by Nick Carter
"The colonels are all right?" he asked, relief flooding into his face.
"Yes," I said.
"And Vassilis?"
"He is unharmed," Erika said. "We are very fortunate. It could have been a blood bath."
"Thank God," Minourkos said.
"We couldn't have done it without the general," I said.
"I am pleased that Vassilis gave a good account of himself. Have the surviving assassins been arrested?"
"No. I've asked Kotsikas to give us twenty-four hours until we've had a chance at Stavros."
He was silent for a moment "I am not sure I agree with this secrecy. But I will go along for now. I too will keep my silence for twenty-four hours, Mr. Carter."
"I appreciate it, Mr. Minourkos. Now we have our work cut out for us. We must go after Stavros."
"It seems bad to continue handling this yourself," Minourkos said. "This requires police help, Mr. Carter. I know some men I can trust."
"Like the ones who came after Colonel Kotsikas intending to commit mass murder?" I asked. "No, I have to have my chance at him, Mr. Minourkos. I can't trust that the police would be able or willing to bring Stavros to justice. Neither can my government. That's why I have orders to kill Stavros on sight Those orders coincide with the ones Miss Nystrom has from her government."
"But it will be suicide to go up to the penthouse," Minourkos argued.
"Maybe," I said. "But maybe not, with what I know of the place. And what you know."
"When would you go?" he asked.
"This evening." I glanced over at Erika. "Is that all right with you?"
"Anything you say, Nick."
"About now Stavros is wondering why he hasn't heard from his man. I think the chances are that Stavros will wait at the penthouse until he is positive something has gone wrong. So he should be there this evening."
"You yourself spoke of the armed guards," Minourkos said. "You may not get past the corridor entrance."
"Possibly. But Erika and I will have a third man to help. I was in touch with my superiors before we went out to Kotsikas' place. A fellow agent is in Athens on another assignment and will give us a hand."
"Three of you?" Minourkos asked. "The odds may be two or three to one against you, even if you get into the place."
"Mr. Carter thrives on long odds," Erika said, smiling.
I returned the smile. "Besides, I have a plan that includes four."
"Four?" Minourkos asked, confused. "If you are counting on me, your trust is misplaced. I do not even know how to fire a hand gun."
"Not you," I said. "On the plane here you mentioned something that stuck in my mind. You said that your murdered secretary Salaka Madoupas had a brother who looked very much like him."
"Yes," Minourkos said. "The poor fellow does not even know his brother is dead. He and Salaka did not see each other very often, but there was a great deal of affection between them."
"How much does he look like Salaka?" I asked.
"Very much. They were only a year apart Some say they look like twins, except that Salaka was about an inch taller and somewhat heavier than his brother."
"We could fix that," I said more to myself than to Erika and Minourkos. "Does this fellow live in Athens?"
Minourkos looked at me quizzically. "Just outside of town in a small village."
"Call him and tell him about Salaka," I said. "Then ask him if he would like to help avenge his brother's death."
Erika looked at me. "Nick, do you mean…"
"If Stavros can come up with an imposter, so can we," I said. "Yianis Tzanni isn't the only one who can speak for a dead man."
"A third Salaka Madoupas?" Erika asked.
"That's right. Maybe, just maybe, he can get us into the penthouse." I turned to Minourkos. "Will you call him?"
Minourkos hesitated only a brief moment "Of course. And I will get him here."
Two hours later, just at dusk, Sergiou Madoupas arrived at the hotel room. He appeared to be a meek, timid man, but under the surface was a grim determination to help get the man responsible for his brother's death. I gave him elevator shoes and some padding and did a quick makeup job. When it was over, he looked almost exactly like the imposter I had seen at the penthouse. It was, after all, the imposter that Sergiou was impersonating in our scheme, not actually his brother. I wanted the men in the penthouse to accept Sergiou as Tzanni, the fake Madoupas.
When I was finished with him, I stood back, and we all took a long look. "What do you think?" I asked Minourkos.
"He looks very much like Salaka — and therefore like Tzanni," Minourkos said.
Our own imposter grinned uncertainly at me. "You have done a good job, Mr, Carter," he said. His voice was very much like Tzanni's and his English had about the same quality.
"I think we'll make it," Erika said.
* * *
An hour later we pulled up at the Apollo Building. It was the dinner hour in Athens, and there was almost no traffic on the city streets. The building itself was dark except for the lobby and the far-off twinkling lights in the penthouse. We sat in the rented black sedan for about ten minutes, and then a tall man appeared around the corner of the building. He walked directly to the car and got in beside me in the front seat. Erika and Sergiou were seated in back. Minourkos had been left at the hotel.
"Hello, Carter," the tall man said. He looked at the other two and his eyes lingered on Erika.
"Anything happening?" I asked.
"Not a thing. Nobody in or out since I got here." He was Bill Spencer, my AXE colleague. He was new to the agency, and I had met him before only briefly. Hawk had assured me on the phone, in our brief conversation earlier, though, that Spencer was a good man. He had been watching the special elevator to the penthouse through the glass exterior of the building for almost three hours, according to my instructions.
I introduced him to Erika and Sergiou. "We get in by the service door to the lobby," I said, "with this key. Sergiou goes first, and we act as if we own the place. If we get upstairs, we operate as I outlined earlier. Anybody have any questions?"
There was a pensive silence in the dark car. "All right," I said. "Let's get it over with."
The four of us climbed out of the black sedan and walked in a tight knot to the front of the building. At the left of the main entrance was a locked glass service door. Sergiou stuck the key that Minourkos had given him into the stainless steel lock and turned it. In the lobby, the guard at the elevator turned toward us with a puzzled look.
Sergiou entered first, and we followed. I found myself wondering whether we would really catch Stavros by surprise. He should be pacing the floor, waiting to hear what happened at Colonel Kotsikas' home. I hoped he had not sent a squad of his own men out there to investigate. There was also the possibility that he had tried to call Paracatu in the last day or two and had found that he could not reach anybody there. Not being able to get hold of anybody at the jungle plantation would tell Stavros that something was wrong.
We reached the guard at the elevator. He was looking at Sergiou oddly.
"Where have you been?"
"These are members of the press," Sergiou said, acting out his new role. "They have heard of a terrible massacre of junta colonels that took place just a few hours ago. The police reported the tragedy to them. They want a short interview to learn Mr. Minourkos' views on this dreadful event, and I will speak to them upstairs."
I felt Hugo the stiletto on my right forearm and wondered if I would have to use it. If the guard had been on duty for a while, he would know Tzanni had not left the building.
"All right," he said. "I'll get the elevator."
The elevator was upstairs at the penthouse. He rang for it, and it slowly began its descent. It seemed like an eternity before it arrived on the main floor, but the doors finally slid open. The same elevator operator who had taken me up and down previously was on duty. We got aboard while the operator stared openly at Sergiou. The doors closed behind us, but the
operator did not push the button to take us up.
"I didn't know you were out of the building," he said to Sergiou, eyeing us warily.
"Well, now you know," Sergiou answered testily. "I left to meet these newspaper people. Take us upstairs. I am giving an interview."
The man studied Sergiou's face carefully. "I will just make a call upstairs first," he said.
"That is not necessary!" Sergiou complained.
But the operator had stepped to the communications panel at the side of the car. I nodded to Spencer, and he stepped closer. He pulled his Smith & Wesson.38 and the other man saw the movement. He turned just in time to receive the muzzle of the gun across the temple. He gasped and slid to the floor.
Erika stepped to the controls. "Take it up," I said.
On the way up to the penthouse, we moved the limp form of the operator into a corner of the elevator where it wouldn't be readily seen when the four of us emerged. A moment later the doors opened on the penthouse corridor.
As I suspected, there were still two men on duty. One of the two was the blond thug I had met previously. These were gunmen, and I did not want to play games with them. The blond rose from the table at the entrance to the penthouse while the other one remained seated. Both looked at Sergiou as if they were seeing an apparition.
"What the hell…" the blond one exclaimed. "What goes on here?"
Sergiou captured the blond thug's attention while Spencer went over to the dark-haired one at the table. The man rose slowly to face Spencer.
"I have given permission for an interview with these men," Sergiou said.
"How did you get out of the penthouse?" the blond asked.
I stepped around beside him while Sergiou answered. Spencer stood close to the dark man. Erika covered us both with the little Belgian revolver hidden behind her purse.
"Don't you remember my leaving?" Sergiou asked indignantly. "It was just about an hour ago. I told you that…"
No further explanation was necessary. Hugo slipped into my palm soundlessly. I grabbed the blond man with my left hand and pulled him to me while he was off-balance. I made a quick pass across his throat with the knife hand. Red spattered onto Sergiou's shirt and jacket.
The dark man went for his gun, but Spencer was ready for him. He pulled an ugly-looking garrote from his pocket and looped it quickly over the thug's head, then pulled hard on the crossed wire with the two wood handles. The man's hand never reached his gun. His eyes went wide, and his mouth popped open as the wire bit through flesh and arteries down to bone. More blood sprayed onto the thick carpet at our feet as the thug jumped and twisted in Spencer's grasp for a moment, his legs kicking at the air. Then he joined his comrade on the floor.
Erika loosened her grip on the trigger of her revolver. Sergiou looked at the corpses, white-faced, as I wiped the blade of Hugo on the blond's jacket. Spencer nodded to me, abandoning the garrote now deeply imbedded in the other man's neck, and moved to the door of the penthouse. I kept Hugo in hand, and Spencer pulled out a special pistol he had mentioned to me earlier. It had been supplied by Special Effects and Editing — an air gun that shot darts. The darts were tipped with curare, a quick-acting poison that AXE had borrowed from the Indians of Colombia.
Sergiou had regained his composure. He went to the door and inserted another key that Minourkos had given him and unlocked the heavy door with it. He looked at me, and I nodded. He pushed the door open silently and stepped aside, since he wasn't to enter the penthouse. He wasn't equipped to help in that phase of the assault.
We all three stepped quickly through the doorway, fanning out as we went Erika held the revolver well out in front of her, ready to fire, but she was just a back-up gun. I didn't want to alert anymore of Stavros' people than was absolutely necessary before we found Stavros himself.
It would have been perfect if Stavros had been in that big living room at the entrance. That would have ended the whole thing very quickly. But, instead, we found the tough Hammer sitting on a long sofa, his back to us, a glass of brandy in his hand. I saw the holster straps from where I stood. He was still armed — a dangerous man.
There was no evidence of life down the interior hallway that led to the bedrooms, but there was the sound of voices from the well-lit office. I was just about to start toward Hammer's back when suddenly two men came from the office into the living room. One was a thick-set gunman with an automatic in a shoulder holster, and the second one was the other fake Madoupas, Yianis Tzanni.
They stopped short when they saw us, and both gazed saucer-eyed at Sergiou. The two imposters stood staring at each other for a brief moment, while Hammer turned to them and saw the looks on their faces. In another split-second, the thug with Tzanni was going for his gun.
Spencer aimed the dart gun and fired. There was a dull popping sound in the room, and a moment later a black metal dart stuck out of the man's neck, just beside the Adam's apple. His jaw began working silently as Tzanni stared at the black object, horrified. Hammer had begun turning and drawing his gun in one cat-like motion.
His eyes focused on me first, and I saw the menace in them as his hand found the gun in his holster. I dropped to one knee and simultaneously swung my arm in an underhand loop, releasing the stiletto. It sliced through the air as silently as a striking snake and hit Hammer in the chest beside his heart. The blade thudded into his body audibly and sank to the hilt.
Hammer's ugly eyes, exposed to me for the first time, since he wasn't wearing the blue-tinted sunglasses, stared hard at me for a moment, incredulous that I had managed to kill him so swiftly. He looked down at the stiletto where crimson seeped from his shirt. He took hold of the knife as if to pull it out, then raised the gun in his hand toward me. But he was dead. He fell face down on the sofa, his long hair covering the bewildered expression on his face.
The other gunman had just stopped twitching on the floor. Tzanni turned to run back into the office, but another dart from the air gun stopped him, catching him high in the back. He grabbed wildly at it, was unable to reach it, and then fell headlong into the doorway to the office, flailing there for a moment, then going limp.
"You should have saved him," I said quietly to Spencer.
I walked over to the doorway and saw that there was no one else in the office. I turned back to the others. I motioned toward the corridor leading to the bedrooms, and Spencer preceded me to it. Erika followed after me.
We explored the rest of the place. Another living area, bedrooms and kitchen We found a gunman eating a sandwich in the kitchen. That is, Spencer found him first. I came in just as he fired the air gun again. He was damned eager with that thing, much the same way Zach had been. The man was hit in the side as he drew a long Welby.32 revolver. The poison didn't work as fast on him for some reason, and he managed to get a shot off. The gun roared in the confines of the room and hit Spencer just under the ribs, throwing him back against the wall. I grabbed a chair and slammed it into the gunman's face just as he was aiming the revolver at me. The chair crashed into him and splintered against his face. The gun went off into the ceiling, and the man hit the floor on his back, losing his weapon. Spencer, grunting against the wall, aimed the air pistol again.
"Hold it, damn it!" I yelled at him.
"What for?" he asked thickly. "The bastard got me."
He aimed the gun again. I slammed the back of my fist into his face, and his head hit the wall. I then chopped down at the gun so that he lost it It clattered on the tile floor of the kitchen, and he looked at me, stunned.
"I said hold it," I growled.
Our eyes locked together for a moment, then he lowered his, grabbing at the wetness under his ribs. It looked like a simple flesh wound, but that wasn't my big concern right now. I went and knelt over the gunman. His eyes were open, and his body was still fighting the poison. He was one of the rare cases that have natural immunity to certain toxic chemicals, which, although not complete, was making the curare kill him slowly rather than instantly. I was glad it w
as. Maybe I could get some answers.
Erika came into the kitchen just at that moment, her revolver still unfired, "He isn't here," she said.
I grabbed the failing thug by his shirt front and shook him. "Where is Stavros?" I demanded.
The man glared up at me. "What's it to you?" He was another of Stavros' American fanatics, but his hair wasn't as long as Hammer's.
I pulled the Luger from its holster and held it up against the thug's left cheekbone. "If you tell me where he is, I'll see that you get to a doctor in time to save you." That was a lie, of course. "If you refuse, I'll squeeze this trigger. Now."
He looked into my eyes and assessed what he saw. "Hell, okay," he said thickly. The poison was already getting him. "If you'll really save me."
I nodded.
"He went to Mykonos."
I exchanged glances with Erika. The island of Mykonos was one of the two places where Stavros had been building his elite rebel corps. "Now level with me," I said, pushing the Luger tighter against his face. "Did he get word on the colonels?"
The thug sneered at me, then his face was wracked with a sudden pain. "Tzanni called Kotsikas' home. One of the cops answered. Said the lieutenant and our men were okay, and — that the colonels were dead."
"What the hell?" Spencer exclaimed.
Spencer was surprised by the answer, but I wasn't. Colonel Kotsikas had thought fast when the call came and had put one of the policemen on the phone. Kotsikas figured that if he didn't give the penthouse the false message, Stavros would be on his way out there with his own men. Kotsikas hadn't had time to coordinate with us, so went ahead and did what seemed best. It was smart thinking — but the colonel could have had no way of knowing that the answer he forced the cop to give would free Stavros to leave the penthouse before we got there.
"Why would Stavros go to Mykonos?" I asked the dying gunman acidly. "To review the troops?"
Another spasm of pain clutched at him. "Get me a doctor," he gasped.
"Talk first."
He whispered the words. "He called both camps. He wants the troops brought to Athens. The commander at Mykonos said something about not moving his troops until he heard from Minourkos. Stavros was — very angry with him. He flew there to take personal command."