He had barely hit the dirt before Henry had his machine pistol, then Henry and Carter were out the door and running.
The third leather jacket was pumping fuel into the Beechcraft. Henry went at him full tilt as the man made a dive for his gun ten feet away on the ground.
He never made it.
Henry cut him in half vertically, from crotch to sternum, just as his fingers found the gun.
"Where's the other one? The Russian?"
"You got me," Henry shouted in reply, dropping to his belly, foot to foot, with Carter.
Both of them played their guns in an arc in their halves of the circle.
They were about to stand, when an engine roared to life and a small Seat sedan flew toward them from behind the second olive shed.
"Turn him before he gets the plane!" Carter yelled, coming to one knee.
Both guns chattered. Slugs ripped across the front of the fenders and the radiator. Steam immediately engulfed the front of the car. But now they had the range.
The windshield shattered, held for a second, and then flew completely apart. Behind it, the KGB man lay back in the seat, his arms wide, half his face gone.
But the car came on.
"Get the tires!" Carter shouted.
Both guns sprayed the front end again until the car slumped and started to swerve. It teetered on two wheels, then rolled completely over to its side, to the roof, and back to rock on its wheels.
"Finish gassing the plane," Carter growled. "I'll clean up this mess!"
He dragged the two bodies from the shed and stuffed them into the Seat, then joined them with Henry's kill.
By the time he had finished, the Beechcraft was fueled and Henry was rolling the portable tank out of the way.
"Don't shut it off," Carter said, taking the hose from his hand. "Get aboard!"
Henry nodded and headed for the plane. Carter dragged the portable tank to the Seat and drenched the car. He then made a twenty-yard trail of gasoline away from the vehicle and pushed the portable tank back close enough to the Seat so they would both go off together.
He made a makeshift fuse out of a gas-soaked handkerchief and a book of matches, and raced for the plane.
"Jesus, you're thorough," Henry said, jamming the throttles forward.
"Less explaining to do. Think we can catch them?"
"No problem. We're pretty sure they'll head south over the Med, right?"
"Right," Carter agreed.
"Okay, I can triple their speed, and probably more than that on altitude. They're probably flying low to go in under radar. Fix one of those jacks and get on the radio to Cordoba tower."
"New flight plan?"
"Right," Henry said, banking the plane into the wind. "We'll file for Marrakesh. That's far enough south in Morocco that we can probably go anywhere legally, while they have to play games."
They were just lifting off when the Seat exploded behind them.
"There he is!"
Carter leaned forward. It took him several seconds to spot the gun glinting off the Cessna's silver skin.
"He's banking."
"I got him," Henry said, throttling back and trimming after setting his rpm.
They watched the smaller plane roll toward the foothills of the Atlas Mountains where they met the sea. Suddenly the banking stopped, and the Cessna was literally hedge-hopping the low-level mountains.
"Well, we know one thing," Henry declared. "It's Morocco. That is, if that crazy bastard doesn't fly into the side of a mountain!"
Both men held their breath as the Cessna pilot rolled over the edge of a plateau, let his air speed build going into a valley, and then trimmed again as he barely made the next peak.
"What do you think?"
Henry shrugged. "It's all desert. He could land anywhere, once he gets over these mountains."
"But it's going to be near Fez or Marrakesh, right?"
"Has to be. That's all there is between the ocean and the mountains."
Henry climbed a little more to make sure they weren't spotted, and they both settled back in their seats to play cat and mouse.
The old capital of Fez dropped away far below and to their right. Then it was endless sand for another half hour until, on the distant horizon, they spotted the red city of Marrakesh.
"They're landing!"
Carter craned his neck, pasting his eyes to binoculars.
The Cessna set down on a ribbon of red clay road that wound down from the foothills of the Atlas and on into the desert. With the prop still turning, Amani and Carlotta alighted from the plane.
"Can they see or hear us?" Carter asked.
Henry shook his head. "We're too far away for them to hear over the Cessna engine, and we're right in the sun."
Carter nodded, and watched a car scoot forward from a small Berber village about eight miles from where the Cessna had come down.
By the time the plane was taking off again, the car had reached the couple.
"Follow the plane for a little," Carter commanded.
Henry did, until they were both sure of its direction and probable destination.
"Algeria?" Carter asked.
"Looks that way. The guy can really fly, and he obviously knows these mountains. He's probably been running a taxi service around here for years. Why Morocco for this big confab?"
"My guess is easy access from Algeria, Libya, and the sea. Also, it's neutral ground and a melting pot for tourists. Any nationality can blend without standing out. Let's get back to the car!"
From a long distance, they followed the dust trail of the little sedan until they were sure of its destination.
"I'd say Marrakesh," Henry said.
"I'd say you're right. Double back to Fez and land there, just in case. We'll drive down. You have any Moroccan connections?"
Henry laughed. "Friend, I've got connections everywhere."
"I figured," Carter said. "Get me on the ground. I've got to find a telephone!"
Fourteen
The peaks of the High Atlas Mountains were snow-covered in the far distance. It was dusk, and as the sun dropped farther below the horizon, the sky turned a glowing orange. Flights of egrets and other birds swooped low over the red roofs of the city, coming home to roost for the night.
Carter, wearing dark glasses and a set of small-power binoculars, sat on the roof of the Cafe des Mille et Une Nuits. He sipped a glass of mint tea and watched the five o'clock rush of tourists and natives in the square below him.
He rested his arms on the parapet and looked down onto the multicolored human carpet that covered the huge open marketplace of the Djemma El Fna.
The square was packed. Besides the vendors' open stalls, there were the fortune-tellers, the fire-eaters, the snake charmers, and the storytellers, each surrounded by a rapt audience.
And in the center of it all was the backdrop and the stage of the Conjuror.
Carter adjusted the glasses to a snake charmer and his helper working just at the edge of the Conjuror's stage. The helper looked like a light-skinned Berber from the mountains. His robes were multicolored: saffron, blue, and gold. They covered his entire body and half of his face, and above the cloth that draped the bridge of his nose, Carter could see the alert eyes darting everywhere — much as Carter's were — examining each passerby.
The snake charmer's helper was Jason Henry.
The man had proved to be more than up to any task Carter put before him.
It was the fourth day since they had arrived and set up shop in three rooms of a cheap hotel on the Avenue Mohammed V.
Local CIA and AXE people had been brought in from Casablanca to do the legwork. But when it came time for the tricks to start, it was Henry who knew how to recruit.
Carter hadn't been surprised to find that Amani had taken rooms in the poshest resort hotel in Marrakesh, the Mamounia. The man might be struggling for socialism, but he hadn't completely given up his taste for capitalist comfort.