Ник Картер - The Spanish Connection

At the portion of the slope where the two runs came together, the young skier cut back into his side, and went down slowly in a series of flat traverses. He was out of sight behind the backbone of rock that separated the two runs as I came up to Corelli.

“Beautiful pack,” I said.

He nodded.

“When you come to the States, I’ll take you up to Alta and Aspen. You’ll love them!”

He laughed. “I may take you up on that!”

“Good deal,” I said. “Go on. I’ll follow you down to the next stop.”

He grinned and started off.

I came a few moments after him. My right ski had been lagging a bit, and I tried to adjust my stance for better bite.

I moved along the steeper drop, slowing down with a snowplow because the neck between the two rock outcrops was too narrow for graceful maneuvering, and then came to a wide glade of snow and ice that looked like a picnic ground for any skier. I saw Corelli at the far end.

I started down, following Corelli to the left, and it was at that moment that I saw the young boy again.

He had gone down faster than the two of us in the alternate run, and was now approaching the cross-lanes of the two runs at the bottom of the wide, sloping field.

For a moment I drew up, cutting into the snow in an ice-hockey stop and just stood there. The powder was good. The snow beneath seemed solid. But I did not like the angle of the field. I mean, it was steep and it was almost flat, but there was a concave slope to it at the top that I did not quite like the looks of.

Yet Corelli was moving along it halfway down without any trouble. He was skiing from my left to right, and as I watched, he went into a kick turn and came back from right to left. Beyond him I saw the young man in the other run nearing the rock spine that separated our run from his.

I was just about to move out when I caught a warning flicker out of the corner of my eye. I lifted my head again, squinting against the glare of the sun. Had my eyes played tricks on me? No!

The kid held something in his right hand, and was clutching both ski poles under his left arm. He held a weapon of some kind— Yes! It was a hand gun!

Now the kid stopped and crouched in the snow. He was behind the rocks now, and I could not see what he was doing, but I knew instinctively that he was aiming the piece at Corelli who was skiing away from him, unaware that he was targeted in the gun-sights.

“Hauptli!” I screamed, using his cover name just in case I was being tricked by some kind of optical illusion.

He turned his head quickly, looking up the slope at me. I waved my arm toward the young man. Corelli turned and could see nothing from his angle. I waved frantically, warningly. Corelli understood something was wrong, and reacted. He tried to change his line of run, but lost his balance and went down in a bad front fall. But he controlled himself and hit on his hip, then started to slide.

I jumped on the skis and slammed down on my poles, schussing straight down toward the rocks behind which the youth was crouched. I tucked both ski poles under my left arm and got out the Luger.

The mogul came up out of nowhere. I was watching the rocks for the kid’s head, but I could see nothing of him. The mogul took me midway between knee and ski clamp and threw me flat on my face in the snow, ripping one ski completely off as the safety grips loosened, and sending it sliding down the powdery field. I slid and finally came to a wrenching stop. The other ski lay next to me. I do not even remember its coming off.

Corelli pushed himself up out of the snow, turning now to look at the rocks.

The first shot came. It missed. Now I could see the youth coming up out of the rocks, moving forward. I aimed the Luger at his head and squeezed the trigger. Too far to the right.

He turned quickly and saw me. His cap fell off. Golden hair flowed out around his throat.

It was Tina Bergson!

I was so stunned I could not think.

But then my brain recapitulated the entire story without any prompting.

Tina!

It was not her body in the red Jaguar.

It had to be Elena Morales’s. I saw it now. I saw Elena go into Parson’s room, and find Parson’s dead body where we had left it. And I saw her inside the room — with Tina Bergson already there! Tina had come up to Sol y Nieve to find Parson and direct him to Corelli to kill him. And she had found Parson dead — before Elena came up to the room. So she had called down to the lounge to bring Elena up. And Elena had come, directed by the message.

Tina had forced Elena out onto the balcony and down to the red Jaguar — because now she knew that Elena was Corelli’s eyes and ears. She put her in the Jaguar and killed her. In the horseshoe turn, out of sight, she placed Elena behind the wheel, started up the Jaguar with a ski boot or something heavy holding down the gas pedal, and jumped free herself.

And escaped in the dark even though I had come along right after her.

And now—

Now she had come to kill Corelli and take over the drug chain herself — as she had always wanted to do!

I saw Corelli rise again and stare at Tina. Tina fired once again at me. I returned her fire. I was too far away to do any good.

She looked at me, and then at Corelli, and then started on foot across the snow toward Corelli. He was frantically trying to get himself out of the snow and down the slope. Like many men involved in extremely dangerous professions, he apparently did not like to carry a weapon on his own person.

She floundered purposefully toward him in her ski boots, holding her weapon poised high in the air.

The snow was frozen hard around the mogul. I could see it crackling with tension at the top of the slope that formed a rounded contour, slanting down toward the bottom of the field.

I moved back and aimed the Luger down into the snow and fired once, twice, three times. The shots echoed in the air. The snow flew in all directions. There was a splitting crack, and the entire slab of snow and ice began to go — parting company with the upper half of the mogul that had grounded me.

It moved fast once it started. Slide!

She saw it coming but she was unable to escape it. She fired at Corelli two times and then started to run toward him, out of the way of the snow slide, but it caught her and carried her on down with it. I saw her yellow hair vanish in the stuff.

Then the snow piled up and began to disintegrate against the rocks of the spine as it came to rest with a smash and a roar.

I got my skis together and moved slowly down to Corelli.

He was lying on his side bleeding in the snow.

I came up to him. His face was white with pain and his eyes were unfocused. He was going into shock.

“Destroy the chain!” he whispered to me.

I lifted his head out of the snow. “I will, Rico.”

It was the first time I had called him by his first name.

He slumped back, a faint smile on his lips.

I pushed his eyelids closed.

I helped the Guardia Civil take care of Corelli’s body and then left on my skis as some men with shovels began digging for Tina Bergson. I drew aside the man with the Fu Manchu mustache and informed him of Barry Parson’s sad end.

It was pleasant under the shower to soak off all the strain and the tension of this Spanish Connection business. I toweled in my room preparatory to dressing and knocking for Juana Rivera. It was time I told her the last chapter of the story and started with her on the road to Malaga.

I checked my Luger in the shoulder holster hung over the bedpost, and reached for my robe. Since my feet were dry I taped on the stiletto and shrugged into the cool terrycloth. The mirror in the bathroom was clouded but I managed to comb my hair. I checked again and found that the strands of gray had not reappeared after I had pulled them out the week before.