'l remember the response from Hawk's unknown visitor: "Nobody is that good."
«True» Hawk had said. "Nobody is that good, not even Nick Carter. But he thinks he's that good and, after all, isn't that all that's necessary in any assignment, impossible or otherwise?"
Well, perched there in that filthy hole of a chimney with my body wracked with pain, my back and knees raw, a dead warrior in my arms, a nest of impenetrable scorpions just above me, a water-filled cave entrance far below me and a virtual army of fanatics on top of the mountain, I suddenly realized that that intercom hadn't been left open accidentally. It had been done on purpose. I had been conned into thinking that, even if nobody was good enough for a particular assignment, I was fully expected to complete it successfully.
I realized something else, I really wasn't good enough, not for this one. It had been a stacked deck against me all along. I had come this far through sheer luck and brashness and downright foolhardiness. And where had I come? To my own death trap, that's where.
"Nick?" Elicia cried, more panic" in her voice. "Nick, I'm slipping. I can't hold on any longer."
All right, I thought. I don't know what to do, but I'm expected to do something. David Hawk had expected it all along and had gotten the results he desired. Elicia expected it. The two warriors waiting just below expected it. Even if my next move were a wrong move, I had to make it.
"We'll have to drop him," I said to Elicia. "It seems cruel, but the man is dead and won't feel a thing. Let him go." I looked down at the waiting warriors. "Take the body and let it fall back down the chimney."
They were aghast at the thought, and their faces showed it, but they took their comrade as Elicia and I eased him down. They held him for a few minutes, then reluctantly let him go. We gritted our teeth and held our positions in that narrow chimney and listened to the smacking, crunching, grinding sounds as the man and his rifle dropped all the way down and slammed into the sacrificial platform two hundred feet below.
And what next? When the warrior had first run into the scorpion nest, I had considered using one of my gas bombs to rout them. But the plan had some unpleasant ramifications.
For one thing, in that closed area the gas would spread out in a cloud and engulf us all. I knew from experience that no man could hold his breath long enough for the gas to disperse. Secondly, the gas might linger in the tunnel above us, especially if there were level areas up there. And a third thing: gas would escape at the top of the chimney, and might be detected by forces up there, forces who would know immediately that someone was coming up the chimney.
A plan began to hatch in my head as I rested there and felt a soft breeze waft upwards past my body. It wasn't a perfect plan, but no plan is.
"Move back down the chimney," I said to Elicia and the two remaining warriors. "Go down about a hundred feet and wait for me."
"But there's no time," Elicia protested.
"I know. We're not interested in stopping Don Carlos any longer. We're interested in survival. Forget the time."
Even as they moved back down the chimney, though, I knew that I hadn't meant that about not being interested in stopping Don Carlos. That was the main objective and my years of training wouldn't let my mind forget it, not even for the moment, for self-survival.
When Elicia and the two warriors were out of sight, I took a smooth, sleek little Pierre from a pouch on my thigh and tied the end of the nylon rope to the pin. I worked the bomb into a niche in the rocks, tested to make sure it wouldn't come away easily, then moved back down the chimney. When I had gone fifty feet, I found a small ledge and began to load the contents of my pocket onto it. I crumpled up all the money in my billfold into a heap. I took out my passport and my identification card and a bunch of other cards I carry around for a number of reasons: my blood donor card to remind me that I am also human; my library card to remind that civilization really does have its finer side; my credit cards to remind me that civilization has another side; my health insurance card to remind me that I'm not (as Hawk's friend suggested) invincible; some receipts and notes to remind me that life has a quiet aspect to it at times. I put the wallet itself on the pile.
I remembered that my notebook had been put in the pouch with Wilhelmina. I recovered it and tore out the page containing the map I'd drawn of Alto Arete's fortifications. I then tore out all the other pages, crumpled them up and put them on the pile. I tucked the folded map back into the pouch.
Next, I took out Hugo and began to slice long splinters off the butt of the Russian automatic rifle. It was soft wood and I thanked the Russians for cheapening up in such a way. The wood had a fragrance to it, like cedar. It would burn well. I cut several short lengths of nylon rope and added them to the pile, then took apart a half dozen bullets and shook gunpowder over the whole thing. I found two extra books of matches and, only as a last resort when I was certain they were needed to make the fire more effective, I added my last box of goldmonogramed Turkish cigarettes.
When I had eased below the ledge to keep the gunpowder from flashing in my face, I lit a match and flipped it up onto the pile. The flash was instant and blinding. I moved back down the chimney and watched as the flames built and set up eerie shadows in the space above me.
It took less than a minute before I felt an increase in the wind moving up past me. The fire was creating a fine draft, as I expected it to in this narrow chimney. I watched, waiting for the flames to reach a peak, but carefully watching to see that it didn't burn the length of nylon rope that I had tied to Pierre and snaked down past the ledge holding the fire.
When I was certain that the upward draft was at optimum force, I yanked on the nylon. I heard the familiar pop as Pierre burst open in the closed space well above the fire. I sucked in my breath and held it, still watching the fire on the ledge a dozen feet above. There was hardly a flicker in the flames from the explosion of the gas bomb and I knew I was safe.
The draft created by the fire, had swept all the gas upward. The draft would also clear the gas out of level tunnels and other pockets where it might otherwise collect.
Best of all, the gas would infiltrate that nest of scorpions and, unless they were capable of holding their breaths for the next few minutes, wipe the nest clean of life.
But I was still worried about what might happen on top of the mountain when they saw the blue cloud of gas and the white smoke. As I said, the plan wasn't perfect.
I gave the fire another five minutes, then called down to Elicia and the warriors. Even as Elicia responded, I felt something soft and furry land on my shoulder. I started to brush it off, then realized what it was. I shone my flashlight on it and saw that it was a scorpion.
It was deader than hell.
"What did you do?" Elicia asked as she drew up behind me. I was putting out the fire so we could go past the ledge without being burned.
"Made a few sacrifices of my own" I said, thinking of the lost money and library card. They represented a small loss compared to Pico's daughter and all those other victims of Don Carlos Italla's idiocy, but a sacrifice, nonetheless.
As we moved upward, brushing aside dead scorpions from the now defunct nest, I explained to Elicia what I had done and she showered me with so many compliments that I began to wonder what David Hawk would say when he heard my report on the clearing of the scorpions. I knew what he would say, to the word:
"Standard operating procedure, N3. Why did it take you so long to think of it?"
It is sometimes depressing working for a man like David Hawk. But only sometimes.