I made a landing on a strip to the north of an isolated ranch house. There was only a wooden shack to mark the end of the strip. I taxied the big Aztec twin up to it and killed the engines.
A surly-faced Mexican in worn chino trousers came out of the shack to meet us. He didn’t speak to us as he began to service the aircraft, topping off the tanks and checking the oil.
We all got out of the plane. I spread out the sectional air charts on the wing of the plane and Carlos drew in the route for me to follow, marking the point where we would sneak across the border into the States.
“Here’s where we cross,” he said, pointing to a spot on the Rio Bravo just south of the Texas railroad town of Sierra Blanca. “Beginning here”— he pointed again, this time to a place more than a hundred miles inside Mexico—”you’ll have to fly as low as you can. You cross the river at no more than treetop height, make an immediate turn to go around Sierra Blanca to the north, and then, at this point head northeast.”
“And from there?”
Carlos straightened up. “From there, I’ll direct you again. Remember, minimum altitude until we are well across the border.”
I folded the charts and stacked them in the order I’d use them. The Mexican had finished refueling the aircraft. Doris came back with Susan and the old man. They climbed aboard the aircraft, Susan ignoring me as if I did not exist, Dietrich walking stiffly like a man in a trance. Carlos got in after I did.
He shut and locked the door and fastened his seat-belt. I sat there a moment, rubbing the bristles on my chin, my eyes tired from lack of sleep, my right arm aching.
“Shall we go?” Ortega prodded.
I nodded and started the engines. I swung the big Aztec around into the wind and fed in power as we raced down the dirt field and took off into the crisp, blue Mexican sky.
It takes several hours to fly from Torreon-Durango to the Rio Bravo. I had plenty of time to think and the vague ideas that had begun to form in my mind the evening before — wild, almost impossible thoughts — began to crystallize into a hard suspicion that grew more and more solid with every passing minute.
Following to Carlos’ instructions, I came in low and crossed the border at treetop height south of Sierra Blanca, and then swung around the town in a pant curve far enough to be out of sight. Ten miles to the north, I turned the aircraft to a northeasterly heading. As the minutes passed, the suspicion in my mind began to jell and became more than just a vague, uncomfortable stirring.
I picked up the airway chart again. El Paso was to the northwest of us. I projected an imaginary line from El Paso at a heading of sixty degrees. The line went into New Mexico, coming close to Roswell. I looked at the compass on the panel of the aircraft. On our present heading, we’d intersect that line in only a few more minutes. I watched the clock.
Almost as if he, too, had been looking at the chart and watching for the imaginary line, Carlos said, at just the precise moment, “Please take up this heading,” and put his finger on a spot that lay to the north of us in the valleys of the Guadelupe mountains.
It was now no longer a suspicion. The thought became a certainty. I followed Carlos’ instructions until we finally flew over a ridge and there was the valley and Carlos was pointing down at it and saying, “There! That’s where I want you to land.”
I pulled back on the throttles, pushed the mixture controls to full rich, dropped flaps and gear, and set up for the landing. I turned the twin-engine aircraft into a tight bank, straightening out on final approach with full flaps at the last minute.
I wasn’t surprised to see the big Lear jet at the far end of the airstrip or the Bonanza single-engine plane beside it. I put the Aztec down nose high and let it settle gently onto the dirt strip, applying just a shade of power to extend the rollout, so that when I finally turned the aircraft off the runway, it came to a stop only a short distance away from the other two planes.
Carlos turned to me.
“Are you surprised?” he asked, with a faint smile on his thin lips and a glint of amusement in his dark eyes. The gun was once more in his hand. At that short distance I could see that each chamber in the cylinder “Was loaded with a fat, copper-sheathed bullet.
I shook my head. “Not really. Not after you gave me the last heading. I’d have been surprised if it had turned out any other way.”
“I think Gregorius is waiting for us,” said Carlos. “Let’s not keep him waiting any longer.”
In the blazing heat of the New Mexico sunlight, I walked slowly beside Gregorius’ bulky figure. Carlos, Doris Bickford, Susan Dietrich and her father were in the air-conditioned Lear jet. A muscular, acne-scarred gunman walked a dozen steps to our rear, never once taking his eyes off me.
Gregorius strolled in slow deliberation, with his hands held behind his back and his head lifted toward the brilliant, cloudless sky.
Casually, he asked, “What made you suspect that I might be involved?”
“Carlos knew too much too soon. I just couldn’t buy the idea that his men had me under such tight surveillance that they knew every move I made. Sure, the first time I met with Stocelli, I wasn’t on my guard. What I couldn’t accept was the idea that Ortega’s men had followed me the night I saw Dietrich — or that they’d heard our entire conversation. It was too much of a coincidence. Carlos kidnapped Dietrich within hours of the time I made my report to Denver — and that report was for your ears only! Except for myself, you were the only man in the world who knew what Dietrich had discovered and how valuable it was. So, Ortega had to be getting his information from you.”
“Well,” said Gregorius, “the question is, what are you going to do about it?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I said, “Let’s see if my guesses are right, Gregorius. First, I think you made your original fortune smuggling morphine base out of Turkey. Then you changed your name and became legitimate, but you still never really got out of the racket. Right?”
Gregorius nodded his large head without speaking.
“I think you helped finance Stocelli. And now I know you’re the money man behind Ortega.”
Gregorius looked sharply at me and then turned his eyes away. His meaty lips pushed out as though he were pouting. “But you also knew that Ortega couldn’t handle Stocelli.”
“You can handle Stocelli,” Gregorius observed calmly.
“Yes, I can. That’s why you instructed Ortega to bring me into the deal. He’d never have done it himself. Too much pride. Too much hatred because I killed his nephew.”
“You’re thinking very clearly, Nick.”
I shook my head. I was tired. The lack of sleep, the strain of flying the aircraft for so many hours, the slash on my right arm — all were beginning to tell on me.
“No, not really. I made a mistake. I should have killed Dietrich once I’d learned about his formula, There’d have been an end to the affair right then—”
“But your compassion for the old man wouldn’t allow that. And now I’m giving you the same options that Ortega gave you. Only remember, you’ll be my partner, not his, and I certainly will not give you a full fifty percent share. However, it’ll be enough to make you a very rich man.”
“And if I say no?”
Gregorius gestured with his head toward the pock-faced gunman standing a few yards away watching us. “He’ll kill you. He’s impatient to show how good he is.”
“What about AXE? And Hawk? I don’t know how you’ve managed to fool him this long into thinking you’re straight, but if I go in with you, Hawk would learn why. And my life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel! Hawk never lets up.”