"Sure." She scribbled her address. It was near Carter's apartment in Arlington. "I'll have something brought in."
"You don't have to."
"I want to. By the time you get to my place you may not be hungry… for food, I mean."
Carter wasn't sure she was legit, but with that face, that figure, and all that blond hair, he wanted to find out.
It should have taken him two hours to file the Spanish report. He did it in just fifty minutes and took another ten briefing Hawk.
The prisoner confirmed just about everything. Nels Pomroy was indeed the go-between. Whoever the head of the far left wing of ETA was. he wanted Julio Mendez out of the way. Pomroy had hired a freelance shooter originally, but the guy had obviously failed or balked on the contract at the last minute.
When the arms unexpectedly fell into Pomroy's hands, he hatched the plan to trade off with the Latinos for Freedom.
The prisoner they had captured had so spilled his guts that his buddies in Mexico and Belize would be under surveillance within twenty-four hours. At the first sign of any more activity, they could all be picked up by the local police or security organization.
All nice and neatly wrapped up.
"Maybe," Hawk said. "And maybe not."
"But that's about as much as I can do," Carter said.
Hawk nodded. "Take a week. Relax, but stay in touch."
"Will do," Carter replied, and ten minutes later he was giving a cabbie Delores Teller's address in Arlington.
She met him in a sheer negligee that didn't hide a wispy pair of panties and a bra that couldn't begin to contain the occupants of its cups.
"Hungry?"
"Yeah."
"Food?"
"No."
"The bedroom's this way."
That had been three days before. They had eaten several meals, but as yet they had never put their clothes back on.
Among the other delightful things Delores did, she gave massages. About the time Carter figured he was going down for the last time, Delores gave him a massage.
It never failed.
"What are you looking at?"
"The bottom of your breasts. They're amazing."
"Why?"
"They don't sag."
"I do exercises. Want to go to Monte Carlo?"
That was another odd little twist to her personality. She often changed the subject in mid-sentence, and it was always interesting to Carter to hear the new thought she came up with.
"Why Monte Carlo?"
She shrugged. "I dunno. I think you'd be a ball to be with in Monte Carlo. We could read, travel, gamble, play tennis…"
"And make love all at the same time." Carter grinned.
"Yeah. Want to?"
"Can't right now, Delores. But we can make love."
"All right."
That was something else Carter liked about Delores. She was a very agreeable lady.
She leaned forward until her breasts grazed his face.
"Kiss them, Nick, honey. Make them hurt with your kisses the way you did before."
Her breasts were milky white and the nipples were darker than pink, almost crimson in the dim light.
But it wasn't the color as much as the touch.
Carter reached with both hands and caressed the smooth flesh. The nipples seemed to harden at his touch, and she forced them one by one to his lips.
His eyes rolled upward to hers. They were green, widely set in her beautiful face, and right now they were flashing with an animal sensuality that told Carter she did not want to wait much longer.
"Delores, you amaze me. Lie down."
Her laugh was genuine, coming spontaneously from the long, clean line of her throat. And it was no little-girl giggle; it was the throaty chuckle of an amused woman.
"Why? Because it's only six o'clock in the morning?" she said, sliding into the bed beside him.
"That's one reason," Carter said, burying his face in her blond mane and rolling his hips between her thighs. "But there are about a million more."
Their bodies collided, and they were instantly in the throes of a lusty rhythm. Her breaths and sighs, her clutching hands and her heels hitting his bullocks were all spurs, making Carter pound into her body with a force that he thought had left him long ago.
"Good, so good," she growled, biting his lip even while kissing it.
"Only because you are so wild," he replied.
At last her passion peaked. It drew a scream from her lips and an arch from her body that brought Carter to his own climax.
At first he thought it was some new, strange sound coming from Delores. By now he had learned that during — and even after — lovemaking, the woman could indeed come up with strange sounds.
And then he realized that it was the beeper.
"No… where…?" she groaned, feeling him slide out of her.
"Have to… telephone," he replied, padding across the room.
"Nick…"
"Sorry." He dialed, and even at six a.m. there was only one ring.
"Amalgamated."
"Extension two hundred."
The mechanical gnomes made clicks on the line, and Ginger Bateman's husky rasp filled his ear.
"Two hundred."
"It's me."
"Come… pronto."
"Oh, Christ…"
"Here, Nick. Now!"
"It's six o'clock in the morning."
"You think I don't know that? I slept here last night. P-R-O-N-T-O!"
"Your Spanish is lousy," Carter hissed, but she had already hung up.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Delores was sitting up in bed, her breasts a huge, tantalizing shelf over her folded arms. Anger and rejection were already starting to form in the green pools of her eyes.
"I have to go into the office for a while."
"You don't…"
"I do."
She practically broke the bed when she fell back on it.
"Damn all you people who work for a living. When will you be back?"
"As soon as I can. I promise."
"You mean it?"
"I mean it."
"I hope so," she said, sitting up again. "There's something about you that's… well, nice."
"You, too," Carter said and kissed the tip of her nose. At the door he paused and turned. "Delores…?"
"Yeah?"
"If I don't get right back… I mean… well, how about leaving word with your service where you'll be?"
"Then it might be a while?"
"It might," he admitted.
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
He turned. She was smiling and her eyes said, "It's me again."
"Yeah. Just check my service."
It was torture all the way to Dupont Circle not to remember how she looked, naked, sitting in that bed.
It was one half hour later to the minute when Carter arrived at the Amalgamated Press and Wire Services Offices. Amalgamated put out a couple of magazines a month and ran a small news service. But it was all a front for AXE and allowed the ultrasecret agency to have field offices all over the world under the guise of "news gathering services."
Out of these field offices operated the men with «N» designations. Nick Carter was one of them: "N3, Killmaster." There had once been N1 and N2, but they had long since bought the farm.
Agent N3, Nick Carter, was top dog among the field agents.
But that meant nothing when David Hawk said "Jump!"
Or, in this case, "Pronto!"
Carter was through final security within two minutes of his initial arrival and at Hawk's office thirty seconds after that.
"He's waiting."
Ginger Bateman sat behind her desk, partially hidden by a mountain of papers. Normally she was the most perfect composite of brains and beauty the Good Lord could fashion from a hank of hair and a hunk of bone.
Now she was a mess.
Her sable hair with its brilliant deep-red highlights was in total disarray, and there were lines around her eyes and mouth that did not agree at all with her perfect features.