If there was one thing that could be said for Heinrich Stroebling, it was that he had not permitted twenty-odd years of stolen freedom to soften his ex-gauleiter’s body. Even as Henry Steele, Argentinian businessman with a branch office in Chicago, he had kept himself in trim at the better country clubs and gymnasiums of various nations. He had been obsessed with physical fitness, bodily perfection and muscular exercise, since his days with the Hitler Youth organization back in Nazi Germany.
He was exercising now.
Every ounce of his finely tuned strength was straining savagely against a male body as strong and agile as his own — a younger body than his, magnificent at its best, but now bruised and pulsing with pain from a beating at the hands of Stroebling’s sidekick.
The sidekick lay dead in the room where Nick had been held captive, and there was only Stroebling left between Nick and the end of a long, bloody trail. The trail began with the death of hundreds of innocents when Stroebling had worn a uniform and cracked a whip. The end of it was to be here and now, on this rooftop in Chicago on this sultry, overcast evening in late fall.
But it would only be the end if Nick could finish him off before his own strength gave out.
Nick grunted with the pain of an armlock and rolled over, kicking. He had nothing to help him, nothing but his abused and aching muscles. His usual arsenal of weapons lay hidden somewhere in that torture room. No one else knew where he was. No one knew that he had, at last, caught up with Stroebling, that with one final blow in the right place he might snuff out one of Nazi Germany’s arch war criminals.
At the moment it looked as though Nick would be the one to be snuffed out.
He kneed Stroebling’s groin and twisted free to swing a razor chop at the big German’s neck. Now it was Stroebling who grunted — twice in rapid succession — but he kept coming at him, closing in with two steely arms and his own jabbing knee.
There was silence around them but for the scuffling and grunting. Neither of them was aware of the sounds of city traffic twenty-three floors below this old building where Stroebling kept his office. Neither of them gave a thought to the density of the air, to the dark overcast that lay like a smoke-drenched blanket between city and sky. Neither of them thought of anything but the absolute necessity of killing the other.
Now they were apart and on their feet, panting heavily. The old tarred roofing — the building was one of Chicago’s oldest skyscrapers — crackled beneath them as they shuffled their feet in the dance of death. Stroebling’s hand shot out like the whip he had once carried. Nick dodged, tired almost to death, and swung his right leg high in the savate kick that glanced off the underside of Stroebling’s rock-hard chin.
Stroebling leaped, and they went down together.
Rough hands clawed at Nick’s throat.
Nick’s thumbs ground into Stroebling’s eyes.
Break and stalemate.
This time it was Nick who leaped; this time it was his feet which slammed the full weight of his body sideways against the other man and sent him sprawling. A gasping bellow of rage burst from Stroebling’s throat, and again they writhed together in a tangled, undulating heap.
The hard blade of Stroebling’s hand slammed against Nick’s face. Nick’s head jerked suddenly, painfully, but his own hands shot out to grasp at Stroebling’s throat. They tightened, squeezed.
Stroebling arched his body like a fighting tiger and thrust upward with all his strength — turning, twisting, convulsing his body to shake off the thing at his throat. Nick held on, squeezed harder.
For a moment Stroebling lay still. Nick thought he had him, hoped he had him, prayed that he had him, because his own strength seemed to be flickering out like a dying candle.
Then the man underneath him moved abruptly and the granite hardness of the heels of both hands ramrodded up into Nick’s face with piledriver force, and the big German squirmed mightily in that same moment and tore himself free. He rose to a crouch and staggered backwards, his face a twisted mask of hatred in the dim light that glowed from the higher buildings nearby, and the street lights that shone far below.
Nick snaked out both arms, locked his hands around the murderer’s ankle, and tugged. Stroebling fell heavily — but rolled and landed even more heavily to straddle Nick’s body. His legs went out in a scissors grip and his hands clamped around Nick’s throat.
This time Stroebling was the one who squeezed — savagely, inexorably, desperately. He was breathing harshly now and spitting out sibilant German words, guttural sounds of loath-ing and bloodlust — and his grip on Nick’s throat was tightening.
There was a singing in Nick’s ears and an agony in his throat, and it seemed to him that the red haze in which his eyes were swimming was flickering into darkness. He was through; he was finished; everything was going black.
But then the sensation passed, and he was still alive and Stroebling was still clamping his throat with those steely, killing, death-camp commandant’s hands — the hands that had killed so often and so horribly.
Nick could not let him get away.
He could not let him live!
Nick fought for breath and summoned up his last reserves of strength.
But it was his indomitable will rather than his strength that drove him to gouge ruthlessly into the other man’s rib cage — gouge deep and hard, to twist his clawing hand in the muscled flesh, to fasten on rib bone and to pull with a savagery born of the knowledge that this was his last chance. Then he rolled, with Stroebling’s hands still at his throat; rolled over hard, still gouging and pulling, drawing back his hands one after the other and punching them deep into the gut and gouging and twisting again and again until he could hear bone snapping.
Stroebling screamed and loosed his hold and threw himself away from Nick to roll, moaning, on the tar roof.
Nick shook his head to clear it, exulting at the promise of victory. Odds were even again, more than even; now they were on his side. Stroebling was hurt now, too; he was close to exhaustion and writhing in agony.
Now he did have him!
He gave himself a moment to gather breath.
It was the wrong moment.
Stroebling was getting slowly to his feet, backing away on his haunches and moaning. He, too, was gathering breath. Maybe for one last spring. But Nick was going to beat him to it, and it did not matter to him that Stroebling was still backing and snarling and putting distance between them. Maybe he was trying to get away. So what if he was? Where could he go? Down the inner stairs they had come up, Stroebling ahead with Nick after him? Down the rattle-trap, death trap of a fire escape, to the sidewalk twenty-three floors below?
No — Stroebling must know that Nick could still pace him, would not hesitate to jump him even at the risk of his own life. The German seemed to realize it; he had stopped backing now. He was crouching, staring at Nick, his hands curled into claws ready for the pounce and kill.
Nick’s body tensed, relaxed, then tautened for the spring. He watched Stroebling and ordered his own weary body to go in for the attack.
His feet left the roof and a sudden blackness hit him in the face like a hammerblow.
Where there had been a dim haze of light, now there was nothing.
Stroebling vanished from sight. Everything vanished. There was nothing but intense darkness, a thick and overwhelming darkness as black as a coal pit in hell. And then there was the feel of cloth as Nick landed in the black nothingness and touched Stroebling. Just touched him. And lost him in a little rustle of sound.
He was slow with the agony of his exhaustion, and when he lunged after the rustle of sound there was nothing there.
He cursed softly and groped about. Only the tarred roof met his searching fingers.
Then he heard a little crackle of sound from several feet away.
Stroebling, stealing away from him across the ancient dried-out tar, gliding off into the hell-sent inexplicable darkness.
The roof creaked as Nick moved. He pulled off his shoes and crept silently over the time-worn tar.
There was no longer any sound from Stroebling.
Only absolute silence. Absolute blackness.
No, not absolute silence. On the roof with him, yes; but not down on the street below. Automobile horns, plenty of them; a police whistle blowing; people shouting. But nothing up here.
His gliding feet kicked against something. He bent to touch it. Two somethings. Stroebling’s shoes.
So he, too, was stalking in deliberate silence. Creeping about the roof to lay ambush for Nick. Or maybe find the open doorway to the inner stairs.
Nick sent his mind through the darkness, remembering. The door had been about fifteen feet to his right and six feet behind him when all the lights went out. So now it would be about twelve feet behind him and ten feet to the right.
Or would Stroebling try the fire escape? Or was he waiting for a sound from Nick?
Nick froze… waited… listened — and thought.
The lights could come on again at any minute, any second. Stroebling would think that, too. So now he was probably trying to figure out his best bet — make for the stairs and a getaway, or find cover on the roof from which he could leap out and attack as soon as the lights came back.
What cover? There was the housing for the upper stairway landing, the housing for the elevators, and the water tank. And that was about it. But it was enough.
Nick’s own best bet, he figured, was to head for the stairway door and wait there.
He moved silently through the darkness, probing it with his senses, listening for Stroebling, counting paces.
It was incredibly dark. There was little room in his mind for idle thought but he could not help wondering what had caused the blackout and why it was so oppressive. Power failure, sure, but— He sniffed the air. Dampness in it. And fumes. Smog. He had been occupied to take conscious note of it before. But the pollution in the air was almost tangible. It was like Los Angeles at its worst, like Pittsburgh before the clean-up, like London during that one lethal season when four thousand people had died of the filth in the air.
His eyes were smarting from it and his lungs were clogged with it. Strange, he thought.
But where the hell was Stroebling?
Nick’s fingers touched a wall and slid along it. The doorway to the stairwell should be about here…
The sound came from yards away. A latch was clicking, softly at first, and then louder as if it were resisting. He pivoted.
What the devil! Could he have been so wrong about the door?
He moved quickly toward the sound, lightly on the balls of his feet, cautiously in case of a trap.
The sound got louder and a door wrenched open.
He was swearing as he reached it. Stroebling was through the door and on his way and in the darkness he would get away…. But one corner of his mind nagged Nick with a question.
How come Stroebling had had to wrestle with the door? It had been open.
His answer came with the sound of something splintering and a breath of warm, greasy air and a scream, that began on a high, piercing note that crescendoed, echoing, lowering, thinning out like a wailing siren fast fading into the distance — and then ending.
He could not be sure, but he thought he heard a thud from very far below.
The warm, greasy air of the open elevator shaft blew gently into his face and he was suddenly damp with sweat.
He closed the door and turned away, shaken. So the blackout that had so nearly offered escape to Stroebling had taken him instead.
One blackout, one old building, one ancient and ill-guarded elevator housing, and the trail was ended.
There was a faint suggestion of light rising from the sky to the east. He made for it, treading carefully through the blackness until he came to a wall and looked over it to the city below.
Tiny threads of light flickered in several windows. Two low buildings — hospital and firehouse, he thought — were brightly lit. Headlights shone in the streets. Here and there, a flashlight poked its beam into the gloom.
That was all. The Loop was black. The shores of Lake Michigan lay under a dark shroud. To the south, west, north, east, all was darkness but for a rare pin point of light or small glowworm sparks that made the darkness even darker.
Another one, he thought. Another one of those blackouts that they said could never happen again.
But at the moment all it meant to him was the need to drag his tired body down twenty-three flights of stairs in search of a telephone, a drink, a bed and sleep. Ami it marked the close of the case of Heinrich Stroebling.
He did not know it at the time, but it marked the opening of another.
* * *
Jimmy Jones was too young to read the newspapers, not too young to understand the words, but too young to care. Batman was his speed. And Batman had not been in Chicago the night before last, so Jimmy didn’t know that all of Chicago and its suburbs and much of the state of Illinois and some parts of the neighboring states had been blacked out for five long hours before the lights had suddenly, inexplicably, come on again. Nor did he know that, a year ago almost to the day, a boy a little older than himself had walked along a road in New Hampshire doing exactly what Jimmy was doing now on this chilly night in Maine.
Jimmy was on his way home to supper and he was swinging a stick. The sun was down and he was cold and there were some funny flashing lights in the sky that made him feel a little bit scared. So he swung his stick to make himself feel tough, and he whacked it against the trees alongside the road, and he whacked it against the light poles.
He hit two light poles and nothing happened except for the satisfying sound of the stick going thwack against the poles.
When he hit the third pole the light went out.
“Oh, Kee-rist!” he said guiltily, and stared down the dark road leading home.
All the lights had gone out. All the lights along the road and all the lights in the town ahead.
“Jeeze!” he breathed. “Oh, Jeeze, I really done it now!”
He started to run in the darkness.
He forgot all about the weird flashing lights in the sky.
But the people in his darkened home town saw them when their own lights went out and some of those people were a little uneasy. And some of them were unashamedly afraid.
Three days later in the Rocky Mountains, Ranger Horace Smith got out of his jeep to stretch his legs and admire his second favorite piece of scenery. The first was Alice, and she was home in Boulder; the second was Elkhorn Reservoir, usually crusted over with ice at this time of year but so far still rippling and blue under the near-winter sky.
Kind of warm for this time of year, he told himself as he tramped between the tall trees and around the natural rock wall that cut the dam off from the sight of passing tourists. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if there wasn’t something in that idea that the Russians are interfering with our weather. Next thing you know, they’ll be melting the Arctic ice cap to turn Siberia into a blooming desert and flood the eastern seaboard.
Well, anyway, they couldn’t touch the Rockies and the cool blue stretch of water that he loved so much.
He climbed over a pile of rock and rounded the last big boulder. His dam lay ahead, calm and beautiful under the midday sun. He gazed at it lovingly.
And felt a sudden, awful sensation as though his mind had snapped.
He blinked, shook his head, looked again.
At sunset, sometimes, yes, but not at high noon, never at high noon.
For some reason he fell on his knees and crawled toward the water.
Nothing had changed by the time he reached it.
It was still blood-red.
And down below, in the valley, in the little town that had once been a mining camp, Mrs. Myrtle Houston turned on a kitchen faucet and a stream of reddish fluid poured out.
She was not the only housewife in Gold Gap who was late with lunch that day.
By dinnertime the strangeness of the red lake was being commented on throughout the state of Colorado. No one could explain it.
Next day in Pocatello, Idaho, Jake Crewe crawled out of bed at 6 a.m. as always but without his usual morning cheerfulness. He had not slept well. The night had been stifling, not so much from heat as from airlessness. Not a breath of air had stirred. The atmosphere had lain heavy like some vast sleeping animal.
Jake’s barrel chest expanded as he stood at the open window trying to suck in air. Sunrise wasn’t due for another fifty-six minutes but there ought to be some sign of morning glow by now.
There wasn’t any.
A haze lay low over the town, a dirty, rank-smelling fog the likes of which he had never seen before. Not a mist, not a rain fog; just a grubby blanket of filth.
He stared at it incredulously and sniffed. Chemical odors. Auto fumes. Smoke, Sulphur, or something like it. He muttered irritably and padded to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water and wash away the feeling of being a walking lump of grime.
The smell of the water was vile.
By eight o’clock that morning nearly all of Pocatello’s thirty thousand citizens were uncomfortably aware that their city’s cool, clean air and flowing fresh water had unaccountably become contaminated.
They were not the least bit reassured to discover, later in the day, that their capital city of Boise was similarly affected. Not reassured at all.
* * *
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA, NOVEMBER 17 — Eighty-seven people including three engineers, one medical doctor, two airline pilots, five teachers, several dozen students, eighteen tourists and four state troopers witnessed last night’s aerial display of UFO’s near Humphrey’s Peak. Trooper Michael counted twelve “fiery balls in the sky, with tails behind them that looked like jet streams of green fire.” Dr. Henry Matheson’s camera recorded three rapid pictures of them before they “made a sudden vertical ascent and vanished over the mountains.” Today, talking to this reporter, he commented: “I’d like to see them try to explain this lot away as marsh gas.
Over Arizona’s highest peak? Not likely. Especially after that thing a couple of days ago right out in the desert. I tell you, people are getting unnerved by this kind of thing, and it’s time we took some real action before we get a state of panic…
EDITORIAL, KANSAS CITY MORNING SUN, NOVEMBER 10 — “After nine hours and forty-seven minutes of chaos, the lights in the Plains States came on again this morning at five thirty-five. Fourteen people died in accidents caused directly or indirectly by the power failure. Hundreds of homes were without water throughout the night. Thousands of people were stranded in their offices, on the streets, in elevators. Hundreds of thousands of residents in these four states were suddenly deprived of heat, light, comfort — and an explanation. Why did this happen again? Are we never to know? Why are the power companies unable to explain why it happened and how the situation suddenly corrected itself? We have a right to know, and we demand…
* * *
“Howdy, howdy, howdy, folks, Swingin’ Sammy’s back with you again to bring you all the lastest recorded hits selected especially for you by your favorite radio station, good old WROT in Tul — Wha? One moment, folks. Got a bulletin here. Hey! Flash! From the City Water Supply Commission. Water! Me, I never touch the stuff… Say, maybe you better not, too. Says here — and listen carefully folks — WARNING! DO NOT REPEAT — DO NOT DRINK THE WATER FROM YOUR HOME FAUCETS, DO NOT DRINK ANY CITY WATER, DO NOT DRINK ANY WATER IN THE AREA SERVED BY THE TAPACONIC RESERVOIR. THERE IS EVIDENCE OF UNUSUAL POLLUTION, NOT NECESSARILY HARMFUL, BUT UNTIL FINAL TESTS ARE MADE IT IS STRONGLY URGED THAT ALL RESIDENTS USE BOTTLED WATER OR OTHER LIQUIDS FROM SEALED CONTAINERS. DO NOT BE ALARMED — REPEAT — DO NOT BE ALARMED. BUT PLEASE CO-OPERATE. FURTHER DETAILS WILL BE SUPPLIED AS SOON AS AVAILABLE. Say, I thought my toothbrush tasted kinda funny this morning.”
* * *
Nick Carter stubbed out his cigarette and fastened his seat belt. The lights of New York City’s fringes lay below him and his fellow passengers, and the Eastern Airlines Constellation was already nosing downward in a graceful curve.
He looked down. It was a clear, beautiful night, and he could see the lights of Brooklyn and Long Island and the Verrazano Bridge, and he was glad to be coming home after tying up all the loose ends in Chicago.
The lights gleamed and shimmered. The runway lay ahead, a bright, inviting path.
Then it was gone.
It vanished into the night along with Manhattan, most of Long Island, parts of Connecticut and New Jersey.
There was a babble of excited voices in the plane. The pilot banked and circled and thanked his lucky stars that there were stars in the clear night sky.
Three minutes later, to the second, the lights came on again.
Millions of people, Nick among them, breathed a deep sigh of relief. But their relief was tempered by the growing suspicion that it could happen again, by the near certainty that it would happen again.
And none of them knew why.
Nick was home in his upper West Side apartment a little more than an hour later after stopping at the letter drop near Columbia University. His own address was known to only his closest friends and most of his mail traveled a circuitous route before reaching him at the drop.
He opened the letter now, rolling smooth, icy bourbon over his tongue and wondering who could be writing him from Egypt.
The letter was signed Hakim Sadek. Hakim, of course! Hakim, the cross-eyed criminologist who had used his devious talents to such astonishing effect during that business in Africa.
The memory of Hakim’s tricks made Nick grin with pleasure.
But the letter was not very funny. He read it twice, carefully, and when he put it back into its envelope his face was grim.
CHAPTER TWO
Valentina The Great
“No,” said Hawk. “And take your elbows off the toast, if you please, and pass it to me. My God, you’d think some genius in this overpriced snob trap would find some way to keep toast warm.”
Nick passed the toast. True, it was cold and soggy, but that was not the fault of the Hotel Pierre. Hawk had been on the telephone almost continually since breakfast had been brought to his suite and Nick had arrived to greet the head of AXE on his return from a top-level meeting in Europe.
“No?” said Nick. “You’ve hardly been listening to me. Why No?”
“Of course I’ve been listening to you,” said Hawk, spreading marmalade with careful lavishness. He was unaccountably irritable but he had not lost the frontiersman’s appetite that somehow left him looking lean and wiry and leather-tough. “Anyway, I know all about it. Blackouts here, pollution there. Lakes that turn bright red and water that flows stinking from the faucets. Oh, even in Europe I heard all about it. Humph. I see by this morning’s papers that flying saucers were seen over Montauk again last night. Extremely sinister, without a doubt.” He attacked his scrambled eggs and concentrated on them for a while. Then he said, “Don’t think I haven’t been concerned. Discussed this with the Chief on the four-way system Wednesday night. Central thinks it’s mass hysteria due to Vietnam war nerves, precipitated by perfectly normal incidents that just happen, coincidentally, with rather more than normal frequency. People exaggerating things, putting two and two together and coming up with with forty-five. The Bureau says —”
“It’s more than two and two,” said Nick. “Even more than forty-five.”
“Die Bureau says,” Hawk repeated, giving Nick a beady stare, “that it is quite impossible for enemy agents to have been at work. All incidents may be ascribed to human error, mechanical malfunctioning, self-delusion and imagination. However, they warn us that we must not entirely overlook the possibility that Russian saboteurs are lurking in our midst. Witness the red lake, for one thing.” Hawk smiled a little sourly. “That one really hit J. Egbert where he lives. But he will be Alert, he said, and Ever-Watchful.”
He took a mouthful of coffee and made a face. “Pretty bad, at a dollar a cup. Pfui. Well. McCracken took a middle course between two middle courses, which is walking a fine line indeed. He subscribes to the theory that all these episodes can be easily explained, though he himself cannot explain them. Power failures have been common enough for decades. We all know that smog and pollution came to us with the machine age. And we also know, he says, that there is a psychological factor involved — that things of this sort come in waves, like suicides and airplane crashes and so on. It will pass, he says. Due to our national state of nerves — again, I quote him — the American people are lumping a whole lot of unrelated incidents together and inducing in themselves a state of semipanic. But just in case — and here he goes along with J. Egbert — we must maintain an attitude of vigilance. The Chief agreed. So. All state and local police will make extra efforts to investigate all such phenomena. Federal marshals will be sent wherever necessary and the National Guard has already been alerted in order that they may act in extreme cases. The FBI, as promised, will be Alert and Ever-Watchful. But we of AXE have been ordered to keep our noses out of it. Out. And that, Carter, is that.”
“Is it?” Nick said thoughtfully. “Pity. But I have one small trump card up my sleeve —”
“Keep it there!” Hawk snapped. “Unless you have concrete evidence of foreign instigation and a pretty good idea of where and how to start investigating. Do you?”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t. Nothing but suspicion.”
“I have that myself,” said Hawk. “And that’s all I have.” He took a deep draught of cooling liquid from his coffee cup, and his leathery face twisted into a grimace as he pushed the cup away. “Filthy stuff,” he growled.
“Made from the world’s best coffee beans and the world’s worst water,” Nick observed. “New York’s very own. With a pollution content higher than it’s ever been. Nonpoisonous, they tell us, but revolting to the taste. I wonder why?”
“That’s enough, Carter,” Hawk said coldly. “Subject closed. Even if you were free to go off on a wild-goose chase I wouldn’t waste your time that way. And you’re not free.
Starting tomorrow morning, you will be on escort duty until further notice.”
“Escort duty?” Nick said incredulously. That meant doing snoop patrol with some V.I.P. from a Communist or “uncommitted’ nation, and he did not care for the idea. He had not earned his title of Killmaster by conducting guided tours.
Hawk favored him with a thin smile. “It may prove to be more interesting than you think. What do you know about the nuclear fuel plant in West Valley, New York?”
Nick cast his mind back to the appropriate memory file. “Owned and operated by Nuclear Fuel Services,” he said. “It’s the first — and so far, the only — commercial nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant on American soil. It produces pure plutonium of the type used to make nuclear bombs, but not for military purposes — only for powering peaceful nuclear reactors. West Valley’s about thirty-five miles south of Buffalo, which puts it close to Lake Erie and not too far from the Canadian border.” He wrinkled his brows and reached slowly for a cigarette. “Not too far, in fact,” he said thoughtfully, “from the source of the “sixty-five Northeastern blackout. Never thought of that before — Yes, that is interesting.”
Hawk sighed. “Forget it, Nick,” he said tiredly. “Forget about the blackout angle. The point about the plant is this: It’s open to the public, on a prearranged basis. And not just the American public. To members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to qualified scientists from friendly countries and to various foreign brass hats who qualify for other reasons. The idea is to share our knowledge for peaceful purposes. Now, it happens that we owe a courtcsy — a very large favor, in fact — to a certain governmental department in the U.S.S.R.” He looked at Nick quizzically and the lines deepened at the corners of his eyes. “To Russian Intelligence, in fact. They have arranged, through the highest channels, to send a representative to inspect the West Valley plant.”
“Russian Intelligence,” Nick said flatly. “Now I’ve heard everything. And my job is to see that he doesn’t go poking where he isn’t supposed to poke. Oh, fascinating.”
“Yes, that’s the job,” Hawk admitted. “It’s a little unusual, of course, but for various reasons we couldn’t turn down their request. You won’t find it unpleasant, I’m sure. They’re ending Valentina Sichikova.”
Nick’s face brightened. “Valentina! Girl of my dreams, love of my life! You’re right — that does cast a slightly different light on things. But how come they picked her?”
Hawk leaned back and bit the tip of[one of his air-polluting cigars.
“Because you two know each other,” he said. “Because they wanted to send someone we can trust. I myself do not, as you know, trust anyone, but as long as they had to choose someone it might as well be her. I’ve engaged a suite of rooms for her on the twenty-third floor and a smaller one for you directly opposite. I don’t need to tell you that, trust her or not, she must be watched at all times. She’s a brilliant woman and there might just be more in this than meets the eye. So you will treat her royally and watch her like a — ah, hawk.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “You might care to read this letter from Smirnov, which reached me through State. He was the one who chose Sichikova for this visit. He took this opportunity to write us something in the nature of a fan letter for our part in that Moscow bugging affair. Very laudatory and fulsome. It might amuse you.”
Nick read it. Dmitri Borisovich Smirnov was indeed lavish in his praise for Hawk’s department. But seemed sincere, and he earnestly requested that the man he knew as Tom Slade should be Comrade Sichikova’s escort. As head of Russian Intelligence, he was only too aware that the Comrade’s visit might cause suspicion in some quarters, but he was sure that Hawk and “Slade’ would handle the situation with their usual delicacy… and so on and so on and so on, with lots of compliments and wishes for good health.
“Very nice,” Nick commented, handing it back. “A bit pretty for your tastes, I know, but I would say that friend Dmitri means it all.” He squinted thoughtfully at Hawk, thinking about something that had nothing at all to do with Valentina or her superior officer.
Hawk stared back at him. “Well?” he demanded. “What’s on your mind?”
Nick reached into his pocket and drew out a letter of his own.
“I get fan mail, too,” he said, almost idly. “You recall Hakin, of Egypt and Abimako?”
Hawk nodded. “I do,” he said crisply.” So?”
“This reached me through the drop,” said Nick. “I always thought Hakim was a born AXEman and I left him with the means of getting in touch with me. I’ve had a couple of newsy letters in the past year or two. And now this. Thought it might intrigue you.”
Hawk took the letter. He frowned as he read.
It said:
Dear Nicholas,
A quick note before I go to the classroom and begin part seven of my course in the Seven Lively Arts. Details will follow at your request, but at this stage I do not wish to inflict upon you too much of what you may regard as trivia. Yet, I have encountered something which caused my crime-sniffing nose to twitch and my eyes to cross swords even more valiantly than usual, and I thought at once of you and your own talent for sniffing out the odd and apparently inexplicable.
Last night I attended a dreary off-campus party in honor of some even more dreary on-campus individual. I arrived late, deliberately, for I have no patience with those affairs, and when I got there the wine was flowing indiscriminately and tongues were flapping. To my great disgust I was buttonholed immediately by Doctor Wilhelm von Kluge of the College of Medicine, who proceeded at once to bore me with his miraculous exploits in the medical field. Then all at once he ceased to bore me. Soon he became almost as cross-eyed as I myself and the words spilled from his mouth. He is a surgeon, I must tell you, brought to Egypt by our estimable Nasser, and it was when he began talking of his recent carvings that I pricked up my ears and listened.
It seems that he is an expert in cosmetic surgery, a fact that he had not previously confided to me. It further seems that, over the course of the past few months, he has been doing a series of operations to alter the facial characteristics of a number of men who paid him vast sums of money for his skills. His greatest triumph, professionally speaking, was in the area around the eyes, and in the hormonal inducement of hair growth where hair was reluctant to appear before. In the course of his babblings it emerged that none of these men — some eight or nine in number, so far as I could gather — was disfigured in any way so that they actually required surgery. They merely wished to alter their appearance, and according to him he did so with unparalleled brilliance. I got the impression from him, though he did not say so directly, that they all knew each other and that the treatment of each was very similar. Some required more or less work on the nose; one or two demanded his greatest skill in the transformation of the cheekbones. But on the whole their requirements were the same.
I then asked him — as who would not? — exactly what they had looked like before. And then, my friend, he most regrettably clammed up, as you would say, and began talking very rapidly about something else. Nothing I could do or say would bring him back to discussion of his surgical brilliance. Yet, I thought I saw him glance around the room with a kind of nervousness, and, soon after that, he left.
I see that, as usual, my “quick note’ has become a chapter, and in it I have offered you nothing but intangibles. But I find they interest me strangely, and I shall pursue the matter. I see, too, that it approaches the hour for me to lecture to my budding crime-fighters, so I will leave you with this little puzzle.
The term will soon be over — Allah be praised for my criminologist’s holiday. You do not propose to vacation in Egypt this year? Alas, I thought not. But write me at your leisure and tell me what you think of von Kluge and his drunken ravings. In the meantime, my best greetings —
Forgive the interruption. A phone call from the Chief of Police. No class today; I am on call as a consultant.
Von Kluge was found dead in bed this morning. At first glance it looked like natural death. On investigation he was found to have been deliberately smothered.
I must go.
In haste,
Your friend, Hakim Sadek.
Hawk let the letter fall onto the table top and lit his cold cigar with great deliberation. He chewed it, puffed, leaned back and puffed again. At last, he spoke.
“You want me to assume that there is something more here than a criminal group at work in Egypt. Very well, I will dispense with a discussion of all such possibilities and make your assumption. And that is that this affair has international implications and might fall into the province of AXE. Am I right?”
Nick nodded. “It’s the nature —”
“Of the operations, of course,” Hawk cut in irritably. “Eyes, noses, cheekbones, hair. The eyes particularly, I’m sure you want me to notice. I have noticed. And the murder of the surgeon, presumably after he had finished his work. But immediately afterwards? Possibly not. No — after he was seen talking. Perhaps overheard. Oh, you’ve got me interested, no doubt about it. But we must know more — a great deal more — before I can take action.” He squinted thoughtfully and puffed again. “D5’s in Iraq,” he said finally. “He can make the hop to Cairo and do a little digging. That satisfy you?”
Nick smiled faintly. “You know it doesn’t. But it’s better than nothing. Only I don’t think he’s the one to make contact with Hakim. He’s not quite Hakim’s type.”
Hawk billowed smoke and squinted through it.
“And you are, I suppose? What do you want, Carter — to solve the blackout question, play host to Sichikova and fly to Egypt at the same time? I don’t recall that we’ve given you the title of Superman. You’re under orders. Mine. And you have been given your assignment.”
“Yes, sir,” said Nick, and scraped his chair away.
Hawk waved him back. “Sit down, Nick, sit down. Foul coffee always puts me in a foul mood. D5 can check, but there’s still something you can do. You trust this Hakim implicitly?”
“Unreservedly,” Nick said, straddling the chair.
“Then cable him. Use the regular public channels. Tell him that a good friend of yours will be in Cairo within the next day or two and will contact him to hear the latest news. Phrase it any way you like, but make it clear that you want all details that he is able to uncover and that your friend will pass them on to you. I’ll get the orders through to D5 myself and have him scramble Hakim’s report direct to me. How’s his doubletalk?
Hakim’s? He’s an expert.” Nick grinned, remembering. “So expert that sometimes I can barely make him out. But he catches on.”
“Fine. Then let him know, in your own best-guarded language, that we want him to find out — if remotely possible — when von Kluge finished his operations. The exact time and manner of his death. Who the men were or might have been. If eight or nine men have turned up missing recently in Cairo or vicinity. If von Kluge’s medical files are available for inspection. Who it was that might have seen or overheard him talking at that party. And so on. I leave it up to you to make clear to him exactly what we want to know. Now. Let’s get the Sichikova business out of the way.” Hawk pulled a slim file from his bulging briefcase. “Here is a list of the places she has asked to see in addition to the West Valley plant. Perhaps you can get one of your many female friends — AXE-approved, of course — to take her to Bergdorf’s and Macy’s and one or two other places that you might not care too much about. You’ll stay close at hand, naturally. Documents has a suggested itinerary for out-of-town sightseeing. You may use either your own car or one from the pool. Your expense account will be munificent, but I expect you to bring back some change. She will be arriving at Kennedy tomorrow morning at ten via Pan Am, and you will be there to meet her.”
“Pan Am? Not a special Russian flight?”
Hawk shook his head. “Nothing special. She’s traveling a roundabout route for her own pleasure and one of our men will be with her on the flight from London. None of her own. She’s an independent lady, it seems. And she’s traveling under her own name, without any attempt at disguise.”
“I should hope so,” said Nick. “I’d sooner try to disguise the Statue of Liberty than the incomparable Valentina. Who all knows about this trip of hers?”
The corners of Hawk’s mouth turned downward. “Too many people for my liking. Not the press, so far, and I intend to keep it that way. But the story’s gone the rounds of governmental and scientific circles, so it isn’t much of a secret. However. There’s nothing we can do about it. I can only urge you to exercise the utmost care. You’ll have two back-up cover men behind you all the way, Fass and Castellano, but you know as well as I do that their function is tail-spotting and not trouble-shooting. So you’ll be pretty much on your own. Your lady friend flatly refused all our standard security precautions. Still, we have no reason to anticipate trouble. She’s not well known outside of Russia — not on anybody’s wanted list so far as we can tell, and we have checked her thoroughly. So I’m fairly certain that you’ll have no difficulty.”
“Don’t see why I should,” Nick agreed. “I look forward to seeing her again. Now there is one dame I really love!”
“One?” said Hawk, and favored Nick with a smile that was almost fatherly. “One of at least a dozen that I know of. Now suppose you reach for that bottle of Courvoisier and pour us both a healthy tot. I know it’s a little early in the day, but I need something to take away the taste of breakfast. My God, look at the haze over this benighted city…”
* * *
Nick pulled the Peugeot into the airport parking lot and sniffed the clean, cool air. Valentina had chosen a lovely day for her arrival. No doubt she had ordered the elements to behave. The sky was blue and smog-free, as if doing its utmost to offer her a welcome.
His pass took him to the official greeting area on the border of the tarmac, and there he waited with one eye on his watch and the other roaming around to spot specks in the sky and cover-men behind him.
Like Hakim, he thought suddenly, whose eyes really did go in opposite directions and could drink in two totally different scenes at once.
He had sent off his cable to Hakim the Hideous, as Hakim liked to call himself, within an hour after leaving Hawk the day before. D5, by now, would be on his way to Egypt. And Valentina the fabulous would be landing in New York within the next ten minutes. Too bad Carter couldn’t be in two places at once. Still, Valentina was worth waiting for.
Nick’s eyes went on roving. A Constellation landed, then a 707. Two giant jets took off, screaming. Cover-man Fass was standing by near Immigration. Castellano was on the observation deck. Another jet took off. And then a speck grew larger in the sky until it became a streamlined metal giant, landing on the strip before him.
Valentina’s plane.
She still knew him as Tom Slade, the name he had had to use during that affair in Moscow. But even though she did not know his right name she knew a lot about him — that he was AXE’s highest-ranking operative, that he loved women, good food, strong drink; that he could use his mind as well as his fists and his killing weapons; that despite his rank of Killmaster there was warmth and love and laughter in him. And he, in his turn, knew that she had never in her life used a name other than her own; that she was one of the most devastating and spectactular and honest and wonderful women he was ever likely to meet; and that, in spite of her looks, she had a quick, sharp mind that had earned for her the position of Chief Assistant Commissar of Russian Intelligence, second only in rank to top Commissar Dmitri Borisovich Smirnov.
The stairs were in place; the great doors of the craft were open. The first of the new arrivals began to straggle off the plane. Then they came out in two steady streams — people laden with coats, cameras, handbaggage; people with smiles for the stewardesses and glad looks on their faces and people who gazed out uncertainly at an unfamiliar world and searched hopefully for welcomers.
So far, no sign of Valentina.
Nick walked toward the plane.
The two steady streams slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Still no Valentina.
He halted near the forward airstair and looked up. The first-class stewardess was still waiting at her post. So there was still someone to come.
Then the face of the pretty airline hostess broke into a smile, and her hand reached out to take the huge hand extended to her.
The magnificent Valentina stood in the doorway, making a brief little farewell speech of thanks. Nick gazed upward, feeling a rush of affection for this most wonderful of women.
Stood in the doorway? No, she commanded it — filled it, dwarfed it, shrank it down to the size of a hatchway in a model plane. Even the giant aircraft seemed to dwindle, so that it’s very vastness seemed to become a mere backdrop for this one woman alone.
When Valentina Sichikova finally began her slow, majestic descent, her eyes swept over the great airfield, taking it in with the casualness of someone glancing over a small suburban back yard.
Nick spread out his arms involuntarily, long before she reached him, and his smile of welcome almost split his face in two.
Her own face blazed with pleasure.
“Tomaska!” she bellowed, halting on the stair. “Greetings! No do not come up to meet me — I think these stairs will support me only, yes? Ho, ho, ho, ho!” Her body shook with massive merriment. “You know why I make Alexei wait and we come out last, my friend? Because I did not want to block the aisles. Ho, ho, ho!” She turned briefly and rumbled over her shoulder. “Alexei, do you have everything, my friend. No, you let me take that heavy bag, Aloysha…
Nick gazed upon her lovingly as she conducted a brisk discussion with Alec Greenberg of AXE’s London office. He was barely visible in the background, but he was there, a gnat guarding an elephant.
For Valentina was indeed one of Russia’s biggest women. She was immense: more than six feet tall and quite incredibly broad; wide, fearsome, bulging shoulders and breasts so huge and shapeless it was impossible to tell where her waistline might be or even if she had one. Her ensemble of sacklike blue serge suiting and boat-sized walking shoes suited her to a T — or rather to an O, which she most resembled in repose. But in action she was less like the placid O than a blimp in Russian dress, a tank with heart, a bulldozer with the warmth of a dozen human beings.
She continued her slow descent, and the sturdy stairway shook.
Agent A7 stood behind her, watching her majestic progress and sweeping the field with his keen gaze. Her baggage stood at the top of the stairway beside him. The cautious Alec, Nick noted, was deliberately keeping his hands free until Valentina had navigated her way to solid ground and her new escort.
Nick planted himself foursquare at the foot of the stairs and watched her coming toward him.
He heard the piercing bird whistle and the first whining zing of sound at the same time, and a split second later the sudden sharp clink of metal against metal.
With one bound he was up the stairway to the mid-point and shielding Valentina’s gargantuan bulk with his own tall muscular leanness — just in time to sec her rear back like a startled horse and clap a vast hand to her pudding of a neck.
Whip-crack sounds split through the air somewhere behind Nick as Valentina tottered toward him like a punctured barrage balloon.
CHAPTER THREE
The Vanishing Nine
Al! Get the girl inside!” Nick roared, and even as he shouted he was twisting his body around and grabbing at two enormous arms so that they were wrapped around his neck. Mosquito sounds zoomed past him and ended in metallic thumps. One of them skimmed past his outer thigh.
He heaved mightily, like a midget Atlas trying to rid himself of a world on his back. For a moment nothing happened and he felt an almost overwhelming sense of foolishness.
“Upsadaisy, Valya,” he grunted, his body bent almost double under her impossible weight, his muscles straining. Then he heaved again — with an abrupt and twisting motion that flipped the vast body over the rail and down onto the tarmac beside the stair. He followed it in one vaulting leap and hauled the fallen blimp behind the cover of a nearby baggage truck, hearing the crisp barking of Alec’s return fire and the thud of bullets into metal. Seconds later he was on his feet again with his Luger out, dodging past the truck and wondering why the shots that had started so high to his left had seemed for a while to be coming from lowdown on his right.
He was clear of the baggage truck now and out of Alec’s line of fire. His eyes scanned the buildings and the field.
Suddenly the firing stopped and people started screaming.
There was some sort of commotion on the observation deck. Nick caught a glimpse of Castellano bending over something. Then Castellano bent down low and out of sight. But the screaming was not coming from that part of the observation deck. It was coming from his right, both from roof height and ground level. And it was not really screaming, most of it — it was shouting, and the shouters were pointing at something he could not see.
Two assassins! Of course. He should have realized it at once. One on high and one below, and Castellano had taken care of one.
Where in hell was the other?
He edged past a fuel truck toward the shouting and he saw what everybody was shouting about in the same instant that Alec called out — “More to the right, Nick! Beyond that old Icleandic crate.”
A man was crawling under the belly of the Icelandic plane, his head and gun darting about in all directions so that he was covering not only his objective but the little knot of people behind him. They were technicians, Nick noted, with a couple of officials among them, and none of them was armed.
The man was planning his maneuvers well. If Alec fired he would either hit the plane, which would be useless and potentially dangerous, or he ran a very strong risk of slamming a shot into that knot of people. The fuel truck, too, made shooting difficult. So Alec was biding his time. And the man kept on crawling inexorably toward the baggage truck that shielded Valentina.
Nick cursed himself briefly for not having shoved her upward into the plane but he had had good reason at the time and anyway it was no use cursing. He dropped down low and started crawling, himself, in a quick zigzag that took him toward the tail of the Icelandic crate. Alec loosed off a couple of cover shots that bit the dirt low in front of the gunman; he missed by feet but he served his purpose, and Nick took swift advantage to duck behind the tail.
He could see the man firing back in Alec’s direction and then swinging back to look for Nick and not finding him; he could see the airport cops breaking up the knot of people and shoveling them inside the building; and he could see the cautiously moving figure that he knew was Marty Fass snakebellying along past the nose of the plane and closing in on the killer.
So now they had him. Once in the open he would be caught in a triangle and he would not have a hope in hell.
Nick dropped behind cover and settled himself into firing position. The thing was almost over, and then all they would have to do would be to find out who and why and what, and try to explain it to an outraged Russian Government —
What happened then was the kind of thing that happens when a well-meaning amateur interferes.
The killer emerged from beneath the belly of the plane… and a mechanic in work overalls appeared suddenly from beneath a wing and slithered rapidly after him, brawny arms outstretched to grab the fellow and wrest the gun from him.
Only it did not happen quite the way the young mechanic had planned. The killer was a pro. A brilliant pro.
He turned with the controlled speed of a wildcat and triggered off two incredibly swift shots — not at the mechanic but at Marty Fass. And got him. Marty dropped like a sack of potatoes and lay, twitching slightly, on the tarmac, and by the time he had dropped, the assassin had kneed the mechanic’s groin and twisted his arm in a savage hammerlock that made the young man squeal with pain.
Nick could hear the killer’s sibilant whisper.
“One move I don’t tell you to make, and you’re dead. You understand? Now walk ahead. Walk nice.”
The young man walked, his body twisted by the hammerlock and his face distorted with frustration and pain. The killer’s gun was jammed hard against his back and its message was unmistakable. And just in case there was anyone among the watchers who did not get the picture, the gunman’s body movements made it ominously obvious. His head darted out at all angles, like a striking snake’s, and his upper body swiveled in lithe, quick motions, so that his position was changing constantly — literally from split second to split second — in relation to all the people who stood or crouched nearby and watched him. And with each swift, darting turn he swung the young mechanic tightly around to cover himself, so that his helpless human shield would be sure to take the brunt of any fire. Any fire; because that gun rammed tight against the innocent back meant You shoot me and I shoot him and I don’t give awho dies!
The killer quickened his pace. He was almost running now, ramming and swiveling and dodging his way across the tarmac toward Valentina.
Nobody fired.
Nick let his held-in breath out slowly. His stripped-down Luger followed the scuttling figures like a magnet. If a brave and foolish young man had to die in place of Valentina, then die he must. There really was no choice.
And Nick had already waited long enough for an opening that might never come.