"When he wakes up, thank him forme. He has been a very big help."
"Swine!" the woman hissed.
Outside, the sun was low in the sky, and shadows around the little hut were beginning to lengthen. He walked to the car and was about to pull the door open when he noticed a small smear of grease near the front wheel well. Odd, he thought. He'd inspected the car thoroughly before he'd driven up here. He didn't remember any grease.
He got in, put the key in the ignition but didn't turn it. Directly ahead, through the windshield, the rutted mud road that led back to town lay silent in the gathering haze of twilight. A pair of trees bobbed at the end of the lane. To his right were the cluttered backyards of several neighboring families. They had been busy centers of activity when he came — children playing, women hanging wash. Now the children were gone, and the wash was down. Not dry. Not yet.
Quiet, he thought. Much too quiet.
Slowly he reached down and pulled the door latch. As the door popped, he hit it with his shoulder and dove headfirst into the dirt. He'd no more than cleared the seat when a shot sounded. The windshield went white with cracks, and there was a saw-toothed hole where his head had been.
An automatic weapon opened fire from a hedge about sixty yards down the road. Carter rolled frantically back and forth as the chattering slugs kicked up dirt all around him.
Carter rolled under the car as the barrage continued. The bullets clattered into the metal on all sides, and he could hear the windshield breaking up.
The hedge was located directly down the road from the car. Carter drew his Luger and pumped a few rounds toward the spot, but the firing continued. Whoever it was seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of ammunition.
Then he saw two wires leading down from the engine compartment, and he suddenly realized what he should have understood earlier. The wires ended in a lump of plastique directly beneath the seat on the driver's side. The machine gunner had been nothing more than insurance.
The bullets kept coming, pinning Carter down. It was as if the gunman were trying to pick the car apart and detonate the bomb himself.
The first two wires were connected to the ignition switch. He pulled down one, then the other, being very careful not to let their ends make contact. Then he wrapped the first wire around the coils of the right front wheel spring, leaving its end exposed. He did the same with the second, wrapping it around a lower coil in the spring and fanning its end; when the spring was compressed, the ends would meet and the bomb would explode. Then he pulled himself on his elbows out from under the car's rear bumper.
The firing stopped for a moment or two, and Carter ducked around to the passenger side of the car, threw open the door, and scrambled inside.
The firing did not resume.
Carter reached up and put the car in neutral, then turned on the ignition. The wires on the springs below were hot now, the bomb activated.
Making sure the steering wheel was straight, the car pointing directly at the line of hedges. Carter turned the ignition again, starting the car. He slipped the gear lever into drive, and as the car began to move, he slid backward out of the car and rolled away from the rear wheels.
The firing started again as the car gathered speed, lumbered down the road, and hit the ditch near the hedges. The explosion blew out its doors like a pair of wings, and the car burst into flames, glass, bits of hot metal, and burning upholstery raining down.
Carter leaped up and ran toward the hedges, expecting to see the gunman making a run for it. But the area around the car was burning, making it impossible to see much of anything beyond.
A motorcycle engine kicked into life, and Carter turned in time to see a man with an automatic rifle strapped to his back bouncing over the terrain. Carter brought up his Luger and fired twice, but it was no use; the figure was well out of range.
He holstered his gun after a bit, then went back to the house to check on Pepé and his woman, who had been badly frightened by the barrage of gunfire. Once again, the little street was silent.
Five
Twenty-four hours later, Carter was back in Buenos Aires in the suburb of San Isidro, sitting at the dinner table in Juan Mendoza's apartment. Mendoza, his wife Evita, and Carter had just finished eating a thick slice of Argentinian Pampa-bred tenderloin. During the meal, Carter had described the murder attempt in Salto. He had checked on Pepé, who was sleeping peacefully, and then had gotten out of there on foot before the police came. It wasn't until early morning that he was able to hitch a ride from a farmer to the border and then to a railway station.
The cook came in to clear the dishes, and Evita Mendoza excused herself to follow her back into the kitchen to see about dessert, leaving Carter and Mendoza alone at the table. Mendoza pulled his chair back, pulled out two thick Panatellas, and offered one to Carter.
"What makes you so sure it wasn't simply a random act of terrorism against a Yankee?" Mendoza asked, reaching over with a match to light Carter's cigar.
Carter puffed several wisps of pale smoke. "Terrorists might have planted the bomb, but they would not have waited around with a gunman to make sure the bomb did its job. It was definitely a determined killer. A man with a very specific target: me."
"You think the attack was connected somehow to this business in Iceland?"
"Whoever it was, knew I had just come in. They followed me up to Salto."
"But how?"
"A leak. Maybe in your organization here. Maybe in the CIA's. It may be Captain Vargas in the Federal Police. I borrowed one of his files."
Mendoza thought a moment. "It would take quite an organization to keep tabs on you from Iceland to Washington and then down here."
"Yes."
This last prospect seemed to make Mendoza uncomfortable. "All right," he said, pulling his chair in closer and spreading his hands palms-down on the table. "Let's examine what you've come up with so far. Someone in Iceland, you say, is manipulating things so that a nuclear power plant will be built up there. Why? What would that get them?"
"I don't know," Carter said. "That part's got me stumped."
"At this moment whoever is running the show has ties here in Argentina. They hired a local to make a try on you in Iceland, and now that you're here, they've tried again."
"They've been watching me, and they want me dead. They'll try again."
"But who? I keep coming back to that, Nick. No one in Argentina has the resources to build a nuclear power plant under such secrecy. We would have heard about it by now. It takes a very big organization and a lot of capital to keep something like mat so totally private."
"Maybe the man with the monocle has the answers."
"Him." Mendoza spat the word. "Do you still have the sketch?"
Carter unfolded the sheet on which he'd transferred the features of the portrait Pepé had helped him put together in Salto and handed it across to Mendoza.
Mendoza studied the rendering for several silent moments. Then he looked up. "This almost looks like Marc Ziegler."
"Who is that?"
"A friend of mine from the San Isidro Tennis and Sport Club. He lives not too far from here."
"What does he do?"
"He's head of a very large conglomerate. Hemispheric Technologies. They have their headquarters south of the city."
Carter didn't say anything.
Mendoza glanced again at the picture, then up at Carter. "You're not suggesting…"
"Why not?" Carter said.
"He's a good man, Nick. I can't imagine he'd be mixed up in murder. Besides, his company is involved with computers, not reactors."
Carter shrugged. "Ziegler is German, I assume. Josepsson was dealing with Germans. I met two of them in Iceland."