Wanting to contribute more than backup to his rescuers, Carter took off at a crouch, slamming a new ammo clip into place and doing a side roll on his good shoulder when one of the PLO opened up on him, and got to another portion of the outcropping. He took a spring up toward a new plateau and, as he'd suspected, bought himself a clear shot.
His burst caught the man who'd been driving the Toyota earlier. Chepe Muñoz, the bearlike man in the camouflage trousers, gave Carter a high sign of appreciation and motioned him forward. Both men were angling toward a gully that alternately rose and fell.
After about five minutes of running and probing. Munoz let out a loud curse in Spanish and started back at a run toward the choppers, calling after one of Zachary "s assistants.
After a hurried conference. Munoz and Zachary's assistant tired up one of the choppers, gained altitude quickly, and moved off along the fault line of the ravine.
"Samadhi probably grew up in terrain just like this," Zachary said. "We account for all the others now but him, and he's the one we want, dammit."
Zachary drew some water from the well, took it inside the building, and put it on to boil. From his war chest he brought forth a battery-powered coffee grinder and enough of the Jamaican beans for another Thermos full of the pungent brew.
"I don't think we've seen anything like the last of him," Carter said. "I get my best results when I back off for a while. Samadhi's had his early rounds, but we'll get him. Meanwhile, why don't you brief me on your aims in all this."
The CIA man nodded at Carter's wisdom. When the coffee was brewed, he brought Carter up to date. "I was brought in on this play of yours because we've apparently been burned for a good deal of cash lately." Responding to Carter's raised eyebrows. Zachary continued. "Someone's nicked us for over a million and it's been heading down this way and father south."
"El Salvador? Nicaragua?"
The affable CIA man shook his shaggy head. "Not quite that far south, and not anything so obvious. Of all places, Belize. This makes it really sensitive because we — that is, the United States — are not as favored as we once were in Guatemala, and guess who has their cap set on having Belize returned to them."
Carter sipped his coffee, nodding.
"It is also widely believed, by no less than your own David Hawk, that we — that is, the CIA — are responsible for the precipitous removal of a certain cadaver from Covington, Kentucky. Mr. Hawk was all over my supervisor on that."
"You have to admit," Carter said, "there's reason to suspect your motives."
"As a consequence of that and some healthy skepticism from your leader, I was sent to Covington to question the local sheriff and the manager of the resort where the Grinning Gaucho's heart took its last pump. They still believe it was the Justice Department who questioned them."
"Have your people checked with NSC?" Carter asked.
Zachary smiled. "That's a rather touchy suggestion, and it convinces me you still have your doubts about us." Before Zachary could explain any further, the sound of the returning chopper began to intrude.
They went outside to watch the small craft dropping to a landing some fifty yards from the house. The side door sprang open and Chepe Munoz jumped out, a look of disgust on his face.
"Son of a bitch got away," he said. "He is one smart cookie." Springing toward Zachary and Carter, the burly Cuban held out his hand.
"I've looked forward to this, Carter'" The Cuban's grip was firm and powerful, his eyes taking in the terrain with steady sweeps. A man used to living in some dangerous climates, politically and physically, Carter thought. "My compadre here tells me you like to talk about stuff like the civil society and how those concepts go all the way back to the seventeenth century and in the works of dudes like Hobbes and Lock."
Carter agreed. "It's always important to keep up on history of important movements, and the civil society is important."
"But you don't think people are subordinate to philosophies, do you?" the Cuban pressed.
"I think," Nick Carter said, "that philosophies should help people lead the lives of highest moral quality, otherwise they're useless."
Chepe Munoz nodded approvingly at Zachary, then gave Carter a big, warm embrace. "We're going to work well together, hombre."
"This is starting to remind me of that old Marx Brothers movie with all the people being jammed into the one small stateroom of a luxury cruiser," Carter said.
"Hey, man, ain't it the truth," Munoz agreed. "Lot of people popping out of the woodwork in this caper. I sure didn't expect to see my buddy Zachary in on this one, and I sure didn't expect you. What did they sting your people for?"
Carter merely smiled.
"Then you're the only ones," Munoz said. "They got Zachary 's people good. They got my people. They got the Red Brigade. I hear, round about through Havana, that they even got the Chinese."
"Not to forget the South African diamond cartel," Carter said, deciding to throw in a bit of intrigue and perhaps get Zachary or Munoz to open up further. Also, it would be an excellent way of checking his suspicions about Margo Huerta.
Munoz grabbed Carter's arm. "Hey, are you serious? The diamond cartel?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Nobody stings those guys."
Carter studied Munoz's reaction and decided to trust the stocky Cuban. He was also beginning to think he might have been hasty in his judgment of Margo. She'd known who Piet Bezeidenhout was and both Munoz and Zachary had been surprised to learn of the South African connection. Even though she'd said she'd take Carter to meet Munoz, she hadn't shared this information with the Cuban.
Inside the house, as Zachary began his ritual of making more coffee, Carter thought it best to strike while the sense of camaraderie among them was warm. "All we need to do now is find out who they are and what they want. I have a theory, but it's all circumstantial."
"That's as good if not better than anything we have." Zachary said, dealing out the coffee.
While Carter spoke. Zachary's assistant, at Zachary's gestured orders, went into the war chest and came out with several freeze-dried packets and a few canned and bottled items, humming to himself as he looked about the crude kitchen where he'd be working on their next meal.
"Let's assume that there is an individual at the top of the organizational chart of Lex Talionis, a man or woman with the financial background and audacity of an Ivan Boesky. Perhaps this person has already brought a great deal of money into the picture, thinking of it as venture capital." Carter could see that he already had their attention. "Very well, now instead of organizing along strictly political lines like, say, PLO against the Mossad, KGB against the CIA. or even along divisions within a country like the infighting between the FBI. the CIA, the State Department, the Justice Department, and the NSC every time we elect a new president — instead of that, we see the concept of a multinational organization based on the lines of strict profitability."
"I'm with you in principle," Zachary said. "But what's the inducement? Why, suddenly, would dogs and cats begin to cooperate?
"Pure capitalism and a bit of Japanese-style management concepts. All the top-level people who come in have to have two kinds of credentials," Carter continued. "They have to have a street reputation, as it were — connections with some military or political power — and something else to throw in the pot."
"Money!" Munoz said, getting the picture.
"Arms!" Zachary said.
"Industrial and commercial diamonds," Carter added, reminding them about the diamonds Prentiss had tried to pass along and also adding his account about the small bag of diamonds at the Sichi murder.