He had to turn away, and he hurried off at an angle, ducking around to the front of a small wooden shed that looked like a privy. It was set apart from the other buildings, and the sign on the front door told him why: GEFAHR EXPLOSIV was painted in large red letters.
At the moment, no one was paying him any attention, so he slipped inside the tiny shed. It was warm inside, and the still air reeked of cordite. Against one wall, cases of dynamite reached nearly to the low ceiling.
Carter pulled one of the cases off the pile and pried open its lid with his stiletto. Below a layer of sawdust lay a row of twenty dynamite sticks. There were other rows beneath that one.
He looked up at the other cases. There certainly was enough firepower here to level a good portion of the construction.
Quickly he searched the other boxes and the few items on the shelves. There was, in addition to the dynamite, plenty of electrical wire, several plungers, tape, and several drills for opening blast holes in the rock. There were no blasting caps, however. For safety's sake the caps were evidently stored in another location. It made sense, but it also made things difficult.
With great care Carter pulled off his pack and stuffed a dozen sticks of dynamite in with the lump of plastique in the square package.
The alarm sirens suddenly stopped, and he went to the door and looked outside. A squad of gray-coveralled guards doubled-timed up the road past him and deeper into the construction area. They immediately fanned out and slowed down, shining flashlights into every nook and cranny. They knew someone was in the area. And they were going to find him.
Carter slipped out of the storage shed and struck out in the opposite direction, keeping low behind the mechanized equipment and the other storage sheds. He headed toward a single-story, horseshoe-shaped building he'd seen on the way in. A patch of grass had been planted in front, and the flag of Iceland flew from a staff.
Housing, he thought. He looked back over his shoulder toward the core support. Before he could get close enough to his objective to do any damage, he'd have to create a diversion.
He hurried the rest of the way across the field to the building, where he looked in one of the windows. It was a barracks. Metal cots lined the walls, each neatly made, a trunk at the foot. It looked very much like a typical military installation. No one was in sight. Everyone had evidently been mustered out to search for him.
He moved around the end of the building, along the back wall, until he came to a loading dock with cases of food stacked up. A set of double screen doors gave entrance to a large kitchen.
He looked inside. Racks of pots and pans hung over gleaming metal counters reflected in a bank of brushed steel refrigerators that ran along the wall. The kitchen too was deserted. Apparently even the cooks were expected to muster out in an emergency. But they hadn't expected to be gone very long. At the far end of the room a stew pot bubbled on a burner of one of the ranges.
Carter hurried across the kitchen to the stove and studied the controls for a moment or two. He smiled. If a diversion was needed, a diversion was what they would get.
He pulled off his pack, took out the dynamite, and placed the sticks in the oven. He closed the door, then turned the oven control to five hundred degrees.
It wouldn't take very long. Perhaps half a minute. Sixty seconds tops.
He hurried out of the kitchen and dashed across the access road toward a cluster of buildings on the other side of a shallow drainage ditch. The front gate lay only a few hundred yards beyond.
A lone guard ambled aimlessly up the dirt road from the construction area, his machine gun in his hands. He spotted Carter coming across the field.
"Halt! Halten sie!" he shouted, pulling his gun around and firing.
Slugs kicked up dust to the left of Carter as he sprinted right, racing toward one of the mobile offices perched on cinder blocks.
He plunged under it as the guard shouted something else, then scrambled on his belly to the other side. Immediately he leaped atop the propane tanks supplying the trailer. The guard would be looking for him… or at least for his feet.
The guard pulled up short on the other side. For a moment there was silence. "Wo ist?" the man shouted.
A police whistle sounded in the construction area. They had heard the shooting. But where the hell was the dynamite? Hadn't the oven come on?
Carter peered around the edge of the trailer. At least twenty men were racing up the access road by the barracks. He turned back. Behind him the nearest cover was a building a hundred yards away… across an open field that afforded absolutely no cover. Beyond that was what appeared to be a motor pool, cars, jeeps and trucks parked everywhere.
The guard was coming around the trailer when a great roar tore the air, shoving the trailer half off its blocks. As Carter fell to the ground he had visions of the trailer falling over on him. He scrambled away from it as he pulled out his Luger.
The sky was raining debris; starry bits of flaming wood, and bits of metal and rock and sand poured down as the entire far side of the barracks building burned furiously, flames shooting high into the sky.
The guard who had followed him came the rest of the way around the trailer in a dead run. When he saw Carter he lifted his machine gun. In one smooth motion Carter raised his Luger and squeezed off a shot, catching the man in the chest. He went down.
The guards who had been coming up the road were lying scattered on the gravel. They had been just behind the kitchen when the dynamite went off.
Carter turned and sprinted across the field in the direction of the motor pool.
Ziegler's new secretary, a blonde who had been hired here in Iceland, stood at the window watching the fire when Roberta came into the outer office.
"Oh," the girl said, spinning around. Her face seemed blank.
"I'm the masseuse," Roberta said.
The girl just shook her head.
"I was called."
"Oh, yes, of course," the girl said, and she sat down behind her desk and shifted through some papers.
Roberta knew what she would find. Ziegler had a standing appointment for "massage therapy" every evening at this time… or at least he had in Buenos Aires. She had followed her hunch earlier in the day and had hit pay dirt.
In Argentina she had even made the calls for Ziegler — to the local pimps — but here in Iceland she had had to make a dozen calls before she finally found the massage service that Ziegler was using. She told the service that she was Ziegler's secretary and requested that they cancel that evening's appointment.
"The agency called… said it was canceled for some reason," the girl said. "He called me to come in to see if I couldn't find someone… but then, the fire."
The girl seemed bewildered.
"I'm the replacement," Roberta said, winging it. She hadn't thought the massage service would have telephoned. But this girl wasn't too bright.
"You are?" the girl said hopefully.
"Yes," Roberta said. She looked around. "Which way to…"
The girl jumped up. "Just a minute, please. I'll tell him you've come after all." She disappeared through a door, and Roberta went to the window and looked outside. Whatever Nick had blown up was burning furiously. It would keep Ziegler's guards occupied for some time. Sooner or later, of course, it would be discovered that the two on the main gate were gone. When that happened, all hell would break loose.
"He's just about ready for you," the secretary said. "If you'll just come with me…"
Roberta followed the woman through the door and down a short, plushly carpeted corridor to a small dressing room, mirrors on all the walls.
"You can change in here," the secretary said, leaving Roberta and closing the door behind her.