Have you got something?"
"We've identified Victor. Turns out Interpol has a file on him several centimeters thick."
"Go ahead."
"Real name is Victor Adolph von Hauptmann. Argentinian."
"Argentinian?"
"Born August 4, 1946, to a German father and an Argentinian mother. Father was Raoul von Hauptmann, German army colonel who managed to escape the fatherland in the last years of the war. Victor didn't show up on the records, however, until December of 1969 when he was picked up in Buenos Aires for disorderly conduct and defacing public property. The arresting officer's jaw was broken. He was jailed several more times over the next year, all for more or less the same thing — inciting to riot, vandalism, disorderly conduct — all of which his father got him out of. But then he disappeared, coming back into the record two years later in Guatemala as a suspect in the shooting deaths of several Communist guerrillas. He was tried but acquitted. From that point on, it was one thing after another all over Latin America — Chile, Paraguay, El Salvador, even Cuba. Always suspicion of murder or attempted assassination, always on left-wing political figures. Cases brought to trial, then acquittal or charges are dropped when witnesses fail to appear or suddenly change their story. A powerful man… or rather, a man with powerful friends."
"What the hell was he doing in Iceland?" Carter asked, half to himself.
"I don't know."
"No mistaking the man?"
"Positive ID. You want me to send you a copy of the report?"
"Not here. I've been kicked out of your country."
"What?"
"That's right. Josepsson figures if he can't kill me, at least he can have me deported."
"What happened? Why didn't you call me?"
"Nothing you could have done. But thanks for the thought. Send me the report though, if you would." He gave his AXE cover address at Amalgamated Press on Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. "It will be forwarded to me."
"I have a feeling I know where you are going," Einarsson said.
"If you guess Argentina, you won't be very far off."
Four
High in the building housing the Amalgamated Press and Wire Services, David Hawk looked out his office window at the falling rain and rubbed the back of his neck. The muscles were sore, as was always the case when he was upset, and today he was more upset than usual.
On the desk behind him, a file folder lay open, a field report he had asked his friend, Robert LeMott, the Director of Central Intelligence, to compile for him. It was a thin file, no more than five sheets, comprised of a timetable and a few pages of notes hastily scribbled by LeMott's field man, an army colonel in the liaison office at the U.S. base at Keflavik, Iceland. But it was enough to cause Hawk some genuine discomfort.
The file dealt with Nick Carter's activities in Iceland over a forty-eight-hour period during which Nick had managed to get himself shot at and nearly killed, and had stirred up enough ire among the locals to get himself kicked out of the country. At one point he had almost put himself in the position of bringing undue attention to himself as a man with unique and extensive combat training. In short he had almost blown his AXE cover, and this was not to be tolerated.
As Hawk watched, a maroon Jaguar Super America pulled into the parking lot below and glided to a stop. The door swung open, and Nick Carter got out and hurried through the rain toward the back door of the building.
Hawk took a cigar out of his pocket, bit off the end, and lit it. Then he sat down behind his desk to wait.
When Carter opened the door and saw Hawk sitting stiffly behind his desk, staring directly at him, he knew the old man's mood was not good. He came in without a word, took a seat in the winged leather armchair across from the desk, and guiltily avoided Hawk's gaze.
"You're home quickly," Hawk said dryly. He tapped the ash from his cigar, then studied the chewed end.
"I was asked to leave Iceland, sir."
"So I've heard," Hawk said gruffly. "Any explanation, or do I have to guess?
"I stepped on some toes."
"Sensitive toes?"
"Yes, sir. I think Lydia Coatsworth stepped on the same toes and was killed for it."
"You were in Iceland as a private citizen, is that not so? You had no assignment from me, no backup, no license. You were completely on your own."
"Yes, sir»
Hawk shook his head. Nick could see that the anger was smoldering in him. "What the hell am I supposed to do? You've survived a long time in this business."
"Yes, sir?"
"I should think long enough to know that you are not licensed to act as a private citizen because of the constant risk of exposure. When you're on duty, and something goes sour, this office covers for you. Governments are mollified, police officials cooled down, cover stories strung out. You are given almost unlimited freedom on your assignments, but only at a great cost and with the understanding that on your off-duty time you're not on privilege."
"I know…"
"When you play games with that backup, you leave us wide open. Carter. Questions are asked, murder investigations begun… almost impossible to cover because there was no chance to prepare for these contingencies in advance. I know you understand this, but it needs to be repeated anyway."
"There were mitigating circumstances," Carter said. Hawk was absolutely correct, of course, but he just couldn't let this go.
Hawk sat back in his chair with a sigh. "I'm willing to listen."
Carter related the story to Hawk just as he had told it to Captain Einarsson and Lieutenant Thorsson before him, except this time no details were left out. He centered his narrative around his suspicions of Thorstein Josepsson, the Althing member with a taste for money and power who, as a former head of the Icelandic Internal Energy Commission, would have the knowledge to run such an operation as Lydia had apparently discovered. He explained Josepsson's position on the commission and how he had lobbied for nuclear power.
Carter added that if he'd had the time, he was sure he could have found financial connections between Josepsson and the contractors who would have done the actual work on whatever machinery was tapping the geothermal energy. Carter was about to go on, pointing out that it was Josepsson who had engineered his ouster from Iceland, when Hawk raised a hand to stop him.
"What you've told me so far is nothing more than a local problem…"
"If I may interrupt, sir," Carter said, "there is something else."
"Important?"
"Yes, sir."
"Go on."
"Just before I left, I spoke with the police captain in Akureyri. My assailant, Victor Hauptmann, was identified as an Argentinian hit man with a long history of rightist politics. He'd participated in assassinations in Chile, Paraguay, and El Salvador to name a few. A real pro. He had a cyanide capsule implanted beneath the skin of his arm."
Hawk's attitude changed noticeably. He sat forward and tapped the ash from his cigar. "I haven't heard that used since the war. Strange it should crop up now. Like this."
"I have a feeling Josepsson is fronting for someone else. His people break into my hotel room and cut up my clothes. Eventually they even engineer my persona non grata status. But whoever Josepsson fronts for plays rougher. They killed Lydia and tried with me. Without that explanation, or something like it, Josepsson's actions seem too erratic."
Hawk nodded in agreement.
The obvious question," Carter went on, "is who? It may be someone interested in establishing a nuclear plant in Iceland and who is not above importing muscle from a long ways off to keep their secrets secret."
"Argentina?"
Nick nodded.
"You want this as an assignment?"
"Yes, sir," Carter said, relieved. "I think I've discovered something important. But if it turns out to be nothing more than a local flap, we can turn what we have over to the local authorities. I know at least one of them who is straight." Carter hesitated a moment. "But I think there's more to it than that, sir. I mink it's international."