by Nick Carter
"We will now," said Tonaka, "go into the bedroom, Mr. Carter."
Nick blinked at them. "Huh?"
"In the bedroom, please. At once!"
Nick stood up and tightened the dressing gown around him. "If you say so."
"Hands up, please."
He was getting a little tired of the Wild West bit. "Now look, Tonaka! I am cooperating. I am a friend of your father and I'll help, even if I don't like the way we're going about things. But let's cut out all this crazy..."
"Hands up! Keep them high in the air! March into the bedroom."
He marched. Hands high in the air. Tonaka followed him into the room, keeping at a professional distance. Trooping in behind came Kato, Mato and Sato.
He visualized another headline: Carter Gang-raped by Girl Scouts...
Tonaka moved the pistol toward the bed. "You will please to get on the bed, Mr. Carter. Drop your robe. You will lie face up."
Nick stared. The words he had spoken to Hawk only yesterday came back and he repeated them. "You've got to be kidding!"
No smile on any of the pale lemon-brown faces. Dark slant eyes all attentive on him and his big body.
"No kidding, Mr. Carter. On the bed. At once!" The pistol moved in her small hand. Her trigger finger was white around the knuckle. Nick understood, for the first time during all these fun and games it really percolated down, that she would shoot him unless he did exactly as he was told. Exactly.
He dropped the robe. Kato hissed. Mato smiled darkly. Sato giggled. Tonaka gave them a nasty glance and they got back to business. But there was approval in her own dark eyes as they swept briefly up and down his trim two hundred pounds. She nodded. "A magnificent body, Mr. Carter. As my father said it would be. He remembers well how much he taught you and how he conditioned you. At another time, perhaps — but that is not important now. On the bed. Face up."
Nick Carter was embarrassed and self-conscious. He was not a liar, especially to himself, and he admitted it. There was something so unnatural, even a little obscene, in lying fully exposed to the probing eyes of four Girl Scouts. Four pairs of epicanthoid eyes that were not missing a thing.
One thing for which he was thankful — it was not a sexy situation, far from it, and he was in no danger of having a physical reaction. He shuddered inwardly. A slow rising to crest in front of all those eyes. It was unthinkable. Sato would have giggled.
Nick watched Tonaka steadily. She kept the pistol on his belly, so fully exposed now, and her mouth twitched in a beginning smile. She fought it back successfully.
"I only regret," said Nick Carter, "that I have but one virtue to give for my country."
Suppressed mirth from Kato. Tonaka glared at her. Silence. Tonaka glowered at Nick. "You, Mr. Carter, are a fool!"
"Sans doute."
Beneath his left buttock he could feel the hard metal of the zipper set into the mattress. Therein lay the Luger, that nasty hot rod of a gun, a stripped-down 9mm of murder. Also the stiletto. Thirsty Hugo. Death's needlepoint. Nick sighed and forgot it. He could probably get to them, so what? What then? Shoot down four little Girl Scouts from Japan? And why did he keep thinking of them as Girl Scouts? The uniforms were authentic but that was all. They were four female maniacs from some Tokyo yo-yo academy. And he was in the middle. Grin and suffer.
Tonaka was. snapping orders. "Kato — look in the kitchen. Sato, in the closets. Mato — ah, that is it. Those ties will be just the thing."
Mato had a handful of Nick's best and most expensive ties, among them the Sulka he had worn only once. He sat up in protest. "Hey! If you've got to use ties use old ones. I just..."
Tonaka rapped him smartly across the forehead with the pistol. She was fast. In and out before he could snatch at the gun.
"Lie down," she snapped.- "Quietly. No more talking. We must get on with our work. Already there has been too much foolishness — our plane leaves in an hour."
Nick lifted his head. "I agree about the foolishness. I..."
Another rap across the forehead. He lay sullen as they tied him to the bedposts. They were very good at knots. He could have broken the bonds at any time, but again to what purpose? That was part of this whole crazy deal — he found himself more and more not wanting to hurt them. And, since he was already so deep in Goofyville, he now had a genuine curiosity to find out just what they were up to.
It was a picture he would carry to the grave. Nick Carter tie.d with his own ties, spread-eagled on his bed, mother naked and exposed to the dark stares of four little maidens from the Orient. A snatch of a favorite old song drifted through his mind: they'll never believe me.
He could hardly believe what he saw next. Feathers. Four long red feathers produced from somewhere under the miniskirts.
Tonaka and Kato were on one side of the bed, Mato and Sato on the other. If they all get close enough, Nick thought, I can snap these ties and bash their stupid little heads together and...
Tonaka dropped her feather and stepped back, the Nambu back in position on his flat stomach. Professionalism had reasserted itself. She nodded curtly at Sato. "Gag him."
"Now look here," said Nick Carter. "I... guli... ummm... phummmp..." A clean handkerchief and another of his ties did the trick.
"Start," said Tonaka. "Kato, you take his feet. Mato, you work on his armpits. Sato — the genitals."
Tonaka stepped back another few paces and kept the gun steady on Nick. She permitted herself a smile. "I am rather sorry, Mr. Carter, that we must do it -this way. I know it is undignified and ridiculous."
Nick nodded vigorously. "Hummmmpffj— guuuu— noggle-uuppp..."
"Try to bear up, Mr. Carter. It should not take long. We are going to drug you. you see, and one of the propensities of this drug is that it maintains and extends the mood of the person to whom it is given, at the time it is given. We want you happy, Mr. Carter. We want you laughing all the way to Japan!"
He had known all along that there was method in this madness. The ultimate perception changed nothing. They would still kill him if he resisted. This Tonaka kid was just crazy enough to do it. And now it was getting past the point of resistance. Those feathers! It was an old Chinese torture and he had never realized how efficacious it was. It was the sweetest agony in all the world.
Sato was running the feather ever so gently around his privates. Nick convulsed. Mato worked industriously on his armpits. Ohhhhaaahaaaaa...
Kato was using a long expert stroke on the soles of his feet. Nick's toes began to curl and cramp. He couldn't, goddam it, stand much more of this. Anyway he had played along with this nutty quartet far enough. Any second now he was just going to have to — ahhhhooo— eeeeee— bust loose and let the stuff hit the fan and maybe hurt some of these cute little — ehhhyaaaaaaa— crazies and maybe get shot with that little Nambu and eeeyaahoooaaaaa...
Her timing was perfect. He had been distracted just long enough for her to get down to the real business. The needle. The long shining needle. Nick saw it, and then he didn't see it. Because it was buried in the relatively soft tissue of his right buttock.
The needle went deep. Deeper. Tonaka was staring down at him as she jammed the plunger home. She smiled. Nick arched and laughed and laughed and laughed.
The drug hit him hard, almost instantly. His bloodstream picked it up and raced it along to his brain and motor centers.
They had stopped tickling him now. Tonaka smiled down and patted his face with a soft hand. She put the little pistol away.
"There," she said. "How do you feel now? All happy?"
Nick Carter smiled. "Never better in my life." He laughed.. "You know something — I feel like having a drink. Like having a lot of drinks. What do you say, girls? Let's all go out and get blasted."
Tonaka clapped her hands. How demure and sweet she was, Nick thought. How nice. He wanted to make her happy. He would do anything she wanted to — anything.
"I think that will be splendid fun," said Tonaka. "Don't you, girls?"
Ka
to, Sato and Mato all thought it would be splendid. They clapped their little hands and giggled and they all, each one, insisted on kissing Nick. Then they stood back, giggling and smiling and talking. Tonaka did not kiss him.
"You had better get dressed, Nick. Quickly. You know we have to get to Japan."
Nick sat up as they untied him. He laughed. "Of course. I was forgetting. Japan. But are you sure you really want to go, Tonaka? We could have a lot of fun right here in Washington."
Tonaka came close to him. She bent and kissed him, pressing her mouth to his for a long time. She smoothed his cheek. "Of course I want to go to Japan, Nick, darling. Hurry now. We'll help you get dressed and packed. You just tell us where things are."
He felt like a king as he sat naked on the bed and watched them scurry around. Japan was going to be a lot of fun. It had been a long time, too long, since he had had a real vacation like this. Without any responsibilities at all. Free as air. He might even send Hawk a post card. Or maybe not. To hell with Hawk.
Tonaka was riffling through a dresser drawer. "Where is your diplomatic passport, Nick, darling?"
"In the closet, honey, in the lining of the Knox hat box. Let's hurry, shall we! Japan is calling."
And then, suddenly, he wanted that drink again. Wanted it worse than he had ever wanted a drink in his life. He snatched a pair of white boxer trunks from Sato, who was packing a suitcase, and went into the living room and took a bottle of Scotch from the portable bar.
Chapter 4
Very rarely did Hawk call Nick in for consultation on a top level decision. Killmaster wasn't paid to make top level decisions. He was paid to carry them out — which he usually did with the stealth of a tiger and the fury thereof when it was needed. Hawk had every respect for Nick's abilities as an agent and, when need be, a killer. Carter was just about the best in the world today; top man in that bitter, dark, bloody and often mysterious back alley region where decisions were implemented, where directives were finally transmuted into bullets and knives, poisons and rope. And death.
Hawk had a very bad night. He hardly slept, most unusual for him. At three in the morning he found himself pacing his slightly dreary living room in Georgetown and wondering if he had the right to involve Nick in this decision. It wasn't Nick's load, really. It was Hawk's. Hawk was the head man at AXE. Hawk was paid — not enough — to make the decisions and bear the onus of mistakes. On his own stooped, seventy-odd-year-old shoulders lay the burden and he really had no right to shift part of that burden to another.
Why not simply make up his mind whether to play Cecil Aubrey's game or not? It was a shabby game, admittedly, but Hawk had played at worse. And the gains were beyond measuring — a man of his own in the Kremlin. Hawk, professionally speaking, was a greedy man. Also a ruthless one. In time — though he kept speculation at a distance now — he knew that he would find means to gradually take over the Kremlin man, more and more, from Aubrey. But that was all in the future.
Had he the right to involve Nick Carter — who had never killed a man in his life except for his country and in the performance of his sworn duty? Because it would be Nick Carter who would have to do the actual killing.
It was a tricky moral question. Slippery. It had a million facets and it was possible to rationalize and come up with almost any answer you wanted.
David Hawk was not accustomed to tricky moral questions. For forty years he had fought the good fight and had put hundreds of his and his country's enemies under the sod. To Hawk's mind they were one and the same thing. His enemies and his country's enemies were exactly the same thing. Interchangeable.
On the surface it was simple enough. He, and the entire Western world, would be safer and sleep better with Richard Philston dead. Philston was an arch-betrayer who had caused unlimited damage. There was really no arguing with that.
So, at three in the morning, Hawk made himself a very mild drink and argued with it.
Aubrey was going against orders. He had admitted as much in Hawk's office, though he had given specious reasons for going against his orders. His superiors wanted Philston taken and brought back to face a proper trial and, one supposed, execution.
Cecil Aubrey, though wild horses would not have dragged it from him, was afraid that Philston would somehow slip the hangman's knot. Aubrey was thinking as much of his dead young wife as he was of his duty. He did not care about seeing a traitor punished in open court. He only wanted Richard Philston dead in the shortest, quickest, ugliest way possible. To do this, and to obtain AXE help in gaining his revenge, Aubrey was prepared to bargain away one of his nation's most valuable assets — an unsuspected pipeline into the Kremlin.
Hawk freshened his drink just a mite and clutched his faded bathrobe around a neck that got scrawnier every day. He glanced at the ancient ormolu clock on the mantel. Nearly four. He had promised himself a decision before he got to the office that day. Had promised Cecil Aubrey, too.
Aubrey was right about one thing, Hawk admitted as he paced. AXE, almost any Yank service, could handle this matter better than the British. Philston would know every gin and snare that MI6 had ever used or dreamed of using. AXE might have a chance. Certainly if he used Nick Carter. If Nick couldn't do it, it couldn't be done.
Could he use Nick in a private vendetta for another man? The problem made no attempt to go away or to solve itself. It was still there when Hawk at last sought his pillow again. The booze had helped a bit and he fell into an uneasy sleep at the first peeping of birds in the forsythia outside his window.
Cecil Aubrey and the MIS man, Terence, were due again Tuesday, in Hawk's office at eleven- Hawk was in the office at a quarter of nine. Delia Stokes was not yet in. Hawk hung up his light raincoat — it was beginning to drizzle outside — and went straight to the phone and called Nick's apartment in the Mayflower.
Hawk had made his decision while driving to the office from Georgetown. He knew he was weaseling a bit and shifting the burden a little after all, but now he could do it with a fairly clear conscience. Tell Nick all the facts, with the Englishmen present, and let Nick make his own decision. It was the best Hawk could do, considering his greed and his temptation. He would be fair. He swore it to himself. If Nick turned down the mission that would be the end of it. Let Cecil Aubrey seek elsewhere for an executioner.
Nick did not answer. Hawk swore and slammed the phone down. He stripped his first cigar of the morning and put it in his mouth. He tried Nick's apartment again, letting the ring go on and on. No answer.
Hawk slammed the phone down again and stood glaring at it. Screwing again, he thought. Shacked up. In the hay with some beautiful .doll and he'll report in when he gets damned good and ready. Hawk scowled, then nearly smiled. Couldn't blame the boy for reaping his rosebuds while he could. It didn't last long, God knew. Not long enough. Been a long time since he'd been able to reap any rosebuds. Ah, golden girls and lads alike must come to dust...
To hell with that! When Nick did not answer on the third attempt Hawk went out to look at the logbook on Delia's desk. The night duty officer was supposed to keep it updated. Hawk ran his finger down the list of neatly penned entries. Carter, as were all top AXE men, was on call twenty-four hours a day and was supposed to call in and check every twelve hours. And to leave an address or phone number where they could be reached.
Hawk's finger stopped on the entry: N3 — 2204 hrs. — 914-528-6177... It was a Maryland prefix. Hawk scribbled the number on a scratch sheet and went back into his own office. He dialed the number.
After a long series of rings a woman said, "Hello?" She sounded sleepy and hungover.
Hawk barged straight into it. Let's get Romeo out of the sack.
"Let me speak to Mr. Carter, please."
Long pause. Then, coldly, "To whom did you wish to speak?"
Hawk bit his cigar savagely. "Carter. Nick Carter! This is very important. Urgent. Is he there?"
More silence. Then he heard her yawn. Her voice was still cold as she said, "I'm so
rry. Mr. Carter left some time ago. I really don't know when. But how on earth did you get this number? I..."
"Sorry, lady." Hawk snapped the phone down again. Damn! He sat down, put his feet on the desk and stared at the bilious puce walls. The Western Union clock ticked in defense of Nick Carter. He wasn't overdue on his call in. Still some forty odd minutes to go. Hawk swore under his breath and could not understand his own unease.
Delia Stokes came in a few minutes later. Hawk, masking his anxiety — for which he could produce no good reason — set her to ringing the Mayflower every ten minutes. He got on another line and began making discreet inquiries. Nick Carter, as Hawk well knew, was a swinger and his range of acquaintances was long and catholic. He might be in a Turkish bath with a senator, having breakfast with the wife and/or daughter of some diplomatic VIP — or he might be in a crap game in Goat Hill.
Time passed without results. Hawk kept glancing at the clock on the wall. He had promised Aubrey a decision todays Goddamn the boy anyway! He was now officially overdue on his call in. Not that Hawk gave a damn about a niggeling matter like that — but he wanted to get this affair settled, one way or the other, and he couldn't do it without Nick. He was as determined as ever that Nick have the final say-so in killing, or not killing, Richard Philston.
At ten of eleven Delia Stokes came into his office, a puzzled look on her face. Hawk was just tossing away a half-masticated cigar. He saw her expression and said, "What?"
Delia shrugged. "I don't know exactly what, sir. But I don't believe it — and you're not going to believe it."
Hawk scowled. "Try me."
Delia cleared her throat. "I finally got on to the bell captain at the Mayflower. I had a hard time finding him, and then he didn't want to talk — he likes Nick and was trying to protect him, I suppose — but I finally wormed something out of him. Nick left the hotel a little after nine this morning. He was drunk. Roaring drunk. And — this is the part you won't believe — he was with four Girl Scouts."