Free Lone Wolf #7: Peruvian Nightmare by Mike Barry Page A

would meet him at the bus and give him further instructions. It was impossible to make the transfer at the Crillon, the little man had pointed out, because the observation from Calabrese’s men was entirely too close. It would be better if Wulff went to the source and got a plane out from there. “We’ll make arrangements to get you out,” the little man had said, “but the first thing is to get you out of this hotel.”
    “It won’t work,” Wulff had pointed out, “this place is crawling with Calabrese’s agents. They’ll never let me get out of here.”
    “Oh yes they will,” the little man had said. “It isn’t crawling with agents, as you put it. There are exactly five men we have to contend with, no more, and I know who each of them is. I assure you, I can handle that part of it. The problem is to make the transfer, but that can be taken care of. We’ll make the transfer in the mountains and you’ll take the bus back here and we’ll get you airport connections. Simple and routine,” he said. “It’s going to be a simple and routine operation, and at the end of it we’ll all feel much better about many things.”
    “It’s impossible,” Wulff had said, “it’s impossible. Calabrese is no fool, we’re not going to get anywhere with this,” which had really been a strange position in which to find himself, a strange way of putting things, because here was a man who, for whatever motives, was working to get him out of this trap and Wulff was in the odd position of defending Calabrese, who had entrapped him. Nevertheless there was a basis to it; he thought that he understood Calabrese and his methods. He was relatively comprehensible; he just happened to be better than most of the others. But Calabrese’s thinking was only a heightening of conventional methods whereas this owner, this man here, was something entirely different. He was simply like no one else; the channels through which his mind plowed were not those with which Wulff or Calabrese or any American, he suspected, were familiar. “All right,” Wulff said then, understanding this phenomenon, understanding, too, that the kind of corruption with which he was familiar was only a part of a vast spectrum of evil, a dot on the radius, so to speak. “All right, I’ll go to Cuzco. I’ll do what you say but I don’t like it.”
    “What an American statement,” the little man said then without humor. “Really, Mr. Wulff, it is admirable in all ways, the manner through which you people are capable of disassociating yourselves from all the consequences of your actions. But I’m sure,” he said, “I’m sure that this will work out to our mutual benefit. In fact, I’m absolutely confident that we are embarking upon something which will be of enormous profit. I will have a difficult situation—a difficult transfer, I should say—worked out for me by one of the true geniuses in the drug field, and you will gain your freedom to continue your very useful efforts in the abolition of the international drug trade.” He shrugged. “Who is not to say that we do not both win?”
    “Could you at least tell me your name?” Wulff said, “and where I’m supposed to transport this stuff after it’s passed on to me?”
    “You can call me Stavros,” the little man had said. “It is as good a name as any; in my time I have used several. Names at best are abstractions, labels of the unknown.”
    “You don’t look like a Greek.”
    “Stavros is not necessarily a Greek name, and then on the other hand, appearances can be deceiving. As far as where the disposition of your package will be made, you will be informed of your destination in Cuzco. It is best, perhaps, not to complicate matters. One thing at a time and it is now important for you to get to Cuzco. After we get you there we can worry, so to speak, about the next stop.”
    “If I get there,” Wulff had said.
    “Oh you’ll get there,” the little man said. “You’ll get there, I