Ник Картер - Agent Counter-Agent

The banquet was splendid but uneventful. The Venezuelan President appeared in full military costume with a chest full of medals. The Vice-President sat on his right, at the head of the long banquet table. The meal was a superb combination of continental and Venezuelan dishes, and the wine was even better.

A beautiful young girl sat almost directly across from me at the dinner. She was easily the best-looking female at the table, full breasted and slim with long, dark hair and startlingly deep blue eyes. She wore a low-cut black crepe gown that revealed the beginnings of a breathtaking figure. She caught my eye several times during the meal and smiled at me once. Later in the ballroom she came over to me and introduced herself.

“I am Ilse Hoffmann,” she said in English, with only a trace of an accent.

She gave me a wide smile, and I couldn’t help thinking that the more you saw of her, the better she looked. The clinging black gown emphasized the swell of her full breasts and the spectacular curve of her hips. She couldn’t have been wearing anything under the gown, and her erect nipples showed clearly through the clinging cloth. She was taller than I’d imagined, and her legs were long and slim.

“I’m happy to meet you, Ilse,” I said. “I’m Scott Matthews.”

“I did not mean to stare at you during the dinner, but your face seems so familiar. I work here at the German Embassy. Could I have seen you there?”

“It’s possible,” I said. “I’m at the American Embassy, recently transferred from Paris.”

“Oh, I love Paris!” She smiled again. Her eyes were wide and innocent, and the smile was magnetic for any man with red blood in his veins. She was an incredible-looking girl. “Much more than my native city of Hamburg.”

“I’ve had some good times in Hamburg, too,” I said, wondering about her accent. It was basically German, but there seemed to be a trace of something else, too. The music was playing, though, and I didn’t waste time thinking about it. “Would you like to dance?” I asked her.

“Very much,” she said.

We moved onto the crowded dance floor. A small band was playing at one end of the big room. People were standing and talking in small groups and milling around on the dance floor. I held Ilse very close, and she didn’t seem to mind at all. She pressed her warm body against mine and smiled up into my eyes. The effect was sensational.

Halfway through the song, the Vice-President and the Venezuelan President left the ball room for a private talk. A group of plainclothes men went with them. I watched them for a minute, and Ilse noticed.

“I met your Vice-President,” she said, “and I like him very much. He is a true diplomat, so unlike the ‘ugly American’ image”.

“I’ll bet he liked you, too,” I smiled.

“He seems very much a gentleman, a sensitive man,” she answered seriously.

The music had stopped. We stood facing each other. I was beginning to wish I’d have more time to myself in Caracas. Ilse could be a very pleasant diversion. “Well,” I said, “I enjoyed that.”

“You dance very well, Scott,” she said. “You have much of the grace of a torero. Do you like the bullfights?”

“I see one when I can,” I said.

“Ah, another aficionado!” she smiled. “I am going to the corrida tomorrow afternoon. Carlos Núñez is on the bill, and he is my favorite.”

“I like El Cordobés,” I said. I knew her remark was an invitation, but I had more important things to do than watch a bullfight. Besides, I had a built-in suspicion of women who took the initiative so quickly in first encounters.

“El Cordobés is my second favorite,” she said enthusiastically. Her blue eyes revealed what I’d suspected all along — she was as attracted to me as I was to her. “You ought to go. It will be a fine corrida.”

My eyes locked with hers. “Where will you be sitting?”

“In the front row on the shady side,” she said. “I’ll be alone.”

“I’ll go if I get a chance,” I said. “I’d like to see you there.”

“I would like to see you, too, Scott.”

I was about to ask her for another dance when I saw the man leaving the ballroom. I only had a quarter-view of his face, but I was pretty sure he was the man who’d been watching me at the cafe.

“Excuse me, Ilse,” I said abruptly and started after the man.

He had already gone through the wide doorway. Some people got in my way and slowed me down. By the time I got into the corridor, I could just see the back of the man’s head as he walked briskly toward the front entrance of the palace.

When I got there, he was already outside. I walked quickly past the knot of guests near the entrance, down past the security guards on the steps. I couldn’t see the man anywhere. He had disappeared. I went down the steps to ground level and looked past two strolling couples near the end of the building. A dark figure was just turning the corner toward the rear of the palace and the gardens.

I hurried down the walk, then broke into a run when I was out of sight. I stopped briefly at the place where the man had turned the corner. Another walk ran down the side of the building, but there was no one on it.

Swearing under my breath, I ran down the walk, not taking my eyes off the garden area. I’d gone about twenty yards when two men stepped out of the shadows in front of me. One had had a gun in his hand.

“¡No vaya tan de prisa!” said the one with the gun. “Espere un minuto, por favor.” He was telling me to hold it right there.

They were obviously a couple of the Venezuelan Security Police. They didn’t know me by sight. The one with the gun was overly arrogant.

“I’m with American intelligence,” I said in Spanish. “Did you see a man come along here?”

“American intelligence?” the one with the gun repeated. “Perhaps. Put your hands above your head, please.”

“Look, damn it!” I said. “I’m trying to catch the man who came down this walk. He’s getting away while you’re holding me.”

“Nevertheless,” the one with the gun said, “I must clear you.”

“All right, look, I’ll show you my papers,” I said angrily.

The other one walked toward me silently, a surly look on his face. I reached for my I.D. just as he arrived. He immediately threw a fist into my face, knocking me down. I looked up at the two of them in disbelief. I had heard that the Venezuelan secret police were pretty tough, but this was ridiculous.

“You were told to keep your hands up!” said the man who had hit me. “We will search you for identification.”

The one with the gun held his revolver near my face. “Now you will sit just like that, with your hands supporting you, on the pavement, while we search you.”

I’d had enough. I was tired of having to work with an army of blundering security people, and I was especially fed up with the stupidity of these two plainclothes policemen.

I kicked at the gunman’s ankle, and the bone cracked audibly. At the same time I grabbed at his gun hand and pulled hard. I didn’t care if the damned gun went off and gave everyone a heart attack. But it didn’t go off. The policeman went sailing over me and landed hard on his face. I grabbed the gun as he went past and wrenched it from his grasp. The other man dived at me. I rolled away from him, and he hit the pavement. I brought the handle of the gun down onto the back of his neck, and he collapsed in a heap beside me. I got to my knees just as the first man was trying to get to his feet. I stuck his revolver into his face, and he froze.

With my other hand, I pulled my I.D. out of my pocket and stuck it up close to his face so that he could read it. The second policeman was struggling to a sitting position, trying to focus on me.