As an independent consultant to Hughes on systems and radar, he had made a small fortune.
And Montegra enjoyed his wealth. He had movie-star good looks and the athletic physique to go with it.
Women — even the wives of his coworkers — had a soft spot in their hearts for Lorenzo.
And he for them.
Two months after the theft of the missiles in West Germany, Montegra was seen almost constantly in the company of a woman from Olivera Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Her name was Maria Estrada, and no one was surprised when Montegra announced that he was spending his entire vacation at the woman's villa outside Ensenada, Mexico.
Indeed, they all sighed with relief. Maria Estrada was perfect for Montegra. She was darkly beautiful, as only Latin women are. She had breasts, hips, and thighs that would make the mouth of a corpse water. And she obviously had money: a home in Los Angeles and a villa in Ensenada.
Maria Estrada fit Lorenzo Montegra to a T.
Perhaps they would marry, and then all the married men who moved in Montegra's circle could breathe easier.
But it didn't happen that way.
Four days after their arrival in Ensenada. the couple went deep-sea fishing. They, two deckhands, and the fishing boat's skipper were all lost in a freak storm.
The storm was a freak because it came up with no warning, not because it was a killer. It was no more than a light squall. Four other fishing boats had been out in it at the time, and all four of them had reached port easily and safely.
Carter tossed both folders on the desk and lifted the cup and saucer with hands that were now shaking visibly.
"What do you think?" Hawk asked through what had now become a heavy pall of blue-gray smoke between them.
"Heavy. If there is a connection, the missiles are alive and well, and somebody plans on mounting and firing them."
"It looks that way," Hawk said, nodding. He mashed the mangled remnants of his cigar, then immediately clipped and lit another. "Of course, if we green light an agent to go into the field and do something about this, we must assume that the missiles are not in a freighter's hull sitting on the bottom of the ocean."
Hawk rarely smiled. Now he was grinning like a cat about to make an easy kill.
"I take it." Carter said, "that we now have something that allows us to make that assumption?"
"You take it right, Nick, thanks to the Yucatan-Spain-Basque connection."
"What?"
If anything, the grin widened. Hard to do around a cigar, but Hawk managed it. His hamlike hands found yet another set of papers before he spoke again.
"Balikin Arms Limited of Amsterdam shipped — legally — a large consignment of light and heavy mortars, machine guns, automatic rifles, handguns, and ammunition out of Germany with an end-use certificate for Malta."
The hair stood up on the back of Carter's neck, and his knuckles gleamed white as his fingers gripped the coffee cup.
"The Star of Ceylon," he whispered.
"Neat as a pin," Hawk replied.
"I'll be damned."
"I don't think it's too much to assume that, if they offloaded a shipment of arms for use as barter material in a kill, they would overlook eight missiles."
Here Hawk leaned back and diligently applied a desk lighter to the end of his cigar. By the time it was boiling smoke, the smile on his broad face had been replaced by a studied frown.
"When all this began to dovetail so neatly, we dug back into the Greenspan and Montegra disappearances. It didn't take a genius or a computer to see how they fit."
"How was the connection made?" Carter asked, lighting a cigarette himself in self-defense.
"A woman." Hawk searched the mess on his desk for a moment, found what he wanted, and then continued. "We've pretty well established that the woman in Milan at the Excelsior Gallia — 'Carmen D'Angelo' — and 'Maria Estrada' in Los Angeles were one and the same."
"That's a little too much coincidence."
"You're damned right it is! We would have been stymied at that, however, if we hadn't dug a little further into Adam Greenspan's life."
"And…?" Carter sat up a little straighter in his chair now.
The missile theft was big, but for all intents and purposes, the military could take care of its own problems. If the problem had been passed along to AXE, with the kind of operatives the agency used and their methods of solution, then it had gotten even bigger and more dangerous.
"A little over a year ago, Adam Greenspan Finished overseeing the installation of six silos at a secret base in West Germany. He took a three-week vacation skiing in Gstaad, Switzerland. While he was there he met a woman named Armanda de Nerro."
Carter screwed his face into a frown of concentration. As fast as possible, he went through the computerlike memory bank of names in his mind, but he came up blank.
Hawk caught it and smiled.
"You wouldn't know the lady, Carter. In our line of work we rarely travel in her set. Anyway, we did a rundown, got some pictures, and did one hell of a lot of legwork."
"All three women are one and the same," Carter growled.
Hawk nodded. "Doorman and concierge in Milan nailed her straight. Italians don't forget beautiful women, particularly when they go along with big tips. A realtor in L.A. remembers renting the house to her as Maria Estrada, and a maid in Ensenada definitely identified de Nerro's photograph as her mistress at the villa that Estrada rented down there."
"Any way to tie her to Nels Pomroy as well?"
"Only by a roundabout connection through a Basque terrorist, Lupe de Varga. Her file can fill you in there later. De Varga had several connections with Pomroy… we think. Just how much came out of them, we don't know yet, but we're digging. In the meantime, the woman is the only real lead and/or link we have."
"And right now Armanda de Nerro is in Paris."
"No. How did you come up with that?"
"Bateman said I would be having dinner in Paris."
"You will, but not to meet de Nerro. What do you know about Andorra?"
Again Carter's mind switched into high gear, this time coming up with a winner.
"It's a principality nestled in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France. It's small, about one hundred and eighty square miles. It's become known as the world's discount shopping center because of its lack of taxes and tariffs, and, lately, it's skyrocketed in popularity with the world's tax evaders."
"That's enough for now," Hawk said. "We've leased a villa for you in Andorra from a wealthy expatriate Englishman. Ever hear of Nicholas Carstocus?"
"No," Carter replied.
"You wouldn't have. He always operated very quietly under the international code name 'Bluebeard. »
"Bluebeard I've heard of," Carter said, his mental antennae now on full alert.
In one way or another, Bluebeard had been involved with fifteen or more high-level assassinations in the last ten years. He was a master craftsman, and no one had been able to get a line on what he looked like or his identity.
Carter said as much to Hawk.
"Not until about three months ago. The French secret service, SDECE, not only got a line on him, they uncovered him."
Hawk did a quick scan of some notes on a paper before him then spoke again.
"Carstocus was the son of Greek immigrants. He was born in New York and, as a child, had every advantage. His family clan were very wealthy restaurateurs. When the father passed away, young Nicholas took over the family business, and he prospered. When his mother died, he sold the business and started making the jet-set scene as an international playboy, but he kept a fairly low profile."
"But the French put something together?"
"Right," Hawk said, nodding. "About two years ago Carstocus moved to Paris, and Bluebeard's operations stepped up. A couple of months ago, the SDECE got enough proof to nail him."