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"Good lord . . . that's nothing but .
"Skin," Gerhart finished for him, "flayed human skin."
Nichols forced himself to stare at the grisly thing stretched out on the table.
He was reminded of a deflated balloon. That was the only way he could describe it. An incision had been made from the back of the head down to the ankles, and the skin peeled away from the body like a pelt from an animal. There was a long vertical slit in the chest that had been crudely sewn. The eyes were missing, but the entire denmis was there, including both shriveled hands and feet.
"Can you tell me who you think he might be?" asked Gerhart softly.
Nichols made a conscious effort, but the grotesque, misshapen facial features made it all but impossible. Only the hair seemed vaguely familiar. Yet he knew.
"Guy Rivas," he murmured.
Gerhart said nothing. He took Nichols by the arm and helped him to another room that was comfortably shed with soft chairs and a coffee urn. He poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Nichols.
"I'll be back in a minute."
Nichols sat there as if in a nightmare, shocked by the sick sight in the other room. He could not bring himself to grips with the reality of Rivas's horrible death.
Gerhail came back carrying an attached case. He set it on a low table.
"This was dropped off at the mail reception room. The body skin was tightly folded inside. At first I thought it was the work of some psycho. Then I made a thorough search and found a miniature tape recorder mounted beneath the interior lining."
"You played it?"
"Lot of good it did. Sounds like a conversation between two men in some kind of code."
"How did you trace Rivas to me?"
"Rivas's government ID card had been placed inside his flayed skin.
Whoever murdered him wanted to make sure we'd put a make on the remains.
I went to Rivas's office and interrogated his secretary. I wormed it out of her that he met with you and the President for two hours before leaving for the airport and a flight to an unknown destination. I thought it unusual that his own secretary didn't know his destination, so I reckoned he'd been sent on a classified mission. That's why I contacted you first."
Nichols looked at him narrowly. "You say there's a conversation on the tape?"
Gerhart nodded gravely. "That and Rivas's screams as he was cut apart."
Nichols closed his eyes, trying to force the vision from his mind.
"His next of kin will have to be notified," Gerhart continued. "He have a wife?"
"And four kids."
"You know him well?"
"Guy Rivas was a nice man, One of the few people with integrity I've met since coming to Washington. We worked together on several diplomatic missions."
for the first time Gerhart's stony face went soft. "I'm sorry. "
Nichols didn't hear him. His eyes slowly turned bitter and cold. The nightmarelike expression had gone. He no longer tasted the vomit or felt sickened by the horror. The brutal savagery inflicted on someone close to him had triggered a floodgate of anger, anger such as Nichols had never known before.
The professor whose scope of power was limited to the walls of a classroom no longer existed. In his place was a man close to the President, one of a small elite group of Washington power brokers with the muscle to shape events or create havoc around the globe.
By whatever means and power that were his in the White House, with or without Presidential favor or official sanction, Nichols was set on avenging the murder of Rivas. Topiltzin had to die.
The small Beechcraft executive jet touched down with a faint squeal from the tires and turned off the crushed-rock runway of a privately owned airport twenty kilometers south of Alexandria, Egypt. Less than a minute after it rolled to a halt beside a green Volvo with TAXI lettered on the doors in English, the whine from the engines ceased and the passenger door raised open.
