He ducks into a narrow doorway. A child runs toward him, screaming about Allah. Carter hesitates, a second too long. The boy cocks his arm back and throws a grenade as Nick shoots him. The M4 kicks back, one, two, three.
The first round strikes the boy's chest, the second his throat, the third his face. The child's head disappears in a red fountain of blood and bone. The grenade drifts through the air in slow motion…everything goes white…
He woke, heart pounding, drenched in sweat.
Ghosts. Impressions from the past, his very own personal time machine.
He waited for dawn.
CHAPTER TEN
The Visitor looked out over the lights of Jerusalem.
A cell phone rang, one of several he kept for these calls.
"Yes."
"We have a problem."
The caller spoke in German, with a slight American accent. The voice was husky, a rasp of cigarettes or whiskey. He might have been in the next block or across the Atlantic. There was no way to tell.
"Yes?"
"Our business strategy requires modification. A representative of a rival consortium based in America has arrived. He intends to interfere with our negotiations. Perhaps you could resolve this with him?"
"His name?"
"Carter."
"You wish me to visit him?"
"Yes, please do. I am sure you can make a satisfactory arrangement. Your usual consulting fee will be doubled for this assignment."
"Where is he staying?"
"At the King David Citadel Hotel. He is one of their best negotiators."
A pause.
The Visitor asked, "Is the meeting still on schedule?"
"It is. Continue supervising the arrangements. An update has been sent to you. Negotiate with our competition."
"I understand."
The call ended. The Visitor placed the phone on the floor and crushed it with his heel.
It was an unexpected assignment, but it shouldn't take long. The Visitor went to his laptop. He opened a program that had never been certified by Microsoft or anyone else and tapped into the reservations computer at the King David Citadel. He noted Carter's room number and the fact that he was in the hotel.
He tapped another key and brought up an encrypted message, the "update" his caller had mentioned.
Carter was going to meet with an Armenian merchant in the Old City. The instructions were clear. Eliminate the Armenian and the possibility of that meeting ever happening. A picture of Carter, his contact and the address where the meeting was to take place were provided.
Perfect. The Visitor was efficient. When Carter came to meet the Armenian, opportunity might present itself to take care of two problems at the same time.
He thought about the day ahead. He went over the assignment in his mind's eye, a professional working through his game plan, visualizing the steps, the terrain, possible complications or obstacles.
The Visitor shut down his laptop. He took out the silenced Ruger .22 he preferred for his work. Quiet, effective, with little chance of rounds penetrating places they shouldn't go, it was his favorite weapon. He got a kit and laid everything out in a precise row and began cleaning the gun. The smell of solvent and gun oil and the sheen of the deep bluing on the metal provided a peaceful, ordered sense of purpose, an existential meditation focused on the instrument of death in his hands.
The Visitor thought of his home in Germany, in the mountains of Bavaria. It was so different from the barren, desert land of this Jew nation. Green trees and black earth, snow capped peaks rising like gods to the pure, blue skies. The smell of pine and the glory of alpine flowers blooming in the high country in the spring. Warm summer days. Fair women with rosy cheeks and wide hips.
But his beloved Bavaria was corrupted, diseased.
Poisoned by Jews and foreigners, mongrel races swarming like cockroaches over his beloved Fatherland, Germany's patrimony traded for a mess of porridge by spineless politicians catering to the Zionist Americans and their ilk.
It wasn't too late to reverse the damage. Soon, the Jews would be brought down. A long delayed completion of the final solution was coming to this nation of sub-humans called Israel.
The Visitor hummed to himself as he wiped excess oil off the pistol.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At the German research station on the Princess Martha Coast in Antarctica, spring was in full swing. For the last four weeks the thermometer had soared above freezing. Global warming and the hole in the ozone layer were hot topics of conversation in the dining hall.
The thinning ozone layer was Hans Schmidt's field of expertise. Thirty years old, he was a rising star in the expanding science of environmental studies. Hans had an engaging, open face, hazel eyes and fair hair. He'd let his beard grow over the last few months, the reddish color hinting at his Viking ancestry. In a month he was going back to Germany to marry his childhood sweetheart, Heidi. Life was good for Hans.
He'd dressed in high brown laced boots, sturdy pants over insulated underwear, two shirts and an open red jacket. He wore a fur lined hat with flap ears tied up on top. Antarctic weather could change to fury in an instant, even in the warmer months.
He'd checked out a Sno-Cat and persuaded Otto Bremen, the head of the station and the chief geophysicist, to go inland with him to the mountains of the Fenriskjeften, the "Jaw of Fenris", named for the giant, ravenous wolf of Norse myth. It was still largely unexplored territory.
Bremen was older, in his early fifties. He was stocky, shorter than Hans. His face was round and jolly, which made him a favorite for playing Kris Kringle at Christmas time. He had tufted eyebrows turning white over blue eyes and silver-rimmed bifocals set slightly askew on his large ears. He wore an insulated yellow parka with a German flag stitched on the shoulder and sturdy boots and pants.
They pulled out of the garage cavern hollowed from the ice beneath the station and headed toward the mountains. The heater in the high cab of the Tucker Sno-Cat was on low in the fine weather. Hans cracked a window for fresh air. The Tucker was one of three identical vehicles donated to the station by Eric Reinhardt, a wealthy American businessman of German descent.
The big Allison diesel engine rumbled in a contented drone. They headed over the snow and ice toward the mountains an hour away. With two 60 gallon tanks, a closed cab and plenty of storage, the Tucker was like a Rolls Royce in this part of the world.
Bremen tinkered with another Reinhardt gift, an experimental device using ultra sound technology to detect mineral deposits. The Fenris Mountains would provide a good field test. No one had ever found much in the Antarctic ice, only a little iron and some copper. None of it promised commercial development. Besides, the Antarctic treaties prevented any kind of serious mining operations.
The big Sno-Cat closed on the mountains and Hans turned parallel to the front of the range, looking for anything unusual in the melting ice and snow. After ten minutes the mineral seeking device began to beep.
"Something ahead," Otto said. "According to this, no more than three of four hundred meters." He consulted a chart. "High density iron, copper, the readings are going crazy."
"Look there!" Hans pointed through the windshield.
He slowed and brought the Tucker to a halt. On the side of one of the jagged peaks, ice and snow had broken loose in the spring thaw. A gray, regular outline was visible against the dark rock.
"What the hell is that?" Hans let the engine idle.
"I don't know. It looks man made. That's where the readings come from."
"I don't remember anything about a station or camp here."