Safari for Spies

by Nick Carter

  Nick nodded. "It's a familiar pattern. Very much like the operations of CLAW. I sense a fine yellow hand pulling the strings somewhere in the background. With any luck, I'll chop it off at the wrist."

  "You'll need the luck, because you won't be getting much help. Fergus at the Embassy is a good fellow and may be useful. Then there's our man in Morocco — your orders will tell you how to contact him. But I want you to work through the Embassy as much as possible. On the surface, that is."

  '"Our man in Morocco. " Nick grinned faintly. "Sounds very exotic. Was it a movie?" Hawk grunted irritably. "But wouldn't you say Morocco's going to be a little outside my beat?"

  Hawk shook his head. "I don't think any place in Africa's going to be outside your beat on this one. An operation of this sort has to be controlled from some relatively big center. Not from headquarters; that's too far away. It requires a midpoint, large enough for a screen yet accessible to both the target area and the main control center. Cairo, perhaps. Casablanca, Tangier, or possibly Dakar since it's the closest city of any real size. The trail can lead you anywhere. Don't count on settling down in Abimako. Now. I have a parting gift for you."

  Nick raised his eyebrows. "For me? Oh, you shouldn't have!"

  Hawk ignored the comment, although a faintly pained look crossed his thin, hard face. He reached beneath his desk and came up with his latest lethal toy: a bone-handled cane.

  "Add this to your arsenal," he said.

  * * *

  Nick's room in the Hotel Independence at Abimako was, as Tad had told him when the light plane landed on the smooth new airfield, "nothing gaudy, but quite neat." President Makombe, Sendhor told him, would send a car for him at lunchtime. Nick inspected his new quarters as soon as his entourage had left him. Two large windows looked down on a small square, cool with trees and bright with flowers. The bed was comfortable, the rug thick, the closets ample, and there was a bottle-opener in the compact bathroom. The only drawback was that the room was bugged.

  "He'd Better Not Die"

  It was so obvious it was almost funny. If the system had been any more conspicuous Nick would have been able to sit down at the controls and monitor himself. The telephone fairly bulged with its guilty secret, and the wires that snooped into his room from another were about as discreet as a nude on Broadway.

  He left them as they were and sang an incredibly filthy song in a loud, cheerful voice as he unpacked his bags and put his weapons, Wilhelmina, Hugo and Pierre, safely to bed. In case his hearer's English was imperfect he repeated the awful verses first in French and then in Portuguese, finally tossing in a few words of Swahili for special effect. That, he thought with perverse satisfaction, ought to set back American diplomacy a good ten years.

  His next move was to call room service and order a hearty breakfast. While waiting for it he showered briskly and spent fifteen minutes doing a set of Yoga exercises.

  Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, Nick found time to spend fifteen minutes each day practicing the Yoga exercises that kept his superbly trained, magnificently muscled body at the peak of condition. Because of them, his reflexes were as swift as a striking snake's. He could relax his body even under the duress of extreme pain, and he could hold his breath as long as any man alive. It was largely due to these and related talents that he could go on counting himself among the living. Almost every day of his life offered a challenge to his speed, his skill, his physical strength and amazing flexibility — and his ability to duck.

  He lay on the thick carpet clad only in his shorts, willing his muscles into extraordinary positions and thinking idly of the few times he had been obliged to miss his Yoga practice sessions. Once in Palermo, many years before, he had hung in chains for three days without water, food, light or the slightest hope of freeing himself. Finally, a magnificent bluff and a fellow agent had combined to free him. And then there was the time that Van Niekerk had trapped him in the mine shaft; Nick had had neither the space nor the inclination to go through his entire repertoire, but by contorting his body and controlling his breathing in a certain way, he was able to worm out and surprise the hell out of Van Niekerk.

  Nick grinned at the memory and pulled himself to a cross-legged sitting position. He had done these same exercises on the beach at Tahiti, on a cabin cruiser in the Caribbean, in an Alpine snow shelter, on a desert island, in the bedroom of a countess and in the mansion of an exiled queen. And now, on a carpet in Africa. He drew in his abdomen until it seemed to cling to his backbone. The muscles of his chest and shoulders stood out in relief.

  Even though he was giving every ounce of his concentration to the task at hand he sensed there was someone at the door even before he heard the knock. Breakfast, he thought hungrily, and was on his feet pulling on his trousers when the knock came.

  "Come in."

  He had left the door unlocked for the waiter. But it was not the waiter who came in.

  Liz Ashton stood in the doorway staring at the bare expanse of his chest.

  "Oh," she said, and blushed as suddenly as if she'd thrown a switch to light up her face. "I'm terribly sorry. I should have called you first."

  "Please, no apologies," Nick said cheerfully. "Come in. Turn around for a moment, if you like, while I make myself presentable."

  "Oh, it isn't that you're not presentable," she began, and stopped suddenly. Hesitantly, she made her way to a chair and sat down on the edge. But she did not avert her eyes as Nick took a fresh shirt from the bureau drawer. She stared at him and thought he looked so much better without his glasses or his shirt and with his hair half-damp and tousled. But she could scarcely encourage him to stay undressed.

  When he turned to her just seconds later he was the well-dressed, well-combed, slightly stiff-backed special emissary she had traveled with from Dakar.

  "Will you join me in some breakfast?" he said hospitably. "Mine's on its way. At least, I hope it is."

  "Oh, no thank you," she said, still slightly flushed. "I shouldn't have burst in on you this way. But Ambassador Thurston wanted you to have these at once." Liz Ashton delved briskly into a ladylike briefcase not much bigger than her trim pocketbook. "Some dispatches came in while we were on our way into town, quite urgent and highly confidential. I thought it best to bring them to you myself. They're about…"

  "Dispatches before breakfast?" Nick interrupted, crossing over to her. "I couldn't look one in the eye. Do you know the song, 'How do you like your eggs? I like mine with a kiss'? Well, that's my position exactly. And if we're going to be working together, we should lose no time in getting acquainted." He put his hands lightly on her shoulders and bent his head over hers. She started back, her eyes shocked and incredulous.

  "Why…!"

  "Hush," he whispered into her ear, enjoying the faint whiff of perfume. "Be careful what you say. We're being overheard." He loosed a smacking kiss into the air just above her head. "The room is wired." Nick stepped back and patted her hand like an elderly cavalier. "Now I promise you I won't make another pass until… oh, at least until I've had my coffee. Look. No hands." He spread them out palms upward and grinned at her.

  "Why, Mr. Carter! You surprise me," Liz said with mock severity, and a new look of comprehension in her eyes.

  "It's just that you look so charming," he said earnestly. "I couldn't help myself. And I can't stand business before breakfast."

  "What would you have done if Ambassador Thurston had brought the reports over himself?" she asked, smiling. "Or sent Tad Fergus?"

  "Well, certainly not that," Nick said emphatically. "I know people say unkind things about the State Department, but they're really not true at all — most of them."

  Liz laughed. She had dimples, Nick noted approvingly, and the soft but distinct laugh lines of an attractive young woman who often found life funny and didn't care who knew it. "Well, some of them obviously are. I take it you don't want these things, then?" she patted her briefcase enquiringly.

  Nick sighed. "I hadn't planned to start w
ork nearly so soon. But you might as well go ahead and give them to me; I'll have a quick look."

  She placed a thick sealed envelope into his outstretched hand. Opening it, he found a report from "our man in Morocco," a freshly compiled list of recent local happenings, and a coded cable from Hawk. Liz watched with a slightly quizzical expression as he drew the cable from its dull-red wrapper. She knew the color meant Top Secret, For Your Eyes Only, and that the contents must be highly classified intelligence matters. It seemed strange to her that he could be so casual about it all.

  But it was only his surface manner that was casual. Hawk's message read:

  ACTION IVAN REVISES EARLY ESTIMATE WITH TRUE APPRAISAL ORIGINAL FAKES NOT RED WHITE AND BLUE BUT RED WITH WIDE YELLOW STRIPE ITEM DOUBLE-CHECK LOCAL TEAM PROVES TRUE BLUE FOR USE ITEM URGE YOU CONSIDER WHITE HOUSE LEAD.

  Nick's brows drew together. Most of it was obvious enough. "Action Ivan" referred to the AXE contact in the Kremlin. Agent P-4 had gained access to the original of Rubitchev's report on the bomb fragments found after the Nyanga explosions. They were not American, as Polikov had claimed, but Red Chinese. Obviously the Russian delegate had lied to cover up the growing rift between the two titans of Communism. The "local team" of American officials — and that included Liz — had been checked out again by the AXE Snoop Group and found loyal and reliable beyond all reasonable doubt. But "White House lead"? That meant Casablanca, not the U. S. President. Nick glanced quickly at the Moroccan report.

  Translated from AXE-talk into English, it complained bitterly about the impossibility of one man being able to report adequately on a city the size of Casablanca. But the writer could say that he'd noted a definite increase in the amount of Oriental shipping touching at Casa and the large number of recent narcotics cases. He ended with the usual plea for an assistant.

  Nick smiled to himself at the familiar scream for help and swiftly skimmed the local data sheet. An isolated farmhouse attacked. A mysterious explosion in a grain storehouse. A riverboat stolen by an armed mob. His smile vanished.

  He rose abruptly and reached for the one desk drawer that had a sturdy lock and key.

  "That does it," he said crisply. "That tells me just about all I need to know." He made great play of opening, shutting and locking the drawer, and thrust the papers into his pocket. "I'll leave them here for the time being."

  Liz watched him with her mouth open.

  "But…" she began.

  "Oh, don't worry," he said confidently. "They'll be safe enough. Tell me this — is there a cafe or a restaurant around here called the Croix du Nord?"

  He knew very well that there was. He'd done his homework well.

  "Why, yes," she said, bewildered.

  "Ah! So it does mean that," he announced with satisfaction. "I'm to be there at twelve o'clock today. With the least bit of luck I'll have the last piece of the puzzle in my hands before my lunchtime meeting with Makombe."

  Which was nonsense, and he knew it. But what was the use of having a bugged room if you didn't put the bugs to work?

  He winked at her. She closed her mouth and gave a shrug of resignation. Maybe he really did know what he was doing.

  A heavy hand thundered at his bedroom door.

  "Ah! Breakfast," he exclaimed. "At last." Moving to the door in long-legged, athletic strides, he stepped to one side before throwing it open.

  An immense uniformed policeman, buttons gleaming and great muscles bulging beneath the neat khaki tunic, stood on the landing and literally filled the doorway. He was a good six and a half feet tall, Nick judged, feeling almost puny, and his blue-black face looked like the business end of a battering ram. One vast hand touched the forehead in a crisp salute.

  Goliath spoke.

  "The Honorable Mr. Carter?" The giant's voice was music.

  Nick nodded. Liz, he could see, recognized the larger-than-lifesize apparition.

  "The name's Carter," he admitted.

  The saluting arm described a snappy downward swing that would have dropped an ox if there had been one in its way. Two horseshoe-sized heels snapped together. Now that the doorway was somewhat less than completely blocked, Nick became aware of a second man.

  "Corporal Temba at your service, sir," said the incredibly dulcet tones. "Chief of Police Abe Jefferson begs your indulgence, sir."

  "Abe Jefferson?" Nick repeated involuntarily, and stared into the passage for what he thought could only be another unbelievable being.

  Corporal Temba stepped smartly and silently aside. The second man stepped into view.

  He was about half Temba's size and was dressed like an ad for a Saville Row suit. His brown, young-old face reminded Nick of a good-humored and highly intelligent monkey. But there was more than intelligence and humor in the penetrating eyes. It was too soon to tell exactly what it was, but it was something that reminded Nick partly of Hawk at his most perceptive and partly of his onetime friend and fellow agent Joe O'Brien who had died laughing. Laughing, because he had misled his torturers magnificently; and died, because they had found out in time to take revenge.

  Chief Jefferson had a faint smile at the corners of his lips. But for the rest his face was grave. He nodded to Nick and bowed to Liz.

  "Mr. Carter, sir. Miss Ashton."

  "Come in, Chief," said Nick. "Formal call, or something special?"

  Jefferson shook his head regretfully. "I have to ask you to accompany me, Mr. Carter. No, I will not come in. I should like very much to talk to you, another time. But a most shocking thing has happened, and I have an urgent request for your immediate presence."

  Liz turned pale and got up from her straight-backed chair.

  "Whose request?" said Nick, his eyes flickering around the room to be sure that he could leave it unattended on a moment's notice.

  "President Makombe's," Jefferson said quietly. "He has been shot. They will have to operate immediately. But he demanded to speak to you first. You will come at once?"

  Nick heard Liz' swift intake of breath.

  "Of course I will," he said quickly. "You have a car?" The Chief nodded. "Please go ahead. I must be sure I have secured all my papers before leaving. You will understand, I'm sure."

  They seemed to understand, because they backed tactfully out of the room and headed down the corridor. Nick could hear Liz say:

  "Shot! Surely it was an accident."

  Jefferson must have shaken his head, because the next thing Nick heard was Liz asking: "Does the Ambassador know? May I come along?"

  Jefferson's answer was inaudible. Nick secured the hidden inside pocket containing all the documents relating to him and his work and dropped Pierre into his usual resting place. He could hear Liz' high heels going down the one flight of stairs to the lobby floor, but the conversation seemed to have come to an end. Possibly Jefferson had told her to button her lip while walking in a public place. Hugo slid neatly into his sheath and Wilhelmina snuggled comfortably into her special bed at the waistband of his trousers. His luggage was completely innocent, for once, as an honest diplomat's should be. Of course, there was that flat secret compartment to hold whatever documents he might want to hide, but he might as well give the lurking enemy a chance to find — or overlook — it before he used it as a hiding place. The lock on the desk drawer wasn't at all bad. They'd have to use some force to get it open.

  He picked up his cane and left his room, locking the door behind him.

  The long, closed car was waiting. Liz and Jefferson sat together in the back. The chauffeur stared unblinkingly ahead like a carved ebony statue, and Corporal Temba waited with his hamlike right hand on the back door handle.

  It could be some kind of trap, of course, even though Liz had recognized these men. Nick chewed briskly on the thought and then dismissed it. Being spied upon was one thing; being abducted was another. And he'd done nothing to deserve it. Yet.

  He got stiffly into the back seat. Temba slammed the door.

  "In, Stonewall. Let us be on our way."

&nb
sp; The massive corporal saluted and took his place in the front seat. Nick's eyebrows rose. Stonewall, yet.

  "Hospital Dos Estrangeiros, Uru," Jefferson instructed. "Keep the foot firmly upon the accelerator and the eye upon the traffic."

  The ebony chauffeur nodded silently and shot breathtakingly into the swiftly moving stream of cars and military vehicles. Nick took note of them, as well as of the signs and names that characterized this fantastically polyglot young city. Portuguese, French, English, Nyangese and several tribal tongues were equally in evidence. Even American, it seemed, still had some sort of place. And no doubt he'd be encountering resentment in Russian before his stay was over.

  "How is he?" asked Nick. "What happened?"

  "The President is in extremely serious condition," Jefferson said quietly. "He is at present receiving treatment preparatory to the operation. A single bullet from what appears to have been a high-powered American rifle is lodged in his chest. It seems to have at least creased the heart, and has considerably damaged the lungs. I would say the situation is critical. He was shot when he stepped out of his office into the courtyard for a breath of air. You know the Presidential quarters used to be an old Portuguese fort?" Nick nodded. "One would naturally think of it as well-guarded by walls, if not by people." Jefferson's voice was bitter. "He was too confident, though. Too sure that he was not the target for all these attacks. Political target, perhaps, but not a murder victim. So he refused to have an adequate bodyguard. The gunman wounded a sentry at the gate and got away. The Army and the Police are both looking for him."