The Death Dealer

by Nick Carter

  It came, steady and even, from the bed.

  He tensed the muscles in his thighs, steadied himself with his left hand on the carpet, flipped Hugo to prepare for a downward thrust, and rolled to his toes for the lunge.

  "Nick, is that you?"

  The voice came from the bed just as diffused light from the bedside lamp spread through the room. Nick was halfway over the end of the bed, with Hugo raised to strike. He barely managed to stop his forward motion and the downward sweep of the needlelike blade, when he recognized the voice's owner and the bed's occupant.

  Hela gasped and her eyes grew wide as she watched the stiletto come down in an arc to stop inches from her bare left breast.

  "Waiting in a dark room is a very good way to get yourself killed, lady."

  "I… I'm sorry. I started to doze and the light was in my eyes…"

  "Why weren't you dozing in your own suite?"

  "I wanted to tell you that I spoke of everything to Stefan. He thinks that I should do anything to allay your fears. He has agreed that I should accompany you to Berlin."

  "You could have told me that in the morning," Nick said, rolling off the bed to his feet.

  "I know."

  At the shock of seeing Hugo coming at her, Hela had pulled the sheet up to her neck. Now Nick watched her long, tapered fingers with the long, curved nails slowly roll it down. It seemed an eternity until the sheet was around her ankles, but the view was worth the wait.

  Before, in the partially revealing robe, she had been tantalizing. Now, completely naked, she was awe-inspiring. Her off-white body seemed to flower upward from the stark white sheet, urged to expansion and growth by the fire her nudity had awakened in his eyes. Her breasts rose heavy and full from her body. The arch of her hips and the swelling of her thighs was clean and perfect.

  "Yes, I could have told you in the morning. That could have waited. But this wouldn't wait until Berlin."

  Nick knew women were attracted to him, but he also knew that he was far from irresistible. He was about to tell her to wiggle her way back to her own suite and Stefan, when she stretched out her arms. Her fingers curled back and forth toward him in an inviting motion. The clear polish on the long nails reflected the light, becoming little beacons drawing him forward.

  All part of the job, he thought, unbuttoning his shirt — and not entirely unpleasant!

  By the time he joined her, he too was nude. Then they met, flesh to naked flesh in the bed. Her thighs and breasts came against him in a practiced, grinding movement. Indeed, every move she made, every nip of her teeth, scrape of her nails, was designed to raise his passion level another five degrees.

  He hurt her with his teeth, his hands and his lips. And then he took her, doing all he could to hurt her there, too. But she only squealed in delight and matched his thrusting rhythms.

  Time held no sway over their movements. They seemed to go on forever. And then, at his ear, her gasps grew heavy and her lips formed one word, "Now!"

  She arched upward, grinding herself against his thrusting maleness. Nick felt her nails dig into his back deeply and then rake upward as she howled out her culmination.

  Nick disregarded the pain in his back from her biting nails as he locked himself against her and joined her in fulfillment.

  Slowly, with only occasional spasms, they settled down, side by side, into the mattress.

  The tumult of passion had barely subsided when Hela opened her eyes and let the mask of desire fade from her face.

  "It wasn't — right, was it?"

  "It was release," Nick replied, sotto voce. "Sometimes that's all it's meant to be."

  "It's hard not to — well, not to be a professional in one's mind, even when one's body is screaming otherwise."

  "I know. We're in the same business, remember?"

  "Were — in the same business," she replied. "It will be better in Berlin, I promise you."

  "I'm sure it will," Nick murmured, moving his hand to her breast and closing his eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  BERLIN

  Nick dropped a Deutsche mark in the waiter's hand and waved him away. Lightly he ran his hand down the glass of Riesling and then closed his fist around it.

  He and Hela Borczak had arrived in Berlin early that morning on a Lufthansa flight from Heathrow. They had checked into a small pension just off the Bahnhofstrasse. A big, flashy continental hotel would be a detriment for the short time they would be using it. Also, it would be easier for Nick, and the local AXE man he had assigned, to keep an eye on Hela's movements and whereabouts.

  True to his word, Hawk had delivered. The research on Ganicek and the file that he had read to Nick from Washington had been on the embassy cypher machine at three o'clock that afternoon. Nick had gone through it with a fine-tooth comb and then, with a bound copy of the file in hand, he had returned to the pension.

  The tall, blonde killer Nick had coded as Omega had made his contact at exactly six.

  "The plan is go. The envelope has been planted at the drop. The ad has been placed in the personals of the Berliner Zeitung."

  Now Nick sat, and waited.

  His hand left the Riesling and he settled back, easing himself as much as possible into the uncomfortable chair. For the moment he was content with his surroundings and the vigil he had kept for two hours. And for the First time since the whole show had begun, he was also somewhat content with the way the scenario was unrolling.

  He slitted his eyes, letting the tenseness ease from his body as he collated the last three days' accumulated information.

  The letter had been the beginning, the letter he was certain, down in the deepest part of his guts, that the Dealer knew nothing about. Then, of course, there were Tori's penciled comments.

  Nick toasted her memory with the Riesling.

  Then came MI-5. It had taken a little arm bending, but it had paid off. When pushed, the English service would use the brilliant minds at their disposal.

  Nick had been pleasantly surprised that one of those brilliant minds had been Harcourt-Witte when the occasion had arisen. Nick had been sparked by his idle mention of the London murders, murders that were officially described as either heart attacks or death by reason of unknown virus. When Hawk had sent the material from Washington, Harcourt-Witte had jumped right on it.

  Then it had all clicked when the London medicos had said, "Right-o, chaps, same disease."

  Disease? No way! It was calculated assassination by the master himself: the Death Dealer.

  But the real clincher had been the little known file unearthed by Hawk in AXE's own files.

  It was a thin file, the record of an AXE disaster. That was probably why it wasn't red-flagged by some minor clerk in the first place. No agency wants to point out its glaring failures, even to itself.

  But it was a file with assassination as its result. Because of that, the bureau's computers had kicked it out. And, bless his devious mind and keen eye, Hawk had picked it.

  It was tagged yellow instead of red, meaning "Reference Only." Its conclusion was, opponent uncertain. On the identification strip there were several names — mostly aliases and cyphers.

  One of them was the Dealer.

  It had been a Turkish caper involving two defectors who had come over to the Western side. Both had gone through debrief with flying colors and were considered safe.

  One wasn't. He was a plant and an assassin, though it was only surmised, never proved.

  In any event, two NATO engineering brains had died of an odd virus, and AXE, as their watchdogs, ended up with egg on its face.

  There was no way to exhume the bodies of the two scientists, but Nick was pretty sure that if they could, they would discover that their «virus» matched all too perfectly the deaths Nick had just gone through with his own dissident group — a «virus» that appeared to be indigenous to people important to the West.

  The real downer was the second defector. He had come up with the same virus a month after the scientists ha
d succumbed.

  The other defector, who supposedly had the key to Soviet ground plans to invade Turkey in the case of war, disappeared.

  Nick would bet his life that the defector who had disappeared, leaving so many infected bodies behind, was the Dealer.

  A movement across the street jarred his concentration. The eyes came open, wide, as his chair rocked forward. The shop had a customer.

  Nick sipped the Riesling and watched — and waited. An exchange, but not the right one.

  Nick sighed and lightly flicked his eyes down both ends of the street. The surroundings were not much to boast about. It was a nondescript section of Berlin, not the type of atmosphere the tourists sought. It was a decrepit section, packed with crumbling building fronts and colorless inhabitants. Even the bar in which he sat was sad. A few tables of rotted wood, a bar with stools so packed together, one had to elbow one's way to a seat, and long benches flanking the wall, one or two occupied by drunks too stupefied to depart.

  But it had a view, through a clouded, grease-streaked window, that let Nick look out from his perch and study the street.

  Again his glance bypassed the squalor to settle on one particular shop. It was a neighborhood shop, designed to suit the local needs: some dry goods, simple clothing, small appliances, and, for the right price, some pleasure from the buxom lady who ran it.

  But none of that interested Nick. What did interest him was the wall behind the counter, the wall visible from his vantage point — the wall that contained the ancient wooden letter drops.

  For two hours he had watched those boxes, the first hour with hope, the second with certainty. From the time of his arrival, he had remained at his table, drinking his watered wine, paying for the privilege with large tips that guaranteed his sole occupancy.

  Across the street the customer departed, and Nick settled back once again to watch.

  Again the eyes slitted in thought, musings.

  The President and his cabinet were solidly anti-Soviet, as was Ganicek. All of them were high on Bern. The timing was ripe. Elevate Ganicek and you elevate the mole that has been planted in his office.

  At least that was what it looked like. The mole — Jacek — was only a tool to be used for a solitary purpose when the time came. Once that time came, he would die mysteriously, taking all the onus of guilt off someone else.

  Nick now knew — or had a pretty good guess — who that someone else was.

  About the time everything is ready to come down, the mole loses his guts. He's killed, but planted with him is information very detrimental to the Soviet cause.

  Planted by the Dealer? Probably. But why?

  Because the Dealer is out to screw up both sides. It fits his style. He wants the power behind the throne for himself. It's the Russian way.

  Let AXE get the information from Jacek's suitcase, plus the diaries, and the Russian leaders are compromised at Bern.

  But how does he compromise the Russian side and still emerge as the power behind the throne?

  Nick smiled to himself.

  By neutralizing the Americans and having the proper club over their Russian counterparts to control them.

  The Dealer was a ruthless killer by trade and by design. He was a man who would compromise valuable assets, information or people to gain his ultimate goal.

  He learned under a master, the chief of the KGB. And now his master was the Premier of Russia. What if he could master his master and bring the Americans to their knees at the same time?

  Ultimate power.

  Power through fear, manipulation, and assassination.

  The United States comes to the conference all readied up to do verbal battle. A head-to-head meeting is scheduled for the first day, very neatly arranged in closed session, and what happens? Accusations are slung and counterslung, and sins are compared, and violations weighed, and understandings are reached, and agreements are made whereby both parties decide to mutually drop the whole thing and get on with the conference like gentlemen and scholars.

  Where did assassination fit?

  Nick chuckled to himself, but it was a mirthless sound. The whole scheme was too huge, too all-encompassingly galling and evil, to have any humor in it.

  After weighing everything he had learned, Nick had come to one conclusion. The Dealer was an assassin by trade. All of his coups in the past had been based on assassination. It was the fulcrum from which all of his upward mobility, his power and his reputation had pivoted since he had first emerged so many years ago.

  The research on Ganicek, easy to get when you knew what to look for. had given the key to the rest of the scheme.

  Ganicek, a bright young man, had been born in the United States, but had been taken to Poland by his socialist father as a small child. Years later, he had welcomed his younger brother to Warsaw from America — his younger brother who had come to Poland to fight communism. But instead of finding a way to fight communism, the younger Ganicek had found a grave, while the older Ganicek had returned to America in his place.

  In America, the elder Ganicek worked hard in two capacities. One, to gain political prestige and power. The second, to bide his time until his real purpose — the purpose of his master, the Dealer — could be achieved.

  A cold chill went through Nick's whole body as he thought of that purpose.

  The Dealer would be at Bern to do the thing he was best at — kill.

  But who?

  Another chill and, this time, a sip of wine to calm it.

  The Dealer planned to assassinate the President and the Vice President of the United States.

  How?

  By natural causes. Nothing else would be acceptable. Some virus, no doubt. By whom? Under what other scenario would you ever have the President of the United States and the Russian Death Dealer in the same room together?

  And without a President and Vice President, who was next in the line of succession?

  The Speaker of the House.

  Ganicek had stepped aside from the Bern conference. The Vice President had stepped in; and someone else had also stepped in.

  And in two days' time, if the Dealer were successful, Ganicek would step up. And so would that someone else.

  If the plot were successful, the balance of the relationship between the two super powers would stabilize. And the Premier would take the credit. His Politburo adversaries who had accompanied him to the conference would be removed or silenced.

  And the Dealer would stand behind the Premier, with the iron fist of worldwide public opinion at the man's throat.

  In Nick's mind there was only one half of a single question left. How was the Dealer going to gain ultimate power over his former boss, who was now Premier of Russia?

  It had something to do with the diaries — the diaries that Nick was about to get.

  Another movement across the street caught Nick's attention.

  A woman, fiftyish and fat, waddled into the shop. The equally buxom shopkeeper came forward to meet her. They exchanged pleasantries, and then Nick's knuckles whitened around the glass of Riesling.

  The shop woman's hand went up to the back wall, to the slots, to the blue envelope. The envelope slid across the counter and disappeared in a large shopping bag.

  Money was exchanged, and the envelope's new owner waddled from the shop.

  Zero hour, Nick thought, standing up.

  * * *

  Nick stayed well behind the slower moving woman. For all intents and purposes she was out for an evening stroll, which was probably the truth. Now and then she would stop at a shop window and stare. Twice she had entered and made small purchases.

  With every block, they moved farther into the poorer section of Berlin. The houses looked older. Many were not completely rejuvenated from the ravages of war. On the streets the faces and hair became darker, Turkish domestic and blue-collar workers.

  Every two blocks or so, Omega would pick up the trail and Nick would make a block's detour, only to replace him again. In so doing, the m
an making the detour could check to see if the followers were being followed.

  They weren't, and as the blocks wore on, Nick wondered if Stefan had made his connection clear to them. It had been two years, he had said, since the Dealer had sent the diaries out and the connection for their pickup had been established.

  As he moved, Nick scrutinized every face, every movement.

  All ordinary. But then, if his hunch was right, the whole caper would turn out to be very ordinary.

  Nick came up short. The sound of the woman's shuffling steps had come to a halt. He squinted, his eyes boring down the ill-lit street until he spotted her. She was standing on the stoop of a narrow, two-story house. The only difference between it and its neighbors was a little more paint on the shutters and other woodwork.

  From beneath the unseasonably large coat she wore came a key. The heavy, inlaid door swung open and she moved inside.

  Almost at the same moment, Omega's blonde head appeared at Nick's shoulder, "I thought the fat old hag would take forever getting here."

  "Odd, isn't it — an old Polish woman living in a rundown Turkish neighborhood."

  Omega only shrugged.

  In the darkness, Nick smiled.

  "Check the back for a way in. I'll wait here."

  The man faded away on silent feet. In minutes he was back. "There is an alley in the rear — access through a window. I have already jimmied it."

  "All right," Nick said. "I'll get her to the front. Once you get in, stay put! We don't want anything burned or shredded before we can get to it, and we don't know who else is in there."

  He nodded and disappeared again. Nick counted to one hundred slowly and then made his way down the street. At the door he paused, looking for a nameplate. At last he spotted it, a small brass plate above the door molding, badly in need of polishing: HANS GRUBNER.

  He knocked.

  "Ja?" She was still in her coat.

  "Sprechen sie Deutsch?"

  "Ja."

  "Ist Herr Frommel zu Hause?"