Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
BUTTON, BUTTON,
WHO’S GOT THE BUTTON?
One day a scientist decided to play God. He made a small improvisation in the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistics Missile system. A slight change that made it possible to push a button—and wipe America off the map.
THEN HE DISAPPEARED.
Tiger Mann’s got the toughest job of his career. He’s got to find the scientist before the Russians do....
The Tiger kills an enemy master-spy; invades the lair of the spider-woman—a femme with a steel-trap mind and an ever-lovin’ body. It’s a wild and violent chase that winds up on a lonely North Carolina beach in a savage death-duel between Tiger and Spillane’s most diabolical villian!
“Killer Tiger, who seems to enjoy his work, has come up with a new killing device in this book—one that the late lan Fleming might have appreciated.”
—Newsday
“Tiger Mann is back in action.... All the ingredients are there—a crazed scientist, a Mann-hunt by the Reds to get rid of Tiger, a femme fatale and some really heart-stopping action.”
Columbus Citizen-Journal
Copyright, ©, 1966 by Mickey Spillane
eISBN : 978-1-101-17456-2
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a article written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast. For information address E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc., 2 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
SIGNET TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN WINNIPEG, CANADA
SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSIC, MENTOR, PLUME, MERIDIAN AND NAL
BOOKS are published by New American Library,
1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019
First Signet Printing, May, 1967
http://us.penguingroup.com
To Vernie Jones,
the Man with the Badge
CHAPTER I
The guy was as good as dead and knew it. Crouched there on the floor he looked like a shapeless bundle and only a bloodied face with still-hard bright eyes marked him as a man. His breath came in short, sobbing gasps and he tried to keep his guts in with both hands pressed to his stomach. The knife he had used on me was still within reach in front of him, but he wasn’t thinking of making a try for it. All he could hope for was that I would bleed to death before he would, yet he knew that wouldn’t happen.
And I was on my feet with the cocked .45 in my fist grinning down at him.
I let my eyes leave his for an instant and drift to the partially closed door behind him where there were three dead men strapped to tables in a soundproofed room whose deaths had been horrible things because they wouldn’t talk easily and when they did, died anyway for the pleasure of a butcher.
Two were from a Washington agency. One was my project partner.
Oh, they had talked all right. Vito Salvi knew his work well. Besides a natural aptitude, he had been well trained in Moscow and provided with all the modern luxuries chemical and electronic development could offer torture-induced conversation and he had used them to the ultimate end.
But when it comes his turn to face the big, black thing that lies beyond life, when the butcher is suddenly caught in his own grinder, the maggots show in his eyes and he gives off a livid smell as they crawl out his skin in one last attempt to escape an absolute certainty.
“You’ve had it, buddy,” I said.
He choked a little and blinked away the blood that was streaming into his eyes from the massive slash across his forehead. “No. No ... it is your own law....”
I never stopped grinning and knew what I must look like to him. “I don’t choose to recognize it.”
“You will be ...”
“Prosecuted?” My grin went wider and I leveled the rod, enjoying the moment. “Somebody screwed up your thinking, Vito. An inquiry, that’s all. Three men killed by an enemy agent who has a cash reward on his head from two countries... and I’m just a bystander who happened to bust up the party and caught a little hell of my own. These things don’t get to court and you damn well know it. You found out what two of those men knew and it won’t do you a bit of good and even though the Washington boys hate my guts I’ll walk out with clean hands for being an enterprising and courageous citizen when they hear the story. Your headquarters won’t even know you’re gone until time gets the message across. Then you simply get checked off the rolls.”
“They said...”
“I know. They spilled. You got the works from them and you know it, only you took too long killing them to transmit the information and now it’s too late.”
He still tried. They all try. They have to. “You could... arrest me,” he said.
“Uh-uh. It’s better this way. Then there’s no trouble. It’s all over and done with. The slate is clean, another Red is out of the way and our Kremlin counterparts are as ignorant as before. We’ll be a little more careful the next time too.”
I had the .45 centered right in the middle of his forehead.
Vito Salvi, who was credited with fourteen confirmed kills of our people, didn’t even seem to notice it. The recesses of his mind had dredged up a last possible out and his eyes were fiery marbles tainted with cunning as he said, “I could give you valuable... knowledge. A doctor... put me in the hands of your police. I can tell them many things. My purpose here was ... twofold. It was not only to extract from those two men.... There was another reason... more urgent. Your police would want to know....” “So talk. Vito, I’ll judge its importance.”
The last hope was there, glowing strongly in the agonized contortions of his face. He talked for two minutes and what he said was like another blade, still wet from my own blood, going into my flesh again.
He talked and when he said all there was to be said, I shot him flat between the eyes that slammed his body over in a full roll against the wall where he jerked once before he was still.
Then I picked up the phone and dialed the downtown number of the New York bureau of I.A.T.S. and told them where I was.
They interrogated me on the scene—two quietly outraged men who headed the newest and tightest security branch of all the Washington agencies and two hard-looking field men who were curiously expressionless until I described the final killing of Vito Salvi without mentioning his last statement. Only then did they register the slightest sign of satisfaction, knowing damn well that the one who had killed their associates hadn’t died easily. They knew my reputation and it was too big and too real to let someone like Salvi take the big fall the quick way.
They let me finish, then Hal Randolph said, “Typical Tiger Mann trademark.”
I shrugged. “How would you like me to have done it?”
He looked at me closely, following the pattern the way I knew he would, then walked over to the body by the wall and stared at it a few seconds. “Let’s start from the beginning, Mann. Like from where you came into this.”
The others were watching me now and the two field men had black notebooks in their hands. When I spoke they took everything down verbatim in shorthand. “Sure,” I said. “The other dead guy is Doug Hamilton, one of ours. He runs a legitimate private in
vestigation agency out of New York here. • • •
“Legitimate?”
“You can check it fast enough,” I told him. “Martin Grady had him on retainer for three years doing routine security work for Belt-Aire Electronics, a company he owns. Under his government contracts it was required, so ...”
“We’re familiar with Belt-Aire. Where do you come in, Tiger?”
“A week ago Hamilton disappeared. I was on hand, so I got orders to look into it.” I nodded toward the room on the side. “I tracked him here.”
“How?”
“His car was missing. I reported it to the police and they recovered it. Inside was a notebook that had this address listed, among others. It was as simple as that.”
“What others?”
“Simple business addresses. I checked them all out.”
“I see,” Randolph finally mused. “So you came here and walked into—” he waved his hand around the room—“this. Just like that.”
“Not quite. I don’t stick my head into holes. Hamilton could have been involved in anything and I’m too old a pro in this business to take chances. I cased the place from all sides and came down from the roof.”
“Then how did you know what apartment to hit?”
“Somebody spent a lot of time and trouble sealing up one window on the side with brick. They weren’t very neat and left some pieces of material used in soundproofing rooms in the courtyard outside. This place is totally unoccupied like the ones beside it and no bum or scrounger holing up in here is throwing money into renovations like that.”
Both the young guys looked up from their notebooks with a small touch of respect in their faces. One said, “You could have called the police.”
“I didn’t think there was that much time. There weren’t mere than a half dozen lights showing along the entire block and it was doubtful any of those places had phones.”
“Wasn’t it foolish coming in alone?”
I grinned at him then and my mouth hurt from where the cut opened in the corner. “I wasn’t alone,” I told him and pointed to the .45 where they had laid it on the table under a handkerchief.
Hal Randolph turned abruptly, his hands clasped behind his back. He was a big guy, heavy-set, with a florid face that never seemed to lose its mad. He didn’t like me and his pet hate was Martin Grady, but now he was caught in the trap his own bureaucratic secrecy demanded of him. “You recognized Vito Salvi, then, didn’t you?”
I nodded and leaned back in the chair, trying to wipe the taste of blood out of my mouth. “We had met before,” I said, not committing myself any further.
“You knew who he was,” he insisted.
“Sure. So do you. That’s why I killed him. And don’t ask why I didn’t hold him. I was lucky as it was. I had just picked the lock and got into this room when he came out of the other and if you take a good look at that door you’d see it wasn’t going to be forced easily. Inside there was another exit he could have gotten through if he knew I was here. That bastard knew all the tricks of infighting with knives and guns....”
“Except one,” the field man said.
“What?”
“You nailed him,” he told me.
Randolph’s smile was tight around the edges. “I’m afraid you don’t know our friend very well, Courtney. This is Tiger Mann and when you see his package in the department files it will surprise you. Moscow has him on their ‘A’ list, which makes him a dead boy almost any time at all. He was with the O.S.S. during the war and likes to play spy so much he couldn’t leave well enough alone, so now with the backing of millionaire industrialists who don’t seem to trust their government’s authorized agencies to do a satisfactory job, he gets entangled in everything from espionage to two-bit street brawls for the sake of a buck. I don’t know what he calls himself, but he’s a professional killer with enough power behind him to clean his hands for him but someday he’s going to fall and when he does it will be heard on two continents.”
“Three,” I said. “And don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen.” I pushed myself out of the chair and got to my feet, the pain in my side giving me hell. “You’re talking too much, Randolph. I’ll be down in the morning to give you a detailed statement.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I found my hat and picked up my gun. “To see a doctor,” I said. “One who won’t report bullet wounds or knife slashes. Any objections?”
There was just a long moment of silence and Randolph shook his head. He knew I’d be in. I wanted some questions answered too. I got out, went down to the street and walked two blocks before a cab came by. I gave him the number of Rondine’s apartment and settled back against the cushions.
No matter how often I’d see her, this woman I loved so much, she was always a startling surprise, not because of the classic British beauty that radiated from the loveliness of a face framed by shoulder-length auburn hair or a contoured body so magnificent as to be almost unbelievable, but simply because she was there.
For twenty years she had been dead to me. Twenty years ago she had tried to kill me and had, in turn, died herself. Yet here she was. Rondine? No, it’s not really so confusing at all. The first Rondine was her oldest sister who had gone to the Nazis and later to the Soviets. To the Caine family she had never even been born now, and long forgotten except when the memory was dredged up. With me the memory never had died at all. For twenty years I had wanted to kill her and almost did when I found her again. But it wasn’t her at all. It was the youngest sister who had inherited the same peculiar combination of genes and chromosomes to grow into the physical identity of the one forgotten.
To me, though, she was still Rondine. The cover name she had used could never be forgotten, only now it was Edith who used it because I had endowed it in the beginning and this one wore it with all the meaning it was intended to have.
She opened the door, stood there a few seconds and when I said, “Hello, Rondine,” she smiled and held out her hand, throwing the door wide.
Before I walked in she realized something had happened and the smile faded to sudden concern. “Again, Tiger?”
I knew my grin seemed foolish, but it was all I could manage. “Like the ball took a bad hop, kid.”
She tried to make sense out of the slang, got it, and the soft curve of her mouth went grim. “Bad?” With a hand under mine she steered me into the spacious living room and half pushed me into the corner of a sofa.
“I’ll live. You remember Dr. Kirkland?”
“The same one?”
I nodded. “Get him over.”
Without asking more questions she thumbed through the phone book, found a number and dialed it. The conversation was brief, then she hung up and went to the bar, mixing a drink with the unusual efficiency of women handling bottles at three A.M. When she handed me the glass I took a long pull of the whiskey and ginger, then leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
“Can I do anything?”
“No first aid, kid. Kirkland will be here fast enough and I’ve had too many of these things in me to know I’m okay until he comes.”
“Hurt to talk?”
“No.”
“Want to tell me what happened?”
I looked up at her face and saw the serious set to it. There was more in her expression than concern for me. We didn’t have to play games with each other any more at all. She wasn’t the simple U.N. translator she seemed to be, but a well trained operative with a good cover assigned to work under her embassy’s orders. She knew my business too, more than she had a right to know, but there are times when you can’t hide things and have to trust to integrity and understanding and the knowledge that other people can have the same ideals as your own.
I said, “Call Charlie Corbinet and get him here too.”
There was a slight narrowing of her eyes and she knew, all right. This one wasn’t just a street brawl or an accident. It was in the international realm again and it was far from
over. Again, without a word, she went to the phone and did as I told her, then picked up my drink and built a new one. When she handed it to me there were tears showing on her cheeks and her lips brushed the back of my hand.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I have to,” I told her.
Dr. Kirkland was painlessly adept at his profession. The bullet had gone through two thicknesses of tough leather of the gun belt, its force slackened, then had sliced sideways into the flesh along my ribs and come to a halt in a bluish welt just under the skin. Both cuts from the knife were more like surgical incisions, the deliberate thrusts having been lost when I twisted out of their way. He finished, gave me a small bottle of capsules to take if things got rough, told me to stop by at the proper intervals and didn’t ask for payment. Martin Grady would foot the bill.
Rondine let me finish dressing before she came out of the bedroom, shaking her head like I was a little kid who didn’t know any better. “You don’t suppose you’re leaving here tonight,” she said.
“Some things won’t wait, doll.”
“Nothing is that important.”
“No?”
“Tiger ...”
I reached my hand out and her fingers closed around mine. I said, “All the other things I’ve done... or you’ve been in on ... are nothing like this one. If it checks out all of us can be in trouble.” I looked at my watch. Charlie Corbinet was due any second now. “Make like a good secretary and get me one more call in.” I gave her the number and felt the sudden shock run through her hand in a spasm of tension. She had heard me call that number before and knew its implications. Only for a second did she stand there, then reached for the phone. When she dialed it she handed me the instrument silently and started to walk out of the room. “Stay,” I told her.
The By-Pass Control Page 1