Nick Carter - The Omega Terror

“Get down!” I yelled at Gabrielle.

Just as she obeyed, a shot exploded in the night from the opposite side of the street. The slug ripped through the windshield of the Fiat and missed Gabrielle’s head by inches. If she had been sitting upright, it would have killed her.

I fired back toward the sound of the shot, then swung back behind the open door of the car. I heard a voice shout loudly in Arabic, calling to someone behind us. They had laid a trap for us and had us boxed in.

“Keep down!” I yelled to the girl again. I climbed back into the driver’s seat just as another shot was fired from the balcony and shattered the glass of the driver’s window.

I crouched low on the seat, holding onto the Luger all the while, and started the car. Another shot came from the opposite side of the street, and I could see that the gunman was in a doorway. But Gabrielle was between us. I ripped the gears as I shifted into reverse, and with both of us ducked down low in the front seat, I roared backwards down the narrow street.

The figures came out of the deep shadows and fired openly at us as we moved away. Two more shots shattered the windshield as I tried to keep the car from running into a building. I reached out the vent window with the Luger and returned fire. I saw the man who had jumped from the balcony to the street go down holding his right leg.

“Look out, Nick!” Gabrielle yelled.

I turned and saw a man in the middle of the street, aiming a gun at my head through the rear window. I ducked lower as he fired and the slug shattered both the rear window and the windshield.

Then I stepped hard on the accelerator. The sports car jumped backward. The gunman tried to get out of its way, but I followed him. The car hit him with a thump, and I saw him fly over the left side of the Fiat and hit the pavement against the side of a building. We reached a small intersection, and I backed into it, then slipped the Fiat into first and shot away toward the bright lights of the French Quarter. We drove onto Rue de la Liberty, the Fiat limping on a flat tire, its glass spider-webbed with cracks and holes. I pulled over to the curb and looked at Gabrielle to see if she was all right.

“I see you came through it,” I said, giving her a reassuring grin.

I thought she would be scared speechless, considering her reaction earlier to the killing of Pierrot, but she was looking at me clear-eyed and calm.

She reached over and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. “That’s for saving my life.”

I said nothing. I got out of the battered car and went around and helped her out. Curious passersby were already pausing to look at the Fiat, and I guessed the police would be in the area very soon. I took Gabrielle’s arm and rushed her around a corner and onto the Rue Amerique du Sud. In the shadow of a sapling, I stopped and pulled her close to me.

“This is for being a good sport about everything,” I said. Then I kissed her. She responded completely, pressing her body close against me and exploring my mouth with her tongue. When it was over, she just stood there looking up at me, her breath coming shallow. “That was very nice, Nick.”

“Yes,” I said. Then I took her hand. “Come on, we have to find you a place to stay tonight.”

We walked a complicated route through the French Quarter, and when I was sure we were not being followed, I settled Gabrielle into a small hotel called the Mamora, not far from the Velasquez Palace. Then I kept my appointment with Colin Pryor.

The cafe we met at was not heavily visited by tourists, although located on the Boulevard Mohammed V. There was a single row of tables jammed up against the outside of the building to avoid the heavy evening pedestrian traffic. Colin Pryor was already there when I arrived.

I joined Pryor with just a mutual nod of our heads. We had met previously, in Johannesburg, but he looked heavier and out of shape now. He was a squarish Briton who might have been a champion soccer player.

“Good to see you again, Carter,” he said after we had ordered tea from a harried waiter.

I patched the crowd before us in their djellabas and fezzes and veils. “How are they treating you?” I asked.

“They keep me hopping, old boy. And the pay’s the same.”

“Same here.”

It was a perfect place for a meeting. The noise from the crowd drowned out our voices to anybody but each other, and since complete strangers sat at tables together because of a lack of chairs, there was no good reason for an observer to conclude that we knew each other.

I spent the first ten minutes telling Pryor how I almost got killed a couple of times in a couple of hours. He already knew about Delacroix and Pierrot. There was little he could add to my own meager store of information.

“What do you know about the Moroccan general staff?” I asked next.

“Not a great deal. What do the generals have to do with the Omega project?”

“Maybe very little. But Delacroix thought there might be a tie-in.”

“The army leaders are hiding under their desks at present, hoping the king doesn’t decide to bring charges against them. He believes there are still traitors in the army who plan to overthrow him.”

“Has he given Djenina a clean slate?”

Pryor shrugged. “Ostensibly. Djenina was at the state reception where the previous coup attempt was made. A bloody affair. Djenina killed several of his colleagues and helped prevent the coup, they Bay.”

I mused “Before or after he saw how badly it was going for them?”

“Good point. But so far, Djenina is in the clear. He and General Abdallah.”

That was the other name Pierrot had mentioned. “Abdallah was at this reception, too?”

“Yes. He shot a fellow officer in the face.”

I grunted. “Delacroix believed that Djenina was one of the conspirators in the first coup and that he’s now planning a second one.”

“He bloody well might. But what does this have to do with your problem, old boy?”

“Djenina has been seen at the research lab with the leaders there. It’s possible that Djenina is scratching the backs of the Chinese so that they’ll scratch his. I understand Djenina commands from Fez.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Does he live off the military base?”

“He’s furnished a place on the base, I believe,” Pryor said. “But he’s never there. He has a fancy estate up in the mountains, near El Hajeb. Keeps a cadre of troops to guard the place. It’s rumored that Hassan is going to take his personal guard away from him, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“How would I find his place?”

Pryor looked at me quizzically. “You’re not going there, old chap?”

“I have to. Djenina is my only contact with the lab. He’s been there and knows its exact location. If Djenina has any records about his association with the Chinese, I think he would keep them at his home. They just might give me a clue as to where the site is located. Or Djenina himself might.”

“Are you planning a burglary?” Pryor asked.

“That seems easier than deception, under the circumstances.”

His eyebrows raised. “Well, you’ll need luck, old boy. The place is a veritable fortress.”

“I’ve been in fortresses before,” I said. Pryor began drawing on a napkin, and I watched him. In a moment he was finished.

“This will get you to the general’s estate. It’s not much of a map, but it should give you a fair idea.”

“Thanks,” I said, tucking the napkin into a pocket. I finished my tea and prepared to get up.

“Carter, old man.”

“Yes?”

“This is a big one, isn’t it?”

“Damned big.”

He grimaced. His square-jawed face was somber. “Well, take care,” he said. “What I mean to say is, we’d hate to lose you.”