Nick Carter - The Aztec Avenger

As I ran through the shrubbery to the wall of the house away from the pool area, I coiled the rope again. Stopping below the balcony, I flung the grapnel once more and it caught on the railing.

I pulled myself up until my fingers caught the wrought iron of the railing and, in a twisting scramble, I swung myself over the edge. It took only a moment to haul in the rope, and then I was running along the balcony to the room I had left more than an hour before.

As I opened the doors to slip inside, I heard the first rising howl of the police car sirens. Consuela was still unconscious. In the darkness, I shoved the coiled rope far under the double bed. Quickly, I stripped off my clothes, letting them drop to the floor in a pile. Naked, I slid under the topsheet beside Consuela’s nude, warm body.

I heard the insistant, rising and falling howl of the police sirens coming closer, then the shouts from downstairs and from outside. Then there was a pounding on the bedroom door. The knob was rattled angrily.

Someone shoved the key in the lock and twisted it savagely. The door was flung open, slamming against the wall. Ortega stood there, with a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

“Get dressed! There’s no time to lose! The police are here!”

Hastily, I grabbed for my slacks and shirt and slipped into them. I shoved my feet into my loafers, not bothering to put on my socks.

“Wake her up!” snarled Ortega, turning the flashlight on Consuela. She lay as I’d left her, her hair flowing over the pillow, her arm bent over, her head, her face turned sideways.

I grinned at him. “Not a chance. She’s had too much to drink. She passed out on me just when it was getting interesting.”

Carlos swore in frustration. “Then we leave her,” he decided. “Let’s go!” He motioned with his gun.

I went out the door ahead of him. I heard the police sirens again.

“What the hell are the police doing here?” I asked.

“I’d like to know that myself,” Carlos snapped angrily. “But I don’t intend to stay and find out.”

I followed Ortega down the hall to the stairs. He shone his flashlight down the steps. Brian Garrett was at the foot of the staircase, blinking in the beam, looking up with fright written over his florid face. He ran halfway up to meet us, the drunkenness leached out of him by the sudden panic.

“For god’s sake, Carlos!” he shouted. “What the hell do we do now?”

“Get out of my way.” Carlos moved down the steps to get past Garrett Garrett caught him by the arm. “What about the forty kilos of horse?” he demanded, hoarsely. “Goddamn it! It’s my house! They’ll get me for it! Where can I run to?”

Carlos halted in midstep. He turned to Garrett, the light from his flashlight illuminating them eerily.

“You’re right,” said Carlos. “You don’t have any place to run, do you?”

Garrett looked at him with frightened eyes, mutely pleading with him.

“If they catch you, you’ll talk. I don’t think I need that kind of trouble,” said Carlos, brutally. He lifted the gun and pulled the trigger twice. The first shot caught Garrett squarely in the middle of his chest He was opening his mouth in shock when the second bullet smashed his face apart.

Even as Garrett’s body was crumpling slackly against the railing, Carlos was moving down the stairs again. He was almost running now and I was just a step behind him.

“This way!” Carlos shouted over his shoulder at me as we turned at the end of the living room. He made his way down the corridor to the kitchen and out the service door. The big sedan was waiting there, its engine idling, the same driver at the wheel.

Carlos flung open the rear door. “Get in!” he snapped. I threw myself into the car. Carlos ran around to the front seat, slamming the door shut

“Vamanos, Paco!” he shouted. “ Pronto! Pronto!”

Paco put the car in gear and stepped on the accelerator. The fat, wide-tread tires dug into the gravel. We were picking up speed as we skidded around the corner, of the house, careening around the curve of the circular drive in front of the entrance. Paco spun the wheel desperately to straighten out for the gate, blowing the horn frantically, swearing as loudly as he could at the idiots to open the gates.

He slammed on the brakes momentarily, slowing up the car until one of the gates opened enough for us to squeeze through, and then he stepped on the gas pedal again. The big car shot through the gate.

The first of the police cars was parked less than twenty yards away, blocking the driveway to the main road. Police were crouched behind the car, firing at the gate as we came through.

Paco didn’t hesitate. With a curse, he twisted the wheel of the car, sending it off the driveway into the rough ground of the field, still jamming the accelerator to the floorboards. In the darkness, without headlights, the heavy sedan hurtled across the field, bucking and lurching like a wild mustang suddenly gone berserk, throwing up a rooster tail of dust and dirt clods behind it.

The bouncing, slewing roll of the sedan flung me helplessly from side to side. I heard a fusillade of shots being fired at us. The rear window disintegrated, showering me with shards of broken glass.

There were more shots, and then the car ceased its pounding as Paco suddenly spun the steering wheel again and brought us back onto the road. We roared away in high gear.

There was no pursuit. Once on the highway, Paco flicked on his headlights and brought the big car up to almost racing speed.

Carlos sat up and leaned over the back of the front seat. He smiled at me and said, “You can sit up now, Senor Carter. For the time being, I think we are safe.”

“What the hell was that all about?” I picked myself off the floor where I’d been thrown and sank back on the cushions of the seat. I took out my handkerchief and carefully brushed the sharp glass splinters from my trousers.

“I think it was because the captain of our ship talked,” Carlos speculated. “He knew we had a load to be shipped. I think the police were guessing that it was at Garrett’s.”

“Now what?”

“Now we pick up Senor Dietrich and his daughter and head for the States. Our plans have not been changed. They have merely been moved up by a few hours.”

“What about Consuela?”

Carlos shrugged.

“If she keeps her wits about her, she’ll be all right Garrett’s guests knew nothing about our activities. Consuela’s smart enough to claim that she, too, was merely a guest and knows nothing about whatever they find.”

“Or Garrett’s murder? You took care of that problem, I see.”

Ortega shrugged. “It had to be.done sooner or later.”

“Where to now?”

“To Bickford’s place,” Ortega answered. “That is where the Dietrichs are being held.”

The soft, gentle expression was gone from Doris Bickford’s face. What came through now was the un-embellished, merciless core that was her real self, seeming even tougher because of the contrast with her small, doll-like features framed by her long, platinum blond hair. John Bickford prowled the living room like a huge, aging lion limping out the last few months of its life in angry bewilderment at the loss of its strength, its mane gone white with the years. He was at a complete loss for words. He couldn’t understand the change that had taken place in his wife in the last few hours.

Herbert Dietrich sat on the couch, Susan beside him. Dietrich Was a worn, tired man, exhaustion from the day’s strain showing on his face, an old man on the verge of collapse, yet sitting erect and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the weariness that had settled in his bones. But his eyes had filmed over with a dull, unseeing glaze, a curtain behind which he had retreated from the world.