Another whistle sounded almost immediately.
Carter and Zachary responded reflexively. The Killmaster dived for the first available cover and ducked into a protective crouch. Zachary darted behind a large pillar and tucked his head down against his shoulder. Both men had their mouths open as protection against what they knew was coming.
James Rogan and the group of students in the orientation group watched them, slack-jawed.
Soon, two heavy blasts rocked the area within seconds of one another. The first blast sounded like a huge kettledrum being struck. When the second blast came, it rattled windows and actually caused a number of them to shatter.
Although the explosions came from a distance. Rogan and a number of the students were stunned by them. Some were sprayed with a sooty debris. All felt a pain from the impact, and some rubbed at their ears, trying to get the whistling sensation to stop.
Carter and Zachary moved quickly from the cover they'd taken. A number of young people in the orientation group had begun to respond with screams and expressions of surprise and fear. One woman sat on the lawn and began to giggle uncontrollably. A young blond man in a preppy-looking shirt, chinos, and Topsiders looked dazed as blood began to trickle from his nose. "What's happened to me?" he said.
Recovering his balance, Rogan looked at Carter and Zachary. "What the hell's going on here?" he said. "Who are you guys?"
Fourteen
James Rogan looked accusingly at Carter and Zachary. "You two, you ducked. Before the explosions, you both ducked. That was no accident, it was instinctive. You both ducked and protected yourselves."
"We've had experience in demolition," Zachary said blandly.
People were running in all directions, including two people with clipboards who wanted Rogan's attention.
"I'm not forgetting this," he said. "There's something going on here that I don't get. I've got to see what happened and what the damage was, but I want to talk to both of you."
"Let us come and help," Carter volunteered.
"Never mind that," the portly poet said. "We'll take care of our own stuff. If you guys are going to stick around for the festival, I'd appreciate it if you confined yourself to the buildings clearly marked on the map you were given. Is that understood?"
"I don't think you've got any problems with combustion," Carter said, sniffing the air. "Those were probably some kind of pipe bomb."
The words had a shattering effect on Rogan. "Pipe bombs? Why? Who would do such a thing here when we're trying to have a festival?"
"That's the sound of it," Carter said. "Someone was trying to knock out one of your systems or throw a scare at you. What's the source of your water?"
"What do you want to know that for?" Rogan asked, growing defensive.
"Someone might have wanted to knock out your water. Or maybe your electricity. You obviously have a generator system."
"We've never had any trouble like this before. You guys, you stick around. I want to talk to you." Rogan asked an anxious middle-aged man with a bushy mustache to show him where it had happened. The man touched Rogan's sleeve and began speaking in a whisper. Rogan nodded nervously and let the mustached man lead the way toward the direction of the explosion.
As a well-organized group of students began moving around, checking for damage and injuries, Zachary smiled broadly at Carter. "You sure put the pressure on him."
"I think that's the only way we're going to find out anything."
"Do you," the CIA man asked, "suspect the same thing I do as the source of the bombs?"
Carter started off in the direction James Rogan had taken. "I tend to suspect Abdul Samadhi is behind it, yes," he said.
Ignoring Rogan's instructions, the two men began walking toward the point of the explosion.
A number of students and older people, Belizians from the look of them, stood around trying to restore order.
"Hey, you two. You're not allowed beyond this point," a young woman said as Zachary and Carter continued on their way.
"It's all right," Carter said. "Jim Rogan trusts our expertise with explosions."
"I thought I heard him tell you two to keep back," a familiar voice said. "We've got to clean this up on our own if we're going to save the festival."
Wearing jeans, sandals, and a Center for the Arts sweatshirt was Margo Huerta. She smiled mischievously at both men, and they both understood immediately that she wanted them not to let on that they knew one another. "We try to do everything Jim asks us," she said in an authoritarian voice. "This is a very democratic place, but we've got to have some rules. You understand?"
They got the break they were looking for when the young man with the bloody nose wandered by, seemingly disoriented. He sat on the edge of a neatly manicured lawn.
"He needs help," Carter said. "We've got to gel him to the dispensary." He put enough urgency in his voice that Margo Huerta understood his intent.
"I guess that can't harm anything." She pointed to a nearby building. "Around the corner from there and about a hundred yards to your right. There's a sign that says Enfermeria."
Carter and Zachary lifted the young man under his elbows and got him to his feet. "Just a little woozy," he said. "I'm okay."
"Sorry," Carter told him with a covert wink at Zachary. "You're more than a little woozy. You've got some bone gristle showing."
"Oh, good Lord," the young man moaned.
"If we can get a doctor on it right away," Zachary said, "then there won't be any permanent damage."
By the time they reached the infirmary, the young man was in an agitated state, causing the attending nurse to respond with more than usual attention.
"You've got to get a doctor to look at this right away," Carter said. "This could be real trouble."
"We don't have a doctor in attendance except for emergencies," the nurse said. "And this looks straightforward enough. I'm sure I can handle it."
Zachary was at her, bullying, asking if she'd be willing to take the responsiblity for whatever happened to the young man. "I should think you'd want to make sure there was nothing wrong by getting a solid opinion."
The nurse caved in under the pressure. She sighed and got the young man to lie on an examining table. From her store of emergency treatment goods, she produced a chemical cold pack, which she twisted into activity. "Put this on your nose and try to relax."
The young man looked at her nervously. "Please hurry. I think I'm having trouble breathing."
"It's okay," Zachary said. "We'll stay with you."
Zachary kept up a continuous patter while the nurse was gone, keeping the young man's attention while Carter looked around, doing a quick study of the infirmary.
There were the usual boxes of sterile dressings, adhesive tapes, and Ace bandages. On one shelf, Carter found some neatly folded materials for slings and one or two braces for wrists and ankles; the Center for the Arts apparently had a program of athletics. Carter also found a great deal of topical anesthetics, sterile swabs, and the like.
Sophisticated equipment was at an absolute minimum; there were no drugs to speak of, but there were large containers of Lomotil pills, the drug of choice for the omnipresent cases of turista. It was by no means a remarkable dispensary, thoughtfully stocked but not equipped for anything out of the ordinary.
There was a container of materials next to a large sterilizer that bore a brass presentation plate inscribed A Gift from the Kit Tremayne Living Memorial. Carter poked about and found one or two scalpels and some tweezers and scissors.
The Killmaster had completed his survey of the room well before the nurse came back, followed by a man in a white smock, smoking a ropy-looking Toscani cigar, one of the types that David Hawk seemed to have going at all hours of the day or night.