The Death’s Head Conspiracy

by Nick Carter

  “Can you show me how to get to Little Dog?” I asked.

  “Sure. Walk down to de docks, you can see de place. Come on, I show you.”

  The black man stood up and moved out of the booth. Pilar followed us out onto the street and down a couple of steep blocks to the waterfront Saba pointed out across the sparkling water to what appeared to be a jagged outcropping of brown rocks.

  “Little Dog,” he said. “Maybe 500 meters long, 200 wide. Only safe place to land a boat is aroun’ de other side. Can’t see from here.”

  “I need a fast boat,” I said. “Do you know someone who will rent one to me?”

  “Sure. I have a friend with de fastest boat in de harbor, except de smugglers and de police. He charge you plenty, but you get your money’s worth.”

  “Good.” I turned to Pilar. “Now I’m going to ask you to do something that will be very difficult for you.”

  “What is it, Nick.”

  “Wait for me. Just wait If I’m not back by dark, notify David Hawk in Washington and tell him everything you know.”

  “Can’t I come with you? I can steer a boat. I can help in many ways.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “This is my job, and I want you to stay here.”

  “Yes, Nick,” she said with a submissiveness that was unlike her.

  I gave her arm a squeeze and followed Saba down to the docks where we would find his friend with the speedboat. It turned out to be an old ski boat that had been lovingly kept in sound condition by its proud owner. The man was not over-anxious to let a stranger take off in his pride and joy, but enough guilders changed hands to ease his reluctance. he motor was a giant Evinrude that roared instantly to life and soon I was skimming over the light chop of the straits toward Little Dog. Before I got too close, I wheeled in a wide circle around the rocky island. In an inlet on the far side a cabin cruiser was tied to an unpainted pier. Beyond the pier stood a wooden shack. Pale gray smoke drifted from the chimney pipe.

  I throttled the Evinrude down, then scanned the shack and surrounding rocks for any sign of life. There was none. So I gunned the motor and looped back around the island.

  I prowled along the rocky shore on the far side, looking for a possible landing place. Jagged pinnacles thrust themselves upward fifteen or twenty feet, as if some vast disturbance in the center of the earth had flung them up from the ocean floor. Finally I came upon a narrow wedge of water between a pair of jutting boulders and managed to squeeze the boat through. I made her secure and climbed up through the rocks and headed toward the shack on the opposite side of Little Dog.

  The going was slow at best, and I moved cautiously in case Gorodin had posted a lookout. After twenty minutes I reached a vantage point where I could lie on my stomach and watch the shack. It looked larger here than from the ocean side, and it seemed to be divided into two rooms. The only window I could see had boards nailed over with only slitted openings. Still no sign of human life, just the spiraling smoke smudging the air. Now that I was downwind of the smoke, I noticed an unpleasant stench. Perhaps in the back of my mind I knew what it was, but I rejected the thought and crept toward the shack, keeping out of sight of the slitted window in case someone watched behind it.

  I made it to the shack without being challenged and crouched below the boarded window.

  The stench here was unmistakable. It was the smell of singed flesh and human hair. I clenched my teeth and tried to erase a mental picture of what might have happened to Rona Volstedt. Inside the shack a voice spoke in the tight tones of rage barely contained. It was the heavy growl of Fyodor Gorodin.

  “You have made much trouble for me, you and Carter,” he was saying. “But you can still earn my forgiveness. You have information; I need this information. A simple exchange. And really, how can you refuse a man like myself who has so much talent for persuasion?”

  Slowly, I raised my head to squint through the space between the boards as Gorodins voice continued.

  “We know that Carter did not drown. We have word that he was brought ashore at a Mayan fishing village on Yucatan. Beyond that we have been unable to trace him. There would have been a contact point where you could reach him in case of emergency. I want you to tell me where it is.”

  Through the window boards, I could now see into the room. Slumped in a wooden chair, Gorodin hovering near, was Rona Volstedt. A single rope was tied around her middle, binding her arms to her sides and holding her to the back of the chair. She wore only a tattered scrap of the pants she had worn when she dived from the cruise ship. Above the waist she was naked, her small, well-formed breasts exposed. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her hair matted. When she spoke, it was in a weary, distant voice.

  “There wasn’t any contact point,” she said.

  “You’re a liar and a fool,” Gorodin said. “You must know that I can make you tell. Peacefully now, or later in screaming agony. One way or another I will find Carter. He has already killed some of my best men, and every minute that he remains alive, he is a threat to our plan. Now—once more—where can we find Nick Carter?”

  “I don’t have any idea where he is,” Rona said in a tired monotone.

  “I have no more patience,” Gorodin rumbled. “And now I will show you what happens to people with whom I have lost patience.”

  The big Russian moved aside and the source of the smoke from the chimney was revealed. In a large iron brazier a fiery bed of charcoal smouldered. The rubber covered handles of a long tool of some sort protruded from the coals. Gingerly, Gorodin grasped the handles and drew out the tool. It was a long, sharp-nosed pliers. The pincers glowed dull orange as he displayed them for Rona.

  “Perhaps you have heard of the technique,” he said.

  “The flesh is pulled from the body a pinch at a time. The tender breasts of a woman receive special attention. You will live quite a long time, but in each moment of that time, you will beg to die.”

  Rona’s eyes were fixed hypnotically on the gleaming tips of the pliers. “But I know nothing,” she said tearfully, “nothing at all.”

  Gorodin ignored her. “I will give you one more chance to answer my questions,” he said coolly. “Then we will begin.”

  I considered my course of action. I could kill Gorodin by shooting through the window slats, but by their shadows in the dusky room, I could see that two more men stood against the near wall. They would certainly be armed and quite probably would kill Rona before I could get around the corner of the shack to the outside door. Another door, directly across from the window, apparently led to a second room. It offered no help. If the room had a window, it would be boarded.

  As I tried to think of a workable plan, Gorodin replaced the pliers in the coals and turned in my direction. I ducked out of sight as he said to one of the invisible men, “Bring him in here. Show Miss Volstedt what she can expect if she does not cooperate.”

  A crewcut Slavic type crossed in front of my window, and as I raised my head again, he opened the door on the opposite side. A bumed-flesh smell spilled out like some foul gas. The Slav returned in a minute dragging something on the floor behind him which he deposited a few feet from Rona.

  The thing on the floor was man-shaped, with a head, a trunk, two arms and two legs. Little else about it suggested a man. The flesh and muscle was lacerated, scorched, ripped, and pulled away from every part of the head and body. There seemed not to be a patch anywhere that had not been mutilated. In many places the bones showed through holes in the flesh while the thing leaked blood and other body fluids.

  The lips were completely ripped away, leaving a skull-like grimace of naked teeth. Where one eye had been, there was now only a moist, blackened hole.

  Worst of all, that remnant of a man was alive.

  Rona gagged and turned her head away as this apparition scrabbled pitifully at the floorboards with a spastic hand.

  “You shouldn’t turn from an old friend like that,” Gorodin said. “Or perhaps you don’t recognize the handsome young Boris.”<
br />
  Rona released a shuddering sob.

  “We found him unconscious but still alive,” Gorodin continued. “We revived him. We nursed and fed him for the ordeal. Then he paid, not too bravely, I admit, for that careless moment when he shirked his duty and allowed you and Carter to escape.” Rising abruptly, his voice hardened. “And now your time has come. I want Nick Carter, and you will tell me where to find him.”

  “I—I don’t know,” Rona sobbed.

  Gorodin made a cursing sound in Russian and reached for the rubber handles of the pliers.

  The water proof tube that contained the six smoke pellets Stewart had given me was in my hand. Somehow, I had to hurl one of the pellets into the glowing charcoal. It was an easy distance—the problem was sending the pellet through the slatted window. What I needed was a blowgun, and as the image sprang into mind, I quickly undipped a ballpoint pen from my shirt pocket and unscrewed the cap, discarding it along with the ink cartridge inside. This left me with a three-and-a-half-inch tube, narrow at one end, just wide enough at the other to take one of the smoke pellets. I dropped a pellet into the pen barrel, poked it between the window boards, and began to adjust it carefully so that the trajectory of the missile would be accurate.

  Now Gorodin advanced to Rona. Holding one grip of the pliers in each hand, he eased the red-hot pincers toward her left nipple. I aimed the barrel of the makeshift blowgun toward the glowing charcoal. My first try would have to be perfect, because I wasn’t likely to get a second.

  I drew in a deep breath, put my lips to the end of the tube, and expelled the air in an explosive poof.

  The pellet flew into the charcoal and settled on the burning embers with a delightful hiss and mushroom puff that sprayed its pale, choking smoke to all corners of the room.

  Blessing Stewart’s ingenuity, I pulled out the handkerchief mask and cupped it over my nose and mouth. I wheeled around the corner of the shack and shouldered the door. It shuddered loose, then splintered open when I gave it a violent kick.

  As I charged into the shack, Luger in hand, I saw Gorodin stumble through the door into the adjoining room, while one of his men was blindly searching for a target for his machine pistol.

  I fired and he went down. From the floor he was still trying to raise the machine pistol, so I shot him again and he quit moving.

  The second man in the room charged me with the red-hot pliers after picking them up from the floor where Gorodin had dropped them. I put a bullet through his head, then rushed to Rona and quickly released her. Between coughs she managed to gasp out my name.

  “Nick?”

  “Right,” I said. “Take it easy and I’ll have you out of here in a minute.”

  The handkerchief mask slipped away from my mouth as I carried Rona outside and let her down on the ground. I waited until my eyes cleared, then I went back after Gorodin.

  I stepped over the quivering remains of Boris and into the second room of the shack. Empty. There was a board-covered window, but it had been smashed open. I peered out at the surrounding rocks, but saw no sign of Gorodin.

  A distant yell from Rona jerked me away from the window. I charged back through the shack and out the front door. Gorodin was running down the short path between boulders toward the dock where the cabin cruiser was tied. As I came through the door, he whirled and fired at me with a long-barreled Erma pistol. His bullet tugged at my sleeve, just enough to spoil my aim as I squeezed off two answering shots. One of them caught the cruiser’s fuel tank, and the boat went up with a mightly whoomph as Gorodin flung himself off the path and into the protecting rocks.

  I knelt beside Rona. “Can you walk?”

  “I-I think so.”

  “Stay right behind me, then. I have a boat tied up on the other side of the island. It won’t be easy going, and Gorodin’s out there somewhere with a gun.”

  “You lead, Nick,” she said. “I’ll make it”

  I peeled off my shirt and gave it to Rona, not for modesty’s sake, but because it was almost the color of the rocks, and would camouflage her white skin. My own hide was sun-bronzed enough to keep from being such an obvious target. With Rona behind me I picked my way back over the jagged rocks in the direction of my boat, painfully alert for the slightest sound or movement.

  There was just one narrow ridge of rock between us and the boat when I saw it—a glint of metal in the sun. Whirling, I threw Rona heavily to the ground and dropped flat beside her just as the flat crack of the Erma pistol shattered the silence and gravel spurted two feet in front of us.

  “Stay flat,” I hissed at Rona and aimed with the Luger at the spot where I had seen the flash of the gun barrel. I fired once, twice.

  Gorodins arm and shoulder appeared around a boulder and he let off a wild shot that pinged off the rocks over our heads. I fired back and heard the Russian cry out in pain as my slug ripped his forearm.

  Careless now, Gorodin shifted his position to examine his wound, and threw a perfect shadow on the facing boulder. Apparently he wasn’t hurt seriously, for I saw the shadow clench and unclench its right hand, then take the pistol again and creep higher on the rocks for a shot.

  When Gorodin’s head came into view, I was ready with the Luger centered. I squeezed the trigger. The hammer snapped on an empty chamber. I’d used two clips of ammunition and didn’t have another.

  The Russian got his shot off but, hampered by the bullet wound, his aim was poor, and he ducked back out of sight.

  I scanned the jagged rocks around us for a spot that would provide better cover. Ten yards back the way we had come was a coffin-shaped cavity.

  Mouth to Rona’s ear, I whispered, “When I tell you, get up and run for that hole back there. Move fast and keep down.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but Gorodin was up and taking aim again. “Go!” I said softly. Rona leaped out, ran in a crouch, stumbled, and plunged into the niche as a bullet bit off a chunk of boulder inches from the opening.

  I scrambled to my feet and followed her. As I dived for the shallow pocket, a bullet burned my shoulder and thudded into the dirt. I tumbled into the sheltered space and felt the sticky wetness of blood where I had been creased.

  “You’re hit!” Rona said.

  “Just barely.”

  From beyond came the voice of Gorodin, who might now have guessed why I wasn’t returning his fire. “Carter, can you hear me? One more like that will finish you! Come out with your hands up!”

  After a few seconds of silence, there were two more shots. One of the bullets found our narrow opening and, ricocheting back and forth, spattered us with chips of rock.

  Leaning close to Rona, I whispered, “Next time he fires, scream.”

  She nodded in understanding, and at the next gunshot gave an agonized shriek. I gave her the “okay” sign and waited.

  “All right, Carter,” Gorodin bellowed. “Come out or the woman will die!”

  “I can’t!” I shouted back, making my voice tight with pain. “I’m hit and the woman is badly wounded. Let her go and I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “I think you are out of bullets, too, eh. Throw your gun away; then we will talk.”

  I smeared blood from my wound into Rona’s hairline and down her face, set her in position on her back and told her what to do. Then I called to Gorodin and tossed the gun out.

  When I heard Gorodin approaching, I turned on my belly and lay hunched and still. The sound of Gorodin’s heavy footsteps crunched to a halt above us. After a beat of silence, Gorodin said, “Out, Carter, out!”

  Then Rona said weakly, “He—he’s unconscious.”

  “Perhaps not,” Gorodin growled. “Let me see if he is only faking.”

  His gun exploded just above me and a bullet scattered soil and rock chips an inch from my head. His words had signaled the gimmick, and I didn’t move a muscle.

  A shadow fell across the rocks. I saw it from the corner of my eye as he bent over me. I knew he had the gun in his fist, carefully leveled, and I
waited in heart-jolting suspense. Rona, I prayed, don’t fail me now!

  Then I heard the thrust of her leg, the soft thump of her foot as it connected with Gorodin’s body and he tripped.

  The stiletto clutched in my hand, I twirled instantly and sank the blade into his massive chest. With a long sigh, a gurgling moan, he gave up the gun—and his life.

  I led Rona out into the fading afternoon sunlight and said, “The boat’s just past that ridge. Wait for me there—I’ve got one last thing to do.”

  She looked at me questioningly, but turned and walked toward the boat. I bent for the Erma pistol Gorodin had dropped and jacked out all the shells but one. Then I picked my way back over the rocks to the fisherman’s shack. The door hung open and the smoke had cleared.

  I walked across the room to the torn remains of Boris. Barely audible whimpering sounds came from the ruined throat, while the one working hand scratched at the floor.

  It seemed there should be something profound for me to say, but I couldn’t find words. So I simply placed the pistol on the floor by the moving hand, and walked out the door.

  I had gone only a short distance back to Rona and the boat when I heard the shot

  Eighteen

  When I joined Rona in the boat, she was sitting hunched in the bow, hugging herself like a small abandoned child. Tears running steadily down her cheeks, and she trembled pitifully.

  “It’s all right now,” I said. “No one will come after us.”

  She reached out for me and folded her arms about me, clinging to me as if I were a raft of survival. After keeping her cool through a nightmare of violence and long exposure to the ocean, she was at the limit of endurance—at the edge of collapse. And I knew she must have rest and medical attention.

  With one hand holding Rona close to me, the other steering the boat, I sliced across the water to the docks of Curasao. As we neared the slip where the speedboat was moored, I saw a figure standing there, waiting. It was Pilar. Apparently watching for the boat, she had seen us coming.