The thing Carter wanted to see next was down at the end of the hall, another large room, probably the same twenty-by-twenty dimension as Smith's office. This was the operating room, a first-class setup with a bank of overhead mercury vapor lamps, an adjustable table, long banks of X-ray readers, a huge autoclave for sterilizing instruments, a large wooden cabinet with several drawers, and, finally, a huge glass cabinet filled with an array of knives, saws, drills, chisels, and other surgical tools. Lit by fluorescent wall fixtures for the times when the mercury vapors were not on, the room was a well-organized, efficient operating room.
Carter wondered if the Grinning Gaucho hadn't had his identity laundered in this very room.
The sound of nurses talking from a nearby room caused Carter to duck toward the door, but there he was met by the diminutive, cigar-smoking doctor, dressed now in stone-washed denims and running shoes. "The curiosity got to you, right?" he said.
Carter decided to tough it out by saying nothing.
"I can promise you, there will be little or no pain at any time." He began to scan Carter's face. "It's a shame to do any work on a face like yours. You've got classic features. Good bones. Well, come on over here and let's get started."
"I think you have the wrong idea," Carter said.
The doctor became irate. "I think you have the wrong idea." He pulled the cigar from his mouth and heaved it forcefully. "Dammit, you'd think they'd do some kind of a briefing first." He stared at Carter. "You think I'm just going to sedate you and start cutting, right, fellow? Jeez, gimme a break. I take something like six hundred different measurements, some within a tenth of a millimeter. Then I build a topography — here, I'll show you." He moved to the large wooden cabinet and opened it, removing what looked to Carter like a death mask.
"It's called a moulage," the doctor said, extending a plaster cast toward Carter. "We're talking exquisite detail here, so don't go backing away like I was going to start cutting you right now. Hell, you can't know it, but you're getting the best. I give you features you'd never dream of." He studied Carter for a few moments. "I can fix it so your jaw will never pop again. You'll be free of that, you understand."
"Those casts are all of people you worked on?"
"Damned right," the doctor said. "Thai's just responsibility to keep track. Those bozos in the CIA are scared stiff someone is going to find my records and then everyone will recognize you." He snorted. "Hell, when I'm through with you, no one will recognize you."
Carter edged toward the door. "Thanks, but I think there's been a misunderstanding."
"I'm telling you," the doctor said, "you're doing the misunderstanding. I just want to measure you first. Don't even think about surgery for a week or so. Now, be reasonable. Let's get on with the measurements."
Carter backed toward the door.
"That tears it," the doctor said. "Bruno! Marvin! I got a stubborn one here. Doesn't want to be measured."
The door opened and two men entered, both well over six four. One of them was black, his head shaven clean, a Puerto Vallarta T-shirt looking incongruous on his enormous frame. The other was a prototype of a wide receiver, blond, powerful, fast. They came at Carter. "Easy does it, buddy," the black guy said and extended his hand. "Doc here just wants to take some measurements with a small little ruler."
He feinted at Carter, who did not take the bait at all. "Let's cut this nonsense right now," Carter said.
"Hey, buddy, you let the doc measure you and we got no problems," the black guy said, reaching quickly for Carter and getting his hand. The Killmaster spun away, bumping the big blond off-balance. Carter danced back toward the black, elbowed him in the gut, and dropped into a crouch to take the charge from the blond.
Carter sidestepped that, tripped the blond, and was at the door. Both men were stunned with surprise. The black started at Carter again, driving him back against the blond, who got Carter in a bear hug, but Carter immediately shot his feet into the black guy's chest, dropping him and spinning away from the blond.
"I don't want to have to do this," Carter said.
The blond guy was out to save face. All seriousness now, he reached for Carter, who got a hand on the sleeve of his smock, tugged, and brought him to his knees with a crash. Frustrated, the blond got to his feet with some fancy gymnastics and came at Carter.
"What the hell is this?" the doctor shouted. "From now on, they're all going to sign releases before they come to me. I've had it with this skittishness."
The blond threw a punch at Carter who caught it in his left hand, squeezed, twisted, and wrenched the man to the floor with a hard slam.
Carter was out of the room, down the steps, and out into the jungle as quickly as possible, the irate voice of Dr. Charles Smith bawling at the two goons.
Using his copy of the Mossad map, Carter oriented himself and set off at an angle across the vast expanse of jungle on the far side of the Center for the Arts. He moved at a fast pace for nearly an hour before he paused for a cigarette.
A nearby stream ran high with fresh water. He drank his fill, then immersed his canteen. Coming back to his compass heading, Carter began to notice a thinning of the forest and his instincts began to play on him. Without knowing why at first, he began a Crosshatch pattern, putting in a good deal of time to cover very little territory, but as he rounded the next bend, he saw the fruits of his instinctive labors. Before him, curling out of the forest, was a well-graded road.
Heading in a northeasterly direction, Carter followed the road, having to duck quickly off the side of the road when a Jeep with two armed men drove by. About ten minutes later another vehicle appeared, a classic VW bug that had been converted into a Baja buggy, complete with thick-tread tires, a long looping antenna, and halide lights for running in the darkness off the beaten path.
There was no longer any question about it: the Killmaster knew he was coming closer to the real quarry.
A half hour later another vehicle passed, pausing to scan the sides of the road. This one, a large-bed Toyota pickup, was relatively new and smeared with camouflage. Two men rode in the cab, and an armed man sat in the bed with an automatic weapon.
Carter couldn't tell if they were merely on patrol or specifically looking for him, but after more time had elapsed he began to hear a steady, droning sound in the distance.
The droning appeared to come closer, then ebb. Carter couldn't figure out what it was until he mounted a small hillock and the afternoon breeze brought him the sound, clear, unhampered. It was someone broadcasting a message through a battery-powered bull horn.
A mile down the road on Carter's right was a small pathway. The area was definitely filled with signs of life now, and Carter knew that every step he took was bringing him into the middle of things. He took the pathway and there, in a clearing, were two added traces that an army was in residence. On one side of the clearing was a firing range, with bunkers, sandbags, and targets. On the other was a fitness range, with ropes for swinging, a crawling range, and an obstacle course made from old tires and empty barrels. Someone was interested in military training, military discipline. Carter made a quick sweep through the firing range. There were some casings from the older, more conventional rifles, but there were even more spent casings from automatic weapons.
The droning sound of the bull horn came closer, and overhead, Carter heard the unmistakable sound of a chopper flying a search pattern.
A half mile down the road, Carter ducked into the bushes in time to avoid being spotted by a Jeep. Unlike the other vehicles he'd seen, this one was almost new and had a logo stenciled on the side door. LT, the logo read.