The Annihilators by Donald Hamilton Read Free Book Online

everything, including the boarding passes for the next leg of our journey, from Houston to Mexico City, where we were scheduled to spend a couple of educational days improving our minds in the well-known
Museo Anthropologia
, and a couple of enjoyable nights sampling the after-dark entertainment of the great urban sprawl that now occupies the ancient valley of the Aztecs and holds, I believe, the world number-two spot in population, behind New York, but ahead of Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Shanghai.
    Then we would fly to Santa Rosalia, the capital city of Costa Verde, which also had a museum that required a day of our attention. The final leg of our journey, from Santa Rosalia to the jungle site of Copalque, where our archaeological education would begin in earnest, would be accomplished by bus.
    “Bultman is in Costa Verde?” Lounging in the booth, I was watching hard for surveillance but hadn’t spotted any yet. It was beginning to look as if I’d managed to slip away from Chicago without a tail. I said, “So the reports of the Kraut’s death in Cuba were slightly exaggerated. Do we know yet what optimist paid him to make the touch on Fidel?”
    Popularly it’s referred to as a hit, but in our outfit, for some reason, we always call it a touch.
    Mac said, “Various sponsors have been suggested, including of course our ever-hopeful friends of the CIA, but there seems to be no firm evidence pointing to any particular individual or organization.” He paused, and went on: “To answer your question, Bultman is not in Costa Verde, at least not yet, not as far as we know. But he was seen not too far away in Guatemala City, in earnest consultation with a man identified as Enrique Echeverria, fondly known as Enrique Rojo, or Red Henry, the head of the Costa Verde
Servicio Seguridad Nacional
, Armando Rael’s secret police force. The subject under discussion could not be determined. You’ll be interested to hear that Bultman was seen to favor his left leg, leaving; and that an informant, usually reliable, states that he did not wholly escape from Cuba after his unsuccessful attempt on Castro’s life. One foot remained behind, severed in the crash of the getaway vehicle in which he was thought to have died; apparently he has not yet fully mastered the artificial one.”
    I said, “If that’s true, unless it broke him altogether, he’s going to be hard to handle. What have we got on him?”
    I heard paper rustle half a continent away. Mac read off the dossier: “
Bultman
, given name(s) unknown, aliases employed…” He ran through a string of them, with no discernible pattern, and went on: “Forty-three, five-eleven, one-ninety, blond, blue. No distinguishing marks on record, no fingerprints. 1973 passport photo (Minox copy). 1978 telephoto series (five exposures, poor). Competent short, long, expert auto. Adequate edged. Adequate unarmed. No explosives experience on record. Hetero, sadistic tendencies, not compulsive. Alcohol usually in moderation, no tobacco, no record of drugs. Team player, seldom operates alone. Varshavsky 1967. Lindermann 1969. Smith-Watrous 1972. Eladio 1974. Marais 1977. Castro 1980 (failed). Suggested from MOs but unconfirmed: Hernandez 1971, Lagerquist 1975. Unreported since 1980, believed dead.” Mac cleared his throat. “The dossier has not yet been updated in the light of our most recent information.”
    There was a little silence while I digested all this. Five confirmed kills and two possible in ten years. The top of the heap. One of the select few you’d consider for a really tough one, if you could afford him. Then crippling disaster. As I’d indicated, he’d either be a broken man now, or a real tiger eager—perhaps overeager—to wash out his defeat with blood and reestablish himself at the summit of his chosen profession.
    According to the dossier, we had only the most general physical characteristics to identify him by; and a small-film copy, probably snapped in haste, of an old