"How many of you are there with Samadhi?" Carter asked.
The kid shook his head. "You're so good, you tell me."
"Six or eight."
The kid nodded.
"How'd you get over?"
"Abdul sent for us. The others were taken out in Mexico. Some action in the mountains."
"Are there more of you on the way?"
The kid nodded. "Every time Abdul gets money, he sends for more."
"So Abdul has a jihad against LT?"
"Are you going to kill me?"
"No," Carter said, "not if you answer my questions."
Carter tossed the kid his own knife. By the time he got himself free, he was grateful to accept a cigarette. "These Lex Talionis pigs, they burned the PLO for a lot of money. Abdul says they'll pay for it. He means to get it back."
"You guys did the bombs back at the arts center?"
"Those were good, weren't they? I made those."
"Someone could have been hurt," Carter said.
"I'm telling you, I know what I'm doing." It suddenly dawned on the kid that Carter was probably American. "Who do you work for?"
"You never heard of them," Carter said. "For the moment, we're on the same side."
"We're not on anyone's side," the kid said, "except our own."
"I want you to take a message to Samadhi for me. Will you do that? Will you tell him it's from the Killmaster?"
"Is that your street name?"
"You could say that, yes. I want you to tell Samadhi that Lex Talionis took three hostages, Japanese."
"Hell, we know that."
"Yes, but do you know I let them go?"
"You got a huge ransom."
Carter shook his head. "I got nothing."
The kid looked at Carter, unbelieving. "You let hostages go? For nothing?"
Carter nodded. "There is now a fifty-fifty chance that Lex Talionis thinks you guys did it."
"We wouldn't have let them go. That's big money. Weapons. Political pressure."
"I'm warning you," Carter said. "Be careful. And one more thing. Stay out of my way. Can I trust you to tell these things to Samadhi?"
"Sure," the kid said, feeling full of himself again.
"How do I know you'll tell him?"
"An American who speaks Arabic like you, you think I'd miss a chance to tell about that?"
"I think you might be more likely to have to explain if I took your Nikes."
The kid looked down at his shoes.
Carter made a motion with Wilhelmina.
The kid had to show Carter it was no big thing. He took off his Nikes and scornfully tossed them off to the side.
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"You're not sixteen."
"Well, they all take me for sixteen."
Probably closer to fourteen, Carter thought, giving the kid his gun back. The world was tough in a lot of places. Lebanon. Nicaragua. Peru. But Carter still thought fourteen was too young for that kind of growing up. "Get going," he said, "and watch out for snakes."
The kid's eyes met Carter's as if to say he'd been in worse scrapes in Beirut, and Carter believed he actually had, but the Killmaster had worried him with the bit about the snakes.
Carter waved Wilhelmina at him and he started off gingerly through the forest. Carter knew that before long, some young Lex Talionis recruit was going to be minus a pair of boots and this Arab kid was going to show up with a pair of field shoes that stood out from the Nikes and Reeboks of his companions. All of which was exactly what Carter was counting on.
Two hours later Carter penetrated what he thought was the main LT compound. A series of barracks-like buildings was grouped around a large outdoor amphitheater. By working his way past the sentries on post, Carter moved from building to building until he heard Chepe Munoz's voice. Rubbing dirt on his face, Carter risked a look in the window. There was Muñoz, seated at a table, smoking a cigar. In the room with him was a blond man of medium height wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He wore olive drab pants and shirt, and a duck-billed cap. Carter could tell by his high, nasal accent that he was a South African.
Piet Bezeidenhout.
Pulling one of the flat, miniaturized devices from his wallet, Carter was able to get a good fix on the conversation inside without having to risk showing himself.
"I know you, Munoz. I know your work, your ability to inspire men. Think what it could do for our operation if you would come over and join us."
"Hey, man," Munoz said, "twenty-five years of Cuban revolution may not be the most stable kind of job security in the world, but you cats are just starting and you've got nothing solid to hold you together."
"Ah, but that's the beauty of it," Bezeidenhout insisted. "There is everything a man like you could want. Incentives. Opportunities. My plan is the essence of capitalistic invention. There have been some enormous companies based on the so-called multilevel structure. We are beholden to no creed or political calling except our own. We are the fighting man's equivalent of the think tank. In what army can a man reinvest his own earnings? Be one of my captains, Chepe, and by year's end, you will be a wealthy, satisfied man."
"Where is all this money coming from?" Munoz asked.
"Good you ask. That is practical. I have a client list."
"Clients?"
"People. Groups who are willing to pay large sums of money to have events take place."
"Terrorist events, Bezeidenhout?"
"Events of magnitude. Events that will draw the attention of the rest of the world. Soon there will be thousands of men in an elite corps. The finest from around the world. Men living and working here, working under the brotherhood of power. Lex Talionis. The law of the lion. It will be outlaw and it will be fitting because we are located in the jungle. But in the jungle there will be condominiums. Each who joins us will own his own home. There will be all the amenities appropriate for such a good cadre."
"In this brotherhood of yours, Bezeidenhout, will there be any black leaders?"
"Why do you dwell on such foolishness?"
"Because you come from a place where there's a lot of that very kind of foolishness."
"In Lex Talionis, my men will advance strictly on merit. If a black man brings in significant customers, he will surely profit. If he is willing to take great risks, he will be given greater rewards."
"I've been in politics a long time now," Munoz said, "and it's my observation that you sound like one of these operations where you've got maybe two, three barracudas and a goldfish in the same tank. With all that tension and pressure, someone's going to get the goldfish for dinner, but as far as you're concerned, the barracudas can knock each other off for the privilege."
"Bah, don't be so stubborn with your talk of politics and folk-tale wisdom. Listen to me, Chepe Munoz. Here is my offer. Choose your currency. Swiss francs. Japanese yen. Dollars. Krugerrands. I guarantee you two thousand a month as a base cover. Even if you do nothing, you bring in that much. But when you, as one of my captains, bring in other income, you will have a seventeen-and-a-half-percent share. You see how it works?" Bezeidenhout began reading off a list. "Taking hostage an oil sheik from OPEC. Mining the harbor at Sydney, Australia. Placing bombs in the Boulder Dam in Nevada. Ah, here, mining the dikes in the Netherlands. These are all lucrative offers, made by people who stand to gain something from them."
"I see that you gave up your position with the diamond cartel for the opportunity to work with a bunch of losers and bozos."
"Bozos?"
"An expression, Bezeidenhout, that shows a lack of thinking at crucial times."
"So you are refusing my offer?"
"Hey," Chepe Munoz intoned, "did I say that, man? You just got to give me more time to think about it, right? Tell you what, I'll head back to Cuba, chew it over with Doc Fidel, okay?"
The South African looked at him coldly. "Your humor is as twisted as your politics, Munoz. Guards, here! Take this man away and lock him up. Tomorrow, after we deal with Zachary and Carter, we'll decide what to do with him."