That is, after Carter's mission was completed and AXE turned her file over to them.
Two
Ali Maumed Kashmir lived in a twenty-five-room mansion in the Great Bay area of the Jersey shore. The house was an uneasy melding of Mediterranean and Colonial American elements, and rested on thirty-two wooded acres with approximately five hundred feet of private beach fronting the property.
On that night, the small marina, the pool area, the mansion, and the long, winding gravel drive leading up to it were festooned with dozens of sparkling chandeliers, muted lanterns, and blazing torches.
A limousine announced itself at the tall wrought-iron gates. They swung open, and the big car glided noiselessly through.
In the cavernous rear seat sat a statuesque woman with dark brown eyes and raven black hair, a brown cigarette held in one black-gloved hand.
She was tall, with a proud figure. A black and yellow print dress lovingly covered her tapering curves.
Her name was Carlotta Polti. She had been born in Florence, Italy, and was now employed in Rome as a feature writer for one of the country's more leftist-leaning magazines. For the last two years, Carlotta Polti had also been a member in good standing of La Amicizia di Liberia Italiana, one of the more militant guerrilla/terrorist groups in her native country.
She had worked hard in those two years to ingratiate herself and rise through the ranks in the Friendship for Italian Liberty group. But being a magazine writer and a guerrilla were not her true occupations.
Her true employment was as a top undercover agent for the antiterrorist arm of Italy's internal security organization, the SID.
The car came to a halt in front of the mansion's deep veranda, and the chauffeur was immediately at the door.
Outside the car, the woman seemed even taller, with small, taut breasts, womanly hips, and miles of tapering, perfectly proportioned legs. Though she was only twenty-seven, her face had a hardness far beyond her years, and her smoldering dark eyes were as sullen as they were erotic.
"I will have your bags taken care of, signorina."
"Grazie."
Carlotta ascended the stairs, and halfway across the veranda a servant in a tuxedo opened the door and bowed her through. Inside, she announced herself to a butler, also immaculately dressed. Only a trained eye such as hers could have spotted the telltale bulges under the jackets of the doorman and the butler.
Both men were armed, as had been the chauffeur and the guard tending the gate.
She had just passed through the tall archway into a large, high-ceilinged room, when Ah' Maumed Kashmir appeared before her.
Carlotta took in his lean, powerful frame in one glance. In the year since they had last met face to face, she detected few changes other than more gray in the hair and an added inch or so in the belly.
"Ah, Carlotta, has it been a year? You are more beautiful than ever!"
Her smile, as he kissed her hand, was genuinely warm. She had been practicing it for years.
"I hope the drive down from Manhattan was pleasant?"
"Of course. It is a very comfortable car."
Kashmir shrugged, the smile on his face almost a leer. "Capitalism does have its rewards. Come, I will introduce you to the other guests."
They moved across the large room toward the bar, with Kashmir introducing Carlotta as an Italian journalist and an old friend from Rome.
Both were only half truths.
Her only prior meeting with Kashmir had been to conclude a purchase of small arms for the Liberta. Eventually, those arms — through an anonymous tip — found their way into SID hands instead of terrorist guerrilla apartments. But the contact had been made, and that had been Carlotta's real reason more than the actual arms.
The guests were an assortment of nearby neighbors, show people from New York, and business acquaintances of Kashmir. The business acquaintances were most likely legitimate. Some of the man's businesses were legitimate, such as the import and distribution of carpets and trinkets from Morocco, gems from Thailand, and fine china and glassware from Europe.
Neither these endeavors nor his inheritance, however, could account for the style of life he enjoyed, or the vast sums held for him in banks in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
It was the brokering of vast quantities of illegal arms that made Ali Maumed Kashmir a very wealthy man.
At last they reached the bar.
"What would you like?"
"Campari."
A glass was instantly thrust into her hand. Ali stood smiling at her, adopting the mannered, hipshot pose that seemed to be his trademark as a playboy.
Her eyes made a lazy arc around the room as she sipped her drink. "You live well, Ali."
"The fruits of my hard labor."
"And your friends seem rather… passe."
He shrugged and spoke in a lowered voice. "They are part of this aspect of my life… a very necessary part."
"They look like St. Moritz in the winter, Biarritz or the Lido in summer, yachts converted from destroyer escorts, pole…"
"All of that and more," he interrupted, letting a little sneer dance over his thin lips as he, too, surveyed the group. "I was born to it. Sometimes it bores me, sometimes it amuses me. But an outsider, like yourself, is a welcome change… particularly when so beautiful."
"I didn't come here to be an adornment to your party. Ali."
"Of course not," he sighed. "But you must admit it is an ideal environment in which to discuss our business. These idiots would never see anything beyond their own noses."
"When?"
"Soon, when everyone is fully enjoying themselves. I'll let you know. For now, excuse me. Relax and enjoy yourself, my dear. They can be quite amusing."
Carlotta watched him move through the crowd, and felt fingers of warning slither up and down her spine. Kashmir was a master at survival. If he had any idea of the real reason she was here, or the fact that, at that very moment, an American agent, Nick Carter, and several of his cohorts were lying offshore ready to storm the house on her signal, Carlotta knew her life would be worth nothing.
While she waited for some sign from Kashmir, she moved casually through the group of laughing and chattering people, carefully watching her host from the corner of her eye. He was now in a small group by the fireplace, talking to an American screen star. She, in turn, was holding court for five other men who hung on her every word.
Carlotta recognized several other faces in the room from magazines and newspapers around the world, and she let a smile curl her lip.
Most of the people were highly visible. Many of them were written about almost weekly, somewhere, and often the story was accompanied by a photograph.
Not so Kashmir. To her knowledge, he had never been photographed, and very few people he dealt with had ever met him face to face.
Carlotta knew that one of the reasons she had been so honored was the fact of Kashmir's lechery. He had tried several times during their previous meeting to lure her into his bed, without success. This time, when she had contacted him, he had been only too happy to accede to her suggestion that she come to him in the U.S.
Carlotta found herself talking to an aging Wall Street broker, while constantly shifting her eyes toward Kashmir. The man beamed at her, giving vent to his profoundest thoughts on humanity, on the direction the world was headed, and the deplorable sexual freedom among the young.
At the end of his diatribe, he gently pinched her bottom and strolled away.
"Signorina?"
It was the bull-like butler with the bulge under his left armpit.
"Yes?"
"He would like to see you in his office. It is the first door to the right at the top of the stairway."