"Her?" Carter asked. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
The driver stepped out of the room. Ziegler got up and went over to the fireplace where he took a poker from the stand and wedged it among the glowing coals.
"Ziegler… you bastard," Carter said. The other man by the door had pulled out his gun. He was staring at Carter. The slightest move and it would be all over.
The driver returned a moment or two later, pushing Roberta Redgrave in front of him. She had obviously been roughed up.
Carter started to rise, but he was looking into the very large barrel of a.44 magnum. He slumped back.
"Spare us any emotional displays," Ziegler said without looking around. He picked up a wooden bellows and began fanning the coals around the poker, which he had jammed between two logs.
Roberta seemed dazed. Her hair was matted with sweat. Carter guessed she had been drugged. Her skin was clear and unbruised, and her clothing, while wrinkled, didn't seem torn or soiled, but she had a look about her that told him she had been psychologically abused.
"You may be interested to know that your friend is an operative with the BND," Ziegler said. "The Bundesnachrichtendienst." He kept pumping the bellows, the coals around the poker white hot now.
Carter's stomach flopped. Roberta an operative with the West German secret intelligence service. Was that why she had allowed him to approach her so easily? If it were true, she was good… very good indeed.
"Roberta?" he called out.
She didn't look up.
"She's in no condition to talk at the moment," Ziegler said, chuckling. "Although I'm sure we'll hear a great deal from her in a moment or two." He took out the poker and examined it. The first six inches of the thing glowed a bright red. "Sit the bitch down," Ziegler said, turning around.
The guard by the door pulled a chair out from around the coffee table, and the driver shoved Roberta down into it.
"Wait a moment," Carter said. They all turned to him except for Roberta, who stared down at her knees. When he spoke again, he made his voice sound strained, as if he were very frightened and totally intimidated by Ziegler and his methods. It was his only hope, at least for the moment.
"I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Just don't hurt her."
"I was right about you, after all. You are a sentimentalist," Ziegler said. He jammed the poker back into the fireplace and sat down.
"I am a trained intelligence officer," Carter said. "You were right. You had me pegged… although I don't know how."
"Who do you work for?"
The government… the U.S. government, that is. But you have to believe me when I tell you that I'm here in no official capacity. I'm on leave."
"Interesting," Ziegler said. "Then why exactly is it you are here?"
"I've come to find out why Dr. Coatsworth was killed. She was a friend."
Ziegler took a cigarette from a silver case, then pushed the case back into his shirt pocket. "You certainly must think that I'm a fool," he said. He got up, went over to the fireplace, got the poker, and when he turned back he was smiling.
Carter could feel the sweat beginning to form on his chest.
Ziegler held out the poker, and the driver came across and took it from him. The other man trained his pistol on Carter.
"You don't have to do anything so crude," Carter said.
The driver brought the poker behind Roberta's chair. The son of a bitch was looking forward to it.
"I'm the only one who knows of the Odessa connection," Carter said. "I swear it. Hurting her won't change that."
Ziegler chuckled and nodded. The driver delicately touched the tip of the red-hot poker to the back of Roberta's neck, just below her ear. She screamed and jerked forward, falling facedown on the carpeted floor.
The stench of singed hair and burned flesh was strong in the air.
"You son of a bitch! You bastard!" Carter shouted in English. "Kill her and you'll have to kill me, and then you will be screwed, Herr General!"
The driver had gone around to the front of the chair, where he knelt down beside Roberta who lay there moaning.
Ziegler motioned for the man to hold up. "I will be screwed. Curious. Whatever do you mean by that, Herr Carter?"
"The nuclear power plant you're building in Iceland. You're diverting steam from Reykjavik to panic the Althing. You're bribing Josepsson and others. Lydia found out about it."
Ziegler looked at his driver. "There isn't much else we can do with either of them. Kill them both. We'll see who comes looking for them." He started to turn away, but then he looked back. "Make it look like an accident."
"Jawohl, mein Herr," the driver said with obvious relish.
"But be careful, for God's sake," Ziegler said, looking at Carter. "This one is dangerous, I think."
The driver yanked Roberta to her feet after he put the poker back in its rack. She seemed only vaguely aware of what was going on. The other man lied Carter's hands behind his back, then jerked him to his feet.
Together the four of them went back outside, then down the long stairs to the parking area. There were several cars and a couple of small trucks parked there.
They went directly to a BMW sedan on top of which were a pair of skis in a rack. The guard shoved Roberta in the passenger side in the front, and Carter was shoved in the back. The driver and guard got in, and they pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the very steep road toward the base of the mountain. One side of the road was a sheer rock cliff that rose hundreds of feet above them. On the other side was a drop of at least a thousand feet to a rock-strewn ravine.
The car was no doubt registered to Hemispheric Technologies, and when the accident was "discovered," they'd claim he was an employee on holiday. Eventually Hawk and the West German government would figure out what really happened, but by that time Ziegler would have erased any personal connection with the incident.
When the guard had hurriedly tied his hands, Carter had flexed his wrist muscles; now he relaxed them, and the knots loosened slightly. As they had walked down the steep road, he worked at the bindings.
"Where are you taking us?" he asked the guard seated next to him. He had to distract the man.
The guard just looked at him and smiled. "A very short trip, mein Herr. You'll see." He laughed.
The thin nylon line was slipping.
"It's a shame," Carter said. "She's such a pretty girl."
The driver looked at him in the rearview mirror.
"What's a shame?" the guard in the back seat asked.
Carter shrugged. "She's a pretty girl. Helpless. You're going to kill us anyway…"
His guard's eyes narrowed. "What do you get out of this?"
"A cigarette, mat's all," Carter said, a tremor in his voice. "I know what you're up to. Maybe a drink. And then at the end you can knock me out.
The driver laughed out loud at the same moment the bonds came loose on Carter's wrists.
"You're going to let the opportunity pass you by?" Carter said disdainfully.
His guard sat forward, reached over the front seat, and pulled Roberta's coat open.
"What the hell…" the driver said.
"Shut your mouth, Karl," the guard snapped. He ripped Roberta's blouse open and yanked her bra apart, freeing her lovely breasts.
They had taken Carter's Luger and stiletto, but they hadn't found Pierre, the tiny gas bomb.
The guard was laughing lustily as he fondled Roberta's breasts. Unnoticed, Carter managed to reach around to unzip his own trousers, reach inside, and withdraw the gas bomb, then shove his hands back behind him just as the guard turned to look at him.
"Tell me, was she a great piece of ass?" the guard sneered.