His jaw dropped. A lit cigarette fell from his gaping mouth into his lap, where it scorched a hole in his expensive custom-tailored slacks. He jumped up from his chair, both in response to Carter's unexpected appearance and to the painful burn inflicted by the cigarette.